January 17th, 2008: Lately I've been re-reading Sean Reynold's The Scarlet Brotherhood. It has never been a highly acclaimed sourcebook by fandom, but now after nearly a decade I think it's worth a second look for some juicy mysterious locations to develop. One such spot that has grabbed me is this place on the Tilvanot Peninsula:
The Ziggurat of Black
This strange place appears to be a tower of stacked black-metal disks, each five feet high and smaller than the one below it. 75 feet across at the base and 40 feet tall, it is surrounded by an odd-time inverting effect- within a 100-foot-diameter hemisphere of the tower, it is the opposite time of day as the land beyond the hemisphere. In other words, if it is late afternoon outside the hemisphere, near the Ziggurat it is approaching dawn. Also, the sun and moon are switched within the zone, so when it is high noon outside, the darkened area has the moon directly overhead. This effect is no illusion- undead and other creatures affected by sunlight are harmed when the hemisphere is in daylight and creatures and spells enhanced by night work normally when the hemisphere is dark.
The Ziggurat itself is pitted and tarnished as if from great age. It is terribly cold to the touch, capable of peeling off bare skin on even the warmest days. Scrying and sounding have determined that there is a hollow space within the object, but no entrances have been discovered and no wizards have volunteered to teleport blindly into it. Those who spend too much time near it experience blurred vision and terrible nightmares about spiraling downward into blackness. The Scarlet Brotherhood believes that the Ziggurat may be connected to Tharizdun and are trying to learn more about it.


My sources in Hesuel Ilshar have told me that their research has uncovered the origin of the Ziggurat's creation. These answers however may only yeild more questions....Enjoy.
-mortellan



Cultists: First | Previous | Next |
Front page