Ashringa: 6 Horses Of Fire= A Setting

ASHRINGA Werehorses for White Wolf’s Werewolf: the Apocalypse  By Laura M. Henson © 2005

ASHRINGA Werehorses for White Wolf’s Werewolf: the Apocalypse  By Laura M. Henson © 2005

Chapter Five THE HORSES OF TOMESHA : A SETTING “Indian riddles, teleporting rocks, unidentified flying objects, Charles Manson-this area has had a lot more going foe it than merely the lowest elevation and the highest temperatures.” - Jim Brandon, about Death Valley National Park in “Weird America”. This chapter is a sample setting for Ashringa characters set in the deserts of California and Nevada. In it you will find all the information you need to run a chronicle in Death Valley National Monument and its surrounding areas. Death Valley was known to the Shoshone Indians as Tomesha, a word which means “the ground is afire”, and it is a land known for it’s extremes in temperature, abundance of paranormal phenomena, and colorful history. The Death Valley area includes most of the parks in the Great Basin desert. Laying between the cities of Los Angeles on the west and Los Vegas on the east this area adds up to 3.4 million acres of designated wilderness, an area of land that is actually larger than the entire state of Oregon! Within the park are ten named mountain ranges and several large valleys, many of them unexplored. In addition the sheer size of the area (the National Monument itself covers 3,000 square miles) ensures that several Ashringa Dwells can inhabit the setting with room to spare! Death Valley is famous for being the hottest and driest pace in the world. It averages only 1.8 inches of rain a year and summer temperatures in the valleys commonly reach 128 F while in 1913 the hottest temperature ever recorded was 134 F -in the shade! In 1972 the ground temperature actually reached 201 F, which is hot enough to boil water! At night it ranges from 90 F in the summer to a record of 65 F in the winter of 1913 (and yes the coldest and hottest records were on the same year) and it often snows in the higher elevations.

Death Valley’s History Human History One cannot truly understand this land of extremes without first knowing its history. During the last ice age Death Valley was a cool land of woods and plains that surrounded a large lake called Lake Manly.

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Lake Manly was about 116 miles long, 12 miles wide and 600 feet deep. Beginning about 11,000 years ago the lake began to turn brackish and dry up, by 2000 years ago it had become a mere 30 feet deep. Today it consists of the many, seemingly unconnected rivers, streams, and hot pools found throughout the park. Water (as you can see from the color map) is not uncommon in Death Valley. Indeed, one is rarely more than 15 miles from water, the trouble is finding it! Many streams and rivers dry up in the summer or flow completely underground while others are so contaminated with salt that they are un-drinkable. Today the only evidence that lake Manly ever existed is the extensive salt flats that cover what was once the lake bed and the unique flora and fauna of Death Valley, many of which are descended from aquatic ancestors. At least four Indian tribes have lived in Death Valley. The first of these tribes is known only as the Nevares Spring culture that entered the valley about 7,000 years ago. Other tribes were the Mesquite Flat culture (3000 to 1 B.C.), the Saratoga Springs culture (900-1,100 A.D.), and finally the present day Piute speaking Shoshone Nation who entered the valley about a thousand years ago. Today the Shoshone live in a mountain reservation to the south east of the valley. The modern tribal members are essentially similar to their white neighbors and know little of their history and lore, indeed their last Shaman died out in the 1950’s. The first white men in Death Valley stumbled into the desert by accident in 1849. Several families led by the Bennett and Arcan (sometimes spelled Arcane) were on their way to the California gold fields when they left their guide to take a shortcut. Twenty seven wagons went into Death Valley but only one came out. On the way out the departing survivors of the Bennett-Arcan party stood upon a hill overlooking the valley which had nearly become their grave. “Good-buy, Death Valley,” murmured one of the women and the valley received the name it bears to this day. Eventually some of the ’49ers returned to the valley in order to prospect for minerals. Prospectors searching for gold, silver, copper, and lead were doomed to failure for the valley’s ore was too difficult to prospect in quantity. More profitable were those who came to mine for salt and borax. Borax was a popular cleaning agent at that time and the famous 20 mule teams were created to haul huge wagons weighing as much as 36 ½ tons from Death Valley to the railroads in Mojave. This trip took 10 to 12 days one way and covered 165 miles. Several towns were erected in the valley most of them with reputations as dreadful as the climate. The boom years were short, within five years a market panic scared off investors and the mines closed. Today the only reminders of Death Valley’s Wild West days are crumbling ruins, rusting pipes, and pathetic holes dug in the rocky walls by desperate prospectors. The most famous resident of Death Valley was undoubtedly Walter Scott, better known as “Death Valley Scotty. “ In his youth Scotty traveled with Buffalo Bill Cody’s “Wild West Show.” eventually he married a woman in New York City but by 1905 he had left her to prospect for gold in Death Valley. Later that year he came out of the valley carrying suspiciously refined looking gold which he claimed to have found in the Grapevine Mountains. Critics claimed that the gold must have been stolen but they never found any proof. In the contrary whenever Scotty came to town he caused a great uproar by hiring a personal train called “the Coyote Special” for $5,000 to carry him to Los Angeles, where he tied up traffic by throwing gold coins out the windows of his hotel room! How Scotty avoided the heat and deadly quicksand of Death Valley amazed everyone and when asked all he would say was that the mine’s location was known only to him and his burro. In 1924 Scotty became friends with a shy insurance millionaire named Albert Johnson. Together they built a two million dollar Moorish Castile in Grapevine Canyon to the North of Death Valley. The castle was massive with a huge swimming pool, ancient medieval furniture, and even a clock tower! Scotty claimed the money came from his mine but critics said it came from Johnson. When the Great Depression hit in the 1930’s construction ceased on the castle when Scotty’s ex-wife and the old grubstaker (who had financed his show business act) tried to sue him for a part of the mine’s profits. In addition the

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Government, who wished to turn Death Valley into a National Monument, tried to evict Scotty. Scotty got out of the difficulty by claiming that there was no mine (and indeed the mine has never been found) so his wife could not claim a share of money that did not exist! As for the Government they were flummoxed when Scotty invoked the old homesteader laws to keep the castle. Scott and Johnson lived in the castle for the rest of their lives, still coming to town, throwing gold about, and making people wonder. Death Valley was designated a national monument in 1933. In 1984 it was recognized as a Biosphere Reserve due to its many unique plant and animal species. It was finally enlarged and upgraded to National Park status in 1994.

The History of the Ashringa in Death Valley The first Ashringa in Death Valley were Nhurim who were the kinfolk of the Nevares Spring culture and the Arctic tarpan. These ancient werehorses opened the Grace of the Ancient Waters on the shore of Lake Manly about 6,000 years ago. As the tribes came and went from Death Valley the Nhurim stayed to care for the dwell. At this point the extinction of their horse kin combined with the disappearance of Lake Manly and the actions of the prospectors caused the bão to abandon the Dwell. The prospectors did not come alone, however. With the miners came the “miner’s canary,” the little gray donkey, that carried the prospectors ore. The abandoning of Death Valley after the boom days resulted in the abandonment of these burros into the park. With the burros came the Nimbi, including Walter Scott and Albert Johnson. The two Nimbi used their connection with the Faerie folk to borrow gold from the Elvin city of Shin-au-av. When the government and Scotty’s wife threatened both the Nimbi’s and the Fae’s safety the two Nimbi traveled deep into the Umbra where they not only awakened the original Dwell’s totem but also brought forth the spirit of The Great Spotted Roadrunner who was only to happy to give them advice on outwitting their opponents. Called by the feelings of fellowship from the newly reopened Dwell, the Nhurim came back to Death Valley and joined their small cousins. Eventually, as the number of immigrants increased in California, the other bãos also came to the valley. Some of them promptly opened minor dwells in the great wilderness but all acknowledged the authority of the old dwell and eventually formed the Tomesha Council to govern Ashringa affairs in the United States. The American governments attempt to exterminate wild horses from the National Parks was finally enacted in the 1980’s. Between 1983 and 1987, over 6,000 burros, 87 horses, and 4 mules were removed from the park. The government claimed that the equines were overgrazing the grass eaten by bighorn sheep and fouling waterholes. When naturalist disagreed, pointing out that the sheep inhabit different mountain ranges than the burros and that burros actually dig waterholes that benefit wildlife, the government simply claimed it was attempting to make the park look the same as it had before the 49ers had arrived. To the dismay of officials however new burros and horses moved in from the surrounding parks. Attempts to remove these horses however have been stifled by the Ashringa who hide the herds whenever a roundup is scheduled. Today, despite removal attempts, about 200 burros can be found in Death Valley and an unknown number of burros and mustangs inhabit the neighboring parks.

Flora & Fauna The abundance of plant and animal life in Death Valley and its surrounding parks is surprising and, as if to remind visitors that this area was once an inland sea, a large number of species seems more suited for a wetlands habitat instead of a desert. This is most obvious with the animals which include six species of pupfish, a shrimp, and a sea snail which are found nowhere else on Earth. In addition to physical life the local Indians also peopled the valley with many spirits, most of them of the faerie type. As for human life, it is mostly confined to tourists.

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Mammals: there are over 50 species of mammal in Death Valley, the majority of them small in size. Among the most interesting of the Valley’s small game are at least 13 species of bat, one pica, three rabbits (the Desert, Pygmy, and Bush), one hare (the Black Tailed Jackrabbit), two chipmunks, a marmot, two ground squirrels, two tree squirrels, one flying squirrel, one gopher, several species of rat (including Grasshopper Mice, Packrats, Muskrats, Kangaroo Rats, and the tiny jerboa known as the Jumping “Mouse”), and the unique Inyo Shrew. Carnivores include coyotes, gray and kit foxes, black bears, raccoons, cacomistles, weasels, badgers, skunks, bobcats, and cougars. Wolves, Jaguars, and Grizzly bears once inhabited the area but are now extinct. Large herbivores are the bighorn sheep, mule deer, mustangs (and possibly a few wild Curly horses), and burros. Birds: several hundred species of bird have been seen in Death Valley. Ravens, roadrunners, hawks, and golden eagles are commonly seen all year round. Migratory birds visit the park between September and May. Migrants include flickers, larks, sparrows, phoebes, kinglets, shrikes, pipits, robins, doves, bluebirds, warblers, swallows, ducks, snipe, cormorants, wood ibis, coots, grebes, great blue herons and swans. On several occasions even snowy egrets and arctic loons have been seen in the park. Reptiles and Amphibians: there are five species of amphibian native to Death Valley all of them varieties of Spade Foot Toad or Burrowing Frog. More typical of a desert climate are the 36 species of lizard (mostly whiptails, geckos, and chuckwallas) and 18 species of snake. Dangerous snakes are the rosy boa, sidewinder, and Western diamondback rattlesnake. Gila monsters are almost unknown in Death Valley National monument, though the species is very common in the southern Kingston Range to the south. The most common animal in the park is the Californian desert tortoise which is the states National Reptile. Fish: the normal types of fish native to California can be found in the permanent rivers and lakes of Death Valley, most of them stocked by the government for fishing. There are, however, six endangered species of pupfish that can be found nowhere else in the world. These pupfish are all descended from a single ancestor that once lived in Lake Manly. Today these fish inhabit the boiling waters (the Devil’s Hole species inhabits water with a temperature of at least 186 F.) of the deserts many hot springs and underground rivers. Invertebrates: as a reminder of Death Valley’s past the Californian Fairy Shrimp and the Salt Pan Sea Snail are the most unique invertebrates in the state. The fairy shrimp abounds in most of the waterholes and temporary rivers in the Valley throughout the winter. In the summer when this water dries up the shrimp die, leaving their eggs to hatch out during the next wet season. The sea snail is actually found on land and survives the lack of water by actually living among the moist roots of the iodine bushes that grow in the salt pans that once formed the lake bottom. There are no deadly scorpions or centipedes in Death Valley; however the poisonous Black Widow and Brown Recluse spiders are common. The most dangerous and irritating animal in Death Valley however is an insect- a type of inch long, disease carrying, blood sucking, horsefly. Plants: Death Valley is famous for its many unique species of plants. More than 1,000 species, including two orchids, six lilies, ten ferns, and over thirty grasses can be found. Many flowers including the Evening Primrose, Panamint Daisy, and Monkey Flower are found nowhere else. As a reminder of the valley’s wet past it comes to a surprise to many that over 15% of the plants in Death Valley are cat tails, marsh rushes and reeds. Cactuses are rare, though the common Beavertail, Prickly Pair, and Barrel cactus do occur. The most common plant in the mountains is sagebrush but in the valleys this plant is, surprisingly, replaced by an evergreen shrub called the Creosote bush. Several trees are also native to the valley. Joshua trees are the most common in the lowlands but along the watercourses one can also find Willows and Cottonwood. Pinyon Pine (from the seeds of which the natives ground flour) and Juniper can be found between 6,000 and 9,000 feet. At higher elevations these trees are replaced with forests of Bristlecone (the oldest known

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trees, Bristlecone can live for over 3000 to 5000 years) and Lumber Pine. The famous Mesquite tree, from the pods of which the Indians made fermented drinks and candy, are abundant throughout the area. Spirits: the Shoshone Indians called the spirit world Na-gun-tu-wip and described many of its residents. The most common spirits are the faerie folk of Shin-au-av. According to Indian lore the Faerie folk lived in Shin-au-av a city located beneath the Panamint Mountains near Wingate Pass. The numerous references to elves in Shoshone lore seem odd until you realize that many of the prehistoric rock etchings in the Death Valley area show Celtic inscriptions. Even more amazing native lore claims that the faerie originally came from a distant land and that they escaped to America by riding on shooting stars when their own world perished. Perhaps this explains some of the UFO reports of the area. In addition to the faerie folk the valley contains numerous animal spirits, glade children (though the spirits of the bristlecone are the so old that “glade ancients” would be a better term), Thunder-horses, Thunderbirds, Eye Killers, Ancestor spirits and even Dragons. As for banes several corrupted Native American spirits inhabit the area and work with the two local tribes of Black Spiral Dancers. In addition the proximity of Nellis Air Force Base, the location of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Nevada Test Site for nuclear bombs, allows for a great variety of Wyrm beasts to appear.

Geography and Umbrascape Where will you wander, hither and yonder, letting your heart be your guide? -My Little Pony theme song The Death Valley area is usually dismissed as ‘lifeless desert” and, while there are nine campgrounds, it is an odd fact that there are only two maintained trails in the entire park. In addition, despite the many dirt (and even a few paved) roads, most tourists stick to these two trails. The only other people in the park are the park rangers who stay at the visitor center and a few Shoshone families that winter in the valleys but retreat to the cooler mountains in the summer. Nevertheless there are several places of interest in Death Valley. Some of these areas are known for their history, others for seemingly unexplained phenomena, and yet others are just plain odd. In the pages below a tour of Death Valley National Monument and its satellite parks will be given. The portion in regular text is Death Valley as the mortals know it while text in italics details Umbral features or things known only to the supernatural denizens of the park.

Amargosa and other rivers (varies) Several watercourses flow through Death Valley that is remnants of the rivers that once brought water to Lake Manley. The most notable of these is Salt Creek (2 miles north of Daylight Pass junction), the Amargosa River (on the border between Death Valley National Monument and the Kingston Range), and Saratoga Springs (25 miles south of Ashford Mill). These rivers are strictly protected as each one holds a different species of pupfish found only in that river. The rivers are easily told apart from the other watercourses in the desert due to the six foot high reeds that border the shores. Animals are commonly encountered near the rivers and it is the only place where desert holly can be gathered.

Argus Range Wilderness

(Directly west of Death Valley National Monument)

The Argus range is a long, narrow mountain chain some 28 miles long but only 5 miles wide. Yet this tiny area of wilderness is dissected by numerous canyons and steep slopes. The Argus Range is best known as the source of stone for ancient tools and as a source of Pinyon pine nuts for the local Indians and as a habitat for bighorn sheep. The area is also riddled with mining roads and trails leading to caverns and other sites once frequented by prospectors.

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The umbral Argus Range is noted for an abundance of ancestor spirits of all kinds. It is also the hunting ground of the Dzoo-no-qua (stone trolls) of native myths.

Artist Drive (7 ½ miles north of Badwater) This paved road runs one way and winds eight miles through washes and clay hills. The buff and black hills are streaked and speckled with red, orange, yellow, green, and purple colors caused by the oxidation of iron bearing minerals in the soil. The result looks much as if some crazy artist painted the hills with a dripping brush, thus its name. The road through Artists Drive is in place by pattern spiders that spin long threads to try to keep the traffic going on the proper direction. Off the road, however, this area of the Weaver is quickly overwhelmed by the Wyld as the dull grey of the road is abruptly replaced by rainbow colored hills. This is an excellent place to meet rainbow horses or boraks.

Ashford Mill

(65 miles from Badwater)

Ashford Mill dated from World War I and is located at the junction of two dirt roads. The land was first settled by three brothers who staked a claim in the Black Mountains. The brothers sold the land to a Hungarian Nobleman for $60,000 who in turn sold it to a miller for $105,000. When the new owner received his shipment of cement to build his mill he found that the Freight Company had sent an extra cartload of cement. As it would have been to costly to ship it back the miller simply used it to build a 50 ton mill out in the middle of nowhere and waited for a fortune that never came. Many people have commented that Ashford Mill could double as a fortress, and indeed that is exactly what it is. The mill was actually built by the Ashringa and Faerie to withstand an attack by Garou or other supernatural beings. Built to resist both physical and umbral attacks, the mill is used only in the direst of emergencies.

Ash Meadows National Wildlife Refuge

(Nine miles from Death Valley Junction)

Ash Meadows comprises some 22,000 acres of wetlands and desert that is reached by an unpaved road leading to the lower end of the Amargosa valley. The Meadows is filled with springs, small reservoirs, streams and small lakes and it provides the sole habitat for no fewer than 24 species. Only Crystal Spring (a pool of blue-green water about 8 yards across) and Crystal Reservoir (where boating, swimming, and fishing is allowed) are open to the public. The most famous area of Ash Meadows is undoubtedly Devil’s Hole. This rocky tarn is located in the northeast corner of the refuge, at the base of a range of barren hills. The entire area is closed to the public and is not signposted or even on many maps. In addition the site is enclosed by a high security fence. The reason for all this secrecy is to prevent anyone from disturbing the rusty scientific equipment which monitors the severely endangered pupfish that live in the tarn. In addition to the pupfish, Devils Hole is also the sole home of a species of beetle, two sea snails (one of which may be extinct), and cave salamanders. Once known as Miners Bathtub, Devil’s Hole is a sheer sided cavity in the rocks (10 yards deep) that leads to a flooded cave system. The opening to the caverns is about 6 feet by 18 feet and no one knows how deep the tarn is. The temperature of Devil’s Hole averages 186 degrees Fahrenheit and increases the further down one goes and divers who have tried to find out the depth of the tarn descended for 300 feet (without touching the bottom) before being forced to the surface by the heat.

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Devil’s Hole has an interesting history. The Shoshone Indians believed that it was where they left the third world for the fourth and considered it a sacred site. In the 1960s two divers descended into the tarn and never returned, presumably lost or cooked alive in the lake’s murky depths. Soon after the divers disappearance Charles Manson became fascinated with Devil’s Hole. Combining Hopi myth with the book of Revelations in the Bible, Manson believed that he could escape the law by swimming through the tarn into the Umbra but Manson was captured before he could make his escape. In 1976, the first court order of the Endangered Species Act was declared for Devil’s Hole. This order forced people to regulate water usage in Ash Meadows so that lowered water tables would not expose the shelf where the pupfish breed. The last time Devil’s Hole was explored was in 1995 when three scientists were sent to count the pupfish. Devil’s Hole is the entrance to Death Valley’s largest dwell. The Dwell of the Ancient Waters is reached by walking through the cave opening, over the platform used to count the fish, and into the water. Ashringa and others of a spiritual nature will enter the hot water only to emerge in a moonlit glade bordered by willow trees and with the moss covered shore of a sparkling lake to one side. This lake is a representation of Lake Manley as it was hundreds of years ago with the tarn now a rocky wall, covered with petroglyphs of horses, birds, and horned serpents, from which a clear stream emerges from the moss covered rocks and flows into the lake. The Grace of the Ancient Waters is a level 3 fellowship dwell under the stewardship of Nyrallar, a totem spirit of Onionts brood. More recently a second totem, The Great Spotted Roadrunner had also become part of the dwell. This dwell is run mostly by Nhurim and Nimbi but as it is also the headquarters of the Tomesha Council all bãos may be found here.

Badwater

(16 ½ miles South of Furnace Creek)

At 279.8 feet below sea level this is one of the lowest places in the world. Its name comes from the fact that much of the water here is salty and undrinkable. A half mile from Badwater are several six foot wide saucer shaped mounds of mud rimmed with salt caused from the evaporation of small pools created from lake Manley. Two miles north of Badwater is a natural bridge that arches fifty feet off the ground and beyond the bridge is a great chute of water with a dozen spillways that have cut a grotto 75 feet deep in the canyon wall. This scenic area is often photographed by tourists. The cavern behind the waterfall is frequented by a local charm of Nimbi following the totem spirit of the Heron.

Darwin Falls

(Argus Range)

This is a major tourist spot notable for its ferns, lush vegetation, and a 25 foot waterfall. However by climbing up the slick, smooth canyon walls (difficulty 8) and following a game trail upstream through some willow woods one will come to a 140 foot waterfall and a pool that is seldom visited. Water spirits called Pa-o-has inhabit this hidden pool. In the Umbra one can often see these mermaids sitting on the shore combing their hair or swimming. The pa-o-has may attempt to drown unwary tourists and while they can be capricious they are usually friendly to the Ashringa.

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Daylight Pass and Rhyolite (36 miles northeast of Furnace Creek) Daylight Pass is the main road into Death Valley National Park. Ten miles up this road brings a tourist to Hell’s Gate, an area so hot it reminded prospectors of the gates of Hell. Beyond the gate is a ¼ mile trail leading to Hole in the Rock Spring, a small cave containing a seep of fresh water that has saved the lives of many a traveler. The main road however leads to Rhyolite, and important tourist spot. Rhyolite was an important town between 1905 and 1908 but is now a ghost town. The ruins of the schoolhouse, doctor’s office, the country store and the local jail still stand but the towns most famous building is its bottle house. The bottle house is a unique building made out of 51,000 beer bottles. Today the bottle house is open to the public with food and souvenirs for sale. Other sites in this area include Rhyolite’s Boot Hill graveyard (which lies one mile south of the town), the gaping hole of an old mine (to the north), and the ruins of Bullfrog, the site of the deserts first Copper mine to the west. This area is similar to Furnace Creek, though glass spirits hang about the bottle house and ghosts are said to haunt Boot Hill.

Devil’s Cornfield

(1 ½ miles northwest of Salt Creek)

The Devil’s Cornfield is an area of marshy land that is noticeably cooler than the rest of the park. This area gets its name from the arrowhead bushes that grow in peculiar clumps due to erosion of the soil. The stalks of these plants were once used by the Indians to make arrow shafts, thus their name. Nearby was once a trading post but it is now nothing more than a canopy of reeds held together with phone wire. Stalks from the arrowhead bushes, when awakened, make exceptionally potent fetish arrows. The exact effect is up to the storyteller but may include an automatic success to bind a spirit to the arrow, arrows that are -1 difficulty to shoot or for a target to soak, or causing unshakable aggravated damage to a certain type of creature. The fae make their elf shot from these arrows.

Devil’s Golf Course (11 miles south of Golden Canyon) The Devil’s Golf Course is the name given to what was once the bottom of old Lake Manley 2000 years ago. Today this area is a layer of rock hard salt crystallized into a jumble of spines and ridges (some as high as two feet tall and as sharp as knives) that covers some 200 miles of land. Several depressions in the land may contain salt water if it has rained recently. The only animal life in this hellish salt pan is a few flies, Desert Sea Snails, the Fairy Shrimp and the very rare migrating sea bird or flamingo. The Devil’s Golf Course is infested by Yan-Tups of the foulest nature. These corrupted undines sit near the few pools of water singing of their lost sea and waiting to poison foolish mortals with a kiss.

Echo Canyon

(2 miles east of Furnace Creek Inn)

Because the road to Echo canyon is composed of lose gravel it is only accessible by jeep so tourists are rare. This area contains the crumbling ruins of the Inyo Mine Company and a few decaying

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houses which are all that remains of the town of Schwaub. Just inside the canyon can be found one of Death Valley’s major landmarks. Needle’s Eye is a ten foot triangular hole in the south wall of the canyon that allows one to see the desert outside as if it is a window. In the Umbra the area around Needle’s Eye is alive with enigma spirits and anyone who sleeps in this spot overnight will have a prophetic dream. Schwab is covered with the webs of pattern spiders but the spirits themselves are rapidly being overwhelmed by the Wyld.

Fall Canyon

(Grapevine Mountains)

Fall Canyon starts out wide and becomes narrower as it proceeds upstream. At 2.6 miles upstream the canyon narrows until it is only 8 miles across before ending at 3 miles at a (usually dry) waterfall. Most tourists stop here. On the south side of the canyon, about 300 feet from the falls, is an area marked by cairns. These cairns mark an area that can be scaled using rock climbing skills (difficulty 9) to reach an area behind the falls where the canyon narrows for about a third of a mile before enlarging again. After passing several side canyons and climbing many rock formations the canyon opens into a wide valley covered with pinion, pine, juniper, and other trees. At the end of the valley are the waterfalls headwaters located beneath the 6,701 foot tall Peak of Palmer Mountain. This valley is rarely reached by tourists and is abundant in bighorn sheep and other wildlife. The hidden valley at the base of Palmer Mountain is the location of a charm of Avarim, Killina, and Nimbi under the protection of the Ram Totem.

Furnace Creek

(Directly south of Badwater)

This is an area covering 24 miles that contains the majority of the tourists that enter Death Valley. It consists of the abandoned Harmony Borax Works (1882-1888), Mustard Canyon (where rust has colored the hills yellow sprinkled with so much salt it resembles snow), The National Park Service Visitor Center and Museum, Furnace Creek Inn, Furnace Creek Wash (which divides the Amargosa range into the Black Mountains to the South and the Funerals to the North), Travertine Springs (once used for a hydroelectric plant), Twenty Mule Team Canyon, and the mountain of Dante’s View. This is the main area of the Weaver in Death Valley. A data stream spurts from the visitor center and pattern spiders crawl everywhere. About once a week or so a foolish pattern spider will try to enter the park only to be consumed by the Wyld.

Golden Canyon

(located 2 miles from Furnace Creek Inn)

This small canyon was the source of the red clay that the local Indians used to make their war paint. It gets its name from the golden red color of its rocks. Golden Canyon is a good place to meet ancestor spirits, especially if you are a Nhirim.

Harris-Dayton Graves

(1 ½ miles south of the Devil’s Golf Course)

Jim Dayton was a caretaker at Furnace Creek Ranch who died in 1899 while on a trip to get supplies. Dolph Nevares and Frank Tilton, two of his co-workers found his body and buried him. When Shorty Harris died in 1934 he requested to be buried beside Dayton. Above the graves is a marker stating

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“Here lays Shorty Harris, a single-blanket jackass prospector”. The two graves in this area act as “Graves of the Hallowed Heroes” to all the Ashringa in Death Valley. Other than the body of the two Nimbi, Jim and Shorty, the graves serve as a memorial to the deceased rather than as an actual cemetery.

Hidden Valley

(Grapevine Mountains)

This is a valley nestled high in the Cottonwood Mountains. A road lies through this area but it is hard to trek and practically untouched by tourists. One side road leads to Lost Burro Mine but the other leads to an abandoned Asbestos mine which lies on the Mountain crest overlooking Death Valley. The Asbestos mine is the headquarters of the Black Spiral Dancers who belong to the Hive of the Poisoned Flesh. These demonic dogs are assisted in their atrocities by U-nu-pits, banes of serpents and disease. These Wyrm worshiping Garou are planning to turn the rest of the Garou against the Ashringa much as the Australian Black Spirals turned them against the Bunyip. They have already planted evidence that the hive is located at Devil’s Hole and will soon begin a plan of terror to bring the Garou to the desert in numbers. Once the Ashringa are gone Death Valley will no longer have anyone to heal the land and the desert will soon fall to the Wyrm.

Keane Wonder and Chloride

(22 miles north of Furnace Creek)

The ghost town of Keane Wonder is down a dirt road that is passable only if driving slowly. Gold was found there in 1903 but today the only remains are the foundation of the mill and a rusting bull wheel. Eight miles from Keane Wonder is the turn to Keane Spring, once the town’s major water source. An old road once led from Keane Spring’s pump house to the town of Chloride but it was washed away years ago and is now impassable even by jeep. Chloride boomed from 1878 to 1910 but today the only remnants are two “houses” dug into the bank of a wash and several wells. Leading from the town are several trails that lead to Chloride Cliff which gives several views of the valley. Chloride is a meeting spot for the few Silent Strider Garou which frequent Death Valley. The Garou came to fight the Black Spirals in the park and are planning to open a caern somewhere in the park. The Garou and the Ashringa are on ambivalent terms, both bete know that wolves think of horses as prey yet they will need all the help they can get against the Black Spirals.

Kingston Range

(Southeast of the Amargosa River)

The Amargosa River divides this park from Death Valley National Monument and it is notable for being only 50 miles from Los Vegas. The Kingston range is notable for its mile high mountains that rise like islands over the nearby lowlands. The largest mountain in the range is 7,323 foot Kingston Peak which is surrounded by 17 square miles of mountainous land, none of it less than 6,000 feet tall. It is notable for being the only habitat of the Gila monster in the Death Valley area. The Kingston Range is important to the Mokole’ as it is the only part of the park where their animal kinfolk dwell. The local clutch often travels to Death Valley to commune with the Ashringa and Faerie.

Malpais Mesa

(Inyo Mountains)

Malpais Mesa was formed when a volcano exploded and covered the southern end of the Inyo Mountains. The hard volcanic rock now forms a flat topped, steep-sided plateau covering 32,360 acres.

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Several silver and zinc mines once topped this mesa but most are now abandoned. Within the umbra Malpais Mesa is the lair of an ancient 90 foot Wakinyan, a type of American dragon. This spirit is currently sleeping but a renewal of mining may awaken the beast.

Military Bases

(On the western, southern, and northeastern borders of the park)

There are three military bases bordering Death Valley, to the west is the China Lake Naval Weapons station, to the south is the Fort Irwin Military Reservation, and to the northeast is Nellis Air Force Base. By far the most interesting of these three bases is Nellis as this is the location of Area 51 of UFO fame. In 1997 the CIA finally admitted that the U.S. military had deceived the American public in an effort to hide information about high-altitude spy planes. These planes, the Lockheed U-2A and the Lockheed SR-71, accounted for over half of the UFO reports during the late 1950s and 1960s. The other half are still unexplained, though reports of “strange sky beasts” are mentioned in some Air Force reports. Another site of interest, though not actually a part of Death Valley is the Tonopah Atomic Testing Range. This area of land, located only 80 miles northwest of Los Vegas, is where the US government tested atomic bombs from 1953 to the 1963. Open air testing ceased when the many Nevada residents and military personnel sued the federal government because they had never been warned of the health risks of nuclear radiation. In 1982 the National Cancer Institute looked into these reports and determined that people as far away as Montana, Utah, South Dakota, and Colorado had been affected with thyroid cancer that was a direct effect of windblown radiation from nuclear testing. Once this was announced to the public all bombing ceased in the early 1990s. Unfortunately the Nevada area of desert is now being proposed as a site to bury nuclear waste as the companies claim that the ground is already contaminated and “just useless desert anyway.” The umbral land around all military bases is thickly scared by the Wyrm and the Weaver. Surviving plants and rock formations are shrouded with webs and the ground consists of soil blackened with sulpherous soot and dotted with gaping pits leading to Hellholes or the lairs of banes. Tonopah is particularly blighted as the very soil glows a sickly blue and leaks balefire. Tonopah is also the home of the largest Black Spiral Dancer hive in North America, the horrid Hive of the Blasted Earth who have a level 4 cairn located at the blast zone.

Racetrack

(31 miles southwest of Scotty’s Castle)

The Racetrack is a dry lake bed where stones ranging in size from that of a pebble to 600 pound boulders apparently move all by themselves. No one has actually seen them move but the furrows scratched into the soil and records kept by scientists prove that they do move. The furrows range from 34 to 1,200 feet long and may be straight, irregular, curved, or even form complete loops! The only scientific theory proposed to explain this mystery is that rainwater either makes the sun baked soil slippery or makes it freeze and then hurricane force winds push the rocks along. Unfortunately for this theory rain (not to mention snow and hurricanes) is exceedingly rare in Death Valley and some of the rocks form zigzag paths or in some cases rocks that started out together have moved in opposite directions. The Racetrack is, of course, actually an umbral playground for the Kainu-suvs, the elves of Death Valley. These mischievous fae have realized that they can really mess with the minds of supposedly rational mortals simply by moving a few rocks about. The elves then sit back invisibly and laugh at the appalled scientists.

Ryan

(5 miles from Dante’s View road)

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This area was once the location of two small towns, Greenwater and Furnace, until 1914 when the two villages were merged to create the borax town of Ryan. Ryan was an active until 1928 when it was abandoned. Today all that remains of Ryan is some beer bottles, rusting stoves, pieces of model Ts, houseless basements and several dangerous vertical shafts (one of them is 1,600 feet deep!). A few of the larger homes survive in what was once downtown Ryan and they are still occasionally used to house visiting scientists. Though several roads lead to these towns they are all closed to the public for obvious reasons. In the Umbra pattern spiders still inhabit the few intact buildings while the pits are suspected of housing banes or leading to hellholes or worse.

Sand Dunes

(Eureka valley)

The sand dunes are an area of classic Sahara type desert spanning a full 14 square miles. Wind ripples the surface and occasionally whips up blinding sandstorms that may last for days. Stovepipe Well on the north edge fringe of the dunes was once an important waterhole but is now nothing more than a rusty pump. The road to this pump is unpaved, 3 ½ miles long and connects between State 190 and Scotty’s Castle Road. The dunes are the home of a charm of fierce Karkadamm warriors. The totem of this charm is the Desert Tortoise (cost 3) who gives is children +1 stamina and the gifts Armor of the Tortoise and Lighten Task. Desert Tortoise’s ban is to protect his species and the purity of the desert.

Scotty’s Castle

(36 miles north of Daylight Pass)

Built by Walter Scott and Albert Johnson, this Moorish mansion was inherited by the Park Services when first Johnson (in 1946) and then Scotty (in 1954 at the age of 81) died. Inside the castle are 18 fireplaces, one entire room devoted to an organ, a living room that features a jasper fountain that splashes into a fish pond, and elaborate furniture built to resemble antique fixtures from Europe. The outside of the castle is notable for its weathervane which is shaped like a burro, a 260 foot swimming pool, and the 120,000 railroad ties (purchased when a local track was torn up) that are stacked against one wall to serve as firewood. When the original owners died the castle was inherited by the National Park service who allows guided tours of the building for a nominal fee. The guides who lead tourists through Scotty’s Castle are all Ashringa or kinfolk who have converted a few rooms for important visitors. These guest rooms usually hosts the Royal Court of Faerie on its rare trips to Shin-au-av.

Skidoo

(7 miles east of Emigrant Canyon)

Skidoo is a ghost town that can be reached only by a dangerous dirt road. Little survives of this town except for the graveyard and the abandoned gold mine. Skidoo is unique among Death Valley’s ghost towns n that it actually was profitable! Six million dollars worth of gold came out of Skidoo before it was abandoned. Skidoo is so decayed that the pattern spiders have almost been overwhelmed by the Wyld. Only the

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mine still has active webs. Ghosts may be found in the graveyard but do not commonly materialize.

Surprise Canyon

(Panamint Mountains)

Surprise Canyon is located directly beneath Telescope Peak on Death Valley’s western border. The canyon gets its name from the abundant plant life and water it contains. The road to this canyon was washed out decades ago and now four wheel drives are needed to get to this part of the park. It is best known as the location of Panamint City. The abandoned silver mining town of Panamint was built in 1873 and was abandoned in 1876 after a severe flood killed over 200 people. During the four years of its existence Panamint City there were 50 fatal shootings, a fact that gave this town an ill reputation. When Wells Fargo refused to set foot in the town local bankers were forced to ship the silver ore across the desert to the railroad in open freight wagons. They were never robbed because they cast the bullion into quarter ton balls that were way too large for highwaymen to gallop off with! In 1982 there was an attempt to reopen the silver mine and in the process much of Panamint City was bulldozed to the ground before the idea was abandoned. All that remains of Panamint City today is a few houses and the 65 foot chimney that was once part of the ore smelter. Unlike the abandoned towns in the rest of Death Valley Panamint City is a true ghost town. During the day the umbral buildings are home of pattern spiders of the Weaver. At night, however, Panamint becomes a focal point for the energy of the Wyld. Shocking and brutal visions from the towns past come to life haunting anyone who stays in the town after dark. It was these ghosts that frightened away the miners in the 1980s. A path to the Atrocity Realm can also be found here.

Telescope Peak

(Death Valley Basin)

Telescope Peak is the one of the two maintained trails in Death Valley. One of the highest peaks in the area Telescope Peak rises directly from the salt pans to a height of nearly two miles straight up! The trail passes through a pinion and juniper forest reaching Arcane meadows 2.6 miles from the trail head. The trail then continues along many steep, pine covered switchbacks until reaching the top. In the Umbra Arcane Meadows is a site of great magical power. The common presence of tourists have prevented the area from being used as a cairn or dwell but any use of magic (including rites and gifts) gain an automatic success.

Titanothere Canyon (Grapevine Mountains) This trail is named for its many fossils of the ice age rhinocerotine thunder horses embedded into the canyon walls. One can use an automabile to get to the base of the trail but drivers must walk the rest of the way. The trail begins at an 80 foot waterfall that must be bypassed by climbing down a talus slope to the side of the fall. Here one enters the 50 foot wide canyon. Just beyond this spot is Lost Man Springs (usually dry but marked by a few cottonwood trees) then the trail leads for 12 miles through Kit Fox Hills to Scotty’s castle Road. In the Umbral canyon one can encounter Thunder horse spirits.

Titus Canyon

(Grapevine Mountains)

The road to Titus Canyon is closed from May to October because of flooding but turns off the

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Beatty Highway 7 miles east of the California-Nevada border. The walls of Titus Canyon is marked with petroglyphs of lizards, men, bighorn sheep, circles, crosshatches, wavy lines, suspiciously Celtic looking inscriptions, and UFO shaped objects. Several of the nearby gravel fans are also marked with 20-30 foot stone circles and serpentine lines. The Shoshone Indians know nothing about these glyphs and regard them with superstitious awe and scientists can only assume that they were made by some unknown ice age tribe. Nobody has deciphered their meaning and in the 18th century sometimes mistook the drawings for representations of trails and waterholes and got lost tying to make sense of them. Titus Canyon is an area celebrating the Past. It is a place used as a meeting place for the Mokole’ who here to gather information from each other, the Ashringa, and the Faerie folk. The inscriptions consist of bete and Fae writing which tells of the history of the various supernatural tribes of Death Valley and illustrates various umbral features. The stone circles on the other hand are for relaxation and celebration as they are the rings in which the faeries dance.

Ubehebe Crater

(5 miles from the turnoff to Scotty’s Castle)

Ubehebe’s Crater is named after an Indian woman who once lived near this area but to the natives it was Duh-vee’tah Wah’sah (“the Earth Mother’s Carrying Basket”) and it was considered a sacred site. The named crater is actually a pit caused by a volcanic explosion that is a full 500 feet deep and ½ mile across. Other, smaller craters, one containing a nearly perfect volcanic cone, can be found to the south of Ubebebe. As a sacred volcanic area the land about Ubehebe Crater is frequented by salamanders, fire elementals, and earth spirits. The Ashringa sometimes make offerings to Alma (Gaia) by throwing them into her basket. This is usually done in the umbra so tourists will not disturb the gifts.

Wildrose

(Panamint Mountains)

Wildrose is other maintained trail in Death Valley. This trail climbs 2,200 feet in four miles. The treeless summit offers a 360 degree view of the entire park. The trail includes several kilns once used as mining smelters. Around the kilns can be found several tree stumps which have been preserved by the dry air ever since the loggers cut the trees down for fuel the ovens over 100 years ago. In the Umbra fire spirits may be found still inhabiting the kilns and weeping glade children sit upon the stumps and bemoan the fate of their trees.

Wingate Pass

(Panamint Mountains)

Originally this area of the park was avoided by the local Indians who believed that a hidden city of elves called Shin-au-av was located here. The elves were said to have come from a far land on shooting stars and after they made their homes in the desert they rode bighorn sheep while using coyotes to herd the parks deer. This lore was dismissed as folklore when the white man came and nearly forgotten. In the 1880s twenty mule teams pulled multi ton wagons full of borax over a pass in the southern Panamints. The drivers named the pass “Windy Gap” because of the constant high winds and in time this name became shortened to Wingate. Wingate met high technology in 1920 when the backers of an Epson salt mine decided to build a monorail from the railroad in Trona all the way to the mines at Epsomite. However the monorail was doomed to failure when the first engine proved to be too weak to pull the cars and the second was so heavy that it sank the A-frames of the rail into the mire of Searle’s Lake! Later in the 1920s a prospector named white fell through a floor in an abandoned mine in this area.

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He found himself in an underground tunnel that led to a series of rooms filled with hundreds of short, leather clad humanoid mummies and gold bars stacked like bricks against the walls or piled in bins. White quickly ran to get help removing the loot but when he came back he was unable to find the tunnel again, even though he tried several times. Later an Indian guide named Tom Wilson claimed that his grandfather had wandered into a miles long labyrinth of caves beneath the valley floor that eventually ended in an underground city filled with tiny, leather clad people who spoke an incomprehensible language. The little men showed up again in the 1940s when several UFO reports came from the Wingate area. The most detailed report comes from 1949 when two prospectors witnessed the apparent crash of a flying saucer. When the prospectors approached the craft two little men leaped from the UFO and fled into the desert. The miners gave chase but lost the little men in the wilderness and when they returned to the site of the crash the UFO was gone. The native Shoshone Indians would not have been surprised by all the stories coming out of Wingate for a cavern under this pass was said to lead t the faerie city of Shin-au-av. This Umbral city is inhabited by all sorts of faerie races. Many kiths, including Kai-nu-suvs (elves), Yan-tups (undines), Pa-ahas (mermaids), and ohdowa (kobolds), may be found in this city. All the odd things that have plagued Wingate are simply the faerie folk playing tricks on ignorant mortals who attempt to build on their land. The fae also enjoy harassing the neighboring Nellis Air Force Base, Fort Irwin Military Reservation, and China Lake Naval Weapons Station, all of whom are infested with UFO sightings and gremlin reports.

Selected Books on Death Valley Death Valley by Kenneth Alexander. Ground Afire: the Story of Death Valley National Monument by Laura Nelson Baker. Death Valley: the Story Behind the Scenery by Bill Clark. The Geological Story of Death Valley by Thomas Clements. Death Valley‘s Scotty‘s Castle: the Story Behind the Scenery by Stanley Paher. The Origins of Inyo http://www.equinox-project.com

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