DemonLordEnigma
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| Flag of DemonLordEnigma | |
| Motto: Meh | |
| No Map Available Yet | |
| Region | Lazarus |
|---|---|
| Capital | Enigma's Palace |
| Official Language(s) | D'ni, English, Spanish |
| Leader | Sehten |
| Population | over 1 billion |
| Currency | Fingerbone |
| NS Sunset XML | |
Contents
At A Glance
DemonLordEnigma is a vast, transworld nation that claims more worlds under its care than most empires would dare. The nation itself is based in the ancient city of D'ni, built by a people of the same name who spoke a language of the same name, and uses the Linking Books, which lies miles deep below the Earth's surface, under the continent of North America. The rest of the nation lies on various worlds, which can be anywhere from within the local neighborhood of solar systems or could be as far away as the opposite side of the universe, due in part to how DLE travels to these worlds.
The people are kind, generous, and generally distrustful of outsiders. The people prefer nonviolence, a policy reflected in their small and scattered military, while at the same time taking pride in their works. All in DLE are followers of Yisha, the Grower, and use her teachings as a guide to living their lives, having a reverence for her that in some cases approaches open worship. As such, most portions of DLE have eschewed the monetary system, prefering instead to rely on a barter system and trusting their government to see materials go where they are needed.
History
DLE history is split into two periods: When the D'ni ruled their city and DLE's habitation after its rediscovery.
D'ni
Sadly, DLE has lost much of what they knew about the D'ni during their rush to inhabit the city of D'ni. It's not that the information is destroyed, but that the information is mixed in with thousands of other pieces of data currently in temporary storage while experts ruffle through them.
What is known is that the D'ni were not native to Earth, but came here from a dying world and to escape corruption of their people. They had a government style similar to the current DLE and managed to last for thousands of years before finally falling. A few of the records suggest a biological agent of some sort was used to destroy the nation, but not much is known at this time.
DemonLordEnigma
Following the devastation of World War Three and the loss of billions, millions of people decided to abandon the world they knew and forge a nation free from the petty squabbles of their past. But, they lacked the technology to leave the planet, and thus were stuck and wondering what to do. It was then they discovered D'ni City, which had been mostly forgotten beneath the continent of North America.
Once they arrived, they met Yisha, who was waiting for them. At first many were not so sure they trusted her, but her teachings proved valuable enough that the nation decided to user her teachings as a base. Learning as much as they could about the city from Yisha, the settlers quickly formed the current nation. The name, DemonLordEnigma, served as a reminder of the past they rose from.
For seven hundred years, nothing unusual really happened. The nation expanded across entire worlds using the Linking Books, while at the same time developing space travel technologies. Eventually, the nation turned its graviton technology towards altering the laws of physics themselves, an endeavor that resulted in the surprise of people going insane. It was at this point the nation decided to contact the outside world, hoping to isolate the insane in a place outside their nation.
The contact nearly proved disasterous. They assumed too much about humans and quickly found they were not as advanced as they first thought, though most nations were centuries behind them in technology. Now, the nation tries to cope with an outside world far different from what it remembers while still maintaining the isolation that has remained so effective for it.
Government Style
DLE is ruled by the Council of Disciples, a group of people who make all of the decisions of the nation based on a democratic vote. The Council, as it is often called, is based on the original followers of Yisha who first came to D'ni, answering a call they could not explain. It was these early people who, after following Yisha into D'ni and learning from her, organized the droves that came after into the current nation.
The Council is made up of the leaders of the Guilds, with each Guild having an absolute monopoly in their area of function. Each Guild democratically elects its leader, who serves on the Council and has the job of overseeing the entirety of the Guild in order to prevent abuse. In turn, the entirety of the Council reports to the people as a whole, who can at any time and for any reason vote to dismiss part or all of the Council. To date, only four Councils have been dismissed, though the Maintainers Disciple has been dismissed 175 times due to incompetence. A dismissed member may not sit on the Council again with a full democratic vote of the people.
People
The people of DLE call themselves the Yishahro (also spelled Yisharo or Yeesharo when transliterated to English). Literally translated, this means "People of Laughter." In actuality, this is supposed to mean "People of Yisha," to symbolize the willful following of Yisha's teachings. Species-wise, the people are human with small amounts of D'ni mixed in, though the D'ni are now considered extinct.
What separates the Yishahro from the other inhabitants of Earth is their general attitude. They work together as a community, relying on knowing each other and getting along in spite of their population. Most Yishahro eschew the monetary system, believing it to be in contradiction to Yisha's teachings, and choose a barter system, trading goods and services for other goods and services. As such, as a whole the Yishahro tend to be extremely difficult to bribe or convince to accept money.
As a whole, the Yishahro originally came from a variety of nations, having grown tired of the squabbles of the surface world. Once in D'ni, they chose to live effectively isolated, not wanting much contact with the surface world and accepting the consequences of such. Even now, with DLE having contacted the surface world, most Yishahro prefer to keep the separation of several miles of rock and dirt between themselves and the rest of humanity.
Education is handled using a general education from ages four through ten, at which point young Yishahro choose which of the Guilds they wish to enter, where they often spend the rest of their lives until retirement. The number of positions in each Guild often allow for a wide variety of work, ranging far enough that most people only notice what Guild they are in by where they work and what information they deal with. Guild rank is indicated by badge design.
Another "race" of DLE is the Lotahnro, or "disease people." The Lotahnro are not an actual race, but people infected by a parasitic organism that infects their nervous system and seeks to spread itself. The world the Lotahnro organism is native to has been quarantined, but today an unknown number of Lotahnro are still loose in D'ni and four other Ages. In the process of infection, the Lotahnro organism ends up killing most of the brain, reducing the infected person into a form of brain death from which they can never recover and giving the organism complete control over the body. the Council is currently deciding whether or not to implement extermination procedures in order to eliminate the Lotahnro threat.
Economics and Trade
Perhaps one of the items nations are most interested in is trade. DLE, however, is an exception, as to them trade leads to too much wealth, which in turn leads to the corruption that destroyed their D'ni predecessors. Thus, rather than trade for most items, DLE has utilized Linking Books and various Ages to set themselves up as self-sufficient, only trading for a couple of military items that they cannot produce or find through Linking.
Due to the internal barter system, only the citizens unwilling to work or who are helping establish new colonies are in danger of not having enough to survive. If people need something besides what they are given as part of their work or retirement, they simply trade doing more work or another item for what they are wanting to acquire. As the system is closed, the amount of loses to criminal activity and people dying before debts are paid are not enough to have an effect on the economy.
Trade between the colonized Ages works similar to trade between individuals, utilizing the barter system. It is only in the rarest of cases where actual currency is exchanged, and often the cases result from emergencies. As such, most Ages keep a small amount of currency on hand in case they need it.
Considering the Guilds each control a major monopoly of the market, the possibility of corruption exists. However, in most cases corruption is dealt with under the demand of the Disciples, who in turn find corruption to be difficult due to the fact they can be easily dismissed. The lack of money being used also helps discourage corruption, as there is little a person can use to bribe a Disciple.
The DLE currency is the Fingerbone, named after the body part because, like the fingerbone, it is a natural part of the human body but people can manage to survive without it. Fingerbones are gold coins and utilize the gold standard, though most of the time they are not used at all.
Major Locations in DLE
The following major locations are important in DLE and form the core of its most famous places.
D'ni City
Once the home of the D'ni, this vast city lies several miles below the surface of North America, with its only entrance to Earth being a tunnel that leads to near the top of a volcano. The city itself is a multitude of islands on a vast underground lake, with the homes and businesses built on the islands.
D'ni is the capital city of DLE and, as such, holds five hundred million people, the largest concentration of people for a city in DLE. In addition to the main caverns that serve as the majority of the city, a large number of suburbs and private estates exist in smaller caverns that branch out from the primary. The city itself has little in the way of internal defenses, as it is naturally protected by the miles of rock and earth above it and the only surface entrance is a maze of unmarked tunnels.
There are several important sites for tourists to see, assuming they somehow gain permission to enter D'ni, and each is given a short blurb below.
Hall of Shadows- The former seat of government in D'ni, this was where the D'ni government ruled from before their culture fell. Today it is preserved as a tourist attraction filled with books on the various changes in D'ni during its first incarnation, while the DLE government rules from offworld.
The Great Zero- Also called Rezeero, this is the central core of the Kirelto communication system and of all the computers in D'ni. Utilizing advanced FTL laser transmissions that allow the communications to reach across worlds combined with specialized crystals that have the necessary information hardcoded into their atomic structure. These crystals are suspected to have been grown on a D'ni world that all Links to have been lost.
The Hall of Records- Containing the vast records of the D'ni, before their fall, this place is still under exploration, even though centuries have passed since the first scholars entered the building. This is also the place where the Yishahro store records, allowing for access of them by request.
Central Library- Each suburb of D'ni has a central library, where the Linking Books available for public use are on display and where the Description Books for those Linking Books are often stored.
Guild Enclaves- The primary homes of the various Guilds are scattered all over D'ni, each one centering in a location they feel to be appropriate for the type of work they do. The Enclaves have sections opened for tourists, but mostly only Guild members get to see the majority of the Enclave. The Maintainers and the Writers do not maintain Enclaves inside D'ni, each one having chosen an Age for their Enclaves.
Myst
The Age in which the Council makes its decisions, Myst is an Age closed off to the public. Only members of the Council and the guards assigned to live in the Myst-exclusive Ages may access it. The Age of Myst itself has a small number of attached Ages that are entirely exclusive to it and, as such, is mostly an unknown to the populous. Only one Myst Linking Book exists that is not under DLE control, and that book Links to a version of the Age that ceased to exist.
Entering Myst without permission is not an act that is responded well to.
Riven
The official vacation Age of the influential in society, this Age serves as a place where those with power can hide from the cares and tribulations of a modern D'ni. It also serves as a location for diplomacy, being most likely the only Age a diplomat from another nation will ever see.
Eberah
The second-largest Age in terms of population, this is built among the ruins of a now-dead civilization. The people seem to have vanished mysteriously, even if all of their buildings are intact. Despite this, the Age supports a population of 50 million people at this time.
The Mad Fortress
The D'ni name is not spoken out of fear of the place. This is an Age lying at the outer edge of the universe, in a region of space where laws of physics have yet to assume coherence. The world itself is the center of its solar system, orbitted by four purple suns and two black holes that, in a strange twist of fate, spit out water instead of sucking in anything. The sky is a shade that exists outside of the known spectrum, the seas are rolling malevolent acids, and even basic geometry follows an alien set of laws.
The main base of operations follows this alien geometry, including circles with 365 degrees or more in them and other oddities that should not exist outside of a nightmare. It is here where experiments too horrible to name occur, and all of the scientists here have long since lost their sanity to the chanting the wind seems to carry. The current DLE UN delegation were the original scientists who established this facility, and they may soon be joined by their replacements.
Linking
This section details the important elements of Linking in enough amounts to give a passing familiarity with the subject. Linking Books are, themselves, one of the most important aspects of DLE, as these are the primary mode of interplanetary travel.
Ages
An Age is merely a world with a Linking Book to it. These do not necessarily have to be entire worlds, as D'ni and Earth are considered separate Ages in spite of the fact D'ni is a location on Earth. The Gahrogahreesahn is also an Age, even if it is a DLE warship.
The only real difference between an Age and a world is whether a Linking Book connects to it, which means the two words are sometimes used interchangeably.
It should be noted that, in spite of DLE's claims, the nature of how Linking Books work make it so that DLE ships can only guard a small handful of the total number of worlds. Thus, their total number of controlled worlds is not equal to their total number of claimed worlds.
Linking Books
Linking Books use an older form of D'ni than that spoken today, with the older form being far more precise. It is through that form, specifically the shape of the symbols, that Linking Books are able to cross the divides of space and time. How this is possible comes down to the simple fact that the entirety of the universe amounts to various waveforms, with the symbols exploiting that to force connections that normally should not exist.
A Linking Book can either be a reference book, in that it uses another Linking Book as its primary and simply "piggy-backs" the connection, or as a primary book, in that it contains all of the necessary Writing. The reference books can have as many Links as pages, making for the possibility of having links to many areas in the same Age. To add to all of this, Linking Books can connect to alternate timelines as well as their normal ability to connect through regular space and time, allowing a traveler to have connections to alternate versions of worlds. However, this is still in its infancy when it comes to use.
Three variations of Linking Books exist, each with their unique properties. There are Bahro Stones, which operate in the same manner but use pictures instead of words and can only Link to one place; Relto Books, which are the only Linking Books to actually travel with the user; and Journey Cloths, which are not entirely understood at this time.
International Politics
DLE, due to its history and why it was founded, still considers the outside world to be something best held at bay. However, recently the nation has begun to reach out, going as far as joining the UN and forming alliances.
UN Delegates
DLE's experiments with alternate laws of physics have produced an interesting problem: Many of the scientists who worked on them have been driven insane by the very same laws they were experimenting with. DLE, which was looking at entering the UN, solved that problem in a unique way: All of the insane scientists became DLE's UN delegation. The nation thought this a smart move, as it forces the scientists to be careful due to the paranoia that accompanies their insanity. To make it even better, a small contingent of psychologists were sent along. However, the scientists have continued the experiments in secret, and the same insanity which infects them may now be slowly spreading through the UN building as it slowly loses hold on the known laws of physics.
Alliances
DLE is a member of only a small number of alliances and organizations.
- The Restored Extra Solar Union of Systems - United Nations Old Guard - The Demonic Order of the Seven Deadly Sins
Allies
- Crazed Marines - Serpantol - Godular - Vastiva
Roleplaying Notes
This nation is intended to be able to adapt. It is intended so that the capabilities can be changed, allowing for the telling of the story to be more important than the set facts, due to the experiments with altering the laws of physics. Much of the representation of this nation on the UN forum is completely false, due entirely to the insanity of the delegates.
