Styx (/stɪks/)
City State of Styx
Communist Theocracy
Languages: Umbraen Elvish, Undercommon
Crest: A black spider on a red flag, a crystal as its abdomen with hooked limbs and sickles for arms, a white star on the spider’s head with the scales of justice in between its arms.
Sovereign: Temple Parliament of the People’s Republic of Styx
Names:City State of Styx, People's Republic of Styx, Stygian Republic, Stygja(Undercommon)
Links:Styx as a Campaign Setting
An Overview
Deep below the surface of the Scorched Lands lies the Great Cavern of Aman-ya, here we find the sprawling City State of Styx.It is located at the shores of the dark and deep Lake Aphon, divided into sectors by the Three Serpent Rivers.
Right outside the city lies the Leshivoi Forest, deep and dark and feared by the people of Styx; and yet they depend on it for its abundant resources.
The city of Styx was founded as a People’s Republic after the Great Revolution cast off the shackles of the God Empress rule.
Industrial advancement and hardship clashed and brought the people to a breaking point: in the Year 0 a bloody uprising and revolution abolished the monarchy and restructured the Church of Serkatha.
The offices of High Priestesses, like regents and nobility, were all abolished and replaced by elected officials and the Stygian Republic replaced the Empire of Styx .
Styx is now ruled by the Temple Parliament, a democratic body of rule made up of elected officials voted from the Great Unions each of which represent a group of working people.
The Temple Parliament also runs many Grand Offices, each in charge of a specific aspect of public and private life in Styx.
Traditions die hard in the Deeplands but much has changed in the 354 years since the Revolution; more progressive laws and advancements in technology and industry have changed the lives of the people and according to the designs of the Temple Parliament the city moves onward to utopia, if one is to believe their words.
Modern day Styx is a constantly shifting pot of boiling conflict, as the Great Unions struggle for power and the Temple governs, most people lead their perfectly ordinary lives trying to make ends meet. Life is hardly easy, most consumer goods are rationed at times and freedom is a valuable commodity but the people make do and they do so well.
Fear is common in Styx, the Church of Serkatha preaches it and the people feel it; fear of outsiders, of the things within the Forest, of spies and intrigue and instability but the people are too stubborn to resign to it and just keep on going.
Districts and Sektori
Styx is made up of three so called Sektori, previously their own cities, called Norrsidra, Zwistroad and Lakesore. The city has two major industrial Districts ( Factum and Suffbog ) where all kinds of goods are produced in large scale manufacturies, a large agricultural district (Fettinger Farmland), three large harbors Sudaphon Trade Harbor, Manyleg Harbor, Templesmeet Dock; an Airship Hangar and countless markets where the people of Styx trade goods from within and outside the city. Note that the official census of Styx has been criticized by some as being notoriously inaccurate.All ethnic groups above a certain magnitude (the exact size is only known to the Internal Affairs department of the Census Office of the Temple Parliament of the People's Republic of Styx) are rounded up to 12.000 and 1%.
Styx and its surrounding area has around 1.2 million inhabitants, most are Sumraki-Ashaī including sub-races like Half Drau and Ungodolgnik with notable minority groups being Dwarves and Gnomes as well as Kholyn Orc and Wsadniki Humans.
Smaller minority groups are the Ma'tika travellers, a select few of which dwell permanently in the city as well as the Niemord. Among the sizable undead population of Styx Kosheyt are the largest sub-group. A minority population of Nevernost, humanoids with Infernal ancestry exists in Styx and in the sprawling melting pot that is the city members of many other races can be found.
History
Though the Year 0 of the Calendar of Styx is the Great Revolution the history of the city stretches much farther into the past.
Roughly 12.000 years ago, in the First Age, the city was founded by the Sumraki-Ashaī after their Great Exodus brought them to the Great Cavern of Aman-ya.
The Sumraki-Ashaī drove the indigenous Forestfolk off their land and claimed it for themselves.
They founded three villages that would later become the three Sektori.
During the Second Age in what is called the Old Empire period the region was ruled by the Makathrav dynasty which was then replaced by the Bezsvetowna dynasty that ruled for the nearly 6000 years known as the Middle Ages.
Finally the Great Revolution cast off the shackles of nobility and Styx entered its Modern Age.
Societal Structure, Politics, Religion: the things they argue about.
Can You Hear the People Sing?
"We toiled in the works
We toiled in the fields
We toiled in the heat and we toiled in the cold
We were all ruled by the God Empress of Old
Rising flames in workers’ hearts
We grabbed the axes and blades, we grabbed the torches
We raised the red flag of the revolution high above our heads
Into the manufactury smoke filled air we swung our banners
And hoped for the best
Days of fighting, revolution and war
And when it all came to head all tyrants blood ran red in these streets
Liberated and equal, united and free
Forever the people of Styx shall be"
The Great Unions
The Temple Parliament’s power is spread across the Great Unions of Styx, conventions of citizens that gather to stand up for the desires of their trade and creed.
Aside from the larger and more powerful Great Unions there are countless others, miniscule and small.
All unions are represented in the Parliament, and many join in alliances with other unions to see their will represented in society at large.
Some organizations like the Union of Thieves and the Union of Blasphemers and Heretics are not legally unions, and are in fact banned as their "profession" is a crime.
They exist either as underground factions, or even just as subversive protest alliances against the status quo of the Republic of Styx.
Union of Manufactury Workers By far the most powerful union, made up of workers of the Great Manufacturies that produce industrial amounts of products of all kinds.
Union of Magifactury Workers A minor union made up of crafters of magickal arms, armor, items, trinkets and potions.
Union of Soldiers and Guards A larger union made up of all that carry arms, fight or work in the protection business.
Union of Service Workers, Delivery Workers and Drivers The third-largest union, made up of those working in service jobs like housekeepers, innkeeps and delivery jobs as well as the drivers of the Peregrine Webways.
Union of Clergyfolk A small, but powerful union made up of those in direct service to Serkatha.
Union of Mariners and Fishers The fifth largest union of Styx, populated by those that fish, sail or work on boats or docks and harbors.
Union of Farmers and Peasants The second largest union, consists of all those who toil in the fields or greenhouses.
Union of Woodwalkers and Leshivoiwards A minor union made up of those that walk the perilous paths of the Leshivoi Forest to cut wood, hunt or gather precious medicinal, alchemical or industrial ingredients.
Union of Scholars and Scribes A minor union made up of all those that work for the Academia Ars Magicka at Mundana of Templekeep, and anybody else who writes, reads or studies for a living.
Union of Traders One of the larger unions, established by those who trade, import or export goods as their primary profession.
Union of Weavers and Leatherworkers A medium sized union consisting of workers in the fields of weaving, cobbling, leatherworking, tailoring, and anybody else who works with fabric, yarn or leather.
Union of Alchemists, Bakers and Cooks The ABC Union made up of all those who bake, cook or brew potions. The ABC is an off-shoot of the Magifacturers’ Union, most potion-makers and alchemists are split across those unions.
Union of Smiths, Finesmiths and Metalworkers A decently sized union for all those that work metal, be it precious or simple tin.
Union of Miners and Masons A minor union of workers in the mines and quarries.
Union of Bards, Performers and Artists A union for many of those that were considered “Lumpen” in the early days after the Revolution. Musicians, dancers, composers, painters and many others are found here.
Union of Leeches, Sawbones and Shrinks A minor union consisting of those that mend bodies and minds with magic or medicine.
Union of Woodworkers and Fletchers A minor union made up of all those who work with wood or related materials. Union of Constructionworkers and Builders The union of those that build houses and streets or dig cellars.
Union of Plumbers and Pipelayers The union of all those who lay or fix plumbing or pipes. Due to a very popular euphemism this union is often listed as their union of choice by young mischiefmakers on their census paper.
Union of the Marginalized Many did not have equal rights in Styx until the days after the Great Revolution, when the Revolutionary Church started their campaign of equalizing all citizens before the law.
Even now, sexist sentiments, traditions and agendas persist within the population and institutions of Styx, making the existence of a union to represent those underrepresented necessary.
Education
Styx has a complex system of education starting with early childhood education in primary schools which children enter as soon as they can walk and continuing until they are young adults ready to join the workforce as workers-in-training at the age of 80.The Stygian education system is criticised by some as being indoctrination but the Temple Parliament believes that its thorough political and religious education is essential to forming children into well rounded citizens capable of participating in shaping a utopian society. The core values of the education system are empathy, faith, intelligence and patience.
Religion
The People’s Republic of Styx stands on the foundation of the Temple Parliament. The institutionalized worship of the Spider Goddess Serkatha.
Serkatha is the prime deity of the Republic, but others religions are permitted within the Republic, so long as they respect its many laws.
The Old Church worship of Serkatha, a matriachical monarchy with an empress stylizing herself as the living embodiment of the Goddess, was abolished and preplaced with the New Church, also called New Temple or Revolutionary Church, that soon developped into the Temple Parliament.
The main difference between the Old Church and the New Church is that the strict matriachy that didn’t grant equal rights to non-women, as well as its strict hierarchy of priestesses, high priestesses and the Divine Empress, have all been abolished, and a new system seeking to give equal rights and equal treatment to all genders and all classes was established.
Priests and priestesses now hold no special class privilege, and at least in theory all genders are equal before the law.
Another core difference between the New Church and the Old Church is the focus of the New Church on the Revolutionary Saints: mortals that represent aspects of the Spider Goddess and embody her qualities.
Reliquaries and saint icons are common and found in many of the temples of Styx.
There are a total of 33 High Saints, and a large number of Minor Saints.
Saint worship has existed in the Spider Goddess’ cult since before the Revolution, but the Old Temple considered the Spider Queen, Tsarina-Bogovna, to be the penultimate embodiment of the Goddess, rendering all other minor embodiments less meaningful.
Lifestyle
A common misunderstanding or misinterpretation of the philosophy of communism is that it wishes to create a world where all are the same.The people of Styx dream of a world of perfect equality and equity for all, not one in which all are forced to be be the same but regardless that dream is still far away.
The lifestyle of the people of Styx is one of hardship, for the most part, and much of the population struggle on a daily basis with desired and needed goods being rationed by the Temple Parliament.
It is a truth most often not spoken that those entangled with the elites of the Great Unions live easier and better lives and equity and equality aren't here just yet.
The people of Styx purged themselves of the parasites that are nobility and land-owners and though perfect equality is far away society is far more equal now than it used to be. Most people in Styx have a quality of life that is higher than it was during the reign of the God Empress and while some have more comforts and luxuries than others the disparity is far less severe than in the days of old.
The Ecosystem: that which the people of Styx attempt keep at bay.
Day, Night and the Seasons
Day and night are determined by the glow of the Greenbright Crystal and Greenbright Moss, which glow brightly for a number of hours each day. A day has 33 hours in Styx, and there are four seasons: winter, fall, summer and spring.
Temperatures vary widely between those, with summers being temperate to warm, while winters get freezing cold. Thunder, rain and storm are common during fall and spring, while winter often has extended periods of frost and strong snowfall.
The Calendar of Styx has 4 seasons which are each split into three periods called Firstfall, Mid-Season and Lastfall. Firstfall and Lastfall each last for 30 days while Mid-Season lasts for 33 days.
The Days of the Week in Styx number 12 with many being dedicated to Saints of the Church of Serkatha or based around common happenings, labor or rest.
Proper Ecology
Styx is located in a boreal climate with harsh winters and warm summers. Its most notable natural feature is Lake Aphon, as well as the Leshivoi Forest.
Styx depends on both for sustenance, sourcing most of its firewood and many other resources like game, medicinal herbs and certain ores from the forest, and using the lake extensively for fishing and transport.
The cavern of Aman-ya has mostly coniferous trees like spruce and fir, as well as grasses and ground mosses growing in them, all of which flourish in the light of the ceiling-growing Greenbright Crystal and Greenbright Moss.
Farms around Styx, especially the Fettinger Farmland, generate vast amounts of crops and livestock used in Styx and exported to neighboring nations.
There are many wild and dangerous animals in the Leshivoi Forest, and the people of Styx tell terrible tales about the vengeful spirts, witches and devils that supposedly inhabit it. They only enter the Leshivoi Forest in armed groups, and even then only reluctantly.
Urban Ecology
Though the people of Styx fear the forest life still dwells within the cobblestone streets of their city. From the Corpse Crows roosting high up in the belltowers of the Grand Temple of Templesmeet to the rathounds that stalk the city streets by night looking for scraps and prey weak enough to be hunted the city of Styx is rife with all kinds of creatures native to the urban environment.
Most creatures that dwell permanently in the urban sprawl are scavengers and omnivores picking at the leftovers of what the people cast aside. The largest predators within Styx are the aforementioned rathounds which form the top of the urban food chain while creatures like Valeravinjushka and Tarraresques are scavenging bottom feeders.
Borders and Neighboring Nations
Styx's closest neighbors are the Kingdom of Darklight to its north-west and the Duchy of Sharhaven to its south.
Though the people of Styx consider their neighbors savages with a regressive political system based on monarchic parasites, trade still flourishes as each nation depends on the others for the import of certain goods.
Styx produces far more industrial products than Darklight or Sharhaven, while Sharhaven is a port of entry for many goods from far away places, and Darklight is an agricultural center that produces far more crops, foodstuff and primary commodities than Styx or Sharhaven do.
And so, caravans and ships travel ceaselessly between the three otherwise hostile nations.
Bigotry, Spellcraft and Laws: the hated, suspect and abided.
Prejudice
Even after the revolution empowered the downtrodden masses and the enlightened science of dialectic materialism as written about by the High Scribes of the New Temple took control, bigotry dies hard in Styx.
Though the city has many thriving immigrant communities, stereotypes and racism towards Dwarves, Gnomes, Orcs and even Half Drau and Ungodolgnik persist.
Even those who are Sumraki-Ashaī may face prejudice if they are not women: despite the efforts made by the Temple Parliament Sumraki-Ashaī, society in Styx is still heavily tilted towards matriachy.
Another common prejudice that is endorsed officially by the Temple is hatred of those deemed “counterrevolutionary”.
Tryapki has become the favourite slur of the people of Styx since the Great Revolution, a word that describes anybody who isn’t willing or capable of organizing with the working class.
Often, the word is applied to those who refuse to participate in the Great Unions, as well as those incapable of working a structures profession.
Artists, performers, sex workers and the disabled are tolerated to be such as long as they follow the appropriate channels, e.g. joining the Union of Bards, Performers and Artists or signing up for the Stygian League of the Disabled. Those who don’t are viewed negatively by many in Styx.
Furthermore, prejudice against synthetic sapients as well as the Undead persists.
Even though those groups were granted equal rights after the Great Revolution, they are still commonly ostracised by broad society; often forming their own communities like the Osthalt Necropolis, which is inhabited primarily by sapient Undead.
Magick
Magick is viewed with suspicion and fear by the people of Styx: the Academia Ars Magicka et Mundana acts as a regulating and controlling agency for those that wield the powers of the divine or arcane but despite this many are afraid of curses and malevolent Magick.
Especially hated is the Magick associated with the people of the Leshivoi Forest who inhabited the area of Styx before the arrival of the Sumraki-Ashaī.
Such dark arts are called Witchcraft by the people of Styx and feared more than any other kind of Magick including Necromancy.
The Legal Codex of the People’s Republic of Styx
The Stygian legal system is infamously bloated and complex. Some say this is at least partially so that the Temple Parliament can hound dissidents with bogus legal claims and so that officers of the law can take bribes more frequently but the Temple maintains that every single of the thousands of laws, sub-laws and by-laws has their purpose and is necessary for the Dictatorship of the Proletariat to one day become Utopia Proper.
The laws of Styx are collected in the Code of Serkatha which is both legal text and holy text to the Church of Serkatha.
Crime in Styx
A city with as many shaded alley and as many laws as Styx is bound to be rife with crime. Indeed the criminal underbelly of Styx is large and very active. Most neighborhoods have a gang controlling them or multiple gangs currently in a war for control and officers of the law take bribes to overlook almost any imaginable crime.
Those that cannot pay or who get on the wrong side of the officers, the Great Unions or the Temple Parliament end up in Fangham Prison or on the gallows. Still crime pays well and assuredly will never die.
Law Enforcement of Styx in Styx
With the legal system of Styx being as complex as it is it is to be expected that the systems of Law Enforcement follow suit. The first part of the Law Enforcement system of Styx are the People's Guard Militias, troops of locals trained and armed to enforce the laws of the Stygian Republic in their Districts, they are aided by the Federal Vanguard and then supplemented as needed by the Armed Forces of the Stygian Republic which do indeed operate within the city on occasion.
Armed Forces of Styx
The Armed Forces of the Stygian People's Republic are large for a city state even considering its population.
They are well armed, well trained and the only thing standing between the Republic becoming a historical footnote referenced in the conquest records of the Kingdom of Darklight, Kingdom of Exerron or the Duchy of Sharhaven.
Aside from its size, training and equipment the Armed Force has one thing in droves: organizational effort.
The military of Styx is among the most well organized military forces in the Western Deeplands to the point of being over organized to the degree of bureaucratic slog.
Regardless the army is the heart and sword-arm of Styx channeling all its tekhnological progress and potential.
Trade, Currency and Industry : the grinding gears of working people.
Domestic Trade
“Money” does, in theory, not exist within the People’s Republic of Styx. Every citizen is allotted a fixed number of Vouchers that can be traded in for all necessities they might need.
Food, housing, clothing, furniture and even education all have their own voucher system and every citizen is assigned the same amount. In theory the system is perfect, in practice there is a thriving black market as people scramble to trade in their Vouchers for things unavailable or hard to acquire, either due to the many religious legal restrictions or due to suppy shortages.
After all who would want 7 basic meals a week and an education for your three kids if you can have 7 meals and education for two of your kids while you get a nicer house, your lastborn child is a boy after all, why does he need an education?
That is, of course, also discounting the thriving corruption within the Temple Parliament. Many of the Great Unions either lobby or perform under-the-table deals to allot more Vouchers or prime choice of products to their members and their members’ families.
Trade with outsiders is still done with plain old coins of silver, gold and platinum, which every citizen receives an allowance of each month but that miraciously seems to amass in the pockets of certain enlightened individuals.
Much of the goods and resources used by the people of Styx are imported from neighboring nations.
Although the incredible capacity for refining resources and producing valuable wares is wildly profitable the city relies strongly on the import of primary commodities which are then used in its industries and by its people; luckily Styx' neighbors in turn have a great wealth of raw materials but hardly any industry worth mentioning making the consistent exchange of import and export mutually beneficial.
Slips of Paper and Petty Coin
Currency in the Stygian People’s Republic is primarily based on Vouchers and coins.
Vouchers are bound to areas of purchase while coin are universal but both are bartered, traded, stolen and extorted in equal manner and measure.
Industry
Spearheaded by the Union of Manufactury Workers as well as their counterpart in the Union of Magifactury Workers Styx is home to an astounding amount of industrialized technology.
Manufacturies in Factum as well as Suffbog refine immeasurable amounts of primary commodities to then produce vast amounts of products from them using progressive technology based on Steam Power.
Giant furnaces lit by Stygian Fire burn impossible amounts of wood which is harvested by the fearless women of the Union of Woodwalkers and Leshivoiwards in the dreadful Leshivoi Forest and coal mined up north or imported while goods like tools, weaponry, metalware, furniture are assembled by the workers of Styx on assembly lines and heavy machinery.
The refined goods and fine wares produced here are the biggest export of the People's Republic of Styx and are sold to neighboring states like the Kingdom of Darklight, the southern dwarven enclave of Deephold or the Duchy of Sharhaven by the Obsidian Shore.
Caravans and trading vessels on the Three Serpent Rivers bring these valuable and profitable trade goods from Styx either the far way around the deep and dark Leshivoi Forest or in cases of perishable or desperately needed wares through the forest at great risk.
One aspect of the Stygian economy that was once celebrated as its most ingenius invention but is now
THIS IS WHERE I WAS AT WRITING
Public Transport
The City State of Styx with its three Sektori and all its Districts is large enough that a walk from one end to the other would take even the most athletic of its citizens too long and would be too exhausting to be feasible.
As the city grew into what it is now over the course of its long history travel via horse and horse drawn vehicles like coaches, carriages and wagons became prevalent among the common people.
Horses had been known among the Sumraki-Ashai since before the Great Exodus and were relatively common and affordable; nobility and the members of wealthy trading families preferred to ride spiders or use spider drawn vehicles similar to the contemporary use of War Spiders in the Armed Forces of the Stygian Republic.
Spiders were symbolic for the Church of Serkatha as well as the God Empress and her High Priestesses and as such were considered to be signifiers of superiority, purity and power making them prized possessions and status symbols.
The effects of continued urbanization and the advancement of industry in Styx after the Great Revolution, especially as a concentrated effort during the Era of Steel and Brickwork and to a lesser degree the Era of Axe, Furnace and Coal, led to a greatly increased use of intra-urban transit which ultimately caused a number of challenges for the city and its people.
The overabundant presence of the manure as well as the carelessly abandoned carcasses of transport animals as well as livestock within the growing city caused a stark increase in the spread of deadly illness and the pollution of ground, water and air leading to a public health crisis that was only remedied by the construction of the Peregrine Webway as an alternative to individual mass transit and the foundation of the Volshebnik Sanitarii.
In the Current Era (the year 354) the city of Styx relies strongly on its technologically advanced system of public transit.
The Peregrine Webways are a complex and convoluted web of rail lines which thread the entire urban area from its edges to its proper cores.
The Webways are broadly divided into the Northern Subweb, the South-Eastern Subweb and the South-Western Subweb and its many lines service every single of the many Districts of Styx.
On the rails of the Webways move horse drawn trams which can transport as many as a hundred or more passengers at once and which stop at designated locations known as Rail Stations in regular intervals.
The drivers of the countless trams that run through Styx like blood through a cardiovascular system make up a large part of the Union of Service Workers, Delivery Workers and Drivers.
Traditions, Conventions, Standards and Norms
Stygian society differs strongly from the ways of Sumraki-Ashaī in other places.
Far reaching are the effects of the Great Revolution, the dissolution of hierarchy and the abolishment of monarchy. In Styx all citizens be they Sumraki-Ashaī or not, female or not, are equal, the law guarantees equal rights and equal treatment to all people living in Styx regardless of their race, gender, shape or even the way they came to exist.
The Undead and constructs enjoy the same treatment as Sumraki-Ashaī in the Stygian Republic... in theory.
Traditions
The traditions of Styx are manyfold.
One importance in Stygian society is that coming of age as well as aging, death or birth are not celebrated on the exact date of one's birth or death but rather on specific days of the year. Birthdays are celebrated on Sowing Day while the deceased are honored on Mertvinik with a parade along the Chasm of Umbrae by the Osthalt Necropolis.
Gender and Power
Styx society has an obvious gendered power imbalance.
The Temple Parliament has tried to level things out since the Great Revolution but traditions, as mentioned many times, die hard in the Deeplands.
Prior to the Great Revolution and the foundation of the Stygian Republic all power in Styx was held by women, prime among them the High Priestesses ordained by the Church of Serkatha as direct servants of the Spider Goddess.
Above all High Priestesses stood, since time immemorial, the God Empress who ruled by divine right.
Among all social classes women held positions of power in political, public, religious and home life, working class men were expected to work both in wage labor and be the sole carrier of all responsibilities in the home as their female head of family made decisions.
Among nobility men weren't expected to do manual labor but rather to be decorative side pieces to their powerful wives and often had even less agency than working class men.
The Great Revolution changed all of this, in theory at least.
Men and nonbinary people now have equal rights and all should be well... if it wasn't for regressive minds and the lasting effects of millenia of inequity.
Love, Relations, Procreation
"By the Northern Serpent’s waters placid,
aid in the grass a man all sad and flaccid,
his sail was torn, his face all sunken,
his maiden danced, he followed drunken,
out of the tavern onto the street,
he wanted to stand but by the Saints, he was too beat,
a man’s pride, a woman’s joy,
replaced that night, by an ivory…"
Sumraki-Ashaī society is famously matriarchal, women tend to be the heads of households and polyandry (the practice of a woman having multiple husbands) is the norm.
Non-women were granted equal rights after the Great Revolution and as such while the norms still exist in the heads of most people there are now some who choose to go against them openly.
Laws on the freedom of sexuality, sex work and sensual arts have also become increasingly lax through the policies of the Temple Parliament leading to a new era of free expression of love and sexuality to many although many still judge others for it.
Beauty Standards
Though the Sumraki-Ashaī like most Elves are generally seen as exceedingly beautiful by default by other races the people of Styx still have a set of ideas of what they themselves consider to be the epitomy of beauty.
Darker skin, especially with a hint of blue or purple hues is considered to be supremely beautiful, many Sumraki-Ashaī of all genders apply creams of ground crystals to make their skin more vibrant and slightly sparkly.
Hairstyle and hair care is considered a point of pride for many Sumraki-Ashaī with all genders usually wearing their hair long and in intricate styles.
There are many products used by those who can afford it to make their hair more shiny and healthy looking, the people of Styx enjoy such things. Women tend to dress more practical than men do, with them being expected to be the primary bread winner of a household men are sometimes demeaned to be mere "eye candy" whose primary task is to keep the household clean and look attractive.
The people of Styx also place great value on their dress, most workers keep their wardrobe simple but clean and usually own a single set of "good" clothes to be worn at celebrations, important dinners and religious ceremonies.
The dress of Styx incorporates many heavy fabrics and fur, the weather here tends to be cold except for a couple weeks in mid summer.
Language and Naming Conventions
The two Languages spoken primarily in Styx are Umbraen Elvish, the language of the Sumraki-Ashaī of Styx and the common parlance known as Undercommon.
Both Languages overlap heavily and many citizen speak both fluently. Undercommon is a pidgin language made up of the most common Languages of the Great Cavern of Aman-ya, namely Steinntung Dwarven, Avvram Gnomish and Umbraen Elvish.
Names carry meaning, names make a person.
In Stygian culture most people have two legal names: their given name and their matronymic name.
Examples of given names are Mikhaila, Ivan, Luka, Nina, or Alkilin with an -a usually but not always ending a feminine given name.
A matronymic name is generally used to distinguish between people of the same given name in wider society as is necessary for legal affairs within the cosmopolitan society of Styx.
A matronymic name is formed of the individual’s mother’s name with -ova,-eva, -ina, -vich and rarely -oa added to it: hence Ivan, son of Irina would be Ivan Irinavich or Pavelina, daughter of Mikhaila would be Pavelina Mikhailova.
In the case of the -ova, -eva, -iva or -oa matronymic endings the usually added femininely gendered -a is withdrawn from the mother’s name.
Culture and Cuisine
Styx considers itself a culture of honor and hospitality.
Despite the tendency of the Sumraki-Ashaī for isolating themselves, for looking down on all those different than them and for fearing what they do not know Stygia has a lot to offer in terms of Culture and Cuisine.
Hospitality is, as stated before, very important to the people of Styx and even the poorest take great pride in having guests for occasions like dinner.
The diet of the Stygian people is hearty and savory, made up in large parts of hardy grains and processed products made from them as well as root vegetables, meat, milk and fish.
Spices and herbs are pricy but beloved and the people of Styx have a healthy appetite for booze and pipeweed the latter of which is imported in immense quantities.
Ale, beer and vodka, a hard liquor fermented from potatoes are popular drinks, more popular than water owing to the bad quality of unfiltered water from Lake Aphon and the Three Serpent Rivers.
The influence of foreigners is also clearly tangible in the eccentric and beautiful mix of cultural customs and cuisine that is found in Styx.
A commonly told joke in Styx tells the story of a foreigner who came to Styx and left after an extended stay, when asked what he picked up of the Umbraen Elvish language he could list sixteen drinking toasts and not much else, with that we end this essay on the City State of Styx.
Za Vstrechu! - To our meeting!
Za Nashu Druzhbu! - To our friendship!
Za Hazyaiku Doma! - To the hostess!
Za Lyubof I Kommunism! - To love and communism!
Prashai! - Farewell!
Special thanks to my platonic life companion Jenni and her husband Ilya, without them answering my random questions of "what does XYZ mean in Russian?" this page would be a lot less interesting.
Written by: Scarlett C. R.
Aided and balanced by: Alex K. // Nadia E. P.
Punctuation and editing courtesy of Alex M. B.
"Too long have the working people hungered for bread while the Tsarina ate quail, now we hunger not for sustenance but for equality and justice, pick up these scythes and hammers, raise your fists and banners high, tonight we feast in the halls of the God Empress and tomorrow her palace shall be burned to ashes and our great Republic will rise from them."
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