Maps Monday - The Brobding Gate Tollhouse (Patreon)

Great stones, the size of draft horses, lie strewn across the earth like the wreckage of a fallen age. Beyond them rise the broken remains of cyclopean walls and titanic stairways, all that is left of some ancient giant-built place whose purpose has long since passed from mortal memory. Yet life endures in their shadow. Small homes and workshops cling to the edges of these ruins, and even children clamber over the weathered stones as though they were no more than old hills.

Set upon the road to the city stands a modest tollhouse, humble and sturdy, dwarfed by the immense arch of the Brobding Gate behind it. Once, perhaps, that gate marked the entrance to a ceremonial city of giants, or something older still. Now it serves as a grim landmark before which merchants, pilgrims, soldiers, and wanderers must halt to state their business and pay the coin that keeps the road in repair.

In recent days, however, unease has settled over this lonely place. Strange lights have been seen flickering among the ruins at night, and deep, unnatural sounds have echoed from the broken stone. The gatekeepers mutter of ill omens, and rumors spread that something ancient and enormous has begun to stir beneath the shadow of the Gate.