u/Soapybint

My chest heaved and my throat burned. The saliva in my mouth felt like shards of white hot glass. The sharp mixture of excitement and exhaustion prevented me from calming my breath and my ragged sips of air caught the attention of my chaperone, Thlima. 

Clattering mandibles spit out words resembling a sack of porcelain figures being swung through the air.

'You can take some moments here, to settle, Ceris.' What I have come to learn is the equivalent of a smile appeared on the huge crustacean's face. The loose, chitinous half-moon shaped lids beside his eyes flipped open and his solid black eyes grew wide.

'We will approach the viewing platform in a moment. You are one of few fortunate to watch our Aruaksi device bless this... rough land.' 

The last word was spit out with some venom. The land Thlima gestured towards with a jagged pincer was certainly not rough to my human eyes. Gentle fields lumbering up to the horizon, split with low stone walls and copses of huddled pines. A place to raise a family, I thought, if not for the enormous contraption installed in the centre. Close by us, overlooking the scene was a smattering of gaudy tents and a web of bustling market stalls.

As an ambassador to the Courts of Korsoi in the Wuavreni Mercantile League, I had seen many wonderful sights. Winged lizards trained like lapdogs, acrobats defying death on the crumbling rims of floating islands, a deep sea beast surfacing and being dragged to shore by a mob of tusked apes.

What I had been promised was a sight to dwarf them all. Something my patron, a Trade-Baron and top merchant in Korsoi, promised was worth more than a year's worth of profits.
I was to witness Terraforming.

The great clockwork mechanism, known as the Aruaksi Device, is a closely guarded and highly revered piece of ancient technology.

Resembling a fortress sized metal spider with a complex pyramid body, its legs burrow deep into the earth and the central section supports a crew of Magi trained in the esoteric rituals that have to take place to operate the machine. 

Thlima ushered me over to the viewing platform, offered me a reasonably expensive beverage and encouraged me to settle in for the spectacle alongside some other esteemed guests. We were all diplomats and merchants, I would imagine. 

The Charrid politicians of League are, as a rule, braggarts and we would be great candidates to spread word of this mystical contraptions terrific power. It also serves to send a very specific message to the nations and trading operations that we represent. 'This could be your land next.'

As the sun loomed low behind us, the ritual began.

Thlima and the other Charrid began to emit a low thrum, their mandibles rubbing the ridges that line their jaws and their chitinous thoraxes vibrating.

The Magi clambering around the Aruaksi Device itself looked like scurrying ants, tightening valves and turning complicated cog arrays. The machine began to rumble to life, spluttering a jagged plume of blue-black smoke into the sky. 

The Charrid shifted in tone, matching the hum that now echoed from the Device. Segments along each of the legs slid open and seemed to inhale the air surrounding them, a light from within somehow glowing both scalding hot and a numbing cold.

With a forceful rhythm, the segments of the legs slammed downwards, shattering the earth like glass and instantly draining all colour from the flora within a few metres of the device. A few seconds later, the process repeated and the drained patch surrounding the device spread by a few more metres. In a rhythm that reminded me of my earlier heaving breaths, this radius of decay ebbed outwards with each sickening crunch of the Aruaksi. 

A rushing sound came from within the central funnel, as if a monsoon was battering the inner walls trying to escape. The Magi clambered from the machine and fled, merchants and Charrid officials chattered excitedly. 

A heavy thunk sounded as a compartment on the Aruaksi body moved and grey water went thundering down the legs, deep into the soil. Dark specks fled from the hedgerows and tree copses. The wildlife nearby knew their time was up, the ground beneath them warping and groaning. 

I felt sick. I was once again unable to swallow my breaths in good time. There, not half a mile from where I sat with a cool drink, the land was deprived of all vigour. Thlima’s pincer dug into the guardrail of our viewing platform, her eyes locked on the spectacle. She was overcome with excitement.

A chorus of clunking metal and screeching gears shuddered through the sky as grass withered and dirt calcified into grey knuckles of stone. The groaning joists of the Aruaksi’s legs and thumping gouts of saltwater rose to a deafening pitch as trees shrivelled and plantlife melted, spreading across the now rocky earth as slimy algae. 

The Charrid celebrated, they feasted and danced as the fields turned to rocky pools of salt water. They gambled and laughed as gulls replaced sparrows and mice were chased out by eels and molluscs. Perfectly fertile for them, for their algae factories and seaweed farms. They too have to eat and their population has swelled in the last few generations so it is perhaps cruel of me to judge, but deep within my soul I am disturbed by the transformation. 

I can think of no kind words to describe the Aruaksi and its work to my masters. Defilement, corruption.

When a criminal dies within the borders of the League, they do not do so quietly.

Whether human, charrid, or any other species, the punishment is carried out in exactly the same way.

A 'Shellcracker', a long handled hammer with a wicked point for a head, is swung into the back of the guilty and they are cast into the rough ocean at the base of a coastal cliff.

For Charrid, this can be a quick death. A well placed strike ought to shatter their shell and pierce their breathing sacs beneath, causing instant loss of consciousness followed by a symbolic return to the depths.

I am yet to watch another species go out with the grace a Charrid can. Thanks to the League’s trade in sentient flesh and their extreme laws around theft, I have seen many a desperate transient receive this punishment for something as simple as stealing bread or fruit, or even just disrespecting the wrong Charrid.

It is a horror, I cannot stress this enough, a horror, to watch a human heave for air through a fist sized hole in their lung. Even more so as they scramble to keep their head above the surface, inevitably to drown in a frigid mix of salt water and their own blood. Jeered at by an audience of Charrid youths, they sink beneath the waves and are swept out to sea.

NAME: The Wuavreni Mercantile League

FLAG/SYMBOL: Silver scales overflowing with golden coins on both sides, held by a claw with 6 stripes of colour on a white background. 

https://preview.redd.it/wbj3b8y94mxg1.png?width=981&format=png&auto=webp&s=620f19734792f855f955a5817a8aca17704aaaaf

GEOGRAPHY: Generally warm and mediterranean coastal regions with heavily forested islands. Lots of sheer cliffs along the coastline where the League’s states have settled. Inland regions have had large stretches of land terraformed into rocky, flooded plains.

BIOLOGY/ETHNICITY: 
Charrid - an extremely varied species that share one defining factor - they are crab-like centaurs with an exoskeletal chitinous shell that covers their respiratory system (breathing sacs) and organs. 
There are six main variants relating to the six states of the League. It is possible to differentiate a Charrid’s background based on colouring, leg number, shell and claw types but the transient nature of much of the population and the generational melding of societies has resulted in discernable archetypes becoming unreliable.
Red, green, blue, purple, yellow and black are the primary colours, with mottled and striped patterns being the most common. Four, six or eight legs and two to four arms with up to half of them ending in a claw. Some shells are smooth, some have segmented layers stacked up and some are rough with knobbles and spikes. 

Krodun - thick furred, gangly limbed humanoids sporting thick brows, deep facial features, leaf shaped snouts and long tusks protruding from the lower jaw. Their arms, connected to their torsos by a thin membranous skin, hang down to their knees from a standing position, though they spend most of their time hunched over and their big shovel-like hands drag along the ground. Females have smaller tusks and hands though are generally the same size and have similar musculature standing at around 1.5-2m upright and 1-1.25m hunched.

Human - as expected

HISTORY: Originally minor thalassocratic city-states controlled by {faded wonder empire} and used mainly as grunts in their naval forces. Over generations, they organised and took political control of seaborne trade routes. They took advantage of the technological advancements afforded to them as vassals of the Empire and used this to ‘convince’ the island dwelling Krodun to stop raiding their merchant vessels and join them as mercenaries instead.

With this political and economic advantage, the League claimed a powerful artifact that allowed them to terraform inland into farms tailored for their diets specifically. This let their population balloon, forced non-Charrid away from their coastal cities and catapulted them into a regional and obscenely wealthy power.

The League has profiteered from the conflicts and desperation in the wake of recently collapsed Empire and extended their reach further, trading with and/or enslaving distant rivals.

SOCIETY: The League is made up of 6 Charrid city-states and dozens of smaller coastal towns and outlying island chains. Based around mutually beneficial commercial and military organisation, the League began with a small network of Charrid merchant guilds and over the centuries has grown to a formidable quasi-nation. Society is run by Dukes. These are oligarchs, rich merchants, landowners and military leaders like generals and admirals. Some are independently powerful and some are organised into groups like Courts or elected Parliaments.

The self-styled Reef Barons, Merchant Kings and Trade Tyrants control territory that stretches along the coastline of the League and includes a number of the islands further off shore. The more remote Krodun islands are arguably also part of the League, though its Chieftains will loudly boast their independence.

The most powerful of these individuals could claim that they are above the rest and solely rule the realm as Ducal Regent but for most of history they have worked as a Ducal Council that looks out for their general interests and continued power. Very few are powerful, wealthy enough or have the troops to establish themselves as sole leader.

Society is structured slightly differently depending on the state, the Tessin Reef Barons are an oligarchic meritocracy. Auris and Hiris are monarchies headed by a Trade Tyrant or Merchant King respectively. Ruenis is ruled by the Arch-Reaver, a military dictator. Parsos and Korsoi are more democratic, the latter run by an elected Coral Shell Court and the former by a feudal ‘Lord of the Glittering Shore elected by influential locals.

The Kharis and Jahsar systems are a unique Wuavreni class of enslaved, trained and freed individuals that cover many military, religious, clerical and even governmental roles in society.

Most families will live in large multigenerational houses that double as factories, shops or farms. These can often be expanded into multiple families that band together into Consortiums to pool their resources and workforces.

CULTURE: To the people of the League, wealth is everything. The Charrid shun clothing and will flash their wealth  in the form of silver or gold torcs, expensive jewels and even in the material used to fix cracks in the shell, with higher ranking members of society will mix gold into the medicinal clay used. Non-Charrid members of the League are noted for their flamboyance and arrogance around their status and will stereotypically put immense value on appearances.

Coastal salterns and underwater farms produce most food. The artificially terraformed inland rock pools function as seaweed and algae farms like rice paddies. 
Crab potting, spearfishing and fish netting are commonly used to supplement their diets and provide something edible for non-Charrid. The rearing of a manatee-like animal as humans would keep cows but in artificial water paddocks is a rarer but lucrative style of livestock farm.

The Temple of Phosos is the most widespread and official religion of every city-state and there are houses of worship in almost every settlement in the realm. The core beliefs of the Temple of Phosos revolve around a duality of positive and negative deeds that are applauded and shunned respectively, one of the main dualities is Plenty vs Destitution.

OCCURRENCE OF MAGIC: The most common use of magic in the League are the highly trained, controlled and coveted slave-wizards employed as support for the League’s coastal industries. 

They are trained to enchant diving suits so that non-Charrid species can breathe underwater for short periods and take on the dangerous tasks of underwater farm maintenance, mining, harvesting etc. 

This magic is expensive and dangerous, failure can result in the spontaneous, immediate and catastrophic collapse of the target’s lungs.

It can technically be used to pull breath out of a target. A common punishment for more extreme crimes like theft is suffocating the perpetrator in this manner, until death in the more serious cases

FADED WONDER: The Aruaksi Terraformer is a device shared by the states making up the League and is arguably the artifact that keeps them from descending into civil war. This artifact is capable of transforming fertile land into barren, rocky pools filled with the precise conditions needed for the Charris to mass produce sustenance that only benefits their digestive system. The exact mechanism behind this artifact and whether it can terraform in other ways is a secret guarded with the very lives of the League’s rulers and can only be used under their direct supervision, making the terraforming ritual a huge cultural event.

IMPORTS, EXPORTS, & MAJOR INDUSTRIES: The League has a number of well recognised exports besides their general mercantile industry. 

• Lumber from land clearing is their most profitable export, as they have little use for lumber besides their also profitable ship-building economy.
• Artisanal stone carvings are one of their most prized products thanks to their famously impressive cliff-carved homes. 
• Precious pearls, exotic corals and exclusive underwater metals are a unique export, the League have a near monopoly on these given how precarious it is to harvest them for a non-Charrid.
• The seaweed and algae from coastal and sea-floor farms that make up the bulk of the Charrid diet are exported in small numbers. Broadly unpalatable for most other species, these are nevertheless seen as delicacies by gourmets or sought after by Charrid emigrants.
• Fish and other marine wildlife that are either traded as pets or food, dried for export or transported to nearby nations.

Dominance of shipping lanes and sea-trade in general are a matter of not only profit, but honour for the Charrid. They will, and have, waged war on rival naval nations for unopposed control of the waves, giving them a well earned reputation as a ruthlessly pragmatic and callously avaricious union of self interested thalassocrats.