Sawa Ike
The Dark Matriarch Darth Shōjō
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1mnTq5VmRBI
OUT OF CHARACTER INFORMATION
- Intent: To continue to expand on Atrisian Lore
- Image Credit: Chroyane 3D model
- Canon: N/A
- Links: N/A
- City Name: Jiedushi
- Classification: Ruined City
- Location: Atrisia
- Affiliation: N/A
- Demographics: Fish
- Wealth: Low: The city is ruined with nothing left living within it.
- Stability: Low: Destroyed
- Description: Once a city of white marble and silver, the ancient city of Jiedushi stood as a place of Love and Beauty. Destroyed in the unification war of Atrisia by the Jade Empress. Who poisoned the waters, locked the city gates and broke the dam flooding the city to leave it as a symbol of what happens to those who resist.
The City: The city itself is still massive but now submerged partially within the water. Dangerous creatures are said to lurk in the dark waters and old statues from the Pital goddess of Love and Fertility are around the city.
SECURITY
- None
HISTORICAL INFORMATION
Once constructed as a symbol for the ancient goddess of beauty and fertility, Massive buildings of carved marble, murals, statues, bronze busts and priestesses across the city to welcome visitors to the temples. Training halls for acolytes in the temples, all were expected to serve shaving the hair from their bodies male and female. Being taught the prayers and rituals that would be used. It was seen a a technologically advanced city with water filtration, sewers and systems to make fountains, metal working, arts, theater and prayers. The fabled bell towers across the city to tell when to preform devotions, when to wake and when to sleep.
For thousands of years it is rumored the city flourished competing against Sarnoi for people, for influence. It was closer within the continent, it was near people and had more access to fertile farm land and forests. THey sought to unseat the people there but were turned back. Where Sarnoi had priests and people, the Jiedushi people had concubines and softer stock. THe ones who were for fighting as much as for serving the gods. IN the first war between them the Sarnoi priestesses legend says used beasts of the forests, beasts of the air and sea with fang and claw to tear itno them.
The first massacre soured relations even more but it also made them stay back, made them avoid fighting as the centuries went by and they got involved in different courts of petty emperors and warlords. The new people who had come across the mountains, the different ones had spread across the region but as soon as they had gotten and escaped from their tormentors they were turning on each other. Each one finding Jiedushi and bringing tribute for their services. Bringing priestesses to their cities, acolytes and with them their knowledge but it was short lived.
The first time they encountered her and her yovhsin was outside the gates. The Empress of Jade who wore armor and swords, hair a jet black and skin pale like milk. She gave them a chance to join her and serve her son as religious council. When they refused she promised they wouldn't survive the year and would bow. Returning to their respective sides the people of Jiedushi hid behind their walls and stone. They had their own systems for filtering the water, food in stores and livestock. Then their water and animals were poisoned, the Empress blocked and barred the gates.
She didn't bother to fight them, she didn't bother to offer a second chance. Barring the gates to make sure no one from the city can escape. Down the river where the irrigation and filtration systems had ben built. A dam of the water to funnel and control it so they could control their fields, so they could even control the river and mess with Sarnoi should they prove difficult. The Empress destroyed it with sappers. Letting the water rush in and smash against them, letting it drown the men and women in their sleeps. Children drowning while they kicked and screamed.
The city was destroyed and the wars of unification continued to unite all of them under her rule but Jiedushi sat there its history nothing more then a cursed place. Pver time it was said to have become corrupted from all fo the bodies that floated to the surface. Ruined, destroyed and with poisoned water things changed. Mist settled in, the once white marble seemed to become sickly and grey with the water looking black. Legends of monsters, of creatures escaping being hunted to extinction retreated into the destroyed buildings.
The centuries have preserved it as it is, submerged and mostly destroyed for now until it was visited by explorers during the plague and dark times. They found black waters that seemed to be polluted, with pale fish, malformed and blind... algae that glowed in the dim light on the surface and stalks of reeds that were sharp to the touch. Fish that could strip the flesh from bone and large snakes. Tigers, dangerous creatures that were attracted to it. The netherworld and destruction on Atrisia barely touched it leaving the ruins to be seen and investigated by explorers.
