Phantomax, The Geat City – a vast urban
sprawl of steel and steam and ancient works that stretch along the northern
edge of the Burning Dust. Ruled by the Council of the Phoenix, a plutocracy of
the city’s elite. The city has seen no threat strong enough to penetrate its
immense walls, nor has it been subject to loss of territories for centuries.
The city is sustained through the export and import of goods in its provincial
holdings, which run along the length of the Seer’s River and out to the Sullen
Coast, along the length of the Sea of Sorrows.
West of Phantomax
are the lands of Precarion, a great untamed wilderness along the north stretch
of the Silverflow Mountains. East across the sea are the Isles of Esmonar.
Beyond Esmonar are the Wastelands of Sul and even stranger, including the
primitive river kingdoms of Anansis.
Phantomax is
the last of the old cities, the only “ruin” that remains fully operational and
inhabited by humans. It is steeped in ancient history and the people of the
vast city state still recall the old technologies, and have some familiarity
with the mysterious conflict that led to the destruction of the primordial by
the Enkanneth. Of key significance in this knowledge: the primordials are
ancient, powerful beings but were not regarded as gods; when mankind arrived on
Pergerron they were a minority, and subjected to the whims of the primordials’
many engineered races. It was the rebellion of the Enkanneth, the ancient word
for the “first ones” that the rebellious humans rose up and cast off the
control of the primordial. The ones now revered as gods were but men, and they
stole the secrets of cosmic power from the ancient ones. Phantomax is the sole
city that was not destroyed in this time of liberation, and it is in fact the
home of the only enkanneth who still dwells in the so-called “principle realm.”
Abia, the goddess of secrets, is the enkanneth who stayed behind, though it is
said her mind projects through astral realms untold. The rest conquered the
Outworld of the primordals and took it for themselves, leaving the knowledge they
had liberated from the primordial and their servitor races behind to aid man in
his rise to greatness.
In
Phantomax, however, the font of all knowledge is carefully guarded in the
temple-libraries to the priests of Abia, who has served directly for a thousand
years in raising man’s consciousness, if not his sense of destiny. Thanks to
her, the old ways were not lost and destroyed like they were across the rest of
the world, and were instead absorbed and cultivated into a new way of living in
the Great City.
Life in Phantomax: the city is a dense
arcology of ancient dwellings heaped upon one another with only a semblance of
humanity draped over the vast carcass in the last millennium. The founders of
the city were monstrous and alien, and worshipped dark primordial beings which
promised life in exchange for obedience. The priest kings of these primordial
would dream dark magic and use their power to terrify their subjects. The city
grew up as a great temple, mausoleum and pinnacle of the madness and terror
that the primordial inspired.
When the
city was taken by the human slaves under the leadership of the Enkanneth
shortly after they found the cracks to the Outworld and stole the power of the
old gods, it was with massacre and butchery in mind. There was to be no
surrender of the beings which lurked in the dark corners of the city, only wild
and barbaric madness. Still, the center of the city was a great hive-like
pyramid in which the lore of the ages was kept. Abia, the young immortal
Enkanneth of knowledge realized its value to all and stopped the destruction,
seeking to make the temple her own. The human and demihuman cultists of the Enkanneth
spent a century fully purging the temple of the primordial minions and
influence. Even then in the deepest bowels of the pyramid it is said that there
still lies a crack…a rift….to the Outworld and that Abia stands vigilant at the
entrance to this day to insure no primordals return.
A few
priests of Abia worry that her vigilant guardianship of the rift to Outworld has
subjected her to dark, corrupting energies. They sense that she is not…the same…as she once was. But what does
one do when your immortal divinity is charged with such an impossible task? So
the priests carry on, hoping the stories of fallen Enkanneth are not true, administering
to the poor and needy of the city while translating the millions of sacred
texts in the pyramid and hoping that when all is done that Abia…and
Phantomax…will be well.
This curious
history has led to a strange and unique culture in the city itself, which
stands apart from all of the other cultures of man to arise in the world,
including the River Kingdoms of Anansis, the people of Precarion, Vothrace, Esparta, Esmonar and beyond. Men who are not of
Phantomax intrinsically distrust the dwellers of the Great City, for they can
sense that the indelible taint of the ancient primordial architecture has
rubbed off on them. They can feel that there is a soulful corruption of these
men, and that they must keep their distance. The men of Phantomax don’t sense
this, of course, and they chalk such accusations and suspicions up to the
superstitions of the barbarians of the world who refuse to adapt to the ways of
the Great City.
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