Magical Realm Cyoa/Theriobach
Build
Complications: [125] Notorious!, [150] Amnesia!
Demiplane: [147] Area Increase 2 (600,000 km2)
Population: [141] Population Increase 3 (15,000,000 population)
Planar Features: [138] Gateways 2, [132] Protection 2
Inhabitants: [131] Attitude Adjustment, [129] Culture & Customs, [127] Pretty Population, [125] Population Demographics (60/40 female to male population), [122] Population Longevity, [118] Metahuman Population (transhumanist technomagical augmentation)
Technology: [112] Technology Upgrade 6
Magic: [106] Magical Upgrade 3
Society: [104] Aesthetics, [102] University, [100] Wealthy, [97] Industrial, [92] Technomagic, [90] Infrastructure, [89] Sanitation
Culture: [88] Music Affinity, [87] Art Affinity, [86] Mechanical Affinity, [85] Alcohol Affinity, [84] Sexual Affinity, [83] Warfare Affinity
Environment: [81] Cosmic Adjustment, [78] Landscape Adjustment, [75] Exceptional Materials, [72] Fauna & Flora 2
Adventure: [71] Malice (political unrest), [68] Afterlife, [64] Theme
Capital: [59] Lifestyle Upgrade 3, [54] Automatons 2, [51] Influence 2, [48] Equipment
Personal: [46] Immortality, [43] Spirit Walk, [41] Shape Shift 1, [39] Memory, [37] Peak Condition, [34] Superhuman Body
Powers: [32] Alchemy, [30] Healing, [28] Enchanting, [26] Machina Mind, [25] Elementalism 1 (Metal), [22] Biomancy, [19] Nullification
Companions: [17] Harem, [14] Familiar
Ascension: [4] Divine Spark, [0] Guidance 1
General
Though a relatively small plane no larger than an average country, the City-State of Theriobach has been developed into a single vast city built around a system of canals and artificial bays. Celestially, it is a plane unto itself, existing in a self-contained bubble connected to the outside multiverse only through its Gateways. The procession of the sun and moon follows a curious pattern, with a lingering sunset followed by a yet longer night. The climate is generally of temperate northern Mediterranean nature, and varies little with the passing seasons.
The city itself is characterized by a distinctive style of monumental baroque architecture, drawing mostly on a palette of pale gray-blue stone and burnished metal. Dense blocks of richly ornamented towers soar to immense heights above the canals, interspersed with open-air public plazas and arched bridges. From the terraced rooftop gardens of palaces, the calls of peacocks and far stranger creatures can be heard. Splendidly archaic looking motor-yachts and even luxurious private submarines cruise quietly through the city’s waterways, while air travel remains all but unheard of.
All is kept maintained in pristine condition by a veritable army of porcelain and silver clockwork automatons, perhaps the most overt sign of the advanced technology underlying the city’s Renaissance façade. Automated machinery has taken the place of manual labor and sprawling subterranean factories churn out the products of Theriobach’s booming industrial sector, unseen by the world above. Particularly notable among these industries is the production of finely crafted exotic weaponry, along with a wide range of extraordinary materials (as much a product of the arcane arts as of science) that form the basis of the city’s technology. Flexible organic ceramics, transparent metals, and self-powering circuits are but a few of these mass-produced wonders.
The city-state’s people are a singularly decadent and hedonistic sort, prone to an obsessive devotion to the arts and to their own vanity. Society is highly aristocratic, with even the lower classes holding minor noble titles and enjoying a life of relative luxury. Much of the population has some degree of technomagical augmentation, often becoming visibly inhuman and doll-like in appearance. The more enthusiastic adopters of these transhuman techniques appear as living works of art, largely escaping the grip of aging and sickness in flawless bodies more mechanical than organic. The fashion of the day is in keeping with the overall aesthetic of the city and favors elaborate attire not out of place in the 16th or 17th centuries. On those occasions when boredom moves the people from their habitual state of debauched idleness, they tend to tinker with all manner of little devices, particularly the dizzying array of elaborate weapons that they employ against one another with a troubling regularity. Indeed, with a general climate of lawlessness and a natural predisposition towards political intrigues; duels, assassinations, and poisonings are among the leading causes of death.
It is perhaps fortunate then that an inoffensive sort of afterlife awaits those who meet their end while in Theriobach. Upon dying, an individual will find himself in a shadowy, peaceful underworld that locally adapts to suit the whims of the deceased. There is neither punishment nor reward in this afterlife, and the dead are free to conduct their un-lives as they see fit. The underworld is quite close to the city itself from a metaphysical perspective, so that many souls eventually find their way back to the world of the living to be reincarnated, linger as ethereal spirits, or even possess artificially constructed bodies and return to their former lives.
As the people are fundamentally ill-disposed to military discipline, Theriobach does not maintain a standing army of any sort. However, the relative impossibility of mounting a large-scale invasion through its own gateways makes this a matter of little consequence, and should it prove necessary, the legions of automata are quite capable of bearing arms in defense of the city. In the absence of an established military tradition, the more martially inclined among the citizenry often take up careers as soldiers of fortune abroad, taking advantage of the full extent of their realm’s advanced technology to become elegant and frightfully lethal biomechanical combatants backed by cadres of heavily armed robotic servants.
In terms of inter-planar affairs, Theriobach adopts an officially neutral stance but remains intensely interested in conflict abroad. Without an organized military to project force and with an economy dependent on exported goods, the city-state is in a poor position to take hard line political stances that could negatively impact trading relations or lead to open hostilities. The economy itself is primarily supported by the trade in a diverse assortment of arms, which is of course why the city-state is so fond of fostering foreign wars. This is supplemented by the export of objets d’art, artisanal liquors, and still more weapons dealing (albeit through less official channels). Revenue from these trading arrangements provides an extraordinarily high standard of living for the citizenry and permits Theriobach to devote much of its national budget to supporting the arts, in turn fueling the beginnings of a tourist industry.
Personally speaking, I preside over this mess of a realm as a dictatorial techno-sorcerer known by the name Prince Alexander Lucius von Theriobach, reigning from a fortified palace full of harem girls in the center of the city. I share the throne with my Familiar, a gender swapped copy of myself, who serves as my chief advisor and consort. Physically, my familiar and I appear to be an idealized version of normal human beings, albeit bearing the finest quality technomagical enhancements the realm has to offer. Politically speaking, I am broadly hated and feared by the populace, who see me as a quasi-divine being and ascribe to me a far greater power over the world than I truly have. As such, it is common custom to blame any manner of misfortune or evil fate on my influence, no matter how tenuous the connection may be. Frequently subjected to coup d’etats and assassinations, the fact that I invariably return to life shortly afterwards only serves to further convince the people of my unnatural and villainous nature. In the face of this civil turmoil, I am unable to exercise entirely unquestionable political authority over Theriobach or even maintain basic rule of law, and govern only as the highest among a Byzantine hierarchy of backstabbing noble houses.