Apolytaus City Zu'Aan

History

Before the kin'toni outbreak $2 used to be a resort area for recreational skiing and snowboarding. Hotels and restaurants were installed to receive the thousands of visitors who wanted to experience the thrill of speeding down the mountain in specially groomed lanes. When the tourists stop coming, due to the emergency, the business closed, including power stations, and the people left but some employees without family. Without somebody who cares about animals, the farm park released the cattle, the animal soon adapted to the zone. The few habitants lived in cottages, became to use bonfires, and learned to hunt to survive when the food stores ran out.

After a time more survivors arrived at the Avaia zone. They splinted into groups, occupied restaurants and hotels to live in, and dismantled other buildings to get materials and build structures that fit more with safety and defense. More survivors arrived looking for refuge, the resources started to become scarce and before any kin'toni arrived the Avaia Snowy Mountains became a battlefield between zu'aan survivors. Objects like skiing equipment, fishing poles, and snowboards turned into weapons. The fight reduced every side in the zu'aan conflict. The few groups of survivors at the beginning got split into many small gangs of less than 10 members, the gangs were always fighting for food and resources, living like barbarians.

One day a foreigner arrived, a man wearing a canine mask, he introduced himself as Liles Talchia. He was received by a gang that believed could get him a new member since the conflict was at a point the numbers were important to win. Liles Talchia asked the gang for information about the area, then he went with another gang. He talked with every gang in Avaia zone, each time anybody tried to kill him he defended himself and got their attention. During days he refused to join any gang, instead, he proposed to them join forces with him and back to civilized life. Liles Talchia got many followers, the gangs disappeared fast to live peacefully under his guide, he was a charismatic leader that seemed to know everything.

Liles Talchia used to be a Special Forces soldier, he was sent with teams of soldiers with the same rank as him and used to get back with fewer partners than fingers in the hand. Tired of see partners die, he left the Special Forces and went into the wild alone in adventures. He found spiritual his own spiritual balance, in his belief, the zu'aan can turn the own spirit into any animal to adapt to the environment and face anything. According to his belief, he started to make and wear animal masks. He was not informed about the kin'toni outbreak when he decided to go back to the civilization, the first point he reached was Avaia Snowy Mountains. He decided to stay, become their leader. When he convinced all the survivors to become his followers he founded a City named Apolytaus.

As one of the farthest places in the world few kin'toni have arrived at Avaia Snowy Mountains and continue alive. Apolytaus City is a prosperous place for the zu'aan survivors, under the guide of Liles Talchia they got a sustainable way of life, many ways to get food and preserve it, technology and resources to work iron, pottery, and quarry; trained animals that help them to watch, rescue, hunt and attack; and a spiritual guide that let to them have an ordered and calm life.

Psychology

Apolytaus citizens are costumed to follow orders of anyone who they considered higher, which is the ideology Liles Talchia introduced to the city. They are very self-confident due they believe if there is something they can do their spirit animal do can. Also, they are very effortful people since they try to please their superiors and at the same time they want to achieve something like a higher rank. Since he was a soldier, even if it was not the founder's intention, he influenced the citizens a mind similar to the way of thinking a soldier would have. They wear masks every day, they have an automatic thought it will help them to make their activities better and solve their problems, due it works they don’t stop wearing masks, although also it´s true the masks let them conserve heat in the face.

To Apolytaus citizens the mask is the physical representation of their own spirit transformed in an animal shape, they feel it´s the way to express themselves to others what they are. When they see a mask of an unknown animal figure they interpret that is the difference between each other’s when they see somebody wearing the same mask as them they feel they are in the same mood but not are the same. Color and fashion are legacy of Apolytaus from the days there was a resort area there. They like to wear many colors, they feel it is something they must preserve from their ancestors. They don´t give meaning to the colors separately, however, the combinations of two or three colors have meaning. Wearing more than three colors means health and wealth.

Only soldiers and cleaners wear all the same color. Citizens give much importance to masks and the shapes of animals, more than the real animals, they use to decorate their rooms and houses with that theme. However they don´t adore the masks, it is only important while they are wearing them, once they remove them the mask has barely more relevance than another piece of clothes. Apolytaus has a cemetery, they bury the dead to give them rest. For them, the spirit abandoned the body and it is with the universe deity or it´s running free with the shape of the animal it adopted when the owner was alive. They place tombstones in the size and shape of a snowboard, the firsts tombstones were snowboards with names carved on them.

For a citizen of Apolytaus there is a crime to do anything that hurts other cities, the worst crime is to make something that affects the city itself, which is considered betrayal. The ones executed by betrayal are not buried, their body is left into the wild to let the animals eat it. On the other hand, the most honor is to defend the city or make something that improves life in the city, the soldiers killed in action receive a commemorative plate in their tombstone. Apolytaus citizens have a lot of appreciation for the history of the city and the founder, which is the reason why there are many museums, some of them have draws and paintings representing moments of their history.

Culture

Since the city was founded they adopted an own culture, different from the original cultures from which the settlers came. The influence of the founder Liles Talchia, combined with the fashion when the Snowy Mountains were a resort and snow sports center gave them a legacy with lots of colors and designs. The most commonly wear colorful loose-fitting clothing, the most common being robes and cloaks, but a wide variety of other clothing has been observed. They have machines to process cloth, dye materials, and design fabrics, the paint is obtained from minerals in the mine, juice of berries, and the skin of the uatuis, which is naturally blue or purple. Also, they have many resources for the clothes industry, like wool, leather, feathers, and fur that they can get from the cattle and the hunt.

An important aspect of their life is masks, citizens wear masks of known and unknown non-sentient creatures every day for many reasons. The most common are cloth masks, however, the material may vary according to the purpose of the mask. There are masks that are worn every day, each citizen has many different masks and changes them for the circumstances. Apolytaus city has industries that let them process in big amounts bricks, pottery, paint, clothes, iron objects, and furniture. Their quiet life lets them focus on arts and sports, there are buildings to practice music, dance, sing, and sculpt; paint and draw is a normal practice for many people who do it in almost any place. The sports they practice are running races, lifting heavy rocks, wrestle, archery and gymnastics.

The most popular sports are skiing and snowboarding. They don´t consider a sport but they also practice horse races, mastery of raxa to find a hidden jii doll, and mastery of myrzat to make tricks and follow orders. Many houses, streets, and public places are decorated with sculptures, the size depends of the space. The most recurrent theme in the art is real and fabulous creatures, the founder Liles Talchia and masked persons. Also, some plazas have floors made with colored bricks to form masks images and words. There are five libraries in Apolytaus City, books are important and the citizens have a plant to process paper enough to make lots of paper. At least 20 new books are written a year, many titles are rewritten and everybody can get paper pages to write or draw.

To draw it´s common to use charcoal, to write it´s used ink with a pen made of iron or feather. Libraries are important because children visit them for education, workers visit them to learn and investigate the industry process and adults visit it to read novels, poetry, and tales. Since the outside is cold read is one of the favorite activities for the citizens. Lanterns are an important part of the culture, there are two types, a small lantern named imber, with the size of a candle; and a big lantern, named flares, of the size of a campfire. The imber uses to have a rectangle shape, it´s made of clay with many holes in the walls to illuminate safely and the fire receives air, the candle is made of butter.

The flars is used to illuminate too, however, its main purpose is as a heater to rooms, it is also made of clay, has a small bonfire inside, and has small holes on the sides, many times it is decorated with creature and mask figures. The imber can be moved in the hand, the flars is too big; can be moved with two hands, once ignited it must be moved by staff.

Government

Since the foundation of the City Liles Talchia established a government similar to the army rank system, he didn´t like the politicians and neither wanted a government ruled by politicians that don´t know the needs and conditions of the people. Besides the used to be a soldier, he thought the government would not be directed in a different way. During his government Liles Talchia acted as a general, he used to inspect everything during the day. He directed the building and making of the industry and urban projects that would turn the life of the city to a civilized culture. He looked for individuals with qualities to be their sergeants, those auxiliary members would direct each different aspect for him.

The branches of industry, education, farm, medicine, and any other point that determines life in the city are directed by clerks that were chosen by skills and capacity to control groups, the clerk post is not hereditary. There is a group of the quality inspectors that are like colonels, these quality inspectors used to be clerks before and were promoted by their hard work, they can remove a clerk that is not giving good results and also find new aspirants to the clerk. Apolytaus city has a governor that works as general, he inspects the quality inspectors, also he has a staff group of secretaries that read all the reports and give to him a briefing to know everything is going well or if there is a problem.

The governor used to be a quality inspector before and a clerk before that, however, the process to be promoted is more complicated. Besides the hard work, skills, and achievements to be promoted to general is necessary to be successful in the rite. The aspirant to governor must travel alone to a far forest, beyond the coniferous trees don´t grow. The objective of the travel is to be enlightened in the loneliness of the wild as happened to the founder of the city. It is a hard test that just a few one's success, most of the times the aspirant get back desperate, without reach any point farther than coniferous trees, wanting to stay alive. Many times the aspirant simply doesn´t come back, it´s a hard test to travel alone.

They have to live from the wild and look for a revelation, there are many dangers in the wild that can cause their death. The aspirants who failed the test can never become governors, just get back their job as a quality inspector. The aspirants who were successfully become vice-governors, one of them can become governor when the current governor quits or dies, there can be many vice-governors but never was more than 5. There is not much difference between the governor and the vice-governors, their duties are almost the same, and the only difference is the governor can give orders to the vice-governors. There are squadrons that work as police, the members of these squadrons are called cleaners. The cleaners patrol the city and watch during the night.

The cleaners apprehend individuals that are breaking the law, according to the crime the arrested people is sent to a prison to do forced work or be executed by the charge of betrayal.

Military

One of the first institutions Liles Talchia established was the army. It was necessary to make a group under his following to give order to the city and stop unnecessary conflicts. The military system existing in Apolytaus city is based on troops led by higher rank soldiers. To ascend the soldier is promoted by the battlefield achievements and the troop that belongs, for example, a mounted soldier can´t become a medic troop sergeant. The General of the Army is not under the orders of the governor, they are at the same level, the general can´t direct the troops to overthrow the government because it is stated in the martial law that would be a high betrayal.

The soldiers don´t only fight, they build walls, barricades, traps, they get resources for themselves by hunting, recollecting, and lumbering. That way they don´t depend on the city resources and can have their own food supplies. Only the soldiers can forge and build weapons, the civilians only can forge domestic utensils and tools with limited size, the soldiers can make bigger size tools. They have their own medics too, to attend to the wounded in the troop, their medical equipment is the same as the civilian medics. Soldiers can´t make the job of the cleaners, they are not trained to deal with minor offenders, the only part of the cleaner job they can do is execute a guilty prisoner.

With the different sources of minerals and iron forge, the Apolytaus citizens can produce iron weapons. They have axes, hammers, and scythes but they don’t consider them weapons but tools. The weapons they use are knives, bows with arrows, and shields. Their characteristic weapon is a spear that looks like a skiing rod. It is used as a spear to attack and also it works as a defense due to the circle around the handle. This weapon is used for skiing to since the troops can move by skiing and snowboarding. Besides moving by the snow there are also mounted soldiers, they ride trained beasts to move in different maneuvers according their signals. Due the fast communication and mobility of the troops many threats in the history of the city has been eradicated.

The weapons of the fallen enemies have been set in an army museum to citizens watch them, however since all the enemies that attacked the city were less civilized their weapons were inferior so the Apolytaus soldiers would not adopt them into their equipment. Since there is fabric technology they wear uniforms with patterns of snow and ground camouflage, surprisingly, however, they wear little armor, usually being just shin and forearm armour. They are better protected against cold than enemy attacks. They do possess shields in great number though, and have been observed to wear strange semi-armored, pseudo-religious masks in the image of various known and unknown non-sentient creatures. The masks help them to be more mentally prepared to fight.

Religion

Citizens have a belief system based in the doctrine of Liles Talchia. When he left the Special Forces he traveled alone to the wild, lost in the jungle he found enlightenment that let him reach spiritual balance. According his doctrine, everyone has a spirit that resides in the body, this spirit has no size or shape. Since the spirit is not attached to physical characteristics it can be modeled according the will. The capability to control the spirit let to the owner to transform it into an animal to face any situation, this way changing it into a fearsome animal the spirit can give strong and brave enough to fight against a threat, or turning it in an aquatic animal would let move better on the water.

The spirit can become on many animals, just one at time. It can become on known animal or a fabulous creature according to the challenge of the owner. Liles Talchia explained this spiritual balance let him to survive in the hard conditions of the wild. This doctrine is the base of the Apolytaus City religion. This belief does not mean to adore a god or adore the animals, not even adore the spirit. The animal spirits are not related with the animal transformation of the spirit. They believe in the universe as a god, however not a god to adore instead ask it for help and guide, then payback for the favor someday. There are spiritual guides that are like priests, the difference is they are not authority figures.

Spiritual guides are more like coaches that help to the citizens to control and shape shift their own spirit to an animal form. To help them to turn and keep the desired animal from the citizens wear a mask of that animal. Masks are an important part of the Apolytaus culture, they wear them every day and they use to change different masks to face different circumstances. The mask tradition was introduced by Liles Talchia too. When he arrived at the city he was wearing a canine mask. He made his own masks that he was wearing for moments to different activities. People adopted the costume, they used the masks during longer moments each time until the mask became in an all day accessory.

At first, people used to make their own masks, with time the manufacturer's process became easier. There are masks of different materials, the most common are cloth, leather and wood. Soldiers and cleaners wear masks with iron pieces.

Marriage ritual

During the different festivals of the year there is a dance, at first everybody dance alone. Citizens who like each other become to dance together. The couples who have intentions to marry must dance wearing the same mask model during seven dance festivals to let everybody know their intentions are true. At the end of the eighth dance the couple can call to the spiritual guide, he will marry them and the couple takes off the mask each other to kiss. They will go to sleep together to the same house, the woman will live there since that day. Anybody who is against the union would interrupt one of the eight dances, after eight consecutive dances trying to separate the couple would be considered criminal and will end with an arrest.

Miscellany

Most of citizens wears the mask of an avainni, is surely that animal, however masks are of different colors. Traditional clothes designs resemble to the sports outfit of the tourists who used to visit the resort center in Avaia Sowy Mountains years before Apolytaus city was founded. The masks are important religious accessories, at same time they have not any value, hundreds of masks are break and dumped each year. The snow troops move by snowboarding, it was a short time when they used a snowboard with blades in the edges, the model was discontinued due it was more dangerous for allies than enemies. Every house has an image of the founder of the city. However there is not any portrait of Liles Talchia without a mask, and portraits use to be different. The only characteristics that every different portrait shares are a long nose and a wide beard.

There is a ritual mask made of clay, it is too heavy to wear. It is not to represent the spirit turned on creature but wear as punish for a fault committed. Wealthy citizens wear masks with jewels, when the masks have too many jewels and precious metal to be wear in the face they wear them as necklaces. Retired governors use to become on book writers, they even have a club that reunites once a week to review their texts. The city is well protected against enemy attacks by its hard geography, they never have lost a battle although there are victories that cost them many lives. There are merchant caravans that visit the city to trade, citizens are interested on articles that can´t be found into the Snowy Mountains.

Many governors had projects to build trade roads pavement with bricks to make easier the pass of merchants, however the possibility of invaders use that route make them doubt. Many of the technology in the city industries was bring by Liles Talchia. He was a soldier, also he had knowledge about engineers, chemists, and factory processes, the city has no resources to reproduce some devices and weapons he knew and he died before it was possible. It´s possible to cultivate a few vegetables on Avaia Snowy Mountains, due that the cook is limited and there are few recipes. In a museum there is a prototype of a rifle that Liles Talchia was designing, he wanted to produce fire weapons but he didn´t want to share the process with somebody who could turn against him.

He could not produce such weapons since there is not the right materials on the surroundings. Nobody of the citizens knows what the rifle is or how it works, it is just specified as an experiment of a pipe. The coach guides must pass a test similar to the governor´s test, however the coach guides don´t need to go farther coniferous trees. There are three peaks with caves, one is habited by the governor and vice-governors, other is habited by the generals and the third is habited by the spiritual coaches.

Nearby Groups

Unknown

Apolytaus City Zu'Aan

Unknown