Description
The city-state of Pligitas, also called the Divine Blood-City or the City of Limbs, is the sole seat of sapient life on the
Island of Antara. It is locked off from most of the outside world due to the maddening mists surrounding the island, and has developed its own unique ecosystem as a result of the overbearing presence of the Titan limbs present here. The city was originally built around the limbs, but several smaller villages and outposts have spread out from it to explore and control more of the island.
Since most of the island is either extremely hostile or nearly uninhabitable, both the city's economy and food production are entirely reliant on the constant butchering of the ever-regenerating Titan limbs that they believe to be their God
Sfaizo's providence. Food is common and cheap, but properly processed and cooked food can be more expensive, and clean drinking water is very rare. The streets are permanently slick with the oozing yellowish-green titan's blood that spills all the way back down from the fortress of
Tellaphrenos at the city's highest point to the wooden walkways set up around the limbs at the foot of the city. The great limbs are constantly surrounded by the Butcher's Chosen who cut away at the limbs, and the Blood Sages who direct the transportation and other logistics. Just a bit further up from the walkways, in the lower district
"The Loins" are the processing facilities and the butcher's shops where meat is processed, cooked and either sold here or transported to the city's upper district
"The Riffs" where it is incorporated into more 'luxurious' meals. The best housing is reserved for the higher-ranking members of the Chosen or the more powerful crime-lords and can be found in the eastern district or
"The Collars". The western district
"The Blood-Heart" is home to the alchemical labs of the Blood Sages where they experiment with the other materials gained from the limbs and study the occasional mutations caused by consumption of the flesh, which they call Sfaizo's Blessings.
Culture
This place is not for the faint of heart, everywhere you can smell the stink of aberrant flesh cooking and fat boiling and melting. The lower districts are filled with the noise of men toiling, cutting and cursing as they work, while the upper districts are drowned out by the cries of merchants selling their wares and hungry men and other carrion scavengers dealing in back-streets. Many of the citizenry are mutated, disfigured or insane and the city is crawling with more criminal elements trying to cut a good deal. Most of these tend to specialize and are somewhat known by the official institutions of the city, even paying 'informal taxes' in the form of regular bribes in some cases. Those who grow too large or step out of line will still find the militia on their doorstep however, and they have no compunctions against hauling them in on real or imagined charges.
Unsurprisingly, a sprawling metropolis built around constant butchery and consumption of madness-inducing flesh has a severely shifted spectrum of morality. The citizens are inured to pain and mutilation, seeing legal torture, lethal bar-fights and industrial maiming as quite normal. Duels, particularly those fought to advance in rank, are quite common and often lethal. Punishment for criminal acts are also generally severe, although they can often be bought off with fines. Otherwise they usually consist of flogging, branding, maiming or even summary execution.
Religion
The state-religion in Pligitas is that of their imagined God Sfaizo, Lord of Butchery and Bloodshed, who provided his own limbs to give them a chance at survival. His Church holds immense political power within the city, and they lead the effort of butchering the limbs daily. They are split into two branches who manage the different aspects of this slaughter-based economy.
Blood Sages
The first branch is that of the Blood Sages, who carefully monitor the transport and selling of meat and viscera and inspect the goods for quality and proper labeling. They also take an academic interest in the anatomy of the limbs and all other living beings for comparison. They are obsessed with taking things apart and figuring out how they work. Two decades ago they have set up an Alchemist's branch where they try to make concoctions and tools from the reagents and raw materials they gain from the limbs. These alchemically-derived products are the second largest industry in the city. They create palliatives, aids, weapons and tonics that induce a wide range of effects from regeneration to insatiable gluttony.
Butcher's Chosen
The other branch that demands far more respect within the city is that of the Butcher's Chosen. Each day these hugely muscled men and women carve up the limbs they believe to be their God's with their bone greatswords, both tool and weapon. The Chosen will take in any who show an aptitude for butchery and combat, regardless of familial or personal status, they even welcome the Ghouls who bear full rights within the city of Pligitas. Fighting talent seems like a strange qualification, until you realize that the Titan limbs draw all manner of monsters to them, or worse, they spawn them at times if they aren't cut down enough. But for all the danger they face, the position of Chosen is one of privilege and garners respect. They also get the most choice cuts, with their leaders of course having the first choice.
For that matter, they are led by the Seven Saints of Slaughter. These are the strongest of the strong, having earned and defended their position through lethal duels, they face would-be challengers in almost weekly duels. But they do not just lead the Chosen, they also form the council that leads the city. That is not to say that they take care of the processing or judicial systems in day-to-day life, but when it comes to larger decisions or when someone wants to appeal their sentence, the Saints decide. They only answer to the ancient dragon Tellaphrenos who is the true, singular ruler of the city-state and considered by many to be the Herald of Sfaizo.
The Chosen have a particular tradition amongst themselves, which started with them getting the first choice on any cuts of meat. They, and especially the Saints, do not always wait for their meat to be processed and cooked. Instead, they often eat it raw as they consider it more 'pure' and think it puts them closer to their God. This is important for a particular reason: the Titan meat has numerous effects on the consumer, and the fresher the meat, the more powerful these are. First of all, Titan meat induces madness over long periods of time, often displayed in the form of homicidal or suicidal mania, but other traits such as deviant eating behavior are also a common result. Secondly, fresh meat empowers the consumer with some of its aberrant power. These traits are found in the general citizenry as well, but especially in the Chosen and particularly the Saints who eat the freshest cuts. Besides the toil and hard work, this is the other reason why the Chosen are so strong. The Saints in particular are frighteningly strong and agile, and even display some traits commonly associated with aberrations such as resistance to magic, resistance to mind-altering effects or inhuman mutations like scaly skin or additional eyes.
The mutating effects of the meat have also spawned a few cults here or there who try to predict these changes or divine meaning in them, but most of these have been stamped out by the Chosen who will hear nothing of it.
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