The Motes
Floating Island Sea
Battlemaps set in this location
Deacon Prison
Constructed of the extremely rare and expensive alloy, Black Iron, Deacon Prison is considered one of the most fortified strongholds in all of Crudilex. A massive iron gate guards its inner docks, reachable only by cable car or airship. More than one thousand cannons, harpoons, and Tho-Cell weapons line its walls. No one has ever escaped the Deacon family’s clutches once imprisoned here.
Deacon Prison houses a private fleet that serves as a secondary defense for Cirrus-on-High. The fleet remains docked within, always ready to repel any foolish assault. What happens inside remains a mystery. Few prisoners ever leave. Those who do tell wildly conflicting tales, though all speak of dark arcana experiments performed on death-row inmates. Some claim memory alteration and mind control. The prison also serves as the headquarters of the Deacon family mafia, one of Nostridan’s six infamous criminal syndicates.
Burning Blue
siphon power directly from the Soulgate, the energy field at the edge of the atmosphere that shields Crudilex from the roiling chaos beyond. Rising to that airless altitude, into the cold, thin, swirling atmosphere of the upper dome, Burning Blue can deploy its siphon to attach to the soulgate and theoretically repower itself indefinitely.
Ironclad vagabond port-class airship
Burning Blue is one of only three airships of its kind and the only one still in active service. Of its sibling airships, Halls of Air crashed during its test launch and was later dismantled in a hangar at Falstead airfield. The other, Face of God, has never flown, having lost funding at the beginning of the Federalist-Dawnfire War. Burning Blue is a mile-long airship with an onboard plane and skiff hangar, as well as ascent and descent lifts. It is easily the largest and heaviest airship ever built and serves as a kind of flying city for the Aeronauts, a culture of skyfaring engineers who explore and master the skies of Crudilex. Aeronauts exist across the world, but the art of taking to the sky was born in the Motes. Among the aarakocra and floating islands, the first flying machines were tested and perfected.
Burning Blue has a secret that allows it to remain airborne. In addition to a small nation’s supply worth of mana batteries and Tho-Cell gyromanics, it is equipped with an experimental device that allows it to
Flakwind
Originally built as a forward bastion between Gouldel and Roa during a time of conflict over control of the Motes, Flakwind is a military base built both atop and within its mote. At its center stands a tall tower armed with a massive, rotating anti-airship flak cannon. Though the war that prompted its construction never came to pass, the cannon has been used to defend mining and merchant airships from frequent skypirate attacks. The island has since evolved into a common Aeronaut hanger bay and trade port. Its location and fortified structures make it a reliable place to find capable crew, comfortable beds, and a strong drink. Known for its opportunities, Flakwind draws many Aeronauts who linger here while searching for a ship in need of hands.
Roian Mining Operation
This floating island serves as the primary Roian mining effort in the Motes. Massive Rendcresk-class skiffs regularly ferry loads of Irai crystals and equipment between the Motes and Roa. Their skyborne voyages are a common sight in the southern skies, and their cargo is both valuable and heavily guarded. As the Irai crystals are extracted, the motes begin to weaken and shatter. These floating islands owe their defiance of gravity to the crystals, and without them, they become unstable. Even smaller fragments can hold hundreds of tons of stone, and a few slivers left behind can generate satellite clasts. Over time, this creates hazardous airborne reefs and broken clast motes that make airship travel extremely difficult and dangerous. Despite the risks, mining has been practiced here for a very long time. Roa takes great care to collect and harvest even the smallest fragments, slowly chipping away at the mote that floats above their city.
Crownroost
Home to the eastern aarakocra, Crownroost and the rest of the islands below it are a fiercely guarded region where these skyborn people tend to their eggs and hatchlings. Aarakocra society is deeply structured around altitude. Those of higher status live on the upper motes, and their leader, called the Star Seeker, lives on the Crownroost itself.
To earn the right to ascend and live higher, aarakocra compete in a sport called Vaz-Am, a high-stakes blend of racing and ball game. The sport involves navigating dangerous environmental obstacles and flying through monster-infested lairs. Those who fail to prove themselves in Vaz-Am often fall in social standing, and many eventually turn to airship piracy as a means of survival. Crownroost is the highest of all the Motes, soaring nearly three miles above the Undermote. The air here is thin and frigid, inhospitable to most forms of life. Yet the aarakocra thrive, living a tribal, communal existence shaped by the gales of Highwind.
Highwind
Along the eastern extreme of the Motes lies a region of violent torrents and air currents known as the Highwind. The swirling gales strike out so regularly and forcefully that only the fastest, most expertly piloted airships can pass through without serious difficulty. Anything not securely fastened on your deck is swept into the hungry sky, And that will be the least of your troubles. Sails left open in the wind are torn to shreds, ropes with any slack will rattle their rigging to pieces, and even emergency gliders offer little hope.
There is a natural pattern to its gales. The spiral is caused by a confluence between the Manderwind and the Soulgate, caught in endless motion like an uncorked bottle. These rhythms can be worked into muscle memory. and that is exactly what the aarakocra of Crownroost have done. Through generations of adaptation and practice, they have become the greatest fast flyers and aerial acrobats in the world. Even the least among them would be considered an ace by any other measure.
Jatterak
This large, shattered mote is home to the imps. Split down the middle during the early days of aeronautics, the island was one of the first attempts to mine a mote for its Irai. The result was a complete disaster, many lives were lost, and Irai mining was banned for nearly a decade by Roa. The island was abandoned. The exposed geode of Irai remained, tempting miners for years. Only those willing to smuggle and mine illegally dared extract what they could before the Bluecoats chased them off. Eventually, the imps of the Forsaken began using the island as a home base, building squats and hovels into its broken face. The Bluecoats, unwilling to stir conflict with the Syndicate, left them alone. Even after mining was legalized again during the Roa-Stai War, the island remained in the hands of the imps and the Forsaken. Today, the giant geode has become a symbol of their self-governance. The Imps decorate their clothing with jewelry made from its spent quartz, drained of it’s iari, wearing it as the emblem of their autonomy.
Air Pirate Radio
“Nouncer” is a wanted criminal and former Royalist radio technician from the Colloran Civil War, turned airship pirate. He and his crew decided to become deserters, flying away in their stolen frigate. They now spend their days fleeing both their old Royalist allies, who continue to fight after the war with fanatical zeal, and the Nostridinian Bluecoats, who are determined to shut down their illegal broadcast.
Recently, they were beset by the creature that dwells in the Vogchoga Jungle. In their escape, they emerged on the southern side of the Eios Reef, where they have been trapped for several months. According to their broadcasts, however, morale remains high. Many of the wrecks scattered throughout the reef have had well-stocked kitchens to salvage, and their transmissions suggest that the crew’s spirits are far from broken.
Vogchoga, and The Flying Tyrant
Crudilex is home to many legendary monsters, most of which stalk the untamed wilds of the Northlend or out beyond the plains in unexplored. But few are as infamous as the beast of Vogchoga, the Flying Tyrant. This colossal, ape-like beast can leap hundreds of feet between motes and is powerful enough to drag entire airships from the sky. Vogchoga himself is not purely animalistic. In fact, its attacks beyond its home mote appear deliberate. These targeted strikes consistently prevent any large settlement from establishing a foothold in the southern motes around the floating jungle island. Vogchoga keeps the motes wild, no matter how hard the aeronauts work to discover what is there. For this reason, it has earned its dreaded title: the Flying Tyrant.
Eois Reef Light Station
The skies of this region are a cluster of tiny floating rocks called clasts that each are smaller than the palm of a hand. The reef is formed from clusters of dead motes breaking and falling away from their whole after the mote was mined for its Irai geode. Each clast individually could easily bounce off a reinforced hull of any airship flying through. However, together they form a belt that is a very real and dangerous threat. These clast reefs are completely impenetrable to skiffs and blimps. Even a single broken clast catching on a sharp edge can be enough to breach a ship’s hull. Once inside, the damage can be immense, as the ship continues moving while the clast remains fixed in place. Many clasts contain only the smallest amounts of Irai
crystal to keep them aloft, defying gravity. Over time, the rock around these crystals erodes due to wind and rain, crumbling to join the pink dust that forms the Undermote Desert below. Along the easternmost portion of the reef stands a light station, warning ships to steer clear during darkness when even the most secure vessels risk death by a thousand cuts of navigating this reef.
Deepsky
Deepsky is the area down in the low-motes of the south eastern cluster. Before venturing off into the dust wind barrens, there are wild, dangerous winds that pose a threat to anyone who managed to fly beyond the Eios Reef. A sudden crosswind blowing along the side of a captain's airship is enough to send them into a roll, or force them to land. This has been the end for many crews in the area who fly through, often after taking hull damage from the reef, the beast of Vogchoga or both. The shattered remains of frigates litter the dust-caked lower motes. Airship wrecks crashed and giant depleted deadmotes have become the place where desperate aeronaut scavengers and cast outs live, picking over the remains like crabs over a dead whale.
Deadmote
Mined almost to extinction, this mote’s Irai geode is nearly gone. It hangs precariously in the air, with large clasts regularly crumbling and falling into the hungry sky. The mote itself is barren, composed of gray, lifeless rock. Jagged, shattered pieces of slate shoot upward in a halo of broken clast motes, making the entire island dangerous for airships to land on. The desolate floating island is as hopeless as the aeronauts who are forced down on it. Cursed, blasted, and eager to crumble into dust to join with the barrens below.
Dustwind Barrens
Southeast of the Motes, fierce winds sweep across the Dustwind Barrens, carrying powdered Irai and choking sands as far as the eye can see. Nothing grows in this desolate place. Occasional motes drift overhead, but more often jagged boulders rise from the dunes, fallen islands whose geodes have been cannibalized and mined into nothing, causing them to crash down.
No plant or animal life can endure here. The deeper one ventures into the Barrens, the scarcer life becomes. Eventually, the land seems to cross into something beyond the natural world. The Dustwind Barrens slowly drain life itself, sapping vital energy from anything within their grasp. Beyond a certain point, mortals can survive only through constant healing magic. It is said that something ancient waits at the heart of the
Barrens, though no one has returned to confirm this. At the very edge of the survivable reaches of the Barrens lives an old necromancer once known as Regent Woodrow. He is obsessed with uncovering the secrets hidden beneath the purple dunes, conjuring dead things to venture out into the lifeless zones on doomed expeditions to map and understand why this place is so inhospitable and what secrets lie deeper in.