#the housing market is so sick and twisted here its nearly impossible to find a place to live unless you have Connections

[darcyolsson]

ALSO i forgot to mention but i finally found a new place to live and im moving out of my parents place again soon 😭😭😭😭💛💛💛🫶🫶🫶🫶🫶 no longer killing myself

[kingdoms-of-fate]

Darjrick

Setting:

Mordeadus - homebrew

Country:

Darjrick

Race:

Human, Mutants

Terrain:

Heavily forested hills and marshland.

Thick strangle vine, a thorny weed, grows wild here; more on this in the issues section

Settlements:

There are many cities, towns and villages.

There are only two classes in Darjrick, the upper class or the pure - these are not mutated human, nobility, merchants and soldier all tending to be wealthy, while everyone else, the taints and mutants are lower class, destitute on the verge of homelessness. More on mutants in Issues.

There is almost nothing of a middle class.

Each town or city is divided by walls forming upper and lower class districts. Checkpoints exist at each gate and are monitored closely by dozens of guards, checking for mutations in anyone who passes. While not mutated taints can enter, the mutated are always turned away.

The most infectious and dangerous mutants are forced into the quarantine zone, an area of the city sealed off from everyone, nothing more than a prison made of sewers and gutters, Any mutant who enters is never allowed to leave and many die from starvation and thirst. No one is allowed to enter except the Order of the Pure Body when conducting a surge. More on them in Issues.

Along main streets, outside public buildings and at every gate, large lanterns can be found hanging from metal poles. The lanterns are stuffed with incense and always kept burning by the town guards. It is illegal to touch or damage a lamp post, often punishable with death. More is explained in Issues.

This often makes the streets smokey and from afar they appear to be burning.

Architecture Style:

Quarried from the hills, all structures are built with a white or black stones called blood stone that has a veiny red quartz deposit running through it. Fromm afar these structures appear to have blood veins.

The lower class use black stone while the upper class uses white stone - it is a symbolic gesture between the pure and the tainted.

Strangle vines loves blood rock and will often become attracted to the cities like a moth to flames. Despite how destructive strangle vine is, nearly every building in the country is covered by it as it is almost impossible to eradicate. However, the rich can afford to replace the damaged stone of their building while the poor cannot, often living in collapsed, hallowed out structures.

Inside each room or every not mutated home bowls of incense burn. This often makes buildings smoky and smell pungent.

Clothing Style:

Standard medieval. The upper class carry pouches of herbs like bandoleers across their chest, along with a burning incense stick that is always lit on their belt.

The lower class dress mostly in rags, a patchwork of cloth left over from the upper class tailor shops.

The not mutated taints will often wear rags over their face stuffed with any burning herbs.

Both classes believe burning incense keeps the air clean around them and help against contracting a mutating illness.

Because the citizens of Darjrick appear to be smoldering from the burning herbs they carry, they are often referred to as the smokers - or “Hey look, it's one of those smokers.”

Religion:

There is no central religion, although a few necromancy sects exist in the hills, and there is the Order of the Pure Bod.

Government:

Lead by a powerful monarchy who has complete control of their nation.

Only the pure, those with a family line not corrupted by mutation can be nobility or hold jobs as merchants or soldiers.

While many of the lower class are not mutated, they may have fathers, mothers or a past in which their ancestors have become mutated, hence why someone can be tainted even though they are not mutated.

Because of the threat of a family losing its status as pure, any mutations within the family are often dealt with quietly. Pures are also not above infecting a rival with a mutation to keep an entire family from prospering. Maybe a merchant wants to corner a market or a noble wants more land or a soldier wants a to be in command of a garrison. While it is illegal to mutate a pure on purpose, such cases are often hard to prove.

This puts most of the upper class on edge with each family, often aligning themselves to a barracks in mutual self-protection. The nobles or merchants will pay the garrison handsomely, lavishing them with all assortments of goods and in return the garrison assures the family is watched over and protected at all times.

Economy:

The region is an economic powerhouse with a strong merchant class.

Darjrick has trade deals with almost all nations of Mordeadus. This keeps the upper class rich and very seldom do they share it with the lower class.

The nation of Darjrick's main import is herbs, any and as much as they can get their hands on. Although many herb farms do exist, it is not nearly enough for the insatiable appetite Darjrickians have for “clean air”.

Issues

Mutations

Disease is rife in the gutters and marshlands of  Darjrickians.

The disease, while sometimes causing illness and death, usually causes mutation.

The mutations are fast and irreversible except by magic. They can be extra limbs, eyes, mouths, teeth, etc.. Mutants can grow tails, hooved feet, gills, have terrible bulbous skin tumors, limbs can atrophy, necks can grow and twist into odd shapes. Anything is possible as long as it is hideous and painful.

The source of the disease is uncertain as no one has ever been able to find a cause.

Note 1: The marshlands are magically radioactive and it is what causes the mutations.

Note 2: Anyone who enters the marshlands must roll saves every day or become sick and mutate. All mutations have a 10 percent chance of being infectious. Infectious mutants can cause others to become sick and mutate with enough time in close proximity - from a few minutes of the most infectious to days.

While most mutants are harmless and those that are, are only with extreme exposure, the upper class refuses to mingle with them, barring them from almost everywhere but the slums and ditches of cities. The worst, those known to be infectious for certain, are forced and sealed into the quarantine zone and forgotten.

The lower class or tainted have learned to live with mutants, mostly because every tainted family has at least one mutant relative. However, the tainted are no less cautious as being a taint is still better than being a mutant and therefore even mutant relatived who live in the same house are often forced to spend time in one room away from everyone else.

Mutants often regarded as little more than animals, although it is still technically illegal to kill them, and therefore many will often band together in the frontiers, forming colonies and secret societies away from the cities. While most are looking to live in peace, others have decided to make war on the pure, attacking merchant caravans, spreading their disease to merchants or raiding towns in roving band. More on that in the order of the pure body.

Order of the Pure Body

A religious order of purity whose entire goal is to purge the mutant infestation.

They worship Purity, a deity of bright white light whose main focus is the purity of the human body.

People in the order must always remain fit, abstain from alcohol and tobacco and clean themselves daily. Anyone who refrains from these ways are filthy and untouchable.

While the overweight, blind, deaf, mentally handicapped, the poor and those who use drugs are regarded with disdain, it is the mutants who disgust the order the most, a blight on the greatness that is mankind

The order will not compromise, will not feel sorry for nor will every back away from killing a mutant.

Everyone in the order wears a medallion of a gender-less haloed naked human, and wears a metal mask with a long snout full of incense.

The order can be found in each city at the temples of light, a building topped with dozens of burning braziers and human effigies built with wood. The effigies are replaced daily.

They often work with the city guard and for the nobility in purging the mutants, their goal: wiping every mutant from their nation with zealous tenacity.

While the soldiers' jobs are defensive, protect the upper class, run security, keep mutants at arm's reach, the order's job is offensive, to find and purge mutants wherever they may be.

While killing a mutant is still considered murder and technically illegal, most guard and nobility look the other way when a purge is happening. Because murder is illegal, little can be done when a mutant defends themselves and wins, although many have tried. This has caused a perpetual war between the lower class and the order that the upper class can do little to stop.

The monarchy who wishes nothing more than to be rid of the mutants understands that by making killing mutants legal, they would in fact be making war with the entire lower class, so this is the unofficial compromise.

The Order of the Pure Body often work with the Order of the Pure Mind in Ravien, with each order having representatives and working battalions of soldiers in each nation.

Strangle Vine

The thorns are razor sharp and capable of burrying into any material, including metal, eventually strangling the object and crushing it as the thorns devours the substance.

The strangle vine can grow anywhere and is considered an infestation, but mostly is drawn to bloodstone. The thorns of the strangle vine are capable of absorbing the essence of any object, slowing reducing it to powder.

It is a magical plant and considered by many to be the back hairs of a mammoth demon living in the depths of the earth. It is extremely tough and durable - it counts as having the toughness of steel, can regenerate 1 hit point a round and has D4 hit points per meter of vine.

Any vine that wraps around a person requires a strength check to remove, adding plus 1 to the difficultly per round as it digs itself in. After a day, if the vine is not removed or destroyed, the player loses D6 CON and 1 limb atrophies.

Any vine that wraps around a non-living thing absorbs D6 hit points a day - keep in mind, most structures can have 100s to 1000s of hit points and can take years to destroy.

Because of the dangers and difficulty of removing strangle vine, most leave them on their buildings, only repairing structures when needed.