Dowens’ Rest, Maine, US
Dowens’ Rest is an old town, founded quickly after Spiralist colonists landed in the bigger port city of Draille. Despite being a small town DR is a pillar of the US Spiral Church. Many of the faith’s strongest followers came from the northeast coast, and many more visit to pay homage to one of the “birthplaces” of the US Spiral.
Three families are seen as DR’s founding pillars: the Dowens family, the Revallio family, and the Le Rune family. All three still hold power today.
Lissi, Bratvo Procence, Savo
Lissi was once a booming little town. One of Verdusk’s biggest factory-cities, it housed a near-endless churn for the Great War’s unending machine.
Once Verdusk collapsed, Lissi was siezed (along with the rest of what is now Savo) by the Dimitrigrad Federation. The UDF kicked Savo’s factories back online after the war but soon found itself struggling to survive it’s own turbulence. The UDF pulled out of Lissi in the late 1970’s, killing the local factories and the area’s tight economy in a week.
The town now known as Lissi sits as a reminder of what used to be, a post-post city killed by two sudden infrastructural cuts. Those who live here rarely ever leave now, and those who come never seem to stay. Lissi is the stain on a postcard, a once lively Bavarian town reduced to a rusted dot along many others within a struggling mountain range.
Wellbay Isle, UK
Wellbay never was much of a place of note. It was a strong, tightly knit Spiralist community with little else to say, at least until the Great War. It’s connections and ties to the greater UK were little until the boom of the war.
Wellbay didn’t stay booming though, and as the world stepped away from continued annihilation so too did Wellbay’s surrounding cities slow down their rapid growl. The town reverted back to it’s smaller scale in the 1970’s and has stayed a quiet English town ever since.
The biggest shake-up to Wellbay was the return of the Mason family. The locals didn’t really have much to say when the Masons came back after decades of abandonment, and they had less to say when rumors of a daughter started to float about.
Vostek, Savo, and Kyovkret - Verdusk’s legacy
The Spiral faith’s center of power was the nation of Verdusk. The Spiral’s core - Verdusk’s capital of Siwa - was the last battleground of the Great War. Yet as the war reached it’s final days, the nation of Verdusk went silent. All within it’s border be they Allied or Trinity were killed - a day known as the ‘Calamity’.
The war ended here, with a Cold War emerging between the sides now vying for Verdusk’s prize - the now-desolate northern steppe town of Karsk.
Modern day Verdusk is a land split between three countries, their territories evenly distributing Verdusk’s land.
Vostek is the west-most country, bustling with wealth and reach.
The eastern country is Savo, an industrial country known for making weapons and vehicles. Many factories sit in its mountain ranges.
Kyovkret is the southern country, lush with forests and abandoned post-Federation blocs.
These three countries, still secretly vying for Karsk, have reached a tentative agreement - the steppe is holy and the town of Karsk therein is to be a pilgrimage site.
Karsokm - the Spiral’s core
When the Great Karsk War started, most figured it would be over and done within a week. After all, this wasn’t the first time differing Spiralist sects had fought over this land.
But what started as “just another Karsk conflict” quickly ballooned into a larger fight. Karsk, as the people from Verdusk called it, was considered to be the beginning of the Spiral faith - though it had far humbler beginnings.
Verdusk soon allied itself with other hardline Spiralists and formed the Trinity Collective while those opposing them, namely the US, UK, and UDF, formed what came to be known as the Western Alliance and joined for their own reasons.
What was once a small town north of the Predzkya steppe became a holy battleground as these two major factions fought for “rightful ownership” of the fabled steppe.
Post-war, Karsk is abandoned, seemingly sharing the same fate as Verdusk’s own capital, Siwa. The only visitors the three-point town sees anymore are pilgrims seeking to pray at the Spiral’s core.
The nightmare
Our three protagonists have always felt different. Their dreams are violent, their nightmares are worse, and their connection to the other side is undoubted. Yet these things all pale in comparison to the ‘nightmare’ they seem to share.
This nightmare is a dark place, a fractured mirror of the real world full of horrid creatures, ghosts, and worse monsters. Only those with an inherent connection to the nightmare can access it, unless one is granted permission by the very God the Spiral worships.