Il'sha-ah

City of the Ancients

Built beyond the Age of Dreaming Il'sha-ah has always stood at the Cobra's Hood, the delta of the great river of Annam, of Myr, of Ancais. It's fortunes and fate have waxed and waned across time, and it has seen the world as center of trade, temple city, city of wisdom, and more countless times. But during the Sword Age, it became the capital of Annam, and has remaind so, since.

From it's palace, the Phaoris rules over the living and the dead of Annam, advised by those who ruled, before, and those who serve. It's six pyramids, dedicated to the seventh, the Palace, each house the Phaori-Tep, the past which breathes. These unliving gods serve the current Phaoris of Annam, who may someday join them, if he is wise and rules well enough to earn his place among them.

Seek Il'sha-ah for Wisdom, for History, and for Wealth... But leave it's beauty behind, lest you find yourself joining the Phaori-Tep, trapped in the past.

-The Chronicler-

History

Birthed in an age undreamed of, Il'sha-ah's origins are lost to sand and time, but it is known that the first of the Seven Pyramids, the Palace, was ancient when the Age of Dreams began. In that bygone era, the Six were built to the south of the first, which faces the Khufu boldly.

In the millennia since, it has grown and fallen, returned renewed and collapsed again. Conquests have broken a dozen dynasties, and usurpers have become Phaori, living gods, upon the throne of Annam.

Most recently, after the Ancais shattered the Ruby Throne of Ipu during the War of Transgression, the Lapis throne of Il'sha-ah became the Phaoris' seat of governance, temporarily returned to the rule of Am-Tet of the first dynasty until the heir was divined from the progeny of the Ruby Phaoris.

Since that day, when Ipu fell to the Black Stone Lords of Ancais, Il'sha-ah has been the capital of Annam. It's bounty, and position of trade with distant shores, have made it quite wealthy which has brought both joy and sorrow to the city.

The Ruby Phaoris' heir, however, did not sit long on the Lapis throne, as Ancais' long shadow fell upon the city, the Heir was cast out before the nemes crown could even be placed upon his young brow. It was many dark years that the young Phaoris wandered the world, in exile from his own kingdom. And his sons, and his daughters, and their sons and daughters, fought against Ancais, tried to hide among the people.

In the days before the Transgression, the Ninth Dynasty's heir returned to Annam with an army brought to bear against Ancais occupation. Against the Usurper King and his false gods. And when the battle neared it's end, it is said that the deserts swallowed the remaining Ancais forces, whole, as they expanded under the Tempest Curse.

Adto-Kai, Phaoris of the Eleventh Dynasty, now rests among the Phaori-Tep, ready to advise the new line of Phaoris. The Twelfth Dynasty has arisen and taken it's first steps since the line of the 11th has ended.

Though there are Claimants to that line who beg to differ. And Phaoris Semeknosu may yet have to prove himself.

Architecture

The architecture of Annam is among the most varied in all the world, likely because of the many foreigners who have settled within the now desert lands. Since time immemorial has the region been a crossroads from East to West, from North to South. It's plentiful harvests, lush river, and sprawling vistas something many have sought.

Traditional Nnamic construction largely follows the post and lintel style, mainly due to the preponderance of available stone and mud-brick against the much less common wood, which is largely used for non-construction purposes. To sustain a stone roof, columns are used a great deal in Nnamic architecture, filling homes and great halls with pillars that are often painted or carved with beautiful artwork.

Each pillar supports one section of two long stones which support the roof, in turn. Rooms, therefore, tend to be somewhat crowded. In smaller homes and estates, walls are generally made of reed mats or hanging fabric between pillars to create separation. While in larger, more wealthy, buildings the use of load-bearing interior walls is more common.

On the outskirts of Il'sha-ah and Ipu, hive houses are largely used by the poor. These simple one-room huts are made of a circular wall of mud-bricks with a reed-mat roof. Often bulging with age, as the wall sags a bit, they earn their name by their rough beehive shape. Such huts often have a small clearing or yard in front of them where cooking and general living happens, and the hut is used mostly for sleep and when privacy is required.

Around each of the cities of Annam, Il'sha-ah in particular, Reed Huts or Longhouses are also very popular among the poor. With a central pillar of lashed reeds, a framework of same, and woven reed mats, such houses are easy to build and generally quite comfortable. However they're notoriously pest-ridden, as insects and mice or rats often chew through or live in the reed mats.

Temples and important Political or Merchant buildings of Annam are slightly different. Such buildings are built in a Pylon style. Wherein two large pyramidal towers, with a cornice providing a flat roof, flank a lower entry area, creating the visual image of a gatehouse. Such buildings bear images of important battles, famed individuals, or well known historical events in most cases.

Stone roofs in Annam are flat. Typically with a slight slant toward one corner which bears a hole and a pipe leading to a large jar, basin, or barrel to collect what little rainwater Annam might see. Walls, and roofs, are typically coated in or made of Limestone, with sandstone being a slightly less common material for construction. Important buildings often use Granite and Marble.

Floors are typically stone, with reed mats or woven rugs providing some measure of comfort for those moving through the home, or for those who must remain standing for long periods of time, such as guards or soldiers. Workers in businesses tend to use a leaning stool with a single leg or a two-legged squatting stool for comfort.

Windows are very common, but only rarely have glass, and instead largely function as a way to keep airflow through a building and regulate temperature. This is obviously less important for hive houses and reed huts, whose roofs and, indeed, walls often allow winds to whistle through.

Politics and Religion

Il'sha-ah is a port city on the bleeding edge of war.

Phaoris Semeknosu

Phaoris of all Annam, Semeknosu is a man whose best years are at his back, and whose future prospects dwindle like grain left past the harvest. Before he was Phaoris he had been the advisor to Amekotan and his son Adto-Kai, the latter of whom named him, and his family, into succession as one of his final acts before his death.

Since taking his place upon the throne, Semeknosu has made several very unpopular decrees. Among them, he has restored the Right of Vengeance, which puts foreigners at a significant disadvantage in certain delicate negotiations, largely due to actions committed by their peers and neighbors. Semeknosu says this will make Annam stronger. Many merchants feel it will make the nation poorer, as traders move to easier ports of call.

So far, neither has been proven correct.

Magistrates

Few nations or city-states of the world boast as strong a Magisterial Class as Annam. Here, the Justice runs in bloodlines, with the Magister's family being raised from early childhood to take over the parent's role when they fall to age, illness, or accident. Such Magistrates are not noble in the traditional sense. They are given no lands, nor place of authority over others who are not under the scrutiny of the law.

But deference they are often given. Position within polite company is expected. A Magistrate can expect to be afforded whatever their community can offer, as any is quite willing to defer to one who can divine innocence and guilt at any time, and for any reason... Particularly those who are also given direct power to collect taxes in the name of Phaoris.

This has, of course, lead to some members of the Magisterial class to become petty tyrants and robber barons whose entire goal is to grow fat upon the labors of others, to increase their own wealth far beyond what might be expected of a magistrate. There are few checks in place for such occurrences. But they typically sort themselves out when a magistrate's lusts exceed his influence.

The Phaori-Tep

Within Il'sha-ah, the Phaori-Tep, the Breathing Past, are worshipped by many citizens. Ancient Phaori who died in service to Annam and who were considered wise enough, or strong enough, that their particular brand of leadership could not simply slip into the scrolls of history, they have been mummified and restored as everliving advisors to the Phaori.

Am-Tet, the oldest of the Phaori-Tep, was a great leader and tactician of the First Dynasty. Considered a Living God in her own time, she was the first mummified in service to Annam. And though her scales no longer bear the lustre of life, her eyes still glow with the golden-green glow of ancient wisdom.

While only the Phaoris may enter any of the six great pyramids to seek advice from the Phaori-Tep, many citizens leave offerings at the pylons, or at shrines, begging for advice, aid, or simply kind words. Their prayers are rarely answered.

Organizations and Mysteries of Il'sha-ah

A city so ancient as Il'sha-ah has uncovered uncountable mysteries and foes within its streets and homes. But just as many have been buried by the weight of history, lost as memories fade, and papyrus ages and rots. Below are some of those which are known.

Breath of Annam

Trading Company

City of the Dead

Beyond the walls of Il'sha-ah there are cities of the dead in the wide deserts of Annam. Places of great honor, where those of wealth and prestige are buried in great honor, typically in tombs that will stand until the whole world is swaddled in sand and the seas have dried up.

But Il'sha-ah has it's own Necropolis far from the comforting black silt of the Cobra. In the west, in the sands of the canyon of Il-hamun, stones are carved from the walls of the ever expanding canyon to build small tombs for notable, but unwealthy, citizens of Il'sha-ah along the canyon bed. Those who cannot afford their own tomb are, instead, buried in the sand itself. Typically wrapped and placed with a few tokens to take to the afterlife.

Such tokens, buried throughout the Necropolis, are often sought by graverobbers and darker things who haunt the canyon. It has gotten so bad, of late, that the city guard now has a Dead City patrol which runs a circuitous path through the necropolis. Those who are found disturbing the dead are often sent to join them, unceremoniously.

The bodies of those who rob graves are not buried in Il'sha-ah, but burned. Their ashes cast to desert winds that they may never enjoy the cool waters of the afterlife, but be trapped in torment for their transgressions.

Doomsayers

Il'sha-ah has existed for time uncounted. Even Am-Tet claims to not know how old she is. But so long as it has stood, there have been Doomsayers decrying its imminent end. Upon street corners, upon rooftops, in the black silt of the Cobra and the red clay of Il-hamun, they cry out to others to change their ways, to flee the great cities of the world and escape to the deserts. That the curses and horrors the Eight Divines have unleashed are not yet complete.

They speak of transgressions, vague and indistinct, of failing morality and inequity within Il'sha-ah, which continue to offend the gods. They scream of false gods in the Phaori-Tep, of the darkness hidden in the desert to the west, where Annam's evils have been buried but do not lie still.

Some believe it. Some truly hold the idea that the Cobra will strike Il'sha-ah and the sands will swallow it, whole. That the Sea of Khufu will turn red as blood, and become as poison. That the skies will open to the realm of nightmares and all manner of horror will fall to the sands and unleash plagues and pains unknown to mortals upon all of our heads.

Many, however, are false-prophets and would-be saviors, who write and cry and beat their breasts over the horrors that will come and claim some litany of prayers, some oil and extract, some potion or ungeunt, will cleanse one's soul of all the transgressions of their lives and their forebearers and secure for them a comfortable life when the end does arrive.

These people are loathed by all but the most foolish.

K-C Trading Interest

Trading Company

Arat-Shi

Distant Arat-shi, City of Sands, far from Il'sha-ah, but ever within it's long reach. A bastion in the hungry sands, where water flows and life thrives behind high rattan walls. Where workers shovel sand as explorers plan to leave, to return, and to leave anew.

Here in the heart of Annam, where the great desert consumed so much of what once was, there are many who seek what was lost. Some seek knowledge in those ancient halls buried by the Tempest Curse. Others seek wealth, lost to their family or simply lost, waiting to be recovered, to be spent.

And there are many who do not seek. Do not trek. Do not dig through endless sands to find some forgotten history. Those who have released all claim to the height of Annam before the Sword Age. Who live their small lives within the city, trapped by those rattan walls. By the explorers. By the wealth that could be theirs.

I pity them, my friend. I pity them. For their small lives are dictated by the travelers, the caravaneers, the explorers. The ones they serve, but who would never deign to bear them to distant Il'sha-ah.

History

In another time, Arat-Shi was nothing. A watering hole in the vast savannah now swallowed by hungry sands. But it's few people were resiliant and clever. Without great quantities of stone to hold back the sands with high walls, they looked to the waterline and took up reeds. Lashed together onto frames, then tied to great long poles made of tight-packed wood known as false-palms, they erected a barrier that held back the Tempest's curse for a time.

Each day, they would dig the sands away from the wall, replace broken panels, and stand it up, anew. In this way did Arat-Shi bend while so many villages and city broke under the weight of dust.

Arat-Shi grew in the wake of Transgression. Refugees from a dozen cities swallowed by sands fled to the now-oasis. They took up shovels and cut their fingers on endless reeds, weaving the wards that would keep them safe. Noble men, merchants, princelings, all became as villagers within Arat-Shi in those first months, the first years.

And then, then they remembered the full accounting of what had been lost to the sands. Letters were written to Il'sha-Ah, to Yutor. Begging the Phaoris for aid to recover the great wealth of Annam, the wealth of the Tempest. And Phaoris, knowing the great accounting, sent aid. And so did his sons and his daughters, Phaori each.

Since that time, Arat-Shi has become a great hungering beast in the desert. Wheat and Barley, Grain and Wine, are sent to the small city in abundance from Yutor, Ipu, and Il'sha-ah. Endless foodstuffs because the small city, with it's army of shovelers, has not the food, the land, to support itself.

In this way it is the worst of excesses in all of Annam. It produces nothing, it exports nothing, it's labor is entirely selfish and a wasted labor of vanity to hold back the Tempest Curse, each day shoveling a whole desert aside from a wall of reeds on an empty stomach that the city's leaders might deign to offer bread and wine when the work is done. When the sands are cleared and the wall restored.

What pride to hold back the wrath of a god. What arrogance to consume the work of others. What vanity to sacrifice so much for the hope of recovering wealth to those punished by the Tempest himself.

Ipu

Sunmet

Yutor

Imba

Beyond the western edge of Annam, where sand abuts amber grasses dry between the rains, where the hungry beasts and the hungry sands compete each year to take their glut, near the northern lake Ubuti where fish and crocodile are plentiful, round towers and houses with broad and pointed roofs mark the lands of Imba.

Unconquered Imba, who never felt the acain grip of the Sunken Kingdom, stands a beacon of learning and history stretching back through the Age of Dreams... but deals, now, with it's own jackals. Raiders from the Ngo, Pirates from the Sea of Khufu, and Jealous Kings, however distant, each marvel at what they might find within the city...

Still, the Ivory Council sits upon their seven brazen thrones, each polished by the pressures of countless ancestors who once held the same seat, and the weights of their positions. It's a wonder the thrones have not worn away to nothing, in truth. For the weight of Imba's troubles is great, and has been since Neasc took to the Khufu Sea.

Who can say what is to happen to distant Imba, the Unconquered Land, or whether it's title will hold?

History

The Seven Tribes of the Imba have always used Ubuti Lake as the center of their lives. Each would travel across the Savannah in antiquity to hunt and gather, only to return to the shore of the Ubuti for trade and security. In time, friendship was born among them, bonds grew stronger, and the great seven sided city was founded. Initially little more than a tent-city made up of jockeying families seeking to be nearest to the water, in time things settled into stone.

For centuries the Seven Tribes have lived in relative harmony, their federation of families among the strongest in the world. From time to time the Ivory Council, so named for the white hair of all of it's members, would see fractiousness or infighting, and occasionally skirmishes and riotousness... It has never broken, or fallen to open war.

Proud Imba wants for little, it is said. Their wealth flows out into the wider world, with delicious coffee, fragrant spices, and fruits of the jungle commonly carried vast distances for foreign enjoyment. Its livestock graze upon fine grasses, hearty seeds, and enjoy pleasant waters on even the hottest of days. Even the wood of Imba, famously a grassland, is plentiful. No, the one thing Imba lacks is workable metals. Tin and Copper trickle out of the mountains to the west, and iron can occasionally be found, most often fallen from the heavens in flame and stone, it is scarce in the grasslands of the West.

Such shortage has left the seven tribes more reliant on spears than other nations, with broad metal heads, alongside engraved and polished hardwood or stone-headed clubs. Axes of stone are also common, similarly polished. Shields and armor are often little more than stretched and layered hide.

Which makes it all the more awe inspiring when Bari Warriors crush foes wielding "Superior Arms" through tactics, toughness, and overwhelming force. In no small part because, unlike the Conquered Lands to the east, Imba has no tradition of fearing Sorcery.

Shaman often go to war, bringing blessings from their gods upon the soldiery, and dangerous vulgar magics to lay waste to enemy forces at exceptional ranges.

Architecture

Organizations and Mysteries of Imba

Kyalo

In the tall golden grasses of the Shrinking Savannah rests Kyalo, upon the shore of Lake Kono. There, hunters stalk through the tall mashy grasses along the shoreline to ambush great beasts which come to the lake to drink or hunt, themselves. Fishermen glide deeper into the lake with spears and nets to gather what they can, but give wide berth to the great riverbeasts that descend into the lake.

In Kyalo, one can find many strange and wondrous things. From the heady nectar of the Pokenkwo flower which can fell the greatest warrior for hours, to great many-legged riding serpents that slither low in the grass giving the rider the appearance of gliding across the ground amid the golden waves of the savannah. Here, witches and cultists trade in dark corners, selling bottled dreams and dried hearts of warrior-kings to be ground and brewed for power.

Kyalo is the city to visit for the strangest goods and a wealth of stories to share. But beware the Nectar, the witches, and the bottled dreams. Those who fall in with any of them rarely climb back out. Of course, if the witches don't get you, Ado and his corrupt guards will. Plucking every bloodstone 'til there's nothing left.

History

The history of Kyalo is fragmented, at best. But some of the oldest buildings, towers of stone and mortar, have been standing since the Age of Dreams. Many times has Kyalo risen and fallen, only to rise anew. The Market on the Edge of Forever is simply too valuable to lie in ruins long.

The city earned it's interesting name from the people of Ngo, when they first stepped forward from the jungles to explore what they called the Endless Grass Sea they came upon Kyalo, it's tents and walls raised high, the air of it's streets crisp with the scent of boiling Nectar and street-foods, the sound of business and song loud in their ears.

Throughout it's history, Kyalo has been a crossroads between Imba and Ngo and the places to the East, where coffee and dreams are traded for iron and lives. Where that which comes from the deeper canopy can be traded for cattle, goats, and hardy fowl of every description.

But it has risen and it has fallen. In the time of Red Banners it was conquered twice by Ngo. And it was destroyed in the Sword Age by Ancais who sought to build their black temples upon it's ruins, mortar sealed with Yala blood. Even after the Sword Age it has changed hands between petty warlords who conquer a few villages and send their conscripts to die on Yala spears until the spears are bloody and broken.

How many falls has the city had in the time between Dreaming and Scorpions? None can say, for sure. For each time Kyalo has lost history, lost parts of itself to the conquests and failed coups. Thirty years have passed since last it was set to torch, though most of the Yala fled before the city fell rather than fall with it.

Trade Prince Ado and his men reclaimed the city in the weeks after the warlord moved on toward Tefari. Those who had shared the conqueror's feasts, bed, or blood were killed and exiled, and the city was rebuilt. Homes built upon the ashes of what came before, of lost histories and ancient mysteries stretching back past the horizon of time.

Kyalo may not sit within an endless grass sea, but it does rest on the precipice of knowledge lost to eternity, forgotten wisdom fractured and fallen into the sea of time itself.

Oromi

Dreary Stopwater, where the roaring waters of the Ahlaki spread and soak into muck and mire in the shade of twisted acacia and marula trees. Where spreading mists and fogs from the great falls to the west swaddles the land in oppressive damp that fades for only hours when the sun rises to it's apex.

Shall I tell you of the thick yellow clay that floods upon doorsteps when heavy rains flood the Ahlaki river? Or shall I tell you of the deep swamp, where the spread water reaches depths that might swallow a grown man, whole, with no sign he ever was there? Or, perhaps, should I describe the endless horrors of the Spreading Waters, from giant insects to great bulbous toads with three eyes above their flattened heads, to the riverbeasts, long and sleek, fatter than the wealthiest merchant, with mouths to match?

Or would you hear of the lives of the Omi, the twice damned fools who had the misfortune of being born in the swamp but made the unwise decision to remain?

The Papa or Mama of the city is the Great Storyteller. And it is their responsibility, from the dawn until the dusk, to tell tales and history to the children of Oromi. Then, once the parents return from their work and duties beyond their children, the old one retires to rest and consider what they have learned from the questions of children, and what they have taught those children.

History

The Ahlaki river flows through the high mountains of Ngo and plunges down to the forested highlands that border the jungle. It plunges again from those highlands to crash down to the Stopwater lake. A mire of clay and fetid soil that drinks deeply of the river, leaving what remains to spread over the area in a large shallow lake. At it's deepest it descends into blackness dozens of feet, but the majority of the stopwater is less than three feet deep with many small islands of sand, reed mats, and yellow clay thrust up by the force of the falling water.

On the eastern side of Stopwater Swamp lies Oromi. Built above the waterline, mostly, it is a city of trees and plants, where the wide branches of old acacia trees, twisted by the damp, are often cut free to use the trunk as the foundation of houses out of reach of predators. Those who cannot afford such homes instead build mud-huts with reed roofs, often two stories and more, to keep their children away from the ground at night.

Lead by the eldest surviving person, Oromi rarely sees a leader last more than a few years before they are interred with honor. The city's leader makes decisions about everything from which fields will lie fallow to whether a new wall is to be built or a new purifier will be used to cleanse the water. But their main purpose in Oromi is the same purpose of most elderly people the world over.

The Papa's stories speak of fractured history. Stolen moments through time and exagerration. Of a great riverbeast who swallowed the sun in one tale, of the wise wasp who counciled a king in another. But those who hear the tales, however young they may be, seem enraptured by the story, and take from them important lessons not in animal husbandry or advising kings, but of how to live in the Stopwater.

What history can be gathered from Papa Wahale is limited, as the man's wits seem to flee him one by one in his dotage. But at the heart of his ramblings is a tale of a great king of the swamp, a hidden place of darkness in the mists of of the fallen Ahlaki.

If you are reading this, that is where I last traveled.

Tefari

Ngo

West of the world lies Ngo, the jungle and the city which guards it. There are those who say the dead rest in a distant Dweller's Sea beyond the ancient trees and moss-covered mountains which rise like a threat beyond it. Within it.

The People of Ngo are much like the Imba. Never conquered by Ancais, armed with spears and blades of bone far larger than the bones of men or beasts of burden, far stronger as well. Their forces never traced far enough to the west, to the south, to find the great hidden city. For the Ngo keep their banners at the edges of their lands, easy to find and easy to misapprehend.

If you have such fortune as to find their marble city sprawling across vine-laden lands beneath a canopy of leaves and mist, do not turn back. If you must leave, walk backwards up the path you just followed. For they have surely seen you, and see a turned back among strangers as a mark of utmost disregard.

History

Ngo's history is written into the very stones of the city. Ancient pictograms are carved into many buildings, telling a visual, wordless, story of how those buildings came to be, what happened to the people who built them, and how they weave into the greater story of Ngo, the world's oldest Empire.

Or, at the least, the remnants of one.

According to the pictograms, Ngo stretches far to the west and the south, an endless jungle that eclipses all horizons with lush green darkness. They speak of ancient cities and peoples from across the great darkness coming together in light.

Different tribes of Goan appear, with what are, at first, images of animals to mark their tribe. But over time they become stylized, a single line shaped into half a silhouette of the animal, and then more stylized still, the animal lost to the line's shape.

In time, the symbol of Ngo appears, and red ochre paint begins coloring it's pictogram. The Red Banner Age, which continues through the modern era, begins at that point. There are images, then, of great and terrible monsters. Things not seen beyond the borders of Ngo, spreading across the jungle, destroying many tribes.

Images of red banners push those monsters back, whether real or dreamed, they appear no more within the stones after that point. And red banners appear far more common in all later pictograms, festooning city-images and, of course, the city itself. Where no building stands but it has at least one red banner facing in each direction.

Untold time passed from the end of those pictograms to the beginning of the Sword Age. But they resume, chiseled into the stone of the city's bigger, stronger, far newer walls... Images of battles against the Ancais, of strategic feints, of magic and monsters, spear and sword....

And Victory. Repeated across all the walls, all the stones, symbols of the Red Banner over all. As if there were never a single defeat suffered by Ngo. Which we know to be false... but can never speak within the City of Red Banners.

Not if you value your life, at least.

Ellenici

Upon the largest isle of the Khufu Sea, shared with smaller towns and even villages, Ellenici is a force to be reckoned with upon the Sea of Khufu. And its influence is felt, powerfully, across the entire Khufu Sea, from Alitria to Il'sha-ah, from Imba to Abu Sadin. Czirgo and Valatko, Neasc itself, would not exist without Ellenic colonies. It is said that there are a Thousand Kingdoms of Ellenici.

Its penteconters sail and row across the Khufu as some of the largest warships and trading vessels the world has ever known, with only the rare bireme, newly constructed by Ellenici shipyards, being faster and stronger. Its triacosters, once equivalent to the ships of Il'sha-ah, still ply the waters, but almost exclusively as fishing vessels and pirate ships.

When one sees the classic red and white striped sails of Ellenici, one is best advised to change course to let the larger ship pass by, unhindered... and pray that it does not wheel about.

History

What was once vineyards and olive plantations near to scrublands used for goat-herds to graze grew slowly into something ever more complex. Mud huts and cyclopean stone walls, too, grew in complexity. Now, Ellenici sprawls from the sheltered cove high to the clifs above, with endless stairs and arched bridges connecting the city's disparate sections.

Built, initially, late in the Age of Dreams, the great City of Storms swept across the Sea of Khufu, placing colonies across the myriad isles and the shore to the North. They even seeded the seaside valleys of what would become Neasc with colonies that swiftly fell into chaos at the beginning of the Sword Age.

The Ellenic Navy battled against the Ancais forces that would try to make their way across the Khufu. And while there were many losses in the Sword Age, including the collapse of the Ellenic Empire into the fractious city-state kingdoms that now battle against each other for trade and resources, never did the black stone halls of Ancais rise amid the limestone temples of the City of Twin Kings.

The city took the title of Twin Kings when Emperor Lavrentios's twin sons, Paricles and Thanikos were born, during the Sword Age. The proud father was unable to choose between his two sons, for so alike were they in manner and temper that they could scarcely be identified as separate men.

In his pride, Lavrentios constructed great monuments to his sons, and gave them joint control over the Empire shortly before he perished of a plague unleashed by Ancais assassins upon him. Within weeks, the Empire collapsed. The brothers did their best to rule well, and each offered to step down and let the other rule alone for the good of the Empire. But the damage had been done.

Lavrentios' pride had shaken the faith of the various rulers of each of the islands, and the conciliatory nature of his children broke what fear had kept them from rebellion. It is only through a miracle that the Ancais forces were still repelled by the now disparate fleets, and their capital crushed under the will of the Gods some short years later.

Alitria

On a mist-shrouded isle of the Khufu Sea, with thick forests and orchards of olives and lemon, Alitria is a city of ages, but a city of this age alone.

Since before the Age of Dreaming, some settlement or another has existed where Alitria now stands. Its many mountain streams and fertile mountainsides, its pleasantly rolling lowlands, and it's lovely climate upon the Khufu Sea make it an isle of dreams, of comfort, and of simple pleasures.

But each of these things also makes it a target. A place that envy grows upon. The Trian have lived on the isle for nearly two hundred years, but they did not build the villas and townhomes they now occupy. Each culture that holds Alitria fades into the mists of history, the mists of the isle itself.

Most are fisherfolk. Or olive farmers. But their cultures have been warlike at times. Conquerors who use the Isle of Mists as a seat of power. Pirates who used its sheltered harbor for protection. Assassins who slipped from it's supple shores to harsher isles to do their bloody work.

Each has faded into the Mists. And in time the Trian and their Traders will fade as well.

History

The crew of the Xylopitus, a pirate ship of some renown, retired to Alitria just over a century ago after the previous inhabitants of the isle disappeared into the mists of time. To them they drew people from across Ellenici to become Trian, to settle upon their isle and work their farms, their docks, their city-streets.

With the wealth of a dozen pirates, many people were drawn to the isle. Particularly share-farmers and the like who had been mistreated or openly abused by their former masters on other isles of Ellenici. The orchards of Alitria hang heavy with fruit, and it's vineyards supply the capital with endless wine and raisins to the delight of those in power.

The Council of Pirates fell within it's first year of control over the isle. Immediately displaced by the First Autarch, Plinocles, who had been a mere Deckhand upon the ship, but whose sword cut deepest betrayal into those who he had once served.

Since his death, twelve years after, a new Autarch has been chosen by the eldest members of the wealthiest families, those with the most to lose, who offer taxes to the Autarch in exchange for consideration within the community proper.

There have been seven Autarchs since Plinocles took hold of power. With Onamatrikos being by far the most generous and accepting of all Autarchs. In recent years he has lifted the taxes upon ships coming to port in favor of marginally increasing the tax on imports themselves.

This has resulted in a great deal of people from across the Khufu Sea coming to visit the isle, to see it's wonders, and to purchase exports rather than sell imports. Lining the pockets of several of the wealthier families in a move considered foolish by the rest.

The result is a well loved Autarch by the populace, and a handful of noble houses, who is despised by a large number of very wealthy people who stand to gain a great deal if a new autarch is chosen. One who might repeal the edicts of his predecessor.

One of their own number, for example. Such is the folly of civilized men.

Eroga

Two isles, alike in beauty, sit upon a strait. There twin cities are built by civilized people in uncivilized times. Each to the other is connected by high bridges, beneath which small ships may pass with smiling passengers enjoying their days. For those who can afford such need not walk across the bridge when a pilot may be purchased.

The city of Eroga, the city of Love, is festooned in soft silks, embossed in gold and brass, painted in warm tones, and thoroughly gardened with flowering plants, all of which must be maintained by dozens of workers who spend their lives tending the city's appearance to keep it so lovely as it must be.

They do this because the entire city of Eroga, and the strait upon which it is built, are a temple to the God of Love who calls Eroga his home. He rarely appears in public, according to religious texts upon him, and does so only in times of most dire crisis.

Each year, the God of Love falls in love, anew, at least once but often two or three times, with a citizen or visitor to Eroga. This lucky individual is then given every joy and comfort by the city during the courtship, before they are given to him.

History

Rovara, the God of Love, has lived upon the twin isles of Eroga for time uncounted. There, traveling across the strait upon softest wings, Rovara cultivated his many gardens of beauty and fruits, succulent and full. From time to time mortals would come to the islands and either steal from Rovara, incurring his dutiful wrath, or catch his eye, incurring his beautiful ardor.

In time, those who learned of the isles, of the God of Love, but who neither harmed him nor gained his affections told others of his existence, of his beautiful isle with it's plentiful gardens. And those who sought love, or to serve a living god, traveled to Eroga in pilgrimages to lay the foundations of a city.

Rovara, so delighted with the many people coming to his isles, insisted that there be two cities to represent lovers coming together across the emptiness of the strait. And the people of Eroga, now Rovara's congregation, followed his simple command and made themself split in number, that they might be as lovers across the emptiness.

It remains, in fact, a common custom to marry only those born of the far city among those who are born and raised upon Eroga.

With the rise of the Ellenici Empire, Rovara accepted his people's subjugation to their mortal emperor. And with it's fall, he accepted independence once more. But of the Acain he accepted nothing.

Rovara himself battled against the strange gods of Ancais when they came to his islands. Openly. Clearly visible to the populace of Eroga. The paintings and frescoes which show such battle show him as a beautiful human with large wings rising from his back, spread wide and tinged pink, shining light upon the dark gods of Ancais which he slew.

The texts say that in those years where other gods came to Eroga, Rovara loved most voraciously, falling into love with up to three dozen young adults who swiftly became his spouses.

Love restores him.

Myrkona

Built between the shores of a high freshwater lake and the low seaside, Myrkona is a well defended locale. Approach from the sea must come from a clear sightline for miles, and approach from the land is constrained by the rocky hills on either side of the city proper. Whether this landscape was chosen by warriors who settled the land in the days when the city was little more than a village, or if it shaped the mindset of those who lived there, the fortress city is well named for it's defensive position and posture.

Those who live within the sheltered city spend much of their time in preparation for violence. Against their foes, against each other, against the gods themselves should they dare approach Myrkona. Their navy sails to fish in the Khufu Sea while fully armed and wearing armor in case of need.

And with the many pirates of the Khufu, there is often need. Whether it's repelling attack on their own ships, or swooping to the rescue of whatever poor souls may be under attack when the Myron come upon them.

For deep in the heart of their warrior culture is the hope of heroism for oneself. Honor leads to Victory leads to Honor.

History

Myrkona was once a shining temple city, focused on spreading the word of various Ellenic lesser deities in active worship. During the Sword Age, however, it was sacked by Ancais and burned to cinders. Ellenici resettled the isle during the war for a strategic forward position, weeks later. And the soldiers and families who occupied the island found a handful of survivors of the previous settlements.

Several of those survivors told stories about the heroes who saved them or what few religious texts survived the assault, before dying glorious and noble deaths in personal combat against overwhelming odds. It would not be long before their names became invoked to inspire new heroics against Ancais' aggression.

Myrkona itself was rebuilt during the Sword Age, with every building a direct affront to Ancais, every nail and stone an epithet against the conquerors. Most were consecrated with fiery speeches against the enemy, and praise to the heroes, past and present, who would see to the end of Ancais.

A warrior-culture developed swiftly among the populace. One which focused on the core conceit of personal honor and sacrifice toward a greater good. In which heroic moments were the goal of all, and viewed as the perfect culmination of one's existence, a razor's edge of all that they were and could be.

If the edge rolled under the pressure, it would be discarded. But if it struck the deadly blow, or was brokern under the pressure of the moment, one could hope, at least, that their name would carry on, that statues might be raised in their honor, and their name might be toasted by those who survived.

When the War of Transgression ended there was celebration in the streets of Myrkona, joy beyond measure, relief beyond depth. But the culture of war is not an easy one to discard. New wars, personal wars, are now the main way that these people earn their honor and seek their laurels.

Few statues rise in Myrkona in the last hundred years. But many a small shrine to heroes hosts figurines with names inscribed upon their pedestal. Tiny graven images overseen by three massive statues of the Heroes of Myrkona.

Neasc

In the mistshrouded hollows of the Greatforest Valley, far from the Sea of Khufu, stands the Principality of Neasc, whose Crown Prince claims dominion over the cities of Czirgo, Fasnova, and Valatko in the absence of their hidden King.

Built of and beneath the massive old growth forests of the Four Valleys, Neasc is home to hardy folk full of superstitions and fears that run back to an age beyond dreaming, beyond memory. What they fear is far beyond the frayed edge of memory, and cannot be found within the blocky lettering of their writing.

There are few great walls about the cities and villages of the Four Valleys, they are of little avail against the massive creatures that tread the old paths, though small fences oft keep the pests, moderately sized rodents and the like, at bay.

Paradoxically, amid the endless titans of the Four Valleys live the most miniscule...

The city, proper, is built to house quite the population of Nazzars, who dart and dash amid the eaves of the high-peaked houses and oft live in attic spaces made livable with a few day's effort.

History

Written History has never been Neasc's strongest suit. What is known is that there are ancient barrows across the Greatforest Valley guarded by terrors hidden just within the earthen works that prowl on the darkest nights. Strange symbols, mostly forgotten, can be found in these ruined lands of some former culture long lost to time and conquest.

During the expansion of the Ellenici Empire, it is known that colonies were built within Neasc at Czirgo and Valatko, though their names were different at the time. It is also known that the colonies fell silent for weeks before recovering, ruled by new faces, peopled by strangers, who renamed the colonies but held their ties with Ellenici, for a time.

Where these native peoples came from is anyone's guess. What ancient holds they held, and what ground them to ruin, is also a mystery begging to be solved. But in short order, they and the Ellenic settlers intermingled to the point where none can be discerned from another. One blending of ancient lines and new ones.

Shortly before the fall of the Ellenic Empire, the distant Prince of Neasc, a city built by explorers who left the colony cities by the sea, and left the colony they built at Fasnova, declared himself the Crown Prince of the Four Valleys. Without hesitation, Czirgo, Fasnova, and Valatko fell in line, each of their leaders named Prince in service to Neasc.

And Neasc in service to an unnamed king. And so it has been since before the Age of the Scorpion began, with an Unknown King issuing commands to the Crown Prince, he sending further orders to Three Princes, and the nation-state following those commands. No matter how nonsensical they may seem.

And they oft are nonsensical, make no mistake. A recent order was issued that sweet creams be left near to cornerstones of houses at the heart of Neasc, which are to be dumped, cleaned, and refilled before the evening meal can be consumed by those who live within, even the Nazzars within the attics... Strangeness rules Neasc, to be certain.

Czirgo

Along the shore of the Khufu Sea, Czirgo is a dreary settlement shrouded in darkness from high foothills and old growth forest so thick that an arrow cannot fly more than one hundred cubits before striking a tree. Here, where sailors gather around barrels full of flame for warmth upon the docks, where outsiders face endless gestures warding off ill fortune, and where iron is more precious than gold, one can make a fortune with music, wine, or distraction.

The Zirgi are a dreary people, whose lives are grinding toil, endless dull fear, and the promise of meagre rewards saved through harsh winter to eke out the barest survival. The land, here, is foul and tough, thick with clay and hard to work. The forest seems to take the finest soil for itself, and leave the farmers with little to work with.

The forest, dark and thick, is also the greater enemy of the Zirgi. A curtain wall guards the city to the North and East, but ends in the foothills to the South, where few beasts or monsters travel for unknown reasons. The wall hosts a few gates, and many smaller doors. Each painted with sigils and symbols in whitewash that runs under oppressive rains, only to be repainted. Something to do with the local superstitions of the Zirgi, and Neasc in general.

-The Chronicler-

History

Three times colonists have settled the land where Czirgo stands. During the Age of Dreams, the Ellenici who landed there called it haunted and fled some years later, leaving their homes and businesses to rot away upon the hillside where they were abandoned. They spoke of spirits in the forests, in the hills. Of strange and terrible monsters of impressive size which shattered farmhouses to splinters to feast on those who lived within.

During the Sword Age, Myron settled the region to gather more wood for their bireme ships to fight against Ancais. Their settlement fared significantly better, and was able to send back reports of the various beasts and monsters they had to defend the city against. As well as writings describing the ways they were able to repel various creatures. For some, it was the planting of onions and garlic beyond the wall. For others, wolfsbane and mustard. Still others avoided specific symbols when painted upon doors or trees.

However, Ancais struck the settlement in order to end the shipments of lumber to Myrkona. The Myrons put up a valiant effort, according to all accounts. But in the end, they were simply overwhelmed by greater forces. There are reports of Myrons fleeing into the forest, but no sign of their return.

Recently, however, the settlement has been rebuilt by former citizens of Fasnova and Neasc itself, with the supposed line of the Myron Prince restored to rulership over the seaside settlement. But these people are strange, even by Neasci standards.

The Zirgi are worn down, defeated. They exist as if they were born to suffer that others might, somehow, suffer less. And in the last 40 years, that has born out in multiple plagues, several blights upon their crops, and storms shattering the docks twice, requiring them to be rebuilt before the city could accept trade, or send it's own ships out for fishing and exports.

While Czirgo's streets are safe enough, day or night, it's advised never to leave the city proper once the sun has set. Strange sounds and the cries and calls of loved ones can be heard from the treeline.

Fasnova

The highest city in the world, built where the air begins to grow thin, upon the slopes of the Talon range, Fasnova is crammed into a mountain pass between two of the four valleys of Neasc. Here, where the massive trees of the four valleys spread below your gaze like a green carpet leading to the horizon, where stone and rock shift threateningly, where the Mountain's ire is ever-dangerous, live the Novan people.

Unlike their Zirgi compatriots, the Novan are bright people in a dark place. Warm, open, gregarious. They welcome outsiders into their their city and usher them through the pass with broad smiles and fidgeting hands.There are public houses within the city, but none have rooms. Not enough travelers for it to be worthwhile. Instead, the Novans open their homes for those passing through.

And they go to great lengths to protect their visitors. Locking every door and shutter, with one member of the family awake and watchful at every hour of night to ensure no one, and nothing, is able to impinge upon a good night's sleep for their guest.

History

Late in the Sword Age when Valatko's colonists began traveling deeper into the forests and mountains of the four valleys, they cam across a pass between two of them. With the help of distant Neasc, they settled the high mountain pass to guard the way between the three valleys. Fasnova became a center of Neasci culture and trade, as it's position gave it the greatest access to the three other city states.

But it remains a difficult place to live. With little to no groundwater, and streaming runoff from the mountains finding different channels to the fertile valleys, below, the Novan people are almost entirely reliant on rain and snow for their water. In the summer, constant rain fills water barrels and sheltered cisterns from which water is drawn for drinking, bathing, and cooking.

In the winter, the barrels are brought inside once full of snow and ice to thaw and melt, while the large cisterns are heated with fires like great cauldrons to keep ice from building and bursting them open.

Their reliance on metal secured them an even more coveted position among the Neasci people, as Fasnova mines and ships more metal, raw and worked, out of the nation-state than any of the other cities. Early in the Age of the Scorpion, which the Neasci call the Age of Falling Leaves for some unfathomable reason, they struck quite a lucrative bargain with Myrkona and through Czirgo supply the island nation with much of it's metals.

With the constant rains in the summer, and the blanketing snows in the winter, mining is a profitable and primary source of income for many Novan families. Nevermind the large quarries and hundreds of slaves to man them, or the tendency of new faces to appear among them at odd hours. And in this way, in a dreary pass high in the Talon mountains, do the Novans live.

And guard their secret path to Neasc. The City of the Gate earns it's name for an ornate stone door in the northeastern cliffface, hidden behind tall buildings from most prying eyes. Beyond is great darkness which stretches into winding paths, some of which travel to the third valley.

Valatko

In the shadow of the Spine mountains, where storms divert toward the valley and the forest thins for lack of rain, where the high lands of Neasc descend to the Khufu in a sheltered furrow between foothills, rests Valatko, the first of the Ellenici colonies in Neasc, whose people are not Ellenic.

The city's bay is home to countless fallen ships of the Age of Dreams and the Sword Age and the Scorpion Age. For its waters are treacherous and misleading, with running furrows and straights between high stone peaks hidden amid the dark water, oft stirred as it is by wind and storm. When the tide falls, many of the ships become visible, as do the rocks which ended them. But few enough are willing to dive into the choppy waters and risk being bashed against stone or torn out to sea by deep currents to risk recovering what was lost.

Instead, the Vallen do their best to signal to ships in dangerous straits which paths are best piloted and which are best avoided. For unlike distant Abu Sadin with it's lighthouse, there is no straight course through jagged stone. The only sure way to reach the wealthy city is to hire a Vallen Pilot to direct your ship's course through paths they learned well.

History

In the Age of Dreams, as Ellenici expanded their control beyond their northern isles, they settled the shores of the Khufu at northern Amico and southern Lycosae. While things were rough, at first, at Lycosae, with the rough waters and difficult paths to shore, a handful of fisherman learned the shoreline and it's treacherous straits. For months the settlement struggled to maintain itself.

Then, according to local legend, a man dressed in furs and fine fabrics approached the settlement. He offered knowledge, safety, and protection from the beasts of the deeper forest. In exchange for his help, the people of Lycosae would shelter refugees of fallen settlements deeper into the forest. The leaders agreed, and Lycosae swiftly became Valatko.

Named after their savior, who taught the people of the village where to forage, what to hunt, and how to honor the forest gods to avoid their wrath. But in time, the others came. They were strange people, oft misshapen. And now their legacy lives on through their children's children.

There is a period of history, here, of which no one speaks. The dark times, they're called. And depending on whom you ask they lasted months or decades, as different storytellers skip great swaths of time without consensus. Their words are honey and venom to the people who listen. A Balm to those who agree. Poisoned discourse to those who hold a different end to the dark times.

In either case, any stories before the last two hundred years are twisted, convoluted, and incredibly localized. Speaking not of the transition of Princes or of Wars, but of Widows and their children, sprawling stories of mundane life within the city, which swiftly devolves into gossip of the speaker's life.

To truly learn the history of Valatko within and after the dark times, you have to find it, yourself. Not written, not spoken, but there all the same if you know where to look and listen, how to feel between the lines.

I do not possess such talents. But those who do will find something truly strange to chronicle. This I feel in the pit of my stomach.

Grisia

Within the shadowed embrace of the Retreating Forest there lies a kingdom of people whose ways are strange. Not so strange as Neasc, at least. But their laws, their lives, hold to strange customs. They share food as if they have never known hunger, share their homes as if thieves do not stalk the night, and pour wine so freely you might think it water. And to refuse such hospitality is a grave insult to those who offer it.

If you wish to visit these lands, it is best to be well studied in languages. Gric, their own tongue, is a strange mix of various dialects and sublanguages. But Llenic and Nishka are both spoken quite commonly. More rare are Achelbit and Acain, the latter of which will see much hospitality wither and fade... but not dissipate.

The most important warning I can give is to beware the Gurgan. While I cannot explain too deeply, Grisian youths sometimes Wear the Wolf and stalk the streets and forests. If you hear these words, either hide within a sturdy building or remove yourself from the whole forest.

History

The people of Grisia are dead, or nearly so. As Ancais spread it's influence across the world in the Sword Age, from Annam to Ellenici to Grisia, they met uncounted peoples that they slaughtered. Villages, families, with no quarter offered to those who did not yield to their might.

Grisia, and its peoples, did not yield. And the bloodshed was horrific. It is said that even the stones drank deep of Gric blood in those terrible times, that the trees grew swifter, harder, that the rivers ran red. In the wake of their killings, the Ancais brought countless slaves from other nations to Grisia.

Neasci, Ellenic, even Achelbite slaves were shipped to the forest holds to toil and provide lumber for the conquering nation. But the slaughter of the Grisian people was not complete. Enclaves hid in the forest, painted themselves in mud and mulched leaves, and waged a new kind of war on the invaders. One focused on swift and silent strikes before the enemy could respond. Where even the dead bodies of the Gric were dragged into the forest to be hidden or buried so there would be no sign, nothing left of -them-.

Centuries have passed since Ancais was smote from the world. Much of an age has come and gone. And what remnants of the fallen Grisians exist is ruin and dust and stones that have drunk too deeply of blood. But those they saved, the slaves, have since become one people, a blend of those whose culture was stolen taking hold of a culture half-remembered by ancient warriors too near the end of their days to share the fullness of what was.

Now, Grisia exists not as a slave colony, or a prison, or a lumberyard... But as a community of good folk who hold to strange taboos and customs they do not fully understand, simply because they -are- the customs and taboos of the land. Of people who hold no chieftain, no king, no council or leader. Who count the head of every household as the leader of that house and no other.

It is a thrilling thing to see a city filled with families and the gentle tyranny of parents, rather than the decadence of immoral authority.

Abikhaz

The Horselords of Kyran breed their steeds for stamina. To travel across wide plains and gentle hillsides for hours at a time, as is the way of their people. It is how it was, and how it should be, and how it will be. But those of Abikhaz, the Samarsi people, breed their mounts for swift maneuvers through forests. For surmounting foothills quickly and avoiding ambush.

Here, in Abikhaz, war is expected, sought, seen as inevitable. Having once been crushed by Ancais in the distant past, they hold no intention of being trampled under boot, again. Their forest city at the heart of their holdings is guarded not by a thick wall, or a strong gate, no. False Roads, deadfalls, traps, and ambushes from outlying communities are meant to slow any assault.

The Samarsi have built an ablative culture. One in which every building, every fence, every beast and garden, can and will be sacrificed to save lives. To make time for retreat and regrouping and retaliation.

Only a true fool attacks the Samarsi after all that was done to them. And only a pitiable fool insults their readiness for war.

History

Built in the age of dreaming, three cultures were within the great forest near to Grisia. Each sought peace beneath the spreading boughs. At times they skirmished among themselves, or with Kyran to the west, or Grisia to the east. But they were a largely peaceful people who lived by trade and simple farming.

When the Sword Age began, and Ancais sought to conquer what is now the Retreating Forest, the Samarsi Ancestors refused to surrender, much like their Grisian counterparts to the East. In turn, their villages were burned to ash, their gardens, their homes. What horses could be stolen were taken, what foodstuffs could supply the Ancais troops were stolen. And those who survived retreated into the forest.

But unlike the Gric, who had an army of slaves to rescue, and call to service, the people who would become the Samarsi had no others to rely on. Like the Gric, however, they took to raiding the Ancais and their slave caravans for supplies, goods, and slaves of their own. Hidden villages grew in the forest, far from prying eyes or burning ears.

The names of their people are dead. The names of their villages are gone. But the Samarsi named their capital in honor of those who perished first, of those whose lands were taken, unjustly, by the Ancais in those half-remembered blood red days of war.

To maintain peace, Abikhaz and it's villages are lead by two kings. The Hakan, or Spirit King whose days are numbered, rules over the people's spiritual lives, their hopes, their goals, their future. It is he who collects tithes that are spent to make the lives of Abikhaz better and more fruitful.

The second king, the Bek, is the King of War. The Bek collects taxes which go to the maintenance of bridges, walls, buildings, temporary fortifications and matters of the mortal world. The Bek's role in choosing the new Hakan, or ending the Hakan's reign, is also unique.

When a Hakan is chosen, the Bek holds the Hakan to be by the throat, strangling them with both hands and great vigor. The Hakan must say a number while being strangled and this is how many years they will reign. If they live to the end of those years, the Bek strangles them to death.

Rastavo

Brilliant Rastavo, with white keep on the cliff. Gloomy Rastavo, where every death's a gift.

Beyond Adria and her Five Sisters a white keep stands upon a bluff built tall to look out toward the afterlife. It is said that those who stand upon it's highest parapet can see past the edge of the world, but I do not believe it so. The Dweller keeps his realm well, and there is but one way to see it.

There are many "Seers" and "Mediums" within Rastavo, though, who claim to see beyond the veil, here, where we are nearest the edge of the world. Some seem to have magical talents, but many are simple charlatans. They all swaddle themselves in silks and bells which ring out softly with each movement, to match the bells of the city.

Rastavo celebrates the dead. Their passing. The belief that they travel through the city, as spirits, on their way to the Dweller's Realm. And bells ring from many buildings signalling everything from the passing of hours to the passing of souls.

History

A Young City, Rastavo was built in the wake of the Sword Age, when Grisia became freed. Many of Neasci stock sought to travel toward their homeland, but one among them claimed to see something startling, shocking. A river of souls traveling through the foothills of Adria and her Sisters, passing into the sea.

Dimitra Cavascu refused to pass through the river. And rather than leave her behind, her family and several others chose to remain with her, to build a town within those foothills along the seaside, with Castle Cavascu overlooking the river of souls built over the decades that followed.

Others who passed through the area, from Grisia or Neasc, often settled in the haunted city with it's plentiful fishing, warm summers, and mild winters. Metals are plentiful in the Adriatic Mountains and their foothills, particularly Iron and Copper.

Since that time, little danger has truly faced the city, beyond the intrigues of the Cavascu family, who watch over the River of Souls, and their many progeny across the city. There is hardly a household which cannot reasonably claim blood ties to Dimitra, at this point, so widely and wildly has their seed spread.

In recent days, however, word has spread of a ship said to have sailed to the edge of the world. Where the ocean falls away, and a vast starscape lies beyond. Tales of the vast celestial monsters that dwell in the darkness between the stars, guarding the afterlife found upon each star, each island, of the hereafter.

The ship did return to the docks of Rastavo with massive holes in it's hull, with torn sails and a massive misshapen tooth still bound up in their anchorline, from where they claimed it was the only thing strong enough, heavy enough, to keep their ship from pitching over the edge. But this is not enough for some.

I, for one, find it strange that such a journey would see all the crew return if beasts so monstrous, so dangerous, would tear such gouges in the ship, such furrows from it's deck, and its sails from their mast. What monster would do such harm, yet harm no crew?

Yblisa

Yblisa on the ocean, past the edge of the Shallow Sea, where the encroaching desert meets the retreating forest, where grasslands burn yellow and fade to ash with each passing year. The land of hidden isles, of lost people, and of red ears. City of Traitors. Of Failures. Of Fools.

Upon the eastern coastline, south of Grisia, Yblisa is best known for it's darkwater fishing and it's warm climate. Here, ships sailing from Rastavo resupply only begrudgingly on their way to points south. With no member of the crew departing their ship save the Captain and his guard.

One cannot trust the Ysla people, for they are the deepest betrayers of all. But to attack them is largely seen as a fool's end, for some measure of Acain Magic yet lives in the foul city, leftover from days of horror and bloodshed. When the Traitor City did Ancais' wicked bidding, when it's ports swelled with bodies and soldiers.

Do not travel to Yblisa if you can avoid it. It's magic is dark, it's people the bloodlines of darkness and pain.

History

Built in the waning days of the Age of Dreams, Yblisa was a fishing village that grew in prominence when hidden isles were found in the Obdari Ocean to the east. There the Ysla people found remnants of some forgotten kingdom, shrouded in mist and the vagaries of time. But as the Age of Swords came, so did Ancais.

Curious of the fallen isles to the east, Ancais entered into Yblisa welcomed with open arms to help learn of what once was. The unknowing fools who ruled the city welcomed conquerors into their midst and gave them a home. And as the bloodshed to the west, to the North, grew ever more terrible, the people of Yblisa made their choice.

It was through their ports that Ancais brought in fresh soldiers. New weapons. Supplies. It was in Yblisa's warehouses the spoils of their wars were housed while waiting for ships to carry them back to the seat of Acain power.

Yblisa betrayed Grisia, betrayed all the villages and towns of the retreating forest. And when slaves came to Yblisa, Gric and Neasci and Ellenic alike, the traitors turned their heads and looked the other way as damned souls were loaded onto black-sail ships that would take them to be sacrificed. Whether to harsh gods or endless labor, they were all doomed.

For hundreds of years this progressed. And the people of Yblisa wed and bedded the people of Ancais, took their red ears into soft palms and made them husbands and wives. So common was this, that it is said across the world that if a man should blush with his ears he is of Acain bloodline.

In time, Ancais was defeated. In time, Transgression saw an end to a war, to their threat. Saw them pressed back to their holdings in the south, where Yslan spouses cried out upon the docks and hurled themselves into the sea for longing of being left behind.

And Ancais fell to the Shallow Sea. And the desert spread. And the Forest Retreated. And Yblisa, fools even now, does not consider their act betrayal. Does not consider their deeds wicked. Does not consider their heritage tainted. No. They explain necessity. They claim spies. They remain fools.

Kyran

The sound of thundering hoofbeats presages any encounter with the Kyrani, unless you are incredibly stealthy and well hidden when hawks fly overhead and scouts search in tandem. Roving across what grasslands and scrub yet lie between the Scorpion Sands and the Retreating forest, the horselords move in small bands of raiders, traders, and herders with no distinction in appearance whatsoever.

The Land of a Thousand Riders is well named, though not all ride upon horseback, there. Anubi and Rhil are more common among the lesser tribes than the Kyrani themselves. And their encampments can be found further afield, often within the very desert the Kyran Tribesmen avoid.

This results in a deeply territorial people who value what riding lands they have, and who are not averse to burning down forests, or the homes of would be conquerors and immigrants. If nothing else, this makes Kyran a city of honest folk, free of the decadence and false politeness that haunts the too-wide smiles of places like Musarra or Achelb.

History

Since time immemorial the nine tribes of the Scorpion Lands controlled the vast grassland steppes from Claw to Claw to Tail. Horse-riders of incredible skill, they would hold camps in uncounted valleys and hilltops, water their horses along many streams, and hunt the wide praries of the south for whatever game they liked.

Even the people of Myr learned to avoid the "Northern Tribes" before the Ancais rose.

But over time, those camps grew. Over time, the horselords settled. Over time they became something else. Three of the tribes no longer ride across the wild world for their lives. No... Instead they occupy Achelb and Musarra and the city-states that expand outward from them. Lured to fat comforts and slothful corruption that has transformed them from proud nomads to pitiful city-dwellers more intent on toiling for their next meal than the glory of hunting it.

Another remains within the Cursed Lands of the Scorpion, still. Turned to herding livestock and trading one place of corruption for another at the start of every spring. Only five tribes continue to live in the old traditions... though even they have begun to fall prey to civilized lives.

The Kyrani are the most powerful, most populous. Uncounted battles, uncounted victories, have given them enough prominence that most beyond the borders of their lands know of no other tribes. Alantei, Shishimur, Neng, and Numedalric each share a vastly smaller portion of power.

And now, as the Tempest Curse continues to turn grasslands and savannahs to sand and waste, the Kyrani people retreat further and further eastward, into the retreating forest, into the waiting city of Kyran where they can slowly collapse into decadence and hedonism, all nobility lost and all pride in the field shattered and rotten.

But among the lesser tribes, the few hundred Alantei and Shishimur who still hold to the reins of their lives and wish to ride on, beyond the Tempest Curse, there is a growing movement of discomfort with the life of ease and waste that rears it's head, ready to claim all the glory of their ancient people in a single strike.

They have begun preparing to journey across all of Annam.

Achelb

The City of Thieves

Achelb is known as the City of Thieves, but not for the thieves that live there, yet. No. For Buvalu the Giant-King. Buvalu was born into banditry, a steppe-rider in the Age of Dreaming, between the two rivers. He was a great giant of a man, bold and strong, wild and free. It is said he stood nine feet if he was an inch, and could tear a man's head from his shoulders with one mighty hand. A trick he performed, once, upon a rival against whom he had no claim or cause. Banished from the tribe, left to be killed by the others that wandered the steppe, he fled to the mountains to the north.

There, it is said, he found the pass to the Green Valley. Where wheat grew as grass, waters pure as diamond flowed, and orchards of fruit trees blossomed in hidden peace. He made his home, there, and gathered a company of thieves two hundred strong and more return with him to the Green Valley. And saw it's wonder. The city was founded by those thieves with Buvalu as their king.

-The Chronicler

History

Buvalu rode across the steppes in the Age of Dreaming. In that time, the Scorpion Lands were green, if not lush, but bore many small brooks and lakes, now long dried, that carved channels and paths in the green and gold fields that stretched from Ur to Borsai and life was good.

After his banishment, the Giant-King strode across the steppes, bereft of the horses he had raised from foals, and came to ride the mighty Rhil, lizard-beasts of the mountains. It is said that he was the one who made them, by ripping the wings off a dragon and cowing the beast into submission.

Whatever the case, in the Age of Dreaming Achelb became a city of art and culture, shining down over the steppelands, and in the Age of the Sword, when distant Ancais spread it's hungry claws to devour the world in black stone, Achelb became a bastion of freedom. For the Achelbites were not so easily conquered as distant Musarra.

But neither did they travel to the heart of Ancais to see an end to the Vile Emperor, may his name never be spoken. For the heroes of that day did not seek an Achelbite in their company, did not come to the high city of green for aid in their time of need.

They didn't need a thief, is the common refrain from those who deride Achelb for it's title and heritage, who envy it's riches and it's security.

And when the rains ceased, and the winds became as fire, when green grass turned yellow, then brown, then died away as ash and dust in the Scorpion Lands where steppes once were, Achelb was secure in it's valley. For a time the way was shut. The Achelbites sealed their gates and refused any visitor.

But such things do not last. And as the Age of the Scorpion wears on, the city of thieves has long since opened it's gates, anew. The crown of Achelb now graces the brow of a new King of Thieves, his name cast aside in favor of the mantled crown.

Architecture

Stone blocks and bricks, quarried and shaped from the Leftclaw, form the basis of construction within Achelb and some of the northernmost cities of the Scorpion Lands. Often, but not always, plastered over, particularly among the wealthy, the walls themselves rarely bear geometric designs or mosaic tiles. Floors, here, range from hard packed earth in places the slaves are kept to glazed tiles meticulously interlaced in the homes of the very wealthy.

Wood from the many trees of the Green Valley is used surprisingly sparingly in the city. While the second floor of a home or business will often have wooden support beams, a grid of woven fibers makes up the bulk of the flooring material between the space below and the space above. This, in turn, is covered with a layer of plaster both above and below to create a white ceiling below and a white floor above. In the homes of the wealthy, the entire floor and ceiling may be exposed wood, but fitted tile is far preferred for it's cooling properties.

Buildings typically have a domed roof with small vertical slits hidden under wider pieces of roofing material to allow wind to blow through the dome and carry away hot air that would otherwise settle within the building while keeping what rains come from filtering through the rooftops. Again, wood is used sparingly, but a framework is typically made and put into place until the building plaster hardens, at that point the wooden frame is removed and any finishin is done, such as placing beaten copper, tin, or even gold atop or within the dome.

Notable Buildings

The Palace of Buvalu stands at the center of Achelb, it's long dock stretching out into the lake at the heart of the city. From the dais at the end of the dock many musical performances, important weddings, and ceremonies of great importance take place, so that all who wish to witness such blessed events can row out onto the lake and be present at a respectful distance.

The Six Temples ring the city on each side, and each morning at dawn they ring their gongs and sing their prayers, with the populace largely joining in. Unlike many temples and shrines, these six bear a striking statue of their patron as the main figure of their construction. Shassim, the Tempest, for example, is a statue some eighteen feet in height, his toes worn from petitioners coming to pray touching the statue in the hopes of connection, with very little actual room for priests, churchgoers, or services.

The Mines and Quarries largely surround the city to the north and the east, away from the farms and orchards that dominate the western valley, for fear of harming crops with dust or rockslides. Each of the mines has dozens of small stone buildings, typically to contain the slaves who work there, but also one larger building where precious metals and stones are contained, as well as the guards and foreman are housed.

Similarly, the farms in the west have slavepens and granaries and warehouses to contain the harvests. But also large millhouses were slaves spend much of their day grinding threshed grain to flour to ensure it lasts the winter.

Politics and Religion

Achelb is a beautiful city which reeks of iniquity, corruption, and vice.

The King of Thieves

As all the kings since Buvalu, the ruler of Achelb is nameless, known only by the moniker King of Thieves. The King largely surrounds himself with wealth and comforts, and holds a harem of beauties of every race and gender, of every description under the sun, if the rumors are to be believed. None have visited that portion of the palace and escaped with their lives, though the King is seen with a different concubine upon his arm every day and night.

He is known to be a broad man of deep appetites and swift anger. A fact which bodes poorly for Sepfar, who intercepted a load of dried fruits bound for Musarra. Already the King's anger grows like distant thunder.

The Temples of the Six

Six Temples to the gods can be found around the City of Thieves. But those within are hardly shepherds of the faithful. Far from it, they are wolves tending the flock.

The Lady in Green, the temple devoted to Zeya the Witch at the southernmost point in the city, has issues maintaining a Head Priest. Instead, they cycle priests of various levels of experience into the role. None know precisely why this is, but few in Achelb find much need to seek forgiveness from the Witch.

The Serpent's Shrine rests in the southwest of the city, flanking the Lady in Green across from the Wind's Rest. Many visit the Serpent's Shrine on the way into Achelb to ask him to guard them against the Thieves of Achelb. He grants no boons to fools who step into a den of vipers and ask not to be bitten.

The Wind's Rest, to the Southeast of the city, stands on a high cliff above played out mines. There the priestess Yfana cries out, weekly, to the Tempest to send rain to the Scorpion Lands below. But such prayers are offered weakly.

Highrock, the temple devoted to the Mountain at the northernmost point in the city, is among the most frequented temples in the world, as well it should be in a place surrounded by mountains where a single rockslide can end hundreds of lives. The Priest, Adonitus of Ellenici, demands high tithes in exchange for his blessigns and prayers.

West of Highrock stands the Dweller's Hall, where the dead are prepared for their journey into the afterworld. Between the mountains and the fields each claiming their toll, the acolytes of the temple rarely have much time to do anything but prepare for funerals and tend to the dead or dying. But what matter is it if the dead go to the afterlife a bracelet lighter? They'll not need it.

House Ibillah stands in the Northeast, bearing a parapet with telescopes ever pointed to what stars can be seen from Achelb, as the ring of mountain blocks much sight of the horizon. During the daylight hours the laconic priests take confessions of wrongdoing and offerings to alter the fate of miners who seek to return at the end of each day. Some even claim to change the stars for those who give most deeply to the church.

Organizations and Mysteries of Achelb

Remote Achelb, high in the mountains, with it's reliance on Rhil and Porters to bring goods up and down the treacherous mountain paths that lead to the Green Valley, is not without it's intrigues, as any city with it's title should hold several.

Atorkhan and his Seventy and Seventy

For a hundred years Atorkhan has not been seen, bit his Seventy and Seventy continue to plague the Scorpion Lands. Or, at least, those who claim to have been a member of his company. And while they may hide in distant Sepfar, haven of thieves and murderers, often enough do they vex Achelb, for it's many wealths and jeweled coffers.

In the streets of Achelb they are known to recruit children as cutpurses, to bring them bags of nails to distribute among those who helped to make the theft while keeping the lion's share for themselves...

the Hands of the Serpent

Many hands wait in Achelb, palms raised to the heavens, begging for aid, for succor, from those of means and fortune. They call out to the gods and to the wealthy to end their suffering and it is known that occasionally their torments are ended. Permanently.

Whether it is guards dragging a begger into an alleyway or the Undying dragging them into the sewers matters little. For a snake cult has spread among the begging hands of Achelb, the Hand of the Serpent.

While they beg beside other rag-swaddled and foul smelling degenerates these people are armed beneath the filth and grime. And have made a mission of cutting down those who would take advantage of the weakest and most helpless of us all. None save the vipers know why they do this.

But even the threat of hidden death has not slowed the killing of the unwanted and unwashed. What can?

Guardians of the Vaulted Halls

In the lands of Achelb, wealth and privilege go hand in hand. And in no one group is that more sorely shown than in the Guardians of the Vaulted Halls. These guards serve the entire city of Achelb, but do not bother answering to the call of those who lack wealth, leaving the most vulnerable members of society to their fates at the hands of their 'Betters'.

This group of hardened soldiers, former mercenaries, and brighteyed hopeful soon turned bitter by the path they've chosen, are the direct cause of the Hands of the Serpent. For they, too, engage in such violence upon beggars, vagabonds, and the indigent.

Never a more hateful band of thugs has ever been laden with such riches for such brutality, save pirates and brigands who take it for themselves. Not so with these curs. Instead, like loyal hounds, they come to the call of their masters, of those who hold and wear the purse-strings they are leashed with.

Should you find yourself upon the wrong side of these so called Guardians, I would advise both caution and rational fear. Appease them in what manner you can and escape at your earliest opportunity. Else hope the Hands of the Serpent see your plight, and come to your aid.

For even the most bright eyed of recruits will fall to the heels and the side of those he learns from.

Jurikan's Maidens

Jurikan the Wizened, a polite title for a woman so ancient her wrinkles are wrinkled, was once a warrior and a thief and a pirate of some renown. Turning over a portion of her treasures, she was able to secure a pardon for herself and several important members of her crew in Abu Sadin. In truth, her goal had been to retire to the Green Valley. But plans change.

Now she trains women, and only women, in the fighting styles she used upon the seas and in the various engagements she was in as a soldier before her days of piracy began.

The King's Men

Buvalu knew little of ruling men. He knew little of leading them. So when the time came to delegate responsibility he did so with great abandon, all but abdicating the responsibility of running a city. His actions resulted in a sprawling mess of bureaucracy and corruption that continues to this day, with a dozen dozen ministers, lords, administrators, captains, councillors, and magi to advise the King of Thieves.

Getting anything done requires permits and payments, stamps and signatures, and seemingly endless waiting as each of the ministers contacts all the other councillors who hold some measure of insight into a given matter before making their final decision.

Far easier, for most of means, to simply -do- a thing and pay fines or bribes to see any more serious repercussions swept aside. Particularly for those of Name or Title.

It is also not unheard of for one of name or title to hire mercenaries and chroniclers to do things on their behalf with the intent of paying them on completion, then letting them fall under the exacting blades of bureaucracy once it is done.

Moadi's Hammer

In the name of the legendary Moadi, who freed himself from slavery by killing all who would contain him, the Hammer are a group of slavebreakers who seek to shatter the chains that bind Achelb's workers to their tasks. Hiding in the caverns of played out mines, gathering what food and goods they can once the fields are empty of workers, they scrounge a living.

It is said that Moadi found dark things in the deep reaches of the caverns, in the places even the guards, paid in hands for their efforts to capture him, refused to go at any price. And that such things now guide Moadi's hammer and his hand.

But who can say if this is true? There are those who claim Moadi, himself, is myth and legend, a tale told by slaves to comfort each other in the dark hours. Whether he or his hammer exist, those slaves who do escape tend to seek the mines, and rarely return unless captured by the guard or slave hunters.

Qadira the Mad

Hidden in the old city, in the ruins of an estate long fallen to poverty and ruin, remains Qadira the Mad. A gaunt ghost of a woman who haunts the halls her family once called home, driven to insanity by strife and torment laid upon her and all those who remained upon the estate now known only as the House of Ruin.

It is said that she eats rats and birds which infest the estate, though some claim that the family's servants still leave offerings of food for the poor woman. I'm not certain which is more likely myself, but having visited with her, and entering the House itself, I saw little evidence of rats or offerings.

Decades ago, when young and beautiful, she had been wed to a wealty man and his house. Within a year, however, all had fallen to ruin. His business ventures evaporated, her family perish to illness and accident, and her hopes of family were dashed when her husband fled the estate, leaving her alone in her grief.

Now, she claims the ghosts of her family guide her. And treat with the ghosts of the city to share secrets and visions.

Sadic's Scholarium

Only in places of great wealth and security is magic ever, truly, accepted. And while Achelb is a place of great wealth and security, magic is not, in truth, accepted. Tolerated, perhaps, for the great wealth being offered to the King's Men, so long as certain rules are followed relating to the use of magic within the city or it's environs without the word of the King of Thieves commanding it.

Which is to say no magic is used outside of the high-walled grounds of the Scholarium. Three buildings, a hall of apprentices, a hall of learning, and the tower of knowledge itself, where Sadic engages in magical research and education, himself.

Thrice has the King of Thieves demanded magic performed within the city. Twice did the previous ruler invite the finest students of Sadic's Scholarium to perform their tricks at court, to entertain distant dignitaries who the King had hoped to impress... or at least terrify, that his demands of their diplomats fall on more accomodating ears.

The current King of Thieves, however, has called upon only Sadic himself to perform some ritual of unknown nature within the palace grounds, themselves. Shortly thereafter, the King became more withdrawn, and more aggressive toward those dignitaries and diplomats his predecessor sought to impress.

What horrors could Sadic have shown the King of Thieves to affect him, so? Or what aims might a sorcerer have for a King under his curses and enchantment...? After all, none know what ritual was performed that day.

The Undying

Hidden in the dark places of Achelb, deep in the recesses of the city, are ancient things. Ruins of some age undreamed of. It is said that Buvalu and his men built Achelb in the Green Valley, but orchards of fruits and fields of grain were in the valley before it was settled. If they did build Achelb, they built over what once was. And it does not always lie quiet.

The Undying are a cult dedicated to these ancient things hidden in the city's depths, often traveling it's wide sewers and droning to each other in strange tongues. Those who join the cult swiftly become pale of skin and thin of hair, with eyes that border on yellows and oranges in tone. By the time the last of their hair falls from their scalps they disappear into the depths, never to be seen, again.

From time to time some group or another seeks the depths, seeks to learn of these ancient things. But fools travel where lammasu defer, and such hirelings rarely return. Those who do speak of strange halls inscribed with marks, sigils, words, and wards beyond comprehension, of great strange stone structures, covered in the dust of countless centuries, interlocking or pressing into one another like a wall without mortar undone. Of great wheels and ratchets whose purpose is never gleaned.

Such ravings typically end fairly quickly, often before anyone important can properly question the survivor. Either they end their life, themself, in a fit of madness, or the Undying return for them, and see them dragged back into the darkness, where strange machines refuse to turn, and inscrutable writing glows in the passing of lamplight.

But who can say if this is true? Raving madmen hours from death? A cult of darkness and some forgotten god? Only those who descend know the truth.

Abu Sadin

Seaside city of sand, Abu Sadin upon the Khufu, upon the Scorpion's arm. It is said that the first to set foot in the city is bound to good fortune, and many a sailor races down the gangplank to be the first to touch it's docks. Others say you must set foot upon the soil, and continue their race along the docks themselves.

All which matters, is that the city is known for it's fortune in placement. Built to support the Green Valley and Achelb as a port for it's many goods, the peoples of Abu Sadin were largely spared the Tempest's Curse by being so near to the springs and the seaside. And while rain is rare across the deserts, in Abu Sadin it is seen as a sign of favor.

-The Chronicler-

City of Blessings

When the bright rooves and colored walls of Abu Sadin are viewed from a ship, a cheer often rises. Granted, a tired cheer of sailors whose travel has been frought with peril, but a cheer nonetheless. For while Achelb may be the wealthiest city in the world, Abu Sadin is most blessed.

Never conquered by Ancais, spared the Tempest's Curse, out of reach of distant Sepfar's Hands... It is free, instead, to wallow in it's own decadence and comforts rather than fear the corruptive touch of others.

A place of wealth and refinement, where merchants boldly travel the streets festooned in gemstones and golden rings, where the young and beautiful share meaningful glances across streets in passing chariots or draw the eye of old money and turn heads, where music fills the air from dawn until dusk from a hundred hundred buskers and musicians seeking patrons.

But it is also a place of deep seated superstitions. To maintain one's good fortune there are reams of good manners to which one must ascribe, countless small acts which can draw ire or shunnings to maintain one's own luck. For the uninitiated, this manifests in extreme generosity, as the people of Abu Sadin attempt to get rid of the unfortunate by giving them whatever it is they want, then leaving themselves.

For those in the know, however, it is a bit less kind.

The Lighthouse City

Abu Sadin's lighthouse is well known across the Khufu for it's splendor. High and proud, it's flames are kept in a chamber all of white limestone, carefully cleaned, with a dozen mirrors of polished silver about it at all times, directing it's light through colored windows that blink and glint as the spinning mirrors on their stands whirl and dance through the long nights.

By day, the tower is restocked with oil given freely by any member of the city who can afford to do so. For to have your oil burned within the Lighthouse is seen both as a sign of personal wealth, but also great fortune and luck. It is said that in the night, should the light of your own flame fall upon your house, you will have a year and a day of good fortune.

Sailors deeply value the lighthouse, as well, but for a different reason. While the light of the house does not fall upon shoal or coral, reef or strand, pilots in the night know that they must sail toward the Blue, the Yellow, or the Red light. To sail into purple, orange, or green is to court danger.

The Red is safest of all.

Organizations and Mysteries of Abu Sadin

The Council of Coins run one of the only Prisons in the world. One which is located on a strange isle near to Abu Sadin, but outside of the shipping lanes. A place difficult to stumble upon, indeed.

The Council of Coins

The seven wealthiest citizens of Abu Sadin make up the Council of Coins. Each year, a tally is made of their wealth, and the wealth of all those who wish to challenge for a position on the Council, to determine who is the wealthiest in all the land. This person is made the Arbiter of the Council.

Each member of the Council wears a coin upon their person which signifies their position on the Council. And while each member gains a voice and a vote on any matter which crosses the council's tables, and while each vote is equal in measure, their voices are not.

The wealthiest members of the council may produce any number of proposed writs and notices, laws and ordinances, for consideration. While the poorest member of the council, called the Pauper King, may only present one, each year. However the Pauper King may also, once per year, Veto a single piece of legislation already voted into effect, cancelling it.

Cults of the Flower

Both Nefia Among the People and the Blood of Nefia exist in Abu Sadin, and each fights against the superstitions of Abu Sadin to find a place in the heart of the populace. While they each have had some success, garnering small followings amongst the less fortunate of the city, they lack the resources or the ability to build a temple within the city.

Instead, the cults have build shrines in the foothills near to Abu Sadin, on the northbank of the Short River. While they are far enough apart to have no sight of one another, the two groups occasionally engage in heated arguments of theology and heresy, bordering on violence.

Dalat Mors

The Dalat Mors are a code of superstitions, beliefs, and ideas that the people of Abu Sadin live by. Each of the numbers of the hand, between one and sixty, is given it's own importance in Dalat Mors, with some blessed, like the number of Love which is forty and seven, and others accursed, as thirteen the number of the Witch.

There are all manner of rules to the Dalat Mors, however, which involve Courtesy. Such as the offering of a gift should a guest's eyes fall on an object and lips speak highly of it. Or the misfortune tied to using one's right hand to touch another's person. Of how greetings should always be returned, less misfortune fill the air left empty of courtesy.

There are also various rules which govern the interaction of courtship, rules which can make something so simple as the affection of one to another a byzantine process involving one's family and tax records before so much as a kiss is shared.

Some few fools ignore these superstitions, and often find the number forty and seven beyond their grasp.

Hall of Vaults

High in the city on the sea, with a view of the bay across the rooftops and markets of Abu Sadin, stands the Hall of Vaults, the storehouse for the wealth of the city. No more than twelve unarmed visitors are allowed to enter the building within an hour's span, and each is guarded the entire time by one of the Legion of Silver.

Each of these soldiers is trained in multiple combat styles and typically armed with either a longaxe and dagger or a dagger and a scimitar. In either case, the dagger is worn prominently on the belt in an easy to access location on the hip. To draw the dagger, one must press a hidden button within the sheath's intricate bas relief. Otherwise the dagger remains attached to the sheath, which pulls free of the belt.

In the history of Abu Sadin the Hall of Vaults has been attacked dozens of times by some of the world's most talented thieves, including Atorkhan and his Seventy and Seventy, if the legends are to be believed.

None has so much made it to the vault chambers, in three hundred years not a single successful attack has resulted in so much as a bead being lost. A fact of which the Hall of Vaults routinely reminds its customers.

Isle of Woe

The Isle of Woe is both the name of a small island and the prison which occupies the majority of it's available landmass. Here, the misfortunate of Abu Sadin, and visitors to the city who have great misfortune, are housed. Taken under the purple light of the Lighthouse to live out the remainder of their days as slaves to the Council of Coins.

There, they grind wheat to grain, dig for iron, copper, and tin in the isle's mountain, or press olives into the finest oils that one can purchase. Any waste from their efforts is either made into food, in the case of grains and olives, or cast into the sea.

The bodies, however... The bodies never seem to wash ashore, unlike the hulls of Wheat and Barley, threshed and ground to fine flours, which litter the beaches as fodder for crabs, gulls, and rats.

Legion of Silver

One hundred and fourty four, twelve twelves, of the finest soldiers in Abu Sadin. Each garbed in black silks and silver scale, each scale carved with symbols of protection. Each bearing a helmet with a silver faceplate, hiding their true identity from the people of Abu Sadin so that no member of the Legion can be bribed or bought, so that none can be extorted with threats upon family. And each to each sworn to secrecy in their names and ways of training.

Eleven dozen fights in a unique style from the others within the dozen dozen. twelve are trained with the mirror's glint, twelve in the rapid current, twelve in the tooth and the claw. The final twelve fight in a blend of styles, making them the deadliest of all the Legion of Silver.

It is the final dozen which guard the Hall of Vaults, and protect the wealth of the Council of Coins and other very fortunate members of society.

Lagan

Sandy Lagan, Gateway to the West, Gateway to the East. Upon the oasis of Damashur, where waterfalls tumble down limestone cliffs into the begginning of the blue-emerald Borsai river. Lagan of wealth, the land of contracts, home of neverending caravans. If one wishes to be lost in the crowd, Lagan is a marvelous place for it.

Lost among the dizzying array of colors, of face, amidst the thousands that travel it's wide, paved cartpaths made so for the goods which pass through the city to a hundred caravanserai on their way to Annam or the Scorpion Lands.

It is said, that while the Oasis at Borsai has always had a village for caravans to rest there was once a shining city laid low by Ancais. The Sorcerer-Queen Tyar used her magics to raise Lagan from the sands. Whether it is new, or truly ancient, is known only to her.

-The Chronicler-

The Caravan City

From the walls of Lagan hang many banners and marks, each with different colors or patterns, and each above a place of rest for weary travelers. The caravanserai surround the entire city, save the paths into and out of town, and when one is occupied it's banner falls, letting other caravans know to continue around the wall until they find a banner raised.

These caravans, and the wealth they bring, represent the greater portion of the wealth and population of Lagan. Whose

Within the city's walls are shops, taverns, import and export companies, and various other businesses, as well as the homes of the populace, but unlike other cities in the region, indeed in the world, Lagan has no product which it sells to the world. Nothing which it's people create, save art and music for themselves and their visitors.

Instead, the working people of Lagan provide services for bloodstone, and trade it back to the caravaneers to purchase what they need. Nothing of value is created in this exchange, earning it quite the lowly reputation in the wider world. Particularly since the appetites of caravaneers are known to wander to darker urges.

And Lagan is all too willing to see them sated.

Vice City

Most cities of the world are dens of corruption seeking to tear all that is good out of mortal heart and spit out what remains on the ground. They are built to allow vices of gambling, lust, intoxicants, and power to strip a man of all of his wealth, his honor, his dignity, and his strength and let him languish in false safety, false comfort, until one who is not yet so torn from his earnest self ends the torment.

Lagan is not like most cities. Lagan has no exports, no farms, no ironworks nor potters. All that it has it takes from others. From the rest of the world. Every man, woman, and child is reliant upon the caravans for their survival, and many of them staff the caravanserai, day and night, hoping for a nail, a bead, for their services. And they are all too eager to serve.

They cloy and smile like hollow dolls, their eyes dull and dim for lack of thought or wit. And none truly know how to fight, to survive, in the great and wider world. And if one watches closely enough, he may see a smoke colored campgirl slip away, replaced by one of ruddy skin, who takes up the conversation as if she never left.

Facelesss.

Organizations and Mysteries of Lagan

Tyar, Potentate of Lagan, Sorcerer-Queen of the Caravan City, Lady of a Thousand Contracts, largely lets the city manage itself, of late, as age has largely caught up to her in the last five decades. But that only opens the city to new dangers.

Atorkhan and his Seventy and Seventy

Atorkhan probably died a century ago and more, and his Seventy and Seventy each gone to dust and sand, whether by the edge of the blade or the edge of time. Yet there are, ever, pretenders to his name, and to the name of his band. And they plague Lagan as they plague so much of the Scorpion Lands. Striking at caravans, at travelers, even robbing on the streets of cities.

And while they make safe haven within Sepfar to the East, their colors and cutthroats are known in Lagan, though in fewer numbers, of late. Something to do with Mercenaries who don't take kindly to being robbed.

The Blood of Nefia

Lagan is a godless city. One which holds no shrines, no temples, no altars to the gods. The ziggurat is home to Tyar, not priests or acolytes. And the Blood of Nefia, seeing a place so lacking in faith, has slipped in over the past several years to share the Martyred Flower's comforts with the overworked and underpaid population of Lagan.

With but a few beads you can secure prayers to ward away wicked spirits, for a nail you may have a talisman that draws the eyes of love. With a finger, my friends, the wandering priests of Nefia will ensure you a good place in the afterworld, at Nefia's blessed side.

Nefari's, if your manner, clothes, or accent are Western, of course.

Defenders of Lagan

The city's guard, known as Defenders, enforce what limited laws the city holds, tracking down thieves and dealbreakers, murderers and vagabonds. For most the punishment is the same, expulsion and banishment from the city, nude, through the nearest gate. Or over the wall, if the gate should be too long a walk for the guard who carries out the sentence.

Dealbreakers and Murderers, however, may instead find themselves staked out on the sands for the vultures, crucified, or otherwise tormented to death as a warning to all others who might perform a similar act.

The majority of Defenders are human, with a significant minority of Naghese and Minotaurs among their ranks. Unsurprisingly, there are no, known, Faceless members of the Defenders. Either they've hidden themselves quite well, or avoid the law at all costs.

Of late, the Defenders have largely retreated from the city's streets and contained themselves within and around the Caravanserai. There, they protect the caravans who come to the city from bandits, thieves, and the Mercenaries of the Khufu.

The Hands of Ashuro

Hailing from Sepfar, the Hands of Ashuro are a band of slavers and thieves that haunt the Scorpion Lands. At first content to steal away with a few vagabonds or exiles to work on the construction of the Temple of Ashuro, they now steal away as many as they can get away with, for the altar itself. Often targeting those traveling to and from Caravanserai in the dark of the night.

Those cast over the wall would find themselves blessed to wander the desert 'til fate or happenstance intervene to end their torment with weal or woe. For at the hands of Ashuro there is only, ever, woe.

Among those who are stolen, however, a shocking number manage escape and reappear within the city with various tales of their own cunning.

The Mercenaries of Khufu

As the Hands of Ashuro grew more and more bold and the years wore on, Tyar fulfilled her various contracts with merchant houses and kingdoms whose goods and peoples traveled through her lands by hiring a small army of soldiers from across the Khufu Sea, from Ellenici, to Imba, to Neasc and Il'sha-ah. Even Achelbite mercenaries, all by way of Abu Sadin.

Three dozen Neasc armored warriors called "The Green Regiment" languish in the heat and complain in their boorish and gutteral language about the weather, the sand, the food, the quality of their company, and the quantity of their pay. Endlessly they bicker, even in battle, shouting epithets at their enemies for "Interrupting the Conversation". Madmen, the lot of them.

A Score of Imba Anubi riders with hide shields and spears of crude iron make regular circuits around the city, five at a time. Lead by a lanky one standing near to eight feet in height with long hair as white as alabaster in tight braids down over his broad shoulders.

All told, there are nearly two hundred mercenary soldiers and guards doing what they can to protect the peoples of Lagan.

Tyar's Apostlate

Few are the schools of magic in the world. And the Apostlate is one of them. Taught by Tyar, herself, for the past fourty years the school focuses on witchery. Spells of enchantment and illusion which results in many specialist mages of various levels of skill.

It is hard to say, however, how effective or ineffective the teachings are. Those who are skilled in such sorceries are difficult to detect in their machinations. And those who are unskilled in such sorceries create minimal or no effect, resulting in a similar level of subtlety.

In the last decade there have been rumblings in the caravanserai, stirrings in the town proper, and whispers in the school itself that Tyar's growing age draws to it's inevitable conclusion. That the Sorcerer-Queen and Potentate of Lagan will soon reach her end through age and infirmity.

That she seeks a new Potentate amongst the Apostles of Tyar. Someone to take over when she has perished, as she has no known children of her own.

Shuruta

Shuruta, the Jewel of the East, it's banners high, it's walls so pale as to glint in sunlight, stands an eternal edifice against the Kyrani Raiders of the grasslands. A beacon of wealth, of intelligence, of culture and education. From it's mines flow endless wealth, from it's fields bursting harvests, and from it's people boisterous joy!

Built in the Age of Swords by Achelbites of means and culture, the Spiral Ziggurat stands high over the city to watch over it's people, high over the mines to watch over the heartsblood of the city, and high over the land to look down upon those less fortunate than Shuruta!

May the Jeweled Regent rule eternal, his wealth falling upon all!

-The Chronicler-

The Tarnished Jewel of the East

While technically a holding of the King of Thieves, Shuruta has long enjoyed it's own sovreignity in the world. It pays no taxes to foreign kings, sends no soldiers to support Achelb, and otherwise faces no losses or ill gains in relation to the City of Thieves. However, they do pay slightly less for gemstones than other nations, though negotiation continues as it would for any buyer.

Ruled by Amenophas II, the Jeweled Regent, the city has recently undergone a shocking turnover related to it's mining operations. Some effect, likely a curse upon the mines themselves, causes the gemstones removed from the mine to crumble into powder as if worm-eaten. As more of the tunnels became so afflicted, the skilled miners and overseers were left with little to do in Shuruta, and most fled to Achelb or distant Musarra where they might find work.

Without endless wealth, the city's coffers began to shrink. Many guards refused to work for little or no pay, and have likewise left with caravans over the years, businessmen shuttered their offices, banking has likewise collapsed... Shuruta is not as it once was.

What remains are farmers harassed by Kyrani raiders once kept at bay. Soldiers chafing under harsh conditions, and a Ruling Class growing slowly poor trying to hold it together.

A Failing System

Shuruta once held so much of the wealth of the Scorpion Lands as to be a place of authority on many matters. But in the lifetime of it's current king it has seen it's place in the world diminish with great rapidity. And as the gemstones and the mines rot away, so, too, does the city itself.

While Amenophas still controls large coffers, enough to see the city maintained for a decade at it's current levels, its people grow restless and angry, unsatisfied with the life they have. The soldiers, once absolutely loyal to the Jeweled Throne now act as thugs and brigands walking the streets, often they stop criminal activity by excessive violence, but if the criminal is willing to pay a modest bribe the soldiers often take it.

And either join the criminal in their crime, or commit violence upon the criminal, the victim, and anyone in the immediate vicinity for daring to bribe the soldiery and not trying to stop the bribery from taking place.

Fate has been fickle, to Shuruta. But while many would cry out to Ibillah the Weaver in such trying times, to beg fate to shift, the stubborn Shuruti instead look to more earthly targets.

A Rebellion foments in the streets of Shuruta.

Organizations and Mysteries of Shuruta

As the population of Shuruta dwindles and it's people grow in ire and discontent, factions grow and gather, holding different ideas of the future of the city.

Annam's Academy of Abjuring

When Amenophas the first took up the title of the Jeweled Regent he brought with him the magics of Annam by sending for his dear friend Seshoitep, a chronicler of some skill. And here, in Shuruta, Seshoitep founded his school of mages. Within it's walls in the spiraled Ziggurat, he trained his students in wards, curses, protections, and how to unravel those selfsame magical effects.

With his death nearly a decade past to illness, the school's highest students have taken it upon themselves to continue his legacy in teaching the younger students all that was shared with them, and more. For they've located his journals and chronicles and begun the tedious process of divining the spells, incantations, and information within.

Though they've not yet located the source of the curse, the Academy's students are trying to find, and unwind, whatever curse it is that condemns the city to poverty and desolation. While others seek to appease something they have no intent of understanding, the Annam Academy may actually succeed.

Kingslayers

While the Loyalists and Seditionists may have a plan for the city of Shuruta in the wake of their coups, the Kingslayers have no greater goal than the death of Amenopas II, the Jeweled Regent. With his death, they posit, the curse will be lifted. And, if not, they'll look to the next "King" in the line.

The Mine Owners and Foremen. And on down the list, killing whomever needs to die in order to appease whoever laid the curse, and thus see it lifted.

And should such efforts succeed, there will be time enough to replace the Jeweled Regent and mine foremen and whomever must be pressed under the blade to see the curse lifted.

Loyalists

Lead by Magistrate Enok, the Loyalists wish to return to glory by inviting Achelb's return to rule. Although the city has only ever been technically and tangentially connected to Achelb, these people unite under the idea of joining the larger, wealthier, city with their own as a way to lift the curse on the mines, believing that Amenophas's blighted rule is the cause of all the city's troubles.

Enok, himself, hopes beyond hope that Achelb will name the Magistrate as Governor on teir behalf, to take power for himself. And if such ascension requires the death of Amenophas, then he is willing to hold the knife, himself. To plunge it into the back of the man he's served for near two decades since his coronation.

Diplomacy is still prefered. After all, most of those who remain in Shuruta are those who hold respect for the Jeweled Regent, for the city, and hope for it's continuation. To see him cut down would do them no great joy. Leading to a general disdain of the Kingslayers.

Seditionists

The Seditionists hold that only Shuruti should rule Shuruta. And that Amenophas and his father are the cause of the Blight, being as they are Annam by blood and heritage. That the line must be ended to break the curse, and the Jeweled Regent be, instead, one of their number.

And the most likely member is Bennu, while no statesman, nor magistrate, nor great servant of the people, Bennu's speches and rallying of the populace to the cause has made him the center of the movement. While he, himself, considers this to be a matter of debate, and instead has eyes on returning to a simple life when the matter is finished and a Shuruti rules Shuruta. His wife, Alil, has other ideas, and intends to press her husband to purpose, should the need for pressure arise.

A dark undercurrent rolls through the Seditionists, however, and there are those who would gladly do harm to their neighbors to see that the Loyalists not succeed at bringing Achelb's aid and rulership to Shuruta...

Walid in'Ashal

Near to Shuruta, across the river and into the deeper marshland where the upwelling of water from the spring that starts the Ur meet sand, is the home of Walid in'Ashal. A reclusive sorcerer known to the people of Shuruta. And while many curses are laid upon his feet for the troubles people assume he causes, no voice speaks of him as the source of the city's current plight.

Indeed, one would think that the first place you would look to find the source of a wicked curse that disrupts and may even destroy a city, in time, would be in the hands of a foul spellcaster that all of the people already despise.

But in truth, Walid in'Ashal is both on the wrong side of the river to curse the mines, and too powerful for the now weakened forces of Shuruta to oppose directly. However, he, too, claims to have been affected by the curse. Unable to attain the materials h needs to continue his foul works in the peace and safety of his swamp...

Why anyone would give him such trinkets and baubles to further his evil can only be found in mortalkind's unslakeable greed and the ruinous decadence that society infects them with.

He has even, openly, offered his support to the Seditionist faction of Shuruta, claiming that only those who live within a community can truly understand it's needs. Granted, his delivery of such sentiment largely revolved around how his settlement was separate from Shuruta and should be ruled only be his own will..

But his intention stands. And his support of the Seditious faction has lead to no small amount of discomfort both among the members of the Seditionist faction, but their enemies, who now see the Seditionists as being puppets to a monstrous sorcerer whose blasphemies are plentiful and transgressions deep.

Perhaps this is the source of the discontent and dark undercurrent writhing through the Seditionist movement, and their willingness not only to dethrone the Jeweled Regent, but end the threat of Achelb's involvement.

Musarra

The City of Sunrise

In the elbow of the Rightclaw Mountains stands shining Musarra. The home of Isra, of Ukada, heart of civilization and bastion in the Empty Lands of the Scorpion. In an earlier age it was a jewel in the crown of Ancais, a city of art and beauty, of luxury and decadence. And with the passing of that fallen empire it remained, now coastal, and it has only shone brighter since.

The Dynasty of Shurigal, a great warrior who fought in the War of Transgression, has met the test of time and the crown with a slow descent into decadence. Remarkable for the city, which often breaks people much more swiftly. The latest scion, Orodis, has proven himself the weakest of the lot by allowing Sepfar to gain strength. If it is not checked soon...

Musarra may find the Priest-King at it's gates, calling down terrible magics from on high to crush it's populace. And yet Orodis resists the call to battle, to test his mettle. Shurigal, in all blessings from on high, must weep from his tomb.

-The Chronicler-

History

Musarra was founded in the Age of Dreaming, when the steppeland was fertile, and wet, a land of many lakes and flowing rivers, before the Sword Age. In it's earliest days it was little more than a small temple city dedicated to the Dweller, Azugiir, far from other halls, near to farmland along the river. Blessings and rituals of the dead were performed, there.

In time, the city would grow from small roots. The Temple of Azugiir remains in the heart of the city, rebuilt uncounted times, above it's ancient foundations. Through fortune struck in the Rightclaw, Bloodstone, Rubies, Silver, it grew. The Old Wall was built in this time, to protect against bandits and thieves in the night.

As more came to Musarra from the villages and towns along the floodplain, worship of the Six increased, and Isra was born. Poor and small, but great of heart. It was in this time that he would fight against Ukada with the blessing of Ibillah, the Weaver, and make him into a manlike shape. In this time when Isra would ascend, and become the first true King of Musarra.

His reign was long, but as with all things it ended. And his line followed him for nearly four centuries before it, too, ended. The blades of Ancais came to sever it as surely as Ibillah's shears might have done.

In the Sword Age much of the world suffered, but the puppet kings of Musarra spent hundreds of years in leisure and pleasure they shared with the wealthy and depraved in Musarra. It's wealthy mines sent untold riches to the Vile Emperor, may his name be unspoken for all time.

But at the dawn of the Age of the Scorpion Shurigal and his armies, and the armies of Achelb and Il'sha-ah and Imba and Kyran and Grisia, slew the Vile Emperor, may his name be unspoken for all time, and his many monsters and armies. They defeated his twisted sorceries, and shattered his many artifacts and cast down the Dark Gods of Ancais.

And from that day, Musarra has been as it is, now. A bastion of culture and study, of priests and farmers, of wealth and decadence, warring against itself in many ways.

Architecture

Musarra was built in a style many of the Scorpion Lands will easily recognize. Wood Frames and mud bricks shape a house of small rooms in a square, rectangle, or circle about a central courtyard. White Plaster is applied within, and Mud Plaster faces the street, often scored in simple patterns with a fingertip or a stylus.

Houses are built to face inward, toward the courtyard, with each room having equal access to it, typically built by the first family to own the home. Those of wealth boast larger courtyards, additional floors to increase the height of their home, and in rare cases glass windows upon the upper levels.

No windows look out onto the street on the first floor of any home in Musarra, lest some traveler might peer into the home and see far more than should be allowed. Instead only a single door, typically wood though fabric for public houses, faces to the street.

The nearer one gets to the center of Musarra, the older and more sturdy the buildings become. With the poor at the outskirts or just inside the New Wall living in simple reed huts and halls, buildings of woven reed mats lashed together with high domed roofs, while those nearer the heart may see stone-block buildings such as the Ziggurat or the Palace of Shurigal.

In the wealthier inner city, the older homes also tend to have more fantastic designs. While any mud brick home will have a floor of plaster, mosaics using tiles and cones are popular flooring and wall designs of the wealthier members of Musarran society.

Notable Buildings

The Ziggurat of the Six stands high above the market square, blessed be the Six who shine their glory upon Musarra, who keep it their Dawn City. Lead by the High Priest of Ibillah, Davni of Six Fingers, the Ziggurat opens for supplication of Ibillah the Weaver, Azugiir the Dweller, the Serpent, Shassim the Tempest, The Mountain, and Zeya the Witch on each High Holy Day, but receives other supplicants in small numbers for specific needs.

The Temple of Azugiir, known as the Shore of the Afterworld, stands at the heart of Musarra. While supplicants come to the Ziggurat of the Six, the Shore of the Afterworld tends to the needs of the dying and the dead on all days. Those with plague or killing sickness seek the Shore for their final days and languish in a place of cool marble in their final hours to give some measure of comfort.

After their passing, they are lowered into the Black Pool of Azugiir in the temple's lower level while the priests chant and mourners lament from the balcony above it, saying their final goodbyes to those who have perished.

The Palace of Shurigal dominates the North Ward of the City. The Palace of Isra had been built there, in an earlier age, but it was razed to the ground in the War of Transgression, along with much of the North Ward, where the Ancais quartered their troops.

Now stands a shining hall, plastered in white and bearing tiles of noble blue, gardens lie beyond the outer wall, with ponds and small streams fed by a well. And golden minarets shine in dawn's light as the songs of prayer ring out over the city. The king sees it carefully tended for lavish parties.

Politics and Religion

The city of Musarra is quietly wracked by four forces which draw it's people into deeper dangers than any one seems to realize.

King Orodis, Scion of Shurigal

King in name only, Orodis spends much of his time in the Dawn Palace, hosting artists and dignitaries, wealthy folks, and the occasional priest in lavish parties that stretch deep into the night. Oft fueled by the wine of Achelb, the beers of Marad, and the Lotus of Ngo they descend into orgies of revelry and violence. Within the courtyard at the heart of the palace it is not unusual to see gladiators battle to the death while titillated onlookers fornicate amid silken pillows, so intoxicated by leaf and grain and grape that torn flesh is as sensual as whole.

Davni of the Six Fingers

Contrasted to Orodis, the Six do all that is in their power to encourage restraint, piety, and fidelity to both oath and relations. Davni of the Six Fingers spends many nights tearing at her hair in frustration for the king's debaucheries and the tendency for priests of the Serpent, of Shassim, and of Zeya to visit the Dawn Palace to take part in them, only to preach the prudence of abstinence and restraint the following morning. The church's power over the wealthy is largely broken, and the tithes of the poor will not support the Ziggurat for long.

The Cult of the Flower

As the King and his hangers-on descend into Debauchery, and as the Six protest modesty and restraint, the people of Musarra see the priests of Shassim and Zeya leave the Dawn Palace in disarray and drunkenness. They are the servants who help them into their Chariots and guide the horses to their doorsteps. They are the ones who clean up the vomit from the tiled mosaics, who wash blood and wine from tunics and dresses. And they increasingly turn toward the Flower, whose acolytes do not venture to the Dawn Palace where they are not welcomed. Not wealthy or notable, the priests of Nefia provide what support they can, helping the people of Musarra much more directly. This earns the Six's ire, assuredly.

The Minor Cults

In the same vacuum of decency that Nefia's priests have begun to fill, cults of lesser gods and the Beast, Khumuad, preach violence and degradation. Servants to dark powers have risen so boldly as to proselytize upon street corners, fleeing before minotaur guards that rush through the small crowds to seize them. They call to the dark gods of Ancais, to do violence against oppressors, to raise oneself above all who would be 'better' than you and see them crushed. Meanwhile Khumuad's approach is most popular among the violently disaffected. Those who once held wealth but saw it stripped away by Orodis' whims or the demands of their rivals whispered into his intoxicated mind. Their goal is far more simple.

Burn all of Musarra to the ground, as Khumuad intended.

Organizations and Mysteries of Musarra

The ancient city of Musarra has many secrets hidden among it's houses, temples, and gardens. And as many people to keep them.

The Bloodstone Consortium

Time and again the mines of the Rightclaw have played out and seen new mines dug to find those precious gemstones that make Musarra the power that it is. And the owners of those mines, typically those of great prestige in the eyes of King Orodis, grow fat off the labor of miners, free and slave. Though the faces and names of it's members change with the passing of years, and occasionally seasons, the Bloodstone Consortium remains. An organization of owners, foremen, and trusted advisors who help guide where the wealth of Musarra wends.

While the Dawnguard can be readily fielded to battle, the guards of the Consortium, the Red Guard, whose soldiers are called Redguards, outnumbers them two to one. And in any conflict in which they were called upon, the Consortium would receive hefty conpensation for the use of their soldiers. Indeed, Pays pays the Red Guard a standing stipend for just such an occasion, one bead per Redguard per day.

This stipend has long disappeared into the coffers of the Consortium, but outside of the Consortium's leaders, Orodis' taxmen, and the oldest members of the Red Guard, none know of the bargain once struck. The young Redguards only know that they may be called upon, at any moment, to provide the Dawnguard with military support.

Not since the time of King Amana-Lakhmu, the Bloodstone Queen, has the Red Guard been called upon to do battle. And even then it was against an attack by Zaidu the Conqueror, whose line yet rules Ondat nearly a century later.

Largely content not to involve themselves in the politics of the city, they only do so in the most blithely cruel ways, such as seeking the passage of laws and decrees which enrich themselves, and lobby Orodis at his various parties.

Blood of Nefia

The Blood of Nefia is the name of the cult of the Flower within Musarra. Largely embodying the martyrdom of Nefia, and her willingness to do anything for the people of the world, they largely exist as a community organizing group. They work with farmers and craftspeople to ensure that even if every belly is not filled, few starve on the streets.

It is not unusual to see them down by the waterside, gathering reeds from the river to help build homes for those who have need, their flowing white clothes, adorned only by the petal of a flower pinned anew each day, damp and dirty from the water and the mud.

There are many in the poorer districts of the city who add prayers to Nefia in soft voices singing over their meager meals, to aid their neighbors and their friends. And to her priests and acolytes they are warm and inviting. Particularly when they are hunted.

For while the Flower is a god that most recognize, she holds no temple in Musarra, as it was destroyed decades ago. Beneath it's false modesty and feigned innocence, the city guard found hoarded wealth that had gone untaxed for countless years. Guided by a member of the priesthood, the gold was siezed and the temple shattered.

Those who managed to flee before the raid took place survived. But even the acolyte of the fourth circle who revealed the truth was burned with the temple, slain for his faith. It is said that his soul, unquiet, remains amid the ruins of that once beautiful place. Lamenting the layers of betrayal that lead to his demise.

The Blood of Nefia is lead by Alaira, a wizened old woman whose hair is as white as her garb. She was once a member of a merchant family, connected to the Bloodstone Consortium long ago, but forsook her family's fortunes to serve Nefia and the people of Musarra.

She eagerly reminds her flock to treat others with compassion and warmth, to treat them as they would wish to be treated in all things.

To follow the Golden Rule.

The Dawnguard

Dressed in brilliant yellow and the darkest black that can be dyed, the Dawnguard are the traditional protectors of Musarra. They owe their order's birth to Isra, who commissioned the Dawnguard to protect the city after he became the king, after dismissing the former King's Guard from service and largely dismissing their heads from their bodies.

During the Age of Dreams they held a place of prestige and earnest praise for hundreds of years, their brilliant bronze scale armor glinting in the first rays of dawn meant justice and earnesty would soon come.

But during the Age of Swords the Dawnguard became a hand of Ancais, another cudgel to beat upon oppressed people with brutal efficiency. While they kept their colors, Ancais fitted them in dark breastplates made of the same cursed metal that the conquerors had long used to oppress the Myri.

Before the Age of Swords saw it's end, the Dawnguard was disbanded, entirely. Replaced whole cloth by Ancais soldiers in the Red and White they were so commonly known for. But it would not last. Within a decade, former members of the Dawnguard, including Shurigal himself, would rise against the Red and the White and see Ancais ejected from the city, entire.

However, Shurigal did not see fit to restore the Dawnguard to their role in the wake of the War of Transgression. Instead his soldiers worked with farmers and common folk as the Curses fell upon the world, helping those they could to safety. It was his son, Belchizzar who would see the Dawnguard restored.

The Dawnguard are lead by Elite Captain Kedelay, a minotaur of impressive stature and breadth, who is loyal to no man, nor king. But to Musarra itself.

Ishtrada's Rings

The Rings of Ishtrada are a collection of thieves and bandits who infest the city of Musarra like a plague. Organized in antiquity by Ishtrada, who forged a series of rings to mark leaders controlling territory within the city, the crime ring has long since devolved into a number of princedoms which each claim dominance.

Six rings were forged in those days, with Ishtrada holding one for herself. Each bearing a sigil representing a group and a location. Reeds for the river pirates, Coins for the cutpurses, Stones for the smugglers, Ale for the highwaymen, Scales for the fences, and a Crown for Ishtrada. It's said she died within the year, and false rings showed up at her funeral.

Over a dozen rings, each with it's own sigil, are known to exist. But the original five still serve their same purpose, to represent the leaders of a specific type of underworld activity. On rare occasions, a calling of the rings goes out, and those who bear a ring, even a false ring, are invited to meet in private.

None know what happens in those meetings save those who enter whatever establishment will host them. But what is known is that even though twelve are allowed in, and any feigned ring may secure one's entrance, anyone bearing the Ring of the Crown is refused at the door, outright.

Opis' Eyes

While many servants of Ibillah the Weaver look to the heavens at night for secrets of the cosmos, Zeya's priests in Musarra sometimes do the same. Opis, the High Priest of the Witch, the Eye of Zeya, has chosen eyes of her own.

Two of her acolytes serve her in the Ziggurat of the Six each day at any given time, with the other four sleeping during the waking hours. At night, each of the Six spends several hours mapping the stars and judging their placement in the heavens to tell of Musarra's fortunes.

Twin towers stand on opposite sides of the great river, Ur, each holding telescopes and great libraries that the acolytes and their servants use to guage and calculate, to determine meanings and catalogue them. Thousands of charts of the Night Sky fill the libraries, carefully dated and categorized by the caretakers of the tower.

It is said, that within the towers is also the wealth of Opis, of Zeya, within the city of Musarra. That it is hoarded and kept there, hidden and safe, from the taxmen of Orodis. That the telescopes, themselves, are in fact housings for myriad gemstones ranging from massive at the skyward end, to bead-size at the bottom, in order to hide them from the King.

But such tales are also bounded with a warning, that Zeya guards all things that are hers as jealously as she guards magic itself. And that anyone who might invade the towers would find themselves in gravest peril for incalculable reward.

Ziggurat of the Six

Lead by High Priest Davni of the Six Fingers, Priestess of Ibillah, the temple is also home to Shassim's chosen Gado of the Storm, Merodan-Abalach the High Priest of the Serpent, Opis the Eye of Zeya, Earthspeaker Shadra of the Mountain, and the Priest of Azugiir Urammhu of Black Cloth. Each is attended by six acolytes who live in the Ziggurat in neighboring chambers of those whom they serve save Urammhu, whose acolytes leave at the evening prayer and return to the Shore of the Afterworld each night.

Each day, at Dawn, the six High Priests and their Acolytes stand upon the high platform of the Ziggurat and sing their prayers to the Six, together. This leads the great chorus of the city to prayer, in turn, with Chanters on street corners prostrating themselves in supplication. They perform, again, at nightfall.

Those who can afford or earn the attention of the Priests during the day to seek counsel and aid for their woes and tribulations may hear their prayers in the evening's song. During which those who do not pray wait in a respectful silence, often. Those who do not quiet their flapping gums may find the Dawnguard eager to offer a stern reprimand for their temerity.

Urammhu, Priest of the Black Cloth, technically rules over the Ziggurat as high priest of the Dweller, to whom it was originally dedicated, and could challenge Davni on any decision she makes. But this has yet to come to pass. Instead he is content to let her lead, and to focus his efforts on the deeper chambers of the Ziggurat, where slaves are occasionally sent, but never return.

Marad

At the end of the Tail of the Scorpion mountains, along the great river Borsai which flows thin in the winter, and fat as the slaughtered calf in summer, there is the city of Marad. In the Age of Swords it was built as a final holdout of the remaining free peoples. A fortress-city meant to withstand a siege of Ancais.

A siege which would never come. No, instead the hero Shurigal and his companions, with their meager armies in tow, crossed the lands of fire and drove to the very heart of Ancais to strike down the Vile Emperor, may his name be unspoken for all time. But to Marad they did return, now on the shore of a vast sea, the river wetlands at hand turned into wide delta, on Myri ships.

It is said that the feasting and the drinking have never stopped from the dawn of the Age of the Scorpion.

-The Chronicler-

Musarra's Little Sibling

Marad upon the ocean, upon the delta, was built by Sarran hands and Qeshi design. A Fortress city, removed from fallen Musarra, whose palace of Isra housed the lines of foreign kings. A town of two walls that followed the land first to make a fotress and then to make a city.

Built in largely the same style as Musarra, with similar materials, Marad is mainly different in a single important manner: It is low in relation to the river, while Musarra is high in relation to it's river. This means that every year, when the bounty of snow on the Tail melts in the summer, the river rushes up to people's doorsteps. It seeps under the gates, and for five days the streets of Marad become a damp muddy mess.

Each door is raised from the road almost half a cubit, to keep that which is within dry during the flooding. But once it begins, the people of Marad leave their homes and travel to the Ziggurat for the Festival of Waters. Five days the city remains closed to outsiders. Five days the people feast and drink. Five days of revelry, and music, and no work.

Except for the servants and slaves, of course. Nevermind the reed houses washed away beyond the wall.

Flooding and Banditry

The guards at Marad spend much of their time walking the walls of the city, handling simple problems, such as disputes over how old a recently sold beast of burden is, or whether a scale has been altered to the benefit of the merchant who owns it.

But during the Festival of Waters, when many of the homes and businesses of Marad stand empty, their wealthy owners feasting atop the ziggurat, it is common for bandits to descend upon the city, thieves who trust the floodwaters to hide their footsteps as they make their way to the empty halls to take whatever they can.

And many of these bandits are of the city. Poor folk who cannot afford to visit the ziggurat, who lose their reed huts with the flood and must rebuild when the waters recede. Who carry all of their possessions on their person from the moment the flooding begins.

Those who are caught are shown little mercy for the pains they have been through. Goods stolen are confiscated, often with more than was taken. And the standard punishment of the judges is to be staked to the ground in the town square until the flooding ends.

Most do not survive until the water recedes.

Organizations and Mysteries of Marad

While not so large or so ancient as Musarra, Marad has it's own matters to handle, it's own dangers, and it's own peoples who rail at the idea they are nothing more than Sibling to Musarra.

The Five Houses

The greater wealth of Marad is broken among the five merchant houses that call the fortress city home.

House Badelzar is the oldest of the Five Houses. They hold secret recipes to beers and spirits the other houses know only the taste of. Their granaries and their vineyards are well known and marked with the sign of the house, a B upon it's back. It is ruled by Nabu and his eldest son Nazir, and it has always seen a father and his eldest son visit the council.

House Ubartu's holdings are primarly on the western shore of the Borsai, meaning they are flooded more drastically than any other's each year as the melting snow rushes to meet the river through the foothills. Duzirar keeps his home atop one such hill, in the west. And during the flooding it finds itself moated on each side as water rushes about the rocky hillside it was built atop.

House Akkilam's holdings are to the East of the city. In lands that were once barren, Akkilam built an intricate series of irrigation ditches and brought fresh life to the land far from the river itself. With lands that never flood, the house became wealthy quite quickly. Now lead by Galgaga, a shrewd businessman who holds to his ancestor's teachings of purchasing something considered worthless only to work until it is worthwhile.

House Muranu, the Beastmasters, have controlled the beasts of burden in Marad since it's founding in the Sword Age. Under the symbol of the Lion, the traditional war-beast of Marad, they provide every camel, mule, and monkey the city uses... for a fee. The only Stormborn house, Ninramman and his family are a proud and dedicated people.

And finally, House Tamrach, the smithing house, the crafting house, controls the final vote in the city of Marad. Lead by Sigesham and his wife Anatica, they control the city's few foundries and smithies, as well as the largest kilns used for pottery, bricks, and glass. While the other houses lament their presence, House Tamrach overtook the old house Gulabel through careful bargaining and leveraging of assets.

The devil of the Five Houses is, of course, that four of them are so interbred it can be difficult to know when one house ends and another begins. Only House Tamrach, new to governance, has been around so briefly as to lack such marital connections with the other four houses. A fact that Anatica seeks to remedy by marrying her child Kalatum to Mylitta of House Muranu.

This has lead to no measure of issue, as Mylitta and Kalatum are willing, if not enthusiastic, about the arranged marriage, but the remainder of the council is opposed to the wedding, yet hoping that somehow, house Gulabel will return to power through a daring coup or economic miracle.

But Lars of Gulabel has no power to enact such a change. Instead, there are rumors he hides his intentions behind a broad smile, and a dagger within wide sleeves opened to the Tamrach House as if friends.

Nuzira and the Twelve

Thirteen is an unlucky number, even for rogues and outcasts. Nuzira and the Twelve are one such band, numbering so miserably as thirteen. Yet their luck has been marvelous, and the luck of whose fated to face them as poor as the number eludes.

Nuzira and her companions are well known to the city of Marad, where they prey upon the outskirts, harassing the city's good people and taking of their wealth what manner can be gained. Never in tokens, however, as tokens are traded largely house-to-house, no. In bloodstone. In cargo. In food and drink.

It is said that in the heat of the desert they strike, and the cold nights they dance about campfires with a dozen dozen fools and outcasts who share in their drink, their bounty, of a given night.

Yet on the outskirts of Marad they are never to be found. Hidden, no doubt, among the poor and foolish who know not the damage they wreak upon the city, and know only of the beads and nails pressed into their palms, and the brief comforts such gems will bring before the city's guard come to know the truth.

Many palms of the poor of Marad bear the burned scar of the nail, heated to glow as an ember, from punishment of hiding Nuzira and the Twelve.

The Blood of Nefia

Nefia's temples have long held a place in Marad, having displaced the Temple of the Six with the Ziggurat of the Flower, built at the dawn of the Age of the Scorpion when Nefia of Marad sacrificed herself in Shurigal's company, to protect the world from the full ire of the Gods.

Indeed, when the Blood was banished from distant Musarra, it was to Marad they fled, swelling the numbers of the faithful in a city largely devoted to her worship, already. Each harvest, the Blood of Nefia come forth onto the streets, spreading the petals of flowers and their scent into the streets and into braziers in the evening to warm the senses of all.

On those blessed nights, the call to temple sees it packed to bursting with delighted farmers and workers who sing the high praises of Nefia above all others, much to the annoyance of the Temple of the Six.

Minor Cults of Marad

While Khumuad the Beast holds no sway in the Low City, there is a violent cult of the Serpent within the city. It's teachings are treacherous as a cloudy night, and focus on the Five Houses and their supposed excesses.

The Cult of the Viper strikes when the waters are low, and winter is deep upon the world, performing profane rituals in the holdings of the Houses when all are sleeping and none can interject save the Guards who are oft distracted by other matters.

Such rituals leave terrible writings upon the walls of these holdings, strange sigils and shapes often met with other writings of threats and curses upon the Five Houses, written in paints and inks, or foul excrements to make them impossible to ignore.

Any Viper in the city is executed for their Heretical Beliefs within an hour of appearing before a Judge.

Ondat

Along the river Ur, far south of Shuruta, yet north of Musarra, stands Ondat the Lady's Realm. Ruled by a line of Queens who forbear the title of King, it is a young but vibrant city. In the Sword Age, under oppressive rule of Ancais, was Ondat founded. A fortress city for the Ancais invaders to make a foothold as they moved North from Musarra, it was upended in the riot of seventy two veils.

The black marble edifices of the Ancais were shattered to rubble in the wake of the riot and dropped along the paths and avenues of the city. Seeing a black road gave many pause, so they began painting and tiling every wall and surface to keep the eye up while sandaled feet trod over the fallen empire.
-The Chronicler-

The Painted City

Of the cities along the river Ur, Musarra is the largest, the strongest, and the wealthiest, but Ondat's wealth is not far behind, even given it's smaller size, diminished as it has become of late. Ruled by the Just Queen Adranene, and her seven ministers, Ondat's issues are largely external. The speed of trade in the region, the price of camels and sheep the city breeds, and the sacrificial demands of Sepfar.
The Just Queen has done her best to handle all of these issues diplomatically, through peaceful negotiation of prices, encouraging her own people to take up shipping rather than leaving it to the trade houses, and issuing stern demands that her people not be dragged away, screaming, in the night to be enslaved or sacrificed as Sepfar requires.
Thus far it has only worked to a marginal degree. Musarra has accepted the increase to the prices of beasts due to the added danger of caravanning through the region of late, but distant Qesh refuses to accept any change in price since they can rely on this year's New City to provide. Meanwhile the vacuum left by fleeing people of wealth has resulted in more poor people taking up shipping for themselves in whatever watercraft they can cobble together.
But Sepfar has only chosen to gag those they drag from the city in the night, to quiet the screaming.

The City of Veils

The Riot of the Seventy Two Veils was a battle waged on the streets of the city of Ondat while it was still under the control of the godsmote kingdom of Ancais. They had summoned it from the earth in blackstone daggers that rose up and jutted toward the heavens, and it was meant to be a forward post against invaders from Achelb to protect Musarra, which Ancais had, early in the Sword Age, conquered.

Under the auspices of Qesh's Priest-King, who had been imprisoned within his own ziggurat, a plan was hatched for seventy two maiden warriors to present themselves to the Ondani guard wearing veil and seductive guard. Once inside the barracks where they outnumbered the soldiers three to one, they took up the Ancais' own weapons and slew them in a bloody riot.

Taking to the streets in what stolen armor would fit them, the Veiled Warriors took several buildings before sending twelve to take the guardhouse. When it fell, the combined forces of the Scorpion Lands took the city.

The Seventy Two were left behind as the War of Transgression continued, save Nefia, handmaiden of the new Queen Tiria, who went with Shurigal to make him a legend, and herself a Martyr.

Organizations and Mysters of Ondat

The city of Ondat is reeling from latest calamity. The Queen, Adranene, has proven largely ineffectual as a leader though she is a worthy Judge of Justice. And it is her Ministers who have tried to truly solve the city's problems, though their hands are tied by her orders. If matters continue in this way, the Queen may be deposed, and replaced.

The Ministers

Seven Ministers support the Queen, each with their own demense of duties upon which they advise her. Each is descended from one of the Veiled Warriors, the only requirement to run for election in a life-long position.

Shahen the Hawk is the Minister of Defense, whose handful of soldiers protect the city as best they can, but most have fled to Musarra with their families. An old soldier, herself, there may not be many years before an election is held for her replacement. More than any of the other ministers she rattles her saber at the Queen to act against Sepfar, whose depradations have cost her far too many good soldiers.

Nahren is the Minister of Finance, who manages the coffers of Ondat as well as the various contracts the city keeps with neighboring cities. Like Shahen, she is eager to see the end of the threat of Sepfar, and thrice has presented pre-written contracts, carried by Damrina to Musarra and Lagan, for mercenaries at ever-increasing prices. If the Queen does not act, the city will not be able to afford the higher rates demanded each negotiation.

Istir is the Minister of Agriculture, who decides which fields will lie fallow, which farmers will have access to the Queen's fields, and what will grow there. Her hands are largely tied, however, as many farmers have taken to the water, seeking to build their own shipping businesses upon the river to improve their lot in the city.

Adorina is the Minister of Tradesmen, who works as their representative on the council but also guides their crafts toward the needs of the community. While the merchants flee the city in droves, taking with them guards and their families, the tradesmen have largely remained where they have built all the equipment they need over the years.

Baileet is the Minister of Justice who finds herself less and less needed, as the Queen throws herself into the role of Justice, even to the point of managing her own caseload and paperwork.

Athra is the Minister of Merchants, who represents them on the Council and helps to guide their trade in accordance with the dictates and requirements of the city. Her workload has lessened, greatly, but the handful of voices that remain crey out all the louder for lost laborers, lack of resources, and stagnation of action against Sepfar.

Damrina is the Foreign Minister, whose role is to act as diplomat and messenger to the other city states which have contact with Ondat. Of late she and the other ministers have acted outside the orders of their Queen in an attempt to spur her to action, seeking aid from other city-states in the form of a hired mercenary army. While the negotiations have been successful, by and large, Queen Adranene continues to send Damrina's diplomats to Sepfar. Few return.

Nefia Among the People

The church of Nefia is strong in Ondat, but it lacks a high priest. The acolytes and priests of the Flower instead look to the descendants of the Seventy Two, who hold familial records and oral histories from those who knew Nefia before she sacrificed herself to guide their overall path.

Many of the faithful, however, have taken her guidance and left when they might be needed. Fleeing to Musarra to join the Blood of Nefia, or north to Shuruta in the hopes that the church, there, will welcome them with open arms.

Those who remain largely lead prayer circles and help to tend the fields that many farmers have left for the lure of bloodstone on the river. The festivals and holy days of Nefia have fallen to the wayside, in this time, as all hands take to the Earth and see it turned for planting, cared during the growing, and shorn in the harvest.

The Six

Ondat has no ziggurat, no great temple to any one god. Instead the Six are sought at Shrines about the city by those who remain. Such shrines are tended by a single priest and a handful of dedicated acolytes who do all they can to maintain the cleanliness of the mosaics, the paint upon the plaster, and the black pebble ways that lead to the shrine itself.

Prayers for rain, for peace, for wisdom, for safety, and for an end to the curses of the Gods ring out daily, echoing down beautiful, largely empty, streets.

The Hands of Ashuro

Hailing from Sepfar, the Hands of Ashuro are a band of slavers and thieves that haunt the city of Ondat. At first content to steal away with a few farmers or vagabonds to work on the construction of the Temple of Ashuro, they now steal away as many as they can get away with, for the altar itself.

Entirely assured by their Theocrat that their actions are both needed and smiled upon by the gods, the Hands now make their way into the streets of the city proper, at night, to rob houses of more than potential slaves. Some have even gone so far as to take up residence in the city, claiming to be Shuruti or Madran in heritage to gain a place in the fields or on the river in the day, better to decide which to take in the night.

Minor Cults

While Nefia and the Six are well regarded among the remaining populace, more than a third of the city has fled, and those who are left behind, or those who infiltrate from without, have begun making inroads with dark gods of earlier times, or twisted teachings of the Flower and the Six...

The Blood of Nefia, heretical to the faith of Nefia Among the People, has taken root in the city and begun to whisper blasphemous heresies into the ears of the true faith of the Flower. While their lies do not set the hearts of the earnest and kind to quiver in doubt, those of true faith, their words have had an effect upon the weaker willed of the true way...

Faithless cowards, the lot of them. It is folly that there is not an Eighth Minister of Religion to keep such blasphemies at bay.

Qesh

Ancient Qesh, The Fallen City, once stood atop a low mountain near to Ancais and Myr. But as the Age of the Scorpion began, and Ancais was smote to the bottom of the sea, the mountain Qesh was built upon was broken. A third of the city fell into the sea with Ancais, as the mountain cracked asunder and dropped away.

Now standing upon a bluff, Qesh watches over the Bay of Marad, and serves as a port of call for ships and caravans traveling from one city to the other. Long ruled by the Priest of the Serpent, it is a high hall of wisdom to which travelers seeking guidance visit. Go there to learn, so long as you can make it through the New City of Qesh. -The Chronicler-

Serpent City of the Coast

Orchamus, Priest King of the Serpent, is the latest in a line not of blood, but of Wisdom and Power. A Seer and a Diviner of great talent, Orchamus rose through the ranks of the Priesthood meteorically and became the clear choice for the new King of Qesh. And this is how it has been since time immemorial.

He who Rules does so well, and gladly, for the people of Qesh and the New City which rises upon the years of odd number. Though it is not without danger, nor sacrifice. For the Priest King may hold no spouse, nor give rise to children, unto the last of their days, lest Dynasties take hold in the city itself.

His city is split along the bluff and down to the seaside, burst forth from it's original design by swelling numbers, the farms and fertile lands near the shoreline offer tribute to the temple in grain, meat, leather, and reeds that may be soaked, pressed, and made into fine papyrus.

Yet they are not safe behind the low fences that keep pigs corralled. And when bandits and pirates come for their goods, their children, and their lives, it is to the Priest King they turn not for wisdom, nor sight of future, but for force of arms.

The Adepts of the Serpent walk among the people for this reason. Helping to turn Pitchfork and Adze into weapons, to turn farmers into soldiers, and to spread the wisdom of vigor and self-protection to the masses.

The New City of Qesh

Every odd numbered summer the shepherds and nomads of the Scorpion Lands finish their winter pilgrammage to the shores of the Bay of Maray from the Sea of Khufu. With them they bring fatted goats and sheep, gathered harvests found along the journey, stories from Khufu, and music. The beginning of summer on these years is always met by a festival of nights and the planting, tending, and harvests on such years are always made easy by many hands.

The pilgrims and nomads build a New City of Qesh for the summer months around the base of the bluff between the high temple and the villagers. They sell their wares and sing their songs and bring bright color and life to the region which fades once the harvest is done, and remains gone for a full year before their next visit.

But not all leave. The Pilgrim Lands always have a small market, a small city of nomads who remain. Some are too old to make the journey, or injured, but many do so for love of Qesh and it's beautiful people. It's fine figs, it's plump dates, and the continued wisdom of the Priest-King. Some return to the path of the nomad when the caravans return. But many perish in the long year before they see their family, again.

And some become Qeshi for the rest of their days.

Organizations and Mysteries of Qesh

Qeshi life is secure and simple under the wisdom of the Serpent. It's people are happy and well fed. And there are few, if any, mysteries that cannot be solved simply by petitioning the Priest King Orchamus.

Blacksail Marauders

Three ships and crews are known to sail the Bay of Maray between the Tail of the Scorpion and the Isles of Myr. They draw near their target under two sails, then raise the third black sail for speed to rush and close the distance. Three ships, three crews, three captains, each widely known for their cruelty and swift manner.

Yudwe the Black is an Ngo captain, whose dark stare burns into those he questions. With thick ringlets of hair and beard, or shaved smooth as glass, standing head and shoulders above his crew or right at their sides, his axe and sword are widely feared and his deep voice bellowing can set a ship to shiver.

The Serpent Queen's captain Ndara, a Qeshi naga who sometimes paints her scales in different bandings, rebels against the Priest King to sail with cruel pirates. Said to be a witch, she sometimes pretends to be a human to fight.

Atum-Kari, a Sharran nobleman turned to a life of piracy when his family lost position, is known by his deadly grace and strength of arms. An older man, he was the first of the Blacksail Marauders and made his former crewmates into captains in their own right.

Blood of Nefia

While powerful in the neighboring city-state of Marad, and growing in strength within Musarra, the Blood of Nefia finds itself deeply constrained within the Serpent City of Qesh. The Priest King is a jealous theocrat who ruthlessly seeks out and destroys the followers of other gods. Those who profess their love of the Serpent falsely are often tortured, so the Flower's Cult hides itself, well, in the city.

In Musarra and Qesh the Blood of Nefia joins the harvest, helps the community, and receives whatever tithings are offered without qualm or hesitation. But in Qesh even the hint one might be affiliated with the blood can see you to the ziggurat of the Serpent and those not invited cordially rarely escape the black dungeons beneath it.

In Qesh, the Blood of Nefia largely functions as a spy network, gathering information on the prisoners of the ziggurat with the intent of seeing them freed, and learning what can be gathered from the Priest King's libraries and orrery.

But all too often the dark magics the Priest King has laid upon the citizens of Qesh infects a cultist and leads to a pogram of all that are allied with them. Thus are the cells of the cult kept separate within the city, and without. No traveler from Marad to Musarra who holds the Flower high stops in Qesh along their journey.

Caravanserai

With the nomads and pilgrims that come to Qesh every other year, and the caravans traveling from Musarra to Marad and back, Caravanserai are desperately needed in and around Qesh, as they give both the caravaneers and their beasts of burden a chance to safely rest in some measure of comfort after days of travel through the Empty Lands of the Scorpion.

Maintaining the caravanserai are a number of Qeshi servants, former Pilgrims, and Nomads too frail to make the long journey to the North. These people tend beasts, clean stalls, and gather water from wells to fill troughs, cups, and baths for the visitors who come, and earn enough nails and fingers for their effort to sustain themselves until the next caravan comes through with it's goods.

But not all members of the caravanserai are so noble as the Priest King would prefer. And it's not unheard of for things, or even people, to go missing when a Caravan passes through Qesh.

Noble Children of Qesh

The Noble Children of Qesh are a charitable organization of Qeshi nobility and merchants who routinely hire entertainers, performers, and minor feasts for the farmers and lower classes of Qesh.

Well known and quite popular with the peasantry, the group spends much of it's time having soirees and meetings, holding small galas, and otherwise entertaining themselves with the same coin they collect for their more charitable ventures for the masses.

While the Priest King would prefer a more staid and stoic affair in regards to entertainment, the Noble Children of Qesh are simply too popular to argue against directly. Instead, his acolytes and adepts move among the people reminding them of the importance of modesty, temperance, and fidelity. And encourages them to follow his own example.

The Serpentstalkers

Qesh is, as many coastal cities are, plagued by sea serpents, sharks, octopi, and other terrible sea-beasts too varied to cover, here. Which is why the Noble Children of Qesh and the Caravanserai worked together to organize a petition to form the Serpentstalkers, an organization of monster-hunters who work along the coastline.

Lead by members of the Noble Children of Qesh who use the position in order to grow their own reputation as fierce warriors, though they rarely leave the tent-camps the Serpentstalkers live in, these marine hunters, fishermen, and brutish mercenaries are all too eager to take a few fingers, or even several hands, when the corpse of a great sea beast is offered up to the community.

While it's traditional to burn the beasts in a sacrifice to the Serpent upon the Ziggurat of Qesh under the watchful eyes of the Priest King, many times smaller beasts or even the occasional sea serpent becomes a feast for the Serpentstalkers and their allies and friends. Often whenever they make a kill far afield from Qesh proper, and don't wish to drag the carcass such a large distance.

Sepfar

The Altar of Ashuro

At the northern reach of the Empty Lands, where rocky hills and knife-edged gorges rush to meet dunes of sand, stands three lakes. The last Scorpion Lands holdout of Ancais after the dawn of the Scorpion Age, it became home to a mad prophet two centuries ago. With wild eyes and breathless voice he spoke of the horrors the curses would waken in the world and began to build his city atop the ruins of what came before.

From across the wastes and the rocky valleys Ashuro called to all who would hear, and brought them to his growing halls. Cutthroats, brigands, slavers, and pilgrims who heard his words traveled for decades to the three lakes and the ruins. And in the century, since, have built a city of cruelty, harsh life, and violence to see the Altar of Ashuro built.

And now, months after it's finish, Ashuro, the Mad Prophet, the Theocrat of Sepfar, the Immortal, has begun condemning people to his altar to call for rain, for power, for all that his heart desires, and all he feels he has earned.

-The Chronicler-

History

In the Age of Dreaming, the Three Lakes were as one, and upon the north shore were villages of fishermen and a small town of traders where travelers and nomads would visit, leading sheep and cattle down from Khufu during the winter. But when the Sword Age came, the Ancais brought death and torment upon the villages. Those who survived were enslaved to work farms, to draw fish, and to serve the new overlords.

In time, they built one of their daggerkeeps upon an isle near the lake's center, where it grew deepest, though it was ever shallow. And from the black keep they launched assaults against Lagan, Shuruta, and Abu Sadin. Sorties were even sent to Achelb in the mountains. And in this time it is said that they brought one of their dark gods to the isle at Sepfar. A God which fell during the War of Transgression.

By the Age of the Scorpion, Sepfar was a ruin, into which an exile stumbled in delerium. He rejoiced at seeing the three lakes about the ruins of the keep, and drank deeply of the waters, there. He took shelter in the blackstone ruins of the keep itself, and it is said that within, he found the Ancais god, or what remains of it.

Now Ashuro, now empowered, now immortal, he returned to the Empty Lands and gathered followers to make the pilgrimmage to his new home. He sought brigands and bandits who could be easily cowed by his new magics. He sought pilgrims weak of faith after weeks of walking through blistering heat who could be tempted with shelter and water. And in time, he sought those upon whom the lash and the chain would fall.

Two hundred years have passed since Ashuro found the ruins. Since he began building upon them, his terrible altar, his ziggurat and the city around it. For those two centuries there have been periods of strife, when his forces would scour the deserts for slaves, for sacrifices, for people to drag kicking and screaming to his altar for their deaths.

A new period of such strife has begun, now that his ziggurat is finally complete, it's two towers raised toward the sky above and beyond all else on the horizon. Now his forces strike at Lagan, at Ondat, and drags them under his blade.

The Dangers of Sepfar

The mysteries of Sepfar are fairly straightforward. How has Ashuro lived two centuries? What did the Ancais leave in the ruins? And while the dangers, there, are clear and plentiful, a wise chronicler tries to know what they may face. Read on, friend. Read on.

Bandits

From the shores of Khufu to the streets of Musarra, from the Shining Jewel of the East to the Gateway to Annam in the west, bandits and thieves, murderers and monsters, have found safe haven in Sepfar. None care what bounties each has on his head, only what stone he has in his pockets and how best to separate the two. Three, if separating the head is the only way to get the stone.

Atorkhan and his Seventy and Seventy were known to have frequented Sepfar, many times, a century past. But even after his disappearance, his Seventy and Seventy still make irregular calls upon the city, wearing as many different faces as their number and more. And bearing as much variety in quality as well.

But in this place, violence is rarely called for outside of sport and the occasional feud over some stolen treasure or week of pleasure. And the bandits largely police themselves.

High Holy Guard

Two hundred minotaur soldiers, fitted in finest maille beneath tabards of blue with beaten brass breastplates marked with the sigil of Ashuro are his protectors. Ashuro, a fearful madman, ensorcelles each of his high holy guard to bear his face to look back at him, for he is the only one he can trust.

The High Holy Guard rarely leave the Altar of Ashuro, but when they do no more than twenty at a time march down it's rough stairs to demand the tribute from Sepfar's "Citizenry". A dozen slaves are turned over at a time to be taken to the altar and sacrificed while Ashuro calls out to his deity for a blessing.

If slaves cannot be acquired, any dozen will suffice.

The Hands of Ashuro

Ashuro's Hands can be found in Lagan, in Ondat, and at the outskirts of Qesh, but they may also be found in Sepfar, delivering their wares as builders, laborers, farmers, quarriers, and sacrifices. But the Hands are not particularly picky. And given opportunity and unmet quota, have no qualms pressing bandits and travelers into the waiting arms of the High Holy Guard.

For those who cannot meet the quota lie three fates, none of which are appealing. The first is to take the place of their wares on the altar, to have their hearts carved free by Ashuro. The second is to be bludgeoned to death by the High Holy Guard in furious rage, stomped into the sand by their hooves. And the third is exile from Sepfar.

Such exiles are branded with Ashuro's hand upon their forehead, so that all might know them for who they were, and then they are cast into the desert. No traveler who has lost a sibling, no village that has lost a man, will offer such an exile succor. And so they are leaft to live, or to die, in the Empty Lands.

Zofi's Fortunes

There are many temptations in the city of Sepfar. The Lotus calls, debauched company, the stolen bounty of Marad's boozy harvest. But none are quite so successful as ruining someone so swiftly and utterly as Zofi's Fortunes, a gambling den. Occupied, largely, by a group of bruisers and brutes devoted to Zofi, a dozen tables of games run at all hours of day and night.

Carved out of a cliff face, the den is at least half a dozen chambers, the largest of which is the gaming hall itself, but unknown and uncounted additional tunnels and chambers exist deeper into the cliff-face. Only Zofi knows them all, or so they claim. And even their bouncers, bruisers, and brutes claim to have only partial knowledge of the network.

But if someone were to find the hidden paths beyond the den, and map them well... Zofi's Fortunes, and their Fortune, would be ripe for the taking.

Ancais

Once the most beautiful city in all the world, a place of marble and granite, of light and learning. Of warriors of unerring skill, archers of peerless mastery, and tradesmen at the height of their craft. Their strange sciences gave them metal so hard, so gleaming, that a bronze blade could be cut apart by their steel. Their gods, strange and plentiful, blessed them deeply. Or so the texts that survived read.

But at the end of the Age of Dreams their gods became angry and jealous. They pushed the Ancais to war, great and terrible, to conquer all that is in their name. To make the entire world theirs and theirs alone. In their hubris they trusted too deeply in their sciences, in their gods. Gods who battled in their own war against the gods of a dozen other lands while their people fought and died against the rest of the world.

In time, they would be defeated. Their twisted gods would fall, their sciences would fail them, and the collective might of the rest of the world would begin driving them back into their own lands, before the gods smote them, and their lands, from the world.

History

Ancais was, once, a land of mortals. A place of fertile river valleys, sweeping mountains, and plentiful game. Its people were wise and otherworldly, their skin of grey cast, ears of brilliant scarlet that flushed in delight under compliment to nearly glow. They were a people of strange gods and deep peace, contemplation.

They called out to gods. They drew signs for them, massive and bold, which one could see from mountaintop, to call them down, to call them home. And with every god who joined them from the heavens they grew greater in their sciences, in their culture. But all civilization has its cost, it robs us of our self-sufficiency. Of our morals and traditions. Leads us toward being decadent and content.

And so it was that they became. With their powerful magics they build a society, a civilization, of peace. They put down signs for unnamed gods, for any god, to come to join in their prosperity and peace. And one such god, who should not have been called, came.

The Interloper has no further name or moniker that was put to stone or papyrus. But his coming signaled the beginning of the Sword Age. The Myri were enslaved at his command. The signs to call the gods were shattered and rent. And the one -he- chose became the thrice-accursed Vile Emperor, may his name be unspoken for all of time.

It is written that the other gods fell to his service. To the Interloper. Those who did not were diminished, defeated, or executed. Only those he chose remained in the world, and they became as his hands and as his eyes and as his teeth and as his will within the world.

They, and the Ancais, served the Interloper for hundreds of years. Emperor after Emperor dying of age, battle, or the displeasure of their true god-king. All of their might, all of their wealth, no bauble or victory so great as to secure what he promised each in turn. Immortal rule.

In time, the Interloper was defeated by Shurigal and Nefia and their company. Nefia's blood forms the seal that contains the god, which traps him in some forgotten hell where all that he may know is the torment his war inflicted.

Or so it is written.

Myr

In the Age of Dreams the Myri people were coastal fishermen. Oh, they hunted and farmed what little the sea could not provide for them. But they held a great and special reverence for the sea, for ships and sailing. In part because they lived upon the fringes of Ancais.

The Ancais dominated the inland of their arm of the world, beneath the long shadows of the Mountains of Madness, you see, which left the Myr with little land to farm, to hunt. And while they may have begged the Ancais for more, they were content with the sea.

It is a deep shame that they did not flee to the ocean's embrace when Ancais rose up in wickedness and cruelty to enslave the Myri. To drag them to the Madness peaks and force them to mine, to toil in soil and stone far from their beloved sea.

A sea which joined them, in time, when the Ancais were destroyed. A sea which rushed up the sides of the Mountains of Madness to greet the Myri as an old lover. And they do love her... Now their sails run over the shallow Ancais Sea, from peak to peak, isle to isle.

History

The Myri culture is one of strong oral traditions. Where stories are shaped and woven together to create a tightly knit idea of the world and one's place in it. Their songs and stories are shared many times through the course of a year, with families coming together across the Shallow Sea, from wherever they've sailed to where they are from.

There, they share such stories as one could ever dream. Of the start of the world, of the first drop of water and the world of dreams. Of the first peoples to rise to the first death. But not all is mist-shrouded legend or history. Much is shared of the days of their lives. Stories of fishing, of hunting, comedies of errors, of the world beyond the Shallow Sea.

What history the Myri have is thus shrouded. Not by explicit unwillingness to share what they've known, but by the need to speak to them, directly, to learn about their past, rather than reading it in texts. But some can be puzzled together from Ancais ruins and records.

It is thus known that the Myri were always a people who lived a simple life of fishing and comfort. Tho sailed in small boats with runners and great sails that let them skim the sea at shocking speeds. That they once knew, and possibly still know, ways to sail against the wind with all the speed of having it behind.

That while they never embraced the strange sciences of Ancais, they did learn from the many gods of the Ancais how to make better nets, or to create traps for shellfish. How to dive for the richest pearls. And these lessons, and many more, were tattooed directly into their skin as images in black ink so dark that even their long dead still bear images that can be seen, if the skin does not decay immediately.

Beyond that, we know of the Myri Conquest of the Ancais, their first victims. And we know how they've rebuilt their lives upon mountain peaks, now islands in a protected sea. As if the gods favored the Myri for the treachery they suffered so long ago. But they are a divided people. Scattered to the winds and the sea, holding to their own gods, to their own hopes.

Will they ever be unified, again? The Weaver, alone, can attest to it.