Overview

They say the moon killed all Verwhenite pantheons and thus destroyed the once-holiest city in all of Maldor. Nowadays the temples are used as inns, brothels, orphanages and nomad's squats, inhabitants barely remembering the broken pantheons their land once housed.

The statues are worn away and faceless. Gold plating has been scraped off and the jewels plucked from the eye sockets to pay for all manner of moral transgressions.

When the moon is dark, it is said the old gods walk again, or their ghosts. Priests take up ancient rites, aping what they think they know from broken texts in abandoned temples. The gods aren't angry; they are dead. When the wind blows through the slums, you can hear their impotent howling.

Priest-lords and witch-ladies that used to hold the city in a grip of theocratic power are now finding the old ways are disintegrating. People are questioning the government for the first time. The gods are not there to give the rulers a holy mandate and the peasants are restless.

The city is crumbling, lost treasures lurk in the catacombs beneath the city, narcotic mushrooms grow on the bones of the faithful dead.

Stair Urchins

These are children who congregate around the many stairs of the city and help rikshaw drivers up and down safely. They only ask a few pennies from the passenger in return for their help. If a rickshaw driver knows someone is wealthy, they will take them up and down as many stairs as possible for the urchins' sake.

If the passenger should not tip the children have been known to, in lesser cases, drag them from the rickshaw, beat them and take their money. If the passenger is well-armed, they will merely insult them and throw stones from a safe distance.

When not giving rickshaws a helpful push, the children are often playing music on mouth harps and make-shift drums. Often the music is part of the journey up and down the stairs.

The rickshaw drivers and stair urchins of Verwhenen have a complicated symbiotic relationhips. Some drivers avoid certain stairs knowing the children are loyal to certain drivers. Only those truly in the know can tell which stairs are frequented by which drivers and which stair urchins are ready to knife a passenger and which are merely going to throw a bladder filled with pigs' blood and run into the alleys.

The RPG.net thread in which Verwhenen was named (by Balbinus) and birthed (by Paka)