Gruent and Jiasote
Where is Jiasote?
Near the cluster of spectacles of Axorus, Zivvik and Vormigaunt, Grezavent and Evonthe, and Veonok, the Whole Thing, Jiasote is a world-famous sanitarium theome in the far north, where it is also the southernmost cluster of the region whose jewel is Cortacaffakallyenay & Nyberinz. Jiasote itself might be a region-jewel, but it's a little too close to Jadarkontalyia and Hydalath, and a little too disreputable in its own right.
How is Jiasote classified?
Benevolent. Jiasote is a pretty standard urban theome, with a heavy hand on its benevolent Fating.
What kind of population and economy does Jiasote have?
The people of Jiasote often need a little help. This is the basic reason why the theome is disreputable. It calls to people who need in some sense to heal, and it keeps them for decades. Everyone in Jiasote is Fated to heal and become a better person, but it takes its time. Along the way, living in Jiasote means living with all the other people who need to heal, and who are Fated to heal over decades. It's a good place, and yet not.
The three cities of Jiasote show off triumphs of Swaivshon architecture, but they are not majority Swaivshon. The population is extremely diverse. The Beacon over Jiasote is both powerful and supported in its effects by the civilian government, which tries to reach out to the suffering all over Theoma to get them to join the caravans heading north along the famed north-south trade corridor. The borders here are emphatically open, and the diversity of dragons in Jiasote attests to it. There are even large populations of Myrskor, Myrghon, and (in a heated underground lake underneath one of the three cities) Veserus.
The economy of Jiasote is a bit ramshackle. The buildings are ancient wonders, and occasionally new wonders, but they aren't built by locals. They're only run by locals. The result of an entire economy dependent on people who have suffered some manner of trauma or madness is not the cleanest or most reliable place. In fact, it's something of a dirty and unreliable place, though that problem is helped by grateful people who stay on for centuries sometimes to pay back the theome that healed them when nothing else could.
There is very little in Jiasote for geomancers unless they themselves are the ones who need it, but despite this paucity of magic for the magic-seekers, Gruent provides for a great many minor blessings across the theome that help people to get through the days of their life as they rebuild their resilience. Magic in Jiasote is for the people of the greatest need alone!
Some people complain that Fate pressures are too strong in Jiasote, but Gruent defends it as necessary to guide people along a path to healing. People who aren't functional at all in other theomes are capable of living lives of superficial self-direction for the duration of their stay in Jiasote. For those citizens who persist in complaints against excessive fate pressure in Jiasote, the state has a sometimes-derided official recommendation: the purchase of necromantic lighting fixtures, as a means to create a sanctuary space in one's own home where fate is weakened. Yet as Gruent's will holds together people whose will does not hold together otherwise, this creates some very ugly houses where people loathe fate who were benefiting from it...
The most popular religion in Jiasote is Uttermost Dark, which maintains thriving temples in each of the three main cities in Jiasote. Shrouded Dark Altars are also found in many private residences of Jiasote.
What is Gruent like?
Gruent is a hardworking civil servant who works miracles (literally) for the healthcare system in Jiasote. The titan of the local elected government, Gruent is the Minister of Health, a position that is not (in Jiasote) subject to the whims of electoral politics. In this way the local government is very heavily influenced by its permanent resident. Everyone else is temporary, while the Minister of Health is the immortal land god.
Gruent manifests as a purple kalla. He takes a civil servant's salary and lives alone in a modest house. This insistence that he's just another person in Jiasote is subject to some parody, as "Citizen Gruent" is said to be the highest title in the theome. Despite this irreverence, the belief in Gruent's benevolence is so widespread that there are temples to him within and without the theome. He much prefers being mocked to being worshipped, but he's unwilling to engage in religious repression, and he doesn't have any authority at all over temples established in distant theomes. Ironically, worshipping Gruent is a way to demonstrate that free will persists despite the heavy-handed "healing" fate pressure of the theome, and this drives some of the mockery against him as well. These things that he dislikes are things that within his personality he is powerless against.
Gruent isn't stopping people from loving or hating him; he's just trying to make them resilient people in their own right with decades of protection.
What is the Fate Beacon that Gruent maintains over Jiasote?
Jiasote hosts Theoma's most unpopular "Visit Me" Beacon. Many people in Theoma resent that one of the future-distorting "Visit Me" Beacons is a beacon established over a sanitarium theome. They worry that their Fate is being badly affected by a beacon that is trying to get them to visit a glorified and overextended mental healthcare facility. This means that a good chunk of the visiting traffic from the trade route is made of people who only plan to stay a few days in the southernmost hotels of Jiasote while visiting nearby theomes (Axorus, Vormigaunt, and Veonok) rather than staying to heal. Gruent manages to snag a few of these by reaching to the concerns they were trying to suppress, but a lot of people just break the beacon's influence and go on with their lives... still, they often take home a few souvenirs, and in this way Jiasote's economy needs its tourists, as they are people who have been to Jiasote before, and some of them come back someday!
Like all Visit Me Beacons, the Fate influence of this one breaks as soon as people step foot in the theome. The beacon works as advertised! Gruent believes very strongly that his Visit Me Beacon is one of the most essential of its kind to the health and prosperity of Theoma, but some of the geomancers of Querent-Querent wish that Jiasote didn't have a Visit Me Beacon. They know that the average effect of unvisited Visit Me Beacons is supportive to individuals, and they think that this one in particular makes Visit Me Beacons look enough worse that it promotes the particular tourist packages that focus on breaking the influence of Visit Me Beacons on the individuals undertaking them.
Continent
Kelkaith
Local Jewel
Cortacaffakallyenay & Nyberinz
Beacon
Visit Me Beacon
Fate Pressure
5/5 (Healing Urbanism)
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