Nurad

(adj: Nuradi)

History

• Once the most progressive nation, natural disaster caused a rapid conservative movement; aptly, the wildlife preservation in Gunstar, memories of a place long left behind.
  • This can be used multiple ways: The more passionate might see the beauty of things from the Spiral and yearn to return, the more clever might figure they can use what's here to start a new one.
• Nurad's efficiency led it to become the first to capture wonders of the first age, detailed in examples of “Genesis crafting, biothaumaturgical prosthetics, material intelligences, mind-to-machine links and other innovations.”
• Then Perygra was lost in a theurgic experiment, and the nation became conservative again, until the rise of Wisant.

Culture

• Alchemicals: “The nation of Nurad stands on the brink, and its Champions have no time to consider their satisfaction with the state that Exalted them.”
• “The folk of other nations view the Nuradi as stolid and phlegmatic. Their garments are plain, even severe; their cuisine is simple, concerned more with ritual than flavor or texture. But with the resource crisis hurting morale, some cities are making changes. New clothing combines cheaper materials with brighter colors and extravagant cuts. Nutrient paste is laced with unfamiliar flavors and vivid coloring agents.
• Nuradi sports make use of the nation’s wide-open spaces. By and large, the Nuradi are hardy and athletic, and those with a taste for fitness prefer to exercise out of doors. Popular activities include terrace climbing, hang-gliding, and aircar and watercraft regattas.”
• “In Nuradi art, nomads serve as a symbol for the nation’s strong and self-sufficient roots, as well as the wild streak that good Autochthonians must suppress. They are noteworthy subjects of music and theater; they also crop up as symbolic figures in patriotic posters and other visual art.”
• “In addition to spectacles produced by the lectors, Nurad’s Sodalities arrange festivals to showcase the wonders of their arts. The Harvester Festival is the best-loved of these events, as attendees may partake of all manner of unusual foodstuffs, but there are always those drawn to displays of the peculiar and esoteric devices that other Sodalities demonstrate at their respective events. Each festival is accompanied by a mystery play focusing on its Sodality’s duties and role in Autochthonian life.”
• “Nurad has a long artistic history, with museums full of religious and secular artwork encompassing five millennia of aesthetic development. . . . New visual art—both official posters exhorting the people toward strength and efficiency, and graffiti of every stripe—is caught in an expressionist phase. Images are distorted; portraits show their subjects in the grip of powerful emotions.
• In the performing arts, music and performance grow ever more exaggerated. Drama has given way to melodrama, comedy to farce, tragedy to grand guignol. Lectors now experiment with minimalism simply to catch an over-stimulated audience’s attention.
• The nation’s signature musical instrument, the pyrophone, is suffering a precipitous decline in use. . . . [Some] have been refitted as steam organs. Also popular are various stringed and brass instruments, as well as several percussive instruments made of glass or crystal.”
• “Essence-powered lamps are used in airship spotlights and in the signal lamps that cities and towns employ for near-instantaneous point-to-point communication over long distances. Signal lamp code also exists as a written language; this is sometimes encoded using knots tied in cord.”
• “Where other nations reject the use of automata, Nurad has long employed sapient devices as scouts, guardians and advisors, even designing felinoid mouser-machines to hunt vermin. . . .
  • Perhaps the most fantastical relic of Progressive Age theotechnology is ironfruit. Designed to emulate Creation’s vegetation, these mindless quasi-automata insinuate metallic ‘roots’ into water, oil and nutrient slurry conduits and sprout synthetic ‘fruit:’ sugary, nutritious food nodules prepackaged in edible casings.”
• “Few in number, the Eleemosynary—a Theomachratic sub-caste unique to Nurad—symbolize the generosity of the Great Maker. Their ordained task is to pray and give thanks to Autochthon in every waking moment. They are mendicants, contributing nothing but their devotion, wearing cast-off garments and eating only such food as has been discarded as inferior from the factories or set aside for them by pious citizens. The current resource crunch has made the plutarchs reassess the worth of the Eleemosynary, but what can be done with a whole group of adults with no obviously useful skills?”
• Promising Populat children are trained under Sodalts as vocants.
• In general, Nurad has suffered the worst of Blight Zones of all the eight nations, and things will only get worse in time.
• Cults of the Void seep into it in Vanilla, and it could be a good thing to look at for Gunstar, both in general and specifically.

Physical Descriptions

• “Airships and aircars cruise the night skies of Nurad, their searchlights like golden needles stabbing downward into the dark. At zenith, the sky-piercing metropolis of Wisant glows like a dying moon. Cities and towns flicker below like scattered embers—sparks from the frozen flame of Perygra, the dead city entombed in crystal. A few more sparks vanish every night. Darkness looms.”
• “Physically, Nurad is the most open of the Eight Nations. Almost all of Nurad lies within one especially large oblate spheroidal chamber almost a hundred miles in diameter and thirty miles high. Dozens of mile-wide columns, festooned with conduits and crawling with living machines, pierce layers of wispy clouds to support the distant dome of the sky-ceiling.
• The floor of the nation-chamber is a labyrinthine land-scape of metal domes, ridges, valleys and mesas. When the rains come, flash floods transform canyons into canals and depressions into lakes. Forests of steam vents throng with flocks of vaporous elementals; freestanding spires serve as airship docking posts. At the chamber’s rim, the floor rises toward verticality in ever-steepening terraces of brass, copper, bronze and steel.
• Nurad’s movement through the Reaches often brings it adjacent to the Pole of Steam. For days or weeks, the air grows hot and muggy, and the upper atmosphere boils with thunderheads that drizzle a constant warm rain or flare up into sudden typhoons. Then Nurad moves on, and monsoon season gives way to cool, dry air and wefts of cirrus clouds.
• Where the various component chambers of other nations are in constant subtle flux, drifting toward and away from each other in accordance with Autochthon’s theoseismology, Nurad’s geography is fixed. This protects the nation from earthquakes and other instabilities. Structures rise taller and thinner; trams follow more elegant lines, not needing anti-quake safety features to bulk them out. Economic planners can calculate travel times precisely, maximizing the efficiency of intra-national trade and giving Nurad an unrivaled distribution network.
• Three of Nurad’s major cities stand near the nation’s periphery. Pneumatic trams and monorails run between these cities, with spur lines branching away toward towns and infrastructural sites—many of which are now all but deserted as a result of the resource crisis. Funiculars lead up into the high edge-terraces; elevators climb support columns to outposts located miles above ground level. A few trams even extend to the center of the chamber, carrying researchers and pilgrims to the crystal-encased ruin of Perygra.”
• “Noteworthy elements of Nuradi urban architecture include tall airship-docking spires, gaslamp streetlights, open courtyards to catch Wisant’s light and cisterns to gather rain. Courtyards contain rock gardens of gravel and sand left over from Shastari stone-carving. Artificial waterfalls feed into tranquil meditation pools.”
• Gunstar: “The nation-district of Nurad is a living memento of the long-vanished Spiral. Vast arcologies float within its chamber-dome, buoyed by clouds of Essence. Crystalline panels reveal vine-draped trellises, trees heavy with fruit, and nutrient-baths thick with seedlings. Agricultural laborers work in specialized farm-decks, raising pigs, chickens, and yeddim engineered by Genesis sciences. Far below, Nurad’s tidal regions drain into paddies of artificial soil, where workers sow and harvest rice. High above, the city of Wisant casts life-giving light upon all below, a reflection of the Deliberative’s promise to the people of Autochthonia.
• Genesis laboratories and bioenhancement facilities flourish throughout Nurad, drawing specimens and raw materials from its arcologies. Sodalt geneticists raise specialized breeds of animal and hybrid plant life, while Genesis savants working in the Arsenal of Experimental Life-Forms create artificial behemoths and engineered super-soldiers, living weapons against the forces of the Primordials. Thaumaturgical hospitals provide state-of-the-art health care to the injured, while the Exalted find comprehensive supernatural care in the Garden of Holistic Rejuvenation, along with an extensive suite of biological enhancements and modifications. The wide open-air spaces of Nurad also make it an ideal testing site for magitech aircraft, making it home to the Gunstar Defense Line’s Illustrious Institute of Voidflight Research, nicknamed the Hatchery.”

Cities

Wisant: 'The City Above.' (Metropolis, Orichalcum caste?)

• “Nurad’s fourth major city, Wisant, hangs suspended from the faraway sky-ceiling. So remote is it from the lands below that it appears as nothing more than a distant light, its fluctuations marking shift-transitions and bringing an echo of day and night to the entire nation.”
• “The metropolis is a mile-long stalactite of orichalcum and steel, her thousands of lamps and crystal windows blazing like gem-stones. What look from afar as hair-thin parallel lines, like fine etchings on some prince’s ornament, are serried ranks of balconies from which her people can see all of Nurad spread below. Dozens of docking spurs jut from Wisant’s golden surface, each a berth for airships and aircars. An adamant globe glows at the city’s uttermost tip, shifting colors as it phase-cycles throughout the five shifts of the Autochthonian day. The globe burns hot gold during first shift, moving down the spectrum to pale red, orange, cold blue and finally a mellow silver during fifth shift, before pulsing back to full brilliance to mark the beginning of a new day.”
• “The city’s interior extends far above Nurad’s ceiling. Vertical and near-vertical shafts, ringed with lights and webbed with walkways, stretch up and down into the distance. Windows and balconies line residential shafts, providing a sense of openness and space. Columns of light run through them from top to bottom, sharing the city’s day-night cycle. Higher up in Wisant’s superstructure, industrial shafts crawl with machines. Enormous brass and steel gearworks spin and whirr; hammers clang; noise and smoke fill the murky air.”
  • It...goes on like this, the Nurad section is REALLY well-written, if/when we use Wisant consult page 54 of the pdf, it's excellent.

Shastar: 'The City of Stone.' (Patropolis, Jade caste?)

• “Old, slow Shastar spreads his ashen arms wide along the shores of the Dir Reservoir at Nurad’s trailing edge. Where his white jade cliffs—gray now with soot—descend into the oily water, a hundred wharves reach forth to offer sanctuary to the ships that crisscross the reservoir, carrying passengers and cargo to and from the towns situated on the islands of the Dir and on the far shore.
• As Shastar grows with the passing years, he stretches farther and farther along the edges of the reservoir. The city on his shoulders grows with him. It is a dark and gloomy thing, this second city: a city of black stone, its towers pressing close to one another, blocking out the distant glimmer of Wisant’s light. Steam rises from vents in its worn pavements, shrouding the streets in a perpetual fog that disperses the light of the gas lamps into a dull, unfocused glow.”
• “He is a city of extremes; the nation’s most powerful and influential citizens live and work here in luxury, while the Lumpen and much of the Populat dwell in the shabbiest parts of the Upper City, in overgrown stone heaps where Shastar’s eyes and services do not reach.
• Chimneys belch clouds of soot from the buried soulsteel mass of the Lithic Condensation Engine. This Municipal Charm filters sediment from Autochthon’s conduits and compacts it into blocks of a durable, fine-grained black substance that Autochthonians call 'stone.'” Also also helps facilitates Nurad's movement with one of its Municipal Charms.”

Xefin: 'The Cage' (Metropolis, originally Executor of the Fixed Interval, Starmetal caste)

• “Xefin lies beyond the outer skin of Nurad, miles above its floor. She is accessible only via a heavily-guarded tram terminus and an equally well-defended airship docking post. Those who would enter or leave without authorization must travel for miles through the Reaches.
• Xefin herself spreads out in a single disk-shaped layer. Structures webbed with bridges and catwalks rise in a radial pattern around a broad plaza dominated by a burnished central spire. At the top of the spire, broad flanges cage a blaze of blue flame enfolding a sliver of lightless black: this is Xefin’s Panoptic Crux, whose gaze penetrates everywhere within her dominion.
• The structures themselves are symmetrical, built along clean lines. Both exterior and interior surfaces are covered with subtle, intricate geometric mandalas, many of which exert a hypnotic fascination upon onlookers. The effect is calming.”
• “Xefin herself, who remains fully aware and involved, provides direct assistance to her staff. She multitasks to communicate simultaneously with dozens of prisoners in their cells at any given time, both to assess and to adjust their states of mind.”
• “Xefin sees individuality as a defect, one which offers a foothold for the Void, and desires a more deeply hierarchical and structured society than even Autochthonia provides. She believes her research will provide the key to change human nature.”

Perygra: 'The Corpse in Crystal' (Metropolis, originally Perfected Hydraulic Grace, Orichalcum caste)

• Ruins in Vanilla, not dead in Gunstar I don't think (YET).
• “The ruin of Perygra smolders at the heart of Nurad like the embers of a dream. Its crystal prison burns with refracted rainbow fire during the day; at night it gleams coldly from within, lit by ancient Essence discharges still trapped in the crystal. The city itself is broken, its great gleaming engines and bright orichalcum domes shattered by the impossible pressures of its confinement.”
• Many of Autochthonia's artifacts and Charms were developed here. Then one time they were like 'Hey let's try to tap into Autochthon's mind.' THEN CRYSTALS EVERYWHERE

Windcoil Post: Outpost.

• “Three miles centerward and twenty-two miles clock-wise of Shastar stands one of the mile-thick pillars that support Nurad’s sky. Six miles up, where the air grows thin, clouds scud by underfoot and the ground can be seen far, far below, an aircar docking post juts out from a broad, rust-streaked ledge. There, nestled among tinweb tangles and copperpede nests, is the entrance to Windcoil Post, a cloistered research facility for the Prolific Scholars of the Furnace Transcendent.
• Past the airlock at the entryway—where a tooth-jarring subsonic hum wards off fix beetles—a long, twisting tunnel leads to a warren of narrow, white-painted corridors linking rooms packed tight with machinery and thaumaturgical gear. At any given time, roughly a dozen Scholars labor with minds and hands to test the boundaries of Nuradi theotechnology. They devise prototypes of artifacts and Charms, perform cryptic experiments with raw Essence, and pore over records of research from the First Progressive Age.”

Yereka Nur: Town.

• “Three hundred buildings perch on a high terrace by the nation’s outer wall. They’re old but well-maintained, fronted with bricks of black Shastar stone, their slanted roofs tiled with blue-green ceramic. When one looks out over the glittering lands below, a bundle of conduits runs past to the left, providing easy access to water and nutrient slurry; the red-and-silver mass of the ore refinery stands to the right, thudding with industry. Behind, a brace of regulators stands by a massive hatch in the cavern wall. At shift change, they and their replacements open the hatch to allow the miners and their guard-escort to file in and out.”
• “For all their dedication and comradeship, a pall hangs over the people and their town. Their home is at the forward edge of the nation’s glacial movement through Autochthon. They are the closest to the Blight. Each year, they bring back less ore—and fewer of their friends and family. Every shift bears danger.
• Yereka Nur is one of dozens of mining towns built at Nurad’s edge. Founded close to a thousand years ago, it is primitive by the standards of Autochthonia’s cities. But to the eyes of the Creation-born—were one present to see—it would seem a marvel of engineering. Its buildings contain internal plumbing, Essence-powered lamps, temperature regulators and other simple civilized amenities.”

People of Note

Cold Silent Courier: Voidbringer.

• “Courier has long since shed all illusions of mortality. Only her face—that lovely, passionless mask—remains human. All else is filigree, a skeleton of starmetal wound about with moonsilver veins full of oil and blood. She is stealthy as a spider, a shadow, a long-forgotten memory. She moves through the heart of a city and is not seen. She whispers poisoned words into mortal ears; they hear only their own inner voices repeating her instructions. She steals secrets and soulgems with equal, inscrutable ease. No one has ever found her. Perhaps no one ever will.”

Opener of the Crimson Circuit: Voidbringer.

• “Opener is a monster. His long, lean frame is an amalgam of tarnished moonsilver and hirsute, tumorous meat. His oil-black eyes glitter as he peers from ventilation grilles and sewage grates in search of the perfect prey. He strikes in a savage blur of motion, tearing away great hunks of flesh with his rusty soulsteel fangs. It pleases him to trace gruesome, hateful messages in his victims’ gore, the better to demoralize mortal citizens and stir their Champions to careless wrath.”

Jerak: Luminor High Councilor of Nurad, lives in Wizant.

• Loyal follower of Espinoquae, he plans to allow the subroutine to create god-blooded children and raise them as Luminors, to act as a step between Alchemicals and mortals in capacity and duty.
  • This could already be in motion in Gunstar.

Majra: Adjudicator in Wizant.

• Nurad has sentenced exiles for minor crimes due to the resource shortage, and he is foremost among handing them out. But it is out of pragmatism, and he is unbiased, holding not even Tripartite members or Alchemicals above the law.

Dansora: Grand Autocraft of Nurad, lives in Shastar.

• Plans for the worst, valuing the nation over individuals. Has a distrust of plutarchs, and surrounds himself with others who do. Can recognize his own mistakes, but well after they've been made which might be too late.

Laktor: Foreman in Shastar.

• Lovable strongarm who built a still to provide for her workers, keeping productivity and morale high, at the cost of resources that can't be spared.
  • It's a decent hook for Vanilla, but don't think it translates over well to Gunstar. YET

Gnebthex: Subroutine of Ku that took residence in Perygra's ruins, drawn in by its horrors.

• “Gnebthex manifests clad in patchwork armor of corroded metal, filaments of smoke rising from its joints. The red light flickering beneath his visor is his true form: a glowing whirl-wind of proscribed text that is terrible for the literate to look upon.”
  • He's pissy about any attempts to scavenge the city. Doesn't really apply to Gunstar?

Bisorum: Administrator-Scholar at Windcoil Post.

• Has stuck around years past the normal shift, hoping to discover something new to save in the resource crisis, but probably dooming everyone.
  • There are stronger hooks!

Magnanimous Radiant Servitor: 'Shining Hero,' Orichalcum caste of Wisant.

• “Compassionate and courageous, Servitor came from wealthy Claslat centuries ago during the dark years after the Shuttered Lamp War to aid a nation in far greater need than her own. Her selfless valor has since made her among the best-known and best-loved of Wisant’s Champions. But her Clarity has grown with time and age. Those in her charge are becoming aware of the coldness in her mien, the distance in her heart.”

Defiance-Excising Razor: 'Shadow regulator,' Soulsteel caste of Shastar.

• “This driven young Exalt has dedicated herself to guarding Shastar against corruption. She stalks the dark places of the Upper City where Shastar himself cannot see. There she hunts intruding gremlins and pursues the faint, elusive trails of Apostates. She also apprehends rabble-rousers, confiscates hoarded goods and destroys illicit drugs and their manufactories, acts which win her little acclaim with the hungry, discontented Populat.”

Magnanimous Radiant Servitor: Orichalcum caste, created in Clastat, transferred to Nurad.

• “When Claslat commissioned Magnanimous Radiant Servitor, they expected a bold and brilliant Champion, a charismatic orator or a tactical supergenius. What walked out from the vats was entirely different. Her first efforts at political leadership and artifact engineering were met with dismay–not for a lack of skill, but a lack of satisfaction. She felt a great empathy for all Autochthonia, a love that transcended politics or mechanical tinkering. Her compassion brought her to a conclusion tantamount to treason—she chose to abandon Claslat, and pledge herself to the service of Nurad.”
• In rising Clarity, she moved to Nurad because it was the most embattled nation, causing tensions between the two nations.
• “The Orichalcum Caste now acts as something of a free agent in Nurad. While she is much loved by the populace, the Tripartite recognizes the foolishness of entrusting critical duties into the hands of a potential double agent. Instead, she is given leave to do what she deems best in the nation’s self-interest, guided by unwavering Clarity and a compassionate nature. For now, she has chosen to police the city of Wisant, defending it from gremlin incursions, preaching the Maker’s dogma, and optimizing its Charms to help supply other metropoli with vital resources. As the best-supplied and most advanced city in Nurad, it is the ideal starting point for uplifting the rest of the nation to the same level.”
  • Stats on p. 138.

Akeesis: The Ministerial Subroutine for Water Treatment in Nurad (Alpha-4)

• Her 'power is barely comparable to a minor Terrestrial god of Creation.'
• “Akeesis is an example of a particularly weak subroutine. Assigned 300 years ago to oversee the functioning of water-treatment plants for the nation of Nurad, Akeesis has consistently demonstrated bad organizational skills, a lack of leadership and simple laziness. It is a because of this latter trait that Akeesis is still just an alpha-4 after three centuries.” Akeesis instead blames the Nuradi people, and were she to realize the peril they were in, she'd likely only increase it in hopes of a transfer to a better station – when in reality she'd probably be left to go down with the ship, as it were.
  • “Akeesis takes the form of a young girl, perhaps eight or nine, with blue skin and purple hair. Her Essence is 4, and her Virtues are Compassion 2, Conviction 3, Temperance 3 and Valor 2. She carries 64 motes and must spend 50 to materialize. Her Charms give her influence over water and over the machinery common to water-treatment facilities.”

White Scar Huntress: 'Queen of the Menagerie,' No Moon caste

• Gunstar: “White Scar Huntress is the No Moon priestess who oversees the Hallowed Menagerie of Emerald Children, a sprawling arcology of floating adamant spheres strung between the metropoli of Nurad. Here can be found herds of wild yeddim roaming through artificial grasslands, orcas and kraken swimming in deep-sea habitats, and the last tyrant lizard in his lonely jungle home. While the nation’s other synthetic environments house agricultural industry or civic entertainment, the tiger-queen’s conservancy is an arsenal. Luna’s Chosen come to sample the Heart’s Blood of deadly predators and exotic flora, while genesis engineers harvest breeding stock and raw materials to make their artificial life. The White Scar Huntress holds exclusive right of approval over all such requests, giving her considerable political sway among both her Lunar peers and the savants of the Twilight Caste. Her favored bribe is sex—not just for herself, but for the animal inhabitants of the menagerie. Over the years, she has amassed a personal army of Half-Caste beastman through such bribes, and eagerly awaits the day when she may lead them against the Primordials.”