The Campaign Builder's Guild

What is the Clockwork Jungle?

Imagine a vast jungle, replete with a vast chorus of living things. The land is a verdant sea, blooming and lush.  Some creatures may live for centuries and never see the sky, obscured as it is by canopies of leaves and vines that rise higher than any fortress wall. The sky is roiling and chaotic; lavender skies are replaced in minutes by ear-shattering rainstorms that turn a footprint into a swamp. There are valleys and mountains alike in this world, but there are few places to escape the ever-present jungle - only the largest of the seas, formidable white-capped ranges, and the Obsidian Plain, where barren mountains disgorge lava and sulfurous fumes into an ocean of broken blackness. Even these massive features are islands in a sea of life.

The Legacy

One might even lose a city in here - and in fact, long ago, a forgotten people lost a whole civilization. There are lonely statues, overgrown outposts, and entire empty metropolises shrouded in vines and ferns, with no builders to admire their works and no families to live in long abandoned houses. These places are ancient indeed; some have been forgotten so long that they are unrecognizable underneath untold ages of growth. It is an Empire of Neglect.

The Artificers, as these forgotten builders are now known, did leave some semblance of life behind - the Cogs.  There are nearly as many kinds of Cogs as there are types of animals. The Cogs are constructs, made of wood, metal, stone, and even glass, and animated by fine clockwork and some magic spark within them. There are Cogs that appear like animals: Cog monkeys that look down curiously on denizens of the forest floor with empty glass eyes; Cog songbirds that flit about with clicking wings, singing beautiful and haunting melodies; even Cog speckled cats that will stalk and kill prey, only to leave its corpse for the scavengers, for Cogs have no use for food. There are other Cogs too: Cog haulers, who look like tremendous lumbering tripods, and Cog soldiers, gaunt sentinels watching over weed-strangled posts. They are at best semi-intelligent, machines that have lost their masters and continue their ancient instructions eternally.

The Inheritors

When the Four Races first made their mark upon the world, the Artificers were already consigned to a distant age.  To them, the clockwork creatures are as natural and ordinary as their fleshy counterparts.  Few give much thought to the glories of the past when new glories await.  From their primitive and humble origins, the four peoples that venture to call themselves 'civilized' have spread across the known world.  They have forged metals, built cities, brought fierce beasts to heel, and even learned to fly; even more importantly, they have cultivated the mind and the soul.  They have made art and music, philosophy and poetry, and delved into the nature of the world and the powers that rule it.

For all their accomplishments, however, the Four Races are not this world's masters.  Their settlements and camps are but motes of civilization in a wild land.  As the generations pass, however, isolated settlements have begun reaching out to each other across the great green divide.  Since the disastrous years of the Recentering two centuries ago, the Four Races have experienced a new renaissance, and a tenuous web of trade and communication has brought new ideas, new goods, and new people to corners of the world they have never been before.  The stars of civilization scattered in the vast, dark night of the Forest are shining brightly again, seeking prosperity, glory, and power.

Yet where there is change, there is conflict.  In the prosperous cities of the Black Circle, merchants vie with each other for wealth and influence, and the potentates of these 'Jewels of the Obsidian Crown' seek any means to gain the upper hand against foreigners and aliens.  The wounds of war are still fresh in the isles of the Sea of Indigo, where a league of city-states has overthrown a legacy of tyranny and struggled against all comers to maintain their diverse and fragile confederation.  On the other side of the world, the ancient power of the Artificers has been unleashed in the present by the cruel and despotic World-Queen, who seeks the secret of immortality that she might bring about an eternal reign of one ruler over one race, and one race over the world entire.  And while all these powers bicker, the Saffron Moss - known simply as the Peril - festers and multiplies in forgotten vales around the world, corrupting the Forest itself and making the dead walk again to carry out its unitary and apocalyptic will.

In these places and everywhere in between, eclectic groups of merchants, explorers, adventurers, chroniclers, mercenaries, and treasure-hunters seek to profit - in wealth, knowledge, or power - from a land still shrouded in mystery and societies swept up in the riotous turmoil of a new age.

Welcome to the Clockwork Jungle.

The Wiki

Most CJ material is on the CBG Wiki.  I make an effort to keep setting information up to date, but if there are conflicts let me know and I'll sort them out.  You can keep track of newly posted articles on my talk page.

Good articles to get started with:

• Gheen, Iskites, Tahro, Umbril, the Four Races
• Regions of the World (and a map)
• The Artificers
• The Saffron Moss
• The Obsidian Plain
• Cogs
• The Breath ('magic' in the Clockwork Jungle)

This Thread

This thread is primarily for discussion, criticism, questions, and my own ruminations on world-building process and the direction of CJ development.  Unlike the old thread, I won't be making big content posts here.  Instead, when I have a big content update, I'll post it in the 3rd post of the thread (the post after this one).  This will prevent content posts from breaking up the rest of the thread, and when a 'current feature' is no longer current I can archive it (it will probably be put in the wiki in some form, and I might put it in a spoiler block here if there's info in it that isn't going to the wiki).

The Old Thread

The old thread was unfortunately far too out of date - if you read the first and second pages, some of it sounds like it's from an entirely different setting.  That was back when I presumed this was going to be a D&D variant world.  That's not the case any more, and I didn't feel like keeping the old thread active was helpful.

If you are interested in reading the old thread, however, you can find it here.  Just don't expect it to agree with the setting in its present form!

Badges

We don't seem to be doing campaign badges like we used to, but I've got one for you just in case.  If you've contributed to the Clockwork Jungle in any way, whether it's posting your comments here or chatting with me about campaign stuff over IRC, please feel free to take a campaign badge:

It links directly to this page.  Just quote this post to see the code.

[ic=On Leadership]The one who leads always has its enemies at its back.

- Ajen proverb[/ic]

No people have benefited more from the inception of the Black Circle trade than the Ajen-Umbril.  Always the least numerous branch of their race, the Ajen have never before been a great power in the region.  Their folk have always had a certain wanderlust, unusual in Umbril, that has made them common travelers from the Wash to the Netai for thousands of years.  They have played their parts as merchants, explorers, and adventurers in foreign lands and gained recognition among aliens far in excess of their numbers or power, but in the end there was only ever one land they called home.

As long as history has been written, the inner side of the Greater Cogsteeth has always been the great fastness of the Ajen.  They are safe from their enemies here, though not from each other, for the Ajen have a long history of conflict within their race.  In Antiquity, each sept, a non-familial clan composed of many colonies and metils, considered itself independent and warred unceasingly with other septs for territory and the reconciliation of grievances.  In the days before the Golden Principality, the Ajen homeland was a place of constant turmoil, ephemeral victories, and precarious life.

The Ajen take their name from the individual who changed all this.  They once called themselves the Juleth, "(those) from above," but now they bear the name of the unifier, the Savior, the great conqueror Ajen (lit. "flame") who brought the septs to heel.  The Savior-Prince may well be a myth; no historical record exists of such a "conqueror" outside the hagiographies of the Ajen people, though any great deeds performed in this remote land would likely have escaped the notice of alien chroniclers at the time.

The achievements of the Savior-Prince – assuming it was real – are probably overrated.  Any visitor will note that the Ajen are united only in the loosest sense, and the septs and metil alliances that once warred openly with one another have only moved their conflicts into somewhat more covert and less devastating venues.  Still, the great wars of the Cogsteeth are now the exception rather than the norm, an achievement worth at least some recognition.

The Ajen, like their state, are filled with contradictions.  The septs still retain a fierce independent streak, yet the Ajen are the only branch of the overarching Umbril race that recognize one ruler over all.  They are known on the Circle as friendly and cosmopolitan traders, yet the majority of their race lives in isolated mountain colonies that seldom see any alien visitors.  They have a sense of communal honor and support that is foreign to most other Umbril, yet betrayals and schemes seem no less common among them than other Umbril societies.  In one way, the Ajen are like all races of the Forest – they differ from one another, and sometimes they differ quite strenuously.  There are some generalizations that may tentatively be made about Ajen society, however, and they are perhaps best expressed in the form of the ruler that names itself Prince of the Ajen and the state that binds this diverse people together – the Golden Principality.

From the Founding to the Recentering

Ajen was the first ruler of the Principality, though the use of "Ajen" to refer to the people – and thus the title "Prince of the Ajen" – developed only in later generations.  Ajen would likely have been titled simply as "Ul-Ivet" (Grand Prince – literally, "greater/superior foundation"), a title that is still used along with Prince of the Ajen to refer to the people's leader.  What scant written records remain of the Greater Cogsteeth in Antiquity imply that the Ivet's authority was never total, subverting the myth that all was peace and unity once Ajen conquered the septs.  Indeed, the early Ul-Ivets are regularly referred to in ancient literature as being "of" one sept or another, and septs doubtlessly came to blows over whose candidate would triumph.
[note=Banner of the Principality][/note]

The most well-known Ul-Ivet of the early period was Elam-Ilsal, who is remembered chiefly in the histories of White Lotus.  According to the founding legend of that city, it was an attack by Elam-Ilsal that forced the Ussik rulers of White Lotus to recognize the equal status of their Nevir-Umbril serfs, creating the Lake Compact that serves as the foundation of White Lotus society even today.  Though scarcely remembered by the Ajen, Elam-Ilsal enjoys a good reputation among the Nevir of the Greenwash, who tend to see its ultimately futile attack as an act of "Umbril liberation" that forced the Ussik to see the value in their alien neighbors.

Elam-Ilsal's strategy was one shared by several Ul-Ivets of its age – if the Ajen can be prodded into fighting aliens, they won't bother to fight each other.  The Ul-Ivets of Antiquity tended to style themselves primarily as warlords and launched raids into the Greenwash (and possibly the Maw) with less of an interest in plunder than political aggrandizement and domestic consolidation.  The Ajen culture developed a healthy respect for the warrior's art during this time, and it is possible that the improved social status of soldiering (compared to the contemptuous attitude the Nevir and Evne tend to display towards it) derives from this period of their history.

The Age of Prophets brought unprecedented peace to the civilized races, and the Ajen were no exception.  The Oracle Tree, having been first discovered in the neighboring Maw, arrived very quickly in the Greater Cogsteeth.  After a period of initial unrest, the situation stabilized with Fruit-eating "seers" exercising real control over the septs and the principality; to avoid the tyranny of one ruler over all, the holder of the title of Ul-Ivet was prohibited from partaking of the fruit.  The political wars with neighbors ceased and sept conflicts generally ebbed away.

Over the course of the age, the position of the Prince of the Ajen became progressively weaker and more irrelevant, yet paradoxically it was the prohibition against the Ul-Ivet tasting the fruit of prophecy that ultimately saved the institution of the Golden Principality.  When the Dominion Tree bloomed, madness and destruction came to the seers and all they touched – and the Ul-Ivet remained pure.  The Ajen were left with a leader that, though stripped of power over many generations, could still claim nominal leadership over the people.  The first real test of that leadership would not be long in coming.

The Prophetslayers and their great avenging Horde, after retreating from the impenetrable walls of the City of Orpiment, struck the land of the Ajen with all their might.  The lowland colonies were annihilated.  The Prince of the Ajen at that time, Sul-Thal, saw the futility of rallying its shattered nation to take up arms against such a superior force, but substituted cleverness and determination for might.  Sul-Thal arranged for the evacuation of the colonies in the Horde's path and made sure they were provided for by their highland cousins.  It organized raids against the Horde's scouts and supplies to harass them and weaken their resolve.  Though Sul-Thal is said to never have personally taken up a weapon like the warlord-Ivets of old, its policy eventually convinced the Horde to move on into the Vinetrough.

Sul-Thal is remembered as a great shepherd of its people, and is the only Ivet held to the same level of honor as Ajen itself – Ajen founded the Principality, and Sul-Thal ensured its survival against terrible foes.  Sul-Thal regained all the prestige its predecessors had lost under the stagnation of prophetic rule and set the path forward to a resurgent Principality.

The Cities' War

The Cities' War marked the entrance of the Principality into post-Recentering politics.  Initially, the Ul-Ivet was little more than an eager servant of the Orpimine Overseer, sending large numbers of Ajen warriors into the service of the City of Orpiment to fight its war against the Solar Order of Greythorn.  In the Orange Season of 140, however, the stability of the realm was smashed by an "iron rockslide" that had grown from a simple dispute over the spoils from a Greythorn caravan.  A mercenary veteran had been murdered, and it happened to belong to the same metil as a powerful councilor of the Enfel Sept.  The sept responded with a campaign of retaliations against half a dozen colonies which had connections with the murderers, and recalled many of its mercenaries in Orpimine service to the homeland.  Unnerved by this, the Ul-Ivet overreacted and decided to massacre the Enfel leadership in one bold stroke, but the plan was leaked and passed to the sept's spies.  Shortly afterward, the Ul-Ivet turned up dead, and the assembly to select a new one broke up in partisan bickering.  When the Enfel sept and its allies attempted to convene a second assembly without the representation of their rivals, an impromptu alliance of fifteen colonies and various other sympathetic metils laid siege to the Hearth of Sagacity.

The situation was dire enough as it stood, but the Solar Order – despite having agreed to a truce with the City of Orpiment less than two years earlier – decided to meddle in the Ajen conflict.  They had been duped by an Ajen official that led them to think it was a very likely candidate for the throne and would switch sides against the Orpimines in exchange for their help.  Their candidate was forced to flee to Greythorn within a year, but their actions caused the Overseer to renew the war.

The war in the mountains dragged on until 150; the favored Orpimine candidate had been poised to assume the mantle of Ul-Ivet in 143, but was assassinated.  Without Ajen manpower supplying their enemies, the Solar Order had managed to lay siege to the City of Orpiment itself, but could not breach the massive basalt walls.  When a new Ul-Ivet was finally proclaimed, Greythorn realized its seven-year blockade of the city could not be sustained any longer, and requested that Awetz Ishulu, the powerful ruler of White Lotus, negotiate an end to the conflict.

The subsequent treaty, known as Ishulu's Pact, recognized the Ul-Ivet's control over the land routes passing under the Cogsteeth.  When the volume of Circle trade exploded in the new atmosphere of peace, vast riches began flowing into the Principality.  The Ul-Ivets began taking the role of merchant-princes, setting up an officially backed trading cabal called the Golden Ring on the Circle and sending parties of explorers, traders, and colonists over the mountains in search of new goods and treasures in the Maw.  The current Ul-Ivet fancies itself an equal to even the Awetz of White Lotus in terms of riches and influence.

Culture

Ajen tend to bind themselves more readily in a metil (a voluntary Umbril "family") than other branches of the race.  Virtually all mature Ajen are members of a metil, and these associations tend to be composed of many more members than is normal for Umbril.  By virtue of their size, however, these metils are not as inviolably close-knit as those of the Nevir or Evne.

The septs are conglomerations formed from dozens of different metils, though since the time of the Savior-Prince many metils have been formed that are not bound to a sept.  In modern times, the septs no longer exercise much authority, but the bonds between metils of the same sept are still strong.  Though the Ajen may revere the great hero who broke the power of the septs, they also wax nostalgic about the glories and accomplishments of these old alliances.  The symbols and trappings of sept authority are still trotted out for social rituals, expressions of historical pride, and – occasionally – war.

In contrast to the usual Evne (and to a lesser extent, Nevir) distaste for a military career, the Ajen consider the warrior's vocation to be reasonably respectable.  Though hardly as militaristic as the Vars, armed conflict is much more common among them than in other Umbril societies.  A rivalry that would play itself out entirely through social maneuvering and subterfuge in a Nevir colony would stand a much better chance of escalating into an actual war among the Ajen.  These "wars" may only be between metils, but some have been known to snowball as other metils and even entire septs are drawn in by secret alliances or long-buried feuds.  The Ajen have a specific phrase for this kind of ever-growing conflict, which translates literally as "iron rockslide."  That phrase has been adopted by aliens on the Black Circle for any situation that seems to be spiraling out of control out of proportion to whatever caused it.  The last great Iron Rockslide resulted in the War of Ajen Succession, which lasted for a decade, greatly prolonged the larger Cities' War, and resulted in thousands of deaths.  The Ul-Ivet and its agents are constantly meddling and intriguing to quash any disputes that look like they might follow a similar path.

The explanation usually given for such compounding conflicts is that the Ajen (some would say uncommonly for Umbril) have a more communally-minded sense of prestige than other Umbril.  Any Umbril would consider an attack on its metil to be an attack on itself, but usually would act upon an indignity to another metil only if there were some gain to be made by doing so.  The Ajen are certainly pragmatic, but also mindful of saving the face of their metil.  An Ajen metil possesses prestige, and a metil's prestige is constituted by not only the importance of its members but the importance of the metil itself as a diplomatic entity.  When other metils ally with one's own metil, it demonstrates to others that this metil is trustworthy or at least important enough to court as an ally.  Preserving that reputation requires that alliances be more than nominal, and while action on behalf of a slighted ally does not necessarily require war, every such defense of prestige and act of retribution carries with it the possibility of escalation.

The Ajen place a similar emphasis on ambition and accomplishment as their cousins, but have grown to view accomplishment in more and more economic terms as the Circle trade prospers.  Accordingly, the prestige of a metil is no longer simply diplomatic, but economic.  Within an Ajen metil, all wealth and property is considered a shared good.  A debt incurred by one member of a metil will become the responsibility of its kinsmen if it cannot pay.   This is backed by the Ul-Ivet's laws – it is criminal to conceal wealth or property of any real value from members of one's own metil.  When one member is absent, the others of its metil assume responsibility for its businesses and contracts.
[note=Jewelry]The Ajen are the only group of Umbril who commonly adorn themselves with jewelry.  Such adornment, however, is meant purely as a boast, with little aesthetic consideration – Lodestone, for instance, is a dull, heavy, and ugly rock, but as it is rarer than gold it is considered more desirable in Ajen jewelry.  Foreigners have joked that the Ajen word for "beauty," when applied to jewelry, should be more accurately translated as "weight."[/note]

The Ajen lie somewhere between the Nevir and Evne (Netai Umbril) on a continuum of their acceptance of and integration with aliens.  On the one hand, the far-traveled Ajen are no strangers to aliens and foreigners of many different cultures and traditions; on the other, their homeland is strongly homogeneous with only a handful of aliens in permanent residence at any one time.  The Ajen are self-selective in their dealings with others – more insular and xenophobic metils remain in the mountains, meaning that an alien's experience with the Ajen of the Circle may not be a very good predictor of how he will be treated when traveling in their ancestral lands.

The Prince of the Ajen

By tradition, the Ajen – all Ajen, everywhere – are under the sovereignty of the Ul-Ivet, the "Prince of the Ajen," the successor to the first Ajen and ruler of the Golden Principality.  From the Hearth of Sagacity, their great fortress-palace, the Ul-Ivets have ruled in both strength and weakness.  They have been puppets under the control of the reviled prophets of the past age, and towers of strength against the menace of the Orange Horde.  In the modern age, they oversee a great people, masters of the mountain passes, suzerains of the City of Orpiment, their merchant syndicates unrivalled on the Circle, but over all these things they have only the loosest of reins.  Never has Ajen's successor been a tyrant – at least, not successfully – for the free people of the mountain septs would not have it.  For all their obstinacy, however, the title of Prince of the Ajen is still one that contains power within its ancient panoply of prerogatives and rituals, even when that power is wielded by those behind the throne.

The primary function of the Prince of the Ajen is essentially arbitrative.  The Ul-Ivet mediates conflicts and redresses grievances between metils and septs (though not individuals).  Any metil may seek redress from the Hearth of Sagacity, though the Prince of the Ajen may choose which matters it desires to hear.  The Prince is not a "neutral" arbiter per se – it does not interpret law and is not expected to be a disinterested party.  It does not attempt to create any kind of precedent or consistent policy.  It is charged with keeping the peace and benefiting the people as a whole, and thus is expected to make whatever compromises are most effective and expedient towards that end, even if that occasionally necessitates hypocrisy, injustice, or bad faith.  The Ul-Ivet is, quite simply, a diplomat-in-chief.

The Golden Principality lacks a formal enforcement capacity – it has no standing army or police force to compel individuals to comply with the Ul-Ivet's decisions.  The Prince forces compliance informally, using prestige, negotiations, favors, and bribes to rally other metils and septs against the offenders.

The Prince of the Ajen is chosen by way of a closed meeting between representative parties from the septs, as well as individual representatives from various metils of importance.  The size of the meeting has grown over the years as various Princes have granted representation rights to metils as part of political bargaining, to the point where the present election sessions can include nearly two hundred representatives.

The Prince and the Overseer

The City of Orpiment occupies a special place in the history of the Ajen.  During the Age of Prophets, it was founded by the Seers of Tiran Vainon, an Ajen stronghold, as a lodestone waystation.  After the Recentering, the city emerged both independent and more powerful than the fractious Principality; when they fought together against Greythorn in the Cities' War, the Orpimine Overseer was clearly the senior partner in the alliance and attempted several times to place a puppet in the Hearth of Sagacity during the War of Ajen Succession.

The relationship changed suddenly during the so-called Gauntlet War, a period of violent unrest in the city caused by the actions of the Flowering Gauntlet, an extremist Indigo Chapter to whom the Overseer had given sanctuary.  To end the devastation, the Overseer requested the Prince's aid, and order was restored by an Ajen force sent by the Prince.  Since that point, the Overseer has publicly acknowledged its fealty (and that of the city) to the Golden Principality, though this seems to mean little in practice – the Prince's soldiers have since left and the Overseer doesn't appear any less independent than before.

[spoiler=Ajen Sites of Importance]

The Hearth of Sagacity
The Hearth of Sagacity is the seat of the Ul-Ivet's power, a great palace-fortress complex with thick stone walls and gilded eaves that stands atop a peak not far below the tree line.  The Hearth is a sprawling complex that houses nearly a thousand retainers, councilors, representatives, messengers, spies, soldiers, servants, artisans, priests, merchants, and guests in its labyrinthine interiors.  Once installed, the Ul-Ivet seldom ever leaves its walls.

Navigating the complex is not for the faint of heart.  The Hearth was built over the course of many centuries, so architectural styles and designs vary from hall to hall and sometimes even from room to room.  Floors and ceilings often do not align perfectly one another and are bridged by sloping passages or stairways.  Hallways are seldom straight, and often appear to have been cut through walls some time after the building was first constructed.  The complex is dotted with seemingly pointless alcoves, branching passageways, corridors that turn back on themselves, and stairways that only access a few of the floors they pass by.  The design is in part deliberate; there is no way to "quickly" enter the Hearth and make one's way to any one of the Ul-Ivet's secure sanctums.  There are multiple "hidden" doorways and hatches known only to the Hearth's regulars, and probably some only to the Ul-Ivet itself.  It is rumored that there are some passageways and vaults below the fortress that are in no living memory, and every so often a neglected or forgotten room is re-discovered.  Guests are provided with guides, who also double as minders, making sure that nobody ends up somewhere they shouldn't be.

The Hearth is one of the few inhabited places in the Forest located where snow regularly (though not frequently) falls.  The Ajen possess the same superstitions regarding snow as many other Forest-dwellers, and it is just for this reason that one of the early Ul-Ivets decided that it would be quite a propaganda coup to rule successfully from a supposedly "cursed" place.  That Ul-Ivet, unfortunately, did not rule successfully, but the abandoned castle was re-occupied by a later ruler who had fled to the high peaks for fear of its life.  The position's strategic strength outweighed its malign precipitation, and the Princes of the Ajen have never since abandoned it.

The Hearth of Sagacity is the heart of the Ajen lands, and it plays host to representatives (both overt and covert) of every sept and most colonies in the Cogsteeth.  Access to the Ul-Ivet itself, however, is typically not available to anyone who does not have a pending dispute that has been duly taken on by the Prince.  Foreigners and aliens must usually be content with a meeting with a lesser official, of which the Hearth has many.

Tiran Vainon
Tiran Vainon (lit. "white-sided fortress") was the stronghold of the Seers of Tiran Vainon, a coven of Umbril diviners who ruled part of the Ajen domains during the Age of Prophets.  They were destroyed during the Recentering like all of their kind, but their greatest works remain – the City of Orpiment, whose vast Forest Walls were built under their orders, and Tiran Vainon itself.

Tiran Vainon is a three-tiered limestone structure built up against a steep cliff face.  Each of the rectangular tiers is smaller than the one below it, though it does not actually constitute a ziggurat because the tiers all directly abut the solid rock behind.  Tiran Vainon is the largest single structure in the Cogsteeth; the Hearth of Sagacity is a larger complex, but is composed of many different connected structures built over a long period of time.

Despite being called a fortress, the builders of Tiran Vainon had sufficient faith in their powers to make physical security a low priority.  With multiple wide, open entryways, the structure is hardly an impervious citadel.  The Orange Horde was the first and last force to besiege it; by that time the diviners were dead and Tiran Vainon was held solely by the Peril.  The Horde cleansed the fortress, but in later decades the infestation recurred regularly, preventing any productive use of the structure.  Only in the last few years was the discovery made that the visible portion of Tiran Vainon is only the antechamber to an extensive system of underground chambers and halls dug into the mountain, accessible only through carefully hidden entrances.  Many of these recesses are infested.  The true extent of the depths of Tiran Vainon is unknown; one rumor holds that a tunnel many miles long connects Tiran Vainon to the Delving of the City of Orpiment.

Ulanjan
The colony of Ulanjan is considered the center of power of the Sept of Ith, the sept which the Savior-Prince Ajen is said to have belonged.  Ith is one of the Antique Septs, those metil alliances can trace their existence back to Antiquity.  Ulanjan is one of the larger colonies in the Cogsteeth, with about two thousand permanent residents.

Ulanjan lies in the lower foothills of the Cogsteeth in the southern part of the Principality's dominion.  It lies fairly close to the Obsidian Plain, with the distance varying between about one and six day's travel based on the current state of the Plain's expansions and contractions.  This low position led to its destruction during the Recentering, but it was rebuilt thereafter and now benefits substantially from its position near the Black Circle trade route.  Though not as integral as the City of Orpiment, it sees significant mercantile traffic throughout the year.  It is likely that the only reason Ulanjan has not become the seventh Jewel of the Obsidian Crown is because its citizens have insisted on maintaining its purity as an Umbril settlement, and while aliens are welcome they are not permitted to reside there for more than a few days.

Ulanjan is perhaps best known for being the slaving capital of the Circle.  Though the City of Orpiment keeps massive numbers of slaves, these are all the property of the state and are never sold to individuals.  Ulanjan serves as the place where upland Ajen interested in alien slaves can meet with Circle traders who offer them.  Most slaves of the Ajen are bought for construction, quarrying, mining, and other strenuous and low-skill labors.  Their origins are diverse, but the majority are Old Kin Iskites or Kalath Tahro taken from deep Forest communities by either by neighboring enemies or the slavers themselves.

The Etharil Stair
The recent Ajen ventures into the Maw are all thanks to the recent discovery of Etharil, a name given to a pass through the Cogsteeth low enough that it is usually snow-free for a portion of the year.  Etharil (meaning "dry path") was probably not discovered earlier because the only natural access is an thousand foot slope of sharp, loose volcanic talus so steep and treacherous that even a Gheen scampering over the rocks is likely to break his neck or start a landslide.

The Etharil Stair was built to make access to the pass less dangerous.  Over a period of eight years, laborers (mostly alien slaves) cut steps straight into the rock outcropping that rises from the talus on the slope's unclock side.  The stairs climb about half the distance to the pass, at which point the rock becomes too weathered and unstable for further construction.  At that point, travelers must cross the talus to the other side of the slope.  This is accomplished by a "bridge" of wooden boards supported by iron piles sunk deep into the loose rock.  Parts of the bridge are periodically wiped out by avalanches and must be replaced.  The stair continues on the other side, eventually reaching the pass itself, little more than a deep cleft in the rock.

Within this cleft is the "Hole in the Mountain," a hidden meadow surrounded by tall cliffs on all sides.  Dozens of cairns of large black stones stand amid blue-green leafy meadow vines, erected by an unknown people long before the present Ajen discovered the pass.  Beyond is a "tunnel" formed by the collapse of the top of the cleft beyond the meadow, creating a covered pathway that descends gradually for about a hundred feet before it opens to reveal a great sea of mist that stretches all the way to the horizon.  Beneath lies the vastness of the Maw.

Speechless Vale
A verdant valley runs amid the unclockwise foothills of the Greater Cogsteeth.  As with all parts of the Forest, it is filled with vegetation, but here there are no recently-worn pathways or hanging webs of tree-spiders, no animal castings in the fecund soil or the telltale scrape-marks of crash wyrms twisting through the undergrowth.  There are, in fact, hardly any animals at all in this valley, and this is immediately obvious when one enters, because there is hardly a sound save the rustling of leaves in the wind.

The Speechless Vale, sometimes called the Valley of the Long Night or the Valley of the Cogs, is host to a colony of vicious cairn bats, nocturnal carnivores that will eat virtually anything that moves.  As with their cousins in the Sea of Repose deep in the Obsidian Plain, the bats of the Vale awake with the coming of twilight and proceed to devour every animal they can find, from insects to elephants.  On their own, cairn bats are only moderately dangerous; they are about the size of a Gheen, with sharp talons and teeth, but a solitary cairn bat will seldom seek out prey larger than an insect.  When gathered in sufficient numbers, however, they will try to kill almost anything until their hunger is sated.  Even the slightest sound is enough to gain their attention from hundreds of feet away.  Travelers and animals alike avoid the valley, though it is possible to cross it in a single day provided one has an early start and moves briskly.  Slow-moving caravans simply go around it.  The bats don't seem to bother flyers with enough altitude, though many still cut around it in case an accident or an unexpected weather pattern forces them down.

The vale is known to be quite rich in animal Cogs; the bats do not bother them, and many animal Cogs - thinking, as they do, like animals - find the valley a welcome respite from their "natural predators."  Day-long Cog hunting expeditions into the valley happen regularly, though hunters must be content with whatever they can lug back before darkness falls.

It is unknown why these bats exist in this valley; they are encountered nowhere else outside the Plain.  Some travelers who have visited the vale in the day (or managed to survive a night) say that there is a large, vertical cavern in the valley that the bats may dwell in.  A few have proposed that this may actually be the end of a lava tube or other tunnel that reaches into the Plain.[/spoiler]

[spoiler=Who Should Lead?]Who Should Lead?

Adventurers and explorers are often faced with difficult, life-threatening decisions, sometimes on a daily basis. It's important to trust one's comrades - but it also complicates matters when those comrades have alien physiologies and radically different points of view to match. When a party is faced with mortal peril, who gets to make the ultimate choice? Who leads, and who follows?

Gheen

Who should lead? The group as a whole.

Leadership, to the Gheen, comes in two flavors - symbolic leadership, and 'actual' leadership. The Gheen love the trappings of power but are under no illusion that this actually confers real influence. A drey's Queen is, more often than not, a fancy figurehead. She has titles, privileges, and community honors, but very few actual responsibilities, and everybody knows it.

This is not just a charade put on for fun. Symbols have real meaning to the Gheen. The Queen may not be the real power within the community, but she stands for the unity and cohesiveness of the drey as a whole. She represents the solidarity of the community and the race; she embodies the relationship the drey has with its ancestors and its gods. These things are not trivial - they are critically important. To be a figurehead is not a dishonor so long as the role has meaning and purpose, even if that purpose is not to exert power over other Gheen.

An adventuring group, however, has no Queen, and in such situations Gheen tend to view leadership as a purely informal, group affair. There's no reason that a handful of people, aliens or not, can't sit down, sensibly discuss things, and reach a consensus. Why bother with majority votes, party captains, or any other silly positions or procedural curiosities? Such things just complicate matters. True, a majority vote might take less time, but consensus is very important to the Gheen. A party, like a community, should be unified - if not by a figurehead, then by a single course of action. It's not enough for a majority to agree; everyone needs to get behind the decision. This need for consensus comes directly from Gheen culture, in which family members are believed to be, in a sense, the same person - an open breach in a family is something to be avoided at all costs, because disagreement with kin is essentially thought of as a kind of schizophrenia. This attitude carries over into non-family relations as well, and helps explain why it's so important for Gheen to secure common agreement.

Of course, if they don't agree, you'll have to convince them. Gheen, however, tend to lack the patience for long deliberations and can be quickly aggravated by the glacial pondering of certain other races, so they usually try to convince people as quickly as possible. This convincing tends to come in the form of an emotional appeal, though some Gheen understand the necessity of speaking to aliens in their own language (and will try to make logical arguments to win over Iskites, experiential comparisons for Tahro, and so on). Other races have observed that it is sometimes possible to get a Gheen to support majority rule if they make the process of reaching a consensus so long and tedious that the Gheen simply throws up his hands and agrees to the vote.

More than the other races, a Gheen values his intuition and 'gut.' There is such a thing as over-thinking something - just do what feels right, because it probably is right. Uncanny intuition is thought of as a tremendous asset among the Gheen, much more so than a cool, logical mind. That doesn't mean that points shouldn't be raised or that arguments shouldn't be considered, but ultimately there's never such a thing as a truly logical decision. Mortals just don't have the total and complete information to do that.  That's why, for all their supposed rationality, Iskites still make blunders. You might as well just go with your gut.

The Gheen are quite tolerant of aliens in this informal decision-making, though they tend to believe that Gheen intuition is superior to that of other races and may not immediately trust the gut decisions of aliens. In mixed company, Gheen tend to gravitate towards a leadership role simply to help move things along - they will start and manage a discussion, seeking to herd their comrades towards consensus. This isn't always appreciated by the aliens, as Gheen have a tendency to push people towards a conclusion whether they like it or not, cutting people off when they feel they are 'rambling' unproductively or countering their reasoned objections with a flippant 'no, that doesn't feel right.'

Gheen tend to resist the imposition of formal leaders, whether elected or appointed. Certainly an elected head is better than an autocrat, but their general belief is that leadership by representation is a poor substitute for real "democratic" decision-making. If it's necessary to keep a group together, a Gheen will accept an elected leader, but will often challenge the leader's authority if it senses that the leader lacks a true consensus in the party. Because consensus-building is such an important part of leadership, Gheen quickly lose respect for leaders (elected or not) who simply override the minority and take action without serious attempts to unify the group.

Iskites

Who should lead? The individual who merits it.

An Iskite treats most enterprises as anyone else would treat a military expedition. Everything that is a cohesive whole has a command structure. If it doesn't, it's dysfunctional. As a member of the party, you should make sure that some kind of hierarchy is established and agreed upon. A group needs a leader - and the group needs to know with certainty who will replace him if he should fall.

A leader must be chosen by merit, and merit must be judged through direct observation. Observe your teammates at all times - who exhibits calmness under pressure? Who has just the right amount of confidence, being neither timid nor overconfident? Who takes the initiative? Who seems to naturally accept command and shoulders responsibility without flinching?

This, at least, is how it's supposed to work in Iskite communities. Aliens complicate matters. Individual Iskites can be all over the map in terms of their willingness to judge aliens on an equal basis.  A few Iskites deny that any aliens have ordered minds suited for real responsibility, and a few are completely equitable and see merit alone. The vast majority fall between these two extremes, and struggle daily to weigh the merit of aliens against their essential alien nature.

Unless your character is truly the picture of arrogance, he should consider the possibility that he is not the ideal leader even if he's the only Iskite in the party. Humility is one of the core virtues of the Mainspring Analects, and ambition is conspicuously absent from that list. In fact, the authors of the Analects rail against ambition. Ambition is the desire to become something more than what you are; the Analects teach that the most important spiritual goal is to understand and be content with your place in the world. You should accept no worse and aspire to no better.

Thus, a 'righteous' Iskite isn't harmed at all by the realization that another in his group would be a better leader than himself. He accepts his place and becomes a zealous advocate for who he believes to be the best leader. He is unquestionably loyal and tirelessly disputes the erroneous claims of those who support a less meritorious candidate. Are all Iskites this way? Absolutely not, and aliens often accuse them of being hypocrites for this reason. The Analects, however, are not laws - they are perfect philosophical principles that an imperfect mortal being only aspires to. Jealousy and ambition do exist among Iskites, but they try harder than most to control these feelings and cultivate a sense of being at peace with their position and function. 'There is as much glory,' it is written in the Analects, 'in the perfect subordinate as there is in the perfect ruler.'

To an Iskite, the 'perfect subordinate' is decidedly not a yes-man. A leader may merit his position, but that does not make him all-knowing. A good leader is a manager of others, someone who is capable of making logical and informed decisions based on the information, counsel, and wisdom he gleans from those in his charge. A sycophant is no better than a traitor. The sycophant deliberately undermines the efficacy of his superiors, poisoning the leader's mind with what he wants to hear instead of the real truth. If you're the leader, you should have no tolerance for lickspittles; if you're a subordinate, you should argue passionately against your leader when you believe he is making a mistake. Once the leader has made a decision, however, you follow it absolutely.  Dissent is valuable, but not when it challenges the hierarchy itself.

Iskites usually regard the idea of democracy with contempt. They don't see people as equals and sneer at the idea that they should all receive an equal vote, even in groups as small as an adventuring party. Iskites in a situation in which democracy is forced upon them will often attempt to undermine it. For example, an Iskite may repeatedly throw his vote in with whoever he feels should be the leader regardless of his own personal opinions on the matter at hand, simply as a matter of principle. In private, he will tell his chosen 'leader' his own opinions, but in public he will present a united front, hoping eventually to turn the democratic system into a sham by locking his vote and refusing to participate in genuine democratic decision-making. When the system collapses, he points to this as proof that he was right all along.

Umbril

Who should lead? You should. It's as simple as that.

Unlike the Iskites who attempt to carefully appraise an individual's merit, the Umbril tend to see 'merit' as self-evident. If a person is powerful, it means they must have merited it; if they are powerless, it is their own fault. In Umbril society, there is no inheritance or nepotism, no family to pin someone's fortune or misfortune on. Your life is your own responsibility.  You don't owe anybody anything, and nobody owes you. An Umbril usually doesn't worry about whether it 'deserves' to lead. Nobody deserves anything - if you want it, take it, and if you can't take it, you're not good enough.

The Umbril value their independence, by which they mean control over their own lives. The Umbril ideal is to have total and complete agency, so that nobody can exert control over your own fate. It doesn't matter that another person might make better decisions than you - what is important is not the decisions themselves, but the fact that your choices are your own to make. If someone else commands your life, it doesn't matter how successful you are or how much status or recognition you gain: You are a slave. A "true" Umbril does not rationalize slavery - it fights it, and seeks its total independence every day of its life, even though it realizes that only a scarce few ever completely realize this goal. The purpose of acquiring power (as well as wealth, allies, knowledge, and everything else) is to secure this independence. Any use of power for other ends is secondary.

As an Umbril, you are likely going to want this same independence, but that doesn't mean you have to be the formal leader of your party or community. Having control over your own life doesn't necessarily mean that everyone recognizes you as the leader. In Umbril society, it's far better to be the power behind the throne - it makes you less of a target. The Umbril don't place much value on fame, and know very well that having titles doesn't mean that you have the power that supposedly comes with them. An Umbril will happily let another bear the mantle of leadership so long as it believes it can influence or manipulate that leader towards the Umbril's own ultimate goals.

Because Umbril care very little about the formalities of power, they also tend to be indifferent towards the form of decision-making in a group. As long as leaders can be influenced, it doesn't really matter whether they were divinely appointed or democratically elected. The Umbril prefer weak leaders that can be more easily manipulated, but they won't make a fuss of opposing strong leadership; better to assent along with everyone else and immediately start working to make yourself indispensable to the new regime. Most Umbril are collaborators at heart, not revolutionaries. Most of the time, being on the winning side is more important than being on the right side... or, more accurately, the winning side is the right side by definition. There is no "honor" in standing by one's cause to the bitter end; that's just an empty self-justification made by people who were too stupid or timid to switch sides when the opportunity presented itself.

The Umbril, unsurprisingly, tend to be just as indifferent about the race of their leader. If anything, they may prefer an alien to an Umbril. An alien is naïve and easily manipulated, distracted by inane ideas about the 'nobility' of power and the trappings of office; another Umbril, on the other hand, is unwanted competition. When a party contains more than one Umbril, they are much more likely to be rivals than allies. Their alien comrades, who expect others to prefer their own kin as they do, are frequently baffled by this behavior.

Tahro

Who should lead? The people with the most experience.

The Tahro live a life that requires a wide repertoire of manual skills for survival. You know how to hunt, how to fight, how to build a shelter, how to evade dangerous predators, how to track enemies, and all of these skills were gained through years and years of experience. Not everyone makes it to adulthood, but those who do have done so because they gained experience and learned from their mistakes.

Experience, then, is far more important to a Tahr's consideration of a leader than either logic or intuition. Decisions should be made by analogy. How is this situation like my previous experiences? What parallels can be drawn? What actions have proven successful in the past? Logic without experience is a useless theoretical exercise, and intuition is blind without the benefit of history. When a group makes decisions together, they should bring up their experiences and explain how this knowledge can be applied to the present situation.

Because everyone has unique experiences and points of view, decisions should never be made alone. The wisdom of many is infinitely more valuable than the wisdom of one. Ultimately, however, Tahr society gives the decision-making power to its oldest members, because the longer one has lived, the more experiences one has had - and, supposedly, the wiser one is. Tahr patriarchs hold their position purely on the basis of their age. Though they are expected to value the counsel of others, once they make a decision they are not to be questioned.

This tradition is effective (at least, the Tahro think so) because the Tahro themselves have very similar experiences in their normal lives. It makes sense that the longest lived among them would be the wisest. Aliens, however, may have wildly different experiences because of their different lifestyles. A Tahr that has lived twice as long as a Gheen is probably not the wiser one when it comes to, say, survival in the canopy. Alien expertise trumps longevity.

Tahro in an adventuring group usually take this lesson to heart and support a sort of 'situational leadership' - the group should defer to the person who has the most direct experience. To paraphrase, 'When in Rome, let the Roman in the party be the leader.' A Tahr will forcefully take the lead when he feels he is the superior authority on the present situation, but will usually step to the back and silently assent when he feels he's not competent to make the decision. This awareness of one's own limited knowledge can be an asset, but it may also cause a Tahr to stay silent when his logic and/or intuition are screaming at him that this is a bad idea.

When multiple Tahro are in the same group, they will tend to revert towards traditional principles of leadership: the oldest is the wisest. They are often hesitant to break this tradition even if it is clear that the younger Tahr has more direct experience in a certain matter, as is frequently the case among Tahr adventurers who may have had very different lives prior to their mutual adventuring years. Aliens in the group are often frustrated by the younger Tahr's inability to 'stand up for himself,' when in reality he is simply loathe to break the tradition of precedence by age.[/spoiler]

New feature.  First feature, actually.  It turned out longer than I thought it would...

I found that it's rather difficult to make a religion based on a messiah returning to usher in an age of paradise without sounding like I'm "borrowing" from several real-world religions.  It's probably unavoidable.

Well, at long last I've actually added something new!  For a variety of personal reasons, I haven't been very active lately, much to my regret.  Since the CJ no-stats theater game, however, I've been thinking about how adventurers of the four races would work together as a party, and today's feature is the result of that cogitation.  It's a different kind of thing than my usual features, more like the "race and prejudice" post in the old thread, but I hope it's as enjoyable.

(See post 2 in this thread, above, for the current feature.)

Man, the Umbril really are wonderfully horrible at times.  I picture them almost like old British imperialists, or something: supremely arrogant and entitled, and simultaneously incredibly civilized and nonchalantly brutal.

A very useful post... I get a good feel for how an adventuring party might play out.

By the way, Steerpike - seeing as this is the CJ discussion thread - I heartily enjoyed reading about the Cult of Insectile Mimetism.  It's definitely the kind of Aras Tay worship that I imagine to be scattered across the world.  But for the acrobatics, I'd say it would attract the Umbril even more than the Gheen - an ever-changing, ever-adapting being that confounds and eludes those who try to grasp it gives the Umbril a great deal to admire.  As it stands, I would see them primarily in the position of patrons.  There are probably few Umbril who wouldn't enjoy the role of the masked benefactor, standing apart from the central action but influencing it regardless.

I'm not keen to try and adopt it whole cloth, mostly because the Shuulei themselves clash with my design a bit - they're a bit too much like the existing Aras Tay (the Axolt, later renamed to Azal for my own internally consistent linguistic purposes) thematically.  That doesn't mean I like it any less - in fact, I'd never thought of Cogs being part of a swarm before (specifically, in an Azal's gullet) and I am seriously considering adapting the Sacred Spectacles as a ritual to Poruai, who has a similar strange shape-changing ability.

Glad I could contribute some ideas!  Rereading the Azal, I agree they`re very similar.

Another update, this time of a more concrete nature - a school of channeling.

Right now I'd like to focus on filling out wiki links that already exist, specifically factions, cities, and regions that haven't been detailed.  I really want to finish up with the Jewels of the Obsidian Crown, which means laying down Greythorn and Koldon's Well once and for all.  I have a pretty good idea of what I want out of Greythorn, but the character of Koldon's Well is still eluding me at this point.  I do feel like I have a much better grasp on the Tahro than I did a few months ago, though, so hopefully something will strike me that will differentiate it both from Kengal (the other "super Red Camp") and the other Black Circle cities.

If you are filling out red links, please consider working on the Prophetslayer article: http://www.thecbg.org/wiki/index.php?title=Enti-Ven_Famar

I find it fascinating! (Their story and the betrayal are sufficiently epic.)

*This post lost in forum transition*

Thank you for updating those. I had been wondering about Vul-Fan. Nice to see that you explain his ongoing influence on Umbril drama (!)

I'd suggest linking "fruit eater" to the expressions page.

Also a link to the Oracle Tree from that page might be a good idea.

Just posted a new feature on Greythorn - five Black Circle cities down, one to go.

A very well written feature. The society seems believable, although I find the bit about everyone partaking in farming a minor stretch.

How do they handle the exchange of goods between the city and the foreigners? It seems that the agricultural produce would be state property, to be sold in a centralized manner, although there would have to be many foreign parties buying small shares of it rather than a single buyer. Do the bureaucrats organize seasonal auctions, or do they engage in private negotiations with foreign merchants? What decides who gets a deal and for what price?

How does a foreign immigrant become a citizen?

Quote from: GhostmanHow does a foreign immigrant become a citizen?

Conversion.  You take vows, just like a monk would take vows entering a monastery.  Children born in Greythorn (or children of converts) are provisional citizens until their adulthood, at which point they either take the vows or are "deported" to the Foreigners' Quarter.  Usually, conversion is preceded by an extended stay in the city; a foreigner can't enter the city without an invitation from a resident, but this isn't usually very hard to get, and there's no limit on how long an invitation can last.  The priests encourage potential converts to become long-term guests with a local family before they consider making the permanent vows themselves.