Tuluk Derail

Inside of Tuluk:

In year 24 of the 22nd Age, Tuluk stood upon the precipice of internal ruin. Templars for and against High Templar Jurinia squared off in the Red Sun Commons. The encounter ends with High Templar Poma Uaptal knocking High Templar Jurinia unconscious and calling for the gates of Tuluk to be closed. Denizens of Tuluk flee as fighting emerges between the two factions within the Unified Order.

It had begun with the shambling groups of people with bags on their heads and any hints of personality vanished from their eyes, the Listless. The same ones that defeated Allanak somewhere out in the sands, and whose numbers grew even as increasing numbers of commoners disappeared. Perhaps the bags were simply a way to disguise that the Listless someone saw was formerly a neighbor that no one had seen in a couple of weeks.

The exact divisions between the templars had been murky and hard to discern, but became obvious during the riots in the Red Sun Commons. It was there that templars started fighting templars. Perhaps it was the simple obviousness, the openness, of this fighting that caused some to flee the city. Until the gates were closed, and only a measured amount of travel in and out of the city became possible.

While nothing further was ever heard of Templar Jurinia, other templars controlling the Listless were eventually beaten back, away from the Red Sun Commons. They retreated into the ruins of the old city and the scrub to the east. High Templar Poma’s forces consolidated in the city center.

Travel in and out of the city was highly restricted by High Templar Poma, such that only citizens and GMH employees could enter and leave Tuluk. After a couple of years, any Tuluki that entered the city did not leave. Within ten years even those family members of the merchant houses were no longer able to get out. Over this time, it became increasingly hard to make contact with people inside of Tuluk via the Way. The last known people to enter Tuluk did so fifteen years after the gates were closed, right before a complete mental barrier descended upon the city.

The last psionic contacts with those inside Tuluk told a grim picture. The Listless faction of Templars had completely turned the human slaves and commoners working the fields and living in the ruins into Listless. They made repeated raids on the Warrens to recruit even more, raids which were met from violence from the faction loyal to High Templar Poma. The noble houses excepting Winrothol aligned themselves with these Loyalists, along with most of the Sun Legions. The Merchant House members straddled an uneasy divide, doing their best not to be subsumed into the conflict and commoners did their best to survive, minds intact.
Outside of Tuluk:

After the pitched battle in Red Sun Commons, Morin’s was swollen with those who had fled the fighting, growing in a number of weeks in population. Building of simple structures over the next couple of years would see folks housed, the village growing both in physical size as well as capabilities, as merchants, hunters, makers and all sorts set up shop in what they had thought would be a temporary refuge, bringing increased commerce to the village. Few return to Tuluk, and after Tuluki’s stop returning from the city at all, even fewer until none do.

Originally, several hundred soldiers and around fifteen templars remained outside of Tuluk, stationed in Morin’s and Iyan Iskandiir. Within a couple of years of the gate closure, the Sun Legions started to recruit from among the refugees and others in Morin’s, to replenish their numbers. The Levy does not exist in a formal way outside of Tuluk, although from time to time the Sun Legion will ask residents of Morin’s or Gol Krathu to assist with specific threats.

The Sun Legion soldiers protecting Morin’s were assisted by a small Lyksaen warband for a number of years, until losses and old age took their toll and the remaining slaves were retired to positions of teaching new Legion recruits. Law, order and taxes are maintained in Morin’s by the soldiers. A captain commands these soldiers, bolstered by three Lieutenants. Templars are very rarely seen outside of Iyan Iskandiir since psionic contact was lost with the inside of Tuluk. All soldiers are housed either in Iyan Iskandiir or Morin’s, and are rarely seen outside of these two places.

People born in the Gol Krathu are still considered citizens by the Sun Legion and Templars outside of Tuluk, assuming they are properly inked, a duty maintained by the Sun Legion. Due to the lack of former Lirathans and the Heart, Morin’s feels more open than inside of Tuluk did, although Legionaires are not above doing their own disappearing of troublemakers and those who speak ill of Tuluk. Otherwise, Tuluki culture is fairly frozen in how it used to be, with slight compromises to survival.