You stand upon a plateau against a mountain. A cold, reeking wind blows intermittently past. Forward, the mountain rises steeply to the stars. Behind you the matte dark abyss looms as high. The rails are rusted, and on this side there are four of them, two to your left and one to your right. They continue into a multiply-arched tunnel straight into the mountainside.
Beside the rails, two dust-covered dark roads enter the mountain tunnel beneath their own arches. There’s a sign next to one of the roads, and you can recognize the bright reflections of a crossroads sign in your (flickering/steady) light. It marks 49. Above that road another, larger sign hangs from the top of the tunnel, but it’s faded and you can’t read it.
This mountain isn’t as tall as the snow-covered passage, but it’s a lot steeper. That mountain was a trap. This one is a barrier. Crossing the mountain by climbing it is nearly impossible and very dangerous, and will take a long time. This is a craggy, steep mountain. Its peaks rise far beyond the clouds in the sky. Should they do so, however, and succeed, it will be a glorious journey. The mountain rises another 8,000 or so feet into the clouds. They’re already at about 10,000 feet. It is night, and it is always night on this side. For about two hours the skies lighten a little, most of the stars fade, and only four or five are visible, but that’s it for daytime. It is always dark. There are stunted bushes on the side of the mountain.
The creatures of the abyss crawl flopping and clawing and buzzing and flapping into the world. Their claw marks can be seen over the edge of the cliff from when they clawed their way out of the chasm, birthing themselves into nightmare beyond the magic lights of the abandoned rusty rails.
The other option is to follow the tunnel. There is no train here, and the tracks are flaked with rust. There are yellow-white bubbles scattered throughout the tunnel that were once lamps, but the tunnel is now pitch-dark as often as it is lit. Creatures scuttle around in the rocks and crevasses. The tracks cross several more limitless chasms throughout its route, and the trestles creak and sway when weight is upon them.
The High Road continues into the mountain, beside the tracks. It is filled with strange carriages driven by dead men. Some are in their carriages, some out of them, but none appear wounded. The sign above the tunnel reads (in the Latin variant of the Road):
Milliaria Augustus Maianus
Mansio Solis: 51 mp
Prata Phoenix: 133 mp
ad octocentum quinti nonum lapidem
This milestone was erected in the reign of Augustus Maianus. The initials “mp” stand for “millem passuum”, literally a thousand paces. It’s just a little less than a Highland (English) mile. Mansio Solis is the Station of the Sun. A mansio is a waystation, usually in the wilderness or outlying lands. Phoenix Prata is Phoenix Meadows, or Red Meadows. The bottom line is literally “859th milestone from”. It’s a measure of how far they are from the city. The world has changed, however; those numbers are now too small.
The Station of the Sun: Creatures
| 01-16 | Earthquake | 16% |
| 17-24 | Spiders, giant (d12) | 8% |
| 25-32 | Bats, giant (d12) | 8% |
| 33-39 | Toads, killer (d6) | 7% |
| 40-45 | Leech, giant (1d20) | 6% |
| 46-51 | Crazy crabs (d40) | 6% |
| 52-56 | Snakes, large (d4) | 5% |
| 57-61 | Creeping Slime | 5% |
| 62-65 | Orcs | 4% |
| 66-69 | Ogres (d3) | 4% |
| 70-72 | Trolls (d6) | 3% |
| 73-75 | Manticore (d4) | 3% |
| 76-78 | Wyvern (d4) | 3% |
| 79-81 | Goblins (d12) | 3% |
| 82-83 | Beaked sweepers (d3) | 2% |
| 84-85 | Grey-hooked bat (d20) | 2% |
| 86-87 | Gryphon (d4) | 2% |
| 88-89 | Kamekkipialo (d12) | 2% |
| 90-91 | Carrion worms (d8) | 2% |
| 92-93 | Fire spider (d10) | 2% |
| 94 | Mushroom walker (d10) | 1% |
| 95 | Wraiths (d3) | 1% |
| 96 | Spinerett (d8) | 1% |
| 97 | Tentamort (d3) | 1% |
| 98 | Snake, giant (1) | 1% |
| 99 | Ketelekrae (d4) | 1% |
| 00 | Headless men (d20) | 1% |
Creeping Slime
| 01-48 | Green Slime | 48% |
| 49-75 | Red Slime: | 27% |
| 76-93 | Steaming Slime: | 18% |
| 94-00 | Orange Slime: | 7% |
Earthquakes
| 01-40 | The ground shakes and rolls | 40% |
| 41-65 | Rocks fall (d12 damage) | 25% |
| 66-80 | The ground opens (d20 feet) | 15% |
| 81-90 | Lava seeps upwards | 10% |
| 91-00 | Steam explosion (d20 damage) | 10% |
Earthquake victims can make Evasion rolls to avoid damage.
Encounter chances
Goblins are never abyssal. If characters hang out next to the openings between levels, the encounter period is halved to six hours, and the encounter chance is increased by 10%.
The Long Tunnel
The tunnel is utterly dark. A warm, slightly moist air wafts almost imperceptibly out of it. It is silent.
A slight breeze runs east to west throughout these caverns, but it’s only able to be felt at small holes such as the shifts between levels. The tunnel is warm and humid. Throughout the long tunnel, it is an even 72 degrees once they get half a mile in. Once they get ten miles in, the air becomes moist, and brightly-colored fungi and moss grow on the walls, sometimes glowing in the eternal night.
From the opening by the abyss to the Station of the Sun is fifty-seven miles. There are four tracks, and two three-lane paved roads each beneath their own arched ceiling. The ceilings were tiled, and some of the tiles remain. Where the cavern has returned, the floor, walls, and ceilings are a smooth, grayish-brown stone. After about two miles, where the man-made tunnels remain, there are magic lights within the tunnels, curving in the arc of the ceiling and shedding a calm blue glow about every 100 yards. They’ll first see the light about a mile into the tunnel. Many of the wonders in the tunnel, such as the lights, will detect for divine presence.
The rails are cracked where the ground has shifted in earthquakes. Sometimes, black rock has flowed over the tracks and hardened. Eventually, the tunnel has collapsed; only a slight warm breeze lets them know that there’s a way out. What happens in the deep night of the steam-train tunnel? That’s up to you. Something personal. Something old. Something dangerous.
The Long Tunnel: Camps
There are alcoves and small side caverns throughout the long tunnel. Most of the alcoves are currently unused but most also show signs of past use. If there are any random encounters, these are fine places to put them.
The Long Tunnel: Firearms
Firearms will work within the area around the old Station of the Sun.
The creatures of the caves
Most things in the caves have no idea there is any other life.
“Why do you live in the caves?”
“Why do we live? What else would we do? Do you expect to kill us with philosophy?”
“But why here in the caves? Why not beyond the caves in the outside?”
“How can we live beyond the world?”
There is no pax urbana within the caves. The lava is tainted by the abyss, and has for the most part destroyed the essence of the road.
The end of the road
About fifty miles in, the flickering lights are off more than they’re on, and they eventually die.
The road is cracked and the rails twisted; they disappear beneath a grey rock in many places, and slowly disappear completely. The lights flicker on and off. Eventually, they die. The tunnel remains wide and tall, but it begins to curve more often, and sometimes you see cracks and walls where it looks like half of the tunnel has shifted ten or more yards right or left.
Seven miles later they reach the bridge to the station of the sun.
Finally, you arrive at an area where the tunnel breaks and thins, and then opens into a wide cavern. Twisted rails and cracked road cross a deep chasm. The rails and the road extend over the chasm, but break and twist apart at places midway across. Only one rail looks like it’s still going all the way across. What looks like rope ties the broken pieces of the railway’s meshwork metal walls together. It looks about as safe as a twine bridge. The road was once held up by great stone pillars, but the pillars are cracked, and some of them have fallen away. The other road does not cross the chasm at all.
The chasm’s sheer sides go down hundreds of yards at least. The air at the edge of the chasm is stuffy and hot, and there is a dull orange glow at the bottom.
There are two tunnels on the other side of the chasm, and a pile of pale debris blocking the left tunnel.
The left tunnel is the road; the right tunnel is the rail.
The chasm is fifty yards across and 500 yards deep, and there are three lava rivers at the bottom ten to twenty feet across. Lava will cause 2d6 damage per round if someone is pushed or falls into it.
The remaining rail is probably the safest way to cross, though it doesn’t look it. As they approach the places that are tied together with rope (a very nice, strong, bright yellow rope), the whole thing swings widely back and forth. Crossing will require an agility roll at +10.
The roadway won’t swing, but it is completely fallen through in places. There are three places that will need to be jumped or somehow crossed at seven yards, twelve yards, and seventeen yards; the open part of the road is two, five, and three yards across respectively.
Across the bridge is the Station of the Sun, a long-abandoned waystation on Highway 49. It’s a great place for a classic dungeon. We used Karl Merris’s The Fell Pass, from The Dragon 32, modified as noted in my blog. One of our members went through the original Fell Pass, and we went through a modified one long ago. If you have a copy, Fabrica Solis can be used as the power level underneath the Station of the Sun.
The Waterfall
On the other end of the Station of the Sun, the tunnel opens behind a waterfall from a river whose course has changed in the last thousand or so years. The water has rusted and torn away both the tracks and the road. It is a sheer five hundred foot drop to the swamps below. Climbing down is a difficult task even here, but the remaining structure of the bridge makes it easier to climb.
The mountain
At 18,000 feet, the mountaintop is visible for 175 miles, well into the jungle. Of course, inside the jungle, nothing outside the jungle is visible unless they climb to the tops of the trees. At 200 feet tall, the mountain is visible from 200 miles away if watching from the tops of the trees.
The scrub pine
The road is not as big on this side. Eight yards wide, it winds down through pine-covered hills for twenty miles until it reaches the plain. The altitude drops from 9,500 feet to normal in that time, for a grade of 9%. Movement along the road here is very easy despite the huge cracks in the road and the debris occasionally strewn along it. The road cuts through hills, with occasional short bridges over ravines, and is mostly intact. The rails run elsewhere and might as well not exist. Movement along the rails is normal, not perfect (double) as on the road.
Higher on the mountain are hill giants (12-16 feet tall) and mountain giants (16-24 feet tall). As they approach the meadow at the end of the foothills, they’ll be stalked by a jaguar. See The Yellow Forest, next. Otherwise, encounters occur here at 30% every twelve hours.
| 01-49 | Roll on the Station of the Sun | 49% |
| 50-68 | Goats (d12) | 19% |
| 89-94 | Hill giants (d8) | 6% |
| 69-73 | Jaguar (from another territory) | 5% |
| 74-78 | Saurians (d12) | 5% |
| 79-83 | Giant spiders (d8) | 5% |
| 84-88 | Earthquake (see Station of the Sun table) | 5% |
| 95-97 | Mountain giants (d3) | 3% |
| 98-99 | Crazy crabs | 2% |
| 00 | Rain (1=light, 6=thunderstorm, d6 hours | 1% |
The river fed by the waterfall cuts southeast for about 1,700 miles to an ocean seven hundred miles to the south. There is no intelligent habitation to the south, but a hundred miles north there’s a small civilization, Kish, that still worships Ishtar and the City. The people of Kish speak a dialect of the Ancient tongue (Latin), and write using a Sumerian-like cuneiform.
In the Yellow Forest, just north of the road, the Saurians of Angwamin live as they have for thousands of years. They speak their own language, but some know “the language of the road”, which is to say, a dialect of the Ancient tongue.
If you need any new player characters after the Station of the Sun, these two cultures are a good place to pull them from. Of course, just about anybody could be on the road.
Besides the pines, the forested hills contain the occasional hardy fern, mushrooms (edible and hallucinogenic), lichens, wintergreen shrubs, juniper shrubs, club moss, and blackberry shrubs. The latter flower in the spring and summer, and provide berries in the late summer and autumn.
Firearms do not work in the foothills.
