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You decide to ask for Power!
"So be it." You feel a concentrated bout of pain, and you clutch your head in your hands, kneeling. The pain makes you short of breath and you feel your breakfast attempting to escape from your stomach.
But the pain is soon gone, just as the White Stag. In the place of it all, a sudden enlightenment and understanding of the world appears, as if someone took off blindfold from your eyes and a gag from your mouth.
1, 2
Congratulations! Houlandin III has been
Gifted! (+Charismatic, +Wise)
You return to your entourage, mentioning that the White Stag has managed to escape you. The courtiers sigh but accept the loss, for the White Stag is always elusive. The priests however speak highly of the sightining and the chase, for it will surely mean good luck for the Empire in coming years.
Few notice that you have, indeed, changed.
1215 AD, Mid-Autumn
The cartographers sent north years ago have returned, bringing with them the knowledge of not one land, but two!
First, they speak of
Dvar, a land of lakes, snow and brave men and even bravest women. They sail long boats that have heads shaped to resemble scaled fishheads. According to Albion sailmen, they were once the greater warriors and navigators than Albions, and indeed, they taught the Albion people how to fight, sail, pillage and plunder.
Since their line of kings died and the society turned more to chieftain lords that control no more than few villages at best, the Dvar have lost their ways of pillagery and warfare, instead becoming settled peoples that hunt fish and whales and wear the delicate skins of seals and reindeer they hunt. The communities are small, and live in wooden cottages or fur-covered huts.
They were friendly toward the cartographers, but had little to offer the travelers, and much less to offer peoples of the south in general. Curiously, they speak in manner similar to Albionese, yet have a religion not unlike Pantheon. Whether their religion comes from similar roots, or, mayhaps, was basis for the Pantheonist mythology, the cartographers cannot say.
They've spent quite a while navigating the lands of Dvar; tiny islands are counted in thousands, the local coasts are torn and ragged. A whole year they were traveling between villages and hamlets alone, mapping the shores and inlets and seas. Finally however, with help of Dvar and then Albion sailors, they've made their way back to east and south, making a courtesy visit to local Albion ports. After few weeks resupplying and resting from visit in Dvar lands, your intrepid cartographers then sailed along the coast, to the far west. The further they went, the smaller and poorer Albion coastal villages became.
Finally, well into second year of their journey, they've reached the fabled, distant, and reclusive half-elves of
Sylevessef, proving indeed that not only elf-human hybrids can live, they can live aplenty and in prosperity. The half-elven cities are made entirely of stone, a greyish one, probably granite. Their architecture is 'raw', with little detail, sculptures few and paintings unknown to them. They sure love towers and spires, for even small homes and buildings have one or two. The tightly packed houses and inns and shops are arranged in circular or half-circular districts, with a vast, empty plaza in the middle, made of flattened dirt and clay (they do not use stone for roads).
These areas serve as marketplaces, the plethora of merchants and peddlers selling their wares - fruits (apples and plums being most common), fish and fish products ("spicy fish sauce! lightly fried fish fillets! elaborate fish salads! Sire, they make every food possible out of their fish!"), as well as furs, skins, cloth and crafts, iron utensils, armor and even decorations, as well as, baffling your cartographers, 'iron thread', that is spun into thicker ropes and then made into coats for soldiers and harnesses for war horses (a sign of priviledged birth and/or wealth of the rider). Horses, it seems, are one of very few domesticated animals the Sylevessef half-elves have; seals and sea birds are kept as pets sometimes, and livestock is comprised mostly of sheep and goats. The half-elves apparently never heard of dogs and cats, pig, cows or even chickens and hens.
They've met with represenstatives of their Council, which has a member in each half-elven city, often working as city mayors or aides to such. The Council is responsible before the High King and his family, but while King if leader of military matters, the Council rules and runs the administration. The cartographers failed to meet with highest-ranking officials, and half-elven nobility - mostly descendants of the first, or the second (and current), ruling dynasty - were few, and none living in coastal towns the cartographers visited.
With great zealotry they worship The Twins, said to be the first 'half-elven' children who were exiled from Tisilenteliya. The male twin, Suumin, is embodiment of virtues, arts, agriculture, and the moon, while the female twin, Tussa, represents war and death, family and life, and the sun. Non-bielievers and foreigners are forbidden from stepping inside the Twins' houses of worship. From what your men learned though, the temples are also raw and simple in design; the large areas inside are used for group worship, where half-elves 'kiss the sky', and then chant praise or ask for favors from the divine Twins. The Twins' apparently gained god-hood after consuming half of 'The Golden Apple' each, but because Suumin was asleep when Tussa ate her half, he woke up when she was already hidden behind the horizon, and since then, the Twins have been chasing each other on the sky.
The half-elves take greater interest of the sky and motion of stars in general; not only to predict coming of years and passing of seasons, they also trace stars during one's birth to determine their 'guardian star', as well as to divine futures and fortunes of their brethrens. Some do it even on daily basis, starting their working days with reading of the stellar arrangements.
It seems that while elves of Tisilenteliya supply the 'elven' part of mixed parentage, the 'human' part comes from Albionese and, to lesser degree, Dvar and Prawlantese. Half-elves of Sylevessef have different names for 'halves, quarterlings and lesser' mixtures of blood; genealogy and history is common interest of many half-elves, who often pride themselves on having a 'pure' descendant (elf or human foreigner). But no caste or societal level of theirs is based on bloodlines, and Sylevessef half-elves do not belittle their brethren for having a certain degree of parentage in their veins. The easiest way to spot someone with more elf blood than human is by looking at the ears - while all half-elves have a certain degree of pointiness to them, those who had a full-elven parent have the sharpest, and often, the longest, ears.
Half-elves of Sylevessef were greatly interested in Methiant and southlands in general, for while they build ships and sometimes travel along the coast, they have little interest in the seas besides seeing it as a supply of their all-time favorite fishies. They exchanged some items with your cartographers, the various little trinkets made of gold and silver being most coveted things; in return, they gave your scholars some of their clothes and rock crafts, for even their jewellery is stone. They also make exquisite dyes of purple, black and gold colors, apparently coming from snails, insects and larvae native to Sylevessef meadows and forests.
In terms of politics, they constantly war with Tisilenteliya Elves, their corrupt, prideful and highly xenophobic royal family, and with open arms they welcome rebels, dissidents and criminals of the woods, replenishing own elven blood with their help. Unfortunately, siring a half-elf with inhabitant of Sylevessef is a legal reason to obtain both citizenship and a requirement to abandon one's old home, and that's why the cartographers' group has returned in a bit smaller numbers compared to when it was leaving Methiant-Cydwyl
After spending a year in Sylevessef, stuffing themselves with fish dishes and fruit wines, your cartographers decided to go further west and south, but because Albion and Dvar sailors were wishing to return home, and Sylevessef mariners were unwilling to work for foreigners, the expedition had to be called off before the sea connection to lands of Prawlantese and Ivonians was empirically confirmed (the half-elves did mention it exists, though).
The court and the scholars gathered in the audience room loudly exchange thoughts and suspicions about the distant Sylevessef (and to much lesser degree, about the wild Dvar). The head scholar bows his head before you, and soon silence falls upon the hall.
"Most blessed Emperor. We wish to return to the House of Learning, to help bring the knowledge of the distant lands upon the maps of the Empire. Still, we want to ask for favor and monetary support for another expedition to the northwest, to bring more knowledge about Sylevessef, as well as actually try and visit Prawlant and Ivonia by the sea."
A) "Favor you can always have, but money is in short supply. There will be no expeditions for a while, I'm afraid."
B) "I will sponsor the expedition right away. Sail far and wide, my brave explorers!"
C) "Actually, back in the day, your colleagues mentioned visiting lands to west and south. I would like to get some information about these lands instead."
Per-pale sable and argent, in the sinister side a moon azure, in dexter side a sun or
Poll
Author
Topic: SPAMKINGDOM#: Emperor Houlandin IV of Methiant-Cydwyl! (Read 789686 times)