Overview:
Sanctuary XIII is a desolate automaton city that fell silent decades before Haven XVII’s decline. Once a center of mining and refining, its automata failed to adapt to the new scarcity of distributed power; the city’s mechanisms wound down and never restarted. The Forebearer that once dominated its core—recorded as shut down roughly 170 years ago—has since vanished from the central cavity. Sanctuary XIII is completely inert and utterly devoid of life; what remains are collapsed systems, buried vaults, and the mute testimony of a civilization that wound to a stop.
Appearance:
From a distance, Sanctuary XIII presents as a ragged skyline: half-buried towers, sagging girders, and the scalloped ribs of refineries. Up close, streets are choked with sand, and the scattered forms of dormant and broken automata; skylights are fractured, and conveyor troughs lie clogged with grit. Polished brass and copper survive in places, dulled to a pale sheen by wind and age. Vault doors stand rust-pitted but intact, gear housings sit frozen in place, and motion shafts terminate in sealed caps. The air is dry and still; sound carries thinly across empty plazas, returning only your own measured steps.
Terrain:
Sunken Streets & Sublevels: Collapsed roofs and buried thoroughfares create sudden drops and narrow passageways under shallow sand.
Fragmented Refineries: Rows of immobile machinery—furnaces, grinders, sifts—blocked by twisted scaffolds and fallen gantries.
Buried Vaults & Stabilized Chambers: Reinforced structures half-swallowed by dunes; many entrances are sealed, requiring careful excavation or precision access.
Landmarks:
The Hollow Court: A vast, dust-choked plaza at the city’s center where the Forebearer once stood; its pedestal is empty, ringed by rusted service conduits and sealed maintenance hatches.
The Line: A transit station that formerly linked Sanctuary XII to Haven XVII, as well as other, more distant cities.
The Alloy Vaults: Stacked storage chambers with vault-like doors—salvagers whisper these hold rare and experimental alloys, though access is perilous and records are inconclusive.
The Sunken Foundry: A collapsed production complex where presses and crucibles lie buried under sagging catwalks and sand; structural weakness makes entry hazardous.
The Hollow Vein: A long-abandoned mine beneath Sanctuary XIII, filled with collapsed tunnels, rusted supports, and scattered remnants of old ore-processing machinery. Once a source of rare metals for the city, it now offers perilous exploration and the possibility of hidden caches for daring salvagers.
The Shattered Array: An unfinished network of turbines and windmills in Sanctuary XIII, abandoned decades ago before it could generate any usable energy. Its skeletal frames, scattered gears, and broken scaffolds stand as a silent testament to the city’s final, failed attempts to sustain motion.
Factions:
None. Sanctuary XIII is completely abandoned. Only the occasional remote salvage mission reaches its limits, and local knowledge is scant and unreliable.
Notes on Reliability:
Sanctuary XIII lies well beyond the dozen-kilometer range where records remain current. Accounts are sparse, inconsistent, and often decades old—any specific claim should be treated as uncertain until verified on-site.
Most of the following rumors are at least half a century old.
Rumors:
Low Rumors (Common, Unreliable)
“Some say Sanctuary XIII still hides materials in the Alloy Vaults—enough to build a small city if you can reach it.”
“Fragments of transit records were found near The Line once; the city seemed to have been importing parts for something.”
“A single set of footprints was traced toward the Hollow Court, then vanished near a sealed hatch.”
Mid Rumors (Specific, Partially Verified)
“An old motion ledger recovered from a peripheral cache suggests a partially functional kinetic core may lie buried beneath a collapsed sector.”
“A handful of Salvagers reported finding intact storage doors in the Alloy Galleries; they could not force them open without heavy equipment.”
“Several salvage teams passed along matching sketches of a pedestal in the Hollow Court—the Forebearer’s base—conspicuously empty and scarred.”
High Rumors (Rare, Dangerous)
“A salvage scouting party claimed their lead found the Forebearer’s maintenance ring empty; they swore the central cavity had been deliberately cleared long after the shutdown.”
“Some teams report hearing mechanical clicking deep under the Sunken Foundry, though no automata are known to be operational—an ominous, unexplained signal.”
“Some whisper of a buried fuel silo beneath the Sunken Foundry—if intact, it might contain an enormous reserve of highly volatile fuel.”