Creative Exercise: The Sovereign Dominion of Eyros

[Rystil Arden]

Oh, I also realised that its likely that Thanatos simply doesn't care about Tellas and/or chooses not to act on his knowledge. From our descriptions, he seems to have adapted the laissez-faire "I have time" lich mentality and devoted himself to his research, allowing Sania and the Patriae Sicarii to perform day-to-day operations.

 

[Rystil Arden]

Oh and the awesome NPC list missed King Laryst of Nistadeen, which I realised while working on the other thread.

 

[ajanders]

A gem of an idea?

Oh, I also realised that its likely that Thanatos simply doesn't care about Tellas and/or chooses not to act on his knowledge. From our descriptions, he seems to have adapted the laissez-faire "I have time" lich mentality and devoted himself to his research, allowing Sania and the Patriae Sicarii to perform day-to-day operations.

As most gems and crystals in Eyros appear to be either linked to principles of ultimate evil, psionic terrorists, or have nasty side affects on their bearers, the jewelry of Eyros is usually worked metals, bone, or enamel/cloisonne.
Gems are decidedly unlucky in Eyros. Powerful, but unlucky.

 

[domino]

As most gems and crystals in Eyros appear to be either linked to principles of ultimate evil, psionic terrorists, or have nasty side affects on their bearers, the jewelry of Eyros is usually worked metals, bone, or enamel/cloisonne.
Gems are decidedly unlucky in Eyros. Powerful, but unlucky.

Don't forget about the crown jewels, which had a whole MESS of jewels and gems on them. And weren't until now, considered unlucky.

In fact, I don't think the majority of people know about the psionic problems with the ruby, or the aging effects of the crown. It hasn't been mentioned, to my knowledge, at least.

 

[Andor]

Yay! Five people contributed after me, so now I can go to bed.


There are several mask oaths (see post #134.) The most common one is a House Oath, making the mask subservient to its house. This is the only one that is common knowledge.

A second mask oath is the Imperial Oath, which only three remaining masks have sworn - Alivia(posts #121), Jal-qwuin (though it is more-or-less unravelled in her case; see post #115), and Tellas (emphasis on the second syllable.) The only person who knows of the existance and actions of Tellas is the emperor. Kalis Dal-Malarn (see post #174), the historian, once suggested the existance of someone along the lines of Tellas in one of his footnotes, but it was just speculation. Kalis believed that Tellas impersonated or created people in order to act in the interest of the emperor. Given the technical nature of the paper in which this was proposed, very few have even seen the footnote, much less taken it seriously. As Kalis noted, this implied that there was a version of the oath that did not leave those compelled by it with the mind of a child. Kalis is not aware that Alivia was under this oath; he believes her to be a guardian mask.

A third mask oath, much more common than the imperial one, is the Guardian Oath. Guardian Masks are sworn to protect the empire; though stewarded by the various houses, their first alliegence is to the empire (they did not participate in the War of the Crumbled Pillar, but instead guarded the borders.) This oath, like the imperial one, has fallen out of use, but that occured later and thus there are around 40 Guardian masks around. Because they are not sworn to a house, Pillar Kiron was unable to free the guardian masks in their care, though they treat them very well.

Other oaths may exist as well.


As a side note, all of the masks at this point have a single name, which I think fits well with them being slaves. Opinions on all masks having a single name?


As an organizational side note, if you reference something, I'd appreciate it if you could point to an earler post about it, or add a reminder sentance about it - reading this thread was confusing at points because I didn't remember the names of everything.

Okay, there are several things going on here. One is the Elven Mask Wizard/Slaves. These were originally described as being rasied to be servile. The second is the Crown which drains life from the Emperor to help control the Mask and to lengthen their lives. The Third is the magical oath which bind the Masks. The fourth is the history to date.

I don't think we are magically limited to a certain specific number of set oaths. I certainly wasn't envisioning that when I posted about them. I was thinking more that the empire is 3000 years old and things are simply done differently now.

That having been said having more than one set of oaths governing the masks makes sense even contemporaneously. However given that there was a war of annihilation quite recently, and that the oaths must be sworn upon the Imperial Crown of Amethyst I don't see most of the mask being loyal to the houses. The emporer would have to be an idiot to put that much power back in the hands of the houses after the War of the Crumbled pillar. I think most masks would be what you term the Guardian masks, with loyalty to the Empire as a whole. Each Pillar should have a small set number of Masks allowed to them.

As for what you term imperial oaths I was envisioning room for more than one agent. And more than one set of oaths sworn.

We haven't really defined what the crown can do, or how rapidly the Masks gain their childlike outlook. For example perhaps it takes a good century for an Elf to lose their adult mentality, or only wizards are robbed of theirs. This leaves the possiblity of absolutely loyal imperial spies/courier/agents either as wizards in the first century, or just elves who aren't wizards. These may or may not be state secrets, or secrets within secrets.

EG: The loyalty of the imperial courier corps is legendary, it is not well known that they are magically loyal, or that they sometimes have other jobs.

 

[Rystil Arden]

Clarification: As the one who first wrote the magic part of the Masks, I had meant for the crown to be a focus, rather than a controller of the Masks/oaths (oaths were added later), and I used the word focus. House Masks make good sense when using this decentralised framework (and let's face it--one of the first posts said that the Grand Monarch is usually not the one with all the power). Since we know that Masks are raised as Masks from childhood, the part about losing their childlike outlook makes no sense: They never had an adultlike outlook because they've been Masks since childhood. Considering that the Eyrians don't go around enslaving grown elves that we know of, it probably only works on chlildren (so Alivia was merely a child when her people were destroyed). Another post mentioned that the adult wizards of the elves were actually captured in soul-gems, which fits with this

P.S. I had originally thought there might be multiple lesser Imperials Masks too, but we do have the post that says there are only the three. Clearly new Grand Monarchs will need to use Guardian Masks instead, or more likely bring over some House Masks with them on ascension

 

[Abisashi]

How about:

I don't think we are magically limited to a certain specific number of set oaths. I certainly wasn't envisioning that when I posted about them. I was thinking more that the empire is 3000 years old and things are simply done differently now.

First, I suggested in my post that there were quite possibly oaths byond the three I suggested. I certainly didn't intend to limit the possiblities!

Also, I'd intended to imply that the oaths had changed as time went on, as I believe you were thinking. What most people is how much the oath has changed since the beginning.

However given that there was a war of annihilation quite recently, and that the oaths must be sworn upon the Imperial Crown of Amethyst I don't see most of the mask being loyal to the houses. The emporer would have to be an idiot to put that much power back in the hands of the houses after the War of the Crumbled pillar. I think most masks would be what you term the Guardian masks, with loyalty to the Empire as a whole.

For the Imperial Oath - I like having a very small number of masks being under an original, not currently known set of oaths. Perhaps this should be renamed to the Primal Oath or something? As probably only 4 people know the name, and three of them are masks, the name isn't terribly important.

There should certainly be lesser imperial masks, you guys are right. Let's call those the Imperial Oaths; those under an Imperial Oath are sworn directly to the current emperor. The Imperial Oath is slightly different, depending on the job of the mask it binds.

Each Pillar should have a small set number of Masks allowed to them.

House Masks make good sense when using this decentralised framework (and let's face it--one of the first posts said that the Grand Monarch is usually not the one with all the power).

These don't have to contradict. For example: indeed the houses do have a reasonable number of masks, but the number is limited by law and the penalty for violating it is severe (as it would be seen as a grab for the throne).


Contribution
edit: I've done so much clarifying it should probably count as a contribution - and I don't have any great idea right now anyway. So, consider me as having contributed.

 

[domino]

These don't have to contradict. For example: indeed the houses do have a reasonable number of masks, but the number is limited by law and the penalty for violating it is severe (as it would be seen as a grab for the throne).

If anyone has read The Vor Saga by Lois McMaster Bujold, there's a set up very similar to this that works out. Each member of the nobility gets a number of armsmen, but it's a very small number, and restricted by law. The King, however, is the only one who gets an army.

If the each Pillar only gets a dozen or so Masks, but the King gets a few hundred, there still won't be a serious threat.

 

[Abisashi]

If anyone has read The Vor Saga by Lois McMaster Bujold, there's a set up very similar to this that works out. Each member of the nobility gets a number of armsmen, but it's a very small number, and restricted by law. The King, however, is the only one who gets an army.

If the each Pillar only gets a dozen or so Masks, but the King gets a few hundred, there still won't be a serious threat.

The number of masks per house can be even greater - say, enough that they could take out the king if they all banded together, but not otherwise.

Also, the intent of the guardian masks was to provide a means by which the kingdom could survive during times of turmoil (as per the reference to them not participating in the civil war.) Thus, perhaps each house has 30 masks, the emperor has 120, and there are 40 guardian masks sitting around. Don't take these numbers as concrete though, it's just a suggestion.

 

[Tinner]

As most gems and crystals in Eyros appear to be either linked to principles of ultimate evil, psionic terrorists, or have nasty side affects on their bearers, the jewelry of Eyros is usually worked metals, bone, or enamel/cloisonne.
Gems are decidedly unlucky in Eyros. Powerful, but unlucky.

Eyrosian parents collect and save their children's milk teeth as they fall out. The teeth are then ritually added to a fine silver chain, and the resulting necklace is then presented to Praes Thanatos.
The gnomes claim that these necklaces help the necromancers drive death energies away from the children, protecting them from harm. In reality, the gnomes are likely just stockpiling ritual items should they ever need to rebel against their current masters as they did their old.