22/30 Items in the Hall of Gifts

1. 7th Portrait of Desdemona Chadarnook

Desdemona Chadarnook was a painter of unparalleled skill and ability, and was a frequent guest within the halls of Terrasquestone. She was also a haunted woman, traumatized by a past that would leave many broken, and carried injuries of the spirit that never recovered, and she found gentle release through painting. She was known to have painted seven great works, and the Hall of Gifts is blessed to have three of them. The 7th and last portrait she painted was a self-portrait, and in the pigments she used she captured all of her great pain and suffering, and how through unimaginable horror, she was able to endure for as long as she did. Viewers of the painting, showing a naked, wounded woman, are frequently moved to emotional displays of grief. It is said that someone who views the painting shares a moment of her pain, and even the most stoic of individuals are not immune to this. It is also said that the profoundly broken, the spiritually wounded, and the emotionally shattered can be shown this portrait, and gain a new resolve, and the strength to rebuild themselves.

On rare occasions, a person viewing the painting will scream in bloody terror, clutch their chest, and collapse to the floor, blood gushing from their mouth, and the portrait of Desdemona will smile for a time.

2. The Yataghan

The Yataghan are a collection of four bronze horses of peerless pedigree, the legendary Yataghan of the Granterre plain. These horses and the Yataghan people who honor, ride, and worship them, were long friends of Terrasquestone, and in times before legend, rode to the call of Ancient Pralendia. For thousands of years the valiant horsefolk rode, bringing spears and bows, and the fury and speed of their great-hearted mounts to the aid of the great citadel. When the abomination Namnordagg, the Savage Butcher, sought to make Granterre run red with blood, and devour the valiant horses, it was High Lord Thomis Macanthos, who rallied the armies and rode to the need of the Great Horses. The battles fought in those days were devastating, and the powers unleashed were that of legend, and Namnordagg, the Savage Butcher, was met, its hosts shattered, and the many-legged abomination that styled itself a god, was dragged down and was condemned to one of the most severe powers of the High Lords, Planar Pthisis. The abomination was annihilated, and the counterstroke of its banishment slew not just the Dreadlord who summoned it, but reduced their court to a red meat sauce, and collapsed the mage's tower they infested.

The art depicts four Yataghan horses at almost three times normal size, and they are: Rhosnora the sure-footed and strong-hearted mare, Elmit the steadfast and fearless mare, Yolderos the valiant and furious stallion, and Molindos the untameable and unstoppable, who bore High Lord Macanthos into the thickest and worst of the battle, and when the battle was done, they were both carried in highest honor to Terrasquestone.

3. The Pillars of Acagast, Biss and Suross.

The twin pillars Biss and Suross were a mighty gift from the magi of the Citadel of Acagast. The Citadel, on the distant shores of Shrewsmeuse Lake, was well acquainted with Terrasquestone, and many were the learned men and women of Acagast sought out as advisors, chancellors, and teachers for the great works of the city. The pillars were made as a gift to recognize the five hundred years of alliance between the two centers of wisdom and learning and were delivered with a great trove of manuscripts, tomes, and other tools of education and learning.

This would prove to be a fortuitous decision, and a timely gift, as Acagast fell less than a decade later, due to the disastrous summoning of something that should have never been named. The ruin of the great citadel is still haunted by the shade of the beast they brought into the realm.

4. The Keys of Harghasun

The Keys of Harghasun are four ceramic tablets created by Alagh Maral, the Last Loremaster of Harghasun. The High Lords rode to the defense of Harghasun but reached the land too late. The forces of chaos and evil were rampaging across the mountains, and all but the last of the Harg fastnesses had fallen. They were not a warlike people, merely well versed of their mountains, and stout in the defense of their lands, and their stamina was legendary. This meant little against fell beasts falling on them with claws and flame. They were dealt serious and costly battles, but one by one, the fastnesses, which were more of a monastery than fortress were taken and thrown down. The Lords and their host did battle in the shadow of the Last Harg, and the forces of shadow were broken, and the last of the Harghasun were rescued, but it was for naught. Of their women, none survived, nor did any children, the survivors were their oldest men, the weakest, those who could not walk or did not remember more than mutterings and grumblings.

Alagh Maral stated that each of the four stones contains a dreadful and terrible power, but the sort that should never be lost. He told the powers to High Lord Ilve of Trolde, who recorded the notes that now accompany the stones. The first stone is glazed in white and allegedly carries the secret of walking into Dimmault, the lands of the dead, and into the past. The second stone, glazed in red and yellow claims to be the way to travel to the Sun and a glimpse of some of the creatures and hazards of that place. Many consider this to be the most ridiculous of the stones. The third stone is gloss black and deals with the movement of celestial objects, causing eclipses, and altering the flow of time, space, and reality. The fourth stone, unglazed clay, holds the life of Alagh Maral, from his birth to his childhood traveling the Harg keeps, to his wife, his children, the first battles with the shadow and how sublime its appearance was, to the sacking of the first Harg and the deaths of his family, and how he committed himself to the Lore of the Harghasun and became a warmaster and used his powers to protect the crumbling edges of their land, and finally how he came to know despair and was preparing to use the last and most dread power of the Harghasun, a spell that would call a burning mountain to fall from the sky. It would break the realm, turn the air to ash, the seas to salt, the mountains to dust, and the warmth of fire to the chill of the grave, and as he was preparing the Lords appeared, moving at their best speed, a shining wall of silver shields, brass horns, and streaming banners. The spell to call the burning mountain is the last thing in the stone.

5. Ruben's Great Table and Chairs

Located in the old part of Terrasquestone, Ruben's is one of the highest-regarded inns in the city, and is storied for its expense. People of great means and importance will eventually have tables and chair sets made for them and their visits. These tend to be guilds, civil orders, religious orders, and the like. There have been a few exceptions, and one was for Lord Hiram. Hiram was a large man, jovial in spirit, contagious in mirth, and valiant in arm. He frequented the inn for nearly thirty years and the owner, Fyna Ruben, had a great table for him commissioned, twelve feet across and round. The center was a hinged door so that a served could use a walkway concealed in the floor, pop up through the middle of the table, and present dishes, fill goblets and mugs, and otherwise carry out the task of waiting without bothering the Lord and his guests. Hiram planned his campaigns (against hunger in the city, against poverty in the surrounding lands, and the infamous Campaign to get casks of Dungeon Red brought up from the Gyre to his table). He was also largely in charge of festival organization and planning and was absolutely delighted when his old table was replaced with one that had the map of the fortress and the surrounding city laid out in woodcutting and clever applications of woodcraft. Thus, was Terrasqeustone served by one of the brightest men to sit the Council of Lords, and one who was mourned for never reaching High Lord. He was slain by an assassin who loathed the spirit of joy that lived in his heart and was eager to let somber silence fall over the city. He slew three of the Barghest Lords that came for him, and wounded two more, and the Giant who led the pack of killers was turned to stone by his last stroke of power before he perished.

The table was held in mourning for a year, dressed in black and silver, and a glass of dungeon red was placed in his spot for a year and a day. Then, the table was disassembled and donated to the Hall of Gifts, so that Hiram's memory would not be forgotten. The table is kept in good order, and rather than being treated as a museum piece, it is used as a place for quiet meetings between the Lords and they will drink a bit of wine, and feel the wood of the table under their fingers and find the memory and joy of Hiram suffusing their spirit.

6. The Dragonbrass Statue of Solange Di Primi

Solange Di Primi was not born in Terrasquestone, but was one of the most influential and important women in the city, some considering her on par with one of the Lords themselves. She was a princess of Bardockburough, a small but prosperous nation on the eastern coast. One of the things that is favorable in Terrasquestone is that it is a neutral city-state, and not a proper nation or kingdom, thus is neutral ground. Many nations and kingdoms will send their children to the city for education, or to serve the Lords and bring that experience of service back to their homelands. Solange attended a prototype finishing school set in the sunrise side of the inner city, where she learned etiquette, diplomacy, and negotiation, earned her letters in history, tragedy, and comedy, as well as the arcane mathematics of Terrasquestone (Base 7 math) After rising to the top of her class, and then a decade of internship/service to a Lord who later became a High Lord, she learned leadership, loyalty, and service. After assuming the silver crown of Bardockburough, she sent a good deal of money to her old school, invested heavily in the immediate neighborhood, and saw the birth of Princess Avenue. What started as a few large almost warehouse-like houses were expanded into a tree-lined boulevard with five finishing and boarding schools along its length as well as two dozen dormitories designed for the opulence expected by the daughters of nobles, royals, and the wealthy.

After her passing, Princess Avenue became something of a city trust and operates somewhere between paid attendance and city sponsorship. To honor Di Primi's contributions, a statue of her was commissioned and stood at the head of the boulevard, twenty feet tall and gleaming dragonbrass. A half-century later, Bardockburough demanded the statue be returned to them, and the Lords considered this uncouth and rude but could find no reason to deny this request, as the nation had long been generous with their funding, and sending people to study and live in Terrasquestone. This started the Isolation of the nation, and the closing of its great port and its ships reefed. This lasted almost a decade and the nation fell into xenophobic poverty and paranoia, only ending with a violent revolution, and half the city being burned. Di Primi's statue stood as a monument to the rebellion, and when the battle was over they found a Cabal of Friends of Evil had infiltrated and dominated their government. Terrasquestone was invited to come and administer the rebuilding of the city and its restoration. In sign of thanks, the statue was returned and placed in the Hall of Gifts, a symbol of heroic resistance. The statue now has two sister statues. Tiodata LeMaigre's flag-waving partisan fighter stands at the front of the Major-Domo's estate in Bardockburough, proud with her spear, her flag, and her clothing reduced to a tattered skirt around her waist. Bambina Robilliard's likeness stands in shining splendor at the head of Princess Avenue, holding a staff and a scepter in her outstretched hands. Robilliard was greatly embarrassed by this likeness of herself, as she was a Lord and it had been quite a long time since she had fought for lost causes and followed the old tradition of delivering the proclamations of the Lords with her tits out.

And there they were, dragonbrass and bright for everyone to see.

7. The Rapax Abligurion

The story is complicated. Arx Rapax, the Fortress of the Predator, was raised in Ashwatch, on the border of Lichelight. The dark fortress looked to dominate the Ashwatch, and north towards Stormfort. Its reign was short as it quickly became the favored target of heroes and nobles leading campaigns out of Stormfort, laying into its defenders with axes and storm magics. After its capture and purging, it became the domain of a Cabal of Aurumnomancers, alchemists, and magi obsessed with gold. They founded the Wizard's Banque in the tower, doubling down on its impenetrability to make it a treasure trove. They crafted the first Abligurion, a massive gold coin to demonstrate their financial and fiscal power. The Wizards of Gold were lawful neutral at best, on a good day, but wanted to incur the goodwill of Terrasquestone, so to accomplish this, they forged a second Abligurion, the Rapax Abligurion, and in a great procession, had it paraded to Terrasquestone where it was presented with great pomp and circumstance to the Council of Lords.

Not horribly impressed with the ludicrous gold coin, the Lords accepted the gift but did so with the smallest amount of honor they felt they could show without offering offense. The gestures were calculated on both sides, and the giant gold coin was rolled into the Hall of Gifts and put in an out of the way nook. It can be seen, and many smirk at the basrelief of a Coin Wizard and the likeness of a generic bland High Lord both holding a Golden Staff aloft, the wizard in the dominant, leading position, and the High Lord as the follower or assistant.

8. The Sezanir Crystal

Sezanir, the Night Shadow Eviscerator, was a potent and terrible Horror.

Emet the White summoned the Eviscerator into his sanctum within his home and used the crystalline geometry to triple-bind the demon into a single massive flawless dungeon quartz crystal. Trapped in such a stone, the Eviscerator was trapped so thoroughly that it collapsed into a deathless hibernation. Following this exhausting challenge, Emit delivered the crystal to Terrasquestone, along with other gifts for the Lords, and for the city itself. The Sezanir Crystal was moved to the Hall of Gifts where is was given another layer of sealing, binding the Horror four times. The three meter tall crystal stands on its narrowest point and slowly revolves inside its rotunda where it turns sunlight into refracted patterns of nameless colors.

9. The 3rd Painting of Desdemona Chadarnook

Desdemona Chadarnook was a painter of unparalleled skill and ability and was a frequent guest within the halls of Terrasquestone. She was also a haunted woman, traumatized by a past that would leave many broken, and carried injuries of the spirit that never recovered, and she found gentle release through painting. She was known to have painted seven great works, and the Hall of Gifts is blessed to have three of them. Her third painting was of a woman in a formal red gown, her face seemingly serene and posture relaxed. This is the only portrait of Nimrazeonne Praxingdrell that was made, and underneath that angel's face dwelt the heart and spirit of a dreadlord and friend of evil blacker than night. Desdemona was forced to paint the portrait of the woman during a period of captivity, and if Nimrazeonne was displeased with the progress of the day, she would destroy the canvas, torture Desdemona for a full day, allow a day of recovery, and then have her start over.

The painting radiates evil, and is disconcerting. Many seek it out so that they can experience the dissonance between beautiful art, and a beautiful woman, and how neither covers the evil in its creation. Some magic instructors will use the painting so that students can work on detecting evil with their senses rather than spells.

10. Honrimol Blue-Eyes

Five ships departed Krakenport and spent a year crossing the Eastern Sea until they found strange islands and unknown lands. A single ship managed to make the trip back, her hull laden with treasures and nearly starving men. Nine out of ten sailors who started the trip never saw their home port again. One of the treasures was a stone woman with blue star sapphires for eyes, and this treasure they gifted to the Lords, as they knew in their hearts they could always turn and face the great Citadel as easily as a sextant can find the Pole Star or an anchor can find the bottom of the sea. The Lords were puzzled by the thing they were gifted because the detail was breathtaking, though scandalous, the stone woman looked barely more than a child, and there was no modesty in her carving. She was given a place as part of a water feature and is considered enigmatic in the extreme.

Her name is Honrimol, and she is a Solen, a specific species of stone elemental found in the far Eastern Isles, notable for having star sapphires for eyes. When she was taken, she collapsed and lapsed into a dormant state, but didn't give up her human waif shape. After being placed in the Hall of Gifts and breathing in the essence-rich atmosphere of Terrasquestone, she woke. For a time she would explore the Hall of Gifts, quickly returning to her perch if she sensed humans approaching, beings she feared for being limb smashers and eye thieves. Honrimol drew the attention of the Dungeon Core, and it absorbed her, replacing her body in the Hall with a perfect replica and used her to create its own version of Solens, but its Solens are more monstrous and have cats-eye Ulnina (dungeon sapphire) for eyes. Honrimol disliked the Core and hasn't joined it as part of its entourage, but she is allowed to move as she sees fit and most of the time, her spirit is in the Hall of Gifts, swapping bodies and leaving her faux stone likeness down in the Gyre.

11. The Celestial Peach Tree

The Celestial Pear tree is an ancient gnarled peach tree that is little more than six feet tall. It produces metallic pink flowers when it blooms, generally once a decade or so, and then a small number of rose gold peaches. These take almost two years to come to full ripeness. These peaches have many rumored abilities, such as curing chronic diseases, adding years to a person's life, reversing sterility, giving profound insights into the nature of magic and reality, and more. These rumors are all true, but vary depending on the person who consumes a celestial peach, and what they are seeking, or what they truly desire.

Phingaema, Venerated Arborist, discovered the celestial peach growing in a Celestial Lense. The tree that grew it had been destroyed in a horrific fight between two beasts that had once been normal animals. After consuming the peaches in large amounts over many decades both were unrecognizable. They slew each other and broke the tree. The Venerated Arborist was able to save a single fruit, and she carried it to Terrasquestone, knowing the Lords would know what to do with such a thing. They planted the tree and now it grows in the Hall of Gifts and is tended. Council is held once a decade over the tree and what to do with the small number of fruits it produces. They have managed to cultivate a few saplings, but these new trees are growing at a glacial pace, even in the enriched aura of Terrasquestone.

12. The Wardrobe of the Red Palace

The Red Palace was an opulent building devoted to the Mistress of the King of Azaughos. The city remains a shell of what it once was and is now inhabited by squatters, beggars, thieves, and the like, a city of orphans, widows, and cripples. An attempt was made to recover and restore the city, led by the Azaughine Guild of Exiles. These adventurers and former nobles sought to take the city, restore their fortunes, and ally a resurgent Azhaugos with Terrasquestone. For a while, they were successful. The worst of the bandits and brigands were taken down, the streets were cleared, and a number of palaces were restored, though the Palace of Griffins remained sealed behind protective magics. First Princess Darkevas and her Captain at Arms, Zajutuin, made many gifts to Terrasquestone, mostly in the form of recovered manuscripts, works of art, and the like. They also brought many treasures out of the city to enrich their own holdings, which caused a good deal of resentment. Resettling the city eventually failed, and there was only so long the Azaughine guild could keep hemorrhaging gold to support their mercenary forces. Zajutuin was assassinated in his sleep by his own men, who quickly turned rogue and took over the city as the new bandit power and Darkevas was maimed, but escaped with her life, though missing an arm, part of her face, and a leg.

Her fleeing retinue was rescued by a Terrasquestone patrol, and she was flown to the citadel on the back of a great hippogriff where she was healed by the High Lord herself, at the time. After recovering, she donated much of her Azaughine wealth to charity, and to the Lords. They created an exhibit within the Hall of Gifts for the treasures of the Red Palace. These include silk dressing gowns or exquisite quality, Azaughine lingerie, and regalia of a Concubine Queen, a dressing screen made of red jade, thread of gold, and the thinnest dragonskein, a type of leather only made from wing membranes of dragons and other dragonkin, and a number of highly erotic paintings. These are not a full display, but rather are shown in private guided tours. Darkevas remains as a curator of the Hall, and now quite old, she remains vigorous for a century old woman missing not quite half of her body, now replaced with Tarasceen prosthetics.

13. The Lay of Nahar and Deneb

In ancient times, a mortal man, Nahar, took a river spirit, Deneb, as his wife. From their union, they created the Old Empire, conquered the Realm in the time before Terrasquestone's first blocks were laid, and raised the greatest of cities, storied Palisander. The Lay of Nahar and Deneb is an illuminated manuscript, inked in color and the pages are brushed with gold and more precious metallic inks. It tells the story of Nahar, his period of conquest, and his marriage to the river spirit Deneb. There are spells contained in the Lay, but deciphering them is the work of a lifetime, and many have labored to it, under the careful observation of the Curators. The book is over a thousand years old, and even with magic, it remains brittle and easily damaged.

The book was hand delivered by a waif of a woman with river-blue eyes and a strange and archaic accent.

The Lords believe that the manuscript was rescued from fallen down Palisander and that immortal Deneb brought it herself so that her one true love would be remembered properly as the man he was, and not as the Imperial histories penned him in the last years of their tumultuous and final power.

14. Figurehead of the Flying Caravel Erephine

The Erephine was a strange ship. She could fly, so much so that it could sail among the clouds. It had an unusual mast and rigging configuration and its sails were made of an unknown material. The figurehead of the ship was a silver pegasus, its expression joyous and excited. The ship flew for years, searching for the mythical Phantom Island, a magical island that drifted through the heavens, inhabited by winged elves of exceeding beauty, waterfalls of magical liquors, and trees that bore singing fruit. The ship came and went as its captains pleased, and from time to time, it carried the High Lords to and from places at their need. Eventually, the Erephine didn't return.

Some years later, the seagoing ship Solaeh came across the wreckage of a ship tangled in a Sargasso. They recovered the pegasus figurehead from the twisted wreck, along with a few other pieces of debris. The captain of the Soleah had the figurehead of the ship delivered to Terrasquestone with what recognizable debris could be salvaged. It remains there, along with a few sketches and paintings of the glorious flying ship so that it isn't forgotten.

One of the things recovered includes feathers large enough to have come from a bird the size of a house.

15. Sarletta's Mardu Fulgurite

The Storm Sorceress Sarletta is most remembered for her decades of weather-calling, ensuring the rains came, the storms were mild, and the land was verdant and green. What took most of her time was artwork, she was a sculptor, her media was sand, and lightning was her tool. She would down lightning, blasting into forms she had made, hoping to guide the celestial fury into pleasing shapes and patterns. Her magnum opus was a fulgurite sculpture of a Mardu, a storm spirit. The ephemeral creature, resembling a luminescent series of encased spheres, was rendered in green glass. There was a blessing of the Mardu in this work, as the interior spheres of glass formed, and rather than roll around inside each other, or simply collapse and shatter inside the main sphere, float. When storms are approaching, the interior spheres move more, and the entire thing starts to glow. During the peak of a thunderstorm, lightning dances inside the lightning-struck glass sculpture, and the air smells of storms and clean rain.

Sarletta's children donated the Fulgurite to the Lords, who accepted it, deeply saddened by the passing of the Storm Sorceress.

16. A Fish Frozen in a Piece of Jade

Presented as a gift from the great explorer Uaron Osanos, the piece of jade is quite large, requiring two men to lift and move. The fish inside seems as if it were still alive, though motionless and deceased by magical observation. Osanos led a long-range exploration across the Western Ocean and charted many islands and new lands, but this was his last great voyage. He claimed his ships were almost destroyed when they found a great land where the oceans had become jade, and the waves, and froth turned to flawless sea-green jade. He also described a great tomb made of smashed ships in numbers beyond count and encounters with the most horrific of creatures inhabiting the great wreck. They did not press hard into the wreck, sensing terrible evil within, and sought to not awaken it to their presence. They gathered notes, samples of things found in the wrecks, and several withered corpses of things that might have once been human tens of centuries before. The fish was chipped free from its wave and brought as the last treasure.

This world, my Lords, is more vast than you can fathom.

17. The Gift of the Understar

Who the Understar was, no one is sure, but the Understar ensured that a Pearl from its trove was delivered to the Lords. The Pearl is a magical prison and contains the spirit of Kenmagok, the Efficient Marauder. The spirit is alien to anything known to the Lords, being neither Celestial nor Infernal, conforming to any of the known elements, aside from a resonance that is similar to metal, but is something more complex. Touching the Pearl allows for a brief incidental communion with the spirit of war that leaves the person in question shaken. The pearl was accompanied by a small book of obscure poetry written in a language that defied translation for years. The poems are sideways warnings about hubris, the danger of power, and how mightier have risen before Terrasquestone and their power made them a danger to the Land, and how they completed this promise and destroyed the land in an unremembered cataclysm.

Kenmagok is functionally a machine spirit, somewhere between a WWI tank and MagiTek armor, and it remembers great rumbling wars that shook continents and leveled cities, and that it was not unique, but just one of tens of thousands of such war spirits.

18. A Golden Crab-Man

Many years ago, a strange ship with curious sails limped into great Krakenport. It had obviously traveled a long distance by the wear on the ship and the miserable condition of the crew. What made this even more odd was that the seeming captain of the bizarre ship was some sort of crab-man that even the mer and tritons of Krakenport had no knowledge of. It had an ornately decorated shell that was plated in gold paneling and decorated with chains of pearls and precious stones and was very much dead and desiccated. The crew were rescued, broken free from their chains and manacles, and restored to health before they were able to explain that they were the property of Etsuricco Crustaciano, the crab-man captain of their ship, of the same name. It was intended to be a trade mission across their Western Sea, the Eastern sea to Krakenport, and they sought to make a profit, seeking treasures and rare delights. This went from interest to horror as the crew explained they came from a land that honored slavery, and where humans and many other races were considered delicacies, and that Etsuricco planned to return home with its holds bulging with spices, livestock, slaves, and other alien delights from this new land.

After examining the charts and rutters aboard the ship, the Lords were able to determine that this land of rapacious crab-men was very far away, and only the intercession of storms and ill-fortune allowed the ship to reach Krakenport. The body of Etsuricco remains in the Hall of Gifts, a reminder that the world is vast as well as ancient and full of dangers.

19. The Cromughassh Tapestry

An original tapestry created during the Twilight of the Old World and recovered from the ruins of Castle Cromughassh, it depicts a great warrior king, a golden dragon, and a cuckolded silver queen. The tapestry itself is fifteen feet tall, eight feet wide, and quite thick.

20. The Kepek Tapestry

The Kepek Tapestry depicts something that doesn't exist in Terrasquestone or the continent it is built on, a desert fortification. A modestly large tapestry, is is predominantly yellow, tan, and brown, shot through with gold and red. The Fortress of Kepek is depicted in a forced relief impression, showing its five towers laid out in an irregular pentagon, surrounding an oasis, palm trees, and many tents within the walls, many brightly colored, striped, and decorated with tassels, garlands, and other bits of flair. Explanations for the tapestry are many, and most are wrong. The residents imagine some strange brown rock fortress as an island in a sun-gold sea, assuming the depictions of dunes are waves, and the palm trees, while strange, do resemble some primitive plants found in the hottest parts of the Hydra Fens and Great Swamplands. However, Castle Kepek exists and is quite real, and accessing it is as simple as knowing the password and stepping into the tapestry. Much like the 'stepping into a painting trope', Kepek is a castle sequestered in a tapestry, including its hundreds of residents, and a radiating network of desert paths to distant lands, oases, and strange places in the alien deserts.

21. The Kynezan Calendar

The Kynezan Calendar was a combination of mathematics, astronomy, planar cosmology, artistic expression, and obsession. Lord Odhran Kynez was obsessed with astromancy and the study of the stars, constellations, and the heavens. After a lifetime of work, he completed a mechanical clock that didn't just have second, minute, and hour hands, but also had rotating rings depicting the months, and the procession of the sidereal months. The device is sixteen feet across and hums with its own internal life and keeps a frighteningly accurate track of the time.

22. The 1st Painting of Desdemona Chadarnook

Desdemona Chadarnook was a painter of unparalleled skill and ability and was a frequent guest within the halls of Terrasquestone. She was also a haunted woman, traumatized by a past that would leave many broken, and carried injuries of the spirit that never recovered, and she found gentle release through painting. She was known to have painted seven great works, and the Hall of Gifts is blessed to have three of them. Desdemona's first masterpiece painting was a portrait of her daughter, Arrowny Chadarnook. Her daughter was Desdemona's pride and joy and sustained her after the death of her husband after the destruction of Nazarod. She would spend several years as a housekeeper, doing her painting on the side until a very unfortunate evening. A creature masquerading as a man, Uncle Goltoss, paid a visit to the patron that employed Desdemona and revealed itself to be a horror that ate heads to steal memories.

She painted the portrait of her daughter in the months of her recovery following the attack. She never spoke of the details, but three people survived the appearance of Uncle Goltoss, and Arrowny was not one of them. This portrait can bring even the most callous soul to tears with its sincerity.