The City

In this thread I'll post details about different locations in Synk. To begin with, this information will be things widely known to the people of Synk, so you can consider everything in this first post known to your character as long as they are not freshly awoken.

Synk is the city. Bounded by mountains on almost all sides, with its northeast edge facing out onto a windless and slowly-stagnating ocean, to its inhabitants it is the only place in the world. Its history is unknown, the hands that built it are long since turned to dust, the people that walked its streets and the kings that ruled over it alike are now all forgotten. Nonetheless, by strange paths people arrive, to bring life again to its stones.

Downtown is the hub of the city, buildings of wood and stone in the thousands clustering around a nest of decaying palaces, towers and manor houses. A mish-mash of different architectural styles, seemingly built in no particular order over the course of numberless years, some of its buildings remain entirely liveable while others are in abject disrepair. Aside from the river Polk that runs through it, it is composed entirely of cobble streets and manmade walls, with little natural life.

Uptown refers to the sprawl of buildings that winds its way out from the central core of Synk and into the fields, forests, meadows and parks that surround it. Humble hovels and homes that might have belonged to wealthy nobles are arranged in and among each other anarchically, though the march of nature is consistent everywhere. Weeds wind around thresholds and trees sprout fully-formed from tiled floors as though long years have passed since these places were last inhabited.

The River Polk is the sole source of much of the city's natural life, as it flows swiftly and clearly from its source somewhere in the Pyle Mountains in a meandering path through Downtown, Uptown and the Fens alike before finding its mouth in Syck Bay. With the waters of the river come various odd natural gifts from the mountain. As well as fish and waterfowl, other, more dangerous creatures occasionally make their way downstream, and sometimes there are traces of odd flotsam from sources unknown, including alien items of not insignificant value.

The Mire is the name given to the winding streets and broken-down buildings of the southeast quarter of Downtown, where decay is most apparent and even now only a few people choose to make their homes rather than in the more populous areas to the North, East and West. And for good reason, as undead and monsters are more common here than anywhere else.

The Fens to the east of the city are a vast lowland of stagnant water, creeping vegetation and unkind wildlife located between the Mire and the shore of Syck Bay. Very few people choose to make their homes in this unpleasant realm, though there are ever whispers of numberless and ancient treasures to be found in its untravelled depths.

The Black Wood is the name given to a particular stretch of undeveloped land located to the north of Uptown Synk, so called because of the strange darkness that seems to come over it whenever anyone wanders too deep within, as well as for the horrible monsters that make it their home. Though efforts have been made to explore and map it by the people of the Holy Water Church, few of them have come to any fortune, and so interest and eagerness has waned.

Syck Bay is the wide area of ocean onto which Synk faces. Though in the shallows the fish and shellfish that can be caught are nourishing, beyond that this sea has a reputation for bleak fortune, as all those who attempt to voyage out on it and invariably never seen or heard from again.

The Pyle Mountains are the imposing rocky edifices that surround Synk, labyrinthine, battered by storms and infested everywhere by monsters. Few venture into these highlands, and those that do either return in a day or less or are lost to the world forever. Equally deadly caves run throughout the range, unmapped by human hands, though some rumour that there are certain groups of people who make these natural tunnels their home.

The Catacombs are the maze of tunnels, crypts, mausoleums, sepulchres and mass graves that exist seemingly everywhere beneath the surface of Synk. Though the seeming source of all the city's undead, it is also the source of its life, as it is here that every new denizen of Synk awakens in linen wrappings in some forgotten corner before stumbling upward into the dismal sunlight and becoming a part of the city. The reason for this is still wholly unknown. All that is known is that it has been occurring for the past twenty or so dozendays, and shows no sign of stopping... although some theorise that this is not the first time that the city has seen such unnatural means of population.