The City of Leviathan
I've been planning the setting for the D&D game I'm going to run, Connemara. I came up with this idea for a moving city, but I have no place to fit it into the world. At this point in the campain planning, I have no need for a desert. I think it's a neat idea, so I'm going to share it hear for any GMs who may be able to use it in whatever game they run. This could be a neat thing to find in a shadow of Amber or a planet in Star Wars. All it needs is a desert and a fantastic setting. Feel free to borrow the idea, although don't go publishing it or saying its yours.....or creating a big budget summer movie.

The Sand Crawlers are giant bugs. From far away they look like giant slugs but on closer inspection, they are more akin to Millipedes. Their armored hide protects thousands of legs that they use to slowly crawl across the desert sands, searching for water. Sand Crawlers can sense pockets of water underneath the sands and dig with large trunk like tubes under its head to get to the water.

Leviathan is one of the oldest Sand Crawlers in existence. It has lived for hundreds of years thanks to a symbiotic relationship it has with a city that has built itself on the back of Leviathan. Hundreds of years ago, a nomadic desert people realized that they could ride the back of a sand crawler. They chose a particularly large one and camped on it. When the sand crawler, which they named Leviathan, would find water, it would dig the whole to the water and in the process bring much of the water to the service. The tribe could take some of the water and store it until Leviathan found the next oasis. The tribe created a village on the back of Leviathan/ The people prospered and it eventually became a city.

Today, Leviathan is the largest known sand crawler. It is about two miles long and 2/3 of a mile wide. Hundreds of pemanent sandstone buildngs have been built on the slowly shifting plates of Leviathan and desert crops are grown on its back, particularly a cactus-like plant that produces a bitter sweet fruit that is popular amongst the people of Leviathan. There are all sorts of ladders and starirways attached to the side of Leviathan, which the people use to board and disembark the great city.

The secret to Leviathan's long life is the people's urine. A little bit gross? Yeah. The chief cause of death amongst sand crawlers is a parisitic infection that develops under the plates of their exoskeletons. It was discovered years ago that the urine of the people of Leviathan had a highly acidic nature from eating the desert fruits and this acidic nature killed the parasites. So, the people collect their urine and work it under the plates of the sandcrawler wherever an infection develops...and occassionally just as a preventive medicine.

Well, the science of Leviathan is sketchy but hey, its for a fantasy setting. There are plenty of details to fill in. How do sand crawlers breed? If Leviathan is a female and a male sand crawler goes to mount Leviathan, it could destroy the city. Do the citizens of Leviathan occassionally have to fight off a male suitor? Are there telepaths or sorcerers that communicate with the creature? How can it fit in your game? I'll leave that to you ti figure out. I'm still figuring out how to work it into mine.

Feel free to email me at Nuadha_Silverhand at yahoo dot com and tell me what you think.