30. August 21, 2016

We pick up our horses and go to the capital city of Evangier to pick up a ship, the Lustful Serpent [per random ships' name generator], to transport us to the Imperial City. We decide to travel as a priestess of Beseth and her aide; our story is we are traveling to the city to prepare for the spring festival. As it happens, ships need to have a charter to sail in the Heart; the Lustful Serpent is captained by someone from Sylarith, and the captain is an Agent who is supposed to listen and report home.Via a message from Genard to the captain, we get free passage and hang out and exchange tales with Captain Pierson.

Captain Pierson tells us of the latest political landscape. There's the usual stuff between Evangier and Kirenweld going on. Because of the elven political war, Kirenweld and Elvoisin have a lot of people on the border and apparently Kirenweld may be thinking of trying to take some elven lands for the forest (we don't have forestry in Kirenweld, too much clearcutting). There's some ongoing conflict between the two (unnamed) countries to the south of the Heart; they are disputing where their desert borderline is. Honal and the eagle-flag people to their north are having a dispute about mining rights, with an entrance to the mines on the north side of border and Honal saying the newest vein discovered runs south under their border and thus are theirs. But there's nothing going on in the Heart, all is calm and it's a great time to be a lakesman.

Capt Pierson says conditions in the Imperial City are always a bit tense. But with the emperor gone, all the reps from the different barons can only jockey for position and try to gain favor with the council that's in charge while the Emperor is away. The Emperor has several children; the oldest two sons and a few daughters are traveling with him; the third son and the youngest children remain in the city, and the third son has an honorary position on the Council (voice, but no voting rights, thinks Capt Pierson).

Capt Pierson says there aren't any crazy stories about the Heart. One of the islands has the ruins of an old city, supposedly an early-human religious city that is the origin of all the human deities—Bel wants to take a pilgrimage there sometime. The Lustful Serpent travels clockwise, will return to each port of call about once a month; Capt Pierson could take us there if we want, or we could charter a ship to take a trip there.

We stop at two Honal port cities en route, and everything is very pretty, looks and smells clean.

The Imperial City

The Imperial City (the entire delta) has several districts; a merchant district in the northwest; an academic district on the southwest; temple district in the west central district; military academy in the east central district; an admin district further east that has embassies and settles problems the council doesn't want to tackle; and the Imperial family members live in the far east where the two rivers separate. Also there's a little spit on the western tip, that's a nature preserve that has some cliffs overlooking the heart.

We land at the imperial city at the northern port on the merchant district, we plan to travel to the temple district to speak to the Temple of Beseth and then south to the academic district to do pure research if Beseth doesn't give us a task. We arrive at the temple district on the second day of travel.

OUR HOMEWORK: TO COME UP WITH A LIST OF GODS AND WHAT THEY STAND FOR.

1. There is a Sun deity. He's the main deity. The Imperial heraldic symbol has a sun on it, and it's homage to the religion.

2. There's a deity of exchange/barter. He's on the tier just below the big guy. (Because of the coins on the Imperial flag, one on each side.) Exchange meaning not just money, but of ideas, of culture, of pleasantries. The deity likes fair exchange. Craftsmen are into fair exchange; they engage in act of creation but then there's the exchange for their products.

3. A deity of justice and protection would be another foundational god, same tier as the exchange deity, to help build up a religion that helps the empire survive and thrive.

Within each duchy, each duchy worships the three Imperial-decreed deities. But they also have their own deities. The only two duchy flags that have purple on them are the two biggest supporters of the Emperor, Valkir and Honal. Valkir is into exchange/barter, so their deity was elevated to be a major one. And Honal is into protection of the empire, to their justice/protection deity was also elevated.

4. In Kelsun, Beseth is an important deity in this breadbasket, wheat-growing land to the south of the elves. And there are enough humans in the elven lands, that Beseth's clerics travel there.

5. Pinacle deity for Kirenweld (which has keys on the flag), is into safety and protection, lock up your borders to protect yourself, have lots of garrisons on the borders. It's big brother, big mother, into keeping borders safe. Winters are harsh, so protective blanket safety. They have crazy elves and creepy spider wilderness on their borders so they need safety.

6. The elven lands, Estharran: creation myth is that they were raised up from nature, they were pulled out from the natural world into their current form. Going primal is going back to where they came from. Elves are different also from the way they relate to the world, the way they have homage to the animal kingdom.

7. The kingdom Ærden (Ærden is north of Honal/far east of Kirenweld), with the double-headed eagle on their flag. They have a double-headed eagle as their deity, they say it lives on the mountain no human can climb, that's between them and Kirenweld. They have strife because Kirenweld has claimed that mountain. So their deity is vigilant, they're watchers, they want warnings. In terms of elements, they are Air; the move silently through the forests, light on the loam; when they practice guerrila warfare against Kirenweld logging attempts on their border they are like a storm passing through. Their mentality is actively watchful. The province is full of druids and rangers. They have small hamlets, lots of nomadic stuff because they have lots of forestry in the west and lots of plains in their east, and they manage the game that migrates between the two areas, browsing through the year (they don't raise them so much as manage them, they're into natural balance). Ancient trees have local air spirits keeping an area safe and growing, waterfalls coming from the glacier have a localized water spirit that tames the glacier water and keeps it running smoothly for the people and animals and trees to use. The people have animal companions. Shock's line comes from Arden.

8. Sylarith deity: (Their duke is half-serpent. Snake is symbol of gaining knowledge. The duchy is all about getting knowledge. Information. Sylarith worships the exchange god too, as they are information brokers, spies, and take in orphans (exchange) from everywhere.)

9. Dalten deity: (Duchy south of Valkir, nomadic plainsmen.)… TBD

10. Jungle duchy deity, currently reputedly a green dragon: (Their flag has a green dragon, it's been on their flag for 1300 years. It's the most isolated, primitive area of the empire; no trade except a very little with Sylarith. They mostly live in swamps. We wonder, do they mostly worship monsters? The green dragon is their only deity. The ordinary people don't care about the Imperial deities; the Imperial deities aren't real to them, their green dragon god manifests to them. They live on the three-dragon continent, that looks like dragons/snakes. There'd be an imperial ambassador, but as Sylarith told us, a human-looking guy is presented as being the duke, even though the green dragon is supposed to be in charge. Recall that we learned from Genard that people were sending out missionaries, and the green dragon was ticked off at her people for proselytizing when she wanted to keep the fact that she's in charge on the down-low. See 6-28-15 -page4 notes.)

11. West Desert duchy deity: (Remember that the two desert duchies used to be one, huge duchy. The West side guys have two curved swords on their flag, they embrace their traditional ways.) TBD deity.

12. East Desert duchy 2 deity: (This duchy during the civil war decided to be more into culture, they embraced the cultural new ways of the Imperial people to their north.) TBD deity.

13. Monstrous races deity: God of the Abyss. The monstrous races were driven underground, away. Some human people (cultists) in the mountains NE of the whirlpool have worship him, and they think that the crazy storms in the area are harbringers of the coming of the god of the abyss, god of monsters. See 11-16-13 notes about cultists, and 6-28-15 -page2 notes.