THE GREAT TREE
On the farthest edge of the elven empire of Kra, lies the city of Arbor Magna or ‘the great tree’. This should be taken quite literally as the city has been built on and around a colossal magical tree that stands over 7000 feet tall.
THE CANOPY
Each part of the tree is a different district of the city. The district on the very top of the tree is called Canopy. It’s residents are almost exclusively the richest and most powerful High Elves.
The most righteous Elves find favour with their god Omnia and he grants them lives that can be counted in centuries.
From the Canopy district the just and wise High Elves administer the city. The Canopy is breathtakingly beautiful. This is in part due to ‘the focus’. Something only the most blessed High Elves can do. It means that over time they can perfect and change a physical object with their mind. If they focus on their sword every day, it becomes sharper and more beautiful, the same with a building or even the face of their beloved. The ornate Spires that stick out from the very top of the tree are a result of this rare art.
THE PYRAM WASTES
From the top of the tree, the High Elves look down over the Pyram Wastes that encircle Arbor Magna, stretching out beyond the horizon. This land was once home to humans and scraban (rat folk) but their wars turned this once fertile valley to desert, and cursed the land with a dark magic. Today, Eldritch creatures roam the Pyram Wastes tormenting the scattered human settlements, little more than encampments that cling on in the wilderness.
THE LAWS
This desecration of the land is why, when the High Elves took over this region over a thousand years ago, in their wisdom they put restrictions on the type of technology that can be legally used. Their preference is for biotech, so whilst vehicles are banned for ordinary citizens, there are a myriad of genetically engineered living steeds to choose from. All laser weapons are banned.
Guns are useless anyway in most fights, as advanced personal energy shields mean that bullets are deflected with ease. They are only useful against the mutants/monsters of the waste who have no access to such tech.
Most other fights are carried out using melee weapons or projectiles like arrows which are too slow to be picked up by the energy shields.
Magical ability is relatively rare among all the races, it is also tightly controlled in the city and it’s only allowed to be performed within the city with a license.
AI is banned in the city outside of the Canopy district.
The laws in the city are enforced by a fleet of laser armed hovering robot drones called the Custodia. They are controlled from the Canopy. Their lasers can even cut through personal energy shields.
THE BRANCHES
The next district down is known as the Branches. This is a majority High Elf district but some of the most affluent members of the other races also live there. Many of the residents of the Branches work in an administrative capacity in the Canopy but cannot afford to live there. The Branches enjoy a level of technological comfort on a par with the Canopy and like them, many of the residents have augmented themselves with tech and bio-engineering in dramatic ways – giving themselves four arms, wings or immense height.
THE TRUNK
Below that is the district known as the Trunk. The trunk has a more diverse population than the Canopy and the Branches. Elves make up about fifty percent of the locals, the rest is about twenty percent human, twenty percent scraban (rat folk) and ten percent others from across the Kra empire.
The Trunk contains a lot of lower middle and working class of the city. There are a lot of factories and offices in the Truck.
The Trunk also contains the hub of the lift system that makes use of the water that travels up the tree to elevate the lifts and then runs them down the exterior of the tree. The lifts are operated by a small but dedicated team of Aarakocra (bird folk).
THE ROOTS
Finally, at the base of the great tree, nestled in amongst its exposed roots is the slum known as the Roots. The Roots are still policed by the Elves Custodia drones but far less heavily than the rest of the city. Residents of the Roots can rarely afford the lift ride to see the rest of the city and many live their whole lives without ever going up the tree.
Some scratch out a living in the wastes, scavenging items from the fallen civilisations that brought the land to ruin, trading with or entertaining the scattered human settlements and farms out there or through outright criminality.
The only building of any grandeur in the Roots is the mag-rail station. The Mag-rail brings people here from the rest of empire to Arbor Magna, a city they regard as the furthest flung outpost of that empire. As a result most that come are desperate, often running away from something. Thanks in part to the station the Roots is the most diverse part of the city. With small communities from all over. Life in the Roots is tough, tougher than a thunder lizard steak.
The Roots is where you live.
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You must pick a profession that your character has training in. The professions don’t limit who you become but start you off with a series of skills.
There are no magic focused professions but magic will become available to all professions over the course of the campaign.
HIRED KILLER
‘The Roots’ taught you that you were going to have to fight to survive so you brought discipline to your violence, trained for it, turned it into an art form and now you are ready to try and cash in on it even if it means taking someone’s life.
WALL BALLER
The most popular sport in Alta Magna. It developed from street kids using the slanted roofs of the houses in the roots to throw a ball off. The ball would bounce off the roof and the other kid would have to catch it before it hit the floor. This developed into a sport that slum dwellers of the Roots will bet their last coin on. The stars of the sport live in The Canopy but you’re just starting out.
STREET URCHIN
You have grown up homeless on the mean streets of the Roots but while wealth has alluded you the lifestyle of a street urchin has brought you its own unique set of skills. You aren’t schooled but that doesn’t mean you aren’t smart and cunning. You know the city in a deeper closer way than those who spend every night under the same roof.
WASTE RIDER
A wanderer of the waste who rides a genetically engineered steed often a dinosaur like lizard and picks up work as they go from the farms and settlements of humans and Scraban in the Pyram Wastes. The archetype would be a cowboy or wandering Samurai.
CON ARTIST
You have the gift of the gab and can usually talk your way out of a tight spot or talk someone out of their hard earned credits. Your charismatic and cunning but also morally compromised.
INVESTIGATOR
The High Elves operate the drone for serious offences but they rarely come out to the Roots unless the crimes somehow affect those who live higher up the tree. That means security and investigations fall to others, like you.
SURGEON
There are limited resources so health care is sparse those that practice it tend to call themselves surgeons. Some are just butchers who amputate a limb without a second thought but others have really dedicated themselves to using what they have from nature and the tech available in the Roots to create a sort of healing art.
BALLADEER
These are like those cowboys you seeing singing in old movies or medieval Troubadours. They wander the scattered human settlements of the waste singing for coin. They act as both an entertainment and a news service. Their guitars are often their most prized possessions.
SCAVENGER
They wander the wastes looking for items of value from buried treasures left over from the fallen human empire that once ruled these now barren lands or working for mapping companies keen to discover whats out there and whether it could be exploited for gold. Recently they have also found work with the Mag-Rail – they say they are looking to build a track through the wastes all the way to the dwarven mountains and they need to know where to put it.
GAMBLER
There are those with real jobs and then there are those who like to live on the edge. Cards is the favourite way most residents of The Roots have of losing what little money they have. However, whilst the risks of being bad at gambling are obvious the risks of being good shouldn’t be understated. People don’t losing money.
HUNTER
The reptiles of the Pyram Wastes make good eating, fine leather and you never know who they might have eaten and what riches you’ll find in their stomachs. Larger lizards are the most likely to turn the predator prey dynamic upside down on you but they also fetch the most gold.
STORY RUNNER
Gossip has always been popular in The Roots and you can sell stories. Journalists without morals, ‘runners’ are always in search of a story and will do almost anything to get it. The bigger the story the bigger the pay. Even in the Roots people have coms devices plugged into the network and there are popular streamers down here that are watched by the rest of the tree.
MERCHANT
There are few expensive items sold in The Roots but there are still things all kinds of people need from equipment to help them survive in the Great Wastes to fruit and veg. Merchants know how to spot a treasure and drive a hard bargain. What tech they can get their hands on they will sell.
POLITICAL AGITATOR
The Roots are a pretty desperate place and all kinds of movements spring up promising a brighter tomorrow for its inhabitants. The members of these movements tend to be charismatic with natural leadership abilities.
SOLDIER
The Armies of the Elven Empire have been recruiting lately in the Roots despite the fact that there is currently no war being fought by the greater empire. Life in the Roots barracks could seem like a good option for someone without many other options.
SPY
The High Elves have families known as Spires each Spire wants to know what the others are up to. As a result they hire spies even in the Roots. They want to know about goods coming in and out the city, cargo and people arriving on the Mag-Rail and if any elves come down to the slums they must be up to something.
HACKER
You are a computer wizard – a tech head. You surf the network like a god and can hack into any systems that aren’t heavily defended. Your ability with tech is a valuable skill probably self taught through trail and error as there’s little formal education in the Roots.
