five hundred and getting back in the saddle

Five hundred.  Which took a lot longer than expected   If you've been under a rock or wandered off, there's been...

• more inns & taverns, including a third PDF.
• a whistle-stop tour of the evils of the damned city.
• the recent addition of unlikely treasures, including a PDF as extemporalising loot in tabletop RPGs isn't everyone's cuppa.

Today is the agonia of Septimontia and International Mountain Day.  As rams were the traditonal offering and associated with mountains, consider this a virtual gift.

damned city: manescor

Lagelido shelters the two-mile wide crater of Manescor, the city's heart rests where a star fell.  Built on catastrophe, sustained by tyranny, such is Manescor.  The south Chantákia road forms a viaduct into the crater, sloping down a full half-mile.  Rising heat, smoke and clanging steel makes this descent memorable. Beneath the arches is Atmízon, a ghetto of Chantákian smiths, Oroguidan alchemists, poisoners, procurers and prostitutes.  The viaduct slopes downwards towards a rampart where the crimson citadel of Gelusanguis sprawls.  At sunset it's red-stained stones glows like a coal.  Red-robed emissaries and troops in crimson-stained platemail bleed from it's fortified gates.  The soldiers (nefas) bear hooked goads and gladius.  The former hook or snare foes, the latter are stained with virulent giant centipede venom. Each swears eternal loyalty to the lord of Manescor.

The lord is known to everyone only as Manescor. A horned casque in beaten gold with hollow eyes and no facial features erases his identity.  Robes of crimson velvet and black kidskin hide his body.  He always bears an iron rod adorned with rubies, concealed venomed blades and ancient, evil magics. His daughter, Lady Aureglas is chatelaine for Gelusanguis when Manescor himself is preoccupied or travelling.  This only
happens if the city faces crisis.  Most officials who serve him are either red-robed wizards or experienced nefas bound to him by magic.  Manescor understands power and the use of law to constrain unacceptable situations.

North-east of Gelusanguis, the Lagelidan waterfall sinks into Malicoram's shattered maze of chasms and mines.  Those foolhardy enough to descend the hidden stair behind it find oolite cliffs rich in hematite and red garnets.  Mining camps and placer mines cluster in the valleys and cavernous mansions for mine owners and ex-miner traders.  Packs of orthus (feral two-headed dogs with vipers for tails) roam Malicoram's edges, scavenging and preying on the weak.  At the western edge Lake Kokytus embitters the air.  Poisoned by the ancient meteorite within, it's bony sands hide rubies and carbuncles.  Gangs comb for gems, dying over fortunes.  The criminal syndicates that sponsor them command fearful wealth.  Milky, toxic waters calcinate
anything immersed in them with an effervescence of opaque mist.  The only structure on Kokytus is Albumoles, a jetty long-ossified by the lake.  It's sole visitors are nefas and the condemned they escort.  Criminals are swaddled in pale hessian then entombed in the lake, calcined by it's poison depths.  Over weeks, their bodies sink and dissolve

South of Kokytus, writhing between it and the glare of Gelusanguis is the squalid ghetto Rubralitus.  Reeking, gloomy and claustrophobic, Rubralitus never sleeps.  This dog-eat-dog environment breeds wrathful schemers, envious whores and grasping gluttons from artisans and labourers.  The reticulated concrete apartments are barely maintained as corruption funds wealthy guilds and gem prospecting gangs.  The poor riot every midsummer but little changes.  Those caught rioting are executed and their body parts assemble golem brute squads who break up future riots.  Ringleaders are taken to Kokytus for calcination.  From
these mean streets, the strongest and most brutal nefas are recruited.

East of Rubralitus is sinister Felicunas.  Fortified villas for rich artisans, gem-wrights and merchants are leavened with ancient, cat-haunted ruins and black walnut groves.  Lamias yowl under gibbous moons every month.  A local law decrees only nefas may harm cats here, enforced by hellcats, experienced nefas never exercise this privilege.  The walnut groves provide wood and oil for the city.  At the easternmost edge of Felicunas is a copse of cedar and eucalyptus housing broken souls.  Here, the Dantis, tributory to the Fiumorte rises.  Within this cloistered idyllic grove, lamia and hags prey upon the mad with Manescor's written approval.  Political rivals usually end up here, discredited, delusional and eventually dinner.

North of Felicunas is Rupemagus, a sprawling well-lit suburb home to Scholaes, a college of scholars, scribes and wizards.  Most anything a wizard or scribe may wish can be bought here, a brisk market in magical manuscripts keeps wealth rolling in.  Most students are intelligent, rich and bound by geas to their masters.  Manescor recruits many officials and emissaries for Gelusanguis here. This fuels the arrogance of some residents.  Wealth and magic are the keys to prosperity in Rupemagus, survival depends on which
battles you choose and respect for Gelusanguis. Necromancy is considered one Art among many.  Waterwheels powered by mindless skeletons are one example of how magic benefits the community.  For all this, Rupemagus is dependent on the other suburbs for getting things done.  Scholaes sits at the heart of Rupemagus, though individual masters dwell in towers along the northern crater wall.  Intrigues along the wall have led to more than one murder victim coming back to seek revenge.

damned city: lagelido

Lagelido's hills are reached from Chantákia's south road or Scissaxa's east road from Hag Gate. Both enter the Mezzaluna Pass winding west and north. Beyond these is chill Lake Abbagiaco, cradled between three hills that make up the rest of Lagelido. Foriris is the north hill of Mezzaluna Pass. Vignicolle, a poor suburb of hard-faced toilers and grafters at small trades on it's north face. To the south, Domile, an estate of walled villas. Each is home to an extended family group of professional soldiers (formiles) and their chattel slaves. Formiles are elite troops, disciplined and fierce. Clad in insectile breastplate and helm, bearing spear, shield, falchion and crossbow they drill constantly. Viquilonis, a tower fortified by formiles watches over Foriris. Bristling with scorpios and topped with a mangonel any attack from Mezzaluna Pass must take it.

Dusty winds scour Mezzaluna Pass from the south. The heights of Montaspis, the southern hill of Mezzaluna Pass is the source of this dust. On it's lower slopes, green allotments and narrow streets. The citizens are freed slaves-born, valued by the formiles for their farming, aided by qanat tunnels. The upper slopes are barren, tombs chequering stony inclines. At the peak is Angueviden, a stout keep held by sibilant veiled oracles in concealing habits. They keep asps about their person as pets. Their knowledge is sought by the wealthy and powerful as well as formiles going into battle. The farmers on the lower slopes fear them. At equinoxes, a dozen handsome male slaves are delivered to Angueviden never to be seen again. The southern slope forms the north coast of Lake Abbagiaco. Worn fragments of statues are found on the coast and treacherous rocks make boating difficult around here.

Across the lake is Monturrem. It's shoreline runs south and east, packed with quays, shacks and tenements to the Foroscuro Plaza. Here four towers compass an ancient marketplace. Wares have an unsavoury edge - barbed daggers, love potions and zombies bound to lead amulets. Each tower has it's own legends. The north tower is home to the Matres Notisque, bejewelled coven of vile sorceresses. Necromancers, dream stalkers and illusionists, they enslave their victims. The east tower is home to Lord Mephis, Praetector of Lagelido, saturnine aristocrat, ex-formile and intriguer. The southern tower is sealed by magic and lead mortar, it's wizard owner believed now deceased. Daring thieves attempt entry, usually dying horrific deaths. The western tower is a municipal building with access to qanat tunnels under Lake Abbagacio. Monturrem's south face mines for magnetite and magnesia, lodestone deposits trick compasses and fool certain animals. Monturrem miners are hardy yet obedient.

Lake Abbagiaco is placid by day, perilous by night. Fishing boats bring trout and whitefish to Monturrem's muddy south shore in the day only. After dark it's chill water is haunted by spectres. The unquiet spirits of the drowned and murdered whose bodies are hidden here hunt the living. It feeds the ancient qanat network that irrigates Montaspis and Monturrem. This was built before Lagelido formed. Ancient runes suggest certain tombs in Montaspis may have been around longer than any historian suspects.

The western hill, Hircornuta is untamed land, named for it's spiralling rocks, reminiscent of goat horns. Formiles hunt satyr bands amid ragged rocks. Lagelidans think satyrs drunken maniacs, rapists and vandals while satyrs view Lagelidans as tyrannical, violent slave-mongers. Mephis, the Praetector grants license to hunt here. Yet amid Hircornuta's rocks, a crevasse forms a waterfall fed by Lake Abbagiaco runs through the hill. Behind this torrent is an unexpected passage. The waterfall hides a stair best called perilous which descends into the chasms of Malicoram, in the realm of Manescor.

damned city: scissaxa

Scissaxa lies south-east of Chantákia, the road bridges a dreary, ruin-choked fen.  The bridge is laboriously repaired by chained workgangs.  Mounted overseers wear perfect bone china masks and chainmail, armed with shortbow and spiked chain.  Below, the fen's denizens scavenge ruins for valuables.  Scissaxa cannibalises it's own ruins, sinking hulks raided for materials and wealth before they sink.  Dark steeples rise above patched walls and cracked domes.  About Scissaxa's perimeter, flying buttresses laden with catapult and scorpio watch for armies or scavenger mobs.  The northwestern Ochre Gate leads to the Chantákia road.  The western Hag Gate guards the road from the eastern pass in the hills of Lagelido.  The southern Canal Gate is no longer used.  The canal network was dammed up and fortified after incursions from nearby ruins massacred a neighbourhood.  The legacy of Scissaxa often returns to haunt it. 

Entry via either gate costs two silver per head, taken by the Scissaxan Guard.  Scissaxan Guards wear chainmail and coif; bear trident, shortbow, gladius and spiked buckler or lantern shield.  Lantern shields combine spiked buckler with spiked gauntlet and tiny visored lantern.  This last serves as a weapon of surprise.  A cunning mechanism quickly raises the visor, potentially dazzling foes in low-light conditions.  This also provides light for archers.  Tunnels beneath the walls hold weird monsters, ancient necropoli and lethal traps.  Too many fatalities prevent it being profitable yet whispers persist of infamous guilds holding shadowy courts.  As Scissaxa sinks, the tunnels become longer and more complex...

The Ochre Gate opens to Rubragmine, ochre walls and iron statues of city heroes adorn the narrow streets.  Chantákian influences are evident, yet muted.  Residents dress in sober monotones with ochre facepaint and patterned scarves adorned with marcasite on steel. Jewellers and smiths thrive in Rubragmine, working in bloodstone, hematite, jet, marcasite, gold and Chantákian steel.  Oroguidan mercenaries in burnished coin-mail protect traders.  These are factors for familial merchant houses, buying and selling goods or exchanging currency with 10% markup.  Traders sometimes cheat clients, ruining heavy investors.  Scissaxan law protects them unless a Bacino magistrate, Lamaturris lawyer or a district lord over-rules it.  Poorer families in Rubragmine breeds pigs in basements.  Serving to dispose of waste, they are efficiently butchered for meat and hide.  Abbatoir Walk is known for pig-breeding and butchering.  On fortified stone piles south-east of here is Arcemalis, citadel of Lord Menzomuscas, ruler of Scissaxa.  Always expanding or part-renovating, it's walls hold the largest garrison of Scissaxan Guards and the court of Menzomuscas.

Menzomuscas is an enigma, multiple assassinations have not slowed him, baroque intrigues precise as clockwork automata.  His sonorous voice and concise speech hooks your attention.  Everything else is hidden in black silk, gold and a youthful mask with jewelled compound eyes.  His spy networks are legendary.  The Scissaxan Guard seize assets and remove those attempting to defraud Lord Menzomuscas.  The court is the usual collection of sycophants and politicians, impertubable on the surface but underneath…  Courtiers wear golden fly pins with carnelian eyes.  Their ensembles have subtle weaves of bottle green (Prasinus), carnelian (Sardios), cool black (Domurana) or plum (Susino).  Each colour denotes an eminent trading family.  These families maintain their status, presently dependant on the continued goodwill and reign of Lord Menzomuscas.

The Hag Gate opens into Lamaturris.  Famed for it's dark spires, narrow alleys and cobbled thoroughfares crowded with people of all kinds.  Clerks, lawyers and physicks are respected trades here.  At night, upstanding citizens retire and the streets belong to beggars, gangs, whores and Scissaxan Guards.  Monsters with human faces mix with hags and goblins.  The former are feared, arising spontaneously among certain bloodlines. The latter are tolerated as rag-and-bone traders.  They ape Scissaxan dress and conduct with concealed weapons and satchels of papers, trinkets and tools.  Lamaturris street cant includes choice goblin patois phrases.  Tunnels skirt caves older than Scissaxa, within ancient terrors undead and unburied inexorably dig towards vibrations.  Unusually there are no temples or recognised priests.  Menzomuscas has outlawed religion, declaring believers foresworn to his reign and any allegiance to the city.  Itinerant prophets haunt certain street corners at night-time.

Seraustrum lies south of both, falling into disrepair.  A salt dome mined here yielded salt and sulphur for export by the south canal in exchange for jet and hematite.  As the waters dried, the deaths began. Over time, on each full moon murders have taken place, ruined corpses found with ghastly wounds.  Goblins claim giant worms and insectile horrors stalk the tunnels.  While it's true, it doesn't explain the dark-mantled figures or the corpses left in their wake.  Salt and sulphur production is greatly diminished.  Miners are leaving Seraustrum before they are slaughtered by whatever or whoever lurks under the canal.  Menzomuscas has interests in the sulphur mine.  The salt trade is fought over by the four courtly families and has interest from Chantákia's bankers.  Repeated Scissaxan Guard patrols have been fruitless.  While the trade has stopped, mines in the southern fens stockpile for when trade finally resumes.

damned city: chantákia

Across the Fiumorte, the weeping ditches of Chantákia combines ancient tomb, fortress and strip mine. Once an independent city, Chantákia is a decadent district. It can be reached from Bacino by ferry, barque or skiff or southern roads from Scissaxa, Lagelido and Manescor. Yellow mud, rich in limonite clings to everything. Chantákia is famed for ochre, iron, copper, gold and jewels - bloodstone, carnelian, malachite and turquoise. Many Chantákians ochre their hair red or yellow, wearing red ochre to ward against magic. Viaducts cross the ditches in a concave web of roads and fortified tollgates. Chantákia is quarried into a three-mile wide irregular bowl of ten descending ditches. with a tumulus at it's heart. Atop this, a spiral path girded by walls and trenches leads to a castle. This is home to the Hammon. This bull-masked man has an ogre's appetites and strength, demanding tribute for sacrificial pyres. Nine mail-armoured minotaurs form the Hammon's bodyguard. His will is enforced by brutal soldiers or kakonychia. These soldiers wear breastplate, bat-winged helm and clawed gauntlets wielding trident, flail and steel shields. They enforce tolls and laws in that order. Each tollgate has a firepit underneath a hollow iron bull statue. The condemned are locked inside and fires fed until the bull glows red-hot. The bulls amplify and distort screams into bellowing. On midsummer and midwinter, this reverberates across Chantákia.

The Bacino ferry docks at Eisfora, a levee at the northwest edge. Semi-domesticated rats befriend anyone sharing food. Slaves march north on the Scaladuro, a mile-long descent for assessment then sale. The guarded slave trains move slowly. The second and third tiers suffer flooded sewers and cane toad infestations from turquoise mining. Typical miners are feverish bufotenin addicts, obsequious and reeking. Under the Scaladuro has the greatest yield, though the northeast yields turquoise and malachite. The fourth tier is a quarry for yellow clay, dug out by convicts in grueling conditions. Kilns on this tier make pottery and yellow ochre. The prison lies under a viaduct and garrison so the kakonychia abuse certain convicts without reprisal. The fifth tier is a massive market. Buyers can purchase armour, books, clothing, copper ingots, leather, malachite, ochre, pots, turquoise jewellry and weapons. Mercenaries from the Avernine seek work. The sixth tier has masons, potters, sculptors and kilns. Decorative tiles, carved bricks and statues from here are raised all over the city. This industry contrasts with the decrepit seventh tier. Here fugitives lie low among cane toads, played-out turquoise beds and serpents with human faces. The eighth tier is prone to subsidence. Most buildings lie ruined and empty but armourers to the east craft mail scarves weighted with steel. These scarves are prized by warriors.

The eastern part of Chantákia is known for mineral wealth. The first tier holds slave pens and overseers. These work on the second through fifth tiers mining and smelting iron, copper and gold. Blast furnaces of red brick spit fire and forge wrought iron balls called tostomas for sale. Feral cats haunt the smelters and hunt rats. The sixth tier houses miners and a market trading in copper and gold, tostomas and gems. The seventh tier holds gemsmiths and jewelers with locked vaults guarded by traps, owlbears and minotaurs. The eighth tier has merchant villas, bankers and moneychangers. While the Hamman rules, this part of Chantákia is heard by the city. Oroguidan mercenaries and catenisti are used to maintain security.

Western Chantákia is a poor relation. The top two tiers quarry for ochre and carnelian in brutal conditions while wealth flows south and east. The third tier houses slave pens and overseer quarters in narrow, fortified houses. Rioting in the pens is commonplace. The fourth tier is home to the Dioris, a caste of astrologers, sorcerors and seers dealing in omens, oracles and divination. Clad in gold two-faced masks they are feared. The Dioris foresaw the fall of Chantákia to the city's founders and the Hammon's tribute to Manescor. The fifth tier is a necropolis. Rich mausoleums face eastward and are tended by gravediggers and professional mourners under the eastern wall. The sixth tier houses groves of fig trees. Tended by locals, these yield figs, latex and bark sold to the seventh tier. The seventh tier is a slum of dyers, tanners and weavers. Buckram, fine leathers, ochre-red line and cloth-of-gold are produced for sale. Orphans usually become apprenticed here. At the eighth tier is a coliseum. The temples of the ninth tier sponsor athletic games to keep rivalries from turning into riots. Parades to the coliseum are rowdy affairs. Streets turn out armed to 'show respect for the athletes' and perhaps to deter sectarian violence.

Southern Chantákia is part-owned by Manescor under jurisdiction of Lady Aureglas, former chatelaine of Gelusanguis. This annoys most Chantákians but Aureglas has impressed the Hamman with equally fair and cruel judgements. Aureglas and Fiammera of Animardente regularly correspond in ciphers. The first tier routes traffic maximising tolls for Lagelido while reducing them for Manescor and Scissaxa. At crossroads, markets hawk goods. Behind these, tavernas and bordellos offer services. The second to fourth tiers mine and smelt iron. Smelters make tostomas for Manescor.  Leftover goethite is made into brown ochre. The fifth tier is ceded to Aureglas as tribute after an insurrection was quelled by her agents. She lives in a palatial central villa surrounded by gifts from artists, petitioners and hangers-on. The sixth tier, Bosambages, is a ghetto for minotaurs. Their devotion to the Hammon spurs rumours of breeding with humans, profane worship and other perversions. The seventh tier has a bloodstone mine on it's western edge, worked by Hamman loyalists and slaves. Aureglas has sent agents to test their loyalty. A tenth of output is sent to Manescor as tribute. The eighth tier is known for smithies - armourer, blacksmith, finesmith and weaponsmith toil over their wares. Chantákian smiths have numerous techniques to improve goods. All valued, some need black market activity, others need bloodshed at the beginning, middle or end.

Kykliero, the ninth tier, holds monasteries, temples and preceptories. Preachers, prophets and pilgrims fill the streets. Temple rivalries are usually channeled into athletic games in the western coliseum but violent outbreaks occur. Oroguidan and Avernine mercenaries profit from occasional work here. The Hamman threatens to run bulls through the temples 'to tame them' when violence occurs. Both he and Aureglas have agents here.

The bottom basin, Gyalilofo, houses the Hamman's court. Owning the city's biggest herd, he pays handsomely for cowsheds and cowherds to keep them safe. Strange drugs and fatal venoms are brewed by alchemists at his behest to fulfill bizarre whims. Owlbear farms with breeders and trainers have become lucrative. Eggs and young are bought and sold with owlbears trained and bred for diverse violent purposes. At the heart is the tumulus and fortress. Those living here attend court three times a year. Snubbing the court and the Hamman can be fatal.

damned city: bacino

Bacino sits surrounded by swamps and the Fiumorte. The destination of the southern Black Road is guarded by a red palisade of petrified wood. The swamps discourage centaurs and raiders. Entry is barred by two fortified gates with catapult, portcullis and many scorpions firing lead bolts. The first barbican sits on the Black Road. Known as the Black Gate, it is manned by the imbonitore. Clad in leaden jackal-helm and scalemail, bearing trident, gladius and shield, they dress for business. Immediate compliance is expected, resistance meets lethal force. A toll of two silver is paid for each body entering Bacino from the Black Gate or Traitor's Gate in Parvapelve.  This morbid toll keeps with ancient traditions of burying the dead here. .

By water, access from Carnefossa, Perlanero and the Avernine converge on the shallow bay of Parvapelve. This crescent-shaped bay lies beyond the red palisade, travelling past Parvapelve's horns gets you to Bacino proper. Residents dredge for amber and lootable bodies. Parvapelve is a crumbling slum built on mass graves escaped either by wealth or death. By land, the westernmost point of Parvapelve connects to Bacino via Traitor's Gate, the other barbican. The toll is two silver per body.

Bacino proper is split into four quarters. Beyond Traitor's Gate is Banchine, a fishbone of quays backed by narrow streets shaded by warehouses and towers. Skiffs can be readily chartered from the quays, barques are rarely available for transport of goods. By contrast, skiffs travel light and fast, gliding across the Fiumorte with hooded ferrymen at the stern. Bacino ferrymen are a close community. Unlike their Avernine peers, payment means passage attacks drawing bloody reprisals from several irate persons. The harbourmaster, Jerion, understands the ferrymen. This doesn't stop him executing smugglers or being a master slaver. Links with imbonitore as a former captain help salve his poor relations with Bacino's magistrates and lord. Banchine's towers hold various patricians who built their dynasties.  Some of these now wait for death.  Others court it more liberally.

Caligregis houses the western quays. These handle shipping for the city. The central quay houses the Chantákia ferry, crossing the Fiumorte at sunrise and again at sunset. Barques for Perlanero, Carnefossa and Chantákia sail hourly. Sleek liburnas patrol for river pirates. The westernmost quays support six dromonds, privateers with Oroguidan and Avernine marines and spinati shock troops. The land around these quays is slowly sinking. Warehouses pump out water with convict-manned Riccoferran waterwheels to store goods and chattel. Quayside inns offer cheap wine and fermented fish vinegar. Alleys in Caligregis sink into the swamp. Imbonitore patrols avoid certain alleys, sometimes paid handsomely to do so by gangs working for magistrates. The heart of the sunken alleys is The Court. This decrepit plaza houses all Bacino's leprous magistrates and pale lotus beds, a potent narcotic. Their smoking staves burn lotus dust hiding their smell. Heralded by tiny bells on severe black robes, faces under leather hoods, crowds part before them. The magistrates serve to arbitrate legal disputes. Judgements are swift, cruel or expensive. Appeals are moved to the Court, petitioners risk leprosy. Most magistrates defer to Mefitico, eldest and the most venomous of a nest of treacherous vipers. The city's tradition of funeral barques for dead patricians sailing east is honoured from Caligregis. Slaves earn their freedom by crewing the barques. These have some grave-goods and usually fall foul of thieves from Parvapelve or the Avernine.

The Black Gate opens into Vallapis. Famed for it's cosmopolitan market, this district holds the House of Hounds, where imbonitore are trained. Their chief officer is Amon. Standing seven feet tall, his voice booms across the plazas. Prodigiously strong and equally skilled wielding scourge and gladius as both weapons and symbols of office. Brutal in battle and leadership, his honesty is proverbial. His leaden jackal-helm is unique, with ruby eyes, bared teeth and braided red horsehair crest. The imbonitore live Spartan existences bound by military discipline. Vallapis market sells many things, from Animardente honeyed persimmons to Oroguidan alchemical goods and Riccoferran steel. Slaves from outside the city can be bought. Imbonitore patrols in Vallapis are almost incorruptible. Magistrates are rarely summoned but when they are, flocks of them descend like rapacious legal vultures. The rest of Vallapis is residential. Merchants live in gated villas while their staff linger in damp tenements and haunt busy market taverns. Dogs are valued in Vallapis. Ratters and rat-catchers never want for work.

East of Vallapis and north of Branchine is Carcaule. This maze of shadowy alleys holds workhouses for orphans, warehouses for goods and madhouses for lunatics. Talk of lycanthropy is hushed fearfully. Imbonitore finding any incinerate them in their homes. This order comes from the lord of Bacino. Levist was crippled by rats, his tendons and muscles chewed through, his rakish good looks consumed. Wearing a stylised iron mask he crouches in a sedan chair seething with spite and malice. His tongue is rapier-quick and sharp. His bleak manse is famed for it's coliseum, where Levist indulges his love for swordplay. Gladiatorial duels happen every season. Levist owns a nearby pig farm, the swine eat the dead growing massive and vicious on them. His emblem is a rampant black boar.

damned city: animardente

The Bridge of Smoke crosses the Bruciatura south-east of the Avernine at the foot of Animardente's northern slope.  Here the Black Road runs northwest past Lacunero's tar pits to Oroguida and southwest to the southern slopes and Bacino.  The Black Road is miles of bitumen-mortared flagstones.  The slopes rise to Riccoferro's walls.  The Spike casts a shadow at sunset on the Spine Road leaving Riccoferro's famed Centaur Gate.  Merchants travel this jagged road atop the slopes, fearing ambush by gangs of drunken centaur reavers. Animardente centaurs are hard-working, hard-drinking and violent.  They dye their manes black with walnut oil to accentuate paleness, which for them is a status symbol.  Indentured to the lords of Animardente centuries ago, rebellion surfaces in their cups on feverish summers.  Drunken centaur gangs are hunted by the lords' troops.

On the northern ridge, the keep of Arcemalba guards the first crossroads of the Spine Road.  This keep defends against centaurs and Riccoferran exiles.  Pale granite walls hold a garrison of malicious soldiers clad in spiked splint mail and helm, wielding halberd, longspear and bow. Their prisoners endure sadistic brutality. Running across caltrop beds, gauntlets of spiked fists and living archery targets are some examples.  Their cruel behaviour fuels their martial reputation.  These spinati are drilled in anti-cavalry tactics by the bellicose, brilliant and overweight general Gazar.  Gazar holds Arcemalba for Animardente. Spinati enjoy some notoriety outside the city walls, enemies of the city dread their presence in battle.

The northern slope is split into two neighbourhoods.  Balineum has bitumen, salt and sulphur mines.  The oily Bruciatura spills from a cistern high on the northern slope stained maroon with aromatic naphtha.  It's bitter waters causes dizziness and burning rashes, with prolonged exposure resulting in fainting.  It carves a lifeless course to the Black Road. There it sinks into a morass of tar pits, the Black Road and it's branches providing safe passage.  Balineum's mines has a mix of indentured centaurs and humans using slaves to toil in mine and refinery.  Centaur overseers drown troublemakers in refinery baths. 

The other, Ossarogis, sits on the north-east slope, behind the tar pits of the Bruciatura.  Centaurs avoid Ossarogis though some gangs launch destructive raids.  Smoke from conical stone kilns provide charcoal, pottery and smelt metal while disposing of dead bodies.  Locals are patient souls as likely to use nearby white oak as corpses to fuel kilns.  Where Balineum residents are passionate, they have cooler heads.  Animardente's lords are watching them, they argue, so actions remain circumspect and words civil lest someone awakens.

The second crossroads sits on the edge of a crater housing a smelter and a busy market.  The Spine Market trades in hematite, metal ingots and food.  Traders often cough, smoke from the smelter is distracting.  It processes Riccoferran ore with local rocks to make carbon steel sold exclusively at the Spine Market. Whispers persist that meteoric iron is smelted for the lords of the city on certain nights. Such rumours would alarm factions in the city.  As a result they are played down by all hearing them lest the lords get involved.

The southern slope is taken up by one community.  Palepratis is agrarian, growing persimmon, black walnut, inkberry, juniper, sweet magnolia and white oak. Beehives prosper amid the trees.  Yew and white poplar stands offer shade.  Slaves and centaurs here serve the farms, who work to feed both themselves and the lords.  Farms keep goats and swine for meat.  Yet not all is idyllic here.  Centaurs are abused, foreign slaves get better treatment.  All toil under the sun.  Farmers bloom early and perish in their prime, this land is difficult to keep maintained.  The Black Road terminates halfway around feeding into Bacino.  Beyond the Black Road, the Fiumorte widens out.

Petranera, a smoke-wreathed citadel of black stone guards the Spine Road's final crossroad where easternmost roads converge.  This is home to Lord Belias, attorney for the city and his beguiling, libertine daughter Fiammera.  Belias tolerates the dissolutes she collects, Fiammera makes an efficient chatelaine during his duty-driven absences. When he does return, the halls empty of sybarites. Belias is a serial widower, though dark whispers insinuate unwholesome liaisons with Fiammera in Petronera.  Guarded by a spinati garrison, the lords scheme and plot. 

The Black Road girds Animardente, with traffic from the crossroads, Oroguida and Bacino. Where the Bridge of Smoke arrives is the halfway point.  The kilns of Ossarogis and pig-pens of Palepratis meet in a permanent market where people buy district goods to bear to their allies.  The craft is excellent, not prolific as Oroguida or Riccoferro yet skilled in construction and presentation.  Notable is a post where a greataxe is buried in it's head.  This post announces local executions and mercenaries for hire.

damned city: oroguida

Oroguida is isolated from the Avernine by tar pits and quicksand banks fed by the Fiumorte.  The safest routes to Oroguida are by Occidua in Riccoferro and The Black Road in Animardente.  Boardwalks and stone piers keep Oroguida from sinking into brackish wetland that floods every autumn and winter.  Mud and water seeps through corrugated roads and boardwalks.  Dykes to limit flooding form canals by the boardwalks allowing barques and skiffs to move chattel.  The clink of coins and chains is ever-present.  Gold is the lifeblood of Oroguida.  It flows from a brisk slave trade as well as transfer of goods and individuals.  Status is conferred by visible gold or slaves.  Ostentatious wealth is preferred, vulgarity is expected.  Mercenaries in coin-riveted brigandine guard sedan chairs bearing bejewelled merchants with golden smiles.  By contrast, slaves bearing the sedan wear loincloths, manacles, whip scars and owner's brands.  Labourers may own a nose ring or gold medallion.  Artisans wear two or more rings with medallions or bangles.  A guard usually has half a dozen arm-bangles.  Some unwed women wear gold coins in head-dresses with charm bracelets. 

Near Occidua, a ghetto called Catenae grows around imported waterwheels.  Chainmakers forge chains using Riccoferran iron and scrap metal for anchors, shackles and weapons.  Mercenaries skilled in flails and spiked chains work out of Catenae, these _catenisti_ are the nearest thing to elite troops found in Oroguida.  There is a sizable drydock in Catenae that services the skiffs and barques plying canals transporting goods and people.  Tumulurbem stands between Catenae and the House of Hands.  Founded from an old village built on ancient ruins, explored by those seeking easy gold.  Flooding, unstable walls and degenerate mutants make this difficult.  There is gold but it's far from easy.  Pre-human gold idols found underneath are quickly smelted into gold ingots to avoid bloody reprisals.  Tumulurbem markets sell assorted supplies to explorers.  They also warn explorers balliffs will seize loot unless they are affiliated to a licensed business.

At Oroguida's heart is the House of Hands, a ten-towered structure resembling two grasping hands.  Here, the Aliquamante, a council of thirteen oligarchs preside.  Clad in hooded samite robes with gold masks of angry medusae, they are part syndicate, part priesthood.  They provide judgements and license trade in Oroguida for 10% of assets or income, whichever yields more.  The leader is The Wolf, a corpulent captain clad in gold-coin brigandine whose word is law.  Mercenary bailiffs enforce this by seizing goods and chattel.  The House of Hands watches over three great boardwalks with their attendant canals.  Slaves toil on windlasses to pump water out of the cellars.

Carnefossa deals in pigs, slaves and vice.  The branching southern canal links to the Fiumorte and sees traffic from Bacino and Perlanero.   The Wolf's bailliffs are particularly active in Carnefossa.  Nearer the House of Hands, the stink of swine, canal water and unwashed bodies fades under perfume.  Yet the stink never truly dies.  Further to the south, it grows to fill the nostrils.  Pig pens and cesspits are dug under boardwalks, sometimes used as prisons or slave holding pens.  Biting flies attract a variety of frogs, some poisonous.  Brothels, drug dens and wine houses riddle Carnefossa.  Streetwalkers work from the canal edge to alleyways within the shadow of the House of Hands.  Some use parasites and poisons to enhance their appearance, trading health and longevity for potential wealth.

Lacunero, a slum with a pall of brown smoke reaches east to tar pits bordering Animardente.  Near the House of Hands is the Black Alley where alchemists sell alchemist's fire, pigments and exotic metals.  Other streets near Black Alley Further along the great canal, smiths forge shining blades of stainless steel and potters sell enamelled clay.  Clay and stone is quarried  from flooding pits.  Furthest away, and close to the tar pits, residents mine bitumen for mortar, sealant and adhesive.  Watch towers keep vigil for caravans from Animardente.

damned city: riccoferro

Riccoferro is built on a hill rising out of the Avernine.  An iron mining town, it is split into six fortified zones like a giant spiral stair part carved into the hill leading to the Avernine, Bacino and the Fiumorte and the morass of Oroguida.  Relentlessly grey, Riccoferro hums and vibrates from temple bells ringing over iron-masked soldiers in plate and mail riding steel-shod hooves over cobblestones over tunnels housing ringing trip hammers and stamp mills.   This place breeds ambition, paranoia and a malicious streak.  Seeking to elevate themselves to tiers where underground waterwheels and hammers are unneeded, they scheme tirelessly.  Cautious yet implacable, the idealised Riccoferran has an eye on the prize and plans for almost any contingency.  This attitude is exemplified by the soldiers who provide martial law, called ironmasks by the locals.  These rule by fear, brutality and constancy.

Temple Street runs the circumference  of Riccoferro and gamut of architecture with a thousand beliefs.  Almost every building here is a temple or shrine save the gates to Avernine, Animardente and the locks to Bacino.  An equator of elaborate temples jostle cheek-by-jowl.  Prophets true and false harangue passers-by.  Temples to heresies and schismatics selling indulgence and benefice are neighbours with more orthodox faiths.  Discordant chanting and invective can overwhelm sensitive ears.  Fighting regularly occurs and is suppressed by ironmask brute squads with flanged maces and tower shields.

The first and highest zone, Rutuonis, rises in the northwest but cannot be reached by the Avernine gates or Bacino.  Looming over all of Rutuonis is the Spike.  Artisans and finesmiths line Rutuonis and the average citizen wears more gold and jewels than iron.  Ironmasks here wear a surcoat of grey wool with a red scaled bull to their plate mail.  Statues of snake-haired furies with sweeping wings keep vigil from towers and townhouse roofs.  As a  deterrent against burglars, these are most effective. The Spike is an iron-shod citadel and prison that impales the sky at the heart of Riccoferro.  No building is taller and from it's solar, the local patrician, the Iron Constable observes his domain.  Those trying to build higher than the Spike are condemned to death.  Ironmasks leading convict labourers tear down buildings and tear apart builders between warhorses. It's said the Spike's cells lie under Oroguida's cesspits and Chantákia's strip mines.

The second zone, Settentrion, houses the northern Avernine gate. Ironmask  garrisons at the gate, western wall and the base of the Spike make this zone orderly.  A smithy row from armourers to farriers sells soldiers the tools of their trade.  Finesmiths unable to get Rutuonis gold sell jewellry in brass, copper, pewter and glass.  Assassins and sorcerors sell subtle death away from the garrisons. 

The third zone, Marmorbis, is known for a great coliseum where athletic and gladiatorial games are held to delight jaded appetites.  Schools and stables predominate with an influx of newly-built iron ore mineshafts sunk into the hill away from the Spire.  The ore is processed in Orien, older residents are furious at ore wagons taking up their roads.  A narrow gatehouse, the Centaur Gate on Temple Street overlooks Animardente's slopes.  It's fortification and narrow entrance is such only a small garrison is needed.  Here the Riccoferran mean streak takes the form of flattery and manipulation. Ironmasks are fewer here yet command fearful respect from locals by harsh judgements.  They wear a surcoat with a white circle emblem.

The fourth zone, Orien, houses the eastern Avernine gate.  The gate is heavily-garrisoned as is the base of the Spike.  The ironmasks take special care of Orien for the subterranean ironworks Riccoferro is famed for are based here.  The trip hammers and stamp mills never stop, the incessant noise drives some deaf, mad or suicidal.  Others drown the noise and vibration out with vices.  Wealthier iron miners are moving to Marmorbis so an influx of new blood is happening. Iron is shipped out from Perlanero or the Avernine gate.  

The fifth zone, Perlanero, has three locks to Bacino along the south face of the hill.  Ironmasks here wear a grey surcoat with a black sea horse and have garrisons at each lock and the Spike.  Rats are ubiquitous,.  Warehouses of iron bars, brass and copper jewellry, bales of wool and sailcloth await the boats to Bacino.  Myriad waterwheels under Perlanero's  cobblestones carry water into the bowels of Riccoferro up towards Orien and the Spike. In autumn, chill mists cloak the slave markets flush with a season's takings.

The final zone, Occidua, houses the western Avernine gate and a gate to Oroguida.  Ironmask garrisons built over convict-powered waterwheels stop flooding.  Gloomy, muddy cobbles are treacherous underfoot.  Labourers and hemp-growers provide most wages with ropes and fabrics leaving the Avernine gate or via Perlanero. Exiles from Riccoferro or other parts of the city sometimes linger here before fleeing into the Avernine.  Ironmasks stay in their garrisons but if roused crush any resistance.  A dozen disgraced ironmasks have turned vigilante gang. These rustmasks are the nearest thing to populist outlaws Riccoferro has.  

damned city: the avernine

The Avernine clings to our city like a tattered mantle.  It's a sprawl of crumbling armouries, odious garrisons and cracked roads.   Built on marshland, the Avernine houses soldiers as well as camp followers, criminals, drunks, political exiles and malingerers.  Food shortages are common and the city's patricians buy favour with grain rations for serving troops.  Those too poor, addled or weak to fight become grist for the mill.  Martial law is imposed by militias and armed troops root out entrenched gangs.  Fires caused by marsh gas are frequent enough shouts of 'Fire' are always responded to in force.  Crying wolf is a good way to get lynched.

Life in the Avernine is noisy, jostling for food and status is commonplace.  Thieves are a perennial problem and punished harshly for it.  Poverty is rife, one in three have no home and another one in three are billeted or in barracks.  Brawls are popular as are athletic contests and gambling.  Strength is power, the weak submit or get crushed yet few tyrants survive.  Markets are carefully managed by heavily-armed patrols and inciting food riots is a death sentence.  Patrols have some leeway in identifying inciters.  Owning property in the Avernine is a euphemism for ill-gotten wealth, a shady past or fall from grace.  Ironically many soldiers are eager to do so.

Over time the Avernine has grown like a stain on the marsh despite fires and riots.  Corrupt artisans scavenging from buildings and using shoddy material have inculcated poor repair.  Walls are daubed in cement then decorated with murals and graffiti.  Older buildings have sinister, baroque designs built to withstand siege but theft and poor repair have eroded most.  One exception is the Brazen Keep, largest garrison of the army patrols whose bronze-clad towers seeth with stamped glyphs.  The current commander is whispered to be carving up and slowly eating his predecessor like smoked sausage.  Other landmarks include commemorative pillars studded with the verdigris-coated skulls of enemy generals and kings. 

The marsh on which the Avernine grows is fed by two rivers. The ice-cold, deep-rolling Fiumorte branches, tunnels and rejoins itself.  It yields lost dead to Avernine shores as canny gangs loot patrician funeral barques.  Corrupt Avernine ferrymen demand additional payment halfway, those who can't pay sink or swim.  Those in sight of the oily, oozing Bruciatura have it worse.  It's thick stinking mud sucks at boardwalks and buildings.  When the river ignites, gas explosions and fires spark riots, looting and bloody reprisals. In summer, those near the Bruciatura adopt a siege mentality.

There are five gates into the city proper.  The first, called the Bridge of Smoke crosses the Bruciatura as it leaves the slopes of Animardente.  The second, called the Dead Lock, forms a fortified lock down to Bacino's piers.  Though the Fiumorte has streams throughout the Avernine, this lock sees much commercial use.  The final three are evenly spaced on Riccoferro's walls, at the north, east and south, bolstered by iron portculli and iron-masked patrols interrogating visitors.  They are prosaically named the North, East and South gates.  Around all the gates tenements press closer to form claustrophobic covered alleyways.  Those seeking entry rarely see sunlight until they enter the city.