OUT OF CHARACTER INFORMATION
- Intent: To participate in the ongoing contest as well as just add some cool stuff to the Nether.
- Image Credit: Flaviobolla, The Royal Cave Temple,
- Canon: N/A
- Links: (WIP)
- City Name: Misery, sometimes also called Agony.
- Classification: Urban Center
- Location: Behelion Canyon, Nether
- Affiliation: Loyal only to themselves.
- Population: Moderate
- Demographics: Ashen 73%, Other disease stricken survivors 20%, Traders/Travelers 7%
- Wealth: Low, What resources can be sold here? No crops grow, no metals to mine, only bones from the trees of bones and skeletons native to the Behelion Canyon. The brave and adventurous who have a death wish frequent the Field of Blades to search for blades and artifacts to sell to anyone passing through, any wandering traders who scavenge other goods from the Nether ultimately end up in Misery, the selling of the unlucky men and women lost in the Labyrinth as perfect brainwashed slaves has centralized in Misery, and a few sithspawn which have been somewhat tamed can also be found here for sale. Yet the amount of buyers to frequent the city are few and far between.
- Stability: Low, There is no government, no law, only the desperate and hungry willing to do anything to make their lives somewhat more tolerable. Those who are somewhat happy are those who have crushed others under their heel to gain some sort of local tyranny and respect, often acting as heads of gangs and syndicates trying to monopolize on the unique trade aspect of Misery. These gangs often clash resulting in massive loss of life as their slaves clash, being promised freedom or some small aspect of pleasure in reward for their service.
- Freedom & Oppression: Freedom? More like anarchy. Any man or woman is as free as they are strong as the weak are trampled and enslaved or perhaps even eaten. Yet if you are able to keep your independence you are free to do anything you wish.
- Description:
Great murals of blood or white paste made from bone (or if you're rich enough, paint) can be found throughout the city. Painted on the canyon walls, the houses, the street, anywhere really. These murals resemble little more than cave paintings by some primitive tribesmen. Yet here and there a great piece can be found by some doomed artist who has found their way to Misery.
NETHERWORLD INFORMATION
- Lucidity: Misery is one of few, if the only, locations within the entire Behelion Canyon that the living do not seek to immediately lay down and die from supernatural forces. Those who do often do so because life there is just as miserable as the rest of the canyon simply by the society that has arisen there. And it seems to act as the normal world, with easy and familiar laws of physics and time. The really noticeable supernatural force within Misery is that diseases seem to stop growing all together and stagnate, giving those stricken with them the ability to live a longer life.
- Hostility: If you bring gifts and wealth to squander they mostly leave you alone, but the weak, defenseless, or those who anger the great Merchant Gang Leaders often fall prey to the city in a matter of hours, ending up as slaves or worst. Although anyone with a blaster is also usually left alone as really the only weapons they have within the city are makeshift shivs of bone and stone and the occasional sword from the Field of Blades.
Ruin of Cradyn The Stricken
Cradyn the Stricken was once a minor sith lord who accomplished very little within the realm of the living. Yet when he was struck with a disease manufactured by a rival lord he scowered the galaxy looking for a cure, ultimately hearing whispers of a place within the Netherworld where all diseases came to a halt. He fled to this place with a few apprentices and slaves and carved this ruin into the walls of the Behelion Canyon. It was here that he lived out the rest of his days, desperately attempting to find a cure but finding none. His notes can be found carved into the walls of the different rooms or on great stone obelisks inside, teaching the intricacies of sith alchemy specifically talking about sithspawn and the creation of something he calls sith-plagues as well as how to interact with and enslave the spirits within the Netherworld. Many carvings of a personal nature can be found here, diaries of both his daily life and a few from his apprentices as well, detailing a slow mastering of disease and its usage and an ultimate descent into madness where he vowed to create the perfect disease to make the galaxy suffer as he had. The last entry simply reads "Infected Apprentices Without their Knowing. They have left."
In the modern time it acts as a temple where denizens of Misery go to learn the ways of the sith. No one particularly powerful lives here, most never going beyond the apprentice level, learning some basic sword styles and extremely basic powers. The Order that runs the temple is one of the most powerful syndicates in Misery, specializing in obtaining swords from the Field of Blades for personal use or to sell to more powerful sith in exchange for knowledge and tutoring. They are incredibly secretive, and are known to murder any and all who enter the ruin without their direct approval and supervision. The Order has even created a religion around Cradyn that very few of them actually believe but it is what they used to manipulate their underlings and the citizens directly around the Temple to bring them offerings and to stay loyal lest Cradyn come back from the dead to punish them.
SECURITY: Low
Really the only security that Misery has are the gangs that run it, and even then they are woefully under-equipped with maybe a dozen blasters to pass around all of them.
HISTORICAL INFORMATION
It started with Cradyn the Stricken, bringing his apprentices and slaves to carve the first semblance of civilization into the wasteland that is the Netherland. Yet with his madness came a brief death of this civilization... until his apprentices returned. Their disease, the Flame-Fever, that Cradyn had bestowed upon them had no cure and they returned to their prison like their master before them. Slowly others began to join them, having heard their stories and unwittingly having been exposed to the same disease. Soon, the story and the disease brought thousands upon thousands of criminals, sith, and the unlucky to live within this canyon. The early days were hard, having limited food and few being able to hunt. Many turned to cannibalism, others simply gave up and left into the Netherworld to never return. Cradyn's apprentices, using the ancient magics and powers taught to them, enslaved the local spirits to act as an initial work force to carve more for the city. Yet soon, these apprentices began to fight among themselves, forming the first and most powerful gangs as they tried to gain control over the city. Dreyd the most powerful of them formed the Cult and took over their previous master's laboratory and fortress with the help of the ancient blade he had scavenged from the Field of Blades known only as the Soul-Render.
Yet as the apprentices killed eachother off their knowledge was lost, and the souls returned to the wilds of the Netherland. The survivors collapsed into the chaos you see today, the gangs of the apprentices nothing like their former selves. Yet they continue to keep civilization within the Netherworld, no matter the cost.
