Okay, I finished writing the introductory guide to Norukar. The manuscript is up to 32,665 words.
Now I'm ready to start layout and illustration.
Here's another excerpt.
Norukar: The City of the Gods
Geography of Norukar
The city of Norukar is built on an island in the archipelago of Mnatta. The island takes the shape of eight circular land-masses linked by narrow isthmuses and a common flat plain. Each land-mass is outlined by an almost perfect circular ridge surrounding a flat interior, like eight shallow craters. The ridges form natural walls around the each of the city’s eight neighborhoods. The ridges and the walls constructed atop them are therefore called “Ring-Walls”.
The city is subdivided into eight walled neighborhoods called “Quarters”. Each quarter has its own history and character.
The Old Quarter
The Old Quarter is home to the earliest buildings of Norukar. For many centuries, this neighborhood was Norukar. The Old Quarter contains hundreds of narrow twisting pedestrian streets and cramped, crumbling buildings. The architecture tends to be many centuries old with few reaching higher than ten levels. Within the Old Quarter, one can find most of the city’s small merchants, shops, and services. Hundreds of thousands of the city’s lower class freemen live in tenement houses. The many narrow streets and alleys of the old quarter also provide shelter to the city’s criminal class.
The Harbor
A section of the flat plain south of the Old Quarter’s ring-wall forms the city’s commercial waterfront facing the harbor. The waterfront is lined with docks and warehouses. Here one can find many shops and services that cater to maritime shipping. The criminal guild known as the Hidden Hand controls much of the illegal activity that happens in the harbor.
The Xoog Quarter
The Xoog Quarter is a ghetto devoted to the city’s thousands of free Xoog inhabitants. The Xoog Quarter has its own independent Xoog mayor, administration, and constabulary. The Xoog Quarter is an exotic place of strange customs, spicy foods, intriguing aromas, and startling sounds.
The New Quarter
The New Quarter is entirely composed of skyscrapers built within the last two decades. It is a glittering display of architecture, power, light, and technology. Buildings reach hundreds of stories into the sky. A monorail wends its way through the canyon-like streets. The buildings are connected by a network of sky-bridges. Spotlights pierce the heavens and holograms dance through the air. Personal electro-vehicles zip around on wide boulevards wile aero-coaches fly from tower to tower. Hundreds of aero-ships converge on the massive new terminal, the tallest structure yet built by Cydorian man, carrying passengers and freight from across Markania. The Academium Octavium, where new initiates into the brotherhood of the Octavium are trained in the secrets of science and engineering, is also located in the New Quarter.
The Towers
The Towers of the new Quarter are modern marvels of technology, engineering, and architecture. The Towers are skyscrapers built like vertical step pyramids. Many are reinforced by heavy flying buttresses. Most directions and addresses are given in relation to the name of a specific tower. For example, one might be told to look for a specific location on level twenty-two of “Tower Hune”.
Towers vary in height. The smaller towers stand ten to twenty stories, medium-sized towers reach forty to fifty stories, and the tallest soar one hundred to one hundred and fifty stories into the sky. Each tower is connected to the others via sky-bridges on the twentieth, fortieth, and eightieth stories.
The roots of the towers reach hundreds of meters below the streets of Norukar, into the under-levels of the ancient city. The under-levels are home to the slaves that maintain the building and its facilities. Tower facilities such as boilers, pumps, power receivers, etc. can be found in the lowest levels.
The towers at street level are bustling bazaars filled with merchant tents, live animals, and itinerant traders. The first few levels after that are home to the city’s free servants, laborers, and skilled workers. The living conditions at these levels vary from tower to tower from rowdy, raucous places rife with crime to clean, quiet, communities with a strong rule of law.
The twentieth level contains a commercial sector with retail shops, services, theaters, parks, etc. From the twentieth level one can travel to other buildings via the network of sky-bridges. Inhabitants from the lower levels are not allowed onto the twentieth floor or above without a passport.
The towers from the twentieth to the fortieth levels are restricted to the upper class, wealthy merchants, business officers, and other well-to-do members of society. These levels are well patrolled by the city guard and feature many amenities. The levels are mixed-use, combining residential apartments, shops, and commercial offices.
One can find additional shops and services on the fortieth level where the taller buildings connect via an additional layer of sky-bridges. Access to this level is even more restricted than the lower levels.
The higher levels, those above the fortieth levels, are reserved for the nobility and aristocracy of Norukar. These are the largest, most luxurious, most expensive residential apartments in all of Norukar. They are usually well-defended by household guards and maintained by dozens of domestic staff.
On towers with flat roofs, one can find penthouse mansions. These spacious residences are the homes of the most powerful nobles of the Norukarian aristocracy.
The Industrial Quarter
The district known as the Industrial Quarter was once the location of the city’s stock yards, tanneries, smithies, and stone carvers. Today, it is the site of a Torium power plant and broadcast power generators as well as hundreds of large industrial factories producing steel, chemicals, and manufactured goods. Though individual components might be put together by slave-workers in long assembly lines, comprehensive knowledge of the methods of design and production are secrets that are strictly maintained by the Octavium. Industrial waste is dumped directly into the sea off the west shore of the island. Pollution and particulates belch forth from tall smoke-stacks which the prevailing winds carry west towards the mainland. Thales Tower, the largest tower in the Industrial quarter, belongs to the powerful Brotherhood of Lightning guild.
The Ruined Quarter and the Bone Trees
An entire section of the city on the northern section of the island consists of ancient Nazarian ruins. One of the most interesting aspects of these ruins are the Bone Trees, strange white branching spires that protrude from the top of a small hill like stark metal pine trees with no needles. Some of the bone trees are dozens of meters tall. The bone trees are surrounded by a circle of Nazarian standing stones and menhirs and are considered a sacred place. The ruins are a known shadow zone (see Cydoria page 155) and are haunted by psychic ghosts. For this reason, the district has remained abandoned.
The Royal Palace
The Royal Palace is an entire district of the city put aside for the home of the monarch, presently Queen Chador, daughter of Charol. The palace is an ancient walled castle estate surrounded by a lush green woodland park and pond.
The Rhakadian Quarter
The Rhakadians have been given an entire island north of, but in sight of, Norukar. The island is home to thousands of Rhakadians living and working on Uruta. The island has been converted into a Rhakadian city complete with a spaceport capable of receiving and servicing the giant discus-shaped vessels capable of traversing the void of interplanetary space. Rhakadian buildings resemble towering metal cones covered in pipes, grilles, and exhaust stacks. Norukarians find the Rhakadian architecture visually unpleasant. Refined torium, zephyrium, and other resources are delivered via aero-ship and transferred to Rhakadian space-ships for transport elsewhere in the Rhakadian interplanetary empire. Access to the island is strictly controlled. Traffic to and from the island is monitored at all times and subject to interception and inspection by Norukarian the aero-navy.
History of Norukar
City of the Sdara Vatra
It is well established that the city of Norukar pre-dates mankind. The islands of the Mnatta archipelago were once the site of an important city of the Sdara Vatra. The raised foundations and circular ridge-walls, as well as the mysterious Bone Trees, are all that remain above ground of what must have been magnificent cities. Below ground, one may find ample evidence of the Sdara Vatra. The raised circular foundations beneath the city are riddled with passages connecting thousands of subterranean chambers and galleries, some impossibly huge with ceilings supported by massive columns. The sub-levels, as they have become known, descend deep into Uruta. Some shafts have no known bottom. The sub-levels closest to the surface have been explored and colonized by the people of Norukar, using them for slave quarters, boiler rooms, and conduits for air ducts and steam, water, and sewage pipes. The deeper sub-levels remain untapped and unexplored.
Since the fall of the Sdara Vatra, the city fell into ruin. Over thousands of years, mankind returned to the site, building layer upon layer of city over each successive civilization. The last major civilization to leave its mark were the Nazarians. It was the Nazarians that gave the island the name Norukar, though some evidence suggests that the name is much older, pre-dating even the Sdara Vatra. The Nazarian city fell over fifteen hundred years ago during the War of Zorin. The ruins on the northern tip of the island remain as testament to that lost civilization.
The modern city of Norukar was established by Targan sailors and colonists nearly a thousand years ago. It began as a sea-port, its harbor protected from the strong winds and rough seas of the Targan coast. The city was built along what is today the Old Quarter. The original walls were constructed soon afterwards.
Over the next millennium, the city of Norukar became a center of trade, industry, and technological advancement. The Octavium Order perfected many modern construction and engineering principles, making it possible to build towers reaching ten, twenty, sometimes thirty stories into the sky. The relatively recent concept of assembly line mass-production allowed Norukar to become an economic power-house among the other City-States. Prior to contact with the Rhakadians, Norukar was the commercial, architectural, and technological center of Cydoria.
The Modern City
The city underwent a major period of growth following the arrival of the Rhakadians twenty years ago. Advanced alien building techniques were shared with the Octavium, allowing them to create taller buildings in half the time. New technologies created new industries and markets. The city quickly expanded. The New Quarter was built over the site of an older agricultural district. The Industrial Quarter was completely rebuilt to accommodate new manufacturing techniques and technologies.
Politics of Norukar
The city-state of Norukar is a hereditary monarchy ruled by Queen Chador. The title of Sovereign is passed to the oldest legitimate child, male or female, of the previous monarch. The queen herself makes key administrative court appointments. Such positions are typically awarded to ranking members of the nobility. Although administrative positions are hereditary, the queen reserves the right to revoke a position and award it to someone else. The queen is advised by a privy council of trusted friends. The privy council holds no actual official political powers. Instead, they wield indirect power through their influence on the queen’s decisions.
Politics in Norukar is competitive and cutthroat, sometimes literally so. Assassination attempts between rivals are commonplace despite being outlawed. Norukarian politics is also traditionally corrupt. Officials use their position to extract gifts, payouts, and favors. Bribes are an effective way to sway an official’s opinion or to expedite or remove any bureaucratic impediments.
Technology of Norukar
Even before the coming of the aliens with their advanced electronic technology, the city of Norukar was renowned for its technical sophistication. Norukar was the first city to have towers built from steel-frame construction and the first city to have indoor plumbing connected to a city-wide sewer system. A generation ago, one would see horse-drawn carriages navigating the streets between twenty-story towers, a few primitive internal combustion engines, ballistic pistols powered by compressed air, complex clock-work mechanisms, and industrial automation driven by water wheels and wind turbines. Today, one is more likely to see aero-cars floating between massive towers half-a-kilometer high, street cars propelled by broadcast power, deadly plasma pistols and vibro-swords, and massive electric motors powering high-speed industrial machines.
Octavium
The design and maintenance of all technologies in the city of Norukar are overseen and controlled by the mysterious order known as the Octavium. The Octavium is one part monastic religious order, one part secret society, and one part trade guild association. Each of the eight brotherhoods of the Octavium oversees a different specialty. One brotherhood is responsible for heat distribution, another for plumbing, and another for iron-work and architectural construction. There are no towers built that were not designed by, whose construction was not overseen by, and that are not maintained by the Octavium. The Octavium is therefore an incredibly powerful political and social force in Norukar and across Cydoria. The Octavium Tower is one of the largest towers in Norukar, second only to the aero-ship terminal tower. Within the Octavium Tower, the organization initiates new members and trains them at the Academium Octavium.
Twenty years ago, a ninth brotherhood was created. The Brotherhood of Lightning specializes in electricity and electronics and has quickly become the most powerful guild in Cydoria. All electric motors, broadcast power transmitters and receivers, and electrically powered devices were designed by, purchased from, and maintained by the Brotherhood of Lightning. The Brotherhood of Lightning is nominally a part of the Octavium, but the new order is highly independent and is distrusted by the eight other traditional guilds. The Thales Tower, headquarters of the Brotherhood of Lightning, is located near the broadcast power transmitters in Norukar’s industrial quarter.
Strict laws protect the monopoly of the Octavium and the Brotherhood of Lightning so a thriving black market of underground engineers and technicians known as techno-heretics exist as an alternative. Techno-heretics believe that to understand technology is to understand the mysteries of the universe. They reject the orthodoxy of the Octavium and strive to share technological innovation with the masses. Techno-heretics are considered rebels and criminals so many claim false affiliation with the Octavium in order to work more openly.
Broadcast Power
By far the greatest of the Rhakadian technologies is that of broadcast power. In Norukar, torium reactors generate electricity which is radiated wirelessly throughout the city via massive conical transmission towers in the Industrial Quarter. No electric transmission wires are used. All one needs to power any electric device is a broadcast power receiver. The larger the receiver, the more electricity provided.
Powered Lifts
Powered lifts are a kind of elevator used in Norukarian towers. Instead of ascending and descending using steel cables and winches, Norukarian powered lifts use four small lift engines. Powered lifts operate like miniature aero-skiffs constrained to a shaft. The powered lifts are attached to a scaffold of four rails and safety brakes which halt the platform should the power receivers fail. The advantage of a powered lift over a cable-based elevator is that the height of the lift shaft need not be limited to the length and strength of the cable.
Aero-coaches
Aero-coaches are small personal aero-ships meant to transport anywhere from two to twenty people over short distances. They can be enclosed, covered by a glass canopy, or open like a convertible. They usually feature comfortable leather seats, wood paneling, and interior heating and air conditioning. Aero-coaches are expensive and private coaches remain the domain of the rich and powerful. Aero-coach taxis are available for hire on the landing platforms of most tower sky-bridge concourses.
Aero-ships
Aero-ships are aircraft that float through the sky using the anti-gravitational properties of zephyrium to provide lift and ducted fans for thrust, powered by rechargeable fuel cells. They skies above Norukar swarm with aero-ship traffic from all over the continent of Markania. Most aero-ships converge on the newly constructed aero-ship terminal tower, the largest building in Norukar and the dominant feature of the city’s skyline. While docked at the terminal, an aero-ship can recharge is fuel cells using broadcast power in two to twelve hours.
The Monorail Network
With the rapid expansion of the city, it soon became difficult to walk from one part of the city to the other in a practical amount of time, and few merchants and traders could afford aero-coaches or elecro-carrriages. So fifteen years ago, Queen Charol, Chador’s predecessor, ordered the construction of a monorail network to connect each of the various districts of the city. The monorails and cars are of Rhakadian design. They are long rounded cylinders of glass and steel suspended from an overhead track. There are, in actuality, three monorail networks: one blow ground and two above ground. The first above-ground network operates just above street-level, roughly ten to twenty meters off the ground, and is accessible from stairs that lead to terminal platforms. The second above-ground network is suspended below the sky-bridges. The sky-bridge mono-rails are reserved for the middle and upper classes. The sky-bridge mono-rails literally pass through the center of the towers. The below-ground system is located ten to twenty meters below the street-level and is used exclusively by the city’s slaves.
Electro-carriages
The most common form of street transportation is the electro-carriage, tear-drop shaped wheeled vehicles propelled by an electric motor powered by broadcast energy. Electro-carriages are the vehicle of choice for the merchant class. The streets at ground-level are often too crowded with pedestrians and animal traffic for efficient electro-carriage traffic. Instead, most electro-carriages are found zipping from tower to tower on the sky-bridges.
Communication
Telecommunication, either via radio or cable, is not a technology that exists on Uruta. The energy field known as the Oudh disrupts the wavelengths of any such transmission. Communication in Norukar is handled via couriers, generally young human or jinx slave runners who carry hand-written messages to their recipients. Couriers are available for hire on every street corner and in every public place. Couriers wear special uniforms and carry passes granting them limited access normally restricted public areas in order to deliver their messages.
