Age of Ice and Blood: A Pathfinder System Heroic Fantasy Quest

Take this not as some definitive script upon a city of fifty thousand souls. Washed by the sea and guarded from the depredations of the houseless Yayar by the peaks of the coastal mountains, fed by the rich plains of the coast, its thirst quenched by the river Kime Orinilu is the fairest city I have thus far known in this world, yet as written above I know it only as a stranger myself and a foreigner even as mine companions settle upon foundations of leveled earth and cut back the forest to take land from the woods. I am not a creature of tilted wooden towers and the halls of a laboratory however well supplied cannot contain the whole of my life so I shall no doubt walk abroad on its paths and learn the ways of its people. Mayhap one day I should even call myself Zaia of Orinilu when the memory of my first home is just an old man's fading dream of childhood. I say this not out of pride or vanity to make myself the center of the tale, but with the understanding of the city I should lose the vision I have now of it, as a bird that settles down to roost can no longer beat witness to the wide vista that it could sea from on high.

Some differences in the substance of the city, which is to say the manner of her people, are easy to behold. On the one side you have the trading Houses whose wealth comes from the galleys that by time of peace or war fill the harbor at the mouth of the Kime and on the other one has the great landowners whose wealth and prestige comes from the wide fields which help feed the city as surely as merchant captains help to enrich her, but it is not as simple as shore and inland folk ever in conflict. The Shore Sworn who would be thought of as natural allies of the trading houses are nothing of the sort and for the answer to that riddle one must consider a riddle that does not come easily to the mind of the historian who's pages are filled with accounts of battles over which as much ink has been spilled as blood: what do the traders trade?

Why they trade pottery and wood and ivory carved in cunning manner, they trade leather and mead and works of copper, brass and bronze, all the works of the hands of the many craftsmen of the city. The captain of the Pride of Koire with whom I have had many fruitful conversations over the journey from the north was called Afke Akoire, which means in the tongue of the city that he was bound to House Koire, yet that is not a mark of only helmsmen turned captains on their ships, nor only sailors, indeed most of the sailors do not have the privilege. Instead the A prefix denotes something else, one capable of labor more valuable than that of the peasant or the longshoreman, potters and leather workers, weapon and armor smiths, shipwrights and brewers and others which I do not have the time nor the ink here to recount. Bound to the House by oaths, sometimes even by blood these are the people who are called on to serve the House and through them the City in a time of war, sometimes called the Great House, though that usage has fallen out of use in recent years as the exalted folk of the trading Houses proper believe it lessens their prestige.

These are also the people who patrol the streets at night and keep the peace for when the Guard of the City is called tis either war or riot afoot and the temples keep to their own spheres of power, be that the storing of crops and the blessing of the harvest, the rites of he dead and the sponsoring of the Hunters, or in the case of the now defunct temple of Elnu the delivering of High Justice upon both the great landholders and the heads of the Trading Houses. The delivery of high justice has become a far more convoluted and rare matter since the fall of the Priest Kings, though if that be good or ill this humble scribe shall not here judge.

One thing I shall judge is the ill-fortuned den on misery that is called by the locals Farshore, and far do they wish it from their sights. Home to those crafts that were lacking in prestige as well as the poor and unfortunate that gather about every city, nay every settlement of man these crooked alleyways were home to many a desperate and violent gang, not patrolling to keep the peace but fighting for what scraps they might find. So it passed for many lives of men, not the city's masters, not its priests and not its trader lords concerning themselves with the goings on beyond the walls of he High City and so its people lived as best they could... until the Ragpicker's Riots. It was then when the mod assaulted the temple that was the seat of one upon the Ruling Council that the folk of the High City and of the Haven came to fear Farshore... and then even in defeat that the poor wretches of Farshore learned that they were strong.

True the Guard of the City came to came to bring justice at the end of a weighted club and the spike upon which the heads of he rebels were placed, but in later years a more orderly bread dole was organized, one that did not require large numbers of Farshorers within the walls. Taking advantage of the slightly increased prosperity, as well as the fact that the enforcers of many of their rivals were now dead in the riots it was then that the gang known as the Purple Nekers, for their most common manner of killing rose to power. They had it seemed husbanded their strength of numbers and of weapons that they might claim all of Farshore for their own. Of the blood spilled in those years little is recorded in the annals of the city, though from the accounts I have gathered from the man Eriran when I was in the city last it seems to have been a dreadful as any war.

Yet in the end there was peace and the purple ruled and for the first time in living memory there was some semblance of peace upon the Farshore and in that peace those who had endured started to see a better day dawning, tavern keepers and barrel makers flint knappers and potters, one could hardly buy all this from beyond the walls, still less now when the city on the island closed its gates more tightly. The Purple Neckers reaped the rewards of this prosperity, they taxed much in the way of goods and the labor of men's hands, but when they were paid they for the most part kept their words.

I do not now know which master of that band first realized that in offering patronage to the craftsmen of Farshore they were not unalike the old trading houses, nor by what means he first slipped his agents into the circles of the wealthy and the well-born, though I can well imagine the dissolution and vice of the some scions of the Trade Masters in such a place.. Whatever the case Purple Neckers became simply the Purple and now they agitate to be counted a House with all the privileges thereof and the lords of Haven and of the High City laugh behind their hands, but do they truly hide smiles of scorn... or is it fear they do not wish reveled?

Farshore is not rich even now, far from it, but it is far larger than the domain of any single House and so its masters is accepted into their ranks would hold not insignificant sway. Only time shall tell what shall become of this conundrum, though as I lay my quill down I begin to understand that I am perhaps to be more than a simple chronicler in these matters, for the Purple have many eyes and the Fellowship I have joined is far from unremarkable.

OOC: Well here is the informational post. Hope you guys enjoy. Vote will be open until tomorrow so you have time to consider it in light of new information.

Thirty Sixth Day of Ikomi-hamba (Ikomi Descendant) 1348 A. L. (After Landfall)

The Broken Wheel might at first be mistaken not for a tavern but for the townhouse of some minor lord, for all about you are frescoes that recall the high art of the city and abstract geometric shapes that on closer examination reveal themselves to be scenes of daily life; men traveling to market bearing carts filled with the fruits of the fields, with jugs of oil and mead, ships coming into harbor, their nets upon the deck filled to the bursting with fish, and only when you see in the entry way a wide scene that is naught but an army of cooks preparing said food do you realize that all this is in service of not just showing the prosperity of land and sea, as many are wont to paint upon their walls, but the to show the life of the tavern itself.

In the main hall that flows on to scenes of drinking and feasting from silver cups and tall horns, men mingling with figures abound with curling horns and wild beards, and women with wreaths of holly in their hair and eyes gold and slited like a cat's. Somewhere behind you the sound of Aubert cursing rings out and all the four men, which you had brought hence so as not to seem unguarded or easy prey, are cursing themselves as they look up and little wonder. You see there women with the bodies of eagles looking over what seem at first as children save that they have the bodies of hares striped black and white in a manner that seems disturbingly balanced between maternal and predatory as the shadows shift about the hall, and out among them lithe figures that seem almost as man yet are not him, as though the artist had pulled from a dream, too beautiful to be real, too strange to be forgotten.

"The Wild Hunt at feast time they are, not yet so fell and terrible as they might be if you were to meet them on a moonless night, but still not folk I would choose to be feasting with," Esha says quietly from beside you, sounding almost as perturbed as you feel.

At the apex of the hall is a a great circular window, like an eye of clear glass encircled twice by a winged serpent somehow remote from the proceedings, an observer or a chronicler, but of what, its fellow painted figures or the men and woman under its eye, you do not know.

"I wonder how they made the glass so large and so clear. I have not seen the like here before..." you hear Zaia whisper to Esha who does not have an answer, save that it might have been the work of a mage-smith in a time now passed.

The patrons do not seem the least affected by the scenes that surround them nor that which watches over them, barely giving them a glance for the most part, as they contend themselves with drinking, dicing and pestering the staff, women and men alike you notice, all young and fair seeming, though when one fellow gets a bit too merry the soft spoken girl he had been accosting does not hesitate to nod in the direction of the fellow in the corner who is tasked with keeping the peace and whose cudgel promises peace eternal if it were to hit you in the head.

As to Sigan Iskhan himself he sits in a corner, his back to the wall, his drink untouched and his right hand laced as near to the hilt of his sword as he can manage without seeming like he is about to draw, all too aware of the hall, but not any eldritch paintings. "We can eat here and speak later if you wish," he offers graciously. Once you might have been surprised at such manners from a man who is by all accounts little more than a thug in fine silks, but you have long since learned that a fair guise may veil a black heart so why then should it matter whence the darkness rises?

Judging from the way Zaia keeps pointing at the various creatures of the Hunt and asking Esha this and that as soon as he had done his introduction you think it wise to linger, if only to keep the scholar from paying good silver to come back again and look at the walls. You hope he appreciates the sacrifice of keeping up a stream of polite chatter with a perfect stranger whose intentions you can only guess at.

Still, much as you hate to admit it, Sigan is not without his charm, mostly in the way of puncturing the pride of nobles who think too much of themselves. He had heard it seems about the confrontation at the Koire manse and is more than happy to regale you with tales of Toki Ahoni manifolds embarrassments as he tried and usually failed to come out from under his wife's shadow. One has to admit the tenacity of a man willing to get himself mauled by a wildcat in search of his goals, even if you do not think much of his wits.

Once the meal is done you withdraw to a private room in the back, what might once have been the servants hall, but was not appointed handsomely with the same polished stone tables and served by an older woman in the same livery for lack of a better term. She carefully asks you if you wish for more to drink or to eat and when you all decline she nods and departs, closing the door with a very solid sounding thump.

"That is yours now," Sigan Iskhan says pushing a small clinking bag across the table. "And there is more where that came from if you are minded to claim it."

"At what cost?" you ask just a bluntly, no sense dancing around the matter now.

"Rumor and more than rumor has it that you can brew rare potions for one's friends and poisons for one's foes. The Purple would be interested in buying both for our own affairs here in the city, up to five thousand Icari for a season's work to be delivered at the end of it or whenever the ship is in port. We are not unreasonable about the demands of business that might take you far from your new keep." It really is quite remarkable, there is nothing about the tone that suggests a threat and yet one look in his eyes makes it clear it is one.

Offer of the Purple: The will buy poisons and potions worth 5,000 gp (after accounting for ingredient costs every season)

What do you do?

[] Agree, it seems a fair deal, though foul might be the use of them (Diplomacy DC 18 to persuade Zaia)

[] Counter-offer, Zaia feels ill at ease making poisons for others, he will only make beneficial potions (Diplomacy DC ???; will likely lower the profits if accepted)
-[] Write in arguments

[] Refuse, you do not wish to aid such as the Purple and you will not be threatened

[] Write in

OOC: I hope you guys like the set up. I sometimes feel like I put in too much description and not enough actions into these parts.