1413 — Seaside Devil Village

Rocky cliffs rise above rough waters below. Strewn about the rocks above the tide line are remnants of a fleet of makeshift rafts. Planks of wood, metal and plastic barrels, and lengths of various types of fraying rope dangle from where they were dropped or got caught on jagged outcroppings. The still useful of these have been recovered: all that remains is rusted, cut short, full of holes, or otherwise unfit for use.

Atop the cliffs sits a makeshift village. Its inhabitants are 46 devils of Riccamino, all of whom fled the smoking city in a desperate bid for a better life. After a period at sea that they do not like to speak of, they made landfall here about one year ago and have been working hard at the task of surviving ever since. Makeshift houses and tents are scattered between the cliffs and treeline, and a few more solid structures are starting to be built — the frame of a long low lodge awaits material with which to line it.

Some human exiles also congregate here, having stumbled across the small community — 17 in total.

The village has no name yet, but a few of its denizens have ideas.

The villagers are willing to trade and sell some small amount of the goods they have — leftover odds and ends stolen from Riccamino, seabird eggs, small game hunted in the woods — but they have little coin of their own to spend and are too obscure and isolated for other towns and the smuggler network to pull them into the larger economic apparatus that has grown in the wilds.

Some notable denizens and locations:

Enyo (she/her), a devil who appears as a lute with a variety of bird’s limbs emerging from the hole in the instrument. As she moves around, the strings of the lute twang discordantly. She is a powerful wizard (level 5) and is looked up to as the de facto leader in times of strife after having slain a patrol of Occult-Futurist scouts whose balloon strayed too close for comfort. Knows the following spells: Flying Ship, Four Arms (notably she has five by default, so she calls it Seven Arms), Initiated in the Mysteries, Floating Platform, Martial Accuracy, Stone Form, Flare, Identify Caster, Automaton Transfer, Wall of Blades.

Gyges (they/it), a devil who appears as a praying mantis in a visored sallet helm, is the primary architect of the village. It oversees the ongoing construction of the lodge that it hopes will be a permanent home for the denizens. It keeps a notebook of drawings and sketches of its designs, trying to find those that will accommodate the incongruous bodily needs of the citizens. They know that the task ahead of them is long, but so, they reason, is their life.

Philotesia (he/they) is a human and practitioner of the witch faith who has found himself adopted by the community of devils after nearly dying in the woods. He repays them with an art learned from his estranged family back in Catage: fermenting and distilling liquor from fruits and berries collected in the woodlands. They grew up poor and were taught how to sneak into the park-estates of the rich and forage while avoiding the hounds and members of Hare House that patrolled there.
They know of Hare House’s proclivity for cannibalism, though not their overall beliefs.

Mormo (any pronouns) is a devil that appears as a small boar-person wearing a shirt made entirely of stone. They carry a 2-handed axe with which they are skilled. She occasionally ventures to the main exit of the Wall of Catage at 1014, spying on the humans who emerge. A now-absent exile told him that there is treasure hidden inside the wall, and he plots a method of entry.

Samson (they/them) is a human and a particularly militant transcendentalist who sees the devil-village as potential converts to the cause. They preach to those who will listen: “You are yourselves proof that the miraculous is not from some distant heaven but here in the world we live in now! Pledge yourself to the cause — I have brethren who could supply and arm you.” Their efforts have been largely ignored, as the devils fear attracting military might. They also aggressively aim to convert other human exiles to their faith and struggle: “You wait for a miracle to free you, when the wind — a miracle beyond belief — blows every fucking day.”