An ancient enemy without fear or remorse or any understanding of the human condition. A terrible spirit without flesh or form or any weakness. Able to be and know and touch and see any plant lives, the spirit nearly tore the City down.
The men of the city cut and burnt the forest, hunting for the spirit, but to no avail. The Woodsmen were left without a home and the Bark Spirits without their mothers. They betrayed the men of the city and called on the spirit for vengeance. There was bloody war.
The Cage was built to keep the betrayers and their spirit lord at bay. All living plants were banished from the city, compelled to the great bonfires that lit the night skies for weeks. The City dwellers found other ways to survive, a self-sufficiency born out of necessity, cut off from the natural world through their own self-imposed banishment.
Heretics say the City dwellers betrayed themselves, building a prison from which they could not escape. Believers still curse the Woodsmen and the Bark Spirits for their black-heartedness.
The men of the city cut and burnt the forest, hunting for the spirit, but to no avail. The Woodsmen were left without a home and the Bark Spirits without their mothers. They betrayed the men of the city and called on the spirit for vengeance. There was bloody war.
The Cage was built to keep the betrayers and their spirit lord at bay. All living plants were banished from the city, compelled to the great bonfires that lit the night skies for weeks. The City dwellers found other ways to survive, a self-sufficiency born out of necessity, cut off from the natural world through their own self-imposed banishment.
Heretics say the City dwellers betrayed themselves, building a prison from which they could not escape. Believers still curse the Woodsmen and the Bark Spirits for their black-heartedness.
The Sprawl is a conglomeration of stone and iron buildings, each built tight next to or even on top of its neighbors. The Sprawl is made of overcrowded buildings, busy markets filled with people from all walks of life, smoke-stacks and chimneys like fingers pointing skyward, cobbled streets and narrow alleys. Plumbing is a problem and the refuse from the population has ruined the bay, and the sea beyond.
The Sprawl is crisscrossed with walkways and breezeways. The towers - homes and bastions of the Iron Lords - are massive stone edifices anywhere between ten and thirty stories tall. Towers belonging to the same noble houses, or their close allies, are connected by majestic bridges and gantries called breezeways. Short spans are often stone, but longer spans - some several city blocks in length - are iron bars, steel ropes and rivets. Some even operate like draw bridges, able to be raised to keep enemies at bay. Countless massive bridges connect the tall, narrow castles that spread throughout the city.
Great coal-fired machines called fire engines run looms, printing press and are at the heart of many other factories. The Sprawl has long known the secret of iron and the great ironworks are heavily guarded by the Lords of the city. Gun powder is known but only the wealthiest citizens own firearms.
While things fashioned from dead wood are safe, getting the wood is often not, so Sprawl dwellers have been industrious in finding alternatives to wood. Bone - usually from the city’s dead - makes passable implements and handles for all manner of things and skilled Boneworkers craft armor, musical instruments and weapons. Shell, steel, leather and glass are also used as replacements for wood.
The Sprawl is crisscrossed with walkways and breezeways. The towers - homes and bastions of the Iron Lords - are massive stone edifices anywhere between ten and thirty stories tall. Towers belonging to the same noble houses, or their close allies, are connected by majestic bridges and gantries called breezeways. Short spans are often stone, but longer spans - some several city blocks in length - are iron bars, steel ropes and rivets. Some even operate like draw bridges, able to be raised to keep enemies at bay. Countless massive bridges connect the tall, narrow castles that spread throughout the city.
Great coal-fired machines called fire engines run looms, printing press and are at the heart of many other factories. The Sprawl has long known the secret of iron and the great ironworks are heavily guarded by the Lords of the city. Gun powder is known but only the wealthiest citizens own firearms.
While things fashioned from dead wood are safe, getting the wood is often not, so Sprawl dwellers have been industrious in finding alternatives to wood. Bone - usually from the city’s dead - makes passable implements and handles for all manner of things and skilled Boneworkers craft armor, musical instruments and weapons. Shell, steel, leather and glass are also used as replacements for wood.
The people of the City live under a feudal system with a strict class structure. The divides between the nobility, middle classes and poor are great. Animosity between the classes is common, but rarely comes to a head. Reputation is everything in the city, and people work hard to earn and maintain it. Matters of honour and duels are common.
At the very top of the social system are the Iron Lords, eight ruling families who make all decisions for the city. Decisions are supposedly made by consensus but the process is hardly transparent and politics is truly Machiavellian. The ruling families are attended by dozens of noble houses - distant relatives of one kind or another - who each vie for their slice of profits, resources or power.
The middle classes are made up of merchants, Firemen, artisans and wranglers. The wranglers organise the work parties and run businesses for their noble masters and are reviled most by the poor that they press-gang, cajole and threaten. Firemen are charged with the destruction of plant material - mostly weeds and debris that finds its way over the Cage, but occasionally nastier things - and have an honoured place amongst their peers. The Firemen are accorded the respect of knights and each guild carefully guard their secrets.
The poor get all the worst jobs - working the fungus catacombs, keeping the walls free of moss, preparing the dead for reconstitution. Only prisoners and the mine dwellers have it worse. Most mine dwellers, bred for labor, spend their lives beneath the city, toiling in the mines for coal and other resources. Dwellers are an oddity on the streets, something to be pointed at and feared in equal measure.
At the very top of the social system are the Iron Lords, eight ruling families who make all decisions for the city. Decisions are supposedly made by consensus but the process is hardly transparent and politics is truly Machiavellian. The ruling families are attended by dozens of noble houses - distant relatives of one kind or another - who each vie for their slice of profits, resources or power.
The middle classes are made up of merchants, Firemen, artisans and wranglers. The wranglers organise the work parties and run businesses for their noble masters and are reviled most by the poor that they press-gang, cajole and threaten. Firemen are charged with the destruction of plant material - mostly weeds and debris that finds its way over the Cage, but occasionally nastier things - and have an honoured place amongst their peers. The Firemen are accorded the respect of knights and each guild carefully guard their secrets.
The poor get all the worst jobs - working the fungus catacombs, keeping the walls free of moss, preparing the dead for reconstitution. Only prisoners and the mine dwellers have it worse. Most mine dwellers, bred for labor, spend their lives beneath the city, toiling in the mines for coal and other resources. Dwellers are an oddity on the streets, something to be pointed at and feared in equal measure.