The Voices

The First Long-Distance Communication System

Village Collective/Landmark— Two hundred precisely carved reflective domes bounce sound over hundreds of miles through the Ander-Wrentris mountain range.

The People

The Wrentian people invented the Voices as a way to quickly spread information throughout the mountain range. The Ander-Wrentris region is well-known to be hard living, with rocky terrain and poor farmland, so cooperation between the various villages and homesteads is vital for the survival of all. The Voices themselves are massive dishes carved into the sides of cliffs and mountain sides with laser precision, then polished to an almost mirror-like shine. These concave domes amplify, and reflect, sound throughout the entire mountain range.

While the Voices’ usefulness as a tool of mass communication is clear, their greatest claim to fame is the effect they have on songs. Discovered quite by accident when a farmer in the region, clearly in high spirits, sang the morning’s news, the acoustics created by the dishes are, in a word, sublime. With regular speech, the dishes merely amplify, but with singing, they twist and contort the tones and tunes of the voice, creating melodies and uncovering hidden harmonies. The dishes are said to make even the most useless vocalist into a virtuoso and transform talented musicians into legends.

Wrentians face a somewhat comical circumstance—the world of Ald-Amura imagines every citizen of the Ander-Wrentris mountains as incredibly skilled singers, often asking for a song in exchange for services or board, but the reality is most are enthusiastic amateurs at best. The Wrentian people take this in stride, having perfected the polite excuse to a cultural artform. This is not to say that the Ander-Wrentris mountains aren’t full of incredible voices; one can imagine having access to such an incredible instrument tends to encourage people to play with it. Only exacerbating this issue is that the music of the Wrentian people is designed for distance above all else—most do not ask for a song expecting to hear a hearty yodel.

While everyone in the region minds the dishes in a general sense, a collective of guardians known as the Note Keepers tends to them in a much more direct way. The Note Keepers are an ancient and secretive order, said to descend from the original creators of the Voices. Much of their rites and ways are kept secret, but their distinctive basket-weave wide-brimmed hats are something of a cultural icon amongst the people of Ander-Wrentis.

Local Monster

Xotial is a large winged Monster with the head and beak of an eagle, the body of a snake, and large horns made of a wood-like material poking out of its body at irregular intervals. Their back is bisected by a thick strip of long, lilac fur which drapes over the sides of its thin body. It has a forked tail, which is tipped with fine silver points.

A very commonly seen but very poorly understood Monster, Xotial begins its day by swooping through the valleys and mountains of the region, the wind and rain and thunder chasing it along the way. Once the storm has swept through, Xotial vanishes, not to be seen until the next day. They have done this exact routine every single day for as long as records go back. Any further abilities or motives are limited to what little the Monster’s friends and more direct guardians are able to glean during the rare moments Xotial grants a gift.

Notable Sublocations

• Cliffside Rest—A small village notable for being the hometown of Kai Du’ha, the first Monster Care Specialist. The town is deeply proud of its alum, and holds a yearly festival in their honor. It’s said that the first gift Kai received was from Xotial, and legends persist that the Monster warned Kai of the False Gold.
• Stormshaker—A horn carved of coral that sits atop Xotial’s Nest, the highest peak in the entire Ander-Wrentris range. The horn uses the very mountains themselves in combination with the Voices to create a sound so loud, it is said to be audible from Posada’s Bastion. In all of Ald-Amura history, it has only been blown once, to signal the end of the Last War.
• Mirror’s Reflection—A collection of horns, drums, and various other instruments that sit on an outcropping specially carved into a sort of mountain side concert stage. The collection began with a shed horn of the Mist-Fall Goat of the Ever-Lost Woods, brought back by a traveling Wrentian via train and wagon, and has since expanded to include dozens of instruments of nigh-mythical origins. Unlike Stormshaker, the sound of these instruments is common in the valleys and cliffs throughout the Voices.

What Happens When You Arrive

1. Xotial has been circling the valleys for days now, floodwaters are rising, and nobody knows what to do.
2. The mountains are shrinking incredibly quickly. The range has lost hundreds of feet in height just today
3. A mysterious figure has been blowing Stormshaker every night for a week. They wear a strange mask and a stranger cape.
4. The Festival Of Duels has begun. Everyone is assigned a rival, and a grand magical battle will take place tonight.
5. The river of the valley is shimmering with False Gold, gallons of it.
6. This morning, Xotial exploded at the end of the valley, leaving an enormous magical portal. A strange world of metal and glass awaits.