Spindlewick
Spindlewick is giant semi-mechanical spider, a horrible mix of living clockwork and organic predator. Its abdomen is a glass bulb, with a step pyramid suspended in the middle. Spindlewick is home to the ancient eladrin who were responsible for the calamity that pulled the moons out of orbit. They mostly remain as mummies suspended in an eternal semi-slumber, minds drifting between Ethereum and the physical world.
Spindlewick mostly traverses the Coral Forest, spinning great metal-infused webs to entangle prey like wyverns, rocs, and smaller settlements. Picking its way across coral pillars and treetops, Spindlewick stalks through the forest, always searching for prey to envenom and devour. The life it drinks from prey is pumped to a great white-barked tree growing from the pyramid, an ancient tree that was religiously significant to the elves who created the city. From there, the nutrients and energy are diffused through the roots to the mummified eladrin throughout the city, sustaining their undead existence.
Demographics
The entire population of Spindlewick consists of eladrin. All of these ancient elves are technically undead, having become something akin to a lich. These inhabitants rarely wake, only when the sense the presence of someone who has managed to slip inside the dome of the spider. They are cursed to remain as dreaming mummies for all time.
Government
Before the elves of this city tore apart the space between Ethereum and the real world, they were rogue priests of a cult dedicated to worship of the moon Brome. Even now, the city is ruled by Hierophant Inquilla. Spindlewick does not run on laws or decrees; if the hierophant wills something, it becomes so. In the dreamlike state that the eladrin are trapped in, they function as little more than extensions of Inquilla. On the rare occasion that a citizen wakes, they are as fanatical in undeath as they were in life, devoted entirely to Inquilla and her desire to release Brome from Ethereum.
Industry & Trade
For someone who survives entry into Spindlewick and subsequent encounters with its denizens, there is only one thing to be traded in or out. Knowledge is the only currency of the dread spider, preferred in the written word.
Assets
Although the inhabitants are the remnants of a great and undying evil, ferried around through one of the largest predators on the planet, sages and scholars still seek out Spindlewick for the great treasure it holds: the vast library of ancient knowledge at the center of the pyramid. In life, Hierophant Inquilla hoarded esoteric and eldritch knowledge rather than material riches. The scrolls and tomes in Spindlewick have the perfect environment to stay preserved indefinitely, so the library holds incredible stores of knowledge that have survived multiple calamities and thousands of years. Here, ancient discoveries that were lost can be found. Firsthand accounts of history throughout the ages, inventions that could and should have changed the world in ages past, maps to sites swallowed by sea or land or sky, and knowledge that could melt the mind of the incautious reader. All this and more sits in the hoard of the Hierophant, locked away from the outside world.
Type
City
Characters in Location
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