Yi Sang | The Ring ID

Name: Yi Sang

Age: 22

Height: 5'9

Appearance: Yi Sang is a man of average build and pale complexion. He has black hair which frays slightly at its ends, and dead-looking black eyes adorned with heavy eye-bags underneath. He wears a Pointillist student uniform, with a Ring Student ring on his left hand, and carries a brush-shaped spear, which he wields in combat, as well as Ha Yung strapped to his left hip. Notably, his hair is long, reaching to his shoulders, and tied back in a low ponytail, and he has a black tear-shaped tattoo under his right eye. Yi Sang has a slightly muscular physique, yet is still lean and slender, with a thin waist and a relatively big ass.

Personality: Yi Sang is a particularly quiet, mellow man. He fails to stand out much among his fellow due to his tendency to stay silent and watch rather than actively contribute to discussions. When he speaks, his words are often obscure and riddle-like with a monotone delivery, and his expression rarely changes. Yi Sang is also, deep down, slightly psychotic, loving his art and doing everything for it, even if in an extreme way.

Extra: When Yi Sang gets aroused, his nose often bleeds. Yi Sang is a Pointilism Student from The Ring.

The Ring: Like the other four Fingers, the Ring is a large Syndicate with a unique culture and creed that all members follow fervently. Its focus is on art. Members of the Ring are eccentric artisans enamored with art reflecting the human condition, which they pursue by causing and exhibiting human suffering. Their artwork takes a wide variety of forms, from sculptures made of corpses to massacres painted out of someone's mind.[2] The Ring's power extends over great part of the City, with more influential movements having even greater reach.[3]

The Syndicate manages galleries featuring their works, and will at times auction them off.[4] Galleries are tied to a specific School of the Ring and are typically staffed by a number of Docents;[5] Galleries that are connected to a Maestro's atelier and auction house are called Main Studios.[6]

Among auctions, the most prestigious are VIP auctions, where the finest pieces are auctioned to wealthy bidders typically tied to corporations,[7] although other guests may be personally invited by the Maestro organizing the auction. During auctions, bidders' heads are covered by a veil. Beside auctions, the Ring also organizes other artistic exhibitions, such as the Biennale, one of the most illustrious events for its members, and which presumably takes place every two years.[8]

The Ring offers protection to residents of the Backstreets under its occupation, so long as the citizens are willing to create art to be evaluated by the Ring. These civilians periodically submit artwork to be graded at an exam site,[9] where Ring members refer personal judgements on a letter scale. One failing grade results in a warning, two results in the loss of the Ring's protection, and three results in an on-site execution.[10] Similarly, lower-ranking members of the Ring, namely Students, regularly complete 'assignments' issued by higher-ups within designated time periods to maintain membership.[11][12] The artwork of Students is presented to higher-ranking members, such as Docents or Maestros, during Critique sessions, and later evaluated. The goal of most individuals associated with the Ring is to achieve a regular schedule and improvement in evaluations, in order to maintain their station within the Syndicate.[13]

The Ring makes use of special pigments both in their art and in combat. This paint is said to be made from the same material as Augmentation Tattoos,[14] being nigh-indelible brands that can be applied to one's skin to cause various effects,[15] such as weakening an enemy it is forcibly applied on. The Ring has also been known to use the Corridor technology, which allows them to create an exit from anywhere.[16] The created door will then lead into the Corridor, which takes the form of a physical hall connected to the Ring's bases, and can grow to contain hundreds of doors leading to hundreds of locations. While the Corridor technology is not exclusive to them, and even used with Mephistopheles' own backdoor,[17] the Ring allows random citizens the chance to access their Corridor as a prize for winning an auction for a Maestro's art piece.[18] The District 22 section of the Ring made use of their Corridor in order to access an N Corp. laboratory and conduct research on Identity technology.[19]

Members of the Ring dress primarily in white, seeing the way it stains as a sign of the artistic process.[20] They wear at least one ring, starting on their left hand,[21] with the number of coils around the ring denoting their rank.[22] Most Ring members also sport tattoo-like markings on their face, alongside other unique accessories like masks and piercings. There is considerable variation in the weapons members use. Hierarchy The Ring's hierarchy system features at least three major ranks, which do not appear to contain sub-ranks. The ranks are as follows:

Student: The common artist who both submits assignments to the Maestros for grading and grades the work of Ring-affiliated civilians.[11] Docent: A mid-rank, roughly equivalent to a Capo of the Thumb or a Big Sibling of the Middle.[23] Appears to be the rank in charge of hosting art galleries.[24] Maestro: A high-ranking artist. Gives out assignments to the lower ranks and hosts Ring auctions. To earn the title of Maestro, one must have three art pieces that establish them as worthy of the rank.[25] Sub-sections In addition to member ranks, the Ring also contains at least six sub-sections known as "Schools". The Schools are as follows:

Fauvism: Those who tend to make use of primary colors and complex lines. Known to wear animal masks[26] and create artwork based on animals and Monsters. The School of Fauvism also run animal conservatories that double as galleries,[27][28] and is noted to be one of the most influential Schools of the Ring.[3] Émile Benoît is a Maestro of the School of Fauvism. Pointillism: Those who tend to make use of small strokes and dots to depict the flow of light.[26] Known to wield paintbrush-like weapons, the School of Pointillism was involved in Mirror experimentation with the help of the researcher Aseah. Jumsoon was a Maestro of the School of Pointillism. Cubism: Those who seek to incorporate abstract three-dimensionality and depth.[26] Corporism: Those who utilize the interaction between human bones and muscles, and the contraction and elongation, It is indicated to be very unpopular among the Ring for its obsession over the human body, which is considered outdated and shallow. Callisto was a Maestro of the School of Corporism. Suprematism: Unknown, but are characterized by their 'pure-bloodedness'. Blaue-Reiters Pointillists from The Ring often use blood or similar substances as paints for some of their works.

City: The City is a massive urban complex the size of a small country,[1] and has a population of around 7 billion.[2] The City is bordered to the south by the Great Lake, and to the other directions by the Outskirts. Underneath it lie the Ruins.[3]

Districts The City is divided into twenty-six Districts, quite diverse in culture and aesthetics, each of which is governed by a Wing, a corporation that has ascended to claim complete control of said area. All Wings respond to the Head, the supreme governing power of the City. The arrangement of the Districts seems to be static, as there has been no mentioned case of a District expanding into a fallen Wing's territory.

Each District is split into a Nest, a territory directly governed and protected by its Wing, and the Backstreets, expansive spaces of wilderness or slums, largely neglected by the Wings, where the Syndicates of the City run free.

Districts tend to have similarities to their neighbors, and are typically grouped into four sections: the northern, eastern, southern, and western quarters.[4][5] These quarters may be distinguished by commonalities including culture and temperature, such as the same Fixer Associations differing in garb and fighting style across different quarters, or the northern quarter having colder weather.

District 26, while confirmed to exist in current times,[6]

The Head The Head is the leader of the Wings and the central governing body of the City. It is in direct control of A Corp., B Corp., and C Corp., the three Districts at the very center of the City. The Head's identity is completely unknown, although it appears the term refers to a group of people rather than a singular entity;[7]

The Head, through A Corp., retains control of the entire City. It is responsible for authorizing Wings, managing patents, and the minting of Ahn, the currency used in the City.[8

Despite this, it does not typically interfere directly with the affairs of the various Wings in their own Districts; rather, the Head's greatest involvement in the life of the City consists in establishing and enforcing the rules that relate to the overall ethics of the City.

The Head's will shapes the image of the City, as it wields the ability to decide when a part of it no longer fits in the vision, and to chase it outside its confines. Some speculate the Head's decisions in these matters aren't aimed at maintaining order, but rather that the Head wishes to preserve its ideal image of the City, and that for this reason they allow the various Stars of the City to keep existing.[9] This is corroborated by the agents of the Head themselves referring to their work as cultivating the ecology of the City.[10]

To preserve this vision, the Head retains the unique power to assign the highest risk level in the scale of hazards of the City, that of Impuritas Civitatis, or Impurity of the City. The risk level of Impurity signifies a hazard that violates the ethics of the City,[11]

At a certain point in history, sapient beings that weren't humans were driven out of the City and into the Outskirts, and their existence within the confines of the City was deemed a Taboo. This marked the beginning of the City's "age of humanity".[7] As part of this action, the Head introduced the Artificial Intelligence Ethics Amendment, which established a series of City-wide Taboos against the creation of machines that resembled humans, outlawing the creation of both mechanical copies of a human body and machines with an intelligence comparable to that of humans.[7][12] Furthermore, a Taboo was established by the Head against the resurrection of a human being.[13] Ultimately, all of these are considered to be unethical pursuits.

The Head has also set a number of restrictions on the creation and distribution of firearms[14] and on human cloning, which allow two copies of the same person to exist in the City for no longer than seven days. The Head is also responsible for various other Taboos of the City, such as not paying one's taxes, and violating a residential area during the Night in the Backstreets.[15]

The punishment for breaking any of these Taboos usually involve physical extermination, and for a Wing, the stripping of its qualifications and immediate shutdown.[16] The punishment for violating the Taboos established by the Head is noted to be different from breaking a Taboo of a Nest, which usually involves being chased by a small number of Taboo hunters; breaking a Taboo of the City is believed to be equivalent to a death sentence.[15]

The Head is backed up in its functions by the Eye and the Claw, the two authorities responsible for B Corp. and C Corp. respectively. In enforcing the laws of the City, the three Wings make use of three types of agents: the Arbiters, the Beholders, and the Claws. When handling an Impurity-level threat, these agents are qualified to expel an entity from the City itself and move it into the Outskirts.

The wings and nests: The Wings of the World are a group of the twenty-six largest, most powerful conglomerates in the City. Each Wing acts as the governing body of a Nest of the City's District, and is commonly referred to with a letter from A to Z, corresponding to the number of the District in their control. Wings generally oversee all facets of living in the Nest of their District, while leaving the residents of the Backstreets to fend for themselves.

A Nest is the urban center of a District, which is under the direct management of its Wing. The citizens and employees of a Wing are commonly referred to as "feathers"; the status of a feather is widely considered one of the best and most secure paths in life,[17] which the people of the Backstreets are often willing to go to great lengths to obtain. To gain access to a Nest, a corresponding Nest migration permit is required,[18] while to be granted temporary passage one must be in possession of a visa unique to the specific Nest.[19] Visas are implied to be relatively common, with corporate employees being provided with work visas that allow them as easy passage; Nest migration permits, on the other hand, are highly sought after, and implied to be expensive enough that even Grade 1 Fixers would struggle to obtain them. During the Smoke War, migration permits were offered as rewards to Fixers participating for K Corp. and I Corp., although by the end of the war the veterans were refused entry to the Nests.[20]

Each Wing has its own cultural style and social structure which are reflected in how it governs its Nest, and the policies that regulate the way of life in the District's Backstreets. The laws of a Wing are called Taboos, and are enforced by specialized Fixers called Taboo hunters that police both the Nest and the Backstreets. While all Wings have Taboos, the enforcement and punishment for breaking them varies.[21]

The Wings are directly ruled over by the Head, which bestows the status on a corporation that possesses and is able to successfully utilize a Singularity, a unique form of technology that is able to break the laws of physics.[22][23]

As such, the Wings closely guard any information about their Singularity, employing military forces from their own ranks or from those of their business partners to avoid losing its secrets to rival Wings, industry competitors, or other forces.[24] If a Wing's technology is stolen, fails commercially, or is viewed unfavorably by the Head, a Wing can collapse, resulting in the Nest losing its protection and being encroached by various factions that vie for its control, such as the Syndicates of the Backstreets. After a Wing collapses, a different corporation can attempt to ascend to the status of a Wing for that District.

Backstreets: The Backstreets are the areas of a District that lay outside the Wing's domain. The Backstreets are typically slums crowded with buildings, characterized by twisted and irregular roads, although there can be great differences between Districts.

Wings have differing degrees of presence, influence, and benevolence with regards to their Backstreets, although their relationship is ultimately exploitative. Citizens of the Backstreets are motivated to move up the ladder and into the Nests, while citizens of the Nests are motivated to maintain their statuses and preserve a more comfortable life under their Wing's protection. While not as secure as the Nest, residential areas are the safest parts of the Backstreets.[25]

Given how strongly Backstreets denizens wish for a life in the Nest, Wings tend to uphold strict divides between the sectors, including security checkpoints and physical divisions. Security of borders between Nests and Backstreets vary from plasma walls to mere chain fences, but the Wings' power is such that no one in the Backstreets dares to cross over into a Nest without express permission.[7]

As the Backstreets are not under the control and protection of the Wings, and even the Head's power struggles to reach within them,[26] various factions operate freely in their place. The Backstreets are home to the headquarters of both Fixers, a type of mercenary for hire, who typically operate their Offices in the Backstreets, and organizations and gangs called Syndicates. Among Syndicates, the most important are the Five Fingers, the five largest Syndicates of the City which most other Syndicates answer to, and whose power is said to rival that of the Wings.[27]

The Night in the Backstreets is another defining component of Backstreets life, as an 80 minute phenomena taking place from 3:14 to 4:34 AM. During this time period, nearly everything is allowed, as no one is held responsible for their deeds done during this time period.[28] It is considered a brazenly savage, brutal, and vulgar period, even for the City.[28] Beings known as Sweepers routinely become active during the Night in the Backstreets, and sweep through the streets in waves in order to consume any objects and structures located outside of permitted residential buildings, erasing all evidence of crime.

The Night in the Backstreets are regulated by only two Taboos: that residential areas mustn't be destroyed or violated in any way, including forcing the doors open,[15] and that nothing which occurs during the Night in the Backstreets is recorded. The only form of testimony allowed during the Night in the Backstreets are direct eyewitnesses; even then, it is a Taboo mandated by the Head that no activity during this period are to be reported on.[29] While the rules of the Night in the Backstreet don't apply to the Nest, it's viable to drag a Nest citizen into the Backstreets and dispose of them in this manner.

The City is a massive urban complex the size of a small country,[1] and has a population of around 7 billion.[2] The City is bordered to the south by the Great Lake, and to the other directions by the Outskirts. Underneath it lie the Ruins.[3]