Crustwalkers of the Blooming Basin

Crustwalkers of the Blooming Basin
Guardians of the Shifting Land: Waykeepers, Lifesavers, and Steambound Scouts

Between the capital city of Laugar and the seething rim of the Laugavegur Caldera sprawls the Blooming Basin, a perilous, lichen rich lowland riddled with boiling pools, acidic fog, and sudden steam vents. Despite its beauty and abundant alchemical resources, the land is treacherous. Here, among the mineral blooms and fissures, operate the Crustwalkers: revered scouts and rescuers, tasked with safeguarding lives and mapping safe passage across the ever-changing geothermal zone.

Founded after the Great Steamfall disaster over a century ago, the Crustwalkers began as a grassroots effort of moss-herders and ex-miners. Today, they operate as an independent guild under Laugar’s Hearth-Council charter, maintaining shelters, rescue routes, and training for all who traverse the basin. Their mission is threefold: rescue, mark, and guide, but their allegiance is to the land, not the state.

Crustwalkers maintain over 40 way shelters, reinforced with obsidian slabs and spider silk felt, stocked with ashbread rations, burn wraps, and filtered steam water. Each is marked by glowing glass and bone signal cairns, which whistle eerily in the wind, guiding travelers through the shifting mists and warning of collapse zones with color-coded stains.

Response units, called Blackstep Bands, travel in teams of 3–5. Roles include the Pathseer (ground stability expert), Steamtracker (heat and wind reader), and Lifebinder (medic and spiritual guide). Some teams include a Beastwarden, handling trained drakes or cliff wolves. Their gear includes glass bottomed staves, gillmoss lined steam masks, flare horns, and floatstones to cross acidic pools.

Crustwalkers swear the Blackstep Oath barefoot at an active vent: “Where steam blinds, I see. Where crust cracks, I step...” Each walker wears a volcanic-ash cloak and a bead chain one bead for every life saved.

Though not soldiers, their intimate knowledge of the terrain makes them invaluable in crises. In Laugar, they are respected as grim, capable folk traders in stories and steam, trusted guides when the mists rise and the ground begins to breathe.