Hytwa
At the base of the Sovereign Arcology of Vaparium Faction The Sovereign Arcology of Vaparium Founded by the Meir roughly 108 years before the Chaos, Vaparium is not a city but a constellation of interlocked arcologies, repurposed generation ships, nestled in the vine-ch..., where the Ark's anchor pylons meet the forest floor, lies Hytwa: a ring of soft-grown, semi-organic domes that look cultivated rather than built, joined by arched spans and lit by low glyph-marks, a couple of kilometres inland behind the shore of Meir Bay Place Meir Bay The broad western bay south of the Land of Green Shadows, named for the people whose slow ships hold its horizon.. It is the gentlest quarter of the Meir People Meir The only people of Elshore not born of it. homeland and the most exposed, grown to fail outward and kept sacrificially separate from the Ark's spine. In the year 50 After the Chaos Event The Chaos The Chaos was a continent-wide civilisation-collapse spanning approximately ninety-eight years, beginning around year 1700 of the Inarin Calendar when the Iru Parliament of the..., on the 33rd of Namiitide, the old rockets found it.
Key traits
- A ring of soft-grown, semi-organic domes clustered where the Ark's anchor geometry meets the ground; shelters cultivated rather than built, joined by arched spans and lit by low glyph-marks.
- Open wildlife lanes run through and beyond the ring, kept clear so the fauna of the Land of Green Shadows Place Land of Green Shadows The deep equatorial rainforest of Eldaara, a vine-choked canopy the suns can barely reach, beneath which the Meir have grown their secret arcology of Vaparium from settled gener... can flee when the Ark shifts into emergency routing or deployment posture.
- Grown to fail outward: vulnerable by design, quick to burn, kept sacrificially separate from the Ark's spine, bays and shafts.
- A couple of kilometres inland behind the shore of Meir Bay, wholly beneath the canopy; the old cities of Nogiil Place Nogiil Baloorno's coastal twin on the north shore of Meir Bay, where the Nowin's mouth-marshes meet the open water. and Baloorno Place Baloorno The bay-city of the south-western coast, on the northern arm of Meir Bay, where the forest's rivers meet the Meir's horizon. stand along the coast to the northwest and southeast.
- Struck in the rocket cascade of Namiitide 33, AC 50: impacts at the perimeter, the west, the east and the center; whole habitat clusters fell silent, and the youth quarter burned.
- The ground-dwelling quarter of the Meir of Vaparium Place Vaparium The Sovereign Arcology of Vaparium, the Meir homeland in the south and the most technologically advanced structure on Elshore., standing in the Ark's shadow.
Hytwa is what the Meir grew where their Ark touches the world. At the base of the Sovereign Arcology of Vaparium, clustered about the anchor pylons and root-like buttresses that hold the great living structure to the forest floor, stands a ring of semi-organic domes and shelters that were never built so much as cultivated: soft-walled, low, joined to one another by arched spans, marked at night by the faint low glyph-marks that serve the ring for lamps. Through the ring and beyond it run open lanes kept deliberately clear of dwelling and stores, so that the beasts of the Land of Green Shadows can flee unharmed when the Ark shifts its posture and the canopy shudders.
The ring is the gentlest quarter of the Meir homeland, and by intent the most exposed. Vaparium's makers grew Hytwa to fail outward: its soft shelters burn quickly and fall easily, and they are kept sacrificially separate from the Ark's spine, its organ-bays and its deep shafts, so that no wound taken on the ground can travel upward into the body that matters. The land it stands on lies a couple of kilometres inland behind the shore of Meir Bay, wholly beneath the canopy; along that coast, to the northwest and southeast, stand the old cities of Nogiil and Baloorno.
The design was proven in the worst way. On the 33rd of Namiitide in the year 50 After the Chaos, rockets of the old world came out of the north and found the ring: the perimeter first, then Hytwa west, then Hytwa east, then the center. Whole habitat clusters fell silent between one breath and the next; the youth quarter was hit, and the center burned. The ring did what it was grown to do - it failed outward, and the Ark stood - but a third of the Meir died in that fire, and Hytwa's name has carried the sorrow of it since.