BCTheEntity

Municipal Darwinism: A Traction Cities NRP (Open and Accepting!)

@PentagonWhite Just a poke to ask if this game is still happening.

Are We the Bad Guys? - A WH40k RP

@Jbcool Brilliant. To play Chaos' advocate about Orks not usually working for Chaos, it's entirely possible that mister Shaman isn't technically Chaos-corrupted- he does believe Khorne and Tzeentch are just Gork and Mork Mork and Gork by different names, after all- but nonetheless works alongside actual allies of Chaos, who logically are also working for Mork and Gork Gork and Mork even if they're calling them weird names and getting powers other Orks usually don't get from them, because they're the best gods, right? (By the way, @Necroes, feel free to snatch that as a reason why an Ork is present in the otherwise-Chaotic party if you don't have any other ideas for how that might work out. I'm sure you do, but better safe than sorry.)

Are We the Bad Guys? - A WH40k RP

An ostracized shaman from a feral clan who is convinced khorne and tzeentch are just what humans and eldar call Gork and Mork, to be specific.

@Necroes

Ya mean Mork an' Gork, ya bleedin' halfwit git! Mork's da wun wif da cunnin' brootallitee, an' Gork's got da brootal cunnin'!

Anyway, I like that idea. Let's hope he doesn't make anyone's head blow up. And just to clarify for certain, @Jbcool, it'd be okay for me to bring Lucius back for this game, right? Modified to suit this game's story and setting of course. More fighting might even suit him better than what he had going on in An Unholy Mass, considering.

Into The Dark: Mercenaries (Heroes of Fame and Fortune)

The castle, having been navigated quite a few times at this point, was not quite so winding as it had initially been for Nuva. Certainly, there were parts where it took time to reorient himself, but he'd specifically gone to lengths to figure out where most of the rooms and halls were in relation to each other, giving him a degree of ability to navigate the place that was... somewhat above what he assumed most others would be capable of. Secret, naturally, would find him regardless of where he chose to hide out; Morek was the Vault's guardian, and not inclined to move away from there; and in truth, he wasn't quite sure what exactly Jex and the gnomes did around the place in their spare time, though the gnomes seemed preoccupied with invention. Most everybody else was engaged at the official guild house, of course, which meant Nuva was typically left on his lonesome for much of the day.

Overall, he imagined, he was quite difficult to find within the fortress if he didn't want to be found. Though in fairness, he'd discovered a few "favourite spots", so to speak. Perhaps not a good habit, to get into using the same areas for seclusion over and over, but it wasn't as though he'd not be fighting on the front lines anyway should the place be invaded. And, he supposed, it'd make Secret's inevitable appearance more likely to occur now than later, assuming she knew his spots. Today, he'd decided to take lunch in what was perhaps once a bedroom, but now contained rather few decorations at all, save a couple of ragged blue banners and the frame of the bed itself, still mostly intact. A wonder that that hadn't been taken apart for firewood, but it made for a reasonable-enough table. Unrolling his food bundle and placing his drink on the frame next to it, Nuva knelt down, began to eat, and waited.

OOC Footer

This is the first part of the conversation between Secret and Nuva. The rest, I believe, will be conducted via PM, and presumably posted in the thread when it's completed.

Into The Dark: Mercenaries (Heroes of Fame and Fortune)

@POOHEAD189 I was just wondering how that would be handled, actually. I might make a post just to keep up with the nominal time limit, if I'm required to do that in this instance (?), but otherwise I figure we can have the conversation in PMs and then post it to the thread later on. It's not like there's any meta-knowledge about Nuva Doer that isn't known by anybody yet, after all.

Are We the Bad Guys? - A WH40k RP

Ah, that's where An Unholy Mass went. I'm more than up to join this game and fight for the bad of all.

Warhammer 40k: Enemy Without, Enemy Within - an 'Ecclesiarchal' RP [Mature][High Casual/Low Advanced]

Zulway, Goddess of Mercy

Name: Sister Alexandra Christina, often shortened to just Alexa amongst friends.

Gender: Female

Role/Order: Hospitaller - Order of the Transfixed Saint

Personal Demeanour: Alexa is obviously not quite so hard-hearted as her Sisters in the Orders Militant, considering her placement into the Order of the Transfixed Saint. Indeed, when it comes to the citizenry of the Imperium, she is nothing if not caring and calm, saying what is needed to keep her charges in good spirits as she works on them, though this does not quell her hatred of heresy and witchcraft in any way, as one might anticipate for any Sororita. Indeed, her silence in many situations is often mistaken for stony contemplation of how best to fight the forces of Chaos, especially when her face is covered, and she has occasionally even been asked why she is not part of the Order of Our Thrice-Pierced Martyr. The truth, however, is that far from being cold in nature, she is simply rather a shy and quiet individual who does not say more than needed around those she does not know. A good word to describe her is "thoughtful" - for both her patients and when it comes to praise of the God-Emperor.

Speciality: As a Hospitaller, one would expect Alexa to be good at diagnosing and healing others, given that that is essentially her job. Less often discussed is how Hospitallers are sometimes utilised as torturers for heretics whose continued existence is not so necessary, or for their knowledge of both genetics and anatomy; whilst Alexa is certainly very skilled in all these fields, as are all Hospitallers, her opportunities to exercise the practical aspects of torture and genetic knowledge have been rather impresent, meaning that her primary focus lies in healing others as might be expected.

Rank: Hospitaller Advance

Description: Alexa is pale-skinned, and surprisingly tall at nearly two and a half meters, with a natural towheaded tone to relatively flat hair and pale, icy blue irises, the eyes set into a face which holds attractive features, yet seems almost Eldar-ish to those who are aware of the race's appearance. All of these are the products of Void-born lineage, adaptations to multiple generations of minimal solar light, radiation exposure, variable gravity, excessive Warp exposure, and Emperor knows what else; yet in spite of her height she is just as lean and well-muscled as you could expect any Sister to be, in spite of her appearance as human as any Battle-Sister could hope to be, and in spite of her lineage lacks most of the socially-offputting tics one would usually see in one raised in the void, rather than merely born of its airless grasp. On her back, the tattoo of the Fleur De Lys is engraved in black over each shoulder blade, and the symbol of the Order of the Transfixed Saint between these, all raised up and marginally discoloured by self-inflicted scarring of various sorts; the symbols are also tattooed on the backs of her hands, the Fleur De Lys on the left and her Order's symbol on the right.
Her standard clothing as a Hospitaller, aside from the basic underclothing, is a set of the Order of the Transfixed Heart's robes: a shin-length black robe akin to a buttonless longcoat, with minimal gold trim save for the Order's symbol emblazoned upon it front; black trousers and shoes to match the robe; a headdress that is white and red on the external and internal faces respectively save the Order's symbol in red on the front; a hip-length silk cape that hangs open over the chest from the shoulders, held together by a thin gold chain, with holes in each side for the wearer's arms to pass through, trimmed in gold and otherwise sharing a colour scheme with the headdress; and for many Hospitallers, Alexa included, the chirurgeon's gauntlets containing the tools and substances they would otherwise have to carry by hand. By contrast, when urged to serve on the front lines, Alexa's Hospitaller carapace is very similarly built to the standard Sororitas power armour, save that the white cloth vestments of the normal armour are coloured red on the internal surfaces, and the headdress of the Order's robes either placed upon the head as usual along with a rebreather mask, or tied over the Sabbat-pattern helm when a full environmental seal is required.

History: For as long as she can remember, Alexa's childhood was based in the Schola Progenium; supposedly, she had been discovered in her infancy as the last living occupant of a small ship devoid of resources, her parents dead mere hours before having expended their lives as servants of the Imperium to ensure their child lived on. Needless to say, her childhood was not exactly fun and games, being composed largely of indoctrination and education, both intellectual and physical, and she rapidly learned not to talk back to her superiors, or indeed talk to anyone she was not mandated to lest she receive a harsh correction for her troubles.
By the time she graduated from the Schola Progenium, Alexa was one of the more physically fit Progena of her generation, and certainly as faithful as any Imperial citizen could be; thus, she was seconded to the Adepta Sororitas, sent off to the Convent Sanctorum on Ophelia VII, and her training, education, and indoctrination continued, until such time as she was seen as fit for elevation into the Sisterhood at some point in her twenties. Here, with far less brutal treatment simply for talking to others, she learned from her fellow candidates a sense of human decency and kindness that she hadn't known could exist, a bud that blossomed into a beautiful flower of human nature, though she remained as quiet and unassuming in her faith and interactions as ever.
For this part of her personality, she was forwarded to the Order of the Transfixed Saint, stationed in the Taniea Sub-Sector, and taught the methods and skills needed to function as a field medic and hospital warden both, ready to save the lives of those who need it, or take the lives of those that require it. In the several years that have passed since then, she has served in a variety of hospitals and battlefields, most notably helping to treat the civilian population of a planet during a minor yet destructive uprising of Chaos, as well as helping to ensure her fellow Sisters could continue to fight during the cleansing of Xeno taint from a destroyed Rogue Trader's ship; thus, she is about as skilled as one might expect, with a moderate degree of experience to go with this.

Equipment and Armament:
Hospitaller Carapace armour - Naturally, the equivalent of a field medic is at their best when well-armoured: the Hospitaller Carapace, somewhat modified from the power armour issued to standard Battle-Sisters, is only slightly less effective as a defensive option, and with the Sabbat-pattern helm in place and providing a sealed environment to work within is nonetheless tough enough to allow Alexa to do her job even in the line of fire. Out of battle, Alexa typically wears her Order's robes instead, and presently carries a set of these just in case she is required to leave her armour on this mission.
Chirurgeon's tools and assorted medicae equipment - Outside of the Apothecaries of the Adeptus Astartes, the Sisters Hospitaller possess the best battlefield medicae tools in the Imperium. The standard kit, so to speak, contains various sacred oils, unguents, surgical tools, and sterilisers to help the wounded in battle; a chirurgeon's tools incorporate all of these into lightweight powered gauntlets worn on one or both hands by the Hospitaller, only further enhancing their capacity to heal and cure, and make very effective torture devices to boot, in a pinch even able to defend the wearer in close combat.
Godwyn-De'az Pattern Bolt Pistol - Though the nature of any Sororita is to battle the forces that would destroy the Imperium from within, be they heretic, witch or mutant, the Orders Hospitaller are tasked to do so by healing those who would fight back, rather than engaging in direct combat themselves. Thus, most are equipped with firepower not much greater than a bolt pistol, largely intended to provide the Emperor's Mercy when the patient truly cannot be saved except from further suffering - though suggesting that a bolt pistol's firepower is not great is like suggesting a very weak witch does not still threaten an entire planet by their laxity. Alexa keeps hers equipped with full-size ten-round magazines, allowing for three triple-shot bursts when threatened, plus at least one shot reserved for granting the Emperor's Mercy to an unfortunate soul; she also stores a Sarissa blade on her person, ready to attach to the weapon at a moment's notice should she be set upon in close combat.
Grenades, frag and krak - Once again, whilst Sisters of the Orders Hospitaller are not intended to fight in direct combat, they are nonetheless equipped with the same grenades as their Militant sisters, for to do otherwise would be foolish. Besides, what better way to destroy heresy and its bearers than in areas a couple of meters across at a time?
Rosarius - A proper Rosarius contains a conversion field capable of transforming kinetic and heat energy into light, protecting the bearer from even the blast of a plasma gun. They are also generally restricted to use by those who have earned the honour within the Ecclesiarchy, often senior members like Ministorum priests and the Adepta Sororitas' Canonesses; however, many lesser Sisters carry similar symbols without defensive properties to show their devotion to the Emperor, with Alexa being no different.
Chaplet-Ecclesiasticus - A string of small adamantium beads, each representing at least one act of penance performed by the bearer, though the beads of Sisters who have performed many such acts may represent anywhere from ten to a thousand at a time. Thus far, Alexa's Chaplet contains around a hundred beads, most of which were acquired after her failure to save a patient from the clutches of death.
Ring of Suffrage - Designed to cause minor discomfort when pressed against skin and twisted, rings of suffrage are utilised as a form of corporal mortification, to remind the afflicted individual of the burdens they bear as a citizen of the Imperium, as well as the trials and tribulations endured by the Saints and the God-Emperor Himself. Alexa's is made of bronze, formed in the shape of the Order's symbol, and worn on her right index finger over the gauntlet of her chirurgeon's tools, or directly on her finger if no such gauntlet is present.
Combat rations - To sustain herself for up to a week.
Dataslate - Containing a number of hymns, sermons, and other religious texts and imagery.
Steel-chain whip - For penance on the go. Tipped with three blades to ensure penance is duly received.

Miscellaneous: N/A

Municipal Darwinism: A Traction Cities NRP (Open and Accepting!)

@PentagonWhite Ah, I see. I only ask because it occurs to me that Golden Gator and Treasure Island both make great names for primarily-aquatic cities, amongst others... and Butchertown is just a wonderfully brutal name for a traction suburb period, especially as a nickname for Mission Bay, or District, or whatever Mission neighbourhood is used for that. I'll probably hold off on actually creating them for the moment, but for sake of knowledge, if I did add them in, would the process be similar to a full-size Traction City, or would it just be listing them off as followers of the main city or something?

Municipal Darwinism: A Traction Cities NRP (Open and Accepting!)

The Balancing City of Sand-Fran-Crawler

City Name: Sand-Fran-Crawler

Population: Officially between 200,000-400,000 at any given time, though its size would suggest it could comfortably support far more citizens than this. However, it also supports a population of a million or more slaves working in the city's Gut, composed of those captured from other cities as well as the more heinous criminals of Sand-Fran-Crawler and the descendants of the same, none of whom are really considered "people".

Method of Locomotion: Sand-Fran-Crawler's name is not precisely indicative of how it moves: its single true wheel seems to be little more than an immense, seemingly-solid ball of steel and other metals, kept slick with oil by automated processes and the city's slaves both, rounded by the immense forces it is constantly subjected to, and with Sand-Fran-Crawler balanced atop it by both a series of Holy Giraskopes and the six massive Arms of the City, though they are technically its legs as well. These immensely-complicated limbs, three to a side and placed evenly around the city's centre of mass, are both its primary method of propulsion- either walking SFC along atop the giant ball with all six Arms to maintain relative stability, or pushing with either two or four Arms and allowing SFC to coast rapidly for immense distances in a single burst- and its main method of resource gathering and Urbivorism, with each Arm containing a set of Jaws that can tear away great chunks of both other cities and any interesting environmental deposits that may somehow still exist in the Traction Era, depositing the wreckage and any survivors of such an attack into Sand-Fran-Crawler's Gut to be picked over once the meal is fully consumed.
The city also possesses the capacity to walk, albeit very slowly, on these massive legs by lifting itself skyward, the ball gripped by additional mechanisms within the Gut so as to avoid it tearing free, as well as titanic Helium Floatation Sacks around the city's lowest levels that allow for some degree of amphibious movement, using the Arms of the City to effectively swim across any ocean it may need to pass, though SFC is not strictly designed to remain ocean-bound forever. To wit, the Arms are clad in armour thick enough to shield them from most significant hits, since they would otherwise be very notable weak points, and many citizens believe they are irreparable if destroyed. The time SFC would spend stopped in order to rebuild even one destroyed arm would certainly be intolerable by the standards of the Traction Era, and more than one or two lost is likely to spell the city's end, or at least its certain consumption by other Traction Cities which happen upon it.

Physical Description: Sand-Fran-Crawler is a surprisingly large city for its population size: even counting the massive yet oft-ignored population of slaves in the Gut, its population density is very low for the Traction Era, as it is nearly fifteen miles across at its widest point (much of that due to its oversized Gut and the Wheel the city sits atop), and very tall on top of this, the Gut and Tier 1 totalling a good five or six miles high by necessity, and the remaining two Tiers adding another three or four miles on top of that, in theory only stopping there because any bigger would risk overbalancing the city beyond the ability of the Holy Giraskopes to compensate, as well as requiring the Arms of the City to be repositioned accordingly. Whilst appearing to be deceptively cumbersome as a result, the plus side of such excess space is that the Tiers proper are able to be built up in a very loose fashion, and with a design aesthetic often leaning towards sleek metal and even glass in some buildings, visitors are frequently shocked at how stylish the city itself looks... so long as they don't venture down into the clustered, steampunkish Gut.
In theory, the city's baseplate is balanced atop the Wheel; in practice, it is actually wrapped around the ball of metal down to about two hundred meters from the Wheel's lowest point, with the Gut built around the baseplate and shafts to the Wheel itself present in many areas, Tier 1 built around the Gut, and Tiers 2 and 3 built on top of Tier 1. At any level, the city's movements are obvious, either shuddering due to the movement of its arms and their engines pulling it across the ground, or a constant twitch which occurs as a result of the Holy Giraskopes and the weights they control working as intended, repositioning SFC atop the Wheel and making sure the city does not topple over and destroy itself; whilst only a couple of centimeters at a time in the Gut and Tier 1, this twitch becomes more obvious as one moves upward into Tier 2 and 3, to the point that at significantly higher elevations most flooring is fairly rough to stand upon, and loose objects must be tied down when not in use, or else risk being lost to the movements of the city.

The Gut and The Wheel

Sand-Fran-Crawler's Gut is very large and bloated compared to the rest of the city, a necessity when what would otherwise be the majority of its space is taken up by a titanic ball of metal multiple miles in diameter, and as hot, filthy, cramped, and dangerous as one would expect. Indeed, most of this lower section save the outermost few districts comprise the Gut itself, and naturally, this massive Gut supports a massive population of slaves as well as the citizens and Stalkers who keep them in line, set to maintaining the wheel, the weight systems that balance out the city atop the wheel, and to a minor extent the lower joints of the Arms of the City, which roughly line up to the "equator" of the steel ball and deposit any consumed matter in that portion of the Gut. Should either of these somehow fail, of course, the entire city might well topple to one side or another, taking with it the lives of citizen and slave alike, so it is naturally in the best interests of these slaves to do as commanded anyway.

Tier 1 and The Arms

Tier 1 is in effect what is visible of the lowest portion of SFC, the shell of nicety that surrounds its Gut like an oddly-shaped skirt - rounded at the back, flat at the sides, and forming a sharp point at the front - though even this outer layer is somewhat grimy given its purpose. The majority of citizens here, a good third-to-half of the official population, are tasked with working upon the Arms of the City, ensuring that their section of whatever Arm they are tasked with maintaining is functional at all times, for no single person could ever hope to upkeep even one arm; this is to some extent regarded as a sacred task, though nothing like so much as maintaining the Holy Giraskopes, and it happens that some people and families even manage to live consistently within the Arms themselves, in spite of their tendency to rotate every which way constantly.
Less discussed, unfortunately, is the nature of Tier 1 as a degree of sacrificial armour plating for the Gut: a distinct divide is made between the Gut and Tier 1 in the form of many, many meters of armour, particularly at the very front of the city where few dare to persist in case a ramming procedure is ordered, for even a substantial number of lost mechanics is not immediately catastrophic with appropriate reassignment of manpower, whereas any notable damage to the city's Wheel could spell its near-immediate doom in any number of ways.

Tier 2 and The Chutes

Tier 2 is neatly separated from both Tier 1 and the Gut by the huge number of exhaust chutes that mark the divide, sucking in every ounce of gas and ensuring that no wayward fumes make their way into the city's higher layers: here in Tier 2 is where the city finally rises above its ball bearing, and where the constant microadjustments that the Holy Giraskopes make to its balance begin to be felt more strongly as you move further upward. Many of the city's services are conducted here, both municipal and military, often actively built around the many exhaust chutes for an easy source of heating at all times, and most of the population that doesn't live in any other part of SFC is located in Tier 2. Though the preferred strategy of the city is to get up close to its prey so the Arms can do their job, and/or allow a boarding party to be established, there are certainly a variety of large guns in place all around this tier with a maximum range of a few miles, should the city be forced into a gun battle for some incalculable reason; the military presence here is also what builds and maintains the majority of standard Stalkers, and most airship docks are also stations at this tier.

Tier 3 and The Peaks

Tier 3 starts at the base of what are called the Twin Peaks, a pair of mountain-like structures almost a mile high that represent the dual nature of SFC's primary religious organisation, The Teachings of The Tons, and the techno-priesthood that maintains the Holy Giraskopes within their Giro-Temples, arranged with Billary Peak in front and Hills Peak behind. Whilst said priesthood is not technically inaccessible to any citizen, the advanced knowledge needed to maintain even the smallest of Holy Giraskopes as well as keeping the faith ensures that most of the 50,000 or so souls living in Tier 3 are bred into the position rather than working their way up to it (though visitors to Tier 3 are not actively discouraged either). The two largest and most important Holy Giraskopes are kept within the High Giro-Temples of The Tons, at the very top of each peak, a necessity to ensure the best balance for the city proper, yet present intolerable and otherwise-obvious weak spots which are consequently protected by layer upon layer of armour plating, for the consequences of their destruction would be as terrible as any sort of damage to the Wheel.
Whilst many of Tier 3's inhabitants are techno-priests, the Twin Peaks also handle a few major functions within the city beyond maintenance of the Holy Giraskopes. Billary Peak contains a number of scientific institutions for the techno-priesthood and other learned individuals to study at in their down-time, as well as facilities to produce what are call Giro-Stalkers, differing from and superior to the standard Stalkers in various ways, most notably possession of six legs rather than just two in emulation of SFC itself. Hills Peak contains a number of farms designed to help produce food for the city's inhabitants and slaves, as well as channeling the exhaust captured between Tiers 1 and 2 through to the Main Exhaust Ports, where it is safely expelled from the city some hundreds of meters above the High Giro-Temple of Hills without clogging up the Holy Giraskopes.

Culture and People: The citizens of Sand-Fran-Crawler are somewhat homogenous: most share a similar lightly-tanned skin tone, those who don't engage in much manual labour tend to share similarly slender builds, and those who do tend to develop musculature in much the same ways, and in the same pattern of existing muscles becoming preferentially stronger and leaner rather than having an excess of new musculature develop when it's not necessary, plus a largely-shared, law-enforced hatred of "Homasekshuls" (in spite of not many really knowing what Homasekshuls are, beyond the key indicator that they tend to be attracted to people of their own gender). What they don't share throughout are hair styles and hair colours, and both headgear and hair decorations are impressively common in SFC, with many a contest being held in various portions of the city. Slaves, by contrast, are often incredibly varied simply by the nature of most being foreign, and they range from incredibly dark hair and skin, all the way through to practical albinos whose families have spent countless generations within the Gut, away from the light of the sun; decorations are rare, for the slaves rarely have time off to so much as consider creating them, and regardless they tend to be considered indicators that their owners aren't working hard enough by the guards, thus being detrimental either way. Nobody mourns for the slaves: the slaves are too busy for self-pity or rebellion, and the citizens don't even see them as people, guards included.
Much of the city's culture revolves heavily around worship of their twin deities, the Tons: Billary, exemplifying gravity and the earth, symbolised by the sphere or ball; Hills, representing mass and weight, symbolised by the hoop or ring; and both together encouraging balance and self-sufficiency in life as in physics, officially symbolised by the Holy Giraskopes, though informally by a set of scales. Whilst significant deities worldwide like the Thatcher and Nicolas Quirke are acknowledged and any relevant holidays mandated, they are hardly celebrated with anything like as much fervour as Billary and Hills, to the point that the individual gods get a holiday each on the first day of opposing months, and both receive two at the midpoints between their individual holidays. Ironically, while the nature of these gods is such that many of SFC's citizens are rather well-educated and, thanks to a mostly-fair system of resource distribution removing the need for money, don't typically want for too much in terms of welfare and quality of life- even slaves are kept well-fed to ensure they work as best they can, though other living conditions are paltry at best- their lives are rarely very balanced, as so many of them specialise into performing just a small subset of tasks day in and day out, with little to no variation; very few actually manage to arrange their lives in a satisfactory manner as The Teachings of the Tons suggests, and a surprising number of these are the farmers growing food in Tier 3, simple as their existence typically is.
One particular point of note is the lore behind The Teachings of The Tons, and why Homasekshuls are hated so: long ago, or so they say, the citizens of Sand-Fran-Crawler were suffering due to the Sixty-Minute War, and such was their plight that Billary and Hills Ton came down to them, raising their city off the ground and on to the Wheel that it might be untouched by the ills of the outside world, and giving it its six mighty Arms that it might defend itself if the ills should try to come to them. For a time, all was well; then, the Devil-God known only as The Donnal descended upon the city from above where the Arms of the City couldn't stop it, a foul creature shaped like a humanoid duck with orange feathers, dressed in a sharp blue suit and those objects of disgust symbolising it called the Twopay and the Wigg. Its demon-slave the Sand Burner came into SFC with it, something so destructively powerful that it took the might of both Billary and Hills to take the creature down; but, cowardly and conniving as the Donnal was, it sacrificed the Sand Burner to strike at the Tons whilst they were weakened, slaying both, and then sending a plague of Homasekshuls down to smite the city, until the finicky and fickle Devil-God grew bored and left for other pastures. Historians have noted that the supposed timing of this event coincides with a massed two-stage die-off of citizens, a sandstorm of some form followed by a long period of heightened same-gender relations that reduced breeding to intolerably low levels, but citizens are not typically so past-aware.

Leadership and Power Groups: It is generally accepted by most that The Teachings of The Tons, and the techno-priests that make it up, are the single most important group in SFC, for without their prowess the city would have toppled from the Wheel long ago. In spite of this, it does not have absolute power over its laws by any means: most of the techno-priesthood is preoccupied with maintenance of the Holy Giraskopes, and those few who regularly find themselves preaching to the citizens are unlikely to establish new teachings for how ingrained the present teachings are. However, The Teachings of The Tons does possess two High Techpriests, one for each of the Twin Peaks, and both of these holy individuals are by default incorporated into SFC's ruling council, a group of six individuals who together create the laws of the city, the other four drawn in from the foremost figures in the military, private and public sectors, plus one individual elected by the citizens every few years - oligarchic perhaps, but not the absolute dictatorship the city would be underneath the techno-priesthood alone.
With that said, the High Techpriests do typically agree on matters of policy unless an individual raised into one of the positions is specifically intended to counteract the other incumbent, which can make it hard for the other four to get any policy changes made if they cannot convince the High Techpriests to allow it, for oftentimes at least two of the other positions in the council find themselves diametrically and irreconcilably opposed to one another's views. Of course, the military's General Marshal is often in the position of greatest real power, given their command over the people with weapons and armour, but for obvious reasons abstains from utilising this power excessively.
The exception to the general power of the techno-priesthood and the ruling council are those who have been inducted into the rebel group called the Homasekshuls, quite deliberately named as though they are the true targets of The Teachings' ire. Whilst counter-intuitive as a tactic, this fact is very often leveraged by their recruiters to make it seem as though they are being oppressed simply for disagreeing with those in command, even though most citizens do not especially consider either the techno-priesthood or the council particularly oppressive. Either way, their power base has increased to a few tens of thousands of individuals, enough to be annoying for the actual lawmakers to handle, though certainly no greater than the number of people living in Tier 3. Of course, the true goal of the Homasekshuls beyond becoming the new leaders of SFC are rather nebulous, though "freeing the slaves" is often cited as a major ideal of theirs, amongst many and varied other possibilities.

Foreign and Internal Policy: As the city's creed dictates, self-sufficiency is paramount; as such, the city produces its own food in large quantities, attempts to reuse any materials that aren't for whatever reason lost outright or otherwise irreplenishable, and typically only trades with other cities when they are in desperate need of substances that cannot be acquired anywhere else, namely fuel and various rare minerals- though efforts are being made to figure out a way of producing these from both exhaust fumes and the food they grow, so far with very little success. To Sand-Fran-Crawler, any city that cannot provide it with something valuable is essentially wasted resources, and so it is somewhat feared by a lot of smaller Traction Cities, though those cities that it does see reason to strike trade with are often sweet-talked into ignoring the less moral aspects of SFC's function.
As described, much of the city's scientific progress and basic sustenance of its citizens is created by the techno-priests and farmers of Tier 3, but most other functions beyond the maintenance functions of Tier 1 and the Gut are performed in Tier 2, loosely split into the public, private, and military sectors: the public sector covers projects intended for the good of the citizens, including the vast majority of product creation for these citizens; the private sector mostly covers matters of state, interactions with foreign ambassadors and, to some extent, the internal politics of the techno-priesthood; and the military sector covers, of course, military matters, namely internal protection, external defense (including managing the movement of the Arms of the City for both locomotion and combat purposes), and espionage against other cities, though often SFC acquires new catches simply by using its Arms to disable their methods of movement before forcing an evacuation of the target city into SFC's Gut. Once in the Gut, it is almost always the case that the former city's population is added to the slave population within the Gut, and kept in line by the guards; these individuals do also help protect the city alongside the standard military forces should it be boarded by enemy soldiers, and are largely protected by thick steel plates which, though heavy, make them practically invincible, especially compared to any slaves that might try to revolt against their treatment.
These guards pale, however, in comparison to the large population of Stalkers SFC's military maintains, a side-effect of the city-wide waste-not-want-not attitude: most corpses from the lower Tiers are brought up to the SFC's military compounds, and there preserved in ice until such time as the city acquires the materials to transform them into a new Stalker, for in this regard SFC has in fact succeeded in emulating the complicated Old-Tech components and substances of a common Stalker through sheer force of observation and replication, though in many cases these replications are somewhat less than perfect. Thus, whilst as tough to kill as any other Stalker, they are typically somewhat "stupider" than their usual counterparts, often killing everything in sight that is not an allied Stalker whilst fully active unless specifically directed by human handlers. Not so the Giro-Stalkers, their bodies acquired specifically from the techno-priesthood of The Teachings alone, and built and rebuilt as needed within the Stalker facilities in and on Billary Peak. They are more advanced than their SFC-standard counterparts, possessing heavier armour, deadlier weapons, the intelligence to act without additional guidance on the field, and greater movement speed and agility, the latter thanks to the replacement of their standard human legs with six robotic versions in emulation of the Arms of the City, some even possessing the capacity to clamber up walls and across ceilings with them. In effect, they are the elite guard of SFC, brought out to protect the most important aspects of the city's functionality, the Holy Giraskopes, save for when circumstances are most dire. To those outside the privileged few involved in creating the Giro-Stalkers, how they are built is unknown, but to those they defend, they are a welcome sight.

Miscellaneous Information: Sand-Fran-Crawler is inevitably quite tough to maintain, as you'd expect from one of the more impractical designs for a Traction City. There are occasionally periods where it is forced to stop moving for days or even weeks whilst certain difficult procedures are performed, most commonly on the massive system of weights and checks that balances SFC atop the Wheel whilst in motion or the motors running any given arm, leaving it somewhat vulnerable to attack at these times save for whatever protection the locale's remoteness grants it; on the other hand, only a city of fools would risk coming in range of SFC's Arms whilst they are active, lest they be taken apart and turned to sustenance, and of course top-up maintenance can always be performed within the relative safety of a trading cluster.

Municipal Darwinism: A Traction Cities NRP (Open and Accepting!)

Right, I believe Sand-Fran-Crawler is now as complete as it's likely to get. @PentagonWhite, if you don't see anything wrong with her, I'm ready to transfer the sheet to the Characters tab whenever. By the by, I'm also wondering how likely it is for SFC to have a few suburb towns accompanying it... since it did cross an ocean to get to the Great Hunting Grounds, I'm guessing not a lot, though perhaps it had them before said trip was made.