Rusthollow

Long of an age ago forgotten, this ancient battlefield spat and roared such otherworldly fires for a war that wrought unfettered miseries ‘pon this accursed Land.

T'is a dead canvas now; metallic monstrosities crumble to rust and ruin, naught able to fight off so much as the fraying wilds come clambering across eons with bramble, weed & vine.

Rare fuels and toxins still poison this Hollow, and have nourished displacements and deadly disarray in creatures, many.

Scavengers, treasure-hunters, alchemists, all come; they search for indecipherable artefacts from this ill remembered past - objects of great power, great value; things understood by few, and risked by fewer, still.

So come, dear Traveller, brave Adventurers, all!

Clamber down to the muck & the mire, into oil filled craters, & ‘pon shattered ghosts twisted with exaltations of metal, through impossible trenches where rot the memories of legions long dead, across a land of things now long forgotten.

For there is much still to find here in Rusthollow!

Sights, Sounds, & Smells
Sights Sounds Smells
 * Barren wastes of mud and twisted, broken tree stumps
 * Pools of filthy, oil coated water
 * Rods and beams of rusted metal jutting from the earth
 * Trench networks, some flooded, some mired, others cracked and clay-like
 * Rain
 * Fizz of the occasional flare in the sky
 * Low, distant boom of long buried ordnance exploding
 * Metallic clanking of scavenging crews dragging their equipment in and out of various trenches
 * Rotting, damp earth
 * Rust and old iron
 * Sodden leather and linen
 * Excrement and dead rodents
 * Lingering gas-like odours

Local Economy
A scavenger's paradise, and a dangerous haven for bandits, scammers, schemers, prospectors and charlatans.

On the many narrow approaches, and in the nearest Villages and Hamlets (still some distance away), the Traveller may find trades or sales offered of "artefacts" from the Hollow.

Very few are genuine, of course, or sold with any understanding of provenance or purpose.

Some object or another may, from time to time, make its way to a market or merchant's stores, and the educated Adventurer may discern some greater use, so a rummage through even the most meagre whisper of Rusthollow may reward.

Imports
Scavengers and Treasure-Hunters, for the most part, seek their fortune in the Hollow

Historians and Bards come, too, to see for themselves this vast dead plain littered with metallic monstrosities and bewildering ghosts stretching off to the horizon and beyond.

Exports
Great chunks of twisted metal, angular boarding covered in glittering dots, loops and lines; near-endless fishing line-like threads encasing fine copper as delicate as baby's hair; unruly greases and amber liquids most flammable and arcane.

Bronze, Iron, Gold, Silver, Tin, Lodestone, Cavorite, Naqahdah, Phostlite, Xirang, Oxypheromalkahyde, all hacked, scraped, and hauled from the dense muck of Rusthollow's sodden, charred, and broken earth.

Lodging & Shelter
Few dare set up permanent lodgings here.

The ground - in times of heavy rain - often shifts, sinks, and yawns, swallowing vast swathes or regurgitating long lost behemoths of twisted scrap onto the surface.

Random explosions and eruptions of flame or toxic substance are also frequent.

Some seek shelter in craters temporarily covered with waxed-tarpaulin, or within the hollow chest cavities of fallen metal monstrosities where, on occasion, the rusting spirits whisper in scrambled, repetitive cracklings, flickering briefly into dim, whirring illuminations of unusual quality and ember before the silence descends again.

Hierarchy & Political Structure
The pecking order of your average scavenging crew is established and maintained through either an example of thankless labour and toil, the liberal application of an unwieldy, serrated-edged club, or a bribe.

Hierarchical tiers are (principally):
 * Seeker - with a certain eye, and a way of perceiving the shine amongst the shit, the Seeker selects the site, and the job.
 * Scrapper - able to tear down a heap of metal into its better, and lesser, parts, with minimal depreciation to potential value. Scrappers able to work at speed are highly sought after.
 * Spotter - providing sentry, overwatch and general forewarning of any dangers.
 * Shifter - finding good scrap is one thing, but carrying it out of the pit or crater is entirely another.
 * Ragger - usually the youngest, or smallest, of the Crew; they scout and retrieve. Life-expectancy of a Ragger is minimal.

This configuration may differ from crew to crew.

Culture
Rusthollow is oftentimes brutal, unforgiving and ugly, with an unruly tendency to bewilder, bewitch and confound.

This may, in part, be something to do with its size : some tens of thousands of square miles across.

Many are those who have come with naught but a sack of gold glinting in their eye, only to return to their lives years later, half-starved and muck-covered, with an aspect struck through them as though they had stood in the limitless fury of gods both past and future.

The Hollow brings terrors that unravel the mind and spirit, and it changes forever many who come here.

Adventure Hooks

 * 1) The Shepherd has begun safely depositing the young of all manner of beast and creature at the locations frequented by Scavengers and Companies.
 * 2) Several small meteorites sparkle through the night and into the Hollow. Whatever was inside them is now hunting … and hunting only for the one known as Mouse.
 * 3) A Party Member finds an emblem of great meaning to them emblazoned upon the breast-plate of one of the machines.
 * 4) The Lark Twins have been conversing with something buried so very, very deep below Rusthollow. The Twins know only that it moves about, but feels weak; far away, or not yet strong enough to rise.
 * 5) The Lord of the Hollow has a task for a member of your Party; in exchange for an important book of many meanings and answers stashed somewhere within their mouldering hoard.
 * 6) The Interra Mortum wish to hire the Party to clear out several crater rims, giving the Noble Company of Tillers a bridgehead into the north-eastern tar-fields. A well-paid, but dangerous, job.
 * 7) The Noble Company of Tillers have employed a band of mercenaries to guard several Scavenger crews deep in the Hollow. Rumours circulate of misdemeanours and strange goings on, and that the mission is lost, and cannot be found.
 * 8) The Spirits in the Canteen have begun “hearing” a pulsing wave of sound, and their incorporeal forms have - in fits and starts - been for a time whole; real, again.
 * 9) Contact was lost with an airship full of wealthy Merchants who - fat of purse and bereft of want - of late fancied themselves amateur historians. Last known whereabouts : 240 miles into the Hollow. A group of concerned relations have raised a considerable purse for any who would, at once, depart towards returning their kin home.
 * 10) The Lord of the Hollow has - in their reading and scavenging - divined to a meaning regarding a number of tall obelisks part-buried throughout the Hollow. Several have, of late, begun to glow a cold blue. Others have begun to hum.

Battlefield Encounters

 * 1) A bright-green foaming ooze expands angrily out from several large, rusted metal crates. Anything it touches appears affected by … time.
 * 2) A grazing herd of usually docile, roaming equine-like creatures have fallen into a collapsed bunker; a bunker filled with stocks of motion sensitive explosive devices.
 * 3) A subterranean nest of giant grub-cocoons was exposed in recent storms. The sudden temperature change appears to have initiated the hatchings.
 * 4) Far towards the centre of the Hollow, a metallic archway stands amongst shattered trees and blasted hillocks. From time to time a small number of panicked individuals - adorned in unusual armour and equipped with strange weapons - are spat from the blue static air of the arch.
 * 5) A number of mud-slides occurring in the most recent rainfall have exposed a previously buried metallic construct. What remains of its torso, head and arms is violently dragging itself across the Hollow, attacking anything it encounters, and spilling toxic, flammable liquids as it goes.
 * 6) A large worm-like creature apparently lodged in a narrow trench-way is in great distress, and its pained cries are attracting a pack of hungry predators.
 * 7) A half-collapsed bunker that once housed a Field-Canteen, of sorts. Lingering spirits are constantly drawn here.
 * 8) A trap? A timer? One final attempt to get home? None shall every know. All that can be said is that - after a series of sharp, whip-crack explosions - a massive section of the Hollow split open and fell away, revealing the riveted surface of something dark, metallic, and massive. This entire structure lifts, as though upon a swell of unseen fire, filling the air with its upward momentums and bathed in shimmering rows of blinding light. Within a few moments, this metal monstrosity will be a mere twinkle in the night sky, leaving behind it a gargantuan depression in the earth, and a complex system of exposed subterranean tunnels.