PURPLE
WORM TRAINS
You
may wish to ride one of the city's purple worm trains—each
a massive invertebrate annelid shaped by powerful transmutations and
animated by necromantic magic—if you've a need to travel across the
city, especially if you want to travel from one of the city-state’s
islands to another via the city’s undersea tunnels. Umberwell's
worm trains are owned and operated by Wyrmwyck Industries, a
corporation of questionable motives that is tolerated because they
keep their fares cheap enough for the common citizen to afford.
THE
COMMON TONGUE
The
Lexicos Spire, a tower in Shrewsbury erected by the magical
rites of the Lost Matriarchs, is an enchanted edifice that
transmits knowledge of the Common tongue to all within Umberwell so
that the citizenry might communicate easily. Gyragrol, an
ancient dragon, has designs on destroying the Lexicos Spire to break
the fellowship of Umberwell's citizens.
BLOOD-FUELED
INDUSTRY
The
magic-imbued blood extracted from the great krakens of
the sea enables Umberwell’s magical industry. The lamps which light
the city's streets are fueled by galvanically rich kraken blood, many
factories are powered by the fuel, and the hunting and processing of
krakens on the high seas is itself a venture of massive economic
importance. The Vortuga Trading Company is chief
among Umberwell's blood-hunting fleets.
WONDROUS
INVENTIONS
-
Transportation. Turbine-driven ships and submarines fashioned from giant nautiluses patrol the seas. Elementally powered airships, gas-filled dirigibles, and giant dragonflies transmuted into ornithopters make aerial travel expedient.
-
Recording and transmission. Solograph cameras capture sepia-toned images on paper coated with silver and gelatin. Auriphones play music recorded on wax cylinders. Voxcast radio transmissions bring news and entertainment into the homes of Umberwell.
-
Artifice modernity. Replacement limbs and organs made of magic-grown flesh and clockwork mechanisms can replace lost or wounded body parts. Transmuted giant cockroaches hybridized with machines scurry up and down the sides of buildings, acting as elevators disgorging their passengers at the selected floor.
