The people of Ik'Thulu have no wings.

[Xhin]

Quick Note

Feel free to jump in and ask questions at any time. I'll continue making longer descriptive posts over time, but I'll also answer any questions along the way.

The people of Ik'Thulu have no wings.

To be fair though, they don't have the level of technology that the Pivotians do. The way the Ik'Thulu people use Gems and Sympathetic Metals is a lot more rudimentary, though somehow they've mastered the art of Waterfalling and they know the islands and what's in them far better than even the most highly trained Pivotian.

The world is a void, a bottomless depth lit by a dim ambient purple light and the occasional Wandering Sunshadow which gives it Day. Floating in this vast purple void are islands of stone and metal with enormous Turquoise cores -- gigantic prismatic shapes that jut out from the top and bottom of the island, slowly eroding in the endless purple void.

Each island is borne on the Tortoise Wind, a slow current that brings it from the wall at the edge of the world (known simply as "Edge") to the wall of scalding water at the other edge of the world (known as "the Sea") over the course of a couple human lifespans. As best as Pivotian instruments can tell, these Walls are infinitely vertical and are just part of the strange geometry of this place. Anyone venturing into either wall has never returned -- although to be fair older expeditions couldn't exploit Worm Gates to read infinite data. A newer expedition is being put together to do exactly that, crewed by some combination of brave souls, arrogant scientists and the certifiably insane. The leader of it -- Lakjos -- is probably all three. He's one of those weird ones that doesn't quite fit into either Pivotian culture and no one knows where he's from either. He could be an Ik'Thulu for all anyone knows.

Your islands are made of stone and metal at their core, but they're seeded by successive layers of plants -- the Axeroot trees of course seed first, digging through the hard layers of rock, and rotting their top layer of roots into the mulch that everything else seeds in. The Axeroots grow tall and fast like vines, shedding branches at each successive stage until they resemble winding snakes that jut out from the landscape with thin layers of foliage on top. Below them you get more normal forest-fare trees (which again grow like vines), though depending on the composition of rock and mulch you might instead get cactus-analogues or tall mushrooms that unfurl during the purple Night.

During that first year, there will be a time known as The Bloom when all the plants spread flowers and fruits in unison. Most of the color palette here is red, and animals on neighboring islands will know it's time to move in. The Birds will come first of course -- unlike the people of Ik'Thulu, they have wings and can simply fly over to the new island. The Drakes, Bears, Vulun, Garmak, Fish, Frogs, Insects, Crocs, Monkeys, and 'Furs meanwhile have laid or starved into their eggs which wait in one of the rivers for the First Pull to bring them in. The Ik'Thulu, who know how to change the flow of the river, can delay this and collect the helpless eggs for easy food and their Bloom Feast -- though granted new island events don't happen all that often.

Sometime that first year after The Bloom (but before the Sunshadows invert) the Agate in the new island will pulse, and the rivers of the surrounding islands will be drawn towards it in horizontal waterfalls. The eggs will be drawn to the new island, hatching into new creatures of every type and starved mature creatures to guide them. The Crocs and Garmak are known to fight and eat one another for a while, quickly gaining sustenance and strength but dwindling in number so they can spread out over the island and hunt the other creatures peacefully. Despite also being carnivores, the Vulun, Drakes, and some of the 'Furs don't do this and have to act more like scavengers for the first couple years in Croc/Garmak territory.

The Ik'Thulu are on a different schedule entirely. They will freely roam the islands, steering Waterfalls with Agate and Inverted Agate, making dangerous (without wings) journeys to other islands as needed. They will typically keep their settlements on one main island until it Falls and slides into the Sea, but they roam widely around the other islands, collecting rare resources and settling disputes (through bloodshed, usually) with the Nal'Tek. The Ik'Thulu also maintain Trading settlements near Pivots and especially near Pivotian islands.

Continued in next post.

[Xhin]

Pivots

While large islands are borne by the Turquoise Wind to their ultimate Fall and doom, there are some smaller islands known as Pivots with Charged Agate cores (with a reasonable amount of Brightstar groves surrounding it) that stay fixed in place. These Pivots are very small compared to Islands -- an Island might be about 10 miles across in diameter while a Pivot will be at most about half a mile, and sometimes you'll see Pivots which just have their Charged Agate core (about the size of a skyscraper) with a thin ledge of island jutting out from it. The Pivotians have theorized that Pivots were once normal-sized islands but have simply eroded over time. The Ik'Thulu have other beliefs, but are forbidden by the Nal'Tek to share much of it freely. Some of their bloodiest and drawn-out wars (which even spilled over into Pivotian cities) came from revealing some of those beliefs, which seem really innocuous at first glance:

* The Tortoise savors its meals. -- This belief, when revealed to the Pivotians, made the Nal'Tek so enraged that they abandoned their own main settlement to camp near the Ik'Thulu one until they could fully burn it to the ground, slaughtering or scattering its inhabitants.

* King Vulun married a Sunshadow -- This belief was accidentally slipped when one of the Ik'Thulu was discussing their mythology with a visiting Pivotian. A band of Nal'Tek were unfortunately nearby and actually witnessed the slip in person (the first one they only learned about later). This was such a gross violation that another Ik'Thulu immediately drew his scythe and beheaded the speaker, but the Nal'Tek still killed him, the visitor, burned the village down to the ground and then started a generations-long war against both the Ik'Thulu and Pivotians. By the end, both sides of the conflict were so exhausted that their next generations actually overthrew their leadership and maintained a fragile peace (outside of disputes and occasional small territorial wars) that continues to this day.

There were also some smaller reveals that led to some smaller disputes. Much of the deep Ik'Thulu/Nal'Tek lore is absolutely forbidden to tell Pivotians, even though the biggest bloodiest reveals barely scratch the surface.

Pivotian Cities

Linked to a couple of the larger Pivots are more reasonable-sized islands, through large Agate chains (each chain link is about the size of a car) that hook in from the Underbellies of both islands. Linking an island in and stopping its passage on the Tortoise Wind is an enormous engineering project. As such, the Garmak Tribe (also known as Garmakians, not to be confused with the Garmak clade of animals) stopped building them long ago and instead expands upwards, making their Diamoc-reinforced sloped buildings reach ever farther into the sky. The Roc Tribe (also known as Rocites) instead focuses on capturing new islands and expanding to new Pivots.

Of the two, the Roc Tribe has the larger population, though the Garmak Tribe is far more technologically advanced. Pretty much every important technology you can think of was invented by Garmakians -- Worm Gate technology of course is a big one, but they also invented Ambient Lenses, Gem Chargers, Wings (though the Roc Tribe would argue they *perfected* the design) and Harp Gates. The Garmakians are also far better at building structures to take advantage of ambience fluctuations, though this is by necessity more than anything else. As a result their cities look really weird -- all sharp lines, short slopes and jutting rectangles. They're also coated with Onyx paint to pull in power from Sunshadows.

Rocite buildings are shorter, squat, and often very aesthetic and totally inefficient at geometrical integrity due to their designs. Rocite power tends to be more centralized in geometrically efficient buildings that focus Sunshadow light through Brightstar lense arrays and into either sympathetic metal wires or Quartz. Sometimes Rocite settlements won't be hooked into the main grid (or dependent on Quartz shipments) but will instead have their own smaller-scale buildings. Despite being extremely inefficient, Rocite power collection plants can concentrate far more power than Garmakian buildings. Despite their snide sense of superiority and complete building self-sufficiency (which is impressive, there aren't even any earth buildings like that), Garmakians are reliant on Rocites for Hyperquartz shipments to fuel some of their crazier scientific ventures.

Rocites and Garmakians also differ on the food they grow. Both Tribes utilize islands near their cities for agricultural purposes, but Rocites grow things such as Jadeberry or Brickwort for sustenance reasons, while Garmakians prefer sustaining on Feeders (ew!) and using their land to grow high-flavor crops such as Needle or Vu'Mak to spice things up with. Of course the Ik'Thulu think all of this is crazy when you could be dining on Pigfur or Oxfur or Monkey Egg, not to mention the objective preference for Wild Jadeberry over its blander cousin. They also have access to better spices than Garmakians but won't tell them where to find them because they think it's funny that they can't figure it out for themselves without vomiting blood and/or dying.

Surprisingly, Rocite and Garmakian governments are set up in much the same way -- since that whole giant war about the Vulun King, people can only be in power if they're below the age of 36.82 earth years (33 Island Years). Rulers tend to begin their reign in their 20's-30's, though Kid Lords aren't unheard of. Rulers are either elected by the previous set of rulers or they violently overthrow the previous set, so rulers will tend to deliberate carefully on their "heirs" to keep the peace. Sometimes local dynasties will form where a ruler will marry young and raise their kid to carry their legacy forward. Whole-Tribe Dynasties have yet to happen, though currently the Whole-Shaman leaders in the Garmak Tribe are three generations deep into a dynasty. While the Shaman branch of government has always played by different rules, there's only been a couple other times in history that it's had dynastic rule.

Next post I'll delve into some of the Pivotian technology.

[Xhin]

Sunshadows

Before going into Pivotian technology, it's important to understand what Sunshadows are.

The world is lit normally by a dim ambient purple light during a time known as Night. This ambient light waxes and wanes on a 3.5852 earth year cycle (4 Island Years) -- sometimes it's as bright as earth cities with light pollution, other times it's so dark you can't see 10 feet in front of you.

Occasionally, you'll get Wandering Sunshadows, which are spheroids about a mile above the plane where islands reside that move from the Edge to the Sea (or vice-versa). These don't move in a straight line, come and go erratically, and sometimes stop or reverse direction for no reason. They shine with a light similar to the sun and light up a decent sized sphere in the world which isn't large enough to stretch from wall to wall but will cover all the islands and a mile or two of void underneath them. Despite all the weirdness, the amount of Day is pretty much equal to the amount of Night, whether you have perfect 17-hour days followed by perfect 16-hour nights or you get five sunshadows that race across the sky for 20 hours or you get a sunshadow that stops for a whole 99-hour Triday followed by normal days where the nights are longer for a while. No matter what, things average out to around 16.5 hours of Day and 16.5 hours of Night over the course of the ambience waxing cycle.

Anyway, these Sunshadows provide light and heat (Night sure does get cold, especially if you're on one of those horrible islands where the ground is mostly metallic) but also some undescribable force known as "charge". Certain types of crystalline rocks known as "Gems" will absorb this "charge" and begin to demonstrate interesting physical properties.

Gems

There's a pretty wide variety of Gems, all with their own unique effects. Gems can be "Charged" (which means the effect is stronger) or "Hypercharged" (which is a level even far beyond that). They can also be totally depleted of charge, or "drained" in which case they need to be exposed to Sunshadow light again to be something more than pretty rocks.

Size also matters -- larger gems will hold charge for longer and drain less of it over time, which is why gem deposits are never found drained and why Pivots seem to just get stronger over time.

Below, I'll list a few of the more essential gems. I'll cover more over time.

* Agate -- These basically act like very very strong magnets, however if they're rotated 180 degrees they act like weaker magnets. If they're not Charged, you can pull the rotated Agate away from other Agate by hand, although it still takes some force (it's a bit like pulling two of those black refrigerator magnets of comparable size apart -- larger ones are harder).

* Diamoc -- This is actually a Gem Alloy of Diamond and a keratin extract from Roc Feathers. the gem Diamond reinforces structural integrity and tensile strength according to its charge, however ironically Diamond itself is very structurally weak and in its native form is seen as a thin dust that condenses on other gem deposits. To get around this, the dust is gathered and exposed to high heat in a process known as Gem Alloying and fused to Roc Feather extract. Diamoc still isn't as hard as actual earth diamond, but it takes quite a bit of force to crack it.

* Quartz -- Quartz can absorb charge without leaking it back out like all other gems. They can also emit charge in a controlled way. Worm Scanners have determined that it can't absorb an *infinite* amount of charge, but the capacity is way higher than anything the Pivotians can produce. They have also determined that whatever amount of charge it absorbs it can emit just as much all at once. Each Quartz gem has two "poles". Applying a small burst of charge to one pole will expel charge from the other pole according to the size difference of the pole. Quartz poles are thus shaped to determine what kind of power output you want to get from them.

* Onyx -- Onyx absorbs charge and emits it out the opposite side. However it can only absorb charge through one axis at a time. If you have an Onyx crystal that's passing a lot of charge through it horizontally and you hit it with a bit of charge from the top, it'll immediately stop moving the large charge and will instead focus on moving the small charge downwards. These axes can also be bent by geometrically altering the shape of the onyx -- a curved onyx crystal might have "up" and "down" in the same place but "forward" and "back" will be at 45 degree angles from each other. Garmakian buildings are set up in such a way that they can shut down the charge absorption of the entire building by running a small charge vertically through the Onyx paint.

* Ruby -- Ruby emits heat and light in all directions, depending on its charge. Hypercharged Ruby can emit some truly mindboggling amounts of heat -- enough to melt through metals or gemstones like butter. Ruby is typically covered in Putty (a mixture of oil, clay, soil, and generally roc's feather or even diamoc) with only whatever point you want it to emit heat/light being revealed.

* Brightstar -- Brightstar resembles very clear glass with a faint bright green (and a bit of yellow) tint. It can be used for lensmaking more generally, however unlike glass it can also focus charge into concentrated areas. Doing this enough times (with large enough lenses) allows you to create Charged and Hypercharged gems from Sunshadow light alone.

Sympathetic Metals

Sympathetic metals are metals that are conductive to charge. The two biggest ones are Gold, which is conductive to charge, and Silver, which is conductive to inversion (more on that in a bit). Sympathetic metals are used as wiring to carry charge over distances or through circuits.

Inversion

Every Island Year you'll have at least one Sunshadow that's inverted -- instead of emitting light and heat it will absorb ambient purple heat and light and instead of emitting charge it will emit something known as Inversion. Inversion can flow through Quartz, Onyx, Brightstar, etc in much the same way as Charge, however it will cancel out charge and can even make a depleted crystal's charge go negative. These inverted crystals tend to have opposite effects, although there's some weird variations:

* Inverted Agate -- These repel rather than attract. Oddly though, the 180-rotated version is still weakly attractive (although weaker than an Agate with equivalent positive charge)

* Inverted Diamoc -- Vibrates fast and basically makes anything it touch shake apart.

* Inverted Ruby -- More straightforward. This one just absorbs heat and light. Touching it isn't recommended if you like your hands to not be frostbitten.

* Inverted Onyx -- There's a weird property here where it can absorb charge from one side and inversion from the other, and pass them both through without them canceling out. If you interrupt this while both the inversion and charge are inside a chain of Inverted Onyx (maybe something where they're cycling around in an endless loop), something weird happens.

More to come later today.

[Raphael]

Can't think think of any more specific comments for now, but it looks fascinating - the way the entire conworld, or perhaps more appropriately con-setting, is built from the ground up, with very few things being similar to Earth, and even the basic types of available technology (and potential technology) being completely different. Great!

[alynnidalar]

I agree! I find this fascinating and love how remarkably alien it is. (and yet your posts aren't hard to follow--there's a bunch of stuff you mentioned that I don't understand yet, but I know you'll get to them eventually, so it doesn't bother me)

[Xhin]

Pivotian Technology

Next, I'll try to describe some of the technology that Pivotians use and how it's made, starting with a couple base materials that have been hinted at elsewhere:

Soil

Soil in this world is similar to earth soil -- a combination of rock particles and organic matter. Soil dulls or filters the power of Gems. Even Hypercharged Ruby, which can melt through rock or organic material individually, can be contained within soil.

Since soil is hard to manipulate or retain its shape (even when it's saturated with water), the Pivotians incorporate it into a substance known as Putty. Putty is a mixture of clay, high-organic soil, animal fat or oil (animal fat is usually more abundant). Putty can be manipulated far more easily to expose only the parts of the gem you want exposed.

Roc Feather

While the Birds in the world normally range in size from about a hummingbird to a peacock, there is also a very large bird known as a Roc that roosts in Axeroot trees. While they're built like other birds with down and larger feathers for flight, they also have large retractable feathers that serve a very specialized purpose.

Rocs are capable of synthesizing a large part of their energy needs from ambient light through those giant feathers. Whatever remnant they still need they can get from Axeroot fruits, seeds, and the small creatures that live in Axeroot foliage. Feathers that have absorbed ambient light eventually degrade over time and are shed -- so every so often a Roc has to leave their Axeroot to prey on larger creatures below in order to have the proteins necessary to make more feathers. Fortunately humans are pretty small in the grand scheme of things, and they tend to be really good at fighting back so Rocs leave them alone, instead focusing on things like Elephur, Golden Oxfur, Aleph Vulun and elderly Drakes (particularly the Snakebellies). Oddly despite being the largest, fattiest and most generally helpless, Aleph Whalefurs aren't touched. The Ik'Thulu believe that the Rocs and Aleph Whalefurs signed an ancient pact -- one to rule the night, one to rule the day. One to rule the land and one to rule the air The Garmakians instead believe that Rocs don't touch Aleph Whalefurs because their rock/metal components taste terrible. Only the Nal'Tek know the truth.

Anyway, islands that have Rocs (they're pretty sparse) will also have large piles of Roc feathers because the Rocs continuously shed them. While these feathers have degraded to where they can't tap into ambient light anymore, they're very durable, almost to the point of bones. Given their location they'll eventually be consumed by the Axeweevil, but ones that flown out on storm winds or something can persist for hundreds of years away from Axeroot trees. Pivotians and Ik'Thulu alike will break down these huge feathers (they're a little bigger than the size of a person) with rocks or inverted diamoc in industrial settings and mix the powder into other substances to strengthen it. Roc feather powder will actually make some metals less brittle, although those alloys will break down under high temperatures and because of this forming the alloy in the first place is very very tricky.

Ambient Lenses

Ambient Lenses can focus the dull purple light of Night into something more useful. They can't derive charge from it (because Charge comes exclusively from Sunshadow light) but they can derive regular light or heat from it or direct it into a Shadowfeed (which I'll cover in this section). It took the Garmakians a while to figure out how Roc feathers were doing it because all the roc feathers they could find were already depleted and the ones that were still active were still attached to a 100-foot predatory bird. Focused glass didn't work, even focused Brightstar didn't work..

Eventually though the Garmakians were able to use their glass lens arrays to study objects close-up, and that's when they discovered that Roc feathers were crystal-like lattices supported by proteins rather than just the proteins themselves. This went a long way to explaining their durability and their ability to "seed" other materials into lattices. These lattices were geometrically arranged in "branching" structures that would capture ambient light no matter how it fluctated and draw it into coils. These coils would be part of their own branches to even larger coils, eventually terminating in the central part of the feather.

While the Garmakians weren't advanced enough to make their own micro-lattices (and still aren't), they were already very good at making tiny points on Onyx/Quartz gems, so they just covered glass in those "micro-points" in similar geometric arrangements to the feather branches and were able to derive small amounts of focused light from ambient light. Combining a bunch of these with more traditional lenses and mirrors they were able to focus ambient light into beams of more useful light.

Ambient light can also be captured in uncharged/uninverted Quartz in much the same way that Gem Charging is done, although it releases more randomly somewhere along the Quartz Ring.

Given its nature and its accessibility, Ruby is a far far more cost-effective means of artificial light so Ambient Lenses aren't used for that purpose. Instead, they're used in places where Ambient Light is used to trigger things:

* Plants can use ambient light to grow. This is why they grow as fast as they do -- they're constantly being barraged by ambient light. Focused ambient light will send a plant's metabolism into hyperdrive, causing them to sometimes grow visibly -- although they're not set up for this and after a few days of this will start dying.

* Mushrooms are a better example, since unlike plants they use ambient light *exclusively*. When exposed to focused ambient light, mushrooms will quit focusing on connecting their growths and will instead expand in every direction in thin wires. When exposed to more normal levels of ambient light they will start filling in these gaps. This allows for the technology to easily form mushrooms into complex structures, which due to how easily , predictably and sterile-ly mushrooms disseminate fluid and nutrients is useful for things like Self-Regulating Waterfalls, Feeder pipelines, and Food Loops.

* Some animals and plants use ambient light to trigger different cycles / wakefulness / etc. Pivotians like to use ambient light beams as weapons (known as Nightguns) to make animals fall asleep, although this doesn't always work and the Ik'Thulu *really* hate it when Pivotians do this.

Shadowfeeds

By far the biggest use of ambient light is something known as a "Shadowfeed".

When inverted, a Sunshadow will absorb ambient light and emit Inversion. The amount of Inversion it emits is directly tied to the amount of ambient light it takes in, so whenever one of those is floating around Pivotians will beam a bunch of ambient light into it so its Inversion output is a lot higher. Because inverted sunshadows only appear during times of peak ambience, Ambient Lenses are generally used for these Shadowfeeds rather than Quartz that had captured ambient light previously. Through the use of rotating mirrors the Pivotians can track a Sunshadow as it moves across the sky, feeding it with ambience and all the while collecting inversion into Gems.

Agate Chains

Compared to everything else so far, Agate Chains are really really simple in their construction. They are however still gigantic engineering projects that tend to take generations and huge sections of the population to fully build.

First, huge pieces of Agate (car-sized) must be cut out of the landscape. This isn't that hard since Agate tends to cluster in big chunks near an island's turquoise core. Cutting is done with Charged Ruby tools, attached to larger machines rather than done by hand like they did in ancient times. Natural Agate formations have grooves or bumps where chunks have rotated to fit together more strongly, so those areas are either avoided altogether or the Agate is beamed with inversion until it quits having attractive force. Beaming it with enough inversion to make it become Inverted Agate and repel itself from the other Agate seems like it would be a good idea until you realize that the chunks of Agate are absolutely gigantic and the shape is too unpredictable so more than likely this is going to destroy your mining camp.

These chunks are then cut further so that one side is ball-like and the other side is socket-like. Making chains in this way adds a bit of flexibility for things like Seastorms or even just ambience fluctuations. These shapes are then coated with putty to prevent erosion and to make it easier to charge them.

Each island has an Underbelly, which is just a spot where the turquoise, gem groves and some pieces of rock/metal/gem jut out from the bottom. Underbellies are several miles across and heavily mined because of their exposure of gems and sympathetic metals. Pivots have an Underbelly of almost solid Agate, which has been shaped by the pivotians into balls and/or sockets to which other pieces can be fit onto. Pivots that are in heavy use will look as though they have "tendrils" or "roots" extending from their cores. These sometimes attach to islands, but others are parts of longer construction projects for islands that will be hooked in at some point in the future.

Anyway, your new pieces of cut Agate are carefully transported down to one of those roots, fitted into place and then beamed with Charge and occasionally rotated until they stick. Anything that's still exposed is coated with Putty to prevent erosion and to keep the chains from exerting attractive effects on anything else.

Whenever an Agate Chain is almost done, some final pieces will connect it to a chunk of Agate somewhere in the island's Underbelly. Depending on where it is, connecting it can actually make the island rotate as the chain stabilizes, a bit like a wound spring. Given that these are generations-long projects, a suitable place isn't chosen for these reasons but rather for wherever an agate chunk is most stable, has the best initial shape, or is the closest to the chain.

More to come.

[Xhin]

Gem Chargers

Gem Chargers are also pretty simple in their construction.

Their purpose is to focus charge into gems, either Quartz for general charge storage, or something like Ruby or Turquoise or Jade for more specific effects.

The first stage is an enormous Brightstar lens which focuses sunshadow energy into successively smaller lenses until there's a thin point of focused energy. Below all this is your gem, coated in putty with only a very small section for the energy to flow into. While gems do leak charge out their surface, most of the surface is covered and the part that isn't is being hit with a lot more energy than the gem can leak out, so it will just gain more and more charge, eventually becoming Charged.

While Hypercharging gems can also happen with this process and a long enough time, the preferred method is to focus charged quartz through Brightstar lenses instead of Sunshadow charge. Charged Quartz beams carry more charge, and as an added bonus they're already tightly focused (depending on the size of the micro-point on the output end of the gem), so the purpose of the lenses is to collect a lot of charged quartz that is beaming downwards into an even tighter and stronger beam and shine that into the crystal. Instead of taking months, achieving Hypercharging can take mere days or even hours depending on how much energy is flowing into the lenses.

Given the differences between "normal" and "charged" gems, and "charged" and "hypercharged" gems, the Garmakians naturally wondered what would happen if you did the same process with *hypercharged* gems instead of charged gems. Could you make an "Omnicharged" gem with even crazier properties? Unfortunately, hypercharged energy levels above a certain point will start to actually alter ambient fluctuations, providing immovable physical barriers that cause the beams to split and fragment.

The Garmakians are already heavily invested in researching Ambient Fluctuations (which I'll get to eventually) because they can have cascading and devastating effects in tall buildings without good geometry. So if anyone gets past the barrier to Omnicharging, it'll be these guys.

Maw Nodes, Food Loops, and Feeders

While most of the humans in the world are sane and farm or hunt their food, the Garmakians are constrained by their cramped megacity. They have a couple other colonies and research outposts, but their way of living is so ingrained that they build tall self-sufficient towers out there too. To get around the food problem, they've built an elaborate system that converts food into nutrients, stores it, and then reconverts it into flavored "mush" at a later point.

To accomplish the first step, we'll need to quickly look at the clade of animals known as Garmaks). Garmaks are unique among animals (other than humans) for their ability to give live birth, as well as the ability for wombs and digestive systems to survive long after the mother garmak has died. Garmaks in general are pretty weird though, I'll cover them in an upcoming biology update.

Provided that a Garmak digestive system / womb is fed, it will continue to pump nutrients through its umbilical cord. The Garmakians have taken this to its logical conclusion and grown large Garmak fetal structures that they continuously feed and then pipe out the nutrients from. These biological structures are known as "Maw Nodes", and they will convert food into raw nutrients which can then be piped elsewhere.

These umbilical cords are then attached to Closed Mushroom roots, which absorb and transport the nutrients and water (Garmaks don't have blood, thankfully) into other mushroom structures. Eventually they might hit a Food Loop, which is nothing more than a closed loop of mushroom fibers where nutrients/water just flow around in a circle. Food Loops function as storage for nutrients and water.

Eventually the nutrients might pass into a Feeder. There's a special kind of algae that grows in rivers and ponds on the islands. Algae already grows very fast on earth, but this kind also has the accelerated growth from being able to use ambient light, so by beaming ambient light on it and giving it other nutrients to work with, it'll rapidly blossom into a kind of edible "mush" -- this contains all the nutrients that were made previously but is also bound together molecularly in a better way and requires some actual work to digest so it ends up feeling like "food" -- albeit a bland vaguely plant-like food.

The practice of eating from Feeders and feeding Maw Nodes various organic material (Garmak digestive systems aren't picky) brings out great disgust from other human groups, but it works very well in their cramped megastructures. Where it really shines though is in scientific research -- Garmakian laboratories can truly be entirely self-contained, letting the scientists there work manically without interruption. These mushroom-based piping systems also work very well for shipping in oils, enzymes, and other chemicals, although this is surprisingly underutilized.

On the next post I'll detail Worm Gates, with diagrams...

[Pedant]

Good...grief. And nobody was interested enough in this to comment?

EDIT: I stand corrected. Alynnidalar was interested enough to comment.

[Xhin]

A woefully incomplete Bestiary

It's been a while and I've been re-familiarizing myself with my own notes, so the Worm Gate update will come later. So instead, I'd like to explain the Flora and Fauna of the world in some detail.

* Humans -- humans in this world are much like humans on earth and elsewhere in the dodecaverse. There's a reasonable mix of races and features, though Nal'Tek tend to be highly muscular and bulky given their lifestyle and customs. Lingering racial tensions have been superseded by far more reasonable Garmekian/Rocite, Pivotian/Ik'Thulu, and Nal'Tek/everyone else tensions. There are also some class issues (as well as caste issues in Garmekian society). More of these topics will be covered in later updates.

* Drakes -- also known as "Lesser dragons", "Minor Dragons", or "aleph snakes"/"aleph worms" (though those phrases have become slurs), these are one of the few sentient clades of animals other than humans. These appear a bit like chinese dragons, with between 4-10 legs (depending on the species and gender) attached to things that function somewhere in between feet and hands tipped with long claws. Unlike the Ik'Thulu, they have wings, although these are small and vestigial -- they are simply far too large and heavy for those wings to do anything besides provide balance. They're about 5-6ft tall, though their length varies considerably between species -- their torsos tend to be long and snakelike, as short as 15ft or sometimes almost a hundred feet long. Aleph drakes are the longest and have short "talons" suited for digging -- they tend to live in burrows underground, or sometimes near underbellies (though those areas are harder to dig through). Other drakes will live near water in tubes made from thatch or other plant materials known as robes. Some live in human cities, though this is rare given their xenophobic nature and inability to remain sentient without sunshadow light.

Drakes are somewhat unique in that they live entirely on light (even Rocs can't manage this). Basic survival can be accomplished through sunshadow light, ruby, and ambient light. Charge, meanwhile, provides sentience, intelligence, the ability to communicate with other sentient species, and their own really weird robetech and scaletech technologies. In Day, they're reasonable creatures to deal with (though they're usually deathly afraid of humans because of past history -- human Shamans and especially Ik'Thulu Banshees are really their only human friends. In Night though they turn into horrifying tunneling worms, or battering rams, burrowing or smashing into anything in their path. They can't be reasoned with, they can only be fought or maybe turned sentient again by charged quartz beams. The more reasonable Drake tribes thus are willing to trade with humans for charged quartz, though due to their fear of humans, the vast majority of them live on uninhabited islands.

Drakes are hopelessly mortal. There is a lot of lingering information from their progenitor species (the so-called "Major Dragons" or "Greater Dragons") that describes dragons as being immortal in one respect or another, but they simply don't have that. Try as they might, they only have ~300-350 years to live, which they lament about constantly. As they age, they slowly lose the capacity to turn light into energy and so become thinner and weaker. Near the end, their legs will atrophy so much that they become unusable -- leaving them to slither around like nonsentient snakes. These "snakebellies" are in a miserable state -- sentient but unable to do much with it, even their ability to communicate hopelessly compromised. Snakebelly suicide is common given that this process can take almost a decade before they die. As such, Drake technology is keenly focused towards prevening this and/or achieving some kind of immortality -- given their sometimes 20 hands, they would probably be drastically superior to even Garmekians if their scientists were focused elsewhere, but the constant knowledge that their progenitors had immortality and they're doomed to die keeps them focused on their goal.

* Crocs -- Crocs (not to be confused with Rocs) are the name given to the various reptiles in the world, all of which resemble crocodiles in some way. All crocs are predatory, though their size determines whether they're going to be feeding on insects or 'Furs -- they range between very small (like an inch across) to the size of bears (those are absolutely terrifying though fortunately rare), depending on their age and species. One species known as "snakes" or sometimes "lesser drakes" is unique for having vestigial legs and a long torso, though it still has the long jaw associated with crocs -- this species likes to slither through holes and capture burrowing creatures such as Molefur, Axeweevil, or especially Deepmites. Despite their similarity, Drakes aren't even remotely related (they're as alien to the world as humans), though it's believed that drakes were modeled after snakes.

* 'Furs -- 'Furs is the name of a large clade of many different mammal-analogues. The names given are which creature they most resemble -- Oxfur for example look like bison (if bison had three legs and scales), Elephur have large ears and prehensile noses (though they also have prehensile tails and similar flaps on their torso that help them fly. Okay maybe humans aren't so great at naming things.). Pigfur at least actually fully resemble pigs, and even taste a lot like them. They're also the size of small dogs, breed like rabbits, and are docile.

'Furs are so named because they actually have thick fur, though this is sometimes paired with scales, feathers, or rock/metal exoskeleton-like structures (whalefur come to mind here). This fur will stay close to the body during Day and will expand during Night to capture ambient fluctuations as an extra source of energy. This also makes them look somewhat menacing, though most 'furs are docile. Like Monkeys, Furs tend to be herbivores, though there are a few that predate on fish, frogs, insects, small versions of other creatures, or eggs. Furs refuse to eat other Furs, and fortunately for humans, they recognize humans as Furs and won't eat them either, though they'll absolutely scavenge on them if necessary. They will sometimes act aggressively if you don't have hair, but tend to course-correct as they get closer. They'll also act aggressively around their nests.

'Furs tend to be dark brown, dark purple, or black to maximize the amount of ambient light they capture, but almost each species has a Golden variant. Instead of doing the usual taking-lots-of-naps throughout both Day and Night, these creatures will sleep through all of the Night and stay up through the entire Day, regardless of how long either one is. Since they're also docile, predatory creatures will take advantage of this and thin the herds while they sleep. Tigerfur are an exception to this, probably because they have both golden and dark purple fur

* Frogs -- Frogs is the name given to various water-dwelling creatures. Frogs resemble Crocs, but are more bulbous, squishy, live exclusively near water, and sometimes have exoskeletons to ward off predators. Frogs come in a variety of sizes -- like crocs, they can be as small as an inch across or bear-like. Unlike crocs though, this is based on gender and age rather than species -- they simply grow as long as they're able to grow, up to a certain point, with females growing larger than males. They can also shrink somewhat -- though unlike Monkeys, Fish, and Bears this is limited to about 1/2 their full size. Those with exoskeletons (like the Tortoise) will somehow make their exoskeleton shrink as well -- it's believed that they release enzymes to break the rock/metal down. The Garmekians have been trying for decades to isolate these (because of their immense use in carving underbellies), but have so far been unsuccessful.

* Fish -- Fish are basically just frogs that don't have legs and live entirely in water. Much like frogs, they have various sizes depending on age and gender and they can have exoskeletons as well. Like Monkeys and Bears, fish can shrink as they starve, almost without limit. Unlike Monkeys and Bears though their egg-forming and starving processes are the same, so when the time comes to move to a new island, ponds and lakes will become virtually empty as the fish in it all starve until they're tiny eggs again (aside from the females who lay their young first). Fish are also unique in that they're able to grow without limit as long as there's enough food available -- some truly monstrous fish have been spotted in Malachite Lakes -- the Maw of Heaven's Edge for example, reportedly once ate a roc that had swooped down to grab a large bear-sized frog. Needless to say, the Rocites of that colony quit fishing soon after that.

More to come

[Xhin]

The rest of the bestiary

* Bears -- Like monkeys, bears were originally considered 'Furs (being called Bearfurs and Monkeyfurs respectively), however there are some large differences between the two clades. For one thing, bears will absolutely eat other 'furs -- they're omnivores, but they greatly prefer 'fur meat to frogs and will avoid insects and eggs altogether. This will sometimes include humans as well, so much like Vulun they've been ruthlessly hunted almost to extinction on inhabited islands. The Ik'Thulu have similar policies, however the Nal'Tek prefer to stay close to their Eye Shrines and leave the rest of the natural world alone. The treatment of bears and especially Vulun (who the nal'tek have befriended to some extent) is one of the major points of conflict between the Ik'Thulu and Nal'Tek.

* Monkeys -- Monkeys are basically just bears that live in trees (especially Axeroot trees). Much like Bears, they're aggressive towards other 'Furs (including humans). They'll also actively go on campaigns of violence against anything in their tree territories, despite being obligate herbivores. Coordinated monkeys are capable of doing damage to rocs, though they're not usually that stupid. They'll also avoid attacking humans for the most part, unless you eat too many of their eggs. Monkey eggs are an absolute Ik'thulu delicacy (and heavily traded for in Pivotian cities as well), but their tendency towards self-sacrificing violence has made the Ik'Thulu careful to only poach *some* of their eggs. The Nal'Tek do something similar, but use the eggs in Drowning Rituals rather than eating or trading them. Meanwhile, the Garmakians try to domesticate or at the very least contain monkeys to maximize their egg production -- though they're incredibly resistive and can apparently lay eggs at will.

* Birds -- There's very little difference between the birds in this world and the birds on earth, except for the presence of gigantic Rocs in Axeroot trees. There's also quite a bit of resemblance between the features of birds and the features of Crocs, which hints that they might simply be winged Crocs (or Crocs might be wingless birds). Birds are omnivorous, however given their fast jaws they have a preference for insects, fish, frogs and sometimes 'Furs over seeds and berries. Their size seems to dictate what kind of prey they seek -- smaller birds will aim for insects, while medium-sized ones will aim for fish and frogs and only the larger ones will aim for 'furs -- though they'll freely eat other kinds of food if their preferences aren't available. Rocs are so enormous that they're able to prey on predators like Vulun without much issue, though they'll typically avoid coordinated animals like monkeys, humans, or some types of birds.

* Insects -- Much like birds, there's very little difference between insects of this world and those on earth. Insects tend to eat parts of plants and animals that are untouched by other creatures -- the Axeweevil for example will eat both the hard rock-like wood of Axeroot trees and the hard bone-like feathers of Rocs. They've been known to eat animal bones as well, though they don't stray far from Axeroot trees, which are a better source of food all around. The Shellfly will eat animal exoskeletons, though how on earth they derive nutrition from rock and metal is a mystery that probably ties into how those structures will shrink and grow. The Ang'Tel (also known as Brickbeetle) will eat the hard outer shells of Brickwort -- many brickwort farmers will actually use Ang'Tels to shell their crops for them, usually after the brickbeans have been picked. Deepmites are another weird insect that somehow derives nutrition from rock and metal. It's been suggested that they actually eat organic particles that have fluxed through the island's crust, which explains why they're so high in number on proto-malachite lakes, though flux theories are controversial. I'll cover these a bit whenever I cover Malachite.

While there's a large variety in the amount of insects, they all have very restrictive diets, sticking to their one type of plant or animal (or similar things that have dropped nearby) and dying out if it doesn't exist on a particular island. Insect eggs will sometimes be laid exclusively on or near plant seeds to maximize this, though their strategy is generally just to lay as many eggs as possible and hope for the best. As such, Fish and Frogs tend to have huge surpluses of food, which is probably why they can grow to such massive sizes.

* Vulun -- Vulun and Garmak are significantly weirder than other creatures. Of the two, Vulun have the most tame appearance -- they appear a bit like eight-legged wolves, including fur and similar facial features. If the Pivotians had found them first, they'd probably be called Wolfurs before moving into a clade of their own. As it stands though Ik'Thulu and Nal'Tek have a long history with them so the Ik'Thulu name stuck. Vulun are carnivores, and particularly horrifying carnivores at that since their extra legs allow them to move at very fast speeds and also climb trees and other structures extremely well. Their legs are short and at times almost prehensile, so fortunately they don't take on a spiderlike appearance (which would be too horrifying to imagine). Like Bears, they're perfectly willing to hunt and eat humans, so the Pivotians have driven them back (or attempted to anyway -- they're pretty good at hiding in boreholes left by things like axeweevils or molefurs). Complicating the problem of finding them, they seem to be composed almost entirely of cartilage and muscle, which means they get eaten by other stuff without leaving skeletons.

Like Whalefur and certain types of insects, Vulun have a hierarchial system of genetics where each group reproduces within its own strict subspecies, despite living in groups with other subspecies. The Vulun have four "castes", with various physical and especially mental differences:

* Gimel Vulun -- These mature quickly, are extremely small and also very short-lived (only a few years). They tend to keep Vulun living spaces (particularly boreholes) clean, coated in Vu'egh (for warmth), and will also capture small local insects and other animals for other castes.

* Daleth Vulun -- Daleth Vulun are very nearly as short-lived as Gimel Vulun, but are larger and have longer limbs (though THANKFULLY still not spiderlike). They will build and repair Vulun nests, temporary shelters, as well as carry sleeping Aleph Vulun to wherever they are needed.

* Beth Vulun -- Beth Vulun are longer-lived (somewhere around 20-30 earth years) and their purpose is to hunt and bring prey back to the nest, or to Aleph Vulun. Most human interaction with Vulun is with Beth Vulun -- they're smarter than lower castes, but not nearly as smart as the Aleph Vulun, who really only has Rocs to fear. Beth Vulun will sometimes kill Gimel Vulun or Daleth Vulun for food.

* Aleph Vulun -- Aleph Vulun don't seem to do much of anything, except that at least one is always present during Daleth and Beth campaigns. They're very long-lived (100+ years), extremely smart, and extremely good at predicting human behavior and avoiding them. They're not quite as good at predicting Roc behavior, and their larger size and immobility make them a particularly attractive prey. It's believed that Aleph Vulun are coordinating Beth attacks or Daleth building projects somehow, possibly through undetectable chemical or electromagnetic signals. Aleph Vulun are also unique for being the only caste that will breed outside a nest, but only near a Beth Vulun hunting party. They will also lay their eggs at really random places outside a nest, which tends to keep their numbers down relative to other castes.

While Pivotians and Ik'Thulu will hunt Vulun ruthlessly, the Nal'Tek don't hunt the ones on their islands, and seem to have some kind of relationship with them as well where they'll defend the Nal'Tek and their settlements. There are stories of Nal'Tek Shamans that live in Vulun nests and Banshees that ride Vulun, though if true these are probably very rare occurences -- not a single Vulun rider was spotted during the "King Vulun Married a Sunshadow" war. There were also no Vulun that fought in battles that targeted Pivotian or Ik'Thulu cities -- however there were plenty of them near Nal'Tek settlements, especially around Eye Shrines, which were basically unreachable.

* Garmaks -- Garmaks are by far the weirdest creatures in this world. They're solid black, with patches that are either soft and rubbery like that of Frogs or hard and shiny like their exoskeletons. Their shape is somewhat amorphous, though they will have at least 8 appendages at any given time, at least half of which are used for support and a kind of awkward walking. They don't have heads, eyes, or anything else sane -- they're a bit like starfish or perhaps better is a headless octopus/squid. While obviously more mobile in watery environments, they wander the land as well, using their appendages to crush and siphon nutrients from small creatures (especially insects) and plants of any kind whatsoever. They have no predators at all -- everything learned a long time ago that those appendages could easily crush and siphon them as well, especially since their amorphous structure allows them to create new ones relatively quickly. However during the first year after moving to an island, they'll fight and eat / be eaten by Crocs due to the otherwise extreme scarcity of food (neither one is really fast enough to capture birds).

Garmaks are also unique for having wombs and giving live births. They seem to be capable of gestating asexually as well, though sexual reproduction is preferred when available -- in that case there's some kind of budding that happens in the male, which passes into a female womb and combines in some way with female buds. Garmaks seem to be hermaphrodites, and particularly interesting ones that can pass half-gestated buds to other Garmaks for even more gene mixing. When the time comes to move to another island, they're capable of moving down a waterfall while mature -- their amorphous body absorbs the shock waves from the First Pull as well as the eventual crash onto the other island. Even if they do die somehow (sometimes those shocks can damage their outbound siphons), their "digestive systems" and wombs can survive independently.

Garmaks are also unique in that they lack blood or other bodily fluids -- they simply absorb nutrients through their skin, which then moves down the appendage to the "core" where it's broken down further and distributed back out or sent to the womb. Garmakians, who are extremely knowledgeable about Garmaks have discovered that areas that need nutrients will simply send electromagnetic signals to the core which will push them where they need to go. Overlapping signals tend to make appendages fuse together, while new remote signals tend to make appendages form. Overall, they're more like plants or fungi than animals.

The core is a bit more complex than the appendages. While it still lacks an actual digestive system, it's structured to have a system of layers that operate on the same siphoning principles as the Garmak's appendages to repeatedly break down nutrients into base forms. Then there's a second set of siphons that will push them out of one of the reservoirs with enough speed to fly wherever it needs to go. A lot of this seems to be magnetic and geometric -- despite their "skin" being gel-like, there's far less resistance to nutrient flow than expected.

There's a special set of siphons that don't have a return valve and flow directly into the womb. If the Garmak dies somehow, this system will still work, so they've used this to break down all kinds of organic materials into viable nutrients that can be piped elsewhere via a womb appendage known as the "umbilical cord".

[Xhin]

Some flora

Now for a (again partial) list of the flora of the world..

* Axeroot Trees -- These are notable for being the first plants on a new island, as well as being absolutely gigantic. Unlike other plants, they have a much harder role -- converting the compounds in rock into viable organic material, which then feeds everything else. They also absorb and use a considerable quantity of minerals, which gives their wood an usually hard and heavy structure. Like other plants heavily reliant on ambient light (such as Vu'Mak), their initial leaves are coated in long curls of fur. They'll then direct this into their proto-roots, which contract slowly and break through the rock like an axe. Softer fur-like structures on the roots will then absorb nutrients, and the entire plant will grow. Given their geometric fur structure and complete lack of competition, they grow very quickly, with progressively larger and larger leaves. Much like pine trees, lower branches will fall off over time, which given their size creates a huge pile of decaying organic matter ripe for other plants to grow in.

Given its extreme durability and long-lasting nature, the branch/trunk areas of the Axeroot tree (known as Axewood) is highly prized. However, Axeroot trees are guarded above by Rocs and below by Monkeys so harvesting it is very difficult. They're also quite large and dangerous, probably moreso than Agate harvesting even due to their spiralling shapes. In Ik'Thulu settlements, Axewood is cut into specific reusable pieces which are then disassembled and carried to new islands. This is traditionally reserved for Shaman houses, Night Shrines (Day Shrines are obviously made from Quartz) and Ancestors, however thanks to intensive trading some Ik'Thulu are very wealthy and will have their own houses made from Axewood. Axeroot tools, meanwhile, are surprisingly common. They tend to be passed down between generations as well.

The Rocites tend to build outposts with whatever wood is available, and much like Garmakians, their cities are built with Diamoc-reinforced Takstone, so Axewood isn't really necessary for anything -- it's a luxury building material, and due to a lot of Ik'Thulu cultural diffusion has started to be used in government buildings, monuments, and Animas, though Takstone and especially Polished Takstone are far more useful. The Nal'Tek, oddly, will build with something similar to Takstone known as Tak'Mek despite being absolutely surrounded by trees of every variety. Or, more likely, they'll just live in the Eye Shrines. When they're on good terms with the Ik'Thulu, they're willing to trade for Axeroot tools, though they don't seem to make these on their own (preferring other wood, sometimes metal, and rarely, Eyeglow tools).

* Kak'Tes -- One of those rare Ik'Thulu loanwords, the Kak'Tes is a cactus-analogue that will grow as a second-generation plant. On islands where the Axeroot trees have a particularly hard time growing, instead of trees or mushrooms, Kak'Tes will seed and grow. These are a bit different from other second-gen plants in that they're wide and will grow sideways more than they'll grow tall, absorbing whatever small amount of organic material they can. Much like earth cactus, they have sharp spines, however unlike earth cactus, these are arranged in perfect geometric formations to better capture ambient light. If you ever look at a Kak'Tes spineset up close, it looks very much like a Garmakian city. This isn't an accident -- Garmakian cities were actually designed around Kak'Tes structures. It appears to just be the best geometry for tall solid objects.

Kak'Tes is edible if skinned right -- it tastes a bit like a less sweet kiwi and is used mostly to thicken Crawbird Soup or to make a paste known as Grassjelly. It can also be mixed with Yakfur milk and Yol'Mak nectar (and sometimes the alcoholic Jadewild) to make a sweet creamy drink known as Kak'Lut. Kak'Lut is quite popular in Rocite cities, though over there they use Jadeberry juice instead of Yol'Mak.

* Mushrooms -- On islands that are unusually wet (proto-malachite lakes are a good example, though sometimes islands just come out more saturated than normal, decaying Axeroot branches will instead mulch into an almost swamplike quality, and Mushrooms will take off as the dominant second-gen plant (though trees like Waterwick can easily grow and even outpace mushrooms eventually). Mushrooms of this world are interesting in that they don't seem to prioritize themselves or even their own species -- they will freely connect filaments with any other mushroom's filaments, and even things that aren't mushrooms (garmak umbilical cords for example), sharing nutrients and water freely and growing into this large underground mass. They're also a bit like plants in that they can use ambient light. Since they can't use sunshadow light, they'll freely grow in every direction, constantly overshadowing one another in big ringed masses known as Mushroom Groves. The Garmakians have no idea how they capture ambient light -- they're geometrically smooth at whatever magnifying level they look at, though at a certain point they start to become punctuated with knobs and knob-shaped troughs. Geometrically speaking, the knob shapes should be scattering ambient light, not aligning it. Much like everything unexplained, some really crazy theories of air flux have been put forward -- the idea being that the tortoise wind blowing across the grooves creates aerodynamic currents that cause air to flux. Even in the already-controversial Flux theorist group, Air Flux groups are shamed as crazy black sheep of the scientific community. Despite this though, no one else even has a theory -- mushroom light production is just a big question mark.

* Trees -- Trees are of course, trees. In this world they grow best in conditions where Axeroots grow tall and strong and the moisture in their fallen branches isn't too high. Much like Axeroot trees, they'll shed lower branches and grow a bit like vines as well, though they don't reach nearly the heights that Axeroot trees do due to their reliance on Axeroot (and eventually their own) mulch. Notable trees include:

* Waterwick -- These have unusually soft roots that can tap into mushroom nutrient networks, as well as easily absorb water from the high-water mulch. In other situations their roots are too soft to compete with other trees, but in mushroom-centric islands they'll be the dominant tree. In some cases (when not around Mushroom Groves) they can reach enormous heights and breadths, dry the surrounding mulch, and prepare it for other types of trees who will live stunted (but alive) lives in their shadow.

* Needle -- These have very large skeletal leaves that look a bit like the veins in a normal leaf without the parts in between. They're geometrically set up to absorb a large quantity of ambient light and a surprisingly decent amount of sunshadow light as well. To prevent herbivores from eating them (gnawing near the base would absolutely devastate them, and gnawing anywhere else would mess up their geometric structure), the leaves contain a high concentration of capsaicin, piperine, and some other compounds. They taste a bit like a mix of paprika and black pepper that then immediately burns your face off -- but as a powder and diluted through mushy food they add some great flavor. Needle powder is traded for heavily, however it's also very abundant so tends to be very cheap.

* Branchwort -- an unusual tree that doesn't shed its branches and also doesn't grow tall but instead grows outwards more. These tend to grow on islands that are also home to immature Kak'Tes -- so somewhat a desert but somewhat not. Given how wide they are and how easy the branches are to reach, Branchwort is highly useful for wooden constructions. The Ik'Thulu tend to set up major settlements where a lot of Branchwort grows for this exact reason. Other advantages are less dense foliage and less omnipresent monkeys and vulun.

* Teh'Shan -- Teh'Shan trees grow best in conditions that are somewhere between Trees and Mushrooms -- rainforest-type conditions. They carry an unusually high amount of sap through multiple "pipes" that circulate at fast speed. It's also unusually delicious -- sort of like a sticky plant-based Kak'Lut. This sap is however a very recent discovery -- its outer bark is poisonous and was used in only really finely dilute amounts to treat sickness.

More to come

[Xhin]

Smaller Plants

* Xanthgrass (sometimes just "Grass") / Na'karash -- A bunch of different grass species that grow on desert-like islands. They're notable for their yellow color and their complete reliance on sunshadow light (much like Golden creatures). Like other desert plants, they grow short and wide, and tend to cover whatever isn't taken up by anything else (there's a lot of competition between Na'karash and Bramble). The difference in names is due to the Pivotians and Ik'Thulu having very different uses for the plant -- Pivotians extract the essential oil into a fragrant yellow/orange dye which is used in both perfume and as dye, while the Ik'Thulu use dried forms of it to make rope and other textiles (the crazy Karash'Thulu use it for everything including much of their clothing). There's an interesting story behind Xanthgrass -- powdered xanthite was in use for far longer as the yellow dye, but given its relative rarity and charged effects, things that were yellow were reserved exclusively for the wealthier Pivotians. Given the cultural value of yellow things, Lowfloor Garmakians were tasked with extracting yellow dye from anything they could -- things like golden fur was the obvious choice, but unfortunately those turn purple under high heat. A lot of yellow things have retained their name from those earlier experimental days -- obviously Xanthgrass is one of them, but Yakfur fur is still called Xanthwool and Waterwick seeds are called Xanthbeans.

* Jadeberry -- Once again, a plant named after one of the many crystals of the world, although this time for different reasons. Jadeberry is a short bushy plant that grows well in virtually any condition outside of strict deserts. However the best species are found near water sources, particularly Malachite Lakes. These are grown heavily for sustenance -- while mildly sweet, the berries are packed with protein and even a bit of fat. Their inside is soft and sweet/rich, but their skin is thick with protein almost like muscle tissue and preserves the inside for quite a long time. Jadeberries that have had their skin partially burned are basically immortal. This semi-burning process causes the skin to flake up and look like the crystal Jade, hence the name. While the pulpy interior is more rich/protein-like, the actual juice that surrounds it is fairly sweet, so Jadeberries are juiced to sweeten things.

* Wild Jadeberry -- this is the wild version of Jadeberry, preferred by the Ik'Thulu and sometimes Pivotians as well (especially in outpost towns). They have much thinner skin, and their pulp is very skin-like as well. Not much juice either. They don't last nearly as long -- they're like more resilient tomatoes -- however you can actually reasonably bite into one instead of having to use a knife to cut it open. You can also burn the skin of these to preserve them for longer, however with the thinner skin this tends to char some of the insides as well. They also definitely taste better -- less sweet, more rich.

* Brickwort -- Another plant heavily used for sustenance, brickwort is so named because of its hard brick-like shell. Brickwort is an actual vine that grows around other trees (or in agricultural setups it's mounted on poles) and produces a large amount of "brickbeans", which are about the size of berries but oblong. Like Jadeberry, brickwort's tough shell makes it stay preserved a long time, however unlike jadeberry, the interior is more nut-like or seed-like than fruit-like. Brickwort beans that have been extracted from the shell (having some Ang'Tel go through it is extremely efficient because they won't touch the bean, though there are machines that do the same thing) can be eaten as is, or most of the time they're ground into a flour and mixed with some kind of egg (almost every animal lays eggs, so that's convenient) to make a kind of flatbread (simply called "bread"). This bread itself keeps reasonably well, though not nearly as well as the unshelled brickwort. One popular dish is known as "Icecrust" -- brickwort flatbread made with fish or frog eggs + fermented Yakfur cream + a sprinkling of needle juice. The flatbread is heated to a very high heat with ruby and the cream is continuously cooled with inverted ruby with the needle juice in between them. The place where the two meet is scooped out and served. It ends up being half-burned and half-frozen but somehow extremely good.

* Vu'Mak -- Another short and squat berry bush, this one produces white berries with extremely long gray fur that resembles Vulun or wolf fur. The berries are extremely poisonous, so much so that eating one small berry will kill you within about half an hour. The leaves are also poisonous, though more in the sense of making you break out in a rash or giving indigestion. Not that you'd eat either because they taste awful, like a mixture of rubber and nail polish remover. The bark, however, tastes like a combination of maple syrup and butter (with only a hint of rubber). It's ground into a fine powder and used on a lot of Garmakian food. The Pivotians will sometimes use it, but the rubber part of it has a bit of an acquired taste.

[Xhin]

Society, government and a touch of religion

Next, I'll outline the various human societies and their government / government issues, as well as relationships (often strained) between different human groups.

Pivotian Rule

The Garmakians and Rocites have similar government structures:

* A "Ruler" (general term) or "Lord" (if idealistic) or "King" (if experienced) or "Aleph" (if they're particularly popular) who has absolute power in perpetuity until they designate an heir, resign so the Tribe Council can elect someone else or re-elect them, or are violently overthrown. The job of the Ruler is complex and basically comes down to settling disputes in the tribe council and controlling major operations (such as agate chains or outpost building or wars) with the tribe council advising them. They can also start new operations (which Lords, particularly Kid Lords do frequently), move resources to scientific expeditions (like Lakjos and his team) and so on, though those things tend to backfire horribly and cause revolts.

Currently, a ruler has to be younger than 36.82 earth years (or 33 island years). If they want to maintain a dynasty, they have to marry young and maybe have a Kid Lord to rule when they reach 33, or just marry super young. Regional dynasties do definitely occur. The island of Tengrove Peak for example has one that's been running for 20 generations now (and they didn't always have the 33 years old limit). However, Whole-Tribe dynasties have never happened. Wise rulers know when to step down. Arrogant rulers just die before they can pass the mantle.

* A "Tribe Council" of 33 members chosen from various areas in society. This varies a LOT between Rocites and Garmakians -- Garmakians for example have most of their members chosen from various scientific endeavors (including the Flux theorists, those bastards), with the remaining 7 being a Rocite, an Ik'Thulu, someone representing outposts, a Mawhand, and whoever the Alephs of Heavenfloor, Highfloor and Slopefloor are. With the exception of the Flux theorists, the 26 scientific members vary widely depending on major areas of research and development.

Rocites, meanwhile, base their members on geographical region -- in Whole-Tribe governments, this represents individual islands sometimes of the three areas of Pivotian territory and quite a bit of Ik'Thulu and Garmakian representation. Locally, it's based on whatever the industries of the region are and/or whatever the major movements are of the time.

* A "Shaman" who serves as the religious leader, determines the composition of the council (not who is in it, just what groups are in it) and can dictate specific issues that the Tribe Council/Ruler have to find a solution to. Like Rulers, Shamans can be elected, violently overthrown, chosen by old shamans, etc. The one rule is that the Shaman cannot themselves ever commit violence. If they do, they're stripped of their power and a new shaman is elected (even if they had an heir). They also can't commit violence through other people -- not because they're unallowed but because they don't have any actual power other than ideological power. They can totally inspire others to commit violence in their name though -- this happens terrifyingly often.

There currently isn't an age limit on Shamans. They tend to be either really young or really old and don't last long in their position. Nature of the job really.

While local shamans are more consolidated (because Animas are pretty region-specific), Whole-Tribe Shamans are in a pretty precarious position because of multiple competing sects and the ever-looming threat of Shrine Worship taking off in Pivotian culture. Having a Whole-Shaman dynasty is a particularly good sign of peace -- that means the same shaman and their descendants have been in power for multiple generations

Local rule vs Whole-Tribe rule

This same structure is echoed through both local rule (usually island-specific or sometimes industry-specific) and an overall representative-of-everyone rule known as "Whole-Tribe". Garmekians and Rocite have separate Whole-Tribe governments, which is good because their cultures are completely different despite both being Pivotians.

The structure of the Whole-Tribe government is chosen from:

* The rules the Whole-Tribe Shaman sets (a wise shaman doesn't change the rules unless there's a crisis or major societal shift, an arrogant shaman is a dead shaman).

* Each sector of society or region chooses their own representative through various means (sometimes it's just whoever talks the loudest, although sometimes you'll get Alephs who are quite popular and don't otherwise have political power). Sometimes representatives are violently overthrown by other factions within that sector of society. Sometimes there are rules put in place to prevent the neverending cycle of overthrows, etc. Things can get pretty complex.

Whole-Tribe governments, the Ruler and the Shaman will all live in whatever the main city of that Pivotian tribe is.

For Rocites that would be Jade Hills -- it was First Chain for a very long time but that island's city has slowly crumbled (A lot of buildings were Diamoc-free and their Takstone was pretty rudimentary as well) and its resources are basically gone. Rocite industry moved to Jade Hills a long time ago, which is still a very rich source of the crystal Jade.

For Garmekians, their capital city is obviously Crowrod. While Blacktower is far older, Crowrod is way better suited for expansion due to its unusual island height. This has enabled the foundation for some really crazy tower constructions. Garmekians being Garmekians, their government just has to live on the Heavenfloor of a Downfork. Were it not for Harp Gates and particularly Wings (which the Ik'Thulu don't have), meetings with them would be an absolute nightmare.

Crowrod also has the most storied history of any Garmakian (and maybe any pivotian in general) island. We're talking multiple Towerfalls (sometimes within the same month), Mawhand revolts, Coordinated Underfloor strikes, Sect clashes (particularly between Knights of the Whalefur and The Roost), not to mention all the madness that surrounded the implementation of Worm Gate technology or the attempts at Omniquartz. Crowrod is a testament to the excesses of Garmakian mania -- it's a fitting place for political intrigue.

More to come.

[Xhin]

Rocite geography and industry

Unlike Garmakians, Rocites have quite a large population spread out over many islands. Their settlements range between developed and crumbling (First Chain is the best example of this, but The Brightlands is pretty ruined in its own way (largescale energy production tends to do that)) to barely inhabited and spacious (pretty much anything on the Sea Pivot is like this).

Each Rocite island tends to have some kind of industry focus that dictates its development over time:

* Mining islands -- unless they're particularly high in some kind of resource (Such as Jade Hills) , these islands won't be attached to a Pivot, but will instead just be harvested for however long until they drop into the Sea. Mining islands will *always* mine the surface-side turquoise core and especially the Agate chunks surrounding it. The island's main settlement will probably be around this operation somewhere. Sometimes an island's Underbelly will be a lot better for resources for whatever reason, and you might have the main operation there instead. Having the island's main city in the underbelly is highly unlikely though because of the inherent dangers of flying close to the Void Winds.

In any case, with Mining islands you'll have your main settlement somewhere near the surface-side core, probably one on the edge of the island facing whatever is visible, and maybe one in the underbelly. If there are multiple settlements, they'll be connected by Lesser Harp Gates, though there will probably be paths and/or bridges/tunnels as well, depending on how developed the countryside is.

* Brightstar islands -- these islands are used for expansive Charged crystal and Hypercharged crystal production. Given the space requirements, they'll always be on desert islands (it's a lot easier to clear out some bramble or kak'tes than thick trees). Aside from the ones that have been around forever (like The Brightlands), the islands chosen are the ones that have a large amount of visible Brightstar and/or Quartz, as this makes the island's development go much better.

Gem charging is a lucrative industry, so Brightstar islands tend to be occupied by multiple Clans. As such, they'll generally have their own smaller settlements near their arrays. Despite clan conflicts, these settlements are generally friendly to one another due to trade of labor and resources, so there will usually be local harp gates. On the other hand, you have the island of Seastar over on the Sea Pivot where The Roost and The Free Traders Syndicate are basically in open warfare with one another and The Roost has taken to hiding their scattered bases inside Kak'Tes.

Countryside development on Brightstar islands is unique -- by law Homesteaders have to contribute some percent of their products/services/labor to one or more of the occupying clans. They're also barred from farming (not that they can in a desert). There's been a recent trend of sending Penal Homesteaders to remote brightstar islands with high (50%+) percentages which will probably eventually cause the death of the current ruler. Despite this, brightstar homesteading is popular due to how much wealth moves through those islands, as well as the relative freedom from rules and restrictions.

* Farming Preserves -- While farming is a big part of homesteading/countryside development in general, some islands are set aside for largescale farming operations. Ones that are mostly flat (or even better, if they have multiple plateaus), low in foliage, or sometimes just ones that have been cleared away by other industries that have since moved on. Island size can play a big role too -- Heaven's Harvest for example is a large island positioned *above* the Aleph Point pivot that was chosen for its unusual size (30 miles in diameter at the widest point). It isn't particularly flat and definitely isn't low in foliage, but the size and height made it extremely worthwhile.

Around Aleph Point, Farming Preserves are owned and operated by the Whole-Tribe. Out in Sea Pivot they tend to be run by clans, and in New Roots they're run by the mercantile branch of Tortoise Saints, with the exception of Bricktown which runs itself (with occasional support by The Free Traders Syndicate of course).

* Outposts -- These islands serve some specialized role and are not developed much. They also won't usually be attached to a Pivot (Seahome is of course an exception.) The Rocites maintain outposts on the islands between Aleph Point and New Roots, as well as a few areas deep in Ik'Thulu territory (though not so far that it angers the Nal'Tek).

Outpost islands will have a settlement somewhere on the edge, but it won't be particularly big. Most of the island will be uninhabited, and sometimes even unexplored. Homesteaders have no restrictions whatsoever, but they're basically Ik'Thulu at this point because of the lack of industry and development.

* Malachite Lakes -- For reasons that I'll cover in another update, islands that have a lot of the crystal Malachite will become giant lakes very very quickly. If they're Decelerating, they'll be attached to a Pivot. If they're Stable, they'll get some development but it'll be temporary. Meanwhile if they're Accelerating, they'll be avoided altogether (though opportunistic clans and treasure-seekers will develop them and hope like hell the core doesn't liquefy while they're there (though that's at least better than the foundation liquefying)).

Malachite lakes are used for fishing. Their size and depth allows some very large fish and frogs to grow. While the meat of fish and frogs is good food and useful especially for Ik'Thulu trading, Tortoise Shells and Butterfish Oil are huge industries. Malachite Lakes will thus have their settlements around the lake, or even on Unmelts. Like Brightstar islands, Malachite Lakes tend to have competing (but friendly) interests from multiple parties. Space is somewhat limited and major movements are prioritized, so Homesteaders are required to keep their boat in one of the docks and live at least a mile away from the lake. Some of them have found a loophole where instead of that they can just live in their boat and rent Velts to transport their goods, and then rent their house out to Free Traders or Vagabonds.

More to come.

[Xhin]

Garmakian Geography

Unlike Rocites, who have a large population spread out over a lot of islands (and are constantly expanding), Garmakians have a smaller population concentrated in a few islands that have been turned almost entirely into tall megacities. In fact, their territory is so small it can be easily listed:

Aleph Point

* Blacktower -- The oldest of Garmakian cities, it has been continuously occupied ever since the Garmak Saints clan split during the Heresy of New Roots and its ensuing conflict. While some improvements have been made, the overall structure of Blacktower just wasn't set up to accomodate its rising population, so there's been a lot of migration for Lowfloor and even Midfloor Garmakians that don't want to live in the Underfloor.

* Crowrod -- Whole books could be written about Crowrod. I covered this a bit last post. It's a very tall island that has an even taller city on top of it, supported by the deepest Underfloor ever built. Its Heavenfloor class are unique for descending from Slopefloor Garmakians, and its Slopefloor Garmakians are the absolute smartest and maddest Pivotians in the universe.

* The Roost -- The headquarters of the Sect/Clan that shares the same name, and pretty much entirely owned and operated by it as well. Since The Roost is a Seeding Sect, there's a reasonable section of land set aside for a Rocite settlement that handles the Rocite branch of The Roost. However peace in recent years coupled with an expanding population has made that land a major local issue. The Axeroot Fork tower wants to claim it mostly for its sole surviving Axeroot tree, which is a sacred pilgramage site for The Roost members and Roc Anima worshippers in general.

The Roost is also notable for being the place where Wings (which the Ik'Thulu don't have) were first invented. Originally used for ritualistic purposes, the technology absolutely took over Pivotian society, giving the Rocites their name (they originally just kept the name PIvotian) and imparting a significant amount of political power into the hands of The Roost. They have since then worked very hard to maintain their influence and wealth, going so far as to start violent conflicts with other Sects and Clans.

New Roots

* Umbilicus -- Umbilicus has a rich and vibrant history based around its control by the Garmak Saints clan. Obviously the Garmakians split off due to a conflict that started here, but a lot of touchstones of Garmakian culture (like the Mawhands) started here as well. For several hundred years after the New Roots Heresy, it was a Rocite territory until the Garmak Saints conspired to gain it back. This actually ended up being very beneficial for its development as new architectural processes have allowed for a lot more expansion over time. Due to its closeness to Ik'Thulu territory, Umbilicus was enormously valuable to Garmakian trade, and brought in many new spices from abroad. If they hadn't been so religious, they could have easily become the capitol Garmakian society. It's probably a good thing that they didn't though because Umbilicus was absolutely annihilated during the War of the Vulun King. There has since been a lot of rebuilding, but a much of the island's character and traditions have been lost. The Garmak Saints are also very obviously outcompeted by The Roost.

* Earth's Maw -- The least developed Garmakian city, it was originally a Rocite outpost that was taken over by a long-lasting Mawhand revolt in Umbilicus. While that revolt was eventually put down, Earth's Maw was highly defensible so the Garmakians left it alone. Earth's Maw is unique among Garmakian cities for having a very very loose caste system. Given its societal values and remoteness, it has a very strong alliance with the Free Traders Syndicate, which is why it has any influence at all in Garmakian society. Ever since the Garmakian shaman demanded that there be a Mawhand in the Tribal Council (mostly as a result of what happened in crowrod) it's been on good terms with Umbilicus again, which has spurred a new wave of development.

Sea Pivot

* Heaven's Edge -- Heaven's Edge is a Heavenly Malachite Lake attached to the Sea Pivot. While the territory is officially Rocite, the Garmakians maintain two sizable scientific outposts -- one in the underbelly to safely study Void Winds and Sea Cycling and one on the surface to study Empyreal Winds, Seastorms and more recently the gargantuan fish that lives in the lake. Due to the aptly-named Maw of Heaven's Edge, the Rocites have mostly abandoned the island, though there are of course treasure-seekers and opportunistic clans.

* Seahome -- Seahome is an island extremely close to The Sea -- so close that you can see Ripples and Orbs. Both Rocites and Garmakians have sizable outposts here for scientific purposes. They're on very good terms with each other as well -- sharing food (which breaks all kinds of cultural customs), living in each other's outposts, freely trading information, and more recently, jointly organizing Lakjos's expedition into the Sea and convincing their respective governments to give them the resources to carry it out. The place where The Flying Fish is being built is rapidly turning into a settlement in its own right -- a particularly unique one populated by both Rocites and Garmakians.

Ik'Thulu Territory

* Katar Nen -- Like the Rocites, the Garmakians keep an outpost on whatever island the Ik'Thulu have their main settlement on, which is currently Katar Nen (roughly translated as "Eggs in abundance" or "Feast of eggs"). Since having a bunch of tall towers on an island that's constantly threatened by the Nal'Tek and Rocs is a really really stupid idea, the local Garmakians like to refer to their city as "Katar Dolash" (which roughly translates as "Feast of disasters" or "goddamn it don't build a bunch of fragile towers in ik'thulu territory"). The towers are at least close to the Core and heavily reinforced.

* Highshrine -- The Nil Saints keep a secret outpost in a heavenly island right inside Nal'Tek territory. While they're Garmakian, they very definitely aren't authorized by any Garmakian government and their activities are probably going to start another generations-long war.

More to come.

[Xhin]

Garmakian Architecture (with diagrams!)

Garmakians build their cities in such a way that their towers can capture and redirect Ambience Fluctuations into energy. The basic idea is to set their structures up in such a way that the energy from these fluctuations is redirected geometrically all into a few well-supported areas. Otherwise at the height their towers are, these fluctuations would have dramatic cascading effects that would hit their towers at random chaotic directions with Ambience Pulses (APs for short), easily toppling or destroying them. As an added bonus though, this energy can be collected and used to power almost everything in the towers (and since they're mad scientists at heart, their energy requirements are high).

While there are multiple designs for Garmakian cities (some of the newer constructions in Crowrod try to create helixes of current rather than straight lines), in this post I'll outline one of the earliest and most common designs, which inadvertently led to the Garmakian Caste system (which should be covered in the next post).



This basic construction is composed of four buildings, two large buildings on the outside known as "Downforks" and two smaller branching buildings in the middle known as "Upforks" or "Trees". The entire four-building construction is known as a "Tower" and is linked together anywhere where there aren't slopes -- used to be by bridges but these days Wings (which the Ik'Thulu don't have) make inter-tower travel much easier.

The height varies somewhat -- the forks that are sticking down that come off the Downforks need to come down as far as possible or the naked structure of a tall building will cause APs. However these structures tend to unbalance Downforks, which is why they're thick. So you can just make your Downforks thicker to accomodate taller towers, though that will mess up your Secondary Channels after a while. The whole thing is complicated, requires a lot of pre-planning and creativity, and is absolutely disastrous if not set up right. Sometimes Towers are so precariously balanced that minor shockwaves can cause the whole structure to come crashing down (known as a Towerfall). It's one of the reasons the Slopefloor caste has as much prestige and political influence as it does.

Anyway, while you can certainly have single towers, which you'll see on Garmakian outposts such as Katar Nen, if you want a larger energy production, it makes sense to arrange them into shapes like this:



Here the downforks are actually reinforcing one anothers' energy currents, creating much stronger and ethereal Secondary Channels. I'll attempt now to (briefly) show how these constructions work:

Primary Channels



Here's a depiction of the actual Primary Channels. As you can see, they're geometric, and based around the underlying shapes that the towers are making. Primary channels can't flow through solid matter, so ignore any area I may have done that accidentally. All three Towers are making these channels -- I just am only showing some of the effects on the outer two towers. This right here alone gives enough energy -- you can collect AP energy anywhere where those lines terminate. There's also a technique of collecting some energy from the intersection of two primary channels known as "Corner Pocketing" (or CP energy), however it's much more limited.

Secondary Channels



Here you have Secondary channels outlined in green, which are also based on underlying geometry, though in this case it's an overall holistic pattern based on what your Primary channels and overall building shapes are doing.

Instead of moving energy, Secondary Channels will redirect the occurence of ambience fluctuations themselves somewhere. These channels can also move through solid structures, which is highly useful. As you can see here, the secondary channels are feeding back into primary channels (which just reinforces them and improves CP energy output), out into the air, into the ground, and you also have 8 channels feeding into the middle.

The way these primary and secondary channels flow are almost entirely responsible for the Garmakian caste system. While I won't cover that just yet, here's a good depiction of what they look like:

Garmakian Floor Plan



* Heavenfloor -- This floor has access to (3) primary AP channels (1AP) and (4) Corner Pocketing nodes (1CP). Total Ambience = 3*1 + 4*1/3 = 4.33TA

* Highfloor -- This floor has access to (8) secondary AP channels (2AP). I know it looks like two of them stop in that middle area, but there's some artificial geometry built there to make it continue on into highfloor. Total Ambience = 8*1/2 = 4TA

* Midfloor -- This floor has access to (2) 1AP and most of the time (2) 2AP as well. Total Ambience < 3TA. While 3TA is ideal, there are some issues down below where the fork ends. With longer forks you get closer to 3TA, but with longer gaps you have to divert more and more power to preventing stray pulses. To compensate, Slopefloor will sometimes divert some of their own power

* Lowfloor -- This floor has access to (2) 1AP. However in modern times one of those will go to the Underfloor instead. Having your power go out in Underfloor because someone on the Lowfloor got overzealous is a great way to start revolts. Total Ambience = 2TA.

While it looks like Heavenfloor should have access to some 2AP, allowing it to instead spill out into the air is safer for a bunch of really technical reasons which I'll cover later (I'm definitely going to revisit this topic).



Anywhere where there's a slope connecting a building to a fork is a region known as Slopefloor. Cumulatively, Slopefloor has access to (5) 1AP and (6) 1CP, for a total output of 7TA. They're a very interesting caste due to this -- they wield a lot of power over other castes just from distributing energy around, however slopes are quite fragile so they can't do much scientific work outside of this. I'll cover some of that in my next post.

More to come (obviously)

[alynnidalar]

Another post to say I've been continuing to find this quite interesting, and I particularly enjoy the diagrams. Explains a lot about what's been implied so far about the caste system. (and why they can have these tall tower cities when things you've already mentioned makes tall towers seem... impractical)

[Xhin]

Thanks for the feedback! I plan to continue this for a long while.

A (basic) look at Garmakian Castes

I've covered a bit of where the Garmakian castes are located and where they came from, but now I'll cover some of the more practical aspects of them:

Your three basic classes are the Lowfloor, Midfloor and Highfloor. These have a very progressive structure to them -- the best scientists in the Lowfloor will be promoted to the Midfloor, and those with the best discoveries and technologies will be promoted to the Highfloor. There's also a lot of age-based progression as well -- not everyone will be promoted when they're younger, but the oldest Garmakians are universally going to be in the Midfloor and Highfloor.

Each tier has a certain amount of control over lower tiers -- Highfloor groups for example can pass smaller-scale problems off to Midfloor, and they in turn can pass whatever they don't want to do off to Lowfloor to work on. In return for taking a contract from a higher tier, you'll get a guaranteed amount of their ambient power (The acronym here is HTA, which is related to TA and I'll explain in a later currency update) for your own projects. This process tends to happen on a group basis -- each tower is quite large and each floor houses many different (and sometimes competing) groups. While there's a lot of Clan activity too, the main social structure operating these are Theorists, which I'll get to in a later update.

As I pointed out in the post above, Highfloor has at least a 1TA lead on Midfloor, and Midfloor has a 2TA lead on Lowfloor (used to only be 1TA, which they're not happy about, but at least they have class mobility so not many revolts there). Highfloor is also heavily networked with Slopefloor and Heavenfloor, so while they officially have 4TA, the average is more like 7-8TA and sometimes as high as 13TA.

Pretty much all of your major Pivotian technologies were invented or perfected within those three floors -- Wings (which the Ik'Thulu are missing) are of course a very notable exception, having been created in the Heavenfloor of The Roost.

The Heavenfloor

Above the Highfloor is the Heavenfloor, which houses the various administrative centers of a Tower. Throughout every section of a tower you'll have Clan and Anima and just government presence, but the actual base of their operations happens in the Heavenfloor. The Heavenfloor thus functions as a sort of mini-capitol, and it will always be where the actual capitol of an island is located. Heavenfloors have an impressive 4.33TA, which they use almost entirely on maintaining Vast Gates to transport large quantities of goods which can then be distributed along the tower. There are also Harp Gates set up at various points inside a city to connect to other islands -- these are also in the Heavenfloor.

The Slopefloor

Anywhere that there's a slope in a Tower design, or just anywhere that a Tower connects at a crucial point (for newer designs) is a place that the Slopefloor caste occupies. This caste is highly educated, very creative, somewhat isolationist, and quite mad. Their overall goal as a caste is to maximize the energy production of everything, distribute power where needed to prevent disaster (or gain favor), and to experiment heavily with new building designs and techniques. They will also contract a good bit of work out to the Highfloor, which is why the Highfloor can have such a high proportion of power sometimes.

Slopefloors of a tower are typically connected together in a Fast-Cycle Lesser Harp Gate (Also known colloquially as a "Vulun Gate" -- a tongue-in-cheek reference to the equally sarcastic "Tortoise Gate" found in outposts) to speed up internal communication -- While flight doesn't cost as much power (or any at all actually), sometimes extremely fast connection is required to mitigate problems. While there's a kind of proto-electronic communication known as The Daleth System, it's generally safer to just have people known as Sparrows communicate back and forth and relay things to whatever the control room is. Incidentally, putting a harp gate in a control room is a terrible idea, as a historic event known as the Fall of Golden Isle proves.

The Underfloor

Towers in Garmakian cities aren't just free-standing, they have extensive "roots" that dig down into the surface, which provide some much needed stability, though the spread of those roots varies a lot (sometimes stability is actually a bad thing -- you want your towers to wobble somewhat on large scales to be more resistive to AP shocks). Because it is technically building space (and space is precious), some Garmakians will live in these roots -- this is a caste and location known as The Underfloor.

Because it's embedded in solid rock/metal, the Underfloor can't create its own power -- it can't even pull in basic power needs from sunshadows because it's entirely underground. So instead, it's either reliant on the Lowfloor or in modern times it might have its own dedicated 1AP. As a result, very little scientific development is done down here, and the Industry that does occur is heavily regulated and made as efficient as possible. Many people in the Underfloor will therefore rent themselves out to other floors and/or the groups operating their industries via things known as House Contracts -- some amount of (usually rote) labor in exchange for some amount of guaranteed HTA, which can then be used or exchanged for other goods/services as needed. With enough HTA, you can purchase your way into the Lowfloor. With even more, you can enjoy one of the lavish apartments in the Heavenfloor. Both are these are pretty rare though, and the Underfloor caste is usually the most stagnant. Things might be turning around these days though.

Up until recently, the Underfloor was given its basic power from the Lowfloor. However, when Worm Scanners were being developed, power requirements were often unpredictable and Lowfloors would often use their entire TA in single shots, shutting the power off for those in the Underfloor repeatedly. This eventually got so bad that it caused the Deepcrow Revolts -- a nasty strike-turned-civil war between the Underfloor and the other floors, with a lot of external Clan aid (Knights of the Whalefur actually admits it too). Finally, the Garmakian whole-tribe King settled it by decreeing that one of Lowfloor's 1AP should go to the Underfloor. A lot of Underfloor Garmakians profited immensely for contracting out for the labor of this undertaking -- a couple of them are currently sitting in the Heavenfloor of their respective towers, though that's probably a story for another time.

Mawhands

As I explained earlier, Garmakian cities are fed almost exclusively with a distributed Maw node/food loop/Feeder system.

A long time ago, there was a group of people known plainly as "Mawhands". Mawhands maintained the infrastructure of these feeding systems and were also responsible for feeding them. Much like the rest of the manual labor in Garmakian cities, they were drawn from the Underfloor and contracted out via House Contracts. They weren't united by anything in particular at first -- they were just there to earn HTA.

However, on the island of Umbilicus, there was a very religious and almost-reverent nature to their work -- Umbilicus is the home of the Garmak Saints, a group of people that actually worship Garmaks (or the Anima of them at any rate). An entire culture arose around the Mawhands of Umbilicus, and soon spread to other Mawhands on other islands.

Around the time that Harp Gates were being developed (not implemented, that was far worse), there was an enormous shortage of power in all sectors of Garmakian society. This caused a bunch of social issues, but the biggest one was the demand that the Underfloor of Crowrod work without being able to cash in their HTA for actual energy. To compensate, the Slopefloor promised that they would reroute things so that they got 1.33x their HTA later. That was a reasonable compromise for the majority of Underfloor, however the Mawhands had a big ritual planned for a Deep Night (the darkest time in the ambience cycle) that they suddenly couldn't use their HTA on. They revolted, but unlike the revolt in Umbilicus some time earlier (a story I'll cover another day), they were able to totally shut off the food supply of Crowrod for a whole month due to their possession of a working set of lesser Harpgate nodes. Eventually, the Garmakians were trading off prototype harp gates to Rocites just to get food and people were flying away from the city en masse.

The Garmakian shaman eventually decreed that there would always be a Mawhand in the council from then on, and the Mawhands restored the food supply. To this day, the Mawhands maintain their own unique branch of Harp Gate technology based around that original prototype. Earth's Maw has been hard at work developing it into a smaller set of Worm Scanners for Lakjos and his team.

More to come.

[Xhin]

A more detailed look at Garmakian Society

While Clans and Sects have quite a bit of presence in Garmakian society, by far the biggest social structure are groups called "Theorists". These are based around specific areas of study and development. For example, the Mandala Drakes studies and develops worm gate technology -- harp gates, worm scanners, Tide Bombs, etc. They also maintain the Harp Gates used extensively in Garmakian society (the Rocites usually maintain their own). Like all other Theorists, they run their own schools for members, a lot of which is mandatory.

With some exceptions, Theorists tend to be free-flowing -- groups will splinter off, commune together towards some common goal, or offer shared membership. Groups in similar fields (or those with similar interests) will band together to get some kind of representation in the Tribal Council, grumbling all the while that the Flux Theorists seem to have a permanent seat. As such, membership rules and management styles vary widely. However, outside of Earth's Maw, the members in the Highfloor are always in charge, contracting work and industry to lower floors in succession.

Lowfloor life

As a Garmakian who was born (or bought their way) into the Lowfloor, you have a few options. By Garmakian law, you're always entitled to your Birth Room and its system of basic sustenance. The Lowfloor also gets a modest HTA each month as well -- not due to the social order but due to how power is actually routed. The better the room, the more HTA you get -- though the Lowfloor tends to be pretty much the same all over. That HTA should be enough to buy a bit of spice for your food, maintain your Wings (which the Ik'Thulu don't have), a bit of travel, and maybe let you save up for some modest projects of your own. Garmakians, though, are steeped deep in a culture that emphasizes huge groundbreaking projects and revolutionary inventions so that probably won't be good enough.

Instead, you might want to become a member of a Theory (a group of Theorists). Theorists are always looking for new members in the Lowfloor, and will offer various tempting salaries or routes to advancement. Sometimes you need a Midfloor Tribunal to approve your request for membership, but most of the time you can just immediately join. By Garmakian law, you must complete the Theory's Lowfloor schooling and do a certain amount of hours of work before you can leave. This will generally take around a year (Garmakian science isn't THAT advanced) all together, unless you procrastinate your hours of service. Once you've served your mandatory year or so, you can do whatever you want -- advance in the ranks, leave at any time, join another Theory (though you'll need a mandatory year in that too), etc.

If you're not interested in joining a Theory, you could also join a Sect or Clan, though these have very different membership requirements. If you're in Blacktower or Crowrod, you don't have to stay a predetermined time. If you're in The Roost and join The Roost or in Umbilicus and join Garmak Saints, you're a member for life (and they're not afraid to literally throw you in the Void for working somewhere else).'

If you're tired of Garmakian society in general you could "Throw yourself into the Void" and join Rocite society or go live with the Ik'Thulu or fly off into one of the Far Isles (maybe try to find the Lost Tribes). If you tell the government that you're doing this, if you come back you get to keep your HTA and Caste -- if you don't and they find out you've been gone for longer than 5 island years, then they'll reclaim your Room and if you come back you'll have to live in the Underfloor with an HTA debt. There's a pretty sizable population of Garmakians that have thrown themselves into Rocite society -- if you're not really the science-y or hyperefficient industry type, the work is a lot better. There are even Garmakian homesteading communities that generate their own power to some extent. Between this and what's happening in Seahome, there will probably be a hybrid Rocite/Garmakian society someday.

Midfloor Life

If you do really good work and catch someone's attention in the Highfloor, or advance through a Theory's ranks, or just age enough, you'll be promoted to the Midfloor. The Midfloor works much the same as the Lowfloor, except your monthly HTA is higher and membership salaries are much higher. If you save up on your monthly HTA, you can even afford Hyperquartz or Industry contracts.

As a member of the Midfloor, you've probably already been a member of several Theorists or maybe you've stayed with a couple for a long time. Nonetheless, you have to join these theories again and go through the approval process again (this time by a Tribunal of Highfloors, and unless you rank highly in the theory you're not guaranteed approval). The contracts are also different -- you're required to do all of their Midfloor schooling *and* all of their monthly or yearly continued schooling as well, and then you have to stay with them for an entire ambience cycle (4 island years, 3.5852 earth years). Sometimes you can only join during the Deep Night as well -- despite their focus on science, Garmakians can be highly religious and reverent to island forces.

As a Midfloor member, you get a very lavish salary which you probably aren't going to spend entirely on yourself -- instead, you can contract work out to the Lowfloor and Underfloor and pay them with that budget (there are some really excellent schooling programs to help you with that). As your rank increases, so does your budget. You'll probably want to rent a Midfloor Manor at some point -- these are multiple connected rooms away from industry and power production, usually with the highly-prized windows (just windows, though they're a luxury in Garmakian society). You could literally have a bedroom separate from your feeder room separate from your project room. You might also want to have kids -- the amount you're allowed varies depending on how well construction and reconstruction are going. If you snuck some Thulu'Narag into your Feeder and haven't been caught yet, now might be a good time to claim your pre-existing kids.

Midfloor members will also "throw themselves into the void", though it happens less often than with the Lowfloor and Underfloor. If you're sick of Garmakian life, you're more likely to go to a different settlement instead -- some are a lot better than others as far as the Midfloor is concerned. God help you if you're in Blacktower -- there, you can be Midfloor and live in the Underfloor.

Highfloor Life

If you advance high enough in a theory, or come up with something really good on your own time, or just spend a bunch of money, you may get a chance to become Highfloor. Here you actually have to be approved by a majority of a Highfloor Council -- 33 members that vary depending on what that specific tower's rules are -- sometimes they're just all in your dominant theory, other times they're chosen from various members, or maybe there are representatives from the Heavenfloor, etc.

As a Highfloor, you get a guaranteed amount of Highfloor Industry each month, a pretty hefty amount of HTA, and a Hightribe -- a guaranteed budget for 33 Underfloor workers at any time -- if one quits, someone else will be hired without you having to do anything. With this, you can probably devote entirely to your own projects, or if you're a member of a Theory, you're probably running it by this point. The Highfloor is known for being nothing but Industry and Manors with some really gigantic windows. Given the limited space (even by Garmakian standards), the Highfloor is very selective about who can join and why.

Highfloors throwing themselves into the void is extremely rare, given their privileged position in Garmakian society. However it does happen for various reasons -- Balthos-saint-Tortoise, for example, ran the Spice Theorists for a long time before renaming himself Bal'Karash and joining the Wandering Karash'Thulu. It's rumored that he's just trying to find new spices, but he hasn't been back for 20 island years now and he already officially threw himself into the void too.

I'll cover some of the intricacies with Underfloor/Heavenfloor life in the upcoming currency update. Next, though, I'd like to discuss the Flux theorists and maybe do a bit of a religion update.

[Xhin]

Malachite

No discussion of Flux theorists can start without an adequate discussion of Malachite.

Malachite is a bluish-green crystal that resembles turquoise moss. Malachite has a very unusual property (even among crystals) -- it will turn surrounding rock and metal into aqueous rock and aqueous metal, two substances that are for all intents and purposes water except under very specific conditions. The greater a Malachite's charge, the faster this conversion will be. Hypercharged malachite can make rock and metal precipitate a small amount of liquid (known as "melting") much like melting ice. The process is still very slow -- converting an entire hand-sized rock would take hours, converting an entire island would take 70+ years (though that isn't what happens for a variety of reasons).

Inverted Malachite doesn't convert aqueous rock and aqueous metal back, instead what it does is makes rock and metal more resistant to change by malachite. It will also make aqueous rock and aqueous metal more resistant to changing back into normal rock and metal (though it's already really really hard to get them to do that in the first place).

Islands that are high in malachite will slowly turn into water over time, becoming "Malachite Lakes". However, Malachite is one of the few crystals that can be found in its Inverted form natively. So on a malachite lake island with a high enough proportion of inverted malachite, the water-conversion will slow down and eventually stop. This is known as a "Decelerating Lake". Areas locally high in Inverted malachite will form islands of stability known as "Unmelts" (these happen on any Malachite lake type, but are more common on Decelerating lakes).

If there's a roughly equal proportion of inverted malachite and malachite, this will be a "Stable Lake" -- it'll continue melting but at a steady rate, usually pretty close to the 70+ years I predicted earlier.

If, however, the proportion of Inverted Malachite is low, then the malachite will absorb more and more charge over time (counteracting the inversion the inverted malachite absorbs), making it melt the surrounding rock and metal faster and faster. This is known as an "Accelerating Lake", and they're unpredictable. While Malachite alone even in its hypercharged form isn't *too* dangerous, the problem is that the melting process reveals more and more crystals since the surrounding rock and metal have turned to water. These crystals include things like Ruby, which when hypercharged can melt through rock and metal like butter. But there's also a synergistic effect with Brightstar (which focuses charge) and Fluorite (which alters refraction to make things more visible). Plus Kyanite and Amethyst have their own uniquely disastrous properties in this kind of environment... If you're in an Accelerating Malachite lake and you can suddenly see the bottom with perfect clarity, fly away for god's sake!

A malachite lake can go through two horribly disastrous events as a result of these processes -- the first is known as Core Liquefaction. If this happens, the malachite has melted a hole in the island and all the water in the lake will spill out of it. The force from this will then cause more rock and metal to break, which will create a bigger hole. This will obviously cause devastating effects if you're in the water, but the island cracking can cause Islandquakes as well. It is actually possible to survive this if you fall out of the hole because when Aqueous Metal hits the Void winds, it will turn back into regular metal and (briefly) have decent enough geometry to stay in one place. However the flowing aqueous rock will eventually unbalance it and gravity (or whatever the fuck force this place has) will eventually take over. Nonetheless it is possible to land on a Metal Tile and then fly away before it topples and gravity takes over. Though you then have to deal with the Void Winds.

The second event is far worse -- this is known as Foundation Liquefaction. If this happens, the entire foundation of the island will turn into water at roughly the same time. If this happens, the island will cease to have favorable geometry and gravity will take over very suddenly, making the entire island (which is mostly water at this point) fall into the void. While it seems like you could just fly away as the island starts to fall, the geometry change makes ambient fluctuations below the island do absolutely crazy things, hitting it with powerful AP pulses that cause severe islandquakes. Sometimes it's so bad that islands will rupture into multiple pieces. Needless to say, you're probably dead if you're on one when this happens.

The rise of Lake Men

Malachite lakes are highly valuable pieces of real estate -- obviously the fishing is really good as I mentioned before, but for Garmakians the bigger prize is the vast quantity of exposed crystals at the bottom of the lake. Because of this lucrative opportunity, the malachite theorists (known as Lake Men) gained an enormous amount of influence. They're the ones who discovered the differences between accelerating, decelerating and stable, and they also came up with a system to be able to predict this easily as well.

Because of the enormous wealth of the Lake Men, their Highfloor Theorists became increasingly theoretical, with increasingly abstract and crazier ideas. One such idea that maybe wasn't entirely crazy was the idea of Flux.

Flux

The basic idea behind Flux theory is that rock and metal aren't converted to liquid in the presence of Malachite, but instead, their Flux Periods shorten. The basic idea is that rock and metal convert to liquid spontaneously every so often (periodically), and then convert back extremely quickly under normal circumstances. Near malachite this process will accelerate, and the period will shorten, until they're rapidly switching back and forth between the two. Eventually the period will become 0 and they'll stay aqueous until certain conditions (like the Void Winds) can make their period go back to normal. Similarly, Inverted Malachite will lengthen the rock/metal's flux period.

Flux theories, while they make sense and have good math backing them, are extremely controversial because no one has ever seen rock/metal flux in a controlled setting. There are reports, but nothing objectively verifiable. Flux theorists are also known for having many many many failed experiments -- measuring flux in a controlled setting is the holy grail, and they've wasted hundreds of years and enormous amounts of wealth to try to find it. Currently they're trying to develop a worm scanner to measure it, but that's a bit like trying to catch a fish you can't see with an infinitely-long hook.

Despite their lack of objectivity and despite their waste of wealth, flux theories *do* account for some otherwise unexplained phenomena:

* If rock and metal could occasionally flux, then organic material could occasionally fall down deep into the island's foundation. This would explain where Deepmites get their sustenance, and why they're so high in number on islands high in malachite.

* Perhaps Flux is responsible for the shrinking of exoskeletons made of rock and metal that happens simultaneously with an animal shrinking.

* localized Flux shortening would explain the ability for Axeroot trees and Deepmites to dig through solid rock.

* Flux would explain why there aren't AP pulses on the side of an island despite its geometry -- perhaps it's harmonious with ambient fluctuations. In fact most of an island's reaction to ambient fluctuations doesn't make sense outside of flux theory, other than its ability to float.

Air Flux

Even among the already-controversial Flux theorists, there is a splinter group known as Air Flux theorists that's more controversial still.

Their idea is that the air itself can also occasionally turn into liquid, and this random process is responsible for ambient fluctuations in the first place. It does definitely make sense once you understand the math behind both ambient fluctuations and flux, but it's still absolutely crazy and even more unprovable than regular Flux theories. Worse, though, the Air Flux theorists believe so strongly in their theory that they'll use it to explain all kinds of unexplainable phenomena (such as how mushrooms capture ambient light). Air Flux theorists are the laughingstock of the Garmakian community, and for good reason. In Rocite society they have become a caricature for Garmakians, a kind of "this is what you become when you're too interested in theory". Speaking of which, "Fluxian" is a slur for a garmakian -- highly offensive to non-flux-theorists (because you're saying they're the same), highly offensive to flux theorists (because you're implying that they're worthy of derision). Good thing to know if you're an Ik'Thulu -- Rocites will sometimes use the word "Fluxian" among themselves without insulting any specific Garmakian and an Ik'Thulu who picks that up might become a Dead'Thulu before long.

I think I've covered enough about Rocites and Garmakians for now. I'll take a quick look at Pivotian religion and then it's onto the Ik'Thulu and Nal'Tek. Somewhere around the Ik'thulu upate I should have a (very very rough) map for you guys as well.