Editing Shattered Sun (section)

==The Wandering States==
Unlike the shardstreams, these smaller towns, sometimes cities are located at temporarily safe havens of light. Founded on astrological prediction of a safe-spot for the next couple of years, maybe decades, enterprising souls trying to exploit previously inaccessible resources. During their brief existence, the States can amass enviable fortunes, raise strong troops or recover relics. The promise of change, of striking out and making a better life, is palpable in the States, many of which are formed from groups of men, be they Strobers or Twilightmen or Baskers, who are doing just that.

However the light waits on no one, eventually the city has to move on. With their the new found power and wealth, ''wanderers'' often hire astrologists and pay massive fortunes for research of the next site in the hope of attaining further fortunes, further power. Some Wandering States have existed long enough to make the ''Move'', the ''Journey'' or ''Exodus'' into a ritual of their own, a massed, regulated effort instead the haphazard exploration of their elders.

Power games, intrigue abound as the time of ''Move'' approaches, and the astrology is therefore highly politicized. Fortunes are lost, dynasties fall with the careful shifting of a Exodus by a year. All too often the city's elite has tried to play the game too fine, and entire States go up in flames, or are ransacked in orgies of violence by Vampires, (or, if they survive, dispersing into new tribes of strobers).  The light waits on no one.