Onyx, City of Mysteries

The player write up for my upcoming Lamentations of the Flame Princess campaign.


Onyx, City of Mysteries
The legendary city of Onyx, once the center of a vast empire, sequestered itself behind a nearly impassible chain of mountains to stop the tide of a rebellion poised to bring the city to its knees. After centuries in hiding many think that Onyx just as fiction, but it still exists and it can be reached.

Reaching the city takes a seven day trek across a desert as black as midnight—most travel with one of the few merchant caravans that make the circuit between Onyx and a small village at the most often used pass through the mountains.

The city itself is built into a cliff face. There are six separate wards laid out like links in a chain reaching from base to summit. Each ward more exclusive and difficult to breach than the one before it. The first is set aside of traders and foreign laborers.

There is one taboo in Onyx worth mentioning. It is forbidden to venerate of any god within the city. Before the city turned inward, worshiping gods from conquered lands was a common practice, but when those lands slipped through Onyx's fingers they turned against those foreign gods...at least publicly. The law only pushed worship underground, creating a abundance of mystery cults. These cults have wormed their way into the power structures of Onyx.

Possible Reasons to Travel to Onyx
It's going to be a sandbox style game, which means the players will be setting the agenda for most sessions. Every character is going to have a reason for traveling to Onyx (so when faced with no other pressing concern every character has something to do), below are some possibilities.

-- A long lost relative was sold into slavery and you tracked him or her to Onyx.
-- You came into the possession of a map of an underground complex buried somewhere deep beneath the city that is liable of hold untold treasures.
-- You discovered that one of your enemies has found sanctuary in Onyx.
-- You're an exile from your homeland for some crime (real or imagined) and are looking for some way to prove your innocence (or buy your way back into the good graces of the powers that be).
-- You're on a religious pilgrimage to recover a priceless relic.
-- You need to find a copy of a spell first penned in Onyx.