Sorcerers
In the depths of Grondorra’s Vathek Desert, the notorious Sorcerers build their towers. Genius magicians who’ve wandered away from ancient empires after discovering immortality, these undying tinkerers love the peace and quiet of the desert, as well as the access to loads of skeletons.[20] Whether they’re content to ponder the mastery of the dead or they branch out to try their hand at making legions of Animalmen or other weird monsters,[21] their lifestyle generally boils down to using their minions to acquire treasure, then having it all robbed by Barbarians.
Skeletons
It’s hard to get taken seriously as a Sorcerer without at least a small cohort of Skeleton warriors. Still, they’re a bit shit: Grondorran Skeletons are weirdly jerky, moving in fits and starts as if animated in stop-motion, and tend to be limited to following basic commands and rattling in a menacing fashion. Even so, there are rumours of stray Skeletons congregating in deep-desert ruins and developing impressive communal intelligence over centuries. It’s hard to know the truth, however, as it’s said that when the living intrude on their domain, they just slump into the dust and pretend to be archaeology.
Wildlife
As a world celebrated for its primal character, Grondorra is chock-a-block with monsters of all descriptions[22] and is an unmissable destination for wildlife fanatics.[23]
Grondorra’s volcanic jungles are ruled over by the Dinosaurs, ignoble brutes as emblematic of Grondorra as the Barbarians themselves.[24] They’re not like the dinosaurs of our own past, however. These lizards are terrible in every sense of the word: turd-drab, unreasoning hulks that live for nothing except ripping lumps out of each other in fetid swamps, and will go to outrageous lengths to snap a morsel of human meat between their house-sized jaws. None of them are nice: even the nominal herbivores won’t think twice before dipping their heads from the treetops to guzzle a passing human.[25] Luckily, it’s easy to keep a safe distance from these trudging, nut-brained dunces, since they move at the speed of local government and announce their presence with constant, needless roaring.[26]
Travellers passing through the Badlands east of Urrizan are often advised to stick to established paths, lest they fall prey to Medusae (Homo Craniophidia): gaunt, cannibalistic humans with deep azure eyes and nests of writhing serpents rooted to their scalps. According to some textbook I got bored reading, the ‘snakes’ on their heads are in fact ‘the motile fruiting bodies of a parasitic, cordycepomorphic mycelial mass’ – whatever that means[27] – and feed off the brain tissue of their still-living hosts as they wander aimlessly through the labyrinth of rock. Definitely worth avoiding.
VICIOUS VEG
In focusing on Grondorra’s lethal animal life, it can be easy to forget that even the plants will murder you if they get half a chance. From the Nazahak Horsetrap to Battle Kelp, Biffwort and the notorious Shitkicker Lily, Grondorra’s biomes are carpeted with aggressive flora. Even the desolate plains are not to be trodden lightly: too many travellers have strolled into seemingly harmless veldt only to hear a telltale thrashing and realise they are in a deep thicket of Grondorra’s dreaded Punchgrass.
Eating and Drinking
It’s probably not a surprise to hear that Grondorran cuisine is … fairly meaty. Even within the jungles, only a handful of plants aren’t lethally poisonous, and the plains offer only a few desultory herbs and wild onions. As such, vegan travellers are essentially out of luck. Even drinks here tend to be a fairly fleshy affair: Grondorra’s most popular soft drink is a brew called Greh-ve,[28] while most alcoholic drinks are made from either fermented beast-milk or some kind of blood.[29]
GRONDORRA’S
BEST BARS and RESTAURANTS
The Sword & Sorcery – Outside of getting rat-arsed in tents, there isn’t much of a bar culture on Grondorra. Still, a few years back, an offworld entrepreneur tried to start a town-sized megapub called the Sword & Sorcery, sticking it right in the middle of the Great Plain in the hope of drawing passing Barbarian traffic. Unfortunately, it has been so successful it tends to be burned to the ground on a weekly basis.
The Gilded Urn – Preposterously high-end fine-dining establishment in Urrizan. During the rare moments when the city isn’t in the grip of dysfunctional famine, this restaurant serves overpoweringly floral wines and impossibly labour-intensive delicacies such as hummingbird tongues and candied ape’s breath.
COMMUNAL EATING, BARBARIAN STYLE
When you enter a Barbarian feasting tent, you’ll usually be greeted with a cheery Garunka-gak! (death to the ant-faced god!) from the patrons. It’s best to respond rapidly with Ganoshgrum! (praise to Grum!), or you may be taken for an Antman in disguise and eviscerated on the spot.
To get a seat, you must wrestle one of the incumbent diners to the ground. Obviously, you should seek to persecute any other tourists present, but since the Barbarians respect courage almost as much as prowess, some good sports will feign injury in order to give
