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FlakJacket
Someone posted this newspaper article to the Delta Green mailing list that I'm a member of and I figured since it has a fairly heavy Shadowrun slant I'd share it over here.
QUOTE
Eighth wonder of the world? The stunning temples secretly carved out below ground by 'paranormal' eccentric

Nestling in the foothills of the Alps in northern Italy, 30 miles from the ancient city of Turin, lies the valley of Valchiusella. Peppered with medieval villages, the hillside scenery is certainly picturesque.

But it is deep underground, buried into the ancient rock, that the region's greatest wonders are concealed.

Here, 100ft down and hidden from public view, lies an astonishing secret - one that has drawn comparisons with the fabled city of Atlantis and has been dubbed 'the Eighth Wonder of the World' by the Italian government.

For weaving their way underneath the hillside are nine ornate temples, on five levels, whose scale and opulence take the breath away.

Constructed like a three-dimensional book, narrating the history of humanity, they are linked by hundreds of metres of richly decorated tunnels and occupy almost 300,000 cubic feet - Big Ben is 15,000 cubic feet.

Continued.

Just take a look at the pictures from the article, some of the architecture and art work is stunning. And some of it is less than impressive but whatever. Gives you something of an idea of what coming accross an old Kaer might look like. That or base of operations for cult/secret group of choice. smile.gif
Sir_Psycho
Just wondering, what exactly is a "Kaer"? It's been mentioned a few times recently on DS and I haven't seen it in any of my books.

Pretty amazing place, sometimes a little gaudy, but the attention to detail is pretty great.

If it's underground, could you still conduct a ritual sending in there?
Stahlseele
it's something like a magically shielded against magical stuff bunker against the horrors from EarthDawn in which, supposedly, the elite of the races lived through the scourge . .
Sir_Psycho
So the Blood Wood wasn't a Kaer then?
Stahlseele
nah, the blood wood was an ritual which made elves sprout thorns and feeling an awfull pain all the time to make them as undesireable as a host for a horror as inhumanly possible, if i remember correctly *g*
FlakJacket
QUOTE (Sir_Psycho)
So the Blood Wood wasn't a Kaer then?

Yes and no. The Theran Empire, default bad guys in Earthdawn, had the monopoly on secret formula to build kaers and wouldn't share it with other countries unless they bent the knee and recognised them as their evil overlord. Sitting there with a metric ass-tonne of Horrors about to come charging over the hill and do all manner of nastiness to them in the near future most people sat there thinking "Go along with the arseholes, Horrors killing everyone and doing unspeakable nasties with my innards, go along with the arseholes, Horrors... You've got yourself a vassal state mate, now hand over the formula."

The elves though got a bit uppity, as they do, and wouldn't deal with the Therans. They decided to take a stab at building one themselves without Theran help and turned the wood where they lived into a living kaer. Great idea grass cuttings for brains. Anyway, the Horrors make their long awaited appearance and lay waste to the world causing destruction on an epic scale in front of them. Think Royal Navy crew putting in for shore leave after the ships been out for five/six months. After a while the elves notice that their wooden kaer is working about as well as a chocolate teapot and starting to fail with the Horrors slowly trying to work their way through the ever growing holes in their defences.

People get a tad upset at this so there's a big pow wow up at the palace to try and figure how to unfuck everything. The best idea that they can come up with though is that Horrors are only able to feed on the pain and suffering that they themselves inflict. "Bobs your uncle then" goes the eleven court and the queen, Alachia IIRC, decided to take drastic measures. They do a lot of mumbo jumbo and the big ritual spell grafts the Pattern of some kind of thorny plant onto the Pattern of the elves so that they gets all these bloody thorn sprouting out of their bodies kind of like eczema on crack. Since they're in constant pain from the thorns the Horrors take one look at them an go "Oi! That's cheating! Bastards. Bugger this if there's nothing decent to eat around here then" and go off to find some other poor sod to devour. The day is saved but everyone and their kids gets to around looking like a weird kind of walking rose and can't go five minutes without ripping a shirt. Alachia's response to it all appears to be "Well that's that settle then. What? It's not like it was my fault for being a prideful idiot or anything. Well not if you want to keep your head on your shoulders mate. Who's queen?"
bibliophile20
QUOTE (FlakJacket @ Nov 24 2007, 10:40 PM)
QUOTE (Sir_Psycho)
So the Blood Wood wasn't a Kaer then?

Yes and no. The Theran Empire, default bad guys in Earthdawn, had the monopoly on secret formula to build kaers and wouldn't share it with other countries unless they bent the knee and recognised them as their evil overlord. Sitting there with a metric ass-tonne of Horrors about to come charging over the hill and do all manner of nastiness to them in the near future most people sat there thinking "Go along with the arseholes, Horrors killing everyone and doing unspeakable nasties with my innards, go along with the arseholes, Horrors... You've got yourself a vassal state mate, now hand over the formula."

The elves though got a bit uppity, as they do, and wouldn't deal with the Therans. They decided to take a stab at building one themselves without Theran help and turned the wood where they lived into a living kaer. Great idea grass cuttings for brains. Anyway, the Horrors make their long awaited appearance and lay waste to the world causing destruction on an epic scale in front of them. Think Royal Navy crew putting in for shore leave after the ships been out for five/six months. After a while the elves notice that their wooden kaer is working about as well as a chocolate teapot and starting to fail with the Horrors slowly trying to work their way through the ever growing holes in their defences.

People get a tad upset at this so there's a big pow wow up at the palace to try and figure how to unfuck everything. The best idea that they can come up with though is that Horrors are only able to feed on the pain and suffering that they themselves inflict. "Bobs your uncle then" goes the eleven court and the queen, Alachia IIRC, decided to take drastic measures. They do a lot of mumbo jumbo and the big ritual spell grafts the Pattern of some kind of thorny plant onto the Pattern of the elves so that they gets all these bloody thorn sprouting out of their bodies kind of like eczema on crack. Since they're in constant pain from the thorns the Horrors take one look at them an go "Oi! That's cheating! Bastards. Bugger this if there's nothing decent to eat around here then" and go off to find some other poor sod to devour. The day is saved but everyone and their kids gets to around looking like a weird kind of walking rose and can't go five minutes without ripping a shirt. Alachia's response to it all appears to be "Well that's that settle then. What? It's not like it was my fault for being a prideful idiot or anything. Well not if you want to keep your head on your shoulders mate. Who's queen?"

Best. Summary. Ever.
smile.gif
Snow_Fox
There's something similar, but not so grand outside of Edinburgh. Thought to have been maybe made by free masons or the Hellfire club they were most likely just later tennants. The stone walls and pillars in the scottish system look almost organic, like it was grown rather than carved.
Mercer
The History Channel's Lost Cities of the Underworld has some good stuff along this line. Edinburgh, New York, Paris, Naples, Rome I know they covered, and there were more I didn't catch. If they didn't cover Seattle, that was one hell of a missed opportunity for us.
Snow_Fox
That was where I got the Edinburgh stuff. I think they did the undercity in Seattle. That was a little different though because it was never lost. just built over.
Stahlseele
As far as i know, both Hamburg and Berlin have such an underworld too . . and berlin even has an overworld kind of . . if i remember correctly, you can cross most of berlin without ever going up to street-level and you cann cross parts of Berlin, without ever having to go DOWN to street level O.o . . and of course, Russia's Cities have such things too . . most cities of the modern world do i believe *g*
Daddy's Little Ninja
I saw something on Berlin on TV. It might have been lost cities. It said most of Berlin is built on swampy ground. Tunnels built under it have problems with seepage, but there are massive underground rooms and road ways set up as shelters during the war.

I think most people here are talking about much older ruins.
FlakJacket
Never mind the underground underground rooms or roadways, how about owning your very own bunker? Perfect for today's paranoid recluse. smile.gif
nezumi
I wouldn't call a pent-house anything a bunker.

That said, there are plenty of companies which now offer custom made and pre-fab underground bunkers for the 'average' person ('average' being a person with an average salary, but the desire to have an underground bunker he can live in).
FlakJacket
From what I've been able to understand from a couple of other German sites it looks as though the penthouse bit was built more on top of the bunker as opposed to renovating the top floor so best of both worlds.
Snow_Fox
QUOTE (FlakJacket)
Never mind the underground underground rooms or roadways, how about owning your very own bunker? Perfect for today's paranoid recluse. smile.gif

I always wondered where those James Bond villains got their bases.
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