Rob

So, Narbohring is coming along pretty well. It's up to 42 pages, and I'm guessing it'll hit 50-60 by the time it's done. Basically it's an encyclopedia of different places, showcasing some names and magic items. It's Sarpagal, but with a few additions and a name change because 'Sarpagal' ripped off Might and Magic's 'Sorpigal'.

Here are two example entries:

Longiron Road: The Longiron is the ruined remains of a prototype railroad that ran between Bludszech, Thenzor Deep, and ruined citadels in the north. Originally known as the Kray-Gauntre Rail-Line, it was built by House Kray for moving ores out of the rich deposits down to the smeltering operations in Bludszech and the Deep, and traveling across the Ered Wastes to Szondarch. The Rail-Line was in partial operation, but with the Fall of Irendor and constant raids from Andukar goblin- and giant-kin, the whole operation was dropped. Much of the Longiron Road remains though- parts have been picked clean and overgrown with wildlife, but sections of railroad are intact in places, as are abandoned rail carts and engines.

Near the border between Armech and the Ered Wastes is a ruined station-stop and switching point once called Brennoch. Brennoch is now a miniature ghost-town, just a few empty buildings, including a loading crane for moving crates from cars on one line to another. Brennoch is home to a crazed Ordog (a Lesser Devil with animal shape-shifting abilities) that believes itself to be a Duuran druid named Renald Ossiter. Additionally, one of the intact cranes has been taken over by a Spirit-of-the-Land, a malicious animistic possessive spirit (treat as a Lesser Golem, per the 6^th circle spell) that will attack newcomers with two supply hooks attached to movable winches. Ossiter may warn or aid friendly-seeming strangers, join with the spirit-of-the-land, or simply watch and laugh. Notably, the section of track from Brennoch into the Wastes might still be workable for several leagues, with some clever engineering.

Some sections of the Longiron are in fact still in use, such as a stretch not far from Brennoch, between the bordertown of Tzalborg and a set of ice caves called Lhondoss. Tzalborg is one of a few small independent city-states that eke out survival just beyond the patrolled borders of Armech (although there is some friction between the border militias and these encampments). Tzalborg is set within the crumbling walls of an old stone citadel. The line is operated by three orcs calling themselves the Tzalborg Engine, and runs through a tunnel into the Wastes, to the oasis village of Sunday. Another section of the line goes underground, usually not in operation, runs along an underground stream and ends deeper in the mountains at a series of ice caves called Lhondoss, not far from Venoshua. The presence of ice and crystals makes this an attractive site for some of Tzalborg’s braver sorts, but most of Lhondoss is sealed by Duuran wards (including an Oread Ice Nymph named Laana), as this was once an watchpost of the Vox Duur against the suspected evils of Venoshua.

Venoshua is not part of Armech proper, but is found in the northeastern reaches of the Valstach mountains. Venoshua is a citadel of ice, built into an extensive series of caverns and tunnels within the mountain, and was one of the first strongholds of the Church of Winter after they left the Vox Duur. It remains a small Breyanic enclave, under the Abbot of Venoshua, an enormously fat frog-like T’suggha demon, and his companion, Sister Betca. Betca was formerly a Knight of Aguierre, now turned to the Church.

and:

Thenzor Deep: Thenzor Deep, the third city of Armech, is a massive underground city and mining complex, dating from the earliest days of Irendor. Thenzor Deep has long been controlled by two Great Houses, Zouthan and Maxinay, and their descendents continue to plot against each other in modern Armech. Thenzor Deep is on the shores of Lake Thorass, called the Lake of Spires for the tall natural rock formations, and is extremely murky and deep. Just outside the huge cliff-side cave opening is a village and warehouse complex called Thenzor. Most citizens live underground though; ‘Deep’ refers not to the depths of the lake, but the depths of the mines and caverns below. Generations have lived in the caverns below, and members of some of Thenzor’s long-standing families look a bit different- slightly larger heads and eyes, and skin tones tinged with gray or pale blue.

The first three underlevels comprise the city itself, a sprawling, almost unmappable place full of grime, corruption, and ancient goods and money. In the center of the first main level is a tall clocktower that serves to regulate light-dark cycles in the city through magical means. Next door is the Deep’s most popular inn, also called The Clocktower, a sprawling multi-leveled establishment. Just about anyone or anything can be found in Thenzor Deep, for trade, sale, or other means of procurement. The rest of the main underlevels- ten in total- are sealed off by the Houses for mining and exploration purposes. While dark things can be found beneath, the Houses try to tightly control who comes and goes from their mines. One large shaft, the Elevator, descends all the way to the bottom, but this is guarded by an army of House soldiers. Other, smaller elevators and passageways connect various levels, some on the maps and some hidden.

The Guild of Optics is one of the more unusual organizations to get their start in Thenzor Deep. The ‘Guild’ is an international collection of tradesmen, nominally interested in optical supplies- lenscrafting, mirror construction, and fine metalwork. The Opticians pursue a number of scientific interests, in physics, materials, astronomy, perception, anatomy, physiology, and psychology. However, the tradework done is mainly a front for the magical investigations and mystical beliefs of the Opticians. The Guild focuses on necromancy, infernalism, and divination. This reflects the interests of the current Guildmaster, Edrac Reeves, who as a younger man, tried to make himself immortal through strange magic. He succeeded, and now as an old man, falling apart and thoroughly disenchanted with immortality, he has members of the Guild searching across Narbohring to find some way to allow him to die.

These interests of the Guild have led them towards the cult of Breyana, although the Guild itself is strictly nonreligious, and thus the Opticians have been violently attacked by the Vox Duur and the Ixians in times past. The Guild is also on bad terms with other groups doing similar kinds of research, i.e., the Bone Trade and College of Names. For these and other reasons, members of the Guild tend to be extremely paranoid about being discovered as magicians. Membership to the Guild of Optics is quite exclusive, usually by invitation only to magicians of the highest intelligence and with similar philosophical outlooks. Once a Guildsman, though, members enjoy a number of privileges, including access to the Guild’s extensive library of magical and scientific research: members gain a +1 bonus to skill checks for arcane or knowledge skills. Additionally, a few members of the Guild who are practitioners of Hermetic magic have worked out an elaborate acupuncture-based system for spell memorization, in order to forego the use of spellbooks (which would invariably reveal them as casters to their enemies). Guildsmen indoctrinated into this system of meditation- and pain-based spell storage can spend one skill point per spell to encode that spell permanently within their body (spell casting and daily memorization, though, remains the same- this simply allows the Guildsman to not need a spellbook for that spell). It takes one day per circle to encode a spell in this fashion, and a Guildsman can have as many spells encoded in their body up to their Endurance score.

Level Five of the Deep contains a mining facility using undead workers. Referred to only as Level 5B, the Lich Vox Ebeneezer (10^th skill level) oversees not only the mining operations but also the acquisition of new workers, using corpses obtained from the Slavers Guild or other more nefarious means. Vox Ebeneezer’s operation is strictly financial.

Found in Level Seven of Thenzor Deep is a large crystal-filled cavern, Maerswinter. The crystals of Maerswinter are resonant in the range of humanoid voices, and thus they produce otherworldly sounds when loud speech or singing is nearby. Maerswinter once housed a lavish theatre in the First Era, but the theatre has not been used since the lower levels of Thenzor were sealed to the public. A side-chamber in Maerswinter was later used by the Duurans as a means of entry and exit to the depths of Thenzor: when the correct piece of music is sung in front of a certain sheet of crystal, a portal opens to part of the Ether which appears as a small quaint cottage floating in the void. Access to other parts of Narbohring have since been sealed, but other portals within the cottage lead to two bizarre pocket dimensions, the Age of Glass and the Age of Bronze, beyond which lies the Crypt of Petrarch, the greatest of the Duuran hierophants who is now a somewhat bored and deranged Lich. The Age of Glass seems to be a small village in the mountains, bathed in the violet light of an enormous sun and two radiant moons. Weapons and crafts of magical glass can be found here, as can a small garden which Petrarch infrequently comes to tend. The Age of Bronze is a ruined forge and workshop, full of rusted implements and half-built constructs. Keys and information found in both Ages can penetrate the Void to reach Petrarch’s tomb, an unreal and lush garden.

Within Level Eight is Ulung Village, built around the cavern-wall crypts of the Tzoultentomb. Ulung is the site of the Cult of Gayla, led by Brother Iivians, Brother Odd, and Sister Jennifer. As opposed to most other religious sects, in which Resurrection is taboo, heretical, or the means of last resort, members of the Cult of Gayla are ritually murdered and are entombed in the Tzoulten, only to be resurrected 100 years later. In this way do they come to know god.

House Maxinay controls the very bottom, the tenth level, which hides the remains of Narbohring’s first organized group of Hermetic magicians, a pedantic sect of the Cult of Winter who called themselves the Tavash Morn (the “Children of the Word”). This is a large temple complex, now referred to as the Zoran Academy, and contains a sealed Gate to the realm of the Arcanos, legendary wolf-headed demons who first taught the Duurans the secrets of Hermetic magic. The Academy is past a complex maze of unmapped caverns, the Honeycomb Labyrinth. The Gate is sealed by three ancient Duuran gemstones, the Keys of Zoran, now lost across Narbohring. Members of the Vox Duur who know about Zoran and the Keys consider it a prime objective to keep the Tavash Morn from finding these stones and returning them to Thenzor Deep. The Gate was originally created and sealed by the Order of Nhull, a splinter group of the Tavash Morn consisting of proto-Ixian sorcerers, opposed to the infernal means and ends of the Tavash. The Order took their name from ‘nhull’, the rune of anti-magic. Both the Tavash Morn and the Order of Nhull have long since disappeared; however, some of the Breyanic cultists have now returned to Zoran and taken this name again, headed by Master Virgil and Sister Ghislaine.

Arcanodaemons, usually called Arcanos (both the singular and in plural), are the most powerful of Narbohring’s demons. They generally appear as eight-foot tall wolf-headed humanoids, dressed in long red robes, clutching a massive tome shackled to their wrist. It is believed that they are six in number, and are the mortal embodiments of the Six Princes of Breyana. Trapped in the Lower Planes, sealed away by the Order of Nhull, only the whispers of the Arcanos have crossed to Narbohring. In the earliest days of Duuran recorded history, it was the Arcanos who contacted the Vox Duur and taught them the mysteries of Hermetic magic using their own language. The Arcanos are not necessarily malicious, but seek to return to Narbohring, which was their original home. While the Zoran Gate is their main means of permanently returning, three times in the past an Arcanos was summoned to Narbohring, only to be quickly imprisoned or banished.

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Lots more where that came from. I'm slowing down on the number of new groups like the Guild of Optics, but having fun adding some of Mark's monsters and magic items here and there.

Will post the first full draft when it's ready, for proofreading, editing, and creative advice. All suggestions welcome.