Principia Infecta

The Enclave > Known Roads

Unknown Roads

Slipping into the Farthest is less of a risk in familiar places, or when following the Known Roads. Young children quickly learn the importance of landmarks and remembering the way. Traveling the unknown, unmarked regions of the Enclave is a very different proposition, however. Location becomes a matter of trust, skill and wizardry: becoming Lost to the Farthest is a very real danger.

Any number of sages and explorers have claimed to own the one true Enclave map over the years; speculative and scholarly works can be found in any library or collection. All are very different but quite likely equally useless.

Exploration was once a prestigious profession. The spread of Ammander and Vanished Isle folk though the Enclave has slowed with the passage of time, however. Distant villages are now close to great natural barriers or the cruel Neth. In past generations, explorers set the route markers for the Known Roads and ventured deep into the Formless, the Greenwood, Lorn, the Datarii mountains of Great Home and Krineth's Hills. Krineth himself was an explorer almost as large as his legend; a man who wrestled with Neth, stole Datarii silver from the stonefolk and returned from being Lost for a season in the Farthest Greenwood. He lies buried in a tomb fit for a Lord in the hills beyond Three Stones that bear his name.

[ Posted by Reason on January 10, 2005 | Permanent Link ]

Low Marsh

A dreary salt marsh extends for more than a hard day's ride along the low coast away from Port, fed by the tides and a slow-flowing branch of the Lothar. It is home to little aside from birds and spiny marsh eels, visited only by experienced landsmen hunters. The central Low Marshes are dismal and featureless - becoming Lost in the Farthest Marsh is a real danger, to say nothing of the stories told of strange sightings and hidden threats amidst the mud and water.

The remains of structures dating back to the earliest seasons of Magi traders are said lie deep in the Low Marsh. Landsmen tell stories amongst themselves of a keep and tower of ill reputation, a place fit only for the waterlogged Lost and dire Trespassers from the Farthest.

[ Posted by Reason on January 23, 2005 | Permanent Link ]

Sage of the Stone Road

The Stone Road leads inland from Port, following the Lothar and then the Springsource to the small town of Two Springs and the Whisperwood. From there, the Stone Road passes the great black stone monoliths of One Stone and Two Stones before running between the watchtower hills outside the city wall of Three Stones.

The white-haired, genial Sage of the Stone Road has dwelled in a small cave close to Two Stones for as long as anyone can recall, never seeming a day older as the years pass. In that, the Sage is one of the many mysteries of the Enclave - a fact he seems to revel in. On warm days the Sage wanders the Stone Road, conversing with travelers and charging a whimsical toll of a few coins, an apple, a story, the name of a favored lover, or whatever takes his fancy. Tradition has it that snubbing the Sage brings bad luck; merchants who ply their trade between Port and Three Stones make a point of offering a meal or a kind word when they pass.

[ Posted by Reason on February 2, 2005 | Permanent Link ]

Withered, Yellowed Crags

As ugly as the Neth who dwell within, Krineth's Hills loom over even Three Stones' impressive walls. Grasses grow yellowed in the Hills, the few trees are twisted and bare - streams only flow between the crags after rain, and even the snow seems to fall sparsely over the Hills in winter. The steepest crags are topped by piles of jumbled rock, while the narrowest valleys are choked with boulders. Large rocks litter the earth and scree. The Hills are named for a famed explorer of generations past, but scarely seem worthy of the name in the present time.

The Trade Road follows the boundary of Krineth's Hills from Three Stones to Gold Vale and finally Spire in the shadow of the mountains. It is a long, thirsty journey in summer; the winds carry dust, dirt and sometimes worse things from the Hills. A good number of Ammander spearmen earn a living as merchant guards on the Trade Road.

There was a time when the high born of Three Stones were buried with great ceremony in family tombs dug deep into the largest of Krineth's Hills. Carved route stones marked the way for those who would otherwise become Lost to the Farthest Hills - nobles and priests once traveled to the family tombs with the first snows of winter to pay their respects. Much has changed over the years, however. Krineth's Hills and the tombs of the past have been long been overtaken by lesser Neth: winter brings malicious attacks on travelers and the poor outside the walls of Three Stones.

[ Posted by Reason on February 3, 2005 | Permanent Link ]

Mabe and Tole

The fishing villages of Mabe and Tole huddle on the stony seafront bordering the Low Marsh, within sight of the high cliffs of Port on a clear day. The outskirts of Mabe merge with the salty marshland; village hunters venture deep into the Low Marsh in search of eels and birds. The Ammander fishers here are of a different stock to those of Port or Cael; an insular, surly, worn-looking lot who dwell in tumbledown stone houses and poorly built shacks. They keep to themselves despite the nearby markets of Port; no marked Road leads from the villages to the city.

Commoners and Landsmen tell dark stories about the fisherfolk of Mabe and Tole, calling them moon worshippers, sly murderers or worse. Some claim that the Temple Guard of past generations forced villagers into the Low Marsh and burned their houses in payment for some long-forgotten crime. Regardless, decent folk have had little to do with the inhabitants of Mabe and Tole for a long time.

[ Posted by Reason on February 26, 2005 | Permanent Link ]

Route Markers

Stone route markers, some new, most worn and overgrown, can be found throughout the Enclave. Route markers define the Known Roads - without them, most travelers would stray into the Farthest Roads and become Lost. Far from the Enclave cities, the oldest route markers are boulders shifted to the roadside and bearing weathered carvings of the Traveler. The Power of the Known Roads is usually represented as a cheery Ammander whitebeard with staff and backpack - the Forest Road bears many an example of this sort. In a few of the most ancient route markers, half buried near the Stone Road and Coast Road outside Port, the Traveler is shown as a study Datar.

Route markers set in recent generations are more ostentatious; most stand on the Stone Road linking the cities of Port and Three Stones, the New Road and Trade Road leading to Three Stones. Nobles, guilds and wealthy merchants of Port and Three Stones vie for prestige in many ways, including the self-serving placement of route markers. The old imagery of the Traveler has become increasingly stylized over time, reduced to representations of his staff and backpack and overshadowed by other carvings, texts and marks.

[ Posted by Reason on February 27, 2005 | Permanent Link ]

One Stone and the Summer Fair

The black monolith of One Stone looms over the Stone Road, an upturned, unworked boulder in form, yet a reminder that the wizardry of the Draugh once shaped the Enclave.

One Stone marks the point at which travelers stop for the night after departing Two Springs in the early morning - stories are told of dire happenings on the Road between these locations and in the outskirts of nearby Whisperwood. Tales of horrific Trespassers from the Farthest and malign wizardry loom large in the minds of travelers; to be on the Road after dark is a frightening prospect.

In warmer seasons, folk from Two Springs set up stalls and shelters near One Stone to sell provisions and entertainment to travelers. At the height of Summer, the modest One Stone fair attracts traders and common folk from Port, Two Springs and nearby villages. Troubadors play the old songs; young lovers dance in the shadow of One Stone; tables are laid with white cloth and farm food; elder folk exchange news and tall stories. Passing travelers might be forgiven for imagining that little has changed since the days of the old Ammand.

[ Posted by Reason on March 17, 2005 | Permanent Link ]

Tean's Marker

Travel the New Road from the red iron gate of Three Stones past the King's Keep, past the Middle Road to Traveler's Stone, past Lorn with wary glances, and you will see Tean's Marker. A great stone carved to the likeness of a spear thrusting up from the ground, the Marker stands atop a ridge overlooking the Odan River Bridge, the River Road to Mirael and the New Road on to Greenwood. Tean - spearman, leader of men, follower of the King's Way - spent his own coin to place the Marker as a challenge. Past this point, the Neth would not pass.

Aged and respected, Tean left the world a generation ago, but King's Keep spearmen still make their first and largest winter camp at the base of Tean's Marker. When falling leaves and the first snows bring the Neth forth to raid, Tean's challenge becomes a matter of pride.

[ Posted by Reason on April 7, 2005 | Permanent Link ]

The Sunlit's Marker on the Red Iron Road

The tale is thisways, least when I first heard it told. The Sunlit strode from the Black Tower, or a manse of Port mayhaps, as this was a long time ago, many winters before the walls of Three Stones were dragged down from Krineth's Hills. Strode did the sage, strode to where his marker now stands on the Red Iron Road and said "Here it is, here you will find it, and a tenth is mine." So it was, the folk of Ura took picks to that very spot and there found a great vein of red iron, unnoticed beside the Road. The Sunlit's tenth, well there it stands forged beside the Road this day, just as it always has, and with those very words upon it.

[ Posted by Reason on August 7, 2005 | Permanent Link ]

The Traveler Met Twice and a View of the Middle Road

I'd curse my boots, legs too, and the mule for the Beautiful Stranger's touch if I'd thought it'd make any difference. The New Road from Lothar up to the King's Keep on the rise will be the death of me this winter or the next - and yet I always journey after first snow. Ah, my road continues, leastways for another winter in Mirael with commonfolk and those who pretend to be for coin. If you had half the wit of my mule, you'd throw your seafarer's pipe into the Lothar and take on a more noble profession. There's an honesty in song, I'll grant, but not in those who sing - all you have to look forward to is ruin for a pretty face or an ugly old troubador.

Here we are, atop at least, and there's the Keep - empty as a tankard in the Players' Guild, spearmen gone to camp at Tean's Marker and brave the Forest Road as sport for Neth. We'd stop in summer, but not while snow falls. Look downslope, there at the Traveler's woods, sheathed in snow, a prettier thing than any work of Ammander or Islefolk. Through and through passes the Middle Road, but a step to either side and Lost you are; it takes a strange sort of folk to come and go from Traveler's Stone, carrying a torch between the closer trees.

There's a tale of the Middle Road, yes, and I'll tell. Let those who can yet prance and dance for coin be jealous of their tales - mine are of no use to me beyond the telling.

Folk say that Krineth, the explorer Krineth, mind, who bedded more than I've bowed to, met the Power of Roads not once but twice. The once in the Greenwood and the Neth Road, of that we all know, but the second is not so widely told as once it was. The explorer and his fellows - The Marked, Aylei and others I forget - camped here, where we walked, in a winter season much as this one. This was generations past, afore the King's Keep and the New Road, afore priests took Three Stones from the noble folk. Explorers braved the Farthest Enclave with each step from the Roads known then, armed with wit and wizardry, and for each we recall, a dozen were Lost to sight and memory.

From where they camped amidst deep snow, Krineth's companions watched an old man walk from the woods below, from afar and distant to beside their tents and fire set on cleared ground. The Power, for such the old man was, leaned on his staff to greet Krineth, asked him why he camped atop the Road, and whether he would journey through the woods that day.

No, I know not what Krineth said to the Traveler, nor do I know if he was the one to lay route markers for the Middle Road - but such is the tale as I heard it told, and I have passed the seasons of treating an unfinished song as a troubador would. Come, I have caught my breath. We have a way to travel, and the New Road will be made crude by snow, spearmen and the King's horses.

[ Posted by Reason on August 17, 2005 | Permanent Link ]

Camp at the Third Marker

Aye, tis a dreary camp for man or mule, summer or winter - but I'm happy enough that first snow is a season away yet. I'd be happier to be spending this night in a warm cot in the Seafarers' Guildhall, mark my words, but here is here and there is there. We'd be spending coin in the City Without this very moment if you hadn't found the only loose stone left in the Lothar ford to lodge in your hoof. Lucky to be owned by an old seafarer, you are - no city eel would have lightened your load by half and carried it this far for you.

Salin's beard! It's all bitter craws and rotten eels to you isn't it? Aye, and if you'd but kept your heart on the Road, you wouldn't be braying over trampled grass and no straw, and my back wouldn't be so close to breaking. Do you think I enjoy this poor meat from King's Keep villagefolk any the more? The sooner to Port, the better, I say, and to the Farthest with the Guildmaster and his coin. Give it to younger hands, aye, and send them away down the Stone Road to Three Stones and beyond.

Well and well, and now the fire is gone - not that there was much to begin with. Swordpriests and spears, enough for a generation of summers, have stamped this place flat. Aye, and burned the trees, branch by branch, as back and forth they go from Keep to Keep. Not a nod for one wearing the Seafarer's band, no, nor any offer of help - and may their King's Way become Lost on a dark night!

Don't you be wandering off in search of grass, mind, least I tie you up at the marker - and there would be a better use for it. The moon makes the last rise of the New Road clear as a stranger's wave on the Farthest Sea, as if we were out beyond the cliffs and the wind so calm. Were we so heartened, you and I, atop we'd stand and there we'd see distant torches on the walls of Three Stones - aye, and white stone by moonlight in the Gravefields. Hungry for grass or good stuffed eel, it's still best to leave moonlight for the Lady and her ways, for folk were not meant to be near the Farthest Graves by night.

[ Posted by Reason on September 13, 2005 | Permanent Link ]

Three Black Towers

None but moon-faced fools would leave the Known Roads past Mirael and cursed Lorn, mark my words. I say the tales of Towers and great birds the span of ten men abreast are nothing but empty words, a lure cast out for beauty in the taverns, or coin from nobles. Hah! Explorers hid away in the villages for a season or two, returning to take coin and womenfolk from those who'd believe any seafarer's song - and then the sages chase the same purses with handed down clothes. But who's to be calling for explorers when players and honest thieves tell better tales, and tell them summer or winter?

Great birds, said Krineth, and by my hammer, I don't doubt that alone led him into many a warm bed. If you have to be fawning over his memory these generations gone, fawn over his mastery of the taverner's tricks and troubador's cant, I say!

No, anyone who walked the stinking edge of the Formless, twixt Lorn Forest and Farthest Wilderness would never be seen again, this much I know. Three black stone towers there may be, and great birds too, why not? Who's to say what Creation holds beyond the walls of my forge - not I. But what good to see these sights if you're Lost past the Traveler's reckoning and not to be coming home?

[ Posted by Reason on November 12, 2005 | Permanent Link ]

The Stench of Cities

Hah! A fine speech, fine as the coat on yonder mule, but by the Beard, Staff and Sack, no roof and mattress could recompense for the stench of cityfolk, all pressed together tight as firewood. I've not set foot in Port these past ten summers, mark me, and I'll wager coin against grass stems I'll not be treading Port cobbles next summer, for good measure! Every draggled rat, sickened eel and ale-sodden noble casts their spew from land to sea, and a wonder the waters aren't black and steaming with it under the hot sun. The only good to come from winters like the last is the burying of filth under clean snow - and a pity it cannot last!

Were I not gifted by the Traveler with these good legs and eyes, were I forced by cruel circumstance to call one place my home, why, I would be a woodcutter in the smallest cottage of the Corner of Creation - Lost to the Farthest Greenwood soon enough, like as not, and myself no Krineth to be coming home from such a dark fate.

[ Posted by Reason on December 24, 2005 | Permanent Link ]

A Road Forsaken

Well and well, you're as best to hear of the Road now as cold and in sight of the Greenwood - and by the King's blood, spearpriests will say nothing of it beneath Tean's Marker. First snow will be soon enough by the color of the clouds; better to hear the tale from an honest spear than told by rotten Lun in Mirael, or commonfolk who twist it to scare children.

Blood! Keep your spear upright! There's those watching us at guard upon the bridge, and little enough to tell at the heart of it. Let long tales be for ale and moon-faced players from Port, and may that be true as my next spear cast!

Where the New Road first sights Greenwood, old Krineth and the Traveler walked through grass and Farthest wilderness to find the mists and marsh of the Formless. There they went because the Traveler spoke of a swamp in which no Road would stand, and Krineth would bear no word but his own, be it in bedding commoner girls or to see what stood past yonder hills. A Road they made and marked from nothing, all the way to the mists, just as that we stand upon.

Common folk followed that Road, and made a village a way and a way from the New Road - where the mists of the Formless make a grayness of the distance on a summer morning, but yet in sight of the Greenwood. Who's to say how far and again the Greenwood stretches past the Forest Road? Not you, nor I, nor even Krineth in his life, by the King's spear! But barns they raised and cottages in the Ammand way, and set out long tables for summer festivals just as village folk in Two Springs and outside the King's Keep.

Then to the heart of it, yes, by the spears of the Ammand of old! A curse came out of the Formless, came out of the Greenwood; the Road faded into the Farthest, the markers buried. There's some who say folk came to or from that Road in seasons past, and that the village stands, all who dwell there cursed yet.

A tale, I say, but the Road set by Krineth and the Traveler is there yet, that I can tell as truth. By my hand and this very spear, I spilled Neth bile upon a stone marker none had seen before, and this not five winters hence when the snow fell light by the Greenwood.

[ Posted by Reason on August 5, 2006 | Permanent Link ]

Cael The Enclave > Known Roads > Cael

The Jeweled Line

There is but a single tavern in Cael, the Jeweled Line. A faded mural runs the width of the rough stone wall above the front door; it depicts a fisher's line hung with multicolored gemfish. The muggy interior is smoke-filled and busy in summer evenings when fisherfolk return from a day out amongst the rocks and islets. The walls are hung with nets, driftwood and islemarked planking from old fishing boats long rotted away. In winter seasons, spearmen come to Cael as guards or to provision for patrols on the Forest Road. Their spears and armor fill shelves above the bar that stand empty in summer.

Rius the barkeep is a worn old rogue from the Port dockside of generations past, owner of the Jeweled Line for as long as any care to recall. He is stooped, bowed, wrinkled and has but a single tooth remaining - yet weathers each winter just like the last.

[ Posted by Reason on April 7, 2005 | Permanent Link ]

Gemscales and Eel Spines on the Strand

The islets off the shoreline of Cael are thick with spined eels, crawcrabs and colorful, quick gemfish. It is a poor seafarer indeed who could fail to make a living in this part of the Enclave coast. The pebble shoreline of Cael extends the length of the village, from marshy ground to firetower rocks. Islemarked boats used by hardy Ammander and Vanished Isle fisherfolk are beached ashore in a line beneath the firetower and the Fisher's Shrine. The boats rest atop old spines and scales as much as pebbles and sand; fresher, brighter gemscales make the tidelines glimmer on sunny days.

When the snows melt and the first flowers show, gemfish by the thousand throw themselves ashore in the surf - who can say why? The folk of Cael leave their boats idle and comb the pebble strand for days on end to gather the fish before they rot or are eaten by crawcrabs and seabirds. Fisher folk bearing barrels of packed gemfish sail along the coast to Port, past the Watch of Trees and its mysterious cliffside temple. There are always more fish than can be sold - salted gemfish from the cellars is a summer dish in Cael, just as salted eel is reserved for those winters too harsh for fishing on the Unending Sea.

[ Posted by Reason on April 8, 2005 | Permanent Link ]

Trade Rock and the Seafolk

Look out the window; yonder out on the water, the biggest rock past young Lenei's sail. We called it Two Craws when I was the age of Lenei and her man, but folks hereabouts call it Trade Rock since the seafolk came.

Eh, village ale is poor stuff, leastways from anywhere but Traveler's Stone or Ura. The young folk lazing on the strand could make good coin sailing to Port for better - but that'd be expecting too much at the height of summer. Like cats on a warm stone wall, they are.

Ah yes. It was a day just like this, oh, back before Varim got himself eaten by the Great Port Eel and the Three Stone whitebeards stole his parchments. The seafolk came walking from the Unending Sea, as though water were sand and grass, kicking up spray from the wavetops. Little and large they were, plump for all their walking and strange on the eyes; amazed at swimming they were, afraid of rock and land.

Who would have thought of folk who could sit on a wave as though it were a chair? Generous with their strangers' coin, though, and for the strangest things. All of Cael was coming and going from the Trade Rock that day, wading out to meet the seafolk. Not Varim, though; he was too busy with quill and ink on the highest point of the rock, hiding his work from the crowd.

I'll wager most here at the Jeweled Line still have a few seafolk coins hidden away; fancy sorts in Port pay gold for rarities like that. But what is gold compared to knowing that you traded with the Visitors?

[ Posted by Reason on April 9, 2005 | Permanent Link ]

Black Boathouse, Black Jetty

Old rock, black rock they are; there's a wizardry about them. You'd have to close your eyes halfway to see a jetty and a boathouse instead of just plain rocks on the shore, but that's what my mother called them. Her mother too, I dare say.

The children climb out on the black jetty past the strand; climb over it too where they could just walk around on the grass. By rights it should be polished as the firetower rock, scratched with islemarks, but nothing can touch black rock. Wizardry! Just the same as the day it was put there, I'll wager.

Whoever lived here afore Ammander and Magi folk laid the first stones of Cael, they're long gone now. Perhaps stonefolk wizardry put the black stone here, though they say the stonefolk are scared of the Unending Sea.

[ Posted by Reason on April 11, 2005 | Permanent Link ]

Ferelei

You're from Port, then, with your road dust and good looks? Ferelei won't be wanting anything to do with you; she tells a good tale about the thieves and liars in Port, those who put on fancy plays and sing fancy songs. Ah, now, I see your drums and your flute hanging on the mule you don't feed often enough. You'll be having a hard time of it at the Jeweled Line; Ferelei doesn't like competition.

Oh, she was crossed and crossed hard by some noble Ammander lady, or so I hear. All over a man too; hah! They're never worth it. She has nothing but black words for your type, good looks or not, but such a pretty voice for the telling of them!

No, you should pack yourself and your mule off to the Forest Road. The villagers there will pay coin to hear a troubador perform and you won't have to face Ferelei.

[ Posted by Reason on April 12, 2005 | Permanent Link ]

Firetower and Fisher's Shrine

The far end of the gemscale-scattered pebble strand is marked by the firetower rocks and rising cliffside beyond. The stone firetower atop the highest rock is an old, weathered construction; a ladder leads up to the flat top. When Cael fisherfolk are out on the Unending Sea, a dampened grass fire keeps a column of smoke rising from the tower. The Farthest Sea waits to claim fishers who are careless amongst the islets, but smoke from the firetower helps to mark the way home.

Beneath the firetower, in the lee of the rocks, stands the Fisher's Shrine. A single priest tends this modest stone and wood hall; the interior is largely empty of decoration save for a statue of the Fisher in Darkness and a few old benches. Sabei, aged and of Magi stock, used to come and go from the Temple of Three in Port, but settled into the quiet life in Cael as the years passed. He is a kindly, wise man, fond of the spawling family of cats that make the Shrine their home. When catches are large, Cael folk leave offerings of salted eel for the Fisher in Darkness, Sabei and his cats.

[ Posted by Reason on April 12, 2005 | Permanent Link ]

Cael Road

The sparsely wooded bluffs overlooking Cael offer a fine view on clear days - over wood and thatch roofs and the glistening pebble strand, out to islets and small boats in the Unending Sea. The low, solid, stone-walled houses of fisherfolk stretch the short distance from the column of smoke over Firetower Rocks, past the Black Jetty, marketplace and Council House, and on to the first wet marshland of the Odanmouth.

The Cael Road leads straight down from the bluffs and the Coast Road out of sight beyond; it is a good hardy climb in dry weather, but troublesome in Winter months. A line of wooden posts and rusted, solid chain runs the length of the Road as it climbs the bluffside - it is a proud traveler indeed who doesn't make use of this assistance when the snow is deep.

[ Posted by Reason on April 13, 2005 | Permanent Link ]

Baene's Carvings

The old stone walls of Baene's cottage by the Marshedge Stream are scarcely visible beneath piled driftwood, cut timber from the bluffs, casks of eel bones and half-completed carvings. Much of it is old indeed, left leaning against the walls winter after winter while Baene works at his own slow pace beside a comfortable fire.

In warmer seasons, dusky-skinned Baene the woodcarver opens his door wide to watch the shoreline as he shapes his latest sculpture. He sells a little of his work to traveling merchants or folk who sail the coast to Port; enough to support his idle, enjoyable life in Cael. Perhaps more besides - Baene is always generous with coin. As often as not, this Magi-blooded woodcarver is to be found in the Jeweled Line exchanging tales with the old fisher folk or cheerfully picking over shells and gemscales on the strand.

[ Posted by Reason on April 14, 2005 | Permanent Link ]

A Council of Fisher Folk

Aye, a nice arrangement they have themselves here. There would be a thing; a few more years of sailing the coast for coin and then to be a councillor in a quiet fisher village. Nothing to worry about save hiring a few spears each winter, aye, and maybe throw the drunks into the surf if they get too rowdy. A sight easier than captaining my crew, mark my words.

The council here spend their days fishing and laying a bed, I'll wager. You wouldn't catch me sitting sober and thoughtful in yonder Council House like a Lord cast in miniature; what would be the use of it? Fisher folk keep to their own - you might as well try to be a Lord of cats.

Aye, and there's the whitebeard councillor now, watching the barrels loaded. He used to be a Seafarers' Guildsman with a hull of his own, but that was years ago now. I'll wager he looks at my crew and sees a shoal of thieves. Hah! He wouldn't be far wrong, either.

[ Posted by Reason on April 16, 2005 | Permanent Link ]

Year of the Eel Storm

It was back when my mother was a child, late in the year but before the leaves fell. A dark, cold storm came out of the Farthest Sea, swirling round and round like a mad dance of wind, rain and thunder. The Unending Sea came up with the wind and threw boats into the village; wrecked and drowned those folk who were too slow getting back to shore. It wasn't like the winter storms, nor the summer storms you know; it was different and greater. Some folk ran to the bluffs, like my mother's parents, in the cold rain and wind and through the froth and surge. Then the strangest thing of all: eels raining from the sky like so many hailstones, thrashing and snapping!

[ Posted by Reason on April 16, 2005 | Permanent Link ]

Spear Eater of the Odanmouth

The Magi-blooded of Cael tell outlandish stories of the long, spined marsh eels of the Odanmouth, although no village folk hunt the outskirts of that saltwater marsh. There is no need risk becoming Lost to the Farthest in such dismal, boggy terrain when the Unending Sea provides such a bounty of gemfish, crawcrabs and eels.

The common folk of Cael take their water from the fast flowing marshedge stream at the edge of their village; beyond that they do not go. Once in a while, or so the old whitebeards say, the biggest and oldest of all Odanmouth eels can be seen sporting in the waterways of the marsh edge. She is twice the size of a grown man; legend has it that this great eel wrested the spear from the very last Ammander hunter to brave the Odanmouth.

[ Posted by Reason on April 17, 2005 | Permanent Link ]

The Tide Cave Folk

Shy, they are, those strangers. Lived in the tide caves around the headland for, oh, must be ten years now. Visitors come and go - especially when the fog rolls in - but nary a sight of our Lost neighbors in any of that time.

Ah now, you should be asking Kalei about them, not I; it's her daughters who take eel meat and firewood to the caves after first snow. Took pity on them, I'll wager, but she says to leave well enough alone. Ah, but you should have been here the winter when those hired spears from Port were firm and set on going to look! Half chased them out into the Farthest, spears and all, did Kalei. Hah, and there was a sight!

[ Posted by Reason on April 19, 2005 | Permanent Link ]

The Tall Man

It was a sight hard to pretend everything was the same as the morning while the Tall Man strode this way and that, bending to look at goods and people. A sight hard, mark my words. Tall as a house he was, flat-faced as a door - but trade he did, great bars of Visitors' metal for this and that. But let me tell you this much; grow yourself tall, cut off your nose and you'll be the first Ammander in Cael to profit from a trade with old Sepan and his lot. He couldn't keep his mind on it!

Well, the Tall Man didn't outlast the fog that market day. Out from the Unending Sea he came and back he went, pretty as you please. I dare say the high and mighty in Port have seen stranger things in their time, but not I, not I.

[ Posted by Reason on April 19, 2005 | Permanent Link ]

Corner of Creation The Enclave > Known Roads > Corner of Creation

Unwelcome Folk From Port

Corner is right ... look at this! I could spit clear from Coast Road to Forest Road and not hit any of these eels. Yes, and reach out to pull twigs from the Greenwood while doing it. Now, I'll not be saying yours was a bad idea in light of Harand's mood; no fingers to be broken if none of us are in the safehouse, and there's the truth. I'll be saying this, now, and mark my words, the Stone Road would have been friendlier for our sort of folk.

Narry a trader on the Coast Road, there was. Aye, and woodsmen and farmfolk haven't coin to rub together neither. Where are we to help ourselves to a way back into Harand's good graces? In the fields? In the Greenwood? By Salin and the Lady, I've never set foot in a better-named village. I've seen plenty of corners in plenty of buildings in my time, and I'll tell you what I've seen in all of them ... dirt! Dirt and no coin, mark me well.

Nothing to be done about it this day, I suppose. There'll be cheap ale in the tavern; a few mugs will be the better to think on.

[ Posted by Reason on June 1, 2005 | Permanent Link ]

An Evening at the Old Tavern

Eslei, you called it right and true - there is a New Tavern, or was, leastways. These folk say it was burned by Neth years ago ... no, burned with Neth in it. Blood and shame, too, if the ale were as good and cheap as this! These four walls look fit to fall soon enough; floor like the Unending Sea and not a steady chair to be seen.

No, this old eel here goes by the name of Osten. Practiced with the ale he is, but I'll have him under this half-sized table yet, mark me true. The tavern master, he's off and away - the sour face who bumped Geath on the way through the door. Gone to steal more ale, I'll wager, for I don't see how else he makes his coin.

Honest dockfolk from Port, that we are. Dockfolk and a fisher girl, yes Eslei. It's quiet enough in midsummer with the players away to One Stone and Islebloods sailing the coast for pleasure; too little work for honest dockfolk like ourselves. Isn't that the truth? Eslei? Eslei? So it's on the Known Roads we travel and maybe find a little coin here and there.

There she goes, moon-faced already. Can't hold her ale, and there you have it, but Geath will keep her facing the right way. Not like us folk, Osten. This coin here and the ale it buys tells me that one or other of us will be proven the better afore too long. Osten, Osten ... where's an honest eel from the dockside going to find coin to hire in the Corner of Creation?

[ Posted by Reason on June 2, 2005 | Permanent Link ]

The Morning After, the Price of Progress

Claws and spines, my head! Water, Geath, bring water from the well! By the Three Powers, I'm bleeding my brain from my ears to find us scent of coin, and where is Eslei? Warming some woodsman's cot, no doubt, after she showed you the shadows. You call yourself one of the safehouse favorites but couldn't even keep a drunk from trouble! As well for Eslei that she never thieved in your company - she'd be rotting with the prison hulks these past years.

If there's coin amidst these glowfish guts and village eels, it'd be with the merchant Greser or the smith beside the Forest Road. Good coin poured down that old fool's throat in the tavern and spears inside my head this morning to learn nothing more than any of us could see! We may as well have lost our fingers and fallen on the dockside for fisherfolk to throw their catch upon. We should have taken our wits and knives to the Stone Road for the summer season, mark me well!

[ Posted by Reason on August 15, 2005 | Permanent Link ]

How the Work is Done

Where I passed the night is none of yours, Geath, and none of Rell's neither. If he's angry as a speared red crawcrab, then let him be. Come walk with me while the clouds make it pleasant - Rell will be back to his own self, eel teeth and bile, afore the day is out. You may owe him a purse, but that's all you owe him.

Here is good a place as any to sit for a while, across from that worm-eaten shop and the headman's manse. Honen is his name, the headman, and he has coin, or so they say ... and it's none of yours as to how I know who tells which tales. To my eyes, all the headman's coin is paid and gone to stone and wood, a sight heavy for three from the dockside. Oh, it'd be a fine place to live if you like farmfolk and woodsmen - and Neth each winter - but you can't carry away a manse and its furniture.

You see the watchtower yonder? The platform atop has been walled and closed for as many summers as certain folk recall, but someone up there takes provisions and watches the Forest Road for Neth after first snow. The villagefolk say it's an Ammanene from the Watch of Trees - no coin there either way, I'll wager, but any locked chest was put there to be opened, isn't that right Geath?

Rell was all for thieving from the smith or the old merchant? We won't be touching the smith's coin, and you know why. Rell must still be Lost in his ale - he may as well take coin right from the hand of the healer at the shrine of the Beautiful Stranger, there beyond the headman's manse. I'll not be throwing tomorrow to the cats.

[ Posted by Reason on August 16, 2005 | Permanent Link ]

Gold Vale The Enclave > Known Roads > Gold Vale

A Golden Vale and the Farthest Fields

Close the shutters, Nera! Tis a dull view to be eating to, awaiting first snow, sheltered or not. Would that the vale were gold with flower in all seasons, but even grass is gone to thoughts of winter now - and I'd not be having the sight from your windows reminding me of Krineth's hills and what's to be found there. Let us talk of better and brighter afore the heart is darkened.

I recall a day, many summers ago, not long past first snow when the flowers open; I climbed the vale to fetch gray rock and brown for walls and paths, as there's those with coin to pay for such. So much gold in the grass, scarce could folk look across the fields, and there's the truth. But saw that and more, did I, for I watched my feet and not the way around and about the nearest crags - out and far I saw across the Farthest Fields, saw a hundred colors and strangers' flowers as nothing I've seen in all my seasons. The Beautiful Stranger granted me that, and well and grateful I remain.

[ Posted by Reason on January 21, 2006 | Permanent Link ]

Journeys The Enclave > Known Roads > Journeys

To Three Stones

I'll not be leaving this bed it seems, so it comes to this: you'll be leaving your fisher girl and boats for a time, my boy. Not so long in the face now! I'm not for dying yet, but there's coin in the balance and the days are slipping away. I have thirty barrels in Menas' storehouse by the Berths, and not much time to see them to the Grand Market in Three Stones. I owe the old miser Menas nothing, but you'll never convince him of that - easier to have you pay a few coins.

Young Toerel here knows the way, though it might not look like it. Followed in my footsteps these past few years, might make a good merchant of him yet. None of that foolishness with the sea in this one, eh? I recall that taking council comes hard to you, doesn't it, my boy? You'll take it from Toerel - let him help you pick the workers and the mules, and none of your friends from the dockside, eh? Too many thieves hereabouts, my boy, and you need more than just a sharp eye. You'll need a few spearmen too, all the better to keep the guilds happy. You should pay your respects to Geren's daughter at the forge by the riverside, you know the one. She's rough red iron, but the toughs sniffing around her breeches are trustworthy enough. She'll be happy to be rid of a few suitors, but not so happy as Geren, eh? Better to travel with those you know, my boy. I wouldn't want you taken in by the pretty talkers with their pretty armor and pretty spears at the Guild Bridge or the Wayward Visitor.

The Stone Road is an easy journey until you cross the Lothar. The council of Two Springs have got it into their heads to be taxing merchant folk again; the guild is having none of it, but don't go putting yourself between two thieves and a purse just to make your point, my boy. Spearmen are for looks in Two Springs, not for making the guildmaster angry. You mind yourself after the springs, now. The Whisperwood is not a place to be near after dark. I could tell you some stories - but better you just set out early and travel fast and far that day.

You be respectful to traders on the road, eh? I know them all, and don't want to hear all about my unpleasant replacement. If you meet the Sage at Two Stones, be very polite - none of your seafarer's ways. Give him whatever he asks for, and say your uncle sends his regrets.

You'll see spearmen on the Road when the Three Stones watchtowers are in sight. Some of them are fine, upstanding fellows - Toerel knows a few by sight, don't you? Like as not you'll meet toughs no better than the thugs on the dockside here. Pay them a few coins anyway, eh? They do their job, stopping honest travelers from coming too close at dusk or when the Neth come down from the hills. Best you camp further back down the Road, though, or who knows what you'll find rummaging through your packs and my barrels.

There's a bag of coin on the table; whatever you don't spend on merchanting is yours. A ruinous waste from what I know of your tastes, my boy, but needs must, eh? Here, you should take this, my old Seafarers' Needle. She points to the Road come hail, fog or Farthest. I doubt you'll need her, but I don't want to be explaining to your fisher girl that you couldn't do a simple job of trading for your old uncle. Eh? Eh? Now off with you! Time is wasting!

[ Posted by Reason on February 6, 2005 | Permanent Link ]

To Spire and the Stonefolk

It was good of you to allow me to travel with your caravan - I recognise you from the dockside. You know Master Shipwright Benlei and his daughter, aye. He is a trustworthy judge of character. Myself, I sew sails - good sails, from the old tradeship designs - and avoid Guild duties; I'd rather be out past the cliffs with a new sail behind me than throwing drunks into the bay or listening to the traders argue on the docks.

Aye, it is not so bad, walking by the river. No salt in the air, though, and your spearmen tell me that the Trade Road to Spire is dry. I am not looking forward to dust on the wind. If you end your journey at Three Stones, then I should pay a few coins for their company while I pass the walls - I hear the City Without is a rough place for a seafarer.

Why the road to Spire? Aye, there is a story there. Let me show you this; it has been in my family since the Vanishing. My grandfather told me that the ancient seafarers traded wizardry with the stonefolk for craftsmanship like this: mura, stonefolk silver. Look at it, the way the light catches the fine lines - you might think it forged yesterday. I see your eyes light up, aye, but there are more important matters than worth and coin. The sea in our blood, the reminders of trade, the sails and songs, a little of the old wizardry like the Seafarers' Needle you carry - these are all we have left of the Vanished Isles. Ammander ways are fair enough, but they are Ammander ways; they tell me nothing of the Magi. I grew up speaking your tongue, listening to your stories of ancient times across the Unending Sea, to your tales of Salin the Seafarer, but have nothing of my own to offer in return.

What I do know is this: The Locked Heart told me that stonefolk are not mortal, that they like a good tale as much as the roughest man in the Seafarers' Guild, but mura is their true love. Those same Datarii who traded with the Magi for wizardry and stories of far-off lands still live under the mountains, so The Locked Heart said. From Spire, I'll find my way to Great Home and then we'll see. Aye, grand plans for a sailmaker from a family of sailmakers, but weren't my ancestors so much more than that? You Ammander folk come from a line of lords; your spearmen would understand, following the King's Way as they do. Greatness is in the seafarer's heart, and mine carries me to Spire and the stonefolk.

[ Posted by Reason on February 12, 2005 | Permanent Link ]

A Meeting of Players on the New Road

Hah! You do me too much honor with your fine words and stolen ale ... but, see, I struggle to my feet to repay you with a toast in kind! Let me raise Torthe's battered old tankard to a battered old rogue from Port! I tell you, friends, players, that the forests of the old Ammand never saw a King of Thieves half the measure of he who sits there drunk and smirking - a thief not just of this fine ale, but of words and couplets. Has he passed these fruits of theft, recast by his own hand, for coin by the purse? Yes, I say, and yes again! There, with my practiced and capable Lady of the Two Pillars on his arm, is a stalwart applauded by the opened thighs of fisher girls and noble daughters alike, a worthy without equal on the stage of life ... and yet a man of compassion he is. Yes, compassion! For here, while he and his salty crew pilfer us of our beloved and beautiful companions, he graces us with his presence, with his subtle but firm grasp of performances past. How lowly we would be without his guiding, shining example of a worthy troubador lapsed into aged decadence!

But, let us pause to reflect a moment, here by the fire and the good meat burned to a paltry crisp by Torthe. Hah! Torthe, more attention to the fire and less to these fine, fine Ladies of Port! Let us reflect on the good fortune that brought my respected players, your rogueish vagabonds of the stage and this barrel of ale to one and the same place under the stars. I bow to fortune, I bow to Lady Moonlit, and I bow most deeply to the Traveler of Roads!

[ Posted by Reason on May 14, 2005 | Permanent Link ]

King's Keep The Enclave > Known Roads > King's Keep

Spears Gone To Ill Ways

Tis true, leastways as Ferre told it to me just this morning, afore the clouds came from the Farthest Sky. Red iron from the Keep, a spearpriest and the King's horses too we're to be having! Old Reafus and his isleblood girl are away to the smith and the shrine, and the stable folk are hard awork even with the summer rain, see for yourself.

Hold yourself, hold yourself! I've only the one tongue for the telling. As Ferre tells it, a brace of spears are gone to ill ways on the Forest Road, stealing coin and slaying merchant folk. No better than Neth, I say - we're to ride and remind them of the King's Way for all spears and blades. Remind them well, mark my words! There's a tale we'll have to tell to those spears who bow to the King only after first snow!

[ Posted by Reason on August 23, 2005 | Permanent Link ]

Stone Dropped in the Farthest Wilds

The King's Keep is as a great, gray quarried block, dropped by stoneworkers onto the green grass and left, far from anywhere. Such is as the Keep appears to traders and commonfolk atop the ridge above the Lothar, traveling to or from Three Stones on the New Road. For stranger folk emerging from the enclosing trees of the Traveler's Wood, the Keep is a mountaintop at the head of a gentle valley, a welcome sight after the shadowed Middle Road.

The King's Keep is sturdy and thick-walled, home to spearpriests who have taught the Way of the King of All the Ammand for generations. Many summers have come and gone since the first stones of the Keep were brought from the quarries of Krineth's Hills, now long-abandoned to Neth and the ravages of time. Over the years, villagefolk have come to dwell outside the high Keep walls, amongst them smiths, craftsmen and traders to match those who follow the King's Way within the Keep.

As year passes on year, Ammander spearmen come and go from the Keep. In winter, they come from throughout the Enclave to take the King's coin and carry their spears against the Neth. When last snow passes and the Known Roads turn to mud once more, all but the most dedicated leave to find summer coin in Port, Three Stones and the lesser towns.

There is no safer place for commonfolk in all the Enclave than the meeting of the Middle Road and New Road, in sight of the King's Keep, or so it is said - a hundred honest spears are but shouting distance away, and the King's Way is the way of this land.

[ Posted by Reason on August 24, 2005 | Permanent Link ]

Mirael The Enclave > Known Roads > Mirael

Tower of The Furrow

The stone-walled tower of The Furrow, red iron shutters covering its few windows, looms over the common folk of Mirael in more ways than one. The tower stands atop a hillock a little way from the scattered village dwellings, giving it a commanding view of the Odan River, the River Road and the surrounding fields. Indeed, the tower was built by spearmen from the King's Keep in the time of Tean's youth, and served as a winter staging post until the The Furrow claimed it for his own.

The Furrow was once a sage of the Black Tower in Three Stones, until his departure the better part of a generation ago. He is rumored to hold the keys to powerful wizardry; the threat of The Furrow's Refutations casts a longer shadow than does his tower. The Furrow is neither vindictive nor vengeful, but quite capable of momentary or lasting cruelty without a second thought.

The Furrow makes few demands of the folk of Mirael; privacy and provisions are chief amongst them. The cost is not great, and stories are still told of the fate of those spearmen and common folk who once stood up to The Furrow. No-one knows how the Ammander sage spends the passing seasons hidden away inside his tower - few folk in Mirael care to speculate aloud.

[ Posted by Reason on April 20, 2005 | Permanent Link ]

The Fast Flowing Odan

The Odan river flows fast and deep by Mirael and the River Road. The rocky banks slide and shift each spring with the melting snow; wood-walled Ammander cottages built beside the Odan a generation ago now hang precariously over river rocks, supported by stonework and posts.

Fishing the Odan at Mirael is poor sport and a poorer living. River Pebblefish are small and shy, while the Toothed Eels that hunt them taste rancid. Still, it isn't unusual to see older Ammander folk casting line and hook into the current to while away a warm afternoon.

Were the Odan less rocky and rapid, and the Farthest Wilderness less forbidding, there would no doubt be trade by river between Mirael and Cael or the Watch of Trees. As it is, the Odan is the only thing to wind its way across the open Enclave land to the Unending Sea.

[ Posted by Reason on April 22, 2005 | Permanent Link ]

The Speared Neth

A run-down, dirty stone tavern is the first building in Mirael passed by any traveler arriving from the River Road. It is an unappealing sight, the appearance not helped by a poorly-executed wood mural of spearmen and what would be a dying Neth - were it not deliberately scratched out.

The tavern lies empty in warmer seasons, shunned by the common folk of Mirael. Spearmen from the King's Keep drink in the Speared Neth when they pass through in winter; it may be ugly, the interior dirty and hung with unpleasant reminders of Neth, but the ale is cheap. Not as cheap as it should be, but cheap.

Lun, the aged Ammander who owns the Speared Neth, is as unpleasant, ugly and ill-kept as his tavern. It is common knowledge that there was once something between Lun and The Furrow, an arrangement of some sort when the sage was newly arrived and Lun still a merchant of means - but a short Declaration on old parchment was all Lun recieved in the end. "Ugly and nothing you are, ugly and nothing you will always be."

[ Posted by Reason on April 22, 2005 | Permanent Link ]

Lun and Abethel

Poor ale, yes, Neth leather on the wall turns your guts, the wind blows through the walls, but don't be calling her a crone. Abethel's her name and if your spear was nocked as mine, you'd see the look she gave you. A generation ago you'd be spilling your blood atop the dirt, like as not. Best watch where you sleep tonight.

Hah! This place is rotten meat that won't fade, and us as flies in winter. Neth, they make you sick to even think of, and here we set down spears, drunk on bad ale in filth and cold. You can't stand it, but mark my words, you'll be back just as sure as Neth when leaves fall. Old cursed Lun, he's just another gobbet on the whole rotting pile, deserves worse still he does. Abethel, now though, she rode with Tean.

Why? You're not going to understand, not until you've Neth blood on your spear. Not until your father looks like that and you're staring at your own path ahead. Not until you find and lose a wife. Abethel was as hard and sharp a spear as you'll ever see, just ask the old priests at the Keep. Her here with Lun, like this ... like this, look around you! That's just how it is.

No, no more. Drink your King's-cursed ale I paid good coin for. The morrow is to the Odan Bridge again, and that's too soon for my liking. A drink to this rotten pit of a tavern and freezing ourselves on the River Road!

[ Posted by Reason on April 23, 2005 | Permanent Link ]

Master Lareth of the Players' Guild

By Lady Moonlit's nether beard! What have you been doing with my coin, my hall? What is the name of this piece? "The Love of the Two Pillars" ... "Love," do you hear me? You call yourselves players? Why, you passionless field rabbits look less in love than the Two Pillars themselves! And the delivery ... oh, but I am speechless! Speechless! If I'd wished the best work of my mentor butchered, carelessly dismembered, treated like cuts on a commoner's table, I'd have thrown my coin at Lady Dalun's squawling babes and their talentless thugs and thieves.

Ah, me and mine! I am riven, riven! Look at me - you have brought me to tears and pulling at my hair! It's no less than my own fault; I should have stayed rather than leave things in less capable hands. But who else to trust with Three Stones merchants and cloth and dye? And less than ten days til we are to leave for the One Stone fair! What to do, what to do?

[ Posted by Reason on April 24, 2005 | Permanent Link ]

Players' Guild

The village of Mirael might seem an odd place to find a traditional Ammander players' hall amidst trees and faded hanging ribbons. From the River Road, Mirael seems far too small a community to be the destination of troubadors in winter and the source of traveling players in warmer seasons. Nonetheless, as home to the Players' Guild, such it is.

In truth, the Players' Guild is much reduced from its once-comfortable place as a favorite of Three Stones nobles; a mere shadow of what it once was. While other Guilds were forbidden and disbanded by order of Lady Verden and her descendants, the troubadors and players of Three Stones continued on as a guild in all but name for a generation. The increasing influence of the Temple of Powers and a number of injudicious decisions on the part of successive Master Players brought an end to that golden time of patronage and performance, alas.

As seasons passed, the troubadors of Three Stones drifted away to Port, Gold Vale ... and Mirael. It happened that Master Abonel, a shrewd and talented playwright of not immodest means, spent his childhood by the Odan and in the fields of Mirael. Quite where he obtained the coin to commission the players' hall and surrounding dwellings is a matter for speculation, but obtain it he did. The small village of Mirael became host to quite the wide variety of characters and birthplace of a number of well known performances in the years that followed.

In time, Master Abonel reached the end of his Road and the hall came into the hands of the present Master Player, Lareth. Sad to tell, but with Abonel went the last of the easy coin; Master Lareth may have the touch in some matters, but coin has never been one of them. As the years whitened Master Lareth's once-fine head of hair, the lure of noble patronage in Port or playing for coin on the Known Roads proved too much for many a troubador - even fighting for lead coins with the few established players in present day Three Stones is a more attractive proposition for some than living the life of villagefolk.

Still, the players' hall stands yet, threadbare though it may be, and troubadors come and go from Mirael in all seasons. Old Master Lareth has a good number of years left in him, and even those on the outs with his coterie have to admit that the Mirael players do not lack for skill.

[ Posted by Reason on April 25, 2005 | Permanent Link ]

Two Pillars and the Council House

A wealthy Lord and Lady came to live out their old age in Mirael many generations ago, when Three Stones and Port were smaller and the village by the Odan was little more than a few farmers and their families. The noble couple built a manse overlooking the Odan and commissioned stoneworkers to carve the Two Pillars, each engraved with poetic declarations of love and devotion.

The weathered Pillars still stand a little way from Mirael, out in the fields where once was a grove of tall trees. Each worn stone mass is twice the height of the traditional Ammander spear.

The noble manse was put to many uses over the years after the Lord and Lady passed from the Enclave; much of the building crumbled for lack of coin to maintain it. What is left, impressive old stonework even with the passing of generations and patchwork repairs, is now the Mirael Council House.

[ Posted by Reason on April 26, 2005 | Permanent Link ]

Water Circle

The large Water Circle of cracked slabs in the center of Mirael, grass growing thick between the stones, is another remnant of the old noble manse and its builders. A single tree grows in the circle, canting surrounding slabs at an angle. The Council House stands beside the point at which the River Road ends by joining the Circle. Once, buried channels carried water from the Odan to flow around the edge of the circle in a stone-lined watercourse; all that remains of that now is a sunken ditch about the edge of the stones that floods in the rain.

The players of Mirael perform and practice on the Circle as often as in their hall. Traders from Three Stones and the King's Keep set out their wares on the old stones on market days. The whitebeards of the village gather beneath the spreading branches of the Water Circle tree in warmer seasons to reminisce and tell tales. Yet the upper red iron shutters of The Furrow's tower are visible from the Water Circle - over the rooftop of the Hall of Powers - just as they are from much of Mirael. The tower provides a constant, unsettling reminder for those who recall the The Furrow's arrival.

[ Posted by Reason on April 28, 2005 | Permanent Link ]

Hall of Powers

The Hall of Powers is a three-walled, open structure facing the Water Circle in the center of Mirael. The walls are old, made of carefully fitted river stones, but the high wooden roof is clearly a later addition. The centerpiece of the hall is the statues of Lady Moonlit and the Beautiful Stranger, both carved in white stone from Port. Other Powers of the enclave are represented in their own ways - such as an old Route Marker set into the wall for the Traveler; figurines of lantern and boat for the Fisher in Darkness; a wooden statue of the Seeker of Burning Truths, shading his eyes to stare into the distance; a rusting iron spear and crown for the King of All the Ammand; a roguish and handsome etching of Salin the Seafarer; a sapling planted for Laelene, the Eldest Tree.

The Hall of Powers is tended by a crotchety Ammander priest named Croen, his means provided for by the Mirael Council rather than, as would be traditional, gifts left in the Hall by village folk. Croen dwells alone in a small wooden hut on the edge of the village, a creature of habit and ritual - not one to be bothered by the cares and concerns of others.

[ Posted by Reason on May 1, 2005 | Permanent Link ]

Strangers' Rest

Rasik, now, he and that wife of his may play at being the young goats, but he has more coin than you or I. He'd look his age if he wore a beard; has interests here and interests there. Like trees in the field, his friends in Three Stones. But there he is, behind the bar in the Strangers' Rest, because that's what pleases him. Not as though I'll complain while he keeps the good ale out front.

Hah! You think goods fall from the sky like rain, no doubt. No wonder you don't have a pair of coins to rub together. Take a look around the Rest the very next time you're spending Mered's coin; engravings on iron sheets and those tables don't come cheap - not to mention rooms fit for Three Stone traders. Not that you'll ever see the inside of those, cloth and drapes to put the Council House to shame.

Well, now, it was good enough for the Visitors from the Farthest River. They tied up their strangers' boats and came up to trade, not that half the folk here wanted to be anywhere near. The smell of them was curdled goat milk and rotting hay, for all they weren't too unpleasant on the eyes - not like that scaled thing that ruined fishing for a season two years past afore it went back to the Farthest. Still, Rasik gave them room and was paying coin to twenty folk for twenty days to scrub out the smell after all was done. They say he got the best of the trade though, and there was talk that him up in the Tower had something to do with it ... but no need to be bringing that up. Let us talk of other matters.

[ Posted by Reason on May 1, 2005 | Permanent Link ]

River Houses and the Year of Winter

Was a time when some folk lived in houses on the Odan; before the seaons of him up in his Tower. Fast and deep the river may be, but a chained raft stays steady enough to build on - the Year of Winter put paid to that, though, mark me well. The river froze solid, right enough, and it was a harsh time for all; even cruel Neth when spring never came and Trespassers roamed the land. But afore that, Neth were to be crossing the frozen Odan and butchering poor folk in their river houses, leaving their stench over everything. Spears on the ice river bank, it was, and murder done in driving snow.

The chains, a few are still there, but no-one builds river houses now. A good thing too, even if the Odan froze over neither before nor since.

[ Posted by Reason on May 5, 2005 | Permanent Link ]

Spearmen's Wall

The old, low Spearmen's Wall of dry-fitted river stone was built when Mirael was smaller, a boundary line for hired spearmen to walk in winter. Larger stones have been taken for houses, and much of the Wall has simply disappeared as the village expanded away from the Odan River. The remaining lengths by the river banks, River Road and Players' Hall haven't been repaired for a generation or more - they are ragged and collapsed in many places.

[ Posted by Reason on May 7, 2005 | Permanent Link ]

A Council of Tradition, New and Old

In the old Ammand, far across the Unending Sea, village councils met and acted at the behest of their Lord. A noble or representative was given the Lord's Place at the head of the table - a seat that remained empty for most council sessions. While the Enclave is not the Ammand, the Council House of Mirael does boast a stone table and Lord's Chair, both crafted long ago in Port when the Council House was part of a larger noble manse.

By rights, the Lord's Place should be accorded to Leressa, aged sister to the present Lady Talmur of Three Stones. She is far more refugee than representative, given the degree to which she has fallen from favor in her family, but she is the only noble-blooded Ammander in Mirael. Unfortunately for Leressa, the Lord's Chair has been claimed by The Furrow for a generation - and thus it gathers dust while that old sage remains secluded within his Tower.

Nonetheless, it is Leressa who has pushed for frequent council meetings over the years and brought more of village life under Council auspices - raising minor taxes; providing for the Hall of Powers and Croen; resolving disputes between village folk; hiring spearmen year-round rather than only in winter seasons; ensuring The Furrow's requirements are met. Leressa is a strong-willed old woman, set in her ways and determined to be every bit the traditional Ammander Lady despite her current status and the looming shadow cast by The Furrow - both issues that she does her best to ignore. If Leressa cannot be Lady in Three Stones, then she will be Lady in Mirael, and woe betide any who say otherwise.

The other councillors in Mirael are village folk - kindly Eldine, Barras with his crippled leg and sharp wit, and young Tenyei of Vanished Isle descent. They as much dragged along by Leressa as they are councillors with a voice and vote, but they care about the folk of Mirael and do their best to see a good outcome for all.

[ Posted by Reason on May 8, 2005 | Permanent Link ]

Spears to Guard in Summer

I've carried my spear 'cross the Enclave and back, let me tell you, and wed me to one of Orer's goats if this isn't the easiest coin I've found. Village ale, a clean guard house and coin for keeping the peace. You with your talk of up and leaving to the King's Keep! A few seasons of the King's Way, a few winters of Neth and Trespassers on the Roads, and you'd be pining for village life, I'll wager. Coin is just coin - it can't buy you fire and a good woman on the Forest Road, nor your fingers back from Neth, no. It can't make Port a place for an honest spear neither, and that's the truth.

You shouldn't pay any heed to the Lady; it's as much the other council folk who pay our coin. She's like the river eels, bites because she can. Besides, you'd be polishing spear and armor a good deal more for those who follow the King's Way. Where's the harm in standing a while outside the Council House for good coin if that's what she wants? Village folk aren't moon-faced; if spears are needed, we'll know about it, that's for certain and sure.

What about last season when Bralem and his brother were each at the other's throat in the Stranger's Rest over some trader girl? Half the village was there afore any of us, and it was all done and done by the time any spear was through the door. Rasik's wife hit Bralem over the head right smart and that was the end of that save for the cursing. A sight easier than patrolling the dockside in Port, mark my words!

[ Posted by Reason on May 9, 2005 | Permanent Link ]

Orer's Goats

Ugly creatures, aren't they just? Like two goats in one, and dragged backwards through a wet hedge at that. Well behaved, though, I'll give them that, and they seem to keep the rest quiet. No more chewing through the gate ties and eating what they shouldn't - I'm thankful for that, for certain and sure.

Well and well, six summers past it was, afore Merris broke her leg on the riverside and Master Lareth and the Lady almost came to blows over his attempt at a festival. A year that was! That young isleblood, away to Port and salt air he is now, was tending my goats - and I'll be buried if he didn't come back with six more than he left with one fine day. "They looked Lost," he said. "Wouldn't leave," he said. Too soft in the heart to work the land, that one, and didn't I always say as much? Can't say as I blame him, mind; you can't help the blood you're born with. He couldn't be faulted for lack of trying, neither.

So there you have it, or them, as you like it. I haven't tried their milk in these six years, and by the Lady Moonlit, I can't say as I'm going to. Mayhaps the old ways work for goats just as for folk - treat these Visitors well and the Beautiful Stranger will keep my animals safe should they stray into the Farthest.

[ Posted by Reason on May 10, 2005 | Permanent Link ]

A Visitor Atop the Walls

Not so long ago, a Lost Visitor from the Farthest Fields dwelled in Mirael; he looked enough like an Ammander to pass for one at first glance, but he never spoke the Ammand tongue. The players took him in and gave him a place in their houses, since he showed no interest in earning his way as a commoner. There was a certain sadness about the Visitor's ways, even though he favored the bright colors of cloth brought by Three Stones merchants. The Visitor never left the village in the years he was there; in winter seasons, he would sit atop the low Spearman's Wall and sing in his own strange way.

When The Furrow arrived in Mirael, the Visitor vanished. There was much ill in the village in those seasons, and the Visitor was far from the only one to leave. There are those who say The Furrow had more of a direct hand in it, what with the fascination that Black Tower sages have for the Farthest ... but they say so quietly and to themselves.

[ Posted by Reason on May 12, 2005 | Permanent Link ]

With the Traveler to Guide Their Steps

Mirael's small gravefield overlooks the village and river from a low but rocky bluff between fields of crops. A graven image of the Traveler, leaning on his trusty staff, faces the scattered marker stones amidst rocks and trees. The largest tree on the bluff shades an old, overgrown crypt built after the fashion of those in the gravefields beyond Three Stones and sealed for generations. Within rest the remains of the Lord and Lady of the Two Pillars, those responsible for much of the early growth of Mirael.

Two lines of rusting Ammander spears are set deep in the earth at one edge of the gravefield, between them a worn stone carved with the crown and spear of the King of All the Ammand. The rusting metal marks the graves of spearmen who died in the Year of Winter, while defending blizzard-bound Mirael from cruel Neth and in futile battle with a monsterous Trespasser from the Farthest.

[ Posted by Reason on May 13, 2005 | Permanent Link ]

Standing Rock on the River Bend

Between the fields and the deep Odan, an old, rock-strewn path runs out past the Spearmen's Wall and alongside the river. It is marked by large, overgrown stumps amidst grass and bushes, the trees cut down in past seasons. Blue sageflowers grow over the dead wood in spring and summer, collected by the older children of Mirael to be hung over doorways and at the Hall of Powers.

The clear path ends at the river bend and the Standing Rock; only a slight bend in fact, but the great rock hides the river downstream. In warmer seasons, players and troubadors bring ale and fishing lines to the Standing Rock - an escape from Master Lareth, or simply to a way to laze undisturbed by village folk; there is little in the Odan worth fishing for. The Standing Rock is knife-etched with generations of ale-addled players' lore; treasured lines, insults, ill-phrased rejoinders and the memory of love and loss.

The common folk of Mirael tell stories of the Standing Rock, of how the fast-flowing Odan is bottomless beside it, or as near as makes no difference. Once upon a time, or so it is said, the Fisher in Darkness come up the river to sit atop the Standing Rock. That noble Power fished with line and rod for who knows what for a full year and a day - from high summer through first and last snow to high summer once more. He caught nothing in all that time, but sailed downriver for the Unending Sea in as good a mood as a year and a day earlier, for the Fisher knew that fishing is more than a matter of simply catching fish. But whatever the Fisher fished for still remains, and so sensible folk ply their business elsewhere on the Odan.

[ Posted by Reason on July 22, 2005 | Permanent Link ]

Polt The Enclave > Known Roads > Polt

An Ancient Name of Uncertain Provenance

Home to a small community of fisherfolk, Polt is one of the Four Isles off the Enclave coast at the Watch of Trees - close enough to shore for isle folk to see clifftop lantern lights lit by the mysterious Ammanene on clear nights, far enough that the cliffs are indistinct on hazy summer days. There is little on Polt to interest traders and wealthy fisher folk who sail between Cael and Port; the folk of the isle are poor and insular. They keep to themselves for the most part, and make their own way to the Enclave coast when they have need of supplies that cannot be taken from the Unending Sea.

The other nearby isles of the Four - Alna, Jont and Mappan - are rocky and uninhabited, visible from the highest rocks of Polt on a clear day. The names of the Four Isles are all of very ancient origin. These were strange names even in the generations of the old Ammand, names from folk other than the common Ammander stock, their meaning long forgotten by mortals.

The shallow, rock-strewn sea beneath the Watch of Trees and between the Four Isles is rich in spined eel and crawcrab, but only for patient fishers and shallow-beamed boats. The large, angry red crawcrabs caught by the fisherfolk of Polt are inedible, but possessed of a shell hard enough for many uses.

[ Posted by Reason on July 26, 2005 | Permanent Link ]

Watchtower of the Fisher Priest

The broad, low Watchtower of gray isle stone stands atop the highest rocks of Polt. It is a fortress in miniature, built in a strange style and weathered by uncounted storms. It might date back to the generations of seafaring Magi and their first exploration of the Enclave coast, but no mortal folk could say for sure.

The lowest floor of the tower is a vaulted shrine to the Fisher in Darkness, and has been for many generations. The stone interior is overtaken with arches made of old driftwood and the large shells of Four Isle crawcrabs. The present priest, Tarnas, is a lone and mysterious man; he rarely leaves the Watchtower and seems not to want for company. Tarnas seldom speaks to the fisher folk of Polt. They know little of the priest or his past, but provide for him in the traditional manner - younger folk carry packaged provisions up the steep path to the tower and leave them in the shrine, under the gaze of the statue of the Fisher.

Tarnas came to Polt ten years ago, arriving alone in small boat that he has not touched since, just as reclusive then as he is now. There was no priest on Polt in those seasons; the Watchtower had been empty a generation, the shrine poorly kept by the fisher folk and the upper floors a home to seabirds. For all Tarnas' strangeness, the folk of Polt are pleased that a priest of the Fisher dwells in the Watchtower once more.

[ Posted by Reason on July 28, 2005 | Permanent Link ]

Wizardry of Three Fingers

The smiling, three-fingered men came to Polt in their boats of strangers' metal two generations ago after a great summer storm, or so the old folk of the isle claim. They traded, threw one of their kind overboard, and sailed away to the Farthest Sea. That castaway three-fingered man struggled ashore, raging against all who would help him; he half-slew ten before the fisherfolk drove him off with spear and ax.

To hear the old folk of Polt tell the tale, the three-fingered man was larger and stronger in those first days. He roamed the isle for half a season, terrifying folk while calling strange wizardry down from the sky and up from the water. As winter drew close, the white-haired priest of the time stood up to the three-fingered man in the name of the Fisher, forcing him away from Polt to call up his strange wizardry on Jont and the other lesser Isles.

The fisher folk of Polt saw only glimpses of the three-fingered man after that; he became a gaunt and tattered figure haunting the lesser of the Four Isles. The years passed slowly until, one summer day, the three-fingered man rowed back to Polt in a boat of gray isle stone, wearing a cloak of seabird feathers. He bore brightly polished gifts of carved rock and raged no more - nor did he call forth terrifying wizardry. In the seasons since, the three-fingered man has become a favored member of the small fishing community, for all that he speaks and understands little of the Ammander tongue. He dwells in one of the oldest stone cottages in the lee of the isle, carving tools and ornaments to trade with the village folk.

[ Posted by Reason on July 28, 2005 | Permanent Link ]

Master Fisher's Hall

Like the Watchtower, the Master Fisher's Hall is an old, old building of great gray stones and beams brought by boat from the Enclave coast. It stands alone above the shoreline on the far side of the isle from the fisherfolk cottages, facing out to the wind and the Unending Sea. Seabirds build their nests in the lee of the Hall, beneath faded islemarks painted by Magi-blooded fishers in seasons gone by.

The Hall stands empty save for the few times the folk of Polt gather together - to resolve disputes, or when the Unending Sea claims one of their number. On those days, fisherfolk look to the guidance of the Master Fisher, elected for the occasion by acclaim or vote of the elders of the isle.

[ Posted by Reason on July 29, 2005 | Permanent Link ]

Seeking Tales of the Emerald Company

Aye, I rode with Arith to take my ax against the Neth and White Trespassers. It's been many winters since I heard those names spoken; a fair way you've sailed just to disturb the isle folk and ask me that.

A fisher of the Four Isles I was when young, and a fisher of Four Isles I am once more. There is all there is, and all Creation beyond Polt remains beyond Polt. I don't tell tales of the old Company, no, so best you take yourselves and your spears back to Hebsen's merchant vessel and sail away to whence you came. Leave the folk here in peace.

I won't ask who sent you to the Four Isles, but tell them there are no axmen of the Emerald Company on Polt, aye, and never there were.

[ Posted by Reason on July 30, 2005 | Permanent Link ]

Port The Enclave > Known Roads > Port

Local Color The Enclave > Known Roads > Port > Local Color

No Two Coins the Same

Nobles, Councillors and wealthy traders of Port have issued coins as a mark of prestige for generations. These coins come and go from the Farthest, are lost, hoarded and melted for new issue. It is common wisdom that the rare occasion of two coins of the same press in the same purse is a sign of luck - good or bad. Ten coins of the same press mean wealth and influence; those coins surely came directly from the source. A hundred coins of the same press must be wizardry and little else.

Even the youngest of merchants are practiced in the use of scales and measures to judge the amount of precious metal in a coin. Clipped or adulterated coinage is not uncommon, as are strangely shaped tokens from the Farthest Market. Any trader can spot such a thing in an instant, and the experienced ones can make a good guess at the value.

New coins originate in the Coin Press, a windowless vault in the heart of Port. The single thick iron door is guarded day and night by the best (or at least most favored) of the militia - a choice duty that pays well. The equipment inside is maintained by a small and trusted staff.

The current Master of the Coin Press is a strange character indeed, a sage of the Black Tower of Three Stones who calls herself The Locked Heart. Control of the Coin Press spurred a great deal of Council infighting in past generations - to the point of driving the Press into disuse - but the arrival of the Locked Heart changed all that. She has simply appropriated the Coin Press from the Council for her own use and profit, but the powerful in Port find this to be more convenient than the previous state of affairs. The Locked Heart has made it abundantly clear on many an occasion that she considers each and every Councillor, merchant and noble in Port to be equally vile and degenerate. She plays no favorites; her motives and methods, beyond the obvious, are a mystery.

The interior of the Coin Press is rumored to hold a fantastical array of ingenious traps and unknown Draugh wizardry from the Black Tower. None of that, rumor or otherwise, prevented the Unseen Hands from stealing the newly pressed coins of Lord Lundarn. The coins were left in the bedchambers of a dozen dockside innkeepers and madams - alongside notes suggesting that the thieves were aiding all concerned by "removing the middle man." Lord Lundarn and his notorious rake of a son, Tarnis, were the laughing stock of Port for a season.

[ Posted by Reason on January 16, 2005 | Permanent Link ]

Cast the Eyes Away From Land

Landsmen and cityfolk of Port scarely acknowledge one another - an old division that stretches back for many generations. Seafarers, fisherfolk and even common cityfolk look to the Unending Sea, contemptuous of those who work the land for a living. Better to be the lowest dregs on the docks than a farmer, or so it is said. For their part, Landsmen and those who watch the city Wilds are a proud folk - too proud to want anything to do with scornful, ignorant cityfolk. They dwell in small communities outside the city main, tending their fields, herds and orchards unbothered by militia, dockside thieves, Taxmen or the Council.

An economic sleight of hand brings Landsmen produce - dried fruit, grain, ale, wood, straw, salted meat and vegetables - to the dockside market and taverns of Port. Landsmen rarely set foot in the city main and few cityfolk wander the fields; it is traders from Three Stones who leave the Stone Road to barter with Landsmen for goods to sell in Port.

[ Posted by Reason on February 13, 2005 | Permanent Link ]

Winter Seasons of Thieves and Neth

Oh, and you'll be slinking away to a certain girl in Cael once the last leaves fall, I'll wager. You and Saben both, a nice arrangement you have with the Council there - a winter of coin for doing nothing more than staying abed while your spears rust in the stand. One of these years the Neth will blood Cael again; you won't be so warm and comfortable when your guts are painting the thatch. Hah!

Menei, Gereth's boy and that useless eelsucker Arin are off traveling to the King's Keep already, and good riddance. Riding the Forest Road and standing night watches after first snow might teach them a little respect for those who've done more than knock a few drunk heads together. I've had Neth blood on my spear, this spear right here; I wouldn't shed any tears to hear Arin and his oh-so-fine boots got themselves Lost.

No, you all take yourselves away this winter season just like the rest. Myself, I'll be keeping the chance to push a few bunks together in the barracks between patrols. Bring in a willing fisher girl from the docks, who's going to say anything? All the favorites with their coins and red iron, with their "King's Way this" and "King's Way that" ... they'll all be bowing and scraping at the Keep or freezing themselves poor on the Roads waiting for Neth to cut their fingers off. Hah! You're all so eager to carry your spears here and there for a few more coins that you miss out on the easy life right here in Port.

Hah! As though I care a bad coin about a few thieves in winter. A little snow on the ground and they think they can do as they like. But so what? Let them fight each other and freeze themselves finding something to steal. If the high and mighty in their estates cared, they'd give us more coin. No, I'll walk my patrols and drink at the Horn in front of a roaring fire just as I did last winter.

[ Posted by Reason on February 15, 2005 | Permanent Link ]

Troubadors and Lady Dalun's Daughters

The troubadors of Port are a mixed breed, "the collision of falling and fallen amidst the offal" as Lady Dalun hashly puts it. Haughty players from noble retinues mingle and romance with common storytellers from the dockside; all who can hold a note or a stirring tale are welcome - at least for as long as it takes to be on the outs with one clique or another. Ammander traditionalists sneer at those who embellish tales of the Emerald Company or Port history while seafarers have no love of fancy players and formulaic lore. Ever-present conflicts over patrons and personalities are never far from the surface, however much of an atmosphere of comradrie is maintained.

Troubadors and their followers roam Port from evening to evening: the Wayward Visitor; taverns near the Guild Bridge; the outskirts of city Wilds; the Dockside Market. They spend coin on ale and high living as quickly as audiences and patrons provide it.

Alane and Teria, daughters of Lady Dalun, are the wealthiest patrons in Port. They inherit more than coin from their mother; both are intelligent, determined and self-centered, red iron hooks for unwary eels, trailed by broken hearts and purses. Lady Dalun strongly disapproves of her daughters' dalliances and expenditures, and the family retinue is divided in loyalty between mother and daughters. More than one troubador has fallen victim to an abrupt shift in the ongoing Dalun struggle of wills; one unfortunate was almost sent to the Prison Hulks before fleeing to Three Stones.

[ Posted by Reason on March 13, 2005 | Permanent Link ]

Worn and Scratched Names on the Cobbles

On warm days fisherfolk repair their nets and lines on the cobbled streets and seafront by the berths, quays and jetties. As the seasons come and go, names are scratched on the cobbles only to be smoothed by the feet of the next generation of seafarers and cityfolk. Almost every cobblestone bears a worn, knife-etched name where the fisherfolk congregate.

[ Posted by Reason on March 17, 2005 | Permanent Link ]

A Contest of Thievery

Craw and scale, call yourselves thieves? You're no more thieves than the eels from the Cordage House I throw coin to when I need something watched. Look at you, gathered round a cask of bad ale and not a purse between the four of you. There must be enough coin in the raw for twenty eels like you within a bowshot of this hole, even here on the dockside, but there you sit, poor as old fisherfolk.

Harand wouldn't spit on the bubbles you'd leave, thrown into the bay in a sack of stones, you mean. Blood! It's no wonder the Militia spend their days in the Silvered Horn and their nights abed with fisher girls - they could all pick up their spears tonight and be off to find the King's Way. No-one would see the difference.

Oh, so eager now you are, full of cheap ale, but not so much in the morning I'll wager. Lay a finger on me and then we'll see just what Harand does to whom. But no, I'll wager you this - there's no challenge to thievery in a city of coin stamped from silver and gold. You want to show your mettle? We five, we'll journey to Three Stones and return in a season to compare the results of our trade. Winner takes all - if you aren't afraid of a little hard work, Watch blades, and an old dock rat like me.

[ Posted by Reason on July 24, 2005 | Permanent Link ]

Cats The Enclave > Known Roads > Port > Local Color > Cats

Fisher of the Dockside Market

For many years, a black and white cat of the old Ammander heritage made the dockside market his home. He prowled the stalls and shops, stealing fish and less identifiable catches with charm, arrogance and cunning. On warmer days, he sprawled atop the pedestal of the Fisher in Darkness, watching people come and go. In time, the fishwives and merchants came to know him as the Fisher and indulged his transgressions against their stock.

When old age finally caught up with the Fisher, the famously tightfisted Islander merchant Menas surprised everyone by commissioning a statue of the cat from Lady Talmur of the Stoneworkings. It sprawls atop the pedestal, as the Fisher did in life. The plaque beneath reads "This thief was worth any ten of you."

[ Posted by Reason on January 12, 2005 | Permanent Link ]

Queen of Thieves

An old Ammander saying has it that a thief will only confide in a cat - and vice versa.

Some years ago, the young Lady Malel of Port began to maintain a retinue of cats that soon outnumbered her loyal Ammander retainers. The sleek creatures had the run of her manse and grounds overlooking the bay. The Malel estate walls were lined with eyes during the day, cats sunning themselves while carefully watching household retainers, traders and Temple Guard in the streets. By night, this feline retinue roamed far and wide in Port.

While the cats of Lady Malel prowled the streets, the self-styled King of Thieves held court in the dockside safehouses. There were fewer outright thugs in those days and thieves were more secretive - the Temple Guard rather than militia kept the peace. Still, Port has always has more than its share of motley, rough folk.

The night that the King and half the thieves of Port drunkenly chased a cat and the King's spiced spineel all the way to the Malel estate - a dozen of the Temple Guard at their heels, to hear the tale told by those who claim to have been there - has become a good story with the passage of time. The troubadors seized on it one summer and Lady Malel's cat was transformed into a horde of felines bent on eating the thieves of Port out of house and home. It is a popular performance, but few folk know the rest of the story.

It came to pass that the King spent more time in the manse of Lady Malel, and cats were seen more often in the safehouses. But this was all many seasons ago and there is no King of Thieves in Port anymore. The aged daughter of that Lady Malel lives alone and without retainers in the present time, although cats still sun themselves on the overgrown grounds and unkempt walls of her manse.

[ Posted by Reason on January 14, 2005 | Permanent Link ]

Lord of the Guild Bridge

The Lord is a slothful, well-fed tom who resides atop the central pillars of the Guild Bridge. He is content to lie in the sun for the most part, but suffers visitors poorly, hissing and clawing at all who approach - even those bearing food. Retainers from the larger noble estates constructed a small wooden manse for the Lord some years ago; he retreats within when faced with rain, snow, curious Ammander children or the crowds of the yearly fair.

"Paying your respects to the Lord" with fish from the dockside is a tradition in the commoner households close to the river. It brings luck, or so it is said - more so than coins to the Taxmen in any case.

[ Posted by Reason on January 27, 2005 | Permanent Link ]

Organizations The Enclave > Known Roads > Port > Organizations

The Unseen Hands

The thieves of Port are, in the main, common thugs and tricksters. They share much more with the Taxmen, or the dregs of the Seafarers' Guild, militia and worst noble retinues, than with the masterful rogues of Ammand legend. Indeed, there is some overlap between these organizations; the ruffian of today is spearman, seafarer or hired guard of tomorrow. An honest coin buys just as many friends.

Some treat the old stories with respect, however. While they are still thugs and tricksters, they are thugs and tricksters of a higher class and more ambitious nature. They call themselves Unseen Hands.

The society of thieves is an open secret in Port. Common folk know to avoid the rowdiest safehouses and waterfront taverns. The Seafarers' Guild and competent militia captains know who to lean on when the normal rough and tumble gets out of hand. Merchants and nobles know when and how to pay - or hire. As for the Taxmen ... well, no thief in Port openly crosses the Taxmen.

The Unseen Hands have little regard for the limits and conventions of common thievery. They have been blamed for stolen wizardry, outlandish acts under cover of darkness, misdirected rarities, the release of secrets long thought safe, impossible thefts committed simply to show they could be accomplished - and much more over the years. Few know who the Unseen Hands are, how much influence they exert over common thieves, or whether they are involved at all with their lesser brethren.

[ Posted by Reason on January 8, 2005 | Permanent Link ]

Red Iron Guild

There are many smiths in Port, but few Red Iron smiths. The "secrets" of working red-veined Enclave iron are in fact far from secret, but the Red Iron Guild has long enforced a monopoly on its use. Red-veined iron is mined in only a few locations and the Guild strives to ensure it is used to make the finest weapons and armor - and nothing else. The real Guild secrets lie in weaponsmithing, in the use of old techniques brought from the Ammand.

Smiths of the Red Iron guild work hard to ensure that "common, unworthy blades, weak armor and the misuse of our iron" are rare in Port; disputes with the Trade Guild (and, by extension, the smiths of Three Stones and lesser Enclave towns) are loud and commonplace. Disagreements with Guild smiths are an intimidating affair; they and their supporters have not held back from displays of force in the past.

Red Iron Guild smiths are the strongest, finest metalworkers in the Enclave. The Guildmaster, Natramun, is a hard man who, like his predecessors, enforces exacting standards. Despite the great expense of red-veined weapons, the Red Iron Guild is popular with those who rely on sword, spear and shield to make a living; this fact, alongside the yearly presentation of taxes and gifts to the Council, ensures the Guild's continuing relevance in Port.

[ Posted by Reason on January 15, 2005 | Permanent Link ]

Crossing the Taxmen

"Strong," he says, "does what he's told," he says , "do well, he will," he says. I should've just jumped off the cliffs and saved myself a whole purse of trouble. When I said keep a look out and keep folk away, I didn't mean go throwing down with Taxmen! I don't care what they said - they can all swim the streets like the lord of sharks, because that's what they are so far as you're concerned. You're lucky they didn't leave a blade in you.

They all wore the black sash, are you blind? With my luck you were rousting with Trenar's lot; there he'll be tonight at the safehouse, polite as you like and twenty knives behind his back. Or worse, that old eelsucker with the brain-stabbed Neth on a chain. They're all as bad as each other - taxes, the prison hulks, or worse for them, and you can wager they're smart enough to keep a good thing going. All the knives you'd never want watching your back while you're lightening a purse; fawning with the rich folk, stabbing the poor, keeping coins in the councillor's estates ... isn't that always the way?

You know what will happen if Taxmen decide to gut you and throw you to the crawcrabs? Nothing, that's what. Think the spears in the militia care a bad coin one way or another? No high and mighty councillor's going to shed tears over a commoner thief from the villages crossed by their pet eels. No, you've got to be respectable, a pretty woman or a pile of coins before you can cause them trouble. All the fancy council nobles care about is counting what they steal by the law they made, mark my words.

This'll cost us all good, you'll see, and you'd better expect that every last coin is coming from your hide, I don't care how many seasons it takes!

[ Posted by Reason on February 9, 2005 | Permanent Link ]

Order of the Glass Eye

Blood, don't touch the Lady Moonlit - the Glass Eyes don't like that. It doesn't matter about the spiders and the webs behind; not for a Weaver like you to question their whys and wherefores. Nor a spearman for that matter. They may not hang tapestries or sweep the stones, but they don't let anyone else near the statues in the main Hall.

It's easy coin, girl, and a good set of arms besides; you think I'd be carrying red iron otherwise? It's the Glass Eyes who want spears watching the Guild Halls and their workrooms. I can't see why, but it's more coin than I'd be taking from the militia or Seafarer's Guild. Blood! Are thieves going to steal hot glass and a furnace from behind triple-locked doors? Not bottles nor window-glass neither, but I won't be saying that when it's time to take the next purse.

Those high and mighty eels act as though glass is the biggest secret in Port, slinking in and out of their workrooms, wearing their guild signs, whispering and writing fit to be sages - but I'll wager any fool can fire up a furnace to make a bottle. How hard can it be?

[ Posted by Reason on February 21, 2005 | Permanent Link ]

Petitioning the Council

I am quite aware of the urgency with which you approach your charge, you have made that more than clear. I sympathise; any similar theft from my estate or interests would be dealt with quite harshly, I assure you. Simply put, however, you have no standing - this is not Three Stones and I am neither a Verden nor a Talmur to be pulled hither and thither by the whims of priests. You would do well to remember that.

Wander as you will; neither I nor my fellow Councillors have any intention of throwing good coin away by putting spearmen at your disposal. Do you think we empty our coffers for each new Visitor and petitioner to arrive in Port? Let your Temple protect its own interests with its own purse - you will find spearmen and strong hands in good number at the Guild Bridge or Seafarers' Guildhall on the cliffs. I very much doubt your thief is in Port, however; it sounds as though your fellow priests should be searching closer to home, quite frankly. Turn the City Without upside-down and I'm sure you'll find your statuette or figurine or whatever it was.

No, no, this petition is at an end. Not another word! Magister, the doors if you would be so kind?

My, my, my. I wonder just how much gold is in this latest Face of Burning Truth so carelessly lost by the good priests of Three Stones? It would be a terrible shame were it to be melted down for coin before being recognized, wouldn't it now? Still, it would have to be found first; while priests from Three Stones may carry the certainty of the Powers, I am far from sure. Anything a thief would care to steal can be found by the Unending Sea - why travel to Three Stones and risk a quick death from Watch blades? If one or two of my retainers became motivated to join this fishers' boat, they would be looking for someone other than a dockside rat ... assuming that the trinket itself isn't simply Lost to the Farthest.

[ Posted by Reason on February 25, 2005 | Permanent Link ]

A Council of Lords and Guildmasters

A priest from Three Stones shown the door by Lady Dalun, eh? I'm surprised the oh-so-honored Magisters and lowly clerks deigned to grant you an audience at all. The noble Councilors don't like your Temple, and the Trade Guild likes your gate taxes and lead coins even less, I'll wager. You've spent good coin on spearmen though, and that's a wiser act than petitioning the Council - a covy of spined eels behind you counts for more than a Lord's word on the low dockside.

No, the Council isn't like your netted glowfish in Three Stones; you'd need a dozen Watch blades at your side to impress them at all. Look at it this way: Lord Onn and the Seafarers' Guildmaster, they're upright enough, but think they have the deed to all the dockside, signed and sealed. Cerel and Saan - the Master Trader and one who might as well be - can't stand the sight of each other, but hate the thought of a single coin going to the nobles even more. Lady Dalun, she's a harsh one; cross her and she'll pay you in kind, aye, whether you're Gray Folk or King of all the Ammand. The other Guildmasters, the high priest of the Temple of Three, old Lord Lundarn, they don't matter so much - but they all look after their own first and foremost ... when they're not too busy sticking the knife in or squirming to be top eel in the barrel. Without a Council, there'd be spearmen in the streets - and not just lazy militia, mark my words. It was bad enough afore The Locked Heart took the Coin Press for her own, or when the Red Iron eels pointed spears at the traders. Better to let the high born and Guilds spit and fight behind closed doors.

It's fortunate for you that we met; there aren't many at the Guild Bridge who'll stay honest after stolen gold is mentioned. Give coin to any of those young eelsuckers and you'll be left on the cobbles by tonight ... or worse. I'm a forthright one - you'll not find better. I'll guide you and y