Longshore Reef
Longshore reef is a sprawling aquatic Octoperson megacity that sits 25 miles offshore of Northwestern Makal. Longshore basically occupies an entire small archipelago, and is a massively sprawling metroplex of different subreefs sewn together - sort of like a sprawling suburban megacity, but underwater. Patches of kelpy or sandy non-reef intersperse the dense reef-city, but these are no less populated - instead, they have been turned into industrial mega-farms or assembly yards staffed by Squiddle helots, who live in large chitin-and-kelp tenements and toil endlessly all around Longshore. Longshore is the most species-stratified of Orpora's reefs, a hyper-hierarchical society with a strict caste system. What house you are raised by determines everything in Longshore, and squiddles and cuttlefolk have basically no hope for social advancement.
The castes of Longshore, which are a tradition from centuries back that do not apply far beyond the city, are essentially: Highblooded aristocrats, Upper-middle elites (merchants, managers, priestly leaders), artisans and specialty workers, common reef workers (typically tied to agriculture), lower workers (tied to mass production), and stonedwellers (cleaners and miners). Beneath all of this are the non-octopeople, who are only divided between favored, basic thralls, and chafe.
The heart of Longshore, and its namesake, is the largest of its reefs. Often referred to as the Core, it is a large atoll (a circular reef that becomes a ringlike island) with a small break in it. The outer edge of the ring is known as the Outer Core; the Inner Core is the inside of the atoll. The Outer Core is the most controlled and densely populated part of Longshore, with sections of the reef outright broken apart and reassembled for more efficient usage of space and resources. Residential complexes of coral mounted together by honeycomb like structures of stone serve as lower-caste mass housing complexes, which often also include large subterranean excavations into the ground. The lowest of the octopeople live in these stony caverns carved under the reef, and underground passageways allow for them to squeeze through and head to work without troubling higher caste octofolk with their sight. Higher-caste octopeople live in more sculpted reefs, near the fish and eel preserves where native fauna are farmed and wrangled for food and materia.
The truly high caste live in the Inner Core, which is a contained lagoon that few have access to. Great manors sit next to the government buildings and barracks, all carefully pruned coral over stone. Artificial reef gardens crisscross across the lagoon, as large stone columns have been lifted across it like bridges and seeded with coral. Beneath these reef-bridges are crabcow farms in the sandy depths of the central lagoon, which are themselves built on top of an underground servant's barracks for the squiddle thralls (which has been most carefully hidden from view).
The surface part of the atoll has also been colonized by the Inner Core; waterlogged amphibious structures sprout from the dirt, and the parts of the atoll closest to the Inner Core are covered in manicured tide pools that allow for leisurely and pleasant strolls. Mechanisms carry messages across from the inner to the outer core, and closely-guarded artificial passages allow for Inner Core warriors to move quickly through the atoll in case of an invasion. Whoever controls the Inner Core has dozens of mechanisms for retaking or barraging the rest of Longshore, making it the absolute key to controlling the reef.
In order to protect the Inner Core from invaders, a massive fortress has been constructed across the entrance known as Squidbreaker Point. Squidbreaker Point has grown over the centuries, becoming a reef in itself; it is a sprawling, multi-layered fortification that spreads out from the Inner Core Gate across the sea floor, with periodic spires pointing out. Squidbreaker Point is a massive training ground, barracks, farming complex, and armory intended to be fully self sufficient in case of a siege. It even has its own little weapons manufactory! It is the great symbol of Longshore, a wall against the world that no army or leviathan can breach, a throne of weapons and stone from which the upper castes control all traffic and life.
Moving away from the core, 23 satellite reefs act as incorporated townships. Most of these reefs are nearby one of the tiny islands that make up the Longshore archipelago, and each is connected to the Core by a stone bridge-road) (most of which have become reefs themselves). Most of these are middling-to-lower caste agricultural reefs, with one or two attached minor workshops.
The bridge-roads connecting the reefs also act as dividing lines and militarized checkpoints seperating the squiddle districts. These miserable districts are built for peak efficiency, with squiddles and cuttlefolk corralled into cramped and unstable conditions and frequently forced to move away for work assignments (and to help disrupt any sense of shared community). For a non-octoperson, Longshore is the worst of Orpora - a doomed life of chiseling rock in the quarries, dismembering crabcows in the clockwork slaughterhouses, poisoning themselves in the gasworks, or miserably cutting and packaging kelp. Skilled labor is kept away from the squiddles, who are banned from any learning any trades. And most inhabitants of this lower wrung cannot leave, as they are indebted or enserfed or otherwise punished by their assignment here. The most miserable squiddle work is reserved for the Punishment Yards, though: prisons that take rebellious cephapeople and work them to death in the mines, gasworks, or lumberyards. The largest and most infamous of these is under Squidbreaker Point, where prisoners are worked to death endlessly expanding the fort and working its in-house factories.
While Longshore is less artificial than the hyper-ordered Farwater Reef, it is no less a crime against sentient existence. There is a reason why ships avoid the Longshore archipelago, and it isn't just the reefs tearing apart wayward ships.
Longshore's Districts
Demographics
800,000 cephapeople live in Longshore; 60% are Octopeople, 30% are Squiddle s, 10% are Cuttlefolk
Government
The ruler of Longshore is the Prince or Princess, who is chosen from among the monarch's siblings or children. Beneath the Princess is the Reefguard, who act as bureaucrats and military police, and the Garrison Captain of the Longshore Blue Ring (standing military). The Longshore Reefguard is led by eight Reefguard Captains, known as the Hands (or, more accurately, the Tentacles) of Orpor. The greatest of these Reefguard Captains is the manager of the Inner Core; then are the three for the Outer Core. Two are assigned to the satellite reefs and two are assigned to the squiddle-districts. All are aristocratic Octopeople.
The current Princess of Longshore is Mora Orporsblood, a tyrant if there ever was one. Mora is a daughter of the Blue Circle, a bloodthirsty commander who has internalized the ideology or Orpora to fanatical extremes. She sees herself as a demigod of sorts, unbound by the limitations of ordinary people, and her ambitions far outsize her abilities. She dreams of impossible conquests and of immortality, and she previously was content governing Longshore if she could tamper with these wild possibilities. But when the apocalypse came and took her beloved mother (Queen Ungala) in 2017, Mora grew dissatisfied with her lot. Mora craved vengeance, and wondered if she could alchemize the blood of Armageddon itself to become something more than Octoperson. She furiously raised Longshore in rebellion when her brother (the heir and new King) surrendered to the apocalypse's cult, and has waged war on Farwater Reef since. Unfortunately for her, the horrific plague that the Apocalypse brought has hampered her war efforts and led to Squiddle revolts, forcing her to pivot inward to put out those fires before mustering a force to seize the throne.
Mora's two primary lieutenants are Inner Core Reefguard Captain Sobla Porasblood, a pampered aristocrat with a love for bureaucracy and little ambition, and Magister Militum Brolu Alusblood, Mora's partner in crime who has joined in her delusions and whose bloodthirst is matched by a macabre fascination with weaponry.
Guilds and Factions
The Reefguard: The Reefguard sees itself as under constant attack by the civilian populace, and it works to provide a front of unity and strength for all to see. The Reefguard is the local state administration: they perform censuses, undertake construction projects, manage civil complaints, distribute rations, collect taxes, and act as judge and police both.
The Priest-Engineers: All Octopeople who show signs of unusual inventiveness or charisma are absorbed into the priesthood, to act as masters of public ritual and engineering. It is they who own the assembly yards, and they who manage the schools. The priest-engineers are pragmatic, meritocratic, and obsessed with ordering things, and they tend to butt heads with the aristocratic officers and commonfolk alike.
The Blue Ring Garrison: The superior warriors of Orpora, the Blue Ring are better armed, better trained, and respected as death and order incarnate. The warriors who guard the city have a superiority complex and totally different loyalties than even the Reefguard, and answer only to their magister militum. The Blue Ring have a substantial presence in Longshore, and many of them are trained in the great Squidbreaker Point.
The Commons Keepers: Community organizers of the common reefs, the Keepers are assigned by high-caste families to manage low-caste Octopeople communities. The Commons Keepers silently resent the nobility, and are silently resented by the lower-caste communities they assert control over in return. Basically what if your work supervisor was also your landlord?
The Sandflat Nobles: Highblooded Aristocrats that oversee the great squiddle flats and quarries, the Sandflat nobility tend to prefer production and growth to war. These nobles stick together, as they are viewed with suspicion as weak and un-octoperson-like.
Geography
The Longshore archipelago is 25 miles from mainland Makal, though only 7 miles from the nearest small island. Small reefs connect Longshore to the greater system of reefs that make up the Kingdom of Orpora, but it is easily the most isolated and far-to-sea of the three great Orporan megareefs.
Founding Date
-1200 DE
Type
Metropolis
Population
800,000
Inhabitant Demonym
Longshorers
Location under
Owning Organization
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