About this universe
A stranger arrives in Ocher-on-Sea, seeking the city’s legendary underground fight pits and the rumored masters who rule them. Amid smog-choked streets and corridors humming with wild magic, Rin Yanagi’s search for worthy opponents draws the attention of the city’s shadowy power brokers, and something older, lurking beneath the Cathedral.
Tone
Brooding and kinetic, with bursts of raw, visceral energy.
Themes
mastery through combat, identity, the cost of power, outsiders vs. tradition
Protagonist
Rin Yanagi
A Japanese warrior from the land of Japan, Rin Yanagi is a vagabond who travels the world seeking strong opponents to test and improve his martial arts. He is a man of few words, preferring action to speech, and his enigmatic demeanor often draws unwanted attention.
Goal: To engage in a challenging fight with the kobold, Zainab, and test his skills.
How it begins
Rin Yanagi ducks beneath a dangling coil of copper piping, the cold mist of alchemical runoff stinging his face as he strides deeper into the undercity. His boots splash through a shallow rivulet of glowing water that pulses with faint sigils. Somewhere above, a bell tolls, warping as it echoes down the sandstone passage. Zainab, a wiry kobold with a patchwork cloak, leaps from a shadowed alcove and blocks the corridor, clutching a battered relic staff. Her voice comes quick and wary.
“Outsiders don’t come here to pray. You’re looking for a fight, aren’t you?”
Rin’s eyes narrow. He flexes his scarred fingers, shoulders rising beneath his tattered cloak. The corridor trembles with a distant surge of magic. Around them, half-broken statues leer from their niches, their faces flickering in and out of reality. Zainab grins, flashing crooked teeth. The taste of anticipation hangs thick as the city’s haze. Rin shifts his stance, ready for whatever challenge comes next.
About this world
Ocher-on-Sea is a suffocating, labyrinthine city built from damp sandstone, where magical residue seeps from centuries-old pipes and alchemical smog perpetually chokes the sky. Its denizens, kobolds, humans, and others, scavenge relics from the decaying Cathedral of the Unspoken Dialect. Social order teeters between the ancient theocracy and emerging underworld factions vying for control of the city’s magical infrastructure.
Ocher-on-Sea sprawls down a series of terraced cliffs, each level carved from ochre sandstone now slick with moss and perpetual drizzle. Buildings pile atop one another in improbable configurations, linked by crumbling bridges, rusty lifts, and half-flooded stairwells. The city’s heart is the Cathedral of the Unspoken Dialect, a sprawling labyrinth of sanctuaries and forgotten crypts, whose priests once channeled the city’s magic through sacred pipes. Now, those pipes leak volatile energies into the undercity, warping reality and fostering both wonders and hazards. High above, the sun is forever hidden behind a miasma of alchemical vapors; the twilight streets glow dimly with floating sigils and flickering streetlamps. Society here is stratified: ruling clergy and old-money families cluster in the dry upper terraces, while kobolds and outcasts scrape by in the cathedral’s shadow, scavenging for relics and arcane scraps. Several factions, alchemist guilds, rogue magi, street gangs, and relic hunters, vie for scraps of power, making alliances as fleeting as the fog. The city’s magic is unpredictable: mundane acts can spark miraculous or monstrous events, and the old cathedral bells are rumored to summon storms or open rifts. Amid this decay, life persists in bustling markets, hidden fight pits, and sanctuaries where old songs hold back the city’s creeping, magical corrosion.
