Thalassene Player's Guide

[DShomshak]

As I said in Mr. R's "Help Me Flesh Out My City" thread, I wrote this for players of my latest D&D campaign. However, I tried to stay away from game terms, so I hope it's comprehensible even if you don't know D&D; and relevant to the forum because most of it is mechanics-independent.

 

The goal was to help players make characters who would fit well in the setting. Moreover, I hoped players would *want* to make characters for the setting. Most of the players came through (though I have very good players who deserve a lot of the credit).

 

I also tried to get away from the "encyclopedia article" style that sometimes afflicts setting descriptions, working character portraits and local anecdotes into the description. Less facts and figures, more people your characters might meet and bits of local history and culture that everybody knows. Please let me know if this works as intended, or if you think of other information that players should know.

 

Dunno how many GMs would want to put this much work into describing a setting, though!

 

To make it easier to read, I'll break it into chunks in separate posts and quote boxes. I hope you enjoy it.

 

Quote

Thalassene, the City of the Sea

 

Like most cities of the Magozoic Era, Thalassene has very old roots — older than anyone can guess. Much of the city, however, is quite new. Thalassene is a trade city with the promises and problems that ten thousand such cities have known before. Like Alexandria, Florence, New York or Shanghai, there’s a lot of money to be made by anyone cunning, bold or ruthless enough to seize an opportunity. Oh gods, the money to be made!

But that means the city is growing fast from all the people seeking their fortunes. Maybe too fast. And what of the people who aren’t rich or cunning, ruthless or bold? How do they get by?

 

Geography

Thalassene occupies a spit about 14 miles long and a mile wide. The northwest coast is limestone rock scoured bare and rugged by storms blowing off the Inner Ocean. It rises to a ridge just 50 feet above sea level. The southeastern side has a layer of clay and soil over the limestone, descending gradually to a flat, sandy shore fringed with salt marsh. A low, limestone plateau rises from these flatlands. Reefs make much of the southeastern coast hazardous for large ships, but at Thalassene the large island of Quisquiline creates a huge natural harbor.

 

The city extends two miles around this harbor, with a population of about 150,000. A necropolis fills the end of the spit. A wide ditch protects the city’s other side, with small farms, sand mines and clay pits beyond. Five bridges carry roads and aqueducts across the ditch.

 

History

The limestone ridge that Thalassene occupies isn’t entirely natural: Its core holds the granite blocks of a huge breakwater, ancient enough that coral enveloped it and turned to stone.

 

When the young Plenary Empire conquered the Mauric Bay region, a small, walled city called Talisthanos occupied the mesa overlooking the harbor. Around Talisthanos were ruins of even older towns and cities, already stripped to their foundations for building material.

Legend ascribes the city’s founding to a king named Talis, at least 17 centuries ago. King Talis established the new town’s pact with the merfolk and the sea-god Manakel. Talisthanos was a city of the Zurthani people — the only Zurthani city to resist the Marolici barbarians who conquered the rest of the Mauric Bay region.

Centuries later, the nascent Plenary Empire showed greater determination. Depending on the historian, conquest was either a final resort to stop Talisan privateering against Plenary ships, or a calculated seizure of the city when the Empire’s other ports proved insufficient. The Plenary Empire renamed the town Thalassene, the City of the Sea.

 

Thalassene grew under Plenary rule, surrounding the old walled town in less than a century. A causeway to Quisquiline Island divided the natural harbor into the Great Port and the East Port. A large basin was dug in the lowlands between the town and the northwestern ridge for even better sheltered moorage and shipbuilding. A new wall protected the expanded Plenary city.

 

In time, new suburbs grew beyond the city walls. Quisquiline Island became the city’s garbage dump. A smaller causeway led from Quisquiline Island to a nearby islet where the Empire built a gigantic lighthouse. The graveyard established at the peninsula’s tip grew as well, spreading toward the city and a patch of farmland. Landfill turned a section of reef into a sub-peninsula claimed by the Inner Ocean Navy. The Imperial Harbor eventually filled with silt and garbage faster than it could be dredged, so new harbors were dug on the northeastern side of Thalassene. A ditch across the spit and a third set of walls protected the sprawling city.

 

The Plenary Empire has shrunk for the last 200 years, but Thalassene only grew faster as refugees from lost provinces flocked to the Imperial heartland. New housing replaced the farms until the southern suburb ran into the spreading cemetery and neither could grow any further; a new wall brought the district into the city. New suburbs now grow across the protective ditch. Squatters even join fishermen on the rugged northwestern coast, while the poorest folk live amid the mounded filth of Quisquiline Island. And Thalassene’s growth shows no sign of slowing.

 

Dean Shomshak

[DShomshak]

Part 2, beginning "A Tour of the City" with the boroughs of Exordium and the Waterfront. Would you like to visit?

 

Quote

A Tour of the City

The pre-Imperial town of Talisthanos is now called Exordium. Its steep-sided limestone plateau raises it only about 30 feet above the surrounding land, but Thalasseners still call it High Town. This is the “Old Money” district of the city, dotted with palazzos and walled estates that single families have owned for centuries. Not everyone in Exordium is rich — the servants live here, too — but this remains Thalassene’s most prestigious and exclusive district. It has its own walls, nearly flush with the plateau edge, making it perhaps the best-defended part of the city.

 

The patricians of Exordium form Thalassene’s aristocracy. High bureaucrats outrank them; some merchants are wealthier; but the patricians retain their social prestige. Some families even preserve noble titles from before the Empire: meaningless now, but a source of pride and small privileges. For instance, by Imperial statute the patriarch of the Zargestan family is still the hereditary Khedive of Wargûm (in exile). Never mind that Wargûm ceased to exist centuries ago. As Khedive, Lorcus Zargestan insists on his right to an escort of six guards with whips to clear his way, a privilege granted to no one else in the Plenary Empire. The guards don’t use the whips — the last Khedive who did this couldn’t leave Exordium without being pelted with rotten eggs — but Lorcus shows the world that he is still Khedive, and don’t you forget it.

 

The patrician Horem Nasperion feels no need for such displays of prickly pride. Other patricians have palazzos; the Nasperions have a castle, called the Mirador, built before the Plenary Empire in an unsubtle challenge to the king of that time. When the Empire took Talisthanos, though, Horem’s ancestor opened the Mirador to the conquerors without a fight. Looking down at Thalassene from the Mirador’s central tower, Horem does not doubt that his family will still be great in the city when the Plenary Empire is long gone.

 

The narrow strip of the Waterfront curves south and east around Exordium. No surprise, this area holds many warehouses, sailmakers, net-menders, and other businesses catering to sailors, ships and longshoremen. This includes taverns — lots and lots of taverns. Brothels, too, of the low sort for men who aren’t picky after months at sea. Some neighborhoods are notorious as the haunts of foreign sailors with strange and sinister customs, such as the fire-worshipping Kurithans of Tarside. It is whispered that not everyone who seeks the drug dens of Tarside returns… though their corpses may turn up, strangely burned, floating in the harbor.

 

The Waterfront’s most notable landmark is the Pera Sacra, or Sacred Pier. This floating wooden pier leads to the chief temple of Thalassene’s patron god Manakel, built on an islet in the Great Port. Instead of brick or stone, the temple is built of wood salvaged from old ships. Sailors visit the Pera Sacra before a voyage to pray for a safe journey, and after it to thank the god for bringing them back alive. The high priest of the Pera Sacra is Pontifex Gillis Pease, a peg-legged halfling and former sailor whose ship sank far from land. Abandoning hope of rescue, Gillis consigned his soul to the sea. Manakel accepted, and a ship found Gillis an hour later. The halfling is now the most powerful cleric in Thalassene.

 

But the waterfront would not exist without trade. Hundreds of ships dock at dozens of quays. The stevedores are mostly humans, orcs and minotaurs, but they include sturdy dwarves, nimble halflings and stranger folk such as the four-legged, reptilian trogodons. They load and unload cargoes precious or pedestrian: coralwood, cotton and copra, pickles, papyrus, perfume and pearls, great clay jugs of squid sauce, oil and wine, dwarven steel and elven glass, tapestries, toys and tamed pterodactyls, bags of rice, barrels of dates, baskets of alum and caskets of jewels, the spices of a dozen lands, and so much more. The multi-lingual profanity is amazing.

 

Most important are the grain ships. The neighboring provinces cannot feed Thalassene’s 150,000 inhabitants. Survival depends on galleons, junks and dhows of rice, wheat and other staples from around the Inner Ocean… and the nearest, largest sources are Viltarn and Macrine. Both states vow to destroy the Plenary Empire — but they can’t stop selling it food. The money’s just too good. The city government is a major buyer, but private trade flourishes, too.

Dean Shomshak

Edited March 31, 2023 by DShomshak

[DShomshak]

"A Tour of the City" continues: Lost Harbor, Quisquiline Island, the Candlestick, Quarters.

 

Quote

To the west and north of Exordium, the Old Town has declined over the centuries. It’s also called Lost Harbor for the basin that filled in with silt and garbage. Old Town ranges from working-class to outright slum. The Lost Harbor itself is the poorest and most squalid part of Old Town, a muddy shantytown called the Shambles. Other notable locations include Secondhand Square, a plaza turned into a shabby marketplace; and Handout Square, where the city government and leading citizens distribute a weekly dole of food to the poor.

 

Several years ago, a street gang called the Spikemen (for their custom of driving spikes into the heads of their enemies) tried to hijack the dole in Handout Square so they could sell what had been given. Every Spikeman was soon dead with a spike in his own head. Since then, giving someone a spike has been Old Town’s way of warning that you’ve gone too far: Leave town, or die.

 

Some Old Town neighborhoods are poverty-proud, the houses and tenements kept tidy and the streets patrolled by volunteer guards. Prinks, the neighborhood of milliners, broiderers and ribbon-makers, and Gauds, the neighborhood where cheap trinkets, ornaments and beads are made, are quite nice. Their inhabitants see themselves as the gentry of Old Town.

 

Lost Harbor also includes the Hippodrome, the stadium for racing chariots, horses and other things — the city’s largest building, for the city’s most popular entertainment. People of all classes and neighborhoods go to the races. Granted, this means Lost Harbor also takes the brunt of the riots that erupt after especially exciting victories or losses.

 

Even the poorest Lost Harbor resident feels superior to the squatters on Quisquiline Island. One tale says the long, twisting, rugged island is an immense dragon the gods turned to stone. Another tale says that pirates laired in its coves. In a thousand years, though, no searcher found any pirate treasure. The island’s garbage-pickers would settle for finding scraps of still-edible food, a chipped bowl, or bits of metal or cloth they could sell in Secondhand Square. They live in filth; they die in droves. But there are always more poor people. It’s a good place to find goblins.

 

The immense, fortified lighthouse called the Candlestick towers over the Great Port. At more than 500 feet, it’s the tallest building in the Plenary Empire. Thalasseners say it’s the tallest building ever raised by mortal hands. (Sages who suspect how long people have lived on Old Earth may doubt this claim.) The Candlestick needs no fuel: Its light comes from hundreds of continual flame spells cast on small glass balls, packed together and focused by mirrors.

 

As Thalassene grew beyond its first round of walls, most of the new dwarf, elf, orc and halfling arrivals settled in the northern area between Old Town and the city’s protective ditch. This district became the Vicus Triborum, or “Tribal Quarter” — now abbreviated simply to Quarters. It still holds the largest nonhuman-dominant neighborhoods.

 

Dwarves prefer the highest region where they can dig homes, shops and entire subterranean streets while staying above the water table. Their neighborhood is called Understreet.

 

Elf neighborhoods look like parks. Pariri Park is the larger and more exclusive. Every family in Pariri Park has lived there at least 500 years, so by now the neighborhood almost feels like home. Banyan is just as old, but is open to all. Many residents of Banyan build treehouses in the centuries-old, many-trunked tree that gives the neighborhood its name. Other folk live in tents.

 

Halflings mix a lot with Thalassene’s human population, but in Quarters they maintain a few “Tinytown” blocks built to their size.

 

Many orcs live in Lost Harbor slums, but Thalassene’s few moneyed orcs live in Quarters. The Zurkus family of the Ironsmoke neighborhood became the Empire’s wealthiest family of orcs thanks to the immense foundry they have run for almost a century. Zurkus cast-iron pots, pans and other implements aren’t pretty, but they are strong.

 

Quarters also holds the Harbor of Cibotus, dug to replace the lost Imperial Harbor. Most shipbuilding for the Inner Ocean Navy now takes place at Cibotus.

 

Dean Shomshak

[DShomshak]

"A Tour of the City" continues: Transfossa, Tasia, Almagest.

 

Quote

The moat across the peninsula is properly called the Fosse. The ditch is more than 150 feet wide. Small, shallow-draft boats can pole through it beneath the five bridges that carry streets and aqueducts. Dozens of fishing boats use the Fosse to reach the Waterfront’s fish markets.

 

The new settlements beyond the Fosse are called Transfossa. A branch of the Fosse leads to the New Harbor, center of shipbuilding and repair for Thalassene’s merchants. A very large, very loud man called Ventor Volumnus runs the harbor and drydocks as their absolute monarch. This would make Ventor one of the most powerful men in Thalassene, but he doesn’t care about anything except building ships. Transfossa also holds new markets serving merchants who want to trade but not to stand in line and pay the city gate fee. Other people just don’t want to live in the crowded city. This led to new elven park-neighborhoods being established in Transfossa.

 

After Exordium, the tidy district of Tarsia boasts the greatest proportion of wealth in Thalassene. Flat, even terrain allowed a perfect grid of streets, regular as a tiled floor. Rich merchants claimed entire blocks for their palazzos and gardens; row housing created long architectural vistas. Artisans, shopkeepers, clerks, and lesser merchants joined the magnates to make Tarsia a bastion of order. The city’s riots seldom affect Tarsia: Leading residents block proposals to tear down Thalassene’s internal walls, and the gates are locked every night.

 

Respectability becomes elegance in the neighborhood called Willow Grove. Nowadays, the only willows grow in large stone pots by the doors of tony restaurants, teahouses, theaters and casinos that cater to Thalassene’s wealthiest people. Locals call their service the Floating World — a dream of pleasure without care. The guards by the doors appear as ornamental as the famous “willow girls” (and boys) who sing, dance, play music and offer other pleasures, but the guards are deadly in defense of the Floating World. So are some of the willow girls.

 

Elsewhere in Tarsia, one palazzo holds the Macrine embassy. Instead of a garden, high walls enclose a pasture where horses and cattle graze so Ambassador Petron tarx-Bodas can practice traditional Savaxi skills of roping and riding. And if neighbors hear human screams among the hoofbeats, why, it is no matter for Plenary law how the Savax noble disciplines his slaves. But if slaves can get over the estate's walls — tall and topped with broken glass — they are free by Plenary law.

 

Southwest of Tarsia, Almagest is Thalassene’s largest inhabited district. It also holds most of the civic landmarks: the gladiatorial arena called the Velarium, the Pantheon temple, the Forum, and the great Library, among others.

 

The Velarium, an amphitheater named for the huge awning that shields patrons from the sun and rain, sees weekly gladiatorial combats or other sporting events. Plenary gladiators never deliberately fight to the death, at least against each other; but the arena sees blood sports such as man against velociraptor, and the dinosaur sometimes wins. Various team sports are also played, which usually involve throwing or kicking a ball.

 

Thalassene’s Pantheon is the city’s largest temple, nearly as large and splendid as the Pantheon in Pleroma. It may surpass the capital’s temple in the number of gods represented, for it includes modest shrines to the gods of the Empire’s trading partners. Centuries of extension and rebuilding make it a farrago of pediments and porticoes, minarets, cloisters and domes.

 

The Pantheon has several clerics on staff. Gnaeus Vitruvius, the temple’s Archflamen, or high priest, is not one of them: Despite years of service, his god Adrigon Imperator has not called him. Gnaeus is a skilled bureaucrat and politician, though, whose position makes him one of Thalassene’s most powerful people. His deputy, the echidna Alcine Ladonid, is a cleric, second in power only to Gillis Pease. Alcine’s and Gnaeus’ relationship is sometimes… delicate.

 

The old Forum no longer sees much use as a marketplace. Other markets replaced it, leaving only the pushcart vendors who feed the people heading to or from the marble palaces of law and government that ring the Forum. Every one of the Plenary Empire’s Autocrats has a statue in the Forum; except, of course, for those who were later declared pretenders or usurpers. It’s common to see some disgruntled Thalassener standing on a box in the Forum, haranguing anyone who will listen about the latest bureaucratic idiocy or popular dispute.

 

Larger even than the Forum, though, is the campus of the Library. Other cities may have a library: Thalassene has the Library, requiring no qualification. It began centuries ago as the collection of Phillidus the Wise, a book-loving magnate who became Thalassene’s Lord Mayor. He used his estate and collection to found a library for the benefit of other scholars. Decades later, the Library gained a charter from Autocrat Solorus II with a mandate to gather and disseminate knowledge for the benefit of trade, the useful arts, diplomacy and war. The charter also gave the Library the right to confiscate any book brought into Thalassene until it could be copied. The Library already then included a school; the charter expanded it to a university.

 

The Library now has a massive collection on just about every subject imaginable, from anatomy to zymurgy. If you want to study something, the Library staff probably includes savants ready to teach you. Its degree programs in wizardry and sorcery are especially famous. It’s the center of a large publishing industry. The Library sometimes sponsors expeditions to distant lands to learn about their peoples, cultures and natural history. Head librarian Charis Cecropiad, an elderly female echidna, is known as a wizard of considerable power.

Dean Shomshak

 

Grr. dratted auto-merge...

 

"A Tour of the City": the Port Market, Extern, the Necropolis. (Don't fight in the Necropolis.)

 

Quote

The Port Market, Thalassene’s largest, occupies the waterfront between Almagest’s wall and the warehouses and quays. The streets that cross the Market are lined with shops of leading merchants, notably those who import cloth, wine, spices, and other luxury goods. Between the streets is a maze of stalls and kiosks selling an immense variety of goods, from fish sauce to religious icons. Some stalls are well-established venues of small-time merchants and artisans. Others are ad-hoc for whoever arrives first each day to rent the space from the Market’s aedile.

 

Thalassene’s longest wall runs along the high ridge of the peninsula, tracking the line of the ancient breakwater. While building the wall, the Plenary Empire found the buried breakwater and a chain of huge cisterns. (One held a sleeping monster… that woke up.) Thalassene put the cisterns back in use in case of drought or damage to the aqueducts. Outside the wall, the city’s fisher-folk live in the rugged, nearly barren Extern. They pile limestone boulders to form short quays and plant gardens in what patches of soil they can maintain near the city wall. Nobody lives near the shore, which gets swamped with hurricane storm surges at least once a year.

 

Lately the fisher-folk are joined by squatters who build shacks of discarded bricks and scrap lumber just because the land is free. How the squatters make a living is a mystery. The fisher-folk don’t like the new settlers. There have been many fights and murders between the two groups — even full-scale riots.

The merchant Ruricus Ennius wants to build large, new quays and breakwaters in Extern. Huge as Thalassene’s moorage is, some people want more; and such is the pace of Thalassene’s commerce that the few hours gained by docking a ship on the city’s oceanward face could give Ruricus an edge. Ruricus lobbies the fisher-folk for support, saying they could use his new quays as well. Some support his plan, but many remain suspicious of anyone else who wants to occupy Extern. The district is harsh and poor, but it’s theirs.

 

The Necropolis now fills the last three miles of the peninsula with no more room for graves. To bury new bodies, the city’s morticians must dig up old ones and pack any remaining bones in urns and charnel houses. Poorer and older graves are the first to go, of course, but it’s not really a new practice: The old, established families always did this with their family plots and mausolea.

 

Six years ago, the city government suggested a burial tax, waived for people who choose cremation. Another proposal was to move the potter’s fields for the poor to Quisquiline Island, making room for graves of wealthier folk. Both proposals sparked riots (no one wants to be taxed for dying or to see their kin sent to the garbage dump), so neither has yet been tried. A proposal to start a new necropolis on the city’s north side has also gone nowhere.

 

Wise folk include the Necropolis among Thalassene’s districts because a citizen who is dead isn’t necessarily gone. Several decades ago, the pirate fleet of Admiral Flay met its end when he tried sacking Thalassene through a surprise landing in the Necropolis. It wasn’t as much of a surprise as he hoped. Guards were ready. Blood among the tombstones roused enough of the dead that none of the pirates made it back to their ships. None of the guards made it back to the city gates, either, but Thalasseners still call this a win. They are proud to say that their undead horrors are still loyal citizens (even if they can’t tell friend from foe). The morticians mark any grave whose resident they suspect might turn restless — no exhumation and charnel houses for those bones. As yet, the city government resists clerical calls for a campaign of exorcism.

Dean Shomshak

Edited March 31, 2023 by DShomshak

[DShomshak]

Last bit of "A Tour of the City": Gardens, Lochaeis, the Capulus. Hun, the City of the Sea is hard on pirates...

 

Quote

Between Almagest and the Necropolis, Thalassene’s newest wall encompasses the district of Gardens. The farms on this patch of land once helped feed Thalassene; but the city’s inexorable growth swallowed acre after acre. A few old farmhouses and villas still endure among the newer cottages, row houses and tenements. The district gained walls just four decades ago.

 

The most rapid phase of settlement happened when the Savaxi conquered the Macrine region. Tens of thousands of Macrine people of all races fled south and west to the Plenary heartland, and a lot of them settled in Gardens. The huge neighborhood called Mactown is almost pure Macrine. Other Thalasseners sometimes grumble that Mactowners should decide what country they live in. A gang of Macrine demi-humans called the Securii, or Hatchetmen, became Thalassene’s most feared crime syndicate. The main event in Gardens’ social year, however, is Mactown’s gigantic street party around the Autocrat’s Ascension Day parade. Also, Savaxi who entered Mactown have been lynched with a thousand witnesses… and not one willing to testify.

 

Finally, the peninsula of Locheis is Thalassene’s smallest district. The fortified palace of the Inner Ocean Navy occupies the peninsula’s tip. This is the domain of Lord Admiral Probulus Nepos Speltor. It’s no secret the Lord Admiral got the job through his uncle Licinius Speltor, the Prefect of Public Works, one of the Empire’s most powerful bureaucrats. Probulus has no military experience. He had never been on a ship before arriving in Thalassene, and he still has never been outside the Great Port. Everyone in Thalassene knows the Lord Admiral squeezes the Naval and city budget to further enrich his uncle and his cronies.

 

BOX: The Capulus

The Capulus, in Exordium, is one of Thalassene’s oldest and holiest temples. The small, irregular shrine occupies the site where King Talis chose Manakel as the city’s patron. Gouges in the rock show where Manakel’s brother Barakel, god of storms, angrily blasted Talis’ retinue with lightning, while an ancient date palm supposedly grew at the command of the third divine brother, the orchard-god Serakel. The Capulus also holds King Talis’ tomb.

Legend says that one band of Marolici pirates managed to invade Talisthanos. They tried to loot the Capulus of the coral and pearls Talis gained from his merfolk allies and took to his grave. Instead, the outraged king rose from his tomb and slaughtered the invaders. When the victorious Plenary general Phrosander heard the legend, he said, “We are not pirates,” and ordered the tomb left inviolate. So it has remained.

Dean Shomshak

[DShomshak]

Moving on, a few words about city government. But not much, because I don't think players care much about political minutiae. Also, coffee.

 

Quote

Government

The Plenary Empire replaced the kings of Talisthanos with a town council and a Rhetor, or Lord Mayor, elected by leading citizens and answerable to the Autocrat alone. Several decades ago, however, the usurping Autocrat Cholestus III rewarded the Lord Admiral of the Inner Ocean Navy for his support by making him governor of Thalassene. The two offices remain joined.

 

The Lord Admiral, or First Navarch, rules the city; but he does not rule alone. Probulus Nepos Speltor still takes advice from the council of leading citizens called, unimaginatively, the Council. Membership is fluid: You’re on the Council if the Lord Admiral wants you there… or fears to keep you out. The Council has no formal powers, but it lets Probulus know what the most powerful people in Thalassene want or what will turn them against him. Current members include a dozen of the wealthiest magnates and guildmasters, several patricians from Exordium, Archflamen Gnaeus, the city’s guard commander Lirpus Phrixus, the Imperial Magistrate Olbion Medrosus, and Probulus’ second in command Eudoxus Marinus Crassus.

 

Some people are conspicuous by their absence. Pontifex Gillis Pease, head librarian Charis Cecropiad, and Harbormaster Ventor Volumnus could be on the Council if they wanted, but they show no interest.

 

A half-dozen praetors and prefects, with subordinate aediles, oversee the Lord Amiral’s bureaucracy. These are the dull, necessary functions of government such as tax collection, public works, and registry of property and businesses. New would-be residents must deal with the office of the Praetor Peregrinus, or minister of immigration. They only meet clerks, though: Praetor Jonas Frumentus is a drunken timeserver who visits the office for only a few minutes a day. He instructs his clerks never to turn anyone down, so that no one will ever appeal a decision to him.

 

BOX: Coffee

People in the Plenary Empire drink coffee. So do the Savaxi of Macrine. Harix the Great loved the brew, to the degree that he beheaded people who served him less than the best, less than perfectly prepared. His vassals naturally followed his example. The modern Savaxi treat coffee as very nearly a sacrament. For a good cup of joe, a Savax noble will sell you his grandmother.

 

Alas for the Savaxi, coffee won’t grow in the Macrine Empire. The mountains aren’t high enough. Coffee grows very well in the Plenary Empire and Skardonia, especially the Foramine Range and the middle heights of the Nimbic and Roris Mountains. The Savaxi pay through the nose for the best grades of Plenary coffee. Much of the trade goes through Thalassene. So does much of the smuggling as merchants try to evade the Plenary Empire’s high export duties.

(Viltarn grows coffee too, but the quality went way down under the Holy Empire — and a Savax would be ashamed to serve less than the best.)

 

The Imperial Magistrate

One official is not under the Lord Admiral’s command. Olbion Medrosus, the Imperial Magistrate, similarly owes his office to the Autocrat and answers to him alone. Olbion’s powers are circumscribed: He may take action only if his master so commands, or if someone appeals a lawsuit or criminal conviction to him. Then, however, his inquisitorial authority has no limit. He may demand testimony from anyone, even the Lord Admiral, and pass judgement upon them. He can draft Imperial troops or city guards to haul in anyone who refuses his summons — and draft any convenient spellcasters to aid his inquiries, from casting zone of truth to compel honesty to casting speak with dead so victims can name their murderers.

 

So far, Olbion has never resorted to such drastic measures. People can buy their way out of the Imperial Magistrate’s attention, though not cheaply: Upholding Plenary law matters to Olbion, but not as much as enriching his family. They are patricians of ancient lineage and extensive landholdings, but keeping it all (amd getting more) depends on the Autocrat’s favor… and the Autocrat’s favor isn’t cheap, either. Autocrat Servulus also has people he must pay in order to keep what he has: his throne… and his life.

Dean Shomshak

[DShomshak]

A bit more on law and government. Also, why Thalasseners don't mind hurricanes.

 

Quote

Divine Justice

Most trials rely on mundane argument and evidence. Plaintiffs and defendants can both hire lawyers; magistrates can also ask their own questions, order their own inquiries and call their own witnesses. Inquisitorial torture, though legal, rarely happens. Magistrates have better ways to force the truth.

 

Anyone involved in a trial can ask for a cleric or bard to cast zone of truth — and no one can refuse the spell’s use without looking guilty. Plaintiffs or defendants usually must pay for it themselves, which relatively few can afford. On the other hand, clerics routinely provide this service (if they have the power) to members of their congregations. The spell is not infallible, but it makes outright lying difficult. Bribery becomes risky as well. As in all of life, Plenary justice favors the rich… but as long as a case or suit does not involve the rich or powerful, magistrates are usually fair and honest. After all, they know they might be compelled to speak truth about their own probity.

 

Military

Thalassene provides for three or four military forces, depending on how you count them.

A compound in Locheis holds barracks for an Imperial Legion or hobgoblin mercenary cohort, should one visit the city. Most of the time, only a housekeeping staff occupies the base.

 

The Inner Ocean fleet has its own small harbor in Locheis, or ships dock at the Harbor of Cibotus for repairs. From these harbors, visiting sailors and marines fan out to the bars and brothels of the Waterfront. Second Navarch Eudoxus Marinus Crassus commands the naval base and does all the real administration for the fleet. He is a distant cousin of Clavetia’s Exarch Crassus Numerius. Eudoxus has a reputation as a competent captain, though, with a real dislike of pirates. If any pirates are captured, Eudoxus attends the hanging.

 

The city guard is commanded by Chiliarch Lirpus Phrixus, a political careerist not known ever to have offended anyone powerful. The Guard quells riots and arrests troublemakers. They also arrest obvious criminals, or if someone respectable makes an accusation. Seven legates oversee the guard for the major districts of the city (none for Extern, Transfossa, Locheis, the Necropolis or Quisquiline Island), each with a few centurions commanding regional guard posts. The city guard is well funded but under-staffed, because many guards are bureaucratic ghosts created so officers can collect their pay.

 

An eighth legate commands the Barbican, a fortress at the base of the spit; it guards the approach to Thalassene. A ninth legate commands the murengers, a separate force that mans the gates and patrols and maintains the city walls. A place in the wall guards is at once a sinecure — people are unlikely to stab you when you patrol 30 feet above them — but a career dead end. The legate, High Murenger Fundin, doesn’t care. This dwarf from Anticline keeps the murengers out of politics except to assure proper funding for his troops and maintenance budget. Unlike the regular guards, every murenger on the rolls actually exists.

 

Neighborhood Watches

Low manpower means that by the time the city guard can respond to an emergency, it’s probably too late. Thus, many neighborhoods create their own volunteer watch to deal with drunks, fights and other disturbances. Neighborhood watches rarely number more than a dozen people. They have whatever equipment the members can afford. Unlike the regular guards, though, the volunteers know their neighborhoods well.

 

BOX: Hurricane Season

Legend says the storm god Barakel cursed Thalassene when King Talis rejected him as the city’s patron. As a result, at least one hurricane strikes Thalassene every year. This is not as bad as it could be, since the city occupies the lee side of the spit. The storm surge is a lot less on that side, so the seven-foot sea walls usually keep out the salt water. Gabled tile roofs shed the rain. If tiles blow off and become deadly missiles, well, sensible people close the shutters and stay indoors. Party or pray, as you prefer. (Or both. Barakel likes a booze-up, and it’s his time. For extra piety, honor him with a drunken brawl!)

 

Hurricanes also keep the city clean. The Order of Broom and Shovel, part of the public works ministry, clears trash and dung from the streets, but the offal gets ahead of them. Late summer gets stinky. The first hurricane of autumn washes away the filth and leaves the city as fresh as an ocean breeze. Most Thalasseners think the cleaning is worth the damage to buildings. Despite the legend of the curse, Barakel is actually well regarded in the city as its divine janitor.

 

It’s not so good for the poorest Thalasseners. Dozens die in every hurricane as their flimsy shacks collapse on them. The Order of Broom and Shovel hauls away the rubble and the bodies, and life goes on.

Dean Shomshak

[DShomshak]

 

thalassene is a commercial hub, so there's more about its businesses and artisans than about its government. Many Thalasseners care more about activities among the guilds than the Imperial government.

 

Quote

Guilds of Thalassene

As a major commercial city, Thalassene has several large and influential artisan guilds. The masters of such guilds become important players in city politics and social life. By ancient tradition, the top seven guilds are called the Arts, while all others are called Crafts.

By Plenary law, no guild can organize beyond a single city or province: The Imperial government does not want any guild growing too large and too powerful. It is questionable how well the Empire prevents collusion across such borders.

 

The Seven Arts

The Cambio: The guild of bankers and money-changers is beyond doubt the richest and most powerful guild in Thalassene, for it controls money itself. The leading Cambio families live in Exordium and have dominated local banking for centuries. Its fortified guildhouse, the Cambistry, is built of yellow sandstone with golden-glazed ceramic trim and a roof of golden-glazed tiles. For all the glitter, it is remarkably ugly. Thalasseners call it the Gilded Turd.

 

All is not well in the Cambio. Two rival echidna guildmasters, Mundius and Malingerion — popularly called Mun and Mal for short — espouse radically different theories of money and finance. Each defends their theory and condemns opposing views with brilliantly written pamphlets. The feud has spread beyond the Cambio to other guilds and merchants, all the way down to artisans and shopkeepers. Arguments in streets and bars sometimes escalate to fistfights.

 

The Chirurgo: Every major city in the Plenary Empire has a guild of physicians and apothecaries, but Thalassene’s is especially prestigious for the training its members can receive at the Library. The Chirurgo’s masters include humans, elves, and one dwarf, gnome, and echidna each — plus one orc, Rungen, notorious for the speed of her amputations. Rungen is also a cleric of Luthic, the orcish mother-goddess, which greatly improves the odds of her patients surviving her ministrations. True to Luthic’s code, though, Rungen tells patients to embrace pain as proof they aren’t dead.

 

True doctors have degrees and employ drugs, surgery and other therapies. Apothecaries compound drugs and other medications; they can and will sell medicines without consulting a doctor. The common neighborhood leech can stitch up wounds, but not much else. Leeches must join the Chirurgo, but the guild treats them with scorn.

 

The Gossi: The cotton guild is Thalassene’s largest. Thalassene has entire neighborhoods where most people work for the Gossi. Most members are perpetual apprentices who do the drudgery of ginning, spinning, and weaving the cotton. Some work in factories for a daily wage. Others do piecework in their homes. These largely-unskilled laborers riot for better pay every decade or so, but they never get any benefits for long.

 

The highest-ranking masters, on the other hand, are very rich — and living in Pleroma. Though cotton cultivation dominates the province of Clavetia, most cotton comes from lands now under Viltarn’s rule. The Gossi’s masters stay close to the Autocrat’s court where they lobby for appeasement of Viltarn in order to assure supplies and, they hope, lower prices for the guild.

 

The Juridi: All the city’s judges, lawyers and notaries belong to the Juridi. A council of a half-dozen senior masters oversees Thalassene’s guild.

It’s well known that one master of the Juridi will never convict another master of a crime: Anyone who wants to bring a misbehaving judge or senior attorney to justice must appeal to the Imperial Magistrate, Olbion Medrosus, and then prepare to be disappointed as the Juridi petitions — well, bribes — the Imperial Magistrate to reject the suit.

 

The Juridi has a magnificent guildhall in Almagest. Some wags suggest, however, that its real guildhall is the Pandect, a government building on the Forum that holds copies of every law and court decision in the Plenary Empire’s history — or at least it’s supposed to. Court cases often hinge on which side can assemble the most impressive dossier of laws and precedents from the Pandect’s vast and often contradictory supply.

 

The Papyro: A bureaucratic empire consumes vast quantities of paper, so its manufacture is a significant craft. Only in Thalassene, however, does the guild of paper-makers, scribes, printers and bookbinders rise to the status of an Art. The Papyro gains prestige from the presence of the Library and its attendant publishing industry: Thalassene publishes more books than the rest of the Plenary Empire combined.

 

The guild still imports much of its papyrus from Macrine, but the imports decline as paper made from cotton rags, bamboo or other fibers becomes more common. Factories produce ordinary paper for handwriting and printing. Masters produce specialty and ornamental papers. (The Papyro does not produce parchment or vellum, which have their own tiny guild.) Printing is by wood-block or metal movable type, depending on the writing system.

 

Though printing makes books more widely available in the Plenary Empire than in most other countries, many people are illiterate. Every neighborhood has a few scribes. Even the literate might go to a scribe for copies of official documents, then to a notary for help in filling them out.

 

The Serica: The silk-weaver’s guild is small but rich. The Plenary Empire produces only a little silk. Macrine now controls most of the sources, which makes silken goods even more expensive. It’s no secret that for the last 50 years, the Serica has worked to start silk cultivation in other countries around the Inner Ocean.

 

That’s about the only Serica activity that isn’t secret. The guild is run like a cult with at least five grades of initiation, elaborate ceremonies, and magically-enforced loyalty oaths to protect trade secrets. The masters are mostly elves because it takes a century or so to develop the skills for the Serica’s finest products, such as a cloth as fine and transparent as spiderweb that shows an image only when the light reflects off it in just the proper angle — and a different image on each side. It is said that High Guildmistress Aforgonis, popularly called the Silken Queen, is the only member to know all the Serica’s secrets. She is about five centuries old and has ruled the Serica for three of them. No one can imagine the Serica without her.

 

The Tecto: This guild encompasses everyone in the building trade, from master architects to lowly hod-carriers. In most cities, the local Tecto is merely a craft. Thalassene’s rapid growth makes the Tecto important enough to treat as an Art.

 

Many dwarves join the Tecto. The guild’s most famous architect and stonemason, Gannaldr Chiselhand, is a dwarf from Anticline with ties to that city’s royal family. The Tecto’s most recognized member, though, may be an unskilled laborer. Trumble the hill giant came to Thalassene because he loves music and alcohol, both of which other folk do better than hill giants. When he found that people would pay him to lift heavy beams and building stones into position, he never looked back. Trumble can’t hold a tune in a bucket, but he makes an appreciative audience. Fortunately, he is also a happy drunk who doesn’t take offense when people remind him not to dance too close to buildings.

Dean Shomshak

[DShomshak]

From the commanding heights of the great Arts to the lesser Crafts, down to the small trades of the poor.

 

Quote

Notable Crafts

These are only examples. Thalassene has dozens of artisan guilds, large and small.

 

The Aurifabri: The great jeweler-houses clustered around Gold Court, in Exordium, form the core of this guild. Each employs dozens of goldsmiths, silversmiths, gem-cutters, enamelers, and other specialist artisans. Many neighborhoods have a jeweler to supply minor treasures such as a small silver bowl or an enameled brooch. When people get a little extra money, they might buy another link for a silver chain or add a jewel to a weapon’s hilt, to sell again in hard times. The patricians of Exordium may employ personal jewelers — some of them lineages who serve a single family for generations.

 

The Balnea: The bath-house guild is fairly small, but Plenary folk appreciate being able to take a hot bath. Large bath-houses include both single tubs and communal pools in hot, tepid and cold water, sauna, massage, medicinal bath salts and soaps, and other benefits of a full-service spa. Every bath-house includes a small shrine to Crocell, the god of bathing and hygiene.

 

The Chroma: The dyers’ guild moved twice as Thalassene grew, because nobody wants to live near the stinking dye-vats. This century, it was forced out to Quisquiline Island. The Lana and Ramio both try to absorb the Chroma in hopes this increased leverage can push them into the Arts, while the Gossi seeks the Chroma to keep the other cloth guild out, but the Chroma stays stubbornly independent.

 

The Figuli: The potter’s guild also includes tilemakers and most other artisans who work in clay, but not brickmakers (they’re in the Tecto). Most guild members live and work in the neighborhood named for their guild, the Figuline. Thalassene’s Figuli doesn’t produce great pottery. It’s good enough for domestic use, but guilds in other cities and countries make better wares. The guildmasters seek to change this by developing high-quality ornamental tiles.

 

The Hippocomoi: The guild of stablers and grooms deals in horses, donkeys, riding dogs and other beasts. Only one stable in Transfossa can lodge the immense sauropods — tricky to tame, but able to carry immense loads. The Hippocomoi also includes cabbies… many of them centaurs, pulling their own cabs.

 

The Lana: The wool guild actually encompasses all cloth derived from animal hair, not just sheep. It’s large and long established, but not as large as the Gossi or as rich as the Serica. The Lana used to be an Art, but it was demoted several decades ago by the rising wealth and power of the Tecto. High Guildmaster Aledettus flew into a screaming rage the last time a Gossi master rubbed his nose in the Lana’s reduced status; it was the talk of the town for a week.

 

The Ramio: This new guild (just a century old) introduced the Plenary Empire to ramie, a fiber resembling silk but obtained from a nettle-like plant — and cheaper. The Ramio imports most of its raw fiber from far Timbal, but it tries to promote ramie cultivation in the Empire. The commercial and political rivalry with the Serica grows fiercer by the year as the Ramio tries to undercut silk in the marketplace and the Serica tries to wangle tariffs on ramie.

 

The Skyturgo, or leather-workers, keep their guild hall in Almagest. The saddlers and other artisans are scattered throughout Thalassene. Their tanneries, however, are all out on Quisquiline Island with the Chroma because no one can stand to live near the horrible stench.

 

The Tabernari: Innkeepers, tavern-keepers, wine and beer sellers, tea and coffee shop proprietors and restauranteurs all join the Tabernari. This includes the lunch counters where busy folk can enjoy Drohashi pitas, Vohinese curry, Furanian stuffed dumplings, or good old traditional bean stew. Even pushcart vendors selling sausages must join the Tabernari.

 

The Vitrio: The glazers’ guild, based in Tarsia, chiefly produces glass bottles and small panes of window-glass. (Large, clear panes are costly masterworks.) The glazers also produce glass mirrors and ornamental items such as colored glass urns and medallions.

 

A branch of the Vitrio in Gauds produces multicolored trade beads that merchants exchange for the goods of distant, tribal cultures. Thalassene produces more and better trade beads than any other city in the Empire. It’s a point of pride in Gauds that some folk use Thalassene trade beads for money. Other countries buy the beads just to trade with their own neighbors. Lorusa Beader, owner of the largest trade-bead factory, is the leading citizen in Gauds.

 

The Lost Guild

Before the rise of the Tecto and Papyro, the seventh Art was the Argosa, or shippers’ guild. This merchant marine was wealthier even than the Cambio. Add in allied guilds such as sailmakers and stevedores, and it was also by far the city’s largest guild.

 

The Argosa protested the replacement of the Rhetor with the Admiralty. The protest became so vigorous that Autocrat Cholestus sent a hobgoblin cohort to suppress the Argosa. Six magnates died before the rest of the Argosa agreed to disband and pay 150 talents of gold as atonement for their insurrection. Even today, it would be dangerous for anyone to suggest reviving the Argosa.

 

The Oddmongers

Some artisans practice obscure crafts such as bonsai, feather-working, parasol-making or china-doll manufacture. Not enough people work at such crafts to make a guild: For instance, the halfling Kebbin Fruiter is the only maker of wax fruit (a craft he invented). Thalasseners call these artisans the oddmongers. They have a neighborhood of their own in Old Town.

 

The oldest residents of the Oddmonger neighborhood are the Domwyl sisters, three elves who crochet masterwork lace parasols. They have lived in their small villa for at least 300 years. The Domwyl sisters keep to themselves; rumor has it that they work elven magic into their lace.

 

The wealthiest oddmonger, however, is the human lens-grinder Sebissicus Fendron. His apprentices do most of the work for ordinary spyglasses and spectacles; but only Sebissicus had the skill to reconstruct a device — a microscope — from an ancient manuscript. Sebissicus puts himself forward to speak for the oddmongers, though no one else seems much interested in such advocacy.

 

The Lowest Crafts

There is no guild for the garbage-pickers on Quisquiline Island, yet they support humble crafts. Some among the poor scavenge bits of wood, shell, horn or bone to shape into buttons. Others twist and knot scraps of cloth into pot-holders. Scrap metal and glass are sold back to the smiths and glazers; broken crockery, back to potters who grind it to mix with raw clay.

 

The butchers support another group of trades. Hides, of course, go to the tanners. Horn and bone can be shaped into spoons, small cups and other useful, everyday items. The pet’s-meat-men buy scraps for others to feed to their dogs, cats, or pterodactyls. (And if some of the meat really comes from the rat-catchers, who’s to know?) Tallowmen collect fat for the chandlers and soap-makers in Render House neighborhood.

 

Even the city’s chamberpots can supply a meager living, as urine goes to the dyers on Quisquiline Island dung goes to farmers’ fields. If anything, anything, can be used, someone collects it to sell. It beats starving.

Dean Shomshak

[DShomshak]

Religious faith cannot be ignored, rspecially when representatives of the divine wield magical power. Faith is vital to many Thalasseners -- and source of a major threat to the city, and to the Plenary Empire.

 

(One bit is conceptually a little racy, but don't worry: Nothing is described that couldn't be shown on network TV.)

 

Quote

Religion

Thalassene holds hundreds of temples besides the Pera Sacra, the Capulus and the Pantheon. Some are large and ornate, such as the main temple of Adrigon Imperator in Almagest. At the other extreme, every neighborhood includes a few personal fanes such as the closet-sized shrine to the death-god Maion in the home of the notary Edricus, who specializes in drawing up wills. Likewise, there are many shrines and temples to popular cults such as Manakel or the Holy Family; but only one or two of lesser gods such as the Drohashi potter-god Araboth, located in Figuline. Some cults and shrines enjoy state support, such as the temple of Sar Poliorketos where the Plenary Empire honors every general or admiral to earn the title of City-Taker. Most are privately funded by the worshipers themselves. And a few are… eccentric, such as the sacred grove of bonsai trees the druidess Farella trundles about the city in a wheelbarrow.

 

As Thalassene’s traditional patron, the sea-god Manakel has many small shrines scattered throughout the city. Everyone recognizes the image of the fish-tailed god. The most important observance, however, doesn’t take place in any shrine. The annual ceremony of the Marriage to the Sea celebrates the city’s pact with Manakel and the merfolk who also worship the god. Athletic young human men and women, ten each, dive into the sea from the Pera Sacra and swim seven miles to Treaty Reef. The male and female winners of the race couple in the surf with merfolk who won their own competition. (The other swimmers also usually find willing partners.) Mer and landwalker priests bless the unions and proclaim the treaty between the city and the sea renewed for another year. Offspring of these sacred marriages are blessed with the magical power to exchange feet and fins, taking mer or human form as they choose.

 

Most neighborhoods also include at least one temple of the Holy Family. This cult from the Southern Continent honors Aeshe the Mother of Harvest, Thaaz the Father of the Fallow, and Vadushe the Daughter of Planting with weekly services of scriptures and songs. Three times a year, special services include chorales of children from the church’s orphanages. Some orphans and foundlings grow up to serve the cult from loyalty and love for the gods who adopted them. Others escape to take their chances on the streets — for mortals are weak and prone to exploit the helpless in this world, even when they know that gods shall judge them in the next.

 

Plenary cities such as Thalassene also see a lot of hybrid theology. It’s not unusual for gods to appear in more than one pantheon, as both the merfolk and the Zurthani people worship Manakel, or the Zurthani and Drohashi both worship Barakel. The god Lamideck is both the Yidmiri god of blacksmithing and the dwarven god of war.

 

In Oddmonger, however, the local priest of Lamideck is an orc named Skrog. The god called this former city guard for his love of weapons. Skrog fosters the god’s cult among his former colleagues regardless of species.

 

As often happens in Thalassene, Skrog draws in extra worshipers through a line of mini-shrines along one wall, honoring other gods of weapons, war and guarding: the orcs’ own Gruumsh (or Gromiscus to soldiers of other folk); the Yidmiri war-god Sar; the Thunderer, storm-and-war god of the Macrine; Rumedon, the Night Watchman of Marolici myth; Koya the Shield-Maiden, Marolici protectress of soldiers in peril; and Cairtyl, the elves’ goddess of archery. If you can’t find a shrine in Thalassene of exactly the god you want, shop around.

 

Such free and easy attitudes toward the divine enrage Viltarn’s ambassador Hegetsa. She knows, with a fanatic’s faith, that all gods are subordinate to Sorath, the Burning Light of Purity; and Sorath must be worshiped only by the rites and liturgies ordained by the prophet Orvikka and her successors, the Illuminates.

But Hegetsa’s deepest hatred goes to the festivals held in Vicus Drohasus. In this Quarters neighborhood, Drohashi folk maintain the customs of the Old Country from before its conquest by Viltarn. At each solstice, the Drohashi of Thalassene parade the idols of their gods through the streets while they sing the old hymns, play the music of sistrum, flute and tabor, and wave banners of the Golden Lotus that was the emblem of sacred kingship. Sorath is there — but second to his father Suzeratos, and honored no more than the likes of Araboth or Barakel. The celebrants are worse than heathen, worse than infidel. They are heretics, deniers of the true doctrine! Hegetsa promises herself that soon, they and their city will burn.

Dean Shomshak

[DShomshak]

Last bit! TGhalassene's most distinctive foreign connection:

 

Quote

Peoples of the Sea

Treaty Reef sees other commerce besides the Marriage to the Sea. Merchants visit the reef to trade land-made goods for coral, nacre and other oceanic treasures. The pearl-carver Lexina Belnor doesn’t need the reef: Her grandmother was a Child of Land and Sea, born of the sacred union, and Lexina inherited the gift. She trades for nacre when she visits her mer husband out on Five-Mile Reef nearby. Two of their four children also inherited the gift; one now lives primarily at sea. Lexina is far from the only Thalassener with kin below the waves.

 

The ancient treaty also specifies when and where local fisher-folk can spread their nets. Reefs and sea-grass meadows give Mauric Bay an abundance of fish and other seafood: The treaty calendar prevents merfolk from being caught.

 

In return, the merfolk pledge to help sailors in distress. There is no way to test how diligently the merfolk keep this aspect of the treaty: If they ever ignore a sinking ship or capsized fishing boat, no one knows it. Nevertheless, when some local robbers set decoy lights on Wrecker’s Rock, it was the merfolk chief Minarius who alerted Thalassene that the evil scheme was in use again. Indeed, the merchants who frequent Treaty Reef trust the mer chief rather more than they trust the Lord Admiral… who has never bothered to meet his marine counterpart.

 

The Children of Land and Sea are always welcome in both the Navy and the merchant marine. Thalassene sailors and traders who can become merfolk helped the Plenary Empire establish relations with other aquatic peoples throughout the Inner Ocea such as the sea elves of the Shelansae Isles or the fishlike locathah who dwell in sargassum fields far from any shore.

 

And when the folk under sea are not so friendly? Sixteen years ago, it seemed some merfolk reneged on the treaty and turned pirate against Plenary ships. Other attacks made it seem that land-folk attacked merfolk. Chief Minarius (then a young warrior) and his friend Titus Belnor, Lexina’s brother and another Child of Land and Sea, exposed the attacks as a scheme of the savage sahuagin. Though Titus died in the fighting, heroes and warriors of land and sea captured the sahuagin; and Plenary soldiers crucified the devilish fish-folk on the reef they used as a hideout. The specters left by the sahuagins’ slow, agonizing deaths still wail at night on the Reef of Screams as a warning never to attack the City of the Sea — or its friends below the waves.

 

Dean Shomshak

[Doc Democracy]

THAT, is a lot of work.  Very generous to share.

[Lord Liaden]

Please consider all your posts repped, Dean. First-rate world-building, very inspirational.

[Mr. R]

I hope I get things this GOOD!

[DShomshak]

And I suppose it might be nice to include the large-scale city map? (Though shrunk to low-res JPG to conserve attachment space.)

 

Dean Shomshak

[Lord Liaden]

Dean, you might try uploading the full-scale map into the free Downloads section of this website. That doesn't count toward your attachment maximum. Actually, that plus a PDF or DOC of your player's guide to the city would make a very useful package.

[DShomshak]

On 3/31/2023 at 1:08 PM, Lord Liaden said:

Please consider all your posts repped, Dean. First-rate world-building, very inspirational.

 

On 3/31/2023 at 8:29 PM, Mr. R said:

I hope I get things this GOOD!

Thank you for the kind words, all, but the important questions are of utility:

 

* Does it make you want to game in the setting?

* Do you think it would help you make a character that would fit within the setting, and you'd enjoy playing?

*Does the style contribute to those goals?

 

(For the moment, try to ignore the underlying game system.)

 

Dean Shomshak

 

Edited April 6, 2023 by DShomshak

[DShomshak]

On 4/1/2023 at 11:14 AM, Lord Liaden said:

Dean, you might try uploading the full-scale map into the free Downloads section of this website. That doesn't count toward your attachment maximum. Actually, that plus a PDF or DOC of your player's guide to the city would make a very useful package.

Suggestion accepted! I placed the map within the text, added a little introduction/explanation and a few more small notes (such as a sidebar on "clanking"), turned it all into a pdf, and put it in the Downloads are. Here's the link:

 

Dean Shomshak