Locations
Uskil is one of Arx's three continents.
Locations of interest
Shadow Academy
File:ShadowAcademy arx.jpgThe Shadow Academy central spire
Constructed around a central spire, each of the outer structures are designed like a three-sided pyramid, pointing inward towards the center. A series of skyways and walkways form the vein-like paths connect the satellite campuses to the Academy proper. For newcomers, the Shadow Academy provides a visual taste of the world they have just begun to enter. It is a place of subtle grandeur and utmost efficiency, ready to take them on their first steps into deeper knowledge.
Internally, students are provided with common study rooms, libraries, and lecture halls. The study halls are sound-proof rooms that must be signed out through administration. These rooms provide a distraction free means of learning, housing empty shelves for any learning materials that the students may bring with them as well as a central table.
The lecture halls are much larger variants on the study rooms, offering a series of seats for learners that rises up and away from the professor's table, which stands at the head of the hall. Two large viewscreens stand to either side of the professor's table to provide additional material for lectures.
Master Archives
Marshes on the outskirts of the Shadow Academy.
The combined records of the Brotherhood’s database are sorted in stacks in each of the sections. Octogonal arrangement of the stacks ensure that storage of the digital holodisks is maximized, and that there is suitable provisions made for consoles and holoprojectors on the ground level. Each of these holodisks is discreetly marked, setting off a silent alarm whenever one leaves the premises without express authorization. In the event that one is lost, another can be recreated. Pulsating with blue light, the stacks emit a faint hum that can be heard as one peruses the database. Forbidden lore is protected via code cylinders, requiring a certain level of authorization to retrieve the most dangerous texts.
Reserved for an elite few, the vaults below contain the forbidden lore and knowledge of books, tomes and holocrons not found in the general archives. Cloistered far below the Shadow Academy, it is forever permeated in near-darkness with temperatures that decelerate the decomposition of the precious texts and scrolls locked in its vaults — original texts that have since been scanned into the central database. Polished to mirror-like perfection, the walls and floors are marbled between shades of black and grey, bouncing the faintest light of the dim strips of pure white lighting above and below each row of vaults. Most who venture to the archive’s depths prefer to bring along a glowrod rather than additional lights to reduce the amount of light absorbed into each of the timeless pages.
Built into the walls, the largest vaults often contain the most exotic records and experiments to ever be locked within the archives, not even excluding the presence of the controversial and dangerous Abersyn Symbiotes responsible for the fall of many historical empires. Requiring the use of specific code cylinders for access, one of the most notable vaults contains shelves upon shelves of holocrons dating back to Darth Bane. Because of the scarcity of Jedi holocrons and the volatile nature of storing them together with Sith holocrons, the Grand Master’s personal vault is bathed in a permanent red ambient glow that envelops the entire room. Ghastly sounds can be heard from the other side of some other vaults, live experiments conducted by the Dark Council’s most trusted alchemists never to see the light of day.
Combat Training Center
A hall of the Training Center
Two towering, tinted, transparisteel doors slide open to grant access to the central chamber of the Combat Training Halls. The main room is wide and open and as large as a holoball field. Tall walls stretch towards a domed ceiling that is made up of rows of ambient lights that spread out and fill the room with soft even lighting that eliminates any shades or shadows. Those same walls are lined around the perimeter with racks and stacks of varied weaponry: everything from swords and polearms to rifles and flamethrowers.
There are two signs that hover over each weapon rack to create an alternating motif in the Combat Training Hall: “No Explosions” and “Accorded Neutral Territory”. While the first is fairly obvious, the second speaks to the single law of the Training Halls: all members of the Brotherhood are welcome, and no member is to be killed or maimed without incurring the wrath of the Grand Master and the Inquisitori.
A trio of training dummies are statically set up and spread out in a line, each made out of a blend of alloys and padding that can withstand blows from any standard weaponry with the exception of lightsaber blades. To the side of the dummies, a large sparring mat has been stretched out to create a larger footprint than the typical shockboxing ring. The padding is good for helping to teach new combat students how to take a fall without injury and offers firm footing, but the hard rubber mat is hardly forgiving.
Behind the sparring area is a door that leads to a small archives that combat students can use to view holorecordings of fights and duels from the past as well as relevant information on combat tactics, techniques, and forms. On the opposite side of the archives at the far end of central room is the locker room where members can safely store their equipment.
The final and probably most important element of the Combat Training Hall is the onsite Med Ward. The maglock door is sealed off and can only be opened by an attending Medic. The Medical facilities feature state of the art bacta tanks for recovery and aftercare. A combination of observation and waiting room rests adjacent to the recovery center and features two large monitors that display a live feed of the central room.
The Combat Halls are staffed around the clock, allowing combat students and mentors alike to come and go as they please at odd or regular hours. It is also reserved for members looking to prove their worth to compete in the Antei Combat Center.
Ancient Ruins
Ancient Ruins
Sunken below sea-level, the lost remnants of a primitive civilization have fallen to decay. Predating the Brotherhood’s resettlement of Antei, the ruins harken back to lost tribes of the Sith with several structures intact beneath the surface. Most of these ruins are located beneath what was once a great continent, now a spiralling chain of islands at the center of which the Shadow Academy now stands. Constructed with function over aesthetic, the least damaged buildings are still watertight and contain breathable air despite being at the bottom of the ocean.
References to Mortis — the Son, in particular — are inscribed on the sides of an obelisk at the ocean’s floor, half-buried beneath the seabed. Archaeologists and researchers at the Shadow Academy have theorized that other monoliths connected to other aspects of the Force — the Daughter and the Father — can be the foundations of an earlier religion practiced on Arx before the Brotherhood’s establishment. Others have dismissed these accusations and believe that Arx’s forebears were a cult exclusively of dark side practitioners.
Special access to the submerged ritual chambers can be requested via Trident-class assault ships that are used by Arx’s archaeologist divisions entrusted with uncovering and recording found passages, chambers and hieroglyphics beneath Arx’s oceans. However, access to a few secretive locations are reserved for those with the proper access codes and identification.
Colosseum
The Colosseum
The structure was rebuilt and renovated from the shell of an ancient foundation that had barely weathered away by time. High walls, tall enough for even the most savvy Jedi to find unscalable, line a large field of ancient sand and sediment the size of a holoball field. The spectators' chairs are divided into neatly organized sections with seats bunched close together to accommodate anywhere up to a few thousand people. At the center, an elongated platform “box” has been constructed with a central throne of stone with various seats of smaller scale lined beside it in both directions.
While unassuming at first glance and looking very much like an archaic gladiatorial arena, the Colosseum features a medley of traps and surprises built into the floor and walls at random intervals. These obstacles include, but are hardly limited to: retractable nozzles that can shoot out gouts of flame; battery-coils that can spit out tendrils of electric current; receding floor panels with electric shock panels; deep pits with sharpened spikes and more. At some points, the ground can simply erupt upwards and create a concentrated, if not impromptu angular-platform that could be used as a springboard or temporary high ground. While seemingly random, these obstacles are handled and triggered by a manned-operator in a control room within.
Outside the fighting arena, the Colosseum features on-site, state of the art medical facilities that can bring nearly anyone back from the brink of the death and offer a full team of trainers, doctors, and rehabilitation units. There is also a neatly kept armory and a basic training center with mechanical-dummies, and private sparring chambers.
Abandoned Mines
Pulley-operated, mechanical lifts descend into the earth below the Arena. The Abandoned Mines pre-date the Galactic Empire by thousands of years. Once used as mining routes, the long forgotten network of interconnecting tunnels has held stalwart against the sands of time. Sporadic crystals protrude from the walls to quietly radiate ochre light like naturally-forming torches. The small alcove gives birth to a maze of wide tunnels supported by old, steadfast wooden beams.The tunnels spider and split off into various directions, some leading to dead ends while others ultimately leading back to the central Mining Shaft.
The central Mining Shaft is a square well that descends into a deep pit that radiates a luminescent, cerulean glow from the horde of crystallized shards still growing below. The air hangs with a cool, windless chill. Stone stalactites hang ominously overhead, flanked by jagged jutters of rock and sediment that line the ascending walls.
To reach the surface, blocks of stone wide enough for two humans to stand side by side on shift back and forth in a combination of lateral and ascending patterns. Each cubic platform is controlled by a mechanical pulley and each cubic platform will eventually pass close enough to step over to another. The spacing and timing is not attuned to any formal pattern, giving equal balance to both Force users and Mundanes. Whatever your talents, the shifting cubes are the only way to ascend back to the Arena.
Corrino Research Laboratory
A central main building on the southeast coast receives in visitors at its collection of docking ports and provides a public space for seminars and presentations on a wide range of topics. Branching off and connected by a labyrinth of walkways that stretch for kilometers in every direction inland are over fifty additional buildings each with laboratory space dedicated to a specific topic and project on behalf of the facility's benefactors. The nature of all these projects and research varies widely but focuses primarily on flora and fauna of the galaxy.
Attached to many of the auxiliary buildings are pens, cages or other sectioned off areas where different creatures of the galaxy are held in captivity or plant life is grown in controlled environmental spheres. In many cases, these areas are purpose-built to the specific requirements of the team doing research and construction droids and reconfiguration is a constant in the area. As some projects wrap up and others begin.
In the surrounding areas, and even out at sea, or as necessary elsewhere on Arx, specific areas are set up as habitat to creatures from all over the galaxy. With an extensive logistics network to move these creatures to and from the central main building. All with the intent to help raise funds for the laboratory by the recreational sale of creatures. These creatures are raised, studied, tamed, and in many cases sold to specific members with clearance to do so.
An entire branch of research is dedicated to warfare, with aggressive and combat capabilities of the galaxies flora and fauna are studied. This has resulted in a large dedicated connection between the central main building of the research laboratory and the Colosseum, providing a means to transport creatures anywhere on Arx to the Colosseum for testing. These tests usually take place in the form of combat with the creatures under careful study and evaluation by the team's scientists.