Plane of Singing Ash

The Plain of Singing Ash

Traveling across the Plain of Singing Ash guarantees only that a traveler becomes filthy, but many go there to become wise. At its center, a tall and thin black-iron volcano constantly exhales clouds of soot. Songs also emanate from thin air in this plain, though the ignorant attribute the singing to the ash. Each song heard on the plain is an actual song that has been sung at some time. Scholars of music quest to reach the plains and record the lost music of yesterday; historians visit to learn of the wars and heroes of the past. Other visitors can never predict what they’ll hear, but could pick up interesting tidbits. A betraying vizier might have sung quietly the details of her plot to her beloved son, or a famous thaumaturge-engineer could singsong a powerful recipe rather than write it down. What song one hears depends on both time and place, and the songs shift in a pattern that is hard but not impossible to predict. This is a form of vision-questing (see The Compass of Celestial Directions, Vol. II—The Wyld, pp. 139–141), but the time interval is only days rather than months, and limited to finding particular songs. Storytellers can apply a bonus or penalty of up to three dice to the player’s (Perception + Occult) roll, depending on the generality or specificity of the knowledge the character seeks. For instance, seeking “songs from the Old Realm” could give the player a +3 bonus, because the request is so general. Seeking “songs that Silur might have made up as she developed her theory of magic” would impose a -3 penalty because it’s so specific… and assumes that the arch-sorceress put her thoughts to melody as she worked.