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Post by Insano-Man on Sept 23, 2018 10:50:19 GMT -5
THE PIG PEN
CONTINENT: Darimesa
REGION: Northeast Mountains
CONDITIONS: Forested, Antarctic, Mountainous, Anomalous, Riverside
POPULATION:
- Unaffiliated: Low
- Loonies: Low
- Space Loonies: Negligible
- Cult of Meat: Negligible
- Wildlife: Moderate
LANDMARKS:
- Towns: Randy's Bastion
- Bases: Precinct 0
- Roads: Eastern Cloneston Migration Route
- Biomes: Shenanijims Forest, Coldwark Shore, Karzak-Schiller Mountain, Mount Hideaway, Niscin Ridge, Way of Pigs, Desmine Overlook, Puresmer Grove, Strallon's Islet
- Other: Half-o'-Schiller, Waverly Bridge
SUMMARY
Northeast of Cloneston, nestled between the snowy Karzak and Hazermann mountain ranges, they rise. Clones, born from nothingness, taking their first breaths in murky darkness. Policemen stomp and climb from the waters of the Way of Pigs, appearing fully formed and fully equipped, without any explanation or apparent cause. The area is so thick with migrating clones that the whole of the region has adapted to the inexplicable police presence. Monsters thrive on stray clones and the region's solitary town shelters on the long sightlines of the open tundra. Residents and travellers alike know the stretch of river best as the Pig Pen, and most rightfully avoid it.
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Post by Insano-Man on Sept 23, 2018 10:50:34 GMT -5
RANDY'S BASTION
The sole town in the region is Randy's Bastion, a tightly-clustered fortress suited to its name. The Bastion is sited close to a bald hill in the east of the region, where geothermal activity underground helps thaw the snow and promote plantlife at the surface. The town is surrounded by high walls, guard towers, and small defensive posts, where its extensive militia keeps watch at all hours. Inside, an orderly settlement carries out its daily affairs. Closely-packed crops thrive in the lush soil under careful management. Strict mining operations reap the unexploited wealth of the immediate underground for supplies.
For most arriving in the region, the only indication that Randy's Bastion is a town is the sight of its mix of concrete and stone brick walls. This first impression is strikingly accurate; the townsfolk and militia are one in the same. The community is insular in the extreme and rarely welcomes outsiders. Merchant caravans rarely visit the Bastion, and many larger groups are often turned away. On occasion, lone travellers are shot without warning. One way or another, the Bastion is dedicated to self-sufficiency and ready to enforce it.
There is no secret behind the Bastion's dim view of outsiders. The Pig Pen is thick with man-imitating monsters and men imitating monsters. Lost clones will sometimes launch assaults on the town's walls. Glass sirens present recurring problems for travellers and watchmen alike. Countless other monsters use the region's irregular blizzards and snowstorms as opportunities to attack the Bastion or anyone outside it. Wanderers and traders in the region are scarce. Conventional wisdom in Randy's Bastion is that anything moving outside the walls is not human. On more occasions than not, this belief holds true.
The Bastion is home to roughly 168 permanent residents and a transient population hovering close to zero year-round. It has no trade agreements with any other settlements and little in the way of transportation capacity. Only a handful of small tractors and trucks are maintained by its militia, most for the sake of hunting trips or rescuing lost locals. In contrast, the Bastion features a considerable level of infrastructure, including a small coal-and-gas power plant. Among other things, a simple phone network and radio tower both draw from the power plant, which enable the militia to respond quickly and effectively to most threats or happenings.
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Post by Insano-Man on Sept 23, 2018 10:50:42 GMT -5
CLONES
Directly across the river from Randy's Bastion is a blank monolith of steel and concrete that few pass by. As with many of Cloneston's other off-shoots, the building is known by the nondescript title of Precinct 0. Much like the bulk of the city it hails from, Precinct 0's purpose is unknown; its clones tend to the building grounds as little more than caretakers. Policemen from the curiously-placed department rarely go beyond its walls. Clones appearing from the river rarely wander into the building. Were it not for its imposing stature, few would ever know it existed.
The clones of the region appear along a specific portion of the Way of Pigs, nestled between the treelines of the Shenanijims Forest. There, they manifest from nothing at the bottom of the river, fully grown and already clad in their Cloneston-issue equipment. Most survive to pull themselves ashore and regroup into squads. From there, they begin the long, perilous journey west to Cloneston, across thousands of kilometers of snow and wastelands. Some are retrieved by Cloneston air transports. Most are forced to walk the whole of the trip. Few survive to see Cloneston, much less reach it.
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Post by Insano-Man on Sept 23, 2018 10:52:01 GMT -5
LANDMARKS- The massed clone migrations often pass through the Shenanijims Forest. Within, countless monsters stalk the trees and snow. The heart of the forest is widely considered cursed or haunted by residents and Loonies alike. Windflows within are erratic and unpredictable. Localized whiteouts swirl in tightly-constrained pockets. Bizarre noises whistle and shriek through tall trees, often luring and frightening unwary travellers deeper into the forest. Snowy wisps wander aimlessly during blizzards, drifting and bobbing like possessed snowballs through the treelines. Reports of hallucinations and unlikely mirages are common, especially during cloning season.
- North of the Shenanijims Forest is the Coldwark Shore, a prominent bulge off the side of the Way of Pigs. Year-round, temperatures along the shore are bitterly cold, regardless of the prevailing conditions outside it. Water passing into the bulge is frozen solid from top to bottom, split cleanly along a tightly-defined boundary. A thicket of dead and dying trees clusters around the shores, each of which has remained upright - and dead - for up to a century or longer. Other plants refuse to grow near the icy shore. Only glass sirens stalk Coldwark, and most are reduced to their most basic state.
- A more mundane source of intrigue in the region is the Waverly Bridge, an area of creeping snow between Mount Hideaway and the Niscin Ridge. Snow accumulates in the sloughed crater of Mount Hideaway over the course of the year until the warm period in the region. At the beginning of April, the snow rapidly vibrates and begins a slow, steady journey to the foot of the Niscin Ridge. As it moves, it forms a long, short bridge between the two rises. The phenomenon is ultimately innocuous, but often goes hand-in-hand with cloning season. The roots of the Waverly Bridge have yet to be identified.
- At the northernmost of the region is the Half-o'-Schiller, a rock formation perched on a cliff of the Karzak-Schiller mountain. As per its name, the Half-o'-Schiller strongly resembles half of an enormous human face, turned aside at an oblique angle so that most is submerged into the floor. The territory around it carries a sinister reputation, and many legends claim that the face has often blown people off the cliffside. Unexplained geological activity in the area eerily supports the many claims that the Half-o'-Schiller is, in some capacity, alive. Attempts to dig under or around the Half have been universally unsuccessful, thanks mostly due to attacks by marauding monsters.
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Post by Insano-Man on Sept 23, 2018 10:52:12 GMT -5
POPULATION
Travellers in the region are far and few between. Wildlife borders on mythical. Known native animal species are close to nil. Instead, the Pig Pen's monsters have displaced them, and demonstrate a wildly-nonsensical facsimile of an ecosystem. Many are glass sirens that imitate the wandering policemen. Some are meatmen that engorge themselves on the constant stream of clones. Hoprocks often lie in wait along the cliffs of the Karzak-Schiller mountain overlooking the area. Glazebeasts and strawcrawlers regularly fight for territory in the highlands and cliffsides around the Pig Pen. The clones themselves are considered monsters of the region thanks to their limited sentience. Many often attempt to detain or kill travellers too close to their migration route.
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