Bodrov (WW)

Bodrov is the parallel incarnation of the city of Bodrov for the Whispering World.

Background

The kingdom of Navarene, much like the rest of the Steadfast, has been lost. But Bodrov still stands, and shelters a population of humans that haven't succumbed to the change. The city is constructed atop a plateau-like rock formation than 500 ft. high that rests on a central pillar only a hundred feet across. A winding path curls around the base and enters the rock just below the wide top portion. The path to the city can be sealed up at many points. Even before the disaster, about a thousand people resided there; but not it's been reduced to approximately 300, and many of those aren't even the original residents, bust instead survivors who fled to it after learning that it was a place of relative safety. Bodrow remains a refuge partly due to the fact that city leaders had warning of the change sweeping across the kingdom, and also partly due to Bodrov's uniquely-defensible position as well as the power of a specific artifact.

A massive, immovable device was discovered in one of the many tunnels that honeycomb the base of Bodrov many years ago, though its function was never understood. It may well have some other, incomprehensible function, but the important thing is that, when active, creates a field that prevents the trigger phrase of whispers from initiating a change in exposed humans. The field is large enough to protect the entire city and even a few hundred feet beyond it. Even more noticeable is the repellent effect; when whispers wander into the field, whenever a whisper wanders into the field, something about it will violently repel them. It will then flee the area screaming.

If someone is ever exposed to a whisper's trigger phrase, they can still be saved if they can reach Bodrov before the change has run its course. But on the other hand, if they ever leave, the change will resume at the point where it was last arrested. As it happens, dozens of people within Bodrov are so afflicted, causing them to never leave, at least not unless they want to retain their humanity.

Megrah Thon, The current overlord of Bodrov, maintains her power by being the only one who understands the whisper-repelling device well enough to keep it maintained. Every so often and for reasons no one can explain, it will sometimes switch off. Megrah has managed to turn it back each time that it does, and despite her many negative qualities, the people are grateful. Secretly, however, Megrah employs a secondary device that allows her to turn the field on and off. She'll covertly turn it off every month to demonstrate to the people how much they need her. Otherwise, they would easily overthrow here, given how much she lords over the supplies, how she drives other survivors on ever more dangerous supply runs, and how violently she'll put down anyone whom she sees as a threat.