Something for
@ManusDomine. Perhaps it is Chiming Minaret-bait. Who knows?
Sunken Elha
Men have forgotten the kin of Urtalmic. Their lore has passed from the world, and so too have their cities. The being they once gave wondrous orisons to is now Elloge, who would be deaf to any veneration directed at what she once was. Elha was once mighty, but the gods smote it down in the Primordial War and the weight of its sins dragged it down into the depths below Creation. Now Elha moulders beneath Creation and has done so for five thousand years. Underground rivers flow down chasms that were once streets. The only light is from crimson-hued bioluminescent fungi that feed off the rot.
And yet there is still life in Elha. The degenerate progeny of Primordial-loyal gods shamble through the halls, dressed in barbaric skins. Great cave-bats, mutated by the twisted blood that oozes from some walls, flap in the dark. Decadent men drawn to this place by mad visions ingest the knowledge of the Urtalmic, and become their kin, trapped down here in the dark.
It would be better for Creation if Elha remained lost, but alas - there are still treasures down here. The ancient lore of men who walked the world before the Exalted could be found down here. There are treasures, too - ancient things wrought by Primordial servants and potent tools of dark magic made by the degenerate god-spawn. Such plunder has drawn men down here before, never to leave.
::SIDEBAR
WHERE IS ELHA?::
This location has been written to slot into the setting wherever you want. All you need is a place where the water table is low enough that Elha won't flood. That's it. It could be in the Scavenger Lands, it could be in the Fire Mountains, or it could even be in the Realm. Of course, in the Far North the rivers that flow through the streets are frozen for most of the year, while in the West it may have been buried by volcanic ash. Feel free to adjust it for your needs.
:: END SIDEBAR::
The Seep
The most probable entry-way for any who would seek out Elha is a faultline that leads down through the rock. It is a perilous path down half a kilometre of narrow galleries, water-slick slides and countless dead ends. A wise prospective explorer will be sure to establish multiple camps where they stash supplies and string ropes together so they can find the way out. Even then, it may be a climb of multiple days.
Towards the bottom of the Seep, crushed and collapsed ruins can be seen. To the right student, these examples of early First Age architecture - built in the first few hundred years after the Primordial War - could be fascinating. However, most ignore these, because from the passageways of these ruins can be seen the dull red glow of Elha.
The Watch Station
Elha was not unknown to one of the Lunar Exalted of the High First Age, and there is evidence down here that he made use of this place for his own amusements. A small monitoring facility was built down here, surrounding with essence-fields to keep out the denizens of this place. The fields are gone and the blast-doors are broken open. There is no sign of the watchers stationed down here and the weapons and armour are missing, but in the ancient records there's a plan for a post-Calibration hunt.
The Great Chasm
The mightiest of the rivers running through Elha flows down what was once the main street that led to the slave district. The slaves are gone and so is the street - washed away by five thousand and more years of water. In its place is a deep chasm that splits the ruins in two. The denizens of Elha have strung together crude rope bridges made from hair and fungal pulp, and some live in cliffside dwellings that extrude from revealed basements and foundations of the old city.
The Prime Lecture Hall
Once a place for vivisection and the haematophagic rites of the Kin, this was a building of knowledge and learning. Now, though, a tribe of degenerate Kin squats here. They pitch their skin-tents between the filth-smeared benches and the ancient tools of study are fought over as precious sharp weapons. Inbred and wretched, these once-men are mostly blind and furred. These is something akin to dogs about their features, and there is nothing studied about the secrets that spill through their sharp-toothed mouths.
Fungalsprawl
Not only the creatures down here have been affected by the Urtalmic lore. The fungus that fed off the rot has internalised the wisdom and become more - and less - than it once was. The heart of Fungussprawl was once the temple district, where tick-like priests lapped at the bloody gifts of He Who Bleeds The Unknown Word. Now the fungus grows, and towers over the ruined buildings. It glistens and gleams wetly in the bioluminescence, like raw meat.
And it speaks. The fungus speaks, though it is slow of thought and its words take days or even weeks to complete. These pulsing comments take the place of day and night in this forsaken place. The fungus has learned religion, too, and the sprawling caps and spore-choked spires resemble temples. Those creatures who inhale too much are drawn into the depths and reside there until stalks sprout from their eyes and they speak for the blood-fungus, words rambling from their infested brain until their voices become too ruined to speak. Then, and only then, do they lay down and die.
The fungus is spreading. It is slow to grow, for it meditates on its own wisdom and is temperate and calm, but year by year, it eats a little more of the ruins.
The Lick
Once the dead of the Kin were interred here, to have their blood drained and their knowledge passed on to their own kin. In that way, they thought to seek immortality. But the blood has dried up here and the Lick is quiet and still as the grave. The Whispers-ridden ghosts of those who dwelt in the city when the gods destroy here still congregated here. They have found new masters down in the depths of the Labyrinth. To feast on rotting titans is little different than drinking the blood of a living one. These mad ghosts have forgotten all that they were, but have learned new dreadful things that take their place in their shattered minds.
The Howling Forbidden
When the Primordial War came to an end, some of the divine servants of the Primordials were cast into Hell with their masters. However, many escaped through one way or another - and many were only found to be traitors in the aftermath, as the victors scrutinised the seized records of the Priests of Cecelyne. Men may never have known of the great purges in the war's aftermath, but the eldest of the gods remember.
These traitor gods saw many fates. Some were executed by the Exalted. Others were banished to Hell, where they met terrible fates for failing their dark masters. Others still were maimed and banished from the light of the Sun and the moon, trapped beneath the earth in wretched material form. Their immortality was stripped from them, and they were left to die.
These traitor gods bred with each other and with the creatures that lurked beneath the earth and wicked serpents that the Ebon Dragon had spawned in the depths, and ten thousand breeds of monster now exist. Cursed and wretched, their natures are so fallen that even the smallest god or most tortured demon can spit down on them. There is little light or good or divine left about these inbred creatures; these writhing centipedes; these faceless blind men; these squirming horrors wearing the tatters of their forebears divine ranks.
They remember they hate the Sun, though, and they hate the gods and they hate the light. Oh yes, they remember that much.
