Tuesday, January 25, 2022

Numenera: Syzygy




Syzygy is city of 700,000 souls sheltered within the remains of a titanic extraterrestrial ship that crashed during one of the prior worlds. It lies northeast of the Sagus Cliffs, along the Butterfly Coast, and is serviced by the wharfs of Kobalt Bay which have grown up around it. The city is coming up on the 10th anniversary of the Concord, which saw an end to a gang war spanning over a century between the Montessi and Von Carstein organized crime families. The Concord came about through the marriage of Logriss Montessi and Yrsula Von Carstein which formally split the city into two territories with the Montessi family running the Westside and the Von Carstein family running the Eastside. While versifiers spin yarns of true love at first sight between the two women that story is merely a fairy tale and couldn't be further from the truth. Logriss and Yrsula mutually agreed that their family's war was bad for business and no longer cost effective and realized a truce would be better for everyone, the fact that both women shared an attraction for each other was imply icing on the wedding cake.

While both families had members who were skeptical of the plan the last decade has proven more profitable than at any point in the war with the only rabble rouser left being Beowulf, Yrula's youngest brother, a suave, brilliant, and fierce sociopath who has his own designs on his sister-in-law. 

The Concord has also made the city safer since both family's are more focused on collecting their dues and providing their protections instead of almost daily battles erupting as some form of retribution. Even the oldest citizens have finally abandoned most of their skepticism about the Concord failing or simply being a ruse.

The 10th Anniversary of the Concord is going to be the first Election Day for Syzygy's City Council in twenty-five years. The feud between both families was so volatile and bloody that citizens weren't willing to gather at voting sites out of fear and didn't trust any of the results of those final elections from a quarter century ago. With the Concord in place, anyone was able to run for any of the Council's seven seats provided they had enough support. Eleven candidates have thrown their hats in the ring and, shockingly, only four of them are members of either family. Election Day has been made a citywide holiday and the new Council members are going to be announced in a gala celebration of the Concord at High Night (midnight). Neighborhoods have been planning for this day for nearly a year and there is newfound optimism that has spread over the city as the shadow of war recedes from the citizen's memory.

Election Day is going to be a new dawn for a city that has unprecedented prosperity and peace. Families no longer have to worry about having one of their children recruited into the war or worse, become innocent victims of a vendetta they had no part in. While many citizens, especially older ones, looked at the Concord with suspicion both the Montessi and Von Carstein families have lived up to their promises and Syzygy has become something more over the last decade. The city abounds with opportunity for those bold enough to seize it while still offering real stability for those who simply want to live their life and not become statistics of a bloody and fruitless war.

Welcome to Syzygy where dreams really can come true.

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