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THE PLAZA OF PAINTED ROCKS: A Slice of Al Amarja History
Originated by John Miguel Baker, jmb14@psu.edu
Submitted & Tinkered With by Kurt McCoy, mccoy@labs.net

THE PLAZA OF PAINTED ROCKS

Once an important and influential part of The Edge, the Plaza was torn from reality by a dimensional upheaval and now exists solely in a SurDimensional pocket just to the left of conventional existence. The Plaza of Painted Rocks, and Painted Rocks Barrio, which surrounds it, have retroactively been erased from standard reality and history. This is extraordinarily inconvenient for its inhabitants, but not immediately fatal.

The Plaza is named for a jumble of megalithic stone ruins which stands in a complicated Stonehenge-like array in the center of the Plaza. The stones are prehistoric in origin, dating from the megalithic cultural period during which similar such ruins were left throughout the Mediterranean and the rest of Europe. Unlike most such megalithic structures, the Painted Rocks are covered with crude petroglyphs in several faded colors, (mostly red ochre and wode-ish blue). The petroglyphs depict warriors and hunters, reed-sea vessels, and winged bulls surrounded by dancing female shapes. There are many apparently abstract squiggles and spirals interspaced among the representational pictures. To the general public, the Painted Rocks were just another incomprehensible mystery of the past that served as a convenient tourist attraction. Now they are just cryptic reminders of better times. Winos can often be found sleeping on the grooved stones between the standing megaliths. Lovers met in the shaded, hidden recesses where the Winged Bull is the only one who can watch them.

Painted Rock Barrio is littered with similar, smaller such sites. Many of the older buildings have foundations built of or on megalithic era stoneworks. Small circles and isolated painted slabs can be found in many backyard gardens. Indeed, rock gardens have always been very fashionable in the Barrio, with the newer additions often mixed in among prehistoric menhirs. More than a few patios have been constructed entirely of squiggle-painted slabs of sandstone. Psychics claim that the stones cloud their powers and exude an oppressive, crushing aura. Magicians claim that they exude raw power, but the power belongs to some purpose built into the rock patterns and cannot be tapped by practicioners for their own purposes without risking dire consequences. Most citizens say that psychics and magicians are daft and should not be listened to about anything, let alone the Painted Rocks. Many of the citizenry of the Barrio is unexpectedly resistant to discussing the stoneworks and will make strange, protective gestures to ward themselves when the topic comes up, before promptly discussing something else.

The stones were assembled and painted by ancient Glug tribesmen, remnants of the lost Glug civilizations. The Painted Rocks were part of a temple-complex dedicated to Amzharak, the Winged Bull god of the Glugs. A very large part of the local population is Glug or part-Glug (possibly as high as 35-40% in the Barrio as a whole). This area was one of their most sacred and protected strongholds, which might have something to do with the disappearance of Painted Rocks Plaza from the Edge.

When the Barrio was ripped out of standard Al Amarjan continuity, its links with the outside world were warped, but not entirely cut off. Streets lead out of the Barrio into a hazy, gray fog of shifting Fractal patterns and sighing colors. Sometimes people, or vehicles come rolling out of that fog. Taking a wrong turn on an old lane virtually anywhere in The Edge can lead you accidentally into the Plaza of Painted Rocks. Commercial shipments that get transdimensionally "misplaced" are highly prized here, with one or another of the gangs taking possession of the truck or wagon immediately and holding off potential rivals in all-day fire fights. Leaving the Plaza & Barrio are much more problematic. Inhabitants can wander off into the fractal chaos, but since they never return, no one knows where they end up.

The scarcity of supplies has led to extreme frugality being a way of life in the Barrio. Virtually every household has a backyard garden or terraces lined with potted plants. Garbage is gathered by the clan of hereditary Garbagemen who live here and recycled into fertilizer or used to ferment a vile-tasting but cheap liquor called "Baash" in their odd dialect. Individuals and sometimes herds of otherwise extinct or fabulous animals wander into the streets periodically, and are hunted down by waiting urban nomads in their quaint Victorian garb. Desperate poor folk can sometimes be seen fishing down the sewer man-holes or from the storm drains. The grotesque albino fish that are pulled squirming from those dark places are sometimes edible, sometimes poisonous. The few adventurers who have climbed into the sewers and drain-systems under the Plaza of Painted Rocks have reported that the old medieval and 19th Century tunnels merge into meandering natural caves. They also report that unwholesome and hostile creatures lurk in the darknesses under the streets. Very few such adventurers are willing to go back into the tunnels for a second time.

The Barrio is ruled by various gangs, most of them remnants of powerful Al Amarjan crime families. The two most influential such gangs are the Pahlavi Family, ruled by Jehed Pahlavi, the "Pasha of Crime", and the al-Bazzaz Family, run by Hazza al-Bazzaz, a blind old crippled man of unrelenting viciousness and almost superhuman cunning. The Pahlavi's control the gentile crime rackets of drugs, prostitution and gambling and favor expensive suits with impeccable cuts. The al-Bazzaz are old style Hashassins who run protection rackets and murder for hire contracts. The two families have a simmering but repressed blood feud. Several smaller crime families live in their shadows and run "neighborhood commissions" governing a couple of city blocks apiece.

The chief opposition to the gangster families comes from Colonel Vincenzo Sangallo's guerilla "partisans". The Colonel is a mean old Fascist who refused to believe that the Italians had abandoned the island to "That worthless little spit of a trollop" and took to the hills to wage his own war against the New Order. He wandered into the Barrio a couple of years after its separation from the rest of the world with a squad of hardened guerilla fighters and a mule train loaded with WWII era Italian weapons. He recruited younger followers and has been fighting a "War of Resistance" every since. He is considered a curiously romantic figure and his column of fighters are often greeted by thrown flowers and cheering crowds when they march into a new block to "liberate" it for the afternoon. Most gangsters just stay out of his heavily armed men's way and wait for him to get bored and move on. The Colonel appears to be in his '60's and has not visibly aged since he came to the Barrio.

The newest power broker in the Barrio is a bizarre young man named Horrors Count. He showed up one day ranting about an assassin armed with a banana and a sadistic cup of coffee that was out to get him. He was obviously insane, but many of the locals instantly surrounded him and became his staunchest supporters. Horrors can often be seen striding around the Plaza, apparently talking to the Rocks, wearing his opera cape and followed by a gaggle of nervous looking young beatniks. Horrors Count spends his nights overseeing the Opera of Absurdities which presents "original and recycled Babble Operas" at relatively random intervals. Members of the crowd are bullied onto the stage along with the outrageously attired troupe performers and most of the "Operas" are extemporaneously improvised productions sung in gibberish. They are mystifyingly popular and even the Pahlavi's have taken a liking to spending a night at Horror's Opers.

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