The cavern leads through walls of bone into a basement, up some stairs, and into a golden door. The door opens into a temple, which itself leads to a dead city.
There are no stars, and no sun or moon to light the sky, violet beyond the fluted columns and amphitheater-like stairs or benches that circle you. The light that comes is a flickering violet that seems to rise into the sky. In the center of this amphitheater is a small platform with some machinery of brass or gold upon it, and a pillar rising alongside it.
As you step beyond the door, a low voice whispers as if floating upon the strange and heavy air. “Viator, amplecti quadrivium.”
The violet light emanates from the aurora-like edge of reality that surrounds this last remnant of a once vibrant world.
Dead Rome is a parallel world where Rome continued to rule the world through the industrial and technological revolutions. That world is soon to disappear, and is dead. Only crazy crabs, buzzflies, oily moss, and scraggly twisting vines that wind through the city remain alive.
Buzzflies and crazy crabs come out every few hours. First the buzzflies swarm past above the depression, and then the crabs come clattering over the stairs.
Within the dead city there are newspapers in a form of Latin that is vaguely understandable as the Ancient tongue of Highland. Those who know the Ancient tongue can read this world’s Latin at a penalty of two.
In the streets are metal contraptions on wheels, windows with glass so fine you can see through them, and so on. These are vehicles, like our cars but perhaps slightly more advanced, but they show signs of having been lived in and unmoved for years. Tires are flat. They were used by refugees from cities and towns that are now beyond the edge of the world. They go by names of places that Rome considered exotic and conquered. There is an Ahura Mazda pickup truck, an Obelix, a Helgo, a Brittanica, and a Corinth.
The final issue of the Roman Daily Sun is provided as a player handout. The paper’s last issue was in Highland year 774, or our year 1804. This single-page paper can be found in several of the vehicles along the street. At the very end, refugees were living in their cars. Many cars never left their parking spot for years.
In some of the buildings there are timepieces that run off of perpetual energy sources. But time as well as space is dying in this world. The timepieces will stop for several minutes, and then rush forward. It will move slowly and quickly, and rarely at what the characters think is the “real” flow of time.
In this dying world, magic is more difficult. To successfully cast a spell, a Learning roll must be made at a penalty of the casting level, and a further penalty of 3.
Eden had four gates
A series of gears and wheels lie upon and in the small altar. One wheel has two small extrusions, one vertical, like a handle, and one arrow-like that points to one of the doors.
Beside the altar a four-sided basalt pillar is covered in writing, in what appears to be many languages. A larger section of writing in the center of each side reads “Viator, amplecti quadrivium” and then “Omnis viae Romam ducunt”.
The pillar in the center of the circle reads, in Ancient, “Traveler, welcome to the crossroads.” “Viator, amplecti quadrivium.” The first line is repeated in smaller lettering in several languages including Highland English, Elvish, and Kilirel. Touching a phrase will have it read in the low, fading, cracking voice that greeted them. The Elvish phrase is “elanvedo vestelerivel morilvan” and the Kilirel phrase is “andenil, arenorten reneri”. After the welcome, it will also read instructions: “Please ask the temple guards for assistance.”
Also in large letterings, but not repeated, is “Omnis viae Romam ducunt.” In English, this means “All roads lead to Rome.”
The temple has four doors leading out of it, each set on marble stairs. Clockwise from the door which leads to the Vale of the Azure Sun (Water) are doors that lead to: Barcelas (Earth), Iridia (Air), and Araman (Fire),
The temple is a place of power, though now only level 1.
The Edges of the World
The edges of Dead Rome are unraveling. An invisible, malleable field of force separates the remaining reality from the horrible scene on the other side. Cities twist into lakes that bend like rivers. It looks like a cross between Hieronymous Bosch and Salvador Dali rolled together with Escher.
There are blobs hanging in the darkness, inaccessible, and what look to be the remains of city streets inside these blobs. On these streets creatures barely visible only with enhanced vision skitter slowly like dots among the twisted streets and buildings.
Looking into the darkness, it is utterly black except for the pockets of reality bubbling off. If a person looks closely and carefully, however, there are strange, ponderous movements in the utter darkness, as if a thing of even more absolute darkness were moving at some unknown distance.
It is possible to push through the force field separating this world from the abyss. It is like moving through cold molasses. But successfully doing so will mean a cold, empty death in Health rounds.
A Green and Slimy Sea
A green and yellow sea engulfs the streets at the edge of the world. The still waters exude a faint, sweet-smelling odor, reminiscent of lilac or jasmine. Sightless things slither above and below the slimy surface. Huge iridescent green insects buzz across the surface. Strange lobster-like creatures crawl onto the shore and eat the insects and slimy things, grabbing them with their oversized claws.
The ocean on the other side of the crossroads is much contracted by the edge of reality, and its proximity to that strange abyss has not had a wholesome effect on the waters.
Dead Rome at the Crossroads: Refugees
You can put refugees from “the Dead Eternal City” in many places. You may choose to make the traveling Romans of Great Bend refugees from Dead Rome, in search of the true Eternal Crossroads. Somewhere in Barcelas, in 3360, some refugees settled into a community in Hamokera.
