The Necropolis (OOC)

[Aedilred]

The Dying of the Light



Onende, the Silver Refuge


The Universal Qeyzer
Nendir the Eternal
Discretion 3
Force 4
Entertainment 2
Conviction 4

Spoiler: Summary

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Ruler: Nendir
Diversion: Kepyat
Units: 1
Mirth: 3

Spoiler: Ruler

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On seeing Nendir for the first time, seated on his throne, he resembles a colossal statue, though on approach he is little more than six feet tall. His skin is black as obsidian, his eyes somehow blacker still. There is an elfin cast to his features, with slightly almond eyes and pointed ears, and what on close examination is a slender frame, though there is something massive about him. The statue-like impression is reinforced by his stillness: in audiences he seems rarely to move, even to blink. When he does move, it is with deliberation and certainty of purpose. Those who have seen him in battle would observe that this tendency continues there: there are no superfluous moves, merely precise and terrible strikes.

Some say he is the son of the greatest hero of a dead world and of a fell sorceress. His people worship him as a god, the defiant light that holds the darkness at bay. Only Nendir himself and his closest associates know how true this is. It is by his strength of will that the District survives. While the people of the District worship the gods out of habit, he cleaves to the following of Sadukah and Jagonagir with a private fervour that borders on the desperate. There is no Great Fire to preserve and protect: there is only him. Nendir alone stands between his District and the abyss.

It remains to be seen whether there is anything he will not do for the sake of his people and his District.

Spoiler: Geography

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The core of the district is what resembles a huge ship, a cathedral the size of a city, fallen from the sky and, breaking its back on the valley walls burst open to reveal a host of smaller buildings. Making one’s way down through the valley, one finds that these smaller buildings are often themselves the size of palaces.

It is none of these that is likely to arrest the traveller’s first impression, however. All colour has been drained from the district. The light is in places harsh, glaring a bright white from marble and plaster almost painful to the eye, casting shadows of the deepest black, where it seems no light could ever penetrate, and in other places soft, rippling on a silk dress or velvet curtain - but never does it impart any colour.

After passing through the Gates of the Martiya, the traveller presses onwards towards the spires of the central district, along boulevards and through winding alleys, surrounded all the while by high arched walls and colonnades, here and there passing into a plaza, often with six sides surrounding a fountain or decorative feature. These plazas and the features they contain may have fallen into ruin, covered in debris from damaged or collapsed buildings nearby, but the inhabitants seem to pay this no mind. Where space permits, a shrine or statue may appear by the side of the road. Some of these are obviously venerated, with fresh offerings and candles, while others are neglected; statues may have limbs broken off, or even everything above the knee. If the traveller can decipher the monumental script on the bases, the traveller might even be able to discern some of the names of these entities.

A map of the district (not that any exist) would chart various quarters: Lamadyr, Roan, Avali… but many of these would pass without distinction to the traveller. If the unwary trespass into Essera they might regret it, but visual distinctiveness between most quarters has been lost with the increasing dilapidation across the district as a whole.

As they approach the city’s core, they may be able to make out, in the same monumental script, the letters, forty feet high, high on the face of the buildings above them to their left: S--N-D--R: any others to fill the gaps long since lost to time. Turning right immediately here will bring one to the University Quarter, whose students may even still make a token effort to mix scholarship with their habitual debauchery. As one enters the cleft in the core, to the right is Lagassa, marked by its impossibly tall spires, many of which retain the ancient beauty said to once have made men weep. Assuming they do not turn to their left into the royal quarter so marked and seek an audience with Nendir himself, they will pass on between the two halves of the great edifice, where the valley walls seem to close in, spires reaching on either side what seems like miles upwards, until finally they emerge beyond, to where the dense buildings give way to a gentle slope down to a seafront.

To the right is Farbenza, the more glamorous quarter, although like all the city apparently fallen on hard times, where palaces cling to the valley walls above a delicate marina full of sailing vessels of all shapes and sizes. To the left is the rougher and more interesting quarter, the Beach of Whores, which despite its name is far more than a beach and is perhaps the largest quarter in the city as a whole (by land area, if not by actual living space). Here can be found almost all that a person could desire, and much that they never thought to.

Spoiler: People

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The majority of the people of the district appear very similar to humans, albeit their ears are pointed and at home their skin might sometimes be assumed to be somewhat blotchy. They may refer to themselves as “elves” or “onende” but do not seem to give a great amount of consideration to the fact. A distinction might be observed between the people of the city proper and those who live in the forested hinterland in the valley walls upriver, who tend to be larger and bulkier, but this seems to matter nothing to the people themselves. Should they ever venture into a district where light sources provide actual colour, however, the reason for their blotchiness will become immediately apparent and their resemblance to humans will fade, for their skin is brightly coloured, in greens, blues, purples, reds - rarely outright black (although such is not unheard of). They tend to be sparingly clothed, but what clothes they do wear somehow rarely clash with their skin tones, a mystery that perhaps only they could explain, if they cared to.

The second group are the goblins. They stand around four to five feet tall at the maximum, and have the prominent ears, bulbous nose and large eyes one might expect of a goblinoid people. As time has gone on, they have tended to form the district’s creative core, and produce the bulk of its entertainment output in some form or other.



Harpies inhabit the spires of Lagassa and the Yerkir, the “harpy quarter” (although people of all kinds live there) on the upper reaches of the valley slopes. In the lower-lying quarters occasionally a structure like a large dovecote might be seen on the roof, indicating that the building was at one time, even if not presently, a harpy residence. The harpies are one of the more energetic groups in the district, and being almost exclusively carnivorous, have a tendency to cause problems when their boredom or desire for new experiences leads them to attack other residents for food. Rumours of illegal goblin hunts conducted by harpies never quite goes away.

The remainder are the Free People, a cosmopolitan human group which has over time absorbed various smaller populations, be they from outlying colonies, refugees or groups not large enough to sustain themselves in the city, and which has formed a sort of identity of its own, one largely reflected in the character of their quarter - the Beach of Whores. If someone is looking to lose themselves, whether for safety from a pursuer or merely in leisure, the Free People will always accept newcomers.

Spoiler: Diversion

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All manner of sports, games and entertainment are available within the city, from sailing races to fighting pits to gambling dens, but the most distinctive, and popular, such diversion is the game of Kepyat. It is a bat-and-ball game which in its “pure” form takes several days to play, and draws large crowds who can immerse themselves in the contest and thus stave off tedium for almost a week at a time. (Those who claim the game is itself tedious have no culture or taste, and are moreover doomed in the world of the Necropolis, for they will struggle to find anything else to occupy their attention for so long so unproductively).

While the sport is played at all levels, the highest and most popular is the quarterly championship, decided between teams from each of the fourteen eligible quarters (Essera never submits a team) in a league format.

Some time ago, an enterprising individual endeavoured to “make the game more exciting” and “broaden its appeal to foreigners” by dramatically shortening it and changing many of the rules. He was able to put on one demonstration game of this new version - the “Fivescore” - before anyone stopped him, after which he was flayed alive in Tempest Plaza and then beaten to death with Kepyat sticks. It was an occasion which drew a larger crowd than the exhibition match had itself, and one that people still talk about to cheer each other up.

Spoiler: Conviction

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There are forty-two gods followed in the District, organised according to the sixfold elemental nature of the universe, and the product of millennia of accretion and syncretism from and of various belief structures, with lesser gods folded into major ones, portfolios overlapping or falling by the wayside, and all the internal consistency that that implies.

The gods are:

• Nendir, Defier of the Dark, god of light
• Asurah, the Ambassador of Morning, the Morningstar
• Larutir, the Silver Spear, god of courage
• Nanah, She Who Endures, goddess of the Moon
• Elarendeh, the Illumination of Heaven, the Evenstar
• Sabukah, She Who Watches in the Night, god of hope and the Sun
• Dinarah, the Silver Coin, goddess of prosperity
• Alyssa, She Who Reigns with Her Left and Rules with Her Right, goddess of night
• Nepireh, the Dark Sister, goddess of the Moon
• Lembal, god of the wilderness
• Susinir, god of judgement
• Nabir, god of wisdom
• Alkabir, god of prophecy
• Nisu, god of scholarship
• Arursha, goddess of the World
• Zeminur, god of earth
• Ninurtir, Lord of the Near and Nigh, god of law
• Renadra, Who Sees in the Shadow, goddess of music
• Chera, goddess of dance
• Essun, goddess of family
• Laimah, goddess of marriage
• Nanumir, the Divine Stallion, god of the ocean
• Abazir, god of springs and water sources
• Napatir, god of rivers and streams
• Varunal, the Slayer, god of violent and undeserved death
• Hathal, the Horned Serpent, god of storms
• Lumisand, the Wyrm Below, god of life and chaos
• Alkam, the Ravager, god of warfare and destruction
• Therzir, the Divine Twin, god of the people
• Zithir, the Divine Twin, god of the people
• Sasha, goddess of fertility
• Amblika, the Spider, goddess of protection
• Sharamayah, She Who Weeps, goddess of mercy and compassion
• Rendinir, the Huntsman, god of hunting and archery
• Turanda, goddess of love
• Jaburah, goddess of the Underworld
• Lelaneh, goddess of death
• Yamaneh, Guardian of the Underworld
• Jenehuntir, guide of souls to the Underworld
• Nanshah, goddess of justice
• Jagonagir, the Fire That Died
• Targizir, god of the ancestors

The principal god in day-to-day life is Nendir, but within the palace are huge private shrines to Jagonagir and Sabukah, who Nendir himself considers the deities of primary importance to the survival of the District.