Amalgam of Five Cities from the realms of the Pantheon of Branch and Crown, Nû emerged from the chaos of The Shattering of the World Tree in the final days of the War of Serpents upon the Palace of Leaves, a vast primordial forest realm.

None of those surviving know if it was an attack upon the cities from which the city was formed, a deliberate protection or summoning of the pantheon themselves, or the wildness of The Shattering itself - but the tales spoken by those who now call it home speak of chaos and terror as districts found themselves shifted wholesale, emerging abutting one another in the shadow of the vast toweringly high walls of the Crownspire, the palace from which the realm takes it's name.

None has entered the Crownspire since then, none emerged, but its shadow still casts itself upon the Five Cities and the Wild Wood beyond.

Languages commonly spoken here include: Throne, Dwarven, Kromverd and Ythian; a few retain knowledge of Elven or Irethari. Beneath, in the Murk, folks speak: Throne, Elven, Kromverd, Kaelaan, and the whispers of Kithian.
This message was last edited by the GM at 13:14, Mon 19 Feb.

Nestled against the Crownspire - citadal of the Pantheon of Crown and Branch - the meld-city of Nu is bustling and vibrant, centre to trade with the Reach and the Wildwood

• City of Lethras: torn from the civilised realm of Kromsheim, Lethras was a rural regional capital in the temperate northern regions, it's krom and human citizens living in a strict hierarchy but relative comfort. It's tiled low-slung villas, with their porticos and inner courtyards, have slowly been repurposed to gardens and markets. It consists of:
  • Lethras is the mainstay of the city, once a suburb in a rural regional capital
  • The Sorrows remains a shanty town sitting where the cliffs of Iorn collapses onto a district of Lethras
  • The Dredge is the canal district running through Lethras, home to markets and smaller villas
  • Wash Fens is the district beyond the Wynd Gate, comprised of farms and fenland
• City of Iorn pulled from the south equatorial region of Kromsheim, Iorn was a crowded metropolis known for its poets and scholars. Although in the same styles as the villas of Lethras, its townhouses and coffee shops have a different vibrancy to them, even now
  • Iorn Heights is the mainstay of the city, once a bustling academic district
  • The Sorrows remains a shanty town sitting where the cliffs of Iorn collapses onto a district of Lethras
  • The Fallen is a collapsed sinkhole lake, where the melding of Mournhold and the waters of the Cut are believed to have undermined
  • Iornshade is the district beyond the southern cliffs, a fishing community
• The Mournhold ripped from the worked mountains labyrinths of Delve, the brutalist exterior of the hold of the dwarvish Mourn Clans bellies many levels of subterranean farms and forges, descending until signs of collapse and melding with the local earth take hold. Always pragmatic, the high rooftops now sport gardens and hives
  • Mournhold is the mainstay of the city, the clanholds of the pre-eminent clans
  • Blend is the clanholds of the out-clans, interspersed with foundries from Ythian
  • The Cut is the southern lakeshore, brought through with the hold and immeasurably deep
  • Mournshade is the district beyond the Mournfast, newly built dwarven homes for waifs and strays and clanless
• City of Ythian ruined and buried by its emergence, Ythian was once the premier war yards upon Mistwood, the hulking horned constructs who were its denizens masters of arcaneotech and war machines. Few remain, passing on the knowledge of their forefathers in the foundries that remain, and this part of Nû is the most degenerate, the streets of Ythian half submerged and the buildings falling to lack of knowledge to maintain them
  • Ythian Foundaries is the mainstay of the city, the factories and assemblies
  • The Scraps are the dross heaps and buried foundries beyond the Twin Gates, another set of slums
  • The Murk is the northern lakeshore, shallow before it to dives off into murky waters
• The Bonewood summoned from the realm of Wilder Caern, this mystic wooded promontory and the lakeshore it bordered are the cause of Ythian's submergence. Isolated from much of Nû, its glens and gentle rivers hold none of the deorlings who once inhabited it, but the detritus of other species
  • The Fold is the main settlement, a bonewood dotted with communities and hamlets, streams and groves
  • The Spire is a rock stack in the Murk, with a ruined temple atop
  • Ink Town is a den of scum and villany, home to elves and irethari, thieves and paupers

Within the ruined temple atop the Bonewood Spire, is said to be the entrance to the Night Road that leads to Tiam's Coil, the official one.

Beneath the Five Cities and suffused with constant sourceless whalesong, the Murk Below is a dim-lit sunken and flooded pocket realm reachable through the muddied lake within Nû known as The Murk. Rumours say it formed from the three cities that 'should' have been tugged into the Palace of Leaves when Nû formed in the Shattering.

It consists of:

• City of Unity: torn from the enlightened realm of Aetheral Solus, Unity was the capital of elven culture and theurgic learning, filled with the ivory towers of its magi and the contemplative scale-tiled seerholmes of it's thaumaturgic readers and philosophers. Abandoned and flooded, it's towers are fallen and interspersed with petrified trees and the detritus of the Shattering, few of its citizens survived and almost all were evacuated to Nû
• Undercity of Ulmur: pulled from the turbulent realm of Storm-Wracked Thaum, Ulmur was a bustling oceanic trench city filled with artisans and artificers; today, it's population declining, it is three-quarters empty
• City of Quietus: ripped from the shadowed realm of Ruined Kalmesh, Quietus brought with it the quiescent shadow forest that surrounded the district that emerged; they have survived the flooding, growing darker and more tangled about the city

It is a vaguely spherical realm barely bigger than the melded cities, bounded on one side by the trench wall of Ulmur North and on all others by the Murksea, a impenetrable forest of shadow and kelp from which predators occasionally emerge. At the apex of the sphere is the Gate to and from Nû.

Its population is small: a few thousand kelpie, some theotechnicians, a few hundred kith, some shadowcasters, and a handful of risen elven protectors.

Within a forgotten part of the shadow forest of Quietus is a second entrance to the Night Roads, one that leads to a painting hidden in the basement of Tiam's Coil
This message was last edited by the GM at 13:10, Mon 19 Feb.

Ruling over Nû, the Shattered Council is a hidebound body, ruling by consensus but unexpectedly stable. It consists of:

The City Elders

• Auroc of Ythian (1)
• Branchkeeper of the Fold (1)
• Clanspeakers of Mournhold (8), helmed by the High Speaker of the Stonesinger clan but representing the other Mournhold Clans - Anvilheart, Copperhand, Shalehand and Rimepeak  - and the Out-Clans - Doomhammer, Tinfist and Warmason
• House Lords of Lethras (3), helmed by the Tusk-Lord of the Krom'Atal, but also representing the Krom'Ekel and Krom'Orum
• House Lords of Iorn (2), helmed by the Tusk-Lord of the Krom'Ukun, but also representing the Krom'Ogun

The Guilders

• Guildmasters and Guildmistresses (12), helmed by the Guild Lord of the Guild of Coin, but representing the many others:
  • Braziers, responsible for the cities lamps and hearths and chimneys
  • Coin, responsible for coin and taxation
  • Fens, responsible for farming and the upkeep of the fens
  • Fishers, responsible for fisherfolk
  • Foresters, responsible for logging and the roads into the Wild Wood
  • Grain, responsible for milling
  • Hops, responsible for ale, wine and brandies
  • Mythkeepers, responsible for the keeping of the histories
  • Preservation, responsible for the keeping of rites and ceremonies and lineage
  • Reclamation, responsible for excavation, scavenging and salvage
  • Salt, responsible for spices, most notably salt
  • Silk, responsible for weavers and clotheirs
  • Springs, responsible for the city's waterways and sewers and the upkeep of the Cut and the Murk
  • Towers, responsible for the six Ley Towers that server the Tideskimmers
  • Watermen, responsible for stevedoring the barges
  • Writs, responsible for notaries, writs and contracts and the keeping of the law

The Sceptres

• Priests of the Scale (2), helmed overall by the High Deor of the High Fane of Lethras, but also the Deor of the Amber Cathedral
• Crown Captains (7), helmed by the Lord-Captain of the Sorrowfast, representing the other Crown Captains of the Gates of: Lethrasfast, Wynd, Twins, Mournfast, Sinister, and Deosil
• Priests of the Cities (5), deferring to the High Deor, the Deors of Bonewood, Lethras, Iorn, Mournhold and Ythian

This message was last edited by the GM at 09:01, Fri 03 May.

Of the City of Lethras

• Angus Krom'Ekel, krom politician and heir to his House
• Loken, his krom bodyguard
• Old Tembe, a logger
• Holm, a logger

The Bluefall Family

• Tulia, matriarch and mother of Ravain
• Roghain, a counsellor to the Krom'Ekel and father of Ravain (deceased)
• Eneise, steward in the service of the Krom'Ekel and wife of Ravain
• Gwendolyn, teenage daughter of Eneise and Ravain
• Revan, teenage son of Eneise and Ravain
• Barnaby, steward of the Bluefall vila and brother of Ravain
• Cecilia, sister of Roghain and Ravain's aunt
• Cicero, son of Cecilia and Ravain's cousin

The Garrick Family

• Ethan, patriarch and journeyman in the Guild of Watermen, father of Aiden
• Kailie, homemaker and mother of Aiden
• Hailie, apprentice in the Guild of Watermen and older sister of Aiden
• Cole, initiate Uexian priest and younger brother of Aiden
• Ava, younger sister of Aiden

The Lerrin Family

• Tobias Sr., patriarch and grandfather of Kara
• Tasha, grandmother of Kara (deceased)
• Ander, smallholder of the villa-farm and father of Kara
• Ella, steward of the villa and mother of Kara
• Wells, missing uncle of Kara
• Tobias Jr., farm labor and older brother of Kara
• Alice, younger sister of Kara
• Tasha Kline, married to a scholar from Iorn and Kara's aunt
• Eloise Gadry, married to Ariese, mother of Arabelle and Kara's other aunt
• Ariese Gadry, a weaver and father of Arabelle
• Arabelle, a weaver and the late wife of Laneisen (deceased)

Of the City of Iorn

• Guildmistress Maerle Krom'Atal of the Guild of Preservation, a krom historian and cousin of the Tusk Lord
• Deor Jemin of the Amber Cathedral, a krom cleric
• Alais and Callam Krom'Ukul, krom nobles
• Visny, a krom historian and journeywomen in the Guild of Mythkeepers

Of the Mournhold

• Banner Rimepeak, dwarven grandmaster and the Hammer of Mournhold
• Preserver Yeshra Tinfist, dwarven master of the Guild of Reclamation
• Barak Stonesinger, dwarven blacksmith and Laneisen's adoptive father
• Nargul Shalehand, a dwarven warrior and pupil of Fernus
• Absalom, Bartholemew and Cam Shalehand, three dwarven engineers working with the Guild of Towers
• Wenda Forgeborn, a clanless dwarven Reader of the Tiles in Mournshade with a dozen children
• 'The Boy', a dwarven child who can seemingly see celestial sparks, called a caulwright by Tiam

Clan Anvilheart

• Fodrug, a dwarven warrior and the previous weaponmaster (deceased)
• Gaulus, dwarven merchant and father of Fernus
• Murdoc, dwarven merchant and brother of Fernus
• Gravetender Gavelda, dwarven priestess of Cowl and one of twin sisters to Fernus
• Earthspeaker Gwenida, dwarven priestess of Ghuul and one of twin sisters to Fernus

Of the City of Ythian

• Cidolfus Thane, a Ythian master in the Guild of Springs and survivor of the Shattering
• Amicus Tarus, a Ythian master in the Guild of Towers and survivor of the Shattering
• Dain and Vecan, apprentices

Of the Bonewood

• Kae Irsei, an elven fence
• Old Herise, an elven wise woman and Reader of the Tiles (deceased)
• Kiessa, her daughter
• Brer the Vain, a thug (deceased)
• Titus, Gevurah's ex gang boss(deceased)

Of the City of Unity

• Jyn Olmechi Cora, an elven patrol-leader

Of the Undercity of Ulmer

• ???, ???

Of the City of Quietus

• ???, ???

Foreigners, Travellers and Other Visitors
Of The Reach

• Elehendrai Vorendi, Emissary of the Silkmistress of The Reach and her daughter
• Felisoran Perechi, Tidecaptain of the brassclad airship, Susurration of Mind
• Alhamehndi Korechi, Tidecaptain of the sloop, Autumnal Hymn

This message was last edited by the GM at 17:31, Sun 17 Mar.