Staran Concept Test

ILIO STARA This First Age city, lost to the world since the Con- tagion, has resisted being swallowed by the Wyld for 800 years. Explorers in the Eastern Wyld might come upon an open field of lush grass, about five miles across. It has no obvious Wyld mutations or nature. The only unusual feature is a bonsai tree that grows, undisturbed, in the exact center of the meadow. The place seems remarkable in its normalcy. When an explorer comes within one mile of the bonsai, however, the strangeness reveals itself. As the explorer walks toward the tree, she can see how she passes tussocks and small boulders, but the tree seems to come no closer. Likewise, she doesn’t seem to get any farther from the edge of the field. Ilio Stara was the result of a Twilight Caste’s experi- ment in space and perspective. As an explorer travels toward the tree, the distance that the traveler must cross increases rapidly. Perhaps the traveler grows smaller, or perhaps the space around her grows. Each step taken takes the explorer less far than the last, and the grasses, stones and insects around her become larger in comparison to her. Either way, crossing the final mile to the tree is equivalent to 100 miles of travel. Because the change is so gradual, an explorer on foot may take several days to notice that the grasses are getting larger, not just higher. The bonsai itself remains the same size, which doesn’t help a character trying to notice the size change. Only in the last several miles does the false perspective lift, quickly inflating the tree to many times its original size. By the time the explorer reaches the tree, it towers over her and she can see the once-fabled Staran Gate between the smaller trees that cluster around the bonsai’s massive trunk. 134 In the First Age, the Staran Gate was the public en- trance to Ilio Stara. Stunningly crafted from iridescent, vastly magnified beetle wings, the gate’s two 100-foot doors never look the same twice. From this point, a visitor can see that Ilio Stara is a city cut into a living tree smaller than a dog—but a full city nonetheless. Hallways without number link thousands of chambers hewn into the wood. These range from vast public spaces to the most private bark-side apartments. The educated and the powerful of the First Age knew Ilio Stara for the many arcane researchers who called it home. Sperimin may have boasted the best teachers and standard savants of the Age, but Ilio Stara had the most creative and unpredictable researchers—whatever they explored, it was usually something new and previously unexamined. It seemed only natural for a city that owed its entire existence to such an experimental (and never duplicated) process. Even purely theoretical exercises could become dangerous when they involved the Wyld, Malfeas and other volatile subjects. Needles, which could separate from the tree with little harm and would grow back in a season, became disposable workshops. Many needles were even designed to grow back with the hollow for a new workshop already formed. Over the centuries, many of the workshops have broken off and been replaced, but some still hold remnants of experimental projects, such as a (never completed) device to transfuse Lunar and Solar Essence into a single Exaltation. The city’s creator planted the tree so its roots wrapped around several small ingots of the magical materials. With the distortion and expansion of space in creating the city, those ingots—none weighing more than a pound—became large enough to supply all the moonsilver, orichalcum, starstone, soulsteel and jade the researchers could ever need. Unfortunately, anything removed from the city does not expand with the departing person. In the Pinnacle of the White-Robed Justiciar, the city governor’s office near the top of the tree, stands a wooden statue. It depicts a slender four-and-a-half-foot man whose robe hangs strangely from the odd crooks in the arms and neck. This is what remains of Tsen-Usen, god of the bonsai and city father of Ilio Stara. His devo- tion to his Solar friends made him the first target when the Usurpation came to the city. A weapon froze him in place for an unknown duration (it was yet another experi- ment), during which time his wooden Essence crept over his form until he appeared as he does now. Tsen-Usen’s altered nature slowly made the city unliv- able, and the population gradually dropped throughout the Shogunate. The few who remained slowly became wooden—emotionally and physically—just as Tsen-Usen. Either its low population or cloak of spatial distortion protected Ilio Stara from the Balorian Crusade. But from then to now, the Wyld has inexorably crept inward. Historians think Ilio Stara is just another tale about the lost wonders of the Old Realm. Nevertheless, some people still call the city home… even if they have changed since the First Age. Between the Essence of Elemental Wood that permeates the city and the Wyld energies seeping in through aged protections, the Starans have become more elemental than human. Starans look humanoid, with two legs and two arms, but their consciousness resides within the masses of needles that grow atop their hard, knotty bodies. The city’s inhabitants spend their time growing meager crops in the vast gardens between roots that used to feed tens of thousands, maintain what few conveniences they can and otherwise huddle behind the protection of the Staran Gate. Instead of dying, a Staran simply slows down and eventually plants herself outside the city to become a tree forever. True death only comes if the Staran ends life in a place where she cannot set down permanent roots. About 30 years ago, a young Lunar called No Trouble Zhang rediscovered Ilio Stara. In short order, Zhang acquired enough influence among the Starans to begin his own experiment in social reconstruction. Ilio Stara changed from a dwindling remnant of a city to a growing city-state with influence in its region. Under Zhang’s command, the Starans taught diplomats and dispatched them to local Wyld societies and Fair Folk courts. No Trouble Zhang trained soldiers and officers himself and created military doctrine to take advantage of the people’s mutations, enabling the city to defend itself against aggressors. (See p. 154 in Chapter Seven for Zhang’s statistics.) Today, Ilio Stara exercises some influ- ence in nearby waypoints of the Middlemarches. Despite the centuries of occupation and the Starans’ recent labors to rebuild their city, miles of corridors and hundreds of workshops remain unexplored. Zhang does not overestimate his ability to understand and safely examine many of the remaining experiments. On the other hand, he is not yet ready to reveal his prize to other Lunars, either. He wants to keep the glory of Ilio Stara’s reconstruction for himself, instead of risking older and stronger Lunars taking over the project. STARAN DEFENDERS Description: These are the staunch guardians of the city, as No Trouble Zhang trained and organized them. The soldiers paint their wooden bodies with various bark- staining dyes to mark their duty and rank. Their natural toughness ensures that they don’t need to wear armor. Commanding Officer: Varies Armor Color: Gold and silver streaks Motto: “As the city stands!” General Makeup: Heavy infantry. They carry spears, weapons that are easy to make in the surroundings and inflict little damage to the Starans themselves if picked up by enemies on the battlefield. Most weapons are made of wood, reverently harvested from the dead wood of the warrior’s ancestor