City of Ipey
City of Ipey
When you first enter the under swamp you will feel like you are in the ocean, with a sprawling multi colored coral field in front of you acting as homes, not to mention the constant squishing sound beneath your feet from the moss roads and the dripping of water coming down constantly from the damp walls. The city has 3 main layers on top of each other with a gap the shape of a large crack at the top piercing all the way down from where the meteorite struck. The start of the Iphelele civilization that formed here long ago was created on top of a giant's rib cage that acted as the foundation of our people and still does to this day as we expanded, though they are covered in foundation moss to help build on top of at this current time and is hard to recognize its true nature.Defences
Surface defenses: The surface has natural defenses with gaining access to the Ipey as it requires entering the crack left by the meteorite, surrounded by a harsh and unforgiving swamp. Though the Iphelele have set up a hunter/war camp up top to defend against the beasts and wilderness using foundation moss walls surrounding it and ballista's for taking down large beasts or opponents in the sky. The area is also used as a transport/trade hub moving goods in and out of Bogmire.
Outer Swamp defenses: Underground defenses would be more difficult for most, but the Iphelele have survived here since the birth of their species. Sections of Ipey are dedicated tunnel spots to the outer swamp that try to branch off to different known safe spots to act as a passage entrance and exit. Though due to the ever changing mud tunnels makes it difficult to maintain a direct tunnel permanently, some bugs have been bred to remake tunnels. This doesn't stop random giant bugs coming through on occasion, not that all these bugs are dangerous some just exploring or took a wrong turn. The entrances are fortified structures made with foundation moss encompassing a part of a wall much lake a fort would look like. Upon first issue of something unknown coming through the wall the guards stationed here are to attempt to peacefully guide it back through the wall to not agitate the creature and cause havoc. If the creature is hostile, mounted weapons are at the ready, but due to mostly insecticide creatures with hard chitin balista and piercing weapons are typically ineffective. Rotational catapult weapons are used as the norm on the walls as cracking the chitin and crushing the softer insides is far more effective.
Industry & Trade
Imports: Metal and wood are the biggest important as well as cultural or artistic items. As the under swamp is a mud filled place with no true rocks and the trees on the upper swamp are mostly made or moss and allege these items are rare to come by. Wood is not as needed as metal as flex and foundation moss can act as a suitable substitute. The citizens also treasure cultural and artistic artifacts, new forms of knowledge, stories and all manner of things from outside skull island. These items act as forms of inspiration, something worth more then gold to the Iphelele.
Exports: The three biggest exports of the Iphelele are; firstly rare pure dyes that are only found here, these dyes can be used for art, clothing and body art and plenty of other uses, merchants are desperate to gain access to this and adventures will dive into the under swamp to bring back a dye beetle to to be made into dye and retire, unfortunately gathering the beetles is deadly and traveling here holds the risk of mutations. Secondly silk and fabrics, when a larval turns into a child it produces a valuable a price silk not to mention other creatures here producing similar silk. Thirdly rare plant life and creatures only found in Bogmire.
Crafts: Ipey is pretty self sustaining, it could have no exports or imports and be fully self sustaining thanks to Iphelele's ability to not need food, water or sleep. Ipey has countless unique craftsmen throughout trying to perfect their crafts creating all sorts of items, some useful, some interesting and some plain odd.
Infrastructure
The City Layers:
Bottom Layer: Where the elder council lives, this layer is dominated by the old traditions and filled with mostly the elderly trying to hold on to them in a changing society. It is the less populated layer with more simple architecture with a tribal cultural aesthetic and small buildings.
Middle Layer: Where the courts are located, this layer is the work hub of the Iphelele, filled with craft buildings of all sorts. Though it is not limited to just industry and work, it has plenty of places built for all manner of arts and interesting things to do. With the Zuru religion and those seeking perfection, you can find many oddities and strange behaviour in this area with citizens trying to aim for perfection and entertainment to fill their time.
Upper Layer: Where the base of the Zuru religion is located as well as the information and learning sector of the Iphelele people, it used to be empty in the old times but due to trading and needing more access with the surface it has filled up with people living here and due to a population boom the current architecture of of moderate housing and places are starting to be reconstructed with high density in mind.
Surface: More of a place for outsiders, traders and business rather than living. It is the less impressive part of the Iphelele as the buildings here are more for access to outside Bogmire. It is a place for trade to outside of the Iphelele as well as those who would collect resources from the surface swamp. As the Iphehele don’t need to eat, drink, sleep this is the only place you will find a bed and a good meal, which is an Inn for outsiders to go to visit the Iphelele.
Guilds and Factions
Tourism
While not having much outside tourism, section to section tourism is common. When wandering around the layers of Ipey you may come across unique cultural sections made accessible by the local community for people to use freely. Such community sections include these or a combination depending upon the locals residents.
Skill/Contest sections: Where people that want to test their metal amongst each other in contests of skills from crafting to something as petty as staring or dance contests. These sections are typically filled with all kinds of equipment and tools with those watching and learning from others competing. Rarely those with a certain craft skills can be convinced to work together for a community project.
Efficient section: These sections are a mixed bag, these people try to make whatever the place is as efficient as possible but often pushes outside the community section and into homes and if combined with other sections they will go out of their way to “fix” whatever they think needs to be more efficient. If the dominant people are into making things efficient as possible they will often leave the area blank with nothing but a perfect walkway with no distractions or blocking walking and if they are more extreme they will huddle together in this section and abandon homes all together shutting down all bodily functions and only leaving to do whatever else they want to make efficient.
Art sections: places where you are freely allowed to mold the moss publicly or paint whatever you want as well as play and create music with yourself or others or any other art projects. Though these sections can change depending on the areas residents from artistic clothing and hairstyles to chitin and wing art where novice body artists will offer services for free to practise. Sometimes a master artist will convince a community to work together on a single grand art piece for the area.
Sports and Gym section, these places are used for physical gains and contain all kinds of workout tools and sports equipment. These sections can also be turned easily into a sports arena and they will often go out of their way to challenge other sections similar to theirs to matches.
Meditation Sections: Those seeking inner peace or some form of enlightenment gather in these sections. Trying to transcend the mortal coil requires the area to be some form of sand garden with big stones to sit on or other such items that allow one to focus inward.
Learning Section: Most found in the upper layer where the learning centers are located, these areas are used for information exchanges or lectures. Odd projects and collaborations can happen here with some sections turning into library’s or a laboratory of sorts.
There is of course unique and odd sections of people gathered together doing whatever perfection they seek but these are just the stock standard areas.
Architecture
Buildings are made of different kinds of moss which is cultivated and intertwined with other moss by expert moss architects. On touch the flex moss feels slimy and squishy like a sponge, this moss is used mostly for beauty or to create unique architecture. If you wished to build stronger more solid buildings you would use foundation moss, a pure white moss that acts as foundations for the structures, it looks and feels like hardened coral. A typical building would contain foundation moss and then have the flex moss grown over and then formed into the rest of the building structure to the owners desires. Most owners take care of their own house by providing it with enough water/nutrients or they request specialists to do it for them, though being in a fertile ever mutating swamp if places are neglected can grow out of control or fuse with other houses. Ultimately when looking at the larger picture of the under swamp buildings it looks like a coral field with each person's individual taste contributing to the whole of it.
A typical family house is completely different to that of a human home, this is due to the Iphelele people not needing a bedroom due to not needing sleep as well as no kitchen or bathroom with the lack of eating. This doesn’t make it an overgrown storage shed, it is in fact a lively place used much the same as an artisans workshop perhaps more divided up between the different inhabitants. Each person uses their place as a way to perfect themselves or a man cave (for lack of a better word) to relax and seek pleasure in their pursuits. This does not mean a person needs a house at all to live in, some people live for their work, literally, they spend every moment working and living in their actual business making it the best it can be.
Geography
Outside the city: Outer Swamp
Outside the city is a wild wilderness of ever changing slime mud passages and deadly creatures and rich and rare resources only found here. The outer swamp as it's called is still held up by the ribs of a giant and moss does grow here holding certain places in check but much like gaps in the ribs there are unsafe gaps between one safe location to the next being held up by the ribs.
Passages can be wet dank slimy places dripping of water and mud, this can cause sections passages to disappear overnight. Though thanks to the countless mutated giant bug species around creating their own passages through one safe spot to the next, helps you find your way around but some species and creatures have underground burrows and nests which you do not want to follow if you wish to stay alive.
Safe spots are not always safe as the word implize, it's more of a term to say struckerly sound to create an ecosystem. One of the nearby safe spots is a place called the Dye fields, this location is a sprawling creepy crawly paradise of bugs crawling everywhere and it is treasured for the location of the famous dye beetles it's named after, which is of course created to make pure color dyes. Due to the the giant size of the under swamp, there are countless safe spots many unknown as each travel gets riskier and risker but could contain hidden resources or deadly creatures and many Iphelele have traveled to figure out where they are and what they contain, but sometimes this leaves them buried which is considered a fate worse than death to the Iphelele as not needing food, water or even to breath and unable to move traps them their for the rest of their natural lives hoping every second someone will come along and save them or a bug will finally end it.
Type
City
Location under
Included Locations
Owning Organization
Related Materials
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