” We met with moonlight in Hatthevar Like children, we chased in the bazaar Your cheek so pale, no flush could mar Your mother wept you’d died at war. ”
All roads lead to death and Hatthevar — a citadel like a crossroads of labyrinths, passageways and bazaars, surrounded by formidable fortress walls. Half folktale, half gelid wasteland, the citadel survived at the largesse of rich patrons who chased oracles to materialise their ambitions and necromancers to retrieve their beloveds.
There is little industry in Hatthevar and less cohesive rule: governed by clusters of magical castes and underground groups, the citadel thrives off trade in supernatural artefacts and favours, divination and boons. Coin is often unnecessary — exchanges of favours or memories can suffice. Covenants are king, and pledges are often blood-bound. It is forbidden to ask a name that is not volunteered or seek out a hooded face that does not reveal itself first.
Less than a year ago, Hatthevar was freely travelled by the living: now, spirits and the revived dead make the lion’s share of the citadel’s roaming population, drifting aimlessly in silent, eerie peace across the streets. Some beg aid as they search for their memories, or learn how to live again in flesh forms; others, crafty, resume the vicious passions that governed their existence, preying on innocent onlookers to satisfy their cruelty, vanity, greed, lust or bloodthirst. More still, too long dead, have fallen into apathy and crowd in gambling dens, chasing easy thrills. Silvered fox spirits saunter in packs, oft interceding to remove newcomers from harm’s way.
Here and there, you might see spirits wearing gilded shackle-chains and attending storm-eyed merchants who coaxed them off the streets with promised to give back their memories after a few years of service. The spirits who foolishly offered out their true names to devious necromancer-slavers face a worse fate, trapped in eternal service.
Tepid rain drip-drip-drips on Hatthevar at all hours, turning bloody for fifteen minutes at sunset. It lingers in your footsteps, if you’ve ever claimed a life. You cannot buy an umbrella: you must always receive it from a local, in exchange for a boon — a bow, a boon, a kiss, a tale — and return it by nightfall. Stay more than 20 minutes in the rain, and you begin to slowly lose your appetite, energy and enthusiasm, only for them to return once you have dried.
Few residential homes survive within Hatthevar: many, rain-trodden, have been repurposed as homes for spirits and the convalescing revived. Some serve as taverns and inns for exorbitant prices. Someone always watches through holes in the wall.
Following the arrival of undead creator Matthias, the living may enter the citadel for one hour after sunrise. The dead — those who were killed, revived, practise necromancy or are otherwise death-touched — may come freely. The rest will need to consume potions that absorb their shadows and partly mute their powers to pass for dead and gain passage. They must never reveal themselves as living and should create false identities — including death stories.
Sprawling, rowdy, incessantly cluttered: the bazaars reunite the dead and the living, strange or exotic magical artefacts, sales of curses and curse-breaking, necromancy and healing. In the crowds, amid desperate sale pitches and artistic performances, you might encounter the droves of newly revived dead, brought in from all corners of Akhuras — and beyond.
THE GAMBLING DENS
Twelve lavish, repurposed teahouses, strewn on each side of the river Liu — foremost is the gilded Sanctuary. Constantly busy, loud and frequented by both patrons of the games — bone dice, cards, riddles, demonic chicken races — and courtesans, dancers and performers. Opiates, cloying incense and eccentric food abound. Freshly revived spirits risk their few remaining memories, their supernatural powers, years of servitude or even their new lives. Each night, the passcode to enter a gambling den changes and must be coaxed from shady gamblers in the bazaars.
THE WHISPERING HOUSES
Long removed from human existence, spirits now pay handsomely for any scraps of memories that can connect them to mortal life. In the Whispering Houses of northern Hatthevar, some memory sellers even offer the opportunity to repackage one of your existing memories as incense that you may burn in the company of someone else you’d like to experience it.
Not all memory trade is kind: beware dark alleys where shy urchins beg your help to light their lanterns, only to capture threads of your memories are you are inexplicably unable to look away from moths dancing in the lamp. Recover your recollections by breaking the lantern before it’s sold off in a shady shop.
Wish makers charge steep prices to materialise wishes, break curses or improve your fortune. People are sometimes sold as good luck charms.
THE ORACLE HALL
One the main attraction of Hatthevar, the temple of the Oracle asks supplicants to walk up its 10,000 steps with a lit candle that incoming ravens try to put out. Spirits begging succour attempt distractions. Stop or gutter your candle and you must start again. Reach the topmost dais of the temple, and you must wait until sunset on your knees while increasingly intensifying phantom pains assail you — before the Oracle receives you.
THE WASTELANDS
Descended from the wastelands, three key areas surround Hatthevar: half-sunken, knotted ships that house a decayed flooded temple, a deserted underpass home to scorpions and the so-called path-of-blood walked by holy pilgrims and shadows.
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ARC VIII / FINALE: HATTHEVAR
Image source.
” We met with moonlight in Hatthevar
Like children, we chased in the bazaar
Your cheek so pale, no flush could mar
Your mother wept you’d died at war. ”
All roads lead to death and Hatthevar — a citadel like a crossroads of labyrinths, passageways and bazaars, surrounded by formidable fortress walls. Half folktale, half gelid wasteland, the citadel survived at the largesse of rich patrons who chased oracles to materialise their ambitions and necromancers to retrieve their beloveds.
There is little industry in Hatthevar and less cohesive rule: governed by clusters of magical castes and underground groups, the citadel thrives off trade in supernatural artefacts and favours, divination and boons. Coin is often unnecessary — exchanges of favours or memories can suffice. Covenants are king, and pledges are often blood-bound. It is forbidden to ask a name that is not volunteered or seek out a hooded face that does not reveal itself first.
Less than a year ago, Hatthevar was freely travelled by the living: now, spirits and the revived dead make the lion’s share of the citadel’s roaming population, drifting aimlessly in silent, eerie peace across the streets. Some beg aid as they search for their memories, or learn how to live again in flesh forms; others, crafty, resume the vicious passions that governed their existence, preying on innocent onlookers to satisfy their cruelty, vanity, greed, lust or bloodthirst. More still, too long dead, have fallen into apathy and crowd in gambling dens, chasing easy thrills. Silvered fox spirits saunter in packs, oft interceding to remove newcomers from harm’s way.
Here and there, you might see spirits wearing gilded shackle-chains and attending storm-eyed merchants who coaxed them off the streets with promised to give back their memories after a few years of service. The spirits who foolishly offered out their true names to devious necromancer-slavers face a worse fate, trapped in eternal service.
Tepid rain drip-drip-drips on Hatthevar at all hours, turning bloody for fifteen minutes at sunset. It lingers in your footsteps, if you’ve ever claimed a life. You cannot buy an umbrella: you must always receive it from a local, in exchange for a boon — a bow, a boon, a kiss, a tale — and return it by nightfall. Stay more than 20 minutes in the rain, and you begin to slowly lose your appetite, energy and enthusiasm, only for them to return once you have dried.
Few residential homes survive within Hatthevar: many, rain-trodden, have been repurposed as homes for spirits and the convalescing revived. Some serve as taverns and inns for exorbitant prices. Someone always watches through holes in the wall.
Following the arrival of undead creator Matthias, the living may enter the citadel for one hour after sunrise. The dead — those who were killed, revived, practise necromancy or are otherwise death-touched — may come freely. The rest will need to consume potions that absorb their shadows and partly mute their powers to pass for dead and gain passage. They must never reveal themselves as living and should create false identities — including death stories.
Image source.
THE BAZAARS
Sprawling, rowdy, incessantly cluttered: the bazaars reunite the dead and the living, strange or exotic magical artefacts, sales of curses and curse-breaking, necromancy and healing. In the crowds, amid desperate sale pitches and artistic performances, you might encounter the droves of newly revived dead, brought in from all corners of Akhuras — and beyond.
THE GAMBLING DENS
Twelve lavish, repurposed teahouses, strewn on each side of the river Liu — foremost is the gilded Sanctuary. Constantly busy, loud and frequented by both patrons of the games — bone dice, cards, riddles, demonic chicken races — and courtesans, dancers and performers. Opiates, cloying incense and eccentric food abound. Freshly revived spirits risk their few remaining memories, their supernatural powers, years of servitude or even their new lives. Each night, the passcode to enter a gambling den changes and must be coaxed from shady gamblers in the bazaars.
THE WHISPERING HOUSES
Long removed from human existence, spirits now pay handsomely for any scraps of memories that can connect them to mortal life. In the Whispering Houses of northern Hatthevar, some memory sellers even offer the opportunity to repackage one of your existing memories as incense that you may burn in the company of someone else you’d like to experience it.
Not all memory trade is kind: beware dark alleys where shy urchins beg your help to light their lanterns, only to capture threads of your memories are you are inexplicably unable to look away from moths dancing in the lamp. Recover your recollections by breaking the lantern before it’s sold off in a shady shop.
Wish makers charge steep prices to materialise wishes, break curses or improve your fortune. People are sometimes sold as good luck charms.
THE ORACLE HALL
One the main attraction of Hatthevar, the temple of the Oracle asks supplicants to walk up its 10,000 steps with a lit candle that incoming ravens try to put out. Spirits begging succour attempt distractions. Stop or gutter your candle and you must start again. Reach the topmost dais of the temple, and you must wait until sunset on your knees while increasingly intensifying phantom pains assail you — before the Oracle receives you.
THE WASTELANDS
Descended from the wastelands, three key areas surround Hatthevar: half-sunken, knotted ships that house a decayed flooded temple, a deserted underpass home to scorpions and the so-called path-of-blood walked by holy pilgrims and shadows.