It was supposed to be the future. Utopia. When the Council of Thirty announced the creation of Pierreville, at the end of the Thousand Year War, this was what society would look forward to. The encapsulation of years of peace.
A war that began when spears shattered on shields on the sandy beaches of the Narrows ended with the Great Treaty, nine hundred and seventy-five years later. Eight hundred years after the destruction of the devil Malank’thi and the Order of the High Church of the Sacred Tree. Five hundred years after the lands of the Confederation Tribes were conquered by the Nivet Empire, their peoples led away in chains. Four hundred and fifty years since survivors from the Order of the High Church founded a new religion in barren Aderaki lands. Four hundred years after the bombs fell on Scofell, and the Bridge of the Saints collapsed into the sea. Three hundred and fifty years after the formation of the Belle Alliance, where members of The New Church pledged allegiance to Sicania. Three hundred years after Belle Alliance mechs rolled into the Principality, and bulldozed the Palace of the Summer Queen, levelling the University of the Golden City. Two hundred years after the fall of the Sand Isles to the Order, and the last stand of the Krypteia in the Schola Praeventorum. A hundred years, an elf’s memory, since the missiles fell in Sammarkat, and two millennia of rock and humanoid endeavour was crystallised forever. Fifty years since the worship of Our Lady of Festia was outlawed.
But the treaty stands, and Gevin exists, albeit in name only. The same is true for Sicania. Constant chemical, nuclear and hermetical warfare has turned much of the country into an arid waste. The capital city, Ardentaine has been abandoned, and refugees have begun their long, sorry trudge east for food and water.
The draining of the Sica Swamp, the creation of Pierreville - this was supposed to be a celebration of victory; a legacy of triumph. Instead, it is a bloody-handed memory of the cost that Sicania has endured. Haste, poverty, corruption and recklessness have led to a city which teeters on ruin. Dazzling, brightly-lit skyscrapers line arrondissements, the fashionable communities of wealthy expats, on the banks of the old marshes, while in the city centre disease and damp are the order of the day; crumbling concrete competing to spend another day above the waterline.
All is not well, in Pierreville. Malcontent murmurs seductively in the streets of the Middle City, and rumour has it that change may be in the air.
Whatever reasons you have for being here are your own. But they might not be for long.
Hosted and narrated by:
Jimmy Beestone (the_leveller)
Started 10/11/23.
Scenes played: 2
License: Community License
