Edited by Cassey Toi
The begining
Treasures once filled even the beggar’s satchels, the towers of the least nobles reaching heights of a hundred feet or more, a red light district like none the world had ever seen, dens of vice filled with all sorts of vile and decadent pleasures, temples to gods long forgotten gilded in diamond plucked from trees of platinum, all this and more could be found in the City of Spires in central Shayakand. When the empire fell, and the endless hordes of raiders, pirates and poverty stricken from without the city came to the splendors, the saw for themselves an opportunity. Riches beyond imagining lay before them, and history thousands of years in the making lay at their fingertips. The rarest artifacts fell first. The royal seals, the genie king bottles, the diamond seeds of the platinum trees. In a matter of months the City of Spires was stripped bare, from its most secure vaults to its last drops of crystal clear water, everything disappeared, some ending up on the other side of the planet or on other planes entirely. For two hundred years, the Spires have stood, slowly crumbling beneath the weight of age.
However, one thing remains in the city, and draws power to it still. Unknown to even the most thorough of the looters, and even the last emperor himself, was that the gods always watched over the City of Spires. The instant it fell, an avatar of five gods manifested in the catacombs beneath the royal palace. They waited out the ransacking of the city and then walked its ruined streets, lay in its torn beds and searched the vaults for something to remember the glory by. Four gods found something that only they could connect to, took it into themselves, and departed back to the heavens. The fifth, who was not a full god merely a demideity, had no ability to create avatars, and so was there in all his power. When he found something to take with him, something from deep within the earth, the very essence of the city and the planet, struck out at him. It was as though the corruption wrought in those months finally found an outlet in this young god. Wracked with divine, horrid agony, this unfortunate entity fell into a state of eternal torpor, a gaping hole in his chest that oozed strange, indescribable liquid.
For two hundred years this god, caught between life and death, called the mad, cruel and sick to the City of Spires. Only the most depraved and twisted can hear the call, and so some of the first to come were rakshasas, aboleths and powerful demons, devils and aberrations without name. With the god’s body entombed behind walls of enchanted, indestructible adamantine doors, the new denizens of the City of Spires have found their own ways to harness the powers of the corruption of the land, city and god. Their efforts drew many, lesser evils to the ruins, and now a ecosystem exists, hidden from the outside world by the machinations of those in control. Until one of the denizens finds a way to the god, none plan to make a move. Of course, it’s just a matter of when.
Chattel District
The largest and dirtiest district of the City, made up of what was once the market, residential and beggar districts, the area is home to the various lesser aberrations, demons and devils that swear fealty, are slave to, or are bound to, the powerful leaders of the four factions. From chokers and assassin vines, bearded devils and dretches, lemures and quasits, imps and doppelgangers, the inhabitants live in squalor, the streets and buildings covered in two inch thick slime from the years of waste and torture and murder. The actual living quarters of the city vary in look and furnishing, catering to the various temperaments and desires of those residing in them.
For the devils, almost all of the various houses, shacks and lean-tos have their walls covered in paper, shackles and various implements of torture. Of the aboleths, their servitors in the pit of the Chattel District do not walk its streets or crawl beneath them. Instead, their servants are, in fact, their larvae, maturing slowly on the waste, blood and entrails of outsiders, other aberrations and the lingering despair of the lost people of the city.
The demons, on the other hand, have no real reason to make anything of their homes, and so fill them with whatever they wish. Among the demons and unknown to them is the shadow demon called Xirix. A being of extreme conflictions; his body is made of pure darkness but, contains a single mote of the first star to light the sky above Shayakand, Xirix serves the will of both the Abyss and Heaven at the same time. Thoroughly insane, Xirix currently works to subtly and constantly shift the balance of power from one faction to another, keeping the entire city in a state of constant chaos, but safeguarding the god’s corpse from desecration and exploitation. The only beings who know of its existence are the aboleth masters, but even with their supreme intellect, they can neither predict nor impede Xirix’s movements, and this fact infuriates them to no end.
Lastly, the rakshasa pashas, who reside in the spires of the royal palace where the Emperor lived his last days, hear reports from the various aberrations that infest the sewer system and the dark streets not even the demons or devils enter. These hordes chafe at their pride, however, and so the pashas count the whispers of the wickedest members of the former city populace as their allies. Not ghosts in any sense of the word, the whispers are more impressions, emotional runoff and secret wishes left behind not by death, but by the empire’s fall itself. Tapping into these reservoirs of strange energy through a means provided by their allies in the unknown planes, the rakshasa understand the city and its energy better than any save perhaps the whispers themselves. Because of this, they are the closest to finding the god’s corpse, yet progress has slowed. Something stands in their way, a thing of light and shadow, the very same being that stymies the aboleth and pits the demons and devils against not only each other but the rest of the city. Xirix does its work well.
Center of Conflict
Perhaps the most dangerous place in all of Shayakand, it is in this once glorious courtyard of the Grand Palace, that the open battles for territory, power, status, magic and souls take place. Demon blood, devil’s bile, the nameless fluids of the aberration all co-mingle here and are funneled, via the city’s complex sewer system as modified by the aboleth, into the Chattel District. For twenty years, the fighting has continued at all hours. The entire area is deemed the only place where fighting can occur by all of the major factions. In a rare show of co-operation, the nalfeshnee and ice devil lords agreed to forbid conflict anywhere else in the city. The rakshasas were not at all fond of the idea, but with fewer numbers and plots both groups could easily undo with force, they acquiesced and quietly await the day they find the corpse.
For the aboleth’s part, the whole mess is merely a tool for the advancement of their children’s growth. They have noticed, however, that the force hampering their progress does not deign to enter the Center, or the area within a thousand feet of it. Therefore, they are slowly shifting the centers of their plans to that area. To that end, several double agents among the ranks of the demons and devils that oversee the ongoing battle work for the aboleth and their own faction. On the demon side, several crystals of Abyssal ice are placed at key points in the courtyard, collecting energy the demons do not understand and the aboleth wish to keep secret. The devils draft contracts in concentrated aboleth blood and circulate them throughout the ranks of devils that both live in the area and have stakes in the fighting.
The rakshasas look down from their spires in the palace in disgust at the constant bloodshed while sipping cups of finely distilled Sanguine Ecstacy. They have knowledge of the double agents and know the general location of roughly one third of the strange crystals. They have copies of several dozen aboleth blooded contracts which they’ve tried, unsuccessfully so far, to decode and exploit. They too have noticed Xirix’s, for they know its name, lack of motion in this place. While they find it curious, their plans take place on a much subtler, more subterranean scale. The catacombs beneath the city swarm with the whispers, and as the rakshasas learn more of the deep vaults, the closer they come to their, goal.
Xirix is, of course, not inactive in the Center. Far from it. This is perhaps its favorite place to “play” as it calls it. It was Xirix who provided the rakshasa with their intel, not the whispers, though it would thank that strange phenomenon if it could or felt a need to. Traversing the line between law and chaos and blending in “more than perfectly,” as the aboleth would call it if they knew, Xirix gathers little trinkets from each of the factions and scatters them around the entirety of the Old Empire, from one side of the peninsula to the other. More importantly, Xirix has, hidden and locked away the collected knowledge, or the majority of it, of every faction combined. If any of the warring parties found Xirix and somehow extracted that information, that group would find the god within months, rather than decades. Flitting between loyalties, moralities and motivations by the day, sometimes the hour, Xirix remains, and shall remain, at large for a long while yet.
Hell’s Bastion
Dominated by a river of molten steel tempered with the blood of the damned, what was once administrative district now resesmbles nothing of the kind. The gates of the noble’s quarter, masked by impossible illusion, show Asmodeus himself spewing forth the river of crimson slag. All around this horrid testament to the power and will of Hell dance the mindless hordes of lemures that feed on the infernal metal, growing slowly into whatever their Lord wishes of them.
Where the river ends, a spire of supercooled lead rises, transformed from mithril while retaining the toughness. At the peak of the spire the eyes of the gelugon master of Hell’s hordes gaze out over the city, directing the movements of its lieutenants through telepathy and carefully worded trigger phrases. A cleric of Hell itself rather than any of the archdukes, the ice devil wants for nothing in its chilly demense, but can feel the power of the god-corpse surging through the ground and into the metal. A crystal culled from the Mines of Mammon acts as an indirect connection to the divine energies emanated from the corpse, but can divulge neither the keys to its prison nor the exact location of the vault.
Infesting the tower and spilling onto the fields of tempered steel that were once homes of the wealthy merchants not quite rich enough to live in the noble’s quarter. Barabzus and erinyes patrol the ground and the sky. Hell’s archers collect the wrath that still hangs in the air around the failed nobles’ former homes. Hamatulas prowl the rifts in the earth carved by the reshaping of the spire, searching for and secreting away the hidden clues to and of the god-corpse.
However, perhaps the most important task the devils undertake as they take part in their dual role of power acquisition and divine energy collection is the simplest. They want to continue the expansion of a virtually undetectable sphere of infernal energy, to cover the entire city, and, should all go well, the whole of Shayakand. Unfortunately, every other faction besides the demons know about the sphere. The rakshasa, through the whispers, knew of it first. The aboleth know the most, but either do not understand the intention or care enough to do anything. If the demons know, it is only their nalfeshnee leader who has any idea what it may or may not portend. Regardless, they seem little concerned, and the eternal bloodbath that occurs in their part of the city continues unabated. Xirix haunts them in the shadows of the lead tower and the darkest corners of the ice devil’s living quarters, smiling inwardly as the infernal pawn struggles against a chain it can never break.
Chaos Uncontrolled
At the center of the sluice, which feeds and dilutes into the Chattel District, is a simple mound, several dozen feet high, made of bones, disappointing demon servants and whatever else she feels like: the throne of Izirales, nalfeshnee vassal to the Lord of the Unknown. She makes few decrees to her servants, talking instead to groups divided by general ability and power. To them is a single task, to be carried out in whatever way they feel fit. Izir, as she calls herself, is in perfect tune with the pure chaos of the demon and knows that despite what her underlings do, ultimately, serve her purposes. Her agreement with the ice devil (whose name she wishes he would say, only so that she could defame it), is a direct order from the Lord and it chafes at her pride with every second that passes. The strict limitations the devil set down were approved before she read them, and her only solace is her master’s portfolio: the unknown.
The slums and waste pits of the City were the least of its splendors, yet there were beautiful things here to. Sinkholes for sewage blocked by obsidian stoppers and material waste incinerated into a fine violet mist. Now, those places spew forth untold repulsiveness. The sewers serve up both failed aboleth experiments for the demons to feast on and the worst the city has to offer. The demons use it as “bathwater.” The material waste is now just that: “wasted” pieces of the material, plucked away by demons, toyed with and cast aside. It molders and stinks, bending the air around it just enough to be revolting.
Because the demons do as they “wish,” they do not seem to have any overarching goals to drive their activities. Izir knows otherwise, as she wants nothing more than to spread the indescribable chaos of the Abyss across the entire world and into the space beyond it. That she cannot accomplish this alone or with the help of “her” servants she doesn’t know, but the aboleth are keenly aware of it and the contract with the ice devil clearly states as such. Xirix still feels the faintest attachment to the demons and so dances with his shadow demon cousins until they just begin to see him. Then he vanishes, seemingly without having done anything.
Caverns of the Unknowable
When they named their current base of operations, the aboleth were unaware their future neighbors would a) be demons and b) be servants to the Lord of the Unknown. Despite this, their pride and innate knowledge of “we were here first” keeps them from changing the name of the cave system. Besides its name, no one has any good idea of what the inner workings of their home looks like. Ostensibly, it simply is a large cave system with a huge central chamber, wherein a gigantic sphere of water, opaque enough to be almost a solid mass surrounded by strange apparatus that modern scientific and magical knowledge cannot begin to fathom. Whether this is actually what the caves look like, or indeed if they are even caves, is unknown to the demons, devils and rakshasa equally. None of them have the means to decode the infinitely complex equations that make up whatever it is that is happening down beneath the city streets. Yet the aboleth have the ability to connect to each and every section of the city through the sewers, and, barring their own connection to the whispers, they have ways of gathering information from anywhere and everywhere within the walls of the City of Spires.
Most importantly of all, not even Xirix can penetrate their barriers. He doesn’t have to. They move just slow enough for him to do everything he needs to do.
Palace of Masters
If anywhere is fit for the rulers of a city to reside, it is in the Palace of Masters. Every creature that resides in the city, even without bowing to them, gives credit to the rakshasa clan of fifteen members, all female. Their fortress of pleasures and splendor encompasses the nobles quarter and the once ruined former royal palace. After they arrived, only a year and a half after the aboleth, the fifteen, each more powerful than an average pit fiend, balor or aboleth master, set to work expanding the palace walls to the walls of the nobles quarter, making the palace the size of an entire district. Once completed, they populated their home with a variety of creatures from strange planes between the larger spheres. Jungle worlds with octopus plants, ocean worlds of freezing steam and fiery worlds of constant stellar wind are but three of the exotic locales from which the palace inhabitants come. The wonders that make up the inside of the castle defy description, as they are as varied as the creatures that dwell within.
The tallest spire in the City of Spires is the seat of power for the rakshasa and also the housing for the strange material that allows them contact with the whispers and their connections among the spaces between. It is from here that they guide the aberrations that serve them towards two goals: the god-corpse and a secret that only the rakshasa could keep. The fifteen rule as an oligarchy and make no decisions as individuals. Should any of them do so, the agreement set down on their creation as rakshasa is null and void, and the entire group would cease to exist. This natural connection lets them hear the whispers as though one were hearing it, and so they have full command of the information at all times. To their chagrin, the whispers knows next to nothing about the god-corpse, and what information it gathers is spotty and inconsistent. The wards on the vault of Shayakand are strong.
Xirix has no dealings within the palace. It’s reasoning is that there is simply nothing there for it.
Adventures Amongst the Spires
For low level adventurers:
The abundance of low power monsters that inhabit the City and their predations in the surrounding lands could lead to rescue missions to the Chattel District, retrieval of an imp’s binding contract for a friend or important NPC, the slaughter of a dretch horde massing near one of the gates. Stealth missions are truly the order of the day here, as the creatures in control may not have time to check everything that comes into their territory. However, escaping the City of Spires is just as much an adventure, for any overt action will draw the attention of the powerful in the city. Outsiders are not tolerated and exiting will be a danger beyond anything before it.
For mid-level adventurers:
Things become much more active once characters reach mid level. They have a name for themselves, their entry, or, if they’ve done something really exemplary, proximity to the city is almost immediately noticed. However, few in the city would directly oppose them at first. Curiosity is more prevalent than open hostility. Missions into the city could be minor assassination, bartering, trading, even. There could be diplomatic missions if they are not with demons, or with demons if the characters are good enough. The PCs are still too weak for an all out assault on the city.
For high-level adventurers:
If they are so inclined, the PCs could, go on a quest to undermine the power structure of the entire city. They could raise an army to topple it. They could make “peace” among the leaders of the four factions or call a complete cease-fire. At the ultimate level, the PCs could delve into the vault of the god-corpse and do as they wished with it. The possibilities are endless.
