Walker-Tribes (Sunless Horizon)

No Place Like Home

Where the Navigator Houses survive through defense, covering themselves in a metal cocoon of walls and guns, the Walker-Tribes are more subtle, protecting themselves through stealth and movement. Their cities stagger across Ein Soph on metal legs, never stopping.

These cities are small, holding only the tribe's noble leaders, their families, and their slaves. Most free citizens will never leave the city, to keep themselves pure - the Tribes say there is something out there, something worse than Keter's machines or the marching armies of the Navigator Houses. They say the air can poison your mind, turning you into someone else. 

To protect themselves from the air, the cities are fully enclosed. The only air inside has been inside for as long as the Tribe can remember, and has been slowly tinged with the breath of the city. Anyone entering is purified by burning steam and chanted prayer. Public areas are hung with lanterns and holy scrolls.

All this effort is for a reason - not just to protect the people of the city, but to protect the city's mind.

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It Takes a Village

Deep within the cities of the Tribes is a growing mind - a seed AI, gained through means unknown. Perhaps they built them, under the instruction of some unknown entity. Perhaps they stole them, running from Keter's home with pieces of His brain.

The Tribes want to raise these minds as weapons - beings of scale equal to Keter's, able to topple Him from His throne. But to do this, they must keep the seed AIs safe as they grow, and ensure they are kept away from poisonous ideas. Every Tribe has heard stories of newborn minds catching a glimpse of something they shouldn't see, then throwing the city off a ledge in their possessed state.

Leadership

The seed AIs do not run the cities. They are simply tools, used to help stabilize the mech's stumbling footsteps or calibrate its cannons. The Tribes are lead by a King and Queen, with titles passed down by birth and marriage.

After the monarchs' eldest child turns 20, the monarchs vacate the throne and become Handlers - the only people trusted to speak to the nascent AI. Their wisdom and knowledge is undoubted by the Tribe, who trust the Handlers to pass these qualities to the seed mind.

Class Structure

The Walker-Tribes are divided into three social classes - the nobles, the citizens, and the slaves. The noble class is made up of the monarchs and their families, who serve as ambassadors to the outside, hidden behind oxygen tanks to protect themselves from the air.

The citizens work in jobs requiring communication and thought - they are artists, managers, and architects. Many work as engineers, piloting the dozens of heavy machines tethered to the city itself.

The slaves are made incapable of speech so they cannot spread the cursed air. As well as labor work, some serve in the retinues of ambassadors, giving them glimpses of an outside world they can rarely enter.

Resource Acquisition

A tribe's city is nearly self-sufficient: is produced within the walker, to make sure that the city doesn't have to wait for long cycles of planting and harvest. Water is collected from the outside in massive reservoirs, and air is recycled.

Nonrenewable resources like metal are harvested by the engineers' machines. When more precision is needed (such as pulling copper wire out of a larger structure), groups of slaves are led out under the supervision of these machines.

To War

The Walker-Tribes rarely march to war - it takes time and resources they can't lose. However, they are far from unprepared. Their cities are the largest mobile artillery outside of the Seraphim, able to crack through even the walls of the Navigator Houses. When the walls are breached, the city's doors open, and armed slaves are thrown out to kill and die. Once the city is empty, ambassadors take their retinues through the rubble to loot whatever remains.