Carnous is the famous Boardwalk city, built upon the toxic lands of The Wastes. Here the land is slowly corrosive to the touch, causing illness with prolonged contact. The bubbling sulfur and ectomass pools (HellPits too) are especially lovely, if you have the right aesthetic. The soil is soft and any heavy object slowly sinks.  If it was not for the special resources here (dyes, alchemical elements, resins,  Grimrock, Verner glands, etc), it would be a place that no one would come.

Carnous is a wooden city that is never stationary. All the buildings are wooden, built upon wooden platforms.  They are usually one story, but there are a few two story buildings. There are boardwalks and bridges (wood and pitched ropes) that connect the various platforms. The longer the platform is in contact, the more likely it is to fall apart. Thus the older parts of the city are not that old, as the truly old part have collapsed into the soft soil, first being rubble, then a green globby mass. The City Pilot, the head councilman, keeps plotting a new course… where new buildings/ platforms are built in that direction.

The local woods are blond in color, quite flexible and light. (Local is an approximate, all good wood is from the edges of the toxic lands). In the end, all buildings here are temporary. Though you would never know that given the craftsmenship invested in them.  Door frames, Frame beams, and Roof Trims are intricately carved. Various clans in the city have their own distinctive patterns, so you can tell ownership of the building (or at least who built it) by carefully looking at the patterns carved in. Interior walls and some exterior ones (for less secure buildings) are made of thick lacquer paper to save upon weight. The presence of these translucent walls helps "light up" the city at night. One would think fire would be a constant danger here, but the resins used to preserve the wood from the corrosion help to make it fairly fire resistant.

There are airship docks and Verner/ Giant Wormish pens spread along the edges of the city. These are the only safe entrance and exit ports for the city. Walking or riding a normal beast is not an option here. In fact, the cry "Soul Overboard" will galvanize every native to action, gathering ropes and vaulting on poles out to the person in an attempt to save them before the soil claims them.

These eight legged creatures slide along the land. They have a small head with wide spaced eyes and long tentacle legs. Each tentacle has a few suction cups to hold tight to rocks or prey, so their beak can tear into it. Their most important aspect is that they are chameleons: able to change their skin to look like soil, rock, and sometimes a flower. They normally hunt small creatures, usually rats, from surprise.

Crawlers are most prized by the people of the Marches for the dyes they keep in their gland sacks. They are edible, if all glands and organs are carefully removed. Their meat is tasty, but is sooo chewy as to be nearly inedible. Some people keep the somewhat intelligent creatures as pets.

Creepers are large ground cover plants, clusters of vines that create a lattice or net. The central pod puts out 12 to 50 runners (vines that can root and continue on). Each creeper can cover about a twelve foot (3m) diameter circle with a slightly sticky tangling net of vines. There are no regular plants in The Wastes. Each vine/ tentacle is able to slowly move. Though they are easily evadable by a conscious adult. It allows them to capture and crush small creatures that disturb a vine (the corpse is crushed and vital fluids sink into the ground to be absorbed by various shallow runner roots). They are not great hunters. Their mobility is used for, well…. mobility. A Creeper can move at a slow walking pace in search for new water/ minerals or less acidic places.

Did we mention that Creepers live in herds or colonies of 5 to 20? They will move together in a large mass. This large mass and their mobility helps prevent the Verners from eating them all up at one time. Because they are eaten by the Verners (or insert other large omnivore/herbavore), they can not grow into large numbers. If they could, they could stabilize the semi-liquid soil, much the way real plants reinforce regular soil. But since they don’t, the Wastes are forever semi-liquid.

Deadman’s Rock is a misnomer really. It is a rock island nearly in the middle of The Wastes -a touch north and west. The name comes from a couple of legends, all of which are partially contradictory.

The oldest and original set has the same punch line. If you could reach this rock, you were a dead man, because you could not have enough supplies to get back. So many an old prospector ended his days attempting to reach The Rock.

Such is what passes for humor in The Wastes. 

Though it started as a "place of death", it became one "of life".

Supplies and skills change over time. Deadman’s Rock was not "too far" for the properly prepared. As the story goes, a prospector, Gann by name, was lost in The Wastes. He found Deadman’s Rock. Using the supplies left over from the various prospectors who died there, he became the first man to allegedly make it out from The Rock.

Of course Gann is a very common name in the region around The Wastes, and surnames are never used by Prospectors, so we will never know who he really was, or if he ever was. We also don’t know if the Deadman’s Rock known today was Gann’s rock, or another rock island.

Between skills, supplies, and a few feature islands that were developed over the century or so, it became "relatively" easier to reach Deadman’s Rock. It was never an easy journey, and still isn’t. It can take three weeks in The Wastes to reach on foot or sled. A few made the journey for the thrill, but most head towards it because it as a stable and safe haven to rest while in the Deep Wastes. 

The Deep Wastes are rich in resources with crystal practically littering the ground. They are churned up by the Verner. A pity there are so many of them there.

People began to cache supplies on The Rock. Some people were prospecting around The Rock and had others bring their "gatherings" out. A small community developed. With the "domesticating" of Verners for riding (which is a misnomer, as they are not domesticated at all.. they are just used and released), the chances of reaching the Deep Wastes improved. A small community grew up on Deadman’s Rock. The Rock, being the size of a small village, supported a smaller village. Supplies are trekked in, Waste goods are trekked out. The village is mostly Deadman’s Party (a bar (local swill) and grill specializing in BBQ Soarers), Gann’s and a couple of other places for supplies and trading, a tinker’s shop for repairing kites, harnesses, and such, and a few places to sleep. The Verner Pens are actually in a divot along the side of the rock. There is a unique wind powered mechanism that jingles the bells of the "tame" Verners with the ever present acidic smelling wind. About 40 people live here full time, and another 40 are in and out.

If you need a mental shortcut for it, think Sheep Station in the Australian Outback

The Rock is visible from quite a distance. It makes a solid navigational point in The Wastes. There is talk of creating a Light Tower, like the ones they use along the coast, on The Deadman’s Rock. The cost and whom will pay is stopping the project.

Deadman’s Rock is more important to the culture of the Prospectors than to Prospectors of the Wastes themselves. While some might stop on The Rock from time to time, or head for it if their supplies are running low, it is just there for them.

To the (small) Caravans that now occasionally traverse The Wastes instead of going around it the Rock is a life point. They travel by Verner pulled sleds (an oooooh so reliable mode of transportation) but would be unable to navigate the Deep Wastes so easily if it was not for Deadman’s Rock. Even given the dangers, it can be lucrative to cut two thirds the travel time out. These crazy people, crazy by prospector standards, are the ones bringing in most of the supplies to Deadman’s Rock and many of the caches Waste Goods out.

These fast growing trees look like broad, relatively low weeping willows. They have spread out roots and limbs as to protect them from Verners (as a Verner will not eat what it can not easily get into their huge maws). Most droopers do not live long enough to gain their protective size. The Drooping Trees live only about six years before the toxic nature of The Wastes destroys them, and three of those years are growing to that full size. Few droopers managed to make it to any notable size.

Their wood is soft and full of smokey resin that unleashes an obnoxious smell. So Droopers are useful for little but a bit of shade.

Drooper leaf pods blow on the wind and can be quite a bother. They are like a pea pod - long, but with only one bean in the top most piece. The rest of the curly pod allows it to flitter in the wind. They can nod seed outside The Wastes, as the acid is required to eat through the pod for the seed to germinate.

This is a slender short bamboo that grows in the soft ground of The Wastes in a variety of colors. As the ever present winds blow across the low bamboo, a whistling noise occurs. The eerie song actually has an odd vibration to it, keeping The Varner (and some other large predators) away.

This plant could be found in other places as well, but has yet to be transplanted. In places other than the Wastes, it would simply range in color from yellow to green.

Stub

Full Item Description
Sulfarish Rock, slightly warm to the touch. Can be ground up and used for alchemy, providing heat to a forge, and firearms.

History
Discovered in less than habitable places, this rock absorbs ambient magical vibrations granting it some near magical powers.

Magic/Cursed Properties
Grimrock can be set afire and it will burn long and hot for quite some time.

Grimrock dust can be explosive.

A spring can occur when an underground flow of water stagnates and is compressed or heated. The water needs a release. If the water finds “weak earth” and pushes through to the surface, it will be released. This creates a spring: a pool of mineral water.

Magic, technically Espiritus - the energy of magic, also flows through the astreal world like water. There are place where pressure builds even in the fluid astreal world. It finds the point of greatest weakness, usually the barrier between the realms. The energy flows forth out of the Astreal into the world. In most cases, this makes a place attuned to a higher energy, making it unique or empowered. In the case of “negative energies” which are chaotic and destructive, pooling has other consequences. While a little negative Espiritus can be healthy, too much is disruptive. Where it pools “melts” the reality there, changing it to match its form. This Espiritus becomes material. The material form is a HellPit.

HellPits vary in size, from anywhere from an arm span to two man’s heights across in a roughly roundish shape.  The sides are always sharp, as if a hole has been punched in the ground. As to depth, it is hard to say. Things that enter a HellPit tend not to leave (or if they do, they do so in a very different form). A HellPit is not technically a pit, but a pool of magically charged chaos. The pool’s surface is always a bit from the surface - from a hand span to an arm’s length below the edge. Even major extractions can only lower the level of the pool for a time (thus attempts to drain pools always fail). It is always bubbling too, giving off a smell like a lighting bolt has struck.

The pit itself is a hazard, but the pooled liquid, that is the true danger. It is Hell’s Blood.

Hell’s Blood is the thick syrupy liquid that “pools” in HellPits. It is a shocking green that glows with its own soft light. Its smell is the smell of burning things, things burned by lightning. It is charged with the potential of change.

This magical change can be dangerous.

Change “builds up” and randomly leap away like lightning to the ground, striking some point near the HellPit. Some strikes are near. Some are far, like the edge of a great forest. Anything touched by this “change bolt” is changed, and usually not for the better. The thing is changed to a darker, more dangerous, more destructive form. Trees become animated and blood thirsty, rabbits begin to hunt, wolves become giant wargs with spikes on their spine, bears become giant monsters shooting lightning from their claws, no changes are ever exactly alike.

And woe be it to the thing that falls into the pit. If it emerges, it becomes a creatures of nightmare. No longer recognizable for what it was, it is truly a monster.

Sometimes, and this be legend, things of true Evil or Chaos emerge from the pits full cloth, escaping from their realms through the astreal and ending up in the material world.

Places around HellPits are assumed to be cursed, dammed, or shunned. The number of “monsters” in the vicinity of a HellPit is daunting. The occasional “other thing” that is in the area is what people fear.

Notes

Those who practice magic and do not mind the touch of Evil or Chaos, will utilize the ectoplasm in their magics. Any magic of change (and any magic really, as it changes reality) is empowered and amplified by use of the Hell’s Blood. If one is not too concerned with safety or possible changes, using the Hell’s Blood directly (burning it in a brazer or keeping it a chalice and using it as a foci) is quite potent.

Now, if there are enough HellPits in an area, people might be able to learn how to use their power. If one is not too picky, the powers can be used to restore lost limbs.

The most common way to use these power, safely, is to keep the Hell’s Blood in a “Reliquary”, a glass cylinder topped with gold/silver/bronze caps. (A bone of some animal is in the Hell’s Blood). Not only will this create a powerful light source, but it will generate a manna every scene or impulse (depends on the Hell’s Blood or the Bone used).

Hell’s Blood that has been “purified” and most of its magic removed, still has uses. If kept in a Reliquary like item, it is still a strong ever burning light source.

Variations on Reliquaries can allow “power” to empower magic items or other things.

This is a plant that only grows in The Wastes. No other land boasts a plant like this one. The yellow green "strand" appears to be one broad grass leaf, anchored to the ground with some moderately deep roots. It extends into the sky, pulled upwards by several pods. While there are a few pods randomly along the long grass leaf, there is a main cluster of 3 to 8 pods at the skyward end of the strand.

When something begins to eat the strand, it breaks and the rest of the pods float away. The frond can regrow roots when it touches the ground long enough. If it does not, the pods will dry up and explode (in a fiery burst) and shower seeds across a wide area.

If you are having a problem visualizing it, think seaweed fronds.

Oh and they do not grow in other places as they need the odd toxic chemicals from paraliquid soil of The Wastes to inflate their pods.

Full Description
Like many animals in The Wastes, it is large. Soarers appear huge at first glance, with long broad webbed wings and long snake like bodies and tails. That is only when they are fully unfurled. In honesty, they are merely good sized flying creatures of the Wyvrn branch.

The body, though snakelike is flat, but able to curl in any number of serpentine ways. It is quite strong though. It can crush a man if grasping in a right way.

The wings remind one of a bat’s stretched skin wings emerge from the body soon after the head. Each wing is nearly twice as long as the body. 

The bat-like wings make the large forward facing ears even more batlike than they appear. The beak like mouth holds two retractable fangs capable of injecting a paralytic poison into most things.  The poison regenerates slowly, so often the Soarer will either crush its prey or carry it high into the sky and release it.

Soarers live in colonies of 6 to 40. The Colony’s activities center around the high cliffsides or large standing boulders that they will use for nesting. They will always be within a one days flight of these places.

Soarers seldom touch the ground. They can spend days at a time in flight, riding the thermals from The Wastes (or any place hot or windy enough). They appear to even sleep while flying.

While They glide high on thermals and the occasional wing stroke. These "gliders" are actually floaters. They have "gas bags" in their bodies to help keep them afloat. This allows them to be in constant flight and not spend too much energy staying aloft. *never hit a Soarer with a flaming object at short range*

They hunt on the wing. They can strike and bite. Most of their prey is fairly small, so this is not a problem. Larger prey is easy for them as well. Most often, they grab things with their tails. They either crush their prey or kill it with toxic fangs or both. Sometimes, they will swoop down and pick up a target, then drop it from on high. They can decide to bash a target with repeated swooping attacks, but that seems to be the thing of tall tales. They do make repeated sweeping runs at the corpses they drop on the ground, taking out chunks each time. On rare occasions, they will land to lick up the remains. Most of the time, they will eat their fill and drop the remains.

Soarers are creatures of the air. They seldom touch the ground. They are awkward on the ground as they are a large unbalanced large headed snakes. The only ground they normally touch is the high peeks and boulders that their colonies call home. It is there they give birth and raise any young.

Additional Information
Their cries are a long and piercing sound that seems to carry for miles upon miles.

It is unconfirmed if their cries after feeding is to signal other Soarers of the colony that they can feed off its remains or not.

Soarers have some of the best vision of the flying world. They can see things from on high.

Soarers can also do a falcon like drop, achieving incredible speeds.  Unlike a falcon, they can not "snap out" of the dive easily. Their approach is diving down far enough away and silently moving upon the prey parallel to the ground.

These things tend to stay away from City Image - Carnous. If they could, they would pick off people there. However the city is built with sharp right angles, walls, and arches to break up any "straight runs" that a Soarer could use to pick off a person.

The legends and description of Caulderon are all true, for as far as they go.

The small continent that Caulderon once sat was a small one to the south and west of The Land. It was rocky and uninviting for farming, but it had a vast mineral wealth. Travelling there as colonists from the Great Empire, they became the greatest sailors, miners, and alchemists, of the Old World. As the Great Empire fell, the people of Caulderon managed to maintain themselves, though they lost touch with the rest of the world for a time.

Caulderon is the name of the capital city and country of the thirteen city states.

A terrible alchemical accident (things that should not be mixed) began to destroy the bedrock of the small continent. A bold plan was initiated to save their fair cities. Using the tunnels under the city, vast amounts of 9th metal- the metal that pushes against the Earth, began to support each city. Synchronized, each city floated to the sky. Within a month of the great lifting, the continent was gone.

The Caulderonians applied their skill with sails to sky sailing their new flying cities. There were 13 cities that lifted from the sky. One was lost to a storm (making 13 an unlucky number).  Using alchemy, they were able to create almost everything they needed.  They only needed to occasionally augment their supplies with fresh water, food, and wood (which can not be made through alchemical means). 

Centuries after The Lifting, they created alchemical engines that allow them to fly where they will. No longer victims of the wind, they have been flying over the semi-mythical northern continent, which had people and cultures that were their equals.  Now a holy war ravages that continent. Unable to get what they need easily, they decided to set sail once again… for the first time in centuries.

Now the 12 cities are flying to The Land. Their Gryphon forces have now scount The Land as they set their course. The people here are primatives when compared to their old trading partners and themselves. The ruling council of 12 can not agree upon their next course of action.

There is a setting thread by this name:
http://www.strolen.com/guild/index.php/topic,620.0.html
There is not much there, but it includes the campaign uses for the city

These quick growing bushes become round thickets filled with thorns. The thorns ooze some toxins that get into what ever they scratch. Depending on the subspecies, it can be itchy, or neurotoxin or acidic. When the Thorn Roll reaches some maturity and it runs out of water, its shallow roots begin to shrivel up. The wind will free it from the soil. The bush tumbles across The Wastes spreading seeds.

Full Description
Verners are best described as glistening, slimy, massive worm centipede hybrids. They range from three meters to twenty meters in length and are a meter and a half wide in their semi-segmented body. Their tentacal like legs allow them to lightly and briefly stride upon the soil of the waste. However, most of the time they "swim" in the strange loam that is The Wastes. While they can "swim deep", most of the time they are just at or below the surface.

Verner’s slime seems to protect them from the acidic soil. However, since the slime has toxic properties, it is not used as a protective material. 

They are uniquely adapted to the paraliquid soil of The Wastes.  Their primary sense is hearing - and it is acute.  They can "hear" and "feel" things in and around the wastes. The sound of people talking on a landskiff or footsteps of a prospector (in those large barrel like shoes they wear) will bring wild Verners like blood in a water will bring a shark. Verners have been known to "jump out of the soil" to capture low flying Soarers or birds.

Verners can eat anything in The Wastes.  This list includes the carnivorous mobile mutant plants, passing birds, Soarers, Waste Rats, Waste Knights, and even other Verners (but only those of another breeding group). Anything it can get inside its four element beakish mouth is an option.  The most amazing thing is that this list includes rocks and toxic soil. Their beaks can crush most rocks. These materials enter in and pass out in a concentrated form. Verner dung is perhaps the most dangerous and toxic substance known to The Wastes. However it can be refined to retrieve a number of valuable substances from the soil.  

Additional Information
Verners were allegedly named after the scout that first discovered them.

The creatures have no other senses than touch and hearing. Having only these senses, they are somehow able to recognize members of their same clutch (Each clutch has five to ten eggs). A female (and they are outnumbered by males in a ten to one ration) will breed every four years or so. No one knows how they are able to recognize their litter mates.

It should be noted that Verners are immune to most of the paramagical effects of the ectomorphs spawned by the HellPits and other ectopools of the waste.

Verners seems to absorb "water" through their carapaces.  In areas other than The arid Wastes, this causes them to swell up and eventually explode.

These creatures can be "Tamed" and are used as pack animals in the wastes.  The creatures are somewhat charmed by the ringing of musical bells. The tamed ones are set with harnesses that have appropriate "jingle bells".

Waste Rats:
There are a number of common lines of Waste Rats. All started as regular rats, but have now become different due to their times in the Wastes.

1) The long and lean Leaping Rat is the most common. This rat has long strong, hare/ rabbit like legs. They also have tiny horns.

2) Six Legs are just that, six legged rats. Oh they have four eyes too. They like to climb and can be found anywhere in The Wastes.

3) Scalies are rats with reptile like scales. This seems to protect them from the worst of the acidic soils as they will swim and borough in the soil.

4) Flashers are small rats that have two wavy tentacles. These tentacles can emit small bursts of light. They can also generate quite an electric shock to those stupid enough to touch them.

5) Sprayers are medium sized, bright yellow rats that spit acidic venom like a cobra.

6) Twitchies: These scrawny rats seem to be poisoned by The Wastes and about to die. This is half true. They are partially immune to most of the toxins. Thus they continue to live in this state of half death for quite a while.

The Rats are a lesson to Prospectors and those that would live in The Wastes, do not stay overlong and without care, or you will no longer be human.

There are hundreds of spider types in The Wastes. They all tend to be hairy, colorful, and of moderate size (1-1.5" or 2-4 cms).

The most common spiders that people notice are called Waste Spiders. These spiders are larger than hand sized; being big, furry, and in a mottle of earth tones. These spiders do not spin webs (but do use web as drop lines), but have a scorpion-esk tails with potent paralyzing venom.

Prospectors of the right inclination will stalk Waste Spiders and "milk" them of their venom. This venom has a variety of therapeutic and less savory uses.

Note: some Waste Spiders have been reported to "spit" some kind of venom as well. But these may be rumors. However, thanks to the special nature of The Wastes and Hellpits, anything is possible.