The Recurrence of the Tower

Whether its the Tower of Retribution in Berserk or Kami's Watch Tower in Dragon Ball, The Tower of Babel in Ancient myth or the New Tower of Babel in the film Metropolis, The Dark Tower quoted in King Lear or the Dark Tower in the works of Stephen King; no matter the form of the story, epic tales grow towers like damp houses grow mold.

 

The Leviathan

The Fading Lake and the Drowned City are not deep bodies of water for the most part, but there are deep parts. And in those areas, sink holes and trenches, buried caverns formed of sunken bits of a long past golden; here the Leviathan makes its nest.

Most of the time, the Leviathan is content to remain hidden beneath the waves, feeding upon whatever has left the scars in its mutilated hide. Most of the time. Some of the time, the great giant sea monster explodes up to the surface and devours settlements on the Coast. Like the Behemoth, the Leviathan is singular. There is no more than one to bear the name. Unlike the Behemoth, the Leviathan is predatory, and those sentient beings that it devours it certainly does not devour by accident.

Unlike the Behemoth, there are not structures on the back of Leviathan that the Psychonauts might plunder. But when the Leviathan is active, the ancient underwater tunnels and structures where it normally sleeps are open for exploration by the bold and near suicidal. But psychonauts should be wary. The Leviathan got its scars somewhere.

The Behemoth

The largest Thing to walk upon the Wastelands; the Behemoth is, like the Leviathan and the Sentinel but unlike the Watchers and Trolls and Colossi, singular in existence. Psychonauts who have studied the Behemoth are uncertain whether the behemoth has always been singular or whether the great beast is the last of some monster species.

The Vast majority of the Behemoth's time is spent sleeping in the southern wastes. The Behemoth sleeps so long that dust will cover much of the giant's flanks and scrub grass and tumbleweeds will seed and take root. The Behemoth does not sleep long enough for cities to spring up, but upon each waking Psychonauts have observed a hut or ruined tower or two upon the back of the Giant. Because of their location, the story inevitably places things of great note or merit in these structures and brave Psychonauts will frequently attempt to climb the behemoth and explore the structures.

When the Behemeoth awakens, it feeds. The Behemoth is an omnivore, although seemingly by accident. The great giant lumbers across the landscape and grazing by devouring whole hillsides as it literally bites the tops of hills and mountaintops alike. It can devour whole camps or settlements this way, though most scholars agree that this is almost certainly accidental.

To the Scavenger Folk, the waking time of the Behemoth is a time of dangerous omens and ill portents, not the least of which because the Behemoth could simply decide to sit on a Scavenger Camp without noticing that it had done so.

The Question of the treaty

The tribes and clans of wild folk and the green peoples will nearly all speak of the treaty if question about law by a psychonaut. Any one of these folk or people may give the treaty and the Psychonaut's lack of adherence to it as a reason for not speaking with or assisting the psychonaut. A member of the treaty peoples might explain it briefly if pressed. Such an explanation would likely point out that the wild folk contains both predator and prey and that even those amongst the wild Folk who are prey themselves do in fact prey upon the green peoples. The treaty is the agreement whereby the tribes and clans of green peoples and wild folk might deal honorably with one another while still allowing room for natural predation. A fox will hunt a grouse. A goat will feed upon the bushes of many species. But despite this, through adherence to the treaty, goat folk may trade with fox folk and berry persons. The Psychonauts will naturally wonder; may they sign the treaty? And Yes, they may, if they have passed the initiation and endeared the rites of passage and earned the right to call themselves warriors under the Freepath. And foremost Psychonauts fresh to the foglands, is the primary goal.

A brief Snapshot of the Foglands

The Foglands is an eerie place for new arrivals to experience. The concrete hard sand dunes and broken rocky ground have been desaturated by some earlier tragedy and most of the landscape is the weird monochrome of a 1950s television broadcast. The sky, by contrast is a toxic looking bloody orange by day, and a deeper near opaque orange black at night- marked by a hallowe'en orange moon. The brackish lakes and inland seas are nearly all a rusty orange from the oxidizing metal and salt content of the water. Grey and Orange. Monochrome and and garish contrast. The visuals along are enough to make some new arrivals lose what lunch they brought with them for the incursion.

The Four have a discussion

Into the void a cold tenor voice rang out like, ice field splitting across the horizon, "This is the story of us."

A second, distinctly motherly voice wreathed in an echoing chorus interrupted "And them. Don't forget that."

A third wet voice that seemed to thrum rather than speak add, "She means you, the reader."

"They may be listeners." Added a voice that echoed like a sermon in a sunken cathedral.

"In any event," The first cold voice said, regaining control of the narrative, "This is the story of us, and how our story is your story."

The motherly voice continued, "This is the story of how we made you."

"And how you then returned the favor, " the third voice thrummed.

"And this is the story of paradox of those words is the key to understanding your importance to the story." The Cathedral voice added.

"Because the story is where we live," The motherly voice said.

"And where we will find ourselves once we die," The cold voice concluded.

"And where you find us now." The Cathedral voice added.

"I'm trying to set up the story," The Cold voice objected, "You are ruining the mood."

"I am explaining important information," The cathedral voice insisted.

"You're just going to confuse them," the motherly voice said.

"Then I'm doing my job," The Cathedral voice answered.

"May we get on with this, please?" The Cold voice said.

"Yes," Said the Motherly voice," Our readers may be growing bored."

"Our Listeners." The Cathedral voice.

"Our audience," The Cold Voice said, "And while we waste time, our audience is dying."

Shadows and Artifacts

Objects in the shadowlands are not stable. Things collected in one incursion will not be retained into the next incursion unless they are attuned to the psychonaut's avatar. Things that can be attuned include artifacts, spells, watchtower links, realm keys, sparks and such. Any normal bits and pieces found in the shadowlands will fade upon departure from the shadowlands.