Dark Spire through Salted Lands (Patreon)

Cratered plains of salt cover the land to the alkali seas, pierced like nipples by spikes of basalt, obsidian and glasslike metamorphic rock. The craters collect the rains and are home to base creatures and the snail lords. Sorcerer kings of the crater states, the snail lords watch over the salt flats, occasionally reaching out to extend their crater state’s power, or their own. Scholars write about civilizations that came before, but who would believe that any others than the mighty snail lords have ever ruled over these expanses of salt. The crater states claim thousands of years of rule over the desiccation, unsullied, uncontested. Quiet. Interrupted only when one crater state raises shell against another in a slow motion struggle for resources, fine salts, slaves, or base desire. The snail lords rule by arcane right. They bear the weight of millennia of pacts with strange outsiders and precursors that grant them their magic. They bear arms with skill and are born to armour. They decorate their shells with the sigils of unspeakable oaths, other worlds, and lost languages. They have patience that can last a hundred years, but their toils are ceaseless. They rule over the base creatures of the crater states for without their rule, the wretches would not survive upon the flats. Together with their thralls they build great sloping towers out of bonded sand and crystals and reinforce the walls of their craters to defend their domains. Other races live within their domains, not as thralls to the snail lords but neither with dominion over the base creatures of the crater states. Creatures alien-seeming even to the snail lords - floating sheets of sentient cloth, pillars of light, hovering crystals and sadistic toad women among them. This spire, jammed up through the salts is home to one of those other races, known as "The Embodiments of Faith in Lost Ideals". They appear as pillars of light and would best be described as "paladins" of this age of salt. This particular spire has had a structure built into it, descending beneath the salt flats in through the solid basalt below where the Embodiments meditate and dream about the thoughts and beliefs of others. This map is available under a free commercial license. For versions of the map with and without gridlines as well as for information on the license, head on over to the blog post at https://rpgcharacters.wordpress.com/2015/04/14/tuesday-map-dark-spire-through-salted-lands/