Daennage City Zu'aan

History

How exactly Daennage came to be is quite the mystery. All is known is that it was founded around the start of the Twilight Age. Daennage is the pride and joy of many along the coast. They controlled a long stretch of beach and even had a functioning port. Daennage was a bustling city with many different religions, cultures and ethnic groups calling the city home. It boasted beautiful architecture and high protective walls with a strong military presence to keep order among the citizens of Daennage. If you lived along the coast Daennage was a popular place to trade and find financial success.

Then then the kin'toni came. Kin’toni infiltrated the city and infected a lot of the over 10 000 population. People were evacuated in their thousands and the infected were dealt with harshly. The stench of burning flesh lingered in the city driving more out to take their chances in the unknown lands of the empire. Once the infection was controlled, the council attempted to rebuild. They had barely begun restorations when the attacks happened. Night after night a new swarm would attempt to mount the walls of the city in order to get in and start a brand new infection.

The citizens banded together as much as possible to fight the threats but many families were forced to leave. With the threat of the kin’toni looming on the horizon every night, drawn by the multitude of citizens still inside the walls, many more abandoned their homes in search of greener pastures. The citizen’s populations dwindled. The threat caused commerce and trade to cease. Without supplies and trade the city is left to find a new way of life. The citizens look to their council for guidance.

The stubborn among the citizens, having spent generations in the city walls, are determined to keep their city from crumbling. It is with those stubborn few citizens that the city will attempt to rebuild. Just shy of 5000 citizens now, the council has decided to carefully inspect each visitor for signs of infection before allowing them access to the city. It is with caution that traders and travellers are allowed in, hoping that they will restore some semblance of what was once a beautiful and bustling metropolis. Now just a shell of its former self, many houses left abandoned and desolate, the city has closed off several prominent sections.

Now only three sections are operational but rely on the citizens trading in those sectors to venture from the city in order to collect food and raw materials. Its a dangerous job. Very few of these merchants and traders return. The other supply come from the fisherman who go out with their small boats and go to collect fish to sell. Many farms surrounding the city had their occupants infected and killed or were forced to abandoned their lands. The council has made a community farm now in one of the sections of the city for farms to create produce for the city once more.

Whether Daennage will return to its former glory or not is anyone's guess.

Psychology

The people left in the city of Daennage have been through countless hardships. This tends to make them very giving and kind. After fighting wave after wave of the kin’tonni, they have come to trust in one another and stand as a force to be reckoned with. The people of Daennage are from various different cultures and have all come together from far and wide to live within the city walls. During the last few decades, the people of the city of Daennage have intermingled, intermarried and created an amalgamtion of different culture into one singular culture.

The three sectors of the city are divided into upper class, middle class and lower class as it has always been within the city. Naturally the different classes don’t at all get along and this has forced some sort of division with the city. The upper class are families that have had wealth and power or been born into it. Most of the upper class hold counselor positions within the city. They do not venture outside their sector for fear of being attacked by a lower class citizen there to take some of their wealth. The middle class are the farmers and traders now having settled in the city. Most of the middle class work for the upper class.

They do not fear the lower class and often even have relations with the lower class in order to have some cheap labor done. The lower class are the downtrodden of society. The beggars, thiefs, drunkards and orphans all live in the slums of abandoned houses scattered across the city. It is not often that you see a lower class in the company of any of the other classes. Despite that, they are the kindest of society. They will give what they have to those in need among them. There are exceptions to every rule but for the most part, there is a separation in the city. Long ago before the breakout, racism was rife. Most of the citizens were against each other’s religion or tribal race.

Now, having to live in one city and behind the walls of that city together, they had to find a new way of creating separation. There are also very strict rules in place about marrying outside your station. Many of the middle class are sent for military training and offered up to defend the city. Men and women are deemed capable enough to fight or farm. The city does boast equal rights to both sexes. In the early days of the outbreak it didn’t quite matter whether you were upper or lower class. All that mattered was defending the city with your life. Now that things have returned to new normal, a new way of life has developed.

Even with the divisions, it's far harder to survive in the city. There's not enough food to go around. People in the slums are starving and when they finally are all starved to death, the other classes will be soon to follow.

Culture

There are over a hundred different cultures within the city from the different people groups who have settled in the city in the past before the outbreak. In the past, the different cultures each had their own little neighbourhood within the city where they would host their own holidays and festivals, sell their own foods and drinks and follow their own religions. The outbreak changed that. The loss of population forced different cultures and people to combine into smaller groups. As such, it’s far more difficult now for groups to follow their own cultures and religions because of the loss of their people.

Now there are barely over 56 cultures left in the city. Because Daennage is often welcoming to strangers, other cultures have joined over the decades but practicing festivals is not as encouraged as it once was. Now the citizens keep their culture and religion secretive in order to avoid scrutiny. Most citizens fear being rejected from the city. That would be a punishment equal to death. Considering this, there is not a big following of any specific culture or religion. The city has very few holidays or festivals. Now, the only festivals that are widely celebrated are the ones in memorial of lives lost or victories won over the greater battles with the kin’toni.

Culture in the city has died down and it’s not surprising when you consider that every single day for the people of Daennage is a quest for survival. Culture is a thing kept behind closed doors and within the family. In a city this large with so many different groups, it’s easy to forget that in the past it had been accepted and even celebrated to be culturally different. Though people have been forced to put their culture aside, they have learned to stand together in their different classes and will often protect their city together. The city has now taken the place that culture had in their lives.

Culture as an identity was given up most of the time, willingly, in order to receive safety from the outbreak and high walls for further peace of mind. It is a price many are willing to pay. The city that was once busy celebrating culture almost every day, now became a war zone with quiet streets and secretive occupants. It is most likely to remain that way. The coming ice age has made winters colder. With the already difficult shortages in food and raw materials, it's become increasingly more difficult to celebrate much of anything. Rarely is there reason to celebrate or enough resources to put into celebrations, whatever they may be.

Soon there will be no such thing as culture. Each generation born to the city moves further away from culture pride and closer to city pride. This is what the council aims for and what they want. The city will not survive unless the citizens are willing to lay down their lives to protect it. That is why culture has become a taboo subject along with religion.

Government

In the days before the outbreak, Daennage was a political power to be reckoned with. The Government was a strong entity. They governed the city like a well oiled machine. They had trade, agriculture and a harbour to boast of. The city was part of an expansive trade route. It was celebrated. The outbreak changed all that. Now the city is a shell of its former self. The only thing that remains the same is the government of the city. The city is run by a democratic council. There are several seats on the council to fill and each seat is responsible for a certain cog in the machine that is Daennage.

Though that has fallen apart, prominent families still maintain their seats on the council, despite the fact that some of the seats are now empty and remain unfilled. Through the years, the council members are responsible for taking stock of what remains of the city. There are seats on the council for agriculture, fishing, trade, citizen sensus, military might, fortifications and repairs and most of all, stock. When an important decision needs to be made, a meeting is held and each seat will put forth their belief and suggestions on what road to take in order to make the best decision.

There will be a vote and a decision will be made as to what is best for the city. The council is not voted in by the general public but rather selected out of family bloodlines. Each important family is valued greatly in the city and has ties to very important assets. These families that hold council positions make up the upper class of the city. They employ the middle class to run their businesses, farms and trades for them. They also are in control of the military and the, now meager fleet of ships and boats in the harbour.

As such, the government practically controls the city with very little to no knowledge of what the people want and need that they govern. Every single decision up to this point has been made by the ignorant upper class. Many of the lower class are considering a revolt and they bide their time until they can overthrow the government. There are very few upper class and they are vastly outnumbered by the lower and middle class within the city. It is the believe of the lower and middle class that the government are cowards for not making the right decisions at the right time.

The people's believe is that it is important to go out and rescue the less fortunate cities in the surrounding empire. The world is dying and considering Daennage is one of the stronger of the cities out there, many believe that they are being cowardly by hiding within the strong and high walls. They believe that the military and weaponry built would be strong enough to launch and grand army capable of ridding the world of the kin'tonni. These people are just as ignorant as their government.

Military

The city’s military has always been very powerful. Children from middle class families are encouraged from an early age to enter training academies where they learn to fight with weapons ranging from a slingshot to a club. Both sexes are accepted into academies to learn to become military soldiers. There has never been any such thing as sexism in the city. The people of the city believe that women and men are equally as strong as each other. That is why both boys and girls are trained to become soldiers. The best of the students are taken to further studies and of those, each year, only 50 are chosen to join the military.

The military live closest to the wall in the outlying sectors. They are kept in their group of fifty and occupy a house together encouraging a group that would die to protect each other since they were giving time to bond. They eat and drink and live together for a number of years. Once they are deemed ready, they are sent on scouting missions, surrounding the city to make sure the perimeter is safe. One year of rough living and scouting later and the group are finally returned to take their place among the military. Of course, the scouting year is not without its perils.

Many new recruits do not return. Some years the entire party is lost. The goal of these scouting missions is to gain as much intell on the surrounding areas as possible. It’s the scouts job to send someone to report back anything that could pose a threat to the city. It was the government's decision to always have a troop on the ground. They refused to lose their seasoned soldiers in case they were needed to defend the city so this ‘weeding’ process was developed for the new recruits to prove their worth. It is a suicide mission most of the time and very few survive it but for those who do and bring back valuable information, the gains far outweigh the losses as far as the council are concerned.

As for the defense within the city, the city is generally surrounded by huge walls reaching up to 10 feet in places. Guards are stationed there 24 hours a day. The gate is manned by a battalion of battle ready soldiers too, training constantly to keep in top condition. The city is always ready for an attack and always ready to defend and protect its citizens. The military makes up 25% of the cities population. The Government is eager each year for this percentage to grow but it depends on the outside elements that the new recruit party has to face.

The luckiest of the scouts is the one who has to bring back the news of they discover something that the city has to know. That new recruit is then sent to the house of the following new recruits that are to replace the scouts sent out the previous year. It is a delicate balance but it has worked for many years now.

Religion

As with culture, religion was plentiful and varied. Just like culture, during the outbreak, religion was lost. The citizens had a wealth of temples and religious holidays to honor and cherish before the kin’tonni invasion. Every other day was a religious holiday honoring the earth spirit, the sun god, the water god or some other deity fabricated through culture and tribal tales. The citizens were accepting of each other’s differences but then the empire changed and cities had to put aside their way of life to focus on surviving the chaos.

During the very difficult years of abandonment and invasion of the kin’toni, religion was forgotten, peace was shattered and life became a challenge. Now most families have no time for religion. They have to devote their attention to survival instead. Temples were abandoned or destroyed. Altars were forgotten. Gods were rejected. Very few Daennage these days have any affinity towards the religions they once followed with an open and pious heart. Many believe their gods had abandoned them. Those that have lost their faith have also lost parents, children, their homes and their families.

There are very few religious families left in the city. Those families hide their religious beliefs from others, just like they do with culture. They are told by the nonbelievers that their deities have abandoned them in these hard times. How are they to argue with this? What deity would send down the challenges of harsher winters and monstrous creatures like the kin’tonni? Since atheism has taken a hold of the city, time has been freed up for more worthwhile pursuits like gathering food, growing crops and learning to defend the city. There is no place for gods in the city walls anymore.

The government has not outright banned religious practices. It doesn’t claim a place in the daily routines of the city. There is no time for religion in the current struggles of Daennage. Even those that still practice religion know that it’s a waste of their time. They have the devotion to their gods and goddesses but not the belief that their deity would be able to change what is happening to them at the current time. Those who travel in and out of the city to trade have also found that speaking about your religious beliefs is rather a dangerous topic.

It is frowned upon and as a whole, the city is drawn from religion by what happened to them over the last few decades. The proof that Gods existed became fewer and fewer. To outsiders, there is still proof of the power of deities but those inside the city walls are blinded by strife and misery. This makes it difficult for them to see anything positive in their lives. The city is a dark and grieving place. Even decades later, those who were lost to the infection are still remembered and grieved. This is by far the biggest religion that the city as a whole follows. The religion of the dead.

Miscellany

Nearby Groups

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