World and Houses

[pearliest]

The 'world' of Pearl contains seven territories, six of equal size belonging to each house and the Pearl at the center. Within each territory there is a home base for the team (large dot) and a location where resources appear regularly (small dot). Each territory has a distinct motif, generally both in theme with the family's social class and mostly colored in the family's palette. At the borderline between two territories they dramatically shift from one house's look to another, making it obvious when you're crossing into new territory.

About 95% of the buildings in a family's territory cannot actually be entered. They are just adding flavor to the world, not function. Doors are locked, windows seem oddly two dimensional. If you don't know where a family's home/resources are located, it can be hard to pick out from amid the numerous fake buildings.


YOU MAY NOTICE THAT THERE IS NOT A LOT OF DETAIL ON THIS PAGE that's because there's all kinds of tedious details on every other god damn page of this journal! We figure that after a bit of playing, the teams themselves can fill in these details. How is your base laid out? What do those city streets look like? We will accept all kinds of player-made descriptions/blueprints/concept pictures you stole off of Tumblr, and put them all onto their own pages in good time. For now, please enjoy these color palettes and bare-bones descriptions.

The Pearl

At the center of the world is a pearly iridescent, flat, round ring that is neutral territory. Also there's a ballpit in the middle. A very, very large one of undetermined depth. The balls inside the pit look like massive pearls but touching them will reveal they are quite plastic. There is nothing preventing people from fighting in the Pearl but generally speaking fights tend to end once someone falls in a massive ball pit. Don't worry about drowning, though. In the ball pit, the living float and the dead sink.

If you try to leave the world you get this. Perfectly painted, smooth, but absolutely solid and unscratchable.

Uruk Family

Element: Metal
Theme: Nobles
Resource: Baths
The Uruk family are the wealthy nobles whose territory resembles an upper class neighborhood. Their home is one of many mansions in the area, one of the smaller ones, really. The territory is otherwise populated by lovely parks full of trees and flowers, and decoratively cobbled pathways. While the territory is mostly housing, there is an ornate bathhouse with warm and cold baths that are always a clean, beautiful deep red. It also has shampoos, salts, soaps, and fluffy towels, and a few rubber ducks.

Borja Family

Element: Water
Theme: Church
Resource: Information
The Borja family's territory is an open and majestic, massive church ground, mostly with white stones, pillars and arches. It has many shallow fountains that run as tiny red rivulets criss-crossing across the territory and often needing to be stepped over or waked through. There isn't a lot of greenery here but there are a few carefully groomed patches, usually in planters surrounding buildings or fountains. The Borja themselves live in the largest temple, easily located by it's high spiraling tower that overlooks the entire territory.

Ching Shih Family

Element: Gem
Theme: Pirates
Resource: Gems and Weapons (no firearms)
The Ching Shih's are a famous pirate family, well known for having a penchant for hording gems. Their territory begins as a dingy and unsafe lower class area nearest the Pearl, but quicky thins out and gives way to a poor and rocky beach. The rocks are sharp and uncomfortable, and there are many small coves and hidden caves. On one of these coves floats a rickety pirate ship, looking a bit sad without a sail to get it moving, and deep within one of those caves is a horde of jewels and weaponry.

Axum Family

Element: Fire
Theme: Merchants
Resource: Medicine/Medical supplies
The Axum family lives at the docks, their territory made up of far spaced wooden docks that house a number of boats of various sizes, each of them brightly colored and standing out against rusty seas. As you get closer to the pearl the docks give way to land, warehouses, and shipping containers. The family lives in houseboats far out at the end of their territory, but their supplies appear inland inside a nondescript shipping container each day.

Ichibei Family

Element: Lightning
Theme: Mafia
Resource: Drugs/Alcohol/Smokes
The Ichibei family lives in a lower class business district that is tightly packed with small and medium sized store fronts. Unlike other territories, a larger number of the buildings open up, but usually not reveal much more than the same repetitive floor design. But one has a back door that opens and lead to a speakeasy, and below that is where the family lives, in a bunker style home lined with wine shelves. Elsewhere in the town is a small warehouse where supplies appear on a regular basis.

Aristophanes Family

Element: Wood
Theme: Artists
Resource: Clothing
The Aristophanes family lives in a low class area with maze-like twisting streets and stalls put up outside small, packed together homes. They make their own home in one of the largest buildings in the area, a only slightly decrepit theater with a small stage, surrounded by other small buildings advertising various artisan products. The Aristophane's resources appear in a few streets away, spaced out across seven stores, each advertising clothing in team palettes, plus another for neutrals.

Uniforms

For each family uniforms the primary color of any uniform should be the first color in their palette (the team color, if you will). However they can use the accent colors as much as little as they like. There shouldn't be any armor, but clothing for various weather situations is fine. Each character begins with two outfits, after that the will need to negotiate with/steal from the Aristophanes to get more clothing.

Uniform styles should generally resemble what is traditional for the theme of the house, so pirates should look swashbuckling, the mafia gets suits, merchants are in feathered layers and bone bird's masks, etc etc.