MARGO-WER

The Great Edge · Geographic Feature · Margo Het-Kha · Khenet-Ura

“The tree line moved. I observed this from the elevated position in the Forus-Sekhara, looking outward over the city’s outer ring to the jungle boundary. The movement was at the periphery of my vision, at the furthest extent of what I could clearly see at that distance, in conditions of no discernible wind. I noted it. I looked again. The tree line was still. I have been thinking about what I saw for thirty years. I have a hypothesis that I am not prepared to publish.”

— G.C.P.S.A., private notes, Khenet-Ura, 1170 A.P.

Margo-Wer (‘The Great Edge’ — the Medjat-Sekhara’s term for the Het-Kha perimeter in its entirety, distinguishing the full boundary from the Iru-Het-Kha stone line that marks it) is the edge of the rift-zone jungle that surrounds Khenet-Ura on three landward sides: the point at which six hundred years of Het-Kha growth meets the city’s maintained cleared strip, and the place where the most significant unknown in Solarhet is located. Plinius saw it from a distance. He saw the tree line move in conditions of no wind. He has a hypothesis he will not publish. It is correct.

Purpose / Function

The Margo-Wer is not a constructed feature; it is a natural boundary that has held for six hundred years with a precision that nature alone does not produce. The Het-Kha arrived through the Eleventh Permutatio — a section of the tabaxi’s origin world jungle, transposed intact — and has been growing since on a continent whose native vegetation is entirely different from it. It grows with the density of a jungle that has had six hundred years to establish itself. It does not colonise. It holds its ground exactly, meeting the city’s boundary stone with the same precision that it met the boundary stone in 610 A.P. Whether the jungle participates in this arrangement is a question the Medjat-Sekhara’s Saa-Het-Kha records address obliquely over six centuries without reaching a formal conclusion.

Sensory & Appearance

The Margo-Wer from the cleared strip: an immediate transition from the open maintained ground of the strip to a wall of vegetation whose canopy is significantly higher than the Terau-Nub’s outermost pyramid buildings. The difference between the Het-Kha and the native scrub vegetation of Continens Australis is visible and immediately apparent. It is not simply denser or taller. It is from somewhere else, and this is perceptible in a way Plinius notes he finds difficult to articulate precisely: the quality of the light within the jungle’s first visible metres, the smell of the vegetation, the particular silence just inside the boundary.

Three times in six centuries, at dawn in low-wind conditions, the tree line has moved in a way the Saa-Het-Kha duty Medjat on watch could not attribute to wind. The most recent was eight months ago. The senior Medjat was on duty. He filed his first incident report in twenty-two years.

Special Properties

Show Spoiler

The Het-Kha is inhabited. Something has been in the jungle since the Eleventh Permutatio — an entity that arrived with the jungle in 600 A.P. and that has remained within it. Three times in six centuries it has approached the boundary stone from inside the jungle and withdrawn: 743 A.P., and eight months ago are the two documented occasions in what remains of the Saa-Het-Kha records. The oral transmission held by the senior Medjat establishes that the 743 A.P. incident was the second; the first is not dated in the transmission, only described as occurring in the founding generation. The founding generation left instructions in the Kha-Saa-Het inner room about what to give it when it arrives. The instructions have two parts: the Medjat-Sekhara hold the first (the Aakhu-Khet instrument and the written instructions for its delivery). The players will be given the second part by the Goddess. The entity is not hostile. It is waiting for something that the founding generation understood and that the Goddess has been preparing for across six centuries. What it is, and what it is waiting for, is the central DM decision of the Khenet-Ura landmark suite. The infrastructure supports it being connected to Rift XIII, to the Webet-Nub’s origin, and to the ‘keeper of the threshold’ in the Mer-Sekhara arrival panels. It is connected to all three. What that means is the campaign’s call.

History

The Het-Kha has been present since the Eleventh Permutatio in 600 A.P. Its boundary with the city has been maintained without change since the founding generation placed the Iru-Het-Kha stone line in approximately 610 A.P. The three boundary approach incidents are documented in the oral transmission of the Medjat-Sekhara and partially in the written records; the 743–1751 A.P. gap in the written record corresponds to the period following the second documented approach. What removed those records has not been established. See Annales Mundi for full chronological detail.

Type

Geographic Feature

Parent Location

KHENET-URA

Environmental Effects

Perceptibly different from native continental vegetation in quality of light, smell, and sound immediately inside the boundary. Three documented occasions of movement in no-wind conditions over six centuries.

Owning Organization

Senedjem-Khet