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Creative Exercise: The Sovereign Dominion of Eyros
Rystil Arden
First Post
Not a contribution yet, but it looks like House Malarn just cornered the trade with the Sarynthi by virtue of being right next to them on the map.
So are the humans still second class citizens below the orcs? I think this contradicts the way the setting felt before with humans and orcs sharing the throne equally, conquering the territory together and stuff like this. I would prefer that this change is taken back. I don´t think that the three human pillars would feel comfortable if their whole race was reduced in status as this woulld set a precedant to reduce them as well.
Contribution:
Taxes are paid to the pillar that rules the province. The Imperial Treasury assesses what a province can pay and then tasks the regional government to collect the taxes. The Pillar has the allowance to take a certain percentage for themselves to use it for provincial issues and it is expected that they take some money extra to compensate for their work. Extra money is paid to border districts to pay for infrastructure like roads and extra food stores. Most fortresses and weapon caches are under direct imperial control, supervised by the imperial legions. There is a constant debate between imperial commanders who serve the empire first and regional governors about payment for the services the civil authorities provide. As the commanders come from different pillars, they don´t mind to give the regional governors some headaches and get a good laugh out of it.
It is expected that the pillars will try to talk the next empress to increase their tax cut, perhaps offering to take some of the military burden off imperial shoulders.
Contribution:
Taxes are paid to the pillar that rules the province. The Imperial Treasury assesses what a province can pay and then tasks the regional government to collect the taxes. The Pillar has the allowance to take a certain percentage for themselves to use it for provincial issues and it is expected that they take some money extra to compensate for their work. Extra money is paid to border districts to pay for infrastructure like roads and extra food stores. Most fortresses and weapon caches are under direct imperial control, supervised by the imperial legions. There is a constant debate between imperial commanders who serve the empire first and regional governors about payment for the services the civil authorities provide. As the commanders come from different pillars, they don´t mind to give the regional governors some headaches and get a good laugh out of it.
It is expected that the pillars will try to talk the next empress to increase their tax cut, perhaps offering to take some of the military burden off imperial shoulders.
Rystil Arden
First Post
We fixed it, now humans aren't second class citisens (hence the long discussion above).Sarellion said:So are the humans still second class citizens below the orcs? I think this contradicts the way the setting felt before with humans and orcs sharing the throne equally, conquering the territory together and stuff like this. I would prefer that this change is taken back. I don´t think that the three human pillars would feel comfortable if their whole race was reduced in status as this woulld set a precedant to reduce them as well.
Contribution:
Taxes are paid to the pillar that rules the province. The Imperial Treasury assesses what a province can pay and then tasks the regional government to collect the taxes. The Pillar has the allowance to take a certain percentage for themselves to use it for provincial issues and it is expected that they take some money extra to compensate for their work. Extra money is paid to border districts to pay for infrastructure like roads and extra food stores. Most fortresses and weapon caches are under direct imperial control, supervised by the imperial legions. There is a constant debate between imperial commanders who serve the empire first and regional governors about payment for the services the civil authorities provide. As the commanders come from different pillars, they don´t mind to give the regional governors some headaches and get a good laugh out of it.
It is expected that the pillars will try to talk the next empress to increase their tax cut, perhaps offering to take some of the military burden off imperial shoulders.
Contribution: House Malarn keeps a well-stocked but highly disorganised library, which is open only to House members and a select few who are specifically granted limited access. In addition to a full set of Eyrian prophecies and chronicles of the deeds of the Grand Monarchs, from Vajgarrzhal the Conqueror to Ezlan Zul-Dagvar Dal-Zhal Ty-Mulcibe, the library holds a variety of scholarly works that simply can't be found anywhere else, although many of the books are patently incorrect or cover strange topics. The most prised possessions of the library are a set of papyrus scrolls known as the Raely'Sarvos Scrolls that date back to the ancient elves who once inhabited Eyros. The Elder Librarian is Kyara Dal-Malarn. Those who hear the title expect a straitlaced bespectacled old lady with a tight bun, but Kyara is an eager, charming, and spunky twenty-something young woman who usually goes about her daily tasks with gusto (excluding her current assignment to eliminate the writings of Kalis Ny'Dal-Malarn, a scholar whom she idolises as an historical genius) and shows great interest in helping anyone who comes to visit the library with her instinctive knowledge of the seemingly random location of books, having worked at the library for ten years and indeed never leaving the ivory tower of the library complex. Indeed, when a young Kalis Hirall visited the library as a scribe, entering with a Dal-Malarn scholar to make some copies of the Raely'Sarvos Scrolls, he caught a glimpse of Kyara at work between the bookcases, and was immediately entranced. A shy lad, Kalis finished his task and left the library, immediately asking his scholar employer if he could return to the library at any time in the future. The House Malarn scion told him that only House Malarn members could enter the library at their leisure, except for great scholars on special business. From that point onward, Kalis dedicated himself to scholarly pursuit, until he was accepted to House Malarn, at which point he made it his business to spend as much time as possible researching to his heart's desire at the Grand Library of House Malarn, making a surprisingly large number of requests for help from the Elder Librarian for such a renowned scholar. But before he could work up the courage to say anything, he was expelled from House Malarn and all library access. Now he will stop at nothing to restore his reputation, even willing to spend the last of his personal fortune to hire adventurers to prove that his theories were accurate.
*Rystil's note: This is my answer to a question posed earlier about why Kalis summarily refuses to expatriate to Ghalfaen and betray Eyros to Galldrian
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I'll contribute YOU!Rystil Arden said:
The circus is in town! As a gentler fare for entertainment, compared to the gladitorial contests, a circus travels around the nation, bringing excitement, and exotic delights to the people. Usually, it goes to the cities, but it passes through areas of villages, often being the highlight of the year for the vilagers, who come from all areas.
It has jesters, joke tellers, and slight of hand artists. There are shows, featuring tumblers, acrobats, and feats of amazing skill. Exotic foods are prepared and offered to the visitors, as well as exotic animals from the far reaches.
It is a celebration for all classes, and all groups. The high ranking rulers often make an appearance, to be with their subjects, and to strengthen the bond between ruler and rulee. Even the Emperor is expected to make an appearance soon.
House Kiron seems particularily interested, with members of that Pillar attending multiple shows, and treading on their political clout to spend time with the performers privately. Several performers have even been invited back to the Kiron Palace, for private showings, staying there until late into the night.
Arkhandus
First Post
domino said:
In any case it seems House Malarn is simply going to be the most economically-powerful human-blooded Pillar, since they have cornered much of the Eyrian sea trade and have contact with the Sarynthi (though House Kiron is close enough to possibly have dealings with them as well). Malarn also holds the steppelands, giving them some agricultural resources to boot. So I think it's safe to assume that they are the economic backbone of the human-blooded Pillars.
Of course, they're also one of the furthest from Eyrdeyn so may have less political presence in the high courts and such, and they're likely to have a higher number of fishers/farmers/shepherds amongst their people, so probably bear fewer politically-savvy, artistic, or magically-inclined nobles. Instead most Malarn nobles are likely to be sort of like merchant lords, governing their agricultural and fishing monopolies in Western Eyros, and they likely have to spend a lot of time dealing with the difficulties associated with a large domain (i.e. longer borders to enforce, more vulnerability to raiders, more patrols to set up, and simply more people to deal with for tax-collecting/census/law-enforcing and such).
Just extrapolating stuff based on the map and such so far, but my guesswork could be wrong. *shrug*
Anyway, on to my next contribution, which fits neatly on the big eastern island of the map. This is the last of my long-winded ideas for now, so my next few contributions will be tiny, I promise!
East of Eyros and Ghalfaen, south of Indracca, across the Pearl Sea lies the large island-state of Orrukar, a wealthy and independant nation but significantly smaller than any of its neighbors. Orrukar has few natural resources and, with its small size, isn't worth conquering by Eyros since its people would simply take their few resources with them in their great ocean galleys if they fled. Eyros made a half-hearted attempt to take over Orrukar two millenia ago, but the Orrukarn had a stronger (though smaller) navy and superior knowledge of the reefs and sandbars around the island-state. Indracca's sultans have tried several times to take Orrukar by force or by mercantile means, but the Orrukarn people were always able to flee the larger assaults with their possessions, and Orrukar has never been open to foreigners trying to buy out the Orrukarn businesses or lands.
A large tropical island, Orrukar has been half-cleared of vegetation to make space for the sprawling Orrukarn cities of glass, quartz, obsidian, and ivory. The Orrukarn have gathered vast amounts of these materials from distant lands to build their cities on the island, while creating glass through invoking lightning on the beaches and acquiring their ivory from the giant bones of creatures in distant lands, supposedly robbing elephant graveyards or the like. For all their splendor and beauty, the cities of Orrukar are fragile and would be easily destroyed by hurricanes or invaders if not for the Orrukarn shielding their shores with some temporary magical fields that weaken the force of tidal waves, winds, and siege weapons.
Orrukar pearldivers produce a lucrative trade in high-quality pearls which they sell to Eyros and Nistadeen, competing with Indracca in that trade as both border the Pearl Sea. Orrukar is also known for its seafood exports, from delicious clams and lobsters to exotic fishes and calamari, a delicacy in both Orrukar and Eyros. Through these sea-based trades, the Orrukarn acquire meats and grains that they cannot otherwise get on their island, and they are voracious carnivores for the most part, with a taste for certain breads and fruits as well. Infrequent Orrukarn ambassadors or trading costers sometimes visit Eyrdeyn to meet with their Eyrian counterparts and discuss business. Orrukarn are also reknowned glasswrights and glassblowers, and they sometimes export panes of clear or colored glass all across the continent.
The Orrukarn themselves are known to some other peoples as gnolls, a name that extends to the more savage distant kin sparsely found in northern lands. The Orrukarn are much more civilized and regal however, and despite being jackal-like humanoids they appear rather noble and graceful to most folks, with an intelligent gleam to their eyes and well-groomed hair/fur. Orrukarn have hair and fur of white, tan, sandy blonde, or somewhere inbetween, with small splotches of black in some spots. Their eyes are bright green, blue, or red, and the Orrukarn seem to order their people according to hair and eye coloration, which apparently has something to do with their bloodlines and heritage. Orrukarn tend to be slightly taller and leaner than the savage northern gnolls, and they stand straighter with a regal bearing.
Orrukarn gnolls speak a highly-refined version of the Gnoll language, which they call Ar'kash. Amongst their people, only scholars of history learn the original Gnoll language spoken by their savage brethren. Many Orrukarn learn to speak the languages of Eyros, Nistadeen, or Indracca for purposes of trade and diplomatic relations. Gnolls of Orrukar wear fine jewelry and ornamentations of gold, silver, and ivory, embedded with pearls, obsidian, turquoise, and sometimes Indraccan lapis lazuli. Their clothing however is odd and, to foreigners, both wondrous and vulgar, for the Orrukarn are not only incredible glasswrights and gemcutters, but also talented sorcerers and mentalists, who learn to weave and forge glass and quartz into amazing mineral-fabrics, garments infused with minor magicks or psionics to flow like silk yet remain solid and smooth as the glass or quartz they are cut from. Using interwoven pieces of opaque, translucent, and trasparent quartz along with colored glass, Orrukarn garments are beautiful but often revealing and considered indecent in most other lands.
The Orrukarn blend the savage culture of their ancient forebearers with the civilized sophistication of their present society, so they are both hedonistic and sophisticated at once, emotional and detached in equal measure, a strange society indeed. Amongst their more enlightened pursuits however, is the hallmark of their civilization, psionic arts. They pursue self-empowerment and enlightenment as an art, and for ages they have possessed an elite caste of psionic masters who have achieved the greatest heights of their people's ideals. Orrukarn are generally wise and intelligent, and disarmingly polite, but they have an obviously high opinion of themselves, treating other races often as children or primitives. Yet for all their mental prowess and haughtiness, they are only a small civilization, a nation of a few thousand, likely no more than a tenth the population of Ghalfaen or even the halfling seafarers. Orrukarn are highly inbred as few other gnolls have developed the civilized nature necessary for inclusion into Orrukarn society, and they do not breed with the savage gnolls. Their magical and psionic arts have apparently, thus far, preserved their health and kept them from developing deformities or deficiencies despite this inbreeding.
Edit: Forgot something that I meant to add. The Orrukarn have no religions and put no stock in religion, so they have no clerics, druids, paladins, rangers, or the like. Their closest thing to religion is simple philosophical musings, and their fervent drive towards self-empowerment, enlightenment, and helping others to achieve the same. The capitol of Orrukar is a city at the center of the island, Dorukaaz. A few other details on Orrukarn may be in the rules/crunch post I'll have up soon in the other thread.
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Arkhandus
First Post
Well, my contribution wouldn't really matter to folks without the psionics book for either edition. Orrukar is far enough from Eyros, and its people relatively isolationist enough, that they don't really have to be involved in any Eyros campaign. They have many sorcerers, bards, and such too anyway, so any Orrukarn that might be met outside the island may be a mage, aristocrat, or expert. They don't get involved much in stuff outside their island, besides some trading, but they're there if anyone wanted to seek them out for something.
Rystil Arden
First Post
I'm going to go out on a limb and say that the exotic far-away psychic warrior gnolls shouldn't turn off anyone who was willing to accept a psionic group of separatist dwarves who live in the main country with their soulknife infiltrators and guard against an illithid invasion...domino said:
