[風] tab False tab City tab [風]
Starlight tab Lakeside tab Ruins
______________A r e a tab D e s c r i p t i o n ||
tab A city to the east of the Kaifuu Dam. It was originally connected to the ruins at the foot of the dam, but a great calamity in the past erased over half of the city, cutting it into two halves. Known as the Great Schism, this event marked the loss of thousands of lives and set the city on a gradual decline, ending with it being almost completely abandoned. The particulars of the Great Schism are widely disputed, but there are three things that are clear: first, that the destruction was completely silent; second, there are no traces of the missing buildings or their people; third, that this happened within weeks of the Spirit Lands manifesting in the northwest of the Radiant Wastes.
tab While the part of this city near the dam still sees some use, no one enters this section. Though it overlooks the ocean and is sheltered by mountains to the north, there are none who call this area home. Even the wild animals avoid it. There were attempts to re-establish the city as a hub for travelers, but anyone who has made a serious attempt has gone missing in the process. At night, the city seems to come alive, as if countless unseen entities were moving through it. All attempts to determine the cause of this phenomenon have ended in failure, often leaving people with more questions than they had to begin with.
tab The peculiar name for this city was granted by Wakeners from the time of Sunagakure. It would seem that, back in the day, there was a city built here in the likeness of that village, but it was never inhabited and its exact purpose wasn't disclosed publicly. Thus, it was referred to as being a "fake" or "false" Sunagakure. While it is unlikely this city is the exact same as that ancient one, the similarities between its architecture and that of the ruined shinobi village are strong enough to make one wonder.
______________P o i n t s tab O f tab I n t e r e s t ||
tab • The Great Scar - The western edge of the city. Buildings here are all in some level of disrepair. While some of this is due to the elements, most of the damage occurred when a large swath of the city was destroyed and the False City was split off from the Starlight Lakeside Ruins. All the buildings here are missing their western faces, and the spots that would have touched those faces are all perfectly smooth. Farther west of here is open countryside, and a few days' journey across that are the Starlight Lakeside Ruins.
tab • City Gates - During a previous attempt to re-settle the area, walls were raised around the False City. These walls have since fallen to pieces, but the gates still remain. Located on the southern, eastern, and western sides, each of the gates is a feat of architectural engineering and artistry, standing at over 50 meters in height. Each is made of a variety of materials, and ultimately they were intended to be covered in tiles depicting a mural of some sort. The murals were never completed.
tab • The Panopticon - A tower in the center of the city, similar to the Overlook Temple created by the Azhura in the Bahn Crystal Canyon. Windows on each side of the tower allow someone at the top of it to look down the main roads toward each of the gates. Presumably this was originally intended to be headed by a three-faced Azhura, who would have been able to see toward every gate at once. It is unknown if the tower was ever used, though it is furnished as though it were.
______________N e a r b y tab L o c a t i o n s ||
tab • Kyde Foothills
tab • Lake of Thousands
______________D e f e n s e s // D a n g e r s ||
tab • Overseers - Gray clouds that float through the city at a height of about 3-4 meters.Their sensory organs--of which they have twelve--are almost always hidden in the depths of these clouds and remain in a gaseous state until deployed outside the body. Each of these organs houses anywhere from three to six different senses and looks to outside observers like an eye covered in thin tendrils. If an Overseer gets close enough to a living being to touch them, it will burrow one of its sensory organs’ tendrils into their body, kill them, then inhabit their body as it digests them. After a few days, it will leave the corpse behind as an empty husk. Overseers can use a range of magic, but prefer illusions and any other type of spell that will allow it to devour its foes.
tab • Shredded Revenant - The remnants of an Overseer’s meal, reanimated by a cluster of spiritual parasites. On their own, the parasites look like a shadow dancing over whatever surface they’re on, comparable to heat haze. They devour mana to sustain themselves in the physical world, using whatever physical abilities their host had in life to instigate a fight with magic-bearing creatures. During the day, they leave their host and vanish into the shadows; at night, they return and stalk the area for fresh kills to serve as their puppets. Defeating their host is often enough to scare them off for the night, but they will be sure to come again the next time they have a body to inhabit. Total destruction of a swarm of these parasites is difficult.
tab • Haze Fox - Also known as a Scorching Devil, the Haze Fox is a creature that manifests when the sun is bright. They appear as a yellow-white fox that pops out from the sand whenever the day is at its hottest. It is very rare for them to actively attack people, as they instead increase the heat around them to unbearable levels so that all living things dehydrate and die. Their physical bodies consist of a small, glass-like gem hidden somewhere in their fox-shaped body, which is just light sculpted to look that way. If the gem is broken, it will go inert for a period of 72 hours before each piece starts trying to manifest as a new Haze Fox. Placing multiple pieces together will cause them to fuse, creating a new, larger Haze Fox. There have been no successful attempts to tame or even noticeably influence the actions of these creatures.
tab • The Overwhelmed - A being composed of mana, wrapped in ribbons of flesh from its former mortal shell. This is all that remains of someone whose body was taken over by a powerful spirit while still living. The exact powers an Overwhelmed has depends on the spirit inhabiting it, while its form will depend on a multitude of factors; typically they manifest as a mixture of the spirit’s normal form and that of the inhabited creature. Why there are so many of these creatures here and where they continue to come from is unknown. Azhura call these beings “Tahhat”, meaning “one overwhelmed [by an outside force]”.
tab • Red Sheep - A monster that defies explanation. It has four hooved feet, but walks on two at a time, chosen seemingly at random; its legs unravel into vermilion cords as they approach its torso, each pulsing with life; its torso ripples with these cords, but appears to be made of wood; it has no head nor eyes to look with, but one can feel its gaze smoldering like coals on dry leaves. Red Sheep are physical attackers that use their shifting body to evade and strike at their foes. They can let loose a scream backed by pure mana, making it loud enough to cause physical damage and terrifying enough to inflict a primal fear in those who hear it. Whenever one Red Sheep is slain, its body evaporates and another appears elsewhere in the city. The Azhura believe that every one of these creatures comes from one shared mother, aptly called “The Mother of a Thousand Young”.
______________R u l e s ||
tab • There are no rules worth noting at this time.
______________R e s o u r c e s ||
tab • Fox Heartstone - The stone found at the center of a Haze Fox. It can be processed to grant effects that scorch without flame. If left unprocessed for 72 hours, it will attempt to animate itself into a new Haze Fox. Dousing the stone with water before then is typically sufficient for preventing this.
tab • Overseer Eyegunk - After being separated from the main body, an Overseer’s sensory organ will liquefy in short order and start to evaporate when next it’s exposed to sunlight. If bottled before then, the liquid can be used to bestow sense-enhancing or -diminishing effects. The name was chosen to reflect how nasty the stuff actually is in its raw form, as it’s basically a pink slime with chunks of slightly more gelatinous slime floating in it.
”Royal Taorito”
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