The Lake of Tears
(Site; Mt. Celestia/Lunia)
written by Heiner de Wendt
Description. No one who actively seeks this place has ever found it;
it seems the only way to reach it is to get there by chance. From
a distance, the Lake of Tears looks like a beautiful, silvery
mountain lake. Most often, it's found on the top of a smaller mountain,
like a volcano crater lake, though this obviously shifting place has
also already been observed at the shore of the Silvery Sea.
Getting nearer to the lake, a strange feeling enters the mind. Not
only is the area surrounding the place barren of all life; the sea
itself is as calm as if it was carved from stone. Those approaching
the Lake feel an overwhelming emotion of lost love, broken friendships,
unfulfilled yearning, and shattered hopes. They also feel a weird
sensation of frozen warmth, like a broken heart which does not want
to be healed. This sensation has been described to be very repulsive,
and most beings who felt it have left the site without further
hesitation, feeling they were not welcome here.
Those who ignored the feeling and approached farther told that the
lake was as empty of life as the surrounding land, yet its ground was
so deep it could not be seen. The perfectly clear water can be touched,
physically reacting normally, but it sends overwhelming emotions
through the being's very soul.
Special Features. One drop of this water's lake is enough as a
substitute for the material components of any spell creating depressive
or feelings of melancholy, but only if that spell is used with
lawful good intentions. Surprisingly, the water's effects are so
strong that such spells work as intended on any plane, even without
a spell key.
Someone who touches the water with his bare skin becomes subject
to the effects of both the sadness and despair effects of the
Emotion spell (4th level mage spell), without a saving throw. This
effect stays as long as the Lake of Tears is in sight. It does not
keep the influenced character from acting at all, though, nor does
it force him to "retreat".
Someone who even swallows a drop of water from the Lake of Tears
feels as if his own heart would utterly break and shatter, and
such beings fall unconscious for many (4d12) hours. When they
awaken, they remember countless dreams of broken hearts, scenes of
the lives of people who have lost all hope. One of these dreams
always becomes especially strong, and a character who wants to find
out more about this vision can "sense" where this broken-hearted
being now is. More often than not, this has led the visitors of the
Lake of Tears to quests in which they tried to find the desperate
souls, and try their best to have that person regain the spark of
faith. Without exceptions, such quests were among the hardest these
individuals have ever had.
The Chant. Even the archons know little about the Lake of Tears. It
seems one of the powers of Mt. Celestia has created it, but no one
knows who exactly it was. The archons do not speak of the "water"
or "teardrops" of the Lake, but instead of the "Lost Faith" or
"Shattered Souls".
The mage Ulhluan the Reformed mentioned that, when casting a "Detect
Alignment" spell on the Lake (just to see what would happen), he
was overwhelmed by the Goodness, perfect mercy and absolute agony
of this place; at the same time, he felt a weird mixture of all
alignments as the result of his spell. His theory is that the Lake
holds the Lost Faith of beings of all alignments, maybe even of all
those beings in the whole multiverse who have ever lost all hope.
Considering this, Ulhluan was quite frightened about the size and
depth of the Lake.