Edwardia
The sky, water, landscape, settlements, and the people that exist in this province are all colored in a grayscale. A land of duality, inhabitants have managed to balance between two contrasting extremes. One, seek and achieve a higher level of technological progress with sprawling cities, industrious machinery, and fantastic vehicles powered by electricity captured by the province's frequent storms. The other, survive the hardship and strife brought by these advancements.
This society is obsessed with duality and is the core to finding balance in this life- life and death, good and evil, law and anarchy, wealth and poverty, peace and conflict, progress and regression, city and country. The opposing furies have manifested into a curse that marks every inhabitant of Edwardia and hangs over the province.
Provincial Folklore
The Grey
A term that references three parts of a whole.
First, the dense, gray fog that rolls across the province and shrouds its people in gloom for half of every night.
Second, the name of the curse that marks every native of Edwardia. Some believe to be the result of living in the strange, oppressive fog. There are currently no ongoing negative effects, but an afflicted individual who lives a life of any extreme meets an untimely end with total certainty.
Third, this death is delivered by an entity called the Grey. Appears to the doomed in the dog as a huge, canid beast with two heads. A she-wolf's on the left and a mastiff's on the right and allows its prey one last choice. Those who accept their fate are nuzzled gently by the mastiff, dying peacefully and painlessly in moments. Those who flee, fight, beg, or otherwise attempt to escape their fate are chased down and violently torn to pieces by the she-wolf
No one knows what this entity really is, but the two-headed beast is revered and honored across Edwardia, serving as an eternal reminder to its people to strive for balance between all things. Some call it a blessing, as it has driven the province to thrive despite the sacrifices required to balance the scales.
Sparktech
The invention by which Charlotte Heady transformed the province overnight. Revolutionary technology utilizes magnetized, bulb-shaped rods wrapped in coiled springs to capture electricity from the air and harness energy to power a wide variety of machines and devices that are now the cornerstones of Edwardia's civilization. Limited by its great expense to maintain, difficulty to repair, and high rate of fatal accidents. Any attempts to spread the technology outside of Edwardia have failed catastrophically. Endeavors to improve upon its design have brought the doom of the Grey upon many inventors, engineers, and scientists.
Noteworthy Folk
Charlotte Heady, the Iron Maiden
Once a curseborn who considered herself the ultimate renaissance woman who found immense passion and success in every pursuit she tried. In the process of inventing Sparktech, a catastrophic accident annihilated her body and transmuted her soul into raw electricity. Through quick thinking, she was able to bind her soul inside a suit of iron armor before she could dissipate. Through this, she realized that balance could be achieved by embracing both extremes of duality. She now leads Edwardia with this philosophy in mind- battling the Grey and the average with every action she takes. One night, she'll act as a ruthless inspector and the next she'll lead a fiery riot to the sound of raucous electric music. She strives to increase the province's quality of life through industrial growth while accepting the sickness and suffered caused by the pollution. She takes no joy in the sacrifices that must be made in the name of progress, but she places the blame on the curse that she believes forced her hand.
Sister Serenade
The consummate tortured musician of the Coven of the Midnight Moon. She always possessed a complete disregard for mortal life. When she lost the love of her life, she was forever changed into a brooding, hateful witch who loathes joy. Weaves witchcraft through her bombastic music and magically manipulates the emotions of her victims toward malign ends. She teleports herself and her massive, enchanted pipe organ across Edwardia and throughout its capital. Gives heart-rending performances that rip out people's passion, joy, and free will, turning them into heartless, living automatons as gray as the fog of the province. She seeks to rob every last inhabitant of color and vivacity to amass an army of emotionless, gray drones that follow her song and spread her suffering to all of Druskenvald.
Location Location Location
Baskerton
The largest city in Druskenvald with numerous high-rise buildings that pierce the gloom with bright lights and crackling tendrils of harnessed lightning. A huge, diverse population of industrious folk live here across all social classes, always seeking to improve their lives with hard work. Sparktech vehicles zoom past all manner of shops, factories, and other businesses. Statues, murals, and other imagery of the two-headed Grey are displayed prominently throughout the city.
Rex and Romula: The great twin clocktowers that stand at either end of Baskerton set the city's rhythm, with every inhabitant waking, sleeping, and going about their night timed by the booming chimes. Serves as the primary docking stations for the airships that the wealthy use to travel to other provinces.
Progress Quarter: A district of workshops, laboratories, and universities that draw inventors from across Druskenvald and beyond to perfect their inventions, showcase them to the public, and receive critiques from the most brilliant minds in the city.
Sumptown: Stretches of brick-lined sewers, slums, and service tunnels that have come under the control of rival gangs forming a sinister haven for serial killers that pick off people who won't be missed.
The Cogs: The industrial heart of the city is polluted by miles of tightly packed factories, warehouses, and energy plants that operate through all hours of the night via revolving revolving shifts that employ a huge portion of the city's population
The Iron Opera House: A renowned theater, adorned with metal spikes (owned by Charlotte Heady) and provides a venue for avant-garde dramatic and musical performances featuring elaborate set design and experimental stage effects created by Sparktech machinery