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Nemo of Utopia:Characters/Mirelu

2020-10-02T19:34:29Z

Nemo of Utopia: /* History */

neName: Merela/Mirela/Mirelu 

=== Concepts ===
Caste: Eclipse 
Motivation: Merela: To reclaim her staus as High-Queen of Creation. Mirela: To see to it that the reborn Solar Deliberative does not repeat the mistakes of its predecessor, by whatever means necessary. Mirelu: To restore the status of the Peoples of creation to the heights they enjoyed during the first age. 
Anima: Herself as she was in the prime of her life during the first age, dressed in her full regalia. 
Concept: The Once-and-Future Queen of All Creation. 

=== Attributes ===
PHYSICAL 
Strength: • •, Dexterity: • • • • •, Stamina: • •. 
SOCIAL 
Charisma: • • •, Manipulation: • •, Appearance: • • • • •. 
MENTAL 
Perception: • •, Intelligence: • • Wits: • • • • •. 

=== Abilities ===

Dawn:Archery 0, *Martial Arts 5, Melee 0, *Thrown 3, *War 5. 
Zenith:Integrity 3, Performance 5, Presence 3, Resistance 0, Survival 3. 
Twilight: *Craft: ''See Sub-Section'', Investigation 0, Lore 3, Medicine 0, *Occult 1. 
Night:Athletics 0, Awareness 1, Dodge 5, Larceny 0, Stealth 0. 
Eclipse: *Bureaucracy 0, *Linguistics 5, *Ride 0, *Sail 0, *Socialize 3. 

Crafts: 'Elemental' 3, Air 0, Earth 0, Fire 0, Water 0, Wood 0. 

=== Backgrounds ===

Ally 1: ••• Nellens Buniraku Suraku: Water Aspected Dragonblooded Bodyguard/Lover. (Currently sorcerously bound by Thazda, can't be fully trusted till that can be fixed.)

Artifact 1: ••• Slayer Katars: styled with the heads of elephants instead of rams, these Katars were recovered from a ruined manse sunken at the bottom of the western ocean by Nellens Buniraku Suraku shortly before Merela returned from death and bound him to her service.

Artifact 2: •• Discrete Essence Armor: This magical protective gear is also styled with elephantine imagery and was recovered from the same cache.

Artifact 3: • Hearthstone Compass: This compass was one of Nellens Buniraku Suraku's treasure hunting tools. An early-middle-Shogunate era example of the type, he gifted it to Mirela after he reunited with her following their escape from the Wyld Hunt as proof of his loyalty.

Manse 1: ••• The Spire of Buena Aires: The hearthstone of this manse was embedded in the Discreet Essence Armor's Hearthstone Socket, Using the Hearthstone Compass Mirela was able to find it, not too far from the island she claimed for her nation of Grecinder, and attune to the manse. It is a late first age design, showing distinct Dragon-Blooded influences but clearly built by a solar craftswoman, not one of the Dragon-Blooded, and is a potent example of a three-dot manse. Its hearthstone is a Stone of Easy Breath, with a slight oddity of color and shape. Mirela found the manse inhabited by the descendants of the original cleaning and maintenance crews. She easily cowed them into obedience and many of them are now part of the population of Gracinder as experts on geomancy and thaumaturges of various other kinds.

=== Virtues ===
Compassion ••••, Conviction ••••, Temperance •, Valor ••• 
Limit 
Willpower ••••• ••••• 
Essence •••• 
Personal 
Peripheral 
Comitted 

Health Levels 0*2, -1*4, -2*4, -4*2, I*2, D*3

=== Charms ===

==== Dodge ====

====== Reflex Sidestep Technique =======

(1 motes; Instant; Reflexive; 3 Dodge; 1 Essence; Normal XP Cost)
Night - Dodge
The heroes of the dawn are in tune with the Essence of the world. The Exalt invokes this Charm in response to an unexpected attack. The attack is no longer unexpected (but if an appropriate Charm, it remains unblockable). This allows the character to use his Dodge DV and Charms such as Seven Shadow Evasion against the attack.

Reflexive (Step 2)

Pre-Req Charms: None
Keywords: Combo-OK, Dawn
Found in "Exalted (2e)" page 227

==== Integrity ====

====== Righteous Lion Defense ======

(0 motes; Permanent; Permanent; 3 Integrity; 1 Essence; Normal XP Cost)
Zenith - Integrity
To the Solar Exalted, 'death' and 'surrender' are almost the same things. This Charm helps a character hold fast to her fundamental Intimacies in the face of temptation. The player picks one of the character's Intimacies when purchasing this Charm. For the purposes of this Solar Charm, this loyalty must be to an ideal---not to a person or a love, but sometimes to a relationship; not to a tribe or city, but sometimes to the nation she might build of them; not to a battle or war, but to the extinction of one foe or the conquest of a great region. (Other Exalted have versions of this Charm that support different commitments.)
This Charm allows the character to treat mental influence to betray or forsake that Intimacy as an unacceptable order (see page 180). If the character voluntarily abandons that Intimacy or it becomes obsolete, this Charm ceases to function until, first, a new story begins and, second, the Character chooses a new Intimacy to which the Charm applies. Players can also shift this Charm to a new Intimacy at any time by spending one experience point.
Players can purchase this Charm a second time to reinforce one additional Intimacy. Any further loyalties require more specialized magic.

Pre-Req Charms: None
Keywords: None
Found in "Exalted (2e)" page 199

(Mirela's RLD is to Providing "Shust-Und-Shur"\* to Gracinder & it's people.)
\*(A complicated concept that can most closely be translated into English without a long dissertation on it's many nuances as 'Defense-and-Protection' though I do feel I have to clarify that this includes protection from things like starvation and natural disaster.)

==== Lore ====

===== Chaos Repelling Pattern =====

(8 motes; One Hour; Simple; 3 Lore; 3 Essence; Normal XP Cost)
Twilight - Lore
The presence of the Lawgivers wards away chaos. This Charm surrounds the character with a mystic pattern of Essence---what the Fair Folk call an 'island of Creation' or a 'dead waypoint.' The character's immediate vicinity---out to (her Essence) in yards---functions according to the laws of Creation, even if the character is in the Wyld, Malfeas, or some stranger location.

Pre-Req Charms: None
Keywords: Combo-OK, Obvious
Found in "Exalted (2e)" page 216

==== Presence ====

====== Irresistible Salesman Spirit ======

(3 motes; Instant; Supplemental; 4 Presence; 2 Essence; Normal XP Cost)
Zenith - Presence
The glamour of the Lawgivers inspires others to dream of glorious things. This makes the Solars the ultimate salesman and recruiters. Irresistible Salesman Spirit enhances a Presence-based roll to exert mental influence and make a favorable bargain or encourage a specific action. This Charm doubles the Solar's successes on the roll before comparing them to the target's MDV.

Pre-Req Charms: Any Presence Excellency°
Keywords: Combo-Basic, Social
Found in "Exalted (2e)" page 204

==== War ====

====== Heroism Encouraging Presence ======

(5 motes or 5m, 1wp;; One Scene; Simple; 4 War; 2 Essence; Normal XP Cost)
Dawn - War
The Chosen radiate the confidence and surety of the Unconquered Sun. This Charm affects any unit or social group that the Solar commands and every ally within (Essence x 5) yards. This Charm's targets no longer need to make Valor checks. In war, this Charm prevents rout and reduces the chance of fatigue (see page 374).

This Charm costs five motes when used in combat or social combat, or five motes, one Willpower when used in mass combat. It renders allies fearless within a range of (Essence x 20) yards, not (Essence x 5).

At Essence 3+, in addition to the listed effects, whenever the Solar or an ally under the effects of Heroism-Encouraging Presence channels Valor to enhance an action, they add successes rather than dice to the action at a rate of one success for every die that would have been added. If the action succeeds, the character is automatically refunded the Willpower spent to channel Valor.

Simple (Speed 6 in long ticks)

Pre-Req Charms: None
Keywords: Combo-OK, Obvious, War
Found in "Exalted (2e)" page 197

====== Tiger Warrior Training Technique ======

(10 motes 2wp; One Week; Simple; 4 War; 3 Essence; Normal XP Cost)
Dawn - War
Under the banner of the Solar Exalted, even bandits and peasants become deadly warriors. This Charm involves training a military unit. This Charm requires five or more hours of effort in any given week to bear fruit. This Charm increases the Drill of a unit by one for each week of training, to a maximum of Drill 5. In each week of training, the trainer picks one trait to train: Valor, Strength, Dexterity, Stamina, Archery, Dodge, Martial Arts or Melee. This Charm increases that trait for each member of the unit by one dot, to a maximum of 4. The Solar can train with the unit or as a solo unit, increasing her own traits. She cannot increase others' traits past her own.

Simple (Dramatic Action)

Pre-Req Charms: Heroism Encouraging Presence
Keywords: Obvious, Touch, Training
Found in "Exalted (2e)" page 198

====== Legendary Warrior Curriculum ======

(0 motes; One Turn per Essence; Permanent; 5 War; 4 Essence; Normal XP Cost)
Dawn - War
Solar Exalted imbue their warriors with something of their own nature. This Charm enhances the Exalt's ability to train warriors. This Charm allows him to use Tiger Warrior Training Technique to train others in any of the following:
-Military Abilities he possesses at 4 or more. In addition to the Abilities already available through Tiger Warrior Training Technique, military Abilities include Thrown, War, Integrity, Resistance, Survival, relevant Craft, Medicine, Athletics, Awareness, Stealth, Ride, and Sail.
-Willpower. The Exalt can train Willpower to a maximum of 7.
-Bonus dice. The Solar can devote one week's training to rare and special techniques. This gives trained characters two bonus dice or one bonus success for a specific activity defined by the Solar during training. This benefit must have military relevance, it does not apply to Exalted targets, and it is not cumulative. Characters must abandon their previous training and lose the previous bonus to benefit from this Charm again. This bonus can apply to rolls for any Ability and is considered an artificial two-die specialty that stacks with (at most) one die of other specialties. Examples include a one-success bonus in silent communication, a two-die bonus in fighting when outnumbered, and a two-die bonus for nocturnal fighting. Non-extras must pay four bonus points or eight experience points for this benefit, and they go into experience debt as usual if they cannot pay. The Storyteller is the final authority on whether a special technique has military relevance.

Pre-Req Charms: Tiger Warrior Training Technique
Keywords: Obvious
Found in "Exalted (2e)" page 198

====== Mob Dispersing Rebuke ======

(7 motes 1wp; Instant; Simple; 3 War; 2 Essence; Normal XP Cost)
Dawn - War
The Lawgiver chastises the unworthy rabble. This Charm forces the player of an enemy unit most of whose members are within (Essence x 100) yards to make an immediate check for rout. The difficulty of this roll is 1 if the unit has Magnitude greater than the Exalt's Essence, and 2 other otherwise. This Charm can be used socially rather than in war, in which case the Exalt can treat any mob gathering or social group he can reasonably chastise as the target military unit.

Simple (Speed 3 in long ticks)

Pre-Req Charms: None
Keywords: Combo-OK, Social, War
Found in "Exalted (2e)" page 197

==== Martial Arts Styles ====

===== Solar Hero Style =====

====== Fists of Iron Technique ======

(1 mote; One Action; Reflexive; 2 Martial Arts; 1 Essence; Normal XP Cost)
Solar Celestial Martial Arts 2e: Solar Hero Style
The Solar infuses her hands with the strength of her Essence and strikes like the Unconquered son. This Charm enhances an unarmed Martial Arts attack, improving its accuracy by one and its Damage by two and making its damage lethal. The Solar can parry lethal hand-to-hand attacks without a stunt until his next action

Enhancement: This Charm adds the magical material benefits of orichalcum to the Solar's natural attacks while Solar Hero Form is active.

Pre-Req Charms: None
Keywords: Combo-OK, Enhanced
Found in "Scroll of Errata (2e)" page 4 (core 242)

====== Dragon Coil Technique ======

(3 motes; Until Next Action; Reflexive; 3 Martial Arts; 2 Essence; Normal XP Cost)
Solar Celestial Martial Arts 2e: Solar Hero Style
The clinch of the Lawgivers does not fail. The Solar's grip is inexorable, and she may, if she chooses, squeeze the life from the strongest opponent. This charm makes clinch crush damage lethal. This charm also adds the Solar's Essence in dice to the dice pool to inflict, maintain and control a clinch. It also adds the character's Essence to the damage of clinch crush attacks.

This Charm cannot be placed in a Combo with extra-action Charms.

Enhancement: The dice added by this Charm do not count toward the Solar’s dice caps.

Reflexive (Step 1)

Pre-Req Charms: Fists of Iron Technique
Keywords: Combo-OK, Enhanced
Found in "Scroll of Errata (2e)" page 0 (October 2010 edition)

====== Sledgehammer Fist Punch ======

(3 motes; Instant; Supplemental; 3 Martial Arts; 2 Essence; Normal XP Cost)
Solar Celestial Martial Arts 2e: Solar Hero Style
This Charm is also called the 'Pillar Breaking Blow'. The Lawgiver's anima flares and he strikes like the judgment of Heaven. This Charm supplements an unarmed Martial Arts attack against an inanimate object, doubling the raw (pre-soak) damage of the attack.

Enhancement: When used by a Solar, this Charm costs one mote and also ignores the object's soak.

Martial-ready: Melee.

Pre-Req Charms: Fists of Iron Technique
Keywords: Combo-OK, Obvious, Enhanced, Martial-ready
Found in "Scroll of Errata (2e)" page 4 (core 242)

====== Solar Hero Form ======

(6 motes; One Scene; Simple; 4 Martial Arts; 2 Essence; Normal XP Cost)
Solar Celestial Martial Arts 2e: Solar Hero Style
The Solare suffuses his body with the Essence of the Sun. He becomes a paragon of strength and skill, radiant with the power of a legendary hero returned. There is nothing formal to this fighting style, but there is an unstoppable and unchallengeable grace to it. This is an honest battle art, for champions, gladiators, and heroes. It was forged in the dawning of the world so that the Lawgivers could face the greatest monsters with nothing save their hands and skill and be undaunted by them.

Like Snake Form, this Charm cannot be activated at the same time as another Form Charm without first deactivating the other Form. This is the usual restriction placed on all Form-type Charms.

This Charm allows the Exalt to count the successes of unarmed Martial Arts attacks twice for the purposes of determining damage. She must spend one mote reflexively in Step 7 of attack resolution each time she takes advantage of this effect. This charm also allows the character to make an unarmed Martial Arts block against ranged and lethal attacks without a stunt.

Enhancement: While this Charm is active, the Solar adds his Martial Arts rating to his natural bashing and lethal soak.

Pre-Req Charms: Dragon Coil Technique, Sledgehammer Fist Punch
Keywords: Combo-Basic, Form-type, Obvious, Enhanced
Found in "Scroll of Errata (2e)" page 0 (October 2010 edition)

====== Knockout Blow ======

(4 motes; Instant; Supplemental; 4 Martial Arts; 2 Essence; Normal XP Cost)
Solar Celestial Martial Arts 2e: Solar Hero Style
Solar exalted with this Charm can topple even behemoths with a single punch. This Charm supplements an unarmed Martial Arts attack. This charm takes effect if the attack hits and inflicts even one health level of damage. If [damage successes x Exalt's Esssence] is greater than the target's remaining health levels, this Charm knocks the target unconscious, and the target remains so for a scene.

Pre-Req Charms: Solar Hero Form
Keywords: Combo-OK, Crippling, Obvious
Found in "Exalted (2e)" page 190

===== Seafareing Hero Style =====

Doldrums-Induced Tempo: (3 motes; Instant; Supplemental; 3 Martial Arts; 1 Essence; Normal XP Cost)
Terrestrial Martial Arts 2e: Seafaring Hero Style
All sailors know the danger of getting caught in the doldrums. Experienced sailors fear pirates less than sitting on the sea with no wind, or brief puffs from random directions because it mixes boredom with bad company and dwindling supplies. Eventually, men go mad from entrapment on the becalmed sea. The martial artist using this Charm has meditated upon that experience, and she knows how to use its madness as a weapon. Her steps are unexpected, and her blows come from surprising quarters, making it more difficult to defend against the character’s attack. Her target suffers a -2 penalty to his DV against this attack (-1 if he has three or more dots in Sail). Should the attack connect, it throws the target off balance and degrades his ability to move in his own defense. He then suffers the same penalty against all attacks in that tick. The attacker may not take a Move action in the same tick she uses this Charm.

Pre-Req Charms: None
Keywords: Combo-OK
Found in "Scroll of the Monk (2e)" page 59

====== Sea Spider Plunge ====== (2 motes; Instant; Simple; 3 Martial Arts; 1 Essence; Normal XP Cost)
Terrestrial Martial Arts 2e: Seafaring Hero Style
Skipping above the black depths, nothing can drown the sea spiders of the Coral Archipelago. They dance on the waves and pierce that blue veil only to kill their prey. After a shipwreck, clever islanders watch the spiders, waiting for their strong mandibles to catch and drag up the dead. Having learned the first mysteries of the style, a student can drag foes from the ship that carries him with the same mastery. Activating this Charm, the character “dips” into a battle on decks from above. As a single action, the character sweeps downward on a rope and makes a clinch attack against one target. He completes the motion by swinging back up into the rigging, generally with his victim. This action has a -2 DV penalty and allows the character to exceed the normal movement limits of the Move action.

Pre-Req Charms: None
Keywords: Combo-OK
Found in "Scroll of the Monk (2e)" page 59

====== Stuck Rudder Infliction ======

(2 motes; Essence in actions; Supplemental; 3 Martial Arts; 1 Essence; Normal XP Cost)
Terrestrial Martial Arts 2e: Seafaring Hero Style
The rudder is half a ship’s will, and it must be kept in good repair. Should it become warped or damaged, the crew loses control over how the ship moves. With some practice, students of this style learn how to inflict this same problem on others. The character supplements a clinch attack or an opposed grappling check with this Charm. If the attack succeeds, he must immediately release his opponent. For the duration of the Charm, the target can move in one only direction dictated by the martial artist. This direction must be absolute to the environment (“toward the aft, toward that door, that way”), not relative to the character (“away from me”). Targets may choose instead not to move at all.

Pre-Req Charms: None
Keywords: Combo-OK
Found in "Scroll of the Monk (2e)" page 59

====== Seafaring Hero Form ======

(5 motes; One Scene; Simple; 3 Martial Arts; 2 Essence; Normal XP Cost)
Terrestrial Martial Arts 2e: Seafaring Hero Style
True Seafaring Heroes are greater than any mere storm or rolling deck. While on a ship, the martial artist ignores up to (Martial Arts) dice worth of penalty due to environmental factors. She also knows how to roll with attacks, much as a well-tended ship rolls over the waves of lesser storms. By voluntarily reducing her DV by one against a single attack, she can reduce the raw damage she suffers by three dice. She may not reduce her DV by an amount greater than her Essence.

Pre-Req Charms: Doldrums-Induced Tempo, Sea Spider Plunge, Stuck Rudder Infliction
Keywords: Combo-Basic, Form-type
Found in "Scroll of the Monk (2e)" page 59

====== Full-Stroked Ramming Kick ======

(4 motes; Instant; Simple; 4 Martial Arts; 2 Essence; Normal XP Cost)
Terrestrial Martial Arts 2e: Seafaring Hero Style
Just as the ship that uses the most slaves for its ramming scuttles the most enemy ships, the warrior who strikes with the greatest speed lays his enemies low. The character moves up to (Dexterity + 6) yards before this attack, at least half of which he spends flying through the air with his foot extended. When he connects, he adds a number of dice equal to his Martial Arts to his raw damage, and one die to his minimum damage. If his opponent successfully dodges, the hero must spend his next tick moving the same distance past his target. Attacking in this manner by swinging from the rigging adds another die to damage and increases the difficulty to resist knockdown to 4.

Pre-Req Charms: Seafaring Hero Form
Keywords: Combo-OK
Found in "Scroll of the Monk (2e)" page 60

====== Terrible Sail-Rending Assault ======

(4 motes; MA in actions; Supplemental; 4 Martial Arts; 2 Essence; Normal XP Cost)
Terrestrial Martial Arts 2e: Seafaring Hero Style
In ship-to-ship combat, one of the most effective tactics is to target an opponent’s sails, rendering her ship dead in the water until her crew can repair the damage. While inflicting damage on an enemy with a Martial Arts attack, the Exalt makes sure that he retains the maneuverability advantage. Each health level of damage inflicted with this Charm reduces a target’s Move and Dash actions by two yards, to a minimum of zero. Characters with a Move action of zero yards suffer a -2 internal penalty to their Dodge DVs.

Pre-Req Charms: Seafaring Hero Form
Keywords: Combo-OK, Crippling
Found in "Scroll of the Monk (2e)" page 60

====== Wave-Riding Navy-Breaker ======

(3 motes; Until Next Action; Simple; 4 Martial Arts; 2 Essence; Normal XP Cost)
Terrestrial Martial Arts 2e: Seafaring Hero Style
Waves grow strong over time as the winds build them up. Over hundreds of leagues, they change from mere ripples to behemoths ready to tear ships to shreds. The most brilliant captains learn how to ride such waves, traveling incredibly quickly and getting the drop on their waterborne foes. The character emulates both the wave and the ship by building up her strength to unleash a massive blow on her target.

When the character invokes this Charm, her player rolls (Strength + Martial Arts). Each success adds one to the raw damage of the attack the martial artist makes on her next action. Perceptive opponents might notice her marshaling her inner strength and collecting herself for a blow. Instead of attacking, a martial artist may use this Charm again and accumulate even more raw damage. Each subsequent use of this Charm subtracts two dice from the (Strength + Martial Arts) pool, and the character may not use this Charm when it provides zero dice. If her next action is not an attack or invoking this Charm, the Seafaring Hero loses its benefit.

Simple (Speed 3)

Pre-Req Charms: Seafaring Hero Form
Keywords: Combo-Basic, Stackable
Found in "Scroll of the Monk (2e)" page 60

====== Sail-Furling Invulnerability ======

(3 motes 1wp; Instant; Reflexive; 5 Martial Arts; 3 Essence; Normal XP Cost)
Terrestrial Martial Arts 2e: Seafaring Hero Style
Sailors know no fury worse than the wind of a storm, which can topple a ship or tear its mast straight off. The best proof against such danger is to drop all sails, reducing the wind’s grip as much as possible. Martial artists apply the same technique to their defenses. Dropping her arms to her sides and presenting as small a target as possible, blue-black winds of Essence howl past and around the character, causing attacks against her to miss. This Charm supplies a perfect defense against dodgeable ranged attacks that are not enhanced by stunts or Charms, and it adds three to the character’s Dodge DV in any case. The Charm also grants this Dodge DV bonus against Melee and Martial Arts attacks.

Reflexive (Step 2)

Pre-Req Charms: Full-Stroked Ramming Kick, Terrible Sail-Rending Assault, Wave-Riding Navy-Breaker
Keywords: Combo-Basic, Obvious
Found in "Scroll of the Monk (2e)" page 61

==== Excellencies: ====

The First Excellency (Essence Overwhelming): Presence
The Second Excellency (Essence Triumphant): Martial Arts, War
The Third Excellency (Essence Resurgent): Dodge

Combos 

Sorcery 

Combat 
Join Battle 8, Soak 6B/6L, Hardness 1B/1L, Dodge DV 6, Mobility Penalty , Fatigue 
Punch: Speed 5, Accuracy 9, Damage 2, Parry DV 5, Rate 3, Tags N 
Kick: Speed 5, Accuracy 8, Damage 5, Parry DV 3, Rate 2, Tags N 
Clinch: Speed 6, Accuracy 8, Damage 2, Parry DV -, Rate 1, Tags C, N, P 

Social Combat 
Join Debate 8, Mental Dodge DV 8 
Presence: Speed 4, Accuracy 7, Parry 4, Rate 2 
Performance: Speed 6, Accuracy 10, Parry 5, Rate 1 
Investigation: Speed 5, Accuracy 6, Parry 3, Rate 2 

=== Intimacies ===

=== Description ===

=== History ===

Plot Hooks: To use ON Merela/Mirela/Mirelu 

#1: Consult "The Gracinder Guidebook" for a surfeit of ideas. 

#2: Freeing Nelens Bunraku Suraku from Thazda's control. 

#3: Read the "Heralds of Valdemar" series by Mercedes Lacky, adapt as needed. 

#4: "[Blank] is going to destroy [Something Merela would remember from The First Age]; we have to stop them!" 

#5: "Mirelu, do you care NOTHING for Verangia? [Harborhead or The Dhelzhen or some other traditional enemy] means to destroy us, and the prognostication says that our only hope of stopping them this time lies in securing your aid..." 

Plot Hooks: To use WITH Merela/Mirela/Mirelu 

#1: "Your Afrontery can no longer be borne, in the name of heaven; the skies above, the sea below, and the land & ships between; The Glorious Sea Nation of Grecinder hereby declares WAR upon your ingrateful and ungracious hunk of rock! Prepare what defenses you will, within one year's time, naught shall remain of them save memories and ruins..."

XP: 
Spent: 
Unspent: 
Total: 237 

Spent For/On Date:

Nemo of Utopia:Characters/Mirelu

2020-10-02T00:55:15Z

Nemo of Utopia: /* Lore */

Nemo of Utopia:Characters/Mirelu

2020-10-02T00:36:56Z

Nemo of Utopia: /* Virtues */

neName: Merela/Mirela/Mirelu 

=== Concepts ===
Caste: Eclipse 
Motivation: Merela: To reclaim her staus as High-Queen of Creation. Mirela: To see to it that the reborn Solar Deliberative does not repeat the mistakes of its predecessor, by whatever means necessary. Mirelu: To restore the status of the Peoples of creation to the heights they enjoyed during the first age. 
Anima: Herself as she was in the prime of her life during the first age, dressed in her full regalia. 
Concept: The Once-and-Future Queen of All Creation. 

=== Attributes ===
PHYSICAL 
Strength: • •, Dexterity: • • • • •, Stamina: • •. 
SOCIAL 
Charisma: • • •, Manipulation: • •, Appearance: • • • • •. 
MENTAL 
Perception: • •, Intelligence: • • Wits: • • • • •. 

=== Abilities ===

Dawn:Archery 0, *Martial Arts 5, Melee 0, *Thrown 3, *War 5. 
Zenith:Integrity 3, Performance 5, Presence 3, Resistance 0, Survival 3. 
Twilight: *Craft: ''See Sub-Section'', Investigation 0, Lore 3, Medicine 0, *Occult 1. 
Night:Athletics 0, Awareness 1, Dodge 5, Larceny 0, Stealth 0. 
Eclipse: *Bureaucracy 0, *Linguistics 5, *Ride 0, *Sail 0, *Socialize 3. 

Crafts: 'Elemental' 3, Air 0, Earth 0, Fire 0, Water 0, Wood 0. 

=== Backgrounds ===

Ally 1: ••• Nellens Buniraku Suraku: Water Aspected Dragonblooded Bodyguard/Lover. (Currently sorcerously bound by Thazda, can't be fully trusted till that can be fixed.)

Artifact 1: ••• Slayer Katars: styled with the heads of elephants instead of rams, these Katars were recovered from a ruined manse sunken at the bottom of the western ocean by Nellens Buniraku Suraku shortly before Merela returned from death and bound him to her service.

Artifact 2: •• Discrete Essence Armor: This magical protective gear is also styled with elephantine imagery and was recovered from the same cache.

Artifact 3: • Hearthstone Compass: This compass was one of Nellens Buniraku Suraku's treasure hunting tools. An early-middle-Shogunate era example of the type, he gifted it to Mirela after he reunited with her following their escape from the Wyld Hunt as proof of his loyalty.

Manse 1: ••• The Spire of Buena Aires: The hearthstone of this manse was embedded in the Discreet Essence Armor's Hearthstone Socket, Using the Hearthstone Compass Mirela was able to find it, not too far from the island she claimed for her nation of Grecinder, and attune to the manse. It is a late first age design, showing distinct Dragon-Blooded influences but clearly built by a solar craftswoman, not one of the Dragon-Blooded, and is a potent example of a three-dot manse. Its hearthstone is a Stone of Easy Breath, with a slight oddity of color and shape. Mirela found the manse inhabited by the descendants of the original cleaning and maintenance crews. She easily cowed them into obedience and many of them are now part of the population of Gracinder as experts on geomancy and thaumaturges of various other kinds.

=== Virtues ===
Compassion ••••, Conviction ••••, Temperance •, Valor ••• 
Limit 
Willpower ••••• ••••• 
Essence •••• 
Personal 
Peripheral 
Comitted 

Health Levels 0*2, -1*4, -2*4, -4*2, I*2, D*3

=== Charms ===

==== Dodge ====

====== Reflex Sidestep Technique =======

(1 motes; Instant; Reflexive; 3 Dodge; 1 Essence; Normal XP Cost)
Night - Dodge
The heroes of the dawn are in tune with the Essence of the world. The Exalt invokes this Charm in response to an unexpected attack. The attack is no longer unexpected (but if an appropriate Charm, it remains unblockable). This allows the character to use his Dodge DV and Charms such as Seven Shadow Evasion against the attack.

Reflexive (Step 2)

Pre-Req Charms: None
Keywords: Combo-OK, Dawn
Found in "Exalted (2e)" page 227

==== Integrity ====

====== Righteous Lion Defense ======

(0 motes; Permanent; Permanent; 3 Integrity; 1 Essence; Normal XP Cost)
Zenith - Integrity
To the Solar Exalted, 'death' and 'surrender' are almost the same things. This Charm helps a character hold fast to her fundamental Intimacies in the face of temptation. The player picks one of the character's Intimacies when purchasing this Charm. For the purposes of this Solar Charm, this loyalty must be to an ideal---not to a person or a love, but sometimes to a relationship; not to a tribe or city, but sometimes to the nation she might build of them; not to a battle or war, but to the extinction of one foe or the conquest of a great region. (Other Exalted have versions of this Charm that support different commitments.)
This Charm allows the character to treat mental influence to betray or forsake that Intimacy as an unacceptable order (see page 180). If the character voluntarily abandons that Intimacy or it becomes obsolete, this Charm ceases to function until, first, a new story begins and, second, the Character chooses a new Intimacy to which the Charm applies. Players can also shift this Charm to a new Intimacy at any time by spending one experience point.
Players can purchase this Charm a second time to reinforce one additional Intimacy. Any further loyalties require more specialized magic.

Pre-Req Charms: None
Keywords: None
Found in "Exalted (2e)" page 199

(Mirela's RLD is to Providing "Shust-Und-Shur"\* to Gracinder & it's people.)
\*(A complicated concept that can most closely be translated into English without a long dissertation on it's many nuances as 'Defense-and-Protection' though I do feel I have to clarify that this includes protection from things like starvation and natural disaster.)

==== Lore ====

Chaos Repelling Pattern: (8 motes; One Hour; Simple; 3 Lore; 3 Essence; Normal XP Cost)
Twilight - Lore
The presence of the Lawgivers wards away chaos. This Charm surrounds the character with a mystic pattern of Essence---what the Fair Folk call an 'island of Creation' or a 'dead waypoint.' The character's immediate vicinity---out to (her Essence) in yards---functions according to the laws of Creation, even if the character is in the Wyld, Malfeas, or some stranger location.

Pre-Req Charms: None
Keywords: Combo-OK, Obvious
Found in "Exalted (2e)" page 216

==== Presence ====

====== Irresistible Salesman Spirit ======

(3 motes; Instant; Supplemental; 4 Presence; 2 Essence; Normal XP Cost)
Zenith - Presence
The glamour of the Lawgivers inspires others to dream of glorious things. This makes the Solars the ultimate salesman and recruiters. Irresistible Salesman Spirit enhances a Presence-based roll to exert mental influence and make a favorable bargain or encourage a specific action. This Charm doubles the Solar's successes on the roll before comparing them to the target's MDV.

Pre-Req Charms: Any Presence Excellency°
Keywords: Combo-Basic, Social
Found in "Exalted (2e)" page 204

==== War ====

====== Heroism Encouraging Presence ======

(5 motes or 5m, 1wp;; One Scene; Simple; 4 War; 2 Essence; Normal XP Cost)
Dawn - War
The Chosen radiate the confidence and surety of the Unconquered Sun. This Charm affects any unit or social group that the Solar commands and every ally within (Essence x 5) yards. This Charm's targets no longer need to make Valor checks. In war, this Charm prevents rout and reduces the chance of fatigue (see page 374).

This Charm costs five motes when used in combat or social combat, or five motes, one Willpower when used in mass combat. It renders allies fearless within a range of (Essence x 20) yards, not (Essence x 5).

At Essence 3+, in addition to the listed effects, whenever the Solar or an ally under the effects of Heroism-Encouraging Presence channels Valor to enhance an action, they add successes rather than dice to the action at a rate of one success for every die that would have been added. If the action succeeds, the character is automatically refunded the Willpower spent to channel Valor.

Simple (Speed 6 in long ticks)

Pre-Req Charms: None
Keywords: Combo-OK, Obvious, War
Found in "Exalted (2e)" page 197

====== Tiger Warrior Training Technique ======

(10 motes 2wp; One Week; Simple; 4 War; 3 Essence; Normal XP Cost)
Dawn - War
Under the banner of the Solar Exalted, even bandits and peasants become deadly warriors. This Charm involves training a military unit. This Charm requires five or more hours of effort in any given week to bear fruit. This Charm increases the Drill of a unit by one for each week of training, to a maximum of Drill 5. In each week of training, the trainer picks one trait to train: Valor, Strength, Dexterity, Stamina, Archery, Dodge, Martial Arts or Melee. This Charm increases that trait for each member of the unit by one dot, to a maximum of 4. The Solar can train with the unit or as a solo unit, increasing her own traits. She cannot increase others' traits past her own.

Simple (Dramatic Action)

Pre-Req Charms: Heroism Encouraging Presence
Keywords: Obvious, Touch, Training
Found in "Exalted (2e)" page 198

====== Legendary Warrior Curriculum ======

(0 motes; One Turn per Essence; Permanent; 5 War; 4 Essence; Normal XP Cost)
Dawn - War
Solar Exalted imbue their warriors with something of their own nature. This Charm enhances the Exalt's ability to train warriors. This Charm allows him to use Tiger Warrior Training Technique to train others in any of the following:
-Military Abilities he possesses at 4 or more. In addition to the Abilities already available through Tiger Warrior Training Technique, military Abilities include Thrown, War, Integrity, Resistance, Survival, relevant Craft, Medicine, Athletics, Awareness, Stealth, Ride, and Sail.
-Willpower. The Exalt can train Willpower to a maximum of 7.
-Bonus dice. The Solar can devote one week's training to rare and special techniques. This gives trained characters two bonus dice or one bonus success for a specific activity defined by the Solar during training. This benefit must have military relevance, it does not apply to Exalted targets, and it is not cumulative. Characters must abandon their previous training and lose the previous bonus to benefit from this Charm again. This bonus can apply to rolls for any Ability and is considered an artificial two-die specialty that stacks with (at most) one die of other specialties. Examples include a one-success bonus in silent communication, a two-die bonus in fighting when outnumbered, and a two-die bonus for nocturnal fighting. Non-extras must pay four bonus points or eight experience points for this benefit, and they go into experience debt as usual if they cannot pay. The Storyteller is the final authority on whether a special technique has military relevance.

Pre-Req Charms: Tiger Warrior Training Technique
Keywords: Obvious
Found in "Exalted (2e)" page 198

====== Mob Dispersing Rebuke ======

(7 motes 1wp; Instant; Simple; 3 War; 2 Essence; Normal XP Cost)
Dawn - War
The Lawgiver chastises the unworthy rabble. This Charm forces the player of an enemy unit most of whose members are within (Essence x 100) yards to make an immediate check for rout. The difficulty of this roll is 1 if the unit has Magnitude greater than the Exalt's Essence, and 2 other otherwise. This Charm can be used socially rather than in war, in which case the Exalt can treat any mob gathering or social group he can reasonably chastise as the target military unit.

Simple (Speed 3 in long ticks)

Pre-Req Charms: None
Keywords: Combo-OK, Social, War
Found in "Exalted (2e)" page 197

==== Martial Arts Styles ====

===== Solar Hero Style =====

====== Fists of Iron Technique ======

(1 mote; One Action; Reflexive; 2 Martial Arts; 1 Essence; Normal XP Cost)
Solar Celestial Martial Arts 2e: Solar Hero Style
The Solar infuses her hands with the strength of her Essence and strikes like the Unconquered son. This Charm enhances an unarmed Martial Arts attack, improving its accuracy by one and its Damage by two and making its damage lethal. The Solar can parry lethal hand-to-hand attacks without a stunt until his next action

Enhancement: This Charm adds the magical material benefits of orichalcum to the Solar's natural attacks while Solar Hero Form is active.

Pre-Req Charms: None
Keywords: Combo-OK, Enhanced
Found in "Scroll of Errata (2e)" page 4 (core 242)

====== Dragon Coil Technique ======

(3 motes; Until Next Action; Reflexive; 3 Martial Arts; 2 Essence; Normal XP Cost)
Solar Celestial Martial Arts 2e: Solar Hero Style
The clinch of the Lawgivers does not fail. The Solar's grip is inexorable, and she may, if she chooses, squeeze the life from the strongest opponent. This charm makes clinch crush damage lethal. This charm also adds the Solar's Essence in dice to the dice pool to inflict, maintain and control a clinch. It also adds the character's Essence to the damage of clinch crush attacks.

This Charm cannot be placed in a Combo with extra-action Charms.

Enhancement: The dice added by this Charm do not count toward the Solar’s dice caps.

Reflexive (Step 1)

Pre-Req Charms: Fists of Iron Technique
Keywords: Combo-OK, Enhanced
Found in "Scroll of Errata (2e)" page 0 (October 2010 edition)

====== Sledgehammer Fist Punch ======

(3 motes; Instant; Supplemental; 3 Martial Arts; 2 Essence; Normal XP Cost)
Solar Celestial Martial Arts 2e: Solar Hero Style
This Charm is also called the 'Pillar Breaking Blow'. The Lawgiver's anima flares and he strikes like the judgment of Heaven. This Charm supplements an unarmed Martial Arts attack against an inanimate object, doubling the raw (pre-soak) damage of the attack.

Enhancement: When used by a Solar, this Charm costs one mote and also ignores the object's soak.

Martial-ready: Melee.

Pre-Req Charms: Fists of Iron Technique
Keywords: Combo-OK, Obvious, Enhanced, Martial-ready
Found in "Scroll of Errata (2e)" page 4 (core 242)

====== Solar Hero Form ======

(6 motes; One Scene; Simple; 4 Martial Arts; 2 Essence; Normal XP Cost)
Solar Celestial Martial Arts 2e: Solar Hero Style
The Solare suffuses his body with the Essence of the Sun. He becomes a paragon of strength and skill, radiant with the power of a legendary hero returned. There is nothing formal to this fighting style, but there is an unstoppable and unchallengeable grace to it. This is an honest battle art, for champions, gladiators, and heroes. It was forged in the dawning of the world so that the Lawgivers could face the greatest monsters with nothing save their hands and skill and be undaunted by them.

Like Snake Form, this Charm cannot be activated at the same time as another Form Charm without first deactivating the other Form. This is the usual restriction placed on all Form-type Charms.

This Charm allows the Exalt to count the successes of unarmed Martial Arts attacks twice for the purposes of determining damage. She must spend one mote reflexively in Step 7 of attack resolution each time she takes advantage of this effect. This charm also allows the character to make an unarmed Martial Arts block against ranged and lethal attacks without a stunt.

Enhancement: While this Charm is active, the Solar adds his Martial Arts rating to his natural bashing and lethal soak.

Pre-Req Charms: Dragon Coil Technique, Sledgehammer Fist Punch
Keywords: Combo-Basic, Form-type, Obvious, Enhanced
Found in "Scroll of Errata (2e)" page 0 (October 2010 edition)

====== Knockout Blow ======

(4 motes; Instant; Supplemental; 4 Martial Arts; 2 Essence; Normal XP Cost)
Solar Celestial Martial Arts 2e: Solar Hero Style
Solar exalted with this Charm can topple even behemoths with a single punch. This Charm supplements an unarmed Martial Arts attack. This charm takes effect if the attack hits and inflicts even one health level of damage. If [damage successes x Exalt's Esssence] is greater than the target's remaining health levels, this Charm knocks the target unconscious, and the target remains so for a scene.

Pre-Req Charms: Solar Hero Form
Keywords: Combo-OK, Crippling, Obvious
Found in "Exalted (2e)" page 190

===== Seafareing Hero Style =====

Doldrums-Induced Tempo: (3 motes; Instant; Supplemental; 3 Martial Arts; 1 Essence; Normal XP Cost)
Terrestrial Martial Arts 2e: Seafaring Hero Style
All sailors know the danger of getting caught in the doldrums. Experienced sailors fear pirates less than sitting on the sea with no wind, or brief puffs from random directions because it mixes boredom with bad company and dwindling supplies. Eventually, men go mad from entrapment on the becalmed sea. The martial artist using this Charm has meditated upon that experience, and she knows how to use its madness as a weapon. Her steps are unexpected, and her blows come from surprising quarters, making it more difficult to defend against the character’s attack. Her target suffers a -2 penalty to his DV against this attack (-1 if he has three or more dots in Sail). Should the attack connect, it throws the target off balance and degrades his ability to move in his own defense. He then suffers the same penalty against all attacks in that tick. The attacker may not take a Move action in the same tick she uses this Charm.

Pre-Req Charms: None
Keywords: Combo-OK
Found in "Scroll of the Monk (2e)" page 59

====== Sea Spider Plunge ====== (2 motes; Instant; Simple; 3 Martial Arts; 1 Essence; Normal XP Cost)
Terrestrial Martial Arts 2e: Seafaring Hero Style
Skipping above the black depths, nothing can drown the sea spiders of the Coral Archipelago. They dance on the waves and pierce that blue veil only to kill their prey. After a shipwreck, clever islanders watch the spiders, waiting for their strong mandibles to catch and drag up the dead. Having learned the first mysteries of the style, a student can drag foes from the ship that carries him with the same mastery. Activating this Charm, the character “dips” into a battle on decks from above. As a single action, the character sweeps downward on a rope and makes a clinch attack against one target. He completes the motion by swinging back up into the rigging, generally with his victim. This action has a -2 DV penalty and allows the character to exceed the normal movement limits of the Move action.

Pre-Req Charms: None
Keywords: Combo-OK
Found in "Scroll of the Monk (2e)" page 59

====== Stuck Rudder Infliction ======

(2 motes; Essence in actions; Supplemental; 3 Martial Arts; 1 Essence; Normal XP Cost)
Terrestrial Martial Arts 2e: Seafaring Hero Style
The rudder is half a ship’s will, and it must be kept in good repair. Should it become warped or damaged, the crew loses control over how the ship moves. With some practice, students of this style learn how to inflict this same problem on others. The character supplements a clinch attack or an opposed grappling check with this Charm. If the attack succeeds, he must immediately release his opponent. For the duration of the Charm, the target can move in one only direction dictated by the martial artist. This direction must be absolute to the environment (“toward the aft, toward that door, that way”), not relative to the character (“away from me”). Targets may choose instead not to move at all.

Pre-Req Charms: None
Keywords: Combo-OK
Found in "Scroll of the Monk (2e)" page 59

====== Seafaring Hero Form ======

(5 motes; One Scene; Simple; 3 Martial Arts; 2 Essence; Normal XP Cost)
Terrestrial Martial Arts 2e: Seafaring Hero Style
True Seafaring Heroes are greater than any mere storm or rolling deck. While on a ship, the martial artist ignores up to (Martial Arts) dice worth of penalty due to environmental factors. She also knows how to roll with attacks, much as a well-tended ship rolls over the waves of lesser storms. By voluntarily reducing her DV by one against a single attack, she can reduce the raw damage she suffers by three dice. She may not reduce her DV by an amount greater than her Essence.

Pre-Req Charms: Doldrums-Induced Tempo, Sea Spider Plunge, Stuck Rudder Infliction
Keywords: Combo-Basic, Form-type
Found in "Scroll of the Monk (2e)" page 59

====== Full-Stroked Ramming Kick ======

(4 motes; Instant; Simple; 4 Martial Arts; 2 Essence; Normal XP Cost)
Terrestrial Martial Arts 2e: Seafaring Hero Style
Just as the ship that uses the most slaves for its ramming scuttles the most enemy ships, the warrior who strikes with the greatest speed lays his enemies low. The character moves up to (Dexterity + 6) yards before this attack, at least half of which he spends flying through the air with his foot extended. When he connects, he adds a number of dice equal to his Martial Arts to his raw damage, and one die to his minimum damage. If his opponent successfully dodges, the hero must spend his next tick moving the same distance past his target. Attacking in this manner by swinging from the rigging adds another die to damage and increases the difficulty to resist knockdown to 4.

Pre-Req Charms: Seafaring Hero Form
Keywords: Combo-OK
Found in "Scroll of the Monk (2e)" page 60

====== Terrible Sail-Rending Assault ======

(4 motes; MA in actions; Supplemental; 4 Martial Arts; 2 Essence; Normal XP Cost)
Terrestrial Martial Arts 2e: Seafaring Hero Style
In ship-to-ship combat, one of the most effective tactics is to target an opponent’s sails, rendering her ship dead in the water until her crew can repair the damage. While inflicting damage on an enemy with a Martial Arts attack, the Exalt makes sure that he retains the maneuverability advantage. Each health level of damage inflicted with this Charm reduces a target’s Move and Dash actions by two yards, to a minimum of zero. Characters with a Move action of zero yards suffer a -2 internal penalty to their Dodge DVs.

Pre-Req Charms: Seafaring Hero Form
Keywords: Combo-OK, Crippling
Found in "Scroll of the Monk (2e)" page 60

====== Wave-Riding Navy-Breaker ======

(3 motes; Until Next Action; Simple; 4 Martial Arts; 2 Essence; Normal XP Cost)
Terrestrial Martial Arts 2e: Seafaring Hero Style
Waves grow strong over time as the winds build them up. Over hundreds of leagues, they change from mere ripples to behemoths ready to tear ships to shreds. The most brilliant captains learn how to ride such waves, traveling incredibly quickly and getting the drop on their waterborne foes. The character emulates both the wave and the ship by building up her strength to unleash a massive blow on her target.

When the character invokes this Charm, her player rolls (Strength + Martial Arts). Each success adds one to the raw damage of the attack the martial artist makes on her next action. Perceptive opponents might notice her marshaling her inner strength and collecting herself for a blow. Instead of attacking, a martial artist may use this Charm again and accumulate even more raw damage. Each subsequent use of this Charm subtracts two dice from the (Strength + Martial Arts) pool, and the character may not use this Charm when it provides zero dice. If her next action is not an attack or invoking this Charm, the Seafaring Hero loses its benefit.

Simple (Speed 3)

Pre-Req Charms: Seafaring Hero Form
Keywords: Combo-Basic, Stackable
Found in "Scroll of the Monk (2e)" page 60

====== Sail-Furling Invulnerability ======

(3 motes 1wp; Instant; Reflexive; 5 Martial Arts; 3 Essence; Normal XP Cost)
Terrestrial Martial Arts 2e: Seafaring Hero Style
Sailors know no fury worse than the wind of a storm, which can topple a ship or tear its mast straight off. The best proof against such danger is to drop all sails, reducing the wind’s grip as much as possible. Martial artists apply the same technique to their defenses. Dropping her arms to her sides and presenting as small a target as possible, blue-black winds of Essence howl past and around the character, causing attacks against her to miss. This Charm supplies a perfect defense against dodgeable ranged attacks that are not enhanced by stunts or Charms, and it adds three to the character’s Dodge DV in any case. The Charm also grants this Dodge DV bonus against Melee and Martial Arts attacks.

Reflexive (Step 2)

Pre-Req Charms: Full-Stroked Ramming Kick, Terrible Sail-Rending Assault, Wave-Riding Navy-Breaker
Keywords: Combo-Basic, Obvious
Found in "Scroll of the Monk (2e)" page 61

==== Excellencies: ====

The First Excellency (Essence Overwhelming): Presence
The Second Excellency (Essence Triumphant): Martial Arts, War
The Third Excellency (Essence Resurgent): Dodge

Combos 

Sorcery 

Combat 
Join Battle 8, Soak 6B/6L, Hardness 1B/1L, Dodge DV 6, Mobility Penalty , Fatigue 
Punch: Speed 5, Accuracy 9, Damage 2, Parry DV 5, Rate 3, Tags N 
Kick: Speed 5, Accuracy 8, Damage 5, Parry DV 3, Rate 2, Tags N 
Clinch: Speed 6, Accuracy 8, Damage 2, Parry DV -, Rate 1, Tags C, N, P 

Social Combat 
Join Debate 8, Mental Dodge DV 8 
Presence: Speed 4, Accuracy 7, Parry 4, Rate 2 
Performance: Speed 6, Accuracy 10, Parry 5, Rate 1 
Investigation: Speed 5, Accuracy 6, Parry 3, Rate 2 

=== Intimacies ===

=== Description ===

=== History ===

Plot Hooks: To use ON Merela/Mirela/Mirelu 

#1: Consult "The Gracinder Guidebook" for a surfeit of ideas. 

#2: Freeing Nelens Bunraku Suraku from Thazda's control. 

#3: Read the "Heralds of Valdemar" series by Mercedes Lacky, adapt as needed. 

#4: "[Blank] is going to destroy [Something Merela would remember from The First Age]; we have to stop them!" 

#5: "Mirelu, do you care NOTHING for Verangia? [Harborhead or The Dhelzhen or some other traditional enemy] means to destroy us, and the prognostication says that our only hope of stopping them this time lies in securing your aid..." 

Plot Hooks: To use WITH Merela/Mirela/Mirelu 

#1: "Your Afrontery can no longer be borne, in the name of heaven; the skies above, the sea below, and the land & ships between; The Glorious Sea Nation of Grecinder hereby declares WAR upon your ingrateful and ungracious hunk of rock! Prepare what defenses you will, within one year's time, naught shall remain of them save memories and ruins..."

XP: 
Spent: 
Unspent: 
Total: 231 

Spent For/On Date:

Nemo of Utopia:Characters/Mirelu

2020-09-25T00:13:40Z

Nemo of Utopia: Boom! Content!

neName: Merela/Mirela/Mirelu 

=== Concepts ===
Caste: Eclipse 
Motivation: Merela: To reclaim her staus as High-Queen of Creation. Mirela: To see to it that the reborn Solar Deliberative does not repeat the mistakes of its predecessor, by whatever means necessary. Mirelu: To restore the status of the Peoples of creation to the heights they enjoyed during the first age. 
Anima: Herself as she was in the prime of her life during the first age, dressed in her full regalia. 
Concept: The Once-and-Future Queen of All Creation. 

=== Attributes ===
PHYSICAL 
Strength: • •, Dexterity: • • • • •, Stamina: • •. 
SOCIAL 
Charisma: • • •, Manipulation: • •, Appearance: • • • • •. 
MENTAL 
Perception: • •, Intelligence: • • Wits: • • • • •. 

=== Abilities ===

Dawn:Archery 0, *Martial Arts 5, Melee 0, *Thrown 3, *War 5. 
Zenith:Integrity 3, Performance 5, Presence 3, Resistance 0, Survival 3. 
Twilight: *Craft: ''See Sub-Section'', Investigation 0, Lore 3, Medicine 0, *Occult 1. 
Night:Athletics 0, Awareness 1, Dodge 5, Larceny 0, Stealth 0. 
Eclipse: *Bureaucracy 0, *Linguistics 5, *Ride 0, *Sail 0, *Socialize 3. 

Crafts: 'Elemental' 3, Air 0, Earth 0, Fire 0, Water 0, Wood 0. 

=== Backgrounds ===

Ally 1: ••• Nellens Buniraku Suraku: Water Aspected Dragonblooded Bodyguard/Lover. (Currently sorcerously bound by Thazda, can't be fully trusted till that can be fixed.)

Artifact 1: ••• Slayer Katars: styled with the heads of elephants instead of rams, these Katars were recovered from a ruined manse sunken at the bottom of the western ocean by Nellens Buniraku Suraku shortly before Merela returned from death and bound him to her service.

Artifact 2: •• Discrete Essence Armor: This magical protective gear is also styled with elephantine imagery and was recovered from the same cache.

Artifact 3: • Hearthstone Compass: This compass was one of Nellens Buniraku Suraku's treasure hunting tools. An early-middle-Shogunate era example of the type, he gifted it to Mirela after he reunited with her following their escape from the Wyld Hunt as proof of his loyalty.

Manse 1: ••• The Spire of Buena Aires: The hearthstone of this manse was embedded in the Discreet Essence Armor's Hearthstone Socket, Using the Hearthstone Compass Mirela was able to find it, not too far from the island she claimed for her nation of Grecinder, and attune to the manse. It is a late first age design, showing distinct Dragon-Blooded influences but clearly built by a solar craftswoman, not one of the Dragon-Blooded, and is a potent example of a three-dot manse. Its hearthstone is a Stone of Easy Breath, with a slight oddity of color and shape. Mirela found the manse inhabited by the descendants of the original cleaning and maintenance crews. She easily cowed them into obedience and many of them are now part of the population of Gracinder as experts on geomancy and thaumaturges of various other kinds.

=== Virtues ===
Compassion ••••, Conviction ••••, Temperance •, Valor ••• 
Limit 
Willpower ••••• ••••• 
Essence •••• 
Personal 
Peripheral 
Comitted 

Health Levels 0*2, -1*4, -2*4, -4*2, I*2, D*

=== Charms ===

==== Dodge ====

====== Reflex Sidestep Technique =======

(1 motes; Instant; Reflexive; 3 Dodge; 1 Essence; Normal XP Cost)
Night - Dodge
The heroes of the dawn are in tune with the Essence of the world. The Exalt invokes this Charm in response to an unexpected attack. The attack is no longer unexpected (but if an appropriate Charm, it remains unblockable). This allows the character to use his Dodge DV and Charms such as Seven Shadow Evasion against the attack.

Reflexive (Step 2)

Pre-Req Charms: None
Keywords: Combo-OK, Dawn
Found in "Exalted (2e)" page 227

==== Integrity ====

====== Righteous Lion Defense ======

(0 motes; Permanent; Permanent; 3 Integrity; 1 Essence; Normal XP Cost)
Zenith - Integrity
To the Solar Exalted, 'death' and 'surrender' are almost the same things. This Charm helps a character hold fast to her fundamental Intimacies in the face of temptation. The player picks one of the character's Intimacies when purchasing this Charm. For the purposes of this Solar Charm, this loyalty must be to an ideal---not to a person or a love, but sometimes to a relationship; not to a tribe or city, but sometimes to the nation she might build of them; not to a battle or war, but to the extinction of one foe or the conquest of a great region. (Other Exalted have versions of this Charm that support different commitments.)
This Charm allows the character to treat mental influence to betray or forsake that Intimacy as an unacceptable order (see page 180). If the character voluntarily abandons that Intimacy or it becomes obsolete, this Charm ceases to function until, first, a new story begins and, second, the Character chooses a new Intimacy to which the Charm applies. Players can also shift this Charm to a new Intimacy at any time by spending one experience point.
Players can purchase this Charm a second time to reinforce one additional Intimacy. Any further loyalties require more specialized magic.

Pre-Req Charms: None
Keywords: None
Found in "Exalted (2e)" page 199

(Mirela's RLD is to Providing "Shust-Und-Shur"\* to Gracinder & it's people.)
\*(A complicated concept that can most closely be translated into English without a long dissertation on it's many nuances as 'Defense-and-Protection' though I do feel I have to clarify that this includes protection from things like starvation and natural disaster.)

==== Lore ====

Chaos Repelling Pattern: (8 motes; One Hour; Simple; 3 Lore; 3 Essence; Normal XP Cost)
Twilight - Lore
The presence of the Lawgivers wards away chaos. This Charm surrounds the character with a mystic pattern of Essence---what the Fair Folk call an 'island of Creation' or a 'dead waypoint.' The character's immediate vicinity---out to (her Essence) in yards---functions according to the laws of Creation, even if the character is in the Wyld, Malfeas, or some stranger location.

Pre-Req Charms: None
Keywords: Combo-OK, Obvious
Found in "Exalted (2e)" page 216

==== Presence ====

====== Irresistible Salesman Spirit ======

(3 motes; Instant; Supplemental; 4 Presence; 2 Essence; Normal XP Cost)
Zenith - Presence
The glamour of the Lawgivers inspires others to dream of glorious things. This makes the Solars the ultimate salesman and recruiters. Irresistible Salesman Spirit enhances a Presence-based roll to exert mental influence and make a favorable bargain or encourage a specific action. This Charm doubles the Solar's successes on the roll before comparing them to the target's MDV.

Pre-Req Charms: Any Presence Excellency°
Keywords: Combo-Basic, Social
Found in "Exalted (2e)" page 204

==== War ====

====== Heroism Encouraging Presence ======

(5 motes or 5m, 1wp;; One Scene; Simple; 4 War; 2 Essence; Normal XP Cost)
Dawn - War
The Chosen radiate the confidence and surety of the Unconquered Sun. This Charm affects any unit or social group that the Solar commands and every ally within (Essence x 5) yards. This Charm's targets no longer need to make Valor checks. In war, this Charm prevents rout and reduces the chance of fatigue (see page 374).

This Charm costs five motes when used in combat or social combat, or five motes, one Willpower when used in mass combat. It renders allies fearless within a range of (Essence x 20) yards, not (Essence x 5).

At Essence 3+, in addition to the listed effects, whenever the Solar or an ally under the effects of Heroism-Encouraging Presence channels Valor to enhance an action, they add successes rather than dice to the action at a rate of one success for every die that would have been added. If the action succeeds, the character is automatically refunded the Willpower spent to channel Valor.

Simple (Speed 6 in long ticks)

Pre-Req Charms: None
Keywords: Combo-OK, Obvious, War
Found in "Exalted (2e)" page 197

====== Tiger Warrior Training Technique ======

(10 motes 2wp; One Week; Simple; 4 War; 3 Essence; Normal XP Cost)
Dawn - War
Under the banner of the Solar Exalted, even bandits and peasants become deadly warriors. This Charm involves training a military unit. This Charm requires five or more hours of effort in any given week to bear fruit. This Charm increases the Drill of a unit by one for each week of training, to a maximum of Drill 5. In each week of training, the trainer picks one trait to train: Valor, Strength, Dexterity, Stamina, Archery, Dodge, Martial Arts or Melee. This Charm increases that trait for each member of the unit by one dot, to a maximum of 4. The Solar can train with the unit or as a solo unit, increasing her own traits. She cannot increase others' traits past her own.

Simple (Dramatic Action)

Pre-Req Charms: Heroism Encouraging Presence
Keywords: Obvious, Touch, Training
Found in "Exalted (2e)" page 198

====== Legendary Warrior Curriculum ======

(0 motes; One Turn per Essence; Permanent; 5 War; 4 Essence; Normal XP Cost)
Dawn - War
Solar Exalted imbue their warriors with something of their own nature. This Charm enhances the Exalt's ability to train warriors. This Charm allows him to use Tiger Warrior Training Technique to train others in any of the following:
-Military Abilities he possesses at 4 or more. In addition to the Abilities already available through Tiger Warrior Training Technique, military Abilities include Thrown, War, Integrity, Resistance, Survival, relevant Craft, Medicine, Athletics, Awareness, Stealth, Ride, and Sail.
-Willpower. The Exalt can train Willpower to a maximum of 7.
-Bonus dice. The Solar can devote one week's training to rare and special techniques. This gives trained characters two bonus dice or one bonus success for a specific activity defined by the Solar during training. This benefit must have military relevance, it does not apply to Exalted targets, and it is not cumulative. Characters must abandon their previous training and lose the previous bonus to benefit from this Charm again. This bonus can apply to rolls for any Ability and is considered an artificial two-die specialty that stacks with (at most) one die of other specialties. Examples include a one-success bonus in silent communication, a two-die bonus in fighting when outnumbered, and a two-die bonus for nocturnal fighting. Non-extras must pay four bonus points or eight experience points for this benefit, and they go into experience debt as usual if they cannot pay. The Storyteller is the final authority on whether a special technique has military relevance.

Pre-Req Charms: Tiger Warrior Training Technique
Keywords: Obvious
Found in "Exalted (2e)" page 198

====== Mob Dispersing Rebuke ======

(7 motes 1wp; Instant; Simple; 3 War; 2 Essence; Normal XP Cost)
Dawn - War
The Lawgiver chastises the unworthy rabble. This Charm forces the player of an enemy unit most of whose members are within (Essence x 100) yards to make an immediate check for rout. The difficulty of this roll is 1 if the unit has Magnitude greater than the Exalt's Essence, and 2 other otherwise. This Charm can be used socially rather than in war, in which case the Exalt can treat any mob gathering or social group he can reasonably chastise as the target military unit.

Simple (Speed 3 in long ticks)

Pre-Req Charms: None
Keywords: Combo-OK, Social, War
Found in "Exalted (2e)" page 197

==== Martial Arts Styles ====

===== Solar Hero Style =====

====== Fists of Iron Technique ======

(1 mote; One Action; Reflexive; 2 Martial Arts; 1 Essence; Normal XP Cost)
Solar Celestial Martial Arts 2e: Solar Hero Style
The Solar infuses her hands with the strength of her Essence and strikes like the Unconquered son. This Charm enhances an unarmed Martial Arts attack, improving its accuracy by one and its Damage by two and making its damage lethal. The Solar can parry lethal hand-to-hand attacks without a stunt until his next action

Enhancement: This Charm adds the magical material benefits of orichalcum to the Solar's natural attacks while Solar Hero Form is active.

Pre-Req Charms: None
Keywords: Combo-OK, Enhanced
Found in "Scroll of Errata (2e)" page 4 (core 242)

====== Dragon Coil Technique ======

(3 motes; Until Next Action; Reflexive; 3 Martial Arts; 2 Essence; Normal XP Cost)
Solar Celestial Martial Arts 2e: Solar Hero Style
The clinch of the Lawgivers does not fail. The Solar's grip is inexorable, and she may, if she chooses, squeeze the life from the strongest opponent. This charm makes clinch crush damage lethal. This charm also adds the Solar's Essence in dice to the dice pool to inflict, maintain and control a clinch. It also adds the character's Essence to the damage of clinch crush attacks.

This Charm cannot be placed in a Combo with extra-action Charms.

Enhancement: The dice added by this Charm do not count toward the Solar’s dice caps.

Reflexive (Step 1)

Pre-Req Charms: Fists of Iron Technique
Keywords: Combo-OK, Enhanced
Found in "Scroll of Errata (2e)" page 0 (October 2010 edition)

====== Sledgehammer Fist Punch ======

(3 motes; Instant; Supplemental; 3 Martial Arts; 2 Essence; Normal XP Cost)
Solar Celestial Martial Arts 2e: Solar Hero Style
This Charm is also called the 'Pillar Breaking Blow'. The Lawgiver's anima flares and he strikes like the judgment of Heaven. This Charm supplements an unarmed Martial Arts attack against an inanimate object, doubling the raw (pre-soak) damage of the attack.

Enhancement: When used by a Solar, this Charm costs one mote and also ignores the object's soak.

Martial-ready: Melee.

Pre-Req Charms: Fists of Iron Technique
Keywords: Combo-OK, Obvious, Enhanced, Martial-ready
Found in "Scroll of Errata (2e)" page 4 (core 242)

====== Solar Hero Form ======

(6 motes; One Scene; Simple; 4 Martial Arts; 2 Essence; Normal XP Cost)
Solar Celestial Martial Arts 2e: Solar Hero Style
The Solare suffuses his body with the Essence of the Sun. He becomes a paragon of strength and skill, radiant with the power of a legendary hero returned. There is nothing formal to this fighting style, but there is an unstoppable and unchallengeable grace to it. This is an honest battle art, for champions, gladiators, and heroes. It was forged in the dawning of the world so that the Lawgivers could face the greatest monsters with nothing save their hands and skill and be undaunted by them.

Like Snake Form, this Charm cannot be activated at the same time as another Form Charm without first deactivating the other Form. This is the usual restriction placed on all Form-type Charms.

This Charm allows the Exalt to count the successes of unarmed Martial Arts attacks twice for the purposes of determining damage. She must spend one mote reflexively in Step 7 of attack resolution each time she takes advantage of this effect. This charm also allows the character to make an unarmed Martial Arts block against ranged and lethal attacks without a stunt.

Enhancement: While this Charm is active, the Solar adds his Martial Arts rating to his natural bashing and lethal soak.

Pre-Req Charms: Dragon Coil Technique, Sledgehammer Fist Punch
Keywords: Combo-Basic, Form-type, Obvious, Enhanced
Found in "Scroll of Errata (2e)" page 0 (October 2010 edition)

====== Knockout Blow ======

(4 motes; Instant; Supplemental; 4 Martial Arts; 2 Essence; Normal XP Cost)
Solar Celestial Martial Arts 2e: Solar Hero Style
Solar exalted with this Charm can topple even behemoths with a single punch. This Charm supplements an unarmed Martial Arts attack. This charm takes effect if the attack hits and inflicts even one health level of damage. If [damage successes x Exalt's Esssence] is greater than the target's remaining health levels, this Charm knocks the target unconscious, and the target remains so for a scene.

Pre-Req Charms: Solar Hero Form
Keywords: Combo-OK, Crippling, Obvious
Found in "Exalted (2e)" page 190

===== Seafareing Hero Style =====

Doldrums-Induced Tempo: (3 motes; Instant; Supplemental; 3 Martial Arts; 1 Essence; Normal XP Cost)
Terrestrial Martial Arts 2e: Seafaring Hero Style
All sailors know the danger of getting caught in the doldrums. Experienced sailors fear pirates less than sitting on the sea with no wind, or brief puffs from random directions because it mixes boredom with bad company and dwindling supplies. Eventually, men go mad from entrapment on the becalmed sea. The martial artist using this Charm has meditated upon that experience, and she knows how to use its madness as a weapon. Her steps are unexpected, and her blows come from surprising quarters, making it more difficult to defend against the character’s attack. Her target suffers a -2 penalty to his DV against this attack (-1 if he has three or more dots in Sail). Should the attack connect, it throws the target off balance and degrades his ability to move in his own defense. He then suffers the same penalty against all attacks in that tick. The attacker may not take a Move action in the same tick she uses this Charm.

Pre-Req Charms: None
Keywords: Combo-OK
Found in "Scroll of the Monk (2e)" page 59

====== Sea Spider Plunge ====== (2 motes; Instant; Simple; 3 Martial Arts; 1 Essence; Normal XP Cost)
Terrestrial Martial Arts 2e: Seafaring Hero Style
Skipping above the black depths, nothing can drown the sea spiders of the Coral Archipelago. They dance on the waves and pierce that blue veil only to kill their prey. After a shipwreck, clever islanders watch the spiders, waiting for their strong mandibles to catch and drag up the dead. Having learned the first mysteries of the style, a student can drag foes from the ship that carries him with the same mastery. Activating this Charm, the character “dips” into a battle on decks from above. As a single action, the character sweeps downward on a rope and makes a clinch attack against one target. He completes the motion by swinging back up into the rigging, generally with his victim. This action has a -2 DV penalty and allows the character to exceed the normal movement limits of the Move action.

Pre-Req Charms: None
Keywords: Combo-OK
Found in "Scroll of the Monk (2e)" page 59

====== Stuck Rudder Infliction ======

(2 motes; Essence in actions; Supplemental; 3 Martial Arts; 1 Essence; Normal XP Cost)
Terrestrial Martial Arts 2e: Seafaring Hero Style
The rudder is half a ship’s will, and it must be kept in good repair. Should it become warped or damaged, the crew loses control over how the ship moves. With some practice, students of this style learn how to inflict this same problem on others. The character supplements a clinch attack or an opposed grappling check with this Charm. If the attack succeeds, he must immediately release his opponent. For the duration of the Charm, the target can move in one only direction dictated by the martial artist. This direction must be absolute to the environment (“toward the aft, toward that door, that way”), not relative to the character (“away from me”). Targets may choose instead not to move at all.

Pre-Req Charms: None
Keywords: Combo-OK
Found in "Scroll of the Monk (2e)" page 59

====== Seafaring Hero Form ======

(5 motes; One Scene; Simple; 3 Martial Arts; 2 Essence; Normal XP Cost)
Terrestrial Martial Arts 2e: Seafaring Hero Style
True Seafaring Heroes are greater than any mere storm or rolling deck. While on a ship, the martial artist ignores up to (Martial Arts) dice worth of penalty due to environmental factors. She also knows how to roll with attacks, much as a well-tended ship rolls over the waves of lesser storms. By voluntarily reducing her DV by one against a single attack, she can reduce the raw damage she suffers by three dice. She may not reduce her DV by an amount greater than her Essence.

Pre-Req Charms: Doldrums-Induced Tempo, Sea Spider Plunge, Stuck Rudder Infliction
Keywords: Combo-Basic, Form-type
Found in "Scroll of the Monk (2e)" page 59

====== Full-Stroked Ramming Kick ======

(4 motes; Instant; Simple; 4 Martial Arts; 2 Essence; Normal XP Cost)
Terrestrial Martial Arts 2e: Seafaring Hero Style
Just as the ship that uses the most slaves for its ramming scuttles the most enemy ships, the warrior who strikes with the greatest speed lays his enemies low. The character moves up to (Dexterity + 6) yards before this attack, at least half of which he spends flying through the air with his foot extended. When he connects, he adds a number of dice equal to his Martial Arts to his raw damage, and one die to his minimum damage. If his opponent successfully dodges, the hero must spend his next tick moving the same distance past his target. Attacking in this manner by swinging from the rigging adds another die to damage and increases the difficulty to resist knockdown to 4.

Pre-Req Charms: Seafaring Hero Form
Keywords: Combo-OK
Found in "Scroll of the Monk (2e)" page 60

====== Terrible Sail-Rending Assault ======

(4 motes; MA in actions; Supplemental; 4 Martial Arts; 2 Essence; Normal XP Cost)
Terrestrial Martial Arts 2e: Seafaring Hero Style
In ship-to-ship combat, one of the most effective tactics is to target an opponent’s sails, rendering her ship dead in the water until her crew can repair the damage. While inflicting damage on an enemy with a Martial Arts attack, the Exalt makes sure that he retains the maneuverability advantage. Each health level of damage inflicted with this Charm reduces a target’s Move and Dash actions by two yards, to a minimum of zero. Characters with a Move action of zero yards suffer a -2 internal penalty to their Dodge DVs.

Pre-Req Charms: Seafaring Hero Form
Keywords: Combo-OK, Crippling
Found in "Scroll of the Monk (2e)" page 60

====== Wave-Riding Navy-Breaker ======

(3 motes; Until Next Action; Simple; 4 Martial Arts; 2 Essence; Normal XP Cost)
Terrestrial Martial Arts 2e: Seafaring Hero Style
Waves grow strong over time as the winds build them up. Over hundreds of leagues, they change from mere ripples to behemoths ready to tear ships to shreds. The most brilliant captains learn how to ride such waves, traveling incredibly quickly and getting the drop on their waterborne foes. The character emulates both the wave and the ship by building up her strength to unleash a massive blow on her target.

When the character invokes this Charm, her player rolls (Strength + Martial Arts). Each success adds one to the raw damage of the attack the martial artist makes on her next action. Perceptive opponents might notice her marshaling her inner strength and collecting herself for a blow. Instead of attacking, a martial artist may use this Charm again and accumulate even more raw damage. Each subsequent use of this Charm subtracts two dice from the (Strength + Martial Arts) pool, and the character may not use this Charm when it provides zero dice. If her next action is not an attack or invoking this Charm, the Seafaring Hero loses its benefit.

Simple (Speed 3)

Pre-Req Charms: Seafaring Hero Form
Keywords: Combo-Basic, Stackable
Found in "Scroll of the Monk (2e)" page 60

====== Sail-Furling Invulnerability ======

(3 motes 1wp; Instant; Reflexive; 5 Martial Arts; 3 Essence; Normal XP Cost)
Terrestrial Martial Arts 2e: Seafaring Hero Style
Sailors know no fury worse than the wind of a storm, which can topple a ship or tear its mast straight off. The best proof against such danger is to drop all sails, reducing the wind’s grip as much as possible. Martial artists apply the same technique to their defenses. Dropping her arms to her sides and presenting as small a target as possible, blue-black winds of Essence howl past and around the character, causing attacks against her to miss. This Charm supplies a perfect defense against dodgeable ranged attacks that are not enhanced by stunts or Charms, and it adds three to the character’s Dodge DV in any case. The Charm also grants this Dodge DV bonus against Melee and Martial Arts attacks.

Reflexive (Step 2)

Pre-Req Charms: Full-Stroked Ramming Kick, Terrible Sail-Rending Assault, Wave-Riding Navy-Breaker
Keywords: Combo-Basic, Obvious
Found in "Scroll of the Monk (2e)" page 61

==== Excellencies: ====

The First Excellency (Essence Overwhelming): Presence
The Second Excellency (Essence Triumphant): Martial Arts, War
The Third Excellency (Essence Resurgent): Dodge

Combos 

Sorcery 

Combat 
Join Battle 8, Soak 6B/6L, Hardness 1B/1L, Dodge DV 6, Mobility Penalty , Fatigue 
Punch: Speed 5, Accuracy 9, Damage 2, Parry DV 5, Rate 3, Tags N 
Kick: Speed 5, Accuracy 8, Damage 5, Parry DV 3, Rate 2, Tags N 
Clinch: Speed 6, Accuracy 8, Damage 2, Parry DV -, Rate 1, Tags C, N, P 

Social Combat 
Join Debate 8, Mental Dodge DV 8 
Presence: Speed 4, Accuracy 7, Parry 4, Rate 2 
Performance: Speed 6, Accuracy 10, Parry 5, Rate 1 
Investigation: Speed 5, Accuracy 6, Parry 3, Rate 2 

=== Intimacies ===

=== Description ===

=== History ===

Plot Hooks: To use ON Merela/Mirela/Mirelu 

#1: Consult "The Gracinder Guidebook" for a surfeit of ideas. 

#2: Freeing Nelens Bunraku Suraku from Thazda's control. 

#3: Read the "Heralds of Valdemar" series by Mercedes Lacky, adapt as needed. 

#4: "[Blank] is going to destroy [Something Merela would remember from The First Age]; we have to stop them!" 

#5: "Mirelu, do you care NOTHING for Verangia? [Harborhead or The Dhelzhen or some other traditional enemy] means to destroy us, and the prognostication says that our only hope of stopping them this time lies in securing your aid..." 

Plot Hooks: To use WITH Merela/Mirela/Mirelu 

#1: "Your Afrontery can no longer be borne, in the name of heaven; the skies above, the sea below, and the land & ships between; The Glorious Sea Nation of Grecinder hereby declares WAR upon your ingrateful and ungracious hunk of rock! Prepare what defenses you will, within one year's time, naught shall remain of them save memories and ruins..."

XP: 
Spent: 
Unspent: 
Total: 231 

Spent For/On Date:

Nemo of Utopia:Characters/Mirelu

2020-09-24T23:15:01Z

Nemo of Utopia:

neName: Merela/Mirela/Mirelu 
Caste: Eclipse 
Motivation: Merela: To reclaim her staus as High-Queen of Creation. Mirela: To see to it that the reborn Solar Deliberative does not repeat the mistakes of its predecessor, by whatever means necessary. Mirelu: To restore the status of the Peoples of creation to the heights they enjoyed during the first age. 
Anima: Herself as she was in the prime of her life during the first age, dressed in her full regalia. 
Concept: The Once-and-Future Queen of All Creation. 

Attributes 
PHYSICAL 
Strength: • •, Dexterity: • • • • •, Stamina: • •. 
SOCIAL 
Charisma: • • •, Manipulation: • •, Appearance: • • • • •. 
MENTAL 
Perception: • •, Intelligence: • • Wits: • • • • •. 

Abilities 

Dawn:Archery 0, *Martial Arts 5, Melee 0, *Thrown 3, *War 5. 
Zenith:Integrity 3, Performance 5, Presence 3, Resistance 0, Survival 3. 
Twilight: *Craft: ''See Sub-Section'', Investigation 0, Lore 3, Medicine 0, *Occult 1. 
Night:Athletics 0, Awareness 1, Dodge 5, Larceny 0, Stealth 0. 
Eclipse: *Bureaucracy 0, *Linguistics 5, *Ride 0, *Sail 0, *Socialize 3. 

Crafts: 'Elemental' 3, Air 0, Earth 0, Fire 0, Water 0, Wood 0. 

Backgrounds 

Ally 1: ••• Nellens Buniraku Suraku: Water Aspected Dragonblooded Bodyguard/Lover. (Currently sorcerously bound by Thazda, can't be fully trusted till that can be fixed.)

Artifact 1: ••• Slayer Katars: styled with the heads of elephants instead of rams, these Katars were recovered from a ruined manse sunken at the bottom of the western ocean by Nellens Buniraku Suraku shortly before Merela returned from death and bound him to her service.

Artifact 2: •• Discrete Essence Armor: This magical protective gear is also styled with elephantine imagery and was recovered from the same cache.

Artifact 3: • Hearthstone Compass: This compass was one of Nellens Buniraku Suraku's treasure hunting tools. An early-middle-Shogunate era example of the type, he gifted it to Mirela after he reunited with her following their escape from the Wyld Hunt as proof of his loyalty.

Manse 1: ••• The Spire of Buena Aires: The hearthstone of this manse was embedded in the Discreet Essence Armor's Hearthstone Socket, Using the Hearthstone Compass Mirela was able to find it, not too far from the island she claimed for her nation of Grecinder, and attune to the manse. It is a late first age design, showing distinct Dragon-Blooded influences but clearly built by a solar craftswoman, not one of the Dragon-Blooded, and is a potent example of a three-dot manse. Its hearthstone is a Stone of Easy Breath, with a slight oddity of color and shape. Mirela found the manse inhabited by the descendants of the original cleaning and maintenance crews. She easily cowed them into obedience and many of them are now part of the population of Gracinder as experts on geomancy and thaumaturges of various other kinds.

Virtues 
Compassion ••••, Conviction ••••, Temperance •, Valor ••• 
Limit 
Willpower ••••• ••••• 
Essence •••• 
Personal 
Peripheral 
Comitted 

Health Levels 0*2, -1*4, -2*4, -4*2, I*2, D*

Charms 

Tiger-Warrior Training Technique

Combos 

Sorcery 

Combat 
Join Battle 8, Soak 6B/6L, Hardness 1B/1L, Dodge DV 6, Mobility Penalty , Fatigue 
Punch: Speed 5, Accuracy 9, Damage 2, Parry DV 5, Rate 3, Tags N 
Kick: Speed 5, Accuracy 8, Damage 5, Parry DV 3, Rate 2, Tags N 
Clinch: Speed 6, Accuracy 8, Damage 2, Parry DV -, Rate 1, Tags C, N, P 

Social Combat 
Join Debate 8, Mental Dodge DV 8 
Presence: Speed 4, Accuracy 7, Parry 4, Rate 2 
Performance: Speed 6, Accuracy 10, Parry 5, Rate 1 
Investigation: Speed 5, Accuracy 6, Parry 3, Rate 2 

Intimacies 

Description 

History 

Plot Hooks: To use ON Merela/Mirela/Mirelu 

#1: Consult "The Gracinder Guidebook" for a surfeit of ideas. 

#2: Freeing Nelens Bunraku Suraku from Thazda's control. 

#3: Read the "Heralds of Valdemar" series by Mercedes Lacky, adapt as needed. 

#4: "[Blank] is going to destroy [Something Merela would remember from The First Age]; we have to stop them!" 

#5: "Mirelu, do you care NOTHING for Verangia? [Harborhead or The Dhelzhen or some other traditional enemy] means to destroy us, and the prognostication says that our only hope of stopping them this time lies in securing your aid..." 

Plot Hooks: To use WITH Merela/Mirela/Mirelu 

#1: "Your Afrontery can no longer be borne, in the name of heaven; the skies above, the sea below, and the land & ships between; The Glorious Sea Nation of Grecinder hereby declares WAR upon your ingrateful and ungracious hunk of rock! Prepare what defenses you will, within one year's time, naught shall remain of them save memories and ruins..."

XP: 
Spent: 
Unspent: 
Total: 231 

Spent For/On Date:

Nemo of Utopia:Characters/Mirelu

2020-09-22T20:28:10Z

Nemo of Utopia: Assorted updates, check out the changes in the log...

Nemo of Utopia:Characters/Mirelu

2020-09-16T01:08:01Z

Nemo of Utopia: Mucking about with motivations.

neName: Merela/Mirela/Mirelu 
Caste: Eclipse 
Motivation: Merela: To reclaim her staus as High-Queen of Creation. Mirela: To see to it that the reborn Solar Deliberative does not repeat the mistakes of its predecessor, by whatever means necessary. Mirelu: To restore the status of the Peoples of creation to the heights they enjoyed during the first age. 
Anima: Herself as she was in the prime of her life during the first age, dressed in her full regalia. 
Concept: The Once-and-Future Queen of All Creation. 

Attributes 
PHYSICAL 
Strength: • •, Dexterity: • • • • •, Stamina: • •. 
SOCIAL 
Charisma: • • •, Manipulation: • •, Appearance: • • • • •. 
MENTAL 
Perception: • •, Intelligence: • • Wits: • • • • •. 

Abilities 

Dawn:Archery 0, *Martial Arts 5, Melee 0, *Thrown 3, *War 5. 
Zenith:Integrity 3, Performance 5, Presence 3, Resistance 0, Survival 3. 
Twilight: *Craft: ''See Sub-Section'', Investigation 0, Lore 3, Medicine 0, *Occult 1. 
Night:Athletics 0, Awareness 1, Dodge 5, Larceny 0, Stealth 0. 
Eclipse: *Bureaucracy 0, *Linguistics 5, *Ride 0, *Sail 0, *Socialize 3. 

Crafts: 'Elemental' 3, Air 0, Earth 0, Fire 0, Water 0, Wood 0. 

Backgrounds 

Ally 1: ••• Nellens Buniraku Suraku: Water Aspected Dragonblooded Bodyguard/Lover. (Currently sorcerously bound by Thazda, can't be fully trusted till that can be fixed.)

Artifact 1: ••• Slayer Katars: styled with the heads of elephants instead of rams, these Katars were recovered from a ruined manse sunken at the bottom of the western ocean by Nellens Buniraku Suraku shortly before Merela returned from death and bound him to her service.

Artifact 2: •• Discrete Essence Armor: This magical protective gear is also styled with elephantine imagery and was recovered from the same cache.

Artifact 3: • Hearthstone Compass: This compass was one of Nellens Buniraku Suraku's treasure hunting tools. An early-middle-Shogunate era example of the type, he gifted it to Mirela after he reunited with her following their escape from the Wyld Hunt as proof of his loyalty.

Manse 1: ••• The Spire of Buena Aires: The hearthstone of this manse was embedded in the Discreet Essence Armor's Hearthstone Socket, Using the Hearthstone Compass Mirela was able to find it, not too far from the island she claimed for her nation of Grecinder, and attune to the manse. It is a late first age design, showing distinct Dragon-Blooded influences but clearly built by a solar craftswoman, not one of the Dragon-Blooded, and is a potent example of a three-dot manse. Its hearthstone is a Stone of Easy Breath, with a slight oddity of color and shape. Mirela found the manse inhabited by the descendants of the original cleaning and maintenance crews. She easily cowed them into obedience and many of them are now part of the population of Gracinder as experts on geomancy and thaumaturges of various other kinds.

Virtues 
Compassion ••••, Conviction ••••, Temperance •, Valor ••• 
Limit 
Willpower ••••• ••••• 
Essence •••• 
Personal 
Peripheral 
Comitted 

Health Levels 0*2, -1*4, -2*4, -4*2, I*2, D*

Charms 

Combos 

Sorcery 

Combat 
Join Battle 8, Soak 6B/6L, Hardness 1B/1L, Dodge DV 6, Mobility Penalty , Fatigue 
Punch: Speed 5, Accuracy 9, Damage 2, Parry DV 5, Rate 3, Tags N 
Kick: Speed 5, Accuracy 8, Damage 5, Parry DV 3, Rate 2, Tags N 
Clinch: Speed 6, Accuracy 8, Damage 2, Parry DV -, Rate 1, Tags C, N, P 

Social Combat 
Join Debate 8, Mental Dodge DV 8 
Presence: Speed 4, Accuracy 7, Parry 4, Rate 2 
Performance: Speed 6, Accuracy 10, Parry 5, Rate 1 
Investigation: Speed 5, Accuracy 6, Parry 3, Rate 2 

Intimacies 

Description 

History 

Plot Hooks: To use ON Merela/Mirela/Mirelu 

#1: Consult "The Gracinder Guidebook" for a surfeit of ideas. 

#2: Freeing Nelens Bunraku Suraku from Thazda's control. 

#3: Read the "Heralds of Valdemar" series by Mercedes Lacky, adapt as needed. 

#4: "[Blank] is going to destroy [Something Merela would remember from The First Age]; we have to stop them!" 

#5: "Mirelu, do you care NOTHING for Verangia? [Harborhead or The Dhelzhen or some other traditional enemy] means to destroy us, and the prognostication says that our only hope of stopping them this time lies in securing your aid..." 

Plot Hooks: To use WITH Merela/Mirela/Mirelu 

#1: "Your Afrontery can no longer be borne, in the name of heaven; the skies above, the sea below, and the land & ships between; The Glorious Sea Nation of Grecinder hereby declares WAR upon your ingrateful and ungracious hunk of rock! Prepare what defenses you will, within o year's time, naught shall remain of them save memories and ruins..."

XP: 
Spent: 
Unspent: 
Total: 225 

Spent For/On Date:

Nemo of Utopia:Characters/Mirelu

2020-09-15T17:48:11Z

Nemo of Utopia:

neName: Merela/Mirela/Mirelu 
Caste: Eclipse 
Motivation: Merela: To see to it that the reborn Solar Deliberative does not repeat the mistakes of its predecessor, by whatever means necessary. Mirela: To restore the status of the women of creation to the heights they enjoyed during the First Age. Mirelu: To restore the status of the Peoples of creation to the heights they enjoyed during the first age. 
Anima: Herself as she was in the prime of her life during the first age, dressed in her full regalia. 
Concept: The Once-and-Future Queen of All Creation. 

Attributes 
PHYSICAL 
Strength: • •, Dexterity: • • • • •, Stamina: • •. 
SOCIAL 
Charisma: • • •, Manipulation: • •, Appearance: • • • • •. 
MENTAL 
Perception: • •, Intelligence: • • Wits: • • • • •. 

Abilities 

Dawn:Archery 0, *Martial Arts 5, Melee 0, *Thrown 3, *War 5. 
Zenith:Integrity 3, Performance 5, Presence 3, Resistance 0, Survival 3. 
Twilight: *Craft: ''See Sub-Section'', Investigation 0, Lore 3, Medicine 0, *Occult 1. 
Night:Athletics 0, Awareness 1, Dodge 5, Larceny 0, Stealth 0. 
Eclipse: *Bureaucracy 0, *Linguistics 5, *Ride 0, *Sail 0, *Socialize 3. 

Crafts: 'Elemental' 3, Air 0, Earth 0, Fire 0, Water 0, Wood 0. 

Backgrounds 

Ally 1: ••• Nellens Buniraku Suraku: Water Aspected Dragonblooded Bodyguard/Lover. (Currently sorcerously bound by Thazda, can't be fully trusted till that can be fixed.)

Artifact 1: ••• Slayer Katars: styled with the heads of elephants instead of rams, these Katars were recovered from a ruined manse sunken at the bottom of the western ocean by Nellens Buniraku Suraku shortly before Merela returned from death and bound him to her service.

Artifact 2: •• Discrete Essence Armor: This magical protective gear is also styled with elephantine imagery and was recovered from the same cache.

Artifact 3: • Hearthstone Compass: This compass was one of Nellens Buniraku Suraku's treasure hunting tools. An early-middle-Shogunate era example of the type, he gifted it to Mirela after he reunited with her following their escape from the Wyld Hunt as proof of his loyalty.

Manse 1: ••• The Spire of Buena Aires: The hearthstone of this manse was embedded in the Discreet Essence Armor's Hearthstone Socket, Using the Hearthstone Compass Mirela was able to find it, not too far from the island she claimed for her nation of Grecinder, and attune to the manse. It is a late first age design, showing distinct Dragon-Blooded influences but clearly built by a solar craftswoman, not one of the Dragon-Blooded, and is a potent example of a three-dot manse. Its hearthstone is a Stone of Easy Breath, with a slight oddity of color and shape. Mirela found the manse inhabited by the descendants of the original cleaning and maintenance crews. She easily cowed them into obedience and many of them are now part of the population of Gracinder as experts on geomancy and thaumaturges of various other kinds.

Virtues 
Compassion ••••, Conviction ••••, Temperance •, Valor ••• 
Limit 
Willpower ••••• ••••• 
Essence •••• 
Personal 
Peripheral 
Comitted 

Health Levels 0*2, -1*4, -2*4, -4*2, I*2, D*

Charms 

Combos 

Sorcery 

Combat 
Join Battle 8, Soak 6B/6L, Hardness 1B/1L, Dodge DV 6, Mobility Penalty , Fatigue 
Punch: Speed 5, Accuracy 9, Damage 2, Parry DV 5, Rate 3, Tags N 
Kick: Speed 5, Accuracy 8, Damage 5, Parry DV 3, Rate 2, Tags N 
Clinch: Speed 6, Accuracy 8, Damage 2, Parry DV -, Rate 1, Tags C, N, P 

Social Combat 
Join Debate 8, Mental Dodge DV 8 
Presence: Speed 4, Accuracy 7, Parry 4, Rate 2 
Performance: Speed 6, Accuracy 10, Parry 5, Rate 1 
Investigation: Speed 5, Accuracy 6, Parry 3, Rate 2 

Intimacies 

Description 

History 

Plot Hooks: To use ON Merela/Mirela/Mirelu 

#1: Consult "The Gracinder Guidebook" for a surfeit of ideas. 

#2: Freeing Nelens Bunraku Suraku from Thazda's control. 

#3: Read the "Heralds of Valdemar" series by Mercedes Lacky, adapt as needed. 

#4: "[Blank] is going to destroy [Something Merela would remember from The First Age]; we have to stop them!" 

#5: "Mirelu, do you care NOTHING for Verangia? [Harborhead or The Dhelzhen or some other traditional enemy] means to destroy us, and the prognostication says that our only hope of stopping them this time lies in securing your aid..." 

Plot Hooks: To use WITH Merela/Mirela/Mirelu 

#1: "Your Afrontery can no longer be borne, in the name of heaven; the skies above, the sea below, and the land & ships between; The Glorious Sea Nation of Grecinder hereby declares WAR upon your ingrateful and ungracious hunk of rock! Prepare what defenses you will, within o year's time, naught shall remain of them save memories and ruins..."

XP: 
Spent: 
Unspent: 
Total: 225 

Spent For/On Date:

Nemo of Utopia:Characters/Mirelu

2020-09-15T15:30:13Z

Nemo of Utopia: Assorted updates, check out the changes in the log...

Name: Merela/Mirela/Mirelu 
Caste: Eclipse 
Motivation: Merela: To see to it that the reborn Solar Deliberative does not repeat the mistakes of its predecessor, by whatever means necessary. Mirela: To restore the status of the women of creation to the heights they enjoyed during the First Age. Mirelu: To restore the status of the Peoples of creation to the heights they enjoyed during the first age. 
Anima: Herself as she was in the prime of her life during the first age, dressed in her full regalia. 
Concept: The Once-and-Future Queen of All Creation. 

Attributes 
PHYSICAL 
Strength: • •, Dexterity: • • • • •, Stamina: • •. 
SOCIAL 
Charisma: • • •, Manipulation: • •, Appearance: • • • • •. 
MENTAL 
Perception: • •, Intelligence: • • Wits: • • • • •. 

Abilities 

Dawn:Archery 0, *Martial Arts 5, Melee 0, *Thrown 3, *War 5. 
Zenith:Integrity 3, Performance 5, Presence 3, Resistance 0, Survival 3. 
Twilight: *Craft: ''See Sub-Section'', Investigation 0, Lore 3, Medicine 0, *Occult 1. 
Night:Athletics 0, Awareness 1, Dodge 5, Larceny 0, Stealth 0. 
Eclipse: *Bureaucracy 0, *Linguistics 5, *Ride 0, *Sail 0, *Socialize 3. 

Crafts: 'Elemental' 3, Air 0, Earth 0, Fire 0, Water 0, Wood 0. 

Backgrounds 

Ally 1: ••• Nellens Buniraku Suraku: Water Aspected Dragonblooded Bodyguard/Lover. (Currently sorcerously bound by Thazda, can't be fully trusted till that can be fixed.)

Artifact 1: ••• Slayer Katars: styled with the heads of elephants instead of rams, these Katars were recovered from a ruined manse sunken at the bottom of the western ocean by Nellens Buniraku Suraku shortly before Merela returned from death and bound him to her service.

Artifact 2: •• Discrete Essence Armor: This magical protective gear is also styled with elephantine imagery and was recovered from the same cache.

Artifact 3: Hearthstone Compass: This compass was one of Nellens Buniraku Suraku's treasure hunting tools. An early-middle-Shogunate era example of the type, he gifted it to Mirela after he reunited with her following their escape from the Wyld Hunt as proof of his loyalty.

Manse 1: The Spire of Buena Aires: The hearthstone of this manse was embedded in the Discreet Essence Armor's Hearthstone Socket, Using the Hearthstone Compass Mirela was able to find it, not too far from the island she claimed for her nation of Grecinder, and attune to the manse. It is a late first age design, showing distinct Dragon-Blooded influences but clearly built by a solar craftswoman, not a Dragon-Blooded, and is a potent example of a three-dot manse. Its hearthstone is a Stone of Easy Breath, with a slight oddity of color and shape. Mirella Found the manse inhabited by the descendants of the original cleaning and maintenance crews. She easily cowed them into obedience and many of them are now part of the population of Gracinder as experts on geomancy and thaumaturges of various other kinds.

Virtues 
Compassion ••••, Conviction ••••, Temperance •, Valor ••• 
Limit 
Willpower ••••• ••••• 
Essence •••• 
Personal 
Peripheral 
Comitted 

Health Levels 0*2, -1*4, -2*4, -4*2, I*2, D*

Charms 

Combos 

Sorcery 

Combat 
Join Battle 8, Soak 6B/6L, Hardness 1B/1L, Dodge DV 6, Mobility Penalty , Fatigue 
Punch: Speed 5, Accuracy 9, Damage 2, Parry DV 5, Rate 3, Tags N 
Kick: Speed 5, Accuracy 8, Damage 5, Parry DV 3, Rate 2, Tags N 
Clinch: Speed 6, Accuracy 8, Damage 2, Parry DV -, Rate 1, Tags C, N, P 

Social Combat 
Join Debate 8, Mental Dodge DV 8 
Presence: Speed 4, Accuracy 7, Parry 4, Rate 2 
Performance: Speed 6, Accuracy 10, Parry 5, Rate 1 
Investigation: Speed 5, Accuracy 6, Parry 3, Rate 2 

Intimacies 

Description 

History 

Plot Hooks: To use ON Merela/Mirela/Mirelu 

#1: Consult "The Gracinder Guidebook" for a surfeit of ideas. 

#2: Freeing Nelens Bunraku Suraku from Thazda's control. 

#3: Read the "Heralds of Valdemar" series by Mercedes Lacky, adapt as needed. 

#4: "[Blank] is going to destroy [Something Merela would remember from The First Age]; we have to stop them!" 

#5: "Mirelu, do you care NOTHING for Verangia? [Harborhead or The Dhelzhen or some other traditional enemy] means to destroy us, and the prognostication says that our only hope of stopping them this time lies in securing your aid..." 

Plot Hooks: To use WITH Merela/Mirela/Mirelu 

#1: "Your Afrontery can no longer be borne, in the name of heaven; the skies above, the sea below, and the land & ships between; The Glorious Sea Nation of Grecinder hereby declares WAR upon your ingrateful and ungracious hunk of rock! Prepare what defenses you will, within a year's time, naught shall remain of them save memories and ruins..."

XP: 
Spent: 
Unspent: 
Total: 225 

Spent For/On Date:

Nemo of Utopia:Characters/Mirelu

2020-09-14T04:29:24Z

Nemo of Utopia: Assorted updates, check out the changes in the log...

Name: Merela/Mirela/Mirelu 
Caste: 
Motivation: 
Anima: Herself as she was in the prime of her life during the first age, dressed in her full regalia. 
Concept: 

Attributes 
PHYSICAL 
Strength: • •, Dexterity: • • • • •, Stamina: • •. 
SOCIAL 
Charisma: • • •, Manipulation: • •, Appearance: • • • • •. 
MENTAL 
Perception: • •, Intelligence: • • Wits: • • • • •. 

Abilities 

Dawn:Archery 0, *Martial Arts 5, Melee 0, *Thrown 3, *War 5. 
Zenith:Integrity 3, Performance 5, Presence 3, Resistance 0, Survival 3. 
Twilight: *Craft: ''See Sub-Section'', Investigation 0, Lore 3, Medicine 0, *Occult 1. 
Night:Athletics 0, Awareness 1, Dodge 5, Larceny 0, Stealth 0. 
Eclipse: *Bureaucracy 0, *Linguistics 5, *Ride 0, *Sail 0, *Socialize 3. 

Crafts: 'Elemental' 3, Air 0, Earth 0, Fire 0, Water 0, Wood 0. 

Backgrounds 

Ally 1: ••• Nellens Buniraku Suraku: Water Aspected Dragonblooded Bodyguard/Lover. (Currently sorcerously bound by Thazda, can't be fully trusted till that can be fixed.)

Artifact 1: ••• Slayer Katars: styled with the heads of elephants instead of rams, these Katars were recovered from a ruined manse sunken at the bottom of the western ocean by Nellens Buniraku Suraku shortly before Merela returned from death and bound him to her service.

Artifact 2: •• Discrete Essence Armor: This magical protective gear is also styled with elephantine imagery and was recovered from the same cache.

Artifact 3: Hearthstone Compass: This compass was one of Nellens Buniraku Suraku's treasure hunting tools. An early-middle-Shogunate era example of the type, he gifted it to Mirela after he reunited with her following their escape from the Wyld Hunt as proof of his loyalty.

Manse 1: The Spire of Buena Aires: The hearthstone of this manse was embedded in the Discreet Essence Armor's Hearthstone Socket, Using the Hearthstone Compass Mirela was able to find it, not too far from the island she claimed for her nation of Grecinder, and attune to the manse. It is a late first age design, showing distinct Dragon-Blooded influences but clearly built by a solar craftswoman, not a Dragon-Blooded, and is a potent example of a three-dot manse. Its hearthstone is a Stone of Easy Breath, with a slight oddity of color and shape. Mirella Found the manse inhabited by the descendants of the original cleaning and maintenance crews. She easily cowed them into obedience and many of them are now part of the population of Gracinder as experts on geomancy and thaumaturges of various other kinds.

Virtues 
Compassion ••••, Conviction ••••, Temperance •, Valor ••• 
Limit 
Willpower ••••• ••••• 
Essence •••• 
Personal 
Peripheral 
Comitted 

Health Levels 0*2, -1*4, -2*4, -4*2, I*2, D*

Charms 

Combos 

Sorcery 

Combat 
Join Battle 8, Soak 6B/6L, Hardness 1B/1L, Dodge DV 6, Mobility Penalty , Fatigue 
Punch: Speed 5, Accuracy 9, Damage 2, Parry DV 5, Rate 3, Tags N 
Kick: Speed 5, Accuracy 8, Damage 5, Parry DV 3, Rate 2, Tags N 
Clinch: Speed 6, Accuracy 8, Damage 2, Parry DV -, Rate 1, Tags C, N, P 

Social Combat 
Join Debate 8, Mental Dodge DV 8 
Presence: Speed 4, Accuracy 7, Parry 4, Rate 2 
Performance: Speed 6, Accuracy 10, Parry 5, Rate 1 
Investigation: Speed 5, Accuracy 6, Parry 3, Rate 2 

Intimacies 

Description 

History 

Plot Hooks

XP: 
Spent: 
Unspent: 
Total: 225 

Spent For/On Date:

Nemo of Utopia:Characters/Mirelu

2020-09-04T00:55:38Z

Nemo of Utopia:

Name: Merela/Mirela/Mirelu 
Caste: 
Motivation: 
Anima: Herself as she was in the prime of her life during the first age, dressed in her full regalia. 
Concept: 

Attributes 
PHYSICAL 
Strength: • •, Dexterity: • • • • •, Stamina: • •. 
SOCIAL 
Charisma: • • •, Manipulation: • •, Appearance: • • • • •. 
MENTAL 
Perception: • •, Intelligence: • • Wits: • • • • •. 

Abilities 

Dawn:Archery 0, *Martial Arts 5, Melee 0, *Thrown 3, *War 5. 
Zenith:Integrity 3, Performance 5, Presence 3, Resistance 0, Survival 3. 
Twilight: *Craft: ''See Sub-Section'', Investigation 0, Lore 3, Medicine 0, *Occult 1. 
Night:Athletics 0, Awareness 1, Dodge 5, Larceny 0, Stealth 0. 
Eclipse: *Bureaucracy 0, *Linguistics 5, *Ride 0, *Sail 0, *Socialize 3. 

Crafts: 'Elemental' 3, Air 0, Earth 0, Fire 0, Water 0, Wood 0. 

Backgrounds 

Ally 1: ••• Nellens Buniraku Suraku: Water Aspected Dragonblooded Bodyguard/Lover. (Currently sorcerously bound by Thazda, can't be fully trusted till that can be fixed.)

Artifact 1: ••• Slayer Katars: styled with the heads of elephants instead of rams, these Katars were recovered from a ruined manse sunken at the bottom of the western ocean by Nellens Buniraku Suraku shortly before Merela returned from death and bound him to her service.

Artifact 2: •• Discrete Essence Armor: This magical protective gear is also styled with elephantine imagery and was recovered from the same cache.

Artifact 3: Hearthstone Compass: This compass was one of Nellens Buniraku Suraku's treasure hunting tools. An early-middle-Shogunate era example of the type, he gifted it to Mirela after he reunited with her following their escape from the Wyld Hunt as proof of his loyalty.

Manse 1: The Spire of Buena Aires: The hearthstone of this manse was embedded in the Discreet Essence Armor's Hearthstone Socket, Using the Hearthstone Compass Mirela was able to find it, not too far from the island she claimed for her nation of Grecinder, and attune to the manse. It is a late first age design, showing distinct Dragon-Blooded influences but clearly built by a solar craftswoman, not a Dragon-Blooded, and is a potent example of a three-dot manse. Its hearthstone is a Stone of Easy Breath, with a slight oddity of color and shape. Mirella Found the manse inhabited by the descendants of the original cleaning and maintenance crews. She easily cowed them into obedience and many of them are now part of the population of Gracinder as experts on geomancy and thaumaturges of various other kinds.

Virtues 
Compassion ••••, Conviction ••••, Temperance •, Valor ••• 
Limit 
Willpower ••••• ••••• 
Essence •••• 
Personal 
Peripheral 
Comitted 

Health Levels 0*1, -1*2, -2*2, -4*1, Incapacitated

Charms 

Combos 

Sorcery 

Combat 
Join Battle 8, Soak 6B/6L, Hardness 1B/1L, Dodge DV 6, Mobility Penalty , Fatigue 
Punch: Speed 5, Accuracy 9, Damage 2, Parry DV 5, Rate 3, Tags N 
Kick: Speed 5, Accuracy 8, Damage 5, Parry DV 3, Rate 2, Tags N 
Clinch: Speed 6, Accuracy 8, Damage 2, Parry DV -, Rate 1, Tags C, N, P 

Social Combat 
Join Debate 8, Mental Dodge DV 8 
Presence: Speed 4, Accuracy 7, Parry 4, Rate 2 
Performance: Speed 6, Accuracy 10, Parry 5, Rate 1 
Investigation: Speed 5, Accuracy 6, Parry 3, Rate 2 

Intimacies 

Description 

History 

Plot Hooks

XP: 
Spent: 
Unspent: 
Total: 219 

Spent For/On Date:

Nemo of Utopia:Characters/Mirelu

2020-08-21T04:27:52Z

Nemo of Utopia:

Name: Merela/Mirela/Mirelu 
Caste: 
Motivation: 
Anima: Herself as she was in the prime of her life during the first age, dressed in her full regalia. 
Concept: 

Attributes 
PHYSICAL 
Strength: • •, Dexterity: • • • • •, Stamina: • •. 
SOCIAL 
Charisma: • • •, Manipulation: • •, Appearance: • • • • •. 
MENTAL 
Perception: • •, Intelligence: • • Wits: • • • • •. 

Abilities 

Dawn:Archery 0, *Martial Arts 5, Melee 0, *Thrown 3, *War 5. 
Zenith:Integrity 3, Performance 5, Presence 3, Resistance 0, Survival 3. 
Twilight: *Craft: ''See Sub-Section'', Investigation 0, Lore 3, Medicine 0, *Occult 1. 
Night:Athletics 0, Awareness 1, Dodge 5, Larceny 0, Stealth 0. 
Eclipse: *Bureaucracy 0, *Linguistics 5, *Ride 0, *Sail 0, *Socialize 3. 

Crafts: 'Elemental' 3, Air 0, Earth 0, Fire 0, Water 0, Wood 0. 

Backgrounds 

Ally 1: ••• Nellens Buniraku Suraku: Water Aspected Dragonblooded Bodyguard/Lover. (Currently sorcerously bound by Thazda, can't be fully trusted till that can be fixed.)

Artifact 1: ••• Slayer Katars: styled with the heads of elephants instead of rams, these Katars were recovered from a ruined manse sunken at the bottom of the western ocean by Nellens Buniraku Suraku shortly before Merela returned from death and bound him to her service.

Artifact 2: •• Discrete Essence Armor: This magical protective gear is also styled with elephantine imagery and was recovered from the same cache.

Artifact 3: Hearthstone Compass: This compass was one of Nellens Buniraku Suraku's treasure hunting tools. An early-middle-Shogunate era example of the type, he gifted it to Mirela after he reunited with her following their escape from the Wyld Hunt as proof of his loyalty.

Manse 1: The Spire of Buena Aires: The hearthstone of this manse was embedded in the Discreet Essence Armor's Hearthstone Socket, Using the Hearthstone Compass Mirela was able to find it, not too far from the island she claimed for her nation of Grecinder, and attune to the manse. It is a late first age design, showing distinct Dragon-Blooded influences but clearly built by a solar craftswoman, not a Dragon-Blooded, and is a potent example of a three-dot manse. Its hearthstone is a Stone of Easy Breath, with a slight oddity of color and shape. Mirella Found the manse inhabited by the descendants of the original cleaning and maintenance crews. She easily cowed them into obedience and many of them are now part of the population of Gracinder as experts on geomancy and thaumaturges of various other kinds.

Virtues 
Compassion ••••, Conviction ••••, Temperance •, Valor ••• 
Limit 
Willpower ••••• ••••• 
Essence •••• 
Personal 
Peripheral 
Comitted 

Health Levels 0*1, -1*2, -2*2, -4*1, Incapacitated

Charms 

Combos 

Sorcery 

Combat 
Join Battle 8, Soak 6B/6L, Hardness 1B/1L, Dodge DV 6, Mobility Penalty , Fatigue 
Punch: Speed 5, Accuracy 9, Damage 2, Parry DV 5, Rate 3, Tags N 
Kick: Speed 5, Accuracy 8, Damage 5, Parry DV 3, Rate 2, Tags N 
Clinch: Speed 6, Accuracy 8, Damage 2, Parry DV -, Rate 1, Tags C, N, P 

Social Combat 
Join Debate 8, Mental Dodge DV 8 
Presence: Speed 4, Accuracy 7, Parry 4, Rate 2 
Performance: Speed 6, Accuracy 10, Parry 5, Rate 1 
Investigation: Speed 5, Accuracy 6, Parry 3, Rate 2 

Intimacies 

Description 

History 

Plot Hooks

XP: 
Spent: 
Unspent: 
Total: 213 

Spent For/On Date:

Nemo of Utopia:Characters/Mirelu

2020-08-08T13:42:03Z

Nemo of Utopia: Boom! Content!

Name: Merela/Mirela/Mirelu 
Caste: 
Motivation: 
Anima: Herself as she was in the prime of her life during the first age, dressed in her full regalia. 
Concept: 

Attributes 
PHYSICAL 
Strength: • •, Dexterity: • • • • •, Stamina: • •. 
SOCIAL 
Charisma: • • •, Manipulation: • •, Appearance: • • • • •. 
MENTAL 
Perception: • •, Intelligence: • • Wits: • • • • •. 

Abilities 

Dawn:Archery 0, *Martial Arts 5, Melee 0, *Thrown 3, *War 5. 
Zenith:Integrity 3, Performance 5, Presence 3, Resistance 0, Survival 3. 
Twilight: *Craft: ''See Sub-Section'', Investigation 0, Lore 3, Medicine 0, *Occult 1. 
Night:Athletics 0, Awareness 1, Dodge 5, Larceny 0, Stealth 0. 
Eclipse: *Bureaucracy 0, *Linguistics 5, *Ride 0, *Sail 0, *Socialize 3. 

Crafts: 'Elemental' 3, Air 0, Earth 0, Fire 0, Water 0, Wood 0. 

Backgrounds 

Ally 1: ••• Nellens Buniraku Suraku: Water Aspected Dragonblooded Bodyguard/Lover. (Currently sorcerously bound by Thazda, can't be fully trusted till that can be fixed.)

Artifact 1: ••• Slayer Katars: styled with the heads of elephants instead of rams, these Katars were recovered from a ruined manse sunken at the bottom of the western ocean by Nellens Buniraku Suraku shortly before Merela returned from death and bound him to her service.

Artifact 2: •• Discrete Essence Armor: This magical protective gear is also styled with elephantine imagery and was recovered from the same cache.

Artifact 3: Hearthstone Compass: This compass was one of Nellens Buniraku Suraku's treasure hunting tools. An early-middle-Shogunate era example of the type, he gifted it to Mirela after he reunited with her following their escape from the Wyld Hunt as proof of his loyalty.

Manse 1: The Spire of Buena Aires: The hearthstone of this manse was embedded in the Discreet Essence Armor's Hearthstone Socket, Using the Hearthstone Compass Mirela was able to find it, not too far from the island she claimed for her nation of Grecinder, and attune to the manse. It is a late first age design, showing distinct Dragon-Blooded influences but clearly built by a solar craftswoman, not a Dragon-Blooded, and is a potent example of a three-dot manse. Its hearthstone is a Stone of Easy Breath, with a slight oddity of color and shape. Mirella Found the manse inhabited by the descendants of the original cleaning and maintenance crews. She easily cowed them into obedience and many of them are now part of the population of Gracinder as experts on geomancy and thaumaturges of various other kinds.

Virtues 
Compassion ••••, Conviction ••••, Temperance •, Valor ••• 
Limit 
Willpower ••••• ••••• 
Essence •••• 
Personal 
Peripheral 
Comitted 

Health Levels 0*1, -1*2, -2*2, -4*1, Incapacitated

Charms 

Combos 

Sorcery 

Combat 
Join Battle 8, Soak 6B/6L, Hardness 1B/1L, Dodge DV 6, Mobility Penalty , Fatigue 
Punch: Speed 5, Accuracy 9, Damage 2, Parry DV 5, Rate 3, Tags N 
Kick: Speed 5, Accuracy 8, Damage 5, Parry DV 3, Rate 2, Tags N 
Clinch: Speed 6, Accuracy 8, Damage 2, Parry DV -, Rate 1, Tags C, N, P 

Social Combat 
Join Debate 8, Mental Dodge DV 8 
Presence: Speed 4, Accuracy 7, Parry 4, Rate 2 
Performance: Speed 6, Accuracy 10, Parry 5, Rate 1 
Investigation: Speed 5, Accuracy 6, Parry 3, Rate 2 

Intimacies 

Description 

History 

Plot Hooks

XP: 
Spent: 
Unspent: 
Total: 

Spent For/On Date:

User:Nemo of Utopia

2020-08-07T02:00:58Z

Nemo of Utopia: /* Solar */ BOOM

Hello, I'm a returning user who couldn't recover their password, I'm going to be porting over my old content to this new account.

== Greetings and Salutations ==
Third edition, it never really took off, did it? After that "Return of the Scarlet Empress" thing Exalted was more or less finished, we all know how the story ends. But, I still like second ed, and I know a lot of other people who do too, and so I continue to run the occasional second ed game...

I used to be active on the official exalted wiki and then this one as a user called "[[User:The Ghost|The Ghost]]" but I can't access that account anymore, so I created this one and I am porting over all my old work.

= My Content =

== Rules Variants ==

[[Nemo of Utopia/Autochthonian Terrestrials|Autochthonian Terrestrials]]

[[Nemo of Utopia/Alchemical Half Caste|Alchemical Half Caste]]

[[Nemo of Utopia/Let's Not Play Rocket Tag v1|Let's Not Play Rocket Tag v1]]

[[Nemo of Utopia/Let's Not Play Rocket Tag v2|Let's Not Play Rocket Tag v2]]

[[Nemo of Utopia/It's Connections or Nothing|It's Connections or Nothing]]

[[Nemo of Utopia/PiercingArmor|"Piercing" Armor]]

[[Nemo of Utopia/FAME|FAME!]]

[[Nemo of Utopia/Titans of War: Functional Warstriders|Functional Warstriders]]

== NPC Creation Guidelines ==

[[Nemo of Utopia:NPCCreationGuidelines/Top|Top Page]]

[[Nemo of Utopia:NPCCreationGuidelines/Attributes/Top|Attributes]]

[[Nemo of Utopia:NPCCreationGuidelines/Abilities/Top|Abilities]]

[[Nemo of Utopia:NPCCreationGuidelines/Virtues/Top|Virtues]]

[[Nemo of Utopia:NPCCreationGuidelines/Backgrounds/Top|Backgrounds]]

== Chronicles ==

=== Former ===

During late 2019 and early 2020, I ran a chronicle of my own Under the title 'ExXxALTED: [[Nemo of Utopia: Chronicles/The_Legend_of_the_Rain_King|"The Legend of the Rain King"]]' This was intended to be my Magnum Opus; however I soon learned that a campaign on the level I wanted to tell could only be run as a face-to-face game with a stable and established group.

==== Sub Chronicles ====

There were several subsidiary parts that all would have taken place in the same universe and Timeline that make-up the above chronicle.

1: [[Nemo of Utopia: Chronicles/Exalted_at_the_Rim_of_Creation|"Exalted at the Rim of Creation"]] The Main "Mixed-Splat" chronicle.

2: [[Nemo of Utopia: Chronicles/There_and_Back_Again:_A_Solar_Holiday|"There and Back Again: A Solar Holiday"]] A CotI Solars-only Game.

3: [[Nemo of Utopia: Chronicles/The_Tale_of_Menemon's_Children|"The Tale of Menemon's Children"]] A Dynastic Dragonblooded Chronicle centering around House Menemon's newest batch of heirs to come-of-age and the parts they will play in their ancestress play for her mother The Empress' vacated throne...

4: [[Nemo of Utopia: Chronicles/Fires_in_the_North|"Fires in the North"]] An abortive game focusing on the idea of dragon blooded of house Tepet possibly averting their house's downfall against The Bull of the North, Yurgan Kanio.

5: [[Nemo of Utopia: Chronicles/Dexter's_Darkly_Dreaming_Daughters|"Dexter's Darkly Dreaming Daughters"]] A chronicle that starts off with a group of Ghost-Blooded mortals, then Eventually develops into something "More"... (This chronicle is set in the Henceintic League)

6: [[Nemo of Utopia: Chronicles/In_Capitalist_Claslat,_Bank_Rob_You!|"In Capitalist Claslat, Bank Rob You!"]] Alchemical Chronicle focusing on the conflict between The Guild and the Auochthonians of the Eastern Conference.

7: [[Nemo of Utopia: Chronicles/Moonlight_Reflecting_On_Water|"Moonlight Reflecting On Water"]] This one is set in the West, focusing on Lavaithain and the western Silver-Pact's difficult road to recovery in the wake of the events of the rest of the chronicles.

8: [[Nemo of Utopia: Chronicles/Ask_Not_For_Whom_The_Bells_Toll|"Ask Not For Whom The Bells Toll, They Toll For Thee."]] At the point where this chronicle enters rotation 'Chop-Shop Car-Jack' (Chejop Kejak), chair of the center convention, has died, and left an unimaginable power-vacuum in his wake in Heaven. A young circle of Sidereal exalted is left trying to pick up the pieces, or maybe just survive, in the aftermath of the passing of the oldest Exalt to ever live. (This chronicle is set in the south...)

=== Current ===

[[Nemo of Utopia: Chronicles/The_Tale_of_Menemon's_Children|"The Tale of Menemon's Children"]] A Dynastic Dragonblooded Chronicle centering around House Menemon's newest batch of heirs to come-of-age and the parts they will play in their ancestress play for her mother The Empress' vacated throne... (This one quasi survived the collapse of the meta-chronicle it was part of.)

[[Nemo of Utopia: Chronicles/Blaze_of_Glory|"Blaze of Glory"]] This chronicle picked up the shatter pieces of "At the Rim of Creation" and smelted them to make a new bottle to capture the lightning.

=== Future ===

Someday I hope to run a relatively brief chronicle entitled 'ExXxALTED: "... All Rivers Flow To The Sea..."' About the Silver-Pact dealing with the consequences of a group of solar's proclaiming [[The Deliberative]] from atop The Pyramid of the Sun in [[Rathess]]...

== City States ==

[[Nemo of Utopia/Amarana|Amarana]] The main setting of my chronicle.

[[Nemo of Utopia/Hokuva|Hokuva]] A pet project of mine.

[[Erlik]] The City of Ten Thousand Blasphemies

== Magical Materials ==

My take on [[Nemo of Utopia/Adamant|Adamant]].

[[Nemo of Utopia/Viridium|Viridium]]

[[Nemo of Utopia/Black Lead|Black Lead]]

== Artifacts ==

This is where my Artifact content will be placed.

=== Any Material ===

[[Nemo of Utopia:Artifacts/Double Bladed Daiklave]]

=== Orichalcum ===

[[Nemo of Utopia:Artifacts/The Teeth of the Serpent]]

[[Nemo of Utopia:Artifacts/The Tiger's Unsheathed Claws]]

=== Jade ===

[[Nemo of Utopia:Artifacts/Serpent and Heron]]

=== Mixed Material ===

[[Nemo of Utopia:Artifacts/Seven Fold Harmonic Adapter]]

== Charms ==

This is where my Charm content will be placed.

=== Alchemical ===

[[Nemo of Utopia/Full Life Technique|Full Life Technique]]

=== Dragon Blooded ===

==== Autochthonian Dragon Blooded ====

=== Lunar ===

== Backgrounds ==

[[Nemo of Utopia/LunarBond|Lunar Bond]]

[[Nemo of Utopia/SolarBondRevisited|Solar Bond]]

== Martial Arts ==

Here are listed the top pages for all of my custom MA styles, current or future.
If I come up with any new ones they will be added in as soon as work starts on them.

(Styles marked with an * are based on 'Official' content, namely styles created to fill in the actual charms of a style named or suggested in an Official source but not given an actual charm tree or charm descriptions.)

=== Terrestrial ===

[[Nemo of Utopia/Cascade Disruption Style]]*

[[Nemo of Utopia/Racing Lightning Style]]*

[[Nemo of Utopia/Thrashing Steam Dragon Style]]*

[[Nemo of Utopia/Stalwart Iron Hero Style]]*

[[Nemo of Utopia/Endlessly Turning Wheal Style]]*

[[Nemo of Utopia/Thousand Faceted Warrior Style]]*

[[Nemo of Utopia/Choking Smoke Saboteur Style]]

[[Nemo of Utopia/Uranium Dragon Style]]

[[Nemo of Utopia/Steel Dragon Style]]

[[Nemo of Utopia/Brass Dragon Style]]

[[Nemo of Utopia/Burning Vitriol Assault Style]]*

[[Nemo of Utopia/Hidden Master Style]]

[[Nemo of Utopia/Path of the Stave Church Style]]

=== Celestial ===

[[Nemo of Utopia/Ebon Dragon Style]]*

[[Nemo of Utopia/Plague Rat Style]]*

[[Nemo of Utopia/Hydraulic Tremor Style]]*

[[Nemo of Utopia/Enlightened Armatures Style]]*

[[Nemo of Utopia/Steel Fang Style]]*

[[Nemo of Utopia/Swallowed Darkness Style]]*

[[Nemo of Utopia/Steam Dragon Style]]

[[Nemo of Utopia/Lightning Dragon Style]]

[[Nemo of Utopia/Oil Dragon Style]]

[[Nemo of Utopia/Crystal Dragon Style]]

[[Nemo of Utopia/Metal Dragon Style]]

[[Nemo of Utopia/Smoke Dragon Style]]

== Characters ==

=== Templates/Sheets ===

[[Nemo of Utopia:Templates/Alchemical Sheet|Alchemical Sheet]]

[[Nemo of Utopia:Templates/Solar Sheet|Solar Sheet]]

[[The Ghost:Templates/Lunar Sheet|Lunar Sheet]]

[[Nemo of Utopia:Templates/Sidereal Sheet|Sidereal Sheet]]

[[Nemo of Utopia:Templates/Abyssal Sheet|Abyssal Sheet]]

[[Nemo of Utopia:Templates/Infernal Sheet|Infernal Sheet]]

[[Nemo of Utopia:Templates/Dragon Blooded Sheet|Dragon Blooded Sheet]]

[[Nemo of Utopia:Templates/Autochthonian Dragon Blooded Sheets|Autochthonian Dragon Blooded Sheets]]

[[Nemo of Utopia:Templates/Ghost Sheet|Ghost Sheet]]

[[Nemo of Utopia:Templates/Mortal Sheet|Mortal Sheet]]

[[Nemo of Utopia:Templates/Animal Sheet|Animal Sheet]]

[[Nemo of Utopia:Templates/Demon Sheet|Demon Sheet]]

[[Nemo of Utopia:Templates/Elemental Sheet|Elemental Sheet]]

[[Nemo of Utopia:Templates/Deity Sheet|Deity Sheet]]

[[Nemo of Utopia:Templates/God Blooded Sheet|God Blooded Sheet]]

[[Nemo of Utopia:Templates/Ghost Blooded Sheet|Ghost Blooded Sheet]]

[[Nemo of Utopia:Templates/Demon Blooded Sheet|Demon Blooded Sheet]]

[[Nemo of Utopia:Templates/Beast-folk Sheet|Beast-folk Sheet]]

[[Nemo of Utopia:Templates/Raksha Sheet|Raksha Sheet]]

[[Nemo of Utopia:Templates/Dragon King Sheet|Dragon King Sheet]]

[[Nemo of Utopia:Templates/Mountain Folk Sheet|Mountain Folk Sheet]]

[[Nemo of Utopia:Templates/Generic Sheet Template|Generic Sheet Template]]

=== Alchemical ===

=== Solar ===

[[Nemo of Utopia:Characters/AsterSnow|Aster Snow]]

[[Nemo of Utopia:Characters/BillyBBobBlythBoeBingo|Billy B Bob Blyth "Boe Bingo"]]

[[Nemo of Utopia:Characters/Mirelu|Mirelu]]

=== Lunar ===

[[Nemo of Utopia:Characters/Adjara|Adjara]]

=== Sidereal ===

[[Nemo of Utopia:Characters/Harmonious Flower|Harmonious Flower]]

=== Abyssal ===

[[Nemo of Utopia:Characters/Mr Benjamin Karat Muldoon|Mr Benjamin Karat Muldoon]]

[[Nemo of Utopia:Characters/Killer in the House of Horrors|Killer in the House of Horrors]]

[[Nemo of Utopia:Characters/The Housewife of Dark Designs|The Housewife of Dark Designs]]

[[Nemo of Utopia:Characters/Little Void Princess|Little Void Princess]]

[[Nemo of Utopia:Characters/Soulsteel Axe Queen|Soulsteel Axe Queen]]

[[Nemo of Utopia:Characters/The Black Barron of Vulgaria|The Black Barron of Vulgaria]]

=== Infernal ===

[[Nemo of Utopia:Characters/Vermilion Glass Rat|Vermilion Glass Rat]]

=== Dragon Blooded ===

==== Autochthonian Dragon Blooded ====

=== Demon/Yozi ===

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/TheHierarchyofSouls|The Hierarchy of Souls]]

=== Gods/Spirit ===

=== God Blooded ===

=== Ghost/Ghost Blooded ===

==== Deathlords/ladies ====

This segment chronicles all of the examples of one of "The Four" whom I have created for my games: understand that these characters are even less 'core' than the rest of the characters I have created.

[[Nemo of Utopia:Characters/The Archon of Apostasy|The Archon of Apostasy]]

[[Nemo of Utopia:Characters/TheMocker|The Mocker]]

[[Nemo of Utopia:Characters/DrownedPrincessoftheStygianDepths|Drowned Princess of the Stygian Depths]]

==== Deathlords/ladies (Re-Worked Canon Characters) ====

In some of my games, I have completely re-worked one or more of the canon Deathlords/Deathladys in certain specific ways, generally making them both more powerful, competent, and complicated, on several levels than in their core canonical status.

[[Nemo of Utopia:Characters/TheLegendoftheRainKing/TheFirstAndForsakenLion|The Legend of the Rain King/The First and Forsaken Lion]]

=== Mortal ===

== Shards of the Exalted Dream ==

Nemo of Utopia/Amarana

2020-07-15T20:32:44Z

Nemo of Utopia: /* The Usurpation */ BOOM! Content!

Amarana is a first age city, lost to the contagion and the fair folk invasion over 700 years ago. It is now coming back to life under the aegis of [[User:Nemo of Utopia/The_Patron_of_Amarana|The Patron]] who wields the power of the [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Five_Signs_of_Harmonic_Unity|Five Signs of Harmonic Unity]].

= Amarana =

Amarana Is comprised of a large area surrounded by a circular wall. At the edge of that wall are twelve triangular towers that contain the major military resources of the city. Of these towers, eight have been fully excavated, and the ninth is being examined and the sand removed even now.

Within the city is organized into four quarters but only two of them are even partially excavated, the two on the eastern side of the city, and even there many buildings still slowly seep sand into the streets out of cracked windowpanes and the door seems. The buildings of Amarana tend to a certain Egyptian flare or perhaps it would be better to say pre-Arabic since they are after all, by and large, the product of the low first age. The buildings are built of a quasi imperishable ceramic that resembles adobe, with the most significant having windows of Chiaroscuro Glass and doors made of either that same substance or Stainless Steel. Buildings are generally between six and ten stories high with essence powered air conditioning and elevators both of which the Patron must personally repair before the building becomes usable again.

Unlike many old realm cities, Amarana is laid out on a grid, instead of in a radial pattern. This gives a geomantic bonus to the people who live there: namely that mortals gain +1 XP per time XP is awarded. This bonus actually accrues every half year if using long term awards. The players can uncover this information with a dif10 [wits + occult] roll once every month they spend in the city beginning on the second day they are here. The bonus only applies to true mortals, not god blooded, ghost blooded, awakened Martial artists or any exalt, but does apply to dragon kings and jadeborn who are not Artisans.

So far roughly half of the city has been uncovered, but even here there are a lot of buildings that are collapsed, or still filled with sand and roped off with red cables and even more locations where there are red cables indicating small shadowlands or dimenses that are not to be approached until the city can close/cap them.

The excavation is proceeding irregularly, moving from the east wall out toward the west except around the central manse and the road from the north gate to the south gate. There are markets in most squares and a number of shops on the ground floors of buildings. Few merchants here are officially affiliated with the guild since many people in the city are escaped guild slaves and loath the guild vehemently.

Nearly everything except slaves is available for sale, including many products from The Wyld. Firewands and Flame Pieces are the core of the weapons markets along with accessories such as bayonets, powder horns, and pieces of flint or obsidian for strikers. Interestingly Cannons are not for sale, being reserved for the government, but anyone with contacts 2 or higher could find someone who knows someone who could get a permit for purchasing a few for export. Armoring is more advanced, and even some artifact armors are for sale, though they would be a resource 4 purchase at minimum, and that is for the simple stuff like Jade breastplates. Things like Yuroy Scout armor are beyond the means of anyone in the party, though, that comes up for sale very rarely except through illegal channels. Jade Full Plate and Super Heavy Plate are more commonly available, in fact, there are people in the city that can be commissioned to make it. Orichalcum and Monsilver are not commissionable but in the still covered parts of the city are facilities to work it. There are no facilities in the city for Soulsteel or Starmetal, but there is a workshop in one manse that has been uncovered to work Adamant, though finding any to use would require Wyld Cauldron Technology and spending XP: such is the life of the Exalted...

There are a number of Inns, Caravanserai, and Hostels near the city gates, while further in nearly every corner of an inhabited area has at least one restaurant or coffee shop. Tea houses, by comparison, are rare, and true bars are unusual enough to be remarked upon when a new one is found. Most living quarters do not have kitchens, which is why many hab towers which have been excavated don't have permanent residents and so many restaurants can stay open. Many restaurants, in fact, rent themselves out to people wishing to cook for their families or are owned by consortiums of citizens who hold them in common for communal cooking with contracts for use and upkeep requirements.

All of the city's roads are at least 20 feet wide, plus a five-foot sidewalk to either side. This is for the smallest streets, most are 40 feet wide with sidewalk and a few main thoroughfares are 60 feet wide. The streets keep themselves magically clean once each section is repaired by the Patron, but only a very few sections are repaired and many people who work as street sweepers clearing sand wish for it to stay that way. (Each 10'x10' section is a different artifact and must be individually repaired. There is one street in the city's west that is a first age relic and still working. However it can only affect things up to 30 feet above itself, so it is a long tunnel of a clear street bounded on all sides by packed sand.) The streets are made of fitted 5'x5'x1' blocks of granite, and one can sometimes determine which part of the city one is in by the color of the streets. The northeast the blocks are blue and green, the southeast red and green, the southwest red and black and the northwest blue and black. The city’s four central parkways are each a solid color relating to their element and 40' wide on each side and the grand square around the central manse is white and 60' wide at its narrowest point. However many streets were repaired with gray, white, or red granite toward the end of the shogunate and are not properly color-coded.

The City has at least 5' of clearance between all buildings: meaning that there are many allies in which one can get lost. You can often tell which parts are in use and which are unoccupied by weather there is sand filling the allies or they are clear.

== Manses and Demesnes of Amarana ==
Amarana was at one time subject to major geomantic engineering projects that gave it a large number of demesnes and then manses relative to its size. Most of those manses are still here, still active, and even now being located and excavated. A few, however, were partially unstable and have long since exploded. These few are roped off as dangerous and plans are underway to re-cap them, led of course by the Patron. Note that there are more manses and demesnes within the city that have not yet been found and that at one time there were even MORE demesnes in the city which have collapsed into a dormant state due to the changes in the city's essence flows and could be reactivated with the appropriate rituals once the city is fully excavated and geomantic remapped, these demesnes, however, were all small ones, level 2 at the most, so whether such effort is worth it in the short term, or even a good idea, is debatable. See [[Nemo of Utopia/MansesandDemesnesofAmarana|Manses and Demesnes of Amarana]] for further information.

= History =

== Prehistory ==

Though most do not know it Amarana's deepest foundations were laid in an era long past by the [[Dragons Kings]]. The City flourished in the age between the advent of humanity and the [[Primordial War]] with many of the first exalted visiting the place at one time or another in the several decades of the lead up to the overthrow of the Primordials. Then when the war began the city was wreathed in the destruction by one of the superweapons of the masters of creation, utterly annihilating most of those that dwelt therein and reducing the city to a smoking crater of volcanic glass. Still, beneath the burned and blackened surface, some parts of the old under city survived, and wait there still.

== The First Age ==

During the First Age many of the survivors of the primordial war remembered their time in 'Highana' fondly and after excavating much of the old substrate and leveling off the damaged areas to make way for new constructions raised up a new city on the site of the old. This city was dubbed 'Solzarian' in honor of [[The Unconquered Sun]] and in memorial to the Great Dragon King lady who had ruled the city so well and wisely ere it's annihilation. The City would remain a significant but out-of-the-way part of the Old Realm all the way through the first age.

=== The Ocher Fountain Era ===

During the beginning of the First Age when [[Queen Merela]] ruled over all creation from the eternal capital of [[Rathess]] Solzarian was still being reconstructed, and there was little of note that occurred in the city. One event, in particular, was notable, however: the Conclave of Solzarian in year 99 of the old realm, a symposium on the rights and freedoms of the people of creation which some in later years would argue laid the foundations of the Meru Uprising which led to the formation of the Deliberative.

=== The First Deliberative Era ===

By the time of the founding of the [[Deliberative]], the reconstruction of Solzarian was largely complete, and over the next few decades, the city became a favored retreat for both Solars and Lunars seeking to get the heck out of Meru and the stifling politics of the great city. One of Marela's closest allies [[Nemo of Utopia/Angus the Wirehair|Angus the Wirehair]] was given the rule of the city as part of the division of creation into fiefdoms and made it his personal residence. Under Angus rule, the city prospered, though it, by-and-large, remained a backwater compared to such metropolises as [[Chiaroscuro]] and Rathess. However, thanks to its solar overlord and his close relationship to the Queen of all Creation the city began the long process of incredible geomantic engineering which would in time lead to it being known as 'The City of Manses'.

=== Unfurling Horizon Era ===

While this era of creation went by largely without incident of significant note at this remove of history it is still recorded that many of the great efforts to explore and expand the borders of Creation in the south used Solzarian as a staging ground or stopover point before plunging into the true wilderness at creation's rim. This continued to encourage the exalted to play 'tourist' in the city and helped keep its economy vibrant. It is also noted in some histories that there was a major strike of [[Red Jade]] near the city in 811 which produced a 'Jade Rush' led by two rival Dragon-Blooded brothers and their servants which escalated into a short civil war in the city 2 years later in which significant damage was done to the city's infrastructure by all three* factions. The Civil War was only halted when [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Angus the Wirehair|Angus the Wirehair]] returned from Meru at the head of a wing of elite Dragon-Blooded shock troops and brutally suppressed both rival groups with mass arrests and a number of executions. (What happened to the brothers is unknown, but their names do not reappear in the historic record for 700 years, and at that time associated with different elemental aspects leading most scholars to conclude that they were 'dealt with' privately by their family.)
*(The Two consortia backing the rival brothers and the cities law enforcement detachments.)

==== The Aftershock War ====

In spite of the growing significance of the city and it's powerful assets in terms of equipment and hearthstones, Solzarian was not at first much involved in the Aftershock War. Passed over in favor of more militarily significant targets by the Primordial Forces the city did not come under fire until 1131 when a force of some 3000 first circle demons led by a trio of 2nd circle demons assaulted the city in the dead of night via a fleet of living airships. The 'Battle of Solzarian' was considered a significant victory for the forces of creation due to the large number of [[Golden Janissary Style]] practitioners in the city who were able to make fairly short work of the first circle demons allowing the detachment of Dragon-Blooded stationed in the city to confront the second circle demon commanders and dispatch them.

However the war was not all glorious victory for the people of Solzarain, [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Angus the Wirehair|Angus the Wirehair]] went missing during the final battle with the primordial forces and would not be seen again for over 500 years. For most of that time, he was presumed dead by the people of the city, though the Solar Exalted knew better as his shard had not found a new host.

=== Shining Reflection Era ===

During this period Solzarian loses much of its former significance as the seat of one of Marela's close allies. Few of the Exalted visit the city and the grand engineering projects grind to a near halt. The only events of great significance that occur here are two:
1: The Duel of the Magisters in 1313 where the reincarnations of Theis, Leelah, and Sonah engage in a duel of sorceress power which damages large sections of the city and forces all three of them to be censured by Marela herself: And;
2: In 1492 a major strike of Orichalcum is made a few hundred miles south of the city, and Solzarian becomes a stepping off point for prospectors of every stripe looking to get rich quick mining Orichalcum. The City's economy runs strong off this sudden influx of cash, people, and goods for the next 30 years.

=== Thousand Struggles Era ===

The first part of this period proceeds much from the previous one: everyone is aware that one of the legendary solar exalted has died of old age, but this makes little difference to the struggling backwater that Solzarian has become: then in 1776 everything changes.

In the Records of Solzarian 1776 is called: 'The Year of the Thousand' for the massive wave of change that swept over the city this year. The First thing that happens is [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Angus the Wirehair|Angus the Wirehair]] 'returns from the dead' on the 11th of Ascending Water storming into the city with a small group of Solars, Lunars, and Siderials and calling everyone he can reach into the city with him to face what he calls 'The Storm of the Millennium'. Ten days later the storm arrives and following in behind it a host of the fair folk the likes of which has not been seen in centuries. The city is invested and besieged for two months by the Faerie Host and the siege is only broken by the arrival of four full realm legions armed with Cold Iron. Once the Fair Folk are driven back and the city is again secure Angus orders most of the city leveled and an engineering project the like of which the city has not seen in over half a millennium undertaken to extensively alter its geomancy. To finance this undertaking he produces several tons of jade, from what source none can say, and uses his Wyld Shaping charms, which until his return no one knew he possessed, to manufacture the raw materials needed from the chaotic energy left behind by the Fair Folk.

However, no sooner was the project underway than orders came down from the Queen that he was to return to [[Meru]] at once and answer for his absence: and bound by the oaths he took as one of the [[Golden Hero Vassals]] so very long ago he departs. Following up on the plans he has left behind his circle mate [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Levian of the Gilded Staff|Levian of the Gilded Staff]] begins directing the super-massive construction and engineering projects which will if successful create one of the greatest concentrations of manses and geomantic relays outside of the Blessed Isle. By late in Descending fire half the city is gone and an entirely new street plan and so on is rising in its place, along with a massive upgrade to the walls and towers of the city perimeter as well.

What exactly passed for Angus in Meru is unrecorded by any presently known records except perhaps those of the Bureau of Destiny but what is recorded is the results of that visit: Angus was stripped of the rulership of his fief in the south including Solzarian and sent on a quest of penance into the frozen north: while Solzarian and the surrounding area was given into the hands of a relatively young solar of the Twilight Caste from another circle named [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Keisha Adriana Mullion|Keisha Adriana Mullion]] and her lunar mate [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Maxim of Personal Liberty|Maxim of Personal Liberty]].

While Keisha was young she was not stupid and consulted with Levian of the Gilded Staff on what she was doing with the engineering of the city. With the elder Twilight's help, she finished the geomantic reorganization as designed by Angus and by the end of Resplendent Air the basic project is finished. The city is now rife with uncapped demesnes and sites that will become demesnes once they can be activated after some of the others are capped. The city also now confers a geomantic bonus on all mortals living there, allowing them to develop their skills and abilities more quickly than those living in other cities. The full culmination of the project with the activation and capping of all demesnes will not be complete for another 36 years.

==== Time of Cascading Years ====

The Time of Cascading Years took rather longer in Solzarian and the surrounding area than it did in most of Creation: 3333 years to be precise. The relatively young solar ruler who went into the Time of Cascading Years and her only slightly more experienced Lunar Spouse emerges from it with a weight of skill and refinement which makes them elders among the solars and lunars. They also are now both arrayed with a panoply of artifacts and charms that make them forces to be reckoned with in the new Deliberative. The passage of the 'Age of Isolation' in Solzarian is marked by a number of rebellions and uprisings, and the invasion of their lands by the fair folk towards the end of it, from whence none, can say. Supposedly it was the destruction of an artifact which the Raksha Commander carried which restore time to its normal flow according to the people of Solzarian.

=== Second Deliberative Era ===

During the [[User:Nemo of Utopia/PeriodofLongSilence|Period of Long Silence]] Solzarain is one of the few areas still doing significant research, though they are hampered by the continuing disunity of creation and the fearfulness of creation's mortals who are all accustomed to traveling too far from home casting you into a different timeline.

With the Establishment of the new deliberative however Solzarian is thrust into the spotlight for around a hundred years as the home and workshop of one of the most important [[User:Nemo of Utopia:NPCCreationGuidelines/Exalted/FirstAge/Solar/TwilightCaste|Copper Spiders]] of the deliberative. During this period the city is a known destination for the many young Twilight-caste members who were reborn following the restoration of time's proper flow.

As this era goes on however Solzarian becomes less and less important with the rebuilding of the rest of creation, the other Twilights drift away to rule their own fiefs and work on their own projects and as has happened before Solzarian's position far from most significant events of history both at the center of creation and at its rim mean it becomes a backwater. Even it's solar and lunar rulers spend more time in Meru than at home, leaving the city in the hands of [[User:Nemo of Utopia:NPCCreationGuidelines/Exalted/FirstAge/Dragonblooded/Top|Dragon Blooded]] legates.

=== Era of Dreams ===

During the first part of the Era of Dreams, though Solzarian flourishes on the mundane level it remains a backwater on the scales by which The Realm measures such things: a functional and unimportant city in a functional but unimportant section of the world. It does, however, receive an [[IAM|I AM]] Transmission Node linking it to the broader network of information which now spans creation.

Then in the year 3381, it's twilight caste ruler is goaded into violating her eclipse oath to not attack other celestial exalted in Meru, setting in motion a chain of events that will alter the shape of Solzarian's fate for centuries to come, and that of the rest of creation. At first, the botches come hard and heavy, but then they stop and [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Keisha Adriana Mullion|Keisha]] thinks the oath's punishment has run its course.

It has not.

Returning to her holding in the south she begins to work on constructing a [[Proto Shinmatic Vortex]] and at a key stage of the process, the final botch of set activates and the PSV explodes, killing Keisha and creating an intense Wyld Zone south of the city over a hundred miles wide.

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/MaximofPersonalLiberty|Maxim of Personal Liberty]] calls upon every favor he has and even takes on new obligations to arrange the deliberative sending experts at Wyld Shaping to close the rift in the fabric of reality, but the people sent are not the high essence Solars and Lunars he hoped for but rather a cadre of neophytes who have scarce mastered Wyld Cauldron Technology and are woefully unprepared for the madness of the deep Wyld which exists within the rift. Three of them die before the other two calls it quits leaving the Wyld Zone barely stabilized around its edges. It is unrecorded at this remove what keeps the deliberative busy and the more powerful Wyld shapers tied up, but it will not be for another 3 decades that the Wyld zone is fully dealt with and that not by an individual any more experienced than the ones first dispatched, though with far greater caution than the first circle that was sent showed.

== The Usurpation ==

Amarana had no real part to play in the opening phases of the Usurpation, but it's new overlord, the young and inexperienced Twilight Caste [[User:Nemo of Utopia/StormCrownedGwenneth|Storm Crowned Gwenneth]] (who had spent the last few years leading up to the usurpation going through her predecessor's notes and weeping in frustration that she could understand the barest handful of the data therein), had still not settled on a school of sorcery to ascribe to, and as such, she wasn't at the big banquet in Meru and in-point-of-fact managed to survive the opening phases of the Usurpation, and the window-of-opportunity for being trapped in the jade-prison, eventually being brought down just over 50 years later in the depths of the southern Wyld near The Elemental Pole of Fire while attempting to reach a laboratory/workshop base of her former incarnation.

== The Shogunate ==

== The Fall & The Second Age ==

== The Rebirth ==

In RY 760, that same year where so very much else changed for creation (763 in normal Chronicles): the man who

= Government =

In basic, the Government of Amarana really consists of a single man: [[User:Nemo of Utopia/The Patron of Amarana|The Patron]]. He is an autocrat, ruling by divine mandate and shier power, as he is capable of defeating significant deities in single combat. However the Patron is one man, and as such has organized his subjects with several branches of what we would consider a more normal government. This normal government is organized into twelve 'Adeptus' which each is led by one of the twelve 'High Lords of Amarana'. These twelve powerful individuals form a council that advises and assists The Patron in his leadership of the city, feeding him data on several topics such as the state of his subject's religious convictions or the preparedness of his military. Though each High Lord is immensely powerful they all are The Patron's fanatical partisans and would not dream of challenging his authority, even if they could.

== The Adeptus Millitate ==

The Adeptus Millitate is one of the largest branches of Amarana's government, with no fewer than 1250 members in all its branches and subgroups. Though officially in charge of Amarana's Armed services it has a rival in The Adeptus Aeronauticus who oversee Amarana's air-forces. The Adeptus Millitate is run by [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Fist of the Land|Fist of the Land]] a God-Blooded martial artist who is somewhat uncomfortable leading an army of over a thousand people.

The Adeptus Millitate has the following departments and offices:

=== The Departmento Munitorum ===

Oversees the acquisition and care of the equipment and supplies for the army.

==== The Officio Technis ====

Deals with the army's Magitech assets.

==== The Officio Cibum ====

Oversees the all-important function of providing provisions for the troops.

==== The Officio Armorium ====

Handles the more mundane arms and armor of Amarana's troops.

==== The Officio Quartium ====

… is responsible for most everything else, from tents to uniforms to bedrolls.

=== The Departmento Servicum ===

Oversees the actual troops and officers and their training regimens.

==== The Officio Acadamicain Legionarius ====

This office oversees the training of new recruits and officers running two training schools for them.

==== The Officio Cooptatione Legionarius ====

This is the group that sees-to the recruitment and if necessary conscription of new troops for the army.

=== The Departmento Latrocinium ===

Oversees the hiring and 'control' of any mercenary units the government employs but is better known for a more sinister function.

==== The Officio Mercenarius ====

Does the Hiring and Firing of actual mercenaries.

==== The Officio Assasinoritum ====

'The Office of Assassins', to use the Vulgate, runs at least four secret dojos training mortal agents in martial arts that facilitate them serving as The Patron's spies and assassins. [[Nemo of Utopia/Assassin of the Grey Spire|Assassin of the Grey Spire]] 'leads' this office: He is ''not'' a master of the White Veil Style of martial arts and has most ''definitely not'' taught many of its members this secret art form. (Nudge nudge, wink wink, know what I mean, know what I mean? Say no more, say no more!)

=== The Officio Adminstrad Militate ===

This 'Floating Office' makes sure that all of the other Departmento and Oficio within this Adeptus do their jobs properly.

== The Adeptus Arbitiese ==

The Adeptus Arbitese oversee Amarana's police forces, and are one of the larger branches of the government with only 150 individuals on staff, counting every beat cop all the way on up to the High Lord Herself as well as all the file clerks and so on that work for the Adeptus but are not actually part of it's 'fighting strength'. They have only one Departmento and less than a dozen Officio, but so far are keeping a lid on the political turmoil of the city. The High Lord of the Arbitese is [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Steel Garden|Steel Garden]] who is not a very good investigator but a decent politician and capable administrator.

=== The Departmento Queastorum ===

This department is responsible for making inquiries and investigating crime, thus far it is the only Department of the Adeptus Arbitese but the Officio Correctionibus is expected to become a departmento in its own right someday.

==== The Officio Homicide ====

The Office of Homicide consists of only eight people, four detectives, three CSI techs, and one overworked file clerk. Their closure rate hovers at around 50%, though that is only due to them being able to count any suspect killed by the ghost of the victim as a closed case. [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Laurel the Axe|Laurel the Axe]] is the unofficial leader of this group but officially they answer directly to the High Lord of the Arbitese.

==== The Officio Servus Aucupes ====

The term 'office of slave catchers' is something of a misnomer. These detectives do not catch slaves, rather they catch people keeping, taking, or recapturing slaves and send them to their just punishments. This office consists of five overworked personnel, two detectives, two forensic accountants, and one file clerk. Their closure rate is around 30% since it is hard to prove that someone was a slaver without catching them in the act.

==== The Officio Vitium ====

Unlike the officio above this office is not quite so overworked, and the two often help each other out because their work frequently overlaps. The 'Vice Squad' mostly concerns itself with drugs and prostitution, since licensed gambling establishments and most pornography are both legal in Amarana. The officio consists of Four Detectives, five undercover officers, three CSI techs, and a harried file clerk. Their Closure rate is about 45%.

==== The Officio Interioribus ====

This Officio is more for show than anything since all of Amarana's police are held by the Stone of Invincible Loyalty. It consists of two Detectives and one Forensic Accountant. They often spend their time quietly helping out other offices.

==== The Officio Fraude Aucupes ====

This is actually one of the larger offices within the Arbities, having eleven total personnel, six detectives, three forensic accountants, a CSI tech, and a file clerk. The office tries to keep a lid on the Guild and others defrauding Amarana's citizens through various means and does a fairly good job. Their closure rate is about 70%, though this is largely due to a lot of success catching many small-fry while the remaining 30% is almost all of the big players.

==== The Ofiicio Fures ====

The 'office of thieves' is responsible for all break-ins, burglaries, purse snatchings, muggings, cutpurses, and so forth in the city. In spite of having eight detectives, five undercover agents, six CSI, four Forensic Accountants, and five file clerks their closure rate is about 12%. Garion Cromarch is frankly disgusted with them and has told The Patron so. The Patron knows they are doing their best but has ordered mandatory additional training for all members of this office.

==== The Officio Pax Patronum ====

The remainder of the police force is in this office. These are the beat cops that enforce the law by their presence and vigilance. Amarana is a large city and they constantly must be on the lookout for any kind of crime but especially things like drunk and disorderly, disturbing the peace, making an affray, and so on. This office consists of 57 patrol officers and over a dozen file clerks. Twelve of these officers are part of a sub-office of 'Mounties' who do their patrols in teams of three on horseback, they are often called in to suppress larger riots. The officers always patrol in teams of three, one to watch the front of a building and two to look around the sides and catch criminals in a pincer movement. They all carry magitech com units that let them use Wind Carried Words Technique and have Linguistics 3. (Their closure rate is not applicable since they work out of elven precincts and each one has a different closure rate.) One of these officers does not need a comms unit: being a dragon blooded air aspect outcaste named [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Secret Eagle|Secret Eagle]]. They have offered to promote him many times, but he prefers to be a patrol officer, though he has deigned to accept the rank of patrol sergeant for the fourth precinct.

=== The Officio Correctionibus ===

The office of corrections deals with the punishment rather than the apprehension side of crime. They are chronically overworked and typically have more criminals than they know what to do with but manage to do their jobs adequately. This floating office is overseen by Iron Sands, a member of The Broad who has lots of experience getting slaves to do as they are bid.

== The Adeptus Judicate ==

Working closely with the Adeptus Arbites the Adeptus Judicate is the other half of the justice system. These are the many Judges, Lawyers, and Clerks of the Court who make sure that the innocent are not punished with the guilty. At the present time, the Adeptus Judicate consists of 11 judges, 15 prosecuting attorneys, 23 Attorneys of Due Justice (Public Defenders.), 42 'Clerks of the Court' who record and file all rulings and court-ordered contracts, and 17 "Agent's Protection" who follow up on inconsistencies in court records and the welfare of Amarana's citizens in cases such as child abuse allegations and locating jurors that fail to show up for a trial. There are also about 200 private attorneys who are technically part of this Adeptus but not part of the government. The High Lord of the Courts is [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Molly McBride|Molly McBride]] a Demon Blooded northerner who has spent her whole life fighting against injustice and corruption in every form.

Additionally [[User:Nemo of Utopia/The_Patron_of_Amarana|The Patron]] himself is technically also a member of this branch as he has the right to sit in judgment if he chooses on all High Crimes and acts of Treason. He has invoked this right exactly once, mostly to prove that he could. (The person in question was found "Not Guilty by Reason of Insanity" and sentenced to lifetime confinement to a mental institution pending treatment or cure of his condition. He stood accused of twelve counts of grand theft, but psychoanalysis found him to be a kleptomaniac. The police often consult him on serial theft cases, and he is actually fairly good at solving them. However, he does have a problem with stealing other patients’ belongings and the doctor's pens and notebooks.)

Trials are in the American/British style, with a 'jury of one's peers' and the judge presiding from the high seat. The witness's sit to the judge's left and the clerk to the right. The prosecutors are on the left side of the courtroom and the Jury the Right while the accused is in the middle. Unless the accused is elderly or crippled and unable to stand they may not sit. For this reason, individual segments of trial must last no more than 3 hours. Only citizens may serve as witnesses, but since one can at the present time become a citizen after 24 hours residency this is not a problem. Citizens MAY testify with respect to events from before their citizenship. The accused is entitled to an 'Attorney of Due Justice' in the event that they cannot retain their own private counsel. The judge may dismiss any case at any time with or without prejudice, which is done routinely with respect to picayune or spurious civil cases so as to free up Attorneys of Due Justice for criminal trials. The patron is looking into finding more Judges and Attorneys of Due Justice so that civil cases do not need to be dismissed so frequently, which has a distressing tendency to lead to murder.

Abnormally The Adeptus Judicate does not have any departmento or officio, but there are those within it and without that are bucking to change that.

== The Adeptus Sororitatus ==

The 'Sisterhood' as they are called by the common folk is the government Adepta that oversees all _female_ clerics and thaumaturges in Amarana Like their Counterparts in the Adeptus Fratris they are few in number but powerful in influence. Technically also responsible for the worship of all-female gods in the city it is common that women will be priests of male deities and men prelates of a goddess's church. The division of male and female clergy between the AS and AF, however, is strict while the division of deities wavers like the landscape in the summer heat. In spite of these difficulties, the two branches of government get along quite well and cooperation between them is without rancor or strife in most cases. The High Lady of the Adepta is [[Nemo of Utopia/Unrepentant Emerald|Unrepentant Emerald]]. She is a mortal with Enlightened Essence and is exceedingly circumspect in her actions, a paragon of temperance. She is also the head priestess of [[Nemo of Utopia/Amarana Seline|Amarana Seline]].

=== The Officio Festivalius ===

This floating office submits to The Patron which days and locations should have festivals to honor the goddess' of the city. A circle of female clergy decide these events and pass them on to the patron, who generally approves them without comment. This circle is chaired by Unrepentant Emerald.

=== The Departmento Eclesiast ===

This is the main branch of the Adepta, overseeing and licensing all _female_ clergy in Amarana. The department technically consists of all licensed female clergy in the city but in practice, most of the female clergy get their licenses and are about their business having no further interaction with the government except to re-up their licenses once a year.

==== The Officio Licentiae ====

This officio handles the licensing process for all official priestesses, which requires proving you have the following capabilities: Ability to speak and read Old Realm, Basic knowledge of Spiritual Etiquette, (At least 3 dots in occult or 1 + an appropriate specialty.) and training in proper prayer procedures. (Prayer roll performance pool of at least 5 dice.) These requirements may be waived if the cleric has a 'sponsor' with a proper license who is taking on the new cleric as a student to train in service to their god/goddess in which case a 'Postulant Permit' is issued instead. Licenses are issued per deity, so if you wish to be the clergy of multiple gods multiple licenses are required. This is waived in the case of Zenith-caste Solars, Theurge-caste "New-Method"-Lunars, "Redemer"-caste Infernals, and Midnight-caste Abyssals, since it would be more trouble than it is worth to issue a license for every god in creation (for the first two), every each of the recovering yozis and all the greater demons (Redeemers), or ghost above essence 3 in the underworld (Midnight-castes).

==== The Officio Sanctionite ====

This is a smaller office within the departmento, making recommendations to The Patron on which female deities should be given official sanction within Amarana. All the female deities mentioned under the Religion section are sanctioned unless noted otherwise. Being unsanctioned does not mean you cannot be worshiped, but it does mean that you cannot have space allocated for a temple or licensed clergy. Sanctioning however is fairly easy to get since The Patron often simply signs the forms without reading them. (Additionally, all the incarnae are sanctioned, + Gaia and the Dragons.)

==== The Officio Hetterodox ====

This office deals with instances of rogue gods and clergy, such as the notorious Tuggie of the Scavenger Lands and other instances where the celestial bureaucracy has broken down to an unacceptable level. Employing many outside contractors they put spirits who demand illicit worship or sapient sacrifice in their places and also hunt rogue demons and the fair folk's ravagers. Though the actual functionaries of this Officio are few their agents are many and they are always busy.

== The Adeptus Frateris ==

Sometimes referred to as 'The Fraternity' by outsiders this Adeptus is responsible for all male deities and male clergy in Amarana. They take their job seriously and are sometimes noted for being taciturn and uncompromising. They are led by [[Nemo of Utopia/Wauli the Wolf|Wauli the Wolf]], who like his female counterpart is a mortal with awakened essence.

Structurally the Adeptus Frateris is identical to the Adeptus Sorroitatus.

== The Adeptus Mechanicus ==

The Adeptus Mechanicus are an odd bunch. Dressing in Rust Red robes and communicating in their own strange (and highly technical) dialect of Old-Realm they keep outsiders at arm's length. This Adepta is responsible for helping The Patron find and repair the magitech of the city a task that they perform supremely well but which many wonders if this group of strangely obsessed men and women are actually best suited for. Led by [[Nemo of Utopia/Adamant Sprocket|Adamant Sprocket]], an elderly Djala man and his young adult daughter [[Nemo of Utopia/Gears of Fate|Gears of Fate]], this group employs many Djala escapees in the task of repairing and rebuilding the city.

== The Adeptus Diolougus ==

What some would call the state department or the diplomatic corps the Adeptus Diolougus is one of the smallest Adeptus of the Amaranaian government. Led by [[Nemo of Utopia/Exultant Ivory Mother|Exultant Ivory Mother]] (a god-blooded woman from An-Teng, who harbors no feelings of goodwill for either Realm or Guild,) this group of spies and agent's provocateur work to keep Amarana a free city and outside the clutches of both [[The Guild]] and foreign powers such as the [[Realm]].

== The Adeptus Medicae ==

Easily among the smallest Adeptus of the Amaranaian government if one only counts the actual government personnel instead of approximately a-dozen-dozen licensed doctors, psychiatrists, and physicians whom they are tasked with overseeing and who like private attorneys in the city are technically part of the Adeptus: the Adeptus Medicae is as one might have guessed responsible for the physical and mental health of the city. They Tend to this task primarily by licensing and monitoring the city's medical personnel. This Adeptus role is two-fold: first, they are responsible for overseeing those practicing and utilizing any kind of medical skill in the city, from alchemists manufacturing morphine, [[Seven Bounties Paste]], or [[Age Staving Cordial]], to those offering psychiatric counseling outside of a church setting, to the several small private hospitals around the city, to even veterinarians. The Second task of the group is more dangerous and ripe for abuse by far: it is they in large part, as the only people with the requisite expertise, who draw up for [[Nemo of Utopia/The Patron of Amarana|The Patron's]] approval the statutes of law which they are tasked with enforcing. Thus far there has been no conflict of interest or abuses of power but the vast majority of people among the medical personnel of Amarana wait anxiously or avidly for this to begin changing.

The Adeptus Medicae is led by [[Nemo of Utopia/Simon Baker|Simon Baker]], a psychiatrist by trade, who is among the most dangerously insightful and persuasive people you will ever meet, at least that is not one of the exalted. He is, in fact, a god blooded, son of the patron deity of an order of physicians on The Blessed Isle, and is not much taken with the Imacualtes, treating them with frosty professionalism.

== The Adeptus Fabricae ==

Easily the largest and most diverse branch of the Amaranaian government the Adeptus Fabricae oversees all matters which involve or pertain directly to any sort of production, manufacturing, functional artistry, or creation of goods within Amarana's lands. Though ferreting out matters of a criminal nature fall under the heading of the Adeptus Arbites, and the governance of the legal codes is the province primarily of The Patron himself, and Prosecution and judgment of crimes is the business of the Adeptus Judicate, all three of these functions fall partially under this Adeptus' remit.

The Adeptus Fabricae first submits for The Patron's approval all codes and strictures which govern the actions and enterprises of fabricating all tangible products in Amarana, and exhaustive list of matters which fall under their control would be impossible but a few of the more salient follow: Print Shops, Compounding Pharmacies, Paper Mills, Glass Works, Jewelers, Magitech Repair Shops, Smithies, Book Binders, Cobblers, Tailors, and Farms: essentially anything which would be made by any sort of "Craft: XXX" skill is within their authority. The patron then reviews these legal codes and approves or rejects them, which becomes the strictures that the Adeptus Fabricae enforce upon the businesses of Amarana.

Most production facilities of any kind are within the Adeptus Fabricae's remit, with the notable exception of restaurants, taverns, eateries, pubs, tea houses, inns, and food carts which fall under the aegis of the Adeptus Medicae, though oddly pharmacies do not. Neither adepta is happy about this but neither is willing to lose or exchange the area they do have power over for reasons of their own which seem fully sufficient to them. Furthermore, any business that produces a tangible product and directly employs more than 50 people in any capacity is under their remit to license, inspect, and if necessary fine or refer to the Arbiters for investigation.

The following are the Departmento and Officio of the Adeptus Fabricae, each one with significant discretionary power and held in check solely by the High Lady of the Adeptus [[Nemo of Utopia/AuspiciousCrystalLightning|Auspicious Crystal Lightning]] and The Patron.

=== The Departmento Iura ===

The 'Department of Laws' devises and writes out the codes of law which govern the production and creation of goods in Amarana. They have created and submitted to the patron and extensive and thorough list of legal codes regarding the conditions, control, creation, and compensation for most products in Amarana, and those they have not they are working on.

==== The Officio Iura Laboris ====

The 'Office of Labor Laws' designs the codes of law concerning the employment, treatment, and management of Amarana's workforce. They are in the main as despised by the plutocracy as they are beloved by the common folk. Among other laws, they have enacted is the 8-hour work shift and the 6 day work week.

==== The Officio Iura Fabricación ====

The "Office of Manufacturing Laws" creates the codes of law governing the actual production of goods. Other offices govern the details of different types of production facilities or fields, but this office creates the general guidelines which the others work by.

==== The Officio Iura Cotagium Industria ====

The "Office of Cottage Industry" drafts the limited and simple codes which control small scale manufacturing by individuals and small business. They would like to have more extensive and detailed codes but The Patron uses his authority to make the official versions of the law to pare back most of their red tape and BS. He is, in fact, thinking of suspending this office for a period of some months while he looks for a better and less over eager set of people to be its officers.

==== The Officio Iura Officinis ====

This office makes the laws respecting the specific difficulties of production in a factory typesetting. Any production facility with 50 or more employees falls under their regulating authority, even things that are not normally their provinces such as farms, eateries, and pharmacies. For this reason, many production facilities and such, run with a staff of 40, so that even if they hire a handful of temp workers they will not move into this Officio's dominion. This Officio is not-well-liked by most business owners, being seen as overly restrictive and exceedingly interfering.

==== The Officio Iura Pharmicopia ====

== The Adeptus Adminstradum ==

== The Adeptus Aeronauticus ==

== The Adeptus Vectigalia ==

Lying squarely in the middle of the Adeptus of the city in terms of size the Adeptus Vectigalia is The Patron's Tax Collectors and Auditors of Accounts. Little liked by most people in the city they are nevertheless key to its continued function. In addition to overseeing that the government is given it's due and being called on to check the books of businesses which the Adeptus Arbites feel might be doing illegal activities the Adeptus Vectigalia also runs Amarana's national mint, which means that they are monitored closely by both The Patron and the Adeptus Arbites.

Noted for being uncompromising and humorless the Adeptus Vectigalia dress in imperishable formal clothing left behind from the first age. The hot stuffy suits and jackets only contribute to their reputation as dour and unsmiling drones of government oversight, which is perhaps the point of the dress code.

The Adeptus Vectigalia is divided into three Departmento: The Departmento Salari, which collects the taxes in cash or kind, the Departmento Quastorius, who audits people's books, and the Departmento Signo, who oversees the minting and engraving of all Amaranaian currency.

The Adeptus Vectigalia is led by [[Nemo of Utopia/Manifold Gemstone|Manifold Gemstone]] a perfectly ordinary man, who happens to be an excellent forensic accountant if only a passable administrator.

= Religion =

Faith and practice in Amarana are as diverse as the people who have come to live there. Everything from Immaculates to ancestor Worshipers to CotI members to simple priests and adherents of various gods all rub-elbows on the city's streets. Below are a brief rundown of the most prominent of the city's faiths and the deities they worship.

== Immaculates ==

Though the smallest of the city's faiths the Immaculate Doctrine still has hundreds of adherents among the people of the city, many of whom are enlightened martial arts practitioners. They also have a strong support network in the form of outside contacts with The Realm and other Dragon-Blooded.

== The Common Faith/Hundred Gods Heresy ==

The Majority of the population of Amarana believe in the gods as most people of the threshold do: they worship those who can provide them with benefits they want or need and don't understand much about the celestial bureaucracy or how things worked in the first age and that the present state of affairs is a corruption of the 'proper' order of things. Those that do often take the stance that "this is the way things are" and simply go on with their day.

What follows is a brief list of the major deities of Amarana and who or what they are affiliated with:

=== Amarana Seline ===

[[Nemo of Utopia/AmaranaSeline|Amarana Seline]]: As the City Mother of Amarana, Amarana Seline is the leader of the city's spirits. She was promoted from off the dole in heaven by the machinations of a number of bronze faction Sidereals and is fully cognizant of the fact that she '''owes''' them, but at the same time of the fact that as a dispossessed spirit promoted to the rank of City Mother she has few allies and many enemies. For these and other reasons she does not play favorites, at least not much, and is working hard at her job coordinating the smooth running of the city. Though she tries to be largely neutral in truth she is in the camp of the Immaculate Faction, which is part of why the Immaculates are as strong as they are in the city.

=== Mother Midnight ===

[[Nemo of Utopia/MotherMidnight|Mother Midnight]]: As the Senior Goddess of all-natural misfortunes in Amarana 'Mother of Midnight Murder and Mayhem', to use her full name, is a very good person for The Patron to have on his side. Mother Midnight takes positive glee in afflicting his enemies with all manner of troubles and ailments, from murder most foul to tripping on a dropped piece of lumber and spilling twenty boxes of crack from their backpack right in front of a police officer. However she is not really playing favorites, she still inflicts all manner of problems on the Patriots, their enemies just get it first and worst. Mother Midnight also has another interesting fact to her favor: she has been at her post for the past 3000 years. She gets audited on a regular basis and comes up smelling like roses: every, single, time! This drives Wong Bongerok to a level of near slavering fury, especially since he is certain Mother Midnight has been doing some kind of double-dealing and below-board hustle to keep herself fed and clothed during Amarana's long dormancy but has no way to prove it. Thing is, he's wrong. Mother Midnight became a doomsday prepper just after the usurpation and had been stockpiling quintessence and ambrosia for centuries ere the fair folk invaded. She has been living off that stockpile for all the time since and even now could go several centuries were the city to fall again ere she would need to start hustling for her sustenance.

In form, Mother Midnight looks like an exceedingly overweight woman with coal-black skin and long dreadlocked black hair that hangs so long as to trail on the ground. She typically appears nude or dressed in rags but can summon an armor of bones and broken pottery for a cost of 3 motes that gives her 10 lethal/bashing soak for the rest of the scene. For one mote she may reflexively cause any weapon that strikes her which has a hardness of less than 10 to automatically break*, and any weapon that has less than 15 hardness but more than 10 take 5d of damage. Energy weapons are immune to this, such as beam-klaves and weapons with a hardness of more than 15 cannot be affected. These powers do not count as charm use.

*(The weapon still inflicts damage before breaking from this effect.)

=== Pauldron Of Sanctity ===

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/PauldronOfSanctitity|Pauldron Of Sanctitity]]: is the new titular war god of the state, essentially exiled to the post by Atlhat since he is a rabidly punctual and rules obsessed deity that Atlhat has detested for centuries. Pauldron of Sanctity takes the form of a tall man in Gunzosha Armor and wielding a shock pike. He believes in well regimented and organized military units who are drilled and well equipped. In many ways, his notions of war are still trapped in the low first age when he was spawned as the god of a mercenary company, but this is just fine because he is the war god of a city with much of its low first age equipment and infrastructure intact. Though he favors the Immacualtes he is not willing to alter the course of outlined fate one millimeter without approval through proper channels.

=== Garion Cromarch ===

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/GarionCromarch|Garion Cromarch]]: is the god of Amarana's police force, who has waited patiently these seven centuries and more since the loss of the city to the fair folk working unofficially as a P.I. in Yu-Shan and who is the author of Amarana’s rebirth, having convinced an awkward cabal of mixed members from every faction to engineer the events which have led to that happening. Garion is perhaps more involved in the doings of the city's police than he should be, often helping them out with 'gut feelings' and leading dreams, but so far his interference has not crossed the line of allowed behavior.

Garrion's form looks like an idealized southern human male wearing Sentinel Defense Force armor blazoned with the symbol of Amarana, an eagle in flight wearing broken manacles.

=== Lissom Shining Spring ===

[[Nemo of Utopia/LissomShiningSpring|Lissom Shining Spring]]: a goddess of the local Oasis who temporarily holds two positions both in her old job and as the minster of all water sources within Amarana's sphere of influence. She is not perfidious in this role like Alhat who should not hold both the aegis of southern war god and god of cattle but is genuinely looking for a replacement to take over the role of goddess of springs and oasis: however she is a perfectionist and committed to finding a perfect candidate, which means that though she has interviewed over a hundred prospective applicants she has not found one that she feels is worthy of her longtime position. The Special Sub-Comity on Amarana is willing to let her conduct further interviews, for now, but have made it clear that if she does not have a new spirit in the position by the end of next year she will be censured and the task of finding a replacement will be out of her hands. To this end, she has compiled what she calls her 'secondary list': those gods that she felt were 'almost' up to her lofty standards, and if she is running out of time will call them back for a second interview and chose the best one. She still hopes for a perfect applicant however and only has four names on her 'secondary list'.

Lissom Shining Spring's form is that of a large fish, but lately, she has been finding herself slipping into the form of a young woman in the suit of one of the city's hydro-engineering personnel who assists the Patron in making sure that all the pipes are sound before restoring the flow of water to a building. She is not sure she likes this, in fact, she's fairly certain she ''doesn't'' so far. She would be willing to slip some jade and silver to someone who could figure out why it keeps happening and make it stop a few times annually in thanks for their help.

=== Sonari ===

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/Sonari|Sonari]]: is the divine minister of sunlight and shadow for Amarana. She works with the bureau of nature to ensure that the proper degree of cloud cover reaches Amarana as well as the appropriate amount of sun. Like many of the gods of Amarana she is newly promoted from being on the dole and fearful of losing her position, but even so, dares to encourage the cult to worship her with little flourishes like rays of light in winter and cool breezes in summer.

She takes the form of a cloud from which pour rays of sunlight.

=== Mereka Jin ===

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/MerekaJin|Mereka Jin]]: the minister of romance and love in Amarana is actually an old pro at the role, having been the minister for the task in the old city and then for the Salaru tribes. He is corrupt as the day is long but adept at hiding his perfidy from anyone and everyone, including to a degree himself.

Mereka Jin takes the form of a vigorous adult man of the south with a rose in his teeth and a rakish smile. He often appears nude or in the robes worn for a wedding among the Salaru.

Mereka is eternally locked in a bitter feud with his theoretical partner Sakarzi: minster of lust and attraction, who is constantly trying to break down the stable romantic relationships her 'partner' builds. For the moment they have reached a detente on the matter of the two factions in which they are most interested, If Sakarzi will do her job for the romantic relationships of the Solarians then Mereka will not try to pair off the Ancestor Cultists into marriages and leave Sakarzi to push them to rut in wild abandon. They have not agreed about what to do with the rest of the population which makes up more than 60%.

=== Bibwit Heart ===

[[Nemo of Utopia/BibwitHeart|Bibwit Heart]]: The 'least' god of Amarana's central manse, Bibwit is uncomfortable with the cult worshiping him as they do. He has seen many least gods that have found themselves at the center of cults growing arrogant and ultimately becoming Starmetal and is afraid this will happen to him. He has survived both the fall of the solars and the shogunate by being small and unobtrusive, keeping his manse functional and active while the rest of the city fell apart and he is not going to change that strategy. Still, he is an important god in the city, and as such they venerate him. Bibwit takes the form of an anthropomorphized rabbit with white fur ice-blue eyes and a tailored green-silk coat that acts as a buff-jacket with no fatigue or mobility penalty. He carries a pocket watch that lets him make flurry attacks up to his DEX score with no penalty for one mote once per scene as part of his 'divine panoply'. This pocket watch could be lent to someone else in a sufficiently desperate emergency but if not returned to Bibwit within one cycle of the moon the city's central manse will begin to have its various functions shut down, and once all of them shut down, "essence build-up" begins.

=== Cela Dinarius ===

[[Nemo of Utopia/CelaDinarius|Cela Dinarius]]: Cela is the goddess responsible for Amarana's economy, and she is a personal friend of Glorious Weapon. She is no friend of the Guild and works as much as she dares to keep the guild from stealing artifacts from Amarana for sale to its foreign rivals. Formerly the goddess of Aj-Aran's main market square she was promoted to the overall control of the economy of Amarana via the machinations of the gold faction. She knows the city father is a bronze faction plant but reasons that as long as they both do their jobs properly they should not come into many conflicts. The two have a standing date for tea every Venus day.

Cela Dinarius form is that of an attractive woman carved from silver, and she wears the clothing of a Varangian cloth factor, which was her first job beyond as the least god some 4 centuries ago, patron goddess of a new Varangian cloth consortium.

=== Zalril ===

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/Amarana/Zalril|Zalril]]: Formerly the Least god of Amarana's north gate Zalril has by what amounts to shier-force-of-will moved up to become the patron god of Guild Members working in Amarana. The exact operation of this occurrence has been shrouded in mystery at the orders of Kejop Kajac himself, and further Nazri signed off on it too. The Guild maintains a large shrine just outside his old gate where they leave offerings before entering the city and where three slave women were taken under cover of night and sworn to become Zalril's Priestesses in exchange for their freedom by an Eclipse-caste member who often works for the guild. Though two of them still keep their roles as the god's priestesses the third has left the shrine and now lives in the city as a teacher for the city's new public school. Interestingly she has suffered no ill effects from 'breaking' her oath. Zalril has asked for the Guild to send a replacement but they are still trying to figure out why the oath failed in the first place. Meanwhile [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Sulramia|Sulramia]] finds fulfillment in teaching her students as do [[User:Nemo of Utopia/GayePachudiweOgesu|Gaye Pachudiwe Ogesu]] and [[User:Nemo of Utopia/OxandRainbowSlave|Ox and Rainbow]] the two women that still work at the shrine. Ogesu is an old woman and does the cooking and cleaning while Ox and Rainbow stand guard over the shrine. Sulramia also came with another gift for the god, her daughter, as she was part of a quadratic set, Maiden, Warrior, Mother, and Crone, and if she was to be the 'mother' Zalril insisted that she has a child as proof of her status, who conveniently doubled as 'maiden'. Sulramia's daughter is called [[User:Nemo of Utopia/IronandHoneyMaiden|Iron and Honey Maiden]] and is just the cutest five-year-old you will ever see, with an appearance score of five already. Her mother lives constantly with the fear of pedophiles, but does not let it rule their lives.

=== Walziri ===

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/Walziri|Walziri]]: as the god of beasts of burden within Amarana's lands Walziri is a major player in the lives of Guild personnel who must work or live here. Formerly a lesser deity of travel and trade in Harborhead Walziri was appointed to his new post by the machinations of a cabal of 'Independent' southern Sidereals and understands that he OWES them for this big break. The cabal has not called in that favor, at least not yet, but for the moment are content with him filing informal reports on the going's on in Amarana. While still hard at work at his new post he has already started to play favorites a little with the Guild's Men who pray to him, subtly strengthening their animals and selecting them last when sickness is due to strike the camels or whatnot of the city. Walziri takes the form of a large man of Harborhead derivation wearing several coral necklaces and white robes. He carries a Jade cattle prod which can be used as a spear or thrown like a javelin and returns instantly to his hand.

=== Anyaka Tetsuo ===

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/AnyakaTetsuo|Anyaka Tetsuo]]: The minister of Chance and Gambling in Amarana, Tetsuo is not new to this job. Created as the least god of a set of enchanted dice not long after the Primordial War Tetsuo has risen over the course of the intervening years to a position of moderate power in this city through diligent work and a suspicious number of 'lucky' breaks. Though no investigation has ever found him guilty of any wrongdoing there are enough people that are suspicious of what he surely must have done with his powers to better his status that it is unlikely he will ever rise any higher. Some deities would plot and scheme to continue advancing, but Tetsuo knows better. As a god of chance and gambling, he is well aware that he has been on quite the lucky streak and that is when you should count your winnings, leave the table, and cash in your chips before your luck runs out. He is content to be the god of all chance and gambling in Amarana: and will only rise higher if his natural luck brings him a sudden break, which he is not holding his breath for. He wiles away his time by playing games with the gamblers of the city, making them win or lose in a big way, but staying within the bounds of prescribed fate.

Tetsuo looks like a tall, broad-shouldered, thoroughly tattooed man with a cup and dice for playing a popular gambling game called 'Han or Cho'.

Tetsuo's sanctum is exceedingly large, he has had 700 years of dormancy in Amarana in which to expand it, and it now takes the form of a vast resort with several small casinos and many spas on what appears to be a small tropical island. (At the boundaries of its area there is a big reef beyond which the waterfalls away into nothing.) Tetsuo typically has many of the small gods of gambling and chance living in his sanctum with him at any time. Tetsuo is a colleague of Mother Midnight, not her subordinate, but the two work closely to determine which gamblers will face a string of ill luck.

=== Bagong Fangrick ===

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/BaegongFangrick|Bagong Fangrick]]: As the God of Vermin within Amarana Fangrick is an odd person to aid the guild but the guild will take allies where it can find them. Fangrick is a subordinate of Mother Midnight but has kept himself mostly out of her way and done his job without fuss since the revival of the city. Formerly the deity of rats for the Salaru tribes he was promoted upon the city's revival in recognition of many years of hard work with little reward and not the slightest blemish on his record.

Bagong Fangrick looks like an aged anthropomorphic rat, dressed in the robes of a shogunate era martial arts practitioner.

=== Wisp Virunga ===

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/WispVirunga|Wisp Virunga]]: As the managing deity for all education in Amarana Wisp is a VIP for the Patriots, because she helps their people learn new skills significantly faster, which helps them stay a step ahead of their competition, for the moment. The thing is that Wisp is running a knife-edge game with staying inside what is allowed within her post as a manager for all education in Amarana and what could be censured. This is very very bad: because she is already in trouble with the local censor's deputy for bearing a god blooded child, who is still alive and therefore available as evidence. Just to add insult to injury the censor's deputy has a personal vendetta against her for rebuffing his advances in favor of a mere mortal. Until the revival of Amarana Wisp Virunga was the goddess of its central library, she effectively promoted herself to the chief goddess of education by cozening up to the Patron while he was excavating her manse. When he decreed the first mandatory schooling sessions for the early colonists he had them pray to her as patron of all education in Amarana at the start of each day, when the prayers reached critical mass a few months later she had already conducted a quiet set of interviews and had her replacement as god of the library already prepped and ready to take over at once. This is not precisely an offense against the laws of heaven, but it is somewhat 'bad form' and would count against her slightly in a formal audit. It also has earned some of her fellow deities enmity, especially:...

=== Principle of Justified Action ===

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/PrincipleofJustifiedAction|Principle of Justified Action]]: Heaven has gods of just about everything, including educators. Principle of Justified Action was formerly a deity of a major school out in the distant threshold before the fair folk invasion and only survived that calamity by mere chance, having been in heaven on vacation when the hosts of faerie scourged the world. Since then he has lived on the dole and schemed endlessly to get another position in the bureau of humanity's education office. He finally thought he had one all lined up when Amarana was scheduled to be rebuilt as its manager of education, but the Patron and Wisp Verunga snatched it out of his hands. Yet, when one door closes another opens and a cabal of Gold Faction Sidereals and a few people who were still his friends from the old days managed to finagle him a consolation prize. The role of managing deity for the court system of Amarana was still open since there were not supposed to be any real criminal proceedings for several months yet. Desperate to get off the dole by then and seeing this as his last chance for the foreseeable future he accepted.

What neither he nor the Sidereals that helped him expected, was that he would LIKE the work. Managing a court system is not so different in truth from managing a school, you have trouble makers, erudite and passionate people, a lot of people who really don't want to be there, an ever-changing cast of characters doing many old and a few new stupid things, a complex set of rules you must adhere to; the similarities were rather a shock. Of course, there were differences, mostly in the fact that things move both so much slower most of the time and so much faster in the crunch, but he got his sea legs within a month or two and found himself enjoying having a real job again. That said, Principle of Justified Action is still no friend of Wisp Virunga and would dearly love to put in an application to replace her should she fall afoul of the auditors. However he bides his time, after all, he is employed in a job that he does not find onerous and has plenty of prayers coming in from both sides of the law, Wisp has no experience and is drowning in her duties, let them see what putting an untried administrator into such an important post does! Chances are that within the decade he will have her job: so runs his reasoning.

The Patron is another matter. He likes the Patron, rather a lot, and finds in the autocrat of the city a kindred spirit: and of course, cannot fault the man on the matter of his dedication to an educated society. He sometimes pokes the patron in the subconscious when he is contemplating a bad law, or about to reject a good one, and thus far does not consider it any kind of offense against heaven's rules. He is, in fact, wrong, he has committed no less than 5 level-one offenses in this manner, but that will largely be ignored unless he does more than mere subconscious nudging, after all, he has not really messed up any major plans this way so far.

In form Principle of Justified Action looks like a tall man from the furthest east, wearing the green and red robes of a seated Judge of Amarana's courts. His hair is shock white, a remnant of his time among the starving unemployed but he finds it suits his image as a wise leader of the courts. Abnormally for a god of justice he is lenient with most offenders, reasoning that if you punish too harshly you deny them a chance to learn from their mistakes. However, anyone who harms children sees the other side of him, a fury of unrelenting hatred that will see them hanged if at all possible.

=== Sakarzi ===

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/Sakarzi|Sakarzi]]: though she would dearly love to bring about the Patron's ruin and overthrow Sakarzi: minister of lust and attraction for Amarana, has a problem: She is both terrified of him and lusts after him obsessively. Sakarzi met the Patron before he mastered Amarana when she was bathing in a sacred hot-spring on the borders of the lands now claimed by the city in the guise of a comely Salaru maiden and he was following his awakened memories back to the city to claim his destiny. There at the hot-spring, she tried to seduce him.

She Failed.

The patron was clearly attracted to her and wished to accept her advances but mastered himself with an effort of will and politely refused. Five more times in five different guises Sakarzi has tried to seduce him and each time has been rebuffed, but always politely. This is why she is terrified of him, no one else whom she has ever tried to seduce has refused her advances so many times, especially since each of those times she has used progressively more of her supernatural powers, in the last instance activating an effect that should have compelled him to lie with her will he or no. She lusts after him because she has a weakness for powerful men, and The Patron certainly is one: but it is his immunity to her mystical powers that have made it an obsession. With the Patron, Sakarzi can use only the arts available to a mortal woman to snare the man she desires, and it is driving her to distraction. Perhaps an hour's worth of time out of each of her days is frittered away trying to think up new ways to seduce the Patron that rely only on her natural skills and personal beauty, but thus far she has not come up with anything worth using on a seventh attempt. The reason that Sakarzi would love to see the patron fall is that after she started a feud between three of the early families of colonists by seducing three of their sons and declaring that only the last one living would bed her the patron caught her outside her sanctum and beat her to within an inch of her life, declaring that if he ever caught her pulling that kind of stunt on his supporters again he would not pull his blows the second time.

These conflicting emotions are tearing Sakarzi apart, she lusts after the patron, but wants to ruin him, but is terrified of him, but she wants to have sex with him so bad she can taste it: Etc, Etc. In the meantime, she has appeared to several of the Patriots and declared her support for the patron's cause offering her help in securing the objects of their desires and the word has spread among them that if you erect a shrine to her in your residence and pray at it twice a day, morning and night, she will aid you in seducing whoever you most lust after.

While Sakarzi has many forms she can assume her true form is that of a Salaru woman of surpassing beauty and grace who literally cannot wear clothing. Her merest touch causes any garment to become invisible for one hour, so there is no point in her wearing any kind of raiment except for its protective value, which she rarely does.

=== Machuko; Torch of Freedom ===

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/MachukoTorchofFreedom|Machuko; Torch of Freedom]]: Is it any wonder, considering the status of Amarana as a free city where none may be held in bondage without due process of law, that the patron deity of Liberation and Abolitionism should view it with favor and even more so it's leader who enacted the law in question? [[Rabsolga]], the patron of slavery, hates and despises Amarana and if for no other reason than that Machuko loves and protects it. Furthermore, Machuko is [[User:Nemo of Utopia/ThePatron|The Patron]]'s patron god, to whom he prays five times a day, and is celebrated with five feast days each year, one at the beginning of each 'resplendent' month. Even the Immaculates honor these five days of worship, because the Patron has been known to have those that speak against honoring the feasts arrested and tried for sedition and/or aiding and abetting slavers, and their leader does not need that kind of attention, so he has said: "These days honoring Machuko are sanctioned by the immaculate faith, so long as you pray unto him only on these days you do not sin against the orders of Heaven."

Machuko keeps a large temple in the city's northeast quarter: a level 3 fire aspected manse called 'The Wheel of Torches' from it ride forth his clergy and devout adherents numbering several dozen strong on raids into the wastes beyond Amarana's borders proclaiming Machuko's glory and the freedom of all people within the lands of Amarana. Machuko has many priests across all of creation but nowhere are there so many gathered together as in Amarana.

In form, Machuko looks like a tall muscular man of what modern people would call Jewish/Hasidic/Israeli derivation, with a wild beard and long hair that hangs in ringlets. He carries a gore maul and chopping sword of orichalcum and white jade which when used together can cut any chain or bond. He has another form, which he assumes rarely except when in heaven, which is that of a great Dragon filled with yellow-white fire and made from millions of broken chains, collars, and manacles.

== Ancestor Cultists ==

Led by [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Sharima of the Three Disciplines|Sharima of the Three Disciplines]] and her ghostly lover [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Aruna the Defiant|Aruna the Defiant]] this group of citizens is a large and vocal part of the city's population. Though dwarfed by the percentage of the city who worship the city's gods and elementals the Ancestor Cultists make up as much as 20-25% of the city's population and are especially prominent among the [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Salaru|Salaru]].

The Ancestor Cultists make use of a large number of small [[Shadowlands]] across the city to communicate more directly with their patron spirits and interact with the underworld: but are mindful of [[User:Nemo of Utopia/The Patron of Amarana|The Patron]]'s injunctions about not breaking the circles of salt and other wards which keep the ghosts within the Underworld. They are however constantly working to locate 'new' and unguarded Shadowlands for their patrons to use to slip in and out of the underworld, which The Patron minds not one bit so long as they report them for the Adeptus Sororitatus/Frateris to seal in due course.

Though most of the people of Amarana are unaware of this fact the Ancestor Cultists are being controlled from behind the scenes by a Deathknight known as [[User:Nemo of Utopia/The Fluttering Fist of the Deadly Labyrinth|The Fluttering Fist of the Deadly Labyrinth]] he is a martial artist in service to The [[Mask of Winters]] who has wandered off on his own agenda far from thorns and The Mask's traditional area of operation. "The Fist" came to Amarana in search of a rumored cache of [[Autochthonian]] [[Soulsteel]], held in the vaults of the undercity, but has found that much of the undercity is sealed and inaccessible even from the [[Underworld]]. In the meantime, he works on the ancestor cultists as both a way to support himself and something to occupy his time while he trains to learn the charms that will allow him to enter the prehuman depths of the city where he hopes the bars of [[Autochthonian Soulsteel]] can be found.

Though the ghosts of Salaruku are numerous and very old surprisingly few of them are Heroic Ghosts and willing/able to serve as patrons for Amarana's ancestor cultists. Of those that do It is surprisingly four of the youngest ghosts that are the main patrons worshiped by the cultists: along with one exceedingly old ghost from the fall of Salaruku.

=== Xufuwne Onuke ===

The leader of Amarana's relatively large population of ghosts from the time of the fair folk invasion Onuke is frighteningly powerful but relatively easy going. He has outlasted Amarana's long dormancy and now looks forward to an era of joy and plenty for the city's dead. A dragon blooded warrior in life Onuke was killed battling the invaders from the wyld and in an odd twist of fate, they buried him with high honors. His tomb lies in the still mostly sand-covered western half of the city at the center of a small park and is one of the barest handful of areas in that region that have been excavated in advance of the main work. In form, Onuke looks like a typical dragon blooded of the shogunate, dressed in power armor and wielding a Daiklave. He has subsisted by hunting plasmic creatures for most of 700 years but welcomes the changes of the reborn city. Onuke is the cult's equivalent of a war god, a role he shoulders without complaint but also without relish.

=== Aruna the Defiant ===

Hailing from Chiaroscuro Aruna is the lover of Sharima, and they have many Ghost-blooded children together. They were maneuvered into the leadership of the cult by agents of [[The Archon of Apostasy]] who wished to have a shining example of ghost/mortal co-operation in Amarana to help people accept the death cult in their midst. The Archon's agents do not believe the plan is working but they are wrong, were it not for the two of them the cult would have been burned out root and branch. Aruna is a relatively young ghost but has become powerful quite quickly thanks to her lover and her association with various death cults. In appearance, Aruna looks like a young woman of the Delazen, beautiful and alluring for all her ghostly translucence and pallor. Aruna is the cult's patron of love and romance but gives short shrift to lust.

=== Emerald Lotus ===

Like her partner's Monkey of the City and Triumphal Eagle of the Flawless Hill, Emerald Lotus has been elevated to leadership by the machinations of the Patron, who decreed a feast day in their honor on the day of their deaths defending Amarana from an attack by a trio of 'Hounds of the Unbroken Earth'. None of them is experienced enough to really do the jobs that they have had thrust upon them but they all are rising to the challenge. Emerald Lotus resembles a typical woman of the deep south dressed in a white robe and headscarf that covers everything but her face, and overtop that a breastplate of steel. She is neither attractive nor ugly but is very charismatic. She carries an infinite jade chakram as her main weapon and also bears a perfect chopping sword for close fighting. Emerald Lotus is the patron 'deity' of the cult's Martial Artists, as she had some experience with that in life. She still is finding her feet as a ghost and defers to Xufuwne Onuke on most matters.

=== Monkey of the City ===

Dressed in lamellar and wielding a shock pike monkey of the city is not really suited to his role as a leader of an ancestor cult. Having been an outcast and wanderer in life who always tried to keep people happy and was quick with a joke or to share his water he has not changed much in death. However, there is a place for the fun and funny guy in any pantheon and Monkey of the City fills that role for the Ancestor Cultists of Amarana. Monkey of the City is the cult pantheon's trickster and comic relief, which he does not mind one bit.

=== Triumphal Eagle of the Flawless Hill ===

Wearing a Red Jade reenforced Buff Jacket Triumphal Eagle, or simply 'Der Aller'* as he prefers to be called, was not much of a warrior in life, but was on rotation for guard duty when the hounds attacked and were predictably killed by them. Buried with honors along with the rest of the four and then raised up as a patron spirit of the city he has persisted as a leader due largely to [[User:Nemo of Utopia/The_Patron_of_Amarana|The Patron]]'s favor and the fact that he is a very intelligent man, who is knowledgeable about many subjects. His role in the city's death cult is that of a spirit of wisdom and intellect, as well as oddly the patron, so to speak, of the Adeptus Aeronauticus.
*(Which means 'the Eagle' in his native tongue, a northern barbarian language...)

== Cult of the Illuminated ==

The Cult of the Illuminated has a relatively small and subtle presence in Amarana, but never-the-less are present. Their agents and activists walk among the cults dedicated to the various celestial exalted who have come to Amarana quietly preaching of the unity of creation and the duties of the 'Shining Ones' to be the leaders and stewards of creation. "Someday," they say. "All creation will be united behind the Shining Ones, and on that day those who have served them well will have rewards beyond their wildest dreams."

Among the 17 or so celestial exalted in the city 6 are allied with the Cult of the Illuminated, and some of the others are sympathizers. The CotI worshipers pray to most of them and work to support their interests.

= Geography =

Geographically Amarana lies at the point just before the sands of the deep desert fully give way to the rocky foothills of the summer mountains. When the spring rains sweep in from the north it is prone to flooding and mud, while the heat of high summer brings the blazing Simoon roaring out of the deep desert and with it short tempers and sharp words that sometimes flare into brutal murders. Winter is a season of joy and happiness for the citizen's of Amarana, as the power of the elemental pole of Air waxes and the desert is cooled, allowing snow to briefly form in the nearby summer mountains which are trucked into Amarana by old roads and made into flavored sherbets and snow cones for those with the Patron's favor, especially small children, of whom The Patron is known to be quite fond. The foothills around Amarana abound with resources brewed up by the slowly retreating Wyld or pushed from deep within the earth by the strange forces by which creation renews itself over the centuries, including many veins of silver from which Amarana mints its currency. Meanwhile, the desert around Amarana is rich with fire dust and gem sand, especially during the nights of the new moon when the Wyld retreats for several miles further south and exposes a wide swath of 'tainted' land, especially where the city has been slowly pushing the Wyld back by infecting it with billions of grains of what is essentially Elemental Earth. This area is hazardous as well however because the tainted area is not just composed of valuable sands, but also dangerous ones, such as quicksand, shatter sand, and hungry sand. For every person from Amarana who strikes it rich mining fire-dust or gem-sand in the tainted lands on the nights of the new moon, another finds themselves injured, killed, or mutated: in Amarana 'Firedust Miner' looks fair to rank among the top 5 'most dangerous professions' for the first year of recorded statistics in the city, right behind 'Rogue Spirit Protection Expert' and 'Pharmacist' but just ahead of 'Building Excavation Team Member' and 'Artifact Recovery Personnel'

Nearby Amarana is a number of Small Oasis, Hot Springs, and Geysers which have long provided the Salaru tribes with water. Though 90% of the tribesmen have returned to their ancestral home a few chose to stay out in the wastelands for one reason or another, and now gather into three new small tribes: the western, northern, and eastern Salaru.

To the west, the desert is hot by day and cold by night, with only trackless sand to greet your eyes, the Salaru who have stayed out in this wilderness journey mile upon mile between oasis that is often buried under the shifting sands and must be dug down to gather up their water. They survive by hunting snakes and lizards and trading fire dust and jewel sand with the Guild for added food and water. Though trade is their main source of contact with the outside they no longer must rely upon it or perish, with the total number of tribe's men in this region reduced by more than 95% they now can survive on their own without help, but it would be a spartan existence. Trade gives them luxuries and better equipment, which they put to good use. The western salaru do not keep herd beasts or in fact, any animals except hunting dogs, the land here is too harsh for this to be profitable. They worship many nature spirits, but few major deities except the Unconquered Sun, who is seen as a wrathful god of war and destruction, and Luna in her aspect as The White Navigator, who is seen as a benevolent and helpful deity. Though they honor the high holy days of the five maidens they are not much revered outside those times.

To the north, the Salaru who have not returned to their city are primarily herders and gatherers, as the foothills of the summer mountains provide old lava tubes and other places to hide from the sun by day and keep flocks dry when the rains come. Their life is perhaps the least harsh of the three new tribes since they have kept the most of their population, with only about 80% going to live in the city and in all cases leaving a few family members to mind the herds and ancestral cave or rock-cut house. They also were the most numerous of the Salaru before the return to Amarana, having six of the 10 Salaru tribes living in their region. and now are by far-and-away the most populous of the three 'outside' tribes. They also still contribute a good chunk of Amarana's food supplies, which means that even the Patron must treat with them on their terms. On the other hand, they know that the Patron, while a patient man, does have his limits and that their families back in Amarana would suffer first and worst if they cut off the shipments of food and other goods to the city, so they treat the Amaranaians with as much respect as they expect in return: so far the city and the northern tribe have a strong alliance of mutual benefit and support. The northern Salaru frequently revere Atlhat, the southern god of war and cattle, in addition, they also revere the Celestial Incarna and Gaia as well as many nature spirits.

The tribes to the east were always the most desirous to return to Amarana, for they could still see it's central tower sticking up out of the sand. However, when the time came, an influential leader named [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Sabris of the Two Spears|Sabris of the Two Spears]] convinced them that they should instead of all going back to the city leave some people behind and send their sons and daughters back into the summer mountains to live with those that stayed for two years as a right of passage. This has proved to their great advantage, for they now own the rights to much of the mineral wealth in the summer mountains near Amarana and have risen to be among the city's most wealthy families. The mountain Salaru were hunter/gatherers before Amarana's recovery and it is in this capacity that the children sent to the old mountain fastnesses must learn to survive when they are facing their Adavam Ordeal. The eastern Salaru mostly hold up a host of small gods for worship and revere the celestial Incarna on their high holy days. They are however the nearest things to atheists Creation has, feeling that if a person cannot survive without divine intervention then they are weaklings that must be excised from the gene pool. Many of them are swayed to a degree by the Immaculate faith but reject the idea that the Dragonblooded are creations, rightful rulers, their tribes have long memories and have heard the tales told by the Lunars of the perfidy of the Dragonblooded and the glory once created by the Solars, and twice in their exile have seen this glory first hand before the Dragonblooded showed up and ruined things.

To the south of the city, a wyld zone bleeds into reality for almost eight hundred miles from the maximum edge of the world. Though the city lies near the edge of this wyld zone it is not part of it, not even when the wyld storms blow in the autumn. This is perhaps partly because the city's strong geomancy prevents it from being absorbed or perhaps some form of potent first age artifact still protects the city as it did during the invasion so long ago. If the Patron knows he is not telling. Either way, there is and never has been a tribe of the Salaru to the south of the city. If the work they are doing to push back the wyld succeeds as well as it has been thus far, there may be, soon.

= Ethnicity =

Amarana is an ethnically mixed city, with people from all over creation having gathered in under its banner thanks to [[The Ghost/The Patron|The Patron's]] zero-tolerance policy towards slavery. In the main however the population is drawn from the peoples of the south, as escaping slaves are most able to reach Amarana from it's nearest neighbors, [[Virangia]] and [[The Delazen Empire]].

== The Salaru ==

Descendants of the people who fled Salaruku in the face of the Balorian Crusade the Salaru have waited a long time to return to their city. Composed of 10 culturally distinct tribes the Salaru make up an ever decreasing percentage of the city's population as more and more foreigners come to the city and settle in. That said the Salaru, though small in number, have a disproportionate impact on the city's culture and politics, due to knowing the lands surrounding Amarana like no one else and therefore having a vastly outsized amount of wealth and clout.

The Salaru are subdivided into the following tribes:

=== The White Scars ===

This tribe numbers about 50 and have long been ancestor worshipers, they have been swayed to the cause of the Ancestor Cultists. They take their name from the practice of ritual scarification of face and hands to tell one’s ancestry and chest to recount great deeds. The White Scars hail from the west of the city. The White Scars are a strangely secretive bunch, they keep their own council and follow their own guidance. Alone of the Salaru tribes, the White Scars have wholey emigrated to the city, abandoning their ancestral lands to the Western Salaru's care and finding employment within Amarana. Most of them agree that this has been a drastic improvement in their living conditions. Their ancestors, however, worry about grave robbers and frequently ask the members of the tribe with the skills to do so to go back and check on the old burial grounds.

=== The Golden Bulls ===

Originally hailing from the north of the city this tribe has been sun worshipers since time out of mind, and have naturally gravitated toward the Solarion's cause. They take their name from the bloodline of golden-haired cattle that they breed, tend, and guard, which according to legend were a gift from the champions of the sun during an age long past in recompense for their service defeating an army of the Raksha. The Golden Bulls are among the largest tribes of the Salaru, numbering some 300 strong counting both those that came into Amarana and those that stayed behind to be part of the Northern Salaru. They revere Atlhat and The Unconquered Sun as their patrons and are known for their skill as warriors though they are overmatched by some of the other tribes thanks to awakened essence and charms. The Golden Bulls are largely employed as butchers, health inspectors, and members of Amarana's army, while the large contingent that remained in their ancestral lands tend their herds of golden-haired cattle as they always have done, though they now drive the excess males to market in Amarana for slaughter rather than keeping them home. The Golden Bulls’ primary combat style is with spears and Bullhide Shields, with firedust grenades to break tight formations. They would not look out of place in Harborhead, and marriages between Harborhead immigrants and the young men and women of the tribe are not uncommon, though frowned upon by some of the tribe elders due to the harborheadite's attitudes towards slavery, which the tribe has always held as blasphemy.

=== The Get of Vexan ===

Often called simply 'the get' by outsiders this tribe calls themselves the 'Vexanites'. The get is descended from a powerful Lunar who lived among the Salaru for a century or so starting a few decades after the fair folk invasion was driven back by the Empress. The Vexanite's hold a secret: their tribe is led by a family of Serpent Beast Men founded by Vexan and preserved through complex webs of intermarriage with other serpent-folk from as far away as the silent crescent. The get is currently led by a charming and curvaceous young woman from the southeast jungles named Nyoka. What they do not yet know is that she is actually the modern incarnation of their founder's exaltation and has been having sex with one of the tribe's greatest warriors in her spirit form of a twenty-foot dragon snake in the hopes of bearing beast folk children. She walks among the tribe in her Warform, that of a great dragon-like serpent woman with the fangs and venom of a cobra and the wings and claws of a dragon. The Get hailed from the mountains east of Amarana.

=== The Iron Raptors ===

Though founded by a group of outlaws and murderers the Iron Raptors are ironically a major component of Amarana's police force. Having originated as an inner-city gang during the last days of the shogunate the Iron Raptors turned their coats when the fair folk came calling at the end of the contagion. They took hundreds of people out of the city through hidden tunnels and other smuggling routes: people who became the founders of the other Salaru tribes. Since then they have slowly moved from running protection rackets over the other tribes, to actually protecting them, to being their main form of law enforcement and wandering justiciars. Now that Amarana is resettled they have taken up the role of their distant ancestors' worst enemies, an irony that is not lost on Garion Cromarch. The Iron Raptors’ central holdings were to the north of Amarana but they wandered freely among the other tribes and in fact still do, being welcome among any of the other Salaru. They worship Garion Cromarch as their patron deity, but also revere a number of small gods of crime and larceny, propitiating them in recompense for reducing their portfolios and defeating their natural worshipers.

=== The Kelderkin ===

Another tribe from the city's north the Kelderkin are the descendants of Marion Kelder and are an agricultural matriarchy. They revere Gaia to the near exclusion of all other deities and hold that all other gods are really aspects of Gaia, subsidiary souls of the Maiden of Plenty. They are more right in this belief than most people realize. All Kelderkin women can trace their ancestry to Marion Kelder via one of her seventeen daughters, and which daughter you are a descendant of determines what your role in the tribe is. The only roles that are not decided by your ancestry are 3: Shaman, Champion, and Speaker. The Speakers are the leaders of the tribe and set it's policy, while the shamans and champions advise them and defend the tribe. Marion Kelder was a wood aspected dragon blooded and even to this day a Kelderkin man or woman will sometimes exalt as another wood aspect. Currently, there is one such person among the Kelderkin, Mwaloni Kelder who is a gifted archer and huntress that leads an all-female unit of other archers in the Amarana armed forces. She is also a sex addict and currently dating four separate men, two of which are identical twin Djala who regularly have Manage-a-Trois with her.

=== The Chosen of Flame ===

Hailing from the city's west The Chosen of Flame has been firedust gatherers for as long as anyone can remember. They gathered firedust far south of the city during the shogunate and came to Amarana to trade it. When the hosts of Fairie came sweeping in from the edge of the world after the great contagion they ran before them and were caught up in the exodus from Amarana, helping many of the civilized folk adapt to the desserts. The Chosen of Flames make up the lion’s share of the new western tribe, but even so, most of them have moved into the city and settled down as experts and factors in the firedust trade. They are a prosperous tribe that is in a state of transition as they adapt to being a settled people for the first time. Numbering approximately 75 persons in the city and an equal number now part of the Western Salaru the Chosen of Flame boasts several god-blooded among their number, and actively court new fire elemental unions. Their God Blooded include Gitchsune Folarabi, Malawi Besmar, and Kubrisa Suknis, among others.

=== The Iconographers ===

Among the tribes of the Salaru, few can argue that the Iconographers are not among the most learned and civilized. Hailing from the cities northeast they have preserved an astonishing amount of lore from the low first age, especially on the subject of geomancy. Now almost universally employed by the Patron excavating and repairing manses they are well off and respected. The Iconographers place great store by erudition and knowledge, and gain position and prestige among their own via a set of grueling examinations conducted by their tribe's patron spirits once every ten years, and always in old realm. Because of these tests of knowledge, the tribe is led by its elders, who have had the most time to study and learn, and they are prone to contemplation and thoughtfulness. Among other advantages this has gifted them with is the possession of five small Manses outside the city, raised after the city's abandonment by their own hands. These manses have made their ancestral lands fertile and bountiful, making them one of the largest salaru tribes with 200 members in five small villages around the Manses before they emigrated to Amarana. Of all the tribes their desire to return to the city was among the greatest, but they did leave one family behind in each village to see to its welfare and upkeep in perpetration for their Descendents and those selected to join them by the Patron returning. The Iconographers in city number 175 or so and are very much in the Patron's camp. They are led by [[User:Nemo of Utopia/SukiwaraMadoka|Sukiwara Madoka]], a god blooded thaumaturge of advanced years and not inconsiderable skill.

=== The Eisil ===

As a tribe of pastoral hunters and gatherers in the city's eastern area, the Eisil would not be remarkable except for the fact that they are master storytellers and thespians. The role of Storyteller is the most honored position within their culture and many people aspire to it but few succeed. Their greatest tale is that of Sakarazat, a woman who was taken captive by a rapacious dragon blooded lord and over the course of two and a bit years told him a thousand stories which prevented him from killing her, and in the end, led the dragon blooded to let her go. Now that the Eisil have returned to Amarana they are mostly working at simple jobs like sand clearer or coachman (They have long preserved the arts of chariot racing as part of their festivals.) but a significant number of them now take the long-coveted role of storyteller or actor, and are among the best in the city, being sought out by talent scouts and stage managers for private and public engagements. The Eisil hail from the high mountains east of Amarana where the snow falls in winter, they are paler complected than most Salaru and have massive barrel chests from dealing with the thin air.

=== The Mantis Tribe ===

From the northwest of the city, the Mantis tribe straddle the border between the desert and the foothills of the Amaranaian lands. They have survived by placing great store by martial arts and awakened essence, and among their number only the young typically do not have awakened essence, nearly everyone over the age of 25 has mastered this basic precept. By the age of 30, most people have achieved the form type charm of one of the 5 main martial arts of the tribe, and by the time they reach venerable status at 65, nearly everyone is a master of their chosen style. This has allowed the Mantis Tribe to become large and prosperous but puts them in an uncomfortable position of being alternately feared and nearly worshiped by the other tribes, who look to them for protection from spirits and demons. It also puts them in another uncomfortable position: their various schools of martial arts do not always get along, and more than once the tribe has been wracked by internal strife, especially between the members that adhere to the Immaculate Philosophy and the people that worship the local gods outside that framework. At the moment it seems like the tribe is heading for another such civil war, and this time it may drag the whole city into it.

=== The Broad ===

Alone of the Salaru the Broad actually hate the Patron. The Broad was from the uttermost western areas of the Salaru and also alone among their number made a common practice of keeping slaves, but not so much for the purpose of having them work for the tribe but rather to sell to the guild. They ranged far among the sandy wastes waring with members of other tribes and capturing them to sell for the supplies they needed to survive and prosper. Many among their number were heroic mortals and with the exception of the Mantis Tribe and the Chosen of Fire they boasted the most members with awakened essence and/or god-blood. They also served as a dumping ground for the criminal and malcontents of the other tribes leading them to be less cordial with the rest of the Salaru than any other tribe. However, even the Broad wished to return to Amarana enough to give up their slave taking practices, at least, some of them did. When the Patron decreed all people of Amarana Free men and women shortly before the Guild arrived the Broad fractured over whether to return to their ancestral homeland or remain in the wastes and live as they had done for centuries. In the end, the tribe split 60/40 in favor of returning to Amarana and becoming part of the new society, but the 40% that remained in the wastes no longer consider themselves beholden to the Patron, Amarana, or even the Salaru. These people, called by their former associates The Red Broad are now considered outlaws brigands by the Amaranaian government and hunted whenever they stray close to the fifty-foot Glass Pillars that mark the borders of the Amaranaian lands. They are firmly in the camp of the Guild's Men and infiltrate the city regularly to capture and smuggle out valuable slaves that have escaped to Amarana from other lands.
The 60% of the tribe that has returned to the city are in the camp of the Death Cultists since the Broad were by and large ancestor worshipers before they returned to Amarana and see no reason to change that now. Calling themselves 'The Green Broad' they have no love for the patron but do love their city and will fight to the death to defend it. Most of them are now members of the city's military and are locked in a bitter feud with their former tribesmen. The members of this tribe that are not military mostly work as overseers for the small but growing cadres of 'indentured servants' kept by the city government in punishment for some of the most heinous crimes such as rape and enslaving another person.

=== The Western Salaru ===

=== The Northern Salaru ===

=== The Eastern Salaru ===

== The Djala ==

The D'jala are a sub-faction of the Patriots at the present time. Having been liberated by the Patron from their enslavement by many people who have brought them to the city in bondage they are fanatical partisans of the city's leader and from a major component of his power base. The Djala form five small tribes into which new arrivals are folded by ties of kinship, alliance, or marriage within weeks of arrival. The number of newly married Djala in the city is staggering, easily 40% of all new arrivals are pushed into marriages within a month of becoming residents, and somehow nearly all these mirages are happy ones. What the Djala elders know but have not officially publicized is that one of the Djala's patron gods is an old drinking buddy of [[The Ghost/Meroka Jin|Meroka Jin]] and has called in a favor with the minister of romance and love to arrange this happy state of affairs for his people in the city. This is not going to last, because [[The Ghost/Sakarzi|Sakarzi]] is going to start screwing around with them, but for the moment she is distracted by her work with the death cult.

== Varangians ==

== The Delazen ==

== Deep Southerners ==

Nemo of Utopia/Amarana

2020-07-14T12:56:10Z

Nemo of Utopia: /* Bibwit Heart */

Amarana is a first age city, lost to the contagion and the fair folk invasion over 700 years ago. It is now coming back to life under the aegis of [[User:Nemo of Utopia/The_Patron_of_Amarana|The Patron]] who wields the power of the [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Five_Signs_of_Harmonic_Unity|Five Signs of Harmonic Unity]].

= Amarana =

Amarana Is comprised of a large area surrounded by a circular wall. At the edge of that wall are twelve triangular towers that contain the major military resources of the city. Of these towers, eight have been fully excavated, and the ninth is being examined and the sand removed even now.

Within the city is organized into four quarters but only two of them are even partially excavated, the two on the eastern side of the city, and even there many buildings still slowly seep sand into the streets out of cracked windowpanes and the door seems. The buildings of Amarana tend to a certain Egyptian flare or perhaps it would be better to say pre-Arabic since they are after all, by and large, the product of the low first age. The buildings are built of a quasi imperishable ceramic that resembles adobe, with the most significant having windows of Chiaroscuro Glass and doors made of either that same substance or Stainless Steel. Buildings are generally between six and ten stories high with essence powered air conditioning and elevators both of which the Patron must personally repair before the building becomes usable again.

Unlike many old realm cities, Amarana is laid out on a grid, instead of in a radial pattern. This gives a geomantic bonus to the people who live there: namely that mortals gain +1 XP per time XP is awarded. This bonus actually accrues every half year if using long term awards. The players can uncover this information with a dif10 [wits + occult] roll once every month they spend in the city beginning on the second day they are here. The bonus only applies to true mortals, not god blooded, ghost blooded, awakened Martial artists or any exalt, but does apply to dragon kings and jadeborn who are not Artisans.

So far roughly half of the city has been uncovered, but even here there are a lot of buildings that are collapsed, or still filled with sand and roped off with red cables and even more locations where there are red cables indicating small shadowlands or dimenses that are not to be approached until the city can close/cap them.

The excavation is proceeding irregularly, moving from the east wall out toward the west except around the central manse and the road from the north gate to the south gate. There are markets in most squares and a number of shops on the ground floors of buildings. Few merchants here are officially affiliated with the guild since many people in the city are escaped guild slaves and loath the guild vehemently.

Nearly everything except slaves is available for sale, including many products from The Wyld. Firewands and Flame Pieces are the core of the weapons markets along with accessories such as bayonets, powder horns, and pieces of flint or obsidian for strikers. Interestingly Cannons are not for sale, being reserved for the government, but anyone with contacts 2 or higher could find someone who knows someone who could get a permit for purchasing a few for export. Armoring is more advanced, and even some artifact armors are for sale, though they would be a resource 4 purchase at minimum, and that is for the simple stuff like Jade breastplates. Things like Yuroy Scout armor are beyond the means of anyone in the party, though, that comes up for sale very rarely except through illegal channels. Jade Full Plate and Super Heavy Plate are more commonly available, in fact, there are people in the city that can be commissioned to make it. Orichalcum and Monsilver are not commissionable but in the still covered parts of the city are facilities to work it. There are no facilities in the city for Soulsteel or Starmetal, but there is a workshop in one manse that has been uncovered to work Adamant, though finding any to use would require Wyld Cauldron Technology and spending XP: such is the life of the Exalted...

There are a number of Inns, Caravanserai, and Hostels near the city gates, while further in nearly every corner of an inhabited area has at least one restaurant or coffee shop. Tea houses, by comparison, are rare, and true bars are unusual enough to be remarked upon when a new one is found. Most living quarters do not have kitchens, which is why many hab towers which have been excavated don't have permanent residents and so many restaurants can stay open. Many restaurants, in fact, rent themselves out to people wishing to cook for their families or are owned by consortiums of citizens who hold them in common for communal cooking with contracts for use and upkeep requirements.

All of the city's roads are at least 20 feet wide, plus a five-foot sidewalk to either side. This is for the smallest streets, most are 40 feet wide with sidewalk and a few main thoroughfares are 60 feet wide. The streets keep themselves magically clean once each section is repaired by the Patron, but only a very few sections are repaired and many people who work as street sweepers clearing sand wish for it to stay that way. (Each 10'x10' section is a different artifact and must be individually repaired. There is one street in the city's west that is a first age relic and still working. However it can only affect things up to 30 feet above itself, so it is a long tunnel of a clear street bounded on all sides by packed sand.) The streets are made of fitted 5'x5'x1' blocks of granite, and one can sometimes determine which part of the city one is in by the color of the streets. The northeast the blocks are blue and green, the southeast red and green, the southwest red and black and the northwest blue and black. The city’s four central parkways are each a solid color relating to their element and 40' wide on each side and the grand square around the central manse is white and 60' wide at its narrowest point. However many streets were repaired with gray, white, or red granite toward the end of the shogunate and are not properly color-coded.

The City has at least 5' of clearance between all buildings: meaning that there are many allies in which one can get lost. You can often tell which parts are in use and which are unoccupied by weather there is sand filling the allies or they are clear.

== Manses and Demesnes of Amarana ==
Amarana was at one time subject to major geomantic engineering projects that gave it a large number of demesnes and then manses relative to its size. Most of those manses are still here, still active, and even now being located and excavated. A few, however, were partially unstable and have long since exploded. These few are roped off as dangerous and plans are underway to re-cap them, led of course by the Patron. Note that there are more manses and demesnes within the city that have not yet been found and that at one time there were even MORE demesnes in the city which have collapsed into a dormant state due to the changes in the city's essence flows and could be reactivated with the appropriate rituals once the city is fully excavated and geomantic remapped, these demesnes, however, were all small ones, level 2 at the most, so whether such effort is worth it in the short term, or even a good idea, is debatable. See [[Nemo of Utopia/MansesandDemesnesofAmarana|Manses and Demesnes of Amarana]] for further information.

= History =

== Prehistory ==

Though most do not know it Amarana's deepest foundations were laid in an era long past by the [[Dragons Kings]]. The City flourished in the age between the advent of humanity and the [[Primordial War]] with many of the first exalted visiting the place at one time or another in the several decades of the lead up to the overthrow of the Primordials. Then when the war began the city was wreathed in the destruction by one of the superweapons of the masters of creation, utterly annihilating most of those that dwelt therein and reducing the city to a smoking crater of volcanic glass. Still, beneath the burned and blackened surface, some parts of the old under city survived, and wait there still.

== The First Age ==

During the First Age many of the survivors of the primordial war remembered their time in 'Highana' fondly and after excavating much of the old substrate and leveling off the damaged areas to make way for new constructions raised up a new city on the site of the old. This city was dubbed 'Solzarian' in honor of [[The Unconquered Sun]] and in memorial to the Great Dragon King lady who had ruled the city so well and wisely ere it's annihilation. The City would remain a significant but out-of-the-way part of the Old Realm all the way through the first age.

=== The Ocher Fountain Era ===

During the beginning of the First Age when [[Queen Merela]] ruled over all creation from the eternal capital of [[Rathess]] Solzarian was still being reconstructed, and there was little of note that occurred in the city. One event, in particular, was notable, however: the Conclave of Solzarian in year 99 of the old realm, a symposium on the rights and freedoms of the people of creation which some in later years would argue laid the foundations of the Meru Uprising which led to the formation of the Deliberative.

=== The First Deliberative Era ===

By the time of the founding of the [[Deliberative]], the reconstruction of Solzarian was largely complete, and over the next few decades, the city became a favored retreat for both Solars and Lunars seeking to get the heck out of Meru and the stifling politics of the great city. One of Marela's closest allies [[Nemo of Utopia/Angus the Wirehair|Angus the Wirehair]] was given the rule of the city as part of the division of creation into fiefdoms and made it his personal residence. Under Angus rule, the city prospered, though it, by-and-large, remained a backwater compared to such metropolises as [[Chiaroscuro]] and Rathess. However, thanks to its solar overlord and his close relationship to the Queen of all Creation the city began the long process of incredible geomantic engineering which would in time lead to it being known as 'The City of Manses'.

=== Unfurling Horizon Era ===

While this era of creation went by largely without incident of significant note at this remove of history it is still recorded that many of the great efforts to explore and expand the borders of Creation in the south used Solzarian as a staging ground or stopover point before plunging into the true wilderness at creation's rim. This continued to encourage the exalted to play 'tourist' in the city and helped keep its economy vibrant. It is also noted in some histories that there was a major strike of [[Red Jade]] near the city in 811 which produced a 'Jade Rush' led by two rival Dragon-Blooded brothers and their servants which escalated into a short civil war in the city 2 years later in which significant damage was done to the city's infrastructure by all three* factions. The Civil War was only halted when [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Angus the Wirehair|Angus the Wirehair]] returned from Meru at the head of a wing of elite Dragon-Blooded shock troops and brutally suppressed both rival groups with mass arrests and a number of executions. (What happened to the brothers is unknown, but their names do not reappear in the historic record for 700 years, and at that time associated with different elemental aspects leading most scholars to conclude that they were 'dealt with' privately by their family.)
*(The Two consortia backing the rival brothers and the cities law enforcement detachments.)

==== The Aftershock War ====

In spite of the growing significance of the city and it's powerful assets in terms of equipment and hearthstones, Solzarian was not at first much involved in the Aftershock War. Passed over in favor of more militarily significant targets by the Primordial Forces the city did not come under fire until 1131 when a force of some 3000 first circle demons led by a trio of 2nd circle demons assaulted the city in the dead of night via a fleet of living airships. The 'Battle of Solzarian' was considered a significant victory for the forces of creation due to the large number of [[Golden Janissary Style]] practitioners in the city who were able to make fairly short work of the first circle demons allowing the detachment of Dragon-Blooded stationed in the city to confront the second circle demon commanders and dispatch them.

However the war was not all glorious victory for the people of Solzarain, [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Angus the Wirehair|Angus the Wirehair]] went missing during the final battle with the primordial forces and would not be seen again for over 500 years. For most of that time, he was presumed dead by the people of the city, though the Solar Exalted knew better as his shard had not found a new host.

=== Shining Reflection Era ===

During this period Solzarian loses much of its former significance as the seat of one of Marela's close allies. Few of the Exalted visit the city and the grand engineering projects grind to a near halt. The only events of great significance that occur here are two:
1: The Duel of the Magisters in 1313 where the reincarnations of Theis, Leelah, and Sonah engage in a duel of sorceress power which damages large sections of the city and forces all three of them to be censured by Marela herself: And;
2: In 1492 a major strike of Orichalcum is made a few hundred miles south of the city, and Solzarian becomes a stepping off point for prospectors of every stripe looking to get rich quick mining Orichalcum. The City's economy runs strong off this sudden influx of cash, people, and goods for the next 30 years.

=== Thousand Struggles Era ===

The first part of this period proceeds much from the previous one: everyone is aware that one of the legendary solar exalted has died of old age, but this makes little difference to the struggling backwater that Solzarian has become: then in 1776 everything changes.

In the Records of Solzarian 1776 is called: 'The Year of the Thousand' for the massive wave of change that swept over the city this year. The First thing that happens is [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Angus the Wirehair|Angus the Wirehair]] 'returns from the dead' on the 11th of Ascending Water storming into the city with a small group of Solars, Lunars, and Siderials and calling everyone he can reach into the city with him to face what he calls 'The Storm of the Millennium'. Ten days later the storm arrives and following in behind it a host of the fair folk the likes of which has not been seen in centuries. The city is invested and besieged for two months by the Faerie Host and the siege is only broken by the arrival of four full realm legions armed with Cold Iron. Once the Fair Folk are driven back and the city is again secure Angus orders most of the city leveled and an engineering project the like of which the city has not seen in over half a millennium undertaken to extensively alter its geomancy. To finance this undertaking he produces several tons of jade, from what source none can say, and uses his Wyld Shaping charms, which until his return no one knew he possessed, to manufacture the raw materials needed from the chaotic energy left behind by the Fair Folk.

However, no sooner was the project underway than orders came down from the Queen that he was to return to [[Meru]] at once and answer for his absence: and bound by the oaths he took as one of the [[Golden Hero Vassals]] so very long ago he departs. Following up on the plans he has left behind his circle mate [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Levian of the Gilded Staff|Levian of the Gilded Staff]] begins directing the super-massive construction and engineering projects which will if successful create one of the greatest concentrations of manses and geomantic relays outside of the Blessed Isle. By late in Descending fire half the city is gone and an entirely new street plan and so on is rising in its place, along with a massive upgrade to the walls and towers of the city perimeter as well.

What exactly passed for Angus in Meru is unrecorded by any presently known records except perhaps those of the Bureau of Destiny but what is recorded is the results of that visit: Angus was stripped of the rulership of his fief in the south including Solzarian and sent on a quest of penance into the frozen north: while Solzarian and the surrounding area was given into the hands of a relatively young solar of the Twilight Caste from another circle named [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Keisha Adriana Mullion|Keisha Adriana Mullion]] and her lunar mate [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Maxim of Personal Liberty|Maxim of Personal Liberty]].

While Keisha was young she was not stupid and consulted with Levian of the Gilded Staff on what she was doing with the engineering of the city. With the elder Twilight's help, she finished the geomantic reorganization as designed by Angus and by the end of Resplendent Air the basic project is finished. The city is now rife with uncapped demesnes and sites that will become demesnes once they can be activated after some of the others are capped. The city also now confers a geomantic bonus on all mortals living there, allowing them to develop their skills and abilities more quickly than those living in other cities. The full culmination of the project with the activation and capping of all demesnes will not be complete for another 36 years.

==== Time of Cascading Years ====

The Time of Cascading Years took rather longer in Solzarian and the surrounding area than it did in most of Creation: 3333 years to be precise. The relatively young solar ruler who went into the Time of Cascading Years and her only slightly more experienced Lunar Spouse emerges from it with a weight of skill and refinement which makes them elders among the solars and lunars. They also are now both arrayed with a panoply of artifacts and charms that make them forces to be reckoned with in the new Deliberative. The passage of the 'Age of Isolation' in Solzarian is marked by a number of rebellions and uprisings, and the invasion of their lands by the fair folk towards the end of it, from whence none, can say. Supposedly it was the destruction of an artifact which the Raksha Commander carried which restore time to its normal flow according to the people of Solzarian.

=== Second Deliberative Era ===

During the [[User:Nemo of Utopia/PeriodofLongSilence|Period of Long Silence]] Solzarain is one of the few areas still doing significant research, though they are hampered by the continuing disunity of creation and the fearfulness of creation's mortals who are all accustomed to traveling too far from home casting you into a different timeline.

With the Establishment of the new deliberative however Solzarian is thrust into the spotlight for around a hundred years as the home and workshop of one of the most important [[User:Nemo of Utopia:NPCCreationGuidelines/Exalted/FirstAge/Solar/TwilightCaste|Copper Spiders]] of the deliberative. During this period the city is a known destination for the many young Twilight-caste members who were reborn following the restoration of time's proper flow.

As this era goes on however Solzarian becomes less and less important with the rebuilding of the rest of creation, the other Twilights drift away to rule their own fiefs and work on their own projects and as has happened before Solzarian's position far from most significant events of history both at the center of creation and at its rim mean it becomes a backwater. Even it's solar and lunar rulers spend more time in Meru than at home, leaving the city in the hands of [[User:Nemo of Utopia:NPCCreationGuidelines/Exalted/FirstAge/Dragonblooded/Top|Dragon Blooded]] legates.

=== Era of Dreams ===

During the first part of the Era of Dreams, though Solzarian flourishes on the mundane level it remains a backwater on the scales by which The Realm measures such things: a functional and unimportant city in a functional but unimportant section of the world. It does, however, receive an [[IAM|I AM]] Transmission Node linking it to the broader network of information which now spans creation.

Then in the year 3381, it's twilight caste ruler is goaded into violating her eclipse oath to not attack other celestial exalted in Meru, setting in motion a chain of events that will alter the shape of Solzarian's fate for centuries to come, and that of the rest of creation. At first, the botches come hard and heavy, but then they stop and [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Keisha Adriana Mullion|Keisha]] thinks the oath's punishment has run its course.

It has not.

Returning to her holding in the south she begins to work on constructing a [[Proto Shinmatic Vortex]] and at a key stage of the process, the final botch of set activates and the PSV explodes, killing Keisha and creating an intense Wyld Zone south of the city over a hundred miles wide.

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/MaximofPersonalLiberty|Maxim of Personal Liberty]] calls upon every favor he has and even takes on new obligations to arrange the deliberative sending experts at Wyld Shaping to close the rift in the fabric of reality, but the people sent are not the high essence Solars and Lunars he hoped for but rather a cadre of neophytes who have scarce mastered Wyld Cauldron Technology and are woefully unprepared for the madness of the deep Wyld which exists within the rift. Three of them die before the other two calls it quits leaving the Wyld Zone barely stabilized around its edges. It is unrecorded at this remove what keeps the deliberative busy and the more powerful Wyld shapers tied up, but it will not be for another 3 decades that the Wyld zone is fully dealt with and that not by an individual any more experienced than the ones first dispatched, though with far greater caution than the first circle that was sent showed.

== The Usurpation ==

== The Shogunate ==

== The Fall & The Second Age ==

== The Rebirth ==

In RY 760, that same year where so very much else changed for creation (763 in normal Chronicles): the man who

= Government =

In basic, the Government of Amarana really consists of a single man: [[User:Nemo of Utopia/The Patron of Amarana|The Patron]]. He is an autocrat, ruling by divine mandate and shier power, as he is capable of defeating significant deities in single combat. However the Patron is one man, and as such has organized his subjects with several branches of what we would consider a more normal government. This normal government is organized into twelve 'Adeptus' which each is led by one of the twelve 'High Lords of Amarana'. These twelve powerful individuals form a council that advises and assists The Patron in his leadership of the city, feeding him data on several topics such as the state of his subject's religious convictions or the preparedness of his military. Though each High Lord is immensely powerful they all are The Patron's fanatical partisans and would not dream of challenging his authority, even if they could.

== The Adeptus Millitate ==

The Adeptus Millitate is one of the largest branches of Amarana's government, with no fewer than 1250 members in all its branches and subgroups. Though officially in charge of Amarana's Armed services it has a rival in The Adeptus Aeronauticus who oversee Amarana's air-forces. The Adeptus Millitate is run by [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Fist of the Land|Fist of the Land]] a God-Blooded martial artist who is somewhat uncomfortable leading an army of over a thousand people.

The Adeptus Millitate has the following departments and offices:

=== The Departmento Munitorum ===

Oversees the acquisition and care of the equipment and supplies for the army.

==== The Officio Technis ====

Deals with the army's Magitech assets.

==== The Officio Cibum ====

Oversees the all-important function of providing provisions for the troops.

==== The Officio Armorium ====

Handles the more mundane arms and armor of Amarana's troops.

==== The Officio Quartium ====

… is responsible for most everything else, from tents to uniforms to bedrolls.

=== The Departmento Servicum ===

Oversees the actual troops and officers and their training regimens.

==== The Officio Acadamicain Legionarius ====

This office oversees the training of new recruits and officers running two training schools for them.

==== The Officio Cooptatione Legionarius ====

This is the group that sees-to the recruitment and if necessary conscription of new troops for the army.

=== The Departmento Latrocinium ===

Oversees the hiring and 'control' of any mercenary units the government employs but is better known for a more sinister function.

==== The Officio Mercenarius ====

Does the Hiring and Firing of actual mercenaries.

==== The Officio Assasinoritum ====

'The Office of Assassins', to use the Vulgate, runs at least four secret dojos training mortal agents in martial arts that facilitate them serving as The Patron's spies and assassins. [[Nemo of Utopia/Assassin of the Grey Spire|Assassin of the Grey Spire]] 'leads' this office: He is ''not'' a master of the White Veil Style of martial arts and has most ''definitely not'' taught many of its members this secret art form. (Nudge nudge, wink wink, know what I mean, know what I mean? Say no more, say no more!)

=== The Officio Adminstrad Militate ===

This 'Floating Office' makes sure that all of the other Departmento and Oficio within this Adeptus do their jobs properly.

== The Adeptus Arbitiese ==

The Adeptus Arbitese oversee Amarana's police forces, and are one of the larger branches of the government with only 150 individuals on staff, counting every beat cop all the way on up to the High Lord Herself as well as all the file clerks and so on that work for the Adeptus but are not actually part of it's 'fighting strength'. They have only one Departmento and less than a dozen Officio, but so far are keeping a lid on the political turmoil of the city. The High Lord of the Arbitese is [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Steel Garden|Steel Garden]] who is not a very good investigator but a decent politician and capable administrator.

=== The Departmento Queastorum ===

This department is responsible for making inquiries and investigating crime, thus far it is the only Department of the Adeptus Arbitese but the Officio Correctionibus is expected to become a departmento in its own right someday.

==== The Officio Homicide ====

The Office of Homicide consists of only eight people, four detectives, three CSI techs, and one overworked file clerk. Their closure rate hovers at around 50%, though that is only due to them being able to count any suspect killed by the ghost of the victim as a closed case. [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Laurel the Axe|Laurel the Axe]] is the unofficial leader of this group but officially they answer directly to the High Lord of the Arbitese.

==== The Officio Servus Aucupes ====

The term 'office of slave catchers' is something of a misnomer. These detectives do not catch slaves, rather they catch people keeping, taking, or recapturing slaves and send them to their just punishments. This office consists of five overworked personnel, two detectives, two forensic accountants, and one file clerk. Their closure rate is around 30% since it is hard to prove that someone was a slaver without catching them in the act.

==== The Officio Vitium ====

Unlike the officio above this office is not quite so overworked, and the two often help each other out because their work frequently overlaps. The 'Vice Squad' mostly concerns itself with drugs and prostitution, since licensed gambling establishments and most pornography are both legal in Amarana. The officio consists of Four Detectives, five undercover officers, three CSI techs, and a harried file clerk. Their Closure rate is about 45%.

==== The Officio Interioribus ====

This Officio is more for show than anything since all of Amarana's police are held by the Stone of Invincible Loyalty. It consists of two Detectives and one Forensic Accountant. They often spend their time quietly helping out other offices.

==== The Officio Fraude Aucupes ====

This is actually one of the larger offices within the Arbities, having eleven total personnel, six detectives, three forensic accountants, a CSI tech, and a file clerk. The office tries to keep a lid on the Guild and others defrauding Amarana's citizens through various means and does a fairly good job. Their closure rate is about 70%, though this is largely due to a lot of success catching many small-fry while the remaining 30% is almost all of the big players.

==== The Ofiicio Fures ====

The 'office of thieves' is responsible for all break-ins, burglaries, purse snatchings, muggings, cutpurses, and so forth in the city. In spite of having eight detectives, five undercover agents, six CSI, four Forensic Accountants, and five file clerks their closure rate is about 12%. Garion Cromarch is frankly disgusted with them and has told The Patron so. The Patron knows they are doing their best but has ordered mandatory additional training for all members of this office.

==== The Officio Pax Patronum ====

The remainder of the police force is in this office. These are the beat cops that enforce the law by their presence and vigilance. Amarana is a large city and they constantly must be on the lookout for any kind of crime but especially things like drunk and disorderly, disturbing the peace, making an affray, and so on. This office consists of 57 patrol officers and over a dozen file clerks. Twelve of these officers are part of a sub-office of 'Mounties' who do their patrols in teams of three on horseback, they are often called in to suppress larger riots. The officers always patrol in teams of three, one to watch the front of a building and two to look around the sides and catch criminals in a pincer movement. They all carry magitech com units that let them use Wind Carried Words Technique and have Linguistics 3. (Their closure rate is not applicable since they work out of elven precincts and each one has a different closure rate.) One of these officers does not need a comms unit: being a dragon blooded air aspect outcaste named [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Secret Eagle|Secret Eagle]]. They have offered to promote him many times, but he prefers to be a patrol officer, though he has deigned to accept the rank of patrol sergeant for the fourth precinct.

=== The Officio Correctionibus ===

The office of corrections deals with the punishment rather than the apprehension side of crime. They are chronically overworked and typically have more criminals than they know what to do with but manage to do their jobs adequately. This floating office is overseen by Iron Sands, a member of The Broad who has lots of experience getting slaves to do as they are bid.

== The Adeptus Judicate ==

Working closely with the Adeptus Arbites the Adeptus Judicate is the other half of the justice system. These are the many Judges, Lawyers, and Clerks of the Court who make sure that the innocent are not punished with the guilty. At the present time, the Adeptus Judicate consists of 11 judges, 15 prosecuting attorneys, 23 Attorneys of Due Justice (Public Defenders.), 42 'Clerks of the Court' who record and file all rulings and court-ordered contracts, and 17 "Agent's Protection" who follow up on inconsistencies in court records and the welfare of Amarana's citizens in cases such as child abuse allegations and locating jurors that fail to show up for a trial. There are also about 200 private attorneys who are technically part of this Adeptus but not part of the government. The High Lord of the Courts is [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Molly McBride|Molly McBride]] a Demon Blooded northerner who has spent her whole life fighting against injustice and corruption in every form.

Additionally [[User:Nemo of Utopia/The_Patron_of_Amarana|The Patron]] himself is technically also a member of this branch as he has the right to sit in judgment if he chooses on all High Crimes and acts of Treason. He has invoked this right exactly once, mostly to prove that he could. (The person in question was found "Not Guilty by Reason of Insanity" and sentenced to lifetime confinement to a mental institution pending treatment or cure of his condition. He stood accused of twelve counts of grand theft, but psychoanalysis found him to be a kleptomaniac. The police often consult him on serial theft cases, and he is actually fairly good at solving them. However, he does have a problem with stealing other patients’ belongings and the doctor's pens and notebooks.)

Trials are in the American/British style, with a 'jury of one's peers' and the judge presiding from the high seat. The witness's sit to the judge's left and the clerk to the right. The prosecutors are on the left side of the courtroom and the Jury the Right while the accused is in the middle. Unless the accused is elderly or crippled and unable to stand they may not sit. For this reason, individual segments of trial must last no more than 3 hours. Only citizens may serve as witnesses, but since one can at the present time become a citizen after 24 hours residency this is not a problem. Citizens MAY testify with respect to events from before their citizenship. The accused is entitled to an 'Attorney of Due Justice' in the event that they cannot retain their own private counsel. The judge may dismiss any case at any time with or without prejudice, which is done routinely with respect to picayune or spurious civil cases so as to free up Attorneys of Due Justice for criminal trials. The patron is looking into finding more Judges and Attorneys of Due Justice so that civil cases do not need to be dismissed so frequently, which has a distressing tendency to lead to murder.

Abnormally The Adeptus Judicate does not have any departmento or officio, but there are those within it and without that are bucking to change that.

== The Adeptus Sororitatus ==

The 'Sisterhood' as they are called by the common folk is the government Adepta that oversees all _female_ clerics and thaumaturges in Amarana Like their Counterparts in the Adeptus Fratris they are few in number but powerful in influence. Technically also responsible for the worship of all-female gods in the city it is common that women will be priests of male deities and men prelates of a goddess's church. The division of male and female clergy between the AS and AF, however, is strict while the division of deities wavers like the landscape in the summer heat. In spite of these difficulties, the two branches of government get along quite well and cooperation between them is without rancor or strife in most cases. The High Lady of the Adepta is [[Nemo of Utopia/Unrepentant Emerald|Unrepentant Emerald]]. She is a mortal with Enlightened Essence and is exceedingly circumspect in her actions, a paragon of temperance. She is also the head priestess of [[Nemo of Utopia/Amarana Seline|Amarana Seline]].

=== The Officio Festivalius ===

This floating office submits to The Patron which days and locations should have festivals to honor the goddess' of the city. A circle of female clergy decide these events and pass them on to the patron, who generally approves them without comment. This circle is chaired by Unrepentant Emerald.

=== The Departmento Eclesiast ===

This is the main branch of the Adepta, overseeing and licensing all _female_ clergy in Amarana. The department technically consists of all licensed female clergy in the city but in practice, most of the female clergy get their licenses and are about their business having no further interaction with the government except to re-up their licenses once a year.

==== The Officio Licentiae ====

This officio handles the licensing process for all official priestesses, which requires proving you have the following capabilities: Ability to speak and read Old Realm, Basic knowledge of Spiritual Etiquette, (At least 3 dots in occult or 1 + an appropriate specialty.) and training in proper prayer procedures. (Prayer roll performance pool of at least 5 dice.) These requirements may be waived if the cleric has a 'sponsor' with a proper license who is taking on the new cleric as a student to train in service to their god/goddess in which case a 'Postulant Permit' is issued instead. Licenses are issued per deity, so if you wish to be the clergy of multiple gods multiple licenses are required. This is waived in the case of Zenith-caste Solars, Theurge-caste "New-Method"-Lunars, "Redemer"-caste Infernals, and Midnight-caste Abyssals, since it would be more trouble than it is worth to issue a license for every god in creation (for the first two), every each of the recovering yozis and all the greater demons (Redeemers), or ghost above essence 3 in the underworld (Midnight-castes).

==== The Officio Sanctionite ====

This is a smaller office within the departmento, making recommendations to The Patron on which female deities should be given official sanction within Amarana. All the female deities mentioned under the Religion section are sanctioned unless noted otherwise. Being unsanctioned does not mean you cannot be worshiped, but it does mean that you cannot have space allocated for a temple or licensed clergy. Sanctioning however is fairly easy to get since The Patron often simply signs the forms without reading them. (Additionally, all the incarnae are sanctioned, + Gaia and the Dragons.)

==== The Officio Hetterodox ====

This office deals with instances of rogue gods and clergy, such as the notorious Tuggie of the Scavenger Lands and other instances where the celestial bureaucracy has broken down to an unacceptable level. Employing many outside contractors they put spirits who demand illicit worship or sapient sacrifice in their places and also hunt rogue demons and the fair folk's ravagers. Though the actual functionaries of this Officio are few their agents are many and they are always busy.

== The Adeptus Frateris ==

Sometimes referred to as 'The Fraternity' by outsiders this Adeptus is responsible for all male deities and male clergy in Amarana. They take their job seriously and are sometimes noted for being taciturn and uncompromising. They are led by [[Nemo of Utopia/Wauli the Wolf|Wauli the Wolf]], who like his female counterpart is a mortal with awakened essence.

Structurally the Adeptus Frateris is identical to the Adeptus Sorroitatus.

== The Adeptus Mechanicus ==

The Adeptus Mechanicus are an odd bunch. Dressing in Rust Red robes and communicating in their own strange (and highly technical) dialect of Old-Realm they keep outsiders at arm's length. This Adepta is responsible for helping The Patron find and repair the magitech of the city a task that they perform supremely well but which many wonders if this group of strangely obsessed men and women are actually best suited for. Led by [[Nemo of Utopia/Adamant Sprocket|Adamant Sprocket]], an elderly Djala man and his young adult daughter [[Nemo of Utopia/Gears of Fate|Gears of Fate]], this group employs many Djala escapees in the task of repairing and rebuilding the city.

== The Adeptus Diolougus ==

What some would call the state department or the diplomatic corps the Adeptus Diolougus is one of the smallest Adeptus of the Amaranaian government. Led by [[Nemo of Utopia/Exultant Ivory Mother|Exultant Ivory Mother]] (a god-blooded woman from An-Teng, who harbors no feelings of goodwill for either Realm or Guild,) this group of spies and agent's provocateur work to keep Amarana a free city and outside the clutches of both [[The Guild]] and foreign powers such as the [[Realm]].

== The Adeptus Medicae ==

Easily among the smallest Adeptus of the Amaranaian government if one only counts the actual government personnel instead of approximately a-dozen-dozen licensed doctors, psychiatrists, and physicians whom they are tasked with overseeing and who like private attorneys in the city are technically part of the Adeptus: the Adeptus Medicae is as one might have guessed responsible for the physical and mental health of the city. They Tend to this task primarily by licensing and monitoring the city's medical personnel. This Adeptus role is two-fold: first, they are responsible for overseeing those practicing and utilizing any kind of medical skill in the city, from alchemists manufacturing morphine, [[Seven Bounties Paste]], or [[Age Staving Cordial]], to those offering psychiatric counseling outside of a church setting, to the several small private hospitals around the city, to even veterinarians. The Second task of the group is more dangerous and ripe for abuse by far: it is they in large part, as the only people with the requisite expertise, who draw up for [[Nemo of Utopia/The Patron of Amarana|The Patron's]] approval the statutes of law which they are tasked with enforcing. Thus far there has been no conflict of interest or abuses of power but the vast majority of people among the medical personnel of Amarana wait anxiously or avidly for this to begin changing.

The Adeptus Medicae is led by [[Nemo of Utopia/Simon Baker|Simon Baker]], a psychiatrist by trade, who is among the most dangerously insightful and persuasive people you will ever meet, at least that is not one of the exalted. He is, in fact, a god blooded, son of the patron deity of an order of physicians on The Blessed Isle, and is not much taken with the Imacualtes, treating them with frosty professionalism.

== The Adeptus Fabricae ==

Easily the largest and most diverse branch of the Amaranaian government the Adeptus Fabricae oversees all matters which involve or pertain directly to any sort of production, manufacturing, functional artistry, or creation of goods within Amarana's lands. Though ferreting out matters of a criminal nature fall under the heading of the Adeptus Arbites, and the governance of the legal codes is the province primarily of The Patron himself, and Prosecution and judgment of crimes is the business of the Adeptus Judicate, all three of these functions fall partially under this Adeptus' remit.

The Adeptus Fabricae first submits for The Patron's approval all codes and strictures which govern the actions and enterprises of fabricating all tangible products in Amarana, and exhaustive list of matters which fall under their control would be impossible but a few of the more salient follow: Print Shops, Compounding Pharmacies, Paper Mills, Glass Works, Jewelers, Magitech Repair Shops, Smithies, Book Binders, Cobblers, Tailors, and Farms: essentially anything which would be made by any sort of "Craft: XXX" skill is within their authority. The patron then reviews these legal codes and approves or rejects them, which becomes the strictures that the Adeptus Fabricae enforce upon the businesses of Amarana.

Most production facilities of any kind are within the Adeptus Fabricae's remit, with the notable exception of restaurants, taverns, eateries, pubs, tea houses, inns, and food carts which fall under the aegis of the Adeptus Medicae, though oddly pharmacies do not. Neither adepta is happy about this but neither is willing to lose or exchange the area they do have power over for reasons of their own which seem fully sufficient to them. Furthermore, any business that produces a tangible product and directly employs more than 50 people in any capacity is under their remit to license, inspect, and if necessary fine or refer to the Arbiters for investigation.

The following are the Departmento and Officio of the Adeptus Fabricae, each one with significant discretionary power and held in check solely by the High Lady of the Adeptus [[Nemo of Utopia/AuspiciousCrystalLightning|Auspicious Crystal Lightning]] and The Patron.

=== The Departmento Iura ===

The 'Department of Laws' devises and writes out the codes of law which govern the production and creation of goods in Amarana. They have created and submitted to the patron and extensive and thorough list of legal codes regarding the conditions, control, creation, and compensation for most products in Amarana, and those they have not they are working on.

==== The Officio Iura Laboris ====

The 'Office of Labor Laws' designs the codes of law concerning the employment, treatment, and management of Amarana's workforce. They are in the main as despised by the plutocracy as they are beloved by the common folk. Among other laws, they have enacted is the 8-hour work shift and the 6 day work week.

==== The Officio Iura Fabricación ====

The "Office of Manufacturing Laws" creates the codes of law governing the actual production of goods. Other offices govern the details of different types of production facilities or fields, but this office creates the general guidelines which the others work by.

==== The Officio Iura Cotagium Industria ====

The "Office of Cottage Industry" drafts the limited and simple codes which control small scale manufacturing by individuals and small business. They would like to have more extensive and detailed codes but The Patron uses his authority to make the official versions of the law to pare back most of their red tape and BS. He is, in fact, thinking of suspending this office for a period of some months while he looks for a better and less over eager set of people to be its officers.

==== The Officio Iura Officinis ====

This office makes the laws respecting the specific difficulties of production in a factory typesetting. Any production facility with 50 or more employees falls under their regulating authority, even things that are not normally their provinces such as farms, eateries, and pharmacies. For this reason, many production facilities and such, run with a staff of 40, so that even if they hire a handful of temp workers they will not move into this Officio's dominion. This Officio is not-well-liked by most business owners, being seen as overly restrictive and exceedingly interfering.

==== The Officio Iura Pharmicopia ====

== The Adeptus Adminstradum ==

== The Adeptus Aeronauticus ==

== The Adeptus Vectigalia ==

Lying squarely in the middle of the Adeptus of the city in terms of size the Adeptus Vectigalia is The Patron's Tax Collectors and Auditors of Accounts. Little liked by most people in the city they are nevertheless key to its continued function. In addition to overseeing that the government is given it's due and being called on to check the books of businesses which the Adeptus Arbites feel might be doing illegal activities the Adeptus Vectigalia also runs Amarana's national mint, which means that they are monitored closely by both The Patron and the Adeptus Arbites.

Noted for being uncompromising and humorless the Adeptus Vectigalia dress in imperishable formal clothing left behind from the first age. The hot stuffy suits and jackets only contribute to their reputation as dour and unsmiling drones of government oversight, which is perhaps the point of the dress code.

The Adeptus Vectigalia is divided into three Departmento: The Departmento Salari, which collects the taxes in cash or kind, the Departmento Quastorius, who audits people's books, and the Departmento Signo, who oversees the minting and engraving of all Amaranaian currency.

The Adeptus Vectigalia is led by [[Nemo of Utopia/Manifold Gemstone|Manifold Gemstone]] a perfectly ordinary man, who happens to be an excellent forensic accountant if only a passable administrator.

= Religion =

Faith and practice in Amarana are as diverse as the people who have come to live there. Everything from Immaculates to ancestor Worshipers to CotI members to simple priests and adherents of various gods all rub-elbows on the city's streets. Below are a brief rundown of the most prominent of the city's faiths and the deities they worship.

== Immaculates ==

Though the smallest of the city's faiths the Immaculate Doctrine still has hundreds of adherents among the people of the city, many of whom are enlightened martial arts practitioners. They also have a strong support network in the form of outside contacts with The Realm and other Dragon-Blooded.

== The Common Faith/Hundred Gods Heresy ==

The Majority of the population of Amarana believe in the gods as most people of the threshold do: they worship those who can provide them with benefits they want or need and don't understand much about the celestial bureaucracy or how things worked in the first age and that the present state of affairs is a corruption of the 'proper' order of things. Those that do often take the stance that "this is the way things are" and simply go on with their day.

What follows is a brief list of the major deities of Amarana and who or what they are affiliated with:

=== Amarana Seline ===

[[Nemo of Utopia/AmaranaSeline|Amarana Seline]]: As the City Mother of Amarana, Amarana Seline is the leader of the city's spirits. She was promoted from off the dole in heaven by the machinations of a number of bronze faction Sidereals and is fully cognizant of the fact that she '''owes''' them, but at the same time of the fact that as a dispossessed spirit promoted to the rank of City Mother she has few allies and many enemies. For these and other reasons she does not play favorites, at least not much, and is working hard at her job coordinating the smooth running of the city. Though she tries to be largely neutral in truth she is in the camp of the Immaculate Faction, which is part of why the Immaculates are as strong as they are in the city.

=== Mother Midnight ===

[[Nemo of Utopia/MotherMidnight|Mother Midnight]]: As the Senior Goddess of all-natural misfortunes in Amarana 'Mother of Midnight Murder and Mayhem', to use her full name, is a very good person for The Patron to have on his side. Mother Midnight takes positive glee in afflicting his enemies with all manner of troubles and ailments, from murder most foul to tripping on a dropped piece of lumber and spilling twenty boxes of crack from their backpack right in front of a police officer. However she is not really playing favorites, she still inflicts all manner of problems on the Patriots, their enemies just get it first and worst. Mother Midnight also has another interesting fact to her favor: she has been at her post for the past 3000 years. She gets audited on a regular basis and comes up smelling like roses: every, single, time! This drives Wong Bongerok to a level of near slavering fury, especially since he is certain Mother Midnight has been doing some kind of double-dealing and below-board hustle to keep herself fed and clothed during Amarana's long dormancy but has no way to prove it. Thing is, he's wrong. Mother Midnight became a doomsday prepper just after the usurpation and had been stockpiling quintessence and ambrosia for centuries ere the fair folk invaded. She has been living off that stockpile for all the time since and even now could go several centuries were the city to fall again ere she would need to start hustling for her sustenance.

In form, Mother Midnight looks like an exceedingly overweight woman with coal-black skin and long dreadlocked black hair that hangs so long as to trail on the ground. She typically appears nude or dressed in rags but can summon an armor of bones and broken pottery for a cost of 3 motes that gives her 10 lethal/bashing soak for the rest of the scene. For one mote she may reflexively cause any weapon that strikes her which has a hardness of less than 10 to automatically break*, and any weapon that has less than 15 hardness but more than 10 take 5d of damage. Energy weapons are immune to this, such as beam-klaves and weapons with a hardness of more than 15 cannot be affected. These powers do not count as charm use.

*(The weapon still inflicts damage before breaking from this effect.)

=== Pauldron Of Sanctity ===

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/PauldronOfSanctitity|Pauldron Of Sanctitity]]: is the new titular war god of the state, essentially exiled to the post by Atlhat since he is a rabidly punctual and rules obsessed deity that Atlhat has detested for centuries. Pauldron of Sanctity takes the form of a tall man in Gunzosha Armor and wielding a shock pike. He believes in well regimented and organized military units who are drilled and well equipped. In many ways, his notions of war are still trapped in the low first age when he was spawned as the god of a mercenary company, but this is just fine because he is the war god of a city with much of its low first age equipment and infrastructure intact. Though he favors the Immacualtes he is not willing to alter the course of outlined fate one millimeter without approval through proper channels.

=== Garion Cromarch ===

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/GarionCromarch|Garion Cromarch]]: is the god of Amarana's police force, who has waited patiently these seven centuries and more since the loss of the city to the fair folk working unofficially as a P.I. in Yu-Shan and who is the author of Amarana’s rebirth, having convinced an awkward cabal of mixed members from every faction to engineer the events which have led to that happening. Garion is perhaps more involved in the doings of the city's police than he should be, often helping them out with 'gut feelings' and leading dreams, but so far his interference has not crossed the line of allowed behavior.

Garrion's form looks like an idealized southern human male wearing Sentinel Defense Force armor blazoned with the symbol of Amarana, an eagle in flight wearing broken manacles.

=== Lissom Shining Spring ===

[[Nemo of Utopia/LissomShiningSpring|Lissom Shining Spring]]: a goddess of the local Oasis who temporarily holds two positions both in her old job and as the minster of all water sources within Amarana's sphere of influence. She is not perfidious in this role like Alhat who should not hold both the aegis of southern war god and god of cattle but is genuinely looking for a replacement to take over the role of goddess of springs and oasis: however she is a perfectionist and committed to finding a perfect candidate, which means that though she has interviewed over a hundred prospective applicants she has not found one that she feels is worthy of her longtime position. The Special Sub-Comity on Amarana is willing to let her conduct further interviews, for now, but have made it clear that if she does not have a new spirit in the position by the end of next year she will be censured and the task of finding a replacement will be out of her hands. To this end, she has compiled what she calls her 'secondary list': those gods that she felt were 'almost' up to her lofty standards, and if she is running out of time will call them back for a second interview and chose the best one. She still hopes for a perfect applicant however and only has four names on her 'secondary list'.

Lissom Shining Spring's form is that of a large fish, but lately, she has been finding herself slipping into the form of a young woman in the suit of one of the city's hydro-engineering personnel who assists the Patron in making sure that all the pipes are sound before restoring the flow of water to a building. She is not sure she likes this, in fact, she's fairly certain she ''doesn't'' so far. She would be willing to slip some jade and silver to someone who could figure out why it keeps happening and make it stop a few times annually in thanks for their help.

=== Sonari ===

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/Sonari|Sonari]]: is the divine minister of sunlight and shadow for Amarana. She works with the bureau of nature to ensure that the proper degree of cloud cover reaches Amarana as well as the appropriate amount of sun. Like many of the gods of Amarana she is newly promoted from being on the dole and fearful of losing her position, but even so, dares to encourage the cult to worship her with little flourishes like rays of light in winter and cool breezes in summer.

She takes the form of a cloud from which pour rays of sunlight.

=== Mereka Jin ===

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/MerekaJin|Mereka Jin]]: the minister of romance and love in Amarana is actually an old pro at the role, having been the minister for the task in the old city and then for the Salaru tribes. He is corrupt as the day is long but adept at hiding his perfidy from anyone and everyone, including to a degree himself.

Mereka Jin takes the form of a vigorous adult man of the south with a rose in his teeth and a rakish smile. He often appears nude or in the robes worn for a wedding among the Salaru.

Mereka is eternally locked in a bitter feud with his theoretical partner Sakarzi: minster of lust and attraction, who is constantly trying to break down the stable romantic relationships her 'partner' builds. For the moment they have reached a detente on the matter of the two factions in which they are most interested, If Sakarzi will do her job for the romantic relationships of the Solarians then Mereka will not try to pair off the Ancestor Cultists into marriages and leave Sakarzi to push them to rut in wild abandon. They have not agreed about what to do with the rest of the population which makes up more than 60%.

=== Bibwit Heart ===

[[Nemo of Utopia/BibwitHeart|Bibwit Heart]]: The 'least' god of Amarana's central manse, Bibwit is uncomfortable with the cult worshiping him as they do. He has seen many least gods that have found themselves at the center of cults growing arrogant and ultimately becoming Starmetal and is afraid this will happen to him. He has survived both the fall of the solars and the shogunate by being small and unobtrusive, keeping his manse functional and active while the rest of the city fell apart and he is not going to change that strategy. Still, he is an important god in the city, and as such they venerate him. Bibwit takes the form of an anthropomorphized rabbit with white fur ice-blue eyes and a tailored green-silk coat that acts as a buff-jacket with no fatigue or mobility penalty. He carries a pocket watch that lets him make flurry attacks up to his DEX score with no penalty for one mote once per scene as part of his 'divine panoply'. This pocket watch could be lent to someone else in a sufficiently desperate emergency but if not returned to Bibwit within one cycle of the moon the city's central manse will begin to have its various functions shut down, and once all of them shut down, "essence build-up" begins.

=== Cela Dinarius ===

[[Nemo of Utopia/CelaDinarius|Cela Dinarius]]: Cela is the goddess responsible for Amarana's economy, and she is a personal friend of Glorious Weapon. She is no friend of the Guild and works as much as she dares to keep the guild from stealing artifacts from Amarana for sale to its foreign rivals. Formerly the goddess of Aj-Aran's main market square she was promoted to the overall control of the economy of Amarana via the machinations of the gold faction. She knows the city father is a bronze faction plant but reasons that as long as they both do their jobs properly they should not come into many conflicts. The two have a standing date for tea every Venus day.

Cela Dinarius form is that of an attractive woman carved from silver, and she wears the clothing of a Varangian cloth factor, which was her first job beyond as the least god some 4 centuries ago, patron goddess of a new Varangian cloth consortium.

=== Zalril ===

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/Amarana/Zalril|Zalril]]: Formerly the Least god of Amarana's north gate Zalril has by what amounts to shier-force-of-will moved up to become the patron god of Guild Members working in Amarana. The exact operation of this occurrence has been shrouded in mystery at the orders of Kejop Kajac himself, and further Nazri signed off on it too. The Guild maintains a large shrine just outside his old gate where they leave offerings before entering the city and where three slave women were taken under cover of night and sworn to become Zalril's Priestesses in exchange for their freedom by an Eclipse-caste member who often works for the guild. Though two of them still keep their roles as the god's priestesses the third has left the shrine and now lives in the city as a teacher for the city's new public school. Interestingly she has suffered no ill effects from 'breaking' her oath. Zalril has asked for the Guild to send a replacement but they are still trying to figure out why the oath failed in the first place. Meanwhile [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Sulramia|Sulramia]] finds fulfillment in teaching her students as do [[User:Nemo of Utopia/GayePachudiweOgesu|Gaye Pachudiwe Ogesu]] and [[User:Nemo of Utopia/OxandRainbowSlave|Ox and Rainbow]] the two women that still work at the shrine. Ogesu is an old woman and does the cooking and cleaning while Ox and Rainbow stand guard over the shrine. Sulramia also came with another gift for the god, her daughter, as she was part of a quadratic set, Maiden, Warrior, Mother, and Crone, and if she was to be the 'mother' Zalril insisted that she has a child as proof of her status, who conveniently doubled as 'maiden'. Sulramia's daughter is called [[User:Nemo of Utopia/IronandHoneyMaiden|Iron and Honey Maiden]] and is just the cutest five-year-old you will ever see, with an appearance score of five already. Her mother lives constantly with the fear of pedophiles, but does not let it rule their lives.

=== Walziri ===

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/Walziri|Walziri]]: as the god of beasts of burden within Amarana's lands Walziri is a major player in the lives of Guild personnel who must work or live here. Formerly a lesser deity of travel and trade in Harborhead Walziri was appointed to his new post by the machinations of a cabal of 'Independent' southern Sidereals and understands that he OWES them for this big break. The cabal has not called in that favor, at least not yet, but for the moment are content with him filing informal reports on the going's on in Amarana. While still hard at work at his new post he has already started to play favorites a little with the Guild's Men who pray to him, subtly strengthening their animals and selecting them last when sickness is due to strike the camels or whatnot of the city. Walziri takes the form of a large man of Harborhead derivation wearing several coral necklaces and white robes. He carries a Jade cattle prod which can be used as a spear or thrown like a javelin and returns instantly to his hand.

=== Anyaka Tetsuo ===

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/AnyakaTetsuo|Anyaka Tetsuo]]: The minister of Chance and Gambling in Amarana, Tetsuo is not new to this job. Created as the least god of a set of enchanted dice not long after the Primordial War Tetsuo has risen over the course of the intervening years to a position of moderate power in this city through diligent work and a suspicious number of 'lucky' breaks. Though no investigation has ever found him guilty of any wrongdoing there are enough people that are suspicious of what he surely must have done with his powers to better his status that it is unlikely he will ever rise any higher. Some deities would plot and scheme to continue advancing, but Tetsuo knows better. As a god of chance and gambling, he is well aware that he has been on quite the lucky streak and that is when you should count your winnings, leave the table, and cash in your chips before your luck runs out. He is content to be the god of all chance and gambling in Amarana: and will only rise higher if his natural luck brings him a sudden break, which he is not holding his breath for. He wiles away his time by playing games with the gamblers of the city, making them win or lose in a big way, but staying within the bounds of prescribed fate.

Tetsuo looks like a tall, broad-shouldered, thoroughly tattooed man with a cup and dice for playing a popular gambling game called 'Han or Cho'.

Tetsuo's sanctum is exceedingly large, he has had 700 years of dormancy in Amarana in which to expand it, and it now takes the form of a vast resort with several small casinos and many spas on what appears to be a small tropical island. (At the boundaries of its area there is a big reef beyond which the waterfalls away into nothing.) Tetsuo typically has many of the small gods of gambling and chance living in his sanctum with him at any time. Tetsuo is a colleague of Mother Midnight, not her subordinate, but the two work closely to determine which gamblers will face a string of ill luck.

=== Bagong Fangrick ===

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/BaegongFangrick|Bagong Fangrick]]: As the God of Vermin within Amarana Fangrick is an odd person to aid the guild but the guild will take allies where it can find them. Fangrick is a subordinate of Mother Midnight but has kept himself mostly out of her way and done his job without fuss since the revival of the city. Formerly the deity of rats for the Salaru tribes he was promoted upon the city's revival in recognition of many years of hard work with little reward and not the slightest blemish on his record.

Bagong Fangrick looks like an aged anthropomorphic rat, dressed in the robes of a shogunate era martial arts practitioner.

=== Wisp Virunga ===

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/WispVirunga|Wisp Virunga]]: As the managing deity for all education in Amarana Wisp is a VIP for the Patriots, because she helps their people learn new skills significantly faster, which helps them stay a step ahead of their competition, for the moment. The thing is that Wisp is running a knife-edge game with staying inside what is allowed within her post as a manager for all education in Amarana and what could be censured. This is very very bad: because she is already in trouble with the local censor's deputy for bearing a god blooded child, who is still alive and therefore available as evidence. Just to add insult to injury the censor's deputy has a personal vendetta against her for rebuffing his advances in favor of a mere mortal. Until the revival of Amarana Wisp Virunga was the goddess of its central library, she effectively promoted herself to the chief goddess of education by cozening up to the Patron while he was excavating her manse. When he decreed the first mandatory schooling sessions for the early colonists he had them pray to her as patron of all education in Amarana at the start of each day, when the prayers reached critical mass a few months later she had already conducted a quiet set of interviews and had her replacement as god of the library already prepped and ready to take over at once. This is not precisely an offense against the laws of heaven, but it is somewhat 'bad form' and would count against her slightly in a formal audit. It also has earned some of her fellow deities enmity, especially:...

=== Principle of Justified Action ===

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/PrincipleofJustifiedAction|Principle of Justified Action]]: Heaven has gods of just about everything, including educators. Principle of Justified Action was formerly a deity of a major school out in the distant threshold before the fair folk invasion and only survived that calamity by mere chance, having been in heaven on vacation when the hosts of faerie scourged the world. Since then he has lived on the dole and schemed endlessly to get another position in the bureau of humanity's education office. He finally thought he had one all lined up when Amarana was scheduled to be rebuilt as its manager of education, but the Patron and Wisp Verunga snatched it out of his hands. Yet, when one door closes another opens and a cabal of Gold Faction Sidereals and a few people who were still his friends from the old days managed to finagle him a consolation prize. The role of managing deity for the court system of Amarana was still open since there were not supposed to be any real criminal proceedings for several months yet. Desperate to get off the dole by then and seeing this as his last chance for the foreseeable future he accepted.

What neither he nor the Sidereals that helped him expected, was that he would LIKE the work. Managing a court system is not so different in truth from managing a school, you have trouble makers, erudite and passionate people, a lot of people who really don't want to be there, an ever-changing cast of characters doing many old and a few new stupid things, a complex set of rules you must adhere to; the similarities were rather a shock. Of course, there were differences, mostly in the fact that things move both so much slower most of the time and so much faster in the crunch, but he got his sea legs within a month or two and found himself enjoying having a real job again. That said, Principle of Justified Action is still no friend of Wisp Virunga and would dearly love to put in an application to replace her should she fall afoul of the auditors. However he bides his time, after all, he is employed in a job that he does not find onerous and has plenty of prayers coming in from both sides of the law, Wisp has no experience and is drowning in her duties, let them see what putting an untried administrator into such an important post does! Chances are that within the decade he will have her job: so runs his reasoning.

The Patron is another matter. He likes the Patron, rather a lot, and finds in the autocrat of the city a kindred spirit: and of course, cannot fault the man on the matter of his dedication to an educated society. He sometimes pokes the patron in the subconscious when he is contemplating a bad law, or about to reject a good one, and thus far does not consider it any kind of offense against heaven's rules. He is, in fact, wrong, he has committed no less than 5 level-one offenses in this manner, but that will largely be ignored unless he does more than mere subconscious nudging, after all, he has not really messed up any major plans this way so far.

In form Principle of Justified Action looks like a tall man from the furthest east, wearing the green and red robes of a seated Judge of Amarana's courts. His hair is shock white, a remnant of his time among the starving unemployed but he finds it suits his image as a wise leader of the courts. Abnormally for a god of justice he is lenient with most offenders, reasoning that if you punish too harshly you deny them a chance to learn from their mistakes. However, anyone who harms children sees the other side of him, a fury of unrelenting hatred that will see them hanged if at all possible.

=== Sakarzi ===

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/Sakarzi|Sakarzi]]: though she would dearly love to bring about the Patron's ruin and overthrow Sakarzi: minister of lust and attraction for Amarana, has a problem: She is both terrified of him and lusts after him obsessively. Sakarzi met the Patron before he mastered Amarana when she was bathing in a sacred hot-spring on the borders of the lands now claimed by the city in the guise of a comely Salaru maiden and he was following his awakened memories back to the city to claim his destiny. There at the hot-spring, she tried to seduce him.

She Failed.

The patron was clearly attracted to her and wished to accept her advances but mastered himself with an effort of will and politely refused. Five more times in five different guises Sakarzi has tried to seduce him and each time has been rebuffed, but always politely. This is why she is terrified of him, no one else whom she has ever tried to seduce has refused her advances so many times, especially since each of those times she has used progressively more of her supernatural powers, in the last instance activating an effect that should have compelled him to lie with her will he or no. She lusts after him because she has a weakness for powerful men, and The Patron certainly is one: but it is his immunity to her mystical powers that have made it an obsession. With the Patron, Sakarzi can use only the arts available to a mortal woman to snare the man she desires, and it is driving her to distraction. Perhaps an hour's worth of time out of each of her days is frittered away trying to think up new ways to seduce the Patron that rely only on her natural skills and personal beauty, but thus far she has not come up with anything worth using on a seventh attempt. The reason that Sakarzi would love to see the patron fall is that after she started a feud between three of the early families of colonists by seducing three of their sons and declaring that only the last one living would bed her the patron caught her outside her sanctum and beat her to within an inch of her life, declaring that if he ever caught her pulling that kind of stunt on his supporters again he would not pull his blows the second time.

These conflicting emotions are tearing Sakarzi apart, she lusts after the patron, but wants to ruin him, but is terrified of him, but she wants to have sex with him so bad she can taste it: Etc, Etc. In the meantime, she has appeared to several of the Patriots and declared her support for the patron's cause offering her help in securing the objects of their desires and the word has spread among them that if you erect a shrine to her in your residence and pray at it twice a day, morning and night, she will aid you in seducing whoever you most lust after.

While Sakarzi has many forms she can assume her true form is that of a Salaru woman of surpassing beauty and grace who literally cannot wear clothing. Her merest touch causes any garment to become invisible for one hour, so there is no point in her wearing any kind of raiment except for its protective value, which she rarely does.

=== Machuko; Torch of Freedom ===

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/MachukoTorchofFreedom|Machuko; Torch of Freedom]]: Is it any wonder, considering the status of Amarana as a free city where none may be held in bondage without due process of law, that the patron deity of Liberation and Abolitionism should view it with favor and even more so it's leader who enacted the law in question? [[Rabsolga]], the patron of slavery, hates and despises Amarana and if for no other reason than that Machuko loves and protects it. Furthermore, Machuko is [[User:Nemo of Utopia/ThePatron|The Patron]]'s patron god, to whom he prays five times a day, and is celebrated with five feast days each year, one at the beginning of each 'resplendent' month. Even the Immaculates honor these five days of worship, because the Patron has been known to have those that speak against honoring the feasts arrested and tried for sedition and/or aiding and abetting slavers, and their leader does not need that kind of attention, so he has said: "These days honoring Machuko are sanctioned by the immaculate faith, so long as you pray unto him only on these days you do not sin against the orders of Heaven."

Machuko keeps a large temple in the city's northeast quarter: a level 3 fire aspected manse called 'The Wheel of Torches' from it ride forth his clergy and devout adherents numbering several dozen strong on raids into the wastes beyond Amarana's borders proclaiming Machuko's glory and the freedom of all people within the lands of Amarana. Machuko has many priests across all of creation but nowhere are there so many gathered together as in Amarana.

In form, Machuko looks like a tall muscular man of what modern people would call Jewish/Hasidic/Israeli derivation, with a wild beard and long hair that hangs in ringlets. He carries a gore maul and chopping sword of orichalcum and white jade which when used together can cut any chain or bond. He has another form, which he assumes rarely except when in heaven, which is that of a great Dragon filled with yellow-white fire and made from millions of broken chains, collars, and manacles.

== Ancestor Cultists ==

Led by [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Sharima of the Three Disciplines|Sharima of the Three Disciplines]] and her ghostly lover [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Aruna the Defiant|Aruna the Defiant]] this group of citizens is a large and vocal part of the city's population. Though dwarfed by the percentage of the city who worship the city's gods and elementals the Ancestor Cultists make up as much as 20-25% of the city's population and are especially prominent among the [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Salaru|Salaru]].

The Ancestor Cultists make use of a large number of small [[Shadowlands]] across the city to communicate more directly with their patron spirits and interact with the underworld: but are mindful of [[User:Nemo of Utopia/The Patron of Amarana|The Patron]]'s injunctions about not breaking the circles of salt and other wards which keep the ghosts within the Underworld. They are however constantly working to locate 'new' and unguarded Shadowlands for their patrons to use to slip in and out of the underworld, which The Patron minds not one bit so long as they report them for the Adeptus Sororitatus/Frateris to seal in due course.

Though most of the people of Amarana are unaware of this fact the Ancestor Cultists are being controlled from behind the scenes by a Deathknight known as [[User:Nemo of Utopia/The Fluttering Fist of the Deadly Labyrinth|The Fluttering Fist of the Deadly Labyrinth]] he is a martial artist in service to The [[Mask of Winters]] who has wandered off on his own agenda far from thorns and The Mask's traditional area of operation. "The Fist" came to Amarana in search of a rumored cache of [[Autochthonian]] [[Soulsteel]], held in the vaults of the undercity, but has found that much of the undercity is sealed and inaccessible even from the [[Underworld]]. In the meantime, he works on the ancestor cultists as both a way to support himself and something to occupy his time while he trains to learn the charms that will allow him to enter the prehuman depths of the city where he hopes the bars of [[Autochthonian Soulsteel]] can be found.

Though the ghosts of Salaruku are numerous and very old surprisingly few of them are Heroic Ghosts and willing/able to serve as patrons for Amarana's ancestor cultists. Of those that do It is surprisingly four of the youngest ghosts that are the main patrons worshiped by the cultists: along with one exceedingly old ghost from the fall of Salaruku.

=== Xufuwne Onuke ===

The leader of Amarana's relatively large population of ghosts from the time of the fair folk invasion Onuke is frighteningly powerful but relatively easy going. He has outlasted Amarana's long dormancy and now looks forward to an era of joy and plenty for the city's dead. A dragon blooded warrior in life Onuke was killed battling the invaders from the wyld and in an odd twist of fate, they buried him with high honors. His tomb lies in the still mostly sand-covered western half of the city at the center of a small park and is one of the barest handful of areas in that region that have been excavated in advance of the main work. In form, Onuke looks like a typical dragon blooded of the shogunate, dressed in power armor and wielding a Daiklave. He has subsisted by hunting plasmic creatures for most of 700 years but welcomes the changes of the reborn city. Onuke is the cult's equivalent of a war god, a role he shoulders without complaint but also without relish.

=== Aruna the Defiant ===

Hailing from Chiaroscuro Aruna is the lover of Sharima, and they have many Ghost-blooded children together. They were maneuvered into the leadership of the cult by agents of [[The Archon of Apostasy]] who wished to have a shining example of ghost/mortal co-operation in Amarana to help people accept the death cult in their midst. The Archon's agents do not believe the plan is working but they are wrong, were it not for the two of them the cult would have been burned out root and branch. Aruna is a relatively young ghost but has become powerful quite quickly thanks to her lover and her association with various death cults. In appearance, Aruna looks like a young woman of the Delazen, beautiful and alluring for all her ghostly translucence and pallor. Aruna is the cult's patron of love and romance but gives short shrift to lust.

=== Emerald Lotus ===

Like her partner's Monkey of the City and Triumphal Eagle of the Flawless Hill, Emerald Lotus has been elevated to leadership by the machinations of the Patron, who decreed a feast day in their honor on the day of their deaths defending Amarana from an attack by a trio of 'Hounds of the Unbroken Earth'. None of them is experienced enough to really do the jobs that they have had thrust upon them but they all are rising to the challenge. Emerald Lotus resembles a typical woman of the deep south dressed in a white robe and headscarf that covers everything but her face, and overtop that a breastplate of steel. She is neither attractive nor ugly but is very charismatic. She carries an infinite jade chakram as her main weapon and also bears a perfect chopping sword for close fighting. Emerald Lotus is the patron 'deity' of the cult's Martial Artists, as she had some experience with that in life. She still is finding her feet as a ghost and defers to Xufuwne Onuke on most matters.

=== Monkey of the City ===

Dressed in lamellar and wielding a shock pike monkey of the city is not really suited to his role as a leader of an ancestor cult. Having been an outcast and wanderer in life who always tried to keep people happy and was quick with a joke or to share his water he has not changed much in death. However, there is a place for the fun and funny guy in any pantheon and Monkey of the City fills that role for the Ancestor Cultists of Amarana. Monkey of the City is the cult pantheon's trickster and comic relief, which he does not mind one bit.

=== Triumphal Eagle of the Flawless Hill ===

Wearing a Red Jade reenforced Buff Jacket Triumphal Eagle, or simply 'Der Aller'* as he prefers to be called, was not much of a warrior in life, but was on rotation for guard duty when the hounds attacked and were predictably killed by them. Buried with honors along with the rest of the four and then raised up as a patron spirit of the city he has persisted as a leader due largely to [[User:Nemo of Utopia/The_Patron_of_Amarana|The Patron]]'s favor and the fact that he is a very intelligent man, who is knowledgeable about many subjects. His role in the city's death cult is that of a spirit of wisdom and intellect, as well as oddly the patron, so to speak, of the Adeptus Aeronauticus.
*(Which means 'the Eagle' in his native tongue, a northern barbarian language...)

== Cult of the Illuminated ==

The Cult of the Illuminated has a relatively small and subtle presence in Amarana, but never-the-less are present. Their agents and activists walk among the cults dedicated to the various celestial exalted who have come to Amarana quietly preaching of the unity of creation and the duties of the 'Shining Ones' to be the leaders and stewards of creation. "Someday," they say. "All creation will be united behind the Shining Ones, and on that day those who have served them well will have rewards beyond their wildest dreams."

Among the 17 or so celestial exalted in the city 6 are allied with the Cult of the Illuminated, and some of the others are sympathizers. The CotI worshipers pray to most of them and work to support their interests.

= Geography =

Geographically Amarana lies at the point just before the sands of the deep desert fully give way to the rocky foothills of the summer mountains. When the spring rains sweep in from the north it is prone to flooding and mud, while the heat of high summer brings the blazing Simoon roaring out of the deep desert and with it short tempers and sharp words that sometimes flare into brutal murders. Winter is a season of joy and happiness for the citizen's of Amarana, as the power of the elemental pole of Air waxes and the desert is cooled, allowing snow to briefly form in the nearby summer mountains which are trucked into Amarana by old roads and made into flavored sherbets and snow cones for those with the Patron's favor, especially small children, of whom The Patron is known to be quite fond. The foothills around Amarana abound with resources brewed up by the slowly retreating Wyld or pushed from deep within the earth by the strange forces by which creation renews itself over the centuries, including many veins of silver from which Amarana mints its currency. Meanwhile, the desert around Amarana is rich with fire dust and gem sand, especially during the nights of the new moon when the Wyld retreats for several miles further south and exposes a wide swath of 'tainted' land, especially where the city has been slowly pushing the Wyld back by infecting it with billions of grains of what is essentially Elemental Earth. This area is hazardous as well however because the tainted area is not just composed of valuable sands, but also dangerous ones, such as quicksand, shatter sand, and hungry sand. For every person from Amarana who strikes it rich mining fire-dust or gem-sand in the tainted lands on the nights of the new moon, another finds themselves injured, killed, or mutated: in Amarana 'Firedust Miner' looks fair to rank among the top 5 'most dangerous professions' for the first year of recorded statistics in the city, right behind 'Rogue Spirit Protection Expert' and 'Pharmacist' but just ahead of 'Building Excavation Team Member' and 'Artifact Recovery Personnel'

Nearby Amarana is a number of Small Oasis, Hot Springs, and Geysers which have long provided the Salaru tribes with water. Though 90% of the tribesmen have returned to their ancestral home a few chose to stay out in the wastelands for one reason or another, and now gather into three new small tribes: the western, northern, and eastern Salaru.

To the west, the desert is hot by day and cold by night, with only trackless sand to greet your eyes, the Salaru who have stayed out in this wilderness journey mile upon mile between oasis that is often buried under the shifting sands and must be dug down to gather up their water. They survive by hunting snakes and lizards and trading fire dust and jewel sand with the Guild for added food and water. Though trade is their main source of contact with the outside they no longer must rely upon it or perish, with the total number of tribe's men in this region reduced by more than 95% they now can survive on their own without help, but it would be a spartan existence. Trade gives them luxuries and better equipment, which they put to good use. The western salaru do not keep herd beasts or in fact, any animals except hunting dogs, the land here is too harsh for this to be profitable. They worship many nature spirits, but few major deities except the Unconquered Sun, who is seen as a wrathful god of war and destruction, and Luna in her aspect as The White Navigator, who is seen as a benevolent and helpful deity. Though they honor the high holy days of the five maidens they are not much revered outside those times.

To the north, the Salaru who have not returned to their city are primarily herders and gatherers, as the foothills of the summer mountains provide old lava tubes and other places to hide from the sun by day and keep flocks dry when the rains come. Their life is perhaps the least harsh of the three new tribes since they have kept the most of their population, with only about 80% going to live in the city and in all cases leaving a few family members to mind the herds and ancestral cave or rock-cut house. They also were the most numerous of the Salaru before the return to Amarana, having six of the 10 Salaru tribes living in their region. and now are by far-and-away the most populous of the three 'outside' tribes. They also still contribute a good chunk of Amarana's food supplies, which means that even the Patron must treat with them on their terms. On the other hand, they know that the Patron, while a patient man, does have his limits and that their families back in Amarana would suffer first and worst if they cut off the shipments of food and other goods to the city, so they treat the Amaranaians with as much respect as they expect in return: so far the city and the northern tribe have a strong alliance of mutual benefit and support. The northern Salaru frequently revere Atlhat, the southern god of war and cattle, in addition, they also revere the Celestial Incarna and Gaia as well as many nature spirits.

The tribes to the east were always the most desirous to return to Amarana, for they could still see it's central tower sticking up out of the sand. However, when the time came, an influential leader named [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Sabris of the Two Spears|Sabris of the Two Spears]] convinced them that they should instead of all going back to the city leave some people behind and send their sons and daughters back into the summer mountains to live with those that stayed for two years as a right of passage. This has proved to their great advantage, for they now own the rights to much of the mineral wealth in the summer mountains near Amarana and have risen to be among the city's most wealthy families. The mountain Salaru were hunter/gatherers before Amarana's recovery and it is in this capacity that the children sent to the old mountain fastnesses must learn to survive when they are facing their Adavam Ordeal. The eastern Salaru mostly hold up a host of small gods for worship and revere the celestial Incarna on their high holy days. They are however the nearest things to atheists Creation has, feeling that if a person cannot survive without divine intervention then they are weaklings that must be excised from the gene pool. Many of them are swayed to a degree by the Immaculate faith but reject the idea that the Dragonblooded are creations, rightful rulers, their tribes have long memories and have heard the tales told by the Lunars of the perfidy of the Dragonblooded and the glory once created by the Solars, and twice in their exile have seen this glory first hand before the Dragonblooded showed up and ruined things.

To the south of the city, a wyld zone bleeds into reality for almost eight hundred miles from the maximum edge of the world. Though the city lies near the edge of this wyld zone it is not part of it, not even when the wyld storms blow in the autumn. This is perhaps partly because the city's strong geomancy prevents it from being absorbed or perhaps some form of potent first age artifact still protects the city as it did during the invasion so long ago. If the Patron knows he is not telling. Either way, there is and never has been a tribe of the Salaru to the south of the city. If the work they are doing to push back the wyld succeeds as well as it has been thus far, there may be, soon.

= Ethnicity =

Amarana is an ethnically mixed city, with people from all over creation having gathered in under its banner thanks to [[The Ghost/The Patron|The Patron's]] zero-tolerance policy towards slavery. In the main however the population is drawn from the peoples of the south, as escaping slaves are most able to reach Amarana from it's nearest neighbors, [[Virangia]] and [[The Delazen Empire]].

== The Salaru ==

Descendants of the people who fled Salaruku in the face of the Balorian Crusade the Salaru have waited a long time to return to their city. Composed of 10 culturally distinct tribes the Salaru make up an ever decreasing percentage of the city's population as more and more foreigners come to the city and settle in. That said the Salaru, though small in number, have a disproportionate impact on the city's culture and politics, due to knowing the lands surrounding Amarana like no one else and therefore having a vastly outsized amount of wealth and clout.

The Salaru are subdivided into the following tribes:

=== The White Scars ===

This tribe numbers about 50 and have long been ancestor worshipers, they have been swayed to the cause of the Ancestor Cultists. They take their name from the practice of ritual scarification of face and hands to tell one’s ancestry and chest to recount great deeds. The White Scars hail from the west of the city. The White Scars are a strangely secretive bunch, they keep their own council and follow their own guidance. Alone of the Salaru tribes, the White Scars have wholey emigrated to the city, abandoning their ancestral lands to the Western Salaru's care and finding employment within Amarana. Most of them agree that this has been a drastic improvement in their living conditions. Their ancestors, however, worry about grave robbers and frequently ask the members of the tribe with the skills to do so to go back and check on the old burial grounds.

=== The Golden Bulls ===

Originally hailing from the north of the city this tribe has been sun worshipers since time out of mind, and have naturally gravitated toward the Solarion's cause. They take their name from the bloodline of golden-haired cattle that they breed, tend, and guard, which according to legend were a gift from the champions of the sun during an age long past in recompense for their service defeating an army of the Raksha. The Golden Bulls are among the largest tribes of the Salaru, numbering some 300 strong counting both those that came into Amarana and those that stayed behind to be part of the Northern Salaru. They revere Atlhat and The Unconquered Sun as their patrons and are known for their skill as warriors though they are overmatched by some of the other tribes thanks to awakened essence and charms. The Golden Bulls are largely employed as butchers, health inspectors, and members of Amarana's army, while the large contingent that remained in their ancestral lands tend their herds of golden-haired cattle as they always have done, though they now drive the excess males to market in Amarana for slaughter rather than keeping them home. The Golden Bulls’ primary combat style is with spears and Bullhide Shields, with firedust grenades to break tight formations. They would not look out of place in Harborhead, and marriages between Harborhead immigrants and the young men and women of the tribe are not uncommon, though frowned upon by some of the tribe elders due to the harborheadite's attitudes towards slavery, which the tribe has always held as blasphemy.

=== The Get of Vexan ===

Often called simply 'the get' by outsiders this tribe calls themselves the 'Vexanites'. The get is descended from a powerful Lunar who lived among the Salaru for a century or so starting a few decades after the fair folk invasion was driven back by the Empress. The Vexanite's hold a secret: their tribe is led by a family of Serpent Beast Men founded by Vexan and preserved through complex webs of intermarriage with other serpent-folk from as far away as the silent crescent. The get is currently led by a charming and curvaceous young woman from the southeast jungles named Nyoka. What they do not yet know is that she is actually the modern incarnation of their founder's exaltation and has been having sex with one of the tribe's greatest warriors in her spirit form of a twenty-foot dragon snake in the hopes of bearing beast folk children. She walks among the tribe in her Warform, that of a great dragon-like serpent woman with the fangs and venom of a cobra and the wings and claws of a dragon. The Get hailed from the mountains east of Amarana.

=== The Iron Raptors ===

Though founded by a group of outlaws and murderers the Iron Raptors are ironically a major component of Amarana's police force. Having originated as an inner-city gang during the last days of the shogunate the Iron Raptors turned their coats when the fair folk came calling at the end of the contagion. They took hundreds of people out of the city through hidden tunnels and other smuggling routes: people who became the founders of the other Salaru tribes. Since then they have slowly moved from running protection rackets over the other tribes, to actually protecting them, to being their main form of law enforcement and wandering justiciars. Now that Amarana is resettled they have taken up the role of their distant ancestors' worst enemies, an irony that is not lost on Garion Cromarch. The Iron Raptors’ central holdings were to the north of Amarana but they wandered freely among the other tribes and in fact still do, being welcome among any of the other Salaru. They worship Garion Cromarch as their patron deity, but also revere a number of small gods of crime and larceny, propitiating them in recompense for reducing their portfolios and defeating their natural worshipers.

=== The Kelderkin ===

Another tribe from the city's north the Kelderkin are the descendants of Marion Kelder and are an agricultural matriarchy. They revere Gaia to the near exclusion of all other deities and hold that all other gods are really aspects of Gaia, subsidiary souls of the Maiden of Plenty. They are more right in this belief than most people realize. All Kelderkin women can trace their ancestry to Marion Kelder via one of her seventeen daughters, and which daughter you are a descendant of determines what your role in the tribe is. The only roles that are not decided by your ancestry are 3: Shaman, Champion, and Speaker. The Speakers are the leaders of the tribe and set it's policy, while the shamans and champions advise them and defend the tribe. Marion Kelder was a wood aspected dragon blooded and even to this day a Kelderkin man or woman will sometimes exalt as another wood aspect. Currently, there is one such person among the Kelderkin, Mwaloni Kelder who is a gifted archer and huntress that leads an all-female unit of other archers in the Amarana armed forces. She is also a sex addict and currently dating four separate men, two of which are identical twin Djala who regularly have Manage-a-Trois with her.

=== The Chosen of Flame ===

Hailing from the city's west The Chosen of Flame has been firedust gatherers for as long as anyone can remember. They gathered firedust far south of the city during the shogunate and came to Amarana to trade it. When the hosts of Fairie came sweeping in from the edge of the world after the great contagion they ran before them and were caught up in the exodus from Amarana, helping many of the civilized folk adapt to the desserts. The Chosen of Flames make up the lion’s share of the new western tribe, but even so, most of them have moved into the city and settled down as experts and factors in the firedust trade. They are a prosperous tribe that is in a state of transition as they adapt to being a settled people for the first time. Numbering approximately 75 persons in the city and an equal number now part of the Western Salaru the Chosen of Flame boasts several god-blooded among their number, and actively court new fire elemental unions. Their God Blooded include Gitchsune Folarabi, Malawi Besmar, and Kubrisa Suknis, among others.

=== The Iconographers ===

Among the tribes of the Salaru, few can argue that the Iconographers are not among the most learned and civilized. Hailing from the cities northeast they have preserved an astonishing amount of lore from the low first age, especially on the subject of geomancy. Now almost universally employed by the Patron excavating and repairing manses they are well off and respected. The Iconographers place great store by erudition and knowledge, and gain position and prestige among their own via a set of grueling examinations conducted by their tribe's patron spirits once every ten years, and always in old realm. Because of these tests of knowledge, the tribe is led by its elders, who have had the most time to study and learn, and they are prone to contemplation and thoughtfulness. Among other advantages this has gifted them with is the possession of five small Manses outside the city, raised after the city's abandonment by their own hands. These manses have made their ancestral lands fertile and bountiful, making them one of the largest salaru tribes with 200 members in five small villages around the Manses before they emigrated to Amarana. Of all the tribes their desire to return to the city was among the greatest, but they did leave one family behind in each village to see to its welfare and upkeep in perpetration for their Descendents and those selected to join them by the Patron returning. The Iconographers in city number 175 or so and are very much in the Patron's camp. They are led by [[User:Nemo of Utopia/SukiwaraMadoka|Sukiwara Madoka]], a god blooded thaumaturge of advanced years and not inconsiderable skill.

=== The Eisil ===

As a tribe of pastoral hunters and gatherers in the city's eastern area, the Eisil would not be remarkable except for the fact that they are master storytellers and thespians. The role of Storyteller is the most honored position within their culture and many people aspire to it but few succeed. Their greatest tale is that of Sakarazat, a woman who was taken captive by a rapacious dragon blooded lord and over the course of two and a bit years told him a thousand stories which prevented him from killing her, and in the end, led the dragon blooded to let her go. Now that the Eisil have returned to Amarana they are mostly working at simple jobs like sand clearer or coachman (They have long preserved the arts of chariot racing as part of their festivals.) but a significant number of them now take the long-coveted role of storyteller or actor, and are among the best in the city, being sought out by talent scouts and stage managers for private and public engagements. The Eisil hail from the high mountains east of Amarana where the snow falls in winter, they are paler complected than most Salaru and have massive barrel chests from dealing with the thin air.

=== The Mantis Tribe ===

From the northwest of the city, the Mantis tribe straddle the border between the desert and the foothills of the Amaranaian lands. They have survived by placing great store by martial arts and awakened essence, and among their number only the young typically do not have awakened essence, nearly everyone over the age of 25 has mastered this basic precept. By the age of 30, most people have achieved the form type charm of one of the 5 main martial arts of the tribe, and by the time they reach venerable status at 65, nearly everyone is a master of their chosen style. This has allowed the Mantis Tribe to become large and prosperous but puts them in an uncomfortable position of being alternately feared and nearly worshiped by the other tribes, who look to them for protection from spirits and demons. It also puts them in another uncomfortable position: their various schools of martial arts do not always get along, and more than once the tribe has been wracked by internal strife, especially between the members that adhere to the Immaculate Philosophy and the people that worship the local gods outside that framework. At the moment it seems like the tribe is heading for another such civil war, and this time it may drag the whole city into it.

=== The Broad ===

Alone of the Salaru the Broad actually hate the Patron. The Broad was from the uttermost western areas of the Salaru and also alone among their number made a common practice of keeping slaves, but not so much for the purpose of having them work for the tribe but rather to sell to the guild. They ranged far among the sandy wastes waring with members of other tribes and capturing them to sell for the supplies they needed to survive and prosper. Many among their number were heroic mortals and with the exception of the Mantis Tribe and the Chosen of Fire they boasted the most members with awakened essence and/or god-blood. They also served as a dumping ground for the criminal and malcontents of the other tribes leading them to be less cordial with the rest of the Salaru than any other tribe. However, even the Broad wished to return to Amarana enough to give up their slave taking practices, at least, some of them did. When the Patron decreed all people of Amarana Free men and women shortly before the Guild arrived the Broad fractured over whether to return to their ancestral homeland or remain in the wastes and live as they had done for centuries. In the end, the tribe split 60/40 in favor of returning to Amarana and becoming part of the new society, but the 40% that remained in the wastes no longer consider themselves beholden to the Patron, Amarana, or even the Salaru. These people, called by their former associates The Red Broad are now considered outlaws brigands by the Amaranaian government and hunted whenever they stray close to the fifty-foot Glass Pillars that mark the borders of the Amaranaian lands. They are firmly in the camp of the Guild's Men and infiltrate the city regularly to capture and smuggle out valuable slaves that have escaped to Amarana from other lands.
The 60% of the tribe that has returned to the city are in the camp of the Death Cultists since the Broad were by and large ancestor worshipers before they returned to Amarana and see no reason to change that now. Calling themselves 'The Green Broad' they have no love for the patron but do love their city and will fight to the death to defend it. Most of them are now members of the city's military and are locked in a bitter feud with their former tribesmen. The members of this tribe that are not military mostly work as overseers for the small but growing cadres of 'indentured servants' kept by the city government in punishment for some of the most heinous crimes such as rape and enslaving another person.

=== The Western Salaru ===

=== The Northern Salaru ===

=== The Eastern Salaru ===

== The Djala ==

The D'jala are a sub-faction of the Patriots at the present time. Having been liberated by the Patron from their enslavement by many people who have brought them to the city in bondage they are fanatical partisans of the city's leader and from a major component of his power base. The Djala form five small tribes into which new arrivals are folded by ties of kinship, alliance, or marriage within weeks of arrival. The number of newly married Djala in the city is staggering, easily 40% of all new arrivals are pushed into marriages within a month of becoming residents, and somehow nearly all these mirages are happy ones. What the Djala elders know but have not officially publicized is that one of the Djala's patron gods is an old drinking buddy of [[The Ghost/Meroka Jin|Meroka Jin]] and has called in a favor with the minister of romance and love to arrange this happy state of affairs for his people in the city. This is not going to last, because [[The Ghost/Sakarzi|Sakarzi]] is going to start screwing around with them, but for the moment she is distracted by her work with the death cult.

== Varangians ==

== The Delazen ==

== Deep Southerners ==

Nemo of Utopia/Amarana

2020-07-14T12:48:48Z

Nemo of Utopia: /* Meroka Jin */

Amarana is a first age city, lost to the contagion and the fair folk invasion over 700 years ago. It is now coming back to life under the aegis of [[User:Nemo of Utopia/The_Patron_of_Amarana|The Patron]] who wields the power of the [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Five_Signs_of_Harmonic_Unity|Five Signs of Harmonic Unity]].

= Amarana =

Amarana Is comprised of a large area surrounded by a circular wall. At the edge of that wall are twelve triangular towers that contain the major military resources of the city. Of these towers, eight have been fully excavated, and the ninth is being examined and the sand removed even now.

Within the city is organized into four quarters but only two of them are even partially excavated, the two on the eastern side of the city, and even there many buildings still slowly seep sand into the streets out of cracked windowpanes and the door seems. The buildings of Amarana tend to a certain Egyptian flare or perhaps it would be better to say pre-Arabic since they are after all, by and large, the product of the low first age. The buildings are built of a quasi imperishable ceramic that resembles adobe, with the most significant having windows of Chiaroscuro Glass and doors made of either that same substance or Stainless Steel. Buildings are generally between six and ten stories high with essence powered air conditioning and elevators both of which the Patron must personally repair before the building becomes usable again.

Unlike many old realm cities, Amarana is laid out on a grid, instead of in a radial pattern. This gives a geomantic bonus to the people who live there: namely that mortals gain +1 XP per time XP is awarded. This bonus actually accrues every half year if using long term awards. The players can uncover this information with a dif10 [wits + occult] roll once every month they spend in the city beginning on the second day they are here. The bonus only applies to true mortals, not god blooded, ghost blooded, awakened Martial artists or any exalt, but does apply to dragon kings and jadeborn who are not Artisans.

So far roughly half of the city has been uncovered, but even here there are a lot of buildings that are collapsed, or still filled with sand and roped off with red cables and even more locations where there are red cables indicating small shadowlands or dimenses that are not to be approached until the city can close/cap them.

The excavation is proceeding irregularly, moving from the east wall out toward the west except around the central manse and the road from the north gate to the south gate. There are markets in most squares and a number of shops on the ground floors of buildings. Few merchants here are officially affiliated with the guild since many people in the city are escaped guild slaves and loath the guild vehemently.

Nearly everything except slaves is available for sale, including many products from The Wyld. Firewands and Flame Pieces are the core of the weapons markets along with accessories such as bayonets, powder horns, and pieces of flint or obsidian for strikers. Interestingly Cannons are not for sale, being reserved for the government, but anyone with contacts 2 or higher could find someone who knows someone who could get a permit for purchasing a few for export. Armoring is more advanced, and even some artifact armors are for sale, though they would be a resource 4 purchase at minimum, and that is for the simple stuff like Jade breastplates. Things like Yuroy Scout armor are beyond the means of anyone in the party, though, that comes up for sale very rarely except through illegal channels. Jade Full Plate and Super Heavy Plate are more commonly available, in fact, there are people in the city that can be commissioned to make it. Orichalcum and Monsilver are not commissionable but in the still covered parts of the city are facilities to work it. There are no facilities in the city for Soulsteel or Starmetal, but there is a workshop in one manse that has been uncovered to work Adamant, though finding any to use would require Wyld Cauldron Technology and spending XP: such is the life of the Exalted...

There are a number of Inns, Caravanserai, and Hostels near the city gates, while further in nearly every corner of an inhabited area has at least one restaurant or coffee shop. Tea houses, by comparison, are rare, and true bars are unusual enough to be remarked upon when a new one is found. Most living quarters do not have kitchens, which is why many hab towers which have been excavated don't have permanent residents and so many restaurants can stay open. Many restaurants, in fact, rent themselves out to people wishing to cook for their families or are owned by consortiums of citizens who hold them in common for communal cooking with contracts for use and upkeep requirements.

All of the city's roads are at least 20 feet wide, plus a five-foot sidewalk to either side. This is for the smallest streets, most are 40 feet wide with sidewalk and a few main thoroughfares are 60 feet wide. The streets keep themselves magically clean once each section is repaired by the Patron, but only a very few sections are repaired and many people who work as street sweepers clearing sand wish for it to stay that way. (Each 10'x10' section is a different artifact and must be individually repaired. There is one street in the city's west that is a first age relic and still working. However it can only affect things up to 30 feet above itself, so it is a long tunnel of a clear street bounded on all sides by packed sand.) The streets are made of fitted 5'x5'x1' blocks of granite, and one can sometimes determine which part of the city one is in by the color of the streets. The northeast the blocks are blue and green, the southeast red and green, the southwest red and black and the northwest blue and black. The city’s four central parkways are each a solid color relating to their element and 40' wide on each side and the grand square around the central manse is white and 60' wide at its narrowest point. However many streets were repaired with gray, white, or red granite toward the end of the shogunate and are not properly color-coded.

The City has at least 5' of clearance between all buildings: meaning that there are many allies in which one can get lost. You can often tell which parts are in use and which are unoccupied by weather there is sand filling the allies or they are clear.

== Manses and Demesnes of Amarana ==
Amarana was at one time subject to major geomantic engineering projects that gave it a large number of demesnes and then manses relative to its size. Most of those manses are still here, still active, and even now being located and excavated. A few, however, were partially unstable and have long since exploded. These few are roped off as dangerous and plans are underway to re-cap them, led of course by the Patron. Note that there are more manses and demesnes within the city that have not yet been found and that at one time there were even MORE demesnes in the city which have collapsed into a dormant state due to the changes in the city's essence flows and could be reactivated with the appropriate rituals once the city is fully excavated and geomantic remapped, these demesnes, however, were all small ones, level 2 at the most, so whether such effort is worth it in the short term, or even a good idea, is debatable. See [[Nemo of Utopia/MansesandDemesnesofAmarana|Manses and Demesnes of Amarana]] for further information.

= History =

== Prehistory ==

Though most do not know it Amarana's deepest foundations were laid in an era long past by the [[Dragons Kings]]. The City flourished in the age between the advent of humanity and the [[Primordial War]] with many of the first exalted visiting the place at one time or another in the several decades of the lead up to the overthrow of the Primordials. Then when the war began the city was wreathed in the destruction by one of the superweapons of the masters of creation, utterly annihilating most of those that dwelt therein and reducing the city to a smoking crater of volcanic glass. Still, beneath the burned and blackened surface, some parts of the old under city survived, and wait there still.

== The First Age ==

During the First Age many of the survivors of the primordial war remembered their time in 'Highana' fondly and after excavating much of the old substrate and leveling off the damaged areas to make way for new constructions raised up a new city on the site of the old. This city was dubbed 'Solzarian' in honor of [[The Unconquered Sun]] and in memorial to the Great Dragon King lady who had ruled the city so well and wisely ere it's annihilation. The City would remain a significant but out-of-the-way part of the Old Realm all the way through the first age.

=== The Ocher Fountain Era ===

During the beginning of the First Age when [[Queen Merela]] ruled over all creation from the eternal capital of [[Rathess]] Solzarian was still being reconstructed, and there was little of note that occurred in the city. One event, in particular, was notable, however: the Conclave of Solzarian in year 99 of the old realm, a symposium on the rights and freedoms of the people of creation which some in later years would argue laid the foundations of the Meru Uprising which led to the formation of the Deliberative.

=== The First Deliberative Era ===

By the time of the founding of the [[Deliberative]], the reconstruction of Solzarian was largely complete, and over the next few decades, the city became a favored retreat for both Solars and Lunars seeking to get the heck out of Meru and the stifling politics of the great city. One of Marela's closest allies [[Nemo of Utopia/Angus the Wirehair|Angus the Wirehair]] was given the rule of the city as part of the division of creation into fiefdoms and made it his personal residence. Under Angus rule, the city prospered, though it, by-and-large, remained a backwater compared to such metropolises as [[Chiaroscuro]] and Rathess. However, thanks to its solar overlord and his close relationship to the Queen of all Creation the city began the long process of incredible geomantic engineering which would in time lead to it being known as 'The City of Manses'.

=== Unfurling Horizon Era ===

While this era of creation went by largely without incident of significant note at this remove of history it is still recorded that many of the great efforts to explore and expand the borders of Creation in the south used Solzarian as a staging ground or stopover point before plunging into the true wilderness at creation's rim. This continued to encourage the exalted to play 'tourist' in the city and helped keep its economy vibrant. It is also noted in some histories that there was a major strike of [[Red Jade]] near the city in 811 which produced a 'Jade Rush' led by two rival Dragon-Blooded brothers and their servants which escalated into a short civil war in the city 2 years later in which significant damage was done to the city's infrastructure by all three* factions. The Civil War was only halted when [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Angus the Wirehair|Angus the Wirehair]] returned from Meru at the head of a wing of elite Dragon-Blooded shock troops and brutally suppressed both rival groups with mass arrests and a number of executions. (What happened to the brothers is unknown, but their names do not reappear in the historic record for 700 years, and at that time associated with different elemental aspects leading most scholars to conclude that they were 'dealt with' privately by their family.)
*(The Two consortia backing the rival brothers and the cities law enforcement detachments.)

==== The Aftershock War ====

In spite of the growing significance of the city and it's powerful assets in terms of equipment and hearthstones, Solzarian was not at first much involved in the Aftershock War. Passed over in favor of more militarily significant targets by the Primordial Forces the city did not come under fire until 1131 when a force of some 3000 first circle demons led by a trio of 2nd circle demons assaulted the city in the dead of night via a fleet of living airships. The 'Battle of Solzarian' was considered a significant victory for the forces of creation due to the large number of [[Golden Janissary Style]] practitioners in the city who were able to make fairly short work of the first circle demons allowing the detachment of Dragon-Blooded stationed in the city to confront the second circle demon commanders and dispatch them.

However the war was not all glorious victory for the people of Solzarain, [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Angus the Wirehair|Angus the Wirehair]] went missing during the final battle with the primordial forces and would not be seen again for over 500 years. For most of that time, he was presumed dead by the people of the city, though the Solar Exalted knew better as his shard had not found a new host.

=== Shining Reflection Era ===

During this period Solzarian loses much of its former significance as the seat of one of Marela's close allies. Few of the Exalted visit the city and the grand engineering projects grind to a near halt. The only events of great significance that occur here are two:
1: The Duel of the Magisters in 1313 where the reincarnations of Theis, Leelah, and Sonah engage in a duel of sorceress power which damages large sections of the city and forces all three of them to be censured by Marela herself: And;
2: In 1492 a major strike of Orichalcum is made a few hundred miles south of the city, and Solzarian becomes a stepping off point for prospectors of every stripe looking to get rich quick mining Orichalcum. The City's economy runs strong off this sudden influx of cash, people, and goods for the next 30 years.

=== Thousand Struggles Era ===

The first part of this period proceeds much from the previous one: everyone is aware that one of the legendary solar exalted has died of old age, but this makes little difference to the struggling backwater that Solzarian has become: then in 1776 everything changes.

In the Records of Solzarian 1776 is called: 'The Year of the Thousand' for the massive wave of change that swept over the city this year. The First thing that happens is [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Angus the Wirehair|Angus the Wirehair]] 'returns from the dead' on the 11th of Ascending Water storming into the city with a small group of Solars, Lunars, and Siderials and calling everyone he can reach into the city with him to face what he calls 'The Storm of the Millennium'. Ten days later the storm arrives and following in behind it a host of the fair folk the likes of which has not been seen in centuries. The city is invested and besieged for two months by the Faerie Host and the siege is only broken by the arrival of four full realm legions armed with Cold Iron. Once the Fair Folk are driven back and the city is again secure Angus orders most of the city leveled and an engineering project the like of which the city has not seen in over half a millennium undertaken to extensively alter its geomancy. To finance this undertaking he produces several tons of jade, from what source none can say, and uses his Wyld Shaping charms, which until his return no one knew he possessed, to manufacture the raw materials needed from the chaotic energy left behind by the Fair Folk.

However, no sooner was the project underway than orders came down from the Queen that he was to return to [[Meru]] at once and answer for his absence: and bound by the oaths he took as one of the [[Golden Hero Vassals]] so very long ago he departs. Following up on the plans he has left behind his circle mate [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Levian of the Gilded Staff|Levian of the Gilded Staff]] begins directing the super-massive construction and engineering projects which will if successful create one of the greatest concentrations of manses and geomantic relays outside of the Blessed Isle. By late in Descending fire half the city is gone and an entirely new street plan and so on is rising in its place, along with a massive upgrade to the walls and towers of the city perimeter as well.

What exactly passed for Angus in Meru is unrecorded by any presently known records except perhaps those of the Bureau of Destiny but what is recorded is the results of that visit: Angus was stripped of the rulership of his fief in the south including Solzarian and sent on a quest of penance into the frozen north: while Solzarian and the surrounding area was given into the hands of a relatively young solar of the Twilight Caste from another circle named [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Keisha Adriana Mullion|Keisha Adriana Mullion]] and her lunar mate [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Maxim of Personal Liberty|Maxim of Personal Liberty]].

While Keisha was young she was not stupid and consulted with Levian of the Gilded Staff on what she was doing with the engineering of the city. With the elder Twilight's help, she finished the geomantic reorganization as designed by Angus and by the end of Resplendent Air the basic project is finished. The city is now rife with uncapped demesnes and sites that will become demesnes once they can be activated after some of the others are capped. The city also now confers a geomantic bonus on all mortals living there, allowing them to develop their skills and abilities more quickly than those living in other cities. The full culmination of the project with the activation and capping of all demesnes will not be complete for another 36 years.

==== Time of Cascading Years ====

The Time of Cascading Years took rather longer in Solzarian and the surrounding area than it did in most of Creation: 3333 years to be precise. The relatively young solar ruler who went into the Time of Cascading Years and her only slightly more experienced Lunar Spouse emerges from it with a weight of skill and refinement which makes them elders among the solars and lunars. They also are now both arrayed with a panoply of artifacts and charms that make them forces to be reckoned with in the new Deliberative. The passage of the 'Age of Isolation' in Solzarian is marked by a number of rebellions and uprisings, and the invasion of their lands by the fair folk towards the end of it, from whence none, can say. Supposedly it was the destruction of an artifact which the Raksha Commander carried which restore time to its normal flow according to the people of Solzarian.

=== Second Deliberative Era ===

During the [[User:Nemo of Utopia/PeriodofLongSilence|Period of Long Silence]] Solzarain is one of the few areas still doing significant research, though they are hampered by the continuing disunity of creation and the fearfulness of creation's mortals who are all accustomed to traveling too far from home casting you into a different timeline.

With the Establishment of the new deliberative however Solzarian is thrust into the spotlight for around a hundred years as the home and workshop of one of the most important [[User:Nemo of Utopia:NPCCreationGuidelines/Exalted/FirstAge/Solar/TwilightCaste|Copper Spiders]] of the deliberative. During this period the city is a known destination for the many young Twilight-caste members who were reborn following the restoration of time's proper flow.

As this era goes on however Solzarian becomes less and less important with the rebuilding of the rest of creation, the other Twilights drift away to rule their own fiefs and work on their own projects and as has happened before Solzarian's position far from most significant events of history both at the center of creation and at its rim mean it becomes a backwater. Even it's solar and lunar rulers spend more time in Meru than at home, leaving the city in the hands of [[User:Nemo of Utopia:NPCCreationGuidelines/Exalted/FirstAge/Dragonblooded/Top|Dragon Blooded]] legates.

=== Era of Dreams ===

During the first part of the Era of Dreams, though Solzarian flourishes on the mundane level it remains a backwater on the scales by which The Realm measures such things: a functional and unimportant city in a functional but unimportant section of the world. It does, however, receive an [[IAM|I AM]] Transmission Node linking it to the broader network of information which now spans creation.

Then in the year 3381, it's twilight caste ruler is goaded into violating her eclipse oath to not attack other celestial exalted in Meru, setting in motion a chain of events that will alter the shape of Solzarian's fate for centuries to come, and that of the rest of creation. At first, the botches come hard and heavy, but then they stop and [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Keisha Adriana Mullion|Keisha]] thinks the oath's punishment has run its course.

It has not.

Returning to her holding in the south she begins to work on constructing a [[Proto Shinmatic Vortex]] and at a key stage of the process, the final botch of set activates and the PSV explodes, killing Keisha and creating an intense Wyld Zone south of the city over a hundred miles wide.

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/MaximofPersonalLiberty|Maxim of Personal Liberty]] calls upon every favor he has and even takes on new obligations to arrange the deliberative sending experts at Wyld Shaping to close the rift in the fabric of reality, but the people sent are not the high essence Solars and Lunars he hoped for but rather a cadre of neophytes who have scarce mastered Wyld Cauldron Technology and are woefully unprepared for the madness of the deep Wyld which exists within the rift. Three of them die before the other two calls it quits leaving the Wyld Zone barely stabilized around its edges. It is unrecorded at this remove what keeps the deliberative busy and the more powerful Wyld shapers tied up, but it will not be for another 3 decades that the Wyld zone is fully dealt with and that not by an individual any more experienced than the ones first dispatched, though with far greater caution than the first circle that was sent showed.

== The Usurpation ==

== The Shogunate ==

== The Fall & The Second Age ==

== The Rebirth ==

In RY 760, that same year where so very much else changed for creation (763 in normal Chronicles): the man who

= Government =

In basic, the Government of Amarana really consists of a single man: [[User:Nemo of Utopia/The Patron of Amarana|The Patron]]. He is an autocrat, ruling by divine mandate and shier power, as he is capable of defeating significant deities in single combat. However the Patron is one man, and as such has organized his subjects with several branches of what we would consider a more normal government. This normal government is organized into twelve 'Adeptus' which each is led by one of the twelve 'High Lords of Amarana'. These twelve powerful individuals form a council that advises and assists The Patron in his leadership of the city, feeding him data on several topics such as the state of his subject's religious convictions or the preparedness of his military. Though each High Lord is immensely powerful they all are The Patron's fanatical partisans and would not dream of challenging his authority, even if they could.

== The Adeptus Millitate ==

The Adeptus Millitate is one of the largest branches of Amarana's government, with no fewer than 1250 members in all its branches and subgroups. Though officially in charge of Amarana's Armed services it has a rival in The Adeptus Aeronauticus who oversee Amarana's air-forces. The Adeptus Millitate is run by [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Fist of the Land|Fist of the Land]] a God-Blooded martial artist who is somewhat uncomfortable leading an army of over a thousand people.

The Adeptus Millitate has the following departments and offices:

=== The Departmento Munitorum ===

Oversees the acquisition and care of the equipment and supplies for the army.

==== The Officio Technis ====

Deals with the army's Magitech assets.

==== The Officio Cibum ====

Oversees the all-important function of providing provisions for the troops.

==== The Officio Armorium ====

Handles the more mundane arms and armor of Amarana's troops.

==== The Officio Quartium ====

… is responsible for most everything else, from tents to uniforms to bedrolls.

=== The Departmento Servicum ===

Oversees the actual troops and officers and their training regimens.

==== The Officio Acadamicain Legionarius ====

This office oversees the training of new recruits and officers running two training schools for them.

==== The Officio Cooptatione Legionarius ====

This is the group that sees-to the recruitment and if necessary conscription of new troops for the army.

=== The Departmento Latrocinium ===

Oversees the hiring and 'control' of any mercenary units the government employs but is better known for a more sinister function.

==== The Officio Mercenarius ====

Does the Hiring and Firing of actual mercenaries.

==== The Officio Assasinoritum ====

'The Office of Assassins', to use the Vulgate, runs at least four secret dojos training mortal agents in martial arts that facilitate them serving as The Patron's spies and assassins. [[Nemo of Utopia/Assassin of the Grey Spire|Assassin of the Grey Spire]] 'leads' this office: He is ''not'' a master of the White Veil Style of martial arts and has most ''definitely not'' taught many of its members this secret art form. (Nudge nudge, wink wink, know what I mean, know what I mean? Say no more, say no more!)

=== The Officio Adminstrad Militate ===

This 'Floating Office' makes sure that all of the other Departmento and Oficio within this Adeptus do their jobs properly.

== The Adeptus Arbitiese ==

The Adeptus Arbitese oversee Amarana's police forces, and are one of the larger branches of the government with only 150 individuals on staff, counting every beat cop all the way on up to the High Lord Herself as well as all the file clerks and so on that work for the Adeptus but are not actually part of it's 'fighting strength'. They have only one Departmento and less than a dozen Officio, but so far are keeping a lid on the political turmoil of the city. The High Lord of the Arbitese is [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Steel Garden|Steel Garden]] who is not a very good investigator but a decent politician and capable administrator.

=== The Departmento Queastorum ===

This department is responsible for making inquiries and investigating crime, thus far it is the only Department of the Adeptus Arbitese but the Officio Correctionibus is expected to become a departmento in its own right someday.

==== The Officio Homicide ====

The Office of Homicide consists of only eight people, four detectives, three CSI techs, and one overworked file clerk. Their closure rate hovers at around 50%, though that is only due to them being able to count any suspect killed by the ghost of the victim as a closed case. [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Laurel the Axe|Laurel the Axe]] is the unofficial leader of this group but officially they answer directly to the High Lord of the Arbitese.

==== The Officio Servus Aucupes ====

The term 'office of slave catchers' is something of a misnomer. These detectives do not catch slaves, rather they catch people keeping, taking, or recapturing slaves and send them to their just punishments. This office consists of five overworked personnel, two detectives, two forensic accountants, and one file clerk. Their closure rate is around 30% since it is hard to prove that someone was a slaver without catching them in the act.

==== The Officio Vitium ====

Unlike the officio above this office is not quite so overworked, and the two often help each other out because their work frequently overlaps. The 'Vice Squad' mostly concerns itself with drugs and prostitution, since licensed gambling establishments and most pornography are both legal in Amarana. The officio consists of Four Detectives, five undercover officers, three CSI techs, and a harried file clerk. Their Closure rate is about 45%.

==== The Officio Interioribus ====

This Officio is more for show than anything since all of Amarana's police are held by the Stone of Invincible Loyalty. It consists of two Detectives and one Forensic Accountant. They often spend their time quietly helping out other offices.

==== The Officio Fraude Aucupes ====

This is actually one of the larger offices within the Arbities, having eleven total personnel, six detectives, three forensic accountants, a CSI tech, and a file clerk. The office tries to keep a lid on the Guild and others defrauding Amarana's citizens through various means and does a fairly good job. Their closure rate is about 70%, though this is largely due to a lot of success catching many small-fry while the remaining 30% is almost all of the big players.

==== The Ofiicio Fures ====

The 'office of thieves' is responsible for all break-ins, burglaries, purse snatchings, muggings, cutpurses, and so forth in the city. In spite of having eight detectives, five undercover agents, six CSI, four Forensic Accountants, and five file clerks their closure rate is about 12%. Garion Cromarch is frankly disgusted with them and has told The Patron so. The Patron knows they are doing their best but has ordered mandatory additional training for all members of this office.

==== The Officio Pax Patronum ====

The remainder of the police force is in this office. These are the beat cops that enforce the law by their presence and vigilance. Amarana is a large city and they constantly must be on the lookout for any kind of crime but especially things like drunk and disorderly, disturbing the peace, making an affray, and so on. This office consists of 57 patrol officers and over a dozen file clerks. Twelve of these officers are part of a sub-office of 'Mounties' who do their patrols in teams of three on horseback, they are often called in to suppress larger riots. The officers always patrol in teams of three, one to watch the front of a building and two to look around the sides and catch criminals in a pincer movement. They all carry magitech com units that let them use Wind Carried Words Technique and have Linguistics 3. (Their closure rate is not applicable since they work out of elven precincts and each one has a different closure rate.) One of these officers does not need a comms unit: being a dragon blooded air aspect outcaste named [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Secret Eagle|Secret Eagle]]. They have offered to promote him many times, but he prefers to be a patrol officer, though he has deigned to accept the rank of patrol sergeant for the fourth precinct.

=== The Officio Correctionibus ===

The office of corrections deals with the punishment rather than the apprehension side of crime. They are chronically overworked and typically have more criminals than they know what to do with but manage to do their jobs adequately. This floating office is overseen by Iron Sands, a member of The Broad who has lots of experience getting slaves to do as they are bid.

== The Adeptus Judicate ==

Working closely with the Adeptus Arbites the Adeptus Judicate is the other half of the justice system. These are the many Judges, Lawyers, and Clerks of the Court who make sure that the innocent are not punished with the guilty. At the present time, the Adeptus Judicate consists of 11 judges, 15 prosecuting attorneys, 23 Attorneys of Due Justice (Public Defenders.), 42 'Clerks of the Court' who record and file all rulings and court-ordered contracts, and 17 "Agent's Protection" who follow up on inconsistencies in court records and the welfare of Amarana's citizens in cases such as child abuse allegations and locating jurors that fail to show up for a trial. There are also about 200 private attorneys who are technically part of this Adeptus but not part of the government. The High Lord of the Courts is [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Molly McBride|Molly McBride]] a Demon Blooded northerner who has spent her whole life fighting against injustice and corruption in every form.

Additionally [[User:Nemo of Utopia/The_Patron_of_Amarana|The Patron]] himself is technically also a member of this branch as he has the right to sit in judgment if he chooses on all High Crimes and acts of Treason. He has invoked this right exactly once, mostly to prove that he could. (The person in question was found "Not Guilty by Reason of Insanity" and sentenced to lifetime confinement to a mental institution pending treatment or cure of his condition. He stood accused of twelve counts of grand theft, but psychoanalysis found him to be a kleptomaniac. The police often consult him on serial theft cases, and he is actually fairly good at solving them. However, he does have a problem with stealing other patients’ belongings and the doctor's pens and notebooks.)

Trials are in the American/British style, with a 'jury of one's peers' and the judge presiding from the high seat. The witness's sit to the judge's left and the clerk to the right. The prosecutors are on the left side of the courtroom and the Jury the Right while the accused is in the middle. Unless the accused is elderly or crippled and unable to stand they may not sit. For this reason, individual segments of trial must last no more than 3 hours. Only citizens may serve as witnesses, but since one can at the present time become a citizen after 24 hours residency this is not a problem. Citizens MAY testify with respect to events from before their citizenship. The accused is entitled to an 'Attorney of Due Justice' in the event that they cannot retain their own private counsel. The judge may dismiss any case at any time with or without prejudice, which is done routinely with respect to picayune or spurious civil cases so as to free up Attorneys of Due Justice for criminal trials. The patron is looking into finding more Judges and Attorneys of Due Justice so that civil cases do not need to be dismissed so frequently, which has a distressing tendency to lead to murder.

Abnormally The Adeptus Judicate does not have any departmento or officio, but there are those within it and without that are bucking to change that.

== The Adeptus Sororitatus ==

The 'Sisterhood' as they are called by the common folk is the government Adepta that oversees all _female_ clerics and thaumaturges in Amarana Like their Counterparts in the Adeptus Fratris they are few in number but powerful in influence. Technically also responsible for the worship of all-female gods in the city it is common that women will be priests of male deities and men prelates of a goddess's church. The division of male and female clergy between the AS and AF, however, is strict while the division of deities wavers like the landscape in the summer heat. In spite of these difficulties, the two branches of government get along quite well and cooperation between them is without rancor or strife in most cases. The High Lady of the Adepta is [[Nemo of Utopia/Unrepentant Emerald|Unrepentant Emerald]]. She is a mortal with Enlightened Essence and is exceedingly circumspect in her actions, a paragon of temperance. She is also the head priestess of [[Nemo of Utopia/Amarana Seline|Amarana Seline]].

=== The Officio Festivalius ===

This floating office submits to The Patron which days and locations should have festivals to honor the goddess' of the city. A circle of female clergy decide these events and pass them on to the patron, who generally approves them without comment. This circle is chaired by Unrepentant Emerald.

=== The Departmento Eclesiast ===

This is the main branch of the Adepta, overseeing and licensing all _female_ clergy in Amarana. The department technically consists of all licensed female clergy in the city but in practice, most of the female clergy get their licenses and are about their business having no further interaction with the government except to re-up their licenses once a year.

==== The Officio Licentiae ====

This officio handles the licensing process for all official priestesses, which requires proving you have the following capabilities: Ability to speak and read Old Realm, Basic knowledge of Spiritual Etiquette, (At least 3 dots in occult or 1 + an appropriate specialty.) and training in proper prayer procedures. (Prayer roll performance pool of at least 5 dice.) These requirements may be waived if the cleric has a 'sponsor' with a proper license who is taking on the new cleric as a student to train in service to their god/goddess in which case a 'Postulant Permit' is issued instead. Licenses are issued per deity, so if you wish to be the clergy of multiple gods multiple licenses are required. This is waived in the case of Zenith-caste Solars, Theurge-caste "New-Method"-Lunars, "Redemer"-caste Infernals, and Midnight-caste Abyssals, since it would be more trouble than it is worth to issue a license for every god in creation (for the first two), every each of the recovering yozis and all the greater demons (Redeemers), or ghost above essence 3 in the underworld (Midnight-castes).

==== The Officio Sanctionite ====

This is a smaller office within the departmento, making recommendations to The Patron on which female deities should be given official sanction within Amarana. All the female deities mentioned under the Religion section are sanctioned unless noted otherwise. Being unsanctioned does not mean you cannot be worshiped, but it does mean that you cannot have space allocated for a temple or licensed clergy. Sanctioning however is fairly easy to get since The Patron often simply signs the forms without reading them. (Additionally, all the incarnae are sanctioned, + Gaia and the Dragons.)

==== The Officio Hetterodox ====

This office deals with instances of rogue gods and clergy, such as the notorious Tuggie of the Scavenger Lands and other instances where the celestial bureaucracy has broken down to an unacceptable level. Employing many outside contractors they put spirits who demand illicit worship or sapient sacrifice in their places and also hunt rogue demons and the fair folk's ravagers. Though the actual functionaries of this Officio are few their agents are many and they are always busy.

== The Adeptus Frateris ==

Sometimes referred to as 'The Fraternity' by outsiders this Adeptus is responsible for all male deities and male clergy in Amarana. They take their job seriously and are sometimes noted for being taciturn and uncompromising. They are led by [[Nemo of Utopia/Wauli the Wolf|Wauli the Wolf]], who like his female counterpart is a mortal with awakened essence.

Structurally the Adeptus Frateris is identical to the Adeptus Sorroitatus.

== The Adeptus Mechanicus ==

The Adeptus Mechanicus are an odd bunch. Dressing in Rust Red robes and communicating in their own strange (and highly technical) dialect of Old-Realm they keep outsiders at arm's length. This Adepta is responsible for helping The Patron find and repair the magitech of the city a task that they perform supremely well but which many wonders if this group of strangely obsessed men and women are actually best suited for. Led by [[Nemo of Utopia/Adamant Sprocket|Adamant Sprocket]], an elderly Djala man and his young adult daughter [[Nemo of Utopia/Gears of Fate|Gears of Fate]], this group employs many Djala escapees in the task of repairing and rebuilding the city.

== The Adeptus Diolougus ==

What some would call the state department or the diplomatic corps the Adeptus Diolougus is one of the smallest Adeptus of the Amaranaian government. Led by [[Nemo of Utopia/Exultant Ivory Mother|Exultant Ivory Mother]] (a god-blooded woman from An-Teng, who harbors no feelings of goodwill for either Realm or Guild,) this group of spies and agent's provocateur work to keep Amarana a free city and outside the clutches of both [[The Guild]] and foreign powers such as the [[Realm]].

== The Adeptus Medicae ==

Easily among the smallest Adeptus of the Amaranaian government if one only counts the actual government personnel instead of approximately a-dozen-dozen licensed doctors, psychiatrists, and physicians whom they are tasked with overseeing and who like private attorneys in the city are technically part of the Adeptus: the Adeptus Medicae is as one might have guessed responsible for the physical and mental health of the city. They Tend to this task primarily by licensing and monitoring the city's medical personnel. This Adeptus role is two-fold: first, they are responsible for overseeing those practicing and utilizing any kind of medical skill in the city, from alchemists manufacturing morphine, [[Seven Bounties Paste]], or [[Age Staving Cordial]], to those offering psychiatric counseling outside of a church setting, to the several small private hospitals around the city, to even veterinarians. The Second task of the group is more dangerous and ripe for abuse by far: it is they in large part, as the only people with the requisite expertise, who draw up for [[Nemo of Utopia/The Patron of Amarana|The Patron's]] approval the statutes of law which they are tasked with enforcing. Thus far there has been no conflict of interest or abuses of power but the vast majority of people among the medical personnel of Amarana wait anxiously or avidly for this to begin changing.

The Adeptus Medicae is led by [[Nemo of Utopia/Simon Baker|Simon Baker]], a psychiatrist by trade, who is among the most dangerously insightful and persuasive people you will ever meet, at least that is not one of the exalted. He is, in fact, a god blooded, son of the patron deity of an order of physicians on The Blessed Isle, and is not much taken with the Imacualtes, treating them with frosty professionalism.

== The Adeptus Fabricae ==

Easily the largest and most diverse branch of the Amaranaian government the Adeptus Fabricae oversees all matters which involve or pertain directly to any sort of production, manufacturing, functional artistry, or creation of goods within Amarana's lands. Though ferreting out matters of a criminal nature fall under the heading of the Adeptus Arbites, and the governance of the legal codes is the province primarily of The Patron himself, and Prosecution and judgment of crimes is the business of the Adeptus Judicate, all three of these functions fall partially under this Adeptus' remit.

The Adeptus Fabricae first submits for The Patron's approval all codes and strictures which govern the actions and enterprises of fabricating all tangible products in Amarana, and exhaustive list of matters which fall under their control would be impossible but a few of the more salient follow: Print Shops, Compounding Pharmacies, Paper Mills, Glass Works, Jewelers, Magitech Repair Shops, Smithies, Book Binders, Cobblers, Tailors, and Farms: essentially anything which would be made by any sort of "Craft: XXX" skill is within their authority. The patron then reviews these legal codes and approves or rejects them, which becomes the strictures that the Adeptus Fabricae enforce upon the businesses of Amarana.

Most production facilities of any kind are within the Adeptus Fabricae's remit, with the notable exception of restaurants, taverns, eateries, pubs, tea houses, inns, and food carts which fall under the aegis of the Adeptus Medicae, though oddly pharmacies do not. Neither adepta is happy about this but neither is willing to lose or exchange the area they do have power over for reasons of their own which seem fully sufficient to them. Furthermore, any business that produces a tangible product and directly employs more than 50 people in any capacity is under their remit to license, inspect, and if necessary fine or refer to the Arbiters for investigation.

The following are the Departmento and Officio of the Adeptus Fabricae, each one with significant discretionary power and held in check solely by the High Lady of the Adeptus [[Nemo of Utopia/AuspiciousCrystalLightning|Auspicious Crystal Lightning]] and The Patron.

=== The Departmento Iura ===

The 'Department of Laws' devises and writes out the codes of law which govern the production and creation of goods in Amarana. They have created and submitted to the patron and extensive and thorough list of legal codes regarding the conditions, control, creation, and compensation for most products in Amarana, and those they have not they are working on.

==== The Officio Iura Laboris ====

The 'Office of Labor Laws' designs the codes of law concerning the employment, treatment, and management of Amarana's workforce. They are in the main as despised by the plutocracy as they are beloved by the common folk. Among other laws, they have enacted is the 8-hour work shift and the 6 day work week.

==== The Officio Iura Fabricación ====

The "Office of Manufacturing Laws" creates the codes of law governing the actual production of goods. Other offices govern the details of different types of production facilities or fields, but this office creates the general guidelines which the others work by.

==== The Officio Iura Cotagium Industria ====

The "Office of Cottage Industry" drafts the limited and simple codes which control small scale manufacturing by individuals and small business. They would like to have more extensive and detailed codes but The Patron uses his authority to make the official versions of the law to pare back most of their red tape and BS. He is, in fact, thinking of suspending this office for a period of some months while he looks for a better and less over eager set of people to be its officers.

==== The Officio Iura Officinis ====

This office makes the laws respecting the specific difficulties of production in a factory typesetting. Any production facility with 50 or more employees falls under their regulating authority, even things that are not normally their provinces such as farms, eateries, and pharmacies. For this reason, many production facilities and such, run with a staff of 40, so that even if they hire a handful of temp workers they will not move into this Officio's dominion. This Officio is not-well-liked by most business owners, being seen as overly restrictive and exceedingly interfering.

==== The Officio Iura Pharmicopia ====

== The Adeptus Adminstradum ==

== The Adeptus Aeronauticus ==

== The Adeptus Vectigalia ==

Lying squarely in the middle of the Adeptus of the city in terms of size the Adeptus Vectigalia is The Patron's Tax Collectors and Auditors of Accounts. Little liked by most people in the city they are nevertheless key to its continued function. In addition to overseeing that the government is given it's due and being called on to check the books of businesses which the Adeptus Arbites feel might be doing illegal activities the Adeptus Vectigalia also runs Amarana's national mint, which means that they are monitored closely by both The Patron and the Adeptus Arbites.

Noted for being uncompromising and humorless the Adeptus Vectigalia dress in imperishable formal clothing left behind from the first age. The hot stuffy suits and jackets only contribute to their reputation as dour and unsmiling drones of government oversight, which is perhaps the point of the dress code.

The Adeptus Vectigalia is divided into three Departmento: The Departmento Salari, which collects the taxes in cash or kind, the Departmento Quastorius, who audits people's books, and the Departmento Signo, who oversees the minting and engraving of all Amaranaian currency.

The Adeptus Vectigalia is led by [[Nemo of Utopia/Manifold Gemstone|Manifold Gemstone]] a perfectly ordinary man, who happens to be an excellent forensic accountant if only a passable administrator.

= Religion =

Faith and practice in Amarana are as diverse as the people who have come to live there. Everything from Immaculates to ancestor Worshipers to CotI members to simple priests and adherents of various gods all rub-elbows on the city's streets. Below are a brief rundown of the most prominent of the city's faiths and the deities they worship.

== Immaculates ==

Though the smallest of the city's faiths the Immaculate Doctrine still has hundreds of adherents among the people of the city, many of whom are enlightened martial arts practitioners. They also have a strong support network in the form of outside contacts with The Realm and other Dragon-Blooded.

== The Common Faith/Hundred Gods Heresy ==

The Majority of the population of Amarana believe in the gods as most people of the threshold do: they worship those who can provide them with benefits they want or need and don't understand much about the celestial bureaucracy or how things worked in the first age and that the present state of affairs is a corruption of the 'proper' order of things. Those that do often take the stance that "this is the way things are" and simply go on with their day.

What follows is a brief list of the major deities of Amarana and who or what they are affiliated with:

=== Amarana Seline ===

[[Nemo of Utopia/AmaranaSeline|Amarana Seline]]: As the City Mother of Amarana, Amarana Seline is the leader of the city's spirits. She was promoted from off the dole in heaven by the machinations of a number of bronze faction Sidereals and is fully cognizant of the fact that she '''owes''' them, but at the same time of the fact that as a dispossessed spirit promoted to the rank of City Mother she has few allies and many enemies. For these and other reasons she does not play favorites, at least not much, and is working hard at her job coordinating the smooth running of the city. Though she tries to be largely neutral in truth she is in the camp of the Immaculate Faction, which is part of why the Immaculates are as strong as they are in the city.

=== Mother Midnight ===

[[Nemo of Utopia/MotherMidnight|Mother Midnight]]: As the Senior Goddess of all-natural misfortunes in Amarana 'Mother of Midnight Murder and Mayhem', to use her full name, is a very good person for The Patron to have on his side. Mother Midnight takes positive glee in afflicting his enemies with all manner of troubles and ailments, from murder most foul to tripping on a dropped piece of lumber and spilling twenty boxes of crack from their backpack right in front of a police officer. However she is not really playing favorites, she still inflicts all manner of problems on the Patriots, their enemies just get it first and worst. Mother Midnight also has another interesting fact to her favor: she has been at her post for the past 3000 years. She gets audited on a regular basis and comes up smelling like roses: every, single, time! This drives Wong Bongerok to a level of near slavering fury, especially since he is certain Mother Midnight has been doing some kind of double-dealing and below-board hustle to keep herself fed and clothed during Amarana's long dormancy but has no way to prove it. Thing is, he's wrong. Mother Midnight became a doomsday prepper just after the usurpation and had been stockpiling quintessence and ambrosia for centuries ere the fair folk invaded. She has been living off that stockpile for all the time since and even now could go several centuries were the city to fall again ere she would need to start hustling for her sustenance.

In form, Mother Midnight looks like an exceedingly overweight woman with coal-black skin and long dreadlocked black hair that hangs so long as to trail on the ground. She typically appears nude or dressed in rags but can summon an armor of bones and broken pottery for a cost of 3 motes that gives her 10 lethal/bashing soak for the rest of the scene. For one mote she may reflexively cause any weapon that strikes her which has a hardness of less than 10 to automatically break*, and any weapon that has less than 15 hardness but more than 10 take 5d of damage. Energy weapons are immune to this, such as beam-klaves and weapons with a hardness of more than 15 cannot be affected. These powers do not count as charm use.

*(The weapon still inflicts damage before breaking from this effect.)

=== Pauldron Of Sanctity ===

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/PauldronOfSanctitity|Pauldron Of Sanctitity]]: is the new titular war god of the state, essentially exiled to the post by Atlhat since he is a rabidly punctual and rules obsessed deity that Atlhat has detested for centuries. Pauldron of Sanctity takes the form of a tall man in Gunzosha Armor and wielding a shock pike. He believes in well regimented and organized military units who are drilled and well equipped. In many ways, his notions of war are still trapped in the low first age when he was spawned as the god of a mercenary company, but this is just fine because he is the war god of a city with much of its low first age equipment and infrastructure intact. Though he favors the Immacualtes he is not willing to alter the course of outlined fate one millimeter without approval through proper channels.

=== Garion Cromarch ===

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/GarionCromarch|Garion Cromarch]]: is the god of Amarana's police force, who has waited patiently these seven centuries and more since the loss of the city to the fair folk working unofficially as a P.I. in Yu-Shan and who is the author of Amarana’s rebirth, having convinced an awkward cabal of mixed members from every faction to engineer the events which have led to that happening. Garion is perhaps more involved in the doings of the city's police than he should be, often helping them out with 'gut feelings' and leading dreams, but so far his interference has not crossed the line of allowed behavior.

Garrion's form looks like an idealized southern human male wearing Sentinel Defense Force armor blazoned with the symbol of Amarana, an eagle in flight wearing broken manacles.

=== Lissom Shining Spring ===

[[Nemo of Utopia/LissomShiningSpring|Lissom Shining Spring]]: a goddess of the local Oasis who temporarily holds two positions both in her old job and as the minster of all water sources within Amarana's sphere of influence. She is not perfidious in this role like Alhat who should not hold both the aegis of southern war god and god of cattle but is genuinely looking for a replacement to take over the role of goddess of springs and oasis: however she is a perfectionist and committed to finding a perfect candidate, which means that though she has interviewed over a hundred prospective applicants she has not found one that she feels is worthy of her longtime position. The Special Sub-Comity on Amarana is willing to let her conduct further interviews, for now, but have made it clear that if she does not have a new spirit in the position by the end of next year she will be censured and the task of finding a replacement will be out of her hands. To this end, she has compiled what she calls her 'secondary list': those gods that she felt were 'almost' up to her lofty standards, and if she is running out of time will call them back for a second interview and chose the best one. She still hopes for a perfect applicant however and only has four names on her 'secondary list'.

Lissom Shining Spring's form is that of a large fish, but lately, she has been finding herself slipping into the form of a young woman in the suit of one of the city's hydro-engineering personnel who assists the Patron in making sure that all the pipes are sound before restoring the flow of water to a building. She is not sure she likes this, in fact, she's fairly certain she ''doesn't'' so far. She would be willing to slip some jade and silver to someone who could figure out why it keeps happening and make it stop a few times annually in thanks for their help.

=== Sonari ===

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/Sonari|Sonari]]: is the divine minister of sunlight and shadow for Amarana. She works with the bureau of nature to ensure that the proper degree of cloud cover reaches Amarana as well as the appropriate amount of sun. Like many of the gods of Amarana she is newly promoted from being on the dole and fearful of losing her position, but even so, dares to encourage the cult to worship her with little flourishes like rays of light in winter and cool breezes in summer.

She takes the form of a cloud from which pour rays of sunlight.

=== Mereka Jin ===

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/MerekaJin|Mereka Jin]]: the minister of romance and love in Amarana is actually an old pro at the role, having been the minister for the task in the old city and then for the Salaru tribes. He is corrupt as the day is long but adept at hiding his perfidy from anyone and everyone, including to a degree himself.

Mereka Jin takes the form of a vigorous adult man of the south with a rose in his teeth and a rakish smile. He often appears nude or in the robes worn for a wedding among the Salaru.

Mereka is eternally locked in a bitter feud with his theoretical partner Sakarzi: minster of lust and attraction, who is constantly trying to break down the stable romantic relationships her 'partner' builds. For the moment they have reached a detente on the matter of the two factions in which they are most interested, If Sakarzi will do her job for the romantic relationships of the Solarians then Mereka will not try to pair off the Ancestor Cultists into marriages and leave Sakarzi to push them to rut in wild abandon. They have not agreed about what to do with the rest of the population which makes up more than 60%.

=== Bibwit Heart ===

[[Nemo of Utopia/BibwitHeart|Bibwit Heart]]: The 'least' god of Amarana's central manse, Bibwit is uncomfortable with the cult worshiping him as they do. He has seen many least gods that have found themselves at the center of cults growing arrogant and ultimately becoming starmetal and is afraid this will happen to him. He has survived both the fall of the solars and the shogunate by being small and unobtrusive, keeping his manse functional and active while the rest of the city fell apart and he is not going to change that strategy. Still, he is an important god in the city, and as such they venerate him. Bibwit takes the form of an anthropomorphized rabbit with white fur and a tailored coat. He carries a pocket watch that lets him make flurry attacks up to his DEX score with no penalty.

=== Cela Dinarius ===

[[Nemo of Utopia/CelaDinarius|Cela Dinarius]]: Cela is the goddess responsible for Amarana's economy, and she is a personal friend of Glorious Weapon. She is no friend of the Guild and works as much as she dares to keep the guild from stealing artifacts from Amarana for sale to its foreign rivals. Formerly the goddess of Aj-Aran's main market square she was promoted to the overall control of the economy of Amarana via the machinations of the gold faction. She knows the city father is a bronze faction plant but reasons that as long as they both do their jobs properly they should not come into many conflicts. The two have a standing date for tea every Venus day.

Cela Dinarius form is that of an attractive woman carved from silver, and she wears the clothing of a Varangian cloth factor, which was her first job beyond as the least god some 4 centuries ago, patron goddess of a new Varangian cloth consortium.

=== Zalril ===

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/Amarana/Zalril|Zalril]]: Formerly the Least god of Amarana's north gate Zalril has by what amounts to shier-force-of-will moved up to become the patron god of Guild Members working in Amarana. The exact operation of this occurrence has been shrouded in mystery at the orders of Kejop Kajac himself, and further Nazri signed off on it too. The Guild maintains a large shrine just outside his old gate where they leave offerings before entering the city and where three slave women were taken under cover of night and sworn to become Zalril's Priestesses in exchange for their freedom by an Eclipse-caste member who often works for the guild. Though two of them still keep their roles as the god's priestesses the third has left the shrine and now lives in the city as a teacher for the city's new public school. Interestingly she has suffered no ill effects from 'breaking' her oath. Zalril has asked for the Guild to send a replacement but they are still trying to figure out why the oath failed in the first place. Meanwhile [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Sulramia|Sulramia]] finds fulfillment in teaching her students as do [[User:Nemo of Utopia/GayePachudiweOgesu|Gaye Pachudiwe Ogesu]] and [[User:Nemo of Utopia/OxandRainbowSlave|Ox and Rainbow]] the two women that still work at the shrine. Ogesu is an old woman and does the cooking and cleaning while Ox and Rainbow stand guard over the shrine. Sulramia also came with another gift for the god, her daughter, as she was part of a quadratic set, Maiden, Warrior, Mother, and Crone, and if she was to be the 'mother' Zalril insisted that she has a child as proof of her status, who conveniently doubled as 'maiden'. Sulramia's daughter is called [[User:Nemo of Utopia/IronandHoneyMaiden|Iron and Honey Maiden]] and is just the cutest five-year-old you will ever see, with an appearance score of five already. Her mother lives constantly with the fear of pedophiles, but does not let it rule their lives.

=== Walziri ===

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/Walziri|Walziri]]: as the god of beasts of burden within Amarana's lands Walziri is a major player in the lives of Guild personnel who must work or live here. Formerly a lesser deity of travel and trade in Harborhead Walziri was appointed to his new post by the machinations of a cabal of 'Independent' southern Sidereals and understands that he OWES them for this big break. The cabal has not called in that favor, at least not yet, but for the moment are content with him filing informal reports on the going's on in Amarana. While still hard at work at his new post he has already started to play favorites a little with the Guild's Men who pray to him, subtly strengthening their animals and selecting them last when sickness is due to strike the camels or whatnot of the city. Walziri takes the form of a large man of Harborhead derivation wearing several coral necklaces and white robes. He carries a Jade cattle prod which can be used as a spear or thrown like a javelin and returns instantly to his hand.

=== Anyaka Tetsuo ===

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/AnyakaTetsuo|Anyaka Tetsuo]]: The minister of Chance and Gambling in Amarana, Tetsuo is not new to this job. Created as the least god of a set of enchanted dice not long after the Primordial War Tetsuo has risen over the course of the intervening years to a position of moderate power in this city through diligent work and a suspicious number of 'lucky' breaks. Though no investigation has ever found him guilty of any wrongdoing there are enough people that are suspicious of what he surely must have done with his powers to better his status that it is unlikely he will ever rise any higher. Some deities would plot and scheme to continue advancing, but Tetsuo knows better. As a god of chance and gambling, he is well aware that he has been on quite the lucky streak and that is when you should count your winnings, leave the table, and cash in your chips before your luck runs out. He is content to be the god of all chance and gambling in Amarana: and will only rise higher if his natural luck brings him a sudden break, which he is not holding his breath for. He wiles away his time by playing games with the gamblers of the city, making them win or lose in a big way, but staying within the bounds of prescribed fate.

Tetsuo looks like a tall, broad-shouldered, thoroughly tattooed man with a cup and dice for playing a popular gambling game called 'Han or Cho'.

Tetsuo's sanctum is exceedingly large, he has had 700 years of dormancy in Amarana in which to expand it, and it now takes the form of a vast resort with several small casinos and many spas on what appears to be a small tropical island. (At the boundaries of its area there is a big reef beyond which the waterfalls away into nothing.) Tetsuo typically has many of the small gods of gambling and chance living in his sanctum with him at any time. Tetsuo is a colleague of Mother Midnight, not her subordinate, but the two work closely to determine which gamblers will face a string of ill luck.

=== Bagong Fangrick ===

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/BaegongFangrick|Bagong Fangrick]]: As the God of Vermin within Amarana Fangrick is an odd person to aid the guild but the guild will take allies where it can find them. Fangrick is a subordinate of Mother Midnight but has kept himself mostly out of her way and done his job without fuss since the revival of the city. Formerly the deity of rats for the Salaru tribes he was promoted upon the city's revival in recognition of many years of hard work with little reward and not the slightest blemish on his record.

Bagong Fangrick looks like an aged anthropomorphic rat, dressed in the robes of a shogunate era martial arts practitioner.

=== Wisp Virunga ===

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/WispVirunga|Wisp Virunga]]: As the managing deity for all education in Amarana Wisp is a VIP for the Patriots, because she helps their people learn new skills significantly faster, which helps them stay a step ahead of their competition, for the moment. The thing is that Wisp is running a knife-edge game with staying inside what is allowed within her post as a manager for all education in Amarana and what could be censured. This is very very bad: because she is already in trouble with the local censor's deputy for bearing a god blooded child, who is still alive and therefore available as evidence. Just to add insult to injury the censor's deputy has a personal vendetta against her for rebuffing his advances in favor of a mere mortal. Until the revival of Amarana Wisp Virunga was the goddess of its central library, she effectively promoted herself to the chief goddess of education by cozening up to the Patron while he was excavating her manse. When he decreed the first mandatory schooling sessions for the early colonists he had them pray to her as patron of all education in Amarana at the start of each day, when the prayers reached critical mass a few months later she had already conducted a quiet set of interviews and had her replacement as god of the library already prepped and ready to take over at once. This is not precisely an offense against the laws of heaven, but it is somewhat 'bad form' and would count against her slightly in a formal audit. It also has earned some of her fellow deities enmity, especially:...

=== Principle of Justified Action ===

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/PrincipleofJustifiedAction|Principle of Justified Action]]: Heaven has gods of just about everything, including educators. Principle of Justified Action was formerly a deity of a major school out in the distant threshold before the fair folk invasion and only survived that calamity by mere chance, having been in heaven on vacation when the hosts of faerie scourged the world. Since then he has lived on the dole and schemed endlessly to get another position in the bureau of humanity's education office. He finally thought he had one all lined up when Amarana was scheduled to be rebuilt as its manager of education, but the Patron and Wisp Verunga snatched it out of his hands. Yet, when one door closes another opens and a cabal of Gold Faction Sidereals and a few people who were still his friends from the old days managed to finagle him a consolation prize. The role of managing deity for the court system of Amarana was still open since there were not supposed to be any real criminal proceedings for several months yet. Desperate to get off the dole by then and seeing this as his last chance for the foreseeable future he accepted.

What neither he nor the Sidereals that helped him expected, was that he would LIKE the work. Managing a court system is not so different in truth from managing a school, you have trouble makers, erudite and passionate people, a lot of people who really don't want to be there, an ever-changing cast of characters doing many old and a few new stupid things, a complex set of rules you must adhere to; the similarities were rather a shock. Of course, there were differences, mostly in the fact that things move both so much slower most of the time and so much faster in the crunch, but he got his sea legs within a month or two and found himself enjoying having a real job again. That said, Principle of Justified Action is still no friend of Wisp Virunga and would dearly love to put in an application to replace her should she fall afoul of the auditors. However he bides his time, after all, he is employed in a job that he does not find onerous and has plenty of prayers coming in from both sides of the law, Wisp has no experience and is drowning in her duties, let them see what putting an untried administrator into such an important post does! Chances are that within the decade he will have her job: so runs his reasoning.

The Patron is another matter. He likes the Patron, rather a lot, and finds in the autocrat of the city a kindred spirit: and of course, cannot fault the man on the matter of his dedication to an educated society. He sometimes pokes the patron in the subconscious when he is contemplating a bad law, or about to reject a good one, and thus far does not consider it any kind of offense against heaven's rules. He is, in fact, wrong, he has committed no less than 5 level-one offenses in this manner, but that will largely be ignored unless he does more than mere subconscious nudging, after all, he has not really messed up any major plans this way so far.

In form Principle of Justified Action looks like a tall man from the furthest east, wearing the green and red robes of a seated Judge of Amarana's courts. His hair is shock white, a remnant of his time among the starving unemployed but he finds it suits his image as a wise leader of the courts. Abnormally for a god of justice he is lenient with most offenders, reasoning that if you punish too harshly you deny them a chance to learn from their mistakes. However, anyone who harms children sees the other side of him, a fury of unrelenting hatred that will see them hanged if at all possible.

=== Sakarzi ===

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/Sakarzi|Sakarzi]]: though she would dearly love to bring about the Patron's ruin and overthrow Sakarzi: minister of lust and attraction for Amarana, has a problem: She is both terrified of him and lusts after him obsessively. Sakarzi met the Patron before he mastered Amarana when she was bathing in a sacred hot-spring on the borders of the lands now claimed by the city in the guise of a comely Salaru maiden and he was following his awakened memories back to the city to claim his destiny. There at the hot-spring, she tried to seduce him.

She Failed.

The patron was clearly attracted to her and wished to accept her advances but mastered himself with an effort of will and politely refused. Five more times in five different guises Sakarzi has tried to seduce him and each time has been rebuffed, but always politely. This is why she is terrified of him, no one else whom she has ever tried to seduce has refused her advances so many times, especially since each of those times she has used progressively more of her supernatural powers, in the last instance activating an effect that should have compelled him to lie with her will he or no. She lusts after him because she has a weakness for powerful men, and The Patron certainly is one: but it is his immunity to her mystical powers that have made it an obsession. With the Patron, Sakarzi can use only the arts available to a mortal woman to snare the man she desires, and it is driving her to distraction. Perhaps an hour's worth of time out of each of her days is frittered away trying to think up new ways to seduce the Patron that rely only on her natural skills and personal beauty, but thus far she has not come up with anything worth using on a seventh attempt. The reason that Sakarzi would love to see the patron fall is that after she started a feud between three of the early families of colonists by seducing three of their sons and declaring that only the last one living would bed her the patron caught her outside her sanctum and beat her to within an inch of her life, declaring that if he ever caught her pulling that kind of stunt on his supporters again he would not pull his blows the second time.

These conflicting emotions are tearing Sakarzi apart, she lusts after the patron, but wants to ruin him, but is terrified of him, but she wants to have sex with him so bad she can taste it: Etc, Etc. In the meantime, she has appeared to several of the Patriots and declared her support for the patron's cause offering her help in securing the objects of their desires and the word has spread among them that if you erect a shrine to her in your residence and pray at it twice a day, morning and night, she will aid you in seducing whoever you most lust after.

While Sakarzi has many forms she can assume her true form is that of a Salaru woman of surpassing beauty and grace who literally cannot wear clothing. Her merest touch causes any garment to become invisible for one hour, so there is no point in her wearing any kind of raiment except for its protective value, which she rarely does.

=== Machuko; Torch of Freedom ===

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/MachukoTorchofFreedom|Machuko; Torch of Freedom]]: Is it any wonder, considering the status of Amarana as a free city where none may be held in bondage without due process of law, that the patron deity of Liberation and Abolitionism should view it with favor and even more so it's leader who enacted the law in question? [[Rabsolga]], the patron of slavery, hates and despises Amarana and if for no other reason than that Machuko loves and protects it. Furthermore, Machuko is [[User:Nemo of Utopia/ThePatron|The Patron]]'s patron god, to whom he prays five times a day, and is celebrated with five feast days each year, one at the beginning of each 'resplendent' month. Even the Immaculates honor these five days of worship, because the Patron has been known to have those that speak against honoring the feasts arrested and tried for sedition and/or aiding and abetting slavers, and their leader does not need that kind of attention, so he has said: "These days honoring Machuko are sanctioned by the immaculate faith, so long as you pray unto him only on these days you do not sin against the orders of Heaven."

Machuko keeps a large temple in the city's northeast quarter: a level 3 fire aspected manse called 'The Wheel of Torches' from it ride forth his clergy and devout adherents numbering several dozen strong on raids into the wastes beyond Amarana's borders proclaiming Machuko's glory and the freedom of all people within the lands of Amarana. Machuko has many priests across all of creation but nowhere are there so many gathered together as in Amarana.

In form, Machuko looks like a tall muscular man of what modern people would call Jewish/Hasidic/Israeli derivation, with a wild beard and long hair that hangs in ringlets. He carries a gore maul and chopping sword of orichalcum and white jade which when used together can cut any chain or bond. He has another form, which he assumes rarely except when in heaven, which is that of a great Dragon filled with yellow-white fire and made from millions of broken chains, collars, and manacles.

== Ancestor Cultists ==

Led by [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Sharima of the Three Disciplines|Sharima of the Three Disciplines]] and her ghostly lover [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Aruna the Defiant|Aruna the Defiant]] this group of citizens is a large and vocal part of the city's population. Though dwarfed by the percentage of the city who worship the city's gods and elementals the Ancestor Cultists make up as much as 20-25% of the city's population and are especially prominent among the [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Salaru|Salaru]].

The Ancestor Cultists make use of a large number of small [[Shadowlands]] across the city to communicate more directly with their patron spirits and interact with the underworld: but are mindful of [[User:Nemo of Utopia/The Patron of Amarana|The Patron]]'s injunctions about not breaking the circles of salt and other wards which keep the ghosts within the Underworld. They are however constantly working to locate 'new' and unguarded Shadowlands for their patrons to use to slip in and out of the underworld, which The Patron minds not one bit so long as they report them for the Adeptus Sororitatus/Frateris to seal in due course.

Though most of the people of Amarana are unaware of this fact the Ancestor Cultists are being controlled from behind the scenes by a Deathknight known as [[User:Nemo of Utopia/The Fluttering Fist of the Deadly Labyrinth|The Fluttering Fist of the Deadly Labyrinth]] he is a martial artist in service to The [[Mask of Winters]] who has wandered off on his own agenda far from thorns and The Mask's traditional area of operation. "The Fist" came to Amarana in search of a rumored cache of [[Autochthonian]] [[Soulsteel]], held in the vaults of the undercity, but has found that much of the undercity is sealed and inaccessible even from the [[Underworld]]. In the meantime, he works on the ancestor cultists as both a way to support himself and something to occupy his time while he trains to learn the charms that will allow him to enter the prehuman depths of the city where he hopes the bars of [[Autochthonian Soulsteel]] can be found.

Though the ghosts of Salaruku are numerous and very old surprisingly few of them are Heroic Ghosts and willing/able to serve as patrons for Amarana's ancestor cultists. Of those that do It is surprisingly four of the youngest ghosts that are the main patrons worshiped by the cultists: along with one exceedingly old ghost from the fall of Salaruku.

=== Xufuwne Onuke ===

The leader of Amarana's relatively large population of ghosts from the time of the fair folk invasion Onuke is frighteningly powerful but relatively easy going. He has outlasted Amarana's long dormancy and now looks forward to an era of joy and plenty for the city's dead. A dragon blooded warrior in life Onuke was killed battling the invaders from the wyld and in an odd twist of fate, they buried him with high honors. His tomb lies in the still mostly sand-covered western half of the city at the center of a small park and is one of the barest handful of areas in that region that have been excavated in advance of the main work. In form, Onuke looks like a typical dragon blooded of the shogunate, dressed in power armor and wielding a Daiklave. He has subsisted by hunting plasmic creatures for most of 700 years but welcomes the changes of the reborn city. Onuke is the cult's equivalent of a war god, a role he shoulders without complaint but also without relish.

=== Aruna the Defiant ===

Hailing from Chiaroscuro Aruna is the lover of Sharima, and they have many Ghost-blooded children together. They were maneuvered into the leadership of the cult by agents of [[The Archon of Apostasy]] who wished to have a shining example of ghost/mortal co-operation in Amarana to help people accept the death cult in their midst. The Archon's agents do not believe the plan is working but they are wrong, were it not for the two of them the cult would have been burned out root and branch. Aruna is a relatively young ghost but has become powerful quite quickly thanks to her lover and her association with various death cults. In appearance, Aruna looks like a young woman of the Delazen, beautiful and alluring for all her ghostly translucence and pallor. Aruna is the cult's patron of love and romance but gives short shrift to lust.

=== Emerald Lotus ===

Like her partner's Monkey of the City and Triumphal Eagle of the Flawless Hill, Emerald Lotus has been elevated to leadership by the machinations of the Patron, who decreed a feast day in their honor on the day of their deaths defending Amarana from an attack by a trio of 'Hounds of the Unbroken Earth'. None of them is experienced enough to really do the jobs that they have had thrust upon them but they all are rising to the challenge. Emerald Lotus resembles a typical woman of the deep south dressed in a white robe and headscarf that covers everything but her face, and overtop that a breastplate of steel. She is neither attractive nor ugly but is very charismatic. She carries an infinite jade chakram as her main weapon and also bears a perfect chopping sword for close fighting. Emerald Lotus is the patron 'deity' of the cult's Martial Artists, as she had some experience with that in life. She still is finding her feet as a ghost and defers to Xufuwne Onuke on most matters.

=== Monkey of the City ===

Dressed in lamellar and wielding a shock pike monkey of the city is not really suited to his role as a leader of an ancestor cult. Having been an outcast and wanderer in life who always tried to keep people happy and was quick with a joke or to share his water he has not changed much in death. However, there is a place for the fun and funny guy in any pantheon and Monkey of the City fills that role for the Ancestor Cultists of Amarana. Monkey of the City is the cult pantheon's trickster and comic relief, which he does not mind one bit.

=== Triumphal Eagle of the Flawless Hill ===

Wearing a Red Jade reenforced Buff Jacket Triumphal Eagle, or simply 'Der Aller'* as he prefers to be called, was not much of a warrior in life, but was on rotation for guard duty when the hounds attacked and were predictably killed by them. Buried with honors along with the rest of the four and then raised up as a patron spirit of the city he has persisted as a leader due largely to [[User:Nemo of Utopia/The_Patron_of_Amarana|The Patron]]'s favor and the fact that he is a very intelligent man, who is knowledgeable about many subjects. His role in the city's death cult is that of a spirit of wisdom and intellect, as well as oddly the patron, so to speak, of the Adeptus Aeronauticus.
*(Which means 'the Eagle' in his native tongue, a northern barbarian language...)

== Cult of the Illuminated ==

The Cult of the Illuminated has a relatively small and subtle presence in Amarana, but never-the-less are present. Their agents and activists walk among the cults dedicated to the various celestial exalted who have come to Amarana quietly preaching of the unity of creation and the duties of the 'Shining Ones' to be the leaders and stewards of creation. "Someday," they say. "All creation will be united behind the Shining Ones, and on that day those who have served them well will have rewards beyond their wildest dreams."

Among the 17 or so celestial exalted in the city 6 are allied with the Cult of the Illuminated, and some of the others are sympathizers. The CotI worshipers pray to most of them and work to support their interests.

= Geography =

Geographically Amarana lies at the point just before the sands of the deep desert fully give way to the rocky foothills of the summer mountains. When the spring rains sweep in from the north it is prone to flooding and mud, while the heat of high summer brings the blazing Simoon roaring out of the deep desert and with it short tempers and sharp words that sometimes flare into brutal murders. Winter is a season of joy and happiness for the citizen's of Amarana, as the power of the elemental pole of Air waxes and the desert is cooled, allowing snow to briefly form in the nearby summer mountains which are trucked into Amarana by old roads and made into flavored sherbets and snow cones for those with the Patron's favor, especially small children, of whom The Patron is known to be quite fond. The foothills around Amarana abound with resources brewed up by the slowly retreating Wyld or pushed from deep within the earth by the strange forces by which creation renews itself over the centuries, including many veins of silver from which Amarana mints its currency. Meanwhile, the desert around Amarana is rich with fire dust and gem sand, especially during the nights of the new moon when the Wyld retreats for several miles further south and exposes a wide swath of 'tainted' land, especially where the city has been slowly pushing the Wyld back by infecting it with billions of grains of what is essentially Elemental Earth. This area is hazardous as well however because the tainted area is not just composed of valuable sands, but also dangerous ones, such as quicksand, shatter sand, and hungry sand. For every person from Amarana who strikes it rich mining fire-dust or gem-sand in the tainted lands on the nights of the new moon, another finds themselves injured, killed, or mutated: in Amarana 'Firedust Miner' looks fair to rank among the top 5 'most dangerous professions' for the first year of recorded statistics in the city, right behind 'Rogue Spirit Protection Expert' and 'Pharmacist' but just ahead of 'Building Excavation Team Member' and 'Artifact Recovery Personnel'

Nearby Amarana is a number of Small Oasis, Hot Springs, and Geysers which have long provided the Salaru tribes with water. Though 90% of the tribesmen have returned to their ancestral home a few chose to stay out in the wastelands for one reason or another, and now gather into three new small tribes: the western, northern, and eastern Salaru.

To the west, the desert is hot by day and cold by night, with only trackless sand to greet your eyes, the Salaru who have stayed out in this wilderness journey mile upon mile between oasis that is often buried under the shifting sands and must be dug down to gather up their water. They survive by hunting snakes and lizards and trading fire dust and jewel sand with the Guild for added food and water. Though trade is their main source of contact with the outside they no longer must rely upon it or perish, with the total number of tribe's men in this region reduced by more than 95% they now can survive on their own without help, but it would be a spartan existence. Trade gives them luxuries and better equipment, which they put to good use. The western salaru do not keep herd beasts or in fact, any animals except hunting dogs, the land here is too harsh for this to be profitable. They worship many nature spirits, but few major deities except the Unconquered Sun, who is seen as a wrathful god of war and destruction, and Luna in her aspect as The White Navigator, who is seen as a benevolent and helpful deity. Though they honor the high holy days of the five maidens they are not much revered outside those times.

To the north, the Salaru who have not returned to their city are primarily herders and gatherers, as the foothills of the summer mountains provide old lava tubes and other places to hide from the sun by day and keep flocks dry when the rains come. Their life is perhaps the least harsh of the three new tribes since they have kept the most of their population, with only about 80% going to live in the city and in all cases leaving a few family members to mind the herds and ancestral cave or rock-cut house. They also were the most numerous of the Salaru before the return to Amarana, having six of the 10 Salaru tribes living in their region. and now are by far-and-away the most populous of the three 'outside' tribes. They also still contribute a good chunk of Amarana's food supplies, which means that even the Patron must treat with them on their terms. On the other hand, they know that the Patron, while a patient man, does have his limits and that their families back in Amarana would suffer first and worst if they cut off the shipments of food and other goods to the city, so they treat the Amaranaians with as much respect as they expect in return: so far the city and the northern tribe have a strong alliance of mutual benefit and support. The northern Salaru frequently revere Atlhat, the southern god of war and cattle, in addition, they also revere the Celestial Incarna and Gaia as well as many nature spirits.

The tribes to the east were always the most desirous to return to Amarana, for they could still see it's central tower sticking up out of the sand. However, when the time came, an influential leader named [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Sabris of the Two Spears|Sabris of the Two Spears]] convinced them that they should instead of all going back to the city leave some people behind and send their sons and daughters back into the summer mountains to live with those that stayed for two years as a right of passage. This has proved to their great advantage, for they now own the rights to much of the mineral wealth in the summer mountains near Amarana and have risen to be among the city's most wealthy families. The mountain Salaru were hunter/gatherers before Amarana's recovery and it is in this capacity that the children sent to the old mountain fastnesses must learn to survive when they are facing their Adavam Ordeal. The eastern Salaru mostly hold up a host of small gods for worship and revere the celestial Incarna on their high holy days. They are however the nearest things to atheists Creation has, feeling that if a person cannot survive without divine intervention then they are weaklings that must be excised from the gene pool. Many of them are swayed to a degree by the Immaculate faith but reject the idea that the Dragonblooded are creations, rightful rulers, their tribes have long memories and have heard the tales told by the Lunars of the perfidy of the Dragonblooded and the glory once created by the Solars, and twice in their exile have seen this glory first hand before the Dragonblooded showed up and ruined things.

To the south of the city, a wyld zone bleeds into reality for almost eight hundred miles from the maximum edge of the world. Though the city lies near the edge of this wyld zone it is not part of it, not even when the wyld storms blow in the autumn. This is perhaps partly because the city's strong geomancy prevents it from being absorbed or perhaps some form of potent first age artifact still protects the city as it did during the invasion so long ago. If the Patron knows he is not telling. Either way, there is and never has been a tribe of the Salaru to the south of the city. If the work they are doing to push back the wyld succeeds as well as it has been thus far, there may be, soon.

= Ethnicity =

Amarana is an ethnically mixed city, with people from all over creation having gathered in under its banner thanks to [[The Ghost/The Patron|The Patron's]] zero-tolerance policy towards slavery. In the main however the population is drawn from the peoples of the south, as escaping slaves are most able to reach Amarana from it's nearest neighbors, [[Virangia]] and [[The Delazen Empire]].

== The Salaru ==

Descendants of the people who fled Salaruku in the face of the Balorian Crusade the Salaru have waited a long time to return to their city. Composed of 10 culturally distinct tribes the Salaru make up an ever decreasing percentage of the city's population as more and more foreigners come to the city and settle in. That said the Salaru, though small in number, have a disproportionate impact on the city's culture and politics, due to knowing the lands surrounding Amarana like no one else and therefore having a vastly outsized amount of wealth and clout.

The Salaru are subdivided into the following tribes:

=== The White Scars ===

This tribe numbers about 50 and have long been ancestor worshipers, they have been swayed to the cause of the Ancestor Cultists. They take their name from the practice of ritual scarification of face and hands to tell one’s ancestry and chest to recount great deeds. The White Scars hail from the west of the city. The White Scars are a strangely secretive bunch, they keep their own council and follow their own guidance. Alone of the Salaru tribes, the White Scars have wholey emigrated to the city, abandoning their ancestral lands to the Western Salaru's care and finding employment within Amarana. Most of them agree that this has been a drastic improvement in their living conditions. Their ancestors, however, worry about grave robbers and frequently ask the members of the tribe with the skills to do so to go back and check on the old burial grounds.

=== The Golden Bulls ===

Originally hailing from the north of the city this tribe has been sun worshipers since time out of mind, and have naturally gravitated toward the Solarion's cause. They take their name from the bloodline of golden-haired cattle that they breed, tend, and guard, which according to legend were a gift from the champions of the sun during an age long past in recompense for their service defeating an army of the Raksha. The Golden Bulls are among the largest tribes of the Salaru, numbering some 300 strong counting both those that came into Amarana and those that stayed behind to be part of the Northern Salaru. They revere Atlhat and The Unconquered Sun as their patrons and are known for their skill as warriors though they are overmatched by some of the other tribes thanks to awakened essence and charms. The Golden Bulls are largely employed as butchers, health inspectors, and members of Amarana's army, while the large contingent that remained in their ancestral lands tend their herds of golden-haired cattle as they always have done, though they now drive the excess males to market in Amarana for slaughter rather than keeping them home. The Golden Bulls’ primary combat style is with spears and Bullhide Shields, with firedust grenades to break tight formations. They would not look out of place in Harborhead, and marriages between Harborhead immigrants and the young men and women of the tribe are not uncommon, though frowned upon by some of the tribe elders due to the harborheadite's attitudes towards slavery, which the tribe has always held as blasphemy.

=== The Get of Vexan ===

Often called simply 'the get' by outsiders this tribe calls themselves the 'Vexanites'. The get is descended from a powerful Lunar who lived among the Salaru for a century or so starting a few decades after the fair folk invasion was driven back by the Empress. The Vexanite's hold a secret: their tribe is led by a family of Serpent Beast Men founded by Vexan and preserved through complex webs of intermarriage with other serpent-folk from as far away as the silent crescent. The get is currently led by a charming and curvaceous young woman from the southeast jungles named Nyoka. What they do not yet know is that she is actually the modern incarnation of their founder's exaltation and has been having sex with one of the tribe's greatest warriors in her spirit form of a twenty-foot dragon snake in the hopes of bearing beast folk children. She walks among the tribe in her Warform, that of a great dragon-like serpent woman with the fangs and venom of a cobra and the wings and claws of a dragon. The Get hailed from the mountains east of Amarana.

=== The Iron Raptors ===

Though founded by a group of outlaws and murderers the Iron Raptors are ironically a major component of Amarana's police force. Having originated as an inner-city gang during the last days of the shogunate the Iron Raptors turned their coats when the fair folk came calling at the end of the contagion. They took hundreds of people out of the city through hidden tunnels and other smuggling routes: people who became the founders of the other Salaru tribes. Since then they have slowly moved from running protection rackets over the other tribes, to actually protecting them, to being their main form of law enforcement and wandering justiciars. Now that Amarana is resettled they have taken up the role of their distant ancestors' worst enemies, an irony that is not lost on Garion Cromarch. The Iron Raptors’ central holdings were to the north of Amarana but they wandered freely among the other tribes and in fact still do, being welcome among any of the other Salaru. They worship Garion Cromarch as their patron deity, but also revere a number of small gods of crime and larceny, propitiating them in recompense for reducing their portfolios and defeating their natural worshipers.

=== The Kelderkin ===

Another tribe from the city's north the Kelderkin are the descendants of Marion Kelder and are an agricultural matriarchy. They revere Gaia to the near exclusion of all other deities and hold that all other gods are really aspects of Gaia, subsidiary souls of the Maiden of Plenty. They are more right in this belief than most people realize. All Kelderkin women can trace their ancestry to Marion Kelder via one of her seventeen daughters, and which daughter you are a descendant of determines what your role in the tribe is. The only roles that are not decided by your ancestry are 3: Shaman, Champion, and Speaker. The Speakers are the leaders of the tribe and set it's policy, while the shamans and champions advise them and defend the tribe. Marion Kelder was a wood aspected dragon blooded and even to this day a Kelderkin man or woman will sometimes exalt as another wood aspect. Currently, there is one such person among the Kelderkin, Mwaloni Kelder who is a gifted archer and huntress that leads an all-female unit of other archers in the Amarana armed forces. She is also a sex addict and currently dating four separate men, two of which are identical twin Djala who regularly have Manage-a-Trois with her.

=== The Chosen of Flame ===

Hailing from the city's west The Chosen of Flame has been firedust gatherers for as long as anyone can remember. They gathered firedust far south of the city during the shogunate and came to Amarana to trade it. When the hosts of Fairie came sweeping in from the edge of the world after the great contagion they ran before them and were caught up in the exodus from Amarana, helping many of the civilized folk adapt to the desserts. The Chosen of Flames make up the lion’s share of the new western tribe, but even so, most of them have moved into the city and settled down as experts and factors in the firedust trade. They are a prosperous tribe that is in a state of transition as they adapt to being a settled people for the first time. Numbering approximately 75 persons in the city and an equal number now part of the Western Salaru the Chosen of Flame boasts several god-blooded among their number, and actively court new fire elemental unions. Their God Blooded include Gitchsune Folarabi, Malawi Besmar, and Kubrisa Suknis, among others.

=== The Iconographers ===

Among the tribes of the Salaru, few can argue that the Iconographers are not among the most learned and civilized. Hailing from the cities northeast they have preserved an astonishing amount of lore from the low first age, especially on the subject of geomancy. Now almost universally employed by the Patron excavating and repairing manses they are well off and respected. The Iconographers place great store by erudition and knowledge, and gain position and prestige among their own via a set of grueling examinations conducted by their tribe's patron spirits once every ten years, and always in old realm. Because of these tests of knowledge, the tribe is led by its elders, who have had the most time to study and learn, and they are prone to contemplation and thoughtfulness. Among other advantages this has gifted them with is the possession of five small Manses outside the city, raised after the city's abandonment by their own hands. These manses have made their ancestral lands fertile and bountiful, making them one of the largest salaru tribes with 200 members in five small villages around the Manses before they emigrated to Amarana. Of all the tribes their desire to return to the city was among the greatest, but they did leave one family behind in each village to see to its welfare and upkeep in perpetration for their Descendents and those selected to join them by the Patron returning. The Iconographers in city number 175 or so and are very much in the Patron's camp. They are led by [[User:Nemo of Utopia/SukiwaraMadoka|Sukiwara Madoka]], a god blooded thaumaturge of advanced years and not inconsiderable skill.

=== The Eisil ===

As a tribe of pastoral hunters and gatherers in the city's eastern area, the Eisil would not be remarkable except for the fact that they are master storytellers and thespians. The role of Storyteller is the most honored position within their culture and many people aspire to it but few succeed. Their greatest tale is that of Sakarazat, a woman who was taken captive by a rapacious dragon blooded lord and over the course of two and a bit years told him a thousand stories which prevented him from killing her, and in the end, led the dragon blooded to let her go. Now that the Eisil have returned to Amarana they are mostly working at simple jobs like sand clearer or coachman (They have long preserved the arts of chariot racing as part of their festivals.) but a significant number of them now take the long-coveted role of storyteller or actor, and are among the best in the city, being sought out by talent scouts and stage managers for private and public engagements. The Eisil hail from the high mountains east of Amarana where the snow falls in winter, they are paler complected than most Salaru and have massive barrel chests from dealing with the thin air.

=== The Mantis Tribe ===

From the northwest of the city, the Mantis tribe straddle the border between the desert and the foothills of the Amaranaian lands. They have survived by placing great store by martial arts and awakened essence, and among their number only the young typically do not have awakened essence, nearly everyone over the age of 25 has mastered this basic precept. By the age of 30, most people have achieved the form type charm of one of the 5 main martial arts of the tribe, and by the time they reach venerable status at 65, nearly everyone is a master of their chosen style. This has allowed the Mantis Tribe to become large and prosperous but puts them in an uncomfortable position of being alternately feared and nearly worshiped by the other tribes, who look to them for protection from spirits and demons. It also puts them in another uncomfortable position: their various schools of martial arts do not always get along, and more than once the tribe has been wracked by internal strife, especially between the members that adhere to the Immaculate Philosophy and the people that worship the local gods outside that framework. At the moment it seems like the tribe is heading for another such civil war, and this time it may drag the whole city into it.

=== The Broad ===

Alone of the Salaru the Broad actually hate the Patron. The Broad was from the uttermost western areas of the Salaru and also alone among their number made a common practice of keeping slaves, but not so much for the purpose of having them work for the tribe but rather to sell to the guild. They ranged far among the sandy wastes waring with members of other tribes and capturing them to sell for the supplies they needed to survive and prosper. Many among their number were heroic mortals and with the exception of the Mantis Tribe and the Chosen of Fire they boasted the most members with awakened essence and/or god-blood. They also served as a dumping ground for the criminal and malcontents of the other tribes leading them to be less cordial with the rest of the Salaru than any other tribe. However, even the Broad wished to return to Amarana enough to give up their slave taking practices, at least, some of them did. When the Patron decreed all people of Amarana Free men and women shortly before the Guild arrived the Broad fractured over whether to return to their ancestral homeland or remain in the wastes and live as they had done for centuries. In the end, the tribe split 60/40 in favor of returning to Amarana and becoming part of the new society, but the 40% that remained in the wastes no longer consider themselves beholden to the Patron, Amarana, or even the Salaru. These people, called by their former associates The Red Broad are now considered outlaws brigands by the Amaranaian government and hunted whenever they stray close to the fifty-foot Glass Pillars that mark the borders of the Amaranaian lands. They are firmly in the camp of the Guild's Men and infiltrate the city regularly to capture and smuggle out valuable slaves that have escaped to Amarana from other lands.
The 60% of the tribe that has returned to the city are in the camp of the Death Cultists since the Broad were by and large ancestor worshipers before they returned to Amarana and see no reason to change that now. Calling themselves 'The Green Broad' they have no love for the patron but do love their city and will fight to the death to defend it. Most of them are now members of the city's military and are locked in a bitter feud with their former tribesmen. The members of this tribe that are not military mostly work as overseers for the small but growing cadres of 'indentured servants' kept by the city government in punishment for some of the most heinous crimes such as rape and enslaving another person.

=== The Western Salaru ===

=== The Northern Salaru ===

=== The Eastern Salaru ===

== The Djala ==

The D'jala are a sub-faction of the Patriots at the present time. Having been liberated by the Patron from their enslavement by many people who have brought them to the city in bondage they are fanatical partisans of the city's leader and from a major component of his power base. The Djala form five small tribes into which new arrivals are folded by ties of kinship, alliance, or marriage within weeks of arrival. The number of newly married Djala in the city is staggering, easily 40% of all new arrivals are pushed into marriages within a month of becoming residents, and somehow nearly all these mirages are happy ones. What the Djala elders know but have not officially publicized is that one of the Djala's patron gods is an old drinking buddy of [[The Ghost/Meroka Jin|Meroka Jin]] and has called in a favor with the minister of romance and love to arrange this happy state of affairs for his people in the city. This is not going to last, because [[The Ghost/Sakarzi|Sakarzi]] is going to start screwing around with them, but for the moment she is distracted by her work with the death cult.

== Varangians ==

== The Delazen ==

== Deep Southerners ==

Nemo of Utopia/Amarana

2020-07-14T12:44:39Z

Nemo of Utopia: /* Lissom Shining Spring */

Amarana is a first age city, lost to the contagion and the fair folk invasion over 700 years ago. It is now coming back to life under the aegis of [[User:Nemo of Utopia/The_Patron_of_Amarana|The Patron]] who wields the power of the [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Five_Signs_of_Harmonic_Unity|Five Signs of Harmonic Unity]].

= Amarana =

Amarana Is comprised of a large area surrounded by a circular wall. At the edge of that wall are twelve triangular towers that contain the major military resources of the city. Of these towers, eight have been fully excavated, and the ninth is being examined and the sand removed even now.

Within the city is organized into four quarters but only two of them are even partially excavated, the two on the eastern side of the city, and even there many buildings still slowly seep sand into the streets out of cracked windowpanes and the door seems. The buildings of Amarana tend to a certain Egyptian flare or perhaps it would be better to say pre-Arabic since they are after all, by and large, the product of the low first age. The buildings are built of a quasi imperishable ceramic that resembles adobe, with the most significant having windows of Chiaroscuro Glass and doors made of either that same substance or Stainless Steel. Buildings are generally between six and ten stories high with essence powered air conditioning and elevators both of which the Patron must personally repair before the building becomes usable again.

Unlike many old realm cities, Amarana is laid out on a grid, instead of in a radial pattern. This gives a geomantic bonus to the people who live there: namely that mortals gain +1 XP per time XP is awarded. This bonus actually accrues every half year if using long term awards. The players can uncover this information with a dif10 [wits + occult] roll once every month they spend in the city beginning on the second day they are here. The bonus only applies to true mortals, not god blooded, ghost blooded, awakened Martial artists or any exalt, but does apply to dragon kings and jadeborn who are not Artisans.

So far roughly half of the city has been uncovered, but even here there are a lot of buildings that are collapsed, or still filled with sand and roped off with red cables and even more locations where there are red cables indicating small shadowlands or dimenses that are not to be approached until the city can close/cap them.

The excavation is proceeding irregularly, moving from the east wall out toward the west except around the central manse and the road from the north gate to the south gate. There are markets in most squares and a number of shops on the ground floors of buildings. Few merchants here are officially affiliated with the guild since many people in the city are escaped guild slaves and loath the guild vehemently.

Nearly everything except slaves is available for sale, including many products from The Wyld. Firewands and Flame Pieces are the core of the weapons markets along with accessories such as bayonets, powder horns, and pieces of flint or obsidian for strikers. Interestingly Cannons are not for sale, being reserved for the government, but anyone with contacts 2 or higher could find someone who knows someone who could get a permit for purchasing a few for export. Armoring is more advanced, and even some artifact armors are for sale, though they would be a resource 4 purchase at minimum, and that is for the simple stuff like Jade breastplates. Things like Yuroy Scout armor are beyond the means of anyone in the party, though, that comes up for sale very rarely except through illegal channels. Jade Full Plate and Super Heavy Plate are more commonly available, in fact, there are people in the city that can be commissioned to make it. Orichalcum and Monsilver are not commissionable but in the still covered parts of the city are facilities to work it. There are no facilities in the city for Soulsteel or Starmetal, but there is a workshop in one manse that has been uncovered to work Adamant, though finding any to use would require Wyld Cauldron Technology and spending XP: such is the life of the Exalted...

There are a number of Inns, Caravanserai, and Hostels near the city gates, while further in nearly every corner of an inhabited area has at least one restaurant or coffee shop. Tea houses, by comparison, are rare, and true bars are unusual enough to be remarked upon when a new one is found. Most living quarters do not have kitchens, which is why many hab towers which have been excavated don't have permanent residents and so many restaurants can stay open. Many restaurants, in fact, rent themselves out to people wishing to cook for their families or are owned by consortiums of citizens who hold them in common for communal cooking with contracts for use and upkeep requirements.

All of the city's roads are at least 20 feet wide, plus a five-foot sidewalk to either side. This is for the smallest streets, most are 40 feet wide with sidewalk and a few main thoroughfares are 60 feet wide. The streets keep themselves magically clean once each section is repaired by the Patron, but only a very few sections are repaired and many people who work as street sweepers clearing sand wish for it to stay that way. (Each 10'x10' section is a different artifact and must be individually repaired. There is one street in the city's west that is a first age relic and still working. However it can only affect things up to 30 feet above itself, so it is a long tunnel of a clear street bounded on all sides by packed sand.) The streets are made of fitted 5'x5'x1' blocks of granite, and one can sometimes determine which part of the city one is in by the color of the streets. The northeast the blocks are blue and green, the southeast red and green, the southwest red and black and the northwest blue and black. The city’s four central parkways are each a solid color relating to their element and 40' wide on each side and the grand square around the central manse is white and 60' wide at its narrowest point. However many streets were repaired with gray, white, or red granite toward the end of the shogunate and are not properly color-coded.

The City has at least 5' of clearance between all buildings: meaning that there are many allies in which one can get lost. You can often tell which parts are in use and which are unoccupied by weather there is sand filling the allies or they are clear.

== Manses and Demesnes of Amarana ==
Amarana was at one time subject to major geomantic engineering projects that gave it a large number of demesnes and then manses relative to its size. Most of those manses are still here, still active, and even now being located and excavated. A few, however, were partially unstable and have long since exploded. These few are roped off as dangerous and plans are underway to re-cap them, led of course by the Patron. Note that there are more manses and demesnes within the city that have not yet been found and that at one time there were even MORE demesnes in the city which have collapsed into a dormant state due to the changes in the city's essence flows and could be reactivated with the appropriate rituals once the city is fully excavated and geomantic remapped, these demesnes, however, were all small ones, level 2 at the most, so whether such effort is worth it in the short term, or even a good idea, is debatable. See [[Nemo of Utopia/MansesandDemesnesofAmarana|Manses and Demesnes of Amarana]] for further information.

= History =

== Prehistory ==

Though most do not know it Amarana's deepest foundations were laid in an era long past by the [[Dragons Kings]]. The City flourished in the age between the advent of humanity and the [[Primordial War]] with many of the first exalted visiting the place at one time or another in the several decades of the lead up to the overthrow of the Primordials. Then when the war began the city was wreathed in the destruction by one of the superweapons of the masters of creation, utterly annihilating most of those that dwelt therein and reducing the city to a smoking crater of volcanic glass. Still, beneath the burned and blackened surface, some parts of the old under city survived, and wait there still.

== The First Age ==

During the First Age many of the survivors of the primordial war remembered their time in 'Highana' fondly and after excavating much of the old substrate and leveling off the damaged areas to make way for new constructions raised up a new city on the site of the old. This city was dubbed 'Solzarian' in honor of [[The Unconquered Sun]] and in memorial to the Great Dragon King lady who had ruled the city so well and wisely ere it's annihilation. The City would remain a significant but out-of-the-way part of the Old Realm all the way through the first age.

=== The Ocher Fountain Era ===

During the beginning of the First Age when [[Queen Merela]] ruled over all creation from the eternal capital of [[Rathess]] Solzarian was still being reconstructed, and there was little of note that occurred in the city. One event, in particular, was notable, however: the Conclave of Solzarian in year 99 of the old realm, a symposium on the rights and freedoms of the people of creation which some in later years would argue laid the foundations of the Meru Uprising which led to the formation of the Deliberative.

=== The First Deliberative Era ===

By the time of the founding of the [[Deliberative]], the reconstruction of Solzarian was largely complete, and over the next few decades, the city became a favored retreat for both Solars and Lunars seeking to get the heck out of Meru and the stifling politics of the great city. One of Marela's closest allies [[Nemo of Utopia/Angus the Wirehair|Angus the Wirehair]] was given the rule of the city as part of the division of creation into fiefdoms and made it his personal residence. Under Angus rule, the city prospered, though it, by-and-large, remained a backwater compared to such metropolises as [[Chiaroscuro]] and Rathess. However, thanks to its solar overlord and his close relationship to the Queen of all Creation the city began the long process of incredible geomantic engineering which would in time lead to it being known as 'The City of Manses'.

=== Unfurling Horizon Era ===

While this era of creation went by largely without incident of significant note at this remove of history it is still recorded that many of the great efforts to explore and expand the borders of Creation in the south used Solzarian as a staging ground or stopover point before plunging into the true wilderness at creation's rim. This continued to encourage the exalted to play 'tourist' in the city and helped keep its economy vibrant. It is also noted in some histories that there was a major strike of [[Red Jade]] near the city in 811 which produced a 'Jade Rush' led by two rival Dragon-Blooded brothers and their servants which escalated into a short civil war in the city 2 years later in which significant damage was done to the city's infrastructure by all three* factions. The Civil War was only halted when [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Angus the Wirehair|Angus the Wirehair]] returned from Meru at the head of a wing of elite Dragon-Blooded shock troops and brutally suppressed both rival groups with mass arrests and a number of executions. (What happened to the brothers is unknown, but their names do not reappear in the historic record for 700 years, and at that time associated with different elemental aspects leading most scholars to conclude that they were 'dealt with' privately by their family.)
*(The Two consortia backing the rival brothers and the cities law enforcement detachments.)

==== The Aftershock War ====

In spite of the growing significance of the city and it's powerful assets in terms of equipment and hearthstones, Solzarian was not at first much involved in the Aftershock War. Passed over in favor of more militarily significant targets by the Primordial Forces the city did not come under fire until 1131 when a force of some 3000 first circle demons led by a trio of 2nd circle demons assaulted the city in the dead of night via a fleet of living airships. The 'Battle of Solzarian' was considered a significant victory for the forces of creation due to the large number of [[Golden Janissary Style]] practitioners in the city who were able to make fairly short work of the first circle demons allowing the detachment of Dragon-Blooded stationed in the city to confront the second circle demon commanders and dispatch them.

However the war was not all glorious victory for the people of Solzarain, [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Angus the Wirehair|Angus the Wirehair]] went missing during the final battle with the primordial forces and would not be seen again for over 500 years. For most of that time, he was presumed dead by the people of the city, though the Solar Exalted knew better as his shard had not found a new host.

=== Shining Reflection Era ===

During this period Solzarian loses much of its former significance as the seat of one of Marela's close allies. Few of the Exalted visit the city and the grand engineering projects grind to a near halt. The only events of great significance that occur here are two:
1: The Duel of the Magisters in 1313 where the reincarnations of Theis, Leelah, and Sonah engage in a duel of sorceress power which damages large sections of the city and forces all three of them to be censured by Marela herself: And;
2: In 1492 a major strike of Orichalcum is made a few hundred miles south of the city, and Solzarian becomes a stepping off point for prospectors of every stripe looking to get rich quick mining Orichalcum. The City's economy runs strong off this sudden influx of cash, people, and goods for the next 30 years.

=== Thousand Struggles Era ===

The first part of this period proceeds much from the previous one: everyone is aware that one of the legendary solar exalted has died of old age, but this makes little difference to the struggling backwater that Solzarian has become: then in 1776 everything changes.

In the Records of Solzarian 1776 is called: 'The Year of the Thousand' for the massive wave of change that swept over the city this year. The First thing that happens is [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Angus the Wirehair|Angus the Wirehair]] 'returns from the dead' on the 11th of Ascending Water storming into the city with a small group of Solars, Lunars, and Siderials and calling everyone he can reach into the city with him to face what he calls 'The Storm of the Millennium'. Ten days later the storm arrives and following in behind it a host of the fair folk the likes of which has not been seen in centuries. The city is invested and besieged for two months by the Faerie Host and the siege is only broken by the arrival of four full realm legions armed with Cold Iron. Once the Fair Folk are driven back and the city is again secure Angus orders most of the city leveled and an engineering project the like of which the city has not seen in over half a millennium undertaken to extensively alter its geomancy. To finance this undertaking he produces several tons of jade, from what source none can say, and uses his Wyld Shaping charms, which until his return no one knew he possessed, to manufacture the raw materials needed from the chaotic energy left behind by the Fair Folk.

However, no sooner was the project underway than orders came down from the Queen that he was to return to [[Meru]] at once and answer for his absence: and bound by the oaths he took as one of the [[Golden Hero Vassals]] so very long ago he departs. Following up on the plans he has left behind his circle mate [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Levian of the Gilded Staff|Levian of the Gilded Staff]] begins directing the super-massive construction and engineering projects which will if successful create one of the greatest concentrations of manses and geomantic relays outside of the Blessed Isle. By late in Descending fire half the city is gone and an entirely new street plan and so on is rising in its place, along with a massive upgrade to the walls and towers of the city perimeter as well.

What exactly passed for Angus in Meru is unrecorded by any presently known records except perhaps those of the Bureau of Destiny but what is recorded is the results of that visit: Angus was stripped of the rulership of his fief in the south including Solzarian and sent on a quest of penance into the frozen north: while Solzarian and the surrounding area was given into the hands of a relatively young solar of the Twilight Caste from another circle named [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Keisha Adriana Mullion|Keisha Adriana Mullion]] and her lunar mate [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Maxim of Personal Liberty|Maxim of Personal Liberty]].

While Keisha was young she was not stupid and consulted with Levian of the Gilded Staff on what she was doing with the engineering of the city. With the elder Twilight's help, she finished the geomantic reorganization as designed by Angus and by the end of Resplendent Air the basic project is finished. The city is now rife with uncapped demesnes and sites that will become demesnes once they can be activated after some of the others are capped. The city also now confers a geomantic bonus on all mortals living there, allowing them to develop their skills and abilities more quickly than those living in other cities. The full culmination of the project with the activation and capping of all demesnes will not be complete for another 36 years.

==== Time of Cascading Years ====

The Time of Cascading Years took rather longer in Solzarian and the surrounding area than it did in most of Creation: 3333 years to be precise. The relatively young solar ruler who went into the Time of Cascading Years and her only slightly more experienced Lunar Spouse emerges from it with a weight of skill and refinement which makes them elders among the solars and lunars. They also are now both arrayed with a panoply of artifacts and charms that make them forces to be reckoned with in the new Deliberative. The passage of the 'Age of Isolation' in Solzarian is marked by a number of rebellions and uprisings, and the invasion of their lands by the fair folk towards the end of it, from whence none, can say. Supposedly it was the destruction of an artifact which the Raksha Commander carried which restore time to its normal flow according to the people of Solzarian.

=== Second Deliberative Era ===

During the [[User:Nemo of Utopia/PeriodofLongSilence|Period of Long Silence]] Solzarain is one of the few areas still doing significant research, though they are hampered by the continuing disunity of creation and the fearfulness of creation's mortals who are all accustomed to traveling too far from home casting you into a different timeline.

With the Establishment of the new deliberative however Solzarian is thrust into the spotlight for around a hundred years as the home and workshop of one of the most important [[User:Nemo of Utopia:NPCCreationGuidelines/Exalted/FirstAge/Solar/TwilightCaste|Copper Spiders]] of the deliberative. During this period the city is a known destination for the many young Twilight-caste members who were reborn following the restoration of time's proper flow.

As this era goes on however Solzarian becomes less and less important with the rebuilding of the rest of creation, the other Twilights drift away to rule their own fiefs and work on their own projects and as has happened before Solzarian's position far from most significant events of history both at the center of creation and at its rim mean it becomes a backwater. Even it's solar and lunar rulers spend more time in Meru than at home, leaving the city in the hands of [[User:Nemo of Utopia:NPCCreationGuidelines/Exalted/FirstAge/Dragonblooded/Top|Dragon Blooded]] legates.

=== Era of Dreams ===

During the first part of the Era of Dreams, though Solzarian flourishes on the mundane level it remains a backwater on the scales by which The Realm measures such things: a functional and unimportant city in a functional but unimportant section of the world. It does, however, receive an [[IAM|I AM]] Transmission Node linking it to the broader network of information which now spans creation.

Then in the year 3381, it's twilight caste ruler is goaded into violating her eclipse oath to not attack other celestial exalted in Meru, setting in motion a chain of events that will alter the shape of Solzarian's fate for centuries to come, and that of the rest of creation. At first, the botches come hard and heavy, but then they stop and [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Keisha Adriana Mullion|Keisha]] thinks the oath's punishment has run its course.

It has not.

Returning to her holding in the south she begins to work on constructing a [[Proto Shinmatic Vortex]] and at a key stage of the process, the final botch of set activates and the PSV explodes, killing Keisha and creating an intense Wyld Zone south of the city over a hundred miles wide.

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/MaximofPersonalLiberty|Maxim of Personal Liberty]] calls upon every favor he has and even takes on new obligations to arrange the deliberative sending experts at Wyld Shaping to close the rift in the fabric of reality, but the people sent are not the high essence Solars and Lunars he hoped for but rather a cadre of neophytes who have scarce mastered Wyld Cauldron Technology and are woefully unprepared for the madness of the deep Wyld which exists within the rift. Three of them die before the other two calls it quits leaving the Wyld Zone barely stabilized around its edges. It is unrecorded at this remove what keeps the deliberative busy and the more powerful Wyld shapers tied up, but it will not be for another 3 decades that the Wyld zone is fully dealt with and that not by an individual any more experienced than the ones first dispatched, though with far greater caution than the first circle that was sent showed.

== The Usurpation ==

== The Shogunate ==

== The Fall & The Second Age ==

== The Rebirth ==

In RY 760, that same year where so very much else changed for creation (763 in normal Chronicles): the man who

= Government =

In basic, the Government of Amarana really consists of a single man: [[User:Nemo of Utopia/The Patron of Amarana|The Patron]]. He is an autocrat, ruling by divine mandate and shier power, as he is capable of defeating significant deities in single combat. However the Patron is one man, and as such has organized his subjects with several branches of what we would consider a more normal government. This normal government is organized into twelve 'Adeptus' which each is led by one of the twelve 'High Lords of Amarana'. These twelve powerful individuals form a council that advises and assists The Patron in his leadership of the city, feeding him data on several topics such as the state of his subject's religious convictions or the preparedness of his military. Though each High Lord is immensely powerful they all are The Patron's fanatical partisans and would not dream of challenging his authority, even if they could.

== The Adeptus Millitate ==

The Adeptus Millitate is one of the largest branches of Amarana's government, with no fewer than 1250 members in all its branches and subgroups. Though officially in charge of Amarana's Armed services it has a rival in The Adeptus Aeronauticus who oversee Amarana's air-forces. The Adeptus Millitate is run by [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Fist of the Land|Fist of the Land]] a God-Blooded martial artist who is somewhat uncomfortable leading an army of over a thousand people.

The Adeptus Millitate has the following departments and offices:

=== The Departmento Munitorum ===

Oversees the acquisition and care of the equipment and supplies for the army.

==== The Officio Technis ====

Deals with the army's Magitech assets.

==== The Officio Cibum ====

Oversees the all-important function of providing provisions for the troops.

==== The Officio Armorium ====

Handles the more mundane arms and armor of Amarana's troops.

==== The Officio Quartium ====

… is responsible for most everything else, from tents to uniforms to bedrolls.

=== The Departmento Servicum ===

Oversees the actual troops and officers and their training regimens.

==== The Officio Acadamicain Legionarius ====

This office oversees the training of new recruits and officers running two training schools for them.

==== The Officio Cooptatione Legionarius ====

This is the group that sees-to the recruitment and if necessary conscription of new troops for the army.

=== The Departmento Latrocinium ===

Oversees the hiring and 'control' of any mercenary units the government employs but is better known for a more sinister function.

==== The Officio Mercenarius ====

Does the Hiring and Firing of actual mercenaries.

==== The Officio Assasinoritum ====

'The Office of Assassins', to use the Vulgate, runs at least four secret dojos training mortal agents in martial arts that facilitate them serving as The Patron's spies and assassins. [[Nemo of Utopia/Assassin of the Grey Spire|Assassin of the Grey Spire]] 'leads' this office: He is ''not'' a master of the White Veil Style of martial arts and has most ''definitely not'' taught many of its members this secret art form. (Nudge nudge, wink wink, know what I mean, know what I mean? Say no more, say no more!)

=== The Officio Adminstrad Militate ===

This 'Floating Office' makes sure that all of the other Departmento and Oficio within this Adeptus do their jobs properly.

== The Adeptus Arbitiese ==

The Adeptus Arbitese oversee Amarana's police forces, and are one of the larger branches of the government with only 150 individuals on staff, counting every beat cop all the way on up to the High Lord Herself as well as all the file clerks and so on that work for the Adeptus but are not actually part of it's 'fighting strength'. They have only one Departmento and less than a dozen Officio, but so far are keeping a lid on the political turmoil of the city. The High Lord of the Arbitese is [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Steel Garden|Steel Garden]] who is not a very good investigator but a decent politician and capable administrator.

=== The Departmento Queastorum ===

This department is responsible for making inquiries and investigating crime, thus far it is the only Department of the Adeptus Arbitese but the Officio Correctionibus is expected to become a departmento in its own right someday.

==== The Officio Homicide ====

The Office of Homicide consists of only eight people, four detectives, three CSI techs, and one overworked file clerk. Their closure rate hovers at around 50%, though that is only due to them being able to count any suspect killed by the ghost of the victim as a closed case. [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Laurel the Axe|Laurel the Axe]] is the unofficial leader of this group but officially they answer directly to the High Lord of the Arbitese.

==== The Officio Servus Aucupes ====

The term 'office of slave catchers' is something of a misnomer. These detectives do not catch slaves, rather they catch people keeping, taking, or recapturing slaves and send them to their just punishments. This office consists of five overworked personnel, two detectives, two forensic accountants, and one file clerk. Their closure rate is around 30% since it is hard to prove that someone was a slaver without catching them in the act.

==== The Officio Vitium ====

Unlike the officio above this office is not quite so overworked, and the two often help each other out because their work frequently overlaps. The 'Vice Squad' mostly concerns itself with drugs and prostitution, since licensed gambling establishments and most pornography are both legal in Amarana. The officio consists of Four Detectives, five undercover officers, three CSI techs, and a harried file clerk. Their Closure rate is about 45%.

==== The Officio Interioribus ====

This Officio is more for show than anything since all of Amarana's police are held by the Stone of Invincible Loyalty. It consists of two Detectives and one Forensic Accountant. They often spend their time quietly helping out other offices.

==== The Officio Fraude Aucupes ====

This is actually one of the larger offices within the Arbities, having eleven total personnel, six detectives, three forensic accountants, a CSI tech, and a file clerk. The office tries to keep a lid on the Guild and others defrauding Amarana's citizens through various means and does a fairly good job. Their closure rate is about 70%, though this is largely due to a lot of success catching many small-fry while the remaining 30% is almost all of the big players.

==== The Ofiicio Fures ====

The 'office of thieves' is responsible for all break-ins, burglaries, purse snatchings, muggings, cutpurses, and so forth in the city. In spite of having eight detectives, five undercover agents, six CSI, four Forensic Accountants, and five file clerks their closure rate is about 12%. Garion Cromarch is frankly disgusted with them and has told The Patron so. The Patron knows they are doing their best but has ordered mandatory additional training for all members of this office.

==== The Officio Pax Patronum ====

The remainder of the police force is in this office. These are the beat cops that enforce the law by their presence and vigilance. Amarana is a large city and they constantly must be on the lookout for any kind of crime but especially things like drunk and disorderly, disturbing the peace, making an affray, and so on. This office consists of 57 patrol officers and over a dozen file clerks. Twelve of these officers are part of a sub-office of 'Mounties' who do their patrols in teams of three on horseback, they are often called in to suppress larger riots. The officers always patrol in teams of three, one to watch the front of a building and two to look around the sides and catch criminals in a pincer movement. They all carry magitech com units that let them use Wind Carried Words Technique and have Linguistics 3. (Their closure rate is not applicable since they work out of elven precincts and each one has a different closure rate.) One of these officers does not need a comms unit: being a dragon blooded air aspect outcaste named [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Secret Eagle|Secret Eagle]]. They have offered to promote him many times, but he prefers to be a patrol officer, though he has deigned to accept the rank of patrol sergeant for the fourth precinct.

=== The Officio Correctionibus ===

The office of corrections deals with the punishment rather than the apprehension side of crime. They are chronically overworked and typically have more criminals than they know what to do with but manage to do their jobs adequately. This floating office is overseen by Iron Sands, a member of The Broad who has lots of experience getting slaves to do as they are bid.

== The Adeptus Judicate ==

Working closely with the Adeptus Arbites the Adeptus Judicate is the other half of the justice system. These are the many Judges, Lawyers, and Clerks of the Court who make sure that the innocent are not punished with the guilty. At the present time, the Adeptus Judicate consists of 11 judges, 15 prosecuting attorneys, 23 Attorneys of Due Justice (Public Defenders.), 42 'Clerks of the Court' who record and file all rulings and court-ordered contracts, and 17 "Agent's Protection" who follow up on inconsistencies in court records and the welfare of Amarana's citizens in cases such as child abuse allegations and locating jurors that fail to show up for a trial. There are also about 200 private attorneys who are technically part of this Adeptus but not part of the government. The High Lord of the Courts is [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Molly McBride|Molly McBride]] a Demon Blooded northerner who has spent her whole life fighting against injustice and corruption in every form.

Additionally [[User:Nemo of Utopia/The_Patron_of_Amarana|The Patron]] himself is technically also a member of this branch as he has the right to sit in judgment if he chooses on all High Crimes and acts of Treason. He has invoked this right exactly once, mostly to prove that he could. (The person in question was found "Not Guilty by Reason of Insanity" and sentenced to lifetime confinement to a mental institution pending treatment or cure of his condition. He stood accused of twelve counts of grand theft, but psychoanalysis found him to be a kleptomaniac. The police often consult him on serial theft cases, and he is actually fairly good at solving them. However, he does have a problem with stealing other patients’ belongings and the doctor's pens and notebooks.)

Trials are in the American/British style, with a 'jury of one's peers' and the judge presiding from the high seat. The witness's sit to the judge's left and the clerk to the right. The prosecutors are on the left side of the courtroom and the Jury the Right while the accused is in the middle. Unless the accused is elderly or crippled and unable to stand they may not sit. For this reason, individual segments of trial must last no more than 3 hours. Only citizens may serve as witnesses, but since one can at the present time become a citizen after 24 hours residency this is not a problem. Citizens MAY testify with respect to events from before their citizenship. The accused is entitled to an 'Attorney of Due Justice' in the event that they cannot retain their own private counsel. The judge may dismiss any case at any time with or without prejudice, which is done routinely with respect to picayune or spurious civil cases so as to free up Attorneys of Due Justice for criminal trials. The patron is looking into finding more Judges and Attorneys of Due Justice so that civil cases do not need to be dismissed so frequently, which has a distressing tendency to lead to murder.

Abnormally The Adeptus Judicate does not have any departmento or officio, but there are those within it and without that are bucking to change that.

== The Adeptus Sororitatus ==

The 'Sisterhood' as they are called by the common folk is the government Adepta that oversees all _female_ clerics and thaumaturges in Amarana Like their Counterparts in the Adeptus Fratris they are few in number but powerful in influence. Technically also responsible for the worship of all-female gods in the city it is common that women will be priests of male deities and men prelates of a goddess's church. The division of male and female clergy between the AS and AF, however, is strict while the division of deities wavers like the landscape in the summer heat. In spite of these difficulties, the two branches of government get along quite well and cooperation between them is without rancor or strife in most cases. The High Lady of the Adepta is [[Nemo of Utopia/Unrepentant Emerald|Unrepentant Emerald]]. She is a mortal with Enlightened Essence and is exceedingly circumspect in her actions, a paragon of temperance. She is also the head priestess of [[Nemo of Utopia/Amarana Seline|Amarana Seline]].

=== The Officio Festivalius ===

This floating office submits to The Patron which days and locations should have festivals to honor the goddess' of the city. A circle of female clergy decide these events and pass them on to the patron, who generally approves them without comment. This circle is chaired by Unrepentant Emerald.

=== The Departmento Eclesiast ===

This is the main branch of the Adepta, overseeing and licensing all _female_ clergy in Amarana. The department technically consists of all licensed female clergy in the city but in practice, most of the female clergy get their licenses and are about their business having no further interaction with the government except to re-up their licenses once a year.

==== The Officio Licentiae ====

This officio handles the licensing process for all official priestesses, which requires proving you have the following capabilities: Ability to speak and read Old Realm, Basic knowledge of Spiritual Etiquette, (At least 3 dots in occult or 1 + an appropriate specialty.) and training in proper prayer procedures. (Prayer roll performance pool of at least 5 dice.) These requirements may be waived if the cleric has a 'sponsor' with a proper license who is taking on the new cleric as a student to train in service to their god/goddess in which case a 'Postulant Permit' is issued instead. Licenses are issued per deity, so if you wish to be the clergy of multiple gods multiple licenses are required. This is waived in the case of Zenith-caste Solars, Theurge-caste "New-Method"-Lunars, "Redemer"-caste Infernals, and Midnight-caste Abyssals, since it would be more trouble than it is worth to issue a license for every god in creation (for the first two), every each of the recovering yozis and all the greater demons (Redeemers), or ghost above essence 3 in the underworld (Midnight-castes).

==== The Officio Sanctionite ====

This is a smaller office within the departmento, making recommendations to The Patron on which female deities should be given official sanction within Amarana. All the female deities mentioned under the Religion section are sanctioned unless noted otherwise. Being unsanctioned does not mean you cannot be worshiped, but it does mean that you cannot have space allocated for a temple or licensed clergy. Sanctioning however is fairly easy to get since The Patron often simply signs the forms without reading them. (Additionally, all the incarnae are sanctioned, + Gaia and the Dragons.)

==== The Officio Hetterodox ====

This office deals with instances of rogue gods and clergy, such as the notorious Tuggie of the Scavenger Lands and other instances where the celestial bureaucracy has broken down to an unacceptable level. Employing many outside contractors they put spirits who demand illicit worship or sapient sacrifice in their places and also hunt rogue demons and the fair folk's ravagers. Though the actual functionaries of this Officio are few their agents are many and they are always busy.

== The Adeptus Frateris ==

Sometimes referred to as 'The Fraternity' by outsiders this Adeptus is responsible for all male deities and male clergy in Amarana. They take their job seriously and are sometimes noted for being taciturn and uncompromising. They are led by [[Nemo of Utopia/Wauli the Wolf|Wauli the Wolf]], who like his female counterpart is a mortal with awakened essence.

Structurally the Adeptus Frateris is identical to the Adeptus Sorroitatus.

== The Adeptus Mechanicus ==

The Adeptus Mechanicus are an odd bunch. Dressing in Rust Red robes and communicating in their own strange (and highly technical) dialect of Old-Realm they keep outsiders at arm's length. This Adepta is responsible for helping The Patron find and repair the magitech of the city a task that they perform supremely well but which many wonders if this group of strangely obsessed men and women are actually best suited for. Led by [[Nemo of Utopia/Adamant Sprocket|Adamant Sprocket]], an elderly Djala man and his young adult daughter [[Nemo of Utopia/Gears of Fate|Gears of Fate]], this group employs many Djala escapees in the task of repairing and rebuilding the city.

== The Adeptus Diolougus ==

What some would call the state department or the diplomatic corps the Adeptus Diolougus is one of the smallest Adeptus of the Amaranaian government. Led by [[Nemo of Utopia/Exultant Ivory Mother|Exultant Ivory Mother]] (a god-blooded woman from An-Teng, who harbors no feelings of goodwill for either Realm or Guild,) this group of spies and agent's provocateur work to keep Amarana a free city and outside the clutches of both [[The Guild]] and foreign powers such as the [[Realm]].

== The Adeptus Medicae ==

Easily among the smallest Adeptus of the Amaranaian government if one only counts the actual government personnel instead of approximately a-dozen-dozen licensed doctors, psychiatrists, and physicians whom they are tasked with overseeing and who like private attorneys in the city are technically part of the Adeptus: the Adeptus Medicae is as one might have guessed responsible for the physical and mental health of the city. They Tend to this task primarily by licensing and monitoring the city's medical personnel. This Adeptus role is two-fold: first, they are responsible for overseeing those practicing and utilizing any kind of medical skill in the city, from alchemists manufacturing morphine, [[Seven Bounties Paste]], or [[Age Staving Cordial]], to those offering psychiatric counseling outside of a church setting, to the several small private hospitals around the city, to even veterinarians. The Second task of the group is more dangerous and ripe for abuse by far: it is they in large part, as the only people with the requisite expertise, who draw up for [[Nemo of Utopia/The Patron of Amarana|The Patron's]] approval the statutes of law which they are tasked with enforcing. Thus far there has been no conflict of interest or abuses of power but the vast majority of people among the medical personnel of Amarana wait anxiously or avidly for this to begin changing.

The Adeptus Medicae is led by [[Nemo of Utopia/Simon Baker|Simon Baker]], a psychiatrist by trade, who is among the most dangerously insightful and persuasive people you will ever meet, at least that is not one of the exalted. He is, in fact, a god blooded, son of the patron deity of an order of physicians on The Blessed Isle, and is not much taken with the Imacualtes, treating them with frosty professionalism.

== The Adeptus Fabricae ==

Easily the largest and most diverse branch of the Amaranaian government the Adeptus Fabricae oversees all matters which involve or pertain directly to any sort of production, manufacturing, functional artistry, or creation of goods within Amarana's lands. Though ferreting out matters of a criminal nature fall under the heading of the Adeptus Arbites, and the governance of the legal codes is the province primarily of The Patron himself, and Prosecution and judgment of crimes is the business of the Adeptus Judicate, all three of these functions fall partially under this Adeptus' remit.

The Adeptus Fabricae first submits for The Patron's approval all codes and strictures which govern the actions and enterprises of fabricating all tangible products in Amarana, and exhaustive list of matters which fall under their control would be impossible but a few of the more salient follow: Print Shops, Compounding Pharmacies, Paper Mills, Glass Works, Jewelers, Magitech Repair Shops, Smithies, Book Binders, Cobblers, Tailors, and Farms: essentially anything which would be made by any sort of "Craft: XXX" skill is within their authority. The patron then reviews these legal codes and approves or rejects them, which becomes the strictures that the Adeptus Fabricae enforce upon the businesses of Amarana.

Most production facilities of any kind are within the Adeptus Fabricae's remit, with the notable exception of restaurants, taverns, eateries, pubs, tea houses, inns, and food carts which fall under the aegis of the Adeptus Medicae, though oddly pharmacies do not. Neither adepta is happy about this but neither is willing to lose or exchange the area they do have power over for reasons of their own which seem fully sufficient to them. Furthermore, any business that produces a tangible product and directly employs more than 50 people in any capacity is under their remit to license, inspect, and if necessary fine or refer to the Arbiters for investigation.

The following are the Departmento and Officio of the Adeptus Fabricae, each one with significant discretionary power and held in check solely by the High Lady of the Adeptus [[Nemo of Utopia/AuspiciousCrystalLightning|Auspicious Crystal Lightning]] and The Patron.

=== The Departmento Iura ===

The 'Department of Laws' devises and writes out the codes of law which govern the production and creation of goods in Amarana. They have created and submitted to the patron and extensive and thorough list of legal codes regarding the conditions, control, creation, and compensation for most products in Amarana, and those they have not they are working on.

==== The Officio Iura Laboris ====

The 'Office of Labor Laws' designs the codes of law concerning the employment, treatment, and management of Amarana's workforce. They are in the main as despised by the plutocracy as they are beloved by the common folk. Among other laws, they have enacted is the 8-hour work shift and the 6 day work week.

==== The Officio Iura Fabricación ====

The "Office of Manufacturing Laws" creates the codes of law governing the actual production of goods. Other offices govern the details of different types of production facilities or fields, but this office creates the general guidelines which the others work by.

==== The Officio Iura Cotagium Industria ====

The "Office of Cottage Industry" drafts the limited and simple codes which control small scale manufacturing by individuals and small business. They would like to have more extensive and detailed codes but The Patron uses his authority to make the official versions of the law to pare back most of their red tape and BS. He is, in fact, thinking of suspending this office for a period of some months while he looks for a better and less over eager set of people to be its officers.

==== The Officio Iura Officinis ====

This office makes the laws respecting the specific difficulties of production in a factory typesetting. Any production facility with 50 or more employees falls under their regulating authority, even things that are not normally their provinces such as farms, eateries, and pharmacies. For this reason, many production facilities and such, run with a staff of 40, so that even if they hire a handful of temp workers they will not move into this Officio's dominion. This Officio is not-well-liked by most business owners, being seen as overly restrictive and exceedingly interfering.

==== The Officio Iura Pharmicopia ====

== The Adeptus Adminstradum ==

== The Adeptus Aeronauticus ==

== The Adeptus Vectigalia ==

Lying squarely in the middle of the Adeptus of the city in terms of size the Adeptus Vectigalia is The Patron's Tax Collectors and Auditors of Accounts. Little liked by most people in the city they are nevertheless key to its continued function. In addition to overseeing that the government is given it's due and being called on to check the books of businesses which the Adeptus Arbites feel might be doing illegal activities the Adeptus Vectigalia also runs Amarana's national mint, which means that they are monitored closely by both The Patron and the Adeptus Arbites.

Noted for being uncompromising and humorless the Adeptus Vectigalia dress in imperishable formal clothing left behind from the first age. The hot stuffy suits and jackets only contribute to their reputation as dour and unsmiling drones of government oversight, which is perhaps the point of the dress code.

The Adeptus Vectigalia is divided into three Departmento: The Departmento Salari, which collects the taxes in cash or kind, the Departmento Quastorius, who audits people's books, and the Departmento Signo, who oversees the minting and engraving of all Amaranaian currency.

The Adeptus Vectigalia is led by [[Nemo of Utopia/Manifold Gemstone|Manifold Gemstone]] a perfectly ordinary man, who happens to be an excellent forensic accountant if only a passable administrator.

= Religion =

Faith and practice in Amarana are as diverse as the people who have come to live there. Everything from Immaculates to ancestor Worshipers to CotI members to simple priests and adherents of various gods all rub-elbows on the city's streets. Below are a brief rundown of the most prominent of the city's faiths and the deities they worship.

== Immaculates ==

Though the smallest of the city's faiths the Immaculate Doctrine still has hundreds of adherents among the people of the city, many of whom are enlightened martial arts practitioners. They also have a strong support network in the form of outside contacts with The Realm and other Dragon-Blooded.

== The Common Faith/Hundred Gods Heresy ==

The Majority of the population of Amarana believe in the gods as most people of the threshold do: they worship those who can provide them with benefits they want or need and don't understand much about the celestial bureaucracy or how things worked in the first age and that the present state of affairs is a corruption of the 'proper' order of things. Those that do often take the stance that "this is the way things are" and simply go on with their day.

What follows is a brief list of the major deities of Amarana and who or what they are affiliated with:

=== Amarana Seline ===

[[Nemo of Utopia/AmaranaSeline|Amarana Seline]]: As the City Mother of Amarana, Amarana Seline is the leader of the city's spirits. She was promoted from off the dole in heaven by the machinations of a number of bronze faction Sidereals and is fully cognizant of the fact that she '''owes''' them, but at the same time of the fact that as a dispossessed spirit promoted to the rank of City Mother she has few allies and many enemies. For these and other reasons she does not play favorites, at least not much, and is working hard at her job coordinating the smooth running of the city. Though she tries to be largely neutral in truth she is in the camp of the Immaculate Faction, which is part of why the Immaculates are as strong as they are in the city.

=== Mother Midnight ===

[[Nemo of Utopia/MotherMidnight|Mother Midnight]]: As the Senior Goddess of all-natural misfortunes in Amarana 'Mother of Midnight Murder and Mayhem', to use her full name, is a very good person for The Patron to have on his side. Mother Midnight takes positive glee in afflicting his enemies with all manner of troubles and ailments, from murder most foul to tripping on a dropped piece of lumber and spilling twenty boxes of crack from their backpack right in front of a police officer. However she is not really playing favorites, she still inflicts all manner of problems on the Patriots, their enemies just get it first and worst. Mother Midnight also has another interesting fact to her favor: she has been at her post for the past 3000 years. She gets audited on a regular basis and comes up smelling like roses: every, single, time! This drives Wong Bongerok to a level of near slavering fury, especially since he is certain Mother Midnight has been doing some kind of double-dealing and below-board hustle to keep herself fed and clothed during Amarana's long dormancy but has no way to prove it. Thing is, he's wrong. Mother Midnight became a doomsday prepper just after the usurpation and had been stockpiling quintessence and ambrosia for centuries ere the fair folk invaded. She has been living off that stockpile for all the time since and even now could go several centuries were the city to fall again ere she would need to start hustling for her sustenance.

In form, Mother Midnight looks like an exceedingly overweight woman with coal-black skin and long dreadlocked black hair that hangs so long as to trail on the ground. She typically appears nude or dressed in rags but can summon an armor of bones and broken pottery for a cost of 3 motes that gives her 10 lethal/bashing soak for the rest of the scene. For one mote she may reflexively cause any weapon that strikes her which has a hardness of less than 10 to automatically break*, and any weapon that has less than 15 hardness but more than 10 take 5d of damage. Energy weapons are immune to this, such as beam-klaves and weapons with a hardness of more than 15 cannot be affected. These powers do not count as charm use.

*(The weapon still inflicts damage before breaking from this effect.)

=== Pauldron Of Sanctity ===

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/PauldronOfSanctitity|Pauldron Of Sanctitity]]: is the new titular war god of the state, essentially exiled to the post by Atlhat since he is a rabidly punctual and rules obsessed deity that Atlhat has detested for centuries. Pauldron of Sanctity takes the form of a tall man in Gunzosha Armor and wielding a shock pike. He believes in well regimented and organized military units who are drilled and well equipped. In many ways, his notions of war are still trapped in the low first age when he was spawned as the god of a mercenary company, but this is just fine because he is the war god of a city with much of its low first age equipment and infrastructure intact. Though he favors the Immacualtes he is not willing to alter the course of outlined fate one millimeter without approval through proper channels.

=== Garion Cromarch ===

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/GarionCromarch|Garion Cromarch]]: is the god of Amarana's police force, who has waited patiently these seven centuries and more since the loss of the city to the fair folk working unofficially as a P.I. in Yu-Shan and who is the author of Amarana’s rebirth, having convinced an awkward cabal of mixed members from every faction to engineer the events which have led to that happening. Garion is perhaps more involved in the doings of the city's police than he should be, often helping them out with 'gut feelings' and leading dreams, but so far his interference has not crossed the line of allowed behavior.

Garrion's form looks like an idealized southern human male wearing Sentinel Defense Force armor blazoned with the symbol of Amarana, an eagle in flight wearing broken manacles.

=== Lissom Shining Spring ===

[[Nemo of Utopia/LissomShiningSpring|Lissom Shining Spring]]: a goddess of the local Oasis who temporarily holds two positions both in her old job and as the minster of all water sources within Amarana's sphere of influence. She is not perfidious in this role like Alhat who should not hold both the aegis of southern war god and god of cattle but is genuinely looking for a replacement to take over the role of goddess of springs and oasis: however she is a perfectionist and committed to finding a perfect candidate, which means that though she has interviewed over a hundred prospective applicants she has not found one that she feels is worthy of her longtime position. The Special Sub-Comity on Amarana is willing to let her conduct further interviews, for now, but have made it clear that if she does not have a new spirit in the position by the end of next year she will be censured and the task of finding a replacement will be out of her hands. To this end, she has compiled what she calls her 'secondary list': those gods that she felt were 'almost' up to her lofty standards, and if she is running out of time will call them back for a second interview and chose the best one. She still hopes for a perfect applicant however and only has four names on her 'secondary list'.

Lissom Shining Spring's form is that of a large fish, but lately, she has been finding herself slipping into the form of a young woman in the suit of one of the city's hydro-engineering personnel who assists the Patron in making sure that all the pipes are sound before restoring the flow of water to a building. She is not sure she likes this, in fact, she's fairly certain she ''doesn't'' so far. She would be willing to slip some jade and silver to someone who could figure out why it keeps happening and make it stop a few times annually in thanks for their help.

=== Sonari ===

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/Sonari|Sonari]]: is the divine minister of sunlight and shadow for Amarana. She works with the bureau of nature to ensure that the proper degree of cloud cover reaches Amarana as well as the appropriate amount of sun. Like many of the gods of Amarana she is newly promoted from being on the dole and fearful of losing her position, but even so, dares to encourage the cult to worship her with little flourishes like rays of light in winter and cool breezes in summer.

She takes the form of a cloud from which pour rays of sunlight.

=== Meroka Jin ===

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/MerekaJin|Mereka Jin]]: the minister of romance and love in Amarana is actually an old pro at the role, having been the minister for the task in the old city and then for the Salaru tribes. He is corrupt as the day is long but adept at hiding his perfidy from anyone and everyone, including to a degree himself.

Mereka Jin takes the form of a vigorous adult man of the south with a rose in his teeth and a rakish smile. He often appears nude or in the robes worn for a wedding among the Salaru.

Mereka is eternally locked in a bitter feud with his theoretical partner Sakarzi: minster of lust and attraction, who is constantly trying to break down the stable romantic relationships her 'partner' builds. For the moment they have reached a detente on the matter of the two factions in which they are most interested, If Sakarzi will do her job for the romantic relationships of the Solarians then Meroka will not try to pair off the Ancestor Cultists into mirages and leave Sakarzi to push them to rut in wild abandon. They have not agreed about what to do with the rest of the population which makes up more than 60%.

=== Bibwit Heart ===

[[Nemo of Utopia/BibwitHeart|Bibwit Heart]]: The 'least' god of Amarana's central manse, Bibwit is uncomfortable with the cult worshiping him as they do. He has seen many least gods that have found themselves at the center of cults growing arrogant and ultimately becoming starmetal and is afraid this will happen to him. He has survived both the fall of the solars and the shogunate by being small and unobtrusive, keeping his manse functional and active while the rest of the city fell apart and he is not going to change that strategy. Still, he is an important god in the city, and as such they venerate him. Bibwit takes the form of an anthropomorphized rabbit with white fur and a tailored coat. He carries a pocket watch that lets him make flurry attacks up to his DEX score with no penalty.

=== Cela Dinarius ===

[[Nemo of Utopia/CelaDinarius|Cela Dinarius]]: Cela is the goddess responsible for Amarana's economy, and she is a personal friend of Glorious Weapon. She is no friend of the Guild and works as much as she dares to keep the guild from stealing artifacts from Amarana for sale to its foreign rivals. Formerly the goddess of Aj-Aran's main market square she was promoted to the overall control of the economy of Amarana via the machinations of the gold faction. She knows the city father is a bronze faction plant but reasons that as long as they both do their jobs properly they should not come into many conflicts. The two have a standing date for tea every Venus day.

Cela Dinarius form is that of an attractive woman carved from silver, and she wears the clothing of a Varangian cloth factor, which was her first job beyond as the least god some 4 centuries ago, patron goddess of a new Varangian cloth consortium.

=== Zalril ===

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/Amarana/Zalril|Zalril]]: Formerly the Least god of Amarana's north gate Zalril has by what amounts to shier-force-of-will moved up to become the patron god of Guild Members working in Amarana. The exact operation of this occurrence has been shrouded in mystery at the orders of Kejop Kajac himself, and further Nazri signed off on it too. The Guild maintains a large shrine just outside his old gate where they leave offerings before entering the city and where three slave women were taken under cover of night and sworn to become Zalril's Priestesses in exchange for their freedom by an Eclipse-caste member who often works for the guild. Though two of them still keep their roles as the god's priestesses the third has left the shrine and now lives in the city as a teacher for the city's new public school. Interestingly she has suffered no ill effects from 'breaking' her oath. Zalril has asked for the Guild to send a replacement but they are still trying to figure out why the oath failed in the first place. Meanwhile [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Sulramia|Sulramia]] finds fulfillment in teaching her students as do [[User:Nemo of Utopia/GayePachudiweOgesu|Gaye Pachudiwe Ogesu]] and [[User:Nemo of Utopia/OxandRainbowSlave|Ox and Rainbow]] the two women that still work at the shrine. Ogesu is an old woman and does the cooking and cleaning while Ox and Rainbow stand guard over the shrine. Sulramia also came with another gift for the god, her daughter, as she was part of a quadratic set, Maiden, Warrior, Mother, and Crone, and if she was to be the 'mother' Zalril insisted that she has a child as proof of her status, who conveniently doubled as 'maiden'. Sulramia's daughter is called [[User:Nemo of Utopia/IronandHoneyMaiden|Iron and Honey Maiden]] and is just the cutest five-year-old you will ever see, with an appearance score of five already. Her mother lives constantly with the fear of pedophiles, but does not let it rule their lives.

=== Walziri ===

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/Walziri|Walziri]]: as the god of beasts of burden within Amarana's lands Walziri is a major player in the lives of Guild personnel who must work or live here. Formerly a lesser deity of travel and trade in Harborhead Walziri was appointed to his new post by the machinations of a cabal of 'Independent' southern Sidereals and understands that he OWES them for this big break. The cabal has not called in that favor, at least not yet, but for the moment are content with him filing informal reports on the going's on in Amarana. While still hard at work at his new post he has already started to play favorites a little with the Guild's Men who pray to him, subtly strengthening their animals and selecting them last when sickness is due to strike the camels or whatnot of the city. Walziri takes the form of a large man of Harborhead derivation wearing several coral necklaces and white robes. He carries a Jade cattle prod which can be used as a spear or thrown like a javelin and returns instantly to his hand.

=== Anyaka Tetsuo ===

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/AnyakaTetsuo|Anyaka Tetsuo]]: The minister of Chance and Gambling in Amarana, Tetsuo is not new to this job. Created as the least god of a set of enchanted dice not long after the Primordial War Tetsuo has risen over the course of the intervening years to a position of moderate power in this city through diligent work and a suspicious number of 'lucky' breaks. Though no investigation has ever found him guilty of any wrongdoing there are enough people that are suspicious of what he surely must have done with his powers to better his status that it is unlikely he will ever rise any higher. Some deities would plot and scheme to continue advancing, but Tetsuo knows better. As a god of chance and gambling, he is well aware that he has been on quite the lucky streak and that is when you should count your winnings, leave the table, and cash in your chips before your luck runs out. He is content to be the god of all chance and gambling in Amarana: and will only rise higher if his natural luck brings him a sudden break, which he is not holding his breath for. He wiles away his time by playing games with the gamblers of the city, making them win or lose in a big way, but staying within the bounds of prescribed fate.

Tetsuo looks like a tall, broad-shouldered, thoroughly tattooed man with a cup and dice for playing a popular gambling game called 'Han or Cho'.

Tetsuo's sanctum is exceedingly large, he has had 700 years of dormancy in Amarana in which to expand it, and it now takes the form of a vast resort with several small casinos and many spas on what appears to be a small tropical island. (At the boundaries of its area there is a big reef beyond which the waterfalls away into nothing.) Tetsuo typically has many of the small gods of gambling and chance living in his sanctum with him at any time. Tetsuo is a colleague of Mother Midnight, not her subordinate, but the two work closely to determine which gamblers will face a string of ill luck.

=== Bagong Fangrick ===

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/BaegongFangrick|Bagong Fangrick]]: As the God of Vermin within Amarana Fangrick is an odd person to aid the guild but the guild will take allies where it can find them. Fangrick is a subordinate of Mother Midnight but has kept himself mostly out of her way and done his job without fuss since the revival of the city. Formerly the deity of rats for the Salaru tribes he was promoted upon the city's revival in recognition of many years of hard work with little reward and not the slightest blemish on his record.

Bagong Fangrick looks like an aged anthropomorphic rat, dressed in the robes of a shogunate era martial arts practitioner.

=== Wisp Virunga ===

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/WispVirunga|Wisp Virunga]]: As the managing deity for all education in Amarana Wisp is a VIP for the Patriots, because she helps their people learn new skills significantly faster, which helps them stay a step ahead of their competition, for the moment. The thing is that Wisp is running a knife-edge game with staying inside what is allowed within her post as a manager for all education in Amarana and what could be censured. This is very very bad: because she is already in trouble with the local censor's deputy for bearing a god blooded child, who is still alive and therefore available as evidence. Just to add insult to injury the censor's deputy has a personal vendetta against her for rebuffing his advances in favor of a mere mortal. Until the revival of Amarana Wisp Virunga was the goddess of its central library, she effectively promoted herself to the chief goddess of education by cozening up to the Patron while he was excavating her manse. When he decreed the first mandatory schooling sessions for the early colonists he had them pray to her as patron of all education in Amarana at the start of each day, when the prayers reached critical mass a few months later she had already conducted a quiet set of interviews and had her replacement as god of the library already prepped and ready to take over at once. This is not precisely an offense against the laws of heaven, but it is somewhat 'bad form' and would count against her slightly in a formal audit. It also has earned some of her fellow deities enmity, especially:...

=== Principle of Justified Action ===

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/PrincipleofJustifiedAction|Principle of Justified Action]]: Heaven has gods of just about everything, including educators. Principle of Justified Action was formerly a deity of a major school out in the distant threshold before the fair folk invasion and only survived that calamity by mere chance, having been in heaven on vacation when the hosts of faerie scourged the world. Since then he has lived on the dole and schemed endlessly to get another position in the bureau of humanity's education office. He finally thought he had one all lined up when Amarana was scheduled to be rebuilt as its manager of education, but the Patron and Wisp Verunga snatched it out of his hands. Yet, when one door closes another opens and a cabal of Gold Faction Sidereals and a few people who were still his friends from the old days managed to finagle him a consolation prize. The role of managing deity for the court system of Amarana was still open since there were not supposed to be any real criminal proceedings for several months yet. Desperate to get off the dole by then and seeing this as his last chance for the foreseeable future he accepted.

What neither he nor the Sidereals that helped him expected, was that he would LIKE the work. Managing a court system is not so different in truth from managing a school, you have trouble makers, erudite and passionate people, a lot of people who really don't want to be there, an ever-changing cast of characters doing many old and a few new stupid things, a complex set of rules you must adhere to; the similarities were rather a shock. Of course, there were differences, mostly in the fact that things move both so much slower most of the time and so much faster in the crunch, but he got his sea legs within a month or two and found himself enjoying having a real job again. That said, Principle of Justified Action is still no friend of Wisp Virunga and would dearly love to put in an application to replace her should she fall afoul of the auditors. However he bides his time, after all, he is employed in a job that he does not find onerous and has plenty of prayers coming in from both sides of the law, Wisp has no experience and is drowning in her duties, let them see what putting an untried administrator into such an important post does! Chances are that within the decade he will have her job: so runs his reasoning.

The Patron is another matter. He likes the Patron, rather a lot, and finds in the autocrat of the city a kindred spirit: and of course, cannot fault the man on the matter of his dedication to an educated society. He sometimes pokes the patron in the subconscious when he is contemplating a bad law, or about to reject a good one, and thus far does not consider it any kind of offense against heaven's rules. He is, in fact, wrong, he has committed no less than 5 level-one offenses in this manner, but that will largely be ignored unless he does more than mere subconscious nudging, after all, he has not really messed up any major plans this way so far.

In form Principle of Justified Action looks like a tall man from the furthest east, wearing the green and red robes of a seated Judge of Amarana's courts. His hair is shock white, a remnant of his time among the starving unemployed but he finds it suits his image as a wise leader of the courts. Abnormally for a god of justice he is lenient with most offenders, reasoning that if you punish too harshly you deny them a chance to learn from their mistakes. However, anyone who harms children sees the other side of him, a fury of unrelenting hatred that will see them hanged if at all possible.

=== Sakarzi ===

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/Sakarzi|Sakarzi]]: though she would dearly love to bring about the Patron's ruin and overthrow Sakarzi: minister of lust and attraction for Amarana, has a problem: She is both terrified of him and lusts after him obsessively. Sakarzi met the Patron before he mastered Amarana when she was bathing in a sacred hot-spring on the borders of the lands now claimed by the city in the guise of a comely Salaru maiden and he was following his awakened memories back to the city to claim his destiny. There at the hot-spring, she tried to seduce him.

She Failed.

The patron was clearly attracted to her and wished to accept her advances but mastered himself with an effort of will and politely refused. Five more times in five different guises Sakarzi has tried to seduce him and each time has been rebuffed, but always politely. This is why she is terrified of him, no one else whom she has ever tried to seduce has refused her advances so many times, especially since each of those times she has used progressively more of her supernatural powers, in the last instance activating an effect that should have compelled him to lie with her will he or no. She lusts after him because she has a weakness for powerful men, and The Patron certainly is one: but it is his immunity to her mystical powers that have made it an obsession. With the Patron, Sakarzi can use only the arts available to a mortal woman to snare the man she desires, and it is driving her to distraction. Perhaps an hour's worth of time out of each of her days is frittered away trying to think up new ways to seduce the Patron that rely only on her natural skills and personal beauty, but thus far she has not come up with anything worth using on a seventh attempt. The reason that Sakarzi would love to see the patron fall is that after she started a feud between three of the early families of colonists by seducing three of their sons and declaring that only the last one living would bed her the patron caught her outside her sanctum and beat her to within an inch of her life, declaring that if he ever caught her pulling that kind of stunt on his supporters again he would not pull his blows the second time.

These conflicting emotions are tearing Sakarzi apart, she lusts after the patron, but wants to ruin him, but is terrified of him, but she wants to have sex with him so bad she can taste it: Etc, Etc. In the meantime, she has appeared to several of the Patriots and declared her support for the patron's cause offering her help in securing the objects of their desires and the word has spread among them that if you erect a shrine to her in your residence and pray at it twice a day, morning and night, she will aid you in seducing whoever you most lust after.

While Sakarzi has many forms she can assume her true form is that of a Salaru woman of surpassing beauty and grace who literally cannot wear clothing. Her merest touch causes any garment to become invisible for one hour, so there is no point in her wearing any kind of raiment except for its protective value, which she rarely does.

=== Machuko; Torch of Freedom ===

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/MachukoTorchofFreedom|Machuko; Torch of Freedom]]: Is it any wonder, considering the status of Amarana as a free city where none may be held in bondage without due process of law, that the patron deity of Liberation and Abolitionism should view it with favor and even more so it's leader who enacted the law in question? [[Rabsolga]], the patron of slavery, hates and despises Amarana and if for no other reason than that Machuko loves and protects it. Furthermore, Machuko is [[User:Nemo of Utopia/ThePatron|The Patron]]'s patron god, to whom he prays five times a day, and is celebrated with five feast days each year, one at the beginning of each 'resplendent' month. Even the Immaculates honor these five days of worship, because the Patron has been known to have those that speak against honoring the feasts arrested and tried for sedition and/or aiding and abetting slavers, and their leader does not need that kind of attention, so he has said: "These days honoring Machuko are sanctioned by the immaculate faith, so long as you pray unto him only on these days you do not sin against the orders of Heaven."

Machuko keeps a large temple in the city's northeast quarter: a level 3 fire aspected manse called 'The Wheel of Torches' from it ride forth his clergy and devout adherents numbering several dozen strong on raids into the wastes beyond Amarana's borders proclaiming Machuko's glory and the freedom of all people within the lands of Amarana. Machuko has many priests across all of creation but nowhere are there so many gathered together as in Amarana.

In form, Machuko looks like a tall muscular man of what modern people would call Jewish/Hasidic/Israeli derivation, with a wild beard and long hair that hangs in ringlets. He carries a gore maul and chopping sword of orichalcum and white jade which when used together can cut any chain or bond. He has another form, which he assumes rarely except when in heaven, which is that of a great Dragon filled with yellow-white fire and made from millions of broken chains, collars, and manacles.

== Ancestor Cultists ==

Led by [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Sharima of the Three Disciplines|Sharima of the Three Disciplines]] and her ghostly lover [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Aruna the Defiant|Aruna the Defiant]] this group of citizens is a large and vocal part of the city's population. Though dwarfed by the percentage of the city who worship the city's gods and elementals the Ancestor Cultists make up as much as 20-25% of the city's population and are especially prominent among the [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Salaru|Salaru]].

The Ancestor Cultists make use of a large number of small [[Shadowlands]] across the city to communicate more directly with their patron spirits and interact with the underworld: but are mindful of [[User:Nemo of Utopia/The Patron of Amarana|The Patron]]'s injunctions about not breaking the circles of salt and other wards which keep the ghosts within the Underworld. They are however constantly working to locate 'new' and unguarded Shadowlands for their patrons to use to slip in and out of the underworld, which The Patron minds not one bit so long as they report them for the Adeptus Sororitatus/Frateris to seal in due course.

Though most of the people of Amarana are unaware of this fact the Ancestor Cultists are being controlled from behind the scenes by a Deathknight known as [[User:Nemo of Utopia/The Fluttering Fist of the Deadly Labyrinth|The Fluttering Fist of the Deadly Labyrinth]] he is a martial artist in service to The [[Mask of Winters]] who has wandered off on his own agenda far from thorns and The Mask's traditional area of operation. "The Fist" came to Amarana in search of a rumored cache of [[Autochthonian]] [[Soulsteel]], held in the vaults of the undercity, but has found that much of the undercity is sealed and inaccessible even from the [[Underworld]]. In the meantime, he works on the ancestor cultists as both a way to support himself and something to occupy his time while he trains to learn the charms that will allow him to enter the prehuman depths of the city where he hopes the bars of [[Autochthonian Soulsteel]] can be found.

Though the ghosts of Salaruku are numerous and very old surprisingly few of them are Heroic Ghosts and willing/able to serve as patrons for Amarana's ancestor cultists. Of those that do It is surprisingly four of the youngest ghosts that are the main patrons worshiped by the cultists: along with one exceedingly old ghost from the fall of Salaruku.

=== Xufuwne Onuke ===

The leader of Amarana's relatively large population of ghosts from the time of the fair folk invasion Onuke is frighteningly powerful but relatively easy going. He has outlasted Amarana's long dormancy and now looks forward to an era of joy and plenty for the city's dead. A dragon blooded warrior in life Onuke was killed battling the invaders from the wyld and in an odd twist of fate, they buried him with high honors. His tomb lies in the still mostly sand-covered western half of the city at the center of a small park and is one of the barest handful of areas in that region that have been excavated in advance of the main work. In form, Onuke looks like a typical dragon blooded of the shogunate, dressed in power armor and wielding a Daiklave. He has subsisted by hunting plasmic creatures for most of 700 years but welcomes the changes of the reborn city. Onuke is the cult's equivalent of a war god, a role he shoulders without complaint but also without relish.

=== Aruna the Defiant ===

Hailing from Chiaroscuro Aruna is the lover of Sharima, and they have many Ghost-blooded children together. They were maneuvered into the leadership of the cult by agents of [[The Archon of Apostasy]] who wished to have a shining example of ghost/mortal co-operation in Amarana to help people accept the death cult in their midst. The Archon's agents do not believe the plan is working but they are wrong, were it not for the two of them the cult would have been burned out root and branch. Aruna is a relatively young ghost but has become powerful quite quickly thanks to her lover and her association with various death cults. In appearance, Aruna looks like a young woman of the Delazen, beautiful and alluring for all her ghostly translucence and pallor. Aruna is the cult's patron of love and romance but gives short shrift to lust.

=== Emerald Lotus ===

Like her partner's Monkey of the City and Triumphal Eagle of the Flawless Hill, Emerald Lotus has been elevated to leadership by the machinations of the Patron, who decreed a feast day in their honor on the day of their deaths defending Amarana from an attack by a trio of 'Hounds of the Unbroken Earth'. None of them is experienced enough to really do the jobs that they have had thrust upon them but they all are rising to the challenge. Emerald Lotus resembles a typical woman of the deep south dressed in a white robe and headscarf that covers everything but her face, and overtop that a breastplate of steel. She is neither attractive nor ugly but is very charismatic. She carries an infinite jade chakram as her main weapon and also bears a perfect chopping sword for close fighting. Emerald Lotus is the patron 'deity' of the cult's Martial Artists, as she had some experience with that in life. She still is finding her feet as a ghost and defers to Xufuwne Onuke on most matters.

=== Monkey of the City ===

Dressed in lamellar and wielding a shock pike monkey of the city is not really suited to his role as a leader of an ancestor cult. Having been an outcast and wanderer in life who always tried to keep people happy and was quick with a joke or to share his water he has not changed much in death. However, there is a place for the fun and funny guy in any pantheon and Monkey of the City fills that role for the Ancestor Cultists of Amarana. Monkey of the City is the cult pantheon's trickster and comic relief, which he does not mind one bit.

=== Triumphal Eagle of the Flawless Hill ===

Wearing a Red Jade reenforced Buff Jacket Triumphal Eagle, or simply 'Der Aller'* as he prefers to be called, was not much of a warrior in life, but was on rotation for guard duty when the hounds attacked and were predictably killed by them. Buried with honors along with the rest of the four and then raised up as a patron spirit of the city he has persisted as a leader due largely to [[User:Nemo of Utopia/The_Patron_of_Amarana|The Patron]]'s favor and the fact that he is a very intelligent man, who is knowledgeable about many subjects. His role in the city's death cult is that of a spirit of wisdom and intellect, as well as oddly the patron, so to speak, of the Adeptus Aeronauticus.
*(Which means 'the Eagle' in his native tongue, a northern barbarian language...)

== Cult of the Illuminated ==

The Cult of the Illuminated has a relatively small and subtle presence in Amarana, but never-the-less are present. Their agents and activists walk among the cults dedicated to the various celestial exalted who have come to Amarana quietly preaching of the unity of creation and the duties of the 'Shining Ones' to be the leaders and stewards of creation. "Someday," they say. "All creation will be united behind the Shining Ones, and on that day those who have served them well will have rewards beyond their wildest dreams."

Among the 17 or so celestial exalted in the city 6 are allied with the Cult of the Illuminated, and some of the others are sympathizers. The CotI worshipers pray to most of them and work to support their interests.

= Geography =

Geographically Amarana lies at the point just before the sands of the deep desert fully give way to the rocky foothills of the summer mountains. When the spring rains sweep in from the north it is prone to flooding and mud, while the heat of high summer brings the blazing Simoon roaring out of the deep desert and with it short tempers and sharp words that sometimes flare into brutal murders. Winter is a season of joy and happiness for the citizen's of Amarana, as the power of the elemental pole of Air waxes and the desert is cooled, allowing snow to briefly form in the nearby summer mountains which are trucked into Amarana by old roads and made into flavored sherbets and snow cones for those with the Patron's favor, especially small children, of whom The Patron is known to be quite fond. The foothills around Amarana abound with resources brewed up by the slowly retreating Wyld or pushed from deep within the earth by the strange forces by which creation renews itself over the centuries, including many veins of silver from which Amarana mints its currency. Meanwhile, the desert around Amarana is rich with fire dust and gem sand, especially during the nights of the new moon when the Wyld retreats for several miles further south and exposes a wide swath of 'tainted' land, especially where the city has been slowly pushing the Wyld back by infecting it with billions of grains of what is essentially Elemental Earth. This area is hazardous as well however because the tainted area is not just composed of valuable sands, but also dangerous ones, such as quicksand, shatter sand, and hungry sand. For every person from Amarana who strikes it rich mining fire-dust or gem-sand in the tainted lands on the nights of the new moon, another finds themselves injured, killed, or mutated: in Amarana 'Firedust Miner' looks fair to rank among the top 5 'most dangerous professions' for the first year of recorded statistics in the city, right behind 'Rogue Spirit Protection Expert' and 'Pharmacist' but just ahead of 'Building Excavation Team Member' and 'Artifact Recovery Personnel'

Nearby Amarana is a number of Small Oasis, Hot Springs, and Geysers which have long provided the Salaru tribes with water. Though 90% of the tribesmen have returned to their ancestral home a few chose to stay out in the wastelands for one reason or another, and now gather into three new small tribes: the western, northern, and eastern Salaru.

To the west, the desert is hot by day and cold by night, with only trackless sand to greet your eyes, the Salaru who have stayed out in this wilderness journey mile upon mile between oasis that is often buried under the shifting sands and must be dug down to gather up their water. They survive by hunting snakes and lizards and trading fire dust and jewel sand with the Guild for added food and water. Though trade is their main source of contact with the outside they no longer must rely upon it or perish, with the total number of tribe's men in this region reduced by more than 95% they now can survive on their own without help, but it would be a spartan existence. Trade gives them luxuries and better equipment, which they put to good use. The western salaru do not keep herd beasts or in fact, any animals except hunting dogs, the land here is too harsh for this to be profitable. They worship many nature spirits, but few major deities except the Unconquered Sun, who is seen as a wrathful god of war and destruction, and Luna in her aspect as The White Navigator, who is seen as a benevolent and helpful deity. Though they honor the high holy days of the five maidens they are not much revered outside those times.

To the north, the Salaru who have not returned to their city are primarily herders and gatherers, as the foothills of the summer mountains provide old lava tubes and other places to hide from the sun by day and keep flocks dry when the rains come. Their life is perhaps the least harsh of the three new tribes since they have kept the most of their population, with only about 80% going to live in the city and in all cases leaving a few family members to mind the herds and ancestral cave or rock-cut house. They also were the most numerous of the Salaru before the return to Amarana, having six of the 10 Salaru tribes living in their region. and now are by far-and-away the most populous of the three 'outside' tribes. They also still contribute a good chunk of Amarana's food supplies, which means that even the Patron must treat with them on their terms. On the other hand, they know that the Patron, while a patient man, does have his limits and that their families back in Amarana would suffer first and worst if they cut off the shipments of food and other goods to the city, so they treat the Amaranaians with as much respect as they expect in return: so far the city and the northern tribe have a strong alliance of mutual benefit and support. The northern Salaru frequently revere Atlhat, the southern god of war and cattle, in addition, they also revere the Celestial Incarna and Gaia as well as many nature spirits.

The tribes to the east were always the most desirous to return to Amarana, for they could still see it's central tower sticking up out of the sand. However, when the time came, an influential leader named [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Sabris of the Two Spears|Sabris of the Two Spears]] convinced them that they should instead of all going back to the city leave some people behind and send their sons and daughters back into the summer mountains to live with those that stayed for two years as a right of passage. This has proved to their great advantage, for they now own the rights to much of the mineral wealth in the summer mountains near Amarana and have risen to be among the city's most wealthy families. The mountain Salaru were hunter/gatherers before Amarana's recovery and it is in this capacity that the children sent to the old mountain fastnesses must learn to survive when they are facing their Adavam Ordeal. The eastern Salaru mostly hold up a host of small gods for worship and revere the celestial Incarna on their high holy days. They are however the nearest things to atheists Creation has, feeling that if a person cannot survive without divine intervention then they are weaklings that must be excised from the gene pool. Many of them are swayed to a degree by the Immaculate faith but reject the idea that the Dragonblooded are creations, rightful rulers, their tribes have long memories and have heard the tales told by the Lunars of the perfidy of the Dragonblooded and the glory once created by the Solars, and twice in their exile have seen this glory first hand before the Dragonblooded showed up and ruined things.

To the south of the city, a wyld zone bleeds into reality for almost eight hundred miles from the maximum edge of the world. Though the city lies near the edge of this wyld zone it is not part of it, not even when the wyld storms blow in the autumn. This is perhaps partly because the city's strong geomancy prevents it from being absorbed or perhaps some form of potent first age artifact still protects the city as it did during the invasion so long ago. If the Patron knows he is not telling. Either way, there is and never has been a tribe of the Salaru to the south of the city. If the work they are doing to push back the wyld succeeds as well as it has been thus far, there may be, soon.

= Ethnicity =

Amarana is an ethnically mixed city, with people from all over creation having gathered in under its banner thanks to [[The Ghost/The Patron|The Patron's]] zero-tolerance policy towards slavery. In the main however the population is drawn from the peoples of the south, as escaping slaves are most able to reach Amarana from it's nearest neighbors, [[Virangia]] and [[The Delazen Empire]].

== The Salaru ==

Descendants of the people who fled Salaruku in the face of the Balorian Crusade the Salaru have waited a long time to return to their city. Composed of 10 culturally distinct tribes the Salaru make up an ever decreasing percentage of the city's population as more and more foreigners come to the city and settle in. That said the Salaru, though small in number, have a disproportionate impact on the city's culture and politics, due to knowing the lands surrounding Amarana like no one else and therefore having a vastly outsized amount of wealth and clout.

The Salaru are subdivided into the following tribes:

=== The White Scars ===

This tribe numbers about 50 and have long been ancestor worshipers, they have been swayed to the cause of the Ancestor Cultists. They take their name from the practice of ritual scarification of face and hands to tell one’s ancestry and chest to recount great deeds. The White Scars hail from the west of the city. The White Scars are a strangely secretive bunch, they keep their own council and follow their own guidance. Alone of the Salaru tribes, the White Scars have wholey emigrated to the city, abandoning their ancestral lands to the Western Salaru's care and finding employment within Amarana. Most of them agree that this has been a drastic improvement in their living conditions. Their ancestors, however, worry about grave robbers and frequently ask the members of the tribe with the skills to do so to go back and check on the old burial grounds.

=== The Golden Bulls ===

Originally hailing from the north of the city this tribe has been sun worshipers since time out of mind, and have naturally gravitated toward the Solarion's cause. They take their name from the bloodline of golden-haired cattle that they breed, tend, and guard, which according to legend were a gift from the champions of the sun during an age long past in recompense for their service defeating an army of the Raksha. The Golden Bulls are among the largest tribes of the Salaru, numbering some 300 strong counting both those that came into Amarana and those that stayed behind to be part of the Northern Salaru. They revere Atlhat and The Unconquered Sun as their patrons and are known for their skill as warriors though they are overmatched by some of the other tribes thanks to awakened essence and charms. The Golden Bulls are largely employed as butchers, health inspectors, and members of Amarana's army, while the large contingent that remained in their ancestral lands tend their herds of golden-haired cattle as they always have done, though they now drive the excess males to market in Amarana for slaughter rather than keeping them home. The Golden Bulls’ primary combat style is with spears and Bullhide Shields, with firedust grenades to break tight formations. They would not look out of place in Harborhead, and marriages between Harborhead immigrants and the young men and women of the tribe are not uncommon, though frowned upon by some of the tribe elders due to the harborheadite's attitudes towards slavery, which the tribe has always held as blasphemy.

=== The Get of Vexan ===

Often called simply 'the get' by outsiders this tribe calls themselves the 'Vexanites'. The get is descended from a powerful Lunar who lived among the Salaru for a century or so starting a few decades after the fair folk invasion was driven back by the Empress. The Vexanite's hold a secret: their tribe is led by a family of Serpent Beast Men founded by Vexan and preserved through complex webs of intermarriage with other serpent-folk from as far away as the silent crescent. The get is currently led by a charming and curvaceous young woman from the southeast jungles named Nyoka. What they do not yet know is that she is actually the modern incarnation of their founder's exaltation and has been having sex with one of the tribe's greatest warriors in her spirit form of a twenty-foot dragon snake in the hopes of bearing beast folk children. She walks among the tribe in her Warform, that of a great dragon-like serpent woman with the fangs and venom of a cobra and the wings and claws of a dragon. The Get hailed from the mountains east of Amarana.

=== The Iron Raptors ===

Though founded by a group of outlaws and murderers the Iron Raptors are ironically a major component of Amarana's police force. Having originated as an inner-city gang during the last days of the shogunate the Iron Raptors turned their coats when the fair folk came calling at the end of the contagion. They took hundreds of people out of the city through hidden tunnels and other smuggling routes: people who became the founders of the other Salaru tribes. Since then they have slowly moved from running protection rackets over the other tribes, to actually protecting them, to being their main form of law enforcement and wandering justiciars. Now that Amarana is resettled they have taken up the role of their distant ancestors' worst enemies, an irony that is not lost on Garion Cromarch. The Iron Raptors’ central holdings were to the north of Amarana but they wandered freely among the other tribes and in fact still do, being welcome among any of the other Salaru. They worship Garion Cromarch as their patron deity, but also revere a number of small gods of crime and larceny, propitiating them in recompense for reducing their portfolios and defeating their natural worshipers.

=== The Kelderkin ===

Another tribe from the city's north the Kelderkin are the descendants of Marion Kelder and are an agricultural matriarchy. They revere Gaia to the near exclusion of all other deities and hold that all other gods are really aspects of Gaia, subsidiary souls of the Maiden of Plenty. They are more right in this belief than most people realize. All Kelderkin women can trace their ancestry to Marion Kelder via one of her seventeen daughters, and which daughter you are a descendant of determines what your role in the tribe is. The only roles that are not decided by your ancestry are 3: Shaman, Champion, and Speaker. The Speakers are the leaders of the tribe and set it's policy, while the shamans and champions advise them and defend the tribe. Marion Kelder was a wood aspected dragon blooded and even to this day a Kelderkin man or woman will sometimes exalt as another wood aspect. Currently, there is one such person among the Kelderkin, Mwaloni Kelder who is a gifted archer and huntress that leads an all-female unit of other archers in the Amarana armed forces. She is also a sex addict and currently dating four separate men, two of which are identical twin Djala who regularly have Manage-a-Trois with her.

=== The Chosen of Flame ===

Hailing from the city's west The Chosen of Flame has been firedust gatherers for as long as anyone can remember. They gathered firedust far south of the city during the shogunate and came to Amarana to trade it. When the hosts of Fairie came sweeping in from the edge of the world after the great contagion they ran before them and were caught up in the exodus from Amarana, helping many of the civilized folk adapt to the desserts. The Chosen of Flames make up the lion’s share of the new western tribe, but even so, most of them have moved into the city and settled down as experts and factors in the firedust trade. They are a prosperous tribe that is in a state of transition as they adapt to being a settled people for the first time. Numbering approximately 75 persons in the city and an equal number now part of the Western Salaru the Chosen of Flame boasts several god-blooded among their number, and actively court new fire elemental unions. Their God Blooded include Gitchsune Folarabi, Malawi Besmar, and Kubrisa Suknis, among others.

=== The Iconographers ===

Among the tribes of the Salaru, few can argue that the Iconographers are not among the most learned and civilized. Hailing from the cities northeast they have preserved an astonishing amount of lore from the low first age, especially on the subject of geomancy. Now almost universally employed by the Patron excavating and repairing manses they are well off and respected. The Iconographers place great store by erudition and knowledge, and gain position and prestige among their own via a set of grueling examinations conducted by their tribe's patron spirits once every ten years, and always in old realm. Because of these tests of knowledge, the tribe is led by its elders, who have had the most time to study and learn, and they are prone to contemplation and thoughtfulness. Among other advantages this has gifted them with is the possession of five small Manses outside the city, raised after the city's abandonment by their own hands. These manses have made their ancestral lands fertile and bountiful, making them one of the largest salaru tribes with 200 members in five small villages around the Manses before they emigrated to Amarana. Of all the tribes their desire to return to the city was among the greatest, but they did leave one family behind in each village to see to its welfare and upkeep in perpetration for their Descendents and those selected to join them by the Patron returning. The Iconographers in city number 175 or so and are very much in the Patron's camp. They are led by [[User:Nemo of Utopia/SukiwaraMadoka|Sukiwara Madoka]], a god blooded thaumaturge of advanced years and not inconsiderable skill.

=== The Eisil ===

As a tribe of pastoral hunters and gatherers in the city's eastern area, the Eisil would not be remarkable except for the fact that they are master storytellers and thespians. The role of Storyteller is the most honored position within their culture and many people aspire to it but few succeed. Their greatest tale is that of Sakarazat, a woman who was taken captive by a rapacious dragon blooded lord and over the course of two and a bit years told him a thousand stories which prevented him from killing her, and in the end, led the dragon blooded to let her go. Now that the Eisil have returned to Amarana they are mostly working at simple jobs like sand clearer or coachman (They have long preserved the arts of chariot racing as part of their festivals.) but a significant number of them now take the long-coveted role of storyteller or actor, and are among the best in the city, being sought out by talent scouts and stage managers for private and public engagements. The Eisil hail from the high mountains east of Amarana where the snow falls in winter, they are paler complected than most Salaru and have massive barrel chests from dealing with the thin air.

=== The Mantis Tribe ===

From the northwest of the city, the Mantis tribe straddle the border between the desert and the foothills of the Amaranaian lands. They have survived by placing great store by martial arts and awakened essence, and among their number only the young typically do not have awakened essence, nearly everyone over the age of 25 has mastered this basic precept. By the age of 30, most people have achieved the form type charm of one of the 5 main martial arts of the tribe, and by the time they reach venerable status at 65, nearly everyone is a master of their chosen style. This has allowed the Mantis Tribe to become large and prosperous but puts them in an uncomfortable position of being alternately feared and nearly worshiped by the other tribes, who look to them for protection from spirits and demons. It also puts them in another uncomfortable position: their various schools of martial arts do not always get along, and more than once the tribe has been wracked by internal strife, especially between the members that adhere to the Immaculate Philosophy and the people that worship the local gods outside that framework. At the moment it seems like the tribe is heading for another such civil war, and this time it may drag the whole city into it.

=== The Broad ===

Alone of the Salaru the Broad actually hate the Patron. The Broad was from the uttermost western areas of the Salaru and also alone among their number made a common practice of keeping slaves, but not so much for the purpose of having them work for the tribe but rather to sell to the guild. They ranged far among the sandy wastes waring with members of other tribes and capturing them to sell for the supplies they needed to survive and prosper. Many among their number were heroic mortals and with the exception of the Mantis Tribe and the Chosen of Fire they boasted the most members with awakened essence and/or god-blood. They also served as a dumping ground for the criminal and malcontents of the other tribes leading them to be less cordial with the rest of the Salaru than any other tribe. However, even the Broad wished to return to Amarana enough to give up their slave taking practices, at least, some of them did. When the Patron decreed all people of Amarana Free men and women shortly before the Guild arrived the Broad fractured over whether to return to their ancestral homeland or remain in the wastes and live as they had done for centuries. In the end, the tribe split 60/40 in favor of returning to Amarana and becoming part of the new society, but the 40% that remained in the wastes no longer consider themselves beholden to the Patron, Amarana, or even the Salaru. These people, called by their former associates The Red Broad are now considered outlaws brigands by the Amaranaian government and hunted whenever they stray close to the fifty-foot Glass Pillars that mark the borders of the Amaranaian lands. They are firmly in the camp of the Guild's Men and infiltrate the city regularly to capture and smuggle out valuable slaves that have escaped to Amarana from other lands.
The 60% of the tribe that has returned to the city are in the camp of the Death Cultists since the Broad were by and large ancestor worshipers before they returned to Amarana and see no reason to change that now. Calling themselves 'The Green Broad' they have no love for the patron but do love their city and will fight to the death to defend it. Most of them are now members of the city's military and are locked in a bitter feud with their former tribesmen. The members of this tribe that are not military mostly work as overseers for the small but growing cadres of 'indentured servants' kept by the city government in punishment for some of the most heinous crimes such as rape and enslaving another person.

=== The Western Salaru ===

=== The Northern Salaru ===

=== The Eastern Salaru ===

== The Djala ==

The D'jala are a sub-faction of the Patriots at the present time. Having been liberated by the Patron from their enslavement by many people who have brought them to the city in bondage they are fanatical partisans of the city's leader and from a major component of his power base. The Djala form five small tribes into which new arrivals are folded by ties of kinship, alliance, or marriage within weeks of arrival. The number of newly married Djala in the city is staggering, easily 40% of all new arrivals are pushed into marriages within a month of becoming residents, and somehow nearly all these mirages are happy ones. What the Djala elders know but have not officially publicized is that one of the Djala's patron gods is an old drinking buddy of [[The Ghost/Meroka Jin|Meroka Jin]] and has called in a favor with the minister of romance and love to arrange this happy state of affairs for his people in the city. This is not going to last, because [[The Ghost/Sakarzi|Sakarzi]] is going to start screwing around with them, but for the moment she is distracted by her work with the death cult.

== Varangians ==

== The Delazen ==

== Deep Southerners ==

Nemo of Utopia/Amarana

2020-07-14T12:37:51Z

Nemo of Utopia: /* Garion Cromarch */

Amarana is a first age city, lost to the contagion and the fair folk invasion over 700 years ago. It is now coming back to life under the aegis of [[User:Nemo of Utopia/The_Patron_of_Amarana|The Patron]] who wields the power of the [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Five_Signs_of_Harmonic_Unity|Five Signs of Harmonic Unity]].

= Amarana =

Amarana Is comprised of a large area surrounded by a circular wall. At the edge of that wall are twelve triangular towers that contain the major military resources of the city. Of these towers, eight have been fully excavated, and the ninth is being examined and the sand removed even now.

Within the city is organized into four quarters but only two of them are even partially excavated, the two on the eastern side of the city, and even there many buildings still slowly seep sand into the streets out of cracked windowpanes and the door seems. The buildings of Amarana tend to a certain Egyptian flare or perhaps it would be better to say pre-Arabic since they are after all, by and large, the product of the low first age. The buildings are built of a quasi imperishable ceramic that resembles adobe, with the most significant having windows of Chiaroscuro Glass and doors made of either that same substance or Stainless Steel. Buildings are generally between six and ten stories high with essence powered air conditioning and elevators both of which the Patron must personally repair before the building becomes usable again.

Unlike many old realm cities, Amarana is laid out on a grid, instead of in a radial pattern. This gives a geomantic bonus to the people who live there: namely that mortals gain +1 XP per time XP is awarded. This bonus actually accrues every half year if using long term awards. The players can uncover this information with a dif10 [wits + occult] roll once every month they spend in the city beginning on the second day they are here. The bonus only applies to true mortals, not god blooded, ghost blooded, awakened Martial artists or any exalt, but does apply to dragon kings and jadeborn who are not Artisans.

So far roughly half of the city has been uncovered, but even here there are a lot of buildings that are collapsed, or still filled with sand and roped off with red cables and even more locations where there are red cables indicating small shadowlands or dimenses that are not to be approached until the city can close/cap them.

The excavation is proceeding irregularly, moving from the east wall out toward the west except around the central manse and the road from the north gate to the south gate. There are markets in most squares and a number of shops on the ground floors of buildings. Few merchants here are officially affiliated with the guild since many people in the city are escaped guild slaves and loath the guild vehemently.

Nearly everything except slaves is available for sale, including many products from The Wyld. Firewands and Flame Pieces are the core of the weapons markets along with accessories such as bayonets, powder horns, and pieces of flint or obsidian for strikers. Interestingly Cannons are not for sale, being reserved for the government, but anyone with contacts 2 or higher could find someone who knows someone who could get a permit for purchasing a few for export. Armoring is more advanced, and even some artifact armors are for sale, though they would be a resource 4 purchase at minimum, and that is for the simple stuff like Jade breastplates. Things like Yuroy Scout armor are beyond the means of anyone in the party, though, that comes up for sale very rarely except through illegal channels. Jade Full Plate and Super Heavy Plate are more commonly available, in fact, there are people in the city that can be commissioned to make it. Orichalcum and Monsilver are not commissionable but in the still covered parts of the city are facilities to work it. There are no facilities in the city for Soulsteel or Starmetal, but there is a workshop in one manse that has been uncovered to work Adamant, though finding any to use would require Wyld Cauldron Technology and spending XP: such is the life of the Exalted...

There are a number of Inns, Caravanserai, and Hostels near the city gates, while further in nearly every corner of an inhabited area has at least one restaurant or coffee shop. Tea houses, by comparison, are rare, and true bars are unusual enough to be remarked upon when a new one is found. Most living quarters do not have kitchens, which is why many hab towers which have been excavated don't have permanent residents and so many restaurants can stay open. Many restaurants, in fact, rent themselves out to people wishing to cook for their families or are owned by consortiums of citizens who hold them in common for communal cooking with contracts for use and upkeep requirements.

All of the city's roads are at least 20 feet wide, plus a five-foot sidewalk to either side. This is for the smallest streets, most are 40 feet wide with sidewalk and a few main thoroughfares are 60 feet wide. The streets keep themselves magically clean once each section is repaired by the Patron, but only a very few sections are repaired and many people who work as street sweepers clearing sand wish for it to stay that way. (Each 10'x10' section is a different artifact and must be individually repaired. There is one street in the city's west that is a first age relic and still working. However it can only affect things up to 30 feet above itself, so it is a long tunnel of a clear street bounded on all sides by packed sand.) The streets are made of fitted 5'x5'x1' blocks of granite, and one can sometimes determine which part of the city one is in by the color of the streets. The northeast the blocks are blue and green, the southeast red and green, the southwest red and black and the northwest blue and black. The city’s four central parkways are each a solid color relating to their element and 40' wide on each side and the grand square around the central manse is white and 60' wide at its narrowest point. However many streets were repaired with gray, white, or red granite toward the end of the shogunate and are not properly color-coded.

The City has at least 5' of clearance between all buildings: meaning that there are many allies in which one can get lost. You can often tell which parts are in use and which are unoccupied by weather there is sand filling the allies or they are clear.

== Manses and Demesnes of Amarana ==
Amarana was at one time subject to major geomantic engineering projects that gave it a large number of demesnes and then manses relative to its size. Most of those manses are still here, still active, and even now being located and excavated. A few, however, were partially unstable and have long since exploded. These few are roped off as dangerous and plans are underway to re-cap them, led of course by the Patron. Note that there are more manses and demesnes within the city that have not yet been found and that at one time there were even MORE demesnes in the city which have collapsed into a dormant state due to the changes in the city's essence flows and could be reactivated with the appropriate rituals once the city is fully excavated and geomantic remapped, these demesnes, however, were all small ones, level 2 at the most, so whether such effort is worth it in the short term, or even a good idea, is debatable. See [[Nemo of Utopia/MansesandDemesnesofAmarana|Manses and Demesnes of Amarana]] for further information.

= History =

== Prehistory ==

Though most do not know it Amarana's deepest foundations were laid in an era long past by the [[Dragons Kings]]. The City flourished in the age between the advent of humanity and the [[Primordial War]] with many of the first exalted visiting the place at one time or another in the several decades of the lead up to the overthrow of the Primordials. Then when the war began the city was wreathed in the destruction by one of the superweapons of the masters of creation, utterly annihilating most of those that dwelt therein and reducing the city to a smoking crater of volcanic glass. Still, beneath the burned and blackened surface, some parts of the old under city survived, and wait there still.

== The First Age ==

During the First Age many of the survivors of the primordial war remembered their time in 'Highana' fondly and after excavating much of the old substrate and leveling off the damaged areas to make way for new constructions raised up a new city on the site of the old. This city was dubbed 'Solzarian' in honor of [[The Unconquered Sun]] and in memorial to the Great Dragon King lady who had ruled the city so well and wisely ere it's annihilation. The City would remain a significant but out-of-the-way part of the Old Realm all the way through the first age.

=== The Ocher Fountain Era ===

During the beginning of the First Age when [[Queen Merela]] ruled over all creation from the eternal capital of [[Rathess]] Solzarian was still being reconstructed, and there was little of note that occurred in the city. One event, in particular, was notable, however: the Conclave of Solzarian in year 99 of the old realm, a symposium on the rights and freedoms of the people of creation which some in later years would argue laid the foundations of the Meru Uprising which led to the formation of the Deliberative.

=== The First Deliberative Era ===

By the time of the founding of the [[Deliberative]], the reconstruction of Solzarian was largely complete, and over the next few decades, the city became a favored retreat for both Solars and Lunars seeking to get the heck out of Meru and the stifling politics of the great city. One of Marela's closest allies [[Nemo of Utopia/Angus the Wirehair|Angus the Wirehair]] was given the rule of the city as part of the division of creation into fiefdoms and made it his personal residence. Under Angus rule, the city prospered, though it, by-and-large, remained a backwater compared to such metropolises as [[Chiaroscuro]] and Rathess. However, thanks to its solar overlord and his close relationship to the Queen of all Creation the city began the long process of incredible geomantic engineering which would in time lead to it being known as 'The City of Manses'.

=== Unfurling Horizon Era ===

While this era of creation went by largely without incident of significant note at this remove of history it is still recorded that many of the great efforts to explore and expand the borders of Creation in the south used Solzarian as a staging ground or stopover point before plunging into the true wilderness at creation's rim. This continued to encourage the exalted to play 'tourist' in the city and helped keep its economy vibrant. It is also noted in some histories that there was a major strike of [[Red Jade]] near the city in 811 which produced a 'Jade Rush' led by two rival Dragon-Blooded brothers and their servants which escalated into a short civil war in the city 2 years later in which significant damage was done to the city's infrastructure by all three* factions. The Civil War was only halted when [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Angus the Wirehair|Angus the Wirehair]] returned from Meru at the head of a wing of elite Dragon-Blooded shock troops and brutally suppressed both rival groups with mass arrests and a number of executions. (What happened to the brothers is unknown, but their names do not reappear in the historic record for 700 years, and at that time associated with different elemental aspects leading most scholars to conclude that they were 'dealt with' privately by their family.)
*(The Two consortia backing the rival brothers and the cities law enforcement detachments.)

==== The Aftershock War ====

In spite of the growing significance of the city and it's powerful assets in terms of equipment and hearthstones, Solzarian was not at first much involved in the Aftershock War. Passed over in favor of more militarily significant targets by the Primordial Forces the city did not come under fire until 1131 when a force of some 3000 first circle demons led by a trio of 2nd circle demons assaulted the city in the dead of night via a fleet of living airships. The 'Battle of Solzarian' was considered a significant victory for the forces of creation due to the large number of [[Golden Janissary Style]] practitioners in the city who were able to make fairly short work of the first circle demons allowing the detachment of Dragon-Blooded stationed in the city to confront the second circle demon commanders and dispatch them.

However the war was not all glorious victory for the people of Solzarain, [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Angus the Wirehair|Angus the Wirehair]] went missing during the final battle with the primordial forces and would not be seen again for over 500 years. For most of that time, he was presumed dead by the people of the city, though the Solar Exalted knew better as his shard had not found a new host.

=== Shining Reflection Era ===

During this period Solzarian loses much of its former significance as the seat of one of Marela's close allies. Few of the Exalted visit the city and the grand engineering projects grind to a near halt. The only events of great significance that occur here are two:
1: The Duel of the Magisters in 1313 where the reincarnations of Theis, Leelah, and Sonah engage in a duel of sorceress power which damages large sections of the city and forces all three of them to be censured by Marela herself: And;
2: In 1492 a major strike of Orichalcum is made a few hundred miles south of the city, and Solzarian becomes a stepping off point for prospectors of every stripe looking to get rich quick mining Orichalcum. The City's economy runs strong off this sudden influx of cash, people, and goods for the next 30 years.

=== Thousand Struggles Era ===

The first part of this period proceeds much from the previous one: everyone is aware that one of the legendary solar exalted has died of old age, but this makes little difference to the struggling backwater that Solzarian has become: then in 1776 everything changes.

In the Records of Solzarian 1776 is called: 'The Year of the Thousand' for the massive wave of change that swept over the city this year. The First thing that happens is [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Angus the Wirehair|Angus the Wirehair]] 'returns from the dead' on the 11th of Ascending Water storming into the city with a small group of Solars, Lunars, and Siderials and calling everyone he can reach into the city with him to face what he calls 'The Storm of the Millennium'. Ten days later the storm arrives and following in behind it a host of the fair folk the likes of which has not been seen in centuries. The city is invested and besieged for two months by the Faerie Host and the siege is only broken by the arrival of four full realm legions armed with Cold Iron. Once the Fair Folk are driven back and the city is again secure Angus orders most of the city leveled and an engineering project the like of which the city has not seen in over half a millennium undertaken to extensively alter its geomancy. To finance this undertaking he produces several tons of jade, from what source none can say, and uses his Wyld Shaping charms, which until his return no one knew he possessed, to manufacture the raw materials needed from the chaotic energy left behind by the Fair Folk.

However, no sooner was the project underway than orders came down from the Queen that he was to return to [[Meru]] at once and answer for his absence: and bound by the oaths he took as one of the [[Golden Hero Vassals]] so very long ago he departs. Following up on the plans he has left behind his circle mate [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Levian of the Gilded Staff|Levian of the Gilded Staff]] begins directing the super-massive construction and engineering projects which will if successful create one of the greatest concentrations of manses and geomantic relays outside of the Blessed Isle. By late in Descending fire half the city is gone and an entirely new street plan and so on is rising in its place, along with a massive upgrade to the walls and towers of the city perimeter as well.

What exactly passed for Angus in Meru is unrecorded by any presently known records except perhaps those of the Bureau of Destiny but what is recorded is the results of that visit: Angus was stripped of the rulership of his fief in the south including Solzarian and sent on a quest of penance into the frozen north: while Solzarian and the surrounding area was given into the hands of a relatively young solar of the Twilight Caste from another circle named [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Keisha Adriana Mullion|Keisha Adriana Mullion]] and her lunar mate [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Maxim of Personal Liberty|Maxim of Personal Liberty]].

While Keisha was young she was not stupid and consulted with Levian of the Gilded Staff on what she was doing with the engineering of the city. With the elder Twilight's help, she finished the geomantic reorganization as designed by Angus and by the end of Resplendent Air the basic project is finished. The city is now rife with uncapped demesnes and sites that will become demesnes once they can be activated after some of the others are capped. The city also now confers a geomantic bonus on all mortals living there, allowing them to develop their skills and abilities more quickly than those living in other cities. The full culmination of the project with the activation and capping of all demesnes will not be complete for another 36 years.

==== Time of Cascading Years ====

The Time of Cascading Years took rather longer in Solzarian and the surrounding area than it did in most of Creation: 3333 years to be precise. The relatively young solar ruler who went into the Time of Cascading Years and her only slightly more experienced Lunar Spouse emerges from it with a weight of skill and refinement which makes them elders among the solars and lunars. They also are now both arrayed with a panoply of artifacts and charms that make them forces to be reckoned with in the new Deliberative. The passage of the 'Age of Isolation' in Solzarian is marked by a number of rebellions and uprisings, and the invasion of their lands by the fair folk towards the end of it, from whence none, can say. Supposedly it was the destruction of an artifact which the Raksha Commander carried which restore time to its normal flow according to the people of Solzarian.

=== Second Deliberative Era ===

During the [[User:Nemo of Utopia/PeriodofLongSilence|Period of Long Silence]] Solzarain is one of the few areas still doing significant research, though they are hampered by the continuing disunity of creation and the fearfulness of creation's mortals who are all accustomed to traveling too far from home casting you into a different timeline.

With the Establishment of the new deliberative however Solzarian is thrust into the spotlight for around a hundred years as the home and workshop of one of the most important [[User:Nemo of Utopia:NPCCreationGuidelines/Exalted/FirstAge/Solar/TwilightCaste|Copper Spiders]] of the deliberative. During this period the city is a known destination for the many young Twilight-caste members who were reborn following the restoration of time's proper flow.

As this era goes on however Solzarian becomes less and less important with the rebuilding of the rest of creation, the other Twilights drift away to rule their own fiefs and work on their own projects and as has happened before Solzarian's position far from most significant events of history both at the center of creation and at its rim mean it becomes a backwater. Even it's solar and lunar rulers spend more time in Meru than at home, leaving the city in the hands of [[User:Nemo of Utopia:NPCCreationGuidelines/Exalted/FirstAge/Dragonblooded/Top|Dragon Blooded]] legates.

=== Era of Dreams ===

During the first part of the Era of Dreams, though Solzarian flourishes on the mundane level it remains a backwater on the scales by which The Realm measures such things: a functional and unimportant city in a functional but unimportant section of the world. It does, however, receive an [[IAM|I AM]] Transmission Node linking it to the broader network of information which now spans creation.

Then in the year 3381, it's twilight caste ruler is goaded into violating her eclipse oath to not attack other celestial exalted in Meru, setting in motion a chain of events that will alter the shape of Solzarian's fate for centuries to come, and that of the rest of creation. At first, the botches come hard and heavy, but then they stop and [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Keisha Adriana Mullion|Keisha]] thinks the oath's punishment has run its course.

It has not.

Returning to her holding in the south she begins to work on constructing a [[Proto Shinmatic Vortex]] and at a key stage of the process, the final botch of set activates and the PSV explodes, killing Keisha and creating an intense Wyld Zone south of the city over a hundred miles wide.

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/MaximofPersonalLiberty|Maxim of Personal Liberty]] calls upon every favor he has and even takes on new obligations to arrange the deliberative sending experts at Wyld Shaping to close the rift in the fabric of reality, but the people sent are not the high essence Solars and Lunars he hoped for but rather a cadre of neophytes who have scarce mastered Wyld Cauldron Technology and are woefully unprepared for the madness of the deep Wyld which exists within the rift. Three of them die before the other two calls it quits leaving the Wyld Zone barely stabilized around its edges. It is unrecorded at this remove what keeps the deliberative busy and the more powerful Wyld shapers tied up, but it will not be for another 3 decades that the Wyld zone is fully dealt with and that not by an individual any more experienced than the ones first dispatched, though with far greater caution than the first circle that was sent showed.

== The Usurpation ==

== The Shogunate ==

== The Fall & The Second Age ==

== The Rebirth ==

In RY 760, that same year where so very much else changed for creation (763 in normal Chronicles): the man who

= Government =

In basic, the Government of Amarana really consists of a single man: [[User:Nemo of Utopia/The Patron of Amarana|The Patron]]. He is an autocrat, ruling by divine mandate and shier power, as he is capable of defeating significant deities in single combat. However the Patron is one man, and as such has organized his subjects with several branches of what we would consider a more normal government. This normal government is organized into twelve 'Adeptus' which each is led by one of the twelve 'High Lords of Amarana'. These twelve powerful individuals form a council that advises and assists The Patron in his leadership of the city, feeding him data on several topics such as the state of his subject's religious convictions or the preparedness of his military. Though each High Lord is immensely powerful they all are The Patron's fanatical partisans and would not dream of challenging his authority, even if they could.

== The Adeptus Millitate ==

The Adeptus Millitate is one of the largest branches of Amarana's government, with no fewer than 1250 members in all its branches and subgroups. Though officially in charge of Amarana's Armed services it has a rival in The Adeptus Aeronauticus who oversee Amarana's air-forces. The Adeptus Millitate is run by [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Fist of the Land|Fist of the Land]] a God-Blooded martial artist who is somewhat uncomfortable leading an army of over a thousand people.

The Adeptus Millitate has the following departments and offices:

=== The Departmento Munitorum ===

Oversees the acquisition and care of the equipment and supplies for the army.

==== The Officio Technis ====

Deals with the army's Magitech assets.

==== The Officio Cibum ====

Oversees the all-important function of providing provisions for the troops.

==== The Officio Armorium ====

Handles the more mundane arms and armor of Amarana's troops.

==== The Officio Quartium ====

… is responsible for most everything else, from tents to uniforms to bedrolls.

=== The Departmento Servicum ===

Oversees the actual troops and officers and their training regimens.

==== The Officio Acadamicain Legionarius ====

This office oversees the training of new recruits and officers running two training schools for them.

==== The Officio Cooptatione Legionarius ====

This is the group that sees-to the recruitment and if necessary conscription of new troops for the army.

=== The Departmento Latrocinium ===

Oversees the hiring and 'control' of any mercenary units the government employs but is better known for a more sinister function.

==== The Officio Mercenarius ====

Does the Hiring and Firing of actual mercenaries.

==== The Officio Assasinoritum ====

'The Office of Assassins', to use the Vulgate, runs at least four secret dojos training mortal agents in martial arts that facilitate them serving as The Patron's spies and assassins. [[Nemo of Utopia/Assassin of the Grey Spire|Assassin of the Grey Spire]] 'leads' this office: He is ''not'' a master of the White Veil Style of martial arts and has most ''definitely not'' taught many of its members this secret art form. (Nudge nudge, wink wink, know what I mean, know what I mean? Say no more, say no more!)

=== The Officio Adminstrad Militate ===

This 'Floating Office' makes sure that all of the other Departmento and Oficio within this Adeptus do their jobs properly.

== The Adeptus Arbitiese ==

The Adeptus Arbitese oversee Amarana's police forces, and are one of the larger branches of the government with only 150 individuals on staff, counting every beat cop all the way on up to the High Lord Herself as well as all the file clerks and so on that work for the Adeptus but are not actually part of it's 'fighting strength'. They have only one Departmento and less than a dozen Officio, but so far are keeping a lid on the political turmoil of the city. The High Lord of the Arbitese is [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Steel Garden|Steel Garden]] who is not a very good investigator but a decent politician and capable administrator.

=== The Departmento Queastorum ===

This department is responsible for making inquiries and investigating crime, thus far it is the only Department of the Adeptus Arbitese but the Officio Correctionibus is expected to become a departmento in its own right someday.

==== The Officio Homicide ====

The Office of Homicide consists of only eight people, four detectives, three CSI techs, and one overworked file clerk. Their closure rate hovers at around 50%, though that is only due to them being able to count any suspect killed by the ghost of the victim as a closed case. [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Laurel the Axe|Laurel the Axe]] is the unofficial leader of this group but officially they answer directly to the High Lord of the Arbitese.

==== The Officio Servus Aucupes ====

The term 'office of slave catchers' is something of a misnomer. These detectives do not catch slaves, rather they catch people keeping, taking, or recapturing slaves and send them to their just punishments. This office consists of five overworked personnel, two detectives, two forensic accountants, and one file clerk. Their closure rate is around 30% since it is hard to prove that someone was a slaver without catching them in the act.

==== The Officio Vitium ====

Unlike the officio above this office is not quite so overworked, and the two often help each other out because their work frequently overlaps. The 'Vice Squad' mostly concerns itself with drugs and prostitution, since licensed gambling establishments and most pornography are both legal in Amarana. The officio consists of Four Detectives, five undercover officers, three CSI techs, and a harried file clerk. Their Closure rate is about 45%.

==== The Officio Interioribus ====

This Officio is more for show than anything since all of Amarana's police are held by the Stone of Invincible Loyalty. It consists of two Detectives and one Forensic Accountant. They often spend their time quietly helping out other offices.

==== The Officio Fraude Aucupes ====

This is actually one of the larger offices within the Arbities, having eleven total personnel, six detectives, three forensic accountants, a CSI tech, and a file clerk. The office tries to keep a lid on the Guild and others defrauding Amarana's citizens through various means and does a fairly good job. Their closure rate is about 70%, though this is largely due to a lot of success catching many small-fry while the remaining 30% is almost all of the big players.

==== The Ofiicio Fures ====

The 'office of thieves' is responsible for all break-ins, burglaries, purse snatchings, muggings, cutpurses, and so forth in the city. In spite of having eight detectives, five undercover agents, six CSI, four Forensic Accountants, and five file clerks their closure rate is about 12%. Garion Cromarch is frankly disgusted with them and has told The Patron so. The Patron knows they are doing their best but has ordered mandatory additional training for all members of this office.

==== The Officio Pax Patronum ====

The remainder of the police force is in this office. These are the beat cops that enforce the law by their presence and vigilance. Amarana is a large city and they constantly must be on the lookout for any kind of crime but especially things like drunk and disorderly, disturbing the peace, making an affray, and so on. This office consists of 57 patrol officers and over a dozen file clerks. Twelve of these officers are part of a sub-office of 'Mounties' who do their patrols in teams of three on horseback, they are often called in to suppress larger riots. The officers always patrol in teams of three, one to watch the front of a building and two to look around the sides and catch criminals in a pincer movement. They all carry magitech com units that let them use Wind Carried Words Technique and have Linguistics 3. (Their closure rate is not applicable since they work out of elven precincts and each one has a different closure rate.) One of these officers does not need a comms unit: being a dragon blooded air aspect outcaste named [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Secret Eagle|Secret Eagle]]. They have offered to promote him many times, but he prefers to be a patrol officer, though he has deigned to accept the rank of patrol sergeant for the fourth precinct.

=== The Officio Correctionibus ===

The office of corrections deals with the punishment rather than the apprehension side of crime. They are chronically overworked and typically have more criminals than they know what to do with but manage to do their jobs adequately. This floating office is overseen by Iron Sands, a member of The Broad who has lots of experience getting slaves to do as they are bid.

== The Adeptus Judicate ==

Working closely with the Adeptus Arbites the Adeptus Judicate is the other half of the justice system. These are the many Judges, Lawyers, and Clerks of the Court who make sure that the innocent are not punished with the guilty. At the present time, the Adeptus Judicate consists of 11 judges, 15 prosecuting attorneys, 23 Attorneys of Due Justice (Public Defenders.), 42 'Clerks of the Court' who record and file all rulings and court-ordered contracts, and 17 "Agent's Protection" who follow up on inconsistencies in court records and the welfare of Amarana's citizens in cases such as child abuse allegations and locating jurors that fail to show up for a trial. There are also about 200 private attorneys who are technically part of this Adeptus but not part of the government. The High Lord of the Courts is [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Molly McBride|Molly McBride]] a Demon Blooded northerner who has spent her whole life fighting against injustice and corruption in every form.

Additionally [[User:Nemo of Utopia/The_Patron_of_Amarana|The Patron]] himself is technically also a member of this branch as he has the right to sit in judgment if he chooses on all High Crimes and acts of Treason. He has invoked this right exactly once, mostly to prove that he could. (The person in question was found "Not Guilty by Reason of Insanity" and sentenced to lifetime confinement to a mental institution pending treatment or cure of his condition. He stood accused of twelve counts of grand theft, but psychoanalysis found him to be a kleptomaniac. The police often consult him on serial theft cases, and he is actually fairly good at solving them. However, he does have a problem with stealing other patients’ belongings and the doctor's pens and notebooks.)

Trials are in the American/British style, with a 'jury of one's peers' and the judge presiding from the high seat. The witness's sit to the judge's left and the clerk to the right. The prosecutors are on the left side of the courtroom and the Jury the Right while the accused is in the middle. Unless the accused is elderly or crippled and unable to stand they may not sit. For this reason, individual segments of trial must last no more than 3 hours. Only citizens may serve as witnesses, but since one can at the present time become a citizen after 24 hours residency this is not a problem. Citizens MAY testify with respect to events from before their citizenship. The accused is entitled to an 'Attorney of Due Justice' in the event that they cannot retain their own private counsel. The judge may dismiss any case at any time with or without prejudice, which is done routinely with respect to picayune or spurious civil cases so as to free up Attorneys of Due Justice for criminal trials. The patron is looking into finding more Judges and Attorneys of Due Justice so that civil cases do not need to be dismissed so frequently, which has a distressing tendency to lead to murder.

Abnormally The Adeptus Judicate does not have any departmento or officio, but there are those within it and without that are bucking to change that.

== The Adeptus Sororitatus ==

The 'Sisterhood' as they are called by the common folk is the government Adepta that oversees all _female_ clerics and thaumaturges in Amarana Like their Counterparts in the Adeptus Fratris they are few in number but powerful in influence. Technically also responsible for the worship of all-female gods in the city it is common that women will be priests of male deities and men prelates of a goddess's church. The division of male and female clergy between the AS and AF, however, is strict while the division of deities wavers like the landscape in the summer heat. In spite of these difficulties, the two branches of government get along quite well and cooperation between them is without rancor or strife in most cases. The High Lady of the Adepta is [[Nemo of Utopia/Unrepentant Emerald|Unrepentant Emerald]]. She is a mortal with Enlightened Essence and is exceedingly circumspect in her actions, a paragon of temperance. She is also the head priestess of [[Nemo of Utopia/Amarana Seline|Amarana Seline]].

=== The Officio Festivalius ===

This floating office submits to The Patron which days and locations should have festivals to honor the goddess' of the city. A circle of female clergy decide these events and pass them on to the patron, who generally approves them without comment. This circle is chaired by Unrepentant Emerald.

=== The Departmento Eclesiast ===

This is the main branch of the Adepta, overseeing and licensing all _female_ clergy in Amarana. The department technically consists of all licensed female clergy in the city but in practice, most of the female clergy get their licenses and are about their business having no further interaction with the government except to re-up their licenses once a year.

==== The Officio Licentiae ====

This officio handles the licensing process for all official priestesses, which requires proving you have the following capabilities: Ability to speak and read Old Realm, Basic knowledge of Spiritual Etiquette, (At least 3 dots in occult or 1 + an appropriate specialty.) and training in proper prayer procedures. (Prayer roll performance pool of at least 5 dice.) These requirements may be waived if the cleric has a 'sponsor' with a proper license who is taking on the new cleric as a student to train in service to their god/goddess in which case a 'Postulant Permit' is issued instead. Licenses are issued per deity, so if you wish to be the clergy of multiple gods multiple licenses are required. This is waived in the case of Zenith-caste Solars, Theurge-caste "New-Method"-Lunars, "Redemer"-caste Infernals, and Midnight-caste Abyssals, since it would be more trouble than it is worth to issue a license for every god in creation (for the first two), every each of the recovering yozis and all the greater demons (Redeemers), or ghost above essence 3 in the underworld (Midnight-castes).

==== The Officio Sanctionite ====

This is a smaller office within the departmento, making recommendations to The Patron on which female deities should be given official sanction within Amarana. All the female deities mentioned under the Religion section are sanctioned unless noted otherwise. Being unsanctioned does not mean you cannot be worshiped, but it does mean that you cannot have space allocated for a temple or licensed clergy. Sanctioning however is fairly easy to get since The Patron often simply signs the forms without reading them. (Additionally, all the incarnae are sanctioned, + Gaia and the Dragons.)

==== The Officio Hetterodox ====

This office deals with instances of rogue gods and clergy, such as the notorious Tuggie of the Scavenger Lands and other instances where the celestial bureaucracy has broken down to an unacceptable level. Employing many outside contractors they put spirits who demand illicit worship or sapient sacrifice in their places and also hunt rogue demons and the fair folk's ravagers. Though the actual functionaries of this Officio are few their agents are many and they are always busy.

== The Adeptus Frateris ==

Sometimes referred to as 'The Fraternity' by outsiders this Adeptus is responsible for all male deities and male clergy in Amarana. They take their job seriously and are sometimes noted for being taciturn and uncompromising. They are led by [[Nemo of Utopia/Wauli the Wolf|Wauli the Wolf]], who like his female counterpart is a mortal with awakened essence.

Structurally the Adeptus Frateris is identical to the Adeptus Sorroitatus.

== The Adeptus Mechanicus ==

The Adeptus Mechanicus are an odd bunch. Dressing in Rust Red robes and communicating in their own strange (and highly technical) dialect of Old-Realm they keep outsiders at arm's length. This Adepta is responsible for helping The Patron find and repair the magitech of the city a task that they perform supremely well but which many wonders if this group of strangely obsessed men and women are actually best suited for. Led by [[Nemo of Utopia/Adamant Sprocket|Adamant Sprocket]], an elderly Djala man and his young adult daughter [[Nemo of Utopia/Gears of Fate|Gears of Fate]], this group employs many Djala escapees in the task of repairing and rebuilding the city.

== The Adeptus Diolougus ==

What some would call the state department or the diplomatic corps the Adeptus Diolougus is one of the smallest Adeptus of the Amaranaian government. Led by [[Nemo of Utopia/Exultant Ivory Mother|Exultant Ivory Mother]] (a god-blooded woman from An-Teng, who harbors no feelings of goodwill for either Realm or Guild,) this group of spies and agent's provocateur work to keep Amarana a free city and outside the clutches of both [[The Guild]] and foreign powers such as the [[Realm]].

== The Adeptus Medicae ==

Easily among the smallest Adeptus of the Amaranaian government if one only counts the actual government personnel instead of approximately a-dozen-dozen licensed doctors, psychiatrists, and physicians whom they are tasked with overseeing and who like private attorneys in the city are technically part of the Adeptus: the Adeptus Medicae is as one might have guessed responsible for the physical and mental health of the city. They Tend to this task primarily by licensing and monitoring the city's medical personnel. This Adeptus role is two-fold: first, they are responsible for overseeing those practicing and utilizing any kind of medical skill in the city, from alchemists manufacturing morphine, [[Seven Bounties Paste]], or [[Age Staving Cordial]], to those offering psychiatric counseling outside of a church setting, to the several small private hospitals around the city, to even veterinarians. The Second task of the group is more dangerous and ripe for abuse by far: it is they in large part, as the only people with the requisite expertise, who draw up for [[Nemo of Utopia/The Patron of Amarana|The Patron's]] approval the statutes of law which they are tasked with enforcing. Thus far there has been no conflict of interest or abuses of power but the vast majority of people among the medical personnel of Amarana wait anxiously or avidly for this to begin changing.

The Adeptus Medicae is led by [[Nemo of Utopia/Simon Baker|Simon Baker]], a psychiatrist by trade, who is among the most dangerously insightful and persuasive people you will ever meet, at least that is not one of the exalted. He is, in fact, a god blooded, son of the patron deity of an order of physicians on The Blessed Isle, and is not much taken with the Imacualtes, treating them with frosty professionalism.

== The Adeptus Fabricae ==

Easily the largest and most diverse branch of the Amaranaian government the Adeptus Fabricae oversees all matters which involve or pertain directly to any sort of production, manufacturing, functional artistry, or creation of goods within Amarana's lands. Though ferreting out matters of a criminal nature fall under the heading of the Adeptus Arbites, and the governance of the legal codes is the province primarily of The Patron himself, and Prosecution and judgment of crimes is the business of the Adeptus Judicate, all three of these functions fall partially under this Adeptus' remit.

The Adeptus Fabricae first submits for The Patron's approval all codes and strictures which govern the actions and enterprises of fabricating all tangible products in Amarana, and exhaustive list of matters which fall under their control would be impossible but a few of the more salient follow: Print Shops, Compounding Pharmacies, Paper Mills, Glass Works, Jewelers, Magitech Repair Shops, Smithies, Book Binders, Cobblers, Tailors, and Farms: essentially anything which would be made by any sort of "Craft: XXX" skill is within their authority. The patron then reviews these legal codes and approves or rejects them, which becomes the strictures that the Adeptus Fabricae enforce upon the businesses of Amarana.

Most production facilities of any kind are within the Adeptus Fabricae's remit, with the notable exception of restaurants, taverns, eateries, pubs, tea houses, inns, and food carts which fall under the aegis of the Adeptus Medicae, though oddly pharmacies do not. Neither adepta is happy about this but neither is willing to lose or exchange the area they do have power over for reasons of their own which seem fully sufficient to them. Furthermore, any business that produces a tangible product and directly employs more than 50 people in any capacity is under their remit to license, inspect, and if necessary fine or refer to the Arbiters for investigation.

The following are the Departmento and Officio of the Adeptus Fabricae, each one with significant discretionary power and held in check solely by the High Lady of the Adeptus [[Nemo of Utopia/AuspiciousCrystalLightning|Auspicious Crystal Lightning]] and The Patron.

=== The Departmento Iura ===

The 'Department of Laws' devises and writes out the codes of law which govern the production and creation of goods in Amarana. They have created and submitted to the patron and extensive and thorough list of legal codes regarding the conditions, control, creation, and compensation for most products in Amarana, and those they have not they are working on.

==== The Officio Iura Laboris ====

The 'Office of Labor Laws' designs the codes of law concerning the employment, treatment, and management of Amarana's workforce. They are in the main as despised by the plutocracy as they are beloved by the common folk. Among other laws, they have enacted is the 8-hour work shift and the 6 day work week.

==== The Officio Iura Fabricación ====

The "Office of Manufacturing Laws" creates the codes of law governing the actual production of goods. Other offices govern the details of different types of production facilities or fields, but this office creates the general guidelines which the others work by.

==== The Officio Iura Cotagium Industria ====

The "Office of Cottage Industry" drafts the limited and simple codes which control small scale manufacturing by individuals and small business. They would like to have more extensive and detailed codes but The Patron uses his authority to make the official versions of the law to pare back most of their red tape and BS. He is, in fact, thinking of suspending this office for a period of some months while he looks for a better and less over eager set of people to be its officers.

==== The Officio Iura Officinis ====

This office makes the laws respecting the specific difficulties of production in a factory typesetting. Any production facility with 50 or more employees falls under their regulating authority, even things that are not normally their provinces such as farms, eateries, and pharmacies. For this reason, many production facilities and such, run with a staff of 40, so that even if they hire a handful of temp workers they will not move into this Officio's dominion. This Officio is not-well-liked by most business owners, being seen as overly restrictive and exceedingly interfering.

==== The Officio Iura Pharmicopia ====

== The Adeptus Adminstradum ==

== The Adeptus Aeronauticus ==

== The Adeptus Vectigalia ==

Lying squarely in the middle of the Adeptus of the city in terms of size the Adeptus Vectigalia is The Patron's Tax Collectors and Auditors of Accounts. Little liked by most people in the city they are nevertheless key to its continued function. In addition to overseeing that the government is given it's due and being called on to check the books of businesses which the Adeptus Arbites feel might be doing illegal activities the Adeptus Vectigalia also runs Amarana's national mint, which means that they are monitored closely by both The Patron and the Adeptus Arbites.

Noted for being uncompromising and humorless the Adeptus Vectigalia dress in imperishable formal clothing left behind from the first age. The hot stuffy suits and jackets only contribute to their reputation as dour and unsmiling drones of government oversight, which is perhaps the point of the dress code.

The Adeptus Vectigalia is divided into three Departmento: The Departmento Salari, which collects the taxes in cash or kind, the Departmento Quastorius, who audits people's books, and the Departmento Signo, who oversees the minting and engraving of all Amaranaian currency.

The Adeptus Vectigalia is led by [[Nemo of Utopia/Manifold Gemstone|Manifold Gemstone]] a perfectly ordinary man, who happens to be an excellent forensic accountant if only a passable administrator.

= Religion =

Faith and practice in Amarana are as diverse as the people who have come to live there. Everything from Immaculates to ancestor Worshipers to CotI members to simple priests and adherents of various gods all rub-elbows on the city's streets. Below are a brief rundown of the most prominent of the city's faiths and the deities they worship.

== Immaculates ==

Though the smallest of the city's faiths the Immaculate Doctrine still has hundreds of adherents among the people of the city, many of whom are enlightened martial arts practitioners. They also have a strong support network in the form of outside contacts with The Realm and other Dragon-Blooded.

== The Common Faith/Hundred Gods Heresy ==

The Majority of the population of Amarana believe in the gods as most people of the threshold do: they worship those who can provide them with benefits they want or need and don't understand much about the celestial bureaucracy or how things worked in the first age and that the present state of affairs is a corruption of the 'proper' order of things. Those that do often take the stance that "this is the way things are" and simply go on with their day.

What follows is a brief list of the major deities of Amarana and who or what they are affiliated with:

=== Amarana Seline ===

[[Nemo of Utopia/AmaranaSeline|Amarana Seline]]: As the City Mother of Amarana, Amarana Seline is the leader of the city's spirits. She was promoted from off the dole in heaven by the machinations of a number of bronze faction Sidereals and is fully cognizant of the fact that she '''owes''' them, but at the same time of the fact that as a dispossessed spirit promoted to the rank of City Mother she has few allies and many enemies. For these and other reasons she does not play favorites, at least not much, and is working hard at her job coordinating the smooth running of the city. Though she tries to be largely neutral in truth she is in the camp of the Immaculate Faction, which is part of why the Immaculates are as strong as they are in the city.

=== Mother Midnight ===

[[Nemo of Utopia/MotherMidnight|Mother Midnight]]: As the Senior Goddess of all-natural misfortunes in Amarana 'Mother of Midnight Murder and Mayhem', to use her full name, is a very good person for The Patron to have on his side. Mother Midnight takes positive glee in afflicting his enemies with all manner of troubles and ailments, from murder most foul to tripping on a dropped piece of lumber and spilling twenty boxes of crack from their backpack right in front of a police officer. However she is not really playing favorites, she still inflicts all manner of problems on the Patriots, their enemies just get it first and worst. Mother Midnight also has another interesting fact to her favor: she has been at her post for the past 3000 years. She gets audited on a regular basis and comes up smelling like roses: every, single, time! This drives Wong Bongerok to a level of near slavering fury, especially since he is certain Mother Midnight has been doing some kind of double-dealing and below-board hustle to keep herself fed and clothed during Amarana's long dormancy but has no way to prove it. Thing is, he's wrong. Mother Midnight became a doomsday prepper just after the usurpation and had been stockpiling quintessence and ambrosia for centuries ere the fair folk invaded. She has been living off that stockpile for all the time since and even now could go several centuries were the city to fall again ere she would need to start hustling for her sustenance.

In form, Mother Midnight looks like an exceedingly overweight woman with coal-black skin and long dreadlocked black hair that hangs so long as to trail on the ground. She typically appears nude or dressed in rags but can summon an armor of bones and broken pottery for a cost of 3 motes that gives her 10 lethal/bashing soak for the rest of the scene. For one mote she may reflexively cause any weapon that strikes her which has a hardness of less than 10 to automatically break*, and any weapon that has less than 15 hardness but more than 10 take 5d of damage. Energy weapons are immune to this, such as beam-klaves and weapons with a hardness of more than 15 cannot be affected. These powers do not count as charm use.

*(The weapon still inflicts damage before breaking from this effect.)

=== Pauldron Of Sanctity ===

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/PauldronOfSanctitity|Pauldron Of Sanctitity]]: is the new titular war god of the state, essentially exiled to the post by Atlhat since he is a rabidly punctual and rules obsessed deity that Atlhat has detested for centuries. Pauldron of Sanctity takes the form of a tall man in Gunzosha Armor and wielding a shock pike. He believes in well regimented and organized military units who are drilled and well equipped. In many ways, his notions of war are still trapped in the low first age when he was spawned as the god of a mercenary company, but this is just fine because he is the war god of a city with much of its low first age equipment and infrastructure intact. Though he favors the Immacualtes he is not willing to alter the course of outlined fate one millimeter without approval through proper channels.

=== Garion Cromarch ===

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/GarionCromarch|Garion Cromarch]]: is the god of Amarana's police force, who has waited patiently these seven centuries and more since the loss of the city to the fair folk working unofficially as a P.I. in Yu-Shan and who is the author of Amarana’s rebirth, having convinced an awkward cabal of mixed members from every faction to engineer the events which have led to that happening. Garion is perhaps more involved in the doings of the city's police than he should be, often helping them out with 'gut feelings' and leading dreams, but so far his interference has not crossed the line of allowed behavior.

Garrion's form looks like an idealized southern human male wearing Sentinel Defense Force armor blazoned with the symbol of Amarana, an eagle in flight wearing broken manacles.

=== Lissom Shining Spring ===

[[Nemo of Utopia/LissomShiningSpring|Lissom Shining Spring]]: a goddess of the local Oasis who temporarily holds two positions both in her old job and as the minster of all water sources within Amarana's sphere of influence. She is not perfidious in this role like Alhat who should not hold both the aegis of southern war god and god of cattle but is genuinely looking for a replacement to take over the role of goddess of springs and oasis: however she is a perfectionist and committed to finding a perfect candidate, which means that though she has interviewed over a hundred prospective applicants she has not found one that she feels is worthy of her longtime position. The Bronze Faction is willing to let her conduct further interviews, for now, but have made it clear that if she does not have a new spirit in the position by the end of next year she will be censured and the task of finding a replacement will be out of her hands. To this end, she has compiled what she calls her 'secondary list': those gods that she felt were 'almost' up to her lofty standards, and if she is running out of time will call them back for a second interview and chose the best one. She still hopes for a perfect applicant however and only has four names on her 'secondary list'.

Lissom Shining Spring's form is that of a large fish, but lately, she has been finding herself slipping into the form of a young woman in the suit of one of the city's hydro-engineering personnel who assists the Patron in making sure that all the pipes are sound before restoring the flow of water to a building. She is not sure she likes this.

=== Sonari ===

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/Sonari|Sonari]]: is the divine minister of sunlight and shadow for Amarana. She works with the bureau of nature to ensure that the proper degree of cloud cover reaches Amarana as well as the appropriate amount of sun. Like many of the gods of Amarana she is newly promoted from being on the dole and fearful of losing her position, but even so, dares to encourage the cult to worship her with little flourishes like rays of light in winter and cool breezes in summer.

She takes the form of a cloud from which pour rays of sunlight.

=== Meroka Jin ===

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/MerekaJin|Mereka Jin]]: the minister of romance and love in Amarana is actually an old pro at the role, having been the minister for the task in the old city and then for the Salaru tribes. He is corrupt as the day is long but adept at hiding his perfidy from anyone and everyone, including to a degree himself.

Mereka Jin takes the form of a vigorous adult man of the south with a rose in his teeth and a rakish smile. He often appears nude or in the robes worn for a wedding among the Salaru.

Mereka is eternally locked in a bitter feud with his theoretical partner Sakarzi: minster of lust and attraction, who is constantly trying to break down the stable romantic relationships her 'partner' builds. For the moment they have reached a detente on the matter of the two factions in which they are most interested, If Sakarzi will do her job for the romantic relationships of the Solarians then Meroka will not try to pair off the Ancestor Cultists into mirages and leave Sakarzi to push them to rut in wild abandon. They have not agreed about what to do with the rest of the population which makes up more than 60%.

=== Bibwit Heart ===

[[Nemo of Utopia/BibwitHeart|Bibwit Heart]]: The 'least' god of Amarana's central manse, Bibwit is uncomfortable with the cult worshiping him as they do. He has seen many least gods that have found themselves at the center of cults growing arrogant and ultimately becoming starmetal and is afraid this will happen to him. He has survived both the fall of the solars and the shogunate by being small and unobtrusive, keeping his manse functional and active while the rest of the city fell apart and he is not going to change that strategy. Still, he is an important god in the city, and as such they venerate him. Bibwit takes the form of an anthropomorphized rabbit with white fur and a tailored coat. He carries a pocket watch that lets him make flurry attacks up to his DEX score with no penalty.

=== Cela Dinarius ===

[[Nemo of Utopia/CelaDinarius|Cela Dinarius]]: Cela is the goddess responsible for Amarana's economy, and she is a personal friend of Glorious Weapon. She is no friend of the Guild and works as much as she dares to keep the guild from stealing artifacts from Amarana for sale to its foreign rivals. Formerly the goddess of Aj-Aran's main market square she was promoted to the overall control of the economy of Amarana via the machinations of the gold faction. She knows the city father is a bronze faction plant but reasons that as long as they both do their jobs properly they should not come into many conflicts. The two have a standing date for tea every Venus day.

Cela Dinarius form is that of an attractive woman carved from silver, and she wears the clothing of a Varangian cloth factor, which was her first job beyond as the least god some 4 centuries ago, patron goddess of a new Varangian cloth consortium.

=== Zalril ===

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/Amarana/Zalril|Zalril]]: Formerly the Least god of Amarana's north gate Zalril has by what amounts to shier-force-of-will moved up to become the patron god of Guild Members working in Amarana. The exact operation of this occurrence has been shrouded in mystery at the orders of Kejop Kajac himself, and further Nazri signed off on it too. The Guild maintains a large shrine just outside his old gate where they leave offerings before entering the city and where three slave women were taken under cover of night and sworn to become Zalril's Priestesses in exchange for their freedom by an Eclipse-caste member who often works for the guild. Though two of them still keep their roles as the god's priestesses the third has left the shrine and now lives in the city as a teacher for the city's new public school. Interestingly she has suffered no ill effects from 'breaking' her oath. Zalril has asked for the Guild to send a replacement but they are still trying to figure out why the oath failed in the first place. Meanwhile [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Sulramia|Sulramia]] finds fulfillment in teaching her students as do [[User:Nemo of Utopia/GayePachudiweOgesu|Gaye Pachudiwe Ogesu]] and [[User:Nemo of Utopia/OxandRainbowSlave|Ox and Rainbow]] the two women that still work at the shrine. Ogesu is an old woman and does the cooking and cleaning while Ox and Rainbow stand guard over the shrine. Sulramia also came with another gift for the god, her daughter, as she was part of a quadratic set, Maiden, Warrior, Mother, and Crone, and if she was to be the 'mother' Zalril insisted that she has a child as proof of her status, who conveniently doubled as 'maiden'. Sulramia's daughter is called [[User:Nemo of Utopia/IronandHoneyMaiden|Iron and Honey Maiden]] and is just the cutest five-year-old you will ever see, with an appearance score of five already. Her mother lives constantly with the fear of pedophiles, but does not let it rule their lives.

=== Walziri ===

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/Walziri|Walziri]]: as the god of beasts of burden within Amarana's lands Walziri is a major player in the lives of Guild personnel who must work or live here. Formerly a lesser deity of travel and trade in Harborhead Walziri was appointed to his new post by the machinations of a cabal of 'Independent' southern Sidereals and understands that he OWES them for this big break. The cabal has not called in that favor, at least not yet, but for the moment are content with him filing informal reports on the going's on in Amarana. While still hard at work at his new post he has already started to play favorites a little with the Guild's Men who pray to him, subtly strengthening their animals and selecting them last when sickness is due to strike the camels or whatnot of the city. Walziri takes the form of a large man of Harborhead derivation wearing several coral necklaces and white robes. He carries a Jade cattle prod which can be used as a spear or thrown like a javelin and returns instantly to his hand.

=== Anyaka Tetsuo ===

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/AnyakaTetsuo|Anyaka Tetsuo]]: The minister of Chance and Gambling in Amarana, Tetsuo is not new to this job. Created as the least god of a set of enchanted dice not long after the Primordial War Tetsuo has risen over the course of the intervening years to a position of moderate power in this city through diligent work and a suspicious number of 'lucky' breaks. Though no investigation has ever found him guilty of any wrongdoing there are enough people that are suspicious of what he surely must have done with his powers to better his status that it is unlikely he will ever rise any higher. Some deities would plot and scheme to continue advancing, but Tetsuo knows better. As a god of chance and gambling, he is well aware that he has been on quite the lucky streak and that is when you should count your winnings, leave the table, and cash in your chips before your luck runs out. He is content to be the god of all chance and gambling in Amarana: and will only rise higher if his natural luck brings him a sudden break, which he is not holding his breath for. He wiles away his time by playing games with the gamblers of the city, making them win or lose in a big way, but staying within the bounds of prescribed fate.

Tetsuo looks like a tall, broad-shouldered, thoroughly tattooed man with a cup and dice for playing a popular gambling game called 'Han or Cho'.

Tetsuo's sanctum is exceedingly large, he has had 700 years of dormancy in Amarana in which to expand it, and it now takes the form of a vast resort with several small casinos and many spas on what appears to be a small tropical island. (At the boundaries of its area there is a big reef beyond which the waterfalls away into nothing.) Tetsuo typically has many of the small gods of gambling and chance living in his sanctum with him at any time. Tetsuo is a colleague of Mother Midnight, not her subordinate, but the two work closely to determine which gamblers will face a string of ill luck.

=== Bagong Fangrick ===

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/BaegongFangrick|Bagong Fangrick]]: As the God of Vermin within Amarana Fangrick is an odd person to aid the guild but the guild will take allies where it can find them. Fangrick is a subordinate of Mother Midnight but has kept himself mostly out of her way and done his job without fuss since the revival of the city. Formerly the deity of rats for the Salaru tribes he was promoted upon the city's revival in recognition of many years of hard work with little reward and not the slightest blemish on his record.

Bagong Fangrick looks like an aged anthropomorphic rat, dressed in the robes of a shogunate era martial arts practitioner.

=== Wisp Virunga ===

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/WispVirunga|Wisp Virunga]]: As the managing deity for all education in Amarana Wisp is a VIP for the Patriots, because she helps their people learn new skills significantly faster, which helps them stay a step ahead of their competition, for the moment. The thing is that Wisp is running a knife-edge game with staying inside what is allowed within her post as a manager for all education in Amarana and what could be censured. This is very very bad: because she is already in trouble with the local censor's deputy for bearing a god blooded child, who is still alive and therefore available as evidence. Just to add insult to injury the censor's deputy has a personal vendetta against her for rebuffing his advances in favor of a mere mortal. Until the revival of Amarana Wisp Virunga was the goddess of its central library, she effectively promoted herself to the chief goddess of education by cozening up to the Patron while he was excavating her manse. When he decreed the first mandatory schooling sessions for the early colonists he had them pray to her as patron of all education in Amarana at the start of each day, when the prayers reached critical mass a few months later she had already conducted a quiet set of interviews and had her replacement as god of the library already prepped and ready to take over at once. This is not precisely an offense against the laws of heaven, but it is somewhat 'bad form' and would count against her slightly in a formal audit. It also has earned some of her fellow deities enmity, especially:...

=== Principle of Justified Action ===

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/PrincipleofJustifiedAction|Principle of Justified Action]]: Heaven has gods of just about everything, including educators. Principle of Justified Action was formerly a deity of a major school out in the distant threshold before the fair folk invasion and only survived that calamity by mere chance, having been in heaven on vacation when the hosts of faerie scourged the world. Since then he has lived on the dole and schemed endlessly to get another position in the bureau of humanity's education office. He finally thought he had one all lined up when Amarana was scheduled to be rebuilt as its manager of education, but the Patron and Wisp Verunga snatched it out of his hands. Yet, when one door closes another opens and a cabal of Gold Faction Sidereals and a few people who were still his friends from the old days managed to finagle him a consolation prize. The role of managing deity for the court system of Amarana was still open since there were not supposed to be any real criminal proceedings for several months yet. Desperate to get off the dole by then and seeing this as his last chance for the foreseeable future he accepted.

What neither he nor the Sidereals that helped him expected, was that he would LIKE the work. Managing a court system is not so different in truth from managing a school, you have trouble makers, erudite and passionate people, a lot of people who really don't want to be there, an ever-changing cast of characters doing many old and a few new stupid things, a complex set of rules you must adhere to; the similarities were rather a shock. Of course, there were differences, mostly in the fact that things move both so much slower most of the time and so much faster in the crunch, but he got his sea legs within a month or two and found himself enjoying having a real job again. That said, Principle of Justified Action is still no friend of Wisp Virunga and would dearly love to put in an application to replace her should she fall afoul of the auditors. However he bides his time, after all, he is employed in a job that he does not find onerous and has plenty of prayers coming in from both sides of the law, Wisp has no experience and is drowning in her duties, let them see what putting an untried administrator into such an important post does! Chances are that within the decade he will have her job: so runs his reasoning.

The Patron is another matter. He likes the Patron, rather a lot, and finds in the autocrat of the city a kindred spirit: and of course, cannot fault the man on the matter of his dedication to an educated society. He sometimes pokes the patron in the subconscious when he is contemplating a bad law, or about to reject a good one, and thus far does not consider it any kind of offense against heaven's rules. He is, in fact, wrong, he has committed no less than 5 level-one offenses in this manner, but that will largely be ignored unless he does more than mere subconscious nudging, after all, he has not really messed up any major plans this way so far.

In form Principle of Justified Action looks like a tall man from the furthest east, wearing the green and red robes of a seated Judge of Amarana's courts. His hair is shock white, a remnant of his time among the starving unemployed but he finds it suits his image as a wise leader of the courts. Abnormally for a god of justice he is lenient with most offenders, reasoning that if you punish too harshly you deny them a chance to learn from their mistakes. However, anyone who harms children sees the other side of him, a fury of unrelenting hatred that will see them hanged if at all possible.

=== Sakarzi ===

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/Sakarzi|Sakarzi]]: though she would dearly love to bring about the Patron's ruin and overthrow Sakarzi: minister of lust and attraction for Amarana, has a problem: She is both terrified of him and lusts after him obsessively. Sakarzi met the Patron before he mastered Amarana when she was bathing in a sacred hot-spring on the borders of the lands now claimed by the city in the guise of a comely Salaru maiden and he was following his awakened memories back to the city to claim his destiny. There at the hot-spring, she tried to seduce him.

She Failed.

The patron was clearly attracted to her and wished to accept her advances but mastered himself with an effort of will and politely refused. Five more times in five different guises Sakarzi has tried to seduce him and each time has been rebuffed, but always politely. This is why she is terrified of him, no one else whom she has ever tried to seduce has refused her advances so many times, especially since each of those times she has used progressively more of her supernatural powers, in the last instance activating an effect that should have compelled him to lie with her will he or no. She lusts after him because she has a weakness for powerful men, and The Patron certainly is one: but it is his immunity to her mystical powers that have made it an obsession. With the Patron, Sakarzi can use only the arts available to a mortal woman to snare the man she desires, and it is driving her to distraction. Perhaps an hour's worth of time out of each of her days is frittered away trying to think up new ways to seduce the Patron that rely only on her natural skills and personal beauty, but thus far she has not come up with anything worth using on a seventh attempt. The reason that Sakarzi would love to see the patron fall is that after she started a feud between three of the early families of colonists by seducing three of their sons and declaring that only the last one living would bed her the patron caught her outside her sanctum and beat her to within an inch of her life, declaring that if he ever caught her pulling that kind of stunt on his supporters again he would not pull his blows the second time.

These conflicting emotions are tearing Sakarzi apart, she lusts after the patron, but wants to ruin him, but is terrified of him, but she wants to have sex with him so bad she can taste it: Etc, Etc. In the meantime, she has appeared to several of the Patriots and declared her support for the patron's cause offering her help in securing the objects of their desires and the word has spread among them that if you erect a shrine to her in your residence and pray at it twice a day, morning and night, she will aid you in seducing whoever you most lust after.

While Sakarzi has many forms she can assume her true form is that of a Salaru woman of surpassing beauty and grace who literally cannot wear clothing. Her merest touch causes any garment to become invisible for one hour, so there is no point in her wearing any kind of raiment except for its protective value, which she rarely does.

=== Machuko; Torch of Freedom ===

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/MachukoTorchofFreedom|Machuko; Torch of Freedom]]: Is it any wonder, considering the status of Amarana as a free city where none may be held in bondage without due process of law, that the patron deity of Liberation and Abolitionism should view it with favor and even more so it's leader who enacted the law in question? [[Rabsolga]], the patron of slavery, hates and despises Amarana and if for no other reason than that Machuko loves and protects it. Furthermore, Machuko is [[User:Nemo of Utopia/ThePatron|The Patron]]'s patron god, to whom he prays five times a day, and is celebrated with five feast days each year, one at the beginning of each 'resplendent' month. Even the Immaculates honor these five days of worship, because the Patron has been known to have those that speak against honoring the feasts arrested and tried for sedition and/or aiding and abetting slavers, and their leader does not need that kind of attention, so he has said: "These days honoring Machuko are sanctioned by the immaculate faith, so long as you pray unto him only on these days you do not sin against the orders of Heaven."

Machuko keeps a large temple in the city's northeast quarter: a level 3 fire aspected manse called 'The Wheel of Torches' from it ride forth his clergy and devout adherents numbering several dozen strong on raids into the wastes beyond Amarana's borders proclaiming Machuko's glory and the freedom of all people within the lands of Amarana. Machuko has many priests across all of creation but nowhere are there so many gathered together as in Amarana.

In form, Machuko looks like a tall muscular man of what modern people would call Jewish/Hasidic/Israeli derivation, with a wild beard and long hair that hangs in ringlets. He carries a gore maul and chopping sword of orichalcum and white jade which when used together can cut any chain or bond. He has another form, which he assumes rarely except when in heaven, which is that of a great Dragon filled with yellow-white fire and made from millions of broken chains, collars, and manacles.

== Ancestor Cultists ==

Led by [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Sharima of the Three Disciplines|Sharima of the Three Disciplines]] and her ghostly lover [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Aruna the Defiant|Aruna the Defiant]] this group of citizens is a large and vocal part of the city's population. Though dwarfed by the percentage of the city who worship the city's gods and elementals the Ancestor Cultists make up as much as 20-25% of the city's population and are especially prominent among the [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Salaru|Salaru]].

The Ancestor Cultists make use of a large number of small [[Shadowlands]] across the city to communicate more directly with their patron spirits and interact with the underworld: but are mindful of [[User:Nemo of Utopia/The Patron of Amarana|The Patron]]'s injunctions about not breaking the circles of salt and other wards which keep the ghosts within the Underworld. They are however constantly working to locate 'new' and unguarded Shadowlands for their patrons to use to slip in and out of the underworld, which The Patron minds not one bit so long as they report them for the Adeptus Sororitatus/Frateris to seal in due course.

Though most of the people of Amarana are unaware of this fact the Ancestor Cultists are being controlled from behind the scenes by a Deathknight known as [[User:Nemo of Utopia/The Fluttering Fist of the Deadly Labyrinth|The Fluttering Fist of the Deadly Labyrinth]] he is a martial artist in service to The [[Mask of Winters]] who has wandered off on his own agenda far from thorns and The Mask's traditional area of operation. "The Fist" came to Amarana in search of a rumored cache of [[Autochthonian]] [[Soulsteel]], held in the vaults of the undercity, but has found that much of the undercity is sealed and inaccessible even from the [[Underworld]]. In the meantime, he works on the ancestor cultists as both a way to support himself and something to occupy his time while he trains to learn the charms that will allow him to enter the prehuman depths of the city where he hopes the bars of [[Autochthonian Soulsteel]] can be found.

Though the ghosts of Salaruku are numerous and very old surprisingly few of them are Heroic Ghosts and willing/able to serve as patrons for Amarana's ancestor cultists. Of those that do It is surprisingly four of the youngest ghosts that are the main patrons worshiped by the cultists: along with one exceedingly old ghost from the fall of Salaruku.

=== Xufuwne Onuke ===

The leader of Amarana's relatively large population of ghosts from the time of the fair folk invasion Onuke is frighteningly powerful but relatively easy going. He has outlasted Amarana's long dormancy and now looks forward to an era of joy and plenty for the city's dead. A dragon blooded warrior in life Onuke was killed battling the invaders from the wyld and in an odd twist of fate, they buried him with high honors. His tomb lies in the still mostly sand-covered western half of the city at the center of a small park and is one of the barest handful of areas in that region that have been excavated in advance of the main work. In form, Onuke looks like a typical dragon blooded of the shogunate, dressed in power armor and wielding a Daiklave. He has subsisted by hunting plasmic creatures for most of 700 years but welcomes the changes of the reborn city. Onuke is the cult's equivalent of a war god, a role he shoulders without complaint but also without relish.

=== Aruna the Defiant ===

Hailing from Chiaroscuro Aruna is the lover of Sharima, and they have many Ghost-blooded children together. They were maneuvered into the leadership of the cult by agents of [[The Archon of Apostasy]] who wished to have a shining example of ghost/mortal co-operation in Amarana to help people accept the death cult in their midst. The Archon's agents do not believe the plan is working but they are wrong, were it not for the two of them the cult would have been burned out root and branch. Aruna is a relatively young ghost but has become powerful quite quickly thanks to her lover and her association with various death cults. In appearance, Aruna looks like a young woman of the Delazen, beautiful and alluring for all her ghostly translucence and pallor. Aruna is the cult's patron of love and romance but gives short shrift to lust.

=== Emerald Lotus ===

Like her partner's Monkey of the City and Triumphal Eagle of the Flawless Hill, Emerald Lotus has been elevated to leadership by the machinations of the Patron, who decreed a feast day in their honor on the day of their deaths defending Amarana from an attack by a trio of 'Hounds of the Unbroken Earth'. None of them is experienced enough to really do the jobs that they have had thrust upon them but they all are rising to the challenge. Emerald Lotus resembles a typical woman of the deep south dressed in a white robe and headscarf that covers everything but her face, and overtop that a breastplate of steel. She is neither attractive nor ugly but is very charismatic. She carries an infinite jade chakram as her main weapon and also bears a perfect chopping sword for close fighting. Emerald Lotus is the patron 'deity' of the cult's Martial Artists, as she had some experience with that in life. She still is finding her feet as a ghost and defers to Xufuwne Onuke on most matters.

=== Monkey of the City ===

Dressed in lamellar and wielding a shock pike monkey of the city is not really suited to his role as a leader of an ancestor cult. Having been an outcast and wanderer in life who always tried to keep people happy and was quick with a joke or to share his water he has not changed much in death. However, there is a place for the fun and funny guy in any pantheon and Monkey of the City fills that role for the Ancestor Cultists of Amarana. Monkey of the City is the cult pantheon's trickster and comic relief, which he does not mind one bit.

=== Triumphal Eagle of the Flawless Hill ===

Wearing a Red Jade reenforced Buff Jacket Triumphal Eagle, or simply 'Der Aller'* as he prefers to be called, was not much of a warrior in life, but was on rotation for guard duty when the hounds attacked and were predictably killed by them. Buried with honors along with the rest of the four and then raised up as a patron spirit of the city he has persisted as a leader due largely to [[User:Nemo of Utopia/The_Patron_of_Amarana|The Patron]]'s favor and the fact that he is a very intelligent man, who is knowledgeable about many subjects. His role in the city's death cult is that of a spirit of wisdom and intellect, as well as oddly the patron, so to speak, of the Adeptus Aeronauticus.
*(Which means 'the Eagle' in his native tongue, a northern barbarian language...)

== Cult of the Illuminated ==

The Cult of the Illuminated has a relatively small and subtle presence in Amarana, but never-the-less are present. Their agents and activists walk among the cults dedicated to the various celestial exalted who have come to Amarana quietly preaching of the unity of creation and the duties of the 'Shining Ones' to be the leaders and stewards of creation. "Someday," they say. "All creation will be united behind the Shining Ones, and on that day those who have served them well will have rewards beyond their wildest dreams."

Among the 17 or so celestial exalted in the city 6 are allied with the Cult of the Illuminated, and some of the others are sympathizers. The CotI worshipers pray to most of them and work to support their interests.

= Geography =

Geographically Amarana lies at the point just before the sands of the deep desert fully give way to the rocky foothills of the summer mountains. When the spring rains sweep in from the north it is prone to flooding and mud, while the heat of high summer brings the blazing Simoon roaring out of the deep desert and with it short tempers and sharp words that sometimes flare into brutal murders. Winter is a season of joy and happiness for the citizen's of Amarana, as the power of the elemental pole of Air waxes and the desert is cooled, allowing snow to briefly form in the nearby summer mountains which are trucked into Amarana by old roads and made into flavored sherbets and snow cones for those with the Patron's favor, especially small children, of whom The Patron is known to be quite fond. The foothills around Amarana abound with resources brewed up by the slowly retreating Wyld or pushed from deep within the earth by the strange forces by which creation renews itself over the centuries, including many veins of silver from which Amarana mints its currency. Meanwhile, the desert around Amarana is rich with fire dust and gem sand, especially during the nights of the new moon when the Wyld retreats for several miles further south and exposes a wide swath of 'tainted' land, especially where the city has been slowly pushing the Wyld back by infecting it with billions of grains of what is essentially Elemental Earth. This area is hazardous as well however because the tainted area is not just composed of valuable sands, but also dangerous ones, such as quicksand, shatter sand, and hungry sand. For every person from Amarana who strikes it rich mining fire-dust or gem-sand in the tainted lands on the nights of the new moon, another finds themselves injured, killed, or mutated: in Amarana 'Firedust Miner' looks fair to rank among the top 5 'most dangerous professions' for the first year of recorded statistics in the city, right behind 'Rogue Spirit Protection Expert' and 'Pharmacist' but just ahead of 'Building Excavation Team Member' and 'Artifact Recovery Personnel'

Nearby Amarana is a number of Small Oasis, Hot Springs, and Geysers which have long provided the Salaru tribes with water. Though 90% of the tribesmen have returned to their ancestral home a few chose to stay out in the wastelands for one reason or another, and now gather into three new small tribes: the western, northern, and eastern Salaru.

To the west, the desert is hot by day and cold by night, with only trackless sand to greet your eyes, the Salaru who have stayed out in this wilderness journey mile upon mile between oasis that is often buried under the shifting sands and must be dug down to gather up their water. They survive by hunting snakes and lizards and trading fire dust and jewel sand with the Guild for added food and water. Though trade is their main source of contact with the outside they no longer must rely upon it or perish, with the total number of tribe's men in this region reduced by more than 95% they now can survive on their own without help, but it would be a spartan existence. Trade gives them luxuries and better equipment, which they put to good use. The western salaru do not keep herd beasts or in fact, any animals except hunting dogs, the land here is too harsh for this to be profitable. They worship many nature spirits, but few major deities except the Unconquered Sun, who is seen as a wrathful god of war and destruction, and Luna in her aspect as The White Navigator, who is seen as a benevolent and helpful deity. Though they honor the high holy days of the five maidens they are not much revered outside those times.

To the north, the Salaru who have not returned to their city are primarily herders and gatherers, as the foothills of the summer mountains provide old lava tubes and other places to hide from the sun by day and keep flocks dry when the rains come. Their life is perhaps the least harsh of the three new tribes since they have kept the most of their population, with only about 80% going to live in the city and in all cases leaving a few family members to mind the herds and ancestral cave or rock-cut house. They also were the most numerous of the Salaru before the return to Amarana, having six of the 10 Salaru tribes living in their region. and now are by far-and-away the most populous of the three 'outside' tribes. They also still contribute a good chunk of Amarana's food supplies, which means that even the Patron must treat with them on their terms. On the other hand, they know that the Patron, while a patient man, does have his limits and that their families back in Amarana would suffer first and worst if they cut off the shipments of food and other goods to the city, so they treat the Amaranaians with as much respect as they expect in return: so far the city and the northern tribe have a strong alliance of mutual benefit and support. The northern Salaru frequently revere Atlhat, the southern god of war and cattle, in addition, they also revere the Celestial Incarna and Gaia as well as many nature spirits.

The tribes to the east were always the most desirous to return to Amarana, for they could still see it's central tower sticking up out of the sand. However, when the time came, an influential leader named [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Sabris of the Two Spears|Sabris of the Two Spears]] convinced them that they should instead of all going back to the city leave some people behind and send their sons and daughters back into the summer mountains to live with those that stayed for two years as a right of passage. This has proved to their great advantage, for they now own the rights to much of the mineral wealth in the summer mountains near Amarana and have risen to be among the city's most wealthy families. The mountain Salaru were hunter/gatherers before Amarana's recovery and it is in this capacity that the children sent to the old mountain fastnesses must learn to survive when they are facing their Adavam Ordeal. The eastern Salaru mostly hold up a host of small gods for worship and revere the celestial Incarna on their high holy days. They are however the nearest things to atheists Creation has, feeling that if a person cannot survive without divine intervention then they are weaklings that must be excised from the gene pool. Many of them are swayed to a degree by the Immaculate faith but reject the idea that the Dragonblooded are creations, rightful rulers, their tribes have long memories and have heard the tales told by the Lunars of the perfidy of the Dragonblooded and the glory once created by the Solars, and twice in their exile have seen this glory first hand before the Dragonblooded showed up and ruined things.

To the south of the city, a wyld zone bleeds into reality for almost eight hundred miles from the maximum edge of the world. Though the city lies near the edge of this wyld zone it is not part of it, not even when the wyld storms blow in the autumn. This is perhaps partly because the city's strong geomancy prevents it from being absorbed or perhaps some form of potent first age artifact still protects the city as it did during the invasion so long ago. If the Patron knows he is not telling. Either way, there is and never has been a tribe of the Salaru to the south of the city. If the work they are doing to push back the wyld succeeds as well as it has been thus far, there may be, soon.

= Ethnicity =

Amarana is an ethnically mixed city, with people from all over creation having gathered in under its banner thanks to [[The Ghost/The Patron|The Patron's]] zero-tolerance policy towards slavery. In the main however the population is drawn from the peoples of the south, as escaping slaves are most able to reach Amarana from it's nearest neighbors, [[Virangia]] and [[The Delazen Empire]].

== The Salaru ==

Descendants of the people who fled Salaruku in the face of the Balorian Crusade the Salaru have waited a long time to return to their city. Composed of 10 culturally distinct tribes the Salaru make up an ever decreasing percentage of the city's population as more and more foreigners come to the city and settle in. That said the Salaru, though small in number, have a disproportionate impact on the city's culture and politics, due to knowing the lands surrounding Amarana like no one else and therefore having a vastly outsized amount of wealth and clout.

The Salaru are subdivided into the following tribes:

=== The White Scars ===

This tribe numbers about 50 and have long been ancestor worshipers, they have been swayed to the cause of the Ancestor Cultists. They take their name from the practice of ritual scarification of face and hands to tell one’s ancestry and chest to recount great deeds. The White Scars hail from the west of the city. The White Scars are a strangely secretive bunch, they keep their own council and follow their own guidance. Alone of the Salaru tribes, the White Scars have wholey emigrated to the city, abandoning their ancestral lands to the Western Salaru's care and finding employment within Amarana. Most of them agree that this has been a drastic improvement in their living conditions. Their ancestors, however, worry about grave robbers and frequently ask the members of the tribe with the skills to do so to go back and check on the old burial grounds.

=== The Golden Bulls ===

Originally hailing from the north of the city this tribe has been sun worshipers since time out of mind, and have naturally gravitated toward the Solarion's cause. They take their name from the bloodline of golden-haired cattle that they breed, tend, and guard, which according to legend were a gift from the champions of the sun during an age long past in recompense for their service defeating an army of the Raksha. The Golden Bulls are among the largest tribes of the Salaru, numbering some 300 strong counting both those that came into Amarana and those that stayed behind to be part of the Northern Salaru. They revere Atlhat and The Unconquered Sun as their patrons and are known for their skill as warriors though they are overmatched by some of the other tribes thanks to awakened essence and charms. The Golden Bulls are largely employed as butchers, health inspectors, and members of Amarana's army, while the large contingent that remained in their ancestral lands tend their herds of golden-haired cattle as they always have done, though they now drive the excess males to market in Amarana for slaughter rather than keeping them home. The Golden Bulls’ primary combat style is with spears and Bullhide Shields, with firedust grenades to break tight formations. They would not look out of place in Harborhead, and marriages between Harborhead immigrants and the young men and women of the tribe are not uncommon, though frowned upon by some of the tribe elders due to the harborheadite's attitudes towards slavery, which the tribe has always held as blasphemy.

=== The Get of Vexan ===

Often called simply 'the get' by outsiders this tribe calls themselves the 'Vexanites'. The get is descended from a powerful Lunar who lived among the Salaru for a century or so starting a few decades after the fair folk invasion was driven back by the Empress. The Vexanite's hold a secret: their tribe is led by a family of Serpent Beast Men founded by Vexan and preserved through complex webs of intermarriage with other serpent-folk from as far away as the silent crescent. The get is currently led by a charming and curvaceous young woman from the southeast jungles named Nyoka. What they do not yet know is that she is actually the modern incarnation of their founder's exaltation and has been having sex with one of the tribe's greatest warriors in her spirit form of a twenty-foot dragon snake in the hopes of bearing beast folk children. She walks among the tribe in her Warform, that of a great dragon-like serpent woman with the fangs and venom of a cobra and the wings and claws of a dragon. The Get hailed from the mountains east of Amarana.

=== The Iron Raptors ===

Though founded by a group of outlaws and murderers the Iron Raptors are ironically a major component of Amarana's police force. Having originated as an inner-city gang during the last days of the shogunate the Iron Raptors turned their coats when the fair folk came calling at the end of the contagion. They took hundreds of people out of the city through hidden tunnels and other smuggling routes: people who became the founders of the other Salaru tribes. Since then they have slowly moved from running protection rackets over the other tribes, to actually protecting them, to being their main form of law enforcement and wandering justiciars. Now that Amarana is resettled they have taken up the role of their distant ancestors' worst enemies, an irony that is not lost on Garion Cromarch. The Iron Raptors’ central holdings were to the north of Amarana but they wandered freely among the other tribes and in fact still do, being welcome among any of the other Salaru. They worship Garion Cromarch as their patron deity, but also revere a number of small gods of crime and larceny, propitiating them in recompense for reducing their portfolios and defeating their natural worshipers.

=== The Kelderkin ===

Another tribe from the city's north the Kelderkin are the descendants of Marion Kelder and are an agricultural matriarchy. They revere Gaia to the near exclusion of all other deities and hold that all other gods are really aspects of Gaia, subsidiary souls of the Maiden of Plenty. They are more right in this belief than most people realize. All Kelderkin women can trace their ancestry to Marion Kelder via one of her seventeen daughters, and which daughter you are a descendant of determines what your role in the tribe is. The only roles that are not decided by your ancestry are 3: Shaman, Champion, and Speaker. The Speakers are the leaders of the tribe and set it's policy, while the shamans and champions advise them and defend the tribe. Marion Kelder was a wood aspected dragon blooded and even to this day a Kelderkin man or woman will sometimes exalt as another wood aspect. Currently, there is one such person among the Kelderkin, Mwaloni Kelder who is a gifted archer and huntress that leads an all-female unit of other archers in the Amarana armed forces. She is also a sex addict and currently dating four separate men, two of which are identical twin Djala who regularly have Manage-a-Trois with her.

=== The Chosen of Flame ===

Hailing from the city's west The Chosen of Flame has been firedust gatherers for as long as anyone can remember. They gathered firedust far south of the city during the shogunate and came to Amarana to trade it. When the hosts of Fairie came sweeping in from the edge of the world after the great contagion they ran before them and were caught up in the exodus from Amarana, helping many of the civilized folk adapt to the desserts. The Chosen of Flames make up the lion’s share of the new western tribe, but even so, most of them have moved into the city and settled down as experts and factors in the firedust trade. They are a prosperous tribe that is in a state of transition as they adapt to being a settled people for the first time. Numbering approximately 75 persons in the city and an equal number now part of the Western Salaru the Chosen of Flame boasts several god-blooded among their number, and actively court new fire elemental unions. Their God Blooded include Gitchsune Folarabi, Malawi Besmar, and Kubrisa Suknis, among others.

=== The Iconographers ===

Among the tribes of the Salaru, few can argue that the Iconographers are not among the most learned and civilized. Hailing from the cities northeast they have preserved an astonishing amount of lore from the low first age, especially on the subject of geomancy. Now almost universally employed by the Patron excavating and repairing manses they are well off and respected. The Iconographers place great store by erudition and knowledge, and gain position and prestige among their own via a set of grueling examinations conducted by their tribe's patron spirits once every ten years, and always in old realm. Because of these tests of knowledge, the tribe is led by its elders, who have had the most time to study and learn, and they are prone to contemplation and thoughtfulness. Among other advantages this has gifted them with is the possession of five small Manses outside the city, raised after the city's abandonment by their own hands. These manses have made their ancestral lands fertile and bountiful, making them one of the largest salaru tribes with 200 members in five small villages around the Manses before they emigrated to Amarana. Of all the tribes their desire to return to the city was among the greatest, but they did leave one family behind in each village to see to its welfare and upkeep in perpetration for their Descendents and those selected to join them by the Patron returning. The Iconographers in city number 175 or so and are very much in the Patron's camp. They are led by [[User:Nemo of Utopia/SukiwaraMadoka|Sukiwara Madoka]], a god blooded thaumaturge of advanced years and not inconsiderable skill.

=== The Eisil ===

As a tribe of pastoral hunters and gatherers in the city's eastern area, the Eisil would not be remarkable except for the fact that they are master storytellers and thespians. The role of Storyteller is the most honored position within their culture and many people aspire to it but few succeed. Their greatest tale is that of Sakarazat, a woman who was taken captive by a rapacious dragon blooded lord and over the course of two and a bit years told him a thousand stories which prevented him from killing her, and in the end, led the dragon blooded to let her go. Now that the Eisil have returned to Amarana they are mostly working at simple jobs like sand clearer or coachman (They have long preserved the arts of chariot racing as part of their festivals.) but a significant number of them now take the long-coveted role of storyteller or actor, and are among the best in the city, being sought out by talent scouts and stage managers for private and public engagements. The Eisil hail from the high mountains east of Amarana where the snow falls in winter, they are paler complected than most Salaru and have massive barrel chests from dealing with the thin air.

=== The Mantis Tribe ===

From the northwest of the city, the Mantis tribe straddle the border between the desert and the foothills of the Amaranaian lands. They have survived by placing great store by martial arts and awakened essence, and among their number only the young typically do not have awakened essence, nearly everyone over the age of 25 has mastered this basic precept. By the age of 30, most people have achieved the form type charm of one of the 5 main martial arts of the tribe, and by the time they reach venerable status at 65, nearly everyone is a master of their chosen style. This has allowed the Mantis Tribe to become large and prosperous but puts them in an uncomfortable position of being alternately feared and nearly worshiped by the other tribes, who look to them for protection from spirits and demons. It also puts them in another uncomfortable position: their various schools of martial arts do not always get along, and more than once the tribe has been wracked by internal strife, especially between the members that adhere to the Immaculate Philosophy and the people that worship the local gods outside that framework. At the moment it seems like the tribe is heading for another such civil war, and this time it may drag the whole city into it.

=== The Broad ===

Alone of the Salaru the Broad actually hate the Patron. The Broad was from the uttermost western areas of the Salaru and also alone among their number made a common practice of keeping slaves, but not so much for the purpose of having them work for the tribe but rather to sell to the guild. They ranged far among the sandy wastes waring with members of other tribes and capturing them to sell for the supplies they needed to survive and prosper. Many among their number were heroic mortals and with the exception of the Mantis Tribe and the Chosen of Fire they boasted the most members with awakened essence and/or god-blood. They also served as a dumping ground for the criminal and malcontents of the other tribes leading them to be less cordial with the rest of the Salaru than any other tribe. However, even the Broad wished to return to Amarana enough to give up their slave taking practices, at least, some of them did. When the Patron decreed all people of Amarana Free men and women shortly before the Guild arrived the Broad fractured over whether to return to their ancestral homeland or remain in the wastes and live as they had done for centuries. In the end, the tribe split 60/40 in favor of returning to Amarana and becoming part of the new society, but the 40% that remained in the wastes no longer consider themselves beholden to the Patron, Amarana, or even the Salaru. These people, called by their former associates The Red Broad are now considered outlaws brigands by the Amaranaian government and hunted whenever they stray close to the fifty-foot Glass Pillars that mark the borders of the Amaranaian lands. They are firmly in the camp of the Guild's Men and infiltrate the city regularly to capture and smuggle out valuable slaves that have escaped to Amarana from other lands.
The 60% of the tribe that has returned to the city are in the camp of the Death Cultists since the Broad were by and large ancestor worshipers before they returned to Amarana and see no reason to change that now. Calling themselves 'The Green Broad' they have no love for the patron but do love their city and will fight to the death to defend it. Most of them are now members of the city's military and are locked in a bitter feud with their former tribesmen. The members of this tribe that are not military mostly work as overseers for the small but growing cadres of 'indentured servants' kept by the city government in punishment for some of the most heinous crimes such as rape and enslaving another person.

=== The Western Salaru ===

=== The Northern Salaru ===

=== The Eastern Salaru ===

== The Djala ==

The D'jala are a sub-faction of the Patriots at the present time. Having been liberated by the Patron from their enslavement by many people who have brought them to the city in bondage they are fanatical partisans of the city's leader and from a major component of his power base. The Djala form five small tribes into which new arrivals are folded by ties of kinship, alliance, or marriage within weeks of arrival. The number of newly married Djala in the city is staggering, easily 40% of all new arrivals are pushed into marriages within a month of becoming residents, and somehow nearly all these mirages are happy ones. What the Djala elders know but have not officially publicized is that one of the Djala's patron gods is an old drinking buddy of [[The Ghost/Meroka Jin|Meroka Jin]] and has called in a favor with the minister of romance and love to arrange this happy state of affairs for his people in the city. This is not going to last, because [[The Ghost/Sakarzi|Sakarzi]] is going to start screwing around with them, but for the moment she is distracted by her work with the death cult.

== Varangians ==

== The Delazen ==

== Deep Southerners ==

Nemo of Utopia/Amarana

2020-07-14T12:30:22Z

Nemo of Utopia: /* The Broad */

Amarana is a first age city, lost to the contagion and the fair folk invasion over 700 years ago. It is now coming back to life under the aegis of [[User:Nemo of Utopia/The_Patron_of_Amarana|The Patron]] who wields the power of the [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Five_Signs_of_Harmonic_Unity|Five Signs of Harmonic Unity]].

= Amarana =

Amarana Is comprised of a large area surrounded by a circular wall. At the edge of that wall are twelve triangular towers that contain the major military resources of the city. Of these towers, eight have been fully excavated, and the ninth is being examined and the sand removed even now.

Within the city is organized into four quarters but only two of them are even partially excavated, the two on the eastern side of the city, and even there many buildings still slowly seep sand into the streets out of cracked windowpanes and the door seems. The buildings of Amarana tend to a certain Egyptian flare or perhaps it would be better to say pre-Arabic since they are after all, by and large, the product of the low first age. The buildings are built of a quasi imperishable ceramic that resembles adobe, with the most significant having windows of Chiaroscuro Glass and doors made of either that same substance or Stainless Steel. Buildings are generally between six and ten stories high with essence powered air conditioning and elevators both of which the Patron must personally repair before the building becomes usable again.

Unlike many old realm cities, Amarana is laid out on a grid, instead of in a radial pattern. This gives a geomantic bonus to the people who live there: namely that mortals gain +1 XP per time XP is awarded. This bonus actually accrues every half year if using long term awards. The players can uncover this information with a dif10 [wits + occult] roll once every month they spend in the city beginning on the second day they are here. The bonus only applies to true mortals, not god blooded, ghost blooded, awakened Martial artists or any exalt, but does apply to dragon kings and jadeborn who are not Artisans.

So far roughly half of the city has been uncovered, but even here there are a lot of buildings that are collapsed, or still filled with sand and roped off with red cables and even more locations where there are red cables indicating small shadowlands or dimenses that are not to be approached until the city can close/cap them.

The excavation is proceeding irregularly, moving from the east wall out toward the west except around the central manse and the road from the north gate to the south gate. There are markets in most squares and a number of shops on the ground floors of buildings. Few merchants here are officially affiliated with the guild since many people in the city are escaped guild slaves and loath the guild vehemently.

Nearly everything except slaves is available for sale, including many products from The Wyld. Firewands and Flame Pieces are the core of the weapons markets along with accessories such as bayonets, powder horns, and pieces of flint or obsidian for strikers. Interestingly Cannons are not for sale, being reserved for the government, but anyone with contacts 2 or higher could find someone who knows someone who could get a permit for purchasing a few for export. Armoring is more advanced, and even some artifact armors are for sale, though they would be a resource 4 purchase at minimum, and that is for the simple stuff like Jade breastplates. Things like Yuroy Scout armor are beyond the means of anyone in the party, though, that comes up for sale very rarely except through illegal channels. Jade Full Plate and Super Heavy Plate are more commonly available, in fact, there are people in the city that can be commissioned to make it. Orichalcum and Monsilver are not commissionable but in the still covered parts of the city are facilities to work it. There are no facilities in the city for Soulsteel or Starmetal, but there is a workshop in one manse that has been uncovered to work Adamant, though finding any to use would require Wyld Cauldron Technology and spending XP: such is the life of the Exalted...

There are a number of Inns, Caravanserai, and Hostels near the city gates, while further in nearly every corner of an inhabited area has at least one restaurant or coffee shop. Tea houses, by comparison, are rare, and true bars are unusual enough to be remarked upon when a new one is found. Most living quarters do not have kitchens, which is why many hab towers which have been excavated don't have permanent residents and so many restaurants can stay open. Many restaurants, in fact, rent themselves out to people wishing to cook for their families or are owned by consortiums of citizens who hold them in common for communal cooking with contracts for use and upkeep requirements.

All of the city's roads are at least 20 feet wide, plus a five-foot sidewalk to either side. This is for the smallest streets, most are 40 feet wide with sidewalk and a few main thoroughfares are 60 feet wide. The streets keep themselves magically clean once each section is repaired by the Patron, but only a very few sections are repaired and many people who work as street sweepers clearing sand wish for it to stay that way. (Each 10'x10' section is a different artifact and must be individually repaired. There is one street in the city's west that is a first age relic and still working. However it can only affect things up to 30 feet above itself, so it is a long tunnel of a clear street bounded on all sides by packed sand.) The streets are made of fitted 5'x5'x1' blocks of granite, and one can sometimes determine which part of the city one is in by the color of the streets. The northeast the blocks are blue and green, the southeast red and green, the southwest red and black and the northwest blue and black. The city’s four central parkways are each a solid color relating to their element and 40' wide on each side and the grand square around the central manse is white and 60' wide at its narrowest point. However many streets were repaired with gray, white, or red granite toward the end of the shogunate and are not properly color-coded.

The City has at least 5' of clearance between all buildings: meaning that there are many allies in which one can get lost. You can often tell which parts are in use and which are unoccupied by weather there is sand filling the allies or they are clear.

== Manses and Demesnes of Amarana ==
Amarana was at one time subject to major geomantic engineering projects that gave it a large number of demesnes and then manses relative to its size. Most of those manses are still here, still active, and even now being located and excavated. A few, however, were partially unstable and have long since exploded. These few are roped off as dangerous and plans are underway to re-cap them, led of course by the Patron. Note that there are more manses and demesnes within the city that have not yet been found and that at one time there were even MORE demesnes in the city which have collapsed into a dormant state due to the changes in the city's essence flows and could be reactivated with the appropriate rituals once the city is fully excavated and geomantic remapped, these demesnes, however, were all small ones, level 2 at the most, so whether such effort is worth it in the short term, or even a good idea, is debatable. See [[Nemo of Utopia/MansesandDemesnesofAmarana|Manses and Demesnes of Amarana]] for further information.

= History =

== Prehistory ==

Though most do not know it Amarana's deepest foundations were laid in an era long past by the [[Dragons Kings]]. The City flourished in the age between the advent of humanity and the [[Primordial War]] with many of the first exalted visiting the place at one time or another in the several decades of the lead up to the overthrow of the Primordials. Then when the war began the city was wreathed in the destruction by one of the superweapons of the masters of creation, utterly annihilating most of those that dwelt therein and reducing the city to a smoking crater of volcanic glass. Still, beneath the burned and blackened surface, some parts of the old under city survived, and wait there still.

== The First Age ==

During the First Age many of the survivors of the primordial war remembered their time in 'Highana' fondly and after excavating much of the old substrate and leveling off the damaged areas to make way for new constructions raised up a new city on the site of the old. This city was dubbed 'Solzarian' in honor of [[The Unconquered Sun]] and in memorial to the Great Dragon King lady who had ruled the city so well and wisely ere it's annihilation. The City would remain a significant but out-of-the-way part of the Old Realm all the way through the first age.

=== The Ocher Fountain Era ===

During the beginning of the First Age when [[Queen Merela]] ruled over all creation from the eternal capital of [[Rathess]] Solzarian was still being reconstructed, and there was little of note that occurred in the city. One event, in particular, was notable, however: the Conclave of Solzarian in year 99 of the old realm, a symposium on the rights and freedoms of the people of creation which some in later years would argue laid the foundations of the Meru Uprising which led to the formation of the Deliberative.

=== The First Deliberative Era ===

By the time of the founding of the [[Deliberative]], the reconstruction of Solzarian was largely complete, and over the next few decades, the city became a favored retreat for both Solars and Lunars seeking to get the heck out of Meru and the stifling politics of the great city. One of Marela's closest allies [[Nemo of Utopia/Angus the Wirehair|Angus the Wirehair]] was given the rule of the city as part of the division of creation into fiefdoms and made it his personal residence. Under Angus rule, the city prospered, though it, by-and-large, remained a backwater compared to such metropolises as [[Chiaroscuro]] and Rathess. However, thanks to its solar overlord and his close relationship to the Queen of all Creation the city began the long process of incredible geomantic engineering which would in time lead to it being known as 'The City of Manses'.

=== Unfurling Horizon Era ===

While this era of creation went by largely without incident of significant note at this remove of history it is still recorded that many of the great efforts to explore and expand the borders of Creation in the south used Solzarian as a staging ground or stopover point before plunging into the true wilderness at creation's rim. This continued to encourage the exalted to play 'tourist' in the city and helped keep its economy vibrant. It is also noted in some histories that there was a major strike of [[Red Jade]] near the city in 811 which produced a 'Jade Rush' led by two rival Dragon-Blooded brothers and their servants which escalated into a short civil war in the city 2 years later in which significant damage was done to the city's infrastructure by all three* factions. The Civil War was only halted when [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Angus the Wirehair|Angus the Wirehair]] returned from Meru at the head of a wing of elite Dragon-Blooded shock troops and brutally suppressed both rival groups with mass arrests and a number of executions. (What happened to the brothers is unknown, but their names do not reappear in the historic record for 700 years, and at that time associated with different elemental aspects leading most scholars to conclude that they were 'dealt with' privately by their family.)
*(The Two consortia backing the rival brothers and the cities law enforcement detachments.)

==== The Aftershock War ====

In spite of the growing significance of the city and it's powerful assets in terms of equipment and hearthstones, Solzarian was not at first much involved in the Aftershock War. Passed over in favor of more militarily significant targets by the Primordial Forces the city did not come under fire until 1131 when a force of some 3000 first circle demons led by a trio of 2nd circle demons assaulted the city in the dead of night via a fleet of living airships. The 'Battle of Solzarian' was considered a significant victory for the forces of creation due to the large number of [[Golden Janissary Style]] practitioners in the city who were able to make fairly short work of the first circle demons allowing the detachment of Dragon-Blooded stationed in the city to confront the second circle demon commanders and dispatch them.

However the war was not all glorious victory for the people of Solzarain, [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Angus the Wirehair|Angus the Wirehair]] went missing during the final battle with the primordial forces and would not be seen again for over 500 years. For most of that time, he was presumed dead by the people of the city, though the Solar Exalted knew better as his shard had not found a new host.

=== Shining Reflection Era ===

During this period Solzarian loses much of its former significance as the seat of one of Marela's close allies. Few of the Exalted visit the city and the grand engineering projects grind to a near halt. The only events of great significance that occur here are two:
1: The Duel of the Magisters in 1313 where the reincarnations of Theis, Leelah, and Sonah engage in a duel of sorceress power which damages large sections of the city and forces all three of them to be censured by Marela herself: And;
2: In 1492 a major strike of Orichalcum is made a few hundred miles south of the city, and Solzarian becomes a stepping off point for prospectors of every stripe looking to get rich quick mining Orichalcum. The City's economy runs strong off this sudden influx of cash, people, and goods for the next 30 years.

=== Thousand Struggles Era ===

The first part of this period proceeds much from the previous one: everyone is aware that one of the legendary solar exalted has died of old age, but this makes little difference to the struggling backwater that Solzarian has become: then in 1776 everything changes.

In the Records of Solzarian 1776 is called: 'The Year of the Thousand' for the massive wave of change that swept over the city this year. The First thing that happens is [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Angus the Wirehair|Angus the Wirehair]] 'returns from the dead' on the 11th of Ascending Water storming into the city with a small group of Solars, Lunars, and Siderials and calling everyone he can reach into the city with him to face what he calls 'The Storm of the Millennium'. Ten days later the storm arrives and following in behind it a host of the fair folk the likes of which has not been seen in centuries. The city is invested and besieged for two months by the Faerie Host and the siege is only broken by the arrival of four full realm legions armed with Cold Iron. Once the Fair Folk are driven back and the city is again secure Angus orders most of the city leveled and an engineering project the like of which the city has not seen in over half a millennium undertaken to extensively alter its geomancy. To finance this undertaking he produces several tons of jade, from what source none can say, and uses his Wyld Shaping charms, which until his return no one knew he possessed, to manufacture the raw materials needed from the chaotic energy left behind by the Fair Folk.

However, no sooner was the project underway than orders came down from the Queen that he was to return to [[Meru]] at once and answer for his absence: and bound by the oaths he took as one of the [[Golden Hero Vassals]] so very long ago he departs. Following up on the plans he has left behind his circle mate [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Levian of the Gilded Staff|Levian of the Gilded Staff]] begins directing the super-massive construction and engineering projects which will if successful create one of the greatest concentrations of manses and geomantic relays outside of the Blessed Isle. By late in Descending fire half the city is gone and an entirely new street plan and so on is rising in its place, along with a massive upgrade to the walls and towers of the city perimeter as well.

What exactly passed for Angus in Meru is unrecorded by any presently known records except perhaps those of the Bureau of Destiny but what is recorded is the results of that visit: Angus was stripped of the rulership of his fief in the south including Solzarian and sent on a quest of penance into the frozen north: while Solzarian and the surrounding area was given into the hands of a relatively young solar of the Twilight Caste from another circle named [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Keisha Adriana Mullion|Keisha Adriana Mullion]] and her lunar mate [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Maxim of Personal Liberty|Maxim of Personal Liberty]].

While Keisha was young she was not stupid and consulted with Levian of the Gilded Staff on what she was doing with the engineering of the city. With the elder Twilight's help, she finished the geomantic reorganization as designed by Angus and by the end of Resplendent Air the basic project is finished. The city is now rife with uncapped demesnes and sites that will become demesnes once they can be activated after some of the others are capped. The city also now confers a geomantic bonus on all mortals living there, allowing them to develop their skills and abilities more quickly than those living in other cities. The full culmination of the project with the activation and capping of all demesnes will not be complete for another 36 years.

==== Time of Cascading Years ====

The Time of Cascading Years took rather longer in Solzarian and the surrounding area than it did in most of Creation: 3333 years to be precise. The relatively young solar ruler who went into the Time of Cascading Years and her only slightly more experienced Lunar Spouse emerges from it with a weight of skill and refinement which makes them elders among the solars and lunars. They also are now both arrayed with a panoply of artifacts and charms that make them forces to be reckoned with in the new Deliberative. The passage of the 'Age of Isolation' in Solzarian is marked by a number of rebellions and uprisings, and the invasion of their lands by the fair folk towards the end of it, from whence none, can say. Supposedly it was the destruction of an artifact which the Raksha Commander carried which restore time to its normal flow according to the people of Solzarian.

=== Second Deliberative Era ===

During the [[User:Nemo of Utopia/PeriodofLongSilence|Period of Long Silence]] Solzarain is one of the few areas still doing significant research, though they are hampered by the continuing disunity of creation and the fearfulness of creation's mortals who are all accustomed to traveling too far from home casting you into a different timeline.

With the Establishment of the new deliberative however Solzarian is thrust into the spotlight for around a hundred years as the home and workshop of one of the most important [[User:Nemo of Utopia:NPCCreationGuidelines/Exalted/FirstAge/Solar/TwilightCaste|Copper Spiders]] of the deliberative. During this period the city is a known destination for the many young Twilight-caste members who were reborn following the restoration of time's proper flow.

As this era goes on however Solzarian becomes less and less important with the rebuilding of the rest of creation, the other Twilights drift away to rule their own fiefs and work on their own projects and as has happened before Solzarian's position far from most significant events of history both at the center of creation and at its rim mean it becomes a backwater. Even it's solar and lunar rulers spend more time in Meru than at home, leaving the city in the hands of [[User:Nemo of Utopia:NPCCreationGuidelines/Exalted/FirstAge/Dragonblooded/Top|Dragon Blooded]] legates.

=== Era of Dreams ===

During the first part of the Era of Dreams, though Solzarian flourishes on the mundane level it remains a backwater on the scales by which The Realm measures such things: a functional and unimportant city in a functional but unimportant section of the world. It does, however, receive an [[IAM|I AM]] Transmission Node linking it to the broader network of information which now spans creation.

Then in the year 3381, it's twilight caste ruler is goaded into violating her eclipse oath to not attack other celestial exalted in Meru, setting in motion a chain of events that will alter the shape of Solzarian's fate for centuries to come, and that of the rest of creation. At first, the botches come hard and heavy, but then they stop and [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Keisha Adriana Mullion|Keisha]] thinks the oath's punishment has run its course.

It has not.

Returning to her holding in the south she begins to work on constructing a [[Proto Shinmatic Vortex]] and at a key stage of the process, the final botch of set activates and the PSV explodes, killing Keisha and creating an intense Wyld Zone south of the city over a hundred miles wide.

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/MaximofPersonalLiberty|Maxim of Personal Liberty]] calls upon every favor he has and even takes on new obligations to arrange the deliberative sending experts at Wyld Shaping to close the rift in the fabric of reality, but the people sent are not the high essence Solars and Lunars he hoped for but rather a cadre of neophytes who have scarce mastered Wyld Cauldron Technology and are woefully unprepared for the madness of the deep Wyld which exists within the rift. Three of them die before the other two calls it quits leaving the Wyld Zone barely stabilized around its edges. It is unrecorded at this remove what keeps the deliberative busy and the more powerful Wyld shapers tied up, but it will not be for another 3 decades that the Wyld zone is fully dealt with and that not by an individual any more experienced than the ones first dispatched, though with far greater caution than the first circle that was sent showed.

== The Usurpation ==

== The Shogunate ==

== The Fall & The Second Age ==

== The Rebirth ==

In RY 760, that same year where so very much else changed for creation (763 in normal Chronicles): the man who

= Government =

In basic, the Government of Amarana really consists of a single man: [[User:Nemo of Utopia/The Patron of Amarana|The Patron]]. He is an autocrat, ruling by divine mandate and shier power, as he is capable of defeating significant deities in single combat. However the Patron is one man, and as such has organized his subjects with several branches of what we would consider a more normal government. This normal government is organized into twelve 'Adeptus' which each is led by one of the twelve 'High Lords of Amarana'. These twelve powerful individuals form a council that advises and assists The Patron in his leadership of the city, feeding him data on several topics such as the state of his subject's religious convictions or the preparedness of his military. Though each High Lord is immensely powerful they all are The Patron's fanatical partisans and would not dream of challenging his authority, even if they could.

== The Adeptus Millitate ==

The Adeptus Millitate is one of the largest branches of Amarana's government, with no fewer than 1250 members in all its branches and subgroups. Though officially in charge of Amarana's Armed services it has a rival in The Adeptus Aeronauticus who oversee Amarana's air-forces. The Adeptus Millitate is run by [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Fist of the Land|Fist of the Land]] a God-Blooded martial artist who is somewhat uncomfortable leading an army of over a thousand people.

The Adeptus Millitate has the following departments and offices:

=== The Departmento Munitorum ===

Oversees the acquisition and care of the equipment and supplies for the army.

==== The Officio Technis ====

Deals with the army's Magitech assets.

==== The Officio Cibum ====

Oversees the all-important function of providing provisions for the troops.

==== The Officio Armorium ====

Handles the more mundane arms and armor of Amarana's troops.

==== The Officio Quartium ====

… is responsible for most everything else, from tents to uniforms to bedrolls.

=== The Departmento Servicum ===

Oversees the actual troops and officers and their training regimens.

==== The Officio Acadamicain Legionarius ====

This office oversees the training of new recruits and officers running two training schools for them.

==== The Officio Cooptatione Legionarius ====

This is the group that sees-to the recruitment and if necessary conscription of new troops for the army.

=== The Departmento Latrocinium ===

Oversees the hiring and 'control' of any mercenary units the government employs but is better known for a more sinister function.

==== The Officio Mercenarius ====

Does the Hiring and Firing of actual mercenaries.

==== The Officio Assasinoritum ====

'The Office of Assassins', to use the Vulgate, runs at least four secret dojos training mortal agents in martial arts that facilitate them serving as The Patron's spies and assassins. [[Nemo of Utopia/Assassin of the Grey Spire|Assassin of the Grey Spire]] 'leads' this office: He is ''not'' a master of the White Veil Style of martial arts and has most ''definitely not'' taught many of its members this secret art form. (Nudge nudge, wink wink, know what I mean, know what I mean? Say no more, say no more!)

=== The Officio Adminstrad Militate ===

This 'Floating Office' makes sure that all of the other Departmento and Oficio within this Adeptus do their jobs properly.

== The Adeptus Arbitiese ==

The Adeptus Arbitese oversee Amarana's police forces, and are one of the larger branches of the government with only 150 individuals on staff, counting every beat cop all the way on up to the High Lord Herself as well as all the file clerks and so on that work for the Adeptus but are not actually part of it's 'fighting strength'. They have only one Departmento and less than a dozen Officio, but so far are keeping a lid on the political turmoil of the city. The High Lord of the Arbitese is [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Steel Garden|Steel Garden]] who is not a very good investigator but a decent politician and capable administrator.

=== The Departmento Queastorum ===

This department is responsible for making inquiries and investigating crime, thus far it is the only Department of the Adeptus Arbitese but the Officio Correctionibus is expected to become a departmento in its own right someday.

==== The Officio Homicide ====

The Office of Homicide consists of only eight people, four detectives, three CSI techs, and one overworked file clerk. Their closure rate hovers at around 50%, though that is only due to them being able to count any suspect killed by the ghost of the victim as a closed case. [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Laurel the Axe|Laurel the Axe]] is the unofficial leader of this group but officially they answer directly to the High Lord of the Arbitese.

==== The Officio Servus Aucupes ====

The term 'office of slave catchers' is something of a misnomer. These detectives do not catch slaves, rather they catch people keeping, taking, or recapturing slaves and send them to their just punishments. This office consists of five overworked personnel, two detectives, two forensic accountants, and one file clerk. Their closure rate is around 30% since it is hard to prove that someone was a slaver without catching them in the act.

==== The Officio Vitium ====

Unlike the officio above this office is not quite so overworked, and the two often help each other out because their work frequently overlaps. The 'Vice Squad' mostly concerns itself with drugs and prostitution, since licensed gambling establishments and most pornography are both legal in Amarana. The officio consists of Four Detectives, five undercover officers, three CSI techs, and a harried file clerk. Their Closure rate is about 45%.

==== The Officio Interioribus ====

This Officio is more for show than anything since all of Amarana's police are held by the Stone of Invincible Loyalty. It consists of two Detectives and one Forensic Accountant. They often spend their time quietly helping out other offices.

==== The Officio Fraude Aucupes ====

This is actually one of the larger offices within the Arbities, having eleven total personnel, six detectives, three forensic accountants, a CSI tech, and a file clerk. The office tries to keep a lid on the Guild and others defrauding Amarana's citizens through various means and does a fairly good job. Their closure rate is about 70%, though this is largely due to a lot of success catching many small-fry while the remaining 30% is almost all of the big players.

==== The Ofiicio Fures ====

The 'office of thieves' is responsible for all break-ins, burglaries, purse snatchings, muggings, cutpurses, and so forth in the city. In spite of having eight detectives, five undercover agents, six CSI, four Forensic Accountants, and five file clerks their closure rate is about 12%. Garion Cromarch is frankly disgusted with them and has told The Patron so. The Patron knows they are doing their best but has ordered mandatory additional training for all members of this office.

==== The Officio Pax Patronum ====

The remainder of the police force is in this office. These are the beat cops that enforce the law by their presence and vigilance. Amarana is a large city and they constantly must be on the lookout for any kind of crime but especially things like drunk and disorderly, disturbing the peace, making an affray, and so on. This office consists of 57 patrol officers and over a dozen file clerks. Twelve of these officers are part of a sub-office of 'Mounties' who do their patrols in teams of three on horseback, they are often called in to suppress larger riots. The officers always patrol in teams of three, one to watch the front of a building and two to look around the sides and catch criminals in a pincer movement. They all carry magitech com units that let them use Wind Carried Words Technique and have Linguistics 3. (Their closure rate is not applicable since they work out of elven precincts and each one has a different closure rate.) One of these officers does not need a comms unit: being a dragon blooded air aspect outcaste named [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Secret Eagle|Secret Eagle]]. They have offered to promote him many times, but he prefers to be a patrol officer, though he has deigned to accept the rank of patrol sergeant for the fourth precinct.

=== The Officio Correctionibus ===

The office of corrections deals with the punishment rather than the apprehension side of crime. They are chronically overworked and typically have more criminals than they know what to do with but manage to do their jobs adequately. This floating office is overseen by Iron Sands, a member of The Broad who has lots of experience getting slaves to do as they are bid.

== The Adeptus Judicate ==

Working closely with the Adeptus Arbites the Adeptus Judicate is the other half of the justice system. These are the many Judges, Lawyers, and Clerks of the Court who make sure that the innocent are not punished with the guilty. At the present time, the Adeptus Judicate consists of 11 judges, 15 prosecuting attorneys, 23 Attorneys of Due Justice (Public Defenders.), 42 'Clerks of the Court' who record and file all rulings and court-ordered contracts, and 17 "Agent's Protection" who follow up on inconsistencies in court records and the welfare of Amarana's citizens in cases such as child abuse allegations and locating jurors that fail to show up for a trial. There are also about 200 private attorneys who are technically part of this Adeptus but not part of the government. The High Lord of the Courts is [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Molly McBride|Molly McBride]] a Demon Blooded northerner who has spent her whole life fighting against injustice and corruption in every form.

Additionally [[User:Nemo of Utopia/The_Patron_of_Amarana|The Patron]] himself is technically also a member of this branch as he has the right to sit in judgment if he chooses on all High Crimes and acts of Treason. He has invoked this right exactly once, mostly to prove that he could. (The person in question was found "Not Guilty by Reason of Insanity" and sentenced to lifetime confinement to a mental institution pending treatment or cure of his condition. He stood accused of twelve counts of grand theft, but psychoanalysis found him to be a kleptomaniac. The police often consult him on serial theft cases, and he is actually fairly good at solving them. However, he does have a problem with stealing other patients’ belongings and the doctor's pens and notebooks.)

Trials are in the American/British style, with a 'jury of one's peers' and the judge presiding from the high seat. The witness's sit to the judge's left and the clerk to the right. The prosecutors are on the left side of the courtroom and the Jury the Right while the accused is in the middle. Unless the accused is elderly or crippled and unable to stand they may not sit. For this reason, individual segments of trial must last no more than 3 hours. Only citizens may serve as witnesses, but since one can at the present time become a citizen after 24 hours residency this is not a problem. Citizens MAY testify with respect to events from before their citizenship. The accused is entitled to an 'Attorney of Due Justice' in the event that they cannot retain their own private counsel. The judge may dismiss any case at any time with or without prejudice, which is done routinely with respect to picayune or spurious civil cases so as to free up Attorneys of Due Justice for criminal trials. The patron is looking into finding more Judges and Attorneys of Due Justice so that civil cases do not need to be dismissed so frequently, which has a distressing tendency to lead to murder.

Abnormally The Adeptus Judicate does not have any departmento or officio, but there are those within it and without that are bucking to change that.

== The Adeptus Sororitatus ==

The 'Sisterhood' as they are called by the common folk is the government Adepta that oversees all _female_ clerics and thaumaturges in Amarana Like their Counterparts in the Adeptus Fratris they are few in number but powerful in influence. Technically also responsible for the worship of all-female gods in the city it is common that women will be priests of male deities and men prelates of a goddess's church. The division of male and female clergy between the AS and AF, however, is strict while the division of deities wavers like the landscape in the summer heat. In spite of these difficulties, the two branches of government get along quite well and cooperation between them is without rancor or strife in most cases. The High Lady of the Adepta is [[Nemo of Utopia/Unrepentant Emerald|Unrepentant Emerald]]. She is a mortal with Enlightened Essence and is exceedingly circumspect in her actions, a paragon of temperance. She is also the head priestess of [[Nemo of Utopia/Amarana Seline|Amarana Seline]].

=== The Officio Festivalius ===

This floating office submits to The Patron which days and locations should have festivals to honor the goddess' of the city. A circle of female clergy decide these events and pass them on to the patron, who generally approves them without comment. This circle is chaired by Unrepentant Emerald.

=== The Departmento Eclesiast ===

This is the main branch of the Adepta, overseeing and licensing all _female_ clergy in Amarana. The department technically consists of all licensed female clergy in the city but in practice, most of the female clergy get their licenses and are about their business having no further interaction with the government except to re-up their licenses once a year.

==== The Officio Licentiae ====

This officio handles the licensing process for all official priestesses, which requires proving you have the following capabilities: Ability to speak and read Old Realm, Basic knowledge of Spiritual Etiquette, (At least 3 dots in occult or 1 + an appropriate specialty.) and training in proper prayer procedures. (Prayer roll performance pool of at least 5 dice.) These requirements may be waived if the cleric has a 'sponsor' with a proper license who is taking on the new cleric as a student to train in service to their god/goddess in which case a 'Postulant Permit' is issued instead. Licenses are issued per deity, so if you wish to be the clergy of multiple gods multiple licenses are required. This is waived in the case of Zenith-caste Solars, Theurge-caste "New-Method"-Lunars, "Redemer"-caste Infernals, and Midnight-caste Abyssals, since it would be more trouble than it is worth to issue a license for every god in creation (for the first two), every each of the recovering yozis and all the greater demons (Redeemers), or ghost above essence 3 in the underworld (Midnight-castes).

==== The Officio Sanctionite ====

This is a smaller office within the departmento, making recommendations to The Patron on which female deities should be given official sanction within Amarana. All the female deities mentioned under the Religion section are sanctioned unless noted otherwise. Being unsanctioned does not mean you cannot be worshiped, but it does mean that you cannot have space allocated for a temple or licensed clergy. Sanctioning however is fairly easy to get since The Patron often simply signs the forms without reading them. (Additionally, all the incarnae are sanctioned, + Gaia and the Dragons.)

==== The Officio Hetterodox ====

This office deals with instances of rogue gods and clergy, such as the notorious Tuggie of the Scavenger Lands and other instances where the celestial bureaucracy has broken down to an unacceptable level. Employing many outside contractors they put spirits who demand illicit worship or sapient sacrifice in their places and also hunt rogue demons and the fair folk's ravagers. Though the actual functionaries of this Officio are few their agents are many and they are always busy.

== The Adeptus Frateris ==

Sometimes referred to as 'The Fraternity' by outsiders this Adeptus is responsible for all male deities and male clergy in Amarana. They take their job seriously and are sometimes noted for being taciturn and uncompromising. They are led by [[Nemo of Utopia/Wauli the Wolf|Wauli the Wolf]], who like his female counterpart is a mortal with awakened essence.

Structurally the Adeptus Frateris is identical to the Adeptus Sorroitatus.

== The Adeptus Mechanicus ==

The Adeptus Mechanicus are an odd bunch. Dressing in Rust Red robes and communicating in their own strange (and highly technical) dialect of Old-Realm they keep outsiders at arm's length. This Adepta is responsible for helping The Patron find and repair the magitech of the city a task that they perform supremely well but which many wonders if this group of strangely obsessed men and women are actually best suited for. Led by [[Nemo of Utopia/Adamant Sprocket|Adamant Sprocket]], an elderly Djala man and his young adult daughter [[Nemo of Utopia/Gears of Fate|Gears of Fate]], this group employs many Djala escapees in the task of repairing and rebuilding the city.

== The Adeptus Diolougus ==

What some would call the state department or the diplomatic corps the Adeptus Diolougus is one of the smallest Adeptus of the Amaranaian government. Led by [[Nemo of Utopia/Exultant Ivory Mother|Exultant Ivory Mother]] (a god-blooded woman from An-Teng, who harbors no feelings of goodwill for either Realm or Guild,) this group of spies and agent's provocateur work to keep Amarana a free city and outside the clutches of both [[The Guild]] and foreign powers such as the [[Realm]].

== The Adeptus Medicae ==

Easily among the smallest Adeptus of the Amaranaian government if one only counts the actual government personnel instead of approximately a-dozen-dozen licensed doctors, psychiatrists, and physicians whom they are tasked with overseeing and who like private attorneys in the city are technically part of the Adeptus: the Adeptus Medicae is as one might have guessed responsible for the physical and mental health of the city. They Tend to this task primarily by licensing and monitoring the city's medical personnel. This Adeptus role is two-fold: first, they are responsible for overseeing those practicing and utilizing any kind of medical skill in the city, from alchemists manufacturing morphine, [[Seven Bounties Paste]], or [[Age Staving Cordial]], to those offering psychiatric counseling outside of a church setting, to the several small private hospitals around the city, to even veterinarians. The Second task of the group is more dangerous and ripe for abuse by far: it is they in large part, as the only people with the requisite expertise, who draw up for [[Nemo of Utopia/The Patron of Amarana|The Patron's]] approval the statutes of law which they are tasked with enforcing. Thus far there has been no conflict of interest or abuses of power but the vast majority of people among the medical personnel of Amarana wait anxiously or avidly for this to begin changing.

The Adeptus Medicae is led by [[Nemo of Utopia/Simon Baker|Simon Baker]], a psychiatrist by trade, who is among the most dangerously insightful and persuasive people you will ever meet, at least that is not one of the exalted. He is, in fact, a god blooded, son of the patron deity of an order of physicians on The Blessed Isle, and is not much taken with the Imacualtes, treating them with frosty professionalism.

== The Adeptus Fabricae ==

Easily the largest and most diverse branch of the Amaranaian government the Adeptus Fabricae oversees all matters which involve or pertain directly to any sort of production, manufacturing, functional artistry, or creation of goods within Amarana's lands. Though ferreting out matters of a criminal nature fall under the heading of the Adeptus Arbites, and the governance of the legal codes is the province primarily of The Patron himself, and Prosecution and judgment of crimes is the business of the Adeptus Judicate, all three of these functions fall partially under this Adeptus' remit.

The Adeptus Fabricae first submits for The Patron's approval all codes and strictures which govern the actions and enterprises of fabricating all tangible products in Amarana, and exhaustive list of matters which fall under their control would be impossible but a few of the more salient follow: Print Shops, Compounding Pharmacies, Paper Mills, Glass Works, Jewelers, Magitech Repair Shops, Smithies, Book Binders, Cobblers, Tailors, and Farms: essentially anything which would be made by any sort of "Craft: XXX" skill is within their authority. The patron then reviews these legal codes and approves or rejects them, which becomes the strictures that the Adeptus Fabricae enforce upon the businesses of Amarana.

Most production facilities of any kind are within the Adeptus Fabricae's remit, with the notable exception of restaurants, taverns, eateries, pubs, tea houses, inns, and food carts which fall under the aegis of the Adeptus Medicae, though oddly pharmacies do not. Neither adepta is happy about this but neither is willing to lose or exchange the area they do have power over for reasons of their own which seem fully sufficient to them. Furthermore, any business that produces a tangible product and directly employs more than 50 people in any capacity is under their remit to license, inspect, and if necessary fine or refer to the Arbiters for investigation.

The following are the Departmento and Officio of the Adeptus Fabricae, each one with significant discretionary power and held in check solely by the High Lady of the Adeptus [[Nemo of Utopia/AuspiciousCrystalLightning|Auspicious Crystal Lightning]] and The Patron.

=== The Departmento Iura ===

The 'Department of Laws' devises and writes out the codes of law which govern the production and creation of goods in Amarana. They have created and submitted to the patron and extensive and thorough list of legal codes regarding the conditions, control, creation, and compensation for most products in Amarana, and those they have not they are working on.

==== The Officio Iura Laboris ====

The 'Office of Labor Laws' designs the codes of law concerning the employment, treatment, and management of Amarana's workforce. They are in the main as despised by the plutocracy as they are beloved by the common folk. Among other laws, they have enacted is the 8-hour work shift and the 6 day work week.

==== The Officio Iura Fabricación ====

The "Office of Manufacturing Laws" creates the codes of law governing the actual production of goods. Other offices govern the details of different types of production facilities or fields, but this office creates the general guidelines which the others work by.

==== The Officio Iura Cotagium Industria ====

The "Office of Cottage Industry" drafts the limited and simple codes which control small scale manufacturing by individuals and small business. They would like to have more extensive and detailed codes but The Patron uses his authority to make the official versions of the law to pare back most of their red tape and BS. He is, in fact, thinking of suspending this office for a period of some months while he looks for a better and less over eager set of people to be its officers.

==== The Officio Iura Officinis ====

This office makes the laws respecting the specific difficulties of production in a factory typesetting. Any production facility with 50 or more employees falls under their regulating authority, even things that are not normally their provinces such as farms, eateries, and pharmacies. For this reason, many production facilities and such, run with a staff of 40, so that even if they hire a handful of temp workers they will not move into this Officio's dominion. This Officio is not-well-liked by most business owners, being seen as overly restrictive and exceedingly interfering.

==== The Officio Iura Pharmicopia ====

== The Adeptus Adminstradum ==

== The Adeptus Aeronauticus ==

== The Adeptus Vectigalia ==

Lying squarely in the middle of the Adeptus of the city in terms of size the Adeptus Vectigalia is The Patron's Tax Collectors and Auditors of Accounts. Little liked by most people in the city they are nevertheless key to its continued function. In addition to overseeing that the government is given it's due and being called on to check the books of businesses which the Adeptus Arbites feel might be doing illegal activities the Adeptus Vectigalia also runs Amarana's national mint, which means that they are monitored closely by both The Patron and the Adeptus Arbites.

Noted for being uncompromising and humorless the Adeptus Vectigalia dress in imperishable formal clothing left behind from the first age. The hot stuffy suits and jackets only contribute to their reputation as dour and unsmiling drones of government oversight, which is perhaps the point of the dress code.

The Adeptus Vectigalia is divided into three Departmento: The Departmento Salari, which collects the taxes in cash or kind, the Departmento Quastorius, who audits people's books, and the Departmento Signo, who oversees the minting and engraving of all Amaranaian currency.

The Adeptus Vectigalia is led by [[Nemo of Utopia/Manifold Gemstone|Manifold Gemstone]] a perfectly ordinary man, who happens to be an excellent forensic accountant if only a passable administrator.

= Religion =

Faith and practice in Amarana are as diverse as the people who have come to live there. Everything from Immaculates to ancestor Worshipers to CotI members to simple priests and adherents of various gods all rub-elbows on the city's streets. Below are a brief rundown of the most prominent of the city's faiths and the deities they worship.

== Immaculates ==

Though the smallest of the city's faiths the Immaculate Doctrine still has hundreds of adherents among the people of the city, many of whom are enlightened martial arts practitioners. They also have a strong support network in the form of outside contacts with The Realm and other Dragon-Blooded.

== The Common Faith/Hundred Gods Heresy ==

The Majority of the population of Amarana believe in the gods as most people of the threshold do: they worship those who can provide them with benefits they want or need and don't understand much about the celestial bureaucracy or how things worked in the first age and that the present state of affairs is a corruption of the 'proper' order of things. Those that do often take the stance that "this is the way things are" and simply go on with their day.

What follows is a brief list of the major deities of Amarana and who or what they are affiliated with:

=== Amarana Seline ===

[[Nemo of Utopia/AmaranaSeline|Amarana Seline]]: As the City Mother of Amarana, Amarana Seline is the leader of the city's spirits. She was promoted from off the dole in heaven by the machinations of a number of bronze faction Sidereals and is fully cognizant of the fact that she '''owes''' them, but at the same time of the fact that as a dispossessed spirit promoted to the rank of City Mother she has few allies and many enemies. For these and other reasons she does not play favorites, at least not much, and is working hard at her job coordinating the smooth running of the city. Though she tries to be largely neutral in truth she is in the camp of the Immaculate Faction, which is part of why the Immaculates are as strong as they are in the city.

=== Mother Midnight ===

[[Nemo of Utopia/MotherMidnight|Mother Midnight]]: As the Senior Goddess of all-natural misfortunes in Amarana 'Mother of Midnight Murder and Mayhem', to use her full name, is a very good person for The Patron to have on his side. Mother Midnight takes positive glee in afflicting his enemies with all manner of troubles and ailments, from murder most foul to tripping on a dropped piece of lumber and spilling twenty boxes of crack from their backpack right in front of a police officer. However she is not really playing favorites, she still inflicts all manner of problems on the Patriots, their enemies just get it first and worst. Mother Midnight also has another interesting fact to her favor: she has been at her post for the past 3000 years. She gets audited on a regular basis and comes up smelling like roses: every, single, time! This drives Wong Bongerok to a level of near slavering fury, especially since he is certain Mother Midnight has been doing some kind of double-dealing and below-board hustle to keep herself fed and clothed during Amarana's long dormancy but has no way to prove it. Thing is, he's wrong. Mother Midnight became a doomsday prepper just after the usurpation and had been stockpiling quintessence and ambrosia for centuries ere the fair folk invaded. She has been living off that stockpile for all the time since and even now could go several centuries were the city to fall again ere she would need to start hustling for her sustenance.

In form, Mother Midnight looks like an exceedingly overweight woman with coal-black skin and long dreadlocked black hair that hangs so long as to trail on the ground. She typically appears nude or dressed in rags but can summon an armor of bones and broken pottery for a cost of 3 motes that gives her 10 lethal/bashing soak for the rest of the scene. For one mote she may reflexively cause any weapon that strikes her which has a hardness of less than 10 to automatically break*, and any weapon that has less than 15 hardness but more than 10 take 5d of damage. Energy weapons are immune to this, such as beam-klaves and weapons with a hardness of more than 15 cannot be affected. These powers do not count as charm use.

*(The weapon still inflicts damage before breaking from this effect.)

=== Pauldron Of Sanctity ===

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/PauldronOfSanctitity|Pauldron Of Sanctitity]]: is the new titular war god of the state, essentially exiled to the post by Atlhat since he is a rabidly punctual and rules obsessed deity that Atlhat has detested for centuries. Pauldron of Sanctity takes the form of a tall man in Gunzosha Armor and wielding a shock pike. He believes in well regimented and organized military units who are drilled and well equipped. In many ways, his notions of war are still trapped in the low first age when he was spawned as the god of a mercenary company, but this is just fine because he is the war god of a city with much of its low first age equipment and infrastructure intact. Though he favors the Immacualtes he is not willing to alter the course of outlined fate one millimeter without approval through proper channels.

=== Garion Cromarch ===

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/GarionCromarch|Garion Cromarch]]: is the god of Amarana's police force, who has waited patiently these seven centuries and more since the loss of the city to the fair folk working unofficially as a P.I. in Yu-Shan and who is the author of Amarana’s rebirth, having convinced the Bronze Faction to engineer the events which have led to that happening. Garion is perhaps more involved in the doings of the city's police than he should be, often helping them out with 'gut feelings' and leading dreams, but so far his interference has not crossed the line of allowed behavior.

Garrion's form looks like an idealized southern human male wearing Sentinel Defense Force armor blazoned with the symbol of Amarana, an eagle in flight wearing broken manacles.

=== Lissom Shining Spring ===

[[Nemo of Utopia/LissomShiningSpring|Lissom Shining Spring]]: a goddess of the local Oasis who temporarily holds two positions both in her old job and as the minster of all water sources within Amarana's sphere of influence. She is not perfidious in this role like Alhat who should not hold both the aegis of southern war god and god of cattle but is genuinely looking for a replacement to take over the role of goddess of springs and oasis: however she is a perfectionist and committed to finding a perfect candidate, which means that though she has interviewed over a hundred prospective applicants she has not found one that she feels is worthy of her longtime position. The Bronze Faction is willing to let her conduct further interviews, for now, but have made it clear that if she does not have a new spirit in the position by the end of next year she will be censured and the task of finding a replacement will be out of her hands. To this end, she has compiled what she calls her 'secondary list': those gods that she felt were 'almost' up to her lofty standards, and if she is running out of time will call them back for a second interview and chose the best one. She still hopes for a perfect applicant however and only has four names on her 'secondary list'.

Lissom Shining Spring's form is that of a large fish, but lately, she has been finding herself slipping into the form of a young woman in the suit of one of the city's hydro-engineering personnel who assists the Patron in making sure that all the pipes are sound before restoring the flow of water to a building. She is not sure she likes this.

=== Sonari ===

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/Sonari|Sonari]]: is the divine minister of sunlight and shadow for Amarana. She works with the bureau of nature to ensure that the proper degree of cloud cover reaches Amarana as well as the appropriate amount of sun. Like many of the gods of Amarana she is newly promoted from being on the dole and fearful of losing her position, but even so, dares to encourage the cult to worship her with little flourishes like rays of light in winter and cool breezes in summer.

She takes the form of a cloud from which pour rays of sunlight.

=== Meroka Jin ===

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/MerekaJin|Mereka Jin]]: the minister of romance and love in Amarana is actually an old pro at the role, having been the minister for the task in the old city and then for the Salaru tribes. He is corrupt as the day is long but adept at hiding his perfidy from anyone and everyone, including to a degree himself.

Mereka Jin takes the form of a vigorous adult man of the south with a rose in his teeth and a rakish smile. He often appears nude or in the robes worn for a wedding among the Salaru.

Mereka is eternally locked in a bitter feud with his theoretical partner Sakarzi: minster of lust and attraction, who is constantly trying to break down the stable romantic relationships her 'partner' builds. For the moment they have reached a detente on the matter of the two factions in which they are most interested, If Sakarzi will do her job for the romantic relationships of the Solarians then Meroka will not try to pair off the Ancestor Cultists into mirages and leave Sakarzi to push them to rut in wild abandon. They have not agreed about what to do with the rest of the population which makes up more than 60%.

=== Bibwit Heart ===

[[Nemo of Utopia/BibwitHeart|Bibwit Heart]]: The 'least' god of Amarana's central manse, Bibwit is uncomfortable with the cult worshiping him as they do. He has seen many least gods that have found themselves at the center of cults growing arrogant and ultimately becoming starmetal and is afraid this will happen to him. He has survived both the fall of the solars and the shogunate by being small and unobtrusive, keeping his manse functional and active while the rest of the city fell apart and he is not going to change that strategy. Still, he is an important god in the city, and as such they venerate him. Bibwit takes the form of an anthropomorphized rabbit with white fur and a tailored coat. He carries a pocket watch that lets him make flurry attacks up to his DEX score with no penalty.

=== Cela Dinarius ===

[[Nemo of Utopia/CelaDinarius|Cela Dinarius]]: Cela is the goddess responsible for Amarana's economy, and she is a personal friend of Glorious Weapon. She is no friend of the Guild and works as much as she dares to keep the guild from stealing artifacts from Amarana for sale to its foreign rivals. Formerly the goddess of Aj-Aran's main market square she was promoted to the overall control of the economy of Amarana via the machinations of the gold faction. She knows the city father is a bronze faction plant but reasons that as long as they both do their jobs properly they should not come into many conflicts. The two have a standing date for tea every Venus day.

Cela Dinarius form is that of an attractive woman carved from silver, and she wears the clothing of a Varangian cloth factor, which was her first job beyond as the least god some 4 centuries ago, patron goddess of a new Varangian cloth consortium.

=== Zalril ===

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/Amarana/Zalril|Zalril]]: Formerly the Least god of Amarana's north gate Zalril has by what amounts to shier-force-of-will moved up to become the patron god of Guild Members working in Amarana. The exact operation of this occurrence has been shrouded in mystery at the orders of Kejop Kajac himself, and further Nazri signed off on it too. The Guild maintains a large shrine just outside his old gate where they leave offerings before entering the city and where three slave women were taken under cover of night and sworn to become Zalril's Priestesses in exchange for their freedom by an Eclipse-caste member who often works for the guild. Though two of them still keep their roles as the god's priestesses the third has left the shrine and now lives in the city as a teacher for the city's new public school. Interestingly she has suffered no ill effects from 'breaking' her oath. Zalril has asked for the Guild to send a replacement but they are still trying to figure out why the oath failed in the first place. Meanwhile [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Sulramia|Sulramia]] finds fulfillment in teaching her students as do [[User:Nemo of Utopia/GayePachudiweOgesu|Gaye Pachudiwe Ogesu]] and [[User:Nemo of Utopia/OxandRainbowSlave|Ox and Rainbow]] the two women that still work at the shrine. Ogesu is an old woman and does the cooking and cleaning while Ox and Rainbow stand guard over the shrine. Sulramia also came with another gift for the god, her daughter, as she was part of a quadratic set, Maiden, Warrior, Mother, and Crone, and if she was to be the 'mother' Zalril insisted that she has a child as proof of her status, who conveniently doubled as 'maiden'. Sulramia's daughter is called [[User:Nemo of Utopia/IronandHoneyMaiden|Iron and Honey Maiden]] and is just the cutest five-year-old you will ever see, with an appearance score of five already. Her mother lives constantly with the fear of pedophiles, but does not let it rule their lives.

=== Walziri ===

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/Walziri|Walziri]]: as the god of beasts of burden within Amarana's lands Walziri is a major player in the lives of Guild personnel who must work or live here. Formerly a lesser deity of travel and trade in Harborhead Walziri was appointed to his new post by the machinations of a cabal of 'Independent' southern Sidereals and understands that he OWES them for this big break. The cabal has not called in that favor, at least not yet, but for the moment are content with him filing informal reports on the going's on in Amarana. While still hard at work at his new post he has already started to play favorites a little with the Guild's Men who pray to him, subtly strengthening their animals and selecting them last when sickness is due to strike the camels or whatnot of the city. Walziri takes the form of a large man of Harborhead derivation wearing several coral necklaces and white robes. He carries a Jade cattle prod which can be used as a spear or thrown like a javelin and returns instantly to his hand.

=== Anyaka Tetsuo ===

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/AnyakaTetsuo|Anyaka Tetsuo]]: The minister of Chance and Gambling in Amarana, Tetsuo is not new to this job. Created as the least god of a set of enchanted dice not long after the Primordial War Tetsuo has risen over the course of the intervening years to a position of moderate power in this city through diligent work and a suspicious number of 'lucky' breaks. Though no investigation has ever found him guilty of any wrongdoing there are enough people that are suspicious of what he surely must have done with his powers to better his status that it is unlikely he will ever rise any higher. Some deities would plot and scheme to continue advancing, but Tetsuo knows better. As a god of chance and gambling, he is well aware that he has been on quite the lucky streak and that is when you should count your winnings, leave the table, and cash in your chips before your luck runs out. He is content to be the god of all chance and gambling in Amarana: and will only rise higher if his natural luck brings him a sudden break, which he is not holding his breath for. He wiles away his time by playing games with the gamblers of the city, making them win or lose in a big way, but staying within the bounds of prescribed fate.

Tetsuo looks like a tall, broad-shouldered, thoroughly tattooed man with a cup and dice for playing a popular gambling game called 'Han or Cho'.

Tetsuo's sanctum is exceedingly large, he has had 700 years of dormancy in Amarana in which to expand it, and it now takes the form of a vast resort with several small casinos and many spas on what appears to be a small tropical island. (At the boundaries of its area there is a big reef beyond which the waterfalls away into nothing.) Tetsuo typically has many of the small gods of gambling and chance living in his sanctum with him at any time. Tetsuo is a colleague of Mother Midnight, not her subordinate, but the two work closely to determine which gamblers will face a string of ill luck.

=== Bagong Fangrick ===

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/BaegongFangrick|Bagong Fangrick]]: As the God of Vermin within Amarana Fangrick is an odd person to aid the guild but the guild will take allies where it can find them. Fangrick is a subordinate of Mother Midnight but has kept himself mostly out of her way and done his job without fuss since the revival of the city. Formerly the deity of rats for the Salaru tribes he was promoted upon the city's revival in recognition of many years of hard work with little reward and not the slightest blemish on his record.

Bagong Fangrick looks like an aged anthropomorphic rat, dressed in the robes of a shogunate era martial arts practitioner.

=== Wisp Virunga ===

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/WispVirunga|Wisp Virunga]]: As the managing deity for all education in Amarana Wisp is a VIP for the Patriots, because she helps their people learn new skills significantly faster, which helps them stay a step ahead of their competition, for the moment. The thing is that Wisp is running a knife-edge game with staying inside what is allowed within her post as a manager for all education in Amarana and what could be censured. This is very very bad: because she is already in trouble with the local censor's deputy for bearing a god blooded child, who is still alive and therefore available as evidence. Just to add insult to injury the censor's deputy has a personal vendetta against her for rebuffing his advances in favor of a mere mortal. Until the revival of Amarana Wisp Virunga was the goddess of its central library, she effectively promoted herself to the chief goddess of education by cozening up to the Patron while he was excavating her manse. When he decreed the first mandatory schooling sessions for the early colonists he had them pray to her as patron of all education in Amarana at the start of each day, when the prayers reached critical mass a few months later she had already conducted a quiet set of interviews and had her replacement as god of the library already prepped and ready to take over at once. This is not precisely an offense against the laws of heaven, but it is somewhat 'bad form' and would count against her slightly in a formal audit. It also has earned some of her fellow deities enmity, especially:...

=== Principle of Justified Action ===

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/PrincipleofJustifiedAction|Principle of Justified Action]]: Heaven has gods of just about everything, including educators. Principle of Justified Action was formerly a deity of a major school out in the distant threshold before the fair folk invasion and only survived that calamity by mere chance, having been in heaven on vacation when the hosts of faerie scourged the world. Since then he has lived on the dole and schemed endlessly to get another position in the bureau of humanity's education office. He finally thought he had one all lined up when Amarana was scheduled to be rebuilt as its manager of education, but the Patron and Wisp Verunga snatched it out of his hands. Yet, when one door closes another opens and a cabal of Gold Faction Sidereals and a few people who were still his friends from the old days managed to finagle him a consolation prize. The role of managing deity for the court system of Amarana was still open since there were not supposed to be any real criminal proceedings for several months yet. Desperate to get off the dole by then and seeing this as his last chance for the foreseeable future he accepted.

What neither he nor the Sidereals that helped him expected, was that he would LIKE the work. Managing a court system is not so different in truth from managing a school, you have trouble makers, erudite and passionate people, a lot of people who really don't want to be there, an ever-changing cast of characters doing many old and a few new stupid things, a complex set of rules you must adhere to; the similarities were rather a shock. Of course, there were differences, mostly in the fact that things move both so much slower most of the time and so much faster in the crunch, but he got his sea legs within a month or two and found himself enjoying having a real job again. That said, Principle of Justified Action is still no friend of Wisp Virunga and would dearly love to put in an application to replace her should she fall afoul of the auditors. However he bides his time, after all, he is employed in a job that he does not find onerous and has plenty of prayers coming in from both sides of the law, Wisp has no experience and is drowning in her duties, let them see what putting an untried administrator into such an important post does! Chances are that within the decade he will have her job: so runs his reasoning.

The Patron is another matter. He likes the Patron, rather a lot, and finds in the autocrat of the city a kindred spirit: and of course, cannot fault the man on the matter of his dedication to an educated society. He sometimes pokes the patron in the subconscious when he is contemplating a bad law, or about to reject a good one, and thus far does not consider it any kind of offense against heaven's rules. He is, in fact, wrong, he has committed no less than 5 level-one offenses in this manner, but that will largely be ignored unless he does more than mere subconscious nudging, after all, he has not really messed up any major plans this way so far.

In form Principle of Justified Action looks like a tall man from the furthest east, wearing the green and red robes of a seated Judge of Amarana's courts. His hair is shock white, a remnant of his time among the starving unemployed but he finds it suits his image as a wise leader of the courts. Abnormally for a god of justice he is lenient with most offenders, reasoning that if you punish too harshly you deny them a chance to learn from their mistakes. However, anyone who harms children sees the other side of him, a fury of unrelenting hatred that will see them hanged if at all possible.

=== Sakarzi ===

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/Sakarzi|Sakarzi]]: though she would dearly love to bring about the Patron's ruin and overthrow Sakarzi: minister of lust and attraction for Amarana, has a problem: She is both terrified of him and lusts after him obsessively. Sakarzi met the Patron before he mastered Amarana when she was bathing in a sacred hot-spring on the borders of the lands now claimed by the city in the guise of a comely Salaru maiden and he was following his awakened memories back to the city to claim his destiny. There at the hot-spring, she tried to seduce him.

She Failed.

The patron was clearly attracted to her and wished to accept her advances but mastered himself with an effort of will and politely refused. Five more times in five different guises Sakarzi has tried to seduce him and each time has been rebuffed, but always politely. This is why she is terrified of him, no one else whom she has ever tried to seduce has refused her advances so many times, especially since each of those times she has used progressively more of her supernatural powers, in the last instance activating an effect that should have compelled him to lie with her will he or no. She lusts after him because she has a weakness for powerful men, and The Patron certainly is one: but it is his immunity to her mystical powers that have made it an obsession. With the Patron, Sakarzi can use only the arts available to a mortal woman to snare the man she desires, and it is driving her to distraction. Perhaps an hour's worth of time out of each of her days is frittered away trying to think up new ways to seduce the Patron that rely only on her natural skills and personal beauty, but thus far she has not come up with anything worth using on a seventh attempt. The reason that Sakarzi would love to see the patron fall is that after she started a feud between three of the early families of colonists by seducing three of their sons and declaring that only the last one living would bed her the patron caught her outside her sanctum and beat her to within an inch of her life, declaring that if he ever caught her pulling that kind of stunt on his supporters again he would not pull his blows the second time.

These conflicting emotions are tearing Sakarzi apart, she lusts after the patron, but wants to ruin him, but is terrified of him, but she wants to have sex with him so bad she can taste it: Etc, Etc. In the meantime, she has appeared to several of the Patriots and declared her support for the patron's cause offering her help in securing the objects of their desires and the word has spread among them that if you erect a shrine to her in your residence and pray at it twice a day, morning and night, she will aid you in seducing whoever you most lust after.

While Sakarzi has many forms she can assume her true form is that of a Salaru woman of surpassing beauty and grace who literally cannot wear clothing. Her merest touch causes any garment to become invisible for one hour, so there is no point in her wearing any kind of raiment except for its protective value, which she rarely does.

=== Machuko; Torch of Freedom ===

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/MachukoTorchofFreedom|Machuko; Torch of Freedom]]: Is it any wonder, considering the status of Amarana as a free city where none may be held in bondage without due process of law, that the patron deity of Liberation and Abolitionism should view it with favor and even more so it's leader who enacted the law in question? [[Rabsolga]], the patron of slavery, hates and despises Amarana and if for no other reason than that Machuko loves and protects it. Furthermore, Machuko is [[User:Nemo of Utopia/ThePatron|The Patron]]'s patron god, to whom he prays five times a day, and is celebrated with five feast days each year, one at the beginning of each 'resplendent' month. Even the Immaculates honor these five days of worship, because the Patron has been known to have those that speak against honoring the feasts arrested and tried for sedition and/or aiding and abetting slavers, and their leader does not need that kind of attention, so he has said: "These days honoring Machuko are sanctioned by the immaculate faith, so long as you pray unto him only on these days you do not sin against the orders of Heaven."

Machuko keeps a large temple in the city's northeast quarter: a level 3 fire aspected manse called 'The Wheel of Torches' from it ride forth his clergy and devout adherents numbering several dozen strong on raids into the wastes beyond Amarana's borders proclaiming Machuko's glory and the freedom of all people within the lands of Amarana. Machuko has many priests across all of creation but nowhere are there so many gathered together as in Amarana.

In form, Machuko looks like a tall muscular man of what modern people would call Jewish/Hasidic/Israeli derivation, with a wild beard and long hair that hangs in ringlets. He carries a gore maul and chopping sword of orichalcum and white jade which when used together can cut any chain or bond. He has another form, which he assumes rarely except when in heaven, which is that of a great Dragon filled with yellow-white fire and made from millions of broken chains, collars, and manacles.

== Ancestor Cultists ==

Led by [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Sharima of the Three Disciplines|Sharima of the Three Disciplines]] and her ghostly lover [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Aruna the Defiant|Aruna the Defiant]] this group of citizens is a large and vocal part of the city's population. Though dwarfed by the percentage of the city who worship the city's gods and elementals the Ancestor Cultists make up as much as 20-25% of the city's population and are especially prominent among the [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Salaru|Salaru]].

The Ancestor Cultists make use of a large number of small [[Shadowlands]] across the city to communicate more directly with their patron spirits and interact with the underworld: but are mindful of [[User:Nemo of Utopia/The Patron of Amarana|The Patron]]'s injunctions about not breaking the circles of salt and other wards which keep the ghosts within the Underworld. They are however constantly working to locate 'new' and unguarded Shadowlands for their patrons to use to slip in and out of the underworld, which The Patron minds not one bit so long as they report them for the Adeptus Sororitatus/Frateris to seal in due course.

Though most of the people of Amarana are unaware of this fact the Ancestor Cultists are being controlled from behind the scenes by a Deathknight known as [[User:Nemo of Utopia/The Fluttering Fist of the Deadly Labyrinth|The Fluttering Fist of the Deadly Labyrinth]] he is a martial artist in service to The [[Mask of Winters]] who has wandered off on his own agenda far from thorns and The Mask's traditional area of operation. "The Fist" came to Amarana in search of a rumored cache of [[Autochthonian]] [[Soulsteel]], held in the vaults of the undercity, but has found that much of the undercity is sealed and inaccessible even from the [[Underworld]]. In the meantime, he works on the ancestor cultists as both a way to support himself and something to occupy his time while he trains to learn the charms that will allow him to enter the prehuman depths of the city where he hopes the bars of [[Autochthonian Soulsteel]] can be found.

Though the ghosts of Salaruku are numerous and very old surprisingly few of them are Heroic Ghosts and willing/able to serve as patrons for Amarana's ancestor cultists. Of those that do It is surprisingly four of the youngest ghosts that are the main patrons worshiped by the cultists: along with one exceedingly old ghost from the fall of Salaruku.

=== Xufuwne Onuke ===

The leader of Amarana's relatively large population of ghosts from the time of the fair folk invasion Onuke is frighteningly powerful but relatively easy going. He has outlasted Amarana's long dormancy and now looks forward to an era of joy and plenty for the city's dead. A dragon blooded warrior in life Onuke was killed battling the invaders from the wyld and in an odd twist of fate, they buried him with high honors. His tomb lies in the still mostly sand-covered western half of the city at the center of a small park and is one of the barest handful of areas in that region that have been excavated in advance of the main work. In form, Onuke looks like a typical dragon blooded of the shogunate, dressed in power armor and wielding a Daiklave. He has subsisted by hunting plasmic creatures for most of 700 years but welcomes the changes of the reborn city. Onuke is the cult's equivalent of a war god, a role he shoulders without complaint but also without relish.

=== Aruna the Defiant ===

Hailing from Chiaroscuro Aruna is the lover of Sharima, and they have many Ghost-blooded children together. They were maneuvered into the leadership of the cult by agents of [[The Archon of Apostasy]] who wished to have a shining example of ghost/mortal co-operation in Amarana to help people accept the death cult in their midst. The Archon's agents do not believe the plan is working but they are wrong, were it not for the two of them the cult would have been burned out root and branch. Aruna is a relatively young ghost but has become powerful quite quickly thanks to her lover and her association with various death cults. In appearance, Aruna looks like a young woman of the Delazen, beautiful and alluring for all her ghostly translucence and pallor. Aruna is the cult's patron of love and romance but gives short shrift to lust.

=== Emerald Lotus ===

Like her partner's Monkey of the City and Triumphal Eagle of the Flawless Hill, Emerald Lotus has been elevated to leadership by the machinations of the Patron, who decreed a feast day in their honor on the day of their deaths defending Amarana from an attack by a trio of 'Hounds of the Unbroken Earth'. None of them is experienced enough to really do the jobs that they have had thrust upon them but they all are rising to the challenge. Emerald Lotus resembles a typical woman of the deep south dressed in a white robe and headscarf that covers everything but her face, and overtop that a breastplate of steel. She is neither attractive nor ugly but is very charismatic. She carries an infinite jade chakram as her main weapon and also bears a perfect chopping sword for close fighting. Emerald Lotus is the patron 'deity' of the cult's Martial Artists, as she had some experience with that in life. She still is finding her feet as a ghost and defers to Xufuwne Onuke on most matters.

=== Monkey of the City ===

Dressed in lamellar and wielding a shock pike monkey of the city is not really suited to his role as a leader of an ancestor cult. Having been an outcast and wanderer in life who always tried to keep people happy and was quick with a joke or to share his water he has not changed much in death. However, there is a place for the fun and funny guy in any pantheon and Monkey of the City fills that role for the Ancestor Cultists of Amarana. Monkey of the City is the cult pantheon's trickster and comic relief, which he does not mind one bit.

=== Triumphal Eagle of the Flawless Hill ===

Wearing a Red Jade reenforced Buff Jacket Triumphal Eagle, or simply 'Der Aller'* as he prefers to be called, was not much of a warrior in life, but was on rotation for guard duty when the hounds attacked and were predictably killed by them. Buried with honors along with the rest of the four and then raised up as a patron spirit of the city he has persisted as a leader due largely to [[User:Nemo of Utopia/The_Patron_of_Amarana|The Patron]]'s favor and the fact that he is a very intelligent man, who is knowledgeable about many subjects. His role in the city's death cult is that of a spirit of wisdom and intellect, as well as oddly the patron, so to speak, of the Adeptus Aeronauticus.
*(Which means 'the Eagle' in his native tongue, a northern barbarian language...)

== Cult of the Illuminated ==

The Cult of the Illuminated has a relatively small and subtle presence in Amarana, but never-the-less are present. Their agents and activists walk among the cults dedicated to the various celestial exalted who have come to Amarana quietly preaching of the unity of creation and the duties of the 'Shining Ones' to be the leaders and stewards of creation. "Someday," they say. "All creation will be united behind the Shining Ones, and on that day those who have served them well will have rewards beyond their wildest dreams."

Among the 17 or so celestial exalted in the city 6 are allied with the Cult of the Illuminated, and some of the others are sympathizers. The CotI worshipers pray to most of them and work to support their interests.

= Geography =

Geographically Amarana lies at the point just before the sands of the deep desert fully give way to the rocky foothills of the summer mountains. When the spring rains sweep in from the north it is prone to flooding and mud, while the heat of high summer brings the blazing Simoon roaring out of the deep desert and with it short tempers and sharp words that sometimes flare into brutal murders. Winter is a season of joy and happiness for the citizen's of Amarana, as the power of the elemental pole of Air waxes and the desert is cooled, allowing snow to briefly form in the nearby summer mountains which are trucked into Amarana by old roads and made into flavored sherbets and snow cones for those with the Patron's favor, especially small children, of whom The Patron is known to be quite fond. The foothills around Amarana abound with resources brewed up by the slowly retreating Wyld or pushed from deep within the earth by the strange forces by which creation renews itself over the centuries, including many veins of silver from which Amarana mints its currency. Meanwhile, the desert around Amarana is rich with fire dust and gem sand, especially during the nights of the new moon when the Wyld retreats for several miles further south and exposes a wide swath of 'tainted' land, especially where the city has been slowly pushing the Wyld back by infecting it with billions of grains of what is essentially Elemental Earth. This area is hazardous as well however because the tainted area is not just composed of valuable sands, but also dangerous ones, such as quicksand, shatter sand, and hungry sand. For every person from Amarana who strikes it rich mining fire-dust or gem-sand in the tainted lands on the nights of the new moon, another finds themselves injured, killed, or mutated: in Amarana 'Firedust Miner' looks fair to rank among the top 5 'most dangerous professions' for the first year of recorded statistics in the city, right behind 'Rogue Spirit Protection Expert' and 'Pharmacist' but just ahead of 'Building Excavation Team Member' and 'Artifact Recovery Personnel'

Nearby Amarana is a number of Small Oasis, Hot Springs, and Geysers which have long provided the Salaru tribes with water. Though 90% of the tribesmen have returned to their ancestral home a few chose to stay out in the wastelands for one reason or another, and now gather into three new small tribes: the western, northern, and eastern Salaru.

To the west, the desert is hot by day and cold by night, with only trackless sand to greet your eyes, the Salaru who have stayed out in this wilderness journey mile upon mile between oasis that is often buried under the shifting sands and must be dug down to gather up their water. They survive by hunting snakes and lizards and trading fire dust and jewel sand with the Guild for added food and water. Though trade is their main source of contact with the outside they no longer must rely upon it or perish, with the total number of tribe's men in this region reduced by more than 95% they now can survive on their own without help, but it would be a spartan existence. Trade gives them luxuries and better equipment, which they put to good use. The western salaru do not keep herd beasts or in fact, any animals except hunting dogs, the land here is too harsh for this to be profitable. They worship many nature spirits, but few major deities except the Unconquered Sun, who is seen as a wrathful god of war and destruction, and Luna in her aspect as The White Navigator, who is seen as a benevolent and helpful deity. Though they honor the high holy days of the five maidens they are not much revered outside those times.

To the north, the Salaru who have not returned to their city are primarily herders and gatherers, as the foothills of the summer mountains provide old lava tubes and other places to hide from the sun by day and keep flocks dry when the rains come. Their life is perhaps the least harsh of the three new tribes since they have kept the most of their population, with only about 80% going to live in the city and in all cases leaving a few family members to mind the herds and ancestral cave or rock-cut house. They also were the most numerous of the Salaru before the return to Amarana, having six of the 10 Salaru tribes living in their region. and now are by far-and-away the most populous of the three 'outside' tribes. They also still contribute a good chunk of Amarana's food supplies, which means that even the Patron must treat with them on their terms. On the other hand, they know that the Patron, while a patient man, does have his limits and that their families back in Amarana would suffer first and worst if they cut off the shipments of food and other goods to the city, so they treat the Amaranaians with as much respect as they expect in return: so far the city and the northern tribe have a strong alliance of mutual benefit and support. The northern Salaru frequently revere Atlhat, the southern god of war and cattle, in addition, they also revere the Celestial Incarna and Gaia as well as many nature spirits.

The tribes to the east were always the most desirous to return to Amarana, for they could still see it's central tower sticking up out of the sand. However, when the time came, an influential leader named [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Sabris of the Two Spears|Sabris of the Two Spears]] convinced them that they should instead of all going back to the city leave some people behind and send their sons and daughters back into the summer mountains to live with those that stayed for two years as a right of passage. This has proved to their great advantage, for they now own the rights to much of the mineral wealth in the summer mountains near Amarana and have risen to be among the city's most wealthy families. The mountain Salaru were hunter/gatherers before Amarana's recovery and it is in this capacity that the children sent to the old mountain fastnesses must learn to survive when they are facing their Adavam Ordeal. The eastern Salaru mostly hold up a host of small gods for worship and revere the celestial Incarna on their high holy days. They are however the nearest things to atheists Creation has, feeling that if a person cannot survive without divine intervention then they are weaklings that must be excised from the gene pool. Many of them are swayed to a degree by the Immaculate faith but reject the idea that the Dragonblooded are creations, rightful rulers, their tribes have long memories and have heard the tales told by the Lunars of the perfidy of the Dragonblooded and the glory once created by the Solars, and twice in their exile have seen this glory first hand before the Dragonblooded showed up and ruined things.

To the south of the city, a wyld zone bleeds into reality for almost eight hundred miles from the maximum edge of the world. Though the city lies near the edge of this wyld zone it is not part of it, not even when the wyld storms blow in the autumn. This is perhaps partly because the city's strong geomancy prevents it from being absorbed or perhaps some form of potent first age artifact still protects the city as it did during the invasion so long ago. If the Patron knows he is not telling. Either way, there is and never has been a tribe of the Salaru to the south of the city. If the work they are doing to push back the wyld succeeds as well as it has been thus far, there may be, soon.

= Ethnicity =

Amarana is an ethnically mixed city, with people from all over creation having gathered in under its banner thanks to [[The Ghost/The Patron|The Patron's]] zero-tolerance policy towards slavery. In the main however the population is drawn from the peoples of the south, as escaping slaves are most able to reach Amarana from it's nearest neighbors, [[Virangia]] and [[The Delazen Empire]].

== The Salaru ==

Descendants of the people who fled Salaruku in the face of the Balorian Crusade the Salaru have waited a long time to return to their city. Composed of 10 culturally distinct tribes the Salaru make up an ever decreasing percentage of the city's population as more and more foreigners come to the city and settle in. That said the Salaru, though small in number, have a disproportionate impact on the city's culture and politics, due to knowing the lands surrounding Amarana like no one else and therefore having a vastly outsized amount of wealth and clout.

The Salaru are subdivided into the following tribes:

=== The White Scars ===

This tribe numbers about 50 and have long been ancestor worshipers, they have been swayed to the cause of the Ancestor Cultists. They take their name from the practice of ritual scarification of face and hands to tell one’s ancestry and chest to recount great deeds. The White Scars hail from the west of the city. The White Scars are a strangely secretive bunch, they keep their own council and follow their own guidance. Alone of the Salaru tribes, the White Scars have wholey emigrated to the city, abandoning their ancestral lands to the Western Salaru's care and finding employment within Amarana. Most of them agree that this has been a drastic improvement in their living conditions. Their ancestors, however, worry about grave robbers and frequently ask the members of the tribe with the skills to do so to go back and check on the old burial grounds.

=== The Golden Bulls ===

Originally hailing from the north of the city this tribe has been sun worshipers since time out of mind, and have naturally gravitated toward the Solarion's cause. They take their name from the bloodline of golden-haired cattle that they breed, tend, and guard, which according to legend were a gift from the champions of the sun during an age long past in recompense for their service defeating an army of the Raksha. The Golden Bulls are among the largest tribes of the Salaru, numbering some 300 strong counting both those that came into Amarana and those that stayed behind to be part of the Northern Salaru. They revere Atlhat and The Unconquered Sun as their patrons and are known for their skill as warriors though they are overmatched by some of the other tribes thanks to awakened essence and charms. The Golden Bulls are largely employed as butchers, health inspectors, and members of Amarana's army, while the large contingent that remained in their ancestral lands tend their herds of golden-haired cattle as they always have done, though they now drive the excess males to market in Amarana for slaughter rather than keeping them home. The Golden Bulls’ primary combat style is with spears and Bullhide Shields, with firedust grenades to break tight formations. They would not look out of place in Harborhead, and marriages between Harborhead immigrants and the young men and women of the tribe are not uncommon, though frowned upon by some of the tribe elders due to the harborheadite's attitudes towards slavery, which the tribe has always held as blasphemy.

=== The Get of Vexan ===

Often called simply 'the get' by outsiders this tribe calls themselves the 'Vexanites'. The get is descended from a powerful Lunar who lived among the Salaru for a century or so starting a few decades after the fair folk invasion was driven back by the Empress. The Vexanite's hold a secret: their tribe is led by a family of Serpent Beast Men founded by Vexan and preserved through complex webs of intermarriage with other serpent-folk from as far away as the silent crescent. The get is currently led by a charming and curvaceous young woman from the southeast jungles named Nyoka. What they do not yet know is that she is actually the modern incarnation of their founder's exaltation and has been having sex with one of the tribe's greatest warriors in her spirit form of a twenty-foot dragon snake in the hopes of bearing beast folk children. She walks among the tribe in her Warform, that of a great dragon-like serpent woman with the fangs and venom of a cobra and the wings and claws of a dragon. The Get hailed from the mountains east of Amarana.

=== The Iron Raptors ===

Though founded by a group of outlaws and murderers the Iron Raptors are ironically a major component of Amarana's police force. Having originated as an inner-city gang during the last days of the shogunate the Iron Raptors turned their coats when the fair folk came calling at the end of the contagion. They took hundreds of people out of the city through hidden tunnels and other smuggling routes: people who became the founders of the other Salaru tribes. Since then they have slowly moved from running protection rackets over the other tribes, to actually protecting them, to being their main form of law enforcement and wandering justiciars. Now that Amarana is resettled they have taken up the role of their distant ancestors' worst enemies, an irony that is not lost on Garion Cromarch. The Iron Raptors’ central holdings were to the north of Amarana but they wandered freely among the other tribes and in fact still do, being welcome among any of the other Salaru. They worship Garion Cromarch as their patron deity, but also revere a number of small gods of crime and larceny, propitiating them in recompense for reducing their portfolios and defeating their natural worshipers.

=== The Kelderkin ===

Another tribe from the city's north the Kelderkin are the descendants of Marion Kelder and are an agricultural matriarchy. They revere Gaia to the near exclusion of all other deities and hold that all other gods are really aspects of Gaia, subsidiary souls of the Maiden of Plenty. They are more right in this belief than most people realize. All Kelderkin women can trace their ancestry to Marion Kelder via one of her seventeen daughters, and which daughter you are a descendant of determines what your role in the tribe is. The only roles that are not decided by your ancestry are 3: Shaman, Champion, and Speaker. The Speakers are the leaders of the tribe and set it's policy, while the shamans and champions advise them and defend the tribe. Marion Kelder was a wood aspected dragon blooded and even to this day a Kelderkin man or woman will sometimes exalt as another wood aspect. Currently, there is one such person among the Kelderkin, Mwaloni Kelder who is a gifted archer and huntress that leads an all-female unit of other archers in the Amarana armed forces. She is also a sex addict and currently dating four separate men, two of which are identical twin Djala who regularly have Manage-a-Trois with her.

=== The Chosen of Flame ===

Hailing from the city's west The Chosen of Flame has been firedust gatherers for as long as anyone can remember. They gathered firedust far south of the city during the shogunate and came to Amarana to trade it. When the hosts of Fairie came sweeping in from the edge of the world after the great contagion they ran before them and were caught up in the exodus from Amarana, helping many of the civilized folk adapt to the desserts. The Chosen of Flames make up the lion’s share of the new western tribe, but even so, most of them have moved into the city and settled down as experts and factors in the firedust trade. They are a prosperous tribe that is in a state of transition as they adapt to being a settled people for the first time. Numbering approximately 75 persons in the city and an equal number now part of the Western Salaru the Chosen of Flame boasts several god-blooded among their number, and actively court new fire elemental unions. Their God Blooded include Gitchsune Folarabi, Malawi Besmar, and Kubrisa Suknis, among others.

=== The Iconographers ===

Among the tribes of the Salaru, few can argue that the Iconographers are not among the most learned and civilized. Hailing from the cities northeast they have preserved an astonishing amount of lore from the low first age, especially on the subject of geomancy. Now almost universally employed by the Patron excavating and repairing manses they are well off and respected. The Iconographers place great store by erudition and knowledge, and gain position and prestige among their own via a set of grueling examinations conducted by their tribe's patron spirits once every ten years, and always in old realm. Because of these tests of knowledge, the tribe is led by its elders, who have had the most time to study and learn, and they are prone to contemplation and thoughtfulness. Among other advantages this has gifted them with is the possession of five small Manses outside the city, raised after the city's abandonment by their own hands. These manses have made their ancestral lands fertile and bountiful, making them one of the largest salaru tribes with 200 members in five small villages around the Manses before they emigrated to Amarana. Of all the tribes their desire to return to the city was among the greatest, but they did leave one family behind in each village to see to its welfare and upkeep in perpetration for their Descendents and those selected to join them by the Patron returning. The Iconographers in city number 175 or so and are very much in the Patron's camp. They are led by [[User:Nemo of Utopia/SukiwaraMadoka|Sukiwara Madoka]], a god blooded thaumaturge of advanced years and not inconsiderable skill.

=== The Eisil ===

As a tribe of pastoral hunters and gatherers in the city's eastern area, the Eisil would not be remarkable except for the fact that they are master storytellers and thespians. The role of Storyteller is the most honored position within their culture and many people aspire to it but few succeed. Their greatest tale is that of Sakarazat, a woman who was taken captive by a rapacious dragon blooded lord and over the course of two and a bit years told him a thousand stories which prevented him from killing her, and in the end, led the dragon blooded to let her go. Now that the Eisil have returned to Amarana they are mostly working at simple jobs like sand clearer or coachman (They have long preserved the arts of chariot racing as part of their festivals.) but a significant number of them now take the long-coveted role of storyteller or actor, and are among the best in the city, being sought out by talent scouts and stage managers for private and public engagements. The Eisil hail from the high mountains east of Amarana where the snow falls in winter, they are paler complected than most Salaru and have massive barrel chests from dealing with the thin air.

=== The Mantis Tribe ===

From the northwest of the city, the Mantis tribe straddle the border between the desert and the foothills of the Amaranaian lands. They have survived by placing great store by martial arts and awakened essence, and among their number only the young typically do not have awakened essence, nearly everyone over the age of 25 has mastered this basic precept. By the age of 30, most people have achieved the form type charm of one of the 5 main martial arts of the tribe, and by the time they reach venerable status at 65, nearly everyone is a master of their chosen style. This has allowed the Mantis Tribe to become large and prosperous but puts them in an uncomfortable position of being alternately feared and nearly worshiped by the other tribes, who look to them for protection from spirits and demons. It also puts them in another uncomfortable position: their various schools of martial arts do not always get along, and more than once the tribe has been wracked by internal strife, especially between the members that adhere to the Immaculate Philosophy and the people that worship the local gods outside that framework. At the moment it seems like the tribe is heading for another such civil war, and this time it may drag the whole city into it.

=== The Broad ===

Alone of the Salaru the Broad actually hate the Patron. The Broad was from the uttermost western areas of the Salaru and also alone among their number made a common practice of keeping slaves, but not so much for the purpose of having them work for the tribe but rather to sell to the guild. They ranged far among the sandy wastes waring with members of other tribes and capturing them to sell for the supplies they needed to survive and prosper. Many among their number were heroic mortals and with the exception of the Mantis Tribe and the Chosen of Fire they boasted the most members with awakened essence and/or god-blood. They also served as a dumping ground for the criminal and malcontents of the other tribes leading them to be less cordial with the rest of the Salaru than any other tribe. However, even the Broad wished to return to Amarana enough to give up their slave taking practices, at least, some of them did. When the Patron decreed all people of Amarana Free men and women shortly before the Guild arrived the Broad fractured over whether to return to their ancestral homeland or remain in the wastes and live as they had done for centuries. In the end, the tribe split 60/40 in favor of returning to Amarana and becoming part of the new society, but the 40% that remained in the wastes no longer consider themselves beholden to the Patron, Amarana, or even the Salaru. These people, called by their former associates The Red Broad are now considered outlaws brigands by the Amaranaian government and hunted whenever they stray close to the fifty-foot Glass Pillars that mark the borders of the Amaranaian lands. They are firmly in the camp of the Guild's Men and infiltrate the city regularly to capture and smuggle out valuable slaves that have escaped to Amarana from other lands.
The 60% of the tribe that has returned to the city are in the camp of the Death Cultists since the Broad were by and large ancestor worshipers before they returned to Amarana and see no reason to change that now. Calling themselves 'The Green Broad' they have no love for the patron but do love their city and will fight to the death to defend it. Most of them are now members of the city's military and are locked in a bitter feud with their former tribesmen. The members of this tribe that are not military mostly work as overseers for the small but growing cadres of 'indentured servants' kept by the city government in punishment for some of the most heinous crimes such as rape and enslaving another person.

=== The Western Salaru ===

=== The Northern Salaru ===

=== The Eastern Salaru ===

== The Djala ==

The D'jala are a sub-faction of the Patriots at the present time. Having been liberated by the Patron from their enslavement by many people who have brought them to the city in bondage they are fanatical partisans of the city's leader and from a major component of his power base. The Djala form five small tribes into which new arrivals are folded by ties of kinship, alliance, or marriage within weeks of arrival. The number of newly married Djala in the city is staggering, easily 40% of all new arrivals are pushed into marriages within a month of becoming residents, and somehow nearly all these mirages are happy ones. What the Djala elders know but have not officially publicized is that one of the Djala's patron gods is an old drinking buddy of [[The Ghost/Meroka Jin|Meroka Jin]] and has called in a favor with the minister of romance and love to arrange this happy state of affairs for his people in the city. This is not going to last, because [[The Ghost/Sakarzi|Sakarzi]] is going to start screwing around with them, but for the moment she is distracted by her work with the death cult.

== Varangians ==

== The Delazen ==

== Deep Southerners ==

Nemo of Utopia/Amarana

2020-07-14T12:26:56Z

Nemo of Utopia: /* The Iconographers */

Amarana is a first age city, lost to the contagion and the fair folk invasion over 700 years ago. It is now coming back to life under the aegis of [[User:Nemo of Utopia/The_Patron_of_Amarana|The Patron]] who wields the power of the [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Five_Signs_of_Harmonic_Unity|Five Signs of Harmonic Unity]].

= Amarana =

Amarana Is comprised of a large area surrounded by a circular wall. At the edge of that wall are twelve triangular towers that contain the major military resources of the city. Of these towers, eight have been fully excavated, and the ninth is being examined and the sand removed even now.

Within the city is organized into four quarters but only two of them are even partially excavated, the two on the eastern side of the city, and even there many buildings still slowly seep sand into the streets out of cracked windowpanes and the door seems. The buildings of Amarana tend to a certain Egyptian flare or perhaps it would be better to say pre-Arabic since they are after all, by and large, the product of the low first age. The buildings are built of a quasi imperishable ceramic that resembles adobe, with the most significant having windows of Chiaroscuro Glass and doors made of either that same substance or Stainless Steel. Buildings are generally between six and ten stories high with essence powered air conditioning and elevators both of which the Patron must personally repair before the building becomes usable again.

Unlike many old realm cities, Amarana is laid out on a grid, instead of in a radial pattern. This gives a geomantic bonus to the people who live there: namely that mortals gain +1 XP per time XP is awarded. This bonus actually accrues every half year if using long term awards. The players can uncover this information with a dif10 [wits + occult] roll once every month they spend in the city beginning on the second day they are here. The bonus only applies to true mortals, not god blooded, ghost blooded, awakened Martial artists or any exalt, but does apply to dragon kings and jadeborn who are not Artisans.

So far roughly half of the city has been uncovered, but even here there are a lot of buildings that are collapsed, or still filled with sand and roped off with red cables and even more locations where there are red cables indicating small shadowlands or dimenses that are not to be approached until the city can close/cap them.

The excavation is proceeding irregularly, moving from the east wall out toward the west except around the central manse and the road from the north gate to the south gate. There are markets in most squares and a number of shops on the ground floors of buildings. Few merchants here are officially affiliated with the guild since many people in the city are escaped guild slaves and loath the guild vehemently.

Nearly everything except slaves is available for sale, including many products from The Wyld. Firewands and Flame Pieces are the core of the weapons markets along with accessories such as bayonets, powder horns, and pieces of flint or obsidian for strikers. Interestingly Cannons are not for sale, being reserved for the government, but anyone with contacts 2 or higher could find someone who knows someone who could get a permit for purchasing a few for export. Armoring is more advanced, and even some artifact armors are for sale, though they would be a resource 4 purchase at minimum, and that is for the simple stuff like Jade breastplates. Things like Yuroy Scout armor are beyond the means of anyone in the party, though, that comes up for sale very rarely except through illegal channels. Jade Full Plate and Super Heavy Plate are more commonly available, in fact, there are people in the city that can be commissioned to make it. Orichalcum and Monsilver are not commissionable but in the still covered parts of the city are facilities to work it. There are no facilities in the city for Soulsteel or Starmetal, but there is a workshop in one manse that has been uncovered to work Adamant, though finding any to use would require Wyld Cauldron Technology and spending XP: such is the life of the Exalted...

There are a number of Inns, Caravanserai, and Hostels near the city gates, while further in nearly every corner of an inhabited area has at least one restaurant or coffee shop. Tea houses, by comparison, are rare, and true bars are unusual enough to be remarked upon when a new one is found. Most living quarters do not have kitchens, which is why many hab towers which have been excavated don't have permanent residents and so many restaurants can stay open. Many restaurants, in fact, rent themselves out to people wishing to cook for their families or are owned by consortiums of citizens who hold them in common for communal cooking with contracts for use and upkeep requirements.

All of the city's roads are at least 20 feet wide, plus a five-foot sidewalk to either side. This is for the smallest streets, most are 40 feet wide with sidewalk and a few main thoroughfares are 60 feet wide. The streets keep themselves magically clean once each section is repaired by the Patron, but only a very few sections are repaired and many people who work as street sweepers clearing sand wish for it to stay that way. (Each 10'x10' section is a different artifact and must be individually repaired. There is one street in the city's west that is a first age relic and still working. However it can only affect things up to 30 feet above itself, so it is a long tunnel of a clear street bounded on all sides by packed sand.) The streets are made of fitted 5'x5'x1' blocks of granite, and one can sometimes determine which part of the city one is in by the color of the streets. The northeast the blocks are blue and green, the southeast red and green, the southwest red and black and the northwest blue and black. The city’s four central parkways are each a solid color relating to their element and 40' wide on each side and the grand square around the central manse is white and 60' wide at its narrowest point. However many streets were repaired with gray, white, or red granite toward the end of the shogunate and are not properly color-coded.

The City has at least 5' of clearance between all buildings: meaning that there are many allies in which one can get lost. You can often tell which parts are in use and which are unoccupied by weather there is sand filling the allies or they are clear.

== Manses and Demesnes of Amarana ==
Amarana was at one time subject to major geomantic engineering projects that gave it a large number of demesnes and then manses relative to its size. Most of those manses are still here, still active, and even now being located and excavated. A few, however, were partially unstable and have long since exploded. These few are roped off as dangerous and plans are underway to re-cap them, led of course by the Patron. Note that there are more manses and demesnes within the city that have not yet been found and that at one time there were even MORE demesnes in the city which have collapsed into a dormant state due to the changes in the city's essence flows and could be reactivated with the appropriate rituals once the city is fully excavated and geomantic remapped, these demesnes, however, were all small ones, level 2 at the most, so whether such effort is worth it in the short term, or even a good idea, is debatable. See [[Nemo of Utopia/MansesandDemesnesofAmarana|Manses and Demesnes of Amarana]] for further information.

= History =

== Prehistory ==

Though most do not know it Amarana's deepest foundations were laid in an era long past by the [[Dragons Kings]]. The City flourished in the age between the advent of humanity and the [[Primordial War]] with many of the first exalted visiting the place at one time or another in the several decades of the lead up to the overthrow of the Primordials. Then when the war began the city was wreathed in the destruction by one of the superweapons of the masters of creation, utterly annihilating most of those that dwelt therein and reducing the city to a smoking crater of volcanic glass. Still, beneath the burned and blackened surface, some parts of the old under city survived, and wait there still.

== The First Age ==

During the First Age many of the survivors of the primordial war remembered their time in 'Highana' fondly and after excavating much of the old substrate and leveling off the damaged areas to make way for new constructions raised up a new city on the site of the old. This city was dubbed 'Solzarian' in honor of [[The Unconquered Sun]] and in memorial to the Great Dragon King lady who had ruled the city so well and wisely ere it's annihilation. The City would remain a significant but out-of-the-way part of the Old Realm all the way through the first age.

=== The Ocher Fountain Era ===

During the beginning of the First Age when [[Queen Merela]] ruled over all creation from the eternal capital of [[Rathess]] Solzarian was still being reconstructed, and there was little of note that occurred in the city. One event, in particular, was notable, however: the Conclave of Solzarian in year 99 of the old realm, a symposium on the rights and freedoms of the people of creation which some in later years would argue laid the foundations of the Meru Uprising which led to the formation of the Deliberative.

=== The First Deliberative Era ===

By the time of the founding of the [[Deliberative]], the reconstruction of Solzarian was largely complete, and over the next few decades, the city became a favored retreat for both Solars and Lunars seeking to get the heck out of Meru and the stifling politics of the great city. One of Marela's closest allies [[Nemo of Utopia/Angus the Wirehair|Angus the Wirehair]] was given the rule of the city as part of the division of creation into fiefdoms and made it his personal residence. Under Angus rule, the city prospered, though it, by-and-large, remained a backwater compared to such metropolises as [[Chiaroscuro]] and Rathess. However, thanks to its solar overlord and his close relationship to the Queen of all Creation the city began the long process of incredible geomantic engineering which would in time lead to it being known as 'The City of Manses'.

=== Unfurling Horizon Era ===

While this era of creation went by largely without incident of significant note at this remove of history it is still recorded that many of the great efforts to explore and expand the borders of Creation in the south used Solzarian as a staging ground or stopover point before plunging into the true wilderness at creation's rim. This continued to encourage the exalted to play 'tourist' in the city and helped keep its economy vibrant. It is also noted in some histories that there was a major strike of [[Red Jade]] near the city in 811 which produced a 'Jade Rush' led by two rival Dragon-Blooded brothers and their servants which escalated into a short civil war in the city 2 years later in which significant damage was done to the city's infrastructure by all three* factions. The Civil War was only halted when [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Angus the Wirehair|Angus the Wirehair]] returned from Meru at the head of a wing of elite Dragon-Blooded shock troops and brutally suppressed both rival groups with mass arrests and a number of executions. (What happened to the brothers is unknown, but their names do not reappear in the historic record for 700 years, and at that time associated with different elemental aspects leading most scholars to conclude that they were 'dealt with' privately by their family.)
*(The Two consortia backing the rival brothers and the cities law enforcement detachments.)

==== The Aftershock War ====

In spite of the growing significance of the city and it's powerful assets in terms of equipment and hearthstones, Solzarian was not at first much involved in the Aftershock War. Passed over in favor of more militarily significant targets by the Primordial Forces the city did not come under fire until 1131 when a force of some 3000 first circle demons led by a trio of 2nd circle demons assaulted the city in the dead of night via a fleet of living airships. The 'Battle of Solzarian' was considered a significant victory for the forces of creation due to the large number of [[Golden Janissary Style]] practitioners in the city who were able to make fairly short work of the first circle demons allowing the detachment of Dragon-Blooded stationed in the city to confront the second circle demon commanders and dispatch them.

However the war was not all glorious victory for the people of Solzarain, [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Angus the Wirehair|Angus the Wirehair]] went missing during the final battle with the primordial forces and would not be seen again for over 500 years. For most of that time, he was presumed dead by the people of the city, though the Solar Exalted knew better as his shard had not found a new host.

=== Shining Reflection Era ===

During this period Solzarian loses much of its former significance as the seat of one of Marela's close allies. Few of the Exalted visit the city and the grand engineering projects grind to a near halt. The only events of great significance that occur here are two:
1: The Duel of the Magisters in 1313 where the reincarnations of Theis, Leelah, and Sonah engage in a duel of sorceress power which damages large sections of the city and forces all three of them to be censured by Marela herself: And;
2: In 1492 a major strike of Orichalcum is made a few hundred miles south of the city, and Solzarian becomes a stepping off point for prospectors of every stripe looking to get rich quick mining Orichalcum. The City's economy runs strong off this sudden influx of cash, people, and goods for the next 30 years.

=== Thousand Struggles Era ===

The first part of this period proceeds much from the previous one: everyone is aware that one of the legendary solar exalted has died of old age, but this makes little difference to the struggling backwater that Solzarian has become: then in 1776 everything changes.

In the Records of Solzarian 1776 is called: 'The Year of the Thousand' for the massive wave of change that swept over the city this year. The First thing that happens is [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Angus the Wirehair|Angus the Wirehair]] 'returns from the dead' on the 11th of Ascending Water storming into the city with a small group of Solars, Lunars, and Siderials and calling everyone he can reach into the city with him to face what he calls 'The Storm of the Millennium'. Ten days later the storm arrives and following in behind it a host of the fair folk the likes of which has not been seen in centuries. The city is invested and besieged for two months by the Faerie Host and the siege is only broken by the arrival of four full realm legions armed with Cold Iron. Once the Fair Folk are driven back and the city is again secure Angus orders most of the city leveled and an engineering project the like of which the city has not seen in over half a millennium undertaken to extensively alter its geomancy. To finance this undertaking he produces several tons of jade, from what source none can say, and uses his Wyld Shaping charms, which until his return no one knew he possessed, to manufacture the raw materials needed from the chaotic energy left behind by the Fair Folk.

However, no sooner was the project underway than orders came down from the Queen that he was to return to [[Meru]] at once and answer for his absence: and bound by the oaths he took as one of the [[Golden Hero Vassals]] so very long ago he departs. Following up on the plans he has left behind his circle mate [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Levian of the Gilded Staff|Levian of the Gilded Staff]] begins directing the super-massive construction and engineering projects which will if successful create one of the greatest concentrations of manses and geomantic relays outside of the Blessed Isle. By late in Descending fire half the city is gone and an entirely new street plan and so on is rising in its place, along with a massive upgrade to the walls and towers of the city perimeter as well.

What exactly passed for Angus in Meru is unrecorded by any presently known records except perhaps those of the Bureau of Destiny but what is recorded is the results of that visit: Angus was stripped of the rulership of his fief in the south including Solzarian and sent on a quest of penance into the frozen north: while Solzarian and the surrounding area was given into the hands of a relatively young solar of the Twilight Caste from another circle named [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Keisha Adriana Mullion|Keisha Adriana Mullion]] and her lunar mate [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Maxim of Personal Liberty|Maxim of Personal Liberty]].

While Keisha was young she was not stupid and consulted with Levian of the Gilded Staff on what she was doing with the engineering of the city. With the elder Twilight's help, she finished the geomantic reorganization as designed by Angus and by the end of Resplendent Air the basic project is finished. The city is now rife with uncapped demesnes and sites that will become demesnes once they can be activated after some of the others are capped. The city also now confers a geomantic bonus on all mortals living there, allowing them to develop their skills and abilities more quickly than those living in other cities. The full culmination of the project with the activation and capping of all demesnes will not be complete for another 36 years.

==== Time of Cascading Years ====

The Time of Cascading Years took rather longer in Solzarian and the surrounding area than it did in most of Creation: 3333 years to be precise. The relatively young solar ruler who went into the Time of Cascading Years and her only slightly more experienced Lunar Spouse emerges from it with a weight of skill and refinement which makes them elders among the solars and lunars. They also are now both arrayed with a panoply of artifacts and charms that make them forces to be reckoned with in the new Deliberative. The passage of the 'Age of Isolation' in Solzarian is marked by a number of rebellions and uprisings, and the invasion of their lands by the fair folk towards the end of it, from whence none, can say. Supposedly it was the destruction of an artifact which the Raksha Commander carried which restore time to its normal flow according to the people of Solzarian.

=== Second Deliberative Era ===

During the [[User:Nemo of Utopia/PeriodofLongSilence|Period of Long Silence]] Solzarain is one of the few areas still doing significant research, though they are hampered by the continuing disunity of creation and the fearfulness of creation's mortals who are all accustomed to traveling too far from home casting you into a different timeline.

With the Establishment of the new deliberative however Solzarian is thrust into the spotlight for around a hundred years as the home and workshop of one of the most important [[User:Nemo of Utopia:NPCCreationGuidelines/Exalted/FirstAge/Solar/TwilightCaste|Copper Spiders]] of the deliberative. During this period the city is a known destination for the many young Twilight-caste members who were reborn following the restoration of time's proper flow.

As this era goes on however Solzarian becomes less and less important with the rebuilding of the rest of creation, the other Twilights drift away to rule their own fiefs and work on their own projects and as has happened before Solzarian's position far from most significant events of history both at the center of creation and at its rim mean it becomes a backwater. Even it's solar and lunar rulers spend more time in Meru than at home, leaving the city in the hands of [[User:Nemo of Utopia:NPCCreationGuidelines/Exalted/FirstAge/Dragonblooded/Top|Dragon Blooded]] legates.

=== Era of Dreams ===

During the first part of the Era of Dreams, though Solzarian flourishes on the mundane level it remains a backwater on the scales by which The Realm measures such things: a functional and unimportant city in a functional but unimportant section of the world. It does, however, receive an [[IAM|I AM]] Transmission Node linking it to the broader network of information which now spans creation.

Then in the year 3381, it's twilight caste ruler is goaded into violating her eclipse oath to not attack other celestial exalted in Meru, setting in motion a chain of events that will alter the shape of Solzarian's fate for centuries to come, and that of the rest of creation. At first, the botches come hard and heavy, but then they stop and [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Keisha Adriana Mullion|Keisha]] thinks the oath's punishment has run its course.

It has not.

Returning to her holding in the south she begins to work on constructing a [[Proto Shinmatic Vortex]] and at a key stage of the process, the final botch of set activates and the PSV explodes, killing Keisha and creating an intense Wyld Zone south of the city over a hundred miles wide.

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/MaximofPersonalLiberty|Maxim of Personal Liberty]] calls upon every favor he has and even takes on new obligations to arrange the deliberative sending experts at Wyld Shaping to close the rift in the fabric of reality, but the people sent are not the high essence Solars and Lunars he hoped for but rather a cadre of neophytes who have scarce mastered Wyld Cauldron Technology and are woefully unprepared for the madness of the deep Wyld which exists within the rift. Three of them die before the other two calls it quits leaving the Wyld Zone barely stabilized around its edges. It is unrecorded at this remove what keeps the deliberative busy and the more powerful Wyld shapers tied up, but it will not be for another 3 decades that the Wyld zone is fully dealt with and that not by an individual any more experienced than the ones first dispatched, though with far greater caution than the first circle that was sent showed.

== The Usurpation ==

== The Shogunate ==

== The Fall & The Second Age ==

== The Rebirth ==

In RY 760, that same year where so very much else changed for creation (763 in normal Chronicles): the man who

= Government =

In basic, the Government of Amarana really consists of a single man: [[User:Nemo of Utopia/The Patron of Amarana|The Patron]]. He is an autocrat, ruling by divine mandate and shier power, as he is capable of defeating significant deities in single combat. However the Patron is one man, and as such has organized his subjects with several branches of what we would consider a more normal government. This normal government is organized into twelve 'Adeptus' which each is led by one of the twelve 'High Lords of Amarana'. These twelve powerful individuals form a council that advises and assists The Patron in his leadership of the city, feeding him data on several topics such as the state of his subject's religious convictions or the preparedness of his military. Though each High Lord is immensely powerful they all are The Patron's fanatical partisans and would not dream of challenging his authority, even if they could.

== The Adeptus Millitate ==

The Adeptus Millitate is one of the largest branches of Amarana's government, with no fewer than 1250 members in all its branches and subgroups. Though officially in charge of Amarana's Armed services it has a rival in The Adeptus Aeronauticus who oversee Amarana's air-forces. The Adeptus Millitate is run by [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Fist of the Land|Fist of the Land]] a God-Blooded martial artist who is somewhat uncomfortable leading an army of over a thousand people.

The Adeptus Millitate has the following departments and offices:

=== The Departmento Munitorum ===

Oversees the acquisition and care of the equipment and supplies for the army.

==== The Officio Technis ====

Deals with the army's Magitech assets.

==== The Officio Cibum ====

Oversees the all-important function of providing provisions for the troops.

==== The Officio Armorium ====

Handles the more mundane arms and armor of Amarana's troops.

==== The Officio Quartium ====

… is responsible for most everything else, from tents to uniforms to bedrolls.

=== The Departmento Servicum ===

Oversees the actual troops and officers and their training regimens.

==== The Officio Acadamicain Legionarius ====

This office oversees the training of new recruits and officers running two training schools for them.

==== The Officio Cooptatione Legionarius ====

This is the group that sees-to the recruitment and if necessary conscription of new troops for the army.

=== The Departmento Latrocinium ===

Oversees the hiring and 'control' of any mercenary units the government employs but is better known for a more sinister function.

==== The Officio Mercenarius ====

Does the Hiring and Firing of actual mercenaries.

==== The Officio Assasinoritum ====

'The Office of Assassins', to use the Vulgate, runs at least four secret dojos training mortal agents in martial arts that facilitate them serving as The Patron's spies and assassins. [[Nemo of Utopia/Assassin of the Grey Spire|Assassin of the Grey Spire]] 'leads' this office: He is ''not'' a master of the White Veil Style of martial arts and has most ''definitely not'' taught many of its members this secret art form. (Nudge nudge, wink wink, know what I mean, know what I mean? Say no more, say no more!)

=== The Officio Adminstrad Militate ===

This 'Floating Office' makes sure that all of the other Departmento and Oficio within this Adeptus do their jobs properly.

== The Adeptus Arbitiese ==

The Adeptus Arbitese oversee Amarana's police forces, and are one of the larger branches of the government with only 150 individuals on staff, counting every beat cop all the way on up to the High Lord Herself as well as all the file clerks and so on that work for the Adeptus but are not actually part of it's 'fighting strength'. They have only one Departmento and less than a dozen Officio, but so far are keeping a lid on the political turmoil of the city. The High Lord of the Arbitese is [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Steel Garden|Steel Garden]] who is not a very good investigator but a decent politician and capable administrator.

=== The Departmento Queastorum ===

This department is responsible for making inquiries and investigating crime, thus far it is the only Department of the Adeptus Arbitese but the Officio Correctionibus is expected to become a departmento in its own right someday.

==== The Officio Homicide ====

The Office of Homicide consists of only eight people, four detectives, three CSI techs, and one overworked file clerk. Their closure rate hovers at around 50%, though that is only due to them being able to count any suspect killed by the ghost of the victim as a closed case. [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Laurel the Axe|Laurel the Axe]] is the unofficial leader of this group but officially they answer directly to the High Lord of the Arbitese.

==== The Officio Servus Aucupes ====

The term 'office of slave catchers' is something of a misnomer. These detectives do not catch slaves, rather they catch people keeping, taking, or recapturing slaves and send them to their just punishments. This office consists of five overworked personnel, two detectives, two forensic accountants, and one file clerk. Their closure rate is around 30% since it is hard to prove that someone was a slaver without catching them in the act.

==== The Officio Vitium ====

Unlike the officio above this office is not quite so overworked, and the two often help each other out because their work frequently overlaps. The 'Vice Squad' mostly concerns itself with drugs and prostitution, since licensed gambling establishments and most pornography are both legal in Amarana. The officio consists of Four Detectives, five undercover officers, three CSI techs, and a harried file clerk. Their Closure rate is about 45%.

==== The Officio Interioribus ====

This Officio is more for show than anything since all of Amarana's police are held by the Stone of Invincible Loyalty. It consists of two Detectives and one Forensic Accountant. They often spend their time quietly helping out other offices.

==== The Officio Fraude Aucupes ====

This is actually one of the larger offices within the Arbities, having eleven total personnel, six detectives, three forensic accountants, a CSI tech, and a file clerk. The office tries to keep a lid on the Guild and others defrauding Amarana's citizens through various means and does a fairly good job. Their closure rate is about 70%, though this is largely due to a lot of success catching many small-fry while the remaining 30% is almost all of the big players.

==== The Ofiicio Fures ====

The 'office of thieves' is responsible for all break-ins, burglaries, purse snatchings, muggings, cutpurses, and so forth in the city. In spite of having eight detectives, five undercover agents, six CSI, four Forensic Accountants, and five file clerks their closure rate is about 12%. Garion Cromarch is frankly disgusted with them and has told The Patron so. The Patron knows they are doing their best but has ordered mandatory additional training for all members of this office.

==== The Officio Pax Patronum ====

The remainder of the police force is in this office. These are the beat cops that enforce the law by their presence and vigilance. Amarana is a large city and they constantly must be on the lookout for any kind of crime but especially things like drunk and disorderly, disturbing the peace, making an affray, and so on. This office consists of 57 patrol officers and over a dozen file clerks. Twelve of these officers are part of a sub-office of 'Mounties' who do their patrols in teams of three on horseback, they are often called in to suppress larger riots. The officers always patrol in teams of three, one to watch the front of a building and two to look around the sides and catch criminals in a pincer movement. They all carry magitech com units that let them use Wind Carried Words Technique and have Linguistics 3. (Their closure rate is not applicable since they work out of elven precincts and each one has a different closure rate.) One of these officers does not need a comms unit: being a dragon blooded air aspect outcaste named [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Secret Eagle|Secret Eagle]]. They have offered to promote him many times, but he prefers to be a patrol officer, though he has deigned to accept the rank of patrol sergeant for the fourth precinct.

=== The Officio Correctionibus ===

The office of corrections deals with the punishment rather than the apprehension side of crime. They are chronically overworked and typically have more criminals than they know what to do with but manage to do their jobs adequately. This floating office is overseen by Iron Sands, a member of The Broad who has lots of experience getting slaves to do as they are bid.

== The Adeptus Judicate ==

Working closely with the Adeptus Arbites the Adeptus Judicate is the other half of the justice system. These are the many Judges, Lawyers, and Clerks of the Court who make sure that the innocent are not punished with the guilty. At the present time, the Adeptus Judicate consists of 11 judges, 15 prosecuting attorneys, 23 Attorneys of Due Justice (Public Defenders.), 42 'Clerks of the Court' who record and file all rulings and court-ordered contracts, and 17 "Agent's Protection" who follow up on inconsistencies in court records and the welfare of Amarana's citizens in cases such as child abuse allegations and locating jurors that fail to show up for a trial. There are also about 200 private attorneys who are technically part of this Adeptus but not part of the government. The High Lord of the Courts is [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Molly McBride|Molly McBride]] a Demon Blooded northerner who has spent her whole life fighting against injustice and corruption in every form.

Additionally [[User:Nemo of Utopia/The_Patron_of_Amarana|The Patron]] himself is technically also a member of this branch as he has the right to sit in judgment if he chooses on all High Crimes and acts of Treason. He has invoked this right exactly once, mostly to prove that he could. (The person in question was found "Not Guilty by Reason of Insanity" and sentenced to lifetime confinement to a mental institution pending treatment or cure of his condition. He stood accused of twelve counts of grand theft, but psychoanalysis found him to be a kleptomaniac. The police often consult him on serial theft cases, and he is actually fairly good at solving them. However, he does have a problem with stealing other patients’ belongings and the doctor's pens and notebooks.)

Trials are in the American/British style, with a 'jury of one's peers' and the judge presiding from the high seat. The witness's sit to the judge's left and the clerk to the right. The prosecutors are on the left side of the courtroom and the Jury the Right while the accused is in the middle. Unless the accused is elderly or crippled and unable to stand they may not sit. For this reason, individual segments of trial must last no more than 3 hours. Only citizens may serve as witnesses, but since one can at the present time become a citizen after 24 hours residency this is not a problem. Citizens MAY testify with respect to events from before their citizenship. The accused is entitled to an 'Attorney of Due Justice' in the event that they cannot retain their own private counsel. The judge may dismiss any case at any time with or without prejudice, which is done routinely with respect to picayune or spurious civil cases so as to free up Attorneys of Due Justice for criminal trials. The patron is looking into finding more Judges and Attorneys of Due Justice so that civil cases do not need to be dismissed so frequently, which has a distressing tendency to lead to murder.

Abnormally The Adeptus Judicate does not have any departmento or officio, but there are those within it and without that are bucking to change that.

== The Adeptus Sororitatus ==

The 'Sisterhood' as they are called by the common folk is the government Adepta that oversees all _female_ clerics and thaumaturges in Amarana Like their Counterparts in the Adeptus Fratris they are few in number but powerful in influence. Technically also responsible for the worship of all-female gods in the city it is common that women will be priests of male deities and men prelates of a goddess's church. The division of male and female clergy between the AS and AF, however, is strict while the division of deities wavers like the landscape in the summer heat. In spite of these difficulties, the two branches of government get along quite well and cooperation between them is without rancor or strife in most cases. The High Lady of the Adepta is [[Nemo of Utopia/Unrepentant Emerald|Unrepentant Emerald]]. She is a mortal with Enlightened Essence and is exceedingly circumspect in her actions, a paragon of temperance. She is also the head priestess of [[Nemo of Utopia/Amarana Seline|Amarana Seline]].

=== The Officio Festivalius ===

This floating office submits to The Patron which days and locations should have festivals to honor the goddess' of the city. A circle of female clergy decide these events and pass them on to the patron, who generally approves them without comment. This circle is chaired by Unrepentant Emerald.

=== The Departmento Eclesiast ===

This is the main branch of the Adepta, overseeing and licensing all _female_ clergy in Amarana. The department technically consists of all licensed female clergy in the city but in practice, most of the female clergy get their licenses and are about their business having no further interaction with the government except to re-up their licenses once a year.

==== The Officio Licentiae ====

This officio handles the licensing process for all official priestesses, which requires proving you have the following capabilities: Ability to speak and read Old Realm, Basic knowledge of Spiritual Etiquette, (At least 3 dots in occult or 1 + an appropriate specialty.) and training in proper prayer procedures. (Prayer roll performance pool of at least 5 dice.) These requirements may be waived if the cleric has a 'sponsor' with a proper license who is taking on the new cleric as a student to train in service to their god/goddess in which case a 'Postulant Permit' is issued instead. Licenses are issued per deity, so if you wish to be the clergy of multiple gods multiple licenses are required. This is waived in the case of Zenith-caste Solars, Theurge-caste "New-Method"-Lunars, "Redemer"-caste Infernals, and Midnight-caste Abyssals, since it would be more trouble than it is worth to issue a license for every god in creation (for the first two), every each of the recovering yozis and all the greater demons (Redeemers), or ghost above essence 3 in the underworld (Midnight-castes).

==== The Officio Sanctionite ====

This is a smaller office within the departmento, making recommendations to The Patron on which female deities should be given official sanction within Amarana. All the female deities mentioned under the Religion section are sanctioned unless noted otherwise. Being unsanctioned does not mean you cannot be worshiped, but it does mean that you cannot have space allocated for a temple or licensed clergy. Sanctioning however is fairly easy to get since The Patron often simply signs the forms without reading them. (Additionally, all the incarnae are sanctioned, + Gaia and the Dragons.)

==== The Officio Hetterodox ====

This office deals with instances of rogue gods and clergy, such as the notorious Tuggie of the Scavenger Lands and other instances where the celestial bureaucracy has broken down to an unacceptable level. Employing many outside contractors they put spirits who demand illicit worship or sapient sacrifice in their places and also hunt rogue demons and the fair folk's ravagers. Though the actual functionaries of this Officio are few their agents are many and they are always busy.

== The Adeptus Frateris ==

Sometimes referred to as 'The Fraternity' by outsiders this Adeptus is responsible for all male deities and male clergy in Amarana. They take their job seriously and are sometimes noted for being taciturn and uncompromising. They are led by [[Nemo of Utopia/Wauli the Wolf|Wauli the Wolf]], who like his female counterpart is a mortal with awakened essence.

Structurally the Adeptus Frateris is identical to the Adeptus Sorroitatus.

== The Adeptus Mechanicus ==

The Adeptus Mechanicus are an odd bunch. Dressing in Rust Red robes and communicating in their own strange (and highly technical) dialect of Old-Realm they keep outsiders at arm's length. This Adepta is responsible for helping The Patron find and repair the magitech of the city a task that they perform supremely well but which many wonders if this group of strangely obsessed men and women are actually best suited for. Led by [[Nemo of Utopia/Adamant Sprocket|Adamant Sprocket]], an elderly Djala man and his young adult daughter [[Nemo of Utopia/Gears of Fate|Gears of Fate]], this group employs many Djala escapees in the task of repairing and rebuilding the city.

== The Adeptus Diolougus ==

What some would call the state department or the diplomatic corps the Adeptus Diolougus is one of the smallest Adeptus of the Amaranaian government. Led by [[Nemo of Utopia/Exultant Ivory Mother|Exultant Ivory Mother]] (a god-blooded woman from An-Teng, who harbors no feelings of goodwill for either Realm or Guild,) this group of spies and agent's provocateur work to keep Amarana a free city and outside the clutches of both [[The Guild]] and foreign powers such as the [[Realm]].

== The Adeptus Medicae ==

Easily among the smallest Adeptus of the Amaranaian government if one only counts the actual government personnel instead of approximately a-dozen-dozen licensed doctors, psychiatrists, and physicians whom they are tasked with overseeing and who like private attorneys in the city are technically part of the Adeptus: the Adeptus Medicae is as one might have guessed responsible for the physical and mental health of the city. They Tend to this task primarily by licensing and monitoring the city's medical personnel. This Adeptus role is two-fold: first, they are responsible for overseeing those practicing and utilizing any kind of medical skill in the city, from alchemists manufacturing morphine, [[Seven Bounties Paste]], or [[Age Staving Cordial]], to those offering psychiatric counseling outside of a church setting, to the several small private hospitals around the city, to even veterinarians. The Second task of the group is more dangerous and ripe for abuse by far: it is they in large part, as the only people with the requisite expertise, who draw up for [[Nemo of Utopia/The Patron of Amarana|The Patron's]] approval the statutes of law which they are tasked with enforcing. Thus far there has been no conflict of interest or abuses of power but the vast majority of people among the medical personnel of Amarana wait anxiously or avidly for this to begin changing.

The Adeptus Medicae is led by [[Nemo of Utopia/Simon Baker|Simon Baker]], a psychiatrist by trade, who is among the most dangerously insightful and persuasive people you will ever meet, at least that is not one of the exalted. He is, in fact, a god blooded, son of the patron deity of an order of physicians on The Blessed Isle, and is not much taken with the Imacualtes, treating them with frosty professionalism.

== The Adeptus Fabricae ==

Easily the largest and most diverse branch of the Amaranaian government the Adeptus Fabricae oversees all matters which involve or pertain directly to any sort of production, manufacturing, functional artistry, or creation of goods within Amarana's lands. Though ferreting out matters of a criminal nature fall under the heading of the Adeptus Arbites, and the governance of the legal codes is the province primarily of The Patron himself, and Prosecution and judgment of crimes is the business of the Adeptus Judicate, all three of these functions fall partially under this Adeptus' remit.

The Adeptus Fabricae first submits for The Patron's approval all codes and strictures which govern the actions and enterprises of fabricating all tangible products in Amarana, and exhaustive list of matters which fall under their control would be impossible but a few of the more salient follow: Print Shops, Compounding Pharmacies, Paper Mills, Glass Works, Jewelers, Magitech Repair Shops, Smithies, Book Binders, Cobblers, Tailors, and Farms: essentially anything which would be made by any sort of "Craft: XXX" skill is within their authority. The patron then reviews these legal codes and approves or rejects them, which becomes the strictures that the Adeptus Fabricae enforce upon the businesses of Amarana.

Most production facilities of any kind are within the Adeptus Fabricae's remit, with the notable exception of restaurants, taverns, eateries, pubs, tea houses, inns, and food carts which fall under the aegis of the Adeptus Medicae, though oddly pharmacies do not. Neither adepta is happy about this but neither is willing to lose or exchange the area they do have power over for reasons of their own which seem fully sufficient to them. Furthermore, any business that produces a tangible product and directly employs more than 50 people in any capacity is under their remit to license, inspect, and if necessary fine or refer to the Arbiters for investigation.

The following are the Departmento and Officio of the Adeptus Fabricae, each one with significant discretionary power and held in check solely by the High Lady of the Adeptus [[Nemo of Utopia/AuspiciousCrystalLightning|Auspicious Crystal Lightning]] and The Patron.

=== The Departmento Iura ===

The 'Department of Laws' devises and writes out the codes of law which govern the production and creation of goods in Amarana. They have created and submitted to the patron and extensive and thorough list of legal codes regarding the conditions, control, creation, and compensation for most products in Amarana, and those they have not they are working on.

==== The Officio Iura Laboris ====

The 'Office of Labor Laws' designs the codes of law concerning the employment, treatment, and management of Amarana's workforce. They are in the main as despised by the plutocracy as they are beloved by the common folk. Among other laws, they have enacted is the 8-hour work shift and the 6 day work week.

==== The Officio Iura Fabricación ====

The "Office of Manufacturing Laws" creates the codes of law governing the actual production of goods. Other offices govern the details of different types of production facilities or fields, but this office creates the general guidelines which the others work by.

==== The Officio Iura Cotagium Industria ====

The "Office of Cottage Industry" drafts the limited and simple codes which control small scale manufacturing by individuals and small business. They would like to have more extensive and detailed codes but The Patron uses his authority to make the official versions of the law to pare back most of their red tape and BS. He is, in fact, thinking of suspending this office for a period of some months while he looks for a better and less over eager set of people to be its officers.

==== The Officio Iura Officinis ====

This office makes the laws respecting the specific difficulties of production in a factory typesetting. Any production facility with 50 or more employees falls under their regulating authority, even things that are not normally their provinces such as farms, eateries, and pharmacies. For this reason, many production facilities and such, run with a staff of 40, so that even if they hire a handful of temp workers they will not move into this Officio's dominion. This Officio is not-well-liked by most business owners, being seen as overly restrictive and exceedingly interfering.

==== The Officio Iura Pharmicopia ====

== The Adeptus Adminstradum ==

== The Adeptus Aeronauticus ==

== The Adeptus Vectigalia ==

Lying squarely in the middle of the Adeptus of the city in terms of size the Adeptus Vectigalia is The Patron's Tax Collectors and Auditors of Accounts. Little liked by most people in the city they are nevertheless key to its continued function. In addition to overseeing that the government is given it's due and being called on to check the books of businesses which the Adeptus Arbites feel might be doing illegal activities the Adeptus Vectigalia also runs Amarana's national mint, which means that they are monitored closely by both The Patron and the Adeptus Arbites.

Noted for being uncompromising and humorless the Adeptus Vectigalia dress in imperishable formal clothing left behind from the first age. The hot stuffy suits and jackets only contribute to their reputation as dour and unsmiling drones of government oversight, which is perhaps the point of the dress code.

The Adeptus Vectigalia is divided into three Departmento: The Departmento Salari, which collects the taxes in cash or kind, the Departmento Quastorius, who audits people's books, and the Departmento Signo, who oversees the minting and engraving of all Amaranaian currency.

The Adeptus Vectigalia is led by [[Nemo of Utopia/Manifold Gemstone|Manifold Gemstone]] a perfectly ordinary man, who happens to be an excellent forensic accountant if only a passable administrator.

= Religion =

Faith and practice in Amarana are as diverse as the people who have come to live there. Everything from Immaculates to ancestor Worshipers to CotI members to simple priests and adherents of various gods all rub-elbows on the city's streets. Below are a brief rundown of the most prominent of the city's faiths and the deities they worship.

== Immaculates ==

Though the smallest of the city's faiths the Immaculate Doctrine still has hundreds of adherents among the people of the city, many of whom are enlightened martial arts practitioners. They also have a strong support network in the form of outside contacts with The Realm and other Dragon-Blooded.

== The Common Faith/Hundred Gods Heresy ==

The Majority of the population of Amarana believe in the gods as most people of the threshold do: they worship those who can provide them with benefits they want or need and don't understand much about the celestial bureaucracy or how things worked in the first age and that the present state of affairs is a corruption of the 'proper' order of things. Those that do often take the stance that "this is the way things are" and simply go on with their day.

What follows is a brief list of the major deities of Amarana and who or what they are affiliated with:

=== Amarana Seline ===

[[Nemo of Utopia/AmaranaSeline|Amarana Seline]]: As the City Mother of Amarana, Amarana Seline is the leader of the city's spirits. She was promoted from off the dole in heaven by the machinations of a number of bronze faction Sidereals and is fully cognizant of the fact that she '''owes''' them, but at the same time of the fact that as a dispossessed spirit promoted to the rank of City Mother she has few allies and many enemies. For these and other reasons she does not play favorites, at least not much, and is working hard at her job coordinating the smooth running of the city. Though she tries to be largely neutral in truth she is in the camp of the Immaculate Faction, which is part of why the Immaculates are as strong as they are in the city.

=== Mother Midnight ===

[[Nemo of Utopia/MotherMidnight|Mother Midnight]]: As the Senior Goddess of all-natural misfortunes in Amarana 'Mother of Midnight Murder and Mayhem', to use her full name, is a very good person for The Patron to have on his side. Mother Midnight takes positive glee in afflicting his enemies with all manner of troubles and ailments, from murder most foul to tripping on a dropped piece of lumber and spilling twenty boxes of crack from their backpack right in front of a police officer. However she is not really playing favorites, she still inflicts all manner of problems on the Patriots, their enemies just get it first and worst. Mother Midnight also has another interesting fact to her favor: she has been at her post for the past 3000 years. She gets audited on a regular basis and comes up smelling like roses: every, single, time! This drives Wong Bongerok to a level of near slavering fury, especially since he is certain Mother Midnight has been doing some kind of double-dealing and below-board hustle to keep herself fed and clothed during Amarana's long dormancy but has no way to prove it. Thing is, he's wrong. Mother Midnight became a doomsday prepper just after the usurpation and had been stockpiling quintessence and ambrosia for centuries ere the fair folk invaded. She has been living off that stockpile for all the time since and even now could go several centuries were the city to fall again ere she would need to start hustling for her sustenance.

In form, Mother Midnight looks like an exceedingly overweight woman with coal-black skin and long dreadlocked black hair that hangs so long as to trail on the ground. She typically appears nude or dressed in rags but can summon an armor of bones and broken pottery for a cost of 3 motes that gives her 10 lethal/bashing soak for the rest of the scene. For one mote she may reflexively cause any weapon that strikes her which has a hardness of less than 10 to automatically break*, and any weapon that has less than 15 hardness but more than 10 take 5d of damage. Energy weapons are immune to this, such as beam-klaves and weapons with a hardness of more than 15 cannot be affected. These powers do not count as charm use.

*(The weapon still inflicts damage before breaking from this effect.)

=== Pauldron Of Sanctity ===

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/PauldronOfSanctitity|Pauldron Of Sanctitity]]: is the new titular war god of the state, essentially exiled to the post by Atlhat since he is a rabidly punctual and rules obsessed deity that Atlhat has detested for centuries. Pauldron of Sanctity takes the form of a tall man in Gunzosha Armor and wielding a shock pike. He believes in well regimented and organized military units who are drilled and well equipped. In many ways, his notions of war are still trapped in the low first age when he was spawned as the god of a mercenary company, but this is just fine because he is the war god of a city with much of its low first age equipment and infrastructure intact. Though he favors the Immacualtes he is not willing to alter the course of outlined fate one millimeter without approval through proper channels.

=== Garion Cromarch ===

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/GarionCromarch|Garion Cromarch]]: is the god of Amarana's police force, who has waited patiently these seven centuries and more since the loss of the city to the fair folk working unofficially as a P.I. in Yu-Shan and who is the author of Amarana’s rebirth, having convinced the Bronze Faction to engineer the events which have led to that happening. Garion is perhaps more involved in the doings of the city's police than he should be, often helping them out with 'gut feelings' and leading dreams, but so far his interference has not crossed the line of allowed behavior.

Garrion's form looks like an idealized southern human male wearing Sentinel Defense Force armor blazoned with the symbol of Amarana, an eagle in flight wearing broken manacles.

=== Lissom Shining Spring ===

[[Nemo of Utopia/LissomShiningSpring|Lissom Shining Spring]]: a goddess of the local Oasis who temporarily holds two positions both in her old job and as the minster of all water sources within Amarana's sphere of influence. She is not perfidious in this role like Alhat who should not hold both the aegis of southern war god and god of cattle but is genuinely looking for a replacement to take over the role of goddess of springs and oasis: however she is a perfectionist and committed to finding a perfect candidate, which means that though she has interviewed over a hundred prospective applicants she has not found one that she feels is worthy of her longtime position. The Bronze Faction is willing to let her conduct further interviews, for now, but have made it clear that if she does not have a new spirit in the position by the end of next year she will be censured and the task of finding a replacement will be out of her hands. To this end, she has compiled what she calls her 'secondary list': those gods that she felt were 'almost' up to her lofty standards, and if she is running out of time will call them back for a second interview and chose the best one. She still hopes for a perfect applicant however and only has four names on her 'secondary list'.

Lissom Shining Spring's form is that of a large fish, but lately, she has been finding herself slipping into the form of a young woman in the suit of one of the city's hydro-engineering personnel who assists the Patron in making sure that all the pipes are sound before restoring the flow of water to a building. She is not sure she likes this.

=== Sonari ===

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/Sonari|Sonari]]: is the divine minister of sunlight and shadow for Amarana. She works with the bureau of nature to ensure that the proper degree of cloud cover reaches Amarana as well as the appropriate amount of sun. Like many of the gods of Amarana she is newly promoted from being on the dole and fearful of losing her position, but even so, dares to encourage the cult to worship her with little flourishes like rays of light in winter and cool breezes in summer.

She takes the form of a cloud from which pour rays of sunlight.

=== Meroka Jin ===

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/MerekaJin|Mereka Jin]]: the minister of romance and love in Amarana is actually an old pro at the role, having been the minister for the task in the old city and then for the Salaru tribes. He is corrupt as the day is long but adept at hiding his perfidy from anyone and everyone, including to a degree himself.

Mereka Jin takes the form of a vigorous adult man of the south with a rose in his teeth and a rakish smile. He often appears nude or in the robes worn for a wedding among the Salaru.

Mereka is eternally locked in a bitter feud with his theoretical partner Sakarzi: minster of lust and attraction, who is constantly trying to break down the stable romantic relationships her 'partner' builds. For the moment they have reached a detente on the matter of the two factions in which they are most interested, If Sakarzi will do her job for the romantic relationships of the Solarians then Meroka will not try to pair off the Ancestor Cultists into mirages and leave Sakarzi to push them to rut in wild abandon. They have not agreed about what to do with the rest of the population which makes up more than 60%.

=== Bibwit Heart ===

[[Nemo of Utopia/BibwitHeart|Bibwit Heart]]: The 'least' god of Amarana's central manse, Bibwit is uncomfortable with the cult worshiping him as they do. He has seen many least gods that have found themselves at the center of cults growing arrogant and ultimately becoming starmetal and is afraid this will happen to him. He has survived both the fall of the solars and the shogunate by being small and unobtrusive, keeping his manse functional and active while the rest of the city fell apart and he is not going to change that strategy. Still, he is an important god in the city, and as such they venerate him. Bibwit takes the form of an anthropomorphized rabbit with white fur and a tailored coat. He carries a pocket watch that lets him make flurry attacks up to his DEX score with no penalty.

=== Cela Dinarius ===

[[Nemo of Utopia/CelaDinarius|Cela Dinarius]]: Cela is the goddess responsible for Amarana's economy, and she is a personal friend of Glorious Weapon. She is no friend of the Guild and works as much as she dares to keep the guild from stealing artifacts from Amarana for sale to its foreign rivals. Formerly the goddess of Aj-Aran's main market square she was promoted to the overall control of the economy of Amarana via the machinations of the gold faction. She knows the city father is a bronze faction plant but reasons that as long as they both do their jobs properly they should not come into many conflicts. The two have a standing date for tea every Venus day.

Cela Dinarius form is that of an attractive woman carved from silver, and she wears the clothing of a Varangian cloth factor, which was her first job beyond as the least god some 4 centuries ago, patron goddess of a new Varangian cloth consortium.

=== Zalril ===

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/Amarana/Zalril|Zalril]]: Formerly the Least god of Amarana's north gate Zalril has by what amounts to shier-force-of-will moved up to become the patron god of Guild Members working in Amarana. The exact operation of this occurrence has been shrouded in mystery at the orders of Kejop Kajac himself, and further Nazri signed off on it too. The Guild maintains a large shrine just outside his old gate where they leave offerings before entering the city and where three slave women were taken under cover of night and sworn to become Zalril's Priestesses in exchange for their freedom by an Eclipse-caste member who often works for the guild. Though two of them still keep their roles as the god's priestesses the third has left the shrine and now lives in the city as a teacher for the city's new public school. Interestingly she has suffered no ill effects from 'breaking' her oath. Zalril has asked for the Guild to send a replacement but they are still trying to figure out why the oath failed in the first place. Meanwhile [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Sulramia|Sulramia]] finds fulfillment in teaching her students as do [[User:Nemo of Utopia/GayePachudiweOgesu|Gaye Pachudiwe Ogesu]] and [[User:Nemo of Utopia/OxandRainbowSlave|Ox and Rainbow]] the two women that still work at the shrine. Ogesu is an old woman and does the cooking and cleaning while Ox and Rainbow stand guard over the shrine. Sulramia also came with another gift for the god, her daughter, as she was part of a quadratic set, Maiden, Warrior, Mother, and Crone, and if she was to be the 'mother' Zalril insisted that she has a child as proof of her status, who conveniently doubled as 'maiden'. Sulramia's daughter is called [[User:Nemo of Utopia/IronandHoneyMaiden|Iron and Honey Maiden]] and is just the cutest five-year-old you will ever see, with an appearance score of five already. Her mother lives constantly with the fear of pedophiles, but does not let it rule their lives.

=== Walziri ===

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/Walziri|Walziri]]: as the god of beasts of burden within Amarana's lands Walziri is a major player in the lives of Guild personnel who must work or live here. Formerly a lesser deity of travel and trade in Harborhead Walziri was appointed to his new post by the machinations of a cabal of 'Independent' southern Sidereals and understands that he OWES them for this big break. The cabal has not called in that favor, at least not yet, but for the moment are content with him filing informal reports on the going's on in Amarana. While still hard at work at his new post he has already started to play favorites a little with the Guild's Men who pray to him, subtly strengthening their animals and selecting them last when sickness is due to strike the camels or whatnot of the city. Walziri takes the form of a large man of Harborhead derivation wearing several coral necklaces and white robes. He carries a Jade cattle prod which can be used as a spear or thrown like a javelin and returns instantly to his hand.

=== Anyaka Tetsuo ===

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/AnyakaTetsuo|Anyaka Tetsuo]]: The minister of Chance and Gambling in Amarana, Tetsuo is not new to this job. Created as the least god of a set of enchanted dice not long after the Primordial War Tetsuo has risen over the course of the intervening years to a position of moderate power in this city through diligent work and a suspicious number of 'lucky' breaks. Though no investigation has ever found him guilty of any wrongdoing there are enough people that are suspicious of what he surely must have done with his powers to better his status that it is unlikely he will ever rise any higher. Some deities would plot and scheme to continue advancing, but Tetsuo knows better. As a god of chance and gambling, he is well aware that he has been on quite the lucky streak and that is when you should count your winnings, leave the table, and cash in your chips before your luck runs out. He is content to be the god of all chance and gambling in Amarana: and will only rise higher if his natural luck brings him a sudden break, which he is not holding his breath for. He wiles away his time by playing games with the gamblers of the city, making them win or lose in a big way, but staying within the bounds of prescribed fate.

Tetsuo looks like a tall, broad-shouldered, thoroughly tattooed man with a cup and dice for playing a popular gambling game called 'Han or Cho'.

Tetsuo's sanctum is exceedingly large, he has had 700 years of dormancy in Amarana in which to expand it, and it now takes the form of a vast resort with several small casinos and many spas on what appears to be a small tropical island. (At the boundaries of its area there is a big reef beyond which the waterfalls away into nothing.) Tetsuo typically has many of the small gods of gambling and chance living in his sanctum with him at any time. Tetsuo is a colleague of Mother Midnight, not her subordinate, but the two work closely to determine which gamblers will face a string of ill luck.

=== Bagong Fangrick ===

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/BaegongFangrick|Bagong Fangrick]]: As the God of Vermin within Amarana Fangrick is an odd person to aid the guild but the guild will take allies where it can find them. Fangrick is a subordinate of Mother Midnight but has kept himself mostly out of her way and done his job without fuss since the revival of the city. Formerly the deity of rats for the Salaru tribes he was promoted upon the city's revival in recognition of many years of hard work with little reward and not the slightest blemish on his record.

Bagong Fangrick looks like an aged anthropomorphic rat, dressed in the robes of a shogunate era martial arts practitioner.

=== Wisp Virunga ===

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/WispVirunga|Wisp Virunga]]: As the managing deity for all education in Amarana Wisp is a VIP for the Patriots, because she helps their people learn new skills significantly faster, which helps them stay a step ahead of their competition, for the moment. The thing is that Wisp is running a knife-edge game with staying inside what is allowed within her post as a manager for all education in Amarana and what could be censured. This is very very bad: because she is already in trouble with the local censor's deputy for bearing a god blooded child, who is still alive and therefore available as evidence. Just to add insult to injury the censor's deputy has a personal vendetta against her for rebuffing his advances in favor of a mere mortal. Until the revival of Amarana Wisp Virunga was the goddess of its central library, she effectively promoted herself to the chief goddess of education by cozening up to the Patron while he was excavating her manse. When he decreed the first mandatory schooling sessions for the early colonists he had them pray to her as patron of all education in Amarana at the start of each day, when the prayers reached critical mass a few months later she had already conducted a quiet set of interviews and had her replacement as god of the library already prepped and ready to take over at once. This is not precisely an offense against the laws of heaven, but it is somewhat 'bad form' and would count against her slightly in a formal audit. It also has earned some of her fellow deities enmity, especially:...

=== Principle of Justified Action ===

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/PrincipleofJustifiedAction|Principle of Justified Action]]: Heaven has gods of just about everything, including educators. Principle of Justified Action was formerly a deity of a major school out in the distant threshold before the fair folk invasion and only survived that calamity by mere chance, having been in heaven on vacation when the hosts of faerie scourged the world. Since then he has lived on the dole and schemed endlessly to get another position in the bureau of humanity's education office. He finally thought he had one all lined up when Amarana was scheduled to be rebuilt as its manager of education, but the Patron and Wisp Verunga snatched it out of his hands. Yet, when one door closes another opens and a cabal of Gold Faction Sidereals and a few people who were still his friends from the old days managed to finagle him a consolation prize. The role of managing deity for the court system of Amarana was still open since there were not supposed to be any real criminal proceedings for several months yet. Desperate to get off the dole by then and seeing this as his last chance for the foreseeable future he accepted.

What neither he nor the Sidereals that helped him expected, was that he would LIKE the work. Managing a court system is not so different in truth from managing a school, you have trouble makers, erudite and passionate people, a lot of people who really don't want to be there, an ever-changing cast of characters doing many old and a few new stupid things, a complex set of rules you must adhere to; the similarities were rather a shock. Of course, there were differences, mostly in the fact that things move both so much slower most of the time and so much faster in the crunch, but he got his sea legs within a month or two and found himself enjoying having a real job again. That said, Principle of Justified Action is still no friend of Wisp Virunga and would dearly love to put in an application to replace her should she fall afoul of the auditors. However he bides his time, after all, he is employed in a job that he does not find onerous and has plenty of prayers coming in from both sides of the law, Wisp has no experience and is drowning in her duties, let them see what putting an untried administrator into such an important post does! Chances are that within the decade he will have her job: so runs his reasoning.

The Patron is another matter. He likes the Patron, rather a lot, and finds in the autocrat of the city a kindred spirit: and of course, cannot fault the man on the matter of his dedication to an educated society. He sometimes pokes the patron in the subconscious when he is contemplating a bad law, or about to reject a good one, and thus far does not consider it any kind of offense against heaven's rules. He is, in fact, wrong, he has committed no less than 5 level-one offenses in this manner, but that will largely be ignored unless he does more than mere subconscious nudging, after all, he has not really messed up any major plans this way so far.

In form Principle of Justified Action looks like a tall man from the furthest east, wearing the green and red robes of a seated Judge of Amarana's courts. His hair is shock white, a remnant of his time among the starving unemployed but he finds it suits his image as a wise leader of the courts. Abnormally for a god of justice he is lenient with most offenders, reasoning that if you punish too harshly you deny them a chance to learn from their mistakes. However, anyone who harms children sees the other side of him, a fury of unrelenting hatred that will see them hanged if at all possible.

=== Sakarzi ===

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/Sakarzi|Sakarzi]]: though she would dearly love to bring about the Patron's ruin and overthrow Sakarzi: minister of lust and attraction for Amarana, has a problem: She is both terrified of him and lusts after him obsessively. Sakarzi met the Patron before he mastered Amarana when she was bathing in a sacred hot-spring on the borders of the lands now claimed by the city in the guise of a comely Salaru maiden and he was following his awakened memories back to the city to claim his destiny. There at the hot-spring, she tried to seduce him.

She Failed.

The patron was clearly attracted to her and wished to accept her advances but mastered himself with an effort of will and politely refused. Five more times in five different guises Sakarzi has tried to seduce him and each time has been rebuffed, but always politely. This is why she is terrified of him, no one else whom she has ever tried to seduce has refused her advances so many times, especially since each of those times she has used progressively more of her supernatural powers, in the last instance activating an effect that should have compelled him to lie with her will he or no. She lusts after him because she has a weakness for powerful men, and The Patron certainly is one: but it is his immunity to her mystical powers that have made it an obsession. With the Patron, Sakarzi can use only the arts available to a mortal woman to snare the man she desires, and it is driving her to distraction. Perhaps an hour's worth of time out of each of her days is frittered away trying to think up new ways to seduce the Patron that rely only on her natural skills and personal beauty, but thus far she has not come up with anything worth using on a seventh attempt. The reason that Sakarzi would love to see the patron fall is that after she started a feud between three of the early families of colonists by seducing three of their sons and declaring that only the last one living would bed her the patron caught her outside her sanctum and beat her to within an inch of her life, declaring that if he ever caught her pulling that kind of stunt on his supporters again he would not pull his blows the second time.

These conflicting emotions are tearing Sakarzi apart, she lusts after the patron, but wants to ruin him, but is terrified of him, but she wants to have sex with him so bad she can taste it: Etc, Etc. In the meantime, she has appeared to several of the Patriots and declared her support for the patron's cause offering her help in securing the objects of their desires and the word has spread among them that if you erect a shrine to her in your residence and pray at it twice a day, morning and night, she will aid you in seducing whoever you most lust after.

While Sakarzi has many forms she can assume her true form is that of a Salaru woman of surpassing beauty and grace who literally cannot wear clothing. Her merest touch causes any garment to become invisible for one hour, so there is no point in her wearing any kind of raiment except for its protective value, which she rarely does.

=== Machuko; Torch of Freedom ===

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/MachukoTorchofFreedom|Machuko; Torch of Freedom]]: Is it any wonder, considering the status of Amarana as a free city where none may be held in bondage without due process of law, that the patron deity of Liberation and Abolitionism should view it with favor and even more so it's leader who enacted the law in question? [[Rabsolga]], the patron of slavery, hates and despises Amarana and if for no other reason than that Machuko loves and protects it. Furthermore, Machuko is [[User:Nemo of Utopia/ThePatron|The Patron]]'s patron god, to whom he prays five times a day, and is celebrated with five feast days each year, one at the beginning of each 'resplendent' month. Even the Immaculates honor these five days of worship, because the Patron has been known to have those that speak against honoring the feasts arrested and tried for sedition and/or aiding and abetting slavers, and their leader does not need that kind of attention, so he has said: "These days honoring Machuko are sanctioned by the immaculate faith, so long as you pray unto him only on these days you do not sin against the orders of Heaven."

Machuko keeps a large temple in the city's northeast quarter: a level 3 fire aspected manse called 'The Wheel of Torches' from it ride forth his clergy and devout adherents numbering several dozen strong on raids into the wastes beyond Amarana's borders proclaiming Machuko's glory and the freedom of all people within the lands of Amarana. Machuko has many priests across all of creation but nowhere are there so many gathered together as in Amarana.

In form, Machuko looks like a tall muscular man of what modern people would call Jewish/Hasidic/Israeli derivation, with a wild beard and long hair that hangs in ringlets. He carries a gore maul and chopping sword of orichalcum and white jade which when used together can cut any chain or bond. He has another form, which he assumes rarely except when in heaven, which is that of a great Dragon filled with yellow-white fire and made from millions of broken chains, collars, and manacles.

== Ancestor Cultists ==

Led by [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Sharima of the Three Disciplines|Sharima of the Three Disciplines]] and her ghostly lover [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Aruna the Defiant|Aruna the Defiant]] this group of citizens is a large and vocal part of the city's population. Though dwarfed by the percentage of the city who worship the city's gods and elementals the Ancestor Cultists make up as much as 20-25% of the city's population and are especially prominent among the [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Salaru|Salaru]].

The Ancestor Cultists make use of a large number of small [[Shadowlands]] across the city to communicate more directly with their patron spirits and interact with the underworld: but are mindful of [[User:Nemo of Utopia/The Patron of Amarana|The Patron]]'s injunctions about not breaking the circles of salt and other wards which keep the ghosts within the Underworld. They are however constantly working to locate 'new' and unguarded Shadowlands for their patrons to use to slip in and out of the underworld, which The Patron minds not one bit so long as they report them for the Adeptus Sororitatus/Frateris to seal in due course.

Though most of the people of Amarana are unaware of this fact the Ancestor Cultists are being controlled from behind the scenes by a Deathknight known as [[User:Nemo of Utopia/The Fluttering Fist of the Deadly Labyrinth|The Fluttering Fist of the Deadly Labyrinth]] he is a martial artist in service to The [[Mask of Winters]] who has wandered off on his own agenda far from thorns and The Mask's traditional area of operation. "The Fist" came to Amarana in search of a rumored cache of [[Autochthonian]] [[Soulsteel]], held in the vaults of the undercity, but has found that much of the undercity is sealed and inaccessible even from the [[Underworld]]. In the meantime, he works on the ancestor cultists as both a way to support himself and something to occupy his time while he trains to learn the charms that will allow him to enter the prehuman depths of the city where he hopes the bars of [[Autochthonian Soulsteel]] can be found.

Though the ghosts of Salaruku are numerous and very old surprisingly few of them are Heroic Ghosts and willing/able to serve as patrons for Amarana's ancestor cultists. Of those that do It is surprisingly four of the youngest ghosts that are the main patrons worshiped by the cultists: along with one exceedingly old ghost from the fall of Salaruku.

=== Xufuwne Onuke ===

The leader of Amarana's relatively large population of ghosts from the time of the fair folk invasion Onuke is frighteningly powerful but relatively easy going. He has outlasted Amarana's long dormancy and now looks forward to an era of joy and plenty for the city's dead. A dragon blooded warrior in life Onuke was killed battling the invaders from the wyld and in an odd twist of fate, they buried him with high honors. His tomb lies in the still mostly sand-covered western half of the city at the center of a small park and is one of the barest handful of areas in that region that have been excavated in advance of the main work. In form, Onuke looks like a typical dragon blooded of the shogunate, dressed in power armor and wielding a Daiklave. He has subsisted by hunting plasmic creatures for most of 700 years but welcomes the changes of the reborn city. Onuke is the cult's equivalent of a war god, a role he shoulders without complaint but also without relish.

=== Aruna the Defiant ===

Hailing from Chiaroscuro Aruna is the lover of Sharima, and they have many Ghost-blooded children together. They were maneuvered into the leadership of the cult by agents of [[The Archon of Apostasy]] who wished to have a shining example of ghost/mortal co-operation in Amarana to help people accept the death cult in their midst. The Archon's agents do not believe the plan is working but they are wrong, were it not for the two of them the cult would have been burned out root and branch. Aruna is a relatively young ghost but has become powerful quite quickly thanks to her lover and her association with various death cults. In appearance, Aruna looks like a young woman of the Delazen, beautiful and alluring for all her ghostly translucence and pallor. Aruna is the cult's patron of love and romance but gives short shrift to lust.

=== Emerald Lotus ===

Like her partner's Monkey of the City and Triumphal Eagle of the Flawless Hill, Emerald Lotus has been elevated to leadership by the machinations of the Patron, who decreed a feast day in their honor on the day of their deaths defending Amarana from an attack by a trio of 'Hounds of the Unbroken Earth'. None of them is experienced enough to really do the jobs that they have had thrust upon them but they all are rising to the challenge. Emerald Lotus resembles a typical woman of the deep south dressed in a white robe and headscarf that covers everything but her face, and overtop that a breastplate of steel. She is neither attractive nor ugly but is very charismatic. She carries an infinite jade chakram as her main weapon and also bears a perfect chopping sword for close fighting. Emerald Lotus is the patron 'deity' of the cult's Martial Artists, as she had some experience with that in life. She still is finding her feet as a ghost and defers to Xufuwne Onuke on most matters.

=== Monkey of the City ===

Dressed in lamellar and wielding a shock pike monkey of the city is not really suited to his role as a leader of an ancestor cult. Having been an outcast and wanderer in life who always tried to keep people happy and was quick with a joke or to share his water he has not changed much in death. However, there is a place for the fun and funny guy in any pantheon and Monkey of the City fills that role for the Ancestor Cultists of Amarana. Monkey of the City is the cult pantheon's trickster and comic relief, which he does not mind one bit.

=== Triumphal Eagle of the Flawless Hill ===

Wearing a Red Jade reenforced Buff Jacket Triumphal Eagle, or simply 'Der Aller'* as he prefers to be called, was not much of a warrior in life, but was on rotation for guard duty when the hounds attacked and were predictably killed by them. Buried with honors along with the rest of the four and then raised up as a patron spirit of the city he has persisted as a leader due largely to [[User:Nemo of Utopia/The_Patron_of_Amarana|The Patron]]'s favor and the fact that he is a very intelligent man, who is knowledgeable about many subjects. His role in the city's death cult is that of a spirit of wisdom and intellect, as well as oddly the patron, so to speak, of the Adeptus Aeronauticus.
*(Which means 'the Eagle' in his native tongue, a northern barbarian language...)

== Cult of the Illuminated ==

The Cult of the Illuminated has a relatively small and subtle presence in Amarana, but never-the-less are present. Their agents and activists walk among the cults dedicated to the various celestial exalted who have come to Amarana quietly preaching of the unity of creation and the duties of the 'Shining Ones' to be the leaders and stewards of creation. "Someday," they say. "All creation will be united behind the Shining Ones, and on that day those who have served them well will have rewards beyond their wildest dreams."

Among the 17 or so celestial exalted in the city 6 are allied with the Cult of the Illuminated, and some of the others are sympathizers. The CotI worshipers pray to most of them and work to support their interests.

= Geography =

Geographically Amarana lies at the point just before the sands of the deep desert fully give way to the rocky foothills of the summer mountains. When the spring rains sweep in from the north it is prone to flooding and mud, while the heat of high summer brings the blazing Simoon roaring out of the deep desert and with it short tempers and sharp words that sometimes flare into brutal murders. Winter is a season of joy and happiness for the citizen's of Amarana, as the power of the elemental pole of Air waxes and the desert is cooled, allowing snow to briefly form in the nearby summer mountains which are trucked into Amarana by old roads and made into flavored sherbets and snow cones for those with the Patron's favor, especially small children, of whom The Patron is known to be quite fond. The foothills around Amarana abound with resources brewed up by the slowly retreating Wyld or pushed from deep within the earth by the strange forces by which creation renews itself over the centuries, including many veins of silver from which Amarana mints its currency. Meanwhile, the desert around Amarana is rich with fire dust and gem sand, especially during the nights of the new moon when the Wyld retreats for several miles further south and exposes a wide swath of 'tainted' land, especially where the city has been slowly pushing the Wyld back by infecting it with billions of grains of what is essentially Elemental Earth. This area is hazardous as well however because the tainted area is not just composed of valuable sands, but also dangerous ones, such as quicksand, shatter sand, and hungry sand. For every person from Amarana who strikes it rich mining fire-dust or gem-sand in the tainted lands on the nights of the new moon, another finds themselves injured, killed, or mutated: in Amarana 'Firedust Miner' looks fair to rank among the top 5 'most dangerous professions' for the first year of recorded statistics in the city, right behind 'Rogue Spirit Protection Expert' and 'Pharmacist' but just ahead of 'Building Excavation Team Member' and 'Artifact Recovery Personnel'

Nearby Amarana is a number of Small Oasis, Hot Springs, and Geysers which have long provided the Salaru tribes with water. Though 90% of the tribesmen have returned to their ancestral home a few chose to stay out in the wastelands for one reason or another, and now gather into three new small tribes: the western, northern, and eastern Salaru.

To the west, the desert is hot by day and cold by night, with only trackless sand to greet your eyes, the Salaru who have stayed out in this wilderness journey mile upon mile between oasis that is often buried under the shifting sands and must be dug down to gather up their water. They survive by hunting snakes and lizards and trading fire dust and jewel sand with the Guild for added food and water. Though trade is their main source of contact with the outside they no longer must rely upon it or perish, with the total number of tribe's men in this region reduced by more than 95% they now can survive on their own without help, but it would be a spartan existence. Trade gives them luxuries and better equipment, which they put to good use. The western salaru do not keep herd beasts or in fact, any animals except hunting dogs, the land here is too harsh for this to be profitable. They worship many nature spirits, but few major deities except the Unconquered Sun, who is seen as a wrathful god of war and destruction, and Luna in her aspect as The White Navigator, who is seen as a benevolent and helpful deity. Though they honor the high holy days of the five maidens they are not much revered outside those times.

To the north, the Salaru who have not returned to their city are primarily herders and gatherers, as the foothills of the summer mountains provide old lava tubes and other places to hide from the sun by day and keep flocks dry when the rains come. Their life is perhaps the least harsh of the three new tribes since they have kept the most of their population, with only about 80% going to live in the city and in all cases leaving a few family members to mind the herds and ancestral cave or rock-cut house. They also were the most numerous of the Salaru before the return to Amarana, having six of the 10 Salaru tribes living in their region. and now are by far-and-away the most populous of the three 'outside' tribes. They also still contribute a good chunk of Amarana's food supplies, which means that even the Patron must treat with them on their terms. On the other hand, they know that the Patron, while a patient man, does have his limits and that their families back in Amarana would suffer first and worst if they cut off the shipments of food and other goods to the city, so they treat the Amaranaians with as much respect as they expect in return: so far the city and the northern tribe have a strong alliance of mutual benefit and support. The northern Salaru frequently revere Atlhat, the southern god of war and cattle, in addition, they also revere the Celestial Incarna and Gaia as well as many nature spirits.

The tribes to the east were always the most desirous to return to Amarana, for they could still see it's central tower sticking up out of the sand. However, when the time came, an influential leader named [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Sabris of the Two Spears|Sabris of the Two Spears]] convinced them that they should instead of all going back to the city leave some people behind and send their sons and daughters back into the summer mountains to live with those that stayed for two years as a right of passage. This has proved to their great advantage, for they now own the rights to much of the mineral wealth in the summer mountains near Amarana and have risen to be among the city's most wealthy families. The mountain Salaru were hunter/gatherers before Amarana's recovery and it is in this capacity that the children sent to the old mountain fastnesses must learn to survive when they are facing their Adavam Ordeal. The eastern Salaru mostly hold up a host of small gods for worship and revere the celestial Incarna on their high holy days. They are however the nearest things to atheists Creation has, feeling that if a person cannot survive without divine intervention then they are weaklings that must be excised from the gene pool. Many of them are swayed to a degree by the Immaculate faith but reject the idea that the Dragonblooded are creations, rightful rulers, their tribes have long memories and have heard the tales told by the Lunars of the perfidy of the Dragonblooded and the glory once created by the Solars, and twice in their exile have seen this glory first hand before the Dragonblooded showed up and ruined things.

To the south of the city, a wyld zone bleeds into reality for almost eight hundred miles from the maximum edge of the world. Though the city lies near the edge of this wyld zone it is not part of it, not even when the wyld storms blow in the autumn. This is perhaps partly because the city's strong geomancy prevents it from being absorbed or perhaps some form of potent first age artifact still protects the city as it did during the invasion so long ago. If the Patron knows he is not telling. Either way, there is and never has been a tribe of the Salaru to the south of the city. If the work they are doing to push back the wyld succeeds as well as it has been thus far, there may be, soon.

= Ethnicity =

Amarana is an ethnically mixed city, with people from all over creation having gathered in under its banner thanks to [[The Ghost/The Patron|The Patron's]] zero-tolerance policy towards slavery. In the main however the population is drawn from the peoples of the south, as escaping slaves are most able to reach Amarana from it's nearest neighbors, [[Virangia]] and [[The Delazen Empire]].

== The Salaru ==

Descendants of the people who fled Salaruku in the face of the Balorian Crusade the Salaru have waited a long time to return to their city. Composed of 10 culturally distinct tribes the Salaru make up an ever decreasing percentage of the city's population as more and more foreigners come to the city and settle in. That said the Salaru, though small in number, have a disproportionate impact on the city's culture and politics, due to knowing the lands surrounding Amarana like no one else and therefore having a vastly outsized amount of wealth and clout.

The Salaru are subdivided into the following tribes:

=== The White Scars ===

This tribe numbers about 50 and have long been ancestor worshipers, they have been swayed to the cause of the Ancestor Cultists. They take their name from the practice of ritual scarification of face and hands to tell one’s ancestry and chest to recount great deeds. The White Scars hail from the west of the city. The White Scars are a strangely secretive bunch, they keep their own council and follow their own guidance. Alone of the Salaru tribes, the White Scars have wholey emigrated to the city, abandoning their ancestral lands to the Western Salaru's care and finding employment within Amarana. Most of them agree that this has been a drastic improvement in their living conditions. Their ancestors, however, worry about grave robbers and frequently ask the members of the tribe with the skills to do so to go back and check on the old burial grounds.

=== The Golden Bulls ===

Originally hailing from the north of the city this tribe has been sun worshipers since time out of mind, and have naturally gravitated toward the Solarion's cause. They take their name from the bloodline of golden-haired cattle that they breed, tend, and guard, which according to legend were a gift from the champions of the sun during an age long past in recompense for their service defeating an army of the Raksha. The Golden Bulls are among the largest tribes of the Salaru, numbering some 300 strong counting both those that came into Amarana and those that stayed behind to be part of the Northern Salaru. They revere Atlhat and The Unconquered Sun as their patrons and are known for their skill as warriors though they are overmatched by some of the other tribes thanks to awakened essence and charms. The Golden Bulls are largely employed as butchers, health inspectors, and members of Amarana's army, while the large contingent that remained in their ancestral lands tend their herds of golden-haired cattle as they always have done, though they now drive the excess males to market in Amarana for slaughter rather than keeping them home. The Golden Bulls’ primary combat style is with spears and Bullhide Shields, with firedust grenades to break tight formations. They would not look out of place in Harborhead, and marriages between Harborhead immigrants and the young men and women of the tribe are not uncommon, though frowned upon by some of the tribe elders due to the harborheadite's attitudes towards slavery, which the tribe has always held as blasphemy.

=== The Get of Vexan ===

Often called simply 'the get' by outsiders this tribe calls themselves the 'Vexanites'. The get is descended from a powerful Lunar who lived among the Salaru for a century or so starting a few decades after the fair folk invasion was driven back by the Empress. The Vexanite's hold a secret: their tribe is led by a family of Serpent Beast Men founded by Vexan and preserved through complex webs of intermarriage with other serpent-folk from as far away as the silent crescent. The get is currently led by a charming and curvaceous young woman from the southeast jungles named Nyoka. What they do not yet know is that she is actually the modern incarnation of their founder's exaltation and has been having sex with one of the tribe's greatest warriors in her spirit form of a twenty-foot dragon snake in the hopes of bearing beast folk children. She walks among the tribe in her Warform, that of a great dragon-like serpent woman with the fangs and venom of a cobra and the wings and claws of a dragon. The Get hailed from the mountains east of Amarana.

=== The Iron Raptors ===

Though founded by a group of outlaws and murderers the Iron Raptors are ironically a major component of Amarana's police force. Having originated as an inner-city gang during the last days of the shogunate the Iron Raptors turned their coats when the fair folk came calling at the end of the contagion. They took hundreds of people out of the city through hidden tunnels and other smuggling routes: people who became the founders of the other Salaru tribes. Since then they have slowly moved from running protection rackets over the other tribes, to actually protecting them, to being their main form of law enforcement and wandering justiciars. Now that Amarana is resettled they have taken up the role of their distant ancestors' worst enemies, an irony that is not lost on Garion Cromarch. The Iron Raptors’ central holdings were to the north of Amarana but they wandered freely among the other tribes and in fact still do, being welcome among any of the other Salaru. They worship Garion Cromarch as their patron deity, but also revere a number of small gods of crime and larceny, propitiating them in recompense for reducing their portfolios and defeating their natural worshipers.

=== The Kelderkin ===

Another tribe from the city's north the Kelderkin are the descendants of Marion Kelder and are an agricultural matriarchy. They revere Gaia to the near exclusion of all other deities and hold that all other gods are really aspects of Gaia, subsidiary souls of the Maiden of Plenty. They are more right in this belief than most people realize. All Kelderkin women can trace their ancestry to Marion Kelder via one of her seventeen daughters, and which daughter you are a descendant of determines what your role in the tribe is. The only roles that are not decided by your ancestry are 3: Shaman, Champion, and Speaker. The Speakers are the leaders of the tribe and set it's policy, while the shamans and champions advise them and defend the tribe. Marion Kelder was a wood aspected dragon blooded and even to this day a Kelderkin man or woman will sometimes exalt as another wood aspect. Currently, there is one such person among the Kelderkin, Mwaloni Kelder who is a gifted archer and huntress that leads an all-female unit of other archers in the Amarana armed forces. She is also a sex addict and currently dating four separate men, two of which are identical twin Djala who regularly have Manage-a-Trois with her.

=== The Chosen of Flame ===

Hailing from the city's west The Chosen of Flame has been firedust gatherers for as long as anyone can remember. They gathered firedust far south of the city during the shogunate and came to Amarana to trade it. When the hosts of Fairie came sweeping in from the edge of the world after the great contagion they ran before them and were caught up in the exodus from Amarana, helping many of the civilized folk adapt to the desserts. The Chosen of Flames make up the lion’s share of the new western tribe, but even so, most of them have moved into the city and settled down as experts and factors in the firedust trade. They are a prosperous tribe that is in a state of transition as they adapt to being a settled people for the first time. Numbering approximately 75 persons in the city and an equal number now part of the Western Salaru the Chosen of Flame boasts several god-blooded among their number, and actively court new fire elemental unions. Their God Blooded include Gitchsune Folarabi, Malawi Besmar, and Kubrisa Suknis, among others.

=== The Iconographers ===

Among the tribes of the Salaru, few can argue that the Iconographers are not among the most learned and civilized. Hailing from the cities northeast they have preserved an astonishing amount of lore from the low first age, especially on the subject of geomancy. Now almost universally employed by the Patron excavating and repairing manses they are well off and respected. The Iconographers place great store by erudition and knowledge, and gain position and prestige among their own via a set of grueling examinations conducted by their tribe's patron spirits once every ten years, and always in old realm. Because of these tests of knowledge, the tribe is led by its elders, who have had the most time to study and learn, and they are prone to contemplation and thoughtfulness. Among other advantages this has gifted them with is the possession of five small Manses outside the city, raised after the city's abandonment by their own hands. These manses have made their ancestral lands fertile and bountiful, making them one of the largest salaru tribes with 200 members in five small villages around the Manses before they emigrated to Amarana. Of all the tribes their desire to return to the city was among the greatest, but they did leave one family behind in each village to see to its welfare and upkeep in perpetration for their Descendents and those selected to join them by the Patron returning. The Iconographers in city number 175 or so and are very much in the Patron's camp. They are led by [[User:Nemo of Utopia/SukiwaraMadoka|Sukiwara Madoka]], a god blooded thaumaturge of advanced years and not inconsiderable skill.

=== The Eisil ===

As a tribe of pastoral hunters and gatherers in the city's eastern area, the Eisil would not be remarkable except for the fact that they are master storytellers and thespians. The role of Storyteller is the most honored position within their culture and many people aspire to it but few succeed. Their greatest tale is that of Sakarazat, a woman who was taken captive by a rapacious dragon blooded lord and over the course of two and a bit years told him a thousand stories which prevented him from killing her, and in the end, led the dragon blooded to let her go. Now that the Eisil have returned to Amarana they are mostly working at simple jobs like sand clearer or coachman (They have long preserved the arts of chariot racing as part of their festivals.) but a significant number of them now take the long-coveted role of storyteller or actor, and are among the best in the city, being sought out by talent scouts and stage managers for private and public engagements. The Eisil hail from the high mountains east of Amarana where the snow falls in winter, they are paler complected than most Salaru and have massive barrel chests from dealing with the thin air.

=== The Mantis Tribe ===

From the northwest of the city, the Mantis tribe straddle the border between the desert and the foothills of the Amaranaian lands. They have survived by placing great store by martial arts and awakened essence, and among their number only the young typically do not have awakened essence, nearly everyone over the age of 25 has mastered this basic precept. By the age of 30, most people have achieved the form type charm of one of the 5 main martial arts of the tribe, and by the time they reach venerable status at 65, nearly everyone is a master of their chosen style. This has allowed the Mantis Tribe to become large and prosperous but puts them in an uncomfortable position of being alternately feared and nearly worshiped by the other tribes, who look to them for protection from spirits and demons. It also puts them in another uncomfortable position: their various schools of martial arts do not always get along, and more than once the tribe has been wracked by internal strife, especially between the members that adhere to the Immaculate Philosophy and the people that worship the local gods outside that framework. At the moment it seems like the tribe is heading for another such civil war, and this time it may drag the whole city into it.

=== The Broad ===

Alone of the Salaru the Broad actually hate the Patron. The Broad was from the uttermost western areas of the Salaru and also alone among their number made a common practice of keeping slaves, but not so much for the purpose of having them work for the tribe but rather to sell to the guild. They ranged far among the sandy wastes waring with members of other tribes and capturing them to sell for the supplies they needed to survive and prosper. Many among their number were heroic mortals and with the exception of the Mantis Tribe and the Chosen of Fire they boasted the most members with awakened essence and/or god-blood. They also served as a dumping ground for the criminal and malcontents of the other tribes leading them to be less cordial with the rest of the Salaru than any other tribe. However, even the Broad wished to return to Amarana enough to give up their slave taking practices, at least, some of them did. When the Patron decreed all people of Amarana Free men and women shortly before the Guild arrived the Broad fractured over whether to return to their ancestral homeland or remain in the wastes and live as they had done for centuries. In the end, the tribe split 60/40 in favor of returning to Amarana and becoming part of the new society, but the 40% that remained in the wastes no longer consider themselves beholden to the Patron, Amarana, or even the Salaru. These people, called by their former associates The Red Broad are now considered outlaws brigands by the Isknadarian government and hunted whenever they stray close to the fifty-foot Glass Pillars that mark the borders of the Amaranaian lands. They are firmly in the camp of the Guild's Men and infiltrate the city regularly to capture and smuggle out valuable slaves that have escaped to Amarana from other lands.
The 60% of the tribe that has returned to the city are in the camp of the Death Cultists since the Broad were by and large ancestor worshipers before they returned to Amarana and see no reason to change that now. Calling themselves 'The Green Broad' they have no love for the patron but do love their city and will fight to the death to defend it. Most of them are now members of the city's military and are locked in a bitter feud with their former tribesmen. The members of this tribe that are not military mostly work as overseers for the small but growing cadres of 'indentured servants' kept by the city government in punishment for some of the most heinous crimes such as rape and enslaving another person.

=== The Western Salaru ===

=== The Northern Salaru ===

=== The Eastern Salaru ===

== The Djala ==

The D'jala are a sub-faction of the Patriots at the present time. Having been liberated by the Patron from their enslavement by many people who have brought them to the city in bondage they are fanatical partisans of the city's leader and from a major component of his power base. The Djala form five small tribes into which new arrivals are folded by ties of kinship, alliance, or marriage within weeks of arrival. The number of newly married Djala in the city is staggering, easily 40% of all new arrivals are pushed into marriages within a month of becoming residents, and somehow nearly all these mirages are happy ones. What the Djala elders know but have not officially publicized is that one of the Djala's patron gods is an old drinking buddy of [[The Ghost/Meroka Jin|Meroka Jin]] and has called in a favor with the minister of romance and love to arrange this happy state of affairs for his people in the city. This is not going to last, because [[The Ghost/Sakarzi|Sakarzi]] is going to start screwing around with them, but for the moment she is distracted by her work with the death cult.

== Varangians ==

== The Delazen ==

== Deep Southerners ==

Nemo of Utopia/Amarana

2020-07-14T12:23:49Z

Nemo of Utopia: /* The Iron Raptors */

Amarana is a first age city, lost to the contagion and the fair folk invasion over 700 years ago. It is now coming back to life under the aegis of [[User:Nemo of Utopia/The_Patron_of_Amarana|The Patron]] who wields the power of the [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Five_Signs_of_Harmonic_Unity|Five Signs of Harmonic Unity]].

= Amarana =

Amarana Is comprised of a large area surrounded by a circular wall. At the edge of that wall are twelve triangular towers that contain the major military resources of the city. Of these towers, eight have been fully excavated, and the ninth is being examined and the sand removed even now.

Within the city is organized into four quarters but only two of them are even partially excavated, the two on the eastern side of the city, and even there many buildings still slowly seep sand into the streets out of cracked windowpanes and the door seems. The buildings of Amarana tend to a certain Egyptian flare or perhaps it would be better to say pre-Arabic since they are after all, by and large, the product of the low first age. The buildings are built of a quasi imperishable ceramic that resembles adobe, with the most significant having windows of Chiaroscuro Glass and doors made of either that same substance or Stainless Steel. Buildings are generally between six and ten stories high with essence powered air conditioning and elevators both of which the Patron must personally repair before the building becomes usable again.

Unlike many old realm cities, Amarana is laid out on a grid, instead of in a radial pattern. This gives a geomantic bonus to the people who live there: namely that mortals gain +1 XP per time XP is awarded. This bonus actually accrues every half year if using long term awards. The players can uncover this information with a dif10 [wits + occult] roll once every month they spend in the city beginning on the second day they are here. The bonus only applies to true mortals, not god blooded, ghost blooded, awakened Martial artists or any exalt, but does apply to dragon kings and jadeborn who are not Artisans.

So far roughly half of the city has been uncovered, but even here there are a lot of buildings that are collapsed, or still filled with sand and roped off with red cables and even more locations where there are red cables indicating small shadowlands or dimenses that are not to be approached until the city can close/cap them.

The excavation is proceeding irregularly, moving from the east wall out toward the west except around the central manse and the road from the north gate to the south gate. There are markets in most squares and a number of shops on the ground floors of buildings. Few merchants here are officially affiliated with the guild since many people in the city are escaped guild slaves and loath the guild vehemently.

Nearly everything except slaves is available for sale, including many products from The Wyld. Firewands and Flame Pieces are the core of the weapons markets along with accessories such as bayonets, powder horns, and pieces of flint or obsidian for strikers. Interestingly Cannons are not for sale, being reserved for the government, but anyone with contacts 2 or higher could find someone who knows someone who could get a permit for purchasing a few for export. Armoring is more advanced, and even some artifact armors are for sale, though they would be a resource 4 purchase at minimum, and that is for the simple stuff like Jade breastplates. Things like Yuroy Scout armor are beyond the means of anyone in the party, though, that comes up for sale very rarely except through illegal channels. Jade Full Plate and Super Heavy Plate are more commonly available, in fact, there are people in the city that can be commissioned to make it. Orichalcum and Monsilver are not commissionable but in the still covered parts of the city are facilities to work it. There are no facilities in the city for Soulsteel or Starmetal, but there is a workshop in one manse that has been uncovered to work Adamant, though finding any to use would require Wyld Cauldron Technology and spending XP: such is the life of the Exalted...

There are a number of Inns, Caravanserai, and Hostels near the city gates, while further in nearly every corner of an inhabited area has at least one restaurant or coffee shop. Tea houses, by comparison, are rare, and true bars are unusual enough to be remarked upon when a new one is found. Most living quarters do not have kitchens, which is why many hab towers which have been excavated don't have permanent residents and so many restaurants can stay open. Many restaurants, in fact, rent themselves out to people wishing to cook for their families or are owned by consortiums of citizens who hold them in common for communal cooking with contracts for use and upkeep requirements.

All of the city's roads are at least 20 feet wide, plus a five-foot sidewalk to either side. This is for the smallest streets, most are 40 feet wide with sidewalk and a few main thoroughfares are 60 feet wide. The streets keep themselves magically clean once each section is repaired by the Patron, but only a very few sections are repaired and many people who work as street sweepers clearing sand wish for it to stay that way. (Each 10'x10' section is a different artifact and must be individually repaired. There is one street in the city's west that is a first age relic and still working. However it can only affect things up to 30 feet above itself, so it is a long tunnel of a clear street bounded on all sides by packed sand.) The streets are made of fitted 5'x5'x1' blocks of granite, and one can sometimes determine which part of the city one is in by the color of the streets. The northeast the blocks are blue and green, the southeast red and green, the southwest red and black and the northwest blue and black. The city’s four central parkways are each a solid color relating to their element and 40' wide on each side and the grand square around the central manse is white and 60' wide at its narrowest point. However many streets were repaired with gray, white, or red granite toward the end of the shogunate and are not properly color-coded.

The City has at least 5' of clearance between all buildings: meaning that there are many allies in which one can get lost. You can often tell which parts are in use and which are unoccupied by weather there is sand filling the allies or they are clear.

== Manses and Demesnes of Amarana ==
Amarana was at one time subject to major geomantic engineering projects that gave it a large number of demesnes and then manses relative to its size. Most of those manses are still here, still active, and even now being located and excavated. A few, however, were partially unstable and have long since exploded. These few are roped off as dangerous and plans are underway to re-cap them, led of course by the Patron. Note that there are more manses and demesnes within the city that have not yet been found and that at one time there were even MORE demesnes in the city which have collapsed into a dormant state due to the changes in the city's essence flows and could be reactivated with the appropriate rituals once the city is fully excavated and geomantic remapped, these demesnes, however, were all small ones, level 2 at the most, so whether such effort is worth it in the short term, or even a good idea, is debatable. See [[Nemo of Utopia/MansesandDemesnesofAmarana|Manses and Demesnes of Amarana]] for further information.

= History =

== Prehistory ==

Though most do not know it Amarana's deepest foundations were laid in an era long past by the [[Dragons Kings]]. The City flourished in the age between the advent of humanity and the [[Primordial War]] with many of the first exalted visiting the place at one time or another in the several decades of the lead up to the overthrow of the Primordials. Then when the war began the city was wreathed in the destruction by one of the superweapons of the masters of creation, utterly annihilating most of those that dwelt therein and reducing the city to a smoking crater of volcanic glass. Still, beneath the burned and blackened surface, some parts of the old under city survived, and wait there still.

== The First Age ==

During the First Age many of the survivors of the primordial war remembered their time in 'Highana' fondly and after excavating much of the old substrate and leveling off the damaged areas to make way for new constructions raised up a new city on the site of the old. This city was dubbed 'Solzarian' in honor of [[The Unconquered Sun]] and in memorial to the Great Dragon King lady who had ruled the city so well and wisely ere it's annihilation. The City would remain a significant but out-of-the-way part of the Old Realm all the way through the first age.

=== The Ocher Fountain Era ===

During the beginning of the First Age when [[Queen Merela]] ruled over all creation from the eternal capital of [[Rathess]] Solzarian was still being reconstructed, and there was little of note that occurred in the city. One event, in particular, was notable, however: the Conclave of Solzarian in year 99 of the old realm, a symposium on the rights and freedoms of the people of creation which some in later years would argue laid the foundations of the Meru Uprising which led to the formation of the Deliberative.

=== The First Deliberative Era ===

By the time of the founding of the [[Deliberative]], the reconstruction of Solzarian was largely complete, and over the next few decades, the city became a favored retreat for both Solars and Lunars seeking to get the heck out of Meru and the stifling politics of the great city. One of Marela's closest allies [[Nemo of Utopia/Angus the Wirehair|Angus the Wirehair]] was given the rule of the city as part of the division of creation into fiefdoms and made it his personal residence. Under Angus rule, the city prospered, though it, by-and-large, remained a backwater compared to such metropolises as [[Chiaroscuro]] and Rathess. However, thanks to its solar overlord and his close relationship to the Queen of all Creation the city began the long process of incredible geomantic engineering which would in time lead to it being known as 'The City of Manses'.

=== Unfurling Horizon Era ===

While this era of creation went by largely without incident of significant note at this remove of history it is still recorded that many of the great efforts to explore and expand the borders of Creation in the south used Solzarian as a staging ground or stopover point before plunging into the true wilderness at creation's rim. This continued to encourage the exalted to play 'tourist' in the city and helped keep its economy vibrant. It is also noted in some histories that there was a major strike of [[Red Jade]] near the city in 811 which produced a 'Jade Rush' led by two rival Dragon-Blooded brothers and their servants which escalated into a short civil war in the city 2 years later in which significant damage was done to the city's infrastructure by all three* factions. The Civil War was only halted when [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Angus the Wirehair|Angus the Wirehair]] returned from Meru at the head of a wing of elite Dragon-Blooded shock troops and brutally suppressed both rival groups with mass arrests and a number of executions. (What happened to the brothers is unknown, but their names do not reappear in the historic record for 700 years, and at that time associated with different elemental aspects leading most scholars to conclude that they were 'dealt with' privately by their family.)
*(The Two consortia backing the rival brothers and the cities law enforcement detachments.)

==== The Aftershock War ====

In spite of the growing significance of the city and it's powerful assets in terms of equipment and hearthstones, Solzarian was not at first much involved in the Aftershock War. Passed over in favor of more militarily significant targets by the Primordial Forces the city did not come under fire until 1131 when a force of some 3000 first circle demons led by a trio of 2nd circle demons assaulted the city in the dead of night via a fleet of living airships. The 'Battle of Solzarian' was considered a significant victory for the forces of creation due to the large number of [[Golden Janissary Style]] practitioners in the city who were able to make fairly short work of the first circle demons allowing the detachment of Dragon-Blooded stationed in the city to confront the second circle demon commanders and dispatch them.

However the war was not all glorious victory for the people of Solzarain, [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Angus the Wirehair|Angus the Wirehair]] went missing during the final battle with the primordial forces and would not be seen again for over 500 years. For most of that time, he was presumed dead by the people of the city, though the Solar Exalted knew better as his shard had not found a new host.

=== Shining Reflection Era ===

During this period Solzarian loses much of its former significance as the seat of one of Marela's close allies. Few of the Exalted visit the city and the grand engineering projects grind to a near halt. The only events of great significance that occur here are two:
1: The Duel of the Magisters in 1313 where the reincarnations of Theis, Leelah, and Sonah engage in a duel of sorceress power which damages large sections of the city and forces all three of them to be censured by Marela herself: And;
2: In 1492 a major strike of Orichalcum is made a few hundred miles south of the city, and Solzarian becomes a stepping off point for prospectors of every stripe looking to get rich quick mining Orichalcum. The City's economy runs strong off this sudden influx of cash, people, and goods for the next 30 years.

=== Thousand Struggles Era ===

The first part of this period proceeds much from the previous one: everyone is aware that one of the legendary solar exalted has died of old age, but this makes little difference to the struggling backwater that Solzarian has become: then in 1776 everything changes.

In the Records of Solzarian 1776 is called: 'The Year of the Thousand' for the massive wave of change that swept over the city this year. The First thing that happens is [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Angus the Wirehair|Angus the Wirehair]] 'returns from the dead' on the 11th of Ascending Water storming into the city with a small group of Solars, Lunars, and Siderials and calling everyone he can reach into the city with him to face what he calls 'The Storm of the Millennium'. Ten days later the storm arrives and following in behind it a host of the fair folk the likes of which has not been seen in centuries. The city is invested and besieged for two months by the Faerie Host and the siege is only broken by the arrival of four full realm legions armed with Cold Iron. Once the Fair Folk are driven back and the city is again secure Angus orders most of the city leveled and an engineering project the like of which the city has not seen in over half a millennium undertaken to extensively alter its geomancy. To finance this undertaking he produces several tons of jade, from what source none can say, and uses his Wyld Shaping charms, which until his return no one knew he possessed, to manufacture the raw materials needed from the chaotic energy left behind by the Fair Folk.

However, no sooner was the project underway than orders came down from the Queen that he was to return to [[Meru]] at once and answer for his absence: and bound by the oaths he took as one of the [[Golden Hero Vassals]] so very long ago he departs. Following up on the plans he has left behind his circle mate [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Levian of the Gilded Staff|Levian of the Gilded Staff]] begins directing the super-massive construction and engineering projects which will if successful create one of the greatest concentrations of manses and geomantic relays outside of the Blessed Isle. By late in Descending fire half the city is gone and an entirely new street plan and so on is rising in its place, along with a massive upgrade to the walls and towers of the city perimeter as well.

What exactly passed for Angus in Meru is unrecorded by any presently known records except perhaps those of the Bureau of Destiny but what is recorded is the results of that visit: Angus was stripped of the rulership of his fief in the south including Solzarian and sent on a quest of penance into the frozen north: while Solzarian and the surrounding area was given into the hands of a relatively young solar of the Twilight Caste from another circle named [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Keisha Adriana Mullion|Keisha Adriana Mullion]] and her lunar mate [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Maxim of Personal Liberty|Maxim of Personal Liberty]].

While Keisha was young she was not stupid and consulted with Levian of the Gilded Staff on what she was doing with the engineering of the city. With the elder Twilight's help, she finished the geomantic reorganization as designed by Angus and by the end of Resplendent Air the basic project is finished. The city is now rife with uncapped demesnes and sites that will become demesnes once they can be activated after some of the others are capped. The city also now confers a geomantic bonus on all mortals living there, allowing them to develop their skills and abilities more quickly than those living in other cities. The full culmination of the project with the activation and capping of all demesnes will not be complete for another 36 years.

==== Time of Cascading Years ====

The Time of Cascading Years took rather longer in Solzarian and the surrounding area than it did in most of Creation: 3333 years to be precise. The relatively young solar ruler who went into the Time of Cascading Years and her only slightly more experienced Lunar Spouse emerges from it with a weight of skill and refinement which makes them elders among the solars and lunars. They also are now both arrayed with a panoply of artifacts and charms that make them forces to be reckoned with in the new Deliberative. The passage of the 'Age of Isolation' in Solzarian is marked by a number of rebellions and uprisings, and the invasion of their lands by the fair folk towards the end of it, from whence none, can say. Supposedly it was the destruction of an artifact which the Raksha Commander carried which restore time to its normal flow according to the people of Solzarian.

=== Second Deliberative Era ===

During the [[User:Nemo of Utopia/PeriodofLongSilence|Period of Long Silence]] Solzarain is one of the few areas still doing significant research, though they are hampered by the continuing disunity of creation and the fearfulness of creation's mortals who are all accustomed to traveling too far from home casting you into a different timeline.

With the Establishment of the new deliberative however Solzarian is thrust into the spotlight for around a hundred years as the home and workshop of one of the most important [[User:Nemo of Utopia:NPCCreationGuidelines/Exalted/FirstAge/Solar/TwilightCaste|Copper Spiders]] of the deliberative. During this period the city is a known destination for the many young Twilight-caste members who were reborn following the restoration of time's proper flow.

As this era goes on however Solzarian becomes less and less important with the rebuilding of the rest of creation, the other Twilights drift away to rule their own fiefs and work on their own projects and as has happened before Solzarian's position far from most significant events of history both at the center of creation and at its rim mean it becomes a backwater. Even it's solar and lunar rulers spend more time in Meru than at home, leaving the city in the hands of [[User:Nemo of Utopia:NPCCreationGuidelines/Exalted/FirstAge/Dragonblooded/Top|Dragon Blooded]] legates.

=== Era of Dreams ===

During the first part of the Era of Dreams, though Solzarian flourishes on the mundane level it remains a backwater on the scales by which The Realm measures such things: a functional and unimportant city in a functional but unimportant section of the world. It does, however, receive an [[IAM|I AM]] Transmission Node linking it to the broader network of information which now spans creation.

Then in the year 3381, it's twilight caste ruler is goaded into violating her eclipse oath to not attack other celestial exalted in Meru, setting in motion a chain of events that will alter the shape of Solzarian's fate for centuries to come, and that of the rest of creation. At first, the botches come hard and heavy, but then they stop and [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Keisha Adriana Mullion|Keisha]] thinks the oath's punishment has run its course.

It has not.

Returning to her holding in the south she begins to work on constructing a [[Proto Shinmatic Vortex]] and at a key stage of the process, the final botch of set activates and the PSV explodes, killing Keisha and creating an intense Wyld Zone south of the city over a hundred miles wide.

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/MaximofPersonalLiberty|Maxim of Personal Liberty]] calls upon every favor he has and even takes on new obligations to arrange the deliberative sending experts at Wyld Shaping to close the rift in the fabric of reality, but the people sent are not the high essence Solars and Lunars he hoped for but rather a cadre of neophytes who have scarce mastered Wyld Cauldron Technology and are woefully unprepared for the madness of the deep Wyld which exists within the rift. Three of them die before the other two calls it quits leaving the Wyld Zone barely stabilized around its edges. It is unrecorded at this remove what keeps the deliberative busy and the more powerful Wyld shapers tied up, but it will not be for another 3 decades that the Wyld zone is fully dealt with and that not by an individual any more experienced than the ones first dispatched, though with far greater caution than the first circle that was sent showed.

== The Usurpation ==

== The Shogunate ==

== The Fall & The Second Age ==

== The Rebirth ==

In RY 760, that same year where so very much else changed for creation (763 in normal Chronicles): the man who

= Government =

In basic, the Government of Amarana really consists of a single man: [[User:Nemo of Utopia/The Patron of Amarana|The Patron]]. He is an autocrat, ruling by divine mandate and shier power, as he is capable of defeating significant deities in single combat. However the Patron is one man, and as such has organized his subjects with several branches of what we would consider a more normal government. This normal government is organized into twelve 'Adeptus' which each is led by one of the twelve 'High Lords of Amarana'. These twelve powerful individuals form a council that advises and assists The Patron in his leadership of the city, feeding him data on several topics such as the state of his subject's religious convictions or the preparedness of his military. Though each High Lord is immensely powerful they all are The Patron's fanatical partisans and would not dream of challenging his authority, even if they could.

== The Adeptus Millitate ==

The Adeptus Millitate is one of the largest branches of Amarana's government, with no fewer than 1250 members in all its branches and subgroups. Though officially in charge of Amarana's Armed services it has a rival in The Adeptus Aeronauticus who oversee Amarana's air-forces. The Adeptus Millitate is run by [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Fist of the Land|Fist of the Land]] a God-Blooded martial artist who is somewhat uncomfortable leading an army of over a thousand people.

The Adeptus Millitate has the following departments and offices:

=== The Departmento Munitorum ===

Oversees the acquisition and care of the equipment and supplies for the army.

==== The Officio Technis ====

Deals with the army's Magitech assets.

==== The Officio Cibum ====

Oversees the all-important function of providing provisions for the troops.

==== The Officio Armorium ====

Handles the more mundane arms and armor of Amarana's troops.

==== The Officio Quartium ====

… is responsible for most everything else, from tents to uniforms to bedrolls.

=== The Departmento Servicum ===

Oversees the actual troops and officers and their training regimens.

==== The Officio Acadamicain Legionarius ====

This office oversees the training of new recruits and officers running two training schools for them.

==== The Officio Cooptatione Legionarius ====

This is the group that sees-to the recruitment and if necessary conscription of new troops for the army.

=== The Departmento Latrocinium ===

Oversees the hiring and 'control' of any mercenary units the government employs but is better known for a more sinister function.

==== The Officio Mercenarius ====

Does the Hiring and Firing of actual mercenaries.

==== The Officio Assasinoritum ====

'The Office of Assassins', to use the Vulgate, runs at least four secret dojos training mortal agents in martial arts that facilitate them serving as The Patron's spies and assassins. [[Nemo of Utopia/Assassin of the Grey Spire|Assassin of the Grey Spire]] 'leads' this office: He is ''not'' a master of the White Veil Style of martial arts and has most ''definitely not'' taught many of its members this secret art form. (Nudge nudge, wink wink, know what I mean, know what I mean? Say no more, say no more!)

=== The Officio Adminstrad Militate ===

This 'Floating Office' makes sure that all of the other Departmento and Oficio within this Adeptus do their jobs properly.

== The Adeptus Arbitiese ==

The Adeptus Arbitese oversee Amarana's police forces, and are one of the larger branches of the government with only 150 individuals on staff, counting every beat cop all the way on up to the High Lord Herself as well as all the file clerks and so on that work for the Adeptus but are not actually part of it's 'fighting strength'. They have only one Departmento and less than a dozen Officio, but so far are keeping a lid on the political turmoil of the city. The High Lord of the Arbitese is [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Steel Garden|Steel Garden]] who is not a very good investigator but a decent politician and capable administrator.

=== The Departmento Queastorum ===

This department is responsible for making inquiries and investigating crime, thus far it is the only Department of the Adeptus Arbitese but the Officio Correctionibus is expected to become a departmento in its own right someday.

==== The Officio Homicide ====

The Office of Homicide consists of only eight people, four detectives, three CSI techs, and one overworked file clerk. Their closure rate hovers at around 50%, though that is only due to them being able to count any suspect killed by the ghost of the victim as a closed case. [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Laurel the Axe|Laurel the Axe]] is the unofficial leader of this group but officially they answer directly to the High Lord of the Arbitese.

==== The Officio Servus Aucupes ====

The term 'office of slave catchers' is something of a misnomer. These detectives do not catch slaves, rather they catch people keeping, taking, or recapturing slaves and send them to their just punishments. This office consists of five overworked personnel, two detectives, two forensic accountants, and one file clerk. Their closure rate is around 30% since it is hard to prove that someone was a slaver without catching them in the act.

==== The Officio Vitium ====

Unlike the officio above this office is not quite so overworked, and the two often help each other out because their work frequently overlaps. The 'Vice Squad' mostly concerns itself with drugs and prostitution, since licensed gambling establishments and most pornography are both legal in Amarana. The officio consists of Four Detectives, five undercover officers, three CSI techs, and a harried file clerk. Their Closure rate is about 45%.

==== The Officio Interioribus ====

This Officio is more for show than anything since all of Amarana's police are held by the Stone of Invincible Loyalty. It consists of two Detectives and one Forensic Accountant. They often spend their time quietly helping out other offices.

==== The Officio Fraude Aucupes ====

This is actually one of the larger offices within the Arbities, having eleven total personnel, six detectives, three forensic accountants, a CSI tech, and a file clerk. The office tries to keep a lid on the Guild and others defrauding Amarana's citizens through various means and does a fairly good job. Their closure rate is about 70%, though this is largely due to a lot of success catching many small-fry while the remaining 30% is almost all of the big players.

==== The Ofiicio Fures ====

The 'office of thieves' is responsible for all break-ins, burglaries, purse snatchings, muggings, cutpurses, and so forth in the city. In spite of having eight detectives, five undercover agents, six CSI, four Forensic Accountants, and five file clerks their closure rate is about 12%. Garion Cromarch is frankly disgusted with them and has told The Patron so. The Patron knows they are doing their best but has ordered mandatory additional training for all members of this office.

==== The Officio Pax Patronum ====

The remainder of the police force is in this office. These are the beat cops that enforce the law by their presence and vigilance. Amarana is a large city and they constantly must be on the lookout for any kind of crime but especially things like drunk and disorderly, disturbing the peace, making an affray, and so on. This office consists of 57 patrol officers and over a dozen file clerks. Twelve of these officers are part of a sub-office of 'Mounties' who do their patrols in teams of three on horseback, they are often called in to suppress larger riots. The officers always patrol in teams of three, one to watch the front of a building and two to look around the sides and catch criminals in a pincer movement. They all carry magitech com units that let them use Wind Carried Words Technique and have Linguistics 3. (Their closure rate is not applicable since they work out of elven precincts and each one has a different closure rate.) One of these officers does not need a comms unit: being a dragon blooded air aspect outcaste named [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Secret Eagle|Secret Eagle]]. They have offered to promote him many times, but he prefers to be a patrol officer, though he has deigned to accept the rank of patrol sergeant for the fourth precinct.

=== The Officio Correctionibus ===

The office of corrections deals with the punishment rather than the apprehension side of crime. They are chronically overworked and typically have more criminals than they know what to do with but manage to do their jobs adequately. This floating office is overseen by Iron Sands, a member of The Broad who has lots of experience getting slaves to do as they are bid.

== The Adeptus Judicate ==

Working closely with the Adeptus Arbites the Adeptus Judicate is the other half of the justice system. These are the many Judges, Lawyers, and Clerks of the Court who make sure that the innocent are not punished with the guilty. At the present time, the Adeptus Judicate consists of 11 judges, 15 prosecuting attorneys, 23 Attorneys of Due Justice (Public Defenders.), 42 'Clerks of the Court' who record and file all rulings and court-ordered contracts, and 17 "Agent's Protection" who follow up on inconsistencies in court records and the welfare of Amarana's citizens in cases such as child abuse allegations and locating jurors that fail to show up for a trial. There are also about 200 private attorneys who are technically part of this Adeptus but not part of the government. The High Lord of the Courts is [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Molly McBride|Molly McBride]] a Demon Blooded northerner who has spent her whole life fighting against injustice and corruption in every form.

Additionally [[User:Nemo of Utopia/The_Patron_of_Amarana|The Patron]] himself is technically also a member of this branch as he has the right to sit in judgment if he chooses on all High Crimes and acts of Treason. He has invoked this right exactly once, mostly to prove that he could. (The person in question was found "Not Guilty by Reason of Insanity" and sentenced to lifetime confinement to a mental institution pending treatment or cure of his condition. He stood accused of twelve counts of grand theft, but psychoanalysis found him to be a kleptomaniac. The police often consult him on serial theft cases, and he is actually fairly good at solving them. However, he does have a problem with stealing other patients’ belongings and the doctor's pens and notebooks.)

Trials are in the American/British style, with a 'jury of one's peers' and the judge presiding from the high seat. The witness's sit to the judge's left and the clerk to the right. The prosecutors are on the left side of the courtroom and the Jury the Right while the accused is in the middle. Unless the accused is elderly or crippled and unable to stand they may not sit. For this reason, individual segments of trial must last no more than 3 hours. Only citizens may serve as witnesses, but since one can at the present time become a citizen after 24 hours residency this is not a problem. Citizens MAY testify with respect to events from before their citizenship. The accused is entitled to an 'Attorney of Due Justice' in the event that they cannot retain their own private counsel. The judge may dismiss any case at any time with or without prejudice, which is done routinely with respect to picayune or spurious civil cases so as to free up Attorneys of Due Justice for criminal trials. The patron is looking into finding more Judges and Attorneys of Due Justice so that civil cases do not need to be dismissed so frequently, which has a distressing tendency to lead to murder.

Abnormally The Adeptus Judicate does not have any departmento or officio, but there are those within it and without that are bucking to change that.

== The Adeptus Sororitatus ==

The 'Sisterhood' as they are called by the common folk is the government Adepta that oversees all _female_ clerics and thaumaturges in Amarana Like their Counterparts in the Adeptus Fratris they are few in number but powerful in influence. Technically also responsible for the worship of all-female gods in the city it is common that women will be priests of male deities and men prelates of a goddess's church. The division of male and female clergy between the AS and AF, however, is strict while the division of deities wavers like the landscape in the summer heat. In spite of these difficulties, the two branches of government get along quite well and cooperation between them is without rancor or strife in most cases. The High Lady of the Adepta is [[Nemo of Utopia/Unrepentant Emerald|Unrepentant Emerald]]. She is a mortal with Enlightened Essence and is exceedingly circumspect in her actions, a paragon of temperance. She is also the head priestess of [[Nemo of Utopia/Amarana Seline|Amarana Seline]].

=== The Officio Festivalius ===

This floating office submits to The Patron which days and locations should have festivals to honor the goddess' of the city. A circle of female clergy decide these events and pass them on to the patron, who generally approves them without comment. This circle is chaired by Unrepentant Emerald.

=== The Departmento Eclesiast ===

This is the main branch of the Adepta, overseeing and licensing all _female_ clergy in Amarana. The department technically consists of all licensed female clergy in the city but in practice, most of the female clergy get their licenses and are about their business having no further interaction with the government except to re-up their licenses once a year.

==== The Officio Licentiae ====

This officio handles the licensing process for all official priestesses, which requires proving you have the following capabilities: Ability to speak and read Old Realm, Basic knowledge of Spiritual Etiquette, (At least 3 dots in occult or 1 + an appropriate specialty.) and training in proper prayer procedures. (Prayer roll performance pool of at least 5 dice.) These requirements may be waived if the cleric has a 'sponsor' with a proper license who is taking on the new cleric as a student to train in service to their god/goddess in which case a 'Postulant Permit' is issued instead. Licenses are issued per deity, so if you wish to be the clergy of multiple gods multiple licenses are required. This is waived in the case of Zenith-caste Solars, Theurge-caste "New-Method"-Lunars, "Redemer"-caste Infernals, and Midnight-caste Abyssals, since it would be more trouble than it is worth to issue a license for every god in creation (for the first two), every each of the recovering yozis and all the greater demons (Redeemers), or ghost above essence 3 in the underworld (Midnight-castes).

==== The Officio Sanctionite ====

This is a smaller office within the departmento, making recommendations to The Patron on which female deities should be given official sanction within Amarana. All the female deities mentioned under the Religion section are sanctioned unless noted otherwise. Being unsanctioned does not mean you cannot be worshiped, but it does mean that you cannot have space allocated for a temple or licensed clergy. Sanctioning however is fairly easy to get since The Patron often simply signs the forms without reading them. (Additionally, all the incarnae are sanctioned, + Gaia and the Dragons.)

==== The Officio Hetterodox ====

This office deals with instances of rogue gods and clergy, such as the notorious Tuggie of the Scavenger Lands and other instances where the celestial bureaucracy has broken down to an unacceptable level. Employing many outside contractors they put spirits who demand illicit worship or sapient sacrifice in their places and also hunt rogue demons and the fair folk's ravagers. Though the actual functionaries of this Officio are few their agents are many and they are always busy.

== The Adeptus Frateris ==

Sometimes referred to as 'The Fraternity' by outsiders this Adeptus is responsible for all male deities and male clergy in Amarana. They take their job seriously and are sometimes noted for being taciturn and uncompromising. They are led by [[Nemo of Utopia/Wauli the Wolf|Wauli the Wolf]], who like his female counterpart is a mortal with awakened essence.

Structurally the Adeptus Frateris is identical to the Adeptus Sorroitatus.

== The Adeptus Mechanicus ==

The Adeptus Mechanicus are an odd bunch. Dressing in Rust Red robes and communicating in their own strange (and highly technical) dialect of Old-Realm they keep outsiders at arm's length. This Adepta is responsible for helping The Patron find and repair the magitech of the city a task that they perform supremely well but which many wonders if this group of strangely obsessed men and women are actually best suited for. Led by [[Nemo of Utopia/Adamant Sprocket|Adamant Sprocket]], an elderly Djala man and his young adult daughter [[Nemo of Utopia/Gears of Fate|Gears of Fate]], this group employs many Djala escapees in the task of repairing and rebuilding the city.

== The Adeptus Diolougus ==

What some would call the state department or the diplomatic corps the Adeptus Diolougus is one of the smallest Adeptus of the Amaranaian government. Led by [[Nemo of Utopia/Exultant Ivory Mother|Exultant Ivory Mother]] (a god-blooded woman from An-Teng, who harbors no feelings of goodwill for either Realm or Guild,) this group of spies and agent's provocateur work to keep Amarana a free city and outside the clutches of both [[The Guild]] and foreign powers such as the [[Realm]].

== The Adeptus Medicae ==

Easily among the smallest Adeptus of the Amaranaian government if one only counts the actual government personnel instead of approximately a-dozen-dozen licensed doctors, psychiatrists, and physicians whom they are tasked with overseeing and who like private attorneys in the city are technically part of the Adeptus: the Adeptus Medicae is as one might have guessed responsible for the physical and mental health of the city. They Tend to this task primarily by licensing and monitoring the city's medical personnel. This Adeptus role is two-fold: first, they are responsible for overseeing those practicing and utilizing any kind of medical skill in the city, from alchemists manufacturing morphine, [[Seven Bounties Paste]], or [[Age Staving Cordial]], to those offering psychiatric counseling outside of a church setting, to the several small private hospitals around the city, to even veterinarians. The Second task of the group is more dangerous and ripe for abuse by far: it is they in large part, as the only people with the requisite expertise, who draw up for [[Nemo of Utopia/The Patron of Amarana|The Patron's]] approval the statutes of law which they are tasked with enforcing. Thus far there has been no conflict of interest or abuses of power but the vast majority of people among the medical personnel of Amarana wait anxiously or avidly for this to begin changing.

The Adeptus Medicae is led by [[Nemo of Utopia/Simon Baker|Simon Baker]], a psychiatrist by trade, who is among the most dangerously insightful and persuasive people you will ever meet, at least that is not one of the exalted. He is, in fact, a god blooded, son of the patron deity of an order of physicians on The Blessed Isle, and is not much taken with the Imacualtes, treating them with frosty professionalism.

== The Adeptus Fabricae ==

Easily the largest and most diverse branch of the Amaranaian government the Adeptus Fabricae oversees all matters which involve or pertain directly to any sort of production, manufacturing, functional artistry, or creation of goods within Amarana's lands. Though ferreting out matters of a criminal nature fall under the heading of the Adeptus Arbites, and the governance of the legal codes is the province primarily of The Patron himself, and Prosecution and judgment of crimes is the business of the Adeptus Judicate, all three of these functions fall partially under this Adeptus' remit.

The Adeptus Fabricae first submits for The Patron's approval all codes and strictures which govern the actions and enterprises of fabricating all tangible products in Amarana, and exhaustive list of matters which fall under their control would be impossible but a few of the more salient follow: Print Shops, Compounding Pharmacies, Paper Mills, Glass Works, Jewelers, Magitech Repair Shops, Smithies, Book Binders, Cobblers, Tailors, and Farms: essentially anything which would be made by any sort of "Craft: XXX" skill is within their authority. The patron then reviews these legal codes and approves or rejects them, which becomes the strictures that the Adeptus Fabricae enforce upon the businesses of Amarana.

Most production facilities of any kind are within the Adeptus Fabricae's remit, with the notable exception of restaurants, taverns, eateries, pubs, tea houses, inns, and food carts which fall under the aegis of the Adeptus Medicae, though oddly pharmacies do not. Neither adepta is happy about this but neither is willing to lose or exchange the area they do have power over for reasons of their own which seem fully sufficient to them. Furthermore, any business that produces a tangible product and directly employs more than 50 people in any capacity is under their remit to license, inspect, and if necessary fine or refer to the Arbiters for investigation.

The following are the Departmento and Officio of the Adeptus Fabricae, each one with significant discretionary power and held in check solely by the High Lady of the Adeptus [[Nemo of Utopia/AuspiciousCrystalLightning|Auspicious Crystal Lightning]] and The Patron.

=== The Departmento Iura ===

The 'Department of Laws' devises and writes out the codes of law which govern the production and creation of goods in Amarana. They have created and submitted to the patron and extensive and thorough list of legal codes regarding the conditions, control, creation, and compensation for most products in Amarana, and those they have not they are working on.

==== The Officio Iura Laboris ====

The 'Office of Labor Laws' designs the codes of law concerning the employment, treatment, and management of Amarana's workforce. They are in the main as despised by the plutocracy as they are beloved by the common folk. Among other laws, they have enacted is the 8-hour work shift and the 6 day work week.

==== The Officio Iura Fabricación ====

The "Office of Manufacturing Laws" creates the codes of law governing the actual production of goods. Other offices govern the details of different types of production facilities or fields, but this office creates the general guidelines which the others work by.

==== The Officio Iura Cotagium Industria ====

The "Office of Cottage Industry" drafts the limited and simple codes which control small scale manufacturing by individuals and small business. They would like to have more extensive and detailed codes but The Patron uses his authority to make the official versions of the law to pare back most of their red tape and BS. He is, in fact, thinking of suspending this office for a period of some months while he looks for a better and less over eager set of people to be its officers.

==== The Officio Iura Officinis ====

This office makes the laws respecting the specific difficulties of production in a factory typesetting. Any production facility with 50 or more employees falls under their regulating authority, even things that are not normally their provinces such as farms, eateries, and pharmacies. For this reason, many production facilities and such, run with a staff of 40, so that even if they hire a handful of temp workers they will not move into this Officio's dominion. This Officio is not-well-liked by most business owners, being seen as overly restrictive and exceedingly interfering.

==== The Officio Iura Pharmicopia ====

== The Adeptus Adminstradum ==

== The Adeptus Aeronauticus ==

== The Adeptus Vectigalia ==

Lying squarely in the middle of the Adeptus of the city in terms of size the Adeptus Vectigalia is The Patron's Tax Collectors and Auditors of Accounts. Little liked by most people in the city they are nevertheless key to its continued function. In addition to overseeing that the government is given it's due and being called on to check the books of businesses which the Adeptus Arbites feel might be doing illegal activities the Adeptus Vectigalia also runs Amarana's national mint, which means that they are monitored closely by both The Patron and the Adeptus Arbites.

Noted for being uncompromising and humorless the Adeptus Vectigalia dress in imperishable formal clothing left behind from the first age. The hot stuffy suits and jackets only contribute to their reputation as dour and unsmiling drones of government oversight, which is perhaps the point of the dress code.

The Adeptus Vectigalia is divided into three Departmento: The Departmento Salari, which collects the taxes in cash or kind, the Departmento Quastorius, who audits people's books, and the Departmento Signo, who oversees the minting and engraving of all Amaranaian currency.

The Adeptus Vectigalia is led by [[Nemo of Utopia/Manifold Gemstone|Manifold Gemstone]] a perfectly ordinary man, who happens to be an excellent forensic accountant if only a passable administrator.

= Religion =

Faith and practice in Amarana are as diverse as the people who have come to live there. Everything from Immaculates to ancestor Worshipers to CotI members to simple priests and adherents of various gods all rub-elbows on the city's streets. Below are a brief rundown of the most prominent of the city's faiths and the deities they worship.

== Immaculates ==

Though the smallest of the city's faiths the Immaculate Doctrine still has hundreds of adherents among the people of the city, many of whom are enlightened martial arts practitioners. They also have a strong support network in the form of outside contacts with The Realm and other Dragon-Blooded.

== The Common Faith/Hundred Gods Heresy ==

The Majority of the population of Amarana believe in the gods as most people of the threshold do: they worship those who can provide them with benefits they want or need and don't understand much about the celestial bureaucracy or how things worked in the first age and that the present state of affairs is a corruption of the 'proper' order of things. Those that do often take the stance that "this is the way things are" and simply go on with their day.

What follows is a brief list of the major deities of Amarana and who or what they are affiliated with:

=== Amarana Seline ===

[[Nemo of Utopia/AmaranaSeline|Amarana Seline]]: As the City Mother of Amarana, Amarana Seline is the leader of the city's spirits. She was promoted from off the dole in heaven by the machinations of a number of bronze faction Sidereals and is fully cognizant of the fact that she '''owes''' them, but at the same time of the fact that as a dispossessed spirit promoted to the rank of City Mother she has few allies and many enemies. For these and other reasons she does not play favorites, at least not much, and is working hard at her job coordinating the smooth running of the city. Though she tries to be largely neutral in truth she is in the camp of the Immaculate Faction, which is part of why the Immaculates are as strong as they are in the city.

=== Mother Midnight ===

[[Nemo of Utopia/MotherMidnight|Mother Midnight]]: As the Senior Goddess of all-natural misfortunes in Amarana 'Mother of Midnight Murder and Mayhem', to use her full name, is a very good person for The Patron to have on his side. Mother Midnight takes positive glee in afflicting his enemies with all manner of troubles and ailments, from murder most foul to tripping on a dropped piece of lumber and spilling twenty boxes of crack from their backpack right in front of a police officer. However she is not really playing favorites, she still inflicts all manner of problems on the Patriots, their enemies just get it first and worst. Mother Midnight also has another interesting fact to her favor: she has been at her post for the past 3000 years. She gets audited on a regular basis and comes up smelling like roses: every, single, time! This drives Wong Bongerok to a level of near slavering fury, especially since he is certain Mother Midnight has been doing some kind of double-dealing and below-board hustle to keep herself fed and clothed during Amarana's long dormancy but has no way to prove it. Thing is, he's wrong. Mother Midnight became a doomsday prepper just after the usurpation and had been stockpiling quintessence and ambrosia for centuries ere the fair folk invaded. She has been living off that stockpile for all the time since and even now could go several centuries were the city to fall again ere she would need to start hustling for her sustenance.

In form, Mother Midnight looks like an exceedingly overweight woman with coal-black skin and long dreadlocked black hair that hangs so long as to trail on the ground. She typically appears nude or dressed in rags but can summon an armor of bones and broken pottery for a cost of 3 motes that gives her 10 lethal/bashing soak for the rest of the scene. For one mote she may reflexively cause any weapon that strikes her which has a hardness of less than 10 to automatically break*, and any weapon that has less than 15 hardness but more than 10 take 5d of damage. Energy weapons are immune to this, such as beam-klaves and weapons with a hardness of more than 15 cannot be affected. These powers do not count as charm use.

*(The weapon still inflicts damage before breaking from this effect.)

=== Pauldron Of Sanctity ===

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/PauldronOfSanctitity|Pauldron Of Sanctitity]]: is the new titular war god of the state, essentially exiled to the post by Atlhat since he is a rabidly punctual and rules obsessed deity that Atlhat has detested for centuries. Pauldron of Sanctity takes the form of a tall man in Gunzosha Armor and wielding a shock pike. He believes in well regimented and organized military units who are drilled and well equipped. In many ways, his notions of war are still trapped in the low first age when he was spawned as the god of a mercenary company, but this is just fine because he is the war god of a city with much of its low first age equipment and infrastructure intact. Though he favors the Immacualtes he is not willing to alter the course of outlined fate one millimeter without approval through proper channels.

=== Garion Cromarch ===

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/GarionCromarch|Garion Cromarch]]: is the god of Amarana's police force, who has waited patiently these seven centuries and more since the loss of the city to the fair folk working unofficially as a P.I. in Yu-Shan and who is the author of Amarana’s rebirth, having convinced the Bronze Faction to engineer the events which have led to that happening. Garion is perhaps more involved in the doings of the city's police than he should be, often helping them out with 'gut feelings' and leading dreams, but so far his interference has not crossed the line of allowed behavior.

Garrion's form looks like an idealized southern human male wearing Sentinel Defense Force armor blazoned with the symbol of Amarana, an eagle in flight wearing broken manacles.

=== Lissom Shining Spring ===

[[Nemo of Utopia/LissomShiningSpring|Lissom Shining Spring]]: a goddess of the local Oasis who temporarily holds two positions both in her old job and as the minster of all water sources within Amarana's sphere of influence. She is not perfidious in this role like Alhat who should not hold both the aegis of southern war god and god of cattle but is genuinely looking for a replacement to take over the role of goddess of springs and oasis: however she is a perfectionist and committed to finding a perfect candidate, which means that though she has interviewed over a hundred prospective applicants she has not found one that she feels is worthy of her longtime position. The Bronze Faction is willing to let her conduct further interviews, for now, but have made it clear that if she does not have a new spirit in the position by the end of next year she will be censured and the task of finding a replacement will be out of her hands. To this end, she has compiled what she calls her 'secondary list': those gods that she felt were 'almost' up to her lofty standards, and if she is running out of time will call them back for a second interview and chose the best one. She still hopes for a perfect applicant however and only has four names on her 'secondary list'.

Lissom Shining Spring's form is that of a large fish, but lately, she has been finding herself slipping into the form of a young woman in the suit of one of the city's hydro-engineering personnel who assists the Patron in making sure that all the pipes are sound before restoring the flow of water to a building. She is not sure she likes this.

=== Sonari ===

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/Sonari|Sonari]]: is the divine minister of sunlight and shadow for Amarana. She works with the bureau of nature to ensure that the proper degree of cloud cover reaches Amarana as well as the appropriate amount of sun. Like many of the gods of Amarana she is newly promoted from being on the dole and fearful of losing her position, but even so, dares to encourage the cult to worship her with little flourishes like rays of light in winter and cool breezes in summer.

She takes the form of a cloud from which pour rays of sunlight.

=== Meroka Jin ===

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/MerekaJin|Mereka Jin]]: the minister of romance and love in Amarana is actually an old pro at the role, having been the minister for the task in the old city and then for the Salaru tribes. He is corrupt as the day is long but adept at hiding his perfidy from anyone and everyone, including to a degree himself.

Mereka Jin takes the form of a vigorous adult man of the south with a rose in his teeth and a rakish smile. He often appears nude or in the robes worn for a wedding among the Salaru.

Mereka is eternally locked in a bitter feud with his theoretical partner Sakarzi: minster of lust and attraction, who is constantly trying to break down the stable romantic relationships her 'partner' builds. For the moment they have reached a detente on the matter of the two factions in which they are most interested, If Sakarzi will do her job for the romantic relationships of the Solarians then Meroka will not try to pair off the Ancestor Cultists into mirages and leave Sakarzi to push them to rut in wild abandon. They have not agreed about what to do with the rest of the population which makes up more than 60%.

=== Bibwit Heart ===

[[Nemo of Utopia/BibwitHeart|Bibwit Heart]]: The 'least' god of Amarana's central manse, Bibwit is uncomfortable with the cult worshiping him as they do. He has seen many least gods that have found themselves at the center of cults growing arrogant and ultimately becoming starmetal and is afraid this will happen to him. He has survived both the fall of the solars and the shogunate by being small and unobtrusive, keeping his manse functional and active while the rest of the city fell apart and he is not going to change that strategy. Still, he is an important god in the city, and as such they venerate him. Bibwit takes the form of an anthropomorphized rabbit with white fur and a tailored coat. He carries a pocket watch that lets him make flurry attacks up to his DEX score with no penalty.

=== Cela Dinarius ===

[[Nemo of Utopia/CelaDinarius|Cela Dinarius]]: Cela is the goddess responsible for Amarana's economy, and she is a personal friend of Glorious Weapon. She is no friend of the Guild and works as much as she dares to keep the guild from stealing artifacts from Amarana for sale to its foreign rivals. Formerly the goddess of Aj-Aran's main market square she was promoted to the overall control of the economy of Amarana via the machinations of the gold faction. She knows the city father is a bronze faction plant but reasons that as long as they both do their jobs properly they should not come into many conflicts. The two have a standing date for tea every Venus day.

Cela Dinarius form is that of an attractive woman carved from silver, and she wears the clothing of a Varangian cloth factor, which was her first job beyond as the least god some 4 centuries ago, patron goddess of a new Varangian cloth consortium.

=== Zalril ===

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/Amarana/Zalril|Zalril]]: Formerly the Least god of Amarana's north gate Zalril has by what amounts to shier-force-of-will moved up to become the patron god of Guild Members working in Amarana. The exact operation of this occurrence has been shrouded in mystery at the orders of Kejop Kajac himself, and further Nazri signed off on it too. The Guild maintains a large shrine just outside his old gate where they leave offerings before entering the city and where three slave women were taken under cover of night and sworn to become Zalril's Priestesses in exchange for their freedom by an Eclipse-caste member who often works for the guild. Though two of them still keep their roles as the god's priestesses the third has left the shrine and now lives in the city as a teacher for the city's new public school. Interestingly she has suffered no ill effects from 'breaking' her oath. Zalril has asked for the Guild to send a replacement but they are still trying to figure out why the oath failed in the first place. Meanwhile [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Sulramia|Sulramia]] finds fulfillment in teaching her students as do [[User:Nemo of Utopia/GayePachudiweOgesu|Gaye Pachudiwe Ogesu]] and [[User:Nemo of Utopia/OxandRainbowSlave|Ox and Rainbow]] the two women that still work at the shrine. Ogesu is an old woman and does the cooking and cleaning while Ox and Rainbow stand guard over the shrine. Sulramia also came with another gift for the god, her daughter, as she was part of a quadratic set, Maiden, Warrior, Mother, and Crone, and if she was to be the 'mother' Zalril insisted that she has a child as proof of her status, who conveniently doubled as 'maiden'. Sulramia's daughter is called [[User:Nemo of Utopia/IronandHoneyMaiden|Iron and Honey Maiden]] and is just the cutest five-year-old you will ever see, with an appearance score of five already. Her mother lives constantly with the fear of pedophiles, but does not let it rule their lives.

=== Walziri ===

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/Walziri|Walziri]]: as the god of beasts of burden within Amarana's lands Walziri is a major player in the lives of Guild personnel who must work or live here. Formerly a lesser deity of travel and trade in Harborhead Walziri was appointed to his new post by the machinations of a cabal of 'Independent' southern Sidereals and understands that he OWES them for this big break. The cabal has not called in that favor, at least not yet, but for the moment are content with him filing informal reports on the going's on in Amarana. While still hard at work at his new post he has already started to play favorites a little with the Guild's Men who pray to him, subtly strengthening their animals and selecting them last when sickness is due to strike the camels or whatnot of the city. Walziri takes the form of a large man of Harborhead derivation wearing several coral necklaces and white robes. He carries a Jade cattle prod which can be used as a spear or thrown like a javelin and returns instantly to his hand.

=== Anyaka Tetsuo ===

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/AnyakaTetsuo|Anyaka Tetsuo]]: The minister of Chance and Gambling in Amarana, Tetsuo is not new to this job. Created as the least god of a set of enchanted dice not long after the Primordial War Tetsuo has risen over the course of the intervening years to a position of moderate power in this city through diligent work and a suspicious number of 'lucky' breaks. Though no investigation has ever found him guilty of any wrongdoing there are enough people that are suspicious of what he surely must have done with his powers to better his status that it is unlikely he will ever rise any higher. Some deities would plot and scheme to continue advancing, but Tetsuo knows better. As a god of chance and gambling, he is well aware that he has been on quite the lucky streak and that is when you should count your winnings, leave the table, and cash in your chips before your luck runs out. He is content to be the god of all chance and gambling in Amarana: and will only rise higher if his natural luck brings him a sudden break, which he is not holding his breath for. He wiles away his time by playing games with the gamblers of the city, making them win or lose in a big way, but staying within the bounds of prescribed fate.

Tetsuo looks like a tall, broad-shouldered, thoroughly tattooed man with a cup and dice for playing a popular gambling game called 'Han or Cho'.

Tetsuo's sanctum is exceedingly large, he has had 700 years of dormancy in Amarana in which to expand it, and it now takes the form of a vast resort with several small casinos and many spas on what appears to be a small tropical island. (At the boundaries of its area there is a big reef beyond which the waterfalls away into nothing.) Tetsuo typically has many of the small gods of gambling and chance living in his sanctum with him at any time. Tetsuo is a colleague of Mother Midnight, not her subordinate, but the two work closely to determine which gamblers will face a string of ill luck.

=== Bagong Fangrick ===

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/BaegongFangrick|Bagong Fangrick]]: As the God of Vermin within Amarana Fangrick is an odd person to aid the guild but the guild will take allies where it can find them. Fangrick is a subordinate of Mother Midnight but has kept himself mostly out of her way and done his job without fuss since the revival of the city. Formerly the deity of rats for the Salaru tribes he was promoted upon the city's revival in recognition of many years of hard work with little reward and not the slightest blemish on his record.

Bagong Fangrick looks like an aged anthropomorphic rat, dressed in the robes of a shogunate era martial arts practitioner.

=== Wisp Virunga ===

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/WispVirunga|Wisp Virunga]]: As the managing deity for all education in Amarana Wisp is a VIP for the Patriots, because she helps their people learn new skills significantly faster, which helps them stay a step ahead of their competition, for the moment. The thing is that Wisp is running a knife-edge game with staying inside what is allowed within her post as a manager for all education in Amarana and what could be censured. This is very very bad: because she is already in trouble with the local censor's deputy for bearing a god blooded child, who is still alive and therefore available as evidence. Just to add insult to injury the censor's deputy has a personal vendetta against her for rebuffing his advances in favor of a mere mortal. Until the revival of Amarana Wisp Virunga was the goddess of its central library, she effectively promoted herself to the chief goddess of education by cozening up to the Patron while he was excavating her manse. When he decreed the first mandatory schooling sessions for the early colonists he had them pray to her as patron of all education in Amarana at the start of each day, when the prayers reached critical mass a few months later she had already conducted a quiet set of interviews and had her replacement as god of the library already prepped and ready to take over at once. This is not precisely an offense against the laws of heaven, but it is somewhat 'bad form' and would count against her slightly in a formal audit. It also has earned some of her fellow deities enmity, especially:...

=== Principle of Justified Action ===

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/PrincipleofJustifiedAction|Principle of Justified Action]]: Heaven has gods of just about everything, including educators. Principle of Justified Action was formerly a deity of a major school out in the distant threshold before the fair folk invasion and only survived that calamity by mere chance, having been in heaven on vacation when the hosts of faerie scourged the world. Since then he has lived on the dole and schemed endlessly to get another position in the bureau of humanity's education office. He finally thought he had one all lined up when Amarana was scheduled to be rebuilt as its manager of education, but the Patron and Wisp Verunga snatched it out of his hands. Yet, when one door closes another opens and a cabal of Gold Faction Sidereals and a few people who were still his friends from the old days managed to finagle him a consolation prize. The role of managing deity for the court system of Amarana was still open since there were not supposed to be any real criminal proceedings for several months yet. Desperate to get off the dole by then and seeing this as his last chance for the foreseeable future he accepted.

What neither he nor the Sidereals that helped him expected, was that he would LIKE the work. Managing a court system is not so different in truth from managing a school, you have trouble makers, erudite and passionate people, a lot of people who really don't want to be there, an ever-changing cast of characters doing many old and a few new stupid things, a complex set of rules you must adhere to; the similarities were rather a shock. Of course, there were differences, mostly in the fact that things move both so much slower most of the time and so much faster in the crunch, but he got his sea legs within a month or two and found himself enjoying having a real job again. That said, Principle of Justified Action is still no friend of Wisp Virunga and would dearly love to put in an application to replace her should she fall afoul of the auditors. However he bides his time, after all, he is employed in a job that he does not find onerous and has plenty of prayers coming in from both sides of the law, Wisp has no experience and is drowning in her duties, let them see what putting an untried administrator into such an important post does! Chances are that within the decade he will have her job: so runs his reasoning.

The Patron is another matter. He likes the Patron, rather a lot, and finds in the autocrat of the city a kindred spirit: and of course, cannot fault the man on the matter of his dedication to an educated society. He sometimes pokes the patron in the subconscious when he is contemplating a bad law, or about to reject a good one, and thus far does not consider it any kind of offense against heaven's rules. He is, in fact, wrong, he has committed no less than 5 level-one offenses in this manner, but that will largely be ignored unless he does more than mere subconscious nudging, after all, he has not really messed up any major plans this way so far.

In form Principle of Justified Action looks like a tall man from the furthest east, wearing the green and red robes of a seated Judge of Amarana's courts. His hair is shock white, a remnant of his time among the starving unemployed but he finds it suits his image as a wise leader of the courts. Abnormally for a god of justice he is lenient with most offenders, reasoning that if you punish too harshly you deny them a chance to learn from their mistakes. However, anyone who harms children sees the other side of him, a fury of unrelenting hatred that will see them hanged if at all possible.

=== Sakarzi ===

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/Sakarzi|Sakarzi]]: though she would dearly love to bring about the Patron's ruin and overthrow Sakarzi: minister of lust and attraction for Amarana, has a problem: She is both terrified of him and lusts after him obsessively. Sakarzi met the Patron before he mastered Amarana when she was bathing in a sacred hot-spring on the borders of the lands now claimed by the city in the guise of a comely Salaru maiden and he was following his awakened memories back to the city to claim his destiny. There at the hot-spring, she tried to seduce him.

She Failed.

The patron was clearly attracted to her and wished to accept her advances but mastered himself with an effort of will and politely refused. Five more times in five different guises Sakarzi has tried to seduce him and each time has been rebuffed, but always politely. This is why she is terrified of him, no one else whom she has ever tried to seduce has refused her advances so many times, especially since each of those times she has used progressively more of her supernatural powers, in the last instance activating an effect that should have compelled him to lie with her will he or no. She lusts after him because she has a weakness for powerful men, and The Patron certainly is one: but it is his immunity to her mystical powers that have made it an obsession. With the Patron, Sakarzi can use only the arts available to a mortal woman to snare the man she desires, and it is driving her to distraction. Perhaps an hour's worth of time out of each of her days is frittered away trying to think up new ways to seduce the Patron that rely only on her natural skills and personal beauty, but thus far she has not come up with anything worth using on a seventh attempt. The reason that Sakarzi would love to see the patron fall is that after she started a feud between three of the early families of colonists by seducing three of their sons and declaring that only the last one living would bed her the patron caught her outside her sanctum and beat her to within an inch of her life, declaring that if he ever caught her pulling that kind of stunt on his supporters again he would not pull his blows the second time.

These conflicting emotions are tearing Sakarzi apart, she lusts after the patron, but wants to ruin him, but is terrified of him, but she wants to have sex with him so bad she can taste it: Etc, Etc. In the meantime, she has appeared to several of the Patriots and declared her support for the patron's cause offering her help in securing the objects of their desires and the word has spread among them that if you erect a shrine to her in your residence and pray at it twice a day, morning and night, she will aid you in seducing whoever you most lust after.

While Sakarzi has many forms she can assume her true form is that of a Salaru woman of surpassing beauty and grace who literally cannot wear clothing. Her merest touch causes any garment to become invisible for one hour, so there is no point in her wearing any kind of raiment except for its protective value, which she rarely does.

=== Machuko; Torch of Freedom ===

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/MachukoTorchofFreedom|Machuko; Torch of Freedom]]: Is it any wonder, considering the status of Amarana as a free city where none may be held in bondage without due process of law, that the patron deity of Liberation and Abolitionism should view it with favor and even more so it's leader who enacted the law in question? [[Rabsolga]], the patron of slavery, hates and despises Amarana and if for no other reason than that Machuko loves and protects it. Furthermore, Machuko is [[User:Nemo of Utopia/ThePatron|The Patron]]'s patron god, to whom he prays five times a day, and is celebrated with five feast days each year, one at the beginning of each 'resplendent' month. Even the Immaculates honor these five days of worship, because the Patron has been known to have those that speak against honoring the feasts arrested and tried for sedition and/or aiding and abetting slavers, and their leader does not need that kind of attention, so he has said: "These days honoring Machuko are sanctioned by the immaculate faith, so long as you pray unto him only on these days you do not sin against the orders of Heaven."

Machuko keeps a large temple in the city's northeast quarter: a level 3 fire aspected manse called 'The Wheel of Torches' from it ride forth his clergy and devout adherents numbering several dozen strong on raids into the wastes beyond Amarana's borders proclaiming Machuko's glory and the freedom of all people within the lands of Amarana. Machuko has many priests across all of creation but nowhere are there so many gathered together as in Amarana.

In form, Machuko looks like a tall muscular man of what modern people would call Jewish/Hasidic/Israeli derivation, with a wild beard and long hair that hangs in ringlets. He carries a gore maul and chopping sword of orichalcum and white jade which when used together can cut any chain or bond. He has another form, which he assumes rarely except when in heaven, which is that of a great Dragon filled with yellow-white fire and made from millions of broken chains, collars, and manacles.

== Ancestor Cultists ==

Led by [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Sharima of the Three Disciplines|Sharima of the Three Disciplines]] and her ghostly lover [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Aruna the Defiant|Aruna the Defiant]] this group of citizens is a large and vocal part of the city's population. Though dwarfed by the percentage of the city who worship the city's gods and elementals the Ancestor Cultists make up as much as 20-25% of the city's population and are especially prominent among the [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Salaru|Salaru]].

The Ancestor Cultists make use of a large number of small [[Shadowlands]] across the city to communicate more directly with their patron spirits and interact with the underworld: but are mindful of [[User:Nemo of Utopia/The Patron of Amarana|The Patron]]'s injunctions about not breaking the circles of salt and other wards which keep the ghosts within the Underworld. They are however constantly working to locate 'new' and unguarded Shadowlands for their patrons to use to slip in and out of the underworld, which The Patron minds not one bit so long as they report them for the Adeptus Sororitatus/Frateris to seal in due course.

Though most of the people of Amarana are unaware of this fact the Ancestor Cultists are being controlled from behind the scenes by a Deathknight known as [[User:Nemo of Utopia/The Fluttering Fist of the Deadly Labyrinth|The Fluttering Fist of the Deadly Labyrinth]] he is a martial artist in service to The [[Mask of Winters]] who has wandered off on his own agenda far from thorns and The Mask's traditional area of operation. "The Fist" came to Amarana in search of a rumored cache of [[Autochthonian]] [[Soulsteel]], held in the vaults of the undercity, but has found that much of the undercity is sealed and inaccessible even from the [[Underworld]]. In the meantime, he works on the ancestor cultists as both a way to support himself and something to occupy his time while he trains to learn the charms that will allow him to enter the prehuman depths of the city where he hopes the bars of [[Autochthonian Soulsteel]] can be found.

Though the ghosts of Salaruku are numerous and very old surprisingly few of them are Heroic Ghosts and willing/able to serve as patrons for Amarana's ancestor cultists. Of those that do It is surprisingly four of the youngest ghosts that are the main patrons worshiped by the cultists: along with one exceedingly old ghost from the fall of Salaruku.

=== Xufuwne Onuke ===

The leader of Amarana's relatively large population of ghosts from the time of the fair folk invasion Onuke is frighteningly powerful but relatively easy going. He has outlasted Amarana's long dormancy and now looks forward to an era of joy and plenty for the city's dead. A dragon blooded warrior in life Onuke was killed battling the invaders from the wyld and in an odd twist of fate, they buried him with high honors. His tomb lies in the still mostly sand-covered western half of the city at the center of a small park and is one of the barest handful of areas in that region that have been excavated in advance of the main work. In form, Onuke looks like a typical dragon blooded of the shogunate, dressed in power armor and wielding a Daiklave. He has subsisted by hunting plasmic creatures for most of 700 years but welcomes the changes of the reborn city. Onuke is the cult's equivalent of a war god, a role he shoulders without complaint but also without relish.

=== Aruna the Defiant ===

Hailing from Chiaroscuro Aruna is the lover of Sharima, and they have many Ghost-blooded children together. They were maneuvered into the leadership of the cult by agents of [[The Archon of Apostasy]] who wished to have a shining example of ghost/mortal co-operation in Amarana to help people accept the death cult in their midst. The Archon's agents do not believe the plan is working but they are wrong, were it not for the two of them the cult would have been burned out root and branch. Aruna is a relatively young ghost but has become powerful quite quickly thanks to her lover and her association with various death cults. In appearance, Aruna looks like a young woman of the Delazen, beautiful and alluring for all her ghostly translucence and pallor. Aruna is the cult's patron of love and romance but gives short shrift to lust.

=== Emerald Lotus ===

Like her partner's Monkey of the City and Triumphal Eagle of the Flawless Hill, Emerald Lotus has been elevated to leadership by the machinations of the Patron, who decreed a feast day in their honor on the day of their deaths defending Amarana from an attack by a trio of 'Hounds of the Unbroken Earth'. None of them is experienced enough to really do the jobs that they have had thrust upon them but they all are rising to the challenge. Emerald Lotus resembles a typical woman of the deep south dressed in a white robe and headscarf that covers everything but her face, and overtop that a breastplate of steel. She is neither attractive nor ugly but is very charismatic. She carries an infinite jade chakram as her main weapon and also bears a perfect chopping sword for close fighting. Emerald Lotus is the patron 'deity' of the cult's Martial Artists, as she had some experience with that in life. She still is finding her feet as a ghost and defers to Xufuwne Onuke on most matters.

=== Monkey of the City ===

Dressed in lamellar and wielding a shock pike monkey of the city is not really suited to his role as a leader of an ancestor cult. Having been an outcast and wanderer in life who always tried to keep people happy and was quick with a joke or to share his water he has not changed much in death. However, there is a place for the fun and funny guy in any pantheon and Monkey of the City fills that role for the Ancestor Cultists of Amarana. Monkey of the City is the cult pantheon's trickster and comic relief, which he does not mind one bit.

=== Triumphal Eagle of the Flawless Hill ===

Wearing a Red Jade reenforced Buff Jacket Triumphal Eagle, or simply 'Der Aller'* as he prefers to be called, was not much of a warrior in life, but was on rotation for guard duty when the hounds attacked and were predictably killed by them. Buried with honors along with the rest of the four and then raised up as a patron spirit of the city he has persisted as a leader due largely to [[User:Nemo of Utopia/The_Patron_of_Amarana|The Patron]]'s favor and the fact that he is a very intelligent man, who is knowledgeable about many subjects. His role in the city's death cult is that of a spirit of wisdom and intellect, as well as oddly the patron, so to speak, of the Adeptus Aeronauticus.
*(Which means 'the Eagle' in his native tongue, a northern barbarian language...)

== Cult of the Illuminated ==

The Cult of the Illuminated has a relatively small and subtle presence in Amarana, but never-the-less are present. Their agents and activists walk among the cults dedicated to the various celestial exalted who have come to Amarana quietly preaching of the unity of creation and the duties of the 'Shining Ones' to be the leaders and stewards of creation. "Someday," they say. "All creation will be united behind the Shining Ones, and on that day those who have served them well will have rewards beyond their wildest dreams."

Among the 17 or so celestial exalted in the city 6 are allied with the Cult of the Illuminated, and some of the others are sympathizers. The CotI worshipers pray to most of them and work to support their interests.

= Geography =

Geographically Amarana lies at the point just before the sands of the deep desert fully give way to the rocky foothills of the summer mountains. When the spring rains sweep in from the north it is prone to flooding and mud, while the heat of high summer brings the blazing Simoon roaring out of the deep desert and with it short tempers and sharp words that sometimes flare into brutal murders. Winter is a season of joy and happiness for the citizen's of Amarana, as the power of the elemental pole of Air waxes and the desert is cooled, allowing snow to briefly form in the nearby summer mountains which are trucked into Amarana by old roads and made into flavored sherbets and snow cones for those with the Patron's favor, especially small children, of whom The Patron is known to be quite fond. The foothills around Amarana abound with resources brewed up by the slowly retreating Wyld or pushed from deep within the earth by the strange forces by which creation renews itself over the centuries, including many veins of silver from which Amarana mints its currency. Meanwhile, the desert around Amarana is rich with fire dust and gem sand, especially during the nights of the new moon when the Wyld retreats for several miles further south and exposes a wide swath of 'tainted' land, especially where the city has been slowly pushing the Wyld back by infecting it with billions of grains of what is essentially Elemental Earth. This area is hazardous as well however because the tainted area is not just composed of valuable sands, but also dangerous ones, such as quicksand, shatter sand, and hungry sand. For every person from Amarana who strikes it rich mining fire-dust or gem-sand in the tainted lands on the nights of the new moon, another finds themselves injured, killed, or mutated: in Amarana 'Firedust Miner' looks fair to rank among the top 5 'most dangerous professions' for the first year of recorded statistics in the city, right behind 'Rogue Spirit Protection Expert' and 'Pharmacist' but just ahead of 'Building Excavation Team Member' and 'Artifact Recovery Personnel'

Nearby Amarana is a number of Small Oasis, Hot Springs, and Geysers which have long provided the Salaru tribes with water. Though 90% of the tribesmen have returned to their ancestral home a few chose to stay out in the wastelands for one reason or another, and now gather into three new small tribes: the western, northern, and eastern Salaru.

To the west, the desert is hot by day and cold by night, with only trackless sand to greet your eyes, the Salaru who have stayed out in this wilderness journey mile upon mile between oasis that is often buried under the shifting sands and must be dug down to gather up their water. They survive by hunting snakes and lizards and trading fire dust and jewel sand with the Guild for added food and water. Though trade is their main source of contact with the outside they no longer must rely upon it or perish, with the total number of tribe's men in this region reduced by more than 95% they now can survive on their own without help, but it would be a spartan existence. Trade gives them luxuries and better equipment, which they put to good use. The western salaru do not keep herd beasts or in fact, any animals except hunting dogs, the land here is too harsh for this to be profitable. They worship many nature spirits, but few major deities except the Unconquered Sun, who is seen as a wrathful god of war and destruction, and Luna in her aspect as The White Navigator, who is seen as a benevolent and helpful deity. Though they honor the high holy days of the five maidens they are not much revered outside those times.

To the north, the Salaru who have not returned to their city are primarily herders and gatherers, as the foothills of the summer mountains provide old lava tubes and other places to hide from the sun by day and keep flocks dry when the rains come. Their life is perhaps the least harsh of the three new tribes since they have kept the most of their population, with only about 80% going to live in the city and in all cases leaving a few family members to mind the herds and ancestral cave or rock-cut house. They also were the most numerous of the Salaru before the return to Amarana, having six of the 10 Salaru tribes living in their region. and now are by far-and-away the most populous of the three 'outside' tribes. They also still contribute a good chunk of Amarana's food supplies, which means that even the Patron must treat with them on their terms. On the other hand, they know that the Patron, while a patient man, does have his limits and that their families back in Amarana would suffer first and worst if they cut off the shipments of food and other goods to the city, so they treat the Amaranaians with as much respect as they expect in return: so far the city and the northern tribe have a strong alliance of mutual benefit and support. The northern Salaru frequently revere Atlhat, the southern god of war and cattle, in addition, they also revere the Celestial Incarna and Gaia as well as many nature spirits.

The tribes to the east were always the most desirous to return to Amarana, for they could still see it's central tower sticking up out of the sand. However, when the time came, an influential leader named [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Sabris of the Two Spears|Sabris of the Two Spears]] convinced them that they should instead of all going back to the city leave some people behind and send their sons and daughters back into the summer mountains to live with those that stayed for two years as a right of passage. This has proved to their great advantage, for they now own the rights to much of the mineral wealth in the summer mountains near Amarana and have risen to be among the city's most wealthy families. The mountain Salaru were hunter/gatherers before Amarana's recovery and it is in this capacity that the children sent to the old mountain fastnesses must learn to survive when they are facing their Adavam Ordeal. The eastern Salaru mostly hold up a host of small gods for worship and revere the celestial Incarna on their high holy days. They are however the nearest things to atheists Creation has, feeling that if a person cannot survive without divine intervention then they are weaklings that must be excised from the gene pool. Many of them are swayed to a degree by the Immaculate faith but reject the idea that the Dragonblooded are creations, rightful rulers, their tribes have long memories and have heard the tales told by the Lunars of the perfidy of the Dragonblooded and the glory once created by the Solars, and twice in their exile have seen this glory first hand before the Dragonblooded showed up and ruined things.

To the south of the city, a wyld zone bleeds into reality for almost eight hundred miles from the maximum edge of the world. Though the city lies near the edge of this wyld zone it is not part of it, not even when the wyld storms blow in the autumn. This is perhaps partly because the city's strong geomancy prevents it from being absorbed or perhaps some form of potent first age artifact still protects the city as it did during the invasion so long ago. If the Patron knows he is not telling. Either way, there is and never has been a tribe of the Salaru to the south of the city. If the work they are doing to push back the wyld succeeds as well as it has been thus far, there may be, soon.

= Ethnicity =

Amarana is an ethnically mixed city, with people from all over creation having gathered in under its banner thanks to [[The Ghost/The Patron|The Patron's]] zero-tolerance policy towards slavery. In the main however the population is drawn from the peoples of the south, as escaping slaves are most able to reach Amarana from it's nearest neighbors, [[Virangia]] and [[The Delazen Empire]].

== The Salaru ==

Descendants of the people who fled Salaruku in the face of the Balorian Crusade the Salaru have waited a long time to return to their city. Composed of 10 culturally distinct tribes the Salaru make up an ever decreasing percentage of the city's population as more and more foreigners come to the city and settle in. That said the Salaru, though small in number, have a disproportionate impact on the city's culture and politics, due to knowing the lands surrounding Amarana like no one else and therefore having a vastly outsized amount of wealth and clout.

The Salaru are subdivided into the following tribes:

=== The White Scars ===

This tribe numbers about 50 and have long been ancestor worshipers, they have been swayed to the cause of the Ancestor Cultists. They take their name from the practice of ritual scarification of face and hands to tell one’s ancestry and chest to recount great deeds. The White Scars hail from the west of the city. The White Scars are a strangely secretive bunch, they keep their own council and follow their own guidance. Alone of the Salaru tribes, the White Scars have wholey emigrated to the city, abandoning their ancestral lands to the Western Salaru's care and finding employment within Amarana. Most of them agree that this has been a drastic improvement in their living conditions. Their ancestors, however, worry about grave robbers and frequently ask the members of the tribe with the skills to do so to go back and check on the old burial grounds.

=== The Golden Bulls ===

Originally hailing from the north of the city this tribe has been sun worshipers since time out of mind, and have naturally gravitated toward the Solarion's cause. They take their name from the bloodline of golden-haired cattle that they breed, tend, and guard, which according to legend were a gift from the champions of the sun during an age long past in recompense for their service defeating an army of the Raksha. The Golden Bulls are among the largest tribes of the Salaru, numbering some 300 strong counting both those that came into Amarana and those that stayed behind to be part of the Northern Salaru. They revere Atlhat and The Unconquered Sun as their patrons and are known for their skill as warriors though they are overmatched by some of the other tribes thanks to awakened essence and charms. The Golden Bulls are largely employed as butchers, health inspectors, and members of Amarana's army, while the large contingent that remained in their ancestral lands tend their herds of golden-haired cattle as they always have done, though they now drive the excess males to market in Amarana for slaughter rather than keeping them home. The Golden Bulls’ primary combat style is with spears and Bullhide Shields, with firedust grenades to break tight formations. They would not look out of place in Harborhead, and marriages between Harborhead immigrants and the young men and women of the tribe are not uncommon, though frowned upon by some of the tribe elders due to the harborheadite's attitudes towards slavery, which the tribe has always held as blasphemy.

=== The Get of Vexan ===

Often called simply 'the get' by outsiders this tribe calls themselves the 'Vexanites'. The get is descended from a powerful Lunar who lived among the Salaru for a century or so starting a few decades after the fair folk invasion was driven back by the Empress. The Vexanite's hold a secret: their tribe is led by a family of Serpent Beast Men founded by Vexan and preserved through complex webs of intermarriage with other serpent-folk from as far away as the silent crescent. The get is currently led by a charming and curvaceous young woman from the southeast jungles named Nyoka. What they do not yet know is that she is actually the modern incarnation of their founder's exaltation and has been having sex with one of the tribe's greatest warriors in her spirit form of a twenty-foot dragon snake in the hopes of bearing beast folk children. She walks among the tribe in her Warform, that of a great dragon-like serpent woman with the fangs and venom of a cobra and the wings and claws of a dragon. The Get hailed from the mountains east of Amarana.

=== The Iron Raptors ===

Though founded by a group of outlaws and murderers the Iron Raptors are ironically a major component of Amarana's police force. Having originated as an inner-city gang during the last days of the shogunate the Iron Raptors turned their coats when the fair folk came calling at the end of the contagion. They took hundreds of people out of the city through hidden tunnels and other smuggling routes: people who became the founders of the other Salaru tribes. Since then they have slowly moved from running protection rackets over the other tribes, to actually protecting them, to being their main form of law enforcement and wandering justiciars. Now that Amarana is resettled they have taken up the role of their distant ancestors' worst enemies, an irony that is not lost on Garion Cromarch. The Iron Raptors’ central holdings were to the north of Amarana but they wandered freely among the other tribes and in fact still do, being welcome among any of the other Salaru. They worship Garion Cromarch as their patron deity, but also revere a number of small gods of crime and larceny, propitiating them in recompense for reducing their portfolios and defeating their natural worshipers.

=== The Kelderkin ===

Another tribe from the city's north the Kelderkin are the descendants of Marion Kelder and are an agricultural matriarchy. They revere Gaia to the near exclusion of all other deities and hold that all other gods are really aspects of Gaia, subsidiary souls of the Maiden of Plenty. They are more right in this belief than most people realize. All Kelderkin women can trace their ancestry to Marion Kelder via one of her seventeen daughters, and which daughter you are a descendant of determines what your role in the tribe is. The only roles that are not decided by your ancestry are 3: Shaman, Champion, and Speaker. The Speakers are the leaders of the tribe and set it's policy, while the shamans and champions advise them and defend the tribe. Marion Kelder was a wood aspected dragon blooded and even to this day a Kelderkin man or woman will sometimes exalt as another wood aspect. Currently, there is one such person among the Kelderkin, Mwaloni Kelder who is a gifted archer and huntress that leads an all-female unit of other archers in the Amarana armed forces. She is also a sex addict and currently dating four separate men, two of which are identical twin Djala who regularly have Manage-a-Trois with her.

=== The Chosen of Flame ===

Hailing from the city's west The Chosen of Flame has been firedust gatherers for as long as anyone can remember. They gathered firedust far south of the city during the shogunate and came to Amarana to trade it. When the hosts of Fairie came sweeping in from the edge of the world after the great contagion they ran before them and were caught up in the exodus from Amarana, helping many of the civilized folk adapt to the desserts. The Chosen of Flames make up the lion’s share of the new western tribe, but even so, most of them have moved into the city and settled down as experts and factors in the firedust trade. They are a prosperous tribe that is in a state of transition as they adapt to being a settled people for the first time. Numbering approximately 75 persons in the city and an equal number now part of the Western Salaru the Chosen of Flame boasts several god-blooded among their number, and actively court new fire elemental unions. Their God Blooded include Gitchsune Folarabi, Malawi Besmar, and Kubrisa Suknis, among others.

=== The Iconographers ===

Among the tribes of the Salaru, few can argue that the Iconographers are not among the most learned and civilized. Hailing from the cities northeast they have preserved an astonishing amount of lore from the low first age, especially on the subject of geomancy. Now almost universally employed by the Patron excavating and repairing manses they are well off and respected. The Iconographers place great store by erudition and knowledge, and gain position and prestige among their own via a set of grueling examinations conducted by their tribe's patron spirits once every ten years, and always in old realm. Because of these tests of knowledge, the tribe is led by its elders, who have had the most time to study and learn, and they are prone to contemplation and thoughtfulness. Among other advantages this has gifted them with is the possession of five small Manses outside the city, raised after the city's abandonment by their own hands. These manses have made their ancestral lands fertile and bountiful, making them one of the largest salaru tribes with 200 members in five small villages around the Manses before they emigrated to Amarana. Of all the tribes their desire to return to the city was among the greatest, but they did leave one family behind in each village to see to its welfare and upkeep in perpetration for their Descendents and those selected to join them by the Patron returning. The Iconographers in city number 175 or so and are very much in the Patron's camp. They are led by Sukiwara Madoka, a god blooded thaumaturge of advanced years and not inconsiderable skill.

=== The Eisil ===

As a tribe of pastoral hunters and gatherers in the city's eastern area, the Eisil would not be remarkable except for the fact that they are master storytellers and thespians. The role of Storyteller is the most honored position within their culture and many people aspire to it but few succeed. Their greatest tale is that of Sakarazat, a woman who was taken captive by a rapacious dragon blooded lord and over the course of two and a bit years told him a thousand stories which prevented him from killing her, and in the end, led the dragon blooded to let her go. Now that the Eisil have returned to Amarana they are mostly working at simple jobs like sand clearer or coachman (They have long preserved the arts of chariot racing as part of their festivals.) but a significant number of them now take the long-coveted role of storyteller or actor, and are among the best in the city, being sought out by talent scouts and stage managers for private and public engagements. The Eisil hail from the high mountains east of Amarana where the snow falls in winter, they are paler complected than most Salaru and have massive barrel chests from dealing with the thin air.

=== The Mantis Tribe ===

From the northwest of the city, the Mantis tribe straddle the border between the desert and the foothills of the Amaranaian lands. They have survived by placing great store by martial arts and awakened essence, and among their number only the young typically do not have awakened essence, nearly everyone over the age of 25 has mastered this basic precept. By the age of 30, most people have achieved the form type charm of one of the 5 main martial arts of the tribe, and by the time they reach venerable status at 65, nearly everyone is a master of their chosen style. This has allowed the Mantis Tribe to become large and prosperous but puts them in an uncomfortable position of being alternately feared and nearly worshiped by the other tribes, who look to them for protection from spirits and demons. It also puts them in another uncomfortable position: their various schools of martial arts do not always get along, and more than once the tribe has been wracked by internal strife, especially between the members that adhere to the Immaculate Philosophy and the people that worship the local gods outside that framework. At the moment it seems like the tribe is heading for another such civil war, and this time it may drag the whole city into it.

=== The Broad ===

Alone of the Salaru the Broad actually hate the Patron. The Broad was from the uttermost western areas of the Salaru and also alone among their number made a common practice of keeping slaves, but not so much for the purpose of having them work for the tribe but rather to sell to the guild. They ranged far among the sandy wastes waring with members of other tribes and capturing them to sell for the supplies they needed to survive and prosper. Many among their number were heroic mortals and with the exception of the Mantis Tribe and the Chosen of Fire they boasted the most members with awakened essence and/or god-blood. They also served as a dumping ground for the criminal and malcontents of the other tribes leading them to be less cordial with the rest of the Salaru than any other tribe. However, even the Broad wished to return to Amarana enough to give up their slave taking practices, at least, some of them did. When the Patron decreed all people of Amarana Free men and women shortly before the Guild arrived the Broad fractured over whether to return to their ancestral homeland or remain in the wastes and live as they had done for centuries. In the end, the tribe split 60/40 in favor of returning to Amarana and becoming part of the new society, but the 40% that remained in the wastes no longer consider themselves beholden to the Patron, Amarana, or even the Salaru. These people, called by their former associates The Red Broad are now considered outlaws brigands by the Isknadarian government and hunted whenever they stray close to the fifty-foot Glass Pillars that mark the borders of the Amaranaian lands. They are firmly in the camp of the Guild's Men and infiltrate the city regularly to capture and smuggle out valuable slaves that have escaped to Amarana from other lands.
The 60% of the tribe that has returned to the city are in the camp of the Death Cultists since the Broad were by and large ancestor worshipers before they returned to Amarana and see no reason to change that now. Calling themselves 'The Green Broad' they have no love for the patron but do love their city and will fight to the death to defend it. Most of them are now members of the city's military and are locked in a bitter feud with their former tribesmen. The members of this tribe that are not military mostly work as overseers for the small but growing cadres of 'indentured servants' kept by the city government in punishment for some of the most heinous crimes such as rape and enslaving another person.

=== The Western Salaru ===

=== The Northern Salaru ===

=== The Eastern Salaru ===

== The Djala ==

The D'jala are a sub-faction of the Patriots at the present time. Having been liberated by the Patron from their enslavement by many people who have brought them to the city in bondage they are fanatical partisans of the city's leader and from a major component of his power base. The Djala form five small tribes into which new arrivals are folded by ties of kinship, alliance, or marriage within weeks of arrival. The number of newly married Djala in the city is staggering, easily 40% of all new arrivals are pushed into marriages within a month of becoming residents, and somehow nearly all these mirages are happy ones. What the Djala elders know but have not officially publicized is that one of the Djala's patron gods is an old drinking buddy of [[The Ghost/Meroka Jin|Meroka Jin]] and has called in a favor with the minister of romance and love to arrange this happy state of affairs for his people in the city. This is not going to last, because [[The Ghost/Sakarzi|Sakarzi]] is going to start screwing around with them, but for the moment she is distracted by her work with the death cult.

== Varangians ==

== The Delazen ==

== Deep Southerners ==

Nemo of Utopia/Amarana

2020-07-14T12:16:02Z

Nemo of Utopia: /* Geography */

Amarana is a first age city, lost to the contagion and the fair folk invasion over 700 years ago. It is now coming back to life under the aegis of [[User:Nemo of Utopia/The_Patron_of_Amarana|The Patron]] who wields the power of the [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Five_Signs_of_Harmonic_Unity|Five Signs of Harmonic Unity]].

= Amarana =

Amarana Is comprised of a large area surrounded by a circular wall. At the edge of that wall are twelve triangular towers that contain the major military resources of the city. Of these towers, eight have been fully excavated, and the ninth is being examined and the sand removed even now.

Within the city is organized into four quarters but only two of them are even partially excavated, the two on the eastern side of the city, and even there many buildings still slowly seep sand into the streets out of cracked windowpanes and the door seems. The buildings of Amarana tend to a certain Egyptian flare or perhaps it would be better to say pre-Arabic since they are after all, by and large, the product of the low first age. The buildings are built of a quasi imperishable ceramic that resembles adobe, with the most significant having windows of Chiaroscuro Glass and doors made of either that same substance or Stainless Steel. Buildings are generally between six and ten stories high with essence powered air conditioning and elevators both of which the Patron must personally repair before the building becomes usable again.

Unlike many old realm cities, Amarana is laid out on a grid, instead of in a radial pattern. This gives a geomantic bonus to the people who live there: namely that mortals gain +1 XP per time XP is awarded. This bonus actually accrues every half year if using long term awards. The players can uncover this information with a dif10 [wits + occult] roll once every month they spend in the city beginning on the second day they are here. The bonus only applies to true mortals, not god blooded, ghost blooded, awakened Martial artists or any exalt, but does apply to dragon kings and jadeborn who are not Artisans.

So far roughly half of the city has been uncovered, but even here there are a lot of buildings that are collapsed, or still filled with sand and roped off with red cables and even more locations where there are red cables indicating small shadowlands or dimenses that are not to be approached until the city can close/cap them.

The excavation is proceeding irregularly, moving from the east wall out toward the west except around the central manse and the road from the north gate to the south gate. There are markets in most squares and a number of shops on the ground floors of buildings. Few merchants here are officially affiliated with the guild since many people in the city are escaped guild slaves and loath the guild vehemently.

Nearly everything except slaves is available for sale, including many products from The Wyld. Firewands and Flame Pieces are the core of the weapons markets along with accessories such as bayonets, powder horns, and pieces of flint or obsidian for strikers. Interestingly Cannons are not for sale, being reserved for the government, but anyone with contacts 2 or higher could find someone who knows someone who could get a permit for purchasing a few for export. Armoring is more advanced, and even some artifact armors are for sale, though they would be a resource 4 purchase at minimum, and that is for the simple stuff like Jade breastplates. Things like Yuroy Scout armor are beyond the means of anyone in the party, though, that comes up for sale very rarely except through illegal channels. Jade Full Plate and Super Heavy Plate are more commonly available, in fact, there are people in the city that can be commissioned to make it. Orichalcum and Monsilver are not commissionable but in the still covered parts of the city are facilities to work it. There are no facilities in the city for Soulsteel or Starmetal, but there is a workshop in one manse that has been uncovered to work Adamant, though finding any to use would require Wyld Cauldron Technology and spending XP: such is the life of the Exalted...

There are a number of Inns, Caravanserai, and Hostels near the city gates, while further in nearly every corner of an inhabited area has at least one restaurant or coffee shop. Tea houses, by comparison, are rare, and true bars are unusual enough to be remarked upon when a new one is found. Most living quarters do not have kitchens, which is why many hab towers which have been excavated don't have permanent residents and so many restaurants can stay open. Many restaurants, in fact, rent themselves out to people wishing to cook for their families or are owned by consortiums of citizens who hold them in common for communal cooking with contracts for use and upkeep requirements.

All of the city's roads are at least 20 feet wide, plus a five-foot sidewalk to either side. This is for the smallest streets, most are 40 feet wide with sidewalk and a few main thoroughfares are 60 feet wide. The streets keep themselves magically clean once each section is repaired by the Patron, but only a very few sections are repaired and many people who work as street sweepers clearing sand wish for it to stay that way. (Each 10'x10' section is a different artifact and must be individually repaired. There is one street in the city's west that is a first age relic and still working. However it can only affect things up to 30 feet above itself, so it is a long tunnel of a clear street bounded on all sides by packed sand.) The streets are made of fitted 5'x5'x1' blocks of granite, and one can sometimes determine which part of the city one is in by the color of the streets. The northeast the blocks are blue and green, the southeast red and green, the southwest red and black and the northwest blue and black. The city’s four central parkways are each a solid color relating to their element and 40' wide on each side and the grand square around the central manse is white and 60' wide at its narrowest point. However many streets were repaired with gray, white, or red granite toward the end of the shogunate and are not properly color-coded.

The City has at least 5' of clearance between all buildings: meaning that there are many allies in which one can get lost. You can often tell which parts are in use and which are unoccupied by weather there is sand filling the allies or they are clear.

== Manses and Demesnes of Amarana ==
Amarana was at one time subject to major geomantic engineering projects that gave it a large number of demesnes and then manses relative to its size. Most of those manses are still here, still active, and even now being located and excavated. A few, however, were partially unstable and have long since exploded. These few are roped off as dangerous and plans are underway to re-cap them, led of course by the Patron. Note that there are more manses and demesnes within the city that have not yet been found and that at one time there were even MORE demesnes in the city which have collapsed into a dormant state due to the changes in the city's essence flows and could be reactivated with the appropriate rituals once the city is fully excavated and geomantic remapped, these demesnes, however, were all small ones, level 2 at the most, so whether such effort is worth it in the short term, or even a good idea, is debatable. See [[Nemo of Utopia/MansesandDemesnesofAmarana|Manses and Demesnes of Amarana]] for further information.

= History =

== Prehistory ==

Though most do not know it Amarana's deepest foundations were laid in an era long past by the [[Dragons Kings]]. The City flourished in the age between the advent of humanity and the [[Primordial War]] with many of the first exalted visiting the place at one time or another in the several decades of the lead up to the overthrow of the Primordials. Then when the war began the city was wreathed in the destruction by one of the superweapons of the masters of creation, utterly annihilating most of those that dwelt therein and reducing the city to a smoking crater of volcanic glass. Still, beneath the burned and blackened surface, some parts of the old under city survived, and wait there still.

== The First Age ==

During the First Age many of the survivors of the primordial war remembered their time in 'Highana' fondly and after excavating much of the old substrate and leveling off the damaged areas to make way for new constructions raised up a new city on the site of the old. This city was dubbed 'Solzarian' in honor of [[The Unconquered Sun]] and in memorial to the Great Dragon King lady who had ruled the city so well and wisely ere it's annihilation. The City would remain a significant but out-of-the-way part of the Old Realm all the way through the first age.

=== The Ocher Fountain Era ===

During the beginning of the First Age when [[Queen Merela]] ruled over all creation from the eternal capital of [[Rathess]] Solzarian was still being reconstructed, and there was little of note that occurred in the city. One event, in particular, was notable, however: the Conclave of Solzarian in year 99 of the old realm, a symposium on the rights and freedoms of the people of creation which some in later years would argue laid the foundations of the Meru Uprising which led to the formation of the Deliberative.

=== The First Deliberative Era ===

By the time of the founding of the [[Deliberative]], the reconstruction of Solzarian was largely complete, and over the next few decades, the city became a favored retreat for both Solars and Lunars seeking to get the heck out of Meru and the stifling politics of the great city. One of Marela's closest allies [[Nemo of Utopia/Angus the Wirehair|Angus the Wirehair]] was given the rule of the city as part of the division of creation into fiefdoms and made it his personal residence. Under Angus rule, the city prospered, though it, by-and-large, remained a backwater compared to such metropolises as [[Chiaroscuro]] and Rathess. However, thanks to its solar overlord and his close relationship to the Queen of all Creation the city began the long process of incredible geomantic engineering which would in time lead to it being known as 'The City of Manses'.

=== Unfurling Horizon Era ===

While this era of creation went by largely without incident of significant note at this remove of history it is still recorded that many of the great efforts to explore and expand the borders of Creation in the south used Solzarian as a staging ground or stopover point before plunging into the true wilderness at creation's rim. This continued to encourage the exalted to play 'tourist' in the city and helped keep its economy vibrant. It is also noted in some histories that there was a major strike of [[Red Jade]] near the city in 811 which produced a 'Jade Rush' led by two rival Dragon-Blooded brothers and their servants which escalated into a short civil war in the city 2 years later in which significant damage was done to the city's infrastructure by all three* factions. The Civil War was only halted when [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Angus the Wirehair|Angus the Wirehair]] returned from Meru at the head of a wing of elite Dragon-Blooded shock troops and brutally suppressed both rival groups with mass arrests and a number of executions. (What happened to the brothers is unknown, but their names do not reappear in the historic record for 700 years, and at that time associated with different elemental aspects leading most scholars to conclude that they were 'dealt with' privately by their family.)
*(The Two consortia backing the rival brothers and the cities law enforcement detachments.)

==== The Aftershock War ====

In spite of the growing significance of the city and it's powerful assets in terms of equipment and hearthstones, Solzarian was not at first much involved in the Aftershock War. Passed over in favor of more militarily significant targets by the Primordial Forces the city did not come under fire until 1131 when a force of some 3000 first circle demons led by a trio of 2nd circle demons assaulted the city in the dead of night via a fleet of living airships. The 'Battle of Solzarian' was considered a significant victory for the forces of creation due to the large number of [[Golden Janissary Style]] practitioners in the city who were able to make fairly short work of the first circle demons allowing the detachment of Dragon-Blooded stationed in the city to confront the second circle demon commanders and dispatch them.

However the war was not all glorious victory for the people of Solzarain, [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Angus the Wirehair|Angus the Wirehair]] went missing during the final battle with the primordial forces and would not be seen again for over 500 years. For most of that time, he was presumed dead by the people of the city, though the Solar Exalted knew better as his shard had not found a new host.

=== Shining Reflection Era ===

During this period Solzarian loses much of its former significance as the seat of one of Marela's close allies. Few of the Exalted visit the city and the grand engineering projects grind to a near halt. The only events of great significance that occur here are two:
1: The Duel of the Magisters in 1313 where the reincarnations of Theis, Leelah, and Sonah engage in a duel of sorceress power which damages large sections of the city and forces all three of them to be censured by Marela herself: And;
2: In 1492 a major strike of Orichalcum is made a few hundred miles south of the city, and Solzarian becomes a stepping off point for prospectors of every stripe looking to get rich quick mining Orichalcum. The City's economy runs strong off this sudden influx of cash, people, and goods for the next 30 years.

=== Thousand Struggles Era ===

The first part of this period proceeds much from the previous one: everyone is aware that one of the legendary solar exalted has died of old age, but this makes little difference to the struggling backwater that Solzarian has become: then in 1776 everything changes.

In the Records of Solzarian 1776 is called: 'The Year of the Thousand' for the massive wave of change that swept over the city this year. The First thing that happens is [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Angus the Wirehair|Angus the Wirehair]] 'returns from the dead' on the 11th of Ascending Water storming into the city with a small group of Solars, Lunars, and Siderials and calling everyone he can reach into the city with him to face what he calls 'The Storm of the Millennium'. Ten days later the storm arrives and following in behind it a host of the fair folk the likes of which has not been seen in centuries. The city is invested and besieged for two months by the Faerie Host and the siege is only broken by the arrival of four full realm legions armed with Cold Iron. Once the Fair Folk are driven back and the city is again secure Angus orders most of the city leveled and an engineering project the like of which the city has not seen in over half a millennium undertaken to extensively alter its geomancy. To finance this undertaking he produces several tons of jade, from what source none can say, and uses his Wyld Shaping charms, which until his return no one knew he possessed, to manufacture the raw materials needed from the chaotic energy left behind by the Fair Folk.

However, no sooner was the project underway than orders came down from the Queen that he was to return to [[Meru]] at once and answer for his absence: and bound by the oaths he took as one of the [[Golden Hero Vassals]] so very long ago he departs. Following up on the plans he has left behind his circle mate [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Levian of the Gilded Staff|Levian of the Gilded Staff]] begins directing the super-massive construction and engineering projects which will if successful create one of the greatest concentrations of manses and geomantic relays outside of the Blessed Isle. By late in Descending fire half the city is gone and an entirely new street plan and so on is rising in its place, along with a massive upgrade to the walls and towers of the city perimeter as well.

What exactly passed for Angus in Meru is unrecorded by any presently known records except perhaps those of the Bureau of Destiny but what is recorded is the results of that visit: Angus was stripped of the rulership of his fief in the south including Solzarian and sent on a quest of penance into the frozen north: while Solzarian and the surrounding area was given into the hands of a relatively young solar of the Twilight Caste from another circle named [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Keisha Adriana Mullion|Keisha Adriana Mullion]] and her lunar mate [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Maxim of Personal Liberty|Maxim of Personal Liberty]].

While Keisha was young she was not stupid and consulted with Levian of the Gilded Staff on what she was doing with the engineering of the city. With the elder Twilight's help, she finished the geomantic reorganization as designed by Angus and by the end of Resplendent Air the basic project is finished. The city is now rife with uncapped demesnes and sites that will become demesnes once they can be activated after some of the others are capped. The city also now confers a geomantic bonus on all mortals living there, allowing them to develop their skills and abilities more quickly than those living in other cities. The full culmination of the project with the activation and capping of all demesnes will not be complete for another 36 years.

==== Time of Cascading Years ====

The Time of Cascading Years took rather longer in Solzarian and the surrounding area than it did in most of Creation: 3333 years to be precise. The relatively young solar ruler who went into the Time of Cascading Years and her only slightly more experienced Lunar Spouse emerges from it with a weight of skill and refinement which makes them elders among the solars and lunars. They also are now both arrayed with a panoply of artifacts and charms that make them forces to be reckoned with in the new Deliberative. The passage of the 'Age of Isolation' in Solzarian is marked by a number of rebellions and uprisings, and the invasion of their lands by the fair folk towards the end of it, from whence none, can say. Supposedly it was the destruction of an artifact which the Raksha Commander carried which restore time to its normal flow according to the people of Solzarian.

=== Second Deliberative Era ===

During the [[User:Nemo of Utopia/PeriodofLongSilence|Period of Long Silence]] Solzarain is one of the few areas still doing significant research, though they are hampered by the continuing disunity of creation and the fearfulness of creation's mortals who are all accustomed to traveling too far from home casting you into a different timeline.

With the Establishment of the new deliberative however Solzarian is thrust into the spotlight for around a hundred years as the home and workshop of one of the most important [[User:Nemo of Utopia:NPCCreationGuidelines/Exalted/FirstAge/Solar/TwilightCaste|Copper Spiders]] of the deliberative. During this period the city is a known destination for the many young Twilight-caste members who were reborn following the restoration of time's proper flow.

As this era goes on however Solzarian becomes less and less important with the rebuilding of the rest of creation, the other Twilights drift away to rule their own fiefs and work on their own projects and as has happened before Solzarian's position far from most significant events of history both at the center of creation and at its rim mean it becomes a backwater. Even it's solar and lunar rulers spend more time in Meru than at home, leaving the city in the hands of [[User:Nemo of Utopia:NPCCreationGuidelines/Exalted/FirstAge/Dragonblooded/Top|Dragon Blooded]] legates.

=== Era of Dreams ===

During the first part of the Era of Dreams, though Solzarian flourishes on the mundane level it remains a backwater on the scales by which The Realm measures such things: a functional and unimportant city in a functional but unimportant section of the world. It does, however, receive an [[IAM|I AM]] Transmission Node linking it to the broader network of information which now spans creation.

Then in the year 3381, it's twilight caste ruler is goaded into violating her eclipse oath to not attack other celestial exalted in Meru, setting in motion a chain of events that will alter the shape of Solzarian's fate for centuries to come, and that of the rest of creation. At first, the botches come hard and heavy, but then they stop and [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Keisha Adriana Mullion|Keisha]] thinks the oath's punishment has run its course.

It has not.

Returning to her holding in the south she begins to work on constructing a [[Proto Shinmatic Vortex]] and at a key stage of the process, the final botch of set activates and the PSV explodes, killing Keisha and creating an intense Wyld Zone south of the city over a hundred miles wide.

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/MaximofPersonalLiberty|Maxim of Personal Liberty]] calls upon every favor he has and even takes on new obligations to arrange the deliberative sending experts at Wyld Shaping to close the rift in the fabric of reality, but the people sent are not the high essence Solars and Lunars he hoped for but rather a cadre of neophytes who have scarce mastered Wyld Cauldron Technology and are woefully unprepared for the madness of the deep Wyld which exists within the rift. Three of them die before the other two calls it quits leaving the Wyld Zone barely stabilized around its edges. It is unrecorded at this remove what keeps the deliberative busy and the more powerful Wyld shapers tied up, but it will not be for another 3 decades that the Wyld zone is fully dealt with and that not by an individual any more experienced than the ones first dispatched, though with far greater caution than the first circle that was sent showed.

== The Usurpation ==

== The Shogunate ==

== The Fall & The Second Age ==

== The Rebirth ==

In RY 760, that same year where so very much else changed for creation (763 in normal Chronicles): the man who

= Government =

In basic, the Government of Amarana really consists of a single man: [[User:Nemo of Utopia/The Patron of Amarana|The Patron]]. He is an autocrat, ruling by divine mandate and shier power, as he is capable of defeating significant deities in single combat. However the Patron is one man, and as such has organized his subjects with several branches of what we would consider a more normal government. This normal government is organized into twelve 'Adeptus' which each is led by one of the twelve 'High Lords of Amarana'. These twelve powerful individuals form a council that advises and assists The Patron in his leadership of the city, feeding him data on several topics such as the state of his subject's religious convictions or the preparedness of his military. Though each High Lord is immensely powerful they all are The Patron's fanatical partisans and would not dream of challenging his authority, even if they could.

== The Adeptus Millitate ==

The Adeptus Millitate is one of the largest branches of Amarana's government, with no fewer than 1250 members in all its branches and subgroups. Though officially in charge of Amarana's Armed services it has a rival in The Adeptus Aeronauticus who oversee Amarana's air-forces. The Adeptus Millitate is run by [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Fist of the Land|Fist of the Land]] a God-Blooded martial artist who is somewhat uncomfortable leading an army of over a thousand people.

The Adeptus Millitate has the following departments and offices:

=== The Departmento Munitorum ===

Oversees the acquisition and care of the equipment and supplies for the army.

==== The Officio Technis ====

Deals with the army's Magitech assets.

==== The Officio Cibum ====

Oversees the all-important function of providing provisions for the troops.

==== The Officio Armorium ====

Handles the more mundane arms and armor of Amarana's troops.

==== The Officio Quartium ====

… is responsible for most everything else, from tents to uniforms to bedrolls.

=== The Departmento Servicum ===

Oversees the actual troops and officers and their training regimens.

==== The Officio Acadamicain Legionarius ====

This office oversees the training of new recruits and officers running two training schools for them.

==== The Officio Cooptatione Legionarius ====

This is the group that sees-to the recruitment and if necessary conscription of new troops for the army.

=== The Departmento Latrocinium ===

Oversees the hiring and 'control' of any mercenary units the government employs but is better known for a more sinister function.

==== The Officio Mercenarius ====

Does the Hiring and Firing of actual mercenaries.

==== The Officio Assasinoritum ====

'The Office of Assassins', to use the Vulgate, runs at least four secret dojos training mortal agents in martial arts that facilitate them serving as The Patron's spies and assassins. [[Nemo of Utopia/Assassin of the Grey Spire|Assassin of the Grey Spire]] 'leads' this office: He is ''not'' a master of the White Veil Style of martial arts and has most ''definitely not'' taught many of its members this secret art form. (Nudge nudge, wink wink, know what I mean, know what I mean? Say no more, say no more!)

=== The Officio Adminstrad Militate ===

This 'Floating Office' makes sure that all of the other Departmento and Oficio within this Adeptus do their jobs properly.

== The Adeptus Arbitiese ==

The Adeptus Arbitese oversee Amarana's police forces, and are one of the larger branches of the government with only 150 individuals on staff, counting every beat cop all the way on up to the High Lord Herself as well as all the file clerks and so on that work for the Adeptus but are not actually part of it's 'fighting strength'. They have only one Departmento and less than a dozen Officio, but so far are keeping a lid on the political turmoil of the city. The High Lord of the Arbitese is [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Steel Garden|Steel Garden]] who is not a very good investigator but a decent politician and capable administrator.

=== The Departmento Queastorum ===

This department is responsible for making inquiries and investigating crime, thus far it is the only Department of the Adeptus Arbitese but the Officio Correctionibus is expected to become a departmento in its own right someday.

==== The Officio Homicide ====

The Office of Homicide consists of only eight people, four detectives, three CSI techs, and one overworked file clerk. Their closure rate hovers at around 50%, though that is only due to them being able to count any suspect killed by the ghost of the victim as a closed case. [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Laurel the Axe|Laurel the Axe]] is the unofficial leader of this group but officially they answer directly to the High Lord of the Arbitese.

==== The Officio Servus Aucupes ====

The term 'office of slave catchers' is something of a misnomer. These detectives do not catch slaves, rather they catch people keeping, taking, or recapturing slaves and send them to their just punishments. This office consists of five overworked personnel, two detectives, two forensic accountants, and one file clerk. Their closure rate is around 30% since it is hard to prove that someone was a slaver without catching them in the act.

==== The Officio Vitium ====

Unlike the officio above this office is not quite so overworked, and the two often help each other out because their work frequently overlaps. The 'Vice Squad' mostly concerns itself with drugs and prostitution, since licensed gambling establishments and most pornography are both legal in Amarana. The officio consists of Four Detectives, five undercover officers, three CSI techs, and a harried file clerk. Their Closure rate is about 45%.

==== The Officio Interioribus ====

This Officio is more for show than anything since all of Amarana's police are held by the Stone of Invincible Loyalty. It consists of two Detectives and one Forensic Accountant. They often spend their time quietly helping out other offices.

==== The Officio Fraude Aucupes ====

This is actually one of the larger offices within the Arbities, having eleven total personnel, six detectives, three forensic accountants, a CSI tech, and a file clerk. The office tries to keep a lid on the Guild and others defrauding Amarana's citizens through various means and does a fairly good job. Their closure rate is about 70%, though this is largely due to a lot of success catching many small-fry while the remaining 30% is almost all of the big players.

==== The Ofiicio Fures ====

The 'office of thieves' is responsible for all break-ins, burglaries, purse snatchings, muggings, cutpurses, and so forth in the city. In spite of having eight detectives, five undercover agents, six CSI, four Forensic Accountants, and five file clerks their closure rate is about 12%. Garion Cromarch is frankly disgusted with them and has told The Patron so. The Patron knows they are doing their best but has ordered mandatory additional training for all members of this office.

==== The Officio Pax Patronum ====

The remainder of the police force is in this office. These are the beat cops that enforce the law by their presence and vigilance. Amarana is a large city and they constantly must be on the lookout for any kind of crime but especially things like drunk and disorderly, disturbing the peace, making an affray, and so on. This office consists of 57 patrol officers and over a dozen file clerks. Twelve of these officers are part of a sub-office of 'Mounties' who do their patrols in teams of three on horseback, they are often called in to suppress larger riots. The officers always patrol in teams of three, one to watch the front of a building and two to look around the sides and catch criminals in a pincer movement. They all carry magitech com units that let them use Wind Carried Words Technique and have Linguistics 3. (Their closure rate is not applicable since they work out of elven precincts and each one has a different closure rate.) One of these officers does not need a comms unit: being a dragon blooded air aspect outcaste named [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Secret Eagle|Secret Eagle]]. They have offered to promote him many times, but he prefers to be a patrol officer, though he has deigned to accept the rank of patrol sergeant for the fourth precinct.

=== The Officio Correctionibus ===

The office of corrections deals with the punishment rather than the apprehension side of crime. They are chronically overworked and typically have more criminals than they know what to do with but manage to do their jobs adequately. This floating office is overseen by Iron Sands, a member of The Broad who has lots of experience getting slaves to do as they are bid.

== The Adeptus Judicate ==

Working closely with the Adeptus Arbites the Adeptus Judicate is the other half of the justice system. These are the many Judges, Lawyers, and Clerks of the Court who make sure that the innocent are not punished with the guilty. At the present time, the Adeptus Judicate consists of 11 judges, 15 prosecuting attorneys, 23 Attorneys of Due Justice (Public Defenders.), 42 'Clerks of the Court' who record and file all rulings and court-ordered contracts, and 17 "Agent's Protection" who follow up on inconsistencies in court records and the welfare of Amarana's citizens in cases such as child abuse allegations and locating jurors that fail to show up for a trial. There are also about 200 private attorneys who are technically part of this Adeptus but not part of the government. The High Lord of the Courts is [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Molly McBride|Molly McBride]] a Demon Blooded northerner who has spent her whole life fighting against injustice and corruption in every form.

Additionally [[User:Nemo of Utopia/The_Patron_of_Amarana|The Patron]] himself is technically also a member of this branch as he has the right to sit in judgment if he chooses on all High Crimes and acts of Treason. He has invoked this right exactly once, mostly to prove that he could. (The person in question was found "Not Guilty by Reason of Insanity" and sentenced to lifetime confinement to a mental institution pending treatment or cure of his condition. He stood accused of twelve counts of grand theft, but psychoanalysis found him to be a kleptomaniac. The police often consult him on serial theft cases, and he is actually fairly good at solving them. However, he does have a problem with stealing other patients’ belongings and the doctor's pens and notebooks.)

Trials are in the American/British style, with a 'jury of one's peers' and the judge presiding from the high seat. The witness's sit to the judge's left and the clerk to the right. The prosecutors are on the left side of the courtroom and the Jury the Right while the accused is in the middle. Unless the accused is elderly or crippled and unable to stand they may not sit. For this reason, individual segments of trial must last no more than 3 hours. Only citizens may serve as witnesses, but since one can at the present time become a citizen after 24 hours residency this is not a problem. Citizens MAY testify with respect to events from before their citizenship. The accused is entitled to an 'Attorney of Due Justice' in the event that they cannot retain their own private counsel. The judge may dismiss any case at any time with or without prejudice, which is done routinely with respect to picayune or spurious civil cases so as to free up Attorneys of Due Justice for criminal trials. The patron is looking into finding more Judges and Attorneys of Due Justice so that civil cases do not need to be dismissed so frequently, which has a distressing tendency to lead to murder.

Abnormally The Adeptus Judicate does not have any departmento or officio, but there are those within it and without that are bucking to change that.

== The Adeptus Sororitatus ==

The 'Sisterhood' as they are called by the common folk is the government Adepta that oversees all _female_ clerics and thaumaturges in Amarana Like their Counterparts in the Adeptus Fratris they are few in number but powerful in influence. Technically also responsible for the worship of all-female gods in the city it is common that women will be priests of male deities and men prelates of a goddess's church. The division of male and female clergy between the AS and AF, however, is strict while the division of deities wavers like the landscape in the summer heat. In spite of these difficulties, the two branches of government get along quite well and cooperation between them is without rancor or strife in most cases. The High Lady of the Adepta is [[Nemo of Utopia/Unrepentant Emerald|Unrepentant Emerald]]. She is a mortal with Enlightened Essence and is exceedingly circumspect in her actions, a paragon of temperance. She is also the head priestess of [[Nemo of Utopia/Amarana Seline|Amarana Seline]].

=== The Officio Festivalius ===

This floating office submits to The Patron which days and locations should have festivals to honor the goddess' of the city. A circle of female clergy decide these events and pass them on to the patron, who generally approves them without comment. This circle is chaired by Unrepentant Emerald.

=== The Departmento Eclesiast ===

This is the main branch of the Adepta, overseeing and licensing all _female_ clergy in Amarana. The department technically consists of all licensed female clergy in the city but in practice, most of the female clergy get their licenses and are about their business having no further interaction with the government except to re-up their licenses once a year.

==== The Officio Licentiae ====

This officio handles the licensing process for all official priestesses, which requires proving you have the following capabilities: Ability to speak and read Old Realm, Basic knowledge of Spiritual Etiquette, (At least 3 dots in occult or 1 + an appropriate specialty.) and training in proper prayer procedures. (Prayer roll performance pool of at least 5 dice.) These requirements may be waived if the cleric has a 'sponsor' with a proper license who is taking on the new cleric as a student to train in service to their god/goddess in which case a 'Postulant Permit' is issued instead. Licenses are issued per deity, so if you wish to be the clergy of multiple gods multiple licenses are required. This is waived in the case of Zenith-caste Solars, Theurge-caste "New-Method"-Lunars, "Redemer"-caste Infernals, and Midnight-caste Abyssals, since it would be more trouble than it is worth to issue a license for every god in creation (for the first two), every each of the recovering yozis and all the greater demons (Redeemers), or ghost above essence 3 in the underworld (Midnight-castes).

==== The Officio Sanctionite ====

This is a smaller office within the departmento, making recommendations to The Patron on which female deities should be given official sanction within Amarana. All the female deities mentioned under the Religion section are sanctioned unless noted otherwise. Being unsanctioned does not mean you cannot be worshiped, but it does mean that you cannot have space allocated for a temple or licensed clergy. Sanctioning however is fairly easy to get since The Patron often simply signs the forms without reading them. (Additionally, all the incarnae are sanctioned, + Gaia and the Dragons.)

==== The Officio Hetterodox ====

This office deals with instances of rogue gods and clergy, such as the notorious Tuggie of the Scavenger Lands and other instances where the celestial bureaucracy has broken down to an unacceptable level. Employing many outside contractors they put spirits who demand illicit worship or sapient sacrifice in their places and also hunt rogue demons and the fair folk's ravagers. Though the actual functionaries of this Officio are few their agents are many and they are always busy.

== The Adeptus Frateris ==

Sometimes referred to as 'The Fraternity' by outsiders this Adeptus is responsible for all male deities and male clergy in Amarana. They take their job seriously and are sometimes noted for being taciturn and uncompromising. They are led by [[Nemo of Utopia/Wauli the Wolf|Wauli the Wolf]], who like his female counterpart is a mortal with awakened essence.

Structurally the Adeptus Frateris is identical to the Adeptus Sorroitatus.

== The Adeptus Mechanicus ==

The Adeptus Mechanicus are an odd bunch. Dressing in Rust Red robes and communicating in their own strange (and highly technical) dialect of Old-Realm they keep outsiders at arm's length. This Adepta is responsible for helping The Patron find and repair the magitech of the city a task that they perform supremely well but which many wonders if this group of strangely obsessed men and women are actually best suited for. Led by [[Nemo of Utopia/Adamant Sprocket|Adamant Sprocket]], an elderly Djala man and his young adult daughter [[Nemo of Utopia/Gears of Fate|Gears of Fate]], this group employs many Djala escapees in the task of repairing and rebuilding the city.

== The Adeptus Diolougus ==

What some would call the state department or the diplomatic corps the Adeptus Diolougus is one of the smallest Adeptus of the Amaranaian government. Led by [[Nemo of Utopia/Exultant Ivory Mother|Exultant Ivory Mother]] (a god-blooded woman from An-Teng, who harbors no feelings of goodwill for either Realm or Guild,) this group of spies and agent's provocateur work to keep Amarana a free city and outside the clutches of both [[The Guild]] and foreign powers such as the [[Realm]].

== The Adeptus Medicae ==

Easily among the smallest Adeptus of the Amaranaian government if one only counts the actual government personnel instead of approximately a-dozen-dozen licensed doctors, psychiatrists, and physicians whom they are tasked with overseeing and who like private attorneys in the city are technically part of the Adeptus: the Adeptus Medicae is as one might have guessed responsible for the physical and mental health of the city. They Tend to this task primarily by licensing and monitoring the city's medical personnel. This Adeptus role is two-fold: first, they are responsible for overseeing those practicing and utilizing any kind of medical skill in the city, from alchemists manufacturing morphine, [[Seven Bounties Paste]], or [[Age Staving Cordial]], to those offering psychiatric counseling outside of a church setting, to the several small private hospitals around the city, to even veterinarians. The Second task of the group is more dangerous and ripe for abuse by far: it is they in large part, as the only people with the requisite expertise, who draw up for [[Nemo of Utopia/The Patron of Amarana|The Patron's]] approval the statutes of law which they are tasked with enforcing. Thus far there has been no conflict of interest or abuses of power but the vast majority of people among the medical personnel of Amarana wait anxiously or avidly for this to begin changing.

The Adeptus Medicae is led by [[Nemo of Utopia/Simon Baker|Simon Baker]], a psychiatrist by trade, who is among the most dangerously insightful and persuasive people you will ever meet, at least that is not one of the exalted. He is, in fact, a god blooded, son of the patron deity of an order of physicians on The Blessed Isle, and is not much taken with the Imacualtes, treating them with frosty professionalism.

== The Adeptus Fabricae ==

Easily the largest and most diverse branch of the Amaranaian government the Adeptus Fabricae oversees all matters which involve or pertain directly to any sort of production, manufacturing, functional artistry, or creation of goods within Amarana's lands. Though ferreting out matters of a criminal nature fall under the heading of the Adeptus Arbites, and the governance of the legal codes is the province primarily of The Patron himself, and Prosecution and judgment of crimes is the business of the Adeptus Judicate, all three of these functions fall partially under this Adeptus' remit.

The Adeptus Fabricae first submits for The Patron's approval all codes and strictures which govern the actions and enterprises of fabricating all tangible products in Amarana, and exhaustive list of matters which fall under their control would be impossible but a few of the more salient follow: Print Shops, Compounding Pharmacies, Paper Mills, Glass Works, Jewelers, Magitech Repair Shops, Smithies, Book Binders, Cobblers, Tailors, and Farms: essentially anything which would be made by any sort of "Craft: XXX" skill is within their authority. The patron then reviews these legal codes and approves or rejects them, which becomes the strictures that the Adeptus Fabricae enforce upon the businesses of Amarana.

Most production facilities of any kind are within the Adeptus Fabricae's remit, with the notable exception of restaurants, taverns, eateries, pubs, tea houses, inns, and food carts which fall under the aegis of the Adeptus Medicae, though oddly pharmacies do not. Neither adepta is happy about this but neither is willing to lose or exchange the area they do have power over for reasons of their own which seem fully sufficient to them. Furthermore, any business that produces a tangible product and directly employs more than 50 people in any capacity is under their remit to license, inspect, and if necessary fine or refer to the Arbiters for investigation.

The following are the Departmento and Officio of the Adeptus Fabricae, each one with significant discretionary power and held in check solely by the High Lady of the Adeptus [[Nemo of Utopia/AuspiciousCrystalLightning|Auspicious Crystal Lightning]] and The Patron.

=== The Departmento Iura ===

The 'Department of Laws' devises and writes out the codes of law which govern the production and creation of goods in Amarana. They have created and submitted to the patron and extensive and thorough list of legal codes regarding the conditions, control, creation, and compensation for most products in Amarana, and those they have not they are working on.

==== The Officio Iura Laboris ====

The 'Office of Labor Laws' designs the codes of law concerning the employment, treatment, and management of Amarana's workforce. They are in the main as despised by the plutocracy as they are beloved by the common folk. Among other laws, they have enacted is the 8-hour work shift and the 6 day work week.

==== The Officio Iura Fabricación ====

The "Office of Manufacturing Laws" creates the codes of law governing the actual production of goods. Other offices govern the details of different types of production facilities or fields, but this office creates the general guidelines which the others work by.

==== The Officio Iura Cotagium Industria ====

The "Office of Cottage Industry" drafts the limited and simple codes which control small scale manufacturing by individuals and small business. They would like to have more extensive and detailed codes but The Patron uses his authority to make the official versions of the law to pare back most of their red tape and BS. He is, in fact, thinking of suspending this office for a period of some months while he looks for a better and less over eager set of people to be its officers.

==== The Officio Iura Officinis ====

This office makes the laws respecting the specific difficulties of production in a factory typesetting. Any production facility with 50 or more employees falls under their regulating authority, even things that are not normally their provinces such as farms, eateries, and pharmacies. For this reason, many production facilities and such, run with a staff of 40, so that even if they hire a handful of temp workers they will not move into this Officio's dominion. This Officio is not-well-liked by most business owners, being seen as overly restrictive and exceedingly interfering.

==== The Officio Iura Pharmicopia ====

== The Adeptus Adminstradum ==

== The Adeptus Aeronauticus ==

== The Adeptus Vectigalia ==

Lying squarely in the middle of the Adeptus of the city in terms of size the Adeptus Vectigalia is The Patron's Tax Collectors and Auditors of Accounts. Little liked by most people in the city they are nevertheless key to its continued function. In addition to overseeing that the government is given it's due and being called on to check the books of businesses which the Adeptus Arbites feel might be doing illegal activities the Adeptus Vectigalia also runs Amarana's national mint, which means that they are monitored closely by both The Patron and the Adeptus Arbites.

Noted for being uncompromising and humorless the Adeptus Vectigalia dress in imperishable formal clothing left behind from the first age. The hot stuffy suits and jackets only contribute to their reputation as dour and unsmiling drones of government oversight, which is perhaps the point of the dress code.

The Adeptus Vectigalia is divided into three Departmento: The Departmento Salari, which collects the taxes in cash or kind, the Departmento Quastorius, who audits people's books, and the Departmento Signo, who oversees the minting and engraving of all Amaranaian currency.

The Adeptus Vectigalia is led by [[Nemo of Utopia/Manifold Gemstone|Manifold Gemstone]] a perfectly ordinary man, who happens to be an excellent forensic accountant if only a passable administrator.

= Religion =

Faith and practice in Amarana are as diverse as the people who have come to live there. Everything from Immaculates to ancestor Worshipers to CotI members to simple priests and adherents of various gods all rub-elbows on the city's streets. Below are a brief rundown of the most prominent of the city's faiths and the deities they worship.

== Immaculates ==

Though the smallest of the city's faiths the Immaculate Doctrine still has hundreds of adherents among the people of the city, many of whom are enlightened martial arts practitioners. They also have a strong support network in the form of outside contacts with The Realm and other Dragon-Blooded.

== The Common Faith/Hundred Gods Heresy ==

The Majority of the population of Amarana believe in the gods as most people of the threshold do: they worship those who can provide them with benefits they want or need and don't understand much about the celestial bureaucracy or how things worked in the first age and that the present state of affairs is a corruption of the 'proper' order of things. Those that do often take the stance that "this is the way things are" and simply go on with their day.

What follows is a brief list of the major deities of Amarana and who or what they are affiliated with:

=== Amarana Seline ===

[[Nemo of Utopia/AmaranaSeline|Amarana Seline]]: As the City Mother of Amarana, Amarana Seline is the leader of the city's spirits. She was promoted from off the dole in heaven by the machinations of a number of bronze faction Sidereals and is fully cognizant of the fact that she '''owes''' them, but at the same time of the fact that as a dispossessed spirit promoted to the rank of City Mother she has few allies and many enemies. For these and other reasons she does not play favorites, at least not much, and is working hard at her job coordinating the smooth running of the city. Though she tries to be largely neutral in truth she is in the camp of the Immaculate Faction, which is part of why the Immaculates are as strong as they are in the city.

=== Mother Midnight ===

[[Nemo of Utopia/MotherMidnight|Mother Midnight]]: As the Senior Goddess of all-natural misfortunes in Amarana 'Mother of Midnight Murder and Mayhem', to use her full name, is a very good person for The Patron to have on his side. Mother Midnight takes positive glee in afflicting his enemies with all manner of troubles and ailments, from murder most foul to tripping on a dropped piece of lumber and spilling twenty boxes of crack from their backpack right in front of a police officer. However she is not really playing favorites, she still inflicts all manner of problems on the Patriots, their enemies just get it first and worst. Mother Midnight also has another interesting fact to her favor: she has been at her post for the past 3000 years. She gets audited on a regular basis and comes up smelling like roses: every, single, time! This drives Wong Bongerok to a level of near slavering fury, especially since he is certain Mother Midnight has been doing some kind of double-dealing and below-board hustle to keep herself fed and clothed during Amarana's long dormancy but has no way to prove it. Thing is, he's wrong. Mother Midnight became a doomsday prepper just after the usurpation and had been stockpiling quintessence and ambrosia for centuries ere the fair folk invaded. She has been living off that stockpile for all the time since and even now could go several centuries were the city to fall again ere she would need to start hustling for her sustenance.

In form, Mother Midnight looks like an exceedingly overweight woman with coal-black skin and long dreadlocked black hair that hangs so long as to trail on the ground. She typically appears nude or dressed in rags but can summon an armor of bones and broken pottery for a cost of 3 motes that gives her 10 lethal/bashing soak for the rest of the scene. For one mote she may reflexively cause any weapon that strikes her which has a hardness of less than 10 to automatically break*, and any weapon that has less than 15 hardness but more than 10 take 5d of damage. Energy weapons are immune to this, such as beam-klaves and weapons with a hardness of more than 15 cannot be affected. These powers do not count as charm use.

*(The weapon still inflicts damage before breaking from this effect.)

=== Pauldron Of Sanctity ===

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/PauldronOfSanctitity|Pauldron Of Sanctitity]]: is the new titular war god of the state, essentially exiled to the post by Atlhat since he is a rabidly punctual and rules obsessed deity that Atlhat has detested for centuries. Pauldron of Sanctity takes the form of a tall man in Gunzosha Armor and wielding a shock pike. He believes in well regimented and organized military units who are drilled and well equipped. In many ways, his notions of war are still trapped in the low first age when he was spawned as the god of a mercenary company, but this is just fine because he is the war god of a city with much of its low first age equipment and infrastructure intact. Though he favors the Immacualtes he is not willing to alter the course of outlined fate one millimeter without approval through proper channels.

=== Garion Cromarch ===

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/GarionCromarch|Garion Cromarch]]: is the god of Amarana's police force, who has waited patiently these seven centuries and more since the loss of the city to the fair folk working unofficially as a P.I. in Yu-Shan and who is the author of Amarana’s rebirth, having convinced the Bronze Faction to engineer the events which have led to that happening. Garion is perhaps more involved in the doings of the city's police than he should be, often helping them out with 'gut feelings' and leading dreams, but so far his interference has not crossed the line of allowed behavior.

Garrion's form looks like an idealized southern human male wearing Sentinel Defense Force armor blazoned with the symbol of Amarana, an eagle in flight wearing broken manacles.

=== Lissom Shining Spring ===

[[Nemo of Utopia/LissomShiningSpring|Lissom Shining Spring]]: a goddess of the local Oasis who temporarily holds two positions both in her old job and as the minster of all water sources within Amarana's sphere of influence. She is not perfidious in this role like Alhat who should not hold both the aegis of southern war god and god of cattle but is genuinely looking for a replacement to take over the role of goddess of springs and oasis: however she is a perfectionist and committed to finding a perfect candidate, which means that though she has interviewed over a hundred prospective applicants she has not found one that she feels is worthy of her longtime position. The Bronze Faction is willing to let her conduct further interviews, for now, but have made it clear that if she does not have a new spirit in the position by the end of next year she will be censured and the task of finding a replacement will be out of her hands. To this end, she has compiled what she calls her 'secondary list': those gods that she felt were 'almost' up to her lofty standards, and if she is running out of time will call them back for a second interview and chose the best one. She still hopes for a perfect applicant however and only has four names on her 'secondary list'.

Lissom Shining Spring's form is that of a large fish, but lately, she has been finding herself slipping into the form of a young woman in the suit of one of the city's hydro-engineering personnel who assists the Patron in making sure that all the pipes are sound before restoring the flow of water to a building. She is not sure she likes this.

=== Sonari ===

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/Sonari|Sonari]]: is the divine minister of sunlight and shadow for Amarana. She works with the bureau of nature to ensure that the proper degree of cloud cover reaches Amarana as well as the appropriate amount of sun. Like many of the gods of Amarana she is newly promoted from being on the dole and fearful of losing her position, but even so, dares to encourage the cult to worship her with little flourishes like rays of light in winter and cool breezes in summer.

She takes the form of a cloud from which pour rays of sunlight.

=== Meroka Jin ===

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/MerekaJin|Mereka Jin]]: the minister of romance and love in Amarana is actually an old pro at the role, having been the minister for the task in the old city and then for the Salaru tribes. He is corrupt as the day is long but adept at hiding his perfidy from anyone and everyone, including to a degree himself.

Mereka Jin takes the form of a vigorous adult man of the south with a rose in his teeth and a rakish smile. He often appears nude or in the robes worn for a wedding among the Salaru.

Mereka is eternally locked in a bitter feud with his theoretical partner Sakarzi: minster of lust and attraction, who is constantly trying to break down the stable romantic relationships her 'partner' builds. For the moment they have reached a detente on the matter of the two factions in which they are most interested, If Sakarzi will do her job for the romantic relationships of the Solarians then Meroka will not try to pair off the Ancestor Cultists into mirages and leave Sakarzi to push them to rut in wild abandon. They have not agreed about what to do with the rest of the population which makes up more than 60%.

=== Bibwit Heart ===

[[Nemo of Utopia/BibwitHeart|Bibwit Heart]]: The 'least' god of Amarana's central manse, Bibwit is uncomfortable with the cult worshiping him as they do. He has seen many least gods that have found themselves at the center of cults growing arrogant and ultimately becoming starmetal and is afraid this will happen to him. He has survived both the fall of the solars and the shogunate by being small and unobtrusive, keeping his manse functional and active while the rest of the city fell apart and he is not going to change that strategy. Still, he is an important god in the city, and as such they venerate him. Bibwit takes the form of an anthropomorphized rabbit with white fur and a tailored coat. He carries a pocket watch that lets him make flurry attacks up to his DEX score with no penalty.

=== Cela Dinarius ===

[[Nemo of Utopia/CelaDinarius|Cela Dinarius]]: Cela is the goddess responsible for Amarana's economy, and she is a personal friend of Glorious Weapon. She is no friend of the Guild and works as much as she dares to keep the guild from stealing artifacts from Amarana for sale to its foreign rivals. Formerly the goddess of Aj-Aran's main market square she was promoted to the overall control of the economy of Amarana via the machinations of the gold faction. She knows the city father is a bronze faction plant but reasons that as long as they both do their jobs properly they should not come into many conflicts. The two have a standing date for tea every Venus day.

Cela Dinarius form is that of an attractive woman carved from silver, and she wears the clothing of a Varangian cloth factor, which was her first job beyond as the least god some 4 centuries ago, patron goddess of a new Varangian cloth consortium.

=== Zalril ===

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/Amarana/Zalril|Zalril]]: Formerly the Least god of Amarana's north gate Zalril has by what amounts to shier-force-of-will moved up to become the patron god of Guild Members working in Amarana. The exact operation of this occurrence has been shrouded in mystery at the orders of Kejop Kajac himself, and further Nazri signed off on it too. The Guild maintains a large shrine just outside his old gate where they leave offerings before entering the city and where three slave women were taken under cover of night and sworn to become Zalril's Priestesses in exchange for their freedom by an Eclipse-caste member who often works for the guild. Though two of them still keep their roles as the god's priestesses the third has left the shrine and now lives in the city as a teacher for the city's new public school. Interestingly she has suffered no ill effects from 'breaking' her oath. Zalril has asked for the Guild to send a replacement but they are still trying to figure out why the oath failed in the first place. Meanwhile [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Sulramia|Sulramia]] finds fulfillment in teaching her students as do [[User:Nemo of Utopia/GayePachudiweOgesu|Gaye Pachudiwe Ogesu]] and [[User:Nemo of Utopia/OxandRainbowSlave|Ox and Rainbow]] the two women that still work at the shrine. Ogesu is an old woman and does the cooking and cleaning while Ox and Rainbow stand guard over the shrine. Sulramia also came with another gift for the god, her daughter, as she was part of a quadratic set, Maiden, Warrior, Mother, and Crone, and if she was to be the 'mother' Zalril insisted that she has a child as proof of her status, who conveniently doubled as 'maiden'. Sulramia's daughter is called [[User:Nemo of Utopia/IronandHoneyMaiden|Iron and Honey Maiden]] and is just the cutest five-year-old you will ever see, with an appearance score of five already. Her mother lives constantly with the fear of pedophiles, but does not let it rule their lives.

=== Walziri ===

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/Walziri|Walziri]]: as the god of beasts of burden within Amarana's lands Walziri is a major player in the lives of Guild personnel who must work or live here. Formerly a lesser deity of travel and trade in Harborhead Walziri was appointed to his new post by the machinations of a cabal of 'Independent' southern Sidereals and understands that he OWES them for this big break. The cabal has not called in that favor, at least not yet, but for the moment are content with him filing informal reports on the going's on in Amarana. While still hard at work at his new post he has already started to play favorites a little with the Guild's Men who pray to him, subtly strengthening their animals and selecting them last when sickness is due to strike the camels or whatnot of the city. Walziri takes the form of a large man of Harborhead derivation wearing several coral necklaces and white robes. He carries a Jade cattle prod which can be used as a spear or thrown like a javelin and returns instantly to his hand.

=== Anyaka Tetsuo ===

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/AnyakaTetsuo|Anyaka Tetsuo]]: The minister of Chance and Gambling in Amarana, Tetsuo is not new to this job. Created as the least god of a set of enchanted dice not long after the Primordial War Tetsuo has risen over the course of the intervening years to a position of moderate power in this city through diligent work and a suspicious number of 'lucky' breaks. Though no investigation has ever found him guilty of any wrongdoing there are enough people that are suspicious of what he surely must have done with his powers to better his status that it is unlikely he will ever rise any higher. Some deities would plot and scheme to continue advancing, but Tetsuo knows better. As a god of chance and gambling, he is well aware that he has been on quite the lucky streak and that is when you should count your winnings, leave the table, and cash in your chips before your luck runs out. He is content to be the god of all chance and gambling in Amarana: and will only rise higher if his natural luck brings him a sudden break, which he is not holding his breath for. He wiles away his time by playing games with the gamblers of the city, making them win or lose in a big way, but staying within the bounds of prescribed fate.

Tetsuo looks like a tall, broad-shouldered, thoroughly tattooed man with a cup and dice for playing a popular gambling game called 'Han or Cho'.

Tetsuo's sanctum is exceedingly large, he has had 700 years of dormancy in Amarana in which to expand it, and it now takes the form of a vast resort with several small casinos and many spas on what appears to be a small tropical island. (At the boundaries of its area there is a big reef beyond which the waterfalls away into nothing.) Tetsuo typically has many of the small gods of gambling and chance living in his sanctum with him at any time. Tetsuo is a colleague of Mother Midnight, not her subordinate, but the two work closely to determine which gamblers will face a string of ill luck.

=== Bagong Fangrick ===

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/BaegongFangrick|Bagong Fangrick]]: As the God of Vermin within Amarana Fangrick is an odd person to aid the guild but the guild will take allies where it can find them. Fangrick is a subordinate of Mother Midnight but has kept himself mostly out of her way and done his job without fuss since the revival of the city. Formerly the deity of rats for the Salaru tribes he was promoted upon the city's revival in recognition of many years of hard work with little reward and not the slightest blemish on his record.

Bagong Fangrick looks like an aged anthropomorphic rat, dressed in the robes of a shogunate era martial arts practitioner.

=== Wisp Virunga ===

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/WispVirunga|Wisp Virunga]]: As the managing deity for all education in Amarana Wisp is a VIP for the Patriots, because she helps their people learn new skills significantly faster, which helps them stay a step ahead of their competition, for the moment. The thing is that Wisp is running a knife-edge game with staying inside what is allowed within her post as a manager for all education in Amarana and what could be censured. This is very very bad: because she is already in trouble with the local censor's deputy for bearing a god blooded child, who is still alive and therefore available as evidence. Just to add insult to injury the censor's deputy has a personal vendetta against her for rebuffing his advances in favor of a mere mortal. Until the revival of Amarana Wisp Virunga was the goddess of its central library, she effectively promoted herself to the chief goddess of education by cozening up to the Patron while he was excavating her manse. When he decreed the first mandatory schooling sessions for the early colonists he had them pray to her as patron of all education in Amarana at the start of each day, when the prayers reached critical mass a few months later she had already conducted a quiet set of interviews and had her replacement as god of the library already prepped and ready to take over at once. This is not precisely an offense against the laws of heaven, but it is somewhat 'bad form' and would count against her slightly in a formal audit. It also has earned some of her fellow deities enmity, especially:...

=== Principle of Justified Action ===

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/PrincipleofJustifiedAction|Principle of Justified Action]]: Heaven has gods of just about everything, including educators. Principle of Justified Action was formerly a deity of a major school out in the distant threshold before the fair folk invasion and only survived that calamity by mere chance, having been in heaven on vacation when the hosts of faerie scourged the world. Since then he has lived on the dole and schemed endlessly to get another position in the bureau of humanity's education office. He finally thought he had one all lined up when Amarana was scheduled to be rebuilt as its manager of education, but the Patron and Wisp Verunga snatched it out of his hands. Yet, when one door closes another opens and a cabal of Gold Faction Sidereals and a few people who were still his friends from the old days managed to finagle him a consolation prize. The role of managing deity for the court system of Amarana was still open since there were not supposed to be any real criminal proceedings for several months yet. Desperate to get off the dole by then and seeing this as his last chance for the foreseeable future he accepted.

What neither he nor the Sidereals that helped him expected, was that he would LIKE the work. Managing a court system is not so different in truth from managing a school, you have trouble makers, erudite and passionate people, a lot of people who really don't want to be there, an ever-changing cast of characters doing many old and a few new stupid things, a complex set of rules you must adhere to; the similarities were rather a shock. Of course, there were differences, mostly in the fact that things move both so much slower most of the time and so much faster in the crunch, but he got his sea legs within a month or two and found himself enjoying having a real job again. That said, Principle of Justified Action is still no friend of Wisp Virunga and would dearly love to put in an application to replace her should she fall afoul of the auditors. However he bides his time, after all, he is employed in a job that he does not find onerous and has plenty of prayers coming in from both sides of the law, Wisp has no experience and is drowning in her duties, let them see what putting an untried administrator into such an important post does! Chances are that within the decade he will have her job: so runs his reasoning.

The Patron is another matter. He likes the Patron, rather a lot, and finds in the autocrat of the city a kindred spirit: and of course, cannot fault the man on the matter of his dedication to an educated society. He sometimes pokes the patron in the subconscious when he is contemplating a bad law, or about to reject a good one, and thus far does not consider it any kind of offense against heaven's rules. He is, in fact, wrong, he has committed no less than 5 level-one offenses in this manner, but that will largely be ignored unless he does more than mere subconscious nudging, after all, he has not really messed up any major plans this way so far.

In form Principle of Justified Action looks like a tall man from the furthest east, wearing the green and red robes of a seated Judge of Amarana's courts. His hair is shock white, a remnant of his time among the starving unemployed but he finds it suits his image as a wise leader of the courts. Abnormally for a god of justice he is lenient with most offenders, reasoning that if you punish too harshly you deny them a chance to learn from their mistakes. However, anyone who harms children sees the other side of him, a fury of unrelenting hatred that will see them hanged if at all possible.

=== Sakarzi ===

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/Sakarzi|Sakarzi]]: though she would dearly love to bring about the Patron's ruin and overthrow Sakarzi: minister of lust and attraction for Amarana, has a problem: She is both terrified of him and lusts after him obsessively. Sakarzi met the Patron before he mastered Amarana when she was bathing in a sacred hot-spring on the borders of the lands now claimed by the city in the guise of a comely Salaru maiden and he was following his awakened memories back to the city to claim his destiny. There at the hot-spring, she tried to seduce him.

She Failed.

The patron was clearly attracted to her and wished to accept her advances but mastered himself with an effort of will and politely refused. Five more times in five different guises Sakarzi has tried to seduce him and each time has been rebuffed, but always politely. This is why she is terrified of him, no one else whom she has ever tried to seduce has refused her advances so many times, especially since each of those times she has used progressively more of her supernatural powers, in the last instance activating an effect that should have compelled him to lie with her will he or no. She lusts after him because she has a weakness for powerful men, and The Patron certainly is one: but it is his immunity to her mystical powers that have made it an obsession. With the Patron, Sakarzi can use only the arts available to a mortal woman to snare the man she desires, and it is driving her to distraction. Perhaps an hour's worth of time out of each of her days is frittered away trying to think up new ways to seduce the Patron that rely only on her natural skills and personal beauty, but thus far she has not come up with anything worth using on a seventh attempt. The reason that Sakarzi would love to see the patron fall is that after she started a feud between three of the early families of colonists by seducing three of their sons and declaring that only the last one living would bed her the patron caught her outside her sanctum and beat her to within an inch of her life, declaring that if he ever caught her pulling that kind of stunt on his supporters again he would not pull his blows the second time.

These conflicting emotions are tearing Sakarzi apart, she lusts after the patron, but wants to ruin him, but is terrified of him, but she wants to have sex with him so bad she can taste it: Etc, Etc. In the meantime, she has appeared to several of the Patriots and declared her support for the patron's cause offering her help in securing the objects of their desires and the word has spread among them that if you erect a shrine to her in your residence and pray at it twice a day, morning and night, she will aid you in seducing whoever you most lust after.

While Sakarzi has many forms she can assume her true form is that of a Salaru woman of surpassing beauty and grace who literally cannot wear clothing. Her merest touch causes any garment to become invisible for one hour, so there is no point in her wearing any kind of raiment except for its protective value, which she rarely does.

=== Machuko; Torch of Freedom ===

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/MachukoTorchofFreedom|Machuko; Torch of Freedom]]: Is it any wonder, considering the status of Amarana as a free city where none may be held in bondage without due process of law, that the patron deity of Liberation and Abolitionism should view it with favor and even more so it's leader who enacted the law in question? [[Rabsolga]], the patron of slavery, hates and despises Amarana and if for no other reason than that Machuko loves and protects it. Furthermore, Machuko is [[User:Nemo of Utopia/ThePatron|The Patron]]'s patron god, to whom he prays five times a day, and is celebrated with five feast days each year, one at the beginning of each 'resplendent' month. Even the Immaculates honor these five days of worship, because the Patron has been known to have those that speak against honoring the feasts arrested and tried for sedition and/or aiding and abetting slavers, and their leader does not need that kind of attention, so he has said: "These days honoring Machuko are sanctioned by the immaculate faith, so long as you pray unto him only on these days you do not sin against the orders of Heaven."

Machuko keeps a large temple in the city's northeast quarter: a level 3 fire aspected manse called 'The Wheel of Torches' from it ride forth his clergy and devout adherents numbering several dozen strong on raids into the wastes beyond Amarana's borders proclaiming Machuko's glory and the freedom of all people within the lands of Amarana. Machuko has many priests across all of creation but nowhere are there so many gathered together as in Amarana.

In form, Machuko looks like a tall muscular man of what modern people would call Jewish/Hasidic/Israeli derivation, with a wild beard and long hair that hangs in ringlets. He carries a gore maul and chopping sword of orichalcum and white jade which when used together can cut any chain or bond. He has another form, which he assumes rarely except when in heaven, which is that of a great Dragon filled with yellow-white fire and made from millions of broken chains, collars, and manacles.

== Ancestor Cultists ==

Led by [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Sharima of the Three Disciplines|Sharima of the Three Disciplines]] and her ghostly lover [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Aruna the Defiant|Aruna the Defiant]] this group of citizens is a large and vocal part of the city's population. Though dwarfed by the percentage of the city who worship the city's gods and elementals the Ancestor Cultists make up as much as 20-25% of the city's population and are especially prominent among the [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Salaru|Salaru]].

The Ancestor Cultists make use of a large number of small [[Shadowlands]] across the city to communicate more directly with their patron spirits and interact with the underworld: but are mindful of [[User:Nemo of Utopia/The Patron of Amarana|The Patron]]'s injunctions about not breaking the circles of salt and other wards which keep the ghosts within the Underworld. They are however constantly working to locate 'new' and unguarded Shadowlands for their patrons to use to slip in and out of the underworld, which The Patron minds not one bit so long as they report them for the Adeptus Sororitatus/Frateris to seal in due course.

Though most of the people of Amarana are unaware of this fact the Ancestor Cultists are being controlled from behind the scenes by a Deathknight known as [[User:Nemo of Utopia/The Fluttering Fist of the Deadly Labyrinth|The Fluttering Fist of the Deadly Labyrinth]] he is a martial artist in service to The [[Mask of Winters]] who has wandered off on his own agenda far from thorns and The Mask's traditional area of operation. "The Fist" came to Amarana in search of a rumored cache of [[Autochthonian]] [[Soulsteel]], held in the vaults of the undercity, but has found that much of the undercity is sealed and inaccessible even from the [[Underworld]]. In the meantime, he works on the ancestor cultists as both a way to support himself and something to occupy his time while he trains to learn the charms that will allow him to enter the prehuman depths of the city where he hopes the bars of [[Autochthonian Soulsteel]] can be found.

Though the ghosts of Salaruku are numerous and very old surprisingly few of them are Heroic Ghosts and willing/able to serve as patrons for Amarana's ancestor cultists. Of those that do It is surprisingly four of the youngest ghosts that are the main patrons worshiped by the cultists: along with one exceedingly old ghost from the fall of Salaruku.

=== Xufuwne Onuke ===

The leader of Amarana's relatively large population of ghosts from the time of the fair folk invasion Onuke is frighteningly powerful but relatively easy going. He has outlasted Amarana's long dormancy and now looks forward to an era of joy and plenty for the city's dead. A dragon blooded warrior in life Onuke was killed battling the invaders from the wyld and in an odd twist of fate, they buried him with high honors. His tomb lies in the still mostly sand-covered western half of the city at the center of a small park and is one of the barest handful of areas in that region that have been excavated in advance of the main work. In form, Onuke looks like a typical dragon blooded of the shogunate, dressed in power armor and wielding a Daiklave. He has subsisted by hunting plasmic creatures for most of 700 years but welcomes the changes of the reborn city. Onuke is the cult's equivalent of a war god, a role he shoulders without complaint but also without relish.

=== Aruna the Defiant ===

Hailing from Chiaroscuro Aruna is the lover of Sharima, and they have many Ghost-blooded children together. They were maneuvered into the leadership of the cult by agents of [[The Archon of Apostasy]] who wished to have a shining example of ghost/mortal co-operation in Amarana to help people accept the death cult in their midst. The Archon's agents do not believe the plan is working but they are wrong, were it not for the two of them the cult would have been burned out root and branch. Aruna is a relatively young ghost but has become powerful quite quickly thanks to her lover and her association with various death cults. In appearance, Aruna looks like a young woman of the Delazen, beautiful and alluring for all her ghostly translucence and pallor. Aruna is the cult's patron of love and romance but gives short shrift to lust.

=== Emerald Lotus ===

Like her partner's Monkey of the City and Triumphal Eagle of the Flawless Hill, Emerald Lotus has been elevated to leadership by the machinations of the Patron, who decreed a feast day in their honor on the day of their deaths defending Amarana from an attack by a trio of 'Hounds of the Unbroken Earth'. None of them is experienced enough to really do the jobs that they have had thrust upon them but they all are rising to the challenge. Emerald Lotus resembles a typical woman of the deep south dressed in a white robe and headscarf that covers everything but her face, and overtop that a breastplate of steel. She is neither attractive nor ugly but is very charismatic. She carries an infinite jade chakram as her main weapon and also bears a perfect chopping sword for close fighting. Emerald Lotus is the patron 'deity' of the cult's Martial Artists, as she had some experience with that in life. She still is finding her feet as a ghost and defers to Xufuwne Onuke on most matters.

=== Monkey of the City ===

Dressed in lamellar and wielding a shock pike monkey of the city is not really suited to his role as a leader of an ancestor cult. Having been an outcast and wanderer in life who always tried to keep people happy and was quick with a joke or to share his water he has not changed much in death. However, there is a place for the fun and funny guy in any pantheon and Monkey of the City fills that role for the Ancestor Cultists of Amarana. Monkey of the City is the cult pantheon's trickster and comic relief, which he does not mind one bit.

=== Triumphal Eagle of the Flawless Hill ===

Wearing a Red Jade reenforced Buff Jacket Triumphal Eagle, or simply 'Der Aller'* as he prefers to be called, was not much of a warrior in life, but was on rotation for guard duty when the hounds attacked and were predictably killed by them. Buried with honors along with the rest of the four and then raised up as a patron spirit of the city he has persisted as a leader due largely to [[User:Nemo of Utopia/The_Patron_of_Amarana|The Patron]]'s favor and the fact that he is a very intelligent man, who is knowledgeable about many subjects. His role in the city's death cult is that of a spirit of wisdom and intellect, as well as oddly the patron, so to speak, of the Adeptus Aeronauticus.
*(Which means 'the Eagle' in his native tongue, a northern barbarian language...)

== Cult of the Illuminated ==

The Cult of the Illuminated has a relatively small and subtle presence in Amarana, but never-the-less are present. Their agents and activists walk among the cults dedicated to the various celestial exalted who have come to Amarana quietly preaching of the unity of creation and the duties of the 'Shining Ones' to be the leaders and stewards of creation. "Someday," they say. "All creation will be united behind the Shining Ones, and on that day those who have served them well will have rewards beyond their wildest dreams."

Among the 17 or so celestial exalted in the city 6 are allied with the Cult of the Illuminated, and some of the others are sympathizers. The CotI worshipers pray to most of them and work to support their interests.

= Geography =

Geographically Amarana lies at the point just before the sands of the deep desert fully give way to the rocky foothills of the summer mountains. When the spring rains sweep in from the north it is prone to flooding and mud, while the heat of high summer brings the blazing Simoon roaring out of the deep desert and with it short tempers and sharp words that sometimes flare into brutal murders. Winter is a season of joy and happiness for the citizen's of Amarana, as the power of the elemental pole of Air waxes and the desert is cooled, allowing snow to briefly form in the nearby summer mountains which are trucked into Amarana by old roads and made into flavored sherbets and snow cones for those with the Patron's favor, especially small children, of whom The Patron is known to be quite fond. The foothills around Amarana abound with resources brewed up by the slowly retreating Wyld or pushed from deep within the earth by the strange forces by which creation renews itself over the centuries, including many veins of silver from which Amarana mints its currency. Meanwhile, the desert around Amarana is rich with fire dust and gem sand, especially during the nights of the new moon when the Wyld retreats for several miles further south and exposes a wide swath of 'tainted' land, especially where the city has been slowly pushing the Wyld back by infecting it with billions of grains of what is essentially Elemental Earth. This area is hazardous as well however because the tainted area is not just composed of valuable sands, but also dangerous ones, such as quicksand, shatter sand, and hungry sand. For every person from Amarana who strikes it rich mining fire-dust or gem-sand in the tainted lands on the nights of the new moon, another finds themselves injured, killed, or mutated: in Amarana 'Firedust Miner' looks fair to rank among the top 5 'most dangerous professions' for the first year of recorded statistics in the city, right behind 'Rogue Spirit Protection Expert' and 'Pharmacist' but just ahead of 'Building Excavation Team Member' and 'Artifact Recovery Personnel'

Nearby Amarana is a number of Small Oasis, Hot Springs, and Geysers which have long provided the Salaru tribes with water. Though 90% of the tribesmen have returned to their ancestral home a few chose to stay out in the wastelands for one reason or another, and now gather into three new small tribes: the western, northern, and eastern Salaru.

To the west, the desert is hot by day and cold by night, with only trackless sand to greet your eyes, the Salaru who have stayed out in this wilderness journey mile upon mile between oasis that is often buried under the shifting sands and must be dug down to gather up their water. They survive by hunting snakes and lizards and trading fire dust and jewel sand with the Guild for added food and water. Though trade is their main source of contact with the outside they no longer must rely upon it or perish, with the total number of tribe's men in this region reduced by more than 95% they now can survive on their own without help, but it would be a spartan existence. Trade gives them luxuries and better equipment, which they put to good use. The western salaru do not keep herd beasts or in fact, any animals except hunting dogs, the land here is too harsh for this to be profitable. They worship many nature spirits, but few major deities except the Unconquered Sun, who is seen as a wrathful god of war and destruction, and Luna in her aspect as The White Navigator, who is seen as a benevolent and helpful deity. Though they honor the high holy days of the five maidens they are not much revered outside those times.

To the north, the Salaru who have not returned to their city are primarily herders and gatherers, as the foothills of the summer mountains provide old lava tubes and other places to hide from the sun by day and keep flocks dry when the rains come. Their life is perhaps the least harsh of the three new tribes since they have kept the most of their population, with only about 80% going to live in the city and in all cases leaving a few family members to mind the herds and ancestral cave or rock-cut house. They also were the most numerous of the Salaru before the return to Amarana, having six of the 10 Salaru tribes living in their region. and now are by far-and-away the most populous of the three 'outside' tribes. They also still contribute a good chunk of Amarana's food supplies, which means that even the Patron must treat with them on their terms. On the other hand, they know that the Patron, while a patient man, does have his limits and that their families back in Amarana would suffer first and worst if they cut off the shipments of food and other goods to the city, so they treat the Amaranaians with as much respect as they expect in return: so far the city and the northern tribe have a strong alliance of mutual benefit and support. The northern Salaru frequently revere Atlhat, the southern god of war and cattle, in addition, they also revere the Celestial Incarna and Gaia as well as many nature spirits.

The tribes to the east were always the most desirous to return to Amarana, for they could still see it's central tower sticking up out of the sand. However, when the time came, an influential leader named [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Sabris of the Two Spears|Sabris of the Two Spears]] convinced them that they should instead of all going back to the city leave some people behind and send their sons and daughters back into the summer mountains to live with those that stayed for two years as a right of passage. This has proved to their great advantage, for they now own the rights to much of the mineral wealth in the summer mountains near Amarana and have risen to be among the city's most wealthy families. The mountain Salaru were hunter/gatherers before Amarana's recovery and it is in this capacity that the children sent to the old mountain fastnesses must learn to survive when they are facing their Adavam Ordeal. The eastern Salaru mostly hold up a host of small gods for worship and revere the celestial Incarna on their high holy days. They are however the nearest things to atheists Creation has, feeling that if a person cannot survive without divine intervention then they are weaklings that must be excised from the gene pool. Many of them are swayed to a degree by the Immaculate faith but reject the idea that the Dragonblooded are creations, rightful rulers, their tribes have long memories and have heard the tales told by the Lunars of the perfidy of the Dragonblooded and the glory once created by the Solars, and twice in their exile have seen this glory first hand before the Dragonblooded showed up and ruined things.

To the south of the city, a wyld zone bleeds into reality for almost eight hundred miles from the maximum edge of the world. Though the city lies near the edge of this wyld zone it is not part of it, not even when the wyld storms blow in the autumn. This is perhaps partly because the city's strong geomancy prevents it from being absorbed or perhaps some form of potent first age artifact still protects the city as it did during the invasion so long ago. If the Patron knows he is not telling. Either way, there is and never has been a tribe of the Salaru to the south of the city. If the work they are doing to push back the wyld succeeds as well as it has been thus far, there may be, soon.

= Ethnicity =

Amarana is an ethnically mixed city, with people from all over creation having gathered in under its banner thanks to [[The Ghost/The Patron|The Patron's]] zero-tolerance policy towards slavery. In the main however the population is drawn from the peoples of the south, as escaping slaves are most able to reach Amarana from it's nearest neighbors, [[Virangia]] and [[The Delazen Empire]].

== The Salaru ==

Descendants of the people who fled Salaruku in the face of the Balorian Crusade the Salaru have waited a long time to return to their city. Composed of 10 culturally distinct tribes the Salaru make up an ever decreasing percentage of the city's population as more and more foreigners come to the city and settle in. That said the Salaru, though small in number, have a disproportionate impact on the city's culture and politics, due to knowing the lands surrounding Amarana like no one else and therefore having a vastly outsized amount of wealth and clout.

The Salaru are subdivided into the following tribes:

=== The White Scars ===

This tribe numbers about 50 and have long been ancestor worshipers, they have been swayed to the cause of the Ancestor Cultists. They take their name from the practice of ritual scarification of face and hands to tell one’s ancestry and chest to recount great deeds. The White Scars hail from the west of the city. The White Scars are a strangely secretive bunch, they keep their own council and follow their own guidance. Alone of the Salaru tribes, the White Scars have wholey emigrated to the city, abandoning their ancestral lands to the Western Salaru's care and finding employment within Amarana. Most of them agree that this has been a drastic improvement in their living conditions. Their ancestors, however, worry about grave robbers and frequently ask the members of the tribe with the skills to do so to go back and check on the old burial grounds.

=== The Golden Bulls ===

Originally hailing from the north of the city this tribe has been sun worshipers since time out of mind, and have naturally gravitated toward the Solarion's cause. They take their name from the bloodline of golden-haired cattle that they breed, tend, and guard, which according to legend were a gift from the champions of the sun during an age long past in recompense for their service defeating an army of the Raksha. The Golden Bulls are among the largest tribes of the Salaru, numbering some 300 strong counting both those that came into Amarana and those that stayed behind to be part of the Northern Salaru. They revere Atlhat and The Unconquered Sun as their patrons and are known for their skill as warriors though they are overmatched by some of the other tribes thanks to awakened essence and charms. The Golden Bulls are largely employed as butchers, health inspectors, and members of Amarana's army, while the large contingent that remained in their ancestral lands tend their herds of golden-haired cattle as they always have done, though they now drive the excess males to market in Amarana for slaughter rather than keeping them home. The Golden Bulls’ primary combat style is with spears and Bullhide Shields, with firedust grenades to break tight formations. They would not look out of place in Harborhead, and marriages between Harborhead immigrants and the young men and women of the tribe are not uncommon, though frowned upon by some of the tribe elders due to the harborheadite's attitudes towards slavery, which the tribe has always held as blasphemy.

=== The Get of Vexan ===

Often called simply 'the get' by outsiders this tribe calls themselves the 'Vexanites'. The get is descended from a powerful Lunar who lived among the Salaru for a century or so starting a few decades after the fair folk invasion was driven back by the Empress. The Vexanite's hold a secret: their tribe is led by a family of Serpent Beast Men founded by Vexan and preserved through complex webs of intermarriage with other serpent-folk from as far away as the silent crescent. The get is currently led by a charming and curvaceous young woman from the southeast jungles named Nyoka. What they do not yet know is that she is actually the modern incarnation of their founder's exaltation and has been having sex with one of the tribe's greatest warriors in her spirit form of a twenty-foot dragon snake in the hopes of bearing beast folk children. She walks among the tribe in her Warform, that of a great dragon-like serpent woman with the fangs and venom of a cobra and the wings and claws of a dragon. The Get hailed from the mountains east of Amarana.

=== The Iron Raptors ===

Though founded by a group of outlaws and murderers the Iron Raptors are ironically a major component of Amarana's police force. Having originated as an inner-city gang during the last days of the shogunate the Iron Raptors turned their coats when the fair folk came calling at the end of the contagion. They took hundreds of people out of the city through hidden tunnels and other smuggling routes: people who became the founders of the other Salaru tribes. Since then they have slowly moved from running protection rackets over the other tribes, to actually protecting them, to being their main form of law enforcement and wandering justiciars. Now that Amarana is resettled they have taken up the role of their distant ancestors' worst enemies, an irony that is not lost on Garion Cromarch. The Iron Raptors’ central holdings were to the north of Amarana but they wandered freely among the other tribes and in fact still do, being welcome among any of the other Salaru. They worship Garion Cromarch as their patron deity, but also reviver a number of small gods of crime and larceny, propitiating them in recompense for reducing their portfolios and defeating their natural worshipers.

=== The Kelderkin ===

Another tribe from the city's north the Kelderkin are the descendants of Marion Kelder and are an agricultural matriarchy. They revere Gaia to the near exclusion of all other deities and hold that all other gods are really aspects of Gaia, subsidiary souls of the Maiden of Plenty. They are more right in this belief than most people realize. All Kelderkin women can trace their ancestry to Marion Kelder via one of her seventeen daughters, and which daughter you are a descendant of determines what your role in the tribe is. The only roles that are not decided by your ancestry are 3: Shaman, Champion, and Speaker. The Speakers are the leaders of the tribe and set it's policy, while the shamans and champions advise them and defend the tribe. Marion Kelder was a wood aspected dragon blooded and even to this day a Kelderkin man or woman will sometimes exalt as another wood aspect. Currently, there is one such person among the Kelderkin, Mwaloni Kelder who is a gifted archer and huntress that leads an all-female unit of other archers in the Amarana armed forces. She is also a sex addict and currently dating four separate men, two of which are identical twin Djala who regularly have Manage-a-Trois with her.

=== The Chosen of Flame ===

Hailing from the city's west The Chosen of Flame has been firedust gatherers for as long as anyone can remember. They gathered firedust far south of the city during the shogunate and came to Amarana to trade it. When the hosts of Fairie came sweeping in from the edge of the world after the great contagion they ran before them and were caught up in the exodus from Amarana, helping many of the civilized folk adapt to the desserts. The Chosen of Flames make up the lion’s share of the new western tribe, but even so, most of them have moved into the city and settled down as experts and factors in the firedust trade. They are a prosperous tribe that is in a state of transition as they adapt to being a settled people for the first time. Numbering approximately 75 persons in the city and an equal number now part of the Western Salaru the Chosen of Flame boasts several god-blooded among their number, and actively court new fire elemental unions. Their God Blooded include Gitchsune Folarabi, Malawi Besmar, and Kubrisa Suknis, among others.

=== The Iconographers ===

Among the tribes of the Salaru, few can argue that the Iconographers are not among the most learned and civilized. Hailing from the cities northeast they have preserved an astonishing amount of lore from the low first age, especially on the subject of geomancy. Now almost universally employed by the Patron excavating and repairing manses they are well off and respected. The Iconographers place great store by erudition and knowledge, and gain position and prestige among their own via a set of grueling examinations conducted by their tribe's patron spirits once every ten years, and always in old realm. Because of these tests of knowledge, the tribe is led by its elders, who have had the most time to study and learn, and they are prone to contemplation and thoughtfulness. Among other advantages this has gifted them with is the possession of five small Manses outside the city, raised after the city's abandonment by their own hands. These manses have made their ancestral lands fertile and bountiful, making them one of the largest salaru tribes with 200 members in five small villages around the Manses before they emigrated to Amarana. Of all the tribes their desire to return to the city was among the greatest, but they did leave one family behind in each village to see to its welfare and upkeep in perpetration for their Descendents and those selected to join them by the Patron returning. The Iconographers in city number 175 or so and are very much in the Patron's camp. They are led by Sukiwara Madoka, a god blooded thaumaturge of advanced years and not inconsiderable skill.

=== The Eisil ===

As a tribe of pastoral hunters and gatherers in the city's eastern area, the Eisil would not be remarkable except for the fact that they are master storytellers and thespians. The role of Storyteller is the most honored position within their culture and many people aspire to it but few succeed. Their greatest tale is that of Sakarazat, a woman who was taken captive by a rapacious dragon blooded lord and over the course of two and a bit years told him a thousand stories which prevented him from killing her, and in the end, led the dragon blooded to let her go. Now that the Eisil have returned to Amarana they are mostly working at simple jobs like sand clearer or coachman (They have long preserved the arts of chariot racing as part of their festivals.) but a significant number of them now take the long-coveted role of storyteller or actor, and are among the best in the city, being sought out by talent scouts and stage managers for private and public engagements. The Eisil hail from the high mountains east of Amarana where the snow falls in winter, they are paler complected than most Salaru and have massive barrel chests from dealing with the thin air.

=== The Mantis Tribe ===

From the northwest of the city, the Mantis tribe straddle the border between the desert and the foothills of the Amaranaian lands. They have survived by placing great store by martial arts and awakened essence, and among their number only the young typically do not have awakened essence, nearly everyone over the age of 25 has mastered this basic precept. By the age of 30, most people have achieved the form type charm of one of the 5 main martial arts of the tribe, and by the time they reach venerable status at 65, nearly everyone is a master of their chosen style. This has allowed the Mantis Tribe to become large and prosperous but puts them in an uncomfortable position of being alternately feared and nearly worshiped by the other tribes, who look to them for protection from spirits and demons. It also puts them in another uncomfortable position: their various schools of martial arts do not always get along, and more than once the tribe has been wracked by internal strife, especially between the members that adhere to the Immaculate Philosophy and the people that worship the local gods outside that framework. At the moment it seems like the tribe is heading for another such civil war, and this time it may drag the whole city into it.

=== The Broad ===

Alone of the Salaru the Broad actually hate the Patron. The Broad was from the uttermost western areas of the Salaru and also alone among their number made a common practice of keeping slaves, but not so much for the purpose of having them work for the tribe but rather to sell to the guild. They ranged far among the sandy wastes waring with members of other tribes and capturing them to sell for the supplies they needed to survive and prosper. Many among their number were heroic mortals and with the exception of the Mantis Tribe and the Chosen of Fire they boasted the most members with awakened essence and/or god-blood. They also served as a dumping ground for the criminal and malcontents of the other tribes leading them to be less cordial with the rest of the Salaru than any other tribe. However, even the Broad wished to return to Amarana enough to give up their slave taking practices, at least, some of them did. When the Patron decreed all people of Amarana Free men and women shortly before the Guild arrived the Broad fractured over whether to return to their ancestral homeland or remain in the wastes and live as they had done for centuries. In the end, the tribe split 60/40 in favor of returning to Amarana and becoming part of the new society, but the 40% that remained in the wastes no longer consider themselves beholden to the Patron, Amarana, or even the Salaru. These people, called by their former associates The Red Broad are now considered outlaws brigands by the Isknadarian government and hunted whenever they stray close to the fifty-foot Glass Pillars that mark the borders of the Amaranaian lands. They are firmly in the camp of the Guild's Men and infiltrate the city regularly to capture and smuggle out valuable slaves that have escaped to Amarana from other lands.
The 60% of the tribe that has returned to the city are in the camp of the Death Cultists since the Broad were by and large ancestor worshipers before they returned to Amarana and see no reason to change that now. Calling themselves 'The Green Broad' they have no love for the patron but do love their city and will fight to the death to defend it. Most of them are now members of the city's military and are locked in a bitter feud with their former tribesmen. The members of this tribe that are not military mostly work as overseers for the small but growing cadres of 'indentured servants' kept by the city government in punishment for some of the most heinous crimes such as rape and enslaving another person.

=== The Western Salaru ===

=== The Northern Salaru ===

=== The Eastern Salaru ===

== The Djala ==

The D'jala are a sub-faction of the Patriots at the present time. Having been liberated by the Patron from their enslavement by many people who have brought them to the city in bondage they are fanatical partisans of the city's leader and from a major component of his power base. The Djala form five small tribes into which new arrivals are folded by ties of kinship, alliance, or marriage within weeks of arrival. The number of newly married Djala in the city is staggering, easily 40% of all new arrivals are pushed into marriages within a month of becoming residents, and somehow nearly all these mirages are happy ones. What the Djala elders know but have not officially publicized is that one of the Djala's patron gods is an old drinking buddy of [[The Ghost/Meroka Jin|Meroka Jin]] and has called in a favor with the minister of romance and love to arrange this happy state of affairs for his people in the city. This is not going to last, because [[The Ghost/Sakarzi|Sakarzi]] is going to start screwing around with them, but for the moment she is distracted by her work with the death cult.

== Varangians ==

== The Delazen ==

== Deep Southerners ==

Nemo of Utopia/Amarana

2020-07-14T12:07:58Z

Nemo of Utopia: /* Xufuwne Onuke */

Amarana is a first age city, lost to the contagion and the fair folk invasion over 700 years ago. It is now coming back to life under the aegis of [[User:Nemo of Utopia/The_Patron_of_Amarana|The Patron]] who wields the power of the [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Five_Signs_of_Harmonic_Unity|Five Signs of Harmonic Unity]].

= Amarana =

Amarana Is comprised of a large area surrounded by a circular wall. At the edge of that wall are twelve triangular towers that contain the major military resources of the city. Of these towers, eight have been fully excavated, and the ninth is being examined and the sand removed even now.

Within the city is organized into four quarters but only two of them are even partially excavated, the two on the eastern side of the city, and even there many buildings still slowly seep sand into the streets out of cracked windowpanes and the door seems. The buildings of Amarana tend to a certain Egyptian flare or perhaps it would be better to say pre-Arabic since they are after all, by and large, the product of the low first age. The buildings are built of a quasi imperishable ceramic that resembles adobe, with the most significant having windows of Chiaroscuro Glass and doors made of either that same substance or Stainless Steel. Buildings are generally between six and ten stories high with essence powered air conditioning and elevators both of which the Patron must personally repair before the building becomes usable again.

Unlike many old realm cities, Amarana is laid out on a grid, instead of in a radial pattern. This gives a geomantic bonus to the people who live there: namely that mortals gain +1 XP per time XP is awarded. This bonus actually accrues every half year if using long term awards. The players can uncover this information with a dif10 [wits + occult] roll once every month they spend in the city beginning on the second day they are here. The bonus only applies to true mortals, not god blooded, ghost blooded, awakened Martial artists or any exalt, but does apply to dragon kings and jadeborn who are not Artisans.

So far roughly half of the city has been uncovered, but even here there are a lot of buildings that are collapsed, or still filled with sand and roped off with red cables and even more locations where there are red cables indicating small shadowlands or dimenses that are not to be approached until the city can close/cap them.

The excavation is proceeding irregularly, moving from the east wall out toward the west except around the central manse and the road from the north gate to the south gate. There are markets in most squares and a number of shops on the ground floors of buildings. Few merchants here are officially affiliated with the guild since many people in the city are escaped guild slaves and loath the guild vehemently.

Nearly everything except slaves is available for sale, including many products from The Wyld. Firewands and Flame Pieces are the core of the weapons markets along with accessories such as bayonets, powder horns, and pieces of flint or obsidian for strikers. Interestingly Cannons are not for sale, being reserved for the government, but anyone with contacts 2 or higher could find someone who knows someone who could get a permit for purchasing a few for export. Armoring is more advanced, and even some artifact armors are for sale, though they would be a resource 4 purchase at minimum, and that is for the simple stuff like Jade breastplates. Things like Yuroy Scout armor are beyond the means of anyone in the party, though, that comes up for sale very rarely except through illegal channels. Jade Full Plate and Super Heavy Plate are more commonly available, in fact, there are people in the city that can be commissioned to make it. Orichalcum and Monsilver are not commissionable but in the still covered parts of the city are facilities to work it. There are no facilities in the city for Soulsteel or Starmetal, but there is a workshop in one manse that has been uncovered to work Adamant, though finding any to use would require Wyld Cauldron Technology and spending XP: such is the life of the Exalted...

There are a number of Inns, Caravanserai, and Hostels near the city gates, while further in nearly every corner of an inhabited area has at least one restaurant or coffee shop. Tea houses, by comparison, are rare, and true bars are unusual enough to be remarked upon when a new one is found. Most living quarters do not have kitchens, which is why many hab towers which have been excavated don't have permanent residents and so many restaurants can stay open. Many restaurants, in fact, rent themselves out to people wishing to cook for their families or are owned by consortiums of citizens who hold them in common for communal cooking with contracts for use and upkeep requirements.

All of the city's roads are at least 20 feet wide, plus a five-foot sidewalk to either side. This is for the smallest streets, most are 40 feet wide with sidewalk and a few main thoroughfares are 60 feet wide. The streets keep themselves magically clean once each section is repaired by the Patron, but only a very few sections are repaired and many people who work as street sweepers clearing sand wish for it to stay that way. (Each 10'x10' section is a different artifact and must be individually repaired. There is one street in the city's west that is a first age relic and still working. However it can only affect things up to 30 feet above itself, so it is a long tunnel of a clear street bounded on all sides by packed sand.) The streets are made of fitted 5'x5'x1' blocks of granite, and one can sometimes determine which part of the city one is in by the color of the streets. The northeast the blocks are blue and green, the southeast red and green, the southwest red and black and the northwest blue and black. The city’s four central parkways are each a solid color relating to their element and 40' wide on each side and the grand square around the central manse is white and 60' wide at its narrowest point. However many streets were repaired with gray, white, or red granite toward the end of the shogunate and are not properly color-coded.

The City has at least 5' of clearance between all buildings: meaning that there are many allies in which one can get lost. You can often tell which parts are in use and which are unoccupied by weather there is sand filling the allies or they are clear.

== Manses and Demesnes of Amarana ==
Amarana was at one time subject to major geomantic engineering projects that gave it a large number of demesnes and then manses relative to its size. Most of those manses are still here, still active, and even now being located and excavated. A few, however, were partially unstable and have long since exploded. These few are roped off as dangerous and plans are underway to re-cap them, led of course by the Patron. Note that there are more manses and demesnes within the city that have not yet been found and that at one time there were even MORE demesnes in the city which have collapsed into a dormant state due to the changes in the city's essence flows and could be reactivated with the appropriate rituals once the city is fully excavated and geomantic remapped, these demesnes, however, were all small ones, level 2 at the most, so whether such effort is worth it in the short term, or even a good idea, is debatable. See [[Nemo of Utopia/MansesandDemesnesofAmarana|Manses and Demesnes of Amarana]] for further information.

= History =

== Prehistory ==

Though most do not know it Amarana's deepest foundations were laid in an era long past by the [[Dragons Kings]]. The City flourished in the age between the advent of humanity and the [[Primordial War]] with many of the first exalted visiting the place at one time or another in the several decades of the lead up to the overthrow of the Primordials. Then when the war began the city was wreathed in the destruction by one of the superweapons of the masters of creation, utterly annihilating most of those that dwelt therein and reducing the city to a smoking crater of volcanic glass. Still, beneath the burned and blackened surface, some parts of the old under city survived, and wait there still.

== The First Age ==

During the First Age many of the survivors of the primordial war remembered their time in 'Highana' fondly and after excavating much of the old substrate and leveling off the damaged areas to make way for new constructions raised up a new city on the site of the old. This city was dubbed 'Solzarian' in honor of [[The Unconquered Sun]] and in memorial to the Great Dragon King lady who had ruled the city so well and wisely ere it's annihilation. The City would remain a significant but out-of-the-way part of the Old Realm all the way through the first age.

=== The Ocher Fountain Era ===

During the beginning of the First Age when [[Queen Merela]] ruled over all creation from the eternal capital of [[Rathess]] Solzarian was still being reconstructed, and there was little of note that occurred in the city. One event, in particular, was notable, however: the Conclave of Solzarian in year 99 of the old realm, a symposium on the rights and freedoms of the people of creation which some in later years would argue laid the foundations of the Meru Uprising which led to the formation of the Deliberative.

=== The First Deliberative Era ===

By the time of the founding of the [[Deliberative]], the reconstruction of Solzarian was largely complete, and over the next few decades, the city became a favored retreat for both Solars and Lunars seeking to get the heck out of Meru and the stifling politics of the great city. One of Marela's closest allies [[Nemo of Utopia/Angus the Wirehair|Angus the Wirehair]] was given the rule of the city as part of the division of creation into fiefdoms and made it his personal residence. Under Angus rule, the city prospered, though it, by-and-large, remained a backwater compared to such metropolises as [[Chiaroscuro]] and Rathess. However, thanks to its solar overlord and his close relationship to the Queen of all Creation the city began the long process of incredible geomantic engineering which would in time lead to it being known as 'The City of Manses'.

=== Unfurling Horizon Era ===

While this era of creation went by largely without incident of significant note at this remove of history it is still recorded that many of the great efforts to explore and expand the borders of Creation in the south used Solzarian as a staging ground or stopover point before plunging into the true wilderness at creation's rim. This continued to encourage the exalted to play 'tourist' in the city and helped keep its economy vibrant. It is also noted in some histories that there was a major strike of [[Red Jade]] near the city in 811 which produced a 'Jade Rush' led by two rival Dragon-Blooded brothers and their servants which escalated into a short civil war in the city 2 years later in which significant damage was done to the city's infrastructure by all three* factions. The Civil War was only halted when [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Angus the Wirehair|Angus the Wirehair]] returned from Meru at the head of a wing of elite Dragon-Blooded shock troops and brutally suppressed both rival groups with mass arrests and a number of executions. (What happened to the brothers is unknown, but their names do not reappear in the historic record for 700 years, and at that time associated with different elemental aspects leading most scholars to conclude that they were 'dealt with' privately by their family.)
*(The Two consortia backing the rival brothers and the cities law enforcement detachments.)

==== The Aftershock War ====

In spite of the growing significance of the city and it's powerful assets in terms of equipment and hearthstones, Solzarian was not at first much involved in the Aftershock War. Passed over in favor of more militarily significant targets by the Primordial Forces the city did not come under fire until 1131 when a force of some 3000 first circle demons led by a trio of 2nd circle demons assaulted the city in the dead of night via a fleet of living airships. The 'Battle of Solzarian' was considered a significant victory for the forces of creation due to the large number of [[Golden Janissary Style]] practitioners in the city who were able to make fairly short work of the first circle demons allowing the detachment of Dragon-Blooded stationed in the city to confront the second circle demon commanders and dispatch them.

However the war was not all glorious victory for the people of Solzarain, [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Angus the Wirehair|Angus the Wirehair]] went missing during the final battle with the primordial forces and would not be seen again for over 500 years. For most of that time, he was presumed dead by the people of the city, though the Solar Exalted knew better as his shard had not found a new host.

=== Shining Reflection Era ===

During this period Solzarian loses much of its former significance as the seat of one of Marela's close allies. Few of the Exalted visit the city and the grand engineering projects grind to a near halt. The only events of great significance that occur here are two:
1: The Duel of the Magisters in 1313 where the reincarnations of Theis, Leelah, and Sonah engage in a duel of sorceress power which damages large sections of the city and forces all three of them to be censured by Marela herself: And;
2: In 1492 a major strike of Orichalcum is made a few hundred miles south of the city, and Solzarian becomes a stepping off point for prospectors of every stripe looking to get rich quick mining Orichalcum. The City's economy runs strong off this sudden influx of cash, people, and goods for the next 30 years.

=== Thousand Struggles Era ===

The first part of this period proceeds much from the previous one: everyone is aware that one of the legendary solar exalted has died of old age, but this makes little difference to the struggling backwater that Solzarian has become: then in 1776 everything changes.

In the Records of Solzarian 1776 is called: 'The Year of the Thousand' for the massive wave of change that swept over the city this year. The First thing that happens is [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Angus the Wirehair|Angus the Wirehair]] 'returns from the dead' on the 11th of Ascending Water storming into the city with a small group of Solars, Lunars, and Siderials and calling everyone he can reach into the city with him to face what he calls 'The Storm of the Millennium'. Ten days later the storm arrives and following in behind it a host of the fair folk the likes of which has not been seen in centuries. The city is invested and besieged for two months by the Faerie Host and the siege is only broken by the arrival of four full realm legions armed with Cold Iron. Once the Fair Folk are driven back and the city is again secure Angus orders most of the city leveled and an engineering project the like of which the city has not seen in over half a millennium undertaken to extensively alter its geomancy. To finance this undertaking he produces several tons of jade, from what source none can say, and uses his Wyld Shaping charms, which until his return no one knew he possessed, to manufacture the raw materials needed from the chaotic energy left behind by the Fair Folk.

However, no sooner was the project underway than orders came down from the Queen that he was to return to [[Meru]] at once and answer for his absence: and bound by the oaths he took as one of the [[Golden Hero Vassals]] so very long ago he departs. Following up on the plans he has left behind his circle mate [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Levian of the Gilded Staff|Levian of the Gilded Staff]] begins directing the super-massive construction and engineering projects which will if successful create one of the greatest concentrations of manses and geomantic relays outside of the Blessed Isle. By late in Descending fire half the city is gone and an entirely new street plan and so on is rising in its place, along with a massive upgrade to the walls and towers of the city perimeter as well.

What exactly passed for Angus in Meru is unrecorded by any presently known records except perhaps those of the Bureau of Destiny but what is recorded is the results of that visit: Angus was stripped of the rulership of his fief in the south including Solzarian and sent on a quest of penance into the frozen north: while Solzarian and the surrounding area was given into the hands of a relatively young solar of the Twilight Caste from another circle named [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Keisha Adriana Mullion|Keisha Adriana Mullion]] and her lunar mate [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Maxim of Personal Liberty|Maxim of Personal Liberty]].

While Keisha was young she was not stupid and consulted with Levian of the Gilded Staff on what she was doing with the engineering of the city. With the elder Twilight's help, she finished the geomantic reorganization as designed by Angus and by the end of Resplendent Air the basic project is finished. The city is now rife with uncapped demesnes and sites that will become demesnes once they can be activated after some of the others are capped. The city also now confers a geomantic bonus on all mortals living there, allowing them to develop their skills and abilities more quickly than those living in other cities. The full culmination of the project with the activation and capping of all demesnes will not be complete for another 36 years.

==== Time of Cascading Years ====

The Time of Cascading Years took rather longer in Solzarian and the surrounding area than it did in most of Creation: 3333 years to be precise. The relatively young solar ruler who went into the Time of Cascading Years and her only slightly more experienced Lunar Spouse emerges from it with a weight of skill and refinement which makes them elders among the solars and lunars. They also are now both arrayed with a panoply of artifacts and charms that make them forces to be reckoned with in the new Deliberative. The passage of the 'Age of Isolation' in Solzarian is marked by a number of rebellions and uprisings, and the invasion of their lands by the fair folk towards the end of it, from whence none, can say. Supposedly it was the destruction of an artifact which the Raksha Commander carried which restore time to its normal flow according to the people of Solzarian.

=== Second Deliberative Era ===

During the [[User:Nemo of Utopia/PeriodofLongSilence|Period of Long Silence]] Solzarain is one of the few areas still doing significant research, though they are hampered by the continuing disunity of creation and the fearfulness of creation's mortals who are all accustomed to traveling too far from home casting you into a different timeline.

With the Establishment of the new deliberative however Solzarian is thrust into the spotlight for around a hundred years as the home and workshop of one of the most important [[User:Nemo of Utopia:NPCCreationGuidelines/Exalted/FirstAge/Solar/TwilightCaste|Copper Spiders]] of the deliberative. During this period the city is a known destination for the many young Twilight-caste members who were reborn following the restoration of time's proper flow.

As this era goes on however Solzarian becomes less and less important with the rebuilding of the rest of creation, the other Twilights drift away to rule their own fiefs and work on their own projects and as has happened before Solzarian's position far from most significant events of history both at the center of creation and at its rim mean it becomes a backwater. Even it's solar and lunar rulers spend more time in Meru than at home, leaving the city in the hands of [[User:Nemo of Utopia:NPCCreationGuidelines/Exalted/FirstAge/Dragonblooded/Top|Dragon Blooded]] legates.

=== Era of Dreams ===

During the first part of the Era of Dreams, though Solzarian flourishes on the mundane level it remains a backwater on the scales by which The Realm measures such things: a functional and unimportant city in a functional but unimportant section of the world. It does, however, receive an [[IAM|I AM]] Transmission Node linking it to the broader network of information which now spans creation.

Then in the year 3381, it's twilight caste ruler is goaded into violating her eclipse oath to not attack other celestial exalted in Meru, setting in motion a chain of events that will alter the shape of Solzarian's fate for centuries to come, and that of the rest of creation. At first, the botches come hard and heavy, but then they stop and [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Keisha Adriana Mullion|Keisha]] thinks the oath's punishment has run its course.

It has not.

Returning to her holding in the south she begins to work on constructing a [[Proto Shinmatic Vortex]] and at a key stage of the process, the final botch of set activates and the PSV explodes, killing Keisha and creating an intense Wyld Zone south of the city over a hundred miles wide.

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/MaximofPersonalLiberty|Maxim of Personal Liberty]] calls upon every favor he has and even takes on new obligations to arrange the deliberative sending experts at Wyld Shaping to close the rift in the fabric of reality, but the people sent are not the high essence Solars and Lunars he hoped for but rather a cadre of neophytes who have scarce mastered Wyld Cauldron Technology and are woefully unprepared for the madness of the deep Wyld which exists within the rift. Three of them die before the other two calls it quits leaving the Wyld Zone barely stabilized around its edges. It is unrecorded at this remove what keeps the deliberative busy and the more powerful Wyld shapers tied up, but it will not be for another 3 decades that the Wyld zone is fully dealt with and that not by an individual any more experienced than the ones first dispatched, though with far greater caution than the first circle that was sent showed.

== The Usurpation ==

== The Shogunate ==

== The Fall & The Second Age ==

== The Rebirth ==

In RY 760, that same year where so very much else changed for creation (763 in normal Chronicles): the man who

= Government =

In basic, the Government of Amarana really consists of a single man: [[User:Nemo of Utopia/The Patron of Amarana|The Patron]]. He is an autocrat, ruling by divine mandate and shier power, as he is capable of defeating significant deities in single combat. However the Patron is one man, and as such has organized his subjects with several branches of what we would consider a more normal government. This normal government is organized into twelve 'Adeptus' which each is led by one of the twelve 'High Lords of Amarana'. These twelve powerful individuals form a council that advises and assists The Patron in his leadership of the city, feeding him data on several topics such as the state of his subject's religious convictions or the preparedness of his military. Though each High Lord is immensely powerful they all are The Patron's fanatical partisans and would not dream of challenging his authority, even if they could.

== The Adeptus Millitate ==

The Adeptus Millitate is one of the largest branches of Amarana's government, with no fewer than 1250 members in all its branches and subgroups. Though officially in charge of Amarana's Armed services it has a rival in The Adeptus Aeronauticus who oversee Amarana's air-forces. The Adeptus Millitate is run by [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Fist of the Land|Fist of the Land]] a God-Blooded martial artist who is somewhat uncomfortable leading an army of over a thousand people.

The Adeptus Millitate has the following departments and offices:

=== The Departmento Munitorum ===

Oversees the acquisition and care of the equipment and supplies for the army.

==== The Officio Technis ====

Deals with the army's Magitech assets.

==== The Officio Cibum ====

Oversees the all-important function of providing provisions for the troops.

==== The Officio Armorium ====

Handles the more mundane arms and armor of Amarana's troops.

==== The Officio Quartium ====

… is responsible for most everything else, from tents to uniforms to bedrolls.

=== The Departmento Servicum ===

Oversees the actual troops and officers and their training regimens.

==== The Officio Acadamicain Legionarius ====

This office oversees the training of new recruits and officers running two training schools for them.

==== The Officio Cooptatione Legionarius ====

This is the group that sees-to the recruitment and if necessary conscription of new troops for the army.

=== The Departmento Latrocinium ===

Oversees the hiring and 'control' of any mercenary units the government employs but is better known for a more sinister function.

==== The Officio Mercenarius ====

Does the Hiring and Firing of actual mercenaries.

==== The Officio Assasinoritum ====

'The Office of Assassins', to use the Vulgate, runs at least four secret dojos training mortal agents in martial arts that facilitate them serving as The Patron's spies and assassins. [[Nemo of Utopia/Assassin of the Grey Spire|Assassin of the Grey Spire]] 'leads' this office: He is ''not'' a master of the White Veil Style of martial arts and has most ''definitely not'' taught many of its members this secret art form. (Nudge nudge, wink wink, know what I mean, know what I mean? Say no more, say no more!)

=== The Officio Adminstrad Militate ===

This 'Floating Office' makes sure that all of the other Departmento and Oficio within this Adeptus do their jobs properly.

== The Adeptus Arbitiese ==

The Adeptus Arbitese oversee Amarana's police forces, and are one of the larger branches of the government with only 150 individuals on staff, counting every beat cop all the way on up to the High Lord Herself as well as all the file clerks and so on that work for the Adeptus but are not actually part of it's 'fighting strength'. They have only one Departmento and less than a dozen Officio, but so far are keeping a lid on the political turmoil of the city. The High Lord of the Arbitese is [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Steel Garden|Steel Garden]] who is not a very good investigator but a decent politician and capable administrator.

=== The Departmento Queastorum ===

This department is responsible for making inquiries and investigating crime, thus far it is the only Department of the Adeptus Arbitese but the Officio Correctionibus is expected to become a departmento in its own right someday.

==== The Officio Homicide ====

The Office of Homicide consists of only eight people, four detectives, three CSI techs, and one overworked file clerk. Their closure rate hovers at around 50%, though that is only due to them being able to count any suspect killed by the ghost of the victim as a closed case. [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Laurel the Axe|Laurel the Axe]] is the unofficial leader of this group but officially they answer directly to the High Lord of the Arbitese.

==== The Officio Servus Aucupes ====

The term 'office of slave catchers' is something of a misnomer. These detectives do not catch slaves, rather they catch people keeping, taking, or recapturing slaves and send them to their just punishments. This office consists of five overworked personnel, two detectives, two forensic accountants, and one file clerk. Their closure rate is around 30% since it is hard to prove that someone was a slaver without catching them in the act.

==== The Officio Vitium ====

Unlike the officio above this office is not quite so overworked, and the two often help each other out because their work frequently overlaps. The 'Vice Squad' mostly concerns itself with drugs and prostitution, since licensed gambling establishments and most pornography are both legal in Amarana. The officio consists of Four Detectives, five undercover officers, three CSI techs, and a harried file clerk. Their Closure rate is about 45%.

==== The Officio Interioribus ====

This Officio is more for show than anything since all of Amarana's police are held by the Stone of Invincible Loyalty. It consists of two Detectives and one Forensic Accountant. They often spend their time quietly helping out other offices.

==== The Officio Fraude Aucupes ====

This is actually one of the larger offices within the Arbities, having eleven total personnel, six detectives, three forensic accountants, a CSI tech, and a file clerk. The office tries to keep a lid on the Guild and others defrauding Amarana's citizens through various means and does a fairly good job. Their closure rate is about 70%, though this is largely due to a lot of success catching many small-fry while the remaining 30% is almost all of the big players.

==== The Ofiicio Fures ====

The 'office of thieves' is responsible for all break-ins, burglaries, purse snatchings, muggings, cutpurses, and so forth in the city. In spite of having eight detectives, five undercover agents, six CSI, four Forensic Accountants, and five file clerks their closure rate is about 12%. Garion Cromarch is frankly disgusted with them and has told The Patron so. The Patron knows they are doing their best but has ordered mandatory additional training for all members of this office.

==== The Officio Pax Patronum ====

The remainder of the police force is in this office. These are the beat cops that enforce the law by their presence and vigilance. Amarana is a large city and they constantly must be on the lookout for any kind of crime but especially things like drunk and disorderly, disturbing the peace, making an affray, and so on. This office consists of 57 patrol officers and over a dozen file clerks. Twelve of these officers are part of a sub-office of 'Mounties' who do their patrols in teams of three on horseback, they are often called in to suppress larger riots. The officers always patrol in teams of three, one to watch the front of a building and two to look around the sides and catch criminals in a pincer movement. They all carry magitech com units that let them use Wind Carried Words Technique and have Linguistics 3. (Their closure rate is not applicable since they work out of elven precincts and each one has a different closure rate.) One of these officers does not need a comms unit: being a dragon blooded air aspect outcaste named [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Secret Eagle|Secret Eagle]]. They have offered to promote him many times, but he prefers to be a patrol officer, though he has deigned to accept the rank of patrol sergeant for the fourth precinct.

=== The Officio Correctionibus ===

The office of corrections deals with the punishment rather than the apprehension side of crime. They are chronically overworked and typically have more criminals than they know what to do with but manage to do their jobs adequately. This floating office is overseen by Iron Sands, a member of The Broad who has lots of experience getting slaves to do as they are bid.

== The Adeptus Judicate ==

Working closely with the Adeptus Arbites the Adeptus Judicate is the other half of the justice system. These are the many Judges, Lawyers, and Clerks of the Court who make sure that the innocent are not punished with the guilty. At the present time, the Adeptus Judicate consists of 11 judges, 15 prosecuting attorneys, 23 Attorneys of Due Justice (Public Defenders.), 42 'Clerks of the Court' who record and file all rulings and court-ordered contracts, and 17 "Agent's Protection" who follow up on inconsistencies in court records and the welfare of Amarana's citizens in cases such as child abuse allegations and locating jurors that fail to show up for a trial. There are also about 200 private attorneys who are technically part of this Adeptus but not part of the government. The High Lord of the Courts is [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Molly McBride|Molly McBride]] a Demon Blooded northerner who has spent her whole life fighting against injustice and corruption in every form.

Additionally [[User:Nemo of Utopia/The_Patron_of_Amarana|The Patron]] himself is technically also a member of this branch as he has the right to sit in judgment if he chooses on all High Crimes and acts of Treason. He has invoked this right exactly once, mostly to prove that he could. (The person in question was found "Not Guilty by Reason of Insanity" and sentenced to lifetime confinement to a mental institution pending treatment or cure of his condition. He stood accused of twelve counts of grand theft, but psychoanalysis found him to be a kleptomaniac. The police often consult him on serial theft cases, and he is actually fairly good at solving them. However, he does have a problem with stealing other patients’ belongings and the doctor's pens and notebooks.)

Trials are in the American/British style, with a 'jury of one's peers' and the judge presiding from the high seat. The witness's sit to the judge's left and the clerk to the right. The prosecutors are on the left side of the courtroom and the Jury the Right while the accused is in the middle. Unless the accused is elderly or crippled and unable to stand they may not sit. For this reason, individual segments of trial must last no more than 3 hours. Only citizens may serve as witnesses, but since one can at the present time become a citizen after 24 hours residency this is not a problem. Citizens MAY testify with respect to events from before their citizenship. The accused is entitled to an 'Attorney of Due Justice' in the event that they cannot retain their own private counsel. The judge may dismiss any case at any time with or without prejudice, which is done routinely with respect to picayune or spurious civil cases so as to free up Attorneys of Due Justice for criminal trials. The patron is looking into finding more Judges and Attorneys of Due Justice so that civil cases do not need to be dismissed so frequently, which has a distressing tendency to lead to murder.

Abnormally The Adeptus Judicate does not have any departmento or officio, but there are those within it and without that are bucking to change that.

== The Adeptus Sororitatus ==

The 'Sisterhood' as they are called by the common folk is the government Adepta that oversees all _female_ clerics and thaumaturges in Amarana Like their Counterparts in the Adeptus Fratris they are few in number but powerful in influence. Technically also responsible for the worship of all-female gods in the city it is common that women will be priests of male deities and men prelates of a goddess's church. The division of male and female clergy between the AS and AF, however, is strict while the division of deities wavers like the landscape in the summer heat. In spite of these difficulties, the two branches of government get along quite well and cooperation between them is without rancor or strife in most cases. The High Lady of the Adepta is [[Nemo of Utopia/Unrepentant Emerald|Unrepentant Emerald]]. She is a mortal with Enlightened Essence and is exceedingly circumspect in her actions, a paragon of temperance. She is also the head priestess of [[Nemo of Utopia/Amarana Seline|Amarana Seline]].

=== The Officio Festivalius ===

This floating office submits to The Patron which days and locations should have festivals to honor the goddess' of the city. A circle of female clergy decide these events and pass them on to the patron, who generally approves them without comment. This circle is chaired by Unrepentant Emerald.

=== The Departmento Eclesiast ===

This is the main branch of the Adepta, overseeing and licensing all _female_ clergy in Amarana. The department technically consists of all licensed female clergy in the city but in practice, most of the female clergy get their licenses and are about their business having no further interaction with the government except to re-up their licenses once a year.

==== The Officio Licentiae ====

This officio handles the licensing process for all official priestesses, which requires proving you have the following capabilities: Ability to speak and read Old Realm, Basic knowledge of Spiritual Etiquette, (At least 3 dots in occult or 1 + an appropriate specialty.) and training in proper prayer procedures. (Prayer roll performance pool of at least 5 dice.) These requirements may be waived if the cleric has a 'sponsor' with a proper license who is taking on the new cleric as a student to train in service to their god/goddess in which case a 'Postulant Permit' is issued instead. Licenses are issued per deity, so if you wish to be the clergy of multiple gods multiple licenses are required. This is waived in the case of Zenith-caste Solars, Theurge-caste "New-Method"-Lunars, "Redemer"-caste Infernals, and Midnight-caste Abyssals, since it would be more trouble than it is worth to issue a license for every god in creation (for the first two), every each of the recovering yozis and all the greater demons (Redeemers), or ghost above essence 3 in the underworld (Midnight-castes).

==== The Officio Sanctionite ====

This is a smaller office within the departmento, making recommendations to The Patron on which female deities should be given official sanction within Amarana. All the female deities mentioned under the Religion section are sanctioned unless noted otherwise. Being unsanctioned does not mean you cannot be worshiped, but it does mean that you cannot have space allocated for a temple or licensed clergy. Sanctioning however is fairly easy to get since The Patron often simply signs the forms without reading them. (Additionally, all the incarnae are sanctioned, + Gaia and the Dragons.)

==== The Officio Hetterodox ====

This office deals with instances of rogue gods and clergy, such as the notorious Tuggie of the Scavenger Lands and other instances where the celestial bureaucracy has broken down to an unacceptable level. Employing many outside contractors they put spirits who demand illicit worship or sapient sacrifice in their places and also hunt rogue demons and the fair folk's ravagers. Though the actual functionaries of this Officio are few their agents are many and they are always busy.

== The Adeptus Frateris ==

Sometimes referred to as 'The Fraternity' by outsiders this Adeptus is responsible for all male deities and male clergy in Amarana. They take their job seriously and are sometimes noted for being taciturn and uncompromising. They are led by [[Nemo of Utopia/Wauli the Wolf|Wauli the Wolf]], who like his female counterpart is a mortal with awakened essence.

Structurally the Adeptus Frateris is identical to the Adeptus Sorroitatus.

== The Adeptus Mechanicus ==

The Adeptus Mechanicus are an odd bunch. Dressing in Rust Red robes and communicating in their own strange (and highly technical) dialect of Old-Realm they keep outsiders at arm's length. This Adepta is responsible for helping The Patron find and repair the magitech of the city a task that they perform supremely well but which many wonders if this group of strangely obsessed men and women are actually best suited for. Led by [[Nemo of Utopia/Adamant Sprocket|Adamant Sprocket]], an elderly Djala man and his young adult daughter [[Nemo of Utopia/Gears of Fate|Gears of Fate]], this group employs many Djala escapees in the task of repairing and rebuilding the city.

== The Adeptus Diolougus ==

What some would call the state department or the diplomatic corps the Adeptus Diolougus is one of the smallest Adeptus of the Amaranaian government. Led by [[Nemo of Utopia/Exultant Ivory Mother|Exultant Ivory Mother]] (a god-blooded woman from An-Teng, who harbors no feelings of goodwill for either Realm or Guild,) this group of spies and agent's provocateur work to keep Amarana a free city and outside the clutches of both [[The Guild]] and foreign powers such as the [[Realm]].

== The Adeptus Medicae ==

Easily among the smallest Adeptus of the Amaranaian government if one only counts the actual government personnel instead of approximately a-dozen-dozen licensed doctors, psychiatrists, and physicians whom they are tasked with overseeing and who like private attorneys in the city are technically part of the Adeptus: the Adeptus Medicae is as one might have guessed responsible for the physical and mental health of the city. They Tend to this task primarily by licensing and monitoring the city's medical personnel. This Adeptus role is two-fold: first, they are responsible for overseeing those practicing and utilizing any kind of medical skill in the city, from alchemists manufacturing morphine, [[Seven Bounties Paste]], or [[Age Staving Cordial]], to those offering psychiatric counseling outside of a church setting, to the several small private hospitals around the city, to even veterinarians. The Second task of the group is more dangerous and ripe for abuse by far: it is they in large part, as the only people with the requisite expertise, who draw up for [[Nemo of Utopia/The Patron of Amarana|The Patron's]] approval the statutes of law which they are tasked with enforcing. Thus far there has been no conflict of interest or abuses of power but the vast majority of people among the medical personnel of Amarana wait anxiously or avidly for this to begin changing.

The Adeptus Medicae is led by [[Nemo of Utopia/Simon Baker|Simon Baker]], a psychiatrist by trade, who is among the most dangerously insightful and persuasive people you will ever meet, at least that is not one of the exalted. He is, in fact, a god blooded, son of the patron deity of an order of physicians on The Blessed Isle, and is not much taken with the Imacualtes, treating them with frosty professionalism.

== The Adeptus Fabricae ==

Easily the largest and most diverse branch of the Amaranaian government the Adeptus Fabricae oversees all matters which involve or pertain directly to any sort of production, manufacturing, functional artistry, or creation of goods within Amarana's lands. Though ferreting out matters of a criminal nature fall under the heading of the Adeptus Arbites, and the governance of the legal codes is the province primarily of The Patron himself, and Prosecution and judgment of crimes is the business of the Adeptus Judicate, all three of these functions fall partially under this Adeptus' remit.

The Adeptus Fabricae first submits for The Patron's approval all codes and strictures which govern the actions and enterprises of fabricating all tangible products in Amarana, and exhaustive list of matters which fall under their control would be impossible but a few of the more salient follow: Print Shops, Compounding Pharmacies, Paper Mills, Glass Works, Jewelers, Magitech Repair Shops, Smithies, Book Binders, Cobblers, Tailors, and Farms: essentially anything which would be made by any sort of "Craft: XXX" skill is within their authority. The patron then reviews these legal codes and approves or rejects them, which becomes the strictures that the Adeptus Fabricae enforce upon the businesses of Amarana.

Most production facilities of any kind are within the Adeptus Fabricae's remit, with the notable exception of restaurants, taverns, eateries, pubs, tea houses, inns, and food carts which fall under the aegis of the Adeptus Medicae, though oddly pharmacies do not. Neither adepta is happy about this but neither is willing to lose or exchange the area they do have power over for reasons of their own which seem fully sufficient to them. Furthermore, any business that produces a tangible product and directly employs more than 50 people in any capacity is under their remit to license, inspect, and if necessary fine or refer to the Arbiters for investigation.

The following are the Departmento and Officio of the Adeptus Fabricae, each one with significant discretionary power and held in check solely by the High Lady of the Adeptus [[Nemo of Utopia/AuspiciousCrystalLightning|Auspicious Crystal Lightning]] and The Patron.

=== The Departmento Iura ===

The 'Department of Laws' devises and writes out the codes of law which govern the production and creation of goods in Amarana. They have created and submitted to the patron and extensive and thorough list of legal codes regarding the conditions, control, creation, and compensation for most products in Amarana, and those they have not they are working on.

==== The Officio Iura Laboris ====

The 'Office of Labor Laws' designs the codes of law concerning the employment, treatment, and management of Amarana's workforce. They are in the main as despised by the plutocracy as they are beloved by the common folk. Among other laws, they have enacted is the 8-hour work shift and the 6 day work week.

==== The Officio Iura Fabricación ====

The "Office of Manufacturing Laws" creates the codes of law governing the actual production of goods. Other offices govern the details of different types of production facilities or fields, but this office creates the general guidelines which the others work by.

==== The Officio Iura Cotagium Industria ====

The "Office of Cottage Industry" drafts the limited and simple codes which control small scale manufacturing by individuals and small business. They would like to have more extensive and detailed codes but The Patron uses his authority to make the official versions of the law to pare back most of their red tape and BS. He is, in fact, thinking of suspending this office for a period of some months while he looks for a better and less over eager set of people to be its officers.

==== The Officio Iura Officinis ====

This office makes the laws respecting the specific difficulties of production in a factory typesetting. Any production facility with 50 or more employees falls under their regulating authority, even things that are not normally their provinces such as farms, eateries, and pharmacies. For this reason, many production facilities and such, run with a staff of 40, so that even if they hire a handful of temp workers they will not move into this Officio's dominion. This Officio is not-well-liked by most business owners, being seen as overly restrictive and exceedingly interfering.

==== The Officio Iura Pharmicopia ====

== The Adeptus Adminstradum ==

== The Adeptus Aeronauticus ==

== The Adeptus Vectigalia ==

Lying squarely in the middle of the Adeptus of the city in terms of size the Adeptus Vectigalia is The Patron's Tax Collectors and Auditors of Accounts. Little liked by most people in the city they are nevertheless key to its continued function. In addition to overseeing that the government is given it's due and being called on to check the books of businesses which the Adeptus Arbites feel might be doing illegal activities the Adeptus Vectigalia also runs Amarana's national mint, which means that they are monitored closely by both The Patron and the Adeptus Arbites.

Noted for being uncompromising and humorless the Adeptus Vectigalia dress in imperishable formal clothing left behind from the first age. The hot stuffy suits and jackets only contribute to their reputation as dour and unsmiling drones of government oversight, which is perhaps the point of the dress code.

The Adeptus Vectigalia is divided into three Departmento: The Departmento Salari, which collects the taxes in cash or kind, the Departmento Quastorius, who audits people's books, and the Departmento Signo, who oversees the minting and engraving of all Amaranaian currency.

The Adeptus Vectigalia is led by [[Nemo of Utopia/Manifold Gemstone|Manifold Gemstone]] a perfectly ordinary man, who happens to be an excellent forensic accountant if only a passable administrator.

= Religion =

Faith and practice in Amarana are as diverse as the people who have come to live there. Everything from Immaculates to ancestor Worshipers to CotI members to simple priests and adherents of various gods all rub-elbows on the city's streets. Below are a brief rundown of the most prominent of the city's faiths and the deities they worship.

== Immaculates ==

Though the smallest of the city's faiths the Immaculate Doctrine still has hundreds of adherents among the people of the city, many of whom are enlightened martial arts practitioners. They also have a strong support network in the form of outside contacts with The Realm and other Dragon-Blooded.

== The Common Faith/Hundred Gods Heresy ==

The Majority of the population of Amarana believe in the gods as most people of the threshold do: they worship those who can provide them with benefits they want or need and don't understand much about the celestial bureaucracy or how things worked in the first age and that the present state of affairs is a corruption of the 'proper' order of things. Those that do often take the stance that "this is the way things are" and simply go on with their day.

What follows is a brief list of the major deities of Amarana and who or what they are affiliated with:

=== Amarana Seline ===

[[Nemo of Utopia/AmaranaSeline|Amarana Seline]]: As the City Mother of Amarana, Amarana Seline is the leader of the city's spirits. She was promoted from off the dole in heaven by the machinations of a number of bronze faction Sidereals and is fully cognizant of the fact that she '''owes''' them, but at the same time of the fact that as a dispossessed spirit promoted to the rank of City Mother she has few allies and many enemies. For these and other reasons she does not play favorites, at least not much, and is working hard at her job coordinating the smooth running of the city. Though she tries to be largely neutral in truth she is in the camp of the Immaculate Faction, which is part of why the Immaculates are as strong as they are in the city.

=== Mother Midnight ===

[[Nemo of Utopia/MotherMidnight|Mother Midnight]]: As the Senior Goddess of all-natural misfortunes in Amarana 'Mother of Midnight Murder and Mayhem', to use her full name, is a very good person for The Patron to have on his side. Mother Midnight takes positive glee in afflicting his enemies with all manner of troubles and ailments, from murder most foul to tripping on a dropped piece of lumber and spilling twenty boxes of crack from their backpack right in front of a police officer. However she is not really playing favorites, she still inflicts all manner of problems on the Patriots, their enemies just get it first and worst. Mother Midnight also has another interesting fact to her favor: she has been at her post for the past 3000 years. She gets audited on a regular basis and comes up smelling like roses: every, single, time! This drives Wong Bongerok to a level of near slavering fury, especially since he is certain Mother Midnight has been doing some kind of double-dealing and below-board hustle to keep herself fed and clothed during Amarana's long dormancy but has no way to prove it. Thing is, he's wrong. Mother Midnight became a doomsday prepper just after the usurpation and had been stockpiling quintessence and ambrosia for centuries ere the fair folk invaded. She has been living off that stockpile for all the time since and even now could go several centuries were the city to fall again ere she would need to start hustling for her sustenance.

In form, Mother Midnight looks like an exceedingly overweight woman with coal-black skin and long dreadlocked black hair that hangs so long as to trail on the ground. She typically appears nude or dressed in rags but can summon an armor of bones and broken pottery for a cost of 3 motes that gives her 10 lethal/bashing soak for the rest of the scene. For one mote she may reflexively cause any weapon that strikes her which has a hardness of less than 10 to automatically break*, and any weapon that has less than 15 hardness but more than 10 take 5d of damage. Energy weapons are immune to this, such as beam-klaves and weapons with a hardness of more than 15 cannot be affected. These powers do not count as charm use.

*(The weapon still inflicts damage before breaking from this effect.)

=== Pauldron Of Sanctity ===

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/PauldronOfSanctitity|Pauldron Of Sanctitity]]: is the new titular war god of the state, essentially exiled to the post by Atlhat since he is a rabidly punctual and rules obsessed deity that Atlhat has detested for centuries. Pauldron of Sanctity takes the form of a tall man in Gunzosha Armor and wielding a shock pike. He believes in well regimented and organized military units who are drilled and well equipped. In many ways, his notions of war are still trapped in the low first age when he was spawned as the god of a mercenary company, but this is just fine because he is the war god of a city with much of its low first age equipment and infrastructure intact. Though he favors the Immacualtes he is not willing to alter the course of outlined fate one millimeter without approval through proper channels.

=== Garion Cromarch ===

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/GarionCromarch|Garion Cromarch]]: is the god of Amarana's police force, who has waited patiently these seven centuries and more since the loss of the city to the fair folk working unofficially as a P.I. in Yu-Shan and who is the author of Amarana’s rebirth, having convinced the Bronze Faction to engineer the events which have led to that happening. Garion is perhaps more involved in the doings of the city's police than he should be, often helping them out with 'gut feelings' and leading dreams, but so far his interference has not crossed the line of allowed behavior.

Garrion's form looks like an idealized southern human male wearing Sentinel Defense Force armor blazoned with the symbol of Amarana, an eagle in flight wearing broken manacles.

=== Lissom Shining Spring ===

[[Nemo of Utopia/LissomShiningSpring|Lissom Shining Spring]]: a goddess of the local Oasis who temporarily holds two positions both in her old job and as the minster of all water sources within Amarana's sphere of influence. She is not perfidious in this role like Alhat who should not hold both the aegis of southern war god and god of cattle but is genuinely looking for a replacement to take over the role of goddess of springs and oasis: however she is a perfectionist and committed to finding a perfect candidate, which means that though she has interviewed over a hundred prospective applicants she has not found one that she feels is worthy of her longtime position. The Bronze Faction is willing to let her conduct further interviews, for now, but have made it clear that if she does not have a new spirit in the position by the end of next year she will be censured and the task of finding a replacement will be out of her hands. To this end, she has compiled what she calls her 'secondary list': those gods that she felt were 'almost' up to her lofty standards, and if she is running out of time will call them back for a second interview and chose the best one. She still hopes for a perfect applicant however and only has four names on her 'secondary list'.

Lissom Shining Spring's form is that of a large fish, but lately, she has been finding herself slipping into the form of a young woman in the suit of one of the city's hydro-engineering personnel who assists the Patron in making sure that all the pipes are sound before restoring the flow of water to a building. She is not sure she likes this.

=== Sonari ===

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/Sonari|Sonari]]: is the divine minister of sunlight and shadow for Amarana. She works with the bureau of nature to ensure that the proper degree of cloud cover reaches Amarana as well as the appropriate amount of sun. Like many of the gods of Amarana she is newly promoted from being on the dole and fearful of losing her position, but even so, dares to encourage the cult to worship her with little flourishes like rays of light in winter and cool breezes in summer.

She takes the form of a cloud from which pour rays of sunlight.

=== Meroka Jin ===

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/MerekaJin|Mereka Jin]]: the minister of romance and love in Amarana is actually an old pro at the role, having been the minister for the task in the old city and then for the Salaru tribes. He is corrupt as the day is long but adept at hiding his perfidy from anyone and everyone, including to a degree himself.

Mereka Jin takes the form of a vigorous adult man of the south with a rose in his teeth and a rakish smile. He often appears nude or in the robes worn for a wedding among the Salaru.

Mereka is eternally locked in a bitter feud with his theoretical partner Sakarzi: minster of lust and attraction, who is constantly trying to break down the stable romantic relationships her 'partner' builds. For the moment they have reached a detente on the matter of the two factions in which they are most interested, If Sakarzi will do her job for the romantic relationships of the Solarians then Meroka will not try to pair off the Ancestor Cultists into mirages and leave Sakarzi to push them to rut in wild abandon. They have not agreed about what to do with the rest of the population which makes up more than 60%.

=== Bibwit Heart ===

[[Nemo of Utopia/BibwitHeart|Bibwit Heart]]: The 'least' god of Amarana's central manse, Bibwit is uncomfortable with the cult worshiping him as they do. He has seen many least gods that have found themselves at the center of cults growing arrogant and ultimately becoming starmetal and is afraid this will happen to him. He has survived both the fall of the solars and the shogunate by being small and unobtrusive, keeping his manse functional and active while the rest of the city fell apart and he is not going to change that strategy. Still, he is an important god in the city, and as such they venerate him. Bibwit takes the form of an anthropomorphized rabbit with white fur and a tailored coat. He carries a pocket watch that lets him make flurry attacks up to his DEX score with no penalty.

=== Cela Dinarius ===

[[Nemo of Utopia/CelaDinarius|Cela Dinarius]]: Cela is the goddess responsible for Amarana's economy, and she is a personal friend of Glorious Weapon. She is no friend of the Guild and works as much as she dares to keep the guild from stealing artifacts from Amarana for sale to its foreign rivals. Formerly the goddess of Aj-Aran's main market square she was promoted to the overall control of the economy of Amarana via the machinations of the gold faction. She knows the city father is a bronze faction plant but reasons that as long as they both do their jobs properly they should not come into many conflicts. The two have a standing date for tea every Venus day.

Cela Dinarius form is that of an attractive woman carved from silver, and she wears the clothing of a Varangian cloth factor, which was her first job beyond as the least god some 4 centuries ago, patron goddess of a new Varangian cloth consortium.

=== Zalril ===

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/Amarana/Zalril|Zalril]]: Formerly the Least god of Amarana's north gate Zalril has by what amounts to shier-force-of-will moved up to become the patron god of Guild Members working in Amarana. The exact operation of this occurrence has been shrouded in mystery at the orders of Kejop Kajac himself, and further Nazri signed off on it too. The Guild maintains a large shrine just outside his old gate where they leave offerings before entering the city and where three slave women were taken under cover of night and sworn to become Zalril's Priestesses in exchange for their freedom by an Eclipse-caste member who often works for the guild. Though two of them still keep their roles as the god's priestesses the third has left the shrine and now lives in the city as a teacher for the city's new public school. Interestingly she has suffered no ill effects from 'breaking' her oath. Zalril has asked for the Guild to send a replacement but they are still trying to figure out why the oath failed in the first place. Meanwhile [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Sulramia|Sulramia]] finds fulfillment in teaching her students as do [[User:Nemo of Utopia/GayePachudiweOgesu|Gaye Pachudiwe Ogesu]] and [[User:Nemo of Utopia/OxandRainbowSlave|Ox and Rainbow]] the two women that still work at the shrine. Ogesu is an old woman and does the cooking and cleaning while Ox and Rainbow stand guard over the shrine. Sulramia also came with another gift for the god, her daughter, as she was part of a quadratic set, Maiden, Warrior, Mother, and Crone, and if she was to be the 'mother' Zalril insisted that she has a child as proof of her status, who conveniently doubled as 'maiden'. Sulramia's daughter is called [[User:Nemo of Utopia/IronandHoneyMaiden|Iron and Honey Maiden]] and is just the cutest five-year-old you will ever see, with an appearance score of five already. Her mother lives constantly with the fear of pedophiles, but does not let it rule their lives.

=== Walziri ===

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/Walziri|Walziri]]: as the god of beasts of burden within Amarana's lands Walziri is a major player in the lives of Guild personnel who must work or live here. Formerly a lesser deity of travel and trade in Harborhead Walziri was appointed to his new post by the machinations of a cabal of 'Independent' southern Sidereals and understands that he OWES them for this big break. The cabal has not called in that favor, at least not yet, but for the moment are content with him filing informal reports on the going's on in Amarana. While still hard at work at his new post he has already started to play favorites a little with the Guild's Men who pray to him, subtly strengthening their animals and selecting them last when sickness is due to strike the camels or whatnot of the city. Walziri takes the form of a large man of Harborhead derivation wearing several coral necklaces and white robes. He carries a Jade cattle prod which can be used as a spear or thrown like a javelin and returns instantly to his hand.

=== Anyaka Tetsuo ===

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/AnyakaTetsuo|Anyaka Tetsuo]]: The minister of Chance and Gambling in Amarana, Tetsuo is not new to this job. Created as the least god of a set of enchanted dice not long after the Primordial War Tetsuo has risen over the course of the intervening years to a position of moderate power in this city through diligent work and a suspicious number of 'lucky' breaks. Though no investigation has ever found him guilty of any wrongdoing there are enough people that are suspicious of what he surely must have done with his powers to better his status that it is unlikely he will ever rise any higher. Some deities would plot and scheme to continue advancing, but Tetsuo knows better. As a god of chance and gambling, he is well aware that he has been on quite the lucky streak and that is when you should count your winnings, leave the table, and cash in your chips before your luck runs out. He is content to be the god of all chance and gambling in Amarana: and will only rise higher if his natural luck brings him a sudden break, which he is not holding his breath for. He wiles away his time by playing games with the gamblers of the city, making them win or lose in a big way, but staying within the bounds of prescribed fate.

Tetsuo looks like a tall, broad-shouldered, thoroughly tattooed man with a cup and dice for playing a popular gambling game called 'Han or Cho'.

Tetsuo's sanctum is exceedingly large, he has had 700 years of dormancy in Amarana in which to expand it, and it now takes the form of a vast resort with several small casinos and many spas on what appears to be a small tropical island. (At the boundaries of its area there is a big reef beyond which the waterfalls away into nothing.) Tetsuo typically has many of the small gods of gambling and chance living in his sanctum with him at any time. Tetsuo is a colleague of Mother Midnight, not her subordinate, but the two work closely to determine which gamblers will face a string of ill luck.

=== Bagong Fangrick ===

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/BaegongFangrick|Bagong Fangrick]]: As the God of Vermin within Amarana Fangrick is an odd person to aid the guild but the guild will take allies where it can find them. Fangrick is a subordinate of Mother Midnight but has kept himself mostly out of her way and done his job without fuss since the revival of the city. Formerly the deity of rats for the Salaru tribes he was promoted upon the city's revival in recognition of many years of hard work with little reward and not the slightest blemish on his record.

Bagong Fangrick looks like an aged anthropomorphic rat, dressed in the robes of a shogunate era martial arts practitioner.

=== Wisp Virunga ===

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/WispVirunga|Wisp Virunga]]: As the managing deity for all education in Amarana Wisp is a VIP for the Patriots, because she helps their people learn new skills significantly faster, which helps them stay a step ahead of their competition, for the moment. The thing is that Wisp is running a knife-edge game with staying inside what is allowed within her post as a manager for all education in Amarana and what could be censured. This is very very bad: because she is already in trouble with the local censor's deputy for bearing a god blooded child, who is still alive and therefore available as evidence. Just to add insult to injury the censor's deputy has a personal vendetta against her for rebuffing his advances in favor of a mere mortal. Until the revival of Amarana Wisp Virunga was the goddess of its central library, she effectively promoted herself to the chief goddess of education by cozening up to the Patron while he was excavating her manse. When he decreed the first mandatory schooling sessions for the early colonists he had them pray to her as patron of all education in Amarana at the start of each day, when the prayers reached critical mass a few months later she had already conducted a quiet set of interviews and had her replacement as god of the library already prepped and ready to take over at once. This is not precisely an offense against the laws of heaven, but it is somewhat 'bad form' and would count against her slightly in a formal audit. It also has earned some of her fellow deities enmity, especially:...

=== Principle of Justified Action ===

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/PrincipleofJustifiedAction|Principle of Justified Action]]: Heaven has gods of just about everything, including educators. Principle of Justified Action was formerly a deity of a major school out in the distant threshold before the fair folk invasion and only survived that calamity by mere chance, having been in heaven on vacation when the hosts of faerie scourged the world. Since then he has lived on the dole and schemed endlessly to get another position in the bureau of humanity's education office. He finally thought he had one all lined up when Amarana was scheduled to be rebuilt as its manager of education, but the Patron and Wisp Verunga snatched it out of his hands. Yet, when one door closes another opens and a cabal of Gold Faction Sidereals and a few people who were still his friends from the old days managed to finagle him a consolation prize. The role of managing deity for the court system of Amarana was still open since there were not supposed to be any real criminal proceedings for several months yet. Desperate to get off the dole by then and seeing this as his last chance for the foreseeable future he accepted.

What neither he nor the Sidereals that helped him expected, was that he would LIKE the work. Managing a court system is not so different in truth from managing a school, you have trouble makers, erudite and passionate people, a lot of people who really don't want to be there, an ever-changing cast of characters doing many old and a few new stupid things, a complex set of rules you must adhere to; the similarities were rather a shock. Of course, there were differences, mostly in the fact that things move both so much slower most of the time and so much faster in the crunch, but he got his sea legs within a month or two and found himself enjoying having a real job again. That said, Principle of Justified Action is still no friend of Wisp Virunga and would dearly love to put in an application to replace her should she fall afoul of the auditors. However he bides his time, after all, he is employed in a job that he does not find onerous and has plenty of prayers coming in from both sides of the law, Wisp has no experience and is drowning in her duties, let them see what putting an untried administrator into such an important post does! Chances are that within the decade he will have her job: so runs his reasoning.

The Patron is another matter. He likes the Patron, rather a lot, and finds in the autocrat of the city a kindred spirit: and of course, cannot fault the man on the matter of his dedication to an educated society. He sometimes pokes the patron in the subconscious when he is contemplating a bad law, or about to reject a good one, and thus far does not consider it any kind of offense against heaven's rules. He is, in fact, wrong, he has committed no less than 5 level-one offenses in this manner, but that will largely be ignored unless he does more than mere subconscious nudging, after all, he has not really messed up any major plans this way so far.

In form Principle of Justified Action looks like a tall man from the furthest east, wearing the green and red robes of a seated Judge of Amarana's courts. His hair is shock white, a remnant of his time among the starving unemployed but he finds it suits his image as a wise leader of the courts. Abnormally for a god of justice he is lenient with most offenders, reasoning that if you punish too harshly you deny them a chance to learn from their mistakes. However, anyone who harms children sees the other side of him, a fury of unrelenting hatred that will see them hanged if at all possible.

=== Sakarzi ===

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/Sakarzi|Sakarzi]]: though she would dearly love to bring about the Patron's ruin and overthrow Sakarzi: minister of lust and attraction for Amarana, has a problem: She is both terrified of him and lusts after him obsessively. Sakarzi met the Patron before he mastered Amarana when she was bathing in a sacred hot-spring on the borders of the lands now claimed by the city in the guise of a comely Salaru maiden and he was following his awakened memories back to the city to claim his destiny. There at the hot-spring, she tried to seduce him.

She Failed.

The patron was clearly attracted to her and wished to accept her advances but mastered himself with an effort of will and politely refused. Five more times in five different guises Sakarzi has tried to seduce him and each time has been rebuffed, but always politely. This is why she is terrified of him, no one else whom she has ever tried to seduce has refused her advances so many times, especially since each of those times she has used progressively more of her supernatural powers, in the last instance activating an effect that should have compelled him to lie with her will he or no. She lusts after him because she has a weakness for powerful men, and The Patron certainly is one: but it is his immunity to her mystical powers that have made it an obsession. With the Patron, Sakarzi can use only the arts available to a mortal woman to snare the man she desires, and it is driving her to distraction. Perhaps an hour's worth of time out of each of her days is frittered away trying to think up new ways to seduce the Patron that rely only on her natural skills and personal beauty, but thus far she has not come up with anything worth using on a seventh attempt. The reason that Sakarzi would love to see the patron fall is that after she started a feud between three of the early families of colonists by seducing three of their sons and declaring that only the last one living would bed her the patron caught her outside her sanctum and beat her to within an inch of her life, declaring that if he ever caught her pulling that kind of stunt on his supporters again he would not pull his blows the second time.

These conflicting emotions are tearing Sakarzi apart, she lusts after the patron, but wants to ruin him, but is terrified of him, but she wants to have sex with him so bad she can taste it: Etc, Etc. In the meantime, she has appeared to several of the Patriots and declared her support for the patron's cause offering her help in securing the objects of their desires and the word has spread among them that if you erect a shrine to her in your residence and pray at it twice a day, morning and night, she will aid you in seducing whoever you most lust after.

While Sakarzi has many forms she can assume her true form is that of a Salaru woman of surpassing beauty and grace who literally cannot wear clothing. Her merest touch causes any garment to become invisible for one hour, so there is no point in her wearing any kind of raiment except for its protective value, which she rarely does.

=== Machuko; Torch of Freedom ===

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/MachukoTorchofFreedom|Machuko; Torch of Freedom]]: Is it any wonder, considering the status of Amarana as a free city where none may be held in bondage without due process of law, that the patron deity of Liberation and Abolitionism should view it with favor and even more so it's leader who enacted the law in question? [[Rabsolga]], the patron of slavery, hates and despises Amarana and if for no other reason than that Machuko loves and protects it. Furthermore, Machuko is [[User:Nemo of Utopia/ThePatron|The Patron]]'s patron god, to whom he prays five times a day, and is celebrated with five feast days each year, one at the beginning of each 'resplendent' month. Even the Immaculates honor these five days of worship, because the Patron has been known to have those that speak against honoring the feasts arrested and tried for sedition and/or aiding and abetting slavers, and their leader does not need that kind of attention, so he has said: "These days honoring Machuko are sanctioned by the immaculate faith, so long as you pray unto him only on these days you do not sin against the orders of Heaven."

Machuko keeps a large temple in the city's northeast quarter: a level 3 fire aspected manse called 'The Wheel of Torches' from it ride forth his clergy and devout adherents numbering several dozen strong on raids into the wastes beyond Amarana's borders proclaiming Machuko's glory and the freedom of all people within the lands of Amarana. Machuko has many priests across all of creation but nowhere are there so many gathered together as in Amarana.

In form, Machuko looks like a tall muscular man of what modern people would call Jewish/Hasidic/Israeli derivation, with a wild beard and long hair that hangs in ringlets. He carries a gore maul and chopping sword of orichalcum and white jade which when used together can cut any chain or bond. He has another form, which he assumes rarely except when in heaven, which is that of a great Dragon filled with yellow-white fire and made from millions of broken chains, collars, and manacles.

== Ancestor Cultists ==

Led by [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Sharima of the Three Disciplines|Sharima of the Three Disciplines]] and her ghostly lover [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Aruna the Defiant|Aruna the Defiant]] this group of citizens is a large and vocal part of the city's population. Though dwarfed by the percentage of the city who worship the city's gods and elementals the Ancestor Cultists make up as much as 20-25% of the city's population and are especially prominent among the [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Salaru|Salaru]].

The Ancestor Cultists make use of a large number of small [[Shadowlands]] across the city to communicate more directly with their patron spirits and interact with the underworld: but are mindful of [[User:Nemo of Utopia/The Patron of Amarana|The Patron]]'s injunctions about not breaking the circles of salt and other wards which keep the ghosts within the Underworld. They are however constantly working to locate 'new' and unguarded Shadowlands for their patrons to use to slip in and out of the underworld, which The Patron minds not one bit so long as they report them for the Adeptus Sororitatus/Frateris to seal in due course.

Though most of the people of Amarana are unaware of this fact the Ancestor Cultists are being controlled from behind the scenes by a Deathknight known as [[User:Nemo of Utopia/The Fluttering Fist of the Deadly Labyrinth|The Fluttering Fist of the Deadly Labyrinth]] he is a martial artist in service to The [[Mask of Winters]] who has wandered off on his own agenda far from thorns and The Mask's traditional area of operation. "The Fist" came to Amarana in search of a rumored cache of [[Autochthonian]] [[Soulsteel]], held in the vaults of the undercity, but has found that much of the undercity is sealed and inaccessible even from the [[Underworld]]. In the meantime, he works on the ancestor cultists as both a way to support himself and something to occupy his time while he trains to learn the charms that will allow him to enter the prehuman depths of the city where he hopes the bars of [[Autochthonian Soulsteel]] can be found.

Though the ghosts of Salaruku are numerous and very old surprisingly few of them are Heroic Ghosts and willing/able to serve as patrons for Amarana's ancestor cultists. Of those that do It is surprisingly four of the youngest ghosts that are the main patrons worshiped by the cultists: along with one exceedingly old ghost from the fall of Salaruku.

=== Xufuwne Onuke ===

The leader of Amarana's relatively large population of ghosts from the time of the fair folk invasion Onuke is frighteningly powerful but relatively easy going. He has outlasted Amarana's long dormancy and now looks forward to an era of joy and plenty for the city's dead. A dragon blooded warrior in life Onuke was killed battling the invaders from the wyld and in an odd twist of fate, they buried him with high honors. His tomb lies in the still mostly sand-covered western half of the city at the center of a small park and is one of the barest handful of areas in that region that have been excavated in advance of the main work. In form, Onuke looks like a typical dragon blooded of the shogunate, dressed in power armor and wielding a Daiklave. He has subsisted by hunting plasmic creatures for most of 700 years but welcomes the changes of the reborn city. Onuke is the cult's equivalent of a war god, a role he shoulders without complaint but also without relish.

=== Aruna the Defiant ===

Hailing from Chiaroscuro Aruna is the lover of Sharima, and they have many Ghost-blooded children together. They were maneuvered into the leadership of the cult by agents of [[The Archon of Apostasy]] who wished to have a shining example of ghost/mortal co-operation in Amarana to help people accept the death cult in their midst. The Archon's agents do not believe the plan is working but they are wrong, were it not for the two of them the cult would have been burned out root and branch. Aruna is a relatively young ghost but has become powerful quite quickly thanks to her lover and her association with various death cults. In appearance, Aruna looks like a young woman of the Delazen, beautiful and alluring for all her ghostly translucence and pallor. Aruna is the cult's patron of love and romance but gives short shrift to lust.

=== Emerald Lotus ===

Like her partner's Monkey of the City and Triumphal Eagle of the Flawless Hill, Emerald Lotus has been elevated to leadership by the machinations of the Patron, who decreed a feast day in their honor on the day of their deaths defending Amarana from an attack by a trio of 'Hounds of the Unbroken Earth'. None of them is experienced enough to really do the jobs that they have had thrust upon them but they all are rising to the challenge. Emerald Lotus resembles a typical woman of the deep south dressed in a white robe and headscarf that covers everything but her face, and overtop that a breastplate of steel. She is neither attractive nor ugly but is very charismatic. She carries an infinite jade chakram as her main weapon and also bears a perfect chopping sword for close fighting. Emerald Lotus is the patron 'deity' of the cult's Martial Artists, as she had some experience with that in life. She still is finding her feet as a ghost and defers to Xufuwne Onuke on most matters.

=== Monkey of the City ===

Dressed in lamellar and wielding a shock pike monkey of the city is not really suited to his role as a leader of an ancestor cult. Having been an outcast and wanderer in life who always tried to keep people happy and was quick with a joke or to share his water he has not changed much in death. However, there is a place for the fun and funny guy in any pantheon and Monkey of the City fills that role for the Ancestor Cultists of Amarana. Monkey of the City is the cult pantheon's trickster and comic relief, which he does not mind one bit.

=== Triumphal Eagle of the Flawless Hill ===

Wearing a Red Jade reenforced Buff Jacket Triumphal Eagle, or simply 'Der Aller'* as he prefers to be called, was not much of a warrior in life, but was on rotation for guard duty when the hounds attacked and were predictably killed by them. Buried with honors along with the rest of the four and then raised up as a patron spirit of the city he has persisted as a leader due largely to [[User:Nemo of Utopia/The_Patron_of_Amarana|The Patron]]'s favor and the fact that he is a very intelligent man, who is knowledgeable about many subjects. His role in the city's death cult is that of a spirit of wisdom and intellect, as well as oddly the patron, so to speak, of the Adeptus Aeronauticus.
*(Which means 'the Eagle' in his native tongue, a northern barbarian language...)

== Cult of the Illuminated ==

The Cult of the Illuminated has a relatively small and subtle presence in Amarana, but never-the-less are present. Their agents and activists walk among the cults dedicated to the various celestial exalted who have come to Amarana quietly preaching of the unity of creation and the duties of the 'Shining Ones' to be the leaders and stewards of creation. "Someday," they say. "All creation will be united behind the Shining Ones, and on that day those who have served them well will have rewards beyond their wildest dreams."

Among the 17 or so celestial exalted in the city 6 are allied with the Cult of the Illuminated, and some of the others are sympathizers. The CotI worshipers pray to most of them and work to support their interests.

= Geography =

Geographically Amarana lies at the point just before the sands of the deep desert begin to give way to the rocky foothills of the summer mountains. When the spring rains sweep in from the north it is prone to flooding and mud, while the heat of high summer brings the blazing Simoon roaring out of the deep desert and with it short tempers and sharp words that sometimes flare into brutal murders. Winter is a season of joy and happiness for the citizen's of Amarana, as the power of the elemental pole of Air waxes and the desert is cooled, allowing snow to briefly form in the nearby summer mountains which are trucked into Amarana by old roads and made into flavored sherbets and snow cones for those with the Patron's favor, especially small children, of whom The Patron is known to be quite fond. The foothills around Amarana abound with resources brewed up by the slowly retreating Wyld or pushed from deep within the earth by the strange forces by which creation renews itself over the centuries, including many veins of silver from which Amarana mints its currency. Meanwhile, the desert around Amarana is rich with fire dust and gem sand, especially during the nights of the new moon when the Wyld retreats for several miles further south and exposes a wide swath of 'tainted' land, especially where the city has been slowly pushing the Wyld back by infecting it with billions of grains of what is essentially Elemental Earth. This area is hazardous as well however because the tainted area is not just composed of valuable sands, but also dangerous ones, such as quicksand, shatter sand, and hungry sand. For every person from Amarana who strikes it rich mining firedust or gemsand in the tainted lands on the nights of the new moon, another finds themselves injured, killed, or mutated: in Amarana 'Firedust Miner' looks fair to rank among the top 5 'most dangerous professions' for the first year of recorded statistics in the city, right behind 'Rogue Spirit Protection Expert' and 'Pharmacist' but just ahead of 'Building Excavation Team Member' and 'Artifact Recovery Personnel'

Nearby Amarana are a number of Small Oasis, Hot Springs, and Geysers which have long provided the Salaru tribes with water. Though 90% of the tribesmen have returned to their ancestral home a few chose to stay out in the wastelands for one reason or another, and now gather into three new small tribes: the western, northern, and eastern Salaru.

To the west, the desert is hot by day and cold by night, with only trackless sand to greet your eyes, the Salaru who have stayed out in this wilderness journey mile upon mile between oasis that are often buried under the shifting sands and must be dug down to gather up their water. They survive by hunting snakes and lizards and trading fire dust and jewel sand with the Guild for added food and water. Though trade is their main source of contact with the outside they no longer must rely upon it or perish, with the total number of tribe's men in this region reduced by more than 95% they now can survive on their own without help, but it would be a spartan existence. Trade gives them luxuries and better equipment, which they put to good use. The western salaru do not keep herd beasts or in fact, any animals except hunting dogs, the land here is too harsh for this to be profitable. They worship many nature spirits, but few major deities except the Unconquered Sun, who is seen as a wrathful god of war and destruction, and Luna in her aspect as The White Navigator, who is seen as a benevolent and helpful deity. Though they honor the high holy days of the five maidens they are not much revered outside those times.

To the north, the Salaru who have not returned to their city are primarily herders and gatherers, as the foothills of the summer mountains provide old lava tubes and other places to hide from the sun by day and keep flocks dry when the rains come. Their life is perhaps the least harsh of the three new tribes since they have kept the most of their population, with only about 80% going to live in the city and in all cases leaving a few family members to mind the herds and ancestral cave or rock-cut house. They also were the most numerous of the Salaru before the return to Amarana, having six of the 10 Salaru tribes living in their region. and now are by far and away the most populous of the three 'outside' tribes. They also still contribute a good chunk of Amarana's food supplies, which means that even the Patron must treat with them on their terms. On the other hand, they know that the Patron, while a patient man, does have his limits and that their families back in Amarana would suffer first and worst if they cut off the shipments of food and other goods to the city, so they treat the Amaranaians with a much respect as they expect in return: so far the city and the northern tribe have a strong alliance of mutual benefit and support. The northern Salaru frequently revere Atlhat, the southern god of war and cattle, in addition, they also revere the Celestial Incarna and Gaia as well as many nature spirits.

The tribes to the east were always the most desirous to return to Amarana, for they could still see it's central tower sticking up out of the sand. However, when the time came, an influential leader named [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Sabris of the Two Spears|Sabris of the Two Spears]] convinced them that they should instead of all going back to the city leave some people behind and send their sons and daughters back into the summer mountains to live with those that stayed for two years as a right of passage. This has proved to their great advantage, for they now own the rights to much of the mineral wealth in the summer mountains near Amarana and have risen to be among the city's most wealthy families. The mountain Salaru were hunter/gatherers before Amarana's recovery and it is in this capacity that the children sent to the old mountain fastnesses must learn to survive when they are facing their Adavam Ordeal. The eastern Salaru mostly hold up a host of small gods for worship and revere the celestial Incarna on their high holy days. They are however the nearest things to atheists Creation has, feeling that if a person cannot survive without divine intervention then they are weaklings that must be excised from the gene pool. Many of them are swayed to a degree by the Immaculate faith but reject the idea that the Dragonblooded are creations, rightful rulers, their tribes have long memories and have heard the tales told by the Lunars of the perfidy of the Dragonblooded and the glory once created by the Solars, and twice in their exile have seen this glory first hand before the Dragonblooded showed up and ruined things.

To the south of the city, a wyld zone bleeds into reality for almost eight hundred miles from the maximum edge of the world. Though the city lies near the edge of this wyld zone it is not part of it, not even when the wyld storms blow in the autumn. This is perhaps partly because the city's strong geomancy prevents it from being absorbed or perhaps some form of potent first age artifact still protects the city as it did during the invasion so long ago. If the Patron knows he is not telling. Either way, there is and never has been a tribe of the Salaru to the south of the city. If the work they are doing to push back the wyld succeeds as well as it has been thus far, there may be, soon.

= Ethnicity =

Amarana is an ethnically mixed city, with people from all over creation having gathered in under its banner thanks to [[The Ghost/The Patron|The Patron's]] zero-tolerance policy towards slavery. In the main however the population is drawn from the peoples of the south, as escaping slaves are most able to reach Amarana from it's nearest neighbors, [[Virangia]] and [[The Delazen Empire]].

== The Salaru ==

Descendants of the people who fled Salaruku in the face of the Balorian Crusade the Salaru have waited a long time to return to their city. Composed of 10 culturally distinct tribes the Salaru make up an ever decreasing percentage of the city's population as more and more foreigners come to the city and settle in. That said the Salaru, though small in number, have a disproportionate impact on the city's culture and politics, due to knowing the lands surrounding Amarana like no one else and therefore having a vastly outsized amount of wealth and clout.

The Salaru are subdivided into the following tribes:

=== The White Scars ===

This tribe numbers about 50 and have long been ancestor worshipers, they have been swayed to the cause of the Ancestor Cultists. They take their name from the practice of ritual scarification of face and hands to tell one’s ancestry and chest to recount great deeds. The White Scars hail from the west of the city. The White Scars are a strangely secretive bunch, they keep their own council and follow their own guidance. Alone of the Salaru tribes, the White Scars have wholey emigrated to the city, abandoning their ancestral lands to the Western Salaru's care and finding employment within Amarana. Most of them agree that this has been a drastic improvement in their living conditions. Their ancestors, however, worry about grave robbers and frequently ask the members of the tribe with the skills to do so to go back and check on the old burial grounds.

=== The Golden Bulls ===

Originally hailing from the north of the city this tribe has been sun worshipers since time out of mind, and have naturally gravitated toward the Solarion's cause. They take their name from the bloodline of golden-haired cattle that they breed, tend, and guard, which according to legend were a gift from the champions of the sun during an age long past in recompense for their service defeating an army of the Raksha. The Golden Bulls are among the largest tribes of the Salaru, numbering some 300 strong counting both those that came into Amarana and those that stayed behind to be part of the Northern Salaru. They revere Atlhat and The Unconquered Sun as their patrons and are known for their skill as warriors though they are overmatched by some of the other tribes thanks to awakened essence and charms. The Golden Bulls are largely employed as butchers, health inspectors, and members of Amarana's army, while the large contingent that remained in their ancestral lands tend their herds of golden-haired cattle as they always have done, though they now drive the excess males to market in Amarana for slaughter rather than keeping them home. The Golden Bulls’ primary combat style is with spears and Bullhide Shields, with firedust grenades to break tight formations. They would not look out of place in Harborhead, and marriages between Harborhead immigrants and the young men and women of the tribe are not uncommon, though frowned upon by some of the tribe elders due to the harborheadite's attitudes towards slavery, which the tribe has always held as blasphemy.

=== The Get of Vexan ===

Often called simply 'the get' by outsiders this tribe calls themselves the 'Vexanites'. The get is descended from a powerful Lunar who lived among the Salaru for a century or so starting a few decades after the fair folk invasion was driven back by the Empress. The Vexanite's hold a secret: their tribe is led by a family of Serpent Beast Men founded by Vexan and preserved through complex webs of intermarriage with other serpent-folk from as far away as the silent crescent. The get is currently led by a charming and curvaceous young woman from the southeast jungles named Nyoka. What they do not yet know is that she is actually the modern incarnation of their founder's exaltation and has been having sex with one of the tribe's greatest warriors in her spirit form of a twenty-foot dragon snake in the hopes of bearing beast folk children. She walks among the tribe in her Warform, that of a great dragon-like serpent woman with the fangs and venom of a cobra and the wings and claws of a dragon. The Get hailed from the mountains east of Amarana.

=== The Iron Raptors ===

Though founded by a group of outlaws and murderers the Iron Raptors are ironically a major component of Amarana's police force. Having originated as an inner-city gang during the last days of the shogunate the Iron Raptors turned their coats when the fair folk came calling at the end of the contagion. They took hundreds of people out of the city through hidden tunnels and other smuggling routes: people who became the founders of the other Salaru tribes. Since then they have slowly moved from running protection rackets over the other tribes, to actually protecting them, to being their main form of law enforcement and wandering justiciars. Now that Amarana is resettled they have taken up the role of their distant ancestors' worst enemies, an irony that is not lost on Garion Cromarch. The Iron Raptors’ central holdings were to the north of Amarana but they wandered freely among the other tribes and in fact still do, being welcome among any of the other Salaru. They worship Garion Cromarch as their patron deity, but also reviver a number of small gods of crime and larceny, propitiating them in recompense for reducing their portfolios and defeating their natural worshipers.

=== The Kelderkin ===

Another tribe from the city's north the Kelderkin are the descendants of Marion Kelder and are an agricultural matriarchy. They revere Gaia to the near exclusion of all other deities and hold that all other gods are really aspects of Gaia, subsidiary souls of the Maiden of Plenty. They are more right in this belief than most people realize. All Kelderkin women can trace their ancestry to Marion Kelder via one of her seventeen daughters, and which daughter you are a descendant of determines what your role in the tribe is. The only roles that are not decided by your ancestry are 3: Shaman, Champion, and Speaker. The Speakers are the leaders of the tribe and set it's policy, while the shamans and champions advise them and defend the tribe. Marion Kelder was a wood aspected dragon blooded and even to this day a Kelderkin man or woman will sometimes exalt as another wood aspect. Currently, there is one such person among the Kelderkin, Mwaloni Kelder who is a gifted archer and huntress that leads an all-female unit of other archers in the Amarana armed forces. She is also a sex addict and currently dating four separate men, two of which are identical twin Djala who regularly have Manage-a-Trois with her.

=== The Chosen of Flame ===

Hailing from the city's west The Chosen of Flame has been firedust gatherers for as long as anyone can remember. They gathered firedust far south of the city during the shogunate and came to Amarana to trade it. When the hosts of Fairie came sweeping in from the edge of the world after the great contagion they ran before them and were caught up in the exodus from Amarana, helping many of the civilized folk adapt to the desserts. The Chosen of Flames make up the lion’s share of the new western tribe, but even so, most of them have moved into the city and settled down as experts and factors in the firedust trade. They are a prosperous tribe that is in a state of transition as they adapt to being a settled people for the first time. Numbering approximately 75 persons in the city and an equal number now part of the Western Salaru the Chosen of Flame boasts several god-blooded among their number, and actively court new fire elemental unions. Their God Blooded include Gitchsune Folarabi, Malawi Besmar, and Kubrisa Suknis, among others.

=== The Iconographers ===

Among the tribes of the Salaru, few can argue that the Iconographers are not among the most learned and civilized. Hailing from the cities northeast they have preserved an astonishing amount of lore from the low first age, especially on the subject of geomancy. Now almost universally employed by the Patron excavating and repairing manses they are well off and respected. The Iconographers place great store by erudition and knowledge, and gain position and prestige among their own via a set of grueling examinations conducted by their tribe's patron spirits once every ten years, and always in old realm. Because of these tests of knowledge, the tribe is led by its elders, who have had the most time to study and learn, and they are prone to contemplation and thoughtfulness. Among other advantages this has gifted them with is the possession of five small Manses outside the city, raised after the city's abandonment by their own hands. These manses have made their ancestral lands fertile and bountiful, making them one of the largest salaru tribes with 200 members in five small villages around the Manses before they emigrated to Amarana. Of all the tribes their desire to return to the city was among the greatest, but they did leave one family behind in each village to see to its welfare and upkeep in perpetration for their Descendents and those selected to join them by the Patron returning. The Iconographers in city number 175 or so and are very much in the Patron's camp. They are led by Sukiwara Madoka, a god blooded thaumaturge of advanced years and not inconsiderable skill.

=== The Eisil ===

As a tribe of pastoral hunters and gatherers in the city's eastern area, the Eisil would not be remarkable except for the fact that they are master storytellers and thespians. The role of Storyteller is the most honored position within their culture and many people aspire to it but few succeed. Their greatest tale is that of Sakarazat, a woman who was taken captive by a rapacious dragon blooded lord and over the course of two and a bit years told him a thousand stories which prevented him from killing her, and in the end, led the dragon blooded to let her go. Now that the Eisil have returned to Amarana they are mostly working at simple jobs like sand clearer or coachman (They have long preserved the arts of chariot racing as part of their festivals.) but a significant number of them now take the long-coveted role of storyteller or actor, and are among the best in the city, being sought out by talent scouts and stage managers for private and public engagements. The Eisil hail from the high mountains east of Amarana where the snow falls in winter, they are paler complected than most Salaru and have massive barrel chests from dealing with the thin air.

=== The Mantis Tribe ===

From the northwest of the city, the Mantis tribe straddle the border between the desert and the foothills of the Amaranaian lands. They have survived by placing great store by martial arts and awakened essence, and among their number only the young typically do not have awakened essence, nearly everyone over the age of 25 has mastered this basic precept. By the age of 30, most people have achieved the form type charm of one of the 5 main martial arts of the tribe, and by the time they reach venerable status at 65, nearly everyone is a master of their chosen style. This has allowed the Mantis Tribe to become large and prosperous but puts them in an uncomfortable position of being alternately feared and nearly worshiped by the other tribes, who look to them for protection from spirits and demons. It also puts them in another uncomfortable position: their various schools of martial arts do not always get along, and more than once the tribe has been wracked by internal strife, especially between the members that adhere to the Immaculate Philosophy and the people that worship the local gods outside that framework. At the moment it seems like the tribe is heading for another such civil war, and this time it may drag the whole city into it.

=== The Broad ===

Alone of the Salaru the Broad actually hate the Patron. The Broad was from the uttermost western areas of the Salaru and also alone among their number made a common practice of keeping slaves, but not so much for the purpose of having them work for the tribe but rather to sell to the guild. They ranged far among the sandy wastes waring with members of other tribes and capturing them to sell for the supplies they needed to survive and prosper. Many among their number were heroic mortals and with the exception of the Mantis Tribe and the Chosen of Fire they boasted the most members with awakened essence and/or god-blood. They also served as a dumping ground for the criminal and malcontents of the other tribes leading them to be less cordial with the rest of the Salaru than any other tribe. However, even the Broad wished to return to Amarana enough to give up their slave taking practices, at least, some of them did. When the Patron decreed all people of Amarana Free men and women shortly before the Guild arrived the Broad fractured over whether to return to their ancestral homeland or remain in the wastes and live as they had done for centuries. In the end, the tribe split 60/40 in favor of returning to Amarana and becoming part of the new society, but the 40% that remained in the wastes no longer consider themselves beholden to the Patron, Amarana, or even the Salaru. These people, called by their former associates The Red Broad are now considered outlaws brigands by the Isknadarian government and hunted whenever they stray close to the fifty-foot Glass Pillars that mark the borders of the Amaranaian lands. They are firmly in the camp of the Guild's Men and infiltrate the city regularly to capture and smuggle out valuable slaves that have escaped to Amarana from other lands.
The 60% of the tribe that has returned to the city are in the camp of the Death Cultists since the Broad were by and large ancestor worshipers before they returned to Amarana and see no reason to change that now. Calling themselves 'The Green Broad' they have no love for the patron but do love their city and will fight to the death to defend it. Most of them are now members of the city's military and are locked in a bitter feud with their former tribesmen. The members of this tribe that are not military mostly work as overseers for the small but growing cadres of 'indentured servants' kept by the city government in punishment for some of the most heinous crimes such as rape and enslaving another person.

=== The Western Salaru ===

=== The Northern Salaru ===

=== The Eastern Salaru ===

== The Djala ==

The D'jala are a sub-faction of the Patriots at the present time. Having been liberated by the Patron from their enslavement by many people who have brought them to the city in bondage they are fanatical partisans of the city's leader and from a major component of his power base. The Djala form five small tribes into which new arrivals are folded by ties of kinship, alliance, or marriage within weeks of arrival. The number of newly married Djala in the city is staggering, easily 40% of all new arrivals are pushed into marriages within a month of becoming residents, and somehow nearly all these mirages are happy ones. What the Djala elders know but have not officially publicized is that one of the Djala's patron gods is an old drinking buddy of [[The Ghost/Meroka Jin|Meroka Jin]] and has called in a favor with the minister of romance and love to arrange this happy state of affairs for his people in the city. This is not going to last, because [[The Ghost/Sakarzi|Sakarzi]] is going to start screwing around with them, but for the moment she is distracted by her work with the death cult.

== Varangians ==

== The Delazen ==

== Deep Southerners ==

Nemo of Utopia/Amarana

2020-07-14T11:56:13Z

Nemo of Utopia: /* Manses and Demesnes of Amarana */

Amarana is a first age city, lost to the contagion and the fair folk invasion over 700 years ago. It is now coming back to life under the aegis of [[User:Nemo of Utopia/The_Patron_of_Amarana|The Patron]] who wields the power of the [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Five_Signs_of_Harmonic_Unity|Five Signs of Harmonic Unity]].

= Amarana =

Amarana Is comprised of a large area surrounded by a circular wall. At the edge of that wall are twelve triangular towers that contain the major military resources of the city. Of these towers, eight have been fully excavated, and the ninth is being examined and the sand removed even now.

Within the city is organized into four quarters but only two of them are even partially excavated, the two on the eastern side of the city, and even there many buildings still slowly seep sand into the streets out of cracked windowpanes and the door seems. The buildings of Amarana tend to a certain Egyptian flare or perhaps it would be better to say pre-Arabic since they are after all, by and large, the product of the low first age. The buildings are built of a quasi imperishable ceramic that resembles adobe, with the most significant having windows of Chiaroscuro Glass and doors made of either that same substance or Stainless Steel. Buildings are generally between six and ten stories high with essence powered air conditioning and elevators both of which the Patron must personally repair before the building becomes usable again.

Unlike many old realm cities, Amarana is laid out on a grid, instead of in a radial pattern. This gives a geomantic bonus to the people who live there: namely that mortals gain +1 XP per time XP is awarded. This bonus actually accrues every half year if using long term awards. The players can uncover this information with a dif10 [wits + occult] roll once every month they spend in the city beginning on the second day they are here. The bonus only applies to true mortals, not god blooded, ghost blooded, awakened Martial artists or any exalt, but does apply to dragon kings and jadeborn who are not Artisans.

So far roughly half of the city has been uncovered, but even here there are a lot of buildings that are collapsed, or still filled with sand and roped off with red cables and even more locations where there are red cables indicating small shadowlands or dimenses that are not to be approached until the city can close/cap them.

The excavation is proceeding irregularly, moving from the east wall out toward the west except around the central manse and the road from the north gate to the south gate. There are markets in most squares and a number of shops on the ground floors of buildings. Few merchants here are officially affiliated with the guild since many people in the city are escaped guild slaves and loath the guild vehemently.

Nearly everything except slaves is available for sale, including many products from The Wyld. Firewands and Flame Pieces are the core of the weapons markets along with accessories such as bayonets, powder horns, and pieces of flint or obsidian for strikers. Interestingly Cannons are not for sale, being reserved for the government, but anyone with contacts 2 or higher could find someone who knows someone who could get a permit for purchasing a few for export. Armoring is more advanced, and even some artifact armors are for sale, though they would be a resource 4 purchase at minimum, and that is for the simple stuff like Jade breastplates. Things like Yuroy Scout armor are beyond the means of anyone in the party, though, that comes up for sale very rarely except through illegal channels. Jade Full Plate and Super Heavy Plate are more commonly available, in fact, there are people in the city that can be commissioned to make it. Orichalcum and Monsilver are not commissionable but in the still covered parts of the city are facilities to work it. There are no facilities in the city for Soulsteel or Starmetal, but there is a workshop in one manse that has been uncovered to work Adamant, though finding any to use would require Wyld Cauldron Technology and spending XP: such is the life of the Exalted...

There are a number of Inns, Caravanserai, and Hostels near the city gates, while further in nearly every corner of an inhabited area has at least one restaurant or coffee shop. Tea houses, by comparison, are rare, and true bars are unusual enough to be remarked upon when a new one is found. Most living quarters do not have kitchens, which is why many hab towers which have been excavated don't have permanent residents and so many restaurants can stay open. Many restaurants, in fact, rent themselves out to people wishing to cook for their families or are owned by consortiums of citizens who hold them in common for communal cooking with contracts for use and upkeep requirements.

All of the city's roads are at least 20 feet wide, plus a five-foot sidewalk to either side. This is for the smallest streets, most are 40 feet wide with sidewalk and a few main thoroughfares are 60 feet wide. The streets keep themselves magically clean once each section is repaired by the Patron, but only a very few sections are repaired and many people who work as street sweepers clearing sand wish for it to stay that way. (Each 10'x10' section is a different artifact and must be individually repaired. There is one street in the city's west that is a first age relic and still working. However it can only affect things up to 30 feet above itself, so it is a long tunnel of a clear street bounded on all sides by packed sand.) The streets are made of fitted 5'x5'x1' blocks of granite, and one can sometimes determine which part of the city one is in by the color of the streets. The northeast the blocks are blue and green, the southeast red and green, the southwest red and black and the northwest blue and black. The city’s four central parkways are each a solid color relating to their element and 40' wide on each side and the grand square around the central manse is white and 60' wide at its narrowest point. However many streets were repaired with gray, white, or red granite toward the end of the shogunate and are not properly color-coded.

The City has at least 5' of clearance between all buildings: meaning that there are many allies in which one can get lost. You can often tell which parts are in use and which are unoccupied by weather there is sand filling the allies or they are clear.

== Manses and Demesnes of Amarana ==
Amarana was at one time subject to major geomantic engineering projects that gave it a large number of demesnes and then manses relative to its size. Most of those manses are still here, still active, and even now being located and excavated. A few, however, were partially unstable and have long since exploded. These few are roped off as dangerous and plans are underway to re-cap them, led of course by the Patron. Note that there are more manses and demesnes within the city that have not yet been found and that at one time there were even MORE demesnes in the city which have collapsed into a dormant state due to the changes in the city's essence flows and could be reactivated with the appropriate rituals once the city is fully excavated and geomantic remapped, these demesnes, however, were all small ones, level 2 at the most, so whether such effort is worth it in the short term, or even a good idea, is debatable. See [[Nemo of Utopia/MansesandDemesnesofAmarana|Manses and Demesnes of Amarana]] for further information.

= History =

== Prehistory ==

Though most do not know it Amarana's deepest foundations were laid in an era long past by the [[Dragons Kings]]. The City flourished in the age between the advent of humanity and the [[Primordial War]] with many of the first exalted visiting the place at one time or another in the several decades of the lead up to the overthrow of the Primordials. Then when the war began the city was wreathed in the destruction by one of the superweapons of the masters of creation, utterly annihilating most of those that dwelt therein and reducing the city to a smoking crater of volcanic glass. Still, beneath the burned and blackened surface, some parts of the old under city survived, and wait there still.

== The First Age ==

During the First Age many of the survivors of the primordial war remembered their time in 'Highana' fondly and after excavating much of the old substrate and leveling off the damaged areas to make way for new constructions raised up a new city on the site of the old. This city was dubbed 'Solzarian' in honor of [[The Unconquered Sun]] and in memorial to the Great Dragon King lady who had ruled the city so well and wisely ere it's annihilation. The City would remain a significant but out-of-the-way part of the Old Realm all the way through the first age.

=== The Ocher Fountain Era ===

During the beginning of the First Age when [[Queen Merela]] ruled over all creation from the eternal capital of [[Rathess]] Solzarian was still being reconstructed, and there was little of note that occurred in the city. One event, in particular, was notable, however: the Conclave of Solzarian in year 99 of the old realm, a symposium on the rights and freedoms of the people of creation which some in later years would argue laid the foundations of the Meru Uprising which led to the formation of the Deliberative.

=== The First Deliberative Era ===

By the time of the founding of the [[Deliberative]], the reconstruction of Solzarian was largely complete, and over the next few decades, the city became a favored retreat for both Solars and Lunars seeking to get the heck out of Meru and the stifling politics of the great city. One of Marela's closest allies [[Nemo of Utopia/Angus the Wirehair|Angus the Wirehair]] was given the rule of the city as part of the division of creation into fiefdoms and made it his personal residence. Under Angus rule, the city prospered, though it, by-and-large, remained a backwater compared to such metropolises as [[Chiaroscuro]] and Rathess. However, thanks to its solar overlord and his close relationship to the Queen of all Creation the city began the long process of incredible geomantic engineering which would in time lead to it being known as 'The City of Manses'.

=== Unfurling Horizon Era ===

While this era of creation went by largely without incident of significant note at this remove of history it is still recorded that many of the great efforts to explore and expand the borders of Creation in the south used Solzarian as a staging ground or stopover point before plunging into the true wilderness at creation's rim. This continued to encourage the exalted to play 'tourist' in the city and helped keep its economy vibrant. It is also noted in some histories that there was a major strike of [[Red Jade]] near the city in 811 which produced a 'Jade Rush' led by two rival Dragon-Blooded brothers and their servants which escalated into a short civil war in the city 2 years later in which significant damage was done to the city's infrastructure by all three* factions. The Civil War was only halted when [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Angus the Wirehair|Angus the Wirehair]] returned from Meru at the head of a wing of elite Dragon-Blooded shock troops and brutally suppressed both rival groups with mass arrests and a number of executions. (What happened to the brothers is unknown, but their names do not reappear in the historic record for 700 years, and at that time associated with different elemental aspects leading most scholars to conclude that they were 'dealt with' privately by their family.)
*(The Two consortia backing the rival brothers and the cities law enforcement detachments.)

==== The Aftershock War ====

In spite of the growing significance of the city and it's powerful assets in terms of equipment and hearthstones, Solzarian was not at first much involved in the Aftershock War. Passed over in favor of more militarily significant targets by the Primordial Forces the city did not come under fire until 1131 when a force of some 3000 first circle demons led by a trio of 2nd circle demons assaulted the city in the dead of night via a fleet of living airships. The 'Battle of Solzarian' was considered a significant victory for the forces of creation due to the large number of [[Golden Janissary Style]] practitioners in the city who were able to make fairly short work of the first circle demons allowing the detachment of Dragon-Blooded stationed in the city to confront the second circle demon commanders and dispatch them.

However the war was not all glorious victory for the people of Solzarain, [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Angus the Wirehair|Angus the Wirehair]] went missing during the final battle with the primordial forces and would not be seen again for over 500 years. For most of that time, he was presumed dead by the people of the city, though the Solar Exalted knew better as his shard had not found a new host.

=== Shining Reflection Era ===

During this period Solzarian loses much of its former significance as the seat of one of Marela's close allies. Few of the Exalted visit the city and the grand engineering projects grind to a near halt. The only events of great significance that occur here are two:
1: The Duel of the Magisters in 1313 where the reincarnations of Theis, Leelah, and Sonah engage in a duel of sorceress power which damages large sections of the city and forces all three of them to be censured by Marela herself: And;
2: In 1492 a major strike of Orichalcum is made a few hundred miles south of the city, and Solzarian becomes a stepping off point for prospectors of every stripe looking to get rich quick mining Orichalcum. The City's economy runs strong off this sudden influx of cash, people, and goods for the next 30 years.

=== Thousand Struggles Era ===

The first part of this period proceeds much from the previous one: everyone is aware that one of the legendary solar exalted has died of old age, but this makes little difference to the struggling backwater that Solzarian has become: then in 1776 everything changes.

In the Records of Solzarian 1776 is called: 'The Year of the Thousand' for the massive wave of change that swept over the city this year. The First thing that happens is [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Angus the Wirehair|Angus the Wirehair]] 'returns from the dead' on the 11th of Ascending Water storming into the city with a small group of Solars, Lunars, and Siderials and calling everyone he can reach into the city with him to face what he calls 'The Storm of the Millennium'. Ten days later the storm arrives and following in behind it a host of the fair folk the likes of which has not been seen in centuries. The city is invested and besieged for two months by the Faerie Host and the siege is only broken by the arrival of four full realm legions armed with Cold Iron. Once the Fair Folk are driven back and the city is again secure Angus orders most of the city leveled and an engineering project the like of which the city has not seen in over half a millennium undertaken to extensively alter its geomancy. To finance this undertaking he produces several tons of jade, from what source none can say, and uses his Wyld Shaping charms, which until his return no one knew he possessed, to manufacture the raw materials needed from the chaotic energy left behind by the Fair Folk.

However, no sooner was the project underway than orders came down from the Queen that he was to return to [[Meru]] at once and answer for his absence: and bound by the oaths he took as one of the [[Golden Hero Vassals]] so very long ago he departs. Following up on the plans he has left behind his circle mate [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Levian of the Gilded Staff|Levian of the Gilded Staff]] begins directing the super-massive construction and engineering projects which will if successful create one of the greatest concentrations of manses and geomantic relays outside of the Blessed Isle. By late in Descending fire half the city is gone and an entirely new street plan and so on is rising in its place, along with a massive upgrade to the walls and towers of the city perimeter as well.

What exactly passed for Angus in Meru is unrecorded by any presently known records except perhaps those of the Bureau of Destiny but what is recorded is the results of that visit: Angus was stripped of the rulership of his fief in the south including Solzarian and sent on a quest of penance into the frozen north: while Solzarian and the surrounding area was given into the hands of a relatively young solar of the Twilight Caste from another circle named [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Keisha Adriana Mullion|Keisha Adriana Mullion]] and her lunar mate [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Maxim of Personal Liberty|Maxim of Personal Liberty]].

While Keisha was young she was not stupid and consulted with Levian of the Gilded Staff on what she was doing with the engineering of the city. With the elder Twilight's help, she finished the geomantic reorganization as designed by Angus and by the end of Resplendent Air the basic project is finished. The city is now rife with uncapped demesnes and sites that will become demesnes once they can be activated after some of the others are capped. The city also now confers a geomantic bonus on all mortals living there, allowing them to develop their skills and abilities more quickly than those living in other cities. The full culmination of the project with the activation and capping of all demesnes will not be complete for another 36 years.

==== Time of Cascading Years ====

The Time of Cascading Years took rather longer in Solzarian and the surrounding area than it did in most of Creation: 3333 years to be precise. The relatively young solar ruler who went into the Time of Cascading Years and her only slightly more experienced Lunar Spouse emerges from it with a weight of skill and refinement which makes them elders among the solars and lunars. They also are now both arrayed with a panoply of artifacts and charms that make them forces to be reckoned with in the new Deliberative. The passage of the 'Age of Isolation' in Solzarian is marked by a number of rebellions and uprisings, and the invasion of their lands by the fair folk towards the end of it, from whence none, can say. Supposedly it was the destruction of an artifact which the Raksha Commander carried which restore time to its normal flow according to the people of Solzarian.

=== Second Deliberative Era ===

During the [[User:Nemo of Utopia/PeriodofLongSilence|Period of Long Silence]] Solzarain is one of the few areas still doing significant research, though they are hampered by the continuing disunity of creation and the fearfulness of creation's mortals who are all accustomed to traveling too far from home casting you into a different timeline.

With the Establishment of the new deliberative however Solzarian is thrust into the spotlight for around a hundred years as the home and workshop of one of the most important [[User:Nemo of Utopia:NPCCreationGuidelines/Exalted/FirstAge/Solar/TwilightCaste|Copper Spiders]] of the deliberative. During this period the city is a known destination for the many young Twilight-caste members who were reborn following the restoration of time's proper flow.

As this era goes on however Solzarian becomes less and less important with the rebuilding of the rest of creation, the other Twilights drift away to rule their own fiefs and work on their own projects and as has happened before Solzarian's position far from most significant events of history both at the center of creation and at its rim mean it becomes a backwater. Even it's solar and lunar rulers spend more time in Meru than at home, leaving the city in the hands of [[User:Nemo of Utopia:NPCCreationGuidelines/Exalted/FirstAge/Dragonblooded/Top|Dragon Blooded]] legates.

=== Era of Dreams ===

During the first part of the Era of Dreams, though Solzarian flourishes on the mundane level it remains a backwater on the scales by which The Realm measures such things: a functional and unimportant city in a functional but unimportant section of the world. It does, however, receive an [[IAM|I AM]] Transmission Node linking it to the broader network of information which now spans creation.

Then in the year 3381, it's twilight caste ruler is goaded into violating her eclipse oath to not attack other celestial exalted in Meru, setting in motion a chain of events that will alter the shape of Solzarian's fate for centuries to come, and that of the rest of creation. At first, the botches come hard and heavy, but then they stop and [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Keisha Adriana Mullion|Keisha]] thinks the oath's punishment has run its course.

It has not.

Returning to her holding in the south she begins to work on constructing a [[Proto Shinmatic Vortex]] and at a key stage of the process, the final botch of set activates and the PSV explodes, killing Keisha and creating an intense Wyld Zone south of the city over a hundred miles wide.

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/MaximofPersonalLiberty|Maxim of Personal Liberty]] calls upon every favor he has and even takes on new obligations to arrange the deliberative sending experts at Wyld Shaping to close the rift in the fabric of reality, but the people sent are not the high essence Solars and Lunars he hoped for but rather a cadre of neophytes who have scarce mastered Wyld Cauldron Technology and are woefully unprepared for the madness of the deep Wyld which exists within the rift. Three of them die before the other two calls it quits leaving the Wyld Zone barely stabilized around its edges. It is unrecorded at this remove what keeps the deliberative busy and the more powerful Wyld shapers tied up, but it will not be for another 3 decades that the Wyld zone is fully dealt with and that not by an individual any more experienced than the ones first dispatched, though with far greater caution than the first circle that was sent showed.

== The Usurpation ==

== The Shogunate ==

== The Fall & The Second Age ==

== The Rebirth ==

In RY 760, that same year where so very much else changed for creation (763 in normal Chronicles): the man who

= Government =

In basic, the Government of Amarana really consists of a single man: [[User:Nemo of Utopia/The Patron of Amarana|The Patron]]. He is an autocrat, ruling by divine mandate and shier power, as he is capable of defeating significant deities in single combat. However the Patron is one man, and as such has organized his subjects with several branches of what we would consider a more normal government. This normal government is organized into twelve 'Adeptus' which each is led by one of the twelve 'High Lords of Amarana'. These twelve powerful individuals form a council that advises and assists The Patron in his leadership of the city, feeding him data on several topics such as the state of his subject's religious convictions or the preparedness of his military. Though each High Lord is immensely powerful they all are The Patron's fanatical partisans and would not dream of challenging his authority, even if they could.

== The Adeptus Millitate ==

The Adeptus Millitate is one of the largest branches of Amarana's government, with no fewer than 1250 members in all its branches and subgroups. Though officially in charge of Amarana's Armed services it has a rival in The Adeptus Aeronauticus who oversee Amarana's air-forces. The Adeptus Millitate is run by [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Fist of the Land|Fist of the Land]] a God-Blooded martial artist who is somewhat uncomfortable leading an army of over a thousand people.

The Adeptus Millitate has the following departments and offices:

=== The Departmento Munitorum ===

Oversees the acquisition and care of the equipment and supplies for the army.

==== The Officio Technis ====

Deals with the army's Magitech assets.

==== The Officio Cibum ====

Oversees the all-important function of providing provisions for the troops.

==== The Officio Armorium ====

Handles the more mundane arms and armor of Amarana's troops.

==== The Officio Quartium ====

… is responsible for most everything else, from tents to uniforms to bedrolls.

=== The Departmento Servicum ===

Oversees the actual troops and officers and their training regimens.

==== The Officio Acadamicain Legionarius ====

This office oversees the training of new recruits and officers running two training schools for them.

==== The Officio Cooptatione Legionarius ====

This is the group that sees-to the recruitment and if necessary conscription of new troops for the army.

=== The Departmento Latrocinium ===

Oversees the hiring and 'control' of any mercenary units the government employs but is better known for a more sinister function.

==== The Officio Mercenarius ====

Does the Hiring and Firing of actual mercenaries.

==== The Officio Assasinoritum ====

'The Office of Assassins', to use the Vulgate, runs at least four secret dojos training mortal agents in martial arts that facilitate them serving as The Patron's spies and assassins. [[Nemo of Utopia/Assassin of the Grey Spire|Assassin of the Grey Spire]] 'leads' this office: He is ''not'' a master of the White Veil Style of martial arts and has most ''definitely not'' taught many of its members this secret art form. (Nudge nudge, wink wink, know what I mean, know what I mean? Say no more, say no more!)

=== The Officio Adminstrad Militate ===

This 'Floating Office' makes sure that all of the other Departmento and Oficio within this Adeptus do their jobs properly.

== The Adeptus Arbitiese ==

The Adeptus Arbitese oversee Amarana's police forces, and are one of the larger branches of the government with only 150 individuals on staff, counting every beat cop all the way on up to the High Lord Herself as well as all the file clerks and so on that work for the Adeptus but are not actually part of it's 'fighting strength'. They have only one Departmento and less than a dozen Officio, but so far are keeping a lid on the political turmoil of the city. The High Lord of the Arbitese is [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Steel Garden|Steel Garden]] who is not a very good investigator but a decent politician and capable administrator.

=== The Departmento Queastorum ===

This department is responsible for making inquiries and investigating crime, thus far it is the only Department of the Adeptus Arbitese but the Officio Correctionibus is expected to become a departmento in its own right someday.

==== The Officio Homicide ====

The Office of Homicide consists of only eight people, four detectives, three CSI techs, and one overworked file clerk. Their closure rate hovers at around 50%, though that is only due to them being able to count any suspect killed by the ghost of the victim as a closed case. [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Laurel the Axe|Laurel the Axe]] is the unofficial leader of this group but officially they answer directly to the High Lord of the Arbitese.

==== The Officio Servus Aucupes ====

The term 'office of slave catchers' is something of a misnomer. These detectives do not catch slaves, rather they catch people keeping, taking, or recapturing slaves and send them to their just punishments. This office consists of five overworked personnel, two detectives, two forensic accountants, and one file clerk. Their closure rate is around 30% since it is hard to prove that someone was a slaver without catching them in the act.

==== The Officio Vitium ====

Unlike the officio above this office is not quite so overworked, and the two often help each other out because their work frequently overlaps. The 'Vice Squad' mostly concerns itself with drugs and prostitution, since licensed gambling establishments and most pornography are both legal in Amarana. The officio consists of Four Detectives, five undercover officers, three CSI techs, and a harried file clerk. Their Closure rate is about 45%.

==== The Officio Interioribus ====

This Officio is more for show than anything since all of Amarana's police are held by the Stone of Invincible Loyalty. It consists of two Detectives and one Forensic Accountant. They often spend their time quietly helping out other offices.

==== The Officio Fraude Aucupes ====

This is actually one of the larger offices within the Arbities, having eleven total personnel, six detectives, three forensic accountants, a CSI tech, and a file clerk. The office tries to keep a lid on the Guild and others defrauding Amarana's citizens through various means and does a fairly good job. Their closure rate is about 70%, though this is largely due to a lot of success catching many small-fry while the remaining 30% is almost all of the big players.

==== The Ofiicio Fures ====

The 'office of thieves' is responsible for all break-ins, burglaries, purse snatchings, muggings, cutpurses, and so forth in the city. In spite of having eight detectives, five undercover agents, six CSI, four Forensic Accountants, and five file clerks their closure rate is about 12%. Garion Cromarch is frankly disgusted with them and has told The Patron so. The Patron knows they are doing their best but has ordered mandatory additional training for all members of this office.

==== The Officio Pax Patronum ====

The remainder of the police force is in this office. These are the beat cops that enforce the law by their presence and vigilance. Amarana is a large city and they constantly must be on the lookout for any kind of crime but especially things like drunk and disorderly, disturbing the peace, making an affray, and so on. This office consists of 57 patrol officers and over a dozen file clerks. Twelve of these officers are part of a sub-office of 'Mounties' who do their patrols in teams of three on horseback, they are often called in to suppress larger riots. The officers always patrol in teams of three, one to watch the front of a building and two to look around the sides and catch criminals in a pincer movement. They all carry magitech com units that let them use Wind Carried Words Technique and have Linguistics 3. (Their closure rate is not applicable since they work out of elven precincts and each one has a different closure rate.) One of these officers does not need a comms unit: being a dragon blooded air aspect outcaste named [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Secret Eagle|Secret Eagle]]. They have offered to promote him many times, but he prefers to be a patrol officer, though he has deigned to accept the rank of patrol sergeant for the fourth precinct.

=== The Officio Correctionibus ===

The office of corrections deals with the punishment rather than the apprehension side of crime. They are chronically overworked and typically have more criminals than they know what to do with but manage to do their jobs adequately. This floating office is overseen by Iron Sands, a member of The Broad who has lots of experience getting slaves to do as they are bid.

== The Adeptus Judicate ==

Working closely with the Adeptus Arbites the Adeptus Judicate is the other half of the justice system. These are the many Judges, Lawyers, and Clerks of the Court who make sure that the innocent are not punished with the guilty. At the present time, the Adeptus Judicate consists of 11 judges, 15 prosecuting attorneys, 23 Attorneys of Due Justice (Public Defenders.), 42 'Clerks of the Court' who record and file all rulings and court-ordered contracts, and 17 "Agent's Protection" who follow up on inconsistencies in court records and the welfare of Amarana's citizens in cases such as child abuse allegations and locating jurors that fail to show up for a trial. There are also about 200 private attorneys who are technically part of this Adeptus but not part of the government. The High Lord of the Courts is [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Molly McBride|Molly McBride]] a Demon Blooded northerner who has spent her whole life fighting against injustice and corruption in every form.

Additionally [[User:Nemo of Utopia/The_Patron_of_Amarana|The Patron]] himself is technically also a member of this branch as he has the right to sit in judgment if he chooses on all High Crimes and acts of Treason. He has invoked this right exactly once, mostly to prove that he could. (The person in question was found "Not Guilty by Reason of Insanity" and sentenced to lifetime confinement to a mental institution pending treatment or cure of his condition. He stood accused of twelve counts of grand theft, but psychoanalysis found him to be a kleptomaniac. The police often consult him on serial theft cases, and he is actually fairly good at solving them. However, he does have a problem with stealing other patients’ belongings and the doctor's pens and notebooks.)

Trials are in the American/British style, with a 'jury of one's peers' and the judge presiding from the high seat. The witness's sit to the judge's left and the clerk to the right. The prosecutors are on the left side of the courtroom and the Jury the Right while the accused is in the middle. Unless the accused is elderly or crippled and unable to stand they may not sit. For this reason, individual segments of trial must last no more than 3 hours. Only citizens may serve as witnesses, but since one can at the present time become a citizen after 24 hours residency this is not a problem. Citizens MAY testify with respect to events from before their citizenship. The accused is entitled to an 'Attorney of Due Justice' in the event that they cannot retain their own private counsel. The judge may dismiss any case at any time with or without prejudice, which is done routinely with respect to picayune or spurious civil cases so as to free up Attorneys of Due Justice for criminal trials. The patron is looking into finding more Judges and Attorneys of Due Justice so that civil cases do not need to be dismissed so frequently, which has a distressing tendency to lead to murder.

Abnormally The Adeptus Judicate does not have any departmento or officio, but there are those within it and without that are bucking to change that.

== The Adeptus Sororitatus ==

The 'Sisterhood' as they are called by the common folk is the government Adepta that oversees all _female_ clerics and thaumaturges in Amarana Like their Counterparts in the Adeptus Fratris they are few in number but powerful in influence. Technically also responsible for the worship of all-female gods in the city it is common that women will be priests of male deities and men prelates of a goddess's church. The division of male and female clergy between the AS and AF, however, is strict while the division of deities wavers like the landscape in the summer heat. In spite of these difficulties, the two branches of government get along quite well and cooperation between them is without rancor or strife in most cases. The High Lady of the Adepta is [[Nemo of Utopia/Unrepentant Emerald|Unrepentant Emerald]]. She is a mortal with Enlightened Essence and is exceedingly circumspect in her actions, a paragon of temperance. She is also the head priestess of [[Nemo of Utopia/Amarana Seline|Amarana Seline]].

=== The Officio Festivalius ===

This floating office submits to The Patron which days and locations should have festivals to honor the goddess' of the city. A circle of female clergy decide these events and pass them on to the patron, who generally approves them without comment. This circle is chaired by Unrepentant Emerald.

=== The Departmento Eclesiast ===

This is the main branch of the Adepta, overseeing and licensing all _female_ clergy in Amarana. The department technically consists of all licensed female clergy in the city but in practice, most of the female clergy get their licenses and are about their business having no further interaction with the government except to re-up their licenses once a year.

==== The Officio Licentiae ====

This officio handles the licensing process for all official priestesses, which requires proving you have the following capabilities: Ability to speak and read Old Realm, Basic knowledge of Spiritual Etiquette, (At least 3 dots in occult or 1 + an appropriate specialty.) and training in proper prayer procedures. (Prayer roll performance pool of at least 5 dice.) These requirements may be waived if the cleric has a 'sponsor' with a proper license who is taking on the new cleric as a student to train in service to their god/goddess in which case a 'Postulant Permit' is issued instead. Licenses are issued per deity, so if you wish to be the clergy of multiple gods multiple licenses are required. This is waived in the case of Zenith-caste Solars, Theurge-caste "New-Method"-Lunars, "Redemer"-caste Infernals, and Midnight-caste Abyssals, since it would be more trouble than it is worth to issue a license for every god in creation (for the first two), every each of the recovering yozis and all the greater demons (Redeemers), or ghost above essence 3 in the underworld (Midnight-castes).

==== The Officio Sanctionite ====

This is a smaller office within the departmento, making recommendations to The Patron on which female deities should be given official sanction within Amarana. All the female deities mentioned under the Religion section are sanctioned unless noted otherwise. Being unsanctioned does not mean you cannot be worshiped, but it does mean that you cannot have space allocated for a temple or licensed clergy. Sanctioning however is fairly easy to get since The Patron often simply signs the forms without reading them. (Additionally, all the incarnae are sanctioned, + Gaia and the Dragons.)

==== The Officio Hetterodox ====

This office deals with instances of rogue gods and clergy, such as the notorious Tuggie of the Scavenger Lands and other instances where the celestial bureaucracy has broken down to an unacceptable level. Employing many outside contractors they put spirits who demand illicit worship or sapient sacrifice in their places and also hunt rogue demons and the fair folk's ravagers. Though the actual functionaries of this Officio are few their agents are many and they are always busy.

== The Adeptus Frateris ==

Sometimes referred to as 'The Fraternity' by outsiders this Adeptus is responsible for all male deities and male clergy in Amarana. They take their job seriously and are sometimes noted for being taciturn and uncompromising. They are led by [[Nemo of Utopia/Wauli the Wolf|Wauli the Wolf]], who like his female counterpart is a mortal with awakened essence.

Structurally the Adeptus Frateris is identical to the Adeptus Sorroitatus.

== The Adeptus Mechanicus ==

The Adeptus Mechanicus are an odd bunch. Dressing in Rust Red robes and communicating in their own strange (and highly technical) dialect of Old-Realm they keep outsiders at arm's length. This Adepta is responsible for helping The Patron find and repair the magitech of the city a task that they perform supremely well but which many wonders if this group of strangely obsessed men and women are actually best suited for. Led by [[Nemo of Utopia/Adamant Sprocket|Adamant Sprocket]], an elderly Djala man and his young adult daughter [[Nemo of Utopia/Gears of Fate|Gears of Fate]], this group employs many Djala escapees in the task of repairing and rebuilding the city.

== The Adeptus Diolougus ==

What some would call the state department or the diplomatic corps the Adeptus Diolougus is one of the smallest Adeptus of the Amaranaian government. Led by [[Nemo of Utopia/Exultant Ivory Mother|Exultant Ivory Mother]] (a god-blooded woman from An-Teng, who harbors no feelings of goodwill for either Realm or Guild,) this group of spies and agent's provocateur work to keep Amarana a free city and outside the clutches of both [[The Guild]] and foreign powers such as the [[Realm]].

== The Adeptus Medicae ==

Easily among the smallest Adeptus of the Amaranaian government if one only counts the actual government personnel instead of approximately a-dozen-dozen licensed doctors, psychiatrists, and physicians whom they are tasked with overseeing and who like private attorneys in the city are technically part of the Adeptus: the Adeptus Medicae is as one might have guessed responsible for the physical and mental health of the city. They Tend to this task primarily by licensing and monitoring the city's medical personnel. This Adeptus role is two-fold: first, they are responsible for overseeing those practicing and utilizing any kind of medical skill in the city, from alchemists manufacturing morphine, [[Seven Bounties Paste]], or [[Age Staving Cordial]], to those offering psychiatric counseling outside of a church setting, to the several small private hospitals around the city, to even veterinarians. The Second task of the group is more dangerous and ripe for abuse by far: it is they in large part, as the only people with the requisite expertise, who draw up for [[Nemo of Utopia/The Patron of Amarana|The Patron's]] approval the statutes of law which they are tasked with enforcing. Thus far there has been no conflict of interest or abuses of power but the vast majority of people among the medical personnel of Amarana wait anxiously or avidly for this to begin changing.

The Adeptus Medicae is led by [[Nemo of Utopia/Simon Baker|Simon Baker]], a psychiatrist by trade, who is among the most dangerously insightful and persuasive people you will ever meet, at least that is not one of the exalted. He is, in fact, a god blooded, son of the patron deity of an order of physicians on The Blessed Isle, and is not much taken with the Imacualtes, treating them with frosty professionalism.

== The Adeptus Fabricae ==

Easily the largest and most diverse branch of the Amaranaian government the Adeptus Fabricae oversees all matters which involve or pertain directly to any sort of production, manufacturing, functional artistry, or creation of goods within Amarana's lands. Though ferreting out matters of a criminal nature fall under the heading of the Adeptus Arbites, and the governance of the legal codes is the province primarily of The Patron himself, and Prosecution and judgment of crimes is the business of the Adeptus Judicate, all three of these functions fall partially under this Adeptus' remit.

The Adeptus Fabricae first submits for The Patron's approval all codes and strictures which govern the actions and enterprises of fabricating all tangible products in Amarana, and exhaustive list of matters which fall under their control would be impossible but a few of the more salient follow: Print Shops, Compounding Pharmacies, Paper Mills, Glass Works, Jewelers, Magitech Repair Shops, Smithies, Book Binders, Cobblers, Tailors, and Farms: essentially anything which would be made by any sort of "Craft: XXX" skill is within their authority. The patron then reviews these legal codes and approves or rejects them, which becomes the strictures that the Adeptus Fabricae enforce upon the businesses of Amarana.

Most production facilities of any kind are within the Adeptus Fabricae's remit, with the notable exception of restaurants, taverns, eateries, pubs, tea houses, inns, and food carts which fall under the aegis of the Adeptus Medicae, though oddly pharmacies do not. Neither adepta is happy about this but neither is willing to lose or exchange the area they do have power over for reasons of their own which seem fully sufficient to them. Furthermore, any business that produces a tangible product and directly employs more than 50 people in any capacity is under their remit to license, inspect, and if necessary fine or refer to the Arbiters for investigation.

The following are the Departmento and Officio of the Adeptus Fabricae, each one with significant discretionary power and held in check solely by the High Lady of the Adeptus [[Nemo of Utopia/AuspiciousCrystalLightning|Auspicious Crystal Lightning]] and The Patron.

=== The Departmento Iura ===

The 'Department of Laws' devises and writes out the codes of law which govern the production and creation of goods in Amarana. They have created and submitted to the patron and extensive and thorough list of legal codes regarding the conditions, control, creation, and compensation for most products in Amarana, and those they have not they are working on.

==== The Officio Iura Laboris ====

The 'Office of Labor Laws' designs the codes of law concerning the employment, treatment, and management of Amarana's workforce. They are in the main as despised by the plutocracy as they are beloved by the common folk. Among other laws, they have enacted is the 8-hour work shift and the 6 day work week.

==== The Officio Iura Fabricación ====

The "Office of Manufacturing Laws" creates the codes of law governing the actual production of goods. Other offices govern the details of different types of production facilities or fields, but this office creates the general guidelines which the others work by.

==== The Officio Iura Cotagium Industria ====

The "Office of Cottage Industry" drafts the limited and simple codes which control small scale manufacturing by individuals and small business. They would like to have more extensive and detailed codes but The Patron uses his authority to make the official versions of the law to pare back most of their red tape and BS. He is, in fact, thinking of suspending this office for a period of some months while he looks for a better and less over eager set of people to be its officers.

==== The Officio Iura Officinis ====

This office makes the laws respecting the specific difficulties of production in a factory typesetting. Any production facility with 50 or more employees falls under their regulating authority, even things that are not normally their provinces such as farms, eateries, and pharmacies. For this reason, many production facilities and such, run with a staff of 40, so that even if they hire a handful of temp workers they will not move into this Officio's dominion. This Officio is not-well-liked by most business owners, being seen as overly restrictive and exceedingly interfering.

==== The Officio Iura Pharmicopia ====

== The Adeptus Adminstradum ==

== The Adeptus Aeronauticus ==

== The Adeptus Vectigalia ==

Lying squarely in the middle of the Adeptus of the city in terms of size the Adeptus Vectigalia is The Patron's Tax Collectors and Auditors of Accounts. Little liked by most people in the city they are nevertheless key to its continued function. In addition to overseeing that the government is given it's due and being called on to check the books of businesses which the Adeptus Arbites feel might be doing illegal activities the Adeptus Vectigalia also runs Amarana's national mint, which means that they are monitored closely by both The Patron and the Adeptus Arbites.

Noted for being uncompromising and humorless the Adeptus Vectigalia dress in imperishable formal clothing left behind from the first age. The hot stuffy suits and jackets only contribute to their reputation as dour and unsmiling drones of government oversight, which is perhaps the point of the dress code.

The Adeptus Vectigalia is divided into three Departmento: The Departmento Salari, which collects the taxes in cash or kind, the Departmento Quastorius, who audits people's books, and the Departmento Signo, who oversees the minting and engraving of all Amaranaian currency.

The Adeptus Vectigalia is led by [[Nemo of Utopia/Manifold Gemstone|Manifold Gemstone]] a perfectly ordinary man, who happens to be an excellent forensic accountant if only a passable administrator.

= Religion =

Faith and practice in Amarana are as diverse as the people who have come to live there. Everything from Immaculates to ancestor Worshipers to CotI members to simple priests and adherents of various gods all rub-elbows on the city's streets. Below are a brief rundown of the most prominent of the city's faiths and the deities they worship.

== Immaculates ==

Though the smallest of the city's faiths the Immaculate Doctrine still has hundreds of adherents among the people of the city, many of whom are enlightened martial arts practitioners. They also have a strong support network in the form of outside contacts with The Realm and other Dragon-Blooded.

== The Common Faith/Hundred Gods Heresy ==

The Majority of the population of Amarana believe in the gods as most people of the threshold do: they worship those who can provide them with benefits they want or need and don't understand much about the celestial bureaucracy or how things worked in the first age and that the present state of affairs is a corruption of the 'proper' order of things. Those that do often take the stance that "this is the way things are" and simply go on with their day.

What follows is a brief list of the major deities of Amarana and who or what they are affiliated with:

=== Amarana Seline ===

[[Nemo of Utopia/AmaranaSeline|Amarana Seline]]: As the City Mother of Amarana, Amarana Seline is the leader of the city's spirits. She was promoted from off the dole in heaven by the machinations of a number of bronze faction Sidereals and is fully cognizant of the fact that she '''owes''' them, but at the same time of the fact that as a dispossessed spirit promoted to the rank of City Mother she has few allies and many enemies. For these and other reasons she does not play favorites, at least not much, and is working hard at her job coordinating the smooth running of the city. Though she tries to be largely neutral in truth she is in the camp of the Immaculate Faction, which is part of why the Immaculates are as strong as they are in the city.

=== Mother Midnight ===

[[Nemo of Utopia/MotherMidnight|Mother Midnight]]: As the Senior Goddess of all-natural misfortunes in Amarana 'Mother of Midnight Murder and Mayhem', to use her full name, is a very good person for The Patron to have on his side. Mother Midnight takes positive glee in afflicting his enemies with all manner of troubles and ailments, from murder most foul to tripping on a dropped piece of lumber and spilling twenty boxes of crack from their backpack right in front of a police officer. However she is not really playing favorites, she still inflicts all manner of problems on the Patriots, their enemies just get it first and worst. Mother Midnight also has another interesting fact to her favor: she has been at her post for the past 3000 years. She gets audited on a regular basis and comes up smelling like roses: every, single, time! This drives Wong Bongerok to a level of near slavering fury, especially since he is certain Mother Midnight has been doing some kind of double-dealing and below-board hustle to keep herself fed and clothed during Amarana's long dormancy but has no way to prove it. Thing is, he's wrong. Mother Midnight became a doomsday prepper just after the usurpation and had been stockpiling quintessence and ambrosia for centuries ere the fair folk invaded. She has been living off that stockpile for all the time since and even now could go several centuries were the city to fall again ere she would need to start hustling for her sustenance.

In form, Mother Midnight looks like an exceedingly overweight woman with coal-black skin and long dreadlocked black hair that hangs so long as to trail on the ground. She typically appears nude or dressed in rags but can summon an armor of bones and broken pottery for a cost of 3 motes that gives her 10 lethal/bashing soak for the rest of the scene. For one mote she may reflexively cause any weapon that strikes her which has a hardness of less than 10 to automatically break*, and any weapon that has less than 15 hardness but more than 10 take 5d of damage. Energy weapons are immune to this, such as beam-klaves and weapons with a hardness of more than 15 cannot be affected. These powers do not count as charm use.

*(The weapon still inflicts damage before breaking from this effect.)

=== Pauldron Of Sanctity ===

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/PauldronOfSanctitity|Pauldron Of Sanctitity]]: is the new titular war god of the state, essentially exiled to the post by Atlhat since he is a rabidly punctual and rules obsessed deity that Atlhat has detested for centuries. Pauldron of Sanctity takes the form of a tall man in Gunzosha Armor and wielding a shock pike. He believes in well regimented and organized military units who are drilled and well equipped. In many ways, his notions of war are still trapped in the low first age when he was spawned as the god of a mercenary company, but this is just fine because he is the war god of a city with much of its low first age equipment and infrastructure intact. Though he favors the Immacualtes he is not willing to alter the course of outlined fate one millimeter without approval through proper channels.

=== Garion Cromarch ===

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/GarionCromarch|Garion Cromarch]]: is the god of Amarana's police force, who has waited patiently these seven centuries and more since the loss of the city to the fair folk working unofficially as a P.I. in Yu-Shan and who is the author of Amarana’s rebirth, having convinced the Bronze Faction to engineer the events which have led to that happening. Garion is perhaps more involved in the doings of the city's police than he should be, often helping them out with 'gut feelings' and leading dreams, but so far his interference has not crossed the line of allowed behavior.

Garrion's form looks like an idealized southern human male wearing Sentinel Defense Force armor blazoned with the symbol of Amarana, an eagle in flight wearing broken manacles.

=== Lissom Shining Spring ===

[[Nemo of Utopia/LissomShiningSpring|Lissom Shining Spring]]: a goddess of the local Oasis who temporarily holds two positions both in her old job and as the minster of all water sources within Amarana's sphere of influence. She is not perfidious in this role like Alhat who should not hold both the aegis of southern war god and god of cattle but is genuinely looking for a replacement to take over the role of goddess of springs and oasis: however she is a perfectionist and committed to finding a perfect candidate, which means that though she has interviewed over a hundred prospective applicants she has not found one that she feels is worthy of her longtime position. The Bronze Faction is willing to let her conduct further interviews, for now, but have made it clear that if she does not have a new spirit in the position by the end of next year she will be censured and the task of finding a replacement will be out of her hands. To this end, she has compiled what she calls her 'secondary list': those gods that she felt were 'almost' up to her lofty standards, and if she is running out of time will call them back for a second interview and chose the best one. She still hopes for a perfect applicant however and only has four names on her 'secondary list'.

Lissom Shining Spring's form is that of a large fish, but lately, she has been finding herself slipping into the form of a young woman in the suit of one of the city's hydro-engineering personnel who assists the Patron in making sure that all the pipes are sound before restoring the flow of water to a building. She is not sure she likes this.

=== Sonari ===

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/Sonari|Sonari]]: is the divine minister of sunlight and shadow for Amarana. She works with the bureau of nature to ensure that the proper degree of cloud cover reaches Amarana as well as the appropriate amount of sun. Like many of the gods of Amarana she is newly promoted from being on the dole and fearful of losing her position, but even so, dares to encourage the cult to worship her with little flourishes like rays of light in winter and cool breezes in summer.

She takes the form of a cloud from which pour rays of sunlight.

=== Meroka Jin ===

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/MerekaJin|Mereka Jin]]: the minister of romance and love in Amarana is actually an old pro at the role, having been the minister for the task in the old city and then for the Salaru tribes. He is corrupt as the day is long but adept at hiding his perfidy from anyone and everyone, including to a degree himself.

Mereka Jin takes the form of a vigorous adult man of the south with a rose in his teeth and a rakish smile. He often appears nude or in the robes worn for a wedding among the Salaru.

Mereka is eternally locked in a bitter feud with his theoretical partner Sakarzi: minster of lust and attraction, who is constantly trying to break down the stable romantic relationships her 'partner' builds. For the moment they have reached a detente on the matter of the two factions in which they are most interested, If Sakarzi will do her job for the romantic relationships of the Solarians then Meroka will not try to pair off the Ancestor Cultists into mirages and leave Sakarzi to push them to rut in wild abandon. They have not agreed about what to do with the rest of the population which makes up more than 60%.

=== Bibwit Heart ===

[[Nemo of Utopia/BibwitHeart|Bibwit Heart]]: The 'least' god of Amarana's central manse, Bibwit is uncomfortable with the cult worshiping him as they do. He has seen many least gods that have found themselves at the center of cults growing arrogant and ultimately becoming starmetal and is afraid this will happen to him. He has survived both the fall of the solars and the shogunate by being small and unobtrusive, keeping his manse functional and active while the rest of the city fell apart and he is not going to change that strategy. Still, he is an important god in the city, and as such they venerate him. Bibwit takes the form of an anthropomorphized rabbit with white fur and a tailored coat. He carries a pocket watch that lets him make flurry attacks up to his DEX score with no penalty.

=== Cela Dinarius ===

[[Nemo of Utopia/CelaDinarius|Cela Dinarius]]: Cela is the goddess responsible for Amarana's economy, and she is a personal friend of Glorious Weapon. She is no friend of the Guild and works as much as she dares to keep the guild from stealing artifacts from Amarana for sale to its foreign rivals. Formerly the goddess of Aj-Aran's main market square she was promoted to the overall control of the economy of Amarana via the machinations of the gold faction. She knows the city father is a bronze faction plant but reasons that as long as they both do their jobs properly they should not come into many conflicts. The two have a standing date for tea every Venus day.

Cela Dinarius form is that of an attractive woman carved from silver, and she wears the clothing of a Varangian cloth factor, which was her first job beyond as the least god some 4 centuries ago, patron goddess of a new Varangian cloth consortium.

=== Zalril ===

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/Amarana/Zalril|Zalril]]: Formerly the Least god of Amarana's north gate Zalril has by what amounts to shier-force-of-will moved up to become the patron god of Guild Members working in Amarana. The exact operation of this occurrence has been shrouded in mystery at the orders of Kejop Kajac himself, and further Nazri signed off on it too. The Guild maintains a large shrine just outside his old gate where they leave offerings before entering the city and where three slave women were taken under cover of night and sworn to become Zalril's Priestesses in exchange for their freedom by an Eclipse-caste member who often works for the guild. Though two of them still keep their roles as the god's priestesses the third has left the shrine and now lives in the city as a teacher for the city's new public school. Interestingly she has suffered no ill effects from 'breaking' her oath. Zalril has asked for the Guild to send a replacement but they are still trying to figure out why the oath failed in the first place. Meanwhile [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Sulramia|Sulramia]] finds fulfillment in teaching her students as do [[User:Nemo of Utopia/GayePachudiweOgesu|Gaye Pachudiwe Ogesu]] and [[User:Nemo of Utopia/OxandRainbowSlave|Ox and Rainbow]] the two women that still work at the shrine. Ogesu is an old woman and does the cooking and cleaning while Ox and Rainbow stand guard over the shrine. Sulramia also came with another gift for the god, her daughter, as she was part of a quadratic set, Maiden, Warrior, Mother, and Crone, and if she was to be the 'mother' Zalril insisted that she has a child as proof of her status, who conveniently doubled as 'maiden'. Sulramia's daughter is called [[User:Nemo of Utopia/IronandHoneyMaiden|Iron and Honey Maiden]] and is just the cutest five-year-old you will ever see, with an appearance score of five already. Her mother lives constantly with the fear of pedophiles, but does not let it rule their lives.

=== Walziri ===

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/Walziri|Walziri]]: as the god of beasts of burden within Amarana's lands Walziri is a major player in the lives of Guild personnel who must work or live here. Formerly a lesser deity of travel and trade in Harborhead Walziri was appointed to his new post by the machinations of a cabal of 'Independent' southern Sidereals and understands that he OWES them for this big break. The cabal has not called in that favor, at least not yet, but for the moment are content with him filing informal reports on the going's on in Amarana. While still hard at work at his new post he has already started to play favorites a little with the Guild's Men who pray to him, subtly strengthening their animals and selecting them last when sickness is due to strike the camels or whatnot of the city. Walziri takes the form of a large man of Harborhead derivation wearing several coral necklaces and white robes. He carries a Jade cattle prod which can be used as a spear or thrown like a javelin and returns instantly to his hand.

=== Anyaka Tetsuo ===

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/AnyakaTetsuo|Anyaka Tetsuo]]: The minister of Chance and Gambling in Amarana, Tetsuo is not new to this job. Created as the least god of a set of enchanted dice not long after the Primordial War Tetsuo has risen over the course of the intervening years to a position of moderate power in this city through diligent work and a suspicious number of 'lucky' breaks. Though no investigation has ever found him guilty of any wrongdoing there are enough people that are suspicious of what he surely must have done with his powers to better his status that it is unlikely he will ever rise any higher. Some deities would plot and scheme to continue advancing, but Tetsuo knows better. As a god of chance and gambling, he is well aware that he has been on quite the lucky streak and that is when you should count your winnings, leave the table, and cash in your chips before your luck runs out. He is content to be the god of all chance and gambling in Amarana: and will only rise higher if his natural luck brings him a sudden break, which he is not holding his breath for. He wiles away his time by playing games with the gamblers of the city, making them win or lose in a big way, but staying within the bounds of prescribed fate.

Tetsuo looks like a tall, broad-shouldered, thoroughly tattooed man with a cup and dice for playing a popular gambling game called 'Han or Cho'.

Tetsuo's sanctum is exceedingly large, he has had 700 years of dormancy in Amarana in which to expand it, and it now takes the form of a vast resort with several small casinos and many spas on what appears to be a small tropical island. (At the boundaries of its area there is a big reef beyond which the waterfalls away into nothing.) Tetsuo typically has many of the small gods of gambling and chance living in his sanctum with him at any time. Tetsuo is a colleague of Mother Midnight, not her subordinate, but the two work closely to determine which gamblers will face a string of ill luck.

=== Bagong Fangrick ===

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/BaegongFangrick|Bagong Fangrick]]: As the God of Vermin within Amarana Fangrick is an odd person to aid the guild but the guild will take allies where it can find them. Fangrick is a subordinate of Mother Midnight but has kept himself mostly out of her way and done his job without fuss since the revival of the city. Formerly the deity of rats for the Salaru tribes he was promoted upon the city's revival in recognition of many years of hard work with little reward and not the slightest blemish on his record.

Bagong Fangrick looks like an aged anthropomorphic rat, dressed in the robes of a shogunate era martial arts practitioner.

=== Wisp Virunga ===

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/WispVirunga|Wisp Virunga]]: As the managing deity for all education in Amarana Wisp is a VIP for the Patriots, because she helps their people learn new skills significantly faster, which helps them stay a step ahead of their competition, for the moment. The thing is that Wisp is running a knife-edge game with staying inside what is allowed within her post as a manager for all education in Amarana and what could be censured. This is very very bad: because she is already in trouble with the local censor's deputy for bearing a god blooded child, who is still alive and therefore available as evidence. Just to add insult to injury the censor's deputy has a personal vendetta against her for rebuffing his advances in favor of a mere mortal. Until the revival of Amarana Wisp Virunga was the goddess of its central library, she effectively promoted herself to the chief goddess of education by cozening up to the Patron while he was excavating her manse. When he decreed the first mandatory schooling sessions for the early colonists he had them pray to her as patron of all education in Amarana at the start of each day, when the prayers reached critical mass a few months later she had already conducted a quiet set of interviews and had her replacement as god of the library already prepped and ready to take over at once. This is not precisely an offense against the laws of heaven, but it is somewhat 'bad form' and would count against her slightly in a formal audit. It also has earned some of her fellow deities enmity, especially:...

=== Principle of Justified Action ===

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/PrincipleofJustifiedAction|Principle of Justified Action]]: Heaven has gods of just about everything, including educators. Principle of Justified Action was formerly a deity of a major school out in the distant threshold before the fair folk invasion and only survived that calamity by mere chance, having been in heaven on vacation when the hosts of faerie scourged the world. Since then he has lived on the dole and schemed endlessly to get another position in the bureau of humanity's education office. He finally thought he had one all lined up when Amarana was scheduled to be rebuilt as its manager of education, but the Patron and Wisp Verunga snatched it out of his hands. Yet, when one door closes another opens and a cabal of Gold Faction Sidereals and a few people who were still his friends from the old days managed to finagle him a consolation prize. The role of managing deity for the court system of Amarana was still open since there were not supposed to be any real criminal proceedings for several months yet. Desperate to get off the dole by then and seeing this as his last chance for the foreseeable future he accepted.

What neither he nor the Sidereals that helped him expected, was that he would LIKE the work. Managing a court system is not so different in truth from managing a school, you have trouble makers, erudite and passionate people, a lot of people who really don't want to be there, an ever-changing cast of characters doing many old and a few new stupid things, a complex set of rules you must adhere to; the similarities were rather a shock. Of course, there were differences, mostly in the fact that things move both so much slower most of the time and so much faster in the crunch, but he got his sea legs within a month or two and found himself enjoying having a real job again. That said, Principle of Justified Action is still no friend of Wisp Virunga and would dearly love to put in an application to replace her should she fall afoul of the auditors. However he bides his time, after all, he is employed in a job that he does not find onerous and has plenty of prayers coming in from both sides of the law, Wisp has no experience and is drowning in her duties, let them see what putting an untried administrator into such an important post does! Chances are that within the decade he will have her job: so runs his reasoning.

The Patron is another matter. He likes the Patron, rather a lot, and finds in the autocrat of the city a kindred spirit: and of course, cannot fault the man on the matter of his dedication to an educated society. He sometimes pokes the patron in the subconscious when he is contemplating a bad law, or about to reject a good one, and thus far does not consider it any kind of offense against heaven's rules. He is, in fact, wrong, he has committed no less than 5 level-one offenses in this manner, but that will largely be ignored unless he does more than mere subconscious nudging, after all, he has not really messed up any major plans this way so far.

In form Principle of Justified Action looks like a tall man from the furthest east, wearing the green and red robes of a seated Judge of Amarana's courts. His hair is shock white, a remnant of his time among the starving unemployed but he finds it suits his image as a wise leader of the courts. Abnormally for a god of justice he is lenient with most offenders, reasoning that if you punish too harshly you deny them a chance to learn from their mistakes. However, anyone who harms children sees the other side of him, a fury of unrelenting hatred that will see them hanged if at all possible.

=== Sakarzi ===

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/Sakarzi|Sakarzi]]: though she would dearly love to bring about the Patron's ruin and overthrow Sakarzi: minister of lust and attraction for Amarana, has a problem: She is both terrified of him and lusts after him obsessively. Sakarzi met the Patron before he mastered Amarana when she was bathing in a sacred hot-spring on the borders of the lands now claimed by the city in the guise of a comely Salaru maiden and he was following his awakened memories back to the city to claim his destiny. There at the hot-spring, she tried to seduce him.

She Failed.

The patron was clearly attracted to her and wished to accept her advances but mastered himself with an effort of will and politely refused. Five more times in five different guises Sakarzi has tried to seduce him and each time has been rebuffed, but always politely. This is why she is terrified of him, no one else whom she has ever tried to seduce has refused her advances so many times, especially since each of those times she has used progressively more of her supernatural powers, in the last instance activating an effect that should have compelled him to lie with her will he or no. She lusts after him because she has a weakness for powerful men, and The Patron certainly is one: but it is his immunity to her mystical powers that have made it an obsession. With the Patron, Sakarzi can use only the arts available to a mortal woman to snare the man she desires, and it is driving her to distraction. Perhaps an hour's worth of time out of each of her days is frittered away trying to think up new ways to seduce the Patron that rely only on her natural skills and personal beauty, but thus far she has not come up with anything worth using on a seventh attempt. The reason that Sakarzi would love to see the patron fall is that after she started a feud between three of the early families of colonists by seducing three of their sons and declaring that only the last one living would bed her the patron caught her outside her sanctum and beat her to within an inch of her life, declaring that if he ever caught her pulling that kind of stunt on his supporters again he would not pull his blows the second time.

These conflicting emotions are tearing Sakarzi apart, she lusts after the patron, but wants to ruin him, but is terrified of him, but she wants to have sex with him so bad she can taste it: Etc, Etc. In the meantime, she has appeared to several of the Patriots and declared her support for the patron's cause offering her help in securing the objects of their desires and the word has spread among them that if you erect a shrine to her in your residence and pray at it twice a day, morning and night, she will aid you in seducing whoever you most lust after.

While Sakarzi has many forms she can assume her true form is that of a Salaru woman of surpassing beauty and grace who literally cannot wear clothing. Her merest touch causes any garment to become invisible for one hour, so there is no point in her wearing any kind of raiment except for its protective value, which she rarely does.

=== Machuko; Torch of Freedom ===

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/MachukoTorchofFreedom|Machuko; Torch of Freedom]]: Is it any wonder, considering the status of Amarana as a free city where none may be held in bondage without due process of law, that the patron deity of Liberation and Abolitionism should view it with favor and even more so it's leader who enacted the law in question? [[Rabsolga]], the patron of slavery, hates and despises Amarana and if for no other reason than that Machuko loves and protects it. Furthermore, Machuko is [[User:Nemo of Utopia/ThePatron|The Patron]]'s patron god, to whom he prays five times a day, and is celebrated with five feast days each year, one at the beginning of each 'resplendent' month. Even the Immaculates honor these five days of worship, because the Patron has been known to have those that speak against honoring the feasts arrested and tried for sedition and/or aiding and abetting slavers, and their leader does not need that kind of attention, so he has said: "These days honoring Machuko are sanctioned by the immaculate faith, so long as you pray unto him only on these days you do not sin against the orders of Heaven."

Machuko keeps a large temple in the city's northeast quarter: a level 3 fire aspected manse called 'The Wheel of Torches' from it ride forth his clergy and devout adherents numbering several dozen strong on raids into the wastes beyond Amarana's borders proclaiming Machuko's glory and the freedom of all people within the lands of Amarana. Machuko has many priests across all of creation but nowhere are there so many gathered together as in Amarana.

In form, Machuko looks like a tall muscular man of what modern people would call Jewish/Hasidic/Israeli derivation, with a wild beard and long hair that hangs in ringlets. He carries a gore maul and chopping sword of orichalcum and white jade which when used together can cut any chain or bond. He has another form, which he assumes rarely except when in heaven, which is that of a great Dragon filled with yellow-white fire and made from millions of broken chains, collars, and manacles.

== Ancestor Cultists ==

Led by [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Sharima of the Three Disciplines|Sharima of the Three Disciplines]] and her ghostly lover [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Aruna the Defiant|Aruna the Defiant]] this group of citizens is a large and vocal part of the city's population. Though dwarfed by the percentage of the city who worship the city's gods and elementals the Ancestor Cultists make up as much as 20-25% of the city's population and are especially prominent among the [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Salaru|Salaru]].

The Ancestor Cultists make use of a large number of small [[Shadowlands]] across the city to communicate more directly with their patron spirits and interact with the underworld: but are mindful of [[User:Nemo of Utopia/The Patron of Amarana|The Patron]]'s injunctions about not breaking the circles of salt and other wards which keep the ghosts within the Underworld. They are however constantly working to locate 'new' and unguarded Shadowlands for their patrons to use to slip in and out of the underworld, which The Patron minds not one bit so long as they report them for the Adeptus Sororitatus/Frateris to seal in due course.

Though most of the people of Amarana are unaware of this fact the Ancestor Cultists are being controlled from behind the scenes by a Deathknight known as [[User:Nemo of Utopia/The Fluttering Fist of the Deadly Labyrinth|The Fluttering Fist of the Deadly Labyrinth]] he is a martial artist in service to The [[Mask of Winters]] who has wandered off on his own agenda far from thorns and The Mask's traditional area of operation. "The Fist" came to Amarana in search of a rumored cache of [[Autochthonian]] [[Soulsteel]], held in the vaults of the undercity, but has found that much of the undercity is sealed and inaccessible even from the [[Underworld]]. In the meantime, he works on the ancestor cultists as both a way to support himself and something to occupy his time while he trains to learn the charms that will allow him to enter the prehuman depths of the city where he hopes the bars of [[Autochthonian Soulsteel]] can be found.

Though the ghosts of Salaruku are numerous and very old surprisingly few of them are Heroic Ghosts and willing/able to serve as patrons for Amarana's ancestor cultists. Of those that do It is surprisingly four of the youngest ghosts that are the main patrons worshiped by the cultists: along with one exceedingly old ghost from the fall of Salaruku.

=== Xufuwne Onuke ===

The leader of Isknadar's relatively large population of ghosts from the time of the fair folk invasion Onuke is frighteningly powerful but relatively easy going. He has outlasted Amarana's long dormancy and now looks forward to an era of joy and plenty for the city's dead. A dragon blooded warrior in life Onuke was killed battling the invaders from the wyld and in an odd twist of fate, they buried him with high honors. His tomb lies in the still sand-covered western half of the city at the center of a small park. In form, Onuke looks like a typical dragon blooded of the shogunate, dressed in power armor and wielding a Daiklave. He has subsisted by hunting plasmic creatures for most of 700 years but welcomes the changes of the reborn city. Onuke is the cult's equivalent of a war god, a role he shoulders without complaint but also without relish.

=== Aruna the Defiant ===

Hailing from Chiaroscuro Aruna is the lover of Sharima, and they have many Ghost-blooded children together. They were maneuvered into the leadership of the cult by agents of [[The Archon of Apostasy]] who wished to have a shining example of ghost/mortal co-operation in Amarana to help people accept the death cult in their midst. The Archon's agents do not believe the plan is working but they are wrong, were it not for the two of them the cult would have been burned out root and branch. Aruna is a relatively young ghost but has become powerful quite quickly thanks to her lover and her association with various death cults. In appearance, Aruna looks like a young woman of the Delazen, beautiful and alluring for all her ghostly translucence and pallor. Aruna is the cult's patron of love and romance but gives short shrift to lust.

=== Emerald Lotus ===

Like her partner's Monkey of the City and Triumphal Eagle of the Flawless Hill, Emerald Lotus has been elevated to leadership by the machinations of the Patron, who decreed a feast day in their honor on the day of their deaths defending Amarana from an attack by a trio of 'Hounds of the Unbroken Earth'. None of them is experienced enough to really do the jobs that they have had thrust upon them but they all are rising to the challenge. Emerald Lotus resembles a typical woman of the deep south dressed in a white robe and headscarf that covers everything but her face, and overtop that a breastplate of steel. She is neither attractive nor ugly but is very charismatic. She carries an infinite jade chakram as her main weapon and also bears a perfect chopping sword for close fighting. Emerald Lotus is the patron 'deity' of the cult's Martial Artists, as she had some experience with that in life. She still is finding her feet as a ghost and defers to Xufuwne Onuke on most matters.

=== Monkey of the City ===

Dressed in lamellar and wielding a shock pike monkey of the city is not really suited to his role as a leader of an ancestor cult. Having been an outcast and wanderer in life who always tried to keep people happy and was quick with a joke or to share his water he has not changed much in death. However, there is a place for the fun and funny guy in any pantheon and Monkey of the City fills that role for the Ancestor Cultists of Amarana. Monkey of the City is the cult pantheon's trickster and comic relief, which he does not mind one bit.

=== Triumphal Eagle of the Flawless Hill ===

Wearing a Red Jade reenforced Buff Jacket Triumphal Eagle, or simply 'Der Aller'* as he prefers to be called, was not much of a warrior in life, but was on rotation for guard duty when the hounds attacked and were predictably killed by them. Buried with honors along with the rest of the four and then raised up as a patron spirit of the city he has persisted as a leader due largely to [[User:Nemo of Utopia/The_Patron_of_Amarana|The Patron]]'s favor and the fact that he is a very intelligent man, who is knowledgeable about many subjects. His role in the city's death cult is that of a spirit of wisdom and intellect, as well as oddly the patron, so to speak, of the Adeptus Aeronauticus.
*(Which means 'the Eagle' in his native tongue, a northern barbarian language...)

== Cult of the Illuminated ==

The Cult of the Illuminated has a relatively small and subtle presence in Amarana, but never-the-less are present. Their agents and activists walk among the cults dedicated to the various celestial exalted who have come to Amarana quietly preaching of the unity of creation and the duties of the 'Shining Ones' to be the leaders and stewards of creation. "Someday," they say. "All creation will be united behind the Shining Ones, and on that day those who have served them well will have rewards beyond their wildest dreams."

Among the 17 or so celestial exalted in the city 6 are allied with the Cult of the Illuminated, and some of the others are sympathizers. The CotI worshipers pray to most of them and work to support their interests.

= Geography =

Geographically Amarana lies at the point just before the sands of the deep desert begin to give way to the rocky foothills of the summer mountains. When the spring rains sweep in from the north it is prone to flooding and mud, while the heat of high summer brings the blazing Simoon roaring out of the deep desert and with it short tempers and sharp words that sometimes flare into brutal murders. Winter is a season of joy and happiness for the citizen's of Amarana, as the power of the elemental pole of Air waxes and the desert is cooled, allowing snow to briefly form in the nearby summer mountains which are trucked into Amarana by old roads and made into flavored sherbets and snow cones for those with the Patron's favor, especially small children, of whom The Patron is known to be quite fond. The foothills around Amarana abound with resources brewed up by the slowly retreating Wyld or pushed from deep within the earth by the strange forces by which creation renews itself over the centuries, including many veins of silver from which Amarana mints its currency. Meanwhile, the desert around Amarana is rich with fire dust and gem sand, especially during the nights of the new moon when the Wyld retreats for several miles further south and exposes a wide swath of 'tainted' land, especially where the city has been slowly pushing the Wyld back by infecting it with billions of grains of what is essentially Elemental Earth. This area is hazardous as well however because the tainted area is not just composed of valuable sands, but also dangerous ones, such as quicksand, shatter sand, and hungry sand. For every person from Amarana who strikes it rich mining firedust or gemsand in the tainted lands on the nights of the new moon, another finds themselves injured, killed, or mutated: in Amarana 'Firedust Miner' looks fair to rank among the top 5 'most dangerous professions' for the first year of recorded statistics in the city, right behind 'Rogue Spirit Protection Expert' and 'Pharmacist' but just ahead of 'Building Excavation Team Member' and 'Artifact Recovery Personnel'

Nearby Amarana are a number of Small Oasis, Hot Springs, and Geysers which have long provided the Salaru tribes with water. Though 90% of the tribesmen have returned to their ancestral home a few chose to stay out in the wastelands for one reason or another, and now gather into three new small tribes: the western, northern, and eastern Salaru.

To the west, the desert is hot by day and cold by night, with only trackless sand to greet your eyes, the Salaru who have stayed out in this wilderness journey mile upon mile between oasis that are often buried under the shifting sands and must be dug down to gather up their water. They survive by hunting snakes and lizards and trading fire dust and jewel sand with the Guild for added food and water. Though trade is their main source of contact with the outside they no longer must rely upon it or perish, with the total number of tribe's men in this region reduced by more than 95% they now can survive on their own without help, but it would be a spartan existence. Trade gives them luxuries and better equipment, which they put to good use. The western salaru do not keep herd beasts or in fact, any animals except hunting dogs, the land here is too harsh for this to be profitable. They worship many nature spirits, but few major deities except the Unconquered Sun, who is seen as a wrathful god of war and destruction, and Luna in her aspect as The White Navigator, who is seen as a benevolent and helpful deity. Though they honor the high holy days of the five maidens they are not much revered outside those times.

To the north, the Salaru who have not returned to their city are primarily herders and gatherers, as the foothills of the summer mountains provide old lava tubes and other places to hide from the sun by day and keep flocks dry when the rains come. Their life is perhaps the least harsh of the three new tribes since they have kept the most of their population, with only about 80% going to live in the city and in all cases leaving a few family members to mind the herds and ancestral cave or rock-cut house. They also were the most numerous of the Salaru before the return to Amarana, having six of the 10 Salaru tribes living in their region. and now are by far and away the most populous of the three 'outside' tribes. They also still contribute a good chunk of Amarana's food supplies, which means that even the Patron must treat with them on their terms. On the other hand, they know that the Patron, while a patient man, does have his limits and that their families back in Amarana would suffer first and worst if they cut off the shipments of food and other goods to the city, so they treat the Amaranaians with a much respect as they expect in return: so far the city and the northern tribe have a strong alliance of mutual benefit and support. The northern Salaru frequently revere Atlhat, the southern god of war and cattle, in addition, they also revere the Celestial Incarna and Gaia as well as many nature spirits.

The tribes to the east were always the most desirous to return to Amarana, for they could still see it's central tower sticking up out of the sand. However, when the time came, an influential leader named [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Sabris of the Two Spears|Sabris of the Two Spears]] convinced them that they should instead of all going back to the city leave some people behind and send their sons and daughters back into the summer mountains to live with those that stayed for two years as a right of passage. This has proved to their great advantage, for they now own the rights to much of the mineral wealth in the summer mountains near Amarana and have risen to be among the city's most wealthy families. The mountain Salaru were hunter/gatherers before Amarana's recovery and it is in this capacity that the children sent to the old mountain fastnesses must learn to survive when they are facing their Adavam Ordeal. The eastern Salaru mostly hold up a host of small gods for worship and revere the celestial Incarna on their high holy days. They are however the nearest things to atheists Creation has, feeling that if a person cannot survive without divine intervention then they are weaklings that must be excised from the gene pool. Many of them are swayed to a degree by the Immaculate faith but reject the idea that the Dragonblooded are creations, rightful rulers, their tribes have long memories and have heard the tales told by the Lunars of the perfidy of the Dragonblooded and the glory once created by the Solars, and twice in their exile have seen this glory first hand before the Dragonblooded showed up and ruined things.

To the south of the city, a wyld zone bleeds into reality for almost eight hundred miles from the maximum edge of the world. Though the city lies near the edge of this wyld zone it is not part of it, not even when the wyld storms blow in the autumn. This is perhaps partly because the city's strong geomancy prevents it from being absorbed or perhaps some form of potent first age artifact still protects the city as it did during the invasion so long ago. If the Patron knows he is not telling. Either way, there is and never has been a tribe of the Salaru to the south of the city. If the work they are doing to push back the wyld succeeds as well as it has been thus far, there may be, soon.

= Ethnicity =

Amarana is an ethnically mixed city, with people from all over creation having gathered in under its banner thanks to [[The Ghost/The Patron|The Patron's]] zero-tolerance policy towards slavery. In the main however the population is drawn from the peoples of the south, as escaping slaves are most able to reach Amarana from it's nearest neighbors, [[Virangia]] and [[The Delazen Empire]].

== The Salaru ==

Descendants of the people who fled Salaruku in the face of the Balorian Crusade the Salaru have waited a long time to return to their city. Composed of 10 culturally distinct tribes the Salaru make up an ever decreasing percentage of the city's population as more and more foreigners come to the city and settle in. That said the Salaru, though small in number, have a disproportionate impact on the city's culture and politics, due to knowing the lands surrounding Amarana like no one else and therefore having a vastly outsized amount of wealth and clout.

The Salaru are subdivided into the following tribes:

=== The White Scars ===

This tribe numbers about 50 and have long been ancestor worshipers, they have been swayed to the cause of the Ancestor Cultists. They take their name from the practice of ritual scarification of face and hands to tell one’s ancestry and chest to recount great deeds. The White Scars hail from the west of the city. The White Scars are a strangely secretive bunch, they keep their own council and follow their own guidance. Alone of the Salaru tribes, the White Scars have wholey emigrated to the city, abandoning their ancestral lands to the Western Salaru's care and finding employment within Amarana. Most of them agree that this has been a drastic improvement in their living conditions. Their ancestors, however, worry about grave robbers and frequently ask the members of the tribe with the skills to do so to go back and check on the old burial grounds.

=== The Golden Bulls ===

Originally hailing from the north of the city this tribe has been sun worshipers since time out of mind, and have naturally gravitated toward the Solarion's cause. They take their name from the bloodline of golden-haired cattle that they breed, tend, and guard, which according to legend were a gift from the champions of the sun during an age long past in recompense for their service defeating an army of the Raksha. The Golden Bulls are among the largest tribes of the Salaru, numbering some 300 strong counting both those that came into Amarana and those that stayed behind to be part of the Northern Salaru. They revere Atlhat and The Unconquered Sun as their patrons and are known for their skill as warriors though they are overmatched by some of the other tribes thanks to awakened essence and charms. The Golden Bulls are largely employed as butchers, health inspectors, and members of Amarana's army, while the large contingent that remained in their ancestral lands tend their herds of golden-haired cattle as they always have done, though they now drive the excess males to market in Amarana for slaughter rather than keeping them home. The Golden Bulls’ primary combat style is with spears and Bullhide Shields, with firedust grenades to break tight formations. They would not look out of place in Harborhead, and marriages between Harborhead immigrants and the young men and women of the tribe are not uncommon, though frowned upon by some of the tribe elders due to the harborheadite's attitudes towards slavery, which the tribe has always held as blasphemy.

=== The Get of Vexan ===

Often called simply 'the get' by outsiders this tribe calls themselves the 'Vexanites'. The get is descended from a powerful Lunar who lived among the Salaru for a century or so starting a few decades after the fair folk invasion was driven back by the Empress. The Vexanite's hold a secret: their tribe is led by a family of Serpent Beast Men founded by Vexan and preserved through complex webs of intermarriage with other serpent-folk from as far away as the silent crescent. The get is currently led by a charming and curvaceous young woman from the southeast jungles named Nyoka. What they do not yet know is that she is actually the modern incarnation of their founder's exaltation and has been having sex with one of the tribe's greatest warriors in her spirit form of a twenty-foot dragon snake in the hopes of bearing beast folk children. She walks among the tribe in her Warform, that of a great dragon-like serpent woman with the fangs and venom of a cobra and the wings and claws of a dragon. The Get hailed from the mountains east of Amarana.

=== The Iron Raptors ===

Though founded by a group of outlaws and murderers the Iron Raptors are ironically a major component of Amarana's police force. Having originated as an inner-city gang during the last days of the shogunate the Iron Raptors turned their coats when the fair folk came calling at the end of the contagion. They took hundreds of people out of the city through hidden tunnels and other smuggling routes: people who became the founders of the other Salaru tribes. Since then they have slowly moved from running protection rackets over the other tribes, to actually protecting them, to being their main form of law enforcement and wandering justiciars. Now that Amarana is resettled they have taken up the role of their distant ancestors' worst enemies, an irony that is not lost on Garion Cromarch. The Iron Raptors’ central holdings were to the north of Amarana but they wandered freely among the other tribes and in fact still do, being welcome among any of the other Salaru. They worship Garion Cromarch as their patron deity, but also reviver a number of small gods of crime and larceny, propitiating them in recompense for reducing their portfolios and defeating their natural worshipers.

=== The Kelderkin ===

Another tribe from the city's north the Kelderkin are the descendants of Marion Kelder and are an agricultural matriarchy. They revere Gaia to the near exclusion of all other deities and hold that all other gods are really aspects of Gaia, subsidiary souls of the Maiden of Plenty. They are more right in this belief than most people realize. All Kelderkin women can trace their ancestry to Marion Kelder via one of her seventeen daughters, and which daughter you are a descendant of determines what your role in the tribe is. The only roles that are not decided by your ancestry are 3: Shaman, Champion, and Speaker. The Speakers are the leaders of the tribe and set it's policy, while the shamans and champions advise them and defend the tribe. Marion Kelder was a wood aspected dragon blooded and even to this day a Kelderkin man or woman will sometimes exalt as another wood aspect. Currently, there is one such person among the Kelderkin, Mwaloni Kelder who is a gifted archer and huntress that leads an all-female unit of other archers in the Amarana armed forces. She is also a sex addict and currently dating four separate men, two of which are identical twin Djala who regularly have Manage-a-Trois with her.

=== The Chosen of Flame ===

Hailing from the city's west The Chosen of Flame has been firedust gatherers for as long as anyone can remember. They gathered firedust far south of the city during the shogunate and came to Amarana to trade it. When the hosts of Fairie came sweeping in from the edge of the world after the great contagion they ran before them and were caught up in the exodus from Amarana, helping many of the civilized folk adapt to the desserts. The Chosen of Flames make up the lion’s share of the new western tribe, but even so, most of them have moved into the city and settled down as experts and factors in the firedust trade. They are a prosperous tribe that is in a state of transition as they adapt to being a settled people for the first time. Numbering approximately 75 persons in the city and an equal number now part of the Western Salaru the Chosen of Flame boasts several god-blooded among their number, and actively court new fire elemental unions. Their God Blooded include Gitchsune Folarabi, Malawi Besmar, and Kubrisa Suknis, among others.

=== The Iconographers ===

Among the tribes of the Salaru, few can argue that the Iconographers are not among the most learned and civilized. Hailing from the cities northeast they have preserved an astonishing amount of lore from the low first age, especially on the subject of geomancy. Now almost universally employed by the Patron excavating and repairing manses they are well off and respected. The Iconographers place great store by erudition and knowledge, and gain position and prestige among their own via a set of grueling examinations conducted by their tribe's patron spirits once every ten years, and always in old realm. Because of these tests of knowledge, the tribe is led by its elders, who have had the most time to study and learn, and they are prone to contemplation and thoughtfulness. Among other advantages this has gifted them with is the possession of five small Manses outside the city, raised after the city's abandonment by their own hands. These manses have made their ancestral lands fertile and bountiful, making them one of the largest salaru tribes with 200 members in five small villages around the Manses before they emigrated to Amarana. Of all the tribes their desire to return to the city was among the greatest, but they did leave one family behind in each village to see to its welfare and upkeep in perpetration for their Descendents and those selected to join them by the Patron returning. The Iconographers in city number 175 or so and are very much in the Patron's camp. They are led by Sukiwara Madoka, a god blooded thaumaturge of advanced years and not inconsiderable skill.

=== The Eisil ===

As a tribe of pastoral hunters and gatherers in the city's eastern area, the Eisil would not be remarkable except for the fact that they are master storytellers and thespians. The role of Storyteller is the most honored position within their culture and many people aspire to it but few succeed. Their greatest tale is that of Sakarazat, a woman who was taken captive by a rapacious dragon blooded lord and over the course of two and a bit years told him a thousand stories which prevented him from killing her, and in the end, led the dragon blooded to let her go. Now that the Eisil have returned to Amarana they are mostly working at simple jobs like sand clearer or coachman (They have long preserved the arts of chariot racing as part of their festivals.) but a significant number of them now take the long-coveted role of storyteller or actor, and are among the best in the city, being sought out by talent scouts and stage managers for private and public engagements. The Eisil hail from the high mountains east of Amarana where the snow falls in winter, they are paler complected than most Salaru and have massive barrel chests from dealing with the thin air.

=== The Mantis Tribe ===

From the northwest of the city, the Mantis tribe straddle the border between the desert and the foothills of the Amaranaian lands. They have survived by placing great store by martial arts and awakened essence, and among their number only the young typically do not have awakened essence, nearly everyone over the age of 25 has mastered this basic precept. By the age of 30, most people have achieved the form type charm of one of the 5 main martial arts of the tribe, and by the time they reach venerable status at 65, nearly everyone is a master of their chosen style. This has allowed the Mantis Tribe to become large and prosperous but puts them in an uncomfortable position of being alternately feared and nearly worshiped by the other tribes, who look to them for protection from spirits and demons. It also puts them in another uncomfortable position: their various schools of martial arts do not always get along, and more than once the tribe has been wracked by internal strife, especially between the members that adhere to the Immaculate Philosophy and the people that worship the local gods outside that framework. At the moment it seems like the tribe is heading for another such civil war, and this time it may drag the whole city into it.

=== The Broad ===

Alone of the Salaru the Broad actually hate the Patron. The Broad was from the uttermost western areas of the Salaru and also alone among their number made a common practice of keeping slaves, but not so much for the purpose of having them work for the tribe but rather to sell to the guild. They ranged far among the sandy wastes waring with members of other tribes and capturing them to sell for the supplies they needed to survive and prosper. Many among their number were heroic mortals and with the exception of the Mantis Tribe and the Chosen of Fire they boasted the most members with awakened essence and/or god-blood. They also served as a dumping ground for the criminal and malcontents of the other tribes leading them to be less cordial with the rest of the Salaru than any other tribe. However, even the Broad wished to return to Amarana enough to give up their slave taking practices, at least, some of them did. When the Patron decreed all people of Amarana Free men and women shortly before the Guild arrived the Broad fractured over whether to return to their ancestral homeland or remain in the wastes and live as they had done for centuries. In the end, the tribe split 60/40 in favor of returning to Amarana and becoming part of the new society, but the 40% that remained in the wastes no longer consider themselves beholden to the Patron, Amarana, or even the Salaru. These people, called by their former associates The Red Broad are now considered outlaws brigands by the Isknadarian government and hunted whenever they stray close to the fifty-foot Glass Pillars that mark the borders of the Amaranaian lands. They are firmly in the camp of the Guild's Men and infiltrate the city regularly to capture and smuggle out valuable slaves that have escaped to Amarana from other lands.
The 60% of the tribe that has returned to the city are in the camp of the Death Cultists since the Broad were by and large ancestor worshipers before they returned to Amarana and see no reason to change that now. Calling themselves 'The Green Broad' they have no love for the patron but do love their city and will fight to the death to defend it. Most of them are now members of the city's military and are locked in a bitter feud with their former tribesmen. The members of this tribe that are not military mostly work as overseers for the small but growing cadres of 'indentured servants' kept by the city government in punishment for some of the most heinous crimes such as rape and enslaving another person.

=== The Western Salaru ===

=== The Northern Salaru ===

=== The Eastern Salaru ===

== The Djala ==

The D'jala are a sub-faction of the Patriots at the present time. Having been liberated by the Patron from their enslavement by many people who have brought them to the city in bondage they are fanatical partisans of the city's leader and from a major component of his power base. The Djala form five small tribes into which new arrivals are folded by ties of kinship, alliance, or marriage within weeks of arrival. The number of newly married Djala in the city is staggering, easily 40% of all new arrivals are pushed into marriages within a month of becoming residents, and somehow nearly all these mirages are happy ones. What the Djala elders know but have not officially publicized is that one of the Djala's patron gods is an old drinking buddy of [[The Ghost/Meroka Jin|Meroka Jin]] and has called in a favor with the minister of romance and love to arrange this happy state of affairs for his people in the city. This is not going to last, because [[The Ghost/Sakarzi|Sakarzi]] is going to start screwing around with them, but for the moment she is distracted by her work with the death cult.

== Varangians ==

== The Delazen ==

== Deep Southerners ==

User:Nemo of Utopia

2020-05-23T07:33:54Z

Nemo of Utopia: /* Current */

Hello, I'm a returning user who couldn't recover their password, I'm going to be porting over my old content to this new account.

== Greetings and Salutations ==
Third edition, it never really took off, did it? After that "Return of the Scarlet Empress" thing Exalted was more or less finished, we all know how the story ends. But, I still like second ed, and I know a lot of other people who do too, and so I continue to run the occasional second ed game...

I used to be active on the official exalted wiki and then this one as a user called "[[User:The Ghost|The Ghost]]" but I can't access that account anymore, so I created this one and I am porting over all my old work.

= My Content =

== Rules Variants ==

[[Nemo of Utopia/Autochthonian Terrestrials|Autochthonian Terrestrials]]

[[Nemo of Utopia/Alchemical Half Caste|Alchemical Half Caste]]

[[Nemo of Utopia/Let's Not Play Rocket Tag v1|Let's Not Play Rocket Tag v1]]

[[Nemo of Utopia/Let's Not Play Rocket Tag v2|Let's Not Play Rocket Tag v2]]

[[Nemo of Utopia/It's Connections or Nothing|It's Connections or Nothing]]

[[Nemo of Utopia/PiercingArmor|"Piercing" Armor]]

[[Nemo of Utopia/FAME|FAME!]]

[[Nemo of Utopia/Titans of War: Functional Warstriders|Functional Warstriders]]

== NPC Creation Guidelines ==

[[Nemo of Utopia:NPCCreationGuidelines/Top|Top Page]]

[[Nemo of Utopia:NPCCreationGuidelines/Attributes/Top|Attributes]]

[[Nemo of Utopia:NPCCreationGuidelines/Abilities/Top|Abilities]]

[[Nemo of Utopia:NPCCreationGuidelines/Virtues/Top|Virtues]]

[[Nemo of Utopia:NPCCreationGuidelines/Backgrounds/Top|Backgrounds]]

== Chronicles ==

=== Former ===

During late 2019 and early 2020, I ran a chronicle of my own Under the title 'ExXxALTED: [[Nemo of Utopia: Chronicles/The_Legend_of_the_Rain_King|"The Legend of the Rain King"]]' This was intended to be my Magnum Opus; however I soon learned that a campaign on the level I wanted to tell could only be run as a face-to-face game with a stable and established group.

==== Sub Chronicles ====

There were several subsidiary parts that all would have taken place in the same universe and Timeline that make-up the above chronicle.

1: [[Nemo of Utopia: Chronicles/Exalted_at_the_Rim_of_Creation|"Exalted at the Rim of Creation"]] The Main "Mixed-Splat" chronicle.

2: [[Nemo of Utopia: Chronicles/There_and_Back_Again:_A_Solar_Holiday|"There and Back Again: A Solar Holiday"]] A CotI Solars-only Game.

3: [[Nemo of Utopia: Chronicles/The_Tale_of_Menemon's_Children|"The Tale of Menemon's Children"]] A Dynastic Dragonblooded Chronicle centering around House Menemon's newest batch of heirs to come-of-age and the parts they will play in their ancestress play for her mother The Empress' vacated throne...

4: [[Nemo of Utopia: Chronicles/Fires_in_the_North|"Fires in the North"]] An abortive game focusing on the idea of dragon blooded of house Tepet possibly averting their house's downfall against The Bull of the North, Yurgan Kanio.

5: [[Nemo of Utopia: Chronicles/Dexter's_Darkly_Dreaming_Daughters|"Dexter's Darkly Dreaming Daughters"]] A chronicle that starts off with a group of Ghost-Blooded mortals, then Eventually develops into something "More"... (This chronicle is set in the Henceintic League)

6: [[Nemo of Utopia: Chronicles/In_Capitalist_Claslat,_Bank_Rob_You!|"In Capitalist Claslat, Bank Rob You!"]] Alchemical Chronicle focusing on the conflict between The Guild and the Auochthonians of the Eastern Conference.

7: [[Nemo of Utopia: Chronicles/Moonlight_Reflecting_On_Water|"Moonlight Reflecting On Water"]] This one is set in the West, focusing on Lavaithain and the western Silver-Pact's difficult road to recovery in the wake of the events of the rest of the chronicles.

8: [[Nemo of Utopia: Chronicles/Ask_Not_For_Whom_The_Bells_Toll|"Ask Not For Whom The Bells Toll, They Toll For Thee."]] At the point where this chronicle enters rotation 'Chop-Shop Car-Jack' (Chejop Kejak), chair of the center convention, has died, and left an unimaginable power-vacuum in his wake in Heaven. A young circle of Sidereal exalted is left trying to pick up the pieces, or maybe just survive, in the aftermath of the passing of the oldest Exalt to ever live. (This chronicle is set in the south...)

=== Current ===

[[Nemo of Utopia: Chronicles/The_Tale_of_Menemon's_Children|"The Tale of Menemon's Children"]] A Dynastic Dragonblooded Chronicle centering around House Menemon's newest batch of heirs to come-of-age and the parts they will play in their ancestress play for her mother The Empress' vacated throne... (This one quasi survived the collapse of the meta-chronicle it was part of.)

[[Nemo of Utopia: Chronicles/Blaze_of_Glory|"Blaze of Glory"]] This chronicle picked up the shatter pieces of "At the Rim of Creation" and smelted them to make a new bottle to capture the lightning.

=== Future ===

Someday I hope to run a relatively brief chronicle entitled 'ExXxALTED: "... All Rivers Flow To The Sea..."' About the Silver-Pact dealing with the consequences of a group of solar's proclaiming [[The Deliberative]] from atop The Pyramid of the Sun in [[Rathess]]...

== City States ==

[[Nemo of Utopia/Amarana|Amarana]] The main setting of my chronicle.

[[Nemo of Utopia/Hokuva|Hokuva]] A pet project of mine.

[[Erlik]] The City of Ten Thousand Blasphemies

== Magical Materials ==

My take on [[Nemo of Utopia/Adamant|Adamant]].

[[Nemo of Utopia/Viridium|Viridium]]

[[Nemo of Utopia/Black Lead|Black Lead]]

== Artifacts ==

This is where my Artifact content will be placed.

=== Any Material ===

[[Nemo of Utopia:Artifacts/Double Bladed Daiklave]]

=== Orichalcum ===

[[Nemo of Utopia:Artifacts/The Teeth of the Serpent]]

[[Nemo of Utopia:Artifacts/The Tiger's Unsheathed Claws]]

=== Jade ===

[[Nemo of Utopia:Artifacts/Serpent and Heron]]

=== Mixed Material ===

[[Nemo of Utopia:Artifacts/Seven Fold Harmonic Adapter]]

== Charms ==

This is where my Charm content will be placed.

=== Alchemical ===

[[Nemo of Utopia/Full Life Technique|Full Life Technique]]

=== Dragon Blooded ===

==== Autochthonian Dragon Blooded ====

=== Lunar ===

== Backgrounds ==

[[Nemo of Utopia/LunarBond|Lunar Bond]]

[[Nemo of Utopia/SolarBondRevisited|Solar Bond]]

== Martial Arts ==

Here are listed the top pages for all of my custom MA styles, current or future.
If I come up with any new ones they will be added in as soon as work starts on them.

(Styles marked with an * are based on 'Official' content, namely styles created to fill in the actual charms of a style named or suggested in an Official source but not given an actual charm tree or charm descriptions.)

=== Terrestrial ===

[[Nemo of Utopia/Cascade Disruption Style]]*

[[Nemo of Utopia/Racing Lightning Style]]*

[[Nemo of Utopia/Thrashing Steam Dragon Style]]*

[[Nemo of Utopia/Stalwart Iron Hero Style]]*

[[Nemo of Utopia/Endlessly Turning Wheal Style]]*

[[Nemo of Utopia/Thousand Faceted Warrior Style]]*

[[Nemo of Utopia/Choking Smoke Saboteur Style]]

[[Nemo of Utopia/Uranium Dragon Style]]

[[Nemo of Utopia/Steel Dragon Style]]

[[Nemo of Utopia/Brass Dragon Style]]

[[Nemo of Utopia/Burning Vitriol Assault Style]]*

[[Nemo of Utopia/Hidden Master Style]]

[[Nemo of Utopia/Path of the Stave Church Style]]

=== Celestial ===

[[Nemo of Utopia/Ebon Dragon Style]]*

[[Nemo of Utopia/Plague Rat Style]]*

[[Nemo of Utopia/Hydraulic Tremor Style]]*

[[Nemo of Utopia/Enlightened Armatures Style]]*

[[Nemo of Utopia/Steel Fang Style]]*

[[Nemo of Utopia/Swallowed Darkness Style]]*

[[Nemo of Utopia/Steam Dragon Style]]

[[Nemo of Utopia/Lightning Dragon Style]]

[[Nemo of Utopia/Oil Dragon Style]]

[[Nemo of Utopia/Crystal Dragon Style]]

[[Nemo of Utopia/Metal Dragon Style]]

[[Nemo of Utopia/Smoke Dragon Style]]

== Characters ==

=== Templates/Sheets ===

[[Nemo of Utopia:Templates/Alchemical Sheet|Alchemical Sheet]]

[[Nemo of Utopia:Templates/Solar Sheet|Solar Sheet]]

[[The Ghost:Templates/Lunar Sheet|Lunar Sheet]]

[[Nemo of Utopia:Templates/Sidereal Sheet|Sidereal Sheet]]

[[Nemo of Utopia:Templates/Abyssal Sheet|Abyssal Sheet]]

[[Nemo of Utopia:Templates/Infernal Sheet|Infernal Sheet]]

[[Nemo of Utopia:Templates/Dragon Blooded Sheet|Dragon Blooded Sheet]]

[[Nemo of Utopia:Templates/Autochthonian Dragon Blooded Sheets|Autochthonian Dragon Blooded Sheets]]

[[Nemo of Utopia:Templates/Ghost Sheet|Ghost Sheet]]

[[Nemo of Utopia:Templates/Mortal Sheet|Mortal Sheet]]

[[Nemo of Utopia:Templates/Animal Sheet|Animal Sheet]]

[[Nemo of Utopia:Templates/Demon Sheet|Demon Sheet]]

[[Nemo of Utopia:Templates/Elemental Sheet|Elemental Sheet]]

[[Nemo of Utopia:Templates/Deity Sheet|Deity Sheet]]

[[Nemo of Utopia:Templates/God Blooded Sheet|God Blooded Sheet]]

[[Nemo of Utopia:Templates/Ghost Blooded Sheet|Ghost Blooded Sheet]]

[[Nemo of Utopia:Templates/Demon Blooded Sheet|Demon Blooded Sheet]]

[[Nemo of Utopia:Templates/Beast-folk Sheet|Beast-folk Sheet]]

[[Nemo of Utopia:Templates/Raksha Sheet|Raksha Sheet]]

[[Nemo of Utopia:Templates/Dragon King Sheet|Dragon King Sheet]]

[[Nemo of Utopia:Templates/Mountain Folk Sheet|Mountain Folk Sheet]]

[[Nemo of Utopia:Templates/Generic Sheet Template|Generic Sheet Template]]

=== Alchemical ===

=== Solar ===

[[Nemo of Utopia:Characters/AsterSnow|Aster Snow]]

[[Nemo of Utopia:Characters/BillyBBobBlythBoeBingo|Billy B Bob Blyth "Boe Bingo"]]

=== Lunar ===

[[Nemo of Utopia:Characters/Adjara|Adjara]]

=== Sidereal ===

[[Nemo of Utopia:Characters/Harmonious Flower|Harmonious Flower]]

=== Abyssal ===

[[Nemo of Utopia:Characters/Mr Benjamin Karat Muldoon|Mr Benjamin Karat Muldoon]]

[[Nemo of Utopia:Characters/Killer in the House of Horrors|Killer in the House of Horrors]]

[[Nemo of Utopia:Characters/The Housewife of Dark Designs|The Housewife of Dark Designs]]

[[Nemo of Utopia:Characters/Little Void Princess|Little Void Princess]]

[[Nemo of Utopia:Characters/Soulsteel Axe Queen|Soulsteel Axe Queen]]

[[Nemo of Utopia:Characters/The Black Barron of Vulgaria|The Black Barron of Vulgaria]]

=== Infernal ===

[[Nemo of Utopia:Characters/Vermilion Glass Rat|Vermilion Glass Rat]]

=== Dragon Blooded ===

==== Autochthonian Dragon Blooded ====

=== Demon/Yozi ===

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/TheHierarchyofSouls|The Hierarchy of Souls]]

=== Gods/Spirit ===

=== God Blooded ===

=== Ghost/Ghost Blooded ===

==== Deathlords/ladies ====

This segment chronicles all of the examples of one of "The Four" whom I have created for my games: understand that these characters are even less 'core' than the rest of the characters I have created.

[[Nemo of Utopia:Characters/The Archon of Apostasy|The Archon of Apostasy]]

[[Nemo of Utopia:Characters/TheMocker|The Mocker]]

[[Nemo of Utopia:Characters/DrownedPrincessoftheStygianDepths|Drowned Princess of the Stygian Depths]]

==== Deathlords/ladies (Re-Worked Canon Characters) ====

In some of my games, I have completely re-worked one or more of the canon Deathlords/Deathladys in certain specific ways, generally making them both more powerful, competent, and complicated, on several levels than in their core canonical status.

[[Nemo of Utopia:Characters/TheLegendoftheRainKing/TheFirstAndForsakenLion|The Legend of the Rain King/The First and Forsaken Lion]]

=== Mortal ===

== Shards of the Exalted Dream ==

User:Nemo of Utopia

2020-05-23T07:26:43Z

Nemo of Utopia: /* Chronicles */

Hello, I'm a returning user who couldn't recover their password, I'm going to be porting over my old content to this new account.

== Greetings and Salutations ==
Third edition, it never really took off, did it? After that "Return of the Scarlet Empress" thing Exalted was more or less finished, we all know how the story ends. But, I still like second ed, and I know a lot of other people who do too, and so I continue to run the occasional second ed game...

I used to be active on the official exalted wiki and then this one as a user called "[[User:The Ghost|The Ghost]]" but I can't access that account anymore, so I created this one and I am porting over all my old work.

= My Content =

== Rules Variants ==

[[Nemo of Utopia/Autochthonian Terrestrials|Autochthonian Terrestrials]]

[[Nemo of Utopia/Alchemical Half Caste|Alchemical Half Caste]]

[[Nemo of Utopia/Let's Not Play Rocket Tag v1|Let's Not Play Rocket Tag v1]]

[[Nemo of Utopia/Let's Not Play Rocket Tag v2|Let's Not Play Rocket Tag v2]]

[[Nemo of Utopia/It's Connections or Nothing|It's Connections or Nothing]]

[[Nemo of Utopia/PiercingArmor|"Piercing" Armor]]

[[Nemo of Utopia/FAME|FAME!]]

[[Nemo of Utopia/Titans of War: Functional Warstriders|Functional Warstriders]]

== NPC Creation Guidelines ==

[[Nemo of Utopia:NPCCreationGuidelines/Top|Top Page]]

[[Nemo of Utopia:NPCCreationGuidelines/Attributes/Top|Attributes]]

[[Nemo of Utopia:NPCCreationGuidelines/Abilities/Top|Abilities]]

[[Nemo of Utopia:NPCCreationGuidelines/Virtues/Top|Virtues]]

[[Nemo of Utopia:NPCCreationGuidelines/Backgrounds/Top|Backgrounds]]

== Chronicles ==

=== Former ===

During late 2019 and early 2020, I ran a chronicle of my own Under the title 'ExXxALTED: [[Nemo of Utopia: Chronicles/The_Legend_of_the_Rain_King|"The Legend of the Rain King"]]' This was intended to be my Magnum Opus; however I soon learned that a campaign on the level I wanted to tell could only be run as a face-to-face game with a stable and established group.

==== Sub Chronicles ====

There were several subsidiary parts that all would have taken place in the same universe and Timeline that make-up the above chronicle.

1: [[Nemo of Utopia: Chronicles/Exalted_at_the_Rim_of_Creation|"Exalted at the Rim of Creation"]] The Main "Mixed-Splat" chronicle.

2: [[Nemo of Utopia: Chronicles/There_and_Back_Again:_A_Solar_Holiday|"There and Back Again: A Solar Holiday"]] A CotI Solars-only Game.

3: [[Nemo of Utopia: Chronicles/The_Tale_of_Menemon's_Children|"The Tale of Menemon's Children"]] A Dynastic Dragonblooded Chronicle centering around House Menemon's newest batch of heirs to come-of-age and the parts they will play in their ancestress play for her mother The Empress' vacated throne...

4: [[Nemo of Utopia: Chronicles/Fires_in_the_North|"Fires in the North"]] An abortive game focusing on the idea of dragon blooded of house Tepet possibly averting their house's downfall against The Bull of the North, Yurgan Kanio.

5: [[Nemo of Utopia: Chronicles/Dexter's_Darkly_Dreaming_Daughters|"Dexter's Darkly Dreaming Daughters"]] A chronicle that starts off with a group of Ghost-Blooded mortals, then Eventually develops into something "More"... (This chronicle is set in the Henceintic League)

6: [[Nemo of Utopia: Chronicles/In_Capitalist_Claslat,_Bank_Rob_You!|"In Capitalist Claslat, Bank Rob You!"]] Alchemical Chronicle focusing on the conflict between The Guild and the Auochthonians of the Eastern Conference.

7: [[Nemo of Utopia: Chronicles/Moonlight_Reflecting_On_Water|"Moonlight Reflecting On Water"]] This one is set in the West, focusing on Lavaithain and the western Silver-Pact's difficult road to recovery in the wake of the events of the rest of the chronicles.

8: [[Nemo of Utopia: Chronicles/Ask_Not_For_Whom_The_Bells_Toll|"Ask Not For Whom The Bells Toll, They Toll For Thee."]] At the point where this chronicle enters rotation 'Chop-Shop Car-Jack' (Chejop Kejak), chair of the center convention, has died, and left an unimaginable power-vacuum in his wake in Heaven. A young circle of Sidereal exalted is left trying to pick up the pieces, or maybe just survive, in the aftermath of the passing of the oldest Exalt to ever live. (This chronicle is set in the south...)

=== Current ===

3: [[Nemo of Utopia: Chronicles/The_Tale_of_Menemon's_Children|"The Tale of Menemon's Children"]] A Dynastic Dragonblooded Chronicle centering around House Menemon's newest batch of heirs to come-of-age and the parts they will play in their ancestress play for her mother The Empress' vacated throne...

=== Future ===

Someday I hope to run a relatively brief chronicle entitled 'ExXxALTED: "... All Rivers Flow To The Sea..."' About the Silver-Pact dealing with the consequences of a group of solar's proclaiming [[The Deliberative]] from atop The Pyramid of the Sun in [[Rathess]]...

== City States ==

[[Nemo of Utopia/Amarana|Amarana]] The main setting of my chronicle.

[[Nemo of Utopia/Hokuva|Hokuva]] A pet project of mine.

[[Erlik]] The City of Ten Thousand Blasphemies

== Magical Materials ==

My take on [[Nemo of Utopia/Adamant|Adamant]].

[[Nemo of Utopia/Viridium|Viridium]]

[[Nemo of Utopia/Black Lead|Black Lead]]

== Artifacts ==

This is where my Artifact content will be placed.

=== Any Material ===

[[Nemo of Utopia:Artifacts/Double Bladed Daiklave]]

=== Orichalcum ===

[[Nemo of Utopia:Artifacts/The Teeth of the Serpent]]

[[Nemo of Utopia:Artifacts/The Tiger's Unsheathed Claws]]

=== Jade ===

[[Nemo of Utopia:Artifacts/Serpent and Heron]]

=== Mixed Material ===

[[Nemo of Utopia:Artifacts/Seven Fold Harmonic Adapter]]

== Charms ==

This is where my Charm content will be placed.

=== Alchemical ===

[[Nemo of Utopia/Full Life Technique|Full Life Technique]]

=== Dragon Blooded ===

==== Autochthonian Dragon Blooded ====

=== Lunar ===

== Backgrounds ==

[[Nemo of Utopia/LunarBond|Lunar Bond]]

[[Nemo of Utopia/SolarBondRevisited|Solar Bond]]

== Martial Arts ==

Here are listed the top pages for all of my custom MA styles, current or future.
If I come up with any new ones they will be added in as soon as work starts on them.

(Styles marked with an * are based on 'Official' content, namely styles created to fill in the actual charms of a style named or suggested in an Official source but not given an actual charm tree or charm descriptions.)

=== Terrestrial ===

[[Nemo of Utopia/Cascade Disruption Style]]*

[[Nemo of Utopia/Racing Lightning Style]]*

[[Nemo of Utopia/Thrashing Steam Dragon Style]]*

[[Nemo of Utopia/Stalwart Iron Hero Style]]*

[[Nemo of Utopia/Endlessly Turning Wheal Style]]*

[[Nemo of Utopia/Thousand Faceted Warrior Style]]*

[[Nemo of Utopia/Choking Smoke Saboteur Style]]

[[Nemo of Utopia/Uranium Dragon Style]]

[[Nemo of Utopia/Steel Dragon Style]]

[[Nemo of Utopia/Brass Dragon Style]]

[[Nemo of Utopia/Burning Vitriol Assault Style]]*

[[Nemo of Utopia/Hidden Master Style]]

[[Nemo of Utopia/Path of the Stave Church Style]]

=== Celestial ===

[[Nemo of Utopia/Ebon Dragon Style]]*

[[Nemo of Utopia/Plague Rat Style]]*

[[Nemo of Utopia/Hydraulic Tremor Style]]*

[[Nemo of Utopia/Enlightened Armatures Style]]*

[[Nemo of Utopia/Steel Fang Style]]*

[[Nemo of Utopia/Swallowed Darkness Style]]*

[[Nemo of Utopia/Steam Dragon Style]]

[[Nemo of Utopia/Lightning Dragon Style]]

[[Nemo of Utopia/Oil Dragon Style]]

[[Nemo of Utopia/Crystal Dragon Style]]

[[Nemo of Utopia/Metal Dragon Style]]

[[Nemo of Utopia/Smoke Dragon Style]]

== Characters ==

=== Templates/Sheets ===

[[Nemo of Utopia:Templates/Alchemical Sheet|Alchemical Sheet]]

[[Nemo of Utopia:Templates/Solar Sheet|Solar Sheet]]

[[The Ghost:Templates/Lunar Sheet|Lunar Sheet]]

[[Nemo of Utopia:Templates/Sidereal Sheet|Sidereal Sheet]]

[[Nemo of Utopia:Templates/Abyssal Sheet|Abyssal Sheet]]

[[Nemo of Utopia:Templates/Infernal Sheet|Infernal Sheet]]

[[Nemo of Utopia:Templates/Dragon Blooded Sheet|Dragon Blooded Sheet]]

[[Nemo of Utopia:Templates/Autochthonian Dragon Blooded Sheets|Autochthonian Dragon Blooded Sheets]]

[[Nemo of Utopia:Templates/Ghost Sheet|Ghost Sheet]]

[[Nemo of Utopia:Templates/Mortal Sheet|Mortal Sheet]]

[[Nemo of Utopia:Templates/Animal Sheet|Animal Sheet]]

[[Nemo of Utopia:Templates/Demon Sheet|Demon Sheet]]

[[Nemo of Utopia:Templates/Elemental Sheet|Elemental Sheet]]

[[Nemo of Utopia:Templates/Deity Sheet|Deity Sheet]]

[[Nemo of Utopia:Templates/God Blooded Sheet|God Blooded Sheet]]

[[Nemo of Utopia:Templates/Ghost Blooded Sheet|Ghost Blooded Sheet]]

[[Nemo of Utopia:Templates/Demon Blooded Sheet|Demon Blooded Sheet]]

[[Nemo of Utopia:Templates/Beast-folk Sheet|Beast-folk Sheet]]

[[Nemo of Utopia:Templates/Raksha Sheet|Raksha Sheet]]

[[Nemo of Utopia:Templates/Dragon King Sheet|Dragon King Sheet]]

[[Nemo of Utopia:Templates/Mountain Folk Sheet|Mountain Folk Sheet]]

[[Nemo of Utopia:Templates/Generic Sheet Template|Generic Sheet Template]]

=== Alchemical ===

=== Solar ===

[[Nemo of Utopia:Characters/AsterSnow|Aster Snow]]

[[Nemo of Utopia:Characters/BillyBBobBlythBoeBingo|Billy B Bob Blyth "Boe Bingo"]]

=== Lunar ===

[[Nemo of Utopia:Characters/Adjara|Adjara]]

=== Sidereal ===

[[Nemo of Utopia:Characters/Harmonious Flower|Harmonious Flower]]

=== Abyssal ===

[[Nemo of Utopia:Characters/Mr Benjamin Karat Muldoon|Mr Benjamin Karat Muldoon]]

[[Nemo of Utopia:Characters/Killer in the House of Horrors|Killer in the House of Horrors]]

[[Nemo of Utopia:Characters/The Housewife of Dark Designs|The Housewife of Dark Designs]]

[[Nemo of Utopia:Characters/Little Void Princess|Little Void Princess]]

[[Nemo of Utopia:Characters/Soulsteel Axe Queen|Soulsteel Axe Queen]]

[[Nemo of Utopia:Characters/The Black Barron of Vulgaria|The Black Barron of Vulgaria]]

=== Infernal ===

[[Nemo of Utopia:Characters/Vermilion Glass Rat|Vermilion Glass Rat]]

=== Dragon Blooded ===

==== Autochthonian Dragon Blooded ====

=== Demon/Yozi ===

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/TheHierarchyofSouls|The Hierarchy of Souls]]

=== Gods/Spirit ===

=== God Blooded ===

=== Ghost/Ghost Blooded ===

==== Deathlords/ladies ====

This segment chronicles all of the examples of one of "The Four" whom I have created for my games: understand that these characters are even less 'core' than the rest of the characters I have created.

[[Nemo of Utopia:Characters/The Archon of Apostasy|The Archon of Apostasy]]

[[Nemo of Utopia:Characters/TheMocker|The Mocker]]

[[Nemo of Utopia:Characters/DrownedPrincessoftheStygianDepths|Drowned Princess of the Stygian Depths]]

==== Deathlords/ladies (Re-Worked Canon Characters) ====

In some of my games, I have completely re-worked one or more of the canon Deathlords/Deathladys in certain specific ways, generally making them both more powerful, competent, and complicated, on several levels than in their core canonical status.

[[Nemo of Utopia:Characters/TheLegendoftheRainKing/TheFirstAndForsakenLion|The Legend of the Rain King/The First and Forsaken Lion]]

=== Mortal ===

== Shards of the Exalted Dream ==

Nemo of Utopia/Amarana

2020-03-09T17:30:19Z

Nemo of Utopia: /* Triumphal Eagle of the Flawless Hill */

Amarana is a first age city, lost to the contagion and the fair folk invasion over 700 years ago. It is now coming back to life under the aegis of [[User:Nemo of Utopia/The_Patron_of_Amarana|The Patron]] who wields the power of the [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Five_Signs_of_Harmonic_Unity|Five Signs of Harmonic Unity]].

= Amarana =

Amarana Is comprised of a large area surrounded by a circular wall. At the edge of that wall are twelve triangular towers that contain the major military resources of the city. Of these towers, eight have been fully excavated, and the ninth is being examined and the sand removed even now.

Within the city is organized into four quarters but only two of them are even partially excavated, the two on the eastern side of the city, and even there many buildings still slowly seep sand into the streets out of cracked windowpanes and the door seems. The buildings of Amarana tend to a certain Egyptian flare or perhaps it would be better to say pre-Arabic since they are after all, by and large, the product of the low first age. The buildings are built of a quasi imperishable ceramic that resembles adobe, with the most significant having windows of Chiaroscuro Glass and doors made of either that same substance or Stainless Steel. Buildings are generally between six and ten stories high with essence powered air conditioning and elevators both of which the Patron must personally repair before the building becomes usable again.

Unlike many old realm cities, Amarana is laid out on a grid, instead of in a radial pattern. This gives a geomantic bonus to the people who live there: namely that mortals gain +1 XP per time XP is awarded. This bonus actually accrues every half year if using long term awards. The players can uncover this information with a dif10 [wits + occult] roll once every month they spend in the city beginning on the second day they are here. The bonus only applies to true mortals, not god blooded, ghost blooded, awakened Martial artists or any exalt, but does apply to dragon kings and jadeborn who are not Artisans.

So far roughly half of the city has been uncovered, but even here there are a lot of buildings that are collapsed, or still filled with sand and roped off with red cables and even more locations where there are red cables indicating small shadowlands or dimenses that are not to be approached until the city can close/cap them.

The excavation is proceeding irregularly, moving from the east wall out toward the west except around the central manse and the road from the north gate to the south gate. There are markets in most squares and a number of shops on the ground floors of buildings. Few merchants here are officially affiliated with the guild since many people in the city are escaped guild slaves and loath the guild vehemently.

Nearly everything except slaves is available for sale, including many products from The Wyld. Firewands and Flame Pieces are the core of the weapons markets along with accessories such as bayonets, powder horns, and pieces of flint or obsidian for strikers. Interestingly Cannons are not for sale, being reserved for the government, but anyone with contacts 2 or higher could find someone who knows someone who could get a permit for purchasing a few for export. Armoring is more advanced, and even some artifact armors are for sale, though they would be a resource 4 purchase at minimum, and that is for the simple stuff like Jade breastplates. Things like Yuroy Scout armor are beyond the means of anyone in the party, though, that comes up for sale very rarely except through illegal channels. Jade Full Plate and Super Heavy Plate are more commonly available, in fact, there are people in the city that can be commissioned to make it. Orichalcum and Monsilver are not commissionable but in the still covered parts of the city are facilities to work it. There are no facilities in the city for Soulsteel or Starmetal, but there is a workshop in one manse that has been uncovered to work Adamant, though finding any to use would require Wyld Cauldron Technology and spending XP: such is the life of the Exalted...

There are a number of Inns, Caravanserai, and Hostels near the city gates, while further in nearly every corner of an inhabited area has at least one restaurant or coffee shop. Tea houses, by comparison, are rare, and true bars are unusual enough to be remarked upon when a new one is found. Most living quarters do not have kitchens, which is why many hab towers which have been excavated don't have permanent residents and so many restaurants can stay open. Many restaurants, in fact, rent themselves out to people wishing to cook for their families or are owned by consortiums of citizens who hold them in common for communal cooking with contracts for use and upkeep requirements.

All of the city's roads are at least 20 feet wide, plus a five-foot sidewalk to either side. This is for the smallest streets, most are 40 feet wide with sidewalk and a few main thoroughfares are 60 feet wide. The streets keep themselves magically clean once each section is repaired by the Patron, but only a very few sections are repaired and many people who work as street sweepers clearing sand wish for it to stay that way. (Each 10'x10' section is a different artifact and must be individually repaired. There is one street in the city's west that is a first age relic and still working. However it can only affect things up to 30 feet above itself, so it is a long tunnel of a clear street bounded on all sides by packed sand.) The streets are made of fitted 5'x5'x1' blocks of granite, and one can sometimes determine which part of the city one is in by the color of the streets. The northeast the blocks are blue and green, the southeast red and green, the southwest red and black and the northwest blue and black. The city’s four central parkways are each a solid color relating to their element and 40' wide on each side and the grand square around the central manse is white and 60' wide at its narrowest point. However many streets were repaired with gray, white, or red granite toward the end of the shogunate and are not properly color-coded.

The City has at least 5' of clearance between all buildings: meaning that there are many allies in which one can get lost. You can often tell which parts are in use and which are unoccupied by weather there is sand filling the allies or they are clear.

== Manses and Demesnes of Amarana ==
Amarana was at one time subject to major geomantic engineering projects that gave it a large number of demesnes and then manses relative to its size. Most of those manses are still here, still active, and even now being located and excavated. A few, however, were partially unstable and have long since exploded. These few are roped off as dangerous and plans are underway to re-cap them, led of course by the Patron. Note that there are more manses and demesnes within the city that have not yet been found and that at one time there were even MORE demesnes in the city which have collapsed into a dormant state due to the changes in the city's essence flows and could be reactivated with the appropriate rituals once the city is fully excavated and geomantic remapped, these demesnes, however, were all small ones, level 2 at the most, so whether such effort is worth it in the short term, or even a good idea, is debatable. See [[Nemo of Utopia/Manses and Dimenses of Amarana]] for further information.

= History =

== Prehistory ==

Though most do not know it Amarana's deepest foundations were laid in an era long past by the [[Dragons Kings]]. The City flourished in the age between the advent of humanity and the [[Primordial War]] with many of the first exalted visiting the place at one time or another in the several decades of the lead up to the overthrow of the Primordials. Then when the war began the city was wreathed in the destruction by one of the superweapons of the masters of creation, utterly annihilating most of those that dwelt therein and reducing the city to a smoking crater of volcanic glass. Still, beneath the burned and blackened surface, some parts of the old under city survived, and wait there still.

== The First Age ==

During the First Age many of the survivors of the primordial war remembered their time in 'Highana' fondly and after excavating much of the old substrate and leveling off the damaged areas to make way for new constructions raised up a new city on the site of the old. This city was dubbed 'Solzarian' in honor of [[The Unconquered Sun]] and in memorial to the Great Dragon King lady who had ruled the city so well and wisely ere it's annihilation. The City would remain a significant but out-of-the-way part of the Old Realm all the way through the first age.

=== The Ocher Fountain Era ===

During the beginning of the First Age when [[Queen Merela]] ruled over all creation from the eternal capital of [[Rathess]] Solzarian was still being reconstructed, and there was little of note that occurred in the city. One event, in particular, was notable, however: the Conclave of Solzarian in year 99 of the old realm, a symposium on the rights and freedoms of the people of creation which some in later years would argue laid the foundations of the Meru Uprising which led to the formation of the Deliberative.

=== The First Deliberative Era ===

By the time of the founding of the [[Deliberative]], the reconstruction of Solzarian was largely complete, and over the next few decades, the city became a favored retreat for both Solars and Lunars seeking to get the heck out of Meru and the stifling politics of the great city. One of Marela's closest allies [[Nemo of Utopia/Angus the Wirehair|Angus the Wirehair]] was given the rule of the city as part of the division of creation into fiefdoms and made it his personal residence. Under Angus rule, the city prospered, though it, by-and-large, remained a backwater compared to such metropolises as [[Chiaroscuro]] and Rathess. However, thanks to its solar overlord and his close relationship to the Queen of all Creation the city began the long process of incredible geomantic engineering which would in time lead to it being known as 'The City of Manses'.

=== Unfurling Horizon Era ===

While this era of creation went by largely without incident of significant note at this remove of history it is still recorded that many of the great efforts to explore and expand the borders of Creation in the south used Solzarian as a staging ground or stopover point before plunging into the true wilderness at creation's rim. This continued to encourage the exalted to play 'tourist' in the city and helped keep its economy vibrant. It is also noted in some histories that there was a major strike of [[Red Jade]] near the city in 811 which produced a 'Jade Rush' led by two rival Dragon-Blooded brothers and their servants which escalated into a short civil war in the city 2 years later in which significant damage was done to the city's infrastructure by all three* factions. The Civil War was only halted when [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Angus the Wirehair|Angus the Wirehair]] returned from Meru at the head of a wing of elite Dragon-Blooded shock troops and brutally suppressed both rival groups with mass arrests and a number of executions. (What happened to the brothers is unknown, but their names do not reappear in the historic record for 700 years, and at that time associated with different elemental aspects leading most scholars to conclude that they were 'dealt with' privately by their family.)
*(The Two consortia backing the rival brothers and the cities law enforcement detachments.)

==== The Aftershock War ====

In spite of the growing significance of the city and it's powerful assets in terms of equipment and hearthstones, Solzarian was not at first much involved in the Aftershock War. Passed over in favor of more militarily significant targets by the Primordial Forces the city did not come under fire until 1131 when a force of some 3000 first circle demons led by a trio of 2nd circle demons assaulted the city in the dead of night via a fleet of living airships. The 'Battle of Solzarian' was considered a significant victory for the forces of creation due to the large number of [[Golden Janissary Style]] practitioners in the city who were able to make fairly short work of the first circle demons allowing the detachment of Dragon-Blooded stationed in the city to confront the second circle demon commanders and dispatch them.

However the war was not all glorious victory for the people of Solzarain, [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Angus the Wirehair|Angus the Wirehair]] went missing during the final battle with the primordial forces and would not be seen again for over 500 years. For most of that time, he was presumed dead by the people of the city, though the Solar Exalted knew better as his shard had not found a new host.

=== Shining Reflection Era ===

During this period Solzarian loses much of its former significance as the seat of one of Marela's close allies. Few of the Exalted visit the city and the grand engineering projects grind to a near halt. The only events of great significance that occur here are two:
1: The Duel of the Magisters in 1313 where the reincarnations of Theis, Leelah, and Sonah engage in a duel of sorceress power which damages large sections of the city and forces all three of them to be censured by Marela herself: And;
2: In 1492 a major strike of Orichalcum is made a few hundred miles south of the city, and Solzarian becomes a stepping off point for prospectors of every stripe looking to get rich quick mining Orichalcum. The City's economy runs strong off this sudden influx of cash, people, and goods for the next 30 years.

=== Thousand Struggles Era ===

The first part of this period proceeds much from the previous one: everyone is aware that one of the legendary solar exalted has died of old age, but this makes little difference to the struggling backwater that Solzarian has become: then in 1776 everything changes.

In the Records of Solzarian 1776 is called: 'The Year of the Thousand' for the massive wave of change that swept over the city this year. The First thing that happens is [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Angus the Wirehair|Angus the Wirehair]] 'returns from the dead' on the 11th of Ascending Water storming into the city with a small group of Solars, Lunars, and Siderials and calling everyone he can reach into the city with him to face what he calls 'The Storm of the Millennium'. Ten days later the storm arrives and following in behind it a host of the fair folk the likes of which has not been seen in centuries. The city is invested and besieged for two months by the Faerie Host and the siege is only broken by the arrival of four full realm legions armed with Cold Iron. Once the Fair Folk are driven back and the city is again secure Angus orders most of the city leveled and an engineering project the like of which the city has not seen in over half a millennium undertaken to extensively alter its geomancy. To finance this undertaking he produces several tons of jade, from what source none can say, and uses his Wyld Shaping charms, which until his return no one knew he possessed, to manufacture the raw materials needed from the chaotic energy left behind by the Fair Folk.

However, no sooner was the project underway than orders came down from the Queen that he was to return to [[Meru]] at once and answer for his absence: and bound by the oaths he took as one of the [[Golden Hero Vassals]] so very long ago he departs. Following up on the plans he has left behind his circle mate [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Levian of the Gilded Staff|Levian of the Gilded Staff]] begins directing the super-massive construction and engineering projects which will if successful create one of the greatest concentrations of manses and geomantic relays outside of the Blessed Isle. By late in Descending fire half the city is gone and an entirely new street plan and so on is rising in its place, along with a massive upgrade to the walls and towers of the city perimeter as well.

What exactly passed for Angus in Meru is unrecorded by any presently known records except perhaps those of the Bureau of Destiny but what is recorded is the results of that visit: Angus was stripped of the rulership of his fief in the south including Solzarian and sent on a quest of penance into the frozen north: while Solzarian and the surrounding area was given into the hands of a relatively young solar of the Twilight Caste from another circle named [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Keisha Adriana Mullion|Keisha Adriana Mullion]] and her lunar mate [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Maxim of Personal Liberty|Maxim of Personal Liberty]].

While Keisha was young she was not stupid and consulted with Levian of the Gilded Staff on what she was doing with the engineering of the city. With the elder Twilight's help, she finished the geomantic reorganization as designed by Angus and by the end of Resplendent Air the basic project is finished. The city is now rife with uncapped demesnes and sites that will become demesnes once they can be activated after some of the others are capped. The city also now confers a geomantic bonus on all mortals living there, allowing them to develop their skills and abilities more quickly than those living in other cities. The full culmination of the project with the activation and capping of all demesnes will not be complete for another 36 years.

==== Time of Cascading Years ====

The Time of Cascading Years took rather longer in Solzarian and the surrounding area than it did in most of Creation: 3333 years to be precise. The relatively young solar ruler who went into the Time of Cascading Years and her only slightly more experienced Lunar Spouse emerges from it with a weight of skill and refinement which makes them elders among the solars and lunars. They also are now both arrayed with a panoply of artifacts and charms that make them forces to be reckoned with in the new Deliberative. The passage of the 'Age of Isolation' in Solzarian is marked by a number of rebellions and uprisings, and the invasion of their lands by the fair folk towards the end of it, from whence none, can say. Supposedly it was the destruction of an artifact which the Raksha Commander carried which restore time to its normal flow according to the people of Solzarian.

=== Second Deliberative Era ===

During the [[User:Nemo of Utopia/PeriodofLongSilence|Period of Long Silence]] Solzarain is one of the few areas still doing significant research, though they are hampered by the continuing disunity of creation and the fearfulness of creation's mortals who are all accustomed to traveling too far from home casting you into a different timeline.

With the Establishment of the new deliberative however Solzarian is thrust into the spotlight for around a hundred years as the home and workshop of one of the most important [[User:Nemo of Utopia:NPCCreationGuidelines/Exalted/FirstAge/Solar/TwilightCaste|Copper Spiders]] of the deliberative. During this period the city is a known destination for the many young Twilight-caste members who were reborn following the restoration of time's proper flow.

As this era goes on however Solzarian becomes less and less important with the rebuilding of the rest of creation, the other Twilights drift away to rule their own fiefs and work on their own projects and as has happened before Solzarian's position far from most significant events of history both at the center of creation and at its rim mean it becomes a backwater. Even it's solar and lunar rulers spend more time in Meru than at home, leaving the city in the hands of [[User:Nemo of Utopia:NPCCreationGuidelines/Exalted/FirstAge/Dragonblooded/Top|Dragon Blooded]] legates.

=== Era of Dreams ===

During the first part of the Era of Dreams, though Solzarian flourishes on the mundane level it remains a backwater on the scales by which The Realm measures such things: a functional and unimportant city in a functional but unimportant section of the world. It does, however, receive an [[IAM|I AM]] Transmission Node linking it to the broader network of information which now spans creation.

Then in the year 3381, it's twilight caste ruler is goaded into violating her eclipse oath to not attack other celestial exalted in Meru, setting in motion a chain of events that will alter the shape of Solzarian's fate for centuries to come, and that of the rest of creation. At first, the botches come hard and heavy, but then they stop and [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Keisha Adriana Mullion|Keisha]] thinks the oath's punishment has run its course.

It has not.

Returning to her holding in the south she begins to work on constructing a [[Proto Shinmatic Vortex]] and at a key stage of the process, the final botch of set activates and the PSV explodes, killing Keisha and creating an intense Wyld Zone south of the city over a hundred miles wide.

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/MaximofPersonalLiberty|Maxim of Personal Liberty]] calls upon every favor he has and even takes on new obligations to arrange the deliberative sending experts at Wyld Shaping to close the rift in the fabric of reality, but the people sent are not the high essence Solars and Lunars he hoped for but rather a cadre of neophytes who have scarce mastered Wyld Cauldron Technology and are woefully unprepared for the madness of the deep Wyld which exists within the rift. Three of them die before the other two calls it quits leaving the Wyld Zone barely stabilized around its edges. It is unrecorded at this remove what keeps the deliberative busy and the more powerful Wyld shapers tied up, but it will not be for another 3 decades that the Wyld zone is fully dealt with and that not by an individual any more experienced than the ones first dispatched, though with far greater caution than the first circle that was sent showed.

== The Usurpation ==

== The Shogunate ==

== The Fall & The Second Age ==

== The Rebirth ==

In RY 760, that same year where so very much else changed for creation (763 in normal Chronicles): the man who

= Government =

In basic, the Government of Amarana really consists of a single man: [[User:Nemo of Utopia/The Patron of Amarana|The Patron]]. He is an autocrat, ruling by divine mandate and shier power, as he is capable of defeating significant deities in single combat. However the Patron is one man, and as such has organized his subjects with several branches of what we would consider a more normal government. This normal government is organized into twelve 'Adeptus' which each is led by one of the twelve 'High Lords of Amarana'. These twelve powerful individuals form a council that advises and assists The Patron in his leadership of the city, feeding him data on several topics such as the state of his subject's religious convictions or the preparedness of his military. Though each High Lord is immensely powerful they all are The Patron's fanatical partisans and would not dream of challenging his authority, even if they could.

== The Adeptus Millitate ==

The Adeptus Millitate is one of the largest branches of Amarana's government, with no fewer than 1250 members in all its branches and subgroups. Though officially in charge of Amarana's Armed services it has a rival in The Adeptus Aeronauticus who oversee Amarana's air-forces. The Adeptus Millitate is run by [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Fist of the Land|Fist of the Land]] a God-Blooded martial artist who is somewhat uncomfortable leading an army of over a thousand people.

The Adeptus Millitate has the following departments and offices:

=== The Departmento Munitorum ===

Oversees the acquisition and care of the equipment and supplies for the army.

==== The Officio Technis ====

Deals with the army's Magitech assets.

==== The Officio Cibum ====

Oversees the all-important function of providing provisions for the troops.

==== The Officio Armorium ====

Handles the more mundane arms and armor of Amarana's troops.

==== The Officio Quartium ====

… is responsible for most everything else, from tents to uniforms to bedrolls.

=== The Departmento Servicum ===

Oversees the actual troops and officers and their training regimens.

==== The Officio Acadamicain Legionarius ====

This office oversees the training of new recruits and officers running two training schools for them.

==== The Officio Cooptatione Legionarius ====

This is the group that sees-to the recruitment and if necessary conscription of new troops for the army.

=== The Departmento Latrocinium ===

Oversees the hiring and 'control' of any mercenary units the government employs but is better known for a more sinister function.

==== The Officio Mercenarius ====

Does the Hiring and Firing of actual mercenaries.

==== The Officio Assasinoritum ====

'The Office of Assassins', to use the Vulgate, runs at least four secret dojos training mortal agents in martial arts that facilitate them serving as The Patron's spies and assassins. [[Nemo of Utopia/Assassin of the Grey Spire|Assassin of the Grey Spire]] 'leads' this office: He is ''not'' a master of the White Veil Style of martial arts and has most ''definitely not'' taught many of its members this secret art form. (Nudge nudge, wink wink, know what I mean, know what I mean? Say no more, say no more!)

=== The Officio Adminstrad Militate ===

This 'Floating Office' makes sure that all of the other Departmento and Oficio within this Adeptus do their jobs properly.

== The Adeptus Arbitiese ==

The Adeptus Arbitese oversee Amarana's police forces, and are one of the larger branches of the government with only 150 individuals on staff, counting every beat cop all the way on up to the High Lord Herself as well as all the file clerks and so on that work for the Adeptus but are not actually part of it's 'fighting strength'. They have only one Departmento and less than a dozen Officio, but so far are keeping a lid on the political turmoil of the city. The High Lord of the Arbitese is [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Steel Garden|Steel Garden]] who is not a very good investigator but a decent politician and capable administrator.

=== The Departmento Queastorum ===

This department is responsible for making inquiries and investigating crime, thus far it is the only Department of the Adeptus Arbitese but the Officio Correctionibus is expected to become a departmento in its own right someday.

==== The Officio Homicide ====

The Office of Homicide consists of only eight people, four detectives, three CSI techs, and one overworked file clerk. Their closure rate hovers at around 50%, though that is only due to them being able to count any suspect killed by the ghost of the victim as a closed case. [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Laurel the Axe|Laurel the Axe]] is the unofficial leader of this group but officially they answer directly to the High Lord of the Arbitese.

==== The Officio Servus Aucupes ====

The term 'office of slave catchers' is something of a misnomer. These detectives do not catch slaves, rather they catch people keeping, taking, or recapturing slaves and send them to their just punishments. This office consists of five overworked personnel, two detectives, two forensic accountants, and one file clerk. Their closure rate is around 30% since it is hard to prove that someone was a slaver without catching them in the act.

==== The Officio Vitium ====

Unlike the officio above this office is not quite so overworked, and the two often help each other out because their work frequently overlaps. The 'Vice Squad' mostly concerns itself with drugs and prostitution, since licensed gambling establishments and most pornography are both legal in Amarana. The officio consists of Four Detectives, five undercover officers, three CSI techs, and a harried file clerk. Their Closure rate is about 45%.

==== The Officio Interioribus ====

This Officio is more for show than anything since all of Amarana's police are held by the Stone of Invincible Loyalty. It consists of two Detectives and one Forensic Accountant. They often spend their time quietly helping out other offices.

==== The Officio Fraude Aucupes ====

This is actually one of the larger offices within the Arbities, having eleven total personnel, six detectives, three forensic accountants, a CSI tech, and a file clerk. The office tries to keep a lid on the Guild and others defrauding Amarana's citizens through various means and does a fairly good job. Their closure rate is about 70%, though this is largely due to a lot of success catching many small-fry while the remaining 30% is almost all of the big players.

==== The Ofiicio Fures ====

The 'office of thieves' is responsible for all break-ins, burglaries, purse snatchings, muggings, cutpurses, and so forth in the city. In spite of having eight detectives, five undercover agents, six CSI, four Forensic Accountants, and five file clerks their closure rate is about 12%. Garion Cromarch is frankly disgusted with them and has told The Patron so. The Patron knows they are doing their best but has ordered mandatory additional training for all members of this office.

==== The Officio Pax Patronum ====

The remainder of the police force is in this office. These are the beat cops that enforce the law by their presence and vigilance. Amarana is a large city and they constantly must be on the lookout for any kind of crime but especially things like drunk and disorderly, disturbing the peace, making an affray, and so on. This office consists of 57 patrol officers and over a dozen file clerks. Twelve of these officers are part of a sub-office of 'Mounties' who do their patrols in teams of three on horseback, they are often called in to suppress larger riots. The officers always patrol in teams of three, one to watch the front of a building and two to look around the sides and catch criminals in a pincer movement. They all carry magitech com units that let them use Wind Carried Words Technique and have Linguistics 3. (Their closure rate is not applicable since they work out of elven precincts and each one has a different closure rate.) One of these officers does not need a comms unit: being a dragon blooded air aspect outcaste named [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Secret Eagle|Secret Eagle]]. They have offered to promote him many times, but he prefers to be a patrol officer, though he has deigned to accept the rank of patrol sergeant for the fourth precinct.

=== The Officio Correctionibus ===

The office of corrections deals with the punishment rather than the apprehension side of crime. They are chronically overworked and typically have more criminals than they know what to do with but manage to do their jobs adequately. This floating office is overseen by Iron Sands, a member of The Broad who has lots of experience getting slaves to do as they are bid.

== The Adeptus Judicate ==

Working closely with the Adeptus Arbites the Adeptus Judicate is the other half of the justice system. These are the many Judges, Lawyers, and Clerks of the Court who make sure that the innocent are not punished with the guilty. At the present time, the Adeptus Judicate consists of 11 judges, 15 prosecuting attorneys, 23 Attorneys of Due Justice (Public Defenders.), 42 'Clerks of the Court' who record and file all rulings and court-ordered contracts, and 17 "Agent's Protection" who follow up on inconsistencies in court records and the welfare of Amarana's citizens in cases such as child abuse allegations and locating jurors that fail to show up for a trial. There are also about 200 private attorneys who are technically part of this Adeptus but not part of the government. The High Lord of the Courts is [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Molly McBride|Molly McBride]] a Demon Blooded northerner who has spent her whole life fighting against injustice and corruption in every form.

Additionally [[User:Nemo of Utopia/The_Patron_of_Amarana|The Patron]] himself is technically also a member of this branch as he has the right to sit in judgment if he chooses on all High Crimes and acts of Treason. He has invoked this right exactly once, mostly to prove that he could. (The person in question was found "Not Guilty by Reason of Insanity" and sentenced to lifetime confinement to a mental institution pending treatment or cure of his condition. He stood accused of twelve counts of grand theft, but psychoanalysis found him to be a kleptomaniac. The police often consult him on serial theft cases, and he is actually fairly good at solving them. However, he does have a problem with stealing other patients’ belongings and the doctor's pens and notebooks.)

Trials are in the American/British style, with a 'jury of one's peers' and the judge presiding from the high seat. The witness's sit to the judge's left and the clerk to the right. The prosecutors are on the left side of the courtroom and the Jury the Right while the accused is in the middle. Unless the accused is elderly or crippled and unable to stand they may not sit. For this reason, individual segments of trial must last no more than 3 hours. Only citizens may serve as witnesses, but since one can at the present time become a citizen after 24 hours residency this is not a problem. Citizens MAY testify with respect to events from before their citizenship. The accused is entitled to an 'Attorney of Due Justice' in the event that they cannot retain their own private counsel. The judge may dismiss any case at any time with or without prejudice, which is done routinely with respect to picayune or spurious civil cases so as to free up Attorneys of Due Justice for criminal trials. The patron is looking into finding more Judges and Attorneys of Due Justice so that civil cases do not need to be dismissed so frequently, which has a distressing tendency to lead to murder.

Abnormally The Adeptus Judicate does not have any departmento or officio, but there are those within it and without that are bucking to change that.

== The Adeptus Sororitatus ==

The 'Sisterhood' as they are called by the common folk is the government Adepta that oversees all _female_ clerics and thaumaturges in Amarana Like their Counterparts in the Adeptus Fratris they are few in number but powerful in influence. Technically also responsible for the worship of all-female gods in the city it is common that women will be priests of male deities and men prelates of a goddess's church. The division of male and female clergy between the AS and AF, however, is strict while the division of deities wavers like the landscape in the summer heat. In spite of these difficulties, the two branches of government get along quite well and cooperation between them is without rancor or strife in most cases. The High Lady of the Adepta is [[Nemo of Utopia/Unrepentant Emerald|Unrepentant Emerald]]. She is a mortal with Enlightened Essence and is exceedingly circumspect in her actions, a paragon of temperance. She is also the head priestess of [[Nemo of Utopia/Amarana Seline|Amarana Seline]].

=== The Officio Festivalius ===

This floating office submits to The Patron which days and locations should have festivals to honor the goddess' of the city. A circle of female clergy decide these events and pass them on to the patron, who generally approves them without comment. This circle is chaired by Unrepentant Emerald.

=== The Departmento Eclesiast ===

This is the main branch of the Adepta, overseeing and licensing all _female_ clergy in Amarana. The department technically consists of all licensed female clergy in the city but in practice, most of the female clergy get their licenses and are about their business having no further interaction with the government except to re-up their licenses once a year.

==== The Officio Licentiae ====

This officio handles the licensing process for all official priestesses, which requires proving you have the following capabilities: Ability to speak and read Old Realm, Basic knowledge of Spiritual Etiquette, (At least 3 dots in occult or 1 + an appropriate specialty.) and training in proper prayer procedures. (Prayer roll performance pool of at least 5 dice.) These requirements may be waived if the cleric has a 'sponsor' with a proper license who is taking on the new cleric as a student to train in service to their god/goddess in which case a 'Postulant Permit' is issued instead. Licenses are issued per deity, so if you wish to be the clergy of multiple gods multiple licenses are required. This is waived in the case of Zenith-caste Solars, Theurge-caste "New-Method"-Lunars, "Redemer"-caste Infernals, and Midnight-caste Abyssals, since it would be more trouble than it is worth to issue a license for every god in creation (for the first two), every each of the recovering yozis and all the greater demons (Redeemers), or ghost above essence 3 in the underworld (Midnight-castes).

==== The Officio Sanctionite ====

This is a smaller office within the departmento, making recommendations to The Patron on which female deities should be given official sanction within Amarana. All the female deities mentioned under the Religion section are sanctioned unless noted otherwise. Being unsanctioned does not mean you cannot be worshiped, but it does mean that you cannot have space allocated for a temple or licensed clergy. Sanctioning however is fairly easy to get since The Patron often simply signs the forms without reading them. (Additionally, all the incarnae are sanctioned, + Gaia and the Dragons.)

==== The Officio Hetterodox ====

This office deals with instances of rogue gods and clergy, such as the notorious Tuggie of the Scavenger Lands and other instances where the celestial bureaucracy has broken down to an unacceptable level. Employing many outside contractors they put spirits who demand illicit worship or sapient sacrifice in their places and also hunt rogue demons and the fair folk's ravagers. Though the actual functionaries of this Officio are few their agents are many and they are always busy.

== The Adeptus Frateris ==

Sometimes referred to as 'The Fraternity' by outsiders this Adeptus is responsible for all male deities and male clergy in Amarana. They take their job seriously and are sometimes noted for being taciturn and uncompromising. They are led by [[Nemo of Utopia/Wauli the Wolf|Wauli the Wolf]], who like his female counterpart is a mortal with awakened essence.

Structurally the Adeptus Frateris is identical to the Adeptus Sorroitatus.

== The Adeptus Mechanicus ==

The Adeptus Mechanicus are an odd bunch. Dressing in Rust Red robes and communicating in their own strange (and highly technical) dialect of Old-Realm they keep outsiders at arm's length. This Adepta is responsible for helping The Patron find and repair the magitech of the city a task that they perform supremely well but which many wonders if this group of strangely obsessed men and women are actually best suited for. Led by [[Nemo of Utopia/Adamant Sprocket|Adamant Sprocket]], an elderly Djala man and his young adult daughter [[Nemo of Utopia/Gears of Fate|Gears of Fate]], this group employs many Djala escapees in the task of repairing and rebuilding the city.

== The Adeptus Diolougus ==

What some would call the state department or the diplomatic corps the Adeptus Diolougus is one of the smallest Adeptus of the Amaranaian government. Led by [[Nemo of Utopia/Exultant Ivory Mother|Exultant Ivory Mother]] (a god-blooded woman from An-Teng, who harbors no feelings of goodwill for either Realm or Guild,) this group of spies and agent's provocateur work to keep Amarana a free city and outside the clutches of both [[The Guild]] and foreign powers such as the [[Realm]].

== The Adeptus Medicae ==

Easily among the smallest Adeptus of the Amaranaian government if one only counts the actual government personnel instead of approximately a-dozen-dozen licensed doctors, psychiatrists, and physicians whom they are tasked with overseeing and who like private attorneys in the city are technically part of the Adeptus: the Adeptus Medicae is as one might have guessed responsible for the physical and mental health of the city. They Tend to this task primarily by licensing and monitoring the city's medical personnel. This Adeptus role is two-fold: first, they are responsible for overseeing those practicing and utilizing any kind of medical skill in the city, from alchemists manufacturing morphine, [[Seven Bounties Paste]], or [[Age Staving Cordial]], to those offering psychiatric counseling outside of a church setting, to the several small private hospitals around the city, to even veterinarians. The Second task of the group is more dangerous and ripe for abuse by far: it is they in large part, as the only people with the requisite expertise, who draw up for [[Nemo of Utopia/The Patron of Amarana|The Patron's]] approval the statutes of law which they are tasked with enforcing. Thus far there has been no conflict of interest or abuses of power but the vast majority of people among the medical personnel of Amarana wait anxiously or avidly for this to begin changing.

The Adeptus Medicae is led by [[Nemo of Utopia/Simon Baker|Simon Baker]], a psychiatrist by trade, who is among the most dangerously insightful and persuasive people you will ever meet, at least that is not one of the exalted. He is, in fact, a god blooded, son of the patron deity of an order of physicians on The Blessed Isle, and is not much taken with the Imacualtes, treating them with frosty professionalism.

== The Adeptus Fabricae ==

Easily the largest and most diverse branch of the Amaranaian government the Adeptus Fabricae oversees all matters which involve or pertain directly to any sort of production, manufacturing, functional artistry, or creation of goods within Amarana's lands. Though ferreting out matters of a criminal nature fall under the heading of the Adeptus Arbites, and the governance of the legal codes is the province primarily of The Patron himself, and Prosecution and judgment of crimes is the business of the Adeptus Judicate, all three of these functions fall partially under this Adeptus' remit.

The Adeptus Fabricae first submits for The Patron's approval all codes and strictures which govern the actions and enterprises of fabricating all tangible products in Amarana, and exhaustive list of matters which fall under their control would be impossible but a few of the more salient follow: Print Shops, Compounding Pharmacies, Paper Mills, Glass Works, Jewelers, Magitech Repair Shops, Smithies, Book Binders, Cobblers, Tailors, and Farms: essentially anything which would be made by any sort of "Craft: XXX" skill is within their authority. The patron then reviews these legal codes and approves or rejects them, which becomes the strictures that the Adeptus Fabricae enforce upon the businesses of Amarana.

Most production facilities of any kind are within the Adeptus Fabricae's remit, with the notable exception of restaurants, taverns, eateries, pubs, tea houses, inns, and food carts which fall under the aegis of the Adeptus Medicae, though oddly pharmacies do not. Neither adepta is happy about this but neither is willing to lose or exchange the area they do have power over for reasons of their own which seem fully sufficient to them. Furthermore, any business that produces a tangible product and directly employs more than 50 people in any capacity is under their remit to license, inspect, and if necessary fine or refer to the Arbiters for investigation.

The following are the Departmento and Officio of the Adeptus Fabricae, each one with significant discretionary power and held in check solely by the High Lady of the Adeptus [[Nemo of Utopia/AuspiciousCrystalLightning|Auspicious Crystal Lightning]] and The Patron.

=== The Departmento Iura ===

The 'Department of Laws' devises and writes out the codes of law which govern the production and creation of goods in Amarana. They have created and submitted to the patron and extensive and thorough list of legal codes regarding the conditions, control, creation, and compensation for most products in Amarana, and those they have not they are working on.

==== The Officio Iura Laboris ====

The 'Office of Labor Laws' designs the codes of law concerning the employment, treatment, and management of Amarana's workforce. They are in the main as despised by the plutocracy as they are beloved by the common folk. Among other laws, they have enacted is the 8-hour work shift and the 6 day work week.

==== The Officio Iura Fabricación ====

The "Office of Manufacturing Laws" creates the codes of law governing the actual production of goods. Other offices govern the details of different types of production facilities or fields, but this office creates the general guidelines which the others work by.

==== The Officio Iura Cotagium Industria ====

The "Office of Cottage Industry" drafts the limited and simple codes which control small scale manufacturing by individuals and small business. They would like to have more extensive and detailed codes but The Patron uses his authority to make the official versions of the law to pare back most of their red tape and BS. He is, in fact, thinking of suspending this office for a period of some months while he looks for a better and less over eager set of people to be its officers.

==== The Officio Iura Officinis ====

This office makes the laws respecting the specific difficulties of production in a factory typesetting. Any production facility with 50 or more employees falls under their regulating authority, even things that are not normally their provinces such as farms, eateries, and pharmacies. For this reason, many production facilities and such, run with a staff of 40, so that even if they hire a handful of temp workers they will not move into this Officio's dominion. This Officio is not-well-liked by most business owners, being seen as overly restrictive and exceedingly interfering.

==== The Officio Iura Pharmicopia ====

== The Adeptus Adminstradum ==

== The Adeptus Aeronauticus ==

== The Adeptus Vectigalia ==

Lying squarely in the middle of the Adeptus of the city in terms of size the Adeptus Vectigalia is The Patron's Tax Collectors and Auditors of Accounts. Little liked by most people in the city they are nevertheless key to its continued function. In addition to overseeing that the government is given it's due and being called on to check the books of businesses which the Adeptus Arbites feel might be doing illegal activities the Adeptus Vectigalia also runs Amarana's national mint, which means that they are monitored closely by both The Patron and the Adeptus Arbites.

Noted for being uncompromising and humorless the Adeptus Vectigalia dress in imperishable formal clothing left behind from the first age. The hot stuffy suits and jackets only contribute to their reputation as dour and unsmiling drones of government oversight, which is perhaps the point of the dress code.

The Adeptus Vectigalia is divided into three Departmento: The Departmento Salari, which collects the taxes in cash or kind, the Departmento Quastorius, who audits people's books, and the Departmento Signo, who oversees the minting and engraving of all Amaranaian currency.

The Adeptus Vectigalia is led by [[Nemo of Utopia/Manifold Gemstone|Manifold Gemstone]] a perfectly ordinary man, who happens to be an excellent forensic accountant if only a passable administrator.

= Religion =

Faith and practice in Amarana are as diverse as the people who have come to live there. Everything from Immaculates to ancestor Worshipers to CotI members to simple priests and adherents of various gods all rub-elbows on the city's streets. Below are a brief rundown of the most prominent of the city's faiths and the deities they worship.

== Immaculates ==

Though the smallest of the city's faiths the Immaculate Doctrine still has hundreds of adherents among the people of the city, many of whom are enlightened martial arts practitioners. They also have a strong support network in the form of outside contacts with The Realm and other Dragon-Blooded.

== The Common Faith/Hundred Gods Heresy ==

The Majority of the population of Amarana believe in the gods as most people of the threshold do: they worship those who can provide them with benefits they want or need and don't understand much about the celestial bureaucracy or how things worked in the first age and that the present state of affairs is a corruption of the 'proper' order of things. Those that do often take the stance that "this is the way things are" and simply go on with their day.

What follows is a brief list of the major deities of Amarana and who or what they are affiliated with:

=== Amarana Seline ===

[[Nemo of Utopia/AmaranaSeline|Amarana Seline]]: As the City Mother of Amarana, Amarana Seline is the leader of the city's spirits. She was promoted from off the dole in heaven by the machinations of a number of bronze faction Sidereals and is fully cognizant of the fact that she '''owes''' them, but at the same time of the fact that as a dispossessed spirit promoted to the rank of City Mother she has few allies and many enemies. For these and other reasons she does not play favorites, at least not much, and is working hard at her job coordinating the smooth running of the city. Though she tries to be largely neutral in truth she is in the camp of the Immaculate Faction, which is part of why the Immaculates are as strong as they are in the city.

=== Mother Midnight ===

[[Nemo of Utopia/MotherMidnight|Mother Midnight]]: As the Senior Goddess of all-natural misfortunes in Amarana 'Mother of Midnight Murder and Mayhem', to use her full name, is a very good person for The Patron to have on his side. Mother Midnight takes positive glee in afflicting his enemies with all manner of troubles and ailments, from murder most foul to tripping on a dropped piece of lumber and spilling twenty boxes of crack from their backpack right in front of a police officer. However she is not really playing favorites, she still inflicts all manner of problems on the Patriots, their enemies just get it first and worst. Mother Midnight also has another interesting fact to her favor: she has been at her post for the past 3000 years. She gets audited on a regular basis and comes up smelling like roses: every, single, time! This drives Wong Bongerok to a level of near slavering fury, especially since he is certain Mother Midnight has been doing some kind of double-dealing and below-board hustle to keep herself fed and clothed during Amarana's long dormancy but has no way to prove it. Thing is, he's wrong. Mother Midnight became a doomsday prepper just after the usurpation and had been stockpiling quintessence and ambrosia for centuries ere the fair folk invaded. She has been living off that stockpile for all the time since and even now could go several centuries were the city to fall again ere she would need to start hustling for her sustenance.

In form, Mother Midnight looks like an exceedingly overweight woman with coal-black skin and long dreadlocked black hair that hangs so long as to trail on the ground. She typically appears nude or dressed in rags but can summon an armor of bones and broken pottery for a cost of 3 motes that gives her 10 lethal/bashing soak for the rest of the scene. For one mote she may reflexively cause any weapon that strikes her which has a hardness of less than 10 to automatically break*, and any weapon that has less than 15 hardness but more than 10 take 5d of damage. Energy weapons are immune to this, such as beam-klaves and weapons with a hardness of more than 15 cannot be affected. These powers do not count as charm use.

*(The weapon still inflicts damage before breaking from this effect.)

=== Pauldron Of Sanctity ===

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/PauldronOfSanctitity|Pauldron Of Sanctitity]]: is the new titular war god of the state, essentially exiled to the post by Atlhat since he is a rabidly punctual and rules obsessed deity that Atlhat has detested for centuries. Pauldron of Sanctity takes the form of a tall man in Gunzosha Armor and wielding a shock pike. He believes in well regimented and organized military units who are drilled and well equipped. In many ways, his notions of war are still trapped in the low first age when he was spawned as the god of a mercenary company, but this is just fine because he is the war god of a city with much of its low first age equipment and infrastructure intact. Though he favors the Immacualtes he is not willing to alter the course of outlined fate one millimeter without approval through proper channels.

=== Garion Cromarch ===

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/GarionCromarch|Garion Cromarch]]: is the god of Amarana's police force, who has waited patiently these seven centuries and more since the loss of the city to the fair folk working unofficially as a P.I. in Yu-Shan and who is the author of Amarana’s rebirth, having convinced the Bronze Faction to engineer the events which have led to that happening. Garion is perhaps more involved in the doings of the city's police than he should be, often helping them out with 'gut feelings' and leading dreams, but so far his interference has not crossed the line of allowed behavior.

Garrion's form looks like an idealized southern human male wearing Sentinel Defense Force armor blazoned with the symbol of Amarana, an eagle in flight wearing broken manacles.

=== Lissom Shining Spring ===

[[Nemo of Utopia/LissomShiningSpring|Lissom Shining Spring]]: a goddess of the local Oasis who temporarily holds two positions both in her old job and as the minster of all water sources within Amarana's sphere of influence. She is not perfidious in this role like Alhat who should not hold both the aegis of southern war god and god of cattle but is genuinely looking for a replacement to take over the role of goddess of springs and oasis: however she is a perfectionist and committed to finding a perfect candidate, which means that though she has interviewed over a hundred prospective applicants she has not found one that she feels is worthy of her longtime position. The Bronze Faction is willing to let her conduct further interviews, for now, but have made it clear that if she does not have a new spirit in the position by the end of next year she will be censured and the task of finding a replacement will be out of her hands. To this end, she has compiled what she calls her 'secondary list': those gods that she felt were 'almost' up to her lofty standards, and if she is running out of time will call them back for a second interview and chose the best one. She still hopes for a perfect applicant however and only has four names on her 'secondary list'.

Lissom Shining Spring's form is that of a large fish, but lately, she has been finding herself slipping into the form of a young woman in the suit of one of the city's hydro-engineering personnel who assists the Patron in making sure that all the pipes are sound before restoring the flow of water to a building. She is not sure she likes this.

=== Sonari ===

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/Sonari|Sonari]]: is the divine minister of sunlight and shadow for Amarana. She works with the bureau of nature to ensure that the proper degree of cloud cover reaches Amarana as well as the appropriate amount of sun. Like many of the gods of Amarana she is newly promoted from being on the dole and fearful of losing her position, but even so, dares to encourage the cult to worship her with little flourishes like rays of light in winter and cool breezes in summer.

She takes the form of a cloud from which pour rays of sunlight.

=== Meroka Jin ===

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/MerekaJin|Mereka Jin]]: the minister of romance and love in Amarana is actually an old pro at the role, having been the minister for the task in the old city and then for the Salaru tribes. He is corrupt as the day is long but adept at hiding his perfidy from anyone and everyone, including to a degree himself.

Mereka Jin takes the form of a vigorous adult man of the south with a rose in his teeth and a rakish smile. He often appears nude or in the robes worn for a wedding among the Salaru.

Mereka is eternally locked in a bitter feud with his theoretical partner Sakarzi: minster of lust and attraction, who is constantly trying to break down the stable romantic relationships her 'partner' builds. For the moment they have reached a detente on the matter of the two factions in which they are most interested, If Sakarzi will do her job for the romantic relationships of the Solarians then Meroka will not try to pair off the Ancestor Cultists into mirages and leave Sakarzi to push them to rut in wild abandon. They have not agreed about what to do with the rest of the population which makes up more than 60%.

=== Bibwit Heart ===

[[Nemo of Utopia/BibwitHeart|Bibwit Heart]]: The 'least' god of Amarana's central manse, Bibwit is uncomfortable with the cult worshiping him as they do. He has seen many least gods that have found themselves at the center of cults growing arrogant and ultimately becoming starmetal and is afraid this will happen to him. He has survived both the fall of the solars and the shogunate by being small and unobtrusive, keeping his manse functional and active while the rest of the city fell apart and he is not going to change that strategy. Still, he is an important god in the city, and as such they venerate him. Bibwit takes the form of an anthropomorphized rabbit with white fur and a tailored coat. He carries a pocket watch that lets him make flurry attacks up to his DEX score with no penalty.

=== Cela Dinarius ===

[[Nemo of Utopia/CelaDinarius|Cela Dinarius]]: Cela is the goddess responsible for Amarana's economy, and she is a personal friend of Glorious Weapon. She is no friend of the Guild and works as much as she dares to keep the guild from stealing artifacts from Amarana for sale to its foreign rivals. Formerly the goddess of Aj-Aran's main market square she was promoted to the overall control of the economy of Amarana via the machinations of the gold faction. She knows the city father is a bronze faction plant but reasons that as long as they both do their jobs properly they should not come into many conflicts. The two have a standing date for tea every Venus day.

Cela Dinarius form is that of an attractive woman carved from silver, and she wears the clothing of a Varangian cloth factor, which was her first job beyond as the least god some 4 centuries ago, patron goddess of a new Varangian cloth consortium.

=== Zalril ===

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/Amarana/Zalril|Zalril]]: Formerly the Least god of Amarana's north gate Zalril has by what amounts to shier-force-of-will moved up to become the patron god of Guild Members working in Amarana. The exact operation of this occurrence has been shrouded in mystery at the orders of Kejop Kajac himself, and further Nazri signed off on it too. The Guild maintains a large shrine just outside his old gate where they leave offerings before entering the city and where three slave women were taken under cover of night and sworn to become Zalril's Priestesses in exchange for their freedom by an Eclipse-caste member who often works for the guild. Though two of them still keep their roles as the god's priestesses the third has left the shrine and now lives in the city as a teacher for the city's new public school. Interestingly she has suffered no ill effects from 'breaking' her oath. Zalril has asked for the Guild to send a replacement but they are still trying to figure out why the oath failed in the first place. Meanwhile [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Sulramia|Sulramia]] finds fulfillment in teaching her students as do [[User:Nemo of Utopia/GayePachudiweOgesu|Gaye Pachudiwe Ogesu]] and [[User:Nemo of Utopia/OxandRainbowSlave|Ox and Rainbow]] the two women that still work at the shrine. Ogesu is an old woman and does the cooking and cleaning while Ox and Rainbow stand guard over the shrine. Sulramia also came with another gift for the god, her daughter, as she was part of a quadratic set, Maiden, Warrior, Mother, and Crone, and if she was to be the 'mother' Zalril insisted that she has a child as proof of her status, who conveniently doubled as 'maiden'. Sulramia's daughter is called [[User:Nemo of Utopia/IronandHoneyMaiden|Iron and Honey Maiden]] and is just the cutest five-year-old you will ever see, with an appearance score of five already. Her mother lives constantly with the fear of pedophiles, but does not let it rule their lives.

=== Walziri ===

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/Walziri|Walziri]]: as the god of beasts of burden within Amarana's lands Walziri is a major player in the lives of Guild personnel who must work or live here. Formerly a lesser deity of travel and trade in Harborhead Walziri was appointed to his new post by the machinations of a cabal of 'Independent' southern Sidereals and understands that he OWES them for this big break. The cabal has not called in that favor, at least not yet, but for the moment are content with him filing informal reports on the going's on in Amarana. While still hard at work at his new post he has already started to play favorites a little with the Guild's Men who pray to him, subtly strengthening their animals and selecting them last when sickness is due to strike the camels or whatnot of the city. Walziri takes the form of a large man of Harborhead derivation wearing several coral necklaces and white robes. He carries a Jade cattle prod which can be used as a spear or thrown like a javelin and returns instantly to his hand.

=== Anyaka Tetsuo ===

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/AnyakaTetsuo|Anyaka Tetsuo]]: The minister of Chance and Gambling in Amarana, Tetsuo is not new to this job. Created as the least god of a set of enchanted dice not long after the Primordial War Tetsuo has risen over the course of the intervening years to a position of moderate power in this city through diligent work and a suspicious number of 'lucky' breaks. Though no investigation has ever found him guilty of any wrongdoing there are enough people that are suspicious of what he surely must have done with his powers to better his status that it is unlikely he will ever rise any higher. Some deities would plot and scheme to continue advancing, but Tetsuo knows better. As a god of chance and gambling, he is well aware that he has been on quite the lucky streak and that is when you should count your winnings, leave the table, and cash in your chips before your luck runs out. He is content to be the god of all chance and gambling in Amarana: and will only rise higher if his natural luck brings him a sudden break, which he is not holding his breath for. He wiles away his time by playing games with the gamblers of the city, making them win or lose in a big way, but staying within the bounds of prescribed fate.

Tetsuo looks like a tall, broad-shouldered, thoroughly tattooed man with a cup and dice for playing a popular gambling game called 'Han or Cho'.

Tetsuo's sanctum is exceedingly large, he has had 700 years of dormancy in Amarana in which to expand it, and it now takes the form of a vast resort with several small casinos and many spas on what appears to be a small tropical island. (At the boundaries of its area there is a big reef beyond which the waterfalls away into nothing.) Tetsuo typically has many of the small gods of gambling and chance living in his sanctum with him at any time. Tetsuo is a colleague of Mother Midnight, not her subordinate, but the two work closely to determine which gamblers will face a string of ill luck.

=== Bagong Fangrick ===

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/BaegongFangrick|Bagong Fangrick]]: As the God of Vermin within Amarana Fangrick is an odd person to aid the guild but the guild will take allies where it can find them. Fangrick is a subordinate of Mother Midnight but has kept himself mostly out of her way and done his job without fuss since the revival of the city. Formerly the deity of rats for the Salaru tribes he was promoted upon the city's revival in recognition of many years of hard work with little reward and not the slightest blemish on his record.

Bagong Fangrick looks like an aged anthropomorphic rat, dressed in the robes of a shogunate era martial arts practitioner.

=== Wisp Virunga ===

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/WispVirunga|Wisp Virunga]]: As the managing deity for all education in Amarana Wisp is a VIP for the Patriots, because she helps their people learn new skills significantly faster, which helps them stay a step ahead of their competition, for the moment. The thing is that Wisp is running a knife-edge game with staying inside what is allowed within her post as a manager for all education in Amarana and what could be censured. This is very very bad: because she is already in trouble with the local censor's deputy for bearing a god blooded child, who is still alive and therefore available as evidence. Just to add insult to injury the censor's deputy has a personal vendetta against her for rebuffing his advances in favor of a mere mortal. Until the revival of Amarana Wisp Virunga was the goddess of its central library, she effectively promoted herself to the chief goddess of education by cozening up to the Patron while he was excavating her manse. When he decreed the first mandatory schooling sessions for the early colonists he had them pray to her as patron of all education in Amarana at the start of each day, when the prayers reached critical mass a few months later she had already conducted a quiet set of interviews and had her replacement as god of the library already prepped and ready to take over at once. This is not precisely an offense against the laws of heaven, but it is somewhat 'bad form' and would count against her slightly in a formal audit. It also has earned some of her fellow deities enmity, especially:...

=== Principle of Justified Action ===

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/PrincipleofJustifiedAction|Principle of Justified Action]]: Heaven has gods of just about everything, including educators. Principle of Justified Action was formerly a deity of a major school out in the distant threshold before the fair folk invasion and only survived that calamity by mere chance, having been in heaven on vacation when the hosts of faerie scourged the world. Since then he has lived on the dole and schemed endlessly to get another position in the bureau of humanity's education office. He finally thought he had one all lined up when Amarana was scheduled to be rebuilt as its manager of education, but the Patron and Wisp Verunga snatched it out of his hands. Yet, when one door closes another opens and a cabal of Gold Faction Sidereals and a few people who were still his friends from the old days managed to finagle him a consolation prize. The role of managing deity for the court system of Amarana was still open since there were not supposed to be any real criminal proceedings for several months yet. Desperate to get off the dole by then and seeing this as his last chance for the foreseeable future he accepted.

What neither he nor the Sidereals that helped him expected, was that he would LIKE the work. Managing a court system is not so different in truth from managing a school, you have trouble makers, erudite and passionate people, a lot of people who really don't want to be there, an ever-changing cast of characters doing many old and a few new stupid things, a complex set of rules you must adhere to; the similarities were rather a shock. Of course, there were differences, mostly in the fact that things move both so much slower most of the time and so much faster in the crunch, but he got his sea legs within a month or two and found himself enjoying having a real job again. That said, Principle of Justified Action is still no friend of Wisp Virunga and would dearly love to put in an application to replace her should she fall afoul of the auditors. However he bides his time, after all, he is employed in a job that he does not find onerous and has plenty of prayers coming in from both sides of the law, Wisp has no experience and is drowning in her duties, let them see what putting an untried administrator into such an important post does! Chances are that within the decade he will have her job: so runs his reasoning.

The Patron is another matter. He likes the Patron, rather a lot, and finds in the autocrat of the city a kindred spirit: and of course, cannot fault the man on the matter of his dedication to an educated society. He sometimes pokes the patron in the subconscious when he is contemplating a bad law, or about to reject a good one, and thus far does not consider it any kind of offense against heaven's rules. He is, in fact, wrong, he has committed no less than 5 level-one offenses in this manner, but that will largely be ignored unless he does more than mere subconscious nudging, after all, he has not really messed up any major plans this way so far.

In form Principle of Justified Action looks like a tall man from the furthest east, wearing the green and red robes of a seated Judge of Amarana's courts. His hair is shock white, a remnant of his time among the starving unemployed but he finds it suits his image as a wise leader of the courts. Abnormally for a god of justice he is lenient with most offenders, reasoning that if you punish too harshly you deny them a chance to learn from their mistakes. However, anyone who harms children sees the other side of him, a fury of unrelenting hatred that will see them hanged if at all possible.

=== Sakarzi ===

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/Sakarzi|Sakarzi]]: though she would dearly love to bring about the Patron's ruin and overthrow Sakarzi: minister of lust and attraction for Amarana, has a problem: She is both terrified of him and lusts after him obsessively. Sakarzi met the Patron before he mastered Amarana when she was bathing in a sacred hot-spring on the borders of the lands now claimed by the city in the guise of a comely Salaru maiden and he was following his awakened memories back to the city to claim his destiny. There at the hot-spring, she tried to seduce him.

She Failed.

The patron was clearly attracted to her and wished to accept her advances but mastered himself with an effort of will and politely refused. Five more times in five different guises Sakarzi has tried to seduce him and each time has been rebuffed, but always politely. This is why she is terrified of him, no one else whom she has ever tried to seduce has refused her advances so many times, especially since each of those times she has used progressively more of her supernatural powers, in the last instance activating an effect that should have compelled him to lie with her will he or no. She lusts after him because she has a weakness for powerful men, and The Patron certainly is one: but it is his immunity to her mystical powers that have made it an obsession. With the Patron, Sakarzi can use only the arts available to a mortal woman to snare the man she desires, and it is driving her to distraction. Perhaps an hour's worth of time out of each of her days is frittered away trying to think up new ways to seduce the Patron that rely only on her natural skills and personal beauty, but thus far she has not come up with anything worth using on a seventh attempt. The reason that Sakarzi would love to see the patron fall is that after she started a feud between three of the early families of colonists by seducing three of their sons and declaring that only the last one living would bed her the patron caught her outside her sanctum and beat her to within an inch of her life, declaring that if he ever caught her pulling that kind of stunt on his supporters again he would not pull his blows the second time.

These conflicting emotions are tearing Sakarzi apart, she lusts after the patron, but wants to ruin him, but is terrified of him, but she wants to have sex with him so bad she can taste it: Etc, Etc. In the meantime, she has appeared to several of the Patriots and declared her support for the patron's cause offering her help in securing the objects of their desires and the word has spread among them that if you erect a shrine to her in your residence and pray at it twice a day, morning and night, she will aid you in seducing whoever you most lust after.

While Sakarzi has many forms she can assume her true form is that of a Salaru woman of surpassing beauty and grace who literally cannot wear clothing. Her merest touch causes any garment to become invisible for one hour, so there is no point in her wearing any kind of raiment except for its protective value, which she rarely does.

=== Machuko; Torch of Freedom ===

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/MachukoTorchofFreedom|Machuko; Torch of Freedom]]: Is it any wonder, considering the status of Amarana as a free city where none may be held in bondage without due process of law, that the patron deity of Liberation and Abolitionism should view it with favor and even more so it's leader who enacted the law in question? [[Rabsolga]], the patron of slavery, hates and despises Amarana and if for no other reason than that Machuko loves and protects it. Furthermore, Machuko is [[User:Nemo of Utopia/ThePatron|The Patron]]'s patron god, to whom he prays five times a day, and is celebrated with five feast days each year, one at the beginning of each 'resplendent' month. Even the Immaculates honor these five days of worship, because the Patron has been known to have those that speak against honoring the feasts arrested and tried for sedition and/or aiding and abetting slavers, and their leader does not need that kind of attention, so he has said: "These days honoring Machuko are sanctioned by the immaculate faith, so long as you pray unto him only on these days you do not sin against the orders of Heaven."

Machuko keeps a large temple in the city's northeast quarter: a level 3 fire aspected manse called 'The Wheel of Torches' from it ride forth his clergy and devout adherents numbering several dozen strong on raids into the wastes beyond Amarana's borders proclaiming Machuko's glory and the freedom of all people within the lands of Amarana. Machuko has many priests across all of creation but nowhere are there so many gathered together as in Amarana.

In form, Machuko looks like a tall muscular man of what modern people would call Jewish/Hasidic/Israeli derivation, with a wild beard and long hair that hangs in ringlets. He carries a gore maul and chopping sword of orichalcum and white jade which when used together can cut any chain or bond. He has another form, which he assumes rarely except when in heaven, which is that of a great Dragon filled with yellow-white fire and made from millions of broken chains, collars, and manacles.

== Ancestor Cultists ==

Led by [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Sharima of the Three Disciplines|Sharima of the Three Disciplines]] and her ghostly lover [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Aruna the Defiant|Aruna the Defiant]] this group of citizens is a large and vocal part of the city's population. Though dwarfed by the percentage of the city who worship the city's gods and elementals the Ancestor Cultists make up as much as 20-25% of the city's population and are especially prominent among the [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Salaru|Salaru]].

The Ancestor Cultists make use of a large number of small [[Shadowlands]] across the city to communicate more directly with their patron spirits and interact with the underworld: but are mindful of [[User:Nemo of Utopia/The Patron of Amarana|The Patron]]'s injunctions about not breaking the circles of salt and other wards which keep the ghosts within the Underworld. They are however constantly working to locate 'new' and unguarded Shadowlands for their patrons to use to slip in and out of the underworld, which The Patron minds not one bit so long as they report them for the Adeptus Sororitatus/Frateris to seal in due course.

Though most of the people of Amarana are unaware of this fact the Ancestor Cultists are being controlled from behind the scenes by a Deathknight known as [[User:Nemo of Utopia/The Fluttering Fist of the Deadly Labyrinth|The Fluttering Fist of the Deadly Labyrinth]] he is a martial artist in service to The [[Mask of Winters]] who has wandered off on his own agenda far from thorns and The Mask's traditional area of operation. "The Fist" came to Amarana in search of a rumored cache of [[Autochthonian]] [[Soulsteel]], held in the vaults of the undercity, but has found that much of the undercity is sealed and inaccessible even from the [[Underworld]]. In the meantime, he works on the ancestor cultists as both a way to support himself and something to occupy his time while he trains to learn the charms that will allow him to enter the prehuman depths of the city where he hopes the bars of [[Autochthonian Soulsteel]] can be found.

Though the ghosts of Salaruku are numerous and very old surprisingly few of them are Heroic Ghosts and willing/able to serve as patrons for Amarana's ancestor cultists. Of those that do It is surprisingly four of the youngest ghosts that are the main patrons worshiped by the cultists: along with one exceedingly old ghost from the fall of Salaruku.

=== Xufuwne Onuke ===

The leader of Isknadar's relatively large population of ghosts from the time of the fair folk invasion Onuke is frighteningly powerful but relatively easy going. He has outlasted Amarana's long dormancy and now looks forward to an era of joy and plenty for the city's dead. A dragon blooded warrior in life Onuke was killed battling the invaders from the wyld and in an odd twist of fate, they buried him with high honors. His tomb lies in the still sand-covered western half of the city at the center of a small park. In form, Onuke looks like a typical dragon blooded of the shogunate, dressed in power armor and wielding a Daiklave. He has subsisted by hunting plasmic creatures for most of 700 years but welcomes the changes of the reborn city. Onuke is the cult's equivalent of a war god, a role he shoulders without complaint but also without relish.

=== Aruna the Defiant ===

Hailing from Chiaroscuro Aruna is the lover of Sharima, and they have many Ghost-blooded children together. They were maneuvered into the leadership of the cult by agents of [[The Archon of Apostasy]] who wished to have a shining example of ghost/mortal co-operation in Amarana to help people accept the death cult in their midst. The Archon's agents do not believe the plan is working but they are wrong, were it not for the two of them the cult would have been burned out root and branch. Aruna is a relatively young ghost but has become powerful quite quickly thanks to her lover and her association with various death cults. In appearance, Aruna looks like a young woman of the Delazen, beautiful and alluring for all her ghostly translucence and pallor. Aruna is the cult's patron of love and romance but gives short shrift to lust.

=== Emerald Lotus ===

Like her partner's Monkey of the City and Triumphal Eagle of the Flawless Hill, Emerald Lotus has been elevated to leadership by the machinations of the Patron, who decreed a feast day in their honor on the day of their deaths defending Amarana from an attack by a trio of 'Hounds of the Unbroken Earth'. None of them is experienced enough to really do the jobs that they have had thrust upon them but they all are rising to the challenge. Emerald Lotus resembles a typical woman of the deep south dressed in a white robe and headscarf that covers everything but her face, and overtop that a breastplate of steel. She is neither attractive nor ugly but is very charismatic. She carries an infinite jade chakram as her main weapon and also bears a perfect chopping sword for close fighting. Emerald Lotus is the patron 'deity' of the cult's Martial Artists, as she had some experience with that in life. She still is finding her feet as a ghost and defers to Xufuwne Onuke on most matters.

=== Monkey of the City ===

Dressed in lamellar and wielding a shock pike monkey of the city is not really suited to his role as a leader of an ancestor cult. Having been an outcast and wanderer in life who always tried to keep people happy and was quick with a joke or to share his water he has not changed much in death. However, there is a place for the fun and funny guy in any pantheon and Monkey of the City fills that role for the Ancestor Cultists of Amarana. Monkey of the City is the cult pantheon's trickster and comic relief, which he does not mind one bit.

=== Triumphal Eagle of the Flawless Hill ===

Wearing a Red Jade reenforced Buff Jacket Triumphal Eagle, or simply 'Der Aller'* as he prefers to be called, was not much of a warrior in life, but was on rotation for guard duty when the hounds attacked and were predictably killed by them. Buried with honors along with the rest of the four and then raised up as a patron spirit of the city he has persisted as a leader due largely to [[User:Nemo of Utopia/The_Patron_of_Amarana|The Patron]]'s favor and the fact that he is a very intelligent man, who is knowledgeable about many subjects. His role in the city's death cult is that of a spirit of wisdom and intellect, as well as oddly the patron, so to speak, of the Adeptus Aeronauticus.
*(Which means 'the Eagle' in his native tongue, a northern barbarian language...)

== Cult of the Illuminated ==

The Cult of the Illuminated has a relatively small and subtle presence in Amarana, but never-the-less are present. Their agents and activists walk among the cults dedicated to the various celestial exalted who have come to Amarana quietly preaching of the unity of creation and the duties of the 'Shining Ones' to be the leaders and stewards of creation. "Someday," they say. "All creation will be united behind the Shining Ones, and on that day those who have served them well will have rewards beyond their wildest dreams."

Among the 17 or so celestial exalted in the city 6 are allied with the Cult of the Illuminated, and some of the others are sympathizers. The CotI worshipers pray to most of them and work to support their interests.

= Geography =

Geographically Amarana lies at the point just before the sands of the deep desert begin to give way to the rocky foothills of the summer mountains. When the spring rains sweep in from the north it is prone to flooding and mud, while the heat of high summer brings the blazing Simoon roaring out of the deep desert and with it short tempers and sharp words that sometimes flare into brutal murders. Winter is a season of joy and happiness for the citizen's of Amarana, as the power of the elemental pole of Air waxes and the desert is cooled, allowing snow to briefly form in the nearby summer mountains which are trucked into Amarana by old roads and made into flavored sherbets and snow cones for those with the Patron's favor, especially small children, of whom The Patron is known to be quite fond. The foothills around Amarana abound with resources brewed up by the slowly retreating Wyld or pushed from deep within the earth by the strange forces by which creation renews itself over the centuries, including many veins of silver from which Amarana mints its currency. Meanwhile, the desert around Amarana is rich with fire dust and gem sand, especially during the nights of the new moon when the Wyld retreats for several miles further south and exposes a wide swath of 'tainted' land, especially where the city has been slowly pushing the Wyld back by infecting it with billions of grains of what is essentially Elemental Earth. This area is hazardous as well however because the tainted area is not just composed of valuable sands, but also dangerous ones, such as quicksand, shatter sand, and hungry sand. For every person from Amarana who strikes it rich mining firedust or gemsand in the tainted lands on the nights of the new moon, another finds themselves injured, killed, or mutated: in Amarana 'Firedust Miner' looks fair to rank among the top 5 'most dangerous professions' for the first year of recorded statistics in the city, right behind 'Rogue Spirit Protection Expert' and 'Pharmacist' but just ahead of 'Building Excavation Team Member' and 'Artifact Recovery Personnel'

Nearby Amarana are a number of Small Oasis, Hot Springs, and Geysers which have long provided the Salaru tribes with water. Though 90% of the tribesmen have returned to their ancestral home a few chose to stay out in the wastelands for one reason or another, and now gather into three new small tribes: the western, northern, and eastern Salaru.

To the west, the desert is hot by day and cold by night, with only trackless sand to greet your eyes, the Salaru who have stayed out in this wilderness journey mile upon mile between oasis that are often buried under the shifting sands and must be dug down to gather up their water. They survive by hunting snakes and lizards and trading fire dust and jewel sand with the Guild for added food and water. Though trade is their main source of contact with the outside they no longer must rely upon it or perish, with the total number of tribe's men in this region reduced by more than 95% they now can survive on their own without help, but it would be a spartan existence. Trade gives them luxuries and better equipment, which they put to good use. The western salaru do not keep herd beasts or in fact, any animals except hunting dogs, the land here is too harsh for this to be profitable. They worship many nature spirits, but few major deities except the Unconquered Sun, who is seen as a wrathful god of war and destruction, and Luna in her aspect as The White Navigator, who is seen as a benevolent and helpful deity. Though they honor the high holy days of the five maidens they are not much revered outside those times.

To the north, the Salaru who have not returned to their city are primarily herders and gatherers, as the foothills of the summer mountains provide old lava tubes and other places to hide from the sun by day and keep flocks dry when the rains come. Their life is perhaps the least harsh of the three new tribes since they have kept the most of their population, with only about 80% going to live in the city and in all cases leaving a few family members to mind the herds and ancestral cave or rock-cut house. They also were the most numerous of the Salaru before the return to Amarana, having six of the 10 Salaru tribes living in their region. and now are by far and away the most populous of the three 'outside' tribes. They also still contribute a good chunk of Amarana's food supplies, which means that even the Patron must treat with them on their terms. On the other hand, they know that the Patron, while a patient man, does have his limits and that their families back in Amarana would suffer first and worst if they cut off the shipments of food and other goods to the city, so they treat the Amaranaians with a much respect as they expect in return: so far the city and the northern tribe have a strong alliance of mutual benefit and support. The northern Salaru frequently revere Atlhat, the southern god of war and cattle, in addition, they also revere the Celestial Incarna and Gaia as well as many nature spirits.

The tribes to the east were always the most desirous to return to Amarana, for they could still see it's central tower sticking up out of the sand. However, when the time came, an influential leader named [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Sabris of the Two Spears|Sabris of the Two Spears]] convinced them that they should instead of all going back to the city leave some people behind and send their sons and daughters back into the summer mountains to live with those that stayed for two years as a right of passage. This has proved to their great advantage, for they now own the rights to much of the mineral wealth in the summer mountains near Amarana and have risen to be among the city's most wealthy families. The mountain Salaru were hunter/gatherers before Amarana's recovery and it is in this capacity that the children sent to the old mountain fastnesses must learn to survive when they are facing their Adavam Ordeal. The eastern Salaru mostly hold up a host of small gods for worship and revere the celestial Incarna on their high holy days. They are however the nearest things to atheists Creation has, feeling that if a person cannot survive without divine intervention then they are weaklings that must be excised from the gene pool. Many of them are swayed to a degree by the Immaculate faith but reject the idea that the Dragonblooded are creations, rightful rulers, their tribes have long memories and have heard the tales told by the Lunars of the perfidy of the Dragonblooded and the glory once created by the Solars, and twice in their exile have seen this glory first hand before the Dragonblooded showed up and ruined things.

To the south of the city, a wyld zone bleeds into reality for almost eight hundred miles from the maximum edge of the world. Though the city lies near the edge of this wyld zone it is not part of it, not even when the wyld storms blow in the autumn. This is perhaps partly because the city's strong geomancy prevents it from being absorbed or perhaps some form of potent first age artifact still protects the city as it did during the invasion so long ago. If the Patron knows he is not telling. Either way, there is and never has been a tribe of the Salaru to the south of the city. If the work they are doing to push back the wyld succeeds as well as it has been thus far, there may be, soon.

= Ethnicity =

Amarana is an ethnically mixed city, with people from all over creation having gathered in under its banner thanks to [[The Ghost/The Patron|The Patron's]] zero-tolerance policy towards slavery. In the main however the population is drawn from the peoples of the south, as escaping slaves are most able to reach Amarana from it's nearest neighbors, [[Virangia]] and [[The Delazen Empire]].

== The Salaru ==

Descendants of the people who fled Salaruku in the face of the Balorian Crusade the Salaru have waited a long time to return to their city. Composed of 10 culturally distinct tribes the Salaru make up an ever decreasing percentage of the city's population as more and more foreigners come to the city and settle in. That said the Salaru, though small in number, have a disproportionate impact on the city's culture and politics, due to knowing the lands surrounding Amarana like no one else and therefore having a vastly outsized amount of wealth and clout.

The Salaru are subdivided into the following tribes:

=== The White Scars ===

This tribe numbers about 50 and have long been ancestor worshipers, they have been swayed to the cause of the Ancestor Cultists. They take their name from the practice of ritual scarification of face and hands to tell one’s ancestry and chest to recount great deeds. The White Scars hail from the west of the city. The White Scars are a strangely secretive bunch, they keep their own council and follow their own guidance. Alone of the Salaru tribes, the White Scars have wholey emigrated to the city, abandoning their ancestral lands to the Western Salaru's care and finding employment within Amarana. Most of them agree that this has been a drastic improvement in their living conditions. Their ancestors, however, worry about grave robbers and frequently ask the members of the tribe with the skills to do so to go back and check on the old burial grounds.

=== The Golden Bulls ===

Originally hailing from the north of the city this tribe has been sun worshipers since time out of mind, and have naturally gravitated toward the Solarion's cause. They take their name from the bloodline of golden-haired cattle that they breed, tend, and guard, which according to legend were a gift from the champions of the sun during an age long past in recompense for their service defeating an army of the Raksha. The Golden Bulls are among the largest tribes of the Salaru, numbering some 300 strong counting both those that came into Amarana and those that stayed behind to be part of the Northern Salaru. They revere Atlhat and The Unconquered Sun as their patrons and are known for their skill as warriors though they are overmatched by some of the other tribes thanks to awakened essence and charms. The Golden Bulls are largely employed as butchers, health inspectors, and members of Amarana's army, while the large contingent that remained in their ancestral lands tend their herds of golden-haired cattle as they always have done, though they now drive the excess males to market in Amarana for slaughter rather than keeping them home. The Golden Bulls’ primary combat style is with spears and Bullhide Shields, with firedust grenades to break tight formations. They would not look out of place in Harborhead, and marriages between Harborhead immigrants and the young men and women of the tribe are not uncommon, though frowned upon by some of the tribe elders due to the harborheadite's attitudes towards slavery, which the tribe has always held as blasphemy.

=== The Get of Vexan ===

Often called simply 'the get' by outsiders this tribe calls themselves the 'Vexanites'. The get is descended from a powerful Lunar who lived among the Salaru for a century or so starting a few decades after the fair folk invasion was driven back by the Empress. The Vexanite's hold a secret: their tribe is led by a family of Serpent Beast Men founded by Vexan and preserved through complex webs of intermarriage with other serpent-folk from as far away as the silent crescent. The get is currently led by a charming and curvaceous young woman from the southeast jungles named Nyoka. What they do not yet know is that she is actually the modern incarnation of their founder's exaltation and has been having sex with one of the tribe's greatest warriors in her spirit form of a twenty-foot dragon snake in the hopes of bearing beast folk children. She walks among the tribe in her Warform, that of a great dragon-like serpent woman with the fangs and venom of a cobra and the wings and claws of a dragon. The Get hailed from the mountains east of Amarana.

=== The Iron Raptors ===

Though founded by a group of outlaws and murderers the Iron Raptors are ironically a major component of Amarana's police force. Having originated as an inner-city gang during the last days of the shogunate the Iron Raptors turned their coats when the fair folk came calling at the end of the contagion. They took hundreds of people out of the city through hidden tunnels and other smuggling routes: people who became the founders of the other Salaru tribes. Since then they have slowly moved from running protection rackets over the other tribes, to actually protecting them, to being their main form of law enforcement and wandering justiciars. Now that Amarana is resettled they have taken up the role of their distant ancestors' worst enemies, an irony that is not lost on Garion Cromarch. The Iron Raptors’ central holdings were to the north of Amarana but they wandered freely among the other tribes and in fact still do, being welcome among any of the other Salaru. They worship Garion Cromarch as their patron deity, but also reviver a number of small gods of crime and larceny, propitiating them in recompense for reducing their portfolios and defeating their natural worshipers.

=== The Kelderkin ===

Another tribe from the city's north the Kelderkin are the descendants of Marion Kelder and are an agricultural matriarchy. They revere Gaia to the near exclusion of all other deities and hold that all other gods are really aspects of Gaia, subsidiary souls of the Maiden of Plenty. They are more right in this belief than most people realize. All Kelderkin women can trace their ancestry to Marion Kelder via one of her seventeen daughters, and which daughter you are a descendant of determines what your role in the tribe is. The only roles that are not decided by your ancestry are 3: Shaman, Champion, and Speaker. The Speakers are the leaders of the tribe and set it's policy, while the shamans and champions advise them and defend the tribe. Marion Kelder was a wood aspected dragon blooded and even to this day a Kelderkin man or woman will sometimes exalt as another wood aspect. Currently, there is one such person among the Kelderkin, Mwaloni Kelder who is a gifted archer and huntress that leads an all-female unit of other archers in the Amarana armed forces. She is also a sex addict and currently dating four separate men, two of which are identical twin Djala who regularly have Manage-a-Trois with her.

=== The Chosen of Flame ===

Hailing from the city's west The Chosen of Flame has been firedust gatherers for as long as anyone can remember. They gathered firedust far south of the city during the shogunate and came to Amarana to trade it. When the hosts of Fairie came sweeping in from the edge of the world after the great contagion they ran before them and were caught up in the exodus from Amarana, helping many of the civilized folk adapt to the desserts. The Chosen of Flames make up the lion’s share of the new western tribe, but even so, most of them have moved into the city and settled down as experts and factors in the firedust trade. They are a prosperous tribe that is in a state of transition as they adapt to being a settled people for the first time. Numbering approximately 75 persons in the city and an equal number now part of the Western Salaru the Chosen of Flame boasts several god-blooded among their number, and actively court new fire elemental unions. Their God Blooded include Gitchsune Folarabi, Malawi Besmar, and Kubrisa Suknis, among others.

=== The Iconographers ===

Among the tribes of the Salaru, few can argue that the Iconographers are not among the most learned and civilized. Hailing from the cities northeast they have preserved an astonishing amount of lore from the low first age, especially on the subject of geomancy. Now almost universally employed by the Patron excavating and repairing manses they are well off and respected. The Iconographers place great store by erudition and knowledge, and gain position and prestige among their own via a set of grueling examinations conducted by their tribe's patron spirits once every ten years, and always in old realm. Because of these tests of knowledge, the tribe is led by its elders, who have had the most time to study and learn, and they are prone to contemplation and thoughtfulness. Among other advantages this has gifted them with is the possession of five small Manses outside the city, raised after the city's abandonment by their own hands. These manses have made their ancestral lands fertile and bountiful, making them one of the largest salaru tribes with 200 members in five small villages around the Manses before they emigrated to Amarana. Of all the tribes their desire to return to the city was among the greatest, but they did leave one family behind in each village to see to its welfare and upkeep in perpetration for their Descendents and those selected to join them by the Patron returning. The Iconographers in city number 175 or so and are very much in the Patron's camp. They are led by Sukiwara Madoka, a god blooded thaumaturge of advanced years and not inconsiderable skill.

=== The Eisil ===

As a tribe of pastoral hunters and gatherers in the city's eastern area, the Eisil would not be remarkable except for the fact that they are master storytellers and thespians. The role of Storyteller is the most honored position within their culture and many people aspire to it but few succeed. Their greatest tale is that of Sakarazat, a woman who was taken captive by a rapacious dragon blooded lord and over the course of two and a bit years told him a thousand stories which prevented him from killing her, and in the end, led the dragon blooded to let her go. Now that the Eisil have returned to Amarana they are mostly working at simple jobs like sand clearer or coachman (They have long preserved the arts of chariot racing as part of their festivals.) but a significant number of them now take the long-coveted role of storyteller or actor, and are among the best in the city, being sought out by talent scouts and stage managers for private and public engagements. The Eisil hail from the high mountains east of Amarana where the snow falls in winter, they are paler complected than most Salaru and have massive barrel chests from dealing with the thin air.

=== The Mantis Tribe ===

From the northwest of the city, the Mantis tribe straddle the border between the desert and the foothills of the Amaranaian lands. They have survived by placing great store by martial arts and awakened essence, and among their number only the young typically do not have awakened essence, nearly everyone over the age of 25 has mastered this basic precept. By the age of 30, most people have achieved the form type charm of one of the 5 main martial arts of the tribe, and by the time they reach venerable status at 65, nearly everyone is a master of their chosen style. This has allowed the Mantis Tribe to become large and prosperous but puts them in an uncomfortable position of being alternately feared and nearly worshiped by the other tribes, who look to them for protection from spirits and demons. It also puts them in another uncomfortable position: their various schools of martial arts do not always get along, and more than once the tribe has been wracked by internal strife, especially between the members that adhere to the Immaculate Philosophy and the people that worship the local gods outside that framework. At the moment it seems like the tribe is heading for another such civil war, and this time it may drag the whole city into it.

=== The Broad ===

Alone of the Salaru the Broad actually hate the Patron. The Broad was from the uttermost western areas of the Salaru and also alone among their number made a common practice of keeping slaves, but not so much for the purpose of having them work for the tribe but rather to sell to the guild. They ranged far among the sandy wastes waring with members of other tribes and capturing them to sell for the supplies they needed to survive and prosper. Many among their number were heroic mortals and with the exception of the Mantis Tribe and the Chosen of Fire they boasted the most members with awakened essence and/or god-blood. They also served as a dumping ground for the criminal and malcontents of the other tribes leading them to be less cordial with the rest of the Salaru than any other tribe. However, even the Broad wished to return to Amarana enough to give up their slave taking practices, at least, some of them did. When the Patron decreed all people of Amarana Free men and women shortly before the Guild arrived the Broad fractured over whether to return to their ancestral homeland or remain in the wastes and live as they had done for centuries. In the end, the tribe split 60/40 in favor of returning to Amarana and becoming part of the new society, but the 40% that remained in the wastes no longer consider themselves beholden to the Patron, Amarana, or even the Salaru. These people, called by their former associates The Red Broad are now considered outlaws brigands by the Isknadarian government and hunted whenever they stray close to the fifty-foot Glass Pillars that mark the borders of the Amaranaian lands. They are firmly in the camp of the Guild's Men and infiltrate the city regularly to capture and smuggle out valuable slaves that have escaped to Amarana from other lands.
The 60% of the tribe that has returned to the city are in the camp of the Death Cultists since the Broad were by and large ancestor worshipers before they returned to Amarana and see no reason to change that now. Calling themselves 'The Green Broad' they have no love for the patron but do love their city and will fight to the death to defend it. Most of them are now members of the city's military and are locked in a bitter feud with their former tribesmen. The members of this tribe that are not military mostly work as overseers for the small but growing cadres of 'indentured servants' kept by the city government in punishment for some of the most heinous crimes such as rape and enslaving another person.

=== The Western Salaru ===

=== The Northern Salaru ===

=== The Eastern Salaru ===

== The Djala ==

The D'jala are a sub-faction of the Patriots at the present time. Having been liberated by the Patron from their enslavement by many people who have brought them to the city in bondage they are fanatical partisans of the city's leader and from a major component of his power base. The Djala form five small tribes into which new arrivals are folded by ties of kinship, alliance, or marriage within weeks of arrival. The number of newly married Djala in the city is staggering, easily 40% of all new arrivals are pushed into marriages within a month of becoming residents, and somehow nearly all these mirages are happy ones. What the Djala elders know but have not officially publicized is that one of the Djala's patron gods is an old drinking buddy of [[The Ghost/Meroka Jin|Meroka Jin]] and has called in a favor with the minister of romance and love to arrange this happy state of affairs for his people in the city. This is not going to last, because [[The Ghost/Sakarzi|Sakarzi]] is going to start screwing around with them, but for the moment she is distracted by her work with the death cult.

== Varangians ==

== The Delazen ==

== Deep Southerners ==

Nemo of Utopia/Amarana

2020-03-09T17:23:57Z

Nemo of Utopia: Assorted updates, check out the changes in the log...

Amarana is a first age city, lost to the contagion and the fair folk invasion over 700 years ago. It is now coming back to life under the aegis of [[User:Nemo of Utopia/The_Patron_of_Amarana|The Patron]] who wields the power of the [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Five_Signs_of_Harmonic_Unity|Five Signs of Harmonic Unity]].

= Amarana =

Amarana Is comprised of a large area surrounded by a circular wall. At the edge of that wall are twelve triangular towers that contain the major military resources of the city. Of these towers, eight have been fully excavated, and the ninth is being examined and the sand removed even now.

Within the city is organized into four quarters but only two of them are even partially excavated, the two on the eastern side of the city, and even there many buildings still slowly seep sand into the streets out of cracked windowpanes and the door seems. The buildings of Amarana tend to a certain Egyptian flare or perhaps it would be better to say pre-Arabic since they are after all, by and large, the product of the low first age. The buildings are built of a quasi imperishable ceramic that resembles adobe, with the most significant having windows of Chiaroscuro Glass and doors made of either that same substance or Stainless Steel. Buildings are generally between six and ten stories high with essence powered air conditioning and elevators both of which the Patron must personally repair before the building becomes usable again.

Unlike many old realm cities, Amarana is laid out on a grid, instead of in a radial pattern. This gives a geomantic bonus to the people who live there: namely that mortals gain +1 XP per time XP is awarded. This bonus actually accrues every half year if using long term awards. The players can uncover this information with a dif10 [wits + occult] roll once every month they spend in the city beginning on the second day they are here. The bonus only applies to true mortals, not god blooded, ghost blooded, awakened Martial artists or any exalt, but does apply to dragon kings and jadeborn who are not Artisans.

So far roughly half of the city has been uncovered, but even here there are a lot of buildings that are collapsed, or still filled with sand and roped off with red cables and even more locations where there are red cables indicating small shadowlands or dimenses that are not to be approached until the city can close/cap them.

The excavation is proceeding irregularly, moving from the east wall out toward the west except around the central manse and the road from the north gate to the south gate. There are markets in most squares and a number of shops on the ground floors of buildings. Few merchants here are officially affiliated with the guild since many people in the city are escaped guild slaves and loath the guild vehemently.

Nearly everything except slaves is available for sale, including many products from The Wyld. Firewands and Flame Pieces are the core of the weapons markets along with accessories such as bayonets, powder horns, and pieces of flint or obsidian for strikers. Interestingly Cannons are not for sale, being reserved for the government, but anyone with contacts 2 or higher could find someone who knows someone who could get a permit for purchasing a few for export. Armoring is more advanced, and even some artifact armors are for sale, though they would be a resource 4 purchase at minimum, and that is for the simple stuff like Jade breastplates. Things like Yuroy Scout armor are beyond the means of anyone in the party, though, that comes up for sale very rarely except through illegal channels. Jade Full Plate and Super Heavy Plate are more commonly available, in fact, there are people in the city that can be commissioned to make it. Orichalcum and Monsilver are not commissionable but in the still covered parts of the city are facilities to work it. There are no facilities in the city for Soulsteel or Starmetal, but there is a workshop in one manse that has been uncovered to work Adamant, though finding any to use would require Wyld Cauldron Technology and spending XP: such is the life of the Exalted...

There are a number of Inns, Caravanserai, and Hostels near the city gates, while further in nearly every corner of an inhabited area has at least one restaurant or coffee shop. Tea houses, by comparison, are rare, and true bars are unusual enough to be remarked upon when a new one is found. Most living quarters do not have kitchens, which is why many hab towers which have been excavated don't have permanent residents and so many restaurants can stay open. Many restaurants, in fact, rent themselves out to people wishing to cook for their families or are owned by consortiums of citizens who hold them in common for communal cooking with contracts for use and upkeep requirements.

All of the city's roads are at least 20 feet wide, plus a five-foot sidewalk to either side. This is for the smallest streets, most are 40 feet wide with sidewalk and a few main thoroughfares are 60 feet wide. The streets keep themselves magically clean once each section is repaired by the Patron, but only a very few sections are repaired and many people who work as street sweepers clearing sand wish for it to stay that way. (Each 10'x10' section is a different artifact and must be individually repaired. There is one street in the city's west that is a first age relic and still working. However it can only affect things up to 30 feet above itself, so it is a long tunnel of a clear street bounded on all sides by packed sand.) The streets are made of fitted 5'x5'x1' blocks of granite, and one can sometimes determine which part of the city one is in by the color of the streets. The northeast the blocks are blue and green, the southeast red and green, the southwest red and black and the northwest blue and black. The city’s four central parkways are each a solid color relating to their element and 40' wide on each side and the grand square around the central manse is white and 60' wide at its narrowest point. However many streets were repaired with gray, white, or red granite toward the end of the shogunate and are not properly color-coded.

The City has at least 5' of clearance between all buildings: meaning that there are many allies in which one can get lost. You can often tell which parts are in use and which are unoccupied by weather there is sand filling the allies or they are clear.

== Manses and Demesnes of Amarana ==
Amarana was at one time subject to major geomantic engineering projects that gave it a large number of demesnes and then manses relative to its size. Most of those manses are still here, still active, and even now being located and excavated. A few, however, were partially unstable and have long since exploded. These few are roped off as dangerous and plans are underway to re-cap them, led of course by the Patron. Note that there are more manses and demesnes within the city that have not yet been found and that at one time there were even MORE demesnes in the city which have collapsed into a dormant state due to the changes in the city's essence flows and could be reactivated with the appropriate rituals once the city is fully excavated and geomantic remapped, these demesnes, however, were all small ones, level 2 at the most, so whether such effort is worth it in the short term, or even a good idea, is debatable. See [[Nemo of Utopia/Manses and Dimenses of Amarana]] for further information.

= History =

== Prehistory ==

Though most do not know it Amarana's deepest foundations were laid in an era long past by the [[Dragons Kings]]. The City flourished in the age between the advent of humanity and the [[Primordial War]] with many of the first exalted visiting the place at one time or another in the several decades of the lead up to the overthrow of the Primordials. Then when the war began the city was wreathed in the destruction by one of the superweapons of the masters of creation, utterly annihilating most of those that dwelt therein and reducing the city to a smoking crater of volcanic glass. Still, beneath the burned and blackened surface, some parts of the old under city survived, and wait there still.

== The First Age ==

During the First Age many of the survivors of the primordial war remembered their time in 'Highana' fondly and after excavating much of the old substrate and leveling off the damaged areas to make way for new constructions raised up a new city on the site of the old. This city was dubbed 'Solzarian' in honor of [[The Unconquered Sun]] and in memorial to the Great Dragon King lady who had ruled the city so well and wisely ere it's annihilation. The City would remain a significant but out-of-the-way part of the Old Realm all the way through the first age.

=== The Ocher Fountain Era ===

During the beginning of the First Age when [[Queen Merela]] ruled over all creation from the eternal capital of [[Rathess]] Solzarian was still being reconstructed, and there was little of note that occurred in the city. One event, in particular, was notable, however: the Conclave of Solzarian in year 99 of the old realm, a symposium on the rights and freedoms of the people of creation which some in later years would argue laid the foundations of the Meru Uprising which led to the formation of the Deliberative.

=== The First Deliberative Era ===

By the time of the founding of the [[Deliberative]], the reconstruction of Solzarian was largely complete, and over the next few decades, the city became a favored retreat for both Solars and Lunars seeking to get the heck out of Meru and the stifling politics of the great city. One of Marela's closest allies [[Nemo of Utopia/Angus the Wirehair|Angus the Wirehair]] was given the rule of the city as part of the division of creation into fiefdoms and made it his personal residence. Under Angus rule, the city prospered, though it, by-and-large, remained a backwater compared to such metropolises as [[Chiaroscuro]] and Rathess. However, thanks to its solar overlord and his close relationship to the Queen of all Creation the city began the long process of incredible geomantic engineering which would in time lead to it being known as 'The City of Manses'.

=== Unfurling Horizon Era ===

While this era of creation went by largely without incident of significant note at this remove of history it is still recorded that many of the great efforts to explore and expand the borders of Creation in the south used Solzarian as a staging ground or stopover point before plunging into the true wilderness at creation's rim. This continued to encourage the exalted to play 'tourist' in the city and helped keep its economy vibrant. It is also noted in some histories that there was a major strike of [[Red Jade]] near the city in 811 which produced a 'Jade Rush' led by two rival Dragon-Blooded brothers and their servants which escalated into a short civil war in the city 2 years later in which significant damage was done to the city's infrastructure by all three* factions. The Civil War was only halted when [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Angus the Wirehair|Angus the Wirehair]] returned from Meru at the head of a wing of elite Dragon-Blooded shock troops and brutally suppressed both rival groups with mass arrests and a number of executions. (What happened to the brothers is unknown, but their names do not reappear in the historic record for 700 years, and at that time associated with different elemental aspects leading most scholars to conclude that they were 'dealt with' privately by their family.)
*(The Two consortia backing the rival brothers and the cities law enforcement detachments.)

==== The Aftershock War ====

In spite of the growing significance of the city and it's powerful assets in terms of equipment and hearthstones, Solzarian was not at first much involved in the Aftershock War. Passed over in favor of more militarily significant targets by the Primordial Forces the city did not come under fire until 1131 when a force of some 3000 first circle demons led by a trio of 2nd circle demons assaulted the city in the dead of night via a fleet of living airships. The 'Battle of Solzarian' was considered a significant victory for the forces of creation due to the large number of [[Golden Janissary Style]] practitioners in the city who were able to make fairly short work of the first circle demons allowing the detachment of Dragon-Blooded stationed in the city to confront the second circle demon commanders and dispatch them.

However the war was not all glorious victory for the people of Solzarain, [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Angus the Wirehair|Angus the Wirehair]] went missing during the final battle with the primordial forces and would not be seen again for over 500 years. For most of that time, he was presumed dead by the people of the city, though the Solar Exalted knew better as his shard had not found a new host.

=== Shining Reflection Era ===

During this period Solzarian loses much of its former significance as the seat of one of Marela's close allies. Few of the Exalted visit the city and the grand engineering projects grind to a near halt. The only events of great significance that occur here are two:
1: The Duel of the Magisters in 1313 where the reincarnations of Theis, Leelah, and Sonah engage in a duel of sorceress power which damages large sections of the city and forces all three of them to be censured by Marela herself: And;
2: In 1492 a major strike of Orichalcum is made a few hundred miles south of the city, and Solzarian becomes a stepping off point for prospectors of every stripe looking to get rich quick mining Orichalcum. The City's economy runs strong off this sudden influx of cash, people, and goods for the next 30 years.

=== Thousand Struggles Era ===

The first part of this period proceeds much from the previous one: everyone is aware that one of the legendary solar exalted has died of old age, but this makes little difference to the struggling backwater that Solzarian has become: then in 1776 everything changes.

In the Records of Solzarian 1776 is called: 'The Year of the Thousand' for the massive wave of change that swept over the city this year. The First thing that happens is [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Angus the Wirehair|Angus the Wirehair]] 'returns from the dead' on the 11th of Ascending Water storming into the city with a small group of Solars, Lunars, and Siderials and calling everyone he can reach into the city with him to face what he calls 'The Storm of the Millennium'. Ten days later the storm arrives and following in behind it a host of the fair folk the likes of which has not been seen in centuries. The city is invested and besieged for two months by the Faerie Host and the siege is only broken by the arrival of four full realm legions armed with Cold Iron. Once the Fair Folk are driven back and the city is again secure Angus orders most of the city leveled and an engineering project the like of which the city has not seen in over half a millennium undertaken to extensively alter its geomancy. To finance this undertaking he produces several tons of jade, from what source none can say, and uses his Wyld Shaping charms, which until his return no one knew he possessed, to manufacture the raw materials needed from the chaotic energy left behind by the Fair Folk.

However, no sooner was the project underway than orders came down from the Queen that he was to return to [[Meru]] at once and answer for his absence: and bound by the oaths he took as one of the [[Golden Hero Vassals]] so very long ago he departs. Following up on the plans he has left behind his circle mate [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Levian of the Gilded Staff|Levian of the Gilded Staff]] begins directing the super-massive construction and engineering projects which will if successful create one of the greatest concentrations of manses and geomantic relays outside of the Blessed Isle. By late in Descending fire half the city is gone and an entirely new street plan and so on is rising in its place, along with a massive upgrade to the walls and towers of the city perimeter as well.

What exactly passed for Angus in Meru is unrecorded by any presently known records except perhaps those of the Bureau of Destiny but what is recorded is the results of that visit: Angus was stripped of the rulership of his fief in the south including Solzarian and sent on a quest of penance into the frozen north: while Solzarian and the surrounding area was given into the hands of a relatively young solar of the Twilight Caste from another circle named [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Keisha Adriana Mullion|Keisha Adriana Mullion]] and her lunar mate [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Maxim of Personal Liberty|Maxim of Personal Liberty]].

While Keisha was young she was not stupid and consulted with Levian of the Gilded Staff on what she was doing with the engineering of the city. With the elder Twilight's help, she finished the geomantic reorganization as designed by Angus and by the end of Resplendent Air the basic project is finished. The city is now rife with uncapped demesnes and sites that will become demesnes once they can be activated after some of the others are capped. The city also now confers a geomantic bonus on all mortals living there, allowing them to develop their skills and abilities more quickly than those living in other cities. The full culmination of the project with the activation and capping of all demesnes will not be complete for another 36 years.

==== Time of Cascading Years ====

The Time of Cascading Years took rather longer in Solzarian and the surrounding area than it did in most of Creation: 3333 years to be precise. The relatively young solar ruler who went into the Time of Cascading Years and her only slightly more experienced Lunar Spouse emerges from it with a weight of skill and refinement which makes them elders among the solars and lunars. They also are now both arrayed with a panoply of artifacts and charms that make them forces to be reckoned with in the new Deliberative. The passage of the 'Age of Isolation' in Solzarian is marked by a number of rebellions and uprisings, and the invasion of their lands by the fair folk towards the end of it, from whence none, can say. Supposedly it was the destruction of an artifact which the Raksha Commander carried which restore time to its normal flow according to the people of Solzarian.

=== Second Deliberative Era ===

During the [[User:Nemo of Utopia/PeriodofLongSilence|Period of Long Silence]] Solzarain is one of the few areas still doing significant research, though they are hampered by the continuing disunity of creation and the fearfulness of creation's mortals who are all accustomed to traveling too far from home casting you into a different timeline.

With the Establishment of the new deliberative however Solzarian is thrust into the spotlight for around a hundred years as the home and workshop of one of the most important [[User:Nemo of Utopia:NPCCreationGuidelines/Exalted/FirstAge/Solar/TwilightCaste|Copper Spiders]] of the deliberative. During this period the city is a known destination for the many young Twilight-caste members who were reborn following the restoration of time's proper flow.

As this era goes on however Solzarian becomes less and less important with the rebuilding of the rest of creation, the other Twilights drift away to rule their own fiefs and work on their own projects and as has happened before Solzarian's position far from most significant events of history both at the center of creation and at its rim mean it becomes a backwater. Even it's solar and lunar rulers spend more time in Meru than at home, leaving the city in the hands of [[User:Nemo of Utopia:NPCCreationGuidelines/Exalted/FirstAge/Dragonblooded/Top|Dragon Blooded]] legates.

=== Era of Dreams ===

During the first part of the Era of Dreams, though Solzarian flourishes on the mundane level it remains a backwater on the scales by which The Realm measures such things: a functional and unimportant city in a functional but unimportant section of the world. It does, however, receive an [[IAM|I AM]] Transmission Node linking it to the broader network of information which now spans creation.

Then in the year 3381, it's twilight caste ruler is goaded into violating her eclipse oath to not attack other celestial exalted in Meru, setting in motion a chain of events that will alter the shape of Solzarian's fate for centuries to come, and that of the rest of creation. At first, the botches come hard and heavy, but then they stop and [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Keisha Adriana Mullion|Keisha]] thinks the oath's punishment has run its course.

It has not.

Returning to her holding in the south she begins to work on constructing a [[Proto Shinmatic Vortex]] and at a key stage of the process, the final botch of set activates and the PSV explodes, killing Keisha and creating an intense Wyld Zone south of the city over a hundred miles wide.

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/MaximofPersonalLiberty|Maxim of Personal Liberty]] calls upon every favor he has and even takes on new obligations to arrange the deliberative sending experts at Wyld Shaping to close the rift in the fabric of reality, but the people sent are not the high essence Solars and Lunars he hoped for but rather a cadre of neophytes who have scarce mastered Wyld Cauldron Technology and are woefully unprepared for the madness of the deep Wyld which exists within the rift. Three of them die before the other two calls it quits leaving the Wyld Zone barely stabilized around its edges. It is unrecorded at this remove what keeps the deliberative busy and the more powerful Wyld shapers tied up, but it will not be for another 3 decades that the Wyld zone is fully dealt with and that not by an individual any more experienced than the ones first dispatched, though with far greater caution than the first circle that was sent showed.

== The Usurpation ==

== The Shogunate ==

== The Fall & The Second Age ==

== The Rebirth ==

In RY 760, that same year where so very much else changed for creation (763 in normal Chronicles): the man who

= Government =

In basic, the Government of Amarana really consists of a single man: [[User:Nemo of Utopia/The Patron of Amarana|The Patron]]. He is an autocrat, ruling by divine mandate and shier power, as he is capable of defeating significant deities in single combat. However the Patron is one man, and as such has organized his subjects with several branches of what we would consider a more normal government. This normal government is organized into twelve 'Adeptus' which each is led by one of the twelve 'High Lords of Amarana'. These twelve powerful individuals form a council that advises and assists The Patron in his leadership of the city, feeding him data on several topics such as the state of his subject's religious convictions or the preparedness of his military. Though each High Lord is immensely powerful they all are The Patron's fanatical partisans and would not dream of challenging his authority, even if they could.

== The Adeptus Millitate ==

The Adeptus Millitate is one of the largest branches of Amarana's government, with no fewer than 1250 members in all its branches and subgroups. Though officially in charge of Amarana's Armed services it has a rival in The Adeptus Aeronauticus who oversee Amarana's air-forces. The Adeptus Millitate is run by [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Fist of the Land|Fist of the Land]] a God-Blooded martial artist who is somewhat uncomfortable leading an army of over a thousand people.

The Adeptus Millitate has the following departments and offices:

=== The Departmento Munitorum ===

Oversees the acquisition and care of the equipment and supplies for the army.

==== The Officio Technis ====

Deals with the army's Magitech assets.

==== The Officio Cibum ====

Oversees the all-important function of providing provisions for the troops.

==== The Officio Armorium ====

Handles the more mundane arms and armor of Amarana's troops.

==== The Officio Quartium ====

… is responsible for most everything else, from tents to uniforms to bedrolls.

=== The Departmento Servicum ===

Oversees the actual troops and officers and their training regimens.

==== The Officio Acadamicain Legionarius ====

This office oversees the training of new recruits and officers running two training schools for them.

==== The Officio Cooptatione Legionarius ====

This is the group that sees-to the recruitment and if necessary conscription of new troops for the army.

=== The Departmento Latrocinium ===

Oversees the hiring and 'control' of any mercenary units the government employs but is better known for a more sinister function.

==== The Officio Mercenarius ====

Does the Hiring and Firing of actual mercenaries.

==== The Officio Assasinoritum ====

'The Office of Assassins', to use the Vulgate, runs at least four secret dojos training mortal agents in martial arts that facilitate them serving as The Patron's spies and assassins. [[Nemo of Utopia/Assassin of the Grey Spire|Assassin of the Grey Spire]] 'leads' this office: He is ''not'' a master of the White Veil Style of martial arts and has most ''definitely not'' taught many of its members this secret art form. (Nudge nudge, wink wink, know what I mean, know what I mean? Say no more, say no more!)

=== The Officio Adminstrad Militate ===

This 'Floating Office' makes sure that all of the other Departmento and Oficio within this Adeptus do their jobs properly.

== The Adeptus Arbitiese ==

The Adeptus Arbitese oversee Amarana's police forces, and are one of the larger branches of the government with only 150 individuals on staff, counting every beat cop all the way on up to the High Lord Herself as well as all the file clerks and so on that work for the Adeptus but are not actually part of it's 'fighting strength'. They have only one Departmento and less than a dozen Officio, but so far are keeping a lid on the political turmoil of the city. The High Lord of the Arbitese is [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Steel Garden|Steel Garden]] who is not a very good investigator but a decent politician and capable administrator.

=== The Departmento Queastorum ===

This department is responsible for making inquiries and investigating crime, thus far it is the only Department of the Adeptus Arbitese but the Officio Correctionibus is expected to become a departmento in its own right someday.

==== The Officio Homicide ====

The Office of Homicide consists of only eight people, four detectives, three CSI techs, and one overworked file clerk. Their closure rate hovers at around 50%, though that is only due to them being able to count any suspect killed by the ghost of the victim as a closed case. [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Laurel the Axe|Laurel the Axe]] is the unofficial leader of this group but officially they answer directly to the High Lord of the Arbitese.

==== The Officio Servus Aucupes ====

The term 'office of slave catchers' is something of a misnomer. These detectives do not catch slaves, rather they catch people keeping, taking, or recapturing slaves and send them to their just punishments. This office consists of five overworked personnel, two detectives, two forensic accountants, and one file clerk. Their closure rate is around 30% since it is hard to prove that someone was a slaver without catching them in the act.

==== The Officio Vitium ====

Unlike the officio above this office is not quite so overworked, and the two often help each other out because their work frequently overlaps. The 'Vice Squad' mostly concerns itself with drugs and prostitution, since licensed gambling establishments and most pornography are both legal in Amarana. The officio consists of Four Detectives, five undercover officers, three CSI techs, and a harried file clerk. Their Closure rate is about 45%.

==== The Officio Interioribus ====

This Officio is more for show than anything since all of Amarana's police are held by the Stone of Invincible Loyalty. It consists of two Detectives and one Forensic Accountant. They often spend their time quietly helping out other offices.

==== The Officio Fraude Aucupes ====

This is actually one of the larger offices within the Arbities, having eleven total personnel, six detectives, three forensic accountants, a CSI tech, and a file clerk. The office tries to keep a lid on the Guild and others defrauding Amarana's citizens through various means and does a fairly good job. Their closure rate is about 70%, though this is largely due to a lot of success catching many small-fry while the remaining 30% is almost all of the big players.

==== The Ofiicio Fures ====

The 'office of thieves' is responsible for all break-ins, burglaries, purse snatchings, muggings, cutpurses, and so forth in the city. In spite of having eight detectives, five undercover agents, six CSI, four Forensic Accountants, and five file clerks their closure rate is about 12%. Garion Cromarch is frankly disgusted with them and has told The Patron so. The Patron knows they are doing their best but has ordered mandatory additional training for all members of this office.

==== The Officio Pax Patronum ====

The remainder of the police force is in this office. These are the beat cops that enforce the law by their presence and vigilance. Amarana is a large city and they constantly must be on the lookout for any kind of crime but especially things like drunk and disorderly, disturbing the peace, making an affray, and so on. This office consists of 57 patrol officers and over a dozen file clerks. Twelve of these officers are part of a sub-office of 'Mounties' who do their patrols in teams of three on horseback, they are often called in to suppress larger riots. The officers always patrol in teams of three, one to watch the front of a building and two to look around the sides and catch criminals in a pincer movement. They all carry magitech com units that let them use Wind Carried Words Technique and have Linguistics 3. (Their closure rate is not applicable since they work out of elven precincts and each one has a different closure rate.) One of these officers does not need a comms unit: being a dragon blooded air aspect outcaste named [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Secret Eagle|Secret Eagle]]. They have offered to promote him many times, but he prefers to be a patrol officer, though he has deigned to accept the rank of patrol sergeant for the fourth precinct.

=== The Officio Correctionibus ===

The office of corrections deals with the punishment rather than the apprehension side of crime. They are chronically overworked and typically have more criminals than they know what to do with but manage to do their jobs adequately. This floating office is overseen by Iron Sands, a member of The Broad who has lots of experience getting slaves to do as they are bid.

== The Adeptus Judicate ==

Working closely with the Adeptus Arbites the Adeptus Judicate is the other half of the justice system. These are the many Judges, Lawyers, and Clerks of the Court who make sure that the innocent are not punished with the guilty. At the present time, the Adeptus Judicate consists of 11 judges, 15 prosecuting attorneys, 23 Attorneys of Due Justice (Public Defenders.), 42 'Clerks of the Court' who record and file all rulings and court-ordered contracts, and 17 "Agent's Protection" who follow up on inconsistencies in court records and the welfare of Amarana's citizens in cases such as child abuse allegations and locating jurors that fail to show up for a trial. There are also about 200 private attorneys who are technically part of this Adeptus but not part of the government. The High Lord of the Courts is [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Molly McBride|Molly McBride]] a Demon Blooded northerner who has spent her whole life fighting against injustice and corruption in every form.

Additionally [[User:Nemo of Utopia/The_Patron_of_Amarana|The Patron]] himself is technically also a member of this branch as he has the right to sit in judgment if he chooses on all High Crimes and acts of Treason. He has invoked this right exactly once, mostly to prove that he could. (The person in question was found "Not Guilty by Reason of Insanity" and sentenced to lifetime confinement to a mental institution pending treatment or cure of his condition. He stood accused of twelve counts of grand theft, but psychoanalysis found him to be a kleptomaniac. The police often consult him on serial theft cases, and he is actually fairly good at solving them. However, he does have a problem with stealing other patients’ belongings and the doctor's pens and notebooks.)

Trials are in the American/British style, with a 'jury of one's peers' and the judge presiding from the high seat. The witness's sit to the judge's left and the clerk to the right. The prosecutors are on the left side of the courtroom and the Jury the Right while the accused is in the middle. Unless the accused is elderly or crippled and unable to stand they may not sit. For this reason, individual segments of trial must last no more than 3 hours. Only citizens may serve as witnesses, but since one can at the present time become a citizen after 24 hours residency this is not a problem. Citizens MAY testify with respect to events from before their citizenship. The accused is entitled to an 'Attorney of Due Justice' in the event that they cannot retain their own private counsel. The judge may dismiss any case at any time with or without prejudice, which is done routinely with respect to picayune or spurious civil cases so as to free up Attorneys of Due Justice for criminal trials. The patron is looking into finding more Judges and Attorneys of Due Justice so that civil cases do not need to be dismissed so frequently, which has a distressing tendency to lead to murder.

Abnormally The Adeptus Judicate does not have any departmento or officio, but there are those within it and without that are bucking to change that.

== The Adeptus Sororitatus ==

The 'Sisterhood' as they are called by the common folk is the government Adepta that oversees all _female_ clerics and thaumaturges in Amarana Like their Counterparts in the Adeptus Fratris they are few in number but powerful in influence. Technically also responsible for the worship of all-female gods in the city it is common that women will be priests of male deities and men prelates of a goddess's church. The division of male and female clergy between the AS and AF, however, is strict while the division of deities wavers like the landscape in the summer heat. In spite of these difficulties, the two branches of government get along quite well and cooperation between them is without rancor or strife in most cases. The High Lady of the Adepta is [[Nemo of Utopia/Unrepentant Emerald|Unrepentant Emerald]]. She is a mortal with Enlightened Essence and is exceedingly circumspect in her actions, a paragon of temperance. She is also the head priestess of [[Nemo of Utopia/Amarana Seline|Amarana Seline]].

=== The Officio Festivalius ===

This floating office submits to The Patron which days and locations should have festivals to honor the goddess' of the city. A circle of female clergy decide these events and pass them on to the patron, who generally approves them without comment. This circle is chaired by Unrepentant Emerald.

=== The Departmento Eclesiast ===

This is the main branch of the Adepta, overseeing and licensing all _female_ clergy in Amarana. The department technically consists of all licensed female clergy in the city but in practice, most of the female clergy get their licenses and are about their business having no further interaction with the government except to re-up their licenses once a year.

==== The Officio Licentiae ====

This officio handles the licensing process for all official priestesses, which requires proving you have the following capabilities: Ability to speak and read Old Realm, Basic knowledge of Spiritual Etiquette, (At least 3 dots in occult or 1 + an appropriate specialty.) and training in proper prayer procedures. (Prayer roll performance pool of at least 5 dice.) These requirements may be waived if the cleric has a 'sponsor' with a proper license who is taking on the new cleric as a student to train in service to their god/goddess in which case a 'Postulant Permit' is issued instead. Licenses are issued per deity, so if you wish to be the clergy of multiple gods multiple licenses are required. This is waived in the case of Zenith-caste Solars, Theurge-caste "New-Method"-Lunars, "Redemer"-caste Infernals, and Midnight-caste Abyssals, since it would be more trouble than it is worth to issue a license for every god in creation (for the first two), every each of the recovering yozis and all the greater demons (Redeemers), or ghost above essence 3 in the underworld (Midnight-castes).

==== The Officio Sanctionite ====

This is a smaller office within the departmento, making recommendations to The Patron on which female deities should be given official sanction within Amarana. All the female deities mentioned under the Religion section are sanctioned unless noted otherwise. Being unsanctioned does not mean you cannot be worshiped, but it does mean that you cannot have space allocated for a temple or licensed clergy. Sanctioning however is fairly easy to get since The Patron often simply signs the forms without reading them. (Additionally, all the incarnae are sanctioned, + Gaia and the Dragons.)

==== The Officio Hetterodox ====

This office deals with instances of rogue gods and clergy, such as the notorious Tuggie of the Scavenger Lands and other instances where the celestial bureaucracy has broken down to an unacceptable level. Employing many outside contractors they put spirits who demand illicit worship or sapient sacrifice in their places and also hunt rogue demons and the fair folk's ravagers. Though the actual functionaries of this Officio are few their agents are many and they are always busy.

== The Adeptus Frateris ==

Sometimes referred to as 'The Fraternity' by outsiders this Adeptus is responsible for all male deities and male clergy in Amarana. They take their job seriously and are sometimes noted for being taciturn and uncompromising. They are led by [[Nemo of Utopia/Wauli the Wolf|Wauli the Wolf]], who like his female counterpart is a mortal with awakened essence.

Structurally the Adeptus Frateris is identical to the Adeptus Sorroitatus.

== The Adeptus Mechanicus ==

The Adeptus Mechanicus are an odd bunch. Dressing in Rust Red robes and communicating in their own strange (and highly technical) dialect of Old-Realm they keep outsiders at arm's length. This Adepta is responsible for helping The Patron find and repair the magitech of the city a task that they perform supremely well but which many wonders if this group of strangely obsessed men and women are actually best suited for. Led by [[Nemo of Utopia/Adamant Sprocket|Adamant Sprocket]], an elderly Djala man and his young adult daughter [[Nemo of Utopia/Gears of Fate|Gears of Fate]], this group employs many Djala escapees in the task of repairing and rebuilding the city.

== The Adeptus Diolougus ==

What some would call the state department or the diplomatic corps the Adeptus Diolougus is one of the smallest Adeptus of the Amaranaian government. Led by [[Nemo of Utopia/Exultant Ivory Mother|Exultant Ivory Mother]] (a god-blooded woman from An-Teng, who harbors no feelings of goodwill for either Realm or Guild,) this group of spies and agent's provocateur work to keep Amarana a free city and outside the clutches of both [[The Guild]] and foreign powers such as the [[Realm]].

== The Adeptus Medicae ==

Easily among the smallest Adeptus of the Amaranaian government if one only counts the actual government personnel instead of approximately a-dozen-dozen licensed doctors, psychiatrists, and physicians whom they are tasked with overseeing and who like private attorneys in the city are technically part of the Adeptus: the Adeptus Medicae is as one might have guessed responsible for the physical and mental health of the city. They Tend to this task primarily by licensing and monitoring the city's medical personnel. This Adeptus role is two-fold: first, they are responsible for overseeing those practicing and utilizing any kind of medical skill in the city, from alchemists manufacturing morphine, [[Seven Bounties Paste]], or [[Age Staving Cordial]], to those offering psychiatric counseling outside of a church setting, to the several small private hospitals around the city, to even veterinarians. The Second task of the group is more dangerous and ripe for abuse by far: it is they in large part, as the only people with the requisite expertise, who draw up for [[Nemo of Utopia/The Patron of Amarana|The Patron's]] approval the statutes of law which they are tasked with enforcing. Thus far there has been no conflict of interest or abuses of power but the vast majority of people among the medical personnel of Amarana wait anxiously or avidly for this to begin changing.

The Adeptus Medicae is led by [[Nemo of Utopia/Simon Baker|Simon Baker]], a psychiatrist by trade, who is among the most dangerously insightful and persuasive people you will ever meet, at least that is not one of the exalted. He is, in fact, a god blooded, son of the patron deity of an order of physicians on The Blessed Isle, and is not much taken with the Imacualtes, treating them with frosty professionalism.

== The Adeptus Fabricae ==

Easily the largest and most diverse branch of the Amaranaian government the Adeptus Fabricae oversees all matters which involve or pertain directly to any sort of production, manufacturing, functional artistry, or creation of goods within Amarana's lands. Though ferreting out matters of a criminal nature fall under the heading of the Adeptus Arbites, and the governance of the legal codes is the province primarily of The Patron himself, and Prosecution and judgment of crimes is the business of the Adeptus Judicate, all three of these functions fall partially under this Adeptus' remit.

The Adeptus Fabricae first submits for The Patron's approval all codes and strictures which govern the actions and enterprises of fabricating all tangible products in Amarana, and exhaustive list of matters which fall under their control would be impossible but a few of the more salient follow: Print Shops, Compounding Pharmacies, Paper Mills, Glass Works, Jewelers, Magitech Repair Shops, Smithies, Book Binders, Cobblers, Tailors, and Farms: essentially anything which would be made by any sort of "Craft: XXX" skill is within their authority. The patron then reviews these legal codes and approves or rejects them, which becomes the strictures that the Adeptus Fabricae enforce upon the businesses of Amarana.

Most production facilities of any kind are within the Adeptus Fabricae's remit, with the notable exception of restaurants, taverns, eateries, pubs, tea houses, inns, and food carts which fall under the aegis of the Adeptus Medicae, though oddly pharmacies do not. Neither adepta is happy about this but neither is willing to lose or exchange the area they do have power over for reasons of their own which seem fully sufficient to them. Furthermore, any business that produces a tangible product and directly employs more than 50 people in any capacity is under their remit to license, inspect, and if necessary fine or refer to the Arbiters for investigation.

The following are the Departmento and Officio of the Adeptus Fabricae, each one with significant discretionary power and held in check solely by the High Lady of the Adeptus [[Nemo of Utopia/AuspiciousCrystalLightning|Auspicious Crystal Lightning]] and The Patron.

=== The Departmento Iura ===

The 'Department of Laws' devises and writes out the codes of law which govern the production and creation of goods in Amarana. They have created and submitted to the patron and extensive and thorough list of legal codes regarding the conditions, control, creation, and compensation for most products in Amarana, and those they have not they are working on.

==== The Officio Iura Laboris ====

The 'Office of Labor Laws' designs the codes of law concerning the employment, treatment, and management of Amarana's workforce. They are in the main as despised by the plutocracy as they are beloved by the common folk. Among other laws, they have enacted is the 8-hour work shift and the 6 day work week.

==== The Officio Iura Fabricación ====

The "Office of Manufacturing Laws" creates the codes of law governing the actual production of goods. Other offices govern the details of different types of production facilities or fields, but this office creates the general guidelines which the others work by.

==== The Officio Iura Cotagium Industria ====

The "Office of Cottage Industry" drafts the limited and simple codes which control small scale manufacturing by individuals and small business. They would like to have more extensive and detailed codes but The Patron uses his authority to make the official versions of the law to pare back most of their red tape and BS. He is, in fact, thinking of suspending this office for a period of some months while he looks for a better and less over eager set of people to be its officers.

==== The Officio Iura Officinis ====

This office makes the laws respecting the specific difficulties of production in a factory typesetting. Any production facility with 50 or more employees falls under their regulating authority, even things that are not normally their provinces such as farms, eateries, and pharmacies. For this reason, many production facilities and such, run with a staff of 40, so that even if they hire a handful of temp workers they will not move into this Officio's dominion. This Officio is not-well-liked by most business owners, being seen as overly restrictive and exceedingly interfering.

==== The Officio Iura Pharmicopia ====

== The Adeptus Adminstradum ==

== The Adeptus Aeronauticus ==

== The Adeptus Vectigalia ==

Lying squarely in the middle of the Adeptus of the city in terms of size the Adeptus Vectigalia is The Patron's Tax Collectors and Auditors of Accounts. Little liked by most people in the city they are nevertheless key to its continued function. In addition to overseeing that the government is given it's due and being called on to check the books of businesses which the Adeptus Arbites feel might be doing illegal activities the Adeptus Vectigalia also runs Amarana's national mint, which means that they are monitored closely by both The Patron and the Adeptus Arbites.

Noted for being uncompromising and humorless the Adeptus Vectigalia dress in imperishable formal clothing left behind from the first age. The hot stuffy suits and jackets only contribute to their reputation as dour and unsmiling drones of government oversight, which is perhaps the point of the dress code.

The Adeptus Vectigalia is divided into three Departmento: The Departmento Salari, which collects the taxes in cash or kind, the Departmento Quastorius, who audits people's books, and the Departmento Signo, who oversees the minting and engraving of all Amaranaian currency.

The Adeptus Vectigalia is led by [[Nemo of Utopia/Manifold Gemstone|Manifold Gemstone]] a perfectly ordinary man, who happens to be an excellent forensic accountant if only a passable administrator.

= Religion =

Faith and practice in Amarana are as diverse as the people who have come to live there. Everything from Immaculates to ancestor Worshipers to CotI members to simple priests and adherents of various gods all rub-elbows on the city's streets. Below are a brief rundown of the most prominent of the city's faiths and the deities they worship.

== Immaculates ==

Though the smallest of the city's faiths the Immaculate Doctrine still has hundreds of adherents among the people of the city, many of whom are enlightened martial arts practitioners. They also have a strong support network in the form of outside contacts with The Realm and other Dragon-Blooded.

== The Common Faith/Hundred Gods Heresy ==

The Majority of the population of Amarana believe in the gods as most people of the threshold do: they worship those who can provide them with benefits they want or need and don't understand much about the celestial bureaucracy or how things worked in the first age and that the present state of affairs is a corruption of the 'proper' order of things. Those that do often take the stance that "this is the way things are" and simply go on with their day.

What follows is a brief list of the major deities of Amarana and who or what they are affiliated with:

=== Amarana Seline ===

[[Nemo of Utopia/AmaranaSeline|Amarana Seline]]: As the City Mother of Amarana, Amarana Seline is the leader of the city's spirits. She was promoted from off the dole in heaven by the machinations of a number of bronze faction Sidereals and is fully cognizant of the fact that she '''owes''' them, but at the same time of the fact that as a dispossessed spirit promoted to the rank of City Mother she has few allies and many enemies. For these and other reasons she does not play favorites, at least not much, and is working hard at her job coordinating the smooth running of the city. Though she tries to be largely neutral in truth she is in the camp of the Immaculate Faction, which is part of why the Immaculates are as strong as they are in the city.

=== Mother Midnight ===

[[Nemo of Utopia/MotherMidnight|Mother Midnight]]: As the Senior Goddess of all-natural misfortunes in Amarana 'Mother of Midnight Murder and Mayhem', to use her full name, is a very good person for The Patron to have on his side. Mother Midnight takes positive glee in afflicting his enemies with all manner of troubles and ailments, from murder most foul to tripping on a dropped piece of lumber and spilling twenty boxes of crack from their backpack right in front of a police officer. However she is not really playing favorites, she still inflicts all manner of problems on the Patriots, their enemies just get it first and worst. Mother Midnight also has another interesting fact to her favor: she has been at her post for the past 3000 years. She gets audited on a regular basis and comes up smelling like roses: every, single, time! This drives Wong Bongerok to a level of near slavering fury, especially since he is certain Mother Midnight has been doing some kind of double-dealing and below-board hustle to keep herself fed and clothed during Amarana's long dormancy but has no way to prove it. Thing is, he's wrong. Mother Midnight became a doomsday prepper just after the usurpation and had been stockpiling quintessence and ambrosia for centuries ere the fair folk invaded. She has been living off that stockpile for all the time since and even now could go several centuries were the city to fall again ere she would need to start hustling for her sustenance.

In form, Mother Midnight looks like an exceedingly overweight woman with coal-black skin and long dreadlocked black hair that hangs so long as to trail on the ground. She typically appears nude or dressed in rags but can summon an armor of bones and broken pottery for a cost of 3 motes that gives her 10 lethal/bashing soak for the rest of the scene. For one mote she may reflexively cause any weapon that strikes her which has a hardness of less than 10 to automatically break*, and any weapon that has less than 15 hardness but more than 10 take 5d of damage. Energy weapons are immune to this, such as beam-klaves and weapons with a hardness of more than 15 cannot be affected. These powers do not count as charm use.

*(The weapon still inflicts damage before breaking from this effect.)

=== Pauldron Of Sanctity ===

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/PauldronOfSanctitity|Pauldron Of Sanctitity]]: is the new titular war god of the state, essentially exiled to the post by Atlhat since he is a rabidly punctual and rules obsessed deity that Atlhat has detested for centuries. Pauldron of Sanctity takes the form of a tall man in Gunzosha Armor and wielding a shock pike. He believes in well regimented and organized military units who are drilled and well equipped. In many ways, his notions of war are still trapped in the low first age when he was spawned as the god of a mercenary company, but this is just fine because he is the war god of a city with much of its low first age equipment and infrastructure intact. Though he favors the Immacualtes he is not willing to alter the course of outlined fate one millimeter without approval through proper channels.

=== Garion Cromarch ===

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/GarionCromarch|Garion Cromarch]]: is the god of Amarana's police force, who has waited patiently these seven centuries and more since the loss of the city to the fair folk working unofficially as a P.I. in Yu-Shan and who is the author of Amarana’s rebirth, having convinced the Bronze Faction to engineer the events which have led to that happening. Garion is perhaps more involved in the doings of the city's police than he should be, often helping them out with 'gut feelings' and leading dreams, but so far his interference has not crossed the line of allowed behavior.

Garrion's form looks like an idealized southern human male wearing Sentinel Defense Force armor blazoned with the symbol of Amarana, an eagle in flight wearing broken manacles.

=== Lissom Shining Spring ===

[[Nemo of Utopia/LissomShiningSpring|Lissom Shining Spring]]: a goddess of the local Oasis who temporarily holds two positions both in her old job and as the minster of all water sources within Amarana's sphere of influence. She is not perfidious in this role like Alhat who should not hold both the aegis of southern war god and god of cattle but is genuinely looking for a replacement to take over the role of goddess of springs and oasis: however she is a perfectionist and committed to finding a perfect candidate, which means that though she has interviewed over a hundred prospective applicants she has not found one that she feels is worthy of her longtime position. The Bronze Faction is willing to let her conduct further interviews, for now, but have made it clear that if she does not have a new spirit in the position by the end of next year she will be censured and the task of finding a replacement will be out of her hands. To this end, she has compiled what she calls her 'secondary list': those gods that she felt were 'almost' up to her lofty standards, and if she is running out of time will call them back for a second interview and chose the best one. She still hopes for a perfect applicant however and only has four names on her 'secondary list'.

Lissom Shining Spring's form is that of a large fish, but lately, she has been finding herself slipping into the form of a young woman in the suit of one of the city's hydro-engineering personnel who assists the Patron in making sure that all the pipes are sound before restoring the flow of water to a building. She is not sure she likes this.

=== Sonari ===

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/Sonari|Sonari]]: is the divine minister of sunlight and shadow for Amarana. She works with the bureau of nature to ensure that the proper degree of cloud cover reaches Amarana as well as the appropriate amount of sun. Like many of the gods of Amarana she is newly promoted from being on the dole and fearful of losing her position, but even so, dares to encourage the cult to worship her with little flourishes like rays of light in winter and cool breezes in summer.

She takes the form of a cloud from which pour rays of sunlight.

=== Meroka Jin ===

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/MerekaJin|Mereka Jin]]: the minister of romance and love in Amarana is actually an old pro at the role, having been the minister for the task in the old city and then for the Salaru tribes. He is corrupt as the day is long but adept at hiding his perfidy from anyone and everyone, including to a degree himself.

Mereka Jin takes the form of a vigorous adult man of the south with a rose in his teeth and a rakish smile. He often appears nude or in the robes worn for a wedding among the Salaru.

Mereka is eternally locked in a bitter feud with his theoretical partner Sakarzi: minster of lust and attraction, who is constantly trying to break down the stable romantic relationships her 'partner' builds. For the moment they have reached a detente on the matter of the two factions in which they are most interested, If Sakarzi will do her job for the romantic relationships of the Solarians then Meroka will not try to pair off the Ancestor Cultists into mirages and leave Sakarzi to push them to rut in wild abandon. They have not agreed about what to do with the rest of the population which makes up more than 60%.

=== Bibwit Heart ===

[[Nemo of Utopia/BibwitHeart|Bibwit Heart]]: The 'least' god of Amarana's central manse, Bibwit is uncomfortable with the cult worshiping him as they do. He has seen many least gods that have found themselves at the center of cults growing arrogant and ultimately becoming starmetal and is afraid this will happen to him. He has survived both the fall of the solars and the shogunate by being small and unobtrusive, keeping his manse functional and active while the rest of the city fell apart and he is not going to change that strategy. Still, he is an important god in the city, and as such they venerate him. Bibwit takes the form of an anthropomorphized rabbit with white fur and a tailored coat. He carries a pocket watch that lets him make flurry attacks up to his DEX score with no penalty.

=== Cela Dinarius ===

[[Nemo of Utopia/CelaDinarius|Cela Dinarius]]: Cela is the goddess responsible for Amarana's economy, and she is a personal friend of Glorious Weapon. She is no friend of the Guild and works as much as she dares to keep the guild from stealing artifacts from Amarana for sale to its foreign rivals. Formerly the goddess of Aj-Aran's main market square she was promoted to the overall control of the economy of Amarana via the machinations of the gold faction. She knows the city father is a bronze faction plant but reasons that as long as they both do their jobs properly they should not come into many conflicts. The two have a standing date for tea every Venus day.

Cela Dinarius form is that of an attractive woman carved from silver, and she wears the clothing of a Varangian cloth factor, which was her first job beyond as the least god some 4 centuries ago, patron goddess of a new Varangian cloth consortium.

=== Zalril ===

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/Amarana/Zalril|Zalril]]: Formerly the Least god of Amarana's north gate Zalril has by what amounts to shier-force-of-will moved up to become the patron god of Guild Members working in Amarana. The exact operation of this occurrence has been shrouded in mystery at the orders of Kejop Kajac himself, and further Nazri signed off on it too. The Guild maintains a large shrine just outside his old gate where they leave offerings before entering the city and where three slave women were taken under cover of night and sworn to become Zalril's Priestesses in exchange for their freedom by an Eclipse-caste member who often works for the guild. Though two of them still keep their roles as the god's priestesses the third has left the shrine and now lives in the city as a teacher for the city's new public school. Interestingly she has suffered no ill effects from 'breaking' her oath. Zalril has asked for the Guild to send a replacement but they are still trying to figure out why the oath failed in the first place. Meanwhile [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Sulramia|Sulramia]] finds fulfillment in teaching her students as do [[User:Nemo of Utopia/GayePachudiweOgesu|Gaye Pachudiwe Ogesu]] and [[User:Nemo of Utopia/OxandRainbowSlave|Ox and Rainbow]] the two women that still work at the shrine. Ogesu is an old woman and does the cooking and cleaning while Ox and Rainbow stand guard over the shrine. Sulramia also came with another gift for the god, her daughter, as she was part of a quadratic set, Maiden, Warrior, Mother, and Crone, and if she was to be the 'mother' Zalril insisted that she has a child as proof of her status, who conveniently doubled as 'maiden'. Sulramia's daughter is called [[User:Nemo of Utopia/IronandHoneyMaiden|Iron and Honey Maiden]] and is just the cutest five-year-old you will ever see, with an appearance score of five already. Her mother lives constantly with the fear of pedophiles, but does not let it rule their lives.

=== Walziri ===

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/Walziri|Walziri]]: as the god of beasts of burden within Amarana's lands Walziri is a major player in the lives of Guild personnel who must work or live here. Formerly a lesser deity of travel and trade in Harborhead Walziri was appointed to his new post by the machinations of a cabal of 'Independent' southern Sidereals and understands that he OWES them for this big break. The cabal has not called in that favor, at least not yet, but for the moment are content with him filing informal reports on the going's on in Amarana. While still hard at work at his new post he has already started to play favorites a little with the Guild's Men who pray to him, subtly strengthening their animals and selecting them last when sickness is due to strike the camels or whatnot of the city. Walziri takes the form of a large man of Harborhead derivation wearing several coral necklaces and white robes. He carries a Jade cattle prod which can be used as a spear or thrown like a javelin and returns instantly to his hand.

=== Anyaka Tetsuo ===

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/AnyakaTetsuo|Anyaka Tetsuo]]: The minister of Chance and Gambling in Amarana, Tetsuo is not new to this job. Created as the least god of a set of enchanted dice not long after the Primordial War Tetsuo has risen over the course of the intervening years to a position of moderate power in this city through diligent work and a suspicious number of 'lucky' breaks. Though no investigation has ever found him guilty of any wrongdoing there are enough people that are suspicious of what he surely must have done with his powers to better his status that it is unlikely he will ever rise any higher. Some deities would plot and scheme to continue advancing, but Tetsuo knows better. As a god of chance and gambling, he is well aware that he has been on quite the lucky streak and that is when you should count your winnings, leave the table, and cash in your chips before your luck runs out. He is content to be the god of all chance and gambling in Amarana: and will only rise higher if his natural luck brings him a sudden break, which he is not holding his breath for. He wiles away his time by playing games with the gamblers of the city, making them win or lose in a big way, but staying within the bounds of prescribed fate.

Tetsuo looks like a tall, broad-shouldered, thoroughly tattooed man with a cup and dice for playing a popular gambling game called 'Han or Cho'.

Tetsuo's sanctum is exceedingly large, he has had 700 years of dormancy in Amarana in which to expand it, and it now takes the form of a vast resort with several small casinos and many spas on what appears to be a small tropical island. (At the boundaries of its area there is a big reef beyond which the waterfalls away into nothing.) Tetsuo typically has many of the small gods of gambling and chance living in his sanctum with him at any time. Tetsuo is a colleague of Mother Midnight, not her subordinate, but the two work closely to determine which gamblers will face a string of ill luck.

=== Bagong Fangrick ===

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/BaegongFangrick|Bagong Fangrick]]: As the God of Vermin within Amarana Fangrick is an odd person to aid the guild but the guild will take allies where it can find them. Fangrick is a subordinate of Mother Midnight but has kept himself mostly out of her way and done his job without fuss since the revival of the city. Formerly the deity of rats for the Salaru tribes he was promoted upon the city's revival in recognition of many years of hard work with little reward and not the slightest blemish on his record.

Bagong Fangrick looks like an aged anthropomorphic rat, dressed in the robes of a shogunate era martial arts practitioner.

=== Wisp Virunga ===

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/WispVirunga|Wisp Virunga]]: As the managing deity for all education in Amarana Wisp is a VIP for the Patriots, because she helps their people learn new skills significantly faster, which helps them stay a step ahead of their competition, for the moment. The thing is that Wisp is running a knife-edge game with staying inside what is allowed within her post as a manager for all education in Amarana and what could be censured. This is very very bad: because she is already in trouble with the local censor's deputy for bearing a god blooded child, who is still alive and therefore available as evidence. Just to add insult to injury the censor's deputy has a personal vendetta against her for rebuffing his advances in favor of a mere mortal. Until the revival of Amarana Wisp Virunga was the goddess of its central library, she effectively promoted herself to the chief goddess of education by cozening up to the Patron while he was excavating her manse. When he decreed the first mandatory schooling sessions for the early colonists he had them pray to her as patron of all education in Amarana at the start of each day, when the prayers reached critical mass a few months later she had already conducted a quiet set of interviews and had her replacement as god of the library already prepped and ready to take over at once. This is not precisely an offense against the laws of heaven, but it is somewhat 'bad form' and would count against her slightly in a formal audit. It also has earned some of her fellow deities enmity, especially:...

=== Principle of Justified Action ===

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/PrincipleofJustifiedAction|Principle of Justified Action]]: Heaven has gods of just about everything, including educators. Principle of Justified Action was formerly a deity of a major school out in the distant threshold before the fair folk invasion and only survived that calamity by mere chance, having been in heaven on vacation when the hosts of faerie scourged the world. Since then he has lived on the dole and schemed endlessly to get another position in the bureau of humanity's education office. He finally thought he had one all lined up when Amarana was scheduled to be rebuilt as its manager of education, but the Patron and Wisp Verunga snatched it out of his hands. Yet, when one door closes another opens and a cabal of Gold Faction Sidereals and a few people who were still his friends from the old days managed to finagle him a consolation prize. The role of managing deity for the court system of Amarana was still open since there were not supposed to be any real criminal proceedings for several months yet. Desperate to get off the dole by then and seeing this as his last chance for the foreseeable future he accepted.

What neither he nor the Sidereals that helped him expected, was that he would LIKE the work. Managing a court system is not so different in truth from managing a school, you have trouble makers, erudite and passionate people, a lot of people who really don't want to be there, an ever-changing cast of characters doing many old and a few new stupid things, a complex set of rules you must adhere to; the similarities were rather a shock. Of course, there were differences, mostly in the fact that things move both so much slower most of the time and so much faster in the crunch, but he got his sea legs within a month or two and found himself enjoying having a real job again. That said, Principle of Justified Action is still no friend of Wisp Virunga and would dearly love to put in an application to replace her should she fall afoul of the auditors. However he bides his time, after all, he is employed in a job that he does not find onerous and has plenty of prayers coming in from both sides of the law, Wisp has no experience and is drowning in her duties, let them see what putting an untried administrator into such an important post does! Chances are that within the decade he will have her job: so runs his reasoning.

The Patron is another matter. He likes the Patron, rather a lot, and finds in the autocrat of the city a kindred spirit: and of course, cannot fault the man on the matter of his dedication to an educated society. He sometimes pokes the patron in the subconscious when he is contemplating a bad law, or about to reject a good one, and thus far does not consider it any kind of offense against heaven's rules. He is, in fact, wrong, he has committed no less than 5 level-one offenses in this manner, but that will largely be ignored unless he does more than mere subconscious nudging, after all, he has not really messed up any major plans this way so far.

In form Principle of Justified Action looks like a tall man from the furthest east, wearing the green and red robes of a seated Judge of Amarana's courts. His hair is shock white, a remnant of his time among the starving unemployed but he finds it suits his image as a wise leader of the courts. Abnormally for a god of justice he is lenient with most offenders, reasoning that if you punish too harshly you deny them a chance to learn from their mistakes. However, anyone who harms children sees the other side of him, a fury of unrelenting hatred that will see them hanged if at all possible.

=== Sakarzi ===

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/Sakarzi|Sakarzi]]: though she would dearly love to bring about the Patron's ruin and overthrow Sakarzi: minister of lust and attraction for Amarana, has a problem: She is both terrified of him and lusts after him obsessively. Sakarzi met the Patron before he mastered Amarana when she was bathing in a sacred hot-spring on the borders of the lands now claimed by the city in the guise of a comely Salaru maiden and he was following his awakened memories back to the city to claim his destiny. There at the hot-spring, she tried to seduce him.

She Failed.

The patron was clearly attracted to her and wished to accept her advances but mastered himself with an effort of will and politely refused. Five more times in five different guises Sakarzi has tried to seduce him and each time has been rebuffed, but always politely. This is why she is terrified of him, no one else whom she has ever tried to seduce has refused her advances so many times, especially since each of those times she has used progressively more of her supernatural powers, in the last instance activating an effect that should have compelled him to lie with her will he or no. She lusts after him because she has a weakness for powerful men, and The Patron certainly is one: but it is his immunity to her mystical powers that have made it an obsession. With the Patron, Sakarzi can use only the arts available to a mortal woman to snare the man she desires, and it is driving her to distraction. Perhaps an hour's worth of time out of each of her days is frittered away trying to think up new ways to seduce the Patron that rely only on her natural skills and personal beauty, but thus far she has not come up with anything worth using on a seventh attempt. The reason that Sakarzi would love to see the patron fall is that after she started a feud between three of the early families of colonists by seducing three of their sons and declaring that only the last one living would bed her the patron caught her outside her sanctum and beat her to within an inch of her life, declaring that if he ever caught her pulling that kind of stunt on his supporters again he would not pull his blows the second time.

These conflicting emotions are tearing Sakarzi apart, she lusts after the patron, but wants to ruin him, but is terrified of him, but she wants to have sex with him so bad she can taste it: Etc, Etc. In the meantime, she has appeared to several of the Patriots and declared her support for the patron's cause offering her help in securing the objects of their desires and the word has spread among them that if you erect a shrine to her in your residence and pray at it twice a day, morning and night, she will aid you in seducing whoever you most lust after.

While Sakarzi has many forms she can assume her true form is that of a Salaru woman of surpassing beauty and grace who literally cannot wear clothing. Her merest touch causes any garment to become invisible for one hour, so there is no point in her wearing any kind of raiment except for its protective value, which she rarely does.

=== Machuko; Torch of Freedom ===

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/MachukoTorchofFreedom|Machuko; Torch of Freedom]]: Is it any wonder, considering the status of Amarana as a free city where none may be held in bondage without due process of law, that the patron deity of Liberation and Abolitionism should view it with favor and even more so it's leader who enacted the law in question? [[Rabsolga]], the patron of slavery, hates and despises Amarana and if for no other reason than that Machuko loves and protects it. Furthermore, Machuko is [[User:Nemo of Utopia/ThePatron|The Patron]]'s patron god, to whom he prays five times a day, and is celebrated with five feast days each year, one at the beginning of each 'resplendent' month. Even the Immaculates honor these five days of worship, because the Patron has been known to have those that speak against honoring the feasts arrested and tried for sedition and/or aiding and abetting slavers, and their leader does not need that kind of attention, so he has said: "These days honoring Machuko are sanctioned by the immaculate faith, so long as you pray unto him only on these days you do not sin against the orders of Heaven."

Machuko keeps a large temple in the city's northeast quarter: a level 3 fire aspected manse called 'The Wheel of Torches' from it ride forth his clergy and devout adherents numbering several dozen strong on raids into the wastes beyond Amarana's borders proclaiming Machuko's glory and the freedom of all people within the lands of Amarana. Machuko has many priests across all of creation but nowhere are there so many gathered together as in Amarana.

In form, Machuko looks like a tall muscular man of what modern people would call Jewish/Hasidic/Israeli derivation, with a wild beard and long hair that hangs in ringlets. He carries a gore maul and chopping sword of orichalcum and white jade which when used together can cut any chain or bond. He has another form, which he assumes rarely except when in heaven, which is that of a great Dragon filled with yellow-white fire and made from millions of broken chains, collars, and manacles.

== Ancestor Cultists ==

Led by [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Sharima of the Three Disciplines|Sharima of the Three Disciplines]] and her ghostly lover [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Aruna the Defiant|Aruna the Defiant]] this group of citizens is a large and vocal part of the city's population. Though dwarfed by the percentage of the city who worship the city's gods and elementals the Ancestor Cultists make up as much as 20-25% of the city's population and are especially prominent among the [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Salaru|Salaru]].

The Ancestor Cultists make use of a large number of small [[Shadowlands]] across the city to communicate more directly with their patron spirits and interact with the underworld: but are mindful of [[User:Nemo of Utopia/The Patron of Amarana|The Patron]]'s injunctions about not breaking the circles of salt and other wards which keep the ghosts within the Underworld. They are however constantly working to locate 'new' and unguarded Shadowlands for their patrons to use to slip in and out of the underworld, which The Patron minds not one bit so long as they report them for the Adeptus Sororitatus/Frateris to seal in due course.

Though most of the people of Amarana are unaware of this fact the Ancestor Cultists are being controlled from behind the scenes by a Deathknight known as [[User:Nemo of Utopia/The Fluttering Fist of the Deadly Labyrinth|The Fluttering Fist of the Deadly Labyrinth]] he is a martial artist in service to The [[Mask of Winters]] who has wandered off on his own agenda far from thorns and The Mask's traditional area of operation. "The Fist" came to Amarana in search of a rumored cache of [[Autochthonian]] [[Soulsteel]], held in the vaults of the undercity, but has found that much of the undercity is sealed and inaccessible even from the [[Underworld]]. In the meantime, he works on the ancestor cultists as both a way to support himself and something to occupy his time while he trains to learn the charms that will allow him to enter the prehuman depths of the city where he hopes the bars of [[Autochthonian Soulsteel]] can be found.

Though the ghosts of Salaruku are numerous and very old surprisingly few of them are Heroic Ghosts and willing/able to serve as patrons for Amarana's ancestor cultists. Of those that do It is surprisingly four of the youngest ghosts that are the main patrons worshiped by the cultists: along with one exceedingly old ghost from the fall of Salaruku.

=== Xufuwne Onuke ===

The leader of Isknadar's relatively large population of ghosts from the time of the fair folk invasion Onuke is frighteningly powerful but relatively easy going. He has outlasted Amarana's long dormancy and now looks forward to an era of joy and plenty for the city's dead. A dragon blooded warrior in life Onuke was killed battling the invaders from the wyld and in an odd twist of fate, they buried him with high honors. His tomb lies in the still sand-covered western half of the city at the center of a small park. In form, Onuke looks like a typical dragon blooded of the shogunate, dressed in power armor and wielding a Daiklave. He has subsisted by hunting plasmic creatures for most of 700 years but welcomes the changes of the reborn city. Onuke is the cult's equivalent of a war god, a role he shoulders without complaint but also without relish.

=== Aruna the Defiant ===

Hailing from Chiaroscuro Aruna is the lover of Sharima, and they have many Ghost-blooded children together. They were maneuvered into the leadership of the cult by agents of [[The Archon of Apostasy]] who wished to have a shining example of ghost/mortal co-operation in Amarana to help people accept the death cult in their midst. The Archon's agents do not believe the plan is working but they are wrong, were it not for the two of them the cult would have been burned out root and branch. Aruna is a relatively young ghost but has become powerful quite quickly thanks to her lover and her association with various death cults. In appearance, Aruna looks like a young woman of the Delazen, beautiful and alluring for all her ghostly translucence and pallor. Aruna is the cult's patron of love and romance but gives short shrift to lust.

=== Emerald Lotus ===

Like her partner's Monkey of the City and Triumphal Eagle of the Flawless Hill, Emerald Lotus has been elevated to leadership by the machinations of the Patron, who decreed a feast day in their honor on the day of their deaths defending Amarana from an attack by a trio of 'Hounds of the Unbroken Earth'. None of them is experienced enough to really do the jobs that they have had thrust upon them but they all are rising to the challenge. Emerald Lotus resembles a typical woman of the deep south dressed in a white robe and headscarf that covers everything but her face, and overtop that a breastplate of steel. She is neither attractive nor ugly but is very charismatic. She carries an infinite jade chakram as her main weapon and also bears a perfect chopping sword for close fighting. Emerald Lotus is the patron 'deity' of the cult's Martial Artists, as she had some experience with that in life. She still is finding her feet as a ghost and defers to Xufuwne Onuke on most matters.

=== Monkey of the City ===

Dressed in lamellar and wielding a shock pike monkey of the city is not really suited to his role as a leader of an ancestor cult. Having been an outcast and wanderer in life who always tried to keep people happy and was quick with a joke or to share his water he has not changed much in death. However, there is a place for the fun and funny guy in any pantheon and Monkey of the City fills that role for the Ancestor Cultists of Amarana. Monkey of the City is the cult pantheon's trickster and comic relief, which he does not mind one bit.

=== Triumphal Eagle of the Flawless Hill ===

Wearing a Red Jade reenforced Buff Jacket Triumphal Eagle, or simply 'Der Aller'* as he prefers to be called, was not much of a warrior in life, but was on rotation for guard duty when the hounds attacked and were predictably killed by them. Buried with honors along with the rest of the four and then raised up as a patron spirit of the city he has persisted as a leader due largely to The Patron's favor and the fact that he is a very intelligent man, who is knowledgeable about many subjects. His role in the city's death cult is that of a spirit of wisdom and intellect, as well as oddly the paAeronauticsso to speak, of the Adeptus Aeronauticus.
*(Which means 'the Eagle' in his native tongue.)

== Cult of the Illuminated ==

The Cult of the Illuminated has a relatively small and subtle presence in Amarana, but never-the-less are present. Their agents and activists walk among the cults dedicated to the various celestial exalted who have come to Amarana quietly preaching of the unity of creation and the duties of the 'Shining Ones' to be the leaders and stewards of creation. "Someday," they say. "All creation will be united behind the Shining Ones, and on that day those who have served them well will have rewards beyond their wildest dreams."

Among the 17 or so celestial exalted in the city 6 are allied with the Cult of the Illuminated, and some of the others are sympathizers. The CotI worshipers pray to most of them and work to support their interests.

= Geography =

Geographically Amarana lies at the point just before the sands of the deep desert begin to give way to the rocky foothills of the summer mountains. When the spring rains sweep in from the north it is prone to flooding and mud, while the heat of high summer brings the blazing Simoon roaring out of the deep desert and with it short tempers and sharp words that sometimes flare into brutal murders. Winter is a season of joy and happiness for the citizen's of Amarana, as the power of the elemental pole of Air waxes and the desert is cooled, allowing snow to briefly form in the nearby summer mountains which are trucked into Amarana by old roads and made into flavored sherbets and snow cones for those with the Patron's favor, especially small children, of whom The Patron is known to be quite fond. The foothills around Amarana abound with resources brewed up by the slowly retreating Wyld or pushed from deep within the earth by the strange forces by which creation renews itself over the centuries, including many veins of silver from which Amarana mints its currency. Meanwhile, the desert around Amarana is rich with fire dust and gem sand, especially during the nights of the new moon when the Wyld retreats for several miles further south and exposes a wide swath of 'tainted' land, especially where the city has been slowly pushing the Wyld back by infecting it with billions of grains of what is essentially Elemental Earth. This area is hazardous as well however because the tainted area is not just composed of valuable sands, but also dangerous ones, such as quicksand, shatter sand, and hungry sand. For every person from Amarana who strikes it rich mining firedust or gemsand in the tainted lands on the nights of the new moon, another finds themselves injured, killed, or mutated: in Amarana 'Firedust Miner' looks fair to rank among the top 5 'most dangerous professions' for the first year of recorded statistics in the city, right behind 'Rogue Spirit Protection Expert' and 'Pharmacist' but just ahead of 'Building Excavation Team Member' and 'Artifact Recovery Personnel'

Nearby Amarana are a number of Small Oasis, Hot Springs, and Geysers which have long provided the Salaru tribes with water. Though 90% of the tribesmen have returned to their ancestral home a few chose to stay out in the wastelands for one reason or another, and now gather into three new small tribes: the western, northern, and eastern Salaru.

To the west, the desert is hot by day and cold by night, with only trackless sand to greet your eyes, the Salaru who have stayed out in this wilderness journey mile upon mile between oasis that are often buried under the shifting sands and must be dug down to gather up their water. They survive by hunting snakes and lizards and trading fire dust and jewel sand with the Guild for added food and water. Though trade is their main source of contact with the outside they no longer must rely upon it or perish, with the total number of tribe's men in this region reduced by more than 95% they now can survive on their own without help, but it would be a spartan existence. Trade gives them luxuries and better equipment, which they put to good use. The western salaru do not keep herd beasts or in fact, any animals except hunting dogs, the land here is too harsh for this to be profitable. They worship many nature spirits, but few major deities except the Unconquered Sun, who is seen as a wrathful god of war and destruction, and Luna in her aspect as The White Navigator, who is seen as a benevolent and helpful deity. Though they honor the high holy days of the five maidens they are not much revered outside those times.

To the north, the Salaru who have not returned to their city are primarily herders and gatherers, as the foothills of the summer mountains provide old lava tubes and other places to hide from the sun by day and keep flocks dry when the rains come. Their life is perhaps the least harsh of the three new tribes since they have kept the most of their population, with only about 80% going to live in the city and in all cases leaving a few family members to mind the herds and ancestral cave or rock-cut house. They also were the most numerous of the Salaru before the return to Amarana, having six of the 10 Salaru tribes living in their region. and now are by far and away the most populous of the three 'outside' tribes. They also still contribute a good chunk of Amarana's food supplies, which means that even the Patron must treat with them on their terms. On the other hand, they know that the Patron, while a patient man, does have his limits and that their families back in Amarana would suffer first and worst if they cut off the shipments of food and other goods to the city, so they treat the Amaranaians with a much respect as they expect in return: so far the city and the northern tribe have a strong alliance of mutual benefit and support. The northern Salaru frequently revere Atlhat, the southern god of war and cattle, in addition, they also revere the Celestial Incarna and Gaia as well as many nature spirits.

The tribes to the east were always the most desirous to return to Amarana, for they could still see it's central tower sticking up out of the sand. However, when the time came, an influential leader named [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Sabris of the Two Spears|Sabris of the Two Spears]] convinced them that they should instead of all going back to the city leave some people behind and send their sons and daughters back into the summer mountains to live with those that stayed for two years as a right of passage. This has proved to their great advantage, for they now own the rights to much of the mineral wealth in the summer mountains near Amarana and have risen to be among the city's most wealthy families. The mountain Salaru were hunter/gatherers before Amarana's recovery and it is in this capacity that the children sent to the old mountain fastnesses must learn to survive when they are facing their Adavam Ordeal. The eastern Salaru mostly hold up a host of small gods for worship and revere the celestial Incarna on their high holy days. They are however the nearest things to atheists Creation has, feeling that if a person cannot survive without divine intervention then they are weaklings that must be excised from the gene pool. Many of them are swayed to a degree by the Immaculate faith but reject the idea that the Dragonblooded are creations, rightful rulers, their tribes have long memories and have heard the tales told by the Lunars of the perfidy of the Dragonblooded and the glory once created by the Solars, and twice in their exile have seen this glory first hand before the Dragonblooded showed up and ruined things.

To the south of the city, a wyld zone bleeds into reality for almost eight hundred miles from the maximum edge of the world. Though the city lies near the edge of this wyld zone it is not part of it, not even when the wyld storms blow in the autumn. This is perhaps partly because the city's strong geomancy prevents it from being absorbed or perhaps some form of potent first age artifact still protects the city as it did during the invasion so long ago. If the Patron knows he is not telling. Either way, there is and never has been a tribe of the Salaru to the south of the city. If the work they are doing to push back the wyld succeeds as well as it has been thus far, there may be, soon.

= Ethnicity =

Amarana is an ethnically mixed city, with people from all over creation having gathered in under its banner thanks to [[The Ghost/The Patron|The Patron's]] zero-tolerance policy towards slavery. In the main however the population is drawn from the peoples of the south, as escaping slaves are most able to reach Amarana from it's nearest neighbors, [[Virangia]] and [[The Delazen Empire]].

== The Salaru ==

Descendants of the people who fled Salaruku in the face of the Balorian Crusade the Salaru have waited a long time to return to their city. Composed of 10 culturally distinct tribes the Salaru make up an ever decreasing percentage of the city's population as more and more foreigners come to the city and settle in. That said the Salaru, though small in number, have a disproportionate impact on the city's culture and politics, due to knowing the lands surrounding Amarana like no one else and therefore having a vastly outsized amount of wealth and clout.

The Salaru are subdivided into the following tribes:

=== The White Scars ===

This tribe numbers about 50 and have long been ancestor worshipers, they have been swayed to the cause of the Ancestor Cultists. They take their name from the practice of ritual scarification of face and hands to tell one’s ancestry and chest to recount great deeds. The White Scars hail from the west of the city. The White Scars are a strangely secretive bunch, they keep their own council and follow their own guidance. Alone of the Salaru tribes, the White Scars have wholey emigrated to the city, abandoning their ancestral lands to the Western Salaru's care and finding employment within Amarana. Most of them agree that this has been a drastic improvement in their living conditions. Their ancestors, however, worry about grave robbers and frequently ask the members of the tribe with the skills to do so to go back and check on the old burial grounds.

=== The Golden Bulls ===

Originally hailing from the north of the city this tribe has been sun worshipers since time out of mind, and have naturally gravitated toward the Solarion's cause. They take their name from the bloodline of golden-haired cattle that they breed, tend, and guard, which according to legend were a gift from the champions of the sun during an age long past in recompense for their service defeating an army of the Raksha. The Golden Bulls are among the largest tribes of the Salaru, numbering some 300 strong counting both those that came into Amarana and those that stayed behind to be part of the Northern Salaru. They revere Atlhat and The Unconquered Sun as their patrons and are known for their skill as warriors though they are overmatched by some of the other tribes thanks to awakened essence and charms. The Golden Bulls are largely employed as butchers, health inspectors, and members of Amarana's army, while the large contingent that remained in their ancestral lands tend their herds of golden-haired cattle as they always have done, though they now drive the excess males to market in Amarana for slaughter rather than keeping them home. The Golden Bulls’ primary combat style is with spears and Bullhide Shields, with firedust grenades to break tight formations. They would not look out of place in Harborhead, and marriages between Harborhead immigrants and the young men and women of the tribe are not uncommon, though frowned upon by some of the tribe elders due to the harborheadite's attitudes towards slavery, which the tribe has always held as blasphemy.

=== The Get of Vexan ===

Often called simply 'the get' by outsiders this tribe calls themselves the 'Vexanites'. The get is descended from a powerful Lunar who lived among the Salaru for a century or so starting a few decades after the fair folk invasion was driven back by the Empress. The Vexanite's hold a secret: their tribe is led by a family of Serpent Beast Men founded by Vexan and preserved through complex webs of intermarriage with other serpent-folk from as far away as the silent crescent. The get is currently led by a charming and curvaceous young woman from the southeast jungles named Nyoka. What they do not yet know is that she is actually the modern incarnation of their founder's exaltation and has been having sex with one of the tribe's greatest warriors in her spirit form of a twenty-foot dragon snake in the hopes of bearing beast folk children. She walks among the tribe in her Warform, that of a great dragon-like serpent woman with the fangs and venom of a cobra and the wings and claws of a dragon. The Get hailed from the mountains east of Amarana.

=== The Iron Raptors ===

Though founded by a group of outlaws and murderers the Iron Raptors are ironically a major component of Amarana's police force. Having originated as an inner-city gang during the last days of the shogunate the Iron Raptors turned their coats when the fair folk came calling at the end of the contagion. They took hundreds of people out of the city through hidden tunnels and other smuggling routes: people who became the founders of the other Salaru tribes. Since then they have slowly moved from running protection rackets over the other tribes, to actually protecting them, to being their main form of law enforcement and wandering justiciars. Now that Amarana is resettled they have taken up the role of their distant ancestors' worst enemies, an irony that is not lost on Garion Cromarch. The Iron Raptors’ central holdings were to the north of Amarana but they wandered freely among the other tribes and in fact still do, being welcome among any of the other Salaru. They worship Garion Cromarch as their patron deity, but also reviver a number of small gods of crime and larceny, propitiating them in recompense for reducing their portfolios and defeating their natural worshipers.

=== The Kelderkin ===

Another tribe from the city's north the Kelderkin are the descendants of Marion Kelder and are an agricultural matriarchy. They revere Gaia to the near exclusion of all other deities and hold that all other gods are really aspects of Gaia, subsidiary souls of the Maiden of Plenty. They are more right in this belief than most people realize. All Kelderkin women can trace their ancestry to Marion Kelder via one of her seventeen daughters, and which daughter you are a descendant of determines what your role in the tribe is. The only roles that are not decided by your ancestry are 3: Shaman, Champion, and Speaker. The Speakers are the leaders of the tribe and set it's policy, while the shamans and champions advise them and defend the tribe. Marion Kelder was a wood aspected dragon blooded and even to this day a Kelderkin man or woman will sometimes exalt as another wood aspect. Currently, there is one such person among the Kelderkin, Mwaloni Kelder who is a gifted archer and huntress that leads an all-female unit of other archers in the Amarana armed forces. She is also a sex addict and currently dating four separate men, two of which are identical twin Djala who regularly have Manage-a-Trois with her.

=== The Chosen of Flame ===

Hailing from the city's west The Chosen of Flame has been firedust gatherers for as long as anyone can remember. They gathered firedust far south of the city during the shogunate and came to Amarana to trade it. When the hosts of Fairie came sweeping in from the edge of the world after the great contagion they ran before them and were caught up in the exodus from Amarana, helping many of the civilized folk adapt to the desserts. The Chosen of Flames make up the lion’s share of the new western tribe, but even so, most of them have moved into the city and settled down as experts and factors in the firedust trade. They are a prosperous tribe that is in a state of transition as they adapt to being a settled people for the first time. Numbering approximately 75 persons in the city and an equal number now part of the Western Salaru the Chosen of Flame boasts several god-blooded among their number, and actively court new fire elemental unions. Their God Blooded include Gitchsune Folarabi, Malawi Besmar, and Kubrisa Suknis, among others.

=== The Iconographers ===

Among the tribes of the Salaru, few can argue that the Iconographers are not among the most learned and civilized. Hailing from the cities northeast they have preserved an astonishing amount of lore from the low first age, especially on the subject of geomancy. Now almost universally employed by the Patron excavating and repairing manses they are well off and respected. The Iconographers place great store by erudition and knowledge, and gain position and prestige among their own via a set of grueling examinations conducted by their tribe's patron spirits once every ten years, and always in old realm. Because of these tests of knowledge, the tribe is led by its elders, who have had the most time to study and learn, and they are prone to contemplation and thoughtfulness. Among other advantages this has gifted them with is the possession of five small Manses outside the city, raised after the city's abandonment by their own hands. These manses have made their ancestral lands fertile and bountiful, making them one of the largest salaru tribes with 200 members in five small villages around the Manses before they emigrated to Amarana. Of all the tribes their desire to return to the city was among the greatest, but they did leave one family behind in each village to see to its welfare and upkeep in perpetration for their Descendents and those selected to join them by the Patron returning. The Iconographers in city number 175 or so and are very much in the Patron's camp. They are led by Sukiwara Madoka, a god blooded thaumaturge of advanced years and not inconsiderable skill.

=== The Eisil ===

As a tribe of pastoral hunters and gatherers in the city's eastern area, the Eisil would not be remarkable except for the fact that they are master storytellers and thespians. The role of Storyteller is the most honored position within their culture and many people aspire to it but few succeed. Their greatest tale is that of Sakarazat, a woman who was taken captive by a rapacious dragon blooded lord and over the course of two and a bit years told him a thousand stories which prevented him from killing her, and in the end, led the dragon blooded to let her go. Now that the Eisil have returned to Amarana they are mostly working at simple jobs like sand clearer or coachman (They have long preserved the arts of chariot racing as part of their festivals.) but a significant number of them now take the long-coveted role of storyteller or actor, and are among the best in the city, being sought out by talent scouts and stage managers for private and public engagements. The Eisil hail from the high mountains east of Amarana where the snow falls in winter, they are paler complected than most Salaru and have massive barrel chests from dealing with the thin air.

=== The Mantis Tribe ===

From the northwest of the city, the Mantis tribe straddle the border between the desert and the foothills of the Amaranaian lands. They have survived by placing great store by martial arts and awakened essence, and among their number only the young typically do not have awakened essence, nearly everyone over the age of 25 has mastered this basic precept. By the age of 30, most people have achieved the form type charm of one of the 5 main martial arts of the tribe, and by the time they reach venerable status at 65, nearly everyone is a master of their chosen style. This has allowed the Mantis Tribe to become large and prosperous but puts them in an uncomfortable position of being alternately feared and nearly worshiped by the other tribes, who look to them for protection from spirits and demons. It also puts them in another uncomfortable position: their various schools of martial arts do not always get along, and more than once the tribe has been wracked by internal strife, especially between the members that adhere to the Immaculate Philosophy and the people that worship the local gods outside that framework. At the moment it seems like the tribe is heading for another such civil war, and this time it may drag the whole city into it.

=== The Broad ===

Alone of the Salaru the Broad actually hate the Patron. The Broad was from the uttermost western areas of the Salaru and also alone among their number made a common practice of keeping slaves, but not so much for the purpose of having them work for the tribe but rather to sell to the guild. They ranged far among the sandy wastes waring with members of other tribes and capturing them to sell for the supplies they needed to survive and prosper. Many among their number were heroic mortals and with the exception of the Mantis Tribe and the Chosen of Fire they boasted the most members with awakened essence and/or god-blood. They also served as a dumping ground for the criminal and malcontents of the other tribes leading them to be less cordial with the rest of the Salaru than any other tribe. However, even the Broad wished to return to Amarana enough to give up their slave taking practices, at least, some of them did. When the Patron decreed all people of Amarana Free men and women shortly before the Guild arrived the Broad fractured over whether to return to their ancestral homeland or remain in the wastes and live as they had done for centuries. In the end, the tribe split 60/40 in favor of returning to Amarana and becoming part of the new society, but the 40% that remained in the wastes no longer consider themselves beholden to the Patron, Amarana, or even the Salaru. These people, called by their former associates The Red Broad are now considered outlaws brigands by the Isknadarian government and hunted whenever they stray close to the fifty-foot Glass Pillars that mark the borders of the Amaranaian lands. They are firmly in the camp of the Guild's Men and infiltrate the city regularly to capture and smuggle out valuable slaves that have escaped to Amarana from other lands.
The 60% of the tribe that has returned to the city are in the camp of the Death Cultists since the Broad were by and large ancestor worshipers before they returned to Amarana and see no reason to change that now. Calling themselves 'The Green Broad' they have no love for the patron but do love their city and will fight to the death to defend it. Most of them are now members of the city's military and are locked in a bitter feud with their former tribesmen. The members of this tribe that are not military mostly work as overseers for the small but growing cadres of 'indentured servants' kept by the city government in punishment for some of the most heinous crimes such as rape and enslaving another person.

=== The Western Salaru ===

=== The Northern Salaru ===

=== The Eastern Salaru ===

== The Djala ==

The D'jala are a sub-faction of the Patriots at the present time. Having been liberated by the Patron from their enslavement by many people who have brought them to the city in bondage they are fanatical partisans of the city's leader and from a major component of his power base. The Djala form five small tribes into which new arrivals are folded by ties of kinship, alliance, or marriage within weeks of arrival. The number of newly married Djala in the city is staggering, easily 40% of all new arrivals are pushed into marriages within a month of becoming residents, and somehow nearly all these mirages are happy ones. What the Djala elders know but have not officially publicized is that one of the Djala's patron gods is an old drinking buddy of [[The Ghost/Meroka Jin|Meroka Jin]] and has called in a favor with the minister of romance and love to arrange this happy state of affairs for his people in the city. This is not going to last, because [[The Ghost/Sakarzi|Sakarzi]] is going to start screwing around with them, but for the moment she is distracted by her work with the death cult.

== Varangians ==

== The Delazen ==

== Deep Southerners ==

Nemo of Utopia/Path of the Stave Church Style

2020-03-08T15:55:54Z

Nemo of Utopia: Porting old content plus some further work...

This wood aspected style is fairly common throughout the majority of creation. Focusing on the use of common walking sticks and quarterstaves and their artifact equivalents as combative weapons this style is favored by insurgent rebels and the rare common villager who manages to achieve enlightenment.

= History of the Path of the Stave Church Style =

The origins of the Path of the Stave Church Style lie in the depths of history, before even the [[Primordial War]]. Back in those days, it was practiced by human renegades struggling to overthrow the [[Dragon Kings]] and the [[Raptok]] agents that hunted them and was known as Righteous Wooden Beam Style. Several of these human rogues became exalted when the battle lines of the primordial war were drawn up, and among the Wood aspected dragon blooded they style was especially common.

However, as the war came to a close other wood aspected styles that did not rely on props such as staves came to be more popular and widespread and the style fell out of favor for most of the First Age. This only changed during the [[Time of Cascading Years]] when the style's last three surviving masters spent nearly 2000 years in an isolated manse called The Stave Church which suddenly found itself at the center of one of the largest temporal shards of creation. By the point at which time was restored to its proper flow, they had made the Stave Church the center of a large theocratic nation based around martial discipline and personal development and their style was practiced to a greater or lesser degree by thousands of people across hundreds of square miles. Since that time the style has risen and fallen in popularity but never come nearly as close to being lost as it was before Era of the Stave Church.

== Famous Practitioners of the Style ==

The names of the original practitioners of the Path of the Stave Church Style are lost to history, some believe as part of the "[[Three Spheres Disaster]]" as are those of the Dragon-Blooded heroes who first popularized the style during the Primordial War, it is not until the Era of the Stave Church that the history of this style again becomes clear.

The 'Three Great Masters' are by far the most famous of the practitioners of the Path of the Stave Church: Being comprised of Luke Garou, a wolf totem [[Full Moon]] [[Lunar]], Kami Chorezon, his [[Zenith]] [[Caste]] [[Solar]] Mate, and Juraku Sune their [[Wood Aspect]] Sifu in the style. These three masters were reuniting at a minor manse on the borders of the [[River Province]] to consult on the matter of their concern over the fact that they appeared to be the last three masters of the style left in creation when the temporal disruption which began the Time of Cascading Years occurred. The three of them realized within a matter of days what had occurred and with potent charms explored the borders of their temporal shard, finding it to be several hundred square miles in area, in real-world terms roughly as large as The British isles. They were wise enough not to attempt to cross the borders and after determining the size and shape of their shard retreated to The Stave Church to formulate a plan. Over the next year within their shard, they began gathering students at The Stave Church and training them in Righteous Wooden Beam Style, including the other three Dragon-Blooded who had been trapped in the shard with them and had not immediately and foolishly tried to pass the temporal border. These students became the core of an army they raised over the next five years and then over 50 years used to unite all areas of the shard under their aegis. It was at this time that the other four capstone charms of Path of the Stave Church style appeared and began to be used by some of their students, though no one has ever been able to discover exactly why. Over the ensuing 1900 years, this style became nigh universal among the people of their shard, both in honor of their leaders and for the utility of some of it's more advanced charms, and when the Time of Cascading Years ended they became one of the most powerful nation-states in the pre-Second-Deliberative Realm.

== The Style Today ==

Though some wood aspected dragon blooded, particularly outcasts and lost eggs, practice the Path of the Stave Church Style today most of its practitioners are mortals with enlightened essence. The style is taught in monasteries across the threshold and is common among itinerant monks and the rare peasant farmer who manages to enlighten their essence and find a sifu, who often will seek out such people to teach the style to. It is most prevalent in the scavenger lands and the eastern forests but is known everywhere except the blessed isle where the [[Immaculate Order]] has successfully suppressed its use by anyone except a few lost eggs for the past 302 years since the [[Unbroken Rushes Rebellion]].

Once a student master's the nine charms of the Path their training is considered complete. Their sifu dismisses them to travel the world alone and meditate on their achievements and do good in the world with what they have learned. Those that may have observed their sifu use one of the five capstones and ask to be taught it are refused: they are told that true mastery of the style cannot come from without but only from within. As such it is common for two different sifu's of the style trained by one master to learn different capstone charms, and only in the most unusual circumstances are people learning one of the final five charms able to train with a teacher's guidance, typically taking double or even quadruple the amount of time to master one of the five as it might if they could have instruction. Most Paths of the Stave Church masters warn their students that this will happen early on and repeatedly during their training, but those that do not often find their prized students who are ready to become masters themselves often grow bitter and vengeful, and the style is known to be fairly fractious as some masters of the style are bitter rivals of their teachers. Those that try to 'correct' this practice often either reconcile with their teacher or grow so bitter and disgusted with their 'failure' that they abandon teaching altogether: it is a peculiarity of this style that four of the five capstone charms CANNOT be taught, a person can only learn them through self-discovery and personal development. Some monasteries teaching this style to overcome this limitation to a degree by sending prospective masters to isolated locations where they are to focus solely on achieving one of the five mysteries, but this is not always effective as it can take a long time to gain the necessary experience while training alone in isolation.

The Fifth and original capstone of the style normally cannot be taught either, but rare scrolls and Sifu's of the original Righteous Wooden Beam Style still exist in a few places throughout the threshold who are capable of teaching Grace Beyond Nature Mastery. Some of these Sifu's take the stance that the unteachable nature of the other four capstone's is proof of their inferiority and stage duels with their users to 'prove' RWBS's 'Superior Nature', contributing to this style's notable fractiousness.

There also are dozen of schismatic dojo's teaching versions of this style 'developed' by isolated mortals and outcastes without a sifu. Many hundreds of people throughout the threshold know this style but not it's named, having learned it on their own. Such 'Ganagare' often believe themselves to have developed a wholly new style and give it many outlandish names such as 'Pole of Fury Style', 'Farm Defender Style', or 'Old Man Style' under which they instruct students of their own. These schismatic dojos rarely last beyond the death of the original sifu, and those who do almost invariably eventually accept that their style is a variant of the Path of the Stave Church. A few, however, including the three 'styles' listed above, have developed independent followings, who often are at odds with both the practitioners of the Path of the Stave Church and Righteous Wooden Beam Style.

Bellow are Brief Praises of the current condition of this style in each of the Five Cardinal Directions and Autochthonia. Storytellers are encouraged to expand upon this material for their chronicles if they allow this style in their games.

=== Pine and Poplar: The North ===

=== Among the Branches: The East ===

Path of the Stave Church style is well known in the realm of the North-East held by the eternal enemies of the Haltans and the Linowan. Taught and used by both sides the art sees frequent use during their mutual raids against one another. Few places are the dojos of the style so at-odds with each other as in these two kingdoms.

=== Schism upon Schism: The Scavenger Lands ===

The greatest flower of the Path of the Stave Church lay on the borders of the Scavenger Lands during the Time of Cascading Years, and it is here that the highest numbers of its practitioners can still be found. However, in a land wracked by internal strife this style too is a house divided against itself: with hundreds of dojos and monasteries which teach this style or one of its variants scattered across the region like acorns from an oak tree.

=== An Age of Iron and Fire: The South ===

=== Oars and Gaff-poles: The West ===

=== Forbidden Wisdom: The Center ===

The Path of the Stave Church is not taught on the Blessed Isle, due to an event in the history of the Scarlet Empress Realm, the [[The Ghost: History/Unbroken Rushes Rebellion|Unbroken Rushes Rebellion]]. The backbone of the rebels in that insurrection were practitioners of Path of the Stave Church Style, whos' skills in combat and ability to block the attacks of even the most experienced dragon blooded were key factors in the rebellion not being crushed effortlessly.

When the Rebellion was at last put down the Empress decreed that the style was forbidden within the Realm, as it allowed mortals to forget their proper place in the established order and think themselves above their betters. Since then the All-Seeing Eye has done its duty and arrested or deported anyone who was found to be studying its powers who was not one of the dragon blooded. Even the dragon blooded is profoundly discouraged from learning the style, and outright forbidden to teach it.

As one might expect, this has not stopped the practice of the style altogether. Across the blessed isle are hidden dojos where the traditions of the Unbroken Rushes Rebellion are passed down from Sifu to Student, in theory, building towards the day when the commoners will rise again and reclaim the Isle from the dragon blooded. It has even been known for young wood aspects to be drawn into this secret world and learn the style when they pledge to stand with the rebels on the day of reckoning. All too often however these students turn in their masters and destroy the dojo, AFTER learning their sifu's secrets.

The All-Seeing Eye is well aware of the long-standing but hidden movement to spark the Rebellion once more, and is vigilant for moves to arm the mortals of the isle without the Scarlet Dynasty's approval, but for each dojo, they find and destroy a student of the old master has founded two more.

Just recently a dangerous new trend has swept through this network of hidden revolutionaries, a new faith, espousing the return of divinely mandated god-kings who bear a disturbing resemblance to the Anathema. These 'shining ones' have been found to be revered by about 1/4th of all the Path of the Stave Church practitioners that the Eye has arrested in the past 2 years, and that percentage grows with each fresh dojo found and shut down. The inner chambers of the eye, those that know the secret of the Bureau of Destiny and their Sidereal agents, are trying to get this news onto [[Characters/ChejopKajak|Kajak's]] desk, but the report seems to go missing somewhere in heaven each time. They are looking at ways to hunt for the mole or moles who are helping this dissident heresy spread.

Meanwhile, somewhere in the scavenger lands: the Prophet Shen-Aru reads his reports and smiles in his bemused and befuddled way at the actions of someone called 'Red Secret', an agent of the cult he founded making headway with converting the dissidents of the Isle to his sudden world-spanning faith. This person, who's very gender is redacted from his reports for both their safety and his, has a flair for the dramatic and sound tactical acumen, both in politics and on the battlefield: and whoever they are, Shen wishes them well.

=== Spinning Axle Style: Autochthonia ===

When Autochthon entered his self imposed exile a handful of people went into exile with him who were practitioners of Righteous Wooden Beam Style. Not all of them survived the chaotic first years of his isolation but at least one did because this style continues to exist today in autochthonia. Though its name has changed to 'Spinning Axle Style' it remains functionally identical to RWBS, including the ability to teach the capstone charm of Grace Beyond Nature Mastery and the presence of Scrolls which can instruct students in this and other charms of the style. The style is common in [[Yugash]], [[Jarish]], [[Kamak]], and [[Xexas]], but is known in all of the nations. It is very rare in [[Estasia]] however as it promotes compassion, which is a virtue that Estasia does not wholly embrace. The other four capstone charms of the Path of the Stave Church Style are unknown in Autochthonia, but now that the Seal of the Eight Divinities has been breached some lone students have begun to learn them, which will come as a great surprise to their sifu.

= Weapons and Armor =
This style must be practiced with Quarterstaves, Batons, Sticks, Canes, and Staff Slings or their artifact equivalents which are treated as 'form type' weapons. It may not be practiced while wearing armor with any fatigue or mobility penalty, but is NOT incompatible with armor. The style also is 'imperfect' and except where noted otherwise may not be used without a form weapon.

With a stunt it also may be practiced with improvised weapons or scenery similar to the above, such as rakes, shovels, pitchforks, wooden beams, and flagpoles: though the stunt must make use of the haft of the weapon, not any blades or other protrusions.

= Complimentary Abilities =

Though not strictly required students of Path of the Stave Church style will find high compassion helps them perform better, and that the Performance ability is required to use some charms. Those far advanced in the style typically have both stats at 3 or better, which makes them well-liked by the common folk of much of the threshold.

= Charms of the Path of the Stave Church Style =

The following is a list of the charms of the Path of the Stave Church Style, both the nine charms of the Path itself and the Five distinct 'Mastery' charms.

== The Basic Style ==

Though the Path of the Stave Church Style has five distinct capstone charms the road which brings a person to that choice does not vary. Nine charms must be mastered by the person who would learn one of the five 'master' charms and be acclaimed a Sifu of the Staff. These nine charms are referred to by the practitioners of the style as the Path of the Stave Church, a reference to the long lost temple where this style was once taught and in which for a time the last 3 masters of the style dwelt during the period known as the [[Time of Cascading Years]].

Some archaic documents refer to a 'Righteous Wooden Beam Style' and a few can even teach it. This style is identical to the Path of the Stave Church save that its only capstone is Grace Beyond Nature Mastery, the other four capstones having been developed later.

=== Twirling Baton Distraction ===

Cost: 3m

Minimums: Martial Arts 1, Essence 1.

Type: Supplemental

Duration: Instant

Keywords: Combo-OK.

Prerequisites: None

Description: By spinning his weapon in a hypnotic whirl the practitioner of Path of the Stave Church style may distract foes at a critical moment. This charm supplements a join battle roll, allowing the practitioner to add (The lower of Martial Arts or Performance) dice to the roll. These dice count as dice from charms for dice pool maximums.

=== Up and Over Attack ===

Cost: 4m

Minimums: Martial Arts 2, Essence 2

Type: Supplemental

Duration: Until Next Attack in Flurry.

Keywords: Combo-Basic, obvious.

Prerequisites: None

Description: The practitioner of Path of the Stave Church style learns to use their stave or baton to aid their fighting by vaulting their opponent to strike at their undefended back, taking them by surprise.

This Charm Must be used as part of a flurry. The Path of the Stave Church style practitioner takes a jump action and roll's their (Strength + Athletics + Relevant Specialty). If they score more successes than their opponent's Parry DV they vault over their opponent and the next attack in the flurry is considered unexpected. If the opponent's parry DV exceeds their roll the opponent may make a single counter-attack against the martial artist with a readied weapon. If this attack scores even one level of damage the flurry is interrupted, ending the Martial Artist's turn, and the Stave Church practitioner must roll (Dex + Athletics) at a DV equal to the damage or fall prone at an adjacent location of the opponent's choice.

This charm is abnormal among the charms of the style in that it may be used without a form weapon, and therefore is frequently the first charm of the style that students are taught, the other being Spinning Baton Distraction.

=== It's Just My Walking Stick ===

Cost: 6m

Minimums: Martial Arts 2, Essence 2.

Type: Reflexive

Duration: Instant

Keywords: Combo-Basic, Social.

Prerequisites: None

Description: By feigning weakness and infirmity leaning on their walking stick the Path of the Stave Church Style exerts a seemingly sourceless natural mental influence to allow the individual to retain their 'crutch' and cease to see it as a weapon.

Persons with a dodge MDV less than the practitioner's (Essence + Compassion) must roll their compassion and fail to deny them their walking stick or staff, no matter what fate may befall them for failing to take it away. However, if the consequences merely for allowing the invalid their 'crutch' would be serious such as dismissal or torture they are expressly permitted to roll conviction to suppress their compassion. Person's with an MDV higher than the practitioner's (Essence + Compassion) are subject to a (Manipulation + Performance) attack to convince them to allow the 'walking stick' anyway. If the attack beats their MDV they are convinced that the invalid is harmless and allow her to take the 'crutch' through the checkpoint or other zones. This charm is ineffective once join battle is rolled or if the practitioner does not adopt a posture of infirmity and helplessness. Those affected by this charm may spend willpower to resist the social attack as normal.

=== Path of the Stave Church Form ===

Cost: 5m

Minimums: Martial Arts 3, Essence 2

Type: Form Type

Duration: One Scene

Keywords: Combo-Basic.

Prerequisites: Twirling Baton Distraction, Up and Over Attack, It's Just My Walking Stick

Description: Adopting the stance of a road-weary traveler and centering their essence along their base, palm, and spirit Chakras the Path of the Stave Church practitioner becomes clearly in tune with her weapons and the world around her, gaining the following benefits.

1: As long as the Path of the Stave Church Form is active all other charms of the style have their mote costs reduced by 1. This can reduce costs to zero but does not stack with other effects which reduce mote costs, use only the more favorable of all such effects.

2: Any condition which would reduce the user's DVs is lessened by 1 so long as they keep hold of their walking stick or another form weapon. This effect reduces only the total penalty by one, not each penalty, but can reduce the total penalty to zero if there is only one point of penalty. (As per normal however it cannot reduce it 'bellow' zero: it negates a penalty, it does not grant a bonus.)

3: While Path of the Stave Church Form is active the practitioner gains bonus dice to Performance, Presence, and Socialize rolls equal to their Compassion so long as they are acting in a way that resonates with that virtue.

=== One Chopstick Discipline ===

Cost: 1m

Minimums: Martial Arts 3, Essence 2

Type: Reflexive

Duration: One Action

Keywords: Combo-OK, Obvious.

Prerequisites: Path of the Stave Church Form

Description: As students advance in Path of the Stave Church Style learn to use their staves and batons as tools more than weapons.

The user of this charm may treat a staff or other form weapon they wield as an extension of their arm, including their hand, using it to retrieve objects from high shelves or punch the buttons of a control panel in a first age manse from four feet away. Through a series of ultra-refined movements enhanced by essence, they can balance a pin on the tip of their staff or other form weapon and even maneuver it finely enough to sew. While this charm is active they may treat the end of the form-weapon they wield as if it were their hand for all purposes related to undertaking actions with this utensil.

The name of this charm comes from the standard first step of training it, by learning to eat one's food using only a single blunt chopstick. It often is difficult to train this charm at full speed due to the rising difficulty of mastering the increasing muscular control and reflexes and essence manipulation required, and typically the student will take around three times as long as normal to master a charm of this difficulty due to having to pause in their studies to refocus their essence and undertake a maintenance regimen of their martial abilities. This charm is, in fact, known as 'the heart breaker' by masters of the style due to the number of students of the style who abandon their studies in frustration at the difficulty of mastering this charm.

=== Pole Spinning Assault ===

Cost: 4m,1wp

Minimums: Martial Arts 3, Essence 2

Type: Extra Action

Duration: One Tick

Keywords: Combo-OK, War.

Prerequisites: Path of the Stave Church Form

Description: Surrounding someone close to achieving full development in the Path of the Stave Church Style is not the wisest of decisions. Vaulting off the ground using their staff or another form weapon they strike at the foes who have surrounded them with their booted feet, kicking faces and other sensitive areas with great force.

When activating this charm the practitioner of the Path of the Stave Church Style may make a flurry of attacks using kicks against all persons adjacent to them. This Flurry takes a flat penalty to each attack equal to the number of attacks made instead of the usual flurry penalties. The damage of these attacks may be enhanced by [[Iron Boot]]s or similar weapons which are treated as unarmed attacks for this charm.

If used in the context of mass combat the practitioner may flurry a number of attacks in one action against a single unit that has 'encircled' theirs up to their essence at no penalty.

=== Aged Hickory Infusion ===

Cost: 2m/D or 5m

Minimums: Martial Arts 4, Essence 2

Type: Simple (Speed 4)

Duration: One Scene

Keywords: Combo-OK.

Prerequisites: One Chopstick Discipline, Pole Spinning Assault

Description: In the Hands of a serious student of Path of the Stave Church Style any stout stick can be a lethal weapon. There are two versions of this charm, learning the first of the two versions of this charm a character achieves mastery of costs the normal amount of experience, learning the second of the two only costs one point. Not all dojos of Path of the Stave Church Style teach both versions.

One Version of this charm allows the practitioner of Path of the Stave Church Style to add dice to the damage rating of any of the form type weapons of this style at a cost of 2 committed motes per die added. They may add no more than their Essence dice to the damage rating in this way. Weapons with multiple damage ratings may only have one of them so enhanced.

The other version of this charm allows the practitioner to change the damage type of the form type weapons of this style from basing to lethal for 5 committed motes.

Both Versions last until the end of the current scene, and motes committed to these charms may not be uncommitted before that happens or another effect forces the charm to end.

=== Fanning Rota Defense ===

Cost: 8m +2m per previous time used in the scene.

Minimums: Martial Arts 4, Essence 3

Type: Reflexive, step?

Duration: Instant

Keywords: None

Prerequisites: Aged Hickory Infusion

Description: The twirling spins and maneuvers practiced for show and distraction when the student of the Path of the Stave Church Style began his training now become more practical and useful. By infusing his weapon with essence and twirling it into the path of an incoming attack the practitioner can deflect incoming blows. This charm constitutes a semi-perfect parry against a single attack, with the following restrictions:

1: The charm is subject to one of the flaws of invulnerability appropriate to the exact type of the user, chosen when the charm is learned. In the case of users that either is not Exalted or do not have a list of such flaws, use those of solars.

2: This charm cannot be used to block attacks that cannot be parried.

3: If the attack would deal more raw dice of damage than the weapon used to block has damage rating it is broken in blocking the blow and rendered useless unless repaired. The attack then carries through with any remaining dice to strike the PotSC Style practitioner: next encountering their soak and hardness and at least inflicting minimum damage. This restriction only applies to non-magical weapons.

4: When learning this charm the student chooses one category of weapon against which it is infective from the following list: Archery Weapons: Thrown Weapons: Melee Weapons: manufactured Martial Arts Weapons: or Natural Weapons such as teeth, claws, stingers, or bare hands/feet. (If using the Shards of the Exalted Dream Rules for Firearms, add that as an option for this flaw.)

In all other respects, this charm is considered a perfect parry.

=== Cane Achieves Pole Vault Practice ===

Cost: 3m

Minimums: Martial Arts 4, Essence 3

Type: Supplemental

Duration: One Action

Keywords: Combo-OK, Obvious.

Prerequisites: Aged Hickory Infusion

Description: The mobility of one near to mastering the Path of the Stave Church transcends the limitations of common people and overawes those inexperienced with the path. By activating this charm the practitioner may extend their form weapon to ridiculous lengths, tripling their jumping and leaping distances and allowing them to make attacks against people normally out of reach. This extension of their weapon is very short-lived and has different cosmetic effects depending on the practitioner, such as beams of shimmering force for a solar, or the staff actually growing like a tree and then withering away to dust for a wood aspect, but always is obvious to onlookers. This arguably is the most flashy charm of the style. This charm allows practitioners to strike targets no more than ten yards away if used as part of an attack, though targets further away may be easily struck by flurrying a jump using this charm and an attack also using it.

== The Five Mysteries ==

The following Five charms each represent one perfected understanding of the Path of the Stave Church Style. Only one such charm may be learned, and having learned one such charm prevents the user from even attempting to train the others. There are reports that practitioners who reached Essence 6 were able to surpass this limitation but no such sifus have emerged since the end of the first age to confirm this allegation. As mentioned above it is a peculiarity of this style that the five capstone charms cannot be learned from a teacher, they must always be learned from self-instruction and taking correspondingly longer to learn.

=== Stave of Legends Mastery ===

Cost: 5m

Minimums: Martial Arts 5, Essence 3

Duration: One Scene

Type: Simple (Speed 3)

Keywords: Combo-OK, War

Prerequisites: Fanning Rota Defense, Cane Achieves Pole Vault Practice

Description: The touch of some among the Sifu's of Path of the Stave Church Style can make their weapons legends among legends. When this charm has activated the weapon with which the chosen practices the Path of the Stave Church Style has it's MM bonuses doubled. If the practitioner is a mortal using an artifact weapon they instead gain the magical material bonus of that weapon as if they could fully attune to it. This mastery does not affect weapons which are not artifacts, and the artifact must have basic attunement already active to be affected by this charm.

=== Empty Hands Mastery ===

Cost: 5m,1wp or 10m,1wp

Minimums: Martial Arts 5, Essence 3

Duration: One Scene

Type: Reflexive

Keywords: Combo-OK, Obvious, War

Prerequisites: Fanning Rota Defense, Cane Achieves Pole Vault Practice

Description: Some of those who practice the Path of the Stave Church Style learn to transcend the need for props such as canes and staves, instead temporarily drawing such tools from raw essence and force of will. When using this charm the master summons forth a mundane example of the form weapons of this style from essence and willpower. The weapon persists for the scene and then fades from existence as though it had never been, only the wounds it has left on the master's foes marking its passage through the universe. This quasi-real force construct is treated as a non-magical weapon in all respects, and do not gain any benefits of increased quality or being essence constructs. The type of weapon is determined in the instant the charm is activated and may not be changed their after in that scene without reactivating the charm.

If used in the context of mass combat this charm costs 10m,1wp but may equip the master's entire unit with weapons identical to his own for the scene.

=== Grace Beyond Nature Mastery ===

Cost: 5m

Minimums: Martial Arts 5, Essence 3

Duration: One Scene

Type: Supplemental

Keywords: Combo-OK, Obvious, War

Prerequisites: Fanning Rota Defense, Cane Achieves Pole Vault Practice

Description: The Quality of the weapon matters little to those who master this charm, being able to use a punky fallen branch and a fire-hardened hickory stave with equal effectiveness. While the Sifu of the Staff has this charm active any of the mundane weapons which are form weapons of this style which he uses are treated as their artifact equivalents for the duration of his use in the scene. If the user is one of the chosen they are treated as being composed of Green Jade* and are considered attuned at no cost. If the user is a mortal, ghost, god, fae, or other being besides an Exalt they do not gain any material bonuses. This charm does not affect non-form-weapons or weapons that are already magical.

*(See Oadenol's Codex page 21 for statistics.)

==== Righteous Wooden Beam Style ====
It is a peculiarity within the Path of the Stave Church Style that this charm may be taught through instruction: however, this instruction can generally only come from certain ancient scrolls which predate the Time of Cascading Years and limits the time that may be spent training to 4 hours per day meditating on the scroll's koans and mantras, which effectively negates the training time advantage from having an instructor. An intact example of one of these scrolls would be worth at least a Resources 4 purchase to those who understood what was being offered, and many many people would be interested in acquiring one by means fair and foul, including many masters of the style. As an added benefit an intact scroll also can teach the thaumaturgical procedure Essence Enlightening Sutra and all of the charms of the base style, which are not subject to the 4-hour limitation. Many Hundreds of such scrolls exist, but most are hidden away in the tombs of the Anathema or the ruins of Dragon King cities, and few if any are written in a language other than Old Realm or High Holy Speech. Hundreds more partial scrolls exist which are still intact enough to teach Grace Beyond Nature Mastery, and most can teach at least 50% of the other charms of the style and/or Essence Enlightening Sutra.

A few rare Sifu's of Righteous Wooden Beam Style can teach the charm themselves, which allows full training limits. These sifus are all ones who had their instruction from another such sifu or a fully intact scroll. When such a student learns Grace Beyond Nature Mastery in this way they must make a simple (Performance + Compassion) roll, only if they succeed can they then teach the charm to their students. They may retry this roll at no penalty once per year that they spend studying the scroll's koans and mantras or memorizing the same from their sifu for an hour a day. This ability to teach Grace Beyond Nature Mastery is the sole-but-key difference between Righteous Wooden Beam Style and the modern Path of the Stave Church Style.

=== Eternal Student Ascendency ===

Cost: -

Minimums: Martial Arts 5, Essence 3

Duration: Permanent

Type: Permanent

Keywords: None

Prerequisites: Fanning Rota Defense, Cane Achieves Pole Vault Practice

Description: There are those among the Sifus of the Staff who are not content with their mastery of one Martial Arts style but long to learn more. These rare few sometimes discover this mastery. The Sifu of the Staff who learns this charm may forever treat the form weapons of Path of the Stave Church Style as form weapons for any Terrestrial Martial Art for which they know a form type charm Subject to the following restrictions.

1: The weapon must be similarly sized to the weapon for which it is substituted. A baton could work for a knife but a stave could not, where a stave could take the place of a lance or spear but not a Cetus.

2: The weapons may not be used with charms that call for specific weapons, such as fighting chains, whips, or bare hands, and may not be used with ranged attacks at all.

3: Similar to above this charm may not be combined with the charms of another 'imperfect' style.

Special: At essence 5 and each level of essence thereafter this charm may also be applied to one specific Celestial style, subject to the restrictions above.

=== Many Weapons Transcendence ===

Cost: -

Minimums: Martial Arts 5, Essence 3

Duration: Permanent

Type: Permanent

Keywords: None

Prerequisites: Fanning Rota Defense, Cane Achieves Pole Vault Practice

Description: Just as some masters of the style go on to study other forms of martial arts some times a student of other styles will achieve complete understanding of Path of the Stave Church Style, these few often learn this capstone, allowing them to use the form weapons of their earlier styles with the charms of Path of the Stave Church Style.

The Sifu of the Staff who learns this charm may treat the form weapons of any Terrestrial Style which he has learned a Form Type charm of as form weapons for Path of the Stave Church Style: subject to the following restrictions.

1: The weapon must be similarly sized and shaped to the weapon for which it is substituted. A great sword or spear could take the place of a stave, or a hatchet that of a Stick but a 'spread the water knife' will never work with Path of the Stave Church Style nor will a fighting chain or razor harness. (Seven Section Staffs are a questionable case: when in doubt about this or any other weapon ask your storyteller.)

2: Like the charm above this charm may not be combined with the form weapons of another 'imperfect' style.

Special: At essence 5 and each level of essence thereafter this charm may also be applied to one specific Celestial style, subject to the restrictions above.

Nemo of Utopia/Amarana

2020-03-03T19:06:36Z

Nemo of Utopia: /* Prehistory */

Amarana is a first age city, lost to the contagion and the fair folk invasion over 700 years ago. It is now coming back to life under the aegis of [[User:Nemo of Utopia/The_Patron_of_Amarana|The Patron]] who wields the power of the [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Five_Signs_of_Harmonic_Unity|Five Signs of Harmonic Unity]].

= Iskandar =

Iskandar Is comprised of a large area surrounded by a circular wall. At the edge of that wall are twelve triangular towers that contain the major military resources of the city. Of these towers, eight have been fully excavated, and the ninth is being examined and the sand removed even now.

Within the city is organized into four quarters but only two of them are even partially excavated, the two on the eastern side of the city, and even there many buildings still slowly seep sand into the streets out of cracked windowpanes and the door seems. The buildings of Iskandar tend to a certain Egyptian flare or perhaps it would be better to say pre-Arabic since they are after all, by and large, the product of the low first age. The buildings are built of a quasi imperishable ceramic that resembles adobe, with the most significant having windows of Chiaroscuro Glass and doors made of either that same substance or Stainless Steel. Buildings are generally between six and ten stories high with essence powered air conditioning and elevators both of which the Patron must personally repair before the building becomes usable again.

Unlike many old realm cities, Amarana is laid out on a grid, instead of in a radial pattern. This gives a geomantic bonus to the people who live there: namely that mortals gain +1 xp per time XP is awarded. This bonus actually accrues every half year if using long term awards. The players can uncover this information with a dif10 [wits + occult] roll once every month they spend in the city beginning on the second day they are here. The bonus only applies to true mortals, not god blooded, ghost blooded, awkaened Martial artists or any exalt, but does apply to dragon kings and jadeborn who are not Artisans.

So far roughly half of the city has been uncovered, but even here there are a lot of buildings that are colapsed, or still filled with sand and roped off with red cables and even more locations where there are red cables indicating small shadowlands or dimenses that are not to be approached until the city can close/cap them.

The excavation is proceeding irregualrly, moving from the east wall out toward the west except around the central manse and the road from the north gate to the south gate. There are markets in most squares and a number of shops on the ground floors of buildings. Few merchants here are oficialy affiliated with the guild since many people in the city are escaped guild slaves and loath the guild vehemently.

Nearly everything except slaves is available for sale, including many products from The Wyld. Firewands and Flame Pieces are the core of the weapons markets along with accessories such as bayonets, powder horns, and pieces of flint or obsidian for strikers. Interestingly Cannons are not for sale, being reserved for the government, but anyone with contacts 2 or higher could find someone who knows someone who could get a permit for purchasing a few for export. Armoring is more advanced, and even some artifact armors are for sale, though they would be a resource 4 purchase at minimum, and that is for the simple stuff like Jade breastplates. Things like Yuroy Scout armor are beyond the means of anyone in the party, though, that comes up for sale very rarely except through illegal channels. Jade Full Plate and Super Heavy Plate are more commonly available, in fact, there are people in the city that can be commissioned to make it. Orichalcum and Monsilver are not commissionable but in the still covered parts of the city are facilities to work it. There are no facilities in the city for Soulsteel or Starmetal, but there is a workshop in one manse that has been uncovered to work Adamant, though finding any to use would require Wyld Cauldron Technology and spending XP: such is the life of the Exalted...

There are a number of Inns, Caravanserai, and Hostels near the city gates, while further in nearly every corner of an inhabited area has at least one restaurant or coffee shop. Tea houses, by comparison, are rare, and true bars are unusual enough to be remarked upon when a new one is found. Most living quarters do not have kitchens, which is why many hab towers which have been excavated don't have permanent residents and so many restaurants can stay open. Many restaurants, in fact, rent themselves out to people wishing to cook for their families or are owned by consortiums of citizens who hold them in common for communal cooking with contracts for use and upkeep requirements.

All of the city's roads are at least 20 feet wide, plus a five-foot sidewalk to either side. This is for the smallest streets, most are 40 feet wide with sidewalk and a few main thoroughfares are 60 feet wide. The streets keep themselves magically clean once each section is repaired by the Patron, but only a very few sections are repaired and many people who work as street sweepers clearing sand wish for it to stay that way. (Each 10'x10' section is a different artifact and must be individually repaired. There is one street in the city's west that is a first age relic and still working. However it can only affect things up to 30 feet above itself, so it is a long tunnel of clear street bounded on all sides by packed sand.) The streets are made of fitted 5'x5'x1' blocks of granite, and one can sometimes determine which part of the city one is in by the color of the streets. The northeast the blocks are blue and green, the southeast red and green, the southwest red and black and the northwest blue and black. The citie's four central parkways are each a solid color relating to their element and 40' wide on each side and the grand square around the central manse is white and 60' wide at its narrowest point. However many streets were repaired with gray, white, or red granite tward the end of the shogunate and are not properly color-coded.

The City has at least 5' of clearance between all buildings: meaning that there are many allies in which one can get lost. You can often tell which parts are in use and which unoccupied by weather there is sand filling the allies or they are clear.

== Manses and Demesnes of Amarana ==
Amarana was at one time subject to major geomantic engineering projects that gave it a large number of demesnes and then manses relative to its size. Most of those manses are still here, still active, and even now being located and excavated. A few, however, were partially unstable and have long since exploded. These few are roped off as dangerous and plans are underway to re-cap them, led of course by the Patron. Note that there are more manses and demesnes within the city that have not yet been found, and that at one time there were even MORE demesnes in the city which have collapsed into a dormant state due to the changes in the city's essence flows and could be reactivated with the appropriate rituals once the city is fully excavated and geomantic remapped, these demesnes, however, were all small ones, level 2 at the most, so whether such effort is worth it in the short term, or even a good idea, is debatable. See [[Nemo of Utopia/Manses and Dimenses of Amarana]] for further information.

= History =

== Prehistory ==

Though most do not know it Amarana's deepest foundations were laid in an era long past by the [[Dragons Kings]]. The City flourished in the age between the advent of humanity and the [[Primordial War]] with many of the first exalted visiting the place at one time or another in the several decades of the lead up to the overthrow of the Primordials. Then when the war began the city was wreathed in the destruction by one of the superweapons of the masters of creation, utterly annihilating most of those that dwelt therein and reducing the city to a smoking crater of volcanic glass. Still, beneath the burned and blackened surface, some parts of the old under city survived, and wait there still.

== The First Age ==

During the First Age many of the survivors of the primordial war remembered their time in 'Highana' fondly and after excavating much of the old substrate and leveling off the damaged areas to make way for new constructions raised up a new city on the site of the old. This city was dubbed 'Solzarian' in honor of [[The Unconquered Sun]] and in memorial to the Great Dragon King lady who had ruled the city so well and wisely ere it's annihilation. The City would remain a significant but out-of-the-way part of the Old Realm all the way through the first age.

=== The Ocher Fountain Era ===

During the beginning of the First Age when [[Queen Merela]] ruled over all creation from the eternal capital of [[Rathess]] Solzarian was still being reconstructed, and there was little of note that occurred in the city. One event, in particular, was notable, however: the Conclave of Solzarian in year 99 of the old realm, a symposium on the rights and freedoms of the people of creation which some in later years would argue laid the foundations of the Meru Uprising which led to the formation of the Deliberative.

=== The First Deliberative Era ===

By the time of the founding of the [[Deliberative]] the reconstruction of Solzarian was largely complete, and over the next few decades, the city became a favored retreat for both Solars and Lunars seeking to get the heck out of Meru and the stifling politics of the great city. One of Marela's closest allies [[Nemo of Utopia/Angus the Wirehair|Angus the Wirehair]] was given the rule of the city as part of the division of creation into fiefdoms and made it his personal residence. Under Angus rule, the city prospered, though it, by-and-large, remained a backwater compared to such metropolis as [[Chiaroscuro]] and Rathess. However, thanks to its solar overlord and his close relationship to the Queen of all Creation the city began the long process of incredible geomantic engineering which would in time lead to it being known as 'The City of Manses'.

=== Unfurling Horizon Era ===

While this era of creation went by largely without incident of significant note at this remove of history it is still recorded that many of the great efforts to explore and expand the borders of Creation in the south used Solzarian as a staging ground or stopover point before plunging into the true wilderness at creation's rim. This continued to encourage the exalted to play 'tourist' in the city and helped keep its economy vibrant. It is also noted in some histories that there was a major strike of [[Red Jade]] near the city in 811 which produced a 'Jade Rush' led by two rival Dragon-Blooded brothers and their servants which escalated into a short civil war in the city 2 years later in which significant damage was done to the city's infrastructure by all three* factions. The Civil War was only halted when [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Angus the Wirehair|Angus the Wirehair]] returned from Meru at the head of a wing of elite Dragon Blooded shock troops and brutally suppressed both rival groups with mass arrests and a number of executions. (What happened to the brothers is unknown, but their names do not reappear in the historic record for 700 years, and at that time associated with different elemental aspects leading most scholars to conclude that they were 'dealt with' privately by their family.)
*(The Two consortia backing the rival brothers and the cities law enforcement detachments.)

==== The Aftershock War ====

In spite of the growing significance of the city and it's powerful assets in terms of equipment and hearthstones, Solzarian was not at first much involved in the Aftershock War. Passed over in favor of more militarily significant targets by the Primordial Forces the city did not come under fire until 1131 when a force of some 3000 first circle demons led by a trio of 2nd circle demons assaulted the city in the dead of night via a fleet of living airships. The 'Battle of Solzarian' was considered a significant victory for the forces of creation due to the large number of [[Golden Janissary Style]] practitioners in the city who were able to make fairly short work of the first circle demons allowing the detachment of Dragon-Blooded stationed in the city to confront the second circle demon commanders and dispatch them.

However the war was not all glorious victory for the people of Solzarain, [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Angus the Wirehair|Angus the Wirehair]] went missing during the final battle with the primordial forces and would not be seen again for over 500 years. For most of that time, he is presumed dead by the people of the city, though the Solar Exalted know better as his shard has not found a new host.

=== Shining Reflection Era ===

During this period Solzarian loses much of its former significance as the seat of one of Marela's close allies. Few of the Exalted visit the city and the grand engineering projects grind to a near halt. The only events of great significance that occur here are two:
1: The Duel of the Magisters in 1313 where the reincarnations of Theis, Leelah, and Sonah engage in a duel of sorceress power which damages large sections of the city and forces all three of them to be censured by Marela herself: And;
2: In 1492 a major strike of Orichalcum is made a few hundred miles south of the city, and Solzarian becomes a stepping off point for prospectors of every stripe looking to get rich quick mining Orichalcum. The City's economy runs strong off this sudden influx of cash, people, and goods for the next 30 years.

=== Thousand Struggles Era ===

The first part of this period proceeds much from the previous one: everyone is aware that one of the legendary solar exalted has died of old age, but this makes little difference to the struggling backwater that Solzarian has become: then in 1776 everything changes.

In the Records of Solzarian 1776 is called: 'The Year of the Thousand' for the massive wave of change that sweeps over the city in this year. The First thing that happens is [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Angus the Wirehair|Angus the Wirehair]] 'returns from the dead' on the 11th of Ascending Water storming into the city with a small group of Solars, Lunars, and Siderials and calling everyone he can reach into the city with him to face what he calls 'The Storm of the Millennium'. Ten days later the storm arrives and following in behind it a host of the fair folk the likes of which has not been seen in centuries. The city is invested and besieged for two months by the Fairie Host and the siege is only broken by the arrival of four full realm legions armed with Cold Iron. Once the Fair Folk are driven back and the city is again secure Angus orders most of the city leveled and an engineering project the like of which the city has not seen in over half a millennium undertaken to extensively alter its geomancy. To finance this undertaking he produces several tons of jade, from what source none can say, and uses his Wyld Shaping charms, which until his return no one knew he possessed, to manufacture the raw materials needed from the chaotic energy left behind by the Fair Folk.

However, no sooner was the project underway than orders came down from the Queen that he was to return to [[Meru]] at once and answer for his absence: and bound by the oaths he took as one of the [[Golden Hero Vassals]] so very long ago he departs. Following up on the plans he has left behind his circle mate [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Levian of the Gilded Staff|Levian of the Gilded Staff]] begins directing the super-massive construction and engineering projects which will if successful create one of the greatest concentrations of manses and geomantic relays outside of the Blessed Isle. By late in Descending fire half the city is gone and an entirely new street plan and so on is rising in it's place, along with a massive upgrade to the walls and towers of the city perimeter as well.

What exactly passed for Angus in Meru is unrecorded by any presently known records except perhaps those of the Bureau of Destiny but what is recorded is the results of that visit: Angus was stripped of the rulership of his fief in the south including Solzarian and sent on a quest of penance into the frozen north: while Solzarian and the surrounding area was given into the hands of a relatively young solar of the Twilight Caste from another circle named [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Keisha Adriana Mullion|Keisha Adriana Mullion]] and her lunar mate [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Maxim of Personal Liberty|Maxim of Personal Liberty]].

While Keisha was young she was not stupid and consulted with Levian of the Gilded Staff on what she was doing with the engineering of the city. With the elder Twilight's help, she finished the geomantic reorganization as designed by Angus and by the end of Resplendent Air the basic project is finished. The city is now rife with uncapped demesnes and sites that will become demesnes once they can be activated after some of the others are capped. The city also now confers a geomantic bonus on all mortals living there, allowing them to develop their skills and abilities more quickly than those living in other cities. The full culmination of the project with the activation and capping of all demesnes will not be complete for another 36 years.

==== Time of Cascading Years ====

The Time of Cascading Years took rather longer in Solzarian and the surrounding area than it did in most of creation: 3333 years to be precise. The relatively young solar ruler who went into the Time of Cascading Years and her only slightly more experienced Lunar Spouse emerge from it with a weight of skill and refinement which makes them elders among the solars and lunars. They also are now both arrayed with a panoply of artifacts and charms that make them forces to be reckoned with in the new Deliberative. The passage of the 'Age of Isolation' in Solzarian is marked by a number of rebellions and uprisings, and the invasion of their lands by the fair folk towards the end of it, from whence none, can say. Supposedly it was the destruction of an artifact which the Raksha Commander carried which restore time to its normal flow according to the people of Solzarian.

=== Second Deliberative Era ===

During the [[User:Nemo of Utopia:History/HighFirstAge/SecondDeliberativeEra/PeriodofLongSilence|Period of Long Silence]] Solzarain is one of the few areas still doing significant research, though they are hampered by the continuing disunity of creation and the fearfulness of creation's mortals who are all accustomed to traveling too far from home casting you into a different timeline.

With the Establishment of the new deliberative however Solzarian is thrust into the spotlight for around a hundred years as the home and workshop of one of the most important [[User:Nemo of Utopia:NPCCreationGuidelines/Exalted/FirstAge/Solar/TwilightCaste|Copper Spiders]] of the deliberative. During this period the city is a known destination for the many young Twilight-caste members who were reborn following the restoration of time's proper flow.

As this era goes on however Solzarian becomes less and less important with the rebuilding of the rest of creation, the other Twilights drift away to rule their own fiefs and work on their own projects and as has happened before Solzarian's position far from most significant events of history both at the center of creation and at it's rim mean it becomes a backwater. Even it's solar and lunar rulers spend more time in Meru than at home, leaving the city in the hands of [[User:Nemo of Utopia:NPCCreationGuidelines/Exalted/FirstAge/Dragonblooded/Top|Dragon Blooded]] legates.

=== Era of Dreams ===

During the first part of the Era of Dreams, though Solzarian flourishes on the mundane level it remains a backwater on the scales by which The Realm measures such things: a functional and unimportant city in a functional but unimportant section of the world. It does, however, receive an [[IAM|I AM]] Transmission Node linking it to the broader network of information which now spans creation.

Then in the year 3381 it's twilight caste ruler is goaded into violating her eclipse oath to not attack other celestial exalted in Meru, setting in motion a chain of events that will alter the shape of Solzarian's fate for centuries to come, and that of the rest of creation. At first, the botches come hard and heavy, but then they stop and [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Keisha Adriana Mullion|Keisha]] thinks the oath's punishment has run its course.

It has not.

Returning to her holding in the south she begins to work on constructing a [[Proto Shinmatic Vortex]] and at a key stage of the process, the final botch of set activates and the PSV explodes, killing Keisha and creating an intense Wyld Zone south of the city over a hundred miles wide.

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/MaximofPersonalLiberty|Maxim of Personal Liberty]] calls upon every favor he has and even takes on new obligations to arrange the deliberative sending experts at Wyld Shaping to close the rift in the fabric of reality, but the people sent are not the high essence Solars and Lunars he hoped for but rather a cadre of neophytes who have scarce mastered Wyld Cauldron Technology and are woefully unprepared for the madness of the deep Wyld which exists within the rift. Three of them die before the other two call it quits leaving the Wyld Zone barely stabilized around its edges. It is unrecorded at this remove what keeps the deliberative busy and the more powerful Wyld shapers tied up, but it will not be for another 3 decades that the Wyld zone is fully dealt with, and that not by an individual any more experienced than the ones first dispatched, though with far greater caution than the first circle that was sent showed.

== The Usurpation ==

== The Shogunate ==

== The Fall & The Second Age ==

== The Rebirth ==

In RY 760, that same year where so very much else changed for creation (763 in normal Chronicles): the man who

= Government =

In basic the Government of Iskandar really consists of a single man: [[User:Nemo of Utopia/The Patron of Iskandar|The Patron]]. He is an autocrat, ruling by divine mandate and shier power, as he is capable of defeating significant deities in single combat. However the Patron is one man, and as such has organized his subjects with several branches of what we would consider a more normal government. This normal government is organized into twelve 'Adeptus' which each is led by one of the twelve 'High Lords of Iskandar'. These twelve powerful individuals form a council that advises and assists The Patron in his leadership of the city, feeding him data on several topics such as the state of his subject's religious convictions or the preparedness of his military. Though each High Lord is immensely powerful they all are The Patron's fanatical partisans and would not dream of challenging his authority, even if they could.

== The Adeptus Millitate ==

The Adeptus Millitate is one of the largest branches of Iskandar's government, with no fewer than 1250 members in all it's branches and subgroups. Though officially in charge of Iskandar's Armed services it has a rival in The Adeptus Aeronauticus who oversee Iskandar's air-forces. The Adeptus Millitate is run by [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Fist of the Land|Fist of the Land]] a God-Blooded martial artist who is somewhat uncomfortable leading an army of over a thousand people.

The Adeptus Millitate has the following departments and offices:

=== The Departmento Munitorum ===

Oversees the acquisition and care of the equipment and supplies for the army.

==== The Officio Technis ====

Deals with the army's Magitech assets.

==== The Officio Cibum ====

Oversees the all-important function of providing provisions for the troops.

==== The Officio Armorium ====

Handles the more mundane arms and armor of Iskandar's troops.

==== The Officio Quartium ====

Is responsible for most everything else, from tents to uniforms to bedrolls.

=== The Departmento Servicum ===

Oversees the actual troops and officers and their training regimens.

==== The Officio Acadamicain Legionarius ====

This office oversees the training of new recruits and officers running two training schools for them.

==== The Officio Cooptatione Legionarius ====

This is the group that sees-to the recruitment and if necessary conscription of new troops for the army.

=== The Departmento Latrocinium ===

Oversees the hiring and 'control' of any mercenary units the government employs, but is better known for a more sinister function.

==== The Officio Mercenarius ====

Does the Hiring and Firing of actual mercenaries.

==== The Officio Assasinoritum ====

'The Office of Assassins', to use the Vulgate, runs at least four secret dojos training mortal agents in martial arts that facilitate them serving as The Patron's spies and assassins. [[Nemo of Utopia/Assassin of the Grey Spire|Assassin of the Grey Spire]] 'leads' this office: He is ''not'' a master of the White Veil Style of martial arts and has most ''definitely not'' taught many of its members this secret art form. (Nudge nudge, wink wink, know what I mean, know what I mean? Say no more, say no more!)

=== The Officio Adminstrad Militate ===

This 'Floating Office' makes sure that all of the other Departmento and Oficio within this Adeptus do their jobs properly.

== The Adeptus Arbitiese ==

The Adeptus Arbitese oversee Iskandar's police forces, and are one of the larger branches of the government with only 150 individuals on staff, counting every beat cop all the way on up to the High Lord Herself as well as all the file clerks and so on that work for the Adeptus but are not actually part of it's 'fighting strength'. They have only one Departmento and less than a dozen Officio, but so far are keeping a lid on the political turmoil of the city. The High Lord of the Arbitese is [[The Ghost:Characters/Steel Garden|Steel Garden]] who is not a very good investigator but a decent politician and capable administrator.

=== The Departmento Queastorum ===

This department is responsible for making inquiries and investgating crime, thus far it is the only Department of the Adeptus Arbitese but the Officio Correctionibus is expected to become a departmento in its own right someday.

==== The Officio Homicide ====

The Office of Homicide consists of only eight people, four detectives, three CSI techs, and one overworked file clerk. Their closure rate hovers at around 50%, though that is only due to them being able to count any suspect killed by the ghost of the victim as a closed case. [[Nemo of Utopia/Laural the Axe|Laural the Axe]] is the unoficial leader of this group but officially they answer directly to the High Lord of the Arbitese.

==== The Officio Servus Aucupes ====

The term 'office of slave catchers' is somethig of a misnomer. These detectives do not catch slaves, rather they catch people keeping, taking, or recapturing slaves and send them to their just punishments. This office consists of five overworked personnel, two detectives, two forensic accountants, and one file clerk. Their closure rate is around 30% since it is hard to prove that someone was a slaver without catching them in the act.

==== The Officio Vitium ====

Unlike the officio above this office is not quite so overworked, and the two often help each other out because their work frequently overlaps. The 'Vice Squad' mostly conserns itself with drugs and prostitution, since licensed gambling establishements and most pornography are both legal in Iskandar. The officio consists of Four Detectives, five undercover officers, three CSI techs, and a harried file clerk. Their Closure rate is about 45%.

==== The Officio Interioribus ====

This Officio is more for show than anything since all of Iskandar's police are held by the Stone of Invincible Loyalty. It consists of two Detectives and one Forensic Accountant. They often spend their time quietly helping out other offices.

==== The Officio Fraude Aucupes ====

This is actually one of the larger ofices within the Arbities, having eleven total personnel, six detectives, three forensic accountants, a CSI tech, and a file clerk. The office tries to keep a lid on the Guild and others defrauding Iskandar's citizens through various means and does a fairly good job. Their closure rate is about 70%, though this is largely due to a lot of sucsess catching many small-fry while the remaining 30% is allmost all of the big players.

==== The Ofiicio Fures ====

The 'office of thieves' is responsible for all break-ins, burgalries, purse snatchings, muggings, cutpurses, and so forth in the city. In spite of having eight detectives, five undercover agents, six CSI, four Forensic Accountants, and five file clerks their closure rate is about 12%. Garion Cromarch is frankly disgusted with them and has told The Patron so. The Patron knows they are doing their best but has ordered mandatory aditional training for all members of this office.

==== The Officio Pax Patronum ====

The remainder of the police force is in this office. These are the beat cops that enforce the law by their presence and vigilance. Iskandar is a large city and they constantly must be on the lookout for any kind of crime but especially things like drunk and disorderly, disturbing the peace, making an afray, and so on. This office consists of 57 patrol officers and over a dozen file clerks. Twelve of these officers are part of a sub-office of 'Mounties' who do their patrols in teams of three on horseback, they are often called in to suppress larger riots. The officers always patroll in teams of three, one to watch the front of a building and two to look around the sides and catch criminals in a pincer movement. They all carry magitech com units that let them use Wind Carried Words Technique and have Linguistics 3. (Their closure rate is not aplicable, since they work out of elven precincts and each one has a different closure rate.) One of these officers does not need a coms unit: being a dragon blooded air aspect outcaste named Secret Eagle. They have offered to promote him many times, but he prefers to be a patrol officer, though he has deigned to accept the rank of patrol sergeant for the fourth precinct.

=== The Officio Correctionibus ===

The office of corrections deals with the punishment rather than the apprehension side of crime. They are chronically overworked and typically have more criminals than they know what to do with but manage to do their jobs adequately. This floating office is overseen by Iron Sands, a member of The Broad who has lots of experience getting slaves to do as they are bid.

== The Adeptus Judicate ==

Working closely with the Adeptus Arbities the Adeptus Judicate is the other half of the justice system. These are the many Judges, Lawyers, and Clerks of the Court who make sure that the innocent are not punished with the guilty. At the present time the Adeptus Judicate consists of 11 judges, 15 prosecuting attorneys, 23 Attorneys of Due Justice (Public Defenders.), 42 'Clerks of the Court' who record and file all rulings and court-ordered contracts, and 17 "Agent's Protection" who follow up on inconsistencies in court records and the welfare of Iskandar's citizens in cases such as child abuse allegations and locating jurors that fail to show up for a trial. There are also about 200 private attorneys who are technically part of this Adeptus but not part of the government. The High Lord of the Courts is [[The Ghost:Characters/Molly McBride|Molly McBride]] a Demon Blooded northerner who has spent her whole life fighting against injustice and corruption in every form.

Additionally [[Nemo of Utopia/The Patron of Iskandar|The Patron]] himself is technically also a member of this branch as he has the right to sit in judgment if he chooses on all High Crimes and acts of Treason. He has invoked this right exactly once, mostly to prove that he could. (The person in question was found "Not Guilty by reason of Insanity" and sentenced to lifetime confinement to a mental institution pending treatment or cure of his condition. He stood accused of twelve counts of grand theft, but psychoanalysis found him to be a kleptomaniac. The police often consult him on serial theft cases, and he is actually fairly good at solving them. However he does have a problem with stealing other patients belongings and the doctor's pens and notebooks.)

Trials are in the American/British style, with a 'jury of one's peers' and the judge presiding from the high seat. The witness's sit to the judge's left and the clerk to the right. The prosecutors are on the left side of the courtroom and the Jury the Right while the accused is in the middle. Unless the accused is elderly or crippled and unable to stand they may not sit. For this reason, individual segments of trial must last no more than 3 hours. Only citizens may serve as witnesses, but since one can at the present time become a citizen after 24 hours residency this is not a problem. Citizens MAY testify with respect to events from before their citizenship. The accused is entitled to an 'Attorney of Due Justice' in the event that they cannot retain their own private council. The judge may dismiss any case at any time with or without prejudice, which is done routinely with respect to picayune or spurious civil cases so as to free up Attorneys of Due Justice for criminal trials. The patron is looking into finding more Judges and Attorneys of Due Justice so that civil cases do not need to be dismissed so frequently, which has a distressing tendency to lead to murder.

Abnormally The Adeptus Judicate does not have any departmento or officio, but there are those within it and without that are bucking to change that.

== The Adeptus Sororitatus ==

The 'Sisterhood' as they are called by the common folk is the government Adepta that oversees all _female_ clerics and thaumaturges in Iskandar Like their Counterparts in the Adeptus Fratris they are few in number but powerful in influence. Technically also responsible for the worship of all female gods in the city it is common that women will be priests of male deities and men prelates of a goddess's church. The division of male and female clergy between the AS and AF, however, is strict while the division of deities wavers like the landscape in the summer heat. In spite of these difficulties, the two branches of government get along quite well and cooperation between them is without rancor or strife in most cases. The High Lady of the Adepta is [[Nemo of Utopia/Unrepentant Emerald|Unrepentant Emerald]]. She is a mortal with Enlightened Essence and is exceedingly circumspect in her actions, a paragon of temperance. She is also the head priestess of [[Nemo of Utopia/Iskandar Seline|Iskandar Seline]].

=== The Officio Festivalius ===

This floating office submits to The Patron which days and locations should have festivals to honor the goddess' of the city. A circle of female clergy decide these events and pass them on to the patron, who generally approves them without comment. This circle is chaired by Unrepentant Emerald.

=== The Departmento Eclesiast ===

This is the main branch of the Adepta, overseeing and licensing all _female_ clergy in Amarana. The department technically consists of all licensed female clergy in the city but in practice, most of the female clergy get their licenses and are about their buisness having no further interaction with the government except to re-up their licenses once a year.

==== The Officio Licentiae ====

This officio handles the licensing process for all official priestesses, which requires proving you have the following capabilities: Ability to speak and read Old Realm, Basic knowledge of Spiritual Etiquette, (At least 3 dots in occult or 1 + an appropriate specialty.) and training in proper prayer procedures. (Prayer roll performance pool of at least 5 dice.) These requirements may be waived if the cleric has a 'sponsor' with a proper license who is taking on the new cleric as a student to train in service to their god/goddess in which case a 'Postulant Permit' is issued instead. Licenses are issued per deity, so if you wish to be the clergy of multiple gods multiple licenses are required. This is waived in the case of Zenith-caste Solars, Theurge-caste "New-Method"-Lunars, "Redemer"-caste Infernals, and Midnight-caste Abyssals, since it would be more trouble than it is worth to issue a license for every god in creation (for the first two), every each of the recovering yozis and all the greater demons (Redeemers), or ghost above essence 3 in the underworld (Midnight-castes).

==== The Officio Sanctionite ====

This is a smaller office within the departmento, making recommendations to The Patron on which female ditieis should be given offfical sanction within Iskandar. All the female dieities mentioned under the Religion section are sanctioned unless noted otherwise. Being unsanctioned does not mean you cannot be worshiped, but it does mean that you cannot have space allocated for a temple or licensed clergy. Sanctioning however is fiarly easy to get, since The Patron often simply signs the forms without reading them. (Additionaly all the incarnae are sanctioned, + Gaia and the Dragons.)

==== The Officio Hetterodox ====

This office deals with instances of rogue gods and clergy, such as the notorious Tuggie of the Scavenger Lands and other instances where the celestial bureaucracy has broken down to an unacceptable level. Employing many outside contractors they put spirits who demand illicit worship or sapient sacrifice in their places and also hunt rogue demons and the fair folk's ravagers. Though the actual functionaries of this Officio are few their agents are many and they are always busy.

== The Adeptus Frateris ==

Sometimes referred to as 'The Fraternity' by outsiders this Adeptus is responsible for all male deities and male clergy in Amarana. They take their job seriously and are sometimes noted for being taciturn and uncompromising. They are led by [[Nemo of Utopia/Wauli the Wolf|Wauli the Wolf]], who like his female counterpart is a mortal with awakened essence.

Structurally the Adeptus Frateris is identical to the Adeptus Sorroitatus.

== The Adeptus Mechanicus ==

The Adeptus Mechanicus are an odd bunch. Dressing in Rust Red robes and communicating in their own strange (and highly technical) dialect of Old-Realm they keep outsiders at arm's length. This Adepta is responsible for helping The Patron find and repair the magitech of the city a task that they perform supremely well but which many wonders if this group of strangely obsessed men and women are actually best suited for. Led by [[Nemo of Utopia/Adamant Sprocket|Adamant Sprocket]], an elderly Djala man and his young adult daughter [[Nemo of Utopia/Gears of Fate|Gears of Fate]], this group employs many Djala escapees in the task of repairing and rebuilding the city.

== The Adeptus Diolougus ==

What some would call the state department or the diplomatic corps the Adeptus Diolougus is one of the smallest Adeptus of the Iskandarian government. Led by [[Nemo of Utopia/Exultant Ivory Mother|Exultant Ivory Mother]] (a god-blooded woman from An-Teng, who harbors no feelings of goodwill for either Realm or Guild,) this group of spies and agent's provocateur work to keep Iskandar a free city and outside the clutches of both [[The Guild]] and foreign powers such as the [[Realm]].

== The Adeptus Medicae ==

Easily among the smallest Adeptus of the Iskandarian government if one only counts the actual government personnel instead of approximately a-dozen-dozen licensed doctors, psychiatrists, and physicians whom they are tasked with overseeing and who like private attorneys in the city are technically part of the Adeptus: the Adeptus Medicae is as one might have guessed responsible for the physical and mental health of the city. They Tend to this task primarily by licensing and monitoring the city's medical personnel. This Adeptus role is two fold: first they are responsible for overseeing those practicing and utilizing any kind of medical skill in the city, from alchemists manufacturing morphine, [[Seven Bounties Paste]], or [[Age Staving Cordial]], to those offering psychiatric counseling outside of a church setting, to the several small private hospitals around the city, to even veterinarians. The Second task of the group is more dangerous and ripe for abuse by far: it is they in large part, as the only people with the requisite expertise, who draw up for [[Nemo of Utopia/The Patron of Iskandar|The Patron's]] approval the statutes of law which they are tasked with enforcing. Thus far there has been no conflict of interest or abuses of power but the vast majority of people among the medical personnel of Iskandar wait anxiously or avidly for this to begin changing.

The Adeptus Medicae is led by [[Nemo of Utopia/Simon Baker|Simon Baker]], a psychiatrist by trade, who is among the most dangerously insightful and persuasive people you will ever meet, at least that is not one of the exalted. He is in fact a godblooded, son of the patron deity of an order of physicians on The Blessed Isle, and is not much taken with the Imacualtes, treating them with frosty professionalism.

== The Adeptus Fabricae ==

Easily the largest and most diverse branch of the Iskandarian government the Adeptus Fabricae oversees all matters which involve or pertain directly to any sort of production, manufacturing, functional artistry, or creation of goods within Iskandar's lands. Though ferreting out matters of a criminal nature fall under the heading of the Adeptus Arbitise, and the governance of the legal codes is the province primarily of The Patron himself, and Prosecution and judgment of crimes is the business of the Adeptus Judicate, all three of these functions fall partially under this adeptus' remit.

The Adeptus Fabricae first submits for The Patron's approval all codes and strictures which govern the actions and enterprises of fabricating all tangible products in Iskandar, and exhaustive list of matters which fall under their control would be impossible but a few of the more salient follow: Print Shops, Compounding Pharmacies, Paper Mills, Glass Works, Jewelers, Magitech Repair Shops, Smithies, Book Binders, Cobblers, Tailors, and Farms: estentialy anything which would be made by any sort of "Craft:XXX" skill is within their authority. The patron then reviews these legal codes and approves or rejects them, which becomes the strictures that the Adeptus Fabricae enforce upon the businesses of Iskandar.

Most production facilities of any kind are within the Adeptus Fabricae's remit, with the notable exception of restaurants, taverns, eateries, pubs, tea houses, inns, and food carts which fall under the aegis of the Adeptus Medicae, though oddly pharmacies do not. Neither adepta is happy about this but neither is willing to lose or exchange the area they do have power over for reasons of their own which seem fully sufficient to them. Furthermore any business that produces a tangible product and directly employs more than 50 people in any capacity is under their remit to license, inspect, and if necessary fine or refer to the Arbiters for investigation.

The following are the Departmento and Officio of the Adeptus Fabricae, each one with significant discretionary power and held in check solely by the High Lady of the Adeptus [[Nemo of Utopia/AuspiciousCrystalLightning|Auspicious Crystal Lightning]] and The Patron.

=== The Departmento Iura ===

The 'Department of Laws' devises and writes out the codes of law which govern the production and creation of goods in Iskandar. They have created and submitted to the patron and extensive and thorough list of legal codes regarding the conditions, control, creation, and compensation for most products in Iskandar, and those they have not they are working on.

==== The Officio Iura Laboris ====

The 'Office of Labor Laws' designs the codes of law concerning the employment, treatment, and management of Iskandar's workforce. They are in the main as despised by the plutocracy as they are beloved by the common folk. Among other laws, they have enacted is the 8 hour work shift and the 6 day work week.

==== The Officio Iura Fabricación ====

The "Office of Manufacturing Laws" creates the codes of law governing the actual production of goods. Other offices govern the details of different types of production facilities or field, but this office creates the general guidelines which the others work by.

==== The Officio Iura Cotagium Industria ====

The "Office of Cottage Industry" drafts the limited and simple codes which control small scale manufacturing by individuals and small business. They would like to have more extensive and detailed codes but The Patron uses his authority to make the official versions of the law to pare back most of their red tape and BS. He is in fact thinking of suspending this office for a period of some months while he looks for a better and less over eager set of people to be its officers.

==== The Officio Iura Officinis ====

This office makes the laws respecting the specific difficulties of production in a factory typesetting. Any production facility with 50 or more employees falls under their regulating authority, even things that are not normally their provinces such as farms, eateries, and pharmacies. For this reason, many production facilities and such, run with staff of 40, so that even if they hire a handful of temp workers they will not move into this Officio's dominion. This Officio is not-well-liked by most business owners, being seen as overly restrictive and exceedingly interfering.

==== The Officio Iura Pharmicopia ====

== The Adeptus Adminstradum ==

== The Adeptus Aeronauticus ==

== The Adeptus Vectigalia ==

Lying squarely in the middle of the Adeptus of the city in terms of size the Adeptus Vectigalia is The Patron's Tax Collectors and Auditors of Accounts. Little liked by most people in the city they are nevertheless key to it's continued function. In addition to overseeing that the government is given it's due and being called on to check the books of businesses which the Adeptus Arbitise feel might be doing illegal activities the Adeptus Vectagalia also runs Amarana's national mint, which means that they are monitored closely by both The Patron and the Adeptus Arbitise.

Noted for being uncompromising and humorless the Adeptus Vectigalia dress in imperishable formal clothing left behind from the first age. The hot stuffy suits and jackets only contribute to their reputation as dour and unsmiling drones of government oversight, which is perhaps the point of the dress code.

The Adeptus Vectigalia is divided into three Departmento: The Departmento Salari, which collects the taxes in cash or kind, the Departmento Quastorius, who audits people's books, and the Departmento Signo, who oversees the minting and engraving of all Iskandarian currency.

The Adeptus Vectigalia is led by [[Nemo of Utopia/Manifold Gemstone|Manifold Gemstone]] a perfectly ordinary man, who happens to be an excellent forensic accountant if only a passable administrator.

= Religion =

Faith and practice in Amarana are as diverse as the people who have come to live there. Everything from Immaculates to ancestor Worshipers to CotI members to simple priests and adherents of various gods all rub elbows on the city's streets. Below are a brief rundown of the most prominent of the city's faiths and the deities they worship.

== Immacualtes ==

Though the smallest of the city's faiths the Immaculate Doctrine still has hundreds of adherents among the people of the city, many of whom are enlightened martial arts practitioners. They also have a strong support network in the form of outside contacts with The Realm and other Dragon Blooded.

== The Common Faith/Hundred Gods Heresy ==

The Majority of the population of Amarana believe in the gods as most people of the threshold do: they worship those who can provide them with benefits they want or need and don't understand much about the celestial bureaucracy or how things worked in the first age and that the present state of affairs is a corruption of the 'proper' order of things. Those that do often take the stance that "this is the way things are" and simply go on with their day.

What follows is a brief list of the major deities of Amarana and who or what they are affiliated with:

=== Iskandar Seline ===

[[Nemo of Utopia/AmaranaSeline|Amarana Seline]]: As the City Mother of Amarana, Amarana Seline is the leader of the city's spirits. She was promoted from off the dole in heaven by the machinations of a number of bronze faction Sidereals and is fully cognizant of the fact that she '''owes''' them, but at the same time of the fact that as a dispossessed spirit promoted to the rank of City Mother she has few allies and many enemies. For these and other reasons she does not play favorites, at least not much, and is working hard at her job coordinating the smooth running of the city. Though she tries to be largely neutral in truth she is in the camp of the Immaculate Faction, which is part of why the Imacualtes are as strong as they are in the city.

=== Mother Midnight ===

[[Nemo of Utopia/MotherMidnight|Mother Midnight]]: As the the Senior Goddess of all natural misfortunes in Amarana 'Mother of Midnight Murder and Mayhem', to use her full name, is a very good person for The Patron to have on his side. Mother Midnight takes positive glee in afflicting his enemies with all manner of troubles and ailments, from murder most foul to tripping on a dropped piece of lumber and spilling twenty boxes of crack from their backpack right in front of a police officer. However she is not really playing favorites, she still inflicts all manner of problems on the Patriots, their enemies just get it first and worst. Mother Midnight also has another interesting fact to her favor: she has been at her post for the past 3000 years. She get's audited on a regular basis and comes up smelling like roses: every, single, time! This drives Wong Bongerok to a level of near slavering fury, especially since he is certain Mother Midnight has been doing some kind of double-dealing and bellow board hustle to keep herself fed and clothed during Amarana's long dormancy but has no way to prove it. Thing is, he's wrong. Mother Midnight became a doomsday prepper just after the usurpation and had been stockpiling quintessence and ambrosia for centuries ere the fair folk invaded. She has been living off that stockpile for all the time since and even now could go several centuries were the city to fall again ere she would need to start hustling for her sustenance.

In form, Mother Midnight looks like an exceedingly overweight woman with coal black skin and long dreadlocked black hair that hangs so long as to trail on the ground. She typicaly appears nude or dressed in rags but can summon an armor of bones and broken pottery for a cost of 3 motes that gives her 10 lethal/bashing soak for the rest of the scene. For one mote she may reflexively cause any weapon that strikes her which has a hardness of less than 10 to automatically break*, and any weapon that has less than 15 hardness but more than 10 take 5d of damage. Energy weapons are immune to this, such as beam klaves and weapons with a hardness of more than 15 cannot be affected. These powers do not count as charm use.

*(The weapon still inflicts damage before breaking from this effect.)

=== Pauldron Of Sanctity ===

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/PauldronOfSanctitity|Pauldron Of Sanctitity]]: is the new titular war god of the state, essentially exiled to the post by Atlhat since he is a rabbidly punctual and rules obsessed deity that Atlhat has detested for centuries. Pauldron of Sanctity takes the form of a tall man in Gunzosha Armor and wielding a shock pike. He believes in well regimented and organized military units who are drilled and well equipped. In many ways, his notions of war are still trapped in the low first age when he was spawned as the god of a mercenary company, but this is just fine because he is the war god of a city with much of its low first age equipment and infrastructure intact. Though he favors the Immacualtes he is not willing to alter the course of outlined fate one millimeter without approval through proper channels.

=== Garion Cromarch ===

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/GarionCromarch|Garion Cromarch]]: is the god of Amarana's police force, who has waited patiently these seven centuries and more since the loss of the city to the fair folk working unofficially as a P.I. in Yu-Shan and who is the author of Iskandar's rebirth, having convinced the Bronze Faction to engineer the events which have led to that happening. Garion is perhaps more involved in the doings of the city's police than he should be, often helping them out with 'gut feelings' and leading dreams, but so far his interference has not crossed the line of allowed behavior.

Garrion's form looks like an idealized southern human male wearing Sentinel Defense Force armor blazoned with the symbol of Iskandar, an eagle in flight wearing broken manacles.

=== Lissom Shining Spring ===

[[Nemo of Utopia/LissomShiningSpring|Lissom Shining Spring]]: a goddess of the local Oasis who temporarily holds two positions both in her old job and as the minster of all water sources within Amarana's sphere of influence. She is not perfidious in this role like Alhat who should not hold both the aegis of southern war god and god of cattle, but is genuinely looking for a replacement to take over the role of goddess of springs and oasis: however she is a perfectionist and committed to finding a perfect candidate, which means that though she has interviewed over a hundred prospective applicants she has not found one that she feels is worthy of her longtime position. The Bronze Faction is willing to let her conduct further interviews, for now, but have made it clear that if she does not have a new spirit in the position by the end of next year she will be censured and the task of finding a replacement will be out of her hands. To this end she has compiled what she calls her 'secondary list': those gods that she felt were 'almost' up to her lofty standards, and if she is running out of time will call them back for a second interview and chose the best one. She still hopes for a perfect applicant however and only has four names on her 'secondary list'.

Lissom Shining Spring's form is that of a large fish, but lately she has been finding herself slipping into the form of a young woman in the suit of one of the city's hydro engineering personnel who assist the Patron in making sure that all the pipes are sound before restoring the flow of water to a building. She is not sure she likes this.

=== Sonari ===

[[Nemo of Utopia/Sonari|Sonari]]: is the divine minster of sunlight and shadow for Iskandar. She works with the bureau of nature to ensure that the proper degree of cloud cover reaches Iskandar as well as the appropriate amount of sun. Like many of the gods of Iskandar she is newly promoted from being on the dole and fearful of losing her position, but even so dares to encourage the cult to worship her with little flourishes like rays of light in winter and cool breezes in summer.

She takes the form of a cloud from which pour rays of sunlight.

=== Meroka Jin ===

[[Nemo of Utopia/MerokaJin|Meroka Jin]]: the minister of romance and love in Iskandar is actually an old pro at the role, having been the minister for the task in the old city and then for the Salaru tribes. He is corrupt as the day is long but adept at hiding his perfidy from anyone and everyone, including to a degree himself.

Meroka Jin takes the form of a vigorous adult man of the south with a rose in his teeth and a rakish smile. He often appears nude or in the robes worn for a wedding among the Salaru.

Meroka is eternally locked in a bitter feud with his theoretical partner Sakarzi: minster of lust and attraction, who is constantly trying to break down the stable romantic relationships her 'partner' builds. For the moment they have reached a detente on the matter of the two factions in which they are most interested, If Sakarzi will do her job for the romantic relationships of the Solarians then Meroka will not try to pair off the Ancestor Cultists into mirages and leave Sakarzi to push them to rut in wild abandon. They have not agreed about what to do with the rest of the population which makes up more than 60%.

=== Bibwit Heart ===

[[Nemo of Utopia/BibwitHeart|Bibwit Heart]]: The 'least' god of Iskandar's central manse, Bibwit is uncomfortable with the cult worshiping him as they do. He has seen many least gods that have found themselves at the center of cults growing arrogant and ultimately becoming starmettal and is afraid this will happen to him. He has survived both the fall of the solars and the shogunate by being small and unobtrusive, keeping his manse functional and active while the rest of the city fell apart and he is not going to change that strategy. Still, he is an important god in the city, and as such they venerate him. Bibwit takes the form of an anthropomorphized rabbit with white fur and a tailored coat. He carries a pocket watch that lets him make flurry attacks up to his DEX score with no penalty.

=== Cela Dinarius ===

[[Nemo of Utopia/CelaDinarius|Cela Dinarius]]: Cela is the goddess responsible for Iskandar's economy, and she is a personal friend of Glorious Weapon. She is no friend of the Guild and works as much as she dares to keep the guild from stealing artifacts from Iskandar for sale to its foreign rivals. Formerly the goddess of Aj-Aran's main market square she was promoted to the overall control of the economy of Iskandar via the machinations of the gold faction. She knows the city father is a bronze faction plant but reasons that as long as they both do their jobs properly they should not come into many conflicts. The two have a standing date for tea every Venusday.

Cela Dinarius form is that of an attractive woman carved from silver, and she wears the clothing of a Varangian cloth factor, which was her first job beyond as the least god some 4 centuries ago, patron goddess of a new Varangian cloth consortium.

=== Zalril ===

[[User:The Ghost:Characters/gods/Iskandar/Zalril|Zalril]]: Formerly the Least god of Iskandar's north gate Zalril has by what amounts to shier-force-of-will moved up to become the patron god of Guild Members working in Iskandar. The exact operation of this occurrence has been shrouded in mystery at the orders of Kejop Kajac himself, and further Nazri signed off on it too. The Guild maintains a large shrine just outside his old gate where they leave offerings before entering the city and where three slave women were taken under cover of night and sworn to become Zalril's Priestesses in exchange for their freedom by an Eclipse-caste member who often works for the guild. Though two of them still keep their roles as the god's priestesses the third has left the shrine and now lives in the city as a teacher for the city's new public school. Interestingly she has suffered no ill effects from 'breaking' her oath. Zalril has asked for the Guild to send a replacement but they are still trying to figure out why the oath failed in the first place. Meanwhile [[User:The Ghost:Characters/Mortals/Iskandar/Sulramia|Sulramia]] finds fulfillment in teaching her students as do [[User:The Ghost:Characters/Mortals/Iskandar/GayePachudiweOgesu|Gaye Pachudiwe Ogesu]] and [[User:The Ghost:Characters/Mortals/Iskandar/OxandRainbowSlave|Ox and Rainbow]] the two women that still work at the shrine. Ogesu is an old women and does the cooking and cleaning while Ox and Rainbow stands guard over the shrine. Sulramia also came with another gift for the god, her daughter, as she was part of a quadratic set, Maiden, Warrior, Mother, and Crone, and if she was to be the 'mother' Zalril insisted that she have a child as proof of her status, who conveniently doubled as 'maiden'. Sulramia's daughter is called [[User:The Ghost:Characters/Mortals/Iskandar/IronandHoneyMaiden|Iron and Honey Maiden]] and is just the cutest five year old you will ever see, with an appearance score of five already. Her mother lives constantly with the fear of pedophiles, but does not let it rule their lives.

=== Walziri ===

[[User:The Ghost:Characters/gods/Iskandar/Walziri|Walziri]]: as the god of beasts of burden within Iskandar's lands Walziri is a major player in the lives of Guild personnel who must work or live here. Formerly a lesser deity of travel and trade in Harborhead Walziri was appointed to his new post by the machinations of a cabal of 'Independent' southern Sidereals and understands that he OWES them for this big break. The cabal has not called in that favor, at least not yet, but for the moment are content with him filing informal reports on the going's on in Iskandar. While still hard at work at his new post he has already started to play favorites a little with the Guild's Men who pray to him, subtly strengthening their animals and selecting them last when sickness is due to strike the camels or whatnot of the city. Walziri takes the form of a large man of Harborhead derivation wearing several coral necklaces and white robes. He carries a Jade cattle prod which can be used as a spear or thrown like a javelin and returns instantly to his hand.

=== Anyaka Tetsuo ===

[[User:The Ghost:Characters/gods/Iskandar/AnyakaTetsuo|Anyaka Tetsuo]]: The minister of Chance and Gambling in Iskandar, Tetsuo is not new to this job. Created as the least god of a set of enchanted dice not long after the Primordial War Tetsuo has risen over the course of the intervening years to a position of moderate power in this city through diligent work and a suspicious number of 'lucky' breaks. Though no investigation has ever found him guilty of any wrongdoing there are enough people that are suspicious of what he surely must have done with his powers to better his status that it is unlikely he will ever rise any higher. Some deities would plot and scheme to continue advancing, but Tetsuo knows better. As a god of chance and gambling, he is well aware that he has been on quite the lucky streak and that is when you should count your winnings, leave the table, and cash in your chips before your luck runs out. He is content to be the god of all chance and gambling in Iskandar: and will only rise higher if his natural luck brings him a sudden break, which he is not holding his breath for. He wiles away his time by playing games with the gamblers of the city, making them win or lose in a big way, but staying within the bounds of prescribed fate.

Tetsuo looks like a tall, broad-shouldered, thoroughly tattooed man with a cup and dice for playing a popular gambling game called 'Han or Cho'.

Tetsuo's sanctum is exceedingly large, he has had 700 years of dormancy in Iskandar in which to expand it, and it now takes the form of a vast resort with several small casinos and many spas on what appears to be a small tropical island. (At the boundaries of its area there is a big reef beyond which the waterfalls away into nothing.) Tetsuo typically has many of the small gods of gambling and chance living in his sanctum with him at any time. Tetsuo is a colleague of Mother Midnight, not her subordinate, but the two work closely to determine which gamblers will face a string of ill luck.

=== Bagong Fangrick ===

[[User:The Ghost:Characters/gods/Iskandar/BaegongFangrick|Bagong Fangrick]]: As the God of Vermin within Iskandar Fangrick is an odd person to aid the guild but the guild will take allies where it can find them. Fangrick is a subordinate of Mother Midnight but has kept himself mostly out of her way and done his job without fuss since the revival of the city. Formerly the deity of rats for the Salaru tribes he was promoted upon the city's revival in recognition of many years of hard work with little reward and not the slightest blemish on his record.

Bagong Fangrick looks like an aged anthropomorphic rat, dressed in the robes of a shogunate era martial arts practitioner.

=== Wisp Verunga ===

[[User:The Ghost:Characters/gods/Iskandar/WispVerunga|Wisp Verunga]]: As the managing deity for all education in Iskandar Wisp is a VIP for the Patriots, because she helps their people learn new skills significantly faster, which helps them stay a step ahead of their competition, for the moment. The thing is that Wisp is running a knife-edge game with staying inside what is allowed within her post as a manager for all education in Iskandar and what could be censured. This is very very bad: because she is already in trouble with the local censor's deputy for bearing a god blooded child, who is still alive and therefore available as evidence. Just to add insult to injury the censor's deputy has a personal vendetta against her for rebuffing his advances in favor of a mere mortal. Until the revival of Iskandar Wisp Verunga was the goddess of it's central library, she effectively promoted herself to chief goddess of education by cozening up to the Patron while he was excavating her manse. When he decreed the first mandatory schooling sessions for the early colonists he had them pray to her as patron of all education in Iskandar at the start of each day, when the prayers reached critical mass a few months later she had already conducted a quiet set of interviews and had her replacement as god of the library already prepped and ready to take over at once. This is not precisely an offense against the laws of heaven, but it is somewhat 'bad form' and would count against her slightly in a formal audit. It also has earned some of her fellow deities enmity, especially:...

=== Principle of Justified Action ===

[[User:The Ghost:Characters/gods/Iskandar/PrincipleofJustifiedAction|Principle of Justified Action]]: Heaven has gods of just about everything, including educators. Principle of Justified Action was formerly a deity of a major school out in the distant threshold before the fair folk invasion and only survived that calamity by mere chance, having been in heaven on vacation when the hosts of faerie scourged the world. Since then he has lived on the dole and schemed endlessly to get another position in the bureau of humanity's education office. He finally thought he had one all lined up when Iskandar was scheduled to be rebuilt as it's manager of education, but the Patron and Wisp Verunga snatched it out of his hands. Yet, when one door closes another opens and a cabal of Gold Faction Sidereals and a few people who were still his friends from the old days managed to finagle him a consolation prize. The role of managing deity for the court system of Iskandar was still open since there were not supposed to be any real criminal proceedings for several months yet. Desperate to get off the dole by then and seeing this as his last chance for the foreseeable future he accepted.

What neither he nor the Sidereals that helped him expected was that he would LIKE the work. Managing a court system is not so different in truth from managing a school, you have trouble makers, erudite and passionate people, a lot of people who really don't want to be there, an ever-changing cast of characters doing many old and a few new stupid things, a complex set of rules you must adhere to; the similarities were rather a shock. Of course there were differences, mostly in the fact that things move both so much slower most of the time and so much faster in the crunch, but he got his sea legs within a month or two and found himself enjoying having a real job again. That said, Principle of Justified Action is still no friend of Wisp Virunga and would dearly love to put in an application to replace her should she fall afoul of the auditors. However he bides his time, after all, he is employed in a job that he does not find onerous and has plenty of prayers coming in from both sides of the law, Wisp has no experience and is drowning in her duties, let them see what putting an untried administrator into such an important post does! Chances are that within the decade he will have her job: so runs his reasoning.

The Patron is another matter. He likes the Patron, rather a lot, and finds in the autocrat of the city a kindred spirit: and of course cannot fault the man on the matter of his dedication to an educated society. He sometimes pokes the patron in the subconscious when he is contemplating a bad law, or about to reject a good one, and thus far does not consider it any kind of offense against heaven's rules. He is, in fact, wrong, he has committed no less than 5 level 1 offenses in this manner, but that will largely be ignored unless he does more than mere subconscious nudging, after all, he has not really messed up any major plans this way so far.

In form Principle of Justified Action looks like a tall man from the furthest east, wearing the green and red robes of a seated Judge of Iskandar's courts. His hair is shock white, a remnant of his time among the starving an unemployed but he finds it suits his image as wise leader of the courts. Abnormally for a god of justice he is lenient with most offenders, reasoning that if you punish too harshly you deny them a chance to learn from their mistakes. However anyone who harms children sees the other side of him, a fury of unrelenting hatred that will see them hanged if at all possible.

=== Sakarzi ===

[[User:The Ghost:Characters/gods/Iskandar/Sakarzi|Sakarzi]]: though she would dearly love to bring about the Patron's ruin and overthrow Sakarzi: minster of lust and attraction for Amarana, has a problem: She is both terrified of him and lusts after him obsessively. Sakarzi met the Patron before he mastered Iskandar when she was bathing in a sacred hot-spring on the borders of the lands now claimed by the city in the guise of a comely Salaru maiden and he was following his awakened memories back to the city to claim his destiny. There at the hot-spring, she tried to seduce him.

She Failed.

The patron was clearly attracted to her and wished to accept her advances but mastered himself with an effort of will and politely refused. Five more times in five different guises Sakarzi has tried to seduce him and each time has been rebuffed, but always politely. This is why she is terrified of him, no one else whom she has ever tried to seduce has refused her advances so many times, especially since each of those times she has used progressively more of her supernatural powers, in the last instance activating an effect that should have compelled him to lie with her will he or no. She lusts after him because she has a weakness for powerful men, and The Patron certainly is one: but it is his immunity to her mystical powers that has made it an obsession. With the Patron Sakarzi can use only the arts available to a mortal woman to snare the man she desires, and it is driving her to distraction. Perhaps an hour's worth of time out of each of her days is frittered away trying to think up new ways to seduce the Patron that rely only on her natural skills and personal beauty, but thus far she has not come up with anything worth using on a seventh attempt. The reason that Sakarzi would love to see the patron fall is that after she started a feud between three of the early families of colonists by seducing three of their sons and declaring that only the last one living would bed her the patron caught her outside her sanctum and beat her to within an inch of her life, declaring that if he ever caught her pulling that kind of stunt on his supporters again he would not pull his blows the second time.

These conflicting emotions are tearing Sakarzi apart, she lusts after the patron, but wants to ruin him, but is terrified of him, but she wants to have sex with him so bad she can taste it: Etc, Etc. In the meantime she has appeared to several of the Patriots and declared her support for the patron's cause offering her help in securing the objects of their desires and the word has spread among them that if you erect a shrine to her in your residence and pray at it twice a day, morning and night, she will aid you in seducing whoever you most lust after.

While Sakarzi has many forms she can assume her true form is that of a Salaru woman of surpassing beauty and grace who literally cannot wear clothing. Her merest touch causes any garment to become invisible for one hour, so there is no point in her wearing any kind of raiment except for it's protective value, which she rarely does.

=== Machuko; Torch of Freedom ===

[[User:The Ghost:Characters/gods/Celestial/MachukoTorchofFreedom|Machuko; Torch of Freedom]]: Is it any wonder, considering the status of Iskandar as a free city where none may be held in bondage without due process of law, that the patron deity of Liberation and Abolistionisim should view it with favor and even more so it's leader who enacted the law in question? [[Rabsolga]], the patron of slavery, hates and despises Amarana and if for no other reason than that Machuko loves and protects it. Furthermore, Machuko is [[User:The Ghost:Characters/ThePatron|The Patron]]'s patron god, to whome he prays five times a day, and is celebrated with five feast days each year, one at the beginning of each 'resplendent' month. Even the Immaculates honor these five days of worship, because the Patron has been known to have those that speak against honoring the feasts arested and tried for sedition and/or aiding and abetting slavers, and their leader does not need that kind of atention, so he has siad "These days honoring Machuko are sanctioned by the immaculate faith, so long as you pray unto him only on these days you do not sin against the orders of Heaven."

Machuko keeps a large temple in the city's northeast quarter: a level 3 fire aspected manse called 'The Wheel of Torches' from it ride forth his clergy and devout adherents numbering several dozen strong on raids into the wastes beyond Iskandar's borders proclaiming Machuko's glory and the freedom of all people within the lands of Iskandar. Machuko has many priests across all of creation but nowhere are there so many gathered together as in Iskandar.

In form, Machuko looks like a tall muscular man of what modern people would call Jewish/Hasidic/Israeli derivation, with a wild beard and long hair that hangs in ringlets. He carries a gore maul and choping sword of orichalcum and white jade which when used together can cut any chain or bond. He has another form, which he assumes rarely except when in heaven, which is that of a great Dragon filled with yellow-white fire and made from milions of broken chains, collars, and manacles.

== Ancestor Cultists ==

Led by [[User:Nemo of Utopia:Characters/Sharima of the Three Disciplines|Sharima of the Three Disciplines]] and her ghostly lover [[User:Nemo of Utopia:Characters/Aruna the Defiant|Aruna the Defiant]] this group of citizens are a large and vocal part of the city's population. Though dwarfed by the percentage of the city who worship the city's gods and elementals the Ancestor Cultists make up as much as 20-25% of the city's population and are especially prominent among the [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Salaru|Salaru]].

The Ancestor Cultists make use of a large number of small [[Shadowlands]] across the city to communicate more directly with their patron spirits and interact with the underworld: but are mindful of [[User:Nemo of Utopia/The Patron of Iskandar|The Patron]]'s injunctions about not breaking the circles of salt and other wards which keep the ghosts within the Underworld. They are however constantly working to locate 'new' and unguarded Shadowlands for their patrons to use to slip in and out of the underworld, which The Patron minds not one bit so long as they report them for the Adeptus Sororitatus/Frateris to seal in due course.

Though most of the people of Iskandar are unaware of this fact the Ancestor Cultists are being controlled from behind the scenes by a Deathknight known as [[User:Nemo of Utopia:Characters/The Fluttering Fist of the Deadly Labyrinth|The Fluttering Fist of the Deadly Labyrinth]] he is a martial artist in service to The [[Mask of Winters]] who has wandered off on his own agenda far from thorns and The Mask's traditional area of operation. "The Fist" came to Iskandar in search of a rumored cache of [[Autochthonian]] [[Soulsteel]], held in the vaults of the undercity, but has found that much of the undercity is sealed and inaccessible even from the [[Underworld]]. In the meantime, he works on the ancestor cultists as both a way to support himself and something to occupy his time while he trains to learn the charms that will allow him to enter the prehuman depths of the city where he hopes the bars of [[Autochthonian Soulsteel]] can be found.

Though the ghosts of Salaruku are numerous and very old surprisingly few of them are Heroic Ghosts and willing/able to serve as patrons for Iskandar's ancestor cultists. Of those that do It is surprisingly four of the youngest ghosts that are the main patrons worshiped by the cultists: along with one exceedingly old ghost from the fall of Salaruku.

=== Xufuwne Onuke ===

The leader of Isknadar's relatively large population of ghosts from the time of the fair folk invasion Onuke is frighteningly powerful but relatively easy going. He has outlasted Iskandar's long dormancy and now looks forward to an era of joy and plenty for the city's dead. A dragonblooded warrior in life Onuke was killed battling the invaders from the wyld and in an odd twist of fate, they buried him with high honors. His tomb lies in the still sand covered western half of the city at the center of a small park. In form Onuke looks like a typical dragonblooded of the shogunate, dressed in power armor and wielding a daiklaive. He has subsisted by hunting plasmic creatures for most of 700 years but welcomes the changes of the reborn city. Onuke is the cult's equivalent of a war god, a role he shoulders without complaint but also without relish.

=== Aruna the Defiant ===

Hailing from Chiaroscuro Aruna is the lover of Sharima, and they have many Ghost-blooded children together. They were maneuvered into leadership of the cult by agents of [[The Archon of Apostasy]] who wished to have a shining example of ghost/mortal co-operation in Iskandar to help people accept the death cult in their midst. The Archon's agents do not believe the plan is working but they are wrong, were it not for the two of them the cult would have been burned out root and branch. Aruna is a relatively young ghost but has become powerful quite quickly thanks to her lover and her association with various death cults. In appearance, Aruna looks like a young woman of the Delazen, beautiful and alluring for all her ghostly translucence and pallor. Aruna is the cult's patron of love and romance, but gives short shrift to lust.

=== Emerald Lotus ===

Like her partner's Monkey of the City and Triumphal Eagle of the Flawless Hill, Emerald Lotus has been elevated to leadership by the machinations of the Patron, who decreed a feast day in their honor on the day of their deaths defending Iskandar from an attack by a trio of 'Hounds of the Unbroken Earth'. None of them is experienced enough to really do the jobs that they have had thrust upon them but they all are rising to the challenge. Emerald Lotus resembles a typical woman of the deep south dressed in a white robe and headscarf that cover everything but her face, and overtop that a breastplate of steel. She is neither attractive nor ugly but is very charismatic. She carries an infinite jade chakram as her main weapon and also bears a perfect chopping sword for close fighting. Emerald Lotus is the patron 'deity' of the cult's Martial Artists, as she had some experience with that in life. She still is finding her feet as a ghost and defers to Xufuwne Onuke on most matters.

=== Monkey of the City ===

Dressed in lamellar and wielding a shock pike monkey of the city is not really suited to his role as a leader of an ancestor cult. Having been an outcast and wanderer in life who always tried to keep people happy and was quick with a joke or to share his water he has not changed much in death. However, there is a place for the fun and funny guy in any pantheon and Monkey of the City fills that role for the Ancestor Cultists of Iskandar. Monkey of the City is the cult pantheon's trickster and comic relief, which he does not mind one bit.

=== Triumphal Eagle of the Flawless Hill ===

Wearing a Red Jade reenforced Buff Jacket Triumphal Eagle, or simply 'Der Aller'* as he prefers to be called, was not much of a warrior in life, but was on rotation for guard duty when the hounds attacked and was predictably killed by them. Buried with honors along with the rest of the four and then raised up as a patron spirit of the city he has persisted as a leader due largely to The Patron's favor and the fact that he is a very intelligent man, who is knowledgeable about many subjects. His role in the city's death cult is that of a spirit of wisdom and intellect, as well as oddly the paAeronauticsso to speak, of the Adeptus Aeronauticus.
*(Which means 'the Eagle' in his native tongue.)

== Cult of the Illuminated ==

The Cult of the Illuminated has a relatively small and subtle presence in Iskandar, but never-the-less are present. Their agents and activists walk among the cults dedicated to the various celestial exalted who have come to Iskandar quietly preaching of the unity of creation and the duties of the 'Shining Ones' to be the leaders and stewards of creation. "Someday," they say. "All creation will be united behind the Shining Ones, and on that day those who have served them well will have rewards beyond their wildest dreams."

Among the 17 or so celestial exalted in the city 6 are allied with the Cult of the Illuminated, and some of the others are sympathizers. The CotI worshipers pray to most of them and work to support their interests.

= Geography =

Geographicaly Iskandar lies at the point just before the sands of the deep desert begin to give way to the rocky foothills of the summer mountains. When the spring rains sweep in from the north it is prone to flooding and mud, while the heat of high summer brings the blazing Simoon roaring out of the deep desert and with it short tempers and sharp words that some times flare into brutal murders. Winter is a season of joy and happyness for the citizen's of Iskandar, as the power of the elemental pole of Air waxes and the deasert is cooled, allowing snow to briefly form in the nearby summer mountains which is trucked into Iskandar by old roads and made into flavored sherbets and snow cones for those with the Patron's favor, especially small children of whom the patron is known to genraly be fond. The foothills around Iskandar abound with resources brewed up by the slowly retreating Wyld or pushed from deep within the earth by the strange forces by which creation renews itself over the centuries, including many veins of silver from which Iskandar mints its currency. Meanwhile the deasert around iskandar is rich with fire dust and gem sand,especaily during the nights of the new moon when the Wyld retreats for several miles further south and exposes a wide swath of 'tainted' land, especialy where the city has been slowly pushing the Wyld back by infecting it with billions of grains of what is essentially Elemental Earth. This area is hazardous as well however because the tainted area is not just composed of valuable sands, but also dangerous ones, such as quicksand, shatter sand, and hungry sand. For every person from Iskandar who strikes it rich mining firedust or gemsand in the tainted lands on the nights of the new moon another finds themselves injured, killed, or mutated: in Iskandar 'Firedust Miner' looks fair to rank among the top 5 'most dangerous professions' for the first year of recorded statistics in the city, right behind 'Rogue Spirit Protection Expert' and 'Pharmacist' but just ahead of 'Building Excavation Team Member' and 'Artifact Recovery Personnel'

Nearby to Iskandar are a number of small oasis, hot springs, and geysers which have long provided the Salaru tribes with water. Though 90% of the tribesmen have returned to their ancestral home a few chose to stay out in the wastelands for one reason or another, and now gather into three new small tribes: the western, northern, and eastern Salaru.

To the west, the desert is hot by day and cold by night, with only trackless sand to great your eyes, the Salaru who have stayed out in this wilderness journey mile upon mile between oaisies that are often buried under the shifting sands and must be dug down to gather up their water. They survive by hunting snakes and lizards and trading fire dust and jewil sand with the Guild for added food and water. Though trade is their main source of contact with the outside they no lonoger must rely upon it or perish, with the total number of tribe's men in this region reduced by more than 95% they now can survive on their own without help, but it would be a spartan existance. Trade gives them luxuries and better equipment, which they put to good use. The western salaru do not keep herd beasts or in fact, any animals except hunting dogs, the land here is too harsh for this to be profitable. They worship many nature spirits, but few major deities except the Unconqured Sun, whom is seen as a wrathfull god of war and distruction, and Luna in her aspect as The White Navigator, who is seen as a benevolent and helpful deity. Though they honor the high holy days of the five maidens they are not much revered outside those times.

To the north, the Salaru who have not returned to their city are primarily herders and gatherers, as the foothills of the summer mountains provide old lava tubes and other places to hide from the sun by day and keep flocks dry when the rains come. Their life is perhaps the least harsh of the three new tribes since they have kept the most of their population, with only about 80% going to live in the city and in all cases leaving a few family members to mind the herds and ancestral cave or rock cut house. They also were the most numerous of the Salaru before the return to Iskandar, having six of the 10 Salaru tribes living in their region. and now are by far and away the most populous of the three 'outside' tribes. They also still contribute a good chunk of Iskandar's food supplies, which means that even the Patron must treat with them on their terms. On the other hand they know that the Patron, while a patient man, does have his limits and that their families back in Iskandar would suffer first and worst if they cut off the shipments of food and other goods to the city, so they treat the Iskandarians with a much respect as they expect in return: so far the city and the northern tribe have a strong alliance of mutual beifit and support. The northern Salaru frequently revere Atlhat, southern god of war and cattle, in adition, they also revere the celestial incarnae and Gaia as well as many nature spirits.

The tribes to the east were always the most desirous to return to Iskandar, for they could still see it's central tower sticking up out of the sand. However when the time came an infulental leader named [[The Ghost/Sabris of the Two Spears|Sabris of the Two Spears]] convinced them that they should instead of all going back to the city leave some people behind and send their sons and daughters back into the summer mountains to live with those that stayed for two years as a right of passage. This has proved to their great advantage, for they now own the rights to much of the mineral wealth in the summer mountains near Iskandar and have risen to be among the city's most wealthy families. The mountain Salaru were hunter/gatherers before Iskandar's recovery and it is in this capacity that the children sent to the old mountain fastenses must learn to survive when they are facing their Adavam Ordeal. The eastern Salaru mostly hold up a host of small gods for worship, and revere the celestial incarnae on their high holy days. They are however the nearest things to athists Creation has, feeling that if a person cannot survive without divine intervention then they are weaklings that must be excised from the gene pool. Many of them are swayed to a degree by the Immaculate faith, but reject the idea that the Dragonblooded are creations, rightful rulers, their tribes have long memories and have heard the tales told by the Lunrs of the perfididty of the Dragonblooded and the glory once created by the Solars, and twice in their exile have seen this glory first hand before the Dragonblooded showed up and ruined things.

To the south of the city, a wyld zone bleeds into reality for almost eight hundred miles from the maximum edge of the world. Though the city lies near the edge of this wyld zone it is not part of it, not even when the wyld storms blow in the autumn. This is perhaps partly because the city's strong geomancy prevents it being absorbed or perhaps some form of potent first age artifact still protects the city as it did during the invasion so long ago. If the Patron knows he is not telling. Either way there is and never has been a tribe of the Salaru to the south of the city. If the work they are doing to push back the wyld succeeds as well as it has been thus far there may be soon.

= Ethnicity =

Iskandar is an ethnically mixed city, with people from all over creation having gathered in under its banner thanks to [[The Ghost/The Patron|The Patron's]] zero-tolerance policy towards slavery. In the main however the population is drawn from the peoples of the south, as escaping slaves are most able to reach Iskandar from it's nearest neighbors, [[Virangia]] and [[The Delazen Empire]].

== The Salaru ==

Decedents of the people who fled Salaruku in the face of the Balorian Crusade the Salaru have waited a long time to return to their city. Composed of 10 culturally distinct tribes the Salaru make up an ever decreasing percentage of the city's population as more and more foreigners come to the city and settle in. That said the Salaru, though small in number, have a disproportionate impact on the city's culture and politics, due to knowing the lands surrounding Iskandar like no one else and therefore having a vastly outsized amount of wealth and clout.

The Salaru are subdivided into the following tribes:

=== The White Scars ===

This tribe numbers about 50 and have long been ancestor worshipers, they have been swayed to the cause of the Ancestor Cultists. They take their name from the practice of ritual scarification of face and hands to tell ones ancestry and chest to recount great deeds. The White Scars hail from the west of the city. The White Scars are a strangely secretive bunch, they keep their own council and follow their own guidance. Alone of the Salaru tribes the White Scars have wholey emigrated to the city, abandoning their ancestral lands to the Western Salaru's care and finding employment within Iskandar. Most of them agree that this has been a drastic improvement in their living conditions. Their ancestors however worry about grave robbers and frequently ask the members of the tribe with the skills to do so to go back and check on the old burial grounds.

=== The Golden Bulls ===

Originally hailing from the north of the city this tribe has been sun worshipers since time out of mind, and have naturally gravitated toward the Solarion's cause. They take their name from the bloodline of golden-haired cattle that they breed, tend, and guard, which according to legend were a gift from the champions of the sun during an age long past in recompense for their service defeating an army of the Raksha. The Golden Bulls are among the largest tribes of the Salaru, numbering some 300 strong counting both those that came into Iskandar and those that stayed behind to be part of the Northern Salaru. They revere Atlhat and The Unconquered Sun as their patrons and are known for their skill as warriors though they are overmatched by some of the other tribes thanks to awakened essence and charms. The Golden Bulls are largely employed as butchers, health inspectors, and members of Iskandar's army, while the large contingent that remained in their ancestral lands tend their herds of golden-haired cattle as they always have done, though they now drive the excess males to market in Iskandar for slaughter rather than keeping them home. The Golden Bulls primary combat style is spears and Bullhide Shields, with firedust grenades to break tight formations. They would not look out of place in Harborhead, and marriages between Harborhead immigrants and they young men and women of the tribe are not uncommon, though frowned upon by some of the tribe elders due to the harborheadite's attitudes towards slavery, which the tribe has always held as blasphemy.

=== The Get of Vexan ===

Often called simply 'the get' by outsiders this tribe calls themselves the 'Vexanites'. The get are descended from a powerfull lunar who lived among the Salaru for a century or so starting a few decades after the fair folk invasion was driven back by the Empress. The Vexanite's hold a secret: their tribe is led by a family of Serpent Beast Men founded by Vexan and preserved through complex webs of intermarriage with other serpent-folk from as far away as the silent crescent. The get are curently led by a charming and curvaceous young woman from the southeast jungles named Nyoka. What they do not yet know is that she is actually the modern incarnation of their founder's exaltation and has been having sex with one of the tribe's greatest wariors in her spirit form of a twenty-foot dragon snake in the hopes of bearing beast folk children. She walks among the tribe in her Warform, that of a great dragon-like serpent woman with the fangs and venom of a cobra and the wings and claws of a dragon. The Get hailed from the mountians east of Iskandar.

=== The Iron Raptors ===

Though founded by a group of outlaws and murderers the Iron Raptors are ironically a major component of Iskandar's police force. Having originated as an inner-city gang during the last days of the shogunate the Iron Raptors turned their coats when the fair folk came calling at the end of the contagion. They took hundreds of people out of the city through hidden tunnels and other smuggling routes: people who became the founders of the other Salaru tribes. Since then they have slowly moved from running protection rackets over the other tribes, to actually protecting them, to being their main form of law enforcement and wandering justiciars. Now that Iskandar is resettled they have taken up the role of their distant ancestors' worst enemies, an irony that is not lost on Garion Cromarch. The Iron Raptors central holdings were to the north of Iskandar but they wandered freely among the other tribes and in fact still do, being welcome among any of the other Salaru. They worship Garion Cromarch as their patron deity, but also reviver a number of small gods of crime and larceny, propitiating them in recompense for reducing their portfolios and defeating their natural worshipers.

=== The Kelderkin ===

Another tribe from the city's north the kelderkin are the descendants of Marion Kelder, and are an agricultural matriarchy. They revere Gaia to the near exclusion of all other deities and hold that all other gods are really aspects of Gaia, subsidiary souls of the Maiden of Plenty. They are more right in this belief than most people realize. All Kelderkin women can trace their ancestry to Marion Kelder via one of her seventeen daughters, and which daughter you are a descendant of determines what your role in the tribe is. The only roles that are not decided by your ancestry are 3: Shaman, Champion, and Speaker. The Speakers are the leaders of the tribe and set it's policy, while the shamans and champions advise them and defend the tribe. Marion Kelder was a wood aspected dragon blooded and even to this day a kelderkin man or woman will sometimes exalt as another wood aspect. Currently, there is one such person among the Kelderkin, Mwaloni Kelder who is a gifted archer and huntress that leads an all-female unit of other archers in the Iskandar armed forces. She is also a sex addict and currently dating four separate men, two of which are identical twin Djala who regularly have manage-a-trois with her.

=== The Chosen of Flame ===

Hailing from the city's west the chosen of flame has been firedust gatherers for as long as anyone can remember. They gathered firedust far south of the city during the shogunate and came to Iskandar to trade it. When the host's of Fairie came sweeping in from the edge of the world after the great contagion they ran before them and were caught up in the exodus from Iskandar, helping many of the civilized folk adapt to the desserts. The Chosen of Flames make up the lions share of the new western tribe, but even so most of them have moved into the city and settled down as experts and factors in the firedust trade. They are a prosperous tribe that is in a state of transition as they adapt to being a settled people for the first time. Numbering approximately 75 persons in the city and an equal number now part of the Western Salaru the Chosen of Flame boast several god blooded among their number, and actively court new fire elemental unions. Their Godblooded include Gitchsune Folarabi, Malawa Besmar, and Kubrisa Suknis, among others.

=== The Iconigraphers ===

Among the tribes of the Salaru few can argue that the Iconographers are not among the most learned and civilized. Hailing from the cities northeast they have preserved an astonishing amount of lore from the low first age, especially on the subject of geomancy. Now almost universally employed by the Patron excavating and repairing manses they are well off and respected. The Iconigraphers place great store by erudition and knowledge, and gain position and prestige among their own via a set of grueling examinations conducted by their tribe's patron spirits once every ten years, and always in old realm. Because of these tests of knowledge the tribe is led by it's elders, who have had the most time to study and learn, and they are prone to contemplation and thoughtfulness. Among other advantages this has gifted them with is the possession of five small manses outside the city, raised after the city's abandonment by their own hands. These manses have made their ancestral lands fertile and bountiful, making them one of the largest salaru tribes with 200 members in five small villages around the manses before they emigrated to Iskandar. Of all the tribes their desire to return to the city was among the greatest, but they did leave one family behind in each village to see to it's welfare and upkeep in perpetration for their descendents and those selected to join them by the Patron returning. The Iconographers in the city number 175 or so and are very much in the Patron's camp. They are led by Sukiwara Madoka, a god blooded thaumaturge of advanced years and not inconsiderable skill.

=== The Eisil ===

As a tribe of pastoral hunters and gatherers in the city's eastern area, the Eisil would not be remarkable except for the fact that they are master storytellers and thespians. The role of Storyteller is the most honored position within their culture and many people aspire to it but few succeed. Their greatest tale is that of Sakarazat, a woman who was taken captive by a rapacious dragon blooded lord and over the course of two and a bit years told him a thousand stories which prevented him from killing her, and in the end, led the dragon blooded to let her go. Now that the Eisil have returned to Amarana they are mostly working at simple jobs like sand clearer or coachman (They have long preserved the arts of chariot racing as part of their festivals.) but a significant number of them now take the long-coveted role of storyteller or actor, and are among the best in the city, being sought out by talent scouts and stage managers for private and public engagements. The Eisil hail from the high mountains east of Amarana where the snow falls in winter, they are paler complected than most Salaru and have massive barrel chests from dealing with the thin air.

=== The Mantis Tribe ===

From the northwest of the city, the Mantis tribe straddle the border between the desert and the foothills of the Iskandarian lands. They have survived by placing great store by martial arts and awakened essence, and among their number only the young typically do not have awakened essence, nearly everyone over the age of 25 has mastered this basic precept. By the age of 30, most people have achieved the form type charm of one of the 5 main martial arts of the tribe, and by the time they reach venerable status at 65, nearly everyone is a master of their chosen style. This has allowed the Mantis Tribe to become large and prosperous but puts them in an uncomfortable position of being alternately feared and nearly worshiped by the other tribes, who look to them for protection from spirits and demons. It also puts them in another uncomfortable position: their various schools of martial arts do not always get along, and more than once the tribe has been wracked by internal strife, especially between the members that adhere to the Immaculate Philosophy and the people that worship the local gods outside that framework. At the moment it seems like the tribe is heading for another such civil war, and this time it may drag the whole city into it.

=== The Broad ===

Alone of the Salaru the Broad actually hate the Patron. The Broad were from the uttermost western areas of the Salaru and also alone among their number made a common practice of keeping slaves, but not so much for the purpose of having them work for the tribe but rather to sell to the guild. They ranged far among the sandy wastes waring with members of other tribes and capturing them to sell for the supplies they needed to survive and prosper. Many among their number were heroic mortals and with the exception of the Mantis Tribe and the Chosen of Fire they boasted the most members with awakened essence or god blood. They also served as a dumping ground for the criminal and malcontents of the other tribes leading them to be less cordial with the rest of the Salaru than any other tribe. However, even the Broad wished to return to Iskandar enough to give up their slave taking practices, at least, some of them did. When the Patron decreed all people of Iskandar Free men and women shortly before the Guild arrived the Broad fractured over whether to return to their ancestral homeland or remain in the wastes and live as they had done for centuries. In the end, the tribe split 60/40 in favor of returning to Iskandar and becoming part of the new society, but the 40% that remained in the wastes no longer consider themselves beholden to the Patron, Iskandar, or even the Salaru. These people, called by their former associates The Red Broad are now considered outlaws a brigands by the Isknadarian government and hunted whenever they stray close to the fifty-foot Glass Pillars that mark the borders of the Iskandarian lands. They are firmly in the camp of the Guild's Men and infiltrate the city regualrly to capture and smuggle out valuable slaves that have escaped to Iskandar from other lands.
The 60% of the tribe that has returned to the city are in the camp of the Death Cultists since the Broad were by and large ancestor worshipers before they returned to Iskandar and see no reason to change that now. Calling themselves 'The Green Broad' they have no love for the patron but do love their city and will fight to the death to defend it. Most of them are now members of the city's military and are locked in a bitter feud with their former tribesmen. The members of this tribe that are not military mostly work as overseers for the small but growing cadres of 'indentured servants' kept by the city government in punishment for some of the most heinous crimes such as rape and enslaving another person.

=== The Western Salaru ===

=== The Northern Salaru ===

=== The Eastern Salaru ===

== The Djala ==

The Djala are a sub faction of the Patriots at the present time. Having been liberated by the Patron from their enslavement by many people who have brought them to the city in bondage they are fanatical partisans of the city's leader and from a major component of his power base. The Djala form five small tribes into which new arrivals are folded by ties of kinship, alliance, or marriage within weeks of arrival. The number of newly married Djala in the city is staggering, easily 40% of all new arrivals are pushed into marriages within a month of becoming residents, and somehow nearly all these mirages are happy ones. What the Djala elders know but have not officially publicized is that one of the Djala's patron gods is an old drinking buddy of [[The Ghost/Meroka Jin|Meroka Jin]] and has called in a favor with the minister of romance and love to arrange this happy state of affairs for his people in the city. This is not going to last, because [[The Ghost/Sakarzi|Sakarzi]] is going to start screwing around with them, but for the moment she is distracted by her work with the death cult.

== Verangians ==

== The Delazen ==

== Deep Southerners ==

Nemo of Utopia/Amarana

2020-03-03T19:05:49Z

Nemo of Utopia: /* Manses and Demesnes of Amarana */

Amarana is a first age city, lost to the contagion and the fair folk invasion over 700 years ago. It is now coming back to life under the aegis of [[User:Nemo of Utopia/The_Patron_of_Amarana|The Patron]] who wields the power of the [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Five_Signs_of_Harmonic_Unity|Five Signs of Harmonic Unity]].

= Iskandar =

Iskandar Is comprised of a large area surrounded by a circular wall. At the edge of that wall are twelve triangular towers that contain the major military resources of the city. Of these towers, eight have been fully excavated, and the ninth is being examined and the sand removed even now.

Within the city is organized into four quarters but only two of them are even partially excavated, the two on the eastern side of the city, and even there many buildings still slowly seep sand into the streets out of cracked windowpanes and the door seems. The buildings of Iskandar tend to a certain Egyptian flare or perhaps it would be better to say pre-Arabic since they are after all, by and large, the product of the low first age. The buildings are built of a quasi imperishable ceramic that resembles adobe, with the most significant having windows of Chiaroscuro Glass and doors made of either that same substance or Stainless Steel. Buildings are generally between six and ten stories high with essence powered air conditioning and elevators both of which the Patron must personally repair before the building becomes usable again.

Unlike many old realm cities, Amarana is laid out on a grid, instead of in a radial pattern. This gives a geomantic bonus to the people who live there: namely that mortals gain +1 xp per time XP is awarded. This bonus actually accrues every half year if using long term awards. The players can uncover this information with a dif10 [wits + occult] roll once every month they spend in the city beginning on the second day they are here. The bonus only applies to true mortals, not god blooded, ghost blooded, awkaened Martial artists or any exalt, but does apply to dragon kings and jadeborn who are not Artisans.

So far roughly half of the city has been uncovered, but even here there are a lot of buildings that are colapsed, or still filled with sand and roped off with red cables and even more locations where there are red cables indicating small shadowlands or dimenses that are not to be approached until the city can close/cap them.

The excavation is proceeding irregualrly, moving from the east wall out toward the west except around the central manse and the road from the north gate to the south gate. There are markets in most squares and a number of shops on the ground floors of buildings. Few merchants here are oficialy affiliated with the guild since many people in the city are escaped guild slaves and loath the guild vehemently.

Nearly everything except slaves is available for sale, including many products from The Wyld. Firewands and Flame Pieces are the core of the weapons markets along with accessories such as bayonets, powder horns, and pieces of flint or obsidian for strikers. Interestingly Cannons are not for sale, being reserved for the government, but anyone with contacts 2 or higher could find someone who knows someone who could get a permit for purchasing a few for export. Armoring is more advanced, and even some artifact armors are for sale, though they would be a resource 4 purchase at minimum, and that is for the simple stuff like Jade breastplates. Things like Yuroy Scout armor are beyond the means of anyone in the party, though, that comes up for sale very rarely except through illegal channels. Jade Full Plate and Super Heavy Plate are more commonly available, in fact, there are people in the city that can be commissioned to make it. Orichalcum and Monsilver are not commissionable but in the still covered parts of the city are facilities to work it. There are no facilities in the city for Soulsteel or Starmetal, but there is a workshop in one manse that has been uncovered to work Adamant, though finding any to use would require Wyld Cauldron Technology and spending XP: such is the life of the Exalted...

There are a number of Inns, Caravanserai, and Hostels near the city gates, while further in nearly every corner of an inhabited area has at least one restaurant or coffee shop. Tea houses, by comparison, are rare, and true bars are unusual enough to be remarked upon when a new one is found. Most living quarters do not have kitchens, which is why many hab towers which have been excavated don't have permanent residents and so many restaurants can stay open. Many restaurants, in fact, rent themselves out to people wishing to cook for their families or are owned by consortiums of citizens who hold them in common for communal cooking with contracts for use and upkeep requirements.

All of the city's roads are at least 20 feet wide, plus a five-foot sidewalk to either side. This is for the smallest streets, most are 40 feet wide with sidewalk and a few main thoroughfares are 60 feet wide. The streets keep themselves magically clean once each section is repaired by the Patron, but only a very few sections are repaired and many people who work as street sweepers clearing sand wish for it to stay that way. (Each 10'x10' section is a different artifact and must be individually repaired. There is one street in the city's west that is a first age relic and still working. However it can only affect things up to 30 feet above itself, so it is a long tunnel of clear street bounded on all sides by packed sand.) The streets are made of fitted 5'x5'x1' blocks of granite, and one can sometimes determine which part of the city one is in by the color of the streets. The northeast the blocks are blue and green, the southeast red and green, the southwest red and black and the northwest blue and black. The citie's four central parkways are each a solid color relating to their element and 40' wide on each side and the grand square around the central manse is white and 60' wide at its narrowest point. However many streets were repaired with gray, white, or red granite tward the end of the shogunate and are not properly color-coded.

The City has at least 5' of clearance between all buildings: meaning that there are many allies in which one can get lost. You can often tell which parts are in use and which unoccupied by weather there is sand filling the allies or they are clear.

== Manses and Demesnes of Amarana ==
Amarana was at one time subject to major geomantic engineering projects that gave it a large number of demesnes and then manses relative to its size. Most of those manses are still here, still active, and even now being located and excavated. A few, however, were partially unstable and have long since exploded. These few are roped off as dangerous and plans are underway to re-cap them, led of course by the Patron. Note that there are more manses and demesnes within the city that have not yet been found, and that at one time there were even MORE demesnes in the city which have collapsed into a dormant state due to the changes in the city's essence flows and could be reactivated with the appropriate rituals once the city is fully excavated and geomantic remapped, these demesnes, however, were all small ones, level 2 at the most, so whether such effort is worth it in the short term, or even a good idea, is debatable. See [[Nemo of Utopia/Manses and Dimenses of Amarana]] for further information.

= History =

== Prehistory ==

Though most do not know it Iskandar's deepest foundations were laid in an era long past by the [[Dragons Kings]]. The City flourished in the age between the advent of humanity and the [[Primordial War]] with many of the first exalted visiting the place at one time or another in the several decades of lead up to the overthrow of the Primordials. Then when the war began the city was wreathed in the destruction by one of the superweapons of the masters of creation, utterly annihilating most of those that dwelt therein and reducing the city to a smoking crater of volcanic glass. Still, beneath the burned and blackened surface, some parts of the old under city survived, and wait there still.

== The First Age ==

During the First Age many of the survivors of the primordial war remembered their time in 'Highana' fondly and after excavating much of the old substrate and leveling off the damaged areas to make way for new constructions raised up a new city on the site of the old. This city was dubbed 'Solzarian' in honor of [[The Unconquered Sun]] and in memorial to the Great Dragon King lady who had ruled the city so well and wisely ere it's annihilation. The City would remain a significant but out-of-the-way part of the Old Realm all the way through the first age.

=== The Ocher Fountain Era ===

During the beginning of the First Age when [[Queen Merela]] ruled over all creation from the eternal capital of [[Rathess]] Solzarian was still being reconstructed, and there was little of note that occurred in the city. One event, in particular, was notable, however: the Conclave of Solzarian in year 99 of the old realm, a symposium on the rights and freedoms of the people of creation which some in later years would argue laid the foundations of the Meru Uprising which led to the formation of the Deliberative.

=== The First Deliberative Era ===

By the time of the founding of the [[Deliberative]] the reconstruction of Solzarian was largely complete, and over the next few decades, the city became a favored retreat for both Solars and Lunars seeking to get the heck out of Meru and the stifling politics of the great city. One of Marela's closest allies [[Nemo of Utopia/Angus the Wirehair|Angus the Wirehair]] was given the rule of the city as part of the division of creation into fiefdoms and made it his personal residence. Under Angus rule, the city prospered, though it, by-and-large, remained a backwater compared to such metropolis as [[Chiaroscuro]] and Rathess. However, thanks to its solar overlord and his close relationship to the Queen of all Creation the city began the long process of incredible geomantic engineering which would in time lead to it being known as 'The City of Manses'.

=== Unfurling Horizon Era ===

While this era of creation went by largely without incident of significant note at this remove of history it is still recorded that many of the great efforts to explore and expand the borders of Creation in the south used Solzarian as a staging ground or stopover point before plunging into the true wilderness at creation's rim. This continued to encourage the exalted to play 'tourist' in the city and helped keep its economy vibrant. It is also noted in some histories that there was a major strike of [[Red Jade]] near the city in 811 which produced a 'Jade Rush' led by two rival Dragon-Blooded brothers and their servants which escalated into a short civil war in the city 2 years later in which significant damage was done to the city's infrastructure by all three* factions. The Civil War was only halted when [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Angus the Wirehair|Angus the Wirehair]] returned from Meru at the head of a wing of elite Dragon Blooded shock troops and brutally suppressed both rival groups with mass arrests and a number of executions. (What happened to the brothers is unknown, but their names do not reappear in the historic record for 700 years, and at that time associated with different elemental aspects leading most scholars to conclude that they were 'dealt with' privately by their family.)
*(The Two consortia backing the rival brothers and the cities law enforcement detachments.)

==== The Aftershock War ====

In spite of the growing significance of the city and it's powerful assets in terms of equipment and hearthstones, Solzarian was not at first much involved in the Aftershock War. Passed over in favor of more militarily significant targets by the Primordial Forces the city did not come under fire until 1131 when a force of some 3000 first circle demons led by a trio of 2nd circle demons assaulted the city in the dead of night via a fleet of living airships. The 'Battle of Solzarian' was considered a significant victory for the forces of creation due to the large number of [[Golden Janissary Style]] practitioners in the city who were able to make fairly short work of the first circle demons allowing the detachment of Dragon-Blooded stationed in the city to confront the second circle demon commanders and dispatch them.

However the war was not all glorious victory for the people of Solzarain, [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Angus the Wirehair|Angus the Wirehair]] went missing during the final battle with the primordial forces and would not be seen again for over 500 years. For most of that time, he is presumed dead by the people of the city, though the Solar Exalted know better as his shard has not found a new host.

=== Shining Reflection Era ===

During this period Solzarian loses much of its former significance as the seat of one of Marela's close allies. Few of the Exalted visit the city and the grand engineering projects grind to a near halt. The only events of great significance that occur here are two:
1: The Duel of the Magisters in 1313 where the reincarnations of Theis, Leelah, and Sonah engage in a duel of sorceress power which damages large sections of the city and forces all three of them to be censured by Marela herself: And;
2: In 1492 a major strike of Orichalcum is made a few hundred miles south of the city, and Solzarian becomes a stepping off point for prospectors of every stripe looking to get rich quick mining Orichalcum. The City's economy runs strong off this sudden influx of cash, people, and goods for the next 30 years.

=== Thousand Struggles Era ===

The first part of this period proceeds much from the previous one: everyone is aware that one of the legendary solar exalted has died of old age, but this makes little difference to the struggling backwater that Solzarian has become: then in 1776 everything changes.

In the Records of Solzarian 1776 is called: 'The Year of the Thousand' for the massive wave of change that sweeps over the city in this year. The First thing that happens is [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Angus the Wirehair|Angus the Wirehair]] 'returns from the dead' on the 11th of Ascending Water storming into the city with a small group of Solars, Lunars, and Siderials and calling everyone he can reach into the city with him to face what he calls 'The Storm of the Millennium'. Ten days later the storm arrives and following in behind it a host of the fair folk the likes of which has not been seen in centuries. The city is invested and besieged for two months by the Fairie Host and the siege is only broken by the arrival of four full realm legions armed with Cold Iron. Once the Fair Folk are driven back and the city is again secure Angus orders most of the city leveled and an engineering project the like of which the city has not seen in over half a millennium undertaken to extensively alter its geomancy. To finance this undertaking he produces several tons of jade, from what source none can say, and uses his Wyld Shaping charms, which until his return no one knew he possessed, to manufacture the raw materials needed from the chaotic energy left behind by the Fair Folk.

However, no sooner was the project underway than orders came down from the Queen that he was to return to [[Meru]] at once and answer for his absence: and bound by the oaths he took as one of the [[Golden Hero Vassals]] so very long ago he departs. Following up on the plans he has left behind his circle mate [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Levian of the Gilded Staff|Levian of the Gilded Staff]] begins directing the super-massive construction and engineering projects which will if successful create one of the greatest concentrations of manses and geomantic relays outside of the Blessed Isle. By late in Descending fire half the city is gone and an entirely new street plan and so on is rising in it's place, along with a massive upgrade to the walls and towers of the city perimeter as well.

What exactly passed for Angus in Meru is unrecorded by any presently known records except perhaps those of the Bureau of Destiny but what is recorded is the results of that visit: Angus was stripped of the rulership of his fief in the south including Solzarian and sent on a quest of penance into the frozen north: while Solzarian and the surrounding area was given into the hands of a relatively young solar of the Twilight Caste from another circle named [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Keisha Adriana Mullion|Keisha Adriana Mullion]] and her lunar mate [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Maxim of Personal Liberty|Maxim of Personal Liberty]].

While Keisha was young she was not stupid and consulted with Levian of the Gilded Staff on what she was doing with the engineering of the city. With the elder Twilight's help, she finished the geomantic reorganization as designed by Angus and by the end of Resplendent Air the basic project is finished. The city is now rife with uncapped demesnes and sites that will become demesnes once they can be activated after some of the others are capped. The city also now confers a geomantic bonus on all mortals living there, allowing them to develop their skills and abilities more quickly than those living in other cities. The full culmination of the project with the activation and capping of all demesnes will not be complete for another 36 years.

==== Time of Cascading Years ====

The Time of Cascading Years took rather longer in Solzarian and the surrounding area than it did in most of creation: 3333 years to be precise. The relatively young solar ruler who went into the Time of Cascading Years and her only slightly more experienced Lunar Spouse emerge from it with a weight of skill and refinement which makes them elders among the solars and lunars. They also are now both arrayed with a panoply of artifacts and charms that make them forces to be reckoned with in the new Deliberative. The passage of the 'Age of Isolation' in Solzarian is marked by a number of rebellions and uprisings, and the invasion of their lands by the fair folk towards the end of it, from whence none, can say. Supposedly it was the destruction of an artifact which the Raksha Commander carried which restore time to its normal flow according to the people of Solzarian.

=== Second Deliberative Era ===

During the [[User:Nemo of Utopia:History/HighFirstAge/SecondDeliberativeEra/PeriodofLongSilence|Period of Long Silence]] Solzarain is one of the few areas still doing significant research, though they are hampered by the continuing disunity of creation and the fearfulness of creation's mortals who are all accustomed to traveling too far from home casting you into a different timeline.

With the Establishment of the new deliberative however Solzarian is thrust into the spotlight for around a hundred years as the home and workshop of one of the most important [[User:Nemo of Utopia:NPCCreationGuidelines/Exalted/FirstAge/Solar/TwilightCaste|Copper Spiders]] of the deliberative. During this period the city is a known destination for the many young Twilight-caste members who were reborn following the restoration of time's proper flow.

As this era goes on however Solzarian becomes less and less important with the rebuilding of the rest of creation, the other Twilights drift away to rule their own fiefs and work on their own projects and as has happened before Solzarian's position far from most significant events of history both at the center of creation and at it's rim mean it becomes a backwater. Even it's solar and lunar rulers spend more time in Meru than at home, leaving the city in the hands of [[User:Nemo of Utopia:NPCCreationGuidelines/Exalted/FirstAge/Dragonblooded/Top|Dragon Blooded]] legates.

=== Era of Dreams ===

During the first part of the Era of Dreams, though Solzarian flourishes on the mundane level it remains a backwater on the scales by which The Realm measures such things: a functional and unimportant city in a functional but unimportant section of the world. It does, however, receive an [[IAM|I AM]] Transmission Node linking it to the broader network of information which now spans creation.

Then in the year 3381 it's twilight caste ruler is goaded into violating her eclipse oath to not attack other celestial exalted in Meru, setting in motion a chain of events that will alter the shape of Solzarian's fate for centuries to come, and that of the rest of creation. At first, the botches come hard and heavy, but then they stop and [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Keisha Adriana Mullion|Keisha]] thinks the oath's punishment has run its course.

It has not.

Returning to her holding in the south she begins to work on constructing a [[Proto Shinmatic Vortex]] and at a key stage of the process, the final botch of set activates and the PSV explodes, killing Keisha and creating an intense Wyld Zone south of the city over a hundred miles wide.

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/MaximofPersonalLiberty|Maxim of Personal Liberty]] calls upon every favor he has and even takes on new obligations to arrange the deliberative sending experts at Wyld Shaping to close the rift in the fabric of reality, but the people sent are not the high essence Solars and Lunars he hoped for but rather a cadre of neophytes who have scarce mastered Wyld Cauldron Technology and are woefully unprepared for the madness of the deep Wyld which exists within the rift. Three of them die before the other two call it quits leaving the Wyld Zone barely stabilized around its edges. It is unrecorded at this remove what keeps the deliberative busy and the more powerful Wyld shapers tied up, but it will not be for another 3 decades that the Wyld zone is fully dealt with, and that not by an individual any more experienced than the ones first dispatched, though with far greater caution than the first circle that was sent showed.

== The Usurpation ==

== The Shogunate ==

== The Fall & The Second Age ==

== The Rebirth ==

In RY 760, that same year where so very much else changed for creation (763 in normal Chronicles): the man who

= Government =

In basic the Government of Iskandar really consists of a single man: [[User:Nemo of Utopia/The Patron of Iskandar|The Patron]]. He is an autocrat, ruling by divine mandate and shier power, as he is capable of defeating significant deities in single combat. However the Patron is one man, and as such has organized his subjects with several branches of what we would consider a more normal government. This normal government is organized into twelve 'Adeptus' which each is led by one of the twelve 'High Lords of Iskandar'. These twelve powerful individuals form a council that advises and assists The Patron in his leadership of the city, feeding him data on several topics such as the state of his subject's religious convictions or the preparedness of his military. Though each High Lord is immensely powerful they all are The Patron's fanatical partisans and would not dream of challenging his authority, even if they could.

== The Adeptus Millitate ==

The Adeptus Millitate is one of the largest branches of Iskandar's government, with no fewer than 1250 members in all it's branches and subgroups. Though officially in charge of Iskandar's Armed services it has a rival in The Adeptus Aeronauticus who oversee Iskandar's air-forces. The Adeptus Millitate is run by [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Fist of the Land|Fist of the Land]] a God-Blooded martial artist who is somewhat uncomfortable leading an army of over a thousand people.

The Adeptus Millitate has the following departments and offices:

=== The Departmento Munitorum ===

Oversees the acquisition and care of the equipment and supplies for the army.

==== The Officio Technis ====

Deals with the army's Magitech assets.

==== The Officio Cibum ====

Oversees the all-important function of providing provisions for the troops.

==== The Officio Armorium ====

Handles the more mundane arms and armor of Iskandar's troops.

==== The Officio Quartium ====

Is responsible for most everything else, from tents to uniforms to bedrolls.

=== The Departmento Servicum ===

Oversees the actual troops and officers and their training regimens.

==== The Officio Acadamicain Legionarius ====

This office oversees the training of new recruits and officers running two training schools for them.

==== The Officio Cooptatione Legionarius ====

This is the group that sees-to the recruitment and if necessary conscription of new troops for the army.

=== The Departmento Latrocinium ===

Oversees the hiring and 'control' of any mercenary units the government employs, but is better known for a more sinister function.

==== The Officio Mercenarius ====

Does the Hiring and Firing of actual mercenaries.

==== The Officio Assasinoritum ====

'The Office of Assassins', to use the Vulgate, runs at least four secret dojos training mortal agents in martial arts that facilitate them serving as The Patron's spies and assassins. [[Nemo of Utopia/Assassin of the Grey Spire|Assassin of the Grey Spire]] 'leads' this office: He is ''not'' a master of the White Veil Style of martial arts and has most ''definitely not'' taught many of its members this secret art form. (Nudge nudge, wink wink, know what I mean, know what I mean? Say no more, say no more!)

=== The Officio Adminstrad Militate ===

This 'Floating Office' makes sure that all of the other Departmento and Oficio within this Adeptus do their jobs properly.

== The Adeptus Arbitiese ==

The Adeptus Arbitese oversee Iskandar's police forces, and are one of the larger branches of the government with only 150 individuals on staff, counting every beat cop all the way on up to the High Lord Herself as well as all the file clerks and so on that work for the Adeptus but are not actually part of it's 'fighting strength'. They have only one Departmento and less than a dozen Officio, but so far are keeping a lid on the political turmoil of the city. The High Lord of the Arbitese is [[The Ghost:Characters/Steel Garden|Steel Garden]] who is not a very good investigator but a decent politician and capable administrator.

=== The Departmento Queastorum ===

This department is responsible for making inquiries and investgating crime, thus far it is the only Department of the Adeptus Arbitese but the Officio Correctionibus is expected to become a departmento in its own right someday.

==== The Officio Homicide ====

The Office of Homicide consists of only eight people, four detectives, three CSI techs, and one overworked file clerk. Their closure rate hovers at around 50%, though that is only due to them being able to count any suspect killed by the ghost of the victim as a closed case. [[Nemo of Utopia/Laural the Axe|Laural the Axe]] is the unoficial leader of this group but officially they answer directly to the High Lord of the Arbitese.

==== The Officio Servus Aucupes ====

The term 'office of slave catchers' is somethig of a misnomer. These detectives do not catch slaves, rather they catch people keeping, taking, or recapturing slaves and send them to their just punishments. This office consists of five overworked personnel, two detectives, two forensic accountants, and one file clerk. Their closure rate is around 30% since it is hard to prove that someone was a slaver without catching them in the act.

==== The Officio Vitium ====

Unlike the officio above this office is not quite so overworked, and the two often help each other out because their work frequently overlaps. The 'Vice Squad' mostly conserns itself with drugs and prostitution, since licensed gambling establishements and most pornography are both legal in Iskandar. The officio consists of Four Detectives, five undercover officers, three CSI techs, and a harried file clerk. Their Closure rate is about 45%.

==== The Officio Interioribus ====

This Officio is more for show than anything since all of Iskandar's police are held by the Stone of Invincible Loyalty. It consists of two Detectives and one Forensic Accountant. They often spend their time quietly helping out other offices.

==== The Officio Fraude Aucupes ====

This is actually one of the larger ofices within the Arbities, having eleven total personnel, six detectives, three forensic accountants, a CSI tech, and a file clerk. The office tries to keep a lid on the Guild and others defrauding Iskandar's citizens through various means and does a fairly good job. Their closure rate is about 70%, though this is largely due to a lot of sucsess catching many small-fry while the remaining 30% is allmost all of the big players.

==== The Ofiicio Fures ====

The 'office of thieves' is responsible for all break-ins, burgalries, purse snatchings, muggings, cutpurses, and so forth in the city. In spite of having eight detectives, five undercover agents, six CSI, four Forensic Accountants, and five file clerks their closure rate is about 12%. Garion Cromarch is frankly disgusted with them and has told The Patron so. The Patron knows they are doing their best but has ordered mandatory aditional training for all members of this office.

==== The Officio Pax Patronum ====

The remainder of the police force is in this office. These are the beat cops that enforce the law by their presence and vigilance. Iskandar is a large city and they constantly must be on the lookout for any kind of crime but especially things like drunk and disorderly, disturbing the peace, making an afray, and so on. This office consists of 57 patrol officers and over a dozen file clerks. Twelve of these officers are part of a sub-office of 'Mounties' who do their patrols in teams of three on horseback, they are often called in to suppress larger riots. The officers always patroll in teams of three, one to watch the front of a building and two to look around the sides and catch criminals in a pincer movement. They all carry magitech com units that let them use Wind Carried Words Technique and have Linguistics 3. (Their closure rate is not aplicable, since they work out of elven precincts and each one has a different closure rate.) One of these officers does not need a coms unit: being a dragon blooded air aspect outcaste named Secret Eagle. They have offered to promote him many times, but he prefers to be a patrol officer, though he has deigned to accept the rank of patrol sergeant for the fourth precinct.

=== The Officio Correctionibus ===

The office of corrections deals with the punishment rather than the apprehension side of crime. They are chronically overworked and typically have more criminals than they know what to do with but manage to do their jobs adequately. This floating office is overseen by Iron Sands, a member of The Broad who has lots of experience getting slaves to do as they are bid.

== The Adeptus Judicate ==

Working closely with the Adeptus Arbities the Adeptus Judicate is the other half of the justice system. These are the many Judges, Lawyers, and Clerks of the Court who make sure that the innocent are not punished with the guilty. At the present time the Adeptus Judicate consists of 11 judges, 15 prosecuting attorneys, 23 Attorneys of Due Justice (Public Defenders.), 42 'Clerks of the Court' who record and file all rulings and court-ordered contracts, and 17 "Agent's Protection" who follow up on inconsistencies in court records and the welfare of Iskandar's citizens in cases such as child abuse allegations and locating jurors that fail to show up for a trial. There are also about 200 private attorneys who are technically part of this Adeptus but not part of the government. The High Lord of the Courts is [[The Ghost:Characters/Molly McBride|Molly McBride]] a Demon Blooded northerner who has spent her whole life fighting against injustice and corruption in every form.

Additionally [[Nemo of Utopia/The Patron of Iskandar|The Patron]] himself is technically also a member of this branch as he has the right to sit in judgment if he chooses on all High Crimes and acts of Treason. He has invoked this right exactly once, mostly to prove that he could. (The person in question was found "Not Guilty by reason of Insanity" and sentenced to lifetime confinement to a mental institution pending treatment or cure of his condition. He stood accused of twelve counts of grand theft, but psychoanalysis found him to be a kleptomaniac. The police often consult him on serial theft cases, and he is actually fairly good at solving them. However he does have a problem with stealing other patients belongings and the doctor's pens and notebooks.)

Trials are in the American/British style, with a 'jury of one's peers' and the judge presiding from the high seat. The witness's sit to the judge's left and the clerk to the right. The prosecutors are on the left side of the courtroom and the Jury the Right while the accused is in the middle. Unless the accused is elderly or crippled and unable to stand they may not sit. For this reason, individual segments of trial must last no more than 3 hours. Only citizens may serve as witnesses, but since one can at the present time become a citizen after 24 hours residency this is not a problem. Citizens MAY testify with respect to events from before their citizenship. The accused is entitled to an 'Attorney of Due Justice' in the event that they cannot retain their own private council. The judge may dismiss any case at any time with or without prejudice, which is done routinely with respect to picayune or spurious civil cases so as to free up Attorneys of Due Justice for criminal trials. The patron is looking into finding more Judges and Attorneys of Due Justice so that civil cases do not need to be dismissed so frequently, which has a distressing tendency to lead to murder.

Abnormally The Adeptus Judicate does not have any departmento or officio, but there are those within it and without that are bucking to change that.

== The Adeptus Sororitatus ==

The 'Sisterhood' as they are called by the common folk is the government Adepta that oversees all _female_ clerics and thaumaturges in Iskandar Like their Counterparts in the Adeptus Fratris they are few in number but powerful in influence. Technically also responsible for the worship of all female gods in the city it is common that women will be priests of male deities and men prelates of a goddess's church. The division of male and female clergy between the AS and AF, however, is strict while the division of deities wavers like the landscape in the summer heat. In spite of these difficulties, the two branches of government get along quite well and cooperation between them is without rancor or strife in most cases. The High Lady of the Adepta is [[Nemo of Utopia/Unrepentant Emerald|Unrepentant Emerald]]. She is a mortal with Enlightened Essence and is exceedingly circumspect in her actions, a paragon of temperance. She is also the head priestess of [[Nemo of Utopia/Iskandar Seline|Iskandar Seline]].

=== The Officio Festivalius ===

This floating office submits to The Patron which days and locations should have festivals to honor the goddess' of the city. A circle of female clergy decide these events and pass them on to the patron, who generally approves them without comment. This circle is chaired by Unrepentant Emerald.

=== The Departmento Eclesiast ===

This is the main branch of the Adepta, overseeing and licensing all _female_ clergy in Amarana. The department technically consists of all licensed female clergy in the city but in practice, most of the female clergy get their licenses and are about their buisness having no further interaction with the government except to re-up their licenses once a year.

==== The Officio Licentiae ====

This officio handles the licensing process for all official priestesses, which requires proving you have the following capabilities: Ability to speak and read Old Realm, Basic knowledge of Spiritual Etiquette, (At least 3 dots in occult or 1 + an appropriate specialty.) and training in proper prayer procedures. (Prayer roll performance pool of at least 5 dice.) These requirements may be waived if the cleric has a 'sponsor' with a proper license who is taking on the new cleric as a student to train in service to their god/goddess in which case a 'Postulant Permit' is issued instead. Licenses are issued per deity, so if you wish to be the clergy of multiple gods multiple licenses are required. This is waived in the case of Zenith-caste Solars, Theurge-caste "New-Method"-Lunars, "Redemer"-caste Infernals, and Midnight-caste Abyssals, since it would be more trouble than it is worth to issue a license for every god in creation (for the first two), every each of the recovering yozis and all the greater demons (Redeemers), or ghost above essence 3 in the underworld (Midnight-castes).

==== The Officio Sanctionite ====

This is a smaller office within the departmento, making recommendations to The Patron on which female ditieis should be given offfical sanction within Iskandar. All the female dieities mentioned under the Religion section are sanctioned unless noted otherwise. Being unsanctioned does not mean you cannot be worshiped, but it does mean that you cannot have space allocated for a temple or licensed clergy. Sanctioning however is fiarly easy to get, since The Patron often simply signs the forms without reading them. (Additionaly all the incarnae are sanctioned, + Gaia and the Dragons.)

==== The Officio Hetterodox ====

This office deals with instances of rogue gods and clergy, such as the notorious Tuggie of the Scavenger Lands and other instances where the celestial bureaucracy has broken down to an unacceptable level. Employing many outside contractors they put spirits who demand illicit worship or sapient sacrifice in their places and also hunt rogue demons and the fair folk's ravagers. Though the actual functionaries of this Officio are few their agents are many and they are always busy.

== The Adeptus Frateris ==

Sometimes referred to as 'The Fraternity' by outsiders this Adeptus is responsible for all male deities and male clergy in Amarana. They take their job seriously and are sometimes noted for being taciturn and uncompromising. They are led by [[Nemo of Utopia/Wauli the Wolf|Wauli the Wolf]], who like his female counterpart is a mortal with awakened essence.

Structurally the Adeptus Frateris is identical to the Adeptus Sorroitatus.

== The Adeptus Mechanicus ==

The Adeptus Mechanicus are an odd bunch. Dressing in Rust Red robes and communicating in their own strange (and highly technical) dialect of Old-Realm they keep outsiders at arm's length. This Adepta is responsible for helping The Patron find and repair the magitech of the city a task that they perform supremely well but which many wonders if this group of strangely obsessed men and women are actually best suited for. Led by [[Nemo of Utopia/Adamant Sprocket|Adamant Sprocket]], an elderly Djala man and his young adult daughter [[Nemo of Utopia/Gears of Fate|Gears of Fate]], this group employs many Djala escapees in the task of repairing and rebuilding the city.

== The Adeptus Diolougus ==

What some would call the state department or the diplomatic corps the Adeptus Diolougus is one of the smallest Adeptus of the Iskandarian government. Led by [[Nemo of Utopia/Exultant Ivory Mother|Exultant Ivory Mother]] (a god-blooded woman from An-Teng, who harbors no feelings of goodwill for either Realm or Guild,) this group of spies and agent's provocateur work to keep Iskandar a free city and outside the clutches of both [[The Guild]] and foreign powers such as the [[Realm]].

== The Adeptus Medicae ==

Easily among the smallest Adeptus of the Iskandarian government if one only counts the actual government personnel instead of approximately a-dozen-dozen licensed doctors, psychiatrists, and physicians whom they are tasked with overseeing and who like private attorneys in the city are technically part of the Adeptus: the Adeptus Medicae is as one might have guessed responsible for the physical and mental health of the city. They Tend to this task primarily by licensing and monitoring the city's medical personnel. This Adeptus role is two fold: first they are responsible for overseeing those practicing and utilizing any kind of medical skill in the city, from alchemists manufacturing morphine, [[Seven Bounties Paste]], or [[Age Staving Cordial]], to those offering psychiatric counseling outside of a church setting, to the several small private hospitals around the city, to even veterinarians. The Second task of the group is more dangerous and ripe for abuse by far: it is they in large part, as the only people with the requisite expertise, who draw up for [[Nemo of Utopia/The Patron of Iskandar|The Patron's]] approval the statutes of law which they are tasked with enforcing. Thus far there has been no conflict of interest or abuses of power but the vast majority of people among the medical personnel of Iskandar wait anxiously or avidly for this to begin changing.

The Adeptus Medicae is led by [[Nemo of Utopia/Simon Baker|Simon Baker]], a psychiatrist by trade, who is among the most dangerously insightful and persuasive people you will ever meet, at least that is not one of the exalted. He is in fact a godblooded, son of the patron deity of an order of physicians on The Blessed Isle, and is not much taken with the Imacualtes, treating them with frosty professionalism.

== The Adeptus Fabricae ==

Easily the largest and most diverse branch of the Iskandarian government the Adeptus Fabricae oversees all matters which involve or pertain directly to any sort of production, manufacturing, functional artistry, or creation of goods within Iskandar's lands. Though ferreting out matters of a criminal nature fall under the heading of the Adeptus Arbitise, and the governance of the legal codes is the province primarily of The Patron himself, and Prosecution and judgment of crimes is the business of the Adeptus Judicate, all three of these functions fall partially under this adeptus' remit.

The Adeptus Fabricae first submits for The Patron's approval all codes and strictures which govern the actions and enterprises of fabricating all tangible products in Iskandar, and exhaustive list of matters which fall under their control would be impossible but a few of the more salient follow: Print Shops, Compounding Pharmacies, Paper Mills, Glass Works, Jewelers, Magitech Repair Shops, Smithies, Book Binders, Cobblers, Tailors, and Farms: estentialy anything which would be made by any sort of "Craft:XXX" skill is within their authority. The patron then reviews these legal codes and approves or rejects them, which becomes the strictures that the Adeptus Fabricae enforce upon the businesses of Iskandar.

Most production facilities of any kind are within the Adeptus Fabricae's remit, with the notable exception of restaurants, taverns, eateries, pubs, tea houses, inns, and food carts which fall under the aegis of the Adeptus Medicae, though oddly pharmacies do not. Neither adepta is happy about this but neither is willing to lose or exchange the area they do have power over for reasons of their own which seem fully sufficient to them. Furthermore any business that produces a tangible product and directly employs more than 50 people in any capacity is under their remit to license, inspect, and if necessary fine or refer to the Arbiters for investigation.

The following are the Departmento and Officio of the Adeptus Fabricae, each one with significant discretionary power and held in check solely by the High Lady of the Adeptus [[Nemo of Utopia/AuspiciousCrystalLightning|Auspicious Crystal Lightning]] and The Patron.

=== The Departmento Iura ===

The 'Department of Laws' devises and writes out the codes of law which govern the production and creation of goods in Iskandar. They have created and submitted to the patron and extensive and thorough list of legal codes regarding the conditions, control, creation, and compensation for most products in Iskandar, and those they have not they are working on.

==== The Officio Iura Laboris ====

The 'Office of Labor Laws' designs the codes of law concerning the employment, treatment, and management of Iskandar's workforce. They are in the main as despised by the plutocracy as they are beloved by the common folk. Among other laws, they have enacted is the 8 hour work shift and the 6 day work week.

==== The Officio Iura Fabricación ====

The "Office of Manufacturing Laws" creates the codes of law governing the actual production of goods. Other offices govern the details of different types of production facilities or field, but this office creates the general guidelines which the others work by.

==== The Officio Iura Cotagium Industria ====

The "Office of Cottage Industry" drafts the limited and simple codes which control small scale manufacturing by individuals and small business. They would like to have more extensive and detailed codes but The Patron uses his authority to make the official versions of the law to pare back most of their red tape and BS. He is in fact thinking of suspending this office for a period of some months while he looks for a better and less over eager set of people to be its officers.

==== The Officio Iura Officinis ====

This office makes the laws respecting the specific difficulties of production in a factory typesetting. Any production facility with 50 or more employees falls under their regulating authority, even things that are not normally their provinces such as farms, eateries, and pharmacies. For this reason, many production facilities and such, run with staff of 40, so that even if they hire a handful of temp workers they will not move into this Officio's dominion. This Officio is not-well-liked by most business owners, being seen as overly restrictive and exceedingly interfering.

==== The Officio Iura Pharmicopia ====

== The Adeptus Adminstradum ==

== The Adeptus Aeronauticus ==

== The Adeptus Vectigalia ==

Lying squarely in the middle of the Adeptus of the city in terms of size the Adeptus Vectigalia is The Patron's Tax Collectors and Auditors of Accounts. Little liked by most people in the city they are nevertheless key to it's continued function. In addition to overseeing that the government is given it's due and being called on to check the books of businesses which the Adeptus Arbitise feel might be doing illegal activities the Adeptus Vectagalia also runs Amarana's national mint, which means that they are monitored closely by both The Patron and the Adeptus Arbitise.

Noted for being uncompromising and humorless the Adeptus Vectigalia dress in imperishable formal clothing left behind from the first age. The hot stuffy suits and jackets only contribute to their reputation as dour and unsmiling drones of government oversight, which is perhaps the point of the dress code.

The Adeptus Vectigalia is divided into three Departmento: The Departmento Salari, which collects the taxes in cash or kind, the Departmento Quastorius, who audits people's books, and the Departmento Signo, who oversees the minting and engraving of all Iskandarian currency.

The Adeptus Vectigalia is led by [[Nemo of Utopia/Manifold Gemstone|Manifold Gemstone]] a perfectly ordinary man, who happens to be an excellent forensic accountant if only a passable administrator.

= Religion =

Faith and practice in Amarana are as diverse as the people who have come to live there. Everything from Immaculates to ancestor Worshipers to CotI members to simple priests and adherents of various gods all rub elbows on the city's streets. Below are a brief rundown of the most prominent of the city's faiths and the deities they worship.

== Immacualtes ==

Though the smallest of the city's faiths the Immaculate Doctrine still has hundreds of adherents among the people of the city, many of whom are enlightened martial arts practitioners. They also have a strong support network in the form of outside contacts with The Realm and other Dragon Blooded.

== The Common Faith/Hundred Gods Heresy ==

The Majority of the population of Amarana believe in the gods as most people of the threshold do: they worship those who can provide them with benefits they want or need and don't understand much about the celestial bureaucracy or how things worked in the first age and that the present state of affairs is a corruption of the 'proper' order of things. Those that do often take the stance that "this is the way things are" and simply go on with their day.

What follows is a brief list of the major deities of Amarana and who or what they are affiliated with:

=== Iskandar Seline ===

[[Nemo of Utopia/AmaranaSeline|Amarana Seline]]: As the City Mother of Amarana, Amarana Seline is the leader of the city's spirits. She was promoted from off the dole in heaven by the machinations of a number of bronze faction Sidereals and is fully cognizant of the fact that she '''owes''' them, but at the same time of the fact that as a dispossessed spirit promoted to the rank of City Mother she has few allies and many enemies. For these and other reasons she does not play favorites, at least not much, and is working hard at her job coordinating the smooth running of the city. Though she tries to be largely neutral in truth she is in the camp of the Immaculate Faction, which is part of why the Imacualtes are as strong as they are in the city.

=== Mother Midnight ===

[[Nemo of Utopia/MotherMidnight|Mother Midnight]]: As the the Senior Goddess of all natural misfortunes in Amarana 'Mother of Midnight Murder and Mayhem', to use her full name, is a very good person for The Patron to have on his side. Mother Midnight takes positive glee in afflicting his enemies with all manner of troubles and ailments, from murder most foul to tripping on a dropped piece of lumber and spilling twenty boxes of crack from their backpack right in front of a police officer. However she is not really playing favorites, she still inflicts all manner of problems on the Patriots, their enemies just get it first and worst. Mother Midnight also has another interesting fact to her favor: she has been at her post for the past 3000 years. She get's audited on a regular basis and comes up smelling like roses: every, single, time! This drives Wong Bongerok to a level of near slavering fury, especially since he is certain Mother Midnight has been doing some kind of double-dealing and bellow board hustle to keep herself fed and clothed during Amarana's long dormancy but has no way to prove it. Thing is, he's wrong. Mother Midnight became a doomsday prepper just after the usurpation and had been stockpiling quintessence and ambrosia for centuries ere the fair folk invaded. She has been living off that stockpile for all the time since and even now could go several centuries were the city to fall again ere she would need to start hustling for her sustenance.

In form, Mother Midnight looks like an exceedingly overweight woman with coal black skin and long dreadlocked black hair that hangs so long as to trail on the ground. She typicaly appears nude or dressed in rags but can summon an armor of bones and broken pottery for a cost of 3 motes that gives her 10 lethal/bashing soak for the rest of the scene. For one mote she may reflexively cause any weapon that strikes her which has a hardness of less than 10 to automatically break*, and any weapon that has less than 15 hardness but more than 10 take 5d of damage. Energy weapons are immune to this, such as beam klaves and weapons with a hardness of more than 15 cannot be affected. These powers do not count as charm use.

*(The weapon still inflicts damage before breaking from this effect.)

=== Pauldron Of Sanctity ===

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/PauldronOfSanctitity|Pauldron Of Sanctitity]]: is the new titular war god of the state, essentially exiled to the post by Atlhat since he is a rabbidly punctual and rules obsessed deity that Atlhat has detested for centuries. Pauldron of Sanctity takes the form of a tall man in Gunzosha Armor and wielding a shock pike. He believes in well regimented and organized military units who are drilled and well equipped. In many ways, his notions of war are still trapped in the low first age when he was spawned as the god of a mercenary company, but this is just fine because he is the war god of a city with much of its low first age equipment and infrastructure intact. Though he favors the Immacualtes he is not willing to alter the course of outlined fate one millimeter without approval through proper channels.

=== Garion Cromarch ===

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/GarionCromarch|Garion Cromarch]]: is the god of Amarana's police force, who has waited patiently these seven centuries and more since the loss of the city to the fair folk working unofficially as a P.I. in Yu-Shan and who is the author of Iskandar's rebirth, having convinced the Bronze Faction to engineer the events which have led to that happening. Garion is perhaps more involved in the doings of the city's police than he should be, often helping them out with 'gut feelings' and leading dreams, but so far his interference has not crossed the line of allowed behavior.

Garrion's form looks like an idealized southern human male wearing Sentinel Defense Force armor blazoned with the symbol of Iskandar, an eagle in flight wearing broken manacles.

=== Lissom Shining Spring ===

[[Nemo of Utopia/LissomShiningSpring|Lissom Shining Spring]]: a goddess of the local Oasis who temporarily holds two positions both in her old job and as the minster of all water sources within Amarana's sphere of influence. She is not perfidious in this role like Alhat who should not hold both the aegis of southern war god and god of cattle, but is genuinely looking for a replacement to take over the role of goddess of springs and oasis: however she is a perfectionist and committed to finding a perfect candidate, which means that though she has interviewed over a hundred prospective applicants she has not found one that she feels is worthy of her longtime position. The Bronze Faction is willing to let her conduct further interviews, for now, but have made it clear that if she does not have a new spirit in the position by the end of next year she will be censured and the task of finding a replacement will be out of her hands. To this end she has compiled what she calls her 'secondary list': those gods that she felt were 'almost' up to her lofty standards, and if she is running out of time will call them back for a second interview and chose the best one. She still hopes for a perfect applicant however and only has four names on her 'secondary list'.

Lissom Shining Spring's form is that of a large fish, but lately she has been finding herself slipping into the form of a young woman in the suit of one of the city's hydro engineering personnel who assist the Patron in making sure that all the pipes are sound before restoring the flow of water to a building. She is not sure she likes this.

=== Sonari ===

[[Nemo of Utopia/Sonari|Sonari]]: is the divine minster of sunlight and shadow for Iskandar. She works with the bureau of nature to ensure that the proper degree of cloud cover reaches Iskandar as well as the appropriate amount of sun. Like many of the gods of Iskandar she is newly promoted from being on the dole and fearful of losing her position, but even so dares to encourage the cult to worship her with little flourishes like rays of light in winter and cool breezes in summer.

She takes the form of a cloud from which pour rays of sunlight.

=== Meroka Jin ===

[[Nemo of Utopia/MerokaJin|Meroka Jin]]: the minister of romance and love in Iskandar is actually an old pro at the role, having been the minister for the task in the old city and then for the Salaru tribes. He is corrupt as the day is long but adept at hiding his perfidy from anyone and everyone, including to a degree himself.

Meroka Jin takes the form of a vigorous adult man of the south with a rose in his teeth and a rakish smile. He often appears nude or in the robes worn for a wedding among the Salaru.

Meroka is eternally locked in a bitter feud with his theoretical partner Sakarzi: minster of lust and attraction, who is constantly trying to break down the stable romantic relationships her 'partner' builds. For the moment they have reached a detente on the matter of the two factions in which they are most interested, If Sakarzi will do her job for the romantic relationships of the Solarians then Meroka will not try to pair off the Ancestor Cultists into mirages and leave Sakarzi to push them to rut in wild abandon. They have not agreed about what to do with the rest of the population which makes up more than 60%.

=== Bibwit Heart ===

[[Nemo of Utopia/BibwitHeart|Bibwit Heart]]: The 'least' god of Iskandar's central manse, Bibwit is uncomfortable with the cult worshiping him as they do. He has seen many least gods that have found themselves at the center of cults growing arrogant and ultimately becoming starmettal and is afraid this will happen to him. He has survived both the fall of the solars and the shogunate by being small and unobtrusive, keeping his manse functional and active while the rest of the city fell apart and he is not going to change that strategy. Still, he is an important god in the city, and as such they venerate him. Bibwit takes the form of an anthropomorphized rabbit with white fur and a tailored coat. He carries a pocket watch that lets him make flurry attacks up to his DEX score with no penalty.

=== Cela Dinarius ===

[[Nemo of Utopia/CelaDinarius|Cela Dinarius]]: Cela is the goddess responsible for Iskandar's economy, and she is a personal friend of Glorious Weapon. She is no friend of the Guild and works as much as she dares to keep the guild from stealing artifacts from Iskandar for sale to its foreign rivals. Formerly the goddess of Aj-Aran's main market square she was promoted to the overall control of the economy of Iskandar via the machinations of the gold faction. She knows the city father is a bronze faction plant but reasons that as long as they both do their jobs properly they should not come into many conflicts. The two have a standing date for tea every Venusday.

Cela Dinarius form is that of an attractive woman carved from silver, and she wears the clothing of a Varangian cloth factor, which was her first job beyond as the least god some 4 centuries ago, patron goddess of a new Varangian cloth consortium.

=== Zalril ===

[[User:The Ghost:Characters/gods/Iskandar/Zalril|Zalril]]: Formerly the Least god of Iskandar's north gate Zalril has by what amounts to shier-force-of-will moved up to become the patron god of Guild Members working in Iskandar. The exact operation of this occurrence has been shrouded in mystery at the orders of Kejop Kajac himself, and further Nazri signed off on it too. The Guild maintains a large shrine just outside his old gate where they leave offerings before entering the city and where three slave women were taken under cover of night and sworn to become Zalril's Priestesses in exchange for their freedom by an Eclipse-caste member who often works for the guild. Though two of them still keep their roles as the god's priestesses the third has left the shrine and now lives in the city as a teacher for the city's new public school. Interestingly she has suffered no ill effects from 'breaking' her oath. Zalril has asked for the Guild to send a replacement but they are still trying to figure out why the oath failed in the first place. Meanwhile [[User:The Ghost:Characters/Mortals/Iskandar/Sulramia|Sulramia]] finds fulfillment in teaching her students as do [[User:The Ghost:Characters/Mortals/Iskandar/GayePachudiweOgesu|Gaye Pachudiwe Ogesu]] and [[User:The Ghost:Characters/Mortals/Iskandar/OxandRainbowSlave|Ox and Rainbow]] the two women that still work at the shrine. Ogesu is an old women and does the cooking and cleaning while Ox and Rainbow stands guard over the shrine. Sulramia also came with another gift for the god, her daughter, as she was part of a quadratic set, Maiden, Warrior, Mother, and Crone, and if she was to be the 'mother' Zalril insisted that she have a child as proof of her status, who conveniently doubled as 'maiden'. Sulramia's daughter is called [[User:The Ghost:Characters/Mortals/Iskandar/IronandHoneyMaiden|Iron and Honey Maiden]] and is just the cutest five year old you will ever see, with an appearance score of five already. Her mother lives constantly with the fear of pedophiles, but does not let it rule their lives.

=== Walziri ===

[[User:The Ghost:Characters/gods/Iskandar/Walziri|Walziri]]: as the god of beasts of burden within Iskandar's lands Walziri is a major player in the lives of Guild personnel who must work or live here. Formerly a lesser deity of travel and trade in Harborhead Walziri was appointed to his new post by the machinations of a cabal of 'Independent' southern Sidereals and understands that he OWES them for this big break. The cabal has not called in that favor, at least not yet, but for the moment are content with him filing informal reports on the going's on in Iskandar. While still hard at work at his new post he has already started to play favorites a little with the Guild's Men who pray to him, subtly strengthening their animals and selecting them last when sickness is due to strike the camels or whatnot of the city. Walziri takes the form of a large man of Harborhead derivation wearing several coral necklaces and white robes. He carries a Jade cattle prod which can be used as a spear or thrown like a javelin and returns instantly to his hand.

=== Anyaka Tetsuo ===

[[User:The Ghost:Characters/gods/Iskandar/AnyakaTetsuo|Anyaka Tetsuo]]: The minister of Chance and Gambling in Iskandar, Tetsuo is not new to this job. Created as the least god of a set of enchanted dice not long after the Primordial War Tetsuo has risen over the course of the intervening years to a position of moderate power in this city through diligent work and a suspicious number of 'lucky' breaks. Though no investigation has ever found him guilty of any wrongdoing there are enough people that are suspicious of what he surely must have done with his powers to better his status that it is unlikely he will ever rise any higher. Some deities would plot and scheme to continue advancing, but Tetsuo knows better. As a god of chance and gambling, he is well aware that he has been on quite the lucky streak and that is when you should count your winnings, leave the table, and cash in your chips before your luck runs out. He is content to be the god of all chance and gambling in Iskandar: and will only rise higher if his natural luck brings him a sudden break, which he is not holding his breath for. He wiles away his time by playing games with the gamblers of the city, making them win or lose in a big way, but staying within the bounds of prescribed fate.

Tetsuo looks like a tall, broad-shouldered, thoroughly tattooed man with a cup and dice for playing a popular gambling game called 'Han or Cho'.

Tetsuo's sanctum is exceedingly large, he has had 700 years of dormancy in Iskandar in which to expand it, and it now takes the form of a vast resort with several small casinos and many spas on what appears to be a small tropical island. (At the boundaries of its area there is a big reef beyond which the waterfalls away into nothing.) Tetsuo typically has many of the small gods of gambling and chance living in his sanctum with him at any time. Tetsuo is a colleague of Mother Midnight, not her subordinate, but the two work closely to determine which gamblers will face a string of ill luck.

=== Bagong Fangrick ===

[[User:The Ghost:Characters/gods/Iskandar/BaegongFangrick|Bagong Fangrick]]: As the God of Vermin within Iskandar Fangrick is an odd person to aid the guild but the guild will take allies where it can find them. Fangrick is a subordinate of Mother Midnight but has kept himself mostly out of her way and done his job without fuss since the revival of the city. Formerly the deity of rats for the Salaru tribes he was promoted upon the city's revival in recognition of many years of hard work with little reward and not the slightest blemish on his record.

Bagong Fangrick looks like an aged anthropomorphic rat, dressed in the robes of a shogunate era martial arts practitioner.

=== Wisp Verunga ===

[[User:The Ghost:Characters/gods/Iskandar/WispVerunga|Wisp Verunga]]: As the managing deity for all education in Iskandar Wisp is a VIP for the Patriots, because she helps their people learn new skills significantly faster, which helps them stay a step ahead of their competition, for the moment. The thing is that Wisp is running a knife-edge game with staying inside what is allowed within her post as a manager for all education in Iskandar and what could be censured. This is very very bad: because she is already in trouble with the local censor's deputy for bearing a god blooded child, who is still alive and therefore available as evidence. Just to add insult to injury the censor's deputy has a personal vendetta against her for rebuffing his advances in favor of a mere mortal. Until the revival of Iskandar Wisp Verunga was the goddess of it's central library, she effectively promoted herself to chief goddess of education by cozening up to the Patron while he was excavating her manse. When he decreed the first mandatory schooling sessions for the early colonists he had them pray to her as patron of all education in Iskandar at the start of each day, when the prayers reached critical mass a few months later she had already conducted a quiet set of interviews and had her replacement as god of the library already prepped and ready to take over at once. This is not precisely an offense against the laws of heaven, but it is somewhat 'bad form' and would count against her slightly in a formal audit. It also has earned some of her fellow deities enmity, especially:...

=== Principle of Justified Action ===

[[User:The Ghost:Characters/gods/Iskandar/PrincipleofJustifiedAction|Principle of Justified Action]]: Heaven has gods of just about everything, including educators. Principle of Justified Action was formerly a deity of a major school out in the distant threshold before the fair folk invasion and only survived that calamity by mere chance, having been in heaven on vacation when the hosts of faerie scourged the world. Since then he has lived on the dole and schemed endlessly to get another position in the bureau of humanity's education office. He finally thought he had one all lined up when Iskandar was scheduled to be rebuilt as it's manager of education, but the Patron and Wisp Verunga snatched it out of his hands. Yet, when one door closes another opens and a cabal of Gold Faction Sidereals and a few people who were still his friends from the old days managed to finagle him a consolation prize. The role of managing deity for the court system of Iskandar was still open since there were not supposed to be any real criminal proceedings for several months yet. Desperate to get off the dole by then and seeing this as his last chance for the foreseeable future he accepted.

What neither he nor the Sidereals that helped him expected was that he would LIKE the work. Managing a court system is not so different in truth from managing a school, you have trouble makers, erudite and passionate people, a lot of people who really don't want to be there, an ever-changing cast of characters doing many old and a few new stupid things, a complex set of rules you must adhere to; the similarities were rather a shock. Of course there were differences, mostly in the fact that things move both so much slower most of the time and so much faster in the crunch, but he got his sea legs within a month or two and found himself enjoying having a real job again. That said, Principle of Justified Action is still no friend of Wisp Virunga and would dearly love to put in an application to replace her should she fall afoul of the auditors. However he bides his time, after all, he is employed in a job that he does not find onerous and has plenty of prayers coming in from both sides of the law, Wisp has no experience and is drowning in her duties, let them see what putting an untried administrator into such an important post does! Chances are that within the decade he will have her job: so runs his reasoning.

The Patron is another matter. He likes the Patron, rather a lot, and finds in the autocrat of the city a kindred spirit: and of course cannot fault the man on the matter of his dedication to an educated society. He sometimes pokes the patron in the subconscious when he is contemplating a bad law, or about to reject a good one, and thus far does not consider it any kind of offense against heaven's rules. He is, in fact, wrong, he has committed no less than 5 level 1 offenses in this manner, but that will largely be ignored unless he does more than mere subconscious nudging, after all, he has not really messed up any major plans this way so far.

In form Principle of Justified Action looks like a tall man from the furthest east, wearing the green and red robes of a seated Judge of Iskandar's courts. His hair is shock white, a remnant of his time among the starving an unemployed but he finds it suits his image as wise leader of the courts. Abnormally for a god of justice he is lenient with most offenders, reasoning that if you punish too harshly you deny them a chance to learn from their mistakes. However anyone who harms children sees the other side of him, a fury of unrelenting hatred that will see them hanged if at all possible.

=== Sakarzi ===

[[User:The Ghost:Characters/gods/Iskandar/Sakarzi|Sakarzi]]: though she would dearly love to bring about the Patron's ruin and overthrow Sakarzi: minster of lust and attraction for Amarana, has a problem: She is both terrified of him and lusts after him obsessively. Sakarzi met the Patron before he mastered Iskandar when she was bathing in a sacred hot-spring on the borders of the lands now claimed by the city in the guise of a comely Salaru maiden and he was following his awakened memories back to the city to claim his destiny. There at the hot-spring, she tried to seduce him.

She Failed.

The patron was clearly attracted to her and wished to accept her advances but mastered himself with an effort of will and politely refused. Five more times in five different guises Sakarzi has tried to seduce him and each time has been rebuffed, but always politely. This is why she is terrified of him, no one else whom she has ever tried to seduce has refused her advances so many times, especially since each of those times she has used progressively more of her supernatural powers, in the last instance activating an effect that should have compelled him to lie with her will he or no. She lusts after him because she has a weakness for powerful men, and The Patron certainly is one: but it is his immunity to her mystical powers that has made it an obsession. With the Patron Sakarzi can use only the arts available to a mortal woman to snare the man she desires, and it is driving her to distraction. Perhaps an hour's worth of time out of each of her days is frittered away trying to think up new ways to seduce the Patron that rely only on her natural skills and personal beauty, but thus far she has not come up with anything worth using on a seventh attempt. The reason that Sakarzi would love to see the patron fall is that after she started a feud between three of the early families of colonists by seducing three of their sons and declaring that only the last one living would bed her the patron caught her outside her sanctum and beat her to within an inch of her life, declaring that if he ever caught her pulling that kind of stunt on his supporters again he would not pull his blows the second time.

These conflicting emotions are tearing Sakarzi apart, she lusts after the patron, but wants to ruin him, but is terrified of him, but she wants to have sex with him so bad she can taste it: Etc, Etc. In the meantime she has appeared to several of the Patriots and declared her support for the patron's cause offering her help in securing the objects of their desires and the word has spread among them that if you erect a shrine to her in your residence and pray at it twice a day, morning and night, she will aid you in seducing whoever you most lust after.

While Sakarzi has many forms she can assume her true form is that of a Salaru woman of surpassing beauty and grace who literally cannot wear clothing. Her merest touch causes any garment to become invisible for one hour, so there is no point in her wearing any kind of raiment except for it's protective value, which she rarely does.

=== Machuko; Torch of Freedom ===

[[User:The Ghost:Characters/gods/Celestial/MachukoTorchofFreedom|Machuko; Torch of Freedom]]: Is it any wonder, considering the status of Iskandar as a free city where none may be held in bondage without due process of law, that the patron deity of Liberation and Abolistionisim should view it with favor and even more so it's leader who enacted the law in question? [[Rabsolga]], the patron of slavery, hates and despises Amarana and if for no other reason than that Machuko loves and protects it. Furthermore, Machuko is [[User:The Ghost:Characters/ThePatron|The Patron]]'s patron god, to whome he prays five times a day, and is celebrated with five feast days each year, one at the beginning of each 'resplendent' month. Even the Immaculates honor these five days of worship, because the Patron has been known to have those that speak against honoring the feasts arested and tried for sedition and/or aiding and abetting slavers, and their leader does not need that kind of atention, so he has siad "These days honoring Machuko are sanctioned by the immaculate faith, so long as you pray unto him only on these days you do not sin against the orders of Heaven."

Machuko keeps a large temple in the city's northeast quarter: a level 3 fire aspected manse called 'The Wheel of Torches' from it ride forth his clergy and devout adherents numbering several dozen strong on raids into the wastes beyond Iskandar's borders proclaiming Machuko's glory and the freedom of all people within the lands of Iskandar. Machuko has many priests across all of creation but nowhere are there so many gathered together as in Iskandar.

In form, Machuko looks like a tall muscular man of what modern people would call Jewish/Hasidic/Israeli derivation, with a wild beard and long hair that hangs in ringlets. He carries a gore maul and choping sword of orichalcum and white jade which when used together can cut any chain or bond. He has another form, which he assumes rarely except when in heaven, which is that of a great Dragon filled with yellow-white fire and made from milions of broken chains, collars, and manacles.

== Ancestor Cultists ==

Led by [[User:Nemo of Utopia:Characters/Sharima of the Three Disciplines|Sharima of the Three Disciplines]] and her ghostly lover [[User:Nemo of Utopia:Characters/Aruna the Defiant|Aruna the Defiant]] this group of citizens are a large and vocal part of the city's population. Though dwarfed by the percentage of the city who worship the city's gods and elementals the Ancestor Cultists make up as much as 20-25% of the city's population and are especially prominent among the [[User:Nemo of Utopia/Salaru|Salaru]].

The Ancestor Cultists make use of a large number of small [[Shadowlands]] across the city to communicate more directly with their patron spirits and interact with the underworld: but are mindful of [[User:Nemo of Utopia/The Patron of Iskandar|The Patron]]'s injunctions about not breaking the circles of salt and other wards which keep the ghosts within the Underworld. They are however constantly working to locate 'new' and unguarded Shadowlands for their patrons to use to slip in and out of the underworld, which The Patron minds not one bit so long as they report them for the Adeptus Sororitatus/Frateris to seal in due course.

Though most of the people of Iskandar are unaware of this fact the Ancestor Cultists are being controlled from behind the scenes by a Deathknight known as [[User:Nemo of Utopia:Characters/The Fluttering Fist of the Deadly Labyrinth|The Fluttering Fist of the Deadly Labyrinth]] he is a martial artist in service to The [[Mask of Winters]] who has wandered off on his own agenda far from thorns and The Mask's traditional area of operation. "The Fist" came to Iskandar in search of a rumored cache of [[Autochthonian]] [[Soulsteel]], held in the vaults of the undercity, but has found that much of the undercity is sealed and inaccessible even from the [[Underworld]]. In the meantime, he works on the ancestor cultists as both a way to support himself and something to occupy his time while he trains to learn the charms that will allow him to enter the prehuman depths of the city where he hopes the bars of [[Autochthonian Soulsteel]] can be found.

Though the ghosts of Salaruku are numerous and very old surprisingly few of them are Heroic Ghosts and willing/able to serve as patrons for Iskandar's ancestor cultists. Of those that do It is surprisingly four of the youngest ghosts that are the main patrons worshiped by the cultists: along with one exceedingly old ghost from the fall of Salaruku.

=== Xufuwne Onuke ===

The leader of Isknadar's relatively large population of ghosts from the time of the fair folk invasion Onuke is frighteningly powerful but relatively easy going. He has outlasted Iskandar's long dormancy and now looks forward to an era of joy and plenty for the city's dead. A dragonblooded warrior in life Onuke was killed battling the invaders from the wyld and in an odd twist of fate, they buried him with high honors. His tomb lies in the still sand covered western half of the city at the center of a small park. In form Onuke looks like a typical dragonblooded of the shogunate, dressed in power armor and wielding a daiklaive. He has subsisted by hunting plasmic creatures for most of 700 years but welcomes the changes of the reborn city. Onuke is the cult's equivalent of a war god, a role he shoulders without complaint but also without relish.

=== Aruna the Defiant ===

Hailing from Chiaroscuro Aruna is the lover of Sharima, and they have many Ghost-blooded children together. They were maneuvered into leadership of the cult by agents of [[The Archon of Apostasy]] who wished to have a shining example of ghost/mortal co-operation in Iskandar to help people accept the death cult in their midst. The Archon's agents do not believe the plan is working but they are wrong, were it not for the two of them the cult would have been burned out root and branch. Aruna is a relatively young ghost but has become powerful quite quickly thanks to her lover and her association with various death cults. In appearance, Aruna looks like a young woman of the Delazen, beautiful and alluring for all her ghostly translucence and pallor. Aruna is the cult's patron of love and romance, but gives short shrift to lust.

=== Emerald Lotus ===

Like her partner's Monkey of the City and Triumphal Eagle of the Flawless Hill, Emerald Lotus has been elevated to leadership by the machinations of the Patron, who decreed a feast day in their honor on the day of their deaths defending Iskandar from an attack by a trio of 'Hounds of the Unbroken Earth'. None of them is experienced enough to really do the jobs that they have had thrust upon them but they all are rising to the challenge. Emerald Lotus resembles a typical woman of the deep south dressed in a white robe and headscarf that cover everything but her face, and overtop that a breastplate of steel. She is neither attractive nor ugly but is very charismatic. She carries an infinite jade chakram as her main weapon and also bears a perfect chopping sword for close fighting. Emerald Lotus is the patron 'deity' of the cult's Martial Artists, as she had some experience with that in life. She still is finding her feet as a ghost and defers to Xufuwne Onuke on most matters.

=== Monkey of the City ===

Dressed in lamellar and wielding a shock pike monkey of the city is not really suited to his role as a leader of an ancestor cult. Having been an outcast and wanderer in life who always tried to keep people happy and was quick with a joke or to share his water he has not changed much in death. However, there is a place for the fun and funny guy in any pantheon and Monkey of the City fills that role for the Ancestor Cultists of Iskandar. Monkey of the City is the cult pantheon's trickster and comic relief, which he does not mind one bit.

=== Triumphal Eagle of the Flawless Hill ===

Wearing a Red Jade reenforced Buff Jacket Triumphal Eagle, or simply 'Der Aller'* as he prefers to be called, was not much of a warrior in life, but was on rotation for guard duty when the hounds attacked and was predictably killed by them. Buried with honors along with the rest of the four and then raised up as a patron spirit of the city he has persisted as a leader due largely to The Patron's favor and the fact that he is a very intelligent man, who is knowledgeable about many subjects. His role in the city's death cult is that of a spirit of wisdom and intellect, as well as oddly the paAeronauticsso to speak, of the Adeptus Aeronauticus.
*(Which means 'the Eagle' in his native tongue.)

== Cult of the Illuminated ==

The Cult of the Illuminated has a relatively small and subtle presence in Iskandar, but never-the-less are present. Their agents and activists walk among the cults dedicated to the various celestial exalted who have come to Iskandar quietly preaching of the unity of creation and the duties of the 'Shining Ones' to be the leaders and stewards of creation. "Someday," they say. "All creation will be united behind the Shining Ones, and on that day those who have served them well will have rewards beyond their wildest dreams."

Among the 17 or so celestial exalted in the city 6 are allied with the Cult of the Illuminated, and some of the others are sympathizers. The CotI worshipers pray to most of them and work to support their interests.

= Geography =

Geographicaly Iskandar lies at the point just before the sands of the deep desert begin to give way to the rocky foothills of the summer mountains. When the spring rains sweep in from the north it is prone to flooding and mud, while the heat of high summer brings the blazing Simoon roaring out of the deep desert and with it short tempers and sharp words that some times flare into brutal murders. Winter is a season of joy and happyness for the citizen's of Iskandar, as the power of the elemental pole of Air waxes and the deasert is cooled, allowing snow to briefly form in the nearby summer mountains which is trucked into Iskandar by old roads and made into flavored sherbets and snow cones for those with the Patron's favor, especially small children of whom the patron is known to genraly be fond. The foothills around Iskandar abound with resources brewed up by the slowly retreating Wyld or pushed from deep within the earth by the strange forces by which creation renews itself over the centuries, including many veins of silver from which Iskandar mints its currency. Meanwhile the deasert around iskandar is rich with fire dust and gem sand,especaily during the nights of the new moon when the Wyld retreats for several miles further south and exposes a wide swath of 'tainted' land, especialy where the city has been slowly pushing the Wyld back by infecting it with billions of grains of what is essentially Elemental Earth. This area is hazardous as well however because the tainted area is not just composed of valuable sands, but also dangerous ones, such as quicksand, shatter sand, and hungry sand. For every person from Iskandar who strikes it rich mining firedust or gemsand in the tainted lands on the nights of the new moon another finds themselves injured, killed, or mutated: in Iskandar 'Firedust Miner' looks fair to rank among the top 5 'most dangerous professions' for the first year of recorded statistics in the city, right behind 'Rogue Spirit Protection Expert' and 'Pharmacist' but just ahead of 'Building Excavation Team Member' and 'Artifact Recovery Personnel'

Nearby to Iskandar are a number of small oasis, hot springs, and geysers which have long provided the Salaru tribes with water. Though 90% of the tribesmen have returned to their ancestral home a few chose to stay out in the wastelands for one reason or another, and now gather into three new small tribes: the western, northern, and eastern Salaru.

To the west, the desert is hot by day and cold by night, with only trackless sand to great your eyes, the Salaru who have stayed out in this wilderness journey mile upon mile between oaisies that are often buried under the shifting sands and must be dug down to gather up their water. They survive by hunting snakes and lizards and trading fire dust and jewil sand with the Guild for added food and water. Though trade is their main source of contact with the outside they no lonoger must rely upon it or perish, with the total number of tribe's men in this region reduced by more than 95% they now can survive on their own without help, but it would be a spartan existance. Trade gives them luxuries and better equipment, which they put to good use. The western salaru do not keep herd beasts or in fact, any animals except hunting dogs, the land here is too harsh for this to be profitable. They worship many nature spirits, but few major deities except the Unconqured Sun, whom is seen as a wrathfull god of war and distruction, and Luna in her aspect as The White Navigator, who is seen as a benevolent and helpful deity. Though they honor the high holy days of the five maidens they are not much revered outside those times.

To the north, the Salaru who have not returned to their city are primarily herders and gatherers, as the foothills of the summer mountains provide old lava tubes and other places to hide from the sun by day and keep flocks dry when the rains come. Their life is perhaps the least harsh of the three new tribes since they have kept the most of their population, with only about 80% going to live in the city and in all cases leaving a few family members to mind the herds and ancestral cave or rock cut house. They also were the most numerous of the Salaru before the return to Iskandar, having six of the 10 Salaru tribes living in their region. and now are by far and away the most populous of the three 'outside' tribes. They also still contribute a good chunk of Iskandar's food supplies, which means that even the Patron must treat with them on their terms. On the other hand they know that the Patron, while a patient man, does have his limits and that their families back in Iskandar would suffer first and worst if they cut off the shipments of food and other goods to the city, so they treat the Iskandarians with a much respect as they expect in return: so far the city and the northern tribe have a strong alliance of mutual beifit and support. The northern Salaru frequently revere Atlhat, southern god of war and cattle, in adition, they also revere the celestial incarnae and Gaia as well as many nature spirits.

The tribes to the east were always the most desirous to return to Iskandar, for they could still see it's central tower sticking up out of the sand. However when the time came an infulental leader named [[The Ghost/Sabris of the Two Spears|Sabris of the Two Spears]] convinced them that they should instead of all going back to the city leave some people behind and send their sons and daughters back into the summer mountains to live with those that stayed for two years as a right of passage. This has proved to their great advantage, for they now own the rights to much of the mineral wealth in the summer mountains near Iskandar and have risen to be among the city's most wealthy families. The mountain Salaru were hunter/gatherers before Iskandar's recovery and it is in this capacity that the children sent to the old mountain fastenses must learn to survive when they are facing their Adavam Ordeal. The eastern Salaru mostly hold up a host of small gods for worship, and revere the celestial incarnae on their high holy days. They are however the nearest things to athists Creation has, feeling that if a person cannot survive without divine intervention then they are weaklings that must be excised from the gene pool. Many of them are swayed to a degree by the Immaculate faith, but reject the idea that the Dragonblooded are creations, rightful rulers, their tribes have long memories and have heard the tales told by the Lunrs of the perfididty of the Dragonblooded and the glory once created by the Solars, and twice in their exile have seen this glory first hand before the Dragonblooded showed up and ruined things.

To the south of the city, a wyld zone bleeds into reality for almost eight hundred miles from the maximum edge of the world. Though the city lies near the edge of this wyld zone it is not part of it, not even when the wyld storms blow in the autumn. This is perhaps partly because the city's strong geomancy prevents it being absorbed or perhaps some form of potent first age artifact still protects the city as it did during the invasion so long ago. If the Patron knows he is not telling. Either way there is and never has been a tribe of the Salaru to the south of the city. If the work they are doing to push back the wyld succeeds as well as it has been thus far there may be soon.

= Ethnicity =

Iskandar is an ethnically mixed city, with people from all over creation having gathered in under its banner thanks to [[The Ghost/The Patron|The Patron's]] zero-tolerance policy towards slavery. In the main however the population is drawn from the peoples of the south, as escaping slaves are most able to reach Iskandar from it's nearest neighbors, [[Virangia]] and [[The Delazen Empire]].

== The Salaru ==

Decedents of the people who fled Salaruku in the face of the Balorian Crusade the Salaru have waited a long time to return to their city. Composed of 10 culturally distinct tribes the Salaru make up an ever decreasing percentage of the city's population as more and more foreigners come to the city and settle in. That said the Salaru, though small in number, have a disproportionate impact on the city's culture and politics, due to knowing the lands surrounding Iskandar like no one else and therefore having a vastly outsized amount of wealth and clout.

The Salaru are subdivided into the following tribes:

=== The White Scars ===

This tribe numbers about 50 and have long been ancestor worshipers, they have been swayed to the cause of the Ancestor Cultists. They take their name from the practice of ritual scarification of face and hands to tell ones ancestry and chest to recount great deeds. The White Scars hail from the west of the city. The White Scars are a strangely secretive bunch, they keep their own council and follow their own guidance. Alone of the Salaru tribes the White Scars have wholey emigrated to the city, abandoning their ancestral lands to the Western Salaru's care and finding employment within Iskandar. Most of them agree that this has been a drastic improvement in their living conditions. Their ancestors however worry about grave robbers and frequently ask the members of the tribe with the skills to do so to go back and check on the old burial grounds.

=== The Golden Bulls ===

Originally hailing from the north of the city this tribe has been sun worshipers since time out of mind, and have naturally gravitated toward the Solarion's cause. They take their name from the bloodline of golden-haired cattle that they breed, tend, and guard, which according to legend were a gift from the champions of the sun during an age long past in recompense for their service defeating an army of the Raksha. The Golden Bulls are among the largest tribes of the Salaru, numbering some 300 strong counting both those that came into Iskandar and those that stayed behind to be part of the Northern Salaru. They revere Atlhat and The Unconquered Sun as their patrons and are known for their skill as warriors though they are overmatched by some of the other tribes thanks to awakened essence and charms. The Golden Bulls are largely employed as butchers, health inspectors, and members of Iskandar's army, while the large contingent that remained in their ancestral lands tend their herds of golden-haired cattle as they always have done, though they now drive the excess males to market in Iskandar for slaughter rather than keeping them home. The Golden Bulls primary combat style is spears and Bullhide Shields, with firedust grenades to break tight formations. They would not look out of place in Harborhead, and marriages between Harborhead immigrants and they young men and women of the tribe are not uncommon, though frowned upon by some of the tribe elders due to the harborheadite's attitudes towards slavery, which the tribe has always held as blasphemy.

=== The Get of Vexan ===

Often called simply 'the get' by outsiders this tribe calls themselves the 'Vexanites'. The get are descended from a powerfull lunar who lived among the Salaru for a century or so starting a few decades after the fair folk invasion was driven back by the Empress. The Vexanite's hold a secret: their tribe is led by a family of Serpent Beast Men founded by Vexan and preserved through complex webs of intermarriage with other serpent-folk from as far away as the silent crescent. The get are curently led by a charming and curvaceous young woman from the southeast jungles named Nyoka. What they do not yet know is that she is actually the modern incarnation of their founder's exaltation and has been having sex with one of the tribe's greatest wariors in her spirit form of a twenty-foot dragon snake in the hopes of bearing beast folk children. She walks among the tribe in her Warform, that of a great dragon-like serpent woman with the fangs and venom of a cobra and the wings and claws of a dragon. The Get hailed from the mountians east of Iskandar.

=== The Iron Raptors ===

Though founded by a group of outlaws and murderers the Iron Raptors are ironically a major component of Iskandar's police force. Having originated as an inner-city gang during the last days of the shogunate the Iron Raptors turned their coats when the fair folk came calling at the end of the contagion. They took hundreds of people out of the city through hidden tunnels and other smuggling routes: people who became the founders of the other Salaru tribes. Since then they have slowly moved from running protection rackets over the other tribes, to actually protecting them, to being their main form of law enforcement and wandering justiciars. Now that Iskandar is resettled they have taken up the role of their distant ancestors' worst enemies, an irony that is not lost on Garion Cromarch. The Iron Raptors central holdings were to the north of Iskandar but they wandered freely among the other tribes and in fact still do, being welcome among any of the other Salaru. They worship Garion Cromarch as their patron deity, but also reviver a number of small gods of crime and larceny, propitiating them in recompense for reducing their portfolios and defeating their natural worshipers.

=== The Kelderkin ===

Another tribe from the city's north the kelderkin are the descendants of Marion Kelder, and are an agricultural matriarchy. They revere Gaia to the near exclusion of all other deities and hold that all other gods are really aspects of Gaia, subsidiary souls of the Maiden of Plenty. They are more right in this belief than most people realize. All Kelderkin women can trace their ancestry to Marion Kelder via one of her seventeen daughters, and which daughter you are a descendant of determines what your role in the tribe is. The only roles that are not decided by your ancestry are 3: Shaman, Champion, and Speaker. The Speakers are the leaders of the tribe and set it's policy, while the shamans and champions advise them and defend the tribe. Marion Kelder was a wood aspected dragon blooded and even to this day a kelderkin man or woman will sometimes exalt as another wood aspect. Currently, there is one such person among the Kelderkin, Mwaloni Kelder who is a gifted archer and huntress that leads an all-female unit of other archers in the Iskandar armed forces. She is also a sex addict and currently dating four separate men, two of which are identical twin Djala who regularly have manage-a-trois with her.

=== The Chosen of Flame ===

Hailing from the city's west the chosen of flame has been firedust gatherers for as long as anyone can remember. They gathered firedust far south of the city during the shogunate and came to Iskandar to trade it. When the host's of Fairie came sweeping in from the edge of the world after the great contagion they ran before them and were caught up in the exodus from Iskandar, helping many of the civilized folk adapt to the desserts. The Chosen of Flames make up the lions share of the new western tribe, but even so most of them have moved into the city and settled down as experts and factors in the firedust trade. They are a prosperous tribe that is in a state of transition as they adapt to being a settled people for the first time. Numbering approximately 75 persons in the city and an equal number now part of the Western Salaru the Chosen of Flame boast several god blooded among their number, and actively court new fire elemental unions. Their Godblooded include Gitchsune Folarabi, Malawa Besmar, and Kubrisa Suknis, among others.

=== The Iconigraphers ===

Among the tribes of the Salaru few can argue that the Iconographers are not among the most learned and civilized. Hailing from the cities northeast they have preserved an astonishing amount of lore from the low first age, especially on the subject of geomancy. Now almost universally employed by the Patron excavating and repairing manses they are well off and respected. The Iconigraphers place great store by erudition and knowledge, and gain position and prestige among their own via a set of grueling examinations conducted by their tribe's patron spirits once every ten years, and always in old realm. Because of these tests of knowledge the tribe is led by it's elders, who have had the most time to study and learn, and they are prone to contemplation and thoughtfulness. Among other advantages this has gifted them with is the possession of five small manses outside the city, raised after the city's abandonment by their own hands. These manses have made their ancestral lands fertile and bountiful, making them one of the largest salaru tribes with 200 members in five small villages around the manses before they emigrated to Iskandar. Of all the tribes their desire to return to the city was among the greatest, but they did leave one family behind in each village to see to it's welfare and upkeep in perpetration for their descendents and those selected to join them by the Patron returning. The Iconographers in the city number 175 or so and are very much in the Patron's camp. They are led by Sukiwara Madoka, a god blooded thaumaturge of advanced years and not inconsiderable skill.

=== The Eisil ===

As a tribe of pastoral hunters and gatherers in the city's eastern area, the Eisil would not be remarkable except for the fact that they are master storytellers and thespians. The role of Storyteller is the most honored position within their culture and many people aspire to it but few succeed. Their greatest tale is that of Sakarazat, a woman who was taken captive by a rapacious dragon blooded lord and over the course of two and a bit years told him a thousand stories which prevented him from killing her, and in the end, led the dragon blooded to let her go. Now that the Eisil have returned to Amarana they are mostly working at simple jobs like sand clearer or coachman (They have long preserved the arts of chariot racing as part of their festivals.) but a significant number of them now take the long-coveted role of storyteller or actor, and are among the best in the city, being sought out by talent scouts and stage managers for private and public engagements. The Eisil hail from the high mountains east of Amarana where the snow falls in winter, they are paler complected than most Salaru and have massive barrel chests from dealing with the thin air.

=== The Mantis Tribe ===

From the northwest of the city, the Mantis tribe straddle the border between the desert and the foothills of the Iskandarian lands. They have survived by placing great store by martial arts and awakened essence, and among their number only the young typically do not have awakened essence, nearly everyone over the age of 25 has mastered this basic precept. By the age of 30, most people have achieved the form type charm of one of the 5 main martial arts of the tribe, and by the time they reach venerable status at 65, nearly everyone is a master of their chosen style. This has allowed the Mantis Tribe to become large and prosperous but puts them in an uncomfortable position of being alternately feared and nearly worshiped by the other tribes, who look to them for protection from spirits and demons. It also puts them in another uncomfortable position: their various schools of martial arts do not always get along, and more than once the tribe has been wracked by internal strife, especially between the members that adhere to the Immaculate Philosophy and the people that worship the local gods outside that framework. At the moment it seems like the tribe is heading for another such civil war, and this time it may drag the whole city into it.

=== The Broad ===

Alone of the Salaru the Broad actually hate the Patron. The Broad were from the uttermost western areas of the Salaru and also alone among their number made a common practice of keeping slaves, but not so much for the purpose of having them work for the tribe but rather to sell to the guild. They ranged far among the sandy wastes waring with members of other tribes and capturing them to sell for the supplies they needed to survive and prosper. Many among their number were heroic mortals and with the exception of the Mantis Tribe and the Chosen of Fire they boasted the most members with awakened essence or god blood. They also served as a dumping ground for the criminal and malcontents of the other tribes leading them to be less cordial with the rest of the Salaru than any other tribe. However, even the Broad wished to return to Iskandar enough to give up their slave taking practices, at least, some of them did. When the Patron decreed all people of Iskandar Free men and women shortly before the Guild arrived the Broad fractured over whether to return to their ancestral homeland or remain in the wastes and live as they had done for centuries. In the end, the tribe split 60/40 in favor of returning to Iskandar and becoming part of the new society, but the 40% that remained in the wastes no longer consider themselves beholden to the Patron, Iskandar, or even the Salaru. These people, called by their former associates The Red Broad are now considered outlaws a brigands by the Isknadarian government and hunted whenever they stray close to the fifty-foot Glass Pillars that mark the borders of the Iskandarian lands. They are firmly in the camp of the Guild's Men and infiltrate the city regualrly to capture and smuggle out valuable slaves that have escaped to Iskandar from other lands.
The 60% of the tribe that has returned to the city are in the camp of the Death Cultists since the Broad were by and large ancestor worshipers before they returned to Iskandar and see no reason to change that now. Calling themselves 'The Green Broad' they have no love for the patron but do love their city and will fight to the death to defend it. Most of them are now members of the city's military and are locked in a bitter feud with their former tribesmen. The members of this tribe that are not military mostly work as overseers for the small but growing cadres of 'indentured servants' kept by the city government in punishment for some of the most heinous crimes such as rape and enslaving another person.

=== The Western Salaru ===

=== The Northern Salaru ===

=== The Eastern Salaru ===

== The Djala ==

The Djala are a sub faction of the Patriots at the present time. Having been liberated by the Patron from their enslavement by many people who have brought them to the city in bondage they are fanatical partisans of the city's leader and from a major component of his power base. The Djala form five small tribes into which new arrivals are folded by ties of kinship, alliance, or marriage within weeks of arrival. The number of newly married Djala in the city is staggering, easily 40% of all new arrivals are pushed into marriages within a month of becoming residents, and somehow nearly all these mirages are happy ones. What the Djala elders know but have not officially publicized is that one of the Djala's patron gods is an old drinking buddy of [[The Ghost/Meroka Jin|Meroka Jin]] and has called in a favor with the minister of romance and love to arrange this happy state of affairs for his people in the city. This is not going to last, because [[The Ghost/Sakarzi|Sakarzi]] is going to start screwing around with them, but for the moment she is distracted by her work with the death cult.

== Verangians ==

== The Delazen ==

== Deep Southerners ==

Talk:Heru/SomeNewGods

2019-12-07T07:58:36Z

Nemo of Utopia: Port-Key

This is actually pretty nice, but I have 2 questions.

You channged gaian quite alot from what has been published. Why?
What is this "Breaking"?

Why dind you ditch Vanileth?
-[[Azurelight]]

*Not long ago I discovered [[FrivYeti]]'s Wyldfarer concept and decided to go with it. Its like Exalted meets space, and I really really liked it. Of course I went off on my own tangent based on the Inner Circle.
*The Breaking of the World and the Sundering of Yu-Shan are events that saw Creation go from a singular landmass into one million tiny pieces spread out. The Wyld exists between them. These are the gods of the Realm of Lookshemeru.
*Well, he wasn't located around the area of Lookshy so the Realm where this takes part in didn't have him. Thus, to fill in the gap they promoted somebody to his posistion. Vanileth could be alive in another Realm making things or not. - [[Heru]]

Ahhh, Wyldspan. I have reda it all. then thing s make alot more sense. But you dint explain why your Gaia is so wierd. As I told you on the WW forum, I want to hear your motivation. - [[Azurelight]]
*This goes back to my concept of fluff. Gaia as a Primordial, god or weird ass bug has no effect on the game. She doesn't use her powers and so it has no rule effect.
*With that said, I never liked the concept of her being the imbodiment of Creation and a Primordial. I always thought that Creation was an artifact made by the Primordials. I like that concept, I figured it sounds better than Creation being some Primordial. So the Primordials got together made Creation and empowered its spirit to power. Thus Gaia awakened. More powerful than most Primordials but under the control of the Gods. My motivation is that I don't like it the way it is and figured that if I could come up with idea that works, well I might as well. -[[Heru]]

Works. I was just curious, becaues int X1, Creation was an artifact, Brought into Existenceby Gaia and Cytheria, the mother of Creation. Gaia was not it's embodiment. Second edition is a bit more uncertain on the matter, but I have only seen one passage tha actually says Gaia=Creation aand I chose to ignore it as another result of the fact that exalted authors do not communicate, since I to like the concept of creation as an artifact. I my Game, Gaia is its weilder, and of course, attuned to it, as one must be to all artifacts.

Just curious though, what motivation (or authority), did Gaia have in staying the hand of the Incarna, when they wantd to to kill ALL Primos Except Autochton, if she wasn't one of them?

BTW, sorry for being harsh in my previous posts. That's what happenf when I post at 03:00 AM -[[Azurelight]]

Comments in reponse to Azurelight.
*About what was Creation, they kept on switching. First artifact, then Gaia, than Cytheria, then something else. In the Authothocoan book they mention Creation being Gaia. Its in the story chapter, but nontheless its there. I don't like such controversy and such thousand-and-one opinions on what is Creation, and thus I answered the fact. It was made easier because in many myths, Gaia is Earth, and so it wasn't very hard to make Gaia Earth in this one.
*I like the concept of the artifact needing a wielder, so I am going to use it. :) Maybe that is why the Primordials placed Gaia under the command of the Unconquered Sun, they made him the wielder of the artifact. He is attuned to it permanently. Its a perfect effect.
*She is kinda a Primordial, at least because she was imbued with a little bit of power from all of them she could be considered one. She also has a greater depth of knoweldge about them that only they themselves know. The way I figure it, she new something, something about Primordials that made her decide that killing them all was a bad thing. I don't ascribe to the concept that one needs Primrodials for the abilities in Creation, but maybe it was something else. Maybe she knew that somebody a threat could face Creation, and she knew that Primordials were needed. Really, this comes down to 'I don't Know' and all mysterious like answer. Very epic in scope was her reason, thought.
*I understand what your saying, and I dont't feel like its bad. I enjoy this discussion, its very thought provoking and informative. I love talking about the thinks I like, and I like Exalted. So its all good. :) --Heru

Well, ok here goes:
* When saying "story chapters, what do you mean? Do you mean the scenario chapter? I that case I simply may have chosen to ignore it, since they have been stated by thir developer as "non-canon". That said, I woulden't even say that they kept switchin, they never realy stated anything. And my idea, which i knew your read on the WW forum, is as non cannon as yours, so its all cool

Now thaT I think about it, your gaia is, for most intents and purposes, A primodial, so I dont think she needs motr moyivtions for her actions then those stated in second ed core.

Also, asn a food for thought. I am not sure your gaia needs ti have weilder. Your description makes int sound more like an automaton. Maby the loom is its program?

Now I am going to be a bit nitpicky. I am the first to admitt¨ tha creations nature was never clear. However, I have never seen it stated tha it actually was Cytheria, just that she was th orgin there of. -[[Azurelight]]

Yeah, the scenario chapter. It was very entertaining, but not entirely what I want. I have ignored it, :), that's why I made my own version of what Gaia and Creation is. Actually, one of her motivations is that the Unconquered Sun is her handler. So, since he is rebelling she gots to go with it. :)

The actual back story of what Gaia is is not really explained in detail. Hell, we don't have that much information on that period. So really, we are filling in blanks not changing whats written. Saying, for example, that their was no Primordial War is a lot bigger change than saying Gaia is an massive artifact.

The Unconquered Sun is not so much as her wielder, but more of her focus. Since he embodies perfection and glory, he is over her to try and push her to gain those aspects. It doesn't really work, but it is a way for her to be controlled.

Concepts have grown beyond their origonal point. Lets say a book says something about Cytheria, one line. Fans read that line and expand upon it in their mind. New people come to the game and learn things from the other people. I have seen this time and time again on the White Wolf Forums. So, I think that is what happened here. But I don't like it and thus I am not going to use it. Creation was made by all the Primordials because they are all brilliant and smart and powerful.

Anyway, that is the reasoning behind my decision to make Creation an Primordial-crafted artifact and Gaia is the spirit of the thing. In fact, just like a sword has a spirit, so does Creation. And the Creation-spirit has more power than most of the Primordials. -[[Heru]]

Heru/SomeNewGods

2019-12-07T07:58:12Z

Nemo of Utopia: /* Commentary */

= Some New Gods by [[Heru]] =

Below is a description of the Celestial gods that I created for my game. Because within the descriptions are information on how they are treated by the changes that have been wrought in my game, some of the information might not make sense. Still, I figure that others might wish to read this for ideas on the creation of fluff for gods.

Gaia, the Imbodiment of Creation - Creation was made by the Primordials as a way for them to have a place of rest, a place where they could call home safe from the Wyld. Thus they brought together their immense power and wrought Creation out of both Elsewhere and the Wyld. Fundamentally, Creation is made up of three sections - the main Core-Artifact, the five Elemental Pole-Artifacts, and the geomancy (the network of dragon lines and demesnes) of existence - all of which is powered by the unending, inexhaustible flow of Essence. It was never in their plans for them to continually run Creation, for they sought a place that was self-sufficent and renewing. To this end they imbued the Core-Artifact with a fragment of power from each of the Primordials who had anything to do with Creation. Energised with Primordial-Essence, Gaia became self-aware and more powerful than every Primordial but the top nine. To make sure that she could not seek to overthrow them, they installed a great Geas on her that prohibited her from attacking or defending against them. When the Unconquered Sun was later created, Gaia was placed under his control because he represented perfection and order, something that the Primordials wished of Creation. The Five Elemental Dragons are the only offspring of Gaia.

Menitkhs, the Celestial God of Yu-Shan Gateways - This god was the first true god to be established, for he is the god of the entrances into Yu-Shan. Since his formation he has not changed either his scope or his territory, the number of gateways have not been altered. Since the Sundering of Yu-Shan he found himself limited to just a few gateways, a situation that he found almsot impossible to live with. He knew that without Exalted aid he could not increase the numbers of gateways because that would interfere with the Exalted's mandate over Creation. Thankfully, the situation did not last long because the Solar Exalted asked him to create more gateways into Yu-Shan, but at locations of the Solar's choosing. He readily agreed, and today the number of entrances into Yu-Shan are just over a thousand.

Lookshemeru, the Genius Loci of the Realm of Lookshemeru - With the Breaking of the World every Realm gained its own spirit, or Genius Loci, to help Gaia in the operation of Creation. These very powerful gods are combination Elementals and Spirits, and Lookshemeru is no different. Because of the caring and respect that the Solar Dominion has always had towards its environment Lookshemeru is a caring Genius Loci. He is quite happy to assist the Celestial Exalted by giving knowledge and providing assistance in all areas that he can. It is because of the relationship between the Exalted and Lookshemeru, that the Dominion has continued to grow at the speed that it has. As the Genius Loci of the Realm, his place of residence is the Realm itself. Within a pocket dimension of the likes only a fraction lesser than Yu-Shan (which is beyond his control, he rules the physical world not the abode of the gods) he rules a figment-spirit of all natural creatures of the Realm. To help further discussion with the Exalted he also has an abode in the city of Lookshemeru and in Yu-Shan.

Lumero, the Celestial City God of Lookshemeru - This is the city god of the Lookshemeru, the capital of the Solar Dominion. He was birthed in the flowing of Lookshy and Meru into one city during the summoning of the Elemental Pole of Earth. He is an entirely new god, but one who has within him the Essence of old city gods of Lookshy and Meru. He contains a residence within Yu-Shan for he is considered Celestial, but his main home is a gigantic palace-sanctum within the Celestial Gardens. He has a lot of respect for and love of the Solar Exalted, for it was they who brought him into existence. The fact that Lookshemeru is the largest city in all of the Solar Dominion provides testament to this god's power, for he is mightier than most of the Celestial gods, not counting the Celestial Incarna.

Seecne, the Celestial God of Artifice - Many gods were lost in the Breaking of the World and the Sundering of Yu-Shan. Yet for every god lost in that time another god had to be promoted into their spot. Seecne is one such god, formally just the god of Enchantment he accepted the promotion due to its increased authority and responsibility. He is quite happy to assist Celestial Exalted in the process of designing for he holds them responsible for the happy turn of events in his life.

Wenyld, the Celestial God of Wyld Travelers - A relatively new god, Wenyld was born the moment that the Solar Dominion honestly began planning for Wyld expeditions. This was even before the barrier coalesced enough for such Gateways to be possible, but that didn't matter for they were truly planning it. Highly motivated to promote the Dominion's travel around the Wyld, he has provided the Solars with a number of tricks and secrets to make it a much safer trip. Due to the importance that the Wyld now has in relation to trade and travel, he has been growing greater and greater in power. His abode is in the Border City of Ashneth, but he also contains a mansion in Yu-Shan.

Karnek, the Celestial God of Materials - This is a god with a long and interesting past that begins even before the Primordial War. During the time preceding the First Age he was a minor god, not worth much due to the nature of Primordial creation. When the Solar Exalted began creating their Realm he grew into prominence and began one of the more important gods of Yu-Shan. His growth and importance was due to the many types of newly created materials that the Solar Exalted produced during their reign. Every type of artificial material created adds little to his powers and authority. His strength also comes in the fact that it is not how much of each material currently exists but that something of it does. That means that even if a tiny shovel is all that exists of a once prominent material, he still has the increase in power. When the Breaking happened he just happened to be near the Primus Solar Manse and thus was one of the gods rescued by the god of the manse. Because of his rescue (when so many other gods did not make it) he holds the Solar Exalted in high esteem and is willing to help them in all matters concerning material engineering.

Ravenn, the Celestial God of Soulsteel - This is a Celestial god that has existence and power only within the Solar Dominion. He manifested into existence after soulsteel became a common and highly worked material within the Solar Exalted run Solar Dominion. Later studies showed that no god of soulsteel existed before because of soulsteel's inherent connection to the Labyrinth and the Neverborn located therein. Now that the Neverborn have been permanently sealed away from Creation that problem was rectified. And since the Solar Exalted have the power and ability to mine and manufacture the material anytime they wish, a god came into existence to cover it. Due to his position as the embodiment god of soulsteel he is able to transform Ambrosia into that magical material, which he does occasionally in aid to the Solar Exalted. His true abode is within Yu-Shan, though he also has a sanctum in the Underworld and another one in the Celestial Gardens of Lookshemeru.

Aginus, the Celestial God of Artificial Flight - This god replaced the previous god of artificial flight who died during the Breaking. From almost the very beginning this god has been allied with the Solar Exalted because he was previously the Celestial god of the Lookshy Skyfleet. Currently, his alliance with the Solars has provided a lot of new designs for new ships in the skyfleet. While his main sanctum is in the garden in front of the Lookshemeru Aviary he also has a palace estate in Yu-Shan.

Ivonais, the Celestial God of Demenses - Brother to Novonais, the purview of this ancient god is to monitor and oversee the demenses that dot Creation. The more demenses that exist the more power that the god possesses. It should be noted that as underlying all manses are demenses the construction of a manse does not reduce the power of this got. The return of the Solar Exalted makes Ivonais happy, not as happy as his brother though, because it means that more likely the Solars will begin modifying Creation to create more demenses.

Novonais, the Celestial God of Manses - Brother to Ivonais, this Celestial god has a purview that covers manses and manse construction and development. Back in the First Age, and the time of the Shogunate, this god was quite powerful but currently in the fallen Second Age the power of the god has fallen. As knoweldge about manse creation falls so does he. The rise of the Solar Exalted is a very welcome prospect to Novonais due to their general trend on building more powerful and numerous manses.

Nemo of Utopia: Chronicles/The Tale of Menemon's Children

2019-12-03T01:00:10Z

Nemo of Utopia: Eh...

A Dynastic Dragonblooded Chronicle centering around House Menemon's newest batch of heirs to come-of-age and the parts they will play in their ancestress play for her mother The Empress' vacated throne...

Nemo of Utopia: Chronicles/The Legend of the Rain King

2019-12-02T04:37:50Z

Nemo of Utopia: Boom! Content!

This chronicle posits the question: "What happens if someone who knows the Exalted setting intimately were given the power to profoundly alter it...?"

== What is Known ==

This game takes place in an alternate setting of Exalted of my own devising, one far more similar to normal exalted than most of the “Shards of the Exalted Dream”, but, with certain key-and-distinct differences.

1st and foremost: There are, (for the moment), NO Abysals, OR Infernals, and when they DO emerge, they will be, in certain ways, profoundly altered from those of a normal game of Exalted. (Mostly in terms of their backstories/interactions with the setting, not mechanically, though the infernals will be mechanically altered slightly, as well…) That said: the Jade prison is BROKEN, and all 300 solar exaltations, are free, as Solars...

2: In two related notes:
A: The current generally accepted date at the beginning of the chronicle is [[Nemo of Utopia: Calendars/The_16th_of_Ascending_Fire|The 16th of Ascending Fire]] Year [5347 (Elder Reckoning / ER), 1472 (Year of the Shogunate / YotS: the most prevalent calendar in a majority of the Scavenger Lands), and 765 (Realm Years / RY / Year of the Reign of The Scarlet Empress) + other dates, in other systems, that will be added as necessary.]
B: The Scarlet Empress disappeared during calibration five years ago, at roughly the same time the Jade Prison was shattered, analogous to what happened in the standard setting, but while she passed entirely outside of Fate, it was not into Malphias and she will not be marrying TED. (And the Yozi’s DO NOT have Lillun, either. “You ask ‘Why?’ Because I said ‘NO.’, I am the storyteller, it’s MY version of the world that you’re going to be playing in, and I hate child-molesters: that’s why…”)

3: This, in turn, has altered certain other setting elements, for example, the Tepet Legions have yet to have their little date with destiny because The Bull of the North has only very recently appeared and not quite even managed to unite the ice-walkers behind him just yet… (Many other setting elements have similarly changed, not all of which are fully known yet…)

4: In most games, throughout much of the threshold beyond the coastal states of the inner sea: and in the scavenger lands, especially: a Solar or Lunar can walk fairly open, with relatively little fear from the population and sometimes, even gratitude. That is NOT the case here. If you are any kind of Anthama, it is far safer to assume that all the people of the world, (realm, threshold, borderlands, it makes no difference), will fear, hate, and despise you if they know what you are until proven otherwise.

5: The biggest change, though, is it has been revealed, (in character), that incomprehensibly: there are genuinely NEW Exaltation-Shards abroad in creation: of Solars, Lunars, and Sidereals.

== A dozen Little Pieces ==

There are several subsidiary parts which all take place in the same universe and Timeline that make-up the above chronicle.

1: [[Nemo of Utopia: Chronicles/Exalted_at_the_Rim_of_Creation|"Exalted at the Rim of Creation"]] The Main "Mixed-Splat" chronicle.

2: [[Nemo of Utopia: Chronicles/There_and_Back_Again:_A_Solar_Holiday|"There and Back Again: A Solar Holiday"]] A CotI Solars-only Game.

3: [[Nemo of Utopia: Chronicles/The_Tale_of_Menemon's_Children|"The Tale of Menemon's Children"]] A Dynastic Dragonblooded Chronicle centering around House Menemon's newest batch of heirs to come-of-age and the parts they will play in their ancestress play for her mother The Empress' vacated throne...

4: [[Nemo of Utopia: Chronicles/In_Capitalist_Claslat,_Bank_Rob_You!|"In Capitalist Claslat, Bank Rob You!"]] Alchemical Chronicle focusing on the conflict between The Guild and the Auochthonians of the Eastern Conference.

5: [[Nemo of Utopia: Chronicles/Dexter's_Darkly_Dreaming_Daughters|"Dexter's Darkly Dreaming Daughters"]] A chronicle that starts off with a group of Ghost-Blooded mortals, then Eventually develops into something "More"... (This chronicle is set in the Henceintic League)

6: [[Nemo of Utopia: Chronicles/Moonlight_Reflecting_On_Water|"Moonlight Reflecting On Water"]] This one is set in the West, focusing on Lavaithain and the western Silver-Pact's difficult road to recovery in the wake of the events of the rest of the chronicles.

7: [[Nemo of Utopia: Chronicles/Ask_Not_For_Whom_The_Bells_Toll|"Ask Not For Whom The Bells Toll, They Toll For Thee."]] At the point where this chronicle enters rotation 'Chop-Shop Car-Jack' (Chejop Kejak), chair of the center convention, has died, and left an unimaginable power-vacuum in his wake in Heaven. A young circle of Sidereal exalted is left trying to pick up the pieces, or maybe just survive, in the aftermath of the passing of the oldest Exalt to ever live. (This chronicle is set in the south...)

Nemo of Utopia: Chronicles/Exalted at the Rim of Creation

2019-12-02T04:27:56Z

Nemo of Utopia: Porting old content

This chronicle is a part of [[Nemo of Utopia: Chronicles/The_Legend_of_the_Rain_King|'ExXxALTED: "The Legend of the Rain King"']]

== The Chronicle So-Far ==

What has come before...

So, we started with mortals, and that will remain the case: you must EARN your exaltation, in play...

However, the three current players, (besides the ST, as of this writing), have all done so. We currently have two solars [An Eclipse (with some minor focus on Zenith type abilities and Craft skills), and a Twilight: who was already a sorceress before exalting], and a Lunar, [who is, for the moment at least, casteless: and the Twilight's "Mate", though weather their relationship will include an erotic component remains to be seen. (However, based on declared player preferences, that part will almost certainly be "Off-Camera" if it does, as almost all players, both of those in the relationship included, have proclaimed a significant amount of reluctance to have PC/PC erotica happen in the open during play. PC/NPC seems to be far more acceptable with the current group...)].

We also have a handful of very significant NPCs, (Powers roughly equal to a exalt,) traveling with the group at the moment: one is a Jadeborn Artizan [Who used to be a Fair-Folk, before some private IC weirdness happened during the exaltation process of one PC, and who is not subject to "The Sanction of Authchthon" that normal Jadeborn characters labor under...] and two more that have yet to fully reveal themselves IC, but, probably will during the next session. [One a Silver-Pact Lunar of moderately significant experience, and the other a Dragon-Blooded outcaste, who is, surprisingly, not an enemy to the PCs. (Provided they don't MAKE them one, during play)...]

The PCs are currently, (as of this writing,) in the distant East, traveling as part-of/the-leaders-of a Guild Caravan, and have decided to work their way back to Nexus following their pre-established trade route: pretending as if nothing has changed.

=== Starting Situation ===

Nemo of Utopia: Chronicles/Exalted at the Rim of Creation

2019-12-02T04:23:30Z

Nemo of Utopia: Boom! Content!

Nemo of Utopia/Autochthonian Terrestrials

2019-12-02T03:59:45Z

Nemo of Utopia: /* Metal */

= Warning! =

The Content of this page is purely an exercise in theoretical mechanics and hypothetical social constructs: It should be included in actual games with utmost caution and complete awareness that it will be disruptive to established content.

You have been warned.

= The Dragon-Blooded of Autochthonia =

When [[Autochthon]] went into exile he had no way of knowing who among the millions of people he snatched from creation happened to have a trace of the heritage of the Elemental Dragons. These unfortunate few sometimes had children that exalted as Dragon-Blooded, and those children often came together in adulthood to have Dragon-Blooded children of their own. So it went for hundreds of years, and with the advent of the [[Alchemicals]] the Dragon-Blooded became the legates and assistants to Autochthon's Chosen as they had been to the [[Solars]] before them. Over time however a change began to take place among the Dragon-Blooded: children exalted who were not from any of the five known aspects but rather had elemental affinities based on the elements of their new home, Crystal, Lighting, Steam, Metal, Oil, and Smoke.

At first shunned by the 'normal' Dragon-Blooded over time these 'freaks' came together and had their own children, who grew up straight and true to their parent's new bloodlines. Born to be heroes they refused to surrender to social isolation and ostracism and within a few centuries were considered part of the structure of Dragon-Blooded society, though almost always kept in separate bloodlines by the 'old blood' families.

Today Gents of all eleven bloodlines of terrestrials serve the Alchemicals as their assistants and shock troops. thanks to the work of the Dragon-Blooded the crisis of the Great Maker's body is much less than it might be, though a crisis it still is. The Dragon-Blooded of the 'Old Blood' is all but gone from Autochthonia, but the six new types have risen up to take their place, and are going strong today.

== The Six Types of Autochthonian Terrestrial ==

The Six Autochthonian Breeds of terrestrial are each similar to some of the old breeds of terrestrial, with one exception, that of Smoke, which takes on a small amount of the abilities of each other breed but is directly correlated to none. The Ability Packages and Anima Powers of Each breed are listed below, as are (eventually will be, actually, for now), Twenty pre-generated "Signature Characters" for each aspect, including one 'basic' example from each Autochthonian "nation" (Including the city/states of [[Het]], [[Loran]], [[Xexas]], [[Nemo of Utopia:Locations/Autochthonia/Hokuva|Hokuva]] & [[Erlik]] ) "ready to be adopted" that starts with 75-125 XP under their belt, one Tunnel-folk "Lost-Egg" of 50XP that could (theoretically) be adapted to be played as a tunnel-folk group of Dragon-Blooded, and Assorted random "Elders" + "Notable Historical Figures" who are/were important to that Aspect's development in some way. (Whose stat-blocks can be adapted to serve as other Autochthonian Terrestrial NPCs as-needed...)

=== Crystal ===

Crystal Aspects are mentally acute, being tied to the mind of the great maker. The most closely embody the secret and potent wisdom of the sleeping god and partake of his natural brilliance. As such their abilities are Integrity, Occult, Resistance, Computers, and War.

==== Anima of the Crystal aspect ====

Animas of the crystal aspect are jagged sharp-edged affairs typically taking the form of massive spires of crystal or Exo Machina such as crystalline dragons or even projections of the divine ministers. They often are accompanied by the crackle of electricity or the hum and click of computers.

The Anima power of Crystal aspects is to interface with the gods of autochthonia. When their anima flares the crystal aspects may add (essence rating/2) dice to all rolls to interact or negotiate with any autchthonian sub god of less standing than the least god of a 4-dot artifact. (This bonus also explicitly applies to the pattern spiders that tend the Loom of Fate, should this ever become relevant.) Furthermore, when their anima effect is in play Crystal aspects take on some of the durability of adamant and may soak lethal and aggravated damage with their full stamina, as well as adding their essence to their stamina for all other purposes.

==== Crystal aspect Signature Characters ====

=== Steam ===

Athletics, Drive, Larceny, Medicine, Thrown.

==== Anima of the Steam aspect ====

Steam aspect's animas are hazy and indistinct things, that don't take on any specific shapes but are accompanied by loud hissing sounds and the squeal of the steam-whistle. The Steam anima power is to produce warm-and-wet-but-fresh air for themselves and their compatriots whenever their animas flare above the 5 mote range. this pure air occupies a bubble Essencex2 yards across and anyone in that zone feels like they are in a sauna but can breathe easy, knowing the air is clear of all airborne toxins and contaminants except purest water.

==== Steam aspect Signature Characters ====

=== Lightning ===

Lighting's powers are heat, celerity, energy, and power: they form the energy that powers the great maker and conducts his thoughts to all parts of Autochthonia. Lighting finds the shortest path and locates the missing link while empowering the tools on which the Octet depends. As such the abilities of the Lightning Aspect are Archery, Investigation, Lore, Presence, and -
>][< INFORMATION REDACTED: TOP SECRET! (By order of the International Orthodoxy Tripartite Conclave of year 4869 DA: Clearance Level: Luminus.) >][<

==== The Anima of the Lighting Aspect ====

Lightning aspects animas are sizzling yellows and blues, clashing with the sound of thunder and smelling of ozone.

Lightning Aspect's animas are raging coronas of energy: for a cost of five motes, they can inflict (Essencex2) dice of bashing damage on anyone they touch or who touches them and force any person who takes at least one point of damage from the attack to save with [Stamina+Resistance] or be stunned at DC 3. This damage does nothing to the lightning aspect themselves or their possessions but can ignite flammable objects without sufficient conductivity for electricity, such as cloth and paper, and will almost certainly fry any electronics it comes into contact with that are not protected by being in the possession of a lightning aspect.

==== Lightning aspect Signature Characters ====

=== Metal ===

Bureaucracy, Craft, Melee, Mechanics, Ride.

==== Anima of the Metal Aspect ====

The anima power of the Metal-Aspects

==== Metal aspect Signature Characters ====

=== Oil ===

Oil's powers are lubrication and potential: they are tied to the circulatory systems of the great maker and partake of the hallowed blood that flows through his veins. As such their aspect abilities are Sail, Socialize, Martial Arts, Performance, and Linguistics.

==== Anima of the Oil Aspect ====

The anima power of Oil is similar to that of the Wood Aspect, becoming immune to poison and their touch conveying poison, except that they become immune to all artificial poisons instead of plant-based poisons. Neither is immune to animal poisons.

==== Oil aspect Signature Characters ====

=== Smoke ===

The Smoke Aspects are known to be brooding and sullen, disaffected, and dissatisfied: seen by some as infected with a genetically encoded lesser version of Gremlins-syndrome they are not welcome in some of the eight nations, and often are found as leaders of tunnel-folk tribes. Smoke aspects really only came-into-their-own in the past 1000 years with the invention of their signature weapon type: "Firearms". Before that, it was thought that these sorts of DBs didn't have as many aspect skills as the rest of the "new breeds" of dragon-blooded but when Gunpowder was discovered, bing, bang, boom: The Smoke-Aspects "found their muse"... Smoke aspects are, as it turns out, all about "assassination by sniping": their Aspect abilities, therefore, are Awareness, Dodge, Firearms, Stealth, and Survival

==== Anima of the Smoke Aspect ====

The Anima power of smoke is to purge their body of disease. All diseases natural and artificial are purged from their bodies when their anima flares. However this comes at a price, the diseases so purged infect everyone within 1d yards at the time who is not immune to disease or another Smoke aspect. When their anima's flare they also gain the benefits of the Night-caste anima power when it reaches bonfire level with respect to obscuring personal identity. They can deliberately invoke these effects immediately at any time by spending 5 motes.

==== Smoke aspect Signature Characters ====

= Modern Times =

It was among the 'Old Blood' of the terrestrials that the idea of [[Project Razor]] first occurred to the people of Autochthonia, some 10 years ago. The originator of the plan was an Earth Aspect of Yugash named [[Nemo of Utopia:Characters/Dragon-Blooded/Earth-aspects/Chanel_of_Esoteric_Wisdom|Chanel of Esoteric Wisdom]], an adjutant to Yugash's National Tripartite. She reasoned that the cache's of magical materials mined by the people of Yugash must be running out for a reason: and after consulting with many of the Alchemicals came to a shocking conclusion: Autochthon had planned to stay in the Void for thousands of years: but ''not'' almost Five Thousand. Parsing records and examining historical accounts she published a modest analytical paper on recurring resource shortages, which drew a simple but shocking conclusion: the great maker had prepared himself for an exile of only 4000 years. The paper made no judgments on the prudence of this choice, nor what was to be done about having remained in exile over 800 years 'too long', but the paper found willing ears among many of the more learned members of Autochthonian Society, including [[Fair Spoken Reshi]], who saw to it that it was distributed among most of Autochthonia's other nations as well. Soon many national tripartite came to the same conclusions as Chanel of Esoteric Wisdom from examining their own records. Slowly but surely a new idea spread among the leadership of the Eight nations and the three great city-states: "Project Razor", a charm to breach the seal of eight divinities and return to [[Creation]]. Subtly encouraging this from behind the scenes were 'old blood' terrestrials in every nation, who reasoned that if they had endured in Autochthonia then surely others of their bloodlines had endured in the creation and could infuse new life into their flagging families, or provide them refuge in escaping from the World/God of Autochthon.

Nemo of Utopia/Autochthonian Terrestrials

2019-12-02T03:58:31Z

Nemo of Utopia: /* Steam */

= Warning! =

The Content of this page is purely an exercise in theoretical mechanics and hypothetical social constructs: It should be included in actual games with utmost caution and complete awareness that it will be disruptive to established content.

You have been warned.

= The Dragon-Blooded of Autochthonia =

When [[Autochthon]] went into exile he had no way of knowing who among the millions of people he snatched from creation happened to have a trace of the heritage of the Elemental Dragons. These unfortunate few sometimes had children that exalted as Dragon-Blooded, and those children often came together in adulthood to have Dragon-Blooded children of their own. So it went for hundreds of years, and with the advent of the [[Alchemicals]] the Dragon-Blooded became the legates and assistants to Autochthon's Chosen as they had been to the [[Solars]] before them. Over time however a change began to take place among the Dragon-Blooded: children exalted who were not from any of the five known aspects but rather had elemental affinities based on the elements of their new home, Crystal, Lighting, Steam, Metal, Oil, and Smoke.

At first shunned by the 'normal' Dragon-Blooded over time these 'freaks' came together and had their own children, who grew up straight and true to their parent's new bloodlines. Born to be heroes they refused to surrender to social isolation and ostracism and within a few centuries were considered part of the structure of Dragon-Blooded society, though almost always kept in separate bloodlines by the 'old blood' families.

Today Gents of all eleven bloodlines of terrestrials serve the Alchemicals as their assistants and shock troops. thanks to the work of the Dragon-Blooded the crisis of the Great Maker's body is much less than it might be, though a crisis it still is. The Dragon-Blooded of the 'Old Blood' is all but gone from Autochthonia, but the six new types have risen up to take their place, and are going strong today.

== The Six Types of Autochthonian Terrestrial ==

The Six Autochthonian Breeds of terrestrial are each similar to some of the old breeds of terrestrial, with one exception, that of Smoke, which takes on a small amount of the abilities of each other breed but is directly correlated to none. The Ability Packages and Anima Powers of Each breed are listed below, as are (eventually will be, actually, for now), Twenty pre-generated "Signature Characters" for each aspect, including one 'basic' example from each Autochthonian "nation" (Including the city/states of [[Het]], [[Loran]], [[Xexas]], [[Nemo of Utopia:Locations/Autochthonia/Hokuva|Hokuva]] & [[Erlik]] ) "ready to be adopted" that starts with 75-125 XP under their belt, one Tunnel-folk "Lost-Egg" of 50XP that could (theoretically) be adapted to be played as a tunnel-folk group of Dragon-Blooded, and Assorted random "Elders" + "Notable Historical Figures" who are/were important to that Aspect's development in some way. (Whose stat-blocks can be adapted to serve as other Autochthonian Terrestrial NPCs as-needed...)

=== Crystal ===

Crystal Aspects are mentally acute, being tied to the mind of the great maker. The most closely embody the secret and potent wisdom of the sleeping god and partake of his natural brilliance. As such their abilities are Integrity, Occult, Resistance, Computers, and War.

==== Anima of the Crystal aspect ====

Animas of the crystal aspect are jagged sharp-edged affairs typically taking the form of massive spires of crystal or Exo Machina such as crystalline dragons or even projections of the divine ministers. They often are accompanied by the crackle of electricity or the hum and click of computers.

The Anima power of Crystal aspects is to interface with the gods of autochthonia. When their anima flares the crystal aspects may add (essence rating/2) dice to all rolls to interact or negotiate with any autchthonian sub god of less standing than the least god of a 4-dot artifact. (This bonus also explicitly applies to the pattern spiders that tend the Loom of Fate, should this ever become relevant.) Furthermore, when their anima effect is in play Crystal aspects take on some of the durability of adamant and may soak lethal and aggravated damage with their full stamina, as well as adding their essence to their stamina for all other purposes.

==== Crystal aspect Signature Characters ====

=== Steam ===

Athletics, Drive, Larceny, Medicine, Thrown.

==== Anima of the Steam aspect ====

Steam aspect's animas are hazy and indistinct things, that don't take on any specific shapes but are accompanied by loud hissing sounds and the squeal of the steam-whistle. The Steam anima power is to produce warm-and-wet-but-fresh air for themselves and their compatriots whenever their animas flare above the 5 mote range. this pure air occupies a bubble Essencex2 yards across and anyone in that zone feels like they are in a sauna but can breathe easy, knowing the air is clear of all airborne toxins and contaminants except purest water.

==== Steam aspect Signature Characters ====

=== Lightning ===

Lighting's powers are heat, celerity, energy, and power: they form the energy that powers the great maker and conducts his thoughts to all parts of Autochthonia. Lighting finds the shortest path and locates the missing link while empowering the tools on which the Octet depends. As such the abilities of the Lightning Aspect are Archery, Investigation, Lore, Presence, and -
>][< INFORMATION REDACTED: TOP SECRET! (By order of the International Orthodoxy Tripartite Conclave of year 4869 DA: Clearance Level: Luminus.) >][<

==== The Anima of the Lighting Aspect ====

Lightning aspects animas are sizzling yellows and blues, clashing with the sound of thunder and smelling of ozone.

Lightning Aspect's animas are raging coronas of energy: for a cost of five motes, they can inflict (Essencex2) dice of bashing damage on anyone they touch or who touches them and force any person who takes at least one point of damage from the attack to save with [Stamina+Resistance] or be stunned at DC 3. This damage does nothing to the lightning aspect themselves or their possessions but can ignite flammable objects without sufficient conductivity for electricity, such as cloth and paper, and will almost certainly fry any electronics it comes into contact with that are not protected by being in the possession of a lightning aspect.

==== Lightning aspect Signature Characters ====

=== Metal ===

Craft, Melee, Mechanics,

==== Anima of the Metal Aspect ====

The anima power of the Metal-Aspects

==== Metal aspect Signature Characters ====

=== Oil ===

Oil's powers are lubrication and potential: they are tied to the circulatory systems of the great maker and partake of the hallowed blood that flows through his veins. As such their aspect abilities are Sail, Socialize, Martial Arts, Performance, and Linguistics.

==== Anima of the Oil Aspect ====

The anima power of Oil is similar to that of the Wood Aspect, becoming immune to poison and their touch conveying poison, except that they become immune to all artificial poisons instead of plant-based poisons. Neither is immune to animal poisons.

==== Oil aspect Signature Characters ====

=== Smoke ===

The Smoke Aspects are known to be brooding and sullen, disaffected, and dissatisfied: seen by some as infected with a genetically encoded lesser version of Gremlins-syndrome they are not welcome in some of the eight nations, and often are found as leaders of tunnel-folk tribes. Smoke aspects really only came-into-their-own in the past 1000 years with the invention of their signature weapon type: "Firearms". Before that, it was thought that these sorts of DBs didn't have as many aspect skills as the rest of the "new breeds" of dragon-blooded but when Gunpowder was discovered, bing, bang, boom: The Smoke-Aspects "found their muse"... Smoke aspects are, as it turns out, all about "assassination by sniping": their Aspect abilities, therefore, are Awareness, Dodge, Firearms, Stealth, and Survival

==== Anima of the Smoke Aspect ====

The Anima power of smoke is to purge their body of disease. All diseases natural and artificial are purged from their bodies when their anima flares. However this comes at a price, the diseases so purged infect everyone within 1d yards at the time who is not immune to disease or another Smoke aspect. When their anima's flare they also gain the benefits of the Night-caste anima power when it reaches bonfire level with respect to obscuring personal identity. They can deliberately invoke these effects immediately at any time by spending 5 motes.

==== Smoke aspect Signature Characters ====

= Modern Times =

It was among the 'Old Blood' of the terrestrials that the idea of [[Project Razor]] first occurred to the people of Autochthonia, some 10 years ago. The originator of the plan was an Earth Aspect of Yugash named [[Nemo of Utopia:Characters/Dragon-Blooded/Earth-aspects/Chanel_of_Esoteric_Wisdom|Chanel of Esoteric Wisdom]], an adjutant to Yugash's National Tripartite. She reasoned that the cache's of magical materials mined by the people of Yugash must be running out for a reason: and after consulting with many of the Alchemicals came to a shocking conclusion: Autochthon had planned to stay in the Void for thousands of years: but ''not'' almost Five Thousand. Parsing records and examining historical accounts she published a modest analytical paper on recurring resource shortages, which drew a simple but shocking conclusion: the great maker had prepared himself for an exile of only 4000 years. The paper made no judgments on the prudence of this choice, nor what was to be done about having remained in exile over 800 years 'too long', but the paper found willing ears among many of the more learned members of Autochthonian Society, including [[Fair Spoken Reshi]], who saw to it that it was distributed among most of Autochthonia's other nations as well. Soon many national tripartite came to the same conclusions as Chanel of Esoteric Wisdom from examining their own records. Slowly but surely a new idea spread among the leadership of the Eight nations and the three great city-states: "Project Razor", a charm to breach the seal of eight divinities and return to [[Creation]]. Subtly encouraging this from behind the scenes were 'old blood' terrestrials in every nation, who reasoned that if they had endured in Autochthonia then surely others of their bloodlines had endured in the creation and could infuse new life into their flagging families, or provide them refuge in escaping from the World/God of Autochthon.

Nemo of Utopia: Chronicles/The Legend of the Rain King

2019-12-02T03:07:49Z

Nemo of Utopia: Boom! Content!

This chronicle posits the question: "What happens if someone who knows the Exalted setting intimately were given the power to profoundly alter it...?"

There are several subsidiary parts which all take place in the same universe and Timeline that make-up the above chronicle.

1: [[Nemo of Utopia: Chronicles/Exalted_at_the_Rim_of_Creation|"Exalted at the Rim of Creation"]] The Main "Mixed-Splat" chronicle.

2: [[Nemo of Utopia: Chronicles/There_and_Back_Again:_A_Solar_Holiday|"There and Back Again: A Solar Holiday"]] A CotI Solars-only Game.

3: [[Nemo of Utopia: Chronicles/The_Tale_of_Menemon's_Children|"The Tale of Menemon's Children"]] A Dynastic Dragonblooded Chronicle centering around House Menemon's newest batch of heirs to come-of-age and the parts they will play in their ancestress play for her mother The Empress' vacated throne...

4: [[Nemo of Utopia: Chronicles/In_Capitalist_Claslat,_Bank_Rob_You!|"In Capitalist Claslat, Bank Rob You!"]] Alchemical Chronicle focusing on the conflict between The Guild and the Auochthonians of the Eastern Conference.

5: [[Nemo of Utopia: Chronicles/Dexter's_Darkly_Dreaming_Daughters|"Dexter's Darkly Dreaming Daughters"]] A chronicle that starts off with a group of Ghost-Blooded mortals, then Eventually develops into something "More"... (This chronicle is set in the Henceintic League)

6: [[Nemo of Utopia: Chronicles/Moonlight_Reflecting_On_Water|"Moonlight Reflecting On Water"]] This one is set in the West, focusing on Lavaithain and the western Silver-Pact's difficult road to recovery in the wake of the events of the rest of the chronicles.

7: [[Nemo of Utopia: Chronicles/Ask_Not_For_Whom_The_Bells_Toll|"Ask Not For Whom The Bells Toll, They Toll For Thee."]] At the point where this chronicle enters rotation 'Chop-Shop Car-Jack' (Chejop Kejak), chair of the center convention, has died, and left an unimaginable power-vacuum in his wake in Heaven. A young circle of Sidereal exalted is left trying to pick up the pieces, or maybe just survive, in the aftermath of the passing of the oldest Exalt to ever live. (This chronicle is set in the south...)

User:Nemo of Utopia

2019-12-02T02:43:32Z

Nemo of Utopia: /* Chronicles */

Hello, I'm a returning user who couldn't recover their password, I'm going to be porting over my old content to this new account.

== Greetings and Salutations ==
Third edition, it never really took off, did it? After that "Return of the Scarlet Empress" thing Exalted was more or less finished, we all know how the story ends. But, I still like second ed, and I know a lot of other people who do too, and so I continue to run the occasional second ed game...

I used to be active on the official exalted wiki and then this one as a user called "[[User:The Ghost|The Ghost]]" but I can't access that account anymore, so I created this one and I am porting over all my old work.

= My Content =

== Rules Variants ==

[[Nemo of Utopia/Autochthonian Terrestrials|Autochthonian Terrestrials]]

[[Nemo of Utopia/Alchemical Half Caste|Alchemical Half Caste]]

[[Nemo of Utopia/Let's Not Play Rocket Tag v1|Let's Not Play Rocket Tag v1]]

[[Nemo of Utopia/Let's Not Play Rocket Tag v2|Let's Not Play Rocket Tag v2]]

[[Nemo of Utopia/It's Connections or Nothing|It's Connections or Nothing]]

[[Nemo of Utopia/PiercingArmor|"Piercing" Armor]]

[[Nemo of Utopia/FAME|FAME!]]

[[Nemo of Utopia/Titans of War: Functional Warstriders|Functional Warstriders]]

== NPC Creation Guidelines ==

[[Nemo of Utopia:NPCCreationGuidelines/Top|Top Page]]

[[Nemo of Utopia:NPCCreationGuidelines/Attributes/Top|Attributes]]

[[Nemo of Utopia:NPCCreationGuidelines/Abilities/Top|Abilities]]

[[Nemo of Utopia:NPCCreationGuidelines/Virtues/Top|Virtues]]

[[Nemo of Utopia:NPCCreationGuidelines/Backgrounds/Top|Backgrounds]]

== Chronicles ==

=== Former ===

=== Current ===

I am currently running a chronicle of my own Under the title 'ExXxALTED: [[Nemo of Utopia: Chronicles/The_Legend_of_the_Rain_King|"The Legend of the Rain King"]]' This is intended to be my Magnum Opus.

==== Sub Chronicles ====

There are several subsidiary parts which all take place in the same universe and Timeline that make-up the above chronicle.

1: [[Nemo of Utopia: Chronicles/Exalted_at_the_Rim_of_Creation|"Exalted at the Rim of Creation"]] The Main "Mixed-Splat" chronicle.

2: [[Nemo of Utopia: Chronicles/There_and_Back_Again:_A_Solar_Holiday|"There and Back Again: A Solar Holiday"]] A CotI Solars-only Game.

3: [[Nemo of Utopia: Chronicles/The_Tale_of_Menemon's_Children|"The Tale of Menemon's Children"]] A Dynastic Dragonblooded Chronicle centering around House Menemon's newest batch of heirs to come-of-age and the parts they will play in their ancestress play for her mother The Empress' vacated throne...

4: [[Nemo of Utopia: Chronicles/In_Capitalist_Claslat,_Bank_Rob_You!|"In Capitalist Claslat, Bank Rob You!"]] Alchemical Chronicle focusing on the conflict between The Guild and the Auochthonians of the Eastern Conference.

5: [[Nemo of Utopia: Chronicles/Dexter's_Darkly_Dreaming_Daughters|"Dexter's Darkly Dreaming Daughters"]] A chronicle that starts off with a group of Ghost-Blooded mortals, then Eventually develops into something "More"... (This chronicle is set in the Henceintic League)

6: [[Nemo of Utopia: Chronicles/Moonlight_Reflecting_On_Water|"Moonlight Reflecting On Water"]] This one is set in the West, focusing on Lavaithain and the western Silver-Pact's difficult road to recovery in the wake of the events of the rest of the chronicles.

7: [[Nemo of Utopia: Chronicles/Ask_Not_For_Whom_The_Bells_Toll|"Ask Not For Whom The Bells Toll, They Toll For Thee."]] At the point where this chronicle enters rotation 'Chop-Shop Car-Jack' (Chejop Kejak), chair of the center convention, has died, and left an unimaginable power-vacuum in his wake in Heaven. A young circle of Sidereal exalted is left trying to pick up the pieces, or maybe just survive, in the aftermath of the passing of the oldest Exalt to ever live. (This chronicle is set in the south...)

=== Future ===

Someday I hope to run a relatively brief chronicle entitled 'ExXxALTED: "... All Rivers Flow To The Sea..."' About the Silver-Pact dealing with the consequences of a group of solar's proclaiming [[The Deliberative]] from atop The Pyramid of the Sun in [[Rathess]]...

== City States ==

[[Nemo of Utopia/Amarana|Amarana]] The main setting of my chronicle.

[[Nemo of Utopia/Hokuva|Hokuva]] A pet project of mine.

[[Erlik]] The City of Ten Thousand Blasphemies

== Magical Materials ==

My take on [[Nemo of Utopia/Adamant|Adamant]].

[[Nemo of Utopia/Viridium|Viridium]]

[[Nemo of Utopia/Black Lead|Black Lead]]

== Artifacts ==

This is where my Artifact content will be placed.

=== Any Material ===

[[Nemo of Utopia:Artifacts/Double Bladed Daiklave]]

=== Orichalcum ===

[[Nemo of Utopia:Artifacts/The Teeth of the Serpent]]

[[Nemo of Utopia:Artifacts/The Tiger's Unsheathed Claws]]

=== Jade ===

[[Nemo of Utopia:Artifacts/Serpent and Heron]]

=== Mixed Material ===

[[Nemo of Utopia:Artifacts/Seven Fold Harmonic Adapter]]

== Charms ==

This is where my Charm content will be placed.

=== Alchemical ===

[[Nemo of Utopia/Full Life Technique|Full Life Technique]]

=== Dragon Blooded ===

==== Autochthonian Dragon Blooded ====

=== Lunar ===

== Backgrounds ==

[[Nemo of Utopia/LunarBond|Lunar Bond]]

[[Nemo of Utopia/SolarBondRevisited|Solar Bond]]

== Martial Arts ==

Here are listed the top pages for all of my custom MA styles, current or future.
If I come up with any new ones they will be added in as soon as work starts on them.

(Styles marked with an * are based on 'Official' content, namely styles created to fill in the actual charms of a style named or suggested in an Official source but not given an actual charm tree or charm descriptions.)

=== Terrestrial ===

[[Nemo of Utopia/Cascade Disruption Style]]*

[[Nemo of Utopia/Racing Lightning Style]]*

[[Nemo of Utopia/Thrashing Steam Dragon Style]]*

[[Nemo of Utopia/Stalwart Iron Hero Style]]*

[[Nemo of Utopia/Endlessly Turning Wheal Style]]*

[[Nemo of Utopia/Thousand Faceted Warrior Style]]*

[[Nemo of Utopia/Choking Smoke Saboteur Style]]

[[Nemo of Utopia/Uranium Dragon Style]]

[[Nemo of Utopia/Steel Dragon Style]]

[[Nemo of Utopia/Brass Dragon Style]]

[[Nemo of Utopia/Burning Vitriol Assault Style]]*

[[Nemo of Utopia/Hidden Master Style]]

[[Nemo of Utopia/Path of the Stave Church Style]]

=== Celestial ===

[[Nemo of Utopia/Ebon Dragon Style]]*

[[Nemo of Utopia/Plague Rat Style]]*

[[Nemo of Utopia/Hydraulic Tremor Style]]*

[[Nemo of Utopia/Enlightened Armatures Style]]*

[[Nemo of Utopia/Steel Fang Style]]*

[[Nemo of Utopia/Swallowed Darkness Style]]*

[[Nemo of Utopia/Steam Dragon Style]]

[[Nemo of Utopia/Lightning Dragon Style]]

[[Nemo of Utopia/Oil Dragon Style]]

[[Nemo of Utopia/Crystal Dragon Style]]

[[Nemo of Utopia/Metal Dragon Style]]

[[Nemo of Utopia/Smoke Dragon Style]]

== Characters ==

=== Templates/Sheets ===

[[Nemo of Utopia:Templates/Alchemical Sheet|Alchemical Sheet]]

[[Nemo of Utopia:Templates/Solar Sheet|Solar Sheet]]

[[The Ghost:Templates/Lunar Sheet|Lunar Sheet]]

[[Nemo of Utopia:Templates/Sidereal Sheet|Sidereal Sheet]]

[[Nemo of Utopia:Templates/Abyssal Sheet|Abyssal Sheet]]

[[Nemo of Utopia:Templates/Infernal Sheet|Infernal Sheet]]

[[Nemo of Utopia:Templates/Dragon Blooded Sheet|Dragon Blooded Sheet]]

[[Nemo of Utopia:Templates/Autochthonian Dragon Blooded Sheets|Autochthonian Dragon Blooded Sheets]]

[[Nemo of Utopia:Templates/Ghost Sheet|Ghost Sheet]]

[[Nemo of Utopia:Templates/Mortal Sheet|Mortal Sheet]]

[[Nemo of Utopia:Templates/Animal Sheet|Animal Sheet]]

[[Nemo of Utopia:Templates/Demon Sheet|Demon Sheet]]

[[Nemo of Utopia:Templates/Elemental Sheet|Elemental Sheet]]

[[Nemo of Utopia:Templates/Deity Sheet|Deity Sheet]]

[[Nemo of Utopia:Templates/God Blooded Sheet|God Blooded Sheet]]

[[Nemo of Utopia:Templates/Ghost Blooded Sheet|Ghost Blooded Sheet]]

[[Nemo of Utopia:Templates/Demon Blooded Sheet|Demon Blooded Sheet]]

[[Nemo of Utopia:Templates/Beast-folk Sheet|Beast-folk Sheet]]

[[Nemo of Utopia:Templates/Raksha Sheet|Raksha Sheet]]

[[Nemo of Utopia:Templates/Dragon King Sheet|Dragon King Sheet]]

[[Nemo of Utopia:Templates/Mountain Folk Sheet|Mountain Folk Sheet]]

[[Nemo of Utopia:Templates/Generic Sheet Template|Generic Sheet Template]]

=== Alchemical ===

=== Solar ===

[[Nemo of Utopia:Characters/AsterSnow|Aster Snow]]

[[Nemo of Utopia:Characters/BillyBBobBlythBoeBingo|Billy B Bob Blyth "Boe Bingo"]]

=== Lunar ===

[[Nemo of Utopia:Characters/Adjara|Adjara]]

=== Sidereal ===

[[Nemo of Utopia:Characters/Harmonious Flower|Harmonious Flower]]

=== Abyssal ===

[[Nemo of Utopia:Characters/Mr Benjamin Karat Muldoon|Mr Benjamin Karat Muldoon]]

[[Nemo of Utopia:Characters/Killer in the House of Horrors|Killer in the House of Horrors]]

[[Nemo of Utopia:Characters/The Housewife of Dark Designs|The Housewife of Dark Designs]]

[[Nemo of Utopia:Characters/Little Void Princess|Little Void Princess]]

[[Nemo of Utopia:Characters/Soulsteel Axe Queen|Soulsteel Axe Queen]]

[[Nemo of Utopia:Characters/The Black Barron of Vulgaria|The Black Barron of Vulgaria]]

=== Infernal ===

[[Nemo of Utopia:Characters/Vermilion Glass Rat|Vermilion Glass Rat]]

=== Dragon Blooded ===

==== Autochthonian Dragon Blooded ====

=== Demon/Yozi ===

[[User:Nemo of Utopia/TheHierarchyofSouls|The Hierarchy of Souls]]

=== Gods/Spirit ===

=== God Blooded ===

=== Ghost/Ghost Blooded ===

==== Deathlords/ladies ====

This segment chronicles all of the examples of one of "The Four" whom I have created for my games: understand that these characters are even less 'core' than the rest of the characters I have created.

[[Nemo of Utopia:Characters/The Archon of Apostasy|The Archon of Apostasy]]

[[Nemo of Utopia:Characters/TheMocker|The Mocker]]

[[Nemo of Utopia:Characters/DrownedPrincessoftheStygianDepths|Drowned Princess of the Stygian Depths]]

==== Deathlords/ladies (Re-Worked Canon Characters) ====

In some of my games, I have completely re-worked one or more of the canon Deathlords/Deathladys in certain specific ways, generally making them both more powerful, competent, and complicated, on several levels than in their core canonical status.

[[Nemo of Utopia:Characters/TheLegendoftheRainKing/TheFirstAndForsakenLion|The Legend of the Rain King/The First and Forsaken Lion]]

=== Mortal ===

== Shards of the Exalted Dream ==

Nemo of Utopia/Autochthonian Terrestrials

2019-11-26T23:18:00Z

Nemo of Utopia: /* The Six Types of Autochthonian Terrestrial */

= Warning! =

The Content of this page is purely an exercise in theoretical mechanics and hypothetical social constructs: It should be included in actual games with utmost caution and complete awareness that it will be disruptive to established content.

You have been warned.

= The Dragon-Blooded of Autochthonia =

When [[Autochthon]] went into exile he had no way of knowing who among the millions of people he snatched from creation happened to have a trace of the heritage of the Elemental Dragons. These unfortunate few sometimes had children that exalted as Dragon-Blooded, and those children often came together in adulthood to have Dragon-Blooded children of their own. So it went for hundreds of years, and with the advent of the [[Alchemicals]] the Dragon-Blooded became the legates and assistants to Autochthon's Chosen as they had been to the [[Solars]] before them. Over time however a change began to take place among the Dragon-Blooded: children exalted who were not from any of the five known aspects but rather had elemental affinities based on the elements of their new home, Crystal, Lighting, Steam, Metal, Oil, and Smoke.

At first shunned by the 'normal' Dragon-Blooded over time these 'freaks' came together and had their own children, who grew up straight and true to their parent's new bloodlines. Born to be heroes they refused to surrender to social isolation and ostracism and within a few centuries were considered part of the structure of Dragon-Blooded society, though almost always kept in separate bloodlines by the 'old blood' families.

Today Gents of all eleven bloodlines of terrestrials serve the Alchemicals as their assistants and shock troops. thanks to the work of the Dragon-Blooded the crisis of the Great Maker's body is much less than it might be, though a crisis it still is. The Dragon-Blooded of the 'Old Blood' is all but gone from Autochthonia, but the six new types have risen up to take their place, and are going strong today.

== The Six Types of Autochthonian Terrestrial ==

The Six Autochthonian Breeds of terrestrial are each similar to some of the old breeds of terrestrial, with one exception, that of Smoke, which takes on a small amount of the abilities of each other breed but is directly correlated to none. The Ability Packages and Anima Powers of Each breed are listed below, as are (eventually will be, actually, for now), Twenty pre-generated "Signature Characters" for each aspect, including one 'basic' example from each Autochthonian "nation" (Including the city/states of [[Het]], [[Loran]], [[Xexas]], [[Nemo of Utopia:Locations/Autochthonia/Hokuva|Hokuva]] & [[Erlik]] ) "ready to be adopted" that starts with 75-125 XP under their belt, one Tunnel-folk "Lost-Egg" of 50XP that could (theoretically) be adapted to be played as a tunnel-folk group of Dragon-Blooded, and Assorted random "Elders" + "Notable Historical Figures" who are/were important to that Aspect's development in some way. (Whose stat-blocks can be adapted to serve as other Autochthonian Terrestrial NPCs as-needed...)

=== Crystal ===

Crystal Aspects are mentally acute, being tied to the mind of the great maker. The most closely embody the secret and potent wisdom of the sleeping god and partake of his natural brilliance. As such their abilities are Integrity, Occult, Resistance, Computers, and War.

==== Anima of the Crystal aspect ====

Animas of the crystal aspect are jagged sharp-edged affairs typically taking the form of massive spires of crystal or Exo Machina such as crystalline dragons or even projections of the divine ministers. They often are accompanied by the crackle of electricity or the hum and click of computers.

The Anima power of Crystal aspects is to interface with the gods of autochthonia. When their anima flares the crystal aspects may add (essence rating/2) dice to all rolls to interact or negotiate with any autchthonian sub god of less standing than the least god of a 4-dot artifact. (This bonus also explicitly applies to the pattern spiders that tend the Loom of Fate, should this ever become relevant.) Furthermore, when their anima effect is in play Crystal aspects take on some of the durability of adamant and may soak lethal and aggravated damage with their full stamina, as well as adding their essence to their stamina for all other purposes.

==== Crystal aspect Signature Characters ====

=== Steam ===

Athletics, Drive, Medicine, Thrown

==== Anima of the Steam aspect ====

Steam aspect's animas are hazy and indistinct things, that don't take on any specific shapes but are accompanied by loud hissing sounds and the squeal of the steam-whistle. The Steam anima power is to produce warm-and-wet-but-fresh air for themselves and their compatriots whenever their animas flare above the 5 mote range. this pure air occupies a bubble Essencex2 yards across and anyone in that zone feels like they are in a sauna but can breathe easy, knowing the air is clear of all airborne toxins and contaminants except purest water.

==== Steam aspect Signature Characters ====

=== Lightning ===

Lighting's powers are heat, celerity, energy, and power: they form the energy that powers the great maker and conducts his thoughts to all parts of Autochthonia. Lighting finds the shortest path and locates the missing link while empowering the tools on which the Octet depends. As such the abilities of the Lightning Aspect are Archery, Investigation, Lore, Presence, and -
>][< INFORMATION REDACTED: TOP SECRET! (By order of the International Orthodoxy Tripartite Conclave of year 4869 DA: Clearance Level: Luminus.) >][<

==== The Anima of the Lighting Aspect ====

Lightning aspects animas are sizzling yellows and blues, clashing with the sound of thunder and smelling of ozone.

Lightning Aspect's animas are raging coronas of energy: for a cost of five motes, they can inflict (Essencex2) dice of bashing damage on anyone they touch or who touches them and force any person who takes at least one point of damage from the attack to save with [Stamina+Resistance] or be stunned at DC 3. This damage does nothing to the lightning aspect themselves or their possessions but can ignite flammable objects without sufficient conductivity for electricity, such as cloth and paper, and will almost certainly fry any electronics it comes into contact with that are not protected by being in the possession of a lightning aspect.

==== Lightning aspect Signature Characters ====

=== Metal ===

Craft, Melee, Mechanics,

==== Anima of the Metal Aspect ====

The anima power of the Metal-Aspects

==== Metal aspect Signature Characters ====

=== Oil ===

Oil's powers are lubrication and potential: they are tied to the circulatory systems of the great maker and partake of the hallowed blood that flows through his veins. As such their aspect abilities are Sail, Socialize, Martial Arts, Performance, and Linguistics.

==== Anima of the Oil Aspect ====

The anima power of Oil is similar to that of the Wood Aspect, becoming immune to poison and their touch conveying poison, except that they become immune to all artificial poisons instead of plant-based poisons. Neither is immune to animal poisons.

==== Oil aspect Signature Characters ====

=== Smoke ===

The Smoke Aspects are known to be brooding and sullen, disaffected, and dissatisfied: seen by some as infected with a genetically encoded lesser version of Gremlins-syndrome they are not welcome in some of the eight nations, and often are found as leaders of tunnel-folk tribes. Smoke aspects really only came-into-their-own in the past 1000 years with the invention of their signature weapon type: "Firearms". Before that, it was thought that these sorts of DBs didn't have as many aspect skills as the rest of the "new breeds" of dragon-blooded but when Gunpowder was discovered, bing, bang, boom: The Smoke-Aspects "found their muse"... Smoke aspects are, as it turns out, all about "assassination by sniping": their Aspect abilities, therefore, are Awareness, Dodge, Firearms, Stealth, and Survival

==== Anima of the Smoke Aspect ====

The Anima power of smoke is to purge their body of disease. All diseases natural and artificial are purged from their bodies when their anima flares. However this comes at a price, the diseases so purged infect everyone within 1d yards at the time who is not immune to disease or another Smoke aspect. When their anima's flare they also gain the benefits of the Night-caste anima power when it reaches bonfire level with respect to obscuring personal identity. They can deliberately invoke these effects immediately at any time by spending 5 motes.

==== Smoke aspect Signature Characters ====

= Modern Times =

It was among the 'Old Blood' of the terrestrials that the idea of [[Project Razor]] first occurred to the people of Autochthonia, some 10 years ago. The originator of the plan was an Earth Aspect of Yugash named [[Nemo of Utopia:Characters/Dragon-Blooded/Earth-aspects/Chanel_of_Esoteric_Wisdom|Chanel of Esoteric Wisdom]], an adjutant to Yugash's National Tripartite. She reasoned that the cache's of magical materials mined by the people of Yugash must be running out for a reason: and after consulting with many of the Alchemicals came to a shocking conclusion: Autochthon had planned to stay in the Void for thousands of years: but ''not'' almost Five Thousand. Parsing records and examining historical accounts she published a modest analytical paper on recurring resource shortages, which drew a simple but shocking conclusion: the great maker had prepared himself for an exile of only 4000 years. The paper made no judgments on the prudence of this choice, nor what was to be done about having remained in exile over 800 years 'too long', but the paper found willing ears among many of the more learned members of Autochthonian Society, including [[Fair Spoken Reshi]], who saw to it that it was distributed among most of Autochthonia's other nations as well. Soon many national tripartite came to the same conclusions as Chanel of Esoteric Wisdom from examining their own records. Slowly but surely a new idea spread among the leadership of the Eight nations and the three great city-states: "Project Razor", a charm to breach the seal of eight divinities and return to [[Creation]]. Subtly encouraging this from behind the scenes were 'old blood' terrestrials in every nation, who reasoned that if they had endured in Autochthonia then surely others of their bloodlines had endured in the creation and could infuse new life into their flagging families, or provide them refuge in escaping from the World/God of Autochthon.

User:Nemo of Utopia

2019-11-26T23:15:24Z

Nemo of Utopia: /* City States */