2025.08.10
2025-08-10 06:11
Kidd with his newborn daughter - context will be under cut. Its sad.( 2025.08.10 )
This is may be GGD Verse (so girl!killer) but if it does make it to final draft, its background stuff that probably wont make it into actual story
2025.08.04
2025-08-04 18:02
Companion to the Brichtrede piece from the other day.( 2025.08.04 )
Exhausted Killer dozes off during snack time.
Late mama Ninsun is there to entertain little Dive in the meantime.
2025.08.02
2025-08-02 16:17
For the one person who knows who Brichtrede is XD( 2025.08.02 )
Nothing, not even death, will stop mama from meeting her granddaughter before they leave the South Blue forever
Coastal Wrecks
The cove that separates Bright Tower and the very edge of the Night Market has filled with shipwrecks of those trying to navigate the west coast and the ever expanding Scrap Yard. The worst of the toxic waste has been deposited to the north, and the loam soils of the cove almost make the water potable - at least as far as any water sources on the Trash Side. In a place people should not be, there are still many young people that grow up in the Bright Tower, and the coastal wrecks have become an almost safe place for them to play; still dangerous and one wrong step from a slow and painful death, but the closest most will ever get to a playground. On the broken ships, children will play out everything from 'House' to 'Navy and Pirates' to games of 'hide-and-seek' and 'tag' There is a quiet consensus even among the gangs to stay hands-off the cove wreckage, even if violent confrontations still happen at its edges regularly; ironically the playground with all its own hidden dangers is one of the safest places for the very small. A place where imagination and adventure haven't been lost yet, where gangs and backgrounds and family ties don't matter. Today, its a fleet of merchant ships trying to outrun pirates. Tomorrow its far away fantasy village fighting off a dragon.
Fortress
History
- 1503 Nov 30 - Anndra has the marines run off the island and is accepted by the city as Boss-oyabun by the people
- 1503 Dec 6 - Boss Anndra moves to reinforce inner city walls
- 1506 Jul 6 - John MacWilliam overthrowns Anndra while the city burns
- 1518 - Alpin MacJohn is discovered to be the serial rapist/murder and the lower gang bosses rise up against him and his father Boss-oyabun John. the Family is completely destroyed and the Kid Boss finds himself in charge of the entire island.
- 1518 Boss-oyabun Eustass Kidd, Boss-mhòrs Killer, Heat & Wire all dissappear from Kutzk at the same time
On the surface, Kutsukku looks like a oligarchic republic like many thalassocracies, but right along side those voted into power are those who rose up to take power for themselves though violence, bribery and intimidation. The city of Kutzk harbors a vast criminal underworld, one that outsiders might miss but those living under the nation's flag are all too aware of. Gangs are common in the city, though most are often no more then a gaggle of thugs and delinquents that have come together as a 'family' for survival. But the title of Boss comes with a heavy weight, and few are willing to risk claiming it for themselves without the muscle to back it up. Generally, those who do are laying claim to a whole district. Above Bosses are the Boss-mhòr - three* in total, one for each region, with the district bosses under them operating only with their blessings. However, failure to find common ground could spell the end for a boss-mhòr if the small time boss had the drive and the backing to usurp them.
*the Kid would claim the title for himself as the first Boss-mhòr of the Scrap Yard bringing the total to four for a short period in the late 1510s.
This role would not be refilled once he vacated.
At the top of all of them, leading from inner most walls of the Fortress - sometimes even sitting in the official seat of power in the Citadel, is the Boss-oyabun themself. Even if the boss-oyabun was not the official city leader, those voted into power still cannot stay in power with out their cooperation, and vice-versa, meaning more often then not - to secure their position, inevitably, one person will take on both roles, typically though a bloody confrontation.This role would not be refilled once he vacated.
Straw Mothers
Considered by many as the last spirit of Kutsukku, Cailleach / Caillagh is the old woman of the land, the last surviving old god from before the occupation, before the lost histories. Today, she lives in the oats fields to the north of the city. During the last harvest of the season, she flees the workers and hides in the shrinking and shrinking fields. Workers will mark out the nicest patch of the grains to save for last, and at the end of the season, when the very last patch is cut, the family whose field it belonged to will not harvest this sheaf for food - instead they will weave this into the shape of a woman - the Straw Mother. This will hold Cailleach for the winter; the Doll often placed inside the barn with the stored harvest, to protect it from mice and other pests. However she is brought inside for the holidays, sitting at the place of honour inside the home to oversee the festivities. She is the responsibility of the oldest daughter when inside the home, and its up to the girl to return the Straw Mother to the barn when the home is next cleaned up. When next season's winter oats have grown about 6 inches, the Straw Mother is returned to the fields, buried in the soil so she can be free to return to the fields to be free to roam for the summer.
* While only one Straw Mother needs to be made, it is common for each family with farm lands to make their own vessel for Cailleach.
* While only one Straw Mother needs to be made, it is common for each family with farm lands to make their own vessel for Cailleach.
Other Mothers
When a daughter marries into a family outside the fields, her sisters or aunties will make her a Straw Mother so take with her, so that Cailleach may still come and visit her even if she leaves home. These dolls are often then set to watch over her children once they are born so that Cailleach can met them.Forbflaith Ogilvie Broun- NicFergus
Representation & Legacy
When her mother moved to Kutzk, her grandmother made Ninsun a Straw Mother. The doll was inherited by the daughter who shared the crafter's namesake.
The Mother watched over her own children when they were born, Forbflaith hoping that the vessel could show her late mother and grandmother the children they would never get to meet.
In 1518, the city of Kutzk would be turned on its head when a violent upheaval shook the under-city. Forbflaith would come to recognize her own baby sister as one of the four crime bosses responsible. Forbflaith would hear rumors that she was leaving the island, and would seek her out.
She would never get to speak to her sister, but she was able to find the ship that was commissioned by the man her sister was preparing to run away with. Forbflaith would pay the shipwrights to hide a recently repaired Straw Mother in the walls of the ship's galley to watch over her sister.
Once the workers were sure the Mother was really nothing more than a straw woven doll, they did so, but only once Forbflaith promised them that this would not cause Cailleach to sail away with the crew.
Forbflaith never knew if Ciara found the doll or not, but after the terrible way they parted, she couldn't bare the thought of her sister leaving for the sea alone. She hoped the Straw Mother would allow their mother to watch over her sister and her new family.
The Mother watched over her own children when they were born, Forbflaith hoping that the vessel could show her late mother and grandmother the children they would never get to meet.
In 1518, the city of Kutzk would be turned on its head when a violent upheaval shook the under-city. Forbflaith would come to recognize her own baby sister as one of the four crime bosses responsible. Forbflaith would hear rumors that she was leaving the island, and would seek her out.
She would never get to speak to her sister, but she was able to find the ship that was commissioned by the man her sister was preparing to run away with. Forbflaith would pay the shipwrights to hide a recently repaired Straw Mother in the walls of the ship's galley to watch over her sister.
Once the workers were sure the Mother was really nothing more than a straw woven doll, they did so, but only once Forbflaith promised them that this would not cause Cailleach to sail away with the crew.
Forbflaith never knew if Ciara found the doll or not, but after the terrible way they parted, she couldn't bare the thought of her sister leaving for the sea alone. She hoped the Straw Mother would allow their mother to watch over her sister and her new family.
It is believed that there was a spirit in this woven doll, and not just the late Ninsun; a woman named Doruyanaika or "Victoria" had been murdered in an action that would lead to the gang wars in the first place - a dear friend and former lover of Ciera. In the face of death, she followed her friends rather than moving on to her next life
Scrap Yard
Aritifcal land on the west side of the city, created by trash dumped from other islands. Besides a high concentration of metal refuge, toxic waste is often washed ashore - sometimes in barrels, other times just flouting free on the currents. Illness runs ramped in those who spend too much time in the yards, and few live to old age. Yet, there are several pockets of communities still trying to live in the heaping piles, many of them orphan children or runaways turned out of the city known as Heap Kids. Because of the exposure to so many chemicals and high rates of diseases, many of them are never allowed inside the city walls at all for fear of spreading illnesses, and without medical care, die in their first year or so of living there. Scrap Rats are others who try and survive in the Yard, scavengers who pick though new and old trash, looking for anything that can be sold, repurposed, melted down. All metal from the yard is illegal to remove, coming at great risk for the scrap rat, their buyer, and those unfortunately enough to come in contact with the potentially contaminated materials unknowningly.
Natural Resources
While nothing is natural about it anymore, the scrap yards are a wealth of expensive metals, from construction to precious. Gold, Silver, Copper, Bass and Bronze are regularly mixed in the unfinished and discarded projects, smaller in quantity, harder to find, but worth far more than the steel and aluminum that makes up most of the yard. The Scrap Rat Kid-King (later known as the infamous Kidd MacEustace) had an eerry, inhuman ability to find these precious metals, and as he grew up, he'd gain a following from other rats who'd try and failed to rob him over the years. Real rats and sea birds also live in the Yard, but birds who nest there tend to have small broods and few survive long enough to grow feathers. No fish have been seen in the waters around the yard's faux-coast line in at least three generations.
History
Once, before the wars and before the walls, the gentle slopes to the west of the city where carefully tailored woods and gardens, leading down to lazy beaches with groyne reaching out into mellow waters. A strong shipping current lays not to far off shore, leading to the building of at the rockiest point, warning ships away from the shore. Unfortunately, this side of the island gathered sediment from the current easily, and as the world started marching toward progress, the trash and waste of wealthier islands began to accumulate along the shoreline. The build up got out of control quickly, and the island unfortunately had to direct rescourses elsewhere - having come to war with the Marines as it tried to strong arm them into the World Government that was slowly taking control over the remaining unaffiliated nations. When the Marines finally did get run off the island, to save face they reported the island nation as having nothing of value to contribute to the world, other than being a literal dump. And so, they began purposely dumping trash off the west shore, knowing full well it would collect on the beaches. Other islands began to follow suite, and the beaches disappeared under a massive land mass of garbage. Most notable, up current was a island specializing in metal based manufacturing, and soon their scraps and castoffs formed the west side's new coast line, along with the area's moniker 'Trash Side'
Kutzk Gang Wars
1518 - Alpin MacJohn abducts street workers to 'work' his extravagant parties, some willing, many not, and all drugged against their will to keep them easy to manipulate, and many having issues remembering what happened to them at all. Victoria is one unwilling participant, and even drugged, she doesn't play along, leading her to be raped and murdered, and then her body dumped in the Scrap Yard to later be found by Kidd. In an effort to find out who was responsible, Killer (as Kira) infiltrates one of the next boss parties where she confirms Alpin was directly involved in Victoria's death. While she too is attacked, she is prepared for it, and she kills Alpin and his body guards, as Kidd scrambles to try and find out where she'd been taken - having gone to Boss-mhòr Heat for help as the clock ticks away. Even with Alpin dead, it becomes clear that Boss-oyabun John MacWilliam knew what was happening this whole time and didn't make any efforts to curb his son's predatory behavior. Most small bosses have no interest in Kidd's quickly approaching war with the head of the underworld, But Killer, Heat, and Boss-mhòr Wire at with him. By the end of the onslaught, the Family is completely destroyed and the Kid Boss finds himself in charge of the entire island.
Conflict Type
Civil War
Battlefield Type
Land
Start Date
1518 April 3
Ending Date
1518 May 8
Conflict Result
the decimation of the under world hierarchy, and the formation of the Kidd Pirates, who soon set sail for the Grand Line
Location
- Belligerents : KidoKira Collective Led by Kidd MacEustace
- Boss-oyabun & Family Led by John MacWilliam
Casualties
- the death of Victoria starts the collective off to seak revenge for her murder
- Alpin MacJohn and his father Boss-oyabun John and his entire criminal empire
Gaels
The gaels languages, spoken in many of the southern most nations like Kutsukku, went almost completely extinct, their written alphabets lost to time. After freeing themselves from the reach of the W.G., many have since repurposed the Mandate
"Couple hundred years ago - our island told the World Government to fuck off, see. Whole shit ton of islands in our part of the Blue did. World Government didn't take kindly to it, and came in and tried to undermined our whole way of life. For a while, it worked- they hijacked our schools, took our stories and our words away from the kids. Took away our Gods. Got them thinking everything would be better if the World Government could come in and run everything. But backfired - it was like the more we lost, the less we trusted anyone. Them, Ourselves. Just kinda had a system collapse. When they got run off the island finally, the Marines cut their losses and just isolated us instead. Kept garrisons on our waters, nobody in or out. Tried to starve us out."
"They made our languages illegal. Enforced Mandate
on everyone. My mother's language technically is dead. There isn't anyone left who learned it as a first language. I only learned a few words from her, and she was the only I knew who still spoke it growing up. Most every written language we had was wiped out. Its the same song and dance all over the South." "So... you don't actually have a written language..." "It's complicated. Some of our languages never did, to be fair. And most use the Mandate alphabet these days, but as an island, we refused to learn Mandate, so it's kinda a grab bag on how a letter is going to be pronounced. Makes learning Mandate later in life a right nightmare, and then trying to read anything in it? Not likely." Wire shrugged.
Writing System
Uses 18 of the Mandate lettersIt is believed by some in recent years that the many oral traditions of gaels reference the void century, and thus islands that spoke it were targeted specifically to be eradicated.
curiously, the island of kutsukku is called slieau kutsukku, and it was believed to have had songs of a great sprawling continent stretching as far as the eye can see that it's people once lived on. unfortuatly, there are only small fragments of these songs that still survive
Ninsun MhacDouglas- NicAlpin
Personality Characteristics
Representation & Legacy
Traditionally, Ninsun would have stayed with her family until marriage, where her sister would have made her a Straw Mother. But instead she moved to the city of Kutzk alone, wanting to go her own way. Her mother would still make her a Mother to take with her, as to not forget her home, and to give a way for Cailleach to find her. This doll would pass on to her own daughter Forbflaith, where it would watch over her grandchildren. Decades after her death, her daughter Forbflaith would sneak the Mother into Ciara's ship before she sailed away from Kutzk forever, in an effort to make sure someone would continue to look after her estranged sister
Social
Family Ties
Daughter of Alpin MacEoganan & Forbflaith NicOgilvie, married to Fergus, son of Douglas William & Margaret of Mar
Ethnicity
Children
1485 Douglas MacFergus
1487 - 1512 Alpin MacFergus
1489 Forbflaith NicFergus
1491 - 1504 Margaret NicFergus
1493 - 1503? Fergus MacFergus
1495 - 1502? Ninsun NicFergus
1497 Ciara NicFergus
1499 - 1501? Áine NicFergus
d. 1500 unborn Fergus child
Ethnicity
Life - 35 at death
1465 Kaienreki - 1500 Kaienreki (November)
KidoKira Collective
Another gang to rise up in the underbelly of Kutzk, Kidd and Killer of the Scrap Yard took the trash side by storm by both the level of violence they responded to conflicts with and sheer young age of the both of them. Kidd was a genius when it came to finding treasures in the trash funds, and Killer joined up with some of the madams to work with the brothels to get better, safer conditions for the sex workers and places to go for those who didn't want that life anymore. It doesn't mean living under them was fun and roses; Kidd was short tempered and prone to impulsive acts of violence, and Killer was ultimately little better. They were not the type to be open to negotiations, and defended what was theirs with a murdourous drive.
Demography and Population
Crewmates who would leave Kutzk after the Wars
Heap Kids / Scrap Rats
- Ska
- Boogie
- Mosh
- Hip
- Hop
City Workers / Refugees
- Quincy
- Bubblegum
- UK
- Papas
- Compo
Territories
The Scrap Yard had been a no mans land since the first toxic waste started to wash ashore, long before any current residence to the island where around. Even so, there where always people who found themselves there when there was no where else to go. From city walls to the ever expanding shore line of debris, the Scrap Yard would come to align under the Kid Boss, a violent Scrap Rat whose ability to find value in the trash lead him to being one of the wealthiest small time bosses on the island. Along side him, was Killer, a street worker with her own trigger anger whose loyalty to the Kid Boss inspired others to turn to him. Kidd and Killer would build up the old light house as a base of operations, with Heap kids and of the Scrap Rats showing up for shelter and safety as the violence in he city ramped up
Foreign Relations
Wire
Kidd had started an uneasy alliance with a man named Wire in the Northern Slums who was a reliable purchaser of precious metals; Wire would warn him about raids from the inner city, and would give the group reasonable prices on grains and crops being farmed in the north - before they passed into the city to be taxed.Heat
Heat was the Boss of the Night Market - the underbelly of Kutzk to the south east. He and KiKi had the longest beef, Killer having been caught trespassing years ago and the two coming to nearly fatal blows again and again over the last decade. In a moment of weakness and fear, Killer found herself teetering on the edge, and Heat had the opportunity to end the feud and let Killer die on her own and found he didn't have it in himself to walk away.Victoria
Athair
Kutzk Wars
With the death of Victoria, Kidd declared war on the city, Killer supporting him fully in what could very well be a suicide mission. All either wanted at the moment was to watch it all burn. Several other low bosses heard the whispers but either supported the statues quo or didn't think they stood a chance. Only Heat and Wire showed up, and the the four lead their combined crews to a bloody conflict that ended with Kidd sitting on the throne of the city.Oatmeal Caudle
While much more popular in the chill winter months, oatmeal caudle is enjoyed year around with most family's final meal of the day, and a stable of most taverns for its hearty filling nature.
Oats is easily the most stable crop on Kutsukku, and thus has made it way into nearly every dish, and drinks are no differnent. Beaten oats, soaked in warm ale and spice, making a thick and tasty addition to any meal.
Oats is easily the most stable crop on Kutsukku, and thus has made it way into nearly every dish, and drinks are no differnent. Beaten oats, soaked in warm ale and spice, making a thick and tasty addition to any meal.
Significance
Caudle is a popular drink to begin with, but when made with the addition of egg yokes, it is a commond drink for both the infirmed and mothers who have just given birth. The drink was believed to add need nutrition for the sick, and to help stimulate a new mother’s milk production. Additionally, it is quite popular for a new mother's friends to visit her with cake and caudle after a healthy birth for a 'Caudle Party.'
"Often when the Doctor's skill has saved the life of his patient [...] it remains for the diligent nurse to prepare the cooling drinks and restorative foods [...]. Everything which is prepared for a sick person should be delicately clean, served quickly, in the nicest order; and in a small quantity at a time."
Item type
Consumable, Food / Drink
Current Location
Base Price
฿150 | 180 ᚖ
Raw materials & Components
A caudle is a warm drink made from ale or wine which has been thickened with almonds, oats or eggs. They are often seasoned to taste from family to family.
- 1.5 cup (3/4 pint) of well beaten Oats
- 1/4 quart of ale (warm to a low simmer)
- Season with pounded spices. The most common ones:
- allspice
- cinnamon
- cloves
- ginger
- mace
- nutmeg
- ginger
- drizzle of honey
Ductility Part 2
2025-05-09 14:11Kidd, now 8, finds new respect for his sometime coworker, the 12 year old welder's apprentice, both in his strengths and his vulnerabilities.( Part 2 - One year later )
killer lives up to his name.
In some scifi 'verse, teenager Kidd finds a Soldier Unit Machine in the scrap yards he frequents. Its a great find, and he's excited to strip it for parts.( 2025.05.10 )
Turns out, it's still more functioning than anyone realized
( 4 pages scanned - 2025.04.30 )
Brichtrede
2025-03-27 14:10
mama Brichtrede, and then KiKi from Feveruary (... spoilers?)( 2025.03.27 )
playing with dolls over on heroforge










