Lexi (94:08)
Today's infiltrating the Tri Council topic is the Fade. The Fade is the middle third of the world, and its climate is not like the extreme hot of the Burn, which is north, or the freezing cold of the shade, which is south. But it is on the cooler side, so you might think that it's a happy medium, but it airs a little bit more like the shade. It is often snowy and it does occasionally sleet here, but it never rains. To give you an idea there of the climate, the clouds are always colorful and forever in a constant state of golden hour color. Remember, one knows the time of day based on the silver ribbons in the sky. Let's talk about the Royals of the Fade. Sadly, we don't know really anything about the previous rulers, aside from it seemed like a flourishing kingdom with lots of art and culture and one could truly live. So for now, we'll have to jump straight into the current royal family. The King of the Fade is Caddock Vhagor. His parents are Ostrin and Kovina Vhagor, the previous rulers of the Burn, and is the sibling of Khan, King of the Burn. Veya, his only sister and twin of Tyroth, the King of the Shade. Kadok's wife and queen is the Thea. So she's the Queen who just helped Rave with all the wind and getting the dragon's way and all that. Even though the Fade is to Thea's ancestral home, she is from here. She was a princess of the Fade before. She is looked down upon because she can only hear one elemental song. Claude Khaduk is the father of Turin Vhagor, a tribe bead who has not been seen in many phases. As we speculated a lot last episode. The rumors say that he has gone mad and Kadok hid him away rather than make the problem public. And we know from Elowen's diary that Caddock wooed the young queen into bed and impregnated her, so therefore he would be bound to her, married to her, and become king. The different areas of the Fade are Gor, which is the capital of the Fade. This is where the royal family lives and trials are held, like the trial with the Guild Nobles. Then we have something called the Ditch, which is the main thoroughfare or path, road and Gore. The ditch is 33 stories deep and each level is accessed via steep stairways. The bottom level is busy with many common Fae hustling about doing their chores like cleaning snow or chopping kindling, and merchants with carts full of tinctures, ruined gadgets, and crates full of exotic foods. The other levels are filled with homes like Rave and Essie's Rip. Above the Ditch are sky bridges that connect the two sides, allowing for easy travel. Oh, it's beautiful. In my mind here, I love it. But what's not so beautiful is the other Undercity. The Undercity, on the other hand, is a large jagged divide in the ground below Gorr, directly beneath the wall of the Fade. It is riddled with abandoned dragon bloodstone, mineshafts and where a lot of unhoused people end up. The air is thick and there is no sun. Some people born in the Undercity don't even know what the Aurora ribbons are like. Essie before Rey found her. The Undercity is the slums of Gore and known as a dangerous, dangerous place to live or visit. This is due to some of those mineshafts collapsing and creatures from either side of the wall sneak in to find shelter. The Undercity is also known for its battle pits, one of which was run by Tarik Relikan, but has since been shut down by the fear to ath. Thanks to rave, many people in the Undercity are starving to death or steal food to survive. Those who do find food are typically eating bland foods like stale bread and plain corn rule every slumber. The folks who live here gamble on whether or not they will make it to the next rise. Going back above ground, there is the Wall. No, not like in Game of Thrones. The wall is a massive stone wall that encircles the Fade like a belt, running parallel from east to west as far as the eye can see. Remember that boulder created this? As told back in the prologue, most of the Fade's population built homes within the wall in heavily populated areas. A trail trench is dug down into the wall, splitting it in two, creating a sheltered ditch with sky bridges stretching between both sides. These ditches are deep enough that people who live here feel a sense of safety within these trenches. Although there are plenty of predators down here in the shelter ditch, if not more, they're just more well camouflaged. There are rubbish chutes tunneled into the wall that go down past ground level, past a few levels of the Undercity, and spit out into the layer of something called a velvet crater trog that eats Gorr's trash. Beside the trash chutes are also holes in the wall that lead to areas that are inhabited by predators. Then the last place that I want to touch on in the Fade is Bogarth, the Molten Maw nesting grounds. Molten moths are the colorful dragons of the Fade. I'll talk a lot more about them in a different episode when we'll talk more about dragons. Bogarth is a vast stretch of boggy wasteland that gobbles up almost everything in muddy sulfuric burps. Molten moths form their nests attend top of stable mounds here, building great circular globes from trees and branches and laying their eggs within. Let's talk about the military system of the Fade. The Kingdom of the Fade used to be a creator's blessed place to live, where children's giggles echoed throughout the ditch. And I say that in a very merry good way, even though the ditch sounds kind of scary. Like I said, the colorful sky inspired an era of music and arts. But when the current king, Karak Vhagor was sworn in, everything changed to him, caring only about his military might. The military in the Fade is not voluntary, but by conscription, every child is forced to go before a truth tune and have their magical abilities checked through this screening process. This is required for every offspring. There are folks who speak out against the King and parents of gifted children who try to keep their young from being checked, but it doesn't usually end up well for those who have attempt this. If a youngling is discovered to hear one or more elemental songs, they are taken right then and there away from their parents and conscripted into military training at Jalgad. Both the parents and kids know that once this happens, there's a high likelihood that they will never see each other again. In exchange for having their children ripped from them, parents are given a bucket of bloodstone as gratitude. The children who do not hear any songs are forcefully held down and clipped, forever marked as a lower class null moving into the Fear to ath. The Fear to ATH is the rebellious group who are working to counter the tyranny leeching across the kingdoms. And the Fear to ATH are most prominent in the Fade. They have an underground safe haven called the Flourish which is ruled by the Elding that is rumored to be somewhere in the South. Again, we're not entirely clear on if the south means the Shade or just a southern part of the Fade. That's kind of kind of what we're thinking though. There is propaganda against the Fear to ATH with the Crown. The Crown is really pedaling hard with the propaganda against the Fear to ask within the Fade. There are propaganda posters warning citizens that the Fear do ATH wants to steal their children to exploit them for their own political game as an attempt to weaken the Kingdom. More like the Crown is exploiting children to use for their own political game because they have weakened the Kingdom. But anyway, because of how desperate citizens are are for any kind of comfortable life because there is so much poverty, the Crown no longer needs to threaten its lower class. Instead, they offer buckets of Bloodstone and better accommodations on the northern side of the Wall, which is where the sun shines most. So that makes it the nicer spot for any information about the ath. Turning neighbors on one another is basically what they're doing here. So let's talk about the hierarchy of magic users and Gnolls and how everybody's treated in the Fade. Gnolls are viewed as lesser than those who can hear the Creator's songs. It doesn't matter if you can hear only one of the Creator songs, you would still be considered in significantly higher status than a Gnoll. The very last thing to say here about the Fade is. Of the three documented moonfalls within the past 23 phases one landed in the Fade. More specifically, the molten maw that fell was large enough to destroy a chunk of the wall and litter the sky with a cloud of dust and sand that could be seen all the way from gore. We don't get clarification on the exact location of this moonfall, just that it smashed part of the wall. So good thing for us to note there. All right, everybody. And there we have it. The Fade.
