Dissolvegirl/DayOfTheDead

The Day of the Dead

There's a rhyme that children sing when they play in the streets of Chiaroscuro; no one knows its origin.

The first day is iron
The second day is brass
The third is dark steel
With whispers of the past
The fourth day is blackness
And the fourth day is lead
And the tower comes rising
On the day of the dead..

It's RY 799, and the day of the dead is coming. A post-apocalyptic post-apocalyptic setting. Demon cultists and madmen preach the end of Creation is nigh; the air is stale with a century on its deathbed. These are strange times in a strange land, and the uneasy feeling resting on the shoulders of the Exalts foretells something even the stars cannot reveal.

Locale

Odland

Somewhere in the south. Think Trigun meets Stephen King's Dark Tower series. A wild west setting filled with crumbling magitech. Odland is a very small trading-post sort of place, mostly a place for nomadic tribes to trade pelts (maybe gems, depending on how far south I decide Odland is) for water and other things. This is going to be the sort-of base for The Man With Garments Drenched in Darkness.

New Arjuf

Arjuf was utterly destroyed in the civil war, and has been painstakingly rebuilt. Actually, its decimation is what brought about the Treaty of Arjuf, which forbade warfare on the Blessed Isle itself. Like many things, it remains a mere shadow of its former glory; what is left of house V'Neef has been charged with rebuilding it. New Arjuf is still a major port city, although instead of ships bringing luxeries and trinkets, it harbors ships from the Scavenger lands bringing much-needed lumber and supplies for the relief effort.

Lookshy

Despite the urging of some of its younger generals to sieze the oppertunity to take the Realm after the Succession War, life in Lookshy has remained almost completely unchanged. After the Treaty of Arjuf, Lookshy became extremely isolationist, refusing trade with anywhere but Nexus, and completely stepping away from the chaos that the war inflicted upon the rest of the world. Today, Lookshy only accepts immigrants when one of their citizens is dying or dead, and only accepts people with extremely lucrative skills, and/or considerable caches of artifacts or arcane knowledge which they are willing to donate to Lookshy as an immigration tax. Former members of any Great House are summarily rejected, no matter what skills or riches they bring to the table, in case these members do not wish to join Lookshy, but rather, tap into Lookshy's strength in order to further their house's goals in the Realm.

Gethamane

In the years following the return of the Solars, the number of incursions into Gethamane from the creatures living in the tunnels below the mountain has increased steadily. A Large-scale incursion around ten years ago finally made enough of an impact to cause the population of the city to panic, and over half left immediately, with others leaving in a steady trickle until the population is left as a fragment of what it was towards the end of the Empress' reign. Those who remain are the priests of the temples and scavengers who are either brave or foolish, and still venture down into the underways in search of rare items and glow-stones, which they are able to sell for quite a price when they do recover them, due to the fact that so few are currently being found. A very small portion of the city is currently inhabited -- those parts furthest from entrances to the underways.

The Haslanti League

The Haslanti League's expansionism has worked against it. In trying to expand its territory too far, it became unable to provide adequate troops to maintain all its frontiers, and this was exploited (whether by planning or bad fortune) by barbarian groups, who swept across much of the League's lands, destroying several of its smaller towns and attempting to move against the more central ones. The city of Icehome and a handfull of the other cities within the league were able to pull in enough troops to remain well-defended, and the populations of other areas took refuge in those; but the fortunes of the League had taken a turn for the worst. The League has been sinking into insignificance, and has become somewhat more humble with this change in its fortunes, which was only made worse when League members with knowlege of air boats and other secrets of the Haslanti League defected to a neighboring state. This was only the beginning of a general spread in knowlege of the contruction and use of these ships, which has further undermined the League's power and significance.

The Haltan Republic

Time has been surprisingly kind to the Haltans. When the Solars returned, two exalted within the Haltan nation and, as loyal citizens, made it clear that they would continue to support the Republic against the Linowans, coming to agreements with the Lunars backing the Republic. This proved enough to tip the endless battle with the Linowan people decidedly in favour of the Haltan Republic, especially as one of the Solars turned out to be of great potential as a military leader, and little interested in politics, which was to the liking of all concerned, as it made for a powerful and relatively easy to manipulate ally. This change of affairs has greatly reduced the size of the Linowans' domain, leaving them on the verge of being utterly disposessed of their lands. In the reclaimed territory, new saplings spring up, spread by the Haltans and guarded fiercely by them.

Ruins Of Glory

The Realm

The revolution has come and gone. The Empress is still missing; the houses have fought in what could only be called a Dragon-Blooded massacre. The numbers of House-aligned Terrestrials are one-quarter what they were; much of the Realm's powerful artifacts and nifty magitech are destroyed, their jade carcasses littering Creation in even the furthest reaches of the world, as the Treaty of Arjuf decreed that all major battles would take place away from the Blessed Isle. Tepet Ejava sits on an Iron Throne, and is known as the Blood-Born Empress-- through so much carnage came one person to wrest the fate of the Realm from dead hands and, hopefully, save the Terrestrials from themselves. More on this later.

Yu-Shan

The Bronze Faction is crippled and crumbling, reeling in the wake of Kejak's death-- a peaceful death of old age, that happened the same hour as Ejava ascending the throne. The Gold Faction has seized their oppertunity, actually managing to make one of their elder members the personal advisor to the Blood-Born Empress. While Ejava takes little counsel from others, she does have a certain camraderie and affection for her advisor which has kept the Gold Factioneer alive within the heart of her enemies' powerbase. Ejava does not yet harbor love for anathema, but she did call off the Wyld Hunt, citing that there were more dire issues that need to be taken care of. Further to this, there has been something of a change in mood in Yu-Shan regarding Dragon Kings. Those who lived in the Celestial City had, for a thousand years, done nothing more than their job, carefully and quietly. The return of the Solars, however, changed this -- as it changed so many things. The reasons are not precisely known, but at some point after the initial reappearance of the Solars, a group of Pterok in Yu-Shan began petitioning for greater rights for Dragon Kings in the city. It is still not entirely clear what will come of this, but they seem to have managed to glean a few more rights, in minor ways; and they seem to be looking with greater interest at creation, too.

A Reborn Civilisation

Dragon Kings have, on the whole, suffered only more decline in Creation, with the number of Mosok left (both savage and intelligent) probably standing at no more than one hundred. In a small number of areas, however, a dramatic re-emergence of Dragon King civilisations has left their human neighbours confused and, perhaps, frightened. These groups seem to emerge almost exclusively near portals to Yu-Shan, and amongst those who know such things it is assumed that Dragon Kings from heaven itself have some hand in this; they are also commonly associated with Solars, who are now (with the Wyld Hunt abandoned) far more free to openly aid such groups. It appears that intelligent Dragon Kings like to recruit Solars, feeling that they are the closest thing they have to natural allies, gaining their political and military support, and persuading them to help train young, savage Dragon Kings. With the help of such Solars, the groups of large numbers of civilised Dragon Kings are able to grow in size much more rapidly, and are far better able to sustain their populations. There are no more than four such colonies known: one in the North, not far from Icehome (to the displeasure of what remains of the Haslanti League); one, relatively small but thriving, in the region of Nexus, more or less attached to the outer edge of the city; another actually within the city of Great Forks; and a final one in the South, near Chiaroscuro. The first colony is composed almost exclusively of Pterok, although a handful of Raptok reside there also. The Nexus colony is a mixture of all breeds, although due to the depleted population of Mosok over Creation as a whole there are few of them present even here. In Great Forks, the Dragon Kings are equally Pterok and Raptok, and the Chiaroscuro colony is primarily Anklok, with a scattering of Raptok. These colonies all hold a strong sense of cultural identity, and while the Dragon Kings are naturally quite warlike they have made no hostile moves against their human neighbours, possibly due to the restraining influences of the older Dragon Kings, and the Solars who helped to raise many of the newly enlightened individuals. The Dragon King religion is still maintained, with sacrifices of hearts to the Unconquered Sun being usual and acceptable, although they limit this to the sacrifice of those guilty of severe crimes.

Backdrop

Dissolvegirl/DayOfTheDead/DeadSpoilers

Editor's Note

Yes, the Iron Throne concept was stolen from George R.R. Martin. He rocks, and I think it would fit Ejava's style.

Ideally, this would work the best as a series of one-on-ones. A wandering Vashlike Solar, a young Lunar on a vision quest in the South who sees things which should not be, a Sidereal sent by Yu-Shan to investigate whether there's anything to all these doomsday cults popping up, a DB working for the new Empress.

I'm having a lot of trouble fleshing out the actual plot of the game, so if anyone is particularly inspired by what's here, I could use the help. :)

Comments

Sounds very cool. Hope it comes together for you. Unfortunately, I can't play in it. :) --MF

Wow, great setting. Best of luck finding people for it. - BogMod

And now that I have a little more time I would be interested in joining in on this. -BogMod

It DOES suck when you think of a great climactic ending of a series and can't think of a way to get the players there. Thankfully, it worked out well for me. My players HAD their final climactic battle atop a stepped Pyramid under construction that would have ascended into the Heavens where the Deathlord could strike down the Sun:D I'm sure it'll work out for you too, if you get a chance to run this. -- CrownedSun

Oh I like this setting a lot. Have you given any thought as to which of the great houses survives the succession war? Or how Ejava came out victorious in the end? What are you going to call the war? (The succession war, the war of the scarlet throne, war of the shattered isle.)

Post war realm should be cool. The houses stripped of their armies. The population bitter and enraged at the dragon blooded due to the casualties suffered. All the remaining artefacts claimed by the new empress (clearly the houses aren’t responsible enough to hold on to them.) These weapons will only to handed out to the empresses own agents. Perhaps the new realm will open negotiations with lookshy to gain access to their considerable resources to help in the rebuilding process. -- Ageis

Funny... I always believed that it would be Mnemon who took the throne. Roseblack would be my next choice though. -- Narrator 1