two otherspaces for violent dukes

LARAN (THE RED)

description
At first glance, Laran is a barren wasteland. The glaring red sky, reflected back in the uneven red sands below and the sharp jagged rocks, that can slice through even the thickest of clothes (and shoe soles), leaving most travellers covered in tiny wounds and blood. These rocks, which dominate almost all the landscape in Laran, shatter with the slightest force, sending razor sharp shards flying. The only smooth surfaces here are the brief patches of sand, but prolonged rest in these places is not wise, for such open spots are prey to the howling winds, made worse by the fact that they carry shards of broken rock, slicing easily through tents, or unprotected flesh. But avoiding the wind is not the only reason travellers tend to stick to the rocks, searching out the small natural caverns, some seek respite for their senses, as Laran assaults them all.
The glaring red light harms the eye, a sharp acrid taste to the air assaults the nose and tongue, the winds flay the flesh, but worst of all, is the noise. The air of Laran vibrates with a loud constant droning, like the buzz of a billion cicada amplified, making hearing difficult and thinking near impossible. Dukes hoping to escape the noise in the caverns will discover the noise permeates everywhere, however the caverns do provide some respite from the glaring light (at the expense of an increased strength to the acidity of the air). These conditions work to erode travellers sanity. Each hours spent here a character must make a rank 8 Violence check, as Laran assaults their senses, slowly pouring rage, hatred and violence into their soul.
Anyone who spends any time here notices the land isn’t quite as barren as it looks, despite seeming very inhospitable to life. A number of tiny plants manage to grow here, dull brown leaves barely visible jutting out from amongst the cracks in the rocks, or spreading out over a patch of sand. In keeping with the rest of the environment of Laran however these plants are covered in tiny thorns, that cut at anyone who touches them. They are also quite difficult to cut or uproot, being as tough an inflexible as leather, and held to the ground my a taproot longer than 6 feet, the only wooden part of the plant. The leaves of the plant are exceptionally tough, and mildly poisonous, but rumour is that boiling them for 2 hours leaches out enough toxins, and softens them enough to be eaten (of course, most people would rather save the water, which is understandably difficult to find here). Animals can be found here too, slithering amongst the rocks and under the sand. All such creatures are reptilian, and most are unnaturally large- snakes, iguana and other things, lizard-like creatures as big as dogs (or horses) their red scales helping them disappear in the red haze. Dukes tell of dinosaurs and actual fire-breathing dragons being found here, and there may even be a kernel of truth to it. Anyone who plans to stay a while in the red had best hunt down and kill something however, as the reptiles skins are one of the few things that are known to offer complete protection from the whirling rock shards.
The red can not really be used as an efficient escape root, as most often you will leave Laran to where you entered it, so its only uses are for particularly challenging safari’s for overly keen huntsman (or anyone who wants to kill a dragon), and as a necessary part of a ritual about killing.
entry
Seeing Red 3 minor charges
As could probably be guessed, either by the nature of the red or by sheer weight of precedent the ritual to enter Laran involves blood. Specifically from two donors. The first donor must have been killed (but does not need to be human), and the second donor must have killed the first (and must be human and still alive). The caster could well be the second donor, but this is not necessary nor advised. The ritualist must anoint his palms and tongue with blood from the first donor, and must anoint his ears and nose with blood from the second donor. He must then draw a melee weapon in each hand (they must give a minimum of +3 damage to work) and dip the end of one weapon in the first donors blood, and use it to mark out a doorway, then dip the end of the other weapon in the second donors blood, and drip the blood into his eyes, blurring his vision. The ritualist must then step into the marked doorway before his vision clears. If the ritual was successful the caster is now in Laran (otherwise he just walked into a wall). A side effect of this ritual is that the secondary donor will suffer frequent nosebleeds for a week after the ritual was done, and his blood will have difficulty clotting, causing him to bleed much more from small wounds. Leaving the red requires a similar ritual, but instead of a doorway a symbol is placed on the ground and stepped onto. The ritualist returns to earth in the space he left it, regardless of how far he travelled in the red, and on his next trip to the red he will enter it at the point he left it, even if cast from a different place on earth. This destination control can be avoided when crossing at the same time as someone else (who must cast the ritual separately) by making a Soul roll, with success allowing you to appear alongside the other ritualist where he would appear. If both characters attempt and pass on this soul roll then they appear at each others destinations.
Warriors Will 4 minor charges
This is the ritual Laran is most famous for. It greatly boosts the ritualist’s combat ability against a named target, turning him into a raging berserker. To perform the ritual the ritualist must be in Laran. Wearing the skin of one of Laran’s larger reptiles that he has killed personally, the ritualist must sit down before a brazier of hot coals, upon which burns some object owned by the subject of the ritualists hatred. The ritualists must sit cross-legged before this brazier, with a weapon in each hand (they must be a minimum of +6 damage weapons), his eyes closed, as he breathes in the smoke, and meditates on his foe, chanting the mantra “Alator, Barrecis, Caturix, Camulos, Veive”. The ritualist can not move from his position for the length of the ritual, so if he intends it to last some time (as is often the case) he must bring someone else along, to place additional objects into the brazier when the first one is burnt away, and to restock the coal if it gets low. The ritual roll is made at the end of the first half hour of chanting. If it’s a success, for each additional half hour the ritualist spends, chanting and meditating on his foe, he receives an additional use of his Rage flip-flop (beyond the normal rules of one per session), but only against the named target (who’s very presence now provokes the ritualists rage). This ritual may be maintained for as long as the ritualist is able, allowing a massive number of attack flip-flops against the target. The ritualist can not use his basic, once per session rage flip-flop on anyone but his target until that target dies or this ritual expires. The extra rage given by this ritual begins to fade the moment the ritualist breaks focus and moves. The bonus flip-flops fade at the rate they were gained (the first one hour after the ritual ends, then one every half hour after that). The caster can not sleep while he still has bonus rage flip-flops available, and can not concentrate on any complex or long term activities besides finding and killing his target. The bonus flip-flops disappear the instant the ritualist kills the target. Note that while the reptile skin will protect against the winds, the ritualist still needs to make those Violence checks.

NDUMBASHA (THE WHITE)

description
Ndumbasha, known colloquially as the white, has been responsible for keeping a number of dukes alive long after they should have been died, and those few who know how to reach it hoard the information to themselves. These dukes have been known to use the white as a refuge after serious injury, for Ndumbasha is an enormous, labyrinthine enclosed hospital. In the wards, and corridors of less importance the white looks much like any other hospital, except this hospital seem to have almost no staff, and fewer patients. The walls and floor are bare and white, the beds in the wards are simple, with white sheets located in the white cupboard next to it. Nearer to one of the many ORs, ERs or any room filled with active machinery, the overhead lights get brighter, such that in the “active” ORs it is impossible to see at all. There are no windows in Ndumbasha, and no duke has verifiably even found an exterior wall or door (let alone a provably top or bottom floor), so most dukes assume that someone travelling long enough through the white must eventually return to where he started from, but this is likely to happen anyway from getting lost and turned around if you travel too far away from where you started, so the dimensions of the white have never truly been established.
There is the occasional vending machine in the corridors, and dukes tell of empty cafeterias and kitchens (containing fresh food) spread around the white from which a duke can scavenge food. There is also every kind of machinery a modern hospital could need, as well as all the things that are no longer used my modern medicine (like dunking chairs and electroshock chambers for healing the mentally ill, jars of leeches, glasses for cupping, etc), and supply cupboards filled with all kinds of modern and antique medicines. These supplies tend to form in clusters, spread out amongst the maze of wards, one cluster might include old machinery/ ORs and medicines, while another might be more modern with the absolute latest of medical advances. A duke who needs medical attention and has someone with him who knows how to give it, can receive excellent care in relative privacy, assuming he avoids the white’s native residents.
Wandering the corridors are strange creatures, often appearing as strange combinations of zombies, robots and giant insects. These creatures appear to be working in the (nearly) empty hospital, as cleaners, wheeling food carts, fresh linens or medication around to another ward, or pushing along a startled patient (captured duke-see below). Any member of the “staff” that sees a duke roaming around or spots one in an unmarked bed in the wards during their rounds will immediately sound the alarm, and dozens more come running, to capture and restrain the duke, strapping him down to a gurney and wheeling them off for testing. Such hapless dukes will be subject to any number of bizarre medical experimentations and surgeries, and will likely go mad very quickly, and probably cease to look human in short order too (as parts of his body are reorganised or replaced). Some dukes theorise that this is the source of the staff in Ndumbasha, but this theory fails to explain who the original staff were. Regardless brave souls can endeavour to rescue dukes taken by the staff by finding which ward they are posted to between experiments, and untying the straps which keep him tied down. Most who try are shocked when they see what has become of their friend, and some find their friend, only to walk away again, unwilling to help what is still mostly him.
Wise dukes know however that if you can write a fake chart to hang outside one of the rooms, you have found a nice restful place, with nutritious (if flavourless) meals that appear (and disappear) in the room at some point when you weren’t looking. Of course, this assumes the chart implies the duke is sick in some way that does not require active treatment (beyond medication, which appears in a small cup next to the food). Any duke who writes himself up for surgery or examination is in for a serious shock. Within hours Ndumbasha’s “nurses” file into the room. These monstrosities appear to be some form of zombie, with their heads warped to increase the size of their mouths, the skin shrivelled and dry, thin, hospital bed wheels for feet, and scalpel blades protruding from the tip of each finger. The nurses are exceptionally strong and fast (Body and Speed both 90), and will not allow a “patient” to object or prevent them doing their duty. These creatures speak a strange language in a weird high pitched squeal, seeming to practically scream at the duke before strapping him firmly down to a bed and wheeling him off to “treatment” (unless of course they need to call in a specialist. No one has yet seen a specialist and lived, but many have spied strange figures in the distant halls of the white, which are suspected of being specialists).
Examination is a singularly creepy procedure, with the nurses squealing orders at the duke, then forcibly prodding, poking, measuring, injecting or manhandling the duke. This kind of thing tends to cause bruises and tiny cuts to the duke, due to scalpel accidents.
Surgery is worse. The duke is wheeled into an OR, where the nurses leave him in the capable hands of the “doctors”. In the blinding light of the OR the doctors can’t be easily seen, but insectile clicks and mechanical whirrings can be heard as the doctors begin operating. The doctors of the white are very competent (medicine 75%) but do not use any form of anaesthetic, making surgery a painful prospect, from which many dukes pass out (and counts as a violence check for undergoing torture). Afterwards the duke has some time convalescing in one of the wards, not bothered by the nurses or doctors again, until he leaves or two days after he is fully healed, at which point his chart disappears from the door and he is treated as a wanderer the next time staff see him. Oddly it is quite rare for someone who voluntarily undergoes surgery here to be experimented on as wanderers if they don’t overstay their welcome. While there are reports of bizarre side effects, and the occasional superfluous organ, these are in the distinct minority. For skilled medical care in a hospital your enemies will probably have a hard time finding (let alone finding you in it) many dukes see this as worth the risk.
The staff can not cure someone of insanity (indeed they often provoke it) but if a patient’s chart lists a mental problem, they will try- using electroshock and similar violent, physical methods of cure, three times a day till the patient dies (since it’s not likely to actually cure him), between these times he is returned to a padded ward, with a firmly locked door.
Rumour in the underground is that the sangoma of southern Africa know rituals to command/summon the inhabitants of the white, but the sangoma deny this.
entry
Inpatient 2 minor charges
This is the Ndumbasha entry ritual. To perform it the ritualist must be wearing- a hospital ID badge (it doesn’t matter whether it’s a janitors or a doctors, or whether the hospital in question is still open, it only matters that it was used to identify hospital staff), a patient ID bracelet with the ritualists name on it (from a different hospital to the badge), a necklace of red, black and white beads strung on twine woven from goat hair, three live leeches (one on each temple and one on the forehead) and seventeen acupuncture needles, placed in key meridians of the back and arms (this could get in the way of wearing a shirt). The ritualist must enter a room, closing the only door behind him. If anyone opens the door before the ritual is complete, then the ritual is ruined. The room must have no furnishings except for a single lamp, which should be off, any windows in the room must have been blocked (the room must be completely dark), and the walls, door, roof and floor all coloured white. In the room the ritualist must precisely dance a fast paced, frenetic dance. When the dance is finished, the ritualist must place a red cover over the lamp, and turn it on, bathing everything in a red light. He must then dance a second frenetic dance without missing a step. When this dance is finished, the ritualist must remove the covering from the light, filling the room with white light, and dance a third frenetic dance. At the end of this dance, the ritualist (who is probably very tired) can open the door he entered, and leave it into a corridor of Ndumbasha. The ritualist can take people with him into Ndumbasha, if they are in the room the ritual is performed in, for an additional minor charge per passenger. If people are in the ritual room and the ritualist doesn’t pay to bring them along, the ritual automatically fails.
To leave Ndumbasha the ritualist simply need find an empty room and perform the ritual in reverse- dancing in white light, then in red light, then in no light- and only needs to be wearing one piece of the ritual costume (it doesn’t matter which). When he opens the door, it will exit via a random door in the city he left from.