Lesion

Map of Lesion

## Common Knowledge

The history and knowledge of Lesion has been lost to the ages. The country has been reduced to the city’s physical borders. The entire structure and city is under a self-imposed and external quarantine from its neighboring countries and rumors of the place being a monster haven is not unfounded. The most anyone would know is that the city is filled to the brim with monsters, archaic runestones and levitating platforms that move the city’s structures from set positions at random intervals. Occasionally, the successful veteran adventuring party or grizzled sociopathic survivor manages to escape and sell off ancient riches to the highest bidder. Almost anything can be found here if one digs deep into the history, knowledge and legacy of the not always named Lesion Quarantine Zone.

## Topography and Climate

The Climate is generally mediterranean-like, if it wasn’t for the Rift disrupting the climate at set intervals. Climate around Lesion varies from desert to tundra to tropical and temperate with anything in between due to the extreme fluctuations of magic from both the Lesion Rift and the haphazard magical residue that makes up the country. The actual country itself is one giant megastructure city which encompasses much of the Northern landmass of the Three Queendoms area. The city goes from the coast to the Siren Sea to just outside the upper perimeter of where Koda would be if it was on the surface. The City digs deep underground into vast subterranean labyrinths deep beneath the ground.

There are three major artificial lakes within the city. Lake Abrasion, located Northwest of the city or southwest off of the Human Barbarian tribes location. The water from the lake comes from an artificial underground spring that has flooded certain sections of the city and deep within its waters lie corpses of every type, entangled in roots of trees or water lilies that feast upon them for sustenance. The most ‘normal’ and biggest lake, it threatens to flood the surface city streets. Lake Inferior, located a little offways by the Rift in the center of the city and Northeast into a Triffid controlled area where the water is a murky green and a swamp-like environment has taken over this portion of the city. It is the smallest of the three lakes. Finally, The Blood Sea is located Eastward by the Siren Sea where the water flows through the city’s harbors and eventually turns a dark crimson color. The Blood Sea is not named so for jest as the blood of those attempting to find some water for their parched throats eventually find their way to flowing out into the vast ocean. There is a coral system underneath the water pipes that are dedicated solely into decomposing the remains of monsters, animals or people that flow outwards from the city.

There are natural as well as artificial ley lines that surround the city at set intervals although there are decayed points that are futilely guarded by the understrength Knights of Alloi. Destroying or moving the ley lines are a gargantuan effort as the magic reinforcing these barriers are bolstered by the Lesion Rift. An ‘attack’ on the barrier would be an attack on the Rift itself and the city’s monsters will respond to a threat in overwhelming numbers. It is quite conflicting if the city’s monsters is trying to keep itself in or unleash itself on the outside world.

## Population

The races range from Human descendents of the original survivors, Humans that foolishly enter the city and cannot get out, Elves who descend from the original survivors (High, Plains), to Elves who later entered the city at a recent date (High Elves, Plains Elves, Dark Elves, Blood Elves) to Orcs who originally descended from the lower Zondros countryside but now have entered the city. (Mohrot Tribe), Dryads who naturally form and come about from the chaotic energies of the Rift (Ivy, Thorns, Cordgrass, Big Bluesterns, etc) and finally Venti who originally inhabited the city but have broken up into different small tribes (Icleda Tribe/Mokava Tribe.)

## Capital

Although the actual Capital would be the once great city state itself, many take the question to mean the center of most of their problems which would lead them to pointing to the Lesion Rift in the middle of the city. Any center of organized trade, political power, or sentient control over the affairs of the city does not simply exist or has changed by the day to the most stable survivor outpost or the remaining survivor outpost.

## Government

Complete and total anarchy. The Nicknames for the Country include, ‘The Trauma Zone’ and ‘Quarantine Zone’. The various tribes of the city never form beyond that as the daily struggle of acquiring food, clean water and safety take precedence over all else. On the micro level, the tribes form upon veteran or lucky survivors who understand that there are benefits to cooperation. Betrayals between blood relatives is common. The closest unit of government would be the military force that has taken upon itself to quarantine the city as best as they can, The Knights of Alloi.

The Knights of Alloi are currently in their Third known founding, after the first two were wiped trying to hold the monsters within the city at bay. They are currently led by a Captain who is elected by his predecessor, or voted in by his underlings. The first of their number was Saint Alloi who led the first survivors from Lesion to the outside world and they fight in his honor and image. Most of their actions are dictated by the Big Book; the recorded history and record of the organization and the snippets of lore they have acquired from firsthand accounts about the many, many beasts that tread Lesion’s streets. The Big Book itself is treasured in one of the many outside Shrines used as headquarters by the Knights.

## Social Hierarchy and Culture

The original government and culture long eroded under the many millennia of apocalyptic conditioning, the flow of power goes to the luckiest, meanest, or deadliest survivor in Lesion. There is anarchy in the streets and the basic prerequisites for any functioning of day to day life is a struggle that many in the city have to bear. This has led to a mentality of shell shocked veterans gripping the heart of the city’s populace. Many who come from Lesion are often sociopathic killers who are led astray morally due to the situations they find themselves in. Eventually, they become so accustomed to the conditions of Lesion that the ‘good’ decision for a Lesionite might be the cold and calculating ‘impossible’ decision for those on the outside. The people themselves are highly individualistic and any leecher, even if they’re blood related, is given his dues in the rough streets outside the relative safety of the survivor encampment. Relying on somebody is the highest form of trust one can give to a Lesionite. For the Knights Of Alloi, the years are spent timidly waiting for the next disaster to escape the city walls which average to two every year and attempt to dispatch them. For any survivors that find themselves outside and in a Knight of Alloi patrol, they are either killed for being too monstrous, inducted into their ranks or left to fend for themselves in the greater world.

## Cities, Towns, and Villages

The Great City of Lesion is broken up into many different sectors, sections and maintenance hallways that form together the geography of the city. It is impossible to count how many or where the survivor’s towns are due to the rapidly evolving situation on the ground at any given moment. The city is home to a vast array of biomes that have evolved over the years as nature has slowly reasserted itself on the forever crumbling infrastructure.

## Alliances

The City is entirely forsaken in international relations and any ramshackled tyrant that would lay claim over the city’s diplomatic dealings would not be taken seriously. As such, there are no military calls for assistance, no trade going into the city, no relief efforts, or wars enacted upon the ruins. There was a Zondronian regiment that entered the city around 500 years ago but they never returned to report back what they found.

## Enemy Countries

The enemies of this country have already won as the city is utterly destroyed. Whatever grievances the surrounding countries may have had against Lesion, they’ve been either long forgotten or repaid a thousand-fold.

## Founding and History

Lesion could once contend for the spot for the most technologically and magically advanced nation on the planet. Not long after the founding of Binturia, a desperate person well versed in the entirety of the school of magic did a ritual to save someone from past the point of death and then did, at the cost of everything else. The groundwork of the ritual was to, at any cost revive this person and to break apart anything that tried to stop this one simple goal.

This ritual formed the Lesion Rift, which channels in every school of magic put into it which is varied and many. The main square of the city was quarantined and life went on normally for the city, content with the hope of finding a solution soon.

It was then a few centuries afterwards when they did a counter ritual to ‘fix the rift’ that things started to go very poorly, very quickly. While the nation itself lost prestige and one of its more major economic centers, the hollowing out of the power and influence of the nation pre-existing Lesion was an arduous process that its enemies fervently tried to further. That was until the ritual to fix the rift went wrong and the archaic energies to fix and heal the wound from the country simply festered and grew at an unprecedented rate. Magical anomalies sprouted all along the city but panic did not set in. Technological advances were put to the test to contain  and mitigate the threats that feasted upon the populace. Research teams went into a frenzy to figure out what went wrong. In desperate situations, each citizen who found themselves in the quarantine zone figured to perform their own rituals, to escape or fix the newly formed problems that erupted around them. All the rituals, formal or otherwise, during this brief moment of history, failed and only worsened the situation; the more desperate, the more hard-hitting the effects.

The city devoured itself after that, spiraling into a never ending tandrem of survivors trying to fix some aspect of the Rift problem, only to worsen its effects. The problem has fully outpaced technological advancement and the fix-all solution was never found by its research teams who slumber eternally at their posts.

## Further Information

* Magic
* Old Binturia
* Zondros