In Xanadu did Kubla Khan A stately pleasure-dome decree : Where Alph, the sacred river, ran Through caverns measureless to man Down to a sunless sea. |
---|
-Samuel Taylor Coleridge |
Nature: Hidden Astral Repository of Knowledge
First visited: 6.8 "Footprints on the Sands of Time", where PC's finally found the Astral Projector which allowed access
Notable Natives: Aleph, Asha, Keith the Familiar
Historical
●"Xanadu", or "Shangdu", was the summer capital of Kublai Khan's Yuan Dynasty in China.
●It was designed by Chinese architect Liu Bingzhong, from 1252 to 1256. He was credited with occult powers which allowed him to foretell the future and so assist military operations.
●Marco Polo visited the place around the year 1275, and wrote down one of the most complete descriptions of the city as it existed, and his journals helped make the place famous to the western world
●In 1369 it was occupied by the Ming army and put to the torch.
●Xanadu was also the name of Charles Foster Kane's estate in the film Citizen Kane
Astral
●When the cabal explored the Astral realm of Coleridge's poem (partly quoted above) they tracked down the ''woman wailing for her demon lover'', who seemed to recognize and react to the name ''Mahaba'ali''. Though she seemingly responded to Skadi as if she were this ''demon lover'' when she tried to fill that role, it's unclear whether this would have happened for anyone, or if this was because Skadi was the one to do it.
●Upon trying to reach the actual astral realm of Xanadu proper the cabal had incredible difficulties in finding a path which led them there, ever time ending up somewhere they didn't intend, and almost half the time this led to the beach from the Footprints in the Sand poem/parable.
●Eventually it also led to the astral realm of the pulp story ''the Temple of Zanack Khan'', which had certain themes in common with the place, but which turned out to be an abyssal phenomenon/location, luring in, infecting and corrupting visitors.
Update as per Plot 6.8
See also
●Shamballah
●Asgartha
●Temple of Seven Pillars
●Children of Danu
●Timeline
●Chapter 1.6: "Ancestral voices prophesying war"
●Chapter 2.3: "A Plague on Both Your Houses!"
In the Book
●Page 33
●Page 38
●Page 118
●Timeline, Part 1 and Part 2
●"Radio Free Xanadu"
.
To list of Locations