Alem most Holy, built on the bones of hell. Gate of Reckoning and last bastion between the shielded west and the eastern forces of undead warlord Rathakku. The fortress was erected on and within cursed Mount Attevar — mouth of the netherworld. It connects to a cluster of forges, underground glacier lakes and mines of gold, iron and saltpetre. Looming and proud, Alem has stood alone for generations — but Rathakku will see it fall.
LAY OF A DOOMED LAND
You enter Alem during winter, a year into Rathakku’s siege. The citadel’s drawbridges and tunnels facilitate a critical trade route that serves both war parties. Much of Alem’s provisions are bartered with gold from passing merchants, but greed and resentment over the citadel’s past hubris have sharply risen the exchange rates. Young king Deimar seeks kinder terms.
Claustrophobic, cold and bustling, Alem spreads over three overground levels and two underground ones within the mountains. Deimar has accepted the citadel’s inevitable downfall and is biding time for the population’s slow evacuation through thin, crumbling, labyrinthine passageways. He also waits out the magical rites his sorcerers perform to seal away the netherworld evils of Mount Attevar.
Sleep is cold comfort here, between the incessant uproar of working forges, Rathakku’s battering rams and the howling wind that whips the watch towers. Hunted, exhausted, often starved, the population of Alem is insular, battle-ready and paranoid — an occasionally deadly combination, when strife sparks needlessly. Newcomers are suspected of working for Rathakku or the merchant guilds and hazed with increasingly gruelling tasks to ‘prove themselves.’
LEVELS
OVERGROUND
■ The Watch: 150m above the mountain. Both the string of towers that peer overhead and the topmost level of the citadel. Most vulnerable to aerial attacks and the cold. Find stored arsenal and explosives. Harshest living conditions and perpetual deployment.
■ The Keep: 80m above the mountain. Median overground level, hosting infantry, civilian barracks and Deimar’s court. Seat of interests, intrigue and frequent clashes between those who wish to fight to the death and proponents of the citadel’s surrender.
■ The Crossing: mountain level/ground-zero. The crowded, perpetually lively ground level walked at all hours by merchant caravans. Traders stop to barter or for scrupulous checks of their wares. Rathakku has pledged not to send spies among merchants, but open attacks are fair game. Frequent riots. Envoys and ground troops depart from here.
UNDERGROUND
■ The Wards: 50m within the mountain. The injured, crippled, weak and young gather here. The evacuation convoys are also prepared at this level. Depressed, forlorn, prone to minor hauntings.
■ The Gut’s Bind: 100m within the mountain. More underground womb than structure, a set of corridors leading to active forges and mines, the glacier lakes — or a large Room of Seals, where newcomers are not permitted, but Alem’s most trusted sorcerers toil day and night to (re)inforce the magical wards that keep hell from spewing forth. At times frozen or unbearably hot.
Years of thriving glory have kept Alem’s long gaze off its forsaken roots. Now, its people remember, sealing away fissures into the netherworld to stop the spillage of demonic and deathly presences. Destroying Alem would give Rathakku access to these prime resources. Battle-hardened sorcerers and paladins ran rampant and keep the rites of preserving Alem’s seal a dire secret.
Hauntings are subtle (?), but frequent: blood bursts and seeps down from the snowed mountain, typically after Alem has suffered great losses. The drawbridge chains rattle like bones. You feel watched. At night, you hear raging steps, or dream of a horned demonic creature that hunts you down — only to wake with scratches or gashes on your body. A fatigue sickness can overcome you for several days, inexplicably.
Extend your stay in the underground, and you are exposed to intrusive voices that fill your mind with doubt, stoke your worst instincts, or propel you to anger or betrayal. Self-serving, they prefer to keep you alive.
Elusively, Alem has seen a string of sudden deaths within the citadel, the victims found unmarked — except for a white string bound to their wrists.
Commanding an army of demonic summons and fresh conscripts from his brothers, Rathakku has carried out a patient, symbolic and unyielding war of attrition against Alem. The warlord’s forces surround the citadel each way at the base of Mount Attevar and often climb or infiltrate through growing tunnel fissures in the mountains. Every few days, Rathakku climbs up battering rams against the fortress walls, or sends the gargantuan dead dragon Irenia to rain frost fire down from above.
Periodically, Rathakku carries out the Clawing, forcibly raising the nearby dead or necromancers of Alem in his service. Cruel, cunning and decisive — he yet accepts envoys.
Veteran travellers might recognise some of the magical weapons and talismans of Taravast and Ke-Waihu tributes, now undead, are in the warlord’s use.
ARC V: ALEM
Alem most Holy, built on the bones of hell. Gate of Reckoning and last bastion between the shielded west and the eastern forces of undead warlord Rathakku. The fortress was erected on and within cursed Mount Attevar — mouth of the netherworld. It connects to a cluster of forges, underground glacier lakes and mines of gold, iron and saltpetre. Looming and proud, Alem has stood alone for generations — but Rathakku will see it fall.
LAY OF A DOOMED LAND
You enter Alem during winter, a year into Rathakku’s siege. The citadel’s drawbridges and tunnels facilitate a critical trade route that serves both war parties. Much of Alem’s provisions are bartered with gold from passing merchants, but greed and resentment over the citadel’s past hubris have sharply risen the exchange rates. Young king Deimar seeks kinder terms.
Claustrophobic, cold and bustling, Alem spreads over three overground levels and two underground ones within the mountains. Deimar has accepted the citadel’s inevitable downfall and is biding time for the population’s slow evacuation through thin, crumbling, labyrinthine passageways. He also waits out the magical rites his sorcerers perform to seal away the netherworld evils of Mount Attevar.
Sleep is cold comfort here, between the incessant uproar of working forges, Rathakku’s battering rams and the howling wind that whips the watch towers. Hunted, exhausted, often starved, the population of Alem is insular, battle-ready and paranoid — an occasionally deadly combination, when strife sparks needlessly. Newcomers are suspected of working for Rathakku or the merchant guilds and hazed with increasingly gruelling tasks to ‘prove themselves.’
LEVELS
OVERGROUND
■ The Keep: 80m above the mountain. Median overground level, hosting infantry, civilian barracks and Deimar’s court. Seat of interests, intrigue and frequent clashes between those who wish to fight to the death and proponents of the citadel’s surrender.
■ The Crossing: mountain level/ground-zero. The crowded, perpetually lively ground level walked at all hours by merchant caravans. Traders stop to barter or for scrupulous checks of their wares. Rathakku has pledged not to send spies among merchants, but open attacks are fair game. Frequent riots. Envoys and ground troops depart from here.
UNDERGROUND
■ The Gut’s Bind: 100m within the mountain. More underground womb than structure, a set of corridors leading to active forges and mines, the glacier lakes — or a large Room of Seals, where newcomers are not permitted, but Alem’s most trusted sorcerers toil day and night to (re)inforce the magical wards that keep hell from spewing forth. At times frozen or unbearably hot.
COME HELL OR BLOOD WATER
Years of thriving glory have kept Alem’s long gaze off its forsaken roots. Now, its people remember, sealing away fissures into the netherworld to stop the spillage of demonic and deathly presences. Destroying Alem would give Rathakku access to these prime resources. Battle-hardened sorcerers and paladins ran rampant and keep the rites of preserving Alem’s seal a dire secret.
Hauntings are subtle (?), but frequent: blood bursts and seeps down from the snowed mountain, typically after Alem has suffered great losses. The drawbridge chains rattle like bones. You feel watched. At night, you hear raging steps, or dream of a horned demonic creature that hunts you down — only to wake with scratches or gashes on your body. A fatigue sickness can overcome you for several days, inexplicably.
Extend your stay in the underground, and you are exposed to intrusive voices that fill your mind with doubt, stoke your worst instincts, or propel you to anger or betrayal. Self-serving, they prefer to keep you alive.
Elusively, Alem has seen a string of sudden deaths within the citadel, the victims found unmarked — except for a white string bound to their wrists.
THE LORD WHO WAITS
Commanding an army of demonic summons and fresh conscripts from his brothers, Rathakku has carried out a patient, symbolic and unyielding war of attrition against Alem. The warlord’s forces surround the citadel each way at the base of Mount Attevar and often climb or infiltrate through growing tunnel fissures in the mountains. Every few days, Rathakku climbs up battering rams against the fortress walls, or sends the gargantuan dead dragon Irenia to rain frost fire down from above.
Periodically, Rathakku carries out the Clawing, forcibly raising the nearby dead or necromancers of Alem in his service. Cruel, cunning and decisive — he yet accepts envoys.
Veteran travellers might recognise some of the magical weapons and talismans of Taravast and Ke-Waihu tributes, now undead, are in the warlord’s use.