“There you are, little priest,” a familiar voice drawled, and Nanako buried her face in her hands as Glitch’s voice echoed through the bathroom. (Not on purpose, she reminded herself, because Glitch didn’t know she was in here.) “Looking good enough to pray to yourself, yes?”
“As you are aware, that is theologically implausible,” Melete said, and Nanako didn’t have to see her to know the expression she was making. That was the problem with exes! She didn’t have to see either of them to know exactly the scene that was outside.
The scene that she’d have to walk past - with the two trolls she wanted to see here the least - if she wanted to escape the bathroom and get back to the rest of the ball.
@rebatrolls' Glitch and my Melete for the ball! Nana got dumped in pitch and flush, which does conveniently leave the pitch quadrant open for what's mostly not a spite-fuelled date.
Lore deets on outfits below:
TDO, "The Descending One," is a pre-Empire god associated with burrowing bees, creation, and the underground.. and, to an extent, horrorterrors. TDO's cult held that life was created six times, and they were involved twice, creating mind honey bees in the first world iteration and rainbowdrinkers in the fifth. These creatures are uniquely tied to the depths, capable of returning from the far underground without losing their minds. Bees were psychopomps, guiding troll souls to the Underworld, while rainbowdrinkers were feared for disassembling trolls and delivering their bodies to the same destination.
TDO was both the creator of rainbowdrinkers and a protector against them. Trolls invoked TDO’s protection by burning circular marks on their wrists and throats, offering themselves as sacrifices to the god to deter rainbowdrinkers in the area TDO's cult was most prevalent. The hope that was that any attacks would then be seen as sacrilegious theft. However, in practice, trolls often resorted to sacrificing a blueblood as bait to ensure safe travel, viewing the rare survivors of such rituals as blessed by TDO.
Glitch's outfit represents TDO, while Melete's outfit matches to a blueblooded supplicant! Is this kind of fucked up? Melete's already prepared a six paragraph verbal theological essay on why it mostly isn't.
This is a first-draft of Hanhai’s portion of the games’ region write-ups! This will eventually be updated with pictures, a *completed* timeline section, and general tidying up.. but compiling it here for now. :)
HANHAI | THE BARREN SEA | THE SWORD OF THE EMPIRE
Located in the south end of the Carnaci continent, Hanhai has long been considered one of the most scenic regions. With the long white sand beaches stretching along the eastern shore, the Kinabalu mountains towering in the west, and the long rolling plains leading to the Kuikiro in the north, there’s no lack of places to rest one’s eyes. Trolls come from across the Empire to breathe in the sights, take in the fields, and to gain a sense of the planet that many have long left behind.
As one of the first conquered regions, Hanhai has a rich and beautiful place in imperial history. Few pay attention to it, though, when the region itself is so focused on the future. The Hanhai district is home to the Imperial Education Program, led by the region’s head, and a common joke among the planetbound Hanhai is that all roads always lead back to a campus - for the district, from its culture to its economy, all ultimately rely on the IEP as their foundation and the structure on which they grow.
THE IMPERIAL EDUCATION PROGRAM
Founded by the Shepherd in 25PE, the Imperial Education Program represents one of the most populous and well-funded organisations in the Empire. Created to help cultivate trolls and society itself into a form more malleable to the needs of the Empire, the IEP is relatively unique among its peers in that it does not pay much mind towards those past Ascension: instead, it holds that the best way to produce proper citizens is to control them from the egg. If a troll grows up knowing their place and their role, trained for it long before they know any other possibilities exist, the IEP holds they will not only be loyal to it - they will be grateful for it, in a world where so many of their peers struggle and die.
Trolls within the Hanhai district are encouraged to be tested for psionic abilities by the age of six sweeps. Those who score high enough are then placed within the Imperial Education Program, which offers many benefits to its students: not only will the young sparks be trained in the best use of their utility, but they and their lusus will be fed and guarded, raised without the strife and risks of life outside, and with a culling exemption for all but the most major of mutations. Newly inducted wrigglers are assessed immediately and placed in the spheres best deemed beneficial, with their campus and branch dictated by their future role. This is further explained in the IEP section.
There is no uncertainty in the life of an IEP student. From hatching to death, their lives will be controlled, and in this way the Shepherd ensures only the best trolls of Hanhai ascend to join the Empire’s flock.
Within the Hanhai district, the Imperial Education Program is often viewed with contempt and fear by those outside of it. This view extends even beyond the region’s borders. In a society where trolls are encouraged from hatching to become independent, prioritising their quadrants and clade over everything save the Empire, the idea of being kept is an odd one. A common complaint is that, while the culling exemptions that the program offers largely encompasses aesthetic mutations, it sometimes extends past that, including traits that are marked as cullworthy in other areas.
The Shepherd says that the program creates superior trolls for the Empire, ones that not only can serve as a cog within its greater machine, but who will appreciate and fight for the right to do so.
Others disagree. What good is a cog, they say, if it simply doesn’t fit?
BIOMES
As one of the largest regions on the continent, Hanhai is considered one of the Empire’s crowning jewels of biodiversity. Nearly thirty percent of the planets’ beetles can be found in their soil, and the number of endemic birds and reptiles is considered noteworthy on a global scale. Hanhai possesses no indigenous mammals. While mammals have been introduced over time, by many different settler groups, they still remain a minority in the overall region. In their place, reptiles, birds, and mobile plants have largely taken their place.
And with this biodiversity comes ecological diversity. The Hanhai district can be cut into four distinct biomes, each with their own trends in life and population.
The northern half of Hanhai is dominated by the shadow of the Kuikiro. The start of the treeline marks the end of Hanhai's borders and the start of Kuikiro's, but even the land within Hanhai is impacted by its presence. The north and the coast are defined by rolling hills, rich meadows, and soil that would be perfect for growing, if it wasn't for the horrorterror contamination seeping throughout. While the land is beautiful, the taint is undeniable. From Dimasqa to Temasek, monsoon season brings the wealth of water and new growth to the surface.. and with it, the twisted black glass and star bright sand that washes up with every cycle.
Dig deep enough in the hills, and the same thing can be found within. While the contamination isn't enough to taint the groundwater or truly ruin the soil - as the flourishing meadow's can attest - it is enough to make the residents of the north leery. Black glass that is discovered is placed back into the earth. If fire didn't kill it originally, the theory holds, then what hope does it have in destroying it now? Best to hide it away and forget it, in hopes that it will forget you.
The coastline of northern Hanhai’s sands are black, as is the soil underneath their verdant fields. Closer to Dimasqa, the hue of the sand is dark enough to be mistaken as squid ink. But the further and further south that one goes, the more that the colour lightens. By the time one reaches Temasek, the soil is brown, and the sands are white enough that one might suppose nothing is wrong at all.
The southern half of Hanhai consists largely of the Barren Sea, more commonly known as the Hanhai Desert. Once, it was a thriving subtropical archipelago, each island born from a long extinct volcano. But in 25PE, that all changed. The sea was drained. The great wall was built.
And now, over a thousand sweeps later, the Hanhai Sea has been transformed into the Hanhai Desert. Still in the rain shadow of the great Kinablu mountains, the climate of the desert is boiling hot during the day, and only slightly colder at night. Within the Hanhai, life flourishes when the annual rains come, erupting in a brief cascade of greenery that encompasses much of the desert.
For the rest of the sweep, it is just sand, stone, and whatever life can scratch out an existence through it.
The desert is filled with the ruins and mounds left behind from its former inhabitants. While sand has covered many of the old seadweller cities, expeditions by the children and occasional archaelogists that live within the seawalls have dug several passages of them out, and occasionally time itself wears new entrances into the old. Life is relatively scarce within the desert, but these ruins contain the most noteworthy inhabitants of it:
The zombies.
The Hanhai Desert, courtesy of the grimdark miasma from the north, has the largest variety of zombie species to be found on the planet. Anything that dies within the sea walls, rumour has it, runs a risk of rising again - sooner or later. On the surface, herds of zombies roam, their forms twisted by the sun and by the trolls they feed on. Underneath the sand, tucked away into the darkened halls of the long-abandoned ruins, cultivars of zombies too delicate for the surface find a new place to survive.
While petitions are often made to the Hanhai government to eradicate the undead from the desert, every petition has been rebuffed. The desert is deadly, but the zombies are trapped within the sea walls that surround it. As far as the Hanhai government is concerned, this makes it the perfect creche for young trolls to develop, hone their skills, and become something that will make them worthy of a spot in the great Empire.
The mountains of Hanhai are not the highest on the continent of Carnarc, and they are not the most dramatic. The minerals hidden in their walls are not outstanding, and the life on their peaks is in no way noteworthy. For the vast majority of trolls, they are disinteresting, seen as nothing more than a physical marker of the border between Hanhai and the Kuikiro.
This is not wrong. Once, the Navy Republic lived on these peaks, but those ruins are from the time of the Ochre Sultanate, far back enough in the past that the idea of an Empire had never taken root. While the arid air and the calm weather has left the ruins standing, there are no treasures within them of interest enough to be picked clean. As far as most trolls know, the mountains are empty, and they are barren, and there is no point to acknowledging them at all.
Of course, this is all incorrect.
The Kinabalu Mountains are not technically considered a part of the Hanhai region. Instead, they are an autonomous territory maintained by the Torrents of the Imperial Psionics Corp, the descendants of the Navy Republic that once dominated this land, and a legal extension of the district Vigenere. Even as the Navy Republic fell, and Vigenere sprung from its ruins, those who lived and dreamt and spied from the mountains never left, even as their handlers changed.
From a legal perspective, the mountains are a continuous headache to the Hanhai government. As the homeland of the Empress, Vigenere is the apple of the Empire’s eye. The allowances they are given are tenfold to that of other districts - and Hanhai, for all the good it brings the Empire, has never earned its favour to the same extent. The Empire honours Vigenere’s claim to the mountain, for all land belongs to the Empress in the end.
Unable to evict their undesired tenants, and forever suspicious that this is merely the first step of the IPC towards unseating them, the Hanhai government chooses, instead, to ignore the mountains. The matter has been helped by the deliberate cultivation of aggressive flora and the careful relocation of active zombies from the core of the desert to the mountains’ edge. Children are discouraged from approaching them, told that they are empty and long-abandoned, with nothing in their halls save dust and death. The tactic largely works. Most trolls within Hanhai pay no attention to the mountains.
But the trolls of power know, much to their own dismay, that the mountains are always paying attention to them.
The southern coast of Hanhai is a subtropical strip of ocean with warm waters, high biodiversity, and a flourishing biome of species indigenious only to this region. The coast is famous for the merlions that roam it, and for the stellars’ sea cows that they hunt. Every wet season, the beaches are covered in prides of merlions, squabbling, playing, and teaching their young how to survive in this world. Every dry season, the sea cows return from their voyages further out, grazing on the coral and seagrass of the coast, and reforming the pods that will last them until the monsoons come.
To the north, the sands of Hanhai are black. But the further south one gets, the paler it becomes, until it hits the pure, pristine white that Hanhai is famous for. Further off from the coast, several islands dot the horizon. One of these is Dah’yunam, the walled off district that few know much of, and fewer still have ever seen. Despite Temasek’s petitions, much like Vigenere in the mountains, Dah’yunam is an autonomous region. It exists within Hanhai’s waters, but they maintain their own government, their own culture, and their own caverns.
The rest of the islands are a different story. Around one hundred small islands dot the Hanhai coastline, all of which are inhabited by trolls. These trolls regularly journey between the islands for trade and profit, and in areas that the islands are sparse, boat-towns are created instead.
These makeshift towns rarely last more than a sweep. Built on the backs of dozens of different ships, they are bound together by rope and rigging to allow smooth transit from one to the other. They are marked by the bright sails and banners that they fly during the anchoring period, and although there is no formal government over these makeshift towns, it is through mutual agreement that certain bylaws are followed.
CULTURE
While some districts prize their heritage, using the exploits of older cohort cycles as the foundation for their own, Hanhai would like to think that it is a society built upon the graves of those before it: while their bones create the foundation, ultimately, the past is unnamed and unknown. The government stresses the importance of a unified, Imperial-approved culture among the residents of the district, and such things are actively enforced within the borders of Temasek.
Imperial or Standard are the only languages that technology and the droids of the city will respond to. Reminders hang on the buildings, and play across the radios, reminding trolls that a proper quadrant is two castes or less in disparity. The faith of the Sweet Servants and the Mirthful are the only religions recognised, and some denominations of the Mirthful will still find their reception to be cold.
But even within the capitol, culture is difficult to enforce, and many of the cities adult population tasked with the job find it easy to be lax. The tents of the Sweet Servants and the Mirthful take up the most room within the city, but smaller temples are found on most side streets, and ancestor shrines seem to rest in every nook and cranny throughout. The variant of Standard spoken within the city is not that of other districts, save among the Imperial fleetsiders: it’s a creole, with a grammar and vocabulary shaped in part by all those who came before. Even in the Imperial Education Program, trolls find themselves in quadrants with those of all castes.
And such rules are rarely enforced outside of the capital city. The population of Hanhai is simply too dispersed across the region to allow cultural uniformity, because every time one trend is stamped out, another four rise to take its place.
As a result, different areas of the region have their own, distinct subcultures, changing notably in traditions, appearance and even languages as you journey further away from the Kuikiro border, and into the core of the Hanhai district.
BAN
One of the few universal traits of Hanhai is the concept of bands.
Bands are a method through which clades are linked together into a greater kinship unit, to the benefit of all those within it. They are found throughout the Hanhai diaspora, within the region and without. While certain areas do not value clade within Hanhai, such as Dimasqa, the majority of the diaspora holds them in high-esteem. The focus on community permeates every aspect of their society, and the bands are perhaps the greatest example of it.
In an ideal hypothetical, a troll has four quadrants. The quadrants of these quadrants form the trolls’ clade: those in their immediate social sphere whom they are responsible to and for. Through the use of a clade, trolls are capable of building a safety net and social sphere, a needed foundation for a species focused so heavily on competition and aggression.
Bands, within Hanhai, are a series of linked-together clades: the largest documented band size was of twenty clades, but few reach even six in their entirety. Within bands, clades are linked together through the platonic partners of each clade. An example of this is:
Bertha has three quadrants: P, J, and Thomas. Through those quadrants, their immediate quadrants, in turn, are her clade. Thomas’s matesprit is Bertha’s clade - however, Thomas’s matesprit’s kismesis is not.
In the context of a band, Bertha is moirails with Thomas. His immediate quadrant members are still part of her clade. However, his matesprits’ kismesis is not a part of her band.
His auspistice, Sydney, is.
The connections of a band are formed through the platonic partners of a clade, as this is believed to create a greater sense of stability and safety in what otherwise can be a volatile chain of connections. The band is a concept that exists as an extension of the clade’s natural support system, while reducing complications caused by it extending too far.
One of the controls in bands is through the concept of acceptable quadrants: while band members can, and indeed are often encouraged to seek out quadrants within it, the connectors, such as Bertha and Thomas, are encouraged to quadrant only within the connections of their own clades. This makes the splitting of a band - a fairly common occurrence among younger trolls - less hazardous to the whole of them, and preserves as many relationships as possible throughout the event.
DIMASQA
The largest city on the northern half of the province, Dimasqa was once a colony of Dah’yunam, and even now, over five hundred sweeps since its bombing, their influence remains. The standing buildings remain bone-white, and the black scars marring them have warped and brightened in the sun, turning from sooty ash to a reflective, near-iridescent black.
Dimasqa has the largest percentage of ferals to be found in Hanhai: the majority of the residents come from the Kuikiro brooding caverns, and they arrive in the city not through the guidance of their lusii, but from sheer curiosity. The Kuikiro has few trolls, and fewer ruins. Even long destroyed, Dimasqa is a beacon of light to those born within the shadows. While the exact numbers of ferals has not been quantified, it’s more than enough to influence the culture of the city.
Dimasqan’s are known for three things: their ingenuity in finding useful scraps among the detritus of the city, their immaculate attention towards detail, and the high level of spiteful, aggressive xenophobia that they direct towards any and all perceived outsiders. The soil in Dimasqa is too polluted to allow fields, and the only creatures that live within the city’s borders are other trolls. So survival in the city requires a troll to either be proficient in hunting along the border of the Kuikiro, or to consistently find and sell enough scrap to the clean-up droids that visit weekly.
Both of these are relatively limited resources, and as a result, competition is high. Dimasqa is one of the few places within Hanhai that has no interest or real concept of the idea of clade. A trolls’ loyalty is to their immediate quadrants alone, and even then, these relationships can be tenuous. When your ability to eat relies on finding, storing and hauling scrap to the droids before someone else can take it from you, relationships are hard to maintain.
You may pity your moirail, as an oft-quoted Dimasqan saying posits, but what use is pity when they’re causing you to starve? A weight on your shoulders is one that will drag you to the depths.
In a city riddled with sinkholes, this saying is taken literally.
Residents of Dimasqa veer towards the younger. Although the age ranges between seven to ten sweeps, with trolls forever debating the specifics, one fact remains known to all residents of the fallen city: once you reach a certain age, whenever there is a quiet moment, the city will begin to speak to you. At first, the language is indecipherable. The exact words are impossible to catch. Sometimes it seems as if it’s begging. Other times, it’s a wild roar, born of pain or anger or something else entirely.
But with time, trolls will begin to make out words among the chaos. The city is never quiet, then: it’s always talking, always begging, a never-ending torrent of desperate, plying words, asking for something. What it wants, no one knows. Adult trolls do not stay in Dimasqa. Most leave of their own volition, desperate for the silence they’ve now long lost.
The ones who try to stay will find themselves on the edge of the Kuikiro one night. They will step under the shade of the trees, and they will not return.
While the majority of Dimasqa’s residents source from the Kuikiro caverns, the rainforest itself is the common grounds between several districts. As a result, the language that a troll picks up as a pupa can be one of several. Ipomaean is the most common language, and formerly the lingua franca of the region, born from early expedition efforts from Ipomoea to identify and study the indigenous wildlife of the area. But the languages of its bordering regions have slipped steadily through. Along the Preuska border, many trolls speak Preuskan. Along the Sanxing border, many trolls speak Northern Common. And along the Hanhai border, Imperial still reigns supreme.
Unlike the rest of Hanhai, Standard is rarely spoken within the Kuikiro’s borders. And unique to Kuikiro is the creole that has popped up in the core of the rainforest. Whereas once Ipomaean was the common tongue, now many of the Kuikiro’s residents - and subsequently, Dimasqa - tend less towards fluency in any one language, and more towards the use of a combination tongue that proves uniquely indecipherable for the majority of trolls outside of it.
TEMASEK
Temasek is the capitol of the Hanhai region, and the culturally dominant group. It is where the hand of the Empire rests most heavily upon the district. Culture and identity within Temasek fall most closely to the Empire’s ideals: lowbloods are docile, highbloods are aggressive, and midbloods exist as the support system on which the rest of society’s behaviour can build.
Within Temasek, trolls are encouraged to have four quadrants by the age of eight, all of which should be relatively similar in caste. “Two castes or less, lest quadrant distress” is an oft-used saying within the city, where segregation is to the most part encouraged. While trolls do not always stay within the sectors assigned to their caste, they still often live there, and they are encouraged to maintain their social connections largely within that sphere.
THE COAST
Trolls along the coast of the Hanhai are close enough to Temasek that they still follow many Imperial norms and mores, but far enough away that their behaviour isn’t regulated. By those outside of the district, this is considered a boon. In the absence of the Navigressors, they have had the luxury of exploration and growth, and they are often challenged to use it. Trolls who grew up on the coastline and shore of the Hanhai district grow up surrounded by old temples, ruins, and wandering troves of trolls - whether on the land or on the sea - who are willing to share most things in exchange for an interesting story.
This has led to one of the most defining features of the coastal cultures: whereas Dimasqans might fret and seethe at the sight of an outsider, and Temaseki’s share most of the Imperial’s cultural disinterest towards others, trolls of the coast are always curious, both about their environment and everyone in it. Along with this, there are no real dangers along the coast of Hanhai. Many of the native predators are long gone, driven to extinction over the millennia of settlement. The soil and ground is rich, and food is easily found. The weather is temperate for most of the sweep, and even during the monsoons, shelter is easy to find.
As a result, with endless curiosity and with no real threats in their environment, coastal trolls are known for their outstanding friendliness. On the coast, it is routine to offer food and hive to any strangers you meet. While the concept of bands isn’t as widespread along the coast as it is in Temasek, it isn’t particularly needed. Treachery is simply less common. Betraying the rules of hive hospitality will give an individual brief benefits, but at the cost of the tolerance from the greater community. And while the coastal trolls are generally quite friendly, gregarious, and open to outsiders, they are still trolls.
And nothing brings a community together like hunting down a common enemy.
This mentality extends even past the shoreline, and into the region of the ocean claimed by the Hanhai district. The farther one gets from the shore, in many places, the more reclusive that trolls can become. When the ocean is full of predators, and every night carries the chance of a Rickshaw on the horizon, friendliness simply isn’t always beneficial. Legislacerators and navigressors patrol the waters of Hanhai, though, and almost all threats are kept at bay, between them and the specter of Dah’yunam. The waters near Hanhai are calm, and so the coastal friendliness extends out to even the sea.
“If the boats are rocking,” a common saying goes, “then don’t come knocking.” Unfortunately, the boats out at sea are always rocking, and it’s a strong coast tradition to never leave a door unopened.
THE DESERT
Once, the Hanhai Sea was young. In those nights, the only trolls lived on the surface, and from their archipelago, they ruled a sultanate that stretched all the way to the Kuikiro.
Once, the Hanhai Sea was old. In those nights, there were trolls in the sea, and trolls on the land, and they waged an endless war between them.
Now, the Hanhai Sea is long dead, its waters drained and its corals shattered. Where waves once ruled and greenery flourished, there’s nothing but sand and stone as far as the eye can see. But while the landscape has changed, the trolls have not left. In the past, they set their roots to the stone and to the sea, and even now, long after everything else has gone, their roots remain.
The trolls of Hanhai Desert are a notoriously hardy, self-relying lot. Equipped with their own caverns, they are one of the few creches that routinely pushes out lowbloods, and the majority of their cohorts are psionics. Trolls here are often referred to as birds, for telekinesis is the most common form of power.
And because, when the hills seethe with the undead, even flatscans find it safer to take to the air than to risk touching the ground.
Electricity is rare, travel is hard, and the populations tend to exist in clusters.
Many trolls live in the former towers and hives of seadwellers, the majority of rooms long buried underneath the sands. These remnant palaces have been built up over the ear into a mass of hives, fitting up to two dozen trolls into spaces that were never quite intended for habitation. The roughshod nature of these, and the high stone walls that surround them, tends to draw judgement from those raised outside of the desert.
But the fortifications in these once-ruins were made for seadweller tempers and seadweller hands. The stone is too thick for the dead to break through, and the longterm war between the Sultanate and the [violets] guarantees that it is built to hold up to even the loudest of psionic tantrums. And what few green spaces remain within the desert tend to be near these ruins, allowing these rare hivestem complexes to do what so many cannot: grow food within the desert, and allow a level of sustainability within their own walls.
Most trolls, however, are forced to rely on the Empire’s grace to survive, for hunting is rarely viable in an environment where the undead will kill anything that roams. Resource depots can be found throughout the Hanhai Desert. Often run by Temaseki Servants, they distribute out monthly rations and goods to each troll, decided by their caste, age, and clade status. Arguably, these are spaced out to allow the greatest access to them by the largest amount of trolls.
In reality, the majority of hivestems and individuals will find themselves having to pay to have their rations brought closer to home. The problem then becomes paying them, and figuring out how best to ensure that your goods actually arrive.
Within the Hanhai Desert, much of their culture relies on bartering, debt, and favours. Although the depots give each troll a certain amount of caegars every two perigees, physical money has very little use in an area that has nowhere to spend it. Objects of physical use and worth are valued instead. A necklace rescued from the ruins may not feed you, but it can win your peers envy. Dried meat and day rations are difficult, tedious things to make safe for long-term usage, and so the exchange of them for fresh meat, or your allowance from the depot, becomes worthwhile.
If you have nothing else to offer, there’s always debts, if one can find a way to ensure you pay. And the desert trolls are known for always finding a way to make someone pay. A favour is never a favour within the sea walls: it is a promise that will be filled, one way or another.
The desertdwellers share the same interest and reverence for clades as the Temaseki, but they do not share the concept of bands. Instead, they tend to view everyone within their hivestem communities much in the same way. But those of the Hanhai Desert are known for their ruthlessness. Decisions within these hivestem communities generally goes to a vote, and every troll living within them tends to be painfully aware that the whole cannot survive if too many facets of it are weak. Community is important, and that is the justification that they use to toss out the weak, frail, or simply unlikeable members of their community.
The Hanhai Desert is often thought of insular by nature. But this is a less a matter of culture, and moreso a matter of language. The majority of trolls hatched out into the Hanhai Desert do not speak Common, and may go as far as to Ascension before they hear it spoken. The language favoured, Southern Common - known as Ochre among the Temasek government - is largely extinct, presently only used by the desert dwellers of Hanhai. This creates an isolated community, who have a built-in reason to rely on their own, and spite to help gird them against the greater population. Because while they are persistently pushed towards learning Standard, trolls outside of Hanhai do not simply wish to avoid learning Southern Common - they often don’t even know that it exists.
RELIGIONS OF TEMASEK
The most noteworthy aspect of Temaseki culture, to many, is the focus on religion throughout the city. The Navigressors are a minor denomination of the Mirthful fate, who make up less than 0.2% of the global population. Despite their small numbers, however, they dominate within the city of Temasek, a position of power brought on by the Shepherd’s role in establishing them.
The Navigressors serve the role within Temasek of figureheads and social enforcement. They are not only the idol to which the landdwellers pray, but the idol for which they will burn if they transgress too far from Temasek’s teachings.
The second most powerful religion within Temasek is that of the Sweet Servants. The exact origins of the faith is unknown. Some posit that it is a natural extension of Navigressor faith, which does not allow lower caste members to join as full-paints, but which venerates the moons as a physical manifestation of the Messiah’s power.
In this reading, the two twin Servants are the Messiahs in truth, their godhead simply split to allow for these secondary roles. They are the masters and the servants, as capricious in their roles as they are in their followers’ lives. The other argument is that the Sweet Servants are leftovers absorbed in from the Ochre Sultanate from millenia ago, twisted from their origins upon reaching the south to incorporate them instead into the Messiah’s mythology.
Regardless of one’s view of their origins, the faith of the Servants is relatively easy to follow. They hold that there are two Servants, who’s work helps to maintain the world. While they see and they hear, they speak no words, and they have no tongues: their individuality is masked under their twin veils, and they possess no names, no thoughts, naught but an eye towards how they can better guide their people, and assist their leaders. To worship the Servants is to cast aside the view of yourself as a person, and to embrace the larger good.
Many government officials within Temasek sport the veils of the Servants, albeit in half-veils: the full veil is often reserved for the clergy, in a parallel to the Mirthful’s paint. Within Temasek, these Servants help run many of the essential services, from the trains to the allowance depots. The shared faith gives trolls a greater foundation on which they can build their lives, and although the majority of the faithful are jade or lower, it is not entirely surprising to see a navy or cerulean bearing the veil of devotion as well.
The last and least powerful of the religions within Temasek are the ancestor worshippers, a term which loosely refers to a diaspora of beliefs, ranging from Ipomoea’s literalism to others’ abstract view of inheritance. Unlike the other two faiths, there is no underlying structure to ancestor worship. Over the sweeps since Hanhai’s establishment, hundreds of districts have come and gone from its capitol, and each one has left traces of their own belief system behind. Even two practitioners of the same caste and hometown may find themselves with startling differences between their actual practice of the faith.
The most common thread between practitioners tends to be the concept of ancestors as genetic predecessors, and the concept that every caste can trace their genetic lineage back to one particular individual. These firstbloods, as they are known within the city, are an ancestor that every troll can petition, even if their own, personal predecessors are not known.
The second most common thread is that the relationship between an ancestor and their descendant is transactional. They are not a troll’s quadrant, their clade, or even their band: as such, while an ancestor has a potential interest in the success of their bloodline, their favour still must be won. For many trolls within Temasek, who do not know or care much about the predecessors within their bloodline, trying to discern what may please or displease an ancestor can be difficult.
Much easier is simply bribing them. Street shrines exist on every corner of Temasek, and can often be found on most balconies, and within most homes. In several of the lowblood districts and central mainways, dedicated buildings exist exclusively for the purpose of worship.
Regardless of the location, the act remains largely the same. Individuals leave written petitions to their ancestors on the shrine, which are then burned, alongside any offerings given. In exchange, the belief holds, their ancestor will look favourably upon them, and from the afterlife, work towards their benefit. In a city that seethes with ghosts and the undead throughout its foundation, the existence of an afterlife isn’t seen as a belief: it is simply a fact, and the undead below are signs of what will happen if you do not curry the ancestors’ protection.
In terms of religion, the Hanhai desert is largely atheistic. While some trolls share the common belief of ancestor worship found throughout the rest of the region, most do not. If there were gods watching, most would say, then are they gods worth praising? For no kind gods would have let their descendants hatch out here. As a result, religion tends to be viewed with distaste, if not outright derision.
However, there is one form of indigenous religion within the desert. A long-lived remnant from the Ochre Sultanate, the Lunatics are a fringe religion of less than two thousand devotees throughout the Empire. They source exclusively from the Hanhai desert, where their faith was founded - and where, eventually, it fell under the blades of the violets.
Many traditions of the Lunatics have been lost over time. Historically, the religion was persecuted by [VIOLETS], and although they did not succeed in killing the faith entirely, large portions of it have simply disappeared. In the past, few Lunatics survived past the age of twelve sweeps. When they died, their knowledge died with them, due to their unique means of transmitting their faith.
The Lunatics practice a form of astrology and astronomy, where they believe that everything has been foretold in the stars, and that life, as it occurs, is nothing but the unwinding of that scroll. To write it all down would be impossible, for the words of fate are woven into the very being of every creature on Alternia, from the sea, to the stones, to even the very actions that an individual troll can take. The world itself is transient, and so their fate is as well.
The only way to truly capture fate is to embody it in a living creature.
While most of the desert’s population clusters together in the hivestems or the ruins, the Lunatics are entirely nomadic. They spend the sweep traveling through the various holy sites of their people, and at the end of each sweep, they arrive back at the caverns. Typically, pupas are simply let loose to the desert. Their lusii will lead them to safety, or they will not.
Of these pupas, the Lunatics pick those who best fit in among their groups. The Lunatics will then split into their separate units, usually of six to ten trolls. Pupas are raised by the other members of their group, with the shared lusii working together with the trolls to ensure protection against the undead, and to source both food and water. At the end of every sweep, they meet with the rest of the Lunatics at the caverns, and by the start of the next, their journeys will begin again.
Lunatics view themselves as the living text of their faith. This is because, at age six, every troll undergoes the process of scarification. Their fate is read from the stars, calculated from their hatching date, their symbolhight, and their caste. The story spun from this encompasses everything - their true name, their role, their quadrants, and even how they will die - and it is carved into their skin through a method unique to their faith.
The alphabet used in this is one of the former written languages of the Ochre Sultanate, long fallen into disuse outside of this form of survival. Geometric in nature, it was created initially with scarification in mind. Each letter and word is arranged so, as the pupa grows and heals, the meaning may change, but the structure remains coherent. Fate is a living thing, and so is the story that they wear on their skin.
PLACES OF INTEREST
TEMASEK: The capitol of the Hanhai region, and the headquarters of the Imperial Education Program. Temasek is known for its massive advances in technology, focusing especially on the cultivation of the youth, and in the integration of bioware into the soldiers of the Empire. In many ways, it’s considered something of a relic, much like the ancient seadweller who oversees it.
DIMASQA: The northern-most city in the Hanhai district, which rests on the border of the Kuikiro and the Hanhai. Once a thriving metropolis and colony of the nearby region Dah’nuyam, the city was bombed in [BLAH] to disrupt horrorterror worship. In the aftermath, the miasma did not disperse, but instead sunk into the bombed out shell of the city, where the surviving population struggles with it even today.
HANHAI DESERT: A massive desert that encompasses most of the southern end of the region. Once, the Hanhai desert was a sea: however, in 25PIE, the early Empire drained and dammed it, turning it from a thriving subtropics to the barren wasteland seen today. The population here is primarily lowbloods, but of more interest to most is the unique, thriving ecosystem of zombies that occupy it.
HISTORY
~2,000 PIA: Cast out by the Navy Republic due to the winged mutation linked to their hue, brownblooded settlers travel from the top of the Carnac mountain, following the rivers and streams until they reach Hanhai: a land seemingly without any large population at all, and with mother grubs already brooding in the caverns below. These settlers created farms, early trading routes, and cities in the plains and along the coast, the burgs rapidly growing to towns, and finally, city states. These early city states warred until the Ndongo of the Cassiopeia symbolhight succeeds, establishing the Ochre Sultanate. For the next several centuries, leadership within the Sultanate will pass between the Ndongo line and the greater band, with others taking on the Ndongo name and legacy as necessary.
~1,000 PIA: Violetbloods arrive in the Hanhai sea. Early conflicts between the Sultanate and the violetbloods begin as the Sultanate pushes out off the plains, and onto the archipelago within the sea.
Over the next several centuries, several groups migrate within the boundaries of what will become the Hanhai region. The first of these new waves of immigrants comes from the far north, from the early Navy Republic. Having dominated the warring moeties of their valley society, they began establishing trading routes, and carving the first paths through the Kuikiro plains, and the much-smaller predecessor of the rainforest.
Despite the ochres past, early contact between the Ochre Sultanate and the Navy Republic was peaceful, serenity brought on by the novelty of encountering new castes for the first time in centuries. ~900 PIA marks the first time that a pupa higher than yellow is hatched out from the Hanhai caverns.
In the meanwhile, Ipomoaen viridians follow the coastline, arriving at the archipelago. Unlike the Navy Republic, their first contact with the Ochre Sultanate is less peaceful: the viridians begin assaulting the trade routes on both land and sea, raiding caravans and boats in the safety of the daylight. The Ochre Sultanate pushes back, attacking the newcomers, but attempts to drive them out of the area fail. While the raiders fall briefly back to Ipomoea, the tales of the Sultanate’s riches prove too tantalising to resist, and these stories form the foundation for unifying the Imomoean clans for the first time.
And so the United Viridian Clans are born, the rivalries and feuds of the clans overrode by the coalition’s view of divine right. As a primarily jade nation, they were the only trolls capable of walking in the sunlight. They were the only trolls capable of facing death and returning, with the sun’s glow in their skin and the sun’s heat in their veins. And they were the only brooding caverns that produced jades, a colour so rare that many found the sight of it jarring. They were inherently different from the other trolls, who cowered under the moons’ light, and whom the very touch of the sun would burn.
They were better for their differences, the philosophy held, and other trolls were weaker for them in exchange.
Raids on the Ochre Sultanate begin in earnest, leading eventually to the First Immaculate War of the Ochre Trading Route. The UVC’s ability to travel and work during the day gives them a distinct advantage in this, but their relatively small numbers compared to the Sultanate ultimately takes its toll. The war is one of attrition, lasting for two hundred sweeps. Over the course of it, the UVC begins targeting the Navy Republic’s envoys to the Ochre Sultanate as well, and all other nations foolish enough to seek safety in the sunlight.
When the jadebloods numbers had thinned, the first Immaculate War came to its end. Next would begin a cycle over the next several centuries, where the coalition would bow its horns to the Sultanate for a cohort, maybe three - and then one of the next generations would rankle under the restrictions placed on them. The Sultanate had no interest in conquering lands beyond its own region, and the constant strife with the seadwellers again was the focus of their aggression. What they demanded from the UVC was subservience, and that collar chafed more than any amount of tithe could manage.
The Sultanate craved information, on everything the UVC made, on everything they could do. And to a nation unified by their belief of superiority, to have their nature quantified and classified like common animals, their secrets spilled in ink across thousands of pages, their broods spreading out across several caverns, rather than their own.. it proved intolerable. The Immaculate Wars became cyclic, and each cycle became more vicious than the last, as the Sultanate’s patience frayed for their rebel state, and the UVC seethed, tearing apart from within over if they should fight back or simply cede.
In the end, the UVC was destroyed not by the Sultanate, but by their own internal fracturing. The introduction of new blood to their brooding caverns introduced mutations, whereas their lines had been pure before. Among these were limebloods, and the volatile psionics that came with them. The UVC was unable to turn their full attention inwards, and subsequently, the clans fractured: some splitting to side with the newfound Chartreuse Unions, others against it, and some choosing to leave the region entirely. The UVC fell as Ipomoea split once more into city-states, and such marked the end of the Fourth Immaculate War.
~500 PIA: The growth of the Ochre Sultanate, throughout all of this, draws attention for the first time from the sea. Violetbloods are first documented within Hanhai’s borders at ~750PIA, and their higher aggression immediately provokes issues among the greater population. Initially, this is managable, but by the time that the Navy Republic finally withdraws behind their own, the violet population has grown in both size and resentment. The Fourth Immaculate War ends, but there is no peace to be found, as the seadwellers begin what will become centuries of attacks against the Ochre Sultanate.
The last battle of the archipelago was called the Battle of the Dawnlight, when the seadweller coalition attacked the largest wing of the Sultanate navy at dawnbreak. Relying on the greater physical tolerance of their caste, and with it, their limited ability to tolerate the suns’ rays, the violetbloods overran the ships - and dragged each and every landdweller they found out onto the decks, where they were staked and exposed. The toll was more spiritual than it was physical. After centuries of fighting with the UVC, the Ochre Sultanate had believed the day was finally safe again.
They were wrong, and morale fractured.
Over the next twenty years, the Sultanate is eradicated entirely. The remnant population is driven to the edge of the Kuikiro as the violetbloods take over the archipelago, the sea, and much of the coast. The cavern cedes readily, unwilling to become involved in the region’s politics.
~325 PIA: The last documented member of the Ndongo bloodline dies. At the demand of the violetbloods, the Hanhai brooding cavern erases the line from their records, but leaves the sister lines extant, reasoning that a maintenance of genetic diversity within the slurry is still needed.
~300 PIA: The Hanhai society of violetbloods is divided, at this point, between several warring clans. The most powerful of these are the Wilcox, the Dufuna, the Hui Hen, and the Ninihi, a quartet of near-fuchsias who unify into the band Hikina. Band Hikina’s combined might allows them to maintain a monopoly of all the routes between and around the northern islands.
~150 PIA: Inspired by the new region of Ipomoea’s academies, Ha’aheo of the Wilcox line becomes interested in the psionic abilities possessed by Hanhai’s remaining lowbloods. She extends Wilcox’s territory past the coast and into the coastal hills of Hanhai, and with the use of the cavern’s databases, she begins cataloguing and classifying all psionic bloodlines within the region.
0 PE: The First Peixes unifies the Eastern Shores, and the newly established Alternian Empire arrives in Hanhai. Early diplomatic overtures from the Empire to the Hanhai go poorly, as they refuse to cede to the Empire’s sovereignty. The southern islands reject her entirely, and begin the process of unification, with the end goal of maintaining Hanhai’s cultural hegemony over the region.
While the Wilcox control over northern Hanhai repels the initial aggression of the budding Empire, they are the only area to accept diplomats into their cities, in exchange for access to each trolls’ blood and genome. On behalf of the band Hikina, these cities open up basic trade.
20PE: After diplomatic relations go sour, the Empress arrives to the region with her personal entourage. While the southern clans have rebuffed her, the northern clans encourage her arrival, with the Hikina in particular taking the forefront in diplomatic relations. While they do not stand against the Empire, they wish to take on the role of an ally, rather than a servant, to it.
Diplomatic relations continue for one half-sweep. At the equinox of the sweep, internal politics fracture the Hikina band: Ha’aeho’s fascination with lowbloods, long a source of conflict between her and the rest of the clan, becomes a point of active contention, and her loyalty is questioned. While the rest of the band are attempting to ensure their cultural independence is retained, Ha’aeho continues to argue that that isn’t something to be prioritised. Culture can change, she says, but not if they’re all culled by the rising Empire.
Her clade disagrees. Is she thinking of the band, she’s asked, or is she simply thinking of how to further her own research?
The band Hikina draws together, with every clade crowding in to speak. At the end of it, no consensus is reached, but lines have been drawn, and sides have been picked. The Dufuna and Hui Hen bloodline sides with the southern islands, arguing that if there is no equality within the Empire, then there can be no peace. Ninihi argues that they must simply stay neutral, withdrawing from the conflict entirely, and allowing the conflict to go as it will.
The Wilcox bloodline, led by Ha’aeho, states that ceding to the Empress is the only option available.
When the counsel splits, the ripples are immediate. The Dufuna and Hui Hen head to the south, withdrawing their ships, trolls and support from Hikina’s core. Ninihi fortifies their cities, closing the gates to friend and foe alike. And Ha’aeho Wilcox splits formally from the Hikina band, siding with the Empress in one of the most devastating moves for the region. Wilcox’s long control of Hanhai’s land, her knowledge of it, and her control over the local psionic bloodlines is use to pull off a plan that no one expected: while the Empire distracts her former band, the inland sea of the Hanhai is drained, the waters pulled from the sea basin and poured off into the Kuikiro.
By the time that the Hanhai violetbloods realise what is occurring, it is too late. The western Kuikiro is flooding, turning what was once verdant forest into marsh and swamps. The little water that escapes back towards the inland sea is muddy and brackish, too thick for the gills of the seadwelling population, and filled with chemical and detritius enough to kill even the wild fauna. As the majority of the water pours from the Kuikiro into Preuska, flooding their fields, levies are built within the once-sea, ensuring that no water can return.
And attacked on every side, with even the environment itself turned against them, the Hanhai violetbloods are forced to flee. The majority flee to what will become Sanxing to the north, merging with the sympathetic seadwelling population in hopes of fending off the Empire. Others join with Preuska, hoping that the might of the subjuggulators, long a thorn in the other castes side, will be enough to save them.
It does not. After a battle that paints the fields blue, Preuska is the first of the nearby regions to bend their knee to the Empress. Sanxing, filled now with Preuska’s violets as well as Hanhai’s, is the next to fall. Ipomoea cedes readily and easily, seeing no difference in who wears the boot upon their neck.
And Ha’aeho Wilcox is given the adult title of the Shepherd, and full control over the newfound Hanhai District.
30PE: The city of Temasek is founded by the Shepherd, and the Imperial Education Program begins within the sweep. She takes control of the caverns, putting in place a new policy of genetic modification that encourages lowblood eggs, and encourages the mutation of them. The Shepherd and the Empress’s long fascination with the Mirthful faith bears fruit, here, in the creation of the Navigressor sect, a lowblooded denomination focused on star worship, and in teaching the psionics to embrace subjugation through social control.
50PE: The island of Dah’yunam to the north has long been ignored by those within Hanhai. The presence of a horrorterror within it is acknowledged, but largely disregarded: tolerance for the paranormal is still high, with Glglyob’s favour of the Empress a direct factor in many nations ceding to the Empire. While the waters around Dah’yunam are repellant to seadwellers, there is little within the island to catch others’ eyes. There is no trade with Dah’yunam, no crossovers, no wars. The trolls resting on its shores are indigoes and blues, useless to the Empire, and of no interest to the Shepherd beyond principle.
While some attempts are made to force contact with Dah’yunam, the Empire largely grants it its independence, a courtesy to the horrorterror within. This changes when Dah’yunam begins, for the first time in its history, reaching out. It establishes a city on the very edge of the Kuikiro rainforest, just past the official end of Hanhai’s legal borders. The city is called Dimasqa, and for a time, it thrives.
However, while Dah’yunam’s horrorterror is tolerated, worship of it is not. And while Dah’yunam’s worship is hidden within its shores, Dimasqa’s is not. The city’s horrorterror worship grows, far past the point that it can be ignored.
The Shepherd, as the head of the region, is put to the task of handling it. Initial forays into the city by the Imperial Social Enforcement leave the teams dead. The next wave of Gunners, carefully selected for miasmic resistance, mostly survive - but those survivors lose their mind to the nascent horrorterror lurking in the depths. While seadwellers are briefly considered, the potential loss is considered too high. Hanhai’s caverns produce lowbloods in such quantities that every seadweller egg is precious, and with most of Hanhai’s gilled population having long fled, the numbers are not yet at replacement rate.
Instead, she chooses to use drones to airbomb the city. The stark white buildings that Dimasqa is so famed for are blackened. Their canals are shattered, the water seeping free, and a vast majority of the trolls within die during the first wave. Few survive the second and third wave, but those who do find themselves faced once more by Temasek’s jeweled Gunners. The trolls on the surface are slaughtered, and over the course of the next perigee, the tunnels of the city are purged of all life, even that of the horrorterror. Afterwards, the tunnels are swept with fire and brine, to ensure no spores survive to reach for life again.
Initially, this decision is applauded. While it’s considered a heavy-handed move towards the eradication of the horrorterror, the Empress’s dependence on Gl’glyob means that the exact method of killing one is unclear. And Dah’yunam’s preference for isolation has alienated many of the other newfound vassel states. Many are keen to see it punished.
Opinions change rapidly. Trolls could overlook the black shards of glass found throughout the soil, and among the cities ruins. When the sands of the northern Hanhai beaches darken from their pristine white, it feels an acceptable cost for success. But when the flora and fauna begins to change, becoming more aggressive, strange in a way that few can quantify, then concerns grow.
When the first brood emerges from Kuikiro’s cavern afterwards, the number of mutations in that cohort - rare from such a small cavern - is enough to cause alarm. Most of it is in their appearance, but the blood shifts are undeniable. Many of the first brood have lighter coloured blood than trolls are typically capable of, and some fear that the contamination might mark the spread of limebloods from Ipomoea. Petitions are made from the neighbouring districts to have the whole cohort culled, the caverns seized, and the mother grub culled. Preuska in particular argues for this, while the Shepherd objects. The pupas from Kuikiro’s caverns are a part of Hanhai’s territory, she argues, and so this falls under her jurisdiction, just as Dimasqa had.
In the end, a compromise is made. The Kuikiro caverns were purged, but the mother grub was not culled - instead, she and several of that first cohort were placed in Temasek, for observation by the Imperial Education Program. Although the blood variations such as Kurkle’s Syndrome and the Kamiha Syndrome would largely prove useful in the long run, and even the less useful ones like diffraction grating would prove functionally harmless, the Dimasqa incident caused the Empire to formally adopt a separate policy towards horrorterrors. One that would limit the spread of mutagenic miasma, rather than spread it.
1017 PE: Part of the Imperial Education Program’s primary campus is destroyed in a mind hondey incident that culls an apartment building worth of trolls. Thanks ID!
Actually, a bit of lore-building and outfit chattering right now, peeled mostly from Discord. Lunchtime remains my favorite time to chew on lore.
They Whom Have Descended / the Descending One
TDO is a god that was worshipped pre-Empire in the district of Ipomoea in various forms, and largely now exists as a semi-secular concept in the Ipomoean caverns - while certain cultural habits, taboos and holidays remain, few take it seriously. They are the Ipomoean god of burrowing bees, creation, the depths and the underground. Ipomoean mythology holds that trolls were created six times, by various entities. TDO created life in the first iteration of the world, in the form of mind honey bees, and in the fifth iteration of the world, they created rainbowdrinkers.
The two are linked together mythologically as the only creatures capable of descending into the far depths of the earth and emerge without losing their minds. Bees were viewed as psychopomps capable of taking a trolls' souls to the Underworld, whereas rainbowdrinkers were viewed as blessed souls capable of taking a trolls' boy to the Underworld.. frequently piece by piece.
TDO was associated with the act of creation, manifest partially in a bees' innate ability to create hives, but also the process of innovation. As a result, despite being the creator of the rainbowdrinkers in their mythology, TDO was also seen as a protector against them. Old rituals held that a troll could escape a rainbowdrinker through invoking TDO's protection: by burning circular marks into a petitioners' wrists and around their throat, a troll could mark themselves as a sacrifice to TDO, and thus deter rainbowdrinkers by making the individuals' death a matter of theft.
In theory! In practice, in the pre-Imperial nights where rainbowdrinkers were relatively common in the region, hubris often won out over theological caution. The more practical approach that trolls seeking safe travel throughout the region would use is the sacrifice of a blueblood. An individual would be left behind in areas known to host larger numbers of rainbowdrinkers, armed with a weapon and left with several bleeding wounds. They would serve as bait, and if their party escaped the area unwounded, and they survived, then they would be seen as blessed by TDO.
Glitch's outfit is a traditional depiction of The Descending One, while ID's is going to match to the thrice-burned wrists and throat of a traditional petitioner. Melete's outfit is both fabric and stone, to represent TDO, and the sort of blueblood who could claim to have won their favour.
I will admit, the main reason I’m posting these up is in order to shame-but-not-name some people towards posting theirs. uwuwuwu The other reason is ORGANISATIONNN.
The picture above is a functional rough of the continent we’ve been using for our worldbuilding, broken up into districts - there’s room to grow and shove more shit into it, but these are the areas that have featured in play so far. They’re divided up, but a quick breakdown of my areas:
IPOMOEA: Known as the district that first produced limebloods, Ipomoea has redeemed itself in the eyes of the Empire since through a meticulous, near-obsessive focus on genetics and inheritance. Through the careful cultivation of their caverns, they possess one of the highest populations of jadebloods.. and, less commonly known, they are the heart of academic knowledge on all things rainbowdrinker, for better or worse. Solarpunk/forestpunk region with a not-so-secret, not-so-former sunworshipping government eager to return to their former glory.
RICKSHAWS: A long time ago, residents of Dalai-Uud took their megafauna lusii and fled the land for a better future. They didn’t quite find it. Living on massive constructed scavenger-cities, protected by their predecessors’ exceptionally long-lived guardians, they’ve been terrorising the coast - and everything off of it - ever since. Mad Max meets Waterworld, but with giant fucking kaiju.
SANXING: Once, Sanxing was largely occupied by rural farmhands and fieldworkers. Then the Shepherd flooded Hanhai and devastated Preuska in the early days of the Empire, and all of the seadwellers fled the poisoned waters to what seemed the only safe place. Millenia later, Sanxing is a violet-dominated city with a hyper-focus on social media. It is filled with eager starlets and bitter highbloods chasing after the prestige of their ancestors, the attention of the Empire, and perhaps most importantly of all, completely upstaging Hanhai in any way they can manage. Black Mirror but make it MySpace.
HANHAI: Split between the urbanised cities and the deeply rural desert, Hanhai was one of the Empire’s first supporters, and is considered the jewel of the south. The Shepherd cultivates a herd meant exclusively for the Empire’s benefit, and as far as she or Temasek is concerned, everyone below violet exists solely to be put to the Empire’s use. Classic cyberpunk dystopia with a dash of 1984.
VIGENERE: The claimed hatching grounds of the Empress, and the undeniable home - if not current heart - of the Empire itself. Vigenere is a region cast in stone, determined to maintain the world as the Empress once remembered it, and constantly pushing for others to follow. Stagnancy isn’t negative, they say, when it’s really just tradition. Lovecraftian mindfuck nanny-state, endorsing the state worship of Gl’glyob as well as corsets from 1885.
An important part of doing prompts is.. posting them? Sounds fake!
Anyway, I’ve been on a Dalai-Uud kick for the first three days of this! Sunday shifts gears back to more familiar territory, but first off, for Friday’s “WORLD/CHARA META/NPC PROFILES”, I’m digging into the question of:
What is Dalai-Uud?
Dalai-Uud is a district in the northern half of Carnac, the continent that Reba and I have shoved all of our planetbound fantroll lore. It’s more in line with the default setting of Homestuck: other areas have more laws and regulations, are more urbanised and diverse, but Dalai-Uud is akin to the area in which Aradia, Tavros or Terezi lived. It’s a big region, filled with plains and cliffs in the coast and core, and then mountains along its borders. In terms of population, it’s one of the most sparsely occupied districts: trolls are rare, their numbers spread thin, and population centers don’t exist to the same extent they do elsewhere.
It’s a sharp contrast to heavily crowded areas like Hanhai or Sanxing, where you sneeze and hit four trolls underfoot. It’s stark even compared to the less crowded districts, like Terquia or Vigenere. In Alternian history, trolls have repeatedly tried to colonise the majority of Dalai-Uud - it’s simply never worked well.
And the reason behind it is because it’s filled with giant fucking kaiju.
Life for the handful of residents in Dalai-Uud is largely focused around staying away from the massive herds of musclebeasts and other megafauna that occupy the district. The entire area is seen, on a legal standpoint, as a sort of game reserve - it’s the only place where these population of giant fucking animals have the food, the environment, and the sheer fucking space to maintain their size, and for as long as musclebeast hunting remains a thrill, so they will remain in the area.
As a result, Dalai-Uud residents - or Gaters, as they’re frequently referred to, a reference towards the meaning of their district name - are always on the move. During the summer, the musclebeasts head in-land, and the trolls head to the coast. During the winter, the musclebeasts head to the coasts, and the trolls flee to the mountains. Making it to adulthood and the point of joining the Fleet is fairly rare for Gaters, and they’re not commonly found in the Fleet. The majority of their cohorts each sweep end up simply leaving the area for safer districts, lowering the populations, and as a result, lowering the survival rate of the trolls who remain.
While megafauna reign over the whole district, and many of them do possess the lusus fluke that would allow them to become guardians over a troll, it’s relatively rare for a pupa to actually be chosen by any of the districts’ megafauna. The most docile and tame of the Dalai-Uud guardian lusii, as the megafauna are called, were taken from the district millenia back by the population of trolls that would eventually become the Rickshaw diaspora. The remaining species that can play host to the lusus fluke tend to be poor parents: aggressive, neglectful, fast-tempered, and generally poor at keeping their small, easily forgotten charges alive.
One of the only exceptions to this are the citylusii. These are large, armoured lusii that were deliberately cultivated by early Gaters to serve as population centers, in the far-off nights before the districts’ population had begun dispersing. Turtles are the most common of the species, but armadillos and pangolins, hitting over sixty feet in length, are not entirely unknown. The city lusus generally have one charge, usually of the same bloodline, guaranteed to hatch out in a routine cycle from the local caverns. This charge will serve more as a guardian to their lusus than they will a ward of, because city lusii aren’t just one trolls responsibility: historically, the major institutions of Dalai-Uud have literally been built upon their backs, and even long after Imperial unification, those structures remain.
The city lusii generally have one or two buildings built atop or within them, and the rest of their bodies tend to be covered in a scattershot of tents. They live in a symbiotic relationship with the trolls who live astride them: the trolls feed them, protect them, and care for them, and in exchange, the lusus is a deterrent and protective agent against the megafauna that roam the continent. A city of trolls is easy prey, but it becomes harder when reaching them necessitates coming well within biting range of the snapping turtle they live upon.
The city lusii have very specific names and jobs: one hosts the head of bank centralisation, another hosts legal and social libraries, another holds a seed-bank, another serves as the main method through which each cohort of trolls gains schoolfeeds. However, the decentralisation of the Dalai-Uud population means this doesn’t always work outside of theory. When almost every troll lives on their own, miles and miles away from their peers, the sight of a massive lusus in the distance isn’t one that draws them in - for those who have not, through the internet, or books, or their peers, realised the history of their district, the sight of rogue megafauna is just a sign they need to retreat underground and wait for the threat to pass.
As a result, Dalai-Uud trolls are generally a little more uneducated than their peers, and for the rare few that actually survive and make it to reaching the Fleet, kind of complete fucking hayseeds. Schoolfeeds? History? Culture? They learned to make guns and process their fields, and they’re pretty sure that’s all anyone actually needs.
Returning to the old worldbuilding docs, and figuring out what I want for each region, so - quick chatter on how I approach worldbuilding! I don’t always approach it with this specific structure, but I was thinking about the best ways to make Ipomoea distinct from what we’re referring to as the Empress’s region, so I wanted to jot it down.
I tend to think of worldbuilding as a series of questions, namely:
What is the theme of this area, and what question is it asking? This is the biggest thing for me! I’m going to be using Hanhai as a reference throughout this, because it’s the area I’ve been writing my fantrolls in since 2014, haha, so it’s always served as the framework for the rest.
And the theme of Hanhai is ultimately - “how do people live in a society that exists to subjugate them?” In canon, lowbloods live a decent life, but not necessarily the greatest. Aradia, Tavros, Sollux - all of them have a roof over their head, easy access to food, and the ability to, at least theoretically, survive to adulthood! But all of them exist in a context where they’re still disenfranchised socially, at least, if not physically, and where their low social position tends to be overt.
Disenfranchisement is easy to show on a micro level! For lowbloods, one-on-one discrimination is usually a part of their narratives, and the risk of helming as an adult is at least implied to be notable. But the theme of Hanhai is essentially examining how it impacts them on a macro level! The Hanhai district features the transition from a wet rainforest to a dry, mountainous desert region. The spread of castes throughout the region is intentional:
highbloods live near the cities and coast, where resources are most easily accessible.
midbloods live on the coastline and in the hilly transition region, where the population is more dispersed, resources need to be retrieved, but the overall environment is very mild
lowbloods largely live within the Hanhai desert, where resources are difficult to find, the population is very sparse, and the environment is more hostile towards the population
This isn’t something that I think I’ve ever explicitly noted in the narrative, but it’s an underpinning that’s heavily referenced in a lot of ways, and by a lot of characters - a lot of early stories and threads focused on the fact that the Hanhai Desert was habitable, once, and when the quality of life lessened, the violets within it left, and the lowbloods were pushed into occupying it in their absence. Pheres’s early obsession with the ruins of the desert was emphasized heavily to contrast his own personal status. He’s poor, he’s disenfranchised, he’s of the lowest social position in both his caste and in society that one can have.. and he’s constantly aware of it, because he grew up and lived within the footsteps of Hanhai’s original residents, who were rich, and loved, and cherished by the society that he still exists in. But like a kid walking through their parents footsteps, he’s aware that he can follow them as much as he likes - their prints are not his, and everyone can see it.
Which leads into the question of the Hanhai district, which all of the lowblooded characters from it (ID, Riccin, Sipara, Pheres) are shaped around: how do you survive in a society that subjugates you?
This shapes the main characters from the region, and that always helps me in shaping the region itself - most of Hanhai’s development is in direct reaction to the characters that live within it, what makes sense for them, and what works best for their story. (Part of the reason I’ve been dragging on writing the rest of the region write-ups, tbh: a lot of these are featured in sidestories at best, and don’t have any dedicated cast to shape them around!)
Sipara and Pheres’s answers to that question are pretty straight-forward, and I don’t want to drag this post on for literally ever, so we’ll skim past that! They are, ftr, “by rejecting and reshaping society,” in Sipara’s case - something that impacted a lot of Hanhai’s outer, fringe aspects of the setting - and, in Pheres’s case, “by trying your best to break yourself to fit into the mold it has given you”. Which plays, in part, to ID and Riccin, who we will dig into this for.
ID and Riccin have a similar answer to the question! they both caste-fake, although in different ways, because they found being identified as a yellowblood to be fucking intolerable. ID goes the hemoanonymous route, and decks himself out in pinks and reds. Riccin goes full caste-faking, and dresses up in facepaint and indigo - but even as a child, they wore their friends’ teals and blues.
These ideas were built in first, and then Hanhai ended up shaped around them in a lot of ways. Riccin is a yellowblood who portrays themself as indigo: the Navigressors were born as an explanation on how this is legal, and why they can get away with it, and a lot of the extended religious worldbuilding from figuring out how others respond to it. Because if even if something’s legal, it doesn’t mean that it’s accepted.
The approach to ID was essentially the same! Both of these fuckers started off as antagonists, so using them more often meant digging further into the characters, and the world-building as a result:
Why are they wearing different colours?
Neither ID or Riccin want to be seen as yellow! Hanhai enforces the hemospectrum less than some areas of the planet, but more strictly, in some ways, than their immediate district neighbors - their coastal position means that helming is linked explicitly to helming, both historically and now, and that fact is a sharp contrast to the region’s very old, very violet and seafaring history, which features enough in ruins, in the language, in everything that it’s impossible to ignore.
Why do they choose that colour?
First answer: Riccin chooses to wear indigo, because it’s high status.
Second answer: Riccin is able to wear indigo, because they were raised in the Mirthful religion. [How?] The Mirthful religion usually only accepts indigoes - so they were raised in a smaller denomination, which accepts lowbloods. [How?] This smaller denomination manages to survive, because it’s endorsed by the local government. [Why?] The religion’s endorsed by the local government, because it’s the carrot in comparison to society’s stick: come to us, join this cult, and be told about how your purpose as a helm is a gift for which you should be grateful for, not fearful of.
But why does ID wear pink?
First answer: ID wears pink, because it’s associated with fuchsias, and he wants to emulate that as much as he can. [Why does he get away with it?] Because he was raised in the same group as Riccin. [But why not indigo?] He doesn’t like the metaphorical carrot: he doesn’t want to be grateful for being helmed, he wants to be entirely free of being helmed. Riccin is the ideal navigressor, in that they aren’t afraid to embrace their role - ID is the worst navigressor, in that he wants to overcome his role.
.. all of which defined the characters a lot, but it also defined Hanhai through them! Why do the lowbloods live primarily in the desert? Society pushes them there. Why does society push them there? Because, on the surface, they want the better, safer territories preserved for the higher bloods - and below that surface, they want lowbloods to feel stigmatised, to want the better environment and safer territories.
And when lowbloods want those safer territories, their primary means through grabbing it is by willingly giving themselves over to the local government and the Empire on the whole - join the local mirthful sect, and embrace your future, and your role as a tool made for the use of the Empire.
Which gave the entire tone for Temasek, the capitol of Hanhai, and for the rest of the district - the question on which the worldbuilding is shaped is “what do you do when society wants to subjugate you?”, but the tone of the area is “how does society present the carrot and the stick, and which option will leave you better off?”.
(The answer is, ftr, neither. Welcome to Alternia!)
