The Shattered Lands

Q01

Distinctive physical fact

Veris is a city of records. The civic religion of the Verisian people is documentation. Every event, every transaction, every conversation of public significance is recorded — by professional Witnesses (a hereditary civil-service caste), by automated systems, by the participants themselves. The city's central institution is the Great Archive, which extends beneath the city for what is rumoured to be many kilometres. No one has measured it. Measuring it would, of course, also be recorded.

Q02

Dominant want

To leave a clean record. Verisians believe that what is documented is real and what is undocumented may as well not have happened. To die with one's record in good order is the ambition of most Verisian lives. To die with one's record in disorder is a private tragedy that cannot be openly discussed.

Q03

Relationship to the Paths

Aware and trading. The Paths are documented like everything else — every traversal generates paperwork that takes longer than the traversal itself. Solace operates here under treaty, and the treaty fills six bound volumes. The Verisian bureaucracy is slow, polite, and absolutely thorough.

▌ The Paths

2 documented

№01

The Vellum Path

public · treatied

Form

A specific reading-room in the Great Archive. The reader must request a particular volume (Volume 47, Subfolio 3, of the Public Transport Records, 1812). Once the volume is delivered, opening it to page 412 begins the traversal.

Cost

Free. The bureaucratic overhead of requesting the volume is its own deterrent — most Verisian citizens have never used the Path in their lives.

Personality

Patient, scholarly, slightly amused. A Mystic Reading senses the deep contentment of being properly catalogued.

№02

The Witnesses' Path

restricted · professional

Form

A small private door in the senior Witnesses' chambers, behind the council table. Only a confirmed Witness may use it; the door does not open for anyone else.

Cost

Conditional on professional authority. The Path will not open for someone who has been censured or stripped of office.

Personality

A Mystic Reading senses the comforting weight of institutional legitimacy. The Path takes its job very seriously.

▌ Filed Entry · Cartographic Survey Division

Old Veris — Pocket 1-Theta

Filed by Surveyor M. Halland · updated by R. Kal and T. Halsh

Core world. Modern-equivalent tech (electricity, telegraphy, no advanced computing). Single dominant culture, deeply bureaucratic. Population ~120 million.

Useful contacts: The Witnesses' Council at the Great Archive. Field Director H. Mern. Solace operations are subject to extensive treaty obligations — read the treaty before deploying.

Hazards: None mechanical. Significant cultural — do not destroy, deface, or remove documents from the Great Archive under any circumstances. The Verisians take this very seriously.

Notes: The Verisian bureaucracy is slow but ultimately reliable. Patience is essential. If you are running a Cycle 3 investigation here, allow at least four weeks.