Locations/SnakeBowl
Manse (by Darloth)
The first thing that anyone notices about this manse is the noise. From as much as a mile away, the sussuration and faint rattling can be heard above the typical noises of the desert. As you get closer, the noise intensifies, until when standing just before the gargantuan sandbowl from which the manse takes half of its name, the noise is loud enough to drown out any conversation under a yell.
At that point, the other half of the manse's name will make themselves evident. The underlying demesne always bred and attracted a vast amount of strange and interesting desert serpents, and the maker of the manse decided to keep them both as a geomantic element and an effacious if rather noisy defense system. The massive, 15 yard deep and 200 yard diameter sandbowl is completely and utterly teeming with snakes. Snakes of every shape, size and colour, from as long and as wide as your arm to as thin as a hair and only a few inches long. They teem just below the surface of the bowl, writhing and dancing through the surface layer. The noise is created both by the many rattles adorning some species, and the noise of the sand ever-tumbling over scaled bodies. If anyone should approach closer, the noise will increase even more, as the snakes will begin to hiss, and swarms will burrow up through the sands to attack the intruders. Actually entering the bowl is almost certain to be lethal for all but the hardiest exalts, as there are so many snakes that it would be impossible not to be bitten by at least one, and every last one is possessed of a lethal venom of one sort or the other.
However, the snakes will never approach within 5 yards of the hearthstone, so long as it is currently attuned to the person carrying it, and thus the bearer may take others to the manse without penalty.
The manse itself is a squat, angular building of four slightly slanted walls and one pointed, pyramid-like roof-section, the top-most part rising to exactly level with the surrounding desert. Inside, the stone blocks are covered in dark iron, which stays perpetually fever-hot, even in the coldest of desert nights. The building is small and not meant for living in, although there are a few outer rooms with rather bare beds for temporary guests. Eventually, after climbing up to the 1st floor, there is a spiral staircase down into the hearthroom, where 5 flames burn eternally in snake-sculpted dark-iron braziers, eternally stained with heat-marks and discolouration. At the exact centre of the pentagon formed by these braziers is an iron pillar with a cast-iron snake entwined around it. The hearthstone forms by dripping from the snake's red-jade fangs into a small tetrahedronal mould of red-jade, set slightly into the top of the pillar. The rest of the hearthroom is unadorned. The manse is very dark at night, but the light from the braziers in the hearthroom reflects off the iron walls to give the entire manse a murky, torch-lit feel, no matter where you are, which is sufficient for navigation if not easy reading. In the daytime, many square windows make it well lit and reasonably comfortable, although the lack of glass means the noise from the snakes outside is ever-present, day or night.
The snakes will never travel inside the sandstone circle that marks the edge of the manse proper.
Effects:
Anyone standing on the ground within the bowl who is not within the safe zone projected by an attuned hearthstone bearer will be attacked by countless snakes. Since there are so many of all different sizes, it is impossible to defend against them. Even the hair-thin ones, that might wriggle through armour, are venomous, and enough of them will cause just as strong a reaction as a single larger snake. This is partly the magic of the manse and demesne, as the snakes will die in less than a day if they are removed from it's environs, and will be much less venomous even when still alive. If anyone is stupid enough to actually try, inflict a random selection of three different poisons upon them. The snakes possess almost every lethal poison in creation between them, so anything and everything is possible, although coral snake and arrow frag equivalents are the most common.
Anyone getting too close to the manse (Within a few hundred yards of the sand-bowl's edge) will be attacked by a few larger snakes, which can be resolved using normal combat if necessary. These will always be more normal, inflicting only coral snake venom upon their targets. This happens every few turns.
It is possible that anything cleansed by the hearthstone is somehow transmitted and diffused into the snakes, which would account for the vast array of poisons. Indeed, they may also transmit diseases, but noone has survived being bitten for long enough to check.
