The Realms of Wyrlde

Wyrlde is generally divided into a few Regions of political influence and independence. The most obvious and important of these is the Sibolan Empire, also called the Bright Lands, consisting of seven distinct City States and their scattered tributary Towns, Villages, Hamlets, and Steadings. The bulk of what we will speak to surrounds these Seven Cities of Sibola, Durango, Lyonese, Qivira, Aztlan, Dorado, and Akadia.

That is not the sum of it all, however. The other major Power is the Empire of Lemuria, which is tightly bound through assorted political efforts with the nations of Agartha, Duat, and Thule. Although broadly separated, they are often thought of as a single group, and collectively are called The Dread Lands.

Next up are the Sea Realms of Islandia and Keris, who exist in a symbiotic partnership above and below the waves to the Southeast. Then there are the Savage Lands of Hyboria and Kahokia, which are not at all savage and that are marked by their unwillingness to build cities among their steps, preferring to remain nomadic and build large camps.

Lastly there are the ones that put everyone off slightly. First is Bermuda, which is a realm of primarily Lizardmen called Kobolds. Historically, the realm is included among the Dread Lands, but they have been actively seeking to engage in trade and relations with Sibola for years, though they are often difficult to bargain with. Then there is the peculiar Free City of Antilia, which is formally denied relation with the Empire and refuses to acknowledge anyone’s claims of Authority over them but their own.

The founding of several of these realms is a matter of history, but none are older than the very end of the God’s War.

At the point when all seemed lost, everything changed in the blink of an eye, and the Dread Host was divided and flung to the edges of Avilon – thus giving rise to Lemuria in the Southwest, Duat in the far east, Thule in the Northeast, and Agartha deep below. This period for them is not well known, but just as the folks who would later found Sibola had to deal with the Bleak Journey, these many nations and peoples had to struggle to find a way to survive on their own. The following several pages outline some of the aspects of each of the many realms to greater or lesser degrees.

The Sibolan Empire

The Bright Lands, the Seven Cities, this is all the Empire of Sibola, grown from the seeds planted at the end of the Bitter Road, and some say the ongoing continuation of the Bleak Journey.

The first 250 years after the founding of Sibola are considered a time of unremitting peace and prosperity by many, despite the challenges that did happen. This was the Age of Myth, and much of what happened then is now looked on as such – mythical and yet still connected.

Following a goal of going forth and multiplying, seeking freedom and power, space and adventure, this is the era when Adventurer’s began to be a common sight, and nearly all of the current professions trace their origins to this time – the guilds certainly do.

The rebellions that led to the rise of Akadia and Aztlan, the slow and steady expansion driven by need for materials and the squabbles and disagreements of the assorted houses led to slow changes, even as much remained the same, all of it adaptation and shifting and changing over the years, decades, and centuries you have read briefly about.

That spread followed the boundaries of the Great Inland Ocean that contains the Seven Seas, hemmed by tall, impassable mountains, and what we have today continues to grow and change and become ever more, for these are the Seven Cities of Sibola.

Akadia

Introduction

Akadians believe that magic will solve the problems of the world, and they look to the Grand Masters in their many Towers to find the solutions and often identify problems.

Those who live in Acadia without magic work as servants, farm and ranch, conduct trade and business very much as they do anywhere else, they just have wizards in a fit randomly killing people with Finger of Death and have to meet the needs of the Mages.

Years ago, Sibola was engulfed in a civil war. Out of it came two groups who failed in their bids to rule and were driven out. One group settled in what became Aztlan, the other kept moving, having heard tales from the Exilian of unique places, ultimately, the second group founded Antilia, but the first group were sent to carve out a living.

Akadia
Official Name	The Akashik Magiocracy under Warden		Flag
Motto	Magic Above All
People	Akashik
Goods	Akashik	Akadian	Symbol
Crafts	Akashian	Akadic
Honorifics	Lord Mage	Seras
Greeting	Well Met!	Huzzah!	Symbols	Tower		Starburst
Parting	Success!	Few Demands!	Colors	Green	Yellow	Orange	Blue
Temples	Ululani	Melane	Shrines	Mansa		Lamia
Towns	Gateway	Shangrila	Secrets	Pallor		Urisha
	Shambala	Amarava	Known For	Rice	Magic	Luxuries	Secrecy
Rivals	Lyonese	Dorado	Foes	Sibola
Weapons	Athame, Kadaga	Throwing Needles	Weather	Cold, Dry		Cloudy
Armor	Akashik Packet	Spell Shield	Wealth	+50		1 Trinket
Language	Akashik	Trade	Literacy	Akashik		+1 Slot
Respect Shown	When meeting someone of a higher station, bow your head with your hands clasped before you.
Folkways	First names are only used among close family members when strangers are not present.
	Being helpful is ingrained in how they speak, always phrasing things as an offer (including mages)
Virtues	Knowledge	Skillfulness	Caring	Affection
Vices	Unreliability	Incuriosity	Rudeness	Ignorance
Skills	Arcane	History	Ritual
See Others	Lesser, Useful, Pathetic, Needful
Others See	Haughty, Prideful, Pedantic, Scary

Nestled in among the valleys of the Kunlun Steppes lies the place and time that is Akadia, where most Wizards learn their crafts and Arts. Separate yet a part of the whole, they are an autonomous Ward as the realm of Akadia, where the mountains themselves are the walls, and there are none around the villages, hamlets, towns, and cities of the mile-high world to itself.

Akadia has no walled cities, towns, villages, or hamlets. Yeti rarely come down from the snowy heights, and there is much game in the wooded valleys that all tend to have small lakes and streams passing through verdant fields. It is very much steppe country.

The mighty House of Skye controls the Skyships from here, the principal way in and out of the main valley; the only other route is a torturous, winding, narrow set of switch backs that can take a week to traverse when in the best of shape and with light wagons that begins in the city of Gateway, the major mercantile port and seat of the Warden.

Beyond Gateway, it is a land of hills, fields, towers, and small villages, each overseen by some Mage who has set up shop there and either hired or attracted people to them. It is easiest to say that Akadia is anarchist in its nature, but this belies the underlying truth: it is not. Akadia is a wholly subject vassal state of Sibola, that is allowed by the custom of the Wardens, to do pretty much what it wants, and it is a realm of Mages who have all the practical power and authority, that then delegate it to those who do not have magic and provide for their needs.

The Ruling Mages are all called Mage Lords, and often they have delegated their authority to someone who does not possess the ability to use magic who acts in their stead for others. Mage Lords oversee the villages and towns – with towns coming for a group of mages who at least at some point worked together on some project – and officially have final say over pretty much everything.

It is not unfair to say that when one lives in Akadia, you are taught and trained to do what is asked of you by a mage with absolute obedience. There is no use of Magic that is outlawed in Akadia, and mages can get a sense that they are the most important people, something even their own history undermines.

Towns

Gateway: upriver from The Sea of Tears, it is a fortified town that acts as the gateway to Akadia proper, and all roads into the realm lead through it. Gateway is the seat of the Warden. To the east of Gateway is a broad open area that is very wet and is used to grow a variety of rice called Cold Rice, and is about the only reliable staple crop of Akadia for export.

Shambala: in the East, where most of the Mages tend towards a darker, more unsafe form of magical research. Over the mountains lies Seahold, which seriously considered moving for several years until a particular Wizard was killed by some adventurers for turning a member of their party into a toad.

Shangrila: This was where the skyships were first created and is mostly given over to the construction of things and the learning about them and figuring out what else one can do. They banned flying carpets, and tried to ban brooms but that didn’t work out well.

Amarava: Some Mages decided they would rather live without all the secrets and the weird focus on more exploration and are interested more in showing that magic is not a threat to the everyday person. Outside the Vale of Akadia proper, it is a much-preferred stop for merchants than Gateway.

Features

Akadia is a broad steppe country for the most part, with a single navigable river that has one navigable tributary. Weather comes in off the great Sea of Tears and is funneled up into the drier, colder hill country, steppes and moors for the most part. Thick forests cling to the base of the mountains that create the peculiar nature, and most farming and ranching is done within the central plains around Akadia Proper, which spans the confluence of the tributary and the main river.

Rivers

The major river of Akadia is the Eureka, which is navigable deep into the hinterlands where it is said an ancient fort stands built by some now forgotten Wizard.

Feeding into the Eureka is the Euripides River, coming from the western mountains where it is birthed by a spring that dives for 400 feet into a pool called the Tumescence that is the source of the river and the main source of water for a small hamlet.

At the confluence of these two rivers, Akadia City sits, turning the rivers into water wheel burdened flows and using canals that serve to ferry the magiocrats throughout the city while the rest make do with the broad, tree lined avenues.

Mountains

The Prisongate Mountains, averaging 12 to 15,000 feet high and having only two high passes in addition to the broad vale that is captained by Gateway, provide a ring that separates the inner Ward from the Northern, Southern, and lowland Wards.

Legacy

In Akadia, magic is a must.

Akadians believe that magic will solve the problems of the world, and they look to the Arch Masters in their many Towers to find the solutions and often identify problems. It is an interesting conflict between the often baser desires and aloof thinking of many an Akadian noble that they are also driven by a set of strong and rigid values that ultimately work to highlight helpfulness and creative problem solving.

They also tend to promote a bit of jealousy and pettiness. The great Airships are the products of Akadia, their wealth shared by all Imperials, but the Enjin of Dorado’s Posse of Rails infuriates them – they even mandated that it cannot stop in Akadia proper and must go no further than Pass Keep. Note that no Rails reach Pass Keep.

Outlook

Akadians are intensely proud people, often arrogant, frequently haughty.

Akadian mages think of themselves as above others and are constantly condescending toward others. They have an intense sense of pride and habitually demand people to attend to every one of their needs. Some of them take their seeming narcissism to the extreme by viewing themselves as perfect godlike beings who demand subservience from people. Sometimes, however, their arrogance brings about their downfall.

The reason for all of this is twofold. First, they are Mages. Akadia is the realm of mages, ordered to be created by the first Emperor, founded by the first Vizier, and existing as a pure and unrepentant magiocracy, where only those with magic have authority, power, and prestige.

Unlike in all other realms, there is no magic here which is illegal – all magic is legal, and everyone is more or less aware they could be subject to some kind of spell at some time, because this magiocracy is almost an anarchy.

The presence of the Marshals and the Imperial Enforcers tends to curb some of their worst excesses, but not much, and there is the ongoing challenge in that magic is not automatically inheritable.

The second reason is tied to the last bit there – only a small percentage of all the people on Wyrlde can use magic, and since it is not automatically inherited there are no dynasties or similar powers. As a result, to keep the great Towers filled with Students, the different colleges and their masters quietly employ urMages to seek out, find, and bring back children to train and preserve the way of life they have built.

They overlook the fact that urMages may buy children, or steal them, or kidnap them, or more. As a result, among the most important places in the entire realm is The Orphanage, and adoption by a Master is considered the normal standard.

Those who live in Akadia without magic work as servants, farm and ranch, conduct trade and business very much as they do anywhere else, they just have wizards in a fit randomly killing people with Finger of Death and have to meet the needs of the Mages.

For Mages, the days are spent learning, teaching, experimenting, developing new spells, creating magical items, and all the assorted aspects. Nearly every mage of age in Akadia has a staff of 10 to 20 people whose job is to anticipate and respond to their needs and often even coddle them a bit, cajoling them to bed or to eat or something. Given that many Mages have a strong trait of being readily distracted, while also being able to concentrate deeply, these folks are usually treated well by the Mages by custom and tradition, but also because if they didn’t, they wouldn’t have anyone.

Akadia is famous for the massive Towers. Some of them are simply the homes of mages, three, five, even seven stories tall. Others, usually the largest, most magnificent, are school – the infamous colleges.

For most other people, the one benefit to Akadia is that there are exceedingly low taxes since everyone works for a particular Mage and all they need is provided by those who work for them. Excess and additional is pretty much freely sold, bartered, traded, and used, and every avocation and vocation are represented.

The Guilds are strongest in Akadia because they, too, are headed by Mages. This is a key thing – where power is, a Mage is. Even if they don’t seem like it.

The schools focus on training mages to serve the nobility and aid the broader world, meeting their sole request from the Emperor so long ago. They exist to enable, to improve, to study, to drive forward magic, and they are none too fond of Lyonese as a result, for only they tend to be able to compete.

This realm is a magiocracy. All roles of power and authority are held by or operated under mages of some sort or another, ideally by Wizards.

Akadia is built and functions around the needs of the many most powerful Mages – across many different fields and affinities, axioms and studies. As magic is not directly inherited, it deals with a need for new mages to take up and learn from those who have been active in their research and learning, and it is expected by default that all Mages are actively seeking to improve and hone their crafts, living in their towers and closing out the world around them.

This means that those who are closest to mages are the ones with the most real power in the realm, and they are not often afraid to use it. Each tower will have a group of people whose basic core function is to make sure that maintenance is done, that things are cleaned, that there is food available, that everyone eats, that even a late-night session is looked after.

As a result, Akadians have a reputation for being outstanding Innhosts, and for good reason: every one of them is taught from an early age to help support Mages in some way since it is pretty obvious, they are so caught up in their work they forget to do other things. They take care of themselves by taking care of the Mages – be they a Pedant or a Pupil, a low level or a high level.

But it is not always wonderful. Mages can be demanding, cruel, rude, inconsiderate, and worse.

Lifestyle

Life for most folks in Akadia is often considered better than that of folks in Sibola or Aztlan. Rent is inexpensive, work is plentiful, commerce is brisk, and there is always something interesting happening somewhere, as a side effect of a lot of the secrecy of the wizards is that gossip is nearly an art form here, and rumors are a baseline expectation.

For Mages, the days are spent learning, teaching, experimenting, developing new spells, creating magical items, and all the assorted aspects. Nearly every mage of age in Acadia has a staff of 10 to 20 people whose job is to anticipate and respond to their needs and often even coddle them a bit, cajoling them to bed or to eat or something. Given that many Mages have a strong trait of being readily distracted, while also being able to concentrate deeply, these folks are usually treated well by the Mages by custom and tradition, but also because if they didn’t, they wouldn’t have anyone.

The schools focus on training mages to serve the nobility and aid the broader world, meeting their sole request from the Emperor so long ago. They exist to enable, to improve, to study, to drive forward magic, and they are none too fond of Lyonese as a result, for only they tend to be able to compete.

For most other people, the one benefit to Acadia is that there are exceedingly low taxes since everyone works for a particular Mage and all they need is provided by those who work for them. Excess and additional is pretty much freely sold, bartered, traded, and used, and every avocation and vocation are represented.

The Guilds are strongest in Acadia because they, too, are headed by Mages. This is a key thing – where power is, a Mage is. Even if they don’t seem like it.

Every major town and city has a large orphanage that cares for the parentless. These orphanages are businesses, often operated by or employing people who work as UrMages – the child thieves. Officially illegal, and under a death penalty for those caught smuggling stolen children, there is an intense problem in Akadia around those who seek a magic capable child of their own to pass on their secrets to, and the fact that there are people who get angry about their children being stolen.

Adoption from a regular family does happen and often, but not frequently enough to satisfy the desire of the Mages of Akadia. Given some mages are vile people, this is not an unfounded concern, but nevertheless the trade continues, and because they exist, it is common for Sibola, Durango, Lyonese, and even Qivira to send their orphans in large batches here, or for families to send children they cannot care for there.

This is how, ultimately, the original magicless population arrived – they were orphans. The orphanages are also the location of the Tanjins, and most Akadians will welcome children into their homes, as it often seems that there are fewer children in Akadia than in other realms.

Family

Akadia lacks many of the ties to the great Houses. This is due in part to the way that many of the children arrive: they are stolen or bought by the UrMages, and do not have knowledge of or a link to their House as a result.

Pupils will descend there from all over often to their shock and dismay that no one cares. This is also noted in the ways in which families are built – it is common for friends to become lovers, finding love on their own. Lineage matters little, but is traced through the paternal side, and often they will simply create their own surname for themselves, leading to some fascinating oddities.

Incarnates are welcome and often helped to adjust, even though they would have grown up, because there is a great deal of freedom in a land where the people in charge are too busy to bother with minutia and rarely act unless something is missing, or their whims are being thwarted.

Officially, Marriages are set and recorded by the local Mage Lord, and courtship is typically in the Sibolan model, with men courting, women being courted, but after that it all changes. There is little in the way of dowry, but there may be business issues to figure out – and many farms are combined by marriages.

With movement between the villages frequent and often, there is a good chance of having to turn a farm or lease over to someone else. In many ways, it is the freest realm for this, as no one has much say over the desires of others, and disputes are handled by the Lord Mages or their assigned deputies.

Government

While Akadia is under the official, direct rule of the Empire, it usually doesn’t feel like it. The presence of the Marshals and the Imperial Enforcers tends to curb some of their worst excesses, but not much, and there is the ongoing challenge in that magic is not automatically inheritable.

A point is tied to the last bit there – only about ten percent of all the people on Wyrlde can use magic, and since it is not automatically inherited there are no dynasties or similar powers. As a result, to keep the great Towers filled with Students, the different colleges and their masters employ urMages to seek out, find, and bring back children to train and preserve the way of life they have built.

They overlook the fact that urMages may buy children, or steal them, or kidnap them, or more. As a result, among the most important places in the entire realm is The Orphanage, and adoption by a Master is considered the normal standard.

Nitressa, Grandmaster Mage of Shang Tower, and her extended family comprise the highest levels of government, rarely bothered save for intrigues. The real governance is handled by the Regional Governors and a massive, rule bound bureaucracy that attends nearly everything else. Given latitude by the Wardens, this particular Tower is one of the oldest, and the official seat, in Akadia proper, of the real leadership. Other Towers are also found there – it has excellent water and fields, and helps ensure the Mages won’t starve, since they are so devoted, and it also houses the several different colleges that fill up so much of the time of those learning.

A Mage Lord is responsible for everyone living on the lands they are assigned and their well-being. Failure to care for them is not an option or one may find oneself living at the command of others, as the Wardens have the ability to do much to them.

Courts and such are overseen by the local Mage Lord, who is appointed by and reports to the Warden. They in turn appoint officials to handle these duties. As corporal punishment is not practiced, the sentences are usually fines and stripping of social status, combined with public humiliation, but also, they are known to sentence people to be experiments or experimented on (though with a guarantee of safety of life and limb) and even some punishments involving polymorph.

The military of Akadia is a standing body composed of four kinds of troops: Infantry, Cavalry, Mage, and Skyship. Towers supply Mages. Airpower is a major factor, with Akadian Skyships usually faster, more maneuverable, and more advanced than any outside of Akadia. The Military is part of the Sibolan Ward, who all serve the local Warden. They make use of all those who are assigned to them, with a focus on getting the greatest mastery out of all of them. Patrols are led by Skyships, supported by Cavalry, and backed by infantry, with mages scattered throughout the units.

Only Mages can hold a position of power, can own land, can make laws (and then only for their own Towers), can decide the nature of the realm as it moves forward. They are left alone to do this by the Warden, whose primary role is to ensure that none are engaging in the work of something like the Razing (and it was one time, I swear!) or fomenting rebellion. This is why the military is under the Warden.

The Tower of Skye (called the House of Skye outside of Akadia) is the source of the wondrous flying machines. They also tend to promote a bit of jealousy and pettiness. The great Skyships are the products of Acadia, their wealth shared by all citizens, but the Train of Dorado’s Posse of Rails infuriates them – they even mandated that it cannot stop in Acadia proper and must go no further than Gateway should it ever have a chance to reach there.

Commerce

It is not inaccurate to say that Mages can be somewhat difficult to deal with, in part because many are taught and raised to think that because they have magic, they deserve everything they have a desire for. As most Mages in Akadia are for hire, and will often have inherited generational wealth from those they were taught by, and the products of and services of Mages are highly sought by folks with wealth and power, there is a great deal of money that flows into Akadia, and as a direct result, that money brings with it goods and trade that serves to, in the most formal sense, meet the needs of the distracted, arresting Wizards, Witches, Warlocks, and more.

Education

Education is the primary focus of the people of Akadia in one sense: magic requires effective training, a honing of gifts, a mastery of skills, and so the city of Akadia itself is little more than a city of colleges and the things needed to support those colleges.

There are Tanjin set up, open to all, and there are schools for bards, Witches, Wizards (so many wizard schools), Sorcerers, Warlocks, and more. Courses run from the start of Dawn through the end of Dusk, and are taught by Pedants, while those learning are called Pupils.

The typical person attends school, learns a trade, goes into a relatively peaceful life, and if they are great, they will find themselves asked for help by some mage on a project – this is a common goal of many, as Mages are not known for having great skills as wrightwork or smithwork.

Schools

You cannot speak to the nature of Akadia without speaking of the Schools. There are dozens of them, most styling themselves as a University, and composed of several teachers who work together to teach and share their arts and their secrets as best they can, to the limited students that they have available.

The preferred age to enroll a student in one of these Academies is six years of age, following a preparatory phase of at least two years so that they are not very far behind. Grand Masters, Adepts, and masters all teach and work and experiment in these locations, and the buildings are often demolished and rebuilt more than a few times, with one rule fairly common among all of them – if you kill yourself, you didn’t learn the lesson.

Most of the student body is composed of children who were bought, kidnapped, found, or somehow managed to show the spark needed. The lack of an heir and the nature of Akadian society means that not having a child to pass your knowledge on to makes you only a lesser mage, for when you go your secrets will go with you.

There are many of these schools – some are for Wizards, but there are also schools for Witches, for Warlocks, even Colleges for Bards and schools for Envoys. Every village, town, and city has several schools, and all of them compete for students, relying on the reputations and renown of the teachers, the Pedants, that run the schools.

All of them focus on the basics of the particular form and profession of craft they are following, but the differences arise in that after Cantrips, the students are left to learn from their masters, cajoling and begging and otherwise wheedling out from them the spells and forms that become the basis – and this is one of the major tests, for it is when they can cast a learned spell of at least rudimentary level that they are considered to have moved up, and it is when they have managed to get at least three of them from two different mages that they are said to have graduated.

One side effect of this, even with the blind eye the Wardens turn to it all, is that many spells have been lost, leading many to spend a great deal of time trying to create new spells. All of this is driven beneath it all by the terror that should one die without passing on their knowledge to an heir, that they will be forgotten, and because it is rare for magic to pass through the blood, there can only be a giving of these otherwise hoarded secrets to someone that they must somehow find a way to trust, wo demonstrates the proper level of devotion and dedication to that effort.

Culture

Values

Knowledge and Skill are highly valued in Akadia, knowing how to do something better than anyone else while still passing on your skills is considered one of the greatest rewards.

Privacy is a large value, and the sometimes-comical interactions between Mages and their closest servants, who both seek not to pry into the life of the other yet still accomplish their goals of either receiving help or giving it and growing closer.

Love and Affection are a distinct thing that permeates much of Akadia; the idea of caring for someone else over yourself often strikes many as strange, given that Akadia is famed for its egocentric, self-absorbed Mages, but the way that people are raised sticks with them, and in a nation of people who were mostly orphans at one time, the need and recognition of attachment, affection, and love are all important.

Arts

Akashik arts tend to be temporary, spectacular, and showy among the Mages, but among the common folks are colorful, bright, cheery, and centered on scenes of everyday life – with a notable absence of Mages.

Noble Fashion

Akadian Nobles are all mages, and tend to be dour, self-important people dedicated to ritual, appearance and minimal distraction. As a result, most Akadian fashion is based in simple cassocks and robes, with a round, soft cap or a traditional pointed hat, as befits the taste of the individual, in black, gray, and white.

This contrasts sharply with the average person, who tends to dress in colorful clothing, as a counterpoint to the often dour and monotonous clothing of the mages.

Culture Heroes

Akarian, who was the second Steward of the realm, and fought to build the perfect society that they have.

Haridan, whose magic drove the invading Thyrs away during the era of the Black Ship Invasion.

Nestor, who raised the very first Tower and who crafted the spell to make them.

Cultural Armor

Only some folks wear Armor in Akadia; Mages think that magic should solve that problem for them.

As armor often interferes with the ability to perform the movements and aspects of a spell or ritual, it is fairly rare in Akadia, but they have developed a kind of padded set of clothing that can be a bit bulky at times. It was originally intended to help determine the effectiveness of certain spells but proved to provide at least some protection from Lemurian bolts. It is called Packet Armor.

Packet Armor is an Akashik invention. It includes a set of pants with little protection behind the knees, a tunic that covers to just below the elbow, and occasionally a set of gloves or helm. It is very warm.

It is thicker than normal clothing, consisting of a fabric suit that covers the body like a second skin and must be custom tailored, quilted and embroidered, with a host of small spaces filled with “packets” — a mix of tough fibers woven around thing metal and ceramic plates, then furred for cushioning. This way, it still enables freedom of motion. The downside is that they become a persistent cost as generally the pieces must be replaced each month, essentially making the cost of the armor something one must pay each month as they replace the hundreds of small plates.

It is often joined with a spell shield, which adds a +1 to AC but is also a target for the Simple Magical Shield spell that many are taught. Many folks and most Mages will have in their homes a small, round shield, about the size of a dinner plate. On some occasions that shield will be able to be spelled, or may have a magical function, but it is more common for it to just be a sturdy, well-made item meant to intercept blows in close contact, worn on the forearm.

Cultural Weapons

There are still tales and stories told of Akade and the Rebel mages, whose failed coup resulted in the creation of Akadia by the then Emperor. Akadia is a place of exile for the most powerful mages, and the only realm where people do not freak out at the sight of magic being performed, and where all magic is legal. There is a sense that if it can be done, it can be done better by using magic.

While the realm may not be visited by the Train, it is still subject to raids from the sea and from below, and even the mountains are known to harbor some strange and dangerous creatures (which Villagers are often sent to capture). Lemurians (especially Imps, who love to steal from the Mages), Duatians, Thulians, Corsairs – there is a need to defend at some point and at some time, and so nearly every farm or village home has some sort of weaponry.

By law, no Akadian may carry a sword or possess a long knife unless they are in service to and answerable to the Warden. This is enforced beyond Gateway, and those descended from the founding Mages will often be very particular about it. Especially those who are also Mages. As a result, Akashik weapons are a peculiar thing, since officially no mage is allowed to go armed upon pain of Severance. As a result of this, Akadians are much more creative with their weapons.

With the intent of the prohibition on swords being to be a limit on the weapons one can have for war, the people of Akadia opted to be far more creative in their tools. They have a broad assortment of knives, none longer than about 16 inches, which are used for self-defense. These Akashik Knives, or Athames, are a wavy bladed knife with very sharp outer edges and dull inner sections, the very tip being useful to piercing or slicing. It is said they are used with quite a deal of finesse when people have trained with them since they were children.

The Kadaga is a specially fitted, glove-like weapon that covers an entire hand. While this makes casting spells impossible if it is in hand, the wide, double-edged, pointed tip blade is braced by the palm and wrist and makes for an outstanding punching weapon or a way to parry a blow. Often called punching dagger because people forget the name Kadaga.

For ranged efforts, most Akadians use Akashik needles, a throwing needle that is usually 6 to 9 inches long , they thin and light, tapering to a point, made of wood, ceramic, or metal. They are also often used as hair sticks and are readily and easily concealed in slim pockets that they can draw from in a smooth motion for throwing.

These needles are not normally set up with any kind of coating, but are often useful in connecting to spells and other effects, while also being a good weapon for getting in between the chinks in armor.

Aztlan

Introduction

On the southern coast lies the main city of Aztlana, with broad harbors that stretch out along the shore for the fishing and naval fleets that ply the waters and ultimately defend the Sea of Tears from invasion by water. Aztlan is a land of bright colors, huge festivals, and rich, spicy food that fills. Warm, humid, and bustling, it is a traveler’s welcome respite from the Wylde.

North, across the Sea, lies Sibola, with whom Aztlan has an abiding rivalry. Where Sibola is the Father, Aztlan is the Mother, and the difference between the two is the stuff of bard’s tales throughout the Bright Lands. Aztlan is a realm of sharp contrasts, from the opulent wealth of the plutarchy to the abject poverty of the poorest.

Aztlan
Official Name	The Queendom of Aztlana		Flag
Motto	For All People
People	Aztani
Goods	Aztic		Symbol
Crafts	Azlian
Honorifics	Missus, Mon
Greeting	Hausa!		Symbols	Tree		Sun
Parting	Fair Weather!		Colors	Green	Yellow		Pink
Temples	Tamasin	Lamia	Shrines	Antelle		Gaea
Towns	Arisan	Arilan	Secrets	Urisha		Belial
	Andalan	Atahur	Known For	Amber	Cinnamon		Textiles
Rivals	Sibola		Foes	Lemuria		Thule
Weapons	Cutlass, Knife	Shortbow	Weather	Tropical, Hot		Wet, Humid
Armor	Aztani Scale	Shield	Wealth	+35
Languages	Aztic	Trade	Literacy	Aztic (Women only)
Respect Shown	You crouch or kneel before someone of higher standing.
Folkways	You remove your shoes before entering a house.
	All houses have a small shrine to House Numen that is thanked at meals.
Virtues	Be Fruitful	Be Mindful	Know Thyself	Bring Honor
Vices	Thoughtlessness	Carelessness	Shame	Cowardice
Skills
See Others	Oppressed, brainwashed, trapped
Others See	Wealthy, fierce, independent

Aztlan is known for the spice trade, as the home of tea and coffee and chocolate, and is where most of the medicines come from. It is a land where the jungle has been carved back only temporarily and is one of the few areas said to be free from the Dreadnaughts.

Famous for amber, which is also a major symbol and found on display everywhere. There are massive sheets of amber mined from the forests and mountains. The Sultana’s home is built of amber, and the Amber Throne is the dream of all.

Aztlan broke away from Sibola following a successful coup but chose to leave rather than stay. After many legendary adventures, the founders – all strong women, came upon the island that houses Aztlana today, and began a new kingdom.

Towns

Alisan: Originally a fortress built to protect the early expansion, the oldest and largest town of Aztlan is still very much military minded and serves these days as the mint, primary base for the Army of Sibola, and protector for the major road and merchant caravans traveling along it.

Andalan: Only Sibola proper and perhaps Durango compete with the wealth in agriculture of Andalan, which is easily described as a farming town, but doing so hides the immense variety of goods grown around it. Coffee, tea, grapes, and more – it is the heart of Aztani food trade.

Arilan: a sleepy town mostly concerned with fishing and seacrafts but having an incredible natural harbor and reliable shipyards. They were very angry about losing the build of the big ship.

Atahur: The southernmost seaport of the Empire proper.

Features

Aztlan is considered blessed to have one of the largest areas of fertile land around, protected by the high mountains that dart toward the south, leaving a massive and wide valley of constant beauty and unmatched fecundity.

Legacy

The Mother of Cities, source of the eternal grumbling, and land of women – Aztlan and the Aztani people are very different from elsewhere and perhaps the most likely to take over the Empire should the Emperor fall.

Often described as the opposite of Sibola, it is a woman ruled by women that is often reactionary to whatever it is that Sibola does. They are more militaristic, however, and as they share control of the major route to the Seven Seas, they have a stranglehold on commerce and a cutthroat attitude about business.

Aztlan is generally held to be the richest of the realms, primarily from the massive farms that fill the well-protected interior. It is close to the Sea Realms and Qivira, politically, and even closer to Qivira now that the Shaga has changed.

Outlook

Aztlan is a land where everyone is proud of what they have done, where machismo is a way of life, and where women control everything.

From Aztlana proper to Atahur and even among the Chromite mines of the mountains, everyone dreams of making it big, of making that one thing that lifts them into the upper classes, of becoming a Matrician in their own right. The Aztani people are a fierce and gracious bunch, quick to laugh, fond of music, dance, and food – not always in that order.

The Aztani worship Paramour in her great Temple, where the Clerics are generous with Mead and always welcoming the hurt, the sick, and the orphaned. In the villages, towns, hamlets, and as always, the sea, Lamia is given her due, especially when it comes to the times for the rains to stop or start, the storms and wind to give you good journey, and the harvest or the catch to bring in for the best price.

Worship of any of the Dread Gods is the only crime punishable by death that is known – and trial is not usually something anyone worries about. Despite the pejorative often assigned to them, few people are as devoted to work as the Aztani are – their world revolves around money, and so they know it is what will save them.

Lifestyle

Aztlan is a mercantile realm. They say that an Aztani knows two things, and she knows them well: Money and War, and for an Aztani those are not very different. Most of the most successful women Vanguards in the Great Games have been Aztani women. Trading with an Aztani is an art form in and of itself, as they are canny and notably greedy people, as no Aztani worth her salt is going to lose money on a deal. It helps that Aztani coffee is the better choice that Qiviran, that Aztlan is the only source for Cinnamon, and that many Spices are easily found here, and that if you want certain Medicinal Plants you must go to them eventually.

Aztlan also exports its culture to a degree. The music of the Aztani is distinctive and highly structured, and usually played by a group with both stringed instruments and horns, the beat held by the dancers with sharp and stylized and traditional dance moves that many find erotic. The most loved is called the Flamenko, a dance only found in Aztlan, and considered nigh on pornographic outside the realm with the way the seduction-based dance goes.

Aztani wool is prized for its careful blend of alpaca and llama into a strong and weather resistant fabric. Lastly, Cinnamon is the Sacred Spice of Paramour, and nowhere else does it grow save for the well-guarded fields of a few families. It commands a high price, for it is used in ceremonies to honor the patron deity of Aztlan. When combined with Sea Realm nutmeg and Antillian allspice, it becomes something impossible to resist for many.

Most folks, though, are poor. Exceptional artisans and craftsmen and such may make more, but generally it is the merchant class that changes the rules, by being sneakier and tougher and inspiring the rule of money over the rule of law.

Serfdom is usually the result of a punishment. Children are an extra burden on a serf, increasing the costs they must pay off to their debtors, and the children inherit the burden of the parents.

Aztani culture adores wine, and wine is the single greatest import they have, for they cannot grow grapes in the humid and hot tropics that are the realm’s lands. There is a strong preference for Lyonese over Durangan or Doradan wines, as well.

Family

The Aztani are intensely matriarchal. To be the head of a family one must be a woman in life. Men are charged with defense and provision, and a woman with many husbands is often very wealthy indeed. Women are expected to spend a significant amount of time pregnant, however, and produce many children, though there is no shame in being unable to do so, and often women who cannot bear children aid those who do in large collective families.

Men in Aztlan marry up if they can, and often look for ways to help their family while proving their value and prowess. When there is a marriage, the family of the bride pays the family of the groom a price that is agreed on when the families arrange the marriage.

It is women who do the courting and men who are the courted in Aztlan. Aztani women usually know their minds, and Aztani men are almost universally the most macho of men, convinced of their ability to please a woman and ensure that she is well taken care of.

Government

The government of Aztlan is a matriarchal plutocracy, led by the 11 women of the Tribunal, headed by The Sultana, which is the only hereditary position. The seats of the Tribunal are open and bid upon every year during the week-long Festival of Paramour. The bids are not refundable, and are deposited in the Bank of Aztlan, owned and operated by the Tribunal. The bids, called Franchise Fees, are used to fund the government. There are many requirements for a seat –able to afford it, have a staff, have land, be distaff (a woman), and only one member from a given family can sit on the Tribunal.

The Tribunal makes all laws in Aztlan. The Tribunals appoint Tribunes over Towns and smaller settlements. They are enforced by the Marshalls, an arm of the military charged with keeping the peace and enforcing the laws.

In Aztlan, one must prove one is innocent, and the rules for an accusation are tough. There is one day in Court, and appeal is to the local Tribunal or the High Tribunal, neither of which tend to take them. Punishment is swift, and usually in the form of property and fines. The one prison that Aztlan has is considered a death sentence. More common than jail is as a punishment is serfdom, where the individual charged is essentially fined an amount that requires them to serve as serfs for those they owe – indentured servitude after the stripping of all other assess.

The Azlian Navy has a vast fleet, and they are considered the greatest naval power in the Bright Lands, though few will say it openly. Usually a third of its power is at sea at any given time. They are sail, oar, and Arcane powered, with rams and ballistae in place.

The Azlian Army is led by General Jung, who has three standing divisions at her call, plus another five divisions she has the power to call up by fiat from the population, which is trained and required to serve if called on. Of those Divisions, three are Cavalry, well-armed and mounted on trained chargers.

The Marshalls use the same structure, with two Divisions, all of which are mounted for Patrols of the Realm.

There is no air group. Though the Tribunal is mulling it over in relation to cost.

Every Aztani man is required to serve in the military for at least two years starting at the end of their Apprenticeship, and they cannot apprentice to the military (though women can).

Every Aztani woman is given a choice to either serve or produce two children in that time. The fine for failure is 5000 pence.

Commerce

Without any exception, the finer luxuries of life come out of Aztlan. Grapes for wine, tea, coffee, fruits and grains and foods. These are the backbone of Aztani power, for they are farmers to a point that everyone has at least some idea how farming or gardening works.

This is, of course, in addition to Amber, the in-demand thing widely sought. Aztani crops are the envy of the world, but Aztani Amber is strong, durable, and used even in the Halls of Sibola.

What Aztlan lacks, and imports, is clay, brick, and metals.

Education

Aztani Tanjins are incorporated into every facet of life, and once one is an apprentice, they are still expected to go to Tanjin at least once a week, to learn and share their knowledge, to ensure the success of all.

Women and Girls are required to go to Tanjin, men if their families can afford are encouraged to go, but not required. However, success in life is often dictated by such, so most do.

The Tanjins also serve as the Heralds in Aztani life, producing broadsheets that share all the news, but never rumor or gossip, and they avoid speculation like it was the curse of the powers itself.

Aztani Tanjins teach Aztani script and Azlian language to women, but merely the language to men.

Culture

Values

Aztani have some fairly simple values:

Be Fruitful, Be Mindful, Know Thyself, and Bring Honor are their virtues.

Thoughtlessness, Carelessness, Shame and Cowardice are their sins.

Arts

Aztani prize dance as their most revered arts, including a very ritualized, heavily stylized way of performing stories and tales in much the same way that Durango does it – only for them I tis all through music and dance, with the dancers performing incredible feats of motion and movement, sometimes even standing on their toes!

Noble Fashion

Aztani Fashion is usually positioned in opposition to whatever is going on in Sibola at the time. The degree of seeming competition cannot be understated there.

The current popular colors are a seafoam green and white in flowing, draping lines that highlight the form, capped by a shawl with lace trim.

Women often wear some form of covering to keep their hair from burning or frizzing in the sun and humidity.

Culture Heroes

Nala Usher: The First Queen, the Swiftedge Princess, the Conqueress of Sibola, who founded Aztlan and made real the Aztani people.

Alana Ombre D’Scarif: She singlehandedly slew a hundred and twenty men in a day long battle to defend her tiny village from Sibolan Treachery, and then went on to become the Queen’s Champion and an undefeated Vanguard for over 15 years.

Helena Tidewarden: A common sailor whose love of family and ships became legendary when she forged peace between Aztlan and Islandia and changed the world with a smile.

Cultural Weapons

Aztlan is famous for being extremely good at the use of the traditional weapons of an Aztic warrior. They are also quite well known for their creation, inspired by the work of Islandian and Kerisian armorers, of strong armor called Aztic Scale.

It is a series of small “scales”, interlocked and overlapping, thousands of tiny metal scales backed by a supple, layered leather and silk material. Essentially a copy of the Seascale worn by Sea Realm folks, it is flexible, protective, and gloriously decorative. On some it shimmers like tiny sparkles. Theirs is assembled into a tunic form, and then joined by other pieces. The Aztic style incudes a bustier of some sort as well, giving it a greater weight but more protection, and from the bustier hangs several wide strips of the scale backed by a set of woven thin metal leaves. This split skirt hangs to about the mid-thigh and provides for a very dramatic profile of a well armored woman.

With this, they carry a short bow that unstrung seems to curve towards the front of the bow, but once strung is no taller than the warrior’s torso and is capable of powerful draws. Every member of the Aztani military carries one and is proficient in its use. Aztani bows are often inlaid with precious stones, but not gems.

For close personal defense, they turn to the Aztic Knives that all carry, usually at the small of the back. As a knife, it is a single edged weapon, but quite useful.

Finally, there is the Aztic Cutlass. Heavier than folks realize, it is an effective weapon with a length of 32 inches and a narrow blade that curves slightly at the end with the backside top quarter as sharp as the leading edge, the Aztic Cutlass is very popular among those who would prefer to master a weapon with style – such as Corsairs. A knuckle guard and a two-post cross guard mean the wielder is well protected.

Dorado

Introduction

Nestled against the shores of Parime Bay, the desert sand sea beyond, and surrounded by irrigation canals that turned the transition zone into as rich a field as the chaparral that leads away from it into the gentle lands around the seaport of Deseray on the Blue sea.

Eldorado is famous for the Posse of Eld, who are the protectors of the Train for the Posse of Rails. The 15 years of its being built were bloody, brutal, and now, profitable to a degree few can argue with.

Eldorado is watched closely by the other realms and is known as a place where they can all meet should they need to – formally neutral. It has one unique thing going for it that attracts even respectable nobility to uplift – it is something called a democracy, where each household has a vote in the wider realm. This causes many to shake their heads in disbelief, but it has led to a prosperous, successful realm that may one day change the shape of the world. Some argue it is a kind of poison of the mind that has come over from Antilia, but the Duke just smiles in his laconic way and ignores that.

Dorado
Official Name	El Dorado		Flag
Motto	All for One and One for All
People	Doradan
Goods	Doradan	Doradic	Symbol
Crafts	Doric	Doric
Honorifics	Sirrah	Missuh
Greeting	Hola!		Symbols	Cactus Tree		Eagle
Parting	G’day!		Colors	Blue	White	Red	Plaid
Temples	Kybele	Antelle	Shrines	Qetza		Lamia
Towns	Deseray	Fortaray	Secrets	Timur		Urisha
	Derier	Sandaray	Known For	Horses	Train	Guns	Sand
Rivals	Akadia	Aztlan	Foes	Thule		Duat
Weapons	Doric Mace	Doric Knife	Weather	Hot, Dry		Sunny
Armor	Korinthian Leather		Wealth	+30
Languages	Doradan	Trade	Literacy
Respect Shown	Touching forehead or hat brim with slight head bow to everyone
Folkways	Clothing is strongly gendered – Men, Women, and Enbies all have different clothing pieces.
	A handshake closes all agreements, bonds, oaths, and friendships.
Virtues	Eat it up	Make it do	Wear it out	Do without
Vices	Avarice	Laziness	Whining	Gossip
Skills	Riding	Folk Dancing
See Others	In a hurry, inauthentic, having ulterior motives
Others See	Naive, Lackadaisical, Uppity

The heart and soul of Eldorado is the Ranch (Ranc). It is the basis around which all else arises, and anyone is welcome to start one. All it takes is three months of living in a building on land that the resident walled and then be registered with the local Kinhouse, which costs nothing.

A Ranch is usually a cluster of buildings – House, Barn, Stable, bunkhouse, wellhouse, outhouse. A Ranch is also a settlement of its own. The registered Head of the Ranch is the only member of it that can vote in elections or have a voice on the Kining. They are elected within the Ranch itself, by those on it – ranch hands, family members over 4, other residents – and it can and does change as time goes on, because an election is held yearly.

Ranches are not merely agricultural – they are not a designation of what they do, but rather simply a way of saying home and family. A ranch may be dedicated to dyes, or to ceramics. Most, however, are indeed dedicated to herding cattle, raising crops, and other agrarian pursuits.

After the Ranches come the businesses that are collectives – created by an agreement to put up funding to do something, with all the parties receiving a share. They are the Posses, and many people will work for a Posse – such as the Posse of the Rails.

Eldorado can be a bit wild at times – the Order of Eld is a very visible presence, and those humorless bastards are used for security and patrols. The Prisons are Dwarfin-made, guarded by Wait Dilon, an Elf known for a fanatical adherence to the law.

Eldorado is the only known place where firerth and duretile are found, deep in the desert sand sea, and neither is exported. Controlled by the Eld Posse, they thought to be essential in the use of firearms. The Posses control most of the mercantile supply sources in Eldorado, so the Guilds have to deal with them. The Posse of Mines, the Posse of Stone, the Posse of Rails, the Posse of Sails, and so on dominate the non-agricultural, craftsman sector, and are typically quite good at taking care of their people. The recently formed Posse of Ways is banking on a trip around the world.

Doradan crafts are supported as well by the use of wind- and watermills, which help them to create the fine clays used in their highly sought-after ceramics, and make the vibrant dyes that color their textiles, as well as the flours for which they are known. Doradan ceramics sell for more than any other.

They also have one of the few iron mines known – iron is extremely precious on Wyrlde. It is common for a Doradan home to have cast iron cookware, instead of the usual brass or bronze found elsewhere, often polished to a high gleam on the inside.

Doradan Hamlets, Villages, and Towns are laid out in a grid pattern that does not allow for curving roads or meandering ways. A settlement space is usually about 1,056 feet square and surrounded by roads. Fields are often outside the settlement walls, making them more compact. The fields are still walled – a good wall makes for good neighbors, they say. Usually, stone walls caulked with clay mortar.

The Goddesses of Eldorado are active participants in the lives of its people – a posse leader once called Kybele a whore in a drunken bar fight and was struck by lightning three times. At once. A stranger once insulted a Shrine Maiden of Antelle and found himself a slave in a brothel in Lemuria the following morning. It is even rumored that the Avatar of Paria is to be found in Eldorado.

Each Village or larger has a Kinhouse, Court Hall, Jail h Hall, Market Hall, Craft Hall, Guild Hall, and Temple. Many Ranches have private shrines within them, visited by Shrine Maidens in their readily identifiable sky blue and white.

The catch with starting a ranch is the need to build a wall around a new field and the cost to build a walled residence. It is estimated this is usually around 100 farthing, for a single person building a barely livable place.

Features

Dorado is generally thought to be composed of three regions: Upper, Lower, and the Sand Sea. Dorado proper is located on the Upper region, a plateau space that touches the Great Inland Sea. The

Towns

Deseray: Home of the Farship Posse and the Farship dockyards, where the immense ship for the journey around the world is being built. Rumor has it the massive ship is being called the Nautilus. If it fails, the longtime residents will just go back to fishing and oystering, with the occasional shocking find from the Sea of Silence of Travelers from Antilia. A fishing and trade port along the Blue Sea, best known for the vast marketplace that ships the produce of the Blue Vale to markets in the Sea Realms and the Aztlan.

Seahold: While it is officially a town under Dorado, it is so far removed that even the folks there can’t recall ever being visited by the Duke. Small, peaceful, quiet now that that one wizard is dead.

Derier: Often called the ass end of the world, the only town in the Sand Sea. The town has had a string of really bad luck that hits it – especially the children – roughly every 8 years. No one knows why quite yet.

Legacy

Dry, Arid Dorado is a peculiar vassal state that doesn’t act like a vassal very much and more or less stays out of Imperial politics. The Duke is known to deeply dislike it, and prefers his time spent on more creative pursuits that he says are aimed at making life better for the many.

It is, then, not shocking that shortly after Dorado was founded, the notion of Posses came into existence, and the first two (some say among the first five) were the Posse of Eld, who created the Eldian Pistol, and the Posse of Rails, who, as we all know, created the Enjin that drives the Train.

Dorado is as much the meat basket of the Empire as Aztlan is the breadbasket and Durango the Milk and butcher capital. The primary cargo in those long trains is cattle, heading for the slaughterhouses of Durango.

Outlook

Daisy here comes from Dorado. You might remember her.

Hola all! This ‘un asked me t’let ya know the way of things in Dorado. Well, it ain’t like it were in the bigger places – Dorado is still young y’know. We got Ranches and every ranch has a kitchen that is big enough for all to eat. When we have a communal dinner, everybody brings dishes, they all get put on a counter, and you go along and help yourself.

We say that one should eat it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without. We don’t have time for the fancy clothes and all, as we usually got to get out to check the cows and make sure the heard moves to the next pasture or any of hundreds of chores.

Doradans are rarely in a rush and tend to take the view that steadier is better than swifter, and surety is better than uncertainty. They are not a people who gamble with their futures, though one wouldn’t know it from the Saloons and Casinos.

Now that big place, a Cookhouse we call ‘em, that place is also where everyone gathers. A ranch might have two, three even ten families on it, plus hired hands and more, and we use that place to be a kind of communal house. It will mostly have stone walls, or thick ones made from our adobe bricks. They get used all the time, for anything where a lot of people needed to get together. Schooling, quilting, sings, dances, pretty much anything where more people wanted to gather together than would fit in someone’s house.

When ya go around doing your jobs, e’ryone greets ya, even if’n they didna like ya. And with those who do like ya, there’ll be brief touches, pats on the back, hugs. Back home, we’re a touchy bunch. E’ryone hugs, e’ryone kisses, even some of the folks we call Kingelds, who are kinda like nobles, I suppose. I reckon I never lacked for any of that.

It’s ain’t that e’ryone loves e’ryone else, but where I come from e’ryone is loved by someone and knows it.

That about covers what happens daily, with festivals and celebrations being big events that might bring a ranch into one of the villages or towns or perhaps the big city itself, Dorado proper.

Lifestyle

The Ranchhead is the law on the Ranch proper. Sheriffs are only brought in when they step outside the ranch. This level of authority and power is extensive – it is possible for the head of household to make many rules that limit or restrict those on the Ranch. In practice, this is linked to the laws of the land, which usually act as a limiter on this power. But it also only applies when it is seen, and some ranches are considered particularly foul.

What other places call nobility or Patrons, they call Kingelds. They are usually popular and powerful members of the Kinning, wealthy and respected. Well, mostly.

Guilds have less power in Dorado, but that is often because the guilds don’t actually pay guildsmen like Posses do, and the balance between the two groups is always iffy.

Family

Typically, an individual marries into an established Ranch, unless they are an Eldest child (who are expected to start their own). A merger of Two Ranches does happen, but it is rare. Usually, one of the people has already established one. The family name is the Ranch name, and all people there take that name for theirs.

It is the second Eldest child who stands to inherit the Ranch, with others expected to stay or marry into others to secure alliances, improve trade and support systems, etc. Since the Ranchhead can change by vote, a vote can change who inherits, and a dying Ranchhead can create challenge.

Love matches are the norm, though this can lead to some interesting experiences at the Dances and Festivals.

Government

Ranch heads meet monthly at the local Kinhouse to pass laws, hear appeals, and deal with the function of the government. Each Kining (hamlet up) selects three members to represent them at the next Kining up, so from a hamlet those three would go to a village, and the village would select three to go to a Town, and the town would select three to go to the City. This culminates in the High Kining, representing all the hamlets, villages, towns, and cities, at the Council Hall in Eldorado.

The Kinings also choose the local Mayor, Judge, and Sheriff – often the same 3 they chose to represent them. The Mayor is the local government representative, the Judge the courts, and the Sheriff the enforcement. Cities have Mayor’s Councils and collective courts that seat multiple people based on the areas in the city.

Law is made by the Kinings, who are also the appeals options – local first, with the High Kining the final arbiter. The Kinings select and appoint a Mayor, Judge, and Sheriff for their areas. The Sheriff is charged with enforcing the law, the judge with applying it.

One can hire a lawyer if one chooses or defend oneself. In capital cases, a Jury of 7 is chosen by the judge from those who are not Ranch heads. High value theft, murder, rape, or crimes against children are all capital cases. Sentences are prison, hanging, or, if the guilty chooses an ordeal (usually water, fire, air, or earth). Few choose ordeals.

Eldorado has no standing military, navy, or Skyship group. Each Ranch is itself a defensible area, even within the walls of a settlement, and each usually has a few able-bodied people able and willing to defend it. There are, however, the Orders.

The most famous of these is the Order of Eld, where those who swear the Oath of Eld come from, but there are four other Orders, as well: Eagle, Bear, Cougar, and Coyote. While the Order of Eld is tied to the House of Eld, the others are not, having been chartered, and they often will have members from the Knightly orders in them, but are not knightly orders themselves.

They serve as a kind of militia, for the most part, all following a set chain of command that leads all the up to the generals of each order, and each order handles something. General Miraj overseas the Order of the Bear. They are an infantry group. General Cavalcada oversees the Order of the Coyote. They are a Cavalry group. Admiral Nessa oversees the Order of the Cougar. They are a naval group.

Bear, Coyote and Cougar all have a full division. They also supplement the Reeves who are often hesitant to face the Sea of Sand, which occupies the massive heart of Dorado.

Commerce

The single greatest export of Dorado is cattle. The peculiar grasses found upon the steppes of the upper region are known as being not only well loved, but very good for cattle, and they take care in grazing them. A secondary export is guards. The members of the Posse of Eld are often highly sought after, for it is difficult to argue with the effectiveness of their weapons and the zeal of the wielders. Dorado also has some extensive salt mines.

Dorado imports mostly wood and wood products, but also many of the foodstuffs that are difficult to grow there, such as wheat, coffee, and sugar.

Education

Each Ranch is responsible for the education of those upon it, unless they are in a town or city, where there is a Tanjin. The Doradan Tanjin is very large, but the Town ones are very small, and no one forces them. Most of the smaller ones are one room buildings, with a slate wall on one side and chairs facing it.

Literacy is lower in Dorado, but math is strong, and the folks certainly do talk a great deal and should not be thought of as uninformed. Rumor has it the Duke is likely to require some form of education, as he contributed to a Posse that was formed to help use one of the elements developed for the Train so that people in even small villages could send messages quickly. He is also setting up something called a Postal service. Unsurprising; the Duke has always been strange.

Culture

Noble Fashion

Green and Brown are the most popular colors at present, with plaid a fairly standard addition in a form of it called “gingam”.

Hats are considered a requirement of proper society, and so everyone wears some form, with h styles shown the current most popular versions.

One quirk to Noble fashion in Dorado is that it is also the most common fashion for commoners – unlike everywhere else, they put little stock in trying to show their station through dress.

Culture Heroes

El Miraj: The “crazy old coot” who brought an old sailing ship to the sand sea, and then tamed the fiery desert with it. The village of Mirajin has a Stellae raised to him.

Sufiore El Vandel: The Flower of Dorado, she single handedly defended her Hamlet for two weeks against a regiment of Lemurian irregulars. She was said to be mean as three snakes and a cat in a bucket of rainwater and all shoved in a sack.

Marlow Lovecraft: One of the most famous of the Reeves, he was said to have brought to justice more men than any lawman before or since, and that they always confessed. Some called him the Eldritch Horror. He just called it an honest day’s work.

Cultural Weapons

Most people, when one say Dorado and weapons together, think of the very famous tools of the gunslingers, who originated in Dorado under the banners of Eld and Rose. While those are found in slightly more common ways in Dorado, it is not those weapons which truly defend and mark it.

Doradan Tanners have developed a bit of a linkage to the armorers of the realm, and the result has been a hardened form of hide or buckskin, usually drawn from Aruks, that is much stronger than typical. It is called Korinthian Leather, after the brothers who originally developed it. Equally as useful on the range and in the saddle as it is in a battle, the specially made Korinthian leather, often noted for its smooth, fine, rich, supple, and soft feel and remarkable breathability, while also being deeply durable and weathering well. Korinthian Leather is made through a process that includes weaving a warp-faced textile in which the weft passes under two or more warp threads. This twill weaving produces a diagonal ribbing that gives it a unique look, and the cotton and wool blend alongside and intermingled with sturdy leather is affixed to the special Aruk hide leather using a peculiar bonding method the Posse of D’nym is unwilling to share. Most of it comes from herds around Deseray and Dorado proper.

This armor includes forearm guards that have a long, narrow, reinforced shield permanently attached on the outer part of the arm that runs from wrist to just past the elbow.

The reason for this is pretty simple. While there is a Doric saber, it is about 24 inches long, with leaf shape, narrow at the haft and pointed. Designed for slashing, it isn’t particularly good at getting through the Korinthian Leather, so they went the direction that worked best: The Doric Mace.

The head of a Doric mace has five flanges, each of which is sharpened, and a piercing cap spike to it. The head alone usually weighs several pounds, and if attached to a metal rod and used properly can inflict bone breaking injury. This is what led to the development of the reinforced arm shields.

For distance weapons, they favor small, four to six inch, haftless throwing knives. They are sharp, narrow with a very slight leaf shape to them, but the width is further back. They also have a curved barb on the side and are slightly concave. A standard load out includes a dozen of these.

A long (12 to 18 inches), single edged knife with a broad blade and a curved to a point tip that is thicker on the back side (and often saw toothed along the upper third), is a favorite knife carried by pretty much all Doradans, even women and Youths. The blade is sometimes as wide as one’s hand, and they are typically worn in spine sheaths that can to the non-dominant side. These knives can be thrown by trained folks with deadly effect.

Durango

Introduction

Poets coming to the wharfs would spy the gleaming towers of the city of Duran’go reflecting the morning light in a thousand glittering windows and compose sonnets on sight. Then they would soon regret it, broken and beaten in some alley.

Windy, often cloudy, cool, and rough, the realm of Durango is gifted with the spirit of its people. Four seasons, a vibrant nightlife, and a hand in nearly all the trade throughout the Seven Seas gives it a lot more recognition that it often deserves. The Train comes to it from the Southwest after crossing through Blight’s Pass, and the rich and fertile fields of the many delightful towns and villages. To the East of the City is the Gantry, the graceful towers rising up to greet the Skyships that arrive from all over, and few can match the redoubtable Syndics in their graciousness and good humor.

It is almost a world to itself, with marvelous carriages and cobbled streets among the stone and glass towers that mark it the wonder it is.

Durango
Official Name	Kingdom of Dur An Go		Flag
Motto	Entertain Us!
People	Durangan
Goods	Durangan	Durian	Symbol
Crafts	Duric
Honorifics	Ser, Sera
Greeting	My Friend!		Symbols	Axes		Mask, Harps
Parting	Be Well!		Colors	Red	White	Green
Temples	Mansa	Lamia	Shrines	Qetza		Antelle
Towns	Darthago	Gothago	Secrets	Belial		Timur
	Cikago	Mirlago	Known For	Theater	Museum	Syndicates	Murder
Rivals	Lyonese	Aztlan	Foes	Lemuria		Hyboria
Weapons	Battle Axe, Dirk	Hatchet, Hand Axe	Weather	Cold, Windy		Wet, Humid
Armor	Pocket Armor		Wealth	+35
Languages	Duran	Trade	Literacy
Respect Shown	Place your palms together in front of you nod your head
Folkways	Applause is given through stamping of feet.
	Only one person speaks for a couple. The other stays silent.
Virtues	Loyalty	Integrity	Fortitude	Gratitude
Vices	Betrayal	Ungrateful	Weakness	Indecisive
Skills
See Others	Weak, Gullible, Boring
Others See	Criminal, Performative, Dramatic

Duran’go city is famous for its towers, typically 528 feet to a side and as many as six stories high. These buildings house shops on the lower floors, and homes above, with several families living side by side. The very wide streets are often filled with riders, traditional carriages and wagons, and the popular among the wealthy carriages of the Syndic Ford, which are self-propelled wonders of the Clockworkers. Wind them up and off they go. Those same streets are, at night, lit by equally spaced lamps about 9 feet tall that light themselves at dusk and go out at dawn (though, in truth, people do attend to them).

Weather in Durango is usually overcast, foggy, damp, windy, and unreliable. Rain is often, which helps with the forest’s growth, but it also snows in the winter months with drifts as high as fifteen feet being a common feature.

The streets of Durango are not known for being safe – especially when competing syndicates or Houses are engaged in a war. A drive buy crossbow bolt might not seem like much of a threat, but when a half dozen are flying with no warning, one can never be too careful.

Worse are the duels between the various students and masters of swords or magic that can arise – usually over some woman, and never ending well for any of the parties.

Features

Towns

Cikago: The Durangan Mint and a place of secret rafts and efforts. Said to be a favorite place of the Baron of Karovia.

Mirlago: A farming town known for being one of the most peaceful and safe places in the Empire.

Gothago: A mining town, heavy on the indentured.

Darthago: Site of the largest prison in all of the Empire, and also the place where people are sent to, so they never have to worry about them again.

Legacy

Durango is famous for being filled with entertainment, being corrupt and dangerous, and being a wonderful place to live. This, by itself, says much about the nature of Durango, which imports nearly all its textiles and exports pretty much anything else it can.

Durango is a city of butchers, where the sandwich is an art form, and where the cutting and curing of meat is not the only use of butcher involved. The syndicates control immense areas of the realm and are more often the go to places for justice than the nobles – and the two are involved in a cold-hearted war that is only kept in check by the wars between the nobles and the syndicates themselves.

If you can make it in Durango, you can make it anywhere; from bum on the streets to telling your mother you are on top of the world, Durango is said to be a place where what you can do and what you decide to do can make your future more readily than anyone else. So long as you are willing to forego a few things like ethics and morals – not always an issue for adventurers.

Durango’s six story towers, spreading out from the Palace, the museums and double Arenas, the way that the poorest live in single story shacks nearest the thirty foot high walls around the sprawling city – these are things that everyone knows about and remembers, not the way that a Noble might be gunned down in the street or how the peculiar horseless carriages of the wealthy are something that makes everyone pause – just in case they crossed the wrong person the other day.

Outlook

Durangans are a hardy, tough people, rarely given to jumping at shadows, and tend to be known for being more grounded than most. They must be in a city as famous for its gang wars as it is for its art, wealth, and wonder.

Durangans see themselves as homebodies, but are known to enjoy parties, and graciousness is a major expectation – to refuse a guest is almost a crime, and to be a poor host is a shame and humiliation few will tolerate being accused of.

It is argued there are two kinds of Durangans: The Law Abiding and the Syndic Abiding. There is more than a little truth to it, but also, most folks are a little bit of both. And that streak of independence and strong-willed spirit is part of why there is an ongoing battle between the Syndics and the Crown.

Openly or secretly, the Syndics control every guild, have influence in nearly every trade, manage extortion, provide and ensure there are many delights and fancies, and the only things slowing them down from complete control are the other Syndics, the Circles (because even Syndics do not want an Aztic war group on their doorstep), and the Crown itself.

To understand the politics, it does help to know that they Crown is a syndicate as well, and the King of Durango is a Syndic as well.

All of this, and Durango is known for strange massive buildings filled with precious art called “Musee” and incredible theaters both outdoors and indoors (indoors!) where dance and oratory and more is held. Durango has the best bard colleges in the Empire.

Lifestyle

Alcohol is prohibited in Durango, as is prostitution, the use of the various dread plants like fadeleaf or myicor or going about without a head covering. It takes about five minutes to see that what this means is that the law means little here, and Reeves are busy.

For a realm that has alcohol forbidden, it produces the widest variety of hard liquors and is infamous outside of its area for the quality of its brothels. When it comes to trade, Durango is not a place that many think of; save for their having the best wines, best sugar, and their famously potent distilled spirits.

They are a leading contender for the most items preserved – pickling, canning, jellied, jugged, dried, smoked, salted, honeyed, sugared, and possible ore are just some of the ways that the ever-resourceful Durangans have found to preserve food, using tricks that are all but unknown elsewhere. Durangan sausages are almost as ubiquitous as Aztic pocket breads on ships and are served to passengers on both Skyships and the Train.

The streets of Durango have both horse drawn carriages and clockwork carriages that do not need any sort of horse or mule – they move on their own, following the turn of a large Winding Screw and piloted in the manner of ships of Sky, Sand, and Sea. Surprisingly, very few of its special clockwork carriages ever leave, while gold and antiquities from the Ancient lands are often shipped around the bright lands. The secret of making them has not yet been figured out, and it is said that the Syndicate that makes them does not sell them, merely rents them.

The influence of Syndicates on daily life is immense and taken as a given by the people. The city is divided up into territories, often with themed gangs of enforcers, and while an uneasy and always fragile stability exists much of the time, it often and frequently breaks out into bloody battles, assassinations, the carriage passes that may catch innocents, the mage battles that can erupt.

Add to this the development of a series of passages and tunnels beneath the city that are being used to create a way of moving around it quickly by carriage, and it can become a labyrinth of challenges. Some have said that crossing Durango in a night when wanted by many of the gangs is an epic journey of a specific kind.

Entertainment is of paramount importance, and once Dusk hits, the city switches over to a state of near festival time every single night. Be it grand games, some new theater piece, eating at shops that specialize in serving food and who bring it to you from a list, there is always something to see and do every night.

Durangan homes are usually divided into public and private areas, with kitchens and latrines in between. One innovation that has many jealous is a complex system of copper piping that uses hand cranked pumps to provide water to the various homes, called “apartments”, in which everyone lives. Large cisterns usually reside next to the fireplaces in the homes, which are built of wood with stone between the walls. Windows are usually oval and filled with a clear glass or a curtain. Stairs connect the floors, often to the side of the rooms, and there is always a “backroom” in any given storefront where the family enters and exists.

These homes are often owned by Syndicates or Houses, and the cost of them can vary. Those owned by the Lords tend to be nicer, but the Lords are also less likely to be forgiving of people who break rules or offend them.

Family

The father in a Durangan family is the head of household, and has absolute say over all his children until they are 5. From five to 7, mothers have absolute say over children. After 7, it reverts to the father. People in Durango usually only have one spouse – more would be a bother.

Men pursue women, who are expected to be receptive to a point – but only one man can pursue a given woman at any time, and the woman has the power to end it or identify a suitor of her choice. Only women can apply for divorce in Durango. Women in Durango do not work outside the home and are expected to be pleasing to husbands. Other options are possible, but not as recognized relationships, and those involved are still expected to meet these expectations.

Government

The King is the head of the Government, usually advised by the Queen, the Prince, and assorted Advisors, usually from his Syndicate and/or House. The Royal Family is divided among Dukes, Earls, and Counts, who oversee regions. House Guyle seeks to restore the monarchy and destroy the Syndicates and continues to offer Reeves extra rewards and entreat The Agency.

Houses and Syndicates create their own private laws, however, and most people are members of one or both (including the royal family). This creates a situation where there are often three competing legal forces, with their own goals and objectives.

There are three broad groups of police at work, each serving different legal systems. The Marshals are the legal force, working singly or in teams of 3 to 7. Marshals are infamous for being incorruptible. Grand Marshal Ness would stand for nothing less. Houses often have Highwaymen who see to their interests. They are more subtle, and act as judges and executioner. Syndicates use Enforcers. Known for brutality, and not for sharpness, they too are judges and executioner, but overall, less deadly.

Trial is before a Lord of the Realm, with a jury of 7 for each case. Verdicts are simple, swift, and sentences are fines and confinement. The prisons of Durango are all islands.

The military of Durango is composed of every able-bodied person between the ages of 6 and 10. Education in military law and tactics begins in childhood, and those between 10 and 15 are subject to conscription later by Marshals or in need.

This military force is often variable, for both the Houses and the Syndicates will draw from their rolls for similar functions, but in times of threat, will withdraw. The general purpose of the military is to protect not only Durango, but the Bright lands, should a threat ever arise from the Ancient Land. This ongoing preparedness is a caution built into the very fabric of the nation, from its earliest days when the founders realized they were near the Ancient land.

As a result, there are warehouses stocked with supplies throughout the realm – roughly 5% of all militarily useful materials are pulled every year.

This has led the Syndicates to ensure that such things are provided to those who want them – a saloon in Durango is always a hidden place, requiring knowledge and connections to find. These activities in turn, are opposed not only by the government, but by the Houses as well, some of whom are the main suppliers of such. The Syndics are known to enjoy a good strong drink, and whiskey is one of great popularity, though wine and beer are also made in large amounts. Much of this is formally shipped to such places as Eldorado, Sibola, and Qivira, where the booze is not as limited.

Commerce

When Sibola exiled the Bards, they moved the greatest of the Colleges there, and to this day, the Entertainment stands upon a rise, a sprawling seven towered complex that is considered the greatest Tanjin n all the Empire for those who perform. It even has a school for Vanguards, and is a major sponsor of the Durangan Grand games, which are considered the most festive and the most riotous.

Durango is known for mining Copper, Zinc, and Tin, and for making the durable, strong Bronze and Brass that are used throughout the world. They also have a flourishing lumber trade, and are one of the major reasons that the Train was purchased – they are the meatpackers of the Empire, slaughtering and preparing the cattle shipped by Train to them from Dorado.

Sausage and other forms of meat meant to be preserved are a huge part of their lives, especially the one called Brawurt.

Education

As is common throughout the Empire, children are educated at Tanjins, and here they are all taught to read and write. Critical thinking and obedience to authority are also drilled in young, in the hopes that it will produce more useful citizens. Those who are not as strong on reading and math are often encouraged to enter into other more physical activities, and perhaps even to leave school early so that they might earn a living working for a Syndic as a leg breaker.

Culture

Durangans love to be entertained, and find it in all manner of diversions and distractions. Nowhere else has quite the complex, lively sort of night time activity as you find in Durango – Durangans say that everyone else rolls up their sidewalks shortly after dark.

With the skystone lanterns that light up the sidewalks and brighten the shops, the cafes and restaurants of the city, and the endless array of places to go and be entertained, the only thing that keeps a bit of a damper on it all is the crime – but even the syndicates find the value of such entertainments, and enjoy the ability to provide what folks need that may be frowned on otherwise.

Values

Virtues		Sins
Be Good	Preparedness	Being Evil	Rudeness
Loyalty	Dutifulness	Ingratitude	Betrayal
Fortitude	Graciousness	Dishonor	Ungraciousness
Respect Elders	Integrity

Arts

Theater and Museums are two of the most important features of Durango as a whole, and the two form the final points of the Triangle of Joy with the Grand Games. Museums are scattered throughout Durango, and theaters are said to have a place of honor in every section, from small intimate affairs to large carefully built ones.

Noble Fashion

Duric Fashion is often at odds with the rest of the Empire. Duric footwear is considered impractical by many, especially the women’s version that uses thinner heel risers. They typically wear hats, as additional protection from sudden rain and bright sun, and those are frequently pinned to the head or held on by straps against the wind.

Women are often treated as decorations, and the Durangan word for girlfriend – Moll – speaks volumes because her role is to look nice and be available and little else.

Culture Heroes

Bugs Lansky: Famous for being a Gangster who stopped being one and became one of the most gracious and gentle of nobles after his daughter’s marriage to the Count D’Kristo. His youth was exceedingly violent.

Elias Nest: A Reeve whose ability to clean up a town had become legendary long before he added to it by taking down five Syndicates by himself.

Debora Moll: Her name is now the word used to describe the girlfriend of any powerful figure in Durango, and she herself was a power that held both the nobility and the syndicates in thrall.

Cultural Weapons

Duric arms are a unique thing. For a city that has people drive by in clockwork cars and shoot crossbow bolts at folks on the street, one would expect it to be able to do well.

And to an extent, they have. The weapon that Durangans favor over all others is an axe. Big or small, they have taken to axes the same way that those who first came to this land took down trees with them. There are three general categories of Duric Axe. The axe is often considered a bit of a symbol for them, though it is treated and talked about as if it really means a cleaver, because of the cutting of meat. The axe is a favorite tool and weapon of the syndicates.

Battle Axes, single bladed with a hammer head like opposite end, are space clearing weapons used two handed. More common is the Hatchet. This is a single-handed weapon, a broad blade with a spike on the top and a piercing point opposite the blade, it is sometimes used in pairs by the truly gifted. The final axe is called a Duric Tosser, or a hand axe or a throwing axe. It is a light weapon with a single sharp blade on the head and a flat side behind it that is balanced and weighted to be thrown. A master of this weapon will often have four of them.

As you might gather, Hand Bows are also popular, but as they are outlawed (officially along with swords, which gets enforced surprisingly well) they are kept secret.

Cultural Armor

One other unique Duric thing is the light armor they have. Called Duric Pocket Armor, it relies on a series of small plates stored in pockets throughout a garment meant to protect the wearer. It generally is designed to look as if the wearer is not wearing any armor and is not as useful as something akin to a decent breastplate or cuirass, but it does do the job, especially if you are worried about rapidly moving clockwork vehicles and crossbow bolts.

As many Syndics are. Durango is also where the Snuffer was invented, and most of those drive by killings happen with the killers using hand crossbows.

This tendency to need to be aware of Axes and arrows in the night led to the development of armor that meets the needs of looking to be in fashion and in style, as well as to provide protection – something later stolen from them as an idea by Akadia.

Duric Pocket Armor uses regular clothing with additional pockets in the lining, into which thin, light plates are inserted to act as protection from such straw elements. They do little to protect the head or limbs, but they are focused on being unseen and hidden, potentially giving them a chance to strike back at their attacker after such failures.

Lyonese

Introduction

Tucked into a pleasant broad valley, dealing with seasonal storms, open to the Sea of Tears through eh Sea of Storms and to the Red Sea, where they tend to be more frequently dealing with Lemuria, there is the realm of Lyonese, and it is often thought of as the happier, livelier counterpart to its neighbors – Durango to the north, Qivira to the southeast.

The City of Lyonese is the smallest of all the great Cities, with the countryside having far more villages and minor lordlings than nearly any place else – and they can afford to do that. Villages almost always have streets that are laid out with precision, and frequently laid out with bark from the cork trees and others that are very common around the realm. They are generally cleaner than most, and the shops are very close to each other with wide awnings that reach out into the road and provide extra care from the rain or sun, for Lyonese is also warmer than some places.

Lyonese
Official Name	The Kingdom of Lion’s Rest		Flag
Motto	Find A Better Way
People	Lyonian
Goods	Lyonian		Symbol
Crafts	Lyonic
Honorifics	Dude
Greeting	Dude!		Symbols	Crescent Moon		Bright Plaids
Parting	Later!		Colors	Gray	Gold	Green
Temples	Vulcana	Melane	Shrines	Gallae		Ululani
Towns	Kayer Lundum	Kayer Wikoff	Secrets	Timur		Urisha
	Kayer Leon		Known For	Iron	Steel	Coins	Magic
Rivals	Qivira	Akadia	Foes	Lemuria		Thule
Weapons	Small Spear	Javelin	Weather	Medium,		Pleasant
Armor	Half Plate	Light Crossbow	Wealth
Languages			Literacy
Respect Shown	Smile while placing right hand on left shoulder. Hand Clasp to seal a bargain.
Folkways	Loitering is a sign that one doesn’t have something to do, and not having something to do is heavily frowned upon.
	Most Lyonese have something they habitually fiddle with in their offhand. It is unusual not to.
Virtues	Hard Work	Equity	Fair Value	Cleanliness
Vices	Lechery	Impoliteness	Rudeness	Cheating
Skills
See Others	Indulgent, Ostentatious, Rude.
Others See	Friendly, Pleasant, Hard Working

The houses are pretty much the same everywhere, often made of plastered Wood and stone or wood and brick, decorated brightly, the fronts always having a shop or some sort of area, a few having a side area for crafts and ovens and even large clockwork contraptions. Lyonese is a land of order and creativity, unmoored from the history that shaped it and the Empire, and less concerned about the people around them than whatever is being worked on at the moment.

The Clockwork City is often joked about, somewhat mocked, and yet to see the bright lights of even the Villages and towns, the wide streets, the number of simple magical items used, well, there is a reason that the realm’s motto is “finding a better way”.

By some estimates, as much as a third of the populace is engaged in some way with the products that are exported out of Lyonese, consisting of Wines, Magical Artifacts, Alchemist Brews, and the Clockworks that are in such vogue these days. It is the clockworks that gain the most attention, for they have produced problems in nearly equal number to solutions, but the spirit of Lyonese continues to try and do better, in the spirit of what they call “Innovation”.

Towns

Kayer Wikof: A mining and quarrying town that is famous for having the Witch of the Western Waste pass through and splurge.

Kayer Lundum: Port town that handles the bulk of goods passing through southern Lyonese – and is also a frequent target of raids.

Kayer Leon: A mining town known for the Mint, gold, silver, and platinum, that is also the primary base for the combined Armies of the Empire – Leon guards the most likely course for overland invasion.

Legacy

One of the larger kingdoms in terms of sheer size, it is also one of the strangest overall. They have absolutely no fashion sense whatsoever.

Lyonese are fussy people, selective and practical and focused on the idea of “do your job” and “get on with it, then”. They tend to be in a hurry and are known for being friendly, polite, unwilling to make or take a bad bargain. They are a people for whom fairness is deeply important.

They are also prudish, to a degree that even Durangans approve of, though their style leaves much to be desired. I mean, can you imagine me in a plaid dress? I would look like a sheet ghost with some kind of disease.

They value home and family and work, and for them, that is usually enough, because they have a border that is open to Lemuria, they often have to deal with that kind of stressor as well, and even in combat they have a can do, get it done, finish for the day and head back home attitude.

Outlook

Lyonians talk fast, with longer than normal vowels and a lot of the use of ”like” and “dude”. “So, dude, do you ever, like, go swimming, or, like, boarding?” They are either distracted or not, but most are thinking about the future, or a game of Kress, or perhaps who they will bet on during the next grand games. Strangers in Lyonese are known to often be upset because Lyonians don’t typically stop to chat, and don’t give much attention to others.

From indentured to nobility, Lyonians are a people who find the concerns of strangers unimportant – they are a task focused people, who only begin to relax and unwind and become amenable when their workday is done, and then that time is important. Lyonians dislike decadence but love aesthetics – even if the many varied styles they have are a marked difference from each other.

The villages of Lyonese are a wonderful example of how the people are. They value cleanliness, and day and night there are groups that work to clean them, depositing detritus in vast, smelly piles that are mixed with many other things and ultimately used for fertilizer. They are open to others as a matter of course, and value hard work and dedication to it, though perhaps not to the obsessive near single-mindedness of the Qivirans. But once that is done, they retreat to the place of their personal sanctuary, and unlike most other realms, a Lyonian home will often have a shrine within it, for the Shadow Host is far more popular in Lyonese than elsewhere.

Those homes, hidden behind tall, windowless walls, are where the love and life of Lyonians shines, for they are gregarious and loving people among those to whom they are close.

Lifestyle

The Guilds have a great deal of Power in Lyonese, but this is because they are operated and run by Lyonian craftsfolk. They do this in a collective and representative manner, and as a result Lyonian Guilds tend to annoy and bother those guilds from elsewhere, and there are fewer circles in Lyonese than other realms.

This is because Lyonians are craftworthy folk, a people who do things, who use their hands and their minds to create, to make, to build, to grow. Masters always have at least three apprentices, and competition is fierce, but the thirst for the best made products in the world is huge, and so there is always work, always value, always a buyer for a loaf of the crusty, soft interior loaves and the unique pastas, always a place for the chillchest held fish, always a market for the brightly dyed and intricately woven textiles. It is said that they are collectively upset that they have a hard time getting silk that isn’t already woven, for they want to use it to weave tapestries.

But once the workday ends, they set it all aside and focus on families, who always eat together, who talk about their days, and the homes behind the shops of Lyonese are large, open spaces shaded and shielded from the weather, with small, gorgeous gardens and frescoed walls, warm baths and shared everything. Modesty and privacy are not something one encounters among Lyonian families, though they are excessively so – and lechery is an unwritten crime that can result in a visitation in the middle of the night that ends bloodily.

Lyonians have parties often and love their entertainments – it is said that the Grand Ballroom in Lyonese itself is available to rent by anyone, and that all three stories offer some diversion while the dances and masquerades happen – a benefice of the prior King, who got tired of complaints that there was no place large enough to bring in all the people who mattered to formal occasions. Lyonians are the sort who care about nobility only if it means there is more coin behind it, and otherwise they say that they can pay their own freight.

Lyonians are not the cutthroat traders that the River Merchants or Aztani are. They seek fair value and equity. This makes some think that they are easy marks, and Lyonians will allow them to think that. And then send lesser quality material or spread the word among the guilds about that buyer.

Family

Lyonian families are large, boisterous, and multi-generational. Marriages are often arranged, but with the consent of the parties to ensure success and equity. The courtship is alternated, with men making the first move and women making the second, giving the overall feel of an equitable exchange and ensuring that all can have the feeling of being desired.

They are very free with emotion among family, and they stay such for multiple generations and across lines – siblings will often trade festival hosting and cousins will often be well known. Lyonese families are very strict about their lineage, though, and often that will have an enormous impact, as they seek to ensure a beneficial marriage. There is no bride or groom price beyond a nominal, and the families will often work together to share an immense ceremony, bringing family and friends and collectively wishing the couple a promising future, complete with gifts.

It would be easiest to say that in Lyonese, families are “spoiled” – they are given immense leeway within the walls of the home and expected to be deferential and show proper manners outside of it before others. A friend of mine once said that Lyonian homes are full of housecats that run around on two legs and need to be herded like cattle and watched like lambs, save for when there is food to eat.

It is quite different from other places. One never sees it outside the homes, however While they are genial, it is a politeness and courtesy, and their smiles may not be real or merely tolerant – a requirement of polite society that can be restrictive and daunting at times.

Government

Jarl Farfegnugen IV of House Mall, the current ruler of Lyonese, is a close friend of the Emperor and the Seneschal, and often said to be the third most influential man in the Empire. He is a huge fan of the Grand Games, is a martial sort who is said to have personally fought with Lemurians along the western borders in his youth. He is a hefty man, who loves the outdoors, hunting, and tends to be what many consider progressive, though he has his moments.

Lyonese maintains a standing army, heavily relying on a militia of former adventurers (much like the Jarl himself). They have five huge Destroyers, and several Warships, with a standing Army of 5 regiments. They tend to use ambush tactics and are stationed outside the main city in small Forts that often support a hamlet or are supported by it.

Law is mostly a matter of a court system that follows the Sibolan model, but there are no jails – the worst punishments are Exile and Indenture. Lyonian indenture has a strict limit of one year and enables the criminal to stay at home and not forfeit his belongings. They fine heavily, and they tax slightly higher than most, around 10%, but they do not accept barter.

They rely heavily on Reeves and the Agency for policing – something that in a surprise neither particularly mind, as it is said that Lyonese is the least likely place for a crime, unless it be sabotage and undermining a rival Guilder. Which is not to say that crimes like murder do not happen – they do, and usually through assassination. Guards are not an uncommon thing to find in towns and cities at homes in Lyonese, especially among the wealthier or more powerful, and it is the usual assignment of those who are indentured, knowing that they may have to fight for their lives and the lives they guard.

Commerce

Lyonese is blessed with one of the most important resources one can have: iron. They cannot produce a great deal of it, and making steel is more difficult, but nearly all the iron ore in the Empire comes from the Iron Mines of Kayer Wikoff.

This is further aided by their skill in mining – it is not that they are bad at getting ore out, as shown by the other metals importuned and mined, but rather that they have a limited amount of it – iron is forever one of the rarest metals.

Their facility with metal has led them to become good at things often made of metal, such as clockworks, and sculpture, and the crafts people of Lyonese are considered to be a different style of artisan from Qivira, but no less devoted to their craft.

This last bit is compounded by the Tower of the Outcast, which sits in a ruined heap at the center of the industry of creating everyday magical items that places them on conflict with Akadia. Nowhere else in the Empire can you find a shop that specializes in magical items – though some Incarnates are disappointed to learn that they only sell the everyday items that make life easier for others, such as candle wands.

Education

Lyonian Tanjins teach a lot more about clockworks and rituals than most and tend to select those who have an aptitude for either and place them in separate schools. The Jarl actively encourages these areas, being quite aware of the value of them.

The Ritual Tanjins are said to rival Akadian Colleges, and it is hard to argue with the idea when one sees the number of wands, potions, and assorted paraphernalia that Lyonese creates when compared to the output of Akadian efforts. Where Akadia is a place of solitary magic, Lyonese is a place of collective magic. One good example is a Candlewand. An Akadian Candlewand will light a candle just as well, and often resemble a twig. A Lionic Candlewand will be fashioned and shaped, intricately carved, and beautiful to behold, made perhaps of multiple woods. And it will be cheaper.

Culture

Values

Lyonian Virtues are: Hard Work, Fair Value, Equity, Cleanliness. Lyonian Vices are: Lechery, Impoliteness, Rudeness, and Cheating. What no one will tell you openly is that they have a high value for modesty and propriety.

Noble Fashion

Lyonians usually use wool and cotton blend in their fabrics, tightly woven, and set for flexibility and fluidity. It is very soft, but frays easily and tends to pill.

This matters only somewhat, because they also weave multiple colors together in complex and complicated plaids that are enough to drive someone nuts.

Pink and Red are the colors of choice at present.

Culture Heroes

Peitur & Gwenna: These two inventors exposed a plot to kill the nobility of Lyonese shortly after the last Skyfall and revealed that the ikon of Pallor was behind it, capturing her and turning her over to the Agency. They used some special creations the pair had worked on together that were inspired by the calling card of the ikon: webbing.

Docsav Vager: A renowned adventurer who made a fortune and retired to end up giving nearly all his wealth to those in his then village. These days it is called Diones.

Ethan Blunt: A hero of the Goblin Wars, who defended a refuge by using his wits and the terrain as weapons since no one in the refuge had any and would have been slaughtered or enslaved had he not.

Cultural Weapons

Lyonians are a sturdy people by and large, but they have a marked dislike for getting dirty. This is reflected in the weapons they use, which are rather fascinating. First, they may carry dirks, but the primary weapon of Lyonian troops is a cross braced Spear fit to their shoulder height. It has an elongated leaf-shaped blade, sharp and wide at the base, like the sort used for killing boars. It is a heavier than normal spear, with a counterweight at the base much like a Sibolan glaive, but not nearly as useful. To go with it, they use a dozen light, metal tipped javelins, hurled using a thrower that leverages their strength and has been known to pierce armor.

Lastly, they are often equipped with light crossbows of a distinct design that only requires a cocking mechanism and can be handled even by children. At close range, they are devastatingly powerful, and each typically has a load of a half dozen bolts, and they carry around 18 to 24 in carts of six that fit into the crossbow. To date, only a handful of the Lyonic crossbows have been seen in the wild, but rumor says they are preparing to sell them in mass.

For armor, they tend to rely on fitted metal breastplates and light helms, with stiff, oiled leather sections at other points. This is called Lyonian Half-Plate. It is heavy, and expensive.

One other aspect of Lyonian military forces is that they are always flying something they call a pinnon. It is a small, triangular flag that drapes off the end of a lance, marked by assorted Guild and House elements, defining the unit’s sponsor.

Qivira

Introduction

The Realm of Secrets and Shadows, ruled by the powerful Shaga, currently Sahara Shang (who got there through a calculated series of actions following a recent civil war) is always a fascinating and powerful reminder that Wyrlde is not always so easygoing, and that beneath a serene surface can lie a deadly trap. The Shaga insists that all who come are welcome in her peaceful land, and that pleasure will be yours.

To most, Qivira is a land of laughing people, who delight in wordplay and games of skill and chance. Like their neighbors, they seem to go about their daily lives with joy and contentment, often smiling and unfailingly polite, following what sometimes seems to be a very rigid and structured life.

Qivira
Official Name	The Shaganate of Qivira		Flag
Motto	The Greatest Gift is Competence
People	Qivran
Goods	Qiviran		Symbol
Crafts	Qivric
Honorifics	Sahan	Sahar
Greeting	I see you.		Symbols	Bamboo		Butterflies
Parting	Be seen!		Colors	Green	Blue	White
Temples	Tamasin	Melane	Shrines	Ululani		Lamia
Towns	Damashi	Tokoshi	Secrets	Pallor
	Valashi		Known For	Bamboo	Lacquer	Dyes	Artisans
Rivals	Aztlan	Lyonese	Foes	Lemuria		Thule
Weapons	Blood Sword	Small Spear	Weather	Four Season		Warm, Humid
Armor	Qivric Lacquer	War Fan	Wealth
Languages			Literacy
Respect Shown	A deep bow or curtsey while keeping eye contact.
Folkways	Shoes are never worn indoors. They are stored in small cubies near the door on the broad porch of a Qiviran home.
	Qiviran do not receive gifts, they give them. When leaving a gift one, set it aside near them without saying anything.
Virtues	Gracious	Disciplined	Skillful	Composed
Vices	Dishonesty	Envy	Wrathfulness	Selfishness
Skills
See Others	Overly loud, easily read, ungracious
Others See	Secretive, artsy, private, rigid, inflexible

The rigidity and structure of Qivira is perhaps its true strength and apparent weakness. These diversions are a necessity – as it is the duty of a noble to look after those in their care and be willing to sacrifice their own well-being to ensure they achieve it. Letting someone in your charge be hungry is a crime in Qivira.

The Civil War has been a quiet affair, but deeply disrupted trade and damaged the country. Sahara’ late husband was the prior Shaga, and on the first month anniversary of their wedding, he sought to kill her. It was a night without moonlight, and a storm raged outside, and the Shaga of the day feared his new wife had brought a curse with her. As they struggled, back and forth, in a quiet battle, she began to tell him tales that captured his curiosity and interest, and for a year and a day her death was held up, whereupon he died the following morning and his son from his former wife was set to became Sultan. Sahara was not pleased by that and ordered the death of all of the former Shaga’s wives and concubines and all issue from them. This sparked a rebellion among the nobles and court officers, and so there was a very bloody seven year long civil war – during which Sahara proved not only capable of leading the nation, but of out thinking her enemies. She is sometimes called the Tokugan, or Warlady.

That was five years ago, and the Shaga still rules. This gives much of the character of Qivira in one blow – they are a people of passion, of superstition, and of piety. The lands are high steppe, fertile but stony, and require much work to bring from them the fruits of one’s labor. This close tie to the elements has led the people to become more aware and more involved with the spirits of the world, and they are welcoming people who care not about what you did before coming here but care deeply about what you do while you are there.

Qivira is very different from the other realms, and few would say ill of them – lest they find themselves visited in the night.

Features

Towns

Damashi: A famous mining Town and site of both a Station and a Gantry.

Valashi: A farming town that handles a great deal of agricultural trade and is the Shagan’s spring palace.

Tokoshi: A mining town that has at least one Syndicate who has wormed itself into the fabric of the town.

Legacy

Emerging from a quiet civil war under the unifying leadership of the Tokugan, Sahara Shang, Qivira is a land that is loved deeply by spirits and by the Fae and is possibly the prettiest realm of all. Massive forests of bamboo and other strange trees, the mines and the way that everyone is driven to become the best at their art, craft, or duty, the unpredictable weather and the willingness to cut down for even minor infractions create a complicated picture of a land that many just say is secretive, though about the only secrets they have are from those who say that.

Qiviran are studious, stoic, observant people who are big on tradition, consistency, and who seek and strive for perfection.

Outlook

The people of Qivira are interesting – much like the folks elsewhere, but with a devotion to mastery that is based in a love of the world itself, the beauty of it. Very pastoral, Qivira is a realm of safety, though it still has its walls. Wooden or clay, and not nearly as tall.

Qivira is gorgeous. It is green, with tall trees and immense forests of bamboo and more. Qiviran people do not like to disturb the natural world, seek to live in harmony with it, and it is a favorite place of respite for the Rangers of the world. The people know this, and they delight in the way that they can use the world around them to shape a space and a place for themselves that is in tune with not just the trees and soil, flora and fauna, but also the spirits of the world and even the denizens of the outer planes.

Sheltered by mountains, Qivira commands the region that is known for the most delicate and wonderful sculpture.

Qivira is tied to the world around it, and the people have a strong habit of surprising others with gifts of summoning. It is common to see a summoning circle used here, or to stumble across a summoned servant. The Qivira have even developed ways of summoning people, binding them the same way they bind being from the outer planes. This has, in turn, led to a great many Cambion, but also a great deal of stories and tales about deals and bindings going wrong.

It can be a bit much.

Lifestyle

Qivira is a difficult place to survive at times. While there is rain, the soil is quickly dries, and this makes it difficult to rely on. The river systems are mostly small streams, easily forded, but prone to flooding in sudden waves that sweep through the narrow canyons.

Still, they have surprising ability to endure, and rather than work against nature, they work with it. Qivric crafts are prized by many for their attention to detail and their love of plant and animal inspired motifs, even though most have never seen the animals so depicted. There is a sense of obsession about attention to detail, about pursuit of perfection, about authenticity and exactness that makes the works and arts and crafts of Qivira unique and highly prized, though they can take much longer to craft and form. This obsession carries into every aspect of daily life, as they have rituals and patterns and ways to do everything, from pouring tea to how to comb one’s hair to even just the different degrees of what is acceptable kinds of kissing in public and where and how.

Despite a high level of poverty, most Qivira people are happy, healthy, and able to meet their needs among themselves – which seems to be all they want.

The social position of women is somewhat better than in other cultures, and women have a substantial influence in decisions about the domestic economy. In the past, some women participated in collective magical ceremonies and rituals, and rituals still seem to be thought of as women’s work. They are generally expected to be supportive, to be courted, and to be submissive, but the reality is that these are only about the appearance of such. Even the Shaga seems and strikes one as demure and courteous, but then she, you know, kills all her rivals. This is despite a series of rules and laws that require separation of genders in all activities.

There is a burgeoning trade between Lyonese and Qivira in the thick, bamboo framed flying tapestries that are produced by the House of Morlin and the House of Aladin.

It seems that Lyonese has found greater interest in them than the Skyships of the House of Skye.

Family

Qiviran have a close attachment to their home, especially when this consists of the traditional self-sufficient, family-run farm, as Home in this context is synonymous with family roots. They call their houses a Lodge. They are a matrilineal people. Ancestral descent is traced through the mother, and children are considered born into the mother’s House and are part of her people. Traditionally, a young couple move into the bride’s parents’ lodge. People work together in collaborative ways, marked by both independence and cooperation, without coercion. Both women and men are active in political life, with independent decision-making responsibilities.

Within the lodge, each family divides activities by the three classes of women:

Mature women (usually married and mothers), who do most of the labor; young single women, just learning their responsibilities; and older women, who look after the young children. Women tended to be responsible for decisions about resource allocation, trade, and inter-lodge social negotiations as well as spiritual/health issues. Men were responsible for decisions which pertained to hunting, rafting, and business. Among the collection of lodges, the roles for men are essentially older men, who support and pass on the rituals; mature men, who are charged with care of the family as a whole; and younger, single men who are expected to rise to mastery quickly.

Both men and women may have up to three spouses and not more than two concubines (a term applied to all genders), but all must be provided for, and all must live in the same lodge.

Their inheritance patterns favor survival of the unity of inherited land holdings. In a kind of primogeniture, these usually are inherited by the eldest male or female child.

It is the father’s religious obligation to find a suitable husband for his daughter and it is recommended that the husband be intelligent, well-brought up, and have a productive land. Furthermore, it is the father or guardian’s duty to represent the bride and negotiate a marriage contract. The contract stipulates the money and property that belong to the bride, defines the clout of the husband, and characterizes what restrictions can be placed on the wife.

A woman could choose not to marry the man that her father picked out. If the woman’s father has not found a suitable husband for her by the time she reaches the age of 24, the woman can marry whom she wishes without the consent of her father. The father is not allowed to disinherit his daughter for doing this, but if the daughter still proceeds in marriage her inheritance can be reduced. The husband is required to give a marriage gift of the stipulated amount to his new bride. This gift is fully in her possession, including in the case of separation, and the husband could not decline to pay the bride-price.

A man is legally required to marry a woman if she is unmarried, and he has slept with her in the same room.

The five elements play a significant role in Qiviran society, and there are many small altars to elemental powers. This may be borne out by the high percentage of Semihuman people among the population – nowhere else are there so many Cambions and Seraph. Of note is that Therians are not allowed in Qivira settlements – there are many ancient stories about wicked spirits that they resemble, and the hostility towards them is palpable.

Qivira tend to be much freer about people than in many other realms, and as a result have a higher percentage of Halflings than anywhere else. Indeed, because Halflings tend to be better liked here, they outnumber their relatives, and intermarrying is quite common.

Qiviran Surnames only exist when one is married. Each spouse takes as their surname the given name of the other. Lineage is tracked through the mother, who has a House to which they belong. Houses have all founded villages, and it is said that Sheba was the first inland village, though Samarkand is the second.

Government

Qivira is ruled by the House of Shang, one of the 27 founding Houses of the realm. The port city of Qivira is a bit calmer than the Interior, possibly due to the influence of the Shaga, one of the famous Song daughters from Qivira. The Shaga is a strong ruler, very much a part of her people. She maintains the custom of knowledge of the Dark Arts, as magery is called in Qivira. They call magic which focuses on healing and protecting to be White Arts.

Formally, the Shangs delegate oversight to families and in favor of aristocrats – but there is a price for that responsibility. All people are grouped by House, and the legally designated head of the household is personally liable for all the actions, and responsible for the well-being of, those in their charge – on pain of significant punishment.

Although the royal family controls the laws, they have created laws that defend the rights of all citizens, which govern much of the way that life in Qivira is lived. They have also instituted a set of laws that govern behavior and tradition, deeply detailed down to dress, terms, and sounds usable.

She sits at the head of the Shura, usually silent, but unafraid to speak up before her viziers – she appointed all of them, though, and has faith in each of them. The Shura makes no law that has already been made, but there are many arguments about should punishments change. Much of what they deal with are affairs of state, and interpretation.

The Viziers are a body composed of the assorted nobility of Qivira, leadership in settlements, with an appointed Chancellor acting the police and judge for most hamlets and villages.

Qiviran Law is fairly simple and very direct: Don’t steal, don’t dishonor the dead, don’t be disrespectful, and so forth. They use a prison system, with specific sentences for each crime, and they never run concurrently. They have more prisons than anyone else, mostly filled with those on short stays of a month or so. The worst cases are sent to the prison island of Blackden. Religious crimes are sentenced to Ararat, a mountain prison. Most are carved below ground and are guarded and noticed only by the small building that sits atop them.

Appeal can often take longer than the sentence.

There are two types of mounted military units – The Cavalry and the Charioteers. Both are noted for their heavily armored mounts and riders, and the Qivira military makes grand use of their many types of mounts and long spears or glaives as standard weapon, mixed with short swords. They do not commonly use shields.

The Mounts are how the units are divided – Elephants, Horses, and a strange, six-legged, deer like beast called a Skurah are the three main forms. The Skurah draw Chariots, the Elephants are akin to warcraft, and the Horse are used similarly to Infantry elsewhere.

Units are built in teams, including support and logistics, a variance from the norm that employs oxen and goats in teams so that each unit at the Cohort level or above is completely self-supportive. There is little that a unit cannot do on its own, including mobile forges. This does mean that a cohort is around 200 soldiers in size, each of them a fighter, but with specific additional skills. This is why there is no infantry.

The Qivira have faced the wrath of Lemuria in the past and developed wicked ballistae in response that have immense range and great accuracy, typically able to ignite fires even on Skyships.

Roughly half the world’s supply of salt comes from Qivira. They are also known for using a unique strong material in their weapons and armor – lighter than steel, not quite as strong unless adamant is added. Qivric weapons and armor are around two thirds the normal weight but provide slightly less defensive ability. They use little iron, as importation is expensive, but they also provide many of the alternative metals in the world.

Taxes in Qivira are used to provide income for the needy, including the poor, elderly, orphans, widows, and disabled people first. After that they go to funding military needs, and then other needs. There is a minimum tax paid by all who are of modest or higher means equal to 10%, in addition to the expectation of Tithing at the Temple (10%) and to a 10% tax on all exchanges. The last two are expected of even visitors.

Healing in Qivira is developed around the presence of something called a hospital, where healers work together and where the sick are brought. These are large buildings, and beautiful.

Commerce

Copper, Gold, Silver, Electrum, Orikal, Skystone, Tealiron, Vitredur, Bamboo, Woven Fabrics, Lacquer, Dye, Pigments – Qivira is a central hub of trade, with immense wealth that emerges from their densely forested region. They import a great deal, but they export only a little, in terms of sheer volume – this is the value of Qiviran goods. As one of the Southern lands, they are seen as wealthy, and their secrecy makes people think that they are more wealthy, perhaps, than the truly are.

Education

Education in Qivira is divided, and required of all, but there is very little mingling of the genders as it is seen as unseemly. Education at Tanjins is strange, in that they have separated them not just by gender but by age, with Tanjin for each of the stages of growth, and that as they leave to enter an apprenticeship, they cease their formal education. Reading and writing is expected of everyone, but in villages and hamlets, there is generally a lower degree of literacy due to the interruption of chores, and farms and such.

Culture

Values

The Virtues of Qivira are: Quiet, Appealing, Composed, Graceful, Gracious, Skillful, and Disciplined.

The Vices of Qivira are: Selfishness, Wrathful, Dishonor, Rudeness, Envious, Disloyalty, Dishonesty

Weapons & Armor

They make a soft, supple yet strong fabric that rumor says is woven from metal, wool, and cotton spun into a single thread. Very expensive, it is prized by many noble families. They also have developed a way of strengthening it with bamboo and using lacquer on it, perhaps in a flexible weave of some sort, that is used in the fabrication of armor that is quite durable and also allows for intense creativity in design and sculpting. Qivric Lacquer armor is a bamboo plate type of armor, fashioned to be terrifying but also functional.

Qivira weapons are also unique looking, being light, flexible spears with tapered, flat heads that can be detached and left in a victim from the spear body. Most will carry a dozen spearheads, and the pole itself may be of any material, but is often a filled or laminated bamboo.

Some will use the Blood sword, so named for the deep channel that runs down the length of it. A blood sword is a single edged, somewhat curved blade with an angled to a point tip. This has given them a unique fighting style that is incredibly powerful and is outside the more rigid style of the rest of the empire.

Lastly, they also use fans, typically 12 to 18 inches long, fashioned of metal with bamboo between them, folding into a somewhat thick base. When extended with a flick, they are sharp edged and very sturdy, often used in pairs.

Noble Fashion

Qiviran wrap themselves. Nearly all their clothing is a variation on a kind of wrap with sleeves, and is always meant to be worn in layers, coming off only in private and among family or when enjoying one of the many hot springs and warm baths they indulge in.

Simple undergarments, often gray or white, are worn beneath wonderful embroidered and delicately colored robes with tight sashes. They wear shoes that keep their feet up out of the mud – often the platforms and heels are three inches thick – and they have the distinction of having invented both the umbrella and the parasol, and those are pretty much required of everyone.

Culture Heroes

Bukaru Bonzie: An absolute genius of a Runewright, famous for some incredible adventures. Among them was a time when he devised a carpet vehicle that allowed him to slide through the Veil and into the 8^th Dimension. Unfortunately, he was killed in the last Skyfall.

Sahara Shang: The current Shagan, who orchestrated a coup while preserving her own life and used it to restore order and depose a widely hated ruler.

Himione Kriket: the stories of Himione vary but what we do know is that they were an orphan who washed up in a storm outside of Chenmar, starved, beaten, and barely alive. No one had ever seen anything like Himione before – a person with the ears and tail of a cat, that would hiss and spit like one? After escaping from a traveling Bard’s little wagon show, Himione began to have adventures that no child should ever have been able to have, and at one point grew a second tail! There are a hundred and more stories of Himione. Nearly all are true, though a full-grown Panther hadn’t been encountered this far south before, nor had anyone ever been known to escape a Thulian raiding ship.

Sibola

Introduction

The Heart of the Bright Lands, Sibola is the oldest City, and the root of the great tree of the Empire. Founded at the end of The Bleak Journey, it lies where the river Havenrill flows into the sea. Sibola is the Father of Cities; if what you seek cannot be found here, then try Durango for your criminal proclivities.

The City of Sibola, from which the Realm gains its name, is an immense city, circular as became the custom from it, with several rings. It is divided into five rings, each of which is separated from the others by a wide channel filled with water and this includes the outer ring, which is reach only through the canals or by one of the bridges – each ring is connected by eight bridges, each bridge tall enough for the great ships or able to be raised for passage during a bells. Each of the eight great roads meet at the center circle, where the high walls tower over the docks and therein lies the seat of the empire and the Imperial palace.

Sibola
Official Name	The Empire of Sibola		Flag
Motto	The Promise of the People
People	Sibolan
Goods	Sibolan		Symbol
Crafts	Sibolan
Honorifics	Sama, Sana
Greeting	Ho!		Symbols	7 Pointed Star		Crown
Parting	Blessings!		Colors	Gold	Black	White
Temples	Mansa	Antelle	Shrines	Kybele		Gallae
Towns	Karovia	Dispavia	Secrets
	Monrovia	Torovia	Known For	Military	Wheat	Barley	Oats
Rivals	Aztlan	Qivira	Foes	Lemuria		Thule
Weapons	Sibolan Glaive	Light Crossbow	Weather	Cold, Dry		Stormy
Armor	Piece Plate	Sibolan Shield	Wealth	+40
Languages	Sibolan	Trade	Literacy
Respect Shown	A bow or curtsey. Women can only ever curtsey.
Folkways	Women are to be seen, not heard. A woman who does not know her place should be taught it or better controlled by the man in charge of her.
	Manners Maketh Man. A man is responsible for the actions of all those in his charge.
Virtues	Prudence	Temperance	Justice	Fortitude
Vices	Lust	Sloth	Wrath	Pride
Skills
See Others	Not knowing their place, animals, uncouth and ill mannered
Others See	Can’t stand ‘em, can’t get rid of ‘em

Sibola is known as both the wonder of the Age, and as stuck hopelessly in the past. This mix of history and apathy are made worse by the continued absence of the Emperor, who decided that Zefir was his personal playground and hasn’t left the God’s Isle in a decade.

Those in Aztlan will tell you that the biggest problem with Sibola is there are too many men in charge of too many things, and this is not a false observation. While not a formal or legal rule in all cases, the truth is that men have the power in Sibola, and specifically Imperial men.

While it is true that the Emperor forbade Bards, there is no truth to the rumor that Empire is without song or music or dance or theater. It is still the heart of the world, and offers the most refined shows, even if they are getting a bit long in the tooth. Bards, being such, are generally unconcerned and simply avoid putting on shows that show the Emperor in a bad light. Wisely, as well: it is a crime to speak ill of the Emperor.

The Lay of the Land

The northern parts of Sibola start at the Gates of Isen, traveling down through the wooded valley that is the realm, surrounded by tall mountains capped by snow year-round. Ships and Riverboats handle much of the trade, but the City has a Gantry and is one of the two terminus points for the Train.

Sibola is mostly lightly rolling hills, with large rock formations that seemingly burst out of nowhere – some are remains of the Skyfalls, but most are simply exceedingly large stone boulders.

Sibola has quite a lot of forest, but fields are readily carved into it, and they produce significant amounts of food, including enough to export (mostly to Dorado and Islandia).

Sibola has several Towns, each supported by various villages, hamlets, and steadings.

Karovia is the best known of them. Monrovia is said to be the gateway to the Savage Lands of Hyboria (and thus Kahokia), Torovia is the major mining town, and Dispavia is a challenge being torn between the influence of Durango and the pull of the great Sea of Tranquility.

The City

The City of Sibola is the largest City in the Empire. It is a massive place, consisting of concentric rings of alternating water and land. The Outer Ring is connected to the Sea itself, entered only through the Gates of Isen, consisting of two massive statues (Dedicated to their patrons) reaching hands across the gate, the arms and clasped hands being the support for the massive metal netting that hangs from them plunging to the seafloor.

The Vast harbor facilities are matched on the interior and exterior of each ring, except the final two, which have only a single Dock reserved for the Imperial Family and the nobility.

The waterways are crossed by massive bridges that are highly arched over wide passages able to allow five of the largest ships to pass beneath each at a time. Only four bridges cross to The Grand Arc, from which three huge bridges reach the mainland across three major caravan routes into the fields and farms of the folks who live around the great city in an amalgamation of hamlets and villages.

Each Barony is pretty much a large Village or a small Town all on its own and operates as independently as is possible under the Count’s ever watchful eye and the Duke’s administration. The exception is that all Inns are restricted to the Grand Arc, and Pubs are limited to the Outer, or First, ring. The First Ring is the Merchantry, the Second ring is the Guilder, the Third ring is Patrons, and Inner Ring is for Nobility and the Imperial family. The inner rings are walled to the sea, with slim, tall, conical cap watch towers that are spread every 50 feet along the 30-foot-high wall, the stone walls sheathed in a brilliant pink and white marble from the highlands, gleaming and inviting travelers to come to the fairest of all the cities. The walls are thick and house the Imperial Guard.

The Grand Arc is walled only on the landward side, with three mighty gates each housed in a twin towered gatehouse. These walls are of solid stone, the outer edges thicker than a man is tall, the height of the walls reach five stories, and within each of the four sections reside the Sibolan Guard, for the walls are where they live and work.

Outwards from the city, a vast wall rises and encircles the land two miles away from the first water ring, with four mighty gates. Between the first Water ring and the walls lie the vast farmlands that feed the city and house those who farm. Beyond the outer wall lie the pastures and more fields, stretching for at least five miles in all directions.

Do not let your usual first overland experience of Sibola – the high Gate fee of nearly ten shillings, or the high tariffs on goods from outside are but minor exceptions to the beauty and wonder that is the shining city. Sea Tariffs are no different – though there is some truth to the rumor that some baronies will charge overly high dock fees.

Towns

Karovia: Along the Pilgrim’s Path to the sacred green, oldest and most noble of the towns. The Baron there is bother to the Seneschal, and one of the most powerful rulers in the Empire.

Monrovia: Gateway to the wild peoples. Lots of contact with Hyborian and Kahokian folks. Site of the Treaty signing.

Dispavia: upstart little town that has far too much influence from Durangan Syndicates in it, known as a major mining town.

Territories

As the heart of the Empire, the principal power, there are some territories that it claims for itself, though two are in constant dispute.

Buyan

Buyan is a broad, rugged area of land where the two empires meet in the Southeast, and is the site of the ongoing Crusades, and the perpetual front in the war between Lemuria and Sibola.

The only known land route between the two empires lies through the pass that is protected by the Lyonian Town of Kayer Leon, and rather than fight a war there, the Emperors have chosen to take the fight to Buyan.

The Red Sea, southeast of it, is a known range for piracy and considered the most dangerous waters in the world, as the Navies of Sibola, Lyonese, Qivira, and Aztlan are joined by Corsairs and Privateers who engage against the maritime power of Thule and Lemuria within these waters.

Buyan is a hilly expanse, with the Lemurian-held forest to the southwest, and the Western Waste to the north.

Within this vast tract of hills and spare vegetation there stand innumerable keeps and towers, forts and camps, over which the two Empires war, sacrificing much for little gain, trading and taking, moving forward and falling back, as the time and circumstances dictate.

It is a stalemate, and neither side can risk stopping.

Zefir

Nestled comfortably in the Sea of Tears lies the island and city of Zefir. It is believed that Zefir could house a hundred thousand families and as many as twenty-five great Realms worth of royalty. It is immense, and the most startling thing about it is that no mortal hand built it.

Zefir was raised, whole cloth, from the Sea by the combined effort of the Seven and presented as a gift following the last War of Succession. The goal (and, thus far, success) of presenting the location was to give the leaders of each of the great Realms a place to meet yearly, at the Grand Convocation, where they collectively make decisions about the whole of Wyrlde.

Zefir is a large island, with sheltered coves, broad beaches, and tropical greenery combined with large areas for growing food and forests for wood. There are twenty-five distinct piers radiating out from it, each one just barely within sight of the nearest two, that are anchored to the seafloor by thick stone plinths and pier supports. Each can moor at least ten of the large tradeships.

Rising from the center of the island, surrounded by great beauty, and reached by five simple roads that are linked from the piers, is a stone city. The walls of the city are seventy-five feet thick and forty-eight feet high, capable of housing a massive army within the walls while also providing them with storage, billeting, and logistics needs. The five gates are flanked by two towers, eight stories tall, which control a series of three gates and can be used to divide and break up those entering for defense.

Within the city center is an enormous twenty-five spired castle of crystal, rising without break from the ground and the central feature of it is a vast chamber with alcoves and side rooms that surround a huge table of white, smooth, stone capped with an unknown metal. Around it sit twenty-five chairs, each equally ornate, and while most of them are blank, 11 have symbolic markings within them that were not put there by mortal hands. The chairs are a marvelously light material but extraordinarily strong. This place is the Council Hall. It has the capacity to support the rulers and their retinues of 50 or so.

Surrounding the Council Hall are shops, homes, stables, toilets, ovens, temples and more, all of them following a fairly simple plan of a single square box with a low walled side garden. Windows are filled with a mica like substance that is clear and hard, and do not open or move – the roof has several vents, however, that can be opened from within through a series of levers built into the walls. A large fireplace sits within each one, and there are rails for curtains across the ceilings. Doors are all hinged without any sign of break so they can be removed – it is as if it was all fashioned of one piece.

There is a strange sense that one gets when at Zefir that makes it uncomfortable for many. As a result, there are few who will live there year-round. The exception is the retinue of The Emperor and the Emperor himself. The Emperor has made Zefir his permanent home, and does not leave, and is guarded by his Imperial Troops and served by his retinue.

Early in the year there is an influx of people for two weeks as the rulers make their way to the island. By Flower 1^st, they usually have arrived and set up, and that day is filled with ceremony as they begin the yearly convocation, which will end usually mid-week of the third week of Flower, around the 13^th.These trips are both well-known and quite secret – the routes, the approaches, the whole purpose is obscured even though people know this is happening. The level of intrigue and risk of assassination are high.

The Vale of Dreams

In the South of the seven Seas lies an immense vale cut in two by the River of Dreams, with the Lake of Dreams at its heart, and is the only full water route between the Outer Seas and the Seven Seas.

Laid claim to by Sibola, Aztlan, Dorado, and Qivira, it is a contested and critical space that is also one of the last ways to prevent incursions into the broader Empire by Thulian or Duatian ships.

All of the major Realms that lay claim to it have large garrisons stationed there, and it is an area of intense political and military tension.

Legacy

Arabesque will tell you about how wonderful Sibola is, and how the Sibolan people are the most incredible and most amazing. They are the heart and soul of the Empire, and Sibola is the Oldest City, the Father of Cities. It is Sibola where we all finally stopped out long and terrible march, the Bitter Road, the Bleak Journey – and Sibolans never let you forget that.

Everywhere else, all the Seven Cities, has come from this one, and the world is defined in relation to it. Sibola has the most people, the best materials, the finest craftsmen, the wealthiest nobles, the most outgoing Merchantry and dedicated Guilders.

Sibola is the baseline against which all others are measured or described, the foundation upon which all others must reside. It is the seat of the Empire, the center of the world, and the people know it. Not just Sibolans; everyone.

Attitude

Sibolans see themselves as the best of the rest and view their startlingly clean city as a shining example for all those others who were disgruntled and troublemakers. They have a deep and abiding mistrust of Bards and Mages, especially any who have ties to Akadia. This mistrust has two different causes. For Bards, it is simple: one insulted the previous Emperor grievously, and so they were officially outlawed. Performances and such were not, but those who use magic as a part of theirs are forbidden and this was an immense challenge to the College that was eventually raided and shut down by force.

Dwarfs tend to cluster in the fifth Ward, where the Duke is amenable to them, and Elfin softly live outside Sibola proper, especially since the rise to power of Acrasia, slowly swelling the Village of Acrasian, her Fief. Acrasia, one notes, is close to the Princessa.

This is seen as just because the purpose for which they were made is long past, and they are no longer needed. For the most part, Sibolans just hope they will all go away and treat them with a sort of malign neglect.

The one exception is Therians. Sibolans tend to have a deep dislike for them, keeping hold of an ancient tale that speaks of how they harassed and hindered and stole children during The Bleak Journey.

They also are known for clinging to the ancient stories of The Bleak Journey, as they call it. Grudges are almost an art form in and of themselves in Sibola, and people have long memories, even if the tales and stories get twisted over time.

Lifestyle

Sibola is not particularly literate, and so each noble has a set of Criers whose job it is to post, recite, and call out the edicts and rulings each day from the previous day to the general public. Criers all have assigned stations along major streets in wards and villages and towns.

All of the Great Houses have members within the elite of Sibola. The major houses are Usher (Royal Family Line), Stark, Walker, Grissom, Kardas and Wikoff. House Wikoff has four of the ten Wards, to the other’s single wards, and Kardas is of course the Seneschal and House of Karovia. Grissom has the village of Verlin and Stark has Lundun. That gives them significant power over trade, though House of Walker has the Port itself.

No non-Imperial person can enter into sanctioned marriage in Sibola. Nor can they inherit. Marriages performed elsewhere are accepted but will not be done within Sibola.

Married Women in Sibola are not able to own property or own a business. They are forbidden to learn to read and are subject to the rules of their eldest male relative or their husband. Women cannot inherit and cannot accrue a debt – the debts of a woman are the responsibility of her keeper. Which is not to say that women are powerless here. They can file for divorce, refuse a marriage, and run an establishment even if it is owned on paper by someone else.

The peculiar thing is that this only applies to Imperial and halfling Imperial women. Elfin, Dwarfin, Nekoan (Sibolans never call them Therians) and other women aren’t even considered in Sibolan law – much like the rest of their kind – and so are often abused and suffer under the laws as they have no legal recourse.

So far, the only woman known to have not only defied this rule but to also lead her own men into battle is Duchess Acrasia Le Fey, the Viscountess of Parsi, called the Witch of Dangeld. Possibly the only woman with any real power in Sibola, she is surrounded by rumors that she uses her witchery to bespell and enchant the men, and few fail to comment on her less than desirable appearance. She is also the only Fay in any kind of power in Sibola. She gained her position through saving the Emperor’s life and easing the burdens of the Empress before he killed her.

All boys are expected to be educated within Sibola starting at age 5, and required to attend compulsory education through the Tanjin, which are walled schools, and at least one, usually three to five, is located in each Ward. There they are educated in mathematics and taught both common and Sibolan, the Imperial language, as well as how to read and write. They are given further instruction in the use of the Sibolan Glaive, a weapon that is most specific to Sibola. The Glaive is sized to the individual (shoulder height), slightly flexible, made of a dense wood and tipped by a variety of possible heads. They are then taught the proper role of men in Sibolan society, and also receive religious instruction regarding the approved ways to worship either Mansa or Kybele.

Girls are expected to be taught at home, by other mothers or grandmothers, Aunts, if necessary, in the tasks and skills of caring for the home, weaving, sewing, cleaning, and child rearing. Reading and writing are very rare among them.

Family

Families generally are extended, with a grandparent overseeing a family of siblings and their children. All households are headed by the eldest male of the household, regardless of where they fall in the family, and they are responsible for the care and situation of all those in their house, but especially children and women. The punishment can be fierce for failing to care properly for one’s household, including summary execution of said family and maiming of the Head of Household.

Marriages are arranged by the fathers of the individuals concerned, and the woman always becomes a part of the man’s family, with a dowry paid to her family for her. Women are expected to support and console their spouses, while men are expected to provide and protect their spouses.

Inheritance is always to the eldest man. Single Women can run households, businesses, and other elements of a family, but once they marry, they are to turn over all of that to their spouse, as it is now their property.

Remarriage is common, though these are often love matches.

Lineage is always traced through the Father, and surnames are taken by all Sibolans, often in accordance with what the father’s work is, especially if it is hereditary (as is the common custom). This can lead to a lot of Smiths, Wrights, Wains, and such, and so the patronym is often added on.

Government

Sibola is ruled over by the Emperor. The title is hereditary, and the House of Usher is the Imperial House. The person many believe has the greatest claim to the throne is Princessa Himesama Usher, but she is a woman and so unsuited to the role. To reinforce this, they will cite the deeply troubled reign of the second ruler, Queen Sibola (there was little troubling her reign). After her there are some five dozen potential claimants, and the court intrigue is said to be devastating. It is rumored among many of them that the Princessa is struck with madness, as well, and refuses to see a Cleric or Cleric of Mansa or Kybele to attend to it. The Seneschal, former Baron of Karovia, Cedric, is certain that things will be fine.

Beneath the Emperor is the Seneschal, who in his absence sees to the day-to-day affairs. Seneschal Cedric von Kardas is seated at present, acting as guardian for the Princessa, standing as Master for her two younger brothers, and apparently keeping his older brother Kardagan within watch. Karovia is the seat of that family, a prosperous but peculiar village nestled against the foothills of the nearby mountains.

Each Ring is divided into Wards by the eight bridges, so that there are 24 Wards in total, spread among the 8 Duchies, plus the Imperial Duchy. They typical Duchy is responsible for three Wards, each of which is directly overseen by a Count, who in turn divides his Ward into six Baronies, very much like the Towns.

The Seneschal oversees the Empire, but it is the Dukes who oversee the city. The Dukes appoint Judges, usually two or three to a Ward, who oversee those civil and criminal matters the broader people do not pick up. The Dukes also man their own Wardens, who act as constabulary and investigative forces for a Ward. There is usually a shift of three to five Wardens on at any given time.

Each Ward has at least one Wardhouse, and beneath it is a set of rooms for keeping prisoners, political and otherwise. Due to the Thieves Guild’s presence, there is also at least one secret jail for those who are suspected of being at risk.

Outside the City proper, there are Barons in the towns, Earls in the village, and Lords in the hamlets who all serve the same basic purpose.

The formal and official stance of Sibola is that it is the capitol and center of a far-flung empire, incorporating all of the other cities as part of itself, and it deigns to offer them autonomy.

The real effect is that ambassadors and related dignitaries are sure to tread carefully and to give at least the pretense to that being true, though no one except the nobility of Sibola thinks this is the case.

Military

One key thing to be aware of is that all nobility is responsible for keeping ready and armed a force of Men-at-Arms who can be called on to the defense or expansion of the Empire. These men are loyal to the noble (or Liege) to whom they are sworn. This is done by household in Sibola – every household is required to send at least one man to defense. Men become eligible starting the first year of apprenticeship and are required to attend basic defense courses (focused on the glaive) and to learn how to march. The most promising are the ones selected for positions that can offer prestige, authority, and income, so there are very few who seek to shirk this duty.

Only men are required to do this, and the penalty for a woman who attempts to disguise herself and is discovered is consignment to the Temple of Mansa.

The Sibolan Guard are all taught the use of short swords, shield, and glaive, as well as the use of Light Crossbows. They are expected to provide their own armor, and they often use a special kind of leather armor supported by brass or bronze plates and studs meant to deflect the blows of weapons. They provide good coverage. Over this is worn a tabard, emblazoned with the Golden Star on a black background with white piping.

Diplomacy

The most strained relationship that Sibola has is with Aztlan. East and south, across the seas, Aztlan is the original rebel, and there is still bitterness from that despite being several hundred years ago. This has to do with the rigidity of Sibolan custom and tradition, especially around the role of women.

In the case of those who hail from Akadia, it is far more sinister. An attempted Coup went poorly. The rebellion that followed resulted in all Mages being banned from Sibola for ten years, exiled by force to the realm that became the first vassal state: Akadia. It also proved that the power of Ritual Magic was more than enough to defy the power of the great Wizards.

Duke Letocious Tradin is the current Warden of Akadia, officially in charge of the entire country, but under restriction so long as they do not act against Sibola. He is not known to have traveled there in several years.

Commerce

They tax somewhat heavily. This is a universal complaint, and the taxes there are higher than elsewhere, but they go to ensure that the community thrives. Even if that thriving is often in the hands of men who feel that they get to determine what Thrive means.

Trade

Sibola has a near absolute lock on the Trade with Hyboria, and a strong dominance over trade with Kahokia (though not wholly so). they are, as with the other major Cities (excepting Akadia) a major hub of trade, including the presence of a Gantry and a Station. They have the largest fleet of private ships known, as well, and there is a strong tug between the banks of Sibola, Aztlan, and Lyonese to dominate the monetary scene.

They import a great deal of material for the artisans and craftsfolk, mostly metals and specialty items, as well as a significant amount of meat from Dorado and Qivira.

Culture

Noble Fashion

The current style in Sibola is markedly dramatic and not particularly practical for anyone. As ever, however, Sibola set the current tone for style and fashion across the Empire, and everyone else responded to it in some form, creating the variety of styles that we see at present, down to the favored colors. As you can see, the current favored colors are Black and yellow.

Culture Heroes

Firefrost Hellwing: A Fay Rogue whose exploits and daring are the very epitome of what became the ideal of the Corsair. He commanded a fleet that held a blockade of the sea of clouds with not a single ship lost – and without the official permission of the emperor.

Jonathan the Just: A Paladin of Kybele whose devotion, dedication, and sacrifice during the Goblin wars is a model for all.

Palaver Wikof: Two hundred and thirteen consecutive bouts in the Arena without a single loss, and then 118 more after that half person D’nym defeated him.

Cultural Weapons

Sibola is famous for the highly decorated armor they craft, in particular pieces, establishing a default basis that has influenced others for generations. Sibolan Armor is formed from solid pieces of metal, typically molded, and precisely fitted, held with a variety of buckles and belts that weave between and within the parts. Like Lyonian Half Plate, it is generally set up in pieces, is expensive, and rarely has any iron it (or if it does, very little). IT is called Piece Plate, and has had an influence throughout the realm in the way people indulge their armor.

Next is the heavy, thick, interlocking Sibolan Shield. Forged from a light but strong wood that is then woven in two layers, stiffened, covered in a thick hide, and then bound in metal and studded, these shields have small hooks that allow them to be draped over a back, buckles for use on an arm, and can be fit together nigh seamlessly. They are five and a half feet tall and two and a half feet wide. Lapped, they can be leaned back and create a ring of near impenetrable protection as a dome for a small unit, and they offer cover even while battling hard.

This is then combined with the Sibolan Glaive. Glaives are as tall as the shoulder of the person who uses them. They are for those untrained in their use, a two-handed weapon, and a common form of weaponry used on Wyrlde – even more than swords. A Glaive is a custom fitted weapon to the person who wields it and balanced for their specific use. They are often highly decorated and very personalized weapons.

One end of this staff like tool of death is typically bulbous, and the other has an axe, hammer, spear, or sword tip. Used in the tight, precise units that make up the Sibolan military, the combination makes them akin to an unstoppable golem of destruction, either mounted or on foot.

The Sea Realms

Introduction

Within the Seven Cities, we know them as two kingdoms that stand alone, but the truth is they are one kingdom of two cultures – one above, and one below, and between them they control much of the shipping around the Sea of Amity – a major thoroughfare for the Ships of the Empire. They are the sea peoples, and they do not have an issue with the land, but they do have an issue with the Deep, where they have mortal enemies akin to the Goblins for us.

Sea Realms of Islandia and Keris
Official Name	Islandia & Keris		Flag
Motto	As Above, So Below
People	Islandian, Kerisian
Goods	Islandian	Kerisian	Symbol
Crafts	Islandic	Kerisian
Honorifics	Hefa, Hera
Greeting	Ohai!	Forearm clasping.	Symbols	Conch Shell		Hands
Parting	Peace to you!		Colors	Blue	Green	Sky	White
Temples	Ululani	Lamia	Shrines	Kybele		Paria
Towns	Lanka	Ojigya	Secrets	Pallor
	Delos	Sandia	Known For	Fruit	Shells	Navy	Rest
Rivals	Aztlan	Antilia	Foes	Thule		Duat
Weapons	Rapier, Harpoon	Dart, Net, Trident	Weather	Hot, Humid		Wet, Breezy
Armor	Seascale	Convex Shield	Wealth
Languages			Literacy
Respect Shown	Kneeling when before a local leader.
Folkways	Food is eaten with the right hand, and served by the host to guests, children, spouse, and self, in that order.
	All dances tell stories and have strict rules about participation and performance.
Virtues	Tradition	Make Art	Respect Elders	Embrace the Waters
Vices	Ungraciousness	Deceit	Selfishness	Hopelessness
Skills
See Others	Uptight	Cold Hearted	Possessive	Violence Prone
Others See	Thieving	Gentle	Naive	Gullible

Those coming to the Sea Realms for the first time, often seeking a break and a chance for relaxation at the hot springs and other amenities that are known throughout the region, may think that Keris is the city of the Tritons, and that Islandia is the city of the Thalasians. This kind of provincial thinking gives the Sea Peoples much amusement.

Even more so when the tourists and travelers come to realize that Keris is not the city they are thinking of; Upper Keris sits on the broad natural beaches of white sand that flow to the calm and crystal-clear lagoon. It is at the bottom of that lagoon, warmed by natural vents, and filled with rich life, that the Coral City, in all the hues of pink and white and green, lies, spread out over an area nearly as large as that of Sibola. Lower Keris is where the people – Triton, Iaran, and Thalasian, all live, though far too deep for most to reach without the skills of deep diving or the special contraptions of the Kerisians to ensure there is air for them. It is not a place many are permitted to visit, and the depth gives the command of a royal audience a sinister tone that the Kerisians do indeed enjoy.

Several islands away, stretching their collective reach, is Islandia City, the labyrinthine capital of Islandia. Between and around them lie the major port towns of Vendia, Sandia, Caldia, Lildia, and Duadia. There are many towns, and the towns have many villages, and they are scattered among the Thousand Jewels – islands so numerous and small that stretch throughout the region like a necklace of the finest gems. Four large and several very small volcanoes usually slumber, waking once in a great while if Vulcana visits, part of a vast ring that surrounds the Skyfall created Sea of Silence, where only Duatian and Thulian ships dare tread with impunity – often seeking the laden vessels transporting food to where it is needed among the many people of Islandia, which is said to rival the Empire.

Towns

Lanka: The closest town to the Empire and a well-known and popular resort.

Sandia: A large Village that does little trade but a lot of resort stuff, because they have some incredible hot springs. Rather big secret among the wealthy.

Delos: The heat of the People, Caldia is the chief administrative area for agriculture in Islandia and Keris.

Ojigya: The Farthest Point, the place that looks out over the ocean. A massive fort that keeps watch on the Duatian coast It is said that no one can resist looking and wondering “what’s out there?”.

Legacy

Attitude

The Sea Peoples are shepherds of sea and sand, farmers who raise grains and harvest the fruits like date, fig, coconut, banana, orange, lemon, mango, and more, and the traders who built a Gantry and await the first Skyship even as they speed their uncannily fast ships to the rivers, where the river folk take charge and deliver them.

This is how one can have an orange in Sibola.

The Sea Peoples reject the idea of war in favor of commerce. They are a peaceful, joyous, and elegant culture, celebrating the pleasures of gracious living. Such pleasures are achieved through a spirit of cooperation, and the notion that order must involve material prosperity, while remaining open to change. They understand this natural order as a good life; that is, a life of security, peace, and possessions.

The Sea Realm values commerce via the sea, but living so close to the Duatians, dealing with the Thulians, having to defend from the feral Merow, and the raids of Lemuria, jealous for their bounty, they are also aware of the ideas of confrontation and order as preparation, but never dominance. An orderly society, then, is prepared to confront anything that happens and signifies the ability to deal with the unexpected

Service to others is an attitude, a way of thinking and living that is ingrained in the Sea Peoples. Sea Peoples learn from an early age that each person must learn to serve and take care of each other in order for the individual, family, and extended family or tribe to grow and prosper. With this comes an inherent conviction in the principles of generosity and hospitality. Hostility to foreigners or strangers is rarely shown, but when it is it rarely ends well for the foreigners and is handled privately and hopefully quietly.

Lifestyle

Islandia and Keris are truly a thousand villages, not two cities. The Kings of each have a pact with each other and with their people to ensure that all food, that all harvests, are prepared and stored and preserved, for the weather in the islands can be quite devastating, and the many, many small farms, orchards, and fisheries scattered throughout can fail for a host of reasons and when they do, that is what the government does – it redistributes all the food grown within Islandia in a firm and sometimes absolutist manner: first to those who bring it, then to the people of Islandia and Keris, and then to the ports for those far away beyond the deep waters.

Social storage of food is a measure taken to moderate the risk of agricultural uncertainty. The islands are composed of a multitude of microenvironments, rather small, isolated areas, that are locked in by topographical features, such as mountains. An important feature of these microenvironments is that each has its own particular reaction to normal interannual fluctuations in rainfall. The result is that Islandia and Keris often resemble a patchwork of distinct microenvironments with quite different agricultural yields every year throughout the islands. Simply put, one microenvironment could have had a bumper crop of wheat while its near neighbors could have been experiencing a serious shortfall in that grain during the same summer.

The Maze Palace of Islandia best illustrates this economic system. The entire western basement is dedicated to food storage. The rulers of the Sea peoples can also use much of the stored food to support craft specialists, who occupy up to a fourth of the population, in the production of salable items. This system of centralized redistribution is in place throughout the islands.

Labyrinth-like palace complexes, vivid frescoes depicting scenes such as Hull-leaping and Keel-leaping, long processions, fine gold jewelry, elegant stone vases, and pottery with vibrant decorations of marine life are all particular features of the Sea People’s Realm.

Apart from the abundant local agriculture, the Sea Peoples are also a mercantile people who engage significantly in overseas trade, and at their peak may well have a dominant position in international trade over much of the Southern Sea. Close alliances with Aztlan and Antilia are solid and very old, and even Dorado will do trade that is run via Sandship to the Duke’s Keep.

Throughout all the islands, extensive waterways have been built in order to protect the growing population. This system has two primary functions, first providing and distributing water, and secondly relocating sewage and stormwater. The second is of great import, as it must also ensure that the waste is used effectively and does not harm their other citizens who farm seaweed and fish. As a result, one of the defining aspects of the Sea People is the architectural feats of their waste management. The Sea Peoples use elements such as wells, cisterns, and aqueducts to manage their water supplies. Structural aspects of their buildings even play a part. Flat roofs and plentiful open courtyards are used for collecting water to be stored in cisterns. Significantly, the Sea Peoples have water treatment devices. One such device seems to be a series of porous clay pipes through which water is allowed to flow until clean, with the remainder laid to dry upon uninhabited islands to dray and later be used in several other ways, from dyes to fertilizer to firecakes.

The Homes of Islandians and Kerisian, be they above or below water, are called Villas. Raised on thick, often cultivated and still living stilts, reached by moveable, folding steps or ladders, the raised homes of Islandia are round or pointed with the points facing into the wind, and the porch areas beneath them. Some have noticed that the houses resemble the pontoons that make up the hulls of most ships – designed to cut through storms, which can happen with little or no warning, and are meant to resist and survive even flooding or massive tidal waves.

Family

Sexual relationships before marriage are common and casual in most Sea People cultures. This is not the case once a permanent relationship is established. Sea Peoples generally enjoy freedom of choice when choosing a marriage partner. Among the Sea People genealogical records and family history are still important. For many years following the end of the God’s War, social status was defined by hierarchy and land ownership, but currently it is usually shown by the display of imported goods such as clothing.

Sea People culture is very family oriented, with households usually consisting of three or more generations. Traditional child rearing is done by turning over a younger child to the other children of the household, where they will interact and play with children of other families. Grandparents often have a special relationship with their grandchildren. Parents tend to be more concerned with discipline and instruction, while grandparents are more indulgent. Education happens informally throughout, and while Kerisians tend to be a bit more formal and earnest in teaching reading and writing (speech does not travel well in the water), Islandians are mostly illiterate unless there is a specific need for them not to be.

From birth, children are part of a group mentality, being passed from family member to family member, carried everywhere and part of everything. This social relationship makes it difficult for some Sea Peoples to act independently, often relying on family advice or consensus before making decisions. As individuals move farther away from the family group, they can struggle with isolation, confusion, guilt, and loss of identity.

Government

Both Keris and Islandia employ a hereditary Monarchy that holds to the ancient laws (in part because Vulcana will shake a mountain). The Houses trace back to before the God’s War, but neither found themselves in the rolls of the Sibolan survivors, though some kin was found among the Kahokians about a decade ago.

Outside of that, government is mostly about making sure that everything is distributed equitably, so that all people get a fair and necessary share of not just the foodstuffs, but of the wealth of the nations. As a result, The Sea Peoples are generally far wealthier than their Imperial cousins at the lower levels, and less so at the ore traditional levels of Merchant and nobility – in part because everyone in the Sea Realm is a merchant, and there are very few nobles.

For defense, there are said to be two dozen Regiments for both Sea and Land and note that the sea ones do not need ships, as they can take them. Justice is always tried to be settled by a headman on a small island or a village before being taken up by the Reeves and the Agency, who are also found here, having begun to show up after the squat brick building was built by a group that traveled from Aztlan before the last Skyfall. It was well remarked how it managed to survive the catastrophe that created the silent Sea.

Commerce

Education

Culture

Arts

Values

Sea Peoples will generally smile even if they don’t feel like it to ensure that strangers are happy and made to feel welcome. Smiling sets the attitude for all future interactions. In this, they get along famously with Lyonian merchants.

Tradition is a vital part of Sea People culture. It has always been the responsibility of the clerics and Shamans to keep the verbal traditions, history, and records of their people, and they will not divulge any information except to those that they know and respect. Sea People traditions are viewed as sacred and can bring on the wrath of the gods if not followed correctly. Sea People rites are based mainly on experiences with people who have died come in many forms, from babies who have been miscarried or aborted and are now demon spirits, to wandering, homeless spirits who had been neglected during their lives. Relationships with the dead are a huge strength to Sea Peoples as revered family members can be transformed into family gods one can turn to for help. Sea Peoples believe in the materiality of all things, including ghosts and spirits who have finer, lighter bodies. This materiality of all things helps make communication and interaction possible.

The Sea Realm is very family and community oriented. Sea People parents strive to pass on to their children values such as obedience and respect to parents and elders, conformity to religious and cultural beliefs and the proper behavior that is expected of them. Respect the environment. Make art. Embrace the Sea. Hold neighborliness, creativity, and a way of life guided by respect for diversity close to your heart.

It is normal in the Sea Realm for personal property to be seen as the property of the social group instead of an individual. They see nothing wrong with borrowing whatever item they need from others, without thinking anything of it.

Nobility Fashion

The ideas about fashion for the Sea Realms are decidedly a challenge in the cooler regions but are most appealing in the tropical places and spaces of the Islandian Courts.

They can be talked into dressing more warmly in the cooler regions and will often adopt a variety of light skirts and blousy top, or loose pants and blousy top. One never knows which, as the only real differences between the genders are hair length and do they have their chests covered or not. They often wear very broad brimmed hats with bird feathers – the brighter and more colorful and larger the better.

Culture Heroes

Maumoana: In the aftermath of the God’s War, the Iaran Themon was the first to realize the importance of collecting and unifying the scattered sea peoples, and from their efforts came the forging of the Sea Realms of Islandia and Keris.

Kon Tiki: A trickster hero who played pranks on the gods and the foes during the God’s War. Possibly linked to a mythical General who worked with Ululani.

Nemo Nautalia: A legendary sailor who it is said could command the waters to take him even into the stars or down to the depths of the sea. He fought many great creatures and showed us many lessons.

Cultural Weapons

Seascale is armor fashioned from the hides of different sea creatures. Of a peculiar Kerisian make, unforged, yet very durable and flexible – it has an issue if allowed to dry out in that it becomes very brittle. It is usually kept well oiled, preferably with whale oil. For weaponry they do love to say it:

As Above: Islandian units are typically outfitted with a Rapier about three feet long with a single sharp edge and a flat end, a whip, often spiked, and a squarish bladed spear called a harpoon that can be thrown a good distance.

So Below: Kerisian warriors carry Tridents, Nets, and long Knives that are much thinner and pointed on the end.

The Savage Lands

This misnomer “Savage Lands” persists despite everyone pretty much knowing it isn’t true or accurate. Far to the northwest of the Empire, the nomadic nations of Hyboria and Kahokia have a colorful, strange, and peculiar history that is isolated and distinct from the Empires for the most part.

Hyborians are a people who were created to ensure that life survived, and they carry both that and an insatiable curiosity about the world around them in their hearts.

Kahokians are the descendants of folks who stepped off the Bitter Road and traveled a different bleak journey that tested and honed them in the cold steppes they found themselves in once they escaped the rare pass.

When many folks say “savage lands”, they conjure in their minds the ideas of barbaric peoples who live lives of struggle and survival, lacking social graces and without the benefit of civilized amenities. It is not what the Savage lands are – those who hail from them call them the Steppes, and their peoples Nomads, and while they do indeed tend to wear furs and such, they also brought more knowledge of dyes and pigments to the Empire than there were before the peace was made, and they are no more feral or wild than some of the small Hamlets in the Boonies are.

They are both nomadic peoples, traveling seasonally in large family groups, but in both cases they have a single fixed settlement that is now occupied year round, though at once time it was only found during the heavy winters.

Over the centuries, wanders, outlaws, explorers, and more have mixed and mingled with these people, so they are not all of one sort or another, and like the Bright Lands, one could meet a Myrmidon or a Dwarf whose homeland is one of the two Nomad nations, though not as likely as one is to meet a Therian or Dakoan.

Hyboria

Introduction

All Therian originally come from Hyboria, those mysterious and barely known savage lands, but how they got to the Bright Lands is always a tale – even if they were born in it.

Hyborians live in Camps, essentially hyper-extended family networks derived from seven origin families for each Brood. Each kind of Hyborian is a separate Sect, and they mostly stick to a given sect, but are not entirely limited to such. Located on the shores of the Sea of Far Wandering, between two broad rivers, lies the Grand Camp, the Heart of Hyboria, the Palace of the Plains: Hyboria Proper. It is relatively sparsely populated much of the time, as the sects all have territories to which they stay, hunting some six dozen different herds that move throughout the region and living off the strangely edible everythings that are there.

Hyboria
Official Name	The Plains of Hyboria		Flag
Motto	Adapt, Survive, Persist
People	Hyborian
Goods	Hyborian		Symbol
Crafts	Hyborian
Honorifics	Mista, Missa
Greeting	Ahyi!		Symbols	Home		Wheat Stalk
Parting	Ahyi!		Colors	Blue	Brown	Red	White
Temples	Antelle		Shrines	Gaea
Towns	Hearthka		Secrets	Pallor		Urisha
			Known For	Furs	Beadwork	Fabrics	Woods
Rivals	Kahokia	Bermuda	Foes	Sibola		Clans
Weapons	Kukris, Sling	Sharambit, Bola	Weather	Cold, Dry		Clear, Scary
Armor	Beast Hide		Wealth
Languages			Literacy
Respect Shown	Handshake
Folkways	Gift giving is a core idea, handmade crafts, a sign of respect and friendship, treated solemnly
	Age is more important than position or role, and should always be respected.
Virtues	Fun	Family First	Tell Good Tales	Courage
Vices	Selfishness	Being Alone	Giving Up	Surrender
Skills
See Others	Clumsy, Oversized	Overly Serious	Rude, Unthinking	Greedy, Selfish
Others See	Cute, Adorable	Savage, Untamed	Animalistic, Feral	Wild, Dangerous

Hyborians do not farm. They do fish (it is very popular among Harrier and Panther Sects), and they are semi-sedentary, moving from time to time in their articular territories that all more or less bump up against each other. Hyboria is a common meeting ground, used for celebrations, festivals, dispute settlements, and now commerce, with the merchants coming north from Sibola on their way to Many Bridges or back.

Hyboria is also where they have many things that do not travel well, such as the great Forge, which is a massive building that houses seven forges (one of which is always cold). There are also some Ovens. And, of course, Hyboria proper is where those who are not Therian tend to live for the overwhelming majority. It is the trade station for Hyboria, and a way stop on the way to Many Bridges and from there to the Tents of Kahokia.

Features

Sect Lands

Hyboria’ s lands are generally divided into slightly overlapping territories by the sects, with each one (Whisper, Vulcan, Serpent, Harrier, Panther, and Swift) avoiding the others except when they meet or they travel to the large, permanent camp of Hyboria itself, which is a kind of neutral ground.

Different sects may be composed of all sorts of the variants of Therian people, and even include non-therians but the sect is dominated by a given type, and that determines much of it.

Legacy

The vast, rolling plains of Hyboria, flat but for the pop of a tree or the rustle of the grasses, are known as the lands where the Powers That Be placed their desperate for the survival of life on the world during the God’s war.

That hope, as strange as it may seem to us and as weighted with insult as it can be, was the seven Sects of the therians. One of those sects is lot and mostly forgotten. The remaining six are all a bunch of tough, hardy, adorable people who have forged a way of life in an area that is even less tamed than the wilds in the Empire.

To many in the empire, Hyboria sounds like either a pastoral wonderland or a nightmarish hellscape filled with wild and poisonous animals and terrifying Mekaniks. The truth is that it is both, and for a thousand years the Sects have made it their home.

They are a hardy, curious, vital people, who care little about the Empire and its ways.

Attitude

Hyborians are a gregarious, sometimes violent people who seek challenge and adventure. Really.

They see every day as a survival contest, them against the world, and they will take their adventures back to their knot and their brood and share the tale in words and dance and often elaborate stories that frequently seem to have parts from other stories sneak into them. Some have described Hyborians as fearless people, given to acts that would make another shudder. Things like the young Panther girl who found a sinkhole that was so deep the bottom could not be seen and after a talk to explore it, simply jumped into the hole.

Others will claim that this is a kind of mental lack on their part, but it is quite different. Hyborians are devoted to survival, and a part of that is knowing one’s limits, and few people are as adept at testing their own limits as they are. They are Daring, curious, courageous, and committed people who can find just as much joy surviving the Great Plains as they can some deep delving or an expedition to the Underdark.

They live mostly in the moment, and as a result rarely carry much animosity with them, except when they are treated like pets or children as adults.

Most Hyborian are ultimately considered cute by Imperial society collectively. This means that they are treated as if they were pets, or animals, or children, with people bending over to pet them without asking or even acknowledging them. Their small stature makes it difficult for them to move around in Imperial society (everything is built for larger people), and they are often treated as children, since even their adult forms seem to possess “cute” features.

Lifestyle

The typical Hyborian day is generally going to involve either preparation to move to the next seasonal camp (they move by seasons, always heading towards Hyboria first, where they camp in clusters outside the “official” borders), taking care of chores and children, preparing and eating food, and then either some sort of useful craft or hunting and gathering. There is not much beyond that, but just that alone can be filled with enough interesting things.

Hyborians focus on what they are doing, throwing their all into whatever it is, and they are always seeking a way to adapt, to overcome, to make something more useful.

This can cause quite a challenge when dealing with the young, who are apt to pick things bigger than they are ready and need to be guided. But this is why they have Elders, for outside of the governing expert, Elders serve to teach and bring about the growth of each person, hoping to draw the best of them out and make that what guides them.

Historically, save that period when they raided the people during the Bitter Road, they have succeeded.

Family

Hyborians have two or four children at a time, and mixed pairs will always result in children who take after one or the other, never a mix of the two. It is through this that the different Sects manage to not have a state of constant war, as the Brood of one sect may include children from a different Sect, and they have an ancient custom of only killing those who are different form them, never the same.

Hyborians fall in love and get married, with some marriages having as many as five partners. They will set their individual shelters of the adults in close proximity, or perhaps even disassemble them and create a larger one, but always int eh same tall, pointed style with a hearth in the center. Hyborian Families are called Knots. Their family is always built around a common core of people, and they are known to be affectionate and to stay close when they have children.

Within the Camps, however, they are a broad people, and while there is a great deal of history and often animosity between Sects and Broods, it is not uncommon for love to cross those lines, and it never seems to be seen as hurting anything. They do always go to the husband’s family – though who is the husband is not always a simple thing. Hyborians stay together for life. No one can seem to recall a time when any Hyborian ever divorced. Hyborian inheritance is always by the youngest, because by the time the parents pass on, they have always given the basics to the older kids, and the youngest is expected to stay and take care of the parents.

Government

Each brood or Sect is led by a group of the three eldest from Men, Shamans, and Women. They will often each have a second who accompanies them and cares for them (and often becomes one themselves in due time). It always passes to the eldest, and they count by moons, following primarily Coyola.

This Council of Elders listens to all sides in disputes, all thoughts from those who choose to speak on matters before the whole and will consult among themselves. They meet at the full moon of Coyola each month, and each meeting begins with the decisions of the prior meeting before moving on to new business. For disputes among two different Sects or Broods, they meet quarterly on the full moon of Sina at Hyboria properly, and a hold on resolution s set until the following season. Aside from that, they generally follow the laws as given, and follow the ancient edict that began Hyboria: Survive. Adapt. Overcome.

Commerce

Education

Hyborians are stunningly quick at growing up — the fastest of all the peoples. An adult Hyborian is ready to go at ten years of age, fully grown at three feet (five feet for Serpents), and willing to tackle the world. Hyborians are very high energy and seek to explore everything in their own particular ways. Hyborian say both that they were given the gift of life by the Gods, and it is short, so they do not waste any of it, as they have so much energy that they burn out faster than the other peoples.

As a result, Hyborian education is as comprehensive as it can be in critical needs – which may be reading and writing if they head into that kind of a field. Otherwise, they are raised by their parents and taught the essential rules and skills of surviving the plains and staying with the Camps.

Culture

Arts

Values

Hyborians value the community over the individual, the Knot over the Brood, the Brood over the Sect, the Sect over all the rest. Those of their personal knot are people they feel tied to, for good or bad, and they will always accept them fully, flaws and all, for that is the nature of a bond. Hyborian also value anything fun, though what they consider fun is almost always something exciting, dangerous, foolish, or loud.

Nobility Fashion

The presumption that a people like these are could have a sense of style or fashion is something those of us from the Empire tend to find at the very least mockable.

They generally wear breeches and shirts, with boots, and they have a focus on fit and practicality over any kind of actual sense of style.

Which is not to say they lack it – they most certainly do have a strong sense of style.

Culture Heroes

Daget: A legendary hero who was followed around by an Incarnate that “came from the stars” named Buk something. Daget was said to be such a potent Vulcan that he was able to stop a Skystone from destroying the Great Camp, Hyboria proper.

Raftalia: A member of the Harrier sect, she was famous for traveling with (and eventually marrying) an Incarnate Runewright who was summoned from another world.

Miciru: A Swift sect member who help uncover a plot by a trader to bring in an occupying army and attempt to conquer Hyboria as a vassal state of Durango.

Weapons & Armor

Hyborians are known for wearing the thick, treated and cured and shaped hides of some of the creatures that can be found on their plains, including the Dreadnaughts. They shape it like clothing and wrap it to quiet it for hunts.

The common weapon of a Hyborian are a thin bladed, recurved weapon not unlike a sickle, with eh edge on the inside, a form of short sword, that is sometimes so flexible it more resembles a fencing or dueling weapon used in practice. Designed and made by the great Smithy of Hearthka, it is a weapon that matches the warriors’ strengths. It is called a Kukris, and is often paired with a small, tightly curved knife that resembles a claw, called a Sharambit. Both weapons are particularly useful in the tight and close combat favored.

With that they also use slings, and something called a bola. The slings are typically used to fire small, spiked forms, often cut from quartz or obsidian, dangerously sharp. The Bolas are a set of three weighted stones tied together by long cords that they spin up and hurl at the legs of larger creatures to down them or foul a strike by an opponent.

Watching three Harriers take down a zedeer in a herd in less than 20 beats is an experience that will always leave one with a lot more respect for them. No matter how cute they are.

Kahokia

Introduction

Northwest of Hyboria, across the series of bridges islands named Many Bridges (so named because whenever peace needed to be made, those involved were required to build a bridge across one of the islands together), lies the Great Spiral, which is the semi-permanent settlement of Kahokia, where merchants are permitted and allowed to find the many tribes that roam the great plains. The City itself is arranged as a massive spiral of tents that are called Pavilions. The Spiral has a fixed structure and is set up by custom and is only for Kahokians. Outsides are told to set their tents in a vast ring around the Spiral – not too coincidentally providing Kahokians with a wall that would otherwise not be present. Those who are not a member of one of the tribes live in the two concentric rings made up of merchants and traders, trappers and explorers, and more. The outer ring is a mile in diameter and is based on when the yearly gathering of the Tribes is for them to settle scores that were not already resolved by violence in the last year.

Kahokia
Official Name	The Steppes of Kahokia		Flag
Motto	Overcome, Endure, Challenge
People	Kahokian
Goods	Kahokian		Symbol
Crafts	Kahokian
Honorifics	Massa	Missa
Greeting	Hello!		Symbols	Tent		Horse
Parting	Farewell!		Colors	Blue	Brown	White	Red
Temples	Paria		Shrines	Quetza
Towns	Agrona		Secrets	None
			Known For	Horses	Rugs	Furs	Iron
Rivals	Hyboria	Durango	Foes	Bermuda		Lemuria
Weapons	Balan, Korl	Horse Bow	Weather	Cool, Wet		Clear, Scary
Armor	Woven		Wealth	+25
Languages			Literacy
Respect Shown	Touch the fingers of both hands to heart, lips, forehead
Folkways	Kahokians do not use chairs or stools. They avoid any kind of furniture beyond tables that can be rapidly disassembled and sit on rugs, which are exceptionally important to them.
	Kahokians carry a mirror with them, as a symbol of how they are a reflection of their people.
	Kahokians do not cover their heads, ever. To do so is to disrespect their hair, which is of importance.
Virtues	Respect Elder	Self-Reliance	Protect Innocent	Defend Weak
Vices	Greed	Sloth	Deceit	Betrayal
Skills
See Others	Soft, Weak, Useful, Dissembling
Others See	Cagey, Evasive, Overly mannered, unbending

Camps

Kahokia has several hundred small, roaming camps that all have a particular path for migration, changing by season, and often coming into conflict over different territories. This means that they not only have no fixed locations, but the only place that they have something close to it is the sprawling spiral of Kahokia itself.

Legacy

Attitude

We found it, so it is ours. This describes the way that Kahokians see their realm, and it is firmly bounded, and unlike their neighbors they are not disinclined to stretch out into the waters in the large catamarans and ships they have scattered around some of the shoreline.

There are no permanent buildings in Kahokia. Everything is a tent, and they forbid them under pain of death, which is close to the only real punishment they have. Death, or a limb, or some other form of corporal punishment. Well, for outsiders. For themselves they have a rather nuanced set of values for nearly every crime, and never use any form of corporal punishment – it is always handled much like a trade deal, or it is an all-out battle.

Kahokians are a defiant, martial people; subjects to feuds, duels, and combat either single or in groups, but above all of it a strong and keen sense of fairness that even the vilest among them has a hard time avoiding. Each Tribe is like a little kingdom of its own, and families will over time migrate from one tribe to another, and little will be made of it.

Lifestyle

Kahokians have massive bonfires on every Full Moon. That is a lot, and they will dance, drink, sing and feast on all of them, trading stories and deciding things together. Among the things they may decide is to raid another tribe for women or goods or children. After which they will make reparations, typically of a sort discussed ahead of time. They are proud of their sturdy, strong legged ponies and mules, which are shorter than the mainline in the southwest among the Empire, but also more durable and of better temperament.

Kahokians have a tremendous fondness for anything sweet, as they do not often have such. They are much friendlier than given credit for, and when they meet another tribe, there is more often some form of trade and impromptu celebration than there is violence – unless there is a history. The tribes have a very long memory.

Kahokian are a combination of herdsmen and nomads, both following the great herds for food, living off the surprisingly edible world around them, and raising livestock that they move with them. By and large, Kahokians have a kind of “leave us alone, we’re fine, you should probably pay more attention to where you are walking than us” kind of way about them.

They don’t trust the people of the Empire, and historically have fought wars with Hyboria, though peace has been the norm for years now. Too many bridges. Too much work trying to float the wood through the sea waters of the strait. And Kahokians hate trouble. They are a very relaxed, do what they are doing kind of people.

Family

Tribes are nomadic, even though they may have small herds they shepherd. They will usually move between two, three, or four camps that are seasonal, following game. Some camps may have cultivated crops, others may not. The tribe’s major goods are the Pavilions– Large, four room tents with awning flaps at the entrance. A hearth is placed before that entrance if company is expected. Each married couple will have one, their home, capable of being packed away and carried by the usual pack mule or oxen that they will keep.

Dominant members of a tribe are the protectors and providers, subordinate members are the supporters and guides – childcare, home care, and meet the needs of dominant member. There is also usually a match Price – paid by the dominant family to the subordinate one (son’s family to daughter’s). It is meant to ease the loss to the family.

The Tribe is the greater family, but within the tribe are the extended family units, and such is tracked carefully, with a prohibition on incest out to 2nd degrees. Parents have a say by hierarchy over the children, and most often they arrange the marriages. About 60% of Tribes are patriarchal, around 30% are matriarchal, and the rest are more egalitarian.

One thing is always notable: a newly married couple will always find a brand-new pavilion awaiting them the morning after they consummate the marriage. It is paid for and often reflects both of the families.

Government

Each Tribe has a Tribal Council made up of the eldest members of the community in three different roles, each with an advisor of their choosing and a random member of the tribe. The roles are Chieftain, who is the Tribe’s leader, Warlord, who is the hunt and raid leader, and the Shaman, who is the spiritual and cultural heart. The hierarchy determines the feminine or masculine Chieftain, the Shaman is always the opposite, and the warlord usually matches the Chieftain. Tribes with a Witch Doctor usually have them as well.

The council is a deliberate, tradition bound, considering group that makes few decisions in haste, but has final say. Anyone before them may speak their mind so long as they do it politely. They are judges, jury, and lawmaking body all in one, with the warlord also acting as the de facto police.

Education

In some tribes, only girls are taught to read and write, while in others only boys. In all cases, those who show aptitude to be Shamans are always educated as fully as possible, with others more or less learning the skills needed to make tent cloth, herd animals, hunt, care for each other, and so forth. They are a very simple, pastoral people. Who don’t like being told that they are simple or easygoing.

Culture

Arts

Values

Virtues: Respect for Elders, The Tribe Before Self, Self-reliance, Care for What You Have, and Honor the World’s-Life.

Vices: Betrayal/Treason, Deceit, Deception, Sloth, Laziness, Rumor Mongering, And Greed

Nobility Fashion

They make sturdy leather boots that can vary in height from just above the ankle to nearly the top of the thigh, and this is about as close as they get to their personal sense of fashion. They wear linen breeches with fur trim and linen shirts with fur trim, and then typically some sort of overgarment that is lined and trimmed in fur against the usually chilly air of the Steppes.

Culture Heroes

Kenan: One of the greatest heroes, but also a bit of a comical figure of legend, Kenan was an incredible fighter who was famous for wandering around and facing everything with little but a sword, a rather legendarily nasty loincloth, and an attitude that stemmed mostly from not being the arrowhead from a blackstone. Alternately told for humor and for inspiration, Kenan tales trace back to the aftermath of the God’s War, when Kahokian peoples were living in a more savage time.

Beyon: a famous Shaman of the people, she was the one that laid out the nature of and position of the great Spiral, and united once again and restored a lost history to the people, giving them a greater understanding of themselves and their ancient adversaries, the Hyborians.

Temerity: The Chief of the Bloodhost, whose efforts forged the peace that allowed the Steppes and the Fields to find peace and prepare for invasion from the southern peoples. Lover of Miciru.

Weapons & Armor

Kahokian Balans are a leaf-shaped, single-edged, lightly curved blade where the tip is slightly wider than the base. With this is a Knife, useful and dangerous.

Kahokian Horse Bows are among the feared weapons on the plains. They will mount a group of ten and essentially rain arrows down from as far away as 300 paces upon an enemy. They practice a unique style of archery, that involves being able to shoot from foot or horseback equally as accurately, and using a strange draw that starts with the bow high and coming down, the arrow held close to the ear, not the cheek.

Kahokian Woven Armor is a mixture of long bone shavings, wood, and hide all cut into extremely fine strips and woven together in a two-layer pattern that gives it sturdiness but not much stiffness. They also carry small square shields with a curve out of the underside that is used to slide a blade through after a block.

Other Realms

We close with the two that cannot be properly set aside as belonging to any of the above. They are not part of the Empire, though they are within it in one case, and neither will acknowledge the Empire as having any say over their lives.

One is old – so old, that they have histories and stories that date back before the God’s War. The other is young and new and somehow favored in some ways by some Power or other.

We speak, of course, of the Exiles and the Free Peoples, who defy the Ways of the World and tread paths few others would dare.

Antilia

Introduction

The youngest Realm is slowly becoming more than just a rumor or a whispered dream, and those who live there are often more worried about that then perhaps they need to be.

Antilia rose from the disaffected, the outcasts, the left behind, the unwanted. It remains much like that and is deeply different and very much not a part of the Empire.

The thing that those who visit it will most often remark on and carry with them is that in Antilia, even goblins are welcome and more than that there is every kind of person involved in the way the realm operates, is governed, and throughout the realm itself, all living without constant strife.

Worse is that Antilia refuses to be part of the Empire, and stands alone, denied trade, while it uses a from of government where the people choose who leads them, and even a Thyrs can be elected.

Antilia
Official Name	The Free City of Antilia		Flag
Motto	Together, Brotherhood
People	Antilian
Goods	Antilian		Symbol
Crafts	Antic
Honorifics	Mista	Missa
Greeting	Good (part of day)		Symbols
Parting	Merry Way!		Colors	Blue	White	Yellow
Temples	Mansa	Melane	Shrines	Gaea		Paria
Towns	Miradale	Haredale	Secrets	Timur
	Arendale	Fandale	Known For
Rivals	Sea Realms	Aztlan	Foes	Sibola		Thule
Weapons	Longsword	Throwing Disk	Weather
Armor	Antilian Bead	Dagger	Wealth
Languages			Literacy
Respect Shown	Crossing your arms and placing your palms on your shoulders.
Folkways	Never face someone directly, always turn slightly and look over their shoulder.
	Snap fingers twice rapidly to ward off evil.
Virtues	Respect	Understanding	Compassion	Temperance
Vices	Disrespect	Vengeance	Prejudice	Deception
Skills
See Others	Rigid, Prejudiced, Crude, Uncivilized
Others See	Rebellious, Defiant, Crude, Uncivilized

Features

Towns

Haredale: A mining and quarry town, with a side job in lumber.

Miradale: Located in the foothills of the mountains, it experiences some unusual activity from Salathen of different types and is the source of some of the strangest rumors, such as the half-man and half horse people or the goats that walk on two legs.

Arendale: Said to be a town near a dungeon, and for many a year the people there said they were cut off from the wider world by a thick fog that seemed to be the edge of the world. An incarnate named Gigax visited once and said it reminded him of a town called Fandelver in Yrthe.

An Observation

Antilia is a young realm, and not just in terms of time. It has walls of wood that are just now being changed over to walls of stone. It is ambitious and wants to be mercantile and open to all, yet the overland route from Dorado or Akadia is filled with risks because it is not a well patrolled area. The sea lanes are a battle ground between Duat, Thule, and the Sea Peoples all around the edges of the Sea of Silence and the massive sea monsters that live and prey there.

And this ignores the thing they like to think of as the most important part: they are nearest to the unknown lands. It is said that there are Dragons ruling there. There is little unity in Antilia, and it is as likely to tear itself apart as it is to create what it dreams of – though even that great ideal will have many challenges.

Antelle says that there has never been a Utopia and that there never can be. While I don’t know exactly what she means by that, I cannot argue with my Patron Goddess.

Legacy

To the far west, in a pleasant regional vale, there is a city that was founded by people who were tired of nobles and kings, laws and rules they could not change or roles they were being bound into and forced to take.

A legend passed among some that there was a place the Exilian were searching for but had never found, and that became the goal: to build that place The rumors were a bit garbled, so they named it Antilia, the Free City of the Lost, and it is the youngest of all the cities, and the towns that support it are even stranger than it is.

One of the hallmarks of Antilia is that they will accept anyone. They will let former Lemurians be a part, and gossip suggests that they are ultimately aiding in the rebellion against the Lemurian Fascian Lords. There are Thyrs who want nothing to do with the Matriarx, and who seek to live a life of peace. There is no known entry of the Underdark, and so it is a place that is sheltered from all save for the Thyrs, who do indeed raid the place at least once seasonally.

Antilians are always concerned, because they are ultimately defying every authority there is in the known world, and forging a path where everyone gets a voice. Their leaders are chosen by casting lots, called voting, for everyone’s favorite pick, and anyone can run for office. They have low taxes – it is said that the high gate fee covers most of it, but the port fees aren’t low either.

They seek to establish trade with the Empire, but that means overcoming the oft demands of the Seneschal that they bow to Imperial Authority and the demands of the Aztani that they pay the tolls to enter the seven seas.

Asa result, they often trade with Islandia, who then take their goods to the Empire, but they are always afraid that someone will take that which is most important to them away: their freedom.

Nobles and rules that they had no say in are something they loathe, and they can be more than a little rude about it. It is only recently that we have been seeing adventurers coming from there – the last ten or so years, and they can be a disruptive bunch.

Attitude

Antilians have a general problem with authority. Even the authority they themselves chose and have built; they have a problem with. They are a fractious people, often plagued by old prejudices, old ways of thinking, old hostilities and habits. As everyone n Antilia comes from somewhere else unless they were fortunate enough to be born there (and the oldest of those is still only in his 50’s), there can be a lot of strife in a place where Goblins engaging in Rebellion against Lemuria or Thyrs fleeing from an especially cruel Matriarx, or Duatians who decided they wanted to actually do something can all come together and meet with Imperials and Aztani and Doradans who all have been told just how wicked and evil those people are.

As a result, there is a need for and a recognition of that need for Authority, and it comes in the form of sometimes seemingly brutal rules and policies.

During the days, Antilia swarms around the Marketplace, which is not merely a place to sell wares, but also – in the words of the founder – a marketplace of ideas. There are small oratorias around it, two great libraries where even today scribes are collecting oral histories and collating them. There are entertainments that come from all over, and music and so many foods that it can be overwhelming, all among the richness of the crafts and arts and goods of the Antilian people and those who manage to get there.

At night, Antilia is a silent and dark place. They have none of the fancy lights of Durango or Lyonese, only lamps that are set at each of the intersections in a city said to be made of circles and curves, with the only straight lines being those that go up. This is an exaggeration of course; there may be no straight roads, but there are many straight walls for many different kinds of homes.

Antilia’s overall appearance may shock people – it is almost as if there was a little bit of everything all dropped into the same place. Different housing types, different symbolism, and more – each quarter is like a sort of tiny copy of the places that the residents come from. It is the most diverse city in the world, and though each village may be very much the same kinds of people, even there one can see how throughout the lands, the real trick to the peace they seek is to let go of what lay behind them and focus on what lies ahead of them.

Lifestyle

Antilians have much the same lifestyle as anywhere else, save that it is not quite so preoccupied with the trappings of wealth or the preparations for war.

Family

Government

Antilia is ruled by a Council that is composed of people chosen by those who live in the assorted quarters. There are specific Quarters for Humans, Therians, Camions, Seraph, Halflings, Dwarfs, Elfin, Goblin, Thyrs, Grendel, Kobold, Triton, and so forth.

Closest to the Council House is the Blended Quarter, where anyone and everyone is able to live. It is filled with a large variety of wealthier folks, and a larger number of folks who serve them. Getting a place in the Blended Quarter is considered a mark of accomplishment.

It is not permitted for someone who does not live in that Quarter to be out after Dusk and before Dawn within any of them. This curfew is strictly enforced, with penalties for simply being out typically consisting of three to seven days in a cell – or worse if they are thought to be doing something illegal or harmful.

The city itself is divided into sections called “Quarters,” of which there are 16. Each Quarter is, in turn supported by three to five smaller settlements outside the city, and all quarters are very specific to the people that live in those quarters and in the dependent settlements. A quarter is overseen by a Secretary, who divides the Quarter up among seven Seats, each held by a Councilor, who is elected from among those who live there. A councilor must live among the town or Quarter they oversee. Villages and Hamlets are overseen by elected Senators and Reejes, and the full Council consists of three bodies: The Reejest, which is the smallest body and has veto power; The Senate, which is the body that makes the laws and appoints the judges; and the Counsel, which votes again on laws or negotiates with the Senate, and which also handles the apportionment of taxes, and how they are used by the City.

Over all of this is the prime Minister, who is assisted by several Ministers of assorted departments – essentially the advisory group that only has power regarding how they negotiate within the Council House and what they bring to the Prime Minister. The PM has the task of enforcing those Laws so passed, Keeping the Peace, and negotiating with the broader world and handling trade and economy. They call themselves very civilized. The citizenry also elects the PM at large, but from all of the hamlets, villages, and towns. An election takes about three months to formally count, and all elections are held in the sixth year out of every seven, overseen by the Reejest.

Antilians enforce a wide variety of essential crimes, but cling to some ancient ideals regarding the propriety of how one treats other people, and all their laws descend from these 30 specific points, often finding ways so that none of them overwhelms others. They do not like criminals in Antilia. They do have jails, but those are for holding criminals until their court dates, and there is no appeal process in Antilia. Lose your case, and you are finished.

Punishments for thievery are branding and exile. Punishments for murder are branding, removal of offending limb, and exile. Judges hear both sides of those affected, with the City often taking the role of those who are harmed if the crime has an impact on the general population. This can be in addition to individual claims – and all claims are individual. While the City can have a Lector speak for it, everyone else must speak for themselves. There are no lawyers or barristers, only police, the judge, and the parties.

Fines are almost always set up to make the folks fined feel like they never want to do that again – they *start* at half of property and go up from there.

Antilia has no military, but it does have a Police Force, a Guard, and a Militia of volunteers. They can field about two regiments in total. They do not want to allow Agents in, but as expected the Agency is present everywhere. I suppose it helps when your secret organization is secretly backed by the powers that be.

Antilia is not part of Any Empire and avoids coastal settlements because of the risk of Duatian or Thulian raids. They have a series of forts set across the entry to their small region to help prepare for such a thing, and there are some plans in the works to construct a massive wall across it.

Commerce

Education

Children are fairly rare in Antilia, and no one has figured out how to do a school there yet, so most education is limited to that which parents and experience provides.

In the villages and hamlets and towns, it is assumed the family will provide the education for the children – and there are often more of them than adults.

Culture

Arts

Values

Antilia’s basic core values so far are Respect, Compassion, Understanding, and Temperance.

Fashion & Style

Antilia hasn’t quite figured this out yet.

Culture Heroes

Nagasakie: a Goblin who was the first one to ever hold an office of responsibility in Antilia. He was much beloved, because he was a very fair and very wise magistrate and would go to extra lengths to help those in need.

Gaf and Shek: A peculiar partnership and bond of love brought this Imp and Thyrs together. Not only did they help turn the tide of successive Thulian raids, but they also helped to build the tanjin and laid out the roads that link the towns with the city.

Ridel Methis: A former Corsair who is credited with founding Antilia mostly by building a nice little place to live along a river and putting in a damn that helped stop his former compatriots from finding him and the treasure he hid. He was infamous during his days with the Dread Pirate Roberts.

Cultural Weapons

Antilian Longswords are the primary weapon. Straight, double edge, tapering from hilt to point, about 30 inches long.

Antilian Whistles are small, sharp-edged disks with a hole in the center, that are thrown at enemies and slash them or stick to them. Some have small, barbed burrs that stick out, but all have the peculiar quirk of whistling as they fly.

Antilian Beaded armor is a blend of leather in three layers and comes in the form of a tunic that is covered in hundreds of tiny beads made from assorted substances. It is heavy but affords surprising protection against common forms of injury. It Is also extremely expensive, and very rare, and needs repair about once every three months if it sees significant use.

Exilian

Introduction

Hello, darling! Welcome to our Evesrest!

How fortunate for both thee and I we are so well met and well come upon so inauspicious a night. I ask thee, what do thee call them? Not pedagogue; ah, yes! I recall, thy Pedant, that half-dressed young woman, to attend to thy mounts. I am sure the men will have a tivalo raised soon. This is a light rain, and my heart is among them so I am sure they will be safe and warm and dry.

I am the Alman of the Caravan Rincon, and I have been asked by Hikory Lass to give you a glimpse inside the world of my people, who are called throughout the wide world by the name of Exilian. It comes from the word Exile, you see, and though many today would say that we are the Exiles of their lands, it is not how the name and the people in all our many Caravans came to be.

Exilians
Official Name	The Wandering Ones		Flag
Motto	Forward, To Atalanta
People	Exilian
Goods	Exilian		Symbol
Crafts	Exilian
Honorifics	Ma	Pa, Na
Greeting	Hello!		Symbols	Wavy Cross		Korf
Parting	Be Safe!		Colors	Seafoam	Sky	Brown	White
Temples	None		Shrines	Paria		Kybele
Towns	None		Secrets	None
			Known For
Rivals	Everyone		Foes	Everyone
Weapons	Mashetay, Karzh	Spike	Weather	—		—
Armor	Chain Mail		Wealth
Languages			Literacy
Respect Shown	Right Hand Wave, Left Hand Over Heart
Folkways	Each is bound to the other, and so what affects one of us affects all, be it shame or harm, the difference matters not.
	Find what you can do to help others, and then do it the best of all.
Virtues	Stand By Family, Accept Consequences, Stand On Your Own, Own Thy Acts
Vices	Speaking Untrue, Misleading Others, Going Back On Thy Word, Promising A Future Thing
Skills
See Others	Busybodies, Paranoid, Accusatory
Others See	Untrustworthy, Beggars, Dangerous

Our homes are these, our sturdy wagons, our roving refuges, our merry manors. This collection of them is called a Caravan, roughly like the villages you will have seen on your travels. So, our village is wherever we are, whenever we stop, in our everlasting journey to find the place promised, though most of us no longer believe it will be given.

Ages ago, I and my people, though not us, but our forebears, we did say that we would not be a part of the Armageddon, the End of the World, and so we asked for a sanctuary and we were promised that out in the world somewhere was Atalanta, the City of Wood, and so we set out to find it, and through the end of the world to the one we have today we have traveled, horse and cart, pony and part, we have forged paths that none but few will ever tread.

You may call me Alman Gala. And I shall tell you a little about our people afore the night takes us all into the battle twixt the Shadow and the Nether, the nightmares against the dreamland, and you can learn, perhaps, a little more about the world you are within…

Caravans

The Exilian have no steadings or hamlets, no villages or towns. They are self-contained, nomadic groups who disfavor permanence. There are, at last known count (from the last meeting of all the Alman, which happens once a decade several miles south of Seahold) some one thousand two hundred thirty-four caravans. There is no known record of all of them or what they are named, much to the consternation of every major King or Queen and the Agency itself.

Legacy

Scattered over the face of Avilon are the Caravans and their Almans, seemingly always moving, though when they stop it is always for three days – no more, no less. They are the Exiles, those who chose to wander, to travel, and to not become involved in the wars of Gods or the affairs of those things greater than them. For well over a thousand years, they have traveled the breadth of Avilon, but crossed no sea. There is a caravan that moves around the seas, but they are closer to the sea realms and the river folk, and they never come to shore save, again, for three days, no more, and no less.

They avoid the cities when they can, but they are often stopping outside a village, and they offer entertainment and aid and of course they trade, for they are a genial people.

Many think that all Exilian are themselves of that people, but this is not true – aside from marriage and love, there are those who simply tire of the life they once lived and choose to join the Caravans and accept the leadership of the Alman and begin the wandering path themselves.

Exilian have no home and no belongings but that what they carry with them, the stars their lights at night, the sun the guiding light of their days. They are a simple folk, unconcerned with the ways and problems of the Empire they all too often spend far too much time in.

Attitude

We are seen as thieves and deceivers by the town and city folk, as peddlers and entertainers by the village and hamlet folks, and as chance encounters by those in steadings and outposts, the thousand tiny citadels of watchfulness that even the Black Folk and the Deep Folk know too well to be caught by.

We are not those things, though perhaps sometimes the more rambunctious and less raised of our people will succumb to desire and lust and partake of that which may not be theirs at the first moment but will be the next right or wrong. I, and the other Almans, do not approve nor condone such, but we will let no city condemn our people to the curse of having to remain beyond the three days we are allotted.

For that is the first thing to know; we remain in no single place longer than three days, but when we stop, we will be there for three days. So, for the next three days, we shall be here, in this clearing among that pass that separate the Criminals of the north from the Makers of the south. This is our way, and we will not stop here again until we come back through, though I nor any others have any idea when.

We are a humble folk, who need little and seek to leave as light a step on the world as we can, for we still hold to many of the old ways, many of the Lost Ways, and that was ever and anon one of the oldest, and why it is that so many of the Ancient’s ruins are so well lost and hidden: they built to pass on, to pass away, like the wood of my home here will one day pass on and pass away.

We pay no taxes nor tithes, and we are proud people.

Lifestyle

This is my life: I arise in the morning with the cock’s call, give my cow a bit of relief, feed my beasts and my family while my heart goes out to find the meat and the herbs and the roots we shall need to eat later. Then I will check on my peoples, and we will gather around out central firepit and we will discuss the needs of the many and then the needs of the few, and we will find the ways to get such things.

We are not above playing to the superstitions and prejudices of the Staying Folk, but it is not true that we have many Oracles within our folks. Sages, perhaps, as that is like a calling for many of us, to carry the ancient words and knowledge. Not Oracles – we haven’t had an oracle in my Caravan since my grandfather’s grandfather’s time. Nor will you find cards of any sort here, search though you might.

We are masters of Kress, and that is what we play, not cards. Perhaps some Domoes if someone has a newly fashioned set of tiles. We craft and make and use what we need, often, for here in my caravan you will find nearly every major Guilder’s work spread among my kin.

Oh, yes, we are all related here. This is my family. Over there is my sweet Cousin Laura. She married Sweet Willem, who is our wainwright, our maker of cartons and wagons. Tomas there is our farrier. Donabel is quite gifted with embroidery. What we often lack is the raw materials for things. Ore and cotton and wool and such. For that we trade with merchants, for we are a community of artisans and entertainers as well – it became necessary, you see, for us to learn such things to earn the coin with which all are so consumed. Mammon’s Ire is upon them, and we’ll make do and drive bargains as well as any.

Family

We have no marriage or other such chicanery. Should we like someone, and should they like us, we will get together and stay as such as long as we like. We will each still have our home, our cart, our wagon, and we will still care for ourselves – it is more about sharing that load and caring for another.

When my time comes, the child I have that needs the most will be given the cart and my things will be shared among my children by the elders, and note that they are my children, for it was I that carried them and nursed them and we know the power of a mother is the greatest a mortal can have. We haven’t got much to do with many of that. We do like to dance and sing, though, and even the elders join in. Like Elder Jason there. Old fella can still move a jig and shake a leg like a man half his age.

There is one thing we will do as a caravan, should we be needing a great deal of coin. We will go to the grand games and earn it. Just like we do everything else – earn it or make it, there ain’t tween there. My apologies, I should say that there is nothing between the two. When we do that, we do it as a Caravan, and woe betide our opponents, for they will feel the sting of our ways.

Government

Each Caravan is headed by an Alman.

We all gather according to some ancient rules at a camp we founded southeast of Seahold.

For three days we talk and argue and meet and say words, words, words, and then we leave. Should there be disagreements between Caravans, that is where they are settled – if they are to be settled peaceably. Not all can be.

There are 125 families here. I am their leader, their judge, their lawmaker, their peacemaker. For them, and for myself, I am all that there is, for I wear the crown of Ash and Salt. It came to me when I was chosen by the Elders of the Caravan after my cousin Seth chose to let it go, which we do. We do as we will beyond that.

Commerce

Education

Aye, we teach our young. Every one of us can read Ancient and speak it. We may not be as keen on the many letters and languages of the Staying Folk, but among us there will always be one, and most of us have the trade speech learned enough to bargain and to read signs.

We have apprentices, too. Just as the Staying Folk do. That comes from far older than they, as do the laws we all follow that they are trying so hard not to follow.

We care not if one is a boy or a girl or a themon, they all can learn and grow for one never knows who will be chosen as Alman when the next time comes. Seth was chosen at 15. I was a bit older and had already had one littlun.

Culture

Arts

Values

We have a few Virtues: Honor thy elders, stand by family, stand on your own, be brave, accept consequences, own thy acts, and be honest. We have what we call sins and the Stay Folk call Vices as well: Speaking untrue, misleading others, promising a future thing, going back on thy word.

For us, each is bound to the other, and so what affects one of us affects all, be it shame or harm, the difference is of no matter.

Fashion & Style

Exilian favor loose fitting clothing that is easily worn by any gender, and that does include skirts and even dresses, which are often long sleeved, shoulder baring, and very flowing.

An Exilian in the distance, with the wind blowing, cuts a very well-known silhouette – and about the only major difference is that the men keep their hair shorn close while women rarely do.

Culture Heroes

Ricard Klinton: the first Alman, whose name and journeys starts the first of every Record in every Caravan, for all Caravans are descended from the one he led.

Oksana Domeni: An exile whose Caravan took it upon themselves to help forge lost trade routes, protect villages, and repel the Lemurians during the Goblin Wars. She was eventually chosen as Alman for her Caravan.

Donatello Tetsu: One of the few Alman known who created a new Caravan and manage to get the other Almans to back him, despite not having come from a caravan himself.

Cultural Weapons

A wide bladed, single edged, curving at the top on the backside, short sword length weapon called by them a Makh and by most others a Mashetay is the primary weapon, carried by pretty much everyone, often at hip or slung across the waist at the back.

They are also famous for using a long, thin spike or dart that is thrown with great accuracy and a ceramic-based chain mail is what many wear.

How do we manage to stay so free? We are all, to a one, an army. One moment, let me take down my dress. Here, you see what we have on beneath our clothes that cover us save for hands, feet and face. It is called chain mail. It will turn arrow and blade, though it won’t do much for shot or those darn maces the Doradans use. We fashion it from a clay I’ll not tell you the source for, so dinnae ask. That is, do not ask me, for I cannot tell. Oaths taken by all upon our baptisms. Once it is assembled, we fire it in a kiln we build, and then we coat it. The chain you will see in some Staying Folks hands was an attempt to copy our design, which we have carried with us for over a thousand years.

We also have these. Here, hold that while I dress, please. Ah, thank you. That is a Makh. In the ancient tongue they called it a Mashetay. That wide blade, the inward curve at the top on the backside, the short sword length – it is a weapon of power and fierceness that we use to drive our enemies into the dirt and gut them.

E also carry our blow tubes. Lastly, we have the spikes that we use. I am the best among my people with them and can drop a man at 30 paces.

The Dread Lands

As there are Bright Lands, there are Dread Lands, over whom the shadow of the great evils of the world have been cast.

During the God’s War, they were driven out of the Bright Lands, pushed to the edge of the world by the Powers That Be, and given over to the unending task of creating for themselves what was taken from them.

Traveling among the Dread Lands, one is struck by both the similarities and the differences between the two opponents. There are no Imperials within the Dread Lands. There are, however, people who are indistinguishable from Imperials called Fasians. Lemuria’s villages and towns are ordered places, nearly all identical homes and buildings – so much so that one can tell what a place is with but a glance.

The Dreadlands are a vastly different sort of place. There are three groups: Thule, Lemuria, and Bermuda. Some might argue to include Helike, but that place lies under the sea, and so is difficult to do anything but discount. Thule, in the far north, is openly allied with Lemuria, but is not seen by anyone as a part of it. Duat is an occasional ally, an occasional problem. These things fit, given Duat.

One of the core principles of the universe, an absolute rule that governs above and below all other such rules, is that the weak are meat, and the strong do eat.

There is immense Hostility between Lemuria and the Empire and the Shadow Realms. This is best summed up with one of the core principles in their Great Book:

They call these people consumables, slaves, chattel, cattle, and other names that strongly suggest they are not people, that they are not thinking, feeling people, and that they have only one purpose.

To feed the beast that is Lemuria.

Note that it is possible to come from these places, or to have been kidnapped and brought there and escaped. It is exceedingly rare, insanely dangerous, and less than one percent of those who try will survive the experience.

For PCs, note that you cannot, at this point, play a Goblin, Imp, Thyrs, Grendel, Merow, or similar.

For DMs, note that all of them have the same basic core structure for professions, in terms of all the other elements.

Be aware that the information herein is coming to you from the perspective of the Empire, The Seven Cities. How Hyborian and Kahokian, how Islanders, how the Exiles see it are all slightly different from what is presented here.

Additionally, there is a great deal more to the world as a whole that you cannot see yet – if there were, what value would adventures be? The Campaign for Wyrlde is in part about opening up new possibilities.

The Empire of Lemuria

Official Name	The Empire of Lemuria					Motto	Honor They Homeland
People	Lemurian					Goods	Lemurian
Flag & Symbol						Crafts	Lemurian
						Honorifics	Tal, Mim
						Greeting	Star’s Welcome!
						Parting	Blessed Be!
Respect Shown	Raised Fist at shoulder height, strike chest three times.
Virtues			Vices				Towns
Die a Good Death		Honor & Courage	Being Alone		Kindness		Hearthglen	Hellania
Be Witnessed		Obedience	Not Supporting others		Mercy		Kindtide	Gilead
Armor			Weapons
Chain Armor			Kampi
Shields			Medium Crossbow

Introduction

We do not know much about Lemuria as a whole – spies and investigators, explorers and peace delegations have rarely returned or if they have returned, they have had their skulls cut and drilled into and other foul deeds done to them that have left them nearly mindless or maimed or horribly deformed.

The Empire of Lemuria. It has three great cities (Hellania, Gilead, and Lemuria proper), and at last estimate some seven thousand villages. Beneath it is rumored to exist Agartha, a vast underground city of its own. Lemuria’s cities are generally divided according to the roles that the population there is intended to play. With a population of Goblins and Imps it is a diverse population that is shockingly segregated, down to the neighborhoods that the different people can live in.

That segregation has a Holy Purpose, for much as Elfin and Dwarfs were made to fight in a war, so too were the Goblins and Imps that are the majority of Lemuria, and the leadership there is a mix of those three and the Fasian Lords.

That, of course, ignores the number one issue that identifies Lemuria in the minds of most people: They capture, breed, and keep slaves. Slavery is the backbone of their world down there, and they are quite adept at using them.

That selfsame slavery presents a challenge, for they do not view it as slavery. They see it as a domestication project, akin to herding, farming, and training. You see, one of the reasons for them to be The Dread Lands is that they consider Imperials, Elfin, Dwarfs, and the rest to be food and fodder – chattel or cattle, depending on your take.

A few years ago, a raiding party was captured, and the sole survivor of the three days they were held awaiting interrogation (they killed themselves) was promised a chance to die in battle in exchange for helping us to understand what was going on down there, what they were like, and why were we their enemy. That interrogation is used widely now, for it gives us the best insight into whom we battle.

Much of what follows is taken from the Interrogation of Hob Master Bosworth Durkin, Flower 6 to Heat 18, 278 YNE. Direct quotes are used as much as possible, but it should be noted that his words are not for the faint of heart.

Goblins are the main force, the structural body, the overwhelming mass. Their shorter lives, rigid structure, and overall power increase as they get older all contributes to their having the greatest level of influence and privilege within the society as a whole.

Next are the Imps, whose small size, nimbleness, and capacity to work together is envious even among our own combines with the innate brilliance that is their ability to construct and design and delve and defend while doing the logistics for their realm.

Lastly are the Fasian Lords, whose might is often greater and who serve as the Enforcers and attendants to the Ikons of the Five, who reside in the Black Tower located in the heart of Lemuria proper. The eternally wrapped Fasian Lords are often flag commanders or special unit leaders but are rarely seen outside of Lemuria. Rumors abound regarding them – their skin is covered by arcane, ritually imbued tattoos; they are all albinos; they wrap themselves to disguise who they are and this allows them to infiltrate and subdue; the list is endless because no one alive has ever seen a Fasian Lord’s face or body unwrapped from the black bandages that cover their bodies entirely beneath the often tattered looking robes and cloaks they wear. It is the Ikons who genuinely rule all of Lemuria, and it is the Fasian Lords who enforce that rule.

Lemuria

Lemuria is both what they call “the Capital” and the heart of their entire world down there, and yet as diverse as they are, it is not a place where – as an example – there are halflings.

“The Urpian lands, where the savage and uncivilized treat hard working people like trash, and the poor are cast aside like some flotsam washed up on a shore from the great ocean. Our people do not want, do not suffer. We take care of our own, and we don’t allow those half-bloods and other impurities to be part of our society – they are abominations that weaken the whole.”

Indeed, simply considering looking at someone outside your own kind is a criminal offense, but also, unlike us, they cannot intermingle and produce them. Their variance from human norm is too great, and while Goblins can create Orcs, orcs can only create half-Orcs, and in all cases it was intentional. They were designed to be able to do that.

The segregation is supported as an Edict from on High, meaning it is something that they have written in their Great Book. That is merely the instructions and words of Belial from the end of the War, as they prepared for a killing blow, a final solution to the problem of us, people.

“They tell a story meant to make one cry, to weep, of poor broken people struggling to survive, and yet they never acknowledge what they did to us, sealing us away from the Holy Land, pushing us to the ends of the world, and how they treated those of us they had taken as prisoners, starving them and killing them.”

“They never talk about those things, never reveal those truths in the lies they tell about how Belial was too hard for them. This is a hard and harsh world, and one must adapt to it, fit it, dominate it, make it serve you instead of simply devour you like so much meat.”

“They can’t even speak properly – have you heard them, babbling on in their indecipherable language, never once using the words that were handed down from Trundle himself, given to us as a gift and part of holy writ.”

Of import here is that this is how they see not themselves, but the people they hold as slaves. They simply do not count except as food, as labor, and for all the great and grand buildings that they speak of, their realm was built by the labor of slaves.

Tradition is sacrosanct in the dread lands. Not everything is traditional, but what is tradition must be kept and honored.

“The world has become a place of depravity, where the weak are given places of honor and recognized instead of put in their proper role and position. It is like a woman refusing to make babies because she doesn’t want to, or trying to take the role of a man, or, possibly worst of all, engaging in perversion with another woman.”

“The Urpians allow that. In some places, they celebrate it! One of their cities is ruled by a woman! These things lead to people deciding they have the power to question, to doubt, to allow softness and weakness to creep in and corrupt them, making them no better than the chattel they are.”

As noted, the major difference between Thule in the north and Lemuria in the south is that in Thule, women occupy nearly all the positions of authority. This is because the women of Thule are larger, meaner, more aggressive, and would wipe out any of the typical commanders or leaders in Lemuria, where it is strength that establishes the proper rule and place.

Being suspicious of each other is normal in Lemuria – after the betrayal of the Kobolds at the end of the God’s War.

“You can never to be too careful. Even those who have taken the oaths may turn, despite the horrible fate that awaits them should they do so. And the great Enemy, the Urpians who rebelled against the just and natural order of the universe, have been known to use magic and to take the place of people you love and care for so they can kill all of you.

So better safe and watchful of people who are not as dedicated to the Cause.”

“The Cause” is the retaking of the Bright Lands and the Ancient Land, and the enslavement of all the people there. It is variously called the Cause, the Lost Cause, the Great Calling, the True Purpose, and the Destiny of Lemuria.

“I am the Witness to all my brothers whom you killed We are all to be heroes, to be seen, to be witnessed doing our great and noble deeds as we live and breathe and fight and die for the glory of the Empire!”

This witnessing, this recognition of masculinity, of heroism, of sacrifice, is an exceptionally critical thing – especially among goblins, who give out their cry of “Karaja!” when launching into battle. For years, we thought it was a battle cry – “kill them all” or “follow me,” that sort of thing. It was quite a shock to realize that they weren’t even speaking to us, but to each other.

It was even more shocking to realize that “Na garege kiho nomnom” means “oh look, fresh meat!”, and is heard nearly as often. Storage of meat and vegetables is usually accomplished through salting and drying, even in Lemurian spaces, and so they are not saying it to intimidate, but because those sent out on the main lines do not get to have fresh meat often. That we are the fresh meat is not of concern to them.

“There are Urpians over here that have never done more than looked at armor, or done more than watched a play sword fight, who would refuse to fight for their own glory of whatever false Powers That Be they follow and whatever twisted thinking they might hold fast. Pacifists aren’t even worth using as consumables. They have no flavor, no soul, no spirit, no real use beyond fertilizer.”

Lemurians do not welcome nor accept the idea that fighting is not always a thing. For them, living is seen as a struggle, regardless of how little struggling they do when it is believed that they have at least one slave for every ranking citizen. They have been raiding a long time, and their early raids were decimating.

“We would never have let them raid us the way we raid them. We would have decimated their little villages in a wave of overpowering strength the likes of which they cannot imagine – but soon, soon they will see it for themselves.”

“Those others, they are too weak, too lost in their fake ideologies and their certainties that they no longer can tell the truth. It is our job to bring them the Truth, to bring back the traditional values, and end the perversions and injustice of their stolen lands.”

The zealotry that Lemurians show, in particular, is not matched in Thule, and this is likely because of the separation following the war, which gave Thulians the ability to begin thinking for themselves, perhaps.

Hellania

“The Fatherland, Hellania. Gilead likes to pretend, taking after the weak and slovenly Urpians that drove us through blood and death and horror out from our own rightful places.

Hellania was founded by Belial, personally, before the traitors snuck in like the thieves they are and stole him away, locking him away from us and capping their weak spined and perverted betrayal of the Truth.

Go, see our Homeland, and how it is orderly and neat, and everyone has a role and a place, and everything goes towards the greatness of Hellania, for we are all but servants of it and the great Cause – which we say because it is not Lost, merely misplaced. We do not have the filth of animals in our streets or the refuse of some perversion or beggars looking for a way to avoid a decent day’s hard honest work.”

Hellania is the primary training ground and center of the vast military system of Lemuria, of which every person is a member. Lemuria exists as a standing army, an ever-present threat to the peace and stability of our Bright Lands, and Hellania is their principal training ground for most of it.

It is suggested that the impossible number of half a million troops are stationed there at any given time, rotating out to work at family Plantations or as craft supervision. Hellania is a sprawling city where no building is taller than ten feet high, flowing over the landscape like a blight of perfectly identical domes made from clay and plaster and wood and then sealed using the one thing that they never seem to run out of: blood.

Gilead

Gilead is used to train insurgents and raiders and small specialized strike forces. Their role is to incite fear, to cause panic, to disrupt supply lines, to overcome the defenses of the place. Their training ground for this is Gilead, and like the rest of the realm of Lemuria, they use slaves to practice and refine their skills.

Gilead’s slaves are, as a result, seemingly given more freedom, set up in villages and spaces that are re-used over time, and even allowed to establish patterns of work and life. The typical small village goes through the cycle every five years of being populated, rebuilt, re-established, and then when growth and resistance has reached a certain level, attacked. They are allowed hope, only to have that hope taken away from them when the time comes to eat.

There are collaborating slaves for this. They allow a few of them to live, to start and perpetuate the cycle for each iteration. They are given special privileges, but never allowed any kind of real power – and are traded out when they become too difficult to work with or are discovered.

Agartha

Supporting all of this industrious work, managing the transportation, storage, security, and planning for their own counter insurgency and insurgency tactics is what lies beneath Lemuria: the warren-like labyrinth of Agartha.

Agarthans are all about the logistics of effort. They are concerned and seek to train in disruption insurgency and counter insurgency, movement and supply, and communications. They are sneaky, sharp minded, and focused on a different kind of approach to tasks: they seek to move everything underground, through what they call the Underdark. Thousands of miles of corridors and trailways, storage and munitions, the works: Agarthans do all of this underground.

They use fairly fixed ways of protecting and defending forward outposts and related areas: traps. Servant monsters. The complex breeding projects that have produced a host of terrors. The experimentation on people. Also, of course, themselves. They are the builders of Warrens, allowing the dread lands to prepare and establish raiding posts from which their teams can enter and raid and vanish by retreating to secret staging Warrens.

Agarthans drive their slaves to death, without mercy, compassion, care, or concern beyond “are they able to move? Then they had best be moving.” They mind killing slaves even less than the rest because slaves are also food – they are the cattle and primary meat source for the Goblins, even if the Imps themselves do not eat such. They work on timetables that would be impossible in the Bright Lands, and they seem to know ways of causing pain that have never been studied.

Most Agarthans are small, because most need to be able to operate on a level with the primary inhabitants: Imps. Imps do not like people being larger than them. They have a case of enormous ego in a tiny body, and it shows. They are bossy, nasty beings with quick tempers and the ability to direct it effectively. This colors the way that all of those who work and dwell in Agartha behave and act – although always still segregated.

While much of Lemuria is united by Lemurian culture, and it is common here, there is a uniqueness to Agartha that is worth speaking of. They have some way of communicating through the darkness, of warning about traps and other dangers to each other. Reports suggest that it is a complex growling or grumbling series of sounds, and that they may use markings of some sort. In any case, it is strongly believed that Agarthans have their own language and writing system, distinct from any other. Perhaps more importantly, Agarthans do not consider themselves part of Lemuria, seeing themselves in a way that they will die before they share with others.

It is notable that Imps do not eat meat. But that meat can feed their fungi farms is of interest and note.

Attitude

The great philosophers and many of our bards and even large gatherings of nobles often meet to discuss and question the reasons and rationales used by our Foes to continue to fight, to hate us with such ferocity, and to deny reality with such absolute conviction. There is no reason to fight, to raid, to disrupt trade, to steal children, to enslave other people. Yet they do, and they have neither qualm nor moral uncertainty about it. A large part of the reason for this came out of Bosworth’s mouth as he cursed and spat, his green skin turning mottled shades as his anger and bitterness spilled out.

“For over a thousand years, he has sent us his Ikons, and they have built the great Black Tower that rests within the heart of our city, rising from the bowl of the ancient volcano or meteor strike like an antenna pointed at the Heavens above, which we will one day reclaim for us and all our heirs.”

The following distinctions aside, what we have gleaned through clairvoyance, through the sending of parties of adventurers to reconnoiter, and related efforts, is at least an idea of what the hamlets, villages, towns, and cities are like in appearance within the realm.

Government

Lemuria is an absolute dictatorial theocracy, headed by Bane, the Ikon of Belial. He uses the Fascian Lords as a kind of nobility or Elite to enforce his will upon the larger population.

While he officially is said to reside in the Dark Tower, or the Black Tower, or the Dread Tower (there are three of them, and all are identical, all sitting right next to each other) we have reason to believe none of the above is always true.

This is often having to suppress a bubbling and secretive rebellion among a very small segment of his population, and to shut down some kind of secret escape route that is enabling slaves to escape.

Thule

Official Name	The Matriarxa of Thule					Motto	To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentations of their women
People	Thulian					Goods	Thulian
Flag & Symbol						Crafts	Thulian
						Honorifics	Ma, Mam
						Greeting	I kneel, or Tuf!
						Parting	I serve, or Getem!
Respect Shown	Kneel before those above, forehead on ground, hands to sides, palm up
Virtues			Vices					Towns
Obedience		Courage	Mercy		Cowardice			Unknown
Fecundity		Strength	Weakness		Defiance
Armor			Weapons
Coin Mail			Thulian Greatsword
			Thulian harpoon

Introduction

The Battle of Bilderberg was considered the last great act of the God’s War, fought in the frigid and desolate north among the most fearsome and devastating of all the grievous and vile Foes of the Five, the Thyrs. They held that land, held fast despite the courage and heart of the Bright, and though the Five lost the War, it was us who lost that ultimate battle, a sacrifice play.

Thule is their land, no longer desolate, but rich and powerful. Their immense, single hulled, multi banked and oared ships make frequent raids for slaves, goods, and they are effective pirates, raiders, and represent a persistent threat within the Wild.

Thulians are the second closest allies of Lemuria and lack any significant industry or developed economic system. Indeed, reports are that they use Imperial coinage when they use any at all for purposes other than lining their vests with them.

Thulians are not afraid to tackle an entire village with only twenty of them. They are that fearsome and dangerous, and they are well aware of it. It seems to offend them when people are not afraid of them. Using slave labor, they have carved hundreds of small villages throughout the large island, each one led by a Matriarx. That alone separates them from their allies in Lemuria, but it is notable that they seem forgiven it in the treaties that are expected to have been formed.

Thule is notable for being the location of several legends of creatures found nowhere else on the planet that infest the Barrier Peaks, whose teeth like white caps soar above the land. Those same Peaks are infested, of course, the great spiders and dragons and Wildbeasts are said to live there. Those mountains are ore rich, but not in iron or silver. They hold the largest copper reserves the Ancients had ever seen and are said to be full of gems – so full that Thulian children play with them for marbles. They are also the only known mountains anywhere around Avilon where people can climb to the snow covered tops of them.

Attitude

Thulians are separated by culture, kind, and more from their traditional allies to the southwest in Lemuria but share a common goal in that they seek to rule the world.

They actively raid. While they may avoid a large town and the cities, it isn’t anything more than strictly tactical and strategic on their part. They can capture an entire Village in a single evening, and then sell those they don’t want in Lemuria after storing them on their vast ships. They take slaves and treat them abominably (as Grand Master Bard Caledon later learned), using them as every form of manual labor and eschewing any sort of mechanics more complicated than one can achieve with wood, stone, and clay.

Thyrs ships are a mariner’s nightmare. Three decks of slave oarsmen, quarters for as many as sixty raiders, and holds capable of holding up to two hundred prisoners plus a fair load of loot and goods. All of this, and they fly three masts with sails, and coat a ram in bronze. They will sink a ship fast after boarding it, and don’t use ballistae or scorpions – just simple, basic ram and board techniques. But they are so tough that only adventurers really stand a chance in most cases.

The reputation of Thule is pretty basic: they are trying to conquer the world, and they are not letting anything stop them. They do not appear to have the sheer forces to do so in a single grand attack, but they are decidedly harrying and preparing and in the last two decades or so have ramped up their attacks greatly.

Thyrs do not mess around – discipline is like a thing for them, and they have assigned roles and ranks and take them very seriously. Nothing lives in a Hamlet that has been wiped out by a Thyrs raid. That said, Thulian society is apparently quite relaxed and ordered around entertaining themselves, training, and pursuing endeavors of passion.

Lifestyle

When not out at sea, racing or raiding or practicing for racing or raiding, Thulians enjoy equestrian sports, livestock raising, and archery and holding a reverence for warriors whose existence is defined by their ability to move, to travel, to be swift – on land, by air, or by sea. The cuisine of these fell people consists mostly of milks, meats, and breads. For meats, while they have no problem with the people in a pinch, they generally prefer goat, elk deer, zedeer, and so forth, but will not go near Aruks or cows. They seem to have an intense dislike for swine of all sorts, however – they don’t eat it, but they will destroy it. Thyrs love yogurt, as well, and are absolutely fanatical about cheese.

Thule has a broadsheet that is produced daily. It is something that Sibola copied, but not nearly as colorful. The Thulian Broadsheet is several pages long, printed on what is certainly a press, and includes news on the dalliances and intrigues of the day, as well stories of raids and the expected information about new laws, rulings, and related items. Most Thulians are able to read and write, taught basic skills and such by their Matrons and mothers early on. Grand Master Bard Caledon tells a tale of coming upon a lone Thyrs who had made a camp and was relaxing and reading such a broadsheet. They were well met and shared a meal and swapped stories late into the night, parting in the morning without killing each other.

There is a story about a ship’s captain who saved his crew by sacrificing the weight of a Matriarx in cheese from the holds. They eat a lot of deer, which are what are most often found in the forested lands they call home.

Family

Women keep groups of men around to keep them happy, and Matriarx will have women of lesser station available to serve them and care for their children. The role of the men is entirely based around the service to the head of household, the Matron. Thulian culture generally allows children to be free and to learn and grow from experience more than rote education, but all women are still schooled formally by the Matriarx of their units.

Government

Thule is ruled by the Grand Matriarx. She is, for all intents and purposes, the absolute ruler.

Beneath her are several Great Matriarx, all of whom have oversight over a region of Thule. There are, to our best knowledge, thirty-four regions. Collectively, they form the Council, which is the great deliberative body, which uses a fairly simple voting system, the representation by Great Matriarx with the Grand Matriarx representing both the realm as a whole and the region in which Thule exists.

Beneath the Great Matriarx are the High Matriarx. Beneath them, in turn, lies the Matriarx, and finally there are the Matrons. Matrons are both the heads of households and the leaders of a given unit. Units are almost always comprised of family. To become a Matriarx, one has to be the toughest, strongest, most cunning, most ruthless, least merciful member in the area and beat the others. This happens every five years in a Limpic Festival, which goes on for two weeks and has several different events where the people prove their mettle against others (it is not merely a fight – those happen last). Where one places in this festival determines rank against those who one competed against. The current Grand Matriarx has defeated all comers for twenty-five years. The record is sixty-five.

Thule is aligned with Lemuria and often coordinates activities with them. It is not as often as would be effective, however – the typical Matron can easily defeat a Hob commander who is most certainly going to be argumentative and problematic. Since Thyrs will kill you without even thinking much about it, it usually means the two realms cooperate, but rarely operate together.

Thule is extremely offended by Akadia’s existence. They routinely raid the area, and their mages are easily the equal of and possibly more creative than those in Akadia. A sobering thought.

Education

Like Sibola, they do not provide much education to anyone other than women.

It is said that fewer than 50 in 100 men can read, though about half of all Enby can. Women are raised to lead, men are raised to die, and all others are raised serve. This is the way that it was phrased once, but the truth is far more complex, as the men of Thule are still what we would call filled with machismo and have driving needs to prove themselves and their virility and their capability and skill.

It is the Enby Thyrs that can prove to be the readiest to be peaceable, though only when it benefits them, and this is a throughline in much of the engagements – they do not care about other peoples – even the Goblins are of little concern to them. They are the largest, fiercest, strongest of all the people, and they not only know it, but accept it as holy writ that they will one day rule the whole of the world.

Culture

Values

Thyrs value Obedience to those higher, order, rank, courage, strength of will and heart, and capability to produce heirs. In Thulian society, everything is run down through the women of their people, from property rights to inheritance to heads of families. The role of those who are not women is to ensure that they are given what they need, and to prove oneself worthy of their attention and time.

Thyrs are not overly cruel or malicious, as Goblins can be. They avoid killing children and keep their needs to themselves. They do not show Mercy, but they can show kindness and even be pleasant company when not having to deal with the brutalist Matriarx.

Cultural weaponry

Thulians use double hafted, double cross braced swords four to five feet in length and as wide as the hand of a man for all but the last half foot, where it tapers to a point. These massive weapons are generally around 40 pounds each, and while well balanced, are too large for most other peoples. They use grapple lines at sea with proficiency, and are quite adept at crossbows, usually captured from those they have raided. Otherwise, they use heavy poles with axe blades on one side and spikes on the other, throwing them or using them at range.

Thulian warriors are almost indistinguishable to most people on sight, save for the color of their eyes. Part of this is that they often wear long laced vests of leather for armor, to which they have sewn hundreds of Imperial coins.

Duat

Introduction

If there was a place where anarchy was truly extant above the waves, it would find its closest form in and among the roundish, beehive shaped hovels of Duatians, who appear to be impossible to describe effectively or accurately. They are not even a nation, despite having come up with a flag to fly on their stolen ships or hang on poles in their raided forts and hamlets. They are extremely intelligent people, with a highly developed language and are fully able to communicate and sometimes even do – usually in the native language of those they are speaking to.

However, they often simply don’t want to, and so they won’t. Or one might, and several dozen won’t. They don’t seem to have any kind of honor system or real values structure beyond ‘do what you feel like doing.” This seems to be joined by a kind of “hey, you want to go get some people?” or possibly “I wonder if that ship has stuff we can use – you wanna go check it out?”.

Envoys sent to watch and spy have always been found and captured, but often it was a circumstance where they had been found again, and had simply had a long talk with the people the first time. The best we have been able to come p with is that Duatians are a bunch of individuals who live together, play music and dance together, and then do whatever they want in groups or solo and without any real direction beyond whatever sounds good at the moment to those who follow or go along with a plan.

If they can be said to have a plan. There are no true leaders, merely people with an idea and a bunch of others who say sure and do their own thing, sometimes even working at cross purposes. Duatian culture is easily reduced to the precept of Do whatever you want and don’t worry about consequences. Duatians have been known to attack allied groups of Goblins and Imps and even defy Thyrs. They are wild cards, outside the realm and range of sense and understanding we have of the Foe.

It doesn’t help that Duatians at large are generally smarter, stronger, faster, meaner, bigger, and more unpredictable than any other peoples. Even the few remaining feral tribes of Merow – who often work with Duatians, are more easily figured out than this. Duatians do not take prisoners. They do not take slaves. They do not hold things for ransom. Their hovels, from the outside, are simple dirt, clay, mud and earth. No one knows what the inside looks like. They could have tunnels down there.

Duatians do not seem to have any kind of family structure or even track their heritage back to the time before the God’s War. We are not even certain how to tell their genders apart, or even if they have genders. While they all look similar, they are different enough to tell apart as individuals, but yet there is no record of them engaging in any birthing or other practices, and the closest they come to rituals is when one of them grabs a stick and acts as if they are playing a lyre while howling horribly. I would say that the best way to describe Duatians is that they are in it for the fun of it.

Attitude

This seems to be the closest, for the major things that Duatians do engage in during raids, besides random killings of those who get in their way or deny them, is they take all the metals. Anything metal. Everything metal. They don’t eat it that we can tell, as we seem them eating an assortment of thing – including people on occasion, but not with nearly the gusto of Goblins. They take it back to their homes, built in strange, wild clusters that look like hills of beehives all stacked and running together, climb up to the hole on top that is their entrance, and go in. The metals never come out and no one knows for certain what they do with it.

Bermuda

Official Name	Bermuda					Motto	To the New World Order
People	Bermudan					Goods	Bermudan
Flag & Symbol						Crafts	Bermudan
						Honorifics	Graga
						Greeting	Urga
						Parting	Ehgro
Respect Shown	Keeping your clasped hands in sight at all times.
Virtues			Vices					Towns
Cooperation		Magnanimity	Disharmony		Distrust			Montego	Aruba
Knowledge		Family	Dishonesty		Treason			Kokomo	Largo
Armor			Weapons					Temples
None			Khopesh, Karn					Paria, Mansa
			Spear					Qetza. Gallae

Introduction

Isolationist, uninvolved, outsiders – the ways that people describe the least seen of all the people are often traced back to these ideas. Shipwrecked sailors have said they watched them abandon them on a shore instead of help. Explorers have said they were attacked, subject to poisoned dart spit from blowguns in the shadows. Mages seeking rare and unusual ingredients for a ritual have reported being cut down early.

All this, and for the last two dozen years, a delegation from Bermuda has approached each of the different Realms and offered trade terms, seeking to open up a discourse and potentially form an alliance. They even encourage people to visit certain areas of their coastal lands, where they apparently have set up some sort of resort. Chicory says it is wonderful. Something about “only way she’ll ever get a cabana boy”, whatever that means. They get along well with and have borrowed things from Islandians, and the prior examples are often waved off as they were interlopers, prying into things that are private, and Bermudans and are extremely protective of their privacy and their realm; otherwise, they avoid dealing with people whenever possible.

Attitude

Bermudans are not neutral, but they are only on their own side. They do not seek to bridge a divide or serve and the relatively few every year who run off to join the Dread Host are considered criminals and outcasts, and the penalties for such are swift, brutal, and without appeal.

They do not encourage engagement with the Bright lands, for they don’t have trade agreements and do not trust easily nor deeply – and likely with good reason. Their small, flatbottom boats are wonderful for passing through marshes, swamps, and such, but they are not very agile on the seas. They do use canoes, but rarely and then only for speed. They are an industrious people, who produce a very fine ceramic, intricately detailed and decorated, and they are a patient people who have things they want, but not at the price many will sometimes demand. They are a frugal people with their favor, their wealth, and their secrets.

Government

For seventeen generation, there has been a King Kobold on the throne of Bermuda. From it, he oversees the vast assortment of villages – traditional and the more modern resorts being built to attract others – and enforces laws made and decided through counsel with his Nobles, the Dukes, Counts, Earls, and Barons that each oversee a given space.

The King declares nobility, and it appears that they do not track Houses the way that others have and find it essential that nobles be people who are liked. This could also be because every Bermudan – no matter where they came from or what they are, is a soldier, and is expected to defend the people and its way of life, which they see as always being precarious.

Bermudans want to be part of the larger world stage and benefit from it (especially in relation to alcohol and fruits, which they absolutely love but have poor results with, save for pineapples), but do not want to sacrifice the life, the ways, the culture that they have built for themselves – and that includes not having to give service to any of the Powers, for there are no temples, no shrines, no manses. The extent of Bermudan religion is those who have passed within living memory, and hoping that they have a better life in the next one.

Family

Bermudans raise their children in creches, collective areas, and the children are the children of the whole village, even if they might be easily identifiable as the progeny of one person or another. As Bermudans do not have strong ties and bonds with children in the same way that others do, it is often thought they don’t have them with others as adults, and this is deeply untrue. Once hatched, they are raised in the communal hall and all are taught the crucial principles of Bermudan life, including reading and writing – Bermuda may have the greatest degree of literacy among all the realms.

The most important relationship for Bermudans is between mates, and a given group will typically mirror the diversity of the population as a whole: one man, three women, and two themon. While some groups may be smaller (deaths, haven’t found the right person yet, and so forth), they will never be larger as that throws off the balance of ability. Eggs produced will go to the creche, but the devotion and commitment of the partners endures, and is often times so close that killing one may kill others from the grief and loss.

Typically, it is the themon who are the heads of family units, but note that this is a rough idea, as they are all committed to each other, and all are still very much able to fend for themselves. There are no gender role divisions in Bermuda.

Culture

Values

Bermudans value Family, country, and independence. For them, Unity and diversity, equality and equity are key principle, core values, and they do not see those in others readily. Cooperation, Magnanimity, Knowledge, considered thinking, openness, and honesty are all central tenets, and their obverses are often reasons for punishment, as there do not seem to be many overt folkways among Bermudans.

Cultural Weapons

Bermudans are primarily hunters, and primarily work by ambush, so they have gained notoriety for building complex traps and snares and pits. They frequently will use toxins on darts, arrows, and javelins, but if they go into a full battle they will use a small shield, a short sword, and a five foot long, broad bladed spear. In a grappling contest, they will use their teeth and claws, much like any other person would, but note their claws can gouge and scratch deeper than most.

Bermudans use small shields that also double as their bowls, plates, and whatnot. About 15 inches in diameter, they are square with rounded edges. In formal battle, they will wear a front breast plate, and their back scales are plenty tough enough as it is.