City of Blood: Lands in Shadow for Shadow of the Demon Lord RPG
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.
The distant crowd screams again. Welcome to Qif, the City of Blood.
City of Blood, the latest installment in the Land in Shadow series, lays bare the secrets of one of the most violent city-states on the continent, offering a tour through its blood-stained streets and glimpses of the daily carnage of the fighting arenas. Whether you’re coming for a visit or an extended stay, Qif is not a place for the faint of heart.
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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.
Scholars point those curious about the faeries and their ilk to old tomes whose parchment pages hold ancient stories and legends, but the best source of knowledge is the folklore hiding in plain sight. The weary midwife who mops away the tears after losing another beautiful babe to the Goblin King, the portly farmer who scratches his head in wonder over his singing swine, and the stable-boy who keeps an iron nail over his heart lest the pooka get him again—such commoners brim with tales, gossip, and first-hand accounts of the Fair Folk, for they’re the most likely to run across such beings in their day-to-day lives. As outlandish and strange as their customs might be, a traveler would always do well to listen and learn, for the faeries are a tricksy breed, filled with malicious mischief.