[Parsulan] Mayura

The tale as it's told in Mayura (a city, it should be said, that never chooses truth over a good story) is that an aged, latter-day Wizard-Kings, Mordrey, upon his death split his kingdom among his children. For reasons known only to himself, he bequeathed rulership of his capital to his most unassertive son. While Mordrey had seen fit to place powerful wards upon city so that no one of his blood could rule if they took the city by force, the timid Prince despaired that one or another of his grasping and ambitious siblings would find some indirect means kill him and take the prize. Fearing any day might be his last, he threw himself into pleasures to live life to the fullest. He began spending his inherited fortune on distractions. Entertainers and artists flocked to the city to partake of his largesse.

The prince died young and without an heir, though not at the hands of his siblings but as a result of his sybaritic pursuits. By then, he had inadvertently placed the city on the course it holds to this day, passing through the end of the Age of Magitech, the Demon War, and the darkness that followed, largely unchanged, if not unscathed. 

It is true that, despite popular depictions (often popularized by the troubadours and theater troupes of Mayura, itself), a city of its size and importance must have citizenry beyond artists and performers. Of course, there are craftsmen, merchants, beggars, and servants. But how many artisans are only supporting themselves until the quality of their verse is recognized and rewarded? How many moneylenders or soldiers are perhaps actors researching a role? 

Mayura is still a monarchy technically, though its ruler is not of the line of Mordrey. Instead, a grand, annual, nonlethal fighting tournament held at the Aristeion colosseum used to select who will serve as the ceremonial ruler for the next year and a day. Competitors are drawn from all over Parsulan, and the event is bolstered by matches and demonstrations by the professional gladiators in the arena's training schools. The Mayura citizenry feel that having such a formidable and dynamic public representative helps deter otherwise bellicose neighbors. They also appreciate the coin brought in by the spectators to the competition.

The work of running Mayura is done by an elected council of citizens interested in that sort of drudgery. The actual ruling in the sense of setting a course for the city's future is currently done by an unelected former dancer, the Lady Petalutha. The paramour of a former four-term King, Petalutha has parleyed her celebrity into a position of real power, and no one sense has been willing to brave public disapproval to make her give it up. By all accounts, however, she is a capable leader, bolstering Mayura military, leading to a quelling of the coastal pirates, and pushing for trade deals that have benefited her city. She is not well liked by the old nobility who control the lands around the city-state, however, who would prefer a more tractable head of state.

[Parsulan] Scavengers and the Field of the Fallen Colossi

Art by Guy Wurley

The ramshackle boomtown called Salvage by its inhabitants and the Scrapyard by outsiders is built amid the fallen combatants of an ancient battle. The colossi are named for their color. Red Knight lies on its back, reaching for a sword that is out of reach. Blue Knight fell forward. Its weapon is long gone, but one hand is raised. The plains have made half-hearted attempts to reclaim the giants, and the knives of time have marked them, but they remain, tempting those interested in making a quick fortune or simply curious about their enigma. The colossi are unusual treasure troves, or above ground mines, made as they are from rare materials and magitechnologies unreproducible in the current age. 

All the prospectors, adventurers, scholars, and thieves looking to claim their own piece of the colossi, and the merchants, dealers, entertainers, and bandits looking to get rich off them, crowd into haphazard buildings constructed along and amid the fallen giants. It's a dangerous place. There is no law in Salvage and plenty of desperate characters. Guns are more common that elsewhere given the relative abundance of both artificers and the raw magitech materials.

The danger isn't just from the inhabitants. There are caustic fluids, poison gases, and other environmental hazards to be sure, but also the colossi are not as dead as they appear. They haven't moved in ages, but not all of their internal parts have been stilled like their limbs. Component constructs, perhaps something like immune system elements, sometimes react violently to scavengers crawling through a colossus's insides. Some grow independent and feral and prowl outside the bodies as if their look for prey or raw materials to affect repairs.

[Parsulan] The Weird Wood

The Weird Wood of southern Parsulan is an ancient forest infused with potent arcane energies. In halls of Magical Academy at Abraxad, surrounded and protected by the wood, it is labelled as Forbidden and students have been disciplined or even expelled for entering it other than by the proscribed paths. Treasure seekers and adventures from other places sometimes travel the forest, however, but many don't return.

What is known from the reports of those that enter it is that the forest is a place of unusual magical power. At the very least, it alters a visitor's perception of time and distance. The wood is also said to be the abode of strange spirits, beings inhabiting both biological and mechanical forms.

Faerie woodlands are hardly a rarity in Parsulan, but somehow, the Weird Wood has become infected or entwinned with technomagical devices in addition to its natural, elemental powers. Some point to its relative proximity to the Field of Fallen Colossi and suggest some stray, animate portion of the giant combatants may have made its way to the forest. Others argue that given the sheer number of constructs and amount armament debris found there, moss covered or half-buried, it must be the remnant of an assault by a substantial force. Perhaps in times past someone marched against Abraxad, and this is the result? If that is true, then Abraxad would surely have record of it in its extensive libraries, but those remain closed to outsiders.

Whatever their origins, it is these artifacts that draw the scavengers.

The commonly encountered fae of the forest are mostly harmless and appear as small, crude figures or vaguely animal or insect shapes of metal. They seem to mimic biological life in a rough but analogous way to the manner Meks resemble humans. 

The larger, more dangerous entities are harder to describe with certainty. Some appear as beasts with mechanical and biological parts. Others are shifting shapes of churning metal, churning storms of fury and blades.

[Parsulan] In The Red Wastes

In Southeast Parsulan, the Karkharoth badlands are an inhospitable, monster-haunted region of gullies and ravines between low, barren, red ridges, at times scarred by jagged rock formations like rows of fangs. In a broad canyon surrounding one of a rare oases is the fortress city-state of Kamazot.

The broken and desolate terrain isn't natural but instead due to the folly of man. In the Age of the Wizard Kings, attempts to push the then-fertile lands to even higher yields, coupled with sabotage from rival lands led to disruption of local fae elementals and a wounding of the land. The weakening of the polity made the region vulnerable to raids from the humanoid nations to the north serving to further depopulate the old kingdom.

The Demon War might have thoroughly returned the badlands to wilderness and ruin, but a warlord rose to organize disparate tribal groups and led them to re-occupy Kamazot. The armies unearthed ancient magitech weapons and restored them to the repaired fortress walls. The city they rebuilt developed into an autocracy organized along military lines, which persists to this day. Despite its regimented society, Kamazot has always been opened to outsiders who prove their worth. Even humanoids and those of monstrous ancestry are occasionally accepted into their society. 

It is rare for rulership succession in the city-state to be passed hereditarily. Instead, the clan generals elect an Imperator. The current ruler, Dornon Gundark, is unusual in that he was a clanless outsider who rose through the ranks due to his battle prowess and canny out-maneuvering of rivals at a time when Kamazot had been weakened by poor leadership.  He enjoys both popular support and the loyalty of most of the generals. Those less supportive are kept in line by his command of the Red Hawks, an elite force drawn mostly from those born outside the city and discriminated minorities such as humanoids and Darklings.

 Dornon directs his forces to seek out magitech weapons to add to the state's arsenal. He is very fond of cannons, the bigger the better. He pays handsomely for the recovery of weaponry from ancient ruins and dungeons.

His interests in technology extend beyond weaponry, however. Recently a railroad line was completed linking Kamazot with the Northern Parsulan industrial hubs. The line passes a perilous route through humanoid territory, however, and must employ adventurers and mercenaries both the trains and crews effecting repairs. Another line is planned between Kamazot and the port of Ervessos, but interests in the rival states of the Lightbearer Republic and Grancazarel oppose to close and alliance between those regional powers.

[Parsulan] The Lightbearer Republic

The youngest state of Southeastern Parsulan is at once ill-omened and favored with great promise. Morrgna, capital of the Republic, is famed for the strange lights that can frequently be seen in its night skies: the aurora-like ribbons and curtains of pale color, sometimes with faces or forms moving through them and the flickering will-o'wisps that pass through the streets or hang in place for a time before fading. Such lights are often seen in association with the irruption of shadow cysts and they do seem to foreshadow the difficulties the area has with demonic forces.

At the same time, the Republic seems to be on the rise. Less than two decades ago, it was a sparsely populated backwater, ravaged by the demonic Wild Hunt. The tide turned with the so-called Miracle of the Church of Saint Lampada, wherein Leonhart Urzen, now First Citizen of the Republic, led a band of refugees in repulsing an assault by a demonic host. The cost of victory was the death of Leonhart's adventuring companions and their retainers, a group now celebrated as the Fallen Heroes. Those Heroes are entombed with honor in a crypt beneath the great church, guarded by special Keeper-Priests, for reasons that are doctrinally obscure. They are venerated on All Heroes Day, and the night before their spirits and those of the city's other dead are propitiated with offerings and their forgiveness is sought through rituals led by the priests.

Leonhart guided the formation of the Republic by inviting in neighboring cities and towns, and organized a militia, both protect the land against demonic incursion and to collect magical artifacts that emerge from the shadow cysts and bring them to Morrgna's dungeon vaults for safe keeping. While citizens guard the cities and serve in officer roles, Mercenaries and adventurers compromise most of the forces sent into emergent shadow cysts and patrolling beyond the walls of the cities and towns. Those who die in service are considered to be added to the ranks of the Fallen Heroes laid to rest with the original group beneath the church. Though few would refuse such as an honor, agreement to this burial honor is said to be a stipulation of admittance into the militia's ranks.

A Partial Gazetteer of the Planet Sagar

Sagar is the alien world that astronaut John Blackstar found on the other end of a black hole as revealed in the Filmation animated series Blackstar (1981). Here are a few of the fantastical locales he visited in the series:

CITY OF THE DESERT DWELLERS. A walled city beyond the Gorge of Winds where live an elfin people (perhaps related to the Desert Sprites) who possess the Healing Stone and guard it from the gargoyles who serve the Overlord. [ep 05]

DEMONLANDS. A barren region of jagged, coral-like formations and strange trees with boil-like growths where demons are particularly easy to summon. It is the location of a temple where the Overlord’s ally Taleena is high priestess and last worshipper. [ep 12]

MARAKAND. Floating city of the rapacious Shaldemar, the Zombie Master. The passing of Marakand leads to destruction of cities, but living beings are helplessly drawn up by its beams and Shaldemar uses his Sphere of Souls to transform his captives into soulless automatons, subject to his will. [ep 13]

TAMBORIYON. A lost city of the Ancient Ones, it lies on a jungle-choked island in the middle of a lake beyond the volcanic Flame Mountains. Tamboriyon's slender spires and domes bedecked with precious metals and jewels are now jungled-choked ruins, but the giant aumaton, Sumaro, who is the city's guardian, merely slumbers and may be reawakened by the unwise. [ep 02)

[Greyhawk] The Wild Coast

In the waning days of the Great Kingdom, folk who were faced with debts they could not pay or disagreements with the legal authorities that might see them imprisoned or facing the hangman often found it convenient to flee narrow area of flatwood, sandhill, and wetland along the Northwest edge of Wooly Bay. There, they would be, if not welcomed, at least accepted into the independent community that had grown up among the several, squabbling towns. The region had an infamous reputation and was known as the Wild Coast.

Primarily, the Wild Coast served as a safe haven for brigands and outlaws from the woodlands west and smugglers and pirates from Wooly Bay to the east. Trade went on between the groups without fear of Dyvers' or Greyhawk's tax agents. The towns grew up to crater to the needs of these clientele but also drew others in search of freedom: escaped serfs and slaves, political dissidents, fringe religionists, and more than a few nonhumans. 

The freedom of the Wild Coast was just as often manifest as lawlessness. Existence was precarious when local powers shift quickly and much of the population is transitory. Humanoids raided up from Pomarj and monsters driven out of other areas sometimes found this sparsely populated region ideal.

It seems like Gygax wanted the Wild Coast to evoke a bit of the American "Wild West." I drew inspiration from a number of places: the Romagna during the late Middle Ages/early modern period, Barataria Bay in the early 19th Century. Mostly, it's just a fantasy region though.

[Greyhawk] The Bone March

Art by Keith Parkinson

The barbarians swept out of the hills in a ravening horde, without warning, and stormed Venarium with such fury none could stand before them. Men, women, and children were butchered. Venarium was reduced to a mass of charred ruins, as it is to this day. The Aquilonians were driven back across the marches and have never since tried to colonize the Cimmerian country. 

- Robert E, Howard, "Beyond the Black River"

The Bone March comes by its ill-omened name due to the number of bodies fallen and carelessly interred in its plains and forested hills. The Aerdi added it to their kingdom but paid dearly to wrest it from the Fruztii. The new margravate was awarded to the hero knight Caldni Vir, who led the charge that broke the siege of Spinecastle. For over 400 years, the Aerdi presence grew in the region, and the Overkingdom's greater concerns were elsewhere.

The so-called humanoid presence in the Raker Mountains had long been known. They had been pushed there by conflict with the Flan and Frustii. The Flan in particular made a regular practice of harrying them so that their numbers didn't grow too large. Many a Tenha youth found first glory in a raid on an orcish settlement.

After an increase in assaults against Aerdian villages and sorties against outposts, orcs and their allies launched a full-scale invasion in 561 CY. By 563, Aerdian Bone March had fallen, and the Markgraf Clement was slain.

An account by a priest of the Church of Law at Spinecastle who escaped alive is recorded in the annals of the Aerdi Chronicle: "The inhumans came forth into the March in terrible numbers, inflamed with fury. This followed long months where raiders attacked with most savage frenzy manors and villages of the hinterlands, and the horde exulted in fire, pillage, and slaughter. They were utterly cruel in inflicting torture, greedy in plundering, most insolent in abuse, even unto the sacred Houses of Holy Law."

Reports such as these fed the popular idea of the orc as a unique threat to the Overkingdom and the Realms of Law in general. In fact, humans were able to interact with orcs peaceful to a greater degree than other humanoid species due to their greater intelligence and relative lack of desire to use humans as a food source. Though their day-to-day existence was precarious, humans did remain within the March, and some less scrupulous and more daring individuals even prospered as intermediaries between human and humanoid societies.

It is true that orcs often tend to reserve a particular disdain for the clergy of Law who they seem to view as witches and agents of oppression. Native orcish religion is dualistic with two "houses" or "tribes" of deities, one of which is fiery, aggressive, or volatile and another that is serene, defensive or stable. Deities have been known to move from one group to the other and some deities are difficult to qualify. Human scholars have historically struggled with translating this distinction and have tended to default to their own dichotomies of "law and chaos" or "good and evil." Protracted conflict with humans over their time in the Flanaess has led orcs to turn to the fiery gods and promoted the importance of the Gruumsh cult.

[Greyhawk] The Duchy of Tenh

Tenh (the nh diagraph is pronounced as a voiced palatal nasal like the Spanish ñ) as the heir to the proud culture of the Flannae. Its people have managed to only partial assimilate to the culture of the Oeridians even though their ruler was forced to accept the suzerainty of the Overking. 

The Tenha culture is not feudal in nature but structured around matrilineal clans. In the past, there was no organization higher than local chiefs (almost always male) who were selected by clan matriarchs, but pressure from invaders led to a more centralized structure and a Great Chief or King rose and forced all the local chiefs to swear fealty to him. The Clan Mothers still play an important role, but it is more ceremonial than in the past. The king is not appointed, but rather the title is inherited by the male child of his choosing of one his sisters, and that heir has the position of tanist conferred upon them while the king still lives.

The Tenha were nominally converted to the Church of Law, though Aerdian missionaries wisely incorporated the native Flan deity, Allitur in a prominent role. The missionaries were less successful in casting solar deity Pelor as a servant of Pholtus. Pholtan iconography, in fact, has been appropriated by the Tenha to represent their Sun God, and the festival at midsummer in his honor is still observed.

Druids are still a feature of Tenha society though they have mostly abandoned priestly duties and serve mainly as healers, diviners, and carriers of oral tradition. Druids in the modern Duchy are predominantly women.

The Oeridian term knight is used to refer to Tenha warriors who are part of a warrior society. Each society observes its own secret rituals and has special taboos. Most warrior societies are male only, though there is a group of unicorn riders which exclusively admits women. Their mounts are not the horned horses of popular imagination but rather a species of goat-antelope.

Imagine she's on a unicorn

[Greyhawk] Theocracy of the Pale

The area known as the Pale, as the name would suggest, once served as the border of Aerdy with the holdings of the Flan and the humanoid tribes. As the Great Kingdom declined, a Pholtan sect, the Followers of the Blinding Light, migrated to the region in a bid for self-governance and the freedom to practice their religion without suppression by the Aerdian Church of Law.

The settlements they established grew into the Theocracy of the Pale. The society of the Theocracy is still arranged along the lines of the original Blinding Light religious communities. The people are divided into the Elect, who have taken vows, and the Believers, who are the laity. The Elect are called to separate themselves from Chaotic world and so do not eat meat, abstain from alcohol, and remain celibate, among other restrictions. It is the Believers' duty to grow and prepare food and to bear children to grow their community, and the Elect pray for them so that they may be cleansed of these necessary sins of worldliness.

In the name of the defense of their country and faith, a third group has emerged. The warrior monks of the Sword of Radiance are counted among the Elect but are allowed to partake of meat if necessary to sustain their fighting strength, and most importantly, to commit acts of violence in Pholtus' name. 

The Sword defends and expands the borders of the Pale into the lands of the heathen Flan and nonhumans. It can also be turned inward, acting to enforce the will of Pholtus as revealed by the Theocrat and to root out blasphemy and wickedness, particularly as accompanies the practice of magic.

Inspired by the Runequest style cult format, here's more information on the Church of the Blinding Light:

Postcards from the Flanaess

 In thinking about Greyhawk for my recent posts, I've been inspired by Anna Meyer's great maps. Particularly her climate map which has challenged me to consider locations in the context of not just their historical European cultural inspirations, but their often not-European climate.

Ket

I didn't mention it in my post on Ket, but Meyer places it in the Dfa (humid continental) region which would make it like much of the American Midwest, perhaps Nebraska as pictured above.

Perrenland

Greyhawk's Switzerland Meyer puts in the Bsk (cold, semi-arid) Köppen climate region. Something like Denver or Boulder CO would be similar.

Lordship of the Isles

On Meyer's map, these islands fall into the Cfa (humid subtropical) region like the American Southeast or Bermuda. Given that they are in the tropics, though, I wonder if they might be better represented by Cuba or the Florida Keys and be mostly tropical savanna (Aw)

Keoland

Though the U1 describes the area of Saltmarsh being like the coast of Southern England, its location would put it in a climate region Af (tropical rainforest). 

Greyhawk: Ket

Ket sits astride a major route of commerce between the Oeridian East and the Baklunish West. Its people are a mixture of those cultures, though the ruling class is generally drawn from the descendants of Baklunish horse lords. Ketite leaders have sometimes been bellicose in their rhetoric, but one neighbor or the other, but they have seldom sought to impede the follow of trade through the region, so long as taxes are paid. They defend their territory zealously, however.

It is perhaps in the name of balancing their neighbors that the upper classes have adopted the so-called True Faith, a religion of the broad Lawful tradition but distinct from the predominant denominations of either East or West. Adherents hold to the mystic teachings of a succession of five prophets, each associated with a heavenly body and an age in human history. The faithful seek to escape the cycle of reincarnation and ascend to the plane of Law by emulating the prophets.

Greyhawk: Rel Astra

Rel Astra is one of the major port cities of the Great Kingdom. It is an old city of the Aerdy, the original seat of the early Aerdian Church of Law and once a capital of an Aerdi kingdom until the crowning of the Overking. Once the Great Kingdom was declared in Rauxes, control of Rel Astra was given over to a ministerialis who served as constable and mayor in the Overking's name. The post continues, but it now belongs to a hereditary noble line whose interests have diverged from those of the Malachite Throne.

Like the lords of the Iron League region, the Constable's financial interests lie with the burghers and trade, and he resents the grasping and peremptory ways of the Overking. He is also wary of the covetousness of Medegia's Holy Censor.

While the more fierce-tongued members of the city's council urge swift action, the Constable chooses to slowly build his forces and bide his time.

The original Folio had an apparent editing mistake that listed Rel Astra as the capital of Medegia, so a thought it was worth making a nod to that in the history. Though the Folio never mentions it, the title of Overking suggests their were (at least once) subordinate kings. I figure there must have been multiple, petty Aerdian kingdoms that were united.

Greyhawk: Medegia

The See of Medegia is a territory ostensibly within the Great Kingdom of Aerdy that is under direct sovereign rule of the Holy Censor of the Aerdian Church of Law. Though the reach of the Censor's ecclesiastical authority has diminished with the decline of the Great Kingdom, he remains one of the most powerful and wealthy rulers in the eastern Flanaess.

The Church of Law has ever tied to the Aerdi, their kings, and kingdom. While the various Hierarchs of Law of the Flanaess were independent, they were in communion, and the Hierarch of Medegia was invested as Holy Censor, guardian over the doctrine of Law and moral guide to the Malachite Throne and the entire Kingdom.

Most Medegian church houses, including its great basilica, were originally dedicated to Pholtus, the Blinding Light, though Legalism being a transtheistic faith, this was not true of other churches in other lands. Today, the iconography of Pholtus persists, but the stern-faced deity is little favored by the current Holy Censor, his most senior clergy, or the other highfolk of the land. The Divine Law has varied manifestations and champions, so why should they not pray to Zilchus, whose doctrine of material prosperity for the faithful is more amiable to their wealth and privilege?

Despite the Holy Censor's roll as advisor to the Overking, neither the indolent Hierarch nor his flattering and generous orthodoxy are favored at court. Ivid is rumored to have become enamored of an antinomian heresy wherein, as a divinely favored monarch, he is above the precepts that bind others. The Censor is, of course, concerned, but not overmuch, so that his enjoyment of his position isn't soured.

Greyhawk: The Iron League

by Anna Meyer

The Iron League was a separatist alliance formed in 447 CY for mutual defense against the Great Kingdom. While the members made much rhetorically of the demoniac apostasy and madness of the Naelax, the League's greatest concern was economic. None of the trading cities wished to allow the profligate Aerdy nobility to root like pigs in their accumulated wealth.

The association's core members had histories stretching back to ancient, Suloise, maritime city-states. While the Aerdi gained suzerainty over the region, the regional lords were content to allow a great deal of local self-rule (so long as they benefited from the ongoing trade), and in time became intertwined with the Suloise population through marriage and alliance with the local oligarchic families. Intra-region conflict between local nobles, powerful families and guilds was a more pressing concern until the Herzog's heavy-handed treatment prompted the member states to set aside their differences. At least for a time.

Although the League was founded primarily for military purposes, it did possess a confederal civil government. The ruling council, composed of representatives of the individual states, was fairly limited in its power outside of military matters, but was given the ability to control custom duties and adjudicate disputes between regions.

This is a follow-up to this post. I drew inspiration for the Iron League from the Lombard League and communes of North Italian and their relationship with the Hohenstaufen Holy Roman Emperors. Given their Suloise history and their climate (Hot summer Mediterranean, according to Anna Meyer's climate map), I felt like their Suloise history might well amount to something like the Phoenician city-states. Visually, the continental states would look something like Sicily, Southern Italy, or parts of the Iberian Peninsula, except the Lordship of the Isles which is more humid and more like Florida.

Weird Revisited: Untrue North

My recent trip to Alaska brought to mind this old post from 2011...

An arctic of only (melting) ice is sort of boring, don’t you think? At least in comparison to the flights of Age of Exploration fancy. Why settle for mere ice when you could have a magnetic Black Rock, a swirling whirlpool, and islands of pygmies? Check out this 1595 map:

Gerard Mercator based his maps and his descriptions (in a letter to John Dee in 1577) off older works. He describes a landmass divided into four lands by channels through which water rushed into the whirlpool surrounding the Pole, and "descends into the earth just as if one were pouring it through a filter funnel.” This unusual geography supposedly led to the deaths of 4,000 men from the expedition King Arthur sent to the island, according to Mercator's report. The ultimate source of this version of pole is believed to be the account in the Inventio Fortunata, a 14th Century work which is unfortunately lost.

At the pole itself, in the center of the maelstrom, was a giant, black mountain, Rupes Nigra--the Black Rock or Black Precipice. Mercator writes: “Its circumference is almost 33 French miles, and it is all of magnetic stone. And is as high as the clouds...” Its magnetism was said draw ships made with iron nails to their doom.

A really interesting adventuring site, I think.

The Island and the Censor

Pohjal or in older texts Cinis Pohjal is a large island of volcanic origin within the Lake of Vermilion Mists. It is a desolate place of ash and pumice, dotted with hot springs and smoking holes, and attracting an inordinate number of noisome gas flies. In summary, there is little to recommend it, except that is also a place where scintilla may be gathered without diving and the attendant risk of angry urulu.

Scintilla cysts burst in the warmth of the hotsprings, and sifting the loose sand from their bottoms can yield imperfect--but perfectly spendable--scintilla of opaline and citrine colors with the rare sanguine. By some oversight of Panarchic edict, the ownership of scintilla gathered naturally above the lake's surface is an open question, allowing a legal opportunity for others to lay a claim so long as they can avoid disputation with the Eminent Compulsor or his agents. 

Besides the inconvenience of reaching the island and retrieving the scintilla there is another factor discouraging their acquisition. The island is the home of a baleful Visitant known as the Censor. This being is said to appear as a slender automaton with feminine form and four arms, two of which have dexterous hands and two large, scalpel-blades. The Censor lies dormant much of the time, but when she awakens, she seeks sophonts to improve upon in the direction of her moral sensibilities.  There are cases of individuals emerging her editing free of their previous vices and deficits of character to go on to lives of distinction, but they are rare.

Phaelorn Gap

Shreev Seg Molok (art by Jason Sholtis)

Phaelorn Gap is a town near the Lake of Vermilion Mists along the Panarch's roadway heading east away from the great cities and across the mountains. It is the center of the scintilla harvesting industry with the Lake. The wealth harvested from the Lake belongs by law to the Panarch and flows to his coffers save that which is paid in renumeration or lost to corruption. 

The divers, young, unmarried women by tradition, receive little in the way of wages for their efforts, but do receive a state pension upon retirement. Some former divers become matrons, responsible for wrangling and discipline of the divers and insuring they do not skim from harvest unduly. The matrons, of course, take their gratuity before the Panarch gets his.

Operations in Phaelorn Gap are overseen by the Eminent Compulsor. The current holder of that position is Briszm Wungar. Officially his only function is to ensure the scintilla are transported West and the Panarch receives his due. In practice, he is the overseer of the entire operation, enriched by his own peculation.

Wungar is not personally an opposing man, so he must rely on the dignity of his office and the strong arms of his local enforcers to assure his will is done. Chief among these enforcers is the Shreev, Seg Molok, and his subalterns. Molok is a veteran of minor conflicts in the region and is said to have survived (after sufficient brave resistance, certainly) the Whelming of Fort Olmovar by the Great M'Gog Horde. He is a man respected by the townsfolk of Phaelorn Gap for his pragmatism and evenhandedness. His sense of honor and appreciation of duty is such that the size of the inducement proffered sways him less than his reckoning of the ethical questions involved. 

Thono Inn

The Thono Inn and Baths are a famed, but aging attraction near the Lake of Vermilion Mists, which offer "gas baths" of the peculiar substance of the Lake itself in addition to more traditional bathing. Yrming is the eleventh generation of Thonos to run the baths, though in truth she leaves the day-to-day management to her husband, Gris Samber, while she manages the special activities for the inn's extensive festival schedule that borrows holidays liberally from diverse civic and religious calendars. So large are the baths that Thono Village has arisen nearby to support it. 

The pumps which support the unique bath offerings require the work of an expert engineer to maintain. Ormaz Halx is the current individual charged with this task. He is given to reminding anyone that questions his decisions that he once studied at the hwaopt library (true in the strictest sense). He is also given to intemperance regarding the local distilled spirit. When deep in inebriation, he has been known to speak of a mysterious cave containing crystalline columns which somehow fulfill desires. He will angrily deny every having said anything of the sort when sober.

The Thono family and their loyal employees have a historic antipathy with the Cult of the Hierodule who bring their celebratory revels to the vicinity annually. This ill-feeling is primarily financial, owing to the grubby, vagabond nature of the cult leaders and their followers, and the promiscuous ways of the cult's youthful celebrants who provide for free erotic services for which the inn's contracted, professional staff would charge.

Gris Samber takes a broad view of who one day might be a paying customer and so does not urge his staff to violence against their transients, with the probable exception of Bardo Clart, the cult's current wild-eyed and hirsute leader.  

The Library, Ao-Dweb

What follows is excerpted from the journal publications of the scholar Nura Glismod who was sent by one minster or another of Ascolanth (the writ, in the manner of all standard Imperial bureaucrat text, is unclear on its specific authorities) as part of an "exchange" with the hwaopt at the Library of Ao-Dweb. 

First, I should address the less pleasant aspects of interaction with hwaopt, namely the odor. My associates and I utilized olfaction dampeners to make it bearable, but I found it necessary to burn my clothes afterwards.

What has generally been said about the Library is true: It is undoubtedly the greatest repository of knowledge currently in existence and a center for the most advanced scholarship in the world. It sprawls over numerous subterranean chambers, some of which must be natural, if modified, others some entirely constructed.

The humidity of caves would generally be a barrier to their use as an archive, but the hwaopt have enacted some sort of magical shield (one can feel it when entering the structure) that keeps the air dry. I was told by another visitor (a suspicious voluble An-Woon Thuan of the Mountain of Wizards) that the hwaopt have wards to dampen magics within the Library for fear of eroding their controlled encompassment.

The hwaopt organizational system is arcane. I was told that librarians only those you can passed rigorous examinations in the hwaopt classification of knowledge. The dangers to any would-be browser are more than merely not finding the volume one was looking for. I was told by our guide in what I assume are sober tones for a hwaopt that persons have become lost in the library for days when they wondered off to more esoteric collection areas. Apparently, scent plays some part in the hwaopt system, but the details are closely guarded.

One unusual danger in the Library: the occasional incursion by troglodytes from some neighboring caves. This occurred in a part of the structure why we were there. It is puzzling as to why the hwaopt allow this, when presumably they could prevent it. Instead, they merely close areas of the library to the public until the brutish creatures have moved on.

Perhaps related to this mystery, I happened to observe at a distance an interaction between a troglodyte and a hwaopt while we were being ushered to a different location due to the incursion. The hwaopt seemed in some sort of stupor, perhaps even paralzyed. The troglodyte approached very close with a demeanor of hostility, but the hwaopt remained rooted to the spot with an expression I would call vacant, while acknowledging the difficulty of diving meaning from their alien countenances. What became of the hwaopt, I do not know, and I thought it best not to question our guides on it.