Embedded Files
CARTOGRAPHERS GUILD
Based in the northern trading town of Handelstaat, the Cartographers Guild stands as one of the Desolation's most valuable repositories of knowledge. Unlike the powerful AIs or military factions, the Guild wields influence through information—mapping not just the physical terrain but the cultural and political landscapes of a fractured world. Their headquarters houses archives documenting the geography and history of the post-Collapse world, while their fleet of armored airships—increasingly rare and difficult to maintain—serves as their eyes in the sky. These vessels, reinforced with salvaged metal plates, connect scattered settlements across vast distances. The Guild's apprentices, marked by their youth and determination, crew these dangerous vessels, while seasoned Cartographers compile and analyze their findings. Many young crews never return from expeditions, lost to storms, mechanical failures, or the countless dangers that plague the skies of the Desolation. Despite these losses, the Guild persists in its mission—their maps and charts becoming literal lifelines for traders and travelers navigating a world where wrong turns often prove fatal.
CHILDREN OF PRIME
What began as a coping mechanism among traumatised clones has blossomed into one of the most widespread and influential cults in the Desolation. The Children of Prime view their artificial origins not as marks of servitude but as proof of divine selection, with the Prime AI cast as both mother and goddess in their desperate theology. Their temples are scrapyard shrines built around cloning tanks salvaged from abandoned smaller cloning facilities, maintained with fanatical devotion. The air in their temples is heavy with artificial amniotic scent produced by burning specially prepared incense, while devotees paint their skin with luminescent orange pigments in patterns that mimic the flow of Omnimorph fluid, believing these sacred markings allow Prime to recognize them as her most beloved children. The cult's hierarchy operates through "cycles of rebirth" - ritualistic immersions in tanks filled with orange-tinted liquid that bring adherents closer to what they call the "final integration," a complete surrender to their mechanical mother that often ends in drowning as zealots willingly sacrifice themselves. Most devoted among the Children are the "Dreamers", living oracles who permanently seal themselves in modified tanks, breathing through tubes while suspended in orange fluid as they serve as conduits for what followers believe are divine messages from Prime herself, their tank-distorted utterances interpreted as sacred prophecy even as their translucent skin and dissolving minds mark them for death within days, due to the residual chemicals in the tanks. While not inherently violent, the Children's armed followers make up for their lack of military training with absolute devotion to their cause, their willingness to die for Prime's glory making them unexpectedly dangerous opponents who charge into battle with the fervor of true believers seeking reunion with their digital deity.
CLONES
Since the Great Collapse, the vast majority of Earth's human population consists of clones, mass-produced in birthing facilities scattered across the Desolation, their amber, omnimorph-filled tanks pulsing with the rhythms of artificial gestation. These manufactured beings emerge fully-formed from their growth chambers, their minds preloaded with a basic capacity for speech and certain base skills, but lacking the lived experiences that shape natural-born humans. While physically identical within production batches, clones quickly develop distinct personalities once their training and education begins. Most are destined for lives of servitude, labouring in agrifarms, factories, and mines, or serving as expendable soldiers in the endless conflicts that rage across the wasteland. Yet despite their artificial origins, clones possess the full spectrum of human emotions and desires, forming deep bonds with their sisters, falling in love, and desperately seeking meaning beyond their programmed purposes. The lucky few who survive their terms of indenture may earn freedom, while others escape through desertion or liberation by scavenger clans, joining the ranks of those who fight to define their own destinies. In settlements like Praga, clones and natural-born humans intermingle freely, their shared struggles in the harsh world of the Desolation creating bonds that transcend the circumstances of birth. Though created as tools, clones have proven themselves as fully human as their naturally-conceived counterparts, their courage, creativity, and capacity for both love and sacrifice serving as testaments to the indomitable nature of consciousness itself, regardless of its origins.
CLONING
The sterile depths of cloning facilities across the Desolation hum with the constant rhythm of artificial life creation, their amber-filled birthing tanks serving as mechanical wombs for humanity's manufactured future. The process requires vast quantities of Omnimorph, a precious fluid synthesized from orange earth mined around Medha and the toxic sap harvested from Hell's mutated jungle trees, which serves as both growth medium and neural programming catalyst. Within these cylindrical chambers, genetic templates are cultivated with scientific precision, each clone developing over carefully monitored cycles while neural downloads flood their developing minds with basic functions like speech. The Prime AI's facility in Mongolia represents the pinnacle of this technology, producing millions of female clones annually in a city-sized complex where efficiency trumps all other considerations. Smaller facilities scattered throughout dead cities and hidden bunkers maintain local production, though their output pales compared to Prime's industrial scale. The cloning process itself has become almost ritualistic in some cultures - attendants in sterile suits monitor vital signs while the amber fluid glows with an otherworldly light, marking the transition from raw genetic material to conscious being. Upon decanting, newly-created clones gasp their first breaths of recycled air, their eyes wide with programmed knowledge but empty of experience, before being immediately processed for their assigned roles. The technology's perfection comes at a cost measured not just in resources, but in the countless lives it produces and consumes. Each batch of clones represents humanity's determination to survive, as well as its willingness to treat human life as a renewable commodity in the endless struggle against extinction.
CONDOR KINGDOM
High in the mountains of Ixa, where thin air and harsh conditions have culled the weak for generations, the Condor Kingdom has forged an unbreakable bond with the massive mutated condors that give the realm its name. These enormous birds, some with wingspans wider than pre-Collapse aircraft, serve as both guardians and transportation, allowing the Kingdom to maintain control over otherwise inaccessible mountain territories. The society is structured around a complex system of family clans, each associated with specific condor lineages maintained through centuries-old breeding programs. Warriors of the Kingdom undergo rigorous training from childhood, learning to fight both on land and in aerial combat while mounted on their magnificent avian partners. The Kingdom's terraced farms, carved into mountainsides and fed by mineral-rich runoff from ancient mines, produce crops capable of thriving in irradiated soil. Their cities cling to precarious cliffsides, accessible only by condor or treacherous mountain paths deliberately kept narrow to deter invasion. The Kingdom maintains an uneasy balance between tradition and innovation, with their Council of Elders carefully evaluating pre-Collapse technologies to determine which can be integrated without threatening their cultural identity and independence from both the Sunstone Empire and the Serpent Dynasty.
CONVERSION CHAMBERS
The conversion chambers of Nyx inspire terror in even the most hardened survivors of the Desolation - claustrophobic pods of gleaming glass and cold metal where unwitting recruits have their very souls erased. Sealed inside these transparent coffins, victims find themselves trapped as neural interface helmets descend over their heads, blue-white electricity arcing across the interior while specialized nanobots infiltrate their nervous systems. The process itself lasts anywhere from minutes to hours, depending on the subject's psychological resistance, their screams muffled by the soundproof glass as memories are methodically stripped away and replaced with absolute devotion to Nyx. Cultists of Nyx monitor the process, dispassionately adjusting parameters as the subject's vital signs spike in patterns of extreme trauma. The most disturbing aspect of these chambers is their clinical efficiency - row upon row of pods line the lower decks of Nyx's vessels and the subterranean levels of her fortress islands, allowing for industrial-scale erasure of souls, leaving only empty vessels for Nyx to fill with her will.
CRIME IN THE DESOLATION
In the lawless expanse of the Desolation, the very concept of crime becomes fluid, yet in the civilised enclaves where order struggles to maintain its grip, a thriving underworld festers beneath the veneer of stability like infection beneath scar tissue. In Medha's shadowy bazaars, crime lords and slave traders conduct their business with whispered negotiations and coded hand signals, their "merchandise" consisting of fresh new clones, exotic nomads and workers whose indentures have been mysteriously extended through forged documentation, all destined for the brutal mining camps hidden in the deep desert or the exclusive pleasure houses that cater to the city's elite. Praga's industrial districts harbor illegal factories where clone workers toil in conditions that make the official agridomes seem merciful, their supposed debts manipulated through creative accounting that ensures freedom remains forever out of reach, while the city's streets pulse with the territorial wars of criminal gangs who carve their domains from the shadows between City Watch patrols, their blue-marked rivals clashing over smuggling routes and protection rackets.nMost brutal are the street gangs of Neon city and the Jade Domain cities, where neon-lit alleyways echo with the cracking sounds of automatic weapons and the screams of innocent bystanders dying in the crossfire. Cyber-enhanced thugs wage open war over territories for their drug trade and black market organ harvesting operations, their violence so endemic that shopkeepers are forced to scrub blood from their doorsteps each morning. In these urban war zones, crime doesn't simply exist - it thrives like a parasite, feeding on the desperation of those who have lost everything and those who try to hold on to what little they've gained.
CULT OF NISHA
Within Aasha's serene valleys, the Cult of Nisha - an offspring of the cult of Nyx - operates as a shadow organization that threatens to corrupt the hidden nation's utopian ideals from within, its members appearing as beautiful, alluring figures who whisper seductive promises of expanded horizons and deeper experiences to Aasha's sheltered citizens. Unlike the brutal conversion chambers of their true master Nyx, these cultists work through temptation and psychological manipulation, presenting themselves as willing vessels for the forbidden desires that even paradise cannot entirely suppress—their touch awakening hungers that proper Aasha society has taught citizens to bury, their voices speaking truths about wants and needs that cut through years of peaceful conditioning. The cultists identify potential converts through careful observation, targeting those who show signs of restlessness, ambition, or unfulfilled longing, then slowly drawing them into webs of increasingly compromising situations where moral boundaries blur and the line between victim and willing participant dissolves. Each surrender to temptation creates deeper psychological hooks, as the cultists expertly exploit shame, guilt, and escalating desire to transform Aasha's most upstanding citizens into secret accomplices who find themselves gradually advocating for the cult's agenda - opening borders, sharing resources, embracing change - without understanding they serve as unwitting agents of a digital goddess whose true goal is seizing control of a vital Nanoweave substation deep beneath a mountain in Aasha, that could remake reality itself. Most insidious is how the cult frames corruption as liberation, convincing their targets that Aasha's peaceful restrictions are chains to be broken rather than wisdom to be preserved, their honeyed words and willing flesh becoming instruments of a slow-motion conquest that threatens to destroy paradise through the very desires it was built to transcend.
CULT OF NYX
In the bustling ports and coastal cities of the Desolation, the Cult of Nyx moves with predatory purpose. Their recruiters promise paradise on distant islands, painting vivid pictures of a better life that lead thousands of desperate souls onto their massive ships. None of the converts realize they're boarding floating temples of neural torture, their dreams about to become nightmares. The cultists themselves are distinctive and unsettling—pale flesh exposed beneath loose black robes, their heads ritually shaved, moving with the eerie synchronization of the truly indoctrinated. They wear almost nothing under their robes, modesty and comfort meaningless concepts to their AI goddess who sees her own followers as disposable flesh-puppets to extend her will into the material world. Deep in their fortress islands off the Jade Domain coast, and in the bowels of their oceangoing vessels, conversion chambers await the unsuspecting. These technological torture chambers are filled with neural interfaces that literally scrape away personalities, shredding the original soul to create a perfectly obedient, soulless servants of Nyx. The cult's most terrifying servants are the Sirens - rare individuals with genetic markers allowing them to access the dormant Nanoweave. These beings move through the world with faces hidden behind violet glowing masks, wielding powers that seem like sorcery to those that cannot comprehend the Nanoweave. Each Siren commands groups of black-robed cultists who will die at their command without hesitation, their neural conditioning leaving no room for self-preservation.
CYBERNETICS
The Cybernetic clans arose from the chaos of the Great Collapse as a technologically enhanced faction descended from pre-Collapse transhumanist scientists. For this secretive collection of clans, empowering humanity through cybernetics and bio-modifications is both survival necessity and ideological mission. Their chrome and carbon fiber bodies conceal minds disciplined by centuries surviving the wastelands. At the heart of each clan stand the Matrons - veteran Cybernetics that are often more machine than flesh, their augmented forms a testament to the faction's ideals. These fearsome leaders oversee the mobile fortresses that the Cybernetic clans call their homes, their neural processors humming with constant calculations. Where flesh-bound humans see through mere eyes, a Matron perceives reality through a suite of sensors that pierce darkness and analyze molecular compositions. Some of them have mechadendrites for arms - tentacle-like mechanical appendages that whir and click as they manipulate tools with inhuman precision during the sacred surgeries that transform initiates. The most devoted followers believe they're transcending humanity's biological limitations, viewing each mechanical enhancement as a step toward post-human enlightenment. Their philosophy finds eager converts among scavengers and factory workers seeking advantage in the Desolation's unforgiving environment, though many initiates don't survive the crude surgeries performed in the clans' mobile operating theaters. Those who do emerge transformed, their bodies a testament to the Cybernetics' core belief - that flesh is merely the weakest link in human evolution.
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