Culture-and-society
5 entries
Cab Seven
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.
Conflicts and Tensions
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.
Oddities
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.
Scribe Tattoos
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.
The Laws of Nod
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.