Ultraviolet Grasslands

1. #1- Glossary -
2. #2Abmortal

   Keys: abmortal

   Abmortal: A sentience (sometimes human) that does not die of natural causes. The Porcelain Princes and ultras are among the more common abmortals. Most mortals hate them. A lot.

3. #3Aerolith

   Keys: aerolith

   Aerolith: Stuckforce-infused rock generated from the air itself, usually the after-effect of catastrophic transmutation or portal failures. The rock is actively aerostatic, it is functionally weightless and levitates at a set distance from the ground once moved there. It does remain massive, however, so a long lever is often required.

4. #4Animancy

   Keys: animancy

   Animancy: Soul or spirit magic. Magic using and modifying the animating spark of life, from golems to ba-zombies. Most humans regard it as a horror and abomination, for the simple reason that it re-processes and modified the heart of what it is to be human. Elves infamously have no such compunctions in fairy tales. Modern golems are powered by far weaker sources than pure soul juice.

5. #5Art Florist

   Keys: art florist

   Art Florist: A wizardry discipline, akin to biomancy but focused on plants. Some primitive people might call them druids or bush doctors, but wizards know better.

6. #6Autofac

   Keys: autofac, fac

   Autofac or Fac: An artificial organism or organic machine, sometimes of great size, that generates other organisms without outside control. Created in a forgotten age, perhaps by combining wizards and autonomous vehicles in an unholy union. Sages speculate they were designed to produce useful commodities. Now they are almost all menaces, leaking toxic fumes and liquids, ravaging the land, and producing odd, dangerous, and mostly useless artifacts or oozes. Today associated with vomes. Perhaps the downfall of the Original Folk.

7. #7Autonom

   Keys: autonom

   Autonom: An autonomous, synthetic organism, usually semi-sentient and capable of following simple commands. Like a zombie or skeleton but built from the ground up with biomantic precision. Simpler variants use exoskeletons and the autonom is just a collection of muscular tubes connected to a general-purpose crystal brain.

8. #8Autowagon

   Keys: autowagon

   Autowagon: A golem wagon that can move under its own power. Tough, hardy, often covered in custom spikes, armor, defensive embrasures, firing platforms and other accoutrements, autowagons are among the most impressive forms of transport in the UVG. It can follow simple instructions and navigate across terrain on its own if required. Much like a mule. May also be as mulish.

9. #9Ba, Personality

   Keys: personality, ba

   Ba, Personality: The creative threads of possibility woven into the tapestry of a human. The changeling essence that weaves together a unique individual over time, fired by the spark of soul, and unified in the world through the medium of body. Some cultures believe personalities have afterlives, while others believe their threads wind, unwind, and wind again over time. A few rare sages argue that personalities are unique occurrences that fade away after motivating a single body, but necromancers and vivimancers put the lie to this notion.

10. #10Bardstone

    Keys: bardstone, bardstones

    Bardstone: Stone imbued with the songs of Long Ago. Some say that in a great cataclysm a grumpy deity turned all bards to stone so that she could get some sleep. Obviously, this is nonsense, but bardstones are valuable and can store more than just songs, stones with messages and moving pictures have been found. They are attuned to their fixed locations and moving them destroys their magic. Perhaps it has something to do with the star lines? Who knows.

11. #11Ba-zombie

    Keys: ba-zombie

    Ba-zombie: Reanimated creature, actually closest to a flesh golem, created from an intact soul-stripped body-personality. Using an artificial soul, or souls, it can be maintained indefinitely. This is how many of those ageless wizards, called liches by simpler minds, are crafted. A soul mill is the usual way of creating the suitable body-personality.

12. #12Bone-work

    Keys: bone-work

    Bone-work: Hybrid discipline of necromancy and petromancy. Uses the personality memories of bones combined with livingstone spirits to grow, reshape, and animate bones into new and useful forms. Some intellectuals view it as a lazy dead-end in petromancy.

13. #13Biomancy

    Keys: biomancy

    Biomancy: Wizardry art of sculpting flesh and bone and sinew to create living works. The burdenbeast is the most common example of the art.

14. #14Weapons

    Keys: blade, guns, knife, weapons, gun, sword, weapon

    Ranged weapons found in the UVG: Bow, crossbow, steppelander composite bow, heavy crossbow, scavenger bolter, porcelain prince pistol, violent cat rifle, satrap radiant gun, redland district SMG, vome slagger, ultra blaster, blue god blaster, inquisition squirtgun, voice of death, black city matter disruptor Military melee weapons found in the UVG: whip (burdonbeast leather), scimitar, flail, mace, dagger-axe, battle axe, warhammer, sabre (symbol of chaos), great spear of stabbing, halberd of polearming, cavalry lance, cavalry sabre, great axe, great sword Weird melee weapons found in the UVG: cat claws (gauntlet), neural whip, sabre tooth, ceramic mace, black city blade, chain sword, crystal swordspear, vomish centaur flail, ghost bone axe, forty pound rare metal rod

15. #15Armors

    Keys: armors, armor

    Armors found in the UVG: nomad robes, boiled leather, ballistic linen suit, spiked leather, synthskin light environment suit, cat armor, skinchanger suit, dryland weave, scale shirt, chitin cuirass, iron breastplate, watersuit, spectral combat suit, bone mesh armor, chain mail, porcelain walker suit, splint, plate and ballistic weave, full archaic armor

16. #16Trade goods

    Keys: trade, goods

    Trade goods found in the UVG: Alchemical lubricants, beast egg masses, bone-work, chitin cap, common intoxicants, cosmic scales, dryland coral seeds, gems and jewels, gold, indigo ivories, joy worms, karma dust, last steel, livingstone bricks, marrow-beet, medimagicals, mounts, odd fruits, radiothermal fuel, rainbow silks, rare drugs, replacement bodies, saffron, sanguine porcelains, silver, soul-stones, ultra jay needles, vampire wines, weapons and armors

17. #17Transport

    Keys: caravan, cart, car, wagon, transport

    Various modes of transport can be found in the UVG: Porter, skeleton/zombie porter, pony/mule/camel, proper heroic horse or charger camel, metal steed, adventuring handcart, wicker autowagon, magnificent valblod camel, small wagon, rickety coach, swaying cart, burdenbeast, biomechanical beast, solid coach or wagon, generic vech, porcelain or prismatic walker, massive hauling wagon, autowagon (car), epic floating barge, hover wagon

18. #18Languages

    Keys: languages, language

    Many languages are and were spoken by the many humans of the rainbow lands. Here are just some of them. Those found closest to the Circle Sea and the Violet City are listed first, with the language family or circle in parentheses. Language in the same family or circle are related and somewhat mutually intelligible; weather through contact or descent is not always clear: High Common (rainbow), Vulgar Common (rainbow), Purple Speech (rainbow), Bluenttalk (rainbow), Greenspeak (rainbow), Emerald Common (rainbow), Decapolitical (rainbow), Saffranian (rainbow), Caravanian (rainbow), Oranjetic (rainbow), Free Circle Kriol (rainbow creole), Redland District Cant (rainbow creole), Red Tongue (rainbow), Winerian (dwarven), Volkan (dwarven), Woodlander (elven), Steppe Speeches (steppe, rainbow), Sunsettish (steppe), White Line (steppe), Satrap Canto (steppe?) The dead and weird languages: Black City Alphabet (?), Cat Thought (cat), Deep Dwarven (dwarven), Blue Tongue (isolate), Elven (elven), Moonlander (elven?), Marmotsk (isolate), Umber (steppe), Lingish (lingish), Great Language (lingish?), Trilignic (lingish? steppe?), Vomish (?), White City Pictographic (?), High Ultra (?)

19. #19Factions

    Keys: cat lord, nomads, prince, cat lords, vome, faction, vomes, ultras, ultra, satraps, princes

    Factions to be found in the UVG are: Cat Lords of the Violet City (cats), Humans (rainbowlanders), Porcelain Princes (para humans), Spectrum Satraps (para humans), Steppe Nomads/Steppelanders (humans), Ultras (after-humans), Vomes (violent mechanisms),

20. #20Porcelain Princesselective

    Keys: Porcelain Prince, Porcelain Princes

    The Porcelain Princes are not-quite-liches that seek immortality just like those wizards. They have spread their vital cognitive essence among several bodies linked by real-time glandular psyche-to-psyche links. They are not more intelligent than before, but additional bodies make them more resilient to damage. By periodically adding new bodies, they ensure a mental continuity across the aeons. Obviously, this continuity is flawless and perfect. So they say. Obviously.

21. #21Vomes and Vome Nestsselective

    Keys: Vomish, Vome, Vomes

    Vomes are violent mechanisms, the auto-golem child-monsters of some auto-cannibal faction of the Long Long Ago, soulless mechanoid viruses rewriting and reconstructing organic mechanisms to suit their half-coherent whims. But... are they truly as mad and half-witted as the writings of Zira of Oranje make them out to be in her seminal techno-anthropological work, 'The Demon in the Corner: Beyond Logic and Madness in the Nest of the Machine Mother?'

    Most vomes encountered in the wild belong to a nest. While individual vomes may be highly specialized, for example, vome mothers are machine-flesh hybrids spewing out new vomes, the distributed consciousness of the nest is not usually focused within any one individual vome. So what does the nest 'want'?

22. #22Spectrum Satraps

    Keys: Satraps

    Spectrum Satraps are the 360 original flaming telepaths, who live as entities of like in the crystals and aurorae of the Memorium. They use suits of synthetic skin and golem machinery when they go out into the world. A skinless Satrap is utterly blinding and burns like a small, fiery sun, until they evaporate within about five minutes. Fortunately, new copies can be made quite easily from the crystal bodies.

23. #23Kraals

    Keys: kraal, kraals

    Studding the western banks of the moon river and the steppe beyond to Three Sticks Lake and through the Refracting Trees are countless colorful kraals. The Spectum Satraps claim to have built them, but many are so old and eroded that their true progenitors may never be known. The kraals are rings or ovals of colorful slag extracted from deep layers of Long Long Ago habitation caves, fabricators, and even from dead vomes by the slow action of mutated dryland coral cultivars. They are often used for caravan or nomad encampments, the spiny many-hued walls protecting against marauders, wild beasts, vomes, and worse.

24. #24Marmotfolk

    Keys: marmot, marmotfolk

    Marmotfolk, the humans thus called: Outsiders call these humans the Marmotfolk and a glance explains why. Covered in thick fur, blubbered against the cold and snow and sharp bone, with powerful incisors, they do resemble those plague-bearing rodents. They do not share their names, thoughts, or quiet chittering langue with outsiders, preferring a politely insular and withdrawn existence. Few of them venture far beyond the struts and scarps of the titanic bone formations of the Ribs of the Father. Rare emissaries to their deep chamber villages and vast mushroom and slime farms would say that perhaps they feel they have space enough within their great bone massif.

25. #25- Destinations -
26. #26Violet Cityselective

    Keys: Violet City

    The Violet City is the first destination on our journey. 3% strangeness.

    "Soyez tranquil," murmurs the dead-eyed lady in the voyager's minds. Horned cats creep from hazy alleys and examine their baggage. The citadel looms, eerie and obnoxious, beyond the haze. A black cat nods, the lady steps aside. The townships beckon and the party strides into the stall-strewn streets. The Violet City is a place of trade, luxury, magic and poverty. The thralls of the cat lords keep a veneer of order, barely hiding the feline sneers at the rules of Metropolitan bean counters and inquisitors. Expenses range from 5 dollars a week for tramps and 50 dollars a wekk and beyond for those who want a modicum of respect. Carousing, drugs and eateries cater to the most jaded palates.

    Cats are exalted within the Violet City. Some (or all?) among them are actually cat lords, a different species with little human hands and terrifying telepathic (?) abilities, which they use to control their human thralls. The Violet City humans all disagree, claiming they are the actual masters and the cats are merely pets.

    Weather in the Violet City: The sun rises through a violet haze, slowly, reluctant to give up the shimmering phantoms of predawn to the dusty day. A slat tank drifts from the Circle Sea to the east. The humidity promises storms that rarely come.

    Travel Options in the Violet City: Rest, Exile Camp: 5 Dollars a week to stay in the Bluelander camp growing into a slum. Inside the High Walls, Townships of the Violet City: (safe city, a few hours): administered by the noble cats of the Violet Citadel for the good of the no-good travelers visiting their palace of knowledge, learning and sanctimony. Travel, West, Destination: the Low Road and the High (trail, short journey): both roads are rutted jokes leading eventually to a large junction, the neutral hole at the edge of a sprawling vome territory. Travel, West, Destination: Steppe of the Lime Nomads (steppe, medium length journey): flocks of cat-eared sheep and the odd transplanted Limey Nomad clan make this area of the Ultraviolet Grassland relatively civil. There are no trails and the journey is slow.

27. #27The Low Road and the Highselective

    Keys: Low Road, Low Road and the High, High Road

    The Low Road and the High is a destination along the UVG. 6% strangeness.

    The cratered viaduct on the High Road runs on crumbling pylons of dying dyland coral across the pallid grasses. Beneath the half-passable testament to the follies of the Long-Long-Ago, the Low Road winds, smeared threads of soil and loam and oil and blood ground into a hard surface by the pounding feet, hooves, wheels, and treads of pilgrims, nomads, caravans, and vechs.

    The Low Road and the High Landmarks: Rusted Hand of Victory, Crystal Pylon of Memories Given Away, Potsherd Crown, Motor Agate Outcrop, Sealed Gate,

    Weather on The Low Road and the High: The sun clambers above the eye-watering purple haze around mid morning. Hard gusts of flat-tasting air bring flurries of ash, sour rain, burnt sky.

    Travel Options in The Low Road and the High: Rest, Ruin Camps: Stay in a caravan stop improvised inside a Long Ago building of unclear purpose. Defensible but unsafe. Travel, West, Destination: Porcelain Citadel (safe oasis, short journey): The scrub is pallid, the topsoil covered in drifts of porcelain exoskeletons from a deeper time. Limey Clans of the Green Tangerine, the Yellow Lime and the Verdigris Lemon graze and trade this way in spring and autumn. Travel, North, Destination: Steppe of the Lime Nomads (steppe, short journey): harsh lands, forbidding to travelers, dotted with odd remnants of the 'Best-Forgotten' Ages. Travel, East, Destination: Violet City (road, short journey), Back to the Rainbowlands. The city of cat lords and their drugs.

28. #28Steppe of the Lime Nomadsselective

    Keys: Steppe of the Lime Nomads

    The Steppe of the Lime Nomads is a destination along the UVG. 9% strangeness.

    Odd remnants from the misty period referred to as the 'Best-Forgotten' Ages by the Saffron City's Opiate Priests dot the plain. In spring the Limeys graze west towards the Grass Colossus, returning east to the Circle Rim for winter.

    Steppe of the Lime Nomads Landmarks: Great Biomechanical Baobab, Spring of the Yellow Water, Verdigris Ribs, Cryptich of the Craquelure Queen, Cave Octopus's Garden, The Crill Villages of Ghost and Clan, The City Mountain

    Weather on the Steppe of the Lime Nomads: Every morning the purple haze occludes the sun until early morning. A dull drizzle gets in the eyes and cinnabar ash burns the tongue.

    Travel Options in the Steppe of the Lime Nomads: Rest, Lonely Copse: Stay in the shelter of lonely trees clinging to life in a shallow hollow surrounded by wide steppe. There is water, but not much safety. Travel, West, Destination: The Porcelain Citadel (safe oasis, short journey): The cryptic mega-sculpture is encrusted with the dryland coral homes of the Porcelain princes. A ring of relatively well-maintained Columnar Defense Golems protects this haven of trade. Travel, South, Destination: The High Road and the Low (road, short journey): Crumbling pylons of dryland coral tower above the pitted modern road. Travel, East, Destination: Violet City (road, medium length journey), back to the Rainbowlands. The city of cat lords, drugs, pets, and decadent magic.

29. #29Porcelain Citadelselective

    Keys: Porcelain Citadel

    The Porcelain Citadel is a destination along the road to the west. 12% strangeness.

    The unmarked white surface of the great citadel, uplifted like an imprecation against the fanciful gods, serves as a reminder that not all that has fallen has died. Four robed figures arrayed before the decayed defense golems turn their faceless glazed masks as one. "This stair leads to the High Houses. Only permitted penitents may ascend to serve us there. Stay back, or Pillars of Power remain as potent as in your forgotten Long, Long Ago," they speak in an impeccable chorus of disparate voices.

    Weather in the Porcelain Citadel: Grim violet haze till morning. Lite swirling dust storms, hint of cinnamon on the breeze. Chance of smoke.

    Travel Options from the Porcelain citadel: Rest, Decadent Shell of Civilization: 3 dollars a week for slaves, 100 dollars a week to earn respect from the princes. Travel, North-West, Destination: Trail of Vomish Dreams (trail, short journey) a dangerous journey through the Nomad's luminous winding towards their holy site: The Grass Colossus Travel, South-West, Destination: The Last Serai (trail, short journey), the Porcelain Princes hold, home to the most remote permanent Rainbowlander trading post. The prices as eye-watering as the obscure penal code. Travel, South, Destination: Potsherd crater (prospector trails, short journey), the scrub around the Throne is pallid, topsoil covered in drifts of porcelain exoskeletons from a deeper time. The three Limey Clans of the Green Tangerine, the Yellow Lime and the Verdigris Lemon graze and trade in spring and autumn. Travel, East, Destination: The High Road and the Low (road, short journey), crumbling pylons of dying dryland coral towering above the half-passable modern road. Travel, North-East, Destination: Steppe of the Lime Nomads (steppe, short journey), harsh lands, foreboding to travelers, dotted with odd remnants of the 'Best-Forgotten' Ages.

30. #30Potsherd Craterselective

    Keys: Potsherd Crater

    Potsherd Crater is a destination along the UVG. 15% strangeness.

    Potsherd crater is scrub. Pallid soils of crushed ceramics. Drifts of porcelain exoskeletons crunch and ring underfoot. The autumn and spring rain showers bring sudden blooms of flowers and tubers, covering the pale landscape in a rainbow of colour. The rim rises pale, like fossilized porcelain ribs, from the dusty soil. Remnants of quarries from before the days of the Porcelain Princes lie abandoned to vomish lurchers while the sanguine porcelain prospectors whisper of bat-lion caves in the far rims.

    Weather in Potsherd Crater: Radient haze clouds obscure the sun before morning. Light showers, the smell of garlic and roses. Gleaming skies like razors in flight.

    Landmarks in Potsherd Crater: Waterlogged Quarry, Chromium Dome, Glass House of a Dead Merchant Prince, Mad Autofarm

    Travel in Potsherd Crater: Rest, Crater Hovel: Easy to hide in and quite safe, if you ignore the omnipresent centipedes. Travel, North, Porcelain Citadel (safe oasis, short journey), the citadel rises, a gleaming testament to a civilization older and more decayed than memory. Travel, West, The Last Serai (steppe, medium length journey) the Porcelain Princes hold, home to the most remote permanent Rainbowlander trading post. They read minds there, it is said. Travel, North-East, The High Road and the Low (steppe, medium length journey), crumbling pylons of dying dryland coral tower above the half-passable modern road.

31. #31Trail of Vomish Dreamsselective

    Keys: Trail of Vomish Dreams

    The Trail of Vomish dreams is a Destination along the UVG. 18% Strangeness.

    The grass grows high, sparkling and lush. Rumors say it is watered by sacrifice and an ancient Source Fac. Nomadic Clans come here when grazing fails elsewhere, but cluster in thornstone enclosures close to the trail, driven to cooperation by the deadly machine-infested giant beasts that regularly traverse the steppe.

    Weather on the Trail of Vomish Dreams: A dark mauve glow occludes the sun until late morning. Dry and itchy, with scattered biomech locust swarms.

    Landmarks in Trail of Vomish Dreams: Source Fac Johnny-7, Savage Biomech Tribe, Eerie Pearl, Fallen Iron Obelisk

    Traveling in Trail of Vomish Dreams: Rest, Pit in the Steppe: terrible camp site and quite unsafe Travel, West, Grass Colossus (trail, short journey), the Nomad's holy site, forbidden to strangers in the times of the Doubled Moons. Travel, South-East, Porcelain Citadel (safe oasis, short journey), a gleaming testament to a civilization older than memory.

32. #327. Grass Colossus

    Keys: Grass Colossus

    The Grass Colossus is a destination along the road of the UVG. 21% strangeness.

    Crossing a last purple ridge, the wide vale promises relative respite from the harsh grassland. Trees dot the courses of two rivers and, at their juncture, rise prehistoric ramparts of pitted ceramic with traces of pre-wizard spell-arms on their ancient shellac surface. Inside, on one of two hillocks, looms a great wicker-man of woven grasses, vines, and thorn bushes. Shamens of many clans make their meets here, teach their memory chants, and welcome the Clan Mothers once a year for the festival of the Circle of Grass.

    Weather in the Vale of the Grass Colossus: A dark smudge of radiation stops any light reaching the ground before late morning. Scudding lightning storms intersperse with strong winds and baking heat.

    Celebrations and events at the Colossus: The Colossus Dances, Barbecue by the Colossus, Shaming of the Chiefs, Sky Chariot Battle, A Testing Week, Sacred Rainbow

    Travel in the Wide Watered Land of the Grass Colossus: Rest, Camp With the Nomads: A veritable city of tents. 1 dollar a week for free folk, 10 dollars a week for big folk, 100 dollars a week for a hero. Travel, West, Destination: Long Ridge (trail, short journey), the steppes deepen into a harsh, endless sea of grass. The true UV Grassland. Travel, South-West, Destination: South-Facing Passage (steppe, medium length journey), a rough country, torn by the tracks of prehistoric behemoths. Travel, South, Destination: Death-Facing passage (rough steppe, medium length journey), grim tales warn against the horror of this passage to the Last Serai. Wise travelers would avoid it. Travel, East, Destination: Trail of Vomish Dreams (trail, short journey), a dangerous journey through the lush grass towards the Porcelain Citadel.

33. #338. The Last Serai

    Keys: Last Serai

    The Last Serai is a destination along the road of the UVG. 25% strangeness.

    The hero stamped. Cinnabar dust swirled. Three days out, you sight it. A metallic stepped tower, glinting in the daylight, glowing a ghostly, coppery green by night. Two days out, you smell it. Soft and seductive like cocoa. A day out, you hear it. Drumming out a rythmless, rumbling staccato. Closing in on the tower you see three buildings, like hunched old men, clustered in the lee of a cinder dune. Around the tower a circle of gentle dust floats in a massive static charge. Nothing living grows within that circle. There the Last Serai's grand old harmonic rods draw energy from that magical field, powering the great hold of the Porcelain Princes while selling the excess to the last trading house of the Violet City and the final embassy of the Spectrum Satraps.

    Sectors of the Last Serai: The Harmonium, The Last Trading House, The Final Embassy, The Ignored Tower

    Weather at the Last Serai: Dark clouds build and cover the sky, threatening storms and worse. The light of the sun creeps through the gathering dark after morning, but only in the afternoon does it glint from beneath the ale-dark clouds in the glowering sky.

    Travel in The Last Serai: Rest, Huddled Old Buildings: 4 dollars a week for slaves, 100 dollars a week for respectable rooms with hyper-realistic paintings hung in burnt out vidy-crystals. Travel, West, Destination: Way Stone (trail, short journey), between sudden static storms the sky clears, sighting a clear line to the Way Stone, a crumbling green obelisk visable for a hundred miles. Travel, North-West, Destination: Death-Facing Passage (canyons, medium length journey), rough crags, cinder dunes, and the constant glare of the Face of Death at your back. Leads beyond to the Grass Colossus Travel, North-East, Destination: Porcelain Citadel (trail, short journey), back towards settled lands, the patrolled paths of the Princes. Travel, East, Destination: Potsherd Crater (steppe, medium length journey), the scrub barely covers pallid soil and porcelain ruins

34. #349. The Way Stone Graveyard

    Keys: way stone graveyard, Waystone graveyard, Way Stone

    The Way Stone Graveyard is a destination along the UVG. 28% strangeness.

    Larger by far than the Ignored Tower in the Last Serai, a crumbling verdigris obelisk rises from the bare bedrock, exposed by millennial storms lashing the tired earth. Surrounded by wrinkled iron husks and a veritable graveyard of Long Long Ago machine creatures.

    Possible discoveries by the way stone: Oasis of Mirrors, Column of Dead Beetles, The Tomb of the Dragon Also Rises, The Crystal Flower, The Abbey of the Caretakers, The Cauldron of the Revitalized Divinity, The Mausoleum of the Wire

    Weather at the Way Stone: A constant dry rust storm swirls about the mile-high mass of the obelisk, whipping up cutting winds for three days journey in each direction. Rain is alien to this region and even when the sun drags itself above the dark haze late morning its light remains red and desultory in the metallic air.

    Travel options at the Stone: Rest, Almost Impossible: The constant storm keeps everyone awake. Travel, West, Destination: Fallen Umber (trail, short journey): Keep the Stone at your back and you will reach the dead kingdom of Umber Travel, North-West, Destination: South-Facing Passage (rough steppe, long journey): A Long journey leads to the high steppe of the great passage. Travel, North, Destination: Death-Facing Passage (rough steppe, medium length journey) a broken chaos of rubble mounds and hills that might once have been the halls of giants leads to the grim passage. Don't look south-east at the ignored Tower once you reach it! Travel, East, Destination: The Last Serai (trail, short journey): The safety of the Porcelain princes outpost is near. Copper to your face, verdigris to your back, and you shall reach it.

35. #3510. The Death-Facing Passage

    Keys: , Death-facing

    The Death-Facing Passage is a destination along the UVG. 31% strangeness.

    A sharp, artificial canyon runs through but true North-West towards the Grass Colossus. The rough crags and cinder dunes, lit from behind by the glare of static ghosts (Lo, glowing), are littered with reminders to not turn back: the flickering soul-echoes of travelers seduced by the siren song of the Ignored Tower's Face of Death. Travelers say not every look at the tower from this angle brings death but most prefer not to try. Four or five days along the passage, past a landslide, the Face is mercifully obscured.

    The upland above the canyon is a pandemonium of shattered rock and odd twists of stuckforce coated in millennia of dirt and grime. Sages stroke their beards but cannot agree on the origin of this hellish scape.

    Warning: The Death-Facing Passage is lethal and many travelers journey with great hoods or safety hats so they cannot glance above the horizon and catch sight of the Face of Death.

    Possible discoveries under the Face of Death: Exposed Pueblo, Vault of the Lost Ultras, The Disaster of the Ivory Army

    Weather in the canyons: At night the flickering soul-echoes and static ghosts, (Lo, glowing) set up a constant rumbling roar while the sun only creeps above the ultraviolet wall in morning. Temperatures in the canyon are surprisingly balmy, sometimes even hot.

    Travel options under a grim glare: Rest, In a Dry Cave: The Face of Death glares outside, the static ghosts keep crawling around you, drawn by your life. They demand a sacrifice before leaving you alone. Travel, North, Destination: Grass Colossus (Steppe, short journey), Finally safe from the horrid visage and ghosts, the rugged canyons collapse back into the steppe and end at the Nomad's holy site. Travel, West, Destination: South-Facing Passage (steppe, medium length journey): The desolate badlands give onto the ravaged high steppe of the second passage. Travel, South, Destination: The Way Stone Graveyard (rough steppe, medium length journey): The rubble mounds conceal the Face of Death. A relief. Travel, South-East, Destination: The Last Serai (canyon, very long journey): Only the most desperate fools would try to travel back towards the Last Serai, braving the Face. Why?

36. #3611. The South-Facing Passage

    Keys: South-facing

    The South-Facing Passage is a destination along the UVG. 34% strangeness.

    Rough, high steppe country, torn by the tracks of prehistoric Behemoths, but relatively safe. They journey from the Grass Colossus to the Behemoth Shell will interest every gentle-person naturalist.

    Due west the rounded humps of great cedar-shaded hills rise, but the caravan trails bypass them.

    Weather on the South-Facing Passage: The far western sun only pulls away from the nictitating membrane of the night around late morning. The thin air of the high step whistles and flecks of grit-like snow are not unknown even on summer nights.

    Possible discoveries in the Alpine Meadows of the South-Facing Passage: The Bone Mines of Moy Sollo, The Gentle Mile, Puce House, Wandering Behemoth

    Travel Options at the World's Roof (South-Facing Passage): Rest, A flowery Glen: It is safe, but the nights are cold. Chance of faerie ghosts and snow flurries. Travel, North-West, Destination: Serpent Stone (Steppe medium length journey), the white grass is endless and this stone formation marks a rare waypoint. Travel, North, Destination: Long Ridge (steppe, short journey): That endless sea of grass that is the true UV grassland Travel, North-East, Destination: Grass Colossus (steppe, medium length journey), An easy, if slow trek to the holy site. Travel, East, Destination: Death-Facing Passage (steppe, medium length journey), the rubble canyons do not beckon. Travel, South-East, Destination: Way stone Graveyard (Rough, long journey) torturous paths lead into the rusted waste of the Machine Graveyard Travel, South, Destination: Fallen Umber (steppe, short journey), the dead kingdom of Umber and its brown, tree-lined gullies Travel, South-West, Destination: Behemoth (steppe, medium length journey), the mountain-sized calcite corpse of a the largest behemoth is a known landmark.

37. #3712. Fallen Umber

    Keys: Fallen Umber

    Fallen Umber is a destination along the UVG. 38% strangeness.

    Beyond the Way Stone the steppe continues, flat, tasteless, tone-deaf. The caravan trails have carved a route down to the bedrock and the long-dry gully buttresses of gently crumbling livingstone attest to the long-lost land of Umber, once rich from local deposits of titanic biomatter which supported a thriving chitin-cap agro-industrial aristocracy.

    Weather in Fallen Umber: The weather is unusually mild and calm for the steppes, and though the sun rises from the growing haza late morning, it merely creates a pleasant feeling of decline and fall.

    Possible discoveries in the Umber Lands: Hall of the Umber King, The Azure Garden, Erosion of War, The Stele of the Pierced Blossom, Cerulean Five Oasis

    Cerulean Five is a remote, yet thriving settlement, some days trudge south of Fallen Umber. Dusters, cutters, mercos and merchos rest in the oasis en route to the Plantation of the Porcupines, south of the Plasteel Slag. Dilettantes and aristos often go out of their way just to visit the fabled Sky Well. Places in Cerulean Five Oasis: The Sky Well, The Five Fountains, The Diver, The Habitation Machine, The Machination, The New Market, The Old Market

    Travel options in Fallen Umber: Rest, An abandoned Plantation: Not even ghosts trouble this remote ruin. It seems to eat past and present (May need to sacrifice a childhood memory.) Travel, West, Destination: Behemoth Shell (trail, short journey), tough grasses reclaim the brown land and the calcite husks of behemoths dot the way to the greatest shell of all. Travel, North, Destination: South-facing Passage (steppe, short journey), the brown lands fade imperceptibly into the greyish-green of the high steppe. Travel, East, Destination: Way Stone Graveyard (trail, short journey), the great green obelisk clearly marks the still lands of the Machine Graveyard.

38. #3813. Long Ridge

    Keys: long ridge

    Long Ridge is a destination along the UVG. 41% strangeness.

    On the way to the Serpant's Stone the grasslands fold back and forth on themselves like sinuous serpents undulating under the coating of ash-white grasses waving in the gentle breezes. Little steppe rodents peer into air, great eagles circle overhead, and for once, little trace of the disgusting remnants of the Long Long Ago are seen.

    Weather on the Long Ridge: The sun creeps above the dusty have at morning and the sky is silvery pale in the dry heat of the open steppe. By night it is very cold.

    Possible discoveries on the Long Ridge: Grass Circles, Copper Cairn, The Sky Tower, Fallen Feast Hall, The Schkarp

    Travel Options on the Long Ridge: Rest, A Krumholz Lee: The dwarf pines and larches provide feeble protection,, but a silent camp should survive. Travel, West, Destination: Serpent Stone Marker (steppe, short journey), the endless sea of grass continues, swalling the trails. Travel, East, Destination: Grass Colossus (trail, short journey), the great, grassy holy site of the Lime Nomads Travel, South, Destination: South-facing passage (steppe, short journey), the high steppe rises gently: a dusty dun frontier.

39. #3914. Behemoth Shell

    Keys: Behemoth Shell

    Behemoth Shell is a destination along the UVG. 44% strangeness.

    What were these things? These mountain-sized calcite encrusted creatures that suspended themselves on levitation lenses and drifted and dragged themselves along the surface? Sages speculate demiurges might have used them to sculpt the world, to deiform it closer to some divine ideal.

    Most are gone. The logarithmically multi-spiraled shell of the greatest of their kind slumps here, a lumpy, curling mountain like a cross between a sea urchin and a conch. The Satraps may claim it but, truly, it belongs to the Great Folk who live upon and in it, scurrying like lice within its ageless bulk.

    Weather at the Behemoth Shell: By night the winds are cold but when the sun emerges from the creeping dark late morning, the temperature quickly rises. The harsh steppe clime is ameliorated by the bulk of the Shell, with pine woods and small bone pools providing relief.

    Possible discoveries among the calcite corpses of Behemoth Shell: Crushed Shell, Lurid Pines, Ideal Island

    Travel options at the Behemoth Shell: Rest, Great Folk Village: Excavated from the bone and aerolith of the great hulk, the narrow chambers and corkscrew passages connect to deep ossified arteries and veins within the behemoth. Five dollars per week to set up a safe camp. Travel, North-West, Destination: Moon-Facing Ford (trail, medium length journey), the moon river marks the hard frontier of Spectrum power and all trails converge at the great Ford. Travel, North-East, Destination: South-Facing Passage (steppe, medium length journey), the high steppe rises, a gentle obstacle, and safe. Travel, east, Destination: Fallen Umber (trail, short journey), the dull, brown desolation of that dead kingdom.

40. #4015. Serpent Stone Marker

    Keys: serpent stone

    Serpent Stone Marker is a destination along the UVG. 47% strangeness.

    Beyond the Long Ridge the steppe flattens out and becomes a flat ocean of white grass. From horizon to horizon, the world spreads flat and still. In its depth lies a great stone marker; smooth, rising a foot above the soil, and five hundred paces across. The entire surface shifts in curiously fractal serpent patterns of chocolate and amber. Compasses and guidestons swirl madly, then point themselves towards the stone, helping voyagers in this swirling place. Smaller markers dot the whole steppe, gently eroding and being reclaimed, pointless memorials from the Long Long ago.

    Weather in the white grass steppe of Serpent Stone Marker: The sun rises above the glowing UV haze only at 11:00 and soon becomes a scorching and harsh eye, glowering at travelers. By night the temperature plummets and breath smokes in the dry air.

    Possible discoveries in the white grass ocean of Serpent Stone Marker: Common Marker Stone, Blood Marker, The Eternal Snaking Marker, Pine-Crusted Lophotroche

    Travel options at Serpent Stone Marker: Rest, Camp in the Grass: Utterly exposed, any fires started will be visible for tens of miles. Travel, South-West, Destination: Moon-Facing Ford (steppe, medium length journey), the waving fields of ghostly grass sigh and turn towards the shallows of the great Ford. Travel, East, Destination: Long Ridge (steppe, short journey), the steppe rises imperceptibly towards the east toward the Long Ridge. Travel, South-East, Destination: South-Facing Passage (steppe, medium length journey), a sharper, rougher steppeland crosses many ravines before rising to the gentle South-Facing Passage.

41. #4116. Moon-Facing Ford

    Keys: Moon-facing ford, moon-facing

    Moon-Facing Ford is a destination along the UVG. 50% strangeness.

    The expanse of the steppe seems endless, from north to south the flat land rolls on under the sky dome. The slow stars and the fast glitter, icy and cold, and voyagers from the four corners approach the Moon River with exaggerated care. The great shallows of the Moon-Facing Ford mark the easiest passage between the light grasslands and the dark. Weaker caravans, or those with something to hide, seek other, far deadlier crossings.

    Why Moon-Facing? Because as visitors approach the ford their mouths go slack and their faces rise to gaze upon the Near Moon, suspended incongruously above the plain, half concealed by the curve of the world.

    Weather at the Moon-Facing Ford: The stars continue to spark until 11:30 when finally the sun emerges to glare upon the steppe. Clouds scud and lightning crackles.

    The Pylon Kraal above Moon River: Overgrown dryland coral wreathes the remains of several bridge pylons from Long Long Ago, standing like ominous sentinels in the middle of the Moon River. In the middle, on an ancient deck held up by a basket of stone, is the Pylon Kraal. Home of the Tollmasters, a freely associated Spectrum Satrap vassal corporation, it offers the illusion of freedom and independence to unsavory travelers, aid to pilgrims, sustenance to scholars, beds and medical services to weary voyagers and information to the Satraps.

    Other crossings to discover: The Reliable Ferry, Slathered Shallows, The Olive Jerah, Slow Shrimp Waters, Bug Swamp, Glass Bridge's Ghost

    Travel options at the Moon-Facing Ford: Rest, Fordite Coral Kraal: a colorful kraal of uncertain origin, run by a local semi-nomadic quarter-ling clan proves a safe campground (10 dollars a week) Travel, North-West, Destination: Glass Bridge (steppe, medium length journey), across the Old River at the edge of the cold deep lake covering forgotten cities and magics. Once this was a rich and civilized land. Travel, South-West, Destination: Near Moon (trail, medium length journey), a trail of decaying bitumen-and-ash mix leads to the odd satellite. Travel, North-East, Destination: Serpent Stone Marker (steppe, medium length journey) the white grass full of serpentine spirits beckons. Travel, South-East, Destination: Behemoth Shell (trail, medium length journey), the calcite crumbled flatland, studded with the remains of behemoths.

42. #4217. The Near Moon

    Keys: The Near Moon, Near Moon

    The Near Moon is a destination along the UVG. 53% strangeness.

    Whispers only came to the Violet City of this oddity, a spherical moon come to Earth, suspended less than a bow-shot above the ashen soil of the Grassland. The mile-high sphere, dusty and cratered, mock astounded travelers.

    In the nood-daylight of the Near Moon looms ash-grey, tho colour of a ghost's ghost, but come sunset or if sunrise could pierce the thick haze of the grasslands, it would burn with the colours of a funeral pyre.

    Skyscrapers and towers and stairs of a half-dozen fallen cultures slither out of the dank bogs benearth the Near Moon, peopled by hermits, hardy soldiers, and ka-zombie keeping moon-lings of quaint disposition. They bridge the airy void, coming within a ten-foot of the Near Moon and it's strange gravity.

    A ladder is enough to ascend upon the surface of this orb, and many tourists have.

    Weather at The Near Moon: a blue-glow haze is the only light until noon, when the sun emerges, washed out and colourless, its rays are still fierce and burning. No water falls in the vicinity of the Near Moon, but in the eternal twilight beneath its bulk, dank waters pool and bogs spread.

    Possible discoveries on the ground of The Near Moon: Ash Bubbles, The Cryptic Swallet, The Cantilevered Rim

    The Spectrum Lodge: Ah, the Spectrum Lodge! The finest lodge in all the Grasslands! A pitch-black orb, streaked with yellow and red lichens, but inside, so they say, a marvel, a riot of colour, a vision of spaces that could-have-been had the sky remained unfallen and the mists unrisen.

    Travel options at The Near Moon Rest, Spectrum Lodge: 10 dollars a week in the lichen-streaked orb. Travel, North-West, Destination: The Spectrum Run (trail, short journey), a well-marked trail leads towards the Spectrum Palace and the Ribs of the Father. Travel, North East, Destination: Moon River Ford (moon-haunted trail, medium length journey), the accursed faces of forgotten times glare west and travelers fear to raise their eyes lest those grim visages steal their souls Travel, Up, Destination: Near Moon Surface (stairs and ladders, an hour), tour guides offer secure but over-priced access.

43. #4317.1 Near Moon Surface

    Keys: Near Moon Surface

    The Near Moon Surface is a destination above the UVG. Strangeness 56%

    Tour guides always remind visitors to the Near Moon surface to use tethers and anchors. Though the feeble gravity makes it possible to hop and crawl along, jump too far and the normal gravity of the Ultraviolet grasslands will reassert itself. Small impact craters mark where over-eager tourists have swiftly come down to earth. On the skyward side this danger is reduced, though high jumps still end up with visitors accelerating back into the Near Moon with some force. Sport spear hunters of the odd moon creatures call it the 'skypiercer move' when they use the natural gravity to leap and give their spear thrust an assist.

    The Moon's pitted and cratered ash-grey hulk reveals itself on closer inspection, not dusty, but covered in a carpet of alien astral plant forms. Roots, rhizomal growths, and worms of a dozen shades bind the dust in a tight embrace, despite the feeble pull of the small satellite. Forest lichens cover ridges and rims, while mushroom ferns lock chitin-armored canopies in crater depressions. An entire ecosystem of herbivores and predators subsists upon this 8-square kilometer biome suspended in the air.

    Outlandish creatures of the Near Moon: Rhizome constrictors, flea wolves, leather shingles, exuberant prehensiles, moonbird, ashlar crabs, shade worms, grey forest lichens, rhizomal bulbs, rusticant mushrooms ferns

    Locations on the Near Moon Surface: Field of Worms, Museal Crevasse, Cosmic Guardian Carcass

    But there is a door: On the skyward side of the Moon, known to only very few, reachable by ropes and hooks and scrabbling hands, around the weak gravity well of the suspended rock. Somebody with directions to the door would find it in a day. The door is a puzzle, requiring intense thought, or the sacrifice of a whole ling's worth of blood at the Alter of Open Ways in the pyramid that is the carcass of a Cosmic Guardian. Within a shaft lined with stubs of plasteel grips, rusted-through handles, and age-smoothed steps excavated into the bedrock leads into a new destination: Heart of the Moon

44. #4417.2 Heart of the Moon

    Keys: Heart of the Moon

    Heart of the Moon is a destination inside the Near-Moon. 60% strangeness.

    There is no traditional place within the Near Moon, but there is a series of grand archeological ruins preserved first by the aetherial voids, and later by the radiations given off by the intertwined loci of several webs of stuckforce that meet in the Heart of the Moon, trapping it there like a great ashen fly in the invisible web of a cosmic spider.

    Dust coagulated with sharp-faceted boulders and gravel, intertwined with calcerated rhizomal growths forms the crust of the moon. As one descends deeper, the layers grow older, more complex, thick with stranger alien fossils. Silence and old decay fills these labyrinthine ways.

    Discoveries in the crust at the Heart of the Moon: Warehouse of Sleeping Void Crawlers, Alter of the All-Knowing Idol, Museum of the Highway Star

    The Orifice of the Mantle: Deep within the crust, where all light dies but the temperature rises as the residual nuclear fires at the heart of the Near Moon keep burning, is a series of interconnected halls and chambers thick with chemovorous worms, wiggling anemones, and phophorescent bacterial colonies. The chambers radiate out from a great oriface of slick, fatty flesh arranged over bones of crystal, a gaping mouth into a living layer of the Near Moon. This leads to a new Destination: The Warm Mantle

45. #4517.3 The Warm Mantle

    Keys: Warm Mantle

    The Warm Mantle is a destination inside of the Near Moon. 70% strangeness

    The mantle of the Near Moon is still alive, a hundred meters thick layer of fleshy void organism with crystal endoskeletal planes, pillars, struts, and spines, and exoskeletal plate of nickel-iron compacted by the coagulated dust and boulders of the crust. The massive creature moans and trembles, surviving on the heat from the nuclear fires of the core, tortured by the struckforce lines that thread and shear and trap it. Ruined biomechanical autofacs of much earlier times lodge in its compressed flesh like pearls, while the tunnels of parasitical nuclearlithic tribes carve their way through, constricting and collapsing over time. A sense of dread, claustrophobia, and carnivory gone mad pervades the mantle.

    Discoveries in The Warm Mantle: Wreck of the Dark Aster, Nuclearlithic Hive, Egg Chamber of the Void Creature, Organ of the Stars, Brain Mine

    The Core Bucca: An enormous assemblage of rotating, grinding, tearing crystalline mouth structures arranged like wheels within wheels, plates irising around plates, extending like a proboscis over fifty meters deep into the core, where it ends in abrupt and gory (if fossilized) bisection. A plane of force cut off the creature's mouth parts from the core, but it sent secondary mandibles probing around the edges of the plane and a couple of them found gaps in the stuckforce. They are petrified and ancient airlocks of cycling force have been placed within them. This is the entrance to a new Destination: The Crystal Core

46. #4617.4 The Crystal Core

    Keys: The Crystal Core

    The Crystal Core is a destination within the Near Moon. 80% strangeness.

    Stuckforce is thick within the core, dividing planes and snarling in knots of force that give off sparkling waves of aetherial radiation. The radiation has petrified most of the core, organic or metal, into milky crystal, which gleams with iridescence when light touches it. Sections far from the nexuses retain their alien aesthetic of chrome, red foamy plastic furniture, and polished faux-banded agate panels. Plastic-force composite blast doors divide sections that swing shut automatically with a satisfying click and thunk.

    Discoveries in The Crystal Core: Archives of the Crystal Ship, Perfect Universe Generator, Stowaway's Home, Central Force Weaver, Master Control, Final Countdown

47. #4718. Glass Bridge

    Keys: Glass Bridge

    Glass Bridge is a destination along the UVG. 56% strangeness.

    The High Moon Steppe and the Highe Horse Steppe are sliced asunder one from the other by the deep valley of the Old River, the turbulent outflow from the cold, deep Three Sticks lake. Both steppes are as cold and as cruel as their names suggest, studded with mesas, splinters, boulders, and craters left over from the near cosmic forces that created the Cantilevered Rim

    Past the amalgamated skyscraper of Red Bear Village, the valley bursts open to the astounding sight of Glass Bridge: a cathedral of glass that sparkles in the daylight and phosphoresces in the ultraviolet mornings.

    Weather at the outflow of Glass Bridge: The electrifying haze of the deep UV Grassland eats all visible light before noon and howling gales chase each other across the high steppes. Within the deep valley the air grows thick, heavy with age.

    Points of interest at Glass Bridge: Red Bear Village, Glass Bridge, Old River

    Possible discoveries near Glass Bridge: Blue Gate, Deepest Glass, Gravel River, Ferry Graves, High Horse Steppe, High Moon Crossing, Long Slog, Sparkling Shore, White River

    Travel Options at Glass Bridge: Rest, Red Bear Guest & Servicing Accommodation: free and safe and damp and unsanitary gashes carved out of ancient midden layers. The village also has a serviceable ferry. Travel, Ferry, to Destination: Jade Baobab (Three Sticks Lake, 1 day), 10 dollars per person Travel, Ferry, to Destination: The Gall Grass (Skybridge, 3 days), 25 dollars per person. Travel, North-West, Destination: The Gall Grass (old road, short journey), a wide, high and dry valley home to slow-dreaming grass Travel, South-West, Destination: The Spectrum Run (scruffy trail, medium length journey) a half-forgotten trail, marked with the corpses of Long Ago great vechs lead to the Spectrum Palace and the Ribs of the Father Travel, South-East, Destination: Moon River Ford (wearisome steppe, medium length journey), the open expanse of the High Moon Steppe stretches towards the Moon River, bleak, dull safeish. Travel, North-East, Destination: Three Sticks Lake ((rusted road, short journey), thick with dead ruins, grim trees, and laughing demons.

48. #4819. Three Sticks Lake

    Keys: Three Sticks

    Three Sticks Lake is a destination along the UVG. 59% strangeness.

    Three ragged villages cling to the steep shores of the cold, deep lake, built on layers of older settlements from the Long, Long Ago. Caravans drag themselves around the harsh coastline, while smaller groups cross on the improvised and salvaged ferries of the Stick Folk.

    The lake itself is cold and full of fish, its bed, so it seems, thick with waterlogged vvomes ready to emerge and drag careless bathers into the ultramarine depths. Is there much to add? It is one of the deepest and darkest lakes known to the Steppelanders, a vital source of water and, even if one compromises comfort, respite in the Three Living Villages.

    Weather at the cold, deep Three Sticks Lake: An electric smog obscures half the sky, and the wan sun only emerges to scorch bare skin with invisible rays at 11:45. Gusting storms rush up at a moment's notice in the odd eddies created by the Near Moon and flash floods are a danger.

    Only two villages remain: Jade Baobab Village and Iron Pike Village

    Possible discoveries along the Red River at Three Sticks Lake: Juniper Scrub, Obsidian Knives, Old Isle, Red Grass, Red River, Rusty Bridge

    Possible discoveries of the Cholan Wood at Three Sticks Lake: Cholan Woods, Dead Shore, Grey Glow, Lonely Shore

    Travel Options at Three Sticks Lake: Rest, Jade Baobab Village: 10 dollars a week in a synthetic basket. The village also has a serviceable ferry. Travel, Ferry, Destination: Glass Bridge (Red Bear Village boat, 1 day) 12 dollars per person Travel, Ferry, Destination: The Gall Grass (Skybridge, 2 days) 15 dollars per person Travel, West, Destination: The Gall Grass (old road, short journey), torn mountains and high forests skirt around the edge of Three Sticks Lake, leading to the dry valley of slow-dreaming grass. Travel, South-West, Destination: Glass Bridge (scruffy trail, short journey), the ruins of the Living Villages ancestors give way to the high steppes.

49. #4920. The Gall Grass

    Keys: Gall Grass

    The Gall Grass is a destination along the UVG. 63% strangeness.

    A wide, high, and dry valley, decked in the pungent yellow stalks and interwoven galls of the slow-dreaming distributed sentience of the modified grasses holds sway here. The Gall Grass mind absorbs all moisture here and keeps tha Hair Woods to the south and the Higher Spinewood to the north at bay. Little survives in the Gall Grass, thirst is a constant danger but the mildly empathetic grass mind also keeps most predators at bay.

    Weather in the high, dry valley of The Gall Grass: The haze hides the sky till 12:15 but the air is fresh, bracing, clean, and shockingly dry. Clouds wither as they approach, dessicated by the grass below.

    Possible discoveries in The Gall Grass: Hairwoods, The Higher Spinewoods, Razorwater, Skybridge, Sky River

    Travel in The Gall Grass: Rest, Camp on the Grassy Fringe: if you take care to move regularly, the post-conscious flora makes for a safe camp. Travel, Ferry, Destination: Glass Bridge (Skybridge to Red Bear, 3 days) 30 dollars per person Travel, Ferry, Destination: Three Sticks Lake (Skybridge to Jade Baobab, 2 days) 20 dollars per person. Travel, West, Destination: The Refracting Trees (lost road, short journey), the maddening tree-silicon symbionts of the Refracting Trees guard a Long Ago road to the Spectrum Palace. Travel, South-East, Destination: Glass Bridge (old road, short journey), the Hair Woods collapse into weed and swamp before the ruined road ascends once more to Glass Bridge. A hard journey. Travel, North-East, Destination: Three Sticks Lake (old road, short journey), tortured mountains and desolate cities threatened by water people.

50. #5021. Spectrum Run

    Keys: spectrum run

    Spectrum Run is a destination along the UVG. 66% strangeness.

    Fires of prismatic sentience gone mad light the crystal excrescences that mark old Satrap experiments and settlements. Weather the crystals are successes or failures, the Satraps do not tell. Black gylphs mark the trails of nomads and adventurers from the Circle Sea, while the Satraps follow light shows of bod, avant-garde design through the pancake-flat terrain. A frosting of metallic salts kills the grasses in great rings around the eerily unrusted corpses of grand traveling machines from Long Ago.

    Weather in Spectrum Run: Pitiless and clear, cracking with an electric pressure that causes migraines, the violet haze clears at 12:30 on most days.

    Possible discoveries of the Spectrum Run: Maze of Light, Satrap Outposts, Gemstone Tomb in the Lake of Oil, Crystal Tree and the Decayed City

    Travel Across the Spectrum Run: Rest, Camping under a machine corpse: Moderately difficult to recover any sleep on this alien plain. Travel, North, Destination: The Refracting Trees (open scrub, short journey), the forest of weird silicone-carbon hybrids is no place for decent travelers. Travel, North-West, Destination: Spectrum Palace (glyph trail, medium length journey), dun hills mark the home of the luminescent Satraps. Travel, West, Destination: Cage Run (harsh hills, long journey), a gory mess of broken terrain makes the direct route west very hard. Travel, South-West, Destination: Ribs of the Father (hill trails, medium length journey), the foothills rise into the mountain-sized bone formations of the Ribs. 'ware the marmotfolk. Travel, South-East, Destination: Near Moon (glyph trail, short journey), the heavy rondness of the Near Moon makes the trail hard to miss. Travel, North-East, Destination: Glass Bridge (rough trail, medium length journey), the cold waters of that grand lake would be welcome respite, were it not for the cold vomes infesting it.

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