by Isaac Stone
Despite the rumors and urban legends that most of the knowledge outsiders have about Mar-Keth, life in the city is actually not unpleasant for those to do not ask questions and are content to conform. The Lychking has existed long enough to know that people can only be pushed so far before they are broken or revolt, so he takes care to keep his subjects as content as possible and still fulfill his megalomaniacal schemes. The average citizen of Mar-Keth is usually a skilled laborer of some sort. This is because the majority of the unskilled manual labor in Mar-Keth, and thanks to the railroad most of Uroborous, is done by clockwork zombies. Day and night these necrotic constructs work to move raw materials in warehouses, act as beasts of burden in construction yards, perform simple tasks on assembly lines, and even citywide trash removal in addition to many other menial tasks too numerous to mention. However, there are many jobs that still require the fine motor skills and cognitive abilities possessed by the living. Side by side with the zombies work human craftsmen. As in the Zel Triumvirate, the skaas, railith, and hurdu are not allowed in the city, as the Lychking has outlawed any of the mutant races or those bearing the Wormwood stigmata. The living workers are engineers, architects, carpenters, blacksmiths, and many other sorts of skilled craftsmen and scholars. A clockwork zombie can operate the bellows of a forge tirelessly, while another zombie continually places wood in the burner, and several shifts of blacksmiths can do a full days work before the crude engines that animate these creatures must be refueled.
Living workers are usually employed by the city of Mar-Keth itself, which is governed on a daily basis by the Lychking’s bureaucrats. There are government factories, forges, mines, refineries, and building projects enough to provide work for the majority of the living and unliving populations of the city. There are a number of taverns, brothels, and eateries scattered around the city. Though most independent contractors and small businesses that operate within the city walls are restricted to the Free Trade District. While wages are low and taxes are high compared to those of other cities, the living citizens of Mar-Keth enjoy a great many social programs. There are public medical facilities where healing and medicine are distributed free of charge. There are also public baths, soup kitchens, and a gladiator circus. The average citizens of Mar-Keth enjoy a greater quality of life than most other common folk in other cities. There is a catch however, life under the rule of the Lychking.
The city is divided into high walled districts, creating a city that more resembles a labyrinth than a settlement. While the districts do not have official names, most are known by the type of trade practiced by those living in the neighborhood. There is a district for blacksmiths, carpenters, engineers, and so on. Each district is enclosed by a high wall patrolled by the Grave Guards, fanatical cleric-warriors who serve the Lychking, and traffic between districts flows through heavy gates that connect the various districts in the city. This division has several purposes, all of which are products of the overpowering amount of control the Lychking holds over the city’s population. The first purpose is that should the city’s outer walls be breached, the gates to the districts can be closed and bolted, thus making an invasion of the city difficult and costly for any would-be conqueror. The second purpose is that the Grave Guards are able to silently observe each district as they patrol the walkways carved into the tops of the latticework of walls that create this maze of a city. The third, and perhaps most disturbing reason, is that the Lychking’s maniacally ordered mind demands that he have every possible resource separated, cataloged, and monitored with the utmost scrutiny. This includes the living population within Mar-Keth’s walls. So when newcomers move to the city seeking a better life they are immediately assigned a district according to their trade, and if they do not have one they are directed to the Free Trade District.
The Free Trade District is the one place in the city where the Lychking’s overt control is not so apparent, though it crawls with his agents and informants. This district, while contained by the same walls as other districts, is unique in its architecture and activities. While most other districts are primarily living quarters with a few entertainment venues, the Free Trade District is a miasma of open markets, eateries, shops, street performers, and any other citizens who do not fit into the Lychking’s city planning scheme. As a result the district is not only unique in that it is full of life, color, and opportunity, but also exists in relative squalor.
There are no jails in Mar-Keth, though as in any massive city there is a criminal element. Long ago the Lychking dispensed with what he considered a primitive notion of imprisonment for criminal activity. While the laws of Mar-Keth are much like any other city, in that fraud, theft, murder, rape, kidnapping, and abuse are all illegal, the penalty for crime is much different and fiendishly simple. People guilty of a crime, any crime, regardless of circumstance or severity, are sent to the zombie factories. The Lychking sees no reason to suffer the continued existence of those who disrupt his malevolent utopia and finds them much more useful to his plans when remade into passive servants. This small but constant stream of convicts to the factories help to keep zombie production quotas up. Due to the necrotic nature of the zombies, they are a finite resource and must be replaced from time to time. Given that these constructs are a primary export product of Mar-Keth, a steady supply of cadavers must be had. So, in addition to its own criminals, Mar-Keth gets its primary stockpile of cadavers from its own population. When a person dies in Mar-Keth, their body is immediately taken to the nearest factory. In addition to its own dead, the government of Mar-Keth pays a fair price for cadavers on the open market. As a result there is a steady import market for cadavers. Entire railcars full of bodies find their way into Lychgate, the city’s one train station. Many of these cadavers come from municipal institutions in other cities. Though because there are no questions asked as to where the bodies come from or who they were, there is an increasing number of freelance harvesters bringing in corpses a few at a time.
The government of the Lychking is not nearly as convoluted as the Bureaucracy of Uroborous, though does possess a street level of complexity that defies all but the most perceptive scrutiny. There are entire networks of paid informants prowling the city, living out their lives as average citizens, but always listening for any information that might bring coin. There are all too true rumors of deadly and cunning agents who infiltrate seditious gatherings, stalk the disloyal, and execute the traitorous. Grave Guards man the walls and patrol the city streets, keeping the peace and enforcing the king’s laws. It is even whispered that the undead ruler has the power to see and hear what every zombie in his city is witness to, so most of the populations keeps to themselves.
Since the horrific days of the Green Age military conflicts between most cities has been limited to the intrigues of agents, street brawls, and skirmishes between factions loyal to one power or another. Though, like Uroborous and the Zel Triumvirate, the Lychking has the ability to raise an army should the blood-soaked politics of the age escalate into open war. Unlike the rulers of other cities, the Lychking has existed for centuries, and fought in the horrific battles that formed much of the history of the Green Age. He has the experience and knowledge of war on a massive scale, and so has prepared for such an event. Should the need arise, he has in his vaults many siege engines and other machines of war. There are several companies of zombie war constructs standing silently in the dark, awaiting his command. These resources, when coupled with his impregnable city walls and loyal Grave Guards, provide him with a military force quite superior to any other in the region.
The Zel Triumvirate
Unlike their rival cities of Uroborous and Mar-Keth, the ambitions of the three city-states of the Zel Triumvirate extend far beyond the boundaries of their city walls. While the tyrannical Lychking of Mar-Keth seems obsessed with controlling every aspect of life in his labyrinthine city, the Guilds of the Triumvirate seek to expand their influence ever outward. While the citizens of Uroborous live in the chaotic tempest of
economics and anarchy, the people of the Zel Triumvirate are united in a republic and hope to spread their vision of society to all corners of the world.
The Zel Triumvirate began its history as two refugee camps situated on the borders of a small city known at the time as Gaff. As the Green Age drew to a close and the protective wards that guarded against the mutagenic effects of the Wormwood moon began to develop the refugee camps began to turn into permanent settlements. Soon, thanks to the pioneer work ethic of the refugees, the settlements in time became small cities in their own right. Political and economic tension grew between the three cities, partly because of their close proximity, and the paranoia of the ruler of Gaff, Kauf Hanshi. Kauf had developed the stigmata, having spent too much time outside the city as a boy had finally manifested consequences. He feared that if the democratic rulers of the two as yet unnamed settlements near Gaff discovered his dark secret, that not only would he be deposed by his own people, but would invite the growing militias in those two cities to invade his own city. While most people understood the dangers of the stigmata, it was his paranoia that made the threat seem so dire, and he lashed out with great violence.
Late one night a company of his best warriors were dispatched to each of the settlements to murder the leaders of the two nearby cities. Alongside each company of soldiers Kauf sent a mob of gath, caged and starving to the point of berserker frenzy. The soldiers were faced with stiff opposition as they began their campaign of slaughter, yet the presence of the gath intensified the chaos so that a few warriors slipped past the city’s defenders to accomplish their mission. While the gath rampaged through the city, killing everything in their path, the remaining assassins crept into the homes and businesses of the leaders of the cities and murdered them all, setting fire to much of the city as they went.
Out of the carnage came a new leader for the two cities, a young woman whose parents had been slain by the bestial gath during the previous night’s raid. Her name was Zel. She was in her home when the gath came, her shift as a militia sentry had only recently ended, and was unable to save her family. With pistol and spear she dispatched the attacking gath and left her home to join the fighting. As the night wore on she discovered in herself a great reserve of martial prowess, leadership, and resolve. Soon the citizens and militia of the unnamed settlement gathered around her as they rallied to push out the invaders. They fought hard against the invading soldiers and hungry gath, taking their city back street by street.
When morning came her rag-tag army crossed the unprotected ground between her city and the other besieged settlement. Soon that city too had been liberated from what few gath remained inside the city’s walls. It took no brilliant general or cunning politician to see that the assassination of the two governments and the sacking of the cities was an act of war from nearby Gaff. As the defacto leader of the military arm of the two cities Zel called for an act of retribution. Any citizen of the two unnamed settlements able to fight was armed and marched to the gates of Gaff.
When the siege began the invaders were at a severe disadvantage, and the battle, while fierce, was going to be an inevitable defeat. Though, much to Kauf’s surprise, as the battle cries and accusations of the invaders reached the ears of the people of Gaff, the tide of battle began to change. As the Gaff people witnessed mothers, daughters, old men, and children fighting their way over the walls, calling out for revenge for slain family and trampled rights, there was a sudden and extreme change in loyalty. Many of the citizens and even some soldiers of Gaff, tired of the tyranny of Kauf Hanshi and enraged by his latest act of terror, turned to fight with the invading army. Soon the entire city of Gaff was consumed with revolution.
Zel was made ruler of the newly formed three-city nation. She quickly created a new government, though one that guarded both against the tyranny of individual rulers and of the mob. She placed power in the hands of the trade guilds. So that each profession became the way in which the voices of the common citizens was heard. Atop this republic sat what in generations later came to be called the Zel-Khan. Two great bridges were built connecting the two unnamed cities to Gaff, and the entire metropolis was renamed the Zel Triumvirate in honor of its first leader. Wards were repaired, and many social reforms were enacted to repair the damage wrought by Kauf’s dictatorship. As time passed, Zel was even able to persuade the mysterious and aloof Conductors to bring the rail system to the new society, connecting them with the rest of their neighbors. Soon the great battles were forgotten as the new republic ushered in a time of peace, patriotism, and growth.
While some elements of this story seem fantastic and overly dramatized, it is the tale told at the bedside of every child from birth to adulthood. This story embodies the very nature of the metropolis, its populace, and its foreign policy. Every citizen of the republic of the Zel Triumvirate is a patriot of the highest degree, or so the Guilds would have both the Zel citizens and the outside world believe. There are dissenters among the population of the Triumvirate, though they ply their agendas deep in the underground of society, so as not to attract the attention of the patriotic zealots that make up the average population of the Triumvirate. It should also be noted that there is a great deal of prejudice against the mutant races and those persons bearing the stigmata. While such people are tolerated to a small degree as visitors, no skaas, railith, hurdu, or person bearing stigmata is granted citizenship within the city walls. Only untainted humans are allowed to be full citizens of the Zel Triumvirate, though this exclusion is unofficial. All citizens are required to vote in the republic to maintain that citizenship, and no non-human is allowed to vote, so a non-human could only live in the city for a matter of months before some election would force them into exile from the city as a result of their inability to vote.
The Zel-Khans have ruled alongside the Guilds for several generations without much of a concern for the world outside their warded walls. Though in recent decades the Zel-Khans and their Guild councils began to set their sights on their neighboring cities. They saw the inequities of the Lychking’s ironclad monarchy, they witnessed the vibrant yet at times brutal life of the people of Uroborous, and they chaffed at the bloody-handed tribalism in Bet-Arda. Inspired, or at least they claim to be justified, by the glory and rightness of the republic system and its dramatic creation, the rulers and populace of the Zel Triumvirate seek to spread their doctrine of freedom and republic to their neighboring cities.
Pursuant to this goal, missionaries have been dispatched to each of the other cities via the railroad. They have set up secular temples in Uroborous, Relish, Bet-Arda, and even a small one in secret in necrotic Mar-Keth. They hold meetings, recruit new members, begin secret societies, and attempt to infiltrate local politics. The patriots have had the most success in Uroborous and Relish, where the society is more open and accepting of new political ideas, though the fervor of these patriots has yet to catch on, their ideas are beginning to spread. In Mar-Keth the few citizens who have taken the risk to become part of the underground republic are very zealous, though must always be on guard against the Lychking’s agents, as infiltration and discovery could mean the downfall of all they have worked to build. In Bet-Arda the tribesmen are far too individualistic to be cowed by a government of the mob, the intolerance and lack of rights for mutant races and bearers of stigmata in Zel makes the relationship between the people of Bet-Arda and the missionaries tenuous at best.
Life in the Zel Triumvirate itself is much like that of Uroborous, though not at all as dangerous or chaotic. People are for the most part free to live, work, and express themselves how they please, though there are laws that must be observed while doing so. Most of these laws deal with sanitation, trash disposal, curfews, and other mandates that enforce tolerance, cleanliness, and consideration for one’s fellow citizens. The only repressive element of the Zel society, one found particularly repugnant by outsiders not favorable to Zel culture, is the strict enforcement of these social mandates. Social graces like tolerance, observan
ce of curfews, quiet hours, and other such behaviors are enforced by law. There are actually constables who roam the streets enforcing these behaviors, and failure to comply means a long stretch of time spent in the dungeon, or for repeat offenders immediate exile from the city.
Though these elements of Zel society are unusual, many newcomers travel to the metropolis by train in order to get a taste of republic life. For many the laws and rules are a comfort when compared to the chaos and uncertainty of life in other cities. The city’s economy and military might are growing, and as missionaries spread the secular ideology of the Zel republic, their influence abroad increases daily. Soon the Zel Triumvirate will be a force to be reckoned with.
Bet-Arda
Many leagues away from the more civilized areas of Uroborous, Relish, the Zel Triumvirate, and Mar-Keth lies Bet-Arda. It is more of a camp than an organized settlement, though its size can vary from that of a small fiefdom to an established city. The settlement lies at the center of a region known to most as the Harrowmarsh. On the side of the settlement nearest other cities lies the desert, a wasteland of beasts, heat, and sand. It is a vast place of danger, across which the only safe means of travel is the one rail line that makes infrequent trips out to the remoteness of Bet-Arda. On the other side of the settlement is a vast and treacherous marsh that extends far beyond the travels of any explorer, hunter, or cartographer. The deeper into the marsh one travels, the more deadly the dangers, the more imminent the threats. In these marshes, it is wise not to stray far.
