Magic Places

[David Bofinger]

I thought we could start a thread of strange places, analogous to "Show Me the Magic".

Warty

Warty is a house-sized building of an unknown but hard material. A window at the front will accept a broken object as long as it is accompanied by some kind of paperwork - a child's scrawl in crayon is more than sufficient. Some objects will not be accepted, no one knows why.

The object will then usually be fixed. Wizards say probably by casting Repair, Restore Device and Scour, though a few devices have been fixed even after those failed.

Anyone wishing to pick the item up must have the correct paperwork. Nobody has ever figured out what that looks like. Fortunately it's been found that if you wear a royal blue cap and jacket, and tell Warty, "I am picking up unclaimed items for the charity auction," it will give you whatever it has had for at least fourteen days.

The window is open only for about eight hours during the day, five days a week, and not on certain days presumed to be holy to the gods that made Warty. The window also closes if enough items have been put in. Generally it might repair half a dozen items a day, though it depends on size and complexity and either incomprehensible criteria or randomness.

Warty can defend itself. One of its methods of defence is to turn intruders to stone and spit them out. Locals refer to this petrifaction as "fixing".

There used to be a strange road leading to Warty but it was eaten by stone beetles.

The name derives from letters "Warr--ty" which early drawings show were above the window but all have now been prised off and sold by treasure hunters. A few of the letters in museums may be genuine.

[UberGROG]

Originally Posted by David Bofinger

Warty is a house-sized building of an unknown but hard material.

This is an AWESOME location for my world. Thanks!

[Shostak]

This place borrows heavily from Chris Warden's Hexagram article "Headmasters and the Library of Lives", and from an idea for a kind of magic item shared with me by Timm Meyers. In the campaign I GM set in Myriangia, we spent several sessions exploring it.

The Library of Arjoora
The Library of Arjoora is dismissed by most scholars as mere legend. But, though it does not appear on any map, the place is real. One ancient tome mentions it, stating “The lamps of knowledge are forever lit in the Library of Arjoora.” Or is the proper translation, “The lamps of knowledge live forever …”?

Arjoora is named after the sorceress empress of Gar, whose throne was in the now abandoned city God-King Falls, high in the headwaters of the River Dara which springs from the mighty peaks of the Dragon's Backbone. She constructed her library to be accessible only by gate. Since she was a devotee of Tiamuriat, Goddess of the Moon, some believe that entrances to Arjoora are somehow aligned with moon phases, eclipses, and rise/set points.

Arjoora's chambers are filled with incised clay tablets, scrolls, and books, and even its extensive mosaic that cover its ceilings, floors, and columns are actually didactic pictorial "texts" that communicate various lore, and these are arranged in rooms dedicated to single broad subjects, such as land animals, alchemy, martial arts, etc. One can learn any talent or spell in Arjoora, and in far less time than dictated by normal study. But, in doing so, one runs the risk of forgetting something else. Merely looking at these architectural decorations can cause one to become captivated and obsessed with learning the subject of any given chamber, making it entirely possible that one loses all memories and identity in the pursuit of knowledge.

As amazing as are these magical texts, the real treasure of Arjoora its Hall of Lamps. This features thousands of lamplike cages, each containing the head of a wizard, kept alive only so long as it remains in the cage. Most have gone quite mad over the centuries and millennia. But each was selected for its unique perspective on civilization. A unique alphanumerical code is engraved into a small plate at the base of each "lamp".

Extensive chambers of card catalogues direct users to the various texts and lamps by alphanumerical code and a cypher that yields a password. Anyone with the correct password may speak and learn from to those imprisoned in the Lamps. Again, in doing so, one runs the risk of becoming lost in the quest to learn ever more from Arjoora.

A team of "Lamplighters" tend to Arjoora, collecting new heads to add to the Hall of Lamps and dealing with unauthorized intruders.

Arjoora's exits are intricate sets of moveable interconnecting rings describing arcane magic circles, all set with a myriad of esoteric symbols. A skilled navigator can use these to dial in geographic coordinates to which the exit gate will lead. The precision allowed by these gate controls assists the Lamplighters when they go on missions. But Arjoora's exit is a one-way door; to return, one must find an entrance.

[David Bofinger]

The Falls of Norpax

The Falls of Norpax are known to have existed for eight centuries. Norpax, if he existed at all, lived only three hundred years ago. But any earlier name has been forgotten.

Above the falls the river is normal. But as the water flows over the falls it is changed. The effect on the water fades with time and exposure to the magic in the vicinity of the falls, so the further downstream one collects the water the less magical it is.

Water collected from...

• the falls themselves, before they touch the lake at its foot: causes shape shifting into an animal. Success on 4/IQ allows you to choose which one, otherwise it's random.
• the lake: causes +2d6 to a random attribute, -1d6 to each of the others, for perhaps a day.
• just downstream of the lake: produces a random spell effect (pick a random page close your eyes and stick your finger on it).
• near the bend in the river where it passes by a rock that looks like a skull: acts as simple poison
• just downstream of Skull Rock: acts as a healing potion
• further downstream: acts as Stalwart
• further downstream: acts as Look Your Best
• further downstream: acts as Minor Medicant
• further downstream: has an amusing effect like bubbles coming out of your ears.
• further downstream: tastes like really good water but has no magical effect

The water affects spell casting the same as iron. The use of magic near the water will degrade it, including spells, magic items, gates, the flight of dragons and gargoyles, being scryed, etc.. If not degraded the water lasts a few days, gradually moving lower down the list above. This has revolutionised life within a few days travel of the falls.

Predicting how long the water will take to change is a bit of an art. Orf of Zerrin said he could do it precisely using the colour changes but when he died from ingesting water in poisonous mode his secrets were lost with him.

[Steve Plambeck]

I'm now reminded of the only magical body of water in the old campaign world of the first GM I played under. It was an unnamed underground stream in a lost cavern we never revisited. It revived the dead. The water wasn't portable though, and lost its property as soon as it was removed. My very first character got killed while standing in it -- I never let him get killed again -- LOL!

I know that's pretty lean compared to the beautiful Falls of Norpax! :)