Terminal

Printed guns, melded metal - An experimental GM-less Cyberpunk RP

Tracy shrieked as the uzi's burst recoil caught him offguard and all-but flung the gun into the air to harshly clatter against the concrete floor of the overpass. Hastily bending over to pick the shoddy replica up, Tracy miraculously evaded Theron's return fire - although, as perhaps the Hunter had intended, the armor-penetrating rounds sending chips and small chunks of concrete and rebar flying through the air and causing Tracy to go prone on the ground, dropping the gun a second time as he clutched at his own head in a panicked, reflexive attempt to shield it from harm.

He lay there on the ground for several moments, his body trembling and shuddering as though an arctic gale had come and sucked the breath and warmth from him. He drew in several deep, tearful and panicked breaths as he slowly levered himself back up to a sitting position against the edge of the overpass with his left forearm. He heard additional gunshots in the distance and flinched, but immediately realized they were not directed at him or from the poser in the alleyway below. The retaliatory rattle of Golemeth's return fire from his oversized machinegun could only mean that more gangers had arrived on-scene, which meant Tracy's window of opportunity had just been flushed down the drain along with his tenuous nerves. The entire situation was awful - if the poser below alerted the new arrivals to the shooter in the overpass, Tracy would suddenly actually be dealing with the same problem as Golemth, but with approximately eight-hundred pounds less in the way of cybernetic augmentation and materiel hardware. Tracy turned and risked a peep over the ledge of the overpass to see what the poser was up to - and saw him darting back behind the rears of the street's buildings and alleys, and from his own looks both above to where Tracy was seated and to the other end of the street, was making a clear break for the stairs up to the opposite end of the overpass.

Tracy grimaced and awkwardly shifted his weight to get up onto his feet in a crouched position without getting up and exposing himself, picking up the replica once more and crab-walking back towards the upper street level he had gotten onto the overpass from, which was when things got even worse. A small group of gangers rushed down one of the upper streets, yelling amongst themselves before splitting up in small groups or individually, doubtlessly to get various vantage points where they could shoot at Golemeth at. One of them - a grotesque fellow with tribal tattoos over his face along with what looked like bio-grafted spines running across the backs of his arms - was heading right for the overpass ramp, hefting some kind of rifle Tracy did not recognize in both arms. The following mental calculation was not complicated. Even if Tracy made himself scarce, once this thug and the poser below met each other on the Overpass, one or the other would doubtlessly get back to the main posse and alert them all that there was another side present, which would make any possibility of linking up with Golemeth even more impossible and potentially fatal than that cheery prospect had been to begin with.

Unless...

Tracy steeled himself, sucked in a deep breath, and drew on his training. The key to convincing anybody of anything was to harness whatever common ground you had. Right now, apart from his duffel-bag, Tracy was dressed in ratty clothes and carrying a knock-off replica uzi. He looked like shit, was probably pale and shaken as hell, and all of that could be turned to his favor as long as this random brute was not wirelessly hooked into the net - which was a fairly safe gamble seeing as his head did not have any obvious signs of datajacks or biomonitor ports.

So tracy deliberately peered a little too incautiously around the edge of the overpass ramp, locked eyes with the ganger, and feigned a look of relief. "Hey you, get over here quick," He made a hasty beckoning gesture. The thug's eyes narrowed - he was suspicious. He did not recognize Tracy, and the man with the duffel-bag did not have any of the obvious gang-marks on him - but his weapon was the sort of thing the others might use, and from the way he was shaken up he must have been part of the firefight with the titan down below and must have recognized him from his own gang-marks - right?

"That chromed-up shithead below, he's got some asshole friend who has been taking potshots at us from the cover of the alleys." Tracy gestured uselessly towards the edge of the overpass dramatically as he treated the ganger to his very best practiced scowl. "Guy in a leather jacket, no ink or mods, he's coming right up the other end of the overpass now. I'm low on ammo, I'm going to go meet up with the others and come back with some of them so we can get a line going up here on the overpass - I need you to just hold this asshole off until we get back. Think you can manage that?"

The ganger snorted as he hefted his rifle - which Tracy vaguely recognized as some kind of semiautomatic. "Down this lane with no cover? He'll be dead by the time you all get back, little guy."

"Then once he's dead, start layin' it on the freak downstairs. Slammit man." Tracy growled in a low falsetto as he got back up, descended the overpass ramp onto the high-street, and started booking it down the road in the direction the other gangers had gone. He was totally confident that even if this thug got rid of the poser, the chances of him being able of so much as scratching Golemeth was near to zero. One catastrophic turn of events averted.

...Leaving Tracy to deal with the present zero-sum game that was making contact with Golemeth without getting cut in half by machinegun fire. But one problem at a time. Banking a hard right and ducking into one of the high-street's brick-and-mortar-and-asphalt back-alleys, Tracy took a deep breath and then collapsed on the ground, hyperventilating and trembling from head to foot as he sank up against the nearest wall as he tried to settle his nerves from the stunt he had just pulled. He just was not made for this kind of stuff...

Meanwhile, back at the overpass, as Theron broke over the crest of the last steps of the stairwell up to the overpass, a trio of shots whizzed through the air around him, one of the shots causing a loud metallic twang as it hit the chain-link barrier immediately behind him. There was a shooter at the opposite end of the overpass, huddled just beneath the floor, probably lying prone on the connecting ramp from the high-street - and he was using some kind of burst-fire semiautomatic rifle. Not the most ideal of situations...

@The Harbinger of Ferocity

Printed guns, melded metal - An experimental GM-less Cyberpunk RP

@Hekazu@SleepingSilence@LeeRoy

Let me know if any of you want the opprotunity to interject in the gunfight yourselves. If not, I would like to post again as soon as I am able.

Printed guns, melded metal - An experimental GM-less Cyberpunk RP

Call for @The Harbinger of Ferocity on line one, try not to get sawn in half by machinegun fire.

Printed guns, melded metal - An experimental GM-less Cyberpunk RP

It was extremely similar to the real thing. Maybe it was the real thing, considering. On particularly overcast nights like this one, trying to pick it out was all but impossible.

Tracy Guiomar bitterly peered up into the nighttime gloom in the distant sky, grimacing as he adjusted his hand to shield his eyes from a the glaring neon flare of a rotating billboard hovering just overhead. It was an advertisement for sneakers. The overblown celebrity-endorsed kind that obsessive hobbyists and entrepreneurs would buy and sell at private fairs for a king's ransom. Admittedly, If Tracy had a shipping address he might have considered getting a pair. Or any pair of sneakers really; the one thing he had noticed since coming here was that nothing let you run your ass off quite like a new pair a sneakers, the poor man's lifehack equivalent to getting wired. Fortunately he was spared the possibility of yielding to any sort of vain temptation, the only sneakers he could afford were the kind he could lift off of the cooling bodies of posers. His current pair were not to his liking, they were mismatched on account of a puncture hole in the left one's toeguard that he was pretty sure had been made with a knife.

And no set of air-lifters or Hermes would have let him jump high enough to get where he really wanted to be right this second. He had no idea if the Phantasmagoria was even around, truth be told. Every examination he stopped to risk was little more than nervous vigilance on his part; if it had actually been there he would know by now if only due to being reduced to a steaming pile of flash-vaporized slop on the ground. But he could not really help it, the overcast sky just made him nervous, as though there were an actual blade of Damocles poised over his head. If only the sky were clear, then he might be able to focus...

...Fooling absolutely nobody as he visibly winced at the sound of nearby gunfire, reflexively shying away from the edge of the street overlook. His breath caught in his throat, and he had to catch himself mentally with the usual reminder. He had exactly forty-seven reasons why it was not a good idea to get cold feet when facing down imminent death. The solo he was anxiously tip-toeing after - who went by the name Golemeth - had been leaving a trail of emptied 31 caliber hardened tungsten penetration rounds in their wake. Along with poser bodies. The first body he had found had practically been cut in half, with chunky viscera sprayed across the street and tiny splinters of bone dotting the brick-and-mortar wall that had been behind them. After taking a minute to dry-heave and gag wretchedly into a dumpster filled with corroded silicon-boards (he had not had anything solid to eat in days), Tracy had nervously eyed the body up-and-down while chewing on his thumb, thinking.

It spoke volumes that despite still being so readily unnerved at the sight of corpses, he was more worried about trying to deal with their friends than the psychotic, lumbering giant that had bodied them so thoroughly. Golemeth Tracy could deal with. He was one guy, wired and chipped to the high heavens and probably high and drunk and burnt from maladaptive chipset sweets, but still just one guy, and Tracy was good at dancing around baggage these days. But all these poser corpses would have whatever gang had sent them howling for blood, moreso than usual, and it was always hard to gauge when every poser nearby was coffin stuffing. There was always the risk there would be some extra-nervous guy with a poly cowering in a port-a-potty waiting to spring out and geek you with the surprise shot to the back of the head, only with posers you multiplied that guy times ten, and then times a hundred in the combat zone. He could talk Golemeth down. He would be a bit more hard pressed trying that shit out while his newfound friends kept popping up like whack-a-moles. He really needed Golemeth somewhere safe and isolated.

That was when Tracy's gaze had been drawn to the poser's knockoff, replica micro-uzi. Even he could tell it was cheap and pitiful, but it was a step up from a poly at least in that it was loud, distracting, and had burst fire. Until it fell apart at the seams anyway, but that was just as well considering Tracy had no intention of getting too attached to the weapon. Gingerly, at first he had tried to prise the weapon from the poser's grasp. Then, wretching as he did so, he pulled back the poser's clawed fingers, frozen in rigor-mortis one by one in order to wrench the weapon free. He almost had a moment where he felt a momentary pang of victory as he was readily able to slide a magazine of bullets out of the poser's off-brand darker-than-black khaki pockets, but was brought back to reality when he realized he had no idea how to eject the weapon's current magazine. His examination had then been cut short by the continued sound of heavy-weapons fire, and panicking internally at the thought of the murderous rage-machine dying, Tracy had raced off through the snaking alleyways towards the confrontation. The streets were thankfully deserted, only idiots like him were out right now while the firefight with the apartment-shredding psychoguns was still raging. For once he did not have to worry about being just the right shade of ragged and destitute to avoid being held up for money or getting used as a punching bag.

Which had led him to the street overpass five minutes later, overlooking the lower street where Golemeth had just finished firing off a burst through the boarded-up window of a condemned store, a settling mist of crimson settling down in the dark recesses of the building as the last sputter of bullets finally hit a structurally important column and caused the second floor to collapse in on whoever might still have been alive in there. Golemeth's weapon of choice was longer than the hulking man was tall - both the him and his weapon were cast in stark detail by the brilliant blazing neon light of a floating billboard advertising sneakers on an overcast, cloudy night in the perpetually dim and stygian Night City. Tracy, who had thought the giant man had finally finished with his rampage only to become spooked by the fresh set of gunshots as he shied away from the edge overlooking the lower street and the buildings below took a moment to realize: Those gunshots had not been from Golemeth. Those had come from the alleyway between two of the smaller condemned brick buildings just below the overlook. Tracy went through a brief paroxysm of mixed frantic hysteria and ecstatic relief as Golemeth took most of the shots on the chin - both literally and figuratively from the looks of it - and looked to have only gotten angrier, hefting the barrel of his oversized weapons towards the mouth of the alley the shots had come from.

Doing some quick mental acrobatics as he raced along the side of short concrete and chain-link siderail for the overpass in order to get a good look inside the alley. There he saw...

...Some random poser. He certainly looked the part anyway, wearing combat boots and trousers with a leather coat. Tracy felt a surge of relief; with his luck he had been halfway convinced the gunman in the alley would have been some biotech super-cyber-soldier freak with psychic powers, but it was just some unmodded virgin-fleshed thug with nary a chip or wire to him, at least as far as Tracy could make out in the gloom. That simplified things immensely.

This was probably the best chance he was going to get, in fact. Posed as he was in the overpass, Tracy had instant-cover on demand whenever he felt like going prone beneath the concrete barrier. If Golemeth looked up at all, he would see Tracy in the distance. If Tracy shot at the poser in the alley, maybe throw a little dramatic wave Golemeth's way after the fact, maybe he could then improvise a meet-up and try to get the hulking brute somewhere safe.

But the only way that was going to happen was if the poser in the alley got geeked. Tracy chewed on his lip as he awkwardly raised his stolen replica weapon. He was not a killer. He had never killed anyone before. Even knowing that this poser was probably a miserable piece of shit who actually had killed people in cold blood before did not make it even slightly easier to contemplate aiming the gun at him. But.

But...

Tracy's hand only trembled slightly as he squinted through the penumbra where the dark of night met the Neon glare of Night city and pointed the uzi at the alley.

He had forty-seven people counting on him. Forty-seven decent, innocent people. If the choice came down to them or one poser gunned down in the street...

Not that he planned on shooting the poser, of course. He was not going to let such a pitiful moral dilemma make a killer out of him. He would just pepper the side of the building with a small burst, get both of their attentions - and hopefully make a good impression with Golemeth in the process. And if the distraction just so happened to startle the poser long enough for their midsection to get sawed in half by machinegun fire, that was not Tracy's fault...

Unfortunately for Tracy, for once he had not been quite paranoid enough. Even the fact that the weapon's recoil caught him offguard due to his poor stance and grip, sending the bullets unintentionally directly at Theron rather than at the alley-wall, was not going to get him anything. Even before the first bullet had crossed half the distance between the overpass and the alleyway, the Intelllitron Hunter's Graff-Stein and Re-Human-enhanced vestibular tracking response had alerted the outwardly-human mercenary to the incoming hail of bullets from behind him and the hostile up in the street overpass.

Ophad: Medieval Fantasy

Shadowgate Regency

Shadowgate Regency

The Island of Indignor & The Exile's Throne




The Regency motto, approximately translates as 'Absence perfects the heart.'

-888- General Information -888-

• The Island of Indignor was once the dumping ground of choice for criminals, degenerates, expatriots, inconvenient nobility, mad mages, power-hungry sorcerers, and exiles from all over the world. The entire population has roots tracing back to a leper colony established circa 5500 FE.

• The island originally was noteworthy for the complete absence of any Trees of Anar, little more than a desolate waste of ash and blight, making it the perfect spot to maroon the unwanted and pariahs. Over thousands of years, the births of Indigo Children resulted in the inevitable sprouting of new trees which transformed the island's topography and made true civilization possible.

• it is common knowledge that the Regency has invested heavily in arcane means of uprooting and transporting Trees of Anar without killing or disrupting them, although precisely how this is accomplished is unknown. The Regency is coy regarding the capability, and the only trees thought to have 'gone missing' are those located in untamed wilderness, and as such no foreign powers have yet found cause for alarm. Over a thousand years have passed since this knowledge became public.

• The Shadowgate Regency is an Absolute Monarchy in absentia, on purpose. There has never been a Monarch, just a line of regents unrelated to each other by blood, all usually self-proclaimed by merit of political clout and wealth. There is no line of succession nor any recorded mechanism for the installation of a new Monarch, and the Regency gets rather touchy about inquiries into the matter. They still insist on being treated as a full and proper Monarchy, with the Regents assigned the full sovereign authority of a King or Queen.

• The language sponsored and used by the Regency is Ranoi, a creole spoken commonly by most islanders. There are more than fifty other languages spoken by island residents as primary languages, scattered about without rhyme or reason. Fluency in Ranoi is necessary for even routine affairs on the island.

• Although the Regency rules over the entire island of Indignor, the coastal towns and cities are largely left to their own devices, with the full administration of the Regency residing in the The Crest of Yearning, the arcane caldera at the island's center. The surrounding peoples pay taxes _{if they know what is good for them} and otherwise both they and the Regency are content to ignore each other. The cities even have governors claiming to be unaffiliated with the Regency, although the truth is a matter of speculation.

• The officially minted currency used by the Regency, Exile's Fleece, takes the form of measured lengths of transmuted twine, formed of twelve materials not found in nature and only possible to conjure via sorcery. Fleece is used only irregularly by the peoples without the Crest of Yearning. Some of the external settlements operate on trade and services for their commerce, and while Fleece is grudgingly accepted by a majority of the population it is somewhat devalued on average, and a few refuse to accept it at all. Foreign currencies circulate through the settlements with more or less the same effect, and as such visitors to the island often find themselves frustrated with their inability to reliably pay for anything with standard fare.

• The state religion is simply worship of the Triumvirate of the Shadow, Zuuldrick, and Ishala. The Regency refuses to acknowledge, but does not prosecute, the worship of any other entity. The external settlements often self-regulate their own religious practices, which vary widely. Demon worship is seen slightly more frequently on Indignor than in many other places simply due to the Regency's apathy, although the common people still do not take kindly to it.

• Due almost entirely to the Largraun Dwarves, there are few major overworld roads in Indignor. All settlements are connected by a network of immaculately maintained underground highways; the surface of the island outside of settlements is largely made up of plantations and untamed wilderness.

• Although the Regency maintains a census of sorts, the actual population of Indignor is uncertain to most other realms for the time being (to be updated).

• The Regency's armed forces are furtive and hard to gauge in number, at least for the moment (to be updated).

Demographics

Irafarate (Human)
The common descendants of every progenitor family of Humans to originally be exiled upon Indignor. Not properly distinguished by any particular racial trait, the Irafarate are simply any Humans who do not bear the traits of the other common Human races upon Indignor. They are common folk and people from every walk of life, and are as varied unto themselves as the variety of all other peoples upon the island. Although commonly mocked with the assertion that they lack any true culture of their own, they form a tentative majority upon the island; most of Indignor's merchant and noble elite are Irafarate and they occupy a large portion of the Regenecy's administration.

Gresihdra (Human)
The descendants of marauding Human Pirates and Raiders who sailed and terrorized the oceans and far-off coasts in longships. Gresihdra are distinguished by their stout torsos and ill-proportioned, lanky arms and legs. Their bodies ripple with distinctive cords of muscle, and their complexions are swarthy and tanned. Their eyes are naturally adapted to salt-water, and they possess the uncanny ability to peer through harsh sunlight (though they still cannot stare directly at the sun). Their palms and soles are notably calloused to an exaggerated degree, and it is not uncommon to see them walking about in public without shoes. Their culture is marked by their own hate for each other; the stereotype of the Gresihdra is that of two fighting each other in the streets over dirty fleece. They exist as highly insular houses which detest each other, constantly engaged in bitter mercantile and actual bloodletting.

Sartzteike (Human)
In stark contrast to their pirate-descended cousins, the Sartzteike are the descendants of nomadic Human colonists who lived upon the ocean along with the Sarmtymske in massive ocean-faring Arks. They possess notably smaller builds than most of their kind, and their feet are more flexible, akin to the feet of chimps (giving birth to an obvious variety of demeaning insults). Their culture is even more insular than that of the Gresihdra, and they prefer the company of the Sarmtymske over that of other Humans. Characterized for their skittishness, they are hyper-vigilant and rarely speak. Their culture is highly communal in nature, and they tend to live in massive ramshackle slums with thousands of other Sartzteike and Sarmtymske; this is not indicative of wealth but of cultural practice, as it is not unheard of for them to build oddly-placed and structured manors amidst their hives.

Iwadwtschi (Human)
The collective offspring of Warlocks, Mad Sorcerers, Insane Mages and Power-Hungry Wizards who generally could never tolerate the company of anybody except each other after being banished to Indignor. The Iwadwtschi are a somewhat inbred minority of families attempting to produce children with Drenched Souls, mostly unsuccessfully - although this has not deterred them from claiming habitual magical prowess amongst their lineages. They are distinguished by their unusually long necks, hunched backs, and unsettlingly long fingers. After the historical formation of the Regency their insular practices were deliberately broken up, and as such their genetic line is gradually being assimilated into that of every other Human race on the island, making them rarer and rarer sights over time. Individuals still maintain various cultural, occult-inspired practices including hermetic meditation, fetish and (mostly non-functional) relic crafting, and (usually) ineffectual ritual evocation.

Naught (Human)
The wealthy minority of descendants of nobility originally exiled to Indignor in ancient times, they are more commonplace than most would expect, and each one claims the same relative status as the rightful ruler of some far-off foreign land, or at least as an heir within the succession. Intermarrying, wealthy nobility and what few retainers they were permitted to bring with them created the first foundation of wealth upon Indignor around which the first semblance of true civilization began. In the present day they make up an innumerable number of wealthy merchants families, or else ruling houses of the external cities and townships. Many of them claim noble titles ranging from Barons to Dukes. A scant few claim to be Emperors. This amuses precisely nobody. Distinguished by their indigo-hued eye coloration, pale features, and purple lips, what was once a small minority has increased in number since the establishment of the Regency. The various warring Nobles that had been involved in the conflict during the reformation were mercilessly purged, with the rest given a leery 'Do not make me come back here again' after divesting them of most of their material wealth. The progeny of the remaining families turned to more traditional professions and practices and began marrying amongst the common people, leading to the modern day where their number are as commonly seen in Brothels are they are in marketplaces. Disparaged as haughty and snobbish by the other races, they often wear veils in order to accommodate their pronounced olfactory sense, which is particularly sensitive to toxins.

Inclishet (Human)
Descendants of the original leper colony founded upon the island, theirs are the people who were always too visibly sickly to be considered suitable for marriage. Although they enjoy a profound resiliency and robust immunity in the present day, as a consequence of their somewhat altered physiology they are known to vomit blood whenever afflicted, even in the instance of minor colds. They also bruise readily and accumulate sores across their backs and arms from simple bedrest despite keeping regular hours, and their eyes have pronounced red veins. Other species and Humans are highly averse to them due to misconceptions and suspicion of sickness; Inclishet are commonly blamed for the occurence of plagues and are periodically lynched during severe bouts of illness. They live in ghettos and communes, and are often expected to travel swaddled in lepers' robes should they ever venture about in open public.

Barwhett (Elf)
When Indignor was a blighted waste, it was considered a hellish punishment to be exiled there for Wood Elves. Those that were formed wasteland tribes which endeavored to grow something, anything, from the barren wastes. These efforts proved unsuccessful, but resulted in a lineage of nomadic, ashen-skinned elves known for traveling under cover of dust storms, raiding settlements and harnessing nature magics over the weather and earth to their advantage. There was a brief period where their kind raided and took slaves from the various peoples of the coast, making warlords of themselves and proliferating in an era of personal prosperity circa 8300 FE, becoming nearly as commonplace as the Irafarate in the present day as a result. Although their practices have become more diluted over time, traces of their original culture can still be seen in their clothing and furnishings. Their feet are particular sensitive to vibrations, and they are known to be able to discern the presence of others nearby from their footfalls, no matter how silent.

Nary (Elf)
The descendants of exiled Elven royalty. Unlike their Human counterparts, they never enjoyed any great revivals of wealth and power resulting from frequent remarriage combining of assets. Their kind would arrive in splendor, live in squalor, and perish as beggars. What remains of their lines is due in part to their highly pronounced and peculiar (some suspect arcane-influenced) genetics, such that even carried down over a hundred generations it is barely diluted, if at all. Nary blood is known to completely dominate the expression of most other racial and species traits; Nary who interbreed with Humans or other races of Elf simply produce more Nary. They are always tall and willowy, with faintly luminescent skin. Their hair and eyes always possess metallic sheens to them, and their complexions are always notably flawless and sculpted. Due to the largely insular nature of many of the other races and species upon Indignor, Nary are seen almost like vermin as any sort of dalliance with them inevitably dilutes the bloodline of whichever family they lay with. Despite most Nary living in destitute conditions, and despite the other peoples possessing little unity or cohesion amongst themselves, most other races and species unite in, if nothing else, despising the Nary. The Gresihdra in particular are noted for their scorn and contempt of the Nary, as they blame the Nary for 'stealing all the young folk' and disrupting family business. Commonplace resentment has prevented the extensive proliferation of the Nary despite their beauty and grace.

Largraun (Dwarf)
Indignor, being located in the middle of nowhere of the Asifa Sea and having originally been completely devoid of Trees of Anar, featured absolutely no mountain ranges or cavernous depths of note, never possessed any indigenous dwarves. The Largraun are a line of them who, if cultural myth and oral tradition are to be believed, dug their way to Indignor from the other side of the world just to see if they could circa 7000 FE. They are the only race of Dwarves in Indignor who still possess natural, permanent cave adaptation and grow sickened by exposure to daylight. It was their undercities, carved out beneath hills and ridges, which served as the shelters and refuges necessary combined with the wealth of exiled Human nobility, which gave rise to the first large settlements upon Indignor. The Largraun form the second largest majority on Indignor just behind the Irafarate, living in the foundations of every settlement on the island. Their very existence is the sole reason as to the absence of any above-ground roads on Indignor, as all settlements are connected by their underground highways. The majority of all Human and Elven industry upon Indignor exists specifically to service the maintenance and expansion of the Largraun undercities, making the Largraun Dwarves' cultural mores, practices, their food, goods, and needs the most commonly accepted and catered to on the island. Despite this, everyone knows that all rumors of Ens, The Great Road, are complete bullshit. _{Although one is forced to wonder how they got here at all then...}

Sarmtymske (Dwarf)
Settling upon Indignor along with the Sartzteike Humans, the Sarmtmske were sea-faring Dwarves who originally lived on massive Arks. They can only attain light cave adaptation and are largely unbothered by exposure to sunlight, although as a consequence their vision in low-light conditions is much closer to that of a Human's. They can hold their breath for extensive periods of time, upwards of an hour in the case of practiced divers. Their hands and feet are larger and possess a more oblong shape than is normal for Dwarves, which is conducive to swimming rapidly through water, but they are otherwise similar to and commonly mistaken for Largraun dwarves. They live amongst the Sartzteike in ramshackle slums built either on the surface or in the undercities, and due to a matter of simply having better nerves are generally relied upon to speak with other races and species on behalf of any Sartzteike present.

Nadir (Dwarf)
Exiled Dwarven nobility, sent to the middle of nowhere in the Asifa Sea to an island where there were absolutely no caverns they could use to escape. In theory _{thanks for nothing, Largraun.} Their families were largely forced to subsist in the overworld, integrating with tribes and settlements of Humans and Elves prior to the arrival of the Largraun. They possess moderate cave adaptation that affords them the best of both worlds; permitting them fully enhanced low-light vision or tolerance for the sun with an adaptation period of only a few days. They have copper or gold colored eyes, and possess immense physical strength that would shame the strongest of Humans. Like the Nary, they did not experience any great revival of wealth or influence, although they avoided living destitute due to their physical strength and willingness to get their hands dirty. Also unlike the Nary, their bloodline proved to be fickle. It lies dormant but undiluted in the bloodlines of other races of Dwarf as well as other viable species, skipping half a dozen or more generations before arising again, which can result in no small amount of occasional awkwardness amongst certain Human and Elven families. Also as with the Nary, the Nadir's bloodline is suspected to be influenced by arcane forces, supposedly manifest in their native talent for geological sounding. They are not particularly more sensitive to seismic vibrations than any other dwarf, but few can deny that they are somehow always experts at feeling at the land, be it the overworld or the subterranean realms. The Nadir live in a few small families of land-lords and guildmasters who own many of the external overworld plantations and most of the subterranean highways in Indignor, and they wield vast influence amongst the Largraun, whose own nobility intermarried with those of the Nadir many generations ago.

Refik (Beastfolk)
The shallows around Indignor, originally, were barren and lifeless. Once the first Trees of Anar began to grow upon the island, their effects spread out and enabled life to thrive in the waters. As coral reefs and tidepools began to crop up, the Seafolk moved in, carving their own settlements out of the living rock beneath the waves. As inland rivers began to form and reach out to the sea, so too did the Seafolk reach island as well. The Refik are amphibious sea-serpents capable of breathing air, with large, adapted pectoral fins ending in grasping, claw-like extremities near their tips - resembling to a degree the wings of bats. Although the Refik can breath air, they are not able to do so for extended periods of time, and if they spend too long out of the water they can perish due to oxygen toxicity. Originally preying upon the various islanders of Indignor, as fortified coastal settlements began to spring up, with neither the Seafolk nor the islanders possessing any reliable means of waging war with each other, they grudgingly began to tolerate each other’s' presence, leading eventually to exchanges of goods and services between each other, culminating in the modern-day presence of Refik coral dens amongst every coastal city and port in Indigor, where they act as shipwrights, fishermen, sea-tenders, sailors, architects, merchants, and more - adopting many of the trappings of civilized life in the process. Although most Indignor Refik are 'civilized,' insofar as such as distinction goes, it is not unheard of for Refik sirens to lure unwary islanders to their doom using their innate ability to mimic the voices of land-dwelling creatures.

Ambucane (Beastfolk)
The only form of sentient life that could exist on Indignor prior to the emergence of the first Trees of Anar, the Ambucane were opportunistic ambush predators who could rest in states of torpor for weeks waiting for prey to wander close. The Ambucane are long cold-blooded serpents with six limbs, capable of burrowing in sand, ash, and dirt. They have poor light-based vision, but make up for it with excellent thermal vision, enhanced olfactory nerves, and sensitivity to seismic vibrations. They are more than three and a half meters in length from the tip of their snout to the end of their tail, and pound for pound they are the strongest living beings on Indignor, able to overpower even the tremendous strength of the Nadir. They habitually lived in centralized dens that would service a dozen or more Ambucane over an area of a hundred kilometers. Ambucane traditionally consume rocks to help them digest their prey, and upon returning to their den, regurgitate the contents of their stomach as a putrefied morass of fluids into a clay urn which all of the Ambucane would then feed from, relying on the sheer toxicity of their own guts to keep the rancid mess free of any contaminants other than their own. Due to the Ambucane's slow metabolisms, they are extremely long-lived, and there are a few Ambucane of note who have been alive since the beginning of the second era. Ambucane are extremely languid and slothful, and despite possessing unmatched strength can only exhibit it in brief bursts due to their metabolism. They were originally enslaved by the nomadic Barwhett tribes and used as beasts of burden and as burrowers for excavation, which led to their eventual integration with the Langraun Dwarves. Ambucane largely reside in Largraun undercities, working as burrowers and laborers, but live in dens close to the surface where they can bask or swim in thermal baths. Due to their patience and their willingness to work and share with one another almost without questions, dens of Ambucane generally engage in private industries that they then operate through a market front, and so many Ambucane are actually immensely wealthy despite working as 'mere' laborers for their day jobs. The wealthiest individual in all of Indignor is, in fact, an Ambucane who has been hording wealth and influence with market guilds for over a thousand years.

The Haggard (Undead)
There are many gods that pervade over death. One of them, whose name is whispered by the fearful and the foolish in Indignor and known as The Haggard Lord to everyone else, will raise the body after death, bearing a simulacrum of a soul to live a second life. The Haggard bear the body the worshiper had in life, which will quickly become emaciated, with skin drawn taut, thin, and bloodless over the bones. All bodily fluids dry away, and the individual becomes afflicted with a boundless, insatiable hunger. The Haggard may consume food and drink normally, which their body will ingest in an internal process too gruesome to describe. The Haggard may also directly absorb biomass they make contact with, siphoning away flesh and lifeblood into their body as if it were strands of fabric being pulled away. The Haggard may regenerate and heal themselves with any biomass they assimilate this way. Despite bearing an insatiable hunger, the Haggard remain lucid, and are far from mindless, as the Haggard Lord intends that they properly suffer their emptiness rather than receive the mercy of madness. The life of the Haggard, such as it is, is to eat. They work and labor tirelessly in order to earn bread, meat, cheese, water and wine and all manner of delicacies that they can procure to try and sate their horrid appetites. The Haggard are regularly exploited as cheap labor, paid a pittance to perform back-breaking and dangerous work that would kill a living man. They are treated as vagrants and beggars by most, and readily purged en-mass if one should ever grow so desperate as to prey on the living. Their continued presence on Indignor is something of a mystery, as even the living beggars know better than to evoke the Haggard Lord, but more and more of them continue to appear with time. They are singularly difficult to permanently kill, as so long as a morsel of them is left, it can absorb microscopic and small wildlife and slowly regenerate over time, requiring that every last trace of them be incinerated and burnt to ash. However, a single drop of Ambrosia, the nectar of the gods, will instantly expurgate the Haggard upon contact and cause their body and false-soul to disintegrate.

History

Circa 5500-5700FE - A small leper colony consisting of a dozen hovels is established on the Northeastern coast of the island. Over time, this colony expands into a small village. It produces just enough crop to attract the attention of pirates, who raid the village. Most of the colonists flee with whatever they can carry, establishing a new colony inland, in the wastes. The pirates convert and use the old village as a base of operations, storing stolen goods, prisoners, and slaves there. Over several decades, the small village transforms into a pirate port. The port and the new settlement see some exchange of trade; the colonists from the wastes have by now scouted the entirety of the island and, by word of mouth, the news of an island in the middle of nowhere of the Asifa Sea with no Anar Trees spreads first around port, then from ship to ship, and eventually to the mainland.

Circa 5700-6000 - The pirate port is sacked by a small fleet of longships from unknown lands (some historians speculate they may have come from continental Asifa, but there are several contradictions and problems with this theory) the pirates based out of the port are marooned there, without the resources or materials to build new ships. News of this returns to the mainland, various powers make note of the island's existence. An Elven kingdom populated by Wood Elves sends ships laden with untouchables to the island in order to get rid of them without killing them; the island is used to dispose of untouchables in this manner for nearly two-hundred years.

Cira 6000-6100 FE - After a violent revolution by Elven and Human untouchables in an unknown land, the Elven kingdom's throne is toppled, along with the thrones of several other kingdoms. Human, Elven, and Dwarven Nobility threatening divine retribution are exiled to Indignor rather than being executed in order to avoid the wrath of the gods and as poetic justice. The nobility are exiled with a number of their retainers and some of their personal possessions befitting their station, but without any resources of note on the island and with only very limited subsistence farming possible, there is no possibility of escape without outside intervention. The Human nobility immediately begin intermarrying and pooling what little wealth, possessions, and manpower they have between them. The Elven royalty is largely abandoned after several years, left destitute as beggars. The Dwarven nobility scatter across the island, integrating with the tribes of Dust Elves, the few Human colonies, and the remnants of the marooned pirate fleet.

Circa 6100-7000 FE -The population explosion of Humans, Elves, and Dwarves on the island leads to a reciprocal population explosion of the indigenous Ambucane, who prey upon and steal from all three species. The nomadic Dust Elves begin worshiping new gods, harnessing natural magics to conjure dust storms used as cover for raids upon Human settlements. Fighting between nomadic Elves and the colonies, combined with the absence of any Trees of Anar, prevents any true civic progress. Association by way of race with the Dust Elves instills the colony populations with contempt for the remnants of the bloodlines of the Elven royalty. The new revolutionary order from the mainland and various other powers from surrounding territories begin using Indignor as a dumping ground for various malcontents, inconvenient figures, and madmen. Warlocks, sorcerers, and wizards marooned on the island fail to integrate with populations of the colonies, and form their own private enclaves where they could go quietly mad with power and delusions of grandeur with each other. Coincidentally, occult knowledge of The Haggard Lord begins to spread amongst the colonists. The first of The Haggard begin to appear.

Circa 7000-8300 FE - The Largraun Dwarves appear on Indignor, although how is unclear. Racially distinctive from nearly every other member of the Dwarven species, they clearly did not originate from continental Asifa, Pehan, or Kevica, no records exist of any mass expulsions of Dwarves sufficient to explain their appearance. According to oral histories, the Largraun dug their way to Indignor from the other side of the world, creating 'Ens, the Great Road' in the process. No reliable evidence or records that might confirm this theory have been found as of the present day. The Largraun Dwarves readily carve vast settlements out beneath the surface of the island, having appeared with the tools and knowledge necessary for sophisticated architectural accomplishments and able to use the earth itself for most of their materials, obviating the (immediate) need for Trees of Anar. The bloodlines of the exiled Human Nobility, rallying the colonies behind them, establish rapport with the Langraun and begin initially limited barter with them. The foundations of what will become the first true settlements on Indignor are created. With fortification to ward off the Dust Elf tribes and opportunistic Ambucane, the local Human populations begin to rapidly expand, despite the limitations of the barren land and subsistence farming. After several hundred years, the first Indigo Child is born. The first Tree of Anar sprouts in the wastes of Indignor.

Circa 8300-9600 FE - The nomadic Dust Elf tribes and the descendants of the Dwarven nobility amongst them exploit the Tree of Anar, developing tools and weapons that enable them to overcome settlement fortifications and raid once more. Ambucane dens become easier for the Dust Elves to assault, and indigenous Ambucane flee the wastes to parlay with the settlements for shelter due to the ferocity of the Dust Elves. Charismatic and brutal tribal leaders arise amongst the Dust Elves, who demand the taking of slaves from settlement raids. These warlords create vast, nomadic hordes that live amisdt drawn wagons, their numbers sustained partly by the Tree of Anar and raids upon the settlements. Numbers between all of the warlords and the respective tribes are limited by their rivalry, nomadic natures, and the slow regenerative powers of the Tree of Anar. However, with the number of Dust elves rapidly proliferated to match those of the Humans and Dwarves living amongst the settlements, additional Indigo Child are born within a millennium. Additional Trees of Anar sprout, and the tribes of the warlords all simultaneously fracture as their lieutenants try to take advantage of the occurrence. The nomadic tribes split apart into hundreds of groups, and the settlements claim the lands around the new trees. Over centuries, the nomadic remnants of the Dust Elf tribes are assimilated by the settlements. During this period, as significant resources are finally made available to the noble Human bloodlines, new factions begin to form amongst them, dividing the settlements once more. Seeking an edge over each other, the noble families call upon the enclaves where the descendants of exiled mages reside, seeking arcane and divine power with which to establish a new sovereign rule. By this point, the remainder of the world has learned of the emergence of Anar Trees upon Indignor and cease treating it as their dumping ground for troublesome belligerents; wandering parties from the island are regardless universally treated as criminals and degenerates by the mainland powers. Although the odd individual manages to successfully escape to the mainland realms over the centuries, several attempted mass-exoduses by large groups end in massacres. The people of Indignor remain largely isolated and cut off from the remainder of the world, despite access to the resources necessary for shipbuilding.

Circa 9600-10800 FE -
The rivaling nobility eventually settles into two opposing factions, one led by elements of Human nobility and another led by a single charismatic Dwarven King (though both sides were represented by diverse populations), spread across the island, engaged in a cold-war centered around the Trees of Anar. The Dwarven King makes contact with seafaring peoples living aboard vast Arks, promising them residence upon the island now that it was livable and that settlement around certain Anar Trees would be guaranteed to their people if they could help overthrow the rival faction. At approximately the same time, the Human Nobility contact the arcane enclaves and enlist the assistance of the descendants of the establishing mages. Great privilege, personal power, and resources are afforded to a number of powerful sorcerers amongst them, who begin devising great and forbidden arcane methods of waging war for the Human Nobility. The Dwarven King eventually mustered his forces and began a great war between the two factions, with the Ark-peoples spearheading his forces. The Human nobility immediately strike back with overwhelming arcane might, and the Dwarven King is slain in the first great battle - but in the chaos of the conflict their leashed mages abandon all pretense of loyalty and attempt a coup against the Human nobility. Both factions splinter, and at this point in time few intact and coherent records of the turbulent people exist that shed light on the events that led to the eventual arcane igniting of the Crest of Yearning, Indignor’s Caldera, leading to the Great Eruption of 10800 FE. The eruption was so great that ash blanketed the skies over the island for several centuries, and large, dark storms of soot swept across the remainder of the world – though not sufficient to blot out the sun, for several centuries a number of mainland powers are seasonally inconvenienced by ash storms causing days of perpetually overcast skies.

Circa 10800 FE - 0200 SE - After the arcane eruption of the Crest of Yearning, which eradicated nearly a quarter of all life on the island, the remaining peoples abandoned the volcanic wastes and sought shelter within the Dwarven foundations of their settlements. It was during this era when the great underground highways between the settlements are carved out beneath the Earth, both as a means of survival by the people and in order to continue waging war upon one another. Towns and cities are raiding and sacked with abandon and great ferocity during this period, and to this day Indignor is littered with the remnant, ruined foundations of settlements that were wiped out to the last child, the stones scorched by flames leaving little in the way of historical accounts behind. The most reliable records that remain of those times originate from the Shadowgate Regency itself, formerly known simply as the Indignor Regency. They originated as a splinter group of the Human Nobility’s forces, who determined that as long as there were Kings and Queens of any kind on Indignor, there could be no peace. Seizing upon the icon of an eternally vacant throne as their symbol and appealing to the common people to unite under their common histories as exiles and nomads, the Regency was led by a commoner of unremarkable birth acting as a Regent, wielding the sovereign authority of Kings but with no hereditary line of succession. Attempting to exploit the lack of a clear line of succession, rival powers have the first several Regents assassinated, one after another. Much to their dismay, this merely resulted in the emergence of exceedingly more extreme and violent Regents who continuously spur the people to violent revolution against the remnants of the Noble forces, even amongst the Noble-led peoples of the island. This results in a centuries-long reign of terror by the Regency as it waged war against the fractuous Noble houses, culminating in the Regency’s complete dominance of the island near the turn of the era. A counter-cultural revolution begins amongst the remnants of the Noble houses, calling for an end to the dogmatic witch-hunts for Noble families and their immediate execution in the absence of any war or external conflict. The common people, now used to violence and easily roused to look for new victims to fall upon, readily begin to revolt en-mass against the Indignor Regency, which retreats to the island’s caldera, now dormant millennia after the Great Eruption. Fortified therein, the Regency sues for peace, promising an end to slaughter and violence as long as the descendants of the Noble lines promise in turn to never again seek to rule over the people by right of blood. The Exile’s Concordat is signed in 200 SE, with the Regency officially designating common-born governors for the settlements of Indignor and issuing clemency to the remaining Noble families. Although the common people accept the governors chosen from amongst their own to lead, they largely reject the return of the Indignor Regency as the dominant authority on the island, restrict its power to what remains of its forces within the Crest of Yearning.

Cira 0200 SE – 900 SE – The Indignor Regency abides by the sentiment of the common people and little more is heard of them again for centuries as they consolidate their power within the Crest of Yearning. They build a great wall ringing the Caldera, and name the territory Shadowgate. Then, in 500 SE, they announced they would be making a limited return to governance of the remainder of the island. They begin by revealing a previously secret means of transplanting live trees of Anar between different locations, and as a show of good-will established a ring of Trees of Anar around the Caldera, permitting the growth of new settlements, and offered several other existing prominent settlements the procurement of additional Trees of Anar if they would accept the authority of the Regency. After a brief period of negotiation, most of the island settlements accepted the Shadowgate Regency as the ruling authority upon Indignor. The reformed Regency began to distribute a new form of minted currency known as Exile’s Fleece, lengths of cord transmuted into unearthly materials, and broke up the families of the inbred descendants of the mages’ enclaves to the overall approval of most of the island people. Less popularly, they formally acknowledged the existence and rights of the undead Haggard, ending their previous widespread prosecution and purging – but conditionally refuse to acknowledge the worship of the Haggard Lord, or to sponsor or protect any form of worship thereof. As a showing of protest, a number of religious parties refuse to accept Exile’s Fleece as legal tender, a practice which devalued the currency and resulted in its irregular acceptance up until the present day. Although Exile’s Fleece is now largely (if grudgingly) accepted as the regional currency, a few stubborn hold-outs still refuse to accept it simply due to the historical and cultural irregularity of its acceptance.

900 SE – Present Day – Near the turn of the second millennia of the second era, the Shadowgate Regency formally sponsored the construction of naval merchant fleets, harbors, and guilds, and officially made contact with numerous mainland powers to declare that Indignor was at peace and officially led by the Regent of the Exile’s Throne, possessing the sovereign authority of a Monarch in the absence of a Noble line. (To be developed further).

Culture

The land of Indignor is one of ruin, abandonment, wild diversity, and hidden life. From the smoldering and dark lid of the Crest of Yearning, to the ashen and desolate coasts of seething, twisted stone to the dim, bustling intensity of the underground cities, Indignor is unapologetically alien.

Every settlement in Indignor is built around one or several Trees of Anar, in vast circular blocks surrounding internalized fields, and resemble unusual and quaint countryside villages and mining towns built around vast plains, meadows, and groves. While these realms can be vast unto themselves, they are small and inconsequential compared to their roots: The vast Dwarven-carved undercities are where the vast majority of the people on island (or more accurately under it) live. Indignor has never had any natural cavern systems of note prior to the arcane eruption of the Crest of Yearning; most of the subterranean cities are networks of great tunnels spiraling outwards from the central mining hubs, beneath the roots of the Trees of Anar. While individual passages and chambers tend to have limited height, the overall verticality of these realms tend to be immense, with cities diving nearly as deep as they are wide. The causeways and passages mirror the arrangement of traditional streets, albeit with the absence of any common, large plazas or forums. Most markets are arranged in wider, grid-like matrices of passageways (for structural safety, so it is often claimed), and a common complaint by claustrophobic surface-visitors is that Indignor undercities are more akin to overgrown, aggrandized burrow runs. Oil and other fuels is a commodity and not often used for lighting, and instead the cities are lit by way of widespread cultivation of bioluminescent, subterranean plantlife and fungi, occasionally supplemented by enchanted lighting. The confines of the cities are stygian and dim; most surface-dwellers can become easily lost or hurt themselves trying to navigate the abyssal corridors. Foreign visitors are thus readily identified by their torches and lanterns, which are sold aboveground at steeply overcharged prices for their benefit. In the absence of the sun, there is no nighttime lull in activity; people come and go and work at every and odd hours. Time is kept by a combination of waterclocks, mechanized pulley-systems, aqueducts, and groups of municipal laborers. It is entirely possible for many individuals to live out their entire lives underground without ever seeing the surface. Beyond the confines of the surface-dwellings, a primitive ecosystem of grasses and small shrublife exists, dotting the island barrens in volcanic soil. While most plantlife takes root readily enough, Indignor has not been fertile for long enough for there to be any great diversity of plant or wildlife; most wild specimens are in fact escaped plants or animals from above-ground plantations, walled compounds where crop and cattle are grown and raised whenever natural sunlight in required.

The people of Indignor are insular and xenophobic, generally mistrustful of each other as well as foreigners. At the same time, the diverse species and races intermingle and interact with one another on a regular and inevitable basis. The very atmosphere of most social interactions is grudging and bitter contempt, and fuck you too. Since space underground is at a premium, few species or races live in confined ghettos or burroughs (the exceptions being the Sartzteike and the Sarmtymske, who mutually live in ramshackle slums). Multiple families of the same species or race generally live with each other in a single dwelling, typically with neighbors of other races or species living in similar conditions. Most businesses and markets specializing in goods and services do not discriminate, but local taverns, commonhouses, and trade guilds often do so freely and openly. Race riots are unheard of, but fist-fights breaking out between separate groups in an everyday occurrence. Local militias uniformly draft Dwarves and Haggard who were Dwarves in life, as they form a majority within Indignor and are generally the least disliked species and thus are less likely to incite retaliation or resistance while keeping the peace. Foreigners are typically less subject to outright discrimination, but the treatment they receive is typically measured in direct proportion to their wealth – or at least, of the wealth a given vendor they might barter with is willing to accept.

As the different species and races of Indignor exist in a perpetual state of cold war with one another, they have no issue with slavery or exploitation. The Regency proscribes it harshly, but as its rule is largely hands-off, flesh markets and indentured servants are not unheard of in the larger cities, run openly and ignored by the militia and governors. A vast array of narcotics are widely accepted and used, with several trade guilds and surface plantations dedicated to their production. The common people and the Regency itself are accepting, or more accurately apathetic to, a large number of practices that might otherwise be deemed taboo, although anthropologists theorize that this may just be due to it being easier to hide signs of occult practices underground in the dark; that the people are no less hateful of it and more that its symptoms are harder to immediately identify on sight. The Regency’s policy of legitimizing undead with false-souls as actual people, in and of itself, in addition to the large diversity of species and races, has also made the common populace more accepting of taboo practices and otherwise monstrous creatures than might otherwise be advisable.

The only officially sponsored religions on Indignor are the worship of the Triumvirate of the Shadow, Zuuldrick, and Ishala. The Regency’s official stance is that as the sprotectors of the world and mortal-kind, these three beings are to be honored much in the manner children are expected to honor their parents. The remaining pantheons and gods are all selfish, destructive beings who would see the world destroyed if they had but the opportunity, and until proven otherwise are untrustworthy and unworthy of anything but mortalkind’s contempt. If they are dealt with at all, for any reason, it is only to be done on mutual terms and any bargain is to be approached with great skepticism. It is due to this very position that the Regency refuses to acknowledge or sponsor any other god or form of worship. The common people of Indignor largely ignore this sentiment and freely worship anything they please under any number of terms; the Regency does not openly proscribe such worship despite its noted disapproval for it.

The central realm of Shadowgate, within the Crest of Yearning, is somewhat of a different story from the remainder of Indignor. Most of the construction in the caldera is relatively recent (constructed within the last two millennia). Most subterranean structures are built into the cliff-faces of the caldera, or into the sides of ravines, and the Regency otherwise prefers to build more traditionally – and they prefer high-flown aesthetics. They build their fortifications and settlements atop plateaus and mesas, lone structures on top of raised foundations, and their roadways – some of the only aboveground roads in all of Indignor – are all built atop aqueducts, connecting distant points along a raised structure. Large, airy towers are commonplace, and the dark spires of the Regency spearing out into the sky from over the lid of the caldera create a starkly beautiful atmosphere within the Crest of Yearning. Although the Regency has different preferences in where and in what manner they build subterranean structures, the few they have made are of a similar scale.

Government

The Shadowgate Regency is ruled by a hypothetical Monarch known as the Exile, perpetually in abesentia from the material realm. The Exile’s Throne is empty and has been empty since its inception, no bloodline or lineage has ever existed which may lay claim to it, and no mechanism of ascension or succession of the Exile’s Throne exists. However, the hypothetical entity of the Exile is supposed to possess the full sovereign and divine authority of any King or Queen. Immediately beneath the Exile’s Throne exists the Regency Council, a group of twelve common-born administrators and officials who nominally serve as advisors to the Exile. In their absence, the council elects from amongst their number a Regent to represent the Exile’s Throne in the Exile’s absence. The Regent possesses the full authority of the supposed Monarch, capable of issuing royal decrees and mandates as though their word alone was law. Their power is only limited by the Regency Council beneath them, which by a mere plurality vote may dismiss the Regent – but only if, by formal lower election, the Regency Council has already elected an immediate successor Regent. The balance of power is kept in check as the Regency Council itself controls and governs most aspects of the Shadowgate Administration. There are no safeguards that protect the authority of the Regent themselves, who must always be able to convince the Regency Council of the merit of their commands and intent in order to retain power. Any form of refusal or defiance contrary to the Regent’s commands is formally considered a tacit vote for dismissal until rectification or abeyance. There have been several points in Shadowgate’s history where an unpopular Regent has been dismissed simply because nobody amongst the Regency Council would follow their orders.

The individual members of the Regency Council are senior administrators drawn from six realms, known as Aedes, with two members representing each realm. The six realms which an Aede may represent are Sovereignty (Diplomacy & Public Relations), Worth (commerce & trade), People (Domestic and Land affairs), Peace (Law Enforcement), War (Precisely what you imagine it is), and the Occult (Arcane & Religious issues).

While the Aedes of War are senior administrators regarding military affairs and logistics, they can never be members of the actual military, in order to preclude the possibility of an internal armed coup.

Outside of Shadowgate, evidence of the Regency’s power is present but subtle. Beyond the regular rounds made by tally-men, the Regency maintains an office in each settlement from which decrees are issued and legal affairs are handled. Additionally, soldiers under the banner of the Exile’s Throne may enter the settlements in order to secure and maintain peace in times of revolt.

Military Forces

(To be developed after consultation.

Religion

The state-sponsored religion is the simple worship of the Triumvirate of the Shadow, Zuuldrick, and Ishala, but there are no official temples or sites of worship erected for the purpose of the honoring them. The Regency administration limits itself to the construction of perfunctory and humble shrines, sometimes as simple as small wall alcoves, within the administrative structure of Shadowgate. This is also coupled with several brief but omnipresent traditional prayers integrated within commonplace greetings and farewells, as well as in the executive language of several administrative functions. It is customary for guards to invoke the Triumvirate whenever there is a shift change, for example, and for baggage train drivers to exchange a blessing with supply depot overseers upon concluding their business. Outside of Shadowgate, the only temples, shrines, and sites of worship that exist are those which the common people have seen fit to erect. Although there are many temples to the Triumvirate, they are largely outnumbered by the plethora of diverse structures dedicated to the worship of other gods and entities.

Commerce

(Under development - stay tuned) The Regency taxes the external settlements annually, and their methodology is simple. Tally-men, usually accompanied by a squad of bag-men, operate out of the Regency offices in each settlement and keep a private record of every dwelling, spending most of the year simply having men explore the reaches of the settlements and thoroughly mapping them out. Near the end of Summer, the tally-men head out with a list of specific dwellings to visit one-by-one. Taxation is applied uniformly, citizens living in a city pay the same flat rate for the simple privilege of existing within Regency lands. It is paid per-head, and may be paid with most forms of legal tender including foreign currency. If an individual or family cannot pay for everybody present, the bag-men divest them of property until the Tally-man deems the needed worth has been met. If they cannot pay and have no belongings, they are typically sent to Debtor’s Prisons. If the squad comes across a dwelling that appears to be abandoned, it is searched to ensure there are no inhabitants. If they come across a dwelling which is clearly inhabited but when nobody is at-home, the squad leaves and returns on another day after posting a notice. This period of Summer, referred to as Tally-week, is often treated as a pseudo-holiday, with many employers permitting workers to take days off to ensure at least one person can remain at home to pay taxes. If, for any reason, a family cannot manage to have a member at home to render payment, they can send somebody to the Regency offices to pay. If they cannot or will not do even that, eventually the Tally-squad will simply post a notice of forfeiture and then steal any money and possessions they find within the dwelling until the due is considered paid.

There is no apparent taxation applied by the Regency to any form of sales or services; although local trade guilds can and do tax entrepreneurs independently, as do to occasionally local Governors. However, all other forms of taxation beyond the Regency’s annual collections are unique and limited to specific regions of Ingidnor.

Territory & Terrain

Map of Overland Indignor

Horizon’s Stead: Although not home to the largest ports in Indignor, Horizon’s stead features the smallest stretch of coastline with some of the largest and most accessible ports and harbors, and consequently the region sees the most foreign traffic, sea and otherwise. So-named due to the proliferation of desperate islanders crowding the docks and taverns, seeking work or to stow away aboard a foreign vessel so they may depart from Indignor for good. Since few foreign nations will permit the free entry of islanders into their borders, few captains are willing to take on crew or passengers from Indignor. Horizon’s Stead is also home to the largest Overland City Complex in Indignor, which is an overland extension of the Raanaxis Undercity which extends throughout most of the region. Both the Undercity and Overcity have some of the largest markets on the island, with the greatest influx and circulation of foreign and exotic goods. Additionally, Horizon’s stead also sees the greatest amount of cultist, heretical, and arcane traffic – as foreign mages and scholars flock to the island, chasing rumors of ostracized pursuit of taboo magic and practices, or else seeking to dig through the ruins of the island’s enclaves in search of the secrets of the bygone Iwadwtschi sorcerers, and there just-so-happens to conveniently be a large remnant of one such enclave in the middle of the region. Few visitors ever turn up anything interesting, but the rumors of powerful artifacts and sites in the depths of the enclave persist even after centuries of abandonment.

Menard: The region of Menard is so-named after a Nadir dwarven family, which owns most of the overworld plantations in the area. The local undercity is almost wholly owned by them, and it exists almost solely to service their plantations and businesses. While the settlement is not quite a company town, every year the settlement becomes progressively more and more inaccessible to those who do not work directly for the Menard family in some capacity.

Kraden: Despite being the second-largest region upon the island, Kraden’s undercities have the smallest population densities on the island. The overworld is noted for being one of the few areas of Indignor where wild flora and fauna have been successful, and features the only forests in all of Indignor. It is the only palce on the island where wild game is hunted, and features several populations of native Ambucane which have returned to a simpler way of life, having dug out barrows in the forest depths. There are common rumors and claims that these ‘feral’ Ambucane prey upon unwary travelers in the forests due to the tendency for people to go missing therein. The local undercity also features several luxury districts, and a large percentage of the Shadowgate Regency’s upper management and their families live there primarily when not pulling stints within the Crest of Yearning.

Wraenkt: The region is home to Tyretemo, the largest undercity in Indignor, both in terms of actual size as well as population density. Most of the people live to the East and are laborers or lower management employed by the Regency, and make up most of the population that services and manages Shadowgate, resulting in extremely large and frequent amounts of foot and carriage traffic through the Southern gatehouse aqueducts of the Crest of Yearning. The Western end of Tyretemo along the coast features the largest ports and harbors on the island, along with the largest populations of Gresihdra humans and Refik beastfolk. The ports are extremely unaccommodating towards foreigners due to the cutthroat cultural practices of the Gresihdra and their near-automatic contempt for foreign people. The Indignor black markets are most active in Tyretemo specifically due to the piratical tendencies of the Gresihdra families and the aquatic habits of a number of nefarious Refik lures, and the Western city districts rightfully have a reputation as a pirate haven.

D’nartri: The D’nartri overlands are rife with plantations featuring artificially cultivated soil and transplanted Trees of Anar. Most of the lifestock reared on the island are reared in this region, along with a large number of secondary crops and cereals. The region is seemingly blessed, as plagues and drought seem not to touch the land. The local people regularly live suspiciously long and hale lives, miscarriage and complications during childbirth and hatchings are almost unheard of, and the region has the lowest rates of accident and violence-related death. Entirely by coincidence and most assuredly not related in any way, the region is home to the greatest population of the undead Haggard. Most do not originate from within the region (or so they would claim), but to have migrated from other areas on the island, with many saying they feel compelled and drawn towards D;nartri. Local residents just put it down to the lifeless inherently seeking out the prosperity and bounty of life and the region, and are generally (but not greatly) more accepting of the Haggard in general than elsewhere – although, pointedly, the region produces more Ambrosia than any other realm on the island…

Shadowgate: With a central palace carved out from the magma dome of the Crest of Yearning caldera, Shadowgate is the seat of the Regency and its base of power. All of its wealth and influence is concentrated here. Unlike the remainder of Indignor, Shadowgate is completely barren volcanic waste and blightland, and no plantlife of note grows within the Caldera. There are seemingly no Trees of Anar within, leaving the terrain between Regency installations and settlements utterly empty and desolate wastes, where one can see over the jagged expanse of volcanic rock for kilometers up until the caldera walls. What passes for society in Shadowgate is something of a mystery to the outside world; few outside the employ of the Regency have stepped within the confines of the Crest of Yearning since the construction of the walls lining the caldera. Foreign agents, spies, seers, diviners and simple voyeurs all describe that the lands are still, tranquil, and silent. The structures are eerie, seemingly emptied and devoid of the bustle of life that should be present in any structures of their size. Only work and labor crews are present, alongside clerks and various officials who toil day and night, all of whom live outside of the crest of Yearning but possess temporary lodgings within so that they may work for days or weeks on-end for a given period before having to leave again. Shadowgate has been described as a bread-basket by many, supported externally but with a populace wholly absorbed in work and production. Individuals take leave in the external settlements, and otherwise everybody within the caldera is considered to be on the clock and working. Culture and society practically does not exist, and the only social interactions that exist beyond rote, terse logistical dialogue is the breakout of fights between laborers, wrought with tension from overworking. Even in the domestic living blocksliving space is cramped and diversions scarce. The consumption of narcotics is the most popular and, by large, only form of popular recreation, although most drugs must be brought in personally since the Regency Guard crack down on independent dealers (although the sale of narcotics is not proscribed). It is clear that it is the Regency’s intent that Shadowgate remain an administrative zone with as few amenities as possible. Moreso within the Crest of Yearning than anywhere else on the island, the Haggard are employed in many areas, and they are a common sight in most labor crews.

The actual function of most of the structures within Shadowgate are obscure and esoteric to outsiders; foreign agents who have lived within the complex for years confess more or less continued and complete ignorance no lesser than when they first arrived; with Shadowgate seeming to be no more than a gigantic palatial mess of storage facilities, warehouses, barracks, temporary living quarters, and foundries. Supplies, foodstuffs, and currency are moved endlessly from point A to point B seemingly without purpose, shift and work schedules seem intentionally confusing and paradoxical, and almost nobody ever seems to know exactly what is going on or what the Regency’s current internal objectives are. All information seems to be tremendously compartmentalized between tasks, and cooperation to piece together what is going on just reveals a tangled mess of apparent economic busywork, the Regency’s wealth and resources continuously if slowly building up over time. The Regency’s internal bureaucracy is rudimentary and directly beneath the Regency Council is simply two levels of management-by-proxy, with new members of the Regency Council always drawn from senior upper-management – and judiciously screened in advance, having precluded efforts at infiltration thus far. All information of any true importance is theorized to therefore be limited to the knowledge of the members of the Regency Council.

Factions

Menards: A tremendously wealthy family of Nadir dwarves, the Menards have an entire region of the island named after them, and a sizable chunk of the island’s population works under them. Members of the family are eternally barred from setting foot within Shadowgate due to their noble lineage, but it is rumored they have multiple agents within the Crest of Yearning and that they have members of the Regency Council in their pocket.

The Naught Guilds: So named as they are run by several powerful, allied families of Naught humans. They take different forms in every region, but are all implicitly interconnected. They share information with each other about commerce in every city, they run their own taxation schemes alongside those of the city governors and the Regency, and they own perhaps four fifths of all shipping on the island. Altogether they are possibly the second most powerful agency just behind the Regency itself, but their divided nature and the wary attention everyone else affords them prevents them from ever pulling too far ahead. As tends to be the case with merchant guilds, they are rife with ambition and wealth. Some of their members would do anything at all in order to reclaim some of the power they once had.

The Phantasmagorian Pirates: An unapologetic Gresihdra pirate family, headed by the barbaric self-styled Commodore Chalafair. They are the largest single insular family of Gresihdra humans in Indignor, and own a fair percentage of the remaining ships behind the Naught Guilds – though their ships are known and infamous Q-boats, with concealed siege artillery mountings. How they manage to disguise and hide the weapons from port inspectors is something of a mystery, as none of their vessels has ever once failed to pass inspection with flying colors. They have strong ties with the Governor of Tyretemo, as well as with the Refik seafolk who live in the ports and reefs.

The Haggard Union: An organization dedicated to the advancement and suffrage of the undead Haggard population. Not overly-popular, but peculiarly wealthy and resourceful. They have eyes and ears all over the island, even within the Naught Guilds, the Menard family, as well as Shadowgate itself due to the attractiveness of the Haggard as cheap labor. The Union is deceptively powerful; they have the wealth, the numbers, and the resources to make a difference, but they lack the necessary popular regard and moral high ground usually necessary to win the hearts of the people. They are largely relegated to attempting to curry favor with the regional governors with blatant bribery, but are known to pop up and poke their noses into the business of others when it is least expected.

Rasrafraqratari: A group or society amongst the Refik seafolk, enigmatic even by Indignor’s standards. They have curious dealings with the Regency, and are known to attack and prey upon their own kind. There are theories that they exist to spread worship of the Triumvirate to the seafolk, or that they are simply the equivalent of municipal sewer workers, or that they are tenders of rarely-encountered aquatic Tees of Anar. Readily identified by the Shadowgate ring-crest they wear across their midsections, they are commonly seen in most ports but seemingly only ever have time and words for Shadowgate officials…and other varieties of seafolk.

Characters

Exiles, pariahs, beggars, thieves, heretics, and degenerates. Surely, nobody of any import might dwell in such a rotten place…as far as you are aware.

Printed guns, melded metal - An experimental GM-less Cyberpunk RP

Tracy Guiomar

That shady nervous guy.

"I do not have the time or nerves for your drama right this second, ok?"

Tracy

Name: Tracy Guiomar
Age: 29
Gender: Male
Occupation: Busybody

Description

Tracy stands approximately 1.77 meters or 5'10 feet tall. His complexion is pale, his build is lanky and emaciated, and he wears very worn clothing with holes in a few places. His hair is mud-brown and scraggly, falling down to his shoulders and poorly kept. His face is bony, and while there are hints of what might have once been handsome, fox-like features, his skin now hangs drawn taut across his skull. He is gaunt and possesses a sickly pallor. Readily identified by the off-color blue duffel-bag always slung around his shoulder, it is easy to identify Tracy as indigent or homeless at first or fifteenth glance.

Cyberware: Absolute nothing. Tracy is pure flesh and bone, so it would seem.
Equipment: Nothing but the clothes on his back and a duffle-bag filled with more clothes. He does not even carry a wallet. The nerve of this guy.

Background & Notes

You have not the faintest idea what this guy's history is. He seems vaguely familiar for some reason, although you cannot quite put your finger on why. Searching for his name turns up nothing. He claims to have been an informant for Lieutenant Davidson, although he does not seem to actually know anything about the Lieutenant and seems hard-pressed to even describe the man when pressed, and nobody else in the department seems to have known him.

Despite practically being a non-person, he seems rather resourceful. He seems to breath corporate policy and legalese when it's convenient, he knows an awful lot of people (who have never seen or met him before), and he seems rather familiar with the streets and slums of Night City. His normal demeanor is most generously described as vigilant and most accurately described as paranoid and twitchy, not to mention oddly desperate, but on occasion he is capable of bluffing his way past security checkpoints and into gang hideouts (he claims that he has theatrical education and once aspired to be a thespian, though you are not sure you believe that).

He has no formal training or any kind of combat experience that you are aware of, and his nervous disposition makes something of a boot-licker out of him whenever his acting fails him. He fights like a snake - that is to say, only when cornered and he prefers to wound and flee rather than stick around and tough it out. His twitchiness also seems to be indicative of some unusually amped-up reflexes, right on the cusp of what somebody with wiring might have. It is dangerous to startle or panic him, but he is not really threatening in a fight.

Printed guns, melded metal - An experimental GM-less Cyberpunk RP

Pardon my absence, I have been precluded from attending the festivities by a prolonged DDoS attack. Moving Tracy to the characters tab, and I will get started on a post.

Ophad: Medieval Fantasy

Shadowgate Regency

Shadowgate Regency

The Island of Indignor & The Exile's Throne




The Regency motto, approximately translates as 'Absence perfects the heart.'

-888- General Information -888-

• The Island of Indignor was once the dumping ground of choice for criminals, degenerates, expatriots, inconvenient nobility, mad mages, power-hungry sorcerers, and exiles from all over the world. The entire population has roots tracing back to a leper colony established circa 5500 FE.

• The island originally was noteworthy for the complete absence of any Trees of Anar, little more than a desolate waste of ash and blight, making it the perfect spot to maroon the unwanted and pariahs. Over thousands of years, the births of Indigo Children resulted in the inevitable sprouting of new trees which transformed the island's topography and made true civilization possible.

• it is common knowledge that the Regency has invested heavily in arcane means of uprooting and transporting Trees of Anar without killing or disrupting them, although precisely how this is accomplished is unknown. The Regency is coy regarding the capability, and the only trees thought to have 'gone missing' are those located in untamed wilderness, and as such no foreign powers have yet found cause for alarm. Over a thousand years have passed since this knowledge became public.

• The Shadowgate Regency is an Absolute Monarchy in absentia, on purpose. There has never been a Monarch, just a line of regents unrelated to each other by blood, all usually self-proclaimed by merit of political clout and wealth. There is no line of succession nor any recorded mechanism for the installation of a new Monarch, and the Regency gets rather touchy about inquiries into the matter. They still insist on being treated as a full and proper Monarchy, with the Regents assigned the full sovereign authority of a King or Queen.

• The language sponsored and used by the Regency is Ranoi, a creole spoken commonly by most islanders. There are more than fifty other languages spoken by island residents as primary languages, scattered about without rhyme or reason. Fluency in Ranoi is necessary for even routine affairs on the island.

• Although the Regency rules over the entire island of Indignor, the coastal towns and cities are largely left to their own devices, with the full administration of the Regency residing in the The Crest of Yearning, the arcane caldera at the island's center. The surrounding peoples pay taxes _{if they know what is good for them} and otherwise both they and the Regency are content to ignore each other. The cities even have governors claiming to be unaffiliated with the Regency, although the truth is a matter of speculation.

• The officially minted currency used by the Regency, Exile's Fleece, takes the form of measured lengths of transmuted twine, formed of twelve materials not found in nature and only possible to conjure via sorcery. Fleece is used only irregularly by the peoples without the Crest of Yearning. Some of the external settlements operate on trade and services for their commerce, and while Fleece is grudgingly accepted by a majority of the population it is somewhat devalued on average, and a few refuse to accept it at all. Foreign currencies circulate through the settlements with more or less the same effect, and as such visitors to the island often find themselves frustrated with their inability to reliably pay for anything with standard fare.

• The state religion is simply worship of the Triumvirate of the Shadow, Zuuldrick, and Ishala. The Regency refuses to acknowledge, but does not prosecute, the worship of any other entity. The external settlements often self-regulate their own religious practices, which vary widely. Demon worship is seen slightly more frequently on Indignor than in many other places simply due to the Regency's apathy, although the common people still do not take kindly to it.

• Due almost entirely to the Largraun Dwarves, there are few major overworld roads in Indignor. All settlements are connected by a network of immaculately maintained underground highways; the surface of the island outside of settlements is largely made up of plantations and untamed wilderness.

• Although the Regency maintains a census of sorts, the actual population of Indignor is uncertain to most other realms for the time being (to be updated).

• The Regency's armed forces are furtive and hard to gauge in number, at least for the moment (to be updated).

Demographics

Irafarate (Human)
The common descendants of every progenitor family of Humans to originally be exiled upon Indignor. Not properly distinguished by any particular racial trait, the Irafarate are simply any Humans who do not bear the traits of the other common Human races upon Indignor. They are common folk and people from every walk of life, and are as varied unto themselves as the variety of all other peoples upon the island. Although commonly mocked with the assertion that they lack any true culture of their own, they form a tentative majority upon the island; most of Indignor's merchant and noble elite are Irafarate and they occupy a large portion of the Regenecy's administration.

Gresihdra (Human)
The descendants of marauding Human Pirates and Raiders who sailed and terrorized the oceans and far-off coasts in longships. Gresihdra are distinguished by their stout torsos and ill-proportioned, lanky arms and legs. Their bodies ripple with distinctive cords of muscle, and their complexions are swarthy and tanned. Their eyes are naturally adapted to salt-water, and they possess the uncanny ability to peer through harsh sunlight (though they still cannot stare directly at the sun). Their palms and soles are notably calloused to an exaggerated degree, and it is not uncommon to see them walking about in public without shoes. Their culture is marked by their own hate for each other; the stereotype of the Gresihdra is that of two fighting each other in the streets over dirty fleece. They exist as highly insular houses which detest each other, constantly engaged in bitter mercantile and actual bloodletting.

Sartzteike (Human)
In stark contrast to their pirate-descended cousins, the Sartzteike are the descendants of nomadic Human colonists who lived upon the ocean along with the Sarmtymske in massive ocean-faring Arks. They possess notably smaller builds than most of their kind, and their feet are more flexible, akin to the feet of chimps (giving birth to an obvious variety of demeaning insults). Their culture is even more insular than that of the Gresihdra, and they prefer the company of the Sarmtymske over that of other Humans. Characterized for their skittishness, they are hyper-vigilant and rarely speak. Their culture is highly communal in nature, and they tend to live in massive ramshackle slums with thousands of other Sartzteike and Sarmtymske; this is not indicative of wealth but of cultural practice, as it is not unheard of for them to build oddly-placed and structured manors amidst their hives.

Iwadwtschi (Human)
The collective offspring of Warlocks, Mad Sorcerers, Insane Mages and Power-Hungry Wizards who generally could never tolerate the company of anybody except each other after being banished to Indignor. The Iwadwtschi are a somewhat inbred minority of families attempting to produce children with Drenched Souls, mostly unsuccessfully - although this has not deterred them from claiming habitual magical prowess amongst their lineages. They are distinguished by their unusually long necks, hunched backs, and unsettlingly long fingers. After the historical formation of the Regency their insular practices were deliberately broken up, and as such their genetic line is gradually being assimilated into that of every other Human race on the island, making them rarer and rarer sights over time. Individuals still maintain various cultural, occult-inspired practices including hermetic meditation, fetish and (mostly non-functional) relic crafting, and (usually) ineffectual ritual evocation.

Naught (Human)
The wealthy minority of descendants of nobility originally exiled to Indignor in ancient times, they are more commonplace than most would expect, and each one claims the same relative status as the rightful ruler of some far-off foreign land, or at least as an heir within the succession. Intermarrying, wealthy nobility and what few retainers they were permitted to bring with them created the first foundation of wealth upon Indignor around which the first semblance of true civilization began. In the present day they make up an innumerable number of wealthy merchants families, or else ruling houses of the external cities and townships. Many of them claim noble titles ranging from Barons to Dukes. A scant few claim to be Emperors. This amuses precisely nobody. Distinguished by their indigo-hued eye coloration, pale features, and purple lips, what was once a small minority has increased in number since the establishment of the Regency. The various warring Nobles that had been involved in the conflict during the reformation were mercilessly purged, with the rest given a leery 'Do not make me come back here again' after divesting them of most of their material wealth. The progeny of the remaining families turned to more traditional professions and practices and began marrying amongst the common people, leading to the modern day where their number are as commonly seen in Brothels are they are in marketplaces. Disparaged as haughty and snobbish by the other races, they often wear veils in order to accommodate their pronounced olfactory sense, which is particularly sensitive to toxins.

Inclishet (Human)
Descendants of the original leper colony founded upon the island, theirs are the people who were always too visibly sickly to be considered suitable for marriage. Although they enjoy a profound resiliency and robust immunity in the present day, as a consequence of their somewhat altered physiology they are known to vomit blood whenever afflicted, even in the instance of minor colds. They also bruise readily and accumulate sores across their backs and arms from simple bedrest despite keeping regular hours, and their eyes have pronounced red veins. Other species and Humans are highly averse to them due to misconceptions and suspicion of sickness; Inclishet are commonly blamed for the occurence of plagues and are periodically lynched during severe bouts of illness. They live in ghettos and communes, and are often expected to travel swaddled in lepers' robes should they ever venture about in open public.

Barwhett (Elf)
When Indignor was a blighted waste, it was considered a hellish punishment to be exiled there for Wood Elves. Those that were formed wasteland tribes which endeavored to grow something, anything, from the barren wastes. These efforts proved unsuccessful, but resulted in a lineage of nomadic, ashen-skinned elves known for traveling under cover of dust storms, raiding settlements and harnessing nature magics over the weather and earth to their advantage. There was a brief period where their kind raided and took slaves from the various peoples of the coast, making warlords of themselves and proliferating in an era of personal prosperity circa 8300 FE, becoming nearly as commonplace as the Irafarate in the present day as a result. Although their practices have become more diluted over time, traces of their original culture can still be seen in their clothing and furnishings. Their feet are particular sensitive to vibrations, and they are known to be able to discern the presence of others nearby from their footfalls, no matter how silent.

Nary (Elf)
The descendants of exiled Elven royalty. Unlike their Human counterparts, they never enjoyed any great revivals of wealth and power resulting from frequent remarriage combining of assets. Their kind would arrive in splendor, live in squalor, and perish as beggars. What remains of their lines is due in part to their highly pronounced and peculiar (some suspect arcane-influenced) genetics, such that even carried down over a hundred generations it is barely diluted, if at all. Nary blood is known to completely dominate the expression of most other racial and species traits; Nary who interbreed with Humans or other races of Elf simply produce more Nary. They are always tall and willowy, with faintly luminescent skin. Their hair and eyes always possess metallic sheens to them, and their complexions are always notably flawless and sculpted. Due to the largely insular nature of many of the other races and species upon Indignor, Nary are seen almost like vermin as any sort of dalliance with them inevitably dilutes the bloodline of whichever family they lay with. Despite most Nary living in destitute conditions, and despite the other peoples possessing little unity or cohesion amongst themselves, most other races and species unite in, if nothing else, despising the Nary. The Gresihdra in particular are noted for their scorn and contempt of the Nary, as they blame the Nary for 'stealing all the young folk' and disrupting family business. Commonplace resentment has prevented the extensive proliferation of the Nary despite their beauty and grace.

Largraun (Dwarf)
Indignor, being located in the middle of nowhere of the Asifa Sea and having originally been completely devoid of Trees of Anar, featured absolutely no mountain ranges or cavernous depths of note, never possessed any indigenous dwarves. The Largraun are a line of them who, if cultural myth and oral tradition are to be believed, dug their way to Indignor from the other side of the world just to see if they could circa 7000 FE. They are the only race of Dwarves in Indignor who still possess natural, permanent cave adaptation and grow sickened by exposure to daylight. It was their undercities, carved out beneath hills and ridges, which served as the shelters and refuges necessary combined with the wealth of exiled Human nobility, which gave rise to the first large settlements upon Indignor. The Largraun form the second largest majority on Indignor just behind the Irafarate, living in the foundations of every settlement on the island. Their very existence is the sole reason as to the absence of any above-ground roads on Indignor, as all settlements are connected by their underground highways. The majority of all Human and Elven industry upon Indignor exists specifically to service the maintenance and expansion of the Largraun undercities, making the Largraun Dwarves' cultural mores, practices, their food, goods, and needs the most commonly accepted and catered to on the island. Despite this, everyone knows that all rumors of Ens, The Great Road, are complete bullshit. _{Although one is forced to wonder how they got here at all then...}

Sarmtymske (Dwarf)
Settling upon Indignor along with the Sartzteike Humans, the Sarmtmske were sea-faring Dwarves who originally lived on massive Arks. They can only attain light cave adaptation and are largely unbothered by exposure to sunlight, although as a consequence their vision in low-light conditions is much closer to that of a Human's. They can hold their breath for extensive periods of time, upwards of an hour in the case of practiced divers. Their hands and feet are larger and possess a more oblong shape than is normal for Dwarves, which is conducive to swimming rapidly through water, but they are otherwise similar to and commonly mistaken for Largraun dwarves. They live amongst the Sartzteike in ramshackle slums built either on the surface or in the undercities, and due to a matter of simply having better nerves are generally relied upon to speak with other races and species on behalf of any Sartzteike present.

Nadir (Dwarf)
Exiled Dwarven nobility, sent to the middle of nowhere in the Asifa Sea to an island where there were absolutely no caverns they could use to escape. In theory _{thanks for nothing, Largraun.} Their families were largely forced to subsist in the overworld, integrating with tribes and settlements of Humans and Elves prior to the arrival of the Largraun. They possess moderate cave adaptation that affords them the best of both worlds; permitting them fully enhanced low-light vision or tolerance for the sun with an adaptation period of only a few days. They have copper or gold colored eyes, and possess immense physical strength that would shame the strongest of Humans. Like the Nary, they did not experience any great revival of wealth or influence, although they avoided living destitute due to their physical strength and willingness to get their hands dirty. Also unlike the Nary, their bloodline proved to be fickle. It lies dormant but undiluted in the bloodlines of other races of Dwarf as well as other viable species, skipping half a dozen or more generations before arising again, which can result in no small amount of occasional awkwardness amongst certain Human and Elven families. Also as with the Nary, the Nadir's bloodline is suspected to be influenced by arcane forces, supposedly manifest in their native talent for geological sounding. They are not particularly more sensitive to seismic vibrations than any other dwarf, but few can deny that they are somehow always experts at feeling at the land, be it the overworld or the subterranean realms. The Nadir live in a few small families of land-lords and guildmasters who own many of the external overworld plantations and most of the subterranean highways in Indignor, and they wield vast influence amongst the Largraun, whose own nobility intermarried with those of the Nadir many generations ago.

Refik (Beastfolk)
The shallows around Indignor, originally, were barren and lifeless. Once the first Trees of Anar began to grow upon the island, their effects spread out and enabled life to thrive in the waters. As coral reefs and tidepools began to crop up, the Seafolk moved in, carving their own settlements out of the living rock beneath the waves. As inland rivers began to form and reach out to the sea, so too did the Seafolk reach island as well. The Refik are amphibious sea-serpents capable of breathing air, with large, adapted pectoral fins ending in grasping, claw-like extremities near their tips - resembling to a degree the wings of bats. Although the Refik can breath air, they are not able to do so for extended periods of time, and if they spend too long out of the water they can perish due to oxygen toxicity. Originally preying upon the various islanders of Indignor, as fortified coastal settlements began to spring up, with neither the Seafolk nor the islanders possessing any reliable means of waging war with each other, they grudgingly began to tolerate each other’s' presence, leading eventually to exchanges of goods and services between each other, culminating in the modern-day presence of Refik coral dens amongst every coastal city and port in Indigor, where they act as shipwrights, fishermen, sea-tenders, sailors, architects, merchants, and more - adopting many of the trappings of civilized life in the process. Although most Indignor Refik are 'civilized,' insofar as such as distinction goes, it is not unheard of for Refik sirens to lure unwary islanders to their doom using their innate ability to mimic the voices of land-dwelling creatures.

Ambucane (Beastfolk)
The only form of sentient life that could exist on Indignor prior to the emergence of the first Trees of Anar, the Ambucane were opportunistic ambush predators who could rest in states of torpor for weeks waiting for prey to wander close. The Ambucane are long cold-blooded serpents with six limbs, capable of burrowing in sand, ash, and dirt. They have poor light-based vision, but make up for it with excellent thermal vision, enhanced olfactory nerves, and sensitivity to seismic vibrations. They are more than three and a half meters in length from the tip of their snout to the end of their tail, and pound for pound they are the strongest living beings on Indignor, able to overpower even the tremendous strength of the Nadir. They habitually lived in centralized dens that would service a dozen or more Ambucane over an area of a hundred kilometers. Ambucane traditionally consume rocks to help them digest their prey, and upon returning to their den, regurgitate the contents of their stomach as a putrefied morass of fluids into a clay urn which all of the Ambucane would then feed from, relying on the sheer toxicity of their own guts to keep the rancid mess free of any contaminants other than their own. Due to the Ambucane's slow metabolisms, they are extremely long-lived, and there are a few Ambucane of note who have been alive since the beginning of the second era. Ambucane are extremely languid and slothful, and despite possessing unmatched strength can only exhibit it in brief bursts due to their metabolism. They were originally enslaved by the nomadic Barwhett tribes and used as beasts of burden and as burrowers for excavation, which led to their eventual integration with the Langraun Dwarves. Ambucane largely reside in Largraun undercities, working as burrowers and laborers, but live in dens close to the surface where they can bask or swim in thermal baths. Due to their patience and their willingness to work and share with one another almost without questions, dens of Ambucane generally engage in private industries that they then operate through a market front, and so many Ambucane are actually immensely wealthy despite working as 'mere' laborers for their day jobs. The wealthiest individual in all of Indignor is, in fact, an Ambucane who has been hording wealth and influence with market guilds for over a thousand years.

The Haggard (Undead)
There are many gods that pervade over death. One of them, whose name is whispered by the fearful and the foolish in Indignor and known as The Haggard Lord to everyone else, will raise the body after death, bearing a simulacrum of a soul to live a second life. The Haggard bear the body the worshiper had in life, which will quickly become emaciated, with skin drawn taut, thin, and bloodless over the bones. All bodily fluids dry away, and the individual becomes afflicted with a boundless, insatiable hunger. The Haggard may consume food and drink normally, which their body will ingest in an internal process too gruesome to describe. The Haggard may also directly absorb biomass they make contact with, siphoning away flesh and lifeblood into their body as if it were strands of fabric being pulled away. The Haggard may regenerate and heal themselves with any biomass they assimilate this way. Despite bearing an insatiable hunger, the Haggard remain lucid, and are far from mindless, as the Haggard Lord intends that they properly suffer their emptiness rather than receive the mercy of madness. The life of the Haggard, such as it is, is to eat. They work and labor tirelessly in order to earn bread, meat, cheese, water and wine and all manner of delicacies that they can procure to try and sate their horrid appetites. The Haggard are regularly exploited as cheap labor, paid a pittance to perform back-breaking and dangerous work that would kill a living man. They are treated as vagrants and beggars by most, and readily purged en-mass if one should ever grow so desperate as to prey on the living. Their continued presence on Indignor is something of a mystery, as even the living beggars know better than to evoke the Haggard Lord, but more and more of them continue to appear with time. They are singularly difficult to permanently kill, as so long as a morsel of them is left, it can absorb microscopic and small wildlife and slowly regenerate over time, requiring that every last trace of them be incinerated and burnt to ash. However, a single drop of Ambrosia, the nectar of the gods, will instantly expurgate the Haggard upon contact and cause their body and false-soul to disintegrate.

History

Circa 5500-5700FE - A small leper colony consisting of a dozen hovels is established on the Northeastern coast of the island. Over time, this colony expands into a small village. It produces just enough crop to attract the attention of pirates, who raid the village. Most of the colonists flee with whatever they can carry, establishing a new colony inland, in the wastes. The pirates convert and use the old village as a base of operations, storing stolen goods, prisoners, and slaves there. Over several decades, the small village transforms into a pirate port. The port and the new settlement see some exchange of trade; the colonists from the wastes have by now scouted the entirety of the island and, by word of mouth, the news of an island in the middle of nowhere of the Asifa Sea with no Anar Trees spreads first around port, then from ship to ship, and eventually to the mainland.

Circa 5700-6000 - The pirate port is sacked by a small fleet of longships from unknown lands (some historians speculate they may have come from continental Asifa, but there are several contradictions and problems with this theory) the pirates based out of the port are marooned there, without the resources or materials to build new ships. News of this returns to the mainland, various powers make note of the island's existence. An Elven kingdom populated by Wood Elves sends ships laden with untouchables to the island in order to get rid of them without killing them; the island is used to dispose of untouchables in this manner for nearly two-hundred years.

Cira 6000-6100 FE - After a violent revolution by Elven and Human untouchables in an unknown land, the Elven kingdom's throne is toppled, along with the thrones of several other kingdoms. Human, Elven, and Dwarven Nobility threatening divine retribution are exiled to Indignor rather than being executed in order to avoid the wrath of the gods and as poetic justice. The nobility are exiled with a number of their retainers and some of their personal possessions befitting their station, but without any resources of note on the island and with only very limited subsistence farming possible, there is no possibility of escape without outside intervention. The Human nobility immediately begin intermarrying and pooling what little wealth, possessions, and manpower they have between them. The Elven royalty is largely abandoned after several years, left destitute as beggars. The Dwarven nobility scatter across the island, integrating with the tribes of Dust Elves, the few Human colonies, and the remnants of the marooned pirate fleet.

Circa 6100-7000 FE -The population explosion of Humans, Elves, and Dwarves on the island leads to a reciprocal population explosion of the indigenous Ambucane, who prey upon and steal from all three species. The nomadic Dust Elves begin worshiping new gods, harnessing natural magics to conjure dust storms used as cover for raids upon Human settlements. Fighting between nomadic Elves and the colonies, combined with the absence of any Trees of Anar, prevents any true civic progress. Association by way of race with the Dust Elves instills the colony populations with contempt for the remnants of the bloodlines of the Elven royalty. The new revolutionary order from the mainland and various other powers from surrounding territories begin using Indignor as a dumping ground for various malcontents, inconvenient figures, and madmen. Warlocks, sorcerers, and wizards marooned on the island fail to integrate with populations of the colonies, and form their own private enclaves where they could go quietly mad with power and delusions of grandeur with each other. Coincidentally, occult knowledge of The Haggard Lord begins to spread amongst the colonists. The first of The Haggard begin to appear.

Circa 7000-8300 FE - The Largraun Dwarves appear on Indignor, although how is unclear. Racially distinctive from nearly every other member of the Dwarven species, they clearly did not originate from continental Asifa, Pehan, or Kevica, no records exist of any mass expulsions of Dwarves sufficient to explain their appearance. According to oral histories, the Largraun dug their way to Indignor from the other side of the world, creating 'Ens, the Great Road' in the process. No reliable evidence or records that might confirm this theory have been found as of the present day. The Largraun Dwarves readily carve vast settlements out beneath the surface of the island, having appeared with the tools and knowledge necessary for sophisticated architectural accomplishments and able to use the earth itself for most of their materials, obviating the (immediate) need for Trees of Anar. The bloodlines of the exiled Human Nobility, rallying the colonies behind them, establish rapport with the Langraun and begin initially limited barter with them. The foundations of what will become the first true settlements on Indignor are created. With fortification to ward off the Dust Elf tribes and opportunistic Ambucane, the local Human populations begin to rapidly expand, despite the limitations of the barren land and subsistence farming. After several hundred years, the first Indigo Child is born. The first Tree of Anar sprouts in the wastes of Indignor.

Circa 8300-9600 FE - The nomadic Dust Elf tribes and the descendants of the Dwarven nobility amongst them exploit the Tree of Anar, developing tools and weapons that enable them to overcome settlement fortifications and raid once more. Ambucane dens become easier for the Dust Elves to assault, and indigenous Ambucane flee the wastes to parlay with the settlements for shelter due to the ferocity of the Dust Elves. Charismatic and brutal tribal leaders arise amongst the Dust Elves, who demand the taking of slaves from settlement raids. These warlords create vast, nomadic hordes that live amisdt drawn wagons, their numbers sustained partly by the Tree of Anar and raids upon the settlements. Numbers between all of the warlords and the respective tribes are limited by their rivalry, nomadic natures, and the slow regenerative powers of the Tree of Anar. However, with the number of Dust elves rapidly proliferated to match those of the Humans and Dwarves living amongst the settlements, additional Indigo Child are born within a millennium. Additional Trees of Anar sprout, and the tribes of the warlords all simultaneously fracture as their lieutenants try to take advantage of the occurrence. The nomadic tribes split apart into hundreds of groups, and the settlements claim the lands around the new trees. Over centuries, the nomadic remnants of the Dust Elf tribes are assimilated by the settlements. During this period, as significant resources are finally made available to the noble Human bloodlines, new factions begin to form amongst them, dividing the settlements once more. Seeking an edge over each other, the noble families call upon the enclaves where the descendants of exiled mages reside, seeking arcane and divine power with which to establish a new sovereign rule. By this point, the remainder of the world has learned of the emergence of Anar Trees upon Indignor and cease treating it as their dumping ground for troublesome belligerents; wandering parties from the island are regardless universally treated as criminals and degenerates by the mainland powers. Although the odd individual manages to successfully escape to the mainland realms over the centuries, several attempted mass-exoduses by large groups end in massacres. The people of Indignor remain largely isolated and cut off from the remainder of the world, despite access to the resources necessary for shipbuilding.

Circa 9600-10800 FE -
The rivaling nobility eventually settles into two opposing factions, one led by elements of Human nobility and another led by a single charismatic Dwarven King (though both sides were represented by diverse populations), spread across the island, engaged in a cold-war centered around the Trees of Anar. The Dwarven King makes contact with seafaring peoples living aboard vast Arks, promising them residence upon the island now that it was livable and that settlement around certain Anar Trees would be guaranteed to their people if they could help overthrow the rival faction. At approximately the same time, the Human Nobility contact the arcane enclaves and enlist the assistance of the descendants of the establishing mages. Great privilege, personal power, and resources are afforded to a number of powerful sorcerers amongst them, who begin devising great and forbidden arcane methods of waging war for the Human Nobility. The Dwarven King eventually mustered his forces and began a great war between the two factions, with the Ark-peoples spearheading his forces. The Human nobility immediately strike back with overwhelming arcane might, and the Dwarven King is slain in the first great battle - but in the chaos of the conflict their leashed mages abandon all pretense of loyalty and attempt a coup against the Human nobility. Both factions splinter, and at this point in time few intact and coherent records of the turbulent people exist that shed light on the events that led to the eventual arcane igniting of the Crest of Yearning, Indignor’s Caldera, leading to the Great Eruption of 10800 FE. The eruption was so great that ash blanketed the skies over the island for several centuries, and large, dark storms of soot swept across the remainder of the world – though not sufficient to blot out the sun, for several centuries a number of mainland powers are seasonally inconvenienced by ash storms causing days of perpetually overcast skies.

Circa 10800 FE - 0200 SE - After the arcane eruption of the Crest of Yearning, which eradicated nearly a quarter of all life on the island, the remaining peoples abandoned the volcanic wastes and sought shelter within the Dwarven foundations of their settlements. It was during this era when the great underground highways between the settlements are carved out beneath the Earth, both as a means of survival by the people and in order to continue waging war upon one another. Towns and cities are raiding and sacked with abandon and great ferocity during this period, and to this day Indignor is littered with the remnant, ruined foundations of settlements that were wiped out to the last child, the stones scorched by flames leaving little in the way of historical accounts behind. The most reliable records that remain of those times originate from the Shadowgate Regency itself, formerly known simply as the Indignor Regency. They originated as a splinter group of the Human Nobility’s forces, who determined that as long as there were Kings and Queens of any kind on Indignor, there could be no peace. Seizing upon the icon of an eternally vacant throne as their symbol and appealing to the common people to unite under their common histories as exiles and nomads, the Regency was led by a commoner of unremarkable birth acting as a Regent, wielding the sovereign authority of Kings but with no hereditary line of succession. Attempting to exploit the lack of a clear line of succession, rival powers have the first several Regents assassinated, one after another. Much to their dismay, this merely resulted in the emergence of exceedingly more extreme and violent Regents who continuously spur the people to violent revolution against the remnants of the Noble forces, even amongst the Noble-led peoples of the island. This results in a centuries-long reign of terror by the Regency as it waged war against the fractuous Noble houses, culminating in the Regency’s complete dominance of the island near the turn of the era. A counter-cultural revolution begins amongst the remnants of the Noble houses, calling for an end to the dogmatic witch-hunts for Noble families and their immediate execution in the absence of any war or external conflict. The common people, now used to violence and easily roused to look for new victims to fall upon, readily begin to revolt en-mass against the Indignor Regency, which retreats to the island’s caldera, now dormant millennia after the Great Eruption. Fortified therein, the Regency sues for peace, promising an end to slaughter and violence as long as the descendants of the Noble lines promise in turn to never again seek to rule over the people by right of blood. The Exile’s Concordat is signed in 200 SE, with the Regency officially designating common-born governors for the settlements of Indignor and issuing clemency to the remaining Noble families. Although the common people accept the governors chosen from amongst their own to lead, they largely reject the return of the Indignor Regency as the dominant authority on the island, restrict its power to what remains of its forces within the Crest of Yearning.

Cira 0200 SE – 900 SE – The Indignor Regency abides by the sentiment of the common people and little more is heard of them again for centuries as they consolidate their power within the Crest of Yearning. They build a great wall ringing the Caldera, and name the territory Shadowgate. Then, in 500 SE, they announced they would be making a limited return to governance of the remainder of the island. They begin by revealing a previously secret means of transplanting live trees of Anar between different locations, and as a show of good-will established a ring of Trees of Anar around the Caldera, permitting the growth of new settlements, and offered several other existing prominent settlements the procurement of additional Trees of Anar if they would accept the authority of the Regency. After a brief period of negotiation, most of the island settlements accepted the Shadowgate Regency as the ruling authority upon Indignor. The reformed Regency began to distribute a new form of minted currency known as Exile’s Fleece, lengths of cord transmuted into unearthly materials, and broke up the families of the inbred descendants of the mages’ enclaves to the overall approval of most of the island people. Less popularly, they formally acknowledged the existence and rights of the undead Haggard, ending their previous widespread prosecution and purging – but conditionally refuse to acknowledge the worship of the Haggard Lord, or to sponsor or protect any form of worship thereof. As a showing of protest, a number of religious parties refuse to accept Exile’s Fleece as legal tender, a practice which devalued the currency and resulted in its irregular acceptance up until the present day. Although Exile’s Fleece is now largely (if grudgingly) accepted as the regional currency, a few stubborn hold-outs still refuse to accept it simply due to the historical and cultural irregularity of its acceptance.

900 SE – Present Day – Near the turn of the second millennia of the second era, the Shadowgate Regency formally sponsored the construction of naval merchant fleets, harbors, and guilds, and officially made contact with numerous mainland powers to declare that Indignor was at peace and officially led by the Regent of the Exile’s Throne, possessing the sovereign authority of a Monarch in the absence of a Noble line. (To be developed further).

Culture

The land of Indignor is one of ruin, abandonment, wild diversity, and hidden life. From the smoldering and dark lid of the Crest of Yearning, to the ashen and desolate coasts of seething, twisted stone to the dim, bustling intensity of the underground cities, Indignor is unapologetically alien.

Every settlement in Indignor is built around one or several Trees of Anar, in vast circular blocks surrounding internalized fields, and resemble unusual and quaint countryside villages and mining towns built around vast plains, meadows, and groves. While these realms can be vast unto themselves, they are small and inconsequential compared to their roots: The vast Dwarven-carved undercities are where the vast majority of the people on island (or more accurately under it) live. Indignor has never had any natural cavern systems of note prior to the arcane eruption of the Crest of Yearning; most of the subterranean cities are networks of great tunnels spiraling outwards from the central mining hubs, beneath the roots of the Trees of Anar. While individual passages and chambers tend to have limited height, the overall verticality of these realms tend to be immense, with cities diving nearly as deep as they are wide. The causeways and passages mirror the arrangement of traditional streets, albeit with the absence of any common, large plazas or forums. Most markets are arranged in wider, grid-like matrices of passageways (for structural safety, so it is often claimed), and a common complaint by claustrophobic surface-visitors is that Indignor undercities are more akin to overgrown, aggrandized burrow runs. Oil and other fuels is a commodity and not often used for lighting, and instead the cities are lit by way of widespread cultivation of bioluminescent, subterranean plantlife and fungi, occasionally supplemented by enchanted lighting. The confines of the cities are stygian and dim; most surface-dwellers can become easily lost or hurt themselves trying to navigate the abyssal corridors. Foreign visitors are thus readily identified by their torches and lanterns, which are sold aboveground at steeply overcharged prices for their benefit. In the absence of the sun, there is no nighttime lull in activity; people come and go and work at every and odd hours. Time is kept by a combination of waterclocks, mechanized pulley-systems, aqueducts, and groups of municipal laborers. It is entirely possible for many individuals to live out their entire lives underground without ever seeing the surface. Beyond the confines of the surface-dwellings, a primitive ecosystem of grasses and small shrublife exists, dotting the island barrens in volcanic soil. While most plantlife takes root readily enough, Indignor has not been fertile for long enough for there to be any great diversity of plant or wildlife; most wild specimens are in fact escaped plants or animals from above-ground plantations, walled compounds where crop and cattle are grown and raised whenever natural sunlight in required.

The people of Indignor are insular and xenophobic, generally mistrustful of each other as well as foreigners. At the same time, the diverse species and races intermingle and interact with one another on a regular and inevitable basis. The very atmosphere of most social interactions is grudging and bitter contempt, and fuck you too. Since space underground is at a premium, few species or races live in confined ghettos or burroughs (the exceptions being the Sartzteike and the Sarmtymske, who mutually live in ramshackle slums). Multiple families of the same species or race generally live with each other in a single dwelling, typically with neighbors of other races or species living in similar conditions. Most businesses and markets specializing in goods and services do not discriminate, but local taverns, commonhouses, and trade guilds often do so freely and openly. Race riots are unheard of, but fist-fights breaking out between separate groups in an everyday occurrence. Local militias uniformly draft Dwarves and Haggard who were Dwarves in life, as they form a majority within Indignor and are generally the least disliked species and thus are less likely to incite retaliation or resistance while keeping the peace. Foreigners are typically less subject to outright discrimination, but the treatment they receive is typically measured in direct proportion to their wealth – or at least, of the wealth a given vendor they might barter with is willing to accept.

As the different species and races of Indignor exist in a perpetual state of cold war with one another, they have no issue with slavery or exploitation. The Regency proscribes it harshly, but as its rule is largely hands-off, flesh markets and indentured servants are not unheard of in the larger cities, run openly and ignored by the militia and governors. A vast array of narcotics are widely accepted and used, with several trade guilds and surface plantations dedicated to their production. The common people and the Regency itself are accepting, or more accurately apathetic to, a large number of practices that might otherwise be deemed taboo, although anthropologists theorize that this may just be due to it being easier to hide signs of occult practices underground in the dark; that the people are no less hateful of it and more that its symptoms are harder to immediately identify on sight. The Regency’s policy of legitimizing undead with false-souls as actual people, in and of itself, in addition to the large diversity of species and races, has also made the common populace more accepting of taboo practices and otherwise monstrous creatures than might otherwise be advisable.

The only officially sponsored religions on Indignor are the worship of the Triumvirate of the Shadow, Zuuldrick, and Ishala. The Regency’s official stance is that as the sprotectors of the world and mortal-kind, these three beings are to be honored much in the manner children are expected to honor their parents. The remaining pantheons and gods are all selfish, destructive beings who would see the world destroyed if they had but the opportunity, and until proven otherwise are untrustworthy and unworthy of anything but mortalkind’s contempt. If they are dealt with at all, for any reason, it is only to be done on mutual terms and any bargain is to be approached with great skepticism. It is due to this very position that the Regency refuses to acknowledge or sponsor any other god or form of worship. The common people of Indignor largely ignore this sentiment and freely worship anything they please under any number of terms; the Regency does not openly proscribe such worship despite its noted disapproval for it.

The central realm of Shadowgate, within the Crest of Yearning, is somewhat of a different story from the remainder of Indignor. Most of the construction in the caldera is relatively recent (constructed within the last two millennia). Most subterranean structures are built into the cliff-faces of the caldera, or into the sides of ravines, and the Regency otherwise prefers to build more traditionally – and they prefer high-flown aesthetics. They build their fortifications and settlements atop plateaus and mesas, lone structures on top of raised foundations, and their roadways – some of the only aboveground roads in all of Indignor – are all built atop aqueducts, connecting distant points along a raised structure. Large, airy towers are commonplace, and the dark spires of the Regency spearing out into the sky from over the lid of the caldera create a starkly beautiful atmosphere within the Crest of Yearning. Although the Regency has different preferences in where and in what manner they build subterranean structures, the few they have made are of a similar scale.

Government

The Shadowgate Regency is ruled by a hypothetical Monarch known as the Exile, perpetually in abesentia from the material realm. The Exile’s Throne is empty and has been empty since its inception, no bloodline or lineage has ever existed which may lay claim to it, and no mechanism of ascension or succession of the Exile’s Throne exists. However, the hypothetical entity of the Exile is supposed to possess the full sovereign and divine authority of any King or Queen. Immediately beneath the Exile’s Throne exists the Regency Council, a group of twelve common-born administrators and officials who nominally serve as advisors to the Exile. In their absence, the council elects from amongst their number a Regent to represent the Exile’s Throne in the Exile’s absence. The Regent possesses the full authority of the supposed Monarch, capable of issuing royal decrees and mandates as though their word alone was law. Their power is only limited by the Regency Council beneath them, which by a mere plurality vote may dismiss the Regent – but only if, by formal lower election, the Regency Council has already elected an immediate successor Regent. The balance of power is kept in check as the Regency Council itself controls and governs most aspects of the Shadowgate Administration. There are no safeguards that protect the authority of the Regent themselves, who must always be able to convince the Regency Council of the merit of their commands and intent in order to retain power. Any form of refusal or defiance contrary to the Regent’s commands is formally considered a tacit vote for dismissal until rectification or abeyance. There have been several points in Shadowgate’s history where an unpopular Regent has been dismissed simply because nobody amongst the Regency Council would follow their orders.

The individual members of the Regency Council are senior administrators drawn from six realms, known as Aedes, with two members representing each realm. The six realms which an Aede may represent are Sovereignty (Diplomacy & Public Relations), Worth (commerce & trade), People (Domestic and Land affairs), Peace (Law Enforcement), War (Precisely what you imagine it is), and the Occult (Arcane & Religious issues).

While the Aedes of War are senior administrators regarding military affairs and logistics, they can never be members of the actual military, in order to preclude the possibility of an internal armed coup.

Outside of Shadowgate, evidence of the Regency’s power is present but subtle. Beyond the regular rounds made by tally-men, the Regency maintains an office in each settlement from which decrees are issued and legal affairs are handled. Additionally, soldiers under the banner of the Exile’s Throne may enter the settlements in order to secure and maintain peace in times of revolt.

Military Forces

(To be developed after consultation.

Religion

The state-sponsored religion is the simple worship of the Triumvirate of the Shadow, Zuuldrick, and Ishala, but there are no official temples or sites of worship erected for the purpose of the honoring them. The Regency administration limits itself to the construction of perfunctory and humble shrines, sometimes as simple as small wall alcoves, within the administrative structure of Shadowgate. This is also coupled with several brief but omnipresent traditional prayers integrated within commonplace greetings and farewells, as well as in the executive language of several administrative functions. It is customary for guards to invoke the Triumvirate whenever there is a shift change, for example, and for baggage train drivers to exchange a blessing with supply depot overseers upon concluding their business. Outside of Shadowgate, the only temples, shrines, and sites of worship that exist are those which the common people have seen fit to erect. Although there are many temples to the Triumvirate, they are largely outnumbered by the plethora of diverse structures dedicated to the worship of other gods and entities.

Commerce

(Under development - stay tuned) The Regency taxes the external settlements annually, and their methodology is simple. Tally-men, usually accompanied by a squad of bag-men, operate out of the Regency offices in each settlement and keep a private record of every dwelling, spending most of the year simply having men explore the reaches of the settlements and thoroughly mapping them out. Near the end of Summer, the tally-men head out with a list of specific dwellings to visit one-by-one. Taxation is applied uniformly, citizens living in a city pay the same flat rate for the simple privilege of existing within Regency lands. It is paid per-head, and may be paid with most forms of legal tender including foreign currency. If an individual or family cannot pay for everybody present, the bag-men divest them of property until the Tally-man deems the needed worth has been met. If they cannot pay and have no belongings, they are typically sent to Debtor’s Prisons. If the squad comes across a dwelling that appears to be abandoned, it is searched to ensure there are no inhabitants. If they come across a dwelling which is clearly inhabited but when nobody is at-home, the squad leaves and returns on another day after posting a notice. This period of Summer, referred to as Tally-week, is often treated as a pseudo-holiday, with many employers permitting workers to take days off to ensure at least one person can remain at home to pay taxes. If, for any reason, a family cannot manage to have a member at home to render payment, they can send somebody to the Regency offices to pay. If they cannot or will not do even that, eventually the Tally-squad will simply post a notice of forfeiture and then steal any money and possessions they find within the dwelling until the due is considered paid.

There is no apparent taxation applied by the Regency to any form of sales or services; although local trade guilds can and do tax entrepreneurs independently, as do to occasionally local Governors. However, all other forms of taxation beyond the Regency’s annual collections are unique and limited to specific regions of Ingidnor.

Territory & Terrain

Map of Overland Indignor

Horizon’s Stead: Although not home to the largest ports in Indignor, Horizon’s stead features the smallest stretch of coastline with some of the largest and most accessible ports and harbors, and consequently the region sees the most foreign traffic, sea and otherwise. So-named due to the proliferation of desperate islanders crowding the docks and taverns, seeking work or to stow away aboard a foreign vessel so they may depart from Indignor for good. Since few foreign nations will permit the free entry of islanders into their borders, few captains are willing to take on crew or passengers from Indignor. Horizon’s Stead is also home to the largest Overland City Complex in Indignor, which is an overland extension of the Raanaxis Undercity which extends throughout most of the region. Both the Undercity and Overcity have some of the largest markets on the island, with the greatest influx and circulation of foreign and exotic goods. Additionally, Horizon’s stead also sees the greatest amount of cultist, heretical, and arcane traffic – as foreign mages and scholars flock to the island, chasing rumors of ostracized pursuit of taboo magic and practices, or else seeking to dig through the ruins of the island’s enclaves in search of the secrets of the bygone Iwadwtschi sorcerers, and there just-so-happens to conveniently be a large remnant of one such enclave in the middle of the region. Few visitors ever turn up anything interesting, but the rumors of powerful artifacts and sites in the depths of the enclave persist even after centuries of abandonment.

Menard: The region of Menard is so-named after a Nadir dwarven family, which owns most of the overworld plantations in the area. The local undercity is almost wholly owned by them, and it exists almost solely to service their plantations and businesses. While the settlement is not quite a company town, every year the settlement becomes progressively more and more inaccessible to those who do not work directly for the Menard family in some capacity.

Kraden: Despite being the second-largest region upon the island, Kraden’s undercities have the smallest population densities on the island. The overworld is noted for being one of the few areas of Indignor where wild flora and fauna have been successful, and features the only forests in all of Indignor. It is the only palce on the island where wild game is hunted, and features several populations of native Ambucane which have returned to a simpler way of life, having dug out barrows in the forest depths. There are common rumors and claims that these ‘feral’ Ambucane prey upon unwary travelers in the forests due to the tendency for people to go missing therein. The local undercity also features several luxury districts, and a large percentage of the Shadowgate Regency’s upper management and their families live there primarily when not pulling stints within the Crest of Yearning.

Wraenkt: The region is home to Tyretemo, the largest undercity in Indignor, both in terms of actual size as well as population density. Most of the people live to the East and are laborers or lower management employed by the Regency, and make up most of the population that services and manages Shadowgate, resulting in extremely large and frequent amounts of foot and carriage traffic through the Southern gatehouse aqueducts of the Crest of Yearning. The Western end of Tyretemo along the coast features the largest ports and harbors on the island, along with the largest populations of Gresihdra humans and Refik beastfolk. The ports are extremely unaccommodating towards foreigners due to the cutthroat cultural practices of the Gresihdra and their near-automatic contempt for foreign people. The Indignor black markets are most active in Tyretemo specifically due to the piratical tendencies of the Gresihdra families and the aquatic habits of a number of nefarious Refik lures, and the Western city districts rightfully have a reputation as a pirate haven.

D’nartri: The D’nartri overlands are rife with plantations featuring artificially cultivated soil and transplanted Trees of Anar. Most of the lifestock reared on the island are reared in this region, along with a large number of secondary crops and cereals. The region is seemingly blessed, as plagues and drought seem not to touch the land. The local people regularly live suspiciously long and hale lives, miscarriage and complications during childbirth and hatchings are almost unheard of, and the region has the lowest rates of accident and violence-related death. Entirely by coincidence and most assuredly not related in any way, the region is home to the greatest population of the undead Haggard. Most do not originate from within the region (or so they would claim), but to have migrated from other areas on the island, with many saying they feel compelled and drawn towards D;nartri. Local residents just put it down to the lifeless inherently seeking out the prosperity and bounty of life and the region, and are generally (but not greatly) more accepting of the Haggard in general than elsewhere – although, pointedly, the region produces more Ambrosia than any other realm on the island…

Shadowgate: With a central palace carved out from the magma dome of the Crest of Yearning caldera, Shadowgate is the seat of the Regency and its base of power. All of its wealth and influence is concentrated here. Unlike the remainder of Indignor, Shadowgate is completely barren volcanic waste and blightland, and no plantlife of note grows within the Caldera. There are seemingly no Trees of Anar within, leaving the terrain between Regency installations and settlements utterly empty and desolate wastes, where one can see over the jagged expanse of volcanic rock for kilometers up until the caldera walls. What passes for society in Shadowgate is something of a mystery to the outside world; few outside the employ of the Regency have stepped within the confines of the Crest of Yearning since the construction of the walls lining the caldera. Foreign agents, spies, seers, diviners and simple voyeurs all describe that the lands are still, tranquil, and silent. The structures are eerie, seemingly emptied and devoid of the bustle of life that should be present in any structures of their size. Only work and labor crews are present, alongside clerks and various officials who toil day and night, all of whom live outside of the crest of Yearning but possess temporary lodgings within so that they may work for days or weeks on-end for a given period before having to leave again. Shadowgate has been described as a bread-basket by many, supported externally but with a populace wholly absorbed in work and production. Individuals take leave in the external settlements, and otherwise everybody within the caldera is considered to be on the clock and working. Culture and society practically does not exist, and the only social interactions that exist beyond rote, terse logistical dialogue is the breakout of fights between laborers, wrought with tension from overworking. Even in the domestic living blocksliving space is cramped and diversions scarce. The consumption of narcotics is the most popular and, by large, only form of popular recreation, although most drugs must be brought in personally since the Regency Guard crack down on independent dealers (although the sale of narcotics is not proscribed). It is clear that it is the Regency’s intent that Shadowgate remain an administrative zone with as few amenities as possible. Moreso within the Crest of Yearning than anywhere else on the island, the Haggard are employed in many areas, and they are a common sight in most labor crews.

The actual function of most of the structures within Shadowgate are obscure and esoteric to outsiders; foreign agents who have lived within the complex for years confess more or less continued and complete ignorance no lesser than when they first arrived; with Shadowgate seeming to be no more than a gigantic palatial mess of storage facilities, warehouses, barracks, temporary living quarters, and foundries. Supplies, foodstuffs, and currency are moved endlessly from point A to point B seemingly without purpose, shift and work schedules seem intentionally confusing and paradoxical, and almost nobody ever seems to know exactly what is going on or what the Regency’s current internal objectives are. All information seems to be tremendously compartmentalized between tasks, and cooperation to piece together what is going on just reveals a tangled mess of apparent economic busywork, the Regency’s wealth and resources continuously if slowly building up over time. The Regency’s internal bureaucracy is rudimentary and directly beneath the Regency Council is simply two levels of management-by-proxy, with new members of the Regency Council always drawn from senior upper-management – and judiciously screened in advance, having precluded efforts at infiltration thus far. All information of any true importance is theorized to therefore be limited to the knowledge of the members of the Regency Council.

Factions

Menards: A tremendously wealthy family of Nadir dwarves, the Menards have an entire region of the island named after them, and a sizable chunk of the island’s population works under them. Members of the family are eternally barred from setting foot within Shadowgate due to their noble lineage, but it is rumored they have multiple agents within the Crest of Yearning and that they have members of the Regency Council in their pocket.

The Naught Guilds: So named as they are run by several powerful, allied families of Naught humans. They take different forms in every region, but are all implicitly interconnected. They share information with each other about commerce in every city, they run their own taxation schemes alongside those of the city governors and the Regency, and they own perhaps four fifths of all shipping on the island. Altogether they are possibly the second most powerful agency just behind the Regency itself, but their divided nature and the wary attention everyone else affords them prevents them from ever pulling too far ahead. As tends to be the case with merchant guilds, they are rife with ambition and wealth. Some of their members would do anything at all in order to reclaim some of the power they once had.

The Phantasmagorian Pirates: An unapologetic Gresihdra pirate family, headed by the barbaric self-styled Commodore Chalafair. They are the largest single insular family of Gresihdra humans in Indignor, and own a fair percentage of the remaining ships behind the Naught Guilds – though their ships are known and infamous Q-boats, with concealed siege artillery mountings. How they manage to disguise and hide the weapons from port inspectors is something of a mystery, as none of their vessels has ever once failed to pass inspection with flying colors. They have strong ties with the Governor of Tyretemo, as well as with the Refik seafolk who live in the ports and reefs.

The Haggard Union: An organization dedicated to the advancement and suffrage of the undead Haggard population. Not overly-popular, but peculiarly wealthy and resourceful. They have eyes and ears all over the island, even within the Naught Guilds, the Menard family, as well as Shadowgate itself due to the attractiveness of the Haggard as cheap labor. The Union is deceptively powerful; they have the wealth, the numbers, and the resources to make a difference, but they lack the necessary popular regard and moral high ground usually necessary to win the hearts of the people. They are largely relegated to attempting to curry favor with the regional governors with blatant bribery, but are known to pop up and poke their noses into the business of others when it is least expected.

Rasrafraqratari: A group or society amongst the Refik seafolk, enigmatic even by Indignor’s standards. They have curious dealings with the Regency, and are known to attack and prey upon their own kind. There are theories that they exist to spread worship of the Triumvirate to the seafolk, or that they are simply the equivalent of municipal sewer workers, or that they are tenders of rarely-encountered aquatic Tees of Anar. Readily identified by the Shadowgate ring-crest they wear across their midsections, they are commonly seen in most ports but seemingly only ever have time and words for Shadowgate officials…and other varieties of seafolk.

Characters

Exiles, pariahs, beggars, thieves, heretics, and degenerates. Surely, nobody of any import might dwell in such a rotten place…as far as you are aware.

Printed guns, melded metal - An experimental GM-less Cyberpunk RP

I have already posted all the information about my character that I feel is necessary to divulge at this time and I am ready to begin whenever the rest of you are.

Ophad: Medieval Fantasy

Fairly interested. Starting work on a NS, I will be around in the discord later to ask a few questions.