Realm; City of Equilibrium

CITY OF EQUILIBRIUM
TIFERET

The Realm of Balance is a world of black and white. White, endless sands of the Fugue give way to the Megrim - thick, black clouds of darkness. At its centre, is the City of Tiferet, a sprawling, spreading mass of sharp new edges and ancient stone curves, as tall as only a monument, as wide as a continent. It is the balance of Then & Now, Art & Purpose, Life & Death. It is a reminder of the beauty in death, and the grim suffering of life.
It is Poetry in Stasis.

The residents claim it used to be many things, that on their own had no purpose or worth. An ancient tomb, a weathered village, a dark & seedy nightclub. But together, balanced on each other, united, they attained purpose. The chiaroscuro of black on white on black, the sharp blades of light cutting through the soft flesh of stone. A cosmopolitan mix of dark cultures against bright skies.

That was until the sun fell from the sky, light and heat destroying the tower. Winged & Dreamers saved from destruction by the Piscan refugees. But then came the Rainbow. Only the intervention of the Shard, a Sleeper and his Frog friend, their image projected in a spectrum of light across the city, saved it. The Artocracy was ruined, but art had survived. No longer merely in balance, but in quilibrium, like an enormous set of scales holding Value in one hand, a nd Expression in the other.

Tiferet is the home of expression, of Art & Song. It is a capitolist commune, where art and creation is both the currency and the product. Art exists for value's sake, and it is for art's sake that Tiferet lives.
For what is praise & prayer if not payment for existence?
When the thick black clouds of the Megrim scream and tear at the city, or the endless Fugue spreads swallowing all thought, sacrifices must be made to appease them. Art, creations, Song. Memories, Concepts. Sleepers, Artists. All are offered into the claws of darkness, or the mouth of emptiness, trades to be made and sold, commerce and goods to establish alliance and friendship.
Art demands value.
And value must be bought.

Like a set of scales, the rebuilt city sits precariously on the ruins of what it once was, gently tipping back and forth. On the edges of the city, Sleeper Winged & Piscan integrate, art is expression, and expression promotes quality, and quality increases value. Here is where the artists and traders inspire, create and sell, their actions keeping the city tipping back and forth in equal motion.
But in the centre, there are those that disagree, that believe art is objective, or without value, or are uninterested in commerce. If their influence was to spread, the city would tip too far, and fall entirely into either the Fugue or Megrim, absence or pain...

* What It Represents
"It has the common association of "Spirituality", "Balance", "Integration", "Beauty", "Miracles", and "Compassion"."
"Sixth is the adorned, glorious, delightful throne of glory, the house of the world to come. Its place is engraved in wisdom as it says 'God said: Let there be light, and there was light.'"
Tiferet once represented the future & the past, light & shadow, the balance between Dreamers & Winged. Now, with the Piscans involved, it also represents the very 20th Century struggle between Art as Art, and Art as Commerce.

* Roads
#VI Lovers
#II High Priestess
#XVII Star
#IX Hermit
#XIII Death
#XIV Art
#XV Devil
#XI Adjustment

* Population
The people of Tiferet - mostly Sleepers, the Corvidian Winged, and other predatory things - dress in whites & blacks, in ancient robes with modern accoutrements or in fishnets and leather. Pain and  beauty, ugliness & comfort.
Tiferet also boasts many, many Concepts, born of Sleepers' musings, living with their "parents" in symbiosis.

Refugees from the Megrim, Piscans attempted to integrate into Tiferet society, suffering major hostility. However, following major trade negotiations and the Rainbow, Winged and Sleeper fled for safety, and were welcomed into the dark arms of the Piscans. Now fully integrated, the Piscans are big advocates of trade and capitol, yet are still fully on board with expression and art. They always pay in Emotion.

* Indigenous Creatures
Citizens whisper of monsters lurking within the Fugue & Megrim; creatures born of Angst, of Desperation, of Pain and Regret.
Things born from the sacrificed Art, bits and pieces strewn together into something new...

Ancient civilisations rise and fall endlessly in the Fugue, their time long gone and their return so far away, only remembering their greatest moments. Their riders often travel to the City and the Shard looking for aid for some aeon old dilemma, solved millennia ago.

In the Megrim, civilisations suffer and burn, endlessly destroyed and crushed under time's heel. Wars and fights spark and ignite repeatedly, history clashing screaming with history, suffering at others hands forever. Ghosts, ghouls and banshees stalk the black static, wailing endless angst and striking with the angst they feel, caught in a stasis of neverending pain.

Some ancient Sleepers, lost in time, wander the Fugue looking for a way back to reality. Sometimes they find their way to the Shard.

Formless silhouette giants stride across the Fugue, their void filled shapes empty and lacking any substance. They travel, in search of something.

That said, following the Rainbow, trade with both the Fugue & Megrim have increased a hundred fold, resulting in something of a tenuous friendship between all three regions. Even ghosts from the Megrim and ancient Sleepers from the Fugue have started roaming the city as ambassadors and artists.

* Power Structure
The Old Gods still "live" in the city, but their time is ending. Thoth, Horus, Sekhmet, Ra & Nuth are merely shells, having ushered in the City. The city supposedly does their bidding, but they have not even been seen in... Aeons. They are looking for new vessels and lives for a new world...

The Artocracy of the Veiled Eye once ruled their meritocracy from the ebony & ivory temples at the top of the tower. These Corvid Winged judged citizens by their artistic function, grouping citizens into artforms; those good with their voices are Singers, those good with their hands sculptors, those with imagination became poets. If you did not fit an art form, you became sacrifice. If you choose an art form not prescribed to you, you became sacrifice. If your prescribed artwork goes the way of vaudeville, the limerick, the saga, scrimshaw; your whole artform became sacrifice.
For The Sake Of Art, You Follow Your Function.

Now, after the Rainbow, the same still applies... In theory. The Artocracy is broken, gone. Of the judges, only the Abstract Critic survived. In the ruins of his court in the centre of the city, the robed & hooded Critic is inundated with requests and crises, with The Investigator's Veiled Eye police forces stretched to their limits. To aid him, he has the gangly, pale Duke Pallas arguing in favour of the old ways of sacrifice and cruel exploitation... But in contrast Pal's student the albino Fifteen argues in favour of expression, commerce, and trade. As such, caught understaffed and between two struggling outlooks, the Veiled Eye has begun to accept volunteer consultants to help oversee art crimes and disputes.

Many Sleepers wear Horus' Ankh as a sign of rebellion against the new commercially focused movements on Tiferet.

* Ties To Moonchild
Rumours say the Moonchild has residence here...

* Places of Interest
The Artocracy Temples exist at the top of the vertical city.
The Ebony Temple deals with revering old, accepted artforms.
The Ivory Temple deals with creating new, socially acceptable artforms.
The Steel Temple, between the two, deals with Art for Art's sake, and The Times of Sacrifice. Entry is heavily restricted by the Crow guards.

The Temples of Thoth, Horus, Sekhmet, Ra & Nuth stand as recycled, seized-by-the-populace shrines to artforms; Prose, Song, Painting, Poetry and Dance, respectively. They are safe spaces for artists, seemingly overseen  by something or someone. The Artocracy either don't think they are worth stopping... Or can't stop them.

The two most popular drinking holes are the heavily guarded, neutral embassy known as Eduardo's, and the cathedral of excess that is Elsie's. You go to Eduardo's for the safety and stay for the music, while you go to Elsie's for the drink and stay for the...drink.

* Costume
Outfit in Tiferet can be described as gothic. Black on white, or white on black. Leather, lace, fishnets, long coats, dresses. Gothic tweaks of 1960s outfits. Egyptian features like jewellery, makeup and iconography are common. Bright accents of colour are common, though bigger splashes are considered signs of rebellion.
The Veiled Eye wear masonic robes and aprons.

* Choices for Character Creation
Citizens of Tiferet have often created Art, able to Sing and gaining a Song...

...or can channel their pain into fearful wails...

...or have explored the City enough to have a full Brief on the Realm.