Creative Exercise: The Sovereign Dominion of Eyros

[Sarellion]

The dominant meat source are sheep and lamb.

Quote:

Lamb is the predominant food source. Most peasants are shepherd/farmers, who save the fattest and juiciest lamb of the year as an offering for the sacred lizards at the local temples.

End of Quote

@Arkhandus:
Established naming convention for pillar capitals is Pillarname-ka. So Tol-Vajar would be Vajar-ka, or was it your intention to deviate from it?

 

[Sarellion]

COntribution

Jbelli Imalh is a Goblin Blue who preaches a corrupted beleif in the 'Old Lords' - apparently elemental forces of Earth, Air, Fire and Water. Three years ago whilst exploring the caves beneath {Northern mountains} she discovered a clutch of four leathery eggs in a subterranean pool. She has been trying to nurture these eggs and hatch whatever maybe inside (which she beleives to be a sign of his Elemental Lords)
With the four eggs as a sign of favour she has started to gather a formidable following of goblins, lycanthorpes and other creatures of the north - for what purpose few can tell but it promises to be terrible indeed...

Contribution:

These four eggs hold the spirits of 4 of the original Twelve (the stone circle).

 

[Arkhandus]

The dominant meat source are sheep and lamb.

Quote:

Lamb is the predominant food source. Most peasants are shepherd/farmers, who save the fattest and juiciest lamb of the year as an offering for the sacred lizards at the local temples.

End of Quote

@Arkhandus:
Established naming convention for pillar capitals is Pillarname-ka. So Tol-Vajar would be Vajar-ka, or was it your intention to deviate from it?

No, it was established many many pages ago that only some Pillars name their capitol something-ka. Me, Mouseferatu, and a few others conferred some 5 or 10 pages ago at least, that there would be no universal naming conventions for cities or provinces. That's why Mulcibe's capitol is the city of Tounuma, for instance. And why Pillar Kiron's province in called Aenajadin whereas Pillar Zhal's province is named Zhalccu.

BTW, it was mentioned early on in the thread that not only are sheep the dominant food source (lambs are just young sheep, y'know), a larger breed of sheep called Olxem is used in place of horses by most farmers, for the typical heavy labor of farms such as pulling tillers or whatnot. I'm just not going to skim through the first 2-3 pages to find the exact post. This doesn't invalidate the just-introduced critters, it just means that these three common mammals are used for more specialized purposes, i.e. sheep for food and wool, olxem for heavy labor, and the new critters for other stuff. Or maybe the new critters are only found on one side of the empire, such as in the slightly-colder northern half, or something, whereas sheep/olxem might be used in other parts.

Anyway...... It was established that Eyros doesn't have as many horses and other mammals as in a more typical setting, having as many or more reptiles instead. There are still horses and such, they're just uncommon or rare, and reptiles are preferred in the Sovereign Dominion.

 

[Arkhandus]

Contribution:

These four eggs hold the spirits of 4 of the original Twelve (the stone circle).

Hrmmm....this would suggest then that the Twelve are either the petrified forms of whatever long-ago sealed Taufenacht's power away, or the Twelve are just a circle of big rocks infused with the souls of the creatures who bound Taufenacht's power...... Or something like that. Just pointing out, I personally don't think it contradicts what has already been established about the Twelve (which is very little, anyway).

 

[Sarellion]

That the provinces are named differently is pretty obvious, but didn´t knew that -ka is not required.

Just saw the olxem in the summary in a post as a sidenote about predators growing large enough to catch a lamb (like the good old normal sized eagle). I know that lamb are young sheep.

This stuff about the eggs struck me as a neat idea, opening a wide new avenue for speculation and contribution. Let´s see where people go from there.

 

[Melkor Lord Of ALL!]

Can I contribute?

About Gnomes of Eyros

Around 8% of the population of Eyros are Gnomes, and only small fraction of them( though very influential) are Praes Thanatos. They are capable merchants and great craftsmen, techicians, alchemists and engineers, largely eliminating Dwarfes from those businesses after their presecution began, which is one of the reasons for emnity between Dwarfes and Gnomes. Of six Gnomish senators three are Thanatos representatives, and three descend from Gnomish merchant houses. Gnomes also trade in magic items, created by decent number of Thanatos who are Enchanters or Transmuters rather than Necromancers, vast majority of which are sold to Pillars and military.

One of the reasons of Mhur`s instability is Gnomish attempt to eliminate Dwarfen unions from city`s industry, but majority of human and many orcish merchants oppose this attempt, since they don`t perceive Dwarfes, lacking political power, as a threat, unlike well organized and wealthy Gnomes.

Gnomish Merchant Houses are most firmly allied with houses Zhal( sharing their emmnity of elves and especially Dwarfes), and Malarn( since they adopted few Gnomes into their House and Gnomish engineers/Thanatos wizards are providing help with Malarn fleet, which is joint effort of House Malarn and Gnomish merchants to ensure sea trade and oppose Halfing Bucaneers.

 

[Rhialto]

Halflings mark their status by tattooing themselves with a wide variety of symbols, a habit that is unique among the people of Eyros. Many halfling "captains" are covered almost head-to-foot in such markings--such individuals are deferred to with almost superstitious loyalty by their kinsmen. While Eryosian rumor insists that each tattoo stands for a kill in battle, experts agree this a crude understanding of the system, where each brand in fact represents an accomplishment, a virtue--and in rare cases, a fault or a crime. Non-halflings whisper that some tattoos give their bearers magical abilities--halflings, when ask, raise their eyebrows mysteriously, then turn away, smiling smugly.

 

[Khorod]

Darrenback has only one known tattoo on the back of his right hand. When halflings see it, they seem to stare openmouthed then flinch if Darrenback notices them.

It is rare to find heavily tattooed halfings in his presence.

 

[Arkhandus]

Gnomes also trade in magic items, created by sizeable number of Thanatos who are Enchanters or Transmuters rather than Necromancers, vast majority of which are sold to Pillars and military.

One of the reasons of Mhur`s instability is the conflict between local Gnomes and Dwarfes over the control of the city and its trade, with many Humans siding with Dwarfes, forming a majority of Iron League, with Gnomes invoking the help of orcish Pillars, especially Zhal.

Welcome!
The only things I'd suggest might warrant tweaking in your post is that 1) most of the Praes Thanatos mages are necromancers, so enchanters and transmuters should probably only be a 'mediocre number' or 'decent number' rather than 'sizable' in the PT (any mage can take item-crafting feats, even necromancers, after all; necros just can't craft items that utilize their banned spells); and 2) it should be noted that dwarves are effectively little more than slave labor in the Sovereign Dominion of Eyros, so they wouldn't hold any power over non-dwarves (they're not citizens, and can't gain any political or mercantile power, the closest they can come is having their own unions and guilds), thus it should probably be tweaked in your post to mention that humans are siding with dwarves because they're more confident in the dwarves' natural skill and heritage as metalworkers and miners. It may not need to be clarified, but I figure someone might bring it up later wondering, and I'd rather mention it now so you're aware.

Now, as for my next contribution....

While Mhur is lead by the Iron League in most matters, the real power in Mhur is the city's numerous, long-standing, and powerful guilds and work unions, who can force the city's work to a grinding halt if they don't like what the Iron League or the Grand Monarch of Eyros has to say. The Eyrian military has on rare occasions entered Mhur to quell riots and force the laborers back to work, but usually lets the Iron League work things out, and the people of Mhur know from past experience that they're best off not provoking the military to come in and settle disputes with mass violence. Most members of the Iron League are drawn from the leading councils and such in Mhur's guilds, which has reduced the friction in recent centuries, though occasionally a dwarven or elven guild holds a strike because of their slavish treatment.

 

[Melkor Lord Of ALL!]

Welcome!
The only things I'd suggest might warrant tweaking in your post is that 1) most of the Praes Thanatos mages are necromancers, so enchanters and transmuters should probably only be a 'mediocre number' or 'decent number' rather than 'sizable' in the PT (any mage can take item-crafting feats, even necromancers, after all; necros just can't craft items that utilize their banned spells); and 2) it should be noted that dwarves are effectively little more than slave labor in the Sovereign Dominion of Eyros, so they wouldn't hold any power over non-dwarves (they're not citizens, and can't gain any political or mercantile power, the closest they can come is having their own unions and guilds), thus it should probably be tweaked in your post to mention that humans are siding with dwarves because they're more confident in the dwarves' natural skill and heritage as metalworkers and miners. It may not need to be clarified, but I figure someone might bring it up later wondering, and I'd rather mention it now so you're aware.

Well, by sizeable I meant a decent minority, I am not an English speaker so I might have confused the meaning of this word, while Gnomes are naturally gifted in Necromancy they must also be tempted by variety of other schools. I brought Enchantment because previous posts mentioned it as being used by old elves from which Thanatos learned, and Transmutation because I didn`t want to abandom interest core Gnomes have in Alchemy, Crafts and Engineering.

Something like: 55% of Praes Thanatos are Necromancers, 15% Transmuters, the same number Enchanters and the rest deal with other schools?

I will edit my post, hope it will be okay then.