Desafíos y oportunidades

Unlike the spiderweb towers of Thutot, the moonsilver patropoplis of Mogera comprises a single shining structure. A score of tram terminals, their rounded walls bright as mirrors, spill forth from the silver mass of the city’s main body like the limbs of a nautilus reaching out from its shell. Most of Mogera is invisible from outside, however; the city has burrowed into the wall of its cyst-chamber and grown out into the body of Autochthon proper.

Countless curving corridors twist and interweave like veins through Mogera’s innards, no two entirely alike, following no obvious logic in their layout and structure. Domed courtyards and plazas bulge throughout the laby- rinth. These have ceilings ablaze with artificial light, walls lined with multi-level mezzanines and floors broad enough to contain masses of smaller structures. There are no navigable grids of corridors; Mogera’s layout is intuitive to natives but inscrutable to visitors, who easily become lost without guidance.

Mogera is no mass of soulless metal. Indeed, the marks of humanity are everywhere upon him. Bright banners flap and crackle in the updraft from his vents. Posters for sport- ing events and lector-performed artistic pieces are pasted haphazardly over his walls. Savory odors rise from hawkers’ carts laden with noodles and dumplings. And the people!

Swarming and chattering, visitors and natives alike pack the city’s courtyards and corridors with moving bodies.

Industry in Mogera centers around the Thousand Elixirs Crucible. This Municipal Charm, a colossal mass of pipes and vats constructed from black and green jade, transmutes the liquids flowing through Autochthon’s conduits into in- numerable alchemical reagents used in manufacturing and food processing. As a result, Mogera is an Autochthon-wide center for the Harvesters, whose finest culinary technicians study here, and for the Scholars and Surgeons, who employ Crucible-derived reagents in their alchemical researches. Workers wear filter masks to block the stenches that fill the Crucible and ooze into nearby city sectors.

Moonsilver pipes and soulsteel heating elements run through the red, blue and black jade tangle of the Petro- leaginous Nutriment Synthesis Engine, which supplies additional foodstuffs to crowded Gulak by transforming oil into edible goo. This goo requires further processing to make it palatable, but it’s little different from nutrient slurry in that regard. Petroleum reserves seem adequate thus far, but Gulak’s plutarchs are already planning against the possibility of oil shortages in the near future.

NOTEWORTHY CITIZENS

Y

ALI

V

EKTIAT

,

C

ONDUCTOR

C

OUNCILOROF

M

OGERA

Graying at the temples despite only being in her early forties, Vektiat is a lean, stern woman known for her keen intellect, her reliability and her utter lack of humor. Born to an ethnically Sovan clade, she feels bound by blood and honor to the relatives in Sova to whom she has fed information throughout her career. Like her fellows in the Coalescence school, she believes all Autochthonia would benefit from being joined under one orthodoxy and one rule. But as word comes to use her position to secure a route through the Reaches for Sovan forces to invade Gulak, she wonders if such unity would be worth the cost.

R

UVONA

, P

OPULAT

A

RTIST

This middle-aged shift chief has devised dozens of new inspirational songs over the years to uplift her crew’s morale. In recognition of her artistic gifts, the lectors have chosen to brevet her among their number. She has refused this honor, however, seeing such caste-breaking as a violation of her creed. Worse, she has refused it publicly, causing the lectors great loss of face.

OTHER LOCALES

S

ATA

K

A

’

EST

Two massive conduit bundles, each wide as a city block, pass through a three-mile-diameter chamber. One cuts across horizontally; the other rises vertically from the carpet of manmade structures forming the town of Sata Ka’est. The bundles meet at the center of the chamber in a snarl of junctions and valves that constantly hiss with

jets of steam. That snarl crawls with Populat workers, as do the stairways, ladders and elevators that link the snarl with the town below.

Sata Ka’est was founded by the Sahima clade when their pacifist forebears emigrated from Estasia. As the Sahima refuse to use lethal force, regulators of other clades have traditionally been assigned here. The two groups maintain an uneasy coexistence, with the Sahima resenting their protectors and the regulators viewing their hosts as feckless. A few rare Sahima do become regulators, though this puts them at odds with the traditions and beliefs of their kin.

M

ULA

C

ARVAKA

,

THE

D

IVINE

M

ACHINE

The Divine Machine hovers at the center of a brass- walled chamber one mile in diameter. Nine hundred feet tall, one hundred wide and forty thick, it is composed of burnished indigo metal laced with the Six Magical Mate- rials. Susurrant Essence flows writhe through the air just above its surface; these occasionally discharge into the chamber wall with blinding, deafening flares. Twenty-five cylindrical pedestals lined with prayer consoles rest on the floor of the chamber. They are connected to the Machine by braided starmetal cables that ripple loosely overhead with the snaky, dreamlike motion of long hair drifting in underwater currents.

At the dawn of Gulaki history, the Rarata clade claimed the honor of tending Mula Carvaka. It is their holiest place; Populat workers are ritually purified before they approach the prayer consoles, and a Rarata preceptor with theotechnical training is always on hand to supervise the sacred work. Entering the chamber for other purposes is forbidden.

The National Tripartite Assembly has humored the Rarata for millennia. But people are agitated over the re- source crisis and recent Estasian and Sovan jingoism, and the Assembly deems it unwise to press the latest wave of immigrants into close quarters in Gulak’s crowded cities. They have zoned the periphery of the Machine’s chamber for residential use by Sovan expatriates. The Rarata are reacting poorly to this indignity.

FOREIGN RELATIONS

Other nations, from Estasia to Jarish, raid Gulak sur- prisingly often. Gulak’s surfeit of portable riches—from luxury goods to religious relics—makes this very profitable. Meanwhile, the nation’s heterogeneous populace doesn’t always close ranks against raiders; towns may withhold aid from disliked neighbors—recent immigrants, rival ethnic enclaves or heterodox communes—until the invaders have already left. And Gulak’s immigrant clades really do contain a few spies and saboteurs—by no means as many as its more xenophobic citizens fear, but enough to give marauders aid.

Nonetheless, Gulak gets along well with most other nations most of the time. Its people have no religious or

political axes to grind with their neighbors, and while a little raiding this way or that is tolerable, full-on interna- tional strife hurts the pilgrim trade. Overall, the status quo suits Gulak just fine. Good times for everyone mean better times for Gulak.

Foreign trade supplies much of Gulak’s wealth. The nation’s exports include a variety of chemicals used in industry, assorted refined and specialty foodstuffs, trained food preparation specialists, a range of weapons such as explosive-tipped crossbow bolts and military-grade gas weapons, and jewelry and artistic pieces for high-ranking Tripartite members. In exchange, they receive supplies of Magical Materials and other valuable substances, along with experts in various fields.

Also key to Gulak’s prosperity is the pilgrim trade. Pilgrims come not just to see Thutot, but to visit the nation’s vast collection of relics—arguably larger than Jarish’s, and much easier for foreigners to access. The other nations are charged fees to see that their pilgrims receive food, shelter and access to Gulak’s many religious museums and libraries.

S

AHIMA

A

MAT

,

THE

G

ULAKI

M

ESSIAH

Six years ago, a child was born in Sata Ka’est with shining eyes and hair like crystal thread. Her father was Kadmek, Divine Minister of the Grand Design, most praised of subgods. As beautiful as her divine parent, the girl is steadily growing into Kadmek’s other aspects—serenity, wisdom and prophecy. Many of the Sahima worship Amat as a goddess despite her reminders that worship is due only to the Great Maker and his ministers. Others, both inside and outside her clade, are eyeing her for possible political uses.

N

URADI

I

NFLUX

Nurad is negotiating to export a sizable percentage—perhaps 10 to 20 percent—of its excess population to Gulak. Gulak’s xenophobes don’t want more foreigners, while its pragma- tists worry that taking on too many people will accelerate their nation’s descent into poverty, especially as the imported workers are likely to be the most unhealthy and unproductive. But Nurad’s humanitarian crisis is incontrovertible, making the request difficult for compassionate Gulaki plutarchs to refuse.

HEROESOFTHE STATE

In such a heterogeneous nation as Gulak, it’s unsur- prising that opinions regarding Alchemicals are mixed. For the most part, however, they’re treated as angels more than as heroes. Though mortals are forbidden to worship the Exalted, their attitudes are worshipful; they have been known to beseech their Champions for blessings.

Like its mortal population, Gulak draws no small number of its Champions from other nations. Some are newly fledged Alchemicals who find their core ideologies at odds with the nations that gave them birth. Others are older beings who feel that their homelands’ evolving mores have passed them by. Gulak is always willing to give such Alchemicals a home, and its people see immigrant Champions as wise rather than fickle.

B

LISSFUL

J

ADE

A

RTISAN

A

GENTOF

C

HANGE

, J

ADE

C

ASTEOF

M

OGERA

Dissatisfied with the corruption endemic in Gu- lak’s government, this reformist Champion applies

social pressure within Mogera’s Tripartite to make advancement more meritocratic. Emboldened by early successes, Artisan is laying groundwork to manipulate the National Tripartite Assembly into establishing a more democratic system of government. Should she move forward with her reforms, Moonsilver and Soul- steel Caste Alchemicals will be sent to investigate her activities and to determine whether she needs to be dealt with—or whether she’s right.

C

ENSORIOUS

P

RINCIPLE

H

ONORARY

P

RECEPTOR

,

M

OONSILVER

C

ASTEOF

T

HUTOT

Principle’s primary task is to scrutinize the city’s philosophical schools and religious sects for heresy. He possesses a deep and subtle intellect and a sardonic wit, neither of which sees much play in his work; after all, if a spy wishes not to be noticed, it’s best not to be notewor- thy. Tiring of mild-mannered masquerades, he’s injecting more life and drama into the roles he assumes.

In document Principios y criterios mínimos para proyectar la medición de impacto en el INTA (página 22-25)