Place of Interest
Description:
Sophonts Trapped in Hell Inside a Toroidal Cavern
Stand atop one of the dodecagonal pillars of Chay:wonnoj, look above you, and you will find a similar pillar descending from the ceiling like an oddly regular stalactite. A brief glance to either side will show you countless other stalagmite-stalactite pairs throughout this cavern, each one perfectly oriented in the vertical. Look below and you will find a two- to four-story drop to the sienna-colored muck called ket which serves as the lower bounds of this place.
You would be forgiven for thinking the only boundaries keeping you within Chay:wonnoj lay above and below you—a quick glance seems to show stalagmites and stalactites stretching on forever no matter which way you turn. This vast expanse is merely an illusion, however—though your course may be level and your heading straight, you’d only travel a few kilometers before coming back to your starting point. Thus, the name “Chay:wonnoj,” one given to this place by those who are forced to suffer here, a name that means, “Hell of Many Pillars.” Chay:wonnoj is not a place for hope, or helpfulness, or kindness. It is a place of suffering, of surviving, of looking certain death in the eye and spitting in its face.
Welcome.
Pillar-top Villages, Farms, Treasure Hoards and Battlegrounds
The “stalagmites” of Chay:wonnoj measure an acre across on average and stretch anywhere from two to four acres above the floor of the cavern. Made from a pale blue material (ironically, one known to surface-dwellers as “sky blue”) of unknown composition, the pillars are topped by everything from clean sources of water and fertile earth to powerful weapon emplacements and hidden caches of Wonders that can only be opened (safely, anyway) by the clever.
It is upon these squat spires that the inhabitants of Chay:wonnoj hang on—the crafty Leapupons, the ambitious Emptybellies, the twisted Tusked Children—all eternally struggling to survive attacks by one another, as well as the depredations of the bestial sudkets who dwell among the sienna-colored ket below.
Quirks:
Tusks and Trunks, Muck and Malice
Even if the sienna-colored ket didn’t cling like tar and reek of rotten fruit, the hordes of sudket that swarm within it would be reason enough for the Chay:wonnoji to stay atop their pillars. If standing completely upright, a sudket would measure nearly a meter from the tips of its crustacean-like limbs to the leathery hide of its muscular trunk. However, the creatures primarily hunch over as they scuttle around, the better to blend in with the treacly mass of goop which seems to compose their primary diet, building material, and weapon.
This last note is exceedingly important. Ket is unpleasant all on its own, due to its glutinous texture and foul smell, but when sprayed through the trunk of a sudket, its properties change considerably, metamorphosing from a dense sludge to a light foam that slowly sublimates. In and of itself, this transformation isn’t threatening—if sprayed in the face, for example, the Chay:wonnoji would be more concerned about the foam’s opaque nature blinding them to more dangerous threats nearby)—however, as the material sublimates, it reduces the material of the stalagmites to mush. If found quickly enough, it can be washed away with clean water (which neutralizes it completely), but if not, the negative effects are dire.
Foamed ket threatens the structural stability of the pillars the Chay:wonnoji call home. The loss of the stalagmite material may expose whatever internal mechanisms lie within the damaged pillar (those that generate fresh water, for example, or medicine, or useful raw materials), and in extreme cases, pillars have been known to collapse completely, sometimes damaging other ones near enough to strike. Even worse, when a sudket consumes enough of this foamed ket-stalagmite mush, it buds off smaller copies of itself, increasing the size of the swarm, (and the threat posed to all those who dwell atop the spires).
Pillars Linked by Bridges
Several bands of sophonts live in Chay:wonnoj (although it might be more accurate to refer to their condition as “imprisoned within”), loosely assembled in a number of small bands. Each band of Chay:wonnoji has claimed a territory of a few pillars, territories which tend to include a farm or two, a source of water, and an easily defensible position to serve as a stronghold and resting place. Important clans include the Leapupons (who forego bridges entirely in favor of pole-vaulting and lighter-than-air materials), the Emptybellies (who favor using their powerful arsenal to extort other bands for food ), the Fallen (once known as the Gohnakaheen, who now serve as permanently nomadic scouts for the Emptybellies), and the Tusked Children (covered below).
These primary pillars are linked by permanent bridges of whatever materials are easiest to find or farm (such wood, woven wires, floatstone), while the pillars surrounding a band’s territory are connected with defense in mind. Some bridges can be drawn back to safety in an instant, or cut loose, or collapsed, but are still normally safe to travel upon. The portable bridges that Chay:wonnoji scouts use to explore the unclaimed pillars between territories, however, are trusted only by the desperate or the foolhardy.
Expanding foam that shatters after a few minutes, hard light projectors prone to flickering at the worst time, telescoping poles that require exquisite balance to navigate, these are the tools Chay:wonnoji scouts depend on to explore the world that hangs above the muck, and the sane Chay:wonnoji depend on these scouts if they are to survive the machinations of the Tusked Children.
If You Cannot Defeat the Monsters, Become Them
A few generations ago, a band of Chay:wonnoji known as the Gohnakaheen fell when the sudkets managed to demolish a significant portion of the base of a nearby pillar. The pillar crashed into its neighbor, which crashed into the band’s only nearby source of water. The water pillar itself stayed standing, but the water grew poisoned, sickening so many Gohnakaheen that not enough of them were able to wash away the sudket’s foam-spittle, and so more of their pillars fell.
Eventually, the Gohnakaheen looked like they might be able to win the war of attrition after withdrawing all scouts and using weapons normally reserved for all-out war against the other bands, but then another pillar fell, exposing internal mechanisms that released waves of bizarre radiation. This radiation killed a portion of the Gonakaheen outright and drove others to madness. Those who survived with their sanity intact fled to the Emptybellies, where they pledged their skills as scouts in return for shelter from the sudket, and became the Fallen. The Gonakaheen who went mad, however, were transformed by the radiation of the fallen pillar, changing their bodies such that they are able to make use of the ket like the sudket, whom they worship as the epitome of life in Chay:wonnoj.
The Tusked Children, as they call themselves, do not gain sustenance from the ket, but they can extrude it from apertures that grow in their skin like sucking wounds to become stone-like armor or claws or horns. The process is painful, but they revel in that pain now, welcoming it as a sign of their gradual transformation into their revered sudket. The sudkets, for their part, do not seem to sense the Tusked Children as easily as the Emptybellies or the Fallen, (though they will still gore any non-sudket to death at the slightest touch), a change that the Tusked Children interpret as proof of their doctrine’s veracity.
Adventure Hooks:
Condemned to Chay:wonnoj
It seems the PCs have really gotten themselves into a mess this time. After having committed a crime that didn't seem that serious at the time, they've been informed that their sentence consists of transportation to Chay:wonnoj, which—from the simulations shown to the PCs by their jailers—does not seem very pleasant. However, if the PCs can acquire a particular Wonder located somewhere in Chay:wonnoj within 200 hours, their sentences will be commuted to mere banishment from the city.
Each of the PCs is fitted with a web of matte black nanotubing which their captors explain will facilitate their return, as well as ensure their compliance. In regards to the former, the nanotubing will increase strength, agility, and endurance by a noticeable amount, as well as serve as a teleportation beacon once the PCs have located the Wonder. A simple swiping gesture up one limb and down the other, and they'll be instantly teleported home along with the Wonder.
As far as "mission compliance" goes, the nanotubing can also teleport the PCs to a facility known as the Oubliette of Eternal Suffering, a translocation that can be triggered by a number of conditions, including (but not limited to): trying to disable or destroy the nanotubing or suffering enough damage such that one might die (which will be treated as the latter), activating one's beacon without the Wonder, failing to find the Wonder within the 200-hour time limit, attempting to escape Chay:wonnoj. Making things even trickier, the only information given to the PCs about the Wonder which their lives depend on finding is that it "hums constantly, is really shiny, and emits a gallon of sickly-sweet sludge every other minute."
The Little Sudket Who Could (Talk) (Probably)
After taking a ride in what they thought was an interstellar spaceship (but actually turned out to be a malfunctioning transpatial warp node), the exceedingly nauseous PCs find themselves stuck in a creepy cavern full of sludge, unfriendly bands of sophonts, and a bizarre man named Shaminsh. He seems friendly enough—offering the PCs a somewhat bitter brew that nonetheless gets rid of their stomach issues—but has odd horns of muddy stone and silver wire that sprout from what look like sores all over his body.
According to Shaminsh, the wires in his horns allow him to talk to "Sparky," a crippled sudket he claims to have bootstrapped to sapience thanks to the "talking wires" he shoved into a large gash in the disabled creature's head. While Sparky is far more docile than other sudkets the PCs have seen, it's unclear if Shaminsh is telling the truth about the creature's sapience, (especially since Sparky's legs are very clearly missing). Then Shamnish's story gets even wilder.
Sparky apparently loathes the rest of its kind (blaming them for eating its legs), and Sparky's plan for revenge dovetails neatly with a way to help the PCs escape Chay:wonnoj—the annihilation of that which the sudkets require above all things, ket. Sudkets eat it, dwell in it, and use it as camouflage, but most importantly, they need it to reproduce. Without ket, they cannot make foam-spittle; without foam-spittle, they cannot make mush from the stalagmite pillars; and without mush, they cannot bud new sudket. Sparky—Shaminsh tells the PCs—not only knows the source of all ket in Chay:wonnoj, (a Wonder that acts as a wellspring of the foul sludge), but also a way to reverse its function so that it absorbs the ket instead of emitting it. Once all the ket is gone, ancient control panels beneath the muck and mire will be safely accessible once again, and the PCs will be able to escape.
All the PCs will need to do is follow Sparky's directions (given to them through Shaminsh, of course), find the Wonder, and activate it, all while avoiding the sudkets, the Tusked Children, and whatever other hazards Chay:wonnoj can throw their way. What could go wrong?
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