Drearloch
Built against all odds or reason right atop an active, smoldering volcanic lake, huge plumes of acidic smoke climb high into the sky above a brilliantly colored city of round, organically shaped adobe and cobb buildings painted with magnificent patterns. The city is seamlessly integrated into the extreme landscape, flowing in and out of the orange hills like liquid.
Its people are ruled by an absolutely silent king called Drearmar, who moves so little he may in fact be a statue, and who worships the Ancestors, an ancient society gifted with future sight, able to see from their own time into the present. Their guidance and cryptic clues have been studied and deciphered by the people of Rayion for thousands of years and used to steer their culture towards a foretold age of peace.
Battlemaps set in this location
Brimloch Watermarket
Text Talking about this location, Two paragrahps that inspire and provide reasonNestled outside the greater capital city of Drearloch, the smaller sister city of Brimloch is the lifeblood of Rayion’s economy, sustained by its singular, large freshwater spring. In the poisoned seas of Rayion, freshwater is the most precious and vital resource, relied upon beyond the infrequent rains, costly imports, and dowsing efforts. The closest part of Drearloch to Brimloch is the Watermarket, which shares a border with the larger city.
Between Brimloch and the Coalfrock Delta, the largest imports of freshwater are traded and exchanged for the unique resources found in the city. These include goods for making firearms, brittle poison blades, and rare ingredients used to create the substance sought after all over the world, Blackiron.
Because Blackiron is such a sought-after material, many foreign nations have become very interested in securing a trade agreement with Drearloch beyond what the silent palace has agreed to sell here in the market. Their agencies try to do this while at the same time preventing their enemies from doing the same. This has led the market to become something of an international spy cold war of cloak and dagger, as various nations quietly battle for control over alliances in the region.
Mar Toxical
Due to the constant threat of saltiron poisoning, Rayion has become a leader in medicinal advancements. Anti-poison remedies, antibiotics, and preventive treatments are far more advanced and accessible here than anywhere else in Crudilex. Every settlement is equipped with alchemists to mitigate the dangers of the environment.
The poison centers are found all across Rayion. As saltiron poisoning is an everyday issue, alongside sulfur burns, the Mar Toxicals are locations where special alchemical doctors called Mercies treat and prevent the many injuries that accompany the harsh environment of Rayion.
Gaja Hatchery
Massive spawning grounds for the Rayion extremophile breed of Gaja, giant elephant-sized hermit crabs. Each egg laid carries around five thousand tiny Gaja, only about 10% of which will survive into adulthood, growing to their titanic size to be used to cross the hot, poisonous waters, haul people and cargo, or be served on a platter. The Gaja population is extremely important in Drearloch, without which the entire city becomes completely untraversable. As such, the hatchery is a carefully regulated and protected area of the city.
Surefooting Plaza
The largest platform section of dry land in the city. Outsiders to Rayion have trouble adapting to the oppressive heat and constant danger of poison. In many settlements around the country, especially larger ones like the capital Drearloch, there are zones built to accommodate visitors who might not be able to handle the more dangerous parts of the city. However, they still brave it for a chance to partake in the world-famous hot water bathhouses and enjoy the wide variety of skincare and makeup products locally produced and sold only here.
Surefooting is the most well-known of these kinds of establishments, with many unique halls and shops featuring the best Rayion has to offer in products and entertainment for tourists, allowing them to enjoy some of the culture without as much risk as might be felt traveling its complex countryside and sulfurous pools. Visitors from the nearby big city of Grand Nostridan often come to stock up on saltiron goods and enjoy the temperate bathhouses, keeping Surefooting Plaza busy with activity unlike much of the rest of the city.
Lindcell Deep
Text Talking about this location, Two paragrahps that inspire and provide rThe center of the burning, boiling sulfurous lake below the city. Lindcell is nearly impossible for anything but the unbelievably resilient Gaja crab to enter, as the heat becomes unbearably intense and the poisonous fumes so thick that just nearing the heart of the lake can make you dizzy. Still, the great plume of ever-evaporating boiling lake water rises high, visible for hundreds of miles around the city, and has become an iconic symbol of the capital and of Rayion in general.
Locals claim that one of the things everyone should do on their first trip to Drearloch is be anointed by the gas of Lindcell, riding a Gaja directly through while holding their breath until reaching the other side. It is extremely ill-advised and many get small burns or become sick, yet the rite of passage is seen as something that separates casual tourists from those who have a genuine interest in Drearlochian culture.
Saltiron Gulch
Text Talking about this location, Two paragrahps that inspire and provide reasoA cavernous pit between the high mountain ranges of the Godless Hush and the natural round adobe structures of the northeastern city. The fresh cold waterfalls pouring into the sulfurous pools of Drearloch in the gulch create a series of complex chemical reactions with the iron ore exposed along the mountainside. This combination is a natural mixing pot in the river below that, during the hot season, evaporates rapidly, leaving behind stacks of the rare brittle alloy called saltiron. This compound is present in much of Rayion in its liquid state, but the solid pure ingots made by nature here are among the purest and most potent examples of saltiron that can be found.
Routinely, these formations are cut down and processed, taken to the saltiron refinery on the southern end of the city to be further purified or traded in pure raw chunks to the Minotaur in Brimloch Watermarket for freshwater.
Dowsing Arcology
Text Talking about this location, Two paragrahps that inspire and provide reasons to explore these loTo survive in this unforgiving landscape, the people of Rayion rely on dowsing. In Rayion, dowsing is the catch-all term for divination magic, popularized through its use in finding fresh water, which serves as the primary currency of the region. In Drearloch, the Dowsing Arcology is a well-supported library and school for divination magic. All Rayionians are required to spend two years of their youth at the Arcology to learn this magic. The unique divination learned here locates clean freshwater amidst the salt pools and geysers, elevating dowsers to the highest societal positions. In Rayion, control over water means control over culture and power. It is so important that it is regularly used alongside gold as currency. A competent dowser might find themselves quickly elevated to nobility and even offered a place to study at the Silent Palace among others of their standing.
Sproutling Garden
Sculpted domes of organically shaped cob walls and flowing clay adobe, the halls upon halls of beautiful Sproutling Gardens are dappled in sunlight cast through brilliant asymmetrical stained glass sculpted directly into the walls.
The Sproutling indoor greenhouse uses water to irrigate lush gardens where young Sproutling firbolgs are raised before they bloom. The Primrose and Buckwheat firbolg make up the majority of the population of Drearloch. Their plant-like ancestry allows them to easily navigate the otherwise toxic atmosphere of the region without any trouble at all. In fact, some believe they flourish in the mineral-rich waters and exhale even more breathable air for other races. Some wonder if, without them as the dominant ancestry in Drearloch, the fumes would render the area entirely inhospitable.
The Silent Palace
The adobe halls of colored clay that make up the Silent Palace are well known for their magnificent stained-glass windows and flowing organic architecture. Fluid curves and round walls make the whole palace feel like a living thing. Its vibrant colors mirror those of the sulfur pools that surround it. Most impressive of all is its sheer size. Even the surrounding structures are dwarfed by the immense palace and its enormous domed roof.
Sulfur Mine
Inside the active volcano on the eastern end of the city, choked under the worst of Drearloch’s toxic fumes, men work to mine sulfur, sometimes known as ciderwall gold. The lowest end of the open-air mine is one thousand feet below sea level and punishingly hot even by Drearloch standards. The waters here are so acidic that even Gaja avoid them, bubbling and sizzling like Tho-cell battery acid. The work is unbelievably dangerous, but the byproduct has become a necessary part of Drearloch’s economy and a crucial ingredient in both firearm ammunition production and the creation of the blackiron alloy that many nations of Crudilex are racing to secure a reliable supply line for.
Today, the sulfur mine is operated largely by the Cinder, flameborne undead skeletons who live in the most extreme environments of Crudilex, including the Abeya Basin, the lowest region of Rayion, a realm consumed by sulfuric smoke and saltiron-poisoned waters. It is a place where life as most understand it is impossible, much like the sulfur mine. As undead, they can work without as much risk as their living colleagues. Their burning fires, stained blue by the sulfur that envelops them, have become something of a local novelty.
The Ancestor Petroglyph
A massive broken rock left by the civilization of creatures who first lived in Rayion, wiped out when Calabash erupted and coated the region in poison. The people of Rayion worship these ancestors above all other forms of religion and believe deciphering the Petroglyph tablet will bring about an ultimate age of peace and enlightenment. Hundreds of interpretations and translations of the ancestors' words have been made, and almost all governmental decisions are argued and debated in the halls of the Silent Palace by those claiming to know what the ancestors intended for each motion and law that passes before the court. This religion plays such an important role in government that beside the king’s throne is the queen’s, and to his left is an empty throne said to represent the place the ancestors hold in leading the people.
Rayion culture insists that these ancient peoples were master dowsers who could foresee far into the country’s future, and that when the acids came, they left the Petroglyph as a means to guide them toward the most perfect future. However, the language has long since been lost, and now all that remains are the interpretations of various political factions insisting that their directive is the true one. They steer their policies toward this perfect future while rejecting all other interpretations.
After so many generations of this squabbling, many locals feel that the Petroglyph has been wildly misinterpreted to justify almost any action, altruistic or otherwise within their government. Yet faith in the path laid out by the ancestors is so deeply ingrained in every fabric of Rayion culture that change would now be impossible without the mass upheaval of long-held ideologies and religion.
Purewater Temple
Home to the idealogues, the closest thing Rayion has to religious leaders and practitioners. These clerics serve as documentarians who collect, transcribe, and attempt to decipher the words and artifacts left behind by the Ancestors, whom the people of Rayion worship as divine beings.
Purewater Temple itself is a magnificent structure built in the early history of the Rayion region, before the lands were settled by the Firbolg. The ancients of Rayion constructed the temple from a single monolithic rock. They are worshiped today by the cultures of Rayion as seers and readers of omens who could peer from their own time into the world of today and pass messages in ancient glyphs and hidden texts to those who would find them in the present, guiding them toward a foretold age of peace and enlightenment.
The temple is made up of countless layers of carved stone, with every open space filled by designs depicting stories and history from the ancient times, now lost or reinterpreted. The entrance is a structure of grey stone arch with magnificent, intricate reliefs depicting frog-like creatures holding what many believe is the temple itself. Atop them stand rows of the flower-folk called Firbolg, who would come to settle the region thousands of years after the temple’s construction.
At its heart is a large, bank-like building. A huge open impluvium collects the rare purified rainwaters that fall over Drearloch, filling the deep pool in the center courtyard, which the temple surrounds in a circular shape. This structure keeps the water safe from the poisonous gas clouds that flow overhead—another of the unbelievable predictions of the ancestors, which would have served them little in their own time but has become essential in modern Drearlochian life.
The pool has a series of terraced steps that descend into a large reservoir, continuing down into depths that cannot easily be seen from the surface. The cold, clean water within is worth a fortune in Rayion, carefully regulated by the temple’s idealogues, rationed out, and used as currency throughout the region.
Aouko's Death Haze
Deadly chlorine gas that plumes up from the nearby ever-smoldering volcanic pit. The winds occasionally carry the haze into the southern portion of the city, where the population is the least dense, sometimes reaching as far as the Ancestor Petroglyph. This area is particularly avoided, and regardless of the infrequency of its movements, locals have grown anxious about it and worry over strong changes in the wind.
There are superstitious scholars of the Dowsing Arcology who believe there is a predictable movement to the shifting wind and the flow of the haze, a pattern that might once have been known. They suspect its secrets could tell of omens and portents understood only by the ancestors. These scholars scour the many translations of the Petroglyph for transcripts that could help them unlock this mystery.
The Arcfall Broodpool
Recently, a rare Arcwhale was chased south by a group of aeronaut airships. The ships circled the skies over Drearloch for days, unable to fly too close to the massive poison clouds of the Lindcell plume at the city’s center. The creature gathered a public rally of support from the people of Drearloch, creating tension between them and the aeronauts, who eventually chose to leave the beast and head back northeast.
Unfortunately, the creature, well outside its natural habitat, had spent too many days ingesting the toxic air over the poisoned seas of Rayion. It fell on the southern side of the city. Its giant bones could not be salvaged, as the Aouko death haze lingered over them for many weeks. During that time, a large swarm of wild Gaja began feeding on the bones of the fallen Arcwhale, and a boom of new hatchlings grew in the region. Slowly, the sad scene transformed into a life-filled broodpool for the Gaja, whose resilience makes them immune to the Aouko haze. The wild creatures have never nested so close to civilization before, and many in the city took this blossoming as a final gesture of thanks from the great beast.
Saltiron Refinery
On the southernmost bank of Drearloch is a large tiered series of cob and adobe platforms. The compound known as blackiron is an alloy of the extremely brittle saltiron found in Rayion and metals brought from the farthest reaches of Crudilex. However, the process first requires refining saltiron from the materials found in the poisoned waters of Rayion. The refinery is one of the only facilities of its kind, and recent discoveries have revealed that the pure saltiron produced only within its walls is a critical ingredient in blackiron, believed to be completely indestructible.
The whole world’s eyes have turned to Drearloch, and the first nation to secure a steady supply of the material will likely hold all the power in what appears to be an imminent planar conflict. Because of this, many spies and instigators have begun to appear in the city, either working to secure
their nation’s alliance, sabotage their enemies, or, in some cases, completely destroy the refinery. Whatever the case, at this moment in history Drearloch’s saltiron refinery may very well be the most important building in the entire world.