A story of a rising Dragon-blooded hero descended from one of the great failures of history. A story of a decaying kingdom in the South of Creation. A story of how the past haunts the present. A story of plots tangling together like cobwebs. A story of a historian yelling at other historians.
[Exalted] A Kingdom of Cinders
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Introduction
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My current stint as an historian is not one I enter for my own pleasure, but out of spite. I was content to live anonymously in my humble cabin in the Viridiana Hills and sup upon the joy of living in such beautiful environs when, to my misfortune, a peddler of books came through town while I was on one of my weekly shopping visits. Whimsy struck me at the worst moment when I saw this scraggly man's cart laden with wine-stained bibliographies and hagiographies, and I decided that I could survive without my usual slice of sheep's cheese wrapped in grape leaves from Isidora's shop, for it has been quite some time since I last read any history books. I dedicate this work to Isidora, who deserved all that I paid in total for these execrable wastes of paper masquerading as the "true" history of the Kingdom of Amaya.
Let us begin with a small summary of the reign of King Melos II, for there are scant remains of that which preceded him. Melos II inherited from his father, Melos I, an Exaltation and roughly 320,000 square miles of land that he had very little interest in ruling. The day-to-day issues were left to a corps of nepotistic bureaucrats while the king pursued his hobbies elsewhere; in the beech forests of the Fire Mountains he hunted rocs and sky titans with only a lance, in the idyllic villages of the Viridiana Hills he seduced the sons and daughters of olive planters and citrus farmers, and in the silver-kissed fields of Espina he led his soldiers in conquest for the sake of conquest. Even the historians of today, sycophants to the end, will admit that Melos II's early reign was emblematic of the selfish and shortsighted behavior that had seized Dragon-blooded society in the Late Shogunate era. It was only in the twin calamities that ended the Shogunate that his worth was revealed.
The common estimate given for how many perished from both the Contagion and the Balorian Crusade is nine-tenths of all previously existing life on Creation, but what sometimes fails to come across is how much of that was due to knock-on effects resulting from the collapse of civilization. Banditry, famine, and the decay of unattended First Age artifice killed just as many as the plague and the Fair Folk did. King Melos II's talent was in gathering together those who had survived the Contagion into a coherent military force, able to zealously guard what fertile territory they could hold against vagabond warlords and, later, the raksha. His personal charisma and ability to empathize with the common folk, previously wasted on orgiastic frivolity, aligned thousands of mortal survivors under his own banner. Melos's familiarity with the Fire Mountains became a massive advantage in resisting the genocidal armies of Balor; he had dozens of redoubts dug into the mountains flanking the Humming Valley, in addition to vast tunnel networks that enabled his soldiers to conduct devastating ambushes. Every mile the crusaders took was paid for in massive casualties, but the hordes of the Balorian Crusade were near-endless; it took years, but they finally reached the end of the valley to lay siege to Nahaeleshen, the former capital of Amaya. While the king's tenacity had brought his followers this far, it was only luck that freed them; a year into the siege, the soon-to-be Scarlet Empress rediscovered the arcane weapons system known as the Sword of Creation.
Within an hour of the Sword's activation, the Fair Folk besieging Nahaeleshen were decimated by what one soul taking shelter in the city (a merchant by the name of Bolivar of Argentosa) described as, "-an emerald bolt of lightning, miles long, that pierced the hearts of every loathsome devil surrounding the city". After the siege had lifted, King Melos II, drained from decades of continuous guerrilla warfare, set to work on securing his legacy before he passed away. With the advice of his wife, Queen Elana, Melos II parceled out fiefdoms to the Dragon-blooded that had rallied behind him, establishing a new nobility. He then sought to produce an heir, for all three of his sons and his sole daughter had perished during the war against the Fair Folk. King Melos II died in his sleep only a week after the birth of his last child, a boy named Alaris.
Now, all of the above is adequately portrayed by the historians I've read. They've removed aspects such as his lustful antics to pander to Immaculate censors and claim that the corruption of his bureaucracy was unknown to him, but these works are truthful enough that one can learn something of value from what they read, whether it be how to wage war in mountainous terrain or that the right circumstances can make majesty out of mediocrity. It is the reign of King Alaris that heralds the problems with modern Amayan history. The man has been reduced to a boogeyman meant to scare little lordlings and ladies into compliance, and as a low bar to clear for their parents; even the most incompetent of the grandees here can "boast" about being better than Alaris. All history after him has too been distorted, akin to a clear pond that has had a large clod of dirt cast into its center. One cannot use such befouled narratives to assemble anything even close to a usable understanding of the world that surrounds us; it can hardly come as a surprise that the hardships this once great nation endures partially stem from these falsehoods. I shall begin with an examination of the epithet that is invariably tacked on to the end of King Alaris's name, so that we may discover the more objective reality of his reign.
What epithet, dear reader, did Alaris have? This shall determine the circumstances of our hero's birth, seven centuries later.
[ ] The Heretic.
-In an attempt to rebuild the lost splendor of his father's era, Alaris makes a heretical deal with a Lunar witch that, when discovered by the Immaculate faithful, results in his assassination and the extermination of his lineage, save for one unknown bastard fathered upon a peasant. Our hero shall be outcaste, born outside of the decadent and deadly Dragon-blooded nobility.
[ ] The Seduced.
-The king forsakes his queen for Peleps Shan, an explorer from the Scarlet Empress's Realm, and attempts to incorporate his kingdom as a client state of this superpower on favorable terms. After a short but violent civil war, he is slain by loyalists serving his wife. Our hero shall be of highest birth, descended from the last child Alaris fathered with the queen he abandoned.
[ ] The Mad.
-The king wages war on a cult from the ghost-haunted deserts, and from the mouth of its leader, he shall hear something that will fester in his mind. What follows is a period of increasingly erratic behavior. He shall be deposed by his son following a rebellion by opportunists, but his house will be greatly diminished. Our hero shall be born into that house, which has been eclipsed in power, reputation, and wealth by its peers.
Let us begin with a small summary of the reign of King Melos II, for there are scant remains of that which preceded him. Melos II inherited from his father, Melos I, an Exaltation and roughly 320,000 square miles of land that he had very little interest in ruling. The day-to-day issues were left to a corps of nepotistic bureaucrats while the king pursued his hobbies elsewhere; in the beech forests of the Fire Mountains he hunted rocs and sky titans with only a lance, in the idyllic villages of the Viridiana Hills he seduced the sons and daughters of olive planters and citrus farmers, and in the silver-kissed fields of Espina he led his soldiers in conquest for the sake of conquest. Even the historians of today, sycophants to the end, will admit that Melos II's early reign was emblematic of the selfish and shortsighted behavior that had seized Dragon-blooded society in the Late Shogunate era. It was only in the twin calamities that ended the Shogunate that his worth was revealed.
The common estimate given for how many perished from both the Contagion and the Balorian Crusade is nine-tenths of all previously existing life on Creation, but what sometimes fails to come across is how much of that was due to knock-on effects resulting from the collapse of civilization. Banditry, famine, and the decay of unattended First Age artifice killed just as many as the plague and the Fair Folk did. King Melos II's talent was in gathering together those who had survived the Contagion into a coherent military force, able to zealously guard what fertile territory they could hold against vagabond warlords and, later, the raksha. His personal charisma and ability to empathize with the common folk, previously wasted on orgiastic frivolity, aligned thousands of mortal survivors under his own banner. Melos's familiarity with the Fire Mountains became a massive advantage in resisting the genocidal armies of Balor; he had dozens of redoubts dug into the mountains flanking the Humming Valley, in addition to vast tunnel networks that enabled his soldiers to conduct devastating ambushes. Every mile the crusaders took was paid for in massive casualties, but the hordes of the Balorian Crusade were near-endless; it took years, but they finally reached the end of the valley to lay siege to Nahaeleshen, the former capital of Amaya. While the king's tenacity had brought his followers this far, it was only luck that freed them; a year into the siege, the soon-to-be Scarlet Empress rediscovered the arcane weapons system known as the Sword of Creation.
Within an hour of the Sword's activation, the Fair Folk besieging Nahaeleshen were decimated by what one soul taking shelter in the city (a merchant by the name of Bolivar of Argentosa) described as, "-an emerald bolt of lightning, miles long, that pierced the hearts of every loathsome devil surrounding the city". After the siege had lifted, King Melos II, drained from decades of continuous guerrilla warfare, set to work on securing his legacy before he passed away. With the advice of his wife, Queen Elana, Melos II parceled out fiefdoms to the Dragon-blooded that had rallied behind him, establishing a new nobility. He then sought to produce an heir, for all three of his sons and his sole daughter had perished during the war against the Fair Folk. King Melos II died in his sleep only a week after the birth of his last child, a boy named Alaris.
Now, all of the above is adequately portrayed by the historians I've read. They've removed aspects such as his lustful antics to pander to Immaculate censors and claim that the corruption of his bureaucracy was unknown to him, but these works are truthful enough that one can learn something of value from what they read, whether it be how to wage war in mountainous terrain or that the right circumstances can make majesty out of mediocrity. It is the reign of King Alaris that heralds the problems with modern Amayan history. The man has been reduced to a boogeyman meant to scare little lordlings and ladies into compliance, and as a low bar to clear for their parents; even the most incompetent of the grandees here can "boast" about being better than Alaris. All history after him has too been distorted, akin to a clear pond that has had a large clod of dirt cast into its center. One cannot use such befouled narratives to assemble anything even close to a usable understanding of the world that surrounds us; it can hardly come as a surprise that the hardships this once great nation endures partially stem from these falsehoods. I shall begin with an examination of the epithet that is invariably tacked on to the end of King Alaris's name, so that we may discover the more objective reality of his reign.
What epithet, dear reader, did Alaris have? This shall determine the circumstances of our hero's birth, seven centuries later.
[ ] The Heretic.
-In an attempt to rebuild the lost splendor of his father's era, Alaris makes a heretical deal with a Lunar witch that, when discovered by the Immaculate faithful, results in his assassination and the extermination of his lineage, save for one unknown bastard fathered upon a peasant. Our hero shall be outcaste, born outside of the decadent and deadly Dragon-blooded nobility.
[ ] The Seduced.
-The king forsakes his queen for Peleps Shan, an explorer from the Scarlet Empress's Realm, and attempts to incorporate his kingdom as a client state of this superpower on favorable terms. After a short but violent civil war, he is slain by loyalists serving his wife. Our hero shall be of highest birth, descended from the last child Alaris fathered with the queen he abandoned.
[ ] The Mad.
-The king wages war on a cult from the ghost-haunted deserts, and from the mouth of its leader, he shall hear something that will fester in his mind. What follows is a period of increasingly erratic behavior. He shall be deposed by his son following a rebellion by opportunists, but his house will be greatly diminished. Our hero shall be born into that house, which has been eclipsed in power, reputation, and wealth by its peers.
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Chapter 1.1
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Hope this gets to you somewhat intact; the woman I hired to transport this to you is trustworthy, but she plays it loose with how she smuggles things to the Isle. If there's any coffee beans or chickpeas stuck between the pages, that's on her. The Immaculate censors here run a surprisingly tight operation; took one look at the stiffs running the place and knew they couldn't be bribed to look away. Spent every last coin I had to assemble a passable disguise as one of the royal architects wanting to enter their temple for a "routine centennial inspection". I'll keep looking for the writer, but this should have some of the background information you wanted in regards to our person of interest in Amaya. Also, please send cash, or I'll be eating rats again, and you know how much I hated it the last time that happened.
-E
You are the last hope of the Synetos lineage, and you are being made to do grunt work. You are being made to do grunt work because your grandfather, previously the only Exalt in the family until you Exalted yourself three years back, considers you to have been coddled by your parents following the death of your older brother. You are being made to do grunt work because of the unusual nature of this situation; the same type of murder has played out in three different settlements on your family's county, and your peasants are now very agitated. You are being made to do grunt work because, ultimately, your family doesn't actually have the manpower to resolve this issue; in a more wealthy fiefdom, the nobles there would be able to raise militias for communal protection, but your mother ran the numbers and determined that if they did so during harvest season, taking away those farmers from their scythes might cause a missed payment to the Guild (whom your family is severely indebted to), and that cannot happen.
Your family is in this predicament because of King Alaris the Mad, your ancestor. No one really ever remembers him as the cunning young man that personally designed the aqueduct system that supplies water to a third of the kingdom and the roads that bind modern Amaya together, not even your family. They think of what he became after he personally led the final assault on the fortress of the Singers of the Black Hymn, a heretical group dedicated to the illicit worship of the dead. Their thoughts immediately go to infamous events such as the banning of anything made of gold, his unprovoked slaying of a Realm diplomat, and his planned crusade upon the Underworld itself. That last one was what gave Ashiri, that ever-ambitious cousin of his, a usable excuse to usurp Alaris. Nowadays, your family serves the Royal House of Ashiri, managing a little barony granted as a small courtesy to Synetos, who ended the rebellion by defeating and imprisoning his own father.
You are now approaching the village of Mariposa, where the most recent of these murders took place. It is at the farthest southern edge of your family's fiefdom; to the east, the Iron-Grave Desert, to the south, a poorly maintained stone road leading to the Diamond Road. Here, there is enough well water and rain to support fifty-four villagers (previously fifty-five), eking out an existence growing maize, harvesting peyote, and making pottery to be traded with the few traders that take a detour to visit your barony's capital. It has taken you three days to get here to this squat little mudbrick town on horseback, and the sun has now set; the settlement is only visible at a distance through the tiniest flickers of candle light and the careful movement of torchbearers.
You eventually arrive at the north end of town. You are stopped by a middle-aged man, his only piece of armor an iron kettle hat, his only weapons a stick covered in pitch and what is obviously a scythe recently beaten into the shape of a glaive. He narrows his eyes and holds his torch up to get a better look at you, but as he does so, the wind kicks up; the torch flickers and sputters, scattering its light everywhere but upon yourself. "Announce yourself!", he asks; his voice cracks as he does so, and you notice that the tip of his spear is shaking ever so slightly. You suppose you'd better comply; if you make him any more tense, his heart might give out.
Who are we, anyway?
[ ] You are Lady Julia.
-You never really cared about your family name. That isn't to say you don't love your family, far from it; you watched, tears streaming down your face, as your parents begged the Guild debt collectors for more time after your brother's funeral, furious at how they humiliated your parents. You now know that titles are empty words, meaningless in the face of actual power. People, however, are very valuable; both the nobles and the Guild would be nothing without them. You are a Wood Aspect, and the peasants you will come to rule are a fertile garden, waiting to be grown into your future base of power.
[ ] You are Lord Ramiro.
-You had hoped to be a scholar your whole life. The things you could learn in the universities of Nahael or Adamanta! Alaris may have been mad, but he was a genius prior to that, and those who can innovate are key in this fallen age. You may never get a chance to go to university now that you are your parent's sole heir, but as a Fire Aspect, your natural curiosity and desire to learn burns hotter than ever.
[ ] You are Lady Camilla.
-You would have been a monk if your brother hadn't died; you had already shaved your head and packed your bags to make a pilgrimage to Nahael when the news broke. You already had natural talent in communing with the spirits; as a child, you had managed to make contact with an ancestor of your house. As an Air Aspect, the wind guides you and you know that so much supernatural power is out there in the greater world, waiting to be tapped into by you.
-E
You are the last hope of the Synetos lineage, and you are being made to do grunt work. You are being made to do grunt work because your grandfather, previously the only Exalt in the family until you Exalted yourself three years back, considers you to have been coddled by your parents following the death of your older brother. You are being made to do grunt work because of the unusual nature of this situation; the same type of murder has played out in three different settlements on your family's county, and your peasants are now very agitated. You are being made to do grunt work because, ultimately, your family doesn't actually have the manpower to resolve this issue; in a more wealthy fiefdom, the nobles there would be able to raise militias for communal protection, but your mother ran the numbers and determined that if they did so during harvest season, taking away those farmers from their scythes might cause a missed payment to the Guild (whom your family is severely indebted to), and that cannot happen.
Your family is in this predicament because of King Alaris the Mad, your ancestor. No one really ever remembers him as the cunning young man that personally designed the aqueduct system that supplies water to a third of the kingdom and the roads that bind modern Amaya together, not even your family. They think of what he became after he personally led the final assault on the fortress of the Singers of the Black Hymn, a heretical group dedicated to the illicit worship of the dead. Their thoughts immediately go to infamous events such as the banning of anything made of gold, his unprovoked slaying of a Realm diplomat, and his planned crusade upon the Underworld itself. That last one was what gave Ashiri, that ever-ambitious cousin of his, a usable excuse to usurp Alaris. Nowadays, your family serves the Royal House of Ashiri, managing a little barony granted as a small courtesy to Synetos, who ended the rebellion by defeating and imprisoning his own father.
You are now approaching the village of Mariposa, where the most recent of these murders took place. It is at the farthest southern edge of your family's fiefdom; to the east, the Iron-Grave Desert, to the south, a poorly maintained stone road leading to the Diamond Road. Here, there is enough well water and rain to support fifty-four villagers (previously fifty-five), eking out an existence growing maize, harvesting peyote, and making pottery to be traded with the few traders that take a detour to visit your barony's capital. It has taken you three days to get here to this squat little mudbrick town on horseback, and the sun has now set; the settlement is only visible at a distance through the tiniest flickers of candle light and the careful movement of torchbearers.
You eventually arrive at the north end of town. You are stopped by a middle-aged man, his only piece of armor an iron kettle hat, his only weapons a stick covered in pitch and what is obviously a scythe recently beaten into the shape of a glaive. He narrows his eyes and holds his torch up to get a better look at you, but as he does so, the wind kicks up; the torch flickers and sputters, scattering its light everywhere but upon yourself. "Announce yourself!", he asks; his voice cracks as he does so, and you notice that the tip of his spear is shaking ever so slightly. You suppose you'd better comply; if you make him any more tense, his heart might give out.
Who are we, anyway?
[ ] You are Lady Julia.
-You never really cared about your family name. That isn't to say you don't love your family, far from it; you watched, tears streaming down your face, as your parents begged the Guild debt collectors for more time after your brother's funeral, furious at how they humiliated your parents. You now know that titles are empty words, meaningless in the face of actual power. People, however, are very valuable; both the nobles and the Guild would be nothing without them. You are a Wood Aspect, and the peasants you will come to rule are a fertile garden, waiting to be grown into your future base of power.
[ ] You are Lord Ramiro.
-You had hoped to be a scholar your whole life. The things you could learn in the universities of Nahael or Adamanta! Alaris may have been mad, but he was a genius prior to that, and those who can innovate are key in this fallen age. You may never get a chance to go to university now that you are your parent's sole heir, but as a Fire Aspect, your natural curiosity and desire to learn burns hotter than ever.
[ ] You are Lady Camilla.
-You would have been a monk if your brother hadn't died; you had already shaved your head and packed your bags to make a pilgrimage to Nahael when the news broke. You already had natural talent in communing with the spirits; as a child, you had managed to make contact with an ancestor of your house. As an Air Aspect, the wind guides you and you know that so much supernatural power is out there in the greater world, waiting to be tapped into by you.
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Chapter 1.2
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You help the poor man out; you flick your wrist just so, coaxing out the flame within you into a small globule of vermilion fire that levitates an inch above your palm. Now dramatically lit, you say, "I am Lord Synetos Ramiro, grandson of Baron Florentin. Upon the honor of my house, I have come to ward your village from further harm and to punish the malefactor who has dared wrong you!" You've had three days to practice this introduction in your head on the road; your only companions were the handful of books you brought with you and your horse, a chestnut-coated gelding from your family's stables by the name of Tireless. He goes to one knee the instant he heard your family name, as you would expect, lays on effusive praise of the Dragon-blooded, and introduces himself somewhere in between thanking the baron and you (his name is Luis), but then he says something that confuses you.
"Ah, my lord, are you working with the other Prince of the Earth here?" Luis's shoulders are clenching tightly, his pockmarked face is dripping with sweat.
You raise an eyebrow. "Who?"
He says, "There is a mercenary here, my lord, a foreigner. We had assumed your grandfather had hired him to deal with our problem." You stifle a laugh; your grandfather loathes the "barbarians" that live outside Amaya and outcastes just as much. Not to mention your family definitely could not afford the services of any Dragon-blood that knew their own worth.
"No, we have no need for any mercenary." You notice his shoulders loosen slightly, and then you ask, "Is there something the matter?"
"Well, my lord, he hasn't really done anything apart from drinking in our inn for the last two days, and, erm..." Luis stops.
"Continue on, Luis," you say. "I need to hear it all if I am to help."
He looks down at the ground as he replies, "He- He insults the peasants here, my lord, with crude jokes, and complains about receiving the gift of the Dragons. Says it ruined his life."
How odd. You personally have been elated with your own powers; the Exaltation burning within you has opened up new vistas of recollection and understanding, and your mind comes up with new ideas faster than any wildfire can spread. Your grandfather, the only other Exalt you know, considers it to be a mark of inherent splendor and spiritual purity. But, now you're curious: not every day you see someone who hates the Exaltation. What a novel perspective! However, you then recall what you're here to do.
On the road, you concluded that the first thing you would do in town is examine the body of the murder victim. Totaling the time it took for the crime to be reported via courier and the time it took you to get here, it's been rotting for eight days. For a mortal investigator, that would be undoubtedly a daunting task, but as an Exalt, you might be able to pull off getting some evidence from the corpse. Still, letting it rot for yet another night wouldn't exactly make it easier on you either, and you're equally curious as to what exactly happened here.
What should we do first?
[ ] Investigate the body. There's no time to waste! Any longer and vital clues may be lost.
[ ] Deal with the other Dragon-blood. You're the only one in town who can deal with a drunk and morose Prince of the Earth.
"Ah, my lord, are you working with the other Prince of the Earth here?" Luis's shoulders are clenching tightly, his pockmarked face is dripping with sweat.
You raise an eyebrow. "Who?"
He says, "There is a mercenary here, my lord, a foreigner. We had assumed your grandfather had hired him to deal with our problem." You stifle a laugh; your grandfather loathes the "barbarians" that live outside Amaya and outcastes just as much. Not to mention your family definitely could not afford the services of any Dragon-blood that knew their own worth.
"No, we have no need for any mercenary." You notice his shoulders loosen slightly, and then you ask, "Is there something the matter?"
"Well, my lord, he hasn't really done anything apart from drinking in our inn for the last two days, and, erm..." Luis stops.
"Continue on, Luis," you say. "I need to hear it all if I am to help."
He looks down at the ground as he replies, "He- He insults the peasants here, my lord, with crude jokes, and complains about receiving the gift of the Dragons. Says it ruined his life."
How odd. You personally have been elated with your own powers; the Exaltation burning within you has opened up new vistas of recollection and understanding, and your mind comes up with new ideas faster than any wildfire can spread. Your grandfather, the only other Exalt you know, considers it to be a mark of inherent splendor and spiritual purity. But, now you're curious: not every day you see someone who hates the Exaltation. What a novel perspective! However, you then recall what you're here to do.
On the road, you concluded that the first thing you would do in town is examine the body of the murder victim. Totaling the time it took for the crime to be reported via courier and the time it took you to get here, it's been rotting for eight days. For a mortal investigator, that would be undoubtedly a daunting task, but as an Exalt, you might be able to pull off getting some evidence from the corpse. Still, letting it rot for yet another night wouldn't exactly make it easier on you either, and you're equally curious as to what exactly happened here.
What should we do first?
[ ] Investigate the body. There's no time to waste! Any longer and vital clues may be lost.
[ ] Deal with the other Dragon-blood. You're the only one in town who can deal with a drunk and morose Prince of the Earth.
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Histories 1.1
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Small update, boss. I've been reading the copy I made of that history text. It's up to you, but I'd skip the tangents he goes on about vineyards; even if you ignore the various heresies, I'd still think he deserves to be arrested solely for being insufferable. I've been leafing through the thousand pages of this mess, and I found something of interest:
Amaya's current social structure evolved out of the Three Princes War, ranging from 282 (after the suspiciously untimely death of King Ashiri Efiram) to 344 (the final victory of Princess Ashiri Eliya at the Battle of the Five Arroyos). Eliya and her companions, the Brotherhood of the Owl, were repulsed by the brutality of the conflict and swore that, upon achieving victory, that they would restructure society to prevent such senseless bloodshed from happening again. After long debates with each other and the Immaculate monks of the Levinfall Temple, the Brotherhood concluded that the idolization of the warrior class that Amaya had inherited from the Shogunate was a mistake; after all, it was the standing military's generals that had encouraged Eliya's brothers to seize the throne. The new society that Eliya envisioned was one in which the Dragon-blooded nobility were enlightened scholars and spiritual leaders who would cultivate the land, capable of leading an army if needed but only in defense or as a last resort. The mortal nobility would serve to implement their designs, and below them, the peasantry would endeavor to produce all that the nation needed. Below the peasantry, the merchants, who produce nothing and grow rich off other's labor. Outside of the order entirely, the military, whose profession only destroys.
Of course, one can easily see the flaws inherent in this idealistic system manifest today, despite the imbecilic bleating of Ramos of Jondo, who claims that the merchants "know their role and place in our nation." Fool, the merchants collaborate with The Guild to beggar this country's nobility! Nobles, lacking the standing armies of the days of old, turn to foreign mercenaries to settle their petty disagreements, and The Guild is all but happy to loan out its own for an ever-increasing price. I would gladly challenge Ramos to a duel if we were ever to meet; I know for a fact my draw with a flame piece will be faster than his.
What a completely ass-backwards country. Can't say that the Realm's merchants are on the straight and narrow, but our legions put the fear of the dragons into their greedy little souls, and that goes a long way. Anyway, point is that this arrangement these barbarians have makes them overly reliant on outcaste mercenaries, who have valuable experience leading armies that many of the alleged scholars here lack. Of course, Amayan society also shits on them constantly. Could be prudent to start recruiting them in the future.
-E
Amaya's current social structure evolved out of the Three Princes War, ranging from 282 (after the suspiciously untimely death of King Ashiri Efiram) to 344 (the final victory of Princess Ashiri Eliya at the Battle of the Five Arroyos). Eliya and her companions, the Brotherhood of the Owl, were repulsed by the brutality of the conflict and swore that, upon achieving victory, that they would restructure society to prevent such senseless bloodshed from happening again. After long debates with each other and the Immaculate monks of the Levinfall Temple, the Brotherhood concluded that the idolization of the warrior class that Amaya had inherited from the Shogunate was a mistake; after all, it was the standing military's generals that had encouraged Eliya's brothers to seize the throne. The new society that Eliya envisioned was one in which the Dragon-blooded nobility were enlightened scholars and spiritual leaders who would cultivate the land, capable of leading an army if needed but only in defense or as a last resort. The mortal nobility would serve to implement their designs, and below them, the peasantry would endeavor to produce all that the nation needed. Below the peasantry, the merchants, who produce nothing and grow rich off other's labor. Outside of the order entirely, the military, whose profession only destroys.
Of course, one can easily see the flaws inherent in this idealistic system manifest today, despite the imbecilic bleating of Ramos of Jondo, who claims that the merchants "know their role and place in our nation." Fool, the merchants collaborate with The Guild to beggar this country's nobility! Nobles, lacking the standing armies of the days of old, turn to foreign mercenaries to settle their petty disagreements, and The Guild is all but happy to loan out its own for an ever-increasing price. I would gladly challenge Ramos to a duel if we were ever to meet; I know for a fact my draw with a flame piece will be faster than his.
What a completely ass-backwards country. Can't say that the Realm's merchants are on the straight and narrow, but our legions put the fear of the dragons into their greedy little souls, and that goes a long way. Anyway, point is that this arrangement these barbarians have makes them overly reliant on outcaste mercenaries, who have valuable experience leading armies that many of the alleged scholars here lack. Of course, Amayan society also shits on them constantly. Could be prudent to start recruiting them in the future.
-E
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Chapter 1.3
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- United States
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You decide that, if your grandfather is going to make you do busy work, that you should be able to indulge yourself somewhat. This will probably be the most exciting thing that happens to you during this entire trip, after all. You say to Luis, as you dismount your horse, "Point me to the inn. I'll see if I can get the man to shape up and apologize for his treatment of you all."
He bows, and says, "Bless you again, my lord! It's over there." He points to one of the more well-lit buildings off in the darkness; the only thing that distinguishes it from the other sun-bleached buildings is that its one story taller and somewhat wider.
You nod and say, "Thank you. Have my horse stabled; I'll find lodgings for the rest of the night at the inn once I resolve this matter." Before you hand him the reins to Tireless, you reach into the pack mounted on his back. You had no need to be armed on the road; at the very least, banditry is not one of the issues that your barony faces when there is so much more profitable quarries to be pursued to the south of your lands. You don't have much in the way of armor; apart from a black gambeson thrown over your silk tunic, you're fairly vulnerable. You'll have to rely primarily on your skills and your weapon to defend yourself if diplomacy fails.
What weapon do we draw from our pack?
[ ] A spear. You were taught the Fuligin Tusk Style, an obscure and occult style focused on devastating spear charges and controlling the movement of your foe via gravity, by a demon your grandfather had summoned.
[ ] A pair of short swords. Donations made to the Immaculates in Adamanta secured you tutelage from a monk in Fire Dragon Style, an aggressive but graceful style that emphasizes fast strikes and pressing one's enemy relentlessly.
[ ] A bladed whip. A favorite of Amayan nobility inherited from the days of the Shogunate, still unable to be replicated by modern means. Your grandfather taught you personally in the difficult Wyrm's Tongue Style, made to fully exploit the bladed whip's natural range and to drain one's foes of both blood and Essence.
[ ] An axe. A foreign mercenary, an Icewalker exiled from his tribe in the Far North, was paid to teach you the art of wielding an axe. The style you learned from this man, the Mammoth Slayer Style, revolves around patiently setting up a devastating blow that will end a fight in one strike.
He bows, and says, "Bless you again, my lord! It's over there." He points to one of the more well-lit buildings off in the darkness; the only thing that distinguishes it from the other sun-bleached buildings is that its one story taller and somewhat wider.
You nod and say, "Thank you. Have my horse stabled; I'll find lodgings for the rest of the night at the inn once I resolve this matter." Before you hand him the reins to Tireless, you reach into the pack mounted on his back. You had no need to be armed on the road; at the very least, banditry is not one of the issues that your barony faces when there is so much more profitable quarries to be pursued to the south of your lands. You don't have much in the way of armor; apart from a black gambeson thrown over your silk tunic, you're fairly vulnerable. You'll have to rely primarily on your skills and your weapon to defend yourself if diplomacy fails.
What weapon do we draw from our pack?
[ ] A spear. You were taught the Fuligin Tusk Style, an obscure and occult style focused on devastating spear charges and controlling the movement of your foe via gravity, by a demon your grandfather had summoned.
[ ] A pair of short swords. Donations made to the Immaculates in Adamanta secured you tutelage from a monk in Fire Dragon Style, an aggressive but graceful style that emphasizes fast strikes and pressing one's enemy relentlessly.
[ ] A bladed whip. A favorite of Amayan nobility inherited from the days of the Shogunate, still unable to be replicated by modern means. Your grandfather taught you personally in the difficult Wyrm's Tongue Style, made to fully exploit the bladed whip's natural range and to drain one's foes of both blood and Essence.
[ ] An axe. A foreign mercenary, an Icewalker exiled from his tribe in the Far North, was paid to teach you the art of wielding an axe. The style you learned from this man, the Mammoth Slayer Style, revolves around patiently setting up a devastating blow that will end a fight in one strike.
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Chapter 1.4
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You take a thin wooden case off the back of your horse and unclasp the locks keeping it sealed tight. Inside is your spear, its blade folded facing down the dark lacquered haft like a branch bent in half. Your father had it commissioned for your eighteenth birthday (just one year ago) from an artisan in Nahael. The city is famous for its polearms, considered some of the best made in all of Creation, and secret techniques preserved from the Shogunate are passed down by master to journeyman. Pressing two switches at the hinge where the haft meets the spearhead, you set your weapon to its full length. The golden inlay on the three-foot steel blade shines brilliantly in the light of Luis' torch and your own makeshift lamp (now slowly dissipating into the air where you left it). You loop a long strip of leather around it to carry it on your back and turn to face Luis, who seems a little awestruck by your display of wealth.
Luis snaps back to attention when you meet his gaze, and says, "I-I'll take good care of your horse. Blessings of the saints and dragons upon you, my lord." He bows, takes Tireless' reins, and then heads off into the night, presumably to take your horse to be quartered with the village's goats. You haven't seen the latter, of course, but you certainly can smell traces of their passage here and there on the road to the inn. You thank your lucky stars (however few of those your family may have) that you've got boots on. In a minute, you arrive at the entrance to your destination; the door to the building is painted a faded yellow, and the windows flanking the door are too clouded to see much but the vaguest suggestion of furniture, the flicker of candle light, and the silhouette of someone moving around inside. You take a second more to ready yourself and then step inside, taking care not to get your spear stuck on the doorway.
The place is, unsurprisingly, deserted; apart from an older woman in a blue dress, currently flitting from table to table trying to clean up a variety of hastily-abandoned dishes in the common room, and a snoring mass of greasy black hair slumped over a table on the northeastern corner of that room, you are alone. A shrine to the Saint of Travelers, one of the worthy dead worshiped by your nation, flanks you to your left; a small wooden image of a robed woman bearing a staff is flanked by burnt incense and a clay bowl filled with tiny clippings of silver dinars offered to her. The innkeep appears not to have heard you come in, and before you can say anything, she turns, spots you, and utters a awkwardly stifled scream before dropping one of the mugs she was carrying to the ground. It hits the ground and shatters into pieces, and the poor woman's eyes start to tear up as the man wakes up from all the commotion.
As he slowly rises to attention, you still can hardly see any bit of his face; long tangled curls of hair are stuck to it with sweat or gods knows what else, and an equally nasty looking beard covers the other half of his visage. His arms, however, are on full display; his sleeveless grey tunic reveals the thickest ones you've ever seen in your life, even larger than that of your castle's blacksmith, and up and down their length are tattoos, each appearing to have been inked by a different hand. His bloodshot eyes first glance at the host, and then you, as though he were a starving wolf peering through a thicket at two hares. He speaks in a slurred, scratchy voice, "Fucking typical, can't get a moment of rest... Another beer. Now." He shoves his own mug forward, and stares down the woman in the room with you.
The innkeep silently moves to serve him before you speak up. "I am the Lord Synetos Ramiros, and I co-"
"I don't care what house of inbred scum you come from, you girly runt." He doesn't raise his voice at all as he insults you, but his head turns towards you, eerie eyes looking you up and down. The proprietor clasps her hand to her mouth, and looks back at you, shock in her eyes.
You glare at him as you say, "I am of the Dragon's Blood, same as-"
"Dragon's blood ain't worth piss either. World would be a lot better off without it."
You've never been treated like this in your whole life. Even your grandfather, as harsh as he can be, is not this uncouth. You reach deep in yourself for Essence, committing to a more forceful approach.
What approach do we take? This shall grant us skills for future use.
[ ] Command him to behave. You have been trained to lead through sheer force of personality by your grandfather, and you hope this display will humble him.
[ ] Take a diplomatic route. Your father, Lord Dimas, is an empathetic and patient man, and his skills have passed down to you.
[ ] Study him. Your studies included those of the nations and city-states beyond Amaya, and those tattoos might reveal something you can use.
[ ] Attack. You'll not let these insults on your house and your person slide, and he seems drunk enough that you can take him.
Luis snaps back to attention when you meet his gaze, and says, "I-I'll take good care of your horse. Blessings of the saints and dragons upon you, my lord." He bows, takes Tireless' reins, and then heads off into the night, presumably to take your horse to be quartered with the village's goats. You haven't seen the latter, of course, but you certainly can smell traces of their passage here and there on the road to the inn. You thank your lucky stars (however few of those your family may have) that you've got boots on. In a minute, you arrive at the entrance to your destination; the door to the building is painted a faded yellow, and the windows flanking the door are too clouded to see much but the vaguest suggestion of furniture, the flicker of candle light, and the silhouette of someone moving around inside. You take a second more to ready yourself and then step inside, taking care not to get your spear stuck on the doorway.
The place is, unsurprisingly, deserted; apart from an older woman in a blue dress, currently flitting from table to table trying to clean up a variety of hastily-abandoned dishes in the common room, and a snoring mass of greasy black hair slumped over a table on the northeastern corner of that room, you are alone. A shrine to the Saint of Travelers, one of the worthy dead worshiped by your nation, flanks you to your left; a small wooden image of a robed woman bearing a staff is flanked by burnt incense and a clay bowl filled with tiny clippings of silver dinars offered to her. The innkeep appears not to have heard you come in, and before you can say anything, she turns, spots you, and utters a awkwardly stifled scream before dropping one of the mugs she was carrying to the ground. It hits the ground and shatters into pieces, and the poor woman's eyes start to tear up as the man wakes up from all the commotion.
As he slowly rises to attention, you still can hardly see any bit of his face; long tangled curls of hair are stuck to it with sweat or gods knows what else, and an equally nasty looking beard covers the other half of his visage. His arms, however, are on full display; his sleeveless grey tunic reveals the thickest ones you've ever seen in your life, even larger than that of your castle's blacksmith, and up and down their length are tattoos, each appearing to have been inked by a different hand. His bloodshot eyes first glance at the host, and then you, as though he were a starving wolf peering through a thicket at two hares. He speaks in a slurred, scratchy voice, "Fucking typical, can't get a moment of rest... Another beer. Now." He shoves his own mug forward, and stares down the woman in the room with you.
The innkeep silently moves to serve him before you speak up. "I am the Lord Synetos Ramiros, and I co-"
"I don't care what house of inbred scum you come from, you girly runt." He doesn't raise his voice at all as he insults you, but his head turns towards you, eerie eyes looking you up and down. The proprietor clasps her hand to her mouth, and looks back at you, shock in her eyes.
You glare at him as you say, "I am of the Dragon's Blood, same as-"
"Dragon's blood ain't worth piss either. World would be a lot better off without it."
You've never been treated like this in your whole life. Even your grandfather, as harsh as he can be, is not this uncouth. You reach deep in yourself for Essence, committing to a more forceful approach.
What approach do we take? This shall grant us skills for future use.
[ ] Command him to behave. You have been trained to lead through sheer force of personality by your grandfather, and you hope this display will humble him.
[ ] Take a diplomatic route. Your father, Lord Dimas, is an empathetic and patient man, and his skills have passed down to you.
[ ] Study him. Your studies included those of the nations and city-states beyond Amaya, and those tattoos might reveal something you can use.
[ ] Attack. You'll not let these insults on your house and your person slide, and he seems drunk enough that you can take him.
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