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Description
This Niko Lahner, a cold, dispassionate scientist from a place known as the Uncanny Valley. What that essentially means is that, he's one of the people in charge.

See, the Uncanny Valley is so called because it is the only patch of land in a long mountain range that is even remotely inhabitable. The rest of the valleys in the same range are filled to the brim with poisonous gasses produced by a combination of volcanic activity and native flora. What this means is that, if you want to trade with someone on the other side of the mountains, you have to go through UV.

Now, while the Uncanny Valley is fairly long, and has multiple large towns within it, it is not exactly heavily populated. So naturally, the residents' more militaristic neighbors are very eager to march in and seize the lucrative trade routes passing through their home.

If they fought such attempts on the invaders' own terms, they'd be stomped flat in an instant, due to lack of numbers. However, a number of inventors make the valley their home for various reasons, mostly having to do with the previously mentioned gasses. So instead of trying to raise a more conventional army, the citizenry turns to these ingenious men and women to devise weapons and methods capable of keeping them safe.

Over time, this eventually led to a tradition of putting these same scientists in charge of regional governance. Hierarchy is determined in a regular competition that can be best described as a combination of election campaign, science fair, and capture the flag.

This competition is held once every few years, and requires entrants to give the populace a rough idea of how they'll be running things, provide an example of their technological know-how, and then use this to storm the castle's of their competitors. The idea is that the winner is the one who can build the deadliest devices. Whoever does, will be named Baron of the Mad Science Alliance (the governing body of the Uncanny Valley). As Baron, they have the final say in essentially everything from research budgets to defensive planning.

The reason all of this relates to Niko here, is because every year since he's been old enough, he's entered the competition, and, every year, he has come away victorious. However, he routinely turns down the position that goes with victory, leaving the baronship to that year's runner up, in favor of simply drawing large sums from the treasury to fund his own experiments. No one is sure exactly what he does with all that money, but nobody can deny that the sheer genius (and viciousness) of his inventive weaponry.

Description
This Niko Lahner, a cold, dispassionate scientist from a place known as the Uncanny Valley. What that essentially means is that, he's one of the people in charge.

See, the Uncanny Valley is so called because it is the only patch of land in a long mountain range that is even remotely inhabitable. The rest of the valleys in the same range are filled to the brim with poisonous gasses produced by a combination of volcanic activity and native flora. What this means is that, if you want to trade with someone on the other side of the mountains, you have to go through UV.

Now, while the Uncanny Valley is fairly long, and has multiple large towns within it, it is not exactly heavily populated. So naturally, the residents' more militaristic neighbors are very eager to march in and seize the lucrative trade routes passing through their home.

If they fought such attempts on the invaders' own terms, they'd be stomped flat in an instant, due to lack of numbers. However, a number of inventors make the valley their home for various reasons, mostly having to do with the previously mentioned gasses. So instead of trying to raise a more conventional army, the citizenry turns to these ingenious men and women to devise weapons and methods capable of keeping them safe.

Over time, this eventually led to a tradition of putting these same scientists in charge of regional governance. Hierarchy is determined in a regular competition that can be best described as a combination of election campaign, science fair, and capture the flag.

This competition is held once every few years, and requires entrants to give the populace a rough idea of how they'll be running things, provide an example of their technological know-how, and then use this to storm the castle's of their competitors. The idea is that the winner is the one who can build the deadliest devices. Whoever does, will be named Baron of the Mad Science Alliance (the governing body of the Uncanny Valley). As Baron, they have the final say in essentially everything from research budgets to defensive planning.

The reason all of this relates to Niko here, is because every year since he's been old enough, he's entered the competition, and, every year, he has come away victorious. However, he routinely turns down the position that goes with victory, leaving the baronship to that year's runner up, in favor of simply drawing large sums from the treasury to fund his own experiments. No one is sure exactly what he does with all that money, but nobody can deny that the sheer genius (and viciousness) of his inventive weaponry.