HamSandLich
MEAT WIZARD
- Location
- Somewhere in NOVA, possibly, maybe, presumably
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Eshirreol, Land of Wyld-Blessed Springs
Long ago, as the world before this one died of plague and crusade, the peoples of the Middle North suffered. They wandered across the vast and trackless wastes, starving and afraid, beset by The Dead and the followers of the Baleful Gaze. One such people, the Eshiroi, were particularly maligned, their homeland destroyed. They cried out to their heroes, but their heroes were sickened or dying. They cried out to the heavens, but the heavens were silent. They cried out to The Princes of the Earth, but the Princes of the Earth were dead and rotting. At last, they cried out for anyone, anything, to deliver them from their fate, and lo, their cries were finally answered. From the east, heralded by dreams and songs on the wind, came the Nine Errants. Skilled with lore and the blade in equal measure, they cowed the Eshiroi and formed a covenant with them; the Errants would lead the Eshiroi to safety and prosperity, and the Eshiroi would adore the legends of the Errants forevermore. The Errants led the Eshiroi west to a series of mountain valleys that had been devoured by the wyld. Leveraging their mythic power, The Errants slew the protean chaos and carved new lands from its corpse. Alpine lakes sprung into being, warmed by the blood of the earth and subtle currents of the wyld. Towering forests of cedar and pine dotted the mountainsides, filled with game. The lower valleys were covered with fields and meadows of sublime beauty. The Eshiroi looked upon their new home and saw that it was good. They ate of the land, and so became of the land. All worshipped the Nine Errants, who vanished into song and legend after their great working. The Eshiroi named their kingdom Eshirreol, "Refuge of The People", and became a modest power of the North, situated in the Black Shale mountains east of the Kunlun Desert and south of the White Sea.
For centuries, Eshirreol waxed and waned. For many of those years, the people were healthy, fed on harvests of crops that could grow nowhere else in the North. Its waters remained warm even in the harshest winters. The Eshiroi bathed in the lakes to receive their blessings, some granting luck, health, or fertility. Other Eshiroi found themselves granted wings, or scales, or other blessings. The greatest among the Eshiroi quested for power in the highest and most holy of the lakes, the Sixfold Springs, using lore taught to them by the Nine Errants to avoid the dangers of the wyld at the hearts of the waters. Those who returned from their quests with powers were dubbed the Songthanes, the Sacred Knights of Eshirreol. When barbarians came unto the valleys seeking plunder or blood, the Songthanes threw them back with wyld-touched magics. When the Eshiroi gazed upon their smaller neighbors with envy or when the fields could not yield enough crops, the Songthanes rode forth atop twisted goblin-beasts to demand tribute. During one brief period, they even controlled a large swathe of the Black Shale mountains as the Tall-Talker Empire before overextending and retreating back to their homelands. An era of recovery and re-examination followed. Though their civilization had fallen from its peak, Eshirreol prospered, and then, a century and a half ago, the Realm came.
At first, the war against the Realm went well for the Eshiroi. The initial Sesus assault broke like a sanguine wave upon the fortresses that guarded the passes into Eshirreol, their cunning spies deceived and enthralled by the spirits of the land. The Songthanes slew the Realm's vanguard and flooded the hinterlands with swarming goblin-slaves. The Eshiroi bargained with the Winter Folk to harry the Realm's supply trains and haunt the dreams of their soldiers. And then the Imperial Legions joined the fray and Eshirreol withered under their might. The Songthanes were outmatched by the Dragon-Blooded whenever they took to the field. The Realm's sorcerers laid blights and curses upon many of Eshirreol's sacred springs. Unbeknownst to both sides, the Star-Chosen in Yu-Shan wove dooms and terrible fates upon the Eshiroi to ensure their eventual defeat. After five years of bloody invasion, the Eshiroi sued for peace. The most cooperative of the Songthanes were allowed to retain their rank, the most resistant were publicly crucified. The Sesus Satrap, seething at the Eshiroi's defiance during the war, sought to break the peoples' spirits, inviting touring dynasts to frolic in springs once considered holy, gawk at the wyld-touched, and lust after at comely Eshiroi. The Scarlet Dynasty soon thought Eshirreol like prostrate An-Teng to the far south, and the Eshiroi to be a broken people fit for servitude. The Eshiroi seethed under their rulers, but they had sworn oaths of fealty and were loathe to break their word, and the more flexible among them still feared the jade-mailed fist of the legions. Now, with the Realm turned inward to squabbling over the Empress's throne, a spark of hope has ignited in Eshirreol.
The People of Eshirreol
The Eshiroi have long been considered eccentric by their neighbors. The blood of faerie runs in their veins, but so diluted as to leave them more or less human. Their raksha ancestry largely manifests in the form of mildly fae features, atypical imaginations, and Old Realm phrases in their local dialect of Skytongue. The average Eshiroi are pale skinned individuals of faintly northern stock, with black or brown hair. Eye color is typically peach-pink, amber-yellow, or orange. They bear features reminiscent of both Raksha and Hobgoblins; slightly pointed ears, long canines, short tusks, and small horn nubs on the forehead are common. Moles are also common and a broad set of superstitions exists around them based on their size, number, and location. Beastfolk bearing traits of sabretooth cats, goats, or mountain doves are common and considered unremarkable save for the most extreme cases of mutation. The Eshiroi do not consider appearance a particularly useful in-group identifier, and both mutant and mundane tribesmen freely mingle. A common stereotype neighboring peoples have of Eshiroi is that of a comely delicate-boned elfin individual married to a hulking brute with horns and fangs; this is an exaggeration in most cases.
The touch of the wyld in their homelands sometimes results in mutation. They regard wyld-mutations with a pragmatic bent, seeing many as boons and blessings, while careful to put down those turned mad by the wyld. Ever since the Realm interfered with much of Eshirreol's geomancy, these mutations have become less common. Their stance towards such deviations from the mortal form made them allies and trading partners to several otherwise ostracized wyld mutant and beastfolk cultures, though it has also alienated them from other "regular" mortals.
The Eshiroi would be considered odd by many Threshold cultures. They occasionally run on bizarre but otherwise sound trains of thought. They are gregarious and curious regarding foreigners, though this superficial amity does not necessarily translate into true friendship. Grudges form rarely between them, but when they do they are often taken to severe extremes. There is a large stigma on telling outright falsehoods and oath-breaking, though this simply means lying by omission and twisting the terms of a poorly worded agreements are more common. Odd taboos and superstitions exist, such as speaking in the third person during Calibration, building locked fence-gates with no fences near settlements, drawing a circle in the dirt around campsites, or giving children nicknames like Cruelty or Sloth under the belief the child will become the opposite of the phrase. Their local dialect of skytongue has several loanwords from Old Realm, and their vocabulary is considered bizarre by many (for example, they often use archaic phrasing, and the default pronoun is closer to "it" rather than "he/she/they" when compared to other skytongue dialects).
The Eshiroi are mildly resistant to the influence of the wyld-zones of their homeland. Debilitating mutations and other alterations do occur, but with less frequency than with normal humans. This resistance normally does not apply to any wyld zone outside of the Eshiroi homelands, though emigrant enclaves often display a similar affinity for other wyld zones.
The primary social unit of the Eshiroi is the clan or tribe, an extended family (often connected by fictive kinship) of about 200-400 individuals. When a clan becomes too large, it may splinter into two clans or some of its members may marry into smaller clans. Property may belong to a clan or to a household within a clan. Households within a clan may be neighbors or live in completely different valleys. Semi-hereditary ranks exist within a given clan. In ascending order, they are Caerl(equivalent to a commoner), Steadcaerl(landowners and merchants), Hearthcaerl(nobility who venture into the Bordermarches to gather exotic materials) , and Songthane (sacred knights who quest into the Middlemarches and beyond). Individuals are generally born to their rank, but upward and downward mobility are both possible. Inheritance is usually matrilineal, except when an individual marries someone of higher rank, in which case the lower-ranked spouse and any offspring become part of the higher-ranked household. The Songthane rank was originally acquired exclusively through wyld-questing merit, though House Sesus has tried to make it hereditary(so as to discourage overly ambitious wyld-questing), with mixed success, resulting in individuals referred to simply as "Thanes" who exist somewhere between Hearthcaerl and Songthane.
Each clan or tribe has a sacred lodge, wherein its various rituals(such as ennoblement and coming of age) take place and the clan's history is recorded. Clans are led by a council of Hearthcaerls, Songthanes, and an elected representatives from the young adults and elders of its Steadcaerls. Each clan also has a Prince, a Songthane elected by the council to lead in matters of war and ritual and preside over the council. Clans without Songthanes have a triumvirate of Hearthcaerls in place of a Prince. Conflicts within clans are settled by either Hearthcaerl arbitration or highly ritualized combat. Disputes between clans are settled by a council of Hearthcaerls and Songthanes from all nearby clans, with lawyer being a common profession for Hearthcaerls. When clan conflict escalates into outright warfare, as determined by the law and season, the victor may take the losing clan as a vassal for a set number of years(determined by a variety of factors). Vassal-Clans may also be acquired by various rituals and economic agreements. The terms of Eshirreol's submission to the Realm were couched as analogous to vassalage, though House Sesus is far more controlling than is the norm for Regnant-Clans.
Tradesman, scholastic, and warrior societies cross clan boundaries, with many receiving donations from clan leadership due to the vital nature of their services. The Herald's Society delivers messages even across treacherous mountain roads and often teaches self-defense to the relatives of its members, the Young Flower Poets share literature and poetry from outside Eshirreol, while the rangers of the Killdeer Society keep the local carnivorous deer population down
Prior to the coming of the Realm, each clan officially included a variety of spirits, fae, and other wyld entities as members, who were considered blood kin by law and occupied a variety of roles and ranks. The satrap has since forced them to cut legal ties with their otherworldly relatives, and driven the inhuman tribesmen into the wilderness, but the tangled web of kinship still exists informally. Sorting out incidents involving tribesmen while avoiding offending powerful relatives(human or otherwise) and leads to no small headache for the occupiers.
Eshirreol's government has varied throughout its history but the current regime is a triumvirate of three small but powerful Elden Clans, whose combined council is presided over by a Sacral-Prince elected from one of their Songthanes. Some Songthanes and Hearthcaerls are now rightfully reviled by the people, others try to limit the Realm's power and are loved for it. All other clans are considered vassals to the Elden Clans, who in turn are vassals of the Realm and House Sesus. The vassal clans also send advisors to the Songthanes of the Elden Clans. In the past, the Sacral-Prince was primarily a ceremonial and tiebreaker role, though Sesus satrap has pressured the Sacral-Prince(whom she has secretly taken as a lover) to exert greater control, so as to dilute the power of the factions in the council opposed to Realm control. As part of the terms of surrender, the three eld-clans have adopted or married a few patricians, outcastes, and cadet house members, and they are in the process of working towards Cadet House status.
Elden Clan Bjeorning(from whom the current Sacral Prince comes from) enthusiastically sends janissaries to fight in far away locales for the Sesus Legions, and House Sesus has taken steps to increase recruitment among the clan's youth in preparation for the expected civil war on the Isle. Bjeorning braves also act as deniable assets for House Sesus in the satrapies of neighboring Houses. Bjeornings returning home from such excursions often express disillusionment to their family, so House Sesus has begun to keep the clan auxiliaries away from home for longer than usual.
Elden Clan Isilidan owns large herds of Smith-Oxen in mountain pastures, and has grown wealthy from selling their meat and the wool. The clan's smiths have produced a modest number of artifacts over the years, such as the Lead Skull Lanterns, the Hide of The Brazen Akryung, and the Mace-That-Eats-Your-Enemies-Alive. The clan also has many households of thaumaturges who specialize in making minor wonders. They send several trading caravans to Grieve and Medo each year. The clansmen were initially neutral to well-disposed towards the Realm, but now grumble as House Sesus requisitions more and more of its thaumaturges.
Elden Clan Aethlreon was allowed to stay in power because of its staunch devotion to stability and because it considered vassalage to the Realm a more harmonious existence than being ground under the Empress' heel. The Songthanes of the clan are renowned diplomats and peacemakers, and many try their best to limit the Realm's depredations.
Officials from the numerous, so-called "Northern Colonies" on the Inland Sea's coast are prominent in the Realm's presence in Eshirreol, but are usually lumped in with those from the Blessed Isle proper by most locals, even if they technically outnumber them. The relationship that the Eshiroi have with these Northern Colonials is deeply ambivalent, as they comprise much of the satrapial bureaucracy, immaculate presence, and imperial garrison, but cultural exchange between Eshirreol and their homelands occurred long before becoming a satrapy. The Elden Clans have intermarried heavily with members of cadet houses on the coast, as have several thanes and hearthcaerls from wealthier tribes.
Realm citizens and visitors from satrapies closer to the Inland Sea have long sired children upon the Eshiroi. Long viewed as legacies of the Realm occupation, these half-Eshiroi are subject to varying levels of distrust by both the Wan of the Realm and the Eshiroi themselves. The Elden Clans, due to their marriages with Patricians and other Cadet Houses, produce many of these children and treat them as full members of the clans, though many other clans resent the half-blooded children, viewing them as constant reminders of occupation. Non-Elden Clan members who exalt are typically taken to Pasiap's Stair or taken in by the Immaculate Order, as the Realm is hesitant to let such an aberrant satrapy gain exalts who are not part of the imperial apparatus.
Due to the Eshiroi clans' devotion to their regularly sworn oaths of obeisance, Eshirreol is less unruly than one might expect from a satrapy of wyld-touched. This obedience only goes so far however; the Eshiroi focus on the letter of the agreement, not the spirit, when it comes to the Realm. The Eshiroi habitually resist or twist any attempts to "civilise" them or bring them in line with other satrapies. The Realm is quick and brutal to crack down on any overt rebellion, but House Sesus' intelligence network in the region is overworked at the best of times. The garrison relies heavily on Immaculate monks and martial orders to supplement its activities. Revolutionaries who slip through the net usually turn to brigandry.
The Songthane Knights
The traditional role of the Songthane Knight is to slay dangerous aberrations from the wyld and quest into the Middlemarches in search of artifacts and resources. Before the coming of the Realm, Songthanes were expected to negotiate with particularly unruly spirits and lead during wartime. It is the role of wyld-questing specialist that prevents the Realm from fully suppressing the Songthane rank, as the spoils they harvest are vital to the Satrapy's annual tribute.
To become a Songthane knight, a mortal normally must quest into one of the Sixfold Springs after passing numerous trials and undergoing ritual purification. They must then return with some form of strange power and pass examinations for any spiritual taint. For the vast majority of Songthanes, this manifests as a sorcerous initiation and an innate resistance to wyld shaping. The acquisition of one or more supernatural merits is also nearly universal. Martial arts are not unheard of, Dreaming Pearl Courtesan Style and Laughing Monster Style being popular in Eshiroi legends. Elder or powerful Songthanes may develop charms that call on their clan legends, though this is rare. Many can be found abroad, serving as mercenaries, bards, or occultists for a time to build a legend of their own. It is not uncommon for them to live longer than normal, though almost none live past a century.
Since the coming of the Realm, the term "Thane" has arisen to describe those who have legal status above that of Hearthcaerl but do not meet the ritual and magical criteria of a traditional Songthane.
The Lay of the Land
Eshirreol comprises several mountain valleys and passes in the central and eastern Black Shale Mountain range. The valleys and lower mountains are often warmer than one would expect for their altitude, though the higher mountains are often even more frigid than normal and sometimes winds swept down from them can ruin harvests. Many alpine lakes and countless hot-springs dot the land and are considered sacred by the Eshiroi. Some are much larger than one would expect, the land's convoluted geography bending space ever so slightly. The most sacred bodies of water are the Sixfold Springs, clearwater lakes high in the mountains, which have unique wyld zones in their centers.The wyld has touched the region, and though it is not a true wyld zone overall, it contains many small ones within its borders. Wyld energies permeate the lakes and larger springs, and the surrounding areas often display strange flora, fauna, and geography. Weird, sometimes eerie rock formations such as stone trees, grinning statues, and basalt stairways dot the mountains, and boulders that move when nobody is around are a common occurrence in the valleys. Stone faces grow out of cliff sides while some mountains have perfectly flat tops. Most of the lakes and springs are freshwater, though exceptions such as cold springs of rice whiskey and alkaline lakes exist. The Eshiroi inhabit the parts of the region where the wyld energies are mildest. Dangerous areas where the wyld is stronger are heavily marked with ritual pillars, torii-gateways, and warding talismans. The lakes and springs are visited often, but even they have danger areas marked with sacred pillars and rope. The Eshiroi sometimes enter the wyld zones to perform ritual behavior and harvest exotic resources. House Sesus and the Immaculate Order control access to many of these areas, and in a few cases have purposefully or accidentally destroyed them.
The primary form of settlement is towns, though a few small cities exist. Settlements are typically near sources of water or in mountain passes. Housing is primarily made of wood and stone, with the roof being shingled with shale. The otherwise drab brown and grey exteriors are often accented with brightly colored abstract runic designs and cloth banners. Monasteries exist higher in the mountains. Roads and bridges built by the Tall-Talker Empire wind throughout the region, though many have fallen into disrepair.
The wyld makes the ecosystem highly varied. The Eshiroi farm hardy tubers, barley, cabbage, maize, and a form of iridescent rice on terraced fields (a product of the defunct Tall-Talker Empire). Households often keep small garden plots where they grow fruits, hot peppers, and mushrooms.
More exotic flora are also present. Some meadows have grass that is blood-red or maroon instead of green. A form of edible mandrake is a common crop in the regions, and is characterized by a quiet whine when buried (whole fields of them are usually located away from residential areas). The wild growing alpine barometz is a giant cotton-like plant whose flower grows into the shape a sheep and tastes like crab. One in ten opal cherries has a semiprecious gemstone instead of a regular cherry pit. The carmain cedar's trunk has a core that can be ground into a different type of spice depending on the tree's age. The lambent ash tree loses its leaves in the winter and instead has wisps of scarlet fire at the tips of its branches, while the what-willow's strip-like branches have an outdated legal code of distant Ysyr written on them. A species of giant truffle grows into the shape of late shogunate furniture, while the savants of Clan Divathi reside in towers grown from giant mushrooms. Some plants are carnivorous, hazardous, or otherwise deadly, such impweed and the dreaded wandering dervish-root.
The fauna is equally varied. The Eshiroi herd smith-oxen, whose metallic wool can be woven into armored cloth, in the mountain pastures. Great coops of giant pigeons are kept and used to make squab. Mundane sheep and goats are also kept by poorer families. A type of carnivorous deer lives in the forests and menaces livestock and mundane deer alike. Semi-civilised buck-ogres and rare unicorns inhabit the forests, while snow-leopard or tiger-based manticores haunt the mountain passes.
The uninhabited areas where the wyld is strong have stranger animals, beasts of living ice or porcelain with tea or medicine for blood, macaques who dress like Shogunate bureaucrats, the wicker-loper, whose limbs are carved sticks and whose body is a leather sack filled with stones, its relative the trove-hulk, whose face is a wooden mask and whose hollow bear-skin body contains casks of treasure, and the destructive Frumious Jyadderoth, whose body is a small orca tied to four large wolves (who serve as limbs) by giant snakes (who serve as the beast's heads). Packs of feral hobgoblins also roam the mountains, and obey odd taboos such as deference to grandmothers. The more exotic fauna and flora have become rarer since the Realm's arrival, either from overexploitation or from interference with the local geomancy.
Places of Note
Vedruseon is the captial of Eshirreol and residence of the Satrap and Cadet House Eld. Known as the Gatehouse City, it guards a major mountain pass, built up around an immense fortress-wall at the terminus of the valley. A relic of the Tall-Talker Empire, the walls are enchanted with self awareness, the monstrous faces on the city gates and walls talking with passersby, often asking questions about how traveler's journeys were and offering advice about the best places to eat and drink. The surrounding mountains are carved almost entirely with terraces where rice and maize grow.
Lake Bysul is one of the largest valley lakes in Eshirreol and frequented by many Eshiroi for both ritual and recreational bathing. Warm even in winter, with hotsprings upon the shores, the waters teem with life both mundane and fantastical. Torii gates and buoys marking the lake's wyld zones dot the surface. Great bearded serpents dwell in the depths, emerging when the moon is waning to read the stars. Dynasts have slain them for sport in the past, but they each lay a curse upon whomever kill them, misfortune befalling three generations of the killer's family.
The Sixfold Springs reside high in the mountains, the paths leading to them covered in wayshrines and ritual sites. Each lake is unique and obviously supernatural, having a wyld-demesne within their depths. Entering the wyld zones is a transformative experience, the zones leading to Deep Marches divergent even from the rest of the Wyld, places touched by the Shinma. The trails leading to the lakes are now heavily patrolled by Immaculate Monks, who slay anyone approaching without satrapial approval (and they are suspicious and disapproving of even those with permission).
Lake Sado is an alkaline body of water that is considered taboo to approach by the Eshiroi. A number of prisons and work camps are nearby, taking advantage of the local superstition to sequester the dissidents and heretics that plague Eshirreol and nearby satrapies (and cater to the habits of the more unsavory dynasts in Houses Sesus and Cynis).
Irjae Vale is one of the major sites of wyld-questing Eshirreol, a place where Hearthcaerls and Songthanes perform the quests to bring back treasures like figurines that grow into mortal infants when planted in the ground and boxes containing a day's worth of warm weather. Nearby lies the immense body of the wyld-touched elemental called Haelint the Glacierlord.
Lying in a mountain pass that was site of countless battlest, the Ileon Fields teem with vivid flowers and occupy a breathtaking vista, yet the area always seems to make folk uneasy. The flowers are so vivid that they make everything else feel muted, the vista so breathtaking that some end up gasping for air. Inexplicable dread crawls up the spines of newcomers like an icy centipede. The unnerving place would be a modest shadowland were it not for the near constant rites performed there to prevent just such an occurrence. Even with such measures, people sometimes see their own dead bodies staring at them from amongst the flowers, gazing blindly into eternity.
Eshiroi Religion
Prior to the Realm's conquest, all Eshiroi worshipped the Nine Errants in some capacity. Storytelling and theatre are considered a form of worship and Eshiroi holy texts often incorporate sagas and songs. Every clan has a set of personal histories and tales, with clan members of the past taking on the role of beloved hero or equally beloved villain, the histories kept and recorded as living documents by skaldic-priests of the Hearthcaerl rank. A common theme within Eshiroi religion is conflicting concepts such as love and hate or life and death not being considered contradictory.
In addition to sagas and the Nine Errants, various land spirits are propitated (though not necessarily revered in all cases). The local spirits are often wyld-touched (some were spat out fully formed by the wyld) and as such have odd domains or mindset. For example there is a god of brigands whose domain also includes scholastic pursuits, the local disease spirits disdain regular forms of worship and consider the healers who work against them to be their devoted priests, and a good number of fertility and field spirits are dualistic beings who demand the sacrifice of animals or the bloodletting of humans in exchange for gifts of life. The local wyld-touched elementals fiercely defend their turf against elementals from outside the region. In addition to native terrestrial gods, various spirits associated with Luna are often worshipped or otherwise feature into cult canon or clan sagas, as do apocryphal figures and concepts such as the Cosmic Scorpion and the Crusader of the Eye.
Eshiroi attitudes towards death are varied. Different clans and cults have different opinions. By default, they believe in reincarnation, but believe it to be utterly random, amoral, or impersonal. Some Eshiroi linger after death and are worshipped as ancestor-deities, though this usually depends on an especially strong force of will or fame in life. Some worship gods who promise to turn them into lesser spirits after death. Other Eshiroi choose to offer their soul to the Raksha, or a dark god, or the wyld itself if they wish to die with finality. This last option is not stigmatized, but it is expected to be a deep and purely personal decision, not a path chosen for others.
While all Eshiroi are allowed to worship the Nine Errants in some capacity, some forms of worship are considered appropriate only for select ranks or clans. Types of clergy are also separated by rank. Caerls and Steadcaerls primarily worship minor nature spirits and elementals, Hearthcaerls and Songthanes are usually inducted into rank-exclusive mystery cults of more powerful terrestrial deities. Conversely, while a Caerl shamaness is not allowed to initiate into the mystery cult of a higher spirit or powerful ancestor, she is considered to have greater authority than a Hearthcaerl skaldic-priest when negotiating with a minor elemental, mischievous goblin-spirit, or bloodthirsty field god.
The wyld is seen as a sacred otherworld, sustainer and destroyer, good and evil. It must be treated with respect and caution. It is a place apart from time, it is nowhere and every-when. The nature of the local wyld is taught to all Eshiroi, as are time tested methods for surviving its caress. When entering the wyld, Eshiroi take upon the role of famous heroes, villains, or other mythic figures. They hew closely to the legends they impersonate, for deviation brings uncertainty, and in the wyld, uncertainty can bring something worse than death. A man harvesting the Ruby Maize of Yngkeot must pretend to be Yngkeot, he must wear a pick-axe at his side, he must have a coonskin hat, and he must have a keepsake from a loved one so he remembers to return home, for all were things that the Songthane Yngkeot had on his person when he first harvested the Ruby Maize and returned to found Clan Yngkeoting. It is possible to diverge from a tale and survive unscathed, but staying within the confines of a myth is the easiest way to minimize the hazards of the local wyld. The Eshiroi adulthood initiation rite is a similar, but much safer re-enactment of a clan legend, as are various lesser rites in areas near but not part of the wyld. Similar ritual behavior accompanies the transformative baptismal practices in the sacred lakes and springs.
The Immaculate Order has tried to use the hierarchical tiers of worship in Eshiroi folk religion to steer the Eshiroi towards an orthodox understanding of the Perfected Hierarchy, but this has seen mixed results. The Eshiroi simply incorporate the Immaculate Dragons into pre-existing tales and insist they have always been there, twisting the Dragons into heretical caricatures. Sextes Jylis is a vicious bandit and defender of the poor, Mela lures people into the killing cold and gives them revelation that is worth risking one's life or sanity for, Danaad and Hesiesh both love and hate each other, Pasiap jealously guards a hoard of cursed treasure, and so on. Immaculate monks attempt to teach orthodoxy with kind words and stern firsts, but when they tell cautionary tales about the Antitheses, they find the Inconsiderate Horseman and Unworthy Babbler featuring in the next week's rendition of "How Ismark stole the Devil's Kimchi" at the local tavern.
Compounding the Order's troubles is the vitality of Eshiroi practices such as wyld-questing to the harvest of exotic goods that the Realm covets. Hearthcaerls and Songthanes who quest in the traditional fashion always seem to bring back greater hauls than those who adhere to Immaculate orthodoxy, and have a lower incidence of mutation besides. The Empress encouraged monks and martial orders to watch Eshirreol closely to dissuade rebellion, but placed limits on the extent to which they could police the lucrative wyld-questing that brought the Realm there in the first place. Veteran monks usually accept that the Eshiroi will likely never be more than a heterodox people, but newcomers often fail to realize this.
The Nine Errants
A studious savant could easily deduce that the Nine Errants were raksha nobles. Their tale is far stranger than most however. Nine powerful nobles of the Balorian Crusade grew bored with the destruction of all Creation, and sought to amuse themselves using the desperate mortals. Stealing a minuscule fragment of the Ishiika, the Grass Cutter Scythe of Balor, they deserted the Crusade, riding far ahead of their former compatriots and laughing all the while. They came upon the Eshiroi and first sought to turn them into their larder, to feast upon their souls until the world finally ended. It was when they came upon the tainted lands that would become Eshirreol when they became more than they were. The fears of the Eshiroi and other tribes of the middle north had bled into the local wyld and turned it poisonous. When the Errants sought to tame the wyld zone, it instead spat forth a terror that shook them to the core, one of the first and greatest of the hannya. The desperate raksha were nearly destroyed, but as they began to know true despair for the first time, they noticed the hopes and dreams of the Eshiroi filling them with determination. The Eshiroi believed the Errants would prevail, and the Errants devoted all their beings to fulfilling that belief. Exhausting all the power of their stolen fragment of the Ishiika, the Errants managed to slay the hannya and carve Eshirreol from its corpse.
Feted by the Eshiroi as true heroes, the Errants decided to defend their worshippers, if at first only to feast on their dreams with regularity. With time however, the Errants began to love what they had built, for it was founded on true struggle and effort, not from the easy narratives they conjured up in the wyld. As the wyld-powers of the Errants subtly changed the Eshiroi, so too did the Eshiroi change the Errants. The inexplicable quality of humanity to captivate and enthrall the Raksha took root. They ate mortal food, took mortal lovers, fought beside them, laughed and wept with them. Eshirreol is the tale of the Errants now, from now until eternity, so long as a scrap of it continues to exist. Anything otherwise would mean the "death" of the Errants.
The Hearthcaerls and Songthanes know their patron deities are Raksha, and it is an open secret even among the faithful of lower ranks. This is not to mean that the Eshiroi worship, or even like, all Raksha. The ordinary Winter Folk are viewed with cynical distrust, and most historical deals between them and the Eshiroi were formed largely out of self-interest, enlightened or otherwise, on both sides. Anything more than transactional worship of Raksha not affiliated with the Nine Errants is deemed perverse apostasy among orthodox Eshiroi. The Nine Errants are, in Eshiroi parlance, "The Good Fae", not because they are paragons of morality or benevolence, but because they taught the Eshiroi how to survive in the wake of the Contagion and Crusade. The Immaculate Order has tried to suppress the worship of the Errants, but tales of them are so tightly woven into Eshiroi culture that these efforts usually only apply to overt worship. While they can tear down their temples and even burn clan histories, the monks can do little about the countless nursery rhymes, colloquialisms, and campfire tales that they feature into.
Now, with their beloved descendants chained to the yoke of the Realm, the Errants are conflicted. Though they are uniquely mighty among the Tribes of Faerie, all fear reprisals from the Realm and the prospect of being discovered and slain by Immaculates or by the Chosen of the Maidens(whose existence they intuited over the course of centuries).
The Maroon Sultan is in fact an identity assumed by the countless miniscule hobgoblin valets of a now dead Raksha of the same name. Scrambling to cover up the death of their master, they piled atop each other and swathed themselves in the Sultan' flowing maroon robes and veil, and in doing so incarnated the dead lord. They believe that they must wait out the storm of the Realm's occupation, that the Eshiroi should deal with the Dynasty with a fake smile and a well hidden(and preferably serrated) dagger for when it shows weakness. They hold a copy of Eshirreol's terms of submission, and have found several loopholes to exploit when the time is right.
The Princess Rampant, also called the Tiger Footed-Bride, is one of the principal war and fertility deities of the Eshiroi. Appearing as an athletic young woman with lower legs akin to those of a tiger and a snake for a tail, she has taken countless lovers (and willing victims) from the Eshiroi and many claim descent from her. She silently rages at the smirking prey-things from Creation's center. She now searches the Wyld for the path to true apotheosis so that she may set Eshirreol as the crown jewel of her diadem, to watch in safety as she ravages all Creation.
The Ragged Unicorn Knight, the other principal war deity of the Eshiroi, appears as a headless armored rider atop an iridescent black unicorn. The unicorn is the true raksha, while the rider is merely its squire. When necessary, it takes the form of a unicorn headed man, the metal squire reshaping itself to fit its master's form. It treats with adventurers, outcastes, and mercenaries across the Middle North, recruiting them for a variety of endeavors in Creation and the Wyld.
Basalt Crown is a hermaphroditic being carved entirely of stone. Where a mortal would have a domed skull, the Errant has an ornate crown-like crest, encircling a small pool of whiskey that grants inspiration to whomever Basalt Crown lets drink from it. They are a patron of alchemists and wear armor made from occult tomes.
Rakish Soulaka, with his Bonsai Staff and Swellow-Wing-Cloak, appears as either as a beautiful aquiline youth or great muscular bear of a man, always with feathered ears. He traded his left hand for knowledge of sorcery and now bears a simulacra of living crystal in its place. He periodically visits Eshiroi households in disguise, teaching them about the world outside and the natural laws of Creation and beyond, and has many paramours across the North. Once jolly and suave, he now conceals immense anxiety as he attempts to counteract the potentially disastrous alterations the Immaculates have done to the local geomancy.
Estaliel, the Exile Child, appears to be an angelic young girl with metallic gold hair. She has a too-large winged helmet and a ragged chainmail vest, both of which she claims to have belonged to her dead father, a long lost hero of faerie. Disguised as mundane waif, she walks among the Eshiroi, swiping food from market stalls, disrupting the peace, and engaging general youthful mischief. When caught by an Eshiroi during one of her pranks, she tearfully apologizes to her "auntie and/or uncle" and empties the contents of her coinpurse to the wronged party, revealing a small golden nugget. She also rules over several bands of vicious outlaws and revolutionaries.
Nine-Fingered Nakala and her husband, Marius of the Crooked Shoulders, reside in the House of Cedar and Flint, high in the mountains. The manse can usually only be found during blizzards and the couple welcomes travelers to stay and engage in revelry with their household and other guests. Any breach of hospitality by the guests is met with, at best, expulsion into the snowstorm, with much darker fates for more serious offenders. Even mortal enemies behave themselves in the House, lest Auntie Nakala and Uncle Marius serve them as a meal. Nine Fingered Nalakala appears as a striking women of middle age, her back having a hollow from which nine, bladed, spider-like limbs can emerge. Marius appears as horned, hunchbacked older man in finery, borne by a living throne of countless rats, a curmudgeonly scowl belying his good humored nature.
Issimkallu, the Illustrious Serpent, is in fact, not a true raksha, but a wyld-twisted lesser elemental dragon, born when a maddened elemental of fire and a frenzied elemental of water devoured each other alive during the Balorian Crusade. It is a creature of burning water and cold flame, its two heads a chimerical mix of salamander and horned snake, it wears a necklace of severed hands around each neck and holds bloody kukris in five of its legs. The Eshiroi, ironically, worship it as a deity of good health, cleanliness, and renewal, burning away imperfections and washing away impurities. It is the only one among the Errants whose worship is not forbidden by the Immaculate Order, though more out of necessity than true approval, for it controls the elementals of the land. It has slowly but surely subverted a number of immaculates in Eshirreol, with even a few Dragon-Blooded finding merit in its philosophy of combined contradictions.
Economy
Considered very valuable for a northern satrapy, Eshirreol's tribute to the Realm is primarily in the form of food, exotic wares, and janissaries, and some of its food tribute goes towards making other nearby satrapies more productive. Aside from tribute, Eshirreol's current economy is based on the export of foodstuffs and exotic wares in exchange for more mundane resources that they lack, such as salt and iron. Prior to the Tall-Talker Empire's agricultural projects, such as irrigation canals and terrace fields, food was imported or raided from other lands to supplement periodic bad harvests. Some useful exotic resources are very difficult to harvest or slow to replenish, so they are often sold or bartered in exchange for more abundant resources from the outside world that can serve similar functions. While the carmain cedar produces a wealth of spices, it makes for poor construction material, so Eshirreol often imports lumber from other regions to supplement its own logging. Other exotic crafts require mundane imports as components, such as mammoth ivory or grapes. With House Sesus encouraging more agricultural output, less land is available for pasture, so wool is an increasingly common import. Iron deposits are rare in Eshirreol, so the primary crafting materials are bronze, stone, and wood. The region also produces a distinctive form of blue-green celadon pottery, formed from mud dredged up from the lake beds. While far more fertile than one would expect for northern mountain valleys, Eshirreol's current agricultural output is increasing at an unsustainable rate so the Sesus legions can stockpile rations, and the soil's fertility may decrease drastically in the coming years.
Dynastic tourism is also a major part of the economy, to the consternation of many of the Eshiroi. Many Dynasts think Eshirreol a prostrate land, mistaking oathbound deference for passivity and meekness. The wyld-affected springs also draw visitors. Dynastic sorcerers and occultist partake of ritual bathing in the springs. The purported healing properties of some of the waters ease the wounds of legion veterans, even those that the healing of the Exalted cannot easily soothe(for a time at least). One spring is used for transitioning between sexes, and was visited by outsiders for decades before the Realm conquest (the local clan made a profit by charging pilgrims and assisting the transition). Less pleasant is the Realm practice of using Eshirreol to resupply and temporarily garrison soldiers, as legionnaires and foreign auxiliaries have displayed a habit of roughly treating the Eshiroi. Cynis interests also do business with the garrison and unscrupulous locals, arresting some Eshiroi on trumped up charges so they can be sold as exotic slaves, as well as providing prostitutes to legionnaires.
Foreign Relations and Neighboring Peoples
Several lands neighboring Eshirreol consider the Eshiroi to be strange and unnatural yet also entertaining and honorable, many a northern saga has an Eshiroi character who acts as comic relief or an eccentric but steadfast friend. Others nurse bitter grudges over past cruelties inflicted by the Songthanes and for the Eshiroi slaying their ancestors for the sake of an interesting story. Some consider the Eshiroi less than human for the wyld-blood that they bear, claiming they have no souls and sell stolen human infants to the Raksha. Whitewall, Gethamane, and the Icewalkers have always considered the Eshiroi to be spiritually unclean, disdainful of their connection to the wyld. Pneuma in particular sees the Eshiroi as blasphemies against the Perfected Hierarchy, though the archaic broad-brimmed tall hat favored by Pneuman and Cheraki bureaucrats has been inexplicably popular among Eshiroi women of all ranks.
Eshirreol exports many exotic goods that can be found nowhere else or are otherwise difficult to find in the north, taking advantage of the Black Shale Road. Eshiroi caravans range as far Medo and even Rajtul, and ships from Grieve and Pneuma carry the goods further still. Wanderlust is a common(or encouraged) trait in Songthanes and young Hearthcaerls, and Eshiroi mercenaries range across the North, motivated by glory as much as by jade.
Though their imperial days are past, raiding has persisted throughout Eshiroi history. Eshirreol's proximity to the Black Shale Road, control over several mountain passes, and the general realities of living in the North made the practice habitual, though the Realm has taken efforts to suppress this.
The Vraj are distant descendants of a Varajtul horde that ravaged the mountains. They form small clans in mountain cave strongholds and were once vassals and boon-companions to the Eshiroi. They now look down upon their former allies, viewing them as weaklings for capitulating to the Realm. An agent of the Silver Pact has taken note of the Vraj, and has made plans to wield them as a weapon against the Dragon-Blooded.
The Snow Lizard, Musk Deer, and Golden Rhino Icewalker tribes inhabit the lowlands southeast of Eshirreol. Though they and the Eshiroi share distant ancestors, the two groups despise each other. The Icewalkers and their totem spirits revile the wyld influenced highlanders as demons, while the Eshiroi consider the Icewalker tribes to have only animal souls.
Northwest of Eshirreol is the fortress-city of Taloristan, ruled by mesmerist sorcerers who once served Bagrash Köl. Ageless, they practice bizarre austerities and etiquette to extend their lives, reigning as the immortal aristocracy over a city of worshipful thralls. They are normally isolationist, content to away they years with elaborate protocol and meaningless intrigue, but now they read omens of a time of great upheaval, of chaos that might disrupt the rituals that make them immortal. They send demon servants and enthralled mortals into the Black Shale Mountains and Road to slay or abduct individuals they believe will threaten their ageless eternity.
The nomadic Belintane chamois-centaur people occasionally range through Eshiroi lands, and trade furs and salt for bronze weapons. They regularly ignore satrapy borders and customs officials, and as such are considered smugglers by the Realm.
The luminescent gold-skinned Laxhe people dwell atop mountains high in the Black Shale range, kept warm by their own inner fires. They claim to have descended to Creation from a second, wyld-born sun in the distant past. The believe that many suns once existed in the skies above Creation, and that the current sun consumed them all as fuel within its flames.
The Tselnoroi Wolf-folk inhabit the mountains northeast of Eshirreol. Their lands are too remote for the Realm to take notice, so they have evaded conquest. The Realm might have thought otherwise if it had known of their vast cave cities and caches of First Age artifacts, including a minor doomsday device whose inner spirit is worshipped as god, so as to keep it docile.
Eshiroi enclaves exist outside of Eshirreol. The term "Eshiroi" can in fact be used to describe a number of wyld tribal groups and peoples across the North, particularly in the Black Shale Mountains and the White Sea's southern coast, but also in wyld-zones in places as distant as Rajtul and the Wasting Tundra. A few clans even wandered as far south as Nexus, arriving in the Scavenger Lands through a series of increasingly fantastical and absurd events. All extant enclaves outside of Eshirreol claim to have been visited by one of the Errants who taught them how to live outside their homelands.
Before their conquest by the Realm, the Eshiroi were friendly with Aum-Ashatra the Spider King. Several clans fled north to his lands after the conquest, and while they do not reside within the Spider King's mountain, they view the Lunar as a living god and do his bidding in parts of the Black Shale Mountains.
Dramatis Personae
Satrap Sesus Laral, manipulative, calculating, and regal, has overseen the satrapy of Eshirreol for fifteen years. The water aspect inherited the position from her aunt, who was satrap for four decades. While familiar enough with the Eshiroi to be acclimatized to and even enjoy some of their customs, she doesn't necessarily respect them. She expects deference to the Realm (and more importantly, to House Sesus) from the Eshiroi, and is not averse to setting them against each other to distract them from her House's abuse. She has taken the Sacral-Prince as a paramour, and while she does not truly love him in a romantic sense, she is fond of him as a conquest. She is less manipulative towards her precocious half-Eshiroi daughter, and has trouble reigning in her affection towards the child.
Ledaal Perah, Third Cry of the Contrite, and Steadfast Catalyn are the Grandmaster-Generals of The Knights of the Dragon Upon the Gate, a martial order founded specifically to police Eshirreol for blasphemy, administer the local Immaculates, and slay wyld monsters and the undead.
Ledaal Perah, a young newcomer appointed by the Mouth of Peace, is horrified by the Eshiroi, seeing nothing more than unruly children in need of a mother's stern control. The Air Aspect does her hardest to convince the Eshiroi to abandon their "false histories" and "barbaric superstitions" under the belief that she is truly acting in their best interests.
Exigent of an eastern god of physicians and spiritual purity, Third Cry's unthreatening appearance, patience, and tolerance for differing viewpoints makes the Eshiroi slightly more trusting of him. He makes for a terrifyingly effective inquisitor and monster hunter when necessary however, as many a violent outlaw or wyld-spawned abomination has learned.
The most influential Grandmaster-General, Earth Aspected Steadfast Catalyn is a veteran of several campaigns, including a six year tour on the Caul where she lost an eye and her hearth, but took the lives of ten moon-touched guerillas and the life of their Lunar father in turn. She is a living legend and war hero among monks and dynasts alike. She is also an Iselsi sleeper agent, as are several of the officers in the Dragonknights, subtly undermining both House Sesus and Ledaal Perah, while secretly harboring heresies of their own.
An overworked scion of Pasiap, Commander Ragara Sakar oversees the local garrison, periodically clashing with the officers who do their best to undermine him on Satrap Laral's behalf, as well as the monks and dragonknights who habitually ignore his jurisdiction. Another chronic headache were the periodic stopovers in Eshirreol by various legion detachments for rest and resupply, though this has diminished somewhat since the Empress disappeared. He has orders to burn as many food stores as he can if the Realm is forced out of Eshirreol by rebellion.
Sacral-Prince Bjeorning Sindol exalted as a fire aspect thirteen years ago, becoming the warrior ideal of many a northern culture. He has an innocent, almost unintentional charisma that belies a tendency to go berserk in battle. His relative inexperience and straightforward nature have made him a useful catspaw to House Sesus. Sindol is infatuated with Satrap Laral, who helped him master his essence when he first exalted.
Goat-footed and fox-tailed, Prince Aethlreon Daenu exalted as a wood aspect forty years ago and travelled to the Blessed Isle to learn more of her homeland's rulers, touring Dynastic society as a performer and artist. She expected to find monstrosity (and to an extent, she did), but mostly she saw people, living their lives as circumstances permitted. She doesn't hate the Realm, not as a whole, but nor does she turn a blind eye to its abuses. She used the exotic novelty of her own existence to build a few connections among the Dynasty, and she has called on some of those ties to oppose the satrap's abuse.
Prince Isilidan Khunal is the only Prince among the Elden Clans to be a traditional Songthane. A soft spoken giant of a man, his mercantile nature made him a natural ally to House Sesus, leveraging those connections to secure lucrative trade deals for Clan Isilidan. Now, with House Sesus squeezing the satrapy and his clan's profit margins more and more, his friendship with the Realm has turned to bile. He has begun to entertain secretive offers from House Sesus' enemies in the Dynasty, particularly House Nellens. Once he has what he wants from Nellens, he plans to sell them out in turn to the Iselsi agents who approached him first.
Winter Ermine is an Eshiroi Outcaste who was taken to Pasiap's Stair as a child years ago, shortly after the submission to the Realm. Adopting an unorthodox sorcerous approach to warfare, the air aspect nonetheless rose to the rank of Dragonlord in the Imperial Legions, a month before the Empress disappeared. She has since been stripped of her rank and discharged by House Cathak. Once a die-hard Realm loyalist, she now holds back cold rage at the Dynasty that used her only to cast her aside. Having returned to Eshirreol in search solace, she finds herself an outsider in the land of her birth. She might find common cause with the disgruntled clans connected to Eshirreol's many outlaws and revolutionaries, were she to overcome decades of Realm conditioning.
Thane Divathi Mors quested in the wyld three years ago and became something more than a mere Songthane. His command of essence far outstrips that of other Songthanes, and he receives visions claiming that he is one of the Dream-Souled, Chosen of the Wyld. Though the extent of his power is safely hidden from the Realm by the Clan Divathi council, he secretly fears that the Wyld has driven him mad.
Sonjul Bolk is the elderly grandmaster of the Herald's Society and one of the most respected mortal martial artists in the middle north. His society's runners carry messages throughout the Black Shale Road and Mountains, taught to defend themselves by Bolk's apprentices. He regularly collaborates with the Immaculate Order to organize martial arts tournaments for mortals.
Thrice-Tiger is an enigmatic and absurd character, wandering around in a baggy, one piece garment made from the sewn skins of three different tigers. Excitable and strange even to Eshiroi eyes, she claims to be many things, Living Goddess, Priestess of All-Knowing Nishkriya, Honorary Princess of the Scorpion Empire, and Queen-Stepmother of the Tall-Talkers. Most write her off as a harmless mad transient, but she has displayed uncanny power and knowledge at times.
Intrigues and Mysteries
The defeat of the Tepet Legions was felt in loudly Eshirreol, many more Eshiroi now dream of casting out the Realm and ruling themselves once again. The Satrapy had always had a robust society of insurgents and other revolutionaries, but House Sesus was careful to put them down with regularity. Now, House Sesus turns its eye towards the prospect of civil war on the Blessed Isle, and is far less attentive than it used to be. Insurgent cells now swell with new recruits and support from Songthanes.
The year before the Empress disappeared, the imperial garrison cracked down on the revolutionary Red Cloud Society. Many were hauled off into slavery while others were imprisoned in gulags on the shores of Eshirreol's Lake Sado. One night, a shamaness in one of the prisons cried out to anyone, anything for salvation and the Dead Things of the Abyss answered her. The walking dead slew all within save the newly exalted Deathknight, who walked into the Underworld to train under The Shining One. She has since left the region to spread the Word of The Neverborn across Creation, but the shores of the lake now possess a small shadowland connected to The Labyrinth itself.
Songthanes Knights once went to war at the head of great armies of short-lived goblin-things, shaped from the wyld by Eshiroi savants using a ritual called the Goblin-Calling-Way. Knowledge of the process was heavily censored in the years after Eshirreol's surrender, and none now claim to know the ritual to create the goblin hordes. Ragara Sakar has been quietly searching for information on the Goblin-Calling-Way under orders from Ragara himself.
Some Eshiroi are descended not from the ancient peoples of the late Shogunate, but from migrations of entities from the wyld that abandoned their protean existence and became part of Creation. Having cast off their faerie nature and embraced the joys and sorrows mortality, the descendants of such beings are fundamentally human and possess human souls, but their heritage sometimes flares up in the form of various supernatural occurrences and traits
Unbeknownst to the Realm, a behemoth sleeps beneath Lake Nanjorl. Zozimat, The Thousand Gale Wyrm, lies in a deep slumber, lulled by the wyld. The Immaculates have inadvertently disturbed it's slumber by interfering with the wyld energies of the lake. It now sleeps fitfully, causing tremors and rough weather around the lake as it awakens over the course of years. The Eshiroi know of the beast's legend, but believe it vanquished. It took countless Songthanes Knights and three of the Errants to seal it away in ages past.
Long ago, as the world before this one died of plague and crusade, the peoples of the Middle North suffered. They wandered across the vast and trackless wastes, starving and afraid, beset by The Dead and the followers of the Baleful Gaze. One such people, the Eshiroi, were particularly maligned, their homeland destroyed. They cried out to their heroes, but their heroes were sickened or dying. They cried out to the heavens, but the heavens were silent. They cried out to The Princes of the Earth, but the Princes of the Earth were dead and rotting. At last, they cried out for anyone, anything, to deliver them from their fate, and lo, their cries were finally answered. From the east, heralded by dreams and songs on the wind, came the Nine Errants. Skilled with lore and the blade in equal measure, they cowed the Eshiroi and formed a covenant with them; the Errants would lead the Eshiroi to safety and prosperity, and the Eshiroi would adore the legends of the Errants forevermore. The Errants led the Eshiroi west to a series of mountain valleys that had been devoured by the wyld. Leveraging their mythic power, The Errants slew the protean chaos and carved new lands from its corpse. Alpine lakes sprung into being, warmed by the blood of the earth and subtle currents of the wyld. Towering forests of cedar and pine dotted the mountainsides, filled with game. The lower valleys were covered with fields and meadows of sublime beauty. The Eshiroi looked upon their new home and saw that it was good. They ate of the land, and so became of the land. All worshipped the Nine Errants, who vanished into song and legend after their great working. The Eshiroi named their kingdom Eshirreol, "Refuge of The People", and became a modest power of the North, situated in the Black Shale mountains east of the Kunlun Desert and south of the White Sea.
For centuries, Eshirreol waxed and waned. For many of those years, the people were healthy, fed on harvests of crops that could grow nowhere else in the North. Its waters remained warm even in the harshest winters. The Eshiroi bathed in the lakes to receive their blessings, some granting luck, health, or fertility. Other Eshiroi found themselves granted wings, or scales, or other blessings. The greatest among the Eshiroi quested for power in the highest and most holy of the lakes, the Sixfold Springs, using lore taught to them by the Nine Errants to avoid the dangers of the wyld at the hearts of the waters. Those who returned from their quests with powers were dubbed the Songthanes, the Sacred Knights of Eshirreol. When barbarians came unto the valleys seeking plunder or blood, the Songthanes threw them back with wyld-touched magics. When the Eshiroi gazed upon their smaller neighbors with envy or when the fields could not yield enough crops, the Songthanes rode forth atop twisted goblin-beasts to demand tribute. During one brief period, they even controlled a large swathe of the Black Shale mountains as the Tall-Talker Empire before overextending and retreating back to their homelands. An era of recovery and re-examination followed. Though their civilization had fallen from its peak, Eshirreol prospered, and then, a century and a half ago, the Realm came.
At first, the war against the Realm went well for the Eshiroi. The initial Sesus assault broke like a sanguine wave upon the fortresses that guarded the passes into Eshirreol, their cunning spies deceived and enthralled by the spirits of the land. The Songthanes slew the Realm's vanguard and flooded the hinterlands with swarming goblin-slaves. The Eshiroi bargained with the Winter Folk to harry the Realm's supply trains and haunt the dreams of their soldiers. And then the Imperial Legions joined the fray and Eshirreol withered under their might. The Songthanes were outmatched by the Dragon-Blooded whenever they took to the field. The Realm's sorcerers laid blights and curses upon many of Eshirreol's sacred springs. Unbeknownst to both sides, the Star-Chosen in Yu-Shan wove dooms and terrible fates upon the Eshiroi to ensure their eventual defeat. After five years of bloody invasion, the Eshiroi sued for peace. The most cooperative of the Songthanes were allowed to retain their rank, the most resistant were publicly crucified. The Sesus Satrap, seething at the Eshiroi's defiance during the war, sought to break the peoples' spirits, inviting touring dynasts to frolic in springs once considered holy, gawk at the wyld-touched, and lust after at comely Eshiroi. The Scarlet Dynasty soon thought Eshirreol like prostrate An-Teng to the far south, and the Eshiroi to be a broken people fit for servitude. The Eshiroi seethed under their rulers, but they had sworn oaths of fealty and were loathe to break their word, and the more flexible among them still feared the jade-mailed fist of the legions. Now, with the Realm turned inward to squabbling over the Empress's throne, a spark of hope has ignited in Eshirreol.
The People of Eshirreol
The Eshiroi have long been considered eccentric by their neighbors. The blood of faerie runs in their veins, but so diluted as to leave them more or less human. Their raksha ancestry largely manifests in the form of mildly fae features, atypical imaginations, and Old Realm phrases in their local dialect of Skytongue. The average Eshiroi are pale skinned individuals of faintly northern stock, with black or brown hair. Eye color is typically peach-pink, amber-yellow, or orange. They bear features reminiscent of both Raksha and Hobgoblins; slightly pointed ears, long canines, short tusks, and small horn nubs on the forehead are common. Moles are also common and a broad set of superstitions exists around them based on their size, number, and location. Beastfolk bearing traits of sabretooth cats, goats, or mountain doves are common and considered unremarkable save for the most extreme cases of mutation. The Eshiroi do not consider appearance a particularly useful in-group identifier, and both mutant and mundane tribesmen freely mingle. A common stereotype neighboring peoples have of Eshiroi is that of a comely delicate-boned elfin individual married to a hulking brute with horns and fangs; this is an exaggeration in most cases.
The touch of the wyld in their homelands sometimes results in mutation. They regard wyld-mutations with a pragmatic bent, seeing many as boons and blessings, while careful to put down those turned mad by the wyld. Ever since the Realm interfered with much of Eshirreol's geomancy, these mutations have become less common. Their stance towards such deviations from the mortal form made them allies and trading partners to several otherwise ostracized wyld mutant and beastfolk cultures, though it has also alienated them from other "regular" mortals.
The Eshiroi would be considered odd by many Threshold cultures. They occasionally run on bizarre but otherwise sound trains of thought. They are gregarious and curious regarding foreigners, though this superficial amity does not necessarily translate into true friendship. Grudges form rarely between them, but when they do they are often taken to severe extremes. There is a large stigma on telling outright falsehoods and oath-breaking, though this simply means lying by omission and twisting the terms of a poorly worded agreements are more common. Odd taboos and superstitions exist, such as speaking in the third person during Calibration, building locked fence-gates with no fences near settlements, drawing a circle in the dirt around campsites, or giving children nicknames like Cruelty or Sloth under the belief the child will become the opposite of the phrase. Their local dialect of skytongue has several loanwords from Old Realm, and their vocabulary is considered bizarre by many (for example, they often use archaic phrasing, and the default pronoun is closer to "it" rather than "he/she/they" when compared to other skytongue dialects).
The Eshiroi are mildly resistant to the influence of the wyld-zones of their homeland. Debilitating mutations and other alterations do occur, but with less frequency than with normal humans. This resistance normally does not apply to any wyld zone outside of the Eshiroi homelands, though emigrant enclaves often display a similar affinity for other wyld zones.
The primary social unit of the Eshiroi is the clan or tribe, an extended family (often connected by fictive kinship) of about 200-400 individuals. When a clan becomes too large, it may splinter into two clans or some of its members may marry into smaller clans. Property may belong to a clan or to a household within a clan. Households within a clan may be neighbors or live in completely different valleys. Semi-hereditary ranks exist within a given clan. In ascending order, they are Caerl(equivalent to a commoner), Steadcaerl(landowners and merchants), Hearthcaerl(nobility who venture into the Bordermarches to gather exotic materials) , and Songthane (sacred knights who quest into the Middlemarches and beyond). Individuals are generally born to their rank, but upward and downward mobility are both possible. Inheritance is usually matrilineal, except when an individual marries someone of higher rank, in which case the lower-ranked spouse and any offspring become part of the higher-ranked household. The Songthane rank was originally acquired exclusively through wyld-questing merit, though House Sesus has tried to make it hereditary(so as to discourage overly ambitious wyld-questing), with mixed success, resulting in individuals referred to simply as "Thanes" who exist somewhere between Hearthcaerl and Songthane.
Each clan or tribe has a sacred lodge, wherein its various rituals(such as ennoblement and coming of age) take place and the clan's history is recorded. Clans are led by a council of Hearthcaerls, Songthanes, and an elected representatives from the young adults and elders of its Steadcaerls. Each clan also has a Prince, a Songthane elected by the council to lead in matters of war and ritual and preside over the council. Clans without Songthanes have a triumvirate of Hearthcaerls in place of a Prince. Conflicts within clans are settled by either Hearthcaerl arbitration or highly ritualized combat. Disputes between clans are settled by a council of Hearthcaerls and Songthanes from all nearby clans, with lawyer being a common profession for Hearthcaerls. When clan conflict escalates into outright warfare, as determined by the law and season, the victor may take the losing clan as a vassal for a set number of years(determined by a variety of factors). Vassal-Clans may also be acquired by various rituals and economic agreements. The terms of Eshirreol's submission to the Realm were couched as analogous to vassalage, though House Sesus is far more controlling than is the norm for Regnant-Clans.
Tradesman, scholastic, and warrior societies cross clan boundaries, with many receiving donations from clan leadership due to the vital nature of their services. The Herald's Society delivers messages even across treacherous mountain roads and often teaches self-defense to the relatives of its members, the Young Flower Poets share literature and poetry from outside Eshirreol, while the rangers of the Killdeer Society keep the local carnivorous deer population down
Prior to the coming of the Realm, each clan officially included a variety of spirits, fae, and other wyld entities as members, who were considered blood kin by law and occupied a variety of roles and ranks. The satrap has since forced them to cut legal ties with their otherworldly relatives, and driven the inhuman tribesmen into the wilderness, but the tangled web of kinship still exists informally. Sorting out incidents involving tribesmen while avoiding offending powerful relatives(human or otherwise) and leads to no small headache for the occupiers.
Eshirreol's government has varied throughout its history but the current regime is a triumvirate of three small but powerful Elden Clans, whose combined council is presided over by a Sacral-Prince elected from one of their Songthanes. Some Songthanes and Hearthcaerls are now rightfully reviled by the people, others try to limit the Realm's power and are loved for it. All other clans are considered vassals to the Elden Clans, who in turn are vassals of the Realm and House Sesus. The vassal clans also send advisors to the Songthanes of the Elden Clans. In the past, the Sacral-Prince was primarily a ceremonial and tiebreaker role, though Sesus satrap has pressured the Sacral-Prince(whom she has secretly taken as a lover) to exert greater control, so as to dilute the power of the factions in the council opposed to Realm control. As part of the terms of surrender, the three eld-clans have adopted or married a few patricians, outcastes, and cadet house members, and they are in the process of working towards Cadet House status.
Elden Clan Bjeorning(from whom the current Sacral Prince comes from) enthusiastically sends janissaries to fight in far away locales for the Sesus Legions, and House Sesus has taken steps to increase recruitment among the clan's youth in preparation for the expected civil war on the Isle. Bjeorning braves also act as deniable assets for House Sesus in the satrapies of neighboring Houses. Bjeornings returning home from such excursions often express disillusionment to their family, so House Sesus has begun to keep the clan auxiliaries away from home for longer than usual.
Elden Clan Isilidan owns large herds of Smith-Oxen in mountain pastures, and has grown wealthy from selling their meat and the wool. The clan's smiths have produced a modest number of artifacts over the years, such as the Lead Skull Lanterns, the Hide of The Brazen Akryung, and the Mace-That-Eats-Your-Enemies-Alive. The clan also has many households of thaumaturges who specialize in making minor wonders. They send several trading caravans to Grieve and Medo each year. The clansmen were initially neutral to well-disposed towards the Realm, but now grumble as House Sesus requisitions more and more of its thaumaturges.
Elden Clan Aethlreon was allowed to stay in power because of its staunch devotion to stability and because it considered vassalage to the Realm a more harmonious existence than being ground under the Empress' heel. The Songthanes of the clan are renowned diplomats and peacemakers, and many try their best to limit the Realm's depredations.
Officials from the numerous, so-called "Northern Colonies" on the Inland Sea's coast are prominent in the Realm's presence in Eshirreol, but are usually lumped in with those from the Blessed Isle proper by most locals, even if they technically outnumber them. The relationship that the Eshiroi have with these Northern Colonials is deeply ambivalent, as they comprise much of the satrapial bureaucracy, immaculate presence, and imperial garrison, but cultural exchange between Eshirreol and their homelands occurred long before becoming a satrapy. The Elden Clans have intermarried heavily with members of cadet houses on the coast, as have several thanes and hearthcaerls from wealthier tribes.
Realm citizens and visitors from satrapies closer to the Inland Sea have long sired children upon the Eshiroi. Long viewed as legacies of the Realm occupation, these half-Eshiroi are subject to varying levels of distrust by both the Wan of the Realm and the Eshiroi themselves. The Elden Clans, due to their marriages with Patricians and other Cadet Houses, produce many of these children and treat them as full members of the clans, though many other clans resent the half-blooded children, viewing them as constant reminders of occupation. Non-Elden Clan members who exalt are typically taken to Pasiap's Stair or taken in by the Immaculate Order, as the Realm is hesitant to let such an aberrant satrapy gain exalts who are not part of the imperial apparatus.
Due to the Eshiroi clans' devotion to their regularly sworn oaths of obeisance, Eshirreol is less unruly than one might expect from a satrapy of wyld-touched. This obedience only goes so far however; the Eshiroi focus on the letter of the agreement, not the spirit, when it comes to the Realm. The Eshiroi habitually resist or twist any attempts to "civilise" them or bring them in line with other satrapies. The Realm is quick and brutal to crack down on any overt rebellion, but House Sesus' intelligence network in the region is overworked at the best of times. The garrison relies heavily on Immaculate monks and martial orders to supplement its activities. Revolutionaries who slip through the net usually turn to brigandry.
The Songthane Knights
The traditional role of the Songthane Knight is to slay dangerous aberrations from the wyld and quest into the Middlemarches in search of artifacts and resources. Before the coming of the Realm, Songthanes were expected to negotiate with particularly unruly spirits and lead during wartime. It is the role of wyld-questing specialist that prevents the Realm from fully suppressing the Songthane rank, as the spoils they harvest are vital to the Satrapy's annual tribute.
To become a Songthane knight, a mortal normally must quest into one of the Sixfold Springs after passing numerous trials and undergoing ritual purification. They must then return with some form of strange power and pass examinations for any spiritual taint. For the vast majority of Songthanes, this manifests as a sorcerous initiation and an innate resistance to wyld shaping. The acquisition of one or more supernatural merits is also nearly universal. Martial arts are not unheard of, Dreaming Pearl Courtesan Style and Laughing Monster Style being popular in Eshiroi legends. Elder or powerful Songthanes may develop charms that call on their clan legends, though this is rare. Many can be found abroad, serving as mercenaries, bards, or occultists for a time to build a legend of their own. It is not uncommon for them to live longer than normal, though almost none live past a century.
Since the coming of the Realm, the term "Thane" has arisen to describe those who have legal status above that of Hearthcaerl but do not meet the ritual and magical criteria of a traditional Songthane.
The Lay of the Land
Eshirreol comprises several mountain valleys and passes in the central and eastern Black Shale Mountain range. The valleys and lower mountains are often warmer than one would expect for their altitude, though the higher mountains are often even more frigid than normal and sometimes winds swept down from them can ruin harvests. Many alpine lakes and countless hot-springs dot the land and are considered sacred by the Eshiroi. Some are much larger than one would expect, the land's convoluted geography bending space ever so slightly. The most sacred bodies of water are the Sixfold Springs, clearwater lakes high in the mountains, which have unique wyld zones in their centers.The wyld has touched the region, and though it is not a true wyld zone overall, it contains many small ones within its borders. Wyld energies permeate the lakes and larger springs, and the surrounding areas often display strange flora, fauna, and geography. Weird, sometimes eerie rock formations such as stone trees, grinning statues, and basalt stairways dot the mountains, and boulders that move when nobody is around are a common occurrence in the valleys. Stone faces grow out of cliff sides while some mountains have perfectly flat tops. Most of the lakes and springs are freshwater, though exceptions such as cold springs of rice whiskey and alkaline lakes exist. The Eshiroi inhabit the parts of the region where the wyld energies are mildest. Dangerous areas where the wyld is stronger are heavily marked with ritual pillars, torii-gateways, and warding talismans. The lakes and springs are visited often, but even they have danger areas marked with sacred pillars and rope. The Eshiroi sometimes enter the wyld zones to perform ritual behavior and harvest exotic resources. House Sesus and the Immaculate Order control access to many of these areas, and in a few cases have purposefully or accidentally destroyed them.
The primary form of settlement is towns, though a few small cities exist. Settlements are typically near sources of water or in mountain passes. Housing is primarily made of wood and stone, with the roof being shingled with shale. The otherwise drab brown and grey exteriors are often accented with brightly colored abstract runic designs and cloth banners. Monasteries exist higher in the mountains. Roads and bridges built by the Tall-Talker Empire wind throughout the region, though many have fallen into disrepair.
The wyld makes the ecosystem highly varied. The Eshiroi farm hardy tubers, barley, cabbage, maize, and a form of iridescent rice on terraced fields (a product of the defunct Tall-Talker Empire). Households often keep small garden plots where they grow fruits, hot peppers, and mushrooms.
More exotic flora are also present. Some meadows have grass that is blood-red or maroon instead of green. A form of edible mandrake is a common crop in the regions, and is characterized by a quiet whine when buried (whole fields of them are usually located away from residential areas). The wild growing alpine barometz is a giant cotton-like plant whose flower grows into the shape a sheep and tastes like crab. One in ten opal cherries has a semiprecious gemstone instead of a regular cherry pit. The carmain cedar's trunk has a core that can be ground into a different type of spice depending on the tree's age. The lambent ash tree loses its leaves in the winter and instead has wisps of scarlet fire at the tips of its branches, while the what-willow's strip-like branches have an outdated legal code of distant Ysyr written on them. A species of giant truffle grows into the shape of late shogunate furniture, while the savants of Clan Divathi reside in towers grown from giant mushrooms. Some plants are carnivorous, hazardous, or otherwise deadly, such impweed and the dreaded wandering dervish-root.
The fauna is equally varied. The Eshiroi herd smith-oxen, whose metallic wool can be woven into armored cloth, in the mountain pastures. Great coops of giant pigeons are kept and used to make squab. Mundane sheep and goats are also kept by poorer families. A type of carnivorous deer lives in the forests and menaces livestock and mundane deer alike. Semi-civilised buck-ogres and rare unicorns inhabit the forests, while snow-leopard or tiger-based manticores haunt the mountain passes.
The uninhabited areas where the wyld is strong have stranger animals, beasts of living ice or porcelain with tea or medicine for blood, macaques who dress like Shogunate bureaucrats, the wicker-loper, whose limbs are carved sticks and whose body is a leather sack filled with stones, its relative the trove-hulk, whose face is a wooden mask and whose hollow bear-skin body contains casks of treasure, and the destructive Frumious Jyadderoth, whose body is a small orca tied to four large wolves (who serve as limbs) by giant snakes (who serve as the beast's heads). Packs of feral hobgoblins also roam the mountains, and obey odd taboos such as deference to grandmothers. The more exotic fauna and flora have become rarer since the Realm's arrival, either from overexploitation or from interference with the local geomancy.
Places of Note
Vedruseon is the captial of Eshirreol and residence of the Satrap and Cadet House Eld. Known as the Gatehouse City, it guards a major mountain pass, built up around an immense fortress-wall at the terminus of the valley. A relic of the Tall-Talker Empire, the walls are enchanted with self awareness, the monstrous faces on the city gates and walls talking with passersby, often asking questions about how traveler's journeys were and offering advice about the best places to eat and drink. The surrounding mountains are carved almost entirely with terraces where rice and maize grow.
Lake Bysul is one of the largest valley lakes in Eshirreol and frequented by many Eshiroi for both ritual and recreational bathing. Warm even in winter, with hotsprings upon the shores, the waters teem with life both mundane and fantastical. Torii gates and buoys marking the lake's wyld zones dot the surface. Great bearded serpents dwell in the depths, emerging when the moon is waning to read the stars. Dynasts have slain them for sport in the past, but they each lay a curse upon whomever kill them, misfortune befalling three generations of the killer's family.
The Sixfold Springs reside high in the mountains, the paths leading to them covered in wayshrines and ritual sites. Each lake is unique and obviously supernatural, having a wyld-demesne within their depths. Entering the wyld zones is a transformative experience, the zones leading to Deep Marches divergent even from the rest of the Wyld, places touched by the Shinma. The trails leading to the lakes are now heavily patrolled by Immaculate Monks, who slay anyone approaching without satrapial approval (and they are suspicious and disapproving of even those with permission).
Lake Sado is an alkaline body of water that is considered taboo to approach by the Eshiroi. A number of prisons and work camps are nearby, taking advantage of the local superstition to sequester the dissidents and heretics that plague Eshirreol and nearby satrapies (and cater to the habits of the more unsavory dynasts in Houses Sesus and Cynis).
Irjae Vale is one of the major sites of wyld-questing Eshirreol, a place where Hearthcaerls and Songthanes perform the quests to bring back treasures like figurines that grow into mortal infants when planted in the ground and boxes containing a day's worth of warm weather. Nearby lies the immense body of the wyld-touched elemental called Haelint the Glacierlord.
Lying in a mountain pass that was site of countless battlest, the Ileon Fields teem with vivid flowers and occupy a breathtaking vista, yet the area always seems to make folk uneasy. The flowers are so vivid that they make everything else feel muted, the vista so breathtaking that some end up gasping for air. Inexplicable dread crawls up the spines of newcomers like an icy centipede. The unnerving place would be a modest shadowland were it not for the near constant rites performed there to prevent just such an occurrence. Even with such measures, people sometimes see their own dead bodies staring at them from amongst the flowers, gazing blindly into eternity.
Eshiroi Religion
Prior to the Realm's conquest, all Eshiroi worshipped the Nine Errants in some capacity. Storytelling and theatre are considered a form of worship and Eshiroi holy texts often incorporate sagas and songs. Every clan has a set of personal histories and tales, with clan members of the past taking on the role of beloved hero or equally beloved villain, the histories kept and recorded as living documents by skaldic-priests of the Hearthcaerl rank. A common theme within Eshiroi religion is conflicting concepts such as love and hate or life and death not being considered contradictory.
In addition to sagas and the Nine Errants, various land spirits are propitated (though not necessarily revered in all cases). The local spirits are often wyld-touched (some were spat out fully formed by the wyld) and as such have odd domains or mindset. For example there is a god of brigands whose domain also includes scholastic pursuits, the local disease spirits disdain regular forms of worship and consider the healers who work against them to be their devoted priests, and a good number of fertility and field spirits are dualistic beings who demand the sacrifice of animals or the bloodletting of humans in exchange for gifts of life. The local wyld-touched elementals fiercely defend their turf against elementals from outside the region. In addition to native terrestrial gods, various spirits associated with Luna are often worshipped or otherwise feature into cult canon or clan sagas, as do apocryphal figures and concepts such as the Cosmic Scorpion and the Crusader of the Eye.
Eshiroi attitudes towards death are varied. Different clans and cults have different opinions. By default, they believe in reincarnation, but believe it to be utterly random, amoral, or impersonal. Some Eshiroi linger after death and are worshipped as ancestor-deities, though this usually depends on an especially strong force of will or fame in life. Some worship gods who promise to turn them into lesser spirits after death. Other Eshiroi choose to offer their soul to the Raksha, or a dark god, or the wyld itself if they wish to die with finality. This last option is not stigmatized, but it is expected to be a deep and purely personal decision, not a path chosen for others.
While all Eshiroi are allowed to worship the Nine Errants in some capacity, some forms of worship are considered appropriate only for select ranks or clans. Types of clergy are also separated by rank. Caerls and Steadcaerls primarily worship minor nature spirits and elementals, Hearthcaerls and Songthanes are usually inducted into rank-exclusive mystery cults of more powerful terrestrial deities. Conversely, while a Caerl shamaness is not allowed to initiate into the mystery cult of a higher spirit or powerful ancestor, she is considered to have greater authority than a Hearthcaerl skaldic-priest when negotiating with a minor elemental, mischievous goblin-spirit, or bloodthirsty field god.
The wyld is seen as a sacred otherworld, sustainer and destroyer, good and evil. It must be treated with respect and caution. It is a place apart from time, it is nowhere and every-when. The nature of the local wyld is taught to all Eshiroi, as are time tested methods for surviving its caress. When entering the wyld, Eshiroi take upon the role of famous heroes, villains, or other mythic figures. They hew closely to the legends they impersonate, for deviation brings uncertainty, and in the wyld, uncertainty can bring something worse than death. A man harvesting the Ruby Maize of Yngkeot must pretend to be Yngkeot, he must wear a pick-axe at his side, he must have a coonskin hat, and he must have a keepsake from a loved one so he remembers to return home, for all were things that the Songthane Yngkeot had on his person when he first harvested the Ruby Maize and returned to found Clan Yngkeoting. It is possible to diverge from a tale and survive unscathed, but staying within the confines of a myth is the easiest way to minimize the hazards of the local wyld. The Eshiroi adulthood initiation rite is a similar, but much safer re-enactment of a clan legend, as are various lesser rites in areas near but not part of the wyld. Similar ritual behavior accompanies the transformative baptismal practices in the sacred lakes and springs.
The Immaculate Order has tried to use the hierarchical tiers of worship in Eshiroi folk religion to steer the Eshiroi towards an orthodox understanding of the Perfected Hierarchy, but this has seen mixed results. The Eshiroi simply incorporate the Immaculate Dragons into pre-existing tales and insist they have always been there, twisting the Dragons into heretical caricatures. Sextes Jylis is a vicious bandit and defender of the poor, Mela lures people into the killing cold and gives them revelation that is worth risking one's life or sanity for, Danaad and Hesiesh both love and hate each other, Pasiap jealously guards a hoard of cursed treasure, and so on. Immaculate monks attempt to teach orthodoxy with kind words and stern firsts, but when they tell cautionary tales about the Antitheses, they find the Inconsiderate Horseman and Unworthy Babbler featuring in the next week's rendition of "How Ismark stole the Devil's Kimchi" at the local tavern.
Compounding the Order's troubles is the vitality of Eshiroi practices such as wyld-questing to the harvest of exotic goods that the Realm covets. Hearthcaerls and Songthanes who quest in the traditional fashion always seem to bring back greater hauls than those who adhere to Immaculate orthodoxy, and have a lower incidence of mutation besides. The Empress encouraged monks and martial orders to watch Eshirreol closely to dissuade rebellion, but placed limits on the extent to which they could police the lucrative wyld-questing that brought the Realm there in the first place. Veteran monks usually accept that the Eshiroi will likely never be more than a heterodox people, but newcomers often fail to realize this.
The Nine Errants
A studious savant could easily deduce that the Nine Errants were raksha nobles. Their tale is far stranger than most however. Nine powerful nobles of the Balorian Crusade grew bored with the destruction of all Creation, and sought to amuse themselves using the desperate mortals. Stealing a minuscule fragment of the Ishiika, the Grass Cutter Scythe of Balor, they deserted the Crusade, riding far ahead of their former compatriots and laughing all the while. They came upon the Eshiroi and first sought to turn them into their larder, to feast upon their souls until the world finally ended. It was when they came upon the tainted lands that would become Eshirreol when they became more than they were. The fears of the Eshiroi and other tribes of the middle north had bled into the local wyld and turned it poisonous. When the Errants sought to tame the wyld zone, it instead spat forth a terror that shook them to the core, one of the first and greatest of the hannya. The desperate raksha were nearly destroyed, but as they began to know true despair for the first time, they noticed the hopes and dreams of the Eshiroi filling them with determination. The Eshiroi believed the Errants would prevail, and the Errants devoted all their beings to fulfilling that belief. Exhausting all the power of their stolen fragment of the Ishiika, the Errants managed to slay the hannya and carve Eshirreol from its corpse.
Feted by the Eshiroi as true heroes, the Errants decided to defend their worshippers, if at first only to feast on their dreams with regularity. With time however, the Errants began to love what they had built, for it was founded on true struggle and effort, not from the easy narratives they conjured up in the wyld. As the wyld-powers of the Errants subtly changed the Eshiroi, so too did the Eshiroi change the Errants. The inexplicable quality of humanity to captivate and enthrall the Raksha took root. They ate mortal food, took mortal lovers, fought beside them, laughed and wept with them. Eshirreol is the tale of the Errants now, from now until eternity, so long as a scrap of it continues to exist. Anything otherwise would mean the "death" of the Errants.
The Hearthcaerls and Songthanes know their patron deities are Raksha, and it is an open secret even among the faithful of lower ranks. This is not to mean that the Eshiroi worship, or even like, all Raksha. The ordinary Winter Folk are viewed with cynical distrust, and most historical deals between them and the Eshiroi were formed largely out of self-interest, enlightened or otherwise, on both sides. Anything more than transactional worship of Raksha not affiliated with the Nine Errants is deemed perverse apostasy among orthodox Eshiroi. The Nine Errants are, in Eshiroi parlance, "The Good Fae", not because they are paragons of morality or benevolence, but because they taught the Eshiroi how to survive in the wake of the Contagion and Crusade. The Immaculate Order has tried to suppress the worship of the Errants, but tales of them are so tightly woven into Eshiroi culture that these efforts usually only apply to overt worship. While they can tear down their temples and even burn clan histories, the monks can do little about the countless nursery rhymes, colloquialisms, and campfire tales that they feature into.
Now, with their beloved descendants chained to the yoke of the Realm, the Errants are conflicted. Though they are uniquely mighty among the Tribes of Faerie, all fear reprisals from the Realm and the prospect of being discovered and slain by Immaculates or by the Chosen of the Maidens(whose existence they intuited over the course of centuries).
The Maroon Sultan is in fact an identity assumed by the countless miniscule hobgoblin valets of a now dead Raksha of the same name. Scrambling to cover up the death of their master, they piled atop each other and swathed themselves in the Sultan' flowing maroon robes and veil, and in doing so incarnated the dead lord. They believe that they must wait out the storm of the Realm's occupation, that the Eshiroi should deal with the Dynasty with a fake smile and a well hidden(and preferably serrated) dagger for when it shows weakness. They hold a copy of Eshirreol's terms of submission, and have found several loopholes to exploit when the time is right.
The Princess Rampant, also called the Tiger Footed-Bride, is one of the principal war and fertility deities of the Eshiroi. Appearing as an athletic young woman with lower legs akin to those of a tiger and a snake for a tail, she has taken countless lovers (and willing victims) from the Eshiroi and many claim descent from her. She silently rages at the smirking prey-things from Creation's center. She now searches the Wyld for the path to true apotheosis so that she may set Eshirreol as the crown jewel of her diadem, to watch in safety as she ravages all Creation.
The Ragged Unicorn Knight, the other principal war deity of the Eshiroi, appears as a headless armored rider atop an iridescent black unicorn. The unicorn is the true raksha, while the rider is merely its squire. When necessary, it takes the form of a unicorn headed man, the metal squire reshaping itself to fit its master's form. It treats with adventurers, outcastes, and mercenaries across the Middle North, recruiting them for a variety of endeavors in Creation and the Wyld.
Basalt Crown is a hermaphroditic being carved entirely of stone. Where a mortal would have a domed skull, the Errant has an ornate crown-like crest, encircling a small pool of whiskey that grants inspiration to whomever Basalt Crown lets drink from it. They are a patron of alchemists and wear armor made from occult tomes.
Rakish Soulaka, with his Bonsai Staff and Swellow-Wing-Cloak, appears as either as a beautiful aquiline youth or great muscular bear of a man, always with feathered ears. He traded his left hand for knowledge of sorcery and now bears a simulacra of living crystal in its place. He periodically visits Eshiroi households in disguise, teaching them about the world outside and the natural laws of Creation and beyond, and has many paramours across the North. Once jolly and suave, he now conceals immense anxiety as he attempts to counteract the potentially disastrous alterations the Immaculates have done to the local geomancy.
Estaliel, the Exile Child, appears to be an angelic young girl with metallic gold hair. She has a too-large winged helmet and a ragged chainmail vest, both of which she claims to have belonged to her dead father, a long lost hero of faerie. Disguised as mundane waif, she walks among the Eshiroi, swiping food from market stalls, disrupting the peace, and engaging general youthful mischief. When caught by an Eshiroi during one of her pranks, she tearfully apologizes to her "auntie and/or uncle" and empties the contents of her coinpurse to the wronged party, revealing a small golden nugget. She also rules over several bands of vicious outlaws and revolutionaries.
Nine-Fingered Nakala and her husband, Marius of the Crooked Shoulders, reside in the House of Cedar and Flint, high in the mountains. The manse can usually only be found during blizzards and the couple welcomes travelers to stay and engage in revelry with their household and other guests. Any breach of hospitality by the guests is met with, at best, expulsion into the snowstorm, with much darker fates for more serious offenders. Even mortal enemies behave themselves in the House, lest Auntie Nakala and Uncle Marius serve them as a meal. Nine Fingered Nalakala appears as a striking women of middle age, her back having a hollow from which nine, bladed, spider-like limbs can emerge. Marius appears as horned, hunchbacked older man in finery, borne by a living throne of countless rats, a curmudgeonly scowl belying his good humored nature.
Issimkallu, the Illustrious Serpent, is in fact, not a true raksha, but a wyld-twisted lesser elemental dragon, born when a maddened elemental of fire and a frenzied elemental of water devoured each other alive during the Balorian Crusade. It is a creature of burning water and cold flame, its two heads a chimerical mix of salamander and horned snake, it wears a necklace of severed hands around each neck and holds bloody kukris in five of its legs. The Eshiroi, ironically, worship it as a deity of good health, cleanliness, and renewal, burning away imperfections and washing away impurities. It is the only one among the Errants whose worship is not forbidden by the Immaculate Order, though more out of necessity than true approval, for it controls the elementals of the land. It has slowly but surely subverted a number of immaculates in Eshirreol, with even a few Dragon-Blooded finding merit in its philosophy of combined contradictions.
Economy
Considered very valuable for a northern satrapy, Eshirreol's tribute to the Realm is primarily in the form of food, exotic wares, and janissaries, and some of its food tribute goes towards making other nearby satrapies more productive. Aside from tribute, Eshirreol's current economy is based on the export of foodstuffs and exotic wares in exchange for more mundane resources that they lack, such as salt and iron. Prior to the Tall-Talker Empire's agricultural projects, such as irrigation canals and terrace fields, food was imported or raided from other lands to supplement periodic bad harvests. Some useful exotic resources are very difficult to harvest or slow to replenish, so they are often sold or bartered in exchange for more abundant resources from the outside world that can serve similar functions. While the carmain cedar produces a wealth of spices, it makes for poor construction material, so Eshirreol often imports lumber from other regions to supplement its own logging. Other exotic crafts require mundane imports as components, such as mammoth ivory or grapes. With House Sesus encouraging more agricultural output, less land is available for pasture, so wool is an increasingly common import. Iron deposits are rare in Eshirreol, so the primary crafting materials are bronze, stone, and wood. The region also produces a distinctive form of blue-green celadon pottery, formed from mud dredged up from the lake beds. While far more fertile than one would expect for northern mountain valleys, Eshirreol's current agricultural output is increasing at an unsustainable rate so the Sesus legions can stockpile rations, and the soil's fertility may decrease drastically in the coming years.
Dynastic tourism is also a major part of the economy, to the consternation of many of the Eshiroi. Many Dynasts think Eshirreol a prostrate land, mistaking oathbound deference for passivity and meekness. The wyld-affected springs also draw visitors. Dynastic sorcerers and occultist partake of ritual bathing in the springs. The purported healing properties of some of the waters ease the wounds of legion veterans, even those that the healing of the Exalted cannot easily soothe(for a time at least). One spring is used for transitioning between sexes, and was visited by outsiders for decades before the Realm conquest (the local clan made a profit by charging pilgrims and assisting the transition). Less pleasant is the Realm practice of using Eshirreol to resupply and temporarily garrison soldiers, as legionnaires and foreign auxiliaries have displayed a habit of roughly treating the Eshiroi. Cynis interests also do business with the garrison and unscrupulous locals, arresting some Eshiroi on trumped up charges so they can be sold as exotic slaves, as well as providing prostitutes to legionnaires.
Foreign Relations and Neighboring Peoples
Several lands neighboring Eshirreol consider the Eshiroi to be strange and unnatural yet also entertaining and honorable, many a northern saga has an Eshiroi character who acts as comic relief or an eccentric but steadfast friend. Others nurse bitter grudges over past cruelties inflicted by the Songthanes and for the Eshiroi slaying their ancestors for the sake of an interesting story. Some consider the Eshiroi less than human for the wyld-blood that they bear, claiming they have no souls and sell stolen human infants to the Raksha. Whitewall, Gethamane, and the Icewalkers have always considered the Eshiroi to be spiritually unclean, disdainful of their connection to the wyld. Pneuma in particular sees the Eshiroi as blasphemies against the Perfected Hierarchy, though the archaic broad-brimmed tall hat favored by Pneuman and Cheraki bureaucrats has been inexplicably popular among Eshiroi women of all ranks.
Eshirreol exports many exotic goods that can be found nowhere else or are otherwise difficult to find in the north, taking advantage of the Black Shale Road. Eshiroi caravans range as far Medo and even Rajtul, and ships from Grieve and Pneuma carry the goods further still. Wanderlust is a common(or encouraged) trait in Songthanes and young Hearthcaerls, and Eshiroi mercenaries range across the North, motivated by glory as much as by jade.
Though their imperial days are past, raiding has persisted throughout Eshiroi history. Eshirreol's proximity to the Black Shale Road, control over several mountain passes, and the general realities of living in the North made the practice habitual, though the Realm has taken efforts to suppress this.
The Vraj are distant descendants of a Varajtul horde that ravaged the mountains. They form small clans in mountain cave strongholds and were once vassals and boon-companions to the Eshiroi. They now look down upon their former allies, viewing them as weaklings for capitulating to the Realm. An agent of the Silver Pact has taken note of the Vraj, and has made plans to wield them as a weapon against the Dragon-Blooded.
The Snow Lizard, Musk Deer, and Golden Rhino Icewalker tribes inhabit the lowlands southeast of Eshirreol. Though they and the Eshiroi share distant ancestors, the two groups despise each other. The Icewalkers and their totem spirits revile the wyld influenced highlanders as demons, while the Eshiroi consider the Icewalker tribes to have only animal souls.
Northwest of Eshirreol is the fortress-city of Taloristan, ruled by mesmerist sorcerers who once served Bagrash Köl. Ageless, they practice bizarre austerities and etiquette to extend their lives, reigning as the immortal aristocracy over a city of worshipful thralls. They are normally isolationist, content to away they years with elaborate protocol and meaningless intrigue, but now they read omens of a time of great upheaval, of chaos that might disrupt the rituals that make them immortal. They send demon servants and enthralled mortals into the Black Shale Mountains and Road to slay or abduct individuals they believe will threaten their ageless eternity.
The nomadic Belintane chamois-centaur people occasionally range through Eshiroi lands, and trade furs and salt for bronze weapons. They regularly ignore satrapy borders and customs officials, and as such are considered smugglers by the Realm.
The luminescent gold-skinned Laxhe people dwell atop mountains high in the Black Shale range, kept warm by their own inner fires. They claim to have descended to Creation from a second, wyld-born sun in the distant past. The believe that many suns once existed in the skies above Creation, and that the current sun consumed them all as fuel within its flames.
The Tselnoroi Wolf-folk inhabit the mountains northeast of Eshirreol. Their lands are too remote for the Realm to take notice, so they have evaded conquest. The Realm might have thought otherwise if it had known of their vast cave cities and caches of First Age artifacts, including a minor doomsday device whose inner spirit is worshipped as god, so as to keep it docile.
Eshiroi enclaves exist outside of Eshirreol. The term "Eshiroi" can in fact be used to describe a number of wyld tribal groups and peoples across the North, particularly in the Black Shale Mountains and the White Sea's southern coast, but also in wyld-zones in places as distant as Rajtul and the Wasting Tundra. A few clans even wandered as far south as Nexus, arriving in the Scavenger Lands through a series of increasingly fantastical and absurd events. All extant enclaves outside of Eshirreol claim to have been visited by one of the Errants who taught them how to live outside their homelands.
Before their conquest by the Realm, the Eshiroi were friendly with Aum-Ashatra the Spider King. Several clans fled north to his lands after the conquest, and while they do not reside within the Spider King's mountain, they view the Lunar as a living god and do his bidding in parts of the Black Shale Mountains.
Dramatis Personae
Satrap Sesus Laral, manipulative, calculating, and regal, has overseen the satrapy of Eshirreol for fifteen years. The water aspect inherited the position from her aunt, who was satrap for four decades. While familiar enough with the Eshiroi to be acclimatized to and even enjoy some of their customs, she doesn't necessarily respect them. She expects deference to the Realm (and more importantly, to House Sesus) from the Eshiroi, and is not averse to setting them against each other to distract them from her House's abuse. She has taken the Sacral-Prince as a paramour, and while she does not truly love him in a romantic sense, she is fond of him as a conquest. She is less manipulative towards her precocious half-Eshiroi daughter, and has trouble reigning in her affection towards the child.
Ledaal Perah, Third Cry of the Contrite, and Steadfast Catalyn are the Grandmaster-Generals of The Knights of the Dragon Upon the Gate, a martial order founded specifically to police Eshirreol for blasphemy, administer the local Immaculates, and slay wyld monsters and the undead.
Ledaal Perah, a young newcomer appointed by the Mouth of Peace, is horrified by the Eshiroi, seeing nothing more than unruly children in need of a mother's stern control. The Air Aspect does her hardest to convince the Eshiroi to abandon their "false histories" and "barbaric superstitions" under the belief that she is truly acting in their best interests.
Exigent of an eastern god of physicians and spiritual purity, Third Cry's unthreatening appearance, patience, and tolerance for differing viewpoints makes the Eshiroi slightly more trusting of him. He makes for a terrifyingly effective inquisitor and monster hunter when necessary however, as many a violent outlaw or wyld-spawned abomination has learned.
The most influential Grandmaster-General, Earth Aspected Steadfast Catalyn is a veteran of several campaigns, including a six year tour on the Caul where she lost an eye and her hearth, but took the lives of ten moon-touched guerillas and the life of their Lunar father in turn. She is a living legend and war hero among monks and dynasts alike. She is also an Iselsi sleeper agent, as are several of the officers in the Dragonknights, subtly undermining both House Sesus and Ledaal Perah, while secretly harboring heresies of their own.
An overworked scion of Pasiap, Commander Ragara Sakar oversees the local garrison, periodically clashing with the officers who do their best to undermine him on Satrap Laral's behalf, as well as the monks and dragonknights who habitually ignore his jurisdiction. Another chronic headache were the periodic stopovers in Eshirreol by various legion detachments for rest and resupply, though this has diminished somewhat since the Empress disappeared. He has orders to burn as many food stores as he can if the Realm is forced out of Eshirreol by rebellion.
Sacral-Prince Bjeorning Sindol exalted as a fire aspect thirteen years ago, becoming the warrior ideal of many a northern culture. He has an innocent, almost unintentional charisma that belies a tendency to go berserk in battle. His relative inexperience and straightforward nature have made him a useful catspaw to House Sesus. Sindol is infatuated with Satrap Laral, who helped him master his essence when he first exalted.
Goat-footed and fox-tailed, Prince Aethlreon Daenu exalted as a wood aspect forty years ago and travelled to the Blessed Isle to learn more of her homeland's rulers, touring Dynastic society as a performer and artist. She expected to find monstrosity (and to an extent, she did), but mostly she saw people, living their lives as circumstances permitted. She doesn't hate the Realm, not as a whole, but nor does she turn a blind eye to its abuses. She used the exotic novelty of her own existence to build a few connections among the Dynasty, and she has called on some of those ties to oppose the satrap's abuse.
Prince Isilidan Khunal is the only Prince among the Elden Clans to be a traditional Songthane. A soft spoken giant of a man, his mercantile nature made him a natural ally to House Sesus, leveraging those connections to secure lucrative trade deals for Clan Isilidan. Now, with House Sesus squeezing the satrapy and his clan's profit margins more and more, his friendship with the Realm has turned to bile. He has begun to entertain secretive offers from House Sesus' enemies in the Dynasty, particularly House Nellens. Once he has what he wants from Nellens, he plans to sell them out in turn to the Iselsi agents who approached him first.
Winter Ermine is an Eshiroi Outcaste who was taken to Pasiap's Stair as a child years ago, shortly after the submission to the Realm. Adopting an unorthodox sorcerous approach to warfare, the air aspect nonetheless rose to the rank of Dragonlord in the Imperial Legions, a month before the Empress disappeared. She has since been stripped of her rank and discharged by House Cathak. Once a die-hard Realm loyalist, she now holds back cold rage at the Dynasty that used her only to cast her aside. Having returned to Eshirreol in search solace, she finds herself an outsider in the land of her birth. She might find common cause with the disgruntled clans connected to Eshirreol's many outlaws and revolutionaries, were she to overcome decades of Realm conditioning.
Thane Divathi Mors quested in the wyld three years ago and became something more than a mere Songthane. His command of essence far outstrips that of other Songthanes, and he receives visions claiming that he is one of the Dream-Souled, Chosen of the Wyld. Though the extent of his power is safely hidden from the Realm by the Clan Divathi council, he secretly fears that the Wyld has driven him mad.
Sonjul Bolk is the elderly grandmaster of the Herald's Society and one of the most respected mortal martial artists in the middle north. His society's runners carry messages throughout the Black Shale Road and Mountains, taught to defend themselves by Bolk's apprentices. He regularly collaborates with the Immaculate Order to organize martial arts tournaments for mortals.
Thrice-Tiger is an enigmatic and absurd character, wandering around in a baggy, one piece garment made from the sewn skins of three different tigers. Excitable and strange even to Eshiroi eyes, she claims to be many things, Living Goddess, Priestess of All-Knowing Nishkriya, Honorary Princess of the Scorpion Empire, and Queen-Stepmother of the Tall-Talkers. Most write her off as a harmless mad transient, but she has displayed uncanny power and knowledge at times.
Intrigues and Mysteries
The defeat of the Tepet Legions was felt in loudly Eshirreol, many more Eshiroi now dream of casting out the Realm and ruling themselves once again. The Satrapy had always had a robust society of insurgents and other revolutionaries, but House Sesus was careful to put them down with regularity. Now, House Sesus turns its eye towards the prospect of civil war on the Blessed Isle, and is far less attentive than it used to be. Insurgent cells now swell with new recruits and support from Songthanes.
The year before the Empress disappeared, the imperial garrison cracked down on the revolutionary Red Cloud Society. Many were hauled off into slavery while others were imprisoned in gulags on the shores of Eshirreol's Lake Sado. One night, a shamaness in one of the prisons cried out to anyone, anything for salvation and the Dead Things of the Abyss answered her. The walking dead slew all within save the newly exalted Deathknight, who walked into the Underworld to train under The Shining One. She has since left the region to spread the Word of The Neverborn across Creation, but the shores of the lake now possess a small shadowland connected to The Labyrinth itself.
Songthanes Knights once went to war at the head of great armies of short-lived goblin-things, shaped from the wyld by Eshiroi savants using a ritual called the Goblin-Calling-Way. Knowledge of the process was heavily censored in the years after Eshirreol's surrender, and none now claim to know the ritual to create the goblin hordes. Ragara Sakar has been quietly searching for information on the Goblin-Calling-Way under orders from Ragara himself.
Some Eshiroi are descended not from the ancient peoples of the late Shogunate, but from migrations of entities from the wyld that abandoned their protean existence and became part of Creation. Having cast off their faerie nature and embraced the joys and sorrows mortality, the descendants of such beings are fundamentally human and possess human souls, but their heritage sometimes flares up in the form of various supernatural occurrences and traits
Unbeknownst to the Realm, a behemoth sleeps beneath Lake Nanjorl. Zozimat, The Thousand Gale Wyrm, lies in a deep slumber, lulled by the wyld. The Immaculates have inadvertently disturbed it's slumber by interfering with the wyld energies of the lake. It now sleeps fitfully, causing tremors and rough weather around the lake as it awakens over the course of years. The Eshiroi know of the beast's legend, but believe it vanquished. It took countless Songthanes Knights and three of the Errants to seal it away in ages past.
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