Beanstalk

The Beanstalk is a towering structure located within the Plains of Kataru.

Background

The Beanstalk. In the middle of seemingly nowhere, it rises up literally into the sky and out of sight. The legends of Jack, for whom all Jacks are named, cross paths with it.

And then the Jack climbed the Beanstalk. He climbed and climbed and climbed. He climbed so very high that when he stopped climbing, he found himself in the clouds. He stood so high, in fact, that Jack had climbed all the way to a castle built by giants.

The base of the Beanstalk is a tall tower of metal and glass. As tall as the tower is, rising up from the highest point of the tower is a strip of unknown material that reaches far, far higher. This "stalk" is about 10 ft. wide but only a few inches thick. No one knows exactly how high it extends, but on a clear day it seems to simply disappear into the sky. Even more mysterious is the Beanstalk's purpose - what wits at the top? The stories, of course, say that it leads to a castle in the clouds, occupied by a giant. These same legends suggest that there's a danger that the giant will one day come down the stalk to plague the land.

Due to a gravitational distortion likely caused by the Beanstalk or the tower, five boulders the size of small mountains (along with numerous smaller stones) float in the air around the base and the lowest part of the stalk. These gravity-defying stones have no known purpose and might be an unintended side effect of the process originally used to construct the tower and the Beanstalk.

In recent years, a small town of about 1,000 residents has grown around the tower. Most residents are farmers, grow wheat and, ironically, beans in the flat region around the tower. The people don't know how to access the interior of the base, but they've built wooden structures and scaffolding around it, which support observation platforms and places for religious rites. There isn't a wall around the town, but dangerous beasts and other threats seem to avoid the area most of the time.

Someday, the wise folks say, the giant will return, looking for his stolen goods. Looking to get revenge. Looking for Jack. But on that day, Jack will be long gone, his days long since done. But his grandson or granddaughter, or perhaps their grandson or granddaughter, might be just on hand to trick the giant again and save the land from his terrible wrath. Let's all hope so. For the land to be safe, we need not a hero, but a Jack.

Miscellaneous

On the underside of the boulders floating around the Beanstalk grows a fungus unknown anywhere else. If it can be harvested and mixed with regular soil, anything planted in that soil grows with an organic sheath that's as hard as steel but still very pliable. The sheath can be used for armor or other Object.

There are many ways to travel to the skies of the Ninth World. Is the Beanstalk one of them? Perhaps. But only the giant knows for sure.