I decided to took the pen -er, the keyboard- and begin to do what I like most, writing a story. I've seen some really good ones in these forums (Shadows of a Dream: A History of the Sidar and Rhoanna's Rise, just to point out two) which get me inspired to do one about my favourite civilization, the Lanun. So, here are the settings:
Yes, prince difficulty. I'm not an expert player, and to be honest, I've played only a game at this level. I guess I'm not an example to learn from...
“The winter hasn’t been as harsh as we expected, milady. To be honest, I can’t recall an hotter spring in… well, many moons. The settlement has been spared from the ice.”
“Indeed.” Casin opened the eyes she had kept shut for long as she meditated on the shore. She liked to go where few would – on some scattered rocks battered by the tides near the Crow’s Dock – and try to focus her thoughts on the voices she heard inside her head. The Elders said that those were the voices of the Overlords, superior beings that dwelled deep under the sea, and that it was her duty to carefully listen to their words, even if they were incomprehensible, as they were always looking for intermediaries to fulfil their whims. Not that she cared much of what the Council said, especially when it came to religion. Surely the rites of the past had long been lost, and what the Lanun believed in those times would have scandalized their grand-grandparents of the Age of Magic. Nevertheless, she found the voices… fascinating. Usually she ignored them, but sometimes she would stop and try to understand them. It was quite interesting.
“I’m sure you haven’t come all the way from Innsmouth to here only to discuss about the weather, Ermen. Which so important message had made you run to me?”
“Milady, Lord Eidolon would like to see you. Immediately.”
Her expression darkened.
“Did he tell you why?”
“No, milady. However, he underlined that it was urgent.”
“Understood. Lead the way, Ermen, I’ll follow you.”
The Palace wasn’t really a palace, despite its name – it was a fortress with a few habitable rooms. Quite frugal – and terribly unwomanly, Casin thought as a guard escorted her all the way up to the private studio of the Lord. Everything around her was designed to be functional, with little regard to aesthetics. No statues, no gardens, no marble floors or silk curtains. When she reached the room’s door, she noticed the that only decoration of the chambers where the most powerful man of the island lived in was a blue banner with the Three Waves – and yes, it really looked like silk. The guard let her in, and then went out, closing the door behind him.
She was in the Lord’s studio, in the highest tower of the Palace – a ridicule cliché, she thought – a room filled with relics of the Age of Magic, a place that seemed to be outside time. What received immediate attention from the visitors was the library that filled one side of the room. There were no less than thirty books – seeing them all together was always strange for Casin. She could not help but feel a deep respect for the Lord, one of the few Lanun able to read and write.
“Ah, my dear Loveless! Come in, come in. Have a seat. Would you like some beer?”
“Thank you, Lord Eidolon.”, she answered grabbing the tankard he had put on the desk/worktable.
“The workers say they’re improving more and more the recipe with every day. Probably in a few moons we should be able to equip a brewing house. But nevertheless. How does it taste?”
She cautiously sipped the liquid. Not too bad.
“Not too bad.”
“Excellent, excellent. Now, let’s get down to business. I want you in the Council.”
Casin let the tankard fell on the floor, where it broke in a thousand pieces. She stared at the Lord.
“Me?”
“Yes. I’ve seen that you have a special talent with economics. I allowed myself to have a look at your pearl-trading family business, and I have to say you’ve done an excellent job as a book keeper. Plus you seem to be extremely charismatic, and with a small gift for diplomacy. I want your experience to be useful for all the Lanun. It’s what the Overlords’ voices have told you, after all.”
Her jaw dropped.
“How…”
“Oh, I hear them as well. They seem to be quite affectionate to you, my dear. They’ve found talent, a talent that I need. Look around you, Casin. The rumors are true – Mulcarn has been defeated and the winter is loosening his grip over our world. Soon we will be able to sail again – to claim this land and this sea as our own. Will you help me in this?”
They called her Casin the Loveless, for she had never been in love with anyone. Never a boyfriend, would comment the old women when they gathered at the river to wash the clothes and to do their usual tittle-tattle. They would praise her virginity and her good sense – she was famous in town for her beauty and for her efficiency in her job – but would always conclude their talk with a whispered “However!”. That girl was strange, that was it.
“And what about the Lord?”, someone would immediately continue. “He never gets out from his tower. A friend of mine – she works for him as a cook - says that he’s a wizard. I don’t know what he’s doing up there, but it can be no good at all.”
Lord Eidolon was strange, indeed. Maybe even stranger than Casin. He had appeared one night after a violent ice storm that had cost the Lanun half of their fishing boats. They had recovered him from the ocean – he was nearly drowning – and later welcomed him into their community. His arrival had been providential for them.
The Lanun were famous for not having a centralized government, but rather a complex net of vassal-like relationships. They are naturally called by the sea, and therefore the crew formed ties that were even stronger than those with their family back home. Their loyalty went to their Captain, and the Captains often served a more powerful Fleet Captain, which were subjected to the Queen of the Seas. The last Queen had been the voluble Hannah the Irin.
When Mulcarn broke the Compact and entered Erebus, the Great Ice covered the oceans and literally killed the Lanun nation. People fled from cities that crumbled to dust as the seas rose and covered once fertile lands, taking refuge in remote hideouts. Without a sea to sail upon, their society collapsed, and the Lanun were nearly wiped out from intestine wars and from the unstoppable winter.
Eidolon brought them secrets from far away… secrets that someone claimed possessed only by the Elohim, far away in the northeastern lands. He radically reorganized the Lanun society, getting rid of the old bonds between the few Captains still alive and replacing them with a strong central authority. In a few months, life came back to normality, or as normal as it could be with glaciers ravaging the known lands. Though Eidolon wasn’t the Head Counsellor of the board that now governed the Lanun, he was the true ruler behind the Elders. He was respected and, after all, loved. For they knew that, if there was someone ready to lead them in the new world, that was their Lord.
Spoiler :
Yes, prince difficulty. I'm not an expert player, and to be honest, I've played only a game at this level. I guess I'm not an example to learn from...
“The winter hasn’t been as harsh as we expected, milady. To be honest, I can’t recall an hotter spring in… well, many moons. The settlement has been spared from the ice.”
“Indeed.” Casin opened the eyes she had kept shut for long as she meditated on the shore. She liked to go where few would – on some scattered rocks battered by the tides near the Crow’s Dock – and try to focus her thoughts on the voices she heard inside her head. The Elders said that those were the voices of the Overlords, superior beings that dwelled deep under the sea, and that it was her duty to carefully listen to their words, even if they were incomprehensible, as they were always looking for intermediaries to fulfil their whims. Not that she cared much of what the Council said, especially when it came to religion. Surely the rites of the past had long been lost, and what the Lanun believed in those times would have scandalized their grand-grandparents of the Age of Magic. Nevertheless, she found the voices… fascinating. Usually she ignored them, but sometimes she would stop and try to understand them. It was quite interesting.
“I’m sure you haven’t come all the way from Innsmouth to here only to discuss about the weather, Ermen. Which so important message had made you run to me?”
“Milady, Lord Eidolon would like to see you. Immediately.”
Her expression darkened.
“Did he tell you why?”
“No, milady. However, he underlined that it was urgent.”
“Understood. Lead the way, Ermen, I’ll follow you.”
The Palace wasn’t really a palace, despite its name – it was a fortress with a few habitable rooms. Quite frugal – and terribly unwomanly, Casin thought as a guard escorted her all the way up to the private studio of the Lord. Everything around her was designed to be functional, with little regard to aesthetics. No statues, no gardens, no marble floors or silk curtains. When she reached the room’s door, she noticed the that only decoration of the chambers where the most powerful man of the island lived in was a blue banner with the Three Waves – and yes, it really looked like silk. The guard let her in, and then went out, closing the door behind him.
She was in the Lord’s studio, in the highest tower of the Palace – a ridicule cliché, she thought – a room filled with relics of the Age of Magic, a place that seemed to be outside time. What received immediate attention from the visitors was the library that filled one side of the room. There were no less than thirty books – seeing them all together was always strange for Casin. She could not help but feel a deep respect for the Lord, one of the few Lanun able to read and write.
“Ah, my dear Loveless! Come in, come in. Have a seat. Would you like some beer?”
“Thank you, Lord Eidolon.”, she answered grabbing the tankard he had put on the desk/worktable.
“The workers say they’re improving more and more the recipe with every day. Probably in a few moons we should be able to equip a brewing house. But nevertheless. How does it taste?”
She cautiously sipped the liquid. Not too bad.
“Not too bad.”
“Excellent, excellent. Now, let’s get down to business. I want you in the Council.”
Casin let the tankard fell on the floor, where it broke in a thousand pieces. She stared at the Lord.
“Me?”
“Yes. I’ve seen that you have a special talent with economics. I allowed myself to have a look at your pearl-trading family business, and I have to say you’ve done an excellent job as a book keeper. Plus you seem to be extremely charismatic, and with a small gift for diplomacy. I want your experience to be useful for all the Lanun. It’s what the Overlords’ voices have told you, after all.”
Her jaw dropped.
“How…”
“Oh, I hear them as well. They seem to be quite affectionate to you, my dear. They’ve found talent, a talent that I need. Look around you, Casin. The rumors are true – Mulcarn has been defeated and the winter is loosening his grip over our world. Soon we will be able to sail again – to claim this land and this sea as our own. Will you help me in this?”
They called her Casin the Loveless, for she had never been in love with anyone. Never a boyfriend, would comment the old women when they gathered at the river to wash the clothes and to do their usual tittle-tattle. They would praise her virginity and her good sense – she was famous in town for her beauty and for her efficiency in her job – but would always conclude their talk with a whispered “However!”. That girl was strange, that was it.
“And what about the Lord?”, someone would immediately continue. “He never gets out from his tower. A friend of mine – she works for him as a cook - says that he’s a wizard. I don’t know what he’s doing up there, but it can be no good at all.”
Lord Eidolon was strange, indeed. Maybe even stranger than Casin. He had appeared one night after a violent ice storm that had cost the Lanun half of their fishing boats. They had recovered him from the ocean – he was nearly drowning – and later welcomed him into their community. His arrival had been providential for them.
The Lanun were famous for not having a centralized government, but rather a complex net of vassal-like relationships. They are naturally called by the sea, and therefore the crew formed ties that were even stronger than those with their family back home. Their loyalty went to their Captain, and the Captains often served a more powerful Fleet Captain, which were subjected to the Queen of the Seas. The last Queen had been the voluble Hannah the Irin.
When Mulcarn broke the Compact and entered Erebus, the Great Ice covered the oceans and literally killed the Lanun nation. People fled from cities that crumbled to dust as the seas rose and covered once fertile lands, taking refuge in remote hideouts. Without a sea to sail upon, their society collapsed, and the Lanun were nearly wiped out from intestine wars and from the unstoppable winter.
Eidolon brought them secrets from far away… secrets that someone claimed possessed only by the Elohim, far away in the northeastern lands. He radically reorganized the Lanun society, getting rid of the old bonds between the few Captains still alive and replacing them with a strong central authority. In a few months, life came back to normality, or as normal as it could be with glaciers ravaging the known lands. Though Eidolon wasn’t the Head Counsellor of the board that now governed the Lanun, he was the true ruler behind the Elders. He was respected and, after all, loved. For they knew that, if there was someone ready to lead them in the new world, that was their Lord.