Locations · City · Underground
The Bastion - A Light Tower
You are sailing along the sea when you see a lighthouse in the deep blue middle. It is a lone light house, built on a rock not much larger than the tower itself. It is an oddity.
More commonly known as The Light Tower of the Sea, it is literally a sturdily built light house, built on a tiny rocky island, barely larger than the base of the tower.
If investigated, the weatherbeaten tower seems abandoned. There is carved graffitti on the walls going back quite a while. The lighting mechanism is a marvel. It's clockwork mechanism runs seemingly without supervision and without visible means of power (perhaps solar or wind or magic). There is an odd whistling noise on the first floor, centered upon a good sized grate. There are signs that people have occupied here, nobody is here now.
If searched seriously enough, one can find a hidden lift. This will take one down, down into The Bastion.
The Dwarves have always been a pragmatic bunch. They realize that they are constantly underseige by Orcs, Elves, other mythics, and even their human friends. They needed a place to ensure that True Dwarves do surivive. So they found a place that was the most inhospitiable: in the deep ocean. (Well to the Dwarven point of view). There a Bastion would be built, so there would always be a Dwarven City to come back from.
The Lift drops one down into the sea mount. Into this mount, the Dwarves have built dozens of Holds (dwarven Towns). Building into the seamount has posed many challanges to the Dwarves, but it also provided many solutions. With ingenuity and inventivness, all the challanges were overcome. Dwarves were brought here secretly via magics gateways. Communities thrived here, in isolation.
These holdings have a great deal of clockwork magics. These devices keep supplying heat, air, and other goods to the space. There are miles of tunnels between the various Holdings and work places away from the holdings.
Choose the option that best serves your campaign
1) The Dwarves are still alive here. There is a somewhat thriving community here. There are deep conflicts between various clans in The Bastion. Without external enemies to fight, the Dwarves have looked to each other. Political manuvering and occasionaly open clashes between Holdings are the order of the day.
Oh by the way, you know they are here. You can not leave.
2) The Dwarves are alive here, but not where you are from. The Dwarven nightmare occured and they have been wiped out in the world. They only exist in The Bastion.
The Dwarves might have a grudge against you because your people eliminated their relatives. You may be kept alive for a while, just to find out what the world is like.
3) The Bastion is erriely empty. There some signs of a struggle, but there is enough dust and decay that they are masked. You might find some odd bones here and there, but it looked like the Dwarves just upped and left one day, in the middle of their soup.
a) They killed each other off. Old resentments simmered and exploded.
b) A plague creating zombie like Dwarves swept throught The Bastion.
c) Demonic monsters have taken out the cities.
d) The Dwarves simplied died out due to bordom.
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Ok, I love the concept of this, but something just seems not right. Too quickly done perhaps? Not sure. I love the intricacies (sp?) of it, the uniqueness of it is astounding. But I just feel it needs a little more explanation to be a super fantastic submission.
It does have a rushed feeling to it, and there could be more elaboration on the set up, as it is it feels like a cape lighthouse from a CoC setting that has a dwarven hold under it. I would have liked to see more about these underwater dwarves and what they did with their civilzation. I can see an entire city encapsulated in a sea mount, surrounded by geothermal powered water pumps to keep the halls dry, a sort of castle/submarine fusion.
Yep...feels rushed..could of made a better Scroll entry me'thinks. Also could be written up as two completely different islands 1) Mysterious Lighthouse 2) Underwater Dwarves.
Underwater Dwarves wouldnt be an island but a city entry.
Underwater Dwarven City could certainly be an island entry if done right. In fact this post attempts to do just that. :)
A little rushed but I still like it.
You are all right. This post was just something I tossed off, rather than obsessed over like normal. I will soon do a significant edit, adding the details and content that most submissions deserve.
'entire city encapsulated in a sea mount, surrounded by geothermal powered water pumps to keep the halls dry, a sort of castle/submarine fusion', this is a good turn of phrase.
Dwarven cities, in my mind, are really the size of smallish Human towns. It is simply a matter of ecology. So, in this entire mountain, is four or five Dwarven Cities. Each city is somewhat seperated so in case of catastrope, the other cities would survive intact.
I will spin more out later.
I agree, it seems rushed (and I would like to see more) but it is still an idea that made me really sit back and take notice.
**Remember these are your standard underground Dwarves, so they are not aquatic critters... though there might be some Dwarvish (based on Gnomish designs) undersea boats around here.
**The various cities should have their own themes and looks. Each of the cities preserved a specific culture or cultural element. Thus, for those with knowledge of Dwarves, they would see this instantly, the way most of us would recognize 'this area is ancience Rome, this is China, this is Egypt, and so on.' In some ways these areas are too stylized, an almost Disney-esk mockery of the real cultures.
**Another thing to add to the Disney feel is that behind the scene, their are dark and wet areas where the realities of Sea Mount existance is. Thus there are clockworks pumps, ocean accesses, algea pools, seeing the lava channeled in places, O2 recycling plants, and so on.
If you have ideas, feel free to add them.
This could be the setting for an interesting campaign. I would love to see this fleshed out in
greater detail, as it has quite a bit of potential!
It was never meant to be a campaign center, it is just an odd place to stop while you are doing other things. If you want to do more with it, just keep posting comments with your information here.
I really like this. It's just enough to fire up my imagination. I'm actually kind of happy about the lower level of detail; sometimes it's nicer to be inspired than handed a full platter and this sub fits that bill (follow this partial/mixed metaphor at your own risk :P ).