City of Wonder: Lands in Shadow for Shadow of the Demon Lord RPG
In the northern reaches of the Confederacy of the Nine Cities sits Lij, the legendary City of Wonder. What began as a haven for exiles and freethinkers from across Rûl has become one of the greatest bastions of the occult in the known world, with alchemists, artificers, engineers, and wizards rivaled only by the Tower Arcane itself—and perhaps not even that any longer, with the decline and degradation of the Empire.
Founded upon its maxim “All things are possible,” Lij offers its citizens great freedom, unlike the flesh-pits of Dis or the bloody arena of Qif. Lij holds out opportunities for endless experimentation, to think up and implement new ideas, and to follow them wherever they lead. This has earned the City of Wonder its name, as occult oddities happen here with the frequency of weather in other places. The innovations created by the city’s unleashed intellects and ambitions are sold far and wide, filling the coffers of Lij’s guilds with coin they use to maintain their influence and exert what control they can over a city that refuses to be controlled.
Welcome to Lij, the City of Wonder, where your most secret dreams and desires are for sale for the right price, and your most fearsome nightmares wait in the shadows.
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Nessus: City of Decay
You hear the roar of the crowd before you can see any but the tallest towers. Closer, you see the city’s new outer walls, still half-built and swarming with workers sweating in the swampy humidity. Humans, dwarfs, orcs, and others besides, slaves and free, clamber over scaffolding as the black stone walls rise. Another cacophonous roar splits the air as you pass through the gate, its basalt exterior decorated with reliefs and statues of men and women, gladiators, spilling each other’s blood. The city is near deserted, its buildings of gloomy basalt and brilliantly painted wood and plaster facades empty except for patrolling guards and nervous would-be thieves. Everyone else, human and nonhuman, men, women, and children, are gone, gathered at the giant arena of the Crucible for the grand carnival of violence.
All gold flows from Kem, thus giving it the name “City of Gold.” No other city—no province or even kingdom, for that matter—can claim a level of wealth comparable to that possessed by Kem, and the infamous financial power known as the Vault based there. Kem’s influence reaches everywhere, from the Crusader States bounding the Desolation in the north to the holdfasts of Blötland in the far south. The City of Gold has lifted many nations up to the heights of power, and cast down into ruins any who crossed them. And so Kem moves on the world stage with unchecked might, an economic force without rival, whose financial influence translates easily into political and even military power.