Vertiginous
Realm of Geifesil
Location: Mechanus
Character: We are all part of a hierarchy. The higher you ascend, the more people are left below you. The lower you fall, the more remain above you. Each step up the hierarchy is like a rung on a ladder. The baatezu believe their underlings are the rungs, but this is false. The archons believe you must reach down and pull those below you up, but this is also wrong. Each level of the hierarchy is a position, not a person. Each rung must be ascended by your own hard work, not the generosity of others. And at the top is the greatest reward: the reward of having no further to climb.
Power: Geifesil, a force of hierarchy. Followers of the genderless Geifesil believe in rising through the hierarchies of life (and death) by following the letter of the law, and rising for the sake of rising. This sort of greedless ambition is fairly rare, however, and Geifesil is only a lesser power.
Description: Located in a bottomless cog, Vertiginous is an odd burg. The city’s diameter is fairly small, when one considers it’s nigh-infinite size (about 150 feet), but it descends into a seemingly normal cog for an immeasurable distance. The gear itself is mostly composed of a huge dimensional distortion, allowing the city to descend an infinite distance without making the gear infinitely thick. In any case, it is an odd sight, even for the petitioners.
Surrounding this gulf at all levels are narrow street-platforms that surround the entire chasm. Each level is a mere ten feet tall, just enough to allow a person to move about inside. Each level, in turn, serves a specific purpose. Some are kitchens, where food is made for the petitioners. Others are forges, or carpentry shops, or some other sort of important practice. Each building connects with another building at one and only one point, allowing the petitioner inhabiting the building to climb to the next level when the time is right. Once there, they must often learn a new skill from scratch. Visitors, fortunately, are allowed free use of these passages.
The entire structure of Vertiginous is a strict hierarchy. All people within a level are of the same rank, and outrank all people in lower buildings. In turn, all those who dwell in buildings higher up outrank those in said building. A petitioner can travel as far down as he wishes, but may never travel upwards farther than his spiritual purity allows. Those who most completely understand the teachings of Geifesil eventually reach the top of Vertiginous, where they find that the roof of their building simply leads onto the surface of the cog. From there, petitioners walk out of Vertiginous and disappear, presumably to be reincarnated on their Prime worlds.
It is said that the deeper one goes, the more and more chaotic the realm becomes, reflecting the undisciplined outlook of those doomed to begin their journeys here. Here, the buildings are less and less reliable, and only through caution and devotion can petitioners escape this region, which is as much a punishment for the petitioner’s actions in life as anything else.
Principal Towns: Because Vertiginous is a single ‘city,’ it doesn’t have towns in the standard sense, but it does have certain regions that can be identified. For example, the Balconies is a stretch of buildings which have extensive overhanging balconies. This area is commonly used by visitors, as the spectacular views it provides are not to be missed. Fliers are common here (see below).
Another interesting region is the Tightropes, a dangerous area where the buildings loose their enclosing walls and thin to a mere five feet in width. Here, visitors and petitioners must be very wary or fall off the edge with an incautious motion. If the petitioners were bent on assassinating one another to ascend, they could certainly use the Tightropes as a good region.
A third region of note for travellers is the Smithies. This entire area is devoted to blacksmithing goods to be used throughout the realm. The multitude of forges has made this area as smoky as the worst of the Lower Ward of Sigil, and the buildings are stained black from the soot. Nevertheless, the air within the buildings seems only slightly dirty, kept clean by the will of Geifesil.
Special Conditions: The most dangerous of Vertiginous is it’s vertical nature. Anyone falling off the side of a building fall 5d100 feet before they hit another building. This is almost always lethal, unless magic is used to slow down or fly away.
Interestingly, the entire shaft of Vertiginous has an upward current of warm air (perhaps produced by the thousands of warm bodies below any one point). This makes primitive mechanical flight using hand-gliders or simple gliding wings possible. Petitioners skilled in this art are called ‘fliers’ and use broad-winged devices to glide from one building to another. Fliers are especially common in the Balconies. As always, a petitioner cannot rise higher than his post with this skill, but visitors taught the skill find it to be a much faster way to travel up or down Vertiginous. Intrepid explorers in the city are frequently fliers who use their wings to try to find the bottom of the realm, stopping along the way to get food from those who they outrank. These petitioners show more personality than most, and a fair number never rise higher than that rank, intoxicated by the infinite exploration of their power’s realm.
Each building is provided enough raw materials to do its job properly. All kitchens have enough food to cook all day, all forges have enough iron to work all day, etc. Since most petitioners can’t work with perfect efficiency, there is very often a surplus of material.
Principal NPCs: Geifesil, not having a human form, does not have humanoid proxies. However, to enforce its will, Geifesil uses a special force to speak to its petitioners. Essentially, it sends creatures very much like an aleax, with certain major differences. These creatures, called ‘mirrors,’ look exactly like their target to all who look on. They always have a LN alignment. The come not only for revenge, but also for council, requests, and other business with Geifesil. Thus, they are simply extensions of the power.
Archei Fenlin is possibly the most famous flier, having made extensive notes on the depths of Vertiginous, is thought to know the most about the Realm save for Geifesil itself. Dwelling in the third building from the top of the Realm, Archei is surprisingly reluctant to advance any further. With over a thousand years of exploration under his belt, he doesn’t want to give up his extensive memories for new life. Mirrors visit him regularly, berating him for his reluctance, but he is implacable. Geifesil has been known to offer rewards to to outsiders who can convince him to go to his final fate.
Services: Like many realms, Vertiginous is well stocked with all manner of basic services, including food and lodging. Most notably, however, one can learn the Hangliding proficiency here, and buy the necessary equipment to execute the skill. Master craftsmen in Vertiginous are capable of making a reliable glider that can support up to 500 lbs and folds up into a 2 foot by 5 foot rectangle. Such devices cost 75 gp.
Anywhere there are reliable upcurrents, the glider can be used to travel, and a few explorers have taken to using gliders to explore the warmer Upper and Lower Planes. Let the user beware, however! Places like Gehenna seem to malevolently cut out their winds at all the wrong times.
Source: Belarius
