Keep the name Arson.
Wander the Desert with your Peers
Many of the other children with us will be part of our household when we reach majority. Even if they don't get senior positions right away their loyalty will be a firm foundation for whatever comes next.
Train and Breed Dire Kangaroo Rats
Socialize with Exotic Youth
Loiter Around Texulchimum's Audience Chamber
I'm not sure exactly how much this helps with the necromancy bits, but it should still build a rapport with our strongest neighbor and hopefully pick up some practical pointers on how to actually hold a court.
News from home slowly trickles in. It would seem the big civil war between you and your brothers has at least been delayed. Several rich minor lords, foreign and domestic, have assembled mercenary hosts and are trying to claim chunks of the divided Kingdom for themselves. The Petty Kingdoms of Sherdant, Urban Volcanique, Imperial Coast, and Agusta's Finger have formed a defensive alliance negotiated and commanded by Prince Felix, your only brother not to inherit land and your father's best general.
The only Petty Kingdoms which have not join what people around the Nameless City are calling the 'Eunuch League' are The Titan Canyons and New Mahallo. Your brother in charge of the former, who has taken the name King Penteram after Empress Agusta's legendary 10 headed hound, has decided that his formidable defensive terrain and network of gates and castles is all the protection he needs against invaders. New Mahallo lacks a real army to contribute, and is cut off from the conflict anyway by the neutral Kingdom of The Titan Canyons.
The news is sparse enough that nobody yet truly understands the war, but your housemates are generally in favor of the invaders and rebels. Should the Eunuch League find decisive victory, they may choose to attack the neutral kingdoms before turning against each other. In a perfect world, the merchants would like the invaders to defeat their league, fail their push into the Titanlands, and leave an isolated King Penteram more dependent on southern trade routes with New Mahallo and the desert beyond.
---
Several times a week, you and the other children wake up several hours before dawn to tear across the desert on the backs of your Dire Kangaroo Rats before it gets hot. Common activities include races and hunting small animals with slings. Keanu spends much time in the library, pouring over old maps of the great desert to find interesting places to explore. Near the city are several old mines and quarries, long stripped bare by an undead workforce. You've even seen storage tombs, where thousands of skeletal works wait inactive for Texulchimum's next large project.
During the cool season your adventures expand, and your group will get some camels to carry food and water to stay out for days or weeks at a time. During these longer trips you learn how to navigate by the stars and treat minor injuries that occur while traveling. These journeys often end somewhere cool, like a hidden spring or some ruins.
Keanu is clearly in charge of these desert adventures, as he is the oldest and most experienced, but despite the age gap you quickly become one of his close confidents and second in command. It is clear that he respects you: as a friend, his king, and as someone who shares his love for wild places.
You also grow quite close to your half-brother Andre. In the nameless city, he is often mocked for being slow and stupid; Despite being two years your senior, he is slightly behind you in math, and only your equal in reading. He is, however, strong as an ox and surprisingly quick to learn outdoorsmanship. He also is beginning to prove handy with the spear. Extremely loyal to his crowned brother, Andre is both your shadow and your enforcer, and rounds out the leadership of the manor's children with you and Keanu.
---
More news from home, and this time you get to be the one to break it. In a letter addressed to her children, your mother explains that she has secured an alliance with the neighboring Kingdom of The Titan Canyons by agreeing to wed King Penteram's bastard son Phillip. You have a few vague memories of Phillip from early childhood, and none of them are unpleasant. Your brother Anders is particularly pleased by the news, explaining that he always got along with and looked up to Phillip as a fellow lowborn at your father's court.
Although Phillip and Anne are not blood relatives, that fact that the 15 year old bastard is closer in age to you than your mother is a bit unusual. The union also create some complicated relationships. Your nephew will become your step father, and you will be both sibling and great uncle to his children.
Eventually the rumors begin to pour in, and they put a damper on the happiness you feel for your mother. Apparently as a bride price, King Penteram donated weapons and armor to the Mahallo raiding clans, and paid to have some of their children sent to study warfare at the Imperial Academy. By all accounts your brother now has more sway and influence over what amounts to New Mahallo's military than does your mother. Even the name of the newly forged alliance 'The Titan Pact' paints your kingdom as the Junior partner.
---
You have developed a special relationship with Arson. The creature seems to instinctively know which days you are supposed rise early for desert adventures, and is usually the one to wake you. When you ride, you can direct his movement with squeaks rather than spurs. He can retrieve objects, beg, speak, hop, and roll over on command. The clever beast even has a mischievous bent, and will send small animals running by impersonating the chirps of hawks and owls.
Seeing their king's interest in working with Dire Kangaroo Rats, your peers have followed your lead. Much to the servants' dismay the ballroom, meeting hall, and other areas of the manor of little use to its mostly underaged inhabitants have been covered in straw and converted into warrens and kennels for the housing, training, and breeding of the creatures. Purebred Dire Kangaroo Rats, especially the females, are difficult to come by at a price suitable for a child's allowance, but you and your coworkers make do. Elderly males from the various trading convoys, and extra pups from the litters of local house pets are cheap enough. Sometimes you and your peers are even able to trap or lasso wild specimens while you are out in the desert.
Convoys from New Mahallo quickly pick up on what you are doing, and begin to bring a few extra rats as tribute to their king. Eventually your little organization is able to set up a sustainable breeding stock of Frontier Sledders, the small but strong breed that merchants find invaluable. In time, your organization begins to turn a profit, as the amount of rats that merchants buy to replace their dead and injured surpasses the amount spent on upkeep. You are not sure if this is due to good business sense, or Mahallo merchants going out of their way to patronize their monarch, but either way the extra money is nice.
Although you put alot of time and effort into the breeding operation, the true genius behind it is your sister Pennete, who spends nearly every waking hour that isn't with the tutors working with the beasts or reading about husbandry in the library. She also has taken to keeping and trying to breed some of the snakes, lizards, scorpions, and spiders that you and the more athletic children bring back from their desert adventures. The Princess is close to you and your brother Andre, and cordial with the other kids involved in Kangaroo Rat breeding, but the adults are beginning to worry that she is far more comfortable dealing with animals than with people.
---
Shaul pulls you aside shortly before your 7th birthday, and breaks the terrible news. Your baby sister Vera, who was too young to travel the desert with you, has been assassinated. The killer was struck down by the guards, and thus couldn't share who he was working for.
Apparently a number of hardline Imperial Clerics have been preaching that the Eunuch League exists in violation of the spirit of Imperial Religion, and that brothers should react to partition by trying to destroy each other, not by ganging up against outside threats. 36 important bishops from across the Imperial Human World have recently published a proclamation that the sins of your brothers have rendered your father's first marriage invalid, and that you, Pennete, and Vera are thus the only legitimate heirs of King Alan 'The Cleric'.
Needless to say, that gives any of your royal half-brothers or their supporters extra motivation to want you and your royal full siblings dead. Shaul seems to think that your step father Phillip and his father King Penteram are not to blame, as it had been agreed that Vera was to be tutored at Penteram's court, and they could have staged the killing much easier if they had simply waited a few months for her arrival. Despite Shaul's words, you know the Royal Family of the Titan Canyons would have the most to gain from the murders; Removing Anne's children by King Alan would put her future children by Phillip on the throne.
---
"Sire! Sire! You have see this! Come quick!" Pennete yells excitedly, almost dragging you down the stairs. In the ballroom, among the Rat Cages, stands a short humanoid figure with the head and shaggy fur of a rat. You've seen such beings around the Nameless City from time to time, but have never paid them much mind.
Your sister explains that she was in the library, reading up on an extinct breed of Dire Kangaroo Rat that existed during the time of Agusta, when she discovered that the same kennel masters who were responsible for the creation of her subject also bred humanoid servants from common house rats. These creatures, called The Vermant, served as servants and trade partners to humanity for generations, before the young imperial church enacted a genocide against them as they refused to renounce the pre-imperial gods.
To Pennete's surprise, further research revealed that the Vermant still survived, both in the nameless city where they help run some of Texulchimum's breeding experiments, and in small colonies located beyond the desert, which sometimes send trade convoys. Curious, your sister reached out to the Vermant, and found them to be both friendly, and mutually interested in animal husbandry.
The individual before you, whose name of squeaks and chirps is not easily captured by imperial letters, is the patriarch of a large family that lives in town but descends from foreign colonies. He has been watching your breeding business for some time, and thinks it has potential. His family is interested in making an investment: Lessons and labor from Vermant experts, and the occasional delivery of rare and exotic Dire Kangaroo Rat breeds, in exchange for a 33% stake in the business.
Do you accept the offer?---
As time passes, more news from home trickles in. The Eunuch League has proven effective under Prince Felix's leadership, and has repelled several hostile hosts trying to take their land. The war has reached a lull, but it seems to be far from over. 92 year old Bishop Jacques, a close friend and mentor to your father, is traveling the Imperial world, building support for a massive unified invasion of your brothers' petty Kingdoms.
In more personal news, you have a new brother. Prince Alan, named for your father, was recently born to Queen Regent Anne of New Mahallo and her husband Phillip.
---
You learn a lot in your time loitering around the court of Texulchimum, but the most important lesson is perhaps the most difficult to swallow. The Lich keeps about a dozen close confidants and advisors who are allowed to teach necromancy. Each of those takes one to three apprentices at a time. Unfortunately for you, these apprentices are almost always in their 20's or 30's, already experienced in the use of some form of magic, and neither landed nor high in the line of succession to inherit land. You fit none of these criteria.
Still, your presence catches the attention of a couple important individuals.
Vishnu is The Lich's minister of mining and development. He takes the form of a muscular elf with dark brown skin and a third eye on his forehead, but you are pretty confident that like everyone else in Texulchimum's inner circle, he is some terrible undead being putting up a front with illusion magic. Every day you spend at court, without fail, Vishnu will ask you about your adventures in the desert. Oftentimes he will tell you stories or provide historical context about the mines and ruins that you visit. Sometimes he will even suggest to you sites worthy of exploration that not even Keanu's time in the library can uncover.
Apollo is a necromancer with dull grey skin seemingly held together by some state of undeath. He is one of Texulchimum's several trusted archivists and historians, but to you he is more of a mentor. Although he doesn't share many details about his past, he confesses to having once ruled as a noble, and knows some things about running a court. As the entirety of the Nameless City consists of undead without physiological needs, wealthy merchants, young nobles, and their well paid servants, Apollo regularly reminds you that little of what you witness in Texulchimum's audience chamber will translate to the drama of your throne room in Bride Price. To prepare you, he regularly bounces hypothetical scenarios off of you, roleplaying as a hungry peasant or aggrieved noble before your throne. He is usually satisfied with your responses, and quick to offer gentle correction when he believes your decisions are incorrect.
---
During the cool season of your 8th year, Vishnu arranges a trip out into the desert for some of the children being educated at the nameless city. You, Andre, and Keanu are invited to tag along. The journey is to be two weeks in each direction, and lead by Vishnu himself. The destination is kept secret.
Over the course of the trip, your group proves impressive. Keanu, Andre, and you have no trouble keeping up with the adults. When Vishnu stops to explain some plant, animal, or geological feature, your group generally already knows what it is. Oftentimes your group are the only people to know what it is. When camp is set, several of the adult guards present are impressed with Andre and Keanu's martial sparring. Keanu usually wins, but Andre makes it very close for a 10 year old fighting a 13 year old. Both are praised as talented knights and champions in the making. Your skill with the sling and the lasso also draws some eyes, but neither tool is considered dignified enough nor useful enough for a King such as yourself.
Eventually you reach the destination, a natural cave at the back of a small canyon with a small spring-fed pool out front. Inside you find four hungry looking teenagers, who appear human at first glance, until you notice the fangs and forked tongues.
"Students, these are adolescent Naj Hochet, their mother was slain and eaten by a Sand Daemon. They reached out to me in a vision for help," Vishnu explains, "they shall be returning to the nameless city with us to flourish under my master's tutelage."
Your jaw drops. You know the Naj Hochet are some of the few sentient beings to live out in the great desert, but they are more akin to evil spirits than living things. They are said to be rattlesnakes large enough to eat a full grown camel, and venomous enough to kill even undead and extraplanar beings. Their innate spellcasting is also said to be quite formidable. The Naj Hochet can take on humanoid form, which they generally use to toy with and torment humanoid victims before eating them.
The rest of the day is spent admiring your new companions in their cave. The Naj Hochet do not talk much, and it is hard to read the intentions behind their eyes.
You are woken up at midnight by Vishnu, who wordlessly leads you out of the cave and up through the canyon to a clearing. Before you stand the four Naj Hochet, completely naked. On the ground you see Andre and Keanu, bound, gagged, and struggling.
"These fine young spirits are to be your peers," Vishnu begins, "they respect royalty. However they only
like malice, sadism, and heartless sacrifice. They could be powerful allies to somebody in your position." The three eyed elf hands you a long silver knife. "If you wish to become close friends and allies with a spirit of great power, all you need do is kill one of your comrades, and offer it to the Naj Hochet of your choice as a gift. The more painful you make the kill, the more meaning the gift will have to its recipient."
Your eyes are drawn to the four figures before. Beneath their clothes each Naj Hochet has an elaborate and artful pattern of scales on their torso. The legends say that a Naj Hochet's pattern is a reflection of its personality and power.
Possible Naj Hochet Allies-A muscular male, with a pattern of mostly steel-grey scales depicting an armored knight shoving his spear through the back of a defenseless maiden
A wiry male, with a pattern of mostly green scales depicting an old man melting in a cauldron of liquid
A slender female, with a pattern of mostly brown scales depicting a clueless child walking into the embrace of a hungry bear
A curvaceous female, with a pattern of mostly red depicting a person being burnt at the stakeVishnu places a cold hand on your shoulder as you agonize over your choice. "Do not worry. I will wipe the memory of either or both of the lowborn sacrifices you choose to spare. Should only one die, the survivor will remember him heroically giving his life."
Who if anyone do you choose to kill? How do you kill them? And which Naj Hochet do you offer each victim to?---
Shortly after you return, you are summoned to Apollo's office. "You will be nine soon. In the near future you will be invited to pick a focus of study, possibly even a magical one. I do not want to get your hopes up. Children and monarchs are almost never taught necromancy here, but I am looking for my next apprentice, and due to circumstances that you may or may not be aware of, I feel obliged to at least give you an interview for the position."
He then spends the next few hours grilling you with questions.
Some stick out to you as particularly important and worthy of a thoughtful answer.
"Why do you want to learn necromancy?"
"What do you think is the single most important trait or virtue for a king to possess?"
"If you were to obtain the unconditional surrender of your royal brothers, what would you do with them?"
"If you were to obtain the unconditional surrender of your royal brothers, what would become of their subjects?"
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Topic: (SG) Petty Kingdom of New Mahallo: Reign of King Arawn (Read 20113 times)