Sawa Ike
The Dark Matriarch Darth Shōjō
OUT OF CHARACTER INFORMATION
THe 47 Yovshin: Carved into the very face of the mountains are the Forty-Seven Yovshin, colossal statues that stand as a permanent and solemn testament to failure. According to imperial legend, the Yovshin an elite order of imperial guardians failed in their sacred duty. They neither saw a grave threat to the emperor nor stood their ground to defend him, instead fleeing in fear. As their eternal punishment, they were magically entombed within the stone, transformed into these immense sentinels. The curse that binds them is poetically cruel: their eyes, which failed to see the danger, are now condemned to stare forever out across the mountains, eternally watching for the ancient enemies they once failed to stop.
Chaina: Nestled in a high, isolated valley lies Chaina, a city synonymous with tragedy. It was the first and most ambitious attempt to establish a permanent settlement within the mountains themselves. This ambition was met with relentless, mysterious doom. Chaina has been settled and subsequently fallen over a dozen times, with each colony meeting a silent, inexplicable end. The latest attempt saw a community of five thousand souls men, women, and children vanish without a trace. No bodies were found, no struggle was evident. The only clue left behind was a single, ancient Atrisian word carved crudely into the main gate. Now, Chaina stands as a monument to the dead, a perfectly preserved city of empty streets and silent buildings. The most unnerving aspect is not its age, but its sterility. While one would expect the city to be choked with weeds and reclaimied by the forest, not a single plant grows within its walls. The very earth seems to reject life here, a chilling detail that gives silent credence to the dark legends that shroud the place.
Yeem: All rivers of the Nhai canyons eventually drain into Yeem, a vast, subterranean ocean hidden deep beneath the mountains. This is a world of absolute blackness, untouched by the sun for eons. The waters are preternaturally cold, so frigid that legends warn a single touch can flash-freeze a man's flesh. This sunless abyss is home to a unique and eerie ecosystem of pale, ghostly fish, many of which have evolved without sight, their forms slightly deformed by the immense pressure and eternal darkness. To find Yeem is to stand at the edge of a primordial abyss, a silent, freezing sea that holds its secrets close in the endless night.
Palace of the Lord of Swans: Perched atop the mountain peaks, the highest and most strategically critical of the five fortified passes, sits the Palace of the Lord of Swans. This is not a brutish fortress, but a marvel of elegant yet formidable architecture, designed as much for observation as for defense. Its sweeping, curved roofs resemble the wings of the namesake Tsura, and its kazue stone walls are inlaid with polished jade that catches the dawn light, making the entire structure gleam like a beacon. This is the command center and residence of the Swan General, the imperial appointed guardian of the Nhai frontier. From this aerial citadel, the General oversees the mountain passes, coordinates the garrison fortresses, and monitors all air traffic daring to cross the peaks. The Palace is a symbol of the empire's unwavering authority, a place where strategic maps are never rolled up and the watch-fires are never extinguished. To be summoned here is to stand in the presence of the very will of the empire, embodied by a commander whose gaze is as sharp and far-reaching as the eagles that nest in the peaks below.
Weeping Library of Kwan-Lo: Tucked away in a narrow, perpetually shadowed canyon is the entrance to the Weeping Library of Kwan-Lo. The approach is marked by a strange, constant mist that feels unnervingly like cold tears on the skin. The library itself is not a building of wood and stone, but a vast, natural cavern system where knowledge is not written on parchment, but preserved in ice. Ancient, frozen waterfalls form the "stacks" and "shelves" of this repository. Encased within the perfectly clear, blue ice are the spirits of long-dead scholars, monks, and mystics their final moments of enlightenment, despair, or revelation frozen in time. Visitors who press their ear to the ice claim to hear faint whispers, the echoes of the thoughts and memories trapped within. It is said that the Library collects truths too dangerous or too sorrowful for the world of the living. Some seek it for forgotten wisdom, others to hide a secret forever by entrusting it to the weeping ice. But the Library gives its knowledge grudgingly; for every answer revealed, the seeker must leave a memory of their own in return, which the caverns slowly freeze and add to their sorrowful collection.
The Agora: Deep within the heart of the range, shielded by treacherous peaks and powerful, ancient illusions, lies the Agora of the Wukong. This is the secluded sanctuary of the Atrisian force users who are under the guidance of Fang Min. The Agora is not a city, but a harmonious integration of nature and subtle artistry. Pagodas seem to grow from the living rock and branches, connected by kazue stone bridges that with jagged pinnacles. Tranquil pools reflect the sky, and kyberite gardens are cultivated with flora found nowhere else in the world.
HISTORICAL INFORMATION
Not much actual fact is known about the mountain range from when it was first crossed or what had happened to chase most of the people across it. What was found from carvings and paintings on the rocks by historians show a conflict that led to Taito leading ten thousand clans across the mountains of Nhai. Many perished, from starvation as the soil was more stone and rock then able to support crops, many more became sick as new exotic illnesses seemed to crop up when they were spending to much time in proximity, still some simply gave up and decided to head back. What is believed to have been ten thousand clans.... might have really been inflated to make it wsound that much more impressive... but there is evidence to support that a massive group went through using two fo the main passes. While other forged and scouted trails for smaller groups.
ONce they managed to find their way through the mountains of NHai there was another series of problems. The land was unsettled, ancient and rife with all manner of creatures. From the recounts of the legends and collected oral histories that were first put down. There were mystical creatures throughout the jungles, forests and plains but the people didn't fear. They had the mountains at their back and the great oceans to the north and south of them. THey were safe from harm and as the planet itself was being buitl up so the mountain range was explored. Going far to the north into snowy polar regions or to the deepest south with deserts. As they worked to map it the mountains themselves seemed to go on forever and with new information from ships they are some of the largest on the planet. With only a handful of passes able to let an army or massive amount of people through.
More impressive though is some fo thje stories tha have gone into it, the oldest coming from the first clans, the ones who sought to control everything. THey went into the mountains to build a grand city that would connect them and allow them to observe their once great home. twenty thousand stone workers, soldiers, their families, farmers and servants went into the mountains. Laying the foundation for the Chaina. Massive in thought and with room to expand.... something happened and they disappeared. In fact the city would not see completion for nearly ten thousand years until the Emperor of Sunfiyre saw it completed. Stories of them coming across cave dwelling cannibals, of sickness, of what was before finding them. Still unkown to this dy however we know there were many more attempts and the city itself grew. The white stone carved from the mountains and when the Emperors sister looked upon it having disappeared another group.
"A city so evil, it doesn't leave a trace of life." She dubbed it the corpse city and they sealed the gates. Leaving it to sit there as they had other things within the mountains to worry about. The legend of the shambler, a creature so dangerous it flew over the mountains and was seen by the children. The Gao boys but each tale and description was different. ONe said the creature was sleek like a dragon with scales of black and red, a tail and wings the size of a city. ANother said it was a bird and had talons so large they could clasps and crush one of the temples or houses... Still the others said different things about it and within the next year died from suicides. Their memories cursing them and they were found later. Ending the houses line of succession for Lord Gao only had daughters. Then a thousand years later the thing returned and bound behind it was the boys before being srt upon their sisters descendants.
Other legends tell of the forty seven yovshin who failed to protect the emperor from his assassins. INstead of seeking revvenge, afraid they would be put to death they fled. GOing to the river and Bei Xi, the white Pearl. Their they found shelter in Leng or so they thought but Unaga two hundred and eighty second ruler of House Ike bound them in chains and brought them to the Emperor. For while she loved her sonshe was rumored to have loved the Empress even more. With their desertion they were entombed alive with horn, torch and jar'kai swords. THeir armor and condemned. They failed to see the threat of assassins in life so in death they would look onward forever. Then a finaly tomb was made, Unaga loving her son had come when she was older and infirm, carried around. She was granted a place they she might share her youngest sons watch. All of these work to make the mountains themselves something special.
Still though there isn't much to them, the canyons and rivers where they come out only go so far, the ancient foot paths have been overgrown and Yeem a lightless sea range under the mountains is considered full of creatures even more dangerous. The emperors and Empresses of Atrisia have generall kept it to itself and during the plague, netherworld and other events what has happened to the mountains proved to be mostly dangerous. It has fallen out of use or even defensive capabilities as technology progressed and airships, speeders, starships were built. Now it stands as a place many can see but do not go into unless it is for historical purposes. THe ancient Dragons gate, one fo the larger passes through the mountain opens into the depths of the emperors academy overlooking the city. The others are barely maintained and just ruins. The people of Atrisia though can remember and some of them use the caves to hide out from dangers.
The years of the Commonwealths growth since the war with the sith has seen much change, evolve and expand. With the Commonwealths boom of technological growth the mountains themselves were given droids, biots and prrotections. Defenses established throughout them that could be left unmanned except with droids that would maintain them in the event of an attack. The massive mountain range being able to become an asset in a battle as it provided hundrreds of areas for bunkers, mountain fortresses and blisters of cannons able to defend with anti orrbital bombardment. The Emperor seeing rhe tactical value of it as it was ordered with respect for where they woudl be able to but he wanted them to be aable to have Atrisia protected and secured with theirr smart towers and defensive generators for planetary shielding. As many generators as thehy can have peaks.
- Intent: TO build on the lore and set up some parts of Atrisia
- Image Credit:
- Image Credit: Wall Art HD: Fantasy Lake
- Image Credit: ForDesigner.com
- Permissions: N/A
- Canon: N/A
- Links:
- Fang Min
- Advanced Living Module
- Kazue Stone
- Environmental Stations
- Pathway Module
- Warehouse Module
- Modular tubing
- Modular bedding
- Modular storage
- Crew Module
- Medical Module
- Sasori Iso-Didact
- Atrisian Assembly
- Advanced Afterglow Panels
- Refined Sleg Ultracapacitors
- Hypertech Resource Module
- Hypertech Materia
- Kanamara
- Fabricator Mk.VII
- Rapid Reconstructor Mark 1
- Rapid Reconstructor Mark 2
- Rapid Reconstructor Mark 3
- Infinite Reconstructor
- Disruptor security beam
- Security camera
- Weapons detection system
- Biometrics
- Anticoncussion field
- Door-field
- Tanglefoot field
- Bp.4 anti-vehicle turret
- Bp.2 anti-infantry turret
- Somin Defensive Cannon
- Saotome Bomblet Generator
- Sasori Ur-Didact
- Somin MK.II Variant
- Hudson Class Autoturret
- Iota Armory System
- Gentoku
- Yuma Class Super Train
- Swallow Class Furnace
- Boa Class Carrier
- Kamiyama Class War Droid
- Orchid Platform
- WorldArmor 4 defensive shield
- Yuánshuài Barriers MK II
- Project "Iron Vine"
- Project "Quicksand Fortress"
- Project "Aegis Echo"
- Project Willow Branch
- Aegis Fortification Kit
- Reaver Expansion Kit
- Project "Kintsugi Weave"
- Project "Event Horizon"
- Gravitic Net Launcher
- Kazue Stone
- Kazue-Class Integrated Defense Emplacements
- Jade Wood
- Jade Stone
- Jade Glass
- Jarcrete
- Advanced Aterno
- Yovshin Plasma Cascade Array
- Noble Class Smart Clouds
- Atrisian M.M. Cloud
- Smart Towers
- Smart Tunnels
- Smart Facility Module
- Hypertech Model: M.M.
- Juggernaut Walker
- Ultraheavy Atlasbreaker
- Sasori Kabiri
- Sasori Thoris
- Tyrenia Detection System
- Environmental Plates
- Subcomb Back up System
- Djinn-Class Causal Fabricator
- Aegis Adaptive Defense Matrix
- Adaptive Fortification Nexus
- Atrisian Shield Weaver Drone
- Atrisian Model: Guardian Kabaneri MK.X
- Atrisian Model: Guardian Droid MK.X
- Atrisian Model: Ardana MK.X
- Atrisian Model: Orchid MK.X
- Landmark Name: Nhai
- Classification: Mountain Range
- Location: Atrisia
- Affiliation: Atrisian Commonwealth
- Size: Massive
- Population: Insignificant Population numbers but divided among Atrisian (humans), Giants of living Stone, Tsura)
- Demographics: Human mostly with stories of other things that hide in the deeper caves of the mountains but have never been proven or disproven.
- Accessibility: Traversing the Nhai Mountains is a test of will and means.
- By Land: The range is a natural fortress. The few major passes are well-guarded and monitored, serving as the only reliable routes for trade or military movement. Beyond these, the mountains become a treacherous maze. A spiderweb of narrow game trails and unmarked footpaths crisscross the slopes, often forcing travelers into single file along dizzying ledges. These routes are the domain of hardy explorers, lone hunters, and those with secrets to keep.
- By Air: The invention of air travel has shattered the mountains' ancient isolation. From the sky, one can bypass the treacherous ground entirely, reaching nearly any visible ledge, plateau, or hidden valley. This has opened the Nhai to new forms of exploration, exploitation, and danger, revealing secrets long shielded by their inaccessibility.
- Description: The Nhai Mountains are a colossal, foreboding spine of stone that carves the continent in two. Once considered utterly impassable, these peaks form a natural barrier of breathtaking scale and intimidating grandeur. Sheer cliffs plunge into shadowed canyons, where rivers roar over ancient rock before vanishing into subterranean labyrinths that feed lightless seas. The soil is thin and stony, ill-suited for cultivation; grazing is sparse and difficult, becoming virtually nonexistent the deeper one travels, with only the fertile fringes capable of supporting hardy cattle.
The range's most defining characteristic is its sheer, overwhelming presence. In the deepest canyons and narrowest river gorges, direct sunlight is a fleeting commodity sometimes lasting for less than an hour each day before the sun passes overhead, plunging the world back into a perpetual, chilly twilight. Conversely, the highest peaks spear through the cloud layer into a silent, sun-scoured realm of eternal snow and ice, offering a vista of the entire continent sprawled below.
For the empire, the main value of the Nhai is its unparalleled defensive potential. Under the directive of Tzu, the Third Emperor's chamberlain, the five known passes large enough to move an army were each fortified with a mighty citadel. These garrisons stand as eternal sentinels, ensuring that no significant force can threaten the empire from beyond the mountains. The years have seen the mountain saturated with emplacement turrets and anti-infantry, anti-orbital, anti-air blisters. Allowing them to have a massive area of fortifications around it all. Protecting the Agora and several palaces and estates.
THe 47 Yovshin: Carved into the very face of the mountains are the Forty-Seven Yovshin, colossal statues that stand as a permanent and solemn testament to failure. According to imperial legend, the Yovshin an elite order of imperial guardians failed in their sacred duty. They neither saw a grave threat to the emperor nor stood their ground to defend him, instead fleeing in fear. As their eternal punishment, they were magically entombed within the stone, transformed into these immense sentinels. The curse that binds them is poetically cruel: their eyes, which failed to see the danger, are now condemned to stare forever out across the mountains, eternally watching for the ancient enemies they once failed to stop.
Chaina: Nestled in a high, isolated valley lies Chaina, a city synonymous with tragedy. It was the first and most ambitious attempt to establish a permanent settlement within the mountains themselves. This ambition was met with relentless, mysterious doom. Chaina has been settled and subsequently fallen over a dozen times, with each colony meeting a silent, inexplicable end. The latest attempt saw a community of five thousand souls men, women, and children vanish without a trace. No bodies were found, no struggle was evident. The only clue left behind was a single, ancient Atrisian word carved crudely into the main gate. Now, Chaina stands as a monument to the dead, a perfectly preserved city of empty streets and silent buildings. The most unnerving aspect is not its age, but its sterility. While one would expect the city to be choked with weeds and reclaimied by the forest, not a single plant grows within its walls. The very earth seems to reject life here, a chilling detail that gives silent credence to the dark legends that shroud the place.
Yeem: All rivers of the Nhai canyons eventually drain into Yeem, a vast, subterranean ocean hidden deep beneath the mountains. This is a world of absolute blackness, untouched by the sun for eons. The waters are preternaturally cold, so frigid that legends warn a single touch can flash-freeze a man's flesh. This sunless abyss is home to a unique and eerie ecosystem of pale, ghostly fish, many of which have evolved without sight, their forms slightly deformed by the immense pressure and eternal darkness. To find Yeem is to stand at the edge of a primordial abyss, a silent, freezing sea that holds its secrets close in the endless night.
Palace of the Lord of Swans: Perched atop the mountain peaks, the highest and most strategically critical of the five fortified passes, sits the Palace of the Lord of Swans. This is not a brutish fortress, but a marvel of elegant yet formidable architecture, designed as much for observation as for defense. Its sweeping, curved roofs resemble the wings of the namesake Tsura, and its kazue stone walls are inlaid with polished jade that catches the dawn light, making the entire structure gleam like a beacon. This is the command center and residence of the Swan General, the imperial appointed guardian of the Nhai frontier. From this aerial citadel, the General oversees the mountain passes, coordinates the garrison fortresses, and monitors all air traffic daring to cross the peaks. The Palace is a symbol of the empire's unwavering authority, a place where strategic maps are never rolled up and the watch-fires are never extinguished. To be summoned here is to stand in the presence of the very will of the empire, embodied by a commander whose gaze is as sharp and far-reaching as the eagles that nest in the peaks below.
Weeping Library of Kwan-Lo: Tucked away in a narrow, perpetually shadowed canyon is the entrance to the Weeping Library of Kwan-Lo. The approach is marked by a strange, constant mist that feels unnervingly like cold tears on the skin. The library itself is not a building of wood and stone, but a vast, natural cavern system where knowledge is not written on parchment, but preserved in ice. Ancient, frozen waterfalls form the "stacks" and "shelves" of this repository. Encased within the perfectly clear, blue ice are the spirits of long-dead scholars, monks, and mystics their final moments of enlightenment, despair, or revelation frozen in time. Visitors who press their ear to the ice claim to hear faint whispers, the echoes of the thoughts and memories trapped within. It is said that the Library collects truths too dangerous or too sorrowful for the world of the living. Some seek it for forgotten wisdom, others to hide a secret forever by entrusting it to the weeping ice. But the Library gives its knowledge grudgingly; for every answer revealed, the seeker must leave a memory of their own in return, which the caverns slowly freeze and add to their sorrowful collection.
The Agora: Deep within the heart of the range, shielded by treacherous peaks and powerful, ancient illusions, lies the Agora of the Wukong. This is the secluded sanctuary of the Atrisian force users who are under the guidance of Fang Min. The Agora is not a city, but a harmonious integration of nature and subtle artistry. Pagodas seem to grow from the living rock and branches, connected by kazue stone bridges that with jagged pinnacles. Tranquil pools reflect the sky, and kyberite gardens are cultivated with flora found nowhere else in the world.
HISTORICAL INFORMATION
Not much actual fact is known about the mountain range from when it was first crossed or what had happened to chase most of the people across it. What was found from carvings and paintings on the rocks by historians show a conflict that led to Taito leading ten thousand clans across the mountains of Nhai. Many perished, from starvation as the soil was more stone and rock then able to support crops, many more became sick as new exotic illnesses seemed to crop up when they were spending to much time in proximity, still some simply gave up and decided to head back. What is believed to have been ten thousand clans.... might have really been inflated to make it wsound that much more impressive... but there is evidence to support that a massive group went through using two fo the main passes. While other forged and scouted trails for smaller groups.
ONce they managed to find their way through the mountains of NHai there was another series of problems. The land was unsettled, ancient and rife with all manner of creatures. From the recounts of the legends and collected oral histories that were first put down. There were mystical creatures throughout the jungles, forests and plains but the people didn't fear. They had the mountains at their back and the great oceans to the north and south of them. THey were safe from harm and as the planet itself was being buitl up so the mountain range was explored. Going far to the north into snowy polar regions or to the deepest south with deserts. As they worked to map it the mountains themselves seemed to go on forever and with new information from ships they are some of the largest on the planet. With only a handful of passes able to let an army or massive amount of people through.
More impressive though is some fo thje stories tha have gone into it, the oldest coming from the first clans, the ones who sought to control everything. THey went into the mountains to build a grand city that would connect them and allow them to observe their once great home. twenty thousand stone workers, soldiers, their families, farmers and servants went into the mountains. Laying the foundation for the Chaina. Massive in thought and with room to expand.... something happened and they disappeared. In fact the city would not see completion for nearly ten thousand years until the Emperor of Sunfiyre saw it completed. Stories of them coming across cave dwelling cannibals, of sickness, of what was before finding them. Still unkown to this dy however we know there were many more attempts and the city itself grew. The white stone carved from the mountains and when the Emperors sister looked upon it having disappeared another group.
"A city so evil, it doesn't leave a trace of life." She dubbed it the corpse city and they sealed the gates. Leaving it to sit there as they had other things within the mountains to worry about. The legend of the shambler, a creature so dangerous it flew over the mountains and was seen by the children. The Gao boys but each tale and description was different. ONe said the creature was sleek like a dragon with scales of black and red, a tail and wings the size of a city. ANother said it was a bird and had talons so large they could clasps and crush one of the temples or houses... Still the others said different things about it and within the next year died from suicides. Their memories cursing them and they were found later. Ending the houses line of succession for Lord Gao only had daughters. Then a thousand years later the thing returned and bound behind it was the boys before being srt upon their sisters descendants.
Other legends tell of the forty seven yovshin who failed to protect the emperor from his assassins. INstead of seeking revvenge, afraid they would be put to death they fled. GOing to the river and Bei Xi, the white Pearl. Their they found shelter in Leng or so they thought but Unaga two hundred and eighty second ruler of House Ike bound them in chains and brought them to the Emperor. For while she loved her sonshe was rumored to have loved the Empress even more. With their desertion they were entombed alive with horn, torch and jar'kai swords. THeir armor and condemned. They failed to see the threat of assassins in life so in death they would look onward forever. Then a finaly tomb was made, Unaga loving her son had come when she was older and infirm, carried around. She was granted a place they she might share her youngest sons watch. All of these work to make the mountains themselves something special.
Still though there isn't much to them, the canyons and rivers where they come out only go so far, the ancient foot paths have been overgrown and Yeem a lightless sea range under the mountains is considered full of creatures even more dangerous. The emperors and Empresses of Atrisia have generall kept it to itself and during the plague, netherworld and other events what has happened to the mountains proved to be mostly dangerous. It has fallen out of use or even defensive capabilities as technology progressed and airships, speeders, starships were built. Now it stands as a place many can see but do not go into unless it is for historical purposes. THe ancient Dragons gate, one fo the larger passes through the mountain opens into the depths of the emperors academy overlooking the city. The others are barely maintained and just ruins. The people of Atrisia though can remember and some of them use the caves to hide out from dangers.
The years of the Commonwealths growth since the war with the sith has seen much change, evolve and expand. With the Commonwealths boom of technological growth the mountains themselves were given droids, biots and prrotections. Defenses established throughout them that could be left unmanned except with droids that would maintain them in the event of an attack. The massive mountain range being able to become an asset in a battle as it provided hundrreds of areas for bunkers, mountain fortresses and blisters of cannons able to defend with anti orrbital bombardment. The Emperor seeing rhe tactical value of it as it was ordered with respect for where they woudl be able to but he wanted them to be aable to have Atrisia protected and secured with theirr smart towers and defensive generators for planetary shielding. As many generators as thehy can have peaks.
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