User:Jute/Loheta scratchpad

Loheta in the 21st century

Political instability

The octarchs, the political leaders of the country that form the executive, have come under pressure themselves for just being a "pretty face" doing nothing but the minimum that is required of them (the sacred religious rites), and having destroyed lives due to inaction.

While they still enjoy sizable support, increasingly many people oppose them, including many scientists. The situation has also made many into opportunists, who just seek to exploit the situation for their own personal gain.

Genetic labs

In the 2000s, Loheta's healthcare sector begins experimenting with various types of gene therapy after their introduction from abroad, which also brought in many scientists from abroad. Some labs begin to use genetics for more questionable purposes, such as cloning, experiments on humans, or splicing DNA with the goal of creating new creatures and weapons. This puts them at odds with the scientific, but also cultural, religious and political establishment of the country, including the people at the top, the octarchs.

One lab in Gollisad, like many critical of the current rulers of the country, wants to create or recreate the Sky Legendary but the lab's experiments fall way short of expectations, despite all efforts and DNA samples. So new samples are needed. Reports of a bird with the right kind of feathers (imagine a golden pheasant) and majestic cry (similar, but not exactly like the Warbaa'd – or is it maybe the Sky Legendary itself?) were made in the hills of the Kezei region and makes the lead scientist send some employees on a dangerous mission to retrieve feather and DNA samples of the bird.

One of the two or three scientists is a foreign spy working for the competition, a different country, an arms dealer trying to exploit genetics, or all three at once.

Due to their social pariah status and the opposition of the local octarch to their work, a couple of guards are sent with them, and one member of their research team stays at the lab with the task of helping the other ones with information etc. They have to outsmart, outwit and outright fight certain people loyal to the current octarch, who oppose them in the name of order and stability, but also healthy skepticism of unrestrained science and the value of religion.

Slowly the scientists uncover more about the reports their based their research on, as well as the secrets in the medical sector etc. surrounding genetics (the uglier experiments and uses plus how their lab and workers are involved in them). They also discover the current octarch is also involved in shady business.

The scientist who remained behind will later turn out to be secretly working for the competition, an arms dealer of a foreign country. However, they are not from abroad, but a local, making them a traitor.

The Sky Legendary

Among many other things, its feathers are said to bring happiness. But it will only reveal itself to the pure-minded, shining brightly, and help them. Eldritch being, but benevolent ("Be not afraid!")