The Obojima Podcast the Blog | Episode 9 - Creating Exotic Locations in D&D: Sky Kite Valley

This blog post was made using dictation summary software, and posted for SEO purposes. If you really want to know what this episode is about, check out the full episode here: https://youtu.be/CJX2jTueW9s?si=Cr28eTsKn7_RgA1L

It’s episode 9 and it’s going fine! Welcome to the blog of the Obojima Podcast! This podcast is a deep dive into the creative process of creating Obojima: Tales from the Tall Grass. First things first, let’s meet our intrepid crew of writers. 

• Jeremiah Crofton - The Creative Director of 1985 Games and the creator of Obojima. 

• Ari Levitch - Head Writer

• Adam Lee - Head Writer

High along the weather-worn cliffs to the west of Mount Arbora, where the wind speaks in ten dialects and the clouds cast stories across the stone, rests Sky Kite Valley—a sprawling, many-tiered city carved into the bones of the island itself. It is a place where invention and intuition entwine, where the dream of flight is not only sacred but inevitable.

The writers—Jeremiah, Ari, and Adam—gathered again, as they do, to press ink into sky. Their meeting turned toward the windswept ledges of Sky Kite and the culture of those who dare gravity for breakfast.

Machines with Wings and Hearts of Flame

The people of Sky Kite Valley are obsessed with the sky. Not in passing, not romantically, but devoutly. They tinker with flight the way others pray. Every rooftop is a proving ground. Every child knows how to catch thermals before they know how to read.

Much of the discussion circled around the city’s mad beauty: its terraces built into cliffs, its absence of a beach (the sea here is vertical), and the strange machines that fill its skies. These are not sleek machines of polished steel, but living testaments to risk and resourcefulness—gliders, pedal-propellers, hot air balloons that defy physics by the grace of desperate brilliance.

Some of these devices are fueled by candles—giant pink ones made only four times a year by a ten-person crew, each wick a lever of ascent or descent. Some look like flying fish or paper cats, drifting over stone courtyards like airborne folklore.

The Sky King and the Hunter

Woven through the wires and wind is myth: The Sky King, once a living monarch of the air, now said to appear as a drifting skeleton, his skull rumored to hold a diamond—or perhaps a sacred wax—that could revolutionize ballooncraft. The expedition to find him is both a spiritual quest and a scientific moonshot, drawing comparisons to humanity’s real-world reach for the moon.

Yet not all who rule the sky are revered. There is also The Hunter—a terrible beast with six eyes, four wings, and the silhouette of an ancient predator. Locals view it with reverence and dread, like a weather god who sometimes eats koi. It is both protector and threat, its presence pressing tension into every ascent.

The Spirit in the Steam and the Politics of Progress

But this is no clean utopia. Below the wonder lies friction—between the elders who remember when feet stayed on the ground, and the new breed of thinkers who build toward the clouds. Factions begin to form. Pilots and engineers pit their vision of a lifted future against traditionalists and coastal folk, like Holly of the Diver’s Lodge, who struggles to find parts for her great undersea swordfish while everyone throws wax and fabric at the sky.

Lurking behind the coal smoke and dream maps is something older: a steam spirit, muse-like and fickle, appearing translucent when pleased and fully opaque when thrilled. It is uncertain whether this spirit is benevolent, or simply bored. It watches the builders. Sometimes it blesses them. Sometimes it breaks their wings.

City of Layers and Locks

Sky Kite Valley is more than its skyline. Its streets are vertical: a city of levels, each tier housing a different class, purpose, and philosophy. Stairs dive into the ocean, and a system of locks and barges reminiscent of Omashu’s (Avatar the Last Airbender) mail chutes keeps goods and people in motion. In the taverns near the docks, a barge master, a kite-maker, and other colorful NPCs weave their own plots while watching balloons fade into mist.

Invention as Survival, Myth as Compass

Every candle lit in Sky Kite Valley is an act of defiance against the Corruption spreading elsewhere across Obojima. Some believe the push to fly is desperation disguised as progress. Others say it's what makes the island worth saving.

Either way, the sky is watching. And someone, somewhere, is always building.

Check out the full episode here: https://youtu.be/CJX2jTueW9s?si=Cr28eTsKn7_RgA1L