PmWiki | Madlands / Realms

The Seamstress' realm is tiny; a rider on a fast horse could cross it in 24 hours. Counting its population is difficult given its peculiar nature, but at any given time there are probably a thousand subjects and twenty thousand hulks in it, with as many as another thousand subjects living in nearby realms. The Seamstress does not need large land holdings, or large armies, after all.

In part because of her skill at life extension, her realm is surrounded by perpetually warring kingdoms, guilds, tribes, and any sort of strange arrangement that humans or humanoids could think up. Every warlord, king, generalissimo, techno-sorcerer under the sun and the fragments of the moon has built their power around this or that gimmick, supplanting the feudal system that itself replaced the warlordism that emerged after the fall of civilization.

The Living Continent is surrounded by difficult terrain; the Deadly Desert to the south, the Ice Wastes to the north, the Poison Ocean to the east and southeast, and the Mountain Wall to the west. The Living Continent's scattershot mix of biomes and necromes can't possibly be natural, and is probably a consequence of whatever apocalypse happened in the forgotten past.

The other tribes in the Madlands range from the motorcycletaurs living on the salt flats just north of the Deadly Desert to the feudalistic Tungsten Knights to the fascist-but-ironically state of Aggria (it's actually a nice place to live, and oppressive control is limited to things like having a death penalty for mimes and insurance company directors because they annoy the Great Leader) to the seemingly fairytale kingdom where monsters and human coexist in equilibrium because the former are slowly terraforming the poisoned earth back to health. And more, each with a gimmick, or a tinge of insanity that can range from the playful to the terrifying.

The Eastern Guild Baronies are still there. A loose coalition of tiny merchant principalities whose nobles are constantly trying to out-swindle one another. Or the Zardoz Mandate, ruled by priests who interpret the wishes of giant hollow stone statues through which the wind blows incessantly (Peasants tolerate this because the constant winds also make for a handy source of power). Or the nomadic Beastlords and their hordes of chimeric animals such as goose hydras. Or any number of actively weird places.

The area of the Madlands contains all manner of biomes and necromes; for example, there are a couple of large lakes, freshwater seas almost, where merpeople and megafauna live. There is an ongoing active ecological conflict that playes out between big-lizard dinosaurs as depicted in old textbooks, "modern" feathered dinosaurs, present-day fauna, and fanciful creatures such as carnivorous unicorns.

The King of Rice took power from the previous ruler of his swampland by a variation of the old "put exponential grains of rice on a chessboard" story. He turned the swampland into rice paddies. The people living there are overall happy, except for a monotonous diet. They trade with merfolk so that they can make sushi.

The domain of the King of Rice is a relatively normal place, by Madlands standards (meaning that it's about as normal as a Burning Man festival). However, it's interesting in that it's a land-based kingdom that does a lot of trade with merfolk, so some adaptations were made -- the main streets in the domain's town have a canal in the middle that is used by cargo narrowboats and merfolk, and elsewhere wheelchair accessibility is excellent so merfolk can visit human and humanoid houses. The main canal leads to one of the two great lakes where various types of merfolk are the majority of the population.

The Kingdom of Rice used to be mainly a swamp before rice cultivation became its economic staple, and some parts of the swamp were left undeveloped -- beware the alligatortoises, enjoy the gumbo.

The New State is offering a rice-for-okra trade to the Kingdom of Rice, but the King is wary. He won his throne on a bet with the warlord that held the swamps before -- the classic exponential trick of putting a grain of rice on a a1 on a chessboard, two on a2, four on a3 and so on -- and has been ruling with a lax hand since completing the rice paddy reclamation project. Trading with the merfolk ensures access to seaweed and fish; that, the omnipresent rice, and swamp spices mean that the Kingdom of Rice is the best place to eat sushi in the Madlands. The King of Rice quickly discovered that this attracted ninjas, tentacle fans, and so on. A wizard, asked to investigate, ate like a king for two weeks and then blamed memetic resonance for it.

Let's look at the Tungsten Knights next. Living near a suspiciously circular lake where only mutated flora and fauna means that protection from radiation and stay magic is required most of the time, so even the peasants wear protective clothing. The Knights started off as an errant order, but built their fortress-monastery on the edge of the crater lake. Their beautifully crafted full plate armor, built and maintained by their scribes, hide crude linear motors powered by radiothermal generators. A Tungsten Knight is slow and telegraphs his movements... and just when you think you figured out a weak point in his plate, his battle-brother takes you out. They favor maces, shields, and superheavy crossbows that fire either armor-piercing bolts or grapeshot. Watching a pair of Tungsten Knights ride on a cart (their armors are too heavy for most animals) looks ridiculous, until they dismount and make a giant hole in whatever was laughing at them. They are masters of small-unit tactics, but lose efficiency in larger engagements. They are one of the few groups who understand the difference between radioactivity and magic, and try to confiscate anything that has trace of the former, for safekeeping -- some would say hoarding.

Living under the Knights' rule means a hard day's work and a sound night's sleep, because nobody will bother you out of fear and respect of them.

The Tungsten Knights have access to a raging atomic furnace, kept in check by magical means; this allows them to work with special alloys (hence the name). One of their traditions is that when a knight dies in battle, what's left of his armor is melted down with the body still in it, then reforged. What atoms of the knight go into the new smelt are believed to give the new armor renewed strength.

They are led by three elders; if all three concur on a command, it must be obeyed unto death; if only two do, an individual knight has discretion to decide how far they want to go. Likewise, when out on a mission, they generally operate in groups of three -- two knights and a scribe, whose job is to call the shots and do things that are difficult to do in armor, suck as writing.

Knights are trained to spend weeks in their armors and use magic for hygiene... when it works, because sometimes it doesn't. As a result, you occasionally find what is politely known as the Tungsten Smell.

Let's look at the King of Rice's main trading partner, the merfolk of the Long Lake. In fact, it is either a narrow lake, or a river that filled its flood plain, didn't go back into its bed, and slowed down in the widened part. There are many rivers going in, sort of an inverted delta, and one mega-river going out into the Sea of Tears. The other large freshwater lake in the Madlands is called the Heart Lake, more because it sits roughly in the middle of the Madlands than because of its shape, and holds different groups. The two lakes are sometimes connected by a canal, depending on politics more than geography. But let's focus on the Long Lake first. Its main sentient population is more-or-less traditional merfolk humanoids with dolphin tails. For crafts requiring dry land, they've built a semi-aquatic village on part of the lake shore, among the mangroves.

They are more or less a matriarchal society that works on rule-by-grandmother, and don't really have a single ruler. When one is necessary, the grandmas pick one at what comes to a mixture between a moot and a potluck; that ruler stays in place until the need is over. The last time a ruler overstayed her welcome after the crisis was over was a couple generations ago; she was more or less shunned except for official interaction until she resigned.

Sexual dimorphism in merfolk is reduced, and all sexes have an androgynous appearance, absent magical or surgical modification.

Heart Lake merfolk are more amphibious in shape, having a fish tail and legs both; both types have gills. They are more patriarchal, choosing their rulers by having their young folks compete in tests of strength and endurance -- the winning champion then chooses one of their parents, traditionally the father. They're overall a bit ancient greek in culture and habits. Heart Lake merfolk have an easier time with magic, having been magically created in the first place, but by the same logic don't like low-magic areas.

The formation of the Lighthouse Colony was the result of a challenge gone awry: emissaries from the New State slowly undermined the Western Trade Baronies economically, then issued a formal challenge for a fight. The Barons hired mercenaries, as they would usually do; the mercenaries expected the sort of ritualized combat common in the days of the condottieri's days in real history. What they got was a proper fight against New State conscripts and professional soldiers. The mercenaries were given no quarter and obliterated. Since this rarely happens, the betting payoff for such an event is extremely high; the New State's intermediaries raked in enough cash that, a few days later, the New State was simply able to buy the territory.

After this, the New State got into a few small-scale skirmishes, with their forces behaving in a manner more copacetic to the extended code duello in use in the Madlands. This has led some, but not all, Madland rulers to think that the New State has used its ace in the hole. In truth, the New State's colony commander simply wants to avoid an alliance against it before they are ready.

 The Cult of the Eternal Bird, Eternavis

Motto: “Rebirth Through Strength” (A garbled reference to the original Latin phrase "Eterna Vis" or "eternal strength.") Symbol: A stylized bird, wings spread wide, with flames trailing from its feathers. Its head is often depicted as a question mark—a symbol of mystery and ambiguity.

Eternavis is a nonexistent resistance group, an elaborate trap for would-be dissidents. Officially, the cult claims to worship an immortal, fiery bird that will one day rise and purge the world of corruption, rebirthing it in fire. In practice, there is no real rebellion—the group’s leadership is made up entirely of state intelligence operatives, and the lowest-ranking members are unwitting scapegoats, caught in a web of intrigue and betrayal. A Layered Deception: Dissidents or Coordination Tool?

Eternavis was likely created by one or more intelligence agencies, though no one knows who founded it—or even whether it was founded at all. It may have started as a genuine rebellion, later co-opted by the state. Or it may have never existed in the first place, an elaborate myth designed to entrap the desperate. Official histories are unreliable, leaving everyone to speculate.

However, there are rumors that Eternavis serves a darker purpose. Some believe that the elites of all five states use the cult’s backchannels to coordinate policy, ensuring that their interests align just enough to prevent any real change. Documents intercepted between rival intelligence agencies are often filled with the same enigmatic references to the "bird in flight" or "embers at rest." Whether this is a genuine conspiracy or a pattern born of paranoia is unclear—perhaps even to the elites themselves. The Cult’s Recruitment and Structure

Recruitment:
Eternavis preys on the disillusioned and desperate—those who have lost faith in the system but still harbor a flicker of hope for change. Rumors of the cult spread in whispers—a friend of a friend, a pamphlet slipped into a ration packet, a code word scrawled on a restroom wall.
Recruits are lured into small cells, each isolated from the others. They are given symbolic tasks—distributing leaflets, vandalizing state property, or gathering information—all meaningless gestures meant to deepen their involvement.

Leadership:
As new members rise through the ranks, they discover that almost everyone above them is an operative. The cult's hierarchy is a labyrinth of false identities and hidden operatives from various states, each pretending to serve the cause while using the cult to monitor rival factions.
The top tiers of Eternavis are entirely fictitious—meetings are staged, messages are cryptic, and directives often contradict each other. Some suspect that even the operatives don't fully understand the cult’s purpose anymore. They simply play their roles, assuming someone higher up knows the truth.

Entrapment and Elimination:
Members who show too much initiative or ask too many questions are quickly disposed of—either publicly, in show trials, or quietly, in disappearances. Many recruits end up forced into the forlorn-hope units, their association with Eternavis used as justification for their exile.
Others are flushed from the cult during purges, as the state stages elaborate raids to "uncover" the conspiracy. These raids serve two purposes: remind the population that dissent is dangerous and eliminate those who might pose a real threat.

The Cult’s Symbolism: The Eternal Bird as a Question

The eternal bird of Eternavis is described in conflicting ways—sometimes a phoenix, sometimes an eagle, sometimes a vulture. The ambiguity is intentional. The symbol is designed to mean everything and nothing, allowing it to reflect the hopes and fears of anyone desperate enough to believe in it.

    A Phoenix for Rebirth:
        For some, the bird represents hope for a new beginning, a way to burn away the corruption of the old world and start fresh.
    An Eagle for Power:
        Others see it as a symbol of strength and dominance, proof that the cult will one day seize control and impose a new order.
    A Vulture for Despair:
        For the truly cynical, the bird is a mockery of hope—a scavenger feeding on the rotting corpse of the world.

Even within the cult, no one agrees on what the bird truly represents. This ambiguity is part of its power—recruits interpret it however they need to, while operatives use it to manipulate them. The Cult as a Coordination Tool for the Elites

If the elites of the five super-states do coordinate, it’s through the labyrinth of Eternavis’ false hierarchy. The cult provides plausible deniability—if messages are intercepted, they are dismissed as the ravings of dissidents. Meanwhile, operatives from different states meet under the pretext of cult activities, allowing them to exchange information and enforce the status quo without drawing attention.

    Backroom Agreements:
        The cult’s encrypted channels are used to coordinate naval skirmishes, trade deals, and resource extraction policies, ensuring that no state gains too much ground over the others. War is carefully managed, keeping the population distracted but never destabilizing the balance of power.

    A False Enemy:
        Eternavis also serves as a useful scapegoat. Any act of sabotage, rebellion, or unrest can be blamed on the cult, justifying crackdowns and purges. If someone becomes inconvenient to the elites, they are accused of being an Eternavis agent and disposed of without trial.

    Elites as Prisoners of Their Own System:
        Some suspect that even the elites have lost control of the cult. What began as a tool for manipulation has become a maze of lies that even those at the top can’t fully navigate. The result is a perpetual feedback loop—each state reacting to the other’s moves without ever knowing the full picture. Coordination and chaos blur together, leaving everyone trapped in a system they can no longer control.

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