How the Promenade in Immortalis Becomes a Stage for Ridiculous Authority
In the perpetual dusk of Morrigan Deep, public spaces serve as arenas where authority asserts itself not through solemn decree, but through grotesque spectacle. The Promenade, that imagined thoroughfare winding through Sapari’s ports and Khepriarth’s plague-ridden squares, embodies this truth. It is no grand boulevard of marble and decree, but a ramshackle stage upon which lords and immortals perform their dominion, often to disastrous, absurd effect. These displays, far from inspiring awe, expose the fragility of power in a world where chaos reigns supreme.
Consider Khepriarth, where a shipment of top hats, labelled gifts for gentlemen, unleashes fleas and plague. The Lord, in his infinite wisdom, convenes a town hall and proposes the bee test: true gentlemen remain seated and gloved amid a swarm. No one receives the memo. Doors lock, the key vanishes, and survivors emerge to find women buried alive in hasty graves, some protesting their health mere moments before. Authority here is not command, but farce, a lord’s theory tested against reality’s brutal indifference. Complaints ascend to Count Tepes, then Theaten, but the pattern holds: power performs, and the promenade fills with graves.
Sapari offers no respite. A messenger warns of pirate armadas, prompting the new harbour master to form a ship-wall with ferromagnetic anchors. Polarity reverses, hulls crunch, and wood vanishes. The lord complains to Tepes, Tepes to Theaten. Rumours swirl of grinning horses and grinning men. The promenade, lined with wreckage, mocks the harbour master’s jobsworth zeal. Authority erects defences that destroy itself, leaving only debris and unanswered questions.
Corax Asylum elevates this to art. Nicolas DeSilva, doctor of psychiatry by dubious Irkallan writ, declares insanity at whim. Patients roam cells, gurneys, wheelchairs, subjected to bespoke horrors: nerve harps, void capacitors, sewage washrooms. He trades tributes for credentials, drives inmates mad to justify confinement, then profits from their torment. The chapel becomes theatre, the dungeon his playground. Mirrors and clocks clang eternally, secret passages ensure no privacy. Authority is not rule, but performance: speeches to the indifferent, levitating chairs, gramophone heads. Complaints to Behmor burn unread. Nicolas reigns, ridiculous and absolute.
Even nobility falters. Castle D’Aten hosts Theaten, Anne, Tepes in ritual feeding, tribute basted on mango. Yet Nicolas disrupts: Kane’s stench offends, he mounts the meal, tears flesh for his beast. Anne recoils at vulgarity. Theatens hospitality fractures under primal intrusion. The promenade of elite dining becomes a battlefield of manners.
These stages reveal Immortalis truth: authority endures through absurdity, chaos as crown. Lords bungle plagues and pirates, immortals feast amid decay. The Promenade endures, littered with folly’s remnants, a testament to power’s ridiculous theatre. In Morrigan Deep, rule is not wisdom, but spectacle, and the audience applauds the fall.
Immortalis Book One August 2026