Sites of Primordial Power, Portals, and Black Iron

Some places are marked by primordial power, and some materials are immune to magic entirely. These are the levers a Seeker reaches for and the rifts a careless Blessed accidentally pries open.

Build a primordial site by combining terrain with a marker, then layering theme, origin, and features. Markers run from a hiding veil through dramatic geology, desolation, titan remains, megaliths and petroglyphs, ruins of the Makers built around it, or mysterious structures placed by primordial entities. Origins include the intent of a great spirit, a confluence of cosmic forces, a conflict between mythic beings, the death of a primordial entity, or the working of a potent spell.

Features that make a site interesting include: an Base Archon watching over it; a trapped primordial entity; an abundance of certain spirits; the shade of a dead god, easily called up; anomalies (time loops, weird gravity, thoughts spoken aloud); a thin barrier with the spirit world; a portal or a place that could host one; a font of power; visions and prophecies; useful or valuable flora found nowhere else; or the raw stuff of creation — black iron, water of life, primordial flame.

Known or candidate sites: The Golden Oak, Titan Bones, the Utterwell, Tor's Fist, certain chambers below The Ruined Tower, possibly the Stone of Stonetop itself.

Some places touch each other on a fundamental level despite being hundreds of miles apart. The Makers knew how to carve portals into such places, allowing instantaneous travel. One might find a portal beneath The Ruined Tower, in The Labyrinth, hidden near Three Coven Lake, or among the ruins of Vor Svetelik.

Portals are activated via Opening the Way — inscribing the sigil sequence of one portal within another. Building a new one requires a site of primordial power, a slab of pure white stone, the correct sigil sequence, and an exceptional stonecutter spending a season carving it. Flawed or damaged portals are terribly dangerous: one might explode, tear travelers apart, or open a rift.

A few rare veins exist in the world, but mostly it comes from meteorites. Black iron is utterly, completely immune to magic.

• The Fae take +1d6 damage from it (messy, ignores armor) — their magic unravels at its touch
• Spirits cannot touch it, perhaps cannot even perceive it
• It can damage even insubstantial manifest spirits, though it does no true harm to the spirit itself
• It damages or destroys any open portal it touches
• No spell, ritual, or magic can affect, pierce, or perceive things enclosed by it

It's worked like steel, a bit heavier, with a slightly duller edge. Black iron weapons drop their piercing tag, but a warhammer keeps its base piercing — black iron is still hard, just unmagical.

When primordial power runs amok, it can wound reality itself. Time runs strangely; things emerge from other places; natural laws bend; new lifeforms or consciousnesses arise; fundamentals, Voidblights, or other dangerous spirits cross over; The Things Below reach through. Most rifts are sealed quickly by archons. A persistent one is a threat (a MacGuffin, Instinct to unravel reality).