Rusthollow

An ancient battlefield littered with a vast array of strange, futuristic technologies; as though the far-flung future were dragged into the dreary distant-past.

Rusthollow is also vast; perhaps several hundred miles across at its widest points, the entire thing having been smashed and pulverised by explosive, mechanised war.

Whatever debris and detritus remains is half-buried, half-destroyed, or some combination thereof.

Does the existence of such a place alter your World or Campaign’s Lore? What about the artefacts that might be found here? Worried your Players might find an unreasonably powerful way to blow more stuff up? Or that your woodland-weary Ranger will hanker after a little metal-sidekick? That everyone will want little metal-sidekicks??!!

Consider carefully the implications of your Party discovering Rusthollow.

Use this section as a quick reference during play, or at the start of a Session to refresh your GM senses!

Sights
Barren wastes of mud and twisted, broken tree stumps

Pools of filthy, oil coated water

Rods and beams of rusted metal jutting from the earth

Trench networks, some flooded, some mired, others cracked and clay-like

Sounds
Rain

Fizz of the occasional flare in the sky

Low, distant boom of long buried ordnance exploding

Metallic clanking of scavenging crews dragging their equipment in and out of various trenches

Smells
Rotting, damp earth

Rust and old iron

Sodden leather and linen

Excrement and dead rodents

Lingering gas-like odours

A scavenger's paradise, and a dangerous haven for bandits, scammers, schemers, prospectors and charlatans.

On the many narrow approaches, and in the nearest Villages and Hamlets (still some distance away), the Traveller may find trades or sales offered of "artefacts" from the Hollow.

Very few are genuine, of course, or sold with any understanding of provenance or purpose.

Some object or another may, from time to time, make its way to a market or merchant's stores, and the educated Adventurer may discern some greater use, so a rummage through even the most meagre whisper of Rusthollow may reward.

Scavengers and Treasure-Hunters, for the most part, seek their fortune in the Hollow

Historians and Bards come, too, to see for themselves this vast dead plain littered with metallic monstrosities and bewildering ghosts stretching off to the horizon and beyond.

Great chunks of twisted metal, angular boarding covered in glittering dots, loops and lines; near-endless fishing line-like threads encasing fine copper as delicate as baby's hair; unruly greases and amber liquids most flammable and arcane.

Bronze, Iron, Gold, Silver, Tin, Lodestone, Cavorite, Naqahdah, Phostlite, Xirang, Oxypheromalkahyde, all hacked, scraped, and hauled from the dense muck of Rusthollow's sodden, charred, and broken earth.

Few dare set up permanent lodgings here.

The ground - in times of heavy rain - often shifts, sinks, and yawns, swallowing vast swathes or regurgitating long lost behemoths of twisted scrap onto the surface.

Random explosions and eruptions of flame or toxic substance are also frequent.

Some seek shelter in craters temporarily covered with waxed-tarpaulin, or within the hollow chest cavities of fallen metal monstrosities where, on occasion, the rusting spirits whisper in scrambled, repetitive cracklings, flickering briefly into dim, whirring illuminations of unusual quality and ember before the silence descends again.

The pecking order of your average scavenging crew is established and maintained through either an example of thankless labour and toil, the liberal application of an unwieldy, serrated-edged club, or a bribe.

Hierarchical tiers are (principally) :

Seeker - with a certain eye, and a way of perceiving the shine amongst the shit, the Seeker selects the site, and the job.

Scrapper - able to tear down a heap of metal into its better, and lesser, parts, with minimal depreciation to potential value. Scrappers able to work at speed are highly sought after.

Spotter - providing sentry, overwatch and general forewarning of any dangers.

Shifter - finding good scrap is one thing, but carrying it out of the pit or crater is entirely another.

Ragger - usually the youngest, or smallest, of the Crew; they scout and retrieve. Life-expectancy of a Ragger is minimal.

This configuration may differ from crew to crew.

Rusthollow is oftentimes brutal, unforgiving and ugly, with an unruly tendency to bewilder, bewitch and confound.

This may, in part, be something to do with its size : some tens of thousands of square miles across.

Many are those who have come with naught but a sack of gold glinting in their eye, only to return to their lives years later, half-starved and muck-covered, with an aspect struck through them as though they had stood in the limitless fury of gods both past and future.

The Hollow brings terrors that unravel the mind and spirit, and it changes forever many who come here.

This list is by no means exhaustive, and is intended simply to stir the pot of your own imagination.

Use what follows as starting-pints, or ignore them entirely in favour of your own Adventure Hooks!

1 - The Shepherd has begun safely depositing the young of all manner of beast and creature at the locations frequented by Scavengers and Companies.

2 - Several small meteorites sparkle through the night and into the Hollow. Whatever was inside them is now hunting … and hunting only for the one known as Mouse.

3 - A Party Member finds an emblem of great meaning to them emblazoned upon the breast-plate of one of the machines.

4 - The Lark Twins have been conversing with something buried so very, very deep below Rusthollow. The Twins know only that it moves about, but feels weak; far away, or not yet strong enough to rise.

5 - The Lord of the Hollow has a task for a member of your Party; in exchange for an important book of many meanings and answers stashed somewhere within their mouldering hoard.

6 - The Interra Mortum wish to hire the Party to clear out several crater rims, giving the Noble Company of Tillers a bridgehead into the north-eastern tar-fields. A well-paid, but dangerous, job.

7 - The Noble Company of Tillers have employed a band of mercenaries to guard several Scavenger crews deep in the Hollow. Rumours circulate of misdemeanours and strange goings on, and that the mission is lost, and cannot be found.

8 - The Spirits in the Canteen have begun “hearing” a pulsing wave of sound, and their incorporeal forms have - in fits and starts - been for a time whole; real, again.

9 - Contact was lost with an airship full of wealthy Merchants who - fat of purse and bereft of want - of late fancied themselves amateur historians.

Last known whereabouts : 240 miles into the Hollow.

A group of concerned relations have raised a considerable purse for any who would, at once, depart towards returning their kin home.

10 - The Lord of the Hollow has - in their reading and scavenging - divined to a meaning regarding a number of tall obelisks part-buried throughout the Hollow.

Several have, of late, begun to glow a cold blue. Others have begun to hum.

ROLL 1d20 for a RUSTHOLLOW TRINKET

1 - A human heart, spewing black tar, seared and shot through with pulsing metal rods. Affixing it to your breast-plate affords resistance to elemental damage.
Each use of this feature binds the heart further to your physical form, installing permanent and unexpected changes to the wearer’s physiology.

2 - A rust encrusted locket of brass. Prised open, the portrait within depicts whomsoever bears it; an image that shifts subtly as it catalogues the indefinable, hidden horror of its wearer’s psyche.
After 1 month and 1 day of wearing, any attempt to remove the locket provokes extraordinarily violent outbursts.

3 - A flexible lens of unknown material, fitting neatly over the eye. Provides the ability to read lips at a distance of 90 feet. Overuse renders the lens irremovable, permanently altering perception and introducing visual stimuli that may, or may not, be hallucination.

4 - A small, holographic device that maps out, and displays, the surrounding terrain, reporting aspects such as elevation, ground density, rock type etc.

5 - A wrist-mounted device that - when activated - deploys a portable energy shield designed to protect its wearer against incoming projectiles.

6 - A small metal box with a faded red cross painted upon it. Inside are several blood stained bandages, and a pot containing a strange gel-like substance full of incredibly small insect looking creatures that appear to "activate" upon application to any wound.

7 - A fire damaged metal crate housing what appears to be a small metallic spider, neatly folded in upon itself as though it were slumbering. Upon activation, the armoured-arachnid can be paired with an unusual set of goggles and a hand-held directional sensor. Useful for carrying out reconnaissance.

8 - A cigar-case like box housing a number of differently coloured glass phials. The liquid within each temporarily boosts an aspect of the person into whom they are injected, eg problem solving, memory, pain threshold, or physical strength.

9 - A heavy, mesh-like blanket which renders anything beneath it almost invisible.

10 - What appears to be a carry-case (similar to that owned by an apothecary or barber-surgeon) housing two foldable platforms. When deployed, activated, and paired, they allow for instantaneous transportation between them (between a distance of 100-1000ft).

11 - A rather simple looking metallic tube. On one side the word "PROTOTYPE" is written in bold, dirtied red letters. On the opposite side "THIS END TOWARDS ENEMY" is written similarly.

12 - A small tube of silvery, metallic paste, the properties of which appear to include the absorption of energy and matter.

13 - A perfectly spherical ball of metal roughly the size of an apple that, when squeezed with great pressure, gently opens to reveal a glistening red core. None within 250ft have lived beyond this revelation.

14 - A small glass tube, sealed at both ends, containing what appears to be violently boiling light.

15 - A helmet of lightweight metal, exceptionally comfortable to wear. It occasionally blinks into a parade of lights and displays to its wearer, via an ocular visor, weak-points upon any worn armour within 50ft.

16 - A map made of an unusual material : flexible, waterproof, stainless, weirdly ductile, and unusual in every way. The scrawlings and annotations on the map are of unknown origin, and are unintelligible.

17 - A large metallic tooth-like object. It appears to have passed, as the crow flies, through several large objects (including 4 cows and a burial barrow) before becoming lodged in an upturned tree-stump.
Intermittent beeping noises can be heard emanating from within the object’s smooth, brassy exterior.

18 - A silvery pouch, almost as though it were liquid metal, full of a thick paste that is pungent, gamey and herby to the nose, and salty beyond all belief if brought to the tongue.

19 - A small playing card sized object that glistens with shimmering angles and images. A name can be read, along with various ranks and assignments.

20 - A small metallic finger-sized stick with thin black metal mesh at one end. At midnight, every day, it emits a short, garbled message.

ROLL 1d8 FOR A RUSTHOLLOW ENCOUNTER

1 - A bright-green foaming ooze expands angrily out from several large, rusted metal crates. Anything it touches appears affected by … time.

2 - A grazing herd of usually docile, roaming equine-like creatures have fallen into a collapsed bunker; a bunker filled with stocks of motion sensitive explosive devices.

3 - A subterranean nest of giant grub-cocoons was exposed in recent storms. The sudden temperature change appears to have initiated the hatchings.

4 - Far towards the centre of the Hollow, a metallic archway stands amongst shattered trees and blasted hillocks. From time to time a small number of panicked individuals - adorned in unusual armour and equipped with strange weapons - are spat from the blue static air of the arch.

5 - A number of mud-slides occurring in the most recent rainfall have exposed a previously buried metallic construct. What remains of its torso, head and arms is violently dragging itself across the Hollow, attacking anything it encounters, and spilling toxic, flammable liquids as it goes.

6 - A large worm-like creature apparently lodged in a narrow trench-way is in great distress, and its pained cries are attracting a pack of hungry predators.

7 - A half-collapsed bunker that once housed a Field-Canteen, of sorts. Lingering spirits are constantly drawn here.

8 - A trap? A timer? One final attempt to get home? None shall every know. All that can be said is that - after a series of sharp, whip-crack explosions - a massive section of the Hollow split open and fell away, revealing the riveted surface of something dark, metallic, and massive.

This entire structure lifts, as though upon a swell of unseen fire, filling the air with its upward momentums and bathed in shimmering rows of blinding light.

Within a few moments, this metal monstrosity will be a mere twinkle in the night sky, leaving behind it a gargantuan depression in the earth, and a complex system of exposed subterranean tunnels.