January 2011 Challenge: To Ravenkhor

[Jaxilon]

This is what happens when you merge a trip to Alaska, Anasazi ruins, the Burmuda triangle, a Cartographer's Guild challenge and a lunatic:

I have an absolute ton to do for this but I hope to pull it off. I haven't yet finished with the endpoint and what exactly it will be but I'm working on it.

The idea is a series of Way points that will take you to the heart of a powerful long dead(?) civilization (that's the part I'm still trying to work out, maybe it'll be dragons at the end). The end point needs enough of a reward to make it worth the risky journey. A GM could place anything they wanted there but I'll have to come up with something. (I'm currently thinking along the lines of a quest to bond with a young Dragon or gain some epic mount, maybe a fountain of youth or some other incredible power item. Possibly the wisdom available from this vanished race.) Just arriving gains safe harbor until the test or audience, etc.) The journey is fraught with peril however. It is a harsh landscape of eternal near dark. The moon and stars move around the sky but the sun never comes. Terrible storms, and a plethora of vile creatures inhabit the land. While it is never safe to journey therein it is especially deadly during the night cycles (a time when all the worst beasties come out to hunt). Few survive a night cycle out of doors and none survive it unscathed. Thus, the way stations. I have one of these sketched out in my sketchbook but need to "draft it up". These stations are more than just safe havens they are the only sure way to navigate through the landscape. More on that once I get the drawings done and have time to write it up. These stations are spaced appropriately so a party can make it from one to the next during a single day cycle. Providing of course they know the direction to take and don't get too caught up in any pitched battles along the way.

The canyons are filled with bones of those who failed. Entire parties are strewn across canyon floors, their bones picked clean or charred black. I may also have tombs of Kings and Heroes buried in the mountain sides. More powerful or loved ones will be deeper into the range as it would take a strong army to hold off any attacks while the burial took place.

For now here is the map I am working on. I'm curious as to how the mountains come across as they are another new experiment. This is a regional area a couple thousand miles wide. It consists of marshy swamp areas and jagged mountain peaks that surge up from the earth. There are hundreds of trails through these mountains and hills, it would be very easy to get lost.

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