The Caged City of Vreen

The trees loom close here and stretch up into the boundless sky. The cold wind yields no sound of rustling branches— only the scrape and whine of rusted metal hinges, the clink of old bones, and an occasional piteous moan fill the silence. Shadows dance among the branches like spiders—sometimes sinister and sometimes hypnotic as they flit among the leaves.

Sentinel pines scrape the sky and deep shadows hide the dragons’ darkest secrets in a towering forest on the southern edge of Fang Crater. Thousands of rust-covered iron cages hang from the branches here like grim fruit. Twisting and creaking in the wind, the cages imprison long-dead skeletons, who seemingly scrape at their bars with bony talons. Long ago, as the giants grew to majesty on the far shores of Xen’drik, the trees here ringed the great city of Vreen, a civilization of Sarlonan humans and Aerenal elves thriving in the shadows of dragons’ wings. Now all that remains is a hanging, rusted legacy of horror and cruelty.

Invited as guests of the dragon-stewards of Argonnessen, the residents of Vreen lived in a paradise—their godlike hosts provided for every need and satisfied every whimsy. However, this utopia was a ruse. As the giants rose to might across the sea and twisted Argonnessen’s gift of magic into a terrible instrument of cataclysm, the dragons already began to plot the destruction of the titan-kings and the utter erasure of their civilization.

The Du’rashka Tul, also called the madness of crowds, was a mighty curse that when leveled at an entire civilization spelled the doom of a thousand generations and plunged a whole continent into an endless cycle of inescapable savagery. This potent magic took more than mere moments to make, however. Vreen served as the laboratory where the Eyes of Chronepsis shaped this dark curse to perfection. A few years after Vreen was peopled with “chosen” Sarlonan and elven peoples, the dragons began to work their epic power on the remote city, shielded from prying eyes by the great surrounding forest. The people there changed. Fear and mistrust spread like disease. Paranoia shouted down reason, and hatred bloomed in the hearts of the city’s denizens. The trials began—terrifying inquisitions to root out “evil” in which the accused were always found guilty and consigned to a slow death in a hanging iron cage. Food for crows and vermin, these starved, insane people twisted far above the ground, their screams echoing through the branches. As the dragons perfected their mighty curse, the city tore itself apart. None survived, and the Eyes of Chronepsis allowed the forest to claim Vreen, either to hide the secrets of their powerful weapon, or to shield future generations from this horrible deed. The rusted cages remain to this day, and even though the curse lingers still and many of the dead prisoners rest uneasily, the promise of the city’s unspoiled treasure vaults as well as the arcane secrets of the dragon’s curse-crucible draw many intrepid souls to the dark woods—there to hunt gold and power, but most likely finding only paranoia and death

Approach

Overlooking Fang Crater, the old growth forest surrounding Vreen is a place of deep shadows even at high noon. A shroud of nettles and jagged branches scorn the sun, and darkness reigns within. Steely pine needles that pierce even leather cover the ground, making movement through the forest a delicate process. Rain clouds favor the woods here (perhaps accounting in part for the trees’ freakish size) and downpours cascade through the groaning cages hanging within the trees. Rust-tainted rain water often forms blood-red pools on the forest floor.

Terrain Features

The Du’rashka Tul flows from the land here like a tide of savage hate and mistrust. The longer one wanders the nettlefloor of Vreen’s dark woods, the colder her heart turns. Love flees the soul as it embraces fear and ire instead. For every 6 hours spent in Vreen, a living creature must make a DC 25 Will save. The first failure results in a mounting sense of anxiety and the inability to trust even her closest loved ones and companions. The second failure escalates these base fears to murderous hate, and the person believes that those it travels with are secretly planning to destroy her. The first chance she gets, she launches a preemptive attack. The third failure results in her going permanently insane (as the insanity spell) and assuming that every creature she encounters is a dire foe bent on her annihilation.

The curse aside, Vreen is fraught with demented undead and spellwarped predators. More than a few mad dragons lurk here as well, either driven to distraction while questing for power in Vreen’s accursed borders, or drawn here in the throes of some nameless guilt over their ancestors’ horrid experiments on the people of the Caged City.

August 16th, 2019

Key Areas

Trees of Rust and Woe: These great trees serve as a graveyard of sorts, holding thousands of dead Vreens in their rusted iron cage-coffins, all hanging from the branches. Some red, bone-filled cages hang as low as 5 feet off the ground, and the fingers of their inhabitants clutch at the rusted bars of the cage. In the heights of the branches, hundreds of these cages sway in the strong wind, occasionally snapping free and careening to the earth. Below the trees, broken cages lie strewn upon the ground like rotten fruit. Many of these fallen cages are disturbingly vacant—their skeletal prisoners long gone

Carrion District: One of the only sections of Vreen still standing, this ruined district is a ghost town of half-demolished marble monuments and once lavish estates now caved in by time’s crushing hand. In the grips of the deepest paranoia of the curse, Vreen inhabitants ran out of trees and began hanging traitors from the gates of their estates. The cages still hang here today, adorning ruined archways like macabre ornaments. Now this district is the prowling ground of a tremendous charnel hound (MM3 26) made up of dozens of Vreen’s former residents. A successful DC 20 Survival check reveals the hound’s hunting trails and allows a PC to track the undead menace to its lair, which is a large carnival for the district’s children. This playground of magically powered marble and steel rides has the remains of several children hanging in rusty wroughtiron cages—a testament to the height of paranoia that befell the city.

Temple to the Benefactors: Once the people of Vreen loved their dragon-gods and built great temples in their honor, where they offered sacrifices to the Eyes of Chronepsis who provided for them and sheltered them from all harm. One such temple still stands here—a towering tribute of pristine white marble with silver tracery and spires. As the city fell in the grips of madness, the high priest here tore his golden locks from his head, taking his scalp with them, and then gouged out his own eyes with an ear-splitting screech. His wailing never ended. The high priest rose as a deathshrieker (MM3 33) and still stalks the temple grounds

Circle of Truth: In better times, this tremendous amphitheatre was a venue for players, acrobats, and wonders. Then the curse’s evil tendrils found their way into the hearts and minds of Vreens, and the amphitheatre, as the largest central gathering place, became the backdrop for the inquisition. These mockeries of justice became the best-attended events in the city as the curse drove people to feed their darkest urges. In later years at the height of the curse, the accused numbered in the dozens every day, and the average trial lasted a mere handful of minutes. The verdict was always guilty. Now the ruined amphitheatre is haunted by a ghostly court of inquisitors, their victims, and a spectral malingering crowd of leering onlookers. Anyone who ventures here becomes accused and is thrown in with the haggard ghostly prisoners that await their trials. The proceedings are overseen by the former inquisitor, who is now a deranged lich named Penthralos (MM 166). He views any new arrivals as treacherous heretics and accursed traitors doomed to be bound in iron and planted high in the trees to wither and rot.

Terrace of Fire: These terraced farms were once replete with a bounty of vegetable, fruit, and grain staples that magically sprung from the earth to provide for all of Vreen’s needs. As the curse’s hold grew stronger, the people converted these plateau farms to forges wherein they wrought the iron cages of pain. The surrounding crops and trees fueled the hateful flames until these terraces were left desolate. When the forges could no longer keep up with the number of condemned, the “heretics” were fed to the fires. Now in the dark of night, ghost fires still rage on the hearths, and burning effigies (MM 89) wander these terraces moaning out in horrid torment from within their death-flames.

Palace of the Caged King: The last king of Vreen was a drooling simpleton of a child who ascended the throne when his father was condemned to a rusty cage. The power behind the throne at the end was a mad wizard named Karthaxilar, and he still rules here, now a horrid undead (male grimweird wizard 12). Karthaxilar commands a host of blasphemes (LM 85), two grisgols (MM3 77), and of course his young liege, now a slaymate (LM 122).