RESULTADOS OBTENIDOS CON LAS DOSIS ÓPTIMAS

Unlike some other nations, Yugash is not situated in a segment of the Maker’s anatomy with many large, open spaces.

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While Yugash has made its intent to return to Creation public knowledge, all of the Eight Na- tions are researching a means to breach the Seal of Eight Divinities; the rest of the Octet has simply chosen not to trumpet its contemplations to all and sundry.

Ultimately, it is deliberately left up to Story- tellers to determine which of the Eight Nations—if any—first successfully breach the Seal. Project Razor is presented here as a race toward the future rather than a fait accompli—many stories of indus- trial espionage, sabotage, and daring discovery still remain to be told.

To most Autochthonians, Creation is an ob- scure and distant idea; some even believe it to be fictional, nothing more than metaphor or religious parable. To the extent that their ancient records can offer up information about that lost world of genesis, they will lead the Autochthonians to expect a magically advanced monoculture ruled over by a group of incredibly powerful “sunlit heroes” known as the Solar Exalted.

Its towns and cities are tucked into narrow, claustrophobic cysts in Autochthon’s vast muscular system, connected by an intricate network of primary and secondary tram lines.

Where the location of various towns and cities within the other nations is fairly fixed, Yugash’s internal geography stays in constant, if fairly predictable, drift. Paradoxically, this makes restricting travel within the nation exceedingly easy, as the trams are the only reliable means of transit between settlements. A trip from Het to the town of Jakul takes a mere hour by tram, but may easily take four days on foot, all of them spent trekking through winding ac- cess corridors, climbing up and down service ladders, and squeezing through forests of churning rocker-arms and slamming pistons.

While the nation once considered its internal Reaches relatively ‘tamed,’ this is no longer the case. Feral elementals, left over from the War, still lurk in the darkness between the towns and cities; and Yugash has developed an enormous population of transients, exiles, and tunnel folk, drawn in by rumors of Project Razor, many of whom squat in the ducts and tunnels.

THE PATROPOLISOF OT

The second-largest city in Yugash suffered much in the Elemental War, but has rebounded tremendously since being chosen as the site of Project Razor.

Ot is comprised of three ring-shaped layers, stacked one atop another, pierced by a massive central trunk of veins and conduits. The city acts as an ancillary vascular system for the Great Maker, routing precious fluids and waste materials throughout the Machine God’s body. This makes Ot naturally wealthy in water, oil, and other necessary resources, but also a dangerous place to live; four centuries ago a main artery in the city’s trunk ruptured, flooding three districts of the second tier with molten silver.

The lower tier historically acts as the city’s primary residential district, home to tens of thousands of Populat workers. It is now heavily overcrowded, and a collection of shanty towns and glorified tunnel communes have popped up on the city’s outskirts. The regulators are hard-pressed to maintain order in the bustling lower tier, which spills over with unwashed tunnel folk, Claslati con men, and opportunistic adventurers from Gulak, Kamak, and Estasia.

The middle tier is now the city’s primary industrial district, as well as its seat of government. Its lift tubes are heavily guarded by regulator squads, who screen out unde- sirables from the lower tier. The second tier is also where most of the city’s Tripartite and its handful of Alchemical Exalted keep their residences.

The upper tier of Ot, once dominated by warehouses and light industry, has become a heavily fortified staging area for the planned exodus into Creation. Most lift tubes have been blocked off, restricting access to the level, and its security is regularly examined by Unhesitatingly Loyal Weapon.

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Before Sova and Yugash separated, a massive quake caused the two nations to slide together, their base-masses colliding with a tremendous impact that flattened entire towns. Only the thick steel and brass layers of Autochthon’s flesh kept the people of both nations from being obliterated by the impact. As the two masses collided, their bases twisted together at the borders, causing two sections of the Great Maker to grind together and tear away. Two border towns, Romos (Sova) and Autrama (Yugash) piled over and under each other, producing massive casualties.

Buildings which did not collapse tunneled under and caved those above them. Tunnels slammed through the sides of towers, and structures of all types fused together. Streets tore through architecture and one another, turning the city into a tour of destruction. And when the nations drifted away, the miserable pile that was Romos and Autrama was ripped free of both and became a huge drifting island, a jagged scar of ruins called Romos-Autrama.

That was seven years ago. The nations have long since abandoned all interest in the ruins. They do not realize that there were survivors of the collision—many survivors. Thousands of soldiers and citizens from both towns survived what must have seemed like the end of their world, only to find themselves driven face to face with their enemies. This, while Yugashi saw their work- and bed-mates pulled dead from the debris of Sovan buildings, and while Sovans pulled dead children from beneath Yugashi towers that had fallen on their nurseries.

For the survivors of Romos-Autrama, the war has never ended. The two factions vie for control of the ruins with all the unyielding tenacity of hatred. They fight from apartment to apartment, in and out of the ruins, through tunnels, under and over streets. The combat is fierce, deadly, and seemingly with no other purpose than to see the other side dead. Both factions trade control of entire districts on a semi-monthly basis. Children born in the ruins are not growing up in service to the Great Maker, but rather to a distant nation they have never seen, which has forgotten they exist. Others have also come to the ruins—tunnel folk, runaways, and ruins expeditions have all found their way into Romos-Autrama and become trapped there by the fighting, or embroiled in it.

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Life in the patropolis of Ot has one focal point at present, the hinge around which everything turns: Project Razor, the plan to return to Creation. The city’s industry is dedicated to preparing supplies for the journey, the city’s upper tier has become a training-grounds and storehouse for the planned journey, and what were once factories have been converted to research labs, where the wondrous Municipal Charm that will unlock the Seal of Eight Divinities is still being developed.

This is a point that preys on Yugash’s National Tripartite Assembly—the Charm is still not ready. While Kerok assures the nation that its design is impeccable and it is simply a matter of assembling the complex wonder, the truth is that the Charm is still being designed—the intricacies of the Seal have not yet been defeated. If Kerok’s gamble is wrong and Yugash is unable to breach the Seal before it returns to contact with the rest of the Octet, there will be no time or resources remaining to pursue an alternate stratagem, and Yugash will likely face its doom.

And so, bit by bit, more and more national resources, already badly depleted, are allocated to Project Razor. If Yugash is not the first to breach the Seal, it is unlikely to remain solvent long enough to be second.

THE METROPOLISOF HET

The metropolis of Het has distanced herself from the heresy of the Yugash exodus. The smallest of the four cities of Yugash, Het greatly valued the adventurer Sirin. But the regulators of Het were warned by a Surgeon—too late—that Sirin would be killed by a fellow Surgeon with ties to the statesman Kerok. Even more alarming, when the Sodalities of Het obtained Sirin’s soulgem, they found that his soul wasn’t in it, having already been given to the Psychopomp Gears before his ghost could be interrogated. Since that time, Het’s leaders have cast a doubtful eye toward Kerok’s leadership, and their attitude has penetrated through to the citizenry of the metropolis, who find themselves the uncomfortable minority in a nation that adores the new grand autocrat.

While Het’s withdrawal from Yugash’s new national initiative is based in a sense of justice, her citizens’ objec- tions are driven by theology and practicality. Perhaps, the Hetites murmur, it is unwise to bet the survival of the nation on a perilous journey to a mysterious world which just might be fictional.

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As the last bastion of conservatism in Yugash, Het’s citizens are experiencing a revival of those customs which are most distinctly and characteristically Yugashi. For example, where many citizens throughout the rest of Yugash have begun to grow out their hair in emulation of the new grand autocrat, the Populat of Het keeps its hair trimmed very short, or even shaves it entirely. This

is according to old Yugashi custom, in which long hair is a sign of great experience and proven responsibility (a practical custom when long hair mixed with inattention can easily result in a citizen’s head being crushed in a factory’s gears).

Yugashi lectors, as one of the few castes which perform little manual labor, often grow out their nails to outrageous lengths as a sign of status; this has given rise to the per- formance art known as light dancing, in which the lector adorns her nails with luminous paints. These are used to trace intricate and breathtaking afterimages through the air in darkened amphitheaters (long-haired lectors often throw their entire body into the performance, using their flying hair to add fluttering bars of shadow to the perfor- mance). There is no commonly-accepted code of meaning to either patterns or colors in light dancing, and so the art form is highly interpretive and personal; Het’s lectors have found that these qualities make it an excellent medium through which to openly criticize the new government and its policies.