Refuges from The Shroud
The bastions are large, densely populated cities located across Geron which contain the majority of Geron's remaining surface population. Beyond the walls of the bastions, the emanations of the Shroud have corrupted the landscape, making life in the wilderness incredibly dangerous. Population centers of such density have resulted in the adoption of sometimes dangerous arcane machinations adopted to keep these precarious motes of pre-fall society from being snuffed out.
Bastion Architecture
While some bastions are protected from the shroud by natural features such as mountain ranges or cave systems, most are bastions are former fortresses, palaces and prisons of ancient civilizations, exhumed and refitted by the Keidonian Stewardship in the Age of Nesting Snakes. Originally built to save tens of thousands of refugees, the bastions now contain hundreds of thousands of souls. Much of this additional space has been created by building above and below the original works of the Keidonians, creating vast labyrinths above and beneath the city that interfere with what was once well-planned civil infrastructure. Other bastions still are cities fortunate enough to have survived the The Fall and the Great Wave, having geography or defenses which stave off the Shroud, such as the
Alekhand as pictured above.
Bastion Culture
The Bastions are a melting pot of cultures comprised of survivors from surrounding areas, densely packed into neighborhoods segregated by regional culture, language and tradition. Due to the tightly packed living conditions and resource uncertainty, these groups clash just as often as they compliment, creating a changing tapestry of local tensions of both current and historical cloth. Culture is very important to the people of the bastions, and the common person is very interested in preserving traditions from a time before the emanations disfigured the world. Because of this, power blocs in the bastions tend to align along shared heritage or cultural identity.
Rich Above, Poor Below
The verticality of the bastions manifests as an economic representation. Those who live in the bastions towers and peaks tend to be the most wealthy and important, with rulers often having their own private sleeping chambers. Money buys fine accommodations in the more prestigious upper regions of the bastions. For the poor, the tunnels comprised of ancient sewers and storage spaces are safe places to sleep. For the poorest or those exiled beyond the wall, makeshift camps or around the walls of the bastion suffice. Those who live this way are looked on with distrust, regularly contending with the disorientation of the the Shroud's emanations.
Food and Resource Shortages
Every bastion must contend with its own resource issues, but ultimately those who live within the bastions have learned to place survival and efficiency above and beyond any other consideration. Only the most powerful of families have their own homes, with most of the common rabble sleep tightly packed through public spaces such as temples. The middle class often sleep in their places of work such as guildhalls or stores. When it rains or grows too cold for sleeping outside, masses huddle for warmth beneath any shelter from the weather. Disease is rampant. Only for the most powerful or famous does the concept of imprisonment exist, with exile or sacrificial execution being a common punishment.
Bastion Multiracialism
Bastions don't just content with a mixture of cultures but also a mixture of races which occupy social niches. While the
Amanu tend to be represented across a wide variety of trades and location, races such as the
Erd are more comfortable operating at night. While Kazmorites also prefer the darkness, they can be found working at all hours in the enclosed spaces of the city's walls and low quarters, most comfortable within cramped spaces. The
Almati are known to spend much of their time beyond the walls, preferring to live on the outskirts of the bastions. There are of course exceptions to these rules. The Vanarians are close relatives of the Almati but typically are born into upper-middle class lives as administrators or entertainers, and the
Haru subspecies while closely related to the Kazmorites live almost exclusively beyond the wall as hunter-gatherers.
Comments