Caligo
There are people alive today who have never seen the horizon. They were born within the walls. Their parents were born within the walls. Their grandparents too. And their grandparents before then. Stretching back to the first generation who stood beneath these stones and called them Salvation. The walls are all they have ever known. And for most of them, the walls are enough.
Overview
Caligo is the walled city. It is also — depending on whom you ask — the world. Officially, beyond the walls there is nothing. No civilization. No mercy. Only the ruined, and the patient ancient things that walk the fog with intention. Whether this is true is a question that the Regime has spent generations preventing anyone from answering.
The Three Walls
Three concentric stone rings, each vast enough to house an entire civilization inside its shadow.
| Ring | Function |
|---|---|
| Outermost Wall | The first line. The weathered one. Pocked with the impact-scars of decades of kaiju assaults that no one in polite society discusses. Within it lies farmland, fields, and the working cantons of the outer ring. |
| Middle Wall | Encloses the dense city. Brick pressed against brick. Streets always loud, always moving. Where most citizens live. |
| Innermost Wall | Encloses the capital. Dark spires, gothic arches, lamp light in every window. At its heart, the castle of Rimalath, the immortal God-King. |
The Covenant
The legitimating myth of the Regime, repeated as prayer and enforced as law:
He gave us the walls. We give him our gratitude. This is the covenant. This is the law.
The covenant has four practical effects:
- The God-King is the source of all authority.
- The walls are inviolable.
- Magic is forbidden — to practice magic is to defy the God-King, and to defy him is to betray every soul behind his walls.
- What lies beyond the walls is not to be discussed, investigated, or imagined.
What Lies Beyond
The official story is that beyond the walls there is nothing. Ruin. Wasteland. The Ruined — vast, ancient creatures (popularly: kaiju) that occasionally test the outermost wall and are repelled by the Garrison's cannons.
Some people, in cellars and back rooms, have started suspecting that the official story is incomplete.
Inside the Walls
- Markets open at dawn. Cities operate normally.
- The Inquisition roams at all hours. They are not visible patrol, exactly. They are the threat-of-presence — the carriage at the end of the street, the silver raven on the lapel of a man you did not realize was watching you.
- Children learn the prayers before they learn to read.
- Magic is suppressed by reflex. Citizens who exhibit innate magic do not have it long. The Inquisition takes them. Their families are not informed where they go.
Notable Cantons
- Wickward — Outer ring. Old, working-class, garrison lazy on rainy nights.
- Heron — Outer ring. Walls in disrepair. Site of Orvin's safehouse.
Theme
Heavy inspiration from Attack on Titan: three walls, civilization within, ancient things outside, and a government whose answers about all three are not the whole truth.