Editing New Jhelom (section)

===New Jhelom===
* The sun never sets on the Empire of New Jhelom. A vast chain of islands stretches across both hemispheres, known as the glittering desert for the enormous amount of jewel and mineral repositories within. Water, while reasonably common, is still precious and one of their most jealously controlled resources. The islands range from a few metres across to the largest, the Imperial Capital and home of the Vizier of the Sky himself, a hundred kilometres across.
* The Vizierdom is a brutal, controlling state. The Satraps pay tax and fealty to the Vizier, wringing their quota from the smallfolk. The non-stop stream of ships, both of air and sea, report to the island's walled enclaves to trade their own curios for the vast mineral wealth of the empire - ores both mundane and magical, including the rare Sildron that recoils from both earth and water, allowing for the mighty ships of the sky. Foreigners caught outside the walls are summarily executed, as are often peasants who cannot account for being outside of their appointed place.
* The smaller islands in the remote parts of the empire, those often overlooked by the ships of the Vizier, are home to pirates both local and foreign. Using forged movement passes (and makeup to hide their ethnicity) they plunder the mining ships that burrow into the islands to reap their wealth or even unlucky foreign ships too far off course.
* Although fresh water is scarce, the coastal nature of the islands means that one is never far from the coast. One would, naturally, expect the islands to be lush and tropical, rather than desert. Strangely, however, the islands remain rather arid; mists and rainclouds seem to simply stop at the exact boundary of the islands, as though cut by some divine weather-knife.
*: What's more, this effect is known to be unnatural. Ancient carvings depict broad, water-hungry vegetation and lush islands that contrast starkly with the modern Empire. Fossil remains also identify that in the past, water was much more plentiful than it was now; whatever strange force keeps the Glittering Desert a desert was not always present.
* The royal family of the islands are named so due to their descendent from air elementals. Various noble families throughout the empire have elemental blood in their veins - and even some peasants.
* A small but prominent religion in the Empire and beyond preaches of pending apocalypse, wherein the Veiled Moon, the closest solar body, will crash into the ocean and drown all life on the surface.

; Production :

* The Empire's main form of produce comes from the cactree, a vast tree-like cactus. It thrives on salt water, keeping it within it and removing the salt to form infinitely sharp spines that stud the trunk and fruits of the cactus.
* Although the spines are not infinitely sharp, they are still very, very sharp and very strong along the long axis of the spine. However, the spines are quite brittle, and untreated spines will usually break like dry spaghetti if any sideways force is applied unless they are specially treated.
*In New Jhelom, gem stones are more common than metals. And sand is more common still. This is why their weapons are made from glass and gems in New Jhelom, and their currency is in the form of ground up gem stones inside of glass tokens. 

; Military :

* Invasion attempts are routinely launched against the empire. Fleets of ships appear, attempt to force their way in and are driven off, usually with few losses. Sometimes, they may possess one of the far flung islands for a few days, weeks or even months if communication is kept cut. The Empire typically continues to trade with the national power in question, simply because it's worth the cost of doing business.
*: The Empire is not so adept at offense, however - while easily able to defend their islands, they lack the troop ships and carriers to launch invasions, not to mention the siege weaponry.
* The Empire's finest military force are the group called the Lords of the Red Tide. Berserkers who shroud themselves in protective magic, they are dispatched in groups of 4, before channeling the motherfucking fury and losing themselves to the red flood that surrounds them. The Tide Lords routinely are used to dispatch discovered pirates; their handiwork can be recognized by small and subtle signs like arms in trees and people quite literally torn to shreds.
*: They don't live an awful lot past 30, as the red tide becomes harder and harder to resist as time goes on. While they are paramount warriors and protective magicians, eventually they simply wake one morning, look at the mirror, cock their head to one side, then tear off and eat their own face in a fit of rage and continue down their body until they're no longer functional.
* The Tide Lords are some of the few awarded Sildron for personal use. Little is more unsettling than looking up in the sky to see only a few specks.. that rapidly grow into frothing berserkers who have just unlatched their flying belts and are rapidly plummeting to the earth, leaving their floating contraptions behind.
*The Navy is and has always been the main line of defense for the Empire. The Admiralty Building in the heard of the Imperial Capital, down by the Royal Docks, is a sight to see indeed.
*: Each Satrap supplies a number of ships, the amount of which the Imperial Capital lays out. The majority of these are seagoing ships, being cheaper and easier to make.
*: The ships have no sails but the sails of glass that draw in the sunlight to power the engines. They always fly two pennants though - one for the Empire, one for their Satrap. The Flag of the Empire is Sky Blue. Most ships are designed to be fast and with low keelage, to navigate quickly around the islands. The smallest vessels carry one glass cannon - the large ones can carry many, and a greater variety of guns. Crossbowmen are also commonly seen on the ships - using regular arrows to snipe enemy sailors, or attaching the explosive heads to target the rigging of the enemies. And if it comes to it, all Empire Sailors have their trusty toothed-knives.

; The Capital : Let me speak to you of the Imperial Capital!
: Also known as Av-Yolar, City of Towers!
: It grew so large to as push to the very edges of the island it was founded up, and then could only grow up - though, still all is quite below the Nail.
: There are both Upper and Lower docks, catering to ships of all sorts. And in the center of the city is the Great Market of the World - things and people from all places trade here - slaves, magical artifacts, exotic food and water. But there, off to the side - there is the Crimson Market. Do not go there alone. There you can see such strangers - a Knife-Ear purchasing blood, a Chasatha licking her lips as she inspects a poor shivering slave maiden, while beside her a Lich inspects the slaves for strong, muscular men to work for him - and a man furtively searches to hire one of the Assassins.
: In the Upper Circle are the dwellings of the rich and powerful. Perfumed gardens, all the dancing girls you could desire, sweet beverages from over the seas - all before magnificent palatial mansions and, most lovely of all - the Ponds. Ah, the Ponds! Water for bathing, not just for drinking!
: In Glasstown, artificers and mages work constantly to make more and more of their wondrous creations. Competition and imagination run high in this district.
:Below the city lies the Dungeons of the Vizier. He has claimed near all the land below the city. Though they are called Dungeons, and a vast part of them are used for the holding of prisoners, there are many other things here - the Archives of the Vizier, the Hold of the Assassins, the Vizier's Forge, the sealed Gallery of the Damned, the Chambers of Torture - and below all this is the Well, of course.
: Fleshmarket is located near to the Great Market and this is where the slaves are kept before being sold. It is surprisingly a clean and well orderly place. The slaves even have their own fountain in the central square where they are penned in.
: All cities must have their refuse and, alas, the Imperial City has the Gutters. A place of thieves, illegal slavers, low murderers - but mostly of poverty and the poor, scrabbling for the menial jobs.
: But there is then the Flowering District! The one area of the city where prostitution is legal and controlled. But that is not all that is offered here - artists, dancers, creative minds of all sorts sell their wares. You can feel the magic - the sensuality - the spark of creativity in the very air!
: In the center of the Crimson Market there is a locked chest of malachite banded in brass. Within, in a delicate filigree of silver and strands of imperishable heartwood from ancient trees, sprinkled with blood from virgins long-dead is the heart of what may one day be a God.
: It slumbers, tended by the Crimson Market's eyeless-tongueless slaves, a bound barghest before its gates and a choir of slave children singing without, night and day.
: This heart is said to be a paean to the Forbidden Sibling of the twin goddesses, He Who Never Was, son of the dread Serpent which lurks beyond the wall of Stars, whose effigy heart the children sing to that he might someday Be.
: The darkness coalesces around this heart, and is why there is never any wonder at the horrors of the Crimson Market from the populace of magnificent, beautiful, decadent Av-Yolar.
* The Capital City has an Excellent Sanitorium. Clean, well staffed, and well equipped. It seems strange that this particular public service is filled better than others.... but then again, for some reason, the rates of madness seem to be going up slowly. But, I mean, that's probably just population growth? Right?

; Other Cities : One should not forget other important cities of the Empire, aside from the capital.
* Brallen, while stinking and foul, is the industrial and manufacturing heart of the Empire. Thankfully, the island it is located in the center of is large, or the city would pollute the ocean. But it is a barren, dull place nevertheless.
* And on the island of Siia, near the Shallows, is the peaceful and charming Trading Port of Laora. The waters here are clear and the beaches white and pristine.
* Avtion appears grim from the sea, but being so close to the Western Continent, it's high walls are a necessity. It's main focus is still of trade with that place, even though it is always ready for invasion.

* A few cities have strong springs that create entire rivers of swift flowing, clean water, that flows out into estuaries on the edges of their lands. These few places are famed for their exports of fruits, vegetables, and other valuable foods.
*: It is also, in these few cities, where slavery is not practiced, though indentured servitude remains. Why? Why should any man remain a slave? When the threat of one's water quota being taken from them is nonexistent?
*: It is also a capital punishment to poison or pollute such waters in almost all of these cities... bar the city of Brallen, whose stench of waste and alchemy is is said to lay out a full grown ox.

; The Vizier :
[[File:JhelomVizier.png|thumb|The Current Vizier of New Jhelom]]
* The Vizier's tower - the Nail - rises high above the capitol. It bears no architectural similarity to the rest of the city - it is simply a hollow tower ten thousand feet tall, suspended by magic. The Vizier spends his free time atop it in communion with the sky, seeking an apotheosis into a full and immortal elemental.
*: This is a common hobby of Viziers. If they placed more effort into magical study, as the current Vizier (a relatively powerful wizard) does, they might succeed.
* I heard that the Vizier's Mistress? That beauty? Actually a Descendent of the Elementals of Flowers.
* Over the past ten years, the Vizier has been arresting, exiling or executing all the astrologers in the Capital.
* The Assassins are said to be all across the Empire, and are said to kill at the will of the Vizier. But I have heard rumour of schism and betrayal - have some Assassins turned against the Vizier?
* I heard that the orb that contains the last Elemental of Wind is very small - the Vizier uses it as a glass eye.
* I met the Vizier once... he's not all that bad a person. He seemed polite enough, if stern. But Gods above, you should have seen it when that fool messenger brought a declaration of independence from one of our northern islands. The Vizier just stared at him, that swirling glass eye of his flickered once as he jerked a hand at the messenger, and BAM, he was turned into a salt statue. Entire court just shut up right there and stared, horrified.
*: The vizier just clapped his hands and said "Put it with the rest. And tell the Admiralty to meet me in my study..." and walked off like nothing had happened... stone cold.
* That's nothing. He let that madman, the chief of the alchemist's guild, run one of his experiments on the largest fortification there to break their spirits.
*: My brother saw the aftermath. Whatever the alchemist did, it removed all the fire, water, and air from every living thing in the fortresses guarding the island's primary bay. There was nothing left by skeletal statues of sand, metal, salt, and dirt inside of clothing and armor... apparently it took a fortnight to set up. I wonder why they haven't used it to invade some of the more troublesome raider islands...
* The Nail is not the only similar tower in the world. Old Jhelom features an exact duplicate, shorn off in the middle. Others stud the earth, slightly hazy and seemingly out of focus or sharply broken.
*: Strangely, they *reek* of planar (elemental?) magic and the power of all the elementals. It's almost as though they're pinning someone, or something, in place. But nothing so prosaic as a monstrous world-ending beast. They seem to be holding the world itself.
* The Vizier is said to love fine drinks, and he pays quality prices for every sort. They say he has tasted the blood meads of the Knife Ears, and the pebble brews of the Pale Folk, the stouts of the Arhkani, and the ancient wines of the Thanani.
*: Just never, ever, over hype a drink to him. He still keeps the quivering flesh of the last man whose drink disappointed him in his dungeons, for when he needs stress relief.
*The Vizier often adopts orphans into his household. Occasionally they are seen again, as messengers and couriers, more often they simply vanish except... it is said, when you peer under the hoods of the Vizier's Scriveners. Supposedly the orphans are sent to work in his archives, locked away from the world, and from them is chosen then next Archivist, bound to a lectern of fused and shaped gemstone 

; The Dungeons :
* The Jailers in the Dungeon of the Vizier have no heads, and they carry whips made of the spines of dead prisoners, that cause paralyzing agony with a single stroke. Some say that their eyes and mouth are on their chest.
* I head that to get to the Vizier's Archives, one must go through the Dungeons. This is how much he values the knowledge stored there.
* "I am the archivist, the curator of the Vizier's grand libraries... I can answer all questions, bound as I am to my lectern, his servants continously bringing me new pages, new quills, new inks... I can answer all questions, but I can never know the answers, they run through my sieve like mind, tearing great holes, and I know that as my predecessor, I will go mad, and die as the last of my intellect is torn asunder, and then one of my sciviners, the copiers of my texts, will be chained to this lectern next... to write until he too goes mad and becomes one with the pages..."

; Old Jhelom : Nobody is allowed to speak of Old Jhelom. They say that it's capital was on The Isle of Fire. But the only thing there today are volcanoes and obsidian. They say that in Old Jhelom, it was not the Viziers who ruled.
*They also had all the elementals working together or something. Perhaps Old Jhelom was ruled not by just one of the elemental houses (Sky) but by a senate of every single house with all of them holding equal sway? Divided into 4 courts or something.

; Spire Islands : The Spire Islands get their names due to the fact that a good deal of the area is simply massive stone spires rising out of the ocean, dwarfing both ships and any other islands found amidst them. Technically the Spire Islands are their own Satrap. They are strangely isolationist - but people do live on top of the spires. Mostly monasteries up there though. It's said that the House of Stone is fairly prevalent here - it's "their domain", a bit of a reward for not fighting with the Vizier.

; The Shallows and Pearl Road : Between the islands of Siia and Siio are the Shallows - a beautiful area of clear blue water, with villages built on rafts of stilts. They say there are ruins beneath the waves you can swim down and touch. But the main export of the Shallows are Pearls - The Empire has an insatiable appetite for these jewels of the sea.
: And this is why the ocean trade route that circumnavigates the world is called the Pearl Road.

; Slavery : Slavery is a way of life, it is the life blood of the Empire in so many ways. They harvest fruits from the dangerous Cactatrees, and they work the vast pumps and pullies that dredge clean water from deep inside the Well on those islands without natural springs. They preform maintance on the dangerous sea walls, where waves crash into stone and mortar constructs that must constantly be repaired each low tide, and sometimes before then even. There are many slaves in the Empire. But if you are a slave, you are at least ensured your daily Water. Slaves who disobey simply do not receive their water. Slave rebellions often end in parched death.

; Other Locations :
*There's an ancient city, with a grand library of magic buried in the sands of the deep desert. It is said that it has a thousand gates, each buried in a different dune scattered across Jhelom.
**Each gate has a different key. One opens only to the tears of a virgin, another only when the Azure Moon's rays project down upon it from the zenith of it's path through the sky each year. Yet another will not open except to the song of a Cthasa