Shikaigo

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Shikaigo

Realm town of Surijayto

Location: Smoke / Core Smoke

CHARACTER: Smoke and soot covers all. The dregs of a thousand chimneys are expelled from their fireplaces to cling to the sides of the buildings of the town, enter the lungs of the people on the street, and mingle with the rest of the Para-Elemental Plane of Smoke. Technology and industrialisation are the gods here—all other powers must bow to their all-reaching effects.

Within the smoke hangs a city floating on the level top of a mountain. It’s populated by the petitioners of Surijayto, a power of industry and invention. It’s said that he has something in common with Tvashtri, the Vedic power of invention—but Surijayto represents industry for its own sake. Chant goes he does not even involve himself actively in the lives of his worshippers. While some cutters have linked him to the Japanese pantheon, truth is he’s more of an independent sort of power, even though he maintains a similar style of culture and ethics as they do. As a matter of fact, his worshippers only worship him as a symbol: Even Surijayto realises that he must bow to the whims of industry. 

The realm town itself is one large factory, with many different sections and managerial branches. It’s a massive place, and one that the Merkhants would love to control. It supplies both the efreet and the djinn with magical and non-magical weapons and other equipment, and by all accounts business is booming—for who is industry to care about the results of its products?

RULER: The ruler of the factory that is Shikaigo is the Factory Chief Serinamo (human proxy priest of Surijayto [she/her] / LN). She administers order to the town and ensures that everything runs smoothly and efficiently. It’s said that she can sense instantly any problems with any system of law and order in the burg, so that she can preemptively stop problems worsening in the bureaucratic morass that is Shikaigo.

The four district managers (planar human priests of Surijayto / LN) each oversee a different quarter of the burg, carrying out Serinamo’s orders and making sure that each zone of the city operates to its full capacity. They are directly involved with their quarters, and each has absolute authority over their factory workers. Should their quarter of the city not operate at its full capacity, they can expect to be replaced and relegated to lesser duties on a lower rung of the factory. The current managers have maintained their positions for at least ten years, so they’re good at what they do. In dealing with outsiders, these cutters are relentless in dealing with those who believe that they can break their system, and treat most planewalkers with a degree of suspicion. Of course, a strong worker can always be added to the assembly lines, whether or not they want to…

BEHIND THE THRONE: ‘Course, the real power in the town is the power Surijayto himself, who makes sure that the town runs well and meets the quotas of production. It suits his designs to make his home in Smoke, and has already surpassed (by far) the production quotas of Sigil’s Great Foundry. The only reason the power isn’t more prominent on the Outer Planes is thought to be due to his location in the Inner Planes. It’s a mystery why he stays in Smoke; perhaps he is seeking to perfect the administration of his factories first before heading for the Great Ring. Then again, he only cares for production for its own sake: he seems to care little whether or not people actually purchase the goods that he makes.

DESCRIPTION: The factory is constructed of metallic pipes and various building and sub-buildings that give an alien feel to it compared to other spaces across the Inner Planes. It looks like the sort of realm that might belong in Mechanus because of its harsh metallic tones, rather than the Great Conflagration. Possibly pouring out more smoke than needs to in order to shield the burg from prying eyes, Shikaigo hangs in central region of the plane. It’s said that Surijayto has deliberately placed his realm away from any place where it could be a major trade spot, for more people visiting brings a greater probability of inefficiency. The realm of Surijayto is classified as a burg, but it’s not exactly that; it’s more of single huge sodding factory. Huge spouts spurt foul-smelling fumes into the air of the town; anyone breathing the smoke (other than Surijayto’s petitioners who are unaffected by its toxins) suffers a –1 to all saving throws while within its foul exhaust. It stinks, but industry isn’t always pretty.

Thanks to its inventiveness and high production capacity, the burg feels considerably more modern than most in the Inner Planes. Advanced clockworks, firearms, and gas masks are just some of the equipment that can be purchased here. Surijayto does not seem interested in what the factory makes, only that his petitioners remains maximally productive at all times. He cares only about creating an industrial utopia, with intake, production, and exportation all combined into one. So far he’s not been as successful as he has hoped, but he continues to direct his proxies and petitioners towards his goal.

The factory has four quarters. There are arranged in a parallel horizontally from one side of the town to another, each named for the function that it provides. The first quarter that a visitor will arrive in is the Admissions Quarter, where raw materials are supplied by traders and other various methods. Each type of good is marked and sent to its proper place within the second area, the Processing Quarter. In this area, the raw materials are processed and graded for imperfections before being sent on. The third area, the Production Quarter, is the most important of them all (at least, that’s the way it looks to outsiders) because it is the area that creates the goods from the materials before being sent off to the fourth area, the Exportation Quarter. The Exportation Quarter isn’t as important as one would think; sure the priests of Surijayto are eager to sell their goods, but they don’t look for a profit. Rather, they look to break even so that they might continue their production.

Each of the Quarters of the city is vast, and are further sub-divided into more specialised areas. One section of a quarter might deal with metallurgy and iron-forging, while another might be involved with the growing of flowers (in enclosed and ventilated glasshouses of course). It’s not the end result of the production, it’s the act of producing and industry the Surijayto represents—which is something no Merkhant will ever understand.

The petitioners in Shikaigo do not require sleep, but the priests of Surijayto have constructed sleeping quarters within each of the four quarters for those visitors to the town that seek to buy the goods or participate in the assembly lines. These rooms are rented out at a cost of five gold per day; meals are extra. Planewalkers see this city as a sort of safe haven in Smoke: While within the factory itself, the smoke is lessened so that it is just about breathable. This is not so much for comfort, but because it is the soot from the plane itself that is used to help fuel the city’s forges. It’s not uncommon to find an adventuring group or two here, licking their wounds and preparing to head back out into the Smoke.

MILITIA: The factory of Shikaigo is protected at all times by half a dozen marut inevitables, which are said to have been a gift from Rudra to Surijayto after some service was performed for the former. The maruts are able to move at inhuman speeds through the pipes and buildings of the factory to respond to threats. Each of them maintains a patrol that takes them through each of the quarters of Shikaigo four times a day, so it’s likely that at least one marut will be near any troublemakers at any given time. Should there be a serious problem, all six of the maruts will converge on any berk who thinks he can give the power the laugh and get away with it.

SERVICES: Almost anything a body wants can be found within the Exportation Quarter of this burg, waiting to be shipped off somewhere. While there’s not a market to be found in this town, a buyer will have to arrange in advance to buy something from Shikaigo. The prices are fair, but planewalkers be warned: the priests of Surijayto don’t accommodate a body who doesn’t order in bulk.

LOCAL NEWS: Recently, the Merkhants who have begun individually to expand to the Inner Planes have begun to make use of the services of Surijayto and the factory of Shikaigo to supply themselves with cheap material for use in their plots and schemes.

Source: This piece is from the Great Elemental Netbook and unfortunately was uncredited. Edited by Jon Winter-Holt. Canonwatch: ‡ This location is homebrew