Seia

Cörpathium is ruled by the Corvuscult. It is guarded by the Godless.

Cörpathium
The largest city of Egnatia, overflowing with mercenary bands such as the Seventh Goat and Golden Harpies, and gangs like the inherited-wealth Youngbloods.

Runs on a 12 month calendar of perfect 28 day lunar cycles. The 12th cycle bears a black full moon, during which lobotomized harvest soldiers are lead underground to procure Mondmilch to entrap in lanterns for the wealthy and influential. More superstitious sects spend the month in celebration, either of the end of days if the moon remains black, or of the new year if it returns to white.

Races you will find in Egnatia and in Cörpathium vary, though from

Corvuscult
Currently consisting of these 9 families; Reich, Selvah, Decagia, Belvlian, Schlüter, Manneve, Voit, Catius, Adiath

Anyone can challenge a family’s place in the Corvuscult provided they can gain petition from at least two other reigning families. The opposing families then appoint a champion to enter The Morrigan to face challenges set by the rest of the Corvuscult, with victory granted to the family whose champion survives the arena.

While the champion isn’t required to be part of the family, they must represent them out of faith in their ability to govern, not how well they pay. The discovery of mercenary champions is not taken lightly by the Corvuscult.

The Godless
Order is maintained in Cörpathium by guards sworn free of religion or allegiance to anything other than Cörpathium itself, not even the Corvuscult are beyond their judgement.

The tests and trials to enter their ranks are said to last weeks, but none who pass them ever speak of what they endured, and those who fail inevitably find their way to the Sanctorium in their madness.

They are said to be privy to many of Cörpathium’s forgotten secrets.

Most boroughs in Cörpathium have a Deicidium, a dark ornate building where the Godless live, train, and study.








Syringa Vulgaris
No Deicidium
Description

POOR
A dilapidated borough, nearly devoid of life as it is known.

Sights, Smells, etc.
An invasive species of perennial vines cover every building, with corrupted and twisted plants appearing through the vines, blackening them, or entirely replacing them.
The scent of decaying plants and ancient wood permeates through the entire borough.
There is a constant low hanging haze that feels physically thick to walk through.
Enormous kludge idols to strange old gods are erected in the streets, on rooftops, in the middle of public houses.

Buildings
Ramshackle buildings stacked several stories tall, with the upper portions being so crooked that if it were not for the massive thick vines holding them into place, that they would collapse down to the ground below.
Dozens of narrow alleyways roughly snake through the buildings and an informal network of makeshift staircases and passageways form the upper levels, allowing for one to travel across the borough in many ways.. Some passageways were made of the vines themselves, only offering stable footing from the occasional discarded plank.

Activity

Morning:
A very low rustling is constant and on some mornings you will find masked figures standing before the kludge idols, unmoving and unresponsive until they at once walk off to vanish down alleyways and dark corners.

Noon:
A pack of gangling youths crawl out of the woodwork, armed with machetes and clippers traverse the towering heights and narrow passages, attempting to free trapped residences from their homes and helping trim back the vines in a pointless attempt at containing the overbearing spread of plant-life.

Night:
Loud snapping of vines signify an end to the day and worn down residents shuffle back to their hovels. Gangling youths abandon their work, to start it over again tomorrow and among the shroud of darkness one might see limbs claw their way from vines and the withered bodies of missing persons stagger through the vine covered streets, aimlessly seeking a home they will never reach.
Sub Burroughs of The rookery.
The Pit
Poor
Built around an open sewer, algae-covered stone hewn steps leading down. Easy access to Cörpathium's subterranean for the Kanalsknecht, easy access to Cörpathium for things that live below.
At least three times in recorded history, or rather history that anyone can actually agree on, something horrible has come up from the open sewer.. On one occasion something horrible went down into it and is said to lurk to this day, but nobody can properly remember what it was..

Red Rookery
Poor
Carrion birds wait patiently on cracked tile rooftops, the people throw chunks of meat out as they walk to no avail. It is said that some of the Carrion birds are large enough to carry off the emaciated and frail. The door of every building is carved with a mass of tiny markings that range from; tiny figures, runic writing, senseless scribbles, various and often mixed religious ramblings and symbolism or just random shapes and lines. Changing out the door does nothing, as it just shows up again the next morning.

Black rose hill
Poor
Thick layers of soot coat every visible surface, communal fires are kept burning in the streets near alley entrances. There is whispered talk of once-men with skin black like soot, whose bony frames can be seen out of the corner of ones eye, shambling from hiding spots or completely vanishing against their surroundings. Nobody knows what happens if you meet them head on, nobody has ever claimed to encountered them directly.


Fogwalk
Containing 1 Deicidium.

Description MIDDLING A borough of seaside views, commerce and depravity. Provides the only safe seaborne entry to Cörpathium by way of the Dockmaw. Sights, Smells, etc. Smells of salt, sweet fish, tarred wood and a lingering hangover. Moss grows around the docks and on the walls of nearby Buildings. At night it glows a bright bioluminescent blue. A white morning mist rolls in over the black waters of the Hollow Sea to swirl about your ankles, thins throughout the day, returns at night. Buildings Strong black stone along the shore, towers raised up against the Hollow Sea, wide doors to admit cargo and release machines of war. Mixtures of stone and jettied wood the further you get from the sea.

Activity Morning: Dockhands going to work, fish buyers with baskets, men with knotted arms and sharp knives removing barnacles from the docks. Noon: Cargo unloaded, goods being shipped out and haggled for, and if it exists, Neophytic Sisters of the Cathedral of Lost Virtue waiting to lead more discerning seafarers back to the Cathedral and away from the Plaza of Earthly Lust. Night: Workers leaving, others arriving to unload the night cargo, revelers thronging to the Plaza, the night watch.

Facts Dock Trade They may be the most powerful trading company in the Dockmaw, but Haugroten & Sons are far from alone. Organizations like the Hollow Sea Co. and Leviathan Cargo Cult maintain a presence on the Dockmaw's boards, generally hiring mercenary dockhands job-to-job. Many speculate that Haugroten & Sons allow their competition to persist merely to avoid boredom. Bounty of the Sea The lights of an enormous ship can be seen out in the mist beyond the harbor every night, but no one that has gone to investigate has come back, and every morning it is gone.

Flesh market
No Deicidium.

Description RICH Pleasure houses and mercenary auctions, the working space of the Flesh Crafters, what is life but a meat factory? Sights, Smells, etc. The steady scent of warm sweat, a bouquet of pheromonal conversations. Buildings Dressed to match their occupants, the pleasure houses in lurid colors and drapery, warm and inviting, the mercenary houses built like audacious fortresses.

Activity Morning: Nervous merchants hurrying to claim a place at the auctions, red-cloaked Flesh Crafter apprentices politely inquiring door-to-door if they should have any dead to dispose of. Noon: The auction proper, pleasure parades, impromptu contests of physical prowess, rattling food carts pushed by crazed vendors running on wired legs. Night: Fight pits, the rising call of the pleasure houses, firelight illuminating the noxious presence of the Crafter seated by your table.

Facts Flesh Crafters They are not healers, they are rebuilders. They can't cure that cold you've had for a week but they can mold you a soft new arm from the flesh vats and graft it to your body. Or, if you prefer, replace or enhance it with something more exotic, or perhaps make some tasteful additions? I Have My Eye on You, My Love The services of the mercenaries who dwell within the Flesh Market are bought and sold at the whim of the Great Procuress. The ladies and gents of the pleasure houses keep a sly watchful eye for any unsanctioned solicitations. Pliable Bodies Several pleasure houses supplement their income by collecting genetic material for sale to the Flesh Crafters for purposes unknown. An awful clone factory would seem likely.

Von Goethe Gardens
Containing 1 Deicidium.

Description
Activity
Facts
MIDDLING
An enormous garden of botanical wonders and wildlife.

Sights, Smells, etc.
Enfolding greenery, glorious flowers though some you should not smell, lush fruit though some you should not eat.
Morning:
A cacophony of noise and movement to greet the sun.

Noon:
Adoring constitutionals, specimens collected for study, the habits of the wild.

Night:
Midnight jaunts, failed poaching attempts, nocturnal biological studies.
A Zoo? Don't be so Vulgar
There's nothing keeping the animals here other than their own sense of entitlement and luxury. Sure there's the occasional poacher to disturb the serenity, but they generally end up as food.


Conditionals
Von Goethe
Elysian Von Goethe was torn apart and consumed by the precious creatures of his garden, not a piece was wasted, not a creature went unfed.
He lives on in within their descendants, a whisper behind their bright eyes, an unplaceable will that makes them act oh so strange.


Temple District


Description
Activity
Facts
RICH
Churches, temples, shrines, pillars of burning bone, a shambling collection of competing monuments to all gods.

Sights, Smells, etc.
Heady incense and perfumes, and other smells more savory and pungent.
A cacophony of color and construction.

Buildings
The larger temples tend to spread out around themselves like a cancer, smaller buildings similarly decorated to house the faithful and the servile.
Morning:
Priests swinging censer balls, wailing in the streets, exposing their smooth skin to the public.

Noon:
Ecstatic worshipers streaming towards their god of choice or crawling in laughing groups between temples, on the lookout for this week's religious flavour.

Night:
Raucous ceremonies and celebration, discrete holy wars settled in side streets.
Godless
Not only will there never be a Deicidium in the Temple District, but the Godless outright refuse to enter it, leading to a tremendous number of criminals finding religion.


Conditionals
Street Names
Religious Fever
God: The Masterless Ram
Synopsis: Big fuck-off furry ram in a golden hall, chewing pitch and ventriloquism.
Fervour/Fever: The wearing of pink is a religious affront, and everyone is taking life advice from a Ram, really terrible advice.
Pestilence Road
Plague Street
Dead Priest's Ramble
Sacrificial Lane
A Swarm of Locusts
Tongue of the Toad
Serpent's Spine
Three Coppers Boulevard
The Black Void
Endless Reach
Path of Righteousness
Beggar's Bend

The Sulphurous Spires (of the Serpent)


Description
Activity
Facts
RICH
Close-walled towers covering the streets like an organic growth, making the streets themselves an indiscernible flowing maze.

Sights, Smells, etc.
The Sulphurous Spires smell the way they look, your eyes feel constantly dusty, your tongue tingles, your mind chemically alters.

Buildings
Enormous joined towers penetrating up into the sky, covered walkways and pipes passed between them, all crafted from some curious dusty iron of a sickly yellow hue, carven with the raised and stretching images of fantastical lizards with long curling bodies, multiple limbs, tongues that curl out to taste the sunlight.
Morning:
Philosopher-Maids singing from the walkways as they carry the morning's tea, intellectuals hurling massive half-finished tomes from windows and screaming like sleep-deprived children.

Noon:
Intellectuals scrabbling about looking for the last few pages of their retrieved manuscripts, apprentices and assassins seeking the wisdom and produce of the apothecaries and alchemists.

Night:
The thud and puff of tower-top experiments, the familiar smell of melting flesh that follows a failed burglary.
Philosopher-Maids
Do much more than cleaning, they rein in and direct the despairing genius of their charges, they prescribe unsolicited advice with preternatural foresight, they accumulate a wider range of knowledge than you could ever hope for in another life.
The Philosopher-Maids work as one flowing organism, moving between towers and charges, never faltering.

Navigation
The only pattern the streets keep is to flow around the Sulphurous Spires, more pathways than true streets.
To find your way you'll need to learn to navigate by the spires themselves or ask a Philosopher-Maid for directions.


Conditionals
Catastrophe
The Spire of the Wounded Gecko touched the void, its roof is consumed by a vast spherical cloud of dancing pale pink motes, impossible to see through but shadows shift within it, the Philosopher-Maids efficiently sealed its doors and collapsed the walkways, smiling politely to inform all that the residents of the Spire of the Wounded Gecko are no longer to be disturbed, thank you kindly.
Ecstatic laughter echoes from within and the Philosopher-Maid offers you another spot of tea.
It is a place of madness.

The Competition
The pathways that flow around the towers occasionally open up into circular courtyards full of tents and clattering stalls piled high with wares of various origin and purpose, the proprietors of which tend to migrate pocket to pocket, never keeping too long in one place.
If the Wheel of Gold is within two boroughs of the Sulphurous Spires, it's because they're hunted by rival merchants, otherwise it's all superstition about the gargoyle lizards.

The Twin Nests: Plateau of Plague, Plateau of Time


Description
Activity
Facts
MIDDLING
Boroughs built high on the ruins of many others or atop raised outcroppings of stone, too deep now to tell, looming over their neighbours, joined together by a bridge of wood and rope.

Sights, Smells, etc.
Putrefaction and sweet decay, swirling vapours upon the Plateau of Plague, a more static scent of calm and the howling of the Spire upon the Plateau of Time.

Buildings
Thick-walled to keep out the wind and cold, roofs that trap the moisture in the air to flow through copper pipes, construction of far more absurd angles as the buildings near the edge of the plateau, then built directly into the side until it reaches the ground below.
Morning:
The Afflicted Walk, a quick constitutional for the patients of the Citadelle de Contagion accompanied by the Sterile Ones.

Noon:
The rise and fall of The Chair, Wandering Chronoscribes returning to the tower with their tomes.

Night:
Stalking Sterile Ones, it is not spoken of in polite company, but we do not wander the Twin Nests alone at night.
Ascent
Access to the Twin Nests is available for a fee via the man-powered marvel of rope, pulleys, and deep-buttoned plush fabric known simply as The Chair, located by the Burning Bridge on the Plateau of Time, or by climbing one of the numerous winding staircases cut into the sides of the Plateaus.


Conditionals
Street Names
Progress of the Infection
The power of flight is in our hands, dirigibles anchor to the Plateau of Time, filled with bloated gas-spewing bodies rife with disease.


Those Things from Beyond
There was an incident in the Citadelle de Contagion, the Plateau of Plague is shrouded in a violet haze, guards are posted about its base at all hours, the bridge to the Plateau of Time has been severed. The things that have crawled from the mist defy reason.
Plateau of Plague

Rot Court
Babylon Avenue
Street of the Waking Itch
Mudwich Road
Graves
Stolen Bend
The Crawl
Philanderer's End

Plateau of Time

Scribe Lane
The Once and Future Road
Eternal Boulevard
Street of Lost Dreams
Cacophony
The Eyeless Road
Street of Leng
Pins and Needles

The Rookery of Van Möldus


Description
Activity
Facts
POOR
A ragamuffin slum.

Sights, Smells, etc.
Cold and damp, smells of fish rot and stinging salt, whether it's by the sea or not.
Makeshift shelters crowd alleys and cul-de-sacs.

Buildings
Ramshackle towers of worn stone and rotting wood built one on top of the other with walkways spider-webbed over the streets, a maze of basements that reach below sea level.
Morning:
Drunks waking in the street, the occasional fog-bloated corpse, beggars and waremongers drifting off to richer pickings.

Noon:
Idle cutthroats, eager gamblers, strangers slinking between houses and alleys.

Night:
Highly questionable whores in doorways, drunks spilling from makeshift brewhouses, crumpled bodies thrown from fight dens, knives flashing in the dark.
Rats:
Other boroughs tend to herd any infestations towards the Rookery.
If the Rookery is by the sea they can't help but eat the Cthalamus Siren barnacles and drown themselves, but otherwise the younger residents rove in Rat Killer packs.


Conditionals
Street Names
Who's Van Möldus?
Family Van Möldus and the Red Nails reign over the Rookery, but the Pitch Eaters and the Vermintide speak of alliance in the dark and plot their downfall.

Cthalamus Siren
If the Rookery is by the sea, purplish barnacles grow on buildings and side-walks, finding more nourishment in the squalor than the sea. They'll attach to people if they stay still for long enough.
If consumed, save vs. Poison.
Failure results in an overwhelming desire to walk into the sea which lasts for d8 days.


The Library Eternal


Description
Activity
Facts
MIDDLING
An entire borough given over to the collection cataloguing and study of every text that ever was or will be.

Sights, Smells, etc.
Mildew, dust, the constant flutter of pages, fingers ridged with paper cut scars.

Buildings
Many form complexes that consume whole blocks, sometimes bridged over the street and in to the next, more walls mean less space for books, oh no no this section needs to be at least five times as large, there's no space either side let's extend up.
Morning:
New acquisitions brought in by the cartful, narcotic vendors doing the rounds with heavy, jangling pockets.

Noon:
Petty squabbles over library space, heartfelt agreement to work together, heavy sighs from the Scholar Squires as they put down their books and prepare to once again construct a new level above their heads.

Night:
Much flickering candlelight, fevered study and furtive trades continuing until morning breaks.
Guardians of Knowledge
While you may occasionally encounter some form of chimeric monstrosity bred to protect the library, the thing you really need to watch for is the Librarians.
Normally absurdly polite even in their blatant refusal to assist you when they're too busy, if they catch you trying to steal from the library you'll be witness to a violence one would never expect from their frail frames.

Should they actually permit you to remove a book for a short time, it will most certainly come with a Scholar Squire firmly attached.


Conditionals
Street Names
A Book's Cover
The collection and study maintained by the Library is not just a pursuit of knowledge, it is a containment.
There are tomes to be found within the Library Eternal, large and small, malevolent and innocent, that wish to be read by the unprepared.
Their ideas again released, to be spread like a contagion, to manifest in reality.





The Crystal Ponds

Description
Activity
Facts
MIDDLING
Radiating buildings around pools of dark, still water, their banks encrusted with outcroppings of brilliant blue crystal, their depth untested.

Sights, Smells, etc.
A chemical pinch in the air, colder than anywhere else, stern trade conducted by the Crystal Coterie, the intriguing roasting flesh of pond-caught eel.

Buildings
Imposing and dark, straight-angled, hard, functional structures of stone blocks, those closer to the ponds sometimes bearing large growths of crystal hanging from their sides.
Morning:
Fishing for eels from the pond, street walkers holding hooded coats about them, pond guards laying down their barbed pikes to stretch their backs after a long night's watch.

Noon:
Nervous alchemists, hungry travellers, the Crystal Coterie negotiating the sale of crystal and eel alike.

Night:
The Deepguard watching over their ponds in the soft blue glow of the crystals.
The Crystal Coterie
Dwell in the homes closest to the ponds, and, though the specifics of how or why are hard to define, are generally accepted as the owners of the ponds and all they produce, an ownership they protect through the pike-wielding Deepguard.

Eels
While most anything else organic that enters the water quickly grows an invasive crust of crystalline structures, the ponds support an abundantly healthy population of eels that feed on the insects which land on the still surface of the water in hopes of spawning their larvae.
Despite the number dragged out each day for food, the eel population remains unchanged, further inciting tales of depths below the ponds.


Conditionals

What Lies Beneath
The ponds open up after a 60ft descent into a communal chamber filled with worthless-looking artefacts, junk coated with sediment and pushed aside to allow the eels to peek out from their alcoves.
Resting in the centre of the cavern is an enormous metal sphere, covered in etchings and portholes, some of which have smashed, flooding the sphere. The preserved bodies of long-dead mer-creatures float within, vaguely human, repugnantly not.
Were they to be taken to the surface they would wake from their water-born stasis.



Description
Activity
Facts
RICH
Elaborately beautiful soft purple-hued empires of buildings and carefully tended gardens, home to the most splendidly, viciously exotic arenas and fight dens in Cörpathium. Even the decadently rich need more base diversions darling.

Sights, Smells, etc.
Everything is perfumed, everything, even the fucking dogs, the height of fashion looks like something drawn from your most fevered narcotic nightmare.

Buildings
If you have to ask you can't afford it.
Everything is a breathtaking powdery soft purple, everything is the life's work of an architectural genius.
Morning:
Returning home from the night's revelries, occasionally with a pet in tow wheeling a broken rare beast or prize-fighter in a barrow.

Noon:
Tea parties that sometimes verge on the obscene, impromptu fashion parades drowning in politely concealed sneers of jealous rivalry, the arena spins its charms.

Night:
The more seamy fight dens open, the immorally rich walk the streets.
Pets
“I house them, feed them, they perform tricks. Why, they're the very definition of a pet!"
- Violetta de Infante

If you're kept help for a family in Lilacs, you're a pet.

Digestive Servitors
Assist in feeding juvenile otherworldly things kept below the estates of the rich and insane, milky-eyed and utterly hairless, try not to be in the way when yellow filth spews from their gullets.


Gossip
Malfus Voss Lander claims the nightmarish creatures he submits to the arena are birthed straight from his mind. If that's true then the more he's letting out the more his mind is slipping, because he is getting to be an utter displeasure to be around.