The City of Eternal Gloom
Despite its mountainous elevation, Taath Nahct is mostly sheltered from the winds, and remains curiously temperate. Here, no frost forms, and no snow gathers - a reminder that in primordial times, this peak was a font of brimstone, fire, and lava. Perhaps, far, far below, that fury still slumbers.
Although Taath Nahct has lain empty for five thousand years, the cruel geometry of its black spires has endured remarkably well. Hewn out of slick black stone, inlaid with obsidian glass, and bound with dark metals and dark sorcery, it stands as a testament to the heights reached by the vampiric Alukah civilization and their undying Blood Princes.
The main entrance to the city is a grandiose triangular gate in the mountainside, now half submerged under fallen plaques of volcanic stone and shale. Beyond lies a high-vaulted subterranean hall large enough to accommodate two chariots abreast. This great, dark hall plunges through the curtain of mountain stone for a mile before emerging on the other side. Here, a serpentine road lined with crumbling statues descends into the city itself.
A city of medium size, Taath Nahct displays the cracked, wind-worn vestiges of past grandeur. In its time, it was the greatest of the vampire citadels, and many thousands of Alukah made their home in its long shadows. Today, it is a lonely place. Its streets are choked with gnarled roots and its plazas are littered with debris. Over millennia, rockfall from the surrounding peaks has smashed through buildings and blocked off sections of the city.
Still, the echo of its ancient denizens can be felt in the artful violence of its architecture. Expressionistic statuary and elaborate decorations adorn many buildings. Dagger-like arches and swirling wrought-metal grills creates bizarre silhouettes and distorted shadows in every corner of the city.
For all the macabre beauty here, there is no questioning the evil it once nurtured. Here lie many reminders of the sadistic decadence of its inhabitants, from crumbling friezes depicting horrific scenes of slaughter, to ornamentalized public abattoirs, displaying corroded implements of torture and bloodletting. A lingering pall of supernatural malevolence hangs heavy over the city. There are many ghosts here....
THE PALACE
At the center of the city, a large cathedral-like building rises out of the depths of a deep shaft that plunges into the bowels of the mountain. A cluster of tall spires thrust upward, each branching into horizontal spines supporting smaller suspended spires. The windows are small and few, angled to avoid direct daylight from above, but the skeletal remains of what must have once been a gigantic and spectacular stained-glass rose window can be seen on the central tower.
The pit around the palace is bridged by flying buttresses that sprout from the structure like legs from a monstrous spider. An arcing staircase - now crumbling and treacherous - stretches from the plaza across the chasm, to the grand entrance to the palace. The main doors lay in ruins, seemingly wrenched open by some colossal force millennia before. The long, vaulted hall leading to the interior is shot with labyrinthine side corridors and stairwells.
At the heart of the palace lies a throne room with a soaring atrium, ringed by galleries where jutting gargoyles keep vigil. A refracted light filters down from the shattered rose windows at the peak of the central tower. The throne itself sits in a raised pavillion carved with thorny vines and tormented figures, and is shrouded by black curtains. The floor here is actually a perforated grill of swirling patterns - beneath is only darkness, but gives the impression of great depth.
WHAT LIES BENEATH...
Peering into the pit surrounding the palace reveals that the tower stretches even further below than it does above, with precarious struts and walkways crisscrossing the abyss like strands of web. The under-city portion of Taath Nahct seems to delve far beneath the surface, perhaps to the very volcanic roots of Mount Chiros.
Here are found grand halls and thoroughfares that connect to remains of once-sumptuous subterranean homes, stores, and holdfasts. Scoured long ago of the Alukah who dwelt there, now it appears to be little more than a vast, empty warren. And yet, even the Chiropterans did not descend too deeply there, owing to some uncanny sense of dread. Who knows what mysteries and horrors may still lurk far beneath the foundations of Taath Nahct?
THE PATRIARCH of TAATH NAHCT
In a crypt deep beneath the palace of Taath Nahct, the city's patriarch slumbered for 5000 years, dreaming dark dreams of his eventual return to power. As one of the undying Thirteen Blood Princes of the Alukah, Azar Nahct Haza pursued immortality through unholy blood magicks, and was transformed into something undead and monstrous.
THE FALL OF TAATH NAHCT
Although he was among the most feared of the Blood Princes, Prince Haza was extremely vulnerable to the light of the sun. On a moonless night, the monstrous hordes of Taath Nahct clashed with the armies of the heroic Apotheoi in the Valley of Spyrakas. When Prince Haza took to the field, by the grace of the Sun-Titan Aegletes, the night sky was illuminated and the clouds parted. Haza was struck by a radiant beam of sunlight and burned to ashes on the spot. Their prince fallen, the vampire armies routed and were pursued to the gates of Taath Nahct.
The siege broke and the Apotheoi cleansed the city with divine fire, burning out all vampires who remained there. Unknown to them, Prince Haza was too potent to be destroyed so easily. His undead remains had been secretly entombed deep beneath Taath Nahct in a black chamber, so that he might slowly regenerate himself. Preserved and concealed through arcane means, he remained sealed up and forgotten, too weak and too fearful of the sun to emerge. Without his thralls and starved for blood, he could do little but bide his time.
THE STIRRING
And so, Azar Nahct Haza waited. He knew the time of the Black Sun would come, just as he knew that he would be among those chosen to carry the banner of dark Scavra. On that final dusk, he would rise again and take vengeance for the fall of his children, for the destruction of his citadel, and for his long banishment. When the first Folk of the Winged Hand came to roost in the crags of Mount Chiros, he heard their chittering deep in his cell, and he smiled... for he knew they would someday serve his will.
When it was time, he called out - softly, seductively, a ghost of a whisper - and he was heard by Shrakeeris of the Winged Hand. Beckoning her to his crypt, there he bestowed upon her his gift - a portion of his own terrible power. Anointed by the Patriarch, she returned to her people as his creature, acting in the above-world to bring about the Sunless Days, and preparing for him an army of monsters. The children of the Apotheoi would only be the first to feel this wrath...
The siege broke and the Apotheoi cleansed the city with divine fire, burning out all vampires who remained there. Unknown to them, Prince Haza was too potent to be destroyed so easily. His undead remains had been secretly entombed deep beneath Taath Nahct in a black chamber, so that he might slowly regenerate himself. Preserved and concealed through arcane means, he remained sealed up and forgotten, too weak and too fearful of the sun to emerge. Without his thralls and starved for blood, he could do little but bide his time.
THE STIRRING
When it was time, he called out - softly, seductively, a ghost of a whisper - and he was heard by Shrakeeris of the Winged Hand. Beckoning her to his crypt, there he bestowed upon her his gift - a portion of his own terrible power. Anointed by the Patriarch, she returned to her people as his creature, acting in the above-world to bring about the Sunless Days, and preparing for him an army of monsters. The children of the Apotheoi would only be the first to feel this wrath...
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