Cognouza

Cognouza was a ward of the city of Aeor. It now drifts through the Astral Plane.

Description
In the vision that the Mighty Nein saw after Vokodo's death, they saw the city appearing to move as though it was alive, with towers flicking and bending as though it was organic, and roads pulsing like veins. Within the streets of the city they felt the presence of thousands of minds, but saw no people. The city itself seemed to radiate an aura of malevolence and hunger.

History
The Cognouza Ward was once a part of the city of Aeor during the Age of Arcanum, where it was led by a group called the Somnovem. The Somnovem orchestrated Cognouza's escape from the destruction of Aeor during the Calamity. They betrayed Aeor to ensure their survival. In doing so, the ward of the city was transported to the Astral Sea. According to Lucien, the people of the Cognouza Ward were shortly thereafter hit by a "psychic storm" that "racked every mind and spirit and shattered them, until they became one with their own city."

The tome found by Lucien described the ward as "a region organized by nine philosophers who were dedicated to the ideas of manifestation through dream and imagination with the conduit of arcana, increasingly obsessed with the astral plane, and many of its denizens being able to forge matter from sheer will and idea alone. They were rumored to be plotting a secession from the convocation — to abscond from the city to their ‘beloved plane of dreams and ash,’ as it said in some of the notes of other Aeorian denizens that seemed to be ‘speaking down’ on these philosophers."

Within the ruins of the Genesis Ward, the party found a report that spoke of the Somnovem having defied programs, breaking approved protocols and research and experimentation and hoarding their findings. As such, studies had been halted within the Cognouza Ward and members of the Somnovem collective were not to be allowed within the Genesis Ward, floors B-3 through B-6, until further notice.

After its transition to the Astral Sea, the now seemingly living city pursued the morkoth Vokodo, who managed to escape by breaking through the boundaries of the planes and landing on the island of Rumblecusp.

Trivia
The name "Cognouza" could potentially be based on the Latin word "cognosco" meaning "to find out, learn, or know."

The Cognouza Ward seems to have its own atmosphere because fire does not interact with the "phlogiston" in the Astral sea.