Tekal
Work in progress: this page describes the Tekal setting we are building toward, and current game content differs in places.
Tekal is the green moon of knowledge, ash-electric steam technology, sealed archives, Vyra refinement, and forbidden augmentation. It is the technological step beyond Geshtei's medieval world, but it is not a gunpowder or laser future. Tekal's wonders are made from ash-fired furnaces, pressure engines, copper conduits, green glass, calculation halls, Vyrariums, academies, observatories, and locked doors.
Later Tekal expansions may push farther into robotics, quantum computing, virtual reality, and official cybernetics labs. The first Tekal arc should establish the ash-electric foundation before those higher-tech layers become playable.
Tekal's tagline:
The light of knowledge casts the deepest shadows.
The Tekai believe knowledge is sacred, dangerous, and earned through discipline. Surface Tekal is beautiful and brilliant, but also class-bound and secretive. The ruling Knowledge Houses decide who may learn, who may heal, who may build, and who must remain outside the next gate.
Core Concepts
- Ash-electricity powers Tekal through ash-fired steam systems, turbines, coils, lamps, gates, and pressure infrastructure.
- Miniaturized ash-electric ranged weapons are unstable and banned after the Small Coil Catastrophe. Tekal has no guns, no lasers, and no ranged ash-weapons.
- Vyra is the root liquid refined into the Core Four.
- Vyrariums are shops or clinics that sell, refine, serve, or administer Vyra and its variants.
- Nethrys Undercity uses banned cybernetics, implants, and Vyra-enhanced augmentation beneath the surface.
The Core Four
| Liquid | Color | Associated Effects |
|---|---|---|
| Azurene | Blue | Focus, hydration, cognition |
| Viridene | Green | Healing, regeneration, vitality |
| Pyrene | Red | Strength, aggression, adrenaline |
| Aurene | Yellow/Gold | Speed, reflexes, perception, energy conduction, luminosity |
Areas
| Area | Levels | Description |
|---|---|---|
| The First Vestibule | 175-180 | Arrival courtyard, credential checks, public notices, and first access hub |
| Veyr Akada, The Sealed Capital | 180-190 | Capital city of license gates, public archives, Council politics, and legal Vyrariums |
| Cindervault Basin | 190-202 | Industrial ash-electric power zone of refineries, turbines, workers, and steam hazards |
| The Verdant Canopy | 202-214 | Greenhouse region of Viridene medicine, rare plants, controlled ecology, and quarantine houses |
| The Grand Academy of Leth Vora | 214-226 | Elite academy of research labs, credentials, knowledge trials, and censored history |
| Nethrys Undercity | 226-238 | Large underground city of black markets, forbidden schools, banned tech, Vyrariums, and implants |
| The Observatory Crown | 238-248 | High-altitude observatories, moon-tracking towers, weather engines, and celestial archives |
| The Small Coil Memorial | 248-250+ | Sealed disaster site of the Small Coil Catastrophe and endgame ash-electric secrets |
Nethrys And Reca
Nethrys is not a small sewer district. It is a large underground city beneath Tekal, full of black-market Vyrariums, forbidden schools, smugglers, worker refuges, ripperdoc implant clinics, and banned cybernetic technology.
Its mastermind is Reca, Ringleader of the Green Door Society. Reca is part man and part machine, a charismatic and ruthless visionary who believes Tekal's future lies in unrestricted technological evolution. He opposes the Knowledge Houses, the Council, and the surface belief that knowledge must stay locked away.
Later Expansion Concepts
These remain canon for future Tekal expansion content:
| Area | Description |
|---|---|
| Assembly Halo | Robot factory district of automata production, machine dormitories, scrap markets, and synthetic intelligence questions |
| The Thousand Worlds Arcade | Virtual reality and simulation district for training, memory rooms, historical reconstructions, and dangerous identity play |
| Argus Cybernetics | Official surface cybernetics lab for legal prosthetics, neural interfaces, and licensed body modification |
| QCC-Prime | Quantum computing center where Tekal models routes, weather, lunar phases, encryption, and possible futures |
What Players Find Here
- Green-glass cities, sealed archives, pressure gates, and ash-electric machinery.
- Licensed Vyrariums on the surface and black-market Vyrariums below.
- Knowledge ranks, credentials, scholar-guards, and controlled civic access.
- Industrial ash hazards, greenhouse experiments, academy trials, and celestial moon-lore.
- Banned implants and cybernetics in Nethrys. The Forbidden Replacement Table in the Ripperdoc Quarter is a staffed clinic for implant installation and extraction.
- The truth of the Small Coil Catastrophe.
Travel Mood
Tekal feels precise, beautiful, and judgmental. Doors open only for the credentialed. Lamps glow behind green glass. Machines breathe steam beneath stone. Scholars speak softly while hiding entire histories.
The danger is not wilderness. The danger is a society that understands systems better than mercy, and knowledge better than freedom.