Alrighty, folks, welcome to the OOC thread proper. I'm going to post some of the information about the setting here, and then I'd ask that you post your character sheets and hold off on posting further until all five have been posted.<br/><br/><strong>The Satrapy of Dun-lat</strong><br/>Dun-lat, is located along the River Ammon, also known as the Mother River, which empties into the small seas south of the Scavenger Lands, with its source even farther south. Dun-lat itself is located along the major route between the Varangian City-States and Ember, though is more than 1500 miles from the former and around 500 miles from the latter.<br/><br/>Dun-lat is a longtime satrapy of House Tepet, where devotion to the Immaculate Philosophy is at such a great height among most of the populace that almost all fertile couples give their firstborn child to the Immaculate Order to raise as a monk, inflating the numbers of the Order to such an extent that monasteries are nearly as common as villages in the satrapy, and one of the four greatest settlements is a monastery the size of a city.<br/><br/>However, not all members of society are so devoted to the Immaculates - the salt mines of the city of Nefrem are filled to the brim with slaves bought and sold by passing nomads, Guild traders, and prisoners of war, and the aristocracy's palaces are full of similar unfortunates. Even some of the free peasants of Dun-lat have difficulty supporting the Immaculates wholeheartedly - for the Immaculate Order is a part of the Realm, and the Realm has treated the Dun-lati very poorly in the past generation.<br/><br/>Twenty years ago, when a famine struck the City of Bridges, Akhetan, the people begged for a reduction in taxes. The satrap refused, and the people of Akhetan revolted, faced with the certain death of starvation or the less certain death of rebellion. The forces of House Tepet crushed the Akheti utterly, and the waliyah of Akhetan was crucified alongside her immediate family, while her servants and clan were sold into slavery. Akhetan itself was ransacked, its great bridges destroyed and its collection of texts burned (against the incredibly loud objections of the Immaculates). The ruling Malik in Latir, Orsam, was executed for allowing this to come to pass, and his sister, Irelen, was appointed Malika in his place. Since then, she has been a stern hand on the rudder of Dun-lat.<br/><br/>More recently, news of the weakness of House Tepet following the Bull of the North's destruction of the vast majority of its forces reached Dun-lat, and a woman claiming to be the Daughter of Mother River began a revolution against the weakened Tepet-backed regime, with resounding success relative to the earlier attempts - for five months the revolutionaries wracked the satrapy as the increasingly desperate forces of House Tepet struggled to fight them... But her revolt faltered abruptly, when nearly a month ago, she was slain under mysterious circumstances. The revolt fractured without her unifying charisma, and now many would-be revolutionaries have turned to banditry and raiding.<br/><br/>Now, above all other times, Dun-lat is fragmented - numerous factions attempt to affect control over the shattered satrapy, whether to restore order or simply to reinforce their own power, and threats from without are watching with eyes full of hunger even as the Mother River begins to show her wrath to the people who allowed her Daughter to die. The people of Dun-lat are greatly affected by this, and the services of the Listeners are coming into the fore as the conflict drags on.<br/><br/>Into this your characters come - the reborn kings and queens of a golden age. What will they do? Will they bring Dun-lat to a greater status than ever before, or will they destroy everything that is recognizably Dun-lati in their attempts? With the Sun's blessings, the Heirs to Creation walk again in Creation, and their footsteps echo ever louder...<br/><br/><strong>Akhetan, City of Bridges</strong><br/>Akhetan, the City of Bridges, sits upon both shores of the River Ammon, as well as upon an island sitting in the middle, midway between Latir and Nalandun. Once a beautiful city surrounded by the lush green growth of papyrus and lotus plants, with great irrigated fields of crops destined for the Blessed Isle and elsewhere, Akhetan is now but a shadow of its former self, ransacked and burnt. The bridges, once grand displays of artifice, are now replaced to unstable and ill-constructed monstrosities that bear the weight of a cart only with the most ill of grace. The people, once guided by a waliyah and her aristocratic family, have descended to feuding families and street violence, with few authorities able to put things in order. The Daughter's Rebellion saw many members of Akhetan's populace flocking to her banners, as they felt they owed the Realm an even greater blood debt than they did each other, and now the City of Bridges lies in wait for the hammer of the Realm's wrath to fall upon them once again.<br/><br/>The City of Bridges is in decay - moral, physical, economic - and the people know it. Families and clans feud with each other in the absence of a firmly controlling hand, whilst the Realm Garrison (much depleted after many of its troops were withdrawn to fight against the Daughter) only patrols the West City, ignoring the Center and the East. But not all is lost - some seek to rebuild the lost glories of the City of Bridges, to remake the greatness that was Akhetan, and the number has been growing slowly, but steadily, as House Tepet continued to disregard Akhetan in favor of the Daughter's Rebellion, but it remains to be seen what will come of it.<br/><br/>About a dozen villages lie within varying distances of the ruined walls of Akhetan - the closest of them lies about a mile out (that's a kilometer and a half), while the farthest that is owned by the city (nominally) is about ten times that distance from the fallen walls. There is also one fairly large monastery sitting roughly five miles (eight kilometers) outside the walls, and this is where the majority of the Immaculates in Akhetan originate.<br/><br/>Below are listed several interesting characters in Akhetan that the Circle has heard of or interacted with thus far:<br/><ul class="bbc_list"></ul><strong>Spirits</strong><br/><ul class="bbc_list"><li><strong>Enk-Aren</strong> - the city father of Akhetan, he is reputed to take the form of a small-framed hunter with the head of a great hunting cat. He only very rarely manifests, as is right and proper for a god under Immaculate rule, but during his festival, the Great Hunt, he takes shape and leads a procession of ceremonially dressed hunters through the streets and over the bridges of Akhetan.</li></ul><br/><strong>Akhetani Citizens</strong><br/><ul class="bbc_list"><li><strong>Dreaming Selash</strong> and <strong>Immaculate Song</strong> - A husband and wife duo, Dreaming Selash (the man) and Immaculate Song (the woman) are a pair of widely beloved members of Akhetan's high society, such as it is. Dreaming Selash is widely held to be the greatest calligrapher outside of Nalandun, and even the Immaculate Order pays dearly for copies of texts he has transcribed. Immaculate Song, while totally blind, is nonetheless one of the greatest poets in a generation - the way her words bind together and stir the heart to passion are blessings showing her high point on the Coils, or so the monks say.</li><li><strong>Striking Eldu</strong> and <strong>Jade Adone</strong> - A pair of married men, members of the merchant family most involved with the trade of grain in Akhetan. Striking Eldu is seen in society as something of a fop, albeit one who has more talent than most when it comes to arranging his family's affairs, while it is whispered that Jade Adone was a courtesan before becoming Eldu's husband. Eldu is one of the more influential members of his family, both due to his age (he is in his middle years now) and his talent with dinars.</li><li><strong>Harun Thrice-Blessed</strong> - A mysterious and somewhat weedy youth who is far more than the overly dramatic boy that he seems to be. He appears to be just barely past his majority, with a thin, wispy beard and a voice that is too deep to be entirely unbroken, but perhaps this, too, is misleading...</li></ul><br/><strong>House Tepet and its Subjects</strong><br/><ul class="bbc_list"><li><strong>Shakar</strong> - The nominal wali of Akhetan is perhaps the least liked man in all the city. When the former waliyah was slain, her entire family was removed from any place of power, and Shakar was put in her place. A member of the Onkelos family, famed for its investment in the barge trade, Shakar's family fortunes have dipped precariously since the Daughter's Rebellion, and it is only the strength of the Realm Garrison that prevents some "accident" befalling him. He has recently begun purchasing a great number of janissaries, to protect himself from his own people.</li><li><strong>Tepet Shefta</strong> - Talonlord of the Realm Garrison of Akhetan, Tepet Shefta is one of the few Dynast Dragon-Blooded in the city, and is an object of a mix of reverence, anger, and disgust. Shefta has never been unfair to the people of Akhetan in the five years he has been the leader of the Garrison, but there are many in the city who see him as a reminder of the prosperity of earlier times, now lost.</li></ul><br/><strong>The Immaculate Order</strong><br/><ul class="bbc_list"><li><strong>Wind</strong> - A Pasiap-emulating mortal Immaculate Monk, she seems to care deeply about those under her care, and is from Khara-ul</li></ul><br/><strong>Others</strong><br/><ul class="bbc_list"><li><strong>Brishah</strong> - Iron Lady of a mercenary band that has stopped in Akhetan for the month. She is often seen laughing uproariously at something or another, even when no one else around her does so. She is in her middle years, and her body is that of a warrior, not a courtesan - while she is not <em>un</em>attractive, neither is she particularly appealing.</li><li><strong>Karam</strong> - A mysterious martial artist serving in Brishah's mercenary band, he may be a Fire Dragon stylist. He wears his hair short, a bare stubble on his scalp.</li></ul><br/><br/>Nearby Settlements:<br/><ul class="bbc_list"><li><strong>Khara-ul</strong> - An Immaculate monastery about a day's journey from the walls of Akhetan.</li></ul><br/><div class="spoiler_container"><div class="spoiler_header" onclick="hideSecond (this);" role="button">The other Cities</div><div class="spoiler_body">Latir, the capital and home to the Malika, the satrap, and the greatest of Realm Garrisons in the satrapy, it is located just east of the Mother River, its palaces sitting on the shore. Latir is where the most wealth is concentrated, and its groves of citrus trees remain untouched by the recent debacles... at least for now. <br/><br/>Nalandun is not a city as such, but rather the greatest of all Immaculate monasteries in Dun-lat. Located about one hundred miles south of Latir and on the west shore of the River Ammon, the majority of Immaculates live and are taught here, though significant monasteries exist dotted throughout the satrapy. Nalandun is a place of prayer-wheels and chanting, of bells and sacrifice, of incense and ritual as the monks pay respects to gods according to the Immaculate Calendar. Here is the base of the Wyld Hunt of the Realm in Dun-lat, and here is where monks spar as they debate each other's finer interpretations and extrapolations of the Immaculate Texts.<br/><br/>Nefrem, the northernmost city of Dun-lat, sits in the foothills of Pro-at, where there are significantly deep mines of salt as well as quarries full of limestone. Nefrem is isolated from the rest of Dun-lat, separated by a series of mountainous hills through which the Mother River flows, and it is here that the majority of the slaves of Dun-lat are owned. While the majority of Nefremi are not the same people as the Dun-lati of the rest of the satrapy, they are ruled by a council of Dun-lati merchants who own the majority of the slaves, including janissary troops who keep the Nefremi in line. The council knows, however, that without the presence of a Realm garrison (which has largely been removed for the sake of fighting the Daughter's Rebellion), they are dancing on the edge of a popular revolt even now... <br/>Nefremi villages are scattered throughout the foothills of Pro-at, where the people whisper prayers to gods of mountain and storm where their Dun-lati Immaculate overseers cannot see. Rumors abound that these people are plotting their own revolt against House Tepet with the aid of the sorcerer-king of Klanth and his House Ledaal overlords, but none know for certain if this is true.<br/></div></div><br/><br/><div class="spoiler_container"><div class="spoiler_header" onclick="hideSecond (this);" role="button">The Listener Tradition</div><div class="spoiler_body">The Dun-lati hold to a relatively unusual (but still quite acceptable) permutation of the Immaculate Philosophy - specifically, they believe that if a dark thought, experience, action, or emotion is not spoken of to another, it becomes as poison and cripples the soul's ability to ascend the Coils of the Dragons. As such, they have developed a longstanding tradition of the Listener.<br/><br/>The Listener is a person who dons all-concealing robes, that none might know who they are, and simply sits and listens to those who come to them, then responds with compassion and understanding. While in most villages there is a designated Listener family, who sit to hear the tales of their communities (effectively negating the desired effect of their robes), the aristocratic families have long felt that slaves are much more trustworthy as Listeners, and developed their own (owned) families to whom they may speak of their troubles.<br/><br/>Even free Listeners are under immense societal pressure to never share what has been spoken to them when wearing the robes, while slave Listeners take their lives in their hands to even risk speaking of their owners' private secrets. While there are tales that tell of such things, they emphasize the consequences of the Listener's actions. More popularly, there are innumerable songs and tales of scandalous romances blossoming between the Listener-slaves and their owners, but all aristocrats firmly deny such tales.</div></div><br/><br/><div class="spoiler_container"><div class="spoiler_header" onclick="hideSecond (this);" role="button">Poetry</div><div class="spoiler_body">Poetry (as represented by the Performance or Linguistics abilities, somewhat arbitrarily) is widely beloved by the people of Dun-lat, and those who can use words to create beauty and cleverness are held as prestigious additions to one's family. Particularly praised is poetry that represents the values of the Immaculate Order, and a well-crafted poem that refers to those virtues is widely held as hinting at the perfection of the Immaculate Dragons themselves.</div></div><br/><br/><div class="spoiler_container"><div class="spoiler_header" onclick="hideSecond (this);" role="button">Dun-lati Names</div><div class="spoiler_body">Dun-lati names run a wide gamut of styles, with many villagers and peasants using simple "Adjective Noun," "Noun of Noun," or just plain "Noun" sorts of names. A few examples might be Honest, Laughing Rain, or Son of River. Occasionally, they will be something that is less simple, such as Radiant Dashi or the like, though this is more common in city-dwellers who are not aristocrats. Aristocratic families tend to avoid the "Adjective Noun" or "Noun of Noun" sorts of names - for those are the names of the lowest ranked sorts, and I take inspiration from Middle Persian, Hebrew words, and a touch of Arabic for the names of wealthy and elite families, myself.</div></div><br/><br/><div class="spoiler_container"><div class="spoiler_header" onclick="hideSecond (this);" role="button">Neighboring Satrapies</div><div class="spoiler_body"><strong>The Glorious Sheikdom of Assar</strong> - The Glorious Sheikdom of Assar is centered on the oasis city of the same name, and is overseen by a satrap from House Cathak. The Asri themselves use the oasis city as the major hub for any trade they wish to do, but spend much of their time roaming the deserts with their (relatively small) herds of animals in tow. House Cathak often takes its tribute from Assar in a mix of taxes and young women who make up the majority of their horse archers in the South.<br/><strong>The Kingdom of Klanth</strong> - A loose collection of hill tribes to the north of Dun-lat along the River Ammon who swear allegiance to the kings of the city-state Marous, the Kingdom of Klanth is a satrapy owned by House Ledaal. Its sorcerer-king, Amber Sky, has long been a boogeyman for the Dun-lati, who fear that the Nefremi would prefer to serve him rather than them, and House Tepet, whose disinclination to trust sorcerers and its Dynastic rivals bring out the deepest suspicions.<br/><br/><strong>To be added when time allows</strong><br/></div></div>[/list]