[INFO] The Virgo Outpost

[shibrogane]

They shall build the pyre atop a hill
the sky, it will be clear, windless, cold.

Mother will lay the white rose on your heart.
Father with the Lotus will crown you.
I shall hide the Scarlet Pimpernel beneath
your crossed hands, and press it to your chest;
the priest, burning aromatic herbs: clove, ginger, peppermint.
the astringents, to cleanse.

All will be still, and they will see the smoke for miles.

 

[shibrogane]

Memory can change the shape of a room;
it can change the color of a dress. And,
memories can be distorted. They’re just an
interpretation, they’re not a record, and
they’re irrelevant if you have the facts.

Virgo-that-was was a civilization built upon interlinked villas, each with their own source of water. A communal pair of asteroid-type objects formed the fields in which they grew their grain and grazed their livestock. Each villa was connected to these asteroid-types by a gossamer bridge of bronze. The population of Virgo was miniscule; partially because of the composition of their world, and partially because of their traditional "two-child" policy. While strikingly beautiful, their setup was also impractical, and contributed to its early demise. Virgoan peoples were brought to Mercury; while they would have, perhaps, done better on Earth (being an agricultural society), it was to Mercury that they were invited.

Virgoan Archetypes
Virgo is considered in modern-day astrology to represent the agricultural cycle, life, death, rebirth, order, innocence, purity, and justice. The Greek goddesses said to rule over them are Demeter, Persephone, Dike, and Astraea; Dike and Astraea in particular represent Justice and Innocence. In addition, when in different Houses (planetary rotations) it emphasizes different traits: for instance, when Virgo is in the House of the Moon the trait emphasizes is "cleanliness". When Virgo is in the House of Venus it symbolizes fidelity, and so on. It is considered the "Order of the Earth," meaning the element rather than the planet, for all of its connections to agriculture, the harvest, and the proper progression of seasons.

Traditions of Virgo
Virgo's population was heavily built around sacrifice, especially willing sacrifice--of time, resources, or blood and body. It was said that those who were most willing to give of themselves to help others were "ensouled with the Goddess's Purity." Their senshi held a pseudo-religious role, something of a High Priestess, among them. On occasions where their Princess's (who served Queen Chronos) soul matched up with that of their senshi, they were said to be the Goddess Reborn.

• White witches were the most prevalent type of mage in the Virgoan populace. Their powers generally tended towards healing or protection, as well as purification. They were said to draw from their life essence to fuel their magic, which seemingly explains their short lifespans. Whether this was true or not has never been proven, but it is known no other civilization practiced magic in quite the way Virgoan witches did.
  
• The blood of a witch was said to have special properties; it enhanced a Priestess's blessing and brought especially fertile crops. The sacrifice could only be performed willingly, and usually wasn't of a fatal amount of blood. Where it was, the witch was usually old, nearly powerless, and desired to again be of service to her people. She would lay on a special altar after taking a fatal dose of Virgoan hemlock. Once she was dead, a Priestess would slit her throat and collect the blood in a ceremonial amphora. This was regarded as a cause for celebration, and the Souls of witches who chose to do this were considered to have ascended to something generally viewed as sainthood, and could be prayed to for intervention with the Goddess.
  
• Sacrificing an animal upon the birth of a child was considered the best way to determine the child's fate. A lamb was sacrificed if the child was a girl, and a calf was sacrificed if a boy; a Priestess, using arcane arts, would read the fate of the young boy or girl from the corpse. It was important that the gender of the animal match the gender of the child, or else the child was considered mis-souled and therefore, Bad Luck. A mis-souled child was thought to have been incarnated wrongly; the usual remedy for this was to speed them on to their next life and a better chance at life. (That means they were killed.)
  
• At the age of nine (the number of the month of the Earth year where Virgo was said to rule the sky) Virgoan children participated in a ceremony known as their Claiming Ritual. During this, they underwent a mysterious rite that tested them for magical ability; this rite also had the tendency of flushing out a new senshi as the elder grew long in the tooth. This was when the parentage of a child was acknowledged and recorded. The mother of a child was always known. It was up to the mother to say who the father of her child was, and she was free to lie or be truthful as she saw fit. It was not unknown for a child to be consigned to bastardy by a vengeful mother, or for a man who did not father the child to be given paternal rights.
  
• They believed in reincarnation; especially in reincarnation along the wheel of the Zodiac. Virgoan souls were believed (by Virgoans) to migrate to Libra in their next life, and to have come from Leo in their past. Hence, Sailor Virgo was not Virgo reborn, but Leo reborn. The Virgo after that would be Cancer reborn. And so on. (According to Virgoan beliefs.) Therefore, the "True" Virgo comes around every thirteen generations, because a senshi will always be reborn as a senshi. (This will be important later.)
  
• Fun fact!: Aria, the past life of Elke, was Libra-Virgo. This means Elke is True Virgo, and the Virgo after her would be Leo-Virgo. It's confusing, I know. (Also, means nothing. JUST TRIVIA.)
  
• MIRRORS. People loved them on Virgo. It was said that you could see your soul's true appearance in a mirror backed in the blood of a witch.
  
• The blood of their senshi was especially potent; and their senshi was required to give a small cup of blood to be mixed into the water which fed the plants. Once, a senshi didn't do this and the crops failed catastrophically. Since then, it was impressed on every senshi that it was completely necessary; since Virgoan senshi tend to awaken very early, it was easy to indoctrinate them.
  
• Self-harm for the sake of self-harm as well as suicide were considered anathema except in the case of witches who chose to give the people their lifeblood. Your Soul was your own, you could do with it what you would; but your body belonged to the people, and those who removed a resource from the people without giving anything back were considered beyond shameful. Any person who succeeded in an attempt to kill him or herself was "consigned to the fire"--their body burned on a funeral pyre, an act which was believed to remove their Soul from the reincarnation cycle forever.
  
• For much the same reason, murderers were also consigned to the fire unless it was in self-defense. The difference? They were alive. (Suicide and murder were roughly equivalent in Virgoan society.)
  
• Funerary rites were simple. The body was buried upright in a hole, feet towards the ground. A tree was planted at the head of the body, and used to fertilize the newest part of the orchard. This tree was believed to be a beacon to the Soul, so that when it completed its thirteen-generation rotation it would recognize its home. In this way, the Virgoan commitment to community was also emphasized: While your Soul was your own, your body belonged to the people.
  
• The senshi was the only exception to the funerary rite. A Virgon senshi was sent to a white witch to receive a blessing, and then would give of their blood to the earth before being sent away to train.

Festivals of Virgo
Virgo had festivals at several agriculturally important dates; the deepest dark of winter, the planting, and the harvest of crops were the biggest celebrations.

• Persephone Renewed-- The festival of springtime and planting, many Virgons married. It is a festival which went on for nine days, and began at dusk and ended at dawn. Centered around bonfires of dead branches, it often involved slightly less dancing than the summer festival, but involved more music and games.
  
• Fire Dances-- The summertime festival and a fertility rite, it lasted only one night: the shortest and often hottest night of the Virgon year. This was a male-centric festival; dance was viewed as a masculine activity, while music was female. It was extremely hot: That is why most of the dancers around the fire were naked.
  
• Persephone Descending-- Nine nights of celebration at the end of the harvest, largely involving storytelling around a bonfire. Prizes were given out to the best performers.
  
• Demeter's Lament-- A single night of song; where the Fire Dances are explicitly male, Demeter's Lament is a female-centric festival where the focus was not on the dancers, but on the singers performing ballads to while away the longest night of the year.

 

[shibrogane]

Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn’t go away.

The Virgoan Outpost is the home of the Sixth of Twelve, and generally rests at about five o'clock on the rim of the Surrounding. It is connected to Leo and Libra. It is constructed in white marble after the style of a Greek temple, with high Doric columns and many stairs. It is surrounded by rocky greenery which is mostly moss and sparse grass, with pools and streams of clear water flowing off the edges of the rock and into space, where it vanishes. The magic of the Surrounding must keep the water flowing; no Virgo ever cared to investigate, preferring the explanation of "a Crystal did it". The temperature is generally around 60 degrees--a little chilly, but not too bad.

There are three levels in the Castle proper, and a fourth which is of a circular construction and was inaccessible to anyone but the Soldier Virgo and her protege. The first level was public access, and once housed cabinets full of sparring gear, as well as a place for lessons. The second level was an observation level, usually used by the Soldier Virgo to watch her visitors before going down below to greet them. The third level was private; it housed bedrooms for Knights stationed with her in an apartment-style, with room for as many as four knights at a time. The fourth level was the location of her bedroom and her Altar.

Due to the innate innocence of Temple Virgo, all civilians heal extraordinarily quickly when inside its shield. It might be a good idea to spend at least a little time there!

The first level is very plain and clear: the only real feature is the large, circular bath. Or, well, it must be a bath: because while there are toilets on the higher floors (and we're not going to ask how those work) there are no tubs, and the only showers are... outdoors, though thankfully enclosed. (The Virgoan people attached very little value to modesty when among their own people, but very much to cleanliness. In addition, very few lived on this outpost. It was considered unnecessary to have a private bath--especially when public baths were a Virgoan tradition.) Basic sparring and education were conducted on this floor. If a Knight (or her student) got bitchy, it wasn't rare for Soldier Virgo to dump them in the bath and scrub out their mouth with soap.

You can see battered fragments of furniture here, which leads you to believe that on occasion, the entire populace of the outpost--all five or six of them that could be there at once--would join in a communal meal. This is accurate; occasions like these were usually the High Holy days of the Virgoan people, and attendance was often mandatory. Soldier Virgo was considered her people's Tradition Keeper, in that she was charged with keeping every tradition that had been lost to Mercury's harsh weather alive. The floor is cracked and stained--but the roof seems to have held, which means there has been little wear beyond the remnants of whatever battle wiped out this outpost.

This section of the outpost has been transformed into an infirmary after being cleared out.

The second level was the Observation level for more reasons than one. While she could watch people on the level below her with ease, it was better used to watch the area around the outpost; no trees blocked the view from any window at one point in time, but now the foliage is densely overgrown and in desperate need of care. The floor here is stained with a weird, distinctive copper-red dust that, if investigated, smells oddly metallic. Between the windows, there are threadbare hangings depicting scenes from classical Virgoan mythology. The barriers around the interior edge are about waist-height. Someone could easily get pushed over the side.

The walls are decorated with mosiacs and tapestries showing the traditions of the Virgon people; for instance, there's at least one depicting a grown woman lying on an altar while another raises a knife over her--it might unnerve the people who don't realize the full significance of the action, which is just about everyone. Virgo's particular favorite is the one showing a wedding ceremony; it is much less gruesome than some of the others, being simply a man and a woman holding hands underneath a yew tree.

This is where the sleeping areas are; sleeping bags and bedding are piled liberally along the walkways, which afford space for just about anyone of any height to sleep.

The third level of the outpost was residential. One apartment (consisting of bedroom, social space and bathroom) was usually occupied by the next Virgo in line for service to the Zodiac; the other three were for visitors or any Knights assigned to the outpost. This tended to vary greatly by generation and season. Currently, most furniture and amenities have been completely smashed, along with any doors. Whoever came through here really did a number on this place. There also appears to be a skeleton in one of the bedrooms, with a bronze medallion bearing Chronos's sigil. The bathrooms are almost completely untouched, for some reason, and they still function. Don't question it; everyone knows that's what makes it break.

There is a spiral staircase upstairs, with several steps missing. It's traversable, easily, but you can't rise above ceiling level. There's some kind of invisible barrier that has a little give, but not enough for you to see what's in the room. It feels like it would need someone a lot more powerful to break through that barrier... like a senshi, maybe?

The fourth floor was the private residence of Soldier Virgo herself, and only her protege could access it without specific permission. This was because the two of them had a bond similar to that of mother and daughter, and some lessons couldn't be taught in the presence of Knights or guests. It is largely untouched; to the north, there is an altar of hewn marble. Small stools, with the cloth covering partially decomposed, are set off to each side of the altar; there are hangings of deep green and bronze to cover the white marble walls. In the center of the room is the entrance from the stairs; it is surrounded by a high banister. It would be very hard indeed to push someone over the sides. Soldier Virgo's bed and dresser are tucked against the south side, where the door concealed behind a threadbare tapestry would have been easily in view. The wooden door has been kicked in, the tapestry--some diagram of a long-forgotten Virgoan tradition?--torn in half, but the contents inside are untouched.

Along the walls are caskets, small ones of the type that might be used for jewelry. Opening them reveals knives that are still sharp, small goblets fashioned of bronze, and vials of some kind of clear stone. It distorts the item inside too much to be glass. Some of them have rust-red smeared around the mouth of the vial; others are corked, and the liquid inside appears to be... blood? A book near the skeleton appears to contain instructions for this use of these objects. This is largely determined by use of the full-page illustrations. It suggests that some sort of blood sacrifice might have been expected of past Soldiers...  

[shibrogane]

she stumbled into faith and thought:
god, this is all there is.

So my meta civ is camped at Virgo Outpost! What can I do?

Good question! Here's a selection of mini-quests:

• In the beginning phases, help set up camp.
  ++++There are sleeping bags and various amenities to be set up. Maybe you should help people settle in? You could go check if the kitchens on the third floor are functional (they are!) and
  use supplies to start a meal. It's up to you!
  
• Clean the pools of water around Temple Virgo.
  ++++The pools of water would be a lot more beautiful if all those messy leaves were out of the way! Besides, who knows what you'll find at the bottom of those pools? If you're worried about insects or grime, don't be--the waters of Virgo are always pure, and all the bugs died off long ago.
  
• Excavate the third-floor stairwell.
  ++++The Temple seems very much pristine, aside from the debris blocking entrance to the fourth floor. Sure, Virgo said going up there was a terrible idea and that she'd handle it herself, but what does she know! You want to explore, damn it!**
  
• Clear branches away from second- and third-floor windows.
  ++++It's more than a little dark up here. Why don't you clear out some branches and get some light in these rooms?
  
• Go swimming.
  ++++Obviously only something you should do after cleaning out those leaves, but hey, the water is crystal blue and a very nice temperature--why not?
  
• Help Virgo find the pieces of the Altar.
  ++++Throughout the Grove, pieces of Virgo's Altar are lost. If you find them, who knows what she'll do to thank you!... The missing pieces are: Offering Cup, Cloth, Brazier, Tinderbox, Ancient Tome, Box of Crystal Phials.

**If you decide to do this, please be aware Virgo's going to storm in and be pissed as hell. She has deliberately instructed you to remain away from that staircase. Disobeying her is not a cool thing.