Ecanus
- The military heart of Nex, Ecanus was the war engine that churned out golems and flesh-wrought horrors to clash against the legions of Geb. It remains stalwart to its purpose of defense to this day, fighting a war against the consequences of the atrocities the citizens’ predecessors committed.
The stench of freshly exposed viscera, digestion, and rolling magic wafts across the fortress city of Ecanus. The source isn’t the active fleshforges once responsible for manufacturing the monumental terrors mobilized against Geb’s forces, but a wound in the city. Fourteen years ago, a district-wide spill of gore burst out from the southeast wall of the military holding and spilled into the corresponding quarter. The explosion of consuming flesh had erupted from one of the eight war factories bordering the city in an event known as the Evisceration. Since then, the viscera spilling from the ruptured fleshforge has spread from its point of origin like a sore infection. The district-wide mass of living tissue might appear fresh as newly spilled guts, but this corruption at the base of the nation’s otherwise marvelous and terrifying military frontline makes for an apt metaphor: something is devastatingly rotten in Nex.
Other aspects of the city reinforce this theme. Ecanus, now known for producing the towering, terrifying flesh constructs and titans that menace Nex’s countryside, the Mana Wastes, and even the eastern rim of the Mwangi Expanse, solidified Nex’s martial might through two avenues: deeply formidable battle mages and the crafted horrors created from the nation’s fleshforges. The latter is starting to fail, first with the oldest fleshforges sputtering in their sparser use, then with the newest erratically churning out horrors without any known command. With one of the assumed reliable forges erupting in the Evisceration, the strain to save face has begun to weigh on Ecanus’s leader, Principle Fleshforger Dunn Palovar, and the army who works under him to protect the magical nation.
He isn’t alone in the endeavor. The two other members of Ecanus’s internal ruling body have given the Principle Fleshforger the bandwidth to recalibrate in this turbulent era of the city and wider nation, but the tensions are starting to crack Dunn Palovar and his supports. Thus far, he has managed to maintain the delicate balancing act between each major Nexian city’s magical protections, placating or eliminating any rogue fleshcrafted thing threatening the roads of the Circulation between the cities and steering through reluctant peace with Geb—but Dunn Palovar’s subordinates bristle for war after the Evisceration, even over a decade later. With the possible return of the nation’s wizard-king being foreshadowed through the magical ether, many in the nation are eager to please their ruler through reigniting Nex’s obsolete conflict. Dunn Palovar knows that war, especially given the vulnerable state of the nation’s first line of defense, is untenable with Geb. How many of his own must he silence, banish, or kill to stop a war abroad before his own colleagues wage one against him?
The recent and grievous wound in the city poses a dire set of questions for the nation’s survival: what or who caused the Evisceration? Was it an act of terrorism from some forgotten enemy of Nex? Was it a Gebbite attack? Many citizens believe the latter even as they hope it isn’t the case. The Prime Body of Ecanus thinks differently, and Dunn Palovar is one to look inward. His mind tells him the threat comes from within. His ego moves him to accuse his Master Alchemist rival in Oenopion, but that’s too convenient an answer. He and his city might have to look elsewhere within Nex to save the nation. Whatever the wound is in Nex, it falls to Ecanus and its people to heal—again.[1]
A DAY IN ECANUS
Ecanus rises early and sleeps as promptly. It rouses by the day’s fourth hour, with Skirmish School students running through their morning conditioning to a tolling bell chime. They extinguish the street torches that hang at the corner of each block across Ecanus’s grid. By sunset, strict quiet hours are enforced with fines, lashes, or custodial duties for any disturbances of peace. The placid environment is instrumental for the vigilance that Ecanus strives for. These hours provide the space for city guards to keep up their watch to the hilt. Most of the city is a place of practiced quiet, even after the Evisceration, but tension runs through the streets thicker than blood. Ecanus’s militant composure quakes with paranoia. The city now walks a terse, teetering march.
A day in Ecanus is largely defined by the residents’ rank and station within Nex’s military. The city isn’t a place that can be easily traversed without a guide. This isn’t because it’s a difficult place to navigate—its wide boulevards and simple grid make getting around comparably easier than Oenopion and Quantium—but because it has so many areas meant for official traffic and no one else. Trying to enter numerous residential buildings in the city without a permit or appointed escort sees many travelers refuted, if not interrogated and investigated. The latter reaction is especially common since the Evisceration turned a fourth of the city into a living, growing organ.
Most locals are quiet, and there’s a sense that many of the common Wards who cycle the streets have blinders on toward a purpose. The more colorful a passerby in Ecanus, the more likely they either have a specific goal that should be left unimpeded—as they likely hold high rank in the military and specific agendas than the more plainly uniformed Wards patrolling in trios along the roads—or they’re likely to be arrested and dismissed from the city, on a good day. Initiates going through their “shaping” in the Skirmish School spend their time predominately in its campus and dorms in the northwest quarter of the city. Their morning is devoted to physical conditioning and both martial and magical combat training once the extinguishing ritual is completed. The afternoon and early evening are devoted to study and theory, and the late evening can be spent in leisure on campus provided the initiate is where they’re expected the next day and functioning effectively enough to internalize their lessons. Any prolonged unimpressive performance is made up for with the traumatic and dangerous Mindstreaming process to compensate the compromised time and effort of an underperforming initiate.
Fully shaped Wards still have a rigid schedule. Most of it involves guarding the city or guiding civilians, but often a Ward will be scooped away for missions by superiors—usually searches or even preemptive attacks against suspicious parties approaching the nation. When not out on assignment for a mission, many Wards also act as couriers for officers within the city walls or are set to working and maintaining the fleshforges or guiding those still suggestible fleshwarps headed toward Ecanus back into the countryside. Most Wards don’t have much time to cook for themselves and sleep at erratic hours due to shifts that keep them energized but not on a particularly normalized schedule. In rare unstructured moments, they dig into the provisions they often carry on their person due to the likelihood of having to leave the city for their duties.
The days of high ranking Wards (and officials who hold positions outside of the conventional hierarchy governing the Ecanusi military) are led more by tasks scheduled to be completed by a set time rather than the more rigid schedules of their subordinates. They largely enforce the schedules for the rest of the Wards in the city and coordinate other personnel of Ecanus, such as the cooks, custodians, and miscellaneous laborers referred to as Ecanusi “Shapesiblings.” These Wards have leeway to manage their duties as they see fit. If a Flesh, Spirit, or Mindward—the Ecanusi terms for administrative Wards of various types—is organized enough to keep their own affairs sorted and keep the cohort they oversee on task as well, they find themselves with a surprising amount of free time to use as they will.
Both low and high-ranking Wards tend to become rather insular because of the pressure to be constantly alert and attentive while working for Nex’s military. In private moments between delegated duties, Ecanusi military personnel speak of their anxieties, fears, hopes and memories through their tenure—even if it means sacrificing some of their sleep for this kind of rapport. The food in Ecanus might not be the most flavorful of the nation, mostly dried ghoran-provided rations and easily prepared grains, but it’s shared during some of the most intense communal bonds forged in Nex. An outsider wouldn’t suspect it from the rigidity and tension often displayed by the Wards, but behind closed doors, in the wealth of shared lodgings of the dorms of the Skirmish School or the many shared apartments housing the Ecanusi populace, the military’s claims to family deepen one night at a time.
That connection extends up the ranks, as higher-ranking officials do what they can to maintain their familial connection with their colleagues and charges. The most wholesome manifestation of this effort is the tradition of higher-ranking Wards cooking once a week for the teams they’re responsible for—or commissioning someone else to do so if they never had the chance to learn such a skill. This communal care is a tacit expectation that runs through Ecanus’s military, hoping that the created sense of family will lead to a loyal military force.
ECANUS SETTLEMENT 15
LN CITY
Government appointed administrator
Population 23,400 (90% humans, 3% gnomes, 1% ghorans, 6% other)
Languages Kelish, Osiriani, Vudrani
Religions Aakriti, Abadar, Irori, Nethys, Pharasma
Threats military discipline, rogue fleshforged, the Awful
Major Militarization The overzealous and often intentionally traumatized military police of Ecanus impose strict curfews, ask for papers, and just generally don’t trust anyone. The military police’s attitude toward anyone they don’t immediately recognize, especially foreigners, is one step worse than usual.
Dunn Palovar (N male human alchemist 16) principle fleshforger of Ecanus
Hectela Djaq (LE female human psychic 15) principle mindforger of Ecanus Imirh the Amaranthine (CN male undine socialite 11) principle spiritforger of Ecanus[1]
A YEAR IN ECANUS
Wards from Ecanus have an immaculate awareness of time and date drilled into them to support both the magical processes they’re taught and to maintain the detailed tasks that define active duty—day to day, month to month, season to season, and year to year. To simplify the learning curve of their schedules, Wards of Ecanus work on active duty for half the year, alternating their service between each season that passes by Golarion’s standard calendar. A newly shaped Ward who starts their tenure in the fall will see their next active duty in the next year’s spring, and then the next fall after that. Should too many neonates finish their shaping or Mindstreaming to make them fit for their responsibilities at the same time, the organizing Wards work with Watchers—Wards who record and convey data and information in Ecanus—to restructure new schedules so that some have time off before their tenure begins, though they’re encouraged to stay in the city and get to know its rhythms well.
Off-duty Wards aren’t exempt from their responsibilities. Part of their shaping in Skirmish School is in cursory divination practice, supplementing their heavy evocation curriculum and allowing off-duty Wards within Nex to be contacted for their assistance no matter where in the nation they are. The sensation of being contacted is often likened to gravity shifting in the pit of one’s stomach until it feels like the arrow of a compass pointing in a particular direction. This is the Call of the Ward, which high-ranking Wards can employ to rally their subordinates to action. Unless they’re part of the Prime Body, it isn’t typically possible for a call to tug at a Ward’s senses beyond the bounds of Nex. Because of this limitation, all of a Ward’s national and international travel while on duty must be carefully documented. While off-duty, permission to travel is very selectively granted, and even then, only after approval of a Watcher. Of course, anyone who was brought into Ecanus’s military family as a government deal to evade imprisonment in the Valkus Isle can’t leave the nation while they’re off-duty, as the expected default.
As a result of this thoroughly scheduled rigor, the weeks and months of the Ecanusi year proceed smoothly. The regimented obligations assigned to each inhabitant of Ecanus keep the Wards and their Shapesiblings from distraction, and the shifting duties for on-duty Wards from week to week keep them from stagnating. Tasks for a freshly initiated on-duty Ecanusi Ward are usually divided between time spent in the city and outside it. City duty usually lasts twice as long as time outside Ecanus—or roughly two months within the city’s walls balanced by one month spent traversing the Mana Wastes or the treacherous Nexian countryside.
As Wards continue to serve as defenders of the nation, they’re eventually promoted, most commonly to the status of Krata—or guardian—which yields greater responsibility and more flexible schedules. Nwilikrata, or Fleshguards, spend nearly all of their time on duty within the walls of Ecanus unless on a very specific assignment. They’re the city’s last line of defense and thus the most potent magical infantry Ecanus can deploy in a crisis. Often, Nwilikrata spend their time assisting the Attendi in tending to the fleshforges, patrolling the city, working as medics, and, more recently, leading Scabs in their attempt to quell and heal the Awful. Dunn Palovar technically oversees the Nwilikrata schedules, but lately he has left it to Nwilikrata officers below him as he focuses on the theorized return of Nex and the question of active threat from Geb.
Akilikrata, the Mindguard, are seen as the strategists of Ecanus and the middle managers of Nex’s military configuration. The Chief Mindforger of Ecanus acts as the representative and proxy of the Akilikrata to Dunn Palovar. Because of their involvement in the well-being of the wider nation, Akilikrata spend the most time outside of Ecanus, but they spend almost as little time as the Nwilikrata outside the nation. Their obligations carry them from city to city and claimed territories before pulling them back to Ecanus intermittently to report on the state of Nex. Some deeply experienced Akilikrata do end up stationed at satellite outposts—bunkers in the wastes or in the wilds of the region staffed with a contingent of handpicked Wards—but they rarely are used for more roving travel throughout or outside of the nation. The purpose of a Mindguard’s working year is to investigate and convey information to the rest of Ecanus to help them in their military preparations.
Rohokrata, the Spiritguard, are the speakers for Nex’s military, and their chain of command is designated directly by the Chief Spiritforger. As liaisons, diplomats, merchants, and spies, the Rohokrata are the most well-traveled members of Ecanus’s forces. Their natural charisma makes them hard to spot outside of the city unless they want to be seen, and that same charisma makes them popular within its walls. Because the nature of their work keeps them up to date on affairs within the nation and the broader whole of Garund, they often bring small revelries and holidays from their travels back into Ecanus, which the wider city is remiss to officiate due to the ongoing security needs of the nation and the tensions that have started to climb after the Evisceration. Most Rohokrata spend about a fortnight of each of their months on duty in the city—and that pocket of time is rarely consecutive, as there’s always a new diplomatic truce to broker or a suspicion of foreign interference to investigate.
Useful Vocabulary
Attendi: The technicians of Ecanus, who tend to the fleshforges.
The Awful: The lethal fleshforged viscera that covers a large potion of the city of Ecanus.
Mindstreaming: The dangerous and traumatic process of training a soldier by psychically forcing memories of combat experience into their mind. Prime Body: The Principle Mindforger, Fleshforger, and Spiritforger, who make up the first authority on government matters in Ecanus. Scab: Wards who spend their terms undertaking the dangerous work of trying to quell the Awful.
Shaping: The process of being trained into a soldier; “boot camp.” Shapesibling: A person who helps directly support military personnel through cooking, cleaning, and other necessary functions.
Ward: A member of Ecanus’s military. Watchers: Wards who record and convey data and information in Ecanus.
The Darklands
Perhaps due to its highly educated and magical populace, or perhaps due to its exceptionally tolerant nature, the Impossible Lands tend to be in much greater contact with the subterranean societies that stretch across most of Golarion. Most notably, drow aren’t an odd sight in the region, though their sensitivity to sunlight means the majority still prefer to remain underground.[1]
PEOPLE OF ECANUS
Nex isn’t a nation that places value on traditional definitions of family, but the people of Ecanus who choose to live in the city see their fellow citizens as siblings and their wider countryfolk as close cousins. They’re the officially recognized Wards of Nex, and while it’s a responsibility that they project onto the residents of the other cities of the nation, they often take their responsibility very seriously, going to the lengths of their abilities to perform their duty. Any questioning of the state has been drilled out of them by their tenure and replaced with a chorus echoing concerns over Nex’s stability and solace. That’s how it has been for a long time, since open war with Geb had subsided to frigid placidity.
Because there’s still prevalent enthusiasm in Nex for a reignited war with Geb, Ecanus is never particularly starved for more volunteers. People from across the nation, motivated by fear or excitement at the prospect of renewed conflict, steadily trickle into Nex’s first line of defense, saying that’s what Nex would expect of them—and implying that his nation should be doing more to stop the undead threat of Geb before that nation’s hostility rises from its grave. Then again, there are also miscreants taken from across the nation and presented with the choice of either magical imprisonment on Valkus Isle or their fealty to the Nexian military. Even with the traumatizing rigor that the latter holds, most jump at the opportunity to become a Wasteward to avoid the eldritch horrors of the imprisoning isle. Ecanus’s resulting demographic pool is wide. Unsurprisingly, a prominent number of the city’s inhabitants are humans, gnomes, and plane-touched, just as in Quantium, but Nex’s first line of defense is less varied—mostly because it accepts a far narrower sampling of its stranger citizens due to its relatively standardized military resources. Tieflings and orcs often make their way into wider acceptance in Nex by first becoming Wards in Ecanus, while the occasional drow—or stranger denizens like plane-bound, low-grade devils, and other extraplanar denizens—are folded into Nex’s military as a means of keeping tabs on these mistrusted parties when they enter the region.
Ecanus offers many other roles to play in the defense of its nation. Shapesiblings take up domestic stations in the city to support the Wards within Ecanus’s boundaries. Watchers accompany Ward patrols to document their exploits or record the daily workings of the city. There are many other titles that the residents fall into, just as a family has many different designations to organize its relatives, but they all serve to keep Nex a cohesive body rather than a chaotic bramble.
After their initiation through the Skirmish School, a Ward might live within Ecanus’s walls without lodging or living expenses so long as they tend to their duties faithfully. The trade is worth it for most. Wards from Ecanus are bound to encounter danger during their tenure: quelling the dangerous wild and magical beasts that threaten Nex’s three most instrumental cities, subduing wayward mutant clans from the wastes that threaten travelers within the nation, or—most dangerously—defeating the gargantuan fleshwarped monstrosities roaming the country when they start to spiral into visceral frenzy. These experiences all crystallize Wards into some of the most tense and serious folk in Nex, eager to fulfill their duty for the thrill it provides and the camaraderie it builds.
Yet in the decade since the Evisceration, Ecanus’s leadership has been increasingly sparse on the ground, leaving much of its civil workings to the discretion of its middle management. The lack of clear vision has led the recent generation of low-ranking officials amid Ecanus’s social strata to become disillusioned at their muddied duties. The past decade has seen a consequential uptick of spark-happy groups of Wards nominally going to the wastes to look for Gebbites to lay permanently to rest. These derelict, renegade Ward groups often become a task to be dealt with by more trusted members of the Ecanusi military family. In contrast, high-ranking officials who interact more regularly with the plans outlined by the Prime Body of Ecanus’s tightly coiled demeanor understand that the Principle Fleshforger would rather respond to the clear threat of war from Geb than be responsible for starting the conflict.
Some veterans of Nex’s army who chose to reside within the defensive city contemplate the possibilities of brewing up another war. Younger officiates of Nex’s forces, shaped by Ecanus’s imposed obligations, question their station in the world and have spiritually abandoned their obligation by the time they return home after their first respite from Ecanus’s defensive duties. The city harbors a largely depressed force full of evocative power with little clarity of how to employ it.
The great wizard’s infrastructure around which the city was built has become more perplexing as the city’s great fleshforges have begun to break down, faltering and going inactive or stuttering to life unexpectedly. What was once a haven of a city—a simultaneous front line of defense from invasion and an intimidating arcane presence for the rest of Garund to witness—has devolved into a self-defeating threat whose existential flesh decays more rapidly than the corpses of the subordinates lost to the Awful. Ecanus, for many recruits, has become a source of disillusionment and shame.
Still, the city offers prestige across the region. For some mercenaries, it even offers the promise of competitive pay for an Ecanusian’s evocative skills if they decide to move on from their Warding career. Enough walk this path because of such security: steady pay and assured food and lodging in exchange for ensuring that Nex’s front line of defense has formidable numbers. Those who investigate crime across all three major Nexian cities are likewise pulled from former Wards who largely learned their skills in Ecanus. Ecanus is stratified into a precise social rank and file to such intense degree that some of its import bleeds from the capital’s complex strata. Many who want to stay in the nation but leave behind Quantium’s insecure toil are drawn to the more structured labor and security Ecanus provides.
Most Wards are well-traveled. During their active seasons, they often venture into the Mana Wastes or through the barrens of Nex to the other cities in the nation. On occasion, more experienced Wards are sent to Geb in diplomatic negotiations or even as spies to keep tabs on the nation’s enemy and their tenuous peace. In the last decade, many Wards have been sent—begrudgingly, along with Oenopion accountants and Quantium negotiators—to Alkenstar to either assert Nex’s assumed dominion over the region or to buy and bring back industrial tools and armaments in case Nex’s magical defenses fail to quell Gebbite aggressions. These teams occasionally bring back inventors from the technocratic Grand Duchy who are willing to make a lucrative life within Ecanus’s walls. If Wards aren’t traveling on duty, it isn’t uncommon for them to travel beyond the bounds of their nation during their off-duty season, so long as they can receive clearance.
What results often is a civil militia full of excitable neonates hungry to defend their small world. The trials, hardships, and anxieties of their shaping might cause this desire to deepen but might also quell their aggressive edge. Many veterans hold a burning hate for Geb, though their experiences as soldiers have brought a sobering nuance over the years. The processes that trained them exist solely out of the fear of another conflict, and this knowledge can prove illuminating for explaining why the city’s leadership and the wider nation haven’t reignited the violence in the region as well as why their rivals haven’t done the same—presuming they weren’t responsible for the Evisceration. The duties of Ecanus’s inhabitants reveal the history the region has suffered, and if a few trips through the scars of the Mana Wastes don’t quell the taste for magically drawn blood, the experiences of a Mindstreaming quickly do.
Certain high-ranking personnel might find themselves stationed beyond the bounds of Ecanus with a contingent of seasoned and levelheaded Wards, placed at different outposts a few miles from the city as a first line of aggressive defense from any impending threats. Others might be assigned instead to Quantium or in Oenopion for a year or two at a time by request of the Council of Three and Nine and their (non-local) proxies. These individuals bring some color back to Ecanus, along with memories that serve as reminders to themselves and their comrades of what they’re all fighting for and defending.
Armor Masters
Though most of Ecanus’s spellcasting forces prefer to eschew armor, depending on their magic to defend themselves, there are some who choose to master the use of steel. Small but notable contingents of armored mages and magi learn to move and cast spells in even the most restrictive armors, and they’ve developed new methods to magically enhance their armor.[1]
FACTIONS
Though the social roles of Ecanus outwardly appear set in stone, pragmatic needs often see specialized groups forming within the military ranks. Over time, as these groups prove their continued usefulness to the fabric of the city, these roles tend to become just as calcified into the social order as those that came before them.
Attendi: The Attendi are the technicians of Ecanus, who tend to the fleshforges and their production by order of the Principle Fleshforger and the other officers who answer to him. Many Attendi have a gift for logistics but aren’t a great threat in direct combat. Instead, they research and teach the art of fleshforging and are assigned to maintain the fleshforges of the city. Thanks to the Evisceration, the last 10 years have seen the Attendi under internal investigation by the Chief Mindforger of Ecanus. The Mindwards have been restructured to hold the Attendi under more precise oversight by Krata and the most accurate and attentive Watchers. Thus far, none of the investigations have yielded anything, which seems to only point more suspicion their way.
Deathsealers: Kiifotaliish, or Deathsealers, are high-ranking Krata often with at least two decades of experience or an exceptional amount of documented skill shown in the field. They are sent to hunt the undead who cross the border from the Mana Wastes into Nex proper and are deployed to hunt down any undead reported within the nation. They also investigate the causes of any undead infestations within and beyond the nation’s bounds.
Deathsealers are the most dramatically uniformed of the Ecanusi family, clad in a white kurta, tight white slacks, and a hooded, full white cloak. One of the gifts they receive from their training allows them to dream from the perspective of the undead who walk near them. Deathsealers know how to follow the source of their dreams and stop whatever horror disturbs their sleep, bringing the nightmare to an end.
Deathseekers originated the tradition of totally disintegrating corpses wherever they show up within the nation—so long as they aren’t being used for any officiated kind of study—to prevent their animation, resurrection, and exploitation. As such, much of the nation practices a crude version of this corpse disposal process.
The Scabs: Though it sounds pejorative and grotesque to outsiders, Scab is the affectionately visceral moniker given to Wards who devote their seasons to trying to quell the Awful. They’re either enormously brave and devoted to their city’s duties for venturing into the Awful, or they’ve been forced into the belly of this beast by the consequence of their transgressions—an equal number of the nation’s criminals have been assigned to this hard duty as those who are sent out to scour the Mana Wastes. Scabs have started wearing enchanted suits of glass and leathers, created in collaboration between Alkenstar artisans brought to Ecanus and arcanists from Oenopion. These suits were designed to keep Scabs from being devoured by the Awful, as so many in the past decade have been taken by the quivering mass—but even then, the protections are limited. On more than one occasion, a Scab donning a so-called “viscerasuit” has missed a bit of the errant living flesh that slipped into their protection through its subtle seams, making the suit a slow and painful walking grave.
Wastewards: Prisoners and deserters across the nation who have been caught in their transgressions and can’t compensate for their considerable, but not egregious, crimes are often offered the option to join the military family of Ecanus. They serve as Wastewards, who are assigned to wander the wastes and quell minor threats of wild or wanton nature, from mutants to wandering undead, under the supervision and order of a proper team of volunteering Wards. Wastewards are trained in cursory conjuration magic through a deeply traumatic and dangerous process called Mindstreaming over the course of three months, or a week in wartime, so that they possess the combat skills of initiated Wards, allowing them to quickly relay crucial information to their supervising officers back in Ecanus. The process carries a high mortality rate, but for the disciplined, strong, and devoted, a decade of service as a Wasteward opens a path to becoming a proper Ward of the nation.
A Remote Specialist
The dragon Ghostmaw (NE adult umbral dragon) makes his lair in the wastes near Ecanus, but not as a threat to its residents. The church of Pharasma in Quantium pays the wyrm handsomely in both gold and homage. In exchange, Ghostmaw prowls Nex and the Mana Wastes, gleefully devouring any undead he can track down. The dragon coyly threatens to leave his post every year in order to secure even larger offerings, especially now that Ecanus is further pressed due to rogue fleshforged horrors.
Chain of Command
From lowest to highest, the following is the most accurate representation of station in Ecanus and the Nexian military’s common roles: miscreant; wasteward; initiate or shapeling; shapesibling; ward and attendi; Nwilikrata and mindward; spiritward; deathsealer; principle mindforger and principle spiritforger; and finally, principle fleshforger, who confers with the Nine and answers only to the Three.[1]
CULTURE
Ecanus is a carefully calibrated body of a city whose exercise currently threatens to outpace the effort it can truly endure in its currently infirmed state. When the first and oldest of the fleshforges in Ecanus ceased its work in 4704 ar, the city’s occupants simply shrugged it off, while its keepers investigated at a patient pace, sharing thanks that nothing worse came of the malfunction than a dormant piece of history. Complacency tempted obvious fate, and three years later, one of the forges along the outer perimeter of the city exploded from a dire malfunction—an event now known as the Evisceration of 4707. The southeast corner of the city was changed for the worse in the accident. Because of this event, citizens of Ecanus have indulged themselves in paranoia questioning the wider security of both Ecanus and Nex.
As a result, Ecanus churns forth into the new decade with an anxious, limping gait. Few come in, few come out, and all traffic is keenly accounted for by officiates of the city. Ecanus’s overall identity has slowly withered in the past decade amid the tumult, replacing much of its urban culture with the sterile march of a fortress. Boots are set to ground to tend to the hazard of the Awful day in and day out. Officials debate the rhythmic run of the remaining functional fleshforges. Battlemages of low and high station execute countless internal operations and investigations against suspicious parties and threats to the larger state. In the social machine of Ecanus, almost everyone has a role to play—including being made an example if they try to skirt their designated duties. A facade of order isn’t quite accurate to describe Ecanus’s culture, but the city’s tight choreography is tenuous, and its recent misfortune hasn’t calcified any sustainable harmony. On the contrary, recent troubles have exposed the city’s derelict conceptual wounds.
Ecanusi leadership struggles to keep its citizenry calm and content. While the Principle Fleshforger understands the anxiety and even excitement of a renewed open war with Geb, Dunn Palovar has also been around long enough to be afraid of the implication and cost of such a conflict. The other members of Ecanus’s local governance wisely share his caution and attempted temperance. They struggle with him to impart the same placidity upon a city and citizenry that was built and poised for war for centuries. The past decade in the city has seen the walls of the dam filling up near to bursting, what with the Evisceration’s desolation of a quarter of the city. And so, the pressures within the city build like the contents of an anxious gut. Unease and sickness in the air are mirrored rather starkly by the stench of the living flesh of the Awful that wafts through the city. Ecanus’s citizenry has always had a dark humor about them, but the last decade has seen that morbidity take on a decidedly more jagged edge. They’re a group of people told that their purpose is to protect a nation. Yet, they’re held back from that exact purpose by the very people who gave them that order, and for so long after the Evisceration, an event that has compromised Nex’s wider security and Ecanus’s integrity. The result is a citizenry who at best are looking for answers and at worst—and more often—looking for a fight.
Inhabitants of Ecanus are quick to action when allowed or ordered. It’s common for the people here to be blatantly and proudly armed, outfitted, and ready to go out on the road or into the Mana Wastes. With the exception of the young, the most lightly armored residents of the city can be reliably assumed as the most dangerous out on the field. Ecanus isn’t a place where martial aptitudes are ignored—part of the waking routines of the city’s Wards are a detailed workout and a magically assisted rooftop run through the intact three fourths of the city—but often, the more urbane and normal a local of Ecanus appears, the more magically devastating they’re likely to be in battle.
The fashion of Ecanusi locals is often handsome in its function. Suits cut and hewn in simple shapes often hide layers of protection quilted into the chests and sleeves of their make. The simple design provides little impediment to the practiced motions that evocation in the Ecanusi method demands. Higher-ranked officials who have forged the opportunity, connections, and fortune to travel or stay in the capital often return to Ecanus with far more flamboyant fashion, masking far subtler somatic methods for their spellwork. Because of the stench blanketing the city from the Awful, the common trend of Ecanusi inhabitants wearing conical masks stuffed with the sweetest smelling plants and minerals they can import from Oenopion has become a normalized accessory.
It isn’t uncommon for an Ecanusi resident to indulge in volatile pastimes. The lens through which Nex’s militia is shaped is an objectifying one. Many Ecanusians feel their relevance fade through each transaction the larger nation makes with Geb, forging a more comfortable economic understanding with its old enemy handshake by handshake, decade by decade. With a city trying to redefine itself as its governing body looks for more concrete answers to guide it, the reactions that spiral out from Ecanusi citizens due to the tension they sit in every day as Nex’s first line of defense run a wide gamut. The most structured of these reactions has resulted in the emergence of sports both mundane and magical, and often competitive if not outright combative in nature.
Of these sporting pastimes, the Ecanusi Battle League and the local sport of vexspar—a team-based fight to unconsciousness, termed vexation in the context of the losing team—is most popular. The league holds competitions in four-month cycles. The first month of competition is used for registration of teams of six combatants to have six-versus-six skirmishes within the school’s battle amphitheater for the three remaining months of competition. Often, the prize for being the top team in a league cycle is an extra month off from active duty, which many tend to spread out throughout the year around the time of major holidays in Quantium or Oenopion.
Another more unofficially structured pastime is Wastehunting. Some of the more restless Wards assigned to travel the Wastes or act as liaisons and watchers for Gebbite contacts or subjects might also use these trips to their rival nation or Nex’s claimed territory of Alkenstar as an excuse to hunt for strange and fearsome creatures of the Mana Wastes, most often the voracious terror birds. The more even-tempered thrill seekers who enjoy such pursuits, and who have duty beyond Nex’s southern bounds, often search the Mana Wastes for wayward parties of travelers or Waste clans’ people who might need assistance or rescue. Such recoveries of the former’s hunting trophies make for lucrative sales in Quantium for an off-season Ward, and the latter’s rescues often get folded into Ecanus as Shapesiblings of the city if they wish for shelter. Even more tempered minds have taken up meditation in their recreational moments while guarding the city, on recommendation from the Principle Fleshforger and the rest of the Prime Body. The calm it lends some is hardly an adequate patch for Ecanus’s quietly anxious nature.
Buried and Forgotten
Despite its many dubious practices, Ecanus rarely uses elementals to power its works due to protests and clashes in the past with concerned groups from Osirion. Some ancient or clandestine sites do have bound elder elementals, however, many of them forgotten after the war or kept secret by the mages who imprisoned them.[1]
GOVERNMENT
Dunn Palovar, Principle Fleshforger of Ecanus, is one of three people in control of and responsible for the city, at least in theory. The original “forger” of Ecanus is Nex himself, but after the great wizard’s exodus, various powerful adepts who claimed to know him—and then his broader mission, as generations passed—stepped into what became one of three positions crafted for Ecanus’s internal governance and external correspondence.
Two other positions of import exist to keep Ecanus working like a well-oiled machine and, by proxy, to keep Nex’s first line of defense ready and able to respond to threats or subterfuge from Geb or any other foreign power. The first of these is the Principle Mindforger of Ecanus, who helps shape the culture, announce laws, and enforce social norms of Ecanus to help its community function as a strong line of defense for the region. The second is the Principle Spiritforger of the city, who balances the heavily regimented burden Nex puts on the people of Ecanus by providing for enough of their wants and needs to prevent dysfunction, desertion, bad morale, or, worst of all, mutiny. Together, the three positions make for the Prime Body of Ecanus, who are the first authority on any matters within the city, excepting the Three of the Council of Three and Nine. Each of these individuals attend to the organization of their respective disciplines while naturally finding points of collaboration where the makeshift boroughs overlap. The position of one of the Principles, the Principle Spiritforger, was until recently unoccupied for a remarkably long period of time after the previous Principle Spiritforger was killed in the Evisceration. Dunn Palovar was only able to find a suitable replacement in the last year.
The Principle Fleshforger of Ecanus has historically governed the city because of their management of the city’s main purpose. While it’s a position that requires mastery over the discipline of fleshforging (and perhaps some under-the-table knowledge of fleshwarping), it’s also a station that effectively places the Principle Fleshforger as the chief military officer of Nex—a powerful martial station that the Three have historically reserved a seat on the Nine for due to the responsibility of overseeing the nation’s security. Ecanus’s Deathsealers answer directly to the Principle Fleshforger, as well as a team of six Chief Nwilikratas, who in turn oversee and organize the high-ranking Nwilikratas of the city. They see to it that the city has a consistent guard rotation and routes of patrol, and they interpret data from the Principle Mindforger and Fleshforger to determine operations that must be carried out around the region.
The Principle Mindforger of Ecanus handles many internal communications regarding Nex’s security and maintains the Skirmish School, guiding the process of shaping new recruits, volunteers, and miscreants into their eventual roles as defenders of the nation. The very first Mindforger during Nex’s rise—Y’oliim Karshanthryat—was also the individual responsible for creating the process of Mindstreaming during Nex’s effort to force Ecanus to keep proper pace with the opposition they fought. Many of the memories used as training scenarios in the process are said to be theirs, as they were a particularly apt practitioner who possessed an amazing facility in the use of all the schools of magic, blending them under pressure with devastating effect. The Mindforger’s assumed eye for detail often saddles them with the active coordination of maintaining the fleshforges of the city and designing new technologies that might be needed for Ecanus’s and Nex’s security. Their team of six Chief Akilikrata tend to take the tasks they’ve carefully outlined and delegate them to both the Attendi and the Akilikrata of the city—and these plans include Ecanus’s civic configuration, a mandate to search (and, if necessary, destroy) travel routes through the nation and the Mana Wastes, and the interpretation of data for use in defensive surveillance across Nex.
The Principle Spiritforger of Ecanus is often the eyes and ears of Nex, taking the pulse of the rest of Garund and even wider Golarion as necessary. They share a few duties with the Keen of Quantium, but the latter have a more international scope. The Principle Spiritforger is also the newest aspect of the Prime Body of Ecanus. Spymaster, assassin, and diplomat rolled into one, the Principle Spiritforger is often an individual of great charisma and poise, and while they might seem like the warmest of the Prime Body, their charm almost always masks a deeper motive. Today, the Principle Spiritforger also handles more pedestrian civil duties and is responsible for coordinating residents of Ecanus who have no military placement or are in roles of a more domestic nature. Simultaneously, they coordinate diplomatic affairs for Nex’s military and many of the nation’s most clandestine tactical operations in the region. Rohokrata of Ecanus are far rarer in number than Akilikrata and Nwilikrata, and so much of the Principle Spiritforger’s time is spent communicating directly with their handpicked Rohokrata, which has raised their import informally over the other designated Krata in the city.
The punishment for family members who shirk their duties often involves being assigned to Wasteward duty or, for worse infractions, exile and palm branding with the sigil of “misshaping,” which signifies that they can’t rejoin Nex’s military forces in Ecanus (while also being forbidden from leaving the nation). For more serious infractions that caused mortal harm to their colleagues, delinquent Ecanusians are sentenced to the Valkus Isle or even up north to Oenopion for an entirely different kind of “reshaping”—though this pipeline is one that Dunn Palovar begrudgingly facilitates on the express order of the Three since the Evisceration, in accordance with the will of the Arclords of Nex and Agrellus Kisk.
Designated Proxy
Even when Dunn Palovar must attend to matters in Quantium himself, he doesn’t attend in person. The Principle Fleshforger instead transfers his consciousness into the mind of a flesh golem, a technique his colleagues have yet to unravel the method behind.[1]
LOCATIONS
The following are a sample of some of the most prominent locations found in Ecanus.
ALAYLAHM’AWAL WAT NEX
The Eldforge of Nex sits near the Northwest rim of the diamond-shaped city, with an arcana-powered river running beneath it. The river forks out into a network of distributaries that circulate water to pools nested beneath each of the other Great Forges in the city. The Eldforge was once the most stalwart and consistent of these machines, and Ecanus’s city plan facilitated quick movement down five wide boulevards radiating southward through the rest of the city, through which even the most gargantuan fleshforge creations could travel.
The forge has fallen dormant mostly, save for occasional weeklong spurts when it can produce various biological forms with impressive accuracy. At the height of the nation’s extended conflict with Geb after the disappearance of Nex, this forge was used to produce copies of large, rare beasts found beyond the Material Plane, as well as clones of smaller people of note from Geb in the service of subterfuge. None of the other great fleshforges of Ecanus are capable of such an adroit range of arcane feats. Those close to the Principle Fleshforger have noted that such a critical, malleable facility slipping away from him seems to have taken a toll on Dunn Palovar’s formerly poised countenance.
ALAYLAHMI ALDAKRIIS
The Inner Fleshforges of the city are the most recently built, and paradoxically some of the most inconsistent, though their worst days don’t begin to compare with the implicit threat the outer forges carry after the Evisceration. Housed together in the heart of the city and set on an artificial island sit the four inner forges whose distributing maws face outward in cardinal directions, corresponding to the northern, southern, eastern, and western gates of the city. Bridges from the isle to the rest of Ecanus make a path for fleshforged to traverse over the water reservoir around the island. In times of great duress, these forges are used to produce fleshforged to defend the city’s interior, but their original purpose was to figure a satisfactory redesign to replace the older forges surrounding the city.
ALAYLAHMI ALKHARIIS
The Alaylahmi Alkhariis, or the Outer Fleshforges, line the enchanted slate boundaries of Ecanus, with two great forges to each of the four walls that flank the city gates. Like the Eldforge but unlike the Inner Fleshforges, the Outer Fleshforges deposit their finished work bidirectionally. One of the deposits opens into the city. The other, larger deposit faces outward. For some extended millennia, these forges ran seamlessly, filling the Mana Wastes with strange and varied beasts, but in the last century, their production has been cut back and slowed to precise purposes at Dunn Palovar’s order following the Evisceration. The northern forge along the southeast wall, Alayahm Visarh, exploded due to undetermined cause in 4707.
ECANUSI AY’ AKADYMIS
The Ecanus Academy, sometimes known as the Ecanus War College, is the large collection of buildings dominating the northernmost third of the city. Individuals looking to pursue a military career in service to Nex often start here after their shaping. The campus contains many of Ecanus’s official government buildings, including the Prime Body’s private quarters—though outsiders would likely have a hard time finding it due to the uniformity of the campus’s elegantly simple architecture.
ECANUSI MADRASAT ALMAERAYAA
The Ecanus Skirmish School produces some of the most formidable and feared commanders of evocation across the Inner Sea, with Nantambu in the Mwangi Expanse as their only rival. The Skirmish School’s basic commitment is a 2-year cycle; 6 months of intensive martial training and Nexian history, followed by a year and a half of arcane study intended to build an advanced understanding of evocation in its defensive and offensive capacity.
These learning periods are severely truncated in times of open war, with the 2 years being instead heavily abridged to a cursory 2-month intensive referred to as Skirmish Mindstreaming. Enchantment processes are used by high-ranking veterans and practiced instructors to simulate many different conflict scenarios the uninitiated might encounter in the field. Mindstreamed Wards are immersed in recreations of conflicts of the war, passed down through generations, which their mind makes real in dreams as an effective training aide. This process has proved dangerous, however. Only two thirds of the Mindstreamed Wards survive the process, and they’re often left mentally scarred by a war they didn’t fight. The psychic toll the method exacts leaves it a process only to be used in desperate times or on criminals volunteering their services in an attempt to commutate their sentence.
Y’ALVAZIEA
With a name that literally translates to “the Awful,” Y’alvaziea reeks of viscera, wet, living flesh, and digestion. Because of this stench, it’s best not to walk through the southern half of the city without a filter mask stuffed with flowers. The southeast boundary of the city is half rubble and half mutated guts spilled across the borough formerly known as V’drysha—a once-handsome and decorated district filled with architectural and botanical gifts to Nex from other nations. Only personnel volunteering or appointed to rehabilitating this sector of the city have permission to traverse the Awful, but the shambling horrors of the area sometimes make their way into the more orderly nights of Ecanus. Often these oozing creepers are mindless and swiftly dealt with by the city’s patrolling battlemages, but sometimes they’re more intelligent, adopting visages resembling members of the city who have attended (or snuck into) the hazardous borough.
While the individual threats that slither into the rest of the city are usually dispatched swiftly enough, the larger site of hazard hasn’t been scourged from Ecanus in two decades. The gaping wound in the city and the flesh things that pulse from it have their own complex magical protections. High-ranking Ecanusi officials speculate at length over why the wider site is not readily affected by their magic. The best conclusion reached is that the magical protections used to protect the former fleshforge from Gebbite magic have also granted considerable arcane protection to the Awful at the time of the forge’s rupturing. This theory has also caused Ecanusi leadership to fear Gebbite subterfuge.
Eyewitness accounts always seem to leave the impression that the Awful is spilling past its bounds, yet Ecanusi officials only offer cold placations that register to their subordinates and the citizenry at large more like threats against questioning the haphazard situation. Whispers that discipline can’t quell speak to a collective suspicion that the Awful is in fact expanding from its genesis, and suppressing news of the worsening conditions will do nothing to stop its physical presence from growing more potent.
Stalwart Servants
Though Ecanus’s fleshforgers tend to catch the most attention, the city also has some of the most advanced construct labs in the world. A number of golems can only be created with the specialized equipment in Nex, and unlike fleshforged servitors, construct creation is so formulaic that it rarely causes messy accidents.
IMPORTANT FACES
Ananda Rahira (LE female human magus) has spent her life in service to Ecanus, earning the position as commandant of Ecanusi Ay’ Akadymis. Her white hair, frail stature, and flowing purple robes belie a strength that can shatter door frames, one she can put to use with her curved staff and mastery of arcane spells. Her driving sense of duty leads her to seek out any opportunity to secure the glory and safety of Nex, and the Evisceration has only cemented her resolve. In her mind, too many potential resources have been left to waste due to a lack of conviction from the nation’s leaders. While she’s still self aware enough to recognize she’s in no spot to challenge the current status quo, those who know her know it’s only a matter of time before she chooses to act.
This eventuality is a source of stress for many, as Ananda lacks both the composure and forbearance of the Prime Body, showing little interest toward repeated calls for patience. She holds a belief in active defensive measures and shows of force; if a weapon exists, it’s meant to be employed, and it’s no secret that Ananda tacitly encourages the most rebellious among the Wards, even if she has never been caught aiding or abetting them. Some fear her actions might spark open conflict with Geb, especially when the unsolved mystery of the Evisceration possesses such an obvious scapegoat. In truth, the commandant is a greater danger to those closer to home. She spends most of her time investigating and studying ancient war machines and weapons from Nex’s past, vowing to put their power to use once more. At her worst, Ananda is already watching the balance of power in Nex and plotting, looking for any opportunity to dash in and wrest powerful weapons and artifacts from her fellows. At best, Ananda might succeed at revitalizing her decaying engines of war and use them to further deepen the unhealed wounds of the Impossible Lands.
Dunn Palovar (LN male human alchemist), Principle Fleshforger of Ecanus, has rarely been seen by the people of Ecanus, let alone Nex’s wider populace. A slight blade of a man whose lean frame holds inhuman years of age, Dunn often complements his slender stature with the countenance of a misanthrope when in a shared space. The function is twofold. First, the Principle Fleshforger must be in as many places as his rival Borume of Oenopion often is. Second, the mysterious and dubious circumstances under which Dunn inherited his lofty position has made a general of the scholar, and a general transplanted from the mindset of academia makes for a paranoid one.
This cautious disposition isn’t baseless; Dunn’s predecessors have died in battle and assassination alike, and a domestic crisis is growing under his feet as the city’s faculties have begun to fail him. For most matters within Nex and Ecanus, Dunn has various flesh proxies that serve as capable-enough vessels to execute his correspondences with the Council of Three and Nine while he continues to investigate the origin of the Evisceration. He doesn’t suspect agents from Geb or unfortunate malfunction, but cruel sabotage from his grievous local rival—the Master Alchemist Borume of Oenopion, who Palovar is aware has used the last 13 years to profit from the nation’s (and, more particularly, the Arclords of Nex’s) lust for conflict and war to appease a master who shows signs of a return from ethereal elsewhere.
Hectela Djaq (LE female human psychic) attends her duty as the chief Mindforger of Ecanus with a grim seriousness that has served her career in Ecanus well, earning Dunn Palovar’s solemn trust. As Principle Mindforger of Ecanus, she inherited the memories used for Mindstreaming to pass onto another generation, imparting them upon her Chief Akilikrata so that they might in turn impart the age-old lessons of power and penalty upon the miscreants who join Nex’s arcana-martial ranks. Hectela is running from something, though. Thoughts of a place filled with prisoners subjected to the predation of horrific beasts, monsters, and magics slide through the memories she has given her subordinates for the Mindstreaming process. Hectela did what nobody else should have ever been able to do. She escaped from Valkus Isle.
Hectela is haunted by her time on the island. It isn’t the extraplanar horrors or the infighting with other prisoners that rends at her mind and memory. It’s that someone is after her, and if she was able to escape, so could her old cohort. She’s put whatever she did behind her, but her memories of hiding in a half-forged palace hanging half in the Material Plane and half in the next, hiding from her partner in crime and knowing if she’s found then she’ll cease to be, carries an inexplicable terror like no other. Berekh, her old partner, knew the risk—the impossibility—when they decided to help Hectela steal the Divination Cube of Nex from the Isle, and though they were left behind, they likely have the cube, if they still live. They’ll want to know why they were abandoned.
So, Hectela tries to rid herself of the memories with Mindstreaming, but the process wasn’t designed to purge one of the memories they impart. All Hectela has accomplished is to foist her fragmented memories onto her Chief Akilikrata, and the Akilikrata, Wards, and Wastewards below them in a cascading waterfall of psychic trauma. These criminals, if they ever found themselves imprisoned once more, would be able to piece together Hectela’s mysterious method of escape from the Valkus Isle. More than one of them have wondered, as she has for the last 20 years—is tonight the night Berekh takes their revenge?
Imirh the Amaranthine (CN male undine socialite) is quite the charmer. Even though he’s just geniekin, he has been able to grant more wishes in his personal life than his auspicious ancestors manage to. Being a smooth talker with a sweet tongue opens doors for someone with such talents to grant worldly desires—and when the world doesn’t realize that the wishes he’s granting are his own, through the proxy of his chosen querent, it’s a rather easy thing to fulfill. In true Quantium style, as is befitting one of the Populasi class, the Amaranthine dresses fashionably and, some would even say, sensually. His tall, androgynous frame, lean and well muscled, sticks out in a crowd because of how he moves through it—like water. The Amaranthine, after all, is an undine, and a rather noticeable one when he wants to be, which is often. Why else would such a striking fellow wear such a strikingly colored outfit?
Amazingly, for an individual raised in the game of Quantium’s social strata, the Amaranthine realized that he didn’t want to be seen all the time. Instead, what Imirh does is see almost everything, all the time. As part of a family line who had long ago turned away from the Bandesharite and the Council of Three and Nine after the imprisonment of his lineage’s patriarch in Warlock Walk, the Amaranthine shouldn’t have been able to easily see the doorways and bridges from the Juali and the Nwezi to the Bandeshar—but if there’s something Imirh the Amaranthine is exceptional at finding, it’s an opening. In a rare moment where he wasn’t trailed by flushed attentions and empty affections, Imirh happened across a doorway not meant for him, even though his Bandesharite cousins had been stepping through it and back for their own official affairs for the entirety of his life. So, he followed their suit.
Few see as much as Imirh, and only one really sees more. Iranez of the Orb was the one to spot the Amaranthine walking through the halls of the palace and somehow navigating its tricks and twists as if he had the Elder Architect’s mind. She made him one of her Keen. The next 2 years accelerated quickly—the Evisceration happened, and Iranez presented Imirh to Dunn Palovar as the best possible replacement to the prior Principle Spiritforger. When the Amaranthine took the mantle, Iranez presented him with one question both she and the Principle Fleshforger want answered: who caused the Evisceration? They’ve been waiting 14 years now for his answer, and his deadline fast approaches as another war with Geb looms ever closer.
Yanziif (N fleshforged witness) was there 14 years ago when the Evisceration happened, and they haven’t left the site since—though it isn’t for a lack of trying. Few have heard of the unfortunate soul who wandered into the Awful, and those who have come close enough to see are usually subsumed. Yanziif is different. They’ve held onto themself for this long despite not being able to escape the ruined site as it spreads. They see people trickle in from the city, sometimes with a purpose, sometimes out of morbid curiosity. Yanziif tries to guide these people out, but the Awful keeps consuming them.
If just one of person could get out, maybe that survivor could share what Yanziif knows, what they saw at the fleshforge before the Evisceration, because Yanziif can’t hold on to themself forever. Their third eye is finally starting to close, and the other two will soon follow.[1]