ManseRelay/MonkeyStone
Monkey Stone
This hearthstone is a rich reddish brown, with a surface that looks like bark. It gives the bearer the agility of an arboreal primate. Any character who possesses such a stone reduces the diffi culty of all Athletics rolls involving balance, jumping or climbing by two (to a minimum of diffi culty 1) In addition, the stone doubles the character’s climbing speed and the distance she can jump. It is a Level 2 Wood stone. - Second Edition Core Book.
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The Tree That Is an Island - (Stanoje)
- West
Five hundred miles west of the Wavecrest Archipelage, Creation becomes thin and loses its coherence. Here, the trees that are islands rise up from the ocean. A forest of giant oaks, each vast enough to hide half a dozen ships among its low branches.
Many have attempted to reach the roots of the forest of islands. Of those who failed, all have become bitter and hollow shells and spent the rest of their lives hiding from the world and their failure in the branches of the trees.
Of those who succeeded, none have returned.
Countless spirits have made the trees their home. There are nymphs and leshys, and wood spiders and monkey spirits, and walking sharks and winged namazu, and they all tend to the forest of island-trees.
The greatest of the trees that are islands stands at the center of the forest. It is said that a tall man standing on its crown can see all of Creation. Many climbed on top of the tree, only to return disappointed, as they only saw the trees and the ocean. When they tell their tales to their elders, those old men and women invariably exclaim "You were not tall enough!" and laugh at the climber.
Deep inside this titan tree, hidden in a labyrinth of hollows and veins, lies the secret entrance to the court of Setoyo, goddess of island-trees. At the center of this cavernous hollow stands a pillar of grown wood. Day and night, sap flows into the chamber, flows along its ceiling and drips down onto the pillar, where it coalesces into a Monkey Stone. This is Setoyo's gift to those who would seek her out. If they take the Stone and leave, they are beneath her. But those who let the Stone lie where it is and continue to search for the goddess gain her notice and her favor. It is to those that she grants an audience with her court.
The Limitless Arbor - Overshee
- East
Far to the east there is a ravine that is so wide and deep that even a youth with a spyglass can't see the other side or bottom. Limitless trees rise as far as one can see from downwards into the clouds. On a clear day they just fade into the distance.
The trees are dense, one every yard or two. The trunks vary from a wrists width to an arms length to even larger. Ivy climbs up and down, and from the branches rain vines.
The trees are easy enough to move around, but many have perished trying to get anywhere. The width seems endless, and deeper than the oceans. In reality the ravine is a gash caused by an epic battle in the primordial war. 800 miles long, 100 wide, and 300 deep, it is impossible for any but Exalted to traverse.
The ravine is inhabited by millions of creatures, but the most dominant are the unique strain of monkeys that only live in the trees of the ravine. They are more intelligent than the average monkey, and have monopolized the trees. In the bottom of the ravine are exotic animals, including a large colony of Dragon-Kings of every variety.
In the deepest part of the ravine, where the huge attack that created the ravine was the strongest, the huge essence flows changed the essence flows of the land so much that it created a demense where there was no prominent essence flows before.
At this essence line the Lunar mate of the Solar who died defeating the primordial planted a cherry tree. Since then the tree has grown larger than any other in the forest, almost 500 miles tall. Every spring it rains blossoms all over the area, an everlasting symbol of the love between the Solar and the Lunar.
The bottom of the tree has naturally turned itself into a manse, the trunk twisting with the flows of essence into the right occult form needed to power the manse. The gem sits unused on the canopy of the tree, waiting for somebody to find it and harness its power.
Greenstone Bole - Paincake
- Center
Creation shifts, and grows. Fire burns, Water seeks, Air flows, Earth shifts. Wood grows. The mound of the hill was once round and smooth sided, but now the memory of that place is all that remains. The trees of creation seek ever for the sky, and so too the geomantic essence of wood has pushed and grown, arced the mound of earth skyward to kiss the Heavens. From a distance, this massive edifice appears to be nothing less than a massive tree of earth and stone, covered in life. Thicker at the base than a castle, it nestles amongst the tall forest-clad mountain ranges which shelter it from the winds. Within, past the hanging earthen vines, numerous falls and chasms passable only by precarious bridges lies the Monkey Stone, nestled in a small field of flowers; red, white, black, green and blue. Why the Manse was abandoned, none can say but the flowers which shift and follow footsteps that approach, and whisper secrets and woes to those clever enough to listen. All you must pay is a seed, lightly coated in a drop of blood.
The Buried Garden - NotSteve
- South
Even in the burning deserts that cover the south of Creation, there is life. In the cool darkness deep below the sand lies The Buried Garden. An immense cavern, it has been filled with pale white mushrooms, twisted into the shape of trees by the powerful currents of wood essence that flow throughout the cave. Tall spindly creatures that may once have been bats swing from branch to branch on thin elongated wings, their screeches filling the air.
No one knows who discovered the manse, and who carved the twisting maze of tunnels surrounding it that channels its Essence. The walls of the caves are covered with strange twisting patterns that could be meaningless, a message in some long-forgotten tongue, or even pictures of the builders themselves. In the center of the great cavern, atop a pillar of living mushroom, lies the Monkey Stone. Having rested there for centuries, it lies free for the taking. Of course, the builders may still someday want it back...
The Smiling Caldera Hot Springs Resort - Han'ya
- North
Not every manse in Creation has been put to entirely solemn purposes. In the Northeast, there lies in a range of mountains a hot-springs inn. Sixty years ago, a Terrestrial named Smiling Caldera found the demesne the manse would later be built upon, consisting of a large cluster of sulfurous and inhospitable hot springs on the mountainside. He mustered a force of laborers and savants and dug to the source of the hot springs, rearranging them into a more auspicious geomantic configuration, as well as constructing a large inn around them made of living bamboo and copper. The hot springs, now hospitable to humans, and the inn comprised the newly created manse. Smiling Caldera bound the monkeys of the mountain to serve the patrons of the inn and the hearthstone bearer, and the red-faced monkeys have done so to this day.
The inn has become famed for the recuperative powers of the waters and the excellent atmosphere and service, and has become quite popular and known throughout the nation. It has also become somewhat of a pervert's paradise, as the men's baths have several cunningly hidden spying points on the women's baths (and a subtle magical influence is exerted via the waters that encourages their use). The existence of these peeping vantages has remained a well-kept secret (from the women, at least). The monkeys are also happy to aid anyone who takes the time to communicate their wishes in a polite manner in their romantic (coughpervertedcough) endeavours within the inn's walls, so long as they are mischevious rather than actually malicious. The hearthroom is accessible by a door at the back of the manager's office, and the monkey stone forms within the intricate cradle of green jade therein. It may only be removed by Smiling Caldera or by one of the monkeys, of their own free will.
