When they arrive at the crossroads, the city is not there. Just endless desert, an ancient road, crumbled gates, and a half-sunk, shattered visage in stone. Everything is covered with a thin sheet of ice and snow. Just beneath the sand, if they go digging, are scores of mananubi skeletons.
Inside the ruins of the city, the divine prohibition against violence is no longer in effect. If the characters have been followed by hostile forces, this is where they will be attacked again.
Encounters within the ruins
The encounter chance is 30% every three hours; if summoning the city, roll every five minutes.
| 01-35 | Weather | 35% |
| 36-55 | Mananubi (2d6) | 20% |
| 56-67 | Salt dragon | 12% |
| 68-79 | Amethyst dragon | 12% |
| 80-90 | Sidewinder | 11% |
| 91-00 | Autumnal swarm | 10% |
For sidewinders and the autumnal swarm, use the Phoenix Highway encounter table.
Encounters within the ruins: Weather
| 01-30 | Sandstorm (d4 hours) | 30% |
| 31-50 | Snowstorm (d6 hours) | 20% |
| 51-70 | Windstorm (d4 hours) | 20% |
| 71-90 | Locusts (large swarm) | 20% |
| 91-95 | Ghosts of a sidewinder city | 5% |
| 96-99 | No sun (d4 hours) | 4% |
| 00 | Ghost of the Isanta Express | 1% |
If the weather roll was made because they are performing a ritual, transform hours into minutes. For ghosts, use the sidewinder Phoenix Highway table. Ghosts are insubstantial cities, hazy, the wind blowing them like mist.
The Ruined City: The river
The river starts at a well trickling out of the center of the city, where the Aureum would be. The trickle is covered over with snow, however, and will need to be searched for or stumbled over. Next to the ancient well, a shattered visage lies, half-sunk in earth, whose frown, and wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command lie hidden under snow and ice.
A place of power and the Pax Urbana
The ruined city is a +2 Place of Power, Order.
Getting into the City
There are two ways of getting into the City: summoning it, or finding a still-existent pathway into it.
Summoning the City
If they summon the City while standing within the gates of the ruined city, they must make an evasion roll or take 2d6 damage.
The Sword of Thracia can summon the City if held by someone with official power (such as a Quaestor…). If they don’t know this, the tablet of war has the story.
A ritual using any of the tablets can also summon it. The more tablets they have, the less they will need to sacrifice and the more quickly they can perform the ritual. If they have more than one tablet, the ritual can require less sacrifice by placing a tablet at each of the four crumbled gates to the ruined city. Of course, until they summon the City, this also means that each tablet is easier to steal. And the tablets want to be stolen… The ritual will take a ninety-five minutes, minus ten minutes for every tablet they display. If they summon the City while standing outside the gates, they will see it appear safely. If they don’t already know a ritual to summon the city, the tablet of the arts and the tablet of faith have that information.
| Tablets | Sacrifices | Time |
| 1 | 4 live sacrifices | 1 hour 25 minutes |
| 2 | 1 life sacrifice | 1 hour 15 minutes |
| 3 | 1 artifact sacrifice | 1 hour 5 minutes |
| 4 | 1 important sacrifice | 55 minutes |
| 5 | 1 internal, mental sacrifice | 45 minutes |
| 6 | 1 body sacrifice (hand, foot, etc.) | 35 minutes |
| 7 | 1 promise of the future | 25 minutes |
| 8 | 1 power sacrifice (holy symbol, staff of power) | 15 minutes |
| 9 | no sacrifice necessary | 5 minutes |
A life sacrifice is the sacrifice of an intelligent creature. A mental sacrifice is the loss of some memory or mental capability.
The temples of the old world
All of the ancient temples were connected. The Temple of Apuiporo, or the Temple of Ishtar in the Lost City of Thracia, both have teleport pads. The pads are currently locked to go to specific places, their control panels broken. However, there may be teleport pads with intact control panels in other ancient temples. And if a character has faith, they can work the teleport pads without needing the control panels: the control panels were later additions to the temple pathways: all it takes is faith and a firm purpose for the faithful to travel from temple to temple via the pads. Faith and a firm purpose can be simulated with a Wisdom roll by the person attempting to control the teleport (prophets need not make a Wisdom roll). The tablet of faith can tell them this, as can Divine Guidance.
Faith, it is said, can move mountains, but few have the faith to admit it. When faced with the power of faith they put strictures on it, they bind it in logic and buttons and levers. And then when the buttons are destroyed they think they have destroyed faith—they have only lost their own. Faith abides, and all of the temples of the old world were connected. They always were, they always will be.
The controls were built when the people lost faith. Rather than restore their faith in their gods, the clergy created a much more egalitarian solution to traveling between cities that made faith unnecessary.
Pathways to the City
It is also possible to enter the City by way of the tree, since the tree leads to all places. They will need someone skilled at navigating the tree, or someone (such as a Prophet) who can talk to the tree by way of something like Divine Guidance or Speak with Plants. The tablet of gardens can also provide a pathway from the tree to the City.
Every major metropolis has pathways leading to the City: Rome, New York, Hamokera, Metropolis at the height of their power and into their decline. There is only ever one major metropolis; in the worlds of Metropolis, New York is a secondary city like Gotham or London.
Within the ruined city, they will not meet any citizens of the City. On the Road, however, they might. Anyone who is native to the City will see the City, and can reenter it. They will be confused by and probably wary of anyone who claims to see just ruins. But a native might be able to be convinced to hold their hands and walk into the City.
Someone who is not native to the City, but who is already in it and walks out of it, can re-enter the City as a native for up to Wisdom hours.
Print the legend
If the characters arrive in the City via the Road, they will be preceded by their legends, as barbarian sages and kings, and this will increase their standing in the city, especially among the working class, such as it still exists within the City. While the legends will be exaggerated, they will be exaggerated only by a little, and the legends will be enough to easily identify the characters.
In the characters’ favor, the legends are only circulated secretly among the workers of the City, the middle class; legends of the outside world have been forbidden by the Regents, and all those who work with the Regents abide by those edicts, though they ignore so many others. Thus, only those who are inclined to assist the characters will initially recognize them by their legends.
If they took a faster route they likely precede their legends.
Related Pages
