"Walk, if you will, the claustrophobic alleys of the Tangle, the middenstone vats of the Filth, and the cobbled white roads at the summit of an ancient hill. Know that this is but the latest of cities to crown this summit, a monument to the filth and grime and waste of civilization. The city was built upon the battlefields of history past, for many have sought to control this key feature, this lonely hill in a sea of mud and mire. Only its name has remained constant through the ages—Carrion Hill."
When the first Varisians fled the fall of Thassilon to colonize lands that would one day become Ustalav thousands of years ago, they found a wild region ripe for settlement and development, a place far from the towering monoliths and skeletons of the decadent Thassilonian empire. Yet as they explored this new realm, they could not know of the dark forces that had long before claimed this region as their own. Those who settled to the north, south, and west found different ghosts and demons to vex them, but those taking up residence in what would eventually become the county of Versex found perhaps the oldest lingering evil of them all.
Led by prophets and champions of Desna and guided by ominous visions from their goddess of dreams, the Varisians threw down and drove out the evil tribes of the region and tore down the bloodstained standing stones and dark altars they had erected. Along the southern
banks of Kingfisher River, in the swampy region known as the Wrythe, the Varisians confronted the last and worst of the savage cults, and learned that the tribal leaders were something more than human—they were the spawn of one of the alien gods and lunatic priestesses, grown huge on blood and eager to open portals to the Dark Tapestry and call in their father, Yog-Sothoth, from the outer darkness to crush these upstart foes. Yet the Varisian host struck before this incantation could be completed. Unable to defeat the mightiest of the spawn of Yog-Sothoth, they managed the next-best thing—they banished the abomination through an ancient portal into the outer darkness. The Varisians seized the hill upon which the battle had taken place and founded a city there to guard against the Old Cults’ return.
Yet since this hill was well defensible and surrounded by enough good farmland to support a city, it was much coveted as well. No sooner had one group claimed the hill as their own and raised their own city over the ruined corpse of the one previous than another group claimed it as their own. Varisian traditionalists, Kellid barbarians, Taldan crusaders, mercenary armies, bandit kings, orc warlords, undead armies of the Whispering Tyrant, and more have,
at various times, claimed Carrion Hill as their own, each group rebuilding the city as they preferred, and each adding another layer of grime over the site’s ancient history. By the time the Whispering Tyrant conquered Ustalav some 1,500 years ago, memories of the Old Cults that once held the site sacred had been forgotten in the face of Tar-Baphon’s overwhelming evil. And in the modern age, 15 centuries later, those memories have become obscure legends.
Known by frequent visitors such as tradesmen as the Boil, or, more basely, the Wart, Carrion Hill rises over the otherwise swampy southern banks of Kingfisher River, the only solid
ground of any reasonable scope in the swampland known as the Wrythe for a distance of nearly 20 miles to east or west. When the river fog rolls in every morning and evening, those who dwell on the hill’s Crown district can look out on a world of white vastness, while those below take solace in the simple fact that the ground beneath their feet is solid and unlikely to wash away after one of the area’s frequent rainstorms or seasonal floods.
Life in Carrion Hill
Carrion Hill is split into three districts. Atop the hill, the Crown serves as the home for the city’s nobility, government, and most of its public works. The hill’s slopes are a thick tangle of buildings and maze-like alleyways; this is the Tangle, where the bulk of the shops and residences can be found. The lowest part of the city, both physically and spiritually, is the Filth, a series of islands both natural and artificial, connected by old boardwalks and stone bridges. The city’s poor and desperate dwell here, as do those industries so vital to the city’s prosperity but so unwanted by its citizens—tanners, gong farmers, street cleaners, the fisheries, and the looming middenstone vats. Yet the Filth is also the city gateway, as the vast majority of Carrion Hill’s visitors arrive by riverboat or barge via the district's refuse-choked canals.
Carrion Hill is also called the isle of 10,000 temples, and although the nickname is a significant exaggeration (there are actually a mere 180 temples in Carrion Hill, most of them but tiny one-room shrines), it seems that places of worship for gods both vast and slight grow from the very land. Shrines the size of cupboards, painted representations of gods with an offering of flowers beneath, rub shoulders with churches that somehow squeeze balcony upon balcony in tiny frames over almost decadently elaborate pulpits, and above all is the grandest place on the hill—the Ossuary Church of Pharasma.
The Filth
The western area of the Carrion Hill runs along the southern bank of the Kingfisher River. Much of the city’s waste ends up here, and as such, the water quickly clogs with flotsam so that there are always several barges at work clearing the waterways and removing the flotsam to one of the Filth’s great burn pits. Often, the transition between land and water is gradual, with shores being little better than quicksand; most buildings along the shore are built on wooden pilings sunk deep into the ground. Stories abound of folk who have found diamond rings, furs, and even magic items in the rubbish here, but also iron, wood, and other common salable commodities. A number of rag and bone merchants employ scavengers like this, and their warehouses are scattered on the edges of the Filth. The stench in the Filth is indescribable, especially in summer, and huge numbers of rats, flies, and particularly a species of maroon cockroach dwell here, making the land an almost living thing. The poorest (and generally newest) residents live in hovels clustered together for safety and stability—a town of scavenged rubbish. Numerous cruel taskmasters have their tanneries, alchemy workshops, and middenstone vats here.
The Tangle
By far the most crowded and populated part of Carrion Hill is the Tangle—the lower and middle heights of the hill itself. A twisting mass of alleys, dead ends, and lightless streets serve as the arteries and veins of the district. Towering around these black footpaths (that are often less than 2 feet wide) are claustrophobic houses of wood, stone, and increasingly, Middenstone. Anyone venturing into the myriad alleys without comprehensive
knowledge of them or a guide stands an excellent chance of becoming lost, and those who do lose their way stand a excellent chance of being marked by thugs, cutthroats, or worse. However, in these alleys a traveler also passes countless houses, stores, and cupboard-shops selling everything from paper lanterns to decorative pig masks, from clay pipes and strange tobacco to street corner coffee houses at which locals gather to smoke long hookah pipes beloved of the population (the aromatic tobacco does an excellent job at masking the city’s other smells).
The Crown
The cobbled streets at the top of the hill broaden and are bleached white, and locals joke half-seriously that the streets of the Crown are the tops of countless polished skulls. Buildings at the Crown are larger, and most utilize solid stone and good timber in their construction. Middenstone buildings are unknown in the district, but the color purple is not, for lavender grows in profusion in and around the many olive trees that thrive in the more pleasant air of the high hill. Actual crows are numerous here as well—some say they are waiting for something to happen. Merchants, dignitaries, and the wealthy make their homes here, enjoying the lack of taxes the isle grants.
Two structures on the Crown in particular bear special note. The first is Crown Manor, a fortified castle-like estate that serves as both the Carrion Hill town hall and the home of the city’s mayor. Called Rag Manor by many of the city’s citizens (but never to the mayor’s face) for the colorful and plentiful flags and tapestries that hang from its walls and fly from so many of its tower roofs (yet are only very infrequently changed and replaced as they grow tattered), some 20 members of the Crows normally guard their lord along with one of the sergeants at arms. Crown Manor has served countless rulers of the hill as a last bastion against invasion, and it is said that its extensive dungeons consist of the ruins of no fewer than two dozen previous castles.
The other structure of note on the Crown is the city’s largest and most intimidating church—the Ossuary Church. Built over the foundations of countless other graveyards and crypts, the Ossuary Church is run by the priesthood of Pharasma, although its site has served many deities over the ages. The building itself is white, its walls initially decorated with bones harvested from the depths of the church’s ossuaries for the purpose of making room for the new citizens of the Hill as the older generations passed on, but eventually as a grisly sort of decoration to celebrate the death of a citizen. Within the church, the walls are decorated with beautiful but haunting frescoes depicting Pharasma’s Boneyard. These murals are new, but the tradition is not—the deeper one goes into the vaults and crypts below, older murals for different gods exist. At the deepest level, in vaults the church has locked up and in which dwell strange and hideous monsters, the murals show the ancient rites of the Old Cults themselves.
A History of Carrion
Carrion Hill gets its name from the fact that the city itself is built on the conquered and vanquished bones of previous cities—the site is no stranger to the carrion left in the wake of wars and famines and plagues. The following timeline summarizes who and what ruled the hill over the past 2,312 years, since the city’s founding in 2,397 ar.
