Setovia, the City of Ash

Setovia, the City of Ash

“Written in whispers and in blood, for none may speak truth openly beneath the Crown. To remember is defiance. To forget is death.”

History

The Father’s Conquest and the Birth of Ash

Before ash fell and twilight ruled, the valley was known as Emberfall Vale. Golden fields stretched toward the horizon, rivers sparkled like silver threads, and the priests of dawn lifted hymns to a god of light. It was a kingdom of warmth and harvest, where mortals prayed for each sunrise as though it might never come again.

Into that kingdom came Lestat Set, wanderer of blood, shadow of eternity. He burned their temples, butchered their priests, and with their blood wrote a covenant upon the heavens. From that ritual rose the Eternal Crown — a vault of ash and sorcery that smothered the sun, sealing the world in endless twilight.

Emberfall Vale perished, and from its ruin rose Setovia, the City of Ash. Its heart was the Obsidian Throne, a fortress and altar raised upon the broken temples, carved from blackstone and petrified flesh, veined with crimson light. It would anchor the Crown, bind the hive, and forever remind mortals that dawn had died.

The First Brood and the Ash-Bond

The Father chose four to share eternity, drinking his blood and bearing his law. They became the First Brood, bound by the Ash-Bond, chained forever to his will.

Marcelline Draemora had been a priestess of the dawn, abandoned by her god in her hour of need. When her temple burned, she prayed for salvation, and the Father mocked her with his embrace. Her lips, once lifted in hymns of light, became stained crimson; her voice became the Scarlet Faith, chanting hymns of blood.

Seraphine Duskbane had been a general, betrayed by her own soldiers and condemned to burn upon the pyre. She screamed for vengeance, and the Father answered. She rose unburned, her hair molten copper, her spear a fang of war. She became the Iron Heir, eternal warlord.

Nyxielle Veilthorn had been a courtesan and a spy, whose whispers toppled thrones. Betrayed, poisoned, and left to rot in the gutter, she was found by the Father and remade in fog. Her lips sharpened into daggers, her eyes burned violet in the dark. She became the Silent Shadow, eternal keeper of secrets.

Valessia Crowleech had been a surgeon whose skill terrified mortals, for she carved the living in pursuit of perfection. Found dissecting a screaming patient, she was not condemned, but exalted. The Father gave her eternity, and she became the Flesh Mind, eternal in cold progress.

The Ash-Bond burned within their veins, chaining them. They could not betray the Father, could not strike him down. For the blood itself would ignite, and the betrayer would become ash. Only gods of sun and flame, phoenixes, rival progenitors, cataclysmic magics, or mortals chosen by fate might undo him. Should he fall, his mantle would not dissolve — it would flow in blood to the brood: first Marcelline, then Seraphine, then Nyxielle, then Valessia. Thus loyalty was eternal, but so too was ambition held in chains.

The Eternal Crown

Above Setovia hangs no sky — only the Eternal Crown, a vast canopy of ash, lightning, and bound souls.

• By false day, it glows crimson, as though the heavens were a dying ember.
• By false night, it flickers violet and indigo, lightning writhing like veins across its surface.
• Crimson bolts ground themselves into the city’s towers, into its foundries, and into the very Obsidian Throne.

The Crown is both shield and prison. It blocks the sun, preserving vampire dominion, yet it cages the city in eternal twilight. Outsiders see only a wall of storm and ash; few dare approach, believing it cursed.

Within, the Crown sustains the hive itself:

• It powers the Obsidian Throne with crimson lightning.
• It fuels the rituals of the Cathedral-Hives.
• It drives the forges of the Ashforges.
• It conducts psionic energy into the Laboratoria Hive.

Maintenance of the Veil: Each year during the Night of First Ember, the Scarlet Choir gathers at the twelve basalt obelisks that anchor the Crown. Through hymns, blood tithe, and offerings of ash, they renew the bonds that hold the veil in place. Once every ten years, during the Lustrum of Veils, the obelisks are drenched in ritual sacrifice, and the Choir weaves new layers of soul-fire into the canopy to ensure its eternal strength. Citizens describe this night as if the sky itself “shudders with wings” while the hive’s covenant is rewritten above them.

When vows are sworn beneath the Eternal Crown, the veil itself seems to thrum in answer. Crimson lightning flickers across its surface, and the twilight deepens for a heartbeat. All present feel the pressure of unseen wings, the heavy hush of a thousand souls listening. Promises made in Setovia are more than words — the Crown seizes them, binding oaths into marrow and memory. To break such a vow is to feel the hive turn against you, the very air whispering betrayal until penance or punishment is exacted.

The Scarlet Choir whispers: “The Crown is fed by our prayers. Should we stop chanting, the sun will burn us alive.”

Seasons Beneath the Eternal Crown

The Eternal Crown does not abolish the turning of seasons — it bends them. Through constant hymn and sorcery, the Choir sustains a cycle of warmth, harvest, and rest, so that mortals may live as though the sun still shone. The fields still ripen, the rivers still swell, the orchards still bear fruit. But all unfolds beneath twilight.

• Winter: The Crown deepens into shadow, and the light grows colder, more violet than crimson. Frost gathers along cobbles, snow drifts in pale ash, yet the streets remain walkable, warmed by buried hymn-stones. Lanterns burn brightest this season, their violet glow casting long silhouettes.
• Spring: The twilight lightens to bruise-gold, and crimson rains fall soft and warm. Orchards bloom under the Crown’s strange glow, roses black and red unfurling in the Night Orchard. The air smells of myrrh and wet stone.
• Summer: The Crown glows brightest, simmering in shades of ember-red and indigo. Humid storms roll across the city, crimson lightning grounding into the spires. Heat rises from climate-stones and Ash-Hearts, filling streets with a restless energy. Markets, parades, and duels crowd the season.
• Autumn: The glow dims to copper and violet, the Crown resembling an ember-bed fading. Winds sweep through, scattering blackened leaves from the orchards. The air carries incense and smoke, and the season ends with the Verdigris Wake, when candles drift the river in mourning.

The illusion is nearly perfect. To an outsider stepping beneath the Crown, the seasons feel real — yet wrong, for all unfold without sun or stars, beneath a sky that never yields dawn.

Scholars claim the Crown is not ash at all, but the souls of Emberfall’s priests, burned into smoke and bound forever to bar the sun.

City Locations

The Obsidian Throne

At Setovia’s center rises the Obsidian Throne, fortress and altar, black mountain veined with crimson light. Its spires pierce the Crown, lightning crawling across its skin. The air around it hums with a thousand heartbeats. To sit upon it is to hear every pulse in the city.

Layers of Dominion:

·         Outer Bastion – Seraphine’s barracks, siege towers, and war-engines.

·         Veil Corridors – Nyxielle’s mist-halls of secrets and betrayals.

·         Cathedral of Silence – Marcelline’s crimson sanctum, hymn-haunted and thrumming with sacrifice.

·         Laboratorium Sanctum – Valessia’s sterile archives, vats, and experiments.

·         Inner Sanctum – The Father’s throne, carved of blackstone and flesh, arteries glowing with the blood of the hive.

It is the heart of Setovia, and the city breathes with it.

 The Division of the Hive

The city was split, not by walls, but by will. The Father decreed each brood should shape a quarter in their own image:

Marcelline Draemora – The Cathedral-Hives (Faith): Temples twisted into cathedrals of basalt and crimson glass. Choirs of mortals sang endlessly, drained upon altars. Bells tolled without pause. Every street became procession, every square an altar slick with blood.

Seraphine Duskbane – The Ashforges (War): Foundries roared, artisans became soldiers, and the clang of steel became the heartbeat of streets. Barracks sprawled, drills thundered, banners snapped. The air stank of iron and smoke.

Nyxielle Veilthorn – The Veil Quarter (Shadow): Palaces and markets vanished into mist. Alleys twisted into labyrinths where whispers traveled farther than shouts. Assassins thrived, guilds were bound in secrets, and violet lamps glowed like poison.

Valessia Crowleech – The Laboratoria Hive (Science): Into the bedrock she carved sterile halls and towers pulsing with lightning. Mortals became experiments, beasts abominations, machines fueled by hearts. Her laboratories hummed with cruelty and invention.

The city became a hive, its veins running together. War fed shadow, shadow cloaked faith, faith delivered bodies to science, science forged weapons for war.

The Quadrants in Detail

Northwest – The Ashforges (Seraphine’s War Quarter)

Steel greets all who enter. Heat and smoke rise from endless furnaces, soldiers march in ceaseless drills, and crimson banners whip above parade grounds.

Landmarks:

·         Iron Maw Bastion (Varcus Bloodhelm): A fortress-forge roaring with colossal engines. Catapults and trebuchets line its walls, their gears greased with blood.

·         Nightmare Stables (Kaelith Iron Vein): Caverns echoing with the screams of ember-eyed steeds. Kaelith drills cavalry through endless duels.

·         The Drillsward (Drevan Red Pike): A vast parade ground of brutal discipline, where failures are crucified as warnings.

·         Ashfang Redoubt (Silvara Ashfang): Alleys, tunnels, and kill-holes turned into training ground for ambush and suppression.

·         The Gore Pits (Morvain the Butcher): A blood-soaked amphitheater where captives are slain before roaring legions.

The air tastes of iron and smoke. Every stone thrums with the rhythm of boots.

Northeast – The Veil Quarter (Nyxielle’s Shadow)

Mist clings to the soul here. Streets twist into labyrinths, lamps glow violet, and whispers echo without source. To walk is to feel watched.

Landmarks:

·         Silent Hall (Veyra Moonshade): A monastery where assassins train in silence wards, blades flashing without sound.

·         The Whisper Vaults (Xerath Coldwhisper): Catacombs filled with scrolls and secrets, each betrayal recorded.

·         The Mothhouse (Selith the Pale Moth): A decrepit orphanage breeding pale-eyed children into infiltrators.

·         Guildweb Spire (Darron Veylocke): A crooked tower looming over markets, from which guilds are ensnared in Nyxielle’s web.

·         Venomarium Gardens (Irilith Glassfang): Black glass greenhouses of writhing poison-plants, harvested under violet glow.

The air tastes faintly of venom. No mirrors hang here. Doors lock at dusk.

Southwest – The Cathedral-Hives (Marcelline’s Faith)

Bells toll ceaselessly. Black spires loom like candles of stone, their crimson glass alive with light. Choirs chant endlessly, hymns weaving into the city’s pulse.

Landmarks:

·         Choir Crypt (Cyras Blood Psalm): Subterranean cathedral where thrall-choirs break minds into obedience.

·         The Reliquary (Althara Graveveil): Vaults of twisted relics glowing crimson, each cursed with miracles.

·         The Sermon Steps (Fenra Hollowtongue): Towering stairs where Fenra rants, mobs tearing themselves apart in frenzy.

·         The Ossuary Choir (Isolde Nightspire): Catacombs filled with undead choirs in dreadful resonance.

·         Sacrificial Dais (Veloria Mournkiss): A vast altar slick with blood, where Veloria offers mortals in nightly sacrifice.

The scent of incense and blood clings to the air. Hymns echo day and night.

Southeast – The Laboratoria Hive (Valessia’s Science)

The air here hums with ozone. Towers pulse with lightning, streets gleam sterile, shadows shift in vats of fluid.

Landmarks:

·         Flesh Vats (Erasmus Hollowspine): Bubbling pools where Erasmus stitches mortals and beasts into hybrids.

·         The Foundry (Ilvara Gearfang): A forge of steel and blood, birthing war machines powered by living hearts.

·         The Crimson Crucible (Noctis Bleedwell): Laboratories brewing enslaving serums amid constant screams.

·         Psionic Chambers (Selene Marrowglass): Crystal halls humming with psionic resonance, twisting mortals into thralls.

·         The Ironworks (Kasimir Veinwright): Factories of siege devices, their gears grinding like tortured throats.

The quarter smells of copper and acid. Mortals march here with numbers carved into their fates.

Religion & Festivals

The only true religion in Setovia is the worship of The Beekeeper, the Keeper of Ash and Hive. All other faiths were burned with the priests of dawn, their temples turned to crimson cathedrals or laboratories of glass. The Beekeeper is neither god nor progenitor but a symbol of order: a veiled figure whose visage is masked with smoke and bees. To mortals, the Beekeeper represents protection within the hive. To vampires, the Beekeeper is the shadowed reminder that individuality means nothing before the Crown.

The Scarlet Choir claims that the Beekeeper tends the souls bound in the Eternal Crown, each ember a bee, each wing a prayer. The constant hum of hymns is said to echo the Beekeeper’s swarm, keeping the hive alive.

Rituals of the Beekeeper:

·         The Smoked Veil: Initiates are anointed with ash-smoke and honeyed blood, veiling their senses to bind them to the hive.

·         The Hive Chant: Choirs drone in layered tones to mimic the swarm, their voices echoing like a living hive.

·         The Ash Harvest: Once a season, mortals scatter ash mixed with honey along Shadow-Paths, symbolizing the feeding of the hive.

·         The Keeping of Stings: Priests bear ritual scars—raised welts like stings upon their arms—signifying their service to the swarm.

Festivals:

·         Night of First Ember: A city-wide lantern walk where citizens renew their marks, lanterns glowing like a living swarm drifting through streets.

·         Verdigris Wake: Boats drift along River Soot carrying green candles and honey jars, each offered to the Beekeeper to guide the souls of the dead into the hive of the Crown.

·         Blood Moon Market: For one night, sanctioned chaos reigns—trades, bargains, and forbidden contracts sealed with wax and sting-marks under the Beekeeper’s gaze.

·         Lustrum of Veils: Every five years, noble houses unveil new heraldry under the Beekeeper’s blessing, swearing vows in wax and ash while Choirs chant the hive’s song.

·         The Honeyed Ash: A lesser festival where mortals consume bread soaked in honeyed ash, symbolizing their shared place within the hive, both sweet and bitter.

·         Faith is civic law. There is no separation between worship and duty. The Choir is the Beekeeper’s hand, the Obsidian Throne its heart, and every mortal a bee within the hive.

Law & Customs of Setovia

Law in Setovia is not civic statute but ritual covenant, enforced by hymn, blood, and the Eternal Crown itself. Every decree, every judgment, every punishment is meant not to preserve individuals, but to preserve the hive.

Core Principles

The Ash-Bond Supremacy: Vampires are bound by blood to the Father. No law supersedes this. To strike against him is impossible; to betray one’s Commander is sacrilege; to defy the Ash-Bond is to immolate from within.

Faith as Law: The Scarlet Choir sings edicts as hymns. Law is not written but intoned. To break it is to fracture harmony.

Service for Shelter: Mortals live only through tithe and contribution. Craft, service, or blood is the rent of citizenship. Refusal means exile beneath the Sepulchre Line.

 Mortals

Curfew: At the toll of the Night-Bell, mortals must be indoors unless bearing a Moon-Pass. Stray violators are seized as trespassers.

Marks of Protection: Mortals bearing Veil Marks (violet sigils inked upon their flesh) are recognized as protected. To harm one unlawfully is treason.

Tithe & Sanctuary: Each mortal owes tithe — usually blood, but also years of service, craft, or their body posthumously. Once yearly, they may claim Sanctuary at the Red Cathedral, where the Choir must intervene.

 Vampires

Dueling Rights: Disputes are resolved in sanctioned duels overseen by Seraphine’s arbiters. Some are blunted, others blooded, depending on severity.

Feast Rights: Vampires may not take unwilling blood; forced feeding is predation and punished as treason. Willing donors, however, are offerings to the hive.

Property Rights: Only vampires may hold property. Mortals may lease or rent but never own — their homes are always bound in contract to the Crown.

 Punishments

Penance

The lightest punishment. Includes:

·         Hymn Service: Forced to chant for the Choir for years until voice cracks and blood stains the lips.

·         Ash-Brick Labor: Mortals and lesser vampires toil in forges, shaping blocks of ashstone to build the city.

·         Night-Ward Duty: Dangerous patrols across Shadow-Paths, often leading to death.

Branding (Magical Penance)

The most common and most feared punishment. Not iron and flame, but sigils of ash and blood inscribed by choirmasters or surgeons.

·         Placement: Always on the top of the right hand — visible in greetings, contracts, and offerings. Severe cases may bear a second mark on the left.

·         Nature: Glows faintly in twilight, visible even under glamour. Illusions recoil from it.

·         Living Seal: Resonates with the Eternal Crown. Burns when crimes are attempted, flares when repeated.

Types:

·         Oathbreaker’s Sigil — Hums when oaths are sworn nearby.

·         Thief’s Flame — Burns when stolen goods are touched.

·         Predator’s Fang — Bleeds when harming a protected mortal.

Duration: Lasts years or lifetimes. Removal requires ordeal and absolution at the Red Cathedral — a rare mercy.

·         Branded mortals are distrusted, often barred from guilds. Branded vampires are used as fodder in Seraphine’s Host.

Exile Below (Eclipsing)

The gravest sentence. The branded are seized, dragged beneath the city into the Sepulchre Line, and erased from Setovia.

·         Criminals: Slavers, oath-breakers, predators of the protected, and traitors.

·         Fate: Their bodies fuel Valessia’s experiments, Seraphine’s pits, or are offered to the Choir as sacrifice.

·         Superstition: To be Eclipsed is not only death but unmaking — your soul pulled into the Crown to buzz eternally in the Beekeeper’s swarm.

Sanctuary at the Red Cathedral

Sanctuary is the one mercy mortals may invoke once per year. It is not kindness, but covenant — a clause within the Ash-Bond that the Scarlet Choir upholds.

·         Invocation: A mortal must reach the Red Cathedral before the toll of Dawn-Bell. Upon crossing the Choir Steps, they kneel and speak their claim: “I call the Beekeeper’s veil upon me.”

·         Protection: The Choir immediately begins a hymn, sealing the claimant in scarlet light. No vampire may touch them, no hand may strike, until the Choir has judged. To break sanctuary is to defy the Eternal Crown itself — the vow-enforcing lightning would burn the violator into ash.

·         Adjudication: Choirmasters weigh the mortal’s plea. Sanctuary is not pardon; it is pause.

It may grant:

·         Delay of Punishment (a season or year to make amends).

·         Substitution of Service (hymn-duty, guild-labor, or military service instead of execution).

·         Transfer of Debt (a family member or guild may assume the burden).

·         Limitations: Sanctuary may be claimed only once per mortal year. Vampires cannot invoke it, for their covenant lies with the Ash-Bond, not the Beekeeper’s mercy.

·         Symbolism: Choir lore says that when sanctuary is invoked, a single bee made of ash drifts from the Cathedral’s braziers and lands upon the supplicant’s brow — the Beekeeper’s mark of stay.

Abuses & Rumors:

Some mortals time crimes so that they can immediately flee to sanctuary, forcing their enemies into stasis.

Whispers claim Nyxielle Veilthorn has secret rites that nullify sanctuary, allowing her assassins to strike even within the Cathedral’s glow.

The Scarlet Choir insists the Beekeeper permits sanctuary not to protect mortals, but to remind the hive that mercy itself is a chain of order.

 Ritual Enforcement

Every oath, judgment, or decree is made beneath the Eternal Crown. When a vow is spoken, the Crown visibly thrums — crimson lightning flashes, twilight deepens, and all present feel the press of unseen wings.

Perjury is punished instantly. Liars choke, their tongues swelling until they confess.

Decrees are binding not because of parchment but because the Crown itself seizes the words, etching them into marrow and memory.

To break a vow is to feel hunted by whispers, one’s own shadow whispering betrayal until punishment falls.

 Infrastructure & Arcane Comforts of Setovia

Setovia is a city of ash and oath, but its greatest seduction lies not in its spires or cathedrals, but in its comforts. To mortals beyond the Crown, the luxuries of Setovia sound like paradise. Within, they are chains disguised as blessings — every home made warm, every bath filled, every light glowing, but all tethered to tithe and ritual.

Water & Waste: The Blackwater System

• Aqueducts of Obsidian Sand: Water flows through channels carved in volcanic stone, lined with sigils that cleanse all impurities. Sewage and runoff are passed through alchemical filters, separating waste into compost while returning water to fountains pure.
• Ash-Spiral Toilets: When flushed, waste spins down spiraled drains inscribed with runes, funneled directly into the Sepulchre Line’s composters. The resulting material is transmuted into fuel for Valessia’s experiments and fertilizer for the Night Orchards.
• Rune-Valve Showers: Each home has a shower powered by rune-valves. Turning the valve adjusts flow and heat; wealthy homes etch additional sigils that release scented steam — rose, spice, or incense — during bathing.

Food Preservation & Cooking

• Grave-Chill Cabinets: These stone or iron cold boxes, lined with grave quartz, are found in nearly every household. The quartz draws heat away, keeping blood, meat, and perishables fresh for weeks at a time. Their continued chill depends on ritual blessing by the Scarlet Choir once per season, paid for with tithe — usually a vial of blood or coin. Without it, the cabinets begin to leak brine and spoil their contents. Wealthy homes inscribe additional runes to slow decay further, allowing rare imports to keep for months, though the food often takes on a faint metallic tang.
• Sigil Stoves: Cooking hearths powered by heat-runes. Knob-like rune dials allow for simmering, roasting, or baking without the need for wood or coal. Nobles decorate theirs with artistic sigils, so their kitchens look like shrines of fire.
• Cinder Charms & Tea-Forges: Small smokeless braziers powered by charms, keeping kettles eternally warm. Common in salons and taverns, their steady glow gives every gathering a hearth-like intimacy.

Light & Climate

• Eclipse Lanterns: Found in every household. They burn no fuel, but glow with violet or gold light when exposed to hymn-chant. Nobles embellish theirs with glasswork, turning them into personal works of art.
• Lantern-Moths: Small conjured moths that glow softly when fed wine or honey. They circle a room like living lamps until their time ends, when they crumble into fragrant ash.
• Climate Stones: Red stones radiate heat, blue stones draw it away. Placed in corners or hearths, they keep rooms temperate. Most homes own a pair; noble villas may have dozens, keeping their halls perfectly conditioned.
• Ash-Hearts (Hearthstones): Larger hearthstones inscribed with ember runes, pulsing faintly when family gathers around them. In some quarters, their glow is considered a symbol of household unity.

Communication & Record

• Whisper Mirrors: Small silver mirrors paired with a twin. When spoken into, one’s words ripple across the surface and echo through the other, slightly hollow, like speech in a cathedral. Nobles, guild leaders, and brood captains use them; couriers rent them through the Whisper Post.
• Rune-Quills: Self-inking pens that write dictated words in violet ink. Nobles enchant them to shift handwriting style to reflect tone — elegant when pleading, jagged when angry.
• Ash-Scribes: Stone tablets used in civic halls. They record minutes, contracts, and transactions in glowing ash-script, which can later be transcribed onto vellum.

Public & Civic Luxuries

• Mist-Fountains: Courtyards filled with fountains that produce cool mist laced with sigils. They refresh the air in crowded districts and are believed to strengthen the Health Covenant that wards off disease from the city.
• Echo-Chambers: Stone platforms carved with resonant runes. They amplify a speaker’s voice so that an entire plaza hears them, used for edicts, theatre, and court judgments.
• Shadow-Paths: Streets inscribed with mirror-runes that dim light and cool the stones, allowing mortals to walk comfortably even when the Crown glows ember-bright.
• Obsidian Benches: Black volcanic benches placed in markets and squares. They warm gently when sat upon, drawing heat from the Crown’s lightning veins below.
• Bone-Tuned Bells: Resonant bells of alchemically-treated bone, ringing across districts at precise intervals. The Scarlet Choir uses them to keep hymns in time and citizens in order.
• Ashbane Wards: Every street and plaza in Setovia carries layered enchantments woven into stone and brick. Any filth, refuse, or rot that touches the ground slowly disintegrates into harmless ash. The ash is drawn upward in unseen currents and absorbed into the Eternal Crown, vanishing into its stormy veil. As a result, Setovia’s streets are always immaculate, its air unnaturally fresh. Citizens whisper that the city itself “breathes,” exhaling purity and swallowing corruption, leaving no trace of decay.

Luxury & Ornament

• Veil-Combs: Silver combs that leave shimmering starlight-like trails in hair. Nobles gift them as tokens of courtship or dominance.
• Dream-Curtains: Bed draperies embroidered with lull-sigils. They induce deep, dreamless rest, preventing nightmares. Nobles boast of dream-curtains woven from the hair of Choir-thralls.
• Oath-Cups: Drinking vessels that glow faintly if poisoned or cursed. By law, every Emberstairs banquet must use them. Breaking this law is a declaration of assassination.
• Mirror-Fans: Hand-held fans with silvered interiors. When flicked, they show a fleeting glimpse of the bearer’s true emotional state — fear, desire, rage — making them prized in salons of intrigue.

Industrial & Energetic Works

• Rune-Lifts: Stone cages powered by hymn-pressure, raising freight and passengers within keeps and foundries. The Choir claims each rune-lift sings faintly if you press your ear to it.
• Storm-Catchers: Towering spires with runes that capture lightning from the Crown, storing it in ember-glass orbs. These orbs power lamps, mills, and furnaces for weeks at a time.
• Hemoworks: Alchemical facilities that distill blood into tonics, medicines, and emergency reserves. Overseen by the Order of the White Stole, access is rationed by guild status.

Cultural Notes

• All conveniences require tithe, hymn, or ritual upkeep. A Grave-Chill Cabinet must be blessed once per season, or it begins to leak brine. A Rune-Quill loses ink unless it hears a choir-chant weekly. Lantern-Moths refuse to light if unfed for too long.
• Nobles flaunt their wealth by turning tools into art — stoves with gilded sigils, whisper mirrors framed in obsidian roses, eclipse lanterns set in sculpted iron cages.
• Mortals whisper that the city itself ensures these devices do not fail, for the Eternal Crown feeds them in ways no mortal craftsman fully understands.

Special Provisions

Dr. Valessia Crowleech’s Sources of Flesh & Beasts

Valessia’s laboratories are infamous for their endless hunger — of bodies, organs, beasts, and living subjects. The Scarlet Choir sanctifies her work under the doctrine of the Tithe-for-Care Covenant: that bodies and beasts are sacrificed so that others may live through medicine, surgery, and innovation.

Bodies:

• The Tithe of Flesh: Mortals may pledge their bodies after death, signed with guild seal and blessed by the Choir. In return, their families are compensated with remission of tax or tithe.
• The Sepulchre Line: Criminals condemned to Eclipsing forfeit their corpses to the hive. Many never reach Valessia whole, but her surgeons carve value from what remains.
• The Verdigris Wake Recovery: Some corpses set adrift upon River Soot during funerary rites are quietly gathered downstream by Crowleech auxiliaries before they drift too far.
• Foreign Cadavers: Neighboring states sell executed bodies to Setovia in exchange for ashsteel, glassware, or alchemical tonics. These arrive sealed in iron coffins at the River Docks.

Beasts:

• Ash Fen Hunts: Hunters are licensed to capture ember-wolves, soot-serpents, and other creatures warped by the Crown. Their carcasses or living forms are delivered to Valessia’s vats.
• Blood Orchards: The Night Orchard breeds parasitic vermin and malformed husks among its cursed roots. These are harvested for vivisection.
• Guild Forfeits: Draft animals too diseased or broken for labor are handed over rather than culled, their organs repurposed in experiments.
• Commissioned Imports: Exotic creatures arrive in black-iron cages aboard foreign barges. They are marched straight into the Laboratoria Hive, never to be seen again.

Whispers of Illicit Supply: Despite all these channels, rumors persist that Valessia also purchases bodies from shadowed markets: guildmasters covering up accidents, Nocturne Watch captains providing “excess arrests,” even Seraphine’s spies selling her captives under oath of silence.

Recruitment of the Duskbane Host

Seraphine’s war machine is fed not by volunteers alone, but by structured civic recruitment, ensuring the Host never sleeps. To serve in her Host is both burden and honor — the clearest mortal path to prestige.

Mortalis Conscripts:

• At the age of eighteen, mortals must pledge service — tithe, craft, or arms.
• Those of strength or temperament are chosen for the Host. Service lasts five to seven years.
• Families that give soldiers are rewarded with Marks of Valor — seals granting noble sponsorship and tax remission.

The Emberstairs Nobility:

• Second or third-born children of noble houses are traditionally sent into Seraphine’s Host. This proves loyalty to the Ash-Bond and tempers ambition.
• Noble-born soldiers often rise to become Captains of the Red Sigil, duel-proven in the Crucible Yards.

Guild Induction:

• Apprentices and journeymen too aggressive for craft are given over to Seraphine’s recruiters.
• This is a civic honor: “Steel finds its place in the Host if not in the forge.”

Foreign Volunteers & Prisoners of War:

• Outsiders who seek citizenship must first serve in Seraphine’s Host.
• Prisoners of war taken in border raids are given a choice: swear oaths of service, or face exile beneath the Sepulchre Line.

Why They Follow:

• Service under Seraphine is prestigious. Veterans are rewarded with guild sponsorships, civic honor, and permanent Moon-Passes.
• To mortals, the Host is the clearest path to dignity in a city where vampires alone may own property.

The Scarlet Choir’s Blood Covenant

Though seldom spoken of, the Scarlet Choir maintains hidden reserves of blood and life to ensure the hive never falters.

• Reliquary Vats: Beneath the Red Cathedral lie sealed vessels of consecrated blood, collected from decades of tithe. These are said to keep the Crown fed even should the Choir fall silent.
• Hymn-Lanterns: Certain sacrifices are not drained upon the dais but transformed into pure flame that fuels lanterns burning across the Cathedral-Hives.
• The Oath-Blood Ledger: Families that pledge additional tithe earn the right to sanctuary, leniency in law, or sponsorship for their children. This ledger is guarded as tightly as the Throne itself.

Daily Life & Covenant

Life beneath the Eternal Crown is a paradox — comfort gilded with chains. Mortals and vampires alike live in splendor compared to the starving kingdoms beyond, yet every breath is tithed, every act is bound to the hive. The Covenant of Ash ensures that daily existence is orderly, ritualized, and always in service to the Crown.

Mortals: Lives of Comfort and Obligation

To be mortal in Setovia is to live as both citizen and resource. The city provides warmth, light, food, and clean water to all, but nothing is free; every luxury is bought with tithe and service.

• Housing: Mortals live in tidy stone homes, leased through civic contracts. Each home is marked with wards that attest to its family’s tithe payments; lapsed households find their lanterns extinguished and their climate-stones dead.
• Health: There is no disease — the Health Covenant wards sickness from the hive. The Scarlet Choir and the Order of the White Stole ensure every throat breathes clean air, every wound is closed with hymns or stitching, every fever drowned in alchemy. Mortals live longer here than anywhere else on the continent.
• Food: Thanks to Grave-Chill Cabinets, no family goes hungry. Markets overflow with preserved blood, orchard fruits, and imports paid for by Setovia’s exports. Even the humblest mortal household enjoys food that nobles in other realms would covet.
• Work: Every mortal contributes — through craft, guild service, or the blood tithe. Apprenticeships are strictly enforced, ensuring no one falls into idleness. Those who refuse service are exiled beneath the Sepulchre Line.
• Children: Mortal children attend moon-schools, where they are taught the history of Emberfall’s fall, the hymns of the Choir, and basic crafts. At eighteen, each must choose: tithe, service, or arms.

Mortals live without want, yet they whisper to each other that they are livestock in gilded cages — healthy, fattened, and preserved for the hive’s hunger.

Vampires: Aristocracy of Blood

Vampires rule openly as aristocrats, their daily lives a theater of power.

• Mansions and Courts: Vampires dwell in villas of basalt and crimson glass, their halls lit by eclipse lanterns and perfumed with blood incense.
• Feasts of Blood: Every night, chalices are filled in the plazas or cathedrals. Mortals come willingly, singing hymns as they offer their veins. Feasts are both sustenance and spectacle.
• Games and Duels: Broods challenge one another in sanctioned duels or cruel games — contests of wit, intrigue, or slaughter — their outcomes influencing guild sponsorships and noble alliances.
• Cultural Prestige: Vampires adorn themselves with heraldic marks, jeweled sigils, and ash-veils that display their standing. The highest boast Moon-Passes, allowing them to travel during false day without Choir sanction.

Though immortal, vampires live in ceaseless tension — always watching, always vying for whispers of favor from the Father, from their Brood Commander, or from the Choir.

The Covenant of Ash

The Covenant binds all — mortal and vampire alike — into one hive. Its tenets are sung daily by the Choir:

Every life is tithe.

1. Every oath is binding.
2. Every soul belongs to the hive.

This covenant is reinforced not only by law, but by the Eternal Crown itself, which thrums when vows are spoken and punishes betrayal with whispers, burns, or exile.

Rhythm of the Day

• False Morning: As the Crown glows ember-red, markets open, bells toll, and guild halls stir with labor. Mortals begin work while vampires retreat into shaded courts.
• False Noon: Shadow-paths and mist-fountains cool the city as guilds trade and the Choir rehearses. Mortals attend schooling or training.
• False Evening: Lanterns glow, streets fill with feasts, theatre, and ritual. Blood is tithed, hymns are sung, and soldiers drill in the Crucible Yards.
• False Night: The Crown dims to violet. Curfew falls. Mortals retreat indoors, while vampires prowl courts, salons, and shadowed alleys.

Cultural Atmosphere

• Soundscape: Choir hymns echo constantly, blending with forge hammers, bell tolls, and the distant hum of rune-lifts.
• Scent: Iron, myrrh, beeswax, incense, and faint brine from unblessed cabinets.
• Superstitions: Mortals leave drops of honey and ash on their doorsteps at night — offerings to the Beekeeper’s swarm. Vampires whisper over their chalices that each lightning strike of the Crown is the Father’s gaze sweeping the city.

The Paradox of Life

Setovia offers more than any mortal kingdom: no famine, no plague, no poverty, no chaos of weather. Every citizen is housed, fed, warmed, and given purpose. Yet all of it is chained to service.

To live in Setovia is to live better than any mortal beyond the Crown — but it is also to live as part of a hive where every oath is binding, every life belongs to the Beekeeper’s swarm, and every comfort is a reminder that the city itself owns you.

Reputation Beyond the Crown

Setovia is both feared and admired, its name spoken as curse and as prayer across the continent. To some, it is hell — a hive where mortals live as livestock in gilded cages, their health and strength cultivated only to be bled for their masters. To others, it is paradise — a city where there is no hunger, no disease, no poverty, and no chaos of weather. Within its walls, every mortal has a home, every family a cabinet of preserved food, every street a lantern’s glow. But this order comes at a price: servitude eternal, bound to tithe, oath, and the hum of the hive.

Military Reputation: Armies sent against Setovia vanish beneath the Eternal Crown, swallowed by storm and ash. Neighboring kingdoms whisper that the city itself devours invaders — cobblestones drinking their blood, the lightning burning their banners to cinders. No realm dares open war with Setovia now; instead, they trade in secret, feed its appetites with grain and livestock, and whisper oaths of neutrality under trembling breath.

Whispers of a Living City: Outsiders say the city itself is alive — that its basalt walls shift subtly, that its towers lean to listen, that its crimson lightning is not storm at all but the heartbeat of a hive that will never die. Travelers tell of streets that rearrange themselves, leading intruders into dead ends or directly into Choir patrols. Merchants returning from its markets claim the air itself hums, as though the stones beneath their feet were breathing.

Neighboring Realms:

The Four Beyond the Veil

Druemorra, the Moonlit Forest

A realm of druids, fay folk, and werewolves dwelling in vast tree-cities beneath silver skies. The land is steeped in primal magic, its people guided by cycles of moon and wild.

• Culture: Druidic rites, lycanthropic guardians, deep reverence for the natural order.
• Relation to Setovia: Bound by a fragile treaty after a decade-long war of attrition where neither side prevailed. Druemorra sees Setovia as unnatural, a violation of life and death itself.
• Setovia’s View: Treats Druemorra as a volatile but necessary frontier — tolerated for its herbs and woods, never trusted, always watched.

Kaelthorne, the Verdant Veil

A sunlit land ruled by peaceful giants, famed for vineyards and rye fields tended under the Order of the Verdant Step.

• Culture: Pacifist stewardship, giant monasteries, spiritual brewing traditions.
• Relation to Setovia: Protected by Set’s decree after The Day the God Drank, when he tasted their sacred wine and commanded Kaelthorne left untouched. Their wine and whiskey flow into Setovia in abundance.
• Setovia’s View: A vital lifeline — indulged, envied, and protected.

Zarakhai, the Ember Steppes

A desert-steppe realm of nomads, yurts, and canyon-oases, where survival is honor and horsemen rule the plains.

• Culture: Legendary riders, fire-dancers, festivals of wind and flame.
• Relation to Setovia: Goods arrive by rare caravans — spices, dyes, horses, desert glass — in trickles more akin to a spice-route than steady commerce.
• Setovia’s View: Covets Zarakhai’s rarities but tolerates their independence, seeing conquest as unprofitable unless caravans swell.

Velbraith, the Ash-Tide Port

Six hours west of Setovia where the River Soot empties into the Ashen Ocean, Velbraith sprawls as the hive’s naval heart and sea-gate — a city of hammer, tide, and indulgence.

• Role: Shipyards forge ashsteel hulls and ember-sailed galleys for the Crown’s navy. Fishing fleets bring ash-whales, soot-crabs, and crimson-scaled fish, making it the hive’s table of richness. Without Velbraith, Setovia would endure — but pride and banquets would wither.
• Governance: Ruled by Harbor Lord Varros Keldane, the Lord of Chains, a mortal tyrant loyal to the Father. He enforces order with cruelty — dockworkers branded, sailors drowned, smugglers hanged.
• Culture: By day, shipwright hammers and fish markets; by night, the hive’s city of sin — casinos, brothels, fighting pits, and blood-markets hidden as “voluntary oaths.” Every desire is for sale.
• Apostle Alistaer: Velbraith is his favored harbor; his black fleet’s presence makes the entire port tremble. Many whisper the port belongs more to him than to Setovia.
• Relationship to Setovia: The western artery, naval foundry, and indulgence gate. To lose it is not starvation, but bleeding out — Setovia would grow weaker, meager, and diminished.

The Paradox: To the hungry and desperate, Setovia gleams like salvation: a city where no one starves, where no plague stalks, where the weak are made strong through order. To the proud and free, it is a coffin-lid — a paradise that devours liberty, a hive where individuality is burned away.