Mercury (Kalashtar)

Mercury: Lore Brief

# Overview

**Planet Name:** Mercury

**Native Races:** Human, Kalashtar, Inspired

**Capitols:**

Durat Tal - Unity of Riedra

Meerkesh - Kalashtari Concord

**Environmental Landscape:** Hot, volcanic, and barren outside of the boundaries of the Hanbalani Altas. Within the boundaries of the Hanbalani Altas: lush, blue hued temperate climate. There are no oceans or seas and rain does not occur.

**Political Landscape:** The Unity of Riedra is a government that operates in unison with the Riedran State Religion: The Path of Inspiration. This government is entirely overseen by the Inspired: human-like people who are vessels for the extra-dimensional psionic entities: the Quori. The Quori speak through the inspired to the Riedran people in dreams, both when they sleep and while waking. The Inspired have a hierarchy and each oversees a territory within the Unity, with the most powerful and prolific overseeing entire provinces and the High Speaker acting as the voice of the Quori for the Riedran people.

The Kalashtari Concord is the sole remaining holdout nation that has managed to resist the all-encompassing influence of the Unity of Riedra. They are a collection of peoples inhabited by Rebel Quori who resist what they perceive as the corrupting influence of the Quori over the Riedran people. The Concord acts as a loose group of independent city-states, squabbling at times over menial issues, but banding together as a unified people when resisting the Unity.

**Leader(s):**

Khulad - High Speaker of the Il-Altas

Ghavnari - Grand Ambassador of the Kalasthari Concord

**Culture:** Life in the Unity of Riedra exists in a collective state. Every person exists to serve the collective, and individual fulfillment is found through serving the Unity well as a whole. Riedrans do not experience individual dreams, but instead they are gifted with collective dreams both while sleeping and waking from the Inspired. These dreams guide them and provide them purpose. All Riedrans expect and look forward to being graced in this way by the Voice of the Inspired. The Voice of the Inspired is a daily ritual that refreshes, restores, and guides the Riedran people. All Riedrans follow the Path of Inspiration with the goal of living a life worthy of being reborn in an ascended caste which places them closer to eventually becoming one of the chosen who may be inhabited by the Il-Altas themselves.

In the Concord, the Kalashtari are not ruled by the Quori that inhabit them, but are instead influenced and at times guided by them. They experience and encourage independent thinking and as such, they are viewed as discordant and dangerous by the Il-Altas of the Unity of Riedra. To the Concord, however, this freedom is instead embraced and cherished above all else. As such, there is diversity in way of life amongst the people of the Concord and most extra-planetary communication occurs through them. There is one issue on which all Kalashtari agree; however, and that is that a unified front is necessary amongst all Kalashtari if they are to stave off the ever present, near overwhelming threat of the Il-Altas led Unity of Riedra.

**Demography & Population**:

Unity of Riedra - Approximately 550M citizens, 85% Human, 15% Inspired

Kalashtari Concord - Approximately 35M. 75% Kalashtar, 25% Other Races,

**Foreign Relations:** The Unity almost universally does not communicate with any extra-planetary governments. Any contact attempt is not returned and attempts to send ambassadors and other emissaries are met with destructive force. Citizens of the Unity universally despise the Kalashtar who they are groomed through their collective dreams: The Voice of the Inspired to hate through their entire life.

The Kalashtari Concord maintains hesitant diplomacy with other governments, but does so cautiously for fear of Unity reprisal should they push too far. Though they exist as a sovereign state, they are a holdout nation at best, and it is commonly thought amongst their people that their only hope lies within extra-planetary alliances.

**Military:** The Unity maintains a frighteningly coordinated planetary defense force, coordinated through the Voice of the Inspired through the Hanbalani Altas: Egg Shaped obelisks that dot the landscape and make life-possible. With that said, they are not interested in space travel and as such, their fleet is orbital in nature only.  All citizens within the Concord are required to be trained in combat and to be prepared to defend the Concord at a moment’s notice. They maintain a hodgepodge fleet, but their forces are defensive at best and they are significantly overwhelmed by the forces of the Unity. Only the Kalashtari Vashtai: ancient stationary defense cannons that dot the border of Concord territory, hold the Unity back from crushing the Concord.

**Religion:**

The Unity of Riedra’s State Religion is the Path of Inspiration. The Path of Inspiration is a reincarnation based belief that teaches that those who live a life worthy of the Il-Altas can be reborn in the next life at an ascended caste. They can hopefully eventually be born as one of the Inspired themselves, who have been chosen to be inhabited by the Quori as recognized for their many lives lived of service to the Unity. Those whose deeds and service is not deemed worthy may be reborn at the same caste or even at a lower caste. As such, there is great motivation for individuals to serve the collective well and to avoid and shun those who might cause them to stray.

**Agriculture & Industry:** All agriculture on Mercury is made possible by the Hanbalani Altas: Egg-shaped obelisks that dot the surface of the planet, acting as environmental regulators and conduits of Psionic energies which are used by the Il-Altas in communicating with the Riedran people, including and especially through their dreams. Amongst Mercury’s most prolific industries is that surrounding Sentiran Ore: a material composed of solidified ectoplasmic energies formed from emotions which acts as a key element in their psionic architecture.

**Trade & Transport:** The Unity does not trade outside of their own territories. All of their own production is regulated through coordination via the Voice of the Inspired through the Hanbalani Altas. The Concord relies on advanced technologies provided by extra-planetary smugglers in order to pierce the Unity’s transmission jamming technologies in order to coordinate trade, communication, and transport off planet. As the Unity’s planetary defense force is immensely coordinated and strong, such trade is considered highly dangerous and as such comes with a hefty price tag

**Infrastructure:**

The infrastructure of the Unity of Riedra consists of an immense web of interconnected settlements. Thanks to the Sentiran Ore Mercury is known for, everything from the roads to their shell-like buildings arranged in spiral-like formations emit psionic indicators. Through these, the people of Mercury always know where they are and what the purpose of roads and structures are. It is not uncommon for Kalashtar who leave Mercury to become bewildered and to experience significant confusion when the roads and buildings themselves no longer communicate their purpose with them.

**Pictures:**

# Introduction:

Due to its proximity to the Sun, life on Mercury’s barren, volcanic surface is not possible without the intervention of the Hanbalani Altas: towering egg-like obelisks said to have been constructed as gifts by the extradimensional psionic beings called **the Quori**. The Hanbalani Altas act as environmental regulators for the surrounding lands, and through them, Mercury’s signature blue-hued temperate climate is made possible. These life-giving constructs also act as psionic amplifiers and conduits through which the **Il-Altas** communicate. Il-Altas are Quori who inhabit the **Inspired**: Riedrans who have been chosen by the Quori as their vessels, allowing them to exist in a dimension in which they otherwise could not.

The Il-Altas leads and guides the people of Mercury: the Unity of Riedra by communicating to them through collective dreams both while sleeping and waking called **the Voice of the Inspired**. In these daily dreams, the Il-Altas guides the Riedran people in shaping their beliefs, purpose, and even daily tasks. Through this constant guidance, Riedrans learn to serve the collective, to remain wary of individual desires, and to abhor the Kalashtari, rebels who are inhabited by **the Altavar**, rebel Quori who oppose the Il-Altas, favoring the discordance of independent thought and the dangers of free-thinking that led to the terrible conflicts of Mercury’s past. The Altavar inhabit the Kalashtar only when both sides agree, and as such, their relationship is one of harmony achieved through different means. The Altavar allied **Kalashtari Concord** is the sole holdout nation standing in opposition to the **Unity of Riedra** which otherwise spans the surface of the planet. While both are considered nations at constant war, it is more appropriate to say that the Concord are the remaining rebels opposing a much stronger force in the Unity of Riedra. They are only able to hold out thanks to the **Kalashtari Vashtai**, a series of ancient defense cannons that dot their territory.

Life on Mercury is either experienced as peaceful and productive unity within the Unity of Riedra or as a daily struggle amongst the free-thinking Concord as they attempt to survive the Unity’s overwhelming power.

The Mercurian diet includes a simple array of fruits, vegetables, meats, and animal byproducts, the production of which are all made possible by the Hanbalani Altas. Flavors of these foods are almost always extremely bland by design in order to better ensure a continued focus on serving the collective as opposed to succumbing to the dangers of individual desires. This is opposed by the Concords' significantly more robust flavor palette which is iconically spicy as a way of standing against the Unity in even this small way.

# Nations of Mercury

Mercury’s early history was riddled with a cycle of catastrophic conflict that repeatedly brought its people to the brink of annihilation only to experience a period of peace before enduring the same near destruction again. It is taught by the Il-Altas that the Mercurian people were saved from their own destructive natures by the Il-Altas through the Voice of the Inspired which provided and continues to provide a guiding purpose to all within the Unity of Riedra. But while the intention of the Voice was peace, many nations vehemently opposed the idea of what they perceived as collective control until they were defeated through conflict and eventually brought into the fold of the Unity itself.  Though a small handful of these nations held out and managed to stand for centuries, now only the Kalashtari Concord stands opposed to the Unity, relying on the power of the Altavar and the Kalashtari Vashtai for their survival.

## The Unity of Riedra

Many years ago, the Mercurian people lived in nations interlocked in near constant catastrophic conflict, much of which stemmed around the control of the Hanbalani Altas, the towering obelisks that make life possible on Mercury. Countless lives were lost in these conflicts and though none lasted forever, the peace experienced at their culmination was always temporary. As ages passed and technology grew, these conflicts worsened in severity until they reached such a peak of terrible ferocity that they nearly brought life on Mercury to an end.

It was when tensions had arisen once more to near critical levels that they first emerged: the Il-Altas. These extra-dimensional psionic beings of great power made themselves known to the Mercurians through collective dreams. In these dreams, they told a story of how they gifted the Hanbalani Altas to Mercury in order to make life possible and through which to provide all Mercurians with protection, purpose, and a path to peace. This **Path of Inspiration** paved a way for Mercurians to achieve ascendance in their next life and to ultimately achieve enlightenment in a state that allowed them to be chosen as one of the Inspired: people whose great deeds over many lives earned them the right to act as a vessel for one of the Il-Altas themselves. The Inspired lead the Riedran people and provide guidance through the gift of the voice of the Il-Altas that inhabit them: **the Voice of the Inspired**. This voice speaks to the Riedran people through collective dreams that are experienced both while sleeping and when awake. It is during this sacred time each day that the Riedran people receive guidance. They experience a sense of bliss through a shared psionic link that is made possible and amplified by the Hanbalani Altas. To Riedrans, the experience is beyond spiritual. It is the essence of everything they are. Outsiders do not understand it and shun them as being brainwashed, but Riedrans do not have to endure conflict like other nations do, save for their efforts made to liberate the Kalashtari Concord from the villainous rebel Quori spirits, **the Altavar.** This peace is achieved through lifelong daily encouragement through the Voice of the Inspired that teaches the importance of collective purpose and warns of  the dangers of individual urges. While these urges almost always seem righteous, just, and pure, they *always* lead to conflict, and their penultimate form is conflict so catastrophic as to lead to the eradication of all life.

Outsiders are not allowed within Riedran territory, and those who are from subjugated nations undergo a closely guided daily routine until they are prepared to be moved to other duties.

In order to safeguard against the dangers of individual drives, Riedrans are taught collective purpose, friendship, and love rather than fierce individual bonds. While Riedrans do have friends and family, the bond that exists between them is nowhere near as strong as the bond that exists between the collective as a whole. In order to better safeguard against the dangers that these individual bonds can create, Riedran children are commonly placed with different parents sometime after birth, specifically based on genetic dispositions and predicted skill predictions in order to best develop their capabilities. When bonds between individuals become too strong, those individuals undergo an extended dream-state, guided by the Inspired after which they are reassigned to different settlements and as necessary, jobs. Through this process over many centuries, the Unity has created a state in which each person values the collective as a whole far more than their individual desires. The importance of this is proven in the daily bliss of the Voice of the Inspired that reminds all Riedrans that the peace and purpose they experience is all thanks to the sacrifices made by the Inspired and the divine will of the Il-Altas.

### Durat Tal

The capital of the Unity of Riedra is built around the **Hanbalani Prime**, a structure of immense proportions even by normal Hanbalani’s standards that is composed of pure Sentiran Ore and serves as the source of planet-wide dream communications as well as the sitting place of the High Speaker. All of the buildings and roads in Durat Tal are created in an outward spiral formation with roadways connecting them as appropriate. Above them are transit lines that serve as major pathways for trade and inter-settlement travel. Each of these roads as well as the buildings in the city’s districts are psionic in nature like all others within the Unity. Any citizen is able to focus on a road or building and instantly tell its nature and purpose. In this way, everyone always knows where they are in the city, regardless of the lack of outward signs and identification on structures.

Durat Tal is also notable for its place as the seat of **the Guiding Path**, the council of Inspired that oversees and leads the Path of Inspiration. These religious elders are more than simple figureheads. Through the power of the Hanbalani Prime, they receive the collective prayers of the Riedran people and they channel this energy back outward through the Hanbalani Altas as a divine sense of purpose to the people of Riedra. It is this cyclical sense of purpose that serves as a critical element to the collective’s sense of unity, and in the process that allows the Guiding Path to identify potential troublesome elements to be dealt with before they become significant threats to the populace.

#### The Thousand Eyes

Outsiders are never allowed in Durat Tal. Any outsiders that are discovered there are either brought to reclamation centers for extended purpose meditation or are dealt with swiftly by **the Thousand Eyes**, the secret police organization of the Unity of Riedra. The Thousand Eyes administers justice across Riedra and maintains the reclamation centers. Public agents of the Thousand Eyes—easily identified by their green uniforms and golden badges of office—can be found throughout any bastion, and people take comfort in knowing that these guardians are watching. Far more dangerous, however, are the secret members of the Eyes. Nearly anyone in Riedra could be an agent. Furthermore, even when no one is around, remote viewing allows the Eyes to see the deeds of malefactors.

The city of Durat Tal is the Thousand Eyes' greatest stronghold. Here, a network of remote viewing crystals allows agents to scry across the continent, and arcane circles allow them to quickly coordinate the dispatching of forces to any bastion or settlement. Agents in villages can be alerted through dreams via the Hanbalani Network. In an emergency, agents can request rapid response assistance through the network, ensuring that forces arrive at the site of a disturbance far sooner than is possible on most other worlds. The high minister of the Thousand Eyes is currently Lady Sharadhuna, an Inspired woman of a particularly long and well-decorated life-cycle saga.

## The Kalashtari Concord

Imagine being born to a world where nearly everyone else on the planet outside of your small nation has been pulled in by one of the greatest lies ever told. Their smiling oppressors pull their invisible strings so masterfully that there is no hope of freeing them from their diabolical grasp. These oppressors’ siren’s call is so seductive that even the most staunch of your people’s believers must remain wary against their own doubt so as not to succumb to the worst possible treachery that could mean the downfall of everything your people hold sacred. Such a life does not seem possible or plausible, yet this is the life the Kalashtar endure and it is only made possible by the friendship and guidance of **the Altavar**, the rebel psionic extra-dimensional beings that inhabit the Kalashtar and provide them the strength to endure and to ensure that their individuality is never extinguished by the crushing manipulation of the Il-Altas controlled Unity of Riedra. The Kalashtari people are unified by their individuality and their opposition of the Unity’s seductive selling of peace and purpose through suppression of individuality.

The Concord exists in a mountainous territory of land within the ancient territory of Adar. This territory is marked by the presence of **the Kalashtari Vashtai**, ancient defense batteries of immense power that make any invasion attempts all but impossible. Still, even with such a boon on their side, the power of the Unity is such that it is widely considered only a matter of time before the Il-Altas’ seductive call will seep inside their territory, and with it will come the end of the Concord, and the end of the days of individuality and freedom of will on Mercury.

### Meerkesh

In the center of the ancient Adar territory that is the bastion of the Concord’s power is the city of Meerkesh. Built within an ancient fortress city carved into the depths of a towering Box Canyon, at first glance, Meerkesh is a staggeringly well-defended citadel standing against the Unity’s might. While its defensive emplacements are formidable alone, the most eye-catching of the city’s defenses is **the Spear of Khanari**, a massive planetary defense cannon that provides both atmospheric and orbital coverage of the entirety of the Concord’s territory. This massive railgun is named after the fabled weapon of the Kalashtar hero who was said to have one the very spot where the emplacement was built, single handedly slayed **Khadriss the Deceiver**, the Inspired Champion that led the original Unity of Riedra’s **Conquest of the Five** in the **Defense of Meerkesh**. But for all of the power of the walls and emplacements themselves, the city’s greatest defense comes from its people: Every citizen of the Concord is required not only to serve in the military, but also to maintain ready access to weaponry at all times in case an attack should break out. In this way, the city always has a reserve of troops ready to go at a moment’s notice, composed of all able bodied members of the population.

When its citizens aren’t actively fighting the Unity or serving in the military, they spend their time actively pursuing any number of interests within the walls of the city. It has been said that so long as you have a weapon and know how to use it, you can find anything within the city. From **the Whispering Monastary** resting at the top of the canyon, to **the Jewel of Gantari Casino** in the city’s bustling downtown, to **the Chentashi Sporting Megaplex** in the city’s riverfront district, Meerkesh has something for everyone.

### The Altavari Underground

Despite the Concord’s expertise in defending their territory, standing against the combined might of the Unity of Riedra requires more than a conventional military is capable of. For centuries, **the Altavari Underground** has operated in the shadows of Riedra to provide a method of escape for those who wish to leave the Unity. While many of its members sport significant military experience including in various special forces branches, operatives of the Underground hail from a variety of backgrounds from any number of trades.

The Underground is organized in numerous cells which each acts of their own accord, oftentimes with little to no information about the others. In this way, if any individual cell is compromised, the others have a significantly lower chance of being exposed in the process. Still, despite this extra safety measure, life in the Underground is dangerous to say the least and life expectations are not exceedingly long. Only those who care the most about those yearning for freedom beneath the heavy yoke of the Il-Altas are willing to dedicate their lives to such a dangerous cause.