City of Mourn

Written by Aeterno

Origin

This story begins on a frosty evening, in a large flat field, where a family sits huddled around a small fire. You see the reason they were in this field was that centuries ago, in what would be present-day Vorsk, there was a cluster of tribes with a tradition unlike most. These tribes, at the break of spring, would travel to the pointed coast of what is now Mourn to celebrate the lives lost to the fallen year.

This family, only a small portion of the many tribes that take part in the tradition, lingered behind a few days as the year had been harsher than they've known. And these creeping frosts were beginning to take a toll on the overall wellbeing of the whole family and was especially brutal the family leader, an older gentleman the fellow tribespeople simply referred to as 'the Father'. Due to his already deteriorating health, the Father didn't stand a chance in the harsh cold and would go peacefully in his sleep late that night.

The family, who were already in a state of extreme grief, were hysterical emotionally by the additional loss from what they considered to be an 'outrageous and dangerous' tradition. The loss of the Father gave them a new perspective on their lives, their beliefs, and how they dealt with death in their times. In memoriam, they buried their Father and left a marker to help them find their way back later. Once they arrived back to the safety of their tribe, a handful of the family spent their following year creating a detailed and extravagant memorial made of petrified wood and living plants. This memorial depicted a cloaked elderly figure, down on one knee, holding a bouquet of flowers with his head bowed, and closed eyes scrunched up in deep thought.

Memorial of the Father Concept by AeternoArt

In the coming years the family would settle down near the memorial, few by few, and build a wonderous wooden home large enough to house guests on their journey to and from the coasts. The tradition to celebrate the past lives had long been abandoned by the family, and instead, they turned to the study of death, mortality, and the effects it has the wellbeing of others and culture. As time went on more families joined, in five years times it was a small settlement along the trail, and within ten years it had grown to be a village, with many of the residents full on rejecting their previous beliefs and views. And the deviance from tradition brought along with it, new traditions, new beliefs, and a brand new culture untouched by any other of its kind; this growing community would have the very concept of mortality and death as it's basis.

Guilds and Factions

The Guild that now runs the City of Mourn started as a simple collection of family leaders from the time Mourn was still an unnamed and unknown village in the middle-of-nowhere plains. As the settlement grew, so did the influence the 'guild' had over the region. At one point in time, some generations after the founding, a native Mourn went to become a Paragons of Virtue; this milestone pushed Mourn, the Guild, and their views/beliefs into the limelight for the world to see.
With their newfound fame came more settlers, more opportunities of trade, more types of merchants, more ideals, and more experts in the medically related fields who had found themselves intrigued by the unique settlement. It was these type of individuals, who would seek out the family leaders, that would create the true start of the Guild of Mourn.
The Guild would begin to slowly collect knowledge and records of medical practices and techniques, gather samples of medicinal plants, and train members in career fields related to medicine, health, and delicate care-taking of the dead. Smaller guilds who had similar backgrounds and goals sought out Mourn with pleas of help and advice, and so they would build connections throughout the world in an alliance of sorts, all the while their influence would spread.

Architecture

The buildings found in Mourn usually have multiple stories to them, and are made out of petrified wood and/or bricks; the structures themselves don't have any unique designs and instead stick t a uniform block. More important buildings have special designs to them; such as the Guild's clusters or the founding family's home which is fenced in with flower bushes in the center of the City, whose flower gardens extended in all directions down the center sidewalks of downtown.
Most buildings express their thoughts and feelings through complex murals on the sides of their buildings; these murals are vibrant in colors, with plenty of floral and life/death symbolism and depictions of the Father or the family member(s) whose passing influenced them to move to the city.

Geography

Coastal Plain

Rolling Plains by Richard Gould

The region of Meta that Mourn is located in was never inhabited, save for the handful of days spent traveling to-and-from the pointed coast for a celebration of life/period of mourning that was a tradition for the old tribes located in what is present-day Vorsk. The land originally had very few trees, was mostly tall grass plains of rolling hills that would continue on to the very coasts of the seas; what little trees that survived the barren lands were clustered around the banks of creeks and small rivers that crawled from the coasts inward. These would create the natural border of Mourn as well as the city limits, which brought along the idea of drawbridges both as a mode of transportation and self-defense. As people migrated from around the world, they'd bring seeds to trees and many plants with them as a food source, which would induce agriculture as an important part of the culture and is to this day second only to the fields of life, death, and medicine. Because the City of Mourn is on a plain it is not uncommon for there to be wind and cloud coverage due to the lack of natural barriers and the relatively flat lands.

A little bit of environmental ambiance to help the immersion of the reading experience.

Type

City

Population

70,340

Characters in Location

• Annigan
• Forest
• Glynda Fampir
• Lilith Siah
• The Merciful
• The Paragon
• The Rememberer
• The Strength of Will
• The Wise One

Government

Not only did the Guild of Mourn gain respect in their fields, but they also became a system of governmental relations over the City and surrounding small settlements. A parliamentary-monarchy based on the Guild and founding family, in which the head of the family acts as a ceremonial figure and the Head of Mourn (the second in line) works with a cabinet to do the upholding of the government as a whole.

Guild Responsibilities

Of these is a short list; tending to the sick and elderly, studying diseases and their effect on various species' bodies, traveling all over the world to learn and study new techniques as well as help spread them, visiting special cases of sickness wherever it may be, and raising money to cover for funeral or medical costs to those in need. Maintaining relationships with foreign governments and trades, spreading information on health and illness prevention, as well as typical governmental body duties.