HOME | DD

Description
Some arrive at the gates of Ptoliboros by design, some by chance. Either way, one must pass through the Horos to get there.

The Horos is a liminal place where the city's reality bleeds into our own. It can be stumbled upon when walking down a lonely street or through an empty park on a dark and moonless night. It resembles our world and the transition is not always obvious, but gradually the unwitting traveller realizes that something has changed: the world suddenly feels wrong in subtle yet disturbing ways.

The air tastes like metal and the sky is a sick, queasy hue. One might see familiar things: buildings, buses, bicycles, cars and people, but a closer look reveals the strange faces, more like wax masks, taut and shiny and expressionless, and buildings that are like a movie-set, convincing when viewed from the right angle but lacking substance behind the façade.

Few people make it further than this; most eventually find their way back to their own reality with nothing more than unsettling memories and a vague sense that they have glimpsed something they shouldn't. But those with the knowledge and desire to reach Ptoliboros can seek out of one of the Thuroroi, the city's gatekeepers, and ask to be admitted.

A Thuroros cannot be persuaded, threatened or bargained with. They either admit the visitor or they do not. No reason is ever given. Those who enter and return are changed forever, strangers to those who knew them before, their thought processes no longer entirely human.

Created using Midjourney and Krita

Description
Some arrive at the gates of Ptoliboros by design, some by chance. Either way, one must pass through the Horos to get there.

The Horos is a liminal place where the city's reality bleeds into our own. It can be stumbled upon when walking down a lonely street or through an empty park on a dark and moonless night. It resembles our world and the transition is not always obvious, but gradually the unwitting traveller realizes that something has changed: the world suddenly feels wrong in subtle yet disturbing ways.

The air tastes like metal and the sky is a sick, queasy hue. One might see familiar things: buildings, buses, bicycles, cars and people, but a closer look reveals the strange faces, more like wax masks, taut and shiny and expressionless, and buildings that are like a movie-set, convincing when viewed from the right angle but lacking substance behind the façade.

Few people make it further than this; most eventually find their way back to their own reality with nothing more than unsettling memories and a vague sense that they have glimpsed something they shouldn't. But those with the knowledge and desire to reach Ptoliboros can seek out of one of the Thuroroi, the city's gatekeepers, and ask to be admitted.

A Thuroros cannot be persuaded, threatened or bargained with. They either admit the visitor or they do not. No reason is ever given. Those who enter and return are changed forever, strangers to those who knew them before, their thought processes no longer entirely human.

Created using Midjourney and Krita