[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":4450},["ShallowReactive",2],{"navigation-somnos-public":3,"section-availability":320,"somnos-index":322},[4,14,301,311],{"label":5,"category":6,"to":7,"children":8},"General","general","\u002Fsomnos",[9],{"label":10,"to":11,"sort_order":12,"secret":13},"Somnos Overview","\u002Fsomnos\u002Foverview",1,false,{"label":15,"category":16,"to":7,"children":17},"Setting","setting",[18,28,49,67,73,121,154,265,292],{"label":19,"to":-1,"sort_order":20,"secret":-1,"children":21},"Characters",999,[22,25],{"label":23,"to":24,"sort_order":20,"secret":13},"Nemo","\u002Fsomnos\u002Fsetting\u002Fcharacters\u002Fnemo",{"label":26,"to":27,"sort_order":20,"secret":13},"The Usurper King","\u002Fsomnos\u002Fsetting\u002Fcharacters\u002Fthe-usurper-king",{"label":29,"to":-1,"sort_order":20,"secret":-1,"children":30},"Cosmology",[31,34,37,40,43,46],{"label":32,"to":33,"sort_order":20,"secret":13},"Aeons and Eidolons","\u002Fsomnos\u002Fsetting\u002Fcosmology\u002Faeons-and-eidolons",{"label":35,"to":36,"sort_order":20,"secret":13},"Domains","\u002Fsomnos\u002Fsetting\u002Fcosmology\u002Fdomains",{"label":38,"to":39,"sort_order":20,"secret":13},"Magic","\u002Fsomnos\u002Fsetting\u002Fcosmology\u002Fmagic",{"label":41,"to":42,"sort_order":20,"secret":13},"The Shadow","\u002Fsomnos\u002Fsetting\u002Fcosmology\u002Fthe-shadow",{"label":44,"to":45,"sort_order":20,"secret":13},"The Taxonomy","\u002Fsomnos\u002Fsetting\u002Fcosmology\u002Fthe-taxonomy",{"label":47,"to":48,"sort_order":20,"secret":13},"The Veil","\u002Fsomnos\u002Fsetting\u002Fcosmology\u002Fthe-veil",{"label":50,"to":-1,"sort_order":20,"secret":-1,"children":51},"Culture And Society",[52,55,58,61,64],{"label":53,"to":54,"sort_order":20,"secret":13},"Cab Seven","\u002Fsomnos\u002Fsetting\u002Fculture-and-society\u002Fcab-seven",{"label":56,"to":57,"sort_order":20,"secret":13},"Conflicts and Tensions","\u002Fsomnos\u002Fsetting\u002Fculture-and-society\u002Ftensions",{"label":59,"to":60,"sort_order":20,"secret":13},"Oddities","\u002Fsomnos\u002Fsetting\u002Fculture-and-society\u002Foddities",{"label":62,"to":63,"sort_order":20,"secret":13},"Scribe Tattoos","\u002Fsomnos\u002Fsetting\u002Fculture-and-society\u002Fscribe-tattoos",{"label":65,"to":66,"sort_order":20,"secret":13},"The Laws of Nod","\u002Fsomnos\u002Fsetting\u002Fculture-and-society\u002Fthe-laws",{"label":68,"to":-1,"sort_order":20,"secret":-1,"children":69},"Economics",[70],{"label":71,"to":72,"sort_order":20,"secret":13},"Noddish Coin","\u002Fsomnos\u002Fsetting\u002Feconomics\u002Fnoddish-coin",{"label":74,"to":-1,"sort_order":20,"secret":-1,"children":75},"Factions",[76,79,82,85,88,91,94,97,100,103,106,109,112,115,118],{"label":77,"to":78,"sort_order":20,"secret":13},"Menshen Cabriolet Company","\u002Fsomnos\u002Fsetting\u002Ffactions\u002F_menshen-cabriolet",{"label":80,"to":81,"sort_order":20,"secret":13},"The Brotherhood of Diocletian","\u002Fsomnos\u002Fsetting\u002Ffactions\u002Fbrotherhood-of-diocletian",{"label":83,"to":84,"sort_order":20,"secret":13},"The Chroniclers","\u002Fsomnos\u002Fsetting\u002Ffactions\u002Fchroniclers",{"label":86,"to":87,"sort_order":20,"secret":13},"The Council","\u002Fsomnos\u002Fsetting\u002Ffactions\u002Fcouncil",{"label":89,"to":90,"sort_order":20,"secret":13},"The Dockmasters","\u002Fsomnos\u002Fsetting\u002Ffactions\u002Fdockmasters",{"label":92,"to":93,"sort_order":20,"secret":13},"The Ferrymen","\u002Fsomnos\u002Fsetting\u002Ffactions\u002Fferrymen",{"label":95,"to":96,"sort_order":20,"secret":13},"The Germaine Foundation","\u002Fsomnos\u002Fsetting\u002Ffactions\u002Fgermaine-foundation",{"label":98,"to":99,"sort_order":20,"secret":13},"The Guilds","\u002Fsomnos\u002Fsetting\u002Ffactions\u002Fmercenaries-guild",{"label":101,"to":102,"sort_order":20,"secret":13},"The Hospitallers","\u002Fsomnos\u002Fsetting\u002Ffactions\u002Fhospitallers",{"label":104,"to":105,"sort_order":20,"secret":13},"The Lamplighters","\u002Fsomnos\u002Fsetting\u002Ffactions\u002Flamplighters",{"label":107,"to":108,"sort_order":20,"secret":13},"The Merchants Guild","\u002Fsomnos\u002Fsetting\u002Ffactions\u002Fmerchants-guild",{"label":110,"to":111,"sort_order":20,"secret":13},"The Order","\u002Fsomnos\u002Fsetting\u002Ffactions\u002Fthe-order",{"label":113,"to":114,"sort_order":20,"secret":13},"The Pallbearers","\u002Fsomnos\u002Fsetting\u002Ffactions\u002Fpallbearers",{"label":116,"to":117,"sort_order":20,"secret":13},"The Slavers Guild","\u002Fsomnos\u002Fsetting\u002Ffactions\u002Fslavers-guild",{"label":119,"to":120,"sort_order":20,"secret":13},"The Tinkers","\u002Fsomnos\u002Fsetting\u002Ffactions\u002Ftinkers",{"label":122,"to":-1,"sort_order":20,"secret":-1,"children":123},"History",[124,127,131,135,139,143,147,151],{"label":125,"to":126,"sort_order":12,"secret":13},"The Founding","\u002Fsomnos\u002Fsetting\u002Fhistory\u002F01-the-founding",{"label":128,"to":129,"sort_order":130,"secret":13},"The Kaarn Crossing","\u002Fsomnos\u002Fsetting\u002Fhistory\u002F02-the-kaarn-crossing",2,{"label":132,"to":133,"sort_order":134,"secret":13},"The Ashmarket Fire","\u002Fsomnos\u002Fsetting\u002Fhistory\u002F03-the-ashmarket-fire",3,{"label":136,"to":137,"sort_order":138,"secret":13},"The Purge of the Third Council","\u002Fsomnos\u002Fsetting\u002Fhistory\u002F04-the-purge-of-the-third-council",4,{"label":140,"to":141,"sort_order":142,"secret":13},"The Theriae Wars","\u002Fsomnos\u002Fsetting\u002Fhistory\u002F05-the-theriae-wars",5,{"label":144,"to":145,"sort_order":146,"secret":13},"The Founding of the Order","\u002Fsomnos\u002Fsetting\u002Fhistory\u002F06-the-founding-of-the-order",6,{"label":148,"to":149,"sort_order":150,"secret":13},"The Slavers' Compact","\u002Fsomnos\u002Fsetting\u002Fhistory\u002F07-the-slavers-compact",7,{"label":152,"to":153,"sort_order":20,"secret":13},"Pax Noctis - Historical Summary","\u002Fsomnos\u002Fsetting\u002Fhistory\u002Fpax-noctis-summary",{"label":155,"to":-1,"sort_order":20,"secret":-1,"children":156},"Locations",[157],{"label":158,"to":-1,"sort_order":20,"secret":-1,"children":159},"The City Of Nod",[160,163,166,169,172,175,178,181,184,187,190,193,196,199,202,205,208,211,214,217,220,223,226,229,232,235,238,241,244,247,250,253,256,259,262],{"label":161,"to":162,"sort_order":20,"secret":13},"Alchemist's Boon","\u002Fsomnos\u002Fsetting\u002Flocations\u002Fthe-city-of-nod\u002Falchemists-boon",{"label":164,"to":165,"sort_order":20,"secret":13},"Ashmarket","\u002Fsomnos\u002Fsetting\u002Flocations\u002Fthe-city-of-nod\u002Fashmarket",{"label":167,"to":168,"sort_order":20,"secret":13},"Chuan Feng's","\u002Fsomnos\u002Fsetting\u002Flocations\u002Fthe-city-of-nod\u002Fchuan-fengs",{"label":170,"to":171,"sort_order":20,"secret":13},"Dark Sand","\u002Fsomnos\u002Fsetting\u002Flocations\u002Fthe-city-of-nod\u002Fdark-sand",{"label":173,"to":174,"sort_order":20,"secret":13},"Dockyards","\u002Fsomnos\u002Fsetting\u002Flocations\u002Fthe-city-of-nod\u002Fdockyards",{"label":176,"to":177,"sort_order":20,"secret":13},"Genesis Research","\u002Fsomnos\u002Fsetting\u002Flocations\u002Fthe-city-of-nod\u002Fgenesis-research",{"label":179,"to":180,"sort_order":20,"secret":13},"Grand Central and the Transit System","\u002Fsomnos\u002Fsetting\u002Flocations\u002Fthe-city-of-nod\u002Fgrand-central",{"label":182,"to":183,"sort_order":20,"secret":13},"Grigori Fortress","\u002Fsomnos\u002Fsetting\u002Flocations\u002Fthe-city-of-nod\u002Fgrigori-fortress",{"label":185,"to":186,"sort_order":20,"secret":13},"Helstone","\u002Fsomnos\u002Fsetting\u002Flocations\u002Fthe-city-of-nod\u002Fhelstone",{"label":188,"to":189,"sort_order":20,"secret":13},"Howard and Williams","\u002Fsomnos\u002Fsetting\u002Flocations\u002Fthe-city-of-nod\u002Fhoward-and-williams",{"label":191,"to":192,"sort_order":20,"secret":13},"K-Town","\u002Fsomnos\u002Fsetting\u002Flocations\u002Fthe-city-of-nod\u002Fk-town",{"label":194,"to":195,"sort_order":20,"secret":13},"Lake Enoch","\u002Fsomnos\u002Fsetting\u002Flocations\u002Fthe-city-of-nod\u002Flake-enoch",{"label":197,"to":198,"sort_order":20,"secret":13},"Lotan River","\u002Fsomnos\u002Fsetting\u002Flocations\u002Fthe-city-of-nod\u002Flotan-river",{"label":200,"to":201,"sort_order":20,"secret":13},"Ringhollow","\u002Fsomnos\u002Fsetting\u002Flocations\u002Fthe-city-of-nod\u002Fringhollow",{"label":203,"to":204,"sort_order":20,"secret":13},"Riverhold","\u002Fsomnos\u002Fsetting\u002Flocations\u002Fthe-city-of-nod\u002Friverhold",{"label":206,"to":207,"sort_order":20,"secret":13},"The Boneyards","\u002Fsomnos\u002Fsetting\u002Flocations\u002Fthe-city-of-nod\u002Fthe-boneyards",{"label":209,"to":210,"sort_order":20,"secret":13},"The Cardinal Boroughs","\u002Fsomnos\u002Fsetting\u002Flocations\u002Fthe-city-of-nod\u002Fcardinal-boroughs",{"label":212,"to":213,"sort_order":20,"secret":13},"The Catacombs","\u002Fsomnos\u002Fsetting\u002Flocations\u002Fthe-city-of-nod\u002Fthe-catacombs",{"label":215,"to":216,"sort_order":20,"secret":13},"The Coliseum","\u002Fsomnos\u002Fsetting\u002Flocations\u002Fthe-city-of-nod\u002Fthe-coliseum",{"label":218,"to":219,"sort_order":20,"secret":13},"The Deadlands","\u002Fsomnos\u002Fsetting\u002Flocations\u002Fthe-city-of-nod\u002Fthe-deadlands",{"label":221,"to":222,"sort_order":20,"secret":13},"The Fields","\u002Fsomnos\u002Fsetting\u002Flocations\u002Fthe-city-of-nod\u002Fthe-fields",{"label":224,"to":225,"sort_order":20,"secret":13},"The Garden","\u002Fsomnos\u002Fsetting\u002Flocations\u002Fthe-city-of-nod\u002Fthe-garden",{"label":227,"to":228,"sort_order":20,"secret":13},"The Glass District","\u002Fsomnos\u002Fsetting\u002Flocations\u002Fthe-city-of-nod\u002Fglass-district",{"label":230,"to":231,"sort_order":20,"secret":13},"The Green Path","\u002Fsomnos\u002Fsetting\u002Flocations\u002Fthe-city-of-nod\u002Fthe-green-path",{"label":233,"to":234,"sort_order":20,"secret":13},"The Hibernaculum","\u002Fsomnos\u002Fsetting\u002Flocations\u002Fthe-city-of-nod\u002Fthe-hibernaculum",{"label":236,"to":237,"sort_order":20,"secret":13},"The Middens","\u002Fsomnos\u002Fsetting\u002Flocations\u002Fthe-city-of-nod\u002Fthe-middens",{"label":239,"to":240,"sort_order":20,"secret":13},"The Pale Bridge and the Silver Annex","\u002Fsomnos\u002Fsetting\u002Flocations\u002Fthe-city-of-nod\u002Fsilver-annex",{"label":242,"to":243,"sort_order":20,"secret":13},"The Redlight District","\u002Fsomnos\u002Fsetting\u002Flocations\u002Fthe-city-of-nod\u002Fredlight-district",{"label":245,"to":246,"sort_order":20,"secret":13},"The Stilts","\u002Fsomnos\u002Fsetting\u002Flocations\u002Fthe-city-of-nod\u002Fthe-stilts",{"label":248,"to":249,"sort_order":20,"secret":13},"The Stomping Steed","\u002Fsomnos\u002Fsetting\u002Flocations\u002Fthe-city-of-nod\u002Fthe-stomping-steed",{"label":251,"to":252,"sort_order":20,"secret":13},"The Territories","\u002Fsomnos\u002Fsetting\u002Flocations\u002Fthe-city-of-nod\u002Fthe-territories",{"label":254,"to":255,"sort_order":20,"secret":13},"The Tower","\u002Fsomnos\u002Fsetting\u002Flocations\u002Fthe-city-of-nod\u002Fthe-tower",{"label":257,"to":258,"sort_order":20,"secret":13},"The Warrens","\u002Fsomnos\u002Fsetting\u002Flocations\u002Fthe-city-of-nod\u002Fthe-warrens",{"label":260,"to":261,"sort_order":20,"secret":13},"Vansen Arms","\u002Fsomnos\u002Fsetting\u002Flocations\u002Fthe-city-of-nod\u002Fvansen-arms",{"label":263,"to":264,"sort_order":20,"secret":13},"Wrongside","\u002Fsomnos\u002Fsetting\u002Flocations\u002Fthe-city-of-nod\u002Fwrongside",{"label":266,"to":-1,"sort_order":20,"secret":-1,"children":267},"Species",[268,271,274,277,280,283,286,289],{"label":269,"to":270,"sort_order":20,"secret":13},"Carceri","\u002Fsomnos\u002Fsetting\u002Fspecies\u002Fcarceri",{"label":272,"to":273,"sort_order":20,"secret":13},"Humans","\u002Fsomnos\u002Fsetting\u002Fspecies\u002Fhumans",{"label":275,"to":276,"sort_order":20,"secret":13},"Kaarn","\u002Fsomnos\u002Fsetting\u002Fspecies\u002Fkaarn",{"label":278,"to":279,"sort_order":20,"secret":13},"Masques","\u002Fsomnos\u002Fsetting\u002Fspecies\u002Fmasques",{"label":281,"to":282,"sort_order":20,"secret":13},"Skulks","\u002Fsomnos\u002Fsetting\u002Fspecies\u002Fskulks",{"label":284,"to":285,"sort_order":20,"secret":13},"Subsapient Species","\u002Fsomnos\u002Fsetting\u002Fspecies\u002Fsub-sapient-species",{"label":287,"to":288,"sort_order":20,"secret":13},"Theriae","\u002Fsomnos\u002Fsetting\u002Fspecies\u002Ftheriae",{"label":290,"to":291,"sort_order":20,"secret":13},"Woven","\u002Fsomnos\u002Fsetting\u002Fspecies\u002Fwoven",{"label":293,"to":-1,"sort_order":20,"secret":-1,"children":294},"Technology",[295,298],{"label":296,"to":297,"sort_order":20,"secret":13},"Streets and Vehicles","\u002Fsomnos\u002Fsetting\u002Ftechnology\u002Fstreets-and-vehicles",{"label":299,"to":300,"sort_order":20,"secret":13},"The Wire","\u002Fsomnos\u002Fsetting\u002Ftechnology\u002Fthe-wire",{"label":302,"category":303,"to":7,"children":304},"Stories","stories",[305],{"label":306,"to":-1,"sort_order":20,"secret":-1,"children":307},"Diegetic",[308],{"label":309,"to":310,"sort_order":20,"secret":13},"The Samatian Journal of Decimus Crassus","\u002Fsomnos\u002Fstories\u002Fdiegetic\u002Fthe-samatian-journal",{"label":312,"category":313,"to":314,"children":315},"Apps","apps-inline","\u002Fapps",[316],{"label":317,"href":318,"sort_order":319},"Manifest","\u002Fmanifest\u002F",0,{"novos":321,"aeldos":321,"somnos":321,"praxis":321,"blog":321,"reviews":321,"apps":321},true,[323,421,441,468,518,552,569,726,745,768,891,909,933,948,964,980,1004,1023,1142,1162,1179,1219,1309,1332,1351,1367,1445,1650,1675,1691,1755,1851,1949,2001,2029,2057,2085,2100,2127,2149,2230,2247,2268,2288,2306,2327,2480,2496,2519,2539,2554,2579,2614,2777,2794,2813,2869,2891,2912,2931,3146,3176,3194,3211,3230,3359,3513,3534,3556,3579,3622,3644,3692,4006,4022,4069,4085,4260,4286,4312,4338,4364,4392,4420],{"id":324,"title":32,"author":325,"body":326,"capital":325,"corporation_type":325,"created":325,"date":325,"description":404,"extension":411,"faction_type":325,"founded":325,"gallery":325,"headquarters":325,"homeworld":325,"image":325,"influence":325,"last_reviewed":325,"leadership":325,"lifespan":325,"meta":412,"metadata_type":325,"navigation":321,"path":33,"physiology":325,"relations":325,"seo":414,"society":325,"sort_order":325,"status":415,"stem":416,"summary":325,"tags":417,"territory":325,"visibility":419,"__hash__":420},"somnos\u002Fsomnos\u002Fsetting\u002Fcosmology\u002Faeons-and-eidolons.md",null,{"type":327,"value":328,"toc":403},"minimark",[329,334,338,346,349,352,357,360,364,367,390,394,397,400],[330,331,333],"h2",{"id":332},"aeons","Aeons",[335,336,337],"p",{},"Aeons are powerful entities whose origins are unknown to the people of the setting. They may be extradimensional creatures, embodied concepts conjured from fundamental physical or mental forces, cosmic archetypes, the result of collective belief, or something else entirely. Whatever the origin they are beings who, through various means, have grown so powerful that they each become a sort of metaphysical singularity. The result is an entity that does not age, cannot die or be killed by normal means, does not need to eat, drink, or breathe, and wields tremendous eldritch powers given them the ability to bend certain features of reality to their will. Having access to this kind of power alters the entity itself, usually eroding its character to only the most enduring psychological elements. This effect creates god-like creatures that appear archetypal or conceptually constrained.",[335,339,340,341,345],{},"An Aeon can be banished from a place by certain means, including the powers of other Aeons and some eldritch rituals, and their physical body can be destroyed with sufficient force, but they always reconstitute within their ",[342,343,344],"a",{"href":36},"Domain",". The only exception is if they are devoured by another Aeon or an Eidolon. The consuming entity absorbs the knowledge and memories of the victim, its Domain and, in some cases, portions of its personality.",[335,347,348],{},"Some Aeons claim to predate humanity while others claim to have once been human. It is not clear if either group is lying, but most who study them believe that their visible influence on the world predates humanity and therefore suggests an origin external to mortals.",[335,350,351],{},"Most Aeons are volatile. Many are petty, vindictive, and arrogant. A rare few are wise and generous. No Aeon perceives as much as it claims to, and the gap between claimed omniscience and reality has produced some of history's more spectacular divine blunders.",[353,354,356],"h3",{"id":355},"worship","Worship",[335,358,359],{},"Aeons are drawn to worship but not out of necessity. True worship creates a bond between the Aeon and its supplicants that gives them access to feelings they cannot access otherwise, and abilities that are much easier to channel via mortal or near-mortal hosts. They do not, as many suppose, feed on worship and belief in the sense of sustenance. It would be more accurate to say that many are addicted to it.",[353,361,363],{"id":362},"types","Types",[335,365,366],{},"Aeons can be placed in broad categories:",[368,369,370,378,384],"ul",{},[371,372,373,377],"li",{},[374,375,376],"strong",{},"Ancients"," are the eldest, rarest, most powerful, and least well understood. Nemo, Nox, and others whose names are not widely known. They appear to have formed without the involvement of mortal belief and their natures are accordingly opaque.",[371,379,380,383],{},[374,381,382],{},"Elementals"," are younger but begin to resemble human concepts: Fire, Famine, Blood, Metal. The youngest Elementals arose within the past few centuries and have begun to embody stranger modern ideas like Networks and Quantum Physics.",[371,385,386,389],{},[374,387,388],{},"Pantheon Aeons"," are the most obviously godlike. They take the form of deities from mortal religious traditions: Greek, Norse, Celtic, Sumerian, Egyptian, and others. Some Pantheon Aeons are Elementals who rebranded after growing close to humans. Others have less clear origins. All are defined by their bonds to mortals.",[330,391,393],{"id":392},"eidolons","Eidolons",[335,395,396],{},"Aeons can create servants by investing a mortal creature with a piece of itself or by shaping raw forces and materials into a new being. These servants are called Eidolons. The process costs the Aeon something permanent, as each Eidolon is a fragment of the Aeon that made it. This limits most Aeons to a modest retinue, though those who have consumed many rivals can create larger hosts.",[335,398,399],{},"The power invested in an Eidolon can also be reabsorbed by consuming them, and some Aeons create Eidolons with this explicit goal in mind, allowing them to grow in their own power before devouring them.",[335,401,402],{},"Eidolons fall into the same broad categories as their creators: Ancients, Elementals, and Pantheons, defined by the nature of the Aeon that made them.",{"title":404,"searchDepth":130,"depth":130,"links":405},"",[406,410],{"id":332,"depth":130,"text":333,"children":407},[408,409],{"id":355,"depth":134,"text":356},{"id":362,"depth":134,"text":363},{"id":392,"depth":130,"text":393},"md",{"category":413},"cosmology",{"title":32,"description":404},"published","somnos\u002Fsetting\u002Fcosmology\u002Faeons-and-eidolons",[332,392,418],"divine","public","cy4UezDvrYZ4pKfI8VkozAJ8dATSgLuAbrGSFHdy9fk",{"id":422,"title":161,"author":325,"body":423,"capital":325,"corporation_type":325,"created":325,"date":325,"description":427,"extension":411,"faction_type":325,"founded":325,"gallery":325,"headquarters":325,"homeworld":325,"image":325,"influence":325,"last_reviewed":325,"leadership":325,"lifespan":325,"meta":430,"metadata_type":325,"navigation":321,"path":162,"physiology":325,"relations":325,"seo":432,"society":325,"sort_order":325,"status":415,"stem":433,"summary":325,"tags":434,"territory":325,"visibility":419,"__hash__":440},"somnos\u002Fsomnos\u002Fsetting\u002Flocations\u002Fthe-city-of-nod\u002Falchemists-boon.md",{"type":327,"value":424,"toc":428},[425],[335,426,427],{},"A chain of apothecaries with locations in the Warrens, Ashmarket, and the Annex, selling alchemical preparations, herbal remedies, and low-grade arcane consumables. The quality is consistent, the prices are fair, and the staff are knowledgeable enough to be useful without being knowledgeable enough to be dangerous. The Hospitallers refer patients to the Boon for supplies they cannot provide directly.",{"title":404,"searchDepth":130,"depth":130,"links":429},[],{"category":431},"economics",{"title":161,"description":427},"somnos\u002Fsetting\u002Flocations\u002Fthe-city-of-nod\u002Falchemists-boon",[435,436,437,438,439],"apothecary","alchemy","warrens","ashmarket","annex","5IKaWkijJmB38tHNNtdwRzws_DYQ822jNx-tLcN2L-U",{"id":442,"title":164,"author":325,"body":443,"capital":325,"corporation_type":325,"created":325,"date":325,"description":447,"extension":411,"faction_type":325,"founded":325,"gallery":325,"headquarters":325,"homeworld":325,"image":325,"influence":325,"last_reviewed":325,"leadership":325,"lifespan":325,"meta":456,"metadata_type":325,"navigation":321,"path":165,"physiology":325,"relations":325,"seo":458,"society":325,"sort_order":325,"status":415,"stem":459,"summary":325,"tags":460,"territory":325,"visibility":419,"__hash__":467},"somnos\u002Fsomnos\u002Fsetting\u002Flocations\u002Fthe-city-of-nod\u002Fashmarket.md",{"type":327,"value":444,"toc":454},[445,448,451],[335,446,447],{},"The commercial heart of the city, where the Merchants Guild maintains its principal trading halls alongside hundreds of independent vendors, importers, and fences. Ashmarket earned its name centuries ago when a fire gutted the original market square and the replacement was built on the ashes before they cooled. Goods from Earth and from other Domains change hands here: bulk electronics stripped for parts, canned food by the pallet, arcane components in lead-lined containers, counterfeit pharmaceuticals, stolen art, and occasionally something no one in the market can identify being sold by someone who won't explain where they got it. The market runs on noddish coin, barter, service contracts, and debt. Shipping containers repurposed as shopfronts sit alongside stalls that have occupied the same ground for centuries. A skilled trader can acquire almost anything in Ashmarket, and an unskilled one can acquire most of it at a worse price.",[335,449,450],{},"The market's layout reflects its history of successive immigrant communities claiming and losing territory. The Langa Quarter, named for a Kaarn trade-word meaning \"exchange,\" is dominated by dealers in Domain-origin materials and staffed by species who can handle goods too heavy, toxic, or temperamental for human merchants. The Saffar Rows, three connected streets of spice traders, textile merchants, and jewelers, were established by a South Asian merchant family four centuries ago and have retained their character through dozens of changes of ownership. Earth goods enter Ashmarket through the Merchants Guild but also through smaller operators running informal transfer networks, family-based systems modeled on hawaleh that move value between Nod and Earth without the Guild's infrastructure or its fees. The networks consider the Guild an extortion racket and the Guild considers the networks a nuisance.",[335,452,453],{},"The Bethier Portal is a stable gateway to other Domains located within the market district, owned and operated by Bethier Kuron, a Scribe turned corporate executive. Access is rented by Merchants Guild members and others, providing regular and reliable transit that bypasses the need for individual gate-marks. Its existence has made Ashmarket the primary hub for inter-Domain commerce and made Kuron one of the wealthiest individuals in the city.",{"title":404,"searchDepth":130,"depth":130,"links":455},[],{"category":457},"locations",{"title":164,"description":447},"somnos\u002Fsetting\u002Flocations\u002Fthe-city-of-nod\u002Fashmarket",[461,462,463,464,465,466],"district","market","trade","merchants-guild","bethier-portal","commerce","46ox65fmSUOKODMfl6doUDjHL-owNUt_GPnE9y4ybtg",{"id":469,"title":53,"author":325,"body":470,"capital":325,"corporation_type":325,"created":325,"date":325,"description":474,"extension":411,"faction_type":325,"founded":325,"gallery":325,"headquarters":325,"homeworld":325,"image":325,"influence":325,"last_reviewed":325,"leadership":325,"lifespan":325,"meta":507,"metadata_type":325,"navigation":321,"path":54,"physiology":325,"relations":325,"seo":509,"society":325,"sort_order":325,"status":415,"stem":510,"summary":325,"tags":511,"territory":325,"visibility":419,"__hash__":517},"somnos\u002Fsomnos\u002Fsetting\u002Fculture-and-society\u002Fcab-seven.md",{"type":327,"value":471,"toc":502},[472,475,478,482,485,488,492,495,499],[335,473,474],{},"There is a cab (always numbered seven) that appears when it should not. It does not belong to any company. Its driver changes, or seems to. The cab arrives at moments of crisis, transition, or desperate need, and its passengers do not arrive where they expected.",[335,476,477],{},"Cab Seven is a frequently reported mechanism of involuntary transit to Nod.",[330,479,481],{"id":480},"the-pattern","The Pattern",[335,483,484],{},"The accounts are remarkably consistent across decades and geography. A person in distress, fleeing danger, lost, abandoned, or in the grip of anguish or fear so absolute that rational thought has collapsed, encounters a taxi where none should be. The driver knows their name, or seems to know more than a stranger should. The ride is unremarkable until it isn't. A turn onto an unfamiliar road. A bridge that was not there before. The city outside the windows changing in ways the passenger cannot quite articulate until they step out and realize they are no longer in the world they left.",[335,486,487],{},"The cab is always number seven. The passengers never asked to go where they ended up. The driver, when sought after the fact, is never found.",[330,489,491],{"id":490},"who-comes","Who Comes",[335,493,494],{},"Cab Seven does not select randomly, though the criteria are opaque. The passengers share certain qualities: they are often young, often in danger, often possessed of latent abilities they have not yet discovered. Some are brought to Nod because the city needs them. Some because Earth no longer has a place for them. Some, it seems, because something about them caught the attention of whatever intelligence operates the cab.",[330,496,498],{"id":497},"the-question","The Question",[335,500,501],{},"No one knows who operates Cab Seven. The leading theories range from the mundane (a network of Scribes running a recruitment operation) to the theological (Nemo personally drawing useful individuals to the city) to the unsettling (the cab is an autonomous phenomenon, a recurring glitch in the Veil that has developed something like intention). The questions of who runs it and why have not been answered and the cab does not pick up the people who would like to ask them.",{"title":404,"searchDepth":130,"depth":130,"links":503},[504,505,506],{"id":480,"depth":130,"text":481},{"id":490,"depth":130,"text":491},{"id":497,"depth":130,"text":498},{"category":508},"culture-and-society",{"title":53,"description":474},"somnos\u002Fsetting\u002Fculture-and-society\u002Fcab-seven",[512,513,514,515,516],"cab-seven","transport","veil","entry","recruitment","UZJ1XqmURpWVK8P2kTr8CCb4iNqq2z2o0E5XGcc8KNo",{"id":519,"title":269,"author":325,"body":520,"capital":325,"corporation_type":325,"created":325,"date":325,"description":524,"extension":411,"faction_type":325,"founded":325,"gallery":325,"headquarters":325,"homeworld":325,"image":325,"influence":325,"last_reviewed":325,"leadership":325,"lifespan":325,"meta":542,"metadata_type":325,"navigation":321,"path":270,"physiology":325,"relations":325,"seo":544,"society":325,"sort_order":325,"status":415,"stem":545,"summary":325,"tags":546,"territory":325,"visibility":419,"__hash__":551},"somnos\u002Fsomnos\u002Fsetting\u002Fspecies\u002Fcarceri.md",{"type":327,"value":521,"toc":540},[522,525,528,531,534],[335,523,524],{},"The Carceri are living architecture. Whether they are beings that became structures or structures that became beings is a question without a satisfying answer and the creatures themselves seem unable to answer.",[335,526,527],{},"A Carceri is a building, or part of one. Walls, floors, corridors, and rooms that are also organs, limbs, and sensory apparatus of something vast and slow and aware. Some Carceri are small, a single room, a stairwell, a doorway that was not there yesterday. Others are entire city blocks, structures so old and so deeply integrated into Nod's infrastructure that removing them would collapse the neighborhoods built on top of them. The oldest Carceri predate every other species' arrival in the city. They may predate the city itself, or they may be the city itself, depending on how far one is willing to follow that thought.",[335,529,530],{},"Carceri rarely move but when they do it is always a startling sight as a house or hall extracts itself from its footings with great limbs that unfold from hidden spaces and seem naturally fit to their shape. When they bother to communicate, which is rare, Carceri seem to speak directly through the bones of their target audience, inducing resonating tones in the skull and flesh through unknown means.",[335,532,533],{},"The relationship between Nod and the Carceri is the most uncomfortable question in the city's existence. By all accounts they seem to be the sole native species of Nod and some of the City's oldest buildings are Carceri who stopped moving centuries ago. The implication that portions of the city are alive, aware, and possibly have opinions about what happens inside them is an uncomfortable analog to the relationship between any entity dwelling in or travelling through the Domain of any Aeon.",[335,535,536,539],{},[374,537,538],{},"Transformation:"," Nod's ambient effects can push Carceri toward either incredible growth or catastrophic decay and mutation. Healthy Carceri are stable structures, solid, functional, indistinguishable from ordinary buildings to the untrained eye, and fortunate Carceri can grow vast and complex in the arcane energy of Nod. Degrading Carceri however, rot; walls become fleshy and weep fluid. Corridors develop angles that should not exist in three-dimensional space. Rooms contract around their occupants. The most degraded Carceri are actively dangerous, collapsing, regrowing wrong, becoming monstrous predatory creatures with the size and vestiges of buildings reborn in corrupted flesh and hunger.",{"title":404,"searchDepth":130,"depth":130,"links":541},[],{"category":543},"species",{"title":269,"description":524},"somnos\u002Fsetting\u002Fspecies\u002Fcarceri",[543,547,548,549,550],"carceri","architecture","living-buildings","transformation","qsoF4EH-NHLLexIghaT6viPmXxObPMCmiMloSus8BQc",{"id":553,"title":167,"author":325,"body":554,"capital":325,"corporation_type":325,"created":325,"date":325,"description":558,"extension":411,"faction_type":325,"founded":325,"gallery":325,"headquarters":325,"homeworld":325,"image":325,"influence":325,"last_reviewed":325,"leadership":325,"lifespan":325,"meta":561,"metadata_type":325,"navigation":321,"path":168,"physiology":325,"relations":325,"seo":562,"society":325,"sort_order":325,"status":415,"stem":563,"summary":325,"tags":564,"territory":325,"visibility":419,"__hash__":568},"somnos\u002Fsomnos\u002Fsetting\u002Flocations\u002Fthe-city-of-nod\u002Fchuan-fengs.md",{"type":327,"value":555,"toc":559},[556],[335,557,558],{},"A curiosity shop in Ashmarket that has been operating under the same name for centuries, though whether the current proprietor is the original Chuan Feng, a descendant, or something else is unclear. The shop deals in rare artifacts, arcane components, and items whose provenance is complicated. Chuan Feng's is the kind of establishment where you can find what you need if you know how to ask, and where asking the wrong way means you leave with nothing and a strong sense that you should not come back.",{"title":404,"searchDepth":130,"depth":130,"links":560},[],{"category":431},{"title":167,"description":558},"somnos\u002Fsetting\u002Flocations\u002Fthe-city-of-nod\u002Fchuan-fengs",[565,438,566,567],"curiosity-shop","artifacts","arcane","zWbGfS7OKveIRUucXXkXWvh88alkbQhypg4i4-ig_2E",{"id":570,"title":56,"author":325,"body":571,"capital":325,"corporation_type":325,"created":325,"date":325,"description":579,"extension":411,"faction_type":325,"founded":325,"gallery":325,"headquarters":325,"homeworld":325,"image":325,"influence":325,"last_reviewed":325,"leadership":325,"lifespan":325,"meta":717,"metadata_type":325,"navigation":321,"path":57,"physiology":325,"relations":325,"seo":718,"society":325,"sort_order":325,"status":415,"stem":719,"summary":325,"tags":720,"territory":325,"visibility":419,"__hash__":725},"somnos\u002Fsomnos\u002Fsetting\u002Fculture-and-society\u002Ftensions.md",{"type":327,"value":572,"toc":706},[573,577,580,584,587,590,593,596,600,603,606,609,613,616,619,622,625,629,632,635,638,642,645,648,651,655,658,661,664,668,671,674,677,680,684,687,690,693,697,700,703],[574,575,56],"h1",{"id":576},"conflicts-and-tensions",[335,578,579],{},"Nod holds together through inertia, mutual dependence, and the shared understanding that open warfare is worse than the status quo. The status quo is bad. What follows are the fault lines that define the city's current political and social landscape.",[330,581,583],{"id":582},"the-slavery-question","The Slavery Question",[335,585,586],{},"The Slavers Guild operates under Council protection. The Slavers' Compact grants them legal cover, a territorial base in the Glass District, and the right to trade in sapient beings. The Council collects a share of the revenue. The Prefex enforce the arrangement. The institution is entrenched, profitable, and despised.",[335,588,589],{},"Opposition comes from multiple directions that do not coordinate with each other. The Order objects on the grounds that humans are the primary victims. Abolitionist cells in the Warrens object on principle and stage periodic assaults on the Glass District that accomplish nothing except confirming the Guild's military readiness. Several Theriae pack leaders have standing grievances over members taken in violation of the Compact's nominal restrictions. The Hospitallers refuse to service the Guild's facilities, which forces the Slavers to maintain their own medical staff at considerable expense.",[335,591,592],{},"The Compact's quota system, which sets yearly limits on how many of each species can be taken, has become a political weapon in its own right. The Council controls the production of Fetters, the devices the Guild uses to bind its property, and adjusts quotas to reward allies and punish enemies. The Guild resents the leash, the Council enjoys the leverage, and everyone else watches the annual quota negotiations all too aware that the numbers being haggled over are people.",[335,594,595],{},"No faction with the power to end the trade has the motivation and no faction with the motivation has the power.",[330,597,599],{"id":598},"council-fragmentation","Council Fragmentation",[335,601,602],{},"The Council is not a unified body. Korpa has spent a century trying to consolidate personal control. Slade controls the Prefex and uses that leverage to resist Korpa's ambitions. Wells sees further ahead than either of them and maneuvers accordingly. Hergest is focused on Earth and considers the Council's internal politics a distraction from his actual goal. Juno appears and disappears without explanation. Kaido pursues enlightenment. Omara is new, human, and navigating an institution that was not designed for people like her.",[335,604,605],{},"The result is a governing body that agrees on almost nothing and acts only when the cost of inaction exceeds the cost of compromise and indolence. Major policy decisions stall for years. Minor ones are settled through back-channel negotiation between individual Council members and whatever faction they need to appease. The city functions in spite of its government rather than because of it.",[335,607,608],{},"The risk is not that the Council will collapse. The risk is that someone on the Council will succeed in seizing unilateral control, and the rest of the city will discover what concentrated power looks like in the hands of the sorts of beings who obtain council membership in the first place.",[330,610,612],{"id":611},"the-order-problem","The Order Problem",[335,614,615],{},"The Order is a human-supremacist militia armed with Earth-imported weaponry and experimental equipment. It controls Bastion, the largest of the Cardinal Boroughs, and patrols the borders of several smaller ones. It conducts raids on non-human establishments with regularity. Its leadership is openly xenophobic.",[335,617,618],{},"The Council tolerates the Order because human districts need protection and the Order provides it and breaking it up would require more resources and will than any council member cares to muster and would almost certainly lead to a war with an uncertain outcome. The Order knows this. It exploits the leverage to push boundaries, expanding its raids further into mixed-species districts and recruiting from human communities that were previously content with their own defense arrangements.",[335,620,621],{},"The tension is compounded by the fact that the Order is not monolithic. Commander Far represents a wing that sees the Order as a necessary counterforce to institutions like the Slavers Guild, not as a vehicle for species supremacy. His pragmatists and the Regent's ideologues share a chain of command but not a philosophy, and the fracture between them has been widening as the Regent's ambitions expand.",[335,623,624],{},"Non-human residents of Nod view the Order with a range of responses from dismissal to active hostility. The Kaarn in particular have long memories and short tempers regarding Sir Redfang's personal campaign against them.",[330,626,628],{"id":627},"the-carceri-question","The Carceri Question",[335,630,631],{},"Some of Nod's buildings are alive. This is not a metaphor. The Carceri are the city's only confirmed native species, and the oldest of them form the structural foundations of entire neighborhoods. The implication, which no one discusses comfortably, is that portions of the city are aware. They may have opinions about what happens inside them.",[335,633,634],{},"The Carceri rarely communicate. When they do, it is through bone-deep resonance that their audience experiences as involuntary comprehension rather than conversation. What they want, if they want anything, is opaque. Some Carceri structures have remained stable and functional for centuries, indistinguishable from ordinary buildings. Others have begun to move, or grow, or exhibit behavior that suggests a form of distress.",[335,636,637],{},"The tension is existential rather than political. If Nod is Nemo's Domain, and Domains are in some sense the interior of an Aeon's body, and the Carceri are native to Nod in a way no other species is, then the relationship between the Carceri and Nemo is a question that touches the nature of the city itself. The Council avoids the subject, Chroniclers document it without drawing conclusions, and most residents prefer not to think about the fact that their apartment might be alive and listening.",[330,639,641],{"id":640},"surveillance","Surveillance",[335,643,644],{},"The Prefex have begun deploying cameras in the Annex and along major thoroughfares in adjacent districts, imported from Earth and maintained by contract engineers. The stated purpose is security. The unstated purpose is the same as it is in every city that has ever installed surveillance infrastructure.",[335,646,647],{},"The Masque population opposes this with a vehemence that has surprised observers who do not understand the stakes. Masque glamour does not reliably fool cameras. A photograph or recording can capture what the eye cannot: the gap between what a Masque projects and what a Masque is. For a species whose social existence depends on controlling how they are perceived, surveillance is an existential threat, not an inconvenience. Several cameras in mixed-species districts have been destroyed. The Prefex replace them. They are destroyed again. The cycle has been running for long enough that both sides have stopped pretending it will resolve on its own.",[335,649,650],{},"The Order, predictably, supports expanded surveillance, on the grounds that it would expose non-humans disguised as humans operating in human districts. Kuron Inc. runs its own camera network within K-Town and shares footage with no one. The Council has not taken a public position, which in practice means the Prefex will continue installing cameras until someone on the Council decides the political cost exceeds the intelligence value.",[330,652,654],{"id":653},"shadow-bleed","Shadow Bleed",[335,656,657],{},"The Shadow presses against Nod at its edges, and the pressure is not constant. Periods of increased bleed, where ghasts become more numerous, where the Boneyards expand by a block or two, where the Lamps maintained by the Lamplighters require more frequent reinforcement, follow no predictable pattern. The Lamplighters call these periods \"surges\" and track their frequency and intensity, both of which have been increasing.",[335,659,660],{},"Whether the surges reflect something happening in the Shadow itself, something happening to Nod, or something happening to the Veil on a scale larger than the city, is unknown. The Lamplighters lack the resources to investigate the cause. The Council lacks the attention span. The only entities old enough to have seen comparable patterns are the Carceri, and they're not sharing.",[335,662,663],{},"The practical consequences are immediate. During surges, the Boneyards become impassable, the Stilts' waterways produce things that even the Merrow will not eat, and the Warrens' lower floors develop cold spots where the temperature drops low enough to kill a sleeping human. The Pallbearers see increased traffic. The Hospitallers see increased casualties. Everyone else sees an increase in the ambient dread that defines life in much of Nod.",[330,665,667],{"id":666},"the-gate-mark-economy","The Gate-Mark Economy",[335,669,670],{},"Every mortal who wants to leave Nod needs a Scribe. This gives the Scribes a monopoly on the most valuable service in the city: transit. A gate-mark is expensive, and the price is not regulated by any authority. Individual Scribes set their own rates, and those rates reflect whatever the market will bear, which in practice means whatever a desperate person with no other option will pay.",[335,672,673],{},"The result is a class divide that follows the mark. Gate-marked residents can leave. Unmarked residents cannot. Wealth, mobility, and political influence concentrate among the marked. The unmarked lower classes, largely descended from people who arrived involuntarily and never earned or stole enough to buy their way out, are functionally captive.",[335,675,676],{},"The Scribes themselves are a tiny, fragmented community with no central authority, which means there is no institution to negotiate with, no body to petition, and no mechanism for price control short of the Council imposing one by force. The Council has considered this and declined; the last time a council got involved in travel in and out of the city was the last time anyone saw Nemo and no one is eager to repeat the event.",[335,678,679],{},"The Striders represent a theoretical alternative, but they are rare, their abilities are difficult to control, and most Striders who could offer transit services have found it more profitable to work for the Guilds than to compete with the Scribes for individual passengers.",[330,681,683],{"id":682},"the-kuron-problem","The Kuron Problem",[335,685,686],{},"Bethier Kuron owns the Bethier Portal, the only stable commercial gateway to other Domains. He controls K-Town, a growing district with its own private security and his company, Kuron Inc., employs Scribes, researchers, and enough capital to compete with the Guilds on their own terms. Genesis Research, operating under Kuron's umbrella, conducts work whose nature the Council has not been able to determine with results Kuron has not been willing to share.",[335,688,689],{},"The Merchants Guild treats Kuron as a competitor and a threat. The Council treats him as a taxpayer and a question mark. The Prefex have no jurisdiction in K-Town that Kuron's private security does not choose to acknowledge. The Order views Kuron with the particular suspicion reserved for anyone who accumulates power outside their understanding.",[335,691,692],{},"Kuron's position is unusual because he is not a faction in the traditional sense. He is a single individual running a corporation in a city that has never had to deal with corporate power as a political force. The Guilds, the Council, the Order, and the Prefex all have centuries of precedent for managing each other. None of them have precedent for managing a Scribe with a monopoly on stable inter-Domain transit and the resources to build his own city within the city.",[330,694,696],{"id":695},"domain-pressure","Domain Pressure",[335,698,699],{},"Nod connects to every other Domain by the roads leading out of it. This makes the city a crossroads, which is its purpose and its vulnerability. Conflicts between Aeons, territorial disputes between Domains, and the ambitions of beings whose interests extend beyond their own borders all exert pressure on Nod's neutrality.",[335,701,702],{},"The Law of Neutrality prohibits external conflicts from being prosecuted within the city in practice. The prohibition prevents open warfare but does nothing about espionage, proxy conflicts, economic manipulation, and the quiet accumulation of influence by agents acting on behalf of outside powers. The Masques who maintain ties to the Melody's courts are the most visible example, but they are not the only one. Theriae with pack obligations to the Wilds, Spectres with connections to the Valley, and beings whose loyalties extend to Aeons with no interest in Nod's domestic stability all operate within the city while serving interests that originate outside it.",[335,704,705],{},"Nemo's position on this kind of indirect pressure has never been clarified. The Law of Neutrality addresses open conflict. The slow erosion of Nod's independence by external influence may not qualify, or Nemo may be waiting for the erosion to reach a threshold before responding. The difference between patience and indifference is difficult to distinguish from the outside.",{"title":404,"searchDepth":130,"depth":130,"links":707},[708,709,710,711,712,713,714,715,716],{"id":582,"depth":130,"text":583},{"id":598,"depth":130,"text":599},{"id":611,"depth":130,"text":612},{"id":627,"depth":130,"text":628},{"id":640,"depth":130,"text":641},{"id":653,"depth":130,"text":654},{"id":666,"depth":130,"text":667},{"id":682,"depth":130,"text":683},{"id":695,"depth":130,"text":696},{"category":508},{"title":56,"description":579},"somnos\u002Fsetting\u002Fculture-and-society\u002Ftensions",[721,722,723,724],"conflict","politics","tensions","nod","FC4P_Rfs75z_KWzwVf0gnUJGUk5NFg4MG0myzKneEBA",{"id":727,"title":170,"author":325,"body":728,"capital":325,"corporation_type":325,"created":325,"date":325,"description":732,"extension":411,"faction_type":325,"founded":325,"gallery":325,"headquarters":325,"homeworld":325,"image":325,"influence":325,"last_reviewed":325,"leadership":325,"lifespan":325,"meta":735,"metadata_type":325,"navigation":321,"path":171,"physiology":325,"relations":325,"seo":736,"society":325,"sort_order":325,"status":415,"stem":737,"summary":325,"tags":738,"territory":325,"visibility":419,"__hash__":744},"somnos\u002Fsomnos\u002Fsetting\u002Flocations\u002Fthe-city-of-nod\u002Fdark-sand.md",{"type":327,"value":729,"toc":733},[730],[335,731,732],{},"A stretch of black-grained beach on the shore of the endless ocean, south of the Dockyards. The sand is warm regardless of ambient temperature and produces a faint luminescence at irregular intervals. Nothing grows on Dark Sand and animals avoid it. The Theriae who have attempted to settle the area report persistent unease and dreams of submersion. The beach is used primarily by travellers passing through to the southern Deadlands roads and by individuals who want to be alone badly enough to tolerate the discomfort.",{"title":404,"searchDepth":130,"depth":130,"links":734},[],{"category":457},{"title":170,"description":732},"somnos\u002Fsetting\u002Flocations\u002Fthe-city-of-nod\u002Fdark-sand",[739,740,741,742,743],"edge","mystery","ocean","beach","anomalous","oy9LgaOOjW8b4I4cZM75hUOgr3kYBtGvKBWr3J8YPVs",{"id":746,"title":173,"author":325,"body":747,"capital":325,"corporation_type":325,"created":325,"date":325,"description":751,"extension":411,"faction_type":325,"founded":325,"gallery":325,"headquarters":325,"homeworld":325,"image":325,"influence":325,"last_reviewed":325,"leadership":325,"lifespan":325,"meta":760,"metadata_type":325,"navigation":321,"path":174,"physiology":325,"relations":325,"seo":761,"society":325,"sort_order":325,"status":415,"stem":762,"summary":325,"tags":763,"territory":325,"visibility":419,"__hash__":767},"somnos\u002Fsomnos\u002Fsetting\u002Flocations\u002Fthe-city-of-nod\u002Fdockyards.md",{"type":327,"value":748,"toc":758},[749,752,755],[335,750,751],{},"On the shores of the endless ocean at the mouth of the Lotan River is a broad complex of docks, warehouses, dry berths, and other structures that support the maritime business of Nod. Three types of ship dock here: trade vessels that use arcane methods to cross to Earth's oceans, trade vessels that travel between Nod and other Domains by similar means, and fishing ships crewed by bold and often slightly unhinged folk dedicated to pulling up nets of strange lifeforms from the deep to feed the city. Here, Origin Shipping, the largest docking company, manages berths and cargo logistics for the Merchants Guild and independent captains alike.",[335,753,754],{},"The docks are a mix of old stone quays and newer steel-and-concrete berths built to handle containerized trade. Cranes operate alongside Kaarn longshoremen who can do the same work without them and sometimes faster. The noise is industrial: diesel engines, winches, the shouting of foremen in competing languages, and the low grinding of hull against pier. A Dockmaster customs office sits at the head of each major quay, staffed by inspectors with clipboards, scanning equipment, and the weary demeanour of bureaucrats who have seen everything come off a boat and expect to see worse tomorrow. The noise is industrial: engines, winches, the shouting of foremen in four languages, and the low grinding of hull against pier.",[335,756,757],{},"Exploration of the endless sea ended long ago. Tracing its shores only leads back to Nod, often with significant time distortion as a consequence. Ships that venture too far toward the hidden horizon do not return.",{"title":404,"searchDepth":130,"depth":130,"links":759},[],{"category":457},{"title":173,"description":751},"somnos\u002Fsetting\u002Flocations\u002Fthe-city-of-nod\u002Fdockyards",[764,765,741,463,766],"key-area","docks","shipping","ZWu_cE_fwGzVGh6ZZSna5Q2FWdkJdAdkmpt89M3nyl0",{"id":769,"title":35,"author":325,"body":770,"capital":325,"corporation_type":325,"created":325,"date":325,"description":882,"extension":411,"faction_type":325,"founded":325,"gallery":325,"headquarters":325,"homeworld":325,"image":325,"influence":325,"last_reviewed":325,"leadership":325,"lifespan":325,"meta":883,"metadata_type":325,"navigation":321,"path":36,"physiology":325,"relations":325,"seo":884,"society":325,"sort_order":325,"status":415,"stem":885,"summary":325,"tags":886,"territory":325,"visibility":419,"__hash__":890},"somnos\u002Fsomnos\u002Fsetting\u002Fcosmology\u002Fdomains.md",{"type":327,"value":771,"toc":870},[772,777,780,783,786,790,794,797,800,804,807,810,814,817,820,824,827,830,834,837,840,844,847,850,854,857,860,864,867],[335,773,774,776],{},[342,775,333],{"href":33}," do not fully exist in material reality as mortals understand it. Some characterize their embodiments more like protrusions into reality from somewhere else. In most cases, from a Domain.",[335,778,779],{},"Domains, also known as Dominions, Demesnes, or Realms, do not map to an Earthly physical space. They are strange alien worlds, each with their own nature, their own celestial bodies or stranger skies, and each tied to an Aeon or, in rare cases, multiple Aeons.",[335,781,782],{},"The distinction between an Aeon as an entity and their Domain is unclear. Some argue that Domains are simply the interior of an Aeon's body, for lack of a better term. This argument is bolstered by the fact that when one Aeon consumes another, the victim's Domain is either destroyed or merges with the attacker's Domain in strange ways. Within their own Demense, Aeons are beyond challenge. Their philosophies, goals, and fundamental nature are defined by the realm they embody, and vice versa. This reinforces the idea that they are the realm made conscious.",[335,784,785],{},"Most Domains are connected to Earth in some way, but the paths to them are rarely directly accessible. They are instead hidden behind the Veil, reachable only through the Shadow.",[330,787,789],{"id":788},"known-domains","Known Domains",[353,791,793],{"id":792},"the-valley","The Valley",[335,795,796],{},"An endless valley filled with vast trees and thick fog, lit by an unseen and lifeless sun. Its Aeon is unknown.",[335,798,799],{},"Also known as: Caligory, the Grey, Angae.",[353,801,803],{"id":802},"the-cacophony","The Cacophony",[335,805,806],{},"A chaotic world under a discordant sun. Dense jungles bathed in oppressive heat and filled with stalking horrors give way to scorched rock and caverns crawling with ravenous monstrosities. It is chaos and appetite as a place, and the origin of mortal beliefs in hell. Its Aeon is Marabalis, a largely reclusive figure often incorrectly associated with the Devil, Satan, or Lucifer.",[335,808,809],{},"Also known as: Sheol, the Tumult, Ersetu.",[353,811,813],{"id":812},"the-symphony","The Symphony",[335,815,816],{},"A realm of rigid order, of marble, warm light, and magnificent artifice. It is inhabited by the haughty angelic Host of Elohim. Its sun sings, producing a tone the living are not equipped to fully hear but which induces deep pleasure and subservience. The Symphony values hierarchy, obedience, and purity of purpose in ways that some mortals might find worse than the Cacophony's chaos. Its Aeon is Elohim.",[335,818,819],{},"Also known as: Aion, Astraeos, Heaven.",[353,821,823],{"id":822},"the-abyss","The Abyss",[335,825,826],{},"Its sun is a dark empty circle seen from deep underwater. This is the home of the mad and the abyssal, and the beings that dwell here are poorly understood because those who study them do not remain sane long enough to publish findings. Its Aeon is believed to be a group of primordial entities known as the Atavari.",[335,828,829],{},"Also known as: Acheron, the Void, Pravin.",[353,831,833],{"id":832},"the-wilds","The Wilds",[335,835,836],{},"Its silver sun casts light through an endless canopy, a primeval forest filled with an ecosystem of hunting beasts that seem to evolve in real time. The Wilds are a different form of chaos, not entropic but constantly growing and changing. Its Aeon is Mogrifex.",[335,838,839],{},"Also known as: the Howling Forest, the Primal Wilds.",[353,841,843],{"id":842},"the-refrain","The Refrain",[335,845,846],{},"Once a Domain of verdant fields and warm repose under a copper sun, now broken. What was called the Refrain is now called the Wound. Eight centuries ago a terrible disaster, rumored to be an attack by a rival Aeon, ravaged this domain. It is now split between zones of feral mutation, zones of abyssal wrongness, and shrinking pockets where its original nature still persists. Its Aeon is Ketra, though only a handful still remember the name.",[335,848,849],{},"Also known as: the Wound, Scar, the Dying Place.",[353,851,853],{"id":852},"the-melody","The Melody",[335,855,856],{},"Its iridescent moon-sun bathes a world of contrasts in a soothing light that cloaks the danger of the place. The Melody is a Domain which operates on the logic of narrative and desire. Time moves differently, geography responds to emotion, and the world seems to change with its occupants. The inscrutable courts of Eidolons and created beings who live here indulge in intrigues, romances, and tragedies with little connection to reason. They also have a long and largely unpleasant history of involvement with mortal affairs. Its Aeon is unclear but is generally referred to as Titania or Oberon.",[335,858,859],{},"Also known as: Elfand, Arcadia, Faerie.",[353,861,863],{"id":862},"the-city-of-nod","The City of Nod",[335,865,866],{},"A vast metropolis that predates the existence of any real-world city and, some say, humanity itself. A city of eternal night lit by pale featureless moons, dim streetlamps, and the glow of shuttered windows. Unlike many Domains, Nod heavily populated with mortal sapients, occupied by entities from many other realms. Two facts distinguish the city: it is connected to every other Domain by the roads leading out of it, and its ruler maintains it as neutral ground in disputes between other Aeons, taking no sides in conflicts as long as they do not spill into or impact Nod directly. Its Aeon is Nemo.",[335,868,869],{},"Also known as: Nod, the Shadow City, the Crossroads.",{"title":404,"searchDepth":130,"depth":130,"links":871},[872],{"id":788,"depth":130,"text":789,"children":873},[874,875,876,877,878,879,880,881],{"id":792,"depth":134,"text":793},{"id":802,"depth":134,"text":803},{"id":812,"depth":134,"text":813},{"id":822,"depth":134,"text":823},{"id":832,"depth":134,"text":833},{"id":842,"depth":134,"text":843},{"id":852,"depth":134,"text":853},{"id":862,"depth":134,"text":863},"Aeons do not fully exist in material reality as mortals understand it. Some characterize their embodiments more like protrusions into reality from somewhere else. In most cases, from a Domain.",{"category":413},{"title":35,"description":882},"somnos\u002Fsetting\u002Fcosmology\u002Fdomains",[887,888,332,889],"domains","realms","topography","yyUkykyHViC0T1WMUb5HzoyzapQy9oVNGVHBkZUmT90",{"id":892,"title":176,"author":325,"body":893,"capital":325,"corporation_type":325,"created":325,"date":325,"description":897,"extension":411,"faction_type":325,"founded":325,"gallery":325,"headquarters":325,"homeworld":325,"image":325,"influence":325,"last_reviewed":325,"leadership":325,"lifespan":325,"meta":900,"metadata_type":325,"navigation":321,"path":177,"physiology":325,"relations":325,"seo":901,"society":325,"sort_order":325,"status":415,"stem":902,"summary":325,"tags":903,"territory":325,"visibility":419,"__hash__":908},"somnos\u002Fsomnos\u002Fsetting\u002Flocations\u002Fthe-city-of-nod\u002Fgenesis-research.md",{"type":327,"value":894,"toc":898},[895],[335,896,897],{},"A research firm operating from K-Town under Kuron Inc.'s umbrella, focused on the intersection of arcane phenomena and systematic methodology. Genesis employs Scribes, Shapers, and a small number of Seers, and its work ranges from the analysis of Domain-origin materials to the development of new applications for existing magical disciplines. The firm's output is proprietary and its relationship with the Council is the subject of speculation.",{"title":404,"searchDepth":130,"depth":130,"links":899},[],{"category":431},{"title":176,"description":897},"somnos\u002Fsetting\u002Flocations\u002Fthe-city-of-nod\u002Fgenesis-research",[904,905,906,567,907],"research","k-town","kuron-inc","scribe","j6iev-HjG8td5H7t4O5qb7MrtCtCWcj8rarE5xgWybU",{"id":910,"title":179,"author":325,"body":911,"capital":325,"corporation_type":325,"created":325,"date":325,"description":915,"extension":411,"faction_type":325,"founded":325,"gallery":325,"headquarters":325,"homeworld":325,"image":325,"influence":325,"last_reviewed":325,"leadership":325,"lifespan":325,"meta":924,"metadata_type":325,"navigation":321,"path":180,"physiology":325,"relations":325,"seo":925,"society":325,"sort_order":325,"status":415,"stem":926,"summary":325,"tags":927,"territory":325,"visibility":419,"__hash__":932},"somnos\u002Fsomnos\u002Fsetting\u002Flocations\u002Fthe-city-of-nod\u002Fgrand-central.md",{"type":327,"value":912,"toc":922},[913,916,919],[335,914,915],{},"The city has a transit system. It has had one for a while. No one knows who built it or how. One morning the residents woke up and it was there, stations and tracks and rolling stock, as though the infrastructure had grown overnight. A significant number of people believed it was a trap. It took time before anyone used it.",[335,917,918],{},"Now the system is an integral part of travel, with stations and entrances scattered across the city. Grand Central, the largest hub, occupies a cavernous space beneath the Annex whose architecture does not match anything above ground. The facilities are comfortable though anachronistic, mixing materials and design conventions from eras that never coexisted on Earth, and service is provided by a staff whose amiability is consistent enough to be unsettling.",[335,920,921],{},"Travel on the system is functional but strange. Journeys seem to fade in the memory soon after they occur. Regular passengers have grown accustomed to this, treating it as an exaggerated form of the soporific quality of any commute. Newcomers find the effect disconcerting. More troubling are occurrences of \"delays,\" where a train may pull onto a branch track to let an apparently unoccupied train pass, or simply stop while unspecified track issues are handled. What feels like a few minutes of delay can result in days or weeks of real time having passed upon arrival.",{"title":404,"searchDepth":130,"depth":130,"links":923},[],{"category":457},{"title":179,"description":915},"somnos\u002Fsetting\u002Flocations\u002Fthe-city-of-nod\u002Fgrand-central",[764,928,929,930,931],"transit","trains","grand-central","infrastructure","xYa3Nnld6bonpXIO-l9GjA7A1k2YZL_o7-t1bDCykGg",{"id":934,"title":182,"author":325,"body":935,"capital":325,"corporation_type":325,"created":325,"date":325,"description":939,"extension":411,"faction_type":325,"founded":325,"gallery":325,"headquarters":325,"homeworld":325,"image":325,"influence":325,"last_reviewed":325,"leadership":325,"lifespan":325,"meta":942,"metadata_type":325,"navigation":321,"path":183,"physiology":325,"relations":325,"seo":943,"society":325,"sort_order":325,"status":415,"stem":944,"summary":325,"tags":945,"territory":325,"visibility":419,"__hash__":947},"somnos\u002Fsomnos\u002Fsetting\u002Flocations\u002Fthe-city-of-nod\u002Fgrigori-fortress.md",{"type":327,"value":936,"toc":940},[937],[335,938,939],{},"An abandoned fortress built on the cliffs at the edge of the endless ocean, constructed to Kaarn scale but never claimed by them. The architecture is massive, angular, and produce an anxiety that is difficult to express. Interior geometry does not match exterior dimensions. Stairways lead to rooms that should not fit within the walls that contain them. People who attempt to settle in the fortress disappear. They are not found dead, they are simply not found. The fortress has been explored, mapped, abandoned, re-explored, and re-abandoned in a cycle that the Chroniclers have documented with increasing discomfort over the centuries. The maps produced by successive expeditions do not agree with each other.",{"title":404,"searchDepth":130,"depth":130,"links":941},[],{"category":457},{"title":182,"description":939},"somnos\u002Fsetting\u002Flocations\u002Fthe-city-of-nod\u002Fgrigori-fortress",[461,946,740,741,743],"fortress","bATk-sggP-PYbNK4aJI9TRfLRPnqM040IlNb56fgkqY",{"id":949,"title":185,"author":325,"body":950,"capital":325,"corporation_type":325,"created":325,"date":325,"description":954,"extension":411,"faction_type":325,"founded":325,"gallery":325,"headquarters":325,"homeworld":325,"image":325,"influence":325,"last_reviewed":325,"leadership":325,"lifespan":325,"meta":957,"metadata_type":325,"navigation":321,"path":186,"physiology":325,"relations":325,"seo":958,"society":325,"sort_order":325,"status":415,"stem":959,"summary":325,"tags":960,"territory":325,"visibility":419,"__hash__":963},"somnos\u002Fsomnos\u002Fsetting\u002Flocations\u002Fthe-city-of-nod\u002Fhelstone.md",{"type":327,"value":951,"toc":955},[952],[335,953,954],{},"A massive standing stone in the Deadlands, roughly three days' travel south of the city. The stone is featureless, dark grey, and warm to the touch. It is approximately forty feet tall and irregularly shaped. No one knows what it is, who put it there, or what purpose it serves. The area surrounding Helstone is unusually quiet, both acoustically and in terms of Shadow activity. Caravans passing near it report that compasses behave strangely and that Seers experience a temporary blindness in their extended perceptions.",{"title":404,"searchDepth":130,"depth":130,"links":956},[],{"category":457},{"title":185,"description":954},"somnos\u002Fsetting\u002Flocations\u002Fthe-city-of-nod\u002Fhelstone",[739,740,961,962,743],"deadlands","standing-stone","c7AfejUPtUW1bgfSpWGEpVBj_xnB6kbpoEIGfV61EjY",{"id":965,"title":188,"author":325,"body":966,"capital":325,"corporation_type":325,"created":325,"date":325,"description":970,"extension":411,"faction_type":325,"founded":325,"gallery":325,"headquarters":325,"homeworld":325,"image":325,"influence":325,"last_reviewed":325,"leadership":325,"lifespan":325,"meta":973,"metadata_type":325,"navigation":321,"path":189,"physiology":325,"relations":325,"seo":974,"society":325,"sort_order":325,"status":415,"stem":975,"summary":325,"tags":976,"territory":325,"visibility":419,"__hash__":979},"somnos\u002Fsomnos\u002Fsetting\u002Flocations\u002Fthe-city-of-nod\u002Fhoward-and-williams.md",{"type":327,"value":967,"toc":971},[968],[335,969,970],{},"The largest independent trading house in Nod, operating from Ashmarket. Howard and Williams deals in volume, moving bulk goods between Domains and maintaining long-term supply contracts with the Cardinal Boroughs, the Fields, and several Warrens-based manufacturers. They are not Guild members, which produces ongoing friction with the Merchants Guild over market access and pricing.",{"title":404,"searchDepth":130,"depth":130,"links":972},[],{"category":431},{"title":188,"description":970},"somnos\u002Fsetting\u002Flocations\u002Fthe-city-of-nod\u002Fhoward-and-williams",[977,438,978,466],"trading-house","merchants","mKZjhe5yOKk7uMGMeEZUtdrFPm4Z-WPZ4xD-OTUTzd0",{"id":981,"title":272,"author":325,"body":982,"capital":325,"corporation_type":325,"created":325,"date":325,"description":986,"extension":411,"faction_type":325,"founded":325,"gallery":325,"headquarters":325,"homeworld":325,"image":325,"influence":325,"last_reviewed":325,"leadership":325,"lifespan":325,"meta":997,"metadata_type":325,"navigation":321,"path":273,"physiology":325,"relations":325,"seo":998,"society":325,"sort_order":325,"status":415,"stem":999,"summary":325,"tags":1000,"territory":325,"visibility":419,"__hash__":1003},"somnos\u002Fsomnos\u002Fsetting\u002Fspecies\u002Fhumans.md",{"type":327,"value":983,"toc":995},[984,987,990],[335,985,986],{},"The most numerous species in Nod and the most vulnerable. Humans have no innate magical ability, no natural weapons, no biological advantages beyond adaptability and sheer reproductive tenacity. The only things preventing their extinction are their ingenuity and their numbers. They survive everywhere, including places some of the other species would not willingly go.",[335,988,989],{},"Humans are the only sapient species native to Earth. Most arrived in Nod involuntarily, pulled through the Veil by moments of extreme emotion, delivered by strange means such as Cab Seven, or simply lost in the wrong place at the wrong time. The city's lower classes descend largely from people who arrived this way and never found a way home.",[335,991,992,994],{},[374,993,538],{}," Nod pries at the deep structures of the human mind, drawing out private fears and hidden desires and giving them physical expression. Horns, claws, fur, living iron bones, steel-plated skin, the ability to survive without breathing. Every transformation is unique. Not every human changes, and there is no reliable way to predict who will or what form it takes. These changes are permanent. Humans who return to Earth carry their alterations with them, though ordinary mortals don't always seem unable to fully register the changes.",{"title":404,"searchDepth":130,"depth":130,"links":996},[],{"category":543},{"title":272,"description":986},"somnos\u002Fsetting\u002Fspecies\u002Fhumans",[543,1001,1002,550],"humans","earth","br7T2MO6POith84nXrjExEtX0CciSYnCQSIGrfYxjdY",{"id":1005,"title":191,"author":325,"body":1006,"capital":325,"corporation_type":325,"created":325,"date":325,"description":1010,"extension":411,"faction_type":325,"founded":325,"gallery":325,"headquarters":325,"homeworld":325,"image":325,"influence":325,"last_reviewed":325,"leadership":325,"lifespan":325,"meta":1016,"metadata_type":325,"navigation":321,"path":192,"physiology":325,"relations":325,"seo":1017,"society":325,"sort_order":325,"status":415,"stem":1018,"summary":325,"tags":1019,"territory":325,"visibility":419,"__hash__":1022},"somnos\u002Fsomnos\u002Fsetting\u002Flocations\u002Fthe-city-of-nod\u002Fk-town.md",{"type":327,"value":1007,"toc":1014},[1008,1011],[335,1009,1010],{},"A burgeoning district and de facto company town controlled by Kuron Incorporated. Bethier Kuron's commercial empire has grown large enough to require its own infrastructure, and K-Town is the result. The district houses Kuron Inc. employees, research facilities, and the corporate headquarters, all built to standards that are conspicuously higher than the surrounding neighborhoods. The architecture is modern by Nod's standards: clean-lined concrete and glass, reliable electrical power from Kuron's own generators, climate control, functional plumbing, and a Wire connection fast and stable enough that Kuron-Mobile devices actually work as advertised within the district's boundaries. Relations with neighboring districts are strained by the perception that Kuron is buying territory and converting it, and by the more concrete grievance that K-Town's private security forces operate with an authority that the Prefex have not formally granted.",[335,1012,1013],{},"Unlike many parts of the city, K-Town has reliable and modern electrical infrastructure with power produced in a facility known as the Uduri Power Plant. Power generated at the plant is primarily reserved for the district, and steady access to it is a selling point for businesses that relocate there. Surplus generation is offered to whoever is willing to pay for it but most residents of neighboring blocks can see K-Town's lights from their windows on nights when their own power cuts out, which is most nights.",{"title":404,"searchDepth":130,"depth":130,"links":1015},[],{"category":457},{"title":191,"description":1010},"somnos\u002Fsetting\u002Flocations\u002Fthe-city-of-nod\u002Fk-town",[461,1020,1021,905],"kuron","corporate","kJjQd4kB5wqBNcCmYflR-XI9Wcx0JviBzzMSJ-iYOPc",{"id":1024,"title":275,"author":325,"body":1025,"capital":325,"corporation_type":325,"created":325,"date":325,"description":1029,"extension":411,"faction_type":325,"founded":325,"gallery":325,"headquarters":325,"homeworld":325,"image":325,"influence":325,"last_reviewed":325,"leadership":325,"lifespan":325,"meta":1135,"metadata_type":325,"navigation":321,"path":276,"physiology":325,"relations":325,"seo":1136,"society":325,"sort_order":325,"status":415,"stem":1137,"summary":325,"tags":1138,"territory":325,"visibility":419,"__hash__":1141},"somnos\u002Fsomnos\u002Fsetting\u002Fspecies\u002Fkaarn.md",{"type":327,"value":1026,"toc":1132},[1027,1030,1033,1036,1039,1042,1047,1050,1054],[335,1028,1029],{},"The Kaarn are not from Earth. They originated in a prehistoric Domain whose name, if they ever had one for it, has been lost. They are among Nod's oldest immigrant populations and what rare members dwelled on Earth for any length of time are the origin of myths regarding giants, ogres, and trolls.",[335,1031,1032],{},"Kaarn biology is defined by growth and transformation. Their bodies are in a constant state of low-level transformation: increasing bone density, muscle mass, and the growth of new and redundant organs that reorganize over months or years. The rate, degree, and direction of this growth varies enormously between individuals, and the variance is the central fact of Kaarn existence.",[335,1034,1035],{},"Lucky Kaarn, whose transformation stabilizes early, are formidable but functional. Large, dense-boned, thick-limbed, difficult to injure and harder to kill. They can pass for very large, somewhat mishappen humans at a distance. These are the Kaarn who hold jobs, maintain relationships, and participate in Nod's civic life.",[335,1037,1038],{},"For unlucky Kaarn their growth never stabilizes, or stabilizes wrong. Bone spurs erupt through skin or hard plates grow atop it. Limbs thicken past the point of useful articulation. Organs multiply or atrophy. The pain is chronic and worsening, and it erodes the mind alongside the body. The most degraded Kaarn are barely recognizable as the same species. They are hunched, misshapen, perpetually enraged creatures that the lucky ones either destroy or ignore because looking too closely means acknowledging that any of them could end up the same way.",[335,1040,1041],{},"Kaarn culture is shaped by the fact that every member of the species is in transition. Their social practices reflect this. Growth-marking is a communal ritual: when a Kaarn's transformation stabilize, the community records the event with carved stone tokens whose designs are unique to the individual. The tokens are worn, traded, and displayed as markers of identity and status. A Kaarn whose transformation never stabilizes never receives a final token, which carries a weight of grief that outsiders cannot truly appreciate. Their architectural tradition, visible in the older Warrens districts they built after the Crossing, favors structures designed to be expanded from within; rooms with walls meant to be pushed outward, corridors wide enough to accommodate a body that may be twice its current size in a decade.",[335,1043,1044,1046],{},[374,1045,538],{}," Nod accelerates the growth that already defines them. This can lead to larger, more durable Kaarn or worse instabilities. In the worst cases the city pushes their biology past whatever threshold was holding it in check, resulting in more mass, more pain, and less mind.",[1048,1049],"hr",{},[353,1051,1053],{"id":1052},"mythological-names","Mythological Names",[1055,1056,1057,1073],"table",{},[1058,1059,1060],"thead",{},[1061,1062,1063,1067,1070],"tr",{},[1064,1065,1066],"th",{},"Term",[1064,1068,1069],{},"Origin",[1064,1071,1072],{},"Usage",[1074,1075,1076,1088,1099,1110,1121],"tbody",{},[1061,1077,1078,1082,1085],{},[1079,1080,1081],"td",{},"Ogre",[1079,1083,1084],{},"European folklore",[1079,1086,1087],{},"General-purpose insult and descriptor for large, aggressive Kaarn",[1061,1089,1090,1093,1096],{},[1079,1091,1092],{},"Troll",[1079,1094,1095],{},"Scandinavian folklore",[1079,1097,1098],{},"Applied to Kaarn with regenerative tendencies or extreme size",[1061,1100,1101,1104,1107],{},[1079,1102,1103],{},"Ettin",[1079,1105,1106],{},"Old English",[1079,1108,1109],{},"Two-headed or multi-limbed Kaarn (a growth aberration, not a subspecies)",[1061,1111,1112,1115,1118],{},[1079,1113,1114],{},"Fomori",[1079,1116,1117],{},"Irish mythology",[1079,1119,1120],{},"Historical name used in older texts; some Kaarn still self-identify this way",[1061,1122,1123,1126,1129],{},[1079,1124,1125],{},"Agaro",[1079,1127,1128],{},"Unknown",[1079,1130,1131],{},"Regional term, origin unclear",{"title":404,"searchDepth":130,"depth":130,"links":1133},[1134],{"id":1052,"depth":134,"text":1053},{"category":543},{"title":275,"description":1029},"somnos\u002Fsetting\u002Fspecies\u002Fkaarn",[543,1139,550,1140],"kaarn","growth","sj8aemxuVV3NbAmNyMowCF_X9nxkclVaM1_roV0QmSY",{"id":1143,"title":194,"author":325,"body":1144,"capital":325,"corporation_type":325,"created":325,"date":325,"description":1148,"extension":411,"faction_type":325,"founded":325,"gallery":325,"headquarters":325,"homeworld":325,"image":325,"influence":325,"last_reviewed":325,"leadership":325,"lifespan":325,"meta":1154,"metadata_type":325,"navigation":321,"path":195,"physiology":325,"relations":325,"seo":1155,"society":325,"sort_order":325,"status":415,"stem":1156,"summary":325,"tags":1157,"territory":325,"visibility":419,"__hash__":1161},"somnos\u002Fsomnos\u002Fsetting\u002Flocations\u002Fthe-city-of-nod\u002Flake-enoch.md",{"type":327,"value":1145,"toc":1152},[1146,1149],[335,1147,1148],{},"The tower emerges from a perfectly circular body of water at its base. The lake appears to descend infinitely around the circumference of the tower, whose submerged walls are equally endless. The shoreline is an abrupt circle of Noddish stone, a greyer, less unsettling material than the tower itself, nearly as durable but permeable with the right tools. The general effect is a bottomless well with a pillar at its center.",[335,1150,1151],{},"Lake Enoch bears no life but its waters are endless and pure, making it a primary water source for much of the city. The lake connects to the Lotan River to the west, and on the east its walls host a set of vast roots connected to the Green Path.",{"title":404,"searchDepth":130,"depth":130,"links":1153},[],{"category":457},{"title":194,"description":1148},"somnos\u002Fsetting\u002Flocations\u002Fthe-city-of-nod\u002Flake-enoch",[764,1158,1159,1160],"lake","water","tower","zb6EJ1jxnsrWs7SS_gohQ6vBysp4NQX-QVbwet63cNk",{"id":1163,"title":197,"author":325,"body":1164,"capital":325,"corporation_type":325,"created":325,"date":325,"description":1168,"extension":411,"faction_type":325,"founded":325,"gallery":325,"headquarters":325,"homeworld":325,"image":325,"influence":325,"last_reviewed":325,"leadership":325,"lifespan":325,"meta":1171,"metadata_type":325,"navigation":321,"path":198,"physiology":325,"relations":325,"seo":1172,"society":325,"sort_order":325,"status":415,"stem":1173,"summary":325,"tags":1174,"territory":325,"visibility":419,"__hash__":1178},"somnos\u002Fsomnos\u002Fsetting\u002Flocations\u002Fthe-city-of-nod\u002Flotan-river.md",{"type":327,"value":1165,"toc":1169},[1166],[335,1167,1168],{},"What starts as a perfectly straight channel from Lake Enoch quickly splits and begins to wind west like a natural river. Roads trace the edges of the water and a collection of districts and communities have grown up along the length of it, the largest being Riverhold. Travel the river far enough and it splits again, with branches weaving in every direction. Following the main channel leads to the shore of the western sea, variously called the Vast, the Ending Water, or simply the endless ocean. The Dockyards are built at its mouth.",{"title":404,"searchDepth":130,"depth":130,"links":1170},[],{"category":457},{"title":197,"description":1168},"somnos\u002Fsetting\u002Flocations\u002Fthe-city-of-nod\u002Flotan-river",[764,1175,1176,1177],"river","waterway","geography","Bfer9KuRVV3ESJZTXVRx8PBlPLXiOQy8aJUaQpf7C70",{"id":1180,"title":38,"author":325,"body":1181,"capital":325,"corporation_type":325,"created":325,"date":325,"description":1211,"extension":411,"faction_type":325,"founded":325,"gallery":325,"headquarters":325,"homeworld":325,"image":325,"influence":325,"last_reviewed":325,"leadership":325,"lifespan":325,"meta":1212,"metadata_type":325,"navigation":321,"path":39,"physiology":325,"relations":325,"seo":1213,"society":325,"sort_order":325,"status":415,"stem":1214,"summary":325,"tags":1215,"territory":325,"visibility":419,"__hash__":1218},"somnos\u002Fsomnos\u002Fsetting\u002Fcosmology\u002Fmagic.md",{"type":327,"value":1182,"toc":1207},[1183,1190,1193,1197,1200,1204],[335,1184,1185,1186,1189],{},"Magic is a property of reality that the ",[342,1187,1188],{"href":48},"Veil"," normally suppresses. On the other side of the Veil, in the Shadow, in Domains, in Nod, it is ambient.",[335,1191,1192],{},"The reason mortals on Earth do not encounter magic is that the Veil acts as a filter, damping whatever force or field magic operates through. This is why prolonged exposure to Nod transforms people (they are soaking in an unfiltered environment), why moments of extreme emotion can tear the Veil (the internal state momentarily overcomes the suppression), and why Aeons protrude into reality rather than fully existing in it (the Veil limits how much of them can manifest on Earth).",[330,1194,1196],{"id":1195},"eldritch-language","Eldritch Language",[335,1198,1199],{},"Eldritch language is the mechanism by which practitioners interact with this ambient force. Language here does not mean spoken language alone, but a structured system of symbols, tones, and intent that lets a person shape what the force does. Scribes externalize it in ink. Speakers channel it through voice. Shapers impose it through introspective will. Singers channel it through music. Each discipline uses a different grammar for the same underlying language, and each is difficult enough to master that few can. Most practitioners only learn one.",[330,1201,1203],{"id":1202},"talent-and-training","Talent and Training",[335,1205,1206],{},"The capacity for magic is innate, but the discipline is learned. Some people are born with sensitivity to whatever the Veil suppresses, but raw talent without training leads to involuntary crossings, uncontrolled transformations, and the kind of dangerous accidents that make mundane people afraid of the arcane. Training is what turns a latent Shaper into someone who can reshape a room without killing everyone in it.",{"title":404,"searchDepth":130,"depth":130,"links":1208},[1209,1210],{"id":1195,"depth":130,"text":1196},{"id":1202,"depth":130,"text":1203},"Magic is a property of reality that the Veil normally suppresses. On the other side of the Veil, in the Shadow, in Domains, in Nod, it is ambient.",{"category":413},{"title":38,"description":1211},"somnos\u002Fsetting\u002Fcosmology\u002Fmagic",[1216,514,1195,1217],"magic","ambient","uQiuacfDYPjtr_JrppbwGK0Xcd6dm3bhkje-6PMt8yk",{"id":1220,"title":278,"author":325,"body":1221,"capital":325,"corporation_type":325,"created":325,"date":325,"description":1225,"extension":411,"faction_type":325,"founded":325,"gallery":325,"headquarters":325,"homeworld":325,"image":325,"influence":325,"last_reviewed":325,"leadership":325,"lifespan":325,"meta":1301,"metadata_type":325,"navigation":321,"path":279,"physiology":325,"relations":325,"seo":1302,"society":325,"sort_order":325,"status":415,"stem":1303,"summary":325,"tags":1304,"territory":325,"visibility":419,"__hash__":1308},"somnos\u002Fsomnos\u002Fsetting\u002Fspecies\u002Fmasques.md",{"type":327,"value":1222,"toc":1298},[1223,1226,1229,1232,1237,1239,1241],[335,1224,1225],{},"The Masque's defining ability is perceptual manipulation. They do not shapeshift in the physical sense. They project a glamour, a filter layered over the observer's perception that makes the Masque appear as whatever the Masque wants them to see. A Masque can look like a specific person, an idealized stranger, or something totally unique. The projection is convincing but not omnipotent. It affects sight, hearing, and even touch, but it does not fool cameras or mirrors reliably. And it requires conscious effort, which means a sleeping or unconscious Masque is seen as it actually is. In their natural form Masques are difficult to describe; observation seems to slip off their unhidden form, causing a sort of exhaustion and mild confusion. Concerted attempts to observe Masques without their glamour generally create a sense of unease due to their generally incomprehensible appearance.",[335,1227,1228],{},"Masques are deeply embedded in Nod's economy and political structures. They are traders, diplomats, companions, brokers, and fixers. They take roles that reward their abilities and have found many critical roles that do so.",[335,1230,1231],{},"Masques originate in the Melody, and many are sworn to its Courts and bizarre royalty. For their part the creatures of the Melody seem to see the Masques as wayward children.",[335,1233,1234,1236],{},[374,1235,538],{}," Nod can either erodes a Masque's control over its own glamour or make it real. For the unlucky the projection stutters, slips, shows things the Masque did not intend. In advanced cases, the glamour begins operating independently of the Masque's will, projecting fears, memories, or desires the Masque cannot suppress. The most degraded Masques are surrounded by a constant involuntary broadcast of their interior life; these are known as Hollows because there is nothing left behind the mask but the mask itself, projecting endlessly. At the other end of the spectrum, the transformative nature of Nod can make something real of the entity behind the illusion, allowing them to develop and retain a true self that other Masques can only wish for.",[1048,1238],{},[353,1240,1053],{"id":1052},[1055,1242,1243,1253],{},[1058,1244,1245],{},[1061,1246,1247,1249,1251],{},[1064,1248,1066],{},[1064,1250,1069],{},[1064,1252,1072],{},[1074,1254,1255,1266,1276,1287],{},[1061,1256,1257,1260,1263],{},[1079,1258,1259],{},"Succubus \u002F Incubus \u002F Concubus",[1079,1261,1262],{},"Medieval demonology",[1079,1264,1265],{},"Masque Spectres who use their glamour for seduction",[1061,1267,1268,1271,1273],{},[1079,1269,1270],{},"Changeling",[1079,1272,1084],{},[1079,1274,1275],{},"Masques who have replaced a mortal, or Masques with a connection to the Melody",[1061,1277,1278,1281,1284],{},[1079,1279,1280],{},"Fae \u002F Faerie",[1079,1282,1283],{},"Celtic\u002FEuropean",[1079,1285,1286],{},"Broad term for Masques and Melody-associated entities",[1061,1288,1289,1292,1295],{},[1079,1290,1291],{},"Nymph",[1079,1293,1294],{},"Greek mythology",[1079,1296,1297],{},"Masques with nature-associated glamour",{"title":404,"searchDepth":130,"depth":130,"links":1299},[1300],{"id":1052,"depth":134,"text":1053},{"category":543},{"title":278,"description":1225},"somnos\u002Fsetting\u002Fspecies\u002Fmasques",[543,1305,1306,1307,550],"masques","glamour","melody","8GwANnOuiOJE_Uz_qmgNaHMZO5m6VqT3HMd7fy12eMQ",{"id":1310,"title":77,"author":325,"body":1311,"capital":325,"corporation_type":325,"created":325,"date":325,"description":1315,"extension":411,"faction_type":325,"founded":325,"gallery":325,"headquarters":325,"homeworld":325,"image":325,"influence":325,"last_reviewed":325,"leadership":325,"lifespan":325,"meta":1324,"metadata_type":325,"navigation":321,"path":78,"physiology":325,"relations":325,"seo":1326,"society":325,"sort_order":325,"status":415,"stem":1327,"summary":325,"tags":1328,"territory":325,"visibility":419,"__hash__":1331},"somnos\u002Fsomnos\u002Fsetting\u002Ffactions\u002F_menshen-cabriolet.md",{"type":327,"value":1312,"toc":1322},[1313,1316],[335,1314,1315],{},"The operator of Nod's Red Cab service, the only organized surface transit alternative to the underground trains. Red Cabs range from horse-drawn carriages in the old districts to sputtering combustion vehicles running on thaumic capacitors to the occasional Earth-made car that someone drove through a gate and never drove back. The fleet's uniformity is limited to the red paint. Drivers know the city's streets with the granular familiarity of people whose livelihood (and lives) depend on never getting lost. Menshen operates from a depot in the Warrens and maintains stands in every major district. The company's relationship with the transit system is one of mutual disregard.",[335,1317,1318],{},[1319,1320,1321],"span",{},"E. Needs Revision with the Tech Content",{"title":404,"searchDepth":130,"depth":130,"links":1323},[],{"category":1325},"factions",{"title":77,"description":1315},"somnos\u002Fsetting\u002Ffactions\u002F_menshen-cabriolet",[1329,928,1330,437,513],"establishment","red-cab","gC5lLDRDLwybJ69iRsUGkhuLJ8n5KrnTbwLnsJM3DXM",{"id":1333,"title":23,"author":325,"body":1334,"capital":325,"corporation_type":325,"created":325,"date":325,"description":1338,"extension":411,"faction_type":325,"founded":325,"gallery":325,"headquarters":325,"homeworld":325,"image":325,"influence":325,"last_reviewed":325,"leadership":325,"lifespan":325,"meta":1344,"metadata_type":325,"navigation":321,"path":24,"physiology":325,"relations":325,"seo":1345,"society":325,"sort_order":325,"status":415,"stem":1346,"summary":325,"tags":1347,"territory":325,"visibility":419,"__hash__":1350},"somnos\u002Fsomnos\u002Fsetting\u002Fcharacters\u002Fnemo.md",{"type":327,"value":1335,"toc":1342},[1336,1339],[335,1337,1338],{},"The ruler of Nod. They are not elected, not appointed, and not answerable to anyone. Nemo does not govern, legislate, or negotiate in any meaningful way. On the rare occasions when it acts, the action is immediate, overwhelming, and final. The few times Nemo or its agents have intervened in the affairs of the Council, the replacement council's first order of business was cleaning the remains of the previous one off the walls.",[335,1340,1341],{},"Most residents of Nod will never see Nemo or its Eidolons. Most will never need to. Its power is atmospheric, embodied in the Tower that rises from Lake Enoch at the city's center, a pillar of silver-veined black stone stretching into a sky with no visible summit. Whether the Tower is Nemo's dwelling or Nemo itself is a question that the city's theologians have argued for millennia without resolution. The Tower's single door has not opened in living memory. Its walls bear reliefs that appear to record the history of the Domain in images that grow smaller and more detailed the higher one looks, though no one has observed high enough to read anything close to the present day.",{"title":404,"searchDepth":130,"depth":130,"links":1343},[],{"category":1325},{"title":23,"description":1338},"somnos\u002Fsetting\u002Fcharacters\u002Fnemo",[1348,418,1349],"nemo","governance","g420It7oNNKiPe_HGKCYIbVve-np8KtPffQQkLLu5N8",{"id":1352,"title":71,"author":325,"body":1353,"capital":325,"corporation_type":325,"created":325,"date":325,"description":1357,"extension":411,"faction_type":325,"founded":325,"gallery":325,"headquarters":325,"homeworld":325,"image":325,"influence":325,"last_reviewed":325,"leadership":325,"lifespan":325,"meta":1360,"metadata_type":325,"navigation":321,"path":72,"physiology":325,"relations":325,"seo":1362,"society":325,"sort_order":325,"status":415,"stem":1363,"summary":325,"tags":1364,"territory":325,"visibility":419,"__hash__":1366},"somnos\u002Fsomnos\u002Fsetting\u002Feconomics\u002Fnoddish-coin.md",{"type":327,"value":1354,"toc":1358},[1355],[335,1356,1357],{},"Nod mints its own currency, though no one has ever located a mint and even the Council doesn't seem to know the origins of them. New coins enter circulation bearing symbols that no living resident recognizes, appearing in caches or fed into the system by some means no one can seem to trace. Simultaneously, old coins occasionally vanish from purses and strongboxes without evidence of theft. The Merchants Guild has attempted to standardize the currency four times but each attempt produced a new denomination that the existing coins seemed to absorb into their own system within months. In the absence of a stock market, central bank, or any substantial economic superstructure the general consensus on coin value has held for centuries among the broader public. Groups like the Merchants Guild and Kuron Inc. have recently developed exchanges for Earth currencies, and even tried importing them as new standards, but no change has endured.",{"title":404,"searchDepth":130,"depth":130,"links":1359},[],{"category":1361},"economcis",{"title":71,"description":1357},"somnos\u002Fsetting\u002Feconomics\u002Fnoddish-coin",[1365],"money","m3HmXT3JSu8_G_05k7z9_MemjHiHFZtBQPvrEeTmWms",{"id":1368,"title":59,"author":325,"body":1369,"capital":325,"corporation_type":325,"created":325,"date":325,"description":1440,"extension":411,"faction_type":325,"founded":325,"gallery":325,"headquarters":325,"homeworld":325,"image":325,"influence":325,"last_reviewed":325,"leadership":325,"lifespan":325,"meta":1441,"metadata_type":325,"navigation":321,"path":60,"physiology":325,"relations":325,"seo":1442,"society":325,"sort_order":325,"status":415,"stem":1443,"summary":325,"tags":325,"territory":325,"visibility":419,"__hash__":1444},"somnos\u002Fsomnos\u002Fsetting\u002Fculture-and-society\u002Foddities.md",{"type":327,"value":1370,"toc":1438},[1371,1374,1380,1386,1392,1398,1404,1410,1416,1422,1426,1432],[574,1372,1373],{"id":724},"Nod",[335,1375,1376,1379],{},[374,1377,1378],{},"The Moons",": Nod has moons but nobody agrees on how many. Ask ten residents and you'll get answers ranging from two to six. The moons are pale, featureless, and do not appear to orbit anything. Attempts to count them systematically have produced inconsistent results even when conducted simultaneously by multiple observers standing next to each other. Looking directly at them for too long tends to create a deep discomfort in the viewer. The Chroniclers stopped trying to maintain an official count three centuries ago.",[335,1381,1382,1385],{},[374,1383,1384],{},"The Smell",": Long-term residents of Nod develop a smell that supernaturals can detect and humans cannot. It is faint, difficult to describe (mineral, cold, something like wet stone after rain), and it never fully fades, even after years back on Earth. Theriae with strong olfactory senses can identify a Noddish person at a distance. The scent has no known health implications but it marks people in ways they cannot perceive with obvious utility for anyone inclined to track former residents who thought they'd left the city behind.",[335,1387,1388,1391],{},[374,1389,1390],{},"Rain",": It rains in Nod. There is no weather system that would produce rain, no clouds in any conventional sense, or water cycle that any Shaper or scholar has been able to identify. The rain falls from a dark sky, is clean, and carries a faint metallic taste that long-term residents stop noticing. It follows no schedule. The rain seems to have a character that is obvious to certain people. Soft cold rains seem to cleanse the streets while harder, hotter ones seem to precede or coincide with trouble. True storms, with thunder and lightning, are always a signal to stay inside; that's when the most dangerous creatures in Nod emerge.",[335,1393,1394,1397],{},[374,1395,1396],{},"Birds",": There are birds in Nod. Crows, starlings, and species that don't correspond to anything in Earth's taxonomy. They are not Theriae, they are, by every available measure, simply birds. They nest in the Warrens, roost on the Tower's lower protrusions, and steal food from Ashmarket stalls. No one knows where they came from, what they eat when the market closes, or how they survive in a city with no sun and an active ghast population. Their presence is unexplained and, for reasons that residents find difficult to articulate, faintly comforting.",[335,1399,1400,1403],{},[374,1401,1402],{},"Cats",": Housecats seem to be able to see through the veil and many Spectres are deathly afraid of them. Ghasts won't eat them and geists actively avoid them. Noddish Scholars propose some relationship to the long vanished Egyptian Aeons, Bastet and Sekhmet.",[335,1405,1406,1409],{},[374,1407,1408],{},"Pets",": Keeping pets is not uncommon but they are chosen carefully. Some animals are more susceptible to the transformative powers of the city than others and many react poorly to non-human species. Even worse, some Theriae take great offense to the keeping of certain animals in captivity.",[335,1411,1412,1415],{},[374,1413,1414],{},"Tourists",": Visitors from other Domains are sometimes called Tourists. They spend money freely, struggle with or disregard local customs, and are prime targets for Nods flim-flam artists. Some of them pay for exactly that experience.",[335,1417,1418,1421],{},[374,1419,1420],{},"The Sound",": Nod hums. The sound is below the threshold of conscious hearing for most species but Skulks and some Theriae can detect it. It is constant, unchanging, and originates from no identifiable source. The pitch has been measured by Council and Kuron engineers and found to be consistent across every district, every depth, and every elevation tested, which should be acoustically impossible in a city of this size and structural variety. The hum does not correspond to any known frequency in eldritch language. It does not appear to do anything. It is simply there, the way a heartbeat is there.",[574,1423,1425],{"id":1424},"midway","Midway",[335,1427,1428,1431],{},[374,1429,1430],{},"Habits",": Mortals who live near thin points in the Veil develop behaviors they cannot explain. Locking doors that are already locked. Avoiding a particular intersection even when it adds ten minutes to the commute. Leaving a glass of water by the back door before bed. Setting an extra place at dinner. The behaviors are specific to individuals, consistent over years, and virtually impossible to stop, even with conscious effort. Those who manage it report an acute unease that persists until they resume. The Germaine Foundation has documented over two hundred such habits across Midway's population and has not determined whether they are protective, compulsive, a subconcious expression of awareness of the veil, or something else.",[335,1433,1434,1437],{},[374,1435,1436],{},"Clocks",": Mechanical and quartz driven clocks near thin points in the Veil lose time. The loss is small, a seconds or two per day, not quite enough to raise mundane concern but consistent enough to be observable. Since computer and mobile clocks rely on network calls they are unaffected and so the distortion goes unnoticed by most but the cumulative drift means that a mechanical clock operating within half a mile of a confirmed thin point will lose roughly five to nine minutes per year. The Germaine Foundation uses the drift as a detection tool. A clock that starts losing time in a neighborhood that was previously unaffected means the Veil has thinned there, and the Foundation would very much like to know how those two things are related.",{"title":404,"searchDepth":130,"depth":130,"links":1439},[],"The Moons: Nod has moons but nobody agrees on how many. Ask ten residents and you'll get answers ranging from two to six. The moons are pale, featureless, and do not appear to orbit anything. Attempts to count them systematically have produced inconsistent results even when conducted simultaneously by multiple observers standing next to each other. Looking directly at them for too long tends to create a deep discomfort in the viewer. The Chroniclers stopped trying to maintain an official count three centuries ago.",{"category":508},{"title":59,"description":1440},"somnos\u002Fsetting\u002Fculture-and-society\u002Foddities","9TLzZmwkfGiGdGwT6yjykDQagKgKX1YfOqjfaE3smKE",{"id":1446,"title":152,"author":325,"body":1447,"capital":325,"corporation_type":325,"created":325,"date":325,"description":404,"extension":411,"faction_type":325,"founded":325,"gallery":325,"headquarters":325,"homeworld":325,"image":325,"influence":325,"last_reviewed":325,"leadership":325,"lifespan":325,"meta":1641,"metadata_type":325,"navigation":321,"path":153,"physiology":325,"relations":325,"seo":1643,"society":325,"sort_order":325,"status":415,"stem":1644,"summary":325,"tags":1645,"territory":325,"visibility":419,"__hash__":1649},"somnos\u002Fsomnos\u002Fsetting\u002Fhistory\u002Fpax-noctis-summary.md",{"type":327,"value":1448,"toc":1634},[1449,1453,1456,1460,1463,1501,1512,1516,1519,1525,1539,1545,1573,1587,1593,1597,1600],[330,1450,1452],{"id":1451},"the-midway-incident","The Midway Incident",[335,1454,1455],{},"A summary of events that took place in and around the city of Midway, adapted from historical accounts. These events predate the current era and are relevant as context for several factions and figures still active today.",[353,1457,1459],{"id":1458},"background","Background",[335,1461,1462],{},"Midway is a mortal city with an unusual concentration of supernatural activity, owing to its proximity to a thin point in the Veil. The city attracted the attention of the Germaine Foundation, a private organization dedicated to investigating and cataloging supernatural phenomena. A team of Foundation operatives was assembled from civilians with latent abilities or prior exposure to the arcane:",[368,1464,1465,1471,1477,1483,1489,1495],{},[371,1466,1467,1470],{},[374,1468,1469],{},"Professor Bethany Riendeau",": academic with connections to the courts of the Melody",[371,1472,1473,1476],{},[374,1474,1475],{},"Rowan \"Ro\" Winters",": EMT and arcane construct created and altered by powerful entities",[371,1478,1479,1482],{},[374,1480,1481],{},"Matthew Carson",": musician, and latent Shaper whose abilities awakened during the events",[371,1484,1485,1488],{},[374,1486,1487],{},"Grace Lemieux",": a Shifter with pack ties to the Wilds",[371,1490,1491,1494],{},[374,1492,1493],{},"Tilki Farrier",": a Shifter with connections to Melody entities",[371,1496,1497,1500],{},[374,1498,1499],{},"Jackson Mann",": stage magician turned debunker turned Stranger",[335,1502,1503,1504,1507,1508,1511],{},"The team was directed by ",[374,1505,1506],{},"Colin Earl",", a Foundation handler, and supported by ",[374,1509,1510],{},"Nicolai Eltsin",", a researcher who disappeared during the events.",[353,1513,1515],{"id":1514},"key-events","Key Events",[335,1517,1518],{},"The Midway team confronted a series of escalating supernatural threats over an extended period:",[335,1520,1521,1524],{},[374,1522,1523],{},"Early Operations:"," Investigation of hauntings (the Good Shepherd Lutheran Church incident), spirit encounters, and a vermin Skulk incursion at the Goblin Market. The team established contacts with local law enforcement and began mapping Midway's supernatural population.",[335,1526,1527,1530,1531,1534,1535,1538],{},[374,1528,1529],{},"The Brotherhood:"," The team's primary adversary was ",[374,1532,1533],{},"Decimus",", a senior figure in the Brotherhood of Diocletian: an ancient organization dedicated to hunting and destroying supernatural beings. Decimus operated in Midway with a cadre of soldiers, pursuing his own agenda alongside the Brotherhood's mission. His lieutenant ",[374,1536,1537],{},"Mr. White"," eventually betrayed him, collaborating with Matt Carson to orchestrate an ambush. The Brotherhood's forces were significantly depleted during these events.",[335,1540,1541,1544],{},[374,1542,1543],{},"Domain Incursions:"," Multiple Domains exerted influence on Midway simultaneously, some having established themselves in Midway long before the events and others arriving through newly opened tears in the Veil:",[368,1546,1547,1554,1560,1567],{},[371,1548,1549,1550,1553],{},"Entities from the ",[374,1551,1552],{},"Melody"," pursued Bethany, culminating in an assault on her personal life and an attempted abduction. She was ultimately forced to seek patronage from a powerful Melody figure for protection.",[371,1555,1549,1556,1559],{},[374,1557,1558],{},"Wilds"," and feral Shifters entangled Grace and Tilki.",[371,1561,1562,1563,1566],{},"The ",[374,1564,1565],{},"Valley"," drew Rowan into increasingly dangerous territory as her constructed nature was modified by an entity called Mazira",[371,1568,1562,1569,1572],{},[374,1570,1571],{},"Abyss"," contributed ambient threats, including spirit-eaters and entities that defied classification.",[335,1574,1575,1578,1579,1582,1583,1586],{},[374,1576,1577],{},"The Temple:"," A persistent background thread concerned a structure beneath Midway connected to the thin point in the Veil. This \"temple\" was sought by rival Aeons: the god-sisters ",[374,1580,1581],{},"Bel"," and ",[374,1584,1585],{},"Asura",", each hoping to exploit the temple's potential to sunder or strengthen the Veil.",[335,1588,1589,1592],{},[374,1590,1591],{},"Casualties and Consequences:"," Several operatives died. The events established the Germaine Foundation as a significant player in supernatural affairs and demonstrated that mortal cities could become battlegrounds for Domain-level conflicts without their mundane populations ever understanding what was happening around them.",[353,1594,1596],{"id":1595},"unresolved-threads","Unresolved Threads",[335,1598,1599],{},"Several elements from the Midway Incident remain unresolved:",[368,1601,1602,1608,1615,1622,1628],{},[371,1603,1604,1605,1607],{},"The fate of ",[374,1606,1510],{},", who disappeared into a subterranean passage",[371,1609,1610,1611,1614],{},"The status of the ",[374,1612,1613],{},"Keepers",", entities who served as wardens of the temple",[371,1616,1617,1618,1621],{},"The ongoing rivalry between ",[374,1619,1620],{},"Bel and Asura"," over the temple and its contents",[371,1623,1624,1627],{},[374,1625,1626],{},"Rowan's"," final fate and whether she achieved humanity or remained bound to Mazira",[371,1629,1562,1630,1633],{},[374,1631,1632],{},"Brotherhood of Diocletian's"," survival and reorganization after Decimus's defeat",{"title":404,"searchDepth":130,"depth":130,"links":1635},[1636],{"id":1451,"depth":130,"text":1452,"children":1637},[1638,1639,1640],{"id":1458,"depth":134,"text":1459},{"id":1514,"depth":134,"text":1515},{"id":1595,"depth":134,"text":1596},{"category":1642},"history",{"title":152,"description":404},"somnos\u002Fsetting\u002Fhistory\u002Fpax-noctis-summary",[1646,1424,1647,1648],"pax-noctis","germaine","brotherhood","g5nYZfZDov-B1K9RwLtYcpkoaB2EWscfEHjT-ADQJeM",{"id":1651,"title":200,"author":325,"body":1652,"capital":325,"corporation_type":325,"created":325,"date":325,"description":1656,"extension":411,"faction_type":325,"founded":325,"gallery":325,"headquarters":325,"homeworld":325,"image":325,"influence":325,"last_reviewed":325,"leadership":325,"lifespan":325,"meta":1666,"metadata_type":325,"navigation":321,"path":201,"physiology":325,"relations":325,"seo":1667,"society":325,"sort_order":325,"status":415,"stem":1668,"summary":325,"tags":1669,"territory":325,"visibility":419,"__hash__":1674},"somnos\u002Fsomnos\u002Fsetting\u002Flocations\u002Fthe-city-of-nod\u002Fringhollow.md",{"type":327,"value":1653,"toc":1664},[1654,1657],[335,1655,1656],{},"A vertical district carved in a semicircular ring around the southern portion of the city. Ringhollow occupies a valley-like series of deep shafts and excavated chambers that descend well below the surface. The Woven who live here prefer the enclosed spaces, and several Carceri structures form the load-bearing walls of the deepest chambers in ways that make the distinction between district engineering and biology difficult to maintain.",[335,1658,1659,1660,1663],{},"Factories, forges, and alchemical laboratories operate in Ringhollow, taking advantage of heat produced by veins and nodule-like clusters of thermic fungus that thread through this particular region of the city's underground. The fungus also drives a crude geothermal power system: heat exchangers tapped into the largest nodules feed steam turbines that supply the district's factories and, increasingly, the ",[342,1661,1662],{"href":300},"Wire"," repeaters and electrical systems of adjacent neighborhoods. Ringhollow's power output is the closest thing Nod has to a municipal grid, though the engineers who maintain it would object to calling it a grid, on the grounds that a grid implies someone planned it. The privacy of depth attracts communities that prefer it, and the air in the lower levels is close enough that most surface-dwellers find it uncomfortable after an hour but the Woven do not seem to mind.",{"title":404,"searchDepth":130,"depth":130,"links":1665},[],{"category":457},{"title":200,"description":1656},"somnos\u002Fsetting\u002Flocations\u002Fthe-city-of-nod\u002Fringhollow",[461,1670,1671,547,1672,1673],"underground","woven","industry","ringhollow","X6O6loV5zkg5OCCH2swQ4wa6P8LQ_KvjFBGIZHM4RB8",{"id":1676,"title":203,"author":325,"body":1677,"capital":325,"corporation_type":325,"created":325,"date":325,"description":1681,"extension":411,"faction_type":325,"founded":325,"gallery":325,"headquarters":325,"homeworld":325,"image":325,"influence":325,"last_reviewed":325,"leadership":325,"lifespan":325,"meta":1684,"metadata_type":325,"navigation":321,"path":204,"physiology":325,"relations":325,"seo":1685,"society":325,"sort_order":325,"status":415,"stem":1686,"summary":325,"tags":1687,"territory":325,"visibility":419,"__hash__":1690},"somnos\u002Fsomnos\u002Fsetting\u002Flocations\u002Fthe-city-of-nod\u002Friverhold.md",{"type":327,"value":1678,"toc":1682},[1679],[335,1680,1681],{},"The largest settlement along the Lotan River, built where the river's first major fork creates a triangular spit of land wide enough to support a sizable community. Riverhold is a trade town in character, sustained by river traffic between Lake Enoch and the Dockyards. Warehouses, taverns, repair yards, and the offices of independent shipping companies line the waterfront. The population is mixed but trends toward species comfortable with damp air and the particular rhythms of river life. Riverhold maintains its own local customs and governance, and the Council's authority is acknowledged but rarely tested here because the distance from the Annex makes enforcement impractical.",{"title":404,"searchDepth":130,"depth":130,"links":1683},[],{"category":457},{"title":203,"description":1681},"somnos\u002Fsetting\u002Flocations\u002Fthe-city-of-nod\u002Friverhold",[461,1175,463,1688,1689],"lotan-river","waterfront","3QUQpxbGwVdA-5qeQjTjvZGP0WeD89XM7Pi0qLu0XF0",{"id":1692,"title":62,"author":325,"body":1693,"capital":325,"corporation_type":325,"created":325,"date":325,"description":1697,"extension":411,"faction_type":325,"founded":325,"gallery":325,"headquarters":325,"homeworld":325,"image":325,"influence":325,"last_reviewed":325,"leadership":325,"lifespan":325,"meta":1749,"metadata_type":325,"navigation":321,"path":63,"physiology":325,"relations":325,"seo":1750,"society":325,"sort_order":325,"status":415,"stem":1751,"summary":325,"tags":1752,"territory":325,"visibility":419,"__hash__":1754},"somnos\u002Fsomnos\u002Fsetting\u002Fculture-and-society\u002Fscribe-tattoos.md",{"type":327,"value":1694,"toc":1742},[1695,1698,1702,1705,1708,1712,1715,1718,1722,1725,1728,1732,1735,1739],[335,1696,1697],{},"Scribes who work their magic through ink and skin are sometimes known as 'Chimori'. Their art is the most common means of deliberate transit across the Veil, and the difference between being trapped in the shadow city and having a way home.",[330,1699,1701],{"id":1700},"the-gate-mark","The Gate-Mark",[335,1703,1704],{},"The Chimori's signature work is the gateway symbol. Etched into a bearer's skin, a gate-mark grants free passage between the mortal world and Nod. The mark is permanent, the process is dangerous, and the cost is high. Chimori are not always forthcoming about the secondary effects their tattoos carry; additional enchantments woven into the design that the customer did not request and may not discover until it is too late to remove them.",[335,1706,1707],{},"For temporary access, a Chimori can write a gate-spell on a person's hand with specially prepared magic ink. These marks fade quickly but serve as a means of extracting someone from Nod in an emergency.",[330,1709,1711],{"id":1710},"beyond-the-gate","Beyond the Gate",[335,1713,1714],{},"Gate-marks are the most visible application of Chimori sorcery, but the discipline extends far beyond transit. Chimori tattoos can grant enhanced speed, strength, resilience, and the ability to manifest weapons from the skin itself. The most extensively marked individuals carry entire arsenals written into their bodies, blades that form from nothing, armor that hardens beneath the surface, reflexes wound tight as spring steel.",[335,1716,1717],{},"The rare substance Orichalcum (mundane name 'Oric') has particular significance for Chimori work. Its properties enhance the potency of tattooed enchantments, though the details of this interaction are closely guarded within the craft.",[330,1719,1721],{"id":1720},"the-work","The Work",[335,1723,1724],{},"Each tattoo is a unique working. The Chimori are artisans as much as sorcerers, and the placement, design, and execution of a mark determines its effects. A chest tattoo might grant resilience. Marks on the arms might amplify strength. Hands might produce bladed weapons. The back and legs might enhance speed. The art is in the combination, how the marks interact, what they draw from the bearer, and what they give in return.",[335,1726,1727],{},"An unfinished tattoo is a dangerous thing. A partially completed working carries unpredictable effects and may never function as intended. The most complex designs take multiple sessions and require significant trust between the Chimori and their subject.",[330,1729,1731],{"id":1730},"regulation","Regulation",[335,1733,1734],{},"The Prefex regulate all forms of enchantment and thaumaturgy in Nod, and Chimori work falls squarely within their jurisdiction. Overt acts of magic draw their attention and their interrogators. Chimori who operate openly risk capture. Most work through private arrangements, word of mouth, and the understanding that their services are too essential to the city's functioning for the Inquisitors to shut them down entirely.",[330,1736,1738],{"id":1737},"the-chimori-in-context","The Chimori in Context",[335,1740,1741],{},"The Chimori occupy a peculiar position in Nod's economy. They are indispensable; the primary means by which the city maintains contact with the mortal world, the gatekeepers of transit, and the source of some of the most powerful personal enchantments available. They are also mistrusted, because a sorcerer who writes on your skin does not necessarily have your best interests in mind and plenty of stories exist about Chimori using their ability to control others.",{"title":404,"searchDepth":130,"depth":130,"links":1743},[1744,1745,1746,1747,1748],{"id":1700,"depth":130,"text":1701},{"id":1710,"depth":130,"text":1711},{"id":1720,"depth":130,"text":1721},{"id":1730,"depth":130,"text":1731},{"id":1737,"depth":130,"text":1738},{"category":508},{"title":62,"description":1697},"somnos\u002Fsetting\u002Fculture-and-society\u002Fscribe-tattoos",[1753,907],"tattoo","rAGjYFLBZEzluwkNfrXWVmbLts6OExV08gruKnpBGPg",{"id":1756,"title":281,"author":325,"body":1757,"capital":325,"corporation_type":325,"created":325,"date":325,"description":1761,"extension":411,"faction_type":325,"founded":325,"gallery":325,"headquarters":325,"homeworld":325,"image":325,"influence":325,"last_reviewed":325,"leadership":325,"lifespan":325,"meta":1843,"metadata_type":325,"navigation":321,"path":282,"physiology":325,"relations":325,"seo":1844,"society":325,"sort_order":325,"status":415,"stem":1845,"summary":325,"tags":1846,"territory":325,"visibility":419,"__hash__":1850},"somnos\u002Fsomnos\u002Fsetting\u002Fspecies\u002Fskulks.md",{"type":327,"value":1758,"toc":1840},[1759,1762,1765,1768,1771,1774,1779,1781,1783],[335,1760,1761],{},"Skulks are small. The tallest stand perhaps four feet; the shortest are half that. Beyond their diminutive size, the species displays considerable variety. Some are wiry, sharp-featured, and quick, the sort of creature that might inspire stories about clever brownies or helpful kobolds. Others are hunched, greasy, and foul-smelling, the sort that inspired stories about gremlins, goblins, and the things that live in the walls and steal your children. The difference is largely environmental. Skulks who live in reasonable conditions look reasonable. Skulks who live in the Middens look like the Middens.",[335,1763,1764],{},"They breed fast, mature fast, and adapt to conditions and nutrients that would kill most other sapients. This is their primary survival trait and the source of most of the prejudice directed at them. Other species see Skulks the way humans see rats; too numerous, too resilient, too willing to thrive in filth.",[335,1766,1767],{},"Skulks have built a parallel economy in Nod's margins. The Middens are the most visible concentration, but Skulk communities exist in alleys, abandoned infrastructure, and the gaps between other species' territories. Their scavenging operations are sophisticated enough to constitute a genuine economic force, though few outside the community acknowledge this.",[335,1769,1770],{},"Their Domain of origin is unknown. Skulks themselves have no surviving cultural memory of a homeland. Some claim Nod is their home while others believe that wherever they came from is not worth remembering.",[335,1772,1773],{},"Skulk culture is improvisational by necessity. Their oral tradition is vast and constantly evolving, with stories that change in the telling because the teller thought of something better. Their art is assemblage, objects built from reclaimed materials whose value lies in cleverness of construction rather than material worth. A Skulk artist's reputation rests on making something beautiful or functional from something others threw away. This ethic extends to their social structures: Skulk communities absorb outcasts, strays, and broken things from other species with a pragmatism that looks like generosity but is closer to an instinct for finding use in what others discard.",[335,1775,1776,1778],{},[374,1777,538],{}," Nod's transformative nature can pull some Skulks toward the verminous end of their spectrum. Clean, clever Skulks become matted, paranoid, and feral. The scavenging instinct that serves them well in moderation becomes all-consuming. Degraded Skulks lose the ability to distinguish between salvage and prey. More fortunate ones instead develop agility, stealth, and startling intellects.",[1048,1780],{},[353,1782,1053],{"id":1052},[1055,1784,1785,1795],{},[1058,1786,1787],{},[1061,1788,1789,1791,1793],{},[1064,1790,1066],{},[1064,1792,1069],{},[1064,1794,1072],{},[1074,1796,1797,1807,1818,1829],{},[1061,1798,1799,1802,1804],{},[1079,1800,1801],{},"Goblin",[1079,1803,1084],{},[1079,1805,1806],{},"The most common term, applied to Skulks living in squalid conditions",[1061,1808,1809,1812,1815],{},[1079,1810,1811],{},"Gremlin",[1079,1813,1814],{},"Aviation folklore",[1079,1816,1817],{},"Applied to Skulks with a talent for mechanical sabotage",[1061,1819,1820,1823,1826],{},[1079,1821,1822],{},"Brownie",[1079,1824,1825],{},"Scottish folklore",[1079,1827,1828],{},"Applied to Skulks living in cleaner conditions, often domestic",[1061,1830,1831,1834,1837],{},[1079,1832,1833],{},"Kobold",[1079,1835,1836],{},"Germanic folklore",[1079,1838,1839],{},"Applied to small, mine-dwelling or subterranean Skulks",{"title":404,"searchDepth":130,"depth":130,"links":1841},[1842],{"id":1052,"depth":134,"text":1053},{"category":543},{"title":281,"description":1761},"somnos\u002Fsetting\u002Fspecies\u002Fskulks",[543,1847,1848,1849,550],"skulk","middens","scavengers","BB4M2raJKa6GSAA5Tws1K7p43FIsV9WkKDaP06AlPtc",{"id":1852,"title":296,"author":325,"body":1853,"capital":325,"corporation_type":325,"created":325,"date":325,"description":404,"extension":411,"faction_type":325,"founded":325,"gallery":325,"headquarters":325,"homeworld":325,"image":325,"influence":325,"last_reviewed":325,"leadership":325,"lifespan":325,"meta":1942,"metadata_type":325,"navigation":321,"path":297,"physiology":325,"relations":325,"seo":1944,"society":325,"sort_order":325,"status":415,"stem":1945,"summary":325,"tags":1946,"territory":325,"visibility":419,"__hash__":1948},"somnos\u002Fsomnos\u002Fsetting\u002Ftechnology\u002Fstreets-and-vehicles.md",{"type":327,"value":1854,"toc":1932},[1855,1859,1862,1865,1869,1872,1879,1882,1885,1889,1892,1896,1899,1903,1906,1909,1913,1916,1919,1923,1926,1929],[330,1856,1858],{"id":1857},"overview","Overview",[335,1860,1861],{},"Nod was not designed for cars. The oldest districts were built before the wheel won over walking, and the core of the city reflects this: the Annex's stone-footed avenues were sized for foot traffic and the occasional Carceri deciding to relocate. The Warrens are worse, streets so narrow that two Kaarn cannot pass each other without negotiation. Ringhollow's vertical shafts were carved for bodies, not axles.",[335,1863,1864],{},"But Nod is nothing if not adaptable. Its infrastructure is a compressed archaeological record of every era that has contributed population and ideas, layered on top of foundations that predate all of them. Roman road engineering sits alongside Victorian drainage and poured-concrete intersections that could have been lifted from a 1970s suburb. The further one travels from the Tower, the wider the streets become, the more recent the construction, and the more the city begins to accommodate the fact that seven million residents cannot all walk everywhere.",[330,1866,1868],{"id":1867},"the-roads","The Roads",[335,1870,1871],{},"Three broad categories of road exist in Nod.",[335,1873,1874,1875,1878],{},"The old streets, concentrated in the Annex, the inner Warrens, and the districts immediately surrounding Lake Enoch, are pedestrian by necessity. Stone-paved, uneven, and interrupted by staircases, market encroachments, and buildings that have slowly expanded into the right-of-way over centuries. Large vehicles do not operate here. Rickshaws, handcarts, bicycles, and motorcycles are the limit. The ",[342,1876,1877],{"href":78},"Menshen's Red Cabs"," drop fares at the edge of old-street districts and refuse to go further.",[335,1880,1881],{},"The middle roads serve the bulk of the city's residential and commercial districts. These are wider, sometimes paved, sometimes cobbled, sometimes surfaced with a blacktop that resembles asphalt but bonds to Noddish stone in ways Earth materials do not. The middle roads accommodate vehicles but were not built for volume. Traffic moves in single lanes with passing conducted through a system of informal priority that varies by district, species, and the relative size of the vehicles involved.",[335,1883,1884],{},"The outer roads are where Nod starts to feel like a place that has heard of highways. The districts beyond the Warrens, the approaches to the Deadlands, the caravan routes, and the arterials connecting the Cardinal Boroughs to Ashmarket and the Dockyards were built or widened to handle freight. Multi-lane roads surfaced with compacted stone or that black bonding material carry truck traffic, convoy escorts, and the military vehicles the Order maintains in conspicuous number. K-Town's roads are the most modern in the city, engineered to corporate standards and maintained by Kuron Inc.'s own crews, which makes crossing from a neighbouring district into K-Town feel like driving across motoring eras.",[330,1886,1888],{"id":1887},"vehicles","Vehicles",[335,1890,1891],{},"Cars exist in Nod. They are not nearly as common as on Earth, where mass production and cheap fuel has made personal vehicles a baseline expectation. In Nod, a car is an asset, a tool, and sometimes a statement.",[353,1893,1895],{"id":1894},"imports","Imports",[335,1897,1898],{},"The simplest vehicles are imports. Earth-manufactured cars and trucks brought through the Veil by Scribes, through the Bethier Portal by merchants, or carried piece by piece through gates and reassembled by someone with more ambition than sense. Imports work, mostly. Earth engines run on fuel that must itself be imported or on converted power sources, and Earthly vehicles are no more immune to the transformative arcane energies of Nod than anything else. An imported car must be maintained through wealth or raw stubbornness.",[353,1900,1902],{"id":1901},"builds","Builds",[335,1904,1905],{},"More interesting are the builds. Vehicles designed, assembled, or heavily modified for Nod's specific conditions by local fabricators. The Tinkers produce the majority of these, working from the Middens and the lower Warrens with salvaged Earth components, Noddish materials, and engineering instincts refined over generations. A Tinker-built vehicle is mechanically idiosyncratic and adapted to the actual roads it will drive on. Suspension systems account for cobblestone-to-stone transitions, frames and bumpers are reinforced to endure collisions with dangerous wildlife, and lighting rigs compensate for a city with no sun and inconsistent streetlamp coverage.",[335,1907,1908],{},"Power is the persistent problem. Fossil fuel is imported, expensive, and in the charged atmosphere of Nod can produce a caustic pollution that is dangerous to all. The primary alternative, chosen by almost all who have the option, are thaumic capacitors that store ambient magical energy and discharge it as motive force. These are not wholly reliable. They work until they don't and a capacitor failure at speed is spectacular in ways the driver does not survive. The most common compromise is a hybrid approach, conventional engines running on distilled alcohol produced from the Fields' crops, supplemented by low-grade arcane components that improve efficiency without the catastrophic failure modes of a full thaumic drive.",[330,1910,1912],{"id":1911},"freight","Freight",[335,1914,1915],{},"Nod's economy moves on trucks. Merchants Guild freight runs on heavy vehicles, flat-bedded haulers and enclosed transports that carry goods between the Dockyards, Ashmarket, the Cardinal Boroughs, and K-Town along the outer roads. Deadlands caravans still use a mix of motorized and animal transport depending on how far they are going and how reliable the roads are past the city's edge, but within Nod proper, cargo moves on wheels and engines.",[335,1917,1918],{},"At the behest of the Council, the Dockmasters inspect freight vehicles at every major entry point. This produces bottlenecks that the haulers have learned to navigate through bribery, creative routing, and the occasional run through back-alley roads and hidden paths not built for the purpose. The Merchants Guild often encourages such 'efficiencies' and pays bonuses for Haulers who can get goods where they need to go fast. This leaves Haulers caught between the Councils demand for intelligence on the movement of goods through the city and the Merchants Guild's hatred of anything that slows their trade and affects their profits.",[330,1920,1922],{"id":1921},"culture","Culture",[335,1924,1925],{},"A vehicle in Nod confers mobility in a city where mobility is power. The gate-mark divides those who can leave from those who cannot. A car divides those who can cross the city in an hour from those who spend half a day on foot or at the mercy of the transit system's unpredictable schedule.",[335,1927,1928],{},"Car culture concentrates in the outer districts and the boroughs where space allows it. The Order's motor pool is the largest single collection of vehicles in the city, maintained to military specification by engineers who take professional pride in keeping these machines running in the borderline hostile conditions of Nod. The Mercenaries Guild maintains its own fleet for contract operations. Wealthy merchants keep personal vehicles as status markers. Some Theriae groups have also adopted the culture, with lineage groups customizing their trucks and transports as expressions of pack identity in ways that blur the line between engineering and territorial display.",[335,1930,1931],{},"The Tinkers have spawned a secondary culture around the vehicles they build. Races are run through makeshift routes, and on Deadlands roads outside the city's southern edge, unsanctioned and unregulated, attracting drivers, gamblers, and the Coliseum crowd looking for entertainment that does not involve a cage. The vehicles in these races are purpose-built, stripped down, overpowered, and distinct enough that any gearhead can tell who built one just by looking at the frame. The casualty rate is consistent with a sport conducted at high speed in an eldritch shadow city crawling with monsters and infrastructure problems but that hasn't made them any less popular.",{"title":404,"searchDepth":130,"depth":130,"links":1933},[1934,1935,1936,1940,1941],{"id":1857,"depth":130,"text":1858},{"id":1867,"depth":130,"text":1868},{"id":1887,"depth":130,"text":1888,"children":1937},[1938,1939],{"id":1894,"depth":134,"text":1895},{"id":1901,"depth":134,"text":1902},{"id":1911,"depth":130,"text":1912},{"id":1921,"depth":130,"text":1922},{"category":1943},"technology",{"title":296,"description":404},"somnos\u002Fsetting\u002Ftechnology\u002Fstreets-and-vehicles",[931,1947],"transportation","-rl7nUgT8rDKaC5mYBKjlP404dVoYzLE-19p7pNHGUw",{"id":1950,"title":284,"author":325,"body":1951,"capital":325,"corporation_type":325,"created":325,"date":325,"description":1955,"extension":411,"faction_type":325,"founded":325,"gallery":325,"headquarters":325,"homeworld":325,"image":325,"influence":325,"last_reviewed":325,"leadership":325,"lifespan":325,"meta":1995,"metadata_type":325,"navigation":321,"path":285,"physiology":325,"relations":325,"seo":1996,"society":325,"sort_order":325,"status":415,"stem":1997,"summary":325,"tags":1998,"territory":325,"visibility":419,"__hash__":2000},"somnos\u002Fsomnos\u002Fsetting\u002Fspecies\u002Fsub-sapient-species.md",{"type":327,"value":1952,"toc":1993},[1953,1956],[335,1954,1955],{},"Not all named creatures in Nod's ecosystem are sapient species. Some are entities from specific Domains or products of ambient magic:",[1055,1957,1958,1967],{},[1058,1959,1960],{},[1061,1961,1962,1964],{},[1064,1963,1066],{},[1064,1965,1966],{},"Nature",[1074,1968,1969,1977,1985],{},[1061,1970,1971,1974],{},[1079,1972,1973],{},"Merrow",[1079,1975,1976],{},"Predatory aquatic monstrosities from the Domain of the Abyss. Inhabit Nod's waterways",[1061,1978,1979,1982],{},[1079,1980,1981],{},"Ghast \u002F Geist",[1079,1983,1984],{},"Remnants of dead mortals persisting in the Shadow.",[1061,1986,1987,1990],{},[1079,1988,1989],{},"Demons",[1079,1991,1992],{},"Broad colloquial term for hostile entities from the Cacophony",{"title":404,"searchDepth":130,"depth":130,"links":1994},[],{"category":543},{"title":284,"description":1955},"somnos\u002Fsetting\u002Fspecies\u002Fsub-sapient-species",[543,1999],"taxonomy","315zC3Ng3C_2g98Zr4Y-ykNTXaFooKCIGc9Vjq1gua0",{"id":2002,"title":206,"author":325,"body":2003,"capital":325,"corporation_type":325,"created":325,"date":325,"description":2018,"extension":411,"faction_type":325,"founded":325,"gallery":325,"headquarters":325,"homeworld":325,"image":325,"influence":325,"last_reviewed":325,"leadership":325,"lifespan":325,"meta":2019,"metadata_type":325,"navigation":321,"path":207,"physiology":325,"relations":325,"seo":2020,"society":325,"sort_order":325,"status":415,"stem":2021,"summary":325,"tags":2022,"territory":325,"visibility":419,"__hash__":2028},"somnos\u002Fsomnos\u002Fsetting\u002Flocations\u002Fthe-city-of-nod\u002Fthe-boneyards.md",{"type":327,"value":2004,"toc":2016},[2005],[335,2006,2007,2008],{},"Nod's border with the Shadow is thinner in some places than others. The Boneyards are the worst of these. A district of abandoned structures at the city's northern edge where the buildings have a grey, drained quality, as if the color has been pulled out of the stone. Ghasts drift through the streets at all hours. The living avoid the Boneyards unless their business requires proximity to the Shadow, which means the district's remaining population consists of practitioners whose work demands access to things that should stay dead. The Pallbearers maintain their headquarters here, and several independent necromantic practitioners operate workshops in the district's more stable buildings. Some residents have taken to calling the area the Necropolis, a name the Pallbearers consider melodramatic but have stopped correcting. ",[1319,2009,2010,2011,2015],{},"E. As if \"Boneyards\" is ",[2012,2013,2014],"em",{},"less"," dramatic",{"title":404,"searchDepth":130,"depth":130,"links":2017},[],"Nod's border with the Shadow is thinner in some places than others. The Boneyards are the worst of these. A district of abandoned structures at the city's northern edge where the buildings have a grey, drained quality, as if the color has been pulled out of the stone. Ghasts drift through the streets at all hours. The living avoid the Boneyards unless their business requires proximity to the Shadow, which means the district's remaining population consists of practitioners whose work demands access to things that should stay dead. The Pallbearers maintain their headquarters here, and several independent necromantic practitioners operate workshops in the district's more stable buildings. Some residents have taken to calling the area the Necropolis, a name the Pallbearers consider melodramatic but have stopped correcting. E. As if \"Boneyards\" is less dramatic",{"category":457},{"title":206,"description":2018},"somnos\u002Fsetting\u002Flocations\u002Fthe-city-of-nod\u002Fthe-boneyards",[461,2023,2024,2025,2026,2027],"shadow","undead","pallbearers","necromancy","boneyards","CQQmfsuDihDtjQJi_9vwJRsNDhGP74muOFfadbtsvBU",{"id":2030,"title":80,"author":325,"body":2031,"capital":325,"corporation_type":325,"created":325,"date":325,"description":2037,"extension":411,"faction_type":325,"founded":325,"gallery":325,"headquarters":325,"homeworld":325,"image":325,"influence":325,"last_reviewed":325,"leadership":325,"lifespan":325,"meta":2049,"metadata_type":325,"navigation":321,"path":81,"physiology":325,"relations":325,"seo":2050,"society":325,"sort_order":325,"status":415,"stem":2051,"summary":325,"tags":2052,"territory":325,"visibility":419,"__hash__":2056},"somnos\u002Fsomnos\u002Fsetting\u002Ffactions\u002Fbrotherhood-of-diocletian.md",{"type":327,"value":2032,"toc":2047},[2033,2038,2041,2044],[335,2034,2035],{},[2012,2036,2037],{},"Military-religious. Founded circa 305 CE.",[335,2039,2040],{},"An ancient organization dedicated to the identification, capture, and destruction of supernatural beings. Founded by the Roman Emperor Diocletian after an assassination attempt by a vampiric member of a Christian cult called the Spears of Longinus. The Brotherhood's original purpose was the formation of specialized legions trained to fight creatures that conventional soldiers could not handle.",[335,2042,2043],{},"The Brotherhood operated continuously through the Roman period, the Dark Ages, and into the medieval era, as documented in the Samatian Journal. By the modern era their numbers had diminished significantly, but the organization retained institutional knowledge, tactical doctrine, and a fundamentalist conviction that supernatural beings were threats to be eliminated.",[335,2045,2046],{},"The Brotherhood's most recent confirmed activity was during the Midway Incident, where a cadre led by the operative known as Decimus clashed with Germaine Foundation operatives and local supernaturals. The Brotherhood suffered severe losses and their current operational status is uncertain.",{"title":404,"searchDepth":130,"depth":130,"links":2048},[],{"category":1325},{"title":80,"description":2037},"somnos\u002Fsetting\u002Ffactions\u002Fbrotherhood-of-diocletian",[1002,2053,2054,2055],"organizations","military","religious","LWoKin-KnGk3-vxep76oPVJtAXvpUzZ81PdlUpGPUgA",{"id":2058,"title":209,"author":325,"body":2059,"capital":325,"corporation_type":325,"created":325,"date":325,"description":2063,"extension":411,"faction_type":325,"founded":325,"gallery":325,"headquarters":325,"homeworld":325,"image":325,"influence":325,"last_reviewed":325,"leadership":325,"lifespan":325,"meta":2076,"metadata_type":325,"navigation":321,"path":210,"physiology":325,"relations":325,"seo":2077,"society":325,"sort_order":325,"status":415,"stem":2078,"summary":325,"tags":2079,"territory":325,"visibility":419,"__hash__":2084},"somnos\u002Fsomnos\u002Fsetting\u002Flocations\u002Fthe-city-of-nod\u002Fcardinal-boroughs.md",{"type":327,"value":2060,"toc":2074},[2061,2064,2067],[335,2062,2063],{},"Protected complexes where humans have established self-governing communities, defended by concrete barriers, razor wire, armed patrols, floodlights, and whatever friendly non-humans they can recruit. The largest, Bastion, occupies a walled compound in the city's southern reaches and is the most visibly modern settlement in Nod outside K-Town, with reliable electrical power, functional sanitation, and enough Earth-imported equipment to make it feel like a military installation that has grown a civilian population. Large boroughs exist in every cardinal direction from the Tower. The Order enforces its particular brand of human supremacy in and around these districts, though not all human communities welcome their protection. Several smaller boroughs refuse Order presence entirely, preferring to negotiate their own arrangements with non-human neighbors.",[335,2065,2066],{},"The boroughs are not culturally uniform. Bastion's population descends from centuries of arrivals, and its blocks reflect that layering. A district built by Eastern European immigrants three generations ago sits adjacent to one established by West African's who arrived through a thin point in Lagos. The Order imposes a shared military structure across these communities but cannot impose a shared identity, and the friction between the Regent's vision of human unity and the reality of a dozen coexisting traditions with their own leaders, languages, and grievances is a persistent source of internal tension.",[335,2068,2069,2070,2073],{},"Several borough communities maintain shrines to Aeons that Elohim consumed centuries ago; syncretic devotional practices that honor Re, or Quetzalcoatl, or Cerridwen, with the uncomfortable acknowledgment that the god they address may now be a captive fragment inside their enemy. These traditions are often derided or undermined by Order members who are themselves adherents of Abrahamic faiths, creating a friction that can spark outright violence between communities. This type of religious violence is one of the few that can draw the attention of the Prefex who are under orders to ensure no Aeon (particularly the ",[342,2071,2072],{"href":27},"the-usurper-king",") gains a substantial foothold in Nod.",{"title":404,"searchDepth":130,"depth":130,"links":2075},[],{"category":457},{"title":209,"description":2063},"somnos\u002Fsetting\u002Flocations\u002Fthe-city-of-nod\u002Fcardinal-boroughs",[461,2080,2081,2082,2083],"human","boroughs","the-order","bastion","NnWajY3KQCQCXi02g9foCYxDMRBfJknm0gTKepQb3n8",{"id":2086,"title":212,"author":325,"body":2087,"capital":325,"corporation_type":325,"created":325,"date":325,"description":2091,"extension":411,"faction_type":325,"founded":325,"gallery":325,"headquarters":325,"homeworld":325,"image":325,"influence":325,"last_reviewed":325,"leadership":325,"lifespan":325,"meta":2094,"metadata_type":325,"navigation":321,"path":213,"physiology":325,"relations":325,"seo":2095,"society":325,"sort_order":325,"status":415,"stem":2096,"summary":325,"tags":2097,"territory":325,"visibility":419,"__hash__":2099},"somnos\u002Fsomnos\u002Fsetting\u002Flocations\u002Fthe-city-of-nod\u002Fthe-catacombs.md",{"type":327,"value":2088,"toc":2092},[2089],[335,2090,2091],{},"A network of passages and chambers beneath the oldest portions of the city, predating the Kaarn Crossing and possibly the arrival of any sapient species other than the Carceri. The Catacombs are not fully mapped. They connect to Ringhollow, to the foundations of the Annex, and to locations that should not be accessible from their apparent starting points. The Chroniclers maintain partial records of expeditions into the Catacombs, and the consistent observation across centuries of documentation is that the passages change between visits. It is, perhaps ironically, one of the few places where the dead seem incapable of rising. That does not make them safe; there are plenty of living things lurking in the dark of the deepest tunnels just as dangerous as any ghast.",{"title":404,"searchDepth":130,"depth":130,"links":2093},[],{"category":457},{"title":212,"description":2091},"somnos\u002Fsetting\u002Flocations\u002Fthe-city-of-nod\u002Fthe-catacombs",[739,740,1670,2098,547],"ancient","KXHbTZl1A9qGOGlG59gQVLC_UcU2ntaj2ekr1B_cj3M",{"id":2101,"title":83,"author":325,"body":2102,"capital":325,"corporation_type":325,"created":325,"date":325,"description":2106,"extension":411,"faction_type":325,"founded":325,"gallery":325,"headquarters":325,"homeworld":325,"image":325,"influence":325,"last_reviewed":325,"leadership":325,"lifespan":325,"meta":2120,"metadata_type":325,"navigation":321,"path":84,"physiology":325,"relations":325,"seo":2121,"society":325,"sort_order":325,"status":415,"stem":2122,"summary":325,"tags":2123,"territory":325,"visibility":419,"__hash__":2126},"somnos\u002Fsomnos\u002Fsetting\u002Ffactions\u002Fchroniclers.md",{"type":327,"value":2103,"toc":2118},[2104,2107,2110,2113],[335,2105,2106],{},"The Chroniclers are a loose fellowship of scribes, historians, archivists, and obsessives who maintain the closest thing the city has to institutional memory. They operate from a library in the Annex known as the Residuum, a vast and slumbering Carceri. They collect, copy, and preserve documents ranging from Council decrees to personal correspondence to Merchant Guild manifests that no one has looked at in four hundred years.",[335,2108,2109],{},"The Chroniclers are not a power in any political sense. They have no enforcement capacity, no military arm, and no wealth beyond their collection. What they have is information, and in a city where the oldest residents can remember things that happened millennia ago but frequently disagree about the details, a written record has value that is difficult to overstate. The Council consults them for precedent, the Prefex for evidence, and everyone else mostly to win arguments.",[335,2111,2112],{},"Their neutrality is less formalized than the Pallbearers' or the Hospitallers'. A Chronicler can be bribed, threatened, or simply wrong. But the institution itself persists because every faction has discovered, at one point or another, that having an independent record-keeper is better than relying on the memory of enemies.",[335,2114,1562,2115,2117],{},[342,2116,1662],{"href":300}," has complicated the Chroniclers' role. Printed broadsheets, which the Chroniclers have produced and distributed through notice boards in the Annex and other districts for centuries, remain the most widely read source of public information in the city. But the digital bulletin boards that have grown on the Wire's infrastructure now circulate news, rumor, and propaganda faster than the Chroniclers can verify any of it. Some younger Chroniclers have established a presence on the boards, attempting to provide sourced and verified accounts alongside the noise which older members consider a waste of effort.",{"title":404,"searchDepth":130,"depth":130,"links":2119},[],{"category":1325},{"title":83,"description":2106},"somnos\u002Fsetting\u002Ffactions\u002Fchroniclers",[2053,931,2124,2125],"records","knowledge","gP2vENYlkeiE7eq6Xbk6xWcwwAqszuWNPsHqSI2FxYA",{"id":2128,"title":215,"author":325,"body":2129,"capital":325,"corporation_type":325,"created":325,"date":325,"description":2139,"extension":411,"faction_type":325,"founded":325,"gallery":325,"headquarters":325,"homeworld":325,"image":325,"influence":325,"last_reviewed":325,"leadership":325,"lifespan":325,"meta":2140,"metadata_type":325,"navigation":321,"path":216,"physiology":325,"relations":325,"seo":2141,"society":325,"sort_order":325,"status":415,"stem":2142,"summary":325,"tags":2143,"territory":325,"visibility":419,"__hash__":2148},"somnos\u002Fsomnos\u002Fsetting\u002Flocations\u002Fthe-city-of-nod\u002Fthe-coliseum.md",{"type":327,"value":2130,"toc":2137},[2131],[335,2132,2133,2134],{},"Nod's bloodsport venue, located in the Redlight District. Organized combat between willing participants, between participants and beasts, and between participants whose willingness is a matter of contractual interpretation. The Coliseum operates under its own local customs, and the savvy ownership sells subscription viewing to fights broadcast on the Wire, making it one of the network's few reliable revenue sources. The fighters who survive long enough to develop a reputation can earn substantial income. The crowd is mixed-species and enthusiastic. The Mercenaries Guild recruits from the Coliseum's survivors. The Slavers Guild supplies some of its combatants. ",[1319,2135,2136],{},"E. Who operates it?",{"title":404,"searchDepth":130,"depth":130,"links":2138},[],"Nod's bloodsport venue, located in the Redlight District. Organized combat between willing participants, between participants and beasts, and between participants whose willingness is a matter of contractual interpretation. The Coliseum operates under its own local customs, and the savvy ownership sells subscription viewing to fights broadcast on the Wire, making it one of the network's few reliable revenue sources. The fighters who survive long enough to develop a reputation can earn substantial income. The crowd is mixed-species and enthusiastic. The Mercenaries Guild recruits from the Coliseum's survivors. The Slavers Guild supplies some of its combatants. E. Who operates it?",{"category":457},{"title":215,"description":2139},"somnos\u002Fsetting\u002Flocations\u002Fthe-city-of-nod\u002Fthe-coliseum",[1329,2144,2145,2146,2147],"combat","redlight","mercenaries-guild","slavers-guild","yvwK3fMCtZQuUZsBm8UL1HTri7djZQ46L1wsuSOaAtM",{"id":2150,"title":86,"author":325,"body":2151,"capital":325,"corporation_type":325,"created":325,"date":325,"description":2155,"extension":411,"faction_type":325,"founded":325,"gallery":325,"headquarters":325,"homeworld":325,"image":325,"influence":325,"last_reviewed":325,"leadership":325,"lifespan":325,"meta":2223,"metadata_type":325,"navigation":321,"path":87,"physiology":325,"relations":325,"seo":2224,"society":325,"sort_order":325,"status":415,"stem":2225,"summary":325,"tags":2226,"territory":325,"visibility":419,"__hash__":2229},"somnos\u002Fsomnos\u002Fsetting\u002Ffactions\u002Fcouncil.md",{"type":327,"value":2152,"toc":2219},[2153,2156,2159,2163,2207,2211],[335,2154,2155],{},"Seven sorcerers govern Nod in practice. They represent every major school of magic and come from backgrounds as varied as the city they rule. They are feared, loathed, and for most practical purposes, the law, at least until the Nemo decides otherwise.",[335,2157,2158],{},"The Council controls the city's constabulary, the Prefex and operates through a network of agents and enterprises that extend into the mortal world. Their authority is real but conditional. Every sitting council member knows the history of their predecessors and how many of them died in office.",[353,2160,2162],{"id":2161},"members","Members",[368,2164,2165,2171,2177,2183,2189,2195,2201],{},[371,2166,2167,2170],{},[374,2168,2169],{},"Magus Korpa",": The eldest and most overtly ambitious. A wizened human Shaper who has spent over a century scheming to consolidate the Council under his personal control to minimal success.",[371,2172,2173,2176],{},[374,2174,2175],{},"Slade",": A volatile Theriae Shifter who holds direct control over the Prefex. This makes Slade the most immediately dangerous council member to cross.",[371,2178,2179,2182],{},[374,2180,2181],{},"Kaido",": A Theriae Scribe motivated by personal enlightenment rather than political power. Kaido's presence on the Council is sometimes characterized as accidental; a scholar who accumulated enough knowledge and power to be necessary.",[371,2184,2185,2188],{},[374,2186,2187],{},"Wells",": A Masque Seer called 'the Witch Queen'. Her foresight makes her the most difficult council member to outmaneuver and the one most likely to be three steps ahead of any plot that involves her. She has a frustrating penchant for creating inscrutable chain reactions that turn situations in her favor.",[371,2190,2191,2194],{},[374,2192,2193],{},"Hergest",": A human Speaker whose ambitions extend beyond the politics of Nod. Hergest seeks control of the human world, believing it to be the key to controlling all other domains. His aspirations are grandiose but terrifyingly attainable given his power.",[371,2196,2197,2200],{},[374,2198,2199],{},"Juno",": A mysterious Woven Strider who seems to be a part-time participant in the council and its least understood member. Juno's nature, motivations, and full capabilities remain opaque to colleagues and citizens alike.",[371,2202,2203,2206],{},[374,2204,2205],{},"Omara",": The youngest and most recently appointed member, Omara is a brilliant Sulk engineer who bridges the gap between magic and technology in ways that unsettle the more traditional sorcerers.",[353,2208,2210],{"id":2209},"agents","Agents",[368,2212,2213],{},[371,2214,2215,2218],{},[374,2216,2217],{},"James Ryan",": Servant of the Council and owner of Sondis Enterprises. Ryan operates as the Council's agent in commercial and corporate affairs, managing the intersection between Nod's economy and the mortal world's.",{"title":404,"searchDepth":130,"depth":130,"links":2220},[2221,2222],{"id":2161,"depth":134,"text":2162},{"id":2209,"depth":134,"text":2210},{"category":1325},{"title":86,"description":2155},"somnos\u002Fsetting\u002Ffactions\u002Fcouncil",[2227,1349,2228,722],"council","sorcery","4wN8Svcd1FTE9BAUMpcNVizq6HNuTHuRlDknGmSJxEY",{"id":2231,"title":218,"author":325,"body":2232,"capital":325,"corporation_type":325,"created":325,"date":325,"description":2236,"extension":411,"faction_type":325,"founded":325,"gallery":325,"headquarters":325,"homeworld":325,"image":325,"influence":325,"last_reviewed":325,"leadership":325,"lifespan":325,"meta":2239,"metadata_type":325,"navigation":321,"path":219,"physiology":325,"relations":325,"seo":2240,"society":325,"sort_order":325,"status":415,"stem":2241,"summary":325,"tags":2242,"territory":325,"visibility":419,"__hash__":2246},"somnos\u002Fsomnos\u002Fsetting\u002Flocations\u002Fthe-city-of-nod\u002Fthe-deadlands.md",{"type":327,"value":2233,"toc":2237},[2234],[335,2235,2236],{},"Not a district but the barren wilderness beyond the city's outermost southern edges, where Nod gives way to an incoherent mix of desert, savannah, and tundra. As in the east, many roads extend into these lands, connecting to other Domains. The Deadlands are not empty. They contain ruins from abandoned settlements, remnants of millennia of attempts to live beyond the borders, Carceri that departed the city for unknown reasons, and things that live in the gaps between civilized spaces. Caravans venture into the Deadlands to acquire artifacts and materials, escorted by Mercenaries Guild soldiers. The Arsenal, a broken remnant of an ancient fortress from some forgotten war, sits on the Deadlands border, home to a diverse population drawn by cheap shelter and proximity to the caravan routes.",{"title":404,"searchDepth":130,"depth":130,"links":2238},[],{"category":457},{"title":218,"description":2236},"somnos\u002Fsetting\u002Flocations\u002Fthe-city-of-nod\u002Fthe-deadlands",[461,2243,961,2244,2245],"wilderness","caravans","the-arsenal","1BwsV0srynSzH2hh0jRXUrz9m9BxG4KgLtu-VwdKmPQ",{"id":2248,"title":89,"author":325,"body":2249,"capital":325,"corporation_type":325,"created":325,"date":325,"description":2253,"extension":411,"faction_type":325,"founded":325,"gallery":325,"headquarters":325,"homeworld":325,"image":325,"influence":325,"last_reviewed":325,"leadership":325,"lifespan":325,"meta":2262,"metadata_type":325,"navigation":321,"path":90,"physiology":325,"relations":325,"seo":2263,"society":325,"sort_order":325,"status":415,"stem":2264,"summary":325,"tags":2265,"territory":325,"visibility":419,"__hash__":2267},"somnos\u002Fsomnos\u002Fsetting\u002Ffactions\u002Fdockmasters.md",{"type":327,"value":2250,"toc":2260},[2251,2254,2257],[335,2252,2253],{},"Trade enters and leaves Nod through its gates, the Dockyards on the endless ocean, the roads leading out through the Deadlands and the Weald, and the work of Striders and Scribes who maintain transit connections with Earth and other Domains. The Dockmasters manage the logistics of this traffic at the city's major entry points.",[335,2255,2256],{},"They are customs agents, warehousers, and traffic controllers rolled into one organization, operating under a charter granted by the Council and enforced through their control of the physical infrastructure at Nod's ports and gates. The largest Dockmaster operation is (appropriately) at the Dockyards, where ocean-going trade and fishing catches are inspected, assessed for tariff, cataloged, and cleared for distribution through Ashmarket or direct to guild buyers. Smaller stations operate along the Deadlands roads and at the Bethier Portal. The Dockmasters also maintain quarantine protocols for materials and creatures arriving from Domains whose contents are unstable, toxic, or inclined to eat the inspectors.",[335,2258,2259],{},"The Merchants Guild resents the Dockmasters as an unnecessary toll on commerce but the Council values them as a source of revenue and intelligence, since every shipment that passes through inspection tells the Council something about who is trading with whom. This tension keeps the Dockmasters financially secure and politically precarious.",{"title":404,"searchDepth":130,"depth":130,"links":2261},[],{"category":1325},{"title":89,"description":2253},"somnos\u002Fsetting\u002Ffactions\u002Fdockmasters",[2053,931,463,2266],"customs","31-hZ7Vpb4Kg-keGX9rY6PwkUjIbEuFFktbryTtvRwc",{"id":2269,"title":92,"author":325,"body":2270,"capital":325,"corporation_type":325,"created":325,"date":325,"description":2274,"extension":411,"faction_type":325,"founded":325,"gallery":325,"headquarters":325,"homeworld":325,"image":325,"influence":325,"last_reviewed":325,"leadership":325,"lifespan":325,"meta":2283,"metadata_type":325,"navigation":321,"path":93,"physiology":325,"relations":325,"seo":2284,"society":325,"sort_order":325,"status":415,"stem":2285,"summary":325,"tags":2286,"territory":325,"visibility":419,"__hash__":2287},"somnos\u002Fsomnos\u002Fsetting\u002Ffactions\u002Fferrymen.md",{"type":327,"value":2271,"toc":2281},[2272,2275,2278],[335,2273,2274],{},"Nod's waterways are older than most of its streets. Canals, flooded underpasses, underground rivers, and the brackish channels beneath the Stilts form a secondary transit network that is faster than surface travel for anyone willing to share the water with Merrow and worse.",[335,2276,2277],{},"The Ferrymen operate this network. They are boatmen, barge-pilots, and guides who know the safe channels, the tidal patterns, the passages where Merrow are fed enough to leave traffic alone, and the routes that should not be taken after certain hours regardless of how much the passenger is willing to pay. Most Ferrymen are Theriae with aquatic lineage or humans who have been in the trade long enough to develop an instinct for the water's moods.",[335,2279,2280],{},"The Ferrymen are not a formal organization so much as a professional community bound by shared knowledge and mutual survival. They charge for passage, don't ask questions about cargo, and maintain a strict neutrality in factional disputes.",{"title":404,"searchDepth":130,"depth":130,"links":2282},[],{"category":1325},{"title":92,"description":2274},"somnos\u002Fsetting\u002Ffactions\u002Fferrymen",[2053,931,1176,928],"s_w1AQG46HoMO2DELT0tJyL0Z7wz-ZpNcqUHBx6TO64",{"id":2289,"title":221,"author":325,"body":2290,"capital":325,"corporation_type":325,"created":325,"date":325,"description":2294,"extension":411,"faction_type":325,"founded":325,"gallery":325,"headquarters":325,"homeworld":325,"image":325,"influence":325,"last_reviewed":325,"leadership":325,"lifespan":325,"meta":2297,"metadata_type":325,"navigation":321,"path":222,"physiology":325,"relations":325,"seo":2298,"society":325,"sort_order":325,"status":415,"stem":2299,"summary":325,"tags":2300,"territory":325,"visibility":419,"__hash__":2305},"somnos\u002Fsomnos\u002Fsetting\u002Flocations\u002Fthe-city-of-nod\u002Fthe-fields.md",{"type":327,"value":2291,"toc":2295},[2292],[335,2293,2294],{},"Wide tracts of agricultural land on the city's eastern side, carved from the edge of the Weald where the forest thins enough to permit cultivation. The Fields grow Nod's native crops under arcane lights and stranger methods of fertilization, producing food that is available nowhere else and that constitutes a significant portion of the city's caloric supply. What cannot be grown is imported from Earth or other Domains through the Merchants Guild, but the Fields provide the staples. The work is hard, the pay is poor, and the workers are predominantly human and Skulk, with a scattering of Theriae whose lineages incline toward patience and manual labor. The eastern edge of the Fields borders the Weald directly, and the forest has a tendency to reclaim cleared land if the workers stop pushing it back.",{"title":404,"searchDepth":130,"depth":130,"links":2296},[],{"category":457},{"title":221,"description":2294},"somnos\u002Fsetting\u002Flocations\u002Fthe-city-of-nod\u002Fthe-fields",[461,2301,2302,2303,2304],"agriculture","farming","weald","eastern","plEPmsjl-xw6POd2uqSeRYNGNOxKeDC1Y6RBF6nzT1Y",{"id":2307,"title":224,"author":325,"body":2308,"capital":325,"corporation_type":325,"created":325,"date":325,"description":2319,"extension":411,"faction_type":325,"founded":325,"gallery":325,"headquarters":325,"homeworld":325,"image":325,"influence":325,"last_reviewed":325,"leadership":325,"lifespan":325,"meta":2320,"metadata_type":325,"navigation":321,"path":225,"physiology":325,"relations":325,"seo":2321,"society":325,"sort_order":325,"status":415,"stem":2322,"summary":325,"tags":2323,"territory":325,"visibility":419,"__hash__":2326},"somnos\u002Fsomnos\u002Fsetting\u002Flocations\u002Fthe-city-of-nod\u002Fthe-garden.md",{"type":327,"value":2309,"toc":2317},[2310],[335,2311,2312,2313,2316],{},"The city's most notorious nightclub and bordello. The main floor is a large open dancehall with a bar and a staircase leading to the upper floors where the actual business is conducted. Many of its dancers are Masques, their glamour tuned to the desires of whoever is watching. The air is thick with incense, alcohol, and the particular atmosphere that Masques generate when they stop trying to look like anything specific and simply project ",[2012,2314,2315],{},"want",". The Garden is located in the Redlight District and has been operating for longer than most of the district's other establishments have existed.",{"title":404,"searchDepth":130,"depth":130,"links":2318},[],"The city's most notorious nightclub and bordello. The main floor is a large open dancehall with a bar and a staircase leading to the upper floors where the actual business is conducted. Many of its dancers are Masques, their glamour tuned to the desires of whoever is watching. The air is thick with incense, alcohol, and the particular atmosphere that Masques generate when they stop trying to look like anything specific and simply project want. The Garden is located in the Redlight District and has been operating for longer than most of the district's other establishments have existed.",{"category":457},{"title":224,"description":2319},"somnos\u002Fsetting\u002Flocations\u002Fthe-city-of-nod\u002Fthe-garden",[1329,2324,2325,1305,2145],"nightclub","bordello","9Og-XD7D1NkyYCZX4ncuQ_qBNS4G3Rjhadbv2M33Mps",{"id":2328,"title":95,"author":325,"body":2329,"capital":325,"corporation_type":325,"created":325,"date":325,"description":2335,"extension":411,"faction_type":325,"founded":325,"gallery":325,"headquarters":325,"homeworld":325,"image":325,"influence":325,"last_reviewed":325,"leadership":325,"lifespan":325,"meta":2473,"metadata_type":325,"navigation":321,"path":96,"physiology":325,"relations":325,"seo":2474,"society":325,"sort_order":325,"status":415,"stem":2475,"summary":325,"tags":2476,"territory":325,"visibility":419,"__hash__":2479},"somnos\u002Fsomnos\u002Fsetting\u002Ffactions\u002Fgermaine-foundation.md",{"type":327,"value":2330,"toc":2470},[2331,2336,2339,2342,2346,2349,2355,2417,2423,2447,2453,2467],[335,2332,2333],{},[2012,2334,2335],{},"Private. Founded circa 18th century.",[335,2337,2338],{},"The most significant mortal organization engaged in supernatural investigation. Founded by the enigmatic figure known only as Germaine, an immortal (or extraordinarily long-lived) being of uncertain nature. Germaine's goal, pursued over three centuries, is the construction of a unified theory of the supernatural: a mathematical and observational framework that reduces the patterns of the arcane into something comprehensible and, ideally, predictable.",[335,2340,2341],{},"The Foundation operates through small field teams of operatives. These are recruited from civilians with latent abilities or prior supernatural exposure and supported by handlers, researchers, and a growing institutional knowledge base. The Midway Incident was a Foundation operation.",[330,2343,2345],{"id":2344},"classification-system","Classification System",[335,2347,2348],{},"The Foundation has developed the most sophisticated mortal taxonomy of supernatural entities:",[335,2350,2351,2354],{},[374,2352,2353],{},"Rarity Codes"," (Greek letter designations):",[368,2356,2357,2363,2369,2375,2381,2387,2393,2399,2405,2411],{},[371,2358,2359,2362],{},[374,2360,2361],{},"Alpha",": Extremely common (e.g., humans)",[371,2364,2365,2368],{},[374,2366,2367],{},"Beta",": Common",[371,2370,2371,2374],{},[374,2372,2373],{},"Delta",": Uncommon or declining",[371,2376,2377,2380],{},[374,2378,2379],{},"Epsilon",": Rare",[371,2382,2383,2386],{},[374,2384,2385],{},"Gamma",": Extinct or near-extinct",[371,2388,2389,2392],{},[374,2390,2391],{},"Omega",": Unique creature",[371,2394,2395,2398],{},[374,2396,2397],{},"Zeta",": Religiously affiliated",[371,2400,2401,2404],{},[374,2402,2403],{},"Lambda",": Unknown rarity",[371,2406,2407,2410],{},[374,2408,2409],{},"Mu",": High density, low geographic spread",[371,2412,2413,2416],{},[374,2414,2415],{},"Iota",": Flagged active threat",[335,2418,2419,2422],{},[374,2420,2421],{},"Classification Scale"," (1-7):",[2424,2425,2426,2429,2432,2435,2438,2441,2444],"ol",{},[371,2427,2428],{},"Mundane",[371,2430,2431],{},"Meta-natural (unusual but explicable)",[371,2433,2434],{},"Semi-Thaumite (minor supernatural traits)",[371,2436,2437],{},"Thaumite (confirmed supernatural)",[371,2439,2440],{},"Eidolon-class",[371,2442,2443],{},"Aeon-class",[371,2445,2446],{},"Unknown \u002F Unclassifiable",[335,2448,2449,2452],{},[374,2450,2451],{},"Threat Assessment"," (1-10):",[368,2454,2455,2458,2461,2464],{},[371,2456,2457],{},"1-3: Manageable with standard protocols",[371,2459,2460],{},"4-6: Requires specialist intervention",[371,2462,2463],{},"7: Requires full team deployment",[371,2465,2466],{},"8-10: Contact and conflict to be avoided at all costs. Level 10 designates entities capable of regional or global-scale destruction.",[335,2468,2469],{},"The system is imperfect. It was built from incomplete observations and uses categories that don't always map cleanly to the reality of Domains, Aeons, and the taxonomy of Shapers, Shifters, and the rest. But it is functional, and no other mortal organization has produced anything comparable.",{"title":404,"searchDepth":130,"depth":130,"links":2471},[2472],{"id":2344,"depth":130,"text":2345},{"category":1325},{"title":95,"description":2335},"somnos\u002Fsetting\u002Ffactions\u002Fgermaine-foundation",[1002,2053,2477,2478],"investigation","classification","6Yeuj6684W_3B1dQSb5dnSRmlkQSW4sz6FFG-TPJOW4",{"id":2481,"title":227,"author":325,"body":2482,"capital":325,"corporation_type":325,"created":325,"date":325,"description":2486,"extension":411,"faction_type":325,"founded":325,"gallery":325,"headquarters":325,"homeworld":325,"image":325,"influence":325,"last_reviewed":325,"leadership":325,"lifespan":325,"meta":2489,"metadata_type":325,"navigation":321,"path":228,"physiology":325,"relations":325,"seo":2490,"society":325,"sort_order":325,"status":415,"stem":2491,"summary":325,"tags":2492,"territory":325,"visibility":419,"__hash__":2495},"somnos\u002Fsomnos\u002Fsetting\u002Flocations\u002Fthe-city-of-nod\u002Fglass-district.md",{"type":327,"value":2483,"toc":2487},[2484],[335,2485,2486],{},"Named for the Slavers Guild's headquarters, a compound of pale stone and vitrum windows that catches the moonlight like a lantern. The district surrounding it has the tense, watched quality of a place where powerful people conduct business they would prefer not to be interrupted. The Slavers Guild operates openly here under Council protection, and the Prefex maintain a visible presence. Security cameras, imported from Earth and supplemented with arcane monitoring, cover the compound's perimeter and the surrounding blocks. It is one of the few locations in Nod where systematic surveillance is operational. Attacks on the compound by abolitionists and resistance groups have never made it past the districts substantial defensive infrastructure.",{"title":404,"searchDepth":130,"depth":130,"links":2488},[],{"category":457},{"title":227,"description":2486},"somnos\u002Fsetting\u002Flocations\u002Fthe-city-of-nod\u002Fglass-district",[461,2147,2493,2494],"glass-district","prefex","WMGqmzEvdEi0aoXQCEmpp3H744dhZvpFSpdlTVLQLCo",{"id":2497,"title":230,"author":325,"body":2498,"capital":325,"corporation_type":325,"created":325,"date":325,"description":2502,"extension":411,"faction_type":325,"founded":325,"gallery":325,"headquarters":325,"homeworld":325,"image":325,"influence":325,"last_reviewed":325,"leadership":325,"lifespan":325,"meta":2511,"metadata_type":325,"navigation":321,"path":231,"physiology":325,"relations":325,"seo":2512,"society":325,"sort_order":325,"status":415,"stem":2513,"summary":325,"tags":2514,"territory":325,"visibility":419,"__hash__":2518},"somnos\u002Fsomnos\u002Fsetting\u002Flocations\u002Fthe-city-of-nod\u002Fthe-green-path.md",{"type":327,"value":2499,"toc":2509},[2500,2503,2506],[335,2501,2502],{},"On the eastern side of Lake Enoch, a swath of forest grows under Nod's sunless sky. How it sustains itself without a sun is yet another of the city's unanswered questions. Much like the Lotan River, this forest channel extends east before splitting into smaller trails that lead to various copses and parks around the city. Following its densest width leads to the Weald, an endless forest that marks the eastern boundary of Nod. The Weald has many roads and paths leading into it from districts and communities across the city, each connecting to other Domains or emerging into the shadow of forested areas on Earth.",[335,2504,2505],{},"The Green Path also feeds the Fields, where the forest's edge has been carved back to make room for the agricultural operations that supply the city's native crops.",[335,2507,2508],{},"Notable locations within the Green Path and the Weald include Abel Park, a strangely pleasant clearing that maintains an atmosphere of calm at odds with the rest of the city; the Serpent's Path, a footpath that seems to wind through the city, emerging from smaller groves that are not geographically connected to the Green Path itself; and Solaris Grove, a known location deep in the Weald, difficult to reach, that houses a sapient tree-creature of uncertain nature and considerable age.",{"title":404,"searchDepth":130,"depth":130,"links":2510},[],{"category":457},{"title":230,"description":2502},"somnos\u002Fsetting\u002Flocations\u002Fthe-city-of-nod\u002Fthe-green-path",[764,2515,2303,2516,2517],"forest","nature","green-path","Q8uR18inXU22H0JzMxIvyY6KC9qRnhI4bZsmf8esbS8",{"id":2520,"title":98,"author":325,"body":2521,"capital":325,"corporation_type":325,"created":325,"date":325,"description":2525,"extension":411,"faction_type":325,"founded":325,"gallery":325,"headquarters":325,"homeworld":325,"image":325,"influence":325,"last_reviewed":325,"leadership":325,"lifespan":325,"meta":2531,"metadata_type":325,"navigation":321,"path":99,"physiology":325,"relations":325,"seo":2532,"society":325,"sort_order":325,"status":415,"stem":2533,"summary":325,"tags":2534,"territory":325,"visibility":419,"__hash__":2538},"somnos\u002Fsomnos\u002Fsetting\u002Ffactions\u002Fmercenaries-guild.md",{"type":327,"value":2522,"toc":2529},[2523,2526],[335,2524,2525],{},"The simplest of the guilds in concept. Payment in exchange for martial service. Contracts range from guarding a shopfront to waging war on rival communities. The guild also maintains contracts that extend into the mortal world, placing operatives in real-world military positions, a service that requires Striders or gate-marks.",[335,2527,2528],{},"The Mercenaries Guild works closely with the Merchants Guild to provide armed escort for caravans venturing into the Deadlands, other Domains, or through the Veil to the mortal world. Membership cuts across species lines. The guild recruits from the Coliseum's survivors and maintains a presence at the Dockyards for maritime contracts.",{"title":404,"searchDepth":130,"depth":130,"links":2530},[],{"category":1325},{"title":98,"description":2525},"somnos\u002Fsetting\u002Ffactions\u002Fmercenaries-guild",[2535,2536,2537],"guilds","mercenaries","economy","ncl-KORuQgFqCZ0uKYW2SkL2o8vHx8zMxRCQQYAyWRg",{"id":2540,"title":233,"author":325,"body":2541,"capital":325,"corporation_type":325,"created":325,"date":325,"description":2545,"extension":411,"faction_type":325,"founded":325,"gallery":325,"headquarters":325,"homeworld":325,"image":325,"influence":325,"last_reviewed":325,"leadership":325,"lifespan":325,"meta":2548,"metadata_type":325,"navigation":321,"path":234,"physiology":325,"relations":325,"seo":2549,"society":325,"sort_order":325,"status":415,"stem":2550,"summary":325,"tags":2551,"territory":325,"visibility":419,"__hash__":2553},"somnos\u002Fsomnos\u002Fsetting\u002Flocations\u002Fthe-city-of-nod\u002Fthe-hibernaculum.md",{"type":327,"value":2542,"toc":2546},[2543],[335,2544,2545],{},"A sealed structure in the Boneyards whose doors have not opened in living memory. The Chroniclers' records describe it as a repository, though for what is unclear. The building resists physical damage and magical investigation with equal indifference. The Pallbearers, whose headquarters are nearby, maintain a respectful distance and a standing policy of not attempting entry. Whatever is inside has not attempted to come out.",{"title":404,"searchDepth":130,"depth":130,"links":2547},[],{"category":457},{"title":233,"description":2545},"somnos\u002Fsetting\u002Flocations\u002Fthe-city-of-nod\u002Fthe-hibernaculum",[739,740,2027,2552,2025],"sealed","tPMAeByBVkCR3nwg5IY-7M4kwXxTn8Ki6oOAjmcXeeg",{"id":2555,"title":101,"author":325,"body":2556,"capital":325,"corporation_type":325,"created":325,"date":325,"description":2560,"extension":411,"faction_type":325,"founded":325,"gallery":325,"headquarters":325,"homeworld":325,"image":325,"influence":325,"last_reviewed":325,"leadership":325,"lifespan":325,"meta":2572,"metadata_type":325,"navigation":321,"path":102,"physiology":325,"relations":325,"seo":2573,"society":325,"sort_order":325,"status":415,"stem":2574,"summary":325,"tags":2575,"territory":325,"visibility":419,"__hash__":2578},"somnos\u002Fsomnos\u002Fsetting\u002Ffactions\u002Fhospitallers.md",{"type":327,"value":2557,"toc":2570},[2558,2561,2564,2567],[335,2559,2560],{},"Medicine in Nod is complicated by the fact that seven sapient species have seven different biologies, none of which respond identically to the same treatments, and all of which can be further altered by Nod's transformative effects. The Hospitallers are the closest thing the city has to a medical establishment.",[335,2562,2563],{},"Their clinics range from well-equipped facilities in the Annex, stocked with Earth-imported surgical instruments, anaesthetics, and imaging equipment, to single-room operations in the Warrens where the practitioner works with a Tinker-built autoclave and whatever the Alchemist's Boon had in stock that week. The best Hospitaller clinics rival Earth hospitals in their equipment if not their staffing while the worst are closer to field medicine.",[335,2565,2566],{},"Hospitaller clinics operate in the Warrens, the Annex, and several other districts, staffed by a mix of trained physicians, surgeons, alchemists, and a small number of Shifters whose specialty is biological repair. Treatment is available to any species, though the quality varies with the practitioner's experience. A Hospitaller who has spent decades treating Kaarn knows their biology well enough to manage growth instabilities and be stumped by the issues of a Woven colony. The network of members allows for a referral and consulting system that helps moderate this difficulty.",[335,2568,2569],{},"The Hospitallers are funded through patient fees, charitable contributions from the wealthier districts, and occasional Council stipends that arrive irregularly and come with strings. They maintain a formal code of neutrality modelled on the Pallbearers' example, treating the wounded of all factions without discrimination. In practice, this neutrality is tested regularly by the Prefex, who would prefer that certain patients not recover, and by the Slavers Guild, which has its own ideas about what constitutes medical care.",{"title":404,"searchDepth":130,"depth":130,"links":2571},[],{"category":1325},{"title":101,"description":2560},"somnos\u002Fsetting\u002Ffactions\u002Fhospitallers",[2053,931,2576,2577],"medicine","neutrality","ScX03FogoyDr5EgPk7HSAf2DBAgvJl1MDGZZadxL1aU",{"id":2580,"title":104,"author":325,"body":2581,"capital":325,"corporation_type":325,"created":325,"date":325,"description":2585,"extension":411,"faction_type":325,"founded":325,"gallery":325,"headquarters":325,"homeworld":325,"image":325,"influence":325,"last_reviewed":325,"leadership":325,"lifespan":325,"meta":2608,"metadata_type":325,"navigation":321,"path":105,"physiology":325,"relations":325,"seo":2609,"society":325,"sort_order":325,"status":415,"stem":2610,"summary":325,"tags":2611,"territory":325,"visibility":419,"__hash__":2613},"somnos\u002Fsomnos\u002Fsetting\u002Ffactions\u002Flamplighters.md",{"type":327,"value":2582,"toc":2606},[2583,2586,2589,2592,2595,2601],[335,2584,2585],{},"Nod has no sun. Without the Lamplighters, it would also have no light.",[335,2587,2588],{},"The Lamplighters maintain the city's network of arcane streetlamps, the fuel less lanterns that line major thoroughfares. These lamps provide more than illumination; they are geometric wards that keep the Shadow from bleeding into inhabited districts at their most vulnerable points. The work is part engineering, part sorcery, and entirely thankless. A functioning lamp is oddly invisible but a dark stretch of street is extremely noticeable.",[335,2590,2591],{},"The organization is small, technically skilled, and perpetually strained. They are not a guild in the formal sense but operate with guild-like structure: apprenticeships, territorial assignments, and a deep institutional knowledge of the city's older infrastructure that no one else possesses. Several Lamplighters are Scribes. A few are Shapers. Most are humans or semi-humans with enough magical sensitivity to maintain existing enchantments, which is cheaper and less dangerous than employing full practitioners. In the wealthier districts, the Lamplighters' wards compete with electric lighting imported from Earth or powered by thermic fungus generators. These mundane lights serve no protective function against the Shadow, a distinction the Lamplighters make loudly and the wealthier residents ignore until something crawls out of a dark corner that a lightbulb cannot deter.",[335,2593,2594],{},"Their relationship with the Council is transactional. The Council pays them just enough to maintain a working city but not a bright one and Councillors maintain their own private lamp-folk. Instead most funding comes from the lesser governments of districts and boroughs throughout the city. The real constraint is obtaining the materials and knowledge to make and maintain the lamps.",[2596,2597,2598],"blockquote",{},[335,2599,2600],{},"Lamp Theft: The value of the cities Lamps are obvious and keeping them from being stolen has been a perpetual challenge. Lamp Theft is considered a high offense by the Prefex but this has not prevented a robust underground trade in lights.",[2596,2602,2603],{},[335,2604,2605],{},"Lamp Tech: While many Lamplighters hew to the traditional and decry any attempt to modernize, there is a subset of them, particularly recent arrivals from Earth and Skulks, who are working on new forms of 'Lamp', ones connected to the cities increasingly omnipresent electrical grid. A method for mass producing the sorts of components that can bridge the electrical and the arcane has not yet been found but many think it's just a matter of time, an idea the elders of the organization actively decry.",{"title":404,"searchDepth":130,"depth":130,"links":2607},[],{"category":1325},{"title":104,"description":2585},"somnos\u002Fsetting\u002Ffactions\u002Flamplighters",[2053,931,2612,2023],"light","Q_kDOCCqpD7b0SkZN7fi7TIaLYJkRQDdvONzeEa6F0Q",{"id":2615,"title":65,"author":325,"body":2616,"capital":325,"corporation_type":325,"created":325,"date":325,"description":2623,"extension":411,"faction_type":325,"founded":325,"gallery":325,"headquarters":325,"homeworld":325,"image":325,"influence":325,"last_reviewed":325,"leadership":325,"lifespan":325,"meta":2771,"metadata_type":325,"navigation":321,"path":66,"physiology":325,"relations":325,"seo":2772,"society":325,"sort_order":325,"status":415,"stem":2773,"summary":325,"tags":2774,"territory":325,"visibility":419,"__hash__":2776},"somnos\u002Fsomnos\u002Fsetting\u002Fculture-and-society\u002Fthe-laws.md",{"type":327,"value":2617,"toc":2752},[2618,2621,2624,2627,2631,2634,2638,2641,2644,2647,2651,2654,2657,2660,2664,2667,2669,2673,2676,2680,2683,2686,2690,2693,2695,2699,2702,2705,2707,2711,2714,2718,2721,2725,2728,2732,2735,2739,2742,2746,2749],[574,2619,65],{"id":2620},"the-laws-of-nod",[335,2622,2623],{},"Nod has no legislature, no judiciary, and no constitution. What it has are customs old enough to have acquired the weight of law, enforced by the willingness of the powerful to punish those who violate them. The Council codifies and interprets. The Prefex enforce. But the laws themselves predate both institutions by millennia, and would survive their destruction.",[335,2625,2626],{},"The laws exist because Nod cannot function without them. A city of millions, comprising seven sapient species and an unknowable number of transient entities, held together by nothing more than mutual self-interest and the threat of disproportionate retaliation. The laws formalize the minimum agreement required to prevent that arrangement from collapsing into open war.",[330,2628,2630],{"id":2629},"the-sovereign-laws","The Sovereign Laws",[335,2632,2633],{},"Sovereign Laws apply to all beings within Nod regardless of species, faction, or district. They cannot be overridden by local custom or guild authority. Violation is answered by anyone with the power and inclination to answer it.",[353,2635,2637],{"id":2636},"the-law-of-retribution","The Law of Retribution",[335,2639,2640],{},"Any being wronged in its person, property, or standing has the right to repay the offense in kind. The offender must submit to the repayment or negotiate terms of restitution. If the wronged party cannot act personally, they may designate a champion to pursue the matter on their behalf.",[335,2642,2643],{},"Retribution is bounded. Once the debt is repaid, the matter is closed. Any action beyond proportional repayment constitutes a new offense against the city itself, and any being in Nod may respond to it at any time, at the same measure.",[335,2645,2646],{},"This law is a pressure valve. It permits violence without permitting escalation.",[353,2648,2650],{"id":2649},"the-law-of-haven","The Law of Haven",[335,2652,2653],{},"Any being may claim a territory as haven. Within that territory, the claimant's rules are law, provided they do not contradict the Sovereign Laws. The territory must be marked. The claimant is responsible for anything that happens within it -- any violation of Sovereign Law committed in a haven is the haven-holder's burden to answer for.",[335,2655,2656],{},"A being entering another's haven receives two chances to leave before the haven-holder is entitled to act: a warning and a threat. After the second, the intruder forfeits protection.",[335,2658,2659],{},"Any being intending to reside in another's territory for an extended period must announce their presence and negotiate terms. Failure to do so is grounds for expulsion by force.",[353,2661,2663],{"id":2662},"the-law-of-neutrality","The Law of Neutrality",[335,2665,2666],{},"Nod is neutral ground. Conflicts between Aeons, between Domains, or between external powers may not be prosecuted within the city. Those who bring external wars into Nod answer to Nemo, and Nemo does not negotiate terms or provide clemency.",[1048,2668],{},[330,2670,2672],{"id":2671},"the-mortal-protections","The Mortal Protections",[335,2674,2675],{},"These laws govern the treatment of humans and other mortals who have not yet entered the supernatural world. They exist because mortal populations are useful, because their destruction would attract attention, and because some of the city's older residents remember what happens when mortals are provoked to awareness and action.",[353,2677,2679],{"id":2678},"the-right-of-ignorance","The Right of Ignorance",[335,2681,2682],{},"Mortals who are unaware of the supernatural have the right to remain so. As long as a mortal does not actively endanger a supernatural being's haven or accumulate significant evidence of the arcane world, they should be misdirected and their attention diverted. Even a mortal investigating the supernatural is given two chances to abandon their inquiry before they forfeit this protection: a warning and a threat.",[335,2684,2685],{},"A supernatural being who brings a mortal across the Veil assumes full responsibility for that mortal's safety and education. The mortal's actions are considered the sponsor's own, and the sponsor answers for any violations committed by their charge. If the sponsor harms their charge, the sponsor may be punished under the Law of Retribution by any interested party.",[353,2687,2689],{"id":2688},"the-right-of-safety","The Right of Safety",[335,2691,2692],{},"Mortals who have not harmed a supernatural being are not to be harmed by one without cause. Mortals who have not killed are not to be killed. Proportionality applies; a mortal who has caused harm may receive harm in kind, no more. A mortal who kills without justification forfeits the Right of Safety entirely and may be claimed by whoever can prove the offense.",[1048,2694],{},[330,2696,2698],{"id":2697},"local-custom","Local Custom",[335,2700,2701],{},"Below the Sovereign Laws, each community, guild, district, and species maintains its own rules, enforced within its own territory. A being who claims haven may escape the local customs of surrounding territories while within their own. Some haven-holders grant asylum to those fleeing local judgment, a practice that functions as political currency.",[335,2703,2704],{},"Local customs are not enforced by the Prefex unless they intersect with Sovereign Law violations. Disputes between communities over local custom are settled by negotiation, threat, or violence, in roughly that order.",[1048,2706],{},[330,2708,2710],{"id":2709},"precedents","Precedents",[335,2712,2713],{},"Precedents are established interpretations of the Sovereign Laws that address recurring situations. They carry the weight of long practice but are not themselves law, and can be argued, though most beings find it safer not to.",[353,2715,2717],{"id":2716},"inheritance-of-territory","Inheritance of Territory",[335,2719,2720],{},"When the holder of a haven dies, is destroyed, or abandons their claim, their territory passes to the recognized leadership of whatever faction, guild, or community the holder belonged to. Contested inheritance is settled by the Law of Retribution or, more commonly, by whoever occupies the space first and can hold it.",[353,2722,2724],{"id":2723},"the-shadow-exception","The Shadow Exception",[335,2726,2727],{},"The Shadow is considered free ground. No being may claim haven in the Shadow, and local customs do not extend into it. Those who establish positions in the Shadow do so at their own risk, though they may still invoke Sovereign Law. In practice this means the Shadow is where Nod's laws go to be bent.",[353,2729,2731],{"id":2730},"declaration-of-enmity","Declaration of Enmity",[335,2733,2734],{},"If a being's negligence allows threats to breed in their territory (entities from the Shadow slipping through, abyssal creatures nesting in neglected corners) the affected parties may invoke the Law of Retribution and declare enmity. From that point, only the involved parties may engage. Anyone who takes a side forfeits the protection of the Sovereign Laws for the duration of the dispute. Resolution typically involves granting the threatened party access to the negligent party's territory and a declaration of non-interference. Declarations of enmity are treated with considerable gravity. As precedents rather than law, they are open to argument, but most beings respect them without question.",[353,2736,2738],{"id":2737},"the-right-of-honor","The Right of Honor",[335,2740,2741],{},"With the agreement of all parties and the local authority, two beings may waive the right of allies to pursue retribution on their behalf in the event of death or incapacity. This is invoked during formal duels. If an ally disrespects this waiver, they are considered to have violated the Law of Retribution against the entire city.",[330,2743,2745],{"id":2744},"enforcement","Enforcement",[335,2747,2748],{},"The laws are enforced unevenly and imperfectly, which is by design. The Prefex handle the obvious cases. The Council handles the political ones. Theoretically Nemo handles the ones no one else can, though usually those sorts of problems seem to 'work themselves out', usually in particularly grisly ways.",[335,2750,2751],{},"For most residents, the laws are not a system of justice. They are the rules of a game that everyone plays because the alternative, living in a city of millions with no rules at all, is worse than any individual injustice the system produces.",{"title":404,"searchDepth":130,"depth":130,"links":2753},[2754,2759,2763,2764,2770],{"id":2629,"depth":130,"text":2630,"children":2755},[2756,2757,2758],{"id":2636,"depth":134,"text":2637},{"id":2649,"depth":134,"text":2650},{"id":2662,"depth":134,"text":2663},{"id":2671,"depth":130,"text":2672,"children":2760},[2761,2762],{"id":2678,"depth":134,"text":2679},{"id":2688,"depth":134,"text":2689},{"id":2697,"depth":130,"text":2698},{"id":2709,"depth":130,"text":2710,"children":2765},[2766,2767,2768,2769],{"id":2716,"depth":134,"text":2717},{"id":2723,"depth":134,"text":2724},{"id":2730,"depth":134,"text":2731},{"id":2737,"depth":134,"text":2738},{"id":2744,"depth":130,"text":2745},{"category":508},{"title":65,"description":2623},"somnos\u002Fsetting\u002Fculture-and-society\u002Fthe-laws",[2775,1349,2266,724],"laws","SEPGPTqvV7zELTpuJN4FZ9LwJTGORJJQv-RLm2RxQQ0",{"id":2778,"title":107,"author":325,"body":2779,"capital":325,"corporation_type":325,"created":325,"date":325,"description":2783,"extension":411,"faction_type":325,"founded":325,"gallery":325,"headquarters":325,"homeworld":325,"image":325,"influence":325,"last_reviewed":325,"leadership":325,"lifespan":325,"meta":2789,"metadata_type":325,"navigation":321,"path":108,"physiology":325,"relations":325,"seo":2790,"society":325,"sort_order":325,"status":415,"stem":2791,"summary":325,"tags":2792,"territory":325,"visibility":419,"__hash__":2793},"somnos\u002Fsomnos\u002Fsetting\u002Ffactions\u002Fmerchants-guild.md",{"type":327,"value":2780,"toc":2787},[2781,2784],[335,2782,2783],{},"Purely capitalist. The Merchants Guild procures items that are rare in Nod from the mortal world, and items that are rare in the mortal world from Nod, and sells both to the highest bidder. The guild maintains its principal trading halls in Ashmarket and operates on Earth under the cover of a false corporation called Retinue Inc., running supply chains through mortal shipping infrastructure and maintaining ties to real-world criminal organizations. Retinue Inc. has shell subsidiaries, freight contracts, and enough legitimate-looking paperwork to move containerized cargo through customs in a dozen countries. The volume of Earth-sourced goods flowing into Nod through the Guild's operations is large enough to shape the material culture of the city; the canned food, electronics, building materials, clothing, vehicles, pharmaceuticals, and industrial equipment that most residents encounter daily arrived through a Merchants Guild supply line, even if the end buyer has no idea where it originally came from. The Bethier Portal in Ashmarket has become the guild's preferred transit route for high-value shipments while the docks are preferred for high-volume. The reliance on Kuron Inc.'s infrastructure is a source of growing unease among the guild's leadership.",[335,2785,2786],{},"The Guild's Earth-side operations are more varied than the Retinue Inc. front suggests. In practice, Retinue handles Western markets. Goods moving through East and Southeast Asian networks are managed through family-based trading relationships that predate the corporation by centuries, some maintained by Theriae operatives with cultural ties to the regions they work in. West African and Middle Eastern routes run through informal value-transfer networks that the Guild's leadership in Nod does not fully control but has learned not to interfere with. The result is an organization whose official structure is a European-style chartered guild and whose actual operations resemble a loose confederation of regional trade networks held together by shared profit motive.",{"title":404,"searchDepth":130,"depth":130,"links":2788},[],{"category":1325},{"title":107,"description":2783},"somnos\u002Fsetting\u002Ffactions\u002Fmerchants-guild",[2535,978,2537],"9unlS6Lh2oTtP751uBfunj7GMXIiE6yKKjtHaC5Beos",{"id":2795,"title":236,"author":325,"body":2796,"capital":325,"corporation_type":325,"created":325,"date":325,"description":2800,"extension":411,"faction_type":325,"founded":325,"gallery":325,"headquarters":325,"homeworld":325,"image":325,"influence":325,"last_reviewed":325,"leadership":325,"lifespan":325,"meta":2806,"metadata_type":325,"navigation":321,"path":237,"physiology":325,"relations":325,"seo":2807,"society":325,"sort_order":325,"status":415,"stem":2808,"summary":325,"tags":2809,"territory":325,"visibility":419,"__hash__":2812},"somnos\u002Fsomnos\u002Fsetting\u002Flocations\u002Fthe-city-of-nod\u002Fthe-middens.md",{"type":327,"value":2797,"toc":2804},[2798,2801],[335,2799,2800],{},"Where Nod throws away what it cannot use. Vast heaps of scrap metal, spent batteries, broken electronics, plastic packaging, cracked arcane instruments, offal, and unidentifiable refuse from Domains whose waste products do not decompose in ways anyone can predict, piled in mounds that have become permanent topography.",[335,2802,2803],{},"The Skulks have built a parallel economy here from salvage, their warrens threaded through the garbage in tunnels too small and too numerous for larger species to navigate. The smell is constant and specific: rust, rot, and the acrid chemical tang of decaying waste. The Middens attract hungry scavengers of many species, and while lesser middens are scattered across the city, the primary Middens is vast and grows with each visit by the city's Midden Men, an unglamorous and dangerous career that attracts a very particular sort of resident.",{"title":404,"searchDepth":130,"depth":130,"links":2805},[],{"category":457},{"title":236,"description":2800},"somnos\u002Fsetting\u002Flocations\u002Fthe-city-of-nod\u002Fthe-middens",[461,2810,1847,2811,1848],"waste","salvage","715Tqv1IxuvSJZFzIGaCckkTNq7uIj65msderZXphHY",{"id":2814,"title":110,"author":325,"body":2815,"capital":325,"corporation_type":325,"created":325,"date":325,"description":2819,"extension":411,"faction_type":325,"founded":325,"gallery":325,"headquarters":325,"homeworld":325,"image":325,"influence":325,"last_reviewed":325,"leadership":325,"lifespan":325,"meta":2862,"metadata_type":325,"navigation":321,"path":111,"physiology":325,"relations":325,"seo":2863,"society":325,"sort_order":325,"status":415,"stem":2864,"summary":325,"tags":2865,"territory":325,"visibility":419,"__hash__":2868},"somnos\u002Fsomnos\u002Fsetting\u002Ffactions\u002Fthe-order.md",{"type":327,"value":2816,"toc":2858},[2817,2820,2823,2827,2853,2855],[335,2818,2819],{},"A sect of fanatical knights whose current leadership believe that Nod belongs to humanity and that every non-human creature within it is an infestation to be eradicated.",[335,2821,2822],{},"The Order patrols the human districts, driving out non-humans who wander too close and launching raids on establishments that cater to other species. They are zealots, but they are not incompetent. The Order is the most technically proficient group in Nod, procuring equipment from both the mortal world and the arcane domains. Their soldiers have access to everything from modern firearms and experimental weaponry to tools that have no equivalent in the waking world. Where other factions rely on magic or physical superiority, the Order relies on engineering and logistics. They are a human-supremacist militia armed like a special operations unit.",[330,2824,2826],{"id":2825},"leadership","Leadership",[368,2828,2829,2835,2841,2847],{},[371,2830,2831,2834],{},[374,2832,2833],{},"Regent Gregory White"," leads the Order. He is a warmongering racist by any measure, and makes no effort to disguise either quality. His leadership style is confrontational, his strategic vision is expansionist, and his tolerance for compromise is nonexistent.",[371,2836,2837,2840],{},[374,2838,2839],{},"Commander Louis Bail"," serves as second in command and leads the Order's offensive arm, responsible for raids and targeted operations against non-human targets.",[371,2842,2843,2846],{},[374,2844,2845],{},"Commander Far"," leads the bulk of the Order's regular troops and represents the organization's more moderate wing. Far is a military professional who follows orders but is not animated by the same hatred that drives the Regent. Instead Far sees the Order as a necessary counterforce to organizations like the Slaver's Guild. His daughter Coral has left the Order entirely to serve in the Mercenaries Guild, a choice that suggests complicated family dinners.",[371,2848,2849,2852],{},[374,2850,2851],{},"Sir Redfang"," is a well-known knight with a personal vendetta against the Kaarn. Where the Order's general mission is broad-spectrum xenophobia, Redfang has narrowed his hatred to a single species and pursues their extermination with focused intensity.",[330,2854,1922],{"id":1921},[335,2856,2857],{},"The Order's rank and file are more culturally varied than its leadership acknowledges. Recruits come from human communities with different histories, languages, and traditions of self-defense. Doctrine is modelled on Earth's modern military structures but the culture absorbs whatever its members bring with them, and members can descend from immigrants arriving from anywhere on Earth. Commander Far's moderate wing draws disproportionately from communities whose home traditions included cooperation with non-human neighbors; people who joined the Order for its resources and protection, not its ideology. The Regent treats this diversity as an obstacle, seeking to flatten it to a single identity of 'Order Soldier'.",{"title":404,"searchDepth":130,"depth":130,"links":2859},[2860,2861],{"id":2825,"depth":130,"text":2826},{"id":1921,"depth":130,"text":1922},{"category":1325},{"title":110,"description":2819},"somnos\u002Fsetting\u002Ffactions\u002Fthe-order",[2866,2080,2867,2054],"order","supremacist","zuysz_IIRCEcANJeVgdTEpQEbxwq8jMAQhbOYy8H15Q",{"id":2870,"title":239,"author":325,"body":2871,"capital":325,"corporation_type":325,"created":325,"date":325,"description":2875,"extension":411,"faction_type":325,"founded":325,"gallery":325,"headquarters":325,"homeworld":325,"image":325,"influence":325,"last_reviewed":325,"leadership":325,"lifespan":325,"meta":2884,"metadata_type":325,"navigation":321,"path":240,"physiology":325,"relations":325,"seo":2885,"society":325,"sort_order":325,"status":415,"stem":2886,"summary":325,"tags":2887,"territory":325,"visibility":419,"__hash__":2890},"somnos\u002Fsomnos\u002Fsetting\u002Flocations\u002Fthe-city-of-nod\u002Fsilver-annex.md",{"type":327,"value":2872,"toc":2882},[2873,2876,2879],[335,2874,2875],{},"The oldest inhabited center of the city and the closest thing Nod has to a capital district. The Silver Annex sits on the southern shore of Lake Enoch, growing upon and around the bridge that leads to the Tower like a barnacle on a pier. Stone-footed buildings here predate every other structure in the city. Some of them are Carceri. Some have had more modern structures grafted to them, glass towers and steel-framed additions rising from ancient foundations, while others remain exactly as they have always been.",[335,2877,2878],{},"The Council maintains its chambers in the Annex, and the Prefex garrison their primary fortress, the Spire, at its southern end. The Noctis Gate, an ancient and alien structure of unknown material and purpose, stands in the heart of the Annex. It has not opened in recorded history, and where it connects to, if anywhere, is the subject of speculation that the Chroniclers have cataloged without resolving.",[335,2880,2881],{},"The streets are clean by Nod's standards, lit by arcane lamps supplemented with electric lighting that draws on the Council's private power supply. This is an arrangement whose details the Council has never disclosed and which no other district has been able to replicate. The air carries a mineral smell that comes from the stone itself. Wealth concentrates here, along with the sort of calm that exists only because everyone present has already calculated the cost of disturbing it.",{"title":404,"searchDepth":130,"depth":130,"links":2883},[],{"category":457},{"title":239,"description":2875},"somnos\u002Fsetting\u002Flocations\u002Fthe-city-of-nod\u002Fsilver-annex",[764,439,2888,2227,2494,2889],"government","noctis-gate","ym3GgqyZk9bxfv0JtJ5Xo7BQB-4Qu1rZkShfoMNeBjo",{"id":2892,"title":113,"author":325,"body":2893,"capital":325,"corporation_type":325,"created":325,"date":325,"description":2897,"extension":411,"faction_type":325,"founded":325,"gallery":325,"headquarters":325,"homeworld":325,"image":325,"influence":325,"last_reviewed":325,"leadership":325,"lifespan":325,"meta":2906,"metadata_type":325,"navigation":321,"path":114,"physiology":325,"relations":325,"seo":2907,"society":325,"sort_order":325,"status":415,"stem":2908,"summary":325,"tags":2909,"territory":325,"visibility":419,"__hash__":2911},"somnos\u002Fsomnos\u002Fsetting\u002Ffactions\u002Fpallbearers.md",{"type":327,"value":2894,"toc":2904},[2895,2898,2901],[335,2896,2897],{},"Death is common in Nod. The disposal of the dead is a problem that most cities solve through municipal services. Nod solves it through the Pallbearers, a guild of morticians, body-handlers, and Speakers who manage the passage of the dead from the city into whatever comes after.",[335,2899,2900],{},"The work is unglamorous but critical. A corpse left unattended in Nod does not simply decompose. The city's ambient magic and its proximity to the Shadow mean that dead flesh attracts ghasts, that unanchored spirits linger and grow hostile, and that certain bodies begin to change in ways that make them dangerous to the living. The Pallbearers collect, prepare, and dispose of the dead before any of this happens. Their methods vary by species and by the preferences of the deceased's community, but the core service is the same: making sure the dead stay dead.",[335,2902,2903],{},"The Pallbearers operate from the Boneyards and maintain contracts with every district in the city. Their neutrality is sacrosanct. They collect the bodies of all factions and all species without discrimination, and attacking a Pallbearer in the course of their work is one of the few offenses that will draw a response from every power in Nod simultaneously. The last group to try it no longer exists.",{"title":404,"searchDepth":130,"depth":130,"links":2905},[],{"category":1325},{"title":113,"description":2897},"somnos\u002Fsetting\u002Ffactions\u002Fpallbearers",[2053,931,2910,2577],"death","KVvxlXSGde5fuS40TBfINpca9TkQZGJCy5ghuZdLLTw",{"id":2913,"title":242,"author":325,"body":2914,"capital":325,"corporation_type":325,"created":325,"date":325,"description":2918,"extension":411,"faction_type":325,"founded":325,"gallery":325,"headquarters":325,"homeworld":325,"image":325,"influence":325,"last_reviewed":325,"leadership":325,"lifespan":325,"meta":2924,"metadata_type":325,"navigation":321,"path":243,"physiology":325,"relations":325,"seo":2925,"society":325,"sort_order":325,"status":415,"stem":2926,"summary":325,"tags":2927,"territory":325,"visibility":419,"__hash__":2930},"somnos\u002Fsomnos\u002Fsetting\u002Flocations\u002Fthe-city-of-nod\u002Fredlight-district.md",{"type":327,"value":2915,"toc":2922},[2916,2919],[335,2917,2918],{},"The district with the thickest atmosphere and the shortest tempers. Nod's entertainment industry, such as it is, operates from Redlight's cramped blocks of theaters, gambling dens, fighting pits, and establishments of less categorizable purpose. The Garden, the city's most notorious nightclub and bordello, operates here alongside the Dead Disco, a Spectre-frequented club with a clientele that trends toward the unsettling end of undeath, and the Cyanide Club, a private establishment whose membership requirements and activities echo Earth's historical Hellfire Clubs. The Masques who work the district use their glamour openly, which gives the streets a disorienting quality; a face on a billboard changes depending on who's looking at it, and the music bleeding from basement venues sounds different to every passerby.",[335,2920,2921],{},"The heat in Redlight is worse than elsewhere in the city, for reasons no one has adequately explained, and it brings out what the locals call \"the crazies\", a manic, often dangerous condition experienced by all species equally.",{"title":404,"searchDepth":130,"depth":130,"links":2923},[],{"category":457},{"title":242,"description":2918},"somnos\u002Fsetting\u002Flocations\u002Fthe-city-of-nod\u002Fredlight-district",[461,2928,2929,1305,2145],"entertainment","nightlife","Wc4ujy_RLLJOi0C2iXxU_Svy_ieba5j1VN3fY2XXM1I",{"id":2932,"title":309,"author":325,"body":2933,"capital":325,"corporation_type":325,"created":325,"date":325,"description":3136,"extension":411,"faction_type":325,"founded":325,"gallery":325,"headquarters":325,"homeworld":325,"image":325,"influence":325,"last_reviewed":325,"leadership":325,"lifespan":325,"meta":3137,"metadata_type":325,"navigation":321,"path":310,"physiology":325,"relations":325,"seo":3138,"society":325,"sort_order":325,"status":415,"stem":3139,"summary":325,"tags":3140,"territory":325,"visibility":419,"__hash__":3145},"somnos\u002Fsomnos\u002Fstories\u002Fdiegetic\u002Fthe-samatian-journal.md",{"type":327,"value":2934,"toc":3121},[2935,2939,2947,2951,2954,2957,2960,2964,2967,2987,2991,2994,2998,3001,3004,3022,3029,3033,3036,3043,3047,3050,3053,3056,3060,3063,3066,3070,3073,3076,3079,3082,3085,3092,3095,3098,3101,3104,3107,3111,3114,3118],[574,2936,2938],{"id":2937},"the-samatian-journal-of-decimus-lucius-crassus","The Samatian Journal of Decimus Lucius Crassus",[335,2940,2941,2944],{},[2012,2942,2943],{},"Tribuni Angusticlavii of the Brotherhood of Diocletian -III-",[2012,2945,2946],{},"Transcribed in the first year of the rule of King Richard III.",[330,2948,2950],{"id":2949},"the-artifact","The Artifact",[335,2952,2953],{},"The book is slightly larger than a paperback novel, bound in well-worn red leather with a simple strap to secure it. The vellum is startlingly crisp considering the obvious age. A strange smell rises from the pages -- not the mustiness of aged texts but something very human, like sweat and blood.",[335,2955,2956],{},"The pages are covered in spider-thin writing in an archaic form of Latin, interspersed with elaborate drawings: anatomical sketches, mechanical schematics, maps, and symbolic diagrams. Margin notes in a different hand were added centuries after the original composition.",[335,2958,2959],{},"The journal is 434 pages long.",[330,2961,2963],{"id":2962},"structure","Structure",[335,2965,2966],{},"The journal contains three primary sections:",[2424,2968,2969,2975,2981],{},[371,2970,2971,2974],{},[374,2972,2973],{},"Prodigium"," (\"Unnaturals, portents, monsters\") -- a bestiary organized into five categories of supernatural creature",[371,2976,2977,2980],{},[374,2978,2979],{},"The Samatian Campaign"," -- an account of a military expedition into Southern Samatia (modern Romania\u002FHungary\u002FSlovakia\u002FUkraine border region), dated 307 CE",[371,2982,2983,2986],{},[374,2984,2985],{},"The Libri Sibyllini Invisus"," -- interpretations of prophecies from the secret book of the Cumaean Sibyl",[330,2988,2990],{"id":2989},"the-prodigium","The Prodigium",[335,2992,2993],{},"Crassus organized the supernatural beings he encountered into five categories. His taxonomy predates modern understanding and maps imperfectly onto current classifications, but the observational detail remains valuable.",[353,2995,2997],{"id":2996},"laimia-spectres","Laimia (Spectres)",[335,2999,3000],{},"Crassus documented a vast and conflicting population of vampiric beings in the ancient world. What he classified as a single creature type, modern understanding recognizes as individuals afflicted with vampirism -- a Spectre condition that can affect any sapient species.",[335,3002,3003],{},"Notable encounters:",[368,3005,3006,3012,3019],{},[371,3007,3008,3011],{},[374,3009,3010],{},"Thacius Dalius Eutherius",", a registered member of the Legion who had earned distinctions for his service while concealing his vampiric nature. His cooperation provided intelligence during the Samatian Campaign. His fate is not recorded.",[371,3013,3014,3015,3018],{},"Members of the ",[374,3016,3017],{},"Spears of Longinus",", a vampiric cult operating under a distorted interpretation of Christianity. One cell was captured; another was destroyed entirely during the attempt.",[371,3020,3021],{},"A group of eastern origin, possibly from as far as China, who displayed abilities that surprised even Crassus. They escaped.",[335,3023,3024,3025,3028],{},"The assassination attempt that prompted the Brotherhood's founding was carried out by ",[374,3026,3027],{},"Ionnas Onesimus",", a Spear of Longinus -- a former slave of attractive appearance and entertaining talents who had gained proximity to the Emperor Diocletian. Under interrogation, Ionnas revealed enough about the hidden supernatural world to justify the formation of Crassus's specialized legion.",[353,3030,3032],{"id":3031},"lycanthrope-theriae","Lycanthrope (Theriae)",[335,3034,3035],{},"Crassus encountered what he classified as werewolves. Modern taxonomy identifies these as Theriae of canine lineage. His Roman cultural biases are visible throughout -- he seems as disgusted by the creature's Germanic heritage as by its inhuman nature.",[335,3037,3038,3039,3042],{},"The captured specimen, ",[374,3040,3041],{},"Matavacer",", was a canine-form Theriae whose pack had been decimated by an incursion of unclassified creatures (categorized by Crassus as Chimerae). The capture cost Crassus two dozen men. There is some indication that Crassus believed Matavacer could be domesticated or cross-bred, though the results of any such experiment are not recorded.",[353,3044,3046],{"id":3045},"orphean-constructed-beings","Orphean (Constructed Beings)",[335,3048,3049],{},"A single encounter with a being Crassus could not classify within his other categories. The creature, a female who gave her name only as Eurydice, was found fighting unidentified entities and captured while distracted.",[335,3051,3052],{},"Eurydice withstood torture for many days and revealed virtually nothing. Over the course of a week she attracted increasing numbers of hostile creatures to the camp and produced a disturbing psychological effect on those interacting with her. She was eventually killed through vivisection and dismemberment, and her remains were buried.",[335,3054,3055],{},"Modern interpretation suggests Eurydice may have been an Eidolon, a constructed being created by an Aeon, or possibly a Woven colony in humanoid form. The psychological effects she produced and her apparent indestructibility prior to systematic dismemberment are consistent with either classification.",[353,3057,3059],{"id":3058},"nymphs-masques","Nymphs (Masques)",[335,3061,3062],{},"The only encounter Crassus describes as genial. Three individuals -- two women and a man -- claimed to have been touched by the gods and displayed abilities consistent with glamour-based perception manipulation. They led the legion on a chase over several miles before vanishing. Four soldiers disappeared during the pursuit and were never recovered.",[335,3064,3065],{},"These were almost certainly Masques, and the soldiers' disappearance is consistent with documented Masque tactics -- perception manipulation used to isolate and disorient targets.",[353,3067,3069],{"id":3068},"chimerae-unclassified","Chimerae (Unclassified)",[335,3071,3072],{},"Crassus's catch-all category for anything that did not fit his other classifications. This section includes encounters with ghasts (remnants of the dead persisting in the Shadow), possessed mortals, hostile entities from unidentified Domains, and dozens of creature-hybrids encountered during the Samatian Campaign. Crassus attributed these hybrids' creation to the necromancer he had been sent to investigate.",[335,3074,3075],{},"Many of these \"Chimerae\" were likely sub-sapient fauna from the Shadow or from Domain borders, creatures that exist in Nod's margins to this day.",[330,3077,2979],{"id":3078},"the-samatian-campaign",[335,3080,3081],{},"The campaign's true purpose was the investigation of a being referred to as a \"Child of Hades,\" prophesied by the Cumaean Oracle as a dire threat. This being had established a fortress deep in the Carpathian mountains.",[335,3083,3084],{},"Crassus led 120 soldiers of the Legio Quies into the borderlands. Constant harassment by hostile creatures reduced the force to 50 before they reached the fortress. A covert assault was organized and Crassus penetrated the stronghold, only to be captured.",[335,3086,3087,3088,3091],{},"The entity within appeared human but inhumanly perfect. It wore fine robes and jewels, treated Crassus with care and hospitality, and proved completely immune to repeated assassination attempts, displaying speed and strength beyond anything Crassus had previously encountered. The creature raised dead Legion soldiers and reshaped their bodies into new and monstrous forms. It responded to only one request for its name, declaring itself ",[374,3089,3090],{},"Tzimisce",".",[335,3093,3094],{},"Modern assessment: Tzimisce was almost certainly a powerful Shaper operating from a Domain-adjacent stronghold, possibly an Eidolon of considerable age and accumulated power. The ability to reshape dead flesh is consistent with advanced Shaper techniques, and the creature's apparent immortality and indifference to mortal weapons aligns with Eidolon-class entities in the Germaine Foundation's classification system.",[335,3096,3097],{},"Crassus was freed after several months of captivity. He returned to his remaining troops in a fever and marched back to Rome. Of the original 120, only 35 survived.",[330,3099,2985],{"id":3100},"the-libri-sibyllini-invisus",[335,3102,3103],{},"The journal's final section reproduces and interprets prophecies from a secret book of the Cumaean Sibyl, given to Diocletian on the first day of his rule by an anonymous woman. The text is dense with mathematical and symbolic formulae, switching between Roman arithmetic, base-7 mathematics, and Arabic numerals. The prophecies reference Tzimisce and other Prodigium, though their full content remains partially opaque even after translation.",[335,3105,3106],{},"The historical Sibylline Books were burned in 405 CE by the Christian general Stilicho. Whether the secret book Diocletian received was related to or separate from the public Sibylline collection is unknown.",[330,3108,3110],{"id":3109},"margin-notes","Margin Notes",[335,3112,3113],{},"A Brotherhood scribe in the medieval period translated the journal as part of a larger library of occult knowledge. His margin notes update Crassus's tactical observations for 15th-century technologies and chide the original author for perceived ignorance regarding certain creatures. The notes confirm the Brotherhood's continuous operation from the Roman period through at least the 14th century.",[330,3115,3117],{"id":3116},"provenance-and-significance","Provenance and Significance",[335,3119,3120],{},"The journal is the third of three kept by Crassus during his campaigns. The other two have not been located. The artifact provides the earliest known systematic documentation of supernatural creatures by a mortal military organization and establishes the Brotherhood of Diocletian as the oldest confirmed predecessor to modern organizations like the Germaine Foundation.",{"title":404,"searchDepth":130,"depth":130,"links":3122},[3123,3124,3125,3132,3133,3134,3135],{"id":2949,"depth":130,"text":2950},{"id":2962,"depth":130,"text":2963},{"id":2989,"depth":130,"text":2990,"children":3126},[3127,3128,3129,3130,3131],{"id":2996,"depth":134,"text":2997},{"id":3031,"depth":134,"text":3032},{"id":3045,"depth":134,"text":3046},{"id":3058,"depth":134,"text":3059},{"id":3068,"depth":134,"text":3069},{"id":3078,"depth":130,"text":2979},{"id":3100,"depth":130,"text":2985},{"id":3109,"depth":130,"text":3110},{"id":3116,"depth":130,"text":3117},"Tribuni Angusticlavii of the Brotherhood of Diocletian -III-Transcribed in the first year of the rule of King Richard III.",{"category":1642},{"title":309,"description":3136},"somnos\u002Fstories\u002Fdiegetic\u002Fthe-samatian-journal",[3141,1648,3142,3143,3144],"samatian","diocletian","prodigium","diegetic","qbP9aayoB8HjYMAooXur7qDRljODovyrOgcYR82K5HA",{"id":3147,"title":41,"author":325,"body":3148,"capital":325,"corporation_type":325,"created":325,"date":325,"description":3152,"extension":411,"faction_type":325,"founded":325,"gallery":325,"headquarters":325,"homeworld":325,"image":325,"influence":325,"last_reviewed":325,"leadership":325,"lifespan":325,"meta":3169,"metadata_type":325,"navigation":321,"path":42,"physiology":325,"relations":325,"seo":3170,"society":325,"sort_order":325,"status":415,"stem":3171,"summary":325,"tags":3172,"territory":325,"visibility":419,"__hash__":3175},"somnos\u002Fsomnos\u002Fsetting\u002Fcosmology\u002Fthe-shadow.md",{"type":327,"value":3149,"toc":3166},[3150,3153,3156,3160,3163],[335,3151,3152],{},"The Shadow is an eldritch wilderness that exists on the other side of the Veil. It looks like the mortal world, bears its structure, but is distorted by history and memory. Comparisons to the world through a looking glass or a warped mirror are apt.",[335,3154,3155],{},"Things destroyed in the real world may still exist in its Shadow but what does not endure, at least not for long, are mortals. The Shadow is a hostile space, occupied by hungry, dangerous creatures eager for a taste of the real. The most common of these are the remnants of dead mortals, from all species, that persist in the Shadow as ghasts and geists. There are also stranger and more dangerous creatures that dwell there.",[330,3157,3159],{"id":3158},"connective-tissue","Connective Tissue",[335,3161,3162],{},"The Shadow is the connective tissue between material reality and the Domains of the Aeons. Traversing it is the cost paid to reach or return from these Domains. The paths and doors that lead to the strange worlds of the Aeons are almost never visible in the real world. They can only be found through the Shadow.",[335,3164,3165],{},"This makes the Shadow both a barrier and a passage. It keeps the Domains separate from Earth, but it also provides the only route between them for those who know where to look and can survive the crossing.",{"title":404,"searchDepth":130,"depth":130,"links":3167},[3168],{"id":3158,"depth":130,"text":3159},{"category":413},{"title":41,"description":3152},"somnos\u002Fsetting\u002Fcosmology\u002Fthe-shadow",[2023,514,3173,3174],"ghast","geists","pIZ2a7j8rTfY-4LQ0sShskT91NzsQKE_hnqDxRpyso4",{"id":3177,"title":116,"author":325,"body":3178,"capital":325,"corporation_type":325,"created":325,"date":325,"description":3182,"extension":411,"faction_type":325,"founded":325,"gallery":325,"headquarters":325,"homeworld":325,"image":325,"influence":325,"last_reviewed":325,"leadership":325,"lifespan":325,"meta":3188,"metadata_type":325,"navigation":321,"path":117,"physiology":325,"relations":325,"seo":3189,"society":325,"sort_order":325,"status":415,"stem":3190,"summary":325,"tags":3191,"territory":325,"visibility":419,"__hash__":3193},"somnos\u002Fsomnos\u002Fsetting\u002Ffactions\u002Fslavers-guild.md",{"type":327,"value":3179,"toc":3186},[3180,3183],[335,3181,3182],{},"The least pleasant guild and the most profitable. The Slavers Guild trades in sentient beings supplying Nod's powerful with laborers, servants, and worse. Humans are the most commonly enslaved species, lacking the natural defences or supernatural abilities that make other species harder to capture and hold.",[335,3184,3185],{},"Control is maintained through Fetters, magical devices that function simultaneously as torture instruments and tracking beacons. Under the terms of the Slavers' Compact, the production of Fetters is controlled by the Council, giving them direct leverage over the Guild's operations through the annual quota negotiations. The guild maintains a powerful private military and operates under the explicit protection of both the Prefex and the Council.",{"title":404,"searchDepth":130,"depth":130,"links":3187},[],{"category":1325},{"title":116,"description":3182},"somnos\u002Fsetting\u002Ffactions\u002Fslavers-guild",[2535,3192,2537],"slavers","_Zn68gW0YM58vfpMjKfvD1d9GnpI_B1jaPYukFQOqxM",{"id":3195,"title":245,"author":325,"body":3196,"capital":325,"corporation_type":325,"created":325,"date":325,"description":3200,"extension":411,"faction_type":325,"founded":325,"gallery":325,"headquarters":325,"homeworld":325,"image":325,"influence":325,"last_reviewed":325,"leadership":325,"lifespan":325,"meta":3203,"metadata_type":325,"navigation":321,"path":246,"physiology":325,"relations":325,"seo":3204,"society":325,"sort_order":325,"status":415,"stem":3205,"summary":325,"tags":3206,"territory":325,"visibility":419,"__hash__":3210},"somnos\u002Fsomnos\u002Fsetting\u002Flocations\u002Fthe-city-of-nod\u002Fthe-stilts.md",{"type":327,"value":3197,"toc":3201},[3198],[335,3199,3200],{},"A district of elevated walkways and suspended structures built above flooded ground. The water beneath the Stilts is brackish, deep in places, and home to Merrow and things less identifiable. The buildings are connected by rope bridges, wooden causeways, corrugated metal walkways, and the occasional chain-link span that sways under traffic. Electrical cable and Wire conduit run along the undersides of the main causeways, stapled to the wood by Tinker contractors who service the district when the tide is low. The Stilts house a transient population: sailors, ferrymen, aquatic Theriae who prefer wet air, and anyone whose living depends on the waterways that thread through Nod's lower geography. The district smells of brine, tar, diesel, and fish guts.",{"title":404,"searchDepth":130,"depth":130,"links":3202},[],{"category":457},{"title":245,"description":3200},"somnos\u002Fsetting\u002Flocations\u002Fthe-city-of-nod\u002Fthe-stilts",[461,1689,3207,3208,3209],"stilts","merrow","aquatic","145NpvtqBOH-WCFDvj0sei6h3PlTXCtvzdbZM5J8Beo",{"id":3212,"title":248,"author":325,"body":3213,"capital":325,"corporation_type":325,"created":325,"date":325,"description":3217,"extension":411,"faction_type":325,"founded":325,"gallery":325,"headquarters":325,"homeworld":325,"image":325,"influence":325,"last_reviewed":325,"leadership":325,"lifespan":325,"meta":3223,"metadata_type":325,"navigation":321,"path":249,"physiology":325,"relations":325,"seo":3224,"society":325,"sort_order":325,"status":415,"stem":3225,"summary":325,"tags":3226,"territory":325,"visibility":419,"__hash__":3229},"somnos\u002Fsomnos\u002Fsetting\u002Flocations\u002Fthe-city-of-nod\u002Fthe-stomping-steed.md",{"type":327,"value":3214,"toc":3221},[3215,3218],[335,3216,3217],{},"A tavern in the Warrens that leans into its own absurdity. The building is a Carceri, aware and apparently entertained by the role it has chosen for itself. The interior reconfigures to suit the mood of the evening. Drinks arrive at tables through mechanisms that were not there a moment ago. The furniture is comfortable in a way that suggests it is trying. The Steed has developed a reputation as a neutral meeting ground because the building itself seems to object to violence conducted within its walls by rearranging the floor plan to separate combatants.",[335,3219,3220],{},"The menu changes without warning and seems to reflect whatever the building is in the mood to serve. Regulars have learned that the Steed's kitchen produces food from culinary traditions the building should have no knowledge of; a credible tagine one evening, a serviceable katsudon the next, something that tastes like taita but is made from a grain that does not exist on Earth the evening after that. The clientele is as mixed as the Warrens it sits in, and the Steed's particular neutrality means that a Kaarn metalworker, a human mercenary from one of the western boroughs, and a Skulk fence can share adjacent tables without anyone starting anything the building will need to finish.",{"title":404,"searchDepth":130,"depth":130,"links":3222},[],{"category":457},{"title":248,"description":3217},"somnos\u002Fsetting\u002Flocations\u002Fthe-city-of-nod\u002Fthe-stomping-steed",[1329,3227,547,437,3228],"tavern","neutral-ground","ZwxPZPRY14T4EWaa6R3Pmmtbwyj8QsxzqtPY-wZseSA",{"id":3231,"title":44,"author":325,"body":3232,"capital":325,"corporation_type":325,"created":325,"date":325,"description":3236,"extension":411,"faction_type":325,"founded":325,"gallery":325,"headquarters":325,"homeworld":325,"image":325,"influence":325,"last_reviewed":325,"leadership":325,"lifespan":325,"meta":3346,"metadata_type":325,"navigation":321,"path":45,"physiology":325,"relations":325,"seo":3347,"society":325,"sort_order":325,"status":415,"stem":3348,"summary":325,"tags":3349,"territory":325,"visibility":419,"__hash__":3358},"somnos\u002Fsomnos\u002Fsetting\u002Fcosmology\u002Fthe-taxonomy.md",{"type":327,"value":3233,"toc":3334},[3234,3237,3241,3244,3247,3251,3254,3257,3261,3264,3267,3271,3274,3277,3281,3284,3287,3291,3294,3297,3301,3304,3307,3311,3314,3317,3321,3324,3327,3331],[335,3235,3236],{},"There are things that are more and less than human which dwell amongst us. They can change their shape, or change reality. They can shrug off injury and the weight of years. They can speak lost tongues and write in letters that twist the mind and coax the Veil to parting, and they have attended us through our history.",[330,3238,3240],{"id":3239},"shapers","Shapers",[335,3242,3243],{},"Those who reshape reality, controlling forces and materials. A Shaper's presence makes the world uncertain. In their proximity, the boundaries between solid and ephemeral, dense and sparse, even constants like light, gravity, and time begin to blur. A wrathful Shaper is among the most frightening things a mortal can encounter: the world itself becomes hostile, bending to the will of someone who has decided it should be different.",[335,3245,3246],{},"Also known as: Mages, Sorcerers.",[330,3248,3250],{"id":3249},"shifters","Shifters",[335,3252,3253],{},"Those who change their bodies, controlling form and biology. Shifters have learned to bend their own being, taking on the bodies of animals, hybrids, or totally novel creations. An angry Shifter is a primal threat, a thinking mind wielding the weaponry of evolution itself and capable of healing from grievous wounds in moments.",[335,3255,3256],{},"Also known as: Shapechangers, Werecreatures.",[330,3258,3260],{"id":3259},"seers","Seers",[335,3262,3263],{},"Those who perceive beyond the limits of ordinary senses, perceiving effect before cause and event before action. Seers are less immediately threatening than Shapers or Shifters, but significantly more dangerous. A scorned Seer can pull hidden strings that ruin a life in a single act, not through force, but through knowledge that should not be available and the willingness to use it.",[335,3265,3266],{},"Also known as: Prophets, Oracles.",[330,3268,3270],{"id":3269},"speakers","Speakers",[335,3272,3273],{},"Those whose words can be understood by all and, in their darkest incarnation, whose words bend will and bind action. Speakers present a deeply unpleasant danger: they can make one believe and do things they would not otherwise with a few simple words in the right tone, and a skilful Speaker can do so without even revealing the manipulation. They are feared and hated accordingly.",[335,3275,3276],{},"Also known as: Mesmers.",[330,3278,3280],{"id":3279},"summoners","Summoners",[335,3282,3283],{},"Those whose words conjure and command entities and constructs bound to them. Summoners are creature-keepers who have learned both how to soothe and bond with dangerous entities and how to link their spirits in a way that allows them to act as one.",[335,3285,3286],{},"Also known as: Conjurors.",[330,3288,3290],{"id":3289},"scribes","Scribes",[335,3292,3293],{},"Those whose inks and icons imbue arcane power into paper and skin alike. Scribes externalize their power in a way similar to Summoners, relying on the materials and the canvas, normally acting more as indirect conduits for power than wielders of it. But a Scribe can also mark their own body, or create written artefacts or traps that hide devastating power. Scribes are best known for their ability to create Gate-Marks, symbols that can grant passage between Domains, allowing a mortal to cross from Earth to Nod or any other Domain as they wish.",[335,3295,3296],{},"Also known as: Scriveners, Chimori.",[330,3298,3300],{"id":3299},"striders","Striders",[335,3302,3303],{},"Those who can move effortlessly across distances and Domains with a thought. Striders who develop their ability can bring others with them and even create temporary portals between distant points.",[335,3305,3306],{},"Also known as: Travelers, Skips.",[330,3308,3310],{"id":3309},"singers","Singers",[335,3312,3313],{},"Those who can conjure deep emotion in the form of music. Singers are often considered benign, but they wield the ability to raise or quell riots, to calm or agitate, with just a few notes, hummed or strummed.",[335,3315,3316],{},"Also known as: Bards, Troubadours, Skalds.",[330,3318,3320],{"id":3319},"spectres","Spectres",[335,3322,3323],{},"Those who escape death by feeding on life. A Spectre is any being which can either halt the normal forces of entropy and decay by feeding on the life-energy of others, or who can persist past the boundary of death by tying their spirits to the living. This includes vampyr, revenants, phantasms, concubi, and other necrotic creatures.",[335,3325,3326],{},"Also known as: Undead.",[330,3328,3330],{"id":3329},"strangers","Strangers",[335,3332,3333],{},"There are odder powers, less consistently wielded or rarer, that fall into the category of Stranger. Strangers are most frequently the result of Nod's transformative effect on mortals.",{"title":404,"searchDepth":130,"depth":130,"links":3335},[3336,3337,3338,3339,3340,3341,3342,3343,3344,3345],{"id":3239,"depth":130,"text":3240},{"id":3249,"depth":130,"text":3250},{"id":3259,"depth":130,"text":3260},{"id":3269,"depth":130,"text":3270},{"id":3279,"depth":130,"text":3280},{"id":3289,"depth":130,"text":3290},{"id":3299,"depth":130,"text":3300},{"id":3309,"depth":130,"text":3310},{"id":3319,"depth":130,"text":3320},{"id":3329,"depth":130,"text":3330},{"category":413},{"title":44,"description":3236},"somnos\u002Fsetting\u002Fcosmology\u002Fthe-taxonomy",[1999,3350,3351,3259,3352,3353,907,3354,3355,3356,3357],"shaper","shifter","speaker","summoner","strider","singer","spectre","stranger","pGdE-7p4VHhG80gklikbbvHoo9QO1vZky-qH7ycH3bE",{"id":3360,"title":251,"author":325,"body":3361,"capital":325,"corporation_type":325,"created":325,"date":325,"description":3365,"extension":411,"faction_type":325,"founded":325,"gallery":325,"headquarters":325,"homeworld":325,"image":325,"influence":325,"last_reviewed":325,"leadership":325,"lifespan":325,"meta":3503,"metadata_type":325,"navigation":321,"path":252,"physiology":325,"relations":325,"seo":3504,"society":325,"sort_order":325,"status":3505,"stem":3506,"summary":325,"tags":3507,"territory":325,"visibility":419,"__hash__":3512},"somnos\u002Fsomnos\u002Fsetting\u002Flocations\u002Fthe-city-of-nod\u002Fthe-territories.md",{"type":327,"value":3362,"toc":3498},[3363,3366,3372,3376,3381,3384,3387,3391,3394,3401,3405,3411,3414,3418,3425,3431,3435,3438,3441,3445,3452,3459,3463,3474,3477,3480,3486,3489,3492,3495],[335,3364,3365],{},"The common name for districts where Theriae communities concentrate, usually organized by lineage under the terms of the Pact. Outsiders sometimes call such areas Kennels, a name that Theriae residents consider a slur. and older texts and lazy conversationalists call them the Packland, which is marginally less offensive but still supposes canid social structures for districts that contain serpentine enclaves, avian roosts, felid havens, and communities whose biology has nothing to do with pack behavior. Among themselves, the loosely connected districts are referred to collectively as the Territories, with individual areas named for the lineage group that holds them.",[335,3367,3368,3369,3091],{},"The Territories are literally territorial in ways most other parts of the city are not. Lineage structures determine who lives where, and boundaries are marked by methods that vary with the lineage: canids use scent and claw-marks on stone, serpentines use patterned carvings, and avians tend towards vocalizations either live or recorded. Non-Theriae who live or work in the Territories learn quickly which areas are friendly, which tolerate outsiders, and which consider trespassers as violations of ",[342,3370,3371],{"href":66},"the Law of Haven",[353,3373,3375],{"id":3374},"the-districts","The Districts",[3377,3378,3380],"h4",{"id":3379},"canid-territories","Canid Territories",[335,3382,3383],{},"Canid territories are organized around dominance hierarchies established and settled quickly and physically. Streets are wider here than in most of Nod as a sensory necessity; canid Theriae in dense quarters suffer more acutely from the noise and chemical layering of the city than other lineages. Canid districts are loud after dark, with vocalizations (barks, howls, raucous singing) that carry across several adjacent neighborhoods, which neighboring districts have learned to treat as ambient noise rather than a threat, most of the time.",[335,3385,3386],{},"Wolf-lineage packs dominate these territories but the canid districts also house coyote, dhole and jackal-lineage groups, each maintaining distinct cultural practices within the broader canid social framework. The specific traditions they carry from Earth diverge but there is a shared approach to governance; hierarchical, physical, and direct. A wolf-lineage pack meeting and a jackal-lineage family council arrive at decisions through dominance in both cases, but the forms are different enough that attendance at the wrong one can produce serious misunderstandings.",[3377,3388,3390],{"id":3389},"vulpine-quarters","Vulpine Quarters",[335,3392,3393],{},"Often integrated with or adjacent to canid territories, vulpine quarters operate at a lower volume and a higher level of social complexity. Many residents trace cultural roots through Japanese and Korean folklore traditions, and these district reflect this in architecture and commercial character. They are known for tightly organized streets with a density of small businesses, tea houses, and establishments that function as nodes in the obligation networks that structure vulpine social life. A meal shared at a particular table carries contractual weight that an outsider would not recognize.",[335,3395,3396,3397,3400],{},"Vulpine neighbourhoods are often prosperous by Territories standards, with economies built on brokerage, trade, and the intermediary services that vulpine Theriae have carved as a niche. This can produce friction with canid territories, whose residents view the vulpine preference for indirect negotiation as evasiveness, as well as with ",[342,3398,3399],{"href":279},"Masque"," fixers who operate in overlapping commercial territory.",[3377,3402,3404],{"id":3403},"serpentine-enclaves","Serpentine Enclaves",[335,3406,3407,3408,3410],{},"Within the ",[342,3409,1673],{"href":201}," and in the southernmost parts of the city are several serpent serpentine enclaves. The character of these areas is quiet, formal, and warm and bathhouses are the most prominent public structures, heated by alchemical or electrical means and operating under customs borrowed from hammam tradition, filtered through centuries of adaptation. These are not recreational facilities. Communal heated spaces are critical infrastructure for a lineage with thermoregulatory challenges in a sunless city. The bathhouse functions simultaneously as vital infrastructure, gathering place, judicial venue, and cultural institution.",[335,3412,3413],{},"Serpentine enclaves maintain oral histories in a sibilant language predating any human tongue. Business is conducted with a formality that canids find absurd and vulpines recognize as a parallel system of social accounting, even if serpentine elders would reject the comparison. Relations between serpentine enclaves and canid territories are strained by a specific longstanding grievance: the canid pack habits of treating lineage-internal Theriae politics as a matter of physical dominance rather than precedent and tradition. Most in the serpentine community view this as barbarism dressed up as governance.",[3377,3415,3417],{"id":3416},"avian-heights","Avian Heights",[335,3419,3420,3421,3424],{},"Avian Theriae prefer elevation, and their Territories reflect it. Avians tend to settle in vertical districts: upper-floor apartments, rooftop communities, structures modified with open-air access, launching platforms for those developed enough to glide, and walkways strung between buildings at heights that produce vertigo in ground-bound visitors. Avian architecture borrows from the ",[342,3422,3423],{"href":246},"Stilts'"," elevated construction but trends toward open air and height rather than the Stilts' enclosed, water-adapted structures.",[335,3426,3427,3428,3430],{},"The avian heights are not a unified community. Tengu-associated groups with Japanese cultural frameworks occupy the northern rooftops. Harpy-associated groups with Mediterranean traditions cluster around the ",[342,3429,438],{"href":165}," area and are accessible by stairway and rope bridge. Thunderbird-lineage Theriae with ties to Indigenous North American traditions maintain a quieter presence on the district's eastern edge. There is shared infrastructure needs (nesting spaces, clearance, allowances for gliding traffic) but and almost nothing else.",[3377,3432,3434],{"id":3433},"felid-havens","Felid Havens",[335,3436,3437],{},"Calling Felid dominated spaces 'territories' or 'districts' is generous. Felid Theriae maintain individual havens scattered throughout every part of the city, each one claimed under Nod's Law of Haven rather than through the collective territorial agreements that structure the other lineages' districts. There is no felid quarter in the way there are serpentine enclaves or a canid territories. The closest are the occasional Felid colony, resulting from incidental proximity between felid Theriae who are comfortable with each other.",[335,3439,3440],{},"The result is a population that is politically invisible to a governance structure built on collective representation. No one speaks for the felid Theriae at Pact negotiations. Attempts to organize representation are made and abandoned without a word. Felid Theriae engage with the broader Territories when something affects them directly, respond with disproportionate force, and return to their own business. Their neighbors have adapted to this pattern the way one adapts to weather.",[3377,3442,3444],{"id":3443},"ursine-dens","Ursine Dens",[335,3446,3447,3448,3451],{},"Small family compounds on mostly located in northwestern parts of the city or in ",[342,3449,3450],{"href":264},"wrongside"," areas. Ursine communities are the least numerous Theriae presence, organized around extended family groups rarely exceeding a dozen individuals. Their dens are built heavy and insulated, reflecting a biology that favors enclosed spaces and thermal retention. Most Ursine spend several weeks each year in torpor, reducing their activity to the bare minimum, and during these periods the dens go quiet, businesses close, and the surrounding blocks learn to work around the absence.",[335,3453,3454,3455,3458],{},"Ursine engagement with Theriae politics is sporadic and blunt. Like Felids they attend the councils when something affects them directly, vote pragmatically, and leave. Despite this general disinterest, Ursine perspectives are often raised in such sessions; other Theriae have learned that ursine indifference is not the same as ursine ",[2012,3456,3457],{},"permission"," at considerable cost.",[3377,3460,3462],{"id":3461},"aquatic-presence","Aquatic Presence",[335,3464,3465,3466,3469,3470,3473],{},"Aquatic Theriae maintain small communities wherever there's water, from the city's drainage channels and the ",[342,3467,3468],{"href":246},"Stilts"," to the ",[342,3471,3472],{"href":198},"Lotan River and the Ending Water",". Their preference for both subterranean and subaquatic housing and talent for dealing with Merrow means they rarely have to compete for housing, but also often leave them as outsiders within larger communities that do not understand them.",[335,3475,3476],{},"Aquatic dispositional and social differences with other Theriae also leave them on the outside of most council politics, particularly when more raucous canid and avian lineages are involved. They participate in a quiet and steady way others perceive as timid. There are exceptions however; Council meetings relating to waterways and access rights can frequently draw shark or turtle-lineage Theriae with very pointed opinions that tend to receive quiet and deferential consideration.",[353,3478,3479],{"id":931},"Infrastructure",[335,3481,3482,3483,3485],{},"Infrastructure in Theriae Territories is a patchwork that reflects both lineage preference and the uneven adoption of technology across communities. Some territories have electrical lighting and ",[342,3484,1662],{"href":300}," access. Others refuse both on principle or because the local leadership considers dependency on technological systems an unacceptable vulnerability. The result is that crossing from one territory to the next can feel like crossing decades: a block of generator-powered floodlights giving way to one lit by nothing but the Lamplighters' wards and the occasional cooking fire, then into a vertical district where cable and conduit run along rooftop walkways three stories above the street.",[335,3487,3488],{},"The canid territories and the vulpine quarters have the most complete electrical and Wire coverage. The serpentine enclaves are selectively wired, with public spaces connected and private residences often not. The avian heights run cable along their walkways and have adapted Wire access for rooftop-to-rooftop communication, making them one of the more connected communities despite their physical isolation from street-level infrastructure. The felid havens and ursine dens are wired or not on an individual basis, with no pattern anyone has been able to identify, and aquatic communities face their own unique problems with integrating any technology that isn't waterproof.",[353,3490,3491],{"id":1349},"Governance",[335,3493,3494],{},"The Pact established a framework for collective Theriae governance that has survived a millennium of selective compliance. Representatives from each major lineage meet to negotiate shared concerns: boundary disputes, infrastructure allocation, relations with the Council and the Prefex, and the perennial question of how to present a unified Theriae position to outside powers when no internal consensus exists.",[335,3496,3497],{},"In practice, canid packs dominate these negotiations through numbers and volume. The vulpine outmaneuver them through patience. The serpentines invoke precedents that no one else remembers and everyone else resents. The avian lineages send different representatives depending on which avian sub-community cares about the issue at hand, which means the Theriae council never knows who'll be sitting in the avian seat. The felid Theriae do not send anyone. The ursine Theriae send someone when they feel like it. Aquatic representatives attend reliably and vote with whoever is most likely to protect water rights. The system functions. Not particularly well, but perhaps surprisingly better than most other factions in the city.",{"title":404,"searchDepth":130,"depth":130,"links":3499},[3500,3501,3502],{"id":3374,"depth":134,"text":3375},{"id":931,"depth":134,"text":3479},{"id":1349,"depth":134,"text":3491},{"category":457},{"title":251,"description":3365},[415],"somnos\u002Fsetting\u002Flocations\u002Fthe-city-of-nod\u002Fthe-territories",[461,3508,3509,3510,3511],"theriae","territories","territorial","lineages","Aef5kANAq12CeKPpNUOU5nDr06nzassUq7SZl6V78bw",{"id":3514,"title":119,"author":325,"body":3515,"capital":325,"corporation_type":325,"created":325,"date":325,"description":3519,"extension":411,"faction_type":325,"founded":325,"gallery":325,"headquarters":325,"homeworld":325,"image":325,"influence":325,"last_reviewed":325,"leadership":325,"lifespan":325,"meta":3528,"metadata_type":325,"navigation":321,"path":120,"physiology":325,"relations":325,"seo":3529,"society":325,"sort_order":325,"status":415,"stem":3530,"summary":325,"tags":3531,"territory":325,"visibility":419,"__hash__":3533},"somnos\u002Fsomnos\u002Fsetting\u002Ffactions\u002Ftinkers.md",{"type":327,"value":3516,"toc":3526},[3517,3520,3523],[335,3518,3519],{},"The Middens gather waste. The Tinkers consume it. Where the Skulks scavenge raw materials from Nod's refuse, the Tinkers process those materials into something usable. They are metalworkers, artificers, repairers of broken things, and manufacturers of new things from old parts.",[335,3521,3522],{},"The Tinkers are predominantly Skulk, though humans and others with mechanical aptitude have been absorbed into the trade over centuries. They operate workshops in the Middens and the lower Warrens, producing everything from scarbines (scrap guns) to rebuilt Earth electronics, jury-rigged generators, Wire-compatible communication devices, and simple arcane instruments refurbished from salvaged components. A Tinker workshop smells like solder and ozone. Their output is cheap, unreliable by the standards of a proper engineer, and indispensable to the lower classes who cannot afford guild-rate equipment.",[335,3524,3525],{},"The Tinkers have no formal charter, no leadership hierarchy, and no political ambitions. They're a trade community whose influence comes from the fact that half of Nod's tools, weapons, and household goods passed through their hands at some point in their lifecycle. Destroying the Tinkers would not be difficult but replacing what they produce would be.",{"title":404,"searchDepth":130,"depth":130,"links":3527},[],{"category":1325},{"title":119,"description":3519},"somnos\u002Fsetting\u002Ffactions\u002Ftinkers",[2053,931,3532,1847],"manufacturing","HobatQjQLIaTuEC48aZfhdU7O6O4wTGpuEqV8NBicmA",{"id":3535,"title":254,"author":325,"body":3536,"capital":325,"corporation_type":325,"created":325,"date":325,"description":3540,"extension":411,"faction_type":325,"founded":325,"gallery":325,"headquarters":325,"homeworld":325,"image":325,"influence":325,"last_reviewed":325,"leadership":325,"lifespan":325,"meta":3549,"metadata_type":325,"navigation":321,"path":255,"physiology":325,"relations":325,"seo":3550,"society":325,"sort_order":325,"status":415,"stem":3551,"summary":325,"tags":3552,"territory":325,"visibility":419,"__hash__":3555},"somnos\u002Fsomnos\u002Fsetting\u002Flocations\u002Fthe-city-of-nod\u002Fthe-tower.md",{"type":327,"value":3537,"toc":3547},[3538,3541,3544],[335,3539,3540],{},"The nucleus at the center of Nod is a tower that stretches into a black sky with no visible summit. This pillar is the heart of the Domain, and depending on who you ask it is either nemo's dwelling or Nemo itself. The walls are made of a silver-veined black marble-like material, impervious to damage. Light near the stone produces a faint vapour that the surface seems to absorb.",[335,3542,3543],{},"The tower is wider at its base where it meets Lake Enoch below, composed of geometric protrusions, great blocks and polyhedra that create the impression of the rocks at the base of a lighthouse but more ordered. Higher up, the walls bear reliefs depicting enormous sea creatures locked in combat with equally titanic and only vaguely humanoid entities. The reliefs grow smaller and more detailed the further up one looks, and are the subject of study for Turonomers, individuals who document these images through telescopes and aerial expeditions. There is general agreement that the tower is a sort of living record, with the base depicting the earliest events and progressing forward up its height. Interpretation is difficult at best, and no expedition or apparatus has been able to peer high enough to observe anything close to recorded human history.",[335,3545,3546],{},"There is one doorway into the tower, reached by crossing a long stone bridge across Lake Enoch. This door has not opened in living memory. The last recorded instance was 1,200 years ago, during the Purge of the Third Council.",{"title":404,"searchDepth":130,"depth":130,"links":3548},[],{"category":457},{"title":254,"description":3540},"somnos\u002Fsetting\u002Flocations\u002Fthe-city-of-nod\u002Fthe-tower",[764,1160,1348,3553,3554],"lake-enoch","turonomers","EJLcGFvwc9f3lFZRhHJsyMg44CKpev-7kv8BCIHLuSQ",{"id":3557,"title":26,"author":325,"body":3558,"capital":325,"corporation_type":325,"created":325,"date":325,"description":3562,"extension":411,"faction_type":325,"founded":325,"gallery":325,"headquarters":325,"homeworld":325,"image":325,"influence":325,"last_reviewed":325,"leadership":325,"lifespan":325,"meta":3571,"metadata_type":325,"navigation":321,"path":27,"physiology":325,"relations":325,"seo":3572,"society":325,"sort_order":325,"status":415,"stem":3573,"summary":325,"tags":3574,"territory":325,"visibility":419,"__hash__":3578},"somnos\u002Fsomnos\u002Fsetting\u002Fcharacters\u002Fthe-usurper-king.md",{"type":327,"value":3559,"toc":3569},[3560,3563,3566],[335,3561,3562],{},"The Aeon known as Elohim, also Jehova, Yahweh, and by many other names, currently holds more consumed power than any other Aeon. His dominion was built through centuries of systematic conquest, his Host hunting down rival Aeons and converting or destroying their mortal followers. Among the gods he has absorbed are Elementals like Fire and Blood, and Pantheons like Re, Horus, Quetzalcoatl, Baal, Ares, Cerridwen, and Myrddin, along with countless lesser deities whose names are no longer remembered.",[335,3564,3565],{},"Other Aeons refer to him as the Usurper King, the Fraud, or Lucre. Many Ancients, and Nemo in particular, harbor distaste for him, and Elohimn Eidolons are not welcome in the City of Nod.",[335,3567,3568],{},"A persistent rumor circulates among the remaining Aeons: Elohim has not been seen by his own Host in millennia. The most popular theory holds that the Usurper King has himself been usurped, consumed from within by one of his own Eidolons, most likely Metatron or Camael.",{"title":404,"searchDepth":130,"depth":130,"links":3570},[],{"category":1325},{"title":26,"description":3562},"somnos\u002Fsetting\u002Fcharacters\u002Fthe-usurper-king",[418,1349,3575,3576,3577],"christianity","jehova","elohim","DzGRCJzgMqlZNbt0yxESCE1bZP98dT-Q15miEhneP_Q",{"id":3580,"title":47,"author":325,"body":3581,"capital":325,"corporation_type":325,"created":325,"date":325,"description":3615,"extension":411,"faction_type":325,"founded":325,"gallery":325,"headquarters":325,"homeworld":325,"image":325,"influence":325,"last_reviewed":325,"leadership":325,"lifespan":325,"meta":3616,"metadata_type":325,"navigation":321,"path":48,"physiology":325,"relations":325,"seo":3617,"society":325,"sort_order":325,"status":415,"stem":3618,"summary":325,"tags":3619,"territory":325,"visibility":419,"__hash__":3621},"somnos\u002Fsomnos\u002Fsetting\u002Fcosmology\u002Fthe-veil.md",{"type":327,"value":3582,"toc":3612},[3583,3590,3593,3597,3600,3603,3606,3609],[335,3584,3585,3586,3589],{},"The Veil is a barrier that separates the world as most mortals experience it from its arcane ",[342,3587,3588],{"href":42},"Shadow",". Theologians call it the wall between the living and the dead, the border of heaven and hell. Scientists who stumble upon it describe it in terms of membranes and dimensional boundaries. All are incomplete descriptions of the same phenomenon: the wall between the world as mortals know it and a stranger world underneath.",[335,3591,3592],{},"The Veil is not uniform. In most places it is absolute, a seamless and impassable wall without doors. But there are thin places, locations where something happened to erode it, or where the geometry of the world bends in ways that produce overlap. At these points, with the right force applied in the right manner, a crossing becomes possible. Such places are rare, their locations shift, and the knowledge of how to exploit them is closely guarded.",[330,3594,3596],{"id":3595},"crossing","Crossing",[335,3598,3599],{},"For most beings, crossing the Veil is impossible. For a select few, it is merely difficult.",[335,3601,3602],{},"The most reliable method is the work of the tattoo Scribes who can etch gateway symbols into living skin, granting the bearer passage into the Shadow. This is the most common means of deliberate transit, though it is neither cheap nor without risk. The Scribes are not always forthcoming about the secondary effects their markings carry.",[335,3604,3605],{},"Striders possess another means, able to slip between worlds with a thought or gesture, but they are few and far between.",[335,3607,3608],{},"Less common and entirely unpredictable is involuntary crossing. When a mortal faces uncontrolled rage, absolute terror, true ecstasy, or desperate need, a door sometimes appears where none existed before: a gate, a window, a path between the trees that was not there a moment ago. Those who step through find themselves in the Shadow.",[335,3610,3611],{},"The Veil is far more permissive about entry than exit. Intense emotions while common in the Shadow are insufficient to return to the real world and a mortal who crosses without a Sc's mark has no innate means of return. Securing passage home requires finding a Scribe willing to help, and that help does not come free.",{"title":404,"searchDepth":130,"depth":130,"links":3613},[3614],{"id":3595,"depth":130,"text":3596},"The Veil is a barrier that separates the world as most mortals experience it from its arcane Shadow. Theologians call it the wall between the living and the dead, the border of heaven and hell. Scientists who stumble upon it describe it in terms of membranes and dimensional boundaries. All are incomplete descriptions of the same phenomenon: the wall between the world as mortals know it and a stranger world underneath.",{"category":413},{"title":47,"description":3615},"somnos\u002Fsetting\u002Fcosmology\u002Fthe-veil",[514,3620,3595,2023],"barrier","XGaeJjYkQvlFosPITqxslMZJyJOPvRl3zZ2_56vsbkM",{"id":3623,"title":257,"author":325,"body":3624,"capital":325,"corporation_type":325,"created":325,"date":325,"description":3628,"extension":411,"faction_type":325,"founded":325,"gallery":325,"headquarters":325,"homeworld":325,"image":325,"influence":325,"last_reviewed":325,"leadership":325,"lifespan":325,"meta":3637,"metadata_type":325,"navigation":321,"path":258,"physiology":325,"relations":325,"seo":3638,"society":325,"sort_order":325,"status":415,"stem":3639,"summary":325,"tags":3640,"territory":325,"visibility":419,"__hash__":3643},"somnos\u002Fsomnos\u002Fsetting\u002Flocations\u002Fthe-city-of-nod\u002Fthe-warrens.md",{"type":327,"value":3625,"toc":3635},[3626,3629,3632],[335,3627,3628],{},"A residential sprawl of stacked apartments, converted warehouses, and buildings that grew into each other over centuries until the original property lines became meaningless. The Warrens house most of Nod's working population, species mixed by proximity and economics rather than choice. A Kaarn metalworker might share a wall with a human cobbler and a Theriae family running a laundry service from their front room. The streets are narrow enough that opposing balconies nearly touch, strung with electrical cable, clotheslines, and the occasional Tinker-rigged data wire. Neon signage in competing scripts competes with the dim glow of the Lamplighters' wards for the right to illuminate the ground level. The air smells like cooking grease and ozone.",[335,3630,3631],{},"The Warrens have no dominant culture because no one group ever held the district long enough to impose one. A block of apartments built by Kaarn settlers centuries ago, their wide doorframes and variable ceilings still intact, now houses a predominantly human community whose residents cook pepper soup on the same landings where their neighbors prepare dumplings stuffed with Nod-grown fungus and Domain-sourced meat that tastes like pork. The next street over, a Theriae family of serpentine lineage runs a bathhouse whose water is heated by alchemical means and whose customs are borrowed from hammam tradition filtered through two centuries of adaptation. A Skulk market occupies an alley too narrow for Kaarn to enter, its stalls selling repair services, salvaged components, and skewered things that smell far better than they look. The lingua franca in the Warrens is Nodspeak, a creole that borrows grammar from a dozen human languages and vocabulary from at least three non-human ones. Most residents speak it alongside whatever their parents spoke at home. Some speak nothing else.",[335,3633,3634],{},"Electrical power in the Warrens is whatever the residents can arrange. Tinker-built generators running on alchemical fuel, taps into the nearest Ringhollow power line (legal or otherwise), and the occasional thermic fungus node that someone has wired into their building's system. Outages are constant. Most households keep candles, oil lamps, and charged batteries or arcane stones as backup, and the sound of a generator coughing back to life after a blackout is one of the district's more familiar noises.",{"title":404,"searchDepth":130,"depth":130,"links":3636},[],{"category":457},{"title":257,"description":3628},"somnos\u002Fsetting\u002Flocations\u002Fthe-city-of-nod\u002Fthe-warrens",[461,3641,437,3642],"residential","mixed-species","dW80Z3tUiGP0AsyiUzUgZ31Y4kB3Z4ugoNN1ryy5mho",{"id":3645,"title":299,"author":325,"body":3646,"capital":325,"corporation_type":325,"created":325,"date":325,"description":404,"extension":411,"faction_type":325,"founded":325,"gallery":325,"headquarters":325,"homeworld":325,"image":325,"influence":325,"last_reviewed":325,"leadership":325,"lifespan":325,"meta":3684,"metadata_type":325,"navigation":321,"path":300,"physiology":325,"relations":325,"seo":3685,"society":325,"sort_order":325,"status":415,"stem":3686,"summary":325,"tags":3687,"territory":325,"visibility":419,"__hash__":3691},"somnos\u002Fsomnos\u002Fsetting\u002Ftechnology\u002Fthe-wire.md",{"type":327,"value":3647,"toc":3679},[3648,3650,3653,3656,3659,3662,3666,3669,3673,3676],[330,3649,1858],{"id":1857},[335,3651,3652],{},"Nod has a patchwork telecommunications system called the Wire that has evolved from arcane origins to incorporate modern technology imported from Earth.",[335,3654,3655],{},"The oldest components are the Scribe-inscribed relay stones in the Annex and K-Town, which carry messages between fixed points. This network is maintained by the Council for its own use and rented at cost to institutions that can afford it: the Guilds, the Prefex, and Kuron Inc. It is fast, reliable, and exclusive.",[335,3657,3658],{},"Outside these areas, Tinkers have spent decades scavenging Earth-sourced radio equipment and wiring it into a mesh of short-range transmitters augmented by relay-stone repeaters. Coverage reaches most of the Warrens, parts of Ashmarket, and stretches of the Packs. Reception is inconsistent, the frequencies bleed into each other, and the system runs on whatever power the local district can supply. Earlier versions relied on physical wires strung along roofs and balconies; much of that has since been upgraded, but the name stuck.",[335,3660,3661],{},"Mobile devices that can tap the Wire are increasingly common, though still a status symbol in the poorer districts. They range from cheap Earth-sourced phones rebuilt by Tinkers, to Kuron-Mobile handsets produced in K-Town, to expensive custom pieces built to the owner's specifications.",[330,3663,3665],{"id":3664},"the-boards","The Boards",[335,3667,3668],{},"As the Wire has matured, a parallel network of digital bulletin boards and servers has grown on top of it. The population that uses this network is still a fraction of the city, concentrated among the\nyounger, the recently arrived, and the technically inclined. The Chroniclers maintain a cautious presence. The Prefex do not, which is one of the network's primary appeals. Printed broadsheets remain the most common source of news for most of the city's population, but the boards have begun to circulate information faster than print can follow, and several of the older institutions have not yet worked out how to respond to that.",[330,3670,3672],{"id":3671},"reliability","Reliability",[335,3674,3675],{},"The Wire is not considered entirely reliable, and the reasons go beyond its improvised engineering. Messages can be dropped, distorted, or altered in ways that seem intentional. Data stored on servers occasionally reorganizes itself. A board might develop posting patterns that no user claims responsibility for. Some of this can be attributed to interference from Nod's ambient magical field. Some of it cannot.",[335,3677,3678],{},"A growing number of technically literate residents believe there are entities in the Wire. Not ghosts or spirits in the traditional sense, but something that has emerged from or been attracted to the network as it has grown. Whether these are a product of Nod's transformative effect on a new kind of substrate, beings from other Domains that found a habitat in the signal, or existing entities that the network has simply made visible for the first time, no one has determined. The Council has little interest and the results of Kuron Inc's investigations are known only to a handful.",{"title":404,"searchDepth":130,"depth":130,"links":3680},[3681,3682,3683],{"id":1857,"depth":130,"text":1858},{"id":3664,"depth":130,"text":3665},{"id":3671,"depth":130,"text":3672},{"category":1943},{"title":299,"description":404},"somnos\u002Fsetting\u002Ftechnology\u002Fthe-wire",[3688,931,3689,3289,3690],"communications","tinkers","media","bpaukBTeTkC8bJUN5G8Uj7HhAK9axGpBKr9y6wAiK8c",{"id":3693,"title":287,"author":325,"body":3694,"capital":325,"corporation_type":325,"created":325,"date":325,"description":3698,"extension":411,"faction_type":325,"founded":325,"gallery":325,"headquarters":325,"homeworld":325,"image":325,"influence":325,"last_reviewed":325,"leadership":325,"lifespan":325,"meta":3998,"metadata_type":325,"navigation":321,"path":288,"physiology":325,"relations":325,"seo":3999,"society":325,"sort_order":325,"status":4000,"stem":4001,"summary":325,"tags":4002,"territory":325,"visibility":419,"__hash__":4005},"somnos\u002Fsomnos\u002Fsetting\u002Fspecies\u002Ftheriae.md",{"type":327,"value":3695,"toc":3980},[3696,3699,3702,3705,3709,3712,3715,3719,3725,3728,3731,3735,3738,3741,3744,3748,3751,3754,3757,3761,3764,3767,3770,3774,3777,3780,3783,3787,3790,3793,3796,3800,3803,3806,3809,3812,3816,3819,3822,3825,3828,3831,3834,3837,3840,3844,3847,3850,3853,3856,3859,3862,3865,3867,3869],[335,3697,3698],{},"Theriae are the truth behind every human myth about beast-folk. Kitsune, nagas, tengu, cat sìdhe, and a hundred other legends are distorted accounts of a single species: humanoids whose biology incorporates animal characteristics in ways that vary by lineage, individual, and circumstance.",[335,3700,3701],{},"The variation is enormous. Some Theriae are nearly indistinguishable from humans with a few telling features: slit pupils, unusual dentition, patches of fur or scale in places clothing covers. Others are obvious hybrids with digitigrade legs, full pelts, tails, wings, or muzzles. The most divergent barely read as humanoid at all. This spectrum has fueled centuries of sub-speciesism within Theriae communities, where dozens of histories and origin mythologies compete to explain each lineage's distinctiveness. External Chronicler research and the biological work conducted by Hospitaller physicians tell a different story: Theriae are genetically identical in gestation but demonstrate enormous variation in the expression of biological features through their growth cycle. They are by all measures one species.",[335,3703,3704],{},"Many Theriae reject this conclusion. Like humans, shared biology has not proven sufficient to produce shared identity.",[330,3706,3708],{"id":3707},"biology","Biology",[335,3710,3711],{},"The Theriae originated in the Wilds, a Domain whose ecosystem evolves in real time under the rule of the Aeon Mogrifex. The Wilds produced a sapient species whose genome is extremely plastic, built to fill any vertebrate ecological niche. Every Theriae carries an enormous dormant genome containing developmental pathways for canid, avian, serpentine, felid, ursine, aquatic, and stranger body plans. All of it is present in every individual. What gets expressed is determined by epigenetic signaling during gestation and early development: the parents' expressed phenotype, the community environment, ambient magical conditions, and the Domain the child is born in.",[335,3713,3714],{},"Lineages breed true because the parents' expressed phenotype provides the dominant epigenetic signal to the developing child. Cross-lineage pairings produce offspring whose expression is unpredictable, which makes them culturally significant in some lineages and taboo in others. The underlying genome is the same across all groups, which is why Chronicler research keeps confirming species unity even when the lineages themselves would prefer to believe otherwise.",[353,3716,3718],{"id":3717},"settling","Settling",[335,3720,3721,3722,3724],{},"A Theriae's expressed traits are not fixed from birth. In childhood and adolescence, features shift and develop, sometimes showing traces of multiple lineage pathways, especially in mixed-parentage individuals. ",[374,3723,3718],{}," is the period, usually in adolescence, when expression stabilizes into an adult form. The settling is not instantaneous. It is a gradual narrowing over months or years, and the anxiety surrounding it (will I settle well, will I settle at all, will I settle into something my community recognizes) is one of the few truly shared experiences across lineages.",[335,3726,3727],{},"A Theriae who never fully settles occupies a specific and uncomfortable social position. In some lineages this is treated as a gift and spiritual distinction. In others it is treated as a disability or even a subconscious rejection of heritage.",[335,3729,3730],{},"Theriae are not shapeshifters. Their form is expressed, not chosen, the way a human's height or bone structure is expressed. A Theriae who wants to change their body must learn Shifting the same way any other sapient does. The lineage form is biological destiny, not costume.",[353,3732,3734],{"id":3733},"biological-cost","Biological Cost",[335,3736,3737],{},"Animal biology is not cosmetic and every lineage's adaptations come with trade-offs that shape daily life. Avian Theriae have lighter, more porous bones that facilitate gliding but fracture easily. Serpentine Theriae have thermoregulatory challenges in a city with no sun and inconsistent heating. Canid Theriae have heightened senses that make the noise pollution and chemical stew of the Warrens painful. These costs often determine where a lineage can comfortably live, what work its members can do, and what infrastructure their communities need.",[335,3739,3740],{},"The specifics are discussed under each lineage below.",[330,3742,3743],{"id":3511},"Lineages",[353,3745,3747],{"id":3746},"canid","Canid",[335,3749,3750],{},"The most politically visible lineage. Canid Theriae organize around dominance hierarchies and pack structures that scale well into the kind of factional power Nod's politics rewards. They show up to Council negotiations and guild disputes with a unified position and enough bodies to back it, which is why many outsiders use canid terminology like \"pack,\" and \"territory\" when talking about all Theriae, a habit that every non-canid lineage resents.",[335,3752,3753],{},"Canid biology favors group coordination: heightened hearing and smell, vocal ranges that extend into subsonic registers useful for pack communication, and a musculature built for sustained pursuit rather than ambush. The sensory advantages come at a cost. Nod's is a miasma of layered smells from cooking grease, ozone, chemical runoff, and seven million bodies. This is an assault on canid senses that other species cannot fully appreciate. Canid districts tend toward wider streets and more open construction than the city average, not as an aesthetic preference but as a sensory necessity. The territorial instincts that outsiders read as aggression are genuine neurological drives, and urban density produces a constant low-grade stress that canid communities manage through social rituals that look confrontational from outside but function as pressure relief.",[335,3755,3756],{},"Culturally, canid Theriae carry traditions from every region of Earth where wolves, dogs, and related animals figured in human mythology. The wolf-lineage groups in the western Territories are the largest and loudest, but coyote-lineage communities with ties to North American Indigenous traditions, dhole-lineage families with South Asian roots, and jackal-lineage groups tracing their cultural heritage through Egypt and East Africa all maintain distinct identities under the broad canid umbrella. They agree that they are canid and very little else.",[353,3758,3760],{"id":3759},"vulpine","Vulpine",[335,3762,3763],{},"The vulpine lineages occupy a niche that overlaps with the Masques, and neither group enjoys the comparison. Where Masques manipulate perception, vulpine Theriae manipulate obligation. Their social systems run on favor and debt, elaborate networks of reciprocity that outsiders find opaque. A vulpine Theriae remembers who owes what to whom across generations, and the management of these obligations constitutes a full-time cultural practice.",[335,3765,3766],{},"Many vulpine communities trace cultural roots through Japanese and Korean folklore traditions their ancestors carried from Earth. The kitsune associations are the most widely known, but the cultural framework extends beyond any single mythological tradition into a system of social exchange that has been refined through centuries of adaptation to Nod. Vulpine Theriae are effective traders, brokers, and intermediaries, roles that place them in direct competition with Masque fixers in Ashmarket and elsewhere.",[335,3768,3769],{},"Biologically, vulpine Theriae tend toward the lighter end of the Theriae size range, with sharp features, high auditory sensitivity, and a senses tuned more toward spatial awareness than the raw olfactory power of their canid cousins. They are fast, agile, difficult to corner, and even more difficult to catch in a lie, because they've  learned to construct their deceptions with exceptional skill.",[353,3771,3773],{"id":3772},"serpentine","Serpentine",[335,3775,3776],{},"The serpentine lineages maintain the oldest continuous oral traditions among the Theriae, carried through Hindu, Buddhist, and pre-Vedic cultural frameworks that emphasize knowledge preservation. Their formality is a system for maintaining institutional memory in a community that distrusts written records and sees writing as a human technology that flattens meaning. A serpentine elder who recites a legal precedent from memory is performing a religious and cultural act that carries weight the canid packs do not understand or respect, a source of enduring grievance.",[335,3778,3779],{},"Serpentine biology presents real daily challenges in Nod. Even partially ectothermic Theriae contend with thermoregulation in a city with no sun, unreliable heating, and unpredictable weather. This makes the serpentine bathhouses that operate in their territory and elsewhere critical infrastructure. Modified jaw and throat structures give some serpentine Theriae a bite that is both dangerous and which can make some speech physically difficult. Native Serpentine phonology uses sounds that Nodspeak and most human languages do not accommodate, and producing the sounds that common speech requires demands muscular exertion that other lineages take for granted. As a result many Serpentine Theriae are bilingual and prefer to speak their native language whenever possible.",[335,3781,3782],{},"The naga tradition is the most widely recognized, but serpentine lineages also include groups with ties to West African, Mesoamerican, and Aboriginal Australian serpent-spirit traditions, each with distinct cultural practices layered onto the shared biological reality.",[353,3784,3786],{"id":3785},"avian","Avian",[335,3788,3789],{},"Avian Theriae prefer elevation. Their districts, where they control them, trend vertical: rooftop communities, upper-floor apartments, structures with open-air access and enough clearance for the ones developed enough to glide. The most divergent avian Theriae, with fully developed wing structures, are capable of limited flight, though Nod's unpredictable air currents can make sustained flight dangerous. Most avian Theriae fall somewhere short of true flight: gliding capability, enhanced balance, and a lightness of frame that gives them an advantage in navigating the vertical parts of the city.",[335,3791,3792],{},"The lightness comes at a cost. Avian bone structure is more porous, making fractures more common and healing slower. Their respiratory systems are also often specialized, incorporating air-sac-like structures which grant endurance but create vulnerability to airborne toxins and the pollution that drifts through parts of the Warrens and Ringhollow.",[335,3794,3795],{},"Avian lineages are internally divided along cultural lines. Tengu-associated groups with Japanese cultural frameworks, harpy-associated groups with Mediterranean ones, thunderbird-lineage communities with ties to Indigenous North American traditions, and others with roots in West African, South Asian, and Polynesian bird-spirit mythologies share a preference for height and open air but agree on almost nothing else. Shared biology gives them common infrastructure needs but not common politics.",[353,3797,3799],{"id":3798},"felid","Felid",[335,3801,3802],{},"Felid Theriae are underrepresented in Nod's political life and overrepresented in its mercenary contracts. Their biology favors ambush predation; they have fast-twitch muscle, retractable claws, and exceptional night vision even by Theriae standards, but their social instincts pull hard against the collective politics that dominate the city. Where canid Theriae organize naturally into hierarchical groups, felid Theriae trend toward solitary or small-group social structures: a mated pair, a parent and kits, occasionally a loose association of individuals who share territory without sharing governance.",[335,3804,3805],{},"This makes them effective individual operators and terrible coalition partners. A felid Theriae in the Mercenaries Guild is a formidable asset on a contract and a persistent headache in a planning meeting. Their disinterest in collective bargaining means felid concerns are chronically underrepresented in Theriae political negotiations, which suits most felid Theriae fine right up to the moment a decision made by canid pack leaders affects territory they consider theirs.",[335,3807,3808],{},"Felid territory in the Territories is less collectively claimed than individually held. Many felid Theriae establish their domains under Nod's Law of Haven rather than through the lineage-based territorial agreements that structure canid and serpentine districts. This makes them legally distinct from the other lineages' collective claims and practically invisible to political structures that assume a representative can speak for a group. No one speaks for the felid Theriae. Attempts to elect or appoint someone to do so have produced results that the Chroniclers describe as \"instructive\" and\u002For \"messy\".",[335,3810,3811],{},"Culturally, felid lineages carry traditions from Egyptian, South Asian, Southeast Asian, and Celtic mythological frameworks with ties to Bastet and Sekhmet, the cat sìdhe, the tiger spirits of Bengali and Malay folklore. These traditions share a common emphasis on independence, patience, and the conviction that being watched is an insult. Felid Theriae and the Prefex's surveillance cameras have a relationship that makes the Masque opposition look diplomatic by comparison.",[353,3813,3815],{"id":3814},"ursine","Ursine",[335,3817,3818],{},"Ursine Theriae are the largest of the lineages by average body mass, rivaling mid-sized Kaarn. Their bulk is functional: dense bone, heavy muscle, fat reserves that buffer against Nod's inconsistent food supply and temperature fluctuations. They are difficult to injure, slow to anger by Theriae standards, and devastating when their substantial patience runs out.",[335,3820,3821],{},"Ursine social structures are small and seasonal, reflecting biological rhythms that Nod's sunless environment has not fully overridden. Many ursine Theriae enter periods of reduced activity during what their bodies insist is winter, regardless of what the city's calendar says. This torpor is not true hibernation. They remain conscious and can be roused but it produces a several-week period each year where ursine communities go quiet, businesses close, and neighbors learn not to knock. The scheduling of this period is individual and unpredictable, which makes ursine Theriae unreliable employees by conventional standards and explains why many gravitate toward self-employment, seasonal work, or professions that accommodate irregular availability.",[335,3823,3824],{},"Their communities are small, typically organized around extended family groups of rarely more than a dozen individuals. Ursine Theriae maintain dens rather than territories in the political sense, and their engagement with broader Theriae politics is sporadic. They attend the councils when something affects them directly, vote with whatever bloc addresses their immediate concern, and go home. This pragmatism frustrates lineages that treat politics as a continuous practice, but ursine Theriae have a temperament that is not particularly susceptible to social pressure.",[335,3826,3827],{},"Cultural ties run through Slavic, Scandinavian, Ainu, and North American Indigenous bear-spirit traditions, with the strongest continuous traditions maintained by families with roots in Finnish and Siberian shamanic practices.",[353,3829,3830],{"id":3209},"Aquatic",[335,3832,3833],{},"A broad and internally varied grouping that includes lineages adapted to freshwater, saltwater, and the brackish environments that thread through Nod's lower geography. Aquatic Theriae concentrate in the Stilts and along the Lotan River, occupying a niche that puts them in proximity to the Merrow and the less identifiable things that inhabit Nod's waterways. This is tolerable for aquatic Theriae in ways it isn't for other lineages. Their modified respiratory systems that can extract oxygen from water, skin that resists prolonged immersion, and sensory adaptations tuned to murky conditions equip them for environments that surface-dwellers avoid.",[335,3835,3836],{},"Aquatic lineages are among the most internally diverse. Frog-lineage Theriae with ties to Central American and West African water-spirit traditions share almost nothing, culturally or biologically, with shark-lineage Theriae whose ancestry traces through Polynesian and Fijian mythology, or with turtle lineage groups whose cultural frameworks are old enough that their Earth connections have become unclear. The bunyip designation, borrowed from Aboriginal Australian tradition, gets applied to aquatic Theriae indiscriminately by outsiders and is considered reductive by most of the communities it's used to describe.",[335,3838,3839],{},"Their political engagement tends to follow waterways rather than overland district boundaries, which means aquatic Theriae interests cut across the Territories' territorial grid. A dispute over water rights in the Stilts might involve aquatic Theriae from three different districts who share a channel network but belong to no common political body. The Ferrymen, who are disproportionately aquatic Theriae, function as an informal connective tissue between these scattered communities.",[330,3841,3843],{"id":3842},"the-pact","The Pact",[335,3845,3846],{},"The Theriae did not arrive in Nod thinking of themselves as one species. They came in waves over centuries from the Wilds, in lineage groups that did not recognize each other as kin. The Theriae Wars, roughly a thousand years ago, lasted forty years and killed enough Theriae and bystanders that the Pallbearers were overwhelmed for the only time in their recorded history.",[335,3848,3849],{},"The wars ended with the Pact, a territorial partition brokered by a Masque diplomat whose name is recorded differently in every account. The Pact allocated specific districts to specific lineage groups and, more consequentially, established the political fiction that the Theriae were one people with internal disagreements rather than separate species at war. Before the Pact, canids and serpents and birds did not think of themselves as a collective. The Pact made it politically useful to be one, because a single species negotiating with the Council carries more weight than a dozen squabbling lineages, and the Masque who brokered it may have understood this better than many Theriae did.",[335,3851,3852],{},"The Chronicler research that later confirmed genetic unity was either vindication or a convenient coincidence, depending on who you ask.",[335,3854,3855],{},"The Pact is still the governing framework for the Territories. It has been amended, renegotiated, and selectively ignored for a millennium, but no one has proposed replacing it because the idea of renegotiating from scratch among lineages that have spent the intervening centuries accumulating new grievances is seen as risky and unnecessary. Many members may grumble but only radicals have a stomach to push hard on a load bearing political and social structure like the Pact.",[330,3857,3858],{"id":550},"Transformation",[335,3860,3861],{},"Nod's ambient magic interacts with the Theriae genome by pushing more animal code into the epigenetic expression. In fortunate cases, a Theriae might gain increased size, more pronounced features, enhanced senses, or Shifter-like flexibility with their own form. These are Theriae whose settling deepens rather than destabilizes, the biology shifting further along its existing trajectory in ways that remain functional.",[335,3863,3864],{},"In the worst cases, the balance between thinking mind and animal instinct erodes. The degradation is not simply physical. It is cognitive. The affected Theriae becomes more reactive and territorial, and incapable of the social compromise that city life demands. Speech goes first in some, reason in others. The most degraded lose everything that distinguished them from the beasts they resemble. They are killed or driven out, and their former communities mourn or forget them, often speaking of them as 'returning to the Wilds'.",[1048,3866],{},[330,3868,1053],{"id":1052},[1055,3870,3871,3881],{},[1058,3872,3873],{},[1061,3874,3875,3877,3879],{},[1064,3876,1066],{},[1064,3878,1069],{},[1064,3880,1072],{},[1074,3882,3883,3894,3905,3915,3926,3936,3947,3958,3969],{},[1061,3884,3885,3888,3891],{},[1079,3886,3887],{},"Wolfen, Werewolves",[1079,3889,3890],{},"Latin\u002FEuropean",[1079,3892,3893],{},"Canid-form Theriae. Still used as a self-descriptor by wolf-lineage communities",[1061,3895,3896,3899,3902],{},[1079,3897,3898],{},"Vilkacis",[1079,3900,3901],{},"Baltic mythology",[1079,3903,3904],{},"Aggressive or feral Theriae. Used as a warning more than a name",[1061,3906,3907,3910,3912],{},[1079,3908,3909],{},"Harpy",[1079,3911,1294],{},[1079,3913,3914],{},"Avian-form Theriae with European cultural ties",[1061,3916,3917,3920,3923],{},[1079,3918,3919],{},"Tengu",[1079,3921,3922],{},"Japanese mythology",[1079,3924,3925],{},"Avian-form Theriae with Japanese cultural ties",[1061,3927,3928,3931,3933],{},[1079,3929,3930],{},"Kitsune",[1079,3932,3922],{},[1079,3934,3935],{},"Fox-form Theriae",[1061,3937,3938,3941,3944],{},[1079,3939,3940],{},"Naga",[1079,3942,3943],{},"Hindu\u002FBuddhist mythology",[1079,3945,3946],{},"Serpentine-form Theriae",[1061,3948,3949,3952,3955],{},[1079,3950,3951],{},"Cat Sìdhe",[1079,3953,3954],{},"Celtic mythology",[1079,3956,3957],{},"Felid-form Theriae, particularly those with Celtic cultural ties",[1061,3959,3960,3963,3966],{},[1079,3961,3962],{},"Bunyip",[1079,3964,3965],{},"Aboriginal Australian",[1079,3967,3968],{},"Aquatic Theriae. Applied broadly by outsiders, considered reductive by most",[1061,3970,3971,3974,3977],{},[1079,3972,3973],{},"Thunderbird",[1079,3975,3976],{},"Indigenous North American",[1079,3978,3979],{},"Avian-form Theriae with Indigenous North American cultural ties",{"title":404,"searchDepth":130,"depth":130,"links":3981},[3982,3986,3995,3996,3997],{"id":3707,"depth":130,"text":3708,"children":3983},[3984,3985],{"id":3717,"depth":134,"text":3718},{"id":3733,"depth":134,"text":3734},{"id":3511,"depth":130,"text":3743,"children":3987},[3988,3989,3990,3991,3992,3993,3994],{"id":3746,"depth":134,"text":3747},{"id":3759,"depth":134,"text":3760},{"id":3772,"depth":134,"text":3773},{"id":3785,"depth":134,"text":3786},{"id":3798,"depth":134,"text":3799},{"id":3814,"depth":134,"text":3815},{"id":3209,"depth":134,"text":3830},{"id":3842,"depth":130,"text":3843},{"id":550,"depth":130,"text":3858},{"id":1052,"depth":130,"text":1053},{"category":543},{"title":287,"description":3698},[415],"somnos\u002Fsetting\u002Fspecies\u002Ftheriae",[543,3508,4003,4004,550,3511],"beast-folk","wilds","sUH9jpG8XW6_m4Bjy95PHuwmYvui7U9sVkg9HIT75jY",{"id":4007,"title":260,"author":325,"body":4008,"capital":325,"corporation_type":325,"created":325,"date":325,"description":4012,"extension":411,"faction_type":325,"founded":325,"gallery":325,"headquarters":325,"homeworld":325,"image":325,"influence":325,"last_reviewed":325,"leadership":325,"lifespan":325,"meta":4015,"metadata_type":325,"navigation":321,"path":261,"physiology":325,"relations":325,"seo":4016,"society":325,"sort_order":325,"status":415,"stem":4017,"summary":325,"tags":4018,"territory":325,"visibility":419,"__hash__":4021},"somnos\u002Fsomnos\u002Fsetting\u002Flocations\u002Fthe-city-of-nod\u002Fvansen-arms.md",{"type":327,"value":4009,"toc":4013},[4010],[335,4011,4012],{},"A weapons dealer operating from the Warrens, specializing in modified firearms, arcane-edged blades, and custom equipment for mercenaries and private security. The proprietor, Marcus Vansen, sources from Earth and the Tinkers but is best known for his own special creations. The Mercenary's Guild supplies most of its customer, while members of the Order are banned.",{"title":404,"searchDepth":130,"depth":130,"links":4014},[],{"category":431},{"title":260,"description":4012},"somnos\u002Fsetting\u002Flocations\u002Fthe-city-of-nod\u002Fvansen-arms",[4019,437,4020,2536],"weapons","arms-dealer","dkczoYyvjqWcsRqPnBwioWeJLEu1IS5p0SXV0z0b9Io",{"id":4023,"title":290,"author":325,"body":4024,"capital":325,"corporation_type":325,"created":325,"date":325,"description":4028,"extension":411,"faction_type":325,"founded":325,"gallery":325,"headquarters":325,"homeworld":325,"image":325,"influence":325,"last_reviewed":325,"leadership":325,"lifespan":325,"meta":4062,"metadata_type":325,"navigation":321,"path":291,"physiology":325,"relations":325,"seo":4063,"society":325,"sort_order":325,"status":415,"stem":4064,"summary":325,"tags":4065,"territory":325,"visibility":419,"__hash__":4068},"somnos\u002Fsomnos\u002Fsetting\u002Fspecies\u002Fwoven.md",{"type":327,"value":4025,"toc":4060},[4026,4029,4032,4035,4038,4041,4055],[335,4027,4028],{},"A Woven is not an individual but a colony of thousands of small organisms cooperating to form a single coherent entity that walks, speaks, and by every observable measure, thinks. The component organisms are individually non-sapient, roughly analogous to insects in scale and complexity but diverse in their individual appearance. Sapience appears to emerge from their collective interaction, the same way a thought emerges from neurons that cannot individually think.",[335,4030,4031],{},"The result is a being that can choose to looks humanoid or anything else its mass can form. These replica shapes seem relatively normal from a distance and deeply wrong from close up; Woven skin with a segmented texture, eyes composed of living things, movements that carry a quality of distributed coordination, as though the body is being piloted by committee, which it is. They speak by vibrating component organisms in their throat structure, producing a voice that sounds almost natural but with a harmonic undertone that unsettles.",[335,4033,4034],{},"Woven cognition is genuinely alien. Decisions are made by consensus of components, which means Woven think differently depending on the current state and composition of their colony. A Woven that has recently lost components and \"regrown\" them may have subtly different opinions, memories, or personality traits than it did before.",[335,4036,4037],{},"They are relatively rare in Nod and tend toward solitary or small-community living. Their origin Domain is unknown to outsiders, though the Woven themselves occasionally reference a place in terms that do not translate well into languages designed for singular minds.",[335,4039,4040],{},"Woven culture, to the extent the term applies, is built on concepts that do not translate well.",[368,4042,4043,4046,4049,4052],{},[371,4044,4045],{},"Ownership is collective by default: a Woven does not possess a tool so much as the colony agrees to prioritize its use.",[371,4047,4048],{},"Authorship is meaningless: a Woven who creates something did so as a consensus act, and the composition of the colony may have changed between the work's beginning and its end.",[371,4050,4051],{},"Names are convenience: a Woven's name is a shorthand agreed upon for the convenience of other species, not an identifier the colony uses internally. Among themselves, recognition is chemical and vibrational.",[371,4053,4054],{},"Patterns as persistence: Woven do maintain a tradition of pattern-making with surprising consistency. These are geometric arrangements of found materials that other Woven can read as compressed records of experience. These patterns serve as the closest thing the species has to written history, though \"read\" is generous; interpretation requires a colony whose composition overlaps enough with the maker's to parse the chemical and structural cues embedded in the work.",[335,4056,4057,4059],{},[374,4058,538],{}," Nod can either strengthen or disrupt the consensus that holds Woven together. If strengthened one or more Woven can merge and grow, becoming vast swarms with incredible capabilities. If, however, Nod weakens the consensus, a Woven's components begin acting on individual impulse rather than collective agreement. The colony loses coherence. This happens first in small ways (a hand acting independently, words emerging that the Woven did not intend) and eventually catastrophically. A fully degraded Woven is a swarm, thousands of small organisms operating without coordination, congealing into shapes that parody their former forms before dissolving again. Mad swarms are one of Nod's more disturbing ambient hazards.",{"title":404,"searchDepth":130,"depth":130,"links":4061},[],{"category":543},{"title":290,"description":4028},"somnos\u002Fsetting\u002Fspecies\u002Fwoven",[543,1671,4066,4067,550],"colony","swarm","Fh6PyNGuzm2_Wex8Hv99n0lFBeBIfUCcBFuPUY4DIvM",{"id":4070,"title":263,"author":325,"body":4071,"capital":325,"corporation_type":325,"created":325,"date":325,"description":4075,"extension":411,"faction_type":325,"founded":325,"gallery":325,"headquarters":325,"homeworld":325,"image":325,"influence":325,"last_reviewed":325,"leadership":325,"lifespan":325,"meta":4078,"metadata_type":325,"navigation":321,"path":264,"physiology":325,"relations":325,"seo":4079,"society":325,"sort_order":325,"status":415,"stem":4080,"summary":325,"tags":4081,"territory":325,"visibility":419,"__hash__":4084},"somnos\u002Fsomnos\u002Fsetting\u002Flocations\u002Fthe-city-of-nod\u002Fwrongside.md",{"type":327,"value":4072,"toc":4076},[4073],[335,4074,4075],{},"A collective term for the sprawling, unnamed stretches of urban density between the named districts. Travelling through Nod between the Annex and the Packs, or between Ringhollow and the Middens, means passing through Wrongside. The areas are not governed in any coherent sense, their character changes block by block, and the only consistent feature is that no one chose to live there so much as ended up there. Wrongside is where the city's gaps get filled by whatever fits: unlicensed workshops, squatter communities, informal markets, Wire pirate stations, chop shops for stolen Earth vehicles, and the kind of establishments that exist because no one has the authority or the interest to shut them down.",{"title":404,"searchDepth":130,"depth":130,"links":4077},[],{"category":457},{"title":263,"description":4075},"somnos\u002Fsetting\u002Flocations\u002Fthe-city-of-nod\u002Fwrongside",[461,4082,4083,3450],"urban","ungoverned","6W_by_rskE2zGjv-rp9palBuGJDNaaWPnATZfGXRaN4",{"id":4086,"title":10,"author":4087,"body":4088,"capital":325,"corporation_type":325,"created":4248,"date":325,"description":4249,"extension":411,"faction_type":325,"founded":325,"gallery":325,"headquarters":325,"homeworld":325,"image":4250,"influence":325,"last_reviewed":4251,"leadership":325,"lifespan":325,"meta":4252,"metadata_type":4253,"navigation":321,"path":11,"physiology":325,"relations":325,"seo":4254,"society":325,"sort_order":12,"status":415,"stem":4255,"summary":325,"tags":4256,"territory":325,"visibility":419,"__hash__":4259},"somnos\u002Fsomnos\u002Foverview.md","Elias Black",{"type":327,"value":4089,"toc":4238},[4090,4093,4097,4103,4109,4115,4117,4123,4126,4145,4148,4152,4155,4158,4162,4199,4203,4206,4209,4211,4214,4217,4228,4231,4235],[335,4091,4092],{},"Somnos is an urban fantasy setting split between two locations: the City of Nod, a vast supernatural metropolis that predates human civilization, and Midway, a real-world city where the boundary between the mundane and the arcane has worn thin.",[330,4094,4096],{"id":4095},"the-cosmology","The Cosmology",[335,4098,4099,4100,4102],{},"The world as most people experience it is not everything. The Veil is a barrier that suppresses ",[342,4101,1216],{"href":39}," and separates the living world from its hostile Shadow. Beyond the Shadow lie the Domains, alien worlds each tied to an Aeon, entities so powerful they have become inseparable from the realities they inhabit.",[335,4104,4105,4106,3091],{},"Magic is ambient on the other side of the Veil. Practitioners interact with it through eldritch language, a structured system of symbols, tones, and intent that can be externalized through ink, voice, music, or sheer will. The capacity is innate in some but the discipline is not. Trained talent falls into a ",[342,4107,4108],{"href":45},"taxonomy of disciplines",[335,4110,4111,4112,4114],{},"The Aeons who rule the ",[342,4113,887],{"href":36}," are old, powerful, and fallible. Some claim to predate humanity while others claim to have once been human. Many are petty and vindictive, few are wise, and none perceive as much as they pretend to. They are drawn to worship the way an addict is drawn to a fix, because the bond with mortal supplicants gives them access to feelings and abilities they cannot reach alone. The most powerful among them, the Aeon called Elohim, built his dominion by consuming rival gods over centuries: Re, Horus, Quetzalcoatl, Ares, and countless others. Other Aeons call him the Usurper King.",[330,4116,863],{"id":862},[335,4118,4119,4120,4122],{},"Nod is an Aeon's Domain that functions as a city. Built by the Ancient known as ",[342,4121,1348],{"href":24},", it exists under a sunless sky lit by pale moons, dim streetlamps, and arcane lanterns. A black stone tower rises from a bottomless lake at the city's center, stretching into the dark without a visible summit.",[335,4124,4125],{},"The city is a crossroads to every other Domain, neutral ground where the conflicts of gods are forbidden and everyone else's conflicts are merely discouraged. Nemo enforces this neutrality rarely and absolutely.",[335,4127,4128,4129,4131,4132,4134,4135,4137,4138,4141,4142,4144],{},"Seven million residents from seven sapient species share the city. Humans are the most numerous and the most vulnerable, with no innate magic and no biological advantages beyond adaptability and stubbornness. The ",[342,4130,1139],{"href":276}," are large, constantly growing beings whose biology can stabilize into something functional or spiral into painful, monstrous degradation. ",[342,4133,3508],{"href":288}," are the beast-folk behind every werewolf and kitsune legend, a single species expressing enormous biological variety across canine, avian, serpentine, and stranger lineages. ",[342,4136,1305],{"href":279}," project glamour that rewrites how observers perceive them, with true forms that resist comprehension. ",[342,4139,4140],{"href":282},"skulks"," are small, fast, and resilient enough to thrive in conditions that would kill anything else. The Woven are colonial entities formed by the cooperation of thousands of tiny organisms into singular single sapient entities. And the ",[342,4143,547],{"href":270}," are living architecture, buildings that are also organisms, some of which predate every other species' arrival and may be the oldest things in Nod.",[335,4146,4147],{},"Nod changes its residents. The city's ambient magic pries at biology, identity, and sanity. Humans grow strange. Kaarn growth uncontrollably. Theriae grow feral. Masques grow thin. Woven grow mindless. Every species has a best case and a worst case, and which one you get is not something anyone can predict.",[330,4149,4151],{"id":4150},"how-nod-works","How Nod Works",[335,4153,4154],{},"A council of seven sorcerers governs the city in the space between Nemo's indifference and the population's tolerance. They agree on almost nothing. One has spent a century trying to seize personal control. Another commands the city's constabulary and uses it as leverage. A third sees the future clearly enough to outmaneuver everyone else. Nod is a city that functions in spite of its government.",[335,4156,4157],{},"Below the Council, power distributes through guilds, factions, and institutions that have accumulated influence over millennia. The city's infrastructure is a corresponding patchwork: arcane streetlamps next to electrical wiring, stone aqueducts feeding into steel plumbing, Carceri load-bearing walls supporting concrete and glass towers. Earth goods flow into Nod constantly through the Merchants Guild, and the material culture reflects it; canned food, mobile phones, generators, vehicles, and building materials sit alongside artifacts and equipment that have no Earthly origin. The technology is modern in pieces and ancient in others, never uniform, and rarely standardized.",[353,4159,4161],{"id":4160},"key-organizations","Key Organizations",[368,4163,4164,4167,4170,4173,4176,4181,4187,4193],{},[371,4165,4166],{},"The Merchants Guild moves goods between Domains and runs a front corporation on Earth.",[371,4168,4169],{},"The Mercenaries Guild sells violence on contract.",[371,4171,4172],{},"The Slavers Guild trades in sapient beings under a formal compact with the Council.",[371,4174,4175],{},"The Order is a human-supremacist militia that patrols the Cardinal Boroughs.",[371,4177,1562,4178,4180],{},[342,4179,2025],{"href":114}," collect the dead before corpses attract ghasts or start changing.",[371,4182,1562,4183,4186],{},[342,4184,4185],{"href":102},"hospitallers"," treat the wounded of all factions.",[371,4188,1562,4189,4192],{},[342,4190,4191],{"href":105},"lamplighters"," maintain the streetlamps that keep the shadows at bay.",[371,4194,1562,4195,4198],{},[342,4196,4197],{"href":84},"chroniclers"," keep records in a city older than human civilization.",[330,4200,4202],{"id":4201},"egress","Egress",[335,4204,4205],{},"Every mortal who wants to leave Nod needs a gate-mark, a tattoo etched by a Scribe that grants passage through the Veil. The Scribes set their own prices. There is no regulatory body, no price control, and no alternative except the rare and unreliable Striders. The result is a class system that follows the mark: those who can leave and those who cannot, with wealth, mobility, and political influence concentrated among the former.",[335,4207,4208],{},"The lucky few humans who do escape Nod, back into the real world, often find the details of their time fading like a dream. Those gone for a long time are often startled to find that their family members and friends did not notice their absence, or more disturbingly that they remember seeing or even interacting with them as if they weren't gone. The clouded recall, the doppelganger effect, and the propensity for Noddish traits to be invisible to regular humans, have all served a protective purpose, keeping Nod from ever rising above the level of urban myth.",[330,4210,1425],{"id":1424},[335,4212,4213],{},"Midway is a mortal city built near a thin point in the Veil. Supernatural activity concentrates there in ways the mundane population does not understand. The Germaine Foundation, a private organization founded by an immortal being of uncertain nature, has spent three centuries trying to build a unified theory of the supernatural, a framework that reduces the arcane to something observable, categorizable, and predictable. Their field teams, drawn from civilians with latent abilities, have confronted Domain-level threats in Midway and survived, establishing that mortal organizations can operate in this space with the right preparation.",[335,4215,4216],{},"They are not the only ones interested.",[368,4218,4219,4222,4225],{},[371,4220,4221],{},"The Brotherhood of Diocletian, an ancient military order founded by a Roman emperor after a vampiric assassination attempt, has hunted supernatural beings for seventeen centuries.",[371,4223,4224],{},"Section 4 operates with government authority and minimal public visibility.",[371,4226,4227],{},"Kuron Inc. pursues corporate interests in the paranormal.",[335,4229,4230],{},"Midway is where the setting's two halves meet. The politics, species, and ancient grudges of Nod press against a mortal city through thin spots in reality, and the people caught in the overlap have to figure out what they're dealing with using a vocabulary of rumors and myth.",[330,4232,4234],{"id":4233},"tone","Tone",[335,4236,4237],{},"Somnos is dark but not grim. The setting runs on specificity over spectacle: the annual quota negotiations where the numbers being haggled over are people, the transit system that appeared overnight and induces memory loss in its passengers, the tavern that is also a living creature and rearranges its floor plan to break up fights, the pay-per-view bloodsport subscription that funds the city's telecommunications network. The supernatural as infrastructure; complicated, political, and subject to the same petty mortal failures as everything else.",{"title":404,"searchDepth":130,"depth":130,"links":4239},[4240,4241,4242,4245,4246,4247],{"id":4095,"depth":130,"text":4096},{"id":862,"depth":130,"text":863},{"id":4150,"depth":130,"text":4151,"children":4243},[4244],{"id":4160,"depth":134,"text":4161},{"id":4201,"depth":130,"text":4202},{"id":1424,"depth":130,"text":1425},{"id":4233,"depth":130,"text":4234},"2026-04-07T00:00:00.000Z","An intro to Somnos, a modern fantasy setting centered on two crossroads cities; Midway and Nod","\u002Fimages\u002Fdefault.png","2026-04-11T00:00:00.000Z",{},"setting-overview",{"title":10,"description":4249},"somnos\u002Foverview",[4257,4258],"folkpunk","modern-fantasy","HgcUBBDbQqw-5g097XwTBSTU69TbdEeAXw9nR6Jstaw",{"id":4261,"title":125,"author":325,"body":4262,"capital":325,"corporation_type":325,"created":325,"date":325,"description":4268,"extension":411,"faction_type":325,"founded":325,"gallery":325,"headquarters":325,"homeworld":325,"image":325,"influence":325,"last_reviewed":325,"leadership":325,"lifespan":325,"meta":4280,"metadata_type":325,"navigation":321,"path":126,"physiology":325,"relations":325,"seo":4281,"society":325,"sort_order":12,"status":415,"stem":4282,"summary":325,"tags":4283,"territory":325,"visibility":419,"__hash__":4285},"somnos\u002Fsomnos\u002Fsetting\u002Fhistory\u002F01-the-founding.md",{"type":327,"value":4263,"toc":4278},[4264,4269,4272,4275],[335,4265,4266],{},[2012,4267,4268],{},"(Date Unknown)",[335,4270,4271],{},"Nemo built the city. No account survives of when or how. The oldest Carceri structures predate every other species' arrival, and whether Nemo created the Carceri or the Carceri were already here when Nemo began to build is as much a question of theology as of history and the entity that could answer it has no interest in doing so.",[335,4273,4274],{},"What is known is that Nemo established two things simultaneously: the city and the rule. Nod would be neutral ground. External conflicts between Aeons would not be prosecuted within its borders. The enforcement mechanism for this rule was tested exactly twice and none of the Aeons involved survived into recorded history. In the duration since every other Aeon has adhered to the rule.",[335,4276,4277],{},"Every institution that has formed since, from the Council to the Guilds exists because Nemo permits it. Permission has never been formally granted, it has simply never been revoked.",{"title":404,"searchDepth":130,"depth":130,"links":4279},[],{"category":1642},{"title":125,"description":4268},"somnos\u002Fsetting\u002Fhistory\u002F01-the-founding",[4284,1348,547,724],"founding","K7WvzWtpAwpPrEpbp-Srwu38_SDDmfxnYbG37csy83Y",{"id":4287,"title":128,"author":325,"body":4288,"capital":325,"corporation_type":325,"created":325,"date":325,"description":4294,"extension":411,"faction_type":325,"founded":325,"gallery":325,"headquarters":325,"homeworld":325,"image":325,"influence":325,"last_reviewed":325,"leadership":325,"lifespan":325,"meta":4306,"metadata_type":325,"navigation":321,"path":129,"physiology":325,"relations":325,"seo":4307,"society":325,"sort_order":130,"status":415,"stem":4308,"summary":325,"tags":4309,"territory":325,"visibility":419,"__hash__":4311},"somnos\u002Fsomnos\u002Fsetting\u002Fhistory\u002F02-the-kaarn-crossing.md",{"type":327,"value":4289,"toc":4304},[4290,4295,4298,4301],[335,4291,4292],{},[2012,4293,4294],{},"(~5,000 Years Ago)",[335,4296,4297],{},"The Kaarn arrived in Nod in a migration that lasted decades. They came from a Domain whose name is lost, driven by some catastrophe they have never adequately described. The oldest Kaarn who still live in the city will say only that the place they came from stopped being liveable, and that the roads out of Nod were the only route that did not lead back to what they were fleeing.",[335,4299,4300],{},"The Kaarn Crossing transformed Nod's physical character. A species defined by constant biological growth needs space, and the Kaarn carved it out of the existing city with their hands and their mass. Entire neighborhoods were demolished and rebuilt to accommodate beings whose size could double over the course of a decade. The construction techniques they brought with them, designed for structures that needed to expand alongside their occupants, are still visible in the city's older districts, where doorframes are wide enough to drive a cart through and ceiling heights vary between floors for no apparent structural reason.",[335,4302,4303],{},"The Crossing also established the precedent that Nod would accept refugees from dying Domains. This precedent has been invoked by every species that arrived afterward.",{"title":404,"searchDepth":130,"depth":130,"links":4305},[],{"category":1642},{"title":128,"description":4294},"somnos\u002Fsetting\u002Fhistory\u002F02-the-kaarn-crossing",[1139,3595,4310,724],"migration","tj8w_JOphzJMb92keno-xtE9gFyUJKAQKvvDcQi5iEU",{"id":4313,"title":132,"author":325,"body":4314,"capital":325,"corporation_type":325,"created":325,"date":325,"description":4320,"extension":411,"faction_type":325,"founded":325,"gallery":325,"headquarters":325,"homeworld":325,"image":325,"influence":325,"last_reviewed":325,"leadership":325,"lifespan":325,"meta":4332,"metadata_type":325,"navigation":321,"path":133,"physiology":325,"relations":325,"seo":4333,"society":325,"sort_order":134,"status":415,"stem":4334,"summary":325,"tags":4335,"territory":325,"visibility":419,"__hash__":4337},"somnos\u002Fsomnos\u002Fsetting\u002Fhistory\u002F03-the-ashmarket-fire.md",{"type":327,"value":4315,"toc":4330},[4316,4321,4324,4327],[335,4317,4318],{},[2012,4319,4320],{},"(~2,000 Years Ago)",[335,4322,4323],{},"The original central market of Nod burned for three days. The cause is disputed. The Chroniclers' records list arson by disgruntled members of the Merchants Guild, an alchemical accident in a storage warehouse, and spontaneous combustion caused by improperly stored materials from the Cacophony. All three may be partially true.",[335,4325,4326],{},"The fire consumed the market, two adjacent residential districts, and an unknown number of residents who could not evacuate in time. The rebuilding began before the embers cooled. New structures were raised on the ashes of the old, and the replacement market was named Ashmarket as a reminder. The fire also destroyed the previous system of property records for the central districts, which means that many of the current land claims in Ashmarket and the surrounding areas rest on custom and occupation rather than documented title. This produces property disputes that the Prefex are still adjudicating a millennium later.",[335,4328,4329],{},"The Ashmarket Fire is the earliest documented instance of what the Chroniclers call a \"cascade failure,\" where a single event exposed the absence of coordinated emergency response in a city governed by anarchy. The Lamplighters trace their origin to the fire's aftermath, when the Council recognized that maintaining the city's infrastructure could not be left entirely to private initiative.",{"title":404,"searchDepth":130,"depth":130,"links":4331},[],{"category":1642},{"title":132,"description":4320},"somnos\u002Fsetting\u002Fhistory\u002F03-the-ashmarket-fire",[438,4336,4191,724],"fire","SRYwXQD311poqX9Y5ljPO6Suh0VK64nrU0FXGWWLax4",{"id":4339,"title":136,"author":325,"body":4340,"capital":325,"corporation_type":325,"created":325,"date":325,"description":4346,"extension":411,"faction_type":325,"founded":325,"gallery":325,"headquarters":325,"homeworld":325,"image":325,"influence":325,"last_reviewed":325,"leadership":325,"lifespan":325,"meta":4358,"metadata_type":325,"navigation":321,"path":137,"physiology":325,"relations":325,"seo":4359,"society":325,"sort_order":138,"status":415,"stem":4360,"summary":325,"tags":4361,"territory":325,"visibility":419,"__hash__":4363},"somnos\u002Fsomnos\u002Fsetting\u002Fhistory\u002F04-the-purge-of-the-third-council.md",{"type":327,"value":4341,"toc":4356},[4342,4347,4350,4353],[335,4343,4344],{},[2012,4345,4346],{},"(~1,200 Years Ago)",[335,4348,4349],{},"The third Council attempted to claim sovereignty over Nod in terms that exceeded their mandate. The specifics vary by account, but the consistent elements are that the Council began regulating transit through Nod's gates, imposing tariffs on the roads leading to other Domains, and arresting Scribes and anyone of significant power who refused to submit to their authority.",[335,4351,4352],{},"Nemo responded. The details of the response are not recorded because there were no survivors among the Council members to provide testimony. What the Chroniclers have is the aftermath: seven bodies arranged in the Council chamber in positions that suggested they had been killed simultaneously and from within, as though the room itself had decided to reject them. The replacement Council was seated within a week. Its first act was to formally acknowledge that Nod's gates and roads were not Council property and would remain open to all.",[335,4354,4355],{},"The Purge established the boundary between Council authority and Nemo's tolerance. Every Council since has tested that boundary carefully, if at all.",{"title":404,"searchDepth":130,"depth":130,"links":4357},[],{"category":1642},{"title":136,"description":4346},"somnos\u002Fsetting\u002Fhistory\u002F04-the-purge-of-the-third-council",[4362,2227,1348,724],"purge","zxjS1lZEU2SLakjCLKCgw6LUqoAIOJTcwJAJz97-aWU",{"id":4365,"title":140,"author":325,"body":4366,"capital":325,"corporation_type":325,"created":325,"date":325,"description":4372,"extension":411,"faction_type":325,"founded":325,"gallery":325,"headquarters":325,"homeworld":325,"image":325,"influence":325,"last_reviewed":325,"leadership":325,"lifespan":325,"meta":4384,"metadata_type":325,"navigation":321,"path":141,"physiology":325,"relations":325,"seo":4385,"society":325,"sort_order":142,"status":415,"stem":4386,"summary":325,"tags":4387,"territory":325,"visibility":419,"__hash__":4391},"somnos\u002Fsomnos\u002Fsetting\u002Fhistory\u002F05-the-theriae-wars.md",{"type":327,"value":4367,"toc":4382},[4368,4373,4376,4379],[335,4369,4370],{},[2012,4371,4372],{},"(~1,000 Years Ago)",[335,4374,4375],{},"The Theriae did not arrive in Nod as a unified population. They came in waves, over centuries, from the Wilds and from Earth, in lineage groups that did not recognize each other as kin. Canine packs, avian flocks, serpentine enclaves, and solitary predators competed for territory in Nod's southern and western districts with the same ferocity they had displayed in the places they came from.",[335,4377,4378],{},"The Theriae Wars lasted approximately forty years and killed enough Theriae and bystanders that the Pallbearers were overwhelmed for the only time in their recorded history. The wars ended when the largest pack confederations agreed to a territorial partition that allocated specific districts to specific lineage groups. The agreement was brokered by a Masque diplomat whose name is recorded differently in every account, which may mean the Masque was using a different face for each negotiation. This agreement is known as the Pact.",[335,4380,4381],{},"The partition produced the Kennels and several smaller Theriae enclaves. The Pact is also the source of the current understanding that Theriae lineage groups, regardless of their biological differences, are one species with internal disagreements rather than separate species at war, an understanding more accepted by outsiders than by many Theriae themselves.",{"title":404,"searchDepth":130,"depth":130,"links":4383},[],{"category":1642},{"title":140,"description":4372},"somnos\u002Fsetting\u002Fhistory\u002F05-the-theriae-wars",[3508,4388,4389,4390,724],"wars","pact","kennels","_4o_geNVTgtfoqlyvVF5CqGGDEA_UAaw7a3jPBNT2ho",{"id":4393,"title":144,"author":325,"body":4394,"capital":325,"corporation_type":325,"created":325,"date":325,"description":4400,"extension":411,"faction_type":325,"founded":325,"gallery":325,"headquarters":325,"homeworld":325,"image":325,"influence":325,"last_reviewed":325,"leadership":325,"lifespan":325,"meta":4415,"metadata_type":325,"navigation":321,"path":145,"physiology":325,"relations":325,"seo":4416,"society":325,"sort_order":146,"status":415,"stem":4417,"summary":325,"tags":4418,"territory":325,"visibility":419,"__hash__":4419},"somnos\u002Fsomnos\u002Fsetting\u002Fhistory\u002F06-the-founding-of-the-order.md",{"type":327,"value":4395,"toc":4413},[4396,4401,4404,4407,4410],[335,4397,4398],{},[2012,4399,4400],{},"(~900 Years Ago)",[335,4402,4403],{},"Humans had lived in Nod for millennia before the Order existed. They survived through ingenuity, numbers, and the pragmatic alliances they built with sympathetic non-humans. The Order arose from the chaos of the Theriea war and failure such alliances.",[335,4405,4406],{},"The pivotal event for formation of the order occurred in a human district in the eastern quarter that had maintained a mutual defense pact with a Theriae pack for several generations. When the pack's leadership changed, the new alpha repudiated the agreement and claimed the district's territory. The human residents were given the choice of submission or expulsion. A group of them chose neither, and fought the pack to a standstill, using tactics and experience developed operating learned as mercenaries during the Theriae wars.",[335,4408,4409],{},"The survivors of that fight formed the nucleus of the Order. Their original purpose was defensive: organized human self-protection in a city where humans were prey. Within two generations, the organization's leadership had shifted from pragmatic defense to ideological supremacy, driven by a succession of leaders who found it easier to recruit through hatred than through caution. The current Regent, Gregory White, is the culmination of that trajectory.",[335,4411,4412],{},"The Order's founding is recent enough that some of the older human communities remember what existed before it. Several of the smaller human districts in the western quarter still operate under the older model, maintaining their own multi-species defense arrangements and refusing Order presence.",{"title":404,"searchDepth":130,"depth":130,"links":4414},[],{"category":1642},{"title":144,"description":4400},"somnos\u002Fsetting\u002Fhistory\u002F06-the-founding-of-the-order",[2866,1001,3508,724],"ZG3idoJVCzj0QYChb-6vfv0bhdqjzzhJVIiRHkgbBjs",{"id":4421,"title":148,"author":325,"body":4422,"capital":325,"corporation_type":325,"created":325,"date":325,"description":4428,"extension":411,"faction_type":325,"founded":325,"gallery":325,"headquarters":325,"homeworld":325,"image":325,"influence":325,"last_reviewed":325,"leadership":325,"lifespan":325,"meta":4443,"metadata_type":325,"navigation":321,"path":149,"physiology":325,"relations":325,"seo":4444,"society":325,"sort_order":150,"status":415,"stem":4445,"summary":325,"tags":4446,"territory":325,"visibility":419,"__hash__":4449},"somnos\u002Fsomnos\u002Fsetting\u002Fhistory\u002F07-the-slavers-compact.md",{"type":327,"value":4423,"toc":4441},[4424,4429,4432,4435,4438],[335,4425,4426],{},[2012,4427,4428],{},"(~500 Years Ago)",[335,4430,4431],{},"The Slavers Guild has operated in some form for as long as sapients have inhabited Nod, but its current shape dates to the Compact, a formal agreement between the Guild, the Council, and the Prefex that granted the Guild legal protection in exchange for a share of its revenue and a commitment to operate within defined boundaries.",[335,4433,4434],{},"Before the Compact, the slave trade was unregulated, which meant it was everywhere. Slavers operated in every district, seized targets without regard for species or status, and answered to no authority beyond those who could muster a defense. As the cities population size reached a critical density, Slaver operations began to produce an instability that threatened the city's commercial infrastructure badly enough that the Merchants Guild petitioned the Council for intervention.",[335,4436,4437],{},"The Compact did not abolish slavery. It institutionalized it. The Slavers Guild was given exclusive rights to the trade in exchange for yearly limits on how many of each species could be taken and the requirement to maintain their own military rather than relying on the Prefex. Management of the so-called 'harvest quota' was established by taking away the right to create Fetters, the cruel devices the Guild uses to control its property. These are now produced by specialist engineers under the control of the Council.",[335,4439,4440],{},"The Compact is the single most controversial arrangement in Nod's political life. The quotas are a political weapon and currency used by the Council which defends them as a necessary stabilization of a trade that would exist regardless of legality. The Order condemns the pact entirely, as proof that the Council values commerce over human life. Resistance groups attack the Slavers Guild headquarters in the Glass District with a regularity that has made the assaults almost seasonal. The Guild survives all of it, because it is profitable, because it is protected, and because the powerful always happy to profit off the misery of others.",{"title":404,"searchDepth":130,"depth":130,"links":4442},[],{"category":1642},{"title":148,"description":4428},"somnos\u002Fsetting\u002Fhistory\u002F07-the-slavers-compact",[3192,4447,4448,2227,724],"compact","guild","0LsUdGPTx1u5me_OEZ6E8SJGIiRKSsOWEV4JKEBsH3o",1776259762690]