A|State

Welcome to The City. A sepiatone world lit by guttering gas lamps and the flickering filaments of electric bulbs. A closed world, isolated and alone. Stinking canals radiate out through The City, thick with effluent and the detritus of millions of lives. Dank alleys wend between corroding concrete towerblocks, wide boulevards swarm with peddlers, traders, sellers, buyers, thieves and victims. The City is full of dark places where the lights of knowledge, morality and justice fail to glow.

Welcome to The City. A world of contrasts and contradictions. The citizens live their lives in a tangle of technological obscurity. In crumbling brick tenements, they crowd round dim televisions, sedated by the media output. In the factories, workshops, mills and yards, they toil and strain with rusting, decaying machinery. Above them all, the macrocorps stand like gods, islands of glittering advancement in a sea of black oil, flaking iron and reeking gas.

Welcome to The City. A world of pain, fear, longing and hatred. Where the basest human emotions rise to the surface, where men will cripple each other for a dull shilling. Yet light, life, love and hope manage to raise their voices, occasionally heard above the clamour of darkness. Through all the evil and wreckage, some still manage to retain a sense of decency and honour.

Welcome to The City. A world of superstition, folk tales, wild religion and rampant rumour. The Shift and The Bombardment are apocalyptic legends from the far past, feeding the nightmares and fantasies of current generations. Some pray to God for salvation, others pray to a cold, empty universe. In hidden places, black rites are carried out, for reasons as varied and obscure as The City itself. Folk heroes and villains stalk the streets: Ticktock Man, The Leaper, Iron Lady. They all contribute to the second city, the city carried on the tongues and in the minds of its citizens.

Welcome to The City. A world of strangers and beings who do not belong. The Shifted, strange entities, whispered about in pubs and taverns. Mentioned in guarded conversations, lest the very mention of their name summon them from the dark. The Ubel, twitching and creaking through the backstreets in their bloodstained rags, chittering incomprehensibly. Lugner, whispering maddening dreams in the night. Drache, as insubstantial as mist, clouds of unreason. Hager, assassins and kidnappers, looming figures cast in black cloth and pale flesh. The Simils, pitied and reviled in equal measure, clanking golems of iron, brass and stone.

Welcome to The City.
You will never forget The City.
But The City will forget you.