INTRO

Something strange lurks in Akana. Something broken. Something which extends it's tentacles out from there: tentacles reaching out to all the known lands, tentacles made of rumor, dreams, criminality and magic. Travellers and and traders tell of impossible shimmering beasts, colonies of the mad, powerful magically imbued objects and ancient dark secrets. Akana is a backwater, on the western edge of a large island, an old greasy port-town on a silty river mouth, flanked by rugged hills, immediately outside the grasp of the town. Its main occupation: a supply depot for the Nortjen empire, a naval power waging a war with a nearby nation, and using Akana as apit-stop. The Nortjens want nothing to do with the strange chaos in the interior of the island. They man a wall mostly in order to keep whatever is outside it sealed off. Their city faces the ocean and clings to the edge of this ruptured land. A small subculture, a trade of thieves and hustlers, regularly travels in and out of the broken lands beyond the wall, enduring this dangerous trade for the value of rare and unique magic items. ********** The heros are able to learn a fair amount from the sea captain which gives them passage. The Broken Lands have a multitude of mysterious objects laying around. Objects of cantrip-level magic are fairly common: -Stones of silence: pebbles which, when held, block all outside sound and the holder hears a strange buzz or hum, along with the apparent sound of a fire crackling or cellophane rustling. -Shimmering feathers: The feathers of iridescent birds inside the broken lands. If one is held upright in the air and waved around, it emits a candle-level glow. The artifacts and creatures become more powerful the deeper you go towards the mountain. On different continents, people dream and hallucinate and have visions of the mountain, all with a sense of foreboding or doom. Rumors of things inside the Broken Lands: creatures which have chameleon abilities, phasing/invisibility techniques, and 'poisoned' areas, which if someone walks through them, turn their bones to jelly. With a spy-glass from the tallest tower in the port, one can see a speck in the far distance that quivers alarmingly: the Uber-Shambling Mound. The sea captain seperrates what is known from rumor and gives them tips, though he is in thrall to the land's magic. He tells them to find the woman Butterscotch. And he tells them the name of the tavern where all the illicit business is contracted: The Falcon's Egg. A large carved sign of a bird with wings spread sits over the door, painted brilliantly but covered in dust. The name is written in the languages of three races.