Hi everyone, and welcome back to the Finder’s Archives.
In this column, we take some of the lands from Magic: The Gathering and turn them into something you can use for your fantasy games.
The stats given in each entry assumes that you’re using Pathfinder 2 or 5e for your games, but they can easily be converted over into any fantasy system. This time we forge our souls in the Crucible of the Spirit Dragon.
Crucible of the Spirit Dragon
Located in a deep chasm in the coldest parts of the world lies a city forged entirely from cold iron. It stands empty and has done so ever since it was created millennia ago by unknown builders. Whoever created it matters little in the modern world, for it has become the home of countless restless spirits. They wander here, drawn from all over the world, by some unseen power. Once here, they slowly, over the passage of decades, are consumed by the city and used to strengthen the terrible power that lies at the center of the city, buried deep beneath the surface of the world. Buried so deep that even the gods have forgotten lies the Kaiju known as the Spirit Dragon — a beast foretold to rise when enough souls have died in the mortal plane, upon which it will destroy the multiverse.
Lay of the Land
The city, known as Crucible, consists of less than 20 buildings, each of which is the size of a small fortress tower. They stretch approximately 60 feet into the air each and are made of cold iron, forged by a titanic hammer. The city is eerily quiet, with nary a sound being heard, even when fierce winds howl across the arctic above. It is deathly cold though, with temperatures usually around -58 degrees Fahrenheit (-50 degrees Celsius), and often dropping far lower. Within the borders of the city, a visitor will see a large number of spirits, ghosts, poltergeists, and incorporeal undead creatures floating about. But all of them are acting as if they’re still alive, and are non-hostile to the living (except perhaps by exposure due to latent abilities).
These spirits seem to go about their normal lives, but after a period of 20 to 50 years, depending on how individually strong the spirit is, they all are drawn to the center of the building in which they make their living, and float into the iron obelisk located there. They never emerge. The obelisks themselves stretch from the visible 10 feet in the buildings and all the way down to the sleeping form of the Spirit Dragon. Each soul consumed makes the Spirit Dragon slightly more visible and slightly more corporeal.
Dangers
The city of Crucible is remarkably safe. The undead creatures there aren’t hostile to the living, and the Spirit Dragon itself is sleeping. But, anyone who spends the night here feels the same pull towards the obelisks within that the spirits do. There are stories of people who have spent the night here and never emerged, though it has proven impossible to prove what happened to them. Perhaps they were hunted down by a hungry spirit, like a Wendigo (5e/PF2) — one that might be strong enough to resist the call of the Spirit Dragon, or perhaps some other creatures prey upon those that believe they find a (relatively) safe harbor here?
See you back next time. 😊
Kim Frandsen
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