Grey
Dialectical Hermeticist
DUSTERS
The original Dusters were colonists, modified by the Magi's arcane science into another kind of human. With more efficient insulating skin (giving them a reddish hue) and squatter body (it's rare any Duster is more than 170CM), highly efficient lungs, increased haemoglobin, and more flexible skeletons they're well adapted to life on Kelijak. It helps that some of the atmospheric reprocessing and juraforming was done by the time they landed, but the important thing is that Dusters are survivors. They may not be comfortable leaving their habs without suits and filters, but they can do it, and it's hard to wear a Duster down. Thanks to their more comfortable lifestyle, the average Duster enjoys a lifespan of nearly one-hundred years and only really starts to feel their age around eighty. Assuming no accidents or violence.
These days, Dusters are the main inhabitants of Kelijak, scattered across multiple cities, bunkers, and tribal holdings.
TOMBWATCH
Tombwatch is so called because it sits on a mesa, about halfway between the equator and the icy south pole, which overlooks the ruins of Planetfall - these days known as The Tomb.
Originally built to house twenty-thousand colonists, the centre of the city is a ring of interlinked and extremely durable pre-fabricated habitation blocks. These include the hydroponics labs, original dormitories, recreation areas, town hall, the library, the main school, and the original power generator.
No one knows how that gennie works - it appears to be some kind of lightning storm trapped in a glass globe, and while it's plenty strong enough to power the original colony plus some extras, these days the Watchers rely a lot on draw-panels to catch sunlight and efficient batteries to store excess for emergencies.
Duster biology was designed to keep populations relatively low and one of the hydroponics labs is dedicated to a bioengineered herbal contraceptive, but Tombwatch has even so exploded to a population of almost seventy-thousand. The rest of the city sprawls from the Oldtown in a tangle of less sophisticated habs and pipelines. The Watchers are damn proud of that - everything bar Oldtown was something they learned to make for themselves without Magic.
Watcher children are raised communally, with a few dedicated citizens as teachers and carers, parents and relatives stopping by often to spread the love around. This instills a tremendous sense of trust and loyalty in Watchers, and more than one Jukari squad has been blown away by a Watcher who preferred to light her dynamite than give up secrets. Watcher youth are exposed to all areas of life in Tombwatch and encouraged to use the library, so they can decide how they want to help their community. These days, full-time artists are prized in a city which historically has had to devote more time and energy to engineering, but they're subject to a lot of criticism - people figure if you're not supplying your community with good art, they might as well squeeze some fun out of mocking it. In general, a lot of Watchers choose to pursue research and engineering to try and relearn the things the Magi knew and keep improving life in Tombwatch.
Law and order in Tombwatch are maintained by Marshals. There's a limited number of badges and ceremony to award them, and those badges allow a person to use the gun lockers, automated turrets, security seals, and access the Orbital Defense Array. It's a coveted, respected position, and a Watcher has to prove themselves to earn it.
Tombwatch has been many things over the last few thousand years - a democracy, a bureaucracy, a dictatorship, an anarchy. These days it has an somewhat informal city council made up of shift supervisors, teachers, and research leads. The Grand Marshal technically has a seat, but the current incumbent Querell Tin feels it's not appropriate for a woman whose mandate includes violence to have a hand in running the city.
Watchers tend to develop polyamorous relationships and have a diverse range of sexual orientations. There's a great sympathy for Watchers who experience dysphoria, as the city as a whole tends to regard it as a result of the Magi's genetic tampering and don't have the medical technology to give patients the body they need.
In terms of medical technology, there's a pre-fall Autodoc at the Oldtown hospital hab which can perform a range of complex surgeries and diagnoses but it's limited to repairing physical damage. The city has a small stock of cybernetic prostheses the Autodoc can install, but can't produce anything so sophisticated themselves. Cybernetics recovered from deceased Watchers are sterilized, repaired, and given to the next person on the list.
The original Dusters were colonists, modified by the Magi's arcane science into another kind of human. With more efficient insulating skin (giving them a reddish hue) and squatter body (it's rare any Duster is more than 170CM), highly efficient lungs, increased haemoglobin, and more flexible skeletons they're well adapted to life on Kelijak. It helps that some of the atmospheric reprocessing and juraforming was done by the time they landed, but the important thing is that Dusters are survivors. They may not be comfortable leaving their habs without suits and filters, but they can do it, and it's hard to wear a Duster down. Thanks to their more comfortable lifestyle, the average Duster enjoys a lifespan of nearly one-hundred years and only really starts to feel their age around eighty. Assuming no accidents or violence.
These days, Dusters are the main inhabitants of Kelijak, scattered across multiple cities, bunkers, and tribal holdings.
TOMBWATCH
Tombwatch is so called because it sits on a mesa, about halfway between the equator and the icy south pole, which overlooks the ruins of Planetfall - these days known as The Tomb.
Originally built to house twenty-thousand colonists, the centre of the city is a ring of interlinked and extremely durable pre-fabricated habitation blocks. These include the hydroponics labs, original dormitories, recreation areas, town hall, the library, the main school, and the original power generator.
No one knows how that gennie works - it appears to be some kind of lightning storm trapped in a glass globe, and while it's plenty strong enough to power the original colony plus some extras, these days the Watchers rely a lot on draw-panels to catch sunlight and efficient batteries to store excess for emergencies.
Duster biology was designed to keep populations relatively low and one of the hydroponics labs is dedicated to a bioengineered herbal contraceptive, but Tombwatch has even so exploded to a population of almost seventy-thousand. The rest of the city sprawls from the Oldtown in a tangle of less sophisticated habs and pipelines. The Watchers are damn proud of that - everything bar Oldtown was something they learned to make for themselves without Magic.
Watcher children are raised communally, with a few dedicated citizens as teachers and carers, parents and relatives stopping by often to spread the love around. This instills a tremendous sense of trust and loyalty in Watchers, and more than one Jukari squad has been blown away by a Watcher who preferred to light her dynamite than give up secrets. Watcher youth are exposed to all areas of life in Tombwatch and encouraged to use the library, so they can decide how they want to help their community. These days, full-time artists are prized in a city which historically has had to devote more time and energy to engineering, but they're subject to a lot of criticism - people figure if you're not supplying your community with good art, they might as well squeeze some fun out of mocking it. In general, a lot of Watchers choose to pursue research and engineering to try and relearn the things the Magi knew and keep improving life in Tombwatch.
Law and order in Tombwatch are maintained by Marshals. There's a limited number of badges and ceremony to award them, and those badges allow a person to use the gun lockers, automated turrets, security seals, and access the Orbital Defense Array. It's a coveted, respected position, and a Watcher has to prove themselves to earn it.
Tombwatch has been many things over the last few thousand years - a democracy, a bureaucracy, a dictatorship, an anarchy. These days it has an somewhat informal city council made up of shift supervisors, teachers, and research leads. The Grand Marshal technically has a seat, but the current incumbent Querell Tin feels it's not appropriate for a woman whose mandate includes violence to have a hand in running the city.
Watchers tend to develop polyamorous relationships and have a diverse range of sexual orientations. There's a great sympathy for Watchers who experience dysphoria, as the city as a whole tends to regard it as a result of the Magi's genetic tampering and don't have the medical technology to give patients the body they need.
In terms of medical technology, there's a pre-fall Autodoc at the Oldtown hospital hab which can perform a range of complex surgeries and diagnoses but it's limited to repairing physical damage. The city has a small stock of cybernetic prostheses the Autodoc can install, but can't produce anything so sophisticated themselves. Cybernetics recovered from deceased Watchers are sterilized, repaired, and given to the next person on the list.
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