The Mirrored Plains
A set of land, roughly six hundred meters squared, which has JUST not enough trees to be called woodlands. Though there IS something most curious about these lands. Perhaps the fact it is pure glass.
As with all gods and godesses, the god of Vanity and beauty, Vanitos, appointed a high-cleric to spread his word and ideals throughout the lands. The high-cleric chosen for Vanitos, was Hurani the goldenhaired - reknowned for both her arrogance, and her overwhelming vanity and self-consciousness that would do even Vanitos himself proud. Of course, upon her waking up to find the gods message in her mind, and his powers of seduction and pursuation in her hand, this served only to increase her self-confidence. Dressed in silken dresses wherever she goes, and with her hair always done just so, she was a sight to behold for anyone. Now it came to be, one fateful day (as everything happens), that Hurani was asked by her god to relay a message to the faraway town of Durmanigar, and Hurani - though fearful of what such long travel would do to her dresses - set out with just a small guard of three. As Hurani drew closer and closer to the town, however, she began to have typical, arrogant thoughts. Thoughts of power, thoughts of self-betterment. On the third day of her travel, in a nice woodland glade, she refused to go any further. She chose, instead, to test her god. To the heavens, she reared back her head and shouted "I am greater than you, oh Vanitos! Your beauty is secondary to mine!"
Yes, she was powerful, but she was certainly foolish. Instead of feeling the god draw back to the distance in agreeal with her, she instantly felt her powers of beauty stripped of her. A sense of inmeasurable loathing and disgust of herheself overcame Hurani, so powerful that she wished only death to overcome her. And so, before her guards could stop her, she withdrew a mirror from her backpack, shattered it on a tree, grabbed a shard and thrust it through her heart. As her heart ceased its beating, and she fell to the ground, Vanitos chose to mark the place of his corrupt high-clerics death. Hurani's body was absorbed into the ground, and from the site of her death, moving rapidly out radially, all life turned into glass and mirror. The grass beneath altered out to form a smooth surface, the trees - leaves and all - changed properties, and reflected one another. Animal life that touched the ground also turned into glass and mirror, though they remained living and moving, the energy of the plains allowing them to stay alive. The animals could not feed off each other or plants now, of course, and so they have all become carnivorous, preying on all who enter the plains. A particuarly gruesome sight, is finding a glass-fox, and inside its transparent stomach, is a single, human eyeball.
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Of course, the above story is just a legend of how the unknown Mirrored plains came about. But some adventurers who have braved it, and made it all the way through, claim that they saw - in the center of the plains - the glass statues of three guards, their faces taut with shock.
Properties of the Plains
The Mirrored Plains have many odd uses and problems. The ground is pure, reflective glass, smooth and slightly slippery. The trees are either transparent glass, mirrors, or bits of both, and the animals are all alive, and all hostile, barring the three human statues in the center.
Some of the mirrors are straight, some convex, some concave, and some completely warped. It depends on the trees.
The Mirrored plains are both the best and worst places to hide if bieng chased by enemies. The structure of it is such that You may be seen by reflections from the other side of the entire forest, but it is also such that if you were 10 feet from the enemy, they may THINK you are a reflection, and that you may still be on the other side of the forest!
At nighttime, if someone has decided to camp there and make a fire (from wood brought in from outside), it can be seen from miles away, illuminated and reflected.
In need of a quick, dangerous weapon? Snap a branch of a rose-bush off - glass thorns equal incredible pain. If one slips on the ground, and stumbles into a thin leafy tree, it is almost garunteed death. Also, if in need of a way of getting away from enemies - swing a club at a leafy tree, shattering them - instant caltrops, capable of piercing even through leather!
Were any part of this land to be segmented and taken away from the main plains, the glass or mirror would change into a black, ash-like substance, and blow away in the wind.
This place is both perfect and horrid for a refuge, if running from someone (or if someone is running/hiding from the adventurers ;) )
Glass is a terrible conductor of heat - this place is ALWAYS cold, especially at nights. An interesting addition is if, sometime during the year, it snows in the plains :) That way you have also got reflecive, bright snow. Certainly a pain for the eyes.
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? Responses (7)
Ok, ever since reading the post about bows, with the glass bow-tips, plus brainstorming ideas with Moonhunter and Agar about the Kalazars Skiffs thread, I've been obsessed with glass, what it could do, and what properties it has.
This setting was my way of venting that :P hope you liked
This is another interesting oddity of a place. All the normal kudos.
5/5 Very good. I would love to use this place.
Thumbs up!
Yay,I get to vote again.
Wondered how you would justify a glass land. Very workable and very interesting. Slippery and if you fall into pretty much anything you could shatter the place and yourself in the process. I would imagine that the glass would 'heal' itself or something after being broken. I see maybe trying to camp in there and the break a tree or bush to get into a small glen to rest. When they wake in the morning they are again completely surrounded and perhaps the area is reshaped or something.
wow, you have been obsessed with Glass for quite a few years now, eh SE? :P
Nice surreal location.
Maybe you should OD-ize the mirrored plains a bit. Just a thought.