Nocturnus

The Secret City of Nocturnus lies deep, deep beneath the Glittergloom mountains, down further even than the shimmering lights of the Argent Hall, bathed in eternal darkness and seething with malevolent energy. The location of the city is never disclosed to those who are not of the Sister's chosen, and paths that lead to it are regularly destroyed with new ones built to ensure the Low King's wily armies never find it.

Nocturnus is a city hewn of stone, perched on a cliff above a freezing underground river whose waters run inky black. The architecture is blocky, with crisp lines, giant bone inlays and wrought iron gates. The city is surrounded on two sides by off shoot caves, each containing its own farm or rice paddock and tended to by the walking dead. The last side is a field of towering ziggurats, marking the last resting place for each of the great houses that rule over the city. These ziggurats are accessible, and frequently visited by living family members to pay their respects.

Inside the city, it is built in tiers. The bottom tier, lower even than where you enter is where vast warehouses hide the rotting servants that tend the city when they are not needed. Next is the working caste, followed by the mercantile and artisan caste, the upper caste and lastly at the top sits the religious caste. The higher up in the city your home is, the higher your status. The religious caste was once made of 14 great houses, but only 13 remain since the fall of House Zaundar.

### Leadership

The city matriarchal is led by the 13 remaining High Priestesses that are the leaders of each of the great religious houses. They meet in a council each day to decide on city wide matters, but each of them has their own agenda and each of them is vying for their own supremacy.

### Culture

Nocturnus favours its women and girls. Femininity is seen as a boon even amongst people who are not woman or girls. The upper echelons of society are big on dances, dramatic fashion, exciting music, sex, drugs, drinks, political intrigue and poisoning. It is commonly said that a party is a flop in the Secret City unless someone dies at it.

That said, daughters are heavily favoured. Usually, a mother will bear one son who she allows to survive, and his duties will be to run her household once his father has outlived his usefulness. After that, sons are typically sacrificed to the Sister by being let adrift in a bassinet down the river.

### Food and Drink

Vae'Nocturnus favour spicy foods, noodles, rice and ingredients that are the purview of the Deep - mushrooms, spider meat and the like. They are the primary vintners of the Glitterglooms, specialising in deep blood red wines using grapes they cultivate. The grapes were originally grown in the Weald.

### Religion

The Vae'Nocturnus worship Sister Nox (A Beginner's Guide to Aeos#Ann-Tyrannis/Sister Nox/???). This is strictly enforced.

A staple festival of Nocturnus is the Day of Remembrance, when families will travel to their own family tomb or a tomb of their patrons, exhume the dead and eat dinner with them around the dining tables built into most ziggurats.

As part of this, the Vae'Nocturnus worship beings called Moranna, who are Vae'Nocturnus boys blessed by the Sister with shapeshifting abilities as saints. To date, there have been 7 Moranna. Usually there is only ever one at any given time. The most recently of these is General Ilmnamyr Zaundar.

### Recent Troubles

Recently, there has been an exodus of surviving sons and others who have decided to turn away from the culture of Nocturnus. Many of these Vae'Nocturnus have found their way to the surface, and taken up residence in the Boneshaper Enclave in the Glitterglooms, though others find themselves further afield.