Quote from: James J SkachOver 50 pages now (same caveats as before - no editing, haven't read a bunch of it).  Just thought you should know...

Hey James, interesting to see you are still cataloging this... I wonder if anyone else reads it?

Anyway, slow going as I get into more details, the chance to contradict myself looms as I switch from the broad strokes of history to the narrow strokes of 'right here and now'.  Ideally, I want to expand the Tenebrian states at some point, but I don't want to get too focused on them and miss the Nornsa or other cultures that exist.  Mind you, Tenebrian States is about as informative as 'asian', covering a lot of different, vaguely similar, nations, rather than a single culture or nation, and a similar 'sweeping catagory' could be said of the Nornsa kingdoms.  While once these were unified empires, they were made up of many independent nations.

I'm stalking you...follwing behind picking up all of your Pikadroppings...

Like I said, I'm behind in reading it; but I'm trying to keep up with collecting it at the very least.  I was just thinking today I should sketch out a rough map of where things are and such.

You could seriously have a source book.  It's 50 pages with no illustrations or real page work down, just straigt text in Word.

Maybe after Christmas, when I get my personal server back working at home, I'll post it on my web site (whcih needs a complete overhaul as it is).

someone else here who loves it.

only got a chance to read the first post, but the vibe/world you've founded is amazing.  i would love to adventure there.  now i need some spare time to read the rest. . . .

i'd buy the sourcebook

I have a rough sketched map already, I'll have to scan it in and see if I can attach it.

As I said, between Christmas and New Years I'll be rebuilding my server.  I already have a couple of domains, so I'd be happy to host this, just so I can be a part of it.

Though perhaps a Wiki or some such would be a better, choice.

But the offer stands - for free we'll put it on a server and let the world see it.  It would be a fun little project.  Try to make it kinda like the d20 SRD in HTML.

I know of at least four other GMs who lurk around the sites which I do, who are following your work in this thread.

Regards,
David R

I have no idea about how best to put this out there, James. Forums is about the extent of my internet-fu... all that forest living, you know

Thanks for the information, David.  For the sake of my fans I guess I can keep going:melodramatic:

I'll try to get something good going by lunch on the other dominant culture, the Nornsa culture.  I can already feel ideas trickling out of the backbrain... kinda like Chinese Water Torture in reverse...

When discussing Nornsa, one must be fully clear in which era the discussion takes place.  Prior to the Banality, in the Mythic Ages, Nornsa was a village on a hill overlooking the Harbor of Five Seals. Nornsa of that era was nothing more than a place to live and fish. Her nearest neighbors were Orcs of the Fadim tribes, or slightly to the north of that the Elves of the Yrthmu tribe, in their city of White Spires, Illiakei in their tongue.  After the destruction of Irem, Illiakei fell, as many elven cities did, and the wastelands threatened to overwhelm her ruins. The Yrthmu took succor in Nornsa and other human villages for a time before building the current city of Seven Spires, or Illiacli many leagues to the south of Illiakei, so that they would not have to look out their windows and see their former greatness, and failures staring at them.

During the Banality, the Orcs of the Fadim formed their Alliance of Tribes, and they exerted a sort of dominace over all the towns and villages of the region. As a non-orc village, Nornsa was taxed heavily for fish and other products of the sea, and under the stern guidance of these absent 'landlords' grew and prospered, though much of her wealth was paid in tribute.  It is said that the humans of the region developed their hatred of the Orcs from this era, though the prejudices of the Yrthmu that still lived among them can not be discounted.

Following the Banality and the dominance of the Orcs came a man, born and raised in Nornsa, his parentage unknown, though many suggest he had elf blood. He was Vesilimatu, his name meaning 'Great Beloved of Men', and is surely a title rather than his given name. Vesilimatu was a giant of a man, towering over his contemporaries. He was a scholar and a warrior, and seperating truth from legend was impossible, even in his life.  He was said to have fled Nornsa as a boy, having thrown the Orcish taxman from the temple step, breaking the Orc's neck with his bare hands.  It was in Illiacli that he developed a love of learning and mastered, some say invented, the strategic game of Oyoi Stone and Horse, known by all as Oyoi, or sometimes Stones.

What IS known is that the Vasilimatu rode south from Illiacli with a small band of rough men and liberated Nornsa and a small handful of other towns and villages from the Orcs, though history suggests that he faced no real opposition from the Orcs at that time.  He spent the winter gathering men and a handful of Elvish Knights, legendarily Tuathan in origin, and when the Orcs sent armed bands to collect their taxes, he destroyed them, mounting their heads on the gates of his 'cities'.   History again suggests that the Orcs did not take him seriously, and had they sent an army might have destroyed him without much concern. But in the two years he occupied Nornsa, he turned the people to his cause and raised a large, if somewhat ragged army. The following summer the Battle of Dorem Plain, a battle that remains a hallmark of modern strategic study, occured. Outnumbered five to one, most of his army undisciplined, poorly trained fishermen and farmboys he defeated the Orcs of the Fadim. He placed his knights, and himself, in the center of the line, and when the Orcs charged instead of standing, the knights broke and fled, and fled again, luring the orcs in until their greatest warriors were trapped, surrounded on an open plain by Vasilimatu's farmboys, and the suddenly rallied knights turning on them with a vengence.  Once he had destroyed the Van, the knights turned from the melee and launched like a spearthrust at the leaders of the Orcish Army and routed them, slaying thousands that day, and thousands more the next in what the Orcs still refer to as Grogamolokosh, or the Run of Blood and Shame.  

Inspired by his victory, his army bloodied and hardened by battle, Valsilimatu turned his attentions to the East and the South, paying heed not to anger the Elves of Siti, in their forest fastness of Hydiminoi, and from them he drew additional forces. He convinced the Dwarves of the Kamaza Clanhold to build up several of his more 'important' cities, and thus incidentally defend them from those who would harm them. He scattered and razed the cities of the Fadim, he overran the heretics of Lomun and their fledgling kingdom to his south, and when he reached the southern end of the River Erd he turned back leaving his generals to conqure in his name as he turned his attention to ruling nearly one quarter of the known world at that time.  Of course, to him, the known world was the northern continent. His generals ignored Paravail, then still a humble village out to sea, but then they barely crossed the Erd at all. The Kingdoms of the South were sterner competition, richer, better protected and defended than the Western towns and villages.  

Vasilimatu did not live to see the Tenebrian Horde sweep through his southern holdings. If he had, History might have been written differently. As it was, he died some generations before the Tenebrians made their way north, and his Empire soon fell apart as his sons and generals fell to infighting, his empire shattering into two dozen mighty kingdoms within decades, each warring with the others for the right to rule the Empire that was no more.  By the time of the Tenebrian Wars, the Nornsa 'Empire' was nothing more than a memory of past greatness and a handful of mighty cities ruling over a handfull of lesser ones.  If not for their distance, and the twin protections of Hydiminoi and the River Erd, and the Paravailians at their height, Nornsa might be a mere footnote in the history books.

As it was, the Tenebrian's presence, temporary as it was, galvanized many of the southern Kingdoms into setting aside their differences and petty wars, often fought by mercenaries in the increasingly unstable region, and allying. Eventually a new Nornsa, far removed from the original City far to the north, formed, made fat on trade flowing through Paravail, and by virtue of rich coasts and minerals, trade with the Dwarves and Elves of the region.  The new Nornsa was not expansionistic (indeed, could not be, or the fragile alliance that birthed her would have shattered irreprably), but focused on learning, trade and the sciences of Alchemy and Magic.   Her capitol was the city of Renbluve, which still stands proud though her heyday as the seat of a mighty kingdom is long past.

This was the Nornsa that existed prior to the Warlord of Melitior. To discuss Nornsa after one must perforce discuss the Warlord.

In the Tundrid Plateau to the North lies the truly ancient ruins of Mo'kath, the oldest complete ruins in existance, destroyed by the Elves at the end of the Golden Age.  In those Ruins lie many ancient secrets, and the magics of old still lie fallow in her stones, the power of ancient curses and battlespells.

The Warlord, who or whatever he was (for the record, the Avatar of War come to birth the end of civilization into an endless orgy of destruction....) strode out of Mo'Kath and united the scattered tribes of Orcs and the Bearmen (humans of the Tundrid Plateau), and with powerful sorceries enslaved Goblins and terrible creatures and swept south, laying waste to all he surveyed.

The Warlord did not perform simply wanton destruction. No, he toyed with his victims, whole kingdoms and city-states, forcing them to adapt, to become more warlike to fight him, to survive, and when they were vicious enough he would pass them by. Some he would recruit to his cause, others he would destroy as examples to the others. His armies grew and grew, splitting in two going around the Great Forest Hydiminoi, knowing what evils the Elves could perpetrate when driven hard enough, as he slowly but surely did. His eastern horde swept south, eventually crossing the seas to attack the southlands, though the Warlord himself was not present, and the Eastern Army floundered eventually against the Tenebrian Empire in the South. The Warlord pressed against Nornsa, and found the hardest fight he ever had, and he gloried in it, even has he gnashed his black teeth against the alliance of Light that forged to stop him. He wanted war between the races, between brothers.  It was here he spent his forces as if they were water, and in a terrible thrust pushed into Nornsa, cutting her in half as he pushed to destroy the architects of the Alliance where they sought sanctuary at the southernmost tip. The Battle was terrible, and the Warlord was destroyed by means known only by legend.   It is said that the Queen of the Elves, she who had bent her knee to the pride of the Dwarves, sacrificed her immortality, her life to preserve the lives of people who were not her own, her soul was forged into a shining blade of light by the greatest of all Dwarven weaponsmiths, who, not to be outdone, poured his own life into the work, quenching the blade in his own heartsblood, and this weapon was weilded by the daughter of the King of men, who without malice in her heart was immune to the weapons of the Warlord and thrust the blade into the heart of the Warlord, and was willingly consumed by this act.

The Death of the Warlord was attended by Death himself, who refused to collect the souls of any involved... including the Warlord.  Instead the Elves and dwarves and Men built a massive Sepulchure over him, warded with the most puissant magics they could find, then built the fabled city of Ysithyderi around it, and this became the capitol of a new Nornsa, lacking only the name of that fabled kingdom of old.

The new kingdom was famous for being a true kingdom of three races. The Siti withdrew from the world, mourning their lost Queen, she who had ruled them from before time, and legend holds the last living being to remember the Titans, what they looked like, what they called themselves...

One last note on the the death of the Warlord. One popular legend holds that the actual deathstroke, had it come from the girl would have ended the Warlord for all time (and by extension, though men know it not, War itself), but she was only immune to the minions of the Warlord. It is said that Death was drawn to her, by her beauty and dedication, and took up her sword and slew the Warlord himself on her behalf, for only Death has such power that no other could stand. But Death refused to claim only the Warlord's soul for reasons of his own (being that War is kin perhaps), and now carries the Sword of Three Souls as His Bride. Others claim the Sword still peirces the Warlords breast, and if ever removed he might rise again, others claim if he rises, only the sword can finish him.

Regardless of what legend you follow, it is a catagorical fact, held up by record, that Death changed following the death of the Warlord. Depictions of the being before are of some inhuman feind, cruel and heartless. Often formless, or nearly so, and personally attending the deaths of all beings of note.  After the Warlord, Death took on a more Human appearence, often legends ascribe him talking to people kindly before claiming them peacefully, and he is said to be attended by blind maidens who claim those slain in battle, so that he does not have to look on the ruin of the battlefeilds.  There are those who claim that Death was changed when he learned of Love, others suggest a new being claimed the Mantle of Death, even going so far as to suggest the previous Death was slain by the Warlord, and as one of the immutable beings of creation, his power flowed into the nearest host, who finished the job. Those who hold the Warlord in high esteem tend to belive that he had the power to slay Death, if only temporarily.  

It was Death who guarded the tomb of the Warlord from Dragon's fire when Ysithyderi was destroyed, and the bones of those Dragons who dared his power guard it still.

Following the fall of Ysithyderi the kingdoms of man fell once more into fractious infighting, and two Nornsa's arose.  The first was the original city to the North which still rules a respectable empire, though the Hwarzia in the mountains rebelled a few hundred years ago and remain a thorn in the side of that kingdom.

To the south the city of Renbluve, having long lost her status as the Jewel of the South, rose over a smaller Nornsa kingdom. Renbluve has worked hard to reclaim her glory, and has mostly succeeded.  The Kingdom, however, is hard pressed to stay 'alive'. The Order of the Coin, which dates back to the Pre-Warlord Nornsa, works hard to keep the new Nornsa wealthy, yet the land is poor, overworked, the mines are ancient, deep and mostly played out.  The people are wealthy, educated... they are a nation of scholars and philosophers, their power is undisputed, and Renbluve never fell to the Warlord, though he certainly had his sights on them near the end.  But they survived, in part by enslaving those who had served the Warlord. Captured Orcs and Goblins, and even men, were put to work in the mines, forges, and farms of the Kingdom, feeding a desperate army.  To this day the decendents of those original Slaves still work those same mines and farms, alongside criminals. Recently it has become popular to take slave children and raise them in the cities to serve in the houses of the rich and powerful, though this is viewed as immoral and distasteful by many others.  Most of the nearby kingdoms turn a blind eye to the practice, pretending it doesn't exist, though others have begun to ape them, procuring slaves from the Nornsa or capturing their own. Still a third faction, and the predominant one, views the practice as distasteful in the extreme and will having nothing to do with it.  

An attendant problem in those kingdoms who have recently begun allowing slavery is the displacement of lower classes. Farmers and miner's, those who earned their livelihood in those jobs that are not 'slave work' often find themselves destituite, and shortly after slaves themselves, or turn to banditry.  Nornsa, having lost those personages during the Warlord's March, never had that problem, though they do have a large 'urban poor' class, many of whom end up criminals (thus, eventually, slaves) or join the robust army of Nornsa.

Former Ysithyderi has split into Ys, to the East, Nornsa, to the North, and Helthdan to the west. Ys has shrunk to a fraction of it's former size, with a dozen splinter kingdoms, but has stabilized nicely. Helthdan isn't even a kingdom anymore, but a collection of dozens of smaller kingdoms, the people are known as Helthdanes, but no kingdom claims that name. Nornsa, properly, wasn't part of Ys, but rather absorbed a portion of her land before fragmenting. The modern Nornsa is one kingdom and 8 splinter kingdoms, some of whom fight each other.  The River Erd is viewed as the end of Nornsa lands, though this is not entirely accurate. Paravail, for example, was NEVER part of Nornsa, and her culture remains uniquely her own, but to the east a great number of lands share a great deal of cultural traits with Nornsa, often blended with Tenebrian imported cultural artifacts.

In the intrest of naming conventions, those human lands to the north and east, where neither Nornsa or Tenebrian cultures ever reached are often called 'Melitorian', after the Warlord.  This might be unfair, though no kingdom of the time had the power to withstand him, though the Warlord, properly, was named after the human term for the general region.


To move beyond the purely mortal understanding, it must be understood that in purely metaphysical terms, the Warlord, as the Avatar of War, was tearing asunder the Great Engine of the First Smith. War then is the mortal enemy of the First Smith and the Gods. this is ironic, because War might be considered the only God native to Haven, being born entirely here.  War doesn't want the destruction of Haven, he wants to tear apart the Great Engine and the Barrier, allowing Demons, old and new, to once again war with the Gods. He is like a spoiled child who fails to see he would destroy his own home in the name of amusement.  War has no expirence with Chaos, as the First Gods do, or Demons for that matter, which makes him ironically very weak.  He can only draw power from the metaphysical cause of his existance, war itself. Mortal wars only give him mortal power, divine wars give him more power. The treaty then incidentally is anathama to him, limiting him to the Warlord... and the Warlord is Dead.  It would take an apocalyptic mortal war or a serious violation of the Treaty to give him the power to rise once more.... the mistake made by those who destroyed him (thus why Death didn't claim him) is that 'Love' or 'Self Sacrifice' isn't anathama to War, though powerful weapons in their own right. Peace is, and while the Sword of Three Souls carries a lot of peace in it's forging, it was not forged as a weapon of Peace... a metaphysical impossibility.  

As for what happened in that final battle, and to Death itself... some things are best not discussed, but left for the reader to decide.

If anyone is reading this, please, feel free to comment. Tell me what you liked or didn't like, and what you'd like to see more (or less) of.


I rather suspect that if I ever decide to redo this for publication or re-release, I would leave out most of the theological and metaphyscial bits. Know them, certainly, understand them, of course, use them to build up more? Indubitably...

But as it stands I lay out too many cards on the table and risk putting people off.  My presentation, for the purposes of players, is all backwards I suspect.  I've started taking that tack when writing the recent parts, being a bit more obscure and leaving more unsaid than when I started.

i've (unfortunately) got the day off from work tomorrow, so i plan on reading the whole shebang in one go!

any choice of soundtracks while i do so?  wagner, perhaps?

i've been hardcore into the WoW 'track. i think the first post goes well with it's epic feel.

Wow, pretty impressive. Other than some names not really fitting my personal perceptions its very nice. (Grogamolokosh this one it seems a bit off but its Orcish..so..)

Anyway my long post I had I realized you've already thought on one of the major other issues I was going to talk about--presentations/too much info interferes with play (as opposed to making an RPG for just "readers" as opposed to actually playing.) A good world with solid story is grand, but making it digestable and useable is an issue, but you know this so


Keep up the good work.

Quote from: SilverlionWow, pretty impressive. Other than some names not really fitting my personal perceptions its very nice. (Grogamolokosh this one it seems a bit off but its Orcish..so..)

Anyway my long post I had I realized you've already thought on one of the major other issues I was going to talk about--presentations/too much info interferes with play (as opposed to making an RPG for just "readers" as opposed to actually playing.) A good world with solid story is grand, but making it digestable and useable is an issue, but you know this so


Keep up the good work.

Well, Silver, technically Grogamolokosh isn't a name at all, it's a verb with attached adverb and descriptor (in english, two adverbs)....

I'm not crazy enough to invent whole langauges (I gave that up as a nipper...), but I should go back and make sure I'm at least using similar linguistic rules in each demonstrable use of a related language.

One issue that's come up as I've been writing this is scope, or scale. I'm trying to describe an entire world... one I had envisioned as being epic in scope, thus larger than our own (taller mountains, deeper ravines, wider oceans, larger nations....).  When discussing everything, things tend to get collapsed down, you don't know how far apart Tenebria and Nornsa are, they sound like neighbors.

There should be a hundred or more major cities, each unique and notable in it's own right, and I've named maybe a dozen, half of which are ancient ruins.

To give some ideas:

Paravail, on a penninsula thrust out into the Sea of Gattipol, is on the end of a landmass roughly the size of India, and none of the powers mentioned share that land mass with her.  Hydiminoi, the Great forest of the Siti tribe of Elves is bigger than all of Europe, yet occupies maybe a tenth of the northern continent. The river Erd, as a consequence is long enough to completely cross the lenght of Africa, maybe then some.  

If I reduce my scale to more normal proportions, then the Erd flows some 5000 miles, Paravail is on a penninsula the size of Florida, maybe a bit longer and the limits of the Hydiminoi are a thousand miles along either axis.


So... not only do I need to refine my presentation to reader/player level as I work, I need to fill in the huge gaps between the major historical players. Paravail is not without neighbors, it is just that none on the penninsula have ever had a major influence on history, and have gone without mention.

Much has been said of history and legend, but what of the modern age? Should not we deal with the history of individual nations as needed as we discuss what occurs in the modern era?

Thus we turn our attentions to the land once known as Hygleac, now known to all as 'Greater Paravail', the penninsula upon which that city prospers.

The Erd flows from the Lake of Smoke, high up in the mountains of Karamako that border the Wastes of Irem. From there it flows far to the East through Hesh, turning south before reaching the sea. It flows through the Hydiminoi, eventually forming a border between the lands of the Nornsa and those who were Tenebrian before entering Hygleac, eventually flowing into the Sea of Gattipol.  Many view the River as possessing mystic properties, absorbed and channeled from the many lands she flows through.  

The northern expanse of Hygleac is a vast desert, dry and sparse. The Erd does not flood often or widely, her banks are carved deep into into limestone, and the hard land does not absorb her waters. The bearded Keks culture worships the river, claiming it flows from the seat of life, and even the gods of the Keks are said to have come from it's waters.  Their kingdom is poor, though from the rocky hills and valleys they are able to mine iron and gold, along with a few gems, however, they can barely grow enough food to survive the dry seasons.  The Keks men do not shave, nor do any of them cut their hair. This is not mandated by law, and one might see a bald or beardless Keks male on rare occasions, often for health reasons, but to be 'beardless' is an insult, suggesting 'unmanliness' or 'boyishness'.  In some of the more distant regions it is popular with the women of the keks to paint their cheeks with dark pigments to suggest beards.

The 'Culture' of the Keks is very much a tribal/clan structure. Each tribal cheiftan is a king of his people, and the tribes themselves hold 'sacred ancestral lands', defending them with a particular vigor.  Many of the more dominant tribes have fortresses in the mountains that form a natural border between the Keks and the Nornsa lands. The Paravailians trade heavily with the tribes to keep them as defenders of Hygleac, and by extension Paravail. Notably, the Tenebrians did not attempt to cross the mountains, though they did send heavily armed supply shipmends down the Erd through them, but landed their army by boat on the coastline and took the river 'cities' and ignored the feirce mountain tribes.

Kek culture is simple for the most part, an agricultural lifestyle in a hardscrabble land. It is then most efficent to discuss highlights that make Keks more unique.  Their garments are almost unversally rough homespun cloth, dyed in bright, vibrant solid colors with local pigments. Men and women favor loose fitting clothes.  Sandles or barefoot is the norm for lowland Keks, but the mountain tribes wear boots or curled toe shoes made of goat skin.
Bathing is public, typically in a river or irrigation ditch, but in drier communities, a dousing from the public well is most common.  While modesty is heavily prized, there is no nudity taboo, in fact the consumation of a wedding night is closely watched by the parents of both families.  Modesty, then, is more public comportment and behavior.  Gossip, for example, is frowned upon unless done behind closed doors.  Aside from festivals and music, most Keks communities are fairly quiet, as speaking in public...except for business, is viewed as 'immodest'. Of course, the cities are loud riots, as many of the more traditional behaviors are relaxed, and every day is some sort of religious festival.  In private, however, the Keks are loud, boisterous, occasionally rude. Being invited into a home is akin to becoming a member of the family, and semi-serious offers of marriage are sure to follow.   Keks do not like to do business with strangers, beyond casual exchanges, so offering a bride (or groom...) is a sure sign of serious business to come. If you accept.  The difficutly lies then in dealings. They have no minted coinage, but set great value on gold and silver as mediums of exchange.   They have little to offer the casual merchant, as a people, but to a more discerning trader, their crafts, particularly the 'metal lace' they make for jewelry (and the Keks love to wear their wealth), and some of their more exotic desert spices, can be sold to distant lands for great profit.  

There are many exotic rules for men and women among the Keks.  Men rule and do business one way, women may rule and do business, but not as men do. To the casual observer this may not be obvious. One may either assume that women are treated the same as men, or may assume that women are in the inferior position. Neither is precisely true.  Politically, women in Keks culture have less power, less say in many things. This is even more true in the mountain tribes than elsewhere, where women are often viewed as property, and very valuable property at that (land, women and gold, three thinks a Mountain Keks will kill you just for coveting).  In the lowlands, this is less true. A woman may inherit or acquire wealth and power through a variety of channels, and be deeply respected once she does.  More, women are absolute masters of the Home in most Lowland communities.  One does not, for example, ask a man to enter his home (provided one has been invited) one asks his wife.  Likewise the women are responsible for arranging the marriages and determining the future living arraingments of the happy couple, and negotiations can be cut throat.    In keeping with tribal traditions, Keks live in multigenerational homes, living alone is an aberration, often a mark of tragedy.  Homes therefore are often quite large, and families may seem wealthier than they are, as several members of the extended family provide wealth.  

It should be noted that the mountain Keks hate the dwarves, viewing them as treacherous feinds who seek to steal the land and gold out from underneath them (literally underneath), while the lowlanders often call the mountain tribes 'dwarves', but trade equitably with the occasional visitor from that race.

There is a temptation to discuss the other cultures of the Hygleac penninsula in greater detail before moving on to other regions of interest.  Obviously there is interest in the Mulgrim, and their gold covered repasts and their minarets, how they have risen from the Swamp of the Sudd to become shining kings of their lands, their wars with their cousins from the Bhradain dynasty across the banks of the Erd, how this war has prevented them from capitalizing on the trade up and down the river.  Perhaps an in depth look at the Bhradain themselves, their rigid caste structure, the preist-king and his army of Eunuchs.

One could mention their distant relation to the northern Keks, or the constant trade between the southern kingdoms and the northern Keks.  Perhaps the delicate bejeweled 'Eggs' that are the highest artform of the Bhradain, or their bizzare habit of allowing the swamp scorpion's to sting them so they can experience the ecstatic illumination.

 Pehaps we shall pass from the banks of the Erd to the western coast of Hygleac, where the Fisher Kings reign, their sea going ships unmatched in the Gattipol, how they retreat from the mainland when enemies press them, the entire nation fleeing to the seas, where they reign supreme.

But would you rather move away from this to the distant north, where the Bearmen roam the icy wastes of the Tundrid Plateau where no many should be able to live through the night, yet whole tribes of men not only thrive, but still hold the Warlord of Melitior as the greatest of them?

Indeed, we should speak now of these distant northmen, the remotest of all men, whose harsh lives make the lives of the Reve on their rocky shores seem positively pastoral.  The Karamako mountains form the southern border to the Tundrid Plateau, the northern edge is a massive cliff, nearly a league in height looking over the barrens of the north, stretching as far as the eye can see... all the way to the edge of creation and the Queen of the North in her Tower.  

The plateau is massive, a man could spend his entire life traveling it and not see every corner, not that there is much to see. The land is rugged, locked in frozen winter the year round. It is said that once the  Tundrid Plateau was lower, cold and icy much of the year, but when the Elves destroyed Mo'garesh, the land heaved and rebelled at the torture.  

Tribes, known as the Bearmen, wander the plains, each is unique, but many share common traits. Not all are human, many are orc, or have a significant percentage of orcish blood. Most drape themselves in the hides of great cave bears they slay for meat and fur, and thus the name.

To the casual observer the Bearmen are primative savages, nomads who should be barely able to survive, a people who rarely, if ever, eat the fruits of the earth.  This to the casual observer, for the Bearmen do not just hunt bears, they worship them. It is said that the men (and orcs) who lived here before the land heaved to the sky, found themselves trapped in a wasteland incapable of supporting life. They turned to the Great Bear, an Old God, and begged him for succor, and in his wisdom he made them his children, giving them the blood of the bears.  

This is the most often heard story, but many tribes worship other animals of the north,  the farthest north one may find the Wolf Pack tribes, whom even the Bearmen fear, saying they have been driven mad by staring through the endless night towards the end of the world, though the Wolves tell another tale entirely.

More importantly, the land is not so barren as it appears to those from more habitable lands. Many hardy plants grow there, from rare evergreen copses to iceberries, the same shade as the snow they grow from.  While nothing may be cultivated, most tribes suppliment their diets with what they can find in the wild.

Neither are the tribes entirely nomadic. Their hunting parties might travel for days, or weeks, on the hunt, making camps of snow block buildings or in snow caves carved from drifts. The Wolf Pack tribes do not even do that much, but pile together under a sheet of two hides, relying on brotherhood and bodyheat to preserve them through the cold.  But almost every tribe has a permanent camp, a town or village they call home. Many of these are cunningly hidden from their enemies, some in ravines or hidden valleys, others deep in the few tiny forests. There they have homes of stone, primative founderies and surface mines. They occasionally trade, or sell their services as mercenaries or guides across the icy wastes, others commit banditry on any they can find.  The Wolves, so far removed from all other peoples use stone and bone for their weapons, while the Bearmen in the southern reaches use dwarven steel, trading furs for it when they can.  None wear armor more than the thick hides that preserve their lives, for metal armor would be the death of them in the cold.

We have spoken many times of the southern kingdom of Nornsa, and the shining fortress city of Renbluve, yet we have not truly detailed them.  Great and terrible things are focused in Nornsa, the world changes once more, and the axis of that change is Renbluve itself.

Renbluve is occasionally known as the White City, or the City of Levels.  Originally a fishing village on the coast, under cliffs of gleaming white rock that thrust from the ground in a massive rise, as the population grew, and the need to defend themselves arose, the population gradually moved their most important buildings atop the great Rock, their temples carved from the same white stone. By the time of Versilimatu, Renbluve was already an unassailable fortress overlooking the sea, and tales of her capture are the stuff of legend.  The oldest son of Versilimatu coveted Renbluve, and made her his own when the original Nornsa empire began to fragment in the wake of the great King's death, and built for himself a powerful kingdom with the White City as his seat.

The Crown of the Rock, walled and virtually unreachable, is half a city and half a fortress.  The only route up is long, winding and treacherous, and very well guarded by peoples who long ago mapped ever nook and crevice, trapped every turn, and during the Warlord's March, proved willing to destroy it. The wealthiest and most powerful lords of Nornsa, the Archmagus Academy, the Temples, and the Alchemists all make their homes in the Crown, behind walls formed from the living rock itself, in towers and spires that reach to the very heavens.  A recent addition to the skyline are the floating manses, unique in all the world.  The Archmages slowly seem to recover the secrets of the Titans.

Meanwhile the Alchemists have discovered new secrets of their own, fueling a bitter rivalry between the two organizations.  In Renbluve one may see Flamesticks in the belts of daring dilletants, desperate duellists, and the Dragoons of Nornsa are the newest, and most feared military in the world. While Firesticks have slowly started to appear around the world, only in Renbluve are they common enough, along with the secrets of their operation, to equip a military with.  As the Dragoons ride on flying reptiles, minature dragons bred by the Archmages, the Nornsa seem posed to conquer the world while they still have the advantage, though it is a matter of some debate if the Dragoons are the equal to the massive, and incredibly disciplined, Tenebrian Army...

Below the Crown lies the Walled Harbor, the original town of Renbluve, now surrounded by walls nearly the equal to that of the Crown, and a large city in her own right.  This is the enclave of the bourgeois, the tradesmen, craftsmen and merchants that keep the Crown alive.  The Walls extend out to two towers in the sea, with enough room betweent them to allow the widest of merchant vessels to pass, but not much more.  The harbor itself is well sheltered naturally, and the walled portion is said to be the smoothest sailing known to man, this Harbor within a Harbor is large enough for entire fleets to shelter in, while the outer harbor is a massive quarentine zone for tax inspectors and paperwork duties. A smuggling trade exists, largely in the outer harbor, which is well defended from land based fortessess constructed on the headlands, and entire communities have formed on the water itself, with floating taverns and brothels, and worse. The city does not enforce any laws on the outer harbor, but does reap the profits of much of the trade. Bribery is expected to access the inner harbor, and harbormasters report, and are taxed on the bribes they take... mostly.  To be perfectly honest, paying judges, or publicly flexing political muscle, are openly accepted means of dealing with legal issues.  As a result there is surprisingly little corruption, and influence peddling is difficult because a rival can move openly against you to counteract this.

Outside the Walled City, and extending around the base of the Crown exists a massive, permanent suburbia of poorer districts.  The inhabitants are not perceived as being citizens of Renbluve, though they are members of the greater community (proles), and becoming a citizen is one of the few ways inside the Walls other than as paid labor.

Even the suburbs are surprisingly clean and well run, however.  The Archmagus Academy regularly sends out apprentices to practice humble magics in street cleaning, the Alchemists expiriment with means of destroying sewage, or converting it to useable substances, and the Renbluve Engineering Society has made great strides in their 'hobby'.   Most importantly, every morning before the sun rises, the City's Slave Corp, filled with convicted criminals and orc and goblin decendents of the Warlords Armies are marched solemnly through the city on their way out to the farms and mines that feed the city, or on their way to whatever labor jobs they are called on to perform IN the city, and along the way they must perform such duties as to maintain the city... picking up trash, or bodies, sweeping up the sewage and roadapples. The Goblins particularly are preferred for this work, as they will consume much of what is left out, though care must be taken that they do not attempt to eat drunks or the dead.

It is an open secret that under the Crown lie extensive catacombs carved from the living stone over millenia, though what lies in them is anyone's guess.  

Slaves are a very rare sight within the city, and the term 'Slave' is extremely gauche. Many of the more refined citizens will go through quite contorted efforts to avoid calling them such, or even acknowledging their legal status. Technically all slaves should belong to the city, though the practice of 'selling them' to those in need of unskilled labor has reduced that to a mere formality, and in recent times a 'lip service tradition', as many of the 'old money' in the crown, and somewhat MORE of the 'new money' in the Wall have taken to using slaves as personal attendants and 'house servants'.

The rise of Slave traders specializing in bringing in attractive and tractable slaves for such uses is extremely troubling to many more open minded citizens, and is only possible given the rise of slavery in the region...following Renbluve's example.

*Firesticks have recently come to be known by some as 'Gonnes', or Guns if you will, the etymology of this term is unclear, but may have some origins in Dwarvish for 'tube' or 'Rod', which can be roughly 'Gomnes', though the spelling in non-dwarvish is subject to debate.  There are those that suggest that the orcish slaves named it such for their bastardized word for 'Death', in the local patios 'Gfonz', the similarities of both terms are self evident, though in spoken word they are dissimilar.

To be Cont.