THE UNDERTOW
Like a river rill, a place off the original course where you're dumped without warning. Just like that of a passing undercurrent.
[Placeholder image is of Midgar, illustrations will come later.]
HABITABILITY
The Undertow is not the worst place to live, but in comparison to it's upstairs neighbours it's definitely the less ideal choice of the two. The Undertow is an under-funded, violence-ridden city that was once actually quite a decent place to live despite the darkness. Due to it being the ground level with the Upstairs 900ft built above it, most places remain in darkness even in broad daylight. It's densely populated with buildings that don't help with obscuring the light. It's a mostly industrial zone, looking like it was under construction still in places. Most of the streets are lit with neon signs, warm lights and a few red lights as well for the street lamps, and most streets were in disrepair. It's a heavily populated location, and most sectors know of one another's residents through mindless chatter and gossip. It would less of a nightmare if the Vortexes stopped.
GOVERNING SYSTEM(S)
The Undertow is in fact run by a collective of mayors for each sector. Each sector that's still habitable has one person running it, all of them meeting in the most populated sector, Epsilon. The city's construction crews work around the clock due to the damages caused by the creatures, keeping each mayor very busy.
GENERAL INFORMATION
The city fell to disrepair and ruin when the Vortexes began to appear. The vortexes brought creatures not of this planet, that wrecked havoc on the city and the people, needing a new system to be implemented. The Hunter's Association was created by the ones Upstairs. They run and regulate it, but apply it to the Undertow because if the creatures go unchecked below, they bleed upstairs and the wealthy don't want anything to ruin their pristine city.
There are a total of Seven officially recognized sectors within the Undertow. To the North starting with Beta, then heading east was Lambda, Delta, Epsilon, Gamma, Theta and Rho. Each sector contained a Spire, a key construction point but also an access point to the Upstairs. Each sector's spire was named after it, with the exception of the very heart of the city that held the Grand Spire, which crossed through every sector and was sectioned off as the unofficial "main sector" of Alpha.
Of the sectors, some have fallen to disrepair to the point of being desolate and uninhabited due to the outbreak of the creatures within. Theta is abandoned, no one entering at this point. Rho is currently facing heavy infestation and struggling to keep up with a lack of sufficient hunters. Gamma, where Sachiel is located, seems to be holding its own for the most part. While small outbreaks are known in other sectors it seems to be that Theta is the heart of the problem, as most of them bleed out from its center. The most heavily populated and considered capital of the Undertow is Epsilon, as it was also the first to be constructed before Alpha even existed. All other sectors are well populated, mostly well kept, but the closer you come to Theta the worse conditions get.
THE UPSTAIRS
The rich and lavish city of [REDACTED]. The true name of it is something that no one really knows. It was lost a long time ago to the people of the Undertow, they simply refer to it as the Upstairs, to some- it's the Eternal Eclipse. The simple fact of the matter is that it's not for you or me.
[Placeholder image is of Sin City, featured in Akira (1998) illustrations will come later.]
HABITABILITY
If you were to pick a place to live, and had the money to do so or the prestige, then you'd be going straight to the Upstairs to get yourself any of the open spots left in the city's apartment complexes or lavish mansions. The Upstairs is a beautiful city full of bustling traffic, hot and sunny days, and even man-made pools and lakes. It's the idealized place to live... assuming you can stand the people in it.
GOVERNING SYSTEM(S)
The Upstairs is run by a collective of investors and people with a lot of wealth and power. There's a figurehead 'President', but the simple fact of the matter is that the entire place is run by money, and if you weren't making it then you wouldn't be having any say in how the place is run.
GENERAL INFORMATION
The Upstairs resides 900ft above the Undertow, constantly casting a shadow of eternal darkness on the buildings below. The Upstairs was actually a later addition to the Undertow, as the Undertow was the first city built in the region. It was an add on that ended up (due to a construction error of the height originally) as the preferred choice of place to live, and actually expanded over time. Originally it was built above Spire Alpha and as it's population increased, it started to cover all of the Undertow as we know it. The city is rich, full of expensive and pristine, white, soulless buildings that shoot thousands of feet into the skyline. The entire city is lit in golden lights, and at night looks like a sparkling shimmer of jewelry on the edge of the desert.
Most people don't know much about it other than how it appears from afar. Very few people ever ascend the spires to go there, and those who do don't generally return, or go outside of the spires themselves. They're not meant to know.
NOVOS
A land beyond the stars themselves...
[Placeholder image is of the Atacama Desert, Chile. Featured in the following article: https://www.lonelyplanet.com/articles/first-time-in-atacama-desert . Illustrations will come later.]
LANDSCAPE/HABITABILITY
Novos is a lush place, full of a lot of plantlife... in about a couple of places. Most of the planet is in a state of decay, living far longer with it's pesky inhabitants than they were supposed to make it. The entire planet's atmosphere has been poisoned with experimentation. It's habitable if you're a Novian. Anything else and you'd start to suffocate just trying to breathe the heavy air around it. Once teeming with life, the Novians that still remain used it to it's end, sucking it dry of anything that could possibly sustain life in order to sustain their own. It's mostly barren full of dust, sands, rock and crevasses that were once full to the brims with lava that had run completely dry. The place still full of life was only made so with the experimentation of its inhabitants.
The Novian's created plantlife that could survive the current harsh environment, and have been slowly working on spreading it through the rocks to bring the dead planet back to life. The oceans of it have all but stagnated, and are part of the reason the air is so hard to breathe. To fix this mess would take a very, very, long time.
GOVERNING SYSTEM(S)
Novos is governed by a Novian council. The council consists of nine elite members that control and dictate what goes on in the city. Unfortunately it's on their hands that everything happened to their planet in the first place. The council's word is law.
GENERAL INFORMATION
Novos is home to only one species which is the Novians. Food sources are scarce and primarily they hunt outside of their planet's atmosphere. Deep space around Novos is the only thing untouched as the vast expanse cannot be changed. Novians do not need to breathe, they edited their genes to make it so. The people of the planet are mostly united, striving to bring their home back to its former glory, but a lot are discontent with the way things are going. They've increased their number in recent years to speed up the expansion process of fixing the planet, but have had little success since the new offspring need time to develop into functional Novians.
