The Daxtlal Wilderness
In the temperate and semi-tropical rainforests southeast of Thorns, a multitude of table-top mountains jut from the earth, shrouded in greenery and waterfalls. The tribes and village states who live below believe these mesas, called The Pillars, to be the houses of the gods, and in many cases, they are right. Barriers between mortals and the gods are thin here, for the spirits who dwell atop the mesas take a material form and visit their worshippers with regularity. In the grand scheme of Creation, most are young and weak gods, who know not and care not of the intrigues and workings of distant Yu-Shan. But to their worshippers, they are numinous radiances, distant and glorious guides, and in some cases divine rulers.
Atop the mesas, those considered mighty among the spirits of the land keep their sanctums. They manipulate the wildlife so each mesa has different flora and fauna from both the lowlands below and the other mesas. The pilgrim paths leading up to these pillar-mountains are dotted with idols and God-Blooded descendants of the spirits maintain wayshrines and hamlets where worshippers are tested on their worthiness to ascend. The half-god animals of the peaks sometimes venture below, sending the local mortal tribe or village-state into a frenzy of religious zeal to either kill, propitiate, or tame the beast.
Proper roads are scarce, the region considered mostly inaccessible by the outside world. Bordered on the southeast and northwest by proper mountain ranges, and leagues of unexplored rainforest in the north and south, the region is simply a featureless expanse of trees on most outsider-made maps. Still, water-ways and stone highways of ancient make connect the Daxtlal Wilderness to the outside world, should one manage to find them. In the depths of the wilderness, there are places where even the tribes and their gods fear to go. In that stretch of the wild, called The Un-Reaches, stand the ruins of long fallen civilizations, weathered but defiant in the face of dead ages. And beneath the shadow of these ruins lurk old and forbidden things.
The Daxtlali peoples, a number of tribes and village-states, most having little or no access to metalworking, are the dominant cultural group. A chimerical dialect of Riverspeak and tribal tongues is the primary language. When times are good, they trade and freely mingle with each other, when times are lean they raid each other for resources and grisly trophies to offer up to the spirits.
Wooden longhouses and huts are the primary form of architecture, arranged in geomantic patterns such as starbursts or spirals. In most cases, a hereditary chieftain or headman rules the tribe or village, with heavy input from the local shamans and gods. Some river or lake tribes build settlements on stilts and crannogs, the chieftain and head shaman residing in palatial houseboat-shrine that is regularly rebuilt. They practice slash-and-burn agriculture on small plots cleared from the forest, growing tubers, sugarcane, rice, peppers, and cacao. They supplement their diet with fish and game, or in some cases chicken, goat, and a form of domesticated pygmy deer. Malachite and copper, mined from the hills, forms the basis of most jewelry. Where waterfalls from the Pillars fall, the mud is collected and worked into distinctive celadon ceramics, in some cases strong enough to serve as material for armor with the right blessings or thaumaturgy.
The Daxtlali believe themselves lucky for their proximity to the sacred Pillars, and the local spirits play a heavy role in their lives. They send shamans, prospective chieftains, braves, and omen-touched youths up the pilgrim paths to serve their patron gods for a time, some never returning and spending the rest of their lives as servants, pets, or lovers. Those who do return often do so with supernatural blessings and minor wonders. Manifest lesser gods and elementals regularly enter the Daxtlali villages as advisors to the chieftains, some ruling a tribe or village in all but name for period. Others are simply part of a village's everyday life and chores, laboring with their worshippers and getting intoxicated on crude alcohol made from fermented fruits when the day is done. The Daxtlali usually see spirits and god-blooded as a higher, "truer" form of person, of whom mortals are facsimiles or descendants. Some tribes sacrifice war captives to the gods, decapitation being the primary method of execution. Other tribes press captives into slavery on shrine farms, forcing them to labor under the watch of the local agriculture spirit and its shamans.
Like many Threshold cultures, the Daxtlali oral histories date the beginning of the world to the Apocalypse, when the Old World destroyed itself in disease and warfare with the lands of faerie. Foreign trading posts have popped up over the centuries(most going native or failing), so some of the more worldly tribes and gods know bits and pieces of information about the outside world.
Tseleth, The Sibilant City
At the region's western edge, where the Pillars give way to true mountain highlands, the small villages and hamlets of the tribal Yzica people go in reverent fear of the monumental stone and crystal spires of Tseleth, the Sibilant City. The cyclopean structures tower over even the greatest longhouses of their village chieftains and the inhuman beings who dwell within ripple with muscle and scales. And despite this fear, the Yzica worship the alien rulers of the Sibilant City, for they drive off raiders and enemy gods and teach them the fundamentals of civilization. Their medicine women tell stories of the great saurian emperors at the dawn of time, of their clutches of eggs that were abandoned during a great cataclysm, leaving the young to hatch prematurely. These tales hold a sliver of truth, for the beings of Tseleth are semi-enlightened Dragon Kings.
The architecture of the Sibilant City seems bizarre to human eyes. There are stairways that lead to nowhere, rooms with irregular dimensions, and streets that seem to wind through the city on nonsensical routes. Statues in the Sibilant City appear to look as different things from different angles. Bridges wide enough for only one to walk on connect towers to each other and the ground. Water diverted from a nearby waterfall and river flow through canals, sometimes interrupting the city streets. Multihued crystal grows throughout the city, between cobblestones, up the sides of buildings, and even upon Dragon King ascetics who have spent weeks in meditation. A great irregular citadel-manse towers over the city center, its walls studded with abstract mosaics and reliefs. Ancient artifacts reside in the citadel vaults, but many are secured with wards that none among the living know how to open. Magical infrastructure can be found throughout the city, but much of it is devoted towards mundane purposes(such as lighting) or to esoteric functions(such as balancing a sheet of gold leaf entirely on its edge). Beneath the city lie nurseries, animal pens, fungal farms, and more mundane dwellings. Though at a glance it appears deserted, Dragon Kings can be seen in odd places throughout the city, engaging in weird rituals.
The Dragon Kings of Tseleth possess reason but little of their ancient memories. The austerities and rituals they perform aid greatly in recalling their immediately preceding lives, but they can only recall the memories of distant ages past with great difficulty. Only a few can recall the distant First Age, and the gaps in their memories are a source of constant distress for some. These nascent Dragon Kings, called the Initiate Priests, corral and herd their Jungle Stalker brethren, keeping them on the right path. Through ritual mysticism built into Tseleth's urban culture, Stalkers can often recall the life before their current incarnation, but anything before that is clouded, they require the aid of the Initiate Priests to provide a greater sense of continuity between their lives. Initiate Priests also search for relics of the Time Before, that they might act as touchstones or catalysts for their enlightenment. They fight ferociously when threatened, some disregarding their own lives with the knowledge that they can easily regain the memories of their previous life after rebirth; Initiate Priests are more cautious but also more skilled. Through weird sciences and enchantments upon the city, they ensure that their souls reincarnate within eggs laid in the Tseleth.
Guiding them in the search for enlightenment are the Penultimate Lords, ancient Dragon Kings, more god than creatures of flesh, who periodically enter stasis crystals to extend the lives of their physical vessels. The Penultimate Lords are powerful, alien beings, delaying their own apotheosis to guide their lesser brethren. To different onlookers, they each appear as different breeds of Dragon King, and sometimes even as great dragons from different angles. On the few occasions they have displayed their power, they have demonstrated control over saurian wildlife, power over the elements, and the ability to change into draconic behemoths. They could easily rule more than just the Yzica, but so alien are their thoughts and wants that they care little for temporal power, instead concerning themselves with arcane and seemingly illogical things such as contemplating natural disasters or raising butterflies. For centuries they had lain dormant, meditating while entombed in crystal, until shortly before the Contagion, they were awoken by the half-feral Dragon Kings who still lived in a dilapidated Tseleth. Though their minds were still foggy from the hibernation, the Penultimate Lords managed to restore a fraction of Tseleth's former glory.
Within the central citadel, in a wing apart from where the Penultimate Lords reside, lies the tomb of Perfected Condor, an ancient lawgiver. Known for his many wars against other Solars and Dragon Kings on behalf of Tseleth (for the Penultimate Lords were considered schismatics by many other Dragon Kings), the ancient solar is revered as a guardian deity.
Once, there were over twoscore Penultimate Lords, but they could not delay the deaths of their physical vessels indefinitely. Now there are only three, and two of them are nearing death. The Age of Sorrows has been unkind to the Sibilant City, the ancient enchantments upon Tseleth are failing, fewer Initiate souls are reborn within the city, instead reincarnating abroad into a near animal existence. The Dragon Kings do not know how to repair the city.
The Penultimate Lords are primarily spiritual guides, not technicians, they were only able to just barely keep the city functional after the Contagion and Crusade. They send Initiate Priests with Stalker and Yzica servants into the wider Creation, searching for lore and artifacts with which to keep Tseleth a place of enlightenment instead of ignorance. It is said that Slays-Ignorance, a long dead Penultimate Lord was once a missionary to a far off land called Denandsor, bringing with them a cache of knowledge with which to enlighten the world.
The Unfolding-Dragon-Way
The Dragon Kings of Tseleth follow a philosophy that is unique to them in the Age of Sorrows(though perhaps was once more widespread in times gone by). Instead of revering terrestrial gods (who are only worshipped on a transactional basis), they worship the concept of Becoming or "Unfolding". They offer their utmost reverence to their own spiritual development, rising from unenlightened Stalker, to reborn Dragon King, to forms stranger still. They call the highest levels of spiritual progression "True Unfolding Dragons." They do not conceive of "Dragon" as merely an elemental grouping or a set of reptilian features, but a state of association with the primal, unbound essence at the beginning of Creation. In the dawn of ages, when Creation's essence was embodied by (or sprung from) the Elemental Dragons, Sol Invictus assumed draconic form, as did his accursed father and opposite (one not to be described).
The draconic ideal is both creative and destructive, unconcerned with the rationality of everyday mundane life. Only through altered states of consciousness and asceticism can one embody the "egg of the future dragon" and reach a state of "Unfolding"; eternally progressing to newer heights of spiritual development. For many of these levels of insight, the revelations are so esoteric as to only be of immediate interest to one who has achieved the altered consciousness of Unfolding. One's degree of Unfolding is transient, the level of attunement to the Future-Dragon-Egg expected to fluctuate as circumstances permit. Indeed, even the path of the Sun across the sky embodies the transience of Unfolding, for noon is neither morning nor evening, yet all are aspects of the sun's Unfolding. Only the Penultimate Lords can hope to maintain a perpetually high degree of Unfolding, which necessitates that they spend much of their time engaged in meditation or austerities. And even still, they must also take care not to become too distant from the mundane world, lest they ascend to more esoteric states and leave their less enlightened brethren without guidance.
To both rise above their animal instincts and progress further upon the Unfolding-Dragon-Way, the Dragon Kings of Tseleth practice austerities to strip away the illusion of Being and realize Becoming. They perform strange dances, the erratic steps actually carefully choreographed and practiced. They engage in ritualized gladiatorial combat and ball games. Arcane rites, some absurd seeming, occur on a regular basis in Tseleth and its surrounding environs.
In times long past, when the Ochilike were more common, adherents of the Unfolding-Dragon-Way could be ridden by mysterious, primal spirits unknown to many of the other terrestrial gods of Creation. In fact, many of the bonded spirits were believed to be aspects of the mediums' own personal Unfolding Dragons, perhaps this is true, for several recorded instances of ancient possession involve a spirit perceptible only to followers of the Unfolding-Dragon-Way.
The Yzica People
The Yzica who dwell in the eastern highlands are culturally similar to many Daxtlali groups but their proximity to Tseleth also gives them key differences. Their oral histories tell them that they were once the inhabitants of a civilization that neighbored Tseleth in far antiquity, one that was destroyed in the apocalypse. They build their longhouses by the ruins of this long dead civilization, guarding the once urban outskirts of Tseleth with a ferocity mimicking their inhuman rulers.
They follow a less extreme version of the Unfolding-Dragon-Way, learning from the Initiate Priests of Tseleth who periodically instruct them in its mysteries. There are tales of great individuals among them who kindled their Future Dragon, taking on the saurian features of the Dragon Kings, though none such prodigies have appeared in living memory. From the Dragon Kings, they have learned the secrets of stonemasonry and bronze. Some of the more successful chieftains have longhouses built on stone foundations, and their greatest braves have weapons of metal. It is through the patronage of Tseleth that they retain access to the hidden Saurian Roads: raised highways of ancient construction that run through the dense forest and beyond, granting them contact with the outside world for trading purposes. They pray to but do not truly revere the gods of the Daxtlal Wilderness, and so when raiding season comes, the other Daxtlali call them "Godless," for only the Yzica see the Dragon Kings with regularity, and the Yzica retaliate in kind against the "Unlearned" tribes. During peaceful seasons, they trade their metal tools and crystals from Tseleth's outskirts in exchange for resources from the Wilderness' interior, making use of the Saurian Roads when the Penultimate Lords permit them.
The Yzica, never the largest tribe to begin with, have yet to fully recover from an outbreak of disease six years ago; sensing weakness and feeling pressure from other players in the region (such as the expansion of the Oro-Xau Chartered-Nation), their neighbors have stepped up raiding. The Dragon Kings of Tseleth, facing their own crisis, are hesitant to commit more resources to shoring up their mortal allies weaknesses. The Penultimate Lords could lay a blessing upon the Yzica that would protect them against raiding for a time, but to do so would risk burning out their physical forms and connection to the mundane world, leaving both Tseleth and the Yzica without spiritual guidance.
The Oro-Xau Chartered-Nation
Three generations ago, the Guild Merchant Prince Irnand Oro had a violent falling out with the Guild Directorate, and saw fit to liquidate his holdings and move south to avoid a dagger in the back. With him, he brought his household, his most loyal caravaneers, and a small mercenary army under his command as the Oro Chartered Company. Most in the Guild think he died in the Daxtlal Wilderness, but in truth, his descendants wait and bide their time.
Irnand stumbled upon the Pillars almost by accident, and set up a series of fortified trading posts in the region. The Oro Chartered Company would have starved to death within a year had it not been for the canny God-Blood 12-Rain. Daughter of Wind-in-his-Feet, a god of barter and travel, 12-Rain saw in the newcomers an opportunity to enrich herself and her people, the Xau Nation. 12-Rain and the Xau to act as a go between for the Oro Chartered Company and the rest of the Daxtlal Wilderness, sealing the deal with ceremonial marriage between 12-Rain and Irnand.
They sold metal and soldiers to war-leaders, married off their sons and daughters to chieftains and gods, used old Guild techniques and Xau shamanic bargains to entice spirits to support their efforts. When they met with opposition to their goals, they responded with iron weapons or sold plague blankets to the gullible. When Irnand Oro and 12-Rain died, they did so as the founding father and mother of a god-blooded dynasty and a burgeoning state, the Oro-Xau Chartered-Nation.
Today, the descendants of Irnand Oro and 12-Rain rule over citadel trading-posts, awe-inspiring edifices by the standards of most Daxtlali. They have hybridized Guild traditions with Daxtlali society, creating a vibrant syncretic culture. Thaumaturges whose grandmothers were born in rival tribes now work in tandem to create minor wonders for use or sale. Instead of mere shrine farms, they have shrine plantations, ruled with iron fists by field gods and god-blooded who reap both prayer and profit. Gods, factor-chieftains, and shamans now plan war and trade policy years in advance, all according to the strictures of the Oro-Xau Charter, their holy book. Through cut-outs and catspaws, they trade exotic Daxtlali goods, always subtly trying to undercut the Guild (whom they demonize as usurpers and betrayers).
The Factor-Chiefs use a combination of military and economic might to manipulate the neighbors of the Chartered-Nation. They sell some tribes metal tools and weapons in exchange for war-captives, and when some tribes are nearly depopulated by this they offer those who remain mercenary protection in exchange for more concessions. Oro-Xau gods and missionaries entice new worshippers to offer up exotic goods and crafts as sacrifices, which are then sold or diverted to the god-blooded rulers' coffers. The mere act of commerce has become a goal for many, the nature of the exchange or the profit gained inconsequential when compared to the spiritual reward of the ritual-action-deity that is trade. They believe that one day, they will grow powerful enough to overtake and replace the Guild, rebuilding the ancient web of commerce that was the Order-Conferring Trade Pattern. On that day, the Factor-Chieftains say that the Guild Hierarchs will perish upon the Oro-Xau nation's altars as sacrifices to its shareholder gods.
Blue-Briar
Just northwest of the Daxtlali Wilderness lies the large town of Blue-Briar. Established as an exile colony and logging settlement a century ago by the people of Thorns, Blue-Briar has acquired the reputation of a town of libertines. Decades ago, the reigning Autocrat's sister painted a beautiful, and unflattering, picture of a Realm legion on the march, and he had no choice but to send her to administer a far away logging colony. Cloistered in the vast forest to the south, she spent the rest of her life making astounding, and illegal, works of art, very few of which left Blue-Briar. Subsequent Autocrats and satraps took note of the colony's utility for sending away political enemies and artists whose work had themes that were too… "independent."
A large walled town, Blue Briar's skyline is dominated by mills for processing lumber and sending them downstream to Thorns. Burly loggers mingle with delicate artistes in the taverns and public forums, each building skillfully decorated with carvings. An Immaculate Temple, built to quietly watch Blue-Briar for any signs of severe heresy, looms across from the Governor's Palace. The monks are somewhat heterodox themselves, only lightly adhering to the aniconism of the orthodox faith. Abstract figures dominate the art produced in Blue Briar, skirting the Order's ban on iconism, and the monks tend to humor the artists in this.
Following The Mask of Winters' conquest of Thorns, several refugees managed to slip the Deathlord's border nets and flee to Blue-Briar. These newcomers, many of them hardline loyalists of the Realm and old Autocrat, have begun to stir up tensions with the more libertine people of Blue-Briar. Neither group likes the Deathlord, but they disagree on how to respond(either preferring Lookshy, the Realm, or a third party to liberate Thorns), and on what should be done after the Mask is expunged.
Intrigues and Mysteries
Last year, the Guild Directorate lost a caravan in the Daxtlali wilderness, its members including the favored son of a powerful factor. It does not know that the caravan was set upon by the Oro-Xau, and that the factor's son now slaves away in one of the Chartered Nation's coffee plantations.
Savants from the University-City of Varsi have returned from an expedition to the Wilderness, bringing with them rare plants, animals, and the inquisitive god-blooded son of a powerful chieftain. The god-blood wears a crescent-moon necklace of ancient make, far above the crafting capacity of the average Daxtlali tribe.
An ancient behemoth, Grandfather Biting Breath, has emerged from a century spanning hibernation. The immense worm-like creature has beetles for blood and can spit forth swarms of fire ants. It is intelligent and capable of speech, demanding tribute from the tribes whose lands it passes through, claiming it as payment for some yet unrendered task, and has been slowly heading east out of the Wilderness, in the direction of Thorns, for some time.
Deep in the Un-Reaches, 13-Arrowheads, witch-priest of Thundering-Slumber, a forbidden goddess of earthquakes, cave-ins, and destroyed villages, plots to awaken his dark mistress from her sleep. He is the latest in a long line of witch-priests, all exiles who made their way into the Un-Reaches in search of power and safety from headhunters. 13-Arrowheads differs from all who came before in that he is an Outcaste Chosen of Pasiap. He is served by fellow exiles and Thundering-Slumber's monstrous progeny, chimerical mixes of monkey and spider.
