#theloyalones

A neo-classical painting, showing a thrall revolutionary soldier with spoils.

During the Great Thrall Revolt of 592 AX, many aristocrats were killed or forced to flee their homes. Their possessions were seized by thrall freedom fighters, who took reparations for their years of servitude however they saw fit. The food and booze eventually ran out, but for a period of some weeks thralls ate better than humans anywhere in the Empire, and lived in luxury.

Some of the raided land was later ceded back to the Savic Empire during the peace accord, but thralls helped themselves to anything they liked on the way out. When the mages returned to their homes they found them stripped of valuables, and the buildings themselves burned or defaced with the sign of the coiled snake.

Thrall artisans later reworked the metal of looted silverware. For a while it was fashionable for thrall soldiers to wear trophy necklaces, strung with sigil jewellery from as many different mage clans as possible. Some included teeth and bones from the mages themselves.

A relatively normal river on the South Front. Prolongued exposure to mutagenic magic weapons during the Poison War has created impenetrable forest where trees grow in tangled nests, and animals have experienced accelerated and bizarre evolutions.

Biomechanical vehicles have long since replaced the horse and cart for all but the poorest citizens of the Savic Empire. The insect-like machines are created in liveworks; factories with both incubator vats and mechanical tools.

Although the aristocrat class maintains they are the only true mages, the workers in these factories are usually magic users. Liveworkers coax machines from their aurum laced wombs, smoothing malformed limbs and blooming their eyes and feelers. When the birth is over mechanics can then bolt on controls, fuel tanks and the obligatory corporate emblems.

Society Portrait

Soon after their creation, owning thralls became a status symbol among the Savic aristocracy. Ever since, high society portraits have often depicted mages with their favourite thralls, among other luxury possessions. In this painting a young female sits in major form in her owner's drawing room. Her jewellery and other signs of her owner's wealth surround them. During the revolution many of these paintings were destroyed (along with their owners homes). The remainder were kept by those aristocrats fortunate enough to escape the war unscathed. It's rare to find one hanging in pride of place though; more often they're packed into storage rooms, an uncomfortable reminder of the Empire's fragility.

Starfield Thrall Egg Adoptable

New thrall character design for @/PotatoSynthetic, thanks again!

Some quick stuff exploring biomachines. A lot need some rethinking but I'm trying to get the fusion of the base 'machine' being a vat-womb grown organism, and then some mechanical parts being essentially bolted on afterwards to reach full functionality.

These machines are themselves produced in factories which resemble a long gestational tract. They're manned by human workers, whose jobs are to ensure feed supply, keep the factory healthy and do the finishing touches. Many of these jobs require bio-magical talent, but the aristocrat class has a monopoly on what they call 'real magic'. Hence these talented factory workers are called 'liveworkers' instead of mages, despite using the same powers in almost the same ways.

Thrall revolutionaries after liberating Ubets. The graffiti on the statue podium is one of several revolutionary army symbols, the snake and daggers. This sign was in common use for most of the Revolt, representing victory against extreme odds, and also used almost as a prayer for good luck. In tattoos it's still possible to see the original form: the curved line replaced by a snake wending it's way between three daggers.