The Cross'd Roads is a region of space and time where many worlds meet. Although the mechanics are not properly understood, in effect it is possible to get to Cross'd Roads from many different places, even for people who cannot normally teleport or use space travel.
It is the location for Pro's unplotted inn and party boards.
The Cross'd Roads covers a few acres of land, but the boundaries are indistinct and often seem to change of their own accord. When you walk past the edge of the Cross'd Roads you end up somewhere else - but the transition is not abrupt.
The nature of the surrounding scenery shifts around a lot. A lot.
It is a literal crossroads: four roads of different appearance meet in the middle. The buildings are grouped around these.
The method of getting to and from the Cross'd Roads is kept very vague. It defies scholarly attempts to investigate it.
Road surfaces:
[The currently unnamed inn] is another business situated on the Cross'd Roads. A refurbished building sitting on supposedly cursed land, it is a legally neutral territory owned by Suitov Iceheart and managed by a voksin couple, Zoekla and Anar Phlock.
The scenery at the back of the inn is always woodland, but the type of tree tends to change when it's not being watched. It is possible to wander around in the woods and find your way back to the inn, if you're looking for it.
A grand piano is found at one end of the hall. It is a Ffirish, Sons, Daughters and Rex 'Klavira' model, the only one ever built. [3] It is on castors, so can be moved out of the way when necessary.
The area has wild wyverns and other small creatures. Occasionally a large grazer or predator will find its way in by accident. They usually wander out again. Some of them stay around and look soulful for food or try to groom unwary visitors.
As part of the legal neutrality requirements, Suitov Iceheart has been setting up boundary wards around the Unnamed Inn's grounds - and only the inn/grounds, not the rest of the Cross'd Roads - that exclude extremely hostile visitors, working on a varistor principle (mildly annoyed visitors will be able to get in, people intending immediate bloody violence won't find the place at all).
These wards are designed to interact with the curse on the inn grounds that draws distressed people towards the place. Anyone in distress can seek sanctuary on neutral territory and the wards allow such people in.
They use psionic techniques to read the visitor's mind but do not project anything into it; instead, they use the Cross'd Roads' own shifting boundaries to direct hostile visitors unnoticeably away from the inn. Someone sensitive to being read might notice them (rule of thumb: if you would notice a Shaded telepath reading you, you'll probably notice these); they feel like being briefly probed by a machine, not someone alive. If the wards are spotted, they will give a big clue that there's something interesting enough to protect over there.
The wards do not exclude vampires or any other dangerous people unless they trip the hostility threshold.
Note also that they do not prevent people finding the Cross'd Roads - just from stumbling directly into the inn. If you're on the Roads, you'll be able to see and access the inn even if you're in full-on bloodlust. In cases like these, the wards have the secondary function of ringing a warning chime to the inn's management.
The Cross'd Roads area is really a device of convenience. The inn is often used to introduce new members in an environment where mistakes aren't as important, and for any writers to test drive new characters.
The official rule is that what happens at Cross'd Roads boards doesn't have to be strict continuity ('canon') unless the writers want it to. That's to cope with people using the place as a test run, and for out-of-continuity parties.
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