Polythreme

"Polythreme is a city where some principle in the water or earth - they say - makes everything live. This makes it a hellish place. Candles scream as they burn. Furniture is enslaved wood. Buildings are hollow shells of misery. The Clay Men are sold by Polythreme - or perhaps they escape."

"Everything's alive there, or so the story goes. Coal burns with a long low moan, steel is forged under protest, new-minted coins still shriek with pain and horror. It sounds a horribly callous place. Not to mention remarkably noisy."

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  Living clothes?!
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  The Masked Man
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Polythreme, original home of the Clay Men, is a small island nation in the Broad Unterzee, specifically within the Sea of Voices. Everything in Polythreme is suffused with an unnatural vitality. Coins scream, houses scream, and if you spend enough time there even your clothes will come to life and start screaming. Indeed, it is not uncommon to see roaming colonies of clothing in polythreme, banded together to wear a person instead of the other way around. It's very noisy in Polythreme, because of all the screaming.

The ruler of Polythreme is known as the King with a Hundred Hearts. The King is a survivor of the First City; he is thousands of years old. Very few are permitted an audience with the King, and even then his nature and appearance are something of a mystery. The King is best known for sending Clay Men to London as menial laborers who work for the Bazaar.

Original by NiteBrite/Mrs. Brite