Burntburh: B0&B1 - The Short Sea

 

B0&B1 - The Short Sea

What appears at first to be a deep gorge with a river running through the bottom of it is in actual fact a weird and mythic phenomena. The river is not a narrow band of water, but is instead a vast sea many hecksleagues wide once you get to the bottom of the gorge, and yet, from the top the other side is a mere 100 feet. The sides of the gorge are steep cliffs easily 700 feet tall, although some sections are lower or have narrow switchback routes you can take to get to the bottom.

[At night you can always smell smoke, and have a 50% chance of fog]

Warped perception - One-time Hazard

When looking over the edge of the cliff at the Short Sea you get a very peculiar sensation of perspective change, like you’re experiencing a dolly zoom as you look lower down the gorge.

The first time you view the Short Sea and notice the boats are not tiny toy boats on a river but full sized fishing boats, and those small piles of rocks are in fact full islands, you lose d6 CLA as you mind reels from this unusual spectacle. Subsequent viewings just cause unease and often vertigo, but cause no further virtue loss.

It is said that sailing from one side of the sea across its entire length to the other side will expand your perception of the world. The first time you do this all in one go without falling asleep at any point of the journey you permanently gain 1 CLA.

A distorted place

The Short Sea effectively splits the hexes it flows through into two distinct regions at ground level, and several hexes at the bottom of the gorge to map out the sea itself. The upper regions of the B0 & B1 are included here, split into their Left and Right sides; you treat them as if they were full hexes.

The sea itself will be included in another blog post later on, but you may make your own should you wish. I suggest making it at least three hexes from its east to west side, if not more - but remember the distortion is only in one axis, so it’ll still only be two hexes from the south side to its northern most point (although you can likely extend it further north off the edge of the map without much concern).

Flitters bridge

Crossing between B0R and B1L is Flitters Bridge, it is the only way to cross from one side of the Short Sea to the other without descending to its base and sailing across (which generally takes a long time). It is trivial to locate, as many trials congregate on it, anyone attempting to pass between these two hexes will find it automatically as part of their usual movement.

It takes mere moments to cross over it, at it is only 100 or so feet long at that level - however when viewed from below on the sea it appears to stretch into an impossibly long bridge spanning the entire distance between the two sides of the sea, and anyone travelling over it appears to “flit” from one side to the other.

No one knows who or how the bridge was constructed and it has neither ornamentation nor guild markings in its stonework. It is however highly venerated by the locals and offerings are often left on either end of it, in the form of decorative wreaths or whittled wood in the form of common animals given wings. Anyone posing a threat to the bridge will face an immediate and fierce response from the people who live here.