River Skai
The Skai River Valley (AKA Skai River, Kingdom of Skai, Kingdom of the Skai, The Enchanted Wood) first appeared in various H.P. Lovecraft stories, and was described in the most detail in Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath.
Skai River Valley
The headwaters of the River Skai are in the Mynanthra Valley in the Jungles of Kled, flowing through some of the regions of the Dreamlands known from the adventures of Randolph Carter, such as Ulthar and the Enchanted Forest.
Kingdom of Skai
An area composed of Hatheg, Nir, Ulthar, and several smaller farming communities. Each town is run by a burgomaster and a council of burgesses, who are free to make their towns' own laws, but together, the towns and villages are under the rule of the King of the Skai, who oversees the collection of taxes and makes decisions that affect the kingdom as a whole. The king is not a king in any traditional, earthly, hereditary sense, but is instead chosen by election from among the burgomasters, and reigns for life after being crowned by the priest of the Temple at Ulthar. The taxes are used to maintain the Kingdom's roads and trade routes, and arm and train the town militias, which the King in times of emergency may muster to the Kingdom's defense. Though not a "true" king, and regarded as a sort of "poor relation" by the neighboring kings of the "Six Kingdoms", the King of the Skai is nevertheless regarded ceremonially with all the respect of the other Kings.
Geography
Enchanted Wood
A forest of gigantic oak trees and tall, woody fungi; the trees' prodigious boughs intertwine to form tunnels beneath their leafy canopy. In this region all is perpetually twilight, and very little sunlight reaches the forest floor. The wood is continuously lit by a strange phosphorescent glow, which is emitted by a fungus which permeates the entire wood. Near the center of the Enchanted Wood is the Great Stone Circle that was built by monstrous Gugs ages ago. Not far to the West is the Enchanted Stone, a slab covering the entrance to the Tower of Koth. The Gate of Deeper Slumber, entrance to the Dreamlands, lies in the eastern half of the forest. The Enchanted Wood is home to many weird creatures, notably including the elusive Zoogs, whose small tribes live in hollow trees and burrows beneath the oak roots, and are among the Wood's most commonly-encountered intelligent races, a particularly large village of Zoogs lies just east of the Great Stone Circle.
Stone Circle
Near the center of the Enchanted Wood, in what was once a clearing, is a large circle of standing stones built long ago by the previous dwellers in the Wood, the monstrous Gugs, in worship of the foul Outer Gods; the circle is so large that the circle cannot easily be discerned, and the stones themselves push up through the wood's canopy. The Gugs danced about bonfires built within the Stone Circle in worship of the horrible Outer Gods they worshiped, until some unspeakable boundary was crossed and the Elder Gods intervened in the terrible rituals, cursing the gugs to eternal silence and banishing them into the Underworld, sealing them underground beneath the Sign of Koth.
Enchanted Stone
Westward from the Great Stone Circle lies a blasted spot in the Enchanted Wood of sickly trees where the fungus is unnaturally dense, and at this spot there rests in the forest floor the Enchanted Stone, a great stone slab with a three-foot-wide iron ring set in its middle. The slab is covered with two sets of runic inscriptions in a very ancient tongue now all but forgotten in the Dreamlands, now mostly obscured by the moss covering the slab: one set of runes was designed to keep something beneath the slab, and the second set has the power to cancel the power of the first. Few men now living know the secret of what lies beneath this slab, and even the curious Zoogs fear to go near it, but in fact, this slab covers the top of a great staircase which spirals down through the Tower of Koth into the kingdom of the Gugs in the vast Underworld of the Dreamlands.
Zoog Village
There are numerous Zoog villages within the Enchanted Wood, groupings of burrows beneath the forest floor, although some, notably the noble families, do live in the trunks of great trees. Each village is presided over by a Council of Sages drawn from the eldest and most experienced Zoogs in the village. Toward the center of the Enchanted Wood lies the largest of the Zoog villages, and here the zoogs brew a wine from a haunted tree which grows not far from their village, a tree which grew from a seed which fell to Earth from the Moon, and the tree is said to be haunted, for those who sleep beneath it have strange visions. The wine which the Zoogs brew from its sap is potent and those unused to strong drink will quickly succumb to its effects.
Stony Desert
A dreary, rocky wasteland around Mount Hatheg-Kla. The stones are of bizarre shapes and sizes, carved into weird forms by the wind. Between the rocks, a thick, gray, ash-like dust rises at every step, burning the eyes and constricting the lungs. From the heights of Hatheg-Kla, the place closely resembles a titanic graveyard, which in fact it may be. Wise folks avoid the desert entirely.
Mount Hatheg-Kla
The town of Hatheg derives its name from Mount Hatheg-Kla, the tallest of Dreamlands mountains reaching nearly ten miles into the sky, which lies two weeks' march across the desert. It was the last bastion and dancing-ground of the Great Ones, before they were forced by the curiosity of mortals to move to Kadath. Villagers in Hatheg warn against climbing Hatheg-Kla, especially at night when the Old Ones were known to dance. The residents of the entire Skai Valley tremble in fear and pray to all the gods whenever the mountain and moon are hidden from sight by pale vapors, ever since the night the Great Ones departed in exactly such a mist which eclipsed the moon and hid the mountain's peak. Those few who were brave enough to scale the peak in search of Barzai said they found only a great sigil blasted into the rock of the mountain as a warning to those who might follow Barzai's example.
Open Fields
Fertile rolling fields descending from the edges of the Enchanted Wood, down to the River Skai; it is on these fields that most of the various towns and villages of the Skai River Valley which make up the Kingdom of Skai are built.
Cities
Hatheg
A farming village inhabited by peasants. Two famous personages come from here: Barzai the Wise who was drawn screaming into the sky from Mount Hatheg-Kla, and Atal who witnessed Barzai's fate and moved on to Ulthar.
Although a small town of only 900 inhabitants run by a mayor-peasant who is elected every five years, Hatheg lies along the caravan route from Cuppar-Nombo, and the town boasts one good inn, The Orchard, known for its quality food and service; the trade caravans are eagerly awaited by the villagers, who delight in the strange goods and tales which the desert merchants bear with them; with these caravans also, Hatheg even still receives irregular visits from the strange folk known as the Dark Wanderers. (Chaosium?)
Ulthar
Ulthar, largest of the three towns of the Skai River valley, is an humble city of tradesmen and farmers, and the terminus for many caravans which come to the Valley from Dylath-Leen by the Southern Sea, or Cuppar-Nombo in the desert. The town of narrow, well-worn cobbled streets and wandering dirt roads consists of a mix of houses with peaked roofs and overhanging upper-stories, small cottages, and neatly-fenced farms. The town itself is built on several hills which stand on the banks of the river Skai.
Nir
A sleepy little hamlet which lies in the shadow of Lerion, Nir is the smallest of the three towns in the Skai River Valley. It has but one broad street which runs down its center.
It is from this town and the surrounding farms that most of the disappearances attributed to the 'Ygirothians occurred. Much of what little is known about 'Ygiroth can be learned from the folk who live here. However, the residents are very reluctant to speak of Lerion and its former inhabitants. Investigators who question the locals concerning Lerion will have to make a successful Persuade roll in order to gain any useful information. Failure can range anywhere from simple silence to nervousness, to having the Elder Sign made at the questioner and the door slammed in his face. Nir's greatest landmark is the great stone bridge which spans the river. The masons who built the bridge 1300 years ago sealed a living sacrifice into the central piece to protect against evil. It is rumored by some that the unlucky sacrifice was a 'Ygirothian. (W.C. DeBill, Jr, "In ‘Ygiroth (fiction)")
Dylath Leen
Dylath-Leen is a great city which lies at the mouth of the Skai where it empties into the Southern Sea. The city is built mostly of basalt and has many thin angular towers which pierce the sky. Its streets are dark and uninviting, and a haze of smoke hangs over the city except when strong winds blow in from the sea. Its sullen inhabitants wear odd robes. Cutthroats, assassins, and thieves abound. The ruling prince utilizes his Eyes of Dylath-Leen—a sort of secret police—to investigate crime only when important persons are involved. Dylath-Leen is the greatest port in all the Dreamlands. Its harbor, known as the Bay of Wharves, is filled with over one hundred docks and quays of various sizes. There are always at least a dozen ships from every land on Earth, and few which are thought not to be on Earth, at anchor here. The Forest of Parg lies just west of Dylath-Leen, across the River Skai.
Associated Mythos Elements
- setting: Dreamlands
- location: Jungles of Kled, upstream of the river
- cult: Six Kingdoms
- race: Zoogs, Gugs, Buopoths, Magah Birds, and other assorted Dreamlands creatures
References
- fiction: H.P. Lovecraft, Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath (fiction)
- fiction: H.P. Lovecraft, "The Silver Key (fiction)"
- fiction: H.P. Lovecraft and E. Hoffman Price, "Through the Gates of the Silver Key (fiction)"
- fiction: H.P. Lovecraft, "The Cats of Ulthar (fiction)", "The Doom that Came to Sarnath (fiction)", and others
- sourcebook: H.P. Lovecraft's Dreamlands
