The Eternal Holy City of Tents

Aroud the center of the continent lies the lake known as the **Maw's Spit** or Maw's Puke. It has grown around a great maw sticking out of the ground which spits and pukes yet demands to be eternally fed.

It is here that the holy site to the Ogres and Gnolls lays, and while not a true city or state it is the largest agglomeration of sentient life at all times as millions of ogres and Gnolls are there in tents at all times to give offering to the maw.

Both Astromancers and those from the Isle of Wizards belive that the great Maw might be the remnant of an ancient Demonic Breach of Gluttony which would have normally long closed up but the constant sacrfices tempted a Demon Prince of Gluttony to stick his maw trough the breach and thus stabilized it.

## The Maw

Deep within the Kinga Badlands, there lies a lake. The snows that fall in the Suritas Range flow northwards to a chasm in the earth at the center of the badlands, being the only real source of surface water in the region. One would think that the region would be the one spot of greenery in the area, brimming with life that is absent in the rest of the badlands. And yet, at the center of the great lake lies a dark presence. The Kinga tribes have avoided the lands at the center of the badlands for centuries, speaking of the terrible presence within. Throughout the millennia, it has attracted many who study the occult horrors of the world, and many of them leave the land scarred and horrified, even more nowadays that it has become the biggest concentration of gnolls in the land. Circling in the center of the lake, eating the offerings of millions of gnolls and ogres, floats the upper half of the Great Maw.

The **Great Maw** has many names: the “**Mouth of Hell**”, “the **Dark Hunger**”, “**Soroghoshoth**”, “**Veligh’alian Duth Uljidk**”, “the **Giant Hunter**”, “the **Hunger of the Gods**”, “The **World Worm**”, “the **Unfillable**”… Whatever name it is called, it is one of the most terrible entities in the entire step. A seemingly endless mouth kilometers in size, filled with rows and rows of sharpened fangs the size of an ogre. In between these infinite teeth, hundreds of great sharp jaw pieces the size of mountains, made of a strange bone-like substance, separate each of the segments of the great mouth. Surrounding all of it, in what could be considered the “lips” of the creature, endless streams of wriggling antennae, covering vast areas of the lake. Some experts have calculated the diameter of the mouth to be around 50 km long, forming an oval jaw that can be seen floating over the water. The mouth floats in the surface, and during certain days, you can see the annelid body within, seemingly sprouting from the bottom of the deep lake. At the center of the mouth, the rows and rows of teeth and claws can be seen going deeper within the beast, continuing until the lights stops shinning the creature’s insides.

The Great Maw has been known for centuries and centuries, and it has ranged from a biological curiosity for some, an existential horror to others, to a deity to be worshiped. The Kinga have known about the being since the very beginning, seeing it as an omen of horror and misfortune. Despite the need for water of the Kinga, the waters of the lake are not drinkable, since the amount of spit the Maw generates poisons the lake, hence the name “Maw’s Spit”. It is not really know when the ogres began worshiping it, seeing as the region if far away from their natural habitats. When asked, the ogres usually argue that they can “feel the hunger within their bones”, or something of the sort, hinting at some sort of primeal attraction. Regardless of its origins, the ogres’ worship of the Maw would begin the creation of the **City of Tents**, the only real “stable” population within the badlands. The first Khenomeri explorers in the land called it the “Mouth of Hell”, and steered away from the area, seeing establishing themselves in the badlands too much of a hustle, having to deal with the harsh landscape and the pilgrim ogres. The Magoclergy dedicated a lot of efforts to study the entity, but many of their tests and analysis were left inconclusive, and changed their focus to other matters. The creature seems to hold ancient mystical power, to an extent incomprehensible for mere mortals, but the way it translates into real, practical power baffles all wizards and wizened mystics that have travelled to the Maw’s Spit to study the entity. Azan has also studied the Maw, sending teams of scholars to the area in the late 18th century ABE, though they had to leave soon enough due to the crisis that began hitting the empire not that long after. However, it wouldn’t be until the arrival of Bagdell Greenfoot in 2.150 ABE when the advancement of the study of the Maw reached its peak.

Bagdell Greenfoot was a hobbit archmage, a member of the Ancient Order of Most Practical Wizards, dedicating his life to the study of magical beings. He organized an expedition to the Maw to study the horror with his own eyes. He spent a decade living in the region, speaking and arguing with the local ogres about the Maw, as well as studying the Maw itself directly and the environment it is in. Greenfoot reached the conclusion that the Maw was a creature of very ancient times, much more ancient than any other living at present. He argued that, since the region appeared to have been underwater at some point in the distant past, the Maw must have been an apex predator at the time, hunting in the deep for colossal creatures. He linked the stories of the Maw and the behavior of the beast, even seeing for himself one of the legendary “risings of the Maw” that occurred once every century, with the stories of the leviathan from the Sea of Bile.

According to Greenfoot’s theories, in the primordial times, massive creatures roamed the oceans, the size of which would dwarf even the great colossus of present times. It was also a time when the world was overcharged by magic, when gods and giants crossed the step just as mortals do now, and this could mean that this prehistoric creatures could have a natural disposition to magic, in a similar way some fey races have affinity towards magic. But since magic is not as abundant as it once was, the Maw’s magical abilities can only manifest partially. Greenfoot also compared the creature with underground worms he had seen in the coral reefs of the Cornfloor Peninsula, and theorized that most of the creature’s body was below the water and below the earth. What size could its annelid body reach, nobody knows for sure. This would create a lot of discussion within erudite circles in the area of wizards, especially with those who argued that the Maw was the result of a more magical origin, possibly a creature birthed by a millennia gone demonic breach. This would explain how the creature of such size has survived so many millennia without proper prey to feed upon.

Bagdell Greenfoot’s studies were the last great project of study the Maw received before the rise of the Gnoll Empire. The Gnoll were indoctrinated by the ogres into their culture, and that included the adoration of the Maw. Once the gnoll were converted in sufficient numbers, they began to pilgrim towards the Great Maw of legend, quickly outnumbering the ogres in the area. This would create the **Eternal Holy City of Tents**, the biggest city in the world, inhabited at all times by millions of gnolls and ogres, always as hungry as the Maw itself. The gnoll offer great sacrifices to the Maw every day, risking their lives to swim across the lake and climb over the teethed mouth to lay as much food and maggotgnolls as possible without falling into the gulley that is the creature’s gullet. From time to time, the Maw will erupt in bursts of puke and bile, which will literally rain over the inhabitants of the city. Receiving holy spew is considered a blessing for those ogres and gnolls who happen to get it, though it only happens after particularly worthy tributes. It is said that, when the second Gnoll Emperor took his first to the Maw, he brought so many offerings and spewed so many maggotgnolls that the puke reached the borders of the badlands, a sign of a particularly noteworthy blessing.

Once every one or two centuries, the Maw will rise its body towards the sky, reaching almost a kilometer of height in the air. These moments are called the “risings of the Maw”, and give more weight to the theories of Bagdell Greenfoot. During these risings, one can see the true enormity of the Maw, with its albino white annelid body in full display, covered in endless claws and tentacles used to anchor itself to the ground. Many have theorized that this is a instinctual behavior, the creature launching itself to strike a would be prey. What causes this though, it is not known. Ogre priests have argued that the Maw is sometimes so angry that “it wants to devour the sky”.

## The Holy City of Tents

The ogres have migrated to the Maw since time immemorial. The oldest civilized records of the Maw’s Spit already mention the thousands of ogres having set up a city of sorts. Throughout the centuries, the ogres developed a very minimal infrastructure to be able to survive in the badlands, producing enough food and water to feed the pilgrims. This was reasonably simple, as despite the ogres’ low intelligence, they are a hardy bunch that can eat pretty much everything. And even then, the ogres rarely settled in the area, preferring to leave their respects to the Maw and go back to their original homelands. This all changed during the creation of the Gnoll Empire. The conversion of the gnolls into the Faith of the Maw meant that the thousands of pilgrims each year suddenly became millions, as the gnolls’ immeasurable numbers were enough to turn the city into the single biggest concentration of sentient life in the entire world.

Those few outsiders who have visited the city agree that calling the population a city would be something akin to a joke. Maybe when only ogres were the only ones leaving near the shores of the Maw’s Spit, it could have had some form of central direction and administration. But nowadays, with the arrival of millions of gnolls, all pretense of organization is lost. Tents are risen in any empty space near the Maw, and the areas closest to the shore are always exploding with violence, as the new arrivals fight with the old ones for the honor of glancing at their god closer. The sick, the starved and the dead are just left abandoned, eaten by the survivors or thrown to the Maw as a way to honor their sacrifice. The fights at the shores are so common that the nearby waters are always crimson red, and the ecosystem has begun to adapt from all of the carcasses and blood. The weaker creatures have been eaten long ago, replaced by ravenous versions of the local fauna. Crawl Sharks thrive in the area, hunting at the edge of the water as crocodiles, ambushing the gnolls when they drink water, or just eating the carcasses. Many wild aquatic worms eat the floating decomposing matter, having grown so wild and ferocious that they resemble schools of piranhas. Maggotgnolls grow fat in such an area, covering the ground in massive carpets of flesh, eating whatever dead matter they can get before the gnolls get to it first. Hyenagnolls also thrive, but the ogres have taken care of breaking their legs to control the birth of new gnolls in the area, as they would destabilize an already food-scarce region. The millions upon millions of being in the area basically eat themselves to survive, with the main source of meat being the gnolls themselves.

The Maw is the only authority that can unify the sea of life in the City of Tents. The gnolls who arrive there are the smartest of their kind, since they have kept themselves together enough to get decide to pilgrim to the Maw, travel to the region, deal with the Kinga tribes and negotiate safe passage and finally survive the extremely harsh nature of the City of Tents. This intelligence also translates into levels of zealotry not usually seen in their race. Whatever magical effluvia the Maw exerts over its followers, it makes sure it is fed constantly. Gnolls and ogres have to climb directly into its mouth, keeping the teeth of the creature far from them, to leave their offerings as close to the gullet as possible, as a sign of worship and gratitude. Some even jump directly into the dark void that it is the creature’s throat. Dark singing and growling can be heard at all times in the City of Tents, and sometimes great battles between its denizens will commence just so they can have something to throw at the Maw.

Once every couple of centuries, the Maw will jump at the sky, propelling its body in the air. This spectacle is considered the most sacred event a servant of the Maw could ever possibly see. This event usually lasts less than an hour, and it is preceded by strong tremors in the area, as the Maw prepares for the jump. During the “risings of the Maw”, the entire city of millions of beings falls eerily silent, all there enthralled by the sight of their god launching itself at the sky. Once it reaches its zenith and begins to fall, it will create a wave many meters high, dragging all nearby tents and living beings into the center of the lake, where the Maw’ll swallow them. This is considered the highest honor the Maw can bestow upon you, the chosen of the Maw, brought directly by divine intervention to form part of their beloved deity. Once the waves subside, there will be a massive fight to occupy the now vacant areas at the shore, clean now from the filth and blood, which will rapidly reappear due to the gnolls’ and ogres’ fighting.