The Ancient Tribes, the People and the Folk: the inhabitants are just that- they are the beings that inhabit the Shadowlands. Not possessed of any great supernatural powers in the universe of the story, the live and get by as they can. The mechanical beings known as the Songsmiths are inhabitants of the Foglands only, but are frequently better known by the derisive nickname: Toasters. Unique to the City of Glass are the Nobility, those people- exclusively the descendants of the Free Tribes- who joined the Locust King willingly and profited on the death of the other peoples of the Shadowlands. 

Last of course, are the Ghostfolk, people who walk through the Bonelands in a stupor and live their lives sleepwalking through the Ghostlands. 

The Tribes

You know the story of the tribe that took the way of the locust to heart and set about consuming the world. But there were other stories. there were other tribes. The Hungry Empire erected the City of Glass. But people refused to fall in line. Some people survived in the shadowy margins. Before that, for 666 generations the tribes lived by the Song. Before the rise of the Hungry Empire. Now they call the stories of Arcadia home. These free peoples, both in Arcadia as they were in days of old, and in the City of Glass as they struggle for survival, these people are the Tribes.

• The Scavenger Folk 
• The Freepath Tribes

Further Viewing

• The Origins of Civilisation with James C. Scott 

The Wild Folk

The other Tribes of Arcadia, wearing fur and scale and Feather. The Folk know the Locust by his scorn. The psychonaut would do well to remember that the fox and game fowl are his friends. The whale and wolf are her sisters. The rabbit and the rat are his aunt and uncle.

The wild folk are you neighbours and rivals as you explore the Shadowlands, they are your foes and friends, they are your trading partners and the hated raiders in the night.

• The Seven Clans
  •  The Free Folk
  •  The Cold Folk
  •  The Silent Folk
  •  The Wise Folk
  •  The Swift Folk
  •  The Gentle Folk
  •  The New Folk
•  The Sea Folk
  •  The Old Folk
  •  The Constant Folk
  •  The Strong Folk
  •  The Clever Folk
  •  The Singing Folk
  •  The Dancing Folk
  •  The Ghost Folk
• The Hidden Clans
  • The Mask Folk (Racoon, Tanuki etc…)
  • The Unbroken Folk (Rodents) 
  • The Poison Folk (Skunks etc…)
  • The Homeward Folk (Doves and Pigeons)
  • The Fugitive Folk (Coyote and Wild dogs)

The Treaty Folk

All domesticated animals are said to have treaties with the free tribes. Sacred agreements indicating what can and cannot be done. The agreement with pigs stipulates of they are to be fed the food of the free peoples in exchange for offering their flesh for food in their Prime. Goats and chickens offer other resources in their Prime, and may not be eaten by the terms of the treaty until they are past their Prime. This is no different from the Treaty that the Wild Folk reference, but the domesticated animals have made the treaty central to their livelihood. 

The Green Folk

The The Green Folk (or Green People are humble allies in Arcadia and the City of Glass: vine and bulb, leaf and flower. Concrete cracks as life breaks through. The Peoples are the green tribes, and it is a foolish Psychonauts who does not respect the trees. For in the Shadowlands, the plants make known their preferences.

• The Five Clans
  •  The One Leaf People
  •  The Two Leaf People
  •  The Winter Leaf People
  •  The Water Green People
  •  The Blade Green People
•  The Stone Crack People
•  The Village Treaty People

The Songsmiths

or the Toasters

Somebody must have built the first of the metal men who the scavenger folk call the Toasters. The metal men build themselves now, and prefer to call themselves Songsmiths, although their stories indicate that the last successfully built new Songsmith was built hundreds of years ago.

Time will take the Songsmiths eventually. In the meantime, the Songsmiths are the gentle teachers of the wastes and the only living witnesses to previous eras.

They are happy to teach what they know, but are also savvy enough to use their knowledge as currency to purchase replacement parts, fuel, battery charging services and other things they need.

Just don’t call them Toasters to their face.

The Nobility 

or the People of the Feast

The Locust King offers his choice. 
Some seize and feast with abandon. 
They grow fat on flesh of those who fought back. 
Eat hearty.

The Hungry Empire provides leisure for the nobility on top at the cost of near slavery for the many on bottom. The Empire depends upon a particular brand of intensive agriculture which produces excess food. This is necessary because excess food produces excess population, and the Empire need excess population to conquer and expand. The Nobility on top view the many on bottom as resources, serfs and slaves and property. As a result, the Nobility see death as the enemy- the destruction of their property. As such, the Hungry Empire has few methods to control population besides expansion. Expansion leads to war, which- ironically- leads to death. Which drives need to repopulate. This perceived need to constantly grow and populate means that woman must be placed in a subordinate position to maximize breeding potential. This requires The Empire to institutionalize an objectification of women in order to maintain this unequal and discriminatory system. This objectification of women results in sexism and discrimination. This sexism in a necessary feature of keeping the Hungry Empire running.

Crowns and Halos

he crown- the solar cage about the head- marks the locust every time one sees it. If you see one who claims the halo as there own, you know they took the Locust’s bargain.

The Crown is built from stolen fire. The halo is made from the fire of other’s freedom. Trust not the light that shines from man. It is in darkness that we find the mettle of our souls. It is under sunlight that the free people are caught and chained to yokes and made to give their fire for the False King’s Crown.

Thoughts on the Social Hierarchy of the Mirrored City

Bigotry most commonly arises from power imbalances. Slavery provides an easy example. When one person can own another person, and especially when those who can be owned are determined by some visually obvious marker like race, the people doing the owning are hard pressed not to assume that the people who are slaves are somehow less than the people who are not slaves. To do otherwise would force them to question the system of oppression and oppose it. And thus, those who benefit from the system or oppression frequently internalize these justifications as bigotry in order not to succumb to the self loathing that a normal human being would feel when engaging in something so awful as slavery.

“just how unjust does a society have to become before helping people adjust to it with behavior modification and medication is immoral?”

– Bruce Levine

Additional Reading

• The Theory of the Leisure Class by Thorstein Veblen
• The Long Emergency: by James Howard Kunstler 
• The Rebel Sell: Why the Culture Can’t be Jammed by Andrew Potter and Joseph Heath
• On Tyranny: 20 lessons from the 20th Century by Timothy Snyder

The City Folk 

Empty Heads make the loudest rattles.

Like the Nobility, the City Folk are drawn from the ranks of the Tribes absorbed and conquered by the Hungry Empire. Few people willingly join the Empire. One is generally born into the Empire, or dragged in screaming with chains on one’s ankles. The Hungry Empire pounds people into roles, and most Psychonauts will become familiar with these roles as though they are different subspecies.

The Roles

• Initiated 
  • Bureaucrat
  • Copper
  • Soldier 
• Uninitated 
  • Serf
  • Merchant 
  • Thinker
• Unsanctioned
  • Runaway

Additional Reading

• The Story of B by Daniel Quinn
• Ten Billion by Stephen Emmott
• The Five Stages of Collapse: A Survivor’s Toolkit by Dmitry Orlov
• Genesis and the Rise of Civilization by J. Snodgrass

The Ghost Walkers

The Ghost Walkers appear also on the streets of the City of Glass, filling up the Locust King’s Realm and giving the Illusion of prosperity. Think of them as those people in “The Matrix” who are still plugged in. Fortunately, there is no Agent Smith who can possess a nearby Ghost Walkers. The Ghost Walkers simply add flavor and character, stumbling near mindlessly through the city, serving as a reminder to Psychonauts of what they once were also.

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The Question of the Treaty 

The tribes and clans of wild folk and the green peoples will nearly all speak of the treaty if question about law by a psychonaut. Any one of these folk or people may give the treaty and the Psychonaut’s lack of adherence to it as a reason for not speaking with or assisting the psychonaut. A member of the treaty peoples might explain it briefly if pressed. Such an explanation would likely point out that the wild folk contains both predator and prey and that even those amongst the wild Folk who are prey themselves do in fact prey upon the green peoples. The treaty is the agreement whereby the tribes and clans of green peoples and wild folk might deal honorably with one another while still allowing room for natural predation. A fox will hunt a grouse. A goat will feed upon the bushes of many species. But despite this, through adherence to the treaty, goat folk may trade with fox folk and berry persons. The Psychonauts will naturally wonder; may they sign the treaty? And Yes, they may, if they have passed the initiation and endeared the rites of passage and earned the right to call themselves warriors under the Freepath. And foremost Psychonauts fresh to the foglands, is the primary goal.

Notable Figures

• The Chiefs of the Last Tribes 
• The Chiefs of the Ancient Tribes 
• The Paintbrush Band
• The 11 Outlaws of Justice!
• The Vicious Dog Gang
• The Cinder Scales
• The Forgotten Dead 

Additional Reading

• After Dachau by Daniel Quinn