Power in the Townships of the Northern Province



           

With devastation sweeping up from the south, the Towers and Hamlets of the Northern Province are minimally staffed by the sages guild and No men of the King are present in the northern realm except by boat and they do not disembark but at the last tower of the north.  there is no real rulership of the province, as ancient pact between John and Inbaranen, bar either from being present in the lands as a representative of their power or rulership.  The cities, town, hamlets and villages are all self governed or held with loose alliance, and protected often by guards made of the populace, or local militias.  

An Example of this is the Coldwater Guard in Brighton.  The Coldwater Guard are mostly farmers, older men and retired fighters. They protect the farms of the north, not an easy task, from the Clanned Kords, monsters and evil men that would prey upon the remote settlements and homes. When they cannot protect them, they avenge them. Their numbers range from 30 to 90 men and women though few are Committed. Most ride the pickets or scout in the evening after the more arduous of their duties are done. Word can travel quickly among them (by horse) and it would not be unlikely to have 20 riders assembled in half a day. They have three Lodges, though one is scarcely more than a camp, and seven Watches spread throughout the hinterlands. They are fairly well regulated, being landowners and workers, and are not the type to be found in taverns or lounging about in the shade on a street corner. They are mostly concerned with the protection of the families, livestock and crops of the people of the Yidari Duor, or the Yellow Way; the old Elvin name for the arable lands to the north and northeast of Brighton, and the farms and people there.

They organize hunts each year.  Bear Hunts, Dragon Hunts, Boar hunts, game hunts, where all can be assured that they will have meat to eat and preserve.  Their best hunt in memory was the year before Akua closed the road. They brought back the skins of 13 Green Dragons and 33 bears and lost only 3 of their Guard. The Bears will carry away livestock and families while the dragons will nest in the fields and kill anything they feel threatened by. The Danger of the dragons is their near invisibility during the months before a harvest. These hunts keep the population in check. Clanned Kords (None of the Godkings People have made it up to the Northern Province yet) are killed whenever they are encountered in most cases as if they are outside the Yidari Duor and not traveled with humans, they are bandits, renegades and murderers.  There are many known clans of Kords operating in the Hinterlands and the heels of the Brake that border on the territory of the Coldwater Guard.

New members of the Guard are gained only during the hunts. They are called Hands (like a Cleave of Wardens) and are voted in at the feasts that follow the two hunts. The “ritual” is informal and almost all Hands are made Riders, so long as they acted honorably and showed the character required of the duty of the Guard. It is not necessary for a person to kill a dragon to enter their ranks. Many young boys and girls accompany their parents on the hunts. 

It is a Ritual also to give the new Rider a sword, a horse and armor.  Many of the Hands that become Riders have their own weapons and mounts; the meaning of the ritual is to be symbolic of serving the will of the Guard and not their own. All riders use the Long Sword and the Long Bow. All Coldwater Guard must wear the Livery (Surcoat with Blue shield, black tower on waves) when riding for the Guard. None of the Coldwater Guard are paid though a smith will visit the Lodges once a month, and there is always warm food and a bunk available there. 

The Coldwater Guard has a Leader though it is an informal one and there are not usually orders given. Most Guards have rigid structures, the Coldwater is the exception to the rule.

 

There are Many Lords in the Notrthern Provence, possibly 90. A good example of the rulership of a Lord is Lord Hurn. Like all lords, She served the King in the South with her Name. Her Men were her own, drawn to her from a life and a career of fighting the Kords. She retired here before the Uprising, claiming lands she works, holds free of monsters and uses to help the provence.  She Built a Keep and a Tower (Lords who stay in the south are also required to build the Wall for their lands and most of these new Lords will/must build at the further reaches of the realm, people and make safe their lands and encourage trade and serve the king by sending their sons to the College of War, and to make their daughters available to the Future Lords of the King, both being willing of course.) as was required by her oath, though in technicality, it is not required for those who expatriate to the north.  

Her keep is in the Hinterlands west of Bricking and yet not half way to Manyrivers from there. The village of Hurn rests on both sides of the banks of the lost river at the feet of Goldskull Vale while Goldskull Tower sits on its north bank. Further north by an hours ride sits Hurn’s Keep on a promontory of the Break overlooking the vale she settled. The Skull of Ahl, the Great Nature Golden Dragon above her door. She has 5 Male children from 13 to 30 and three daughters, one the wife of Harlus of Grayrock, a Lord of the Northern province who live farther south by the sea near the realm of Akua. She has 23 Soldiers, all veterans of the war in the south, one of which, Graine, serves her with his name. There are 60 Men At Arms at her keep and 18 at the Tower. Her household and Grounds staff number twenty and she trades with Bricking, Brighton and Ashdale, and sells in Manyrivers. She has Two High Elves in her service and a Dwarf. She does not keep slaves.  She maintains a warehouse and office in Bricking and Brighton and owns an Inn in the small hamlet at the feet of her vale.  She has been called on by the People of Bricking 4 times since Akua took the Road, and once was called upon by the Coldwater Guard. All times She rode out to aid. She has been known to hire Adventurers from many Rivers though She is known to be loath to involve with them.

The king has four Provinces left after the fall of the City of Freewinds and most of the Southern Province during the uprising. A province should be Adjudicated by a Seer of the Sages Guild. Each Hamlet must maintain an Administrator of the Sages Guild and a Tower along with their Guard. After the Peace with Inbaranen, all servants of the king were called south.  With the War in the south and the balance of the life of all men in the Northlands in jeopardy, Many native born in the north, head south to fight and help the king.  Others, having served long enough, or having their souls near extinguished in the never ending war between John and the God King, head north to retire or as some hope, begin a place there, a last place for men.  

At the end of the day, the rule that remains the strongest is the rule of power. You must be strong enough to protect yourself and yours. Be that strength from negotiation or pact or simple skill with a blade.

Potion Sources in the Northern Provence

Pholtic

“Light and Life in you Alive” – Pholtic Prayer of Healing.

 

Excerpt from Timini’s, Third Book of Ion; Phera and the Lord of Bruin.  

            “…wheras Phera gave to his vassal, the shieldwoman Yora, a blessing of three Tears, being the gift that they say in lower lands is tincture, or potion, and having the ability in their words to heal, and being somehow dispossessed of the divine, and a commodity among them not unlike to the spoils of the dead, if in they were the actual parts of the flesh of the defeated as is done in the horned lands to the saouth.  And thanking her for the great gift, Yora bore away and with her cadre, after some days, went back to the hinter lands and to her lord in Bruin.

            And aftewords we spake and Ion was wroth and towards the Humans had great anger, and to his liege also, and with great disagreement  left without accord, to retrieve the gift of tears that had been given them.  And Phera did not stop him.

            And so it is that we spake again, and her own tears having much dried, and in seeking her mind in truth she said to me, “Ion is not wrong.  Nor the Ascendants of old whom Pholtus called and raised, and from whom those tears came.” And I asked her how comes our love into this wold, and how love we hamankind? “Sorely.  And with regret, but also with hope” and I asked her, can they not now live even in the flames of Haatin, and how are we to bear forward come their gaze and their hate as it is oft come to our doo, and are the tears of our Loved not the balm against all evils, and having them three, where now does our sun set, as I found I was also without accord and wept. “Our sun sets Timini.  Where you in hope that our light could out shine his who was the firs and the brightest?  Who outshines eternity? Have you not seen our father fill them full bright in wisdom that is lost even to us his very children?  Our page turns Timini.  Our sun sets, our tears must fall on them unless the ground and the darkness below it drink them and they fall forever from memory.” 

 

                Pholtus, the dead god.  These are him.  Blessed in that they are what remains of his life force.  Though he is gone in a way, he is here in others.  Of all the Pholtic artifacts he had hand in creating, the “Potions” quite literally are his physical essence.  They are all in lidless crystal vials that are “broken” open for consumption. 

                 These constitute the most powerful healing potions in existence.  Some call the dead back from the Veil.  Some put the Un-Dead back to sleep.  Some regenerate youth.  Some eliminate sickness and disease.  Some confer god-like abilities.  Only Sages, Chronomancers and the servants of Varmelius know which are which as it takes divine connection to Pholtus to determine their aim.  Now all that remains that is that god are these things and his servant Aday.  These potions are all worth more than your life.

                  The dwarves hoarded them.  Some can be found in Ascendant Ruins.  Some in Leahdic ruins.  Some in contemporary treasuries.  It is a badge of pride and power for high level types to wear them openly.  They can only be "opened" with will, as the god, and what remains, wards against the unintended.   

        The Vials themselves are all very small.  It is the god doing the work, not the reagents.  The largest ever found was no bigger than the finger of a child, and most that this writer has seen are the size of a small coin.  They glow a soft white light in darkness, but not enough to see by or to use, just enough to locate them.

        These potions are found sealed and perfect.  Once broken and the imbiber is imbued with the essence of the god, the vessel quickly deteriorates.  The communion is consumed not by drinking but almost as a gas or a light washes over a thing.  

 

Leahdic

“Come away from the dark, you who are called” – From the Mere Shrine.

Excert from Yorin Elvun’s, Viamundus XXIV.

"... fores enim factae sunt. Portamina quibus dea corporaliter ad ea veniebant sive supplicans sive sacerdos. Nulla res sine consequenti venit. Ipsa quoque pulso secum venit. Etiam nunc, licet umbra vel somnium, venit tamen impossibile. Sanare, protegere, liberare. Et lux eius est.”

 

Translated “…for there were doors made.  Portals wherewith the goddess came physically to her people whether supplicant or priest.  No thing comes without its consequence.  Comes she too with them at the knock.  Even now, though a shadow or a dream, still she comes, impossibly.  To heal, to shield, to free.  And her consequence is the light.”      

                These potions are almost always healing potions.  Some made by the Goddess no more than 10 years before the Ushering.  They heal the mind, the heart, the will, the body, the soul.  Like Pholtic Comunion, the power of these draughts is from the will of the Goddess and not the proportion and efficacy of the reagents, and must be imbibed soon after opening.  Like Pholtic potions, the vials are crystal and “sealed” in the same way. only they are all larger, they are all a bluish liquid with a soft glow, and they all must be imbibed.    

                 The potions are more common, though by no means readily available.  They are occasionally available at the Freeblades Guild.  Because most Leadic Ruins are now strongholds of evil, most of the items of her power have been defiled or destroyed.  

                 There is a reason to them though and a learned person can determine the intent of the potion through reference and study. 

Apothecarin

“…and for the other, we say medicine, for this is the word of the failure of kind to penetrate the mystery without first winning its wisdom.  And we must take our medicine.” – AEE.

 

Common Source - The Evocates (Priestesses of the Lost Leah’dah) or Apothecarin’s as they are known commonly in the world, make potions for any.  They usually have a shelf-life of a few days, some can last a week or more.  These are some of the weakest potions there are as they are just medicinal herbs and minerals without divine imbuement or magical agency.  They are obtained for free by asking for them.  They aid healing, help resist infection, help with symptoms and help cope with diseases.  They calm the mind, make restful the sleep, regulate body processes and strengthen constitution.

                They come in whatever container is available. 

                Nothing is asked for payment and nothing will be accepted for it.  It is the custom to feed and gift to those in the field of healing.  Many go to these places to receive help, and it is known that if you are in a position to “pay” or to help, that you help those there.

                I have had occasion to seek the apothecarin twice this year alone, and the last time, illness had claimed me or so my ward insists, but she is still very young, and has not seen all that we can endure, nor endured it herself, as she may well some day.  Upon my entry back into the world and the light and upon hearing how bad it had been with me from my ward, I went and hired a cart and filled it with bread and water and wine and some blankets and took it to the field of healing and there passed them out as I saw fit according to urgency and reason.  A cost to me of nearly 50kp, which with honesty is less that I would have paid a physician if he had asked and I had been conscious enough to bargain with a promise of health on a death bed.  But there is no regulation but conscience and my gifts, though less that perhaps they should be, still helped many a great deal.

               And for what is commonly known, there should also be known this.  that the Apothecarin's and all her priestesses who did not die nor kill themselves durring the ushering, or the death of their goddess by the hands of he who now stands in the gap, the gray veil himself, Malfator, her brother.

                With sympathy refrain from the mentioning of her name in front of them as this causes them distress and pain.  With respect also, the venerable men that accompany the apothecarins are what is left of the Guard that once served the priestesses.  all of them with unnaturally long life, but all human and venerable.  

               With respect, it is the guard with whom you must converse and the priestesses do not speak.   

Hedge

“The elves are most of the study of healing.  Learn to speak it, learn to read it and write It, and you will learn to heal.” – Verun Wildern, High Chair - Brighton Hedge

From the talks at Weavers Lab, Summer of Tarin, 731

“Gods are the kinds of them.  I had an adventurer bring me one just in the spring, down from some hell hole still in the hills full of the dead and the undead and all of that, and here it sits, a bottle of wine, I swear it, refilled, corked, a cantrip as a ward, a code in coalink on sheepskin, meaningless, and I needed divination, to read the lable and had to summon a litteral demon to know the contents.  In the end, I couldn’t charge him what it cost me, 1000kp in materials alone and half a year from my life to tell him he had a potion that mimicks the effect of wine, proportionally, while tasting like sewage.  Gods the trouble of it.  In the end I charged him nothing, and he drank it in defiance of what he believed to be my misabuse to try to come by it at a fraction of what it was worth, of course, as we all do.  Almost shut my door for good on the whole mess of “Magic Identified Here” that is our bread and butter.  My god to think of it.  Now I laugh, but only just now.”   

Common Source - These potions are of a Magical, not divine nature and are unlimited in appearance and effect.  Some have “Passwords” which are required to be spoken before use to avoid the wrong person benefitting from them.  Some are signed by the creator.  Some have directions on the container.  Some are bad, through accident or intent.  Some can be taken in does, some are chewed or smoked.  Some take weeks to have an effect, other happen instantaneously.  They are only limited by the creativity and intent of the creator.

Common Source - Potions by Liches fall into this category as do the potions of witches and monsters.  In the Northern Province the Lich Ovardiis, once a legitimate King of the Gray Elves, grew his power as much after life as he did during it.  As the mightiest ruler of the world before the coming of Men and the dawn of the Light, he crafted many potions for his servants.  In life, his potions were powerful and beneficial.  As a Lich he made potions to serve dark purposes, enslaving some and empowering others.  During those later years as the legitimacy of his rule of the Gray Elves devoured itself, he turned towards more destructive and self-serving arts.  He is the creator of the potions of Dragon Control (wild) that are so popular among adventurers.   

Common Source - In truth, any who survive the ceremony of the Seventh Level can make them, and all of us do.  In this alone I envy and admire the factia.  The formality and uniformity of the potions of the Hideen tower are peerless.  Red for Invokata, gray for the Observatory, Blue for the Abjureres, The bottles all made in Bricking by Lay and Sons for how many hundreds of years now?  The stoppers, the seals, and the lables, all as if written by the same wizard.  Our gift of freedom is our curse of complexity.  

Factia

“Notwithstanding privilege, it is and shall remain the same, as is, the preconvening laws, 1190EE.III4-Potions” - From Factia Tantern Ligatum / The Rule of Entada / Primerium Teltus / 1191 / EE.III4-Potions.

 

                All Factia Mages make potions.  It is common knowledge that in order to be considered a candidate for Factia Service, you must craft an effective potion, cast a spell, read and write at least four languages, as well as possess an item of permanent magic.  

     The potions of Factia Power benefit the Factia.  Factia Necromata potions have a bearing upon the connection of the life force to the Positive Material Plane and its Anti-Harmony with the Negative Material Plane.  Factia Entada Potions protect you, etc. 

                 Be ye not deceived, Factia Servants can sense Factia Power and ALL servants seek to grow the power of their Factia and diminish the power of all other Factias.  It is unlikely you will be able to present an effective argument to a Servant as to why you own one of their potions and why they should let you keep it.

                 Factia Potions all adhere to the strictest uniformity and those who know the cipher can tell at a glance what the potion is.

                Factia Potions are readily available almost anywhere.  They are abundant, reasonably priced, and are how the hidden tower has amassed so much wealth.  

Elvinkinds

“It is all a story and a song, now so long, that the singing of but the smallest piece of it is the living of too many lives, and as in a word, no one thing can be told anymore, so too are we but bones upon bones upon bones in the singing, and no one thing can be seen anymore.” – Eithar, Sage of the Grayeheart.

 

Common Knowledge – Ovardiis – Potions from the time when the Elves ruled the world, and the First Lich, Ovardiis, the Elvin King ruled the northern half of it, before the coming of the light, are profoundly powerful and dangerous.  This is the time before Man.  A time of great darkness. It is said these potions made Varmelius, Mathreal, LeahDah and Malfator gods.  It is also said that these potions awoke the Great Nature of dragons and stood upright the will fo the Kords.  They are more artifact than potion and should be viewed more as an act of complicity in a unique event with their progenitor, the greatest evil the world has ever known.  They won’t make you fly, they will turn you into a dragon.  They won’t make you invisible, they will make you a walker between worlds.  They won’t bind your wounds, they will repel blades and terrify those who do not embrace your will.     

 

Common Knowledge - Gray Elven Era – From the time before the Druids wrested control of Westfolden from the Great Old Elvin Houses.  Potions from this era are indicated by flamboyance and extravagance as they were each more beautiful then the next and each hose competed with each other in efficiency, ostentatiousness, efficacy, beauty etc.  Some are more valuable as art and treasure then as the commodity of transformational power. 

 

Common Knowledge - Westfoden Era – The Current Era of potion manufacture in westfolden.  Potions are produced in steel vials.  The toppers are sealed and a glyph on the stopper describes the contents.  These are common. 

 

Common knowledge - High Elvin – Never common or widely produced.  The Nomadic Hoses of the Elves of the South never made many magic items or potions.  There are some, but the come mostly from two houses; Iliwyn and Ilior.  Similarly packaged in white glazed porcelain.  Almost all are flying potions, or variations on flying.

 

Common Knowledge - Wild Elvin – Less effective but indistinguishable from Appothecarin potions.  Made on demand, highly perishable, from medicinal herbs and mineral compounds.

 

Common Knowledge – Varmeylian – Crafted by the servants of the living god in the Holy City of Tullnimoon in the South, these are completely unusable by those Varmeylius is unwilling to aid, which is most.  Carried by the Vistlry of Ingveroon, and by his wandering priests, they have no value in stolen or ungifted hands.  The stopper is communion as with Pholtic and Leahdic potions but the difference is Varmelius is a living God and the stopper, when opened, instantly unites imbiber and their god.  If the imbiber is does not hear the voice of God, the potion is just a thimble of water.

 

Common Knowledge – Shiboan – It is fair to say that if you are an agent of evil and seek the downfall of men and the light, then look to the ways of the Shiboans.  They are a long sundered race of Elves who have made unto themselves their own ways and gods.  They love death.  Their goddess Igyaya, is the patroness of Venom, serpents and insanity.  Most of their potions serve thieves and assassins.  They are powerful poisons.  They are spells of the mind.  To drink one all but ensures a pact with the goddess herself.  

Dwarven

 

“That we know, there are but three Dwarven kindgoms.  Now, I believe there are more, to the west, but here in the east by the shore, here there are three.  Skyfall, Silverveil and Goldenhall.  See that emblem on your tankard?  That is the star of Skyfall.  That mug was made in Skyfall or with their permission in Briking, probably at one for their forges there like Minkle Hall.  You will never find a better potion for what ails you then a Dwarven spirit supped from a Dwarven tankard.  But potions, gods, you have never met a Dwarf.  The dwarves have never made a potion, and never will they drink one.” - Overheard conversation in an inn.

 

There are no Dwarven Potions, Dwarven Magic Items or Dwarven Spells.

Kordic

                Kordic sorcery revolves around a witch.  Each witch makes potions that last as long as the power of the witch does.  Since most potions of Kordic origin are found after a successful contest against a war party, it usually means the witch that led them has died.  The Kords themselves use these potions to great effect increasing their strength beyond the imagination, rendering themselves invisible during combat, giving them the speed of demons and repelling blows and arrows.  They use these to great effect in the south, in Kias where the war rages against man to this day.

Extra Planar

                Elemental and Astral Magic can be carried into this realm in the form of potions, or “Keys” that unlock the seams of our reals, joining them.  These potions can allow a person to breath fire, to fly, to swim through the earth, to throw waves, to call and direct storms and lightening, to enrage fires or extinguish them.  Some of these “Potions” are not to be drank, but to be broken, summoning the thrall to our plane to do its work before dissolving back into its own place.

                Potions made in the Ethereal (as all potions made by Liches are) are more powerful as they move into the Prime. 

                Though Demons and Devils ( or simply extra planer beings) do not traffic in such things as potions, they can fabricate Gease in the form of a ritual obeisance like a potion that drinking, assumes complicity. 

                The Gods themselves will often send mortals back to this realm with potions that when imbibed, act as a proxy to agreements or pacts made in the here-after.

Nulidian

                The Western people left long ago.  Not entirely Human though thought to be by many and worshipped in some circles as our great ancestors, they left vast empty cities and ruins of a significance remote in understanding by our intellect, stunning and indecipherable.  Many of their artifacts remain, in truth, much of the Relic and Artifact codex of Non-Divine origin is Western, or Nulidean.  Magic has two languages.  It is referred to basically as Light and Dark.  Light is the language of Sorisaris.  Dark is the language of Nulidian.  Great Nature Dragons, and Hags and spirits of the wild, and Gray Elves, speak in this Nulidian, while man speaks the magic of Sorisaris.  Impossibly ancient, potions from their time still remain.  They appear mundane, usually a glyph or image betrays its function, and they tend to be powerful.