Xlanhuapec (city)

Xlanhuapec, the City of Mists, was the second Temple-City to be founded and is a mysterious place that holds many secrets left behind by the Old Ones.

Lore
For its own protection, the entire city is perpetually wreathed in banks of coiling mist and it is possible to pass within a few yards of its boundary stones without noting the city’s sprawling presence, so thick are those swirling vapours.

The Slann and Skink Priests of Xlanhuapec are especially skilled in the elemental magical arts, for the city occupies an auspicious alignment on the lines of the Geomantic Web. At all times, one of the city’s Slann Mage-Priests must maintain the cloying cover of mists, a spell that has remained uninterrupted for long ages. The Slann’s very words turn to creeping vapour, filling his chamber with cloying fog and spreading forth to encompass the entire city - a sprawling metropolis that extends dozens of miles in all directions from the mountainous heights of its centremost pyramid.

The environs are said to be watched by magical beings made from water and air, summoned into existence by the magic of the Old Ones. These magical constructs arc possessed of terrible strength and vitality near the City of Mists, but they soon dissolve to nothing the further they travel from it. Thus, an intruder heading south-west from the Mosquito Swamps would be wise to turn back the instant he glimpses in the corner of his eye some illdefined figure tracking him through the half-light. Should he carry on, only a gruesome death in the all-encompassing mists awaits. Few invaders have ever been able to penetrate the city and live to tell the tale, although those survivors have spread many rumours of the city’s matchless treasures.

Xlanhuapec houses a number of ancient artifacts, including the Placid Pool - reflective waters that allow world-spanning visions; the Device of the Great Beyond - a communications relic through which others from far distant stars occasionally speak, and an Eternity Ship — a great egg-shaped vessel within which time does not flow. These hoarded treasures and more are jealously guarded and it is a death sentence for any outsider to so much as glimpse the city beneath its protective shroud of mists, for Xlanhuapec is ground sacred to the Lizardmen. Another famous artifact hailing from the City of Mists is the Jaguar Standard, which has been borne to battle by countless victorious armies across all of Lustria and beyond.