Jarish

(adj: Jarishite)

History

• The smallest nation and least changed from its conception, as they have been driven by faith rather than necessity, and their tools and architecture are still quite similar if not identical to the ones Jarish herself used. The faith nation in both settings, in Gunstar it's used to modify or shut down uncooperative exmachina.

Culture

• Alchemicals: “The tiny, devout and fundamentalist nation of Jarish fields the fewest Alchemicals of any of the Eight Nations. It also most strongly venerates its Champions as religious icons. Jarish’s propaganda focuses on its handful of Alchemicals as holy figures, emphasizing their intimate connection to the Great Maker. Alchemicals are prized as savants and teachers in Jarish, and most of them hold honorary standing in some branch of the Theomachracy. Off-shift workers often gather to listen to one of the Chosen relate vignettes from her memory-echoes of former heroism, and walk away feeling blessed. Of all the Eight Nations, Jarish most strongly uses the past as a central pillar of its culture.
• As such, few Alchemicals have any difficulty developing deep and powerful loyalty to Jarish. They are revered (if still held at arm’s length) and valued (albeit categorically rather than personally). As a result, they often develop into religious zealots.”
• “It is said that Jarishite faith is such that a mortal may step into the grinding gears of an engine to save his crew from a fatal leak and come out unscathed. It is a power over, and rapport with the machine-body that is miraculous and holy. Jarishite romance is such that they live amongst the souls of their fallen lovers and vanished ancestors, who dwell in their tools and their factories and in the lives of the exmachina.”
• “In Jarish, faith and romance are one in the same. Autochthonian legend holds that even if a Jarishite should be cut, his blood will sing of his great and unending love.”
• “A priestess of Autochthon, Jarish had such communion with the Maker that she could move through the Reaches unarmed and alone and without fear of death. . . . She pressed the Autochthonian people to see the gifts of Autochthon as an irrevocable whole, rather than three separate conditions. To wit, she exhorted the people to use faith in their construction as much as they used tools.”
• “While workers put thousands of people in jeopardy trying to construct tools that would abate the crisis, Jarish marched into the eye of the storm, armed with nothing but her belief in Autochthon. Putting herself between her city-tribe and a flow of crystal magma, Jarish raised her hands and stilled the crystal flow, hardening it in an instant—but not before it flowed over her body, entombing her in transparent crystal and ending her life.
• Now Jarish, who had always extolled the virtue of sacrifice, was an example of her teachings, and her entombed corpse, highly visible in a shard of glowing crystal on a precipice above the city, was an everlasting reminder of the lesson she had sought to teach. The followers of Jarish, both miserable with their loss and sickened by their inability to remove the corpse of their holy leader from the crystal flow, were yet driven to follow her example, pouring all of their devotion into their faith. Seeing past the physical failing of tools, they understood, more than ever, the message of Jarish: that, with the right devotion, the Maker’s gifts were not divorceable from one another.“
• “Where her neighbors began to conquer the world, Jarish had begun to commune with it.”
• “Unlike Nurad, which also enjoys a cyclical national light source, the Jarishites arrange their social activities around the light obelisk; work occurs around the clock, of course, but it is considered most appropriate to engage in public recreation, sports, and artistic recital in the day; night is a time for poetry, private recreation, artistic creation, and sexual liaisons. Other nations consider Jarish’s tendency to organize time around this dual cycle odd, at best.”
• “Jarish has never had a wealth of resources. Much of its history has depended on the frugality and conservatism of its people. At a glance, one might expect Jarish to be a poor, hobbled nation of jumped-up tunnel dwellers; in reality, Jarish is a respectably wealthy nation. It has been their non-reliance on physical tools which has helped the Jarishites cope with a crippling lack of natural resources. Through advanced thaumaturgical procedures and cooperation with the exmachina, the Jarishites enjoy productivity levels which keep their cities and towns fully powered, with energy stored away for times of crisis, and allows them to produce the parts necessary to keep Autochthon’s surrounding functions from breaking down.”
• “The Jarishites go so far as to install the soulgems of great machinists and workers from ages gone by into the very tools they once used, imbuing them with the wisdom and piety of the nation’s most heroic builders and problem solvers. This is the secret behind some of the more complex rituals of Jarishite construction and engineering, and what aids them in the ease of their mass-production.”
• By far the most dedicated workers, they are sometimes contracted by the other nations as for their size they are more than three times more efficient than any other nation would be. But they turn down new tools, instead asking for magical materials and prayer.
• “The people of Jarish have long been known for their ardent faith and romantic zeal. These elements have combined to make a people of incredible passion. Jarishites are taught to be like poet-engineers, seeing meaning, beauty, and love in all that they do. They approach work shifts and sexual assignations with the same intensity. When Jarishites produce children, the man is the supplier, the woman the body-factory. Ever the supplicant, he concentrates the same love, care, and dedication to her pleasure as he would to servicing the gears that keep the Great Maker alive. He does this in faith of the child that will be born. When pregnant, the Jarishite woman cannot help but feel her connection to the Machine God, for she has become the body which contains and supports life, engendered by the diligence of a man who is both paramour and slave. Together, they strive for the same thing: the continuance of life. In this regard—in every regard—their union brings them closer to the Great Maker.”
• “Love does not exist purely for the making of children, however, and Jarish could hardly be considered romantic if lovers connected only for practical or religious reasons. Homosexuality is not uncommon in Jarish, and regardless of orientation, Jarishites are taught that the pursuit of love will bring them closer to the Machine God. Wooing the object of one’s affections is an art; keeping love alive, exciting, and new, is a labor as intensive as any in Autochthonia. . . . Romance, then, is not a distraction, but rather a pursuit which brings the Jarishites closer to their god. The fervent dedication they are able to heap on one another bolsters, magnifies, and reinstates their ability to feel for the Maker.”
• “Ever since the death of their founder, Jarishites have known that part of their power comes from sacrifice. Hard work, the loss of limbs and life on assembly lines and to the threats of the Reaches are just part of that martyrdom. Jarishites know that love is a sacrifice—that only by the surrender of one’s heart can one ever truly appreciate the scope of Autochthon’s situation, and only through that appreciation can one’s faith be sufficient move heedlessly through grinding gears and acid sprays, to touch live arc streams and walk through fire to save the ones they love.
• In contrast, the very same dedication to the Machine God that gives them fingers so deft they can replace the assembly machines of Claslat makes them experts in the pursuit of carnal joy. The same artistic minds and tongues that make the sermons of Jarish’s lectors unsurpassed within the Octet also produce endless streams of erotic poetry and artwork (a significant and well-known national export, to the confusion of more conservative nations). The Jarishites know their business well. They are people of heartfelt dedication to all things.”
• ““Without sacrifice,” Jarish once said, “nothing worth having can ever be gained. The only freedom we have is our love for one another. Our love for Autochthon is without condition.””
• “[Dulcinea] then went on to dance with her mortal lover, the hero Merek, on the final night of Sparkmoon. The elegance with which she danced, in contrast with the crippling pain she felt at trying to understand mortal love, broke the hearts of thousands. For Quixotic Dulcinea was now the “twice-love sacrifice:” as Lastine, she had given up everything for Jubilant Evangelist; as a Champion of Autochthonia, she was giving up her love for Jast to keep safe her people. As she danced with her lover, she could no longer fully understand—either her love for Merek, or the love she felt for Evangelist, which was tearing her apart. Struggling with Clarity, all she had left to her was duty. The people of Jarish saw this and were stricken with the tragedy of it. The romance of Quixotic Dulcinea has forever emblazoned itself into culture of the Jarishite people.”
• “Despite the Jarishite emphasis on romance, the nation has no equivalent to the institution of marriage. Jarishite lovers may be forcibly parted by the state as its necessities demand their promotion or relocation, the better to serve the needs of their people. This is considered only right; sacrifice of the self for the good of the many is the highest expression of love, albeit a tragic one. Lovers separated by duty, whose pain is eventually transformed into joy upon realizing the good their suffering has produced, are the subject of many famous Jarishite plays and parables.”
• “All around them, Autochthon’s factory-mitochondria and productive cells—his industrial organs—work miracles of production, proving that their god still endures. At every turn, the people of Jarish are confronted by the legacy of heroes and legends—in the soulgem-enhanced tools of legendary workers, and in the presence of Alchemicals past (in sculpted-anima displays in city squares) and present. Three extra shift breaks per day are dedicated to praying to Autocthon-by-Noi, causing the great light obelisk over Qune to flare, giving the nation light to work by. Thus the Jarishites see the power and proof of their faith. By night, they are presided over by the distant pinprick of a person-sized soulgem atop Jast’s National Tripartite Assembly tower, in which the form of a woman is frozen forever in supplication.”
• “Jarish is famous among the Octet for its greatest holiday, Sparkmoon, a three night affair in the month of Ascending Air. Held mostly in Qune, Sparkmoon is an appreciation of a year of hard work and dedication, a time during which the Jarishites uncharacteristically reduce their shift operations to a bare minimum, slowing production and devoting serious time to only the most vital of operations, so that everyone has a chance to attend. On the three nights of Sparkmoon, there are great dances on Qune’s famous Promenade, a platform of moonsilver and steel at the beginning of a tramway that leads all the way to Nurad. During these dances, lovers are seduced, reproductive bonds are consecrated, and the people venerate the subgods and each other. The final night of Sparkmoon always sees the largest attendance, as people from across Autochthonia show up to dance, and to see the great light obelisk momentarily flare as it completes its yearly recalibration. This flaring causes motonic fireflies to fill the air, turning the Promenade into a sea of stars. During this time, Dulcinea turns down her lights, withdrawing her natural bioluminescence, and lets the people dance to the sound of pipe and drum and string while the fireflies orbit and gavotte around the dance floor.
• While visitors from other nations find Sparkmoon to be breathtaking, even heartbreaking, the Jarishites pursue the rest of their year with the same zest that they revel in Sparkmoon. Jarishites are raised to believe that the opportunity to work, sacrifice, and love are rewards equal to any holiday. Their interests lie, therefore, in the ability to go on loving and working—and making whatever sacrifices are necessary in the pursuit of that goal. It is a simplistic but powerful view.”
• “The suicide rate in Jarish is low, but the average euthanasia age is almost ten years younger than the Autochthonian average. This is partially because the Jarishites depend so much on the hardiness of youth in both love and work, but also because their lifestyles leave them with little fear of death. The Psychopomp Gears of the Transmodal Essence Recombinator, they believe, are not the doorways to a possible final ending; rather, they see the chance of being consumed by the Great Maker as an opportunity to be reborn as something other than human. Jarishites believe that their souls—the ones that sometimes fail to make it into newborn babies—become the spark powering the gods of Autochthonia, the mechanical spirit-laborers who surround and permeate Jarish. The clerics of Jarish have learned, through long practice, to commune with these beings with a much higher rate of success and safety than that enjoyed by any other Octet nation. Their success in this matter only furthers their belief that they have an inherent, mimetic connection to the souls of the Great Maker.
  • One famous example of this connection can be seen in the Jarishite relationship with the vicious and highly lethal mylkwelder. These elementals live in colonies throughout the Reaches, where they crawl over nests of slag, arc welding them with torches built into their jaws. Mylkwelders aren’t particularly aggressive—when they forage for metals, away from the nest, they will ignore the presence of humans. However, a mortal who stumbles into the vicinity of a mylkwelder nest faces grave peril, as the mechanical arachnids will grasp and dismember a person, welding their limbs and torsos into the slag nests they tend.
  • Mylkwelders and their nests are generally exterminated when found anywhere near settlements of the other nations. When encountered in the Reaches, expeditions take care to mark the boundaries of the nests for future expeditions, if they don’t have the time or the manpower to eliminate the beasts. The Jarishites, however, live in close vicinity to the largest mylkwelder colonies in Autochthonia. Long ago, the Jarishites discovered that, despite the nonsense of their slag nests, the mylkwelders were genius welders. So the Jarishites devised a pulley system that would allow them to safely send any piece of material they needed a weld on into the nests of the mylkwelders. What they pulled out would be perfectly welded, unfailingly and every time. Though the Jarishites have made a number of thaumaturgical advances which allows their productivity to be incredibly high, one of the essential staples of Jarishite production has always been cooperation with, rather than combat against, the lesser autonomous functions of the Machine God, whom many Jarishites believe contain the souls of their fallen brothers and sisters.”
• “Jarishites enjoy an especially tight-knit culture, even by Octet standards; they are raised to regard their co-workers as family, to honor their ancestors, and to love ferociously.
• It doesn’t work for everyone. Jarish has its share of introverts, oddities, and bitter hearts. Not everyone can meet the expectation of personal sacrifice and move on with grace and dignity, nor do all Jarishites wish to invite their nation into their heart. In Jarish, there are many who understand all too well that the warm center of a crowd can be the loneliest and coldest place in the world.
• The nation has an unfortunate tendency to produce alienation in its outsiders just as powerful as the sense of community in the rest of its citizens. Being unhappy and unfulfilled is bad; feeling that way when everyone else seems to be joyous and fulfilled is so much worse. As a result, Jarish has the dubious distinction of having harbored as many Voidbringer sects in its history as Claslat and Gulak combined. They consider this a trial from Autochthon, and take pride in their consistent triumph over the forces of discord, without examining the reason those trials are so frequent.”
• Though not warlike, Jarish does produce weapons en masse in order to defend themselves, as they feel due to a passage in the Tomb of the Great Maker they cannot use the tools they use to build to also murder. After an attack by Blade of the Apostate, citizens were allowed to use them in defense of gremlin attacks, but to knowingly go into a battle with them is still taboo.
• “The Octet considers Jarish to be blessed by Autochthon; the fact that it has moved fewer times, and over less distance than any other nation among the Eight is testament to this. The people of Jarish seem to exude a faith that lives and burns in the heart of everything they touch. “Faith like a Jarishite,” is a phrase used by Autochthonians to describe a person who puts himself at risk without thought of consequence, trusting his fate, good or ill, to the will of the Great Maker.”
• Jarish is held as the heart of Autochthonia by all the other nations, and ultimately they all feel protective of it, even in the warlike Vanilla. They feel is both an exemplar of humanity's frailty within Autochthon, and the strength of their faith, something they would never endanger.
• Gunstar: “It does not disturb the pious mortals of Jarish to see the emanations of their god brought down into the grinding gears of these machines, nor do they fear when the exmachina emerge altered, transformed, or not at all. Their faith in the Great Maker is unwavering, but so too is their faith in the plans of the Solar Exalted.”

Physical Descriptions

• “Crossing into Jarish is like walking into Autocthonia’s past. In Jarishite towns, buildings constructed centuries ago are still in use; they have not been torn down and stripped for parts, as is the practice with other nations, but remain as a testament to the craftsmanship standards of yesteryear.”
• “An enormous wonder of crystal, adamant, orichalcum and moonsilver hangs high above the Jarish cavity. This light obelisk was crafted by Jubilant Evangelist and Quixotic Dulcinea in the twilight years of the Founding Era, based on ancient passages in the Tome of the Great Maker which Evangelist found particularly inspirational—they spoke of day and night, of sun and moon, and of the bond between the champions of the two. The obelisk is powered by prayer, diverting a bit of the massive rush of Essence that boils up from the settlements below each day. It provides Jarish with light and a measure to mark the passage of time: each day the obelisk shines with a bright, golden light for two and a half shifts, and then darkens to produce a dim, silvery radiance for another two and a half.”
• Gunstar: “The district of Jarish floats on a cushion of prayer, traveling through the Maker’s body to carry out its holy mission. The lover-Metropoli of Jast and Qune hold each other in an eternal embrace, forming a single gleaming city of moonsilver and orichalcum. At its center stands the Radiant Obelisk—a shining prismatic spire housing thousands of worshipers. Mortals, exmachina, gods, and even captured demons raise their voices in song; the Obelisk trembles, awed by the force of their faith. From this awe comes enough energy to run Jast and Qune three times over. Often, this spare power is channeled outward, to power vehicles, equipment, and even smaller mobile settlements; when Jarish is in motion, it is channeled inward. The Obelisk itself recites the Wanderer’s Prayer, praising Autochthon and begging for passage through his holy body—and consciously or not, Autochthon’s body complies. The very structure of the Maker rearranges itself to accommodate the city’s passage; even the narrowest tunnel will expand to fit it.”
• Gunstar: “From Hadal, the Solar Deliberative pilots Jarish through the Pole of Metal as a mobile theurgic laboratory, sending it to track down exmachina and perform modifications to distant parts of Autochthon’s jouten-landscape.”

Cities

Jast: 'The Golden Span.' (Metropolis, originally Jubliant Evangelist, Orichalcum caste)

• “From Evangelist’s retreat came the glorious golden city of Jast. A great bridge-city over two miles long and a half-mile wide, Jast flies over the abyss between Old and New Jarish. It is a mighty arc with four mighty towers rising from the apex of its bow. Both its gigantic rails and its spacious deck support hundreds of naturally-occurring structures: apartments, warehouses, power stations, and most of all, factory-cathedrals. The center of the deck is the Jast Strip, the most famous highway in Autochthonia. The Jast Strip runs from Old to New Jarish. In the past, it travelled through the western Reaches to Gulak and the eastern Reaches to Nurad. Now those nations are out of alignment with the great road, but when they cycle back into place, main roads in those nations lead, almost without deviation, to Jarish—a miracle unique in all of in Autochthonia.
• The rails of Jast fly from her towers to her base. Trams run along the rails and beneath the city’s main highway, aiding commuters in their trek across the city. Those in the lower trams can see down into the crystal flow that fills the chasm; those who ride the upper rails can see dizzyingly far by the glow of the light obelisk—few vantages within civilized Autochthonia provide enough light to enjoy such a view. Expeditions from as far away as Claslat and Kamak have, at times, ventured into the great fissure that begins or ends the chasm under Jast, and have been able to see the glow of the golden bridge city from as far as 300 miles away.”
• The city has crystals encrusting two of the four towers, scars from an attack by the Viator of Nullspace. Jast closed her gates and he could bust through, so he destroyed the supports and filled the pit with liquid crystal. Yet Jast survived, and a thousand years have passed since then. The crystals have been hollowed out and used as building space, worn proudly as a testament of Jast's survival.
• Gunstar: “The strange engines of the Demomorphic Recombination Array and the Transdivine Parallax Enclave are housed within the golden span of its capital metropolis, allowing the Solar Exalted to modify the souls of the Great Maker on an industrial scale.”

Qune: (Metropolis, originally Quixotic Dulcinea, Moonsilver caste)

• “The metropolis of Qune, once situated on the New Jarish side of Jast, also went through changes. The city was half-submerged, and within a decade, it disappeared underground completely. When it re-emerged, it did so at the point of the rupture Viator of Nullspace had caused to the cell wall. There Qune went through a second metamorphosis, shedding her old structures and consuming her essential core, rebuilding herself into a new and superior city. Under the shine of the light obelisk, Qune was reborn as a dam over the crystal fissure. Regulating the flow of liquid crystal through her Municipal Charms, Qune then began to spin the crystal into gleaming towers with great transparent streets that wound in and out of her spires, turning the metropolis into a multilayered crown of spires and winding roads over a mighty dam.
• Rivers of liquid crystal flow through the lowest districts of Qune, while at the highest there is the Promenade, a platform of moonsilver and steel surrounded by purple-blue transparent spires, which connects the rest of Qune to the precipice on which New Jarish stands. By day, Qune is directly under the glow of the light obelisk; by night, light stored up in its crystal spires gives the city a bioluminescent glow, tinged silver by its moonsilver base. Qune’s blazing radiance can be seen from the nearer districts of Jast, making that side of the bridge a premiere destination for lovers, and the location of the apartments of Jast’s highest-ranking officials. Qune is widely considered the most romantic city in the Octet, and a pilgrimage destination for newlywed Kamaki and Sovans.”

People of Note

Melet: High Celebrant of Jarish.

• “Short, friendly, and famous for her open smile, Melet’s warm demeanor hides a bleak and pragmatic mind. A former preceptor, she has used her disarming appearance as a weapon against the state’s enemies for better than thirty years, and continues to do so now, in the realm of international religious politics.”
• Her big thing is fabricating a revised history of three ages, with the current being faith to survive the hardship. She knows that alone will solve nothing, but it is merely a stopgap to appease the masses while they try to find a more permanent solution. A good line to walk away with is “The societies of men, she knows, are far more fragile than the body of a titan.”

Calculus of War: Adamant Investigator.

• Investigating spatial disturbances around where the Viator was banished. He believes is it is capable of escaping, but no one's prepared to invest in what is only a belief.