Merratet

Character

Stretch, lick, groom, slink, stalk. Wait. Wait in silence game comes. Sniff the wind, Leap run run run kill. Tear the hide, lick the blood, eat and crack the bones for the marrow. The kill is good. Stretch in the sun and groom bloody paws, then nap and dream about the next kill.

Power

Bast. The cat-goddess Bast and her entourage of sleek felines prowl the realm, seeking prey, diversions, and pleasant living. Bast abandons her realm from time to time (some say to visit the Sensates incognito), leaving it in the hands of Skullbury, an enormous speaking panther best known for stashing kills in the palace closets, wardrobes, and gardens. Woe to the poor berk who drags one of the smelly things away from where Skullbury's left it.    Bast's only influence on the petitioners is through her dreams. When Bast sleeps and dreams of the kill, her dreams echo throughout the realm. Her petitioners take it well, and animals don't mind it, but visitors all suffer the same awful dreams when they turn in at their kip. Their dreams are always restless, and no mage or priest can regain spells — unless he has the aid of a dream hunter, a tracker who keeps Bast's dreams from waking a berk up with the shakes every half hour.    Dream hunters are usually tabaxi, weretigers, and other feline hunters. They're common near every entrance to the realm, and most towns keep a dream hunter on the rolls, to ensure the peaceful sleep of the inhabitants. Dream hunters make their naps worth-while. Some hunters hire out to protect groups traveling across the realm, though their rates are robbery. Most charge 20 gp or more a day.

Description

Bast, the cat-goddess of the Egyptians, lives on the far side of the ocean that borders Vanaheim, the realm of the Vanir. She lives in a huge vine-covered acropolis on the edge of a wasting desert. Bast and the spirits that serve her are fond of panics, festivals, and masques, and there's always some celebration going on within her halls. Bast's realm has served as a hiding place for various Norse Rowers from time to time, including Loki and Bragi. She claims dominion over all catkind, but this claim is contested by the cat lord of the Beastlands. Many of her followers are members of the Society of Sensation, and the goddess seems to share many of that faction's beliefs and goals. Several gates are believed to connect Merratet and the Gilded Hall of the Sensates.    The terrain of Merratet is a stalker's paradise: a land of fat game animals, rolling ground, the dense rover of thickets, and a moderate climate. Most bashers say it looks like the Beastlands, only a lot less pleasant.

Principal Towns

Towns are rare in the thickets of the Catlands, and rarer still in the dry savanna and desert. Animals gather at the realm's watering holes, but petitioners rarely gather for fear of attracting notice by prides or single stalkers. The people in the town of Rummm have learned that great cats won't attack a cutter with a mask on the back of his head, because cats like to attack victims from behind. Since they learned the dark of it, their town's become a city. Mask sales are brisk, and a basher can get a decent one from the urchins at the city gates for about 1 gp. Without it, a lurking tiger'll take down any leathethead who enters the scrub outside town.    Two small villages have also made their mark. Eowr is a village of celestial lammasu who tend the sick and the hurt in a hospital: they also try to win converts to the cause of Law. Eowr isn't easy to pronounce, and it ain't easy to stomach, either. Lessons on humility, virtue, and temperance are constantly purred on every street corner, and the food's had enough to make anyone feel virtuous. Most of Fowl's bashers are too wise, too clever, and too smug for most visitors, and few visit twice without a good reason. The lammasu are patient about those who leave swearing never to return; they know their patients'll come back as soon as they fight another soul-sucking fiend.    Bresiris is called the town of Dreaming Death, and it's inhabited by a race of evil werepanthers. It's just the opposite of self-satisfied Eowr: Bubbers who've seen it rarely keep their wits. Some say it's ruled by a rakshasa maharajah who slays every traveler. That may be no more than the idle purring of jealous tongues, for others swear a sorceress worshiper of Bast is the ruler. The sorceress transforms every visitor into a werepanther, so the town grows. Berks who haven't been there all spout tales, saying the whole region'll soon fall into Limbo. Most Merratians would say the city is haunted, but they'd be wrong. It's true that every visitor is either driven out horribly scratched and clawed, or they never leave, but the reason ain't complicated. The city's dreams have somehow all been turned against outsiders, and those who have escaped alive say they were stalked and killed in their dreams, always dying in their dream at the moment just before they wake up. No cutters have stepped forward to dig up the truth of Bresiris, the city of Dreaming Death.    Here's the dark of it: In Bresiris, every foreign cutter's stalked and slain in his dreams each night. After a few days or weeks of nightmares a cutter's sure to go barmy with the dream madness, a whimpering fear of everything. The dream madness convinces the poor sod that everything is after him: most of the barmies wall themselves up in their rooms until they starve or die of thirst. A berserk rage and fear drive the barmies to attack anyone who tries to help.    Only a dream hunter can stop the dream madness, by guarding the visitor's dreams. Even the best dream hunters can only keep the madness at bay for a short while, and most dream hunters only work half-heartedly. They'll take a bravo for all he'll part with, then abandon him to the dream madness and take the rest when he dies. Even honest, dream hunters can't give Bresiris's dreams the laugh entirely: Nothing stops the sense of being hunted while awake. 'Course, the Maharajah and his sorceress concubine have killed half the dream hunters in Bresiris. The rest have been allowed to live on as polymorphed pets, spies, or slaves to amuse the Maharajah and to keep track of visitors.

Special Conditions

Merratet is no place for long visits, because a cutter's always being stalked by someone or something, by dreams or tigers: dreaming or waking, something is always out there. The realm creates a sense of constantly watching, stalking danger. Every waking moment is spent pacing, worrying, and that wears a cutter down. Those who stay for long periods learn to pay their dream hunter well and to nap constantly.    Here's the chant: Only the largest predators are safe from ambushes in the thickets of Merratet, so constant edginess isn't bad. Over time, a cutter'll be exhausted by constant watchfulness, so a visitor's Constitution Score declines by 1 per day, recovering at a rate of 1 per day once outside the realm. This twitchiness makes it difficult to sense when danger really is nearby, so all perception rolls are at a -3 penalty. Carnivores (even some PCs like Lizardfolk or Tabaxi) are immune to the fear, and their dreams are reassuring ones, full of the hunt and the kill.

Principal Non-Player Characters

The Half Moon Tigers are a famous pride of weretiger bandits that operate on the outskirts of Rummm. Their leader is called the White Shadow (Planar/ male weretiger/Fighter 4, Rogue 4), though these days she is rumored to be spending a great deal of time in the Gates of the Moon, where the bloodlust rarely strikes her. Gossip in Bast's palace is that the White Shadow accidentally devoured at least two lovers when she transformed into wereform in the heat of passion, and she doesn't plan on losing a third. The fact that her third mate heartily agreed to the move is taken as proof of the first two stories.    The oldest and kindest of Merraters lammasu is Shinora of the White Mane (Planar/female lammasu). Shinora speaks to anyone who listens: any basher who tries to interrupt had better be prepared for a flood of drawers. She has a fondness for sweet wine and cloves, and a smart cutter'll bring a gift of wine just so she can get a word in edgewise.    The greatest dream hunter of the realm is Mragatep (Planar/male androsphinx). He's relatively sociable for an androsphinx, and unlike most of his kind he's eager to find a gynosphinx mate. Anyone who can point him in the direction of a female sphinx will earn his gratitude.

Services

Merratet is best known as a place to hire dream hunters, cats that hunt dreams. The realm's cats track, stalk, and pounce on the fragments of Bast's dreams that trouble cutters visiting the realm. The best of the dream hunters can even stalk and kill dreams, wyrds, fates, and prophecies, bringing back things most cutters weren't meant to know. Their powers are variant forms of the psionic powers Spirit Sense (similar to paladins divine sense, but passive and limited to undead) and Precognition. The best dream hunters are widely acknowledged to be the tabaxi, sphinxes, and a breed of housecats called Bast's Children, black-socked and black-eared animals with bright green eyes.    Sanctuary is offered by a few tribes of wandering lycanthropes, and the town of Rummm takes in strays who can pay their way or provide amusing diversions. Otherwise, all visitors are on their own.