The Clockwork Jungle [Old Thread]

[Polycarp]

Demographics

I've been having some difficulty coming to satisfactory numbers for the population of the Black Circle cities.  I'm aware of estimates for the sizes of cities on medieval Earth, but these are less helpful than one would think.  Firstly, if you count the Netai, most of the Clockwork Jungle's cities are Umbril-dominated or have a significant minority of them.  Umbril circumvent normal calculations for the resources and land needed for city size because they essentially live on garbage.  Secondly, even urban areas are generally close to the Forest, which '" as established already '" has no shortage of edible plants and animals.  I think it might be better to build a population structure from the ground up, starting with the most basic type of populated area.

Settlements

In this setting 'settlement' refers to such an area.  On Earth we would probably call it a village, but here village specifically refers to an Iskite settlement (while drey refers to a Gheen settlement, and colony to an Umbril one).  Settlements are the norm rather than the exception; outside the Black Circle, the Netai, Scalemount, and the Wash, they are virtually all you will find.

First, we will examine the dreys of the Gheen.  Despite their smaller size, the Gheen have quick metabolisms and feasting forms an important part of their religious and social life.  Their food demands are high, and because they do not farm or domesticate they are dependent on the resources of the immediate area.  Keeping a small population is difficult for them; they are the most prolific of the civilized races (generally giving birth to litters of 2-4, and seldom single children) and having children is a sacred obligation in a culture that believes you can achieve immortality by having living descendents.

The most viable strategy for the Gheen, then, is to develop multiple discrete settlements rather than a single large one, the environs of which would quickly be stripped of fruit and insects.  Thus, Gheen civilization tends to take the form of dense clusters of smaller settlements.  Ideally, each drey is only 1 day's journey apart from its closest neighbors to prevent travelers from having to sleep in the open, but in some areas the khauta has allowed them to expand this distance and reap the rewards of decreased competition for an area's resources.

Close settlements also reduce the possibility of inter-drey warfare, as paradoxical as that sounds.  With settlements only a day apart, Gheen families usually span multiple dreys.  A 'clan' is defined as a branch of a family within a single drey.  Because a clan in one drey is more loyal to its kin in neighboring dreys than to the other clans of its own drey, war between dreys is generally a futile proposition.  When dreys are close, every war is a civil war, and nothing horrifies the Gheen more than the prospect of slaying their own kin.

*Second, we approach the villages of the Iskites.  The Iskites are fairly average-sized as the four races go, taller than the Umbril but only slightly heavier.  Their birth rate is similar to that of humans, as is their omnivorous diet.  Their food demand is not exceptional (though an Iskite in the process of regenerating a limb will eat vast quantities of food).  Most importantly, they have no families and are not ideologically attached to the idea of having more children; mating is a privilege, but it is being chosen for mating that is the desirable part, not the production of the child itself (as the parents will never know which child is theirs).

The Iskite strategy is the opposite of the Gheen strategy.  They have no need to form multiple nearby settlements, and this may in fact only produce conflict since the villages have no familial bonds between them.  Their position on the forest floor is inherently more dangerous than that of the Gheen, which favors larger settlements '" big villages can maintain professional forces and have the manpower for defensive building projects.  They achieve these large villages through agriculture, which produces marginally more food than the Forest itself.  It's not a very efficient use of labor, as farming takes a great deal more time than gathering, but it allows a single area to support denser population which yields dividends of greater safety and specialization.  To keep the village from expanding beyond its carrying capacity, Iskite society imposes strict population controls, going so far as to exile those who have children outside the sanction of the community.  The punishment seems severe, especially considering that one extra child is unlikely to throw the community into starvation, but the Iskites see it as the only way to ensure that the policy is taken seriously.

*Third, we consider the colonies of the Umbril.  The Umbril differ from our previous two cases primarily in terms of their food requirements.  Their sustenance is rotting vegetable matter; it is easy to find and manufacture, and even though they eat a substantial amount they never really lack for resources.  The Umbril birthrate is highly variable, and the spore-cloud can yield many sporelings or few depending on how the currents carry it.  They naturally have no family structure; their associations are purely voluntary, and like the Iskites they have no idea whose sporeling is whose.

With no limits imposed by the availability of food, it seems like the Umbril strategy would be very similar to the Iskite one only more so '" group together for safety.  Like the Iskites, the Umbril face significant threats on the forest floor.  The Umbril, however, still derive their food from the forest.  There's no way that farming could yield more vegetable matter ripe for decay than the forest itself '" in fact, given the poor state of agricultural technology, cultivated land probably has less to offer the Umbril by an order of magnitude.  In addition, Umbril society is rife with suspicion, plotting, and power struggles, and lacks the social cohesion and predilection for authoritarianism that allows the Iskites to turn larger populations towards coordinated defensive projects.  Such walls and fortifications would do the Umbril little good anyway, for in order to make such defensive lines work they would have to clear their forest and decimate their own local food supply.

The result is that the Umbril prefer a different strategy altogether.  By keeping the size of their settlements small, they can use camouflage and concealment to keep their colonies safe.  Colonies tend to occur in 'clusters,' but they are spaced further apart than Gheen dreys.  For a variety of reasons, colonies feel that proximity is not conducive to their safety and prosperity.  If one colony is overrun by very powerful enemies, the other colonies would prefer to be hidden away at a safe distance.  Umbril colonies in contact with aliens often compete with each other over issues of trade, so nearby colonies only cause problems.  Umbril elites seldom want the elites of other colonies involved in their business.  Still, colonies remain in loose clusters so that they are able to trade, share news and information, and coordinate in the unlikely event of war.  Sometimes a single Ivet (prince) presides over an entire cluster, but usually the authority of such a leader is only nominal.[/list]
Numbers

Attaching concrete numbers to these general descriptions isn't easy; there are too many differences between these situations and those of early Earth societies.  Still, I can make some estimates that seem reasonable.

Gheen clans tend to be around 40-60 individuals and a single drey usually has between 4 and 6 clans, for a total population range of 160-360.

Iskite villages regularly exceed 400 and average around 500, though some particularly fertile areas can support a larger population.

Umbril colonies vary substantially in size, but rarely exceed 250 individuals.

The Tahro have been absent so far on account of their nomadism.  Of all four races, the Tahro are the only one for whom meat is a central part of their diet.  The Iskites supplement their diet with modest amounts of game or domesticated animal, the Gheen are dedicated vegetarians (they don't believe insects count as 'meat'), and decaying animal matter usually only gets into the Umbril diet by accident.  The hunt is a critical part of Tahr culture; a male Tahr cannot become an adult without singlehandedly making a kill.  By their nature, predators cannot maintain a dense population, and the diet of the Tahro keeps them on the move to avoid exhausting an area's game supply.

Bloods are small family units of 15-30 individuals.  Bloods that exceed this size become increasingly unwieldy and usually end up splitting.  A group of bloods form a tribe; bloods keep to their own camps throughout most of the year, but the tribe convenes in full during the red season.  A tribe is usually composed of about a dozen bloods, and sometimes up to twenty.  With 180-360 individuals, a tribe of a dozen bloods would severely strain the local game resources if it were in one place for more than two weeks.

The Beginnings of Urban Life

Where they exist, larger settlements are almost always Umbril or Iskite in origin.  The Iskites (and their cousins, the Ussik) were the first to develop proto-urban settlements in places like the Scalemount, the Wash, and the Netai.  The size of the Iskite village is limited primarily by the availability of food; factors like good soil, seasonal flooding, and the availability of slaves allowed some villages to grow beyond the size of a "normal" village.  Unusually large villages with populations of a thousand or more can be found in some areas, but they are large villages, not cities.

The Umbril were the next to contribute to urbanization.  Capable of eating the waste left over from Iskite fields, the Umbril are in many ways perfect urbanites, especially when paired with the scaly aliens.  Simultaneously in the Wash and the Netai, some Umbril colonies moved closer to Iskite/Ussik villages, establishing close trade and defense relationships.  In some cases, these communities merged and grew.  In the Netai, this trend slowed during the Age of Prophets because the Grand Authority frowned upon the 'corruption' of Iskite culture by 'chaotic alien influences.'  It was permanently ended by the Recentering.  The First Horde destroyed most of the Netai's coastal settlements; the Umbril fled to the isles, while the Iskites retreated inland or to villages in the Scalemount.  The Netai Umbril did not forgot their experiments with urban living, however, and eventually founded the large and powerful cities of the Netai that exist today.

In the Wash, Ussik-Umbril cooperation had a different history.  The Grand Authority never pulled much weight with the Ussik, and the Recentering was not nearly as destructive to the Wash as it was to the Netai.  Snubbed by their cousins, the Ussik always did get along better with the Umbril.  'Towns' of Ussik and Umbril are now reasonably common in the Wash, a handful of which handily exceed 2,000 individuals.  In the clockwise Wash, it is these towns that presently form the backbone of armed resistance against the World-Queen.  In the Greenwash, one of these towns '" called White Lotus '" eventually became one of the great cities of the Black Circle.

Cities of the Circle

By far the oldest of the 'Jewels of the Obsidian Crown,' White Lotus doubtless influenced the early growth of the City of Orpiment; the Ajen-Umbril who built it had been in contact with White Lotus (and occasionally at war with it) for generations.  The cities of the Black Circle, however, only became 'cities' in the proper sense of the term because of the growth of the Black Circle route.  Before this, the settlements were a standard Ussik-Umbril town (White Lotus), a lonely outpost for mining and lodestone expeditions (City of Orpiment), an isolated religious compound (Greythorn), and a refugee sanctuary (Grove of Tranquility).  The final two cities, the Rookery and Koldon's Well, did not even exist until the growing regional trade inspired local Gheen and Tahr populations (respectively) to move in on the action.
[note=City size]In the Clockwork Jungle, the threshold for a settlement to be called a "city" is about 3,000 residents.  This corresponds somewhat closely with Earth's neolithic age; major population centers of the time like Jericho, Ain Ghazal, and Catalhoyuk have been estimated to have numbered 2-3 thousand residents at any one time (though I've seen a few much larger estimates).  This makes some degree of sense for this setting, as farming technology is at best at the neolithic level.[/note]
Creating estimates for the population of these cities is difficult.  Starting with the smallest is probably the best way to approach the problem.

Koldon's Well has a largely Tahr population that is highly unstable, because it functions as a 'red camp' that explodes into a massive city once a year.  During most of the year, the population is probably no more than 3 to 4 thousand; about a thousand are the Children of the Well, Tahro who have converted to sedentary life in order to permanently maintain the settlement.  The rest are foreigners and aliens '" primarily merchants and flyers '" who are more interested in the city's placement on the Black Circle than its Tahr culture.  When the bloods return each year, the population momentarily reaches 8-10 thousand.  How is this sustained for two weeks?  Trade seems to be the most likely answer, and perhaps procuring this immense amount of supplies is part of the function of the Children of the Well.

*The Rookery is more stable than the Well, but it is the youngest of the Black Circle cities.  Its limestone spires make for an excellent aerial port, but the population is not great.  It is only able to reach city size because it is the single example of Gheen 'agriculture' '" many of the steep slopes of the city have been terraced and planted with fruit trees.  The total population of the city is probably not more than 4,000.

*The Grove of Tranquility has a very mixed population with a variety of food sources '" garden trellises within the city, fish stocks transplanted into the canals, and the Forest outside the city's outer limit.  It is larger than either the Rookery or the Well, but not by much '" the eerie Grove is not a very attractive place for new settlement.  6,000 is probably a good estimate, broken down into 3,500 'greens' (natives descended from refugees), 2,000 'blacks' (merchants, flyers, and tradesmen involved in the Black Circle trade), and 500 'pinks' (cultists of the Society of the Seed).

*Greythorn is a significantly larger city; it is essentially a very large Iskite village held together by religious devotion and supplied by the products of its fertile volcanic soil.  Greythorn probably tops out around 10,000, as large as Koldon's Well during the red season.  It might be larger still if the city was not so dogmatic and repressive; few non-Iskites live there permanently.

*The City of Orpiment lacks the agricultural base of Greythorn '" or any agriculture at all, for that matter '" but it has its own section of the Forest and an Umbril majority (whose demands for food are easily met).  15,000 seems like a reasonable estimate for the city, but about a third of these are slaves of the city.  As a result, the city's free population rarely participates in the production of food, and the city boasts an unparalleled proportion of citizens engaged in urban trades and commerce.

*White Lotus is the largest of the Black Circle cities.  Like Greythorn, it has excellent farming land (created artificially on the surface of the lake), but like the City of Orpiment it has a sizeable Umbril population (about 35%) that lives off of organic waste.  White Lotus probably boasts a population upwards of 20 thousand, perhaps as many as 25,000.[/list]
Cities of the Netai

Besides the Black Circle, only the Netai boasts cities.  Presently, all of them are under the control of the Netai Confederation except for Meja.  All are products of post-Recentering Evne-Umbril civilization, created by the merging of fishing villages for defense during the years prior to the unification of the isles under the Oranid Prince of the Green.  Though non-Umbril minorities are present in all Netai cities, they are not 'joint efforts' like the towns of the Wash, and are nowhere near as cosmopolitan as the Black Circle cities.

Unlike most Umbril, the Evne (or 'Netai') Umbril have more meat in their diet '" they are (rotten) fish-eaters.  As all their cities are coastal, however, this doesn't really put any additional constraints on their population size.  The Netai cities are probably best compared to the City of Orpiment, though none reach that size because they lack that city's slave labor and its great wealth.  Andar, the largest Netai city, is probably best estimated at around 12,000 individuals.  Var Aban, the capital of the Confederation, is not far behind.  In general, most notable Netai cities (e.g. Teven, Var Umber, Vanam Dur, Meja, Valssath) have between 4,000 and 10,000 people '" large by Clockwork Jungle standards, but dwarfed by White Lotus.

[Matt Larkin (author)]

I want to say I'm very impressed with what you've been doing with the wiki. One day when I've more time (i.e. probably not for a little while) I plan to read over everything in depth. You've got some really neat ideas. Especially liked the canopy wyrm idea.

[Polycarp]

Addendum

Vreeg asked me in chat about how densely populated individual villages, dreys, and colonies would be.  It's a good question that I didn't address in the previous post.

Gheen, I imagine, would be very close together.  The Gheen have no real sense of "personal space" and have no expectation of privacy - everybody is always in everybody else's business.  Because they live in the canopy, their settlements are three-dimensional, allowing individual platforms to be not only next to each other but atop and below each other as well.  The Gheen also have no bridges or ropes between their platforms, preferring to leap, so having their buildings close together allows them to travel without making massive jumps that might be impossible for the young or infirm.

Iskites live fairly close together, though nowhere near the Gheen's density.  Most Iskites live in blockhouses reminiscent of a Norse or Iroquois longhouse in which practitioners of a certain trade live and work together.  These buildings (along with granaries, storehouses, stand-alone workshops, and so on) are set close together, usually in a grid pattern, centered around the central hatchery and clock tower.  In most villages, the streets of this grid are made of packed dirt and just barely wide enough for two carts to pass each other.  The village proper is then surrounded by a fortified wall, outside of which is the village's cropland and wooden fences or palisades that divide fields and separate the fields from the Forest.

Umbril realize that dense population areas are difficult to conceal.  Their habitations are mostly underground and spaced far enough apart to camouflage and keep interlopers from realizing there is any colony at all.  The Umbril also value their privacy very highly and prefer to keep their neighbors a comfortable distance away from them.  Umbril colonies are the most widely spaced of all and very hard to recognize as settled areas unless you have a very keen eye.

Tahro may not have permanent settlements, but they do maintain camps, many of which are located in the ruined complexes of the ancients.  Members of the blood stay close together; there are few of them and many dangers in the Forest that could threaten even a Tahr warrior.

I want to say I'm very impressed with what you've been doing with the wiki. One day when I've more time (i.e. probably not for a little while) I plan to read over everything in depth. You've got some really neat ideas. Especially liked the canopy wyrm idea.

Thanks.  I'm trying to keep the thread and wiki roughly caught up with each other.  Anything specific about the canopy wyrms you liked, or anything you'd like to know about them or see written?  I normally write about whatever comes to mind but I'm very receptive to requests and suggestions as well.

[Matt Larkin (author)]

In part, I think it grabbed me because it reminded me of the Canopy Dragon back from when I played Magic years ago; I liked the art for that set.

The idea of monstrous creatures living in the canopies appeals on some visceral level.

To be honest, I've only skimmed the surface, so chances are you've answered any early questions I might post. I'm hard at work on getting Eschaton wiki-ready, but I'll be taking a closer Clockwork look when I wrap that up.

[Polycarp]

Art

I like interesting landscape scenes, whether photographed or drawn.  I thought I'd post a few here to convey what I visualize the landscape of the Clockwork Jungle as.  I mentioned some of these in the earlier chat on this setting, but why not show some?

The original inspiration for this setting was a picture of Ta Prohm, a temple ruin in Angkor, Cambodia that is one of the few that hasn't been cleared of vegetation.  The result is pictures like this:

[spoiler=Ta Prohm][/spoiler]
Many sites around the world, from Chichen Itza to Angkor Wat, have been cleared to provide people with access.  While this is undoubtedly better for tourism (and probably historians too), I think there's a certain intriguing quality about the overgrown ruin that is lost at the same time.

Of course, some are obvious from the air regardless of whether you clear the forest or not, like some of the Maya ruins of Tikal.

[spoiler=Tikal Skyline][/spoiler]
The other big pictorial influence was an old picture I remember seeing in one of my parents' travel albums, from Ayutthaya in Thailand.  It's a stone buddha head.  What likely happened is that the statue was toppled by attackers and the ruin was deserted, allowing a tree to grow up around the head.  Now it's a "tree with a face" and a big tourist attraction.

[spoiler=Ayutthaya Buddha Head][/spoiler]
I imagine there are probably a lot of Cogs like that, who haven't been activated in so long that they're completely encased by trees or even lifted into the air.  Certainly a lucky break for Cog-hunters, but it must be a bit disconcerting to have the face in the tree actually watching you.

The Netai was inspired by Ha Long Bay in Vietnam - a lot of karst islands with a very distinctive look.

[spoiler=Ha Long Bay][/spoiler]
Digital art can also be really good for landscapes.  The first one is how I picture some of the Clockwork Jungle's more mountainous regions, which are covered by the Forest all the same.  The second, which is actually my desktop right now, is clearly channeling the galleries of Ta Prohm on the left. (Pictures are by Matt Bradbury and Daniel Kvasznicza, respectively).

[spoiler=Digital Art]
[/spoiler]
Another big influence on me is the Dinotopia books, which some of you may have read.  They're illustrated (and written) by James Gurney.  If you haven't seen some of Gurney's illustrations you really should check them out.  Unfortunately, most of what you find online are low quality scans, but you get the idea.

[spoiler=James Gurney Samples]
[/spoiler]

[Polycarp]

[ic=The August Lady of the Lotus]Nothing worthwhile exists that has not been touched by the hand of civilization.  The Forest gives us formless clay; we are the sculptors.  We craft our own fates.  We breathe life into dreams.

- Awetz Ishulu, The Argent Princess[/ic]

White Lotus

The Greenwash is so named not because it is especially verdant, but because of the greenish tint acquired by minerals leached from the lava flows and hardened volcanic ash that lie below its dreary swamps and steaming ponds.  It is where the vast variegated wetlands and swamp forests of the Wash run up against the raging fires and black wastes of the Obsidian Plain.  It hosts plants that are unknown anywhere else, for no ordinary flora can withstand the acid rain that falls continually from clouds tainted by volcanic ash.  Geysers and fumaroles burst forth from the sodden ground, and occasionally a lava flow strays into this land, causing enormous veils of steam known around the Circle as the 'ethereal cliffs.'

Who could live in this land?  Who would want to?  Yet within the Greenwash lies the great lake the Ussik call Tzan Shalkal (literally, the 'Lake of Crushed Leaves'), and from this lake rises the city of White Lotus '" the Floating City, the Wash-Emerald, the Grasping Palm.  This particular jewel in the Obsidian Crown is critical in its importance; there is no other settlement of any consequence on the Black Circle in the wide, sparsely-populated gap between Koldon's Well and the City of Orpiment.  To its residents, it is the Peerless City, a marvel of things architectural, agricultural, and political, the greatest achievement of the Ussik race and an even greater testament to their fruitful relationship with their Umbril neighbors.  In both population and land area, it is the largest city in the world.
[note=Nomenclature]The proper name for a resident of the White Lotus is shalkalje, literally meaning 'a crushed leaf one,' but more loosely translated as 'tea-person.'  A Circle flyer who makes a remark about 'teamen' is not referring to people who serve hot drinks.[/note]
The city itself only takes up a small part of the Tzan Shalkal, a roughly crescent-shaped body of greenish water that is known colloquially as the 'Tea Bowl.'  The first settlement here was built on a narrow spit of land extending into the lake; the settlement grew outwards into the lake through a process of 'reclamation,' where timbers are used to fence off a small area, which is then alternately filled with mud and mats of reeds and grasses.  It is commonly believed that the site was first settled by Umbril, and that later Ussik immigrants invented the reclamation technique after observing the Umbril making 'swamp pits' to decay their food in a somewhat similar manner.  Now, the original peninsula is only one of several causeways linking the city to the shore of the lake.

The Tzan Shalkal is an anomaly in the region because of its relative depth.  Most lakes in the Greenwash are shallow and poorly defined, and often it is impossible to tell where marshland ends and a lake begins.  Though the Tzan Shalkal is linked with a variety of other, smaller bodies of water, the sheer volume of water within the lake ensures that the acidic rain of the region is very diluted.  For this reason '" and perhaps other, less understood reasons '" the lake can support plant life that finds life difficult elsewhere.

White Lotus is undoubtedly the oldest of the Black Circle cities, making it the oldest known city in existence today.  Though supposedly founded by Nevir-Umbril, it came under Ussik domination early in its history.  Instead of being expelled, however, the native Umbril were kept because of their expertise in marshland construction.  According to legend, the Ussik were forced to rely on their Umbril serfs to repulse an attack by the Ajen prince Elam-Ilsal.  Having successfully defended their home, the Umbril then gave the Ussik an ultimatum '" emancipate us, or face rebellion.  The Ussik grandmasters relented, and the first Lake Compact was created, which recognized the political equality of the two races.

The Lake Compact as it was originally made (indeed, if the above story is true at all) was not the one that exists today.  Though publically the Compact is 'as old as the city,' the Engans (the landowning class of the city) admit privately that the document itself has been edited, lost, found, scrapped, and rewritten so many times that there is likely very little (if any) original content remaining in the modern iteration of the Compact.  Though in all its forms it has upheld the equality of the Ussik and Umbril populations, it has changed to legitimate various political regimes that have dominated the city since its founding.

Until the war against Elam-Ilsal, the city had been ruled in the traditional Iskite method of governance, where a village's grandmasters make decisions in an informal council.  Some time after the creation of the Lake Compact, however, the city adopted an Umbril monarchic system centered around the Ivet (meaning 'prince,' rendered in the Ussik dialect of the LT as Awetz), but imbued with the authority of an Ussik leader.  Princes were always Ussik and hereditary through the female line, though unlike a Gheen monarchy the Awetz could be male or female.  Over time, power shifted to citizens that owned productive garden plots on which the city depended.  The Engans developed from this, and for hundreds of years the Engans and the Awetz were engaged in an intractable political tug-of-war to determine which institution would exercise more power.

During the middle period of the Age of Prophets, an Oracle Fruit was smuggled into the city by one of the Engans, and the first Oracle Tree in the Wash was planted.  Eventually, the Engans became dominated by a cabal of diviners who reduced the Awetz to an ineffective puppet and expanded their control over numerous villages and colonies of the Greenwash.  The city suffered dearly during the Recentering; the diviners took control of the city with a host of abominations and most of the population fled.  When the Dominion Tree was destroyed, the city was retaken by the citizens, only to be plundered and burned by the First Horde four years later.  The royal family was exterminated, the class of Engans was decimated, and the city was a shambles.

Nevertheless, the Floating City was not abandoned, and eventually it began to recover.  The Awetz became an elective monarch chosen by the newly reformed council of Engans.  In EVP 81, an Ussik dyer named Ishulu was made Awetz.  During her astonishing 73-year reign, Ishulu rebuilt every quarter of the city still in ruins, renovated the rest, constructed grand new public buildings, reformed the system of arable land distribution, created the city's first written law code, compelled several nearby settlements to become tributaries of the city, and standardized the tea-brick presses.  She was a sponsor of art and philosophy, building the coastal amphitheater that hosted such luminaries as Kitzat, an Iskite mystic, and Ot, the Cog philosopher.  The city's population more than doubled under her reign, surpassing 15,000 by her death.  She is even credited with personally designing the city's now-iconic banner, the three-lobed black flag charged with a crescent and lotus blossom.  Known even during her lifetime as the 'Argent Princess,' Ishulu is viewed as the savior of the city and the greatest Awetz of the modern era.  Every subsequent Awetz has struggled to live up to her reputation, which is steadily aggrandized as the years pass.

Ishulu did not, however, leave White Lotus a 'city of marble' - The city's foundation cannot support stone structures, and wood is generally used for reclaiming new land.  Nearly all city buildings are made of reed bundles as wide as tree-trunks, bound so tightly as to be waterproof.  They are bent over into arches and combined to form structures both large and small.  The same reeds form intricate lattices that cover windows and woven curtains that hang over doorways.  Such houses are sturdy and waterproof, though they cannot reliably rise beyond a single story.  As a result, the city is a sprawling grid of short, arched houses, as impressively horizontal as the City of Orpiment is vertical.
[note=Reed houses]Reed architecture is inspired by the mudhif of the Marsh Arabs in southern Iraq.[/note]
The houses of White Lotus are intermixed with rectangular gardens that grow all manner of grains, vegetables, and tubers.  Many houses now stand where gardens used to grow, and new gardens are added at the city's edges.  Ownership of a plot of a certain size automatically grants a resident the title of Engan, which entitles them to certain civic privileges and the ability to vote in the city's landholding assembly.  All votes are not equal, and instead scale in importance with how much land a member actually owns; an Engan with a single small plot is essentially a political non-entity, as the dominant cadre of Engans is generally able to maintain a lock on more than 50% of the productive land and thus keep most of their fellows in a strictly advisory role.  Nevertheless, even small landowners enjoy the same privileges as the rest; they are, for instance, exempt from the forced labor the city uses to continually expand its surface area.

The city has as many canals as streets.  The canals are generally used more for the movement of goods, while people tend to use the streets to visit shops and neighbors, though the Ussik can often be seen swimming in the canals.  Ussik houses are often located by canals, and may have secondary underwater entrances (like a beaver lodge).  One must be mindful not to strike a swimming citizen with an oar while plying the city's waterways.

Construction of a series of trade canals began during the Age of Prophets to link the Tzan Shalkal with smaller communities of the Greenwash.  Like fingers radiating outwards from a hand (thus one of the city's less flattering nicknames, the 'Grasping Palm'), the canals extend to various villages, colonies, and mixed population 'towns' of varying size and importance.  The canals were intended to expand White Lotus hegemony over surrounding communities, but with the birth of the Black Circle trade route, it has also placed the city in the enviable position of being the one point of contact between the Circle and the entirety of the Wash.  All trade between these two regions passes through the city, allowing the Awetz to skim off as much profit as the merchants will bear and restrict trade that competes with the city's own exports.  

Chief among these exports is tea.  In a happy coincidence of fate, the lake known as the 'tea bowl' for its color has become synonymous with the product itself.  The Engans maintain tea plantations on the edge of the city, but this is only a fraction of the tea that passes from the Wash to the Tzan Shalkal.  From there, it travels to the Circle and the rest of the world.  The effective 'official currency' of the city is the tea-brick.  These are carefully inspected and weighed before being impressed with the city's official seal, and form one of the foundations of commodity money on the Black Circle (along with Orpimine copper coins and barrels of highly distilled alcohol).  The tea merchants of the city jealously guard their reputations, and though it is a capital crime to forge the city seal or adulterate seal-stamped tea, these merchants often take matters into their own hands.  The city's legal code give merchant consortia wide latitude to enforce the city's own commerce laws for it, and most such groups of any consequence keep guards '" and assassins '" on retainer.

[spoiler=Notable Locations in White Lotus]The Grand Gyre
Though many of the city's canals empty into the Tzan Shalkal and have moorings for small craft along their length, most of the city's marine traffic enters into the Lady's Way, the city's largest canal.  The Way proceeds straight into the Grand Gyre, a circular canal at the city's heart that serves as both its port and a floating marketplace.  The edges of the Gyre are anchored with regularly spaced basalt piles, each section of which was painstakingly cut from the Obsidian Plain, hauled through the marshes, and assembled in place by Ussik divers.  Upon these piles are elegant statues of various arts, crafts, and sciences personified as Umbril and Ussik figures.  The inner part of the circle is left open for shipping, but near the outer edge the water is crowded so thickly with boats that one can simply hop from one to another.  Narrow lighters push through the peddlers' flatboats, taking goods and passengers to and from the larger ships.  Practically all goods that travel between the Wash and the Black Circle make their way through the waters of the Gyre.

The Alabaster Vault
The circular island at the center of the Grand Gyre is accessible by a single steeply arching bridge, raised high enough that ships can pass beneath.  It used to hold a warehouse and various residences and workshops for the harbor-keepers, but these were cleared away years ago to create a beautiful resting place for the princes of the city, beginning with Ishulu herself (who had only recently died when construction began).  The Mausoleum itself is a multi-faceted building topped by a steep dome.  The building is built from reed wattle and plaster over a wooden frame, but this is not normally visible.  The outside is veiled by trellises filled with flowering vines, while the inside is completely covered from floor to ceiling with hexagonal tiles of polished alabaster.  Within, the bodies of the city's previous rulers (mummified in the traditional Ussik fashion) lie in alabaster sarcophagi decorated with floral patterns and scrollwork of gold and lapis lazuli.  Aside from an artistic triumph, the vault is also a cultic focus for those who revere Ishulu or other recent Awetzes as something more than merely mortal.

The Arcade of the Scholars
The Arcade of the Scholars is a stone amphitheatre built during the later reign of the Argent Princess.  It does not actually stand in the city (which would never support its weight), but rather at the edge of the Tzan Shalkal next to one of the city's entrance causeways.  Awetz Ishulu became increasingly interested in attracting the age's best philosophical minds as she grew older, and sent messengers far afield to bring luminaries to her.  The Arcade in particular was built as a enticement for Ot, the 'cog philosopher.'  Ot had been expelled from Greythorn for heresy, and had recently re-appeared in Koldon's Well after years wandering in the Obsidian Plain.  Ot, incapable of standing on the city's wood-and-mud foundations, logically required such a place to share his insights.  Ot eventually did decide to travel to the city and was given honors by the Awetz, but many other thinkers of various popularity and reputation have spoken and argued in the Arcade over the years.  The Arcade is not as busy as it was in Ishulu's day, but a small village surrounding the edifice still houses itinerant poets, sages, and natural philosophers who jump at the chance to address interested crowds in such an esteemed place.

Wesha
The Wesha (a contraction of Weszej Shalkalel, literally, 'wellspring/fountain of tea') is the city's main tea market, an entire district devoted to the business of the tea-guilds and their precious commodity.  The idea of a trade-guild is a recently-developed one that originated with the tea merchants of White Lotus.  Wishing to preserve the reputations of themselves, their city, and their product from others on the burgeoning Black Circle route, the tea merchants of the city associated into a imetul ('union,' from the same root as metil, 'family').  The Imetul-Shalkalel (a rare Ussik-Umbril compound word) created standards for the composition of tea and the weight of tea bricks and compelled its keepers (full members) from sharing their trade knowledge with anyone else.  The Imetul acquired its own section of the city and built the Wesha, a fenced-off compound with warehouses, smokehouses, meeting halls, residences, tea presses, and a covered market.

As the Imetul gained power and wealth, it became increasingly bold, frequently targeting non-guild merchants, smugglers, and foreign competitors for harassment and assassination.  When Awetz Eshwal attempted to place heavy taxes on them to curb their power, the Imetul organized the bloody 'Bluebriar Riots' and forced the Awetz to relent.  Eshwal was largely spurious for the rest of his reign, with the Imetul exerting all real control in the city.  By the time Jeszawn succeeded Eshwal as Awetz, the Imetul's popular reputation had become tarnished by allegations of corruption and poor management.  One of Jeszawn's first acts was to announce a new tea taxation scheme.  During the resulting orchestrated riot, a fire got started that destroyed a quarter of the city (including the Wesha), and the people blamed the Imetul.  Supported by an overwhelming public outcry, the Awetz forced the Imetul to break up into three different guilds, but declined to re-instate Eshwal's high taxes and generously paid for the rebuilding of the Wesha.  Though greatly diminished in power, the resulting imetuls still ply their trade out of the Wesha and bring great profit to themselves and the city - and they have never forgotten their taste of rulership.

The Grinning Gaural
In the city's inner-counterclockwise corner, two canals meet in a circular intersection.  It is much wider than most, because in the center stands a large, low-rising reed dome.  It has no doors or mooring places, only small wax-paper windows and a central chimney.  This is the Grinning Gaural, and like a beaver lodge, the only entrances are below the surface of the water.  The Gaural is a shout-house (the teaman term for a tavern or tea-house that is centered around gaming) that caters mostly to the Ussik, though anyone who is game for the necessary swim is welcome.  Within, patrons gamble with dice, darts, or casting sticks, or drink tea over games of monkey-stones, sloth and elephant, and prince's gambit.  The Gaural is generally not a dangerous establishment for the casual visitor, but a cheater takes his life into his hands.  Except for the antechambers leading to the entrances, the Gaural is one large room, filled with pipe-smoke and the ferocious din of excited shouting and cursing as fortunes are won and lost.  There is perhaps no better place to learn both the freshest news and the most cutting-edge insults in the entire city.

The Gaural is managed by an Evne-Umbril named Vul-Feth, a master of prince's gambit (Netai rules) who rarely deigns to play visitors unless they are truly gifted at the game.  Regulars at the establishment joke that Vul-Feth will give the Gaural to the one who manages to beat him at the game, but Vul-Feth seems more preoccupied with keeping the clientele well-supplied with drinks than finding a successor.[/spoiler]

[Nomadic]

PC! you really have a talent for this stuff. I take great pleasure everytime you post in reading up on the CJ. It is a wonderful story that you are painting here and I really hope something come of it for you.

[Polycarp]

PC! you really have a talent for this stuff. I take great pleasure everytime you post in reading up on the CJ. It is a wonderful story that you are painting here and I really hope something come of it for you.

Thanks.  To be honest, I'm not really sure what will "come of it" - I've always just world-built for fun, rarely using anything I've done for gaming (I haven't gamed in years) or for any other purpose besides my own enjoyment.  For me, the setting is unique mostly because I've never been focused on a single project this long.  Usually I make a map or write a bit of history and then become attracted by another project or idea.

I've thought about doing more in-depth writing, but I don't have much faith in my ability as a storyteller - I'm trained in writing academic papers, not dialog, and I'm far more comfortable in the history book/encyclopedia format than anything else.  Posts on the thread/wiki may be as far as I ever get, but that's what I enjoy doing.

[Nomadic]

I love writing that sort of stuff. I am fascinated by mythological and historical storytelling. If you need any help with that sort of stuff, let me know.

[Matt Larkin (author)]

Hey Polycarp! I'm starting to delve into Clockwork Jungle on the wiki. I hope to start reviewing soon. Do you prefer discussion on the appropriate wiki page, or here on the thread?

[Polycarp]

The thread, please!  The wiki is great for organizing topics, but I find it's not a very good forum for discussion.

[Matt Larkin (author)]

All right, I'll make comments as I read. First, I think the wiki might benefit from the pictures on the forum. Assuming these are public domain or you own the copyright, you can post them there easily (and if not, putting them there is no worse than putting them here, I think).

For the most part, I have not read the thread, and probably will not do more than skim bits and pieces.

Introduction
Lost civilizations rock. Do you have details on who the builders really were? I do love the mystery--and it might be a good revelation for a campaign. Whether to include the answers to mysteries or secrets is something we always struggle with when recording a setting.

The Cogs add a layer of depth to both the setting and the ancient civilization. Obviously, they are a highlight, or even a salient feature. It vaguely reminds me of one of the settings for the Magic: The Gathering CCG.

There are other Cogs too; Cog haulers, tremendous lumbering tripods, and even Cog soldiers, gaunt sentinels watching over weed-strangled posts. Save for those that have been 'awakened' through magic, they are at best semi-intelligent, like golems that have lost their master and continue their ancient instructions eternally.

The four civilized races - the Gheen, Iskites, Tahro, and Umbril - use these remnants to fuel their advanced societies.[/quote]Races[/b]
I like the distinction between civilized and not. However, the word "Primordial" (meaning first, or pre-existing) does not seem to mesh with the category it's applied to. If it were applied to the builders of the Cogs, it would make more sense to me. The group in question seem more barbarians, than primordial.

Ah, now I see a link to the Ancients. Perhaps having a link in the intro would help.

Ancients
I think Artificers is the better term, in part because "Ancients" is much more common in fantasy settings. Artificers feels more unique to this setting.

the city of Teven sits upon a stepped "island" in the Sea of Netai, which is actually the very top of an immense five-sided ziggurat rising up from the sea floor.

The Ancients do not seem to have been fond of self-depiction, and no creature has ever shown up in their artwork that suggests it might be one of them.[/quote]All should be taken with a grain of salt - possibly more.[/quote]Gheen[/b]
Reading about races is not one of my favorites, but I'm amused to see these appear to be weasel-people.

Adult Gheen are permitted to take a mate.

Well that's considerate of society  x.

A race living in the canopy is cool. If you were to have games, would you think gliding gives them an undo advantage?

My respect on the sheer level of detail put into the race. This appears to be one of your passions.

[Matt Larkin (author)]

Iskites
Lizards are cool. Therefore lizardfolk are cool.

Interesting philosophy in the intro. It might make for a fun, and/or challenging RP session.

Like many creatures of the understory

An Iskite can discern the identity of another Iskite it has met before with a high degree of accuracy even when deaf and blind.[/quote]In Iskite society, there is no age of majority, though an Iskite is physically mature at around age 20.[/quote]An Iskite female who reaches adulthood gains the right to accept the duty of mating.[/quote]Laziness is anathema to the Iskites, and they have a culturally inculcated aversion to idleness.[/quote]
Seems to turn the stereotype of a lizard sunning itself on its side. Maybe that's good. Speaking of which, do are the cold-blooded (maybe you answered it, and I missed it).

[Polycarp]

Phoenix - thanks for the comments!  I appreciate the interest, and it's always very helpful to see things from another point of view.  As for thread vs. wiki, the thread has some stuff I haven't moved to the wiki, but the wiki is more up to date than the thread material (for instance, a lot of the stuff on page 1 here is no longer correct).

Some of the wording/descriptive issues you point out are very good, and I'll be making some changes for clarity as a result.  I don't think it's really necessary to respond to those here, but I'll try to answer some of the questions you asked.

Humans

You are correct, humans have no role in this setting.  This was entirely an environmental decision - this setting began with the idea of a ruined jungle world, and as I developed that concept I tried to imagine what kind of creatures would be suited for that environment.  Humans simply didn't make that list; I toyed with the idea of including them but quickly decided that it seemed like too much of an unnatural imposition on the world.  They seemed out of place, both thematically and ecologically.  I'm aware of the gameplay challenges that may entail, but if there's one thing I've learned from playing D&D, it's that players have no difficulty playing "monster" characters and weird templates, and in fact often seek them out.  Regardless, however, I'm more interested in the consistency of the world than specific gameplay issues of the setting, and I simply don't think that humans are consistent here.

Originally I considered making the "outside world" - that is, the world beyond the edges of The Forest - something that was actually described (albeit vaguely), before I settled on simply leaving it a mystery.  At that time, I thought about having humans as an outside race, native to the world beyond the Clockwork Jungle, who had only very limited contact with its residents.  Ultimately I decided not to do this, but since at present the outside world is in the hands of the GM, it's certainly a concept that could be used.

Ancients/Artificers

"Artificers" probably would be more unique, and I will probably end up making that the primary title.  I don't want to lose "Ancients," however, because it's important for those who believe that the creators of the Ruins (the Ancients) and the creators of the Cogs (the Artificers) were two different races. (I'm not endorsing that as canon, but it is one of the theories I listed, and I want to make sure the terminology can accommodate that).

Iskites

The understory is the region of a rainforest or jungle that is in the shade of the canopy; basically, everything below the trees (sometimes this is divided into the understory and the forest floor itself).  The Iskites, Umbril, and Tahro are all "creatures of the understory," while the Gheen live in the canopy.  I guess I assumed that term was more common than it actually is.  In general, I tend to use a lot of tropical terms (canopy, understory, dendronautics, emergent layer) that might not be common knowledge.  I could give a links or definitions, but I use the words so widely that it would quickly become repetitive.  Maybe a link or explanation on the front page would be enough.

Earlier, you mention an almost healing factor. Does this mean they still go deaf/blind as they age like other people?

rendered[/i] deaf and blind," say, when in pitch darkness or with wax in their ears.  An Iskite who is deliberately deafened or blinded will eventually heal, but not if they were born with the defect.  The only physical change in Iskites as they age is the torpor - they become increasingly slow and lethargic until their deaths.

I cringe at the phrase "healing factor" just because it's not Wolverine-like regeneration.  Twice the speed of a human is not lightning fast, and replacing a lost limb takes much more time than healing a broken bone.  An Iskite may take up to a year to grow an arm back, and it will take much longer if the Iskite is malnourished or subjected to further trauma in the regenerating limb.  I can't emphasize it enough - they aren't trolls! :)

Maturity v. majority - I used "majority" for a reason.  An Iskite is mature around the age of 20, but "age of majority" means the point at which a child becomes an adult from a societal and legal standpoint (that is, they are no longer a minor - thus the term "majority").  An Iskite may reach physical maturity, but is not accorded the societal status of adulthood unless they have completed their Flowerwork.  This, and not any set age, marks their majority.

Iskites are rather broad omnivores, but in practice they tend to rely more on grains, squash, and vegetables that they grow.  Most villages add to their diet with hunting, or keep domesticated large, flightless birds called saszihs for meat and eggs.  The Iskite diet is probably the one that we humans would be the most comfortable with; most of what they eat would be agreeable to us, and vice versa.

Iskites are warm-blooded, rather like modern scientists think small dinosaurs probably were.

Gheen

Gliding is certainly a considerable advantage, but I can't say at this point whether or not it is too much of an advantage.  Other races have other things going for them, and gliding is limited by weight - a Gheen can only do it when carrying a fairly minimal load, so the stereotypical adventurer with armor and a pack full of gear/loot would not be able to use that ability without dropping most of their stuff.  Additionally, there are methods for the other races to move in the trees, whether by canopy skiffs or by brachiation (swinging from limb to limb, which I fully intend to make a skill just like jumping or climbing when I get around to mechanics).

It's true, describing races is one of my passions in world-building.  I feel that it's pretty hard to understand and sympathize with a people, especially a substantially non-human people, that isn't fleshed out.  Their likes, dislikes, characteristics, experiences, ideas, relationships, societies, religions, and so on are all important in creating a whole picture that goes beyond a simple characterization or stereotype, and I hope I've managed to build that picture for all four of them.

[Matt Larkin (author)]

Hi PC! Thanks for the response. I'm traveling now, so I may not be reviewing as much for two weeks, but don't think I've forgotten about CJ.