My Pathfinder group recently reached a turning point in the campaign. Our party finally reached a landmark that some of the PCs had been searching for since day one. I made this SketchUp model to commemorate the occasion and finished it off in Photoshop:

blood_tarn_final.jpg

Here is the DM's description of the site:


The Mouth of the River

The land had been rising nonstop for miles from the Fell Falls. There were occasional smaller falls and rapids, but the river was straight and didn't meander.

Markers of the Carmine Empire sat alongside the road: clean, elegant yet simple stone markers.

They party climbed steep slopes and broken rocks. Then they saw that the Riverside Road crossed the river. A large, sturdy stone bridge allowed travel over the river and into the snow-capped mountains. The low bridge was well-built and was sure to last centuries.

At the bridge, an unmistakable but rough path ran west (on the north side of the river). It wound through high mounds of broken stone. Since it followed the river and the paved road no longer did, they chose the rough path.

Trees were few and short at this altitude.

On the edge of this path they saw obelisks wrapped in rusted iron bands. They looked nothing like the elegant markers of the Carmine Empire. Brutish and cold they were, almost like bludgeons.

Sharp stone icons, blackened and polished, marked the end of the road. Ahead lay the Blood Tarn.

A rocky plateau with a broad lake greeted their eyes, with walls to the north and west. (The land was open and falling south and back east.) Here there were no plants, just moss. A few crows picked at the bones of a small humanoid creature. But iron rust has made the lake red and orange.

The Tall Tiers had been hewn out of the mountainside as if they were going to be something: large steps that even giants couldn't ascend. Vast rubble fields, iron rails, and slag heaps lay before the tiers. The corroding remains of steel structures jutted up from the rubble. Here and there sat incomplete stone towers - just the bases and foundations really.

The windswept peak was not high. It was dwarfed by the snowy, imposing peaks of neighboring mountains behind it.

The first tier was about 100 feet high, partially carved into bricks with stylized knots.

Gushing, foaming orange water shot out hundreds of feet from the giant hole from the main gate itself. A few holes that were once windows or small doors also sprayed water.

This, finally, was the mouth of the river: a mass volume of water constantly gushing and spraying out of holes in the mountain.