Stillborn City | gaia guild | themesong | timeline 

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SETTING

• It’s steampunk-ish.
• In this world, a small number in the population is born with the potential to learn magic. Said potential is outwardly shown in the presence of strange coloured particles in one’s eyes
  
  One of the key abilities all magic users have is the ability to see ghosts. Those strange coloured particles glow when ghosts are near. (CLICK HERE IF YOU ARE CURIOUS AS TO HOW MAGIC IN STILLBORN WORKS) For now magic users are being hunted, so they are in hiding. (SEE “HISTORY” POST FOR MORE INFORMATION)
• There are vast canals running throughout the Capital city. For public transit, there are large steamboats, smaller private “coachboats” for those that can afford it.
• The weather is very pleasant, though the skies are usually always grey. Think London during spring. 
• It’s a multi-tiered city forged primarily of glass, bronze, and steel. Near the bottom floors, there are poor people. Near the top, there are richer people. The middle is all public areas/markets. One notable public area is a park, lined with shallow pools for elephantine carp. You can feed the carp! The buildings move all over, and to reach the very top floors, you need a status pass and thus access to the glass elevators. At the heart of the city is a generator lined with mysterious statues.
• The water gets very high and very deep at places and very low at others. There are some parts of buildings that are practically underwater yes.
• There are varying accents across the country, but British is the most common in the Capital. The Capital is the cultural center of the country, so British accents are seen as “upper-class”/refined. German (the main accent of Ellingen is the next refined. Etc)
• UH I DESCRIBED SOME OTHER CITIES BUT NEVER WROTE THEM DOWN. JUST ELLINGEN’S.

THE PAST (as written by the history books)

• SOMEWHERE that isn’t here AND SOMETIME that isn’t now there was a country, and at the center of the country there was a City. For a time in this City there was a Golden Age for at its core, people laboured and powered it. Though the work was hard it was rewarding. This is why the Capital’s insigma is gears!
• Then, ONE DAY, from out of nowhere a GREAT HAPPENING occurred, and while none of the buildings were destroyed, several thousands of people (mostly magic users, and political leaders, though there were others in there) simply stopped moving—and, as time would show, they stopped aging as well. Basically, they were rendered into statues.
• After the week of mourning that followed, the machines that powered the city suddenly began to move by themselves. 
• “It is the hands of God!” a group finally decreed, stepping forth from the shadows of the church steeples. “Surely, the happening was a cleansing of the sinful!”
• When the people began to doubt their words, the City slowed, almost stopping. When the people began to listen and more people appeared at the sermons/congregations, the City moved, almost as if powered by their faith. And thus, said group rose to power, with this *~*~*philosophy*~*~ of *~*cleansing*~* and *~*god’s divine intervention*~**. 
• With newfound power, the group rounded up all the bodies and placed them throughout the cities as statues— a constant reminder to the populace that sinning and amorality is BAADDDD.
• They also banned several other things such as magic, but it’s coo b/c their city is powering itself…. Right….

THE PAST (what really happened)

• The Great Happening was, in actuality, an event planned by the current order itself. The people who stopped moving were not killed you see… They simply had their very SOULS ripped from their bodies.
• Then, said souls were harnessed for energy and used to power the city * u*
• Much of the Order is composed of magic users itself. Those people are usually promised safety/access to salvation in the afterlife in order to hunt their own kind!
• Non-order magic users were discreetly assassinated/taken down/captured by the gvmt. so they don’t uncover the secret.
• Here’s a better timeline I made.

 THE PRESENT

• Several years back, bad rumours about the order began to circulate again, causing the order to cease ghost-power to the city’s core.
• So, people were suddenly forced to labour again!!
• It was sad and after a few years of that, people got lazzyyyy and saadddd.
• And then the gvmt was like “TEEHEE GOD’S PUNISHING YOU GAIS FOR TALKING SMACK ABOUT US n____n”
• After much bawing and apologizing, the government decides to start the ghost-power again and make a huge spectacle/festival about it— a kind of “renewal of vows to god” or something.
• And then the main plot comes in.