The First District
Meant more in the sense of ‘First Among Equals’ rather than a statement of historical precedent, the First District is the center of inter-district politics in the Nexus. It is here that the majority of the city’s judicial infrastructure can be found. Legal officials from various districts work here to negotiate extradition of their citizens after they are taken into custody in another district. So too is it considered traditional to try individuals who have committed crimes affecting multiple districts in this place. An archive of all court records and population data is maintained by a veritable army of clerks in a set of old brick warehouses set aside for the purpose of holding it, but it is far from anything approaching complete.
It is also here that many of the city’s largest corporations maintain their municipal infrastructure. The city’s largest internet provider has its headquarters here in the supposed interest of maintaining net neutrality. Much of the electricity and water that the city relies upon flows out from here under the protection of a joint task force combining the law enforcement assets of multiple Chiefs. Nobody wants their district to be held hostage by resource shortages, and it is simply not feasible for many of them to do it all themselves. Thus, this cooperation continues into the foreseeable future.
These are uses for the district that developed over time. Its true purpose is much simpler: providing a meeting space for the District Chiefs to hash out land claims and negotiate reparations and treaties that affect more than two districts. The level of officiousness and spectacle involved depends entirely on the Chiefs in question, but on those occasions the proceedings are made public almost nobody shows up anyway.
The Geography
Most prominent of all features in the First District a natural one, the Great Divide. This enormous river right through the middle of the entirety of the known Nexus, but in this one place it instead splits in two. The border of the First District is defined by the presence of the river’s split, as each of the Great Divide’s children wrap around it in a near perfect circle. At the opposite end of the split the river joins back into one current, continuing on its way. Old stone bridges reinforced by magical runes stretch across the watery borders of the district to permit land entry to the east and west.
Most buildings in the First District show their age. While the interiors have been renovated multiple times over the years to account for technological advancement, their exterior facades continue to project the image of a classical East Asian capital district with its peaked roofs and its elegant extended-family homes. The entire thing is overlooked by a skyscraper-sized pagoda from which the District Chief and his staff govern in the name of the Council of Chiefs.
Opposite the Chief’s pagoda is the Nexus’ largest tea house, where he holds meetings with the other District Chiefs regarding matters of state. Also, where he drinks tea.
The People
A stereotypical inhabitant of the First District lives with their entire extended family in a sprawling single-story home with a wall around it. They come from long lines of civil servants with extensive educations at the district’s Academy of Administration, and wear glasses due to long nights reading and writing in dim lighting. None of them are up to date with current fashions from the rest of the Nexus, and they look down their noses at those who don’t wear ‘appropriate’ attire.
Reality has been conforming to this generalization increasingly less with each generation. Children are leaving the district to make their fortunes elsewhere, and outsiders with less traditional education are moving into corporate housing within the district to work in its new power plants and water treatment centers. District regulations mandate that all industrial buildings make themselves as innocuous as possible and so go mostly unnoticed, but any native can tell where they are by following the foreigners.
Calls by government officials to lessen the influx of outsiders into the district have fallen deaf on the ears of the Chief, who is determined to maintain the First District’s economic and administrative relevance in the face of an increasingly complicated Nexus. It is the only way, he says, for stability to endure in this city. This has made him surprisingly popular among foreigners and younger residents.
Military Capability
Officially, the First District has no military force. They are "devoted to peace and order" and "find it unnecessary to threaten the sovereignty of lawfully acknowledged districts by maintaining a standing army." Unofficially, defense is organized beneath the Circle of Six, the most prominent of the First Chief's students to remain in his service. Each is a master martial artist in their own right, and they instruct dozens of disciples of descending levels of combat capability. They are relatively few in number, but their sheer might is sufficient to ward off all but the most audacious and incautious of threats. In the worst case scenario Chief Yamada can step in personally, although nobody with an ordinary human lifespan remembers a time where this was necessary.
The First Chief
Name: Yamada
Race: Human
Age: Multi-Millennial
Height: 6’
Weight: 190lbs
Appearance
Physical Attributes (Ki Enhancement) [Martial Supremacy]
Strength: Fantastic (Heroic) [Legendary]
Agility: Fantastic (Heroic) [Legendary]
Durability: Fantastic (Heroic) [Legendary]
Willpower: Determinator
Magic Resistance: High (Very High) [Extremely High]
Other Abilities
Chi Enhancement: The limitations of the human body mean little to a true master of the martial arts. By drawing upon the energies found within the human soul and using them to draw upon the energies found in the environment all boundaries can be broken. Yamada and his disciples use this power to enhance their physical abilities, ward themselves against magical power, and extend their lifespans seemingly indefinitely. His base attributes reflect his passive use of Chi Enhancement with every living breath.
Ki Enhancement: As a martial artist begins to hone their abilities they learn to do more with their own innate power, too. By unlocking his soul’s potential Yamada can add his own internal energies to those he draws from the environment and increase his physical stats and his magic resistance by one rank. During this time his muscles expand and his body begins to release inhuman amounts of heat.
Killing Intent: It is rare that Chief Yamada has cause to actually fight someone. Most upstarts can be put in their place by simply imposing upon them his desire for their death. Only individuals of tremendous fighting prowess or willpower can resist the urge to flee. At its worst people have been brought helplessly to their knees, or even had heart attacks and died from the force of his hostility.
Martial Supremacy: True mastery of the martial arts is to bring harmony between Ki and Chi and unite them as one perfect whole. The world and the self become one. In this state his attributes and magic resistance go up by another rank above simple Ki Enhancement.
Master of the Arts: Yamada is an ancient master of many arts. Calligraphy, dance, opera singing, painting, he does it all, but his greatest passion has always been the art of battle. There is no pre-industrial weapon with which he could not be considered a master by ordinary standards. His truest skill though is with his unarmed body, and combined with his great instincts for fighting he can overcome almost any foe with just his base stats.
Weakness
The Ravages of Time: Once, Yamada was a true arhat of the martial arts. Even the gods feared his might, but respected his wisdom. With his advanced age his body’s Ki has become unbalanced, and so he cannot maintain his great physical and spiritual might for long. While he can draw upon the world’s Chi in all moments without adverse effects, he needs to maintain focus in order to maintain Ki Enhancement. Going further into Martial Supremacy is something he can only maintain for close to a minute, and afterward is reduced to his base stats for several days as his exhausted body recovers.
Intimacies
Greater Cause: Protecting the Nexus
Greater Principle: "True strength comes from the self and world in harmony."
Greater Tie: My Students (Paternal Devotion)
Lesser Tie: Tea (Fanboy)
Lesser Tie: Old Enemies (Regret)
Origin: Yamada is many things - First Chief, martial arts master, tea aficionado, and civil administrator. He has never known defeat, but does not seek war. He has never had children of his own, but has been the grandfather of every citizen of the First District. His time has passed, and yet he has defined every era to follow by his vision. The Nexus is his charge, and he will not see it destroyed by the forces of disorder.
Little is known of Yamada’s origins. Fragmentary records dating back thousands of years speak of the Foundation Wars, when a cabal of sorcerers sought to escape the Nexus by harnessing its powers. The horrors that entered through the rifts formed in the aftermath threatened the prehistoric city’s very existence. Yamada apparently led the great heroes of the age against them, and aided the few sorcerers who remained in stabilizing the source of the rifts. Nobody is quite sure how he went from that to founding the system of districts that exist today.
He knows his time is short. He has a few centuries left in him, at most. A successor will one day be needed, but nobody is quite up to the task.
