A Brief Guide to the Glass Fields

The Glass Fields are a half-reality, one of the many (infinite) reflections of the Meadows. They can be accessed accidentally by those who daydream in the right state of mind at the right location, or purposely by those who perform the correct simple, but hard to guess ritual not detailed here.

Like many half-realities they are a variation on the ancestral memories of mankind. A great plain, stretching, covered in shoulder-tall glass, with the occasional tree rising above the surrounding shrubbery, with big, dangerous animals roaming, and smaller, also dangerous animals slithering through the glass. Except, of course, the grass is all sharp needles of glass, jutting from the soil, the trees great irregular pillars of smooth glass (there's a lot of glass around), the roaming animals eight-legged horses the size of cathedrals, and the slithering animals long, many-limbed stoats.The spirit is, however, still there, and upon seeing them the first time the feeling experienced tends to be similar to returning home only to find it repainted and the garden overly-zealously decorated with disturbingly garish ornaments.

The Land

The ground is a pale sort of pink. The sky is bright blue. Night doesn't seem to be a thing that happens. There is no sun, things may have no shadow or many faint ones. It is silent, most of the time. Sometimes a Stallion's song, a stoat's fur whistling against the glass stalks, or the wind's hollow howl can be heard, but the calm always returns soon after. It is a peaceful place, though not a kind one.

The Glass/Grass

They're not grass. They're not plants at all. The glass stalks are just that, needles of a translucent, crystalline substance jutting out from the ground. They do not grow like a plant does. Beneath every stalk there's a small hole no wider than a pencil. If a stalk is not already formed a focused geyser of liquid glass will erupt. Under normal circumstances (as much as such a thing could even exist under normal circumstances) it would likely splash out into a puddle. Here it forms a long, gelatinous needle up to two meters high which over the course of hours set into a shoulder-high solid spike. Inexperienced travellers should be wary of stretches of bare land. They might seems easier to traverse, but exposes travellers to risk of horrible glass-burn.

Despite what their origin would suggest, mature stalks as sharp and hollow inside, like syringes. If you prick yourself on them (which will almost inevitably happen at some point in your journey through the Fields) the stalk will react instantly by sucking as much of your blood as it can. Unless you deliberately stay yourself from flinching or prick yourself repeatedly in a short period of time it is unlikely to be any dangerous amount. The blood quickly disappears beneath the ground. Its journey from there on is uncertain, but it presumably ends in one of the many blood-knots dotted across the expanse.

Only one kind of creature lives among the glass (Stallions cannot be said to be living among the glass as much as over it) - the stoat. This critter, eight-limbed, four times as long as its real counterpart and twice as wide, slithers between the stalks, more like a serpent than a rodent.They have been seen digging in the ground and biting in the glassroots for blood, but whether this is their primary source of sustenance and if they need sustenance at all has yet never been determined. Stoats aren't known to be aggressive and are sometimes kept as pets by the nomads, coiled around their necks and shoulders like grey-blue furred scarves. It is possible to carry them out of the Fields, though as half-real creatures they may only manifest themselves in liminal spaces or locations where the world's skin is otherwise thin.

The Blood-knots

Sometimes two jets of liquid glass collide. The resulting structure sometimes blocks the way of a third geyser, then fourth, and so on until an irregular structure emerges. Such a platform, initially openwork, is gradually filled in with glass,, and elevated, as if the land itself was trying to smoothen the abrasion. In the final stages of its creation blood, stolen by other stalks, starts coursing through its last remaining internal channels. It flows, it loops, half-coagulated, forming what looks like a bizarre sculpture, pumped continuously by an unknown force. Such blood, shortly after its concentration, becomes sentient. It whispers secrets in the susurrating tongue of bloodstreams and stagnant tidal pools. Its knowledge is more emotional than academic in nature. It speaks of continuity, preservation, rhythm and the power of sacrifice. The structures, or the blood flowing within them, depnding on who you ask, are known as blood-knots and over time they accumulate scarce colonies of hermits, exchanging insights in obscure sign languages as to not drown-out the murmured revelations they seek. They're not opposed to visitors per se, but they do not tolerate the noise they tend to bring.

The Stallions

The giant, eight-legged horses slowly trodding across the Fields don't seem to have any sexual organs, nor do they engage in mating. The nomads sometimes hanging off their sides insist on calling them Stallions anyway, due to the alleged dignity of the title. The Stallions are aimless, melancholy creatures, beating paths in the glass (being just about the only creatures able to leave a lasting impact on the fields) and occasionally launching into low, drawn-out song in which the other Stallions join without fail. They range in color from teal to seafoam, with the occasional rose pink observed from time to time. On all of the Fields there's four dozen of them at most and their number does not change. They never die, nor do they reproduce. Nomad tribes riding them claim each Stallion has a name you can learn if you listen closely to their song. The more radical among them claim you can subtly influence the Stallion's actions if you use it correctly. Not that there's ever much use for that on the Fields.

The People

Wherever you go, you'll likely find people. They might be strange, few in number, and barely clingling to survival, but they'll be there. The Fields are no exception. Aside from the hermits inhabiting Blood-knots all such people are nomads and can be divided into two categories. Stilt-Walkers, walk across the Fields with steps rivalled only by the Stallions in size. They grow their stilts themselves, by carefully inhibiting the growth of stalks in certain ways and encouraging it in others. They tend to be solitary, or living in small groups.  When they need to rest they do so in places where the Stallions' hooves ground the stalks to dust, or temporarily share the blood-knots with hermits.

Both the Stilt-walkers and the hermits eat the glass. Yes, it is edible, tasting like something between sand and fossilized cotton candy. It's horrible for the teeth, but if you spend long enough eating the stuff you start growing a new set, with oversized molars and incisors suited to breaking off parts of the stalks. Those new teeth inhibit speech, but after spending this long on the Fields finding new companions is unlikely and you'll have probably already said everything left to be said to current ones.

The other kind of nomad, the Riders, live suspended on the sides of Stallions, in shantytowns made from rope and canvas. They don't live on the Stallions' backs because a. it would be deeply disrespectful and b. that spot's already occupied by giant mites. It's not all bad, however. Riders hunt the mites for food, which is convenient, because their location makes it almost impossible for them to access the glass. Not without risking being forced to leave the rest of their tribe forever. It's all but impossible for a person to catch up to a Stallion.  Riders are less slightly less eccentric than Stilt-Walkers. They tend to be quiet, contemplative people (likely as a defence mechanics to the lack of stimulation the Fields offer) living ascetic, largely uneventful lives.. They debate interpretations of Stallion-song and paint tattoo-grafitti on their homes' carriers' backs.