Brighthome

The purpose of the city was to house people and build a community, as all cities are for. It had all the buildings required for a functioning city, from housing to stores and public facilities.

Since the disaster that made the city uninhabitable, large green crystal structures have overgrown several buildings. They pulse with strange magic and cause deleterious effects on people who roam the ruins without hazard protection equipment. Apart from the occasional arc of electricity between the crystal structures, a heavy silence hangs over the city.

Brighthome was built in a retro-brutalist architectural style reminiscent of the Soviet era of the old world. A large ferris wheel stands in the city, overgrown with crystals and plant life.  

The only defenses that Brighthome has is a chain link fence that encircles the city with signs warning people to stay away.

In the time of the Ancients, the world had many cities, most of them interconnected in vast metropolitan areas. Some, however, were separated by long stretches of empty road and railways. Brighthome was one such city. It was a self-sufficient city; at its height it housed around 300,000 citizens.   When the apocalypse came and the world struggled to survive, the city was abandoned as its citizens fled to the bunkers and arks in desperation. Brighthome remained empty until the dust settled and the remnants of metahumanity emerged from their shelters. Rediscovering the lost city, a scant few settlers attempted to resume city life in the ruins. Raiders, roaming Horrors, and logistics difficulties eventually drove the first settlers off to find a more suitable place to call home. As the general population of the region began to grow, Brighthome came to be inhabited once more.   It remained inhabited for a time until a strange storm of magic fell upon the city 160 years ago. Anomalous green crystals began to erupt from the ground, consuming both buildings and citizens. Random magical effects such as manifestations of harmful terrain and teleportation events rendered the area too dangerous to live in. And so, once again, Brighthome was abandoned, this time permanently.   The storms of magic may have faded in the modern day but the crystalline growths, now known as Magelite, remain. They are highly conductive to magic, but are too dangerous to handle directly, especially for magic users. The slightest application of magic while in the immediate vicinity of the crystals cause spells to magnify, change, or otherwise spiral out of control.

These days, only professional Ark Runner teams dare to traverse these ruins. The government of Olympia has deemed the area unsafe and encourages people to stay out of Brighthome. This does not always stop prospective treasure hunters, however, who delve into the ruins in search of LOSTech and other valuable objects and equipment.