Lastfell (the City)

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Joshua
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Lastfell (the City)

Post by Joshua »

Per Lovecraft: There are mighty cities on Yuggoth—great tiers of terraced towers built of black stone... The sun shines there no brighter than a star, but the beings need no light. They have other subtler senses, and put no windows in their great houses and temples... The black rivers of pitch that flow under those mysterious cyclopean bridges—things built by some elder race extinct and forgotten before the beings came to Yuggoth from the ultimate voids—ought to be enough to make any man a Dante or Poe if he can keep sane long enough to tell what he has seen...

Lastfell is the only human settlement that is beneath the Mi-Go’s notice, built in the shadow of one of the mi-go’s great towers. Powered by memories of their origins as well as the Tok’l-metal mined there, the inhabitants have built a moderate London-like city in five or so layers on giant hexagonal plates.

Within the city itself, life is almost normal. Great trains run every which way (including up and down). Several inventors have made sun-lamps, sufficient to grow crops and drive back the mi-go, and even some moderate amount of live-stock managed to survive whatever brought the humans there. It is a place of invention where magic is forbidden, but practiced in secret by those who wish to fight back or surrender to the eldritch horrors.
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Joshua
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Re: Lastfell (the City)

Post by Joshua »

Let's start with city layout.

Each level is built on giant interlocking plates that have six sides and five corners. Which corner is missing changes depending on how you walk around them, and any trains that cross only ever cross at the sides. In fact, no construction is allowed within half a mile or a kilometer from the corners. (Somehow it knows which unit of measurement you use...)

The plates themselves have sides that are 2.85 miles long (sqrt(e^pi)) and have an area of about 21.1 square miles. Most levels are made up of about a dozen of them, with each plate being about 150 feet above the others (and around 50 feet thick, allowing for basements and sewers).
Of note, this makes the top 3 levels slightly larger than modern London, with double that in support farms... That seems about right?

The edges are open to the sky of pluto/yuggoth. any 'real' scientist is aware there's some kind of invisible force-field that keeps air and heat inside. Some of them even think they know the source of this. One might even actually maintain it.

Level 0: is below the lower plates, and houses mines. These are... highly dangerous and people vanish often. Thankfully the actual demands of Tok’l-metal are fairly low for day-to-day maintenance. However, for expansions or repairs those requirements get a lot higher.

Level 1 (bottom): is the largest, and houses a number of pastures and farms to feed the rest of the city. It's seasons are reversed (See sun lamps below.) The tobacco plants need a slightly hitter climate, there's several sections with alternate climates so that more crops can be grown. 19 hexes, as level 3, fill in each 'gap'

Level 2: Additional farms, also with reversed seasons. Perhaps a small fish farm? 16 hexes, as level 3, fill in every other 'gap'

Level 3: is the slums and industrial districts. 13 hexagons (as 4, but an extra in the middle of each side.

Level 4: is the commercial district with shops. Rumors say that there's a hidden plate somewhere in the twisting roads of the shops. 10 hexagons in a triangle (same as 5, add one in each corner)

Level 5 is the only level open to the stars, and is the home of the elite. it is the smallest level. 7 hexagons, 6 in a ring around a center one.
Last edited by Joshua on Thu Jan 24, 2019 10:23 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Joshua
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Re: Lastfell (the City)

Post by Joshua »

Sun Lamps: A forgotten marvel of steam-engineering, a sun-lamp is a massive panel that gives off sunlight. Due to power restrictions, they can only be powered about half the time. Enough are installed in each level (except the top) to give them a fairly normal day-night cycle.

The amount of daylight varies between 8 and 16 hours depending on the season. Level 1 required seasons, and during summer extra power is diverted from the other levels, making summer in level 1 winter everywhere else.

It's common knowledge that mi-go can't handle direct sunlight, and the sun lamps are the only real protection.

(Level 5 should have something special with it as well, not thinking of one yet.)

(Also, if the Sun lamps are run on a 24 hour cycle, and the actual power cycle is 23.14 (e^pi) hours, they align every 28 days, which would give a potential lunar cycle.)

As a side effect of the unique texture of these panels, steam can condense on them, causing the occasional rainstorm.
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