Maratar

Maratar is one of the six continents, the first to be populated.

## Geography

What was once an archipelago near the south pole of the planet is now a mere handful of mountaintops poking out of the sea. Since the Event, the Maratim civilization has been entirely seabound: a fleet of ships migrating further north into the waters between Golgóssa and ye(Salem. Yet they also have, in secret, a city of glowing spheres on the ocean floor.

## Climate

Before the Event, it was warm and humid. Thick jungles grew out of red soil on the larger isles; beautiful beaches all along the coasts; sharp spires of red rock reaching out of the canopy. After the Event, there’s nothing but a few mountaintops, stormy seas, and dangerous whirlpools.

## Resources

Water. Subsea mines harvesting rare crystals, Orixial. The electric eel, Telzeit, provides material called Zoraxis.

## Flora

On land: black wood, tall grasses, eelfruit, bloodmango. Underwater: seaweed, seatrees, seasalt, seaseeds.

## Fauna

Rockshell tortoise. Electric eel, the Telzeit. The black and white Orca. The miniscule Swordfish. The Mastodon. Historically, they had Lemurs and yaks. Some Lemurs survived on Tellarnath and yaks are now abundant in ye(Salem.

## People

The Maratim people are introverted, religious, and repressed. They are scientifically literate, logistically inclined, and always trying to maximize leisure time and minimize labour time. They are obsessed with death and survival; and their poetry, aesthetics, and religion revolves around death.

The Maratim are called Palóbír by the eugenicists of Arfaxad, and called the Pelagoans by everyone else. They once had a tanned complexion, but even before the Event they spent little time under the sun, and thus have grown extremely pale. Nearly all Pelagoans have freckles, red or white hair, black eyes.

## History

Ancient. The archipelago was inhabited immediately after Ringfall. Survivors of the fall landed upon the soft beaches and shallows waters. An idyllic, vegetarian, egalitarian society quickly took form. But some early tragedies shook the archipelago. Typhoons were common and claimed many lives, eradicating entire cities and causing the seasonal movement of refugees. To make things worse, a number of seaworms and whirlpools claimed the lives of these refugee ships. This encouraged the people of the archipelago to view life as a constant war for survival, and after a particularly violent storm called the Sizora storm, the first Maratim empire formed and set out upon the Conquest of Death.

With their advanced ships, the Maratim believed the key to survival was to spread out. They began establishing colonies upon every single isle in the south sea, while the alchemists of the First Way experimented with herbal and mineral ingredients, attempting to discover an elixir that might conquer death. In 630 AF, Maratar established a settlement on sa(Tangshe, and in 636 AF, they created a settlement on Tellarnath, where a mysterious orb of hematite was discovered. In the following decades, Maratar developed a significant presence throughout the Forest, where they shared their philosophy of conquering death with the native Woodkin.

The Maya of the woods became the Svaikusaí, or the People of the Snake. However, the immortal of the forest, Hrathid, intervened and shared his gospel. In the year 666 AF, the First immortal, Zarex, led Maratar’s retreat from the Forest with the hematite orb in tow. The people of Maratar have always been religious, but this retreat introduced a schism in the religion. Two factions emerged: the sui’Etrisan, who believed that we must learn to accept defeat and death as the will of the immortals, and the Künbrekthnïr who believed the hematite orb commanded them to continue fighting against death. People turned to the first immortal Zarex for answers, but in the year 1127 AF the immortals vanished.

In the year 1220 AF, the ye(Bochi warriors of the Steppe defeat Maratar, and expel them from sa(Tangshe. This defeat deepened the schism between the sui’Etrisan and the Kümbrekthnïr, and in 1231 AF, this schism became a full-scale civil war. In the year 1309 AF, the sui’Etrisan emerge victorious. The old Empire crumbled, and the many islands of the archipelago enters an era of unmarred peace. However, this peace is disturbed in 1878 AF with a most horrific storm called the Zeitzora storm. The storm claims many lives, and faith is lost in the sui’Etrisan to protect the Pelagoans. A second civil war breaks out in 1983 AF, which results with the sui’Etrisan remaining in power. However, unsatisfied with sui’Etrisan rule, many elite members of society join the Künbrekthnïr and create a “break-away” civilization in called the Sorzein fleet, who can exist completely independently from land. In 2001 the Sorzein fleet set sail, and remains at sea until the end of the Telling.

Precolonial. The Künbrekthnïr spend centuries developing technology independently of the sui’Etrisan, and in the year 2789 AF they learn how to harness the power of the Telzeit electric eel and create the light-glass, the Zoraxis.

Colonial. In the year 3110 AF, the Künbrekthnïr perform a very theatrical coup d’état. They exile the sui’Etrisan, and immediately create a theocratic aristocratic empire, consolidating power between the scientific, political, economic, and magical elites of their society in order to maximize technological advancement. Hierarchies of power become deeply entrenched, and their religious leaders perform the intellectual labour needed to manufacture the consent of the masses by expounding the political-religious concept of the Inverted Triangle. At the tip of the triangle was Brekthnïr, the sleeping god in the Nethers, and above it were the citizens of the archipelago. As the empire expands, the point of the triangle does not elongate, but the base of the triangle deepens. Anyone added to the empire comes in “at the base,” which is, perplexingly, at the top. This concept, however, in order to appeal to the lowest caste of the Pelagoans, demanded imperial expansion.

In 3860 AF, the Maratim elite met with the Arfaxadi ruling class at the Mirror Conference. The two empires agreed to expand without direct conflict with each other. They divided the world evenly between them and began their conquest.

In 3863 AF, Maratar invaded the Steppe. Their conquest was swift and brutal. They instituted their religion immediately, and forced the entire Salemo population to work as martyr-slaves in factories within a few years. However, when Maratar learned that many Salemo held onto the hope that the Seventh immortal would descend from atop the Spine and free all the slaves, Maratar made it their top priority to eradicate any mention of the Seventh. In 3899 AF they massacred the Eastern Monastery of the Seventh Way, and by 3914 AF, Maratar had conquered every city of mia’Nihaul and burnt their libraries in case they contained any mention of the Seventh.

The Event. In the year 4196 AF, Maratim spies are captured in Din Forstain, triggering a war between the two empires. Arfaxad ships invade Maratim waters, and while they battle at sea the immortals appear in the sky over them. Zarex, the first immortal, summons a flood that submerges the entire archipelago. Only the Sorzein Fleet survives, and the secret subsea city of Orixiro, where the Gap was opened.

Taboo of the Maya. After the Truce Summit between Maratar and Arfaxad, both empires decide peace was only possible if the Maya were globally eliminated. Maratar immediately purges the remaining ye(Bochi in the Steppe. However some a’Qashtet in the desert escape on their Skycities, hidden by clouds. The Maratim supersoldiers called the Squares hunt the Skycities for centuries, destroying four of them by 1111 AE.

Notable Names. Surname first, always lower case. heliox derset. denzeit bestilt. nextor zist. gostild thakris. thelk zilheit. plet thasist.

## Politics

Theocratic. The church is the state. Officially, the head of state is Brekthnïr himself, the eighth immortal. Earthly power is centralized in the mothership of the Sorzein fleet, the Noldrex, rather than resting with any individual. Each colonized city has a leader called the Lunax. That leader is little more than a puppet of the elites aboard a specific Sorzein ship called the Solax. And in turn, the ships are all under the command of the sleeping god-king Brekthnïr.

## Economy

The economy after the Event was transformed by rapid technological advancements. Although they still rely on physical manufacturing, they skip the industrial era entirely, moving right into a digital post-capitalist economy. What does this look like? Citizens are paid a daily allowance, the size of which is determined by their placement in the hierarchy of their ship. In other words, class determines their wealth, rather than wealth determining their class. The inhabitants of their two colonies, mia’Nihaul and ye(Salem, are wage-slaves without any freedom.

## Law

Slavery was illegal until the Künbrekthnïr seized power. Even then, slaves had to be paid a small wage. Maratar is socially quite authoritarian; drugs are illegal, pornography is illegal. However, there is no professional police class. Laws are socially enforced, and most citizens will enforce them.

## Class

Class is the center of the universe for the Maratim. The concept of the World Triangle structures their entire worldview. Although a small elite at the tip of the triangle indulge in the greatest pleasures and exert the largest influence, if the triangle is deepened, the people who are currently at the base of the triangle will be in the middle.

## Currency

Zazein: a digital currency accessed via cornea-implant, or sometimes an external device [like a black USB stick].

## Military

Ground units use Zorabuus, or light-rifles. A far rarer weapon is the Zorakein, the light-blade, which only the warriors of the First Way, the Squares, can wield. However, in the post-Event era, the military use massive spheres called Zoratein, which can blast highly condensed bursts of heat. The Zoratein can travel underwater or in the air without trouble.

## Technology

Maratar has by far the most advanced technology in the world. Their technology revolves around the Zoraxis, the light-glass, harnessed from the Telzeit, the electric eel. They’ve managed to keep that technology a secret. After they recovered the hematite orb from Tellarnath, their discoveries accelerated to the point that their social evolution war far behind their technological advancement. They created replicators that could create rearrange the atoms of any object, thus creating synthetic food or clothing at will. However, they did not have the social technology to share these inventions openly. Simply put, this empire is socially regressive, but technologically advanced, whereas the Arfaxad empire is technologically regressive but socially advanced--relatively.

## Transportation

Although Maratar still employs some more traditional seafaring ships to maintain surface appearances, the most common form of transportation are subsea Zoratein orbs.

## Communication

Maratar invented the light-glass, or the Zoraxis, in the year 2798 AF, before the Event. The Zoraxis is a technology similar to touch-screen cell-phones. The Zoraxis permits immediate communication at long distances, access to vast amounts of information from an immaterial database. The Zoraxis does not respond to touch, but directly to thought-forms in the one holding it. This means that the technology only works if the user can consciously direct their thoughts. If your mind is a mess--if you think in two directions at once--then the Zoraxis won’t respond. Thus, the technology is closely linked to the First Way of purifying, and silencing thought. The Maya of the First Way are called Zoraxil, the Thoughtless.

## Medicine

Maratar has a well-developed pharmacy after centuries of alchemic experimentation with various herbal and mineral ingredients. The pharmacy combines the knowledge of stones from the ye(Bochi with the Zoraxil’s chemical intuition. Their medics recognize that disease is a product of imperfect thought-forms, and yet they prescribe chemical solutions.

## Cuisine

The Maratim diet is almost exclusively synthetic. The only natural foods consumed are seafood, but even then, the types of fish they consume are normally biologically engineered.

## Fashion

Minimalist, modernist robes. Black, white, and red. They wear leather from ye(Salem as well as synthetic materials. They will often wear contact lenses with artificial colours.

## Language

Religious curses. Zora means both light and thought. Their language is Teutonic: lots of *Z*s, *X*s, *eit*s, and *ein*s. Their curses revolve around wishing each other violent deaths.

## Myth

Zarex winning the hematite orb from Hrathid by playing Fourbeads. The hematite orb is the earthly manifestation of Brekthnïr.//The earth was made by Zarex before the Rings were ever formed. The First immortal was floating in the primordial fog, where he found the mist took the form of his thoughts. So, he commanded his thoughts to slow down, and the fog became sand. Then he told his thoughts to be still, and the sand became spherical rock. But he couldn’t hold his thoughts still forever, and the rock cracked open, and whole oceans gushed forth. So, he told his thoughts to repeat simple truths, and the rock became crystalline. In this sense, a crystal is a fixed thought; and the planet itself is considered the First Thought.

## Rituals

    Diurnal sensory deprivation procedures.//Rituals of pain.

## Calendar

In the Maratim calendar, there are no months or weeks. Each day is treated individually, as a number. Days are counted from 1 to Day 126, and then the cycle begins anew.

## Religion

Künbrekthnïr, offer their bodies to the eighth immortal, who lies asleep in the Nethers. Pilgrimage to the hematite orb is common; his earthly manifestation. The Tiegoless claim Brekthnïr takes control of their body telepathically. Pain is used as a method to eject one’s ego from the physical body, offering it as an empty vessel for Brekthnïr’s use.

## Gender and sex

In present day, most citizens hide their gender. They can be a fairly repressed society sexually, with exceptions: for example, the Body Theaters where public sex is performed.

## Music

Powerful electronic drones; in the ancient world, throat singing.

## Aesthetics

In all ways, they are minimalists. Short poetry, still images painted upon the light glass, almost like artistic memes. The austere Games are broadcasted on public light-screens.

## Architecture

Although the isles were destroyed in the floods of the Event, the Pelagoans still survive on their austere ships, and a few hidden cities on the bottom of the ocean. Their architecture is severely minimalist, with stark contrasts, straight vertical lines, inverted pyramids, and spheres.

## Education

Education is free, but the amount of time spent in school is dependent upon one’s class.

## Philosophy

Their philosophy revolves around death. The Conquest of Death is a philosophical and scientific search for the cure to death. After the Künbrekthnïr come to power, The World Triangle, becomes the prism through which most Maratim view the world. They believe that reality organizes itself naturally into hierarchies. The triangle cannot be made egalitarian without risking social collapse, but the triangle can be expanded outward. Even the lowest class Pelagoan (what they call “highest class” because the triangle is inverted) can become relatively elite if the triangle were expanded enough, to encompass the entire world.

## Magic

The First Way; the Way of Silence; Zoraxil, Thoughtless.

The First Way began as a coping mechanism for mass deaths.  They practice silent meditation, which is the source of their name: the Thoughtless. They sought to become like the void of outer space between the stars. The tyro is expected to squirm, attempting to sit perfectly still without thought. Elder Zoraxil who can read their minds sometimes beat them for thinking, until they learn to silence the mind. And if they persist in that silence, they will “leave time,” and perceive the atomic structure of the world, as if frozen in place. With further training, the Zoraxil can sensitize their inner ear to hear the slightest disturbances in mental space. Thus, the Zoraxil excelled at long-range communications using telepathy, enabling easy communication for the early Empire even before the Zoraxis amplified this technique and made it easier for tyros to communicate at long distances.

As the years drew on, the First Way split into two schools. One nurtured a desire for what was, and taught their followers to embrace our mortality as the will of the immortals. The other school drew great power from opposing the will of the immortals, and taught their followers to reject death and study alchemy as a route to discovering the elixir of life.

The ability of the Zoraxil to perceive the atomic structure of the world made them exceptional alchemists. The Zoraxil could divine the properties of various compounds to create remarkably potent elixirs. In the years leading up to the creation of the Sorzein Fleet in 2001 AF, the elite Zoraxil began consuming special elixirs that gave them superhuman strength, intelligence, the ability to hold their breath for hours, the ability to see in the dark, or to stay awake for weeks at a time. The toll of such elixirs upon the human body was enormous, and few Zoraxil had the constitution to survive them. But those who did became formidable warriors, colloquially called Fangs because of their vampire-like teeth. These mutated soldiers bear triangular helmets, the red Zorakein light-swords, and tattooed blockish red Lines all over their pale skin. They hunted the seaworms to extinctions, and often went into battle with belts of elixirs with short-lasting effects, ready for any situation that might arise.

Initiates in the First Way must pass an extreme rite of passage before becoming Squares. In times of yore, they were buried up to their necks in the red soil of the archipelago, and had to dig their way out. But since the creation of the light-glass technology, the Zoraxil have substituted the rite of being buried alive with another one, far more extreme. Initiates are given an hallucinogenic elixir which induces a daylong panic attack, manifesting visions of one’s worst fears and memories. If the initiate can conquer their fears, they become a full-fledged Square and receive their Lines.

Some among the Zoraxil perform a ritual where they sever their own limbs, so they can manipulate their dead flesh using telekinesis. Some go so far as to kill everything in their bodies except the organs and the spine. These Zoraxil are called Thralls, and are generally not warriors but priests.