Enigma City, Enigmael
Circle of Thorns
Ru Assassinae
The Dredgways
Obsidian Sanctum
The Emerald Vaults
The Valley of the Beckoning
Unknowable Tomes
Shadow Court
Introduction
Behind the Hexamere misty boreal ice forests in Southern Eretejva, and through the valley of the beckoning lies the city of Enima. Constructed some 700 years ago it has stood the test of time, hidden away behind a vicious forest dotted with some of the most fearsome predators in Eretejva. It is a cold land. As you get further inward if you pass the forests, and manage to survive the magically tainted valley of the beckoning, you reach the black cloud that is Engima. Held in a permanent shadow at the end of the valley it is completely obscured from the outside world and almost free of sunlight even at noon. From the air, the great mists of the Hexamere obscure vision downward, and although the mist clears closer to the city, light is kept to a minimum.It is a city of secrets and lies. Where the worship of Eleth and his Aspectii are dominant but other aligned gods are tolerated. Few strangers ever set foot there and those that do, almost never leave.
Governance.
The city of Enigma fully embraces and embodies the three caste system of the Tundra elves.The Warrior, Religious and Worker Castes. No caste is superior to another, they merely have their own specialties and hierarchies. The senior members of each caste make up the Circle of Thorns it's ruling body. Which have a sixteen strong council. Assassination and importantly Assassinae are important tools of the main council. Assassiniae meaning to deny the assassin, or defend against it. A very unique and well paid if dangerous role to undertake.
Other notable organizations within the city are the Shadow Court, the Blind Mind and the Tome Keepers. The shadow court is dedicated to the discipline of shadowmancy. The Tome Keepers are dedicated to filing every mystery and secret away in the unknowable tomes of enigma where it is forever lost in its pages, or so it is lied, they also are known for rewriting or reshaping parts of history, texts and artifacts so as to confuse and blind the mortal world. The Blind Mind is dedicated to cleaning up any information leaks rather than prevention as others do, their order is looked on with some suspicion, because for a secret to get out beyond Engima's walls is already heretical, and so they deal in heresies, they are the most active hunters outside the cities walls.
While the government does prefer secrecy and isolation they do extend their reach into foreign affairs subtly, altering small but important events in the battle of the seers. Those with foresight trying to change the future to be more to their liking, one small act at a time.
Religion
The Shadow PantheonBy his follower’s Eleth is considered to be everything any other god is not, and thus the first, not a father figure but a counterbalance for all other deities in their pantheon, giving each not an opposite but a clear defining boundary. Other deities aligned with this vision and not claiming any of his domains are tolerated as within the pantheon. The worship of individual aspectii of Eleth is not welcomed, as this can lead to fracturing and cults within the main sect itself.
The religious caste is responsible for keeping knowledge of Eleth to a minimum in the outside world, while still fostering sect sponsored cults in faraway lands, which allow the extension of the warrior caste’s reach into their domains.
Appearance.
Behind its giant walls, and through its iron gates. The city itself is home to a diverse and beautiful architecture. A means by which great works of art are forever hidden from view, as it is believed this pleases Eleth. The buildings are densely packed with secret passageways hidden within secret passageways, but almost nothing litters the streets themselves. As the city is in almost permanent blindness with sparse illumination provided by dark green, purple or blue torches, anything in the way of a clear walk becomes a hazard and is often simply removed. It also means assassins have a much easier time moving about and thievery is big business.
With a densely packed population, instead of covering a wider area it is set on three levels. The Caracasae. The Caracet, and the Demi-Cara. Each tier of the city houses as you’d expect, lower and less wealthy buildings the lower you go down. Cara in shadon means to expect, to expect something to be there, along with its lies and half-truths is foolish, and such it is with the tiers. There are many surprises and sub-levels within them, though hierarchy exists, it is only for show to conceal what really goes on. This small surface area not only helps hide the city's existence further but also makes it more defensible, however it does lead to an increased risk of illness and a lack of personal space.
Society
Hierarchical and not. The scullery maid is the house owner. The politician is a street sweeper's lapdog. Opponents are hidden everywhere and trust a rare commodity. While it exists, thievery is very much frowned upon, both by the necessity of the constant blackness but also by the proximity of living quarters, thieves are given harsh punishments as a result.Assassination is seen as a respected art, and Assassinae the prevention of assassination a very respectful profession to engage in. Both are sword and shield to the population and are accepted as a way of life. All that said murder is not a constant affair and rarely affects the lower members of castes as that would be predictable, and predictability is one enemy of the fabric of this society. Routines exist but stability is held in contempt and loathed.
The most scorned is he or she who gives away secrets and information to others without restraint, as this goes against the core of what a Tundra elf is. Though other races live here the Tundra elves are the most common, and the dominant religion of Eleth filters through all aspects of the culture. People don’t freely exchange secrets, they guard them as a matter of course.
Other notable aspects of society are the black minotaurs which act as a formidable force if the city is ever threatened. They are not treated badly and over the centuries have carved out their own quarter within the city, complete with an arena and fighting pits. It is they who breed and train the large cyclops if a battle should ever come, though unfortunately for them it rarely does unless they are sent on an errand. Their quarter is about the only area of the city that gets much, albeit dim, lighting.
Slavery is a part of life here. Most workers are not slaves, belonging to the working caste and getting equal rights to the religious and warrior castes. However there are some dangerous jobs slaves are suited for. Moreover, most slaves are trained into assassins and later sold, or rarely released to freedom to work under the minotaurs in the city garrison. While within the city even the slaves have their own cast, from marked slaves being important and given special rights, through to prisoners who have committed crimes worthy of it. There are dizzyingly about ten tiers of slaves on record, with registration costs at a premium for the privilege of owning and training the highest caliber. By outsiders slaves are mistakenly known as the forsaken but that refers to other things buried underground.
Law
In an effort to clamp down on thievery. Punishment is extreme for thieves, often being condemned to work hard labor for the rest of their lives in the city's lower levels or worse. Most normal crimes are handled in a calm and rational way, with fines, jail time and sometimes executions where it's warranted. Assassins are the police force, with various orders empowered by the council. Visible force in a pitch-black city isn’t near as effective as a hidden blade that you never know will strike. Most wealthy citizens don’t hire guards so much as hire assassins to be sulking in the shadows.The city has a garrison but their main duty is to protect its walls. While its agents and assassins operate much more numerously both at home and abroad to further the goals of the Enigma itself.
Notable Locations
The Circle of Thorns.A dark green circular marble hall with eight pillars and sixteen participants that make up the most senior elves in the city. Most in attendance are many centuries old and age is considered one of the few marks of respect alotted here. Discussions are inevitably difficult to follow with most participants practicing shadon the language of lies and deceit. No light is permitted within the circle to protect identities, and confusion is often the result of most outsiders looking in. Little is said plainly and inflection or hidden accents are everything. Meetings can last anything from thirty minutes to three days and are held every month.
Dredgeways and the Valley of the Beckoning
Old tunnels made of stone are maintained with the greatest reluctance. Outsiders mistake them as dry sewers, large tunnels, and pipes built to carry liquid. They were shaped to carry both energy and liquid when the city was first established, now they lay dormant after the great beckoning, in which the valley they connected to was torn apart with living fire, some of which still burns to this day intermittently. The forsaken live within them, people or creatures mutated by the once alchemical liquids that used to run through them. Once they flowed into the valley freely but now those tunnels are long filled in and home to twisted monsters you would do better not to meet, known only as the forsaken.
Once magical conduits from before the beckoning, some of the finest stone shapers were found to craft these wonders, in a time when the city ran on alchemical liquids called Dametiria or proto matter. The blood of extraplanar creatures, defying the laws of the natural universe. The beckoning was when all the cities liquids violently coalesced into a small dense five-dimensional shape, ripping a great amount of the lower city levels with it. Being five-dimensional when viewed the shape only shows you its shadow. Enigma’s religious caste decree this is the work of Eleth’s influence and perhaps that is true, beings created outside of the natural laws of this plane could have many types of strange properties. What was thought stable over centuries, in one day suddenly was not, a great blessed confusion. The fires in the valley of the beckoning burned away the boreal forest it touched, creating a great gap between the city and the wilder lands, and a further hazard or protective barrier however you want to look at it. Oddly the icy mists still remain, making travel even more difficult.
Ru Assassinae
An impressively large structure and order dedicated to the prevention of assassination. Four large pillars frame the entranceway, with huge halls and tunneled training courses running throughout the facility. Although pitch black like the rest of the city, has some beautiful stone-carved white steps, and spotlessly polished stone interiors that if you could see them would be the work of artisans.
The Ru Assassinae are an order which has time-honored methods of training their agents to not only think like an assassin but to think about protection rather than murder, and defense rather than offense. As such they tend to make poor assassins, as their focus becomes that of a very well-trained bodyguard with a view to protecting their target first and eliminating the threat second. They do however make great hunters of assassins and are often sent out ahead of time to find someone if a contract has been made or danger is perceived.
Inner Obsidian Sanctum.
Emerald Vaults
Home of the Tome Keepers
Inside the Obsidium Sanctum lies a mix of emerald and black obsidian stone, a maze of pathways that are heavily covered in shadow with dim light only provided by the streaks of emerald lining the walls. The vaults are not a single room, or any discernable pattern, they are a winding collection of mysteries to unveil.
Obsidian glass archways or fixings are present for ornamentation but the structure is mostly solid jet black stone, within it truth is reshaped to lies and confusion. Tomes, books, and scrolls are reworded so that they may still contain what the reader wants, but subtly changed to lead them down a path of confusion, not disaster, because to hide the truth in plain sight, while clouding it from view is a much more masterful use of Shadon-script. If a reader is given enough truth and believes he or she will find answers, they will keep looking at the tainted text.
Precious Artifacts are also contained here, reshaped or destroyed depending on their use, if they can be used to blind the world they will be, leading races to believe in false histories or discoveries, if instead, they are too dangerous to Eleth's domain they are destroyed.
The vaults themselves have guardians but you rarely see them. The maze of the vaults are probably their most perilous aspect for any intruder, getting lost in the tunnel network here will only lead to another room, with no food, water or warmth to speak of.
Credits
Second Image: Former Link - NowReferences
Eleth the UnknowableShadowmancy
Shadowkin
Whispering hearts black divinity. A first look at the city