Kingdom of Pamarang

The Kingdom of Pamarang is one of two nations vying for hegemony across the islands of Sytaar & Samoro. Spread across thousands of islands Pamarang is a coalition of tribes with most members electing to be part of the nation, some more than others.

Pamarang has no great mythic origin, its beginnings are rather conventional and well documented. During the Gabaranga Revolt the Pamara swordsman Dajuwala took up arms to avenge his village and ended up a king of a tribal alliance. After his death his clan, the Baasa took up the mantle of leadership and proceeded to expand the kingdom. For centuries they have fought savage tribes and the Preachem Empire alike all in an effort to keep their islands free of tyranny.

The Baasa clan brought metalworking, writing and civil engineering to tribes that had previously lived in a state of savagery. While it may seem cruel to force civilization upon ancient tribes they did so to spare them the cruelty of the zealots of the Preachem Empire, a nation that smashes all who do not forsake their gods. Now strong the many tribes of Pamarang look to the Baasa clan to stand strong against the Preachem Empire and all others that threaten the good people of the kingdom.

The power of the Baasa clan and by extension the kingdom is rooted in a powerful artifact carried by the hero Dajuwala, the mythic Sun Disc. A weapon, shield and symbol of divine power the Sun Disc has been passed down to each king since the founding of Pamarang. Though it has tremendous tangible power the true strength of the Sun Disc lies in its ability to choose a worthy soul to carry it - and part with those that fail it. All kings of Pamarang hail from the Baasa clan but primogeniture does not establish kingship, the Sun Disc chooses by speaking through the clan’s wizened priests.

1d8 Small Towns Where Something Just Ain’t Right

1. Beachside retirement community where the majority of the residents are kraken-worshipping cultists.

2. Little village surrounded by woods where folks hunt but they don’t eat. The thrill of the chase is all it takes to satisfy them—call it a power, or call it a curse.

3. Far northern outpost on the icy tundra. Sometimes it’s there, sometimes it’s not.

4. Ghost town built in the shadow of the Red Cathedral. It’s just a big rock formation, except when the desert sun hits it just right. The gothic arches and flying buttresses shimmer into existence, and the few remaining residents shuffle inside for a midday mass.

5. Old country hamlet where they’ve come to rely a little to heavily on the wishing well. It works, of course, but at a cost.

6. Former coal mining town where more houses than not are occupied by the ghosts of those who met their untimely end down in the mines.

7. The last little settlement on your way up to the peak of the tallest mountain in the region. Maybe it’s just that you’d have to be crazy to live all the way up here, but the locals have all kinds of stories about the unnatural creatures that lurk in the shadows. Bigfoot, werewolves, you name it.

8. Farming town where folks don’t find crop circles in their fields anymore, not since them aliens bought up their own little plot of land and settled down on it.

Some analysis about cultural details in SIGNALIS。

Little spoiler。

In the time you posted that, I made you this to cheer you up!

WHAT?? WHAT??? IM!?????? oh my gosh AAAAA oh my gosh thank you so much this is so beautiful!!! you did so good with their weird nose shape and aaa the eyes and everything are so beautiful MISSION ACCOMPLISHED I AM CHEERED UP I WILL SLEEP HAPPY TONIGHT 😭💖

"Why does Batman need to be a billionaire?"

"He has to fund the Justice League. They often have a space program."

"But couldn't he do more good if he just invested-"

"The Earth is routinely invaded by aliens, gods, and the forces of an extraterrestrial god of tyranny."

He has, like, three charitable organizations he funds, named after his father, his mother, and Alfred.

Between both Bruce and Batman’s contributions, Gotham should be a better city than it is, and the only reason it isn’t is DC Editorial Mandate that basically says Gotham has to get worse and worse and worse or there’s no Batman stories they can tell (and, obviously, they have no other characters besides Batman).

There’s a reason Batman thinks the city is literally cursed.

I want to see Bruce Wayne go off

"Oh, oh, just charity my way out of dealing with the Penguin, a living, breathing 19th century Marxist's cartoon of the bourgeoisie? Just fund anti-Clayface measures? Crack down on corporations who put out shapeshifting cosmetics? What socio-economic pressures turn botonists into actual fucking dryads?! What inspires anti-animal terrorism? THAT'S NOT EVEN A REAL KIND OF ECO-FASCISM!"

For the record, Gotham is canonically curse, because it sits on some sort of evil swamp. I think.

There are like, half a dozen curses. The Lazarus Pits are leaching into the water, Slaughter Swamp is an unconnected body of water a few miles outside of the city that also ressurects people (see Solomon Grundy), the Bat-demon Barbatos and his followers (the Court of Owls) have been fucking up the city psychically and financially, the malevolent influence of the warlock Doctor Gotham's tomb in the center of the city, the madness hypersigil of Amadeus Arkham (in Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth), there were several outposts of subterraneans and aliens beneath the city during the Silver Age, constant chemical warfare that makes it the equivalent of a WWI trench managed by MK-ULTRA, it's in New Jersey, and I think God just hates it

tired: Batman could do more good by running charities than by fighting criminals

wired: Batman could save literally every other city on the planet simultaneously with the amount of effort and resources he’s pumped into Gotham, which is a lost cause, but this is his city damnit.

Inspired: Batman’s diligence is containing the menace that is Gotham’s madness from escaping too far from city limits.

For all his billions, for all his activity, for all his efforts, Gotham is a bonfire fed by the madness of mortal people, cultivated by dark powers and just existing there makes living souls like kindling for it. And left to its own devices,it’d become a breeding ground for supernatural unrest that no mere social service system or social awareness of activist campaign, no government program, no actions of a singular vigilante, could ever hope to undo.

Batman is single handedly if need be but fortunately not alone so often, holding back the noxious psychic influences of warp and wyrd entities and what they do to the very environment and landscape through the power of sheer, unbridled humanity.

Ascended: Gotham is containing Batman, because the forces of evil, consciously or not, have figured out that if let loose, this motherfucker and his sprawling adoptive family would've solved every crime in the world ever, so they throw literally everything they have at his home town in hopes that he stays there.

Because they were foolish and let Alan Scott escape. They aren’t making that mistake again.

What if Gotham is the pump?

Like. What if, because Gotham is such a shitshow, anyone looking to improve their lives has their eye on being able to move out of Gotham, so whenever Bruce Wayne's charitable endeavors come somebody's way, they take it, pack their bags, and move the fuck away, and take that money with them.

Meanwhile there's an ongoing influx of people to Gotham primarily because they're flat broke and real estate in Gotham is dirt fucking cheap because it's a shitshow, and there's always places hiring because 1) they've got Bruce Wayne money to try to make a difference, 2) there's no shortage of places that need to be fixed up a little, and 3) villains are always in the market for new henchpeople.

So you're a broke millennial from any other town in the country, and you have student loans, a job that hasn't kept up with inflation, and your landlord has raised the rent three times this year so far and it's eating up two-thirds of your paycheck. You look for housing on the internet and discover that one-third of your paycheck will get you the mortgage for an actual house in Gotham, a house you own and will never have to deal with your scummy rentjacking landlord again. And Wayne Industries is hiring, and so are sixteen different disaster remediation places, and six staffing services with a sort of weird vibe to them but they offer benefits, since when do temp agencies do benefits, and sure the crime rate is high but the rest of the world's heading in that direction anyway, especially if you're homeless, which you're gonna be in like four months if that jackass your landlord raises the rent one more time, so get in losers, we're going to Gotham!

And you settle into your bigger-than-expected apartment and get a job that brings you a comfortable paycheck and you learn to live with the terrorist attacks and the explosions and the gunfire and the neighbors and the drunken billionaire swimming in the restaurant fountain, and you pay off your student loans, buy a car, suffer a few months' unemployment when your boss goes to jail for trying to assassinate the mayor and then your partner loses their job for a few months when the office gets smothered in a jungle's worth of climbing plants and you develop hospital bills when you both get caught in a hallucinogenic terror gas eruption at the mall, but hey, you'd be homeless by now in any other city, so you live with it.

And then it's a few years later and you're wanting to start a family, but the neighbor three doors down owns pet hyenas and the park was firebombed last week and someone froze all the water pipes and you crashed your car into one of the impromptu ice sculptures and you'd really like your kids to grow up in a normal city where they don't have to receive advice like "don't talk to strange plants."

So you visit one of the social work offices and get yourself a bit of assistance, save up your money, sell your house for the price of a down payment to the sort of incoming fool you were six years ago, and use your polished resume to get yourself a job someplace that doesn't have What To Do If Clown Attack on their safety training syllabus.

You came, you left, and Gotham remains. A shithole.

This is a really well thought out way in what keeps Gotham moving. Sure there’s the people that have been there they’re whole lives, families that go back generations, but these are reasons people move in. The kind of people that want out. And maybe are desperate enough to take that Job hunching.

It’s also weird to see my pithy response circle around over 20 times and end up back on my dash…

When the glimmering hope continues against the tide of the hopeless.

Carvachi Sarcophagus

One of the seventeen Sarcophagi of the Kings of Decimation, the Carvachi Sarcophagus was discovered outside the city of Carvachi in the Vestriga Empire. Made from mysterious impregnable stone the sarcophagus is exquisitely adorned with images of hybrid creatures a mix between panther, dragon and man. Black onyx stones are embedded in the lid of the sarcophagus though some have been plucked away by thieves…all of whom are said to have died in horrific circumstances.

The Carvachi Sarcophagus radiates an aggressive, furious energy. All those who spend any prolonged period of time around the relic are prone to irritation and anger even if they have a temperate demeanor. The Carvachi Sarcophagus is currently held in trust by the Vestriga Imperial Reliquary where it is locked away safely from the public.

“With this fury I shall cleanse ignorance”

-translated carving from sarcophagus lid