Wane, Abandon, Threshold
Possibly Out Of Date! Written in 2006.
The town of Abandon is ... well ... abandoned. Tt's currently in a state of limbo somewhere between the Wold and Koshe-Marr. It was to take three hero quests to save the town. Only two have ever been > attempted and the information for doing the third quest is currently lost.
The people of Abandom and Void were without courage. They were being controlled socially and monatarily by the large Mining Families. It was very unfair and horrible for the normal citizen. Yet, the normal citizen was afraid to act. And the Mining Families refused to show fairness or pity. Even when the Gods threatened.
So for the first time in the Southern Continent, the powers allowed the newly formed powers of Koshe-Marr to tempt and bargain with the citizens of the area. The citizenry fell for the pretty words and greed that the Koshe-Marr Powers offered and the entire area was taken into Koshe-Marr to become it's first domain. However, heroes intervened completing a quest to steal Koshe-Marr's ability to hold the area prisoner in the lands of dread. A second quest removed the area from Koshe-Marr into a suspended state. A third quest was to return them to the Wold, but never was completed. So the people of these towns are frozen inbetween Koshe-Marr and The Wold.
This is how it went down in the local game. It may have gone differently when Cayzle DMed it online.
During the events just before the Year Of Ascenscion, Marteus, when he was just a cult god, knew that to achieve real power he needed the Rings of Making, the artifacts that the Gericko used. One at a time, he managed to succeed at his personal test, and regained them. Starting with one, and then with another and another and another, he carved what would become Koshe Marre out of the Realm of Shadows. (He had free access to the Realm, of course, in his role as Gargul's enforcer, a role he shared with Kevintar, in the time before he declared himself openly in rebellion.)
But he wanted souls, mortal souls, to use in Koshe Marre. Back then, even he dared not take the souls of the dead, because Dread Gargul would discover his plans before he was ready. So Marteaus created the Void in the Southern Continent, using it as a gate to his new dimension, through which he could draw the living souls of the people there.
Abandon, Wane, and Threshhold were the three towns closest to the Void. Abandon was the first, and all its souls were lost. Wane has been in and out of the Void ... heroes from the Wold have battled for it, winning at least part of the time.
What happened to the three and to the void since the YOA, I don't know. Everything might be gone, taken to KM. Or the void is gone and the towns remain. Or the Void is there, but a low-level war between Undead Hunters and Marteaus's vampires is going on. I dunno.
When Marteaus was a Cult God, he used machines a lot. He used a machine to suck souls out of innocents and use the soul-power to kill Domi in P City.
In the CoC when I DMed, he used a machine to create the Void and pull towns into it. The CoCers used their power to "chaosify" the machine and warp it. I seem to recall they melded it with a tree to turn it into a gate that turned them undead and took them to the Lands of Rest to battle Marteaus. THAT was the conclusion to the YOA.
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Keep in mind that one of the ideas for a KM Area is a gigantic HR Giger-like organo-machine that is miles and miles big ... all adventure there takes place INSIDE the machine.
