Tammurand - a city on iron wings

[SA]

[ooc]Any comments should be posted in the discussion thread.  Enjoy.[/ooc]
[ic=Shade of Tammur]The city had lived once.  In days archaic, before the worldâ,¬,,¢s azure sky had faded and the steady depredation of time wrought a terrible agony upon its flesh and consumed it, it had navigated the heavens on gossamer wings, an ancient and indomitable predator whose very presence eclipsed the sun.

But it had faded.  The ages preyed upon the creature like a parasite, and as the world changed and the sky fell, its wasted husk succumbed to a quiet defeat, falling from the heavens to the chaos below.

And after a bleak eternity amongst the scarlet dunes of the parched earth, when beings infinitesimal to its monolithic grace had roamed far across the interminable earth and forged empires that grew fat on the fruits of fire and steel, life had stirred within it once more.  Men and beasts plumbed the depths of its primeval form; they bored vast complexes into its fossilized flesh and fashioned a haven within its calcified entrails.  They brought with them machines of marvellous design, and by the impetus of these magnificent constructs the creature rose into the sky once more.

And they named it Tammurand, a city on iron wings.[/ic]

TAMMURAND
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The first of many profound idiosyncrasies in Tammurandâ,¬,,¢s character is its bizarre construction.  The expansive cityscape is situated both within and upon the hulking corpse of a gargantuan insect: the glorious towers that rise from the shadows of its hollowed carapace are like vibrant spines or glistening feelers, and the rambling residences that pervade its depths are like undulant innards, seething with the misbegotten thousands that dwell therein.

In the depths of the city, where the towering spires touch the organic mire of the urban sprawl below, the sombre glow of a multitude flickering lamps bathes the thoroughfares and crowded plazas in a perpetual artificial twilight.  Here the sunâ,¬,,¢s radiance rarely spills onto the teeming streets, and when it does it is a sorry thing, marred by the spiderlike network of bridges that interconnects the looming towers above and the putrid smog that is endlessly pumped into the lower cityscape.  This is a world of shade and ash; of dark corporate hegemonies and a subjugated public forever bound to a bleak existence in broiling foundries and lightless factories.

From a distance the myriad creatures that toil within the labyrinthine bowels of this unlikely metropolis coalesce into a churning, half-sentient beast, coursing like some amorphous and melancholic phantasm through the dank slums of Tammurand as it hurtles ever onward through the pale skies.  And as they labour in those lightless streets and subterranean factories for the paltry wage that permits them subsistence, a callous nobility dwells in profligate splendour in the needlelike towers that stab and claw incessantly at the distant firmament, rending the heavens in silent defiance of the natural laws that would deny them their flight.

And while the penniless masses below labour senselessly in virtual purgatory, the world of their masters is a veritable paradise.  Here opalescent spires abound with a different kind of dereliction, as a perfidious gentry schemes incessantly in a perversely Machiavellian power-game.  Every conceivable depravity finds a home within the grand villas that dot the skyline, and lies spoken by tongues laced with silver have greater substance than gold.

[ic=Observations]Itâ,¬,,¢s a world of contradictions.  When one man sees a beggar, another sees a beast, and what might seem a hovel to one may be a palace to another â,¬' and all in a very literal sense.

â,¬'Talumâ,¬,,¢Ferras, a Shade Walker

What is real?  What is false?  I cannot really sayâ,¬Â¦ all I can tell you is I was just holding a cucumber and now its some kind of serpenty thing.

â,¬'Felicity, a street urchin

[/ic]
Very little about the city of Tammurand is directly quantifiable, at least in an objective sense.  If one was to ascend to its highest peak and behold the magnificent city, they might marvel or they might curse.  To some it is a haven, a place where they may find respite from the constraints of law and to an extent, reality.  Others call it a hell, decrying the capricious government that so readily fails to govern and bemoaning the horrors it can so often inspire within their own hearts.

For Tammurand is a mutable place, fickle and protean in all its facets.  It sails through a bright Ã' ther with a desert world beneath, traversing inconceivable realms of experience.  And as it shifts through these multitude realities, the city changes: when it rises to the heavens it is a city of angels, when it sinks to the depths it is a den of fiends.

But above all it is a city of perspective, a place where a prayer may sustain a God, or a madmanâ,¬,,¢s chilling neuroses are made manifest upon the world.

Believing is seeing, seeing is believing, and all places in between are fantasies but a step from reality.

[SA]

[ic=In the Sunset of Dissolutionâ,¬Â¦]â,¬Å"I donâ,¬,,¢t know anymore.â,¬Â

The window beside his bed is grey with frost, and the muted scene beyond seems to almost sigh in lamentation for the loss of the day.  He buries his face in his hands, matted black hair flecked with grey falling over his fingers.

â,¬Å"I really have no idea.â,¬Â

As the lights outside dim and the bellicose clamour of the cityfolk subsides, a Darkness-unlike-shadow slithers hither and there, and the floor groans as the blackness whispers welcome words of consolation.

Do we ever?  Did you ever?

â,¬Å"I thoughtâ,¬Â¦ once.  You know, â,¬Ëup thereâ,¬,,¢, when I could see the sky and the air was clear.  The angels and goddesses and kings and demonsâ,¬Â¦ it was a craziness beyond description, but it all felt so veryâ,¬Â¦Ã¢,¬Â

Thrilling?

â,¬Å"No.  Real.  The most lucid kind of madness.  Castles of fire and oceans of gears and sulphur.  Cities of virginsâ,¬Â¦ you canâ,¬,,¢t possibly believe things like that, but somehow you do.  You lap up the bullshit, play into every little wish fulfilment, every bohemian fantasy, and the Saints laugh at you while you stumble through a psychotic fucking dreamscape.â,¬Â

A dream?  Is that what it was?

â,¬Å"What else could it be?  Itâ,¬,,¢s gone now.  One day I open my eyes, and the colour is drained, the sweet spice on the wind has been consumed by ash and filth.  Thereâ,¬,,¢s a million faces in the crowd, squawking, barking and God knows what else, and the damned streets have a life all their ownâ,¬Â¦

â,¬Å"I do not know this place.â,¬Â

Something winged lands on the sill and hops about.  Its head is a bulbous many-eyed thing atop a serpentine stalk, and it chirps enthusiastically, waving its pale feathers about like a trophy.  He stares at the creature, and curses.

And this isâ,¬Â¦ not to your liking?  You have seen all a man could ever see and still retain what little spark of sanity he ever had to begin with.  You have danced on the Threshold; laughed in the face of gods and greater things than they.  That it ended, as all things such as this must, is something you should not contestâ,¬Â¦

The Darkness-unlike-shadow glides, caressing his weathered skin before passing unhindered through the glass.  It seizes the winged thing, enveloping it in a crooning blackness, and the creature, without a sound, is Undone.  Flesh wracks, warps, dissolves, and where once it stood there is but a quivering absence.

The question, then, is not what purpose that passing fantasy had servedâ,¬Â¦

But rather, if this too is fiction and you are yet to wake.[/ic]
[ooc]

Core Ethos

There are a billion degrees of Truth
All of them Immeasurable
And in the crucible of Doubt
Are sown the seeds of Oblivion

A city on the edge of Eternity

None know who first launched Tammurand into the Ã' ther, or to what end it sails ceaselessly through the Cosmos, but it is a conduit through which all things in all worlds may be encountered.  It is the Bridge, the Gate and the Key, and its own truth is subject to the unreality of the alien winds it drifts upon.

It is, in a sense, ineffable, for the very act of defining it reduces its uncountable existences to one impotent reality, and Tammurand is hyperreal, irreducibly and infinitely more than the sum of its contradictory parts.

Themes
Truth is a rarely a matter of semantics.
In Tammurand, â,¬Ëmanifest dreamingâ,¬,,¢ is the opiate of the masses.  Those with the wherewithal and force of will to do so spend their lives drifting in and out of realities of their own devising, or supplied to them through magic, technology and narcotics.  The pursuit of the fantastic has continued for so long that few people, if any, actually know what reality truly looks like.

It doesnâ,¬,,¢t help that the city is subject to â,¬Å"seasonalâ,¬Â changes, causing wholesale alterations in the architecture, atmosphere, and sometimes even the citizens themselves.

Everything changes.  Constantly.
Itâ,¬,,¢s not just the city that changes, and the changes arenâ,¬,,¢t always supernatural.  Tammurand is many millennia old, and has undergone a vast number of regime changes.  The Gentry that currently rule have only dominated for a few centuries, and while they wish to preserve the status quo, there are millions languishing beneath the Spires who yearn for upheaval.  In Tammurand, chaos is routine and riots are the citywide pastime.  Itâ,¬,,¢s only a matter of time before change catches up with the aristocrats.

Alas, in this city change means regress as often as progressâ,¬Â¦

Get yours while you can.
In Tammurand, one must be opportunistic and ruthless.  With a population in the millions, space and light are precious commodities, and racial, political and ideological tensions run high.  When one is slow to act, they often end up destitute or dead.

Diversity of opinion isnâ,¬,,¢t always a good thing.
The individualisation of realities caused by manifest dreaming has resulted in the gradual erosion of the conceptual foundations of the city itself.  Tammurand no longer has a concrete, singular reality, and as a consequence it is falling apart.

The mind harbours sickly things.  Keep them to yourself
In a place so sensitive to the power of conviction, believing something hard enough can cause it to manifest.  Alas, for whatever reason, be it some primal vindictiveness on the cityâ,¬,,¢s part or a subconscious masochistic proclivity on the part of the populace, more often than not itâ,¬,,¢s the bad things that come out to play.  And their games can be rather unhealthyâ,¬Â¦

Magic
Passion, imagination and magic are virtually inextricable in Tammurand.  When an individualâ,¬,,¢s desire transcends the bounds of his reality, that desire becomes his reality.

Tone
Tammurand is a bitterly ironic place.  It is easy to get lost in the fantasy and magic that rests at oneâ,¬,,¢s fingertips, but the truth â,¬' that reality itself might be unattainable â,¬' is a dark thing indeed.  Corporate tyrants and exploitative bourgeoisie are a harsh enough foe, but the most trying obstacle for any man is his own fearful escapism, and the question of what life there is beyond the lie, and if itâ,¬,,¢s worth living.[/ooc]