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OVERVIEW \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\

Balf is a massive island made entirely from trash, the product of several different countries all tossing their refuse in the waters off their coastlines for thousands of years. Between all of them was the Balfian gyre, a massive vortex of ocean water that trapped anything that entered within its swirling waters. Anything, but especially trash. Hundreds of tons of decaying plastics, hardened biological refuse, waterlogged wood, and dead sea life all churning and swirling in a toxic whirlpool, a growing mound of salt-encrusted garbage.

Once the Ignition Event happened, the flow of trash only grew worse as the sea trapped the remnants of countless civilizations within it’s water. Few by new currents, the mound of spinning trash in the center of the gyre only grew larger with each passing year as the races around it struggled to rebuild.

Years later someone decided to sail across the now calm waters of the Balfian gyre, ignoring the floating trash that stained it’s water and threatened to capsize their ship. Navigating for two days and two nights, they came across Balf, in all it’s glory, an enormous island towering hundreds of feet in the air, a sheer wall of ancient refuse floating in the center of the now sluggish gyre.

So they settled on it, and Balf has been a home for refugees and adventurers ever since.

LANDSCAPE \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\

Balf is, geographically speaking, a 120 mile wide iceberg made of trash, with much of its size being hidden beneath the waters of Felth. All that keeps it barely above the water are the plastics, papers, gas and air pockets produced by their semi-rotting, waterlogged state. Balf itself has now real set size, as the island is shifting all the time, losing and gaining mass as debris breaks away from it.

With the constant collapse of debris around its edges, Balf has rather prominent cliffs in several locations around the island, with an entire side of the island being a sharp cliff-face that breaks the island almost entirely in half.

Balf can be divided up into multiple layers or strata, each containing a different age of materials. The top layer of the island, know by the locals just as “Top Side,” consists of a mix of hard packed debris such as plastics, sand made from ground down glass, and nutrient rich soil produced by centuries of plants thriving and dying. With the limited grow space and sandy nature of the soil, much of the topside flora consists of sand dwelling succulents and palms, as any large earthen patch will have been cultivated as farmlands and / or rot farms.

But Balf has much more to it than Topside. The mass of trash that makes up it’s body goes deep below sea level. With the lucrative nature of treasure hunting, mining became a major aspect of Balfian life, and as the tunnels, naturally formed or otherwise, dug deep into the surface of Balf, people came to occupy them.

Leaving the surface of Balf will dump one into the compacted trash mantle, also known as Trashside, Crapside, or sometimes just Sh*tside. This area is vast, with towering pillars and arches of solidified garbage or hastily welded beams supporting ceilings made from ancient refuse. The glow of plastiphagic phytoplankton caught in glass bubbles light the various, subways, housing and below-deck operations of Balf in a dim, blue-ish glow.

The living cost below ground is pretty cheap, with most of the civilian population of Balf living Trashside, many of the tunnel walls having been carved out to create residences. This area tends to be seedier than the surface due to the host of gangs who weevil their way into the various nooks and crannies of the cavern spaces. Hiding from the watchful eyes of the Balf Civilian Militia, they make their shipments of abhourite and illegal biostims via underwater submersible ports, the underside of balf aglow with various glass portholes from civilian home and industry port alike. It can be hard to pick out just which one is illegal, and which is not, especially through the dark, endless mire of garbage that surrounds the island.

Flora and fauna wise, there is a direct shift from plant-based life to fungal life, with all sorts of rot and molds occupying the dripping, leaky walls of Trashside.. Many of they are rather beneficial though, providing light or part of the handful of below ground rotfarms, either bolstering the plant-growing farms with their glow, or they themselves filling the farms with towering prototaxites and their fruiting bodies.

Beneath Trashside is the Deep, where many of the rarer resource, such as Abhourite veins and treasures, are located. Here there is little light, with many of the air pockets of Trashside replaced by rot produced swells of toxic gas. Strange things lurk here, including glowing, psychotropic fung, ancient, long buried artifacts and machines, and all manner of creatures that have adapted to the garbage or been mutated by Abhourite.

Most caves here are dead pockets filled with fungi, though a few, more rare, may house entire biomes unto themselves. Most of them are quite deadly, costing a few miners their lives before they are sealed off and the proper authority can arrive. Some are even closed off permanently, tales circulating of horrible bubbles of biological undeath that warp the mind and body.

Many of these caverns are be flooded, with marine life creeping up through the lower layers of Balf to infest its rotting underside. Glowing barnacles and fungi-lit grottoes dot these locations, often dead ending tunnels in a pool of sludgy, oily water that open up into the waters surround Balf.

The final layer of Balf, and a biome in it’s own unique way, is the massive debris column situated under the island, spinning rapidly as Balf itself follows in its own slow, languid rotation. Waterlogged, oil-soaked chunks of wood, plastic, and other garbage yet to adhere to the underside of the island float about, disturbed by pale sea beasts and other unusual creatures. Its is VERY dangerous to dive in this area, with visibility often at 0, most submersible units navigating by a combination of radio signal and sonar. Even Felth’s aquatic species avoid this area, as the water is often painfully toxic to all but the most unusual sea life.

SEASONS \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\

Balf lies in the lower of Felth’s two green belts, keeping the location warm and tropical year round. This is aided by the warmth produced by the steady decay of it’s inner mass, keeping both it and the water around it warm alongside the occasional burst of rotting gasses and steam.

The only unique semi-seasonal event Balf has is the Ooze, a thick, black, sticky substance that seems to well up from its surface and flood the island every few years. It is unknown just how this stuff surfaces, or why, though it is often suggested it appears whenever the surface of Balf grows too warm and begins to melt the plastics right below the surface.

DOMINANT RACE/S \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\

Of the thousands of people across its surface, of all races, religions, and creeds, the only factor that unites the people of Balf is their status as refugees. Balf takes in anyone willing to accept and treat the island as their home. Sirsyies hawk their vegetables from market booths while Ephoyric lounge in tubs of water or flash their wares across their bodies in dazzling colors from behind the murky glass of a water tank. Gurund bellow the news across the island surface and use their heavy bulk to excavate new homes for the local families as they expand. All are welcome, so long as they treat Balf as their new home.

Which isn’t to say Balf is a perfect island. Corruption is rampant, with the BCM (Balf Civilian Militia) stretched to its limit trying to root out gangs activity and break up corporate invasions. Their failures are numerous, with the south eastern part of the island being dominated by the Warm Shallows and the north eastern owned and excavated by the same company that caused the Santi Gaol mine collapse.

STRUCTURE & ARCHITECTURE \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\

Much like their inhabitants, the buildings that dot the surface and underbelly of Balf are many and varied. Traditional Sirysian dugouts open up to the the surface from entrances speckled with the graffiti of a dozen generations that have all living in the same household. Each of the traditional Eygtin walls within made from compressed cardboard instead of plant fiber, boasting slogans from days long past.

A house over, the entrance to a vast Apothym hive yawns onto the surface, walkways of garbage glued together with Apothym secretions, their creators swinging and crawling among the complex network as they busy themselves with the upkeep of the hive.

Across from them a peculiar air-tight building rises haphazardly into the sky, a hulk of bolted together metals plastics, noisy pumps whirring as fresh water is filtered into the dwelling of a Ishquesh family, the entrance itself a reverse airlock from which they peek their snouts to answer the calls of door to door salesmen looking to hawk their wares, nodding a dripping head and trading a handful of coins for a bag of vibrant fungi.

Most buildings take the form of traditional cultural edifices built from the scrap and garbage of Balf. Poorer inhabitants will often have to start with single lean-to hut, many of which will often be door to door with much older constructions of pieces of junk lodged in the uneven soil.

Some buildings may be fully intact if not somewhat rotted, having been blown from the shores of the world by various storms and ending up on Balf many eons ago. Rumor has it that an ancient castle, so sturdy as to have withstood the test of time, washed ashore on Balf when it was torn from its place, shoreline and all. This palace has yet to be found, but the rumors persist.

Large sculptures made from junk also rise from the top layer of Balf and often persist even below ground. These towering figures seem to represent the various inhabitants of Balf, built from the same junk they sit atop, welded into a vague form. Some may be built from even older statues, the inhabitants of Balf making “improvements” to old world art. Below the surface, mounds of artistically stacked junk often serve as directional signs or warnings.

More recently, shiny towers and other metal, corporate buildings have begun to sprung up among the homes and businesses of civilian and treasure hunter alike. Mining the deeper reaches of Balf for Abhourite, metal, and other materials has become a lucrative business much to the protests of its inhabitants.

TRADE & AGRICULTURE \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\

The rot farms of Balf are what drive the agriculture sector and keep the people fed. No matter how warm or how cold Balf gets, the steam from these great patches of churning, rotting organic never stops seeping from their below ground bed into the sky above the island. The theory behind them is incredibly simple: break down any organic refuse matter as fast as possible to sustain the agriculture sector of an island already lacking in land. They are giant compost piles combined with the agricultural framework of an industry, the below ground filled with great pits lined with catwalks and stirred by massive steel turbines.

But when it comes to trade, the largest industry on Balf is without a doubt the artifact mining business, which is largest split into two sectors. The oldest and much more common are the traditional treasure hunters, who hunt through the tunnels of Balf for Abhourite and other rare artifacts, braving the incredibly hazardous Deeps in search for the next lucrative find, all while dealing with a huge list of hazards. These can include things such as gas pockets, unstable landscape, various hostile environs, and the native flora and fauna.

The much safer, but incredibly illegal and even more destruction method is via pit mining, and despite the BCM’s best efforts to prevent any corporate interests from taking hold of Balf, the North Eastern tip of the island is dominated by giant strip mining pits and their barracks of steel buildings, cranes, and mining equipment. These mining operations are effective in their output but regularly strip away the rights of its workers and the Balf’s island ecology. Regular revolt has forced most of these camps to be heavily patrolled by corporate police, and these areas are best avoided unless one is looking for a fight.

HOLIDAYS & RELIGION \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\

Every refugee, treasure hunter, migrant worker and immigrant brings with them their own tongue, style, and religions, the surface of Balf as varied as the races that dot its surface and speckle its innards. Because of this, Balf itself has very few holidays of its own, but is instead one giant melting pot of cultures and customs.

Gurund regularly work and play alongside Sirsysians, while Apothyms dance in the waters pools of and take part in the death festivals of the Ishquesh. As long as respect is given, respect is gained, and while tensions regularly rise between cultural groups, the statues that loom above them all serve as a reminder of what Balf stands for.

These sculptures and art installations vary wildly, with great, marble-esque statues made from melted plastic standing next to geodesic spheres made from woven bottle caps, and can be considered the cornerstone of Balf culture. Each statue, left standing for hundreds aof years, has had generation after generation add to it, each growing larger and grander as the years pass, preserved and upheld by the newer generations as their turn comes to represent the island itself.Rumor has it that come the apocalypse, the Balfians will be saved by their own works. It doesn’t help that certain pieces of art have a habit of shifting positions about the island as tectonic shifts force their caretakers to move them to safer locations.

Running hand in hand with their love of dotting every surface with art is the deep rooted belief that recycling is as vital to life as eating, breathing, and sleeping. It can sometimes be seen as a unique form of creation, as they take in the refuse of others and birth new creations into the world. In less artistic cases, it's simply a abstract representation of how they live on a massive mound of trash and many of their resources lie directly under their feet. Either way, Balfians see every surface as a place to make their mark, on and island made of marks, seeking to preserve the old as they make use of their ancient trash, keeping them alive through their own means.

While not considered a holiday per say, the ending of the Mecha Racing Cup so effectively captivates the public that even if one refuses to acknowledge it as a holiday, they’ll be the only ones coming into an empty workplace as everyone has long since called out sick for the day. Mecha races are considered the one true sport of Balf as driver cobble together custom racing machines and pit them against one another to see who is the fastest on the track, with the winner going home with a prestige cup and having their mecha design stored in a hall of blueprints for entrepreneurial buildings to use.

NATIVE FLORA & FAUNA \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\

- Bioluminescent Plastiphagic Barnacles
- Various Plastiphagic fungi and insects
- Golems, crab-like creatures who adhere trash to their shells to build up a layer of armor
- Palm Frond Trees
- Various Cacti and Succulents

CAPITAL CITY \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\

Balf lacks a proper capital, being a decentralized island nation, but does have area considered one. The Square is a massive collection of buildings surrounding a single ancient junk statue rising from a park of green plants, each of which houses some rudimentary government facility to aid in keeping the island working. This most notably includes the BCM who have several headquarters here to help keep on top of island happenings and to mobilize wherever they are needed.

LOCALES \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\

The Watch Tower:
A large station on top of a stable hill of plastic sheets that has been monitoring atmospheric changes for nearly nine decades. It was constructed to aid refugees as they attempted safe passage to Balf through it’s hazardous waters. Like any other building on Balf, it has only grown since construction, becoming a sprawling, hacked together affair of towers, supporting struts, and antennae visible from most areas of the island.

Statue of Flippancy:
One of the dozen or so guardian statue that dot the island, the Statue of Flippancy is a several story tall structure that differs it from it’s peers in that several generations of Balfians have lived and continue to live inside it’s massive shell. Rumor has it can move on it’s own via a complex mechanism installed within by creators past, something that helped create the legend of the Guardian statues.

Market:
Not just a market, but THE Market, the Market is a mile long strip of storefronts that occupy a small section of the Trashside tunnels, offering any and all wares the citizens of Balf could need. Some of the best food is available here, including the acclaimed Benji’s, if you can actually find it.

Subway Tunnels:
The Trashside portions of Balf are filled with a series of reinforced subway tunnels bored through the trash itself. Spanning from one side of the island to the other, with branches that will take you to one of a dozen side destinations, the Subway is effectively the veins to the lifeblood of Balf. Each one travels on a electrically charge rail, a marvel of modern engineering, while the open street sides to the tunnels can be traveled on by both foot and beast.

Efugit Mining Camp, Balf Branch:
The infamous mining camp to the north east, a fenced in sprawl of watch towers, worker housing, and mining equipment all surrounding a massive sinkhole in the surface of Balf.

Benji’s:
Considered the best restaurant under the surface of Balf, Benji’s is a highly elusive cart stall that seems to appear and disappear from the walls of the Market in the wee hours of the morning. Benji, the owner, is a master craftswoman, offering a signature soup that’s to die for, if you can find her shop and pay the fee, of course.

Audiovapor’s Orniscop:
A topside bar that’s gained some fame recently thanks to its band venue and the brand of Balfian Fungus Vodka they produce from great cobbled together vats. It’s a drink strong enough to melt the fur off a veteran drinker and reduce a Meechan’s veteran to a passed out, drooling husk. Drink responsibly and at your own risk.

Orniscop Aviary:
A sort of alternative but more traditional venue to Meechan’s, the Orniscop Aviary was initially built as a roosting location for the flocks of Orniscop that filled the island during the 1250s. The idea was that giving them a place to roost would keep their noise in one location, leaving the rest of Balf to get a good night's sleep for once. It kind of worked in that regard, but more importantly, became a historical landmark as some of the rarest Orniscop holding the oldest songs began to roost their and spread their genetic memory amongst the others. Most notably, the Orniscop Aviary is also a underground music venue, with new artists offering up their sound to the Orniscop who roost above, seeing if the birds will accept their song as their own and carry it far and wide.

Widemouth Racing Circuit:
The hottest location come midsummer, the Widemouth Racing circuit is a hastily constructed stadium built to house the championship mecha racing circuit in its final stage. Resembling a beveled bowl, the either stadium is surrounded by reinforced casing and glass, giving unparalleled view of the competitors and their roaring heavy metal machines.