Interzone & The Yuan-Ti

Yesterday I hinted at Burroughs/Cronenberg's version of Tangiers as a perfect backdrop for a yuan-ti-based campaign. So what might a D&D version of Interzone look like?...

Everything about the city of Antaeziers confounds. This coastal city is a vital port of call along the Southern trade route, yet it is controlled by no one nation. Inexplicable gaps in treaties among the interested colonizing powers left it an independent city. While it is theoretically partitioned into four territories under the control of consulates, in reality the city looks after itself.

Navigating the city is difficult. Its streets and causeways are a warren of stairs, ramps, balconies, balustrades, and arches. A thoroughfare might dead-end for no reason, while an alley might open into an elaborately tiled courtyard. Minarets in the distance seem to grow and recede independently of the viewer’s location. Bells chime at random, irrespective of the hour.

Even the very geography and climate of Antaeziers seems to work against the visitor. Hilly terrain and jungle scrub surround and encroach upon the city. The heat and humidity inspire lethargy. And underground vents in the surrounding volcanic soul, popularly said to be gateways to the Land of the Dead, release strange plumes into the air at regular intervals. These gases settle over the city in a fog that tinges the sky in sepia and seems to stretch dawn and dusk impossibly long. They also have a numbing effect on the spirit (-1 Wis for 1d6 hours, DC 10 Fortitude negates, checked every 12 hours; three checks failed consecutively leave the recipient dazed). Occasionally, these gases trigger mass hallucinations as well.

Visitors to the city may be forgiving for not noticing the difference, because the city itself seems like one giant fever dream. Nomads, beggars, and merchant princes all mingle over hookahs. Wizards’ spellbooks also serve as familiars, morphing into bad-tempered awakened beetles and clockwork abacuses without warning. Specially bred troglodytes extrude straw-like crests of ambrosia-filled flesh for addicts to suckle from. And pushcarts filled with hot coals serve giant centipedes, which are wrapped and smoked for pleasure or roasted and eaten as a delicacy. (Such carts offer poor families a risky mainstay, as those who hunt the vermin in the city’s underworld are often consumed in return.)

Perhaps the yuan-ti created this phantasmagoric city. Perhaps they did not. But they have certainly profited from it. Tainted ones manage the supply chains for the most sought-after and illicit drugs and other pleasures. A brothel madam’s robes hide the snake limbs of a half-breed. Well after midnight, in dark chapels filled with incense and pillows the size of camels, abominations lead their cultists in unholy rites. And no one leaves Antaeziers if the yuan-ti do not wish it so.

At least, not alive.