The Darker side of the Nature of Magic

Another report from my journals abroad. Now, I would never ever admit to going to Kragrock spire, which is a hive of scum and villainy, because no self respecting Mage would ever make the journey to its rocky hell to revel in its decadent pleasures of science and the flesh, and flesh science, and flesh science magic, and then theres THE WHORES, I mean you want to talk about whores and gold, wait until you see the Kragrock pleasure pits, once you get past the suture marks, the four arms that some of the Madams have are... I mean... I've heard that they are... I mean... Here is my report on my findings. All gathered through second and third hand sources... I MEAN... through informants... Who are definitely not soldered together four armed geishas of intense evil and pleasure. They were like... goblins or something... Sure... Goblins. Goblins in the know, in the know about Kragrock Sprire. Who I met on the other side of the continent. 

A Brief Study of the free city of Kragrock Spire

Firstly, it should be noted that while Kragrock Spire remains a free city to the auspices of the enlightened peoples, and therefore isn’t recognized by the Monarchy for the reasons of representation and taxation, that nothing is really free there. Power over the lives of your fellow man, power over nature, power over life and undeath, usually come with a overtly ironic price tag, and only slightly shop-soiled.

Kick started by blightmages and necromancers ousted from Eula around the time of the human colonization, Kragrock was built as a refuge to fledgling practitioners of the darker arts. Fleeing into the wilds, the mages discovered a massive verdant jungle teeming with life, and by concentrating their awful will on the world, created the Kragrock Spire tower in an instant.

Bending the local flora and fauna to their ends, the blightmages began tampering with the natural order. Empowered by their dark machines, the mages made short work of the surrounding territory. It should be noted here, that if perhaps mages themselves weren’t such jealous and treacherous lot, then perhaps the story would have ended here. Unfortunately for the majority of the blightmages in attendance, this was not the case. After a single night of bloodshed and curses, one lone mage survived a servant of Vecna with a healthy aptitude for domination, the Dark Lady Mab Veinlash. In her first official act of office, she raised her former mutinous comrades back to life and fused them into a giant, cancerous abomination. In constant suffering, it is said that the monster still lurks in the various dungeons of Kragrock Spire.

Using the goblins native to the surrounding jungle, Mab created a network of trade routes to the outside world. A small town flourished, as the Dark Lady traded dark secrets and scientific marvels to the caravans for supplies and materials. Soon like-minded vagrants and necromancers ousted from their homelands began streaming into Kragrock Spire. Using the slave trade to supplement their experiments, many successful half-men and undead species emerged from the tepid jungle.

Then something unexpected occurred. While there had always been a following of religious fanatics trying to bring Mab and her cabal of necromancers to heel, never had they actually succeeded in bringing their gods personally to their side. Emboldened by a dimensional rift the rebels thought belonged to their god, the swarmed en masse. Rallying cries rang from the liberators of Kragrock Spire, until they realized that opening a dimensional gate is tricky business, and rather than summoning their war god, that they had actually summoned Shar herself. The goddess of the primordial void, it was sufficient to simply look at the assembled warriors before they began killing themselves in horribly graphic and imaginative ways. Then she simply winked out of existence, leaving the portal hanging wide open.

News reached Lady Veinlash, and soon dimensional tampering became a ready source of income to the budding city-state of Kragrock Spire. The slave trades and assassin’s guilds took vested interest, as the rise to power promised non-stop profitable opportunities. The wealthier mages built their estates closer to the tower, as symbols of affluence and position. Mab closed herself off in the tower, protected by fell magicks and powerful hexes. The gangs of half-men and goblins closed on each other, jockeying for positions as bodyguards and hedgemages. The remains of such clashes were often used in more medical experiments, and the morticians and torturers banded together to bring the dead to life to seek the mysteries of the dead and damned.

Interestingly enough, the quest for arcane knowledge often went back to the gods and goddesses of yore. Churches and mausoleums were built, most literally out of thin air and the prayers of their faithful. Spiteful deities descended on Kragrock Spire; Lovietor, the patroness of sadists and torturers; The King That Crawls, god of slavers; Vecna, the lord of undeath; Zehir, the patron of assassins and snakes; The Shadow, god of corruption, and even a small sect belong to Shar. The native goblins built shrines honoring their god-king Maglubiyet, ever waiting for the day they take back their homeland and expel the mages.

And so to this day, Kragrock Spire stands, with an ever-increasing desert surrounding the jungle center where the city was built, as the necromantic nature of the tower culls the life energies of the vegetation. Mages fight each other in the streets, assassins and slavers fight in the shadows, and the gods themselves are content to watch as their minions propagate whatever dark whims only they know. Mab Veinlash herself works alone in the tower, watching as the elements of the city come together, very much like explosive chemicals reacting to a catalyst. Her city, and her promises of freedom, became her personal experiment.