Coffin Canyon: Places of Interest
Fort Plunder
Fort Plunder stands at the northern mouth of Coffin Canyon, a hardened Liberty Corps installation built to control rail access and enforce federal authority. Once, a daily train ran from Plunder into the canyon. Now trains descend only when the Corps cannot avoid it, carrying soldiers, supplies, or confiscated Thyr under heavy guard.
From Fort Plunder, Coffin Canyon is administered as a Forbidden National Park. Illegal settlement, unlicensed extraction, and occult activity are all punishable offenses. Enforcement is strict, procedural, and frequently lethal.
Rumors
A sealed rail tunnel beneath the fort leads to something the Corps refuses to map.
Officers stationed here are rotated early because of recurring nightmares.
Uncle Liberty has been sighted here exactly once.
Diablo
Diablo squats at the southern end of the canyon like an infected wound. It is vast, lawless, and permanently choked with smoke, refuse, and noise. Brothels, gambling dens, weapon markets, and Thyr dealers operate openly. Dust King death cults preach on street corners without interference.
Diablo survives because everyone needs a place where no authority holds. Shine Riders treat it as home territory, recruitment ground, and graveyard. No one controls Diablo, but many die trying.
Rumors
The city is built atop a buried Dust King temple that still feeds it power.
Monsters refuse to enter Diablo unless driven or wounded.
Every Shine Rider gang has betrayed someone here.
Camp Coffin
Camp Coffin is the Monster Rangers’ stronghold, built into the remains of an old adobe Tejas town whose original name is lost. Walls, tents, corrals, and watch posts form a hard but hopeful perimeter. Monsters are treated here as neighbors, not resources.
The camp is perpetually underfunded and overextended. Rangers stationed here are veterans, tired but resolute, guarding something most of the world cannot see or understand.
Rumors
Thyr behaves differently inside the camp walls.
A monster elder advises the Rangers in secret.
Monsterology has tried and failed to destroy Camp Coffin three times.
The Laboratorium
The Laboratorium is Monsterology’s primary research site in the canyon. It is a fortified complex of cages, dissection halls, Mort vats, and experimental engines. Here monsters are cataloged, harvested, and refined into power.
Few leave the Laboratorium unchanged. Fewer still leave willingly. It is heavily guarded and hated by every other faction.
Rumors
Something intelligent is kept alive in the lowest level.
Mort from this site tastes different.
The Laboratorium is built on pre-human ruins.
Silverpit
Silverpit is an active mining wound carved deep into the canyon wall. Silver and Thyr are still extracted here despite constant cave-ins, monster attacks, and labor revolts. Control of the pit changes hands often and violently.
Everyone wants Silverpit. No one keeps it for long.
Rumors
The deepest shaft opens into something that breathes.
A monster nests inside the ore itself.
Silver from Silverpit curses those who hoard it.
Fortune
Fortune is a crossroads settlement where rail spurs and wagon routes meet. It survives by staying useful and pretending neutrality. Supplies can be bought, information traded, and deals struck politely.
Most betrayals in Coffin Canyon begin in Fortune.
Rumors
The town council sells information to every faction.
A buried rail line runs directly under the main street.
Nobody in Fortune sleeps well.
River City
River City clings to the canyon’s only major river, now called the Widowflow. Water keeps the settlement alive and makes it a target. Docks, ferries, and fisheries operate by day. At night, the river belongs to other things.
Life here is cheaper than water.
Rumors
The river changes depth overnight.
Something answers if you speak to the water.
Entire crews have vanished mid-crossing.
Plata
Plata is a high-altitude silver camp perched among narrow ridges and unstable shafts. Fortunes are made quickly and lost faster. The thin air and isolation make tempers short and mistakes fatal.
Plata is always one cave-in away from becoming a ghost town.
Rumors
A hidden vein of pure Thyr lies above the camp.
Miners hear singing from sealed tunnels.
No one buried here stays buried.
Cowtown
Cowtown sits atop ancient monster grazing grounds, now claimed by ranchers and traders. Livestock thrives unnaturally well, but disappearances are common and unexplained.
The land remembers what it once fed.
Rumors
The cattle are not entirely mundane.
Monsters mark this place but do not attack openly.
Every herd here has a favored animal.
Ratsville
Ratsville is a shantytown built from scrap, desperation, and bad luck. No law holds here, not even Shine Rider codes. People come to Ratsville to hide, and many succeed by dying unnoticed.
It is where problems are forgotten.
Rumors
Ratsville sits atop a collapsed mine full of bones.
The town moves slightly each year.
A monster protects the place for reasons unknown.
Little Rica
Little Rica is an abandoned boomtown. Buildings still stand, but no one stays long. Sounds echo where they should not, and lights appear without cause.
The town remembers being alive.
Rumors
The town empties itself of intruders.
Ghosts reenact the final day endlessly.
Thyr dust accumulates without explanation.
Ghost Mountain
Ghost Mountain rises above the canyon as a wind-scoured massif riddled with old tunnels and signal fires. Lights appear at night, sometimes answering each other across impossible distances.
No one agrees who maintains the signals.
Rumors
The mountain communicates with something beyond the canyon.
A hidden observatory crowns the peak.
Climbers age faster on the ascent.
Skull Water
Skull Water is a stretch of poisoned pools and bone-choked ground. Toxic runoff collects here, feeding monsters that thrive in contamination. Humans sicken quickly.
Nothing grows clean.
Rumors
Drinking Skull Water grants visions before death.
Monsters born here are immune to Thyr sickness.
Bones rearrange themselves after storms.
Bootpits
Bootpits appear solid until they are not. Fine sands collapse without warning, swallowing wagons, mounts, and people whole. Survivors often emerge barefoot or broken.
The ground hunts carelessness.
Rumors
The pits migrate slowly.
Monsters use Bootpits as traps.
Something beneath pulls downward.
The Needlewood
The Needlewood is a dense cactus forest of saguaro and leaping cholla. Movement is slow, painful, and loud. Blood attracts attention.
Ambushes here are inevitable.
Rumors
The cacti shift positions overnight.
Some plants react to fear.
Monsters use the Needlewood as nursery ground.
Hoodoo Maze
The Hoodoo Maze is a forest of stone spires, balanced rocks, and narrow passages. Sound bends, sight lies, and paths loop back on themselves. Locals call it the Standing Dead.
Few maps agree.
Rumors
The maze rearranges itself during storms.
Voices guide travelers toward disaster.
A Crow Queen relic lies at its heart.
Widowflow River
The Widowflow cuts through Coffin Canyon, fed by distant melt and poisoned springs. It sustains life and takes it without warning. Crossing points are rare and dangerous.
The river remembers everything thrown into it.
Rumors
The water listens.
Bodies travel upstream at night.
Monsters treat the river as sacred ground.