Dwellers


The Dwellers’ history is interwoven with the story of Emer The Black, Asia’s legendary pirate.

Emer first gained notoriety by capturing a Chinese icebreaker and convincing its crew to accept him as their leader. In the following years, his ship was often seen in the North Pacific Sea from the Bering Strait to Hawaii, menacing passing ships and giving them the choice of being sunk or following him. His navy soon consisted of dozens of ships, operating from a hidden base somewhere on the Chinese coast.

Near this port, Emer built a stronghold in an abandoned sulphur mine. He had himself declared emperor and ordered his workers to dig deeper and deeper into the ground to expand his underground empire. A vast network of tunnels was created, many miles long, connecting halls and caverns where his workers and soldiers lived. Emer never returned to the sea; instead, he had his workers excavate vast underground cities and palaces. He became pale, fat and swollen, his spongy, white skin no longer hiding the veins through which his blood pulsated. Emer sent his underlings on raids to the surface, where they looked for tools, supplies and prisoners. Those of the prisoners that were not fit for any work were given to the workers as food. Thus the Dwellers’ nation grew before the Day of the Wind.

“Each week, we shall celebrate the Feast. On this day, we all are equal. The workers, the soldiers, the officials. On this day, we shall receive our presents from the emperor.”
-Dwellers’ daily prayer

When America’s rockets struck China, the hour of the Dwellers had come. Many of the survivors of the strikes joined Emer’s empire. The immense influx of workers and soldiers let the Empire grow beyond the wildest imagination, and soon it reached from the Gobi desert to Vietnam, from Persia to Japan. By that time, Emer had fathered a number of sons and daughters who along with their various mothers formed the Royal Family. Emer was rarely seen by anyone outside of his family, exerting his power through members of the Family. An incestuous breeding program decreed by the emperor started to weaken both the Royal Family and the workers, and it was constantly attempted to inject fresh blood into the Dwellers’ limited gene pool.

The Royal Family, Rit-Min, has become a rotten nest of schemes, hatred, violence and constant fear of the mysterious Visors. Emer himself has receded into the innermost sanctum of his underground palace to further his genetic studies and has by all accords disappeared completely. There are rumours of screams that echo through the hallways of the palace, and of workers who went near the palace only to disappear without a trace.

These days, actual government duties are carried out by a secretive cast of officials who call themselves “Sons of Heaven”. They carry out the necessary expansions of the underground cities and work on plans for the invasions of the territories to the North and to the West; however, they rarely act in unison and lack the authority to carry through their ambitious schemes.
The army’s ranks are filled through an extensive breeding program that tries to combine the best genes from the strongest workers and the most intelligent officials. The “Sons of Light” are the elite of the army; they guard the empire’s entrances on the surface and the gates of the underground palace. Some have said that these soldiers are no longer human but are genetically bred fighting machines. In contrast to the regular soldiers, these deadly fighters wear precious armour reminiscent of more glorious times in China’s past.

“Our life is nothing. The community is everything. And our community must be guarded from the light.”
-Oath of the “Sons of Light”

The working class is generally content with their fate – which is not entirely without a reason, since their food contains additives designed to reduce all functions of the brain that are not absolutely necessary for their jobs. Most workers are no longer able to express their thoughts in spoken words – if they have any thoughts of their own at all.