Help Me

Because what’s a cyberpunk setting without a few conglomerates?

There are 3 major corporations controlling most of the Tower City, plus one odd outlier group. There are more in other cities, and countless smaller ones, but these are the big ones.

1. Sebarial

As the name might imply, the Sebarial corporation is directly descended from the old alethi house of the same name. During the fallout of the Night of Sorrows, the Alethi princedoms collapsed, with only Sebarial able to withstand. Over time, they consolidated power, growing and collecting members from various other factions within the tower. By the time of Stormpunk, it is one of the richest entities in the system. Any industry or service one can imagine, Sebarial has a hook in. By far the corps biggest export is gemhearts, artificially grown in any size.

2. Ashtech

Named after the word for the third son of Veden families (and NO other reason), Ashtech is the worlds leading producer of fabrials. This includes everyday devices like heating and water, as well as taking up a share of the arms trade. Handheld painrials, bullet repellant system, and LRDDs (long range division devices) make up but a small part of Ashtechs catalogue.

3. AlloLight

Hailing from Scadrial, AlloLight specializes in the combination of metallic arts and cybernetic augmentation. Utilizing a more advanced version of the technology found in Malwish primer cubes, as well as various unkeyed metalminds, AlloLight has developed implants capable of granting anyone allomantic/feruchemic abilities. If they can afford it, that is.

4. NeoKnights Radiant

The only corporation on roshar without human or singer leadership. Instead, the board of the NKR is made up of 11 spren, two high and one of each of the rest of the radiant spren. On an economic level, they maintain control over the light trade, a holdover from the shadesmar banks of old. But the NeoRadiants hold another very important monopoly, one that no other corporation could hope to control. The Nahel bond. In the modern day, any spren wishing to form a bond must do so under the supervision of the NKR, who will pair them with a prospective employee. The pair will then train, preparing for work as hired mercenaries in various fields. A truthwatcher can expect to find work in a premium medical team, while a lightweaver might handle covert operations for corporations.

Spren do bond humans beyond this arrangement, though. Those idealistic few who truly believe the orders can become again what they once were. NKR is never far behind, however, and those who follow this path tend not to be seen again.

Yay I love mega corps I love monopolies I love privatization of life itself.

Not the dark world, not falling through a light world door, but the actual prismatic pillar we see before sealing the fountains. What if someone just. Took a swim.

Bonus points: what if someone was inside one as a fountain was sealed. Logic would dictate they are just spat out like everyone else. But I think that this is what happened to dess.

I know that segment was a joke, but the whole time I had this odd lingering feeling. A character associated with the color orange, trapped away where only we can hear, only visible through shadows on the wall.

Stormpunk, or the Stormlight RPG era 2.5

Since canon is out the window anyway, we decided to make the setting a “post shard roshar” in a way. After unspecified events, the shards of odium and honor folded into one another, creating a weird feedback loop where neither can really act as they are crushed by the others power. The exact mechanics don’t work or need to make much sense, it’s just setdressing. What it enables is a massive flow of warlight through the planet, and a state of “cognitive entanglement” where the cognitive and physical realms begin to intersect near high investiture locations. The old world is gone, left unrecognizable by the decades of eternal rain. Even those scarce places untouched by the Night of Sorrows feel the effects. In this new world, the silver cities have risen again, each a glittering metropolis of light and industry. Fabrial technology has rocketed forward, allowing even the most common man to stand alongside the radiants of old.

Speaking of the radiants, their role has changed significantly. With no looming war to unite them, the already tenuous relationships between certain orders fractured further, and even began to break apart entirely. While some stand side by side with the corporations that rule the cities, others have taken to the shadows, fighting for the old way of life which may never again exist.

There’s something here I can feel it

Mostly because for every one semi nuanced point they tend to have (over reliance on trope marketing, glorification of misogynistic ideals, etc.) there’s always 3 more that come across as near rage bait with how bad they are. This latest catastrophe of an article has an entire segment about FMCs with disabilities, which I think is weird to complain about but whatever.

My very belabored point is that there is so much to criticize in this space. Things that cause actual harm, and things that aren’t inherently bad but should still be looked at with a critical eye. But when these articles and think pieces constantly come back to the same points about smut and women reading fairy porn (a term I’m starting to really dislike ngl (except in that one instance)), it flattens what should be a space to talk about these real problems to moral grandstanding about what women enjoy, which doesn’t help anyone.

I’m not defending romantasy fandoms or booktok here. I’m not going to do that after seeing how quick some of them were to call a trans woman who was a little mean a male hating on real women for enjoying things. But focus on the real problems, I promise the smut can’t hurt you. Focus on the obsession with ai images, just talk about anything else.