The Three Tiers

The empire is divided into three tiers by two Great Walls, and the question of which tier a person was born into shapes nearly everything about their life — what they eat, what abilities they develop, how long they expect to live, and what they are permitted to want.

The Inner Tier

The innermost zone, furthest from the coast and furthest from Leviathan contact. The least saturated with Leviathan blood. The most powerful, politically. Its inhabitants are, on average, the least capable of the extraordinary things that blood enables — and the most capable of controlling who else gets to use those things.

The Inner Tier contains the capital and most of the empire’s administrative apparatus. It has not experienced a Leviathan incursion in recorded history.

The Middle Tier

The middle zone. Moderately saturated. Home to most of the empire’s population and most of its economic activity. The Great Walls on either side of this tier are the primary military investment of the empire — the eastern Wall faces the Outer Tier, and the western Wall faces the Inner.

Brinegate sits at the eastern edge of the Middle Tier, in the administrative zone controlled by the gate complex. It is, technically, a Middle Tier city. Practically, it is something else — a place where the boundaries of all three tiers are simultaneously present and negotiable.

The Outer Tier

The outermost zone, between the eastern Wall and the coast. Highest Leviathan blood saturation. Most dangerous. Most expensive to defend. Also: the source of the most potent abilities, the most unusual vegetation, and the most varied population of people who have decided, for one reason or another, that they would rather be capable than safe.

The Outer Tier is not officially abandoned. It is, however, officially under-resourced. Adventuring guilds that operate in the Outer Tier fill a function the empire finds useful and does not want to pay for directly.

The Walls

The Great Walls were built before the current empire, by a civilization that left almost no other records. They are maintained, not understood. Several generations of engineers have learned how to replace damaged sections with materials that behave similarly to the original stone. No one knows what the original stone was made of, or why it holds.

The Walls are also ecosystems. The Leviathan-bled soil that accumulates in their shadow produces vegetation unlike anything else in the empire. This is considered a problem by the garrison and a field site by every naturalist who has ever visited.