Rue Tasloi

Rue Tasloi is an ancient boulevard that runs throughout Strangewarp. It is paved in broad, irregular black flagstones mortared with gray concrete; it seems ancient, far older than any of the construction that surrounds it. In the times before Abandonment, it served as a major thoroughfare of the warp, running from one end of the city to the other and back again. It was a main drag, well-lit against the everpresent gloom, home to all varieties of miscreants, deviants and wretches.

In the times since, the neighborhoods it runs through have begun to empty. In some the buildings are replaced by something completely other— a forest of spined metal-clad trees, ominous black basalt blocks that glow in UV and hum on subsonic frequencies, or the vast cathedralic structure that has grown, acrasid-like, over much of downtown. The boulevard itself now runs unpredictably; sometimes it loops around to its beginning as normal; other times one finds oneself traveling back the way one came with no memory of having turned around. And sometimes it runs and runs deep into strange demesnes quite unfamiliar to most Strangewarp denizens, out of all knowing or habitation, onward into the black depths at the edge of reality. The prudent generally turn back at this point.

The Shriketree Forest

A shriketree is a tall, metal tree about 18-24' in height, with razor-sharp bark. Its trunk runs straight and branchless before blooming into a canopy of metallic, clanging branches. When sated and torpid, its bladed bark lies flat, and the tree is safe to approach— even to lay against (or stumble into accidentally). But when the tree thirsts, it will greet an innocent touch or stumble with sudden blades, entangling if not impaling its victim. It drinks deep of their blood, and can quickly exsanguinate an unlucky passerby. The upper branches and leaves also take a sharp, funnel-like shape; during Strangewarp's rains of viscera, all the trees bloom at once, every one slaking its thirst from the falling offal.

The shriketree forest is a swath of former neighborhood where the trees have grown up around empty buildings, even as the buildings have succumbed to the ravages of time at a thousandfold pace. It is more dimensionally unmoored than most Strangewarp locations— and it tends to wander. Traveling through inhabited Strangewarp, it is easy to turn a corner and find oneself surrounded by shriketrees, often within a foot of bumping into one. The way back is choked with trees as well, and only careful navigation can free one from the grove.

When it routes through the forest, travelers on broad Rue Tasloi aren't in immediate risk from the trees— although when the branches do arc troublingly over the road, giving the feeling of traveling down a long, bladed tunnel. At such times one can only travel forwards or turn back; turning onto any side street is folly. The trees rule there.