Tales of the Dispute

The Bramble

A bustling trading settlement in the Dispute, nestled amongst the branches of a giant plant..

From a distance, it appears to be a giant tangle of thorny vegetation, the size of a small mountain. Giant rose blooms, the size of elephants, sprout from various branches.

Upon closer inspection, it is a small city, constructed among the branches of a titanic plant. Its streets are branches, pruned and shaped to grow wide and flat. The streets spiral up the Bramble to different levels of the city. The buildings are of various materials, mostly imported from elsewhere, but many official government buildings and homes of the wealthy are grown from the living epidermis of the Bramble itself.

Bramble's economy is based on two things: First, Bramble serves as a trading post and marketplace for the Trade Archaic, the recovery of artifacts from the Dispute. The government of Bramble gets a piece of every sale.

Second, the various perfumes and chemicals exuded by the giant blooms of the Bramble, are valuable commodities.

Blooms of the Bramble

Many of the branches of the Bramble are festooned with giant rose-like flowers, commonly called Blooms. They appear in a multitude of colors. Various valuable chemicals can be extracted from the Blooms.

Different colors provide different benefits: * Perfumes * Preservative chemicals * Healing Elixirs * Poisons

The blooms are all officially the property of the city of Bramble, and the Lady at Bloom.

Ministry of Horticultural Civil Engineering

An official group of gardeners, scholars, and cultivarists who are responsible for maintaining the health of Bramble, along with civic infrastructure. They are the ones who prune and shape the branches to create streets and ramps used to traverse the city. They also maintain and exploit the chemical-producing Blooms.

The Ministry gardeners have vast amounts of botanical knowledge, and many of their horticultural techniques are state secrets.

The Ministry also has extraordinary emergency legal powers, available when the health of the Bramble is at risk.

Thorns

The warrior militia of the Bramble. Their armor is made of specially-treated pieces of the Bramble's epidermis, and is carved and painted with colorful floral motifs.

They have a complex system of ranks that only use botanical terms.

Its commonly believed their blades are literal thorns, but, in fact, they only use Imperial steel weapons. Many of the Thorns are former or even fugitive Imperial Janissaries.

They are absolutely loyal to the Lady at Bloom.

The Lady at Bloom

The mysterious ruler of Bramble. An elderly woman who's ruled Bramble for longer than living memory. She sits upon the Perianth Throne in her palace, called the Centifolia Bloom. It is a literal flower high up in the Bramble, with her palace at the center.

She's always referred to as The Lady. Her true name is unknown. Some believe she was the city's founder, and shaped the first streets. She rarely leaves the Centifolia Bloom.