Editing Typhonian Reach (section)

== Factions - NPC ==

'''Ashada, City of the Bitumen Kings (hex 66.10)
'''
(Power 2,	
Cohesion 2,
Action Die 1d8, XP 0 [for purposes of measuring Power advancement], Dominion 2)
Amid the Bone Sinks, where not even vultures go, the barren ground cracks like the face of a hierodule past their prime. The remains of monstrous beasts litter the desolation, participants in or victims of some elder war. Yet from the wounds that gouge the earth bubbles up the stinking black tar that has so enriched those with the fortitude to make the Bone Sinks their own. Bitumen: In the hands of skilled engineer-savants it serves purposes ranging from construction to fiery war. 

The fractious oligarchs that jointly rule Ashada were no more than junior merchants, speculators, or less savory things before their rise, but their wealth has made them forget their station, and so they style themselves as Kings. There is little majestic about the trade in slaves bought as needed and sent to work the pits. They grow encrusted and befouled with the stuff, and they sicken and die within 18 moons, but that is the lot of slaves. And after all, it is only right that the pits be fed with those who work them, in payment to the bitumen-spirits for the extraction. 

So, while Ashada is black and ugly and reeks of the underworld, within its asphalt walls are many beautiful things come to satisfy the urges and pleasures of the Kings.

'''Kainiso (hex 40.33)''' (Power 2, Cohesion 2, Action Die 1d8, XP [for purposes of measuring advancement] 0, Dominion 2): Building their resplendent palaces atop the Cyclopean ruins of what they deem to have been their gigantic ancestors, the people of this land refer to their city-state as Kainiso. Expert navigators who pay tribute to the Nereid Queen in exchange for her blessing, they sail as far as the mainland, trading olive oil and their elegant pottery while facilitating commerce between archipelago and continent. Kainiso has set up several colonies on outlying islands, and the city is arguably the known world’s supreme naval power.  

'''The Locust Tribes (nomadic)
'''
(Power 2,
Cohesion 2,
Action Die 1d8, XP 0 [for purposes of measuring Power advancement], Dominion 2)
Angels of desolation, the merciless, insatiable Locust Tribes ravage the east. Where the Locust Tribes overrun, nothing is left: that which is not taken is ritually destroyed, those who are not slain are left to face starvation. 

Formerly a cluster of marginalized nomads, escaped slaves, and failed brigands forced into the unforgiving alkali barrens of Gepesh, the desperate pariahs of a hundred settlements have coalesced under Zum-Zum the Glutton, prophet of the ancient arthropod-god Girtab: Father-Mother of locusts, mantids, scorpions, and all stinging rapacious things. 

The Tribes' raids are spearheaded by the cult’s most fanatical marauders. Giving themselves the ancient epithet of “thri-kreen,” or “hunger swarm,” these braves intoxicate themselves on blue mantis flesh and scorpion venom before launching their cannibalistic atrocities.

'''Ni Xhin, the City of Poets (hex 62.23)''' (Power 2, Cohesion 2, Action Die 1d8, XP [for purposes of measuring advancement] 0, Dominion 2): At the headwaters of the Eight Serpent River, the city of Ni Xhin grows fat on trade of millet and abalones. A former collection of market villages, since the Scylaxi invasion has inhibited the alluvial cities’ coastal trade Ni Xhin has replaced them as as the predominant hub of continental trade – a position its ''nouveau riche'' trading houses have every intention of keeping.  Although the houses hold the bulk of economic power, Ni Xhin’s ruler is its Oracle-Queen, who reads the signs found in fire, bones, and abalone shells to guide the city to luck and prosperity. The oracular signs have become the beginning of a system of ideographic writing, which in turn has led local artists favored by the great houses to begin composing written as well as oral works.

'''The Scylax People (hexes 64.27 and 64.29)''' (Power 2, Cohesion 2, Action Die 1d8, XP 0, Dominion 2) Divided between two garrison-towns, Xyph and Xyll, the Scylax People hold the straits enclosing the vital Great Pincer Bay that allows traffic between the Nin-Sish/Father Torrent Rivers and the coasts beyond. They are well aware of their dominant position and charge an exorbitant, at times obscene, tariff to merchants passing in and out. Many traders curse the Scylaxi and would do much to see them humbled.
 
Unseating them will be no mean feat. They name themselves after the scylax (dire mantis shrimp), the colorful but savage crustaceans whose seasonal migratory swarms ravage the nearby coast and in whose presence even makara and megalodon swim warily. A Scylaxi is not a citizen unless he or she, naked and armed only with a net and a single javelin, hunts and kills their namesake beast. This being done, the Scylaxi have somehow mastered a marvelous means of removing and treating the psychedelically colored carapace, harpoon-darts, and pincers to make armor of uncanny hardness and weapons of surpassing viciousness. Each Scylaxi citizen is given a customized panoply made from the beast he or she killed -- and as would-be ousters have learned to their chagrin, the Scylaxi are quite adept with those unusual weapons.
 
No great workers in stone, the Scylaxi use some of their usurious taxation to hire mason-engineers from more cultured peoples; Xyph and Xyll are expertly fortified and, once dug in, the Scylaxi are as hard to crack as their totem beast itself.