Prajnisthan, The City Within the Lamps
Scattered across Creation, there is a set of 144 identical oil lanterns. Each lamp being one cubit high and wrought from dark bronze and starmetal in the shape of a small, strange gazebo such as one might find on some dynast's estate. Scavenger Lords find them buried in the ruins of the Realm Before, in the reliquaries of temples, or in the shelves of antiquers. Lighting these lanterns causes them to emit pale red smoke that imparts strange and somewhat enlightening dreams to whosoever inhales it. Perceptive folk might notice the shapes of a wondrous city within the flickering flame. Most dismiss these lanterns as a mere curiosity, either letting them collect dust in some eccentric's collection or reselling them for a fraction of their true worth. For the secret of the lanterns to be revealed, one must attune to them, or else offer them a drop of blood from a sleeping ascetic, before lighting the flame. After properly igniting a lamp, those who gaze into its flames and inhale its now peach colored smoke begin to feel drowsy, yet also experience a sense of anticipation, as if they were about to hear the answer to a great mystery. They know not what the mystery is, but as they finally cross the barrier of sleep, they know that the answer was once Prajnisthan, the City Within the Lamps.
Those who let themselves slumber in the presence of the lamp awake in an eight walled courtyard, with the sky above the color of a particularly beautiful sunset. Stars twinkle in the sky and the clouds are dyed saffron by the light of the sun to the north. The courtyard's center is dominated by a gazebo that the oil lamp (called the Sage-Smoke Lanterns by those who dwell within the city) was a miniscule replica of. Leaving the courtyard by one of its eight passages brings one to Prajnisthan proper, a sprawling metropolis. The city lies atop a mountain, and beyond its sutra carved walls lies a barren, rocky wasteland that stretches as far as the eye can see.The city's skyline is dominated by arabesque spires and mandala shaped domes, inhabited by nobles, scribes, occultists, and priests. Mystics meditate atop pillars of painted basalt and sandstone, while the streets below are illuminated by orchid shaped street lamps. Small forest parks can be seen throughout the city, populated by seemingly tame animals who do not flee from hunters, and whose bones can be ground to form a potent entheogen. At its center lies the Sublime Temple of the Sage Penultimate, a grand tower with eight turrets jutting from its tip, its base crowded by countless lesser temples dedicated to gods and concepts long forgotten in Creation. This place was once among the holiest of holies, a place of enlightenment and learning for theologians and scholars from across Creation(and beyond). Now, it is a gilded, beautiful trap, its seekers of knowledge turned from enlightenment to narcissism and pride. Its miraculous architecture repairs itself from decay and damage, but returns subtly twisted and blasphemous. The mystics of the pillars meditate in search of new ways to wreak destruction upon each other. The creatures of the forest parks submit to consumption yet devour in turn those who violate obscure taboos. It is Prajnisthan, and it is holy no more.
The scribes and priests of the city once cooperated amongst each other, all in search of The Shining Answer. Though they worked in different ways, and many were not of the same race, they all agreed that The Shining Answer was their goal and none should refuse to tell their compatriots of their discoveries. All paid homage to the Sage Penultimate, first among equals, who bound their disparate doctrines together with his healing words and kind gaze. The people of the city ventured into Creation and stranger places in search of clues to The Shining Answer, sequestering their found knowledge within the city's archives. Its astrologers catalogued the movements of the strange stars in the city's eternal twilight, hoping to divine some hint of The Shining Answer's nature. One day(or as the inhabitants of the city reckon the passage of days), the peace of the city was shattered. A young acolyte entered the Sublime Temple of the Sage Penultimate bearing a sealed tome from her homeland. The acolyte's homeland was widely regarded as a deeply inauspicious place but still possessed of immense knowledge regarding The Shining Answer. As the Sage Penultimate read the tome to himself he began to sob uncontrollably, wracked by sorrow beyond sensation. The young acolyte kissed him upon the brow, for it is her nature to love those doomed to dark fates, and left him to his despair, trotting out of the city on cloven hooves. Jaded and broken, the Sage Penultimate sealed his inner sanctum, its doors immovable to this day. The scholars of the city, not knowing the reason for this isolation, began to quarrel amongst each other. The leaders of the sects claimed to have received personal messages from the Sage Penultimate declaring each other apostate. The factions began to withhold their knowledge from each other, beginning a cold war that eventually turned bloody. Fanatic assassins slew students and teachers of rival sects, burning or stealing their scripture in search of The Shining Answer. High Priests disemboweled their rivals (or themselves) on the steps of their temples, reading haruspices from their entrails. Sorcerers unleashed arcane horrors upon one another. The libraries and speaking manses of Prajnisthan were converted into fortresses and charnel pits. Eventually, the city settled into a state of skirmishes and shadow wars. Larger than many kingdoms, it as been carved into multiple dominions and no-man's lands. And so it has been for decades beyond counting.
Intrigues and Mysteries
The city is not solely populated by scholars and mystics. There was a huge population of lay citizens who worked to support the rulers of the city in their search for enlightenment. When the mystics devolved into sectarian war, the people of Prajnisthan either picked sides or fled to the remote parts of the city. Some now form the rank and file of the various cults, serving them as their ancestors did. Some fled beneath the city, to its subterranean cellars and waterways, becoming something other than they once were. Others left the city for the wastes and mingled with the Beings that had dwelled their since before Prajnisthan came to be. Many wander the city's streets as barbarian tribes, ignorant of the true legacy of their home but retaining a small kernel of truth in their oral histories. Three and twenty years ago, The Blood of The Dragons ignited in a girl of the urban tribes. Wary of the occultists dominating the city(several of whom also bear the blood of the Elemental Dragons), she bided her time and has formed a coalition of several tribes. Her lieutenants urge her to burn the strongholds of the sects and claim the Sublime Temple for herself.
The Erudite Castellans of Gaia, one of the countless factions that vy for control of the city, have turned a new monstrosity forth from their birthing rooms. A draconic and elephantine behemoth, equal parts animal and elemental phenomenon, was driven mad by its impossible biology. It has rampaged through the domain of the Castellans and made a nest of their gardens. There it slumbers in torpor, occasionally waking to rampage about the city. The Castellans contemplate destroying the beast, but quarrel over how much resources to devote to its euthanasia. Others argue to yoke it to their will(ignoring the fact that it escaped such enthrallment before) and use it to crack open the vaults of their enemies in search of The Shining Answer.
One may leave the city by sleeping within the courtyards they arrived in(of which 144 dot the city), awakening where one set the Sage-Smoke Lantern(or else where the corresponding lantern now lies), but this is not the only way. The wastes where Prajnisthan lies are convoluted, their spacial relation to Creation warped by some great working in an earlier epoch. Paths to Creation, and stranger locales, can be found. Prajnisthan too, can be found from Creation and elsewhere by discovering the hidden routes. The scholars of the city sometimes venture forth into Creation in search of knowledge, not caring who or what must be destroyed in their quest for enlightenment. Those who leave the city must take care to slay, bargain with, or hide from the Beings of the Wastes. Tall and gaunt, with long crystal-studded limbs beneath their tattered cloaks, the Beings of the Wastes wear colorful masks to hide the gaping voids where their heads should be. They enthrall unsuspecting victims with dance-conjured vision-rain and harvest their lower souls for their own weird purposes.
Parts of the city have no consistent architecture, shifting like some living organism. One may round a corner, which unbeknownst to them changed its destination merely five seconds prior. Stairs leading up from the ground floor may deposit one on street-level five blocks away. This architecture was once consistent in its inconsistency, forming elegant recursions upon itself as a form of meditative aid. Now, the workings powering the living architecture have begun to fade and they form shifting mazes that can spit one out on the opposite side of the city from where they want to be.
The Doyen-Prince of the Jade Hearted Scribes has found his way into Creation's center by some accident of destiny, and been stranded there. He now resides as a curiosity in the household of an eccentric dynast, who sends out agents to search for a way into the City Within the Lamps. He has underestimated how puissant and dangerous the city's inhabitants can be, and his expedition plans are woefully lacking.
A Chosen of the Maidens once kept a manse within the city, a summer retreat stocked with curiosities. He left the manse before the city descended into anarchy and was slain during the Usurpation. His successors have so far ignored the strange dreams of the city in favor of their duties in the Bureau of Destiny, but the memories remain tempting. In the meantime, an agent of The Sleepwalker has wormed his way into a coalition of several powerful sects, and now eyes the abandoned manse.
The knowledge of Prajnisthan does not all pertain to the Shining Answer, vast repositories of sorcerous tomes and artifacts can be found locked in the vaults of its warring schools or left to gather dust in its abandoned buildings.
The Sage Penultimate still dwells within the upper level of his Sublime Temple and can sometimes be glimpsed from the balconies, his eyes dull red pinpricks of hate. He wears the cloth of starmetal thangka robes of his station, now stitched with blasphemous icons of decadence. A withered and hateful thing, he still wields immense sorcerous and martial power, sending out winged messenger-things from his spire to make his will known. His personal order of Scholar-Knights, the Tyrian Quills, still dwell within the tower, the latest generation in a succession of zealots. The Quills sometimes crusade into the city, slaying creatures or granting boons according to the mad whims of the Sage Penultimate.
