City of Eons
Hidden in the depths of the Derefan Desert is the oldest city in the World of Beasts, hidden by the power of a sleeping deity from the ravages of time and man and even beast. It rests in a cavern covered by the great sea of sand, only the subconscious will of the slumbering god keeping it intact.
The City of Eons has two parts aside from the multiple caverns that make up the tunnels wherein the city soldiers train and keep their wits sharp. The Outer City is the City of Eons, a filthy expanse of clustered homes carved from the bedrock itself and built up by the very stone quarried from the cavern. Its inhabitants are minotaur and werebeasts, as wild as their surface brethren and as bloodthirsty as can be expected from a people kept for eons in the earth. They trade with themselves and a shadow-network of were-rats monitors the ebb and flow of currency, keeping it in stable with carefully calculated thefts and seemingly random windfalls for some.
The heavy bronze and iron work of the blacksmith. The lighter brass, copper, and electrum work by the goldsmith. Even the work of the tanner using bullette carapace like thick hide and alchemically treated buer root to toughen the fibrous material to be like leather. All of it used to maintain a working civilization beneath the desert. The will of the sleeping deity manifests and keeps the blood strong of his people, keeping their bloodthirst thick to keep them hungry for more and more power. Such is Eons, beneath the Derefan sandsea. The City boasts three warring factions who keep the populace on their toes at all times. The Guild of the Silent Eye, the thieves and assassins of Eons; the Hall of the Sheathed Sword, the fighter and ranger guild; and the Scales of Gold and Blood, the mercenary hall that straddles the war between Eye and Sword. Warfare often spills into the streets, brief and bloody and decisive. Day to day the loyalty of the mercenaries are bought and sold. Such is Eons, City beneath the Sand.
Within the City of Eons, a walled off core around which the entire City spreads, is a piece of living art known as the Tomb of Aeons. A wall thirty feet high encircles the Tomb, the wall kept clean by the religious and the pious among the werebeasts and minotaur. It can only be accessed through a door in Eons that leads to a temple against this wall, at the back of which is a door into the Tomb. The Tomb is kept miraculously clean, its streets paved with ceramic tiles, each tinted a shade unique to the tile, the street used to make a mural that none by the deity might appreciate for the vision to see the entire Tomb is impossible for mortal eyes. The buildings are also faced with ceramic tile, each a canvas that depicts some event or scene from the time before the City and Tomb sank below the desert, showing some hero's trial or a monumentous battle for the safety of Eons. But none walk the streets, nor live in the homes in the Tomb. It is barren and silent, its vast streets bereft of life. None dare enter from Eons to Aeon, for all who have before have died in a scream so full of anguish it haunts the minds of those who could hear it. And in the cavernous city, all can hear those screams.
Rumors abound of undead servitors who skulk the streets of Aeon watching for the foolish or the irreverent. Rumors persist of a Queen of Eons sitting on a throne in the central temple of the Tomb, ruling her city and people through carefully orchestrated psychic schemes. Still others say she whispers into the ears of the three guild leaders, urging them to their work, keeping her people too focused on their inner war to see her work in their own lives. Whatever the case may be, no one in their right mind enters Aeon without an invitation, and only the elders ever remember seeing an invitation to her audience, and they only in their youth.
Beneath the sands, the army of Eons battles, wars, learns, grows. Beneath the Derefan Desert stirs a force of strength, brutality, finality. Beneath the dunes something works its will in secret. What doom will unfold from this city that only the ancient may remember exists?
The City of Eons has two parts aside from the multiple caverns that make up the tunnels wherein the city soldiers train and keep their wits sharp. The Outer City is the City of Eons, a filthy expanse of clustered homes carved from the bedrock itself and built up by the very stone quarried from the cavern. Its inhabitants are minotaur and werebeasts, as wild as their surface brethren and as bloodthirsty as can be expected from a people kept for eons in the earth. They trade with themselves and a shadow-network of were-rats monitors the ebb and flow of currency, keeping it in stable with carefully calculated thefts and seemingly random windfalls for some.
The heavy bronze and iron work of the blacksmith. The lighter brass, copper, and electrum work by the goldsmith. Even the work of the tanner using bullette carapace like thick hide and alchemically treated buer root to toughen the fibrous material to be like leather. All of it used to maintain a working civilization beneath the desert. The will of the sleeping deity manifests and keeps the blood strong of his people, keeping their bloodthirst thick to keep them hungry for more and more power. Such is Eons, beneath the Derefan sandsea. The City boasts three warring factions who keep the populace on their toes at all times. The Guild of the Silent Eye, the thieves and assassins of Eons; the Hall of the Sheathed Sword, the fighter and ranger guild; and the Scales of Gold and Blood, the mercenary hall that straddles the war between Eye and Sword. Warfare often spills into the streets, brief and bloody and decisive. Day to day the loyalty of the mercenaries are bought and sold. Such is Eons, City beneath the Sand.
Within the City of Eons, a walled off core around which the entire City spreads, is a piece of living art known as the Tomb of Aeons. A wall thirty feet high encircles the Tomb, the wall kept clean by the religious and the pious among the werebeasts and minotaur. It can only be accessed through a door in Eons that leads to a temple against this wall, at the back of which is a door into the Tomb. The Tomb is kept miraculously clean, its streets paved with ceramic tiles, each tinted a shade unique to the tile, the street used to make a mural that none by the deity might appreciate for the vision to see the entire Tomb is impossible for mortal eyes. The buildings are also faced with ceramic tile, each a canvas that depicts some event or scene from the time before the City and Tomb sank below the desert, showing some hero's trial or a monumentous battle for the safety of Eons. But none walk the streets, nor live in the homes in the Tomb. It is barren and silent, its vast streets bereft of life. None dare enter from Eons to Aeon, for all who have before have died in a scream so full of anguish it haunts the minds of those who could hear it. And in the cavernous city, all can hear those screams.
Rumors abound of undead servitors who skulk the streets of Aeon watching for the foolish or the irreverent. Rumors persist of a Queen of Eons sitting on a throne in the central temple of the Tomb, ruling her city and people through carefully orchestrated psychic schemes. Still others say she whispers into the ears of the three guild leaders, urging them to their work, keeping her people too focused on their inner war to see her work in their own lives. Whatever the case may be, no one in their right mind enters Aeon without an invitation, and only the elders ever remember seeing an invitation to her audience, and they only in their youth.
Beneath the sands, the army of Eons battles, wars, learns, grows. Beneath the Derefan Desert stirs a force of strength, brutality, finality. Beneath the dunes something works its will in secret. What doom will unfold from this city that only the ancient may remember exists?