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Message: <blockquote data-quote="The Shadow" data-source="post: 1491474" data-attributes="member: 16760">Other Nations of the North:Folkheim of ThuleCapital:  FestburgHead of State:  Hoch-Jarl Gustav Bloodeye, Ring-Giver of All ThuleMedium of Exchange: Thulish "kroners", though coins of other lands are used freely.Coat of Arms:  None.  Each Hoch-Jarl creates his own personal symbol to use as a badge, however.  King Gustav's is a red eye.As already mentioned, the native Thuler of the north have long been a fractious bunch, with myriads of minor jarls, thanes, and other potentates.  Occasionally one would be strong, smart, and ruthless enough to make himself the "Hoch-Jarl" over all of Thule, but this never outlasted the first display of weakness, nor passed to a successor, until the last century.  Increasing boldness on the part of the Stepstone pirates, increasing restiveness on the part of the Rovers, and perhaps also increasing influence from Novalian civilization, convinced the Thuler that they needed a single leader.  Several major jarls called a Moot... those who refused to come were given decent burial.  (Those who weren't burned in their halls, of course...)  There they selected one of their own number to be the Hoch-Jarl for his lifetime.The Hoch-Jarl's power is far from absolute.  He is required to call the Moot at least once every six years, and it can be called even against his will if enough jarls decide upon it.  During the time the Moot is in session, it has all the authority of the Hoch-Jarldom, collectively, and can make any laws any faction can cow the rest into accepting.  The Hoch-Jarldom can even be transferred to another, if desired, and if the current Hoch-Jarl objects and refuses to abdicate... well, the appointment was only for his lifetime, after all.However, it must be said that the institutions of the Moot and the Hoch-Jarldom seem to have sunk into the Thuler psyche.  In recent decades there has been comparatively little unseemliness, to say no more, in the transfer of power.  There had long been a tradition of moots on the local level;  it would seem that the Thuler have taken the step of viewing the nation as a whole as their community, and thus that they have created a true state.  One sign of this is that they have selected a single city, Festburg, as their capital, whereas before the Hoch-Jarl had reigned from his own traditional lands.  (Festburg is in a highly defensible location, hence the name.)  Still, Thule has few laws compared to more civilized lands, and the word "bureaucracy" has not yet entered their vocabulary.Their gloomy religion of Wyrd has already been mentioned.  A streak of fatalism permeates the Thuler psyche;  "A good day to die!" is not uncommonly used the way we would say, "Good morrow!"  Their sagas are full of heroic last stands, with the heroes dying ugly deaths.  (The Standers are about the only Kells the Thuler have been known to consistently express admiration for - though they can't resist adding that twenty of them ended up living!  It comes of associating with the alfar...)  In general it is believed that a man's Wyrd, his fate, is fixed from the moment of his birth.  What makes a man admirable, therefore, is not what he achieves or suffers but how he faces either - with a sort of bold stoicism, to both good and ill, being the ideal.  Thulish "gods" are just as subject to Wyrd as men;  they are invoked not for changes of fate but for the courage to face it.Stepstone ArchipelagateCapital:  Anyport, on Storm Island (unofficial)Head of State: Captain Jimm "Strongarm" Tomson, Sealord of Storm Island, Authority of Anyport, Archon of the Archipelagate, and Admiral of the Ocean-Sea (unofficial)Medium of Exchange:  Coins of all nations are exchanged freely in the Stepstones.  There is no legal tender.Coat of Arms:  None, though the sealords often whimsically create their own clashing standards with no regard for the rules of heraldry.  Captain Jimm's is a bared and bent red arm on a sea-green background.The Stepstone Islands bridge the New Sea, stretching from the Southern Sentinels to the Northern.  The native Fholk vanished long ago, buried under wave after wave of outcasts, exiles, freebooters, and soldiers of fortune.  Every people known to us is represented there in one proportion or another - those who did not gravitate to the Islands because of their own lawless natures have been brought there as slaves.  The Islanders themselves cheerfully say, "The scum rises to the top!" and Novalians see no reason to disagree, at any rate in their case.Every language in Occida and many from further away has met and mingled in the Stepstones.  The resulting patois, called Islander Common, is one of the few useful things to come out of the archipelago.  Very simple in structure and easy for anyone to learn, it has proven a useful lingua franca for merchants and travellers everywhere.  While it is difficult to express complex concepts in Islander without extravagant circumlocution, its use has penetrated even into the Wastelands!It is just as well, given their language, that the Islanders are quite fond of extravagant circumlocution.  They love sonorous, impressive-sounding phrases and delight in puns - witness the name "Anyport", and Captain Jimm's long string of spurious titles.  The very name "Archipelagate" is a deliberate joke, as the Stepstones have no unified government at all save for the cowing of the weak by the strong.Currently the strongest of the Sealords (as the warlords of the various islands call themselves) is Captain Jimm Tomson.  He made himself the master of Storm Island - the largest Stepstone, and the one with the best harbor - by murdering the previous "ruler" over dinner.  The Strongarm's arrogance is exceeded only by his whimsical sense of humor - he has actually had the gall to send "ambassadors" with mockingly-phrased missives to the nations of Novalis.  As a result, sentiment for rooting out the infestation of piracy from the Stepstones is starting to rise.Only time will tell if it rises to the sticking point - the problem is that the Sealords, when they work together, have a navy far superior to any other in the New Sea.  Indeed, many nations, tired of having their ships challenged by the pirates, have simply given letters of marque to certain Sealords of their choosing during time of war rather than building up large navies.  The only thing that has prevented the Stepstone pirates from large-scale depredation of our coastlines is their own fractiousness and perhaps simply the common sense that they have neither the population nor the resources to match a sufficiently angry Novalis.  They live quite comfortably as it is;  why rock the boat?  Captain Jimm and others of the Sealords have quietly let it be known that any pirate who steps over a certain line will quickly become a meal for the fishes.The pirates are infamous for their practice of slavery.  They rarely raid Novalian towns any more (that is well over the "certain line" already mentioned) but consider Rovers, Thuler thralls, the crews of captured ships, and even Wastelanders free game.  They also take slaves all up and down the western shores of Occida (the coastal Shards make easy pickings) and sometimes even Sirisa.  They keep some for labor in the Stepstones, but sell the rest in places like the Restored Empire, some of the Minaean cities, Sirisa, or sometimes even Thule.  The one place they never take slaves from - or raid the ships of - is the Aurelian Protectorate.  The Sealords have been taught to fear the Psions and the Gryphoneers as they fear death.  Some merchants have attempted to share this immunity by falsely flying the flag of the Consuls... but this is met by the Protectorate with harsh sanctions, and by the Sealords (if they discover the trick) with inventive tortures.The Stepstones sport an unusual magical tradition, that of the Islander shamans.  They follow an animistic belief-system that may derive in part from the Fholk, but more likely comes from Rover slaves.  At any rate, the language of Fholko has survived only as an elaborate curse-language that is supposed to get the attention of the spirits.  How much the language has degraded from the time when it saw daily use is impossible to guess, but even now its structure is unlike any other known language.  Many shamanic rituals center around the Standing Stones, but it is highly doubtful that the shamans are in touch with any genuine Fholk tradition about them.Free Community of TearCapital:  Monastery Height (unofficial)Head of State:  Elder Brother Honzo, Slave of the Way (unofficial)Medium of Exchange:  Coins of all nations are accepted, though most villagers simply use barter.  The monks, of course, do not handle money save on official business.Coat of Arms:  None.  A blue Tear on a white circle is sometimes used as a sign of the monastery, however, and a red kerchief on the right arm is sometimes used as a badge by the monks.  (See below.)  The symbol of the Way itself is a plain white circle.Some of the Sealords and other prosperous figures in the Stepstones treat their slaves more kindly than others, but overall the life of an Island slave is grindingly harsh, with fearsome public torture meted out for any act of rebellion.  (The one great fear the Sealords have had, other than invasion, is of a slave revolt.)  Thuler thralls have more rights, and that is saying something considerable... slaves may not own even the slightest articles of personal property.  They are not permitted to cover their upper bodies in public, so that the brands on right shoulder and left upper arm may be clearly seen.  (In the northern islands, which can get fairly cold in the winter, this rule is mitigated in bad weather so that only the upper-arm brand must be exposed.  They lose fewer slaves to hypothermia that way.)  Slaves suspected of being rebellious are often branded additionally on a wrist or even on a cheek, lest they go unnoticed by covering themselves. They are of course not permitted to carry weapons of any kind, and for a slave even to look at a weapon is to invite a cuff or worse.It is perhaps inevitable that under such conditions the slaves would develop many subtle means of resistance.  Shamanism is probably one of these.  Another is the form of unarmed combat and mental discipline known simply as the Way.  The Way bears such a strong resemblance to Agathist belief and practice that it is generally conceded by sages that there must be a connection.  Certainly it would not be strange for a group of Agathists to flee the destruction of the Empire to the Stepstones... nor for their descendants to wish to help a populace as downtrodden as the slaves.  Still, the Islanders have added their own unique touches.The one place where the Way is practiced openly is also the one place where there was a successful slave revolt:  The northernmost Stepstone, called Tear for its shape on the map.  The practicioners of the Way, apparently borrowing many disciplines and practices from the contemplative monks of the Light (there is evidence of an old abandoned monastery on Tear) established a school and "monastery" of their own there.  The Sealords have repeatedly tried to retake Tear, or failing that, to destroy the community there;  but they have never succeeded.  The Tear-monks, as they are called by others, are the primary reason why - though the spells of the shamans certainly haven't hurt.The Tear-monks form a community unlike any other on Occida.  The essence of their system is to think of oneself as a slave - not of a human owner, but of the Way.  Thus their own term for themselves is Way-slaves.  Part of their ritual of initiation is in fact to brand novices with the slave-marks traditional to the Islands, no matter if they were freeborn before - though the owner mark is a unique one, indicating the Way.  They have no property, carry no weapons, and owe obedience to the Elder Brother of the monastery.  Tear-monks who violate the precepts of the Way are expected (not forced) to volunteer themselves for punishment as rebellious slaves - though the savage tortures of the Sealords are much mitigated by the monks, sometimes even, in mild cases, to the point of symbolism.  (One does not need to be a Tear-monk to follow the Way, of course.  They freely teach it to anyone who is humble enough to learn - but to learn the advanced techniques requires so much humility and testing thereof that one might as well be a Way-slave by the time one is finished.)The Elder Brother of the monastery is the de facto leader of Tear, for the villagers of the island hold the monks in awe.  They will often approach him to resolve their disputes, a duty he finds tiresome but necessary.The Sealords have all but given up on Tear, since the community there does not seem interested in inspiring a widespread slave revolt - and because the existence of Tear to dream about gives many slaves, paradoxically enough, sufficient hope to stop being utterly desperate.  Thus they usually look the other way when Tear-monks come to comfort slaves in their labors.  (And likewise when priests and missionaries of the Light do so.)  Since Tear-monks insist on going uncovered and displaying their brands, there is an unspoken agreement that Tear-monks who wear a red kerchief tied about their right arm will not be molested by the Islanders.  Naturally, many Tear-monks don't bother to wear one, and equally naturally any ordinary slave caught wearing a red kerchief (unsupported by the brand of the Way) is tortured.  (It seems to be becoming customary for the red kerchief to be used as a badge of younger and not-fully-trained monks, or those who are on official business of the Elder Brother, even on Tear.)  The Sealords' tolerance emphatically does NOT extend to teaching the practice of the Way, but that just inspires the monks to work harder not to get caught.Tear-monks go through successive phases of initiation, one of which is called Wandering the Way.  "Though Tear contains the heart, and the heart contains the world, still the world contains Tear," is their saying.  And so Tear-monks may occasionally be found wandering throughout Occida, seeing the world, giving comfort to the downtrodden, perhaps even teaching a little of the Way, until they believe they have learned their own heart well enough to return.  A very few have even asked for and received permission from the Elder Brother to Wander the Way as a permanent calling.  To the best knowledge of this author, no other Tear-monasteries have been planted elsewhere, but it seems likely that this will eventually happen.  (Neither are there any Tear-nuns up to this point, though the monks teach the Way as freely to women as to men.  It is quite understandable that having both men and women about with their upper bodies uncovered could be destructive to monastic discipline...)Aurelian Protectorate (though the official name is "Second Republic of Aurelia", the term "Protectorate" is overwhelmingly favored in daily use)Capital:  VigilansHeads of State:  Consuls Marcus Klytion and Stephanos Aemilius, Protectors of the Senate and People of AureliaMedium of Exchange:  Protectorate "denarius"Coat of Arms:  None.  The symbol of the Consuls is the fasces, and a popular symbol of the Protectorate itself is the Gryphon.  But in general the Protectorate has little time for heraldry, "a decadently feudal Novalian art".  They fly a white flag bearing the plain black letters "SPQA", the Aurelian initials for "The Senate and People of Aurelia" on those occasions that they feel a need to identify their nationals, while groups and ships on government or military business fly a flag with Fasces above and below the letters, blades turned away from them.There had always been factions in the Aurelian Empire who had yearned for the glory days of the Republic and sought to restore it.  There had also always been Minaean factions who, while accepting Imperial rule and embracing Imperial culture in many respects, resented and despised the influence of the wizards and of corrupt (so they said) Parmedi ways.  When the Empire collapsed from within, these groups found themselves as very strange bedfellows - their main point in common being to restore an idealized past.While the diehards stayed to try to restore the Republic and/or root out the wizards, the realists among them fled, along with thousands of other refugees.  Several disciplined groups pooled their resources and came north to the old Province of Trans-Custodes, a sparsely-settled strip of land west of the Southern Sentinels.  There they set about creating their ideal of the Aurelia-that-should-have-been.  Many compromises were made, and a bizarre mixture of Old Minaean and Classical Aurelian culture resulted.Wizardry, and indeed all magic, was rejected with contempt.  Instead the twin Minaean disciplines of psionics and philosophy were revived in a disciplined way never achieved in Minaea itself.  Republican institutions were restored, and supplemented moderately with Minaean "democracy".  Even their religion was tainted by an excessive reliance on Agathist categories of thought, producing what we today call the "Sophist Heresy".  They, in turn, do not acknowledge the primacy of our Patriarch, though Trans-Custodes fell traditionally under his sway in Old Imperial times; instead they send their Bishops south to be consecrated by the First Patriarch on Samos.  (Protests from Lucia to Samos have been met by the point that the Protectorate more or less follows the Minaean Rite (which uses Old Minaean as the liturgical language) rather than the Aurelian Rite practiced in the north.  The loss of the original line of Patriarchs of the North in the destruction of New Aurelia has further muddied the waters... Every so often one side or the other goes into schism with the other, though this has always been patched up after a couple years.  As for the issue of heresy, Samos claims it is all a matter of faulty translation into Aurelian.  It is noted by Novalian scholars, however, that the First Patriarch himself never uses key Sophist terminology.)Protectorate citizens are divided between Patricians and Plebeians, just as ancient Aurelia was.  Unlike ancient Aurelia, however, the sole distinction of the two is the possession of a minimum degree of psionic talent on the part of the Patricians.  The established Patrician families do tend to be wealthy, since trained psions are in high demand, and they are respected because of their contributions to the defense of the State... but it is considered very bad form for Patricians to put on airs and many go out of their way to insist that they are "ordinary citizens". Nonetheless, it is seen as scandalous for Patricians and Plebeians to intermarry, simply because it represents a dilution of the bloodlines of great psionic potential.  Plebeians who display psionic power are usually adopted into an existing Patrician family, but they can choose to found their own line if they wish.The Patricians are represented in the Senate;  the Senate itself votes to extend the invitation of a seat to distinguished individuals - who must be telepaths of at least some degree - from each locality when a seat becomes open there.  Nominations are made by the Patrician families of the locality in question, but the Senate is not required to heed them.  It is the Senate that passes legislation and selects the two Consuls (with the advice and consent of the Demos of the Nation) - most often from among their own number, but they may choose any citizen whatever for the honor, and Plebeian Consuls are far from unknown.  Usually one Consul handles affairs of state and the other leads the army, though they can decide on any mutually agreeable division of labor;  the one constant point is that any act of one can be vetoed by the other.  (Theoretically Consuls are elected only in time of war... however the Second Republic has been in a continuous state of war with the Restored Empire almost since its founding, so the point is rather moot.  Even in times of comparative quiet, this sense of constant danger and need to defend the State defines the national soul of the Protectorate.)Local affairs are largely decided by the local Demos - the collectivity of eligible Plebeian men periodically assembled in the town square - which elects officials known as Tribunes to carry out their policies.  The Demos of the Nation is likewise the collectivity of the Tribunes periodically assembled in Vigilans;  it must approve the selection of the Consuls and has veto power over certain kinds of legislation, including any declaration of war.  (Given the circumstances, this means "initiation of overtly hostile activity", at any rate when it comes to the Empire.)  Patricians may run for the office of Tribune if they wish - and this can be a good way for an ambitious young Patrician to come to national attention - but cannot vote for them.  (It should also be noted that Patricians cannot be tried for crimes by the local Demos - they can be tried only by the Senate - but are bound to obey the local Tribune just as much as any other citizen.)The legions of the Protectorate are a special case;  they are not subject to the local Demoi and it is considered too destructive to military discipline to treat them as "localities" of their own.  Instead the Consuls appoint the lower officers from among Tribunes past and present;  this position is known as the "military tribunate".  Military tribunes are expected to represent the rights of their men to those higher in the chain of command.The legions make liberal use of the various Psion Corps.  While psionics is not as useful for sheer destruction as war-magic, the Psions are trained to make the most of what they have in subtle and even underhanded ways.  Telepaths read the plans of opposing officers and send images of terror to opponents;  espers spy in more direct fashion; telekinetics have a variety of uses;  and biokinetics heal the injured as well as having other uses too horrible to lightly contemplate.  Another famous corps is the Gryphoneers, an elite group that rides the gryphons that nest in the Southern Sentinels.  These "air cavalry" are used on the Protectorate's enemies to devastating effect;  most of the Gryphoneers are also psionic in one measure or another.  (Rumor has it that several Kings of Hadron have offered exorbitant sums for war-gryphons - in addition to their military uses, the symbolism of the lion-eagles is obvious.  They have always been flatly rejected.)Yet another elite corps, not attached to the legions, is infamous.  Sorcerers are of course born in the Protectorate as they are everywhere else, but there they are seen as an abomination.  The Second Republic is too frugal to waste any potential resource, however... they adapted their stringent psionic training to produce a breed of "sorcerer" whose sole ability is to quench magic used on them or nearby them.  These are the Antimagoi, and they are drilled to become skilled warriors as well.  (Those who wash out of the warrior training are used for defensive purposes only.)  Some of the officers of the Antimagoi have the additional, and fearsome, ability to temporarily drain magical abilities from mages entirely!(Be it noted that the popular tale that the Protectorate sports four orders of knighthood based on the names of angels is a bard's invention with some basis in fact.  The Knights Michael correspond to the elite legion units, the Knights Gabriel to the Telepath Signal Corps, the Knights Raphael to the Biokinetic Medic Corps, and the Knights Uriel to the Antimagoi.  The Protectorate in actuality has little use for knighthood, which is another "decadently feudal" custom in their view.  All citizens are expected to defend the State at need, with the blessing of their Bishops. [ENWorld note:  This refers to a well-known - to us - aspect of the original campaign that I saw fit to remove.])As may already be apparent, the language of the Protectorate veers between Minaean and Aurelian.  In an interesting inversion, it is the psionic Patricians who make the most use of Classical Aurelian - which is also the official language of government - while the Plebeians usually speak a dialect of Minaean with many Aurelian loan-words.  (This dialect is often called simply "Republican".)  It is also quite fashionable for families with Minaean surnames to give their children Aurelian forenames, and vice versa.  No Protectorate citizen seems capable of hearing the use of Church Aurelian (the beautiful, sonorous dialect used liturgically and otherwise in Novalis) without curling their lip;  they insist upon the harsher, more guttural Classical form of the language as "purer".The Protectorate is the bitter enemy of the Restored Empire, and the feeling is quite mutual.  Though the Undying Emperor never had any great love for the Nova Imperium, and though his spy network is active in Novalis even now, it is the Protectorate for which he reserves the bulk of his ire.  Thus far the two nations have rarely clashed directly, however, separated as they are by the myriad little states known as the Shards of Empire.  Heretical and arrogant though the Protectorate may be, the good will of most Novalians goes with them in that conflict.  Were it not for the formidable barrier of the Waste, many might even be inclined to lend a direct hand.  While the Protectorate does not employ mercenaries, they do accept enlistees into the storied (but closely-watched) "Foreign Legion".  Those who serve with distinction may be offered citizenship.Oligarchy of HavenCapital:  HavenHeads of State:  The Seven, whose identities are unknownMedium of Exchange:  All coins are accepted, but the city does mint silver "sevens".Coat of Arms:  None.  The Seven use plain black banners, and these are often taken as the city's by default.Several decades ago, one of the more paranoid Sealords of the Stepstones decided he needed an unexpected and wholly secure bolthole should things go sour.  He cached a variety of goods and foodstuffs amid the ruins of New Aurelia on the shores of the Waste.  The mighty Stonesong river had dwindled to a sluggish and bitter stream, but he found (experimenting with a few slaves) that its water was safe to drink if boiled.  The city had been visited before, of course, even looted, but there is no evidence that anyone else had been there in a great many years;  there was no reason to come.As time went on, he began to consider other uses for the location.  The presence of an entire empty city with intact (if crumbling) walls was too suggestive to leave alone.  (Why had it never been occupied by the Wastelanders?  This remains a mystery.)  It is known that he was even more misanthropic and mistrustful than the usual run of Sealords, and that he had a number of highly ambitious young lieutenants.  Perhaps it tickled him to be a "Lord of the Waste" in addition, and in a city of Emperors, no less.  At any rate, he decided to quietly retire there.  Taking his time, he slowly built up a generous supply of luxuries and necessaries, then abruptly disappeared, along with a small contingent of (thoroughly broken) slaves to keep him comfortable, do the work, and warm his bed.  He called "his" city Haven.In time he sired children there, as did his slaves.  While he had no interest in leaving, at least one of his sons grew impatient with his small world.  Eventually, to stop his whinging, his father gave him leave to sail (with the help of some sailor-slaves, of course) to Alaron to have a look around and buy some more wine and rum.  The old man also suggested he supplement their supply of coin by seeing if anyone was interested in buying the unusual iridescent crystals that sometimes washed up in the river.The boy made it to Alaron by hugging the coast, sold the crystals to a curious alchemist, and promptly ran off with the swag.  The slaves, confused, returned to Haven where they were beaten severely.  And there things stood for several years.  The alchemist, busy with other projects, eventually did some cursory tests, found the crystals had some faint magical properties, and therefore sold a few to a Visian mage visiting on business.  It made the Visian's career.  He found that the mineral, which he dubbed "fluxite", was somehow attuned to the magical resonances of the Waste - and that by stressing the crystal by means of clamps in precise positions, he could channel magic through it to be distorted in predictable ways.  (Later it was found that simply cutting and polishing the fluxite in carefully-calculated ways will accomplish the same effect.)  In short, fluxite was the key to shortening many important wizardly rituals... and to aiding sorcerers in manipulating the Wild Magic... and to using magic in the Waste.  But its potential was limited by the fact that its attunement would gradually wear out with use.  (If anything, this limitation only made the merchants MORE anxious to stock the stuff.)Between the Visian Academy, the Grand Dukes of Alaron, and several prominent merchant families, a number of massive manhunts were soon underway for the lad described by the Alaronese alchemist.  Unfortunately for him, he was found by none of them, but rather by the Patriarch of the Stealth in Lucia.  (He had gravitated to that city as so many other less-than-honest people unwilling to work are.)  His story was extracted from him with torture, and once it was verified, he was killed.  The Lucian thieves struck a bargain with one of the Sealords, and the result, after some complicated planning to ensure secrecy, was a descent of all manner of rogues on Haven. The old Sealord had already died;  his slaves were kept and more brought in.  Prospecting and mining operations were begun, and the first quiet sales of fluxite began soon after.  At least they started quiet, but soon they became a sensation.The secret could not be kept for long;  the question was what could be done about it.  No army could readily march across the Waste, and no navy could stand up to the Sealords, who were already getting some very satisfying bribes from the Haven cabal.  Though many were outraged by the capital of the Nova Imperium being used in such a fashion, few could suggest a solution.  The cabal cleverly defused a good bit of Novalian ire by importing artisans (at exorbitant expense) to restore many of the great buildings of the city, as well.Haven soon became a rough-and-tumble mining town with few rules.  Only one, in fact:  Do Not Annoy The Cabal.  Mages of all stripes flocked there, hoping to secure a supply of fluxite without having to pay extortionary rates;  when the cabal tried to squeeze them out, they found themselves targeted with all manner of spells - both subtle and not-so-subtle.  To add to the confusion, the Patriarch of the Stealth was cut out of the cabal, to his outrage and vow of revenge.  Assassins started sneaking into Haven along with the eager miners and mages.  The situation became, as they say, "fluid".When the dust settled, the cabal was reduced to three men who were the absolute rulers of Haven.  They brought in a fourth - evidently a powerful wizard - to protect them from magical attack and to help them conceal their identities.  In time, as the city has grown, the number of oligarchs has been increased to seven, and that number seems to have stabilized.  The Seven never show their faces, and are strongly protected from magic of all sorts.  They appear in public wearing black cowls that completely conceal their faces, and so they are sometimes called the Hooded Ones.It may be wondered how seven men could possibly conceal their role as oligarchs of a town of less than ten thousand souls.  (Though the population continues to grow swiftly.)  But it is not certain that all of them even live in Haven at all - at least two are potent mages demonstrably capable of teleportation - and the rest are believed to take on cover roles in minor positions, and to have been provided with disguising magics.  It is also plausibly believed that doubles are sometimes used in the hoods so that the true oligarchs can appear alongside the "Seven".  Speculation as to the Seven's identities has become quite the sport in Haven, but the secrecy of it all seems to have become accepted.In recent years the Seven have become increasingly concerned with diversifying Haven's interests.  The easily-obtainable supply of fluxite has already been obtained, and prospectors and miners must go further afield amid the constant threat of the Wastelanders.  They have experimented with capturing Wastelanders for sale to the Sealords as slaves and to alchemists for magical research.  They have tried locating other ruined cities of Nova Imperium to plunder.  They have offered the city as a transshipment point for those with cargoes they would rather not be traced.  They have shrewdly invested huge sums in various trade interests.  (This last has proved yet another incentive not to invade the place, especially in Alaron.)  They have even encouraged pilgrimages to see the Grand Cathedral of the Light, the Imperial Palace, and other such attractions.  (Rumor has it that they have oh-so-piously petitioned the Patriarch for a Bishop of their own to tend to the pilgrims... but the symbolism of a mere Bishop officiating the Rites at the original Patriarchal See is just too jarring.  And certainly Theophilus III is not going to seriously consider moving to such a remote and insecure location himself!  Even the merest breath of a suggestion of the idea is enough to send the entire population of Lucia - the thieves perhaps most of all - into collective apoplexy.)Adventurers will find Haven to live up to its name only in comparison to the Waste - it's better than dying.  Help, shelter, and new equipment are available, for a hefty fee.</blockquote>

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