The Ancient City

The Ancient City is a Narrative that intermittently appear in large cities. It is the tale of the old part of the city, nestled deep within the bowls of the city where forgotten or blasphemous things await discovery.

Old Part of Town

The Ancient City begins with the idea that there is a part of the settlement which harkens back to the early days of cities founding, now abandoned. It is a place where good, common folk don't readily go for fear of unknown things, with crumbling buildings and decrepit inhabitants. It is a place of Secrets and frequently Blasphemous Things, usually containing tales of terror and abominations that must hide from the rest of the city.
Other times, it is a place of Forgotten narratives, ranging from people to objects to architecture. At its best, the Ancient City has an narrative atmosphere of Gloom and Immeasurable Age. At its worse, it is a terrifying places of Tenebrous Darkness and Lurking Dread. Once established in an particular Ancient City by repeated visitors, these do not easily change.

Braving the Ancient City

The most common way of breaching the ancient city is by accident. Sleepers who become entangled in the Ancient City's narratives will have wandered or been chased, only to find themselves in unfamiliar streets. Other ways into the City are like meeting someone who lives in the Ancient City and being guided there, or being abducted there by Blasphemous Things are also possible.
The dangers in the Ancient City are almost always the things that live there, though some contain narratives dangerous such as Plague-Riddled or Madness through subtle terror or 'haunted' houses. The Sleepers who do live in the Ancient City are often created when it manifests and are either fearful, superstitious people trying to survive or the things they are trying to survive from.

Story & Narratives

Themes of fearful ancient things, hidden secrets and dark blasphemy are common in the Ancient City. Things here feel antiquated from the rest of Quentriandal, with old and hard to understand Glyphicons.
Other common narratives include:
The Ancient Wizard who possess ancient and terrible secrets. She lives alone in the Ancient City, surrounded by worm-eaten wood and old stone. She can be an incidental figure to come across and be menaced by, or someone to seek out for some vital clue or piece of knowledge.
The Forgotten Crypts are ancient cemeteries, overgrown and wild with graves and sepulchers long since abandoned. Both terror and treasure awaits in the damnable depths beneath the crypts.
When the Awakened go to the Ancient City, they always become tangled up in some tale or another. It is not in the nature of the Ancient City to let them pass without incident.

Narratives

Narratives are like metaphysical traits that define and reinforce someone or somethings place and purpose in a story. The Narratives inform how Sleepers interact with it and how the thing in question interact with the Dreaming-World. The Ancient City is one such narrative, connecting to others to tell its tale of wonder or terror.
Read more about Narratives

I Don't Remember This Being Here

The Ancient City is not always present, even in cities that have already hosted it. In days when the Narrative is not active, the physical space occupied by the Ancient City lead to the regular parts of town. The city doesn't expand to allow the ancient city to exist within it, and some Ancient City narratives can be very expansive. Old, forgotten alleys gradually lead to ancient paths, overgrown ruins and tenebrous labyrinths of unlit, crumbling streets, into places that impossibly to fit deep within the city.
This spatial distortion is never acknowledged by the Sleepers and the border into the Ancient City is hard to pin down. Finding a way into the Ancient City can be difficult, but getting out can be even more trouble if the tale within has not concluded.