Porto Liure
You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy. We must be cautious.
The Tolosa Islands are clearly a continuation of the mountain range that runs north-south through the continent, and the inner sea does little to disguise the unity of those ranges. North of the Mezzovian Sea, they are called the Garriga Mountains, south they are called the Romeu Mountains, and smack dab in the middle of the Mezzovian, their feet are submerged and only their craggy tops protrude as warm-water islands.
The Tolosas are rocky, and cliffs and fjords dot their shores, but a number of small fishing towns, villages and trading or stopping points ring the shoreline where geography permits. The interiors of the islands are a mixture of farmland--olives, grapes and more grow abundantly here--and subtropical mountain rainforest.
While the Tolosas are not heavily populated, and much of the population is rural or small fishing, or transitory mercantile in nature, the Tolosa Islands are still considered an integral part of the Terrasan heartland, and prior to their spread northwards and the foundation of the Terrasan Empire, the ancient Terrasans plied their fishing craft in and around the Tolosa Islands and the shores of the Mezzovian Sea immediately to the south.
A growing recent threat is that of piracy. The isolated, sheltered and hidden fjords and coves on many of the tiny, mostly uncharted islands that make up the Tolosa chain are the perfect hiding places for pirate ships, and as the once formidable power of the Terrasan navy gradually fades, pirates have become emboldened and more commonplace. On the long island Gandesa, an independent city that is harbor to many pirates and privateers, Porto Liure, has grown up and managed to get grudging recognition and acceptance from the Empire as an independent city-state.
Gandesa is a long, thin island with a generally north-south orientation that serves as the "breakwater" for the Tolosa Isles; the easternmost major island, and the first one that one comes to if one were to sail directly west from the eastern edges of the Mezzovian Sea. Gandesa is sparsely populated, and is in fact made up of low, mountainous wilderness. There are few large-bodied creatures on Gandesa, with the exception of deer, peccaries, and a strain of feral dogs, but strange rumors and ghost stories about cryptic inhabitants of the island are numerous.
As part of the Tolosa Isles, Gandesa was long considered an integral part of the Terrasan Empire, and in fact part of the original Terrasan homeland. However, as its population gradually declined, its small fishing villages and rural farming communities were abandoned and over-run by the subtropical forest, the Terrasan presence faded as well. More recently, it became a haven for pirates, smugglers and other ne'er-do-wells, and a city of sorts grew in a sheltered bay to the north that accomodated this illegal traffic. As the city grew, it became powerful enough to actually challenge the navy of Terrasa with its pirate hit and run tactics, guerilla warfare and other "dirty tricks" to the point where the Empire was losing money in attempting to control it.
When Jacobo Bernat, a pirate captain and all 'round Rennaissance man stepped into power in Porto Liure with an offer for semi-legitimacy and a cessation of hostilities if the Empire recognized the city as an independent city-state and Bernat himself as the Lord of the City, they were only too happy to acquiece and put an end to the costly conflict.
Today, the Lord (or Lady, as the case happens to be) of Porto Liure is Damiata Aldonça Bernat, a descendent via twisted family tree, of Jacobo Bernat himself. The Bernat family has managed to maintain leadership over Porto Liure for a hundred and fifty years, in the face of incredible pressure from the humiliated and wary Terrasan navy, but as Terrasan sea power fades, her role there has become easier. Today, her plan is to stoke the fires of resentment and independence between the various cities that make up what remains of the Terrasan Empire, and encourage portegnos (as the locals are called) into privateership with Letters of Marque. As such, she's also extremely careful of which suitors she entertains, as giving up Porto Liure's independence as part of a dynastic union is the last thing that she wants.
Despite this rough around the edges background, Porto Liure remains a destination for nobles from Terrasa and elsewhere seeking titillation, illicit pleasures, or simply duty and tax free shipping of profitable goods around the Mezzovian Sea. While it has a seedy underbelly that threatens at all times to spill out, there is still a veneer of civilization and civility that encourages immigrants. As the Terrasan cities fade, Porto Liure's fortunes continue to grow.
The population of Porto Liure is mostly made up of ethnic Terrasans--the dregs of Terrasan society to be sure, but Terrasans nonetheless. Despite this, it is certainly not a Terrasan colony by any means, and is perhaps the most cosmopolitan population in the entire region. Great numbers of balshatoi, qizmiri (jann and human both), hamazi (hellspawn and human both), kurushi, cavusti, vucari and more exotic ethnic groups yet roam the narrow streets of Porto Liure. While, naturally, many of these people are those who were in some way unfit to continue living in the society of their birth, more and more they are legitimate and even honored citizens of Porto Liure, and after more than 150 years, many of them consider themselves native portegnos, having been part of Porto Liure for generations now.
While Porto Liure retains a veneer of civilization and order, in the lower class neighborhoods in particular, this is not readily apparent. Organized crime is a major part of life in Porto Liure, and the cynical say that Lady Bernat herself is only the most prominent and powerful of many warlords, and the City Watch is her cadre of troops.
Porto Liure is infamous as a haven for pirates and privateers, but in truth, its infamy is even deeper still. Known as particularly--and even peculiarly--picturesque, it has drawn artists, poets, the idle rich and other "sensitive" types for generations, who wander--hopefully carefully, given the towns' somewhat exaggerated (but not entirely) lawless reputation--its cramped narrow streets, and its sultry seaside views.
While the Mezzovian is warm, particularly the smaller Chistau Sea which makes up the shores of the port city, cool sighing winds blowing off the hills west of the sea, and when the cool air from the heights meets the warmer air of the harbor, it coalesces into a drizzling rain or persistant fog. Strange voices are often heard in this fog. Skeptics say that that's just what happens in a busy city when you can't see and sound is either muffled or curiously amplified and carried in turns, but the locals who live in the poorer parts of town are not skeptics. People disappear, or are found dead and curiously bloated, mummified, slashed or drained of blood or otherwise mutilated and desecrated. Again; sceptics point to the lawless nature of the town and find explanations for these bizarre murders in gang warfare or other more mundance solutions. And soon enough, the murders are officially closed and forgotten; there is enough mundane murder done in Porto Liure as it is, and few miss folks from the poor neighborhoods anyway. But the locals know that Porto Liure's infamy as a nest of pirates is secondary to its less well-known but eternal nature as a haunted place, ruled in secret by ghosts, spectres and other supernatural entities. This had led to the nickname many locals give to Porto Liure; Port of Ghosts, or Ghostport. Anyone who uses this nickname is almost certainly a local from one of the poorer neighborhoods in the city, but as a picaresque nickname in literature, folklore and stories told abroad, it is also gaining popularity.
One of the most famous of these in old tavern tales, beside that of Dog, is Black Maria. Although her original identity is unclear and there are many claims, most see her as the today unrecognized first daughter-in-law of Jacobo Bernat himself, the architect of Porto Liure's free city-state status. Maria, the fifth daughter of an ancient Terrasan house, was as decadent as they came, and the story goes that she kidnapped, tortured and killed up to 500 young girls, drinking (or even bathing in) their blood. When the hue and outcry came to be more than old Bernat could ignore, she was put on trial, hanged, drawn and quartered, and her spiked head was put on the city gates--her "quarters" thrown to sharks in the harbor. Nonetheless, the story of Black Maria doesn't end there.
Claims of sightings of Black Maria's ghost were intermittant throughout the next decades, and a few deaths were even ascribed to her--especially young, female victims who died without apparent cause or motive, especially if they complained before their deaths about being unnaturally frightened or disturbed in some way--usually by advance sightings of the ghost, it is presumed. But twenty years ago, when the face of the moon became a skull, things changed. Now, whenever the moon is full and passes directly through the triangular configuration of the legs of the constellation Herne, Black Maria is said to make a much more substantial revival. In whispered voices, the locals will say that once the legs of Herne were another constellation known as the Black Pharoah's Crown, and when the moon is thus "crowned" the brides of the Black Pharoah--the ghosts of witches and worse the world over--walk the earth to kill again.
It is unclear if this supersition has any basis in reality or not. True, nights when the full moon is in the crown (which happens on average three times every two years) a number of girls go missing. But since they are usually unreported, only those who have eyes to see and pay attention to the signs believe there to be any pattern. Associate lecturer Enrico Sançez at Porto Liure's small Academy is the foremost expert on local folklore. He's a taciturn, bookish fellow--suspicious and uncommunicative, and prone to easy frights. But when drunk, he occasionally talks in private of his suspicions, theories and speculations about many of the supernatural goings-on in Porto Liure. His pet theory about Black Maria is that the torture and murder of all those girls wasn't just to satisfy her sadistic urges, but was a ritual designed to grant her eternal life. It wasn't ever completed before she was put to death, but it had been sufficiently advanced that the grave had only a tenuous hold on her, and when the moon died, as the expression goes, she was able to transcend her death at certain times. Her goal now is to finish the ritual as quickly as possible and return in full to horrible unlife as an eternal predator on the lives of mankind.
Gods and Religion
Some scholars of theology believe that all the world actually only worships a single pantheon of gods; it's just the names and representations of them that differ, as well as regional importance of one god over another. Others resist that notion, calling each nation's pantheon of gods a unique set, specific to that culture, although cults may migrate from culture to culture from time to time. Be that as it may, these are the gods that have temples in your area, as well as a handful of others that are also worshipped. Although, honestly, people in general are better described as "superstitious" rather than "religious." Offerings and invocations are tossed off out of habit, and people have a healthy respect for the ability of a displeased god to give you a really bad day, but they don't often otherwise pay particular respects to them. Pick whatever domains or favored weapon you think are appropriate if playing a cleric or other class that needs domains.
The way the pantheon works is that no god has "primacy" over another one according to myth. The various gods work in their respective sphere of influence, and their importance varies from region to region. Because the gods appear to be "hands off"; how their worshippers view them, and the popularity of their cults, evolves over time. If the gods exist at all, they may not resemble what mortal worshippers think of them anymore.
The most notable and noticeable of the pantheon are the Four Horsemen, who are frequently associated together on iconography and elsewhere. They are:
•Ciernavo (from Balshatoi Czernavog), also known as the Black Pharaoh, and The Conqueror. Riding a White Horse, and firing a bow into his enemies, Ciernavo is a god associated with the spread of civilization; the wresting of new nations out of wilderness, or out of the ashes of the old, either one. He is pictured as obsidian black, with long hair and a crown-like growth of eight four to six inch horns on his head. The hamazin see him as their patron and father, pointing to their resemblance to the traditional depiction of him as evidence. (Name is slightly revised from the name of the big demon lord in Disney's "Night on Bald Mountain" segment of Fantasia, which in turn comes from Slavic mythology. He's also pictured as looking very similar to Graz'zt, the famous demon lord of D&D lore, and is also meant to subtly invoke Nyarlathotep from Lovecraftiana.)
•Peronte (from Balshatoi Perun), the Thunderer. Riding a red horse and swinging a sword that flashes like lightning, Peronte represents war. He is a wild-eyed and wild-haired man, charging into battle on his horse naked except for his warpaint, and his face is obscured by constant crackling of lightning. (Name is a Italianized version of a Slavic thunder god not unlike Thor.)
•Culsans (from ancient Terrasan), the Taker, The Hoarder. Riding a black horse, he's a cold god, associated with weights, measures, scales, money and civilization. Infamous for his miserly attitude, he's also associated with famine, and when famine strikes the land, it is often believed that it is Culsans withholding his bounty because he hasn't been sufficiently propitiated. (Name is an Etruscan god; aspect is pretty much exactly like that of the third Horseman, without being combined or blended with any other source.)
•Caronte (from ancient Terrasan Charun); Death, The King in Yellow. Riding a pale, sickly (or even dead and mummified) horse, Caronte is depicted as an emaciated, hunched, sinister figure wrapped in yellow rags that completely obscure his features (except sometimes a skeletal face), often with a scythe or sickle in his hand, harvesting the lives of those who's time has come. Behind him is another figure walking slowly behind him, a leery, crawling demonic figure of uncertain and inconsistant depiction, known as Orcus or Hell. (Combining the fourth horseman with Charon of Greek mythology (or Charun of Etruscan who had many similarities) with further aspects of the Grim Reaper and Chamber's King in Yellow seemed fun. Caronte is all of them rolled into a single package. Reading the Biblical verse, Death was followed by Hell--not a horseman, but apparently a flunky or assistant to Death.)
Besides the horsemen, several other gods are frequently worshipped or propitiated, or depicted in art and literature around the area. These include (in much more brief format):
•Istaria (uncertain origin of the name, but older versions Ishtar and Ashtarte are noted from old books), a goddess of books, libraries, and knowledge. Also pictured as lascivious and decadent, her worship is famous for it's heirodules, or temple prostitutes.
•Cathulo (uncertain origin of the name, but also known by the alternate name of Dagon), a god who lives under the sea, supposedly dreaming in his underwater palaces, waiting for the day he will rise and flood the land again. His propitiation often includes the pouring of alcohol into the water, to keep him sleepy.
•Susnacco (from ancient Terrasan Susinac), a god of travel with statues in most towns. When in embarking on a long journey, it is often customary to kiss the statue first.
•Selvans, a wild god of the wilderness and the hunt. Tall and lean, with claws and fangs and a skull-like visage, adorned with great antlers, Selvans is a figure that represents the terror the civilized man feels at the wildness of untamed places.
•Moloch (origin of name uncertain), a god of fire and the sun. While seen as friendly in some locations, most see him as untrustworthy and dangerous, and see his hand in devastating wildfires and sere crops alike.
And a few other gods are known to the scholarly, but not to the general public--they have frequently been at the core of dangerous and seditious cults. Worship of--and even knowledge of--these gods has been widely surpressed.
•Demogorgon, a primal god of the earth, said to predate the other gods, and belonging to a much more wild and chthonic order of beings.
•Huudrazai, the blind, idiot Stargod, who sleeps in the blackness of the void, lulled into restfullness by the incessant piping of strange and hidious entities. One day, his cultists say, the piping will stop, jolting Huudrazai to wakefulness, which will initiate the End Times.
•Yaji Ash-Shuthath--also known as Yog-Sothoth, an ancient entity, knowledge of which came in suppressed and forbidden texts from the jann, is The Gate; the way to communicate directly with the gods, in a certainly suicidal and mind-blasting ritual. However, lesser rites remain which skate the edges of sanity, but which canny sorcerers occasionally risk to increase their own power.
And there are even local deities, like the worship of Dog in the area around Porto Liure (see below).
There are a great many lesser gods, demons, angels, and other spiritual beings believed in by the peoples of the Land of the Three Empires. For the most part, there is little difference between these lesser beings and gods other than magnitude and some of them might have local or cult worship as gods as well. These beings clearly take at least some interest in the affairs of mortals, since hellkin, jann and the Nefili or Nephilim are all supposedly humans, albeit blended somehow with spiritual beings.
In Porto Liure, there's a very unusual cult: the worship of Dog. Dog is a "god" that's actually fairly apparent to the residents of Porto Liure. Everyone knows about him. He lives on the island of Gandesa, not far from the city. He appears to be immortal--he's been there since the city was founded at the very least--and undefeatable. In the early days of Porto Liure, soldiers and sailors tried to hunt or kill Dog, but most were killed and eaten for their efforts.
What exactly is Dog? He's... well, he's a very big dog. About the size of an elephant. His shaggy fur glistens like the shadows of darkest night, and his teeth shine like polished silver. His eyes glow a fiery red.
Mostly Dog sleeps on the island, unseen and hidden from view. Nobody knows where his lair is, despite many efforts to find it over the years. When Dog walks, he leaves dark footprints behind that ooze shadowy tendrils of darkness like oily black smoke, but if one tries to track Dog, the tracks always seem to end in a confusing maze, or circle back on themselves, or otherwise lead one to naught.
Nobody is exactly sure when worship of Dog started. It became apparent that Dog needed to eat. Three times a year, human sacrifices are left for Dog. Usually they are convicted criminals or enemies of the state, but if none are available, occasionally a citizen will be sacrificed. Dog prefers young maidens, but will take anyone that's not too old and stringy. If Dog isn't satiated through sacrifice, he will slip into Porto Liure at night and eat anyone he can find in the streets, leaving nothing but bloody tatters in his wake. In the summer of 421--almost 150 years ago now--Dog massacred no less than 43 men, women and children in a single night and was seen by many more, before slipping off again before sunrise, leading to the last attempt to hunt and kill him. Unsuccessfully, of course--he wasn't even found after the Bloody Saturday Massacre, as it came to be called.
Another curious Liurism is that portegnos frequently swear by Dog, even if they don't belong to the admittedly small cult of Dog. "By Dog!". "By Dog's rancid breath!" or "By the fleas of Dog's greasy pelt!" and countless other variations pepper the speech of most native portegnos.
