Shinarians NPCs are invariably influenced by the legacy of the Clay King Amurah, who developed the magical means of transferring souls into clay Vessels.
Soul-Circuits
When an Arbiter Soulgazes a Shinarian, they don’t see the Shinarian’s soul as the usual amorphous collection of whirls and eddies of intention. Instead, they see a soul-circuit—an angular pattern of lines overlaid upon the glowing Forms that are inscribed on the Vessel’s body. If an Arbiter casts the Commune spell on a Shinarian, they have the disturbing sensation of being transported into this soul-circuit. They enter a maze of rigidly angular canals under a windless night sky. The canals are waist-high and the water glows faintly. Unfamiliar constellations glow in the pitch-black heavens. The water in these canals reflects the state of the Shinarian’s soul.- Still water: the Vessel is empty.
- Languid flow: the soul is present, but dreamless and inert.
- Steady flow with occasional ripples: dreaming.
- Fast-flowing with waves and eddies: fully conscious.
Solitons
Some Shinarian Vessels are inhabited by solitons—remnant fragments of the Clay King's intentions that flow around the soul-circuit. Solitons can inhabit both empty Vessels and Vessels with souls. They have a special affinity for Vessels carved with the visage of Amurah.Within a soul-circuit, a soliton appears as large, solitary wave that travels around the canal maze. The crest of the soliton wave is taller than characters within the canal maze and threatens to engulf them. Clay Citizen
To most people in the Skysea, the lost kingdom of Shinar is a place of omen and death. But hundreds of years ago, the clay kingdom was a vibrant and powerful civilization. Its clay citizens, safe in their Vessel bodies, were proud to have achieved the impossible dream of immortality, and content to enjoy the comforts of an advanced society—even as this society drew closer to its mysterious end.
Lore. Even if awakened, few citizens of Shinar today retain their memories, and have forgotten their whatever lore they used to know. Some lucky citizens might have memory cisterns that are still intact.
Judge Tophet
Judge tophets are enormous Shinarian Vessels, human-shaped but at least ten feet tall, and they have heads with two faces. The first face is the crowned visage of the Clay King Amurah. The second face resembles a cyclops-like monster with a wide, fanged mouth. The head swivels around, so either face can be the "front."
Judges were once the enforcers of the Clay King's code of law. Now they haunt the ruins of Old Shinar, activating in the presence of lawbreaking. Unlike citizen Vessels, judges were not designed to hold human souls.
Soliton. Judge Vessels hold solitons, not true souls, which flow around their soul-circuit’s perfectly-still canal waters. The Clay King created judges not only to watch over his citizens, but also his Arbiters.
If an Arbiter Soulgazes a judge—success, struggle, or failure—the judge can immediately cast Commune on the Arbiter as a reaction! If the judge succeeds, the Arbiter’s soul is sucked into the judge’s soul-circuit. The Arbiter must then succeed on a 3|6 Compel challenge to escape before being engulfed by the soliton wave. On a struggle, the hero can take -1 spirit to escape. On a failure, the hero’s maximum Spirit is reduced by 1, their body falls unconscious, and their soul is trapped until their next turn, at which point they must make the challenge roll again to withstand the soliton wave.
If the Arbiter’s maximum Spirit is reduced to zero, their soul is overwhelmed and destroyed by the soliton. If the overwhelmed Arbiter is a Shinarian, the soliton copies itself into their Vessel body and assumes control of it.
Lore. If heroes are not breaking any laws, a judge might share its knowledge of the Code of the Clay King, particularly with a Shinarian or an Arbiter.
