Saturday, December 7, 2013

Strange Places: Latterkamp


A phantasmagoric wilderness lurks far below the cobbled streets of Wermspittle. Old and hoary, dim and only ever hinted at in furtive whispers, Latterkamp is the domain of Goules. It lies across an ancient, nameless abyss known all too well to those dreamers cursed with a knowledge they'd rather forget. One might approach it by way of the Near Deep. Crooked somnambulists and disreputable oneirsts will offer to take you there in your sleep.

You do not want to go there.
But you might get taken.
Especially in the Winter.
When the moon hides her face in shame
and the Butcher Boys roam the alleys in search of easy pickings...

Behind the Darkness...
Goules are living beings who prey upon the dead. Many of their kind become Ghouls upon achieving a state of undeath, others become Ghuls, should they dare the darkest rites and transitions involved in such things. Those who speak their names make no distinction between the threefold forms. Only the written word reveals the tripartite nature of these beings who hoard whispered secrets and dead languages, capture dreams and nightmares in subtle traps, and devour the flesh of those who come under their unhallowed jurisdiction.

Latterkamp itself is ancient beyond the reckoning of conscious time. It is a place of fossilized shadows, ossified phantasms and petrified dreamers whose imaginings go on and on well past death. When the Three Camps formed the First Compact, the event most scholars accept as the beginning of Wermspittle, there were representatives from Latterkamp present who gave their seal to the Compact. The seals used by the Notaries still bear the inscription and insignia used by the agents of Latterkamp. The First Laws were carved in a slab of violet-veined marble said to have been quarried from deep beneath Latterkamp. There is a good deal of truth to the old saying that Wermspittle was founded upon the catacombs and ossuaries of Latterkamp.

The Red Chair set a little to the left of the Governor's throne has sat vacant, but always present at every official function. Even during the various occupations and invasions, the Red Chair has remained in-place and undisturbed. One does not incur the wrath of Latterkamp lightly. Not in this place.


2 comments:

  1. So, what were the other camps?

    I recently found your blogs and I have been enjoying the content. My campaign is multiversal in nature, and Wermspittle and related posts have been very inpirational. Thanks!

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    Replies
    1. Hello and welcome to the blog. There are some difficulties in determining the exact nature of the original Three Camps. One of Gnosiomandus' major projects is attempting to determine the identity, location and nature of the Three Camps. Some 'authorities' in the academic community would dispute your assertion that Latterkamp should be considered one of the Three, but then quite a few others pretty much take it for granted as a fact of life, death and everything else in Wermspittle. And like so much else in this place, it is wide open to interpretation and reinterpretation, subject to revision and ammendation through folklore and the lies of drunken poets.

      We have a post on the Three Camps coming up early next week that will get into this matter in a bit more depth. It is relevant to some of the other stuff we're working on, and the histories tangled-up in this place are a big part of what makes it what it is...

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