thomas.berubeg
Wandering the World
I THINK that's everyone that's claimed something.
The Broken Bell
- Thread starter thomas.berubeg
- Start date
I THINK that's everyone that's claimed something.
Belgarion95
Walking Enthusiast
- Joined
- May 21, 2014
- Messages
- 102
[I've intentionally left this history incomplete; if anyone would like to cooperate to generate a shared history, please PM me.]
Confederation of Staluw
Location:
History:
??? - 750 BP: The River Kings
Within this period, petty kingdoms arose at many points simultaneously along the shores of the Culkwasum. The brackish waters of the slow-moving river-estuary supported enormous populations of catfish, molluscs, and crustaceans. Given the poor (and saline) soil of the surrounding area, agriculture gave way to crab-traps and fishing nets. Each king or queen ruled their own tributary and estuary, maintaining large stocks of dried and salted fish in their large wooden lodges. Though often small-scale skirmishes would occur, most kingdoms were very local and tied to a single family unit. A reciprocal social culture between neighbouring kingdoms developed, gathering regularly to exchange gifts of statues and riverboats, reducing bloodshed in the process.
During this period, the first large kingdoms of Ellison and Ryan grew opposite eachother on the East and West banks of the Culkwasum, respectively. Needing to maintain resource parity, new kingdoms were drawn under the sway of each. Brutal 'Raiders' War' escalated out of a series of cross-river retributive raids, which culminated in the signing of the Treaty of West Bend. Parallel settlements were established by each Kingdom at the 'Wide Forks' as a neutral space, to allow the exchange of gifts and goods unhindered. They were named West and East Qulic.
750 BP - 300 BP: The Castle Period
Broadly, this period was marked by an overall political equilibrium, and many small wars which ultimately accomplished little. However, rapid cultural developments occurred throughout this time. Increasingly large castles and citadels were constructed to protect dried food stocks and deter invasion. Dams and elaborate netting systems were built to control water flow and intensify aquaculture, while the growing settlements of Qulic began building long piers, floating markets, and artificial islands in the middle of the Great Culkwasum herself. This building frenzy was partially out of practical necessity, and partially out of a spirit of competitive construction. While the Kingdoms of Ellison and Ryan collapsed, the Mayors of the Qulics grew in strength. They hired artisans, craftsmen, and artists, making the Qulics the mercantile and cultural hubs of the Culkwasum. They constructed their own castles, governed themselves, and continued to be a place where all could meet in safety.Those people who lived around the Culkwasum began to call themselves the 'Staluw.'
Early in this period the Cqix Hills were discovered, becoming an important spiritual site for the Staluw peoples. Though far to the East of the Great Culkwasum, the Cqix Hills were believed to be the site of the great battle in which the Witch King was slain, and was thus of supreme importance to the Staluw people. Teams of craftsmen would make pilgrimages to construct enormous monoliths dedicated to valiant heroes; they are believed to grant magical luck, if not sorcery itself, to the families of those who raise them.
The Castle period closed with the construction of a massive Citadel; south of the Qulics, a new kingdom of Tlanix arose under the leadership of the warlord Cusqun. She sought the wealth which had accumulated in the Qulics, and chafed under their imposition of high duties on all trade goods passing through. Rallying neighbouring kingdoms, she captured both Qulics after 4 years of siege and unified them under her banner. Floating enormous stone bricks down the Culkwasum, she ordered the construction of a mighty Citadel in the middle of the river as a demonstration of her strength. With tendril-like piers jutting out to support the fishermen, and bridges connecting East and West Qulic, Cusqun was unquestioned as the military and cultural hegemon of the Staluw peoples.
300 BP - Present: Confederation
Cusqun and her successors brought all of the Staluw peoples under at least the nominal rule of Qulic, demanding that each king come to Qulic for half the year to join a governing court. Over time, however, this has transformed into a governing oligarchy, with Cusqun's city-raised and significantly more urbane descendants consenting to joint rule between themselves and the other kings.
Qulic has become a sprawling set of artificial islands, floating markets, dams, and monuments. New steam-powered riverboats help ferry stone bricks for Royal Residences, while engineering teams leave for a downstream construction site. While the past few centuries have been prosperous and peaceful, who can speak for the next few?
Themes and Values:
Government Type: Oligarichy; a governing council of kings convenes in Qulic. Authority is somewhat decentralized, but large amounts of resources are directed towards the capital to construct new islands, etc.
Culture: Focused on mega-projects and construction. Clam Gardens, Oyster netting, Catfish cultivation, etc. on massive scales. Large artificial islands are viewed as cultured and of high prestige.
Goals:
For individual Kings: Acquire control of of the Staluw Throne
Achieved through, in decreasing order of relevance:
- Construct the large monoliths in the Cqix Hills
- Expand the city of Qulic with new reclamation projects
- Acquire new territory (to gain resources to devote to the city of Qulic)
Variations:
Nal - existing nearest to the Stiltmen, they are viewed almost as outsiders and are derisively referred to as "Mudmen" for their focus on Molluscs, such as clams and oysters, for the majority of their diet. Though considered uncultured by the elites of Qulic, the Nal possess a rich culinary tradition, dazzling oyster-shell mosaics, and a unique "Ushushal" architectural style for Aquatic construction that merges the stormworthiness of Stiltmen architecture with the integrated intensive aquaculture of other Staluw peoples.
Syuwu - residing in the upper reaches of the great Culkwasum, the syuwu are known for keeping to themselves. Spending much of their time in the woods and hills and almost entirely disinterested in warfare, the Syuwu have become regarded as a benign, if odd, people. They are for this reason entrusted with the guardianship of the Cqix Hills, the most holy site for the Staluw people.
National Focus:
Our peoples are skilled at aquaculture, the organization of large-scale construction projects, and dry-land/shallow-water combat.
National Failure:
Our peoples are very inward-focused, and are relatively unstable politically.
Confederation of Staluw
Location:
History:
??? - 750 BP: The River Kings
Within this period, petty kingdoms arose at many points simultaneously along the shores of the Culkwasum. The brackish waters of the slow-moving river-estuary supported enormous populations of catfish, molluscs, and crustaceans. Given the poor (and saline) soil of the surrounding area, agriculture gave way to crab-traps and fishing nets. Each king or queen ruled their own tributary and estuary, maintaining large stocks of dried and salted fish in their large wooden lodges. Though often small-scale skirmishes would occur, most kingdoms were very local and tied to a single family unit. A reciprocal social culture between neighbouring kingdoms developed, gathering regularly to exchange gifts of statues and riverboats, reducing bloodshed in the process.
During this period, the first large kingdoms of Ellison and Ryan grew opposite eachother on the East and West banks of the Culkwasum, respectively. Needing to maintain resource parity, new kingdoms were drawn under the sway of each. Brutal 'Raiders' War' escalated out of a series of cross-river retributive raids, which culminated in the signing of the Treaty of West Bend. Parallel settlements were established by each Kingdom at the 'Wide Forks' as a neutral space, to allow the exchange of gifts and goods unhindered. They were named West and East Qulic.
750 BP - 300 BP: The Castle Period
Broadly, this period was marked by an overall political equilibrium, and many small wars which ultimately accomplished little. However, rapid cultural developments occurred throughout this time. Increasingly large castles and citadels were constructed to protect dried food stocks and deter invasion. Dams and elaborate netting systems were built to control water flow and intensify aquaculture, while the growing settlements of Qulic began building long piers, floating markets, and artificial islands in the middle of the Great Culkwasum herself. This building frenzy was partially out of practical necessity, and partially out of a spirit of competitive construction. While the Kingdoms of Ellison and Ryan collapsed, the Mayors of the Qulics grew in strength. They hired artisans, craftsmen, and artists, making the Qulics the mercantile and cultural hubs of the Culkwasum. They constructed their own castles, governed themselves, and continued to be a place where all could meet in safety.Those people who lived around the Culkwasum began to call themselves the 'Staluw.'
Early in this period the Cqix Hills were discovered, becoming an important spiritual site for the Staluw peoples. Though far to the East of the Great Culkwasum, the Cqix Hills were believed to be the site of the great battle in which the Witch King was slain, and was thus of supreme importance to the Staluw people. Teams of craftsmen would make pilgrimages to construct enormous monoliths dedicated to valiant heroes; they are believed to grant magical luck, if not sorcery itself, to the families of those who raise them.
The Castle period closed with the construction of a massive Citadel; south of the Qulics, a new kingdom of Tlanix arose under the leadership of the warlord Cusqun. She sought the wealth which had accumulated in the Qulics, and chafed under their imposition of high duties on all trade goods passing through. Rallying neighbouring kingdoms, she captured both Qulics after 4 years of siege and unified them under her banner. Floating enormous stone bricks down the Culkwasum, she ordered the construction of a mighty Citadel in the middle of the river as a demonstration of her strength. With tendril-like piers jutting out to support the fishermen, and bridges connecting East and West Qulic, Cusqun was unquestioned as the military and cultural hegemon of the Staluw peoples.
300 BP - Present: Confederation
Cusqun and her successors brought all of the Staluw peoples under at least the nominal rule of Qulic, demanding that each king come to Qulic for half the year to join a governing court. Over time, however, this has transformed into a governing oligarchy, with Cusqun's city-raised and significantly more urbane descendants consenting to joint rule between themselves and the other kings.
Qulic has become a sprawling set of artificial islands, floating markets, dams, and monuments. New steam-powered riverboats help ferry stone bricks for Royal Residences, while engineering teams leave for a downstream construction site. While the past few centuries have been prosperous and peaceful, who can speak for the next few?
Themes and Values:
Government Type: Oligarichy; a governing council of kings convenes in Qulic. Authority is somewhat decentralized, but large amounts of resources are directed towards the capital to construct new islands, etc.
Culture: Focused on mega-projects and construction. Clam Gardens, Oyster netting, Catfish cultivation, etc. on massive scales. Large artificial islands are viewed as cultured and of high prestige.
Goals:
For individual Kings: Acquire control of of the Staluw Throne
Achieved through, in decreasing order of relevance:
- Construct the large monoliths in the Cqix Hills
- Expand the city of Qulic with new reclamation projects
- Acquire new territory (to gain resources to devote to the city of Qulic)
Variations:
Nal - existing nearest to the Stiltmen, they are viewed almost as outsiders and are derisively referred to as "Mudmen" for their focus on Molluscs, such as clams and oysters, for the majority of their diet. Though considered uncultured by the elites of Qulic, the Nal possess a rich culinary tradition, dazzling oyster-shell mosaics, and a unique "Ushushal" architectural style for Aquatic construction that merges the stormworthiness of Stiltmen architecture with the integrated intensive aquaculture of other Staluw peoples.
Syuwu - residing in the upper reaches of the great Culkwasum, the syuwu are known for keeping to themselves. Spending much of their time in the woods and hills and almost entirely disinterested in warfare, the Syuwu have become regarded as a benign, if odd, people. They are for this reason entrusted with the guardianship of the Cqix Hills, the most holy site for the Staluw people.
National Focus:
Our peoples are skilled at aquaculture, the organization of large-scale construction projects, and dry-land/shallow-water combat.
National Failure:
Our peoples are very inward-focused, and are relatively unstable politically.
Thlayli
Le Pétit Prince
TE, I don't know what you have planned, but I'm happy to work with you to make our backgrounds inter-related. It would make sense since you're close to a lot of Esafisine city-states. Just let me know!
Every end is but a beginning. Every closed door in this world-maze leaves an open one before us. Truly, it is suffering to cross threshold after threshold. To wander eternal, in the dark, among the willows and branches.
But there is a wall. A door that has no further passage. A place where, once the gate is closed, there is nought but darkness. And in that darkness, there is peace.
The threads of the universe twist. They may tangle, but the strand always continues. And so it will. Until it is truly tied.
In all of these old beginnings, in all of these new ends, down the length of everything, there is hope for a knot.
His hands hang from our trees. Reaching. Grasping. Tying.
Tying the knot that will give His Faithful peace.
But there is a wall. A door that has no further passage. A place where, once the gate is closed, there is nought but darkness. And in that darkness, there is peace.
The threads of the universe twist. They may tangle, but the strand always continues. And so it will. Until it is truly tied.
In all of these old beginnings, in all of these new ends, down the length of everything, there is hope for a knot.
His hands hang from our trees. Reaching. Grasping. Tying.
Tying the knot that will give His Faithful peace.
“Your name, Matcheur Sir?”
The figure paused for a moment, eyes squinted. His skin was a weathered reddish pink, and his hair a heavily greyed shade that showed hints of having once been brown, or a dull red.
“Shoàn Revandeur, Volmàn of the Nèssense.”
“The Clan Nèssen, of Érkette, yes?”
“The same, Saiveur.”
The word the Matcheurs used with little distinction for the men of the Empisante, I noted.
“As a Volmàn, you are a keeper of the oral history of your people.”
Shoàn paused for a moment, before giving a nod of agreement.
“I hold true the history of my people, the story of what we know, and what has been lost by many.”
“What has been lost?”
“Much. The power to move mountains. To call thunder down from the skies, mastery of the elements. You know of the lost age. You're a learned man, aren't you?”
The Matcheurs had a tendency to make their statements in roundabout or rhetorical ways. I still wasn't entirely sure whether I should take his statement as accusatory, and opted to take it as a simple affirmation.
“Yes. The Age of Sorcerers, and the inundation by which they were ended.”
“It was not sorcery, Saiveur. Sorcery is the realm of tales.”
“I do not intend to claim that they did not exist.”
“The Volmenne are a shard of this lost world. We were your 'sorcerers'. Some of them, at least.”
I gave a grave nod and pretended to write several notes. Was it possible? Did a people of illiterate sea-raiders maintain a trove of knowledge from the Age of Sorcery? It seemed impossible. It was not as if the man was about to divulge, were it even true- the Volmenne were notoriously secretive and insular at the best of times. At any rate, I had a man who would speak to me now- I would not sacrifice the goodwill I had worked to earn with him by prodding too deeply into whatever half-remembered secrets his order likely held.
“I understand, and I seek not to pry. Tell me of the history of your people.”
“That is what I am here, Lord Saiveur. The Matcheurmenne are a folk from the far end of our world, from the inner edge of the Teeth, great mountains of bare rock that separate ourselves from the most distant west.”
I gestured to an aide, who brought a tome. Within it was a map of the continent. Volmàn Shoàn regarded it for a moment.
“This map shows no mountains, nor rivers. Just lands of the kingdoms that once were. It's not... hmm. It is here.”
The Volmàn pointed to a jagged line on the map.
“This is the land where Dall came from. The far west is filled with Matcheur Lainz, wherever there is prairie to support us. Dall came from the furthest west, within sight of the Teeth. He came from the oldest and most ancient home of our people. The Matcheur of the prairies warred constantly for land, and Dall and his kin were usurped. He set east, and gathered a force from the many Matcheur lands he crossed, seeking a new field to call his own.
“And there he found it, at the end of the Graide Greene. Thulaigg, the natives called their sea. Do you know of the great city of Vannabagg?”
“Is it here?” I gestured to a great inland sea on the map. Shoàn observed it, rotating the book around to make better sense of it.
“Your map's water is wrong. It is from before your inundation.”
“There have been precious few made of the greater landscape since then. What is wrong here?”
“The Graide Greene is an extension of the northern ocean. This 'earth' is water than be sailed clear through with a large vessel. And Vannabag is the greatest of its cities. It was the seat of the Bravinse euh Vannabagg, the highest power of the region. Dall united its foes against it, and brought down the Bravinse, ushering in his Kindem, which reigns to this day.
“It is in the land of Vannabagg that the Matcheurs learned to ride our boats over water. We took to it swiftly... heh, as you well know.”
“All too well.” I ventured a wry grin. I'm sure my great grandmothers would be screaming at me.
“Oskeur is the first Matcheur Kin that your histories may have recorded. It has been two hundred fifty years since his arrival. He was a generation younger than Dall, and poised to inherit no land. Like his forebear, he set out to the east, now with both hoof and sail. He crossed the Kenneur Maize, the twisted mass of dead end lakes, bare stone, bog and forest, to reach Laighead, our first city on the Graide Bleu. With force of arms, he assumed rulership over the Mésheurmenne of the northwest coast. For two generations, the Mesheur clans grew throughout this region, and we learned of Queueenua and from there the Yopeur coast. It is then that the two peoples met, Saiveur and Matcheur. Peace and war intermingled as we populated the Famesheur coast. So did we grow. The sons and sons and sons of Oskeur, and his lététs, divided among themselves their lands. It was the fourth great grandsons of Oskeur who fought the Machinac War, men such as Landor Dall, and Miéga Ro brought their great alliances to bear against the Savers. It was Landor who seized Norrei, and the Ro Clan who united the Macheurs of Yopeur. Landor's son, Maclan, is the one who reached the walls of the Diune City itself, only to be turned back by its beauty. I imagine your histories may speak ill of Maclan... but he still holds an important place in the memory of the Matcheurs- it is his blood that flows today in the rulers of all three realms.
“In time, as you know, the war ended. The Ro Clan and their successors embraced the Diune Faith. Many faiths today are practiced in the Mac Kindem: Sea Gods, the Diad, and the old way of the Matcheurs, all are found. So too was this true on the Famesheur. Matcheurs on the western shore of the isle learned the Diune Faith from the great city of Teddeur. Reiàn Randeur, a descendant of one of Oskeur's lieutenants, was the one to unify them, forming the Randeur Kindem. This, he did when I was a boy- he left the Matcheur coast just before my earliest memories. Méiga rules there now- it was he who joined the Saiveurs, the westernmost marchlord of the Empisante.”
Shoàn paused for a moment, as the scratching away at my notebook continued.
“It is something profound you are doing, Lord Saiveur. Writing this.”
“Oh?”
“The tradition of the Volmenne was not to write. I was raised by my teacher from the age of seven to remember the lineage of Dall back to his earliest forefathers, to know the names of the eleven lététs, to recall the stories of the western people. All this I learned by voice, and have passed on to my student by voice. I have not seen my words turned into black on yellow before. A voice immortal.”
Shoàn's appreciation caught me by surprise. I knew that the Matcheurs did not, as a general rule, write. But the implications of that had never truly settled in for me until that moment. However, even as I considered this, I struggled to hold back giddy excitement at what the Matcheur had hinted at.
“Is there more you can tell me?”
“So much more, Saiveur.”
The figure paused for a moment, eyes squinted. His skin was a weathered reddish pink, and his hair a heavily greyed shade that showed hints of having once been brown, or a dull red.
“Shoàn Revandeur, Volmàn of the Nèssense.”
“The Clan Nèssen, of Érkette, yes?”
“The same, Saiveur.”
The word the Matcheurs used with little distinction for the men of the Empisante, I noted.
“As a Volmàn, you are a keeper of the oral history of your people.”
Shoàn paused for a moment, before giving a nod of agreement.
“I hold true the history of my people, the story of what we know, and what has been lost by many.”
“What has been lost?”
“Much. The power to move mountains. To call thunder down from the skies, mastery of the elements. You know of the lost age. You're a learned man, aren't you?”
The Matcheurs had a tendency to make their statements in roundabout or rhetorical ways. I still wasn't entirely sure whether I should take his statement as accusatory, and opted to take it as a simple affirmation.
“Yes. The Age of Sorcerers, and the inundation by which they were ended.”
“It was not sorcery, Saiveur. Sorcery is the realm of tales.”
“I do not intend to claim that they did not exist.”
“The Volmenne are a shard of this lost world. We were your 'sorcerers'. Some of them, at least.”
I gave a grave nod and pretended to write several notes. Was it possible? Did a people of illiterate sea-raiders maintain a trove of knowledge from the Age of Sorcery? It seemed impossible. It was not as if the man was about to divulge, were it even true- the Volmenne were notoriously secretive and insular at the best of times. At any rate, I had a man who would speak to me now- I would not sacrifice the goodwill I had worked to earn with him by prodding too deeply into whatever half-remembered secrets his order likely held.
“I understand, and I seek not to pry. Tell me of the history of your people.”
“That is what I am here, Lord Saiveur. The Matcheurmenne are a folk from the far end of our world, from the inner edge of the Teeth, great mountains of bare rock that separate ourselves from the most distant west.”
I gestured to an aide, who brought a tome. Within it was a map of the continent. Volmàn Shoàn regarded it for a moment.
“This map shows no mountains, nor rivers. Just lands of the kingdoms that once were. It's not... hmm. It is here.”
The Volmàn pointed to a jagged line on the map.
“This is the land where Dall came from. The far west is filled with Matcheur Lainz, wherever there is prairie to support us. Dall came from the furthest west, within sight of the Teeth. He came from the oldest and most ancient home of our people. The Matcheur of the prairies warred constantly for land, and Dall and his kin were usurped. He set east, and gathered a force from the many Matcheur lands he crossed, seeking a new field to call his own.
“And there he found it, at the end of the Graide Greene. Thulaigg, the natives called their sea. Do you know of the great city of Vannabagg?”
“Is it here?” I gestured to a great inland sea on the map. Shoàn observed it, rotating the book around to make better sense of it.
“Your map's water is wrong. It is from before your inundation.”
“There have been precious few made of the greater landscape since then. What is wrong here?”
“The Graide Greene is an extension of the northern ocean. This 'earth' is water than be sailed clear through with a large vessel. And Vannabag is the greatest of its cities. It was the seat of the Bravinse euh Vannabagg, the highest power of the region. Dall united its foes against it, and brought down the Bravinse, ushering in his Kindem, which reigns to this day.
“It is in the land of Vannabagg that the Matcheurs learned to ride our boats over water. We took to it swiftly... heh, as you well know.”
“All too well.” I ventured a wry grin. I'm sure my great grandmothers would be screaming at me.
“Oskeur is the first Matcheur Kin that your histories may have recorded. It has been two hundred fifty years since his arrival. He was a generation younger than Dall, and poised to inherit no land. Like his forebear, he set out to the east, now with both hoof and sail. He crossed the Kenneur Maize, the twisted mass of dead end lakes, bare stone, bog and forest, to reach Laighead, our first city on the Graide Bleu. With force of arms, he assumed rulership over the Mésheurmenne of the northwest coast. For two generations, the Mesheur clans grew throughout this region, and we learned of Queueenua and from there the Yopeur coast. It is then that the two peoples met, Saiveur and Matcheur. Peace and war intermingled as we populated the Famesheur coast. So did we grow. The sons and sons and sons of Oskeur, and his lététs, divided among themselves their lands. It was the fourth great grandsons of Oskeur who fought the Machinac War, men such as Landor Dall, and Miéga Ro brought their great alliances to bear against the Savers. It was Landor who seized Norrei, and the Ro Clan who united the Macheurs of Yopeur. Landor's son, Maclan, is the one who reached the walls of the Diune City itself, only to be turned back by its beauty. I imagine your histories may speak ill of Maclan... but he still holds an important place in the memory of the Matcheurs- it is his blood that flows today in the rulers of all three realms.
“In time, as you know, the war ended. The Ro Clan and their successors embraced the Diune Faith. Many faiths today are practiced in the Mac Kindem: Sea Gods, the Diad, and the old way of the Matcheurs, all are found. So too was this true on the Famesheur. Matcheurs on the western shore of the isle learned the Diune Faith from the great city of Teddeur. Reiàn Randeur, a descendant of one of Oskeur's lieutenants, was the one to unify them, forming the Randeur Kindem. This, he did when I was a boy- he left the Matcheur coast just before my earliest memories. Méiga rules there now- it was he who joined the Saiveurs, the westernmost marchlord of the Empisante.”
Shoàn paused for a moment, as the scratching away at my notebook continued.
“It is something profound you are doing, Lord Saiveur. Writing this.”
“Oh?”
“The tradition of the Volmenne was not to write. I was raised by my teacher from the age of seven to remember the lineage of Dall back to his earliest forefathers, to know the names of the eleven lététs, to recall the stories of the western people. All this I learned by voice, and have passed on to my student by voice. I have not seen my words turned into black on yellow before. A voice immortal.”
Shoàn's appreciation caught me by surprise. I knew that the Matcheurs did not, as a general rule, write. But the implications of that had never truly settled in for me until that moment. However, even as I considered this, I struggled to hold back giddy excitement at what the Matcheur had hinted at.
“Is there more you can tell me?”
“So much more, Saiveur.”
TheMeanestGuest
Warlord
The Royal Domains – The heartland of the realm, the unified Reipolita of Vienvenido and Palesca. These two cities and their surrounds have been the unquestioned centre of Kebessi culture for more than three centuries. Here is the pasturage of that country's famed horses, and there great fields burgeon with wheat and corn; all against the backdrop of a pristine and verdant woodland. The countryside is dotted with the fine stone towers of the Guis, His Majesty's many loyal vassals. The rule of law is absolute, and the crown's control is uncontested.
Princapolita Sierivo – Once known as Zeregog, and subject to a violent sack; the first conquest of Blessed Alexan in his holy mission. Much of Sierivo was rebuilt in the Kebessi style to please its newly installed masters, while the rest was left to the patchwork repair of its surviving residents. The city is known for the craft and quality of its shipwrights. Granted as appanage to Alexan's younger brother, the Princapolita remains as fief of the unbroken line of the d'Arteas of Sierivo.
Princapolita d'Osieri – The Princa d'Osieri has only in the past thirty years come to serve the Rei, elevated to such lofty position for his displays of faith, and his service in war against the fallen pretender who foolishly sought to name himself Rei d'Osieri. A sparsely populated wilderness, peopled by shepherds and bandits, by rugged Osieri lords in their wooden halls.
Konsiliori Naucri – Once enemy, now servant. The Konsiliors of Naucrastas were wise enough to surrender when faced with the insurmountable strength of Blessed Alexan's undefeated armies. These schemers yet cherish the long-gone greatness of their ancient forebears, burnishing old stories like they burnish their pearls. This humid swampland is surprisingly productive with its catch of shellfish and its harvest of nacre, its tracts of redolent hemp. The most trafficked harbour on the northern shore, an entrepot for the export of Vienvenido's bounty: of grain and oil and salted beef, of fine and sturdy horses, of aromatic and pleasant hach, of warlike men with sharpened swords and lances. The Naucri are left often to their own devices, so long as they should abide the king's laws and pay the king's tithes.
the Order of the Son's Messengers – The House of War is that of the Son, and in Vienvenido the Son's attendants are empowered to enforce religion by the sword where necessary. It is their duty to pacify the intransigent heathen that the Mother's gift of civilization might be brought to the furthest frontier, to seek out the pernicious heretic that it might forever be maintained. A warrior-brotherhood armed in the fashion of the ubiquitous guissarn, overseen by His Majesty in his role as their Catta.
the Brigas – Military patrimonies administered by the various Brigantes, able generals and governors drawn from among the King's Companions.
the Maidenlands – Fiefs awarded to the archmaidenries of Vienvenido and Naucrastas, suitable to provide for the necessities of religion in His Majesty's lands.
Cattany d'Iph – The port of Iph, its black walls a-glower with the graven visages of countless gargoyles. Its power was second only to Naucrastas among the Entiri, but stood as nothing before Blessed Alexan. He tore down the mansions of its pirate lords, fine frescoes and nacrework carted north to adorn the walls of the Palacia. A tall bronze of the Son-as-Conqueror he placed atop the citadel, from whence his descendant rules. An appanage of His Majesty's first son, Princa Vienvenido, Migael d'Artea.
Cattany Tisago – A quiet stretch of land, the Entiri peasantfolk soothed by their distance from raucous urban congregation. Known for their tart and hardy grapes, the Tisagi produce one of the few wines of note on the north shore of the sea. An appanage of His Majesty's second son, Princa Palesca, Amar d'Artea.
Cattany Sinsenia – An old vassal, first to swear fealty to the ancient Reis. Defeated on the field of battle, but redeemed with an offer of mercy. Life here is much the same as it is in the heartland, the old lakeside town stately in its dignity, its houses clad in vines.
Cattany d'Alsbourg – The castle of Alsbourg is among the strongest in the realm, and the support of its Catta was crucial to Vienvenido's subjugation of its rival in Palesca. Certain dignities and considerations were afforded the line of Alsbourg for this service.
Last edited:
thomas.berubeg
Wandering the World
The Gorgossi Sea and Jadhai
Of foul Gorgossos, the less written, and the less remembered, the better. If we could consign her, and everything to do with her, to the ash-heap of history, the world would be a better place for it. Unfortunately, the history of the Northern part of our corner of our world cannot be understood without understanding Gorgossos the Misbegotten and her actions. Every major kingdom and city along the northern coastline as well as along the Ip river was shaped by, or in reaction to, her immeasurable power. In fact, a number of the oldest building in the earliest Pirate Cities have scrollwork remarkably similar to the spell-sigils of the Gorgossi, though no self-respecting scholar would argue that Gorgossos ruled the inner sea. Instead, it is more likely that trade flowed between the Canal Builders and the earliest Gorgossi, perhaps even by air like the sorcerer kings before them, since there is little evidence of sea-people or Proto-Gorgossi trade settlements anywhere between the two.
The City of Ash and Broken Bones, Gorgossos the Red, so named for the reputed blood-staining of her stones, was, according to the earliest texts, a city of great import for the sorcerer kings. It was the seat of one of the Witch King’s lieutenants, and, later, one of the cities from which great heroes rode to slay the Witch King and bind anew the death-snakes. The city’s great walls, Gorgossi poets boasted, thirteen times repelled assault by the sorceries of the great serpents, and, when the rest of the world died, Gorgossos survived.
Why, then, if Gorgossos was a bastion of humanity against the darkness, do we remember her as a place of evil and wickedness?
That question has never truly been answered. Dry scholars in the Academies of the free cities debate this endlessly, and are no nearer answering. I, myself, am prone to doubting the words written by the Gorgossi, since they serve to present her in a redemptive manner, and seek to efface her dark past. I, and many scholars like me, argue that Gorgossos remained, in fact, one of the Witch King’s fortresses, and managed to escape destruction through cunning and luck, and, as magic faded from the rest of the world, she carefully husbanded the sorceries passed down over the ages, waiting for the moment to strike. (I would point to the reputed existence of mystery cults within ancient Gorgossi society, dedicated to the resurrection of the Witch king as evidence, though of course, evidence is circumstantial at best.)
What IS known of Gorgossos, and her later empire, is that she was ruled by a circle of one hundred magistrates, each from a family that traced its lineage to on of the many Sorcerer Kings. Strong stone walls and knowledge of ancient witchcrafts kept her safe, and, for a time, the earliest records state, she traded peacefully with the tribes along the coast, sharing her craft and wealth with those lesser. This changed nearly 800 years ago, with the election of one of their own to the position of Speaker, a position that, though a supposedly ceremonial one, had remained empty for as long as the Magisterium had existed. What pushed the election of Speaker Iman 1st is unknown, as there is a remarkable dearth of documentation for that period. What is known is that the election was quickly followed by a dramatic reshaping of Gorgossi society. Nearly overnight, it seems, entire slave castes were given to the temple-fires in a twisted oblation, and Gorgossi’s “Silent Ones” sailed out from their island as a slaving horde. Records of the depravities of the Silent Ones are many. In the first wave of expansion under Iman Drakon, the island of Mempur was invaded, the natives, close cousins and trade partners to the Gorgossi relegated to second slave citizens at best, slaves at worst... and most experienced the second. Iman Drakon in the thirty years of his reign expanded Gorgossos’s joug to many of the islands off the coast, but he refused to land his armies on the mainland. (Much supposition exists as to why that was the case. Academic Consensus tends towards the theory that the Augurs promised the unleashing of a cataclysm should he set foot ashore, as referenced by some contemporary edicts, though some scholars also state that he feared that there were remnants of the Witch King’s sorceries waiting, and even others argue, myself among them, that he simply saw no need: The heart of Gorgossi power was the sea, and there was no need to stray from the sea.)
His successors, both biologically and those elected by the magisterium, had no compunctions to do what he would not. Within three centuries, Gorgossi colonies littered the coastline, from shining Conros at the mouth of the Ip river, to Ashantur to the Sweltering North, where The Masked Queen still performs the blood-arts of Gorgossos, to the Slave cities of Lusa, Gomura, and Dohanos, which to this day still engage, unlike their free-city brethren, in the slave trade. Maefis and her ilk was built to claim the eastern shore of the Gorgossi sea from the Benaadir, the fierce wind-riders of the plains.
Gorgossos erased the tribes that lived in these lands before them, feeding them into the great engine that was their society. Slaves rowed ships, slaves built the monstrous stepped pyramids in which the magistrates were interred, slaves built the massive temple complexes in which they were then burned in offering to the Mishapen Gods of the Gorgossi, and slaves served in the homes of the Magistrates, bringing them peeled grapes and taking care of their children.
For nearly four centuries, Gorgossos ruled undisputed over her domain. Undisputed, as none could challenge her from without. Within, however, cracks slowly formed. The ancient sorceries slowly stopped working, if they ever had in the first place, and the magistrates grew fat and indolent, giving their slaves more and more power within a society that could not depend upon it. The first evidence of the failing of Gorgossi society was when the Silent Ones were first repelled by the Stiltmen Kingdom of Valcis, quickly followed by a Pirate-King raid that sacked the city of Burget, in the Gorgossi bay proper. This was not the first such raid, but it was the first time that the raid was not followed by a punitive Gorgossi raid that saw the Empire flush with slaves.
Instead, Speaker Kalros VI Gorgone, a man legend states was so fat that slaves had to carry him to and from bed and the throne, did nothing. In fact, court records at the time speak of the preparations for a great ball fifteen times, but do not once mention the pirate raid, indicating that the Imperial Court was so cloistered that affairs outside of internal politics and intrigue could not make a dent in the day to day happenings.
The sharks tasted blood, and the distant edges of the empire started to crumble. The city of Delog fell to the Hodun-King Aristid, and, though his rule lasted barely a year, Gorgossos never reclaimed it. Prince Evanur Gorgonis, forty-eight in line to the Gorgossi throne took his family and retinue to Conros, nominally to rule as it’s governor, but, according to contemporary records, did so without leave and authorization from the court. Ashantur became the founding place of a cult that would sweep through the slave pens, a belief that became the faith of the Thousand-Gods we now follow in the free-cities.
And yet, despite these gradual failings, Gorgossos’s appetite for slavery and blood did not diminish. If anything, it grew, the augurs declaring that the only thing that could sate the gods and restore Gorgossos to splendor was more death. It is said, though no records of the exact time exist, that the great stepped collumned temples of gorgossos ran ankle deep in blood, and entire villages across the bay were depopulated. Even those of pure Gorgossi blood were not safe, and in fact, often were considered prize slaves and sacrifices: their purity was a gift for the Gods.
Finally, five hundred and thirty six years ago, the cauldron of hatred and resentment that had been slowly filling since the inception of the Gorgossi empire overflowed. Nearly overnight, the colonies rose in revolt. First, the eastern cities, led by Maefis formed secret alliances with the wind-riders of the Benaadir, binding their people with oaths of fealty and honor. In windswept tents in the plains and the red-halls of the cities, the Benaadir and the Maevians exchanged salt and gold-offerings. This marked the end of the wind age of the Benaadir and the start of the Storm Age. These Benaadir tribes moved into the cities, and proved instrumental in repulsing the reprisal attacks from Silent Ones fanatics still in the cities.Together, the Maevians and Benaadir moved against Ashantur, knowing that she was the bastion of Gorgossi power, and for three years they besieged her walls, starving her into submission.
Nearly simultaneous with the fall of Ashantur, Prince Evanur of Conros disavowed the Gorgone family name, taking for himself and his heirs Lyonis, which, in old Gorgossi, meant breaker-of-chains. He freed the slaves of Conros, and, in a symbolic gesture, renamed the city Conria, citing the “-os” as a slave mark for the city. His final action as Prince-governor of the city was to raise up a council of magistrates for itself, numbering equally freed slaves and gorgossi magisters. The records speak of this happening peacefully and with great acclaim by all members of society, which, academically speaking, seemed unlikely. Instead, the record shows that a large number of Gorgossi family names vanished, their bearers either following their former prince’s example and taking new names, or entirely family lines summarily eliminated.
The newly decreed “Free-City” sent envoys to their neighbors, many of which were in the throes of slave revolts or, in the notable case of the Sister-Cities, under threat of invasion by the Ash-kings of the Deni hills. Together, they formed the first federation, uniting their fleets and seizing the ships of the Silent Ones that had been caught unawares at harbor when their slave-crews had risen up with the cities themselves.
Not all the cities rose up, though. In the west, a coalition of cities, the so-called “slave cities” brutally crushed the slave revolts, and sailed their fleets out at the call of the mother-city. Of these, the greatest was Gomura, which alone, it is said, contributed a fleet of five hundred war-galleys. Combined, Gorgossi texts state, the fleet blotted the horizon.
In the end, it was not enough.
Instead of striking out and reconquering the lost-cities, the Gorgossi fleet stayed patrolling the sea around the main island, the Speaker so fearful of his cousin that he refused to allow ships to sail where they could have served the best use. Over the course of a year, the Free-cities whittled the fleet down, never meeting the Gorgossi faithful in open battle, instead striking at night, planting insurgents and saboteurs, and drawing Gorgossi task forces into ambushes. The Gorgossi were not helped by the infighting common within their ranks, where captains, most drawn from Magistrate families, engaged in ridiculous duels with their ships. In fact, nearly a sixth of the Gorgossi fleet was sunk by nominally allied ships, and another fifth defected to the Free-cities as it became obvious that the Gorgossi cause was an unwinnable morasse of differing plans and strategies.
Three years after the Free-Cities Federation was first founded, their Free-men militias were engaging with Silent Ones on the island of Mempur, and, when the last of the island cities walls fell, the Slave Cities, most diminished by the action, or inaction of Gorgossos, approached the Federation, suing for peace. The federation agreed, understanding that this would shorten the war, though at the heinous cost of sacrificing the freedom of thousands of slaves still trapped within their walls.
Finally, Evanur and his armies stood directly beneath the walls, joined by Bjehedar Ras, the Masih of the Maevian Benaadir hosts. It is said that the Speaker invited Evanur up to his throne room for a feast and a ball, saying, according to the record “It has been far too long since mine princely cousin and friend has stood before me. He will sit with me and speak to me of the distant realms of my empire.” The court, or at least the Speaker, had been left unaware of the revolts without. At the news that his cousin was here to depose him, it is said that the obese Kalros fell over in a faint, one from which he never awoke.
The Augurs in the employ of the Magisterium decreed this to be a fateful sign. The Magisterium quickly abolished the position of Speaker, and sent envoys of peace to the allied forces. In exchange for the city not being sacked, all of the colonies would be given independence, and slavery would be abolished throughout the empire.
The Federation accepted, and the Proud Gorgossi Empire was no more, and, though Gorgossos the Foul herself remained unbroken, her spirit was shattered by the terms of the Treaty of Avashantur.
And, For a time, the Federation remained strong and united, and grew to include most of the former Gorgossi colonies, including the Maevians and, for a short while, even the Slave-cities. They were drunk on their victories, on their successes, confident that none could take from them what they had claimed for their own. But that hubris proved to be their own undoing, as it was Broken-Gorgossos before them.
Conria had been the chief of the cities, both by it’s historic status and it’s position to control trade to the inland sea, growing to rival even Gorgossos at her fattest in its size. Trade vessels and galleys brought furs and lumber from as far as the Bekwa kingdoms and the distant Bravins u Vanabeg of the frigid south and gold and colored silks from the the Feathered Sun-Queens of the jungles in the north. In her harbors and inns could easily be heard the civilized tongues of the Gorgossi lands along the nasal language of the Bekwa, the mellifluous Hodun tongue, and raucous Benaadir.
And, in time, as Gorgossos remained neutered and isolated and no other threat materialized, the federation began to crumble. First left the slave cities, forming their own federation, though one that quickly crumbled as they turned on each other. The Maevian Benaadir left not long after that, interested more in feuding amongst each other and with the pastoral True Benaadir than reciprocating trade relationships and defensive pacts, now that the evil to be fought had been destroyed. Besides, rumors of some horde striking at the southeasternmost Benaadir had drew the focus of their shamans and wisemen away from the coast. Rather than simply withdraw from the federation, the Maevian kingdoms simply stopped contributing ships, and stopped paying their tithes. Magog, always the odd-one also stopped contributing anything, and, even worse, sealed their cities to outsiders.
Vesta, chief rival of Conria within the federation gleefully pointed to this gradual dissolution as proof that the federation was obsolete. Not only obsolete, their envoy continued, but a tool of dominion by Conria. The majority of the other cities agreed, and so, almost one hundred years after the fall of Gorgossos, the first Federation was dissolved. Over the coming centuries, it was reformed occasionally, usually in reaction to a powerful political movement or outside influence, such as the Ascension of the Could-have-been-king over the twin-cities, who promised a Gorgossi resurgence, and an attempted invasion by the Empire of the Ash-men of the Hills, but those federations were all pale imitations of the historic union that brought down Gorgossos, and dissolved within a generation at most.
The current incarnation of the Federation was formed in reaction to two specific events. The first was the invasion of the eastern Jadhai by the Tarhel, the Iron Faces, who were as adept with their horses as the Benaadir were themselves, and, who, for some reason, were acclaimed by the wise-men and oracles of the True Benaadir as the line from which their third Masih will rise, unifying the Jadhai under the rule of law and restoring harmony, forever bringing balance to the plains. What pushed this people out of their eastern homelands is unknown, though many thinkers and wise-men argue that they are, perhaps, an escaped warrior-slave caste, fleeing distant oppressors, and still others claim that the Terhel had built a distant eastern empire which fell to conquest, sending them fleeing. Of course, any story is impossible to confirm, as no man has cross the Jadhai and survived and the Tarhel aren’t telling.
Unlike the the true Benaadir, and even the Maevian Benaadir, the Tarhel Benaadir were clever builders, carefully husbanding the relatively scarce agricultural resources of the plains, building cities where only grass was before. That is not to say, of course, that the Jadhai will become a settled place to rival the federation in cities. For the Tarhel, and increasingly the true Benaadir, who had rarely cleaved to the Maevian cities but now found themselves either forced to adapt or be relegated to less choice lands, cities serve as relatively temporary nexuses, with only a priestly and artisan caste making more than semi-permanent home within any walls. Nevertheless, this wave of invaders in the Jadhai moves over closer to our home federation, and, in the past years it has not become uncommon to see the impassive metal-masks of Tarhel warriors in our bazaars.
The events in the Jadhai, however, were only secondary to the formation of the Federation. Much more alarmingly, three centuries and a half ago, Gorgossos stirred from seeming slumber.
She had remained cloistered her people reeling, as the world moved on around them, leaving them behind. And then word spread from behind the impassable red walls. The Magisterium had been overthrown in a bloody coup by a popular uprising led by an Oracle. Suddenly, Gorgossos’s name was being spoken by every lip. This Oracle, it was said, who had been proclaimed upon a prophecy of blood, was raised up by the Gods to the throne of the speakers, which had remained empty for many a century. Only it was no longer the throne of the speakers, for the magisterium for which they spoke was gone. This throne belonged now to the God-Emperors, Gods amongst men, and bearer of the Righteous sword of Uashantin, the Avatar of El Ashai.
First to fall to the Resurgent Empire was the city of Barbessos which controlled the Mempuri side of the straights of Gorgossos. Long had they been close friends of the Foul City, and, during Gorgossos’s embarrassment long had they worked together to oppress and tax trade through the straights, growing fat from the profit. It is likely that that close relationship was why the Emperor’s envoys first approached Barbessos, demanding fealty. Barbessos refused, citing fears of Conria, which still regarded Gorgossos in the dimmest of lights. It is said that the Emperor’s envoys bowed low before the City’s Magistrates, before withdrawing. That night, the Silent Ones fell upon the city. Sailors and refugees spoke of the skies splitting with lances of fire, and the very waves rising up from the sea to swallow the city, though these are likely fanciful exaggerations by uneducated rumor-mongers, as not once after that in the Great Crusade did Gorgossos employ any kind of sorcery.
The Conquest of Barbessos was seemingly a test for the new Silent Ones of the Emperor, as the Empire immediately forsook the conquest rest of Mempur, moving instead to wreak punitive measures upon the engineers of the fall of the old empire. Gorgossi ships moved quickly, travelling barely behind the words of their actions, and struck at a completely unawares Conria. Despite that, the Defenders of the city mounted a spirited defense, even as the outskirts burned. In fact, the walls of Conria were only penetrated the Silent Ones through treachery, a Vestan mercenary captain saw an opportunity to turn a profit and mutinied against his Conrian employers, seizing the Arched Gate to the south of the city, and allowing the Silent Ones in. The Gorgossi conquest of Conria lasted barely a week before a Benaadir Horde swept through, honoring an ancient treaty, barely remembered by the Conrians. In that time, however, much of the wealth of the city was picked clean by the Gorgossi, and a number of prominent, and less prominent citizens, were taken as slaves and shipped back to Gorgossos.
The Destruction of Barbessos and the Sack of Conria shook the ecosystem of the Gorgossi bay to its core. No longer could the former colonies assume their unshakeable might was unassailable. Like Gorgossos before them, they learned that no power is absolute. What followed was a near century of interrupted warfare. Gorgossos enjoyed near absolute master of the lands, their Silent Ones a professional force unlike the militias of the free cities, but were unable to fully leverage this strength, as the Free Cities maintained control of the seas, a fact that was only slightly mitigated by the so-called slave cities providing unofficial support to the Gorgossi.
Territory exchanged hands countless times in the Hundred-Year war, as we called it, or the Great Crusade as the Gorgossi called it. There were countless acts of heroism and just as many acts of barbarity. The stories of the “Reversion of Gomura,” of the “Burning ships of Arendalis,” of “ the Magister’s Gold,” and so many others, are still told to children today. Cities that had stood since the dawn of the Modern Age were burned to the ground, and trade ground to a standstill, triggering repercussions as far away as the Inland Sea. Our fair Conria stood as ashes, it’s people building the hidden city of Holdout, which became the nexus of resistance against Silent One offensives. Three hundred and eighteen years ago the Legendary March of Thousands was led by The Great Hero, a man who’s name is lost to time, but who legend states descends from the Lyonis line, led the Conrian Militia to relieve Vesta, which almost immediately acceded to the recreation of the Federation of Old.
The war dragged on until, finally, approximately two hundred and fifty years ago, exhausted and with the neither side any closer to winning the war, every advance reversed tenfold, every heroism outmatched by greater tales from the other sides, Gorgossos gambled on a final offensive to bring their enemies to their knees. Conria had already been sacked at the start of the war, and, though she had rebuilt, still was not the symbol of liberty she had once been. Vesta, the Gorgossi generals decided, would have to serve. And so, the Silent Ones were dispatched, and landed on the beaches near the Canal-City. The Initial offensives were successful, taking two of the seven gates of the city, and a number of of the outer wards. However, Gorgossos’s planners had not accounted for the possibility that Vesta’s defenders would resort to destroying their famed bridges. What had initially promised to be a quick and successful capture turned into a slogging battle through cramped streets against a citizenry fanatic in it’s defense. Finally, the Silent Ones fell back, preparing for a long siege, one that dragged out for far longer than either side could have anticipated. It was this siege, and the meat grinder that Vesta turned into for Gorgossi forces that finally pushed Gorgossos to the negotiation table. (Some scholars argue that it was more the fact that the Slave Cities and some of the non-participating free cities capitalizing on the Federation, and on Gorgossos’s distraction to siphon away the vast majority of their trade income that actually brought both sides to the table.) Nevertheless, whatever did finally bring the belligerents to sit at the same table to negotiate, the result was the Second Treaty of Aveshantur, which guaranteed the independence of the cities that were independent, but sold out those that Gorgossos had conquered back to her Joug.
The centuries since the end of the war have not been entirely peaceful, of course. Hostilities have flared up between all the players in the Gorgossi sea at some point or another, though never have they devolved to the level of the Hundred Year War. Trade flows freely, each city taking her just due, and it is not uncommon again for the Bazaars of Conria to be filled with a thousand different tongues, and no doubt things are no different in the Shadows of Gorgossos’s markets.
These days, there are a number of issues that bring worry to the hearts of the Men of this federation. Vesta is again growing resentful of her role in the Federation, though none there yet speak of disbandment, not with Gorgossos looming large. Similarly, the Red City of Ashantur has cloistered itself, ruled by a new Masked Queen, whose face is hidden, it is said, by a heavy Iron Mask. As if this weren’t enough, sailors back from trade speak of a rise in Piracy in the Gorgossi Bay, one seemingly affiliated to no city. According to the Rumors, ships belonging to every city, from Gomura to Basuret to Gorgossos to Conria herself have been raided.
The Inland Sea, the Kenner Maze, and the Hen-don
The Inland Sea has a history just as diverse as our own Gorgossi Sea, though the earliest years are shrouded in the mists of legend. What is known is that the fall of the Sorcerer-Kings wreaked terrible havoc against the lake-folk, reshaping coastlines and sinking entire cities overnight. Some ancient Gorgossi writings even place the legendary last-battle for the soul of humanity in the area, with the tomb of the witch-king lying in some cave under the water, marshalling his forces and ready to rise when the world is least expecting it. No local legends speak of this (though one or two older pirate-king legends speak of one or two or more legendary pirate captains buried with their flotilla under the sea, ready to rise to plunder and pillage, which may be an adaption of older legends to later realities by people migrating into the area.)
The people who lived in the Inland Sea in the earliest days after the fall of the Sorcerer Kings are known as the Sea-folk or Canal Builders to the modern inhabitants of the area, though teir own name for themselves is long lost. Though, according to the archaeological record, and the start of recorded history in the area, the Canal Builders could not have lasted longer than a century, a mere flash in the pan, as it were, they clearly possessed, if diminished, some measure of the knowledge and powers of the age before theirs, and were at their zenith while the lands around them fell to barbarism. Many ruins attributed to them still bear rusted mechanisms, some of which are theoretically recreatible by modern scholars, but some which boast the telltale evidence of ancient sorcerous engines. They are believed to have lived from one end of the inland sea to the other, having founded many of the oldest pirate cities, from Mahog to Tsago to the Diurne city to Old Naucrastos. These cities’ oldest buildings share an architectural style that can no doubt by attribute to the Sea-folk, namely low, blocky, semi-subterranean buildings.
It is unknown what caused the collapse of the Sea-folk, though it is likely that they simply lost the ability to maintain or replicate the work of their close ancestors and collapsed into infighting similar to that of the rest of the world. Their greatest impact on modern life in the sea, however, are the eponymous canals, now far and few in between, and in terrible disrepair. These great monuments, lined with monolithic stone blocks, are an eternal testament to the ingenuity of these heirs to the Sorcerer-Kings. It is worth noting that a small number of these canals are still maintained and in good use, namely that which gives the city of Nautis the wealth to maintain an empire.
The Sea-Folk maintained a relationship with the Tower-Princes of the Hen Don, as they were apparently contemporary, and much of what is known of Sea-people culture does come from the far and few, though carefully preserved, records kept by them. It is from these writings that we can surmise that the Sea-folk possessed the sorceries of flight, and that they were a fluid, democratic society, though any details beyond that are subject to assumption and guesswork.
There is significant evidence of large migrations of people in this period, the most notable likely being the waves of migrants from the Icy-South, the ancestors of the Kwa, Becker, and Kebessi (and likely a number of others,) who swept through the area, raiding and devastating all those who stood in their way. Scholars argue that the Ur-Bekwa possessed some innovations that surpassed that of their peers, allowing them to take significant land, imprinting their language and many of their conventions on those into whom they eventually assimilated. Many common traits can be found in cultures that are either directly Bekwa, or have been directly influenced by them. The traditions of Martial Honor, and that of the Guissarns, for the Kebessi, or Knights in the Holy Kingdoms, for example, exists through the central regions of our continent, from the aforementioned Holy Kingdoms through to the Ash Kings, the Entooky, and the Kebessi. This likely bears a relationship to the Knightly Monastic traditions of the Empisante Cerques and Benefices.
Interestingly enough, many Empisante expeditions have been sent back down the great river to find their ancestral homeland, and the great sunken cities the oldest Moon-King legends speak of (The Mount-Royal, the Three Rivers, and most mythic, the Chatoo of the Front and Back Kings) and the great treasures buried within, but all to no avail. The only inhabitants of those areas are the Dog-Men, who speak a tongue more closely related to that of the Gorgossi, and the Innuk, who speak with a language unrelated to any other.
The Tower-Princes themselves lasted only little longer than the Sea-folk, being conquered and unified by the Mind-Kings, who, according to legend, ruled the River from their city of Ai Bi on the lower Hen Don. The Towers of the Princes, if they ever existed on any level other than metaphorical, were summarily razed, and power was centralized. Regardless of what ended their precursors, the Yan Gi civilization of the Mind Kings reached its zenith contemporaneously to the First Age of the Pirate Cities.
Calling the first Age of the Pirate Cities that is perhaps a bit of a misnomer, at least in comparison to the second age centuries later. While raiding and piracy was an important aspect of the way of life of the Pirate Cities, so was trade. Historical documents show occasional trade between some of the cities and early Gorgossos, and there is evidence of ancient Pirate-King expeditions through the Hen Don and into the great sea. Their fish and seal headed idols mark what are likely the burial places of some great captains as far into the warm lands of the Cotton-Kings and the Kingdom of Pride. A disjointed and disunified rule characterized the First Age of the Pirate Cities, with alliances and petty feuds shifting the balance of power at a moment’s notice. This age also saw a great displacement of people, with people of all culture populations taken and sold, or forcefully relocated, all around the inland sea, From the Dog-men of the deep south, the inland sea, and through the Stilt-Folk’s marshes and the Kiver Kings, and even down towards Gorgossos.
Though technically the Moon Kings existed, and were part, of the Pirate-complex, they remained aloof and apart in one important way: their founding and faiths. According to local legend, the ancestors of the Moon Kings were Kwa, who had sailed down from far away in a fleet that blotted out the seas, following prophecy to lead them from the death of the world, and raised up a great city where the lands met the sea. Overlooking the city itself was the silver monastery of Esafis. For centuries, the Moon Kings participated in the reaving and trading intrinsic to the Age of Piracy, until, upon the urging of the Blanchemaids, the Moon Kings launched a war of conquest. Within a few decades, the southern sea had fallen to their advances, and daring naval operations had burned at least three of the wealthiest cities, including Old Naucrastas, The City of Bones, and the City of Ashes, the later two of whose names were lost to history.
Where the Moon Kings advanced, however, the Faith of the Dual Union was not far behind. Though they had always maintained isolated monasteries along the southern shore of the sea, the faith now took a distinct proselytizing approach, establishing monasteries in a fair number of the pirate cities that had bent the knee, including chapter houses in Glenoir and Saclaire, and establishing direct rule over those that refused to bend the knee. The Cities of Balmaheshon and The Zhallport were renamed to Naray and Teredor respectively. Many swore fealty to the Moon Kings and practiced the faith of the Dual-Union, especially the cities of the Kwa, who spoke a tongue akin to that of the Moon Kings. The Ascendancy of the Moon Kings lasted for two centuries, a period of time which saw the collapse and dissolution of the Mind-King state, overwhelmed as they were by repeated waves of migration and conflict. What remained of the Mind-Kings were a number of fortified agrarian city states, jealously guarding their stretch of river and patch of arable land against nomadic and semi-nomadic Yan Gi in the hills, as well as warding the ancient holy places from depredation by marauding waves of migrants.
The rapid advance of the Moon Kings, however, proved their undoing. The remaining pirate cities banded together, sank the scattered Fleets of the Moon, and even burned the City of the Moon, sacrificing the last Moon King on his silver throne in 438 BP, which was then hacked apart. Fragments were sent to each of the cities, so that all would know what happened to those who resisted the Pirate Kings. Within a century, all that remained of the once Ascendant Moon Kings and the Faith of the Dual Union were a series of monastic states ruled by Blanchemaid Knightly Orders on the colder southern coast line of the sea, stubbornly clinging to dominion, even as those that followed their faith grew ever rarer around the sea. To this day, even cities in the inner sea that do not hold to the authority of the Blanchmaids have small, but elegantly maintained, chapter-houses from which blanchmaids proselytize, serve the poor, and give alms.
What followed for the Inland sea was a period of internecine warfare, a second age of piracy, where alliances and inter-city pacts lasted only so long as a Mayor-Captain did. Though great exchanges of wealth occurred during the period, cities rose and fell as if with the whims of the sea.
Though not many realized it, and despite being an important trade center in it’s own right, the wealth of the Inland sea was heavily dependant on trade traveling through the area, down the Ip river, and to Gorgossos (and, undoubtedly the reverse is also true.) 350 years before present, when Gorgossos sacked our fair city, that trade dried up, leaving a void that fractured the Pirate Cities (as well as the Stilt Kingdoms and the River Kings) as they found themselves unable to maintain the extravagant lifestyles and gift givings their way of lives demanded they maintain.
Pardoxically, Instead of stabilizing the sea, as individual Pirate ships and flotillas and cities became unable to gather and spend the wealth they had once been used to, they banded together in ever larger fleets, falling upon unsuspecting (or suspecting) cities. Naturally, this was unsustainable, and even the largest fleet led by the most charismatic captains tended to implode quickly, before restarting the cycle elsewhere.
Meanwhile, over the past several hundred years, unbeknownst to most of those that travelled the inland sea, the shores of the Hen Don had quietly been unified under the auspices of Darnul, a God few foreigners understand. From what can be gathered by those who have visited the few Trade Ports along the Hen Don, or from usually tight-lipped faithful, Darnul is a demanding God, one whose disciples breathlessly await the end of days, though details beyond that are scarce.
The first of the death-bells of the second age of Piracy was the spread of the faithful to the edges of the inland sea. Mahog, the closest pirate city, which, at the time, was ruled by a council led by one Captain Eten Hawkens, who recognize an opportunity for Mahog. Though trade coming up the Hen Don was not exceedingly profitable, the people who lived upon its shores had begun to present some interesting trade items (Hard alcohols and weapons, mostly, though also worked jewelry.) Captain Hawkens gathered the captains of the fleets beholden to Mahog, and promised them a great reaving and great wealth as a result: jewels, slaves without number, even, it was rumored, entire cities that could be doled out to deserving captains.
The great fleet set off with ceremony and celebration, and would never return. What is known of the raid come from the writing of one Ship’s Boy, Ander Tolleyn (actually a young woman, and future abbess-general of the Silver Monastery, by the name of Ana Tolleyn, who was hiding her identity to gain wealth and freedom in a traditionally male-oriented profession, something that she later wrote would occur more often than would be expected.) In the initial days of the raid, no less than thirteen villages in the southern Hen Don were sacked and cargo-holds filled with treasure. Bolstered by their success, the pirate fleet moved down the river, aiming for a rumoured city further down, rich beyond compare.
That was the last any official word of the Fleet reached Mahog, until, one day three months (or three years, the records differ) a hooded and cloaked army filed out of the fog and surrounded the city, demanding it’s surrender.
Ana Tolleyn later wrote of the death of the fleet, of days filled with silence, and nights filled with death, of waking up in the morning and finding that a ship had vanished, or sunk, in the night. Even worse, she wrote, was waking up and finding a drifting ghost ship in the middle of the fleet, the hands of the missing crew dangling from the masts. Within three weeks, the Pirate crews were in open mutiny, but Captain Hawkens insisted that great wealth awaited any and all who returned. Not an insignificant number of ships attempted to sail back home, abandoning the mission with what wealth they already had, but none, it seems, were able to escape the trap that the Hen Don had become. Finally, the crews abandoned their ships, tieing Captain Hawkens to the mast of his flagship, hoping to placate their attackers.
It was to no avail. Ana Tolleyn wrote of a harrowing pursuit as the Pirate crews attempted to march overland to the city of Mahog and its inviolate walls. They were cornered, she writes, on the shores of one of the myriad lakes, and slaughtered with musket fire. Ana Tolleyn attributes her survival to the miraculous intervention of the White Queen, who, she writes, sent a flock of geese to lead her to safety and shield her from injury.
The official record on the inland Sea, both Pirate-City and Esafis (where the two did not overlap contemporaneously) indicate that the Faithful of Darnul demanded the surrender of the city of Mahog, unconditionally. The Envoys of the faithful were returned to their people blinded, castrated, and with their tongues cut out. The city had refused, confident in the strength of their walls, even if their fleet was smaller than it should have been. Thus was initiated the siege of Mahog. Carefully, the Faithful destroyed all land traffic to and from the city, and, in a daring night-time raid, strung a great iron chain across the bay itself, suffocating the city. At the same time, the Engineers of the Faithful erected hill-forts, constructions of stone that still stand today, overwatching the city itself. Within these forts were placed some of the great implements of artillery in which the faithful are unmatched, even to this day. After three days of constant bombardment, the city opened its gates, handing over the Admiralty's Captains to the Faithful. These were subsequently put to death, and dismembered, their hands left hanging in a gruesome offering from the trees around the city, which the Faithful called Mahang. That was not enough for the faithful, however. They swarmed the city, putting one of their own as Governor, and executed in the same manner as the captains any who had a relationship to Piracy, which was not an insignificant part of the population of the city.
The fall of Mahang to this outside force sent a ripple of shock throughout the inland sea, and the white monastery of Esafis, which had by now grown to encompass the vast majority of the City of the Moon, smelled blood. The Archmaiden sent word to the disparate Cerques and Benefice, as well as to some of the Pirate Cities that had large populations of followers of the white queen.
Within a year of the fall of Mahang, the Archmaiden had appointed an Haukommand, and declared a great Diad to raise the White Banners high above all the cities of the Inland Sea. A fleet gathered, the Broken Cross of the Tampliers flying alongside the Silver Moons of the Monastery of Esafis and the Black Banners of the Lost Knights. Almost instantly, the Argendine Fleet scored a coup, forging an Alliance with the Pirate King of Glenoir. Though this alliance is romanticized and celebrated in the Esafine holiday of “The Aflame,” which glorifies a romance between the Pirate-King and the Archmaiden, it is doubtful this ever happened, as the story is ludicrously outlandish. None-esafine scholars tend view this alliance as one of political convenience, later formalized through title giving. The newly minted Auprince of Glenoir had simply recognized the benefits of adding his fleets to the Diad, and securing a place of importance in the he could see was forming.
Similarly, though secondly to Glenoir, the self-styled Imperator of Nautis, recognizing the incredible strength arrayed against it, had the chunk of the Silver-Throne that resided in his city reforged into a moon-shaped scepter, which, according to the stories, he delivered to the Archmaiden, a representation of the friendship he bore her, and a symbol of Nautis’s devotion to the Dual Faith. In return, he and his sons were appointed Imperator in the sight of the Mother and the Son, for all eternity. Without any bloodshed, Letualie had fallen to the Diune church.
The Diadic Council and the Haukommand then turned it’s gaze northwards, to the great cities of Kenney, Dunwall, The Fane, Sodas, and a myriad of lesser ones. These cities had warrily watched the progress of the Diad, and had made provisions and alliances, suborning themselves to a triad of Mayor Captains, each who would, it was said, control one aspect of the coming war. There was the Sea-captain, who commanded the fleet, The Horse-Captain, who would command the lands, and the City-Captain, who would bear the responsibility of keeping the cities united, and running smoothly. There is evidence, also, that there was intense political machination, and that the Triad had hoped that this would form the nexus of a new nation-state and mark a beginning of stability and hegemony for the Triadic cities in the inland sea.
Despite the auspicious beginnings of the Diad, there were many issues that plagued the disparate union of forces that comprised it’s Silverine Fleet. The most pressing issue was the dichotomy between the “Faithful” forces and the “Opportunes,” as the writing of a contemporary Abbesse notes. Many of the cerques and benefice and monastic orders that had comprised the core of the fleet were resentful of the importance given to the Glenoirois and Nautisian forces, seeing them simply as opportunistic hanger-ons hoping to gather personal wealth and glory at the expense of their rivals.
The first clash between the Triad cities and the Argendine Fleet was a disaster for the Diad. The silver flotilla was caught unawares and unprepared in the early hours of the morning by the Sea-Captain, who had pushed his fleets through the night to spring the trap. The battle raged for two days and nights, according to the records, and, though the Silverine Host lost nearly a third of it’s ships before retreating, two events did prevent it from being an outright catastrophe. First, the Order of the Lost Knights seized control of the fleet unilaterally (an act of mutiny that, years later, saw them incorporated as the Cerque haumere, responsible for protecting the inland sea,) imprisoning many of the other commanders (Glenoirois and Nautisians, for the most part, many of whom were giving contradictory orders.) This allowed for an orderly retreat. Secondly, in a stroke of luck, one of the Argendine fleet’s ships managed a lucky strike, killing the Sea-Captain and crippling his flagship, which resulted in a disorderly pursuit by the Triad cities’ fleets.
The Argendine fleet regrouped at night in a sheltered bay, and, according to legend, awoke rejuvenated and fresh, ship decks gleaming and washed free of the wreckage of battle. Surely, the fleet, concluded, Divine Favor was with them, and the ships sailed with renewed fervor. In a series of daring raids and brutal engagements coordinated by the Lost Knights, the Triad fleet was largely sunk.
There was disarray within the Triad cities, and those sworn to their service. The system of governance which had been designed to give each city and each element of life equal reign, was collapsing, as neither of the surviving Captains could agree on how to proceed. The City-Captain, understanding that the wealth of the cities would suffer, as it depended on trade and free-flow that would likely be punitively curtailed by esafis. By contrast, the Horse-Captain argued that, since the cities had not yet LOST the war, they could surrender on their own terms, converting and demanding certain concessions. Clashes escalated in the streets between supporters of both factions, even as the Diad landed it’s forces and marched towards Dunwall. Tensions rose and rose, and, on the 17th of July, the City-Captain was found dead in his home in The Fane. While most blamed the Horse-Captain, who immediately sent an offer of surrender to the Didactic forces, he rightfully pointed to the fact that he had been coordinating the defense of Dunwall when the murder occured. Investigations by the Didactic Sisters proved that the stress of his position had caused the City-Captain’s heart to fail.
Negotiations were quick, the Horse-Captain showing the Diad evidence that he had converted upon receiving signs for the divine, and leveraged the position as the last real power within the Triad Cities to be recognized as it’s regent until his death. Though that was barely half a decade later, the Triad cities remained a unified political block, existing today as the power-base for the Black Archmaiden, of which more will be written later. In that time, the Horse-Captain, now the newly minted Depute de la Blanchereine, official governor of the region that was once the Triad cities, worked hard to both enhance his power within the region (and that of the church, as his position depended on that of the church) and to enhance the wealth of his cities at the expense of much of the others within the inland sea, especially that of Esafis. Large monuments and cathedrals were built throughout the region, including a complex in The Fane that almost rivalled that of the Silver City. Trade flowed freely, as merchants exercised their rights to trade within and without Empisante lands. The Depute also moved to consolidate his power by exiling the families and households of any Pirate-Captain that had held onto power before the Diad. Most of these were sent inland, mingling with the various nomad tribes there, and eventually forming the core of the Vienvenidois.
It would be remiss, here, to speak of the inland sea without also speaking of those on its periphery. The Mind Kings are perhaps the most notable, simply for their sheer impact their legacy had on the history of the inland sea, but other groups have played important parts in the shape of the modern inland sea.
The first of these regional powers are the Stilt-Folk, who make their homes in cities and towns in the ever shifting brine marshes between the Inland sea and the Ip river. Their history is shrouded in mist, though even in the earliest written records of Gorgossi explorers, there is evidence, though obviously hyperbolic, of their existence: they write of great sky-spanning tree-villages, towering high above the ground.
The Stilt-Folk are remarkably cloistered for a people who trade with outsiders, though what scholars have gathered over the years is that the Stilt-folk that outsiders interact with are a specific trader class, members of whose families have dispensation (or even a duty, depending on interpretations) to become “impure” by interacting with outsiders, so that the rest of the stilt-folk may remain free of outsider taint. It is evident, though, just by interaction with the Stilt-folk traders, that they have retained a working knowledge of some sorceries, as evidenced by their self-propelled ships that, though slow, move at counter direction to both wind and current.
thomas.berubeg
Wandering the World
So, since I am unable to ever finish things, here is what I had written before circumstances forced me to abandon this project. Enjoy! This is unproofread, and likely full of glaring mistakes.
Edit: Yeah, this is OFFICIALLY dead, for now. What is dead may never die.
Edit 2: Also, I do apologize, and thank everyone that put thought and effort into this. Especially, I apologize to @Jehoshua @Lord_Iggy @tobiisagoodboy @Thlayli and @ork75 , who dedicated lots of effort to this game.
Edit: Yeah, this is OFFICIALLY dead, for now. What is dead may never die.
Edit 2: Also, I do apologize, and thank everyone that put thought and effort into this. Especially, I apologize to @Jehoshua @Lord_Iggy @tobiisagoodboy @Thlayli and @ork75 , who dedicated lots of effort to this game.
Last edited:
tobiisagoodboy
Prince
Thank you for posting this. I will now use this to write a multi-billion dollar franchise and get filthy rich. Thx
tobiisagoodboy
Prince
„Gorgosso superiority“ = Fat speaker dies of heartattack after he learns that they are loosing
Jehoshua
Catholic
- Joined
- Sep 25, 2009
- Messages
- 7,248
Gorgossos amassed a huge empire, only to fall apart due to the weight of its peoples decadence [a result of their superlative strength], and yet it was never truly conquered when its accretions came crashing down. After being cleansed of its impurities it rose again to create a new empire under the glorious God-Emperor perhaps less in extent than before but equal in splendour. Meanwhile a certain federation from the canonical text exists solely in reaction to Gorgossi splendour, falling to discord and confusion during that time when Gorgossos flame appears extinguished. Not to mention its foundation rests in Gorgossi civilisation and Gorgossos remains the oldest surviving civilisation.
quid pro quo what I said before
-
At any rate its regretful that this could not get on the ground, but kudos to Thomas for at least showing what he had written before inertia struck the fatal blow.
quid pro quo what I said before
-
At any rate its regretful that this could not get on the ground, but kudos to Thomas for at least showing what he had written before inertia struck the fatal blow.
tobiisagoodboy
Prince
Gorgosso was burned down by its own decadence and its crimes against basic decency. From the ashes of this once great, but in the end rotten to the core Empire, the Federation arose, like Phoenix from the ashes.
And no matter how often it got knocked down, no matter how often it fell apart or was destroyed, everytime the Federation returned, like Phoenix from ash. Its fire is the light of true civillization and the Federation shall stand for a thousand years.
And no matter how often it got knocked down, no matter how often it fell apart or was destroyed, everytime the Federation returned, like Phoenix from ash. Its fire is the light of true civillization and the Federation shall stand for a thousand years.
