[ Planes of Cordance > Pangaea > Flock’s Nest ]
Flock’s Nest
Shared Realm of the Raptoran Pantheon
CHARACTER: Flocks’ Nest is the common domain of the Raptoran Pantheon—a nesting site of gods, if you will. The individual realms of each power are spread out to form a circle, although from the ground it can be hard to tell where one realm ends and the next begins. It’s called the Weather Circle by natives and petitioners. The four seasons are represented on each side of the central realm, which is Tuilviel’s kip. The sky is the domain of the Lord of Clouds.
DESCRIPTION: Flock’s Nest is best viewed from the sky. The first thing you’ll spot is Winter’s Stillness, a hilly and occasionally mountainous region of perpetual ice. This is the realm of Kithin, the Father of Snows, and also the place where the dead are interred. While the ground is always covered with fresh powder, it’s from gentle snowfall rather than storms. All manner of ice age creatures can be found roaming here, from mammoths to sabre-tooth tigers. In fact, if you pass through the realm completely you’ll find yourself on the edge of the Gelasian Steppe.
From here the snow melts into a lush river delta and swamp called the Fertile Spring. This is the domain of Ventila, where enormous insects, crocodilian deinosuchus and gharial. The Crocodile Lord occasionally pays a visit here too. It’s also an auspicious place for raptorian eggs to be hatched. According to chants it’s possible to find the Crocodile Lord there sometimes.
The many rivers meet and become Summer’s Beginning, a enormous wide and lazy river, surrounded by a tropical forest. This is the home of Nilthina, the Lord of the Warm Winds. The jungle is teeming with creatures you will no longer find anywhere else—flocks of po’o-uli and blue macaws nest in the cloud forest, the river is home to golden toads and shoals of duck-billed buntingi fish, while rodent-like phoberomys frolic on the riverbanks. In the deep jungle, the colossal titanoboa lurks.
The great river spills over into many lakes, but the continues through the entire realm of Autumn’s Abundance, a forest in eternal Fall. This is the home of the Lady of Abundance Duthila, and where the animals learn to hunt, in the colourful forests. You might think it’s also a place where the cutters would harvest and prepare for the snows, but Winter never comes to Autumn’s Abundance.
At the centre of all the four realms all is Flock’s Nest proper, the realm of Tuilviel Gilthien. It’s peaceful and calm land, a place where petitioner and visitor alike can rest. The raptorans here are welcoming to all who wish to stay a while. This place is heaven for raptorans, where all their hard times, their troubles, and the good they have done in their lives is rewarded with paradise. It’s covered in a forest with giant trees, and in the centre is Mother’s Tree, the largest tree in the whole of Pangaea, and where the Queen of Air and Night dwells.
Above all five realms is domain of Lliendil, simply named the Clouds. The Stormfather is the one who makes it rain, directs the sun to shine, shepherds the clouds, and controls all the different kinds of weather—yes Cagers there’s more to weather than just ash clouds. There’s no ground or anything for birds to land on so only fliers can be found there, however, Lliendi’s petitioners have the ability to fly continuously without tiring, for as long as they’re in the Clouds.
PRINCIPAL TOWNS: What counts as a town in Flock’s Nest is different than what most cutters would expect—we’re talking about Pangaea after all. In Flock’s Nest a burg is basically a grove of trees bound up with whatever material they can gather to make a floor—vines, woven branches, compressed leaves.
The Winter’s Stillness nest called Reunion is where the newly arrived petitioners first come when they die. It’s a welcoming and comfortable nest, where once-bereaved families meet each other again. Once a petitioner has arrived in Reunion they’ll remain there for a day and then, if they don’t “belong” to Kithin, a psychopomp will come to bring the petitioner to the correct realm power. If the raptoran worshipped a power from a different pantheon then they’ll be staying in Reunion until their power comes to bring them home.
There are few burgs in Fertile Spring, but among them is the Egg Nest, which is where all mothers can come to have children—it’s not only just petitioners live in Flock’s Nest, after all.
The Grand Retelling is a “library” in Summer’s Beginning. It’s where the eldest raptorans gather to teach the youngsters about the olden times. It depends who you get spilling chant—it can be dull as the Gray Waste if you get some crazy old coot rattling on, but you can also learn some incredible darks if you’re lucky. An old raptoran in Grand Retelling, Grayfeather (petitioner raptoran bard/cleric of Tuilviel / CN), has heard every kind of barmy chant there is, and some useful tidbits as well. The problem is, he doesn’t know which is which. His advanced age, even for a petitioner, has mixed up his memories. But someone with sufficient patience could learn a lot from him.
Finally, Autumn’s Abundance has no major settlements but many farmnests. Of all the realms in Flock’s Nest, this one is the most important.
SPECIAL CONDITIONS: Cutters with the ability to fly, either naturally or magically, will find they can fly twice as quickly in Flock’s Nest. However, the biggest effect in the realm is that it slightly reducing the primitivization effects of Pangaea itself, perhaps due to the influence of so many powers working together. While technology of any kind still can’t exist here, knowledge of civilization can be retained, or returns as if a cutter had left the plane.
SERVICES: Flock’s Nest offers housing, resting from injuries, meals, and company, as long as outsiders aren’t expecting all the creature comforts of a kip in Sigil.
Source: SGreen, Jon Winter-Holt and Margarita, based on an idea by Greg Jensen. Canonwatch: Everything here is homebrew.
