Setting stuff

From Gameresource

Contents 1 A Timeline of Events 2 The Night Sky Regime 2.1 Leadership 2.2 The Jade Prison 2.3 Killing Your Mate 2.4 Claiming Meru 2.5 The Institute of Martial Instruction 2.6 Fine Upstanding Citizens 3 The Rebellion 3.1 The Pike of the Vicious Cycle 3.2 Night Terror 3.3 The Fortress Upon the Mountain 4 Chokehold on the Threshold: The Banished Godkings 4.1 The East 4.2 The West 4.3 The North 4.4 The South

A Timeline of Events

• 3516: the height of the Era of Dreams
• 3536: The Grand Conclave is held, and the three fates of Creation discerned.
• 3537: Construction of the Jade Prison is begun in secret. The project is headed by a Secrets named All Revealed in Daylight.
• 3546: Some time during this year, scholars argue that the Sun turned his back from his Chosen.
• 3566: Calibration: the Usurpation begun at Salina's great feast. The Godkings escape into the Threshold. The Crown Residence destroyed. Varan Pen captured by the Godkings. Jade Prison sabotaged.
• 3567: The Night Sky Regime declared in power. Salina executed publicly. The project to assume complete control begun. Manse re-aspecting begun. Meru Hunt established. The Serenity Narelle, once married to the Queen, slays the God of the Usurpation and turns him into a Starmetal spear.
• 3568: The Institute for Martial Instruction founded by Anys Syn.
• 3570: The sudden exodus of a number of established Gentes into the Threshold.
• 3572: Manse re-aspecting finished. Names of major locations officially changed. Temples officially co-opted.
• 3575: Larquen Quen publicly announces that he is alive, well, and has established an empire. He also publicly announces his desire to siege and reclaim Meru.
• 3579: First sighting of Night Terror.
• 3581: The Present.

The Night Sky Regime

The Sun has set on Meru.This is the official motto of the State, plastered across thousands of banners that flap defiantly in the breeze over a still-smoldering city. En masse, the Sidereal and Lunar host have torn down the depictions of Creation's former masters, of the Sun, and anything else that would so much as inspire a Solar thought... and replaced them with glorious depictions of Luna and the Maidens. They have commanded the Sky Mantises to keep a heavy cloud cover over the White City in order to block out Sol's rays. The sky is only clear at night so that all may gaze upon the splendor of the Maidens Five.
Much of the White City lay in ruins. Many of its residences and buildings destroyed, leveled or torn to pieces in the urban war that broke out during that fateful Calibration. The decadent empire of the Solar exalted has been transformed into a grim, stern-faced military state.
Other Names Given to the Regime: The Regime is sometimes also called The Midnight Protectorate, or simply The State.

Leadership

Ten Steps Ahead leads the Lunar faction of the Night Sky Regime. He's an ancient and venerable Half Moon Lunar who hearkens back to the Ochre Fountain Era. He's the picture of tactical shrewdness. Many credit the regime's victory to his plans, though the clever man denies all credit. He was the Mate of Maylei Seagold, an Eclipse Caste Solar who has been missing in the Wyld since the beginning of the Second Deliberative Era.
Chejop Kejak leads the Sidereal faction. You guys know all about this guy, and I'm not changing anything about him.

The Jade Prison

A Secrets named All Revealed in Daylight drafted the first plans for the Jade Prison based on her long life's worth of Essence study. The Jade Prison plans were kept in the deepest recesses of the Forbidding Manse of Ivy, away from public scrutiny... and even away from the Sidereals' Lunar compatriots. All Revealed in Daylight had four associates with whom she worked to plan and create this incredible artifact. Their names are not on record, and thus they remain anonymous. The Jade Prison group had a suicide pact in place for when their invention succeeded, so that the secrets of such an artifact would die with them. All Revealed in Daylight herself lied and skipped out of this, but the remaining four died.
Perhaps this is because someone sabotaged the artifact, causing it to malfunction and fall apart once attached to Lytek's cabinet. No one knows who damaged the Prison.

Killing Your Mate

Anger and discontent ran rampant among Lunar society. By the time of the Usurpation, the number of abused Lunar spouses was astronomical. To make matters worse, most were unable to rise against their abusers, so, they had a friend do it for them. How foolish to let Lunars stay angry for so long...
The streets ran red that day.

Claiming Meru

• Meru was once rife with Manses. Many Solar manses were re-aspected to become Lunar or Sidereal Manses in homage of Luna and the Maidens and the world's new rulers. There are around half a dozen Solar Manses remaining. One of these is The Fortress Upon the Mountain, a level 5 Manse that once belonged to the Zenith Gloriana Bloodwing, the Linebreaker. It is currently occupied by the military unit The Seigelords who are allied with the cause of the Rebellion. Thus far, no one has managed to capture the Fortress, not even the elders of the Regime. Many of the remaining low-level Manses of varying aspects have been co-opted into power sources so that many of the amenities left behind by the Solars can continue to function.
• Many of the important places in Meru were renamed, in order to rid the City of the Exalted of Solar influence. For instance, the Five Temples have become places to worship Luna... save the Eternal Temple of the Golden Bull which has been destroyed. The Radiant Temple of the Bronze Tigers has become The Opalescent Temple of the Bloody Huntress; The Ingenious Temple of the Copper Spiders is now The Introspective Temple of the Walker at the Crossroads; The Exclusive Temple of the Iron Wolf is now The Ecstatic Temple of the Silver-Horned Watcher; and the Silent Temple of the Quicksilver Falcon has become The Reticent Temple of the White Navigator. The Statues no longer animate, and the theme colors have been altered to match that of their new patron. The Solar symbolism removed and destroyed and replaced with Lunar sigils, however, the structure of the buildings remains largely the same.
• The Districts of Meru have been renamed for the Five Maidens. The Zenith Archdiocese is now The District of Serenity; The Dawn Archdiocese is now The Battles District; The Twilight Archdiocese renamed District of Secrets;The Night Archdiocese is now The District of Endings and The Eclipse Archdiocese is now called The Journeys District.
• In order to strike the greatest blow to Solar nationalism, the would-be Regime ordered that the Crown Residence be completely and utterly destroyed. In the dead of night, Thousand Forged Dragons were dispatched to completely level the manse after it had been sieged by Essence cannons. And then they dropped a Soulbreaker Orb on it, and decided that no one, not even the great Queen, could survive such an assault. The utter destruction of such a powerful manse shredded the area for miles around the Crown Residence, which resulted in the subsequent elimination of the Eternal Temple of the Golden Bull and most of The Ruling Palace.
  The Ruling Palace was then reconstructed for use by the Regime. However, the area around where the Crown Residence used to be is now a quarantined zone, where only authorized personnel are permitted.
• A corps of Dragon-Blooded warrior-spies are trained to police the streets of the White City and to quell the resurgence of Solar nationalism or propaganda. This is the Meru Hunt, and they are feared.

The Institute of Martial Instruction

The day-to-day minutia of Dragon Blooded life did not change much. Still born and bred to serve; to be soldiers, courtesans, clerks and attendants. Still raised in great numbers, and separated into Gentes, which have been co-opted by the Lunars.
Those who show great potential may attend the Institute of Martial Instruction, where they will learn to become Perfected Dragons. The Institute itself is located in The Battles District.
Perfected Dragons learn the Celestial Martial Art Styles known as The Perfected Dragon Paths, so that they may continue to preserve and protect the Night Sky Regime. Unlike canonical Immaculates, Perfected Dragons know that Sidereals invented their styles, though they believe it was out of humble homage and respect to the Dragons. Perfected Dragons adhere to the same diet and coil progression as canonical immaculates, though they are not required to shave their heads. They are, however, required to keep their hair close-cropped, since the Perfected Dragons are a military unit.

Fine Upstanding Citizens

The power vacuum left a number of Meru citizens jobless. The lack of trade to the threshold places difficulties on the economy. People were moved into more manual labor jobs when the Manse Re-Aspecting project began, and following the mass exodus of many Terrestrials, filled the roles those Exalts once occupied. Many mortals are loyal to the cause of the Night Sky Regime, but others might not be...

The Rebellion

Cast from their seats among the mighty, the world's once-rulers now crop up beneath the shadows of Meru. The Meru Hunt finds the newborn Solars and kills them, thereby continuing to extinguish the ever-burning Solar Flame. But, not all are immediately squelched by the Hunt. Many band together, aided by others who feel the current regime is not the correct solution to an obvious problem. They are driven by the desire to put Creation back in the hands of good people; to dispel the clouds and bring back glorious day, to keep the evil madmen who escaped at bay and to prove the worth of Sol's Chosen. MERELA LIVES

The Pike of the Vicious Cycle

Artifact N/A: The Elder Chosen of Serenity, Narelle. the once-wife of the Solar Queen tore the newly emerged god of the Usurpation to pieces with her bare hands and twisted the ambient Essence and soulstuff into a pike of starmetal and thrust it into the magnificent pavement among the Maidens' Houses. It stood there as a testament to what the Sidereals had done and to the Serenity's personal beliefs for the better part of a decade until one day it vanished. No one knows who currently possesses it or where else it may have gone.

Night Terror

In 3579 a cloaked and armored figure was seen murdering the former head of the Meru Hunt. He left a note written on a wall: I AM NIGHT TERROR. MERELA LIVES.
No one can trace Night Terror. No one knows Night Terror's real name. No one knows his origins. No one has seen his face. Night Terror may be one man, or he may be many. Some people love Night Terror. Others fear him. The most coherent goal one can assign to Night Terror is that he wishes to unseat the Regime and keep the Godkings at bay... and he is succeeding, if slowly.

The Fortress Upon the Mountain

Held by the remains of Gens Arkis-Zavala, once belonging to Gloriana Bloodwing, close friend and right-hand woman to the Queen, the Fortress Upon the Mountain houses the formidable unit The Seigelords. They are a group of Terrestrials initiated into the Celestial Martial Arts who learn and master Solar Hero Style and the secret Open Palms of Disruption Style. The Fortress itself is ancient and impenetrable, carved into the side of the Mountain itself on an isolated estate: a solitary patch of wilderness defiantly set in the midst of the White City's bustle. It is located exactly 8 miles from where the Crown Residence once stood. Very few besides the Seigelords themselves have set foot within its grounds.
One thousand stairs stretch from the well-worn path to its main entrance. Few other entrances exist, but are well-guarded and not well known.
Gloriana herself still lives. There is no record of her death, and some say they've seen her on the streets of Meru. The famous ancient Solar's impressive stature and appearance would make going unseen incredibly difficult, so some write this off as hearsay. Gens head Arkis-Zavala Draconis IX honors his former Lady's offer of training anyone willing to climb all 1000 stairs and fight everyone currently present in the manse.

Chokehold on the Threshold: The Banished Godkings

The East

• Larquen Quen commands most of the River Province and up towards the Northeast, as far as 2nd Age Linowan would be. He's a Twilight and a madman and has made a public threat on Meru. His biggest claim is that he has a spell that will reach the Isle from his stronghold that could destroy the lives of millions. He also claims to have found the body of the Maker of Ruin...
• Glorious Daywalker, a Zenith, has a military state that borders Larquen's territory in the River Province and dips into the Southeast.
• A third Twilight has claimed the far eastern territories, around where 2nd Age Chanta would be, bordering Larquen's territory. Intelligence hasn't brought back much on her.

The West

• The Twilight Nocturne Iridescence has laid claim to a series of Islands in the West. Rumors say she consorts with demons.
• Viridian Fist of Terror, a Night, controls the remainder. He is believed to be Thrice-Damned Gorol's successor.

The North

• Bright Shattered Ice controls a fiefdom that occupies most of the conceptual North. She resides in a fortress of Unmelting Ice and plots the day when she will control everything via her invention, I AM.
• there's another guy here, but I haven't named him.

The South

• Caelin, Lion of the Sun, a Dawn has carved a military empire of the South. All of it. He has Varan Pen in his custody. Some members of the Rebellion wish to invade the South to retrieve him.
• Taking Chances, Inspector of the Night, a Night Caste, is working with Caelin to control the entire area.
• Cyrus Septimus, an Eclipse once abused by his elder circlemates latched onto Larquen and Caelin at the Feast and tagged along onto the escape airship. The two Elder Solars are using the young man, but at least are being nicer about it than his old crew.