TENOCHASETTING GUIDE

TENOCHA IS a slowly collapsing accord of city-states, occupying a jungle-covered continent that is populated primarily by humans and mostly-humans.

IT IS A PLACE WHERE some things are very different. Most significant property is owned by clans rather than individuals. There are people with elemental powers, and people with scales, living on every street – and their powers are directly incorporated into industry and life. And Tenochans, while having the same degree of physical sexual diversity as real people, often marry in groups, and sort themselves into three base genders, rather than two (man, woman, arha).

THIS IS TENOCHA

IT IS A PLACE WITH PROBLEMS. Just off the eastern coast of Tenocha lies the reach, an island chain ruled by dragons and with whom Tenocha is perpetually at war. It has enemies inside; cults operate in secret across Tenocha, calling up diabolical entities to bind or worship. It is built on an unstable base; the magical industries of the region are powered by decaying artifacts, which cannot be repaired or replaced easily. And it is stratified - Status is based on age, class, race, and gender, in a system vastly different from our own, but still one that is deeply imperfect and unequal.

THE INEQUALITIES PRESENT in Tenocha were constructed with the intent of introducing significant issues as something player characters can engage. At the same time, fictional groups and social divisions have been created to 'hold' and 'be targeted by' those issues, as a way to avoid reproducing the inequalities of the real world inside the fiction (since that's not much fun). Even so, the execution is imperfect, and the issues sensitive: A quick chat about whether a group wants to engage this kind of material, and to what extent, is always best.

THIS SETTING GUIDE IS RULES-NEUTRAL, hough rules for playing in the setting are also available. References are made throughout to the contents of Fundamentals of Tabletop Roleplaying and Situations for Tabletop Roleplaying, both of which are available on Drivethru.

To support this setting with rules of your choice, you'll typically need to set a few things. First, traits or rules for kiths, social classes, origins, and status. Second, rules for warding, artifact-handling, quickening, and diabolical rituals. And finally, the various statistics for dragons, diabolicals, and diabolically-created creatures.

FALLEN CITIES

RUINED CITIES

CITIES❶ – Anahac, the frosted sail.❷ – Talocha, the city of bridges.❸ – Chitila, the scavenger city. ❹ – Anucoco, the gate of trades.❺ – Tepucha, the wary.❻ – Ixcalan, the hunt-land.❼ – Alocta, the stone-blessed.❽ – Mezona, the fertile.❾ – Onali, the sea-blessed.❿ – Cuost, the tainted.⓫ – Iltavaco, the lonely.⓬ – Vacha, the fortress.

⓭ – Pucoc, the sealed gate.⓮ – Chimol & Huacan, broken roots.⓯ – Nautha, the hollowed.⓰ – Achmala, the burnt.⓱ – Texava, the lost.

⓲ – Anza and Arca, the northern gates.⓳ – The Tartaran Citadel

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❶

❷

❸

❹

❻

❼❽❾

❿

⓫

⓬

⓭

⓮

⓰

⓯

⓲

⓳

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JungleMountain

MAP OF TENOCHA

Badlands

HOUSE AGENTS: Tenocha is divided into clans, and clans operate in “houses” - effectively, apartment buildings for clan members. Each house is led by elders and maintains at least a small complement of guards, as well as potentially a few Proctors whose job is to seek out new business opportunities. Character might make up a guard group, or such an expert team. If their house is willing to take some chances, or can deny knowledge of their actions by letting them operate on a loose rein, they might act very much like a traditional 'adventuring company' in most ways, albeit with a house that shares in the spoils, provides possible leads on profitable ventures, and occasional quiet backup. If this is the premise, the Guide will want to describe a house for the characters to come from in detail.

TEMPLE AGENTS: Temples are powerful elemental workshops. They also maintain a few of their own guards and experts, though their interests tend more towards artifacts, dragon hunts, and industry, and less to general business. If this is the premise for a game, the Guide will want to describe the temple, but let players describe the houses they hail from.

TENOCHANHEROES MIGHT BE...

CITY AGENTS: City councils have plenty of guards, but only rarely have expert teams. Still, if the game will include large military actions or heavy raiding, this could be the best option.

AN OUTCAST CAMP: Clans sometimes do deny members, cities sometimes banish people, and expert teams are sometimes labelled as 'rogue'. Such people don't vanish; often, they turn to banditry and similar pursuits.

A CULT: Cults that believe diabolism or dragon-alliance is a solution to city (or personal) problems are rife in the empire. The characters could all be part of such a cult – or even of a house or temple that has turned to such a cult in desperation or greed

DRAGON HUNTING: The artifacts that Tenochan society is built on are made from the bodies of dragons. The main pathway to reinvigoration of a city-state is to hunt dragons, kill them, and bring back their butchered parts to use in rebuilding those artifacts. Dragons are sapient, intelligent, magical, capable of shapeshifting, work in groups, have human slaves, and revenge losses, so a dragon hunt is in the end an act of hit-and-run warfare.

DARK DEALING: It's possible for those who know how to summon up diabolical entities and bind them. Such efforts have allowed a number of diabolist cults to regenerate failed artifacts and even create new ones. However, such artifacts require constant blood sacrifice and are often the site of unbound diabolical 'breakthroughs'. As such, the clans decry their use and cities that 'fall' are subject to coordinated war from all sides. Characters might well be involved in such wars, or in the intrigue of hidden diabolical cults that operate all across Tenocha.

SOME TENOCHANADVENTURES MIGHT BE...

TEMPLE DISASTERS: The great artifacts that power the most intense industries sometimes fail without stopping, flooding those temples with flame, frost, or wind effects, and with tainted creatures. Even diabolical entities sometimes break through. Whenever this occurs, teams of troubleshooters are sent in to resulting chaos to try and destroy or close down the artifact or artifacts in question.

SCAVENGING: Lost and broken cities, abandoned outposts, and the like sometimes have valuable content left behind. Scavenging such sites is a common action for small group action – though some ruins have been taken by squatters, cults, or even dragons, making it deeply risky.

CITY COLLAPSE When a city in Tenocha has too many artifact failures to carry on, it will generally be formally dissolved, and the citizen moved to other cities. That's the official, clean story, at least – the real events around the death of a city often include clan skirmishes over remaining artifacts and valuables, looting, riots... And arrival of raiding groups from other cities. Such a collapse has been happening almost every decade in the last two generations, somewhere in the empire.

THE WILDERNESS of Tenocha is jungle and badlands. Running through this wilderness run roads, cutting cleanly through hills and jungle. These are paved with pale stones, with walled ditches and cleared ground on either side. Taking one of these roads in towards a city, one would see...

THE FIRST SIGN that one is entering the land claimed by a city is the presence of watchtowers. These are generally stone buildings, with a floor of vertical walls and a steep stepped pyramid above. At the top of the pyramid will be a couple of watchers, with their brass signalling mirrors, lanterns, horns, and bows. The first towers overlook empty territory – mostly jungle or badlands, depending where one is in the empire. If approaching by sea or along the coast, watchtowers are larger but sparser, often lodged on small rocks.

TENOCHANGEOGRAPHY

INSIDE THE WATCHLAND BOUNDARY, one will pass by side paths to quarries, mines, and other sites where natural resources have been found and are being worked. A few waystops can be found here as well; most take payment for lodging, but a few will also 'put it on the clan account' for clans that have made an arrangement with the house that owns the business.

A DAY OR TWO INSIDE THE WATCHLANDS, farms begin to proliferate on the roadside. A farm is effectively a house-owned estate, and is generally built as a terrace. Terraces are hills where the top has been cut down and flattened, with the sides built up and walled in; this produces an almost-flat oval with stone edges, built up ten feet or more above the surrounding area. The core crops grown on such farms are maize, squash (especially pumpkins), and beans; peppers, avocados, tomatoes, and cocao are also common. There is always some construction going on at a farm, whether renewing wells, extending the land, working on the large farmhouse, or the like. Terrace-farms are often favoured as spots for relaxation and vacationing, but are also where clans send members who have embarrassed their house. A 'long vacation' is a polite way of saying that someone has been sent to the terraces in near-exile. Possibly as a result of this practice, and possibly because farms are more relaxed in general, eccentricity is far more acceptable in the countryside.

EACH CITY IS SURROUNDED BY A BROAD CANAL, dominated by a huge stepped pyramid (the councilary), and filled with large, blocky structures (houses and shrines). Most of these buildings are pale brown, made of mixed plaster and earth that has been compacted and dried.

TOURING A CITY

EACH HOUSE HAS A COURT – a largely open space that the house wraps around on two or three sides. Courts are partly open lawn, part garden, part paved, and are used as house markets, meeting place, sites for feasts, and for many other purposes as well.

SHRINES ARE are both large and solid-blocked; they are central to clusters of Houses where their workers live. Each is dedicated to frost, fire, or wind, and provides elemental services – a fire shrine has kilns, bakeries, forges, training areas for fire-affinity elementalists, quickening chambers, and often even pipes hot water to other temples and some houses. The largest shrine of each type in a city is a temple; cities are planned to fit these vast buildings.

THERE IS A WAIST-HIGH WALL AROUND EACH CITY, with a deep canal dug just outside. Almost all cities are built near a river, and a significant part of that river is diverted to fill this canal with running water. Water is drawn from the upstream end of the canal, and waste dumped downstream. Once one has crossed the canal by a removable wooden bridge, or on a boat that is pushed with poles, one enters the city proper.

THE PART OF A CITY FACING A RIVER OR THE OCEAN is opened up to provide room for fishing and trade docks. There are almost always some city military vessels as well; if the city is near the dragon coast, there will also be significant temple fleets used to hunt for signs of dragons on the shore – and possibly even ranging out into the dragon-owned islands of the Reach.

THE BULK OF A CITY is made up of the clan-owned houses and their courts (below). Most cities have 500-1000 houses, with each house providing a home for two or three hundred people. So, a 'house' is a fairly large construction; in a modern city, a house would occupy a small city block. A house is not solid, but is an L or U-shaped row of apartments that corners around an open court space. Houses stand at least three stories, and up to five; the bottom two stories are stone construction, with wooden upper floors that have been painted repeatedly with limestone. The lower floors are the best quarters; higher housing is the worse. The bulk of a house is living space; other functions are mostly relegated to the court.

AT THE CENTRE OF THE CITY sits the councilary. This is a stepped pyramid with surrounding courts, and office space inside. This pyramid is used the council and it's executors, and the surrounding courts are training yards for the city guard. The main purpose of a councilary is to set a space aside for council debates, which are whole-day (or more) affairs.

EVERY TENOCHAN IS a member of a clan, and is technically assigned to a house or other site. Most are “assigned” to live in the place they were born to for their entire lives, and change house, if they do, by way changing clans (marriages, such as they are, are done by moving everyone to one site; everyone in the marriage joins that clan when they move in).

CLAN AND HOUSE

EACH CLAN HAS A NAME. A few Tenochans, mostly diplomats, use their clan name as a surname – but for most people, the members of their own clan are the people they see most are of their own clan, so there's not much point in this. A few of these are: ♦ZATOCH: The Zatoch are heavily invested in shrines, and

have relatively few farm and claim holdings.♦CHI'ME: This clan is almost solely found in seaport cities;

almost all of their shrines are wind shrines at ports, which include drydocks and shipyards.♦KOLO: A clan that focuses mainly on farms and resource

claims, the Kolo are often seen as somewhat vulgar.♦PALACHTALA: A clan that produces many tutors and

skilled artisans, the Palactala lost their clan palace to city collapse recently.♦TANIX: A very small clan, the Tanix have an extremely high

percentage of Arha members, and are known for approving of and taking in especially large marriages.

THE CORE OF A CLAN is a single extended farm with it's own house and shrines, known as the “clan palace”. This site is home to the clan ancients – elders from various houses that have ascended to posts of clan leadership. While the palaces aren't part of mundane daily life, some palaces do maintain proctors that check in on the clan as a whole.

A CLAN IS RULED by the tidy hierarchy shown below; the ancients at the clan palace speak for the whole clan, the house, farm, and claim elders for their spaces. Each group has specialist diplomats sent out to other groups, and the elder council appoints a body of officials (from the list given, though not all roles at any site) to run the affairs of their space. In reality, there's usually one 'lead' elder and ancient at any given time for each locale. Also, the question of whether elders tell officials what to door if the officials tell the elders what they need is always open for debate. Whether the clan palace even really “controls” a house in meaningful ways is also debatable.

OFFICIAL MANAGES

Chamberlain House marketplace and merchants.

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DIPLOMATS

PALACEANCIENTS

{Factor Accounts & Money

Architect Site maintenance and expansion.

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Conductor House & court entertainers

Wright Head crafter at adock or shipyard.

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Agrestic Field work and work crews.

Auger Resource-sitelead hand.

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Warden Guard captain,punishment.

HOUSE,CLAIM,ANDFARM

ELDERS

WHEN THE PALACE wishes to send out people to correct or inspect houses, farms, and claims that seem to be acting up, they often empower a team of proctors. Such groups have whatever nominal authority the palace wishes (though it may or may not be recognized) for that purpose; proctor teams are “clan troubleshooters”.

ARTIFACT OWNERSHIP is passed through the blood; each artifact has a group of three to five owners, and when one dies, someone else instantly “inherits” their share of control. Inheritors can direct, suppress, and manipulate the ongoing effect generated by their artifact. Anytime someone inherits, they feel it – they can sense the artifact and are pulled toward it. If an inheritor rejects that call over the course of a few weeks, the artifact slowly goes 'rogue', and begins to generate wild effects, often destroying the shrine. Most clans will not hesitate to kill an inheritor who rejects their call.

There's no specific place in shrine hierarchy for artifact inheritors, because most of them just take a slice of the money, show up for rituals, and enjoy life. Some artifact holders, through descent and death, are actually even in houses other than the ones owning the shrine; this is not considered an issue. Where one wishes to get involved, they can expect a fast run up the hierarchy, but will need to join one of the clans running the house if they're not in it (this is almost always approved instantly by that clan).

A SHRINE IS PRIMARILY A WORKSHOP, run by a conglomerate of houses, and centred on use of a single flame, frost, or wind-generating artifact. While shrines have a degree of independence, they aren't market entities – a shrine doesn't take or deliver work orders, sell the goods created on-site, or any of those features. All those things are done by the owning houses, individually; the keepers of the shrine track which house used what resources and tools (the owning houses provide their own workers), and charge those houses for maintenance.

SHRINE, ARTIFACT, RITUAL

THE MOST COMMON STYLE OF ARTIFACT is a “city heart”, a thirty-foot-tall construct of worked dragon bone. Such artifacts generate their effect at a nearby location determined by their “lens” - a flattened surface that the heart can theoretically be pulled about to 'aim'. City hearts are almost never actually aimed after being installed, though; shrines are built to use one configuration for more purposes, instead.

OFFICIAL MANAGES

Priest Needed Rituals& Observations

{OWNINGHOUSES

{Factor Accounts & Money

Architect Site maintenance and expansion.

{{

Warden Guard captain,punishment.

SHRINEELDERS

SHRINE ELDERS ARE “DETACHED” from the houses which own shrines, to run them on a long-term basis (those elders still live in the same place, but manage shrine matters only). This is meant to make those elders more neutral, with mixed results. Shrine elders, in turn, convene and appoint officials that handle the actual daily activity of the shrine; in general, the elders are mostly “hands off” unless a political dispute arises which they can resolve. Or meddle with and make much worse, as the case may be. Elders are also called in when there are matters to deal with that don't fall into the purview of any of the usual officials, and will appoint a group of agents, called Interrogators, to deal with the matter (often the same group, repeatedly).

TENOCHANS BELIEVE in 'perfect representatives' of each thing, set aside outside reality – the perfect fire, the perfect maize plant, and so on – and believe that these can be invoked with ritual, making a real thing more like the ideal thing. So, tea rituals for bodily purification are something Tenochans do, as are half-sentence blessings over each tool crafted, each fire lit, and so on, to invoke the ideal. Medical ritual is a necessity (and quickening is the most important medical ritual), but social ritual isn't as strong; there's no belief in a perfect relationship. A shrine is a place where most of the larger rituals are done, and almost all the tool-making rituals. Priests are the ones who perform and teach these rituals. The most blatantly empowered magical ritual most Tenochans encounter often is warding, the drawing of seals which guard against diabolical influence.

A CITY IS a corporate entity run by houses. A city is run from a counciliary, a home office to the major executors. This is a bureaucratic complex with senate-like functions. However, the bureaucracy can best be described as “genteel”, and the council meetings as feast weeks for the elite, with giant meetings, conferences, and all the deal-making one can imagine. All laws must be passed unanimously, which leads to some fairly extreme measures being taken when there are only a few holdouts. Gold changing hands, late-night assaults, and other special measures are standard tools in achieving unanimous agreement.

CITY

THERE IS NO UNIFIED LAW across Tenocha; instead, cities create their own laws as needed. In phrasing, laws exist as group contracts between the houses of a city; agreements to do this or that, to fund it in this way or that one, and so on. The idea of people having rights simply doesn't exist; instead, everyone is assumed to be valuable to their clan, and harm done to them is harm to their clan – laws are ways that houses have agreed to deal with harms to their people and property, and to create common advantages through joint projects. The idea of a rule of law does exist; this was a popular idea among the priesthood for some time, but has faded since it became a rallying cry for the incivil, poor, and generally mistrusted outcast camps that exist in some of the lands between cities (the fact that a good number of these camps also harbour bandits being a large part of this image).

A CITY IS GOVERNED BY COUNCILORS BUT RUN BY EXECUTORS. Councillors from every house living in it; large conclave-style meetings are the form in which laws are made and projects created. A city is run by executors, though. These are councillors that have been assigned projects – to manage the harbour, to keep peace in the streets, whatever the case may be. Each executor has a budget into which all the houses pay, a staff that they choose to aid them, and so on. Some executors operate from their houses rather than from the counciliary, and tend to have their own portico and entrance, offices and spaces, on some side of that house. There are limits to this, though; eventually, space and sense will drive a growing executorship into the counciliary.

OFFICIAL MANAGES

Priest Needed Rituals& Observations

{COUNCILORS

{Factor Accounts, Money

Architect Site maintenance and expansion.

{{

Warden Guard captain,punishment.

EXECUTORS

SOMETIMES AN EXECUTOR IS ALSO the head factor, priest, warlord, or architect in their organization. For example, most cities have a permanent High Architect and High Purser; most do not have a High Priest, however.

EXECUTORS ENTRUSTED TO FIX 'things gone wrong' often put together teams of proctors that act in their name, acting as troubleshooters just as clan proctors do. Of course, this practice is also abused; some groups of city proctors exist purely to push the expansion of power or wealth for an executor's office.

GIVEN BELOW are a few seeds for situations, and the 'builders' that might help you expand those into playable scenarios.

ROMANCE INSIDE YOUR HOUSE (or farm or claim) is forbidden, and meets with serious sanctions. To give everyone opportunities to meet outsiders, dances and other occasions are thrown regularly, This doesn't stop it from occurring, of course, and sometimes the lovers involved end up gathering a fair bit of support. This situation is pretty easy to set up with the Transgression builder.

CLAN & HOUSE

A HOUSE CAN GO ROGUE from the clan's desires, and the structure of authority in it can also go sour. In extreme cases, a house can end up as an enemy of the parent clan. Depending how the characters get sent in, this could be built with Broken Places. In cases of violent purge, where the house has “fortified up”, it might be better made as a dungeon, using Nine Rooms.

SOMETIMES IF A CITY FALLS OR CLAN EXPANDS, a whole house must move from one city to another. On these occasions, putting the characters in charge of managing that move with journey rules, a limited budget, food costs for large numbers, could provide a strong base for action, most likely making use of The Quest to set it up.

A HOUSE THAT DEPENDS ON A SHRINE, especially one with capable leadership, can have their relationships reversed, so that the shrine is running things, dictating markets, and so on. Consider the weirdest parts of a corporate state, and build – Broken Places may be good, here, or Long Knives if it's an ongoing struggle. If you'd like to make the shrine sympathetic, go with Transgression.

SHRINE & TEMPLE

WHERE A SHRINE ARTIFACT passes to an inheritor that won't accept it, or the lineage dies out, it can tear up the fabric of what's real, allowing diabolicals to cross over. This exact situation is the example used in Nine Rooms.

IF SHRINES that work with the same element also specialize in the same things (not just two frost shrines, but two ice-sellers), a trade war between owning houses can break out; these can descend into covert violence. Long Knives is the builder for this.

THE FUNCTIONS OF TAVERNS AND GAMBLING HOUSES are most often found in house courts. In each city, though, a few kinds of business are forbidden by the council, driving it underground into houses and shrines that have extra space and low reputations, and creating crime. This presence of crime can prompt any number of situations, as desired.

CITY

ON NUMEROUS OCCASIONS, powerful warlords have risen up to seize control of their cities. There are even decent arguments for this – clan palaces taking a hefty cut of the funds passing through a city, the high position of elders often concentrating power in the hands of those whose main claim to governance is having lived a long time, and others. The beginnings of such a rise can be built using Transgression, though several other situation-builders can also be used.

EXECUTORS often extend their intended powers slowly; newer ones are sometimes given too much. This can lead to conflicts between city groups, including crossovers in authority between groups meant to guard and patrol the city. In some cases, this does well as backdrop; in others, executor's offices can be used for Long Knives scenarios.

WHEN AN ARTIFACT OWNER DIES, finding or fetching the inheritor sometimes presents a challenge – and there's a strong time limit, if they haven't 'turned on' the artifact from wherever they are. In these circumstances, a shrine is likely to put together a team to do that job; this kind of situation falls into the turf handled by The Quest.

NAMES

TENOCHAN NAMES ARE constructions; each proper name includes a prefix, a midsection, and a suffix. In normal life, names are shortened to “use names”; a necessity, given the small number of proper names.

THE PREFIX SECTION of a name indicates “desired qualities” the parents hope for, as follows:♦Nak-: Wealth and tangible success.♦Ten-: Resilience, strength of character.♦Kal-: Wisdom, education and knowledge.♦Ilk-: Faith, clarity of purpose.♦Tal-: Romantic success.

THE MIDDLE SECTION of a name indicates “birth order position”, as born to a family group, as follows:♦-opi-: First child.♦-aka-: Second child.♦-ocha-: Third child.♦-ota-: Fourth child.♦-ixi-: Fifth child.♦+-xi-: To indicate a further five places, add this to the midsection of

a name. So -opixi- is “sixth child”.

THE FINAL SECTION OF A NAME is the result of auguries performed over a child at birth or in pregnancy. These auguries have a degree of mystical power, but are not especially potent.♦-lat: Warfare will leave it's mark on you.♦-tan: Distant places will affect you greatly.♦-co: Your life will be bounded by words.♦-pa: Magic will leave it's mark on you.♦-vath: No augury was performed.

NAMES ARE SOMETIMES SHORTENED to “use names”; this can alter proper names in a many ways, but usually to two syllables. Tenakavath might become Akvath, Tenak, Takav, Neva, or other names. Use names aren't always direct shortenings, but the sounds are generally very close. In addition to these use names, many Tenochans also have nicknames – single words describing them, often in the form of “The _________”.

Pictured above:

ILKIXICOFaith, The Fifth Child Of His Family, Bounded By Words,

called Kixo by his elders, and known to friends as

THE TYPHOON

KITHS

THERE ARE THREE “RACES” in Tenocha, all of which are human or mostly so. Kith relations are political; there is a clear hierarchy between kiths.

THE PURE are baseline humanity, so-called because they shown no sign of draconic interbreeding. Despite the name, the pure make up the bulk of the lower social classes, under the dominant rule of the quickened. A fair number of pure have entered the petty classes, but are generally considered social inferiors even there.

ALL THE RICHEST AND MOST POWERFUL bloodlines in the empire carry dragon blood. Children born to these bloodlines will be born either as sullied or as quickened, depending on whether or not a quickening ritual is performed (the ritual, performed over a pregnant belly between the third and sixth months of pregnancy, alters the fetus itself). Quickened show no outward physical signs of their bloodline, but come into elemental powers during puberty, attuned to frost, flame, or wind. Members of the Quickened kith are the dominant social class, but are also constantly under pressure to do well, follow house orders, and improve clan standing.

SULLIED are those with dragon blood over whom no quickening was performed. As a result, they do not develop elemental abilities – instead, they develop scales, short fangs, and their fingernails and toenails develop not as flat surfaces but as blunt claws. Many also have back-pointed spines and spikes along the bottoms of their forearms, and strangely-coloured or slitted eyes. Sullied are considered failures – dragon blood is seen as a danger that must be purified and refined by quickening, and failing to do so makes one less than a pure human, rather than more. Sullied are treated as naturally savage brutes, who can never do more than pretend to be civilized. As such, sullied are mainly born in the upper class as a result of illicit sexual liasons and disjointed affairs. In the lower classes, on the fringe, and among darkborn, sullied are born more commonly, but even there are typically treated poorly.

DISCRIMINATION AMONG KITHS is not only present, but overt. Where a shrine or house has jobs open, quickened that wish to work it are considered first, pure second, and sullied third. Any of these might move ahead in line if their house elders see some strong cause for it, but such pressure must be applied. In the cities, pure and sullied are much more likely to be given 'outside' jobs; the vast majority of carters between cities are sullied (and women, though that's another story).

ON THE STREET, there's no clear way to distinguish between quickened and pure except for the trappings of wealth – so general and market interactions are mainly by class, rather than kith, in these cases. Sullied, however, can be easily distinguished, and are often cut out of queues, expected to use the side doors, overcharged by rickshaw runners, and the like. In military matters, quickened are often formed into specialist troops that focus on use of their abilities, and also appear among the higher ranks of officers. Here, though, sullied are often held as more valuable than pure, and have much better chances of advancement. Akvath, the warlord of Tepucha, is one of the sullied (and a darkborn); her elite troop of dragon-hunters is almost entirely composed of sullied.

KITHS AND DISCRIMINATION

DIABOLISM functions by sacrificing living things and permanent physical capabilities. This is worth noting as it applies to sullied. A sullied who is ashamed of their nature can sacrifice their draconic features to a diabolical if they can find an active cult capable of calling such a being up; this shifts them to a normal human appearance. As a result, “former” sullied are often preferred agents of diabolical cults – their visible traits wiped away, they are moved from one city to another with false clan references.

TENOCHANS HAVE the same sexual range as real humans, but recognize three genders; Man, Woman, and Arha. The age of adulthood is 16 among imperials; up until this age, the child, their parents and friends may assume a gender for a child, and speak in terms of 'he', 'she', or 'ath' (the arha-pronoun), but this isn't formally true or legitimized socially; most children 'try on' all three genders. Upon reaching adulthood, a ceremony is held in which a child declares their gender.

THIS SYSTEM DOES MEAN that there are men with female physiology, and women with male physiology. Neither is especially common (though Arha of either physiology are common). There's no active discrimination; “man” and “woman” are first and foremost social roles, not physiological ones. There is, however, some occasional confusion – a Shrine official might never have considered pregnancy leave for a man that gets pregnant, and would need to apologetically rush to arrange the matter properly.

IT IS ARHAIN to be good at mathematics, etiquette, magic, or matchmaking, to have a warm but somewhat detached demeanour, to be relaxed in society, to dress and be made up in an intricate fashion. An attractive arha has taste and spiritual insight, but often fears been seen as an hamhanded manipulator or slave to fashion, which are insulting arhain stereotypes. Most political roles are dominated by arha. To the extent that there is an imbalance in gender power, arha are at the top of the social pyramid – men do most of the cooking and maintenance, the women run most errands, and arha invite guests and manage the social calendar (and usually, do so toward benefiting their own careers). Pronouns: He/She/Ath; Him/Her/Aith, His/Hers/Aiths.

IT IS MASCULINE to be good at crafts, cooking, and repairs, dress and be made up in a fashion that is both simple and striking, endure long labour, be slow to anger but hold severe grudges, have good (if a bit stiff) posture, think deeply before speaking. An attractive man has poise and gravity, and often fears being considered emotionally shallow or emotionally cold, both of which are insulting masculine stereotypes. Heavy physical work and long-term record-keeping jobs are dominated by men.

IT IS FEMININE to be good at dancing and riding, to be swift-footed, dress and be made up in a fashion that is sweeping and moderately complex, be fast to emotion, anger and even mild violence but also to be very forgiving, be snappy in conversation. An attractive woman has wit and energy, and often fears being considered an obsessive or a wastrel, both of which are insulting feminine stereotypes. Courier work, material transport and 'fast response' work, and management of day-to-day business, are all fields dominated by women.

GENDERROLES

TENOCHANS BELIEVE that a given person ought to be involved in only one serious romantic and sexual relationship at a time. The “common pattern” romance includes 2-9 people of multiple genders, none of whom are from the same house, and is expected to all be one relationship, however complex. The main courtship ritual is discussed as 'going walking'; this includes attendance at various court entertainments. A serious relationship is indicated by eating evening meals together at house courts on a regular basis (in the case of relationships with a fair number of people in them, this can mean quite the running tour).

ROMANCEAND SEX

ROMANCES LIMITED TO A SINGLE GENDER are uncommon, rather than disapproved of. A very rude and meddlesome elder might aim to introduce a nice man, woman, or arha to the romantic pair or cluster, “for balance”, but the rudeness of the elder would be the gossip subject, after. If the relationship was entirely physiologically male or female, even such a very rude elder would look for someone of that body type in a different gender; love and sex between people of the same physical sex is a non-issue.

MAINTAINING MULTIPLE SEPARATE ROMANCES is disapproved of, and is likely to incur “talks” with one's house elders. A romance involving people who grew up in the same house (even if they are not blood relations) is an extremely grievous departure from the norm, and will almost certainly lead to one party being send on a long vacation to split it up.

MOST ROMANCES BEGIN as a couple or triad, and about half of them stay that way as long as they last (though flirtations with adding a third or fourth are common). Others, though, add and shed members. Just as there are no laws around marriage, only deals brokered with the house, there are no hard rules for divorce; where living space or children are involved, house elders tend to get involved and pass judgement on how things will be in their house. A family that is turbulent in regards to such affairs in the city is likely to get sent, as a whole, out to the countryside.

A RELATIONSHIP THAT HAS LASTED 'long enough', in the judgement of the elderly members of any the houses represented, is likely to spur a meeting among those elders. If they agree on terms, which may be as easy as “we've got room”, or may involve actual bargaining, then a marriage offer to take the couple (or triad, or group) into one house as a family will be forthcoming.

SEX is assumed to be occurring in all romances. Xachel tea, a birth-control agent which curtails female fertility (and acts as an abortifact when distilled), is available almost universally, and is in general use. It's assumed that someone with female anatomy (woman or otherwise) who is not using Xachel is attempting to get pregnant.

ORIGINSAND CLASSES

THERE ARE THREE BROAD “ORIGINS” that a given Tenochan might come from, and three loosely-defined social classes a character might be part of.

CIVIL ORIGINS describe the vast bulk of imperial citizens; these are city-dwellers or hail from terrace-farms which are near enough to a city for regular trips. Civil culture is what is described throughout this document, in the main. Characters of such origins might be of any social class.

FRINGE ORIGINS describe those from especially isolated farms, watch-forts with permanent staff, and other outposts. Most fringe groups imitate the main body of imperial life as best as they can, but not everything can be matched. Fringe characters are often sent into the city-states to try and make a marriage; if they can bring someone (or a few someones) home, all the better! Fringe characters will normally only be upper-class if they are either mature (having returned to civil society and done well for a few years) or have inherited part of an artifact.

THOSE OF DARKBORN ORIGINS are primarily dragon-slaves who have been rescued from bondage. While there are also darkborn in the fallen cities, in bondage to diabolicals, it is extremely rare for such people to be taken into the cities of the empire knowingly; when a fallen city is taken, the normal course of affairs is to try and kill everyone. A darkborn character will never inherit an artifact, but might very well be judged to have 'good outside blood'; to achieve the petty class, a darkborn must normally be at least adult; to reach the upper class, they must generally be either elderly or adult and in a marriage that includes someone else of the upper class.

A PETTY-CLASS TENOCHAN is a step above the lower classes. Such a person can live and eat freely in squalor as a low-class Tenochan does, but will generally be offered better quarters in their house by their elders (at some arranged cost). Since their incomes usually come through the house, this is usually just taken “off the top”. A petty-class Tenochan who doesn't take such a deal will likely be last in line to hear about better jobs and chances to invest in house business. The petty class is also, in effect, the merchant class – many of those in it engage in trade and transport, risking their own money, for a living.

LOWER-CLASS TENOCHANS are housed and fed freely by their house in small apartments – generally pretty poor ones, in the rickety upper floors. They tend to work basic farm or shrine jobs, act as carters, serve in the guard, on the docks, or in other basic jobs, to earn a house stipend.

INHERITING A SHARE IN AN ARTIFACT automatically elevates a character to the upper classes, socially, no matter what. A convicted and insane multiple murderer held by the city guard who inherits becomes upper class (they'll still almost certainly get executed, but in noble style, and after trying to sort who will inherit from them).

THE UPPER CLASS theoretically have the same option for living free, but arrangements for spacious ground-level living (still at some expense) are typically made for them in their house before they even come of age. The upper class almost never have jobs, but they do work at improving on their position and incomes.

FASHIONAND OUTFIT

TENOCHANS CLEAN their bodies and faces by applying oil, and scraping it away with a razor, followed by rinsing with water. As a result, body and facial hair is seen as a sign of filth.

THE HAIRSTYLE FOR warriors and many shrine workers is generally a topknot, with a caps or headdress in formal situation. For others, hairstyling is done by mixing the hair with dyes and bonding agents (gelatin-like ones are the most expensive, but cheaper plant-based agents exist), and sculpting it into varying shapes. The lower classes are about half-shaven; the others generally make do with simple spikes or sweeping shapes, but higher classes often sport far wilder looks. Headdresses, including ornate and feathered ones, and large felted hats are also popular, and many hairstyles are sculpted to fit under – or integrate with – these.

THE BASIC GARMENT is a wrap around the nether regions; a “clout”. This is followed by a skirt and top or long tunic (neither is gendered wear in general, but some cuts of skirt and tunic are). Loose, billowing pants are substituted for the skirt if the wearer expects to be adding an over-outfit. Sandals may be worn. A top is not necessarily part of a casual outfit, meaning that relaxed imperials may well be bare-chested in good weather; bare chests and breasts aren't considered provocative. An outfit for cool weather may include a billowy shirt (in much the same style as the pants, and often with a sash). Long, felted vests are sometimes worn – often to the point of being sleeveless robes. Cloaks are also common; among the poor in the countryside, this includes bristling cloaks of woven and dried grasses, and among the rich includes feathered cloaks.

TENOCHAN MONEY is granules of gold, usually carried in a folded cloth in the sash. There are many other trade goods, but gold is universal.

MAKEUP IS WORN; almost everyone wears, at minimum, shadowing above or around the eyes., and simple colouring of the finger and toenails For those with time and money, above-eye makeup and lip makeup are often extensive and colourful. Rectangular shapes are popular among men, wide curves with pointed ends among women, and thin curlicues and tracery among arha.

TENOCHAN TOOLS and weapons are wood-hafted and stone-headed. The mace is the most common form of weapon, though hatchets and spears are also common.

DOMESTIC ANIMALS are limited; the basic domestic animals are variants of the Llama, Alpaca, and Vicuna. Most “carts” are actually light sledges, pulled by these. Crows are also trained, and rare elementally-attuned birds are stolen on dragon raids whenever possible.

IF A GROUP OF HIEROPHANTS, along with some underlings, revealed themselves to a city and openly offered the choice of conversion, they might raise notable support. This hasn't happened yet (unless you decide that it has), so there wouldn't be any real preparation for “what to do if”. This might lead to Transgressions, or to a less-than-quiet Long Knives situation.

DRAGONS ARE intelligent, inherently magical, physically potent, and can fly. Until a few hundred years ago, they lived relatively solitary lives – which made it possible for humanity to hunt and kill them for the magical properties of their flesh, in great enough numbers to build the great artifacts. Repair of damaged artifacts, and creation of new enchanted items and artifacts of any kind, requires dragon bone. The draconic retreat to the Reach, followed by their swift organization into a society of sorts, was the greatest catastrophe ever to befall the empire.

AT A CERTAIN AGE, dragons become able to shapeshift into human form. A small number of dragons, known as Hierophants, use this ability to infiltrate human society. The groups they create are often termed 'cults', but there isn't actually any worship going on. Rather, the Hierophants are looking to create an underground movement which will bring humanity and dragons together, albeit with dragons at the top of the social order. The argument is simple – artifacts are abominations, but the things that artifacts do can be done by a living, willing dragon without risk. The counter-arguments are that dragons can't be trusted, and would end up enslaving everyone. So far, no cities have gone over to the hierophants, and their known allies have been purged. So far.

DRAGONS

A LONE HIEROPHANT moving through the city, that kills when it fails to convert, is entirely suited to the Predator Souls model (just read “infected” as “convinced”). Hunting down such a creature, just as in an outpost taken, comes with the added highlight that the body of the creature is extremely valuable in and of itself.

A DRAGON HUNT is a gathering of longboats, which set out heavily-laden with warriors, into the Reach. There, they skim from island to island with as much stealth as they can, scouting and hunting on islands for added supplies, until they find a likely site. At that point, the goal is a fast assault, kill, and to escape by scattering, before elder dragons make their appearance looking to revenge the attack. This situation is most easily built with The Quest.

THE HIEROPHANTS haven't yet claimed a city, but they have taken some lighthouse-style outposts, farms, mines, quarries, and other sites. In a few instances, the Hierophant who did the taking went a little past their general offered deal, and married right into some family, producing quickened or sullied children. By the time such places are detected, such children are often youths or even adults. The usual response to discovering such an outpost is a total purge. For this, build the site as a dungeon, using Nine Rooms. To try and actually deal with the place as something other than a killing ground, build it with Broken Places or Transgression.

DRAGONSITUATIONS

DIABOLICALS ENTER THE WORLD BY POSSESSION, usually possession of sacrificed flesh. At first, a diabolical is most often only as a floating hand and eye, or similar. Given time, this can become a swarm of disjointed parts – skin, eyes, teeth, hands, and so on. An embodied diabolical is one that has assembled a body from parts, or altered a possessed one to suit them; these are monstrous creatures.

SOME GROUPS WORSHIP DIABOLICALS; after all, diabolicals are powerful, immortal, and exist in the same kind of space where the dead go. In addition to this, the powers diabolicals have can, with enough time and preparation, be used to alter and repair artifacts. So, houses and cities with artifacts that are wearing down are always tempted most strongly to secretly worship or look for the means to bind diabolicals.

ALSO KNOWN AS TARTARANS, diabolicals are beings that hailed originally from a different world. In the farthest past, they learned to steal traits from other beings and fuse those things to themselves. In doing so, though, they made their entire world unstable, and consumed it. Now, they wander bodiless between worlds, looking for a way back in so that they can steal and spin flesh again.

HYBRID CREATURES ARE MADE through diabolical influence; they are capable of using their powers to both add and subtract flesh from others, if rituals are done for them. In most cases, this is a trap, swiftly driving the subject insane. An actually agreeable or thoroughly-bound diabolical, though, can work through a ritual to create stable Tarics; creatures that are half one thing and half another, and stranger configurations. The Guide should give these creatures whatever statistics seem appropriate.

DIABOLICALSDIABOLICALSITUATIONS

VENTURING INTO FALLEN CITIES to recover an artifact-inheritor, or to deliver some newly-created weapon, is likely to take the form of a Quest. In some cases, this might even open with “take this army to the fallen city”, which is a somewhat different kind of quest. A city filled with those who control diabolicals and bind them may be a different proposition than a city filled with diabolical worshippers; decide which you're aiming for, as you build.

WHEN BINDINGS GO TERRIBLY ASTRAY, a diabolical can take over the person attempting them. This grants them a body that they will immediately set to using – see the example in Predator Souls.

THE EXAMPLE SITUATION given in Transgression is the formation of a diabolical cult. An established cult could also be set up with other situation-builders. Likewise, the example situation in Nine Rooms is a shrine fallen to diabolical power.