Alright, this is what I've got. Feel free to PM me with any concerns, proposed changes, or requests for additional information.
Anameleth, the Empyrean City
A great flying city, the crowning achievement of the brilliant Zeroth race. The Zeroth are a people of great intellectual ability, widely known to have among the greatest technological and magical expertise in all of Eurian, or at least widely assumed. The Zeroth make little contact with the rest of the world, preferring not to venture far from their abundant resources and luxuries. The Zeroth have achieved this great progress in knowledge at an unfortunate price. Their brains grow as they age, allowing them to become ever more intelligent, and for a time, their skulls grow to accommodate this, but but around the time they turn 30, the rate of brain growth begins to overtake the rate of skull growth. By the time they are 40, almost none are spared the fatal complications of their own brains being pressed against their skulls. Early symptoms of these complications include episodes of madness, but often, given their intelligence, this madness is indistinguishable from brilliance; as a result, many Zeroth make their greatest achievements and innovations just before their condition begins to kill them. This time, to them, is known as The Awakening. The sole exception to this unfortunate fate is the Zeroth leader, and longest running scientific experiment, Elder Illumaria. Strangely, despite their great intelligence, most are not gifted with strategy or tactics. The Zeroth are tall and slender, with pale skin, sometimes with a purple or bluish tint. The sclera of their eyes tend to be black, or dark grey, and most have purple, blue, or green irises. Their hair colors include black, various shades of blue and bluish greens, bluish purples, and rarely, silver. For reasons unknown, the same recessive genes that give a Zeroth silver hair, also tend to slow the rate of the brain's growth, thus prolonging their life by 30 years or more, though these anomalies, while still significantly more intelligent than most other humanoid races, are often regarded as stupid, and therefore of little societal value. The Zeroth are not well suited to physical activity, having much less muscle mass than most humanoid races. Though lacking in strength, they tend to be very flexible and agile, but this offset by low stamina.
The society of Anameleth would most accurately be compared to a large university. They have little need of laws, as crime among them is basically unheard of. They prefer to settle their disputes privately, whether through debate or combat. Oddly, there are no organized centers of education among them. The entire city is a place of learning. Zerothi children choose an academic endeavor, seek out someone more knowledgeable who is willing to teach, and remain as their apprentice until they've either learned all that they cared to about the subject, or more frequently, have caught up to their master's level of knowledge, at which point they either choose a new discipline, or seek a more suitable master. One's rank in Zerothi society is determined by intellectual merit. The more fields of study one has mastered, the more widely they are respected. Among the fields the Zeroth study are mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology, medicine, writing, varied forms of art, music, metallurgy, agriculture, architecture, engineering, and countless schools of magic.
They have little that could be called a government. Most policy is determined by the Grandmaster's Conclave, a board overseen by the Grandmasters in various fields of study. While she wields no special executive power over the city outside of her seat in the Conclave, Elder Illumaria is seen as the leader for her people. Illumaria, in her Awakening, had the idea to remove a part of her skull, and giving her brain more room to expand. She and her students worked tirelessly for years to develop a procedure, and a suitable container, and means of keeping her healthy after the procedure. As a result, she is over 700 years old, and her brain is housed in a central complex in Anameleth. Though spared from the fatal complications of brain growth, this alone would not protect her body from the ravages of time. Much of Anameleth's resources now go into the preservation of Illumaria's body, in hopes that her ever expanding intellect will lead the Zeroth to even greater technological and magical advancement, and in many ways it has; however, the Zeroth have become blind to certain drawbacks of having a single mind responsible for almost all direction for the technological advancement in a society. Illumaria's intellect has grown to a level beyond the realm of a normal person's imagination, but the Zeroth do not experience a similar growth in inspiration, or intuition with age. Illumaria has become set in her ways, and lacks the creativity to bring her people any real new breakthroughs, instead focusing entirely upon refining and expanding old ideas. While their steam engines are several times larger, and orders of magnitude more efficient than most others in the world, they've still never grown beyond steam power. Their magical skills and power rival any in the world, yet they have focused mostly on finding new applications for existing magic, seldom developing anything truly new, or original. The Zeroth respect intelligence so much, that most see the Elder almost as a sort of living God, never questioning that she is what is best for them, and the few who realize the drawbacks of her lacking creativity are generally dismissed as fools. Due to Ilumaria's position in the Conclave, a vote is never necessary to resolve disputes. If Illumaria can be persuaded, one can conclude with certainty that an argument has been flawlessly logical, as a result, Conclave rulings are invariably unanimous.
Anameleth was once a city on the ground, since torn from the ground and raised into the sky by the magical skills of Illumaria. Two rivers once flowed through the city, and now fill a massive lake in the crater where it once rested, just under the floating island. A large pillar of water flows upward from the center of the lake, into the underside of the island, into a treatment plant where the water is purified and then distributed throughout the city. Used water, after minimal cleaning, then flows out of the city in 8 waterfalls over its edges, leading back to the lake. Most of the structures within the city tend to be grandiose and opulent, made from marble, crystal, and a golden alloy that features prominently in much of their technology. Various bizarre, and often man-made plants can be found throughout the city, often growing on structures to add to their beauty.
There are various abandoned Zerothi ruins around the world, but most are centuries old, and out of date. The Zerothi once tried to expand, not realizing that other species coveted their technologies and luxuries. Not long after they began building these colonies, they were attacked. Their response was to create steam-powered siege weapons, and magical amplifiers, but after this, most were uninterested in remaining to fight. So uninterested, that many had left and returned to Anameleth, making defending these colonies a waste of resources. They destroyed their weapons, abandoned these colonies, and returned home. Shortly thereafter, following a Conclave meeting, all remaining colonists were recalled to the city, and Illumaria raised Anameleth into the sky, forever solving the problem of foreign invasion. In spite of their efforts to isolate themselves, the Zeroth are not a xenophobic people, and happily accept guests, so long as they come on peaceful terms, and manage to find a way to reach them in the first place.
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