Steel Mill Corners
Steel Mill Corners is one of the most powerful settlements on Lepidos. It is a member of the League of Lepidosian City-States. Once a middle-of-nowhere railroad town choked with the coal soot and rust dust of steel production, SMC has grown into a large city-state famed for its architecture, unique culture, and specialized military.
Structure
Steel Mill Corners operates as a parliamentary republic, with representatives elected for up to three terms of four years each from the general public.
The Kek-Pensh family in Steel Mill Corners came into being when the rancher Lili Parsens was swept off her feet by the military scout Kedri Kek-Pensh I just after the Midnight. This power couple became the de-facto rulers of the town during the lawless aftermath of Wurth Harkin's liberation of Lepidos from the slaver Magocracy of Lepi government. The surgeon Dr. Reed Vangard, soldier Sgt. Bel Pries, and performers Jay Fisherel and Anita Beikr were also influential people in this early period of the town's history, becoming the heads of families allied to the Kek-Penshes in the unofficial SMC aristocracy. Though members of these families no longer hold executive power in the city-state, they are given representative positions in the SMC parliament in recognition of their historical connections.
Culture
Steel Mill Corners is home to the social tradition known as the Game of Masks. The Game involves taking on an assumed identity and then living under it for as long as possible, with the goal being to remain undetected as such. Steel Mill Corners is unique in that it both knows these alternate identites are being worn by their citizens and treats them as full legal persons as such; qualifications such as degrees and technical certifications are attributed to a citizen's public identificaiton number tied to their biometrics, not their name or face per se. This tradition is upheld, in part, because it fosters the famous Rustlung talent for espionage and covert operations when it comes to foreign powers (see Military).
History
Steel Mill Corners was originally a small ranching, steel production, and rail depot town located around 500 miles north of the equator on the northwestern hemisphere. After the liberation of Lepidos, the town fell on hard times. With the death of Jesep Parsens, the most powerful rancher and one of the only people capable of resisting the raiders who had become so prevalent in the aftermath of the liberation, it fell to Lili Parsens to keep the town together. When Kedri and his band of fellow adventurers (see Organization Structure) came into town, already seasoned adventurers, they were struck by how smart and bold Lili had become - qualities which would ultimately lead Kedri to court her. Together, Lili and the adventurers would fortify the town and launch brutal punitive campaigns agains the local raider groups, ultimately wiping them out.
The people of Steel Mill Corners are known as Rustlungs. This demonym hearkens back to the period after Lili Parsens and Kedri Kek-Pensh were in their mid-40's and the nearby raider tribes had been fully rooted out. In those days, the scrap iron walls and buildings that had shielded the town from invasion and the scouring desert winds for years were beginning to fall into decay due to the simple passage of time, casting off rust-red powder that blended into the soil. People who breathed in this red soil would develop the iron shakes, with greater exposure leading to greater and more prolonged disease. Initially, it was suspected that some kind of contaminant from the old train depot in town might have been the cause. Eventually, Dr. Vangard succesfully identified a variant tetanus spore as the culprit and developed treatments and environmental ramediations to resolve the issue. While the iron shakes were ultimately cured as a disease, the red soil of the old town district - and the demonym 'Rustlung' - remained.
Over time, Steel Mill Corners grew in size as travelers recognized it as a safe place compared to the surrounding wasteland. Eventually, with the assistance of Wurth's Cobalt Knights outreach program out of the Execution Hill Launch Complex, Steel Mill Corners also adopted the most modern technology available on Lepidos. Because of this and Wurth's well-known friendship with the 'founding families,' Steel Mill Corners is widely regarded as the 'favorite' of the Evermornan peoples abroad among the League states.
Demography and Population
Like with most Lepidosian populations, among the citizens of Steel Mill Corners, there are three women to every man. This is the result of some unkown factor in the Lepidosian genome that is linked to the Y chromosome, though research is still ongoing.
While property and information crimes are about as common as they would be in other Lepidosian settlements (relatively low), violent crimes are quite rare. Rumors abound that violent repeat offenders are quietly targeted by the Steel Mill Corners intelligence services for use as 'practice,' with the result that many of them either run from town or, occasionally, disappear and subsequently turn up dead in 'accidents.' Organized crime is a growing problem that has become the target of information-based enforcement campagins in conjunction with the city's Cobalt Knight allies (see Foreign Relations).
Military
The Steel Mill Corners military doctrine relies heavily on intelligence-gathering and covert operations - up to and including 'wet work' To a Rustlung general, the best defense is to head off potential threats before they get anywhere close to the city-state itself. Steel Mill Corners does have a professional army and air force equipped with somewhat more advanced weaponry than their peers within the League, though not advanced enough to take on a force like the Cobalt Knights in open warfare.
The city itself is heavily fortified and the population heavily-armed. Though not a full-scale Interterranean Arcology, as one might find on Evermorn, Steel Mill Corners does have underground bunker districts and a sloped perimeter wall thick enough to house extensive military assets (i.e. airship ports). The civic buildings of SMC tend to be pyramidal and heavily armored to serve as redoubts in the event of direct attack.
Religion
Like most Lepidosian population groups, the citizens of Steel Mill Corners overwhelmingly believe in Lepi Monotheism. This religion posits that there is only a single god, known as the Creator, who created the Lepidosian people and weighs the moral content of their actions in preparation for the afterlife. This religion ultimately became syncretized into Ancestral Patronism, with the result that many Evermornans actually revere a Lepidosian deity without considering where it came from.
Foreign Relations
Steel Mill Corners maintains good diplomatic ties with all other members of the League of Lepidosian City-States and their Cobalt Protectorate extra-planetary allies. Operatives from SMC still occasionally uncover Magocracy remants or bands of raiders in the wasteland and pursue them with vigor.
Agriculture & Industry
Steel Mill Corners' industrial base is largely centered around metal extraction and refining, just as it was in the era before the liberation of Lepidos. SMC factories churn out metal ingots, vehicles, and some information technology.
Infrastructure
Steel Mill Corners architecture is heavy on metals and features large amounts of the city's signature dark iron-red color in refferenct to its past (see History). Buildings tend to be sturdy and geometric, with cubes and pyramids being the most common shapes; decorations tend to be recessed so that they are best viewed face-on, as Rustlung sensibilities emphasize the broad form of a building over details. SMC has extensive municipal fuel, water, and food stores located deep undergound to better stustain the population in the event of a siege or natural disasters.
Type
Geopolitical, City-state
Demonym
Rustlung
Government System
Democracy, Parliamentary
Official State Religion
Parent Organization
Official Languages
Controlled Territories
Notable Members
Related Species
Related Ethnicities
Comments