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Message: <blockquote data-quote="seasong" data-source="post: 639126" data-attributes="member: 5137">AglaonisThe Aglaonis city-state is almost due north, and a bit west, of Theralis, but the only passable trail through the miles of valley and mountain curves to the east, and takes roughly a week and a half to traverse with wagons.Aglaonis is Theralis' older sister in terms of city-states, and has about a thousand years of history. Population-wise, however, it is only slightly larger than Theralis (some 60,000 people in the city) and has much the same architectural style, being semi-randomly jammed together arches, pillars, and other beautiful structures. The Aglaonis valleys are wider, flatter, more generous than the Theralis valleys, and are mostly turned over to farmland (the appearance of which often comes as a shock to Theralese natives) - instead of narrow trails and vineyards, Aglaonis is sprawled out green rectangles, full of animals and elegant, flat housing.The city-state has its own warrior tradition, called the Farmer Code, which primarily consists of taking big, wedge-cut rectangles of iron, hammering a curved hilt into it, and whacking the heck out of your opponent with it until he stops moving. The Farmer Code is not formalized, but those who are particularly good at it often develop skill sets that could be called martial, and pass it on to others by informal training. Perhaps one in four Aglaonese citizens are reasonably skilled in the Farmer Code, with the remainder being city craftsfolk and other specialists.Note: Although less suited to warfare than the Theralis methods, the Farmer Code is very effective in personal combat, and Aglaonis has primarily survived the orc invasion by dint of taking lots of losses, and facing off against their heroes. This is more classical savage warfare, and has resulted in population drift. Also unlike Theralis, the city has had little to do with the defense - most of the fighters are farmers, led by city-bred captains.Politically, Aglaonis is very different from her sister-state. Rather than a military-dominated council, Aglaonis is governed by farmer's moots, in which land owners gather in their sub-state and argue about matters of state, before choosing a representative to meet in the city with other sub-state representatives to argue for what the local group agreed upon. Matters of state often take an arbitrarily long period of time to decide upon, and locals often take matters into their own hands until a decision is handed down. As bureaucratic as it is, however, it works, and the people of Aglaonis tend to view any solution as coming in two parts - the part where you apply a makeshift solution to hold the problem off while you consider, and the part where you make a considered judgement and act on it. They are very forgiving of first impulses, and tend to apologize a lot.Aglaonis worships Demis strongly, much like Dianas is worshipped in Theralis.</blockquote>

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