Study with Matriarch Mire - 5
Study Biomagic with the Vermant - 2
Study the Dragon Gods - 1
Study Maldruidism - 1
Study general magic - 2
Study hexes - 1
Contribute to the Dire Kangaroo Rat Breeding Buisness - 8
Attend the Lich’s Court - 7
Socialize with Imperials - 1
Study abjuration - 1
Study conjuration - 1
Organize Hunts in the Desert - 3
Study Transmutation - 1
Seek Romantic Attention - 1
Only 2 Downtime Activities - 1
Send both brothers away
No regency for Anders
You grant both Anders and Andre their leave. They will depart with the coming of the next cool season. You gracefully let the former down on the prospect of the regency, explaining that you don't want to interfere with your mother, who is doing a great job. He seems to take it well.
Penette is sad to lose Andre, as she has few friends, but you are sure she will make due.
---
Matriarch Mire dwells in a manor similar to your own, but her marble walls are studded with bright colored opals. Her class consists of a hodgepodge of students: nobles such as yourself who are just here for the lessons, lesser thralls on the process of being judged worthy or not of full fledged vampireism, rich commoners who may or may not join the Bleachedkin bloodline when their lessons are complete, and pure blooded vampires who just have yet to learn their Matriarch's arts.
The instruction is fairly unstructured. Sometimes the Matriarch will give a lecture to everyone, but usually the class is split into small groups of students each working on their own spell or concept. Matriarch Mire hovers around, checking in with each group to give advice and pointers as they work, but usually your teacher is merely a more advanced student.
Several times a month, perhaps almost weekly, Matriarch Mire throws a feast so that her students might practice manners and social charm. Despite the stories you hear of vampires sustaining themselves on a diet of only blood, you note the Bleachedkin eat solid food; their servings just tend to be much smaller than those of a mortal person. The feasts themselves tend to come with a history lesson; Mire's favorite fun fact is that just taking into account the feast days of Imperial saints, there is an excuse to feast on nearly every day of the year, and the Matriarch doesn't just limit herself to Imperial celebrations either. With you in class, there is usually a feast held on the major Mahallo holidays.
One day, the Matriarch pulls you from your group, and walks you over to a collection of more advanced students. "Arawn dear, these students would like a demonstration of how to weave a taboo, a powerful hex that inflicts violent, uncontrollable, and potentially deadly illness on somebody if they perform a predetermined undesirable behavior. How about I ban you from knowingly inflicting or ordering harm to any member of my brood. Now taboos last longer if you give them an escape clause, so I'll set it up so that the spell is broken if one of us harms him or someone truly dear to him."
She then puts a cold hand on your shoulder, and whispers into your ear. "Consent to this, and I shall give you the list of every Bleachedkin vampire in your realm when you reach majority. Consider it a binding alliance of sorts. What do you think?"
Do you accept Matriarch Mire's offer and allow her to hex you?---
More news from home. You have a new sister! The bad news is the birth was particularly hard on your mother, who is now in poor health. As she was too weak to name the child herself, Phillip named her Anne after her ailing mother.
Several weeks later you get an update. Your mother miraculously recovered. Many in New Mahallo suspect that your brother Andre broke with protocol and used divine magic to heal an ailing royal, but nobody can prove it. Your nephew/step father Phillip, for his part, has banned the clergy from even looking into the matter.
From further afield, more news comes in from the crusade. The Imperials are slowly pushing the Eunuch league back; Felix prefers to yield ground rather than risking his limited men against a larger enemy force in pitched battle. Interestingly enough, the crusaders are pushing not towards Castle Mauve, your father's old seat of power and wartime home to the families and courts off all the Kings in the League, but towards the heavily fortified lands of the Titan Canyons. As trying to invade the Titanlands would be difficult enough without Felix's army nipping at their heels, it seems likely that the Imperials intend to offer King Penteram some sort of bargain to drag the Titan Pact into the war on their behalf.
---
Keanu begins to teach you how to use the spear and javelin, and before long your regular excursions into the desert become epic hunts. Your group is fearless, perhaps too much so for their own good. A fiend centipede, impregnator wasp, or even puma could easily kill an adult hunter, much less a barely-10-year-old Petty King, but you are well protected. Some of the older kids practice destructive magic now, and your own illusions that you practice with the Bleachedkin combined with a good snare allow you to capture dangerous critters without a fight.
Filling Andre's shoes in both manor leadership and your circle of friends are the twins Kane and Kaylee. In your early childhood you were always weary of them; They were shameless brownnosers towards those they deemed important, and generally jerks to everyone in the manner aside from you, your siblings, the adults and Keanu. But after recently learning from his father that he was to someday wed Kaylee, Keanu began softening to the friendly advances of the snobbish twins. As distasteful as you find some of their behavior, they are never cruel or disloyal to you, and their skills make them useful to keep around. Both are studying the lore and magic of dragons with Ra, and each is capable of weaponizing the elements at a beginner level.
You quickly fill your room with trophies, following Keanu's lead to spend most of your allowance and Dire Kangaroo Rat profits on taxidermists and necromancers to create cool static or animated displays from your kills.
This new hobby has an unexpected side effect; You begin to exchange letters and gifts with your older brother King Pentram and several of his children, including your step-father Phillip. Pentram never made a secret about his own love for the hunt, having gone so far as to name himself after a literal hound, and he taught most of his children to love the wilds as well. All parties involved are careful not to discuss politics in these missives, and you are still not sure if you can trust the royalty of The Titan Canyons to leave you with any real political power, but at the very least you feel confident that they do not mean to kill you.
---
A letter from Andre arrives with the latest convoy from your realm. Inside are details privy only to your mother's court. You are both touched and blessed by the missive. Touched because Andre, who famously dislikes and struggles with written language, took the time and effort to communicate, and blessed because his inside information is far better than the normal rumors and gossip you get from back home.
Anders indeed healed your mother. He and Phillip had been close since Anders was a child, but now your nephew feels indebted to your brother for saving his wife, whom Andre assures you he truly loves. The pair are conspiring to trump up charges against the realm's current Imperial Bishop, execute him, and appoint Anders to the role once your brother's training as a cleric is complete.
You also learn from the letter that some top secret negotiations are in place with the orc blooded people of the Bloodstone Plateau. Your brother is not privy to these discussions, but he speculates Penteram plans to pay them off to abstain from conducting raids should the Titan Pact get involved in the crusade. Andre writes that the leadership of the fortress is particularly cruel; They took many female captives during their great raid, violated them, and allowed them to return home with mixed-blooded children with the express intent of dividing families and communities over if said children should be allowed to live and how they should be treated. Fathers and husbands killing daughters and wives over the shame has become distressingly common.
Andre notes that although Penteram is making preparations to potentially betray his brothers and join the crusade against them, The Titian Pact actually getting involved is unlikely. Penteram, and most of his family, are fairly unambitious, and would rather hunt and feast in the safety of their near impenetrable Kingdom than fight a war. It is more likely Penteram will grant the crusaders supplies and access to his people's services as mercenaries should they reach his border.
---
Your partnership with The Vermant has so far proven fruitful. They try and teach you everything they know about mundane animal husbandry, and provide you with biomages to help you get the most out of your breeding stock of Dire Kangaroo Rats. You come to understand that they have been looking for human partners to help them conduct business with some of the less tolerant Imperial Merchants for some time, and as such you and Penette are encouraged to take full credit for their hard work in public.
The crowning achievement of your work is the development of the manor's own Dire Kangaroo Rat breed; A large venom resistant hunter's mount that you call the Mahallo Centipede Snatcher. Their coloring is the grey you find in the wild specimens of the species, but they are larger, possess a set of three purplish-red racing stripes down their back, and own a set of teeth designed to grab prey rather than chew vegetation.
When the first litter of Mahallo Centipede Snatcher pups reach adulthood, you retire Arson to stud and housepet status, and take one up as a new mount. Your new companion is named Vera, after your late baby sister, and she is a beast. Obedient to your every command, you nonetheless see the murderous intent behind her eyes. When not out hunting, you can almost see the struggle in her eyes as her training battles her instincts to pounce on and kill any small animal or child she sees. When in the field, there is no such holding back; She knows exactly how to pin and position the prey and her body to allow you a perfect strike with your spear to the vital organs.
The Vermant, and some of the children involved in the business, are saving up to purchase a warehouse in the nameless city once your minority, and the lease on the manor, ends. Penette confides in you that she would like to stay in town after you leave to continue her work, partially because she loves what she does, and partially because she is afraid that her close business ties to non-humans could hurt whatever political ties you might try to build with the generally xenophobic imperials. There is some merit to this; Already some of the Imperial teenagers in town are spreading disgusting rumors that your as-of-yet pre-pubescent sister is sleeping with the Vermant. If Andre were still in town, he might have killed somebody over this.
In fairness, the truth about Penette's behavior is possibly even worse than the rumors. One of the children who used to work closely with your sister on the Dire Kangaroo Rats recently went missing. Almost immediately afterward the green scaled male Naj Hochet you helped escort to town began hanging around the manor and helping with the business. You know enough to have an idea of what may have happened, but the missing child had other close friends, and the Naj Hochet (who answers to the human name Pierre) doesn't seem to be extra friendly toward anybody in particular, so for now it is impossible to tell who if anyone is responsible.
---
The latest imperial convoy brought major news about the crusade! Your eldest brother, Petty King Roger Agusta's Finger, was ambushed and slain in battle! As shocking as you found your brother's death, the fallout was more shocking still. Instead of dividing the land between Roger's two sons, the rest of the Eunuch League offered Agusta's Finger to enemy commander Lord Pequad in secret. In a stunningly dishonorable display, lord Pequad accepted, and shoved a knife into the crusade's back by ordering the reserves he was commanding to attack his side's own center in the heat of battle!
Reports vary in regards to how devastating Lord Pequad's betrayal was to the crusade, but at the very least it has brought their advance to a halt for now.
You get another letter from Andre, with interesting news. Somebody is spreading a rumor among the servants who work at the Orc Turd that you blame the royal family of The Titan Canyons for your sister Vera's death, and that you have hired your own assassin in retaliation to strike down your step-father and his children. No reasonable adult at court believes this, but many commoners have bought in, and your own baby brother Alan is unable to sleep at night in fear for his life. Andre himself has taken to shadowing his youngest sibling's every move, out of fear that someone actually means to kill them and frame you.
In other news from home, Andre tells you that he and Anders have been told that they can arrange any marriage for themselves that they want. New Mahallo is too isolated, more or less control by The Titan Canyons, and lacks a real army, so there is little value in a marriage to the royal family for a military alliance. Sometimes the prospect of arranging a match for you or Penette comes up at court, as somebody might be willing to pay a healthy dowry or bride price for a claim on your father's land, but as of yet there are no serious prospects for either of you.
---
Your reputation and standing at Texulchimum's court grows as you age. You are now fairly close to most of the Lich's advisers, many of whom trust you to read prepared statements on their behalf on the days that they cannot be in the audience chamber. Texulchimum himself remains fusteratingly aloof to your presence, even as you see him interact regularly with other children your age or younger. The others assure you that as you are a claimant to kingdoms owned by others, the Lich simply avoids personal interaction to maintain his strict policy of neutrality in Imperial Human affairs, and not out of any personal animosity. Vishnu assures you that his master is as impressed by you as everyone else at court is.
Apollo continues his informal lessons in actual mortal politics, making it a goal that you never forget that although the decorum of your court at Bride Price may be similar, the issues discussed will be drastically different. He assigns you extra reading in the form of archived collections of royal proclamations made by various monarch he considers to be just or clever, to give you an idea of what a good King does.
As time goes on, you begin to accumulate minor titles and positions under the various members of Texulchimum's council. The cup bearer or bodygody to an undead lord has few official duties, but the roles do come with a small increase in your allowance. One position that does briefly become relevant to you is Assistant Archivist under Apollo. Although you rarely visit, your title gives you full access to the library, its records, and permission to tamper with the anti-theft hexes on all but the most important of books.
One day, you receive a letter from your brother Anders requesting that you steal a book entitled
Rites and Rituals of the 19 Demons on his behalf. Upon investigation you learn that the tome contains some pretty dark magic but rather subtle magic; Anders claims that he might volunteer to lead some troops should the Bloodstone Plateau attack again, and could use a few devious and devastating tricks up his sleeve for battle as Imperial divine magic is mostly defensive and supportive.
You could easily steal the book; The library has two copies and records indicate nobody aside from Anders himself has looked at either in over 110 years. It would not be missed. You could also afford to be honorable and pay a scribe to make a cheap copy of the document on scrolls. Such a purchase would be more honorable than stealing, but it would leave a record that you have acquired a tome of magic that the Imperials might frown upon, and would take longer to deliver the goods to Anders.
Do you help your brother get his book? If so, how?---
The crusade is over! Prince Felix 'the Soprano' appeared seemingly out of nowhere with a second host and struck the supply lines and fortifications in the lands held by the crusaders, trapping the Imperial army deep behind enemy lines. The panicked crusaders fled toward the Titanlands, taking heavy causalities from Eunuch League troops who could now harass them from almost any direction.
When the retreating crusaders reached to border of the Petty Kingdom of The Titan Canyons, King Penteram granted them refuge. Rather than try to invade the Titanlands, a feat that has historically only ever been accomplished by dragon-led armies and the God Empress Agusta, Felix set up a blockade and only intends to let the crusaders return home in exchange for an unconditional surrender (which includes both yourself and Penteram renouncing all claims against your brothers' Kingdoms) and a hefty ransom.
Many think this stalemate is likely to last the rest of 49 year old Felix's and 47 year old Penteram's natural lives. The Eunuch League has been reorganized into the Volcanique Confederation, the charter of which gives the vast majority of power to Supreme Chancellor Felix over his monarch brothers. The Eunuch has become something of a legendary figure; widely popular among the nobility and commoners alike, and barring outside threats, his lands should remain peaceful for as long as he lives.
This conclusion to the war will likely cause hardships for New Mahallo. Prince Felix's blockade is also cutting off all trade with civilization beyond The Titan Canyons. In the short run, your merchants can make up most of their losses by taking money to help rich crusaders return home via dangerous and complicated routes that skirt the great desert, but should the standoff last for more than a few cool seasons that business will likely dry up. It is also likely that a good number of stranded crusaders may move south and settle the frontier of New Mahollo. Although in theory the Imperial faith is tolerant of the Mahallo people and their ways, many of the settlers are likely to be frustrated religious hardliners, who could very well cause some problems with the locals.
---
Shortly before your 15th birthday, you are summoned to the chambers of Frigga, an old desert hag who serves as The Lich's chief diplomat. This is surprising, you are not as close to Frigga as you are to the members of Texulchimum's court who are or were once mortal men. The hag has you don a hood that conceals your face, and instructs you not to speak unless spoken to.
A woman in her late teens enters and takes a seat. Frigga begins talking to her. You quickly deduce that she is being interviewed to become the hag's apprentice in the art of necromancy.
You learn her name is Evie, and she is the bastard daughter of Archbishop Edwards, one of the chief organizers of the crusade who was killed in single combat by your brother Prince Felix when he ambushed the Imperials at their beach landing. Although nowhere as religious as her father, Evie fully supports the cause that he died for; that the children of King Alan's first wife, in particular the monarchs of the Volcanique Confederation, are unworthy of their thrones. When asked who should be ruling your brother's lands, Evie responds with your name. She is disgusted that the Crusader Leaders choose to flee to the Canyons instead of fighting to the last man.
Evie's father taught her Imperial Divine magic, which is usually forbidden to women, in secret from a young age. Since coming to the Nameless City at the start of the crusade, she has been teaching herself the lore and divine magic of other faiths through the Lich's library. She claims to know a bit about warfare and strategy, having studied her father's command of battles fought before her birth from the man's journals, but Frigga does not know enough about battle herself to test her on this.
The interview concludes, and Frigga informs Evie that she did well, and will be considered for the position of apprentice. Once the girl leaves, the hag turns to you. "My master wishes to quietly put a necromancer in your court. We would like to arrange for the poor orphan you just witnessed to wed yourself or one of your two lowborn brothers. If you accept this offer, she shall be trained in the arts of life and death, and will be ready to join your court sometime around her 30th year."
Frigga gives you a cold glare. "It would be best if you do not speak of this to anyone. Marrying the crusade organizer's daughter may have political value, but marrying a necromancer will not. If you wish, I will write to your mother to arrange the betrothal. As far as anyone will know, Evie is just a harmless orphan, and you had nothing to do with the decision to have her join your family."
Do you accept the offer of an eventual court necromancer, and if so, is she to be your wife, Andre's, or Anders?---
The desert is a buzz. Magical forecasts predict that a cosmic imbalance will lead to a cool season that will last almost the entirety of your 16th year. Usually when an extra long cool season occurs, Imperial Lords gather their champions and strike out into the great desert in hopes of etching their name in the legends by successfully hunting a Sand Daemon.
Penteram, of course, will be launching such a hunt. Most of his children including your step-father will be attending. As an experienced desert hunter, you have been invited as well!
There are pros and cons to going. You will be missing out on the final year of your formal education; The hunt will take so long that you might as well just return to Bride Price and await your 17th birthday. Your mother, known for her skill with the crossbow, writes that she intends to abandon the final year of her regency to a small council of Imperial Clergy, including both your brother Anders and several crusade veterans, to join the hunt if you do; It is her wish to spend some time with her son in which neither of you are burdened with the responsibility of rule.
There is also the matter of danger. With the exception of dragons, Sand Daemons are perhaps the most deadly creatures walking the planet. They are magical beings, often the size of a large house, that usually take the form of a scorpion or an antlion. Most of them possess magical mastery over the element of earth. Only about one out of every five hunting parties will find a sand Daemon, and of those only one out of five will kill their quarry. Many hunting parties go missing entirely, so a 100% fatality rate is not an uncommon outcome of a failed hunt. If you want to take a shortcut towards finding your quarry, Pierre the Naj Hochet offers to lead you to the Sand Daemon that killed his mother, but warns that it is a particularly large one. You are also not sure if you want your friends and family to see you working with an evil spirit.
Of course, there are plenty of reasons why you might want to go on the hunt. The royal family of The Titan Canyons largely control both your kingdom and your destiny. It might be wise to get on their good side. The kill itself would also be super valuable; Sand Daemons are massive beings that store massive amounts of magic in their body. Such a corpse always triggers a boom in the creation of magical items for the court that brings it home, and you are sure Penteram would let you keep at least some of the remains.
Do you join the hunt? If so, who if anyone from The Nameless City do you invite? What other preparations do you try to make? 
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Topic: (SG) Petty Kingdom of New Mahallo: Reign of King Arawn (Read 20186 times)