u/Wonderful_Ad6287

>Lumeria is a portion of a 300km wide band-like zone circling a tidally locked planet, trapped between its forever sunlit half and its other dark half, buried in eternal night. The zone is known as The Strip.
LUMERIA is just a portion of the Strip and it's the "Catholic" one. There are other zones are in different technological stages. There are commercial links and small groups that can make the travel, but they are formed from particular special individuals. Large armies cannot be used, so they kept their independence.
The Strip isn't stable. Safe zones exist only where terrain offers shelter. Convection winds tear across the its peaks, making the most high grounds uninhabitable.
“Humans “ live in the middle zone. They are the mutated descendants of ancient colonists forced to crash-land on this planet. Towns rise where the climate is stable for a while, then empty when the temperature shifts.
Being forced to resist the permanent assault of the parasitic creatures, the descendants chose the survival through mutation and although everything tries to kill you, some creatures could be domesticated,

Haysacks are clumsy carnivores, too slow and too poorly designed to feed themselves, so their survival is linked to some other repulsive critters they host, called Needles.
The main body of a Haysack is rather small, but they grow a sponge-like nest on their back, filled with things that Needles can use for feed and eat.

Young Needles suck blood from any creature they can latch onto, much like leeches. Once fed, the Needles return to their Haysack and bury themselves inside the nest. There, the blood is used by both creatures.

The Hysacks spend a long time half buried, trying to keep a low profile. Once the hunting grounds are dry, they pop out from the soil and go find a better place.

As they mature, the Needles develop strong fibers on them. These fibers are effective against certain attacks (especially parasite-driven mutations), so they are harvested by mages who embed the fibers into their armor. They have to collect mature Needles, but leave enough of them behind so the Haysack can survive.

They are so valuable that many mage enclaves maintain protected Haysack fields, in spite of the creatures' disgusting behavior and the danger that you could become Needle food. The fields also serve as a defense against wandering creatures and other intruders, as Haysacks can recognize their keepers' scent and are highly territorial.

Lumeria is a portion of a 300 km wide band-like zone circling a tidally locked planet, trapped between its forever sunlit half and its other dark half,. The zone is known as The Strip. LUMERIA is just a portion of the Strip and it's the "Catholic" one. The Strip isn't stable. Safe zones exist only where terrain offers shelter. Convection winds tear across the its peaks, making the most high grounds uninhabitable.

“Humans “ live in the middle zone. They are the mutated descendants of forgotten colonists. Being forced to resist the permanent assault of the parasitic creatures, the descendants chose the survival through mutation and although everything tries to kill you, some creatures could be domesticated,

Embers are clumsy birds that have a certain quality that makes them useful to humans. They are basically bald as Vin Diesel,and just about as stubborn. Their food can be found on the cold side of the borders - all sort minerals, critters  and crooked mushrooms other animals refuse to eat,

They charge their wings with the dim light of the Strip and return to the fridge-side to feed. They can store the heat in their wings and release it slowly by tucking themselves in.

Humans learned fast about these walking radiators and keep them close to linger near their camps by feeding them with smashed mineral nutrients. It’s worth the effort as they can provide heat for long journeys with the price of just a little effort 

It’s better to avoid touching their wings while they’re venting heat. They’re quite eager to leave a scar on any intruder, and even less  eager to be hurried anywhere.

They are far from cuddly. Even while accepting food, Embers somehow manage to look as though they have been dragged into somebody else's mess

Lumeria is a portion of a 300km wide band-like zone circling a tidally locked planet, trapped between its forever sunlit half and its other dark half, buried in eternal night. The zone is known as The Strip.

LUMERIA is just a portion of the Strip and it's the "Catholic" one. There are other zones are in different technological stages. There are commercial links and small groups that can make the travel, but they are formed from particular special individuals. Large armies cannot be used, so they kept their independence.

The Strip isn't stable. Safe zones exist only where terrain offers shelter. Convection winds tear across the its peaks, making the most high grounds uninhabitable.

“Humans “ live in the middle zone. They are the mutated descendants of ancient colonists forced to crash-land on this planet. Towns rise where the climate is stable for a while, then empty when the temperature shifts.

Being forced to resist the permanent assault of the parasitic creatures, the descendants chose the survival through mutation and although everything tries to kill you, some creatures could be domesticated,

Embers are clumsy birds that have a certain quality that makes them useful to humans. They are basically bald as Vin Diesel,and just about as stubborn. Their food can be found on the cold side of the borders - all sort minerals, critters  and crooked mushrooms other animals refuse to eat,

They charge their wings with the dim light of the Strip and return to the fridge-side to feed. They can store the heat in their wings and release it slowly by tucking themselves in.

Humans learned fast about these walking radiators and keep them close to linger near their camps by feeding them with smashed mineral nutrients. It’s worth the effort as they can provide heat for long journeys with the price of just a little effort 

It’s better to avoid touching their wings while they’re venting heat. They’re quite eager to leave a scar on any intruder, and even less  eager to be hurried anywhere.

They are far from cuddly. Even while accepting food, Embers somehow manage to look as though they have been dragged into somebody else's mess

No peculiar features for this herbivore. They are rather rare and live in the unsecure areas of the Strip . They can't be grown in controlled environments, they can't be trapped inside shelters or cages as they claustrophobic and die. They accept the company of humans and are friendly toward them. They can be ridden by up to three people

They have a thick skin, so they can ignore the bites of the common predators. Paradoxically, they are easy and hard to kill. They tolerate humans and can be used but also they just leave them with ease, which make them lovable and unrelatable. They follow caravans and can be used as a beast of burden till they get bored.

They are named Splodders

Lumeria is a portion of a 300km wide band-like zone (also called a Goldilocks zone), circling a tidally locked planet, trapped between its forever sunlit half and its other dark half, buried in eternal night. The zone is called The Strip

The corridor of life wobbles sometimes due to tectonic activity and as a side effect, towns and living areas are swallowed either by scorching heat or unbearable frost, making the border zone unstable and somehow ethereal.

Plants are fungal, with wide leaves and dark-colored in order to catch the dim light of the dying star that hosts the planet.

Some animals are parasitic, and a good example is the Doppelworf.

They are born as halves until they find their "soulmate". Once chosen, he attaches himself upside-down to the female's body. They take the leading role in turns, this ability making them restless predators, as they are constantly on the move.

However, once food grows scarce, the female takes the leading role and feeds on the male on her back, leaving him a hollow husk. Eventually, his legs and other pointed limbs wither, and the female removes or eats them, depending on the case, leaving her to live as a complete creature for two more years.

They are rather rare.

Lumeria is one of several zones located within the Goldilocks band of a tidally locked world, placed inside The Strip a relative habitable area (roughly 300 km wide), bordered by by approximately 700 km of land that never truly allows life to settle. The rest of the planet is hellish. The line wobbles due to tectonic activity and the most affected are its borders. So they have to search for a better place once in a few generations.

LUMERIA is just a portion of the Strip and it's the "Catholic" one. There are other zones are in different technological stages. There are commercial links and small groups that can make the travel, but they are formed from particular special individuals. Large armies cannot be used, so they kept their independence

This is The Twilight City of Gor, which can be found at the end of Redemption Forest. The initial walled city kept receiving refugees from the borders, leaving their dying cities-scorched by the wobbling limit of light or popsicled by the spreading frost. They built their memory home on the walls of the former city, stretching its limit and its appearance, while the city extended and blended with the additions. Now it looks eclectic and hosts a multitude of cultures. being far from safe,

Lumeria is one of several zones located within the Goldilocks band of a tidally locked world, placed inside the Strip, a relative habitable area (roughly 300 km wide), bordered by approximately 700 km of land where life is just a matter of survival .

The Strip isn't stable. Safe zones exist only where terrain offers shelter. Convection winds tear across the its peaks, making the most high grounds uninhabitable.

“Humans “ live in the middle zone. They are the mutated descendants of ancient colonists forced to crash-land on this planet. Towns rise where the climate is stable for a while, then empty when the temperature shifts.. Usually they are walled cities, where contamination is kept under control(ish) surrounded by outskirts that provide food and energy.

Being forced to resist the permanent assault of the indigenous creatures, the descendants chose the survival through mutation and although everything tries to kill you, some creatures could be domesticated, as Harvesters and Globbacks .

Harvesters are made-creatures,  created a long time ago by the initial colonists, but their resemblance to their initial creations is questionable.
Their use is the same .Basically, they can melt anything into organic goo, which they swallow. Their residue can be processed and turned into edible mold.

The principle behind their biology was replicated more or less , being used to create odd harvester energy plan, that can run basically on anything. They are surrounded by mining villages. Even if the principle is the same, the result, based on local biology, is more unpredictable. Sometimes the „plant” stops for no reason. Sometime it crawls like a giant snail, smashing the settlements that cross its path

Lumeria is one of several zones located within the Goldilocks band of a tidally locked world, placed inside the Strip, a relative habitable area (roughly 300 km wide), bordered by approximately 700 km of land where life is just a matter of survival .

The Strip isn't stable. Safe zones exist only where terrain offers shelter. Convection winds tear across the its peaks, making the most high grounds uninhabitable.

“Humans “ live in the middle zone. They are the mutated descendants of ancient colonists forced to crash-land on this planet. Towns rise where the climate is stable for a while, then empty when the temperature shifts.. Usually they are walled cities, where contamination is kept under control(ish) surrounded by outskirts that provide food and energy.

Being forced to resist the permanent assault of the indigenous creatures, the descendants chose the survival through mutation and although everything tries to kill you, some creatures could be domesticated, as Harvesters and Globbacks .

Harvesters are made-creatures,  created a long time ago by the initial colonists, but their resemblance to their initial creations is questionable.
Their use is the same .Basically, they can melt anything into organic goo, which they swallow. Their residue can be processed and turned into edible mold.

The principle behind their biology was replicated more or less , being used to create odd harvester energy plan, that can run basically on anything. They are surrounded by mining villages. Even if the principle is the same, the result, based on local biology, is more unpredictable. Sometimes the „plant” stops for no reason. Sometime it crawls like a giant snail, smashing the settlements that cross its path

Lumeria is one of several zones located within the Goldilocks band of a tidally locked world, placed inside The Strip a relative habitable area (roughly 300 km wide), bordered by by approximately 700 km of land that never truly allows life to settle. The rest of the planet is hellish. The line wobbles due to tectonic activity and the most affected are its borders. So they have to search for a better place once in a few generations.

LUMERIA is just a portion of the Strip and it's the "Catholic" one. There are other zones who kept their Catholic name for Lumerians ( they are named different, of course by their inhabitants). - Marrie, Yuseph, Yoodash, Lookash and so on . They are in different technological stages. There are commercial links and small groups that can make the travel, but they are formed from particular special individuals. Large armies cannot be used, so they kept their independence

This is the City of Suni, at the end of The Forest of Whisps.

This is a brief chronology of events that led to present days of Lumeria.

• A colony ship carrying settlers and laboratories (able to replicate animals and plants), crash-landed on this extreme planet. Survival pods were scattered across the surface, but they used the transportation to reach the safe zones. The safe zones were separated by mountains and rifts, but in the beginning it was not a problem. Some of the initial tech was saved;
• This stability did not last because the Lumeria’s ecosystem was rather parasitic. The infection of the colonists and their ecosystem begun after the direct contact with the native environment.
• Most colonists died. The survivors learned to rely on med-kits based on symbiosis with the local parasites ( or rather on their enemies);
• Some parasites exhibited psychic control, so hallucinating soldiers butchered whole settlements. The colonists were forced to dispose of the fire power and stick with the close combat weapons;
• Traveling between zones became increasingly dangerous as traveling and contact meant exposing the zones to new types of infection. Isolated enclaves formed, surviving only through controlled symbiosis;
• The Catholic enclave went rogue and, having access to cloning and organic tech, launched a crusade against neighboring zones.
• Earth animals mutated over generations, merging with the local biome. All people suffered mutations;
• Angloo byproducts became essential for mages and were harvested at great risk. The med-kits became "glyphs" and they were used to boost abilities. Mages entered deeper symbiosis to increase survivability;
• Society became neo-medieval with the Catholic model as a visually base. Today society consists of clans, walled cities, and cave settlements. Hunters and scavengers search for rare biological materials and ancient technology. Only mages, supported by Colossi and boosted hunter teams, can travel between zones or search the ridges.

Lumeria is one of several zones located within the Goldilocks band of a tidally locked world, placed inside the Strip, a relative habitable area (roughly 300 km wide). The Strip isn't stable. Safe zones exist only where terrain offers shelter. Convection winds tear across the its peaks, making the most high grounds uninhabitable. The thin line of life wobbles due to tectonic activity affecting its stable borders. “Humans “ live in the middle zone. They are the mutated descendants of ancient colonists forced to crash-land on this planet.

Pillars of Vaerys were initially clone farms. The project was initiated by Catholics in their attempt to recreate "pure" creatures using kids that had the most "angelic" facial features. They considered they should never know anything besides the Bible, where they believed all the answers could be found. The cloning vats were hijacked through the water system by the resident parasites, who managed to "understand" the conditioning and figure out its uses. Batch after batch was lost until they found the perfect pace for their project.

Angloos have insect-like behavior. They are blind and sense their surroundings using their chemical senses. They are asexual, so they depend on their cocoons, made from the original colonists' vats. They are conditioned from birth as the Catholics wanted. All they learn is obedience to God, all they know are psalms.

Their human resemblance is preserved to a certain age, when they form their cocoons, where they melt and re-form. The new creatures get their wings, as the parasites learned somehow that their angelic imagery must be replicated in their external appearance. In their new form they can move at insane speed and become the protectors of their hive and food providers. Out of pure luck, they are very territorial and bound by the specific ecosystem provided by the pillars, so they are uninterested in the outside area, because they would have been nightmare predators.

Their "melt" is harvested, because it's a psychotropic substance and an essential ingredient in cementing the link between mages and their host and in binding glyphs to weapons. There are several ways poachers can escape undetected, but they need mages for it. Mages can hide the group's chemical trail, predict the direction of the attack — because it's too fast for the human eye — and sense their parasites, marking their positions. As long as they are not alerted, they are easy prey. Once the cover is blown, all is going haywire.

Some of the reformed Angloos preserve their reason. Neither human nor insect-like. Like specialized bees, they can operate and organize the "workers" in some alien, human-like behavior. They are called Vaerys and they can talk, using template psalms to explain anything.

Some of the vats malfunction and produce "humans." They are oddities, recognized by their chemical scent but completely avoided by both sides. They are the perfect outcasts of this world, wandering aimlessly, belonging nowhere.

Lumeria is a portion of a 300km wide band-like zone (also called a Goldilocks zone), circling a tidally locked planet, trapped between its forever sunlit half and its other dark half, buried in eternal night. The zone is called The Strip

The corridor of life wobbles sometimes due to tectonic activity and as a side effect, towns and living areas are swallowed either by scorching heat or unbearable frost, making the border zone unstable and somehow ethereal.

Plants are fungal, with wide leaves and dark-colored in order to catch the dim light of the dying star that hosts the planet.

Humans live in the middle and they are the mutated descendants of long-forgotten colonists. Mages are the most altered, living in symbiosis with the native parasites, in a permanent struggle for control between two beings sharing the same body. This painful pact gives them special abilities, which can be called, with some indulgence, powers.

They are grouped in Triads of mages, a relationship based on their parasites' mating cycle. The most brutal and ruthless mages live in the border zone. They are called, with some inherent lack of imagination, Border-mages.

For no particular reason, Border-mages are drawn toward strange beings, inhabiting the Strip's borders. No one knows whether they are separate organisms or parts of a single immense entity living beneath the ground, as their palm-tree like structures seem to be some kind of receptacles - tall, hollow and unaffected by the powerful convection winds that sweep the surface.

The creatures are known by the name of Ancients and they are old and alien in appearance.

Border-mages search and feed them (they don't need much food, though, but it must be thrown in the central area between the "palm-trees") and then remain motionless before the creatures. While frozen, the mage's human half goes asleep while their parasite and the Ancient appear to communicate in an unknown language for some time.

When their human side finally awakens, they seem to be able to predict imminent dangers - storms, tectonic shifts, wobbling tides, earthquakes, and other misfortunes.

Lumeria is one of several zones located within the Goldilocks band of a tidally locked world, placed inside the Strip, a relatively habitable area (roughly 300 km wide).

Life survives only in the thin twilight band where the two extremes meet, a 300 km-wide habitable band circling the planet. Towns rise where the climate is stable for a while, then empty when the temperature shifts dramatically.

Plants are usually dark-violet, build to thrive in the eternal dim-light. Fungi are the dominant lifeform. Most of them are glowing in the dark and use bio luminescence to attract creatures.

The world has two moons. The Broken Moon is the nearest one and it's not fully formed as it is the result of a powerful cosmic collision of a meteor with a nearby planet. Anyway, its orbit is too close to the Strip in a fragile equilibrium with Strip's gravitational field. This fact, combined with its irregular form and its still-wobbling orbit, makes it affect the Strip during its path.

Near the Bricks territory lies the Forest of Whisps. Naturally it has a fungal nature and it's populated by ethereal creatures that use the electrical buoyancy generated by the Broken Moon's orbit to float forever while glowing, much like fireflies. They are called Whisps, a made up word because they look much like the fairytale's wisps of the ancients and they have a distinct smell of cheese, but the resemblance stops here.

However, it's better to avoid contact with bare skin, because, like anything else in this world, it's parasitic and predatory in nature. Once they stick to the skin they try to settle and grow, so the best thing to do is to deprive them of light.