Ville d'Alkenstar

Située à la pointe de la technologie dans les Terres Impossibles et au-delà, Alkenstar est un lieu obsédé par le temps. Les horloges sont omniprésentes, ce qui permet aux Alkenstari de mesurer, de conceptualiser et de travailler avec le temps à une échelle sociétale et à un niveau de précision inégalés sur Golarion.

A simple way to understand the Clockwork Metropolis would be to compare the city with its horological namesake. Like a clock, Alkenstar constantly moves forward, marking time’s passage with ceaseless research into new sciences and inventions. Alkenstar embraces the future, its population boasting a vast number of scientists and engineers, each striving to outdo competitors with discoveries and breakthroughs. A place which seems to run so it might stand still, Alkenstar seems forever on the cusp of innovations that both eclipse and elevate its previous accomplishments.

Continuing this metaphor, the city can be imagined as a clock with three wheels of different sizes. The balance wheel is intricate yet rugged and served by two escape wheels—one gleaming and immaculately maintained, the other pitted with verdigris and rust. As the three wheels move together, the clock moves, even as the movements generate friction and cumulative error. The balance wheel represents the city’s leadership; like how the balance wheel and balance-spring are the mechanical heart of an actual clock that manages its timekeeping accuracy, the synergies and squabbles between Alkenstar’s elite maintain the city’s path and plan its developments. The two escape wheels represent Alkenstar City’s twin districts, bisected by the Ustradi River; the pristine gear is the towering grandeur of eastern Skyside, while the corroding wheel symbolizes the magic-dead Smokeside’s smog-marked industry to the west. Even as both districts’ shared interests and movements keep the city running, their tensions and inconsistencies threaten to splinter the city, requiring constant corrections by citizens and leaders alike.

While Alkenstari aren’t necessarily more disposed to collaboration, many understand the importance of innovation and technology, both of which yield exponentially greater results when implemented at wider societal levels. Innovation and technology are the mainsprings of Alkenstar’s clockwork mechanism, the driving forces that propel energy into the system’s gears. As a result, the Clockwork City is a cosmopolitan, meritocratic nation which eagerly accepts new members, albeit with the caveat they should possess technical expertise or, failing that, grit and capacity for hard work. Alkenstar’s clans and guilds court individuals of resource and wealth, including deposed nobles seeking asylum and financial security and talented scholars desiring patronage. Different dialects and languages pose less of a problem to community integration when these various communities have the ability to communicate in the universal language of mathematics and numbers, allowing for an unusually vibrant concurrence of cultural diversity and scientific competency.

This isn’t to say the city welcomes everyone. Due to the nation’s position as a buffer state between nearby Geb and Nex, the geography of the magic-warping Mana Wastes, and Alkenstar’s violent history of fighting the Wastes’ mutant communities, many Alkenstari—especially older citizens—are notoriously suspicious of spellcasters and mutants. Spellcasters visiting the city must register their presence with the shieldmarshals, Alkenstar’s law keepers, and assist them with any magic-related investigations; strict curfews also confine spellcasters within the vicinity of Blythir College, the nation’s only officially recognized magical academy, which teaches spontaneous spellcasters how to control their potent magics as well as trains Alkenstar officials in appropriate methods of dealing with chaotic magic. Mutants have it worse. The city fears and denies them entry then drives them away with gunfire. Since mutants aren’t easily understood or categorized, most Alkenstari use “mutant” as a blanket term referring to anyone whose appearance doesn’t conform to Golarion’s common ancestries.

These contradictions sometimes leave the city lurching on the verge of collapse and, at other times, hurtle it toward unimaginable growth. In the face of looming geopolitical anxiety and constant geomagical catastrophe, the Clockwork Metropolis doesn’t always run smoothly, yet it remains a bastion of industry and tenacity.

A DAY IN ALKENSTAR

Que l'on habite dans les luxueux penthouses de Skyside ou dans les tènements spartiates de Smokeside, de nombreux habitants de la Cité de l'Horloge planifient leur journée en fonction des feuilles de chuchotement, des projections probabilistes des schémas météorologiques magiques autour d'Alkenstar. Les feuilles de chuchotement classent une heure donnée en deux catégories principales : une heure de Bronzetime signifie une plus grande stabilité magique et un temps prévisible, tandis qu'une heure de Surgetime indique une plus grande probabilité de poussées magiques et de fluctuations climatiques. La production des feuilles de chuchotement est un projet commun des temples d'Abadar et de Brigh d'Alkenstar ; les prêtres de Brigh utilisent des rituels horométriques et des analyses statistiques pour produire les feuilles de chuchotement, et les Abadariens se chargent de les distribuer et de les publier à tout le monde, tous les jours, gratuitement. Pour le clergé Brighite, cet arrangement leur permet de partager les liturgies et les bénédictions du Murmure de Bronze, tandis que les Abadariens apprécient la capacité des publications à conditionner le comportement public et à renforcer l'ordre social.

Bien que certains citoyens décrient les feuilles de chuchotement (en particulier les élites d'Alkenstar qui n'apprécient pas le pouvoir idéologique qu'elles procurent aux deux temples), elles restent populaires auprès des Alkenstari pragmatiques. Dans un environnement aussi chaotique que les Terres de Mana, toute chance de sécurité est souhaitable. En outre, les feuilles de chuchotement contiennent des nouvelles, des discussions sur la technologie et la politique, ainsi que du matériel pédagogique sur les sciences et les mathématiques (le tout avec un penchant non trop subtil pour les valeurs abadariennes et brighites), ce qui les rend précieuses pour les classes inférieures de la ville méritocratique qui cherchent à s'éduquer.

Dans le quartier de Skyside, où se trouvent les temples, les riches et les puissants commencent chaque matin à rompre le jeûne avec des plats de couscous safrané et des petites tasses de thé vert à la menthe, tandis que leurs vizirs leur expliquent ce que les feuilles de chuchotement d'aujourd'hui laissent présager pour leurs affaires et leurs intérêts politiques. Cette scène de détente dément l'agitation qui régnait quelques heures plus tôt ; alors que leurs employeurs dormaient confortablement, les domestiques avaient déjà commencé à préparer les repas de la journée, à remonter les clés des assistants d'horlogerie des domaines et à envoyer leurs coureurs les plus rapides collecter les feuilles de chuchotement dans les temples pour que les vizirs les étudient et les analysent.

Les jours où le temps de bronze prévaut, les nobles scions et les capitaines d'industrie de Skyside font preuve d'un plus grand appétit pour le risque ; ils élaborent des plans plus ambitieux et certains profitent de la stabilité prévue pour la journée pour entreprendre des voyages d'affaires en dehors d'Alkenstar grâce à leur flotte privée de navires et de dirigeables. Quelques audacieux se rendent même au collège de Blythir, le fournisseur légitime de services d'envoûtement et de biens magiques de la ville, où ils se renseignent discrètement et passent des commandes inhabituelles aux mages du collège. Le Haut Parlement choisit souvent ces jours-là pour tenir des sessions et débattre de motions. Tandis que les membres du Parlement votent et font de l'obstruction pour favoriser leurs alliés et s'opposer à leurs rivaux, les scribes consignent furieusement les débats de la journée dans des hansards méticuleusement annotés.

Les jours où le temps de surf est élevé, Skyside est une image d'austérité. Les rues bien pavées se transforment en boulevards inoccupés, tandis que les riches se mettent à l'abri et se divertissent avec des rituels de café élaborés et fastidieux, seuls leurs serviteurs s'aventurant à faire des courses. Lors de ces journées de flux magique, la tradition veut que les mages de la ville se cloîtrent au sein du collège de Blythir, afin de contenir tout accident arcanique dans l'enceinte de l'institution. Des gardiens, vivants ou mécaniques, veillent longuement sur le collège ainsi que sur les portes, les murs et les cours d'eau de Skyside. Il arrive parfois que des Skysiders particulièrement influents demandent la protection d'un shieldmarshal pour leurs propriétés, une pratique mal vue mais pas expressément interdite par les lois d'Alkenstar.

Across the Ustradi River, Smokeside is less precise with changing its behavior on account of Bronzetime or Surgetime. Smokeside exists within a permanent null-magic bubble, a fact that might lead newcomers to wonder how Surgetime’s projections of arcane flux affect the district. During Surgetime, Alkenstar’s inequities become even more pronounced, as municipal resources are deployed to protect and serve Skyside’s elites, leaving scant policing for Smokeside—an open invitation for Smokeside’s gangs and cartels to brazenly execute whatever heists, schemes, and atrocities they’ve been planning: robberies, kidnappings, assaults, contract killings, hate crimes. During Surgetime, Skyside’s streets might be as silent as the grave, but Smokeside’s streets often become literal graves for the vulnerable and poor. Whatever few shieldmarshals remain in Smokeside on these days are often overwhelmed by emergent crime waves, and officers often abandon their precincts in favor of providing private security to wealthy slumlords.

Due to the distance between Smokeside and the temples, by the time most Smokesiders get whispersheets, they’re already several hours behind Skyside in accounting for the day’s projections. This unequal access to information accentuates the many inequalities between the two districts; since Smokeside’s factory owners refuse any drop in production, they direct their employees to start work early regardless of Bronzetime or Surgetime. When workers’ unions voice objections, Smokeside’s industry barons smile, claiming these work hours simply take advantage of natural light during daytime, and surreptitiously arrange for union-busters to handle the disappearance or subversion of union leaders. Thus, rain or shine, the foundries and smokestacks blaze with the relentless fires of industry while workers numb their fatigue and pain with endless cups of thick, milky tea brewed and kept hot in sizzling tins.

Conversely, Bronzetime sees more peaceful days for Smokeside. Shieldmarshals and clockwork guardians tirelessly patrol the streets; as much security protocol as security theater, this spectacle emboldens Skyside’s agents and factors to venture into Smokeside to place and collect their orders. On these days, come nightfall, Smokeside becomes an entertainment district popular among Skysiders seeking risqué pleasures frowned upon in their stuffy district. Many Smokeside workers pull double shifts, laboring in factories by day and becoming croupiers, taxi-dancers, cooks, and other thrill-providers at night, to feed the Skysiders’ appetite for danger and excitement. Factories become casinos and brothels, and five-foot ways become coffee stalls and restaurants. While some of these workers own their businesses and enjoy the fruits of their labors, most are pressed into service (and poorly paid, if at all) by their rapacious employers. Drawn from Smokeside’s luckless refugees, orphans, and outcasts, these workers experience days and nights that meld into smudges of exhaustion and exploitation; all too often, their blood and tears lubricate the wheels of the Clockwork City’s wealth and pleasure.

A YEAR IN ALKENSTAR

For most of the year, a dismal mix of dust and fog envelops the city-state of Alkenstar. The Mana Wastes’ magical surge winds churn the Ustradi’s warm waters into drizzling backflows, which are tossed to the Shattered Range’s colder peaks before dipping back again into the Ustradi, creating arcane fogs that hug the river’s surface. Since Alkenstar is built on the Hellfallen Cliffs, where the river runs through and cascades into the mighty Alken Falls, this fog often drapes over the city, melding with the fumes and smog of Smokeside’s countless workshops to form a uniquely Alkenstar miasma of clag and muck.

During spring, this oppressive mugginess gives rise to the notorious River Shiver, a malady that leaves sufferers’ heads chilly even as their limbs perspire with burning fever. Pharmacists do a brisk trade in alchemical potions and herbal tinctures purported to avert this affliction, and every cafe and tea stall in the city boasts their own particular house blend of green tea infused with mint to alleviate the Shiver’s symptoms.

During summer, the heat rises to unbearable levels and scours all moisture from the air. The fog evaporates, but there’s no respite to be had, as dust storms and acidic hail replaces it. To make matters worse, summer is when the mutant-giants of the Mana Wastes redouble their raids on the city-state, approaching Alkenstar under cover of the bone-dry siroccos and sulfurous sleet and pelting its walls with stolen bombards and cannons from the city’s own Gunworks. Summer is invariably a tense time which tests the city’s fortifications and preparations. With summer’s end, Alkenstari look forward to both the giants’ retreat and good harvests. The arcane vapors occasionally create soils of great fertility, which Erastilian devotees seek and sell to Alkenstar nationalized farms.

The city puts these soils to good use to enrich the farms, which produce a surprising yield of apples, avocados, persimmons, and pomegranates as well as almonds, figs, grapes, pistachios, and dates. Erastilians also venture further afield, hunting and taming creatures such as crocodiles and hippos, ibex and bison, quagga and eland; the Stag God’s blessings provide his followers with unerring wisdom in finding livestock untwisted by the Mana Wastes’ mutating surge storms.

There’s a roaring business for this local produce and the Erastilians’ bounties, which break up the year-long monotony of the more plebeian fare of Gebbite food imports. While Geb’s foodstuffs are certainly nutritious and edible, connoisseurs claim a certain lack of desirability in food produced and sold by the undead. The trade balance with Geb is maintained by selling the desired Alkenstar ice wine to Gebbite patricians; during the fall and winter months, the Ustradi fog sometimes condenses into erratic, icy swathes, flash-freezing patches of berries and grapes. These fruits, frozen on their vines, are integral for producing Alkenstar’s ice wine, a prestigious and potent beverage sold at high premiums to the eager aristocrats of Geb.

Each year, the citizenry also looks forward to the safe launch and return of the Observation and Research Expeditions. These publicly funded expeditions—often shortened to ‘Observers’—take place once a year, setting off and returning usually, but not always, before summer’s flensing dust storms. These expeditions involve deploying fleets of dirigibles and ships across the Mana Wastes to study, discover, and understand new phenomena and resources. Each vessel is served by a diverse crew of Smokesiders and Skysiders, selected every year in grueling examinations that produce the city’s most promising and intrepid scientists and explorers. Taking advantage of the anti-magic zone’s stability, sizable docks have been built in Smokeside to launch these vessels. When the Observers set forth or return, Smokeside becomes a sea of fluttering sails shining in the gleam of gunmetal and flashing of proudly painted flags. Every urchin in Smokeside beholding this splendor dreams of joining the Observers to leave their lives of squalor, while every Skyside noble across the river gripes and grouses over the hefty taxes to fund this spectacle.

Yet, Alkenstar patricians still fund this spectacle, for the Observers serve three important strategic interests.

Firstly, and perhaps most importantly, the Observers gather raw data necessary for the temples of Brigh and Abadar to create accurate whispersheets. A society that runs on information has to get its information from somewhere; just like how clockworks require periodic rewinding, the information flowing into the Clockwork City must also be refreshed every year. The Observers are the primary source of information, which eventually grants some measure of much-sought stability to all aspects of Alkenstar life, every single day of the year. Secondly, the Observers are reconnaissance teams which gather valuable intelligence in plain sight. In the process of conducting scientific research on the Mana Wastes’ landforms and societies, the Observers also gather a lot of information about regional opportunities and vulnerabilities, which they analyze and provide to their Parliament backers and guild sponsors. Lastly, the Observers are unparalleled instruments of increasing political goodwill toward the ruling class. Domestically, they help Skyside elites manipulate and appease Smokesiders; the Observers’ egalitarian recruitment policy is a performance of meritocracy that affirms Alkenstar imaginations of their city’s opportunities and wonders. Anyone, through the dint of hard work and brilliance, can join the Observers—or so the discourse goes. For all the opportunities the Observers provide impoverished individuals, they serve as a hegemonic tool to reinforce the city-state’s systemic lines of class and privilege. During Parliamentary election years, the Observers become incredibly baroque affairs as individual Parliament candidates spend lavish amounts on dirigibles and vessels to remind voters of their contributions to society. Internationally, the Observers increase Alkenstar’s visibility and improve awareness of Alkenstar technology to the rest of Golarion. In recent years, the Gunworks have licensed these teams to sell small amounts of firearms, which raises the profile of Alkenstar weaponry in other regions—subsequently increasing industrial demand for the Gunworks’ munitions. The charismatic Observer teams also captivate onlookers with their verve and brilliance, leading to a swell in the numbers of migrant laborers and capital investments seeking to enter the Clockwork City.

PEOPLE OF ALKENSTAR

Contemporary Alkenstar society displays many influences from the customs and values of the Garundi Ustradi clans who founded the city-state together with Ancil Alkenstar. While Alkenstar’s ethnic composition has changed over the years due to the aggressive courtship of migrant laborers and the affluent from all across Golarion, both everyday life and general philosophical ideals remain rooted in Garundi concepts of hierarchy and value. For example, in accordance with Garundi traditions of hospitality, the Ustradi clans sheltered Ancil Alkenstar when they found him fleeing into the Mana Wastes.

Etiquette allowed Ancil to stay for a year as the clans’ guest, but thereafter, he would have to leave their community or pay tribute in goods and services to be integrated into the clans as a member of the lowest rung of society. In the Mana Wastes, this tradition took on especial significance; if one turned guests away, they could die from mutant attacks, thus hurting one’s reputation and morale. Worse yet, guests could become mutants themselves, creating yet more problems for the community. From enlightened self-interest, the Ustradi clans began to see guests, resources, and challenges as part of larger systems, which allowed them to identify what they wanted to absorb into their society and what they wanted to reject and protect themselves from. Thus, when Ancil provided technological gifts and solutions to each of the clans, and slowly worked his way into prominence and influence, the Ustradi clans perceived Ancil as a useful individual to absorb into their system. Reflecting this historical relationship, contemporary Alkenstar society is a blend of Garundi traditions of hierarchy with contemporary ideas of meritocracy and corporatism. When confronted with a new situation or phenomenon, Alkenstari are likely to study it to classify what’s meritorious and useful (and thus to be incorporated into the Alkenstar system) and what’s harmful and not useful (and thus to be discarded). While society remains Garundi dominated, Alkenstar encourages inflows of people and ideas that add value to society, leading to the creation of today’s ethnically diverse population. Gnomes wishing to study the Mana Wastes’ outbursts of magic and the city’s unusual clockworks as well as dwarves visiting Dongun Hold can often be found in the city. Alkenstar welcomes these visitors in the pursuit of geopolitical stability and economic growth, constantly seeking meaningful diplomatic and economic ties with other nations. Given Alkenstar’s position as a buffer between brinkmanship-happy superpowers, along with its industrial status as a producer and exporter of expensive military equipment, this tiny city-state always welcomes more friends and potential markets. On an everyday level, Alkenstar has a cosmopolitan attitude and appetite for imports. Despite their remote location, its citizens hunger for products, news, and trends from the rest of the world. Alkenstar merchants and designers work tirelessly to import or replicate consumer goods and services from other regions. Visitors might be surprised to find enthusiastic advocates in Skyside for diets and breathing exercises from Jalmeray and Thuvian floral supplements; in Smokeside, one might meet fervent drinkers of Tian Xia fruit teas with tiny tapioca balls, who swear by the efficacy of these drinks to quell the haze of the countless factories. If there’s a fad, fashion, or fancy somewhere in the world, there’s likely a place for it in Alkenstar. This openness and consideration of ideas might explain the Alkenstar propensity for working with science and technology. Situated in the spell-twisted Mana Wastes, every aspect of the landscape encapsulates an omnipresent duality of potential pitfall and dormant resource. Alkenstar lionizes the technical knowledge and technological mastery needed to overcome these challenges and exploit these opportunities. Scholars, alchemists, and inventors of all sorts are respected for their scientific expertise and ability to synthesize solutions for the city-state’s desires. After all, science and technology bring the Alkenstari unmistakable benefits. As a people whose insights and industries overcame their sparseness of arable land and surfeit of environmental hazards, Alkenstari are proud of their resourcefulness and technical know-how and tremendously confident in the power of research and development to create all kinds of useful new innovations. Technology allows Alkenstari to change their fates, to transform the bad and dangerous into the good and meritorious; some even wax lyrical that the city itself is a foundry for people that helps Alkenstari become the best they can be in service of the overall community’s prosperity and progress. A popular local saying best evokes this ethos: “Industry makes cities out of wastelands; indolence makes wastelands out of cities.” Underpinning this faith in technology and esteem for meritocracy is a darker obsession with personal merit and manifest destiny. The same ethos and environment that provide structure and inspire purpose for many Alkenstari also exhort them to internalize certain pernicious tautologies. Many believe those who succeed deserve to succeed in the first place, while those who fail possess some internal lack of merit which dooms their efforts. Technological paradigms are applied liberally to the self; individuals must improve on themselves like they would fine-tune the machinery of the Clockwork City, to become components that better suit Alkenstar’s systems, rather than attempt to effect any systemic change which could improve individuals and communities’ lives. The constant and proximate howling chaos of the Mana Wastes forces many Alkenstari to confront the absurdities and incongruities of creation; Alkenstar’s steadfast belief in technology is perhaps a desire to inscribe the significance of their own continued existence into the insensate furor of the Mana Wastes. Since the city’s inception, the forbidding Mana Wastes have killed, maimed, or irrecoverably mutated the majority of settlers and migrants seeking to make their homes in the Clockwork City. Why does this majority die, and why do some survive? Why do surge storms seize and hurl trains of securely-fastened wagons into the warp wastes, only to cease and spare the lives of a solitary wanderer? Why do the healthiest sicken and transform from the waste winds, while graybeards and suckling babes might avoid the worst of these contagions? Desperate answers to these haunting questions inform the city-state’s zeitgeist: “We made it here because it’s our destiny to have a good life”; “We made it here because we’re better than the others who didn’t survive”; “We worked hard to survive and so we deserve to thrive.” Even within the city walls, beyond the ravening bedlam of the Wastes, these thoughts persist, helping Alkenstari account for why some become rich and successful while many others remain penniless and destitute. “The rich made it because it’s their destiny to be rich. The rich made it because they’re better than the poor. The rich worked hard for their money and so they deserve to thrive.” As a militant nation caught between simmering hostilities and founded on national virtues of resourcefulness, industry, and resilience, these meritocratic narratives double back onto themselves to help Alkenstari justify the vast divides between the haves and have-nots. Onlookers often make the curious observation that Alkenstar society is simultaneously risk averse as well as prone to taking immense risks. This incongruity becomes clearer when one analyzes an additional dimension of social class; most plebeian Alkenstari work hard and bide their time to make better lives for their clans and themselves, while Alkenstar patricians are accustomed to using their connections and reputations to make, lose, and remake unthinkable fortunes in adventurous capitalist endeavors.

Many Smokesiders’ aversion to risk comes as a learned response, conditioned and reified by their everyday experiences of how their society and environment functions. Their resolve and tenacity to hold onto what they have is underpinned by their constant awareness of how easy it can be for them to lose everything to the Mana Wastes or, more often, the wealthy Skysiders across the river. The presence of so many uncertainties in Smokesider life, from the hostile climate, mutant attacks, regional tensions, and a predatory Parliament, encourages their cautious conservatism in making decisions and shepherding resources as well as forms their rubric to success and social mobility in the Clockwork City. Life in the Wastes is hard enough, the popular reasoning goes; why make things harder?

On the other hand, it isn’t uncommon for Skysiders to treat the fluctuations of gain and loss as a game of luck. The very enterprise of settling in the forsaken Wastes is a huge gamble, one which paid off handsomely for the founding Ustradi clans who have become immeasurably rich since they backed Ancil Alkenstar at the city-state’s inception. The clans’ wealthy inheritors and nepotists have seen new materials and inventions come and go in Alkenstar’s history, each time shaking, disrupting, and eventually shaping the city’s industries and economy. With so many uncertainties and complexities, it’s possible to make a fortune faster than one can spend it; thus, Skysider clans and guilds use their accumulated wealth to fund their members’ plans. When Skysiders tycoons’ riskiest ventures fail, Alkenstar society forgives and reassures them it isn’t their fault since luck simply wasn’t on their side before providing generous funds to try another foray or ten. When a gamble succeeds, Alkenstar society valorizes their courage and foresight. The discussion of luck becomes somewhat muted in public discourse, instead skewing toward discussions of manifest destiny.

With luck playing such a formative position in shaping Alkenstar perspectives, it’s no surprise one of the city’s most common pastimes is gaming. A board game favored by rich and poor alike is coaches, where two players take turns moving playing pieces, the titular coaches, across and off the board. The player who gets the most pieces off the board in the shortest amount of time wins. Coaches is a game of luck and skill, where dice rolls and movement of pieces represent the harrowing experience of transporting wagons and coaches across the Mana Wastes—bad rolls represent surge storms which can remove entire trains of coaches, while overly cautious play causes slow journeys and decreases the possibility of victory. This game unites the dichotomy of Alkenstar attitudes toward risk and strategy elegantly across social classes. While this game is popular in Skyside coffeehouses as a means for the gentry to practice foresight and risk management, the game reaches its apogee in Smokeside, where every tea stall is well-furnished with game boards, drawing players who wish to test their wits and guts as well as crowds of onlookers, bookmakers, and bettors. Technically, it’s illegal to bet on these games, but the innovative Alkenstari have, of course, developed legally dubious, though not officially disallowed, circumventions of these bans. In Smokeside, florists selling hardy desert flowers and succulents, tagged with distinctive, colorful paper ribbons, are always found near the establishments and gathering places haunted by coaches enthusiasts. Instead of betting on winners or losers, gamblers place orders on the plants sold by these peddlers. Losers of bets must pay for these purchases, while winners receive them as gifts. Every week, the game organizers host a special auction for goods and services, where shoppers can pay with coinage or with suspiciously familiar desert vegetation. The robustness of these plants makes them well-suited for continued loops of sale and resale—after every week’s auction session, the much-trafficked greenery returns to the hands of the street florists, who painstakingly create and retie new patterns of ribbons on them to ensure verification and scarcity of this verdant currency. The influential clergies of Abadar, Brigh, and Irori, concerned with industry, responsibility, and self-improvement, frown upon the widespread playing of this board game and launch many reproachful essays, sermons, and morality plays remonstrating what they view as addiction to this pursuit. Many players attend these sessions, trying to look suitably chastised, after which they collect the priests’ pamphlets and sell them to the florists to make ribbons for next week’s auction. The Alkenstar government, acting under clerical pressure, has taken action, though as they’re loathe to lose out on potential means of revenue, they haven’t stopped these games. They’ve chosen to simply regulate the betting by taxing the city’s florists, tea, and coffee, all of which are consumed by players of coaches in one way or another. This taxation doesn’t address the priests’ concerns but has reduced the number of games in public, placating the outraged clerics. The substantial taxes, which eventually contribute to Parliament’s donations to city temples, doesn’t hurt either. Alkenstar’s emphasis on fortune creates a desire to deny and ignore victims of misfortune. The poor, infirm, or wounded who can’t work to the city’s perfectionist standards are often derided as lazy and indolent. Alkenstar society is quick to blame people for not trying hard enough to overcome the harshness of their circumstances, rather than empathize and hold space for the realities of their experiences and existences.

Persecution

Many Alkenstari see the Mana Waste mutants as the ultimate victims to be avoided, or even destroyed. This animosity toward mutants has led to widespread moral panics. Since most mutants, by definition, are different from each other, it’s hard to define what is or isn’t a mutant. For a city so enamored with science, Alkenstar has extremely insular and backward views toward ancestries; in addition to the Mana Waste mutants, aasimars, fleshwarps, goblins, orcs, and tieflings have found themselves the targets of Alkenstar anti-mutant persecution.

CULTURE

Alkenstar invests greatly in the research and development of military technology. The ensuing innovations in ordnance and tactics have granted great efficacy in defensive warfare Cliffs overlooking the Mana Wastes, the Maw was moved in recent decades to the Gunworks proper, where it sees use every year in repelling wasteland giants’ summertime forays. The cannon’s sheer visual impact, in addition to its firepower, dissuades massed formations from marching closer. Ironically, such impressive weapons also draw the keen interest of giant warlords and other bellicose entities who covet the ownership of such prodigious armaments; the loss of the Gunworks’ mightiest bombard to the Gorilla King’s thieving raids a few decades ago still stings the memories of Alkenstar patriots.

Within the city, firearm licenses are usually the preserve of the rich, watch, or military. Nobles collect and admire embellished dueling pistols and ornate specialized muskets, while shieldmarshals and soldiers wield more prosaic but nonetheless effective personal arms; full-time regular troops and shieldmarshals use flintlocks. Hunters who venture outside the city, especially Erastilian foragers, enjoy the use of jezails. Many inherit these heirloom weapons from clan elders and wield them with deadly accuracy honed by familial pride. Alkenstar embraces a policy of conscription to bolster its defenses, whereby the law requires citizens to serve national defense efforts for two years as combatants and auxiliaries. Migrants seeking citizenship can volunteer for conscription—successful completion all but assures their legal assimilation into Alkenstar society. Particularly daring soldiers volunteer for assignments in the Gunworks, Alkenstar’s premier weapons plant, which endures the heaviest assaults from the Mana Wastes’ giant raiders. Those volunteering for summertime operations—when the giant raids intensify in force and frequency—count each month’s service as two for fulfilling their military obligations. While these assignments are hazardous and onerous, it’s an open secret that soldiers who complete tours of duty in the Gunworks often receive licensed gifts of experimental firearms, accessories, and ammunition rarely seen elsewhere in appreciation of their honorable service.

Shieldmarshals serving their national defense liabilities rarely enlist into the rank-and-file; instead, they form elite contingents of gunhunters, who locate and retrieve weapons missing from the Gunworks. Gunhunters embark on these retrieval missions to deal with special situations termed as “empty cartridges,” when firearms, especially advanced or unusual ones, disappear from the Gunworks. These excursions both protect Alkenstar’s national security and support the city’s military industries by preventing experimental weapons from disrupting the markets and battlefields. Alcohol isn’t commonly consumed by more traditional Alkenstari. The influence of Brighite philosophy, promulgated by widespread distribution of the Brighite text Logic of Design, has led to the categorization of food and drink into logical and illogical groups.

In Alkenstar Brighite thought, alcohol, which reduces precision and lucidity, is an illogical beverage, while coffee and tea, as drinks that give energy and alertness, are considered logical drinks. The famed Alkenstar ice wine is produced almost exclusively for export to Geb and very rarely consumed in the city. Visitors and recent migrants aren’t expected to abstain and can purchase a wide range of liquid refreshments in Alkenstar’s many taverns and taphouses; in all these establishments, Donguni soldiers drink on the house, in recognition of their invaluable contributions to the city’s foundation and defense.

Coffee is a drink enjoyed by well-heeled Skysiders, who enjoy tiny cups of these refreshments often flavored with aromatic spices, floral nectar, or bittersweet chocolate.

Popular among wealthy Alkenstari, these beverages require significant expense and time to prepare due to the costly imports of fresh coffee beans from Katapesh and Jalmeray and the onerous process of roasting and grinding the beans in mortars. The most affluent households can also afford the Tinwound Hydroplant’s costly, mechanically filtered water; this premium water retains a perfect mix of acidity and alkali, making it ideal for brewing delicious coffee. Skysiders entertain guests and business associates with coffee rituals, the unhurried process of making and sharing these drinks allowing for the pleasant passing of time with peers.

Though Smokesiders also drink coffee, its time consuming preparation means they drink it after work. Most drink hot coffee as nightcaps after dinner while they relax with friends in street stalls, claiming the beverage’s heat helps them unwind and prepare for bed. Throughout the day, Smokesiders instead gulp copious amounts of tea to fuel their exertions. Imported Gebbite green and black teas are steeped with mint and apples, mixed liberally with honey or sugar, and sometimes enlivened with cream or butter. These drinks provide Smokeside laborers with energy to get through the city’s enervating smog and masks the metallic taste of the district’s distilled water. Smokeside gets its water entirely from the Hydroplant’s steamworks, which purifies the Ustradi River through steaming its vapors—this cheaper process makes Smokeside’s water taste flatter. Hence, many drinkers sweeten and flavor their tea to overcome the resultant acidic zing, although some patriotic Smokesiders swear by tea with this bitter edge, claiming it as the perfect taste to represent Alkenstar’s gutsy iron heart.

Many Alkenstari see inherent value in education and apprenticeships. Skysider’s industrialist clans consider education to be a means of producing the best staff to help their businesses keep their competitive edge; many blue-collar Smokesiders regard education as a distant, if reliable, means out of menial drudgery. Schools, colleges, and institutes of all sorts flourish in the Clockwork City, offering lessons in everything from theoretical alchemical synergies and modular design principles to more hands-on traineeships on steam-bending wood and industrial kiln maintenance.

The most prestigious of these institutions are usually located in Skyside and funded by powerful organizations seeking to keep tabs on each generation’s best and brightest inventors and scientists. The Auburn District’s exclusive College of the Resplendent Vault, for example, is funded by the temples of Abadar and Brigh and boasts one of the best faculties worldwide for science and technology. Another prestigious school is the Alloy College, run by the influential Brass Guild, creator and licenser of many of the city’s clockworks. Ambitious Alkenstari gentry study tirelessly to pass these colleges’ acceptance exams; successful enrollment usually results in opportunities to fraternize and make lifelong connections with other scions of the city’s most prominent clans and guilds.

Nearly all of the City of Smog’s residents, from the lowliest scrap-merchant of Smokeside’s slums to the prosperous magnates in the exclusive Cloud District across the river, belong to secret societies. Examples of these societies include the reticent Lithos Clan, a low-profile yet enterprising collective of engineers which unfailingly places its operations in direct competition with the production plans of the nationalized Gunworks, and the Firewind Friendly Society, a community financial institution popular with migrant laborers which handles the cremation, funeral services, and insurance payouts for its members’ families. This practice has its roots in traditional Garundi clan structures, which influence contemporary Alkenstar ideas of kinship. Instead of nuclear family affiliations, many Alkenstari instead associate in clans organized along bloodline, guild membership, imagined hinterland of origin, and other affective bonds. This practice results in a proliferation of secret societies, often equal parts mutual aid association and quasi-criminal community protectorate.

These societies flourish due to the city’s bureaucratic overreach and administrative inefficiencies; since the city-state’s inception, the Ustradi clans composing the plutocracy behind the corrupt government have consistently monopolized the means of production. Flatterers and sycophants rise in position and nip away at public funds, leaving little for essential services and public works. Secret societies meet the resultant gap in needs, creating a shadow economy of support and legitimacy to provide their members with their desired assistance—most provide benign services like employment opportunities and scholarships, though others purvey in sinister deeds, such as vote-buying, union-busting, forced evictions, and contract killings. While secret societies might have evolved to address organizational malfeasance, too often in the present day their activities perpetuate the occurrence of further systemic injustices and inadequacies. Philanthropic endowments are constantly bestowed to fellow secret society members’ ethnic and professional groups, leading to new hierarchies of nepotism and collusion.

Public Schooling

Smokeside sees a preponderance of street schools—undistinguished, often makeshift, establishments built and funded by community leaders who wish to provide their neighborhoods’ children with the chances they personally never had. The city’s ethos of hard work and self-improvement resonate with many members of the proletariat, especially migrant laborers, refugees, and exiles desperate to pave an easier life for their descendants. Unfortunately, criminals often target these schools for various reasons. Some gangs treat these classrooms as ideal places to recruit technology-savvy members who can modernize and enable their white-collar operations. More brutish thugs outright attack the schools, seeing these establishments as undesirable competition. They reason that if children in classrooms can’t be easily attracted to crime, it’s best to get rid of the schools.

GOVERNMENT

In theory, Alkenstar is a constitutional monarchy advised by a High Parliament that melds noble rule with meritocratic systems to locate the most suitable aristocratic candidates for the city-state’s ruling elite. All three major state organs—the High Parliament, ministers who manage Alkenstar’s daily affairs; the Grand Duke or Duchess, a nominal figurehead and chief executive; and the Equipoise Council, the chief ministers who provide checks and balances—are supposedly staffed by the best of Alkenstar citizens, selected through strict processes of examinations and elections.

The reality is somewhat more nuanced. While Ancil Alkenstar’s supposedly apolitical descendants don’t rule Alkenstar, it’s an open secret the House of Alkenstar forms an unofficial shadow cabinet with significant influence over all three state organs. In addition to their sway over local municipal matters, the House oversees foreign relations, particularly diplomacy with Nex and Geb. They sustain the convenient fiction of the Grand Duchy’s vassalage to Nex and manage the complex alliances to keep the Grand Duchy a useful neutral buffer zone to contain both Nex’s and Geb’s aggressions—an arrangement that assures the long-term viability of Alkenstar independence. The House usually controls at least 36 of the High Parliament’s 73 elected representatives, granting an impressive ability to veto or back policies and allowing them to amass kickbacks from guilds and nobles seeking to curry their way into becoming a House-backed representative.

The House is also friendly with Grand Duchess Trietta Ricia (NG female human inventor), whose groundbreaking work in locating and reformulating Ancil’s missing designs—long thought lost in mysterious fires—earned their patronage. In exchange, reciprocal patron-client relations also constrain Trietta to consider the House’s interests on state affairs. Lastly, they can order audits on the Equipoise Council’s affairs, a power they rarely invoke, but one they ensure nobody forgets.

Complementing this shadow cabinet is the actual cabinet—the High Parliament. The members of Parliament are elected ministers who manage different aspects of Alkenstar governance and represent the interests of Alkenstar’s various power groups. The High Parliament are kingmakers as well. On paper, they elect and appoint the Grand Duke or Duchess, who serves for life as a first among equals and neutral arbiter to assure Alkenstar’s best interests. For many members of Parliament, though, the ideal candidate is an easily manipulated proxy and enabler who’ll advance their interests and stymie their rivals as well as a useful figurehead to distract the populace from their harsh lives of toil-filled exploitation.

The current Grand Duchess poorly fits that bill. Trietta, a former adventurer and second-generation Alkenstari, is beloved as a folk hero of humble origins. Gifted in both physical and social sciences, she’s a likable, insightful politician. The child of Chelaxian political refugees re-homed in Smokeside, Trietta gathered the overwhelming support of Alkenstar’s working class through a shared love of machines, hard work, and Smokeside popular culture. To qualify as a candidate for the position of Grand Duchess, Trietta also leaned on her family’s origins as ousted Chelaxian nobles to prove her suitability as one of noble birth.

Trietta is a sensible, fair-minded ruler with one eye on the big picture and the other on the long-term. To some ministers’ dismay, such as the disgraced engineer-entrepreneur Aredil Sultur (LE male human conspirer) whose political career survives his muddied reputation and the brutishly rapacious property scion Tamrah Graeson (CE female human opportunist), Trietta runs a tight ship and has proven hard to hoodwink, intimidate, or subvert. Under Trietta’s leadership, Aredil’s schemes to discredit his Parliament rivals—in particular Eliza Baratella (NG female human inventor) of the clockwork-manufacturing Brass Guild—have met with little success, and Tamrah’s attempts to absorb poorer neighborhoods into her family’s property empire have been blocked. It remains to be seen whether their frowns of dissent might cohere into more concrete expressions of disapproval.

Upon the Grand Duke or Duchess’s coronation, they traditionally appoint the Equipoise Council, comprised of the Ironmaster, Lord Armorer, and High Chamberlain, who serve as each other’s checks and balances and minimize conflicts of interest. The cold-eyed Ironmaster Ytharia Vulane (LN female human shieldmarshal) oversees matters of national security and is ably assisted by her pragmatic lieutenant High Shieldmarshal Zakim Adarah (LN male human shieldmarshal), commander of the famed shieldmarshals recently promoted in a reshuffle after internal investigations revealed extensive police corruption. The personable Lord Armorer Narda Hufftwood (N male human inventor) is the broker of Alkenstar’s industrial complex and sets the goals and quotas for production and distribution of technological goods.

The Brass Guild’s Eliza Baratella serves Narda as an unofficial advisor and helps him integrate clockwork technology into the city’s infrastructure and law enforcement efforts—an innovation tolerated with surprising receptiveness by Ytharia. The ambitious High Chamberlain Lael Branain (LN male half-elf rogue) is the chief bureaucrat who greases the wheels of the Clockwork Metropolis; as the intermediary between the High Parliament and Grand Duchess, he keeps tabs on burgeoning conspiracies and questionable alliances.

The High Parliament met these appointments into the Equipoise Council with consternation; several ministers protested what they saw as Trietta’s nepotism, as she was acquainted with these individuals from her adventuring career. These protests lost momentum when it became apparent these individuals weren’t on good terms with Trietta or each other. During their tenure as independent contractors, Lael and Trietta’s different methods created longstanding acrimony, while Ytharia and Narda come from feuding noble clans presiding over rival guilds. Once the High Parliament was reassured Trietta wasn’t consolidating a power base, and realized they could play off existing tensions, they ceased their complaints, even if they didn’t stop their murmurs, snubs, and other aggressions. If the council takes umbrage at this, they don’t show it; the council might be a house of cards, but its members are united at keeping these cards close to their chests.

POlitical Non-dynasty

The House of Alkenstar, Ancil Alkenstar’s descendants, stay aloof from the running of state affairs and don’t rule simply through blood ties to the nation’s founder. Alkenstar patriots are proud of their country’s merit-based transparency and eagerly list their political system’s advantages versus nearby dictatorships and oligarchies.

LOCATIONS

The following are a sample of some of the most prominent locations found in Alkenstar City.

THE BRIDGE OF THE GODS

This grand Smokeside bridge began construction a century ago, a mega-scale engineering project initiated by militant allied clerics of Sarenrae, Desna, Torag, and Erastil. The Bridge of the Gods was equal parts evangelical adventurism and quixotic hubris; the priests wanted a roadway spanning the entire Mana Wastes lengthwise to connect once-warring Nex and Geb with Alkenstar as a hub. The Bridge’s chief architect was Vijeri Ghazi (NG male half-elf demagogue), High Priest of the Dawnflower, who envisioned the Bridge standing tall above the Mana Wastes as a symbol of divine power both uplifting people from the wastelands and building peace in the Nexian-Gebbite cold war. The charismatic Vijeri united both priests and lay-members of allied faiths and persuaded many investors and patrons to back this ambitious project.

It was an utter failure. While Vijeri had garnered support from Nex and Geb, as well as many temples and international organizations, he neglected to gain Alkenstar’s approval. Many Alkenstari, wary of their contentious neighbors, opposed being linked so closely. When the legions of priest-masons arrived, Alkenstar rejected them politely, but when they persisted, the city restated its points with black powder. The histories don’t officially record the ensuing nastiness involving sabotage and assassinations as a war, but for many Alkenstari, this encounter was a formative test of their abilities to resist foreign intervention. The settler-builders left, and the triumphant Alkenstari took the aborted Bridge’s foundations and name for themselves to build a causeway to nearby Dongun Hold.

KASBAH ALKENSTAR

This awe-inspiring citadel of rose-red tadelakt and luminous bronze stands in the center of Skyside, a geometric marvel of tiled elegance and reinforced engineering eminently distinct from the brick-and-iron architecture more commonly found in the city. Overlooking the Ustradi River’s eastern banks, the Kasbah’s ravelins and bastions fortify angled walls against gunfire—nestling within the star-shaped compound are beautiful riads of flowered walkways and overhanging gardens arrayed in Brigh-blessed symmetry, the shaded paths proving perfect for peacetime trysts and excellent for misleading enemies during war.

The citadel’s network of minareted towers is home to Grand Duchess Trietta Ricia, who has broken with tradition in choosing not to reside in the lavish Gunpowder Tower, resting every night in a different tower. Since mysterious clockwork malfunctions and sabotages eight years ago, Trietta moved High Parliament sessions from the Grand Hall into the more secure Gunpowder Tower, a decision earning her considerable favor from many members of Parliament.

NORTH-SOUTH MEDINA

The streets and walls of this old Skyside quarter are pristine and immaculate, yet the overall spotlessness belies a growing, lurking tension in the air. Blending architectural influences from Nexian and Gebbite aesthetics, this neighborhood serves as a locus for Nex’s and Geb’s diplomatic missions. Legally speaking, this walled quarter is extraterritorial property belonging to Nex—the Grand Duchy, after all, is a Duchy of Nex by historical provenance. Practically speaking, only the most hawkish of Nex’s Arclords would imagine their nation’s ability to enforce Alkenstar compliance.

Instead, the North-South Medina houses those moderate factions in Nex, Alkenstar, and Geb who recognize the city-state’s sovereignty as part of a joint security area that maintains regional stability. Diplomats from Quantium seeking to preserve the uneasy Nex-Geb peace (and lucrative trade agreements) often seek postings here, where they analyze geopolitics, build relations, and occasionally practice the most noncommittal forms of espionage—actions designed to tip off their supposed Alkenstar and Gebbite enemies as much as discover national secrets.

This situation was once mirrored by their Gebbite peers but has turned grim as of late. Staffed by undead loyalists to Arazni, former ruler of Geb, the Gebbite embassy handles food exports from Geb’s zombie-crewed farms to feed Alkenstar’s population and oversees negotiations with Alkenstar and Dongun Hold. Occasionally, they might even remember to engage in perfunctory spying attempts to fulfill their espionage quota. Following the more diplomatic Arazni’s disappearance, the ghostly archmage Geb’s return to active rulership has seen the recalling of these envoys to Mechitar for trials of treason. Many remaining stragglers consider defection, but few seem willing to shelter Geb’s notorious necromancers and undead.

PASTILLA STREET

This street of humble restaurants in Smokeside’s Ferrous Quarter is popular with locals and adventurers alike. Nearly every stall here sells the eponymous dish of the pastilla, a delicious pastry encasing layers of spiced lemon dove and ground almonds, sprinkled with powdered sugar and cinnamon sugar. This enclave of eateries is led unofficially by the respected Adil Brothers (NG male gnome gourmands) who use everyday ingredients to create wonderful Garundi meals fit for royalty—conical clay pots of couscous and meatballs in tomato stew, roast chicken basted in turmeric-aged butter, sausages of ibex and lamb, all served with braided loaves of chewy bread perfect for mopping up delectable sauces.

The alleys behind the main street house makeshift classrooms, with copies of whispersheets and Brigh’s Logic of Design stacked neatly under the awnings, safe from the smog’s damp dustiness. Both Adil brothers, while illiterate, highly value education and believe everyone should have opportunities to learn. Following the brothers’ lead, many restaurants here allow people of letters to eat without paying in exchange for teaching lessons to the streets’ urchins and orphans.

IMPORTANT FACES

The highest-ranking cleric of Brigh, High Clockmother Athenth Llanalir (N female human cleric) oversees both the Auburn District’s temple of Brigh and House Llanalir’s foundries. Athenth combines her ecclesiastical and temporal resources to improve the Auburn District’s creation of technological wonders as well as strengthen House Llanalir and the temple of Brigh. Athenth’s tireless efforts have brought Alkenstar society numerous benefits, such as the proliferation of whispersheets and refinement of the Divine Wardens of Brigh.

However, Athenth’s ambitions have also earned her many enemies. She’s aware yet heedless of these animosities; she reckons it more befitting of the High Clockmother to foster invention, rather than worry about lesser intellects’ petty schemes. Athenth believes as long as the temple of Brigh and House Llanalir develop beneficial technologies, they hold Alkenstar in technological dependency; she reasons no rational Alkenstari would risk disrupting the Auburn District’s flow of innovations. Alas, while Athenth is a brilliant researcher-priest, she often overestimates the power of rationality in determining her fellows’ perspectives and behavior. Espara (CN female human gang leader) is one of Smokeside’s countless orphans. At only 27 years old, she has forged an impressive alliance between the city’s orphans, runaways, and outcasts, uniting various gangs under her command. This gang calls themselves Espara’s Paladins, in mockery of knightly ideals that have no place on the grim streets; still, the gang has a tendency to perform deeds of rough justice and community protection. Espara is better at motivating her followers than organizing or leading them, and the strain of management is taking its toll.

Many Alkenstari attribute their technological wonders to the esteemed intellectual Professor Radpol (CG male wellspring gnome polymath inventor), a genius at repurposing ancient Nexian artifacts into modern miracles of engineering. Radpol’s most impressive work is his optimization and overhaul of the Tinwound Hydroplant, the arcane power plant which utilizes the Ustradi River as a steam and hydropower source for Alkenstar industries.

Previously, the Hydroplant primarily served powerful Alkenstari, such as the government and guilds. Radpol’s redesigns added new functionality, allowing it to serve as a water-purification facility using distillation and mechanical filtration to render the Ustradi’s waters potable and safe for consumption. This improved access to water has brought poorer Alkenstari immeasurable conveniences, as they no longer risk sickness and mutation from consuming river water.

Few know this accomplishment isn’t entirely of Radpol’s design; his muse and partner in this endeavor is the reclusive Ustrasila (CG female naiad queen). The sole surviving river spirit of the Ustradi, Ustrasila antedates the Mana Wastes’ creation, worshipped alongside her deceased sisters across the mountains and deltas. Once, these effervescent spirits blissfully laughed and played, accompanied by their water wraith retainers. Then came the Geb-Nex Wars; the march of armies, the plague rains, the stone-churning, the burning of bone, and the endless silence. Ustrasila and her sisters collapsed into oblivion, their nightmares mirroring the surges wracking the Wastes. Though Radpol was initially unaware of her existence, his efforts to purify the Ustradi’s waters have awoken and inspired Ustrasila. The naiad bestowed inspiration upon the inventor, granting her ancient magic to aid his technomantic efforts. Though melancholic Ustrasila still mourns her loss, her connection with Radpol has brought her respite and purpose. As she begins to reengage with the world, water wraiths nest once again along her river’s shores.

Evil doers in Alkenstar must beware the Shadow’s Sting! The enigmatic Shadowsting (CG nonbinary fleshwarp vigilante) stalks Smokeside’s alleys, brandishing smoking pistols and tentacled stingers to terrify malefactors and inspire the downtrodden. The Shadowsting is a rare force for good in Smokeside who uses expert gunplay and psychological warfare in their war against oppression. No evildoer is safe from the Shadowsting, from the gangs who rule Smokeside’s streets to their Skyside industrialist paymasters. Nobody knows who the Shadowsting is, but many wish to find out—there’s an open contract on them, dead or alive.

The Shadowsting is Velmin, a mutant migrant descended from the forcibly evicted mutant residents of Old Ironside. Velmin is a shy, idealistic youth gifted in gunnery and tinkering; they snuck aboveground to explore the home of their ancestors, only to discover a hostile, venal land. Velmin initially created the Shadowsting persona to protect their fellow mutants but has found themself drawn into a larger war against the city’s corruption. Due to Velmin’s lack of local knowledge, they’ve picked too many battles. Now, they’re way in over their head, but still... evildoers, beware the Shadow’s Sting!

Bloodshed Ixora (LE female human Red Mantis assassin) is a feared agent of the infamous Red Mantis Assassins, especially proficient at hunting those fugitives from divine judgment who think themselves safe in Smokeside’s dead magic zones. Ixora acts alone—even without access to her divine Red Mantis abilities, she remains a deadly killer. Ixora methodically researches her quarries and uses mundane methods such as blackmail, poisoning, and sabotage to weaken and isolate them. In the battlefield, Ixora is an implacable whirlwind of gun smoke and blood, wielding the trademark sawtooth sabers of her order in lethal tandem with Alkenstar firearms. Ixora has received holy orders to slay a visitor, Amed the Coin-Counter (NE male human economic hitman), a visiting trader from Katapesh representing the business interests of Hashim ibn Sayyid, Pactbroker of Katapesh (Pathfinder Lost Omens: Legends 50). Amed is in Alkenstar to negotiate a trade deal of firearms with Dongun Hold and has contracted Espara’s Paladins as his local security detail, offering princely sums that would secure all the paladins a legitimate, prosperous life out of Smokeside’s crime-alleys. To sweeten the deal, Amed has offered a separate contract—if Espara’s Paladins can find and capture Shimon-Je (NG female gnoll abolitionist; Legends 51), a gnoll fugitive slave-abolitionist from Katapesh rumored to also be visiting Alkenstar to purchase firearms, Amed will arrange for the naturalization of Espara’s Paladins into Katapesh’s citizenry.

Against her doubts, Espara accepted these contracts. These jobs don’t involve harming any Smokesiders; furthermore, refusing such a big job would shatter her followers’ loyalty. Espara privately considers Amed’s offer a poisoned chalice; not only does it place her organization in direct opposition with the inexorable Ixora, but success also threatens to splinter her follower base. Many paladins are excited by this job, both at the extravagant payout and the chance to take down a living legend and supplant her in the mythology of the streets; for some, this job is personal, as more than a few paladins were orphaned by Ixora’s hand. Ixora has no desire to slay the paladins—she actually respects Espara. But orders are orders. Ixora hopes to find either Amed or Shimon-Je, and she’ll either slay Amed or locate and use Shimon-Je (if she’s even in Alkenstar) as leverage.