Southland: Stone City

THE SOUTHLAND

A Fantasy Core Setting

© Jerry Harris 2014

Published here as Open Game Content.

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Southland Index

Monster Territories Index

Stone City (Ancient-Pintupi)

[In this area you can drop in your favorite lost city map.]

Seven Sisters Myth: The Sisters came to this hidden city begging for food and water, but were turned away for fear they would be destroyed in the war if discovered.  The Sisters cursed it to stand forever.

Most Ancient cities were built up using magic.  Another side effect of the Catastrophe is that it collapsed nearly all of their structures.  Nearly all of the grand Ancient civilization has essentially been reduced to dust, which is why there are so few above ground ruins to explore.  There is only one known standing Ancient city.  Its location is well-known, and it’s even un-plundered.  Of course, there’s a reason for that.

Pintupi was a secret refuge for those not wanting to fight in the Civil War.  (If you’re using Demi-humans in this setting, this could be an Elvish city.)  The city was hidden by a powerful magical cloak.  It was small and unimportant enough to escape anyone’s attention.  Anyone inside was not allowed to leave, yet somehow word got out.  At first, anyone who found Pintupi, in spite of the cloak, was allowed in, but not out.  A steady stream quickly became a flood and city became way overpopulated.  Pintupi refused any further refugees and finally turned their cloak into a shield.

It was too late to pretend to be a secret anyway.  A Wizard-King army soon came and laid siege to it.  They found its shield nearly impenetrable, but not completely.  They opened up a hole just big enough to admit one of their special creations, Argula the Dracolisk.  Against a garrison of warriors and wizards, Argula by himself, wouldn’t have lasted long, but against a city of unarmed pacifists, the inhabitants quickly became victims, stoned victims.     

Argula found the magical device powering the shield and deactivated it, as per orders.  The Wizard-Kings immediately stormed inside, took possession of it, and fled back to Circumsphere with their own ideas about how to modify it.  Argula was left behind to hold the city.  He proceed to eliminate anyone else living inside and even took to petrifying the buildings in boredom (though the contents within them would be untouched).  Argula would still be sitting on the rocks, awaiting orders, when the Catastrophe finally ended the war a short while later.