Novus-Morscuro

Formerly Astra-Morscuro

Court of potential and guardians of darkness' chaos, **Novus-Morscuro** was once known for its theatrics and now resides in recent memory only as the shadow looming over it. Abandoned due to catastrophic failure regarding their well of darkness, the previously glittering canton creases the nation in a fold of night and slowly sees signs of nature reclaiming the corners of the forsaken court's once starry halls.

## Description

Written off for its drab and dreary excuse of a court, Novus-Morscuro is half of what was once Astra-Morscuro and now wastes away as a shadowy bruise to Sumarfold's dignity. In its prime, Novus-Morscuro invoked comparisons to the celestial bodies above, often referred to as the Star of Sumarfold or the Constellation Court due to the warped and eerie beauty attributed to the night fold they were posed to guard.

To those standing at a distance, the twinkling lights of the cities set against the shadowy natural mists of the landscape often resembled a similar visage to the concept of constellations. When drawing closer, one would see those twinkling lights as cities strewn in silver playing an almost mirror image of their counterparts in modern Esudel-Astra.

Novus-Morscuro was ever washed in gloaming landscapes that once glittered with mystery and lit up with the glitz of their proud illustrious stages. Novesians were particularly protective of this glamour and their duties to uphold and maintain their rift of darkness. Hostile to ploys regarding their energetic current, they knew it to be an incredibly destructive force in an unrefined state and would inevitably be sought out by political leaders who had eyes for mechanisms of power and influence. Scholars, druids and mages advocated there were more advanced and beneficial usages than weapons of war.

It was never in question that Novus-Morscuro was a court of intensity and potential, harbouring people with grand dreams and even grander powers yet unearthed. With the catastrophic loss of power that set their society in fragments, Novesians lost their glimmering reputation and succumbed to the shadowy drama often attributed to their Fae ancestors. Stars of the continent stopped performing in their halls, the shimmer dulled against the lack of night, and the curtains drew on the would-be patron city of thespians. Novus-Morscuro now sits in a haunted lacuna, wasting away to the phantom notes people say can still be heard from the old theatre.

## Geography

Novus-Morscuro is located in the central south of Sumarfold, nestled between Esudel-Astra and Aphoset, acting as a transitional zone for their analogous climates and landscapes. The land once altered and evolved like it did near any rift; the darkness that spilled over washed the ground in differing hues of deep blue, purple, amaranth, and ink. The continent was granted night-blooming flora, and Foldians watched animals evolve over many centuries to change their hues and behaviours to camouflage better with eternal pockets of darkness.

Today, Novus-Morscuro is nothing more than an invisible line on the nation's map, but to stand in the court is to be consumed by the evident scars of history and the subsequent abandonment inevitable by the indefinite mass loss of power.

Once grand halls and polished walkways are now strangled in the ever-changed flora teeming with unnatural corruptions, and unmonitored festering gloom-blights continue to rapidly overtake the biome surrounding the shadowy ziggurat. The leylines that were once used to channel and regulate the Novesian rift have effectively burst and cracked open in multiple fracture points, leaving the last of the umbral well to leak into smaller pools of shadow. The last of this chaotic energy is now at liberty to modify, interact and transmute itself into finality alongside the material plane. This fact is less widely known or even discussed as many officials have left Novus-Morscuro in the back of their minds, and all state-assigned specialists and rift-keepers have been relocated.

## Government

Today’s Novus-Morscuro and their place in governing has always been a matter of political debate in Sumarfold’s history, with little progress to show for the innumerable leadership propositions. Many aristocrats thought it was better to keep the single court Astra-Morscuro, claiming the two rifts worked in tandem, while others felt it was unwise to let it bear risky independence. Arguments surrounding court independence were frequently entwined with grabs of power, doubts over rift maintenance abilities, overall intention, and faltering influence of a High Archon. Meanwhile, those within the unofficial court sought independence based on their feelings of inequity, clear cultural divides between themselves and other courts, their detailed personal understanding of the rift they protected, and a wish to politically maintain themselves with representation amongst the upper echelon of leaders. Unfortunately, Novesians never saw their strives for independence come to fruition until the court’s abandonment only a decade ago. Although Sebastian Esen Kitt remains the official Archon of the sundered court, the years leading up to Novus-Morscuro’s downfall beheld another as the Novesian’s herald, an umbral-born Rivtenya who only ever went by the name Trillium.

Trillium was an outspoken political dissenter, a darling and fierce plenipotentiary for Novesians who had already asserted their Court's independence. With a receptive demeanour, commiserative tongue, and skill in pulling off eye-opening spectacles, she had easily won the heart of Novesians and convinced them of their potential separate Courthood. However, with the depletion of the shadow rift came the silence and equally mysterious disappearance of Trillium.

Today, Novus-Morscuro sits in a darkened, ungoverned land under the rule, responsibility, and neglect of Sumarfold’s High Archon.

### Law and Order

There’s currently no structure to maintain law and order within Novus-Morscuro aside from the strict post of guards outside the safety zone set up around the ziggurat. Their only established priorities are diverting lost wanderers from the dangers of uncontained fallout and barring the greedy marauder entrance to the ziggurat's ruins.

### Crime

In these abandoned days, Novus-Morscuro is a haunting ground for regular underhanded deals and scavengers looking for priceless artifacts left behind in the dying court. Almost any and all unspoken things happen in the blighted lands, unpatrolled, except for the perimeter of the meltdown site, as the most precious items and certain death can be found within the crumbling ziggurat.

## Trade

Trade no longer exists in Novus-Morscuro as part of any transparent market, but the obscured lands have value for businesses that thrive in a shroud. Due to the lawlessness of the forgotten court, crime and trade go hand in hand by Foldian standards.

Foolish adventurers who stray with beliefs that the court holds resources yet to be picked from the dying vine may be right but rarely return to report their findings.

## Culture

Novesian culture was heavily informed by being a half of Esudel-Astra (formerly Astra-Morscuro) only ten years before its downfall and was arguably never given enough time to flourish its already individual force as a cultural center within the shared court. Naturally dramatic when they were an active part of Astra-Morscuro, Novesians had a love for arts and theatre that began to rival Aphoset’s; even proudly possessing one of Sumarfold’s most famous theatres that hosted the eminent performers from across the continent.

Often due to the rift they guarded, Novus-Morscuro was a typical scapegoat for domestic and foreign political enemies. Being so chaotic, alongside the already voltaic fold in the capital, the shadow rift was an easy shelf for blame and burden. Some argued that its maintenance was demanding too much and drained national funds that other courts could use. Meanwhile, Novesians who championed the potential expanded uses and advantage their rift held grew solitary and bitter as nobody heard their cries for help maintaining the naturally turbulent and understudied well. Novesians often called on Teramzyn to speak to their philosophies on moderation and preservation concerning the dark well, but the weak efforts never garnered enough national care in the end.

### Fashion

In the days when Novus-Morscuro was a lively court, their fashion echoed that of Esudel-Astra. Their trade was similar and shared due to a longstanding history of singularity, but as separatist attitudes grew and took hold, the style changed in ways of dyes and symbolism, purposely creating extreme opposites and contrast next to Esudelan citizens. This trend was likely set by prominent figures in government at the time, choosing to represent defiance and contradiction before ever speaking an official word on the record.

### Religion

Today, religion has no place in Novus-Morscuro, unlike a time when Novesians revered Antemeon, Ereus, and Vetea as patron deities to their lands and tenets of guardianship. Today, any temples left behind are likely starting the process of nature’s reclamation; however, there was a time when Novus-Morscuro did host the most revered temple dedicated to the Tresceian faith. Many acolytes and disciples would take on a pilgrimage to Veil-Rise Towers, built upon Sumarfold’s second-highest plateau. Open marbled archways bend to reveal the stellar heavens above, and decorated columns, imprinted with patrons' handwritten prayers and blessings, lift up the night dome to exhibit the beauty of their deities' gifts from the land below.

Many believe to this day that there are lost writings of Foldian history pertaining to faith, the Rivtenya, and the rifts of the court within the decrepit temple’s archives. Today it is a mess of lifeless and unstable rubble that breaks and becomes more brittle with every new stem poking through its cracks, using whatever lays below as fertilizer.

### Festivals and Holidays

There are no festivals or holidays to celebrate within Novus-Morscuro to speak of. Many outside the downtrodden land remember a “Last Day,” considered the final event of seismic dark energy lashing out and seizing up in unpredictable patterns before the remaining citizens escaped or perished in the chaos.

## Defenses

A single patrol unit of specialized rangers funded by each court in agreement to create a coalition surrounding the matters of guardianship of the inert shadowy rift exists in place of any standing army or law-bearers. This patrol is assigned only the perimeters of the ziggurat and has no involvement with anything beyond seeing it remains empty of unwanted visitors.

It's said that Novus-Morscuro's weaponization of their rift could have been catastrophic and toppled power struggles within the country if not the continent. Truth can never be known as all research on the topic is seemingly lost while the source of such power lies dormant, and no scholar or researcher involved with such apparently lives to speak the truth, or they've taken to a quiet life in *other* shadows.

## Transportation

In previous years, Novus-Morscuro was making headway in understanding their rifts energy and the uses within interplanar travel. They momentarily expanded the modern understanding of teleportation before all resources and studies were struck down, expunged in the final years of forced dedition.

Due to the lack of upkeep in Novus-Morscuro, nameless dangers have made their home in the fold, prompting locals to find new travel routes. This has made land travel for merchants and citizens between the Capital and Aphoset an obstacle. Subsequently, there’s noticeable stress on their harbours volume in recent years, and increased land traffic through the northern court of Pyrrah has created internal disputes for the nation.

## Notable Locations

Ever-changed and undulating with the residual energies left from the rift’s meltdown, **the Ziggurat of Novus-Morscuro**, is the only area left within the court that maintains a guard. Once a tall peak of conducted energies, today’s view of the ziggurat leaves much to be desired with its lacklustre stone, broken conductors, and bisected decrepit tower. The land around the ziggurat continues its bizarre evolution despite no longer channelling any dark energies. Meadows flowing with ink-dark waters, unknown flora sprouting up anew every few cycles and strange creatures lurking in the dark make the once-proud ziggurat a menacing labyrinth of catacombs for riches and wonders and those who were left in lower levels more than a decade ago.

**The Veil-Rise Towers**, or what remains of it, are nestled into one of the few rising landmasses of Sumarfold. From afar, the grand temple stretches its arms to the night sky and casts its twinkling view in a protective blanket over the court below, looming with guardianship and the sanctity of a spiritual anchor decorated and once revered for the warm silence it kept. Today, the ruins grow over with blighted foliage, while the once glimmering eyes of the Towers are overtaken in a dull dark shadow. The Veil-Rise Towers were once full of scrolls, idols, reagents, and works that the acolytes studied, but now they are likely consigned to the depths of the crumbling buildings.

Accidentally wandering into the wrong corner of Novus-Morscuro, one will eventually find themselves the unwilling guest of **Io’s Amphitheatre**. A large swathe of changed lands, now reclaimed by the melodramatic fae, serves as her personal theatre grounds where the lost adventurer, deal-breaker, betrayer, or ordinary idiot, may find themselves enthralled and equally enslaved by the manic whirl of nightly performances.