Thursday, September 15, 2016

More on the Purple Plains

I see now that I made a mistake rolling on the "wet" column for landmarks in a grassland terrain, but I think I can still make it all work.

Baker's Pool - Actually a lake, long and kidney-shaped with the concave bank facing East.  The north end terminates in a high promontory-cliff of dusty sandstone, in the escarpments of which sprout many examples of opuntia chlorotica and towering carnegiea gigantea from which it takes the name "cape cactus."  The north side of the escarpment is difficult to approach, with many protruding and strange sandstone monoliths.

 Baker's Pool flows out of caves at the foot of the cliff, and as one proceeds south a little more than a mile it grows shallower, the water more still and fetid.  It is the single greatest watering hole known to the Ghost Cattle (only persnickety scholars insist on the name Phase-Oxen), although they must pass through dangerous stands of box elder and hardy juniper where the Canopy Owls lurk in bands.  By the lake's eastern shore they mate, and their annual migration makes Baker's Pool one of the termination points of the Thunderfolk's wandering circuit.  A small permanent community of Thunderfolk is built up on the west shore mainly  consisting of a dozen smithies, giving it the name of Iron Town (although most native metal produced by the Thunderfolk are bronze alloy, as the Purple Plains have a few seams of copper and tin but very little iron.  Any steel items owned by a Thunderfolk band will have been traded for, but they make many ornaments, harness bits, and nails from bronze, as well as the sharp, curved swords they call Horse-Cutters). 

No comments:

Post a Comment