Eshtock
In the mountains of the eastern Scavenger Lands, just north of the Hundred Kingdoms, lies long-lost Eshtock. The ruins of this Shogunate city have not seen the sun in seven hundred years. Endless fogs veil the mouldering rubble and fungus-covered skeletons. Nothing green grows there. The once-white stone of the Shogunate structures is pitted and cracked and rotted. Many-coloured mushrooms glow in green and blue, which breaks the darkness with a faint gloom.
In the absence of the sun, the city has become a place where wicked things gather. Lifeless creatures stumble through the ruins, their minds corroded by age and the narcotic spores that fill the air. They go through the mockeries of life, barely maintaining the crumbling ruins. Rivers run down the streets and pool in the plazas, and so the Dead are trapped on island-towers for most of the year, only able to roam freely during the dry months. The ruins are pockmarked with deep wells and crevasses that lead into the Underworld, filled with dark stagnant water.
Within the centre of the city, within the grand spire of the central tower the ancient ghosts of Dragonblooded sorcerers still maintain the cursed ritual that they called to guard the regional capital against the oncoming hordes of the Balorian Crusade. Their minds are so far gone that they do not perceive the passage of time, and so cannot know that hundreds of years have passed by. Below them, their sworn guardians hold to an eternal vigil without relief. Many of them have passed on entirely and so the ghost-sorcerers animate their clean bones with fell rituals.
Over the years, rumours of a fog-choked city have spread around the area and every so often a scavenger lord plunges into the misty paths of the mountains looking for lost Eshtock. Their bones lie at the bottom of the perilous slippery cliffs that are the only way through the passes, or else they have been gnawed by the twisted fae monsters who have been lost in the fog for hundreds of years. The magics called upon by the sorcerers still keep the city safe from the princes of chaos, but they cannot flee the fog. Even if they could escape the veiling mists, the hated sun would burn them - so they stay, jailed in the mountains.
The Wealth of Eshtock
A would be plunderer faces many threats when coming here. The misty approaches lead through snow-choked narrow mountain passes and are infested with virtue-starved fae - both savage fiends and tricksters alike. The spore-filled air is bad for the health of men, and intoxicating with extended exposure. There are sorcerous traps and Dead monstrosities roaming wild - and more than that, the central tower where Dead adepts carry out rote rituals is guarded by keen fighters who recall their art with the blade even if their minds are as hollow gourds.
Alas, the treasures of Eshtock are not as sizable as some might like. Its last lord evacuated to the Blessed Isle as the fae invasion approached, his flying craft laden down with bright jade and priceless heirlooms. It was lost en route, and the only records of its route might be found in the ruined aerodome of the city. There are no intact fliers there because all the working craft evacuated, although there are plenty of parts and several damaged fliers that would be priceless in the right hands. The mists and the fungi have destroyed much that was fine and beautiful about the city, and the grand library of the sorcerous academy flooded centuries ago, so the only texts that might have survived may be in the offices of the sorcerer-lords - or the rotted minds of their ghosts.
Still the trash of the Shogunate is still treasure to the Second Age. The straps may have rotted from the breastplates worn by the constables who once patrolled Eshtock's streets, but the ceramic is still lighter and stronger than steel. Most of the lore is lost from its grand libraries, but scraps are still a feast to the lesser scholars of this day. And there is a wealth of tools and day to day commodities of forgotten times to be found here, though they would need much restoration and cleaning to undo time's ravages.
