Along the southern bank a razed and neglected settlement rises against a crimson sky. It is high on a mountain ridge, much farther west and slightly south of Mount Yogi. The distant city's buildings look safe and solid enough, but cold and oppressive.
Earth-colored masonry form the half-walls, and they are lined with bushes and shrubbery, and a little bit of litter, a cigarette butt here, a candy wrapper there. The words “Hea en” adorn the top of the surrounding stone wall, twelve feet thick and thirty-seven feet high, in cracked and broken letters, half a man's height and twice his breadth.
It is no oasis.
What once was glorious is now ruined, desolate, empty and barren. There is nothing in these empty streets of health or sustenance; no fruitful trees nor sparkling fountains. The beautiful gardens and arboretums are now little more than charred wastelands of scorched earth. The grass has turned black and shriveled, the hedges barren of leaves. The blackened skeletons of trees protrude mournfully from the ash, like headstones, and pools and fountains are now cesspools of foulness, choked with scum and unnatural algae blooms. Corpses float face down in the waters. Here and there, fires have been lit among the ruins. Groves of tree stumps where mighty palm, olive, and myrtle trees have once populated the lower sides of the mountains.
The city is a jumble, with no streets, no squares, and no open spaces except where a stone building has fallen. The streets possess no clear regularity, branching and rebranching without warning, and tending to tip from side to side as though the ground beneath has buckled and been paved without being graded flat. Every free space is used in one way or another, built upon or over to bewildering effect. Buildings teeter at odd angles, clumsier and shorter than the buildings of the haunted city and made from plaster and brick, not glass. They have a lived-in, almost temporary air. Banners stretch across the streets between them, declaring street names, advertising products, warning of hazards. The brightly color fabric doesn’t move in the still, thick air. Their florid, hand-painted characters adds to the garish nature of the streets, with their tiled walls and gilded window frames. Beads and bells hang from every doorframe. Chalk graffiti adds embellishments to anything found lacking. The local alphabet is more angular and fragmented than the curling, spiraling script.
Tenements sit shoulder to shoulder with a few alley and side streets relieving the stifling closeness. All of them are in advanced stages of ruin. Some have shutters that hang askew from their hinges and broken windows, doors that stand wide open and hang loosely from the frames, and a few buildings have large sections of wall and roof that have collapsed. Just when you despair of finding anyone in this desolate place, you see a building ahead of you with lights coming from its windows. As you approach closer you can hear the faint din of conversation and some music.
You pass one of the windows on your way to the entrance and take a glance inside. There are a surprising number of people inside (or perhaps not so many but that they stand in sharp contrast to the desolation outside).
The buildings are hugely diverse, ranging from small shacks made of corrugated in spread across branch uprights, to golden-domed offerings of love; steel and glass towers, to complex timber-clad settlements; frosty ice sculptured homes, to hollows in the ground, caves deep holes heated by the boilings of the hot earth itself. No two houses are alike because they had been build at different times by different people, with whatever material was at hand or had struck the fancy of the builder. The result is a genial display of textures and types of stone or concrete or plaster—porous and rough, smooth and symmetrical, each one a different variation on off-white. Hopeful metal rods protrude from the flat roofs and the beginnings of staircases cling to the sides of the buildings, stopping Escher-like in midair: they are vestiges of an intention to expand. Poured concrete pillars would cover the rods and support higher floors which the stairs would then reach. There is no order, no design to the city, no blocks or arrangement, merely buildings and the spaces in between. Here and there they see wider areas that may be parks, though there is no greenery to be seen. The things in these parks may be dead trees, or simply much taller skeletons than any they have seen before. Some buildings have windows and some do not, and only some of those with windows retain their glazing.
A few churches or public buildings still stand above the rest, though their roofs are holed or their walls cracked, and in one case a whole portico had crumpled onto its columns. All are scarred by a rough removal from their context: walls are cracked, offering glimpses into private interiors; staircases beetle cloudward without destination; doors flap open and close in the wind, letting on to nowhere. Between the shells of the stone buildings, a mazy clutter of shacks and shanties had been put together out of lengths of roofing timber, beaten-out petrol cans or biscuit tins, torn plastic sheeting, scraps of plywood or hardboard.
The place is, to put it simply, a ransacked ruin. Glass and paper and debris are scattered all around the place, and supposedly historical paintings and icons are spread about on the ground like worthless trash. The entire place is dirty, and littered with cans and wrappers and all sorts of food containers, discarded bottles, matchboxes, and other refuse lying carelessly on the ground.
Layer after layer of ancient, decaying buildings, jumbled together and spread across the horizon, rising as far as the eye can see. Certain areas of smashed and toppled buildings appear to lie in a punched-out pattern of destruction. Upon closer inspection the city resembles a dumping ground for religious buildings and objects, filling level after level, of normally empty lanes and empty rooms. Holes in the city-scape can be seen, where whole blocks of buildings appear to have been either burned or blasted. Broken and cracked bits of masonry form half-completed cathedrals and chapels, as well as fallen towers, scorched spires, seared timbers, and melted domes, a desolate landscape of crumbling walls. Here a wall is intact, there a wall is down, there is no roof here, no roof there, a certain number of arches here, and broken columns there.
Despite the air of ruin—huge trees have grown through buildings, splitting them open—mosses, ferns, and orchids coat some of the crumbling walls with iridescence. The lanes are dark, cool and filled with shadow, the buildings between which the PCs travel ancient and dilapidated, stone facades crumbling and grimed, patched with ad-hoc repairs and haphazard necessity. Despite this desolation, most of the waterworks still flow: canal-locks broken open centuries ago allow shallow cascades, leaks, spills and waterfalls, pools and streams of water in unexpected places, flowing between the buildings and well to the surface wherever the ground dips a little or cracks open, but none are remarkably large and none deeper than a few meters. There is a slight red discoloration on some surfaces, almost as if tiny drops of thin blood were over everything.
The skyline looks like a diseased jaw from which many teeth have already fallen. Almost every street and yard bears some slogan or other notice upon its walls. All are hand written, in a great variety of styles and degrees of calligraphic skill. Some are daubed in pitch, others paint or dye, others chalk or charcoal - the latter marks made by the employment of burnt sticks and splinters taken from the ruins. Many are indecipherable, or unfathomable. Some are lists, carefully recording the names of the citizens who had died in that place, or plaintive requests for news about the missing loved ones listed below. Others are agonized statements of lament, or minutely and delicately transcribed texts of some sacred significance.
Lines of written scripture are carved into limestone memorials, with responses given in paint (i.e "God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son." “BIG DEAL!”).
The northern edge of the city is just high enough to have a shallow view of the closest river of blood. Wrecked foundations of houses show underneath hummocks of dead grass.
The City of Ignorance is, of course, still inhabited, though its people suffer from memory lost and lose their sense of self. Someone may suddenly forget what he or she is doing and wander off, leaving a cooking pot untended or a stable door unlocked. Fires break out frequently. Yet somehow, the inhabitants still remember their ingrained prejudices. They show outsiders discourtesy.
The neighborhood looks more like a gypsy camp than a slum. The tiny, collapsing houses seem less decayed than pieced together out of discarded tires, chicken wire, and old stone. The shadows streaming over everything now had already pooled down there, so that the olive trees scattered everywhere look like hunched old people, white haired, slouching through the ruins like mourners in a graveyard.
Attached to every single structure — even the ones where roofs had caved in, walls given way — is a cage, as tall as the houses, lined with some kind of razor wire with the sharp points twisted inward. Inside the cages are birds. Peacocks. Three, maybe four to a house, including the ones that are already dead. The live ones pace skittishly, great tails dragging in the dust, through the spilled innards and chopped bird feet lining the cage bottoms. There is no mistaking any of it, and even if there are, the reek that rise from down there is a clincher. Shit and death. Unmistakable.
In the cage nearest them, right at the bottom of the wall, one bird glances up, lifts its tail as though considering throwing it open, then tilts its head back and screams.
There is an opening in the stone wall a few meters along, and they go to it and look inside, seeing a room, large and high-ceilinged, bereft of anything---furniture, character, life. Four walls, a floor, a ceiling, nothing more. There are no signs of it ever having been used. There is a doorway in the far wall without a door, no glass in the window they look through, no light fixture in the ceiling; the same uniform blue light lit every corner of the room, top and bottom, revealing nothing but slight drifts of dust. Shadows have no place here. They stand back slightly and look up, realizing that the building is maybe fifteen stories tall, all of them identically holed with glassless windows, and they are certain that each room and floor is the same sterile, deserted emptiness.
Over the crowds looms the centerpiece of the City of Ignorance, the 72-foot illusionary Statue of Intolerance. The statue holds in her left hand two tablets. In the figure's other hand, in place of a torch, is a large cross. And engraved on the figure's crown is the word "Jehovah." She belches black smoke, and demands obedience in sepulchral tones. Two red searchlights beam constantly from her eyes, directing all into the path of her mesmeric stare.
Three uninhabitable concrete slabs of 880 feet long, 110 feet wide, and 550 feet run north to south, 110 feet wide and 550 foot high passages are cut east and west though the three slabs of the center lines of the lateral angles of the three suns.
A building looking as if it were shot though with cone-shaped holes with the interior lined with walkways, ramps, and stairwells.
A dry fountain in the center of a courtyard, in the center of which stands a winged figure carved from stone. The mouth once spouted water now it gapes open as if to say something, the eroded lips crumbling sideways to devour one cheek, the face worn to blank suggestiveness.
Composed of smooth grey ceramic, two nude and hairless creatures stand near an skeletal tree. The human figures are squat, their bald heads oddly formed. The facial features are amorphous and amphibian. Each of the tree's sinister branches ends in a serpent's head. The inscription reads "In the Image of Frog created He them."
A seemingly invincible crystalline sphere in the city’s square continually displays images from Caspia, particularly of Celes and its many wonders. This is to constantly remind those present that Caspianism is supreme and all their faith and yearnings can do nothing to cease its spread.
A gigantic book, twelve feet high and twice as wide, rests among the rubble, leaned up so that it may be examined easily. The ledger/book of life is vast, with great claps of brass, thick leather ridges on its spine and pages huge enough to record. On its spine is written in crisp lettering six feet tall and more than ten feet wide: “The Book of Life.” in wide, angular black letters highlighted by pointed streaks of yellow and blue, looking alive with jagged forks of lightning that throb with a rich, vibrant life of its own. The letters seem to be three-dimensional and jump right off the cover. Within this volume is a masterpiece of the bookbinding craft. The soft, fine leather cover is rich and elegant. The pages are neat, even, and gilded, giving the book something of a glow. Shockingly the book’s pages are utterly devoid of writing. The entire volume contains only blank, creamy-white pages. All attempts to mark its surface fails; as ink runs off like water and the book itself indestructible is by any means the inhabitants of this level possesses.
A giant pedestal holding an immense scroll, rolled shut. It looked as if it were made not of parchment but of thick metal. The scroll is an ancient book that is said to tell all things, hold all secrets, offers the only way to cross the chasm, to escape the Dungeon, and to enter the Celestial City. But the book cannot be opened by anyone with the slightest imperfection, only a perfect being can open the scroll. Legends state that once Caspian himself appeared before all the inhabitants of the city, effortlessly opened the scroll with a mere touch, and then taunted those with the briefest glimpse of the scroll's contents before sealing it again.
A visitor’s eyes fall upon a merciless display of impaled bodies on each side of the city’s main road. Flames and blustering clouds of smoky ruin soil the skies above the walled province beyond the groves of torture. The catapult once used to launch showers of iron-tipped darts are abandoned in front of siege banks. Black plumes of smoke circle its towers.
Thunder House: Standing high on a hill, from which the Mountain of Error can be seen, is so called because it is frequently struck by lightning.
The Temple: Only this cryptic structure would seem to have endured the ages, changeless and impregnable. It continues to stand, however, gleaming in the sun like a golden-horned garlanded bull. The walls are veneered right up to the roof in white marble streaked with sea blue: making the temple seem to float upon a turbulent ocean. In front hang three tiers of chambers, one on top of the next. Long wide stairs rise well above the surrounding landscape lead to massive entrances on the north, south, and east.
There are blurred carvings beside the doorway: humanlike figures with folded wings, their features eroded by centuries of weather, but somehow in their stillness expressing power and compassion and intellectual force.
Although most of the temple's rooms are no longer inhabitable, their roofs having caved in or their supporting walls buckled, several are still usable. The air is dry, dusty and unmoving, not unlike being in a tomb.
Hall of Icons: The hall is perhaps forty feet long. The bare walls are festooned with canvases, intricate and disturbing murals cover the walls depicting monstrous creations, icons of pagan saints. Mosaics of shattered, multi-colored glass glitter in the light. It takes more than one glance to appreciate their evil. They appears to be nothing more than normal religious scenes such as might be depicted in any church, showing men performing the normal rites of prayer and worship, wielding the usual censers, reading from the usual volumes. But when one looks closer they see that the faces of the mass of the congregation are twisted in blank idiotic expressions of stupidity and malice. Peering closer still, they can see the intelligent-looking ones leading the rituals have horns and hooves and the stigma of mutation. Some of the altars depict leering demonic faces visible only when viewed from a certain angle.
Pale martyrs and hermits take on bestial forms: they grow horns and tails and ragged wings, their eyes grow huge with dark desires, their gilded flesh is turned to clay.
It appears to be a commentary on the pagan religions, a parody, suggesting that behind the facade of truth lurks madness and evil, and that all of mankind’s most cherished beliefs are merely a veil behind which demons lurk, a fact that the clever ought to be able to perceive. A subtle and devious genius has gone into the production of these works that invites the viewer to join in its cleverness, to share the joke, and so be seduced to its point of view.
Out of angular and intersecting passageways as oddly scented as the deepest galleries of ancient tombs, around a shadowy cochlear spiral where breath whispers off every surface with a sound like scarabs scuttling in the walls, visitors progress through two more rooms, identifiable as separate spaces only the intervening doorways. The remaining jamps and headers are embedded like mine-shaft supports in the tightly packed materials that form these corridors.
PCs walking through these claustrophobic hallways, hear strange echoes and moans everywhere, as drafts of hot and cold air cut through the corridors at irregular intervals.
Reading Room: It is no longer a room. The door has been removed, evidently to facilitate movement through the labyrinth. The space has been transformed into a maze of narrow passages. Seven- and eight-foot stacks of magazines and newspapers form the partitions of the maze. Some are bundled with twine. Others are stored in cardboard boxes on which, in block letters, have been hand-printed the names of the publications. Wedged between flanking buttresses of magazines and cartons, tall wooden bookshelves stand packed with paperbacks, yellow issues of religious tracts and magazines. Cramped niches in these eccentric palisades harbor small pieces of furniture. A needlepoint chair has been squeezed between columns of magazines; more ragged-edged magazines are stacked on its threadbare cushion. Here, a small end table with a lamp. And here, a hat tree with eight hooks upon which hang a collection of at least twice that many moth-eaten fedoras. Veils of shadows hang everywhere. Overall, the acidic odor of browning newsprint and yellowing paperbacks dominates. In pockets: the pungent stink of urine. Underneath: a whiff of mildew, traces of powdered insecticide---and the subtle scent of decomposing flesh, possibly a rodent that had died long ago and that is now a scrap of leather and gray fur wrapped around papery bones.
Writing Room: The arch, once generous, has been reduced to a narrow opening by magazines tied with string in bundles of ten and twenty, and then stacked in tight, mutually supportive columns. The windows are painted black, and the floors and rickety furniture are swamped with moldy food, broken objects, and grotesque images. The sweeping lights reveal a rotting mattress in one corner. More of the cockroaches rustle away from the light. Several candles are placed atop an old-fashioned writing desk. Their illumination settles across the room, revealing a graveyard of mutilated, deformed religious icons. Disfigured Madonnas, mutilated crosses, and broken statues of angels and saints are strewn across the floor in some sort of perverse order. A shiny red triangle is smeared on the floor, sticky to the touch. The walls are covered in drawings, all done by the same spidery hand. Pictures of angels and demons in gory battle over broken human bones and screaming skulls, religious icons and symbols, and wildly scrawled graffiti.
Parlor: This room is at the hub of this labyrinth. There is an armchair flanked by a floorlamp and a small table, facing a television. To the side stands an ancient brocade-upholstered sofa with a tassel-fringed skirt. All of it surrounded by maze walls constructed of magazines, newspapers, books, phonograph records stored in plastic milk crates, stacks of used coffee cans that contain items ranging from nuts and bolts to severed human fingers, boxy floor-model radio balanced atop one another, and an array of other items too numerous to catalog, all interlocked, held together by weight and mold and inertia, braced by strategically placed planks and wedges.
Jasper Throne: A glittering throne room packed with an array of 177 sparkling objects, arranged symmetrically about the centrepiece throne, upon which slouches the ghostly image of an anthropomorphic lamb with white fur, seven eyes and seven horns, impaled by several long, spectral spears. The central, winged throne and 24 pulpits, though initially looking solid, are, on inspection, constructed from old light bulbs, electric flex wrapped in silver kitchen foil, cardboard, gold foil from cigarette packs and wine bottles, discarded furniture, hollow cardboard cylinders, metallic strips cut from coffee cans, mirror fragments, and other scavenged materials. Green pieces came from discarded desk blotters. The result is actually fragile and held together with glue, tacks, pins, and tape. Because the pins are sometimes too short to penetrate all the layers, all that holds the work together in places is tinfoil wrapped around it. The rest teems with wings that appear also to be eyes. Most of the objects here were arranged in three parallel rows, with all the remaining pieces of the assemblage on the floor in front and along the side walls.
Carved upon the floor of the temple is this inscription:
Man of all ages dies in every zone,
Faiths of all have gone to graves unknown;
And God lies dead upon the great green throne!
Beyond the city’s walls lie a tract of split and blackened earth, fissures zigzag everywhere like cracks on a shattered mirror. Set prominently is a white humanoid artifact of distinctly female shape, looking down upon the city. Closer inspection reveals the object to be made of solid salt and small holes have been cut into it in specialized locations.