Sun Keld Rules v.3 : gazeteer

Awan Tower

KeywordsFort

Awan Tower is an isolated fortification that watches over Ningaur's Steps a little way Daywards from the border between Darkin and Last Home. A single stone tower set amongst fingers of grey stone overlooks the road. A small garrison of troops from Darkin is stationed here under the command of an Ugulagesh.

North215

,

Turnwards-51

Balatai

KeywordsMine, Isolated

Routes

SizeVillage

RegionDarkin

Balatai is a mining settlement situated 3 days travel from Darkin, to the Counter-Night. Here a line of jagged hills are to be found, from which the famous Green Stone of Balatai can be mined in lustrous slabs. Caravans travel from Balatai to Darkin, and then Nightwards to the river valley. (A cart of Green Stone is Value 7). Balatai itself is a rough and haphazard settlement built in the shadows of empty quarry pits. Fresh workings are nearby in the surrounding valleys. A small amount of copper is also mined from the same hills, and spoil from the mines litters the slopes.

Balatai is often a destination for escaped Slaves, or penniless Freemen, hoping to make quick coin from manual labour. New Miners vie to join an existing gang, and take a share of the profits from the stone they excavate. The Clerks in charge of the mine pay the gang bosses, who decide how to distribute money to the members. The town has a few simple and rough taverns for the miners.

Darkin

Keywords

RoutesNingaur's Steps

SizeSmall Town

RegionDarkin

The town of Darkin is one of the principal administrative hubs of Nistray's Scion lands. Located about 10 days Nightwards and Turnwards of Wind's Canyon, and a Cycle Daywards of Last Home, Darkin is located in the midst of a fertile plain that is solidly cultivated and dotted with smaller villages and farms.

The town is located on a gentle rise in the middle of cornfields and cattle routes. Tall walls of mud-bricks and tapering square towers supported by wooden beams soar over the dusty grass, it has the clear look of a fortress, and any approaching traveller will be spotted by archers on the walls long before they reach either of the four gates. Inside the walls the town is a close-packed warren of passages, high-sided lanes, tunnels and caves that spiral down into the cooler earth. Narrow light-wells allow the sun to shine into Satvan-like shrines to Ningaur, but most of the town is always in semi-darkness. Covered Qanats funnel water from nearby bare stone flats into the town, where it is drawn up in well houses.

North300

,

Turnwards-40

Der-Maki

KeywordsHerding

RoutesNingaur's Steps

SizeHamlet

RegionDarkin

Der-maki is little more than a small collection of houses that marks the rough border between the lands of Darkin and Last Home. The buildings of Der-maki are set into the crumbling soil at the edge of a wadi, and are constructed of earth and mud-brick. Water is a constant issue, being stored in clay jars when the wadi floods and then conserved till the next storm. (Harshness 15)

North200

,

Turnwards-50

Enlak

Keywords

RoutesNingaur's Steps

SizeVillage

RegionDarkin

A small village built in the shell of an old fortress, with simple buildings of wood and grass sheltering amongst fallen heaps of mudstone bricks. The water source here is brackish.

North282

,

Turnwards-42

Five Stones

KeywordsFarming, Spring

Routes

SizeVillage

RegionDarkin

Five Stones is a moderately sized farming village set into the fertile farmlands of Darkin, about a day's walk to Turnwards of the town. The town gets it's name from five large white stones, some sort of milky quartz, that thrust in a rough line from the earth of a ridge at the town's entrance. An ancient and low stone door at the base of the largest stone opens into a cave shot through with the same mineral where water collects.

Although Five Stones is firmly in land claimed by Nistray it is also the site of the largest Satvan in the Darkin area, which opens on the far side of the cave of the spring, drawing light that filters through the white stone. Tribesmen will often stop by Five Stones on their way to Darkin to take a blessing at the Satvan.

Kutu

KeywordsRuin

RoutesNingaur's Steps

SizeVillage

RegionDarkin

Kutu was once a settlement built around an underground water source in the midst of a field of huge boulders tangled up with Razor Grass. The water source failed a Long Year ago, and the village was soon abandoned. Ruined structures, many built up against (or out of) boulders, still cluster close to the roadway, half buried in wind-blown sand. Searching the ruins turns up little more than the scattered bones of the last inhabitants. (Harshness 18)

North272

,

Turnwards-45

Mehune's Grave

KeywordsGrave

RoutesNingaur's Steps

SizeFeature

RegionDarkin

Some little distance from Ningaur's Steps (at this point little more than a bare track through the Razor Grass), near to Ea's Spire a low hill is marked by a stand of Zerom Trees. At the foot of this grove lie a number of simple cairns, grave markers for an expedition lost to one of the fierce Sandstorms of the Drylands. A single marker stone, on which the name Mehune can be read, gives the place it's name. Sometimes Tornraits can be found here, though they are little but tatters of spirit and memory.

North318

,

Turnwards-102

Two Wells

Keywords

RoutesNingaur's Steps

SizeHamlet

RegionDarkin

A small village built in the shadow of a canyon wall Counter of Ningaur's Steps. The village has two large wells as a major feature, although one has now run dry. Houses are built of yellow-brown stone with Nishag Tree beams. The handful of families here hunt the surrounding plains, and cultivate Maugey Cactus along the road.

North250

,

Turnwards-65

Gazeteer :

9 entries found.