Gethamane

From Thirdexalt

(Difference between revisions)

Current revision as of 06:11, 5 October 2014

400-miles directly north of Whitewall is the small subterranean city of Gethamane, where some 80,000 people dwell. An enclosed society, fed entirely on their subterrainian Supernatural Gardens, these people do not fear winter storms or barbarian attacks, while their remove the threat of starvation.

Indeed despite The Guild’s presence ensuring a constant stream of merchants passing through, and even though hunter-gatherers go out during the short summer season to harvest any food that they can obtain, the majority of Gethamane's inhabitants are born inside, live inside and die inside - never once seeing the outside realm. The shut-in corridors, the lit crystals that brighten during the day and dim at night, even the taste of the mushrooms that grow in the sunken Gardens, are things that become familiar to Gethamane’s children; the outside wind and sky and sun are strange to them.

Yet while it may seem monolithic, Gethamanians live in fear as the circling tunnels of their city connect to an immeasurably vaster, deeper labyrinth of underways beneath Creation from where nameless horrors rise.

As much as anyone else in the North, Gethamanians require constant vigilance to survive.

[edit] HISTORY

Like many of Creation’s great cities, Gethamane began in the First Age. Its history, however, is stranger than most. Perhaps it’s a good thing the Gethamanians don’t know it.

The Newcommers - RY 102

Led by Bethan Redeye (a 45 year old God-Blooded woman marked by her scarlet eyes and nails) a group of humans fled north from plague and starvation beset by hordes of furred, semi-human raiders, plague, and starvation. Amid the snow and tundra, the survivors stumbled on an ancient entrances into the mountain. Afraid but driven by the perils outside, they entered the mountain city and found it empty. The only remaining traces of the prior inhabitants were the three strange temples, carved with ancient depictions of flying creatures, and the city’s magical Gardens at the base of the mountain (which, fortunately, had carved pictoglyphs on the wall detailing how to work and harvest the Gardens). Within a few months, the Gardens functioned again and produced nourishing (if bland) mosses and fungi.

It quickly became obvious these Gardens were vital to life inside the city. Thus Bethan established a system called "The Dole" where all the inhabitants of Gethamane had an automatic right to a daily share of the food from the Gardens. In the absence of money or trade, she also established a tithe from the hunters and food-gatherers who went outside and distributed it to the Guards and farmers who worked directly for the city. Everything else was a barter economy, and though the inhabited parts of the city were soon roughly furnished with wood, leather, bone and stone, the people lacked the resources to make anything better.

It was also obvious that adventuring into the lower tunnels was dangerous and frequently fatal. Yet within a year, Bethan Redeye’s people were comfortably established. They named their home 'Gethamane', which meant “Sanctuary” in Old Realm, hoping it would be a good omen for the future and a propitiation to any gods that might be listening.

Forming the Council - RY 103

Bethan Redeye formalized this arrangement which had existed unoffically since Gethamane's settlement. Initialy consisting of 12 members (three from the City Guard, the farmers, the hunter-and-gatherers, and three artisans) Bethan increase this number to 15 (adding three Merchants) when the Guild arrived four years later

The Council has remained this way ever since.

The Guild's Arrival - RY 107

A wandering Guild caravan meets some of Gethamane's hunters and are invited back to the city. Bethan Redeye trades immediate food supplies in return for cloth, spices, metal and other things. In turn, the caravan leader quickly realizes the subterranean city would make an excellent trading base for ventures in the North, and recognized the inhabitants’ urgent need for outside sources of food, clothing and luxury items.

Thus begining Gethamane’s association with the Guild

Seeing potential problems ahead, and fearing her few people would be absorbed into the Guild, Bethan made the Dole contingent on labor for the city. Additionally she decreed none could stay in the city for more than one month every year unless adopted by a Gethamanian family and be entered into the Dole’s labor register (though adopted citizens could pay in jade or goods instead of labor - offering a means to increase Gethame's economy).

This new system discouraged Guildsmen building strong connections, allowing Gethamane to remain moderately independent.

Death of the Founder - RY 150

Bethan dies at the age of 93; having been Gethamae's Mistress for 48 years. She is survived by two husbands and twelve children, and names her secondborn son Gerath Redeye her heir. This established the tradition that the Master/ Mistress of Gethamane would choose an heir from their assembled descendants, rather than automatically passing the position to their firstborn. The office of Master or Mistress of Gethamane has stayed in Bethan’s line ever since.

A Failed Coup - RY 498

Mineko Threebrand, a disgruntled member of the Guard, poisons all the current Master's close relatives. The crisis is resolved the crisis by the Master quickly adopting three popular Gethamanian's, each a descendant of Bethan Redeye, to replenish the clan.

The Trade War - RY 586

Gethamane found itself being drawn in and pressured by the Guild to refuse shelter to traders from that area or at least to tax them prohibitively.

The New Mistress - RY 758

Katrin Jadehand is made Gethamane's new Mistress; age 40.

Present Day - RY 768

Gethamane grew in importance as Guild traffic through the city increased. While the Masters of the city retained its social structure and customs, new traditions developed to handle the growing amount of jade and goods and the rising demand for food by travelers passing through. Particullarly the Dole laws were strengthened, and the City Guard similarly improved in order to protect the Gardens and food stores.

Relationships with other city-states in the North have varied from good to difficult, somewhat dependent on the Guild’s relationships with those states.

With the recent disappearance of the Scarlet Empress and the rise of the Bull of the North, Gethamane has become nervous. The current Mistress of Gethamane, Katrin Jadehand, has drawn up several plans for possible disaster scenarios, ranging from a serious assault by the Bull on Gethamane to an attempt by the Guild to take over.

In the worst case, her planned strategy is to expel all foreigners while closing the city gates, place all adoptees under the direct guard of their adoptive families and sit tight and wait a few years.

[edit] GEOGRAPHY

Gethamane does not pretend to control any territory beyond the slopes of its own mountain, but its hunters and gatherers see most of what happens within the nearest 20 miles or so. The hunters sometimes venture farther, out of the mountains and all the way to the White Sea shore. Sheltered valleys within the mountains sometimes hold patches of taiga that the Gethamanians cultivate and harvest with care—a tree can take 50 years to grow 10 feet high. Tundra covers the lower mountain slopes with hardy lichen, moss and patches of grass and herbs. The icy upper slopes are nearly barren. This far into the North, in a direct line from the Elemental Pole of Air, winter lasts much of the year and the growing season is just three months long.

Farther out, toward the sides of the mountain, lie the tunnels and rooms that have been claimed as territory by the various families, and are used for accommodation, crafting and storage.

[edit] THE OUTER SLOPES

Gethamane’s hunters and gatherers travel the slopes of the mountain and the surrounding tundra under all conditions short of howling blizzards. The appalling winter weather and marauding icewalkers makes it impossible to maintain stable farms during the winter, but hardy orchards and perennial crops mean there is some cultivated food to harvest in the brief summer and autumn.

Otherwise, there are mosses and ferns to gather and local wildlife to hunt down.

About half a mile up the mountain, spaced in a loose circle around the peak, a dozen small, well camouflaged tunnels lead to clusters of chambers and from there to the Temple District and Upper Ring. Hunter-Gathers use these to store their equipment and hunting weapons.

Over the centuries, Gethamane installed a variety of locking cast-iron doors, false tunnels, dropfalls and other traps for uninvited visitors. Nobody in Gethamane can translate the ancient script carved around the entrances.

[edit] THE ENTRANCES

The two great gates of Gethamane are carved from stone, a foot thick, gleaming with the distinctive hues of jade and orichalcum alloys (pale blue in the north, reddish in the south) and reinforced with heavy enchantments of warding and defense laid on them. Inside, large wheels move stout bars to lock or unseal the gates.

A tunnel 50 yards long, 10 yards high and 10-yards wide leads from each gate to a large antechamber, which has heavy orichalcum-infused adamant portcullises at each end. For security only one porcullius will be raised at any one time. Guards constantly man these posts. Any minor brawl or scuffle in the gate passages or antechambers will be dealt with brusquely and effectively.

The antechamber guards record the names and brief descriptions of every visitor to Gethamane. All who enter Gethamane have their names taken down, together with a brief physical description, usually no more than “black-haired woman” or “man with limp.” Noticeable characters, such as Solars traveling openly, are likely to have more details noted down. None enters the city without registration, though.

Visitors must pay a silver dinar to enter. Slaves pay half a dinar (a concession to the Guild). Those short of cash can pay with goods or labor with the amount to be adjudicated by one of the Bethanites: Plenty of menial tasks always need doing, such as cleaning passages. Masters of slave caravans often arrange for their slaves to work off the fee in labor while staying in the city, rather than pay. Particularly dangerous but penniless adventurers may be asked to undertake an underways expedition, with promises of significant extra recompense if they succeed.

Each antechamber also holds the keys to a set of explosives and sorceries set into the 50-yard tunnel leading to it, which should (it has never been tested) collapse the tunnel when activated. This is a last-ditch defense to be used if the outer gate falls.

[edit] THE SUBTERRANEAN CITY

In Gethamane, social rank goes along with depth in the mountain. The closer a person is to ground level, where the sunken Gardens are, the higher-ranked she is. Gethamane consists of five layers:

the Temple District at the top; large open rooms decorated with jewel-encrusted carvings of mountains and enormous flying creatures.
the Upper Ring below that;
the Guild District; where the Guild may stable and house its caravans, trade with the people of the city and maintain a permanent market.
the Outer Ring, by far the largest sector of the city;
the Garden District at Ground Level, containing its food sources, its government, its records, the Courthouse the Dole distribution center, the Master’s quarters and the Guardhall.

Proximity to the source of the Dole makes the Garden District the most prestigious sector of Gethamane, while the Upper Ring’s distance renders it the least desirable place to live in the city.

Below the Garden District are the Underways.

[edit] PASSAGES

Gethamane consists of hundreds of twisting corridors that connect countless rooms. Its passages are square shaped, their floors and ceilings carved from the dark gray stone of the mountain while other forms of stone or concrete sometimes cover the walls.

While smaller rooms are generally plain, larger rooms and halls are covered in intricate and beautiful carvings of unknown plants and beasts, strangely designed pictures that haunt the memories of visitors. Some rooms have stone doors, while others have newer doors of timber or stretched hide.

Since Gethamane’s current population exceeds that of the old City of the Mountain Gateway, many Gethamanians live in apartments formed by partitioning larger chambers or passages. Older or wealthier families have heavier, metalnailed bulwarks or elaborately painted screens, while poorer families must make do with roughly tanned leather, pieces of wood cannibalized from merchants’ carts and other temporary makeshifts.

[edit] UTILITIES

Large crystals of pale violet set in the walls and ceiling emit a clear white light which glows brighter during the day outside (even brighter than most days) and dim when night falls (though remain bright enough for most people to continue working on all but the most demanding tasks).

Gethamanians cover the crystals if they want darkness, but few outside the visitors’ section ever do so. Gethamanians are used to constant light: True darkness frightens them. Damaging the crystals is a Major Offense against the Second Law. Gethamanians learned centuries ago that removing a crystal from its setting darkens it forever.

For water, Gethamane has at least four large public fountains on each level and citizens draw off water as needed. Additionally the Outer Ring has two working bathhouses whose large, tiled pools magically heat the water in them. Two others no longer function. These bathhouses were all declared to be city property in the early days of the city and remain such. Even the wealthiest families must either come to the public baths or heat basins of water in their own homes. As such they are considered social as well as hygienic locations, and were clearly used by the previous inhabitants, as the caves in which the springs are situated were laid out for bathing, with some small pools to one side for private use and other large pools for general use.

Gethamane's laws forbid anyone restricting the use of a well save "at the will of the City in time of trouble”. Any damage to a well is a crime against the Second Law, garnering similar penalties as damage to the light crystals.

Unfortunately, most of the city’s internal plumbing corroded to uselessness during the long vacancy. Gethamanians make do with chamber pots and rather stinky non-flushing commodes.

[edit] THE PEOPLE OF GETHAMANE

Gethamane has little direct contact with the rest of Creation. Few Gethamanians travel, and fewer want to visit them. As such most Gethamanians know very little about the rest of Creation.

It is easy to differentiate who go outside and the rest of Gethamane. The minority who spend much of their time outside (Guards, Hunters and Gatherers) show color in their cheeks, roughened skin or other signs of exposure to sun and weather. The majority who remain within Gethamane most (if not all) of their lives have unnaturally pale skins never touched by the sun and eyes adapted to shadows (exposded to sun and/or natural weather these 'albinos' are known to flinch, tremble or even break down into fits of hysterics).

Naturally, this has grown into a division in society, but it is more one of fashion than a genuine social rift. The Council knows it needs members of the city who can function outside and that the food brought in by the hunter-gatherers is a vital precaution against trade-blackmail by the Guild. The Guard treats the division as a matter of specialty: some of its members work better outside, and some work better in the deep tunnels.

The farmers are the only major faction to genuinely look down on those who go outside, mostly because they themselves count few travelers among their numbers. The farmers’ tasks, by necessity, keep them working in the heart of the mountain throughout their lives.

There are many people inside the city who fear to leave it and who regard outsiders with a tolerant but indulgent eye, as strangers who cannot understand the proper way to live.

Most citizens are known by their personal name followed by a family name. For extra formality, Gethamanians give a person’s name followed by “of the such-and-such family.” Distinguished Gethamanians add a descriptive epithet, the way Bethan was called Redeye or the current Mistress Katrin is called Jadehand for the martial prowess she showed during her youth as a Guard.

Tasks often run in families, and the first time that a child from one of these families goes outside the walls of Gethamane is a major rite of passage for that child.

[edit] Clothing

A hundred yards of insulating stone and the heat of 80,000 bodies keep Gethamane warm. As such Clothing in the city is lightweight, wear either robes of cotton or silk, or tunics and trousers. Guards wear tunics and trousers under their boiled leather or steel armor, though they wear boots instead of the usual soft slippers, while farmers wear simple brown robes. Hunters and gatherers, of course, need heavy wool, fur and leather when they go outside.

Regardless of occupation, Gethamanians prefer deep colors, grays, black or brown rather than the bright shades that look attractive in sunlight. Brightly hued clothing is reserve for the bedchamber.

Status and wealth is conveyed by the quality and elegance of the clothing, rather than by color or patterns.

[edit] Cooking

Much of the Dole is simply washed, sliced, spiced and eaten raw. Living underground limits Gethamanian cooking: The ventilation system cannot handle a lot of smoke. People often stir-fry their food using dried grass for short bursts of intense heat.

They also pack slow-burning, nearly smokeless fuel such as dried peat within a heavy crock and place a smaller pot within it. Gethamanians often freeze-dry foodstuff on the windswept mountain heights, then reconstitute it by stewing it in such a “Gethamane oven.”

[edit] Families

Formal marriage is between men and women, but homosexual lovers are common. Quite often, married couples have a publicly acknowledged lover who shares both their beds. Gethamane doesn’t treat unions between cousins as incest but forbids unions between adopted siblings.

A person is known either by his personal name and then his family name or by his personal name and “of the such-and-such family.” The first usage is more common these days, but the second usage is more old-fashioned and is still adhered to among the more important families.

Inside families, descent is matrilineal, though a woman’s current husband is legally the father of all her children, regardless if she was married to him or not at the time she bore the children.

[edit] Adoption

Families often adopt children too, a custom that began as a way to make sure that orphans — future workers — could survive and provide childless couples with heirs to care for them in their old age. When a Gethamanian of humble birth shows great skill and dedication, a wealthy and socially prominent family may adopt her. Not only does this provide Gethamane with a unique form of social mobility, it prevents the leading families from becoming stagnant and complacent.

Most large families include a few adopted members. Adoption ends all ties to the former family, legally and (Gethamanians hope) emotionally. Therefore a woman can bear a child to a man in another family, then give the child to be adopted by that family (if married, this requires her husband’s permission as well), at which point the child becomes a full member of that family.

It is considered very rude to pry into someone’s past about something like this or suggest anyone might feel loyalty to any family other than their own, even if they are the physical child of that family.

[edit] Adopting Outsiders

Inter-family adoption inside Gethamane is a comparatively simple thing, done to cement ties between families, provide for orphans or, occasionally, introduce new blood into excessively inbred families.

The legal process of adopting outsiders into Gethamane families and making them citizens is rather more complex and carries more social difficulties. Afterall, it is a high honor for someone from inside Gethamane to consent to bring an outsider into such a closed society.

First, any family can only adopt ONE outsider per year (this was codified by the second Master, Gerath, to prevent any family adopting large numbers of outsiders.)

Second, families don't want to adopt strangers who may bring disrepute on their position. Even middle/lower class who would be willing to adopt an outsider, particularly if a large payment in jade or goods was involved, want to be sure their family won’t be at risk from the outsider’s actions.

Third, while the “parents” are the only ones who formally need to give assent to the adoption, if their family strongly opposes this then pressure may be placed to prevent the adoption. Accidents, such as falling into the underways or tragic overdoses of common sleeping drugs have been known to occur in particularly awkward cases (especially ones involving Guild members).

Sometimes, an outsider will do a Gethamane family such a definite favor that adoption is the only commensurate favor the family can provide in return. In that case, adoption will be offered willingly, and the outsider is made to understand exactly how large a favor is being done for him. If the outsider truly doesn’t want to be adopted, then an accepted solution is for them to have a child of his blood (or, at worst, a deserving orphan) adopted by the family in his place.

It’s impossible to perform an adoption without it going on the civil lists, the city records and the Dole. This has prevented the Guild and the Realm smuggling in full agents without them being closely observed (making it practically counterproductive).

The best that outside forces can do is to arrange for future agents to be adopted as children and then attempt to influence them once they reach the age of usefulness. Alternatively, it is possible to get an innocuous outsider adopted and then substitute an agent for the adoptee, though this runs the risk of high embarrassment and social disgrace for the family concerned if it is discovered.

[edit] Religion

Most Gethamanians are not very religious and leave such matters to the chosen priests. Most only go to the three temples when they have particularly urgent concerns or if they hope for prophetic dreams. Similarly, most don’t bother with luck charms or amulets. Citizens who have frequent commerce with outsiders sometimes buy luck charms from them, but this is often more a political statement than anything serious.

While they would not deny any deity’s powers, Gethamane’s gods make few demands — they haven’t even given their names — and other gods show little interest in the City.

All temples to gods other than Gethamane's must legally lie in the Guild District. There are very few permanent temples in the Guild District, but there are several rooms available to passing caravans who want to arrange set worship for several days.

Small portable travelers’ shrines are politely ignored, but can be used as an excuse for arrest if the Guard has some reason to harass the people involved.

Gethamane has no objection to travelers worshiping the Unconquered Sun. As long as worshipers do not break Gethamane’s civil laws, the city government turns a blind eye. However, NO Immaculate temples are permitted (a centuries-old holdover from an encounter with exceptionally high-handed missionaries that went badly).

[edit] Funeral Rites

Gethamane's dead are cremated by the priesthood in the essence-fires of the three temples. It is illegal to dispose of dead bodies any other way. Families keep the ashes in small ornamental boxes, scatter them on the mountain slope or add them to fertilizer the Gardens.

Gethamane has no true ancestor cult since Gethamane has no ghosts at all. Some inhabitants say that this is due to the profoundly materialistic outlook of most of the citizens — they leave the religion to the priests. Regardless, Gethamanians accept this as normal.

[edit] God Blooded

Gethamane’s limited contact with supernatural creatures means the city has almost no half-breed Essence channelers. Gethamanians rarely try to enlighten their own Essence either, due to their cultural isolation and lack of any institution to encourage this practice.

[edit] MAKING A LIVING

Gethamane is alive and busy all round the clock; citizens working “day” or “night” depending on personal preferences.

Farmers maintain the magical Gardens.
Hunter-gatherers bring additional food and other commodities from outside, and act as 'scouts'
The Guard preserves civic order and defends against the monsters of the underways.
Artisans fashion the tools and implements needed for daily life.
Merchants trade with the Guild and other outsiders.
A large administration of clerks and bureaucrats keeps everyone else working together efficiently—or at least tries.

Gethamane is mostly gender-neutral. Both genders can freely work as craftsmen, as gatherers outside (though hunters are usually male), as merchants or negotiators.

However, there are certain areas where each gender tends to get shunted. The Guard is approximately 75% male, while the farmers are approximately 80% female, though both will take members of either gender.

Most Gethamanians often follow the same occupation as their parents, however all citizens register their occupations and record every hour of labor to justify their daily ration from the Gardens.

[edit] Hunting and Gathering

While the Gethamanians could live exclusively on fungi from the Gardens (and have in the past, for years at a time) the hunters and gathers supply flavor. Hunters bag reindeer, ducks and other game while gatherers collect edible lichen, berries, bulbs and other foodstuffs. Hunters and gatherers can keep a 1/5th of what they bring to the city, to feed to their own family or sell. The rest goes to the Garden District depots for distribution as part of the Dole.

Over the centuries, the hunter-gatherers absorbed about every trade involving bringing raw materials into Gethamane. Logging and mining is also considered a form of gathering (Gethamane operates a few small mines for copper, salt and mica. The Guild operates several more, and Gethamane still gets most of its metal from the Guild).

Some Gethamanians keep sheep and goats. During the brief summer, their herds graze on the mountain slopes. The animals spend the long winter inside the city with their owners, harvesting huge amounts of hay to feed their beasts over the winter; as a result, animal husbandry is treated as gathering. Gethamanians usually pen these animals in sections of the Upper Ring, among the poor.

Hunter-gatherers also act as scouts, bringing information on local movements back to Gethamane. The Guard even pays a small bounty for useful reports. Generally, Gethamane's Mistress is aware of what’s going on a couple of days’ journey around the mountain — farther if good weather allows for observation from the mountain’s heights.

[edit] Administration

All Gethamane’s government offices occupy the outer circles of the Garden District. Each location consists of several large rooms and corridors where clerks keep the Dole lists and visitor records. Citizens can visit the Hall of Records and Hall of Maps to check on property lines (Outsiders can consult these records as well, for a small fee.) Magistrates resolve civil disputes and try criminal cases in the Courthouse.

Children who receive any education beyond basic literacy and arithmetic go to a school connected to the City Library.

Bethanites staff many of the government posts but at least a third of the clerks and officials come from other families.

Even more than the rest of Gethamane, the administrative areas stay busy all the time. Each shift of functionaries simply takes the desks vacated by the shift before them.

Children attend school in shifts as well, and mobs of children surge through the tunnels at each shift change. Only the Council doesn’t work around the clock, though sessions may last for days as members debate especially knotty or contentious issues.

The Garden District includes the rooms and offices of Gethamane’s ruler, passed from Master to Mistress for centuries. It’s a point of pride to change as little as possible from Bethan Redeye’s original sparse furniture and belongings.

[edit] Leisure

Gethamane encourages (to an extent) a culture of leisure. Citizens who perform sufficient labor to earn their Dole can do whatever they want with any spare time.

"Proper-thinking citizens" (as they describe themselves) fill their leisure hours with:

quiet exercise
productive crafts (carving imported driftwood is currently very fashionable)
watching morality plays
writing epic poetry modeled on barbarian sagas that celebrates honor and virtue
playing instruments (wind instruments are more generally used than soft string instruments. Drums are never played for recreation; reserved for the Guard’s use).

However Gethamane has its darker share of pleasures. Behind closed doors (or pulled screens) wide variety of drugs are taken, from imported opium and qat to hallucinogenic local mushrooms. Casual sex, quite outside of marriage, and vicious sessions of gossip and destroying reputations are all common. Some Gethamanians seek pain instead of pleasure, leading to private sessions of sadomasacisim between consenting (or paying) adults. Scarification is currently fashionable, sometimes undertaken using drugs to intensify the pain.

While the more regular citizens disapprove of these past times, they are a recognized part of life in Gethamane. Bethan Redeye realized she needed a viable breeding population in the city and recognized there would always be those who disliked the system she had established. As such she felt it better to offer a cultural escape, rather than drive them out of the mountain.

Regardless of activity, Gethamanians are quite strict that indecorous amusements not leave a mark Even the young who want to shock their parents keep their scars or welts hidden beneath clothing, so they can show a placid, pale and unmarked face in public. It’s the height of bad manners to suggest that your next-door neighbor copulates with imported goats in his silk-hung bedroom. Unless, of course, it should be audible through the walls — in which case, it becomes a matter for public discussion, and the general condemnation of your neighbor will be on the grounds of his incompetence for not keeping the sound down.

Most importantly Gethamane insist on keeping the noise down. Many ears are listening… and no matter what you do or where, you want to hear the distant alarm-drum or the nearby hiss or scuttling that means the horrors are loose and you must run or fight for your life.

[edit] SOCIETY

Gethamane is one of Creation’s most orderly societies. It is not a place where dissent can be tolerated. People either conform or leave.

The security of the Dole keeps Gethamanians in their city, but organizing the production and distribution of so much food from a single source requires extensive control of people’s lives.

Like most societies, Gethamane has its divisions of class, wealth and occupation. The four rough tiers of society are the Council, the moderately wealthy and respected (who mostly dwell in the Outer Ring), the poor (who dwell in the Upper Ring) and the truly homeless, poverty-stricken and family-less outcastes (who live anywhere they can).

The upper classes adopt an attitude of generously appreciating the work of their lowergraded fellow citizens, while the lower classes openly scheme to raise their families’ status, secure dwellings in the Outer Ring (or even near the Gardens) and, some day, possibly gain seats on the Council. This is viewed as perfectly normal in Gethamane, and many popular comedies showcase witty servants or lower-class Guards or artisans manipulating circumstances so that they come out ahead of the game — or even get formally adopted by the Master of Gethamane as a possible heir.

Family and class intertwine in Gethamane. The prosperous folk of the Outer Ring and Garden District generally belong to clans who number in the hundreds and occupy large sectors of tunnels and chambers. The poorer folk of the Upper Ring still manage to live as extended families with dozens of aunts, uncles, cousins and kin all together.

Quite simply, it takes a degree of wealth to acquire enough space for a family to stay together; but a family that stays together can also economize through hand-me-down clothing, stacking relatives in bunk beds instead of renting more space and similar expedients.

The truly poor live in whatever disused corners of the city they can find. Children are lucky if they can stay with their parents until adulthood. Many waifs make their own way in the city because their parents are too poor to care for them.

[edit] THE RULING CLASS

Bethan Redeye's descendants still rule Gethamane. The city’s monarch, called the Master or Mistress, chooses a successor from the Bethanite clan — usually a from their offspring, but sometimes from remote cousins. The monarch always must have a designated heir, though the designation can be changed at whim.

Today, the Bethanites number more than 2,000 — all of them potential heirs. They form much of the city’s civil service - working as administrators, magistrates, accountants and scribes. Bethanites often undergo basic training as guards or farmers as well (to deal better with those important institutions). Indeed, custom holds that a Bethanite who wants to administer an aspect of city life should have practiced it as well. Most of all, though, Gethamane needs educated clerks and shrewd negotiators to distribute the Dole and deal with Guild. Some members of the clan choose occupations ranging from painter to swordsman, but all start by learning arithmetic, reading and writing.

Gethamane’s current ruler is Katrin Jadehand.

The Master (or Mistress) of Gethamane is the city’s hereditary ruler, a descendant of Bethan Redeye. Each Master chooses his heir from among the ranks of the Bethanites and must always have an heir formally named, though the Master is at liberty to choose a different heir at any time if he so desires.

Members of the Bethanite family are administrators, scribes, accountants and historians. While they are expected to be capable of using weapons and working on the farms, those are not their primary roles in life. The need to manage the Dole and work with the Guild forces Gethamane to have a capable administrator at the helm.

While some of the family have been notable artists, swordsmen or sorcerers, all of them start off with slate and chalk, doing arithmetic at their tutors’ knee.

Gethamane is a structure shaped by the necessity of organizing food distribution and defenses against the underways. .

[edit] THE INTELLIGENCERS

Unofficially, Bethanites gather information for the current Master or Mistress. Everyone in Gethamane knows this — only the rawest, most ignorant newcomers from outside would be unaware. As such the Mistress of Gethamane has to look outside her family for operatives to get further information.

Shakan, the current Head Intelligencer solves this with blackmail. All his agents watch for criminal behavior, and use that information to recruit new operatives, using their loyalty to their family by inspiring fear that their families will suffer for the agents’ acts. Once the agents have work for him for long enough, that itself is another reason to fear exposure. Indeed, Gethamanians despise the Intelligencers and exposed agents suffers worse ostracism than they might have received from her original crime.

Shakan has agents throughout society, except the temples (the priests are generally too preoccupied with their rituals to do anything significantly illegal) while he has agents among the foreign merchants, he distrusts them and cannot be totally certain of their loyalty. He currently has no agents who are Guild members but would like to gather some.

[edit] THE COUNCIL

Council members are strictly advisors to Gethamane's Master and have no direct power in their own right. However, being recognized spokesmens of their particular factions gives them great influence and prestige. The Council meets regularly three times a month one large chamber in the Garden district, adorned with portraits of past Masters and Mistresses, though the Mistress can call for special sessions.

While the situation of Master and Council could seem a possible recipe for tyranny, the actual realities of life mean the Master usually pays attention to what the Council has to say and acts more as a mediator than an autocrat. A shrewd Mistress knows she must keep the five great factions happy, and treats her Council with respect. Mistress Katrin often acts more as a mediator between the delegates than as an autocrat (some past Masters and Mistresses became virtual puppets of powerful Councils).

Council members hold their posts until they die, resign or are fired by the city’s Mistress. When a faction loses a delegate, senior faction members offer the Mistress a list of possible replacements. The Mistress then selects a new Council member from the list. Vacancies on the Council result in a frenzy of politicking from the faction in question, from other Council members seeking the appointment of allies and from the Guild.

In the event all three of a faction’s posts fall vacant, the Mistress can appoint new delegates without consultation, as the city most likely faces an immediate crisis.

Current notable Council members include:

Mienna of the Dulsheft family (Farmer) - The current acknowledged leader of the farmers; a stiff-backed woman in her 60's who needs a cane to walk and requires regular medical treatment for her arthritis. A notable isolationist who wants to shut Gethamane away and seal all the entrances if the Bull of the North comes anywhere near the city.

Her acknowledged heir is her niece Lessa of the same family, a young woman who is apparently all that could be desired in terms of ability, manners and respect for her elders. She is also a member of the farmers cult that slaughters living creatures to fertilize the Gardens. Recently, she has been contacted by a whispering voice that offers her sorcery and power in return for more blood and more human sacrifices.

Hanzyon of the Loshan family (Guard); wants to increase Guard numbers and forcibly conscript the Janissary Vault under military discipline

Solace of the Genthrax family (Merchants) - adopted from traveling merchants at the age of 4; wants to promote increased Guild ties and the establishment of a Guild mercenary outpost to aid Gethamane’s defense;

Luthin of the Doment family (Hunter-Gather), who wants to bring in sorcerer-engineers to establish farms and orchards on the slopes outside the city;

Tammeth of the Sochire family (Artisan), who wants a tax on Guild imports to protect his family’s interests.

[edit] THE UNDERCLASS

People who don’t belong to Gethamane’s families and who, thus, aren’t citizens of the city form the underclass, however well-born or rich or gifted they are. They simply aren’t given the same consideration and respect that locals get. Shops overcharge them, the Guard treats them with distant curtness, they aren’t allowed anywhere near the gardens and, when found outside the Guild quarter or the temples, they are politely encouraged to go back there and reminded none-too-subtly of the laws prohibiting a stay of more than a month. The people who really suffer are those outsiders who have been adopted and who should be treated like normal citizens but don’t yet look or behave properly. To be fair, once local citizens are aware that the apparent foreigner they’re talking to or dealing with has been properly adopted, they will give him fair and civil treatment.

[edit] FEAR

Gethamane has food, shelter, warmth, a working economy, a functioning social system with room for upward mobility, viable trade links and heavy defenses. At a casual glance, they have everything they could reasonably ask for.

But what they also have is permanent, constant fear.

Everyone in Gethamane knows someone (or knows someone who has a friend who knows someone) who’s seen the things that come up from the underways. Everyone’s heard the stories. Everyone’s walked near an underways entrance and felt the cold touch of damp air against skin.

It’s not quite comparable to living in a constant state of siege. After all, the Guard has always managed to beat back any incursions from below, sooner or later.

It’s not even an overmastering threat. Centuries of living here undisturbed have convinced the citizens that the creatures below are never going to stage a really major attack.

It’s the knowledge that beneath your feet, separated by only a layer of stone, are inhuman creatures who want to drag you into the darkness and kill you...

[edit] DISREPUTABLE FOLK

Most Gethamanians like to think of their society as prosperous and orderly, controlled and smugly secure (unsavory leisures aside). Nevertheless, the city has its poor, its discontented and indeed its actively criminal.

THE JADE HOSPICE

Founded near the temples in the Upper Ring, this charity hospital is the biggest and most overworked in the city - staffed by priests, trained healers and citizens working off legal penalties or have chosen this way of repaying their Dole. While not necessarily the beststaffed or most highly skilled hospice in Gethamane, the Jade Hospice is kept busy dealing with the Upper Circle’s constant stream of injuries, illnesses and assault victims.

The courts regularly sentence mild offenders to serve as unskilled labor or nursing staff here, and the staff is constantly coming and going.

The Director of the Hospice, matronly Enath Daur of a prosperous farmer family, holds one of the farmer seats on the Council. She was elected at the time because the faction couldn’t agree on any other candidate, and has since used her position to make sure that the Upper Ring is not further marginalized.

THE JANISSARY VAULT

Not everyone in Gethamane relies on the Guard for their safety. The Janissary Vault, located in the Outer Ring, supplies warriors, bodyguards and assorted muscle for hire. Its owner, the melodramatically named Vaultmaster (and yes, he goes masked) says that his service would never consider doing anything against the laws of Gethamane. Nevertheless, a sufficiently discreet client can arrange for any sort of thuggery short of murder. Many people suspect the Janissary Vault is a front for the Guild (mercenaries being one of the Guild’s core businesses). The Guild would like to own the Janissary Vault, but the business has stayed independent since it began 50 years ago.

The Vault’s mercenaries are about evenly divided between outsiders who managed to wangle adoption into Gethamanian families, and Gethamanians who were expelled from the Guard or who found its standards of courage and discipline too difficult. Janissaries receive little respect, for they are not duty-bound to run toward monsters. Gethamane’s government does not accept Vault employment as any sort of service to the city, greatly limiting their Dole ration. Mistress Katrin and the Council would like an excuse to shut down the Janissary Vault, or at least force it to register every job and client.

Not all of Gethamane’s fighters go into the Guard — or manage to stay there. Those who were expelled from the Guard or were unable to endure its discipline or those who have entered Gethamane from outside and been adopted by a local family are all welcome to join the Janissary Vault.

This organization has been operating for 50 years now (previous Masters discouraged the formation of any such organization) and provides hired bodyguards, warriors and general thugs.

While the Janissary Vault publicly proclaims that it abides by the laws of Gethamane and would never even consider doing anything remotely illegal, in practice, a sufficiently intelligent and discreet hirer can buy services up to — though usually not including — murder. (The current Vaultmaster doesn’t want to give the Council any excuse for a crackdown.) Being in the Janissary Vault is not considered genuine service to the City, so members only get the basic Dole. As a result, they are constantly on the lookout for potential work.

Despite the close similarity of functions, the Janissary Vault has no actual connection with the Guild itself, though the Guild would be delighted to absorb it as an affiliate. Should this happen, Mistress Katrin would have to take urgent action of some sort, ranging from declaring the Janissary Vault illegal to requiring close observation and registration of all the Vault’s jobs and actions.

[edit] HIDDEN FIRE MANSE

The Janissary Vault doesn’t realize that there is an old Fire-aspected Manse (Manse ••) located directly above the set of caves in which they’re based. Concealed by hidden doors and by careful design of the surrounding passages, the Manse was originally used as a private laboratory by a Twilight Caste Solar who visited Gethamane frequently before the Usurpation. The fact that the Manse is safely capped has stopped random flares of Essence or other possibly dangerous manifestations, but even so, something of the temperament and nature of fire leaks out into the vicinity, fanning local flames of aggression and igniting passions. The Manse itself is a small set of rooms, furnished with expensive but old wooden furniture and with a few sorcerous texts (mostly standard reference works) left behind by the previous owner. The Manse was sealed and empty of human life when Vodak struck, and the hekatonkhire never entered it.

THE PHILOSOPHY CELL

A collection of public meeting rooms in the Outer Ring hosts an informal club of amateur intellectuals and pseudointellectuals. It is a haven for unlicensed thaumaturges, devotees of self-created religions, drug addicts, people who just want to argue, young people who want to pick up some radical ideas to shock their parents,, and amateur historians attempting to discover the true history of Gethamane.

It has spread from a single-room debating society to encompass several rooms that are officially listed as public meeting places. The current occupants aren’t actually breaking any laws, but the Guard could easily move in and clear the place out if they wanted to.

Though it is a hangout for the young and frivolous, serious research does take place here. A number of regulars are professional and capable in their respective fields.

Notable members include:

Damaithe Yarni; thaumaturge and secret demonologist
Serret of the Bethanites; a painstaking but reliable historian — who reports all he observes to Gethamane's Mistress
Tazar Pellan; a cold-blooded alchemist testing out some of his concoctions on those wanting mystical experiences
Arik Varken, willing to try anything that will shock his family.

THE RAT’S NEST

This abandoned storehouse and junkyard far to the east of the Outer Ring serves as home to Jaxar and her group of child-thieves - all children of 14 years or less, mostly from the middle or upper classes, who regard the whole “Society of Thieves” as a huge game. The children regularly execute pranks or petty thefts for her. As of yet, considering what might happen if she chooses to pass information about the children’s crimes to the Guard, none of the children have realized how deeply they are in her power.

SEVENTH HALL

The Rasri family have held this set of chambers in the Upper Ring for many years despite their poverty, working as dung-carriers, sweepers and garbage pickers. They now use the Seventh Hall as the meeting place for a conspiracy of other poor and discontented Gethamanians angry with the city’s government, wanting to replace it with the Guild, imagining they would get rich if they could own slaves to do the drudgery they currently perform, and that the Guild could make Gethamane the mightiest nation of the North.

The bitter but cowardly family patriarch Yftar Rasri is also the de facto leader of the conspiracy. While the conspirators haven’t yet managed to make credible contact with a Guild representative — a previous attempt was rejected by the Guildsman in question as “an obvious case of entrapment to give the Mistress more ammunition against us” — it’s only a matter of time.

[edit] LEGAL SYSTEM

Crime, in Gethamane, was defined by Bethan Redeye as “trespass on person, property or domain.” This was further codified by her grandson Senet into the Three Rules, which are the main source of Gethamane’s law and have been clarified over the years by other Masters and Mistresses of Gethamane.

Trials take place weekly in the Courthouse in front of three judges:

one a Bethanite,
one a senior member of the Guard
one a senior member of the farmers.

(Lately, there has been a movement among the artisans, the merchants and the hunters and gatherers to permit other judges from their ranks, but it lacks support among the Guards and farmers.)

Complainant and criminal both state their cases to the panel of judges. If the complainant is unable to speak or otherwise present her case, then a family member or Guard may do so in her place (the latter usually in cases of homicide). Information obtained through spells or bound demons are permissible evidence, though attempting to sorcerously influence a judge is considered a serious case of personal assault and garners the appropriate penalty.

The judges consider all the evidence, deliberate, then pronounce sentence. Gethamane’s law centers on the Three Rules set down by Bethan Redeye. Both civil disputes and criminal trials often hinge on whether or how one of the Three Rules was broken.

[edit] THE FIRST RULE

"Blood pays for blood, but it must serve the city: All crimes of personal assault shall be paid as debts to Gethamane, and Gethamane shall reimburse the victim in turn."

The First Rule covers all cases of assault, from petty fights to rape or murder.

Minor assault (up to the loss of an extremity) carries a fine of goods or service; Gethamane and the victim takes half each (or Gethamane takes all if both parties are culpable - such as a public fight where no one can prove who started it).

Major assault, maiming, accidental death, or rape carries the penalty of a major fine, permanent hard labor, exile or a combination of the three.

Murder is penalized by permanent hard labor, exile or execution.

In all above cases, if the victim is dead or incapable of receiving reimbursement, their share is paid to their family. In cases of homicide, a proof of self-defense or extreme provocation can reduce a sentence but not eliminate it completely: Gethamane cannot tolerate the loss of any citizen’s labor.

[edit] THE SECOND RULE

"Jade pays for jade: All crimes of theft or other trespass on another’s goods shall be repaid twofold, once to the victim and once to the city." The Second Rule is straightforward and carried out precisely to the last grain of jade that can be measured. This law covers:

forms of fraud (e.g.: giving short weight or delivering goods of lower quality than promised),
damaging a person’s possessions (including slaves)
charging outsiders less than a citizen of Gethamane (this is stealing from the city’s prosperity as a whole).

Under the Second Rule, Gethamanians cannot claim animals that escape their pens: They must return the beast to its owner.

[edit] THE THIRD RULE

"What we have, we hold: All crimes of trespass on another’s domain shall be paid for by a gift of land in turn, or the Dole shall be remitted and the trespasser cast forth to starve."

The most difficult rule to administer is vitally necessary in an enclosed city such as Gethamane, where questions of trespass and personal privacy become important enough to lead to murder.

Gethamanians, therefore, value privacy as much as life and property, and trespass on another family’s territory becomes a serious crime. Gethamanians treat malicious gossip about another person’s activities as a form of trespass.

When two disputing parties share a property line, the penalty usually consists of moving that boundary by a 1-2' to give the victim a section of the trespasser’s territory. This can result in rooms being shared between two families, with screens set up to give both sides some semblance of privacy. When disputants do not share a boundary, the city confiscates part of the trespasser’s property, and allows her family to “buy it back”, paying the fine to the plaintiff’s family.

It can, indeed, be grounds for lawsuit to respond to anything one hears on the other side of such a screen… though noise of a sufficient volume (or sufficiently disturbing nature) that it cannot be ignored is also an offense.

While strict about privacy and property, Gethamanians are not insane. Simply running through someone else’s territory doesn’t qualify for full punishment under the Third Rule, but is usually settled by a simple fine of jade or services. Families usually forgive trespass by children when a game of hide-and-seek gets out of hand (though their parents might be notified). Persistent trespass by older children can result in lawsuit, though, and the child’s family suffers significant disgrace.

Guard can go anywhere in pursuit of a monster from the underways, and people fleeing a monster likewise have a right to cross another family’s property. A civic defense crisis trumps all questions of privacy and territory.

Trespass becomes treason where the Gardens are concerned. Any citizen who helps outsiders enter the Gardens commits a crime comparable to murder, for they endanger the city itself.

(Citizens of Gethamane do not find this sort of situation amusing, and outsiders are advised not to make jokes about it publicly.)

Children doing this aren’t generally brought up in front of the court for it, as it is expected that a hint to their family will settle the problem. However, in the event of persistent misbehavior by older children, it has been known to occur. This is considered a significant disgrace for the family in question.

[edit] Punishment

Though execution is the ultimate sanction, the Council prefers a more demonstrative penalty for the most serious crimes.

Those found guilty of violent murder, serious fraud or conspiracy to give outsiders access to Gethamane’s Gardens are blinded, branded and set to labor for the rest of their lives in the fungus gardens. There, while doing heavy work that doesn’t require sight or freedom, the criminals provide a salutary example for other citizens.

Judges regard exile as a merciful punishment, and use it to punish crimes of passion or on those who clearly cannot live inside Gethamane, as exiles may serve their sentence in Gethamane’s mines and remain loosely connected to the city. Temporary exile usually lasts a minimum of five years, after which the criminal can resume their place in the city and among their family.

[edit] Slavery

It is illegal for any permanent inhabitant of Gethamane to own slaves. Labor must be hired from within the city (this was instituted by the second Master, Gerath, to prevent slave labor causing rising unemployment inside Gethamane). However permanent hard labor is not considered to be slavery (even if it does involve spending the rest of your life working, branded and blind, in the fungus gardens).

Some merchants lobby to repeal this law, but most Gethamanians want to preserve tradition as they identify slavery with the Guild. However, not wanting to lose the associated Guild trade, Gethamane permits slave caravans to pass through the city.

Slaves are considered property, and are thus covered by the Second Rule. This means if the Guards witness particularly unpleasant treatment of slaves, they can arrest everyone in sight on charges of “damaging another person’s property” until the legal owner of the slaves testifies they deliberately gave orders for the mistreatment. In such a case, nobody gets penalized, but the general confusion and delay engendered by such charges does nothing for the slave caravan’s smooth running or reputation.

The Guard seldom chooses to help owners find slaves who escape in Gethamane. An escaped slave adopted into a citizen family also leaves the Second Rule’s purview, as she becomes a citizen herself. As such, though not encouraged by the city government, Gethamane includes a few abolitionists who encourage slaves to escape and come to them for adoption.

[edit] FOREIGN RELATIONS

Though many desire the city, Gethamane has few outright enemies. None can conquer Gethamane, and Gethamane cannot threaten anyone else. Most states have nothing Gethamane especially needs, and Gethamane feels safe remaining neutral. Given the insularity of the city and the safety of its underground location, many citizens fear the enemies from below rather than those outside. Only the Guild and the Bull of the North particularly trouble Gethamane.

Currently Gethamane is pursuing a policy of cautious but proactive friendship with almost everyone.

Gethamane’s Mistress and Council now believe, however, that they must learn a great deal more about their neighbors… particularly the Bull of the North.

Gethamane has built enough links with the world outside that the city has to pay attention to what’s going on in the North. Even the most insular farmer will acknowledge that it’s useful to be able to obtain trade goods, and the Guard appreciate the steel that is brought in for their weapons.

Previous Masters have fluctuated in how much they try to interact with regional politics or deal with icewalkers and the like, but only the most isolationist of Masters have totally ignored the outside world.

The Mistress can see the threat of the Bull of the North looming on the horizon, and she doesn’t want to be an isolated target if — or when — he arrives with his army.

[edit] THE GUILD

The Guild wants Gethamane. Having it as a hub city is all very well, but controlling it would be far more profitable. The residency rules, however, inhibit factors from building long-term business relationships.

As a result, the Guild and Gethamane have a cordial but extremely guarded relationship. Gethamane can, if necessary, throw the Guild out and keep it out for years — the city produces the bare necessities of life and has enough luxuries now (cloth, wood, metal) to be able to hold out for decades, if not very comfortably. Similarly, the Guild could completely stop supplying Gethamane but would suffer from the loss of the convenient point on the trade routes, especially the slave trade. For the moment, both parties continue cooperating, and they are both aware that the other could enact sanctions if matters go too far.

The Guild, therefore, watches and takes any opportunity it can to sink its tentacles deeper into Gethamane, while refraining from trying anything too obvious. Caravan masters helpfully try to make slave-owning legal inside Gethamane, in order to destabilize the labor economy.

Luxury goods are imported in the hopes of establishing a need that can later be used to exert pressure. Spies attempt to penetrate the fungus gardens to find out how they work — and sabotage them so the Guild can establish economic dominance through food imports. Citizens of Gethamane are cultivated or blackmailed to serve as Guild agents. A quiet, bitter war goes on in the shadows, with Gethamane struggling to maintain its independence.

Over the centuries, many factors have drawn up plans for using the secure location and food supply of Gethamane as the anchor for a commercial empire in the North. For instance, one plan calls for using troops from Gethamane to secure the bay to the North and turn it into a home port for an ice ship fleet that could contest Haslanti dominance in the White Sea. There might even be ways to replicate the fungus gardens elsewhere in the North, not to mention the raised tariffs for all non-Guild traffic passing through Gethamane . . . . It’s the sort of thing that any Guildsman with half a mind can daydream about. Unfortunately for the Guild, Gethamane is very much aware of what the Guild wants.

Such plans remain idle fancies, however, unless the Guild can bend Gethamane to its will.

The current ranking Guildmaster in the district is Master Tengis the Vintner, a specialist in trading alcohol of all kinds but also well-versed in drugs and exotic foods. He has visited Gethamane a dozen times in the past and has a good working relationship with the Mistress and the Council. At the moment, he presides over several ambitious juniors who are longing for a chance to prove themselves to the Guild. These include:

Master Samirel of Gem (who trades in gemstones and ornamental carvings and who is trying to get adopted by an upper-class Gethamane family)
journeyman Gentris from the Haslanti League, with a good eye for furs and hides, (who deserted family and home to join the Guild but still has many contacts there)
journeyman Alathea from distant An-Teng in the West (who is well-informed about all sorts of cloth and fabric but is also a secret Yozi worshiperand has plans to form a cult inside Gethamane).

[edit] DRUGS IN GETHAMANE

One of the Guild’s classic ways of exerting pressure on a potential target is to introduce a drug into the area and then use the need for the drug as leverage, once a sufficiently high proportion of the population is addicted. Previous Masters of Gethamane have made it clear to Guild representatives that anything stronger than marijuana or mild narcotics sold in Gethamane will cause the city to take severe anti-Guild reprisals. Of course, there have been Guildsmen who’ve tried, followed by Gethamane refusing to accept slave caravans for several months, followed by the Guild cutting off other items of trade in reprisal — but eventually, the matter usually settles down, and trade resumes its normal course. It’s been about seven decades since the last attempt to introduce crack cocaine to the population. Any year now, the Guild is due to try again.

[edit] HASLANTI LEAGUE

Gethamane has an unfortunate history with the Haslanti League, and Guildsmen still disparage the Haslanti. Nevertheless, the Mistress and Council now seek better relations with the League as another alternative to the Guild.

Every year or two, an icewalker tribe follows a mammoth or reindeer herd through Gethamane’s territory. Gethamane’s hunters pick off straggling beasts, which the icewalkers do not like. On the other hand, Gethamanians sometimes trade with icewalkers for meat, furs, hides, horn and ivory; but much of this trade goes through the Guild. (The walrus-hunters along the coast form a notable exception. Gethamane’s hunters trade with these barbarians directly.)

[edit] THE REALM

The only faction not receiving Gethamane's 'friendly treatment' is the Realm. Mistress Katrin has consistently refused to consider its requests to use Gethamane as a staging-post for the legions and doesn’t want to ally with any one Great House at the moment, given the potential for civil war.

The Empress once commissioned her strategoi to evaluate Gethamane for conquest. They concluded the feat possible (smuggle in spies and agents under the cover of merchant caravans, find a way to cut off Guild supplies to weaken the place) but, since it wasn't harboring rebels or fostering anti-Realm sentiments, it wasn't worth the trouble.

Past Masters and Mistresses did not flaunt their defiance of the Realm, so the Empress never felt the need to make an example of the city and viewed Gethamane with a lenient eye. She mercifully allowed it to ignore paying tribute, and in turn Dynasts could occasionally visit to seek treasure in the underways, and far-traveling legions would be allowed to buy provisions at Gethamane.

Recently, with the Scarlet Empress vanished and the Great Houses contending for power, numerous Dragon-Blooded have planned to boost their houses’ prestige and their own fame by conquering or controlling Gethamane - making it a tributary of the Realm. So far, their plans have ranged from the wild and woolly to the ineffective, but a couple of the better planners are prepared to spend decades building up spy networks, agents and influence. Like the Guild, these Dragon-Blooded have realized that Gethamane depends on its sunken Gardens, and, like the Guild, these Dragon-Blooded are faced with the problem of how to enfeeble Gethamane without destroying the Gardens and causing the city’s ruin.

Gethamane doesn’t want to be part of the Realm (and certainly doesn’t want to pay it tribute), but the city has never wanted to be a Targeted Example of Stamped-Out Rebellion either. While Gethamane’s defenses and selfsupply are legendary, the city has never actually had to stand up to a sustained assault by Terrestrial Exalted (let alone Celestial ones) and would rather not find out any weaknesses the hard way. The city, and its previous Masters and Mistresses, have preferred to maintain a dignified independence while at the same time not attacking any of the Realm’s tributaries or attracting the Realm’s notice. Noble declarations of never having paid tribute sound very well to similarly independent powers and help to increase Gethamane’s reputation, but, all in all, Gethamane would prefer not to ever be in the position in which the Realm asks for tribute.

Gethamane has NEVER paid tribute to the Realm as it would be an uneconomic conquest — the place is too easily defended and can support itself from the inside Gardens for decades, while besieging armies are left without food or shelter. It’s simply not worth the Realm’s time and trouble to conquer the city and impose a satrap. On the other hand, the Realm is aware that Gethamane is an individualistic self-supporting city with a strong interest in neutrality and stability. Although Gethamane could potentially serve as a base for a small strike force, the sunken Gardens couldn’t feed a full army. Bearing all these factors in mind, the Scarlet Empress left the city in peace, though did seed Gethamane with the usual complement of spies in order to ensure it didn’t become a problem later.

[edit] WHITEWALL

Whitewall is the closest that Gethamane comes to an ally. Neither city has many other neighbors (that are human, at least). Gethamane’s leaders cultivate merchants from Whitewall just to remind the Guild that they can be replaced; and it’s often cheaper to buy Whitewall’s metalwork directly than through Guild intermediaries.

While Gethamane is glad of the trade from Whitewall, particularly the minerals and ores for which Whitewall is famous, there is little diplomacy between the two cities. Both remain snug barring themselves against the world outside, and both are content with the current state of affairs.

Some Gethamanians hold Whitewall as an example of weak-minded feebleness (alliances with the Realm, the fey and the undead) and praise Gethamane’s own independence, but most citizens of Gethamane are willing to acknowledge that Whitewall gets along as best it can and does better than most.

Whitewall miners have prospected the mountains around Gethamane more than once but have yet to find any significant mineral deposits.

The Rakasha

Gethamane’s hunters and gatherers occasionally encounter Fair Folk. The tales of the survivors ensure the Gethamanians’ thorough hatred and fear of the raksha. Fortunately for Gethamane, the local Fair Folk have no desire to enter a city that gives them the creeping horrors—not even fae who normally might relish such a strange and dramatic emotion. Fair Folk blame this on the city’s jade and orichalcum gates.

The Yozi

Gethamanians abhor demons as most people do. Fortunately the few who rarely enter Gethamane — likely summoned or sent there by a sorcerer or thaumaturge - also seem to loathe Gethamane, and do not linger even when they have the chance. They feel something immensely darker and more dangerous than themselves lurking nearby.

Gods and elementals avoid the city for the same reason, though none of these spirits can find the ultimate source of the terrifying Essence.

[edit] ANATHEMA

While the current citizens of Gethamane are descended from those who fled there during the Usurpation, the lack of constant Realm influence or Immaculate presence has left them with no particular hatred toward any Exalted.

The citizens’ attitude toward beings of great power who command mighty Charms and spells and wield ancient weapons is merely one of sensible distrust and caution. Any obvious Solar who enters the city will be noted at the gates, directed to the Guild District as a visitor and watched by the Guard (within reason); a sigh of relief will be generally breathed when she leaves the city. They will not be unduly persecuted, however, or have people trying to lead mobs against her. Individual action by visiting Dragon-Blooded or Immaculates is possible, but in that case, the Guard will primarily blame the aggressors rather than the Solar and appreciate any attempts made to avoid significant property damage.

The Mistress of Gethamane is interested in employing Exalted to clear out portions of the underways but otherwise has no real need for them — that she knows of. She is very much aware of the power of the Solars (The Bull of the North is a powerful reminder to the whole North that the Solars are dangerous) and knows a number of them are currently looking for defensible bases While she has no wish to anger any Celestial Exalted, she would prefer they stay out of Gethamane. Failing that, if they are in Gethamane, hope they behave according to the city’s laws.

Gethamanians do not much like the Terrestrial Exalted, chiefly because of high-handed Immaculates and Dynasts. They also know the danger of showing such dislike. The Dragon-Blooded rarely stay in Gethamane for long, though. They have bad dreams as the maddened gods clumsily try to warn them and, through them, the long-dead Solar Deliberative. The people have no experience with other Exalted (that they know about) and base their opinions on stories. They fear the Lunar Exalted as patrons of the icewalkers and other barbarians.

Naturally, Gethamane has no knowledge of the Sidereals. Other Exalted are too new for Gethamanians to know about them. Any Exalted who visit Gethamane, or Exalt among them, could determine how the people feel about their kind for centuries to come.

Bull of the North

Even isolationist Gethamanians hear stories of the Bull of the North. While they don’t credit Realm propaganda about “Anathema,” anyone who can massacre Dynasts (the city’s standard for powerful, erratic individuals) is a danger Gethamane don’t want to face. However, eventually, the Bull will want Gethamane, as an ally or a tributary (or to serve as a public example) thus the Council currently debates on how to react.

The easiest option is to close off the mountain and maintain a state of siege. While Gethamane could probably sustain this longer than the Bull could, all trade would be disrupted (or worse, the Guild might ally with the Bull) and there is always the dire possibility the powers of the Bull and his allies could crack Gethamane open like an egg.

The second option is to ally formally with the Bull and pay tribute. Given recent events in Halta, more Council members are inclining to this point of view. While this would compromise Gethamane’s independence, paying tribute would preserve the city and its inhabitants.

No one even considers outright defying and attacking the Bull, or allying with anyone who has such plans. Gethamane is biased toward survival, not suicide.

All agree Gethamane must learn more and acquire whatever power and allies it can find.

[edit] FOREIGNERS

While Gethamane has its poor, people from outside form the true underclass. By law, foreigners can stay in Gethamane for just one month a year, and they are strongly encouraged to stay in the Guild District. (Visitors who wander soon find Guards asking, with edged politeness, if they are lost. Visitors who wander near the Gardens find Guards drawing steel on them.) Shopkeepers overcharge them. Other Gethamanians treat them rudely. Even the beggars who smile and plead for coins then sneer and mock when no outsiders watch them. Foreigners stand out. They lack the subterranean pallor, the clothes, the accent and ways of speaking that characterize a Gethamanian.

Most of the time, foreigners are fairly obvious. They don’t wear the clothes of Gethamane, they don’t have Gethamane accents and they don’t have the dark eyes and pale skin of the inhabitants of Gethamane. Hunters and gatherers may have sun-touched skin and the carriage of those who go outside, but they have a native accent, and they give the proper nonverbal cues to other citizens.

Of course, the citizens of Gethamane have more sense than to overcharge or snub obviously dangerous foreigners or those who have the potential to be valuable contacts. The citizens will be polite, even flattering, and save their amusement and sneering jokes for when they are in private with their families. As one of the earlier Masters said, “Be like the mountain: snow and ice outside, so that none can take offence, but life within, where families can share the joke.”

The only way a foreigner can stay indefinitely in Gethamane is for a native family to adopt them. Even marriage does not suffice: Gethamane does not recognize marriages to outsiders. Someone must attest that she takes the foreigner as a son or daughter. The adopted outsider then must register for the Dole and turn in timesheets that prove her daily labor, just like every other citizen. Such adopted citizens still endure chaffing and snubs for a while, but they eventually learn to fit in and other Gethamanians learn to recognize them.

Very few foreigners win adoption into Gethamanian society. Families reserve adoption as a reward for outsiders who make themselves truly beloved or who perform extraordinary services for the city. The Guild has tried for centuries to get agents adopted into Gethamane. So far, the result has been not the subversion of Gethamane but the disgrace of any family the Guild bribed or deluded into performing the adoption.

@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
-Directly north of Whitewall, and another frequent stop in northward journeys for traders, lies the mountain-city of Gethamane, set like a gem among the Northern peaks. While the city dates back to the First Age, no one knows the origins of this ancient fastness. The inhabitants tell stories of how their distant ancestors came here a century after the Contagion, fleeing plague and starvation and beset by raiders. They named
+-miles directly north of Whitewall is the small subterranean city of Gethamane, where some 80,000 people dwell. An enclosed society, fed entirely on their subterrainian Supernatural Gardens, these people do not fear winter storms or barbarian attacks, while their  remove the threat of starvation.
-the place Gethamane—“Sanctuary” in the tongue of the Old Realm. Its large halls are covered in intricate and beautiful carvings of unknown plants and beasts, strangely designed
-pictures that haunt the memories of visitors. The entire city is lit with glowing crystals that brighten during the day and dim at night, so that a man can live happily within for years and
-never see the sun. Fortunately for its inhabitants, Gethamane is distant enough that the Realm has never demanded that it pay tribute or attempted to make it a satrapy.
-Gethamane consists of hundreds of twisting corridors that connect countless rooms. The only remaining traces of the prior inhabitants are the three strange temples, carved with ancient depictions of fl ying creatures, and the sunken gardens of mosses and fungi that feed the city. The temples are served by priests who are called in their dreams, answering a message that they cannot refuse. Those who make the attempt go stark mad and flee the city, seeking the snow-bound silences of the mountains instead.
-Beneath the city lie endless tunnels that delve into the darkness far below. These delvings riddle the foundations of the city like wormholes, black and slick to the touch. Guards watch the dozens of entrances and bar the way against the things that, occasionally attempt to force entrance. Those who enter Gethamane’s underways to seek long-lost treasures do so at their own risk.
+Indeed despite [[The Guild]]’s presence ensuring a constant stream of merchants passing through, and even though hunter-gatherers go out during the short summer season to harvest any food that they can obtain, the majority of Gethamane's inhabitants are born inside, live inside and die inside - never once seeing the outside realm. The shut-in corridors, the lit crystals that brighten during the day and dim at night, even the taste of the mushrooms that grow in the sunken Gardens, are things that become familiar to Gethamane’s children; the outside wind and sky and sun are strange to them.
+Yet while it may seem monolithic, Gethamanians live in fear as the circling tunnels of their city connect to an immeasurably vaster, deeper labyrinth of underways beneath Creation from where nameless horrors rise.
+As much as anyone else in the North, Gethamanians require constant vigilance to survive.
+== HISTORY ==
+Like many of Creation’s great cities, Gethamane began in the First Age. Its history, however, is stranger than most. Perhaps it’s a good thing the Gethamanians [[Gethamane's Secret Past|don’t know it]].
+'''The Newcommers - RY 102'''
+Led by '''Bethan Redeye''' (a 45 year old God-Blooded woman marked by her scarlet eyes and nails) a group of humans fled north from plague and starvation beset by hordes of furred, semi-human raiders, plague, and starvation. Amid the snow and tundra, the survivors stumbled on an ancient entrances into the mountain. Afraid but driven by the perils outside, they entered the mountain city and found it empty. The only remaining traces of the prior inhabitants were the three strange temples, carved with ancient depictions of flying creatures, and the city’s magical Gardens at the base of the mountain (which, fortunately, had carved pictoglyphs on the wall detailing how to work and harvest the Gardens). Within a few months, the Gardens functioned again and produced nourishing (if bland) mosses and fungi.
+It quickly became obvious these Gardens were vital to life inside the city. Thus Bethan established a system called "The Dole" where all the inhabitants of Gethamane had an automatic right to a daily share of the food from the Gardens. In the absence of money or trade, she also established a tithe from the hunters and food-gatherers who went outside and distributed it to the Guards and farmers who worked directly for the city. Everything else was a barter economy, and though the inhabited parts of the city were soon roughly furnished with wood, leather, bone and stone, the people lacked the resources to make anything better.
+It was also obvious that adventuring into the lower tunnels was dangerous and frequently fatal. Yet within a year, Bethan Redeye’s people were comfortably established. They named their home 'Gethamane', which meant “Sanctuary” in Old Realm, hoping it would be a good omen for the future and a propitiation to any gods that might be listening.
+''' Forming the Council - RY 103 '''
+Bethan Redeye formalized this arrangement which had existed unoffically since Gethamane's settlement. Initialy consisting of 12 members (three from the City Guard, the farmers, the hunter-and-gatherers, and three artisans) Bethan increase this number to 15 (adding three Merchants) when the Guild arrived four years later
+The Council has remained this way ever since.
+''' The Guild's Arrival - RY 107 '''
+A wandering Guild caravan meets some of Gethamane's hunters and are invited back to the city. Bethan Redeye trades immediate food supplies in return for cloth, spices, metal and other things. In turn, the caravan leader quickly realizes the subterranean city would make an excellent trading base for ventures in the North, and recognized the inhabitants’ urgent need for outside sources of food, clothing and luxury items.
+Thus begining Gethamane’s association with the Guild
+Seeing potential problems ahead, and fearing her few people would be absorbed into the Guild, Bethan made the Dole contingent on labor for the city. Additionally she decreed none could stay in the city for more than one month every year unless adopted by a Gethamanian family and be entered into the Dole’s labor register (though adopted citizens could pay in jade or goods instead of labor - offering a means to increase Gethame's economy).
+This new system discouraged Guildsmen building strong connections, allowing Gethamane to remain moderately independent.
+''' Death of the Founder - RY 150 '''
+Bethan dies at the age of 93; having been Gethamae's Mistress for 48 years. She is survived by two husbands and twelve children, and names her secondborn son [[Gerath Redeye]] her heir. This established the tradition that the Master/ Mistress of Gethamane would choose an heir from their assembled descendants, rather than automatically passing the position to their firstborn. The office of Master or Mistress of Gethamane has stayed in Bethan’s line ever since.
+''' A Failed Coup - RY 498 '''
+Mineko Threebrand, a disgruntled member of the Guard, poisons all the current Master's close relatives. The crisis is resolved the crisis by the Master quickly adopting three popular Gethamanian's, each a descendant of Bethan Redeye, to replenish the clan.
+''' The Trade War - RY 586 '''
+Gethamane found itself being drawn in and pressured by the Guild to refuse shelter to traders from that area or at least to tax them prohibitively.
+''' The New Mistress - RY 758 '''
+[[Katrin Jadehand]] is made Gethamane's new Mistress; age 40.
+''' Present Day - RY 768 '''
+Gethamane grew in importance as Guild traffic through the city increased. While the Masters of the city retained its social structure and customs, new traditions developed to handle the growing amount of jade and goods and the rising demand for food by travelers passing through. Particullarly the Dole laws were strengthened, and the City Guard similarly improved in order to protect the Gardens and food stores.
+Relationships with other city-states in the North have varied from good to difficult, somewhat dependent on the Guild’s relationships with those states.
+With the recent disappearance of the Scarlet Empress and the rise of the Bull of the North, Gethamane has become nervous. The current Mistress of Gethamane, Katrin Jadehand, has drawn up several plans for possible disaster scenarios, ranging from a serious assault by the Bull on Gethamane to an attempt by the Guild to take over.
+In the worst case, her planned strategy is to expel all foreigners while closing the city gates, place all adoptees under the direct guard of their adoptive families and sit tight and wait a few years.
+== GEOGRAPHY ==
+Gethamane does not pretend to control any territory beyond the slopes of its own mountain, but its hunters and gatherers see most of what happens within the nearest 20 miles or so. The hunters sometimes venture farther, out of the mountains and all the way to the White Sea shore.
+Sheltered valleys within the mountains sometimes hold patches of taiga that the Gethamanians cultivate and harvest with care—a tree can take 50 years to grow 10 feet high. Tundra covers the lower mountain slopes with hardy lichen, moss and patches of grass and herbs. The icy upper slopes are nearly barren. This far into the North, in a direct line from the Elemental Pole of Air, winter lasts much of the year and the growing season is just three months long.
+Farther out, toward the sides of the mountain, lie the tunnels and rooms that have been claimed as territory by the various families, and are used for accommodation, crafting and storage.
+=== THE OUTER SLOPES ===
+Gethamane’s hunters and gatherers travel the slopes of the mountain and the surrounding tundra under all conditions short of howling blizzards. The appalling winter weather and marauding icewalkers makes it impossible to maintain stable farms during the winter, but hardy orchards and perennial crops mean there is some cultivated food to harvest in the brief summer and autumn.
+Otherwise, there are mosses and ferns to gather and local wildlife to hunt down.
+About half a mile up the mountain, spaced in a loose circle around the peak, a dozen small, well camouflaged tunnels lead to clusters of chambers and from there to the Temple District and Upper Ring. Hunter-Gathers use these to store their equipment and hunting weapons.
+Over the centuries, Gethamane installed a variety of locking cast-iron doors, false tunnels, dropfalls and other traps for uninvited visitors. Nobody in Gethamane can translate the ancient script carved around the entrances.
+=== THE ENTRANCES ===
+The two great gates of Gethamane are carved from stone, a foot thick, gleaming with the distinctive hues of jade and orichalcum alloys (pale blue in the north, reddish in the south) and reinforced with heavy enchantments of warding and defense laid on them. Inside, large wheels move stout bars to lock or unseal the gates.
+A tunnel 50 yards long, 10 yards high and 10-yards wide leads from each gate to a large antechamber, which has heavy orichalcum-infused adamant portcullises at each end. For security only one porcullius will be raised at any one time. Guards constantly man these posts. Any minor brawl or scuffle in the gate passages or antechambers will be dealt with brusquely and effectively.
+The antechamber guards record the names and brief descriptions of every visitor to Gethamane. All who enter Gethamane have their names taken down, together with a brief physical description, usually no more than “black-haired woman” or “man with limp.” Noticeable characters, such as Solars traveling openly, are likely to have more details noted down.  None enters the city without registration, though.
+Visitors must pay a silver dinar to enter. Slaves pay half a dinar (a concession to the Guild). Those short of cash can pay with goods or labor with the amount to be adjudicated by one of the Bethanites: Plenty of menial tasks always need doing, such as cleaning passages. Masters of slave caravans often arrange for their slaves to work off the fee in labor while staying in the city, rather than pay. Particularly dangerous but penniless adventurers may be asked to undertake an underways expedition, with promises of significant extra recompense if they succeed.
+Each antechamber also holds the keys to a set of explosives and sorceries set into the 50-yard tunnel leading to it, which should (it has never been tested) collapse the tunnel when activated. This is a last-ditch defense to be used if the outer gate falls.
+=== THE SUBTERRANEAN CITY ===
+In Gethamane, social rank goes along with depth in the mountain. The closer a person is to ground level, where the sunken Gardens are, the higher-ranked she is. Gethamane consists of five layers:
+* the [[Temple District]] at the top; large open rooms decorated with jewel-encrusted carvings of mountains and enormous flying creatures.
+* the [[Upper Ring]] below that;
+* the [[Guild District]]; where the Guild may stable and house its caravans, trade with the people of the city and maintain a permanent market.
+* the [[Outer Ring]], by far the largest sector of the city;
+* the [[Garden District]] at Ground Level, containing its food sources, its government, its records, the Courthouse the Dole distribution center, the Master’s quarters and the Guardhall.
+Proximity to the source of the Dole makes the Garden District the most prestigious sector of Gethamane, while the Upper Ring’s distance renders it the least desirable place to live in the city.
+Below the Garden District are the [[Underways]].
+=== PASSAGES ===
+Gethamane consists of hundreds of twisting corridors that connect countless rooms. Its passages are square shaped, their floors and ceilings carved from the dark gray stone of the mountain while other forms of stone or concrete sometimes cover the walls.
+While smaller rooms are generally plain, larger rooms and halls are covered in intricate and beautiful carvings of unknown plants and beasts, strangely designed pictures that haunt the memories of visitors. Some rooms have stone doors, while others have newer doors of timber or stretched hide.
+Since Gethamane’s current population exceeds that of the old City of the Mountain Gateway, many Gethamanians live in apartments formed by partitioning larger chambers or passages. Older or wealthier families have heavier, metalnailed bulwarks or elaborately painted screens, while poorer families must make do with roughly tanned leather, pieces of wood cannibalized from merchants’ carts and other temporary makeshifts.
+=== UTILITIES ===
+Large crystals of pale violet set in the walls and ceiling emit a clear white light which glows brighter during the day outside (even brighter than most days) and dim when night falls (though remain bright enough for most people to continue working on all but the most demanding tasks).
+Gethamanians cover the crystals if they want darkness, but few outside the visitors’ section ever do so. Gethamanians are used to constant light: True darkness frightens them. Damaging the crystals is a Major Offense against the Second Law. Gethamanians learned centuries ago that removing a crystal from its setting darkens it forever.
+For water, Gethamane has at least four large public fountains on each level and citizens draw off water as needed. Additionally the Outer Ring has two working bathhouses whose large, tiled pools magically heat the water in them. Two others no longer function. These bathhouses were all declared to be city property in the early days of the city and remain such. Even the wealthiest families must either come to the public baths or heat basins of water in their own homes. As such they are considered social as well as hygienic locations, and were clearly used by the previous inhabitants, as the caves in which the springs are situated were laid out for bathing, with some small pools to one side for private use and other large pools for general use.
+Gethamane's laws forbid anyone restricting the use of a well save "at the will of the City in time of trouble”. Any damage to a well is a crime against the Second Law, garnering similar penalties as damage to the light crystals.
+Unfortunately, most of the city’s internal plumbing corroded to uselessness during the long vacancy. Gethamanians make do with chamber pots and rather stinky non-flushing commodes.
+== THE PEOPLE OF GETHAMANE ==
+Gethamane has little direct contact with the rest of Creation. Few Gethamanians travel, and fewer want to visit them. As such most Gethamanians know very little about the rest of Creation.
+It is easy to differentiate who go outside and the rest of Gethamane. The minority who spend much of their time outside (Guards, Hunters and Gatherers) show color in their cheeks, roughened skin or other signs of exposure to sun and weather. The majority who remain within Gethamane most (if not all) of their lives have unnaturally pale skins never touched by the sun and eyes adapted to shadows (exposded to sun and/or natural weather these 'albinos' are known to flinch, tremble or even break down into fits of hysterics).
+Naturally, this has grown into a division in society, but it is more one of fashion than a genuine social rift. The Council knows it needs members of the city who can function outside and that the food brought in by the hunter-gatherers is a vital precaution against trade-blackmail by the Guild. The Guard treats the division as a matter of specialty: some of its members work better outside, and some work better in the deep tunnels.
+The farmers are the only major faction to genuinely look down on those who go outside, mostly because they themselves count few travelers among their numbers. The farmers’ tasks, by necessity, keep them working in the heart of the mountain throughout their lives.
+There are many people inside the city who fear to leave it and who regard outsiders with a tolerant but indulgent eye, as strangers who cannot understand the proper way to live.
+Most citizens are known by their personal name followed by a family name. For extra formality, Gethamanians give a person’s name followed by “of the such-and-such family.” Distinguished Gethamanians add a descriptive epithet, the way Bethan was called Redeye or the current Mistress Katrin is called Jadehand for the martial prowess she showed during her youth as a Guard.
+Tasks often run in families, and the first time that a child from one of these families goes outside the walls of Gethamane is a major rite of passage for that child.
+=== Clothing ===
+A hundred yards of insulating stone and the heat of 80,000 bodies keep Gethamane warm. As such Clothing in the city is lightweight, wear either robes of cotton or silk, or tunics and trousers. Guards wear tunics and trousers under their boiled leather or steel armor, though they wear boots instead of the usual soft slippers, while farmers wear simple brown robes. Hunters and gatherers, of course, need heavy wool, fur and leather when they go outside.
+Regardless of occupation, Gethamanians prefer deep colors, grays, black or brown rather than the bright shades that look attractive in sunlight. Brightly hued clothing is reserve for the bedchamber.
+Status and wealth is conveyed by the quality and elegance of the clothing, rather than by color or patterns.
+===Cooking===
+Much of the Dole is simply washed, sliced, spiced and eaten raw. Living underground limits Gethamanian cooking: The ventilation system cannot handle a lot of smoke. People often stir-fry their food using dried grass for short bursts of intense heat.
+They also pack slow-burning, nearly smokeless fuel such as dried peat within a heavy crock and place a smaller pot within it. Gethamanians often freeze-dry foodstuff on the windswept mountain heights, then reconstitute it by stewing it in such a “Gethamane oven.”
+=== Families ===
+Formal marriage is between men and women, but homosexual lovers are common. Quite often, married couples have a publicly acknowledged lover who shares both their beds. Gethamane doesn’t treat unions between cousins as incest but forbids unions between adopted siblings.
+A person is known either by his personal name and then his family name or by his personal name and “of the such-and-such family.” The first usage is more common these days, but the second usage is more old-fashioned and is still adhered to among the more important families.
+Inside families, descent is matrilineal, though a woman’s current husband is legally the father of all her children, regardless if she was married to him or not at the time she bore the children.
+=== Adoption ===
+Families often adopt children too, a custom that began as a way to make sure that orphans — future workers — could survive and provide childless couples with heirs to care for them in their old age. When a Gethamanian of humble birth shows great skill and dedication, a wealthy and socially prominent family may adopt her. Not only does this provide Gethamane with a unique form of social mobility, it prevents the leading families from becoming stagnant and complacent.
+Most large families include a few adopted members. Adoption ends all ties to the former family, legally and (Gethamanians hope) emotionally. Therefore a woman can bear a child to a man in another family, then give the child to be adopted by that family (if married, this requires her husband’s permission as well), at which point the child becomes a full member of that family.
+It is considered very rude to pry into someone’s past about something like this or suggest anyone might feel loyalty to any family other than their own, even if they are the physical child of that family.
+=== Adopting Outsiders ===
+Inter-family adoption inside Gethamane is a comparatively simple thing, done to cement ties between families, provide for orphans or, occasionally, introduce new blood into excessively inbred families.
+The legal process of adopting outsiders into Gethamane families and making them citizens is rather more complex and carries more social difficulties.  Afterall, it is a high honor for someone from inside Gethamane to consent to bring an outsider into such a closed society.
+* First, any family can only adopt ONE outsider per year (this was codified by the second Master, Gerath, to prevent any family adopting large numbers of outsiders.)
+* Second, families don't want to adopt strangers who may bring disrepute on their position. Even middle/lower class who would be willing to adopt an outsider, particularly if a large payment in jade or goods was involved, want to be sure their family won’t be at risk from the outsider’s actions.
+* Third, while the “parents” are the only ones who formally need to give assent to the adoption, if their family strongly opposes this then pressure may be placed to prevent the adoption. Accidents, such as falling into the underways or tragic overdoses of common sleeping drugs have been known to occur in particularly awkward cases (especially ones involving Guild members).
+Sometimes, an outsider will do a Gethamane family such a definite favor that adoption is the only commensurate favor the family can provide in return. In that case, adoption will be offered willingly, and the outsider is made to understand exactly how large a favor is being done for him. If the outsider truly doesn’t want to be adopted, then an accepted solution is for them to have a child of his blood (or, at worst, a deserving orphan) adopted by the family in his place.
+It’s impossible to perform an adoption without it going on the civil lists, the city records and the Dole. This has prevented the [[Guild]] and the Realm smuggling in full agents without them being closely observed (making it practically counterproductive).
+The best that outside forces can do is to arrange for future agents to be adopted as children and then attempt to influence them once they reach the age of usefulness. Alternatively, it is possible to get an innocuous outsider adopted and then substitute an agent for the adoptee, though this runs the risk of high embarrassment and social disgrace for the family concerned if it is discovered.
+=== Religion ===
+Most Gethamanians are not very religious and leave such matters to the chosen priests. Most only go to the three temples when they have particularly urgent concerns or if they hope for prophetic dreams. Similarly, most don’t bother with luck charms or amulets. Citizens who have frequent commerce with outsiders sometimes buy luck charms from them, but this is often more a political statement than anything serious.
+While they would not deny any deity’s powers, [[Gods of Gethamane|Gethamane’s gods]] make few demands — they haven’t even given their names — and other gods show little interest in the City.
+All temples to gods other than Gethamane's must legally lie in the Guild District. There are very few permanent temples in the Guild District, but there are several rooms available to passing caravans who want to arrange set worship for several days.
+Small portable travelers’ shrines are politely ignored, but can be used as an excuse for arrest if the Guard has some reason to harass the people involved.
+Gethamane has no objection to travelers worshiping the Unconquered Sun. As long as worshipers do not break Gethamane’s civil laws, the city government turns a blind eye. However, NO Immaculate temples are permitted (a centuries-old holdover from an encounter with exceptionally high-handed missionaries that went badly).
+=== Funeral Rites ===
+Gethamane's dead are cremated by the priesthood in the essence-fires of the three temples. It is illegal to dispose of dead bodies [[Gethamane Embalming|any other way]]. Families keep the ashes in small ornamental boxes, scatter them on the mountain slope or add them to fertilizer the Gardens.
+Gethamane has no true ancestor cult since Gethamane has no ghosts at all. Some inhabitants say that this is due to the profoundly materialistic outlook of most of the citizens — they leave the religion to the priests. Regardless, Gethamanians accept this as normal.
+=== God Blooded ===
+Gethamane’s limited contact with supernatural creatures means the city has almost no half-breed Essence channelers. Gethamanians rarely try to enlighten their own Essence either, due to their cultural isolation and lack of any institution to encourage this practice.
+== MAKING A LIVING ==
+Gethamane is alive and busy all round the clock; citizens working “day” or “night” depending on personal preferences.
+* Farmers maintain the magical Gardens.
+* Hunter-gatherers bring additional food and other commodities from outside, and act as 'scouts'
+* The [[Gethamane's Guard|Guard]] preserves civic order and defends against the monsters of the underways.
+* Artisans fashion the tools and implements needed for daily life.
+* Merchants trade with the Guild and other outsiders.
+* A large administration of clerks and bureaucrats keeps everyone else working together efficiently—or at least tries.
+Gethamane is mostly gender-neutral. Both genders can freely work as craftsmen, as gatherers outside (though hunters are usually male), as merchants or negotiators.
+However, there are certain areas where each gender tends to get shunted. The Guard is approximately 75% male, while the farmers are approximately 80% female, though both will take members of either gender.
+Most Gethamanians often follow the same occupation as their parents, however all citizens register their occupations and record every hour of labor to justify their daily ration from the Gardens.
+====Hunting and Gathering====
+While the Gethamanians could live exclusively on fungi from the Gardens (and have in the past, for years at a time) the hunters and gathers supply ''flavor''. Hunters bag reindeer, ducks and other game while gatherers collect edible lichen, berries, bulbs and other foodstuffs. Hunters and gatherers can keep a 1/5th of what they bring to the city, to feed to their own family or sell. The rest goes to the Garden District depots for distribution as part of the Dole.
+Over the centuries, the hunter-gatherers absorbed about every trade involving bringing raw materials into Gethamane. Logging and mining is also considered a form of gathering (Gethamane operates a few small mines for copper, salt and mica. The Guild operates several more, and Gethamane still gets most of its metal from the Guild).
+Some Gethamanians keep sheep and goats. During the brief summer, their herds graze on the mountain slopes. The animals spend the long winter inside the city with their owners, harvesting huge amounts of hay to feed their beasts over the winter; as a result, animal husbandry is treated as gathering. Gethamanians usually pen these animals in sections of the Upper Ring, among the poor.
+Hunter-gatherers also act as scouts, bringing information on local movements back to Gethamane. The Guard even pays a small bounty for useful reports. Generally, Gethamane's Mistress is aware of what’s going on a couple of days’ journey around the mountain — farther if good weather allows for observation from the mountain’s heights.
+==== Administration ====
+All Gethamane’s government offices occupy the outer circles of the Garden District. Each location consists of several large rooms and corridors where clerks keep the Dole lists and visitor records. Citizens can visit the Hall of Records and Hall of Maps to check on property lines (Outsiders can consult these records as well, for a small fee.) Magistrates resolve civil disputes and try criminal cases in the Courthouse.
+Children who receive any education beyond basic literacy and arithmetic go to a school connected to the City Library.
+Bethanites staff many of the government posts but at least a third of the clerks and officials come from other families.
+Even more than the rest of Gethamane, the administrative areas stay busy all the time. Each shift of functionaries simply takes the desks vacated by the shift before them.
+Children attend school in shifts as well, and mobs of children surge through the tunnels at each shift change. Only the Council doesn’t work around the clock, though sessions may last for days as members debate especially knotty or contentious issues.
+The Garden District includes the rooms and offices of Gethamane’s ruler, passed from Master to Mistress for centuries. It’s a point of pride to change as little as possible from Bethan Redeye’s original sparse furniture and belongings.
+=== Leisure ===
+Gethamane encourages (to an extent) a culture of leisure. Citizens who perform sufficient labor to earn their Dole can do whatever they want with any spare time.
+"Proper-thinking citizens" (as they describe themselves) fill their leisure hours with:
+* quiet exercise
+* productive crafts (carving imported driftwood is currently very fashionable)
+* watching morality plays
+* writing epic poetry modeled on barbarian sagas that celebrates honor and virtue
+* playing instruments (wind instruments are more generally used than soft string instruments. Drums are never played for recreation; reserved for the Guard’s use).
+However Gethamane has its darker share of pleasures. Behind closed doors (or pulled screens) wide variety of drugs are taken, from imported opium and qat to hallucinogenic local mushrooms. Casual sex, quite outside of marriage, and vicious sessions of gossip and destroying reputations are all common. Some Gethamanians seek pain instead of pleasure, leading to private sessions of sadomasacisim between consenting (or paying) adults. Scarification is currently fashionable, sometimes undertaken using drugs to intensify the pain.
+While the more regular citizens disapprove of these past times, they are a recognized part of life in Gethamane. Bethan Redeye realized she needed a viable breeding population in the city and recognized there would always be those who disliked the system she had established. As such she felt it better to offer a cultural escape, rather than drive them out of the mountain.
+Regardless of activity, Gethamanians are quite strict that indecorous amusements not leave a mark Even the young who want to shock their parents keep their scars or welts hidden beneath clothing, so they can show a placid, pale and unmarked face in public. It’s the height of bad manners to suggest that your next-door neighbor copulates with imported goats in his silk-hung bedroom. Unless, of course, it should be audible through the walls — in which case, it becomes a matter for public discussion, and the general condemnation of your neighbor will be on the grounds of his incompetence for not keeping the sound down.
+Most importantly Gethamane insist on keeping the noise down. Many ears are listening… and no matter what you do or where, you want to hear the distant alarm-drum or the nearby hiss or scuttling that means the horrors are loose and you must run or fight for your life.
+== SOCIETY ==
+Gethamane is one of Creation’s most orderly societies. It is not a place where dissent can be tolerated. People either conform or leave.
+The security of the Dole keeps Gethamanians in their city, but organizing the production and distribution of so much food from a single source requires extensive control of people’s lives.
+Like most societies, Gethamane has its divisions of class, wealth and occupation. The four rough tiers of society are the Council, the moderately wealthy and respected (who mostly dwell in the Outer Ring), the poor (who dwell in the Upper Ring) and the truly homeless, poverty-stricken and family-less outcastes (who live anywhere they can).
+The upper classes adopt an attitude of generously appreciating the work of their lowergraded fellow citizens, while the lower classes openly scheme to raise their families’ status, secure dwellings in the Outer Ring (or even near the Gardens) and, some day, possibly gain seats on the Council. This is viewed as perfectly normal in Gethamane, and many popular comedies showcase witty servants or lower-class Guards or artisans manipulating circumstances so that they come out ahead of the game — or even get formally adopted by the Master of Gethamane as a possible heir.
+Family and class intertwine in Gethamane. The prosperous folk of the Outer Ring and Garden District generally belong to clans who number in the hundreds and occupy large sectors of tunnels and chambers. The poorer folk of the Upper Ring still manage to live as extended families with dozens of aunts, uncles, cousins and kin all together.
+Quite simply, it takes a degree of wealth to acquire enough space for a family to stay together; but a family that stays together can also economize through hand-me-down clothing, stacking relatives in bunk beds instead of renting more space and similar expedients.
+The truly poor live in whatever disused corners of the city they can find. Children are lucky if they can stay with their parents until adulthood. Many waifs make their own way in the city because their parents are too poor to care for them.
+=== THE RULING CLASS ===
+Bethan Redeye's descendants still rule Gethamane. The city’s monarch, called the Master or Mistress, chooses a successor from the Bethanite clan — usually a from their offspring, but sometimes from remote cousins. The monarch always must have a designated heir, though the designation can be changed at whim.
+Today, the Bethanites number more than 2,000 — all of them potential heirs. They form much of the city’s civil service - working as administrators, magistrates, accountants and scribes. Bethanites often undergo basic training as guards or farmers as well (to deal better with those important institutions). Indeed, custom holds that a Bethanite who wants to administer an aspect of city life should have practiced it as well. Most of all, though, Gethamane needs educated clerks and shrewd negotiators to distribute the Dole and deal with Guild. Some members of the clan choose occupations ranging from painter to swordsman, but all start by learning arithmetic, reading and writing.
+Gethamane’s current ruler is [[Katrin Jadehand]].
+The Master (or Mistress) of Gethamane is the city’s hereditary ruler, a descendant of Bethan Redeye. Each
+Master chooses his heir from among the ranks of the Bethanites and must always have an heir formally named,
+though the Master is at liberty to choose a different heir at any time if he so desires.
+Members of the Bethanite family are administrators, scribes, accountants and historians. While they are expected to be capable of using weapons and working on the farms, those are not their primary roles in life. The need to manage the Dole and work with the Guild forces Gethamane to have a capable administrator at the helm.
+While some of the family have been notable artists, swordsmen or sorcerers, all of them start off with slate and chalk, doing arithmetic at their tutors’ knee.
+Gethamane is a structure shaped by the necessity of organizing food distribution and defenses against the underways. .
+=== THE INTELLIGENCERS ===
+Unofficially, Bethanites gather information for the current Master or Mistress. Everyone in Gethamane knows this — only the rawest, most ignorant newcomers from outside would be unaware. As such the Mistress of Gethamane has to look outside her family for operatives to get further information.
+[[Shakan]], the current Head Intelligencer solves this with blackmail. All his agents watch for criminal behavior, and use that information to recruit new operatives, using their loyalty to their family by inspiring fear that their families will suffer for the agents’ acts. Once the agents have work for him for long enough, that itself is another reason to fear exposure. Indeed, Gethamanians despise the Intelligencers and exposed agents suffers worse ostracism than they might have received from her original crime.
+Shakan has agents throughout society, except the temples (the priests are generally too preoccupied with their rituals to do anything significantly illegal) while he has agents among the foreign merchants, he distrusts them and cannot be totally certain of their loyalty. He currently has no agents who are Guild members but would like to gather some.
+=== THE COUNCIL ===
+Council members are strictly advisors to Gethamane's Master and have no direct power in their own right. However, being recognized spokesmens of their particular factions gives them great influence and prestige. The Council meets regularly three times a month one large chamber in the Garden district, adorned with portraits of past Masters and Mistresses, though the Mistress can call for special sessions.
+While the situation of Master and Council could seem a possible recipe for tyranny, the actual realities of life mean the Master usually pays attention to what the Council has to say and acts more as a mediator than an autocrat. A shrewd Mistress knows she must keep the five great factions happy, and treats her Council with respect. Mistress Katrin often acts more as a mediator between the delegates than as an autocrat (some past Masters and Mistresses became virtual puppets of powerful Councils).
+Council members hold their posts until they die, resign or are fired by the city’s Mistress. When a faction loses a delegate, senior faction members offer the Mistress a list of possible replacements. The Mistress then selects a new Council member from the list. Vacancies on the Council result in a frenzy of politicking from the faction in question, from other Council members seeking the appointment of allies and from the Guild.
+In the event all three of a faction’s posts fall vacant, the Mistress can appoint new delegates without consultation, as the city most likely faces an immediate crisis.
+Current notable Council members include:
+* '''Mienna of the Dulsheft family ''' (Farmer) - The current acknowledged leader of the farmers; a stiff-backed woman in her 60's who needs a cane to walk and requires regular medical treatment for her arthritis. A notable isolationist who wants to shut Gethamane away and seal all the entrances if the [[Bull of the North]] comes anywhere near the city.
+Her acknowledged heir is her niece '''Lessa''' of the same family, a young woman who is apparently all that could be desired in terms of ability, manners and respect for her elders.  She is also a member of the farmers cult that slaughters living creatures to fertilize the Gardens. Recently, she has been contacted by a whispering voice that offers her sorcery and power in return for more blood and more human sacrifices.
+* '''Hanzyon of the Loshan family ''' (Guard); wants to increase Guard numbers and forcibly conscript the Janissary Vault under military discipline
+* '''Solace of the Genthrax family '''  (Merchants) - adopted from traveling merchants at the age of 4; wants to promote increased Guild ties and the establishment of a Guild mercenary outpost to aid Gethamane’s defense;
+* '''Luthin of the Doment family ''' (Hunter-Gather), who wants to bring in sorcerer-engineers to establish farms and orchards on the slopes outside the city;
+* '''Tammeth of the Sochire family ''' (Artisan), who wants a tax on Guild imports to protect his family’s interests.
+=== THE UNDERCLASS ===
+People who don’t belong to Gethamane’s families and who, thus, aren’t citizens of the city form the underclass,
+however well-born or rich or gifted they are. They simply aren’t given the same consideration and respect that locals get. Shops overcharge them, the Guard treats them with distant curtness, they aren’t allowed anywhere near the gardens and, when found outside the Guild quarter or the temples, they are politely encouraged to go back there and reminded none-too-subtly of the laws prohibiting a stay of more than a month. The people who really suffer are those outsiders who have been adopted and who should be treated like normal citizens but don’t yet look or behave properly. To be fair, once local citizens are aware that the apparent foreigner they’re talking to or dealing with has been properly adopted, they will give him fair and civil treatment.
+== FEAR ==
+Gethamane has food, shelter, warmth, a working economy, a functioning social system with room for upward mobility, viable trade links and heavy defenses. At a casual glance, they have everything they could reasonably ask for.
+But what they also have is permanent, constant fear.
+Everyone in Gethamane knows someone (or knows someone who has a friend who knows someone) who’s seen the things that come up from the underways. Everyone’s heard the stories. Everyone’s walked near an underways entrance and felt the cold touch of damp air against skin.
+It’s not quite comparable to living in a constant state of siege. After all, the Guard has always managed to beat back any incursions from below, sooner or later.
+It’s not even an overmastering threat. Centuries of living here undisturbed have convinced the citizens that the creatures below are never going to stage a really major attack.
+It’s the knowledge that beneath your feet, separated by only a layer of stone, are inhuman creatures who want to drag you into the darkness and kill you...
+== DISREPUTABLE FOLK ==
+Most Gethamanians like to think of their society as prosperous and orderly, controlled and smugly secure (unsavory leisures aside). Nevertheless, the city has its poor, its discontented and indeed its actively criminal.
+'''THE JADE HOSPICE'''
+Founded near the temples in the [[Upper Ring]], this charity hospital is the biggest and most overworked in the city - staffed by priests, trained healers and citizens working off legal penalties or have chosen this way of repaying their Dole. While not necessarily the beststaffed or most highly skilled hospice in Gethamane, the Jade Hospice is kept busy dealing with the Upper Circle’s constant stream of injuries, illnesses and assault victims.
+The courts regularly sentence mild offenders to serve as unskilled labor or nursing staff here, and the staff is constantly coming and going.
+The Director of the Hospice, matronly '''Enath Daur''' of a prosperous farmer family, holds one of the farmer seats on the Council. She was elected at the time because the faction couldn’t agree on any other candidate, and has since used her position to make sure that the [[Upper Ring]] is not further marginalized.
+'''THE JANISSARY VAULT'''
-Four hundred miles north of Whitewall, some 80,000
-people live in the small city of Gethamane. Their subterranean
-city grants them unmatched protection from the perils of the
-North. Living in the heart of a mountain, Gethamanians
-do not fear winter storms or barbarian attacks. Supernatural
-gardens remove the threat of starvation. Nevertheless,
-Gethamanians live in fear. The circling tunnels of their
-city connect to an immeasurably vaster, deeper labyrinth
-of underways beneath Creation—and from these nighted
-caverns come horror. As much as anyone else in the North,
-Gethamanians require constant vigilance to survive.
-HISTORY
-Like many of Creation’s great cities, Gethamane began
-in the First Age. Its history, however, is stranger than most.
-Perhaps it’s a good thing the Gethamanians don’t know it.
-THE FIRST AGE
-Gethamane was originally called the City of the Mountain
-Gateway. The Solar Deliberative ostensibly tunneled
-a city within a mountain as a trade and diplomatic nexus
-with the Mountain Folk and other strange inhabitants of the
-caverns far below Creation. Indeed, a great deal of contact
-with the underdwellers took place there. The Deliberative
-chose the location because of the Celestial Gate to Yu-Shan
-lodged in the underways beneath the mountain. As a bonus,
-a colony of Pteroks—a winged race of the prehuman Dragon
-Kings—lived on the mountain’s heights. The subterranean
-metropolis was also called Six Gates. In addition to the Celestial
-Gate, the city held a black jade portal to the tunnels
-of the Mountain Folk and four immense doors of jade and
-orichalcum steel that led into the mountain from north,
-south, west and east.
-Nothing exciting happened at Six Gates for more than
-a thousand years. No Solars were in town when the Usurpation
-began. The Dragon-Blooded easily blocked any contact
-with the rest of Creation. By the time any loyalists in the
-city might have objected, most of the Lawgivers were dead.
-Only the Pteroks knew what was happening, and they flew
-away and out of history.
-CHAPTER THREE • THE CITY UNDER THE MOUNTAIN 35
-Shortly thereafter, the City of the Mountain Gateway
-died. When the founders of the new Shogunate realized
-that their conspirators in the city had not restored contact,
-a Dragon-Blooded team investigated. They found the city’s
-gates sealed but everyone gone. Not even corpses remained.
-So, a group of Sidereal Exalted came to Six Gates. Neither
-Charms, sorcery nor the Loom of Fate gave any clue to what
-happened. The city’s past seemed as thoroughly eradicated
-as its inhabitants.
-The Shogunate stripped everything valuable and portable
-from the City of the Mountain Gateway, then sealed
-it. No one entered for several centuries and the city was
-forgotten.
-THE SECRET PAST
-Six Gates was a lot more than a trade nexus between the
-Old Realm and the underdwellers. Its true purpose was one
-of the most closely guarded secrets of the Solar Deliberative.
-The city’s connection to Creation’s underways, however,
-brought about its doom. By now, discovering the truth would
-be extraordinarily difficult.
-REALITY ENGINES
-Back in the Old Realm, a perceptive geomancer
-might observe that the City of the Mountain Gateway’s
-combination of a high peak, a connection to Heaven and
-alignments to the cardinal directions appears at one other
-location: the Imperial Mountain, the axis of Creation itself.
-This was no accident. Deep in the highest-security areas of
-the city—areas never shown on any map, hidden with the
-help of the Maiden of Secrets herself—the Deliberative
-emplaced 25 reality engines. These devices, the height of
-Old Realm magitech, emulate the Elemental Pole of Earth
-by stabilizing reality against the Wyld. If some unimaginable
-catastrophe overwhelmed the Blessed Isle, these engines
-could turn the mountain of Six Gates into a replacement
-Elemental Pole of Earth, around which Creation could
-regain its stability.
-More than half the population of Six Gates was Dragon-
-Blooded or God-Blooded. A great many of them functioned
-as guards, whatever their official duties were. Neither the
-Mountain Folk nor anyone else was supposed to know what
-the small city held.
-These reality engines still exist in a ring between the
-Garden District and the underways. The entrances are virtually
-undetectable and open only to a Solar’s anima. Further
-defenses protect the vaults of each machine.
-THE ULTIMATE HORROR
-The second secret of Gethamane began with the Primordial
-War. When the first Primordial died, its dying Essence
-and alien ichor generated a new entity: a hekatonkhire, or
-ghost-behemoth. Most hekatonkhires dwell in the Underworld,
-but the one called Vodak exists simultaneously in
-the Underworld and Creation. Vodak took shelter in the
-underways. Every few centuries, Vodak woke to prey upon
-the underdwellers, destroying whole cities’ worth of the
-Mountain Folk and other races. When the blood of almost
-Solars fell on Creation’s soil, the Essence-taste of its
-progenitor’s killers roused Vodak from slumber.
-The Mountain Folk conceived a desperate plan to trap
-the hekatonkhire. As the Dragon-Blooded and Sidereals
-stalked and battled the last of the Lawgivers, the Mountain
-Folk captured numerous Solar offspring. They used the Golden
-Children as bait, luring Vodak to Six Gates. It arrived hungry.
-While the monster swept through the city like a silver ocean
-of death and madness, the greatest savants and sorcerers of the
-Mountain Folk cast their spells and activated potent artifacts.
-After six days spent devouring the city’s population, body
-and soul, Vodak returned to the depths to rest and digest its
-meal—and found it could not leave.
-The hekatonkhire now lurks in the deepest caverns below
-Gethamane, deeper even than the underdwellers know.
-When it sleeps, its dreams call to the underdwellers and fill
-them with its own hunger, hate and rage. When it wakes,
-the terror of its presence drives underdwellers to flee the
-depths into the city. Sometimes it reconstructs past victims
-from its own spectral flesh and plays murderous games with
-them. Vodak refrains from invading Gethamane for now,
-fearing the possibility of further traps. That may change…
-especially if Vodak scents Solar blood.
-VODAK AND THE REALITY ENGINES
-The Mountain Folk had few options in binding
-Vodak: They decided that nothing less than a city
-could distract the hekatonkhire long enough for them
-to cast their spells, and few cities connected to Creation’s
-underways. Storytellers might decide, however,
-that it was no coincidence the Jadeborn sacrificed a
-city stocked with reality engines. Conceivably, the
-Mountain Folk knew about the secret devices, used
-Vodak’s attack as cover to seize them and re-tuned
-them to supercharge their spells. Characters who
-discover the reality engines and remove them to use
-against the Wyld could unwittingly release Vodak
-on Creation.
-Storytellers might prefer instead that the Mountain
-Folk did not know about the reality engines. In
-this alternative, if the Mountain Folk had conferred
-with the Solar Deliberative, they could have lured the
-hekatonkhire into a trap: Once Vodak was between
-the reality engines, these mighty artifacts would have
-created a space that was too real for the spectral horror
-to exist. But that didn’t happen, and Six Gates died
-because of the bitter history between the Jadeborn
-and the Sun’s Chosen.
-Either choice presents opportunities for Storytellers.
-Decide for yourself which (if either) is true.
-RESETTLEMENT
-The Great Contagion did not affect the City of
-the Mountain Gateway, because nothing lived there. If
-the invading Fair Folk
-noticed the empty subterranean
-city, they did not enter.
-A century after the Contagion, though, a band
-of refugees fled North, beset by plague, starvation and
-savage Wyld barbarians. Their God-Blooded leader,
-Bethan Redeye, led
-them through the Black Crag
-Mountains in hopes of finding safety in some whaling
-village on the White Sea. Instead they found a cave that
-turned out to be a minor tunnel into the abandoned
-city. As an alternative to starving, freezing or being
-eaten by Wyld barbarians, the uncanny city looked
-pretty good. They
-named the city Gethamane—
-Old Realm for “Sanctuary,” in hopes that naming
-it thus in the language of Heaven might provide
-a good omen.
-The refugees lived off whatever game they could
-catch in the mountains until they discovered the
-city’s magical Gardens. Fortunately, the Gardens
-are remarkably easy to operate. Within
-a month, the Gardens produced edible fungi
-and moss and the refugees became settlers.
-Not even the
-discovery of the dangers in the
-lower tunnels could persuade them to leave. Bethan
-Redeye worked out a system of allocating daily shares
-of food from the Gardens and whatever hunters and
-gatherers found outside. This system eventually became
-known as the Dole. Life was still hard, though, for the
-Gethamanians had little with which to work
-besides wood, leather, bone and stone.
-COMING
-OF THE GUILD
-For many years, the rest of Creation
-did not know about Gethamane. That
-changed when the Guild started sending
-caravans into the North. One caravan
-met a group
-of hunters from Gethamane.
-The caravan’s factor quickly realized that the
-subterranean city would make an excellent base
-for trading ventures through the North. He also
-saw the Gethamanians’ lack of outside sources
-of food, clothing and other commodities.
-Bethan Redeye (then in her 70s, and still
-leading the Gethamanians) traded food
-supplies and animal pelts for cloth, spices
-and metal goods, beginning the city’s
-partnership with the Guild… but she
-didn’t let the Guild know about the
-buried Gardens. (The Guild found out
-eventually, of course.)
-To
-keep the Guild from subverting
-and
-absorbing Gethamane, Bethan
-Conta
-Gatewa
-ente
-t
-North
-barbaria
-o
-Se
-min
-alternativ
-barba
-Sa
-lang
-live
-mou
-magica
-dens rem
-th
-an
-p
-s
-Gard
-outside
-Li
-Gethamanian
-woo
-m
-k
-w
-ing caravan
-fa
-w
-ventu
-Getha
-clot
-Red
-th
-an
-meta
-partnersh
-l
-G
-eventua
-ing
-CHAPTER THREE • THE CITY UNDER THE MOUNTAIN 37
-made the Dole contingent on labor for the city. What’s more,
-she decreed that no one could stay in the city for more than
-a month unless a Gethamanian family adopted them and
-they entered the Dole’s labor register. Adopted citizens could
-pay in jade or goods instead of labor, though. The system
-discouraged Guildsmen from building strong connections
-in Gethamane, and the ones who did paid dearly for the
-privilege of long-term residence.
-Bethan Redeye died at age 93, survived by two husbands
-and a dozen children. She trained all her children in administration,
-but named her second son Gerath as her heir.
-The office of Master or Mistress of Gethamane has stayed
-in Bethan’s line ever since.
-TO THE PRESENT
-Gethamane grew slowly but steadily. In time, it formed
-relationships with other Northern societies, usually with the
-Guild as go-between. In RY 586, this policy drew Gethamane
-into a trade war with the nascent Haslanti League. On the
-whole, though, Gethamane enjoyed a remarkably placid history.
-Its people have no desire to conquer others—that would
-mean leaving the mountain. No one else, not even the Empress,
-ever found an effective way to attack Gethamane.
-The disappearance of the Empress and the rise of the
-Bull of the North troubles some Gethamanians. The current
-Mistress of Gethamane, Katrin Jadehand, and her advisors
-draw up contingency plans for situations ranging from an
-attack by the Bull to a takeover bid by the Guild. Most
-Gethamanians, however, figure that the city can ride out any
-crisis the way it always has before: Expel any troublesome
-outsiders, shut the impregnable doors, live off the Gardens
-and wait a few years. They don’t like to remember that the
-greatest threat to Gethamane has always come from the
-endless dark tunnels underneath.
-GEOGRAPHY
-Gethamane does not pretend to control any territory
-beyond the slopes of its own mountain, but its hunters and
-gatherers see most of what happens within the nearest 20
-miles or so. The hunters sometimes venture farther, out of
-the mountains and all the way to the White Sea shore.
-Sheltered valleys within the mountains sometimes
-hold patches of taiga that the Gethamanians cultivate and
-harvest with care—a tree can take 50 years to grow 10 feet
-high. Tundra covers the lower mountain slopes with hardy
-lichen, moss and patches of grass and herbs. The icy upper
-slopes are nearly barren. This far into the North, in a direct
-line from the Elemental Pole of Air, winter lasts much of the
-year and the growing season is just three months long.
-THE SUBTERRANEAN CITY
-Everything important about Gethamane is underground.
-The city consists of five layers: the Temple District at the
-top; the Upper Ring below that; the central Guild District;
-the Outer Ring, by far the largest sector of the city; and the
-Garden District, with the Gardens themselves at the center.
-Proximity to the source of the Dole makes the Garden
-District the most prestigious sector of Gethamane, while the
-Upper Ring’s distance renders it the least desirable place to
-live in the city.
-ENTERING GETHAMANE
-The north and south sides of Gethamane’s mountain
-hold sets of immense steel doors, a foot thick and gleaming
-the distinctive hues of jade and orichalcum alloys: pale blue
-in the north and reddish in the south. They are immune to
-all Shaping effects, whether sorcery, Charms or the powers
-of the Fair Folk. Inside, large wheels move stout bars to lock
-or unseal the gates.
-Beyond each gate stretches a tunnel 50 yards long, 10
-yards wide and 10 yards high. The tunnel ends in a large
-antechamber with heavy portcullises of orichalcum-infused
-adamant at either end. Guards constantly man these posts.
-They never raise both portcullises at the same time. Cunning
-mechanisms, activated from the guard post, are intended
-to collapse the entrance tunnels in the event of a breach.
-(Obviously, these have never been tested.)
-The antechamber guards record the names and brief
-descriptions of every visitor to Gethamane. Free visitors must
-pay a silver dinar to enter. Slaves pay half a dinar (a concession
-to the Guild). Visitors short of cash can register to pay
-through labor: Plenty of menial tasks always need doing, such
-as cleaning passages. Slave caravans usually pay for the slaves’
-entrance in this manner. No one enters the city without registration,
-though. Guards quickly move in to capture anyone
-who makes a ruckus, while drumbeats signal for reinforcements
-and a runner races to the Guard’s headquarters.
-About half a mile further up the mountain, a dozen
-small tunnels lead from the icy slope to clusters of chambers
-and from there to the Temple District and Upper Ring.
-These passages are all well camouflaged. Over the centuries,
-the Gethamanians also installed a variety of locking
-cast-iron doors, false tunnels, dropfalls and other traps for
-uninvited visitors. The mountainside chambers bear various
-THE MISSING ENTRANCES
-What happened to the eastern and western
-entrances to the City Under the Mountain? They
-still exist. Landslides covered them long ago, but the
-early explorers soon found the passages to them. Some
-settlers proposed excavating these entrances, but the
-Gethamanians eventually decided to leave them hidden.
-In fact, they walled off the tunnels and plastered
-over the walls. Only the Mistress and members of her
-advisory Council know about the spare entrances. If
-something should prevent the Gethamanians from
-using any other exit from the city, they can excavate
-the buried gateways in a matter of days.
-inscriptions in a script unlike that found anywhere else in the
-city. Centuries ago, a visiting savant of the Realm identified
-it as the High Holy Speech of the Dragon Kings, and chiefly
-consisting of heretical prayers to the Unconquered Sun.
-CONSTRUCTION
-Most Gethamanian tunnels are square or rectangular.
-The floors and ceilings are the mountain’s own dark gray stone,
-plain and slightly rough. Other forms of stone or concrete
-sometimes cover the walls. Smaller rooms tend to be plain, but
-intricate and beautiful geometric carvings adorn the walls of
-larger passages and chambers. Some rooms have stone doors;
-others have new makeshift doors of wood or leather.
-Gethamane’s current population exceeds that of the
-old City of the Mountain Gateway. Many Gethamanians
-live in apartments formed by partitioning larger chambers
-or passages. Wealthy families mark their compound with
-screens of metal or elaborately painted wood. The poor make
-do with makeshifts such as leather, cloth, paper or scraps of
-wood salvaged from a merchant’s cart.
-UTILITIES
-Large crystals of pale violet set in the walls and ceiling
-emit a clear white light. The crystals glow brightly during the
-day outside and dim when night falls. Still, the crystals stay
-bright enough for most people to continue working. Guards
-can patrol, farmers can work in the Gardens, merchants can
-haggle and artisans can work on all but the most demanding
-tasks. Gethamane stays active all day and all night. People
-sleep to fit their work schedule.
-Gethamanians cover the crystals if they want darkness,
-but few people outside the visitors’ section ever do so. Most
-Gethamanians are used to constant light: True darkness
-frightens them. Damaging the crystals is a major offense.
-Gethamanians learned centuries ago that removing a crystal
-from its setting darkens it forever.
-For water, Gethamane has at least four large public
-fountains on each level. Citizens draw off water as needed.
-The Outer Ring additionally has two still-working bathhouses
-whose large, tiled pools magically heat the water in them.
-Two others no longer function. Unfortunately, most of the
-city’s internal plumbing corroded to uselessness during the
-long vacancy. Gethamanians make do with chamber pots
-and rather stinky non-flushing commodes.
-THE UNDERWAYS
-At least a dozen tunnels descend from the Garden District
-and the Outer Ring into deeper layers, called the underways.
-Rounded tubes and irregular caverns replace Gethamane’s
-square corridors and circular or rectangular chambers. The
-rock darkens from gray to black. The highest layers of the
-underways continue the concentric circular design of the
-city, but the deeper reaches become twisting, apparently
-random tunnels and caverns with no limit ever discovered.
-The underways have no light crystals.
-People do not live in the underways, but horrible and
-deadly creatures sometimes emerge from them to attack
-the people of Gethamane. Every entrance to the underways
-has a gate of iron bars—but that doesn’t stop every
-potential intruder.
-Despite the danger, people sometimes come long
-distances to visit the underways. Sometimes they return
-with treasures: strange artifacts, jewels—such as vibrantly
-violet diamonds—and rare ores hacked from the walls of
-distant caverns. Explorers even find small quantities of
-soulsteel. Sometimes, of course, explorers do not return
-at all. Gethamane’s leaders permit these explorations, in
-return for half of whatever valuables the explorers bring
-out of the underways.
-SOCIETY
-Gethamane is one of Creation’s most orderly societies.
-The security of the Dole keeps Gethamanians in their city,
-but organizing the production and distribution of so much
-food from a single source requires extensive control of people’s
-lives. Gethamanians register their occupations and record
-every hour of labor to justify their daily ration of fungus
-from the Gardens. What the clerks don’t know, spies must
-discover, for Gethamane cannot afford any disruption. Any
-civil unrest could not only leave people starving, it could
-leave the city vulnerable to invasion from below.
-Like most societies, Gethamane has its divisions of class,
-wealth and occupation. It has a literally stratified society.
-The wealthiest Gethamanians live nearest the all-important
-Gardens in the city’s lowest level. Middle-class citizens
-chiefly dwell in the Outer Ring. The Upper Ring receives
-Gethamane’s poor.
-Six great divisions of labor, based on activities vital
-for the city’s survival, provide an alternative set of social
-LOST MAGITECH
-For an Old Realm metropolis, Gethamane shows
-a distinct lack of Essence-powered conveniences.
-Only the light-crystals and the Gardens remain,
-for only they were both durable enough to resist
-Vodak’s passage and impossible for the Shogunate
-to remove. (In the centuries when the city was
-sealed, creatures from the underways might also
-have scavenged the city.)
-Nevertheless, the city is woven with hidden
-Essence accumulators and conduits, which all still
-function. Of the tens of thousands of jade-alloy plugs
-that once dispensed the Essence, only a few hundred
-remain (mostly in the Temple District and Garden
-District). These can still power any magitech device
-capable of connecting to them, as if each was a onedot
-hearthstone. Essence-channeling people cannot
-use the plugs: They function only for devices.
-CHAPTER THREE • THE CITY UNDER THE MOUNTAIN 39
-classes or interest groups that cut across divisions of income.
-The farmers maintain the magical Gardens. Hunters and
-gatherers bring additional food and other commodities from
-outside. The Guard preserves civic order and defends against
-the monsters of the underways. Artisans fashion the tools
-and implements needed for daily life. Merchants trade with
-the Guild and other outsiders. A large administration of
-clerks and bureaucrats keeps everyone else working together
-efficiently—or at least tries. Gethamanians often follow the
-same occupation as their parents.
-THE PEOPLE
-Gethamanians do not look like other Northerners.
-At least half the people never go outside, giving their skin
-an unnatural pallor. Only the hunters and gatherers, who
-must spend much of their time outdoors, show color in their
-cheeks, roughened skin or other signs of exposure to sun
-and weather.
-A hundred yards of insulating stone and the heat of
-,000 bodies keep Gethamane warm. Within the city,
-SECRETS OF THE UNDERWAYS
-The underways are not entirely natural. The
-Mountain Folk used to inhabit the upper layers, and
-someone familiar with the Jadeborn can recognize the
-workmanship of these tunnels and chambers. (Incidentally,
-this is why the Gethamanians cannot simply wall
-off the underways: The City of the Mountain Gateway’s
-air circulation system extended to the Mountain Folk
-districts of the city. Sealing the tunnels would disrupt
-that system, eventually rendering the entire city uninhabitable.
-Early Gethamanians learned this the hard
-way.) Many of the artifacts found in the underways are
-Mountain Folk workmanship.
-Races and creatures of which humanity knows almost
-nothing, such as the centipede-like and savagely
-bestial cthritae and the eldritch underfolk, shaped other
-parts of the underways. Most of these “darkbrood” are
-more or less hostile to humans while entities such as
-the Leech Gods are utterly malignant. Vodak’s presence
-subtly draws the most malevolent of these creatures and
-inflames them with hatred of Gethamane; but most of
-the gems and ores found by explorers come from mines
-initiated by underdwellers. Some of the creatures that
-attack Gethamane, however, are underdwellers slain
-and reconstructed by Vodak. The hekatonkhire itself
-created the soulsteel found in certain underways, as the
-intensity of its necrotic Essence transforms veins of iron
-ore when it passes.
-Scroll of Fallen Races is the principal source of
-information about the Mountain Folk. See also Dreams
-of the First Age: Book Two—Lords of Creation, pages
-–121 for brief treatments of the Mountain Folk and
-underfolk, while The Books of Sorcery, Vol. IV—The
-Roll of Glorious Divinity I describes the monstrous Leech
-Gods on pages 69–70.
-Gethamanians dress lightly. Most citizens wear cotton or
-silk robes or tunics and trousers. Guards wear tunics and
-trousers under their armor, though they also wear boots
-instead of the usual soft slippers. Farmers wear simple
-brown robes. Hunters and gatherers, of course, need heavy
-wool, fur and leather when they go outside. Regardless
-of occupation, Gethamanians prefer deep colors, grays,
-black or brown. They reserve brightly hued clothing for
-the bedchamber.
-FAMILIES AND ADOPTION
-Family and class intertwine in Gethamane. The prosperous
-folk of the Outer Ring and Garden District generally
-belong to clans who number in the hundreds and occupy
-large sectors of tunnels and chambers. The poorer folk of the
-Upper Ring still manage to live as extended families with
-dozens of aunts, uncles, cousins and kin all together. Quite
-simply, it takes a degree of wealth to acquire enough space
-for a family to stay together; but a family that stays together
-can also economize through hand-me-down clothing, stacking
-relatives in bunk beds instead of renting more space and
-similar expedients. The truly poor live in whatever disused
-corners of the city they can find. Their children are lucky if
-they can stay with their parents until adulthood. Many waifs
-make their own way in the city because their parents are too
-poor to care for them.
-Gethamanians reckon descent through the female line,
-though a woman’s current husband is legally the father of all
-her children. Families often adopt children too, a custom that
-began as a way to make sure that orphans—future workers—
-would survive and to provide childless couples with heirs to
-care for them in their old age. Now the custom has a life
-of its own, and most large families include a few adopted
-members. Adoption ends all ties to the former family, legally
-and (Gethamanians hope) emotionally.
-Gethamane doesn’t treat unions between cousins
-as incest but forbids unions between adopted siblings.
-Constant adoption prevents serious inbreeding, but many
-tragic plays deal with youths who fall in love with adopted
-siblings. (Such plays usually end with murderous rampages
-and suicide, or one lover nobly choosing exile. Comedies
-end with one lover adopted into a different family, making
-their marriage permissible.)
-When a Gethamanian of humble birth shows great skill
-and dedication, a wealthy and socially prominent family may
-adopt her. Not only does this provide Gethamane with a
-unique form of social mobility, it prevents the leading families
-from becoming stagnant and complacent.
-Most citizens are known by their personal name followed
-by a family name. For extra formality, Gethamanians give
-a person’s name followed by “of the such-and-such family.”
-Distinguished Gethamanians add a descriptive epithet, the
-way Bethan was called Redeye or the current Mistress Katrin
-is called Jadehand for the martial prowess she showed during
-her youth as a Guard.
-LEISURE
-Citizens who perform sufficient labor to earn their Dole
-can do whatever they want with any spare time. Respectable
-pastimes include quiet exercise, productive crafts (the current
-fad is carving imported driftwood), watching morally uplifting
-plays and writing pastiches of barbarian epics about honor
-and virtue. Gethamanians also enjoy music, favoring wind
-instruments or soft string instruments. Music never includes
-drums: Such instruments are reserved for the Guard’s use.
-Lives constrained by tunnel walls, crowded families,
-dependence on the Dole and vigilance against invading
-horrors result in many Gethamanians feeling the need for
-stronger and stranger release from tension. Behind closed
-doors (or pulled screens) they take a wide variety of drugs,
-from imported opium and qat to hallucinogenic local mushrooms.
-Casual sex, quite outside of marriage, is also common.
-Some Gethamanians seek pain instead of pleasure, leading
-to private sessions of torture between consenting (or paying)
-adults. Scarification is currently fashionable, sometimes
-undertaken using drugs to intensify the pain.
-Gethamanians are quite strict, though, that indecorous
-amusements not leave a mark or disturb the neighbors. Even
-the young who want to shock their parents keep their scars
-or welts hidden beneath clothing, so they can show a placid,
-pale and unmarked face in public. Likewise, Gethamanians
-only complain about a neighbor who copulates with imported
-goats if he doesn’t keep the noise down. The great unwritten
-law of Gethamane is simply this: Don’t make a fuss. Don’t
-disturb the functioning of the city. And, don’t be loud. Many
-ears are listening… and no matter what you do or where you
-do it, you want to hear the distant alarm-drum or the nearby
-hiss or scuttling that means the horrors are loose and you
-must run or fight for your life.
-FOREIGNERS
-While Gethamane has its poor, people from outside
-the city form the true underclass. By law, foreigners can
-stay in Gethamane for just one month a year, and they are
-strongly encouraged to stay in the Guild District. (Visitors
-who wander soon find Guards asking, with edged politeness,
-if they are lost. Visitors who wander near the Gardens find
-Guards drawing steel on them.) Shopkeepers overcharge
-them. Other Gethamanians treat them rudely. Even the
-beggars who smile and plead for coins then sneer and mock
-when no outsiders watch them. Foreigners stand out. They
-lack the subterranean pallor, the clothes, the accent and ways
-of speaking that characterize a Gethamanian.
-The only way a foreigner can stay indefinitely in
-Gethamane is for a native family to adopt them. Even
-marriage does not suffice: Gethamane does not recognize
-marriages to outsiders. Someone must attest that she takes
-the foreigner as a son or daughter. The adopted outsider
-then must register for the Dole and turn in timesheets that
-prove her daily labor, just like every other citizen. Such
-adopted citizens still endure chaffing and snubs for a while,
-CHAPTER THREE • THE CITY UNDER THE MOUNTAIN 41
-but they eventually learn to fit in and other Gethamanians
-learn to recognize them.
-Very few foreigners win adoption into Gethamanian
-society. Families reserve adoption as a reward for outsiders
-who make themselves truly beloved or who perform
-extraordinary services for the city. The Guild has tried for
-centuries to get agents adopted into Gethamane. So far,
-the result has been not the subversion of Gethamane but
-the disgrace of any family the Guild bribed or deluded into
-performing the adoption.
-The harvest goes to depots where the farmers issue
-the Dole. Minor administrators check the identity of each
-claimant and issue the requisite amount of food for the
-citizen’s family. Several Guards stand watch at every depot.
-These parts of the Garden District stay constantly busy, with
-queues of people waiting for the Dole and actors, musicians
-and other entertainers hoping to make a bit of silver by
-amusing them.
-The core of the Gardens holds a knot of small, oddly
-shaped caves with a pedestal in the center. The fungi overflow
-the trays here to cover the floor and walls, though never the
-pedestal. Glyphs engraved on the pedestal make the Garden’s
-basic operation obvious to anyone who studies them. Back
-in the first Age, a Dragon-Blooded manager of the Gardens
-wrote these instructions using the Craft Icon Charm (see
-The Manual of Exalted Power—The Dragon-Blooded,
-p. 130). Advanced procedures (involving alchemical treatments,
-special lighting conditions and the like) enable the
-Gardens to produce any sort of vegetable matter, but these
-are scribed on the walls in ordinary Old Realm script—and
-bioengineering jargon that few people in the Second Age
-could possibly understand.
-Over the centuries, the Gethamanians figured out that
-this cave is a powerful manse (Earth ••••), whose power is
-entirely devoted to fueling the Gardens’ magical fecundity.
-It has no known hearthstone.
-GUILD AMBITIONS
-In case it needs to be said, the Guild wants Gethamane.
-The Guild already uses the city as its hub for
-commerce in the Far North. The residency rules, however,
-inhibit factors from building long-term business
-relationships. Over the centuries, many factors have
-drawn up plans for using the secure location and food
-supply of Gethamane as the anchor for a commercial
-empire in the North. For instance, one plan calls for
-using troops from Gethamane to secure the bay to the
-North and turn it into a home port for an ice ship fleet
-that could contest Haslanti dominance in the White
-Sea. Such plans remain idle fancies, however, unless
-the Guild can bend Gethamane to its will.
-MAKING A LIVING
-However strange Gethamane seems to outsiders, its
-people still need to eat, craft tools and otherwise secure their
-livelihoods—even if they do things a little differently.
-FARMING
-The Gardens occupy a complex of long, dark caves.
-The entrances have light crystals, but the Gardens themselves
-are dark except for faint luminous streaks that mark
-the edges of paths and growing fields. Various sorts of fungi
-grow in shallow, bathtub-sized trays set in the floor. Only
-a few trays are cracked and no longer function. The entire
-circular array of chambers is two miles wide—probably the
-most productive acreage in Creation. The dung and offal
-that the farmers dump in the trays are wholly inadequate to
-sustain the mushrooms and other fungi that grow with unnatural
-speed to feed tens of thousands of people every day.
-Despite the unsavory fertilizer, the farmers keep the rest of
-the Gardens swept and scrubbed spotlessly clean.
-The farmers do not speak much as they work. Some
-farmers push barrows full of dung through the narrow
-paths between trays, then spread this fertilizer over the
-chosen beds. Other farmers add bits of the fungi they
-intend to grow or add water from wheeled tanks. A few
-hours later, the farmers trundle past with a new set of
-barrows for the harvest.
-THE FARMER CULT
-The Gethamanians do not realize that the Gardens’
-manse is damaged. It hasn’t suffered any sort of power
-failure, but spending too much time in the Gardens
-can affect a person’s mind. Affected people become
-obsessed with providing the Gardens with… richer
-compost. A secret cult among the farmers conducts
-human sacrifices. Now and then, a criminal sentenced
-to work in the Gardens suffers a “fatal accident” that
-leaves him spread-eagled over a tray, bled dry and
-emasculated before the body is discovered.
-Only senior farmers participate in the cult. The
-Mistress and several other leading citizens know about
-the cult but choose not to get involved. The older
-farmers believe they must propitiate the Gardens and
-the gods of fungi in this manner. Other Gethamanians
-believe the farmers and fear to change any of their
-traditions. An expert in geomancy or Craft (Genesis)
-who examines the Gardens’ instructions can tell that
-the sacrifices are completely unnecessary.
-HUNTING AND GATHERING
-The hunters and gatherers supply far less food than the
-Gardens, but other Gethamanians value their contribution
-a great deal. The Gethamanians could live exclusively on
-fungi from the Gardens (and have in the past, for years at a
-time) but the hunters and gathers supply flavor. The hunters
-bag reindeer, ducks and other game. The gatherers collect
-edible lichen, berries, bulbs from winter-hardy herbs and
-other foodstuffs. Hunters and gatherers can keep a fifth of
-what they bring to the city, to feed to their own family or sell.
-The rest goes to the Garden District depots for distribution
-as part of the Dole.
-Over the centuries, the hunters and gatherers absorbed
-just about every trade that involves bringing raw materials
-into Gethamane. For instance, Gethamanians consider logging
-a form of gathering.
-Some Gethamanians keep sheep and goats. During the
-brief summer, their herds graze on the mountain slopes.
-The animals spend the long winter inside the city with
-their owners, though. Gethamanians usually pen these
-animals in sections of the Upper Ring, among the poor.
-Their owners harvest huge amounts of hay to feed their
-beasts over the winter; as a result, animal husbandry is also
-treated as gathering.
-Five large warehouse-chambers, spaced around the Upper
-Ring, are kept cold with ice brought from outside. The
-city owns these chilled warehouses. Any Gethamanian can
-store food here, at a cost of one-twentieth the food’s value
-(or of the food itself). Hunters and gatherers often use this
-option, since keeping large amounts of valuable meat or
-vegetables in one’s home invites thievery. Plenty of Guards
-patrol the warehouses to protect their contents. The corridors
-near the warehouses bustle with merchants, beggars,
-hunters, gatherers and other citizens trying to strike deals.
-Wealthy Gethamanians can enjoy fresh reindeer steaks with
-cloudberry jelly. The poor hustle for suspiciously overripe
-snowshoe hare carcasses. It’s no accident that the poor folk
-of the Upper Ring suffer rates of food poisoning much higher
-than in the rest of Gethamane.
-Mining, too, is considered a form of gathering. Gethamane
-operates a few small mines for copper, salt and mica.
-The Guild operates several more, and Gethamane still gets
-most of its metal from the Guild.
-COMMERCE
-Guards direct all visitors to the Guild District of Gethamane,
-the site of most of the city’s commerce. Each of the 20
-passages to this district has a Guard post. Three large central
-caves hold the principal markets. The next rings out serve
-as warehouses. Beyond them lie accommodations for visitors
-and whatever Gethamanians (chiefly merchants and artisans)
-choose to live near the places where they trade. The Guild
-claims a large sector for its own caravans. Lesser merchants
-and miscellaneous travelers rent rooms from the Guild or
-from Gethamanian owners. Some visitors just camp in the
-warehouses or disused corridors.
-The Guard watches the Guild District closely. Guards
-at each entrance keep careful records of everyone who enters
-and leaves, and what they bring to the city. In daily sweeps
-through the district, the Guard seeks and removes people
-who overstay their one-month welcome. Guards also remind
-visitors who have a day or two to go that they should prepare
-to leave soon. The Guild District sees a constant turnover
-as traders come and go.
-THE THREE MARKETS
-As its name suggests, the Food Market sells food, in
-bulk or retail. Many enterprising citizens have set up snack
-bars and cooking stalls. The large stalls for imported raw,
-processed or preserved foods occupy the center of the cave.
-Further out lie smaller stalls for cooking services or luxury
-foods (including wine and beer). The northern end of the
-great circular chamber holds stalls for drugs and medicines.
-The largest stall belongs to the city of Gethamane itself. It
-sells food from the fungal gardens at a low price to undercut
-most of the other food stalls, and bring more revenue to the
-city government.
-The Metal Market deals in goods made of metal or
-stone, both raw materials and finished products. Naturally,
-weapons and armor make up a good bit of the business.
-Some artisans set up shop in the market itself to forge
-items to order, keeping the market both smoky and
-noisy. The Metal Market is also the traditional spot to
-sell treasures recovered from the underways, even in the
-(admittedly rare) cases when such items are not mineral
-in nature.
-The Wood Market began by selling timber, firewood
-and furniture. It then branched out into cloth and by now
-has become a catchall for any commodity or service that
-doesn’t deal with food or metal. Knowledge is the Wood
-Market’s most distinctive trade: petty thaumaturges,
-charm-sellers and diviners, guides to the city and the
-surrounding countryside, books, and of course “true and
-verifiable” maps to the underways. The Guard turns a blind
-eye to such frauds, as Gethamanians believe that anyone
-stupid enough to fall for such a scam deserves whatever
-happens to him.
-In contrast to Gethamane’s usual mania for control, the
-city lets merchants hash out for themselves who parks their
-COOKERY
-Much of the Dole is simply washed, sliced,
-spiced and eaten raw. Living underground limits
-Gethamanian cooking: The ventilation system
-cannot handle a lot of smoke. People often stir-fry
-their food using dried grass for short bursts of intense
-heat. They also pack slow-burning, nearly smokeless
-fuel such as dried peat within a heavy crock and
-place a smaller pot within it. Gethamanians often
-freeze-dry foodstuff on the windswept mountain
-heights, then reconstitute it by stewing it in such a
-“Gethamane oven.”
-CHAPTER THREE • THE CITY UNDER THE MOUNTAIN 43
-stall where. The Guild naturally has the largest stalls in the
-best locations. All stalls are made of wood. Some trading
-groups arrange to use a stall in shifts as they enter and leave
-the city, so they can keep a good location. Some stalls stay
-in the same location for decades, which brings considerable
-respect to their owners.
-TRIBUNAL CAVE
-The most opulent chamber in the Guild District is
-reserved for consultations between Guild factors and local
-officials, or any merchants whose wealth or power earn
-them the Guild’s respect. Ornate gilded tables, chairs and
-divans, costly silks and brocades, ornaments of porcelain
-and jade and other fripperies serve to impress visitors
-with the Guild’s wealth. Costly liquors and exotic drugs
-impair a visitor’s judgment in other ways. The Guild can
-also bring in superb courtesans or anything or anyone else
-needed to bedazzle or befuddle a target. Meetings range
-from staid discussions of tariffs and commercial law to
-wild debauches—with a contract and pen offered at a
-strategic moment.
-The Guild uses its own mercenaries to protect Tribunal
-Cave, and keeps the city Guard away as much as possible.
-Naturally, the Guard takes every excuse to search Tribunal
-Cave. Indeed, the Guard takes any chance to ransack Guild
-quarters in search of incriminating documents or other evidence
-of misbehavior.
-RELIGION AND THE SUPERNATURAL
-Most Gethamanians are not very religious. They leave
-such matters to priestly professionals. Gethamane’s own gods
-make few demands—they haven’t even given their names—
-and other gods show little interest in the City Under the
-Mountain. Worshipers of other gods can set up shrines in the
-Guild District. The city sets aside several rooms for visitors
-to dress in whatever temporary temple trappings they want.
-Only Immaculate shrines are not allowed—a centuries-old
-holdover from an encounter with exceptionally high-handed
-missionaries that went badly. Shrines are forbidden elsewhere
-in the city (though the Guards ignore portable traveler’s
-shrines unless they want an excuse to harass a visitor). As
-long as worshipers do not break Gethamane’s civil laws, the
-city government turns a blind eye.
-TEMPLES TO UNKNOWN GODS
-Gethamane’s temples consist of three spacious rooms near
-the top of the mountain. Their walls bear jewel-encrusted
-carvings of mountains and strange flying creatures. (The
-decorations include tiny quantities of moonsilver, starmetal,
-orichalcum and jade, but extracting a useful amount would
-take days of very public effort.) Blue-white Essence fires burn
-above the three circular altars.
-People who enter the temples feel an eerie sense of being
-watched, but no deity has ever manifested. Those who sleep in
-a temple experience vivid, confusing dreams, often of frantic
-searching or desperate flight. Some dreamers find answers to
-questions that bothered them. This is the chief reason why
-Gethamanians visit the temples. More likely, dreamers spend
-the next few nights in sleepless anticipation or dread. A few
-feel called to serve as priests. A very few wake in screaming
-terror. They cannot remember their dreams but cannot bear
-to spend another minute in the city. Gethamanians know
-that such people may injure or kill themselves if kept from
-escaping. Fortunately, they seem to recover their wits once
-they depart and can no longer see the mountain.
-Gethamanians do not become priests deliberately. The
-priesthood began early in the settlement of Gethamane,
-when a few loners who slept in the temples then told Bethan
-Redeye that they had to serve in the temples instead of doing
-other work. The first Mistress of Gethamane acquiesced. All
-subsequent priests have been similarly dream-called. Priests
-receive a share in the Dole equal to that of a mid-ranking
-Guard or farmer.
-Priests abandon their old lives. They offer flowers and
-animal blood on the altars. Late at night, the priests cover
-the temple floors with complex designs drawn in ink, colored
-sand or, occasionally, their own blood, while chanting in an
-unknown tongue. The priests cannot explain either their
-mandalas or their liturgies, but they feel driven to perform
-both. Afterward, they clean and polish the temples.
-The acolytes themselves have no hierarchy. The Master
-or Mistress of Gethamane appoints a High Priest or Priestess,
-just so the city’s Council has a single person with which to
-work. Gethamanians call the other priests Father or Mother,
-regardless of their age.
-In addition to propitiating Gethamane’s nameless gods
-and assisting people who want to dream in the temples, the
-priests act as exorcists. When Gethamanians feel that some
-malign influence affects their lives, they call in a priest to
-conduct banishing rituals. These ceremonies involve lots
-of community participation. When the malign influence
-is a grudge between neighbors, the shared ritual can help
-ease the conflict. Yet, some priests study the thaumaturgical
-Art of Warding and Exorcism (see The Books of
-Sorcery, Vol. III—Oadenol’s Codex, pp. 141–144) in
-case the malign influence is a rampaging demon or other
-supernatural horror.
-THE DEAD
-By law, Gethamanians cremate their dead in the
-Essence-fires of the temples. Families keep the ashes in small
-ornamental boxes, scatter them on the mountain slope or add
-them to the fertilizer for the Gardens. Some families do not
-want to relinquish the bodies of their loved ones, however,
-leading to a small industry of illicit embalming and taxidermy.
-These families bribe suitable bureaucrats to attest to a body’s
-cremation, then actually have the corpse preserved. Now
-and then, an embalmed (or stuffed) corpse is discovered in
-a hidden room or secreted in a family’s quarters. This always
-leads to a search of the area for other bodies and the arrest of
-everyone involved. No one knows the full extent of mortuary
-crime, but it is especially common among the rich families
-of Gethamane, who can afford the needed bribery and have
-the space to hide their ancestors.
-Despite this illicit ancestor reverence, Gethamane has
-no true ancestor cult. This is because Gethamane has no
-ghosts at all. Gethamanians accept this as normal.
-SECRETS OF THE TEMPLES
-The source of the chants and mandalas is obscure
-but not unknowable: The liturgies are in High Holy
-Speech, the language of the Dragon Kings. The temple
-walls portray members of the Pterok breed of this
-ancient, nearly extinct race. The inscriptions found
-in the chambers used by the hunters and gatherers are
-likewise written in this obscure tongue. The priests’
-mandalas, however, come from the practices of the
-Mountain Folk.
-Each of the three temples houses a god of air, sky
-and flight. The Solars who built Gethamane recruited
-these three small gods to circulate the city’s air and
-keep it fresh. When the City of the Mountain Gateway
-died, the gods lost all their worshippers; the gods
-found no help in Yu-Shan, for the other gods were
-preoccupied with the Usurpation and losses among
-their own worshipers. So the three gods waited in their
-temples, alone and slowly going mad, but continuing
-their duty.
-The gods try to touch the minds of sleepers and
-help them with their problems, but they aren’t very
-good at it. Some dreamers catch a bit of the gods’
-insanity and feel compelled to serve as their priests.
-Others receive the gods’ memories of the First Age
-city’s extermination by Vodak. This drives them mad
-with the need to flee.
-GHOSTS IN GETHAMANE
-Few of the materialistic Gethamanians become
-ghosts after death. They never last long if they do.
-Vodak spawns numerous smaller versions of itself that
-sweep through Gethamane’s counterpart in the Underworld,
-and immaterially through the city in Creation.
-Those with Essence senses (such as All-Encompassing
-Sorcerer’s Sight) occasionally see a wash of silver move
-swiftly through a room or corridor. The rush affects
-nothing in the material world, but any immaterial
-creature is most likely doomed. In the Underworld,
-Vodak’s spawn devour any ghost within minutes.
-CHAPTER THREE • THE CITY UNDER THE MOUNTAIN 45
-THE EXALTED AND OTHER ESSENCE WIELDERS
-Gethamanians do not much like the Terrestrial Exalted,
-chiefly because of high-handed Immaculates and Dynasts. They
-also know the danger of showing such dislike. The Dragon-
-Blooded rarely stay in Gethamane for long, though. They have
-bad dreams as the maddened gods clumsily try to warn them
-and, through them, the long-dead Solar Deliberative.
-The people have no experience with other Exalted—that
-they know about—so they base their opinions on stories.
-They fear the Lunar Exalted as patrons of the icewalkers and
-other barbarians. The Bull of the North is distant but sounds
-dangerous. Of course, Gethamanians have no knowledge of
-the Sidereals. Other Exalted are too new for Gethamanians
-to know about them. Any Exalted who visit Gethamane,
-or Exalt among them, could determine how the people feel
-about their kind for centuries to come.
-Gethamane’s hunters and gatherers occasionally encounter
-the Fair Folk. The tales of the survivors ensure the
-Gethamanians’ thorough hatred and fear of the raksha. Fortunately
-for Gethamane, the local Fair Folk have no desire to
-enter a city that gives them the creeping horrors—not even
-fae who normally might relish such a strange and dramatic
-emotion. Fair Folk blame this aversion on the city’s jade
-and orichalcum gates, not on quiescent reality engines or
-an instinctual sense for Vodak’s presence.
-Demons rarely enter Gethamane—most likely summoned
-or sent there on a mission by a sorcerer or thaumaturge.
-Gethamanians abhor demons as much as most people do.
-Demons also seem to loathe Gethamane, and do not linger
-even when they have the chance. They feel something immensely
-darker and more dangerous than themselves lurking
-nearby. Gods and elementals avoid the city for the same
-reason, though none of these spirits can find the ultimate
-source of the terrifying Essence.
-Gethamane’s limited contact with supernatural creatures
-means the city has almost no God-Blooded citizens or other
-half-breed channelers of Essence. Gethamanians rarely try to
-enlighten their own Essence either, due to their cultural isolation
-and lack of any institution to encourage this practice.
-The Guard wants to recruit thaumaturges for the enchantments,
-talismans and alchemical medicines they can
-provide. The city has few skilled thaumaturges, though.
-Thaumaturgically proficient outsiders who want to join the
-Guard can easily wangle adoption into a family with strong
-traditions of Guard membership.
-DISREPUTABLE FOLK
-Most Gethamanians like to think of their society as
-prosperous and orderly, controlled and smugly secure. Nevertheless,
-the city has its poor, its discontented and indeed
-its actively criminal.
-THE JADE HOSPICE
-Not far from the temples lies Gethamane’s largest charity
-hospital, the Jade Hospice. Citizens who volunteer as a way
-to earn their Dole, and minor lawbreakers who pay their debt
-to society as unskilled labor or nursing staff, assist the staff
-of priests and healers. The hospice sees a constant stream of
-sick and injured poor people from the Upper Ring. The Jade
-Hospice does not have the best-trained staff of Gethamane’s
-hospitals, but it currently has the most reliable funding. Its
-director, the matronly Enath Daur, comes from a leading
-farmer family. She also holds a Council seat, where she works
-to improve the lot of Upper Ring folk, or at least make sure
-they are not further marginalized.
-THE JANISSARY VAULT
 Not everyone in Gethamane relies on the Guard for
 their safety. The Janissary Vault, located in the Outer Ring,
@@ Line 1,065: / Line 403: @@
 Janissary Vault, but the business has stayed independent
 since it began 50 years ago.
 The Vault’s mercenaries are about evenly divided
 between outsiders who managed to wangle adoption into
@@ Line 1,076: / Line 415: @@
 shut down the Janissary Vault, or at least force it to register
 every job and client.
-THE PHILOSOPHY CELL
-A collection of public meeting rooms in the Outer Ring
-hosts an informal club of amateur intellectuals and pseudointellectuals.
-Members range from young people who want
-to pick up some radical ideas with which to shock their
-parents, to careful scholars of Gethamane’s many mysteries.
-In between are unlicensed thaumaturges, drug addicts,
-devotees of self-created religions and people who just want
-to argue. Most members are harmless and frivolous. A few
-regulars are serious and capable savants, varying widely in
-their ethics—from Serret of the Bethanites, a painstaking
-amateur historian of the city, to the alchemist Tazar Pellan,
-who tests his concoctions on people who want “mystical
-experiences,” to Damaithe Yarni, a thaumaturge and closet
-demonologist.
-THE RAT’S NEST
-A gang of juvenile thieves makes its clubhouse in an
-abandoned, junk-filled storehouse in the eastern sector of
-the Outer Ring. Most of the children come from middle- or
-upper-class families and think that their “Society of Thieves”
-is all a grand game organized by their leader, Jaxar. The
-children commit petty thefts, pull pranks and generally
-cause mischief.
-The children know that Jaxar isn’t really a fellow child,
-but they don’t think of her as really a grown-up, either. Jaxar
-is a dwarf with a preternaturally youthful face… and she works
-for the Guild. The children do not realize that the gossip
-they pass to their young-old playmate goes to the Guild—
-or that exposure of their naughty deeds could disgrace their
-families. Jaxar watches their parents to gauge who she could
-blackmail through their children’s misdeeds. She expects
-to build a cadre of citizens in Gethamane’s upper class who
-serve the Guild to avoid disgrace.
-SEVENTH HALL
-Despite their poverty, the Rasri family of dung-carriers,
-sweepers and garbage pickers have held this set of chambers
-in the Upper Ring for many years. They now use the Seventh
-Hall as the meeting place for a conspiracy of other poor and
-discontented Gethamanians. The conspirators are angry
-with the city’s government and want to replace it with the
-Guild. They imagine that they would get rich if they could
-own slaves to do the drudgery they currently perform, and
-that the Guild could make Gethamane the mightiest nation
-of the North. Family patriarch and conspiracy leader Yftar
-Rasri seeks Guild support for his conspiracy. So far, the Guild
-rejects his advances as obvious attempts at entrapment.
-== GOVERNMENT ==
-Administering the Dole requires a small army of petty bureaucrats, who monitor every citizen’s activities to make
+Not all of Gethamane’s fighters go into the Guard — or manage to stay there. Those who were expelled from the Guard or were unable to endure its discipline or those who have entered Gethamane from outside and been adopted by a local family are all welcome to join the Janissary Vault.
-sure that she deserves her share of the fungus gardens’ bounty.
-In some ways, however, Gethamane’s government remains that of a small town. At its heart, the city’s government consists of a leader, an old, rich and powerful extended family, and a small group of cronies.
+This organization has been operating for 50 years now (previous Masters discouraged the formation of any such organization) and provides hired bodyguards, warriors and general thugs.
-== THE RULING CLASS ==
+While the Janissary Vault publicly proclaims that it abides by the laws of Gethamane and would never even consider doing anything remotely illegal, in practice, a sufficiently intelligent and discreet hirer can buy services up to — though usually not including — murder. (The current Vaultmaster doesn’t want to give the Council any excuse for a crackdown.) Being in the Janissary Vault is not considered genuine service to the City, so members only get the basic Dole. As a result, they are constantly on the lookout for potential work.
-The descendants of Bethan Redeye still rule Gethamane.
+Despite the close similarity of functions, the Janissary Vault has no actual connection with the Guild itself,
-The city’s monarch, called the Master or Mistress, chooses a successor from the Bethanite clan—usually a son, daughter, niece or nephew, but sometimes from remote cousins. The monarch always must have a designated heir, though the designation can be changed at whim. In Gethamane’s only recorded coup attempt, the disgruntled Mineko Threebrand of the Guard tried poisoning all the then-Master’s close relatives. The Master quickly adopted three leading Gethamanians (all remotely descended from Bethan Redeye) as his offspring to replenish the clan. Today, the Bethanites number more than 2,000—all of them potential heirs. Most Bethanites work as administrators, magistrates, accountants and scribes. They form much of the city’s civil service. Bethanites often undergo basic training as guards or farmers as well, the better to deal with those important institutions. Indeed, custom holds that a Bethanite who wants to administer some aspect of city life should have practiced it as well. Most of all, though, Gethamane needs educated clerks and shrewd negotiators to distribute the Dole and deal with Guild. Some members of the clan choose occupations ranging from painter to swordsman, but they all start by learning arithmetic, reading and writing.
+though the Guild would be delighted to absorb it as an affiliate. Should this happen, Mistress Katrin would have
+to take urgent action of some sort, ranging from declaring the Janissary Vault illegal to requiring close observation and registration of all the Vault’s jobs and actions.
-Gethamane’s current ruler is Katrin Jadehand, a woman in her 50s who has been Mistress for 10 years. She was both
-the previous Master’s choice and a popular favorite. Katrin spends a great deal of time pondering how best to assure her city’s stability and survival. While she pragmatically realizes that Gethamane might need to ally with some greater power, she would rather avoid this—and she will try not to accept any alliance that she cannot afford to break later.
-== THE INTELLIGENCERS ==
+==== HIDDEN FIRE MANSE ====
-Everyone in Gethamane knows that Bethanite family members pass information to the city’s Mistress. To learn
+The Janissary Vault doesn’t realize that there is an old Fire-aspected Manse (Manse ••) located directly above the set of caves in which they’re based. Concealed by hidden doors and by careful design of the surrounding passages, the Manse was originally used as a private laboratory by a Twilight Caste Solar who visited Gethamane frequently before the Usurpation. The fact that the Manse is safely capped has stopped random flares of Essence
-what citizens and visitors don’t want the government to know, the Mistress has spies called Intelligencers. Undercover informants are difficult to recruit, though. Adopted outsiders can’t pass for native Gethamanians, and the strong tradition of family loyalty means that few Gethamanians would serve the Mistress ahead of their own kin.
+or other possibly dangerous manifestations, but even so, something of the temperament and nature of fire leaks out into the vicinity, fanning local flames of aggression and igniting passions. The Manse itself is a small set of rooms, furnished with expensive but old wooden furniture and with a few sorcerous texts (mostly standard reference works) left behind by the previous owner. The Manse was sealed and empty of human life when Vodak struck, and the hekatonkhire never entered it.
-The Head Intelligencer, a man called Shakan who poses as a Deputy Almoner in the Dole administration, solves this problem through blackmail. His agents all watch for criminal activity. Shakan then threatens the criminal with exposure and attendant disgrace to her family. Once a blackmail victim works as an informer, she is caught: Gethamanians despise the Intelligencers, so an exposed agent suffers worse ostracism than she might have received from her original crime.
-Shakan has agents throughout Gethamanian society. He has no agents among the priests, whose religious obsessions
-sever them from most aspects of mundane life. The Head Intelligencer has a few spies among foreign merchants, but
-he does not trust them very much. Shakan very much wants to recruit informants within the Guild, as he does not trust the merchant princes one bit.
-== THE COUNCIL ==
+'''THE PHILOSOPHY CELL'''
-The Mistress of Gethamane appoints a committee of 15 advisors: three each from the city guards, the farmers,
+A collection of public meeting rooms in the [[Outer Ring]] hosts an informal club of amateur intellectuals and pseudointellectuals. It is a haven for unlicensed thaumaturges, devotees of self-created religions, drug addicts, people who just want to argue, young people who want to pick up some radical ideas to shock their parents,, and amateur historians attempting to discover the true history of Gethamane.
-the hunters and gatherers, the artisans and the merchants. Bethan Redeye began the custom and now no one would
-dream of challenging it. The Council meets three times a month, though the Mistress can call for special sessions.
-These advisors have no official power, but serving as the voices for their occupations gives Council members
+It has spread from a single-room debating society to encompass several rooms that are officially listed as public meeting places. The current occupants aren’t actually breaking any laws, but the Guard could easily move in and clear the place out if they wanted to.
-great prestige and influence. Any member of their interest group who wants to lobby the Mistress does it through his delegates. On the other hand, a shrewd Mistress knows that she must keep the five great factions happy, and so treats her Council with respect. Mistress Katrin often acts more as a mediator between the delegates than as an autocrat (and some past Masters and Mistresses became virtual puppets of powerful Councils).
-Council members hold their posts until they die, resign or are fired by the city’s Mistress. When a faction loses a delegate, senior faction members offer the Mistress a list of possible replacements. The Mistress then selects a new Council member from the list. Vacancies on the Council result in a frenzy of politicking from the faction in question, from other Council members seeking the appointment of allies and from the Guild. In the event that all three of a faction’s posts fall vacant, the Mistress can appoint new delegates without consultation, as the city most likely faces an immediate crisis.
+Though it is a hangout for the young and frivolous, serious research does take place here. A number of regulars are professional and capable in their respective fields.
-== THE ADMINISTRATION ==
+Notable members include:
+* '''Damaithe Yarni'''; thaumaturge and secret demonologist
+* '''Serret of the Bethanites'''; a painstaking but reliable historian — who reports all he observes to Gethamane's Mistress
+* '''Tazar Pellan'''; a cold-blooded alchemist testing out some of his concoctions on those wanting mystical experiences
+* '''Arik Varken''', willing to try anything that will shock his family.
-All of Gethamane’s government offices occupy the outer circles of the Garden District. Each location actually consists of several large rooms and corridors. Here, clerks keep the Dole lists and records of visitors to the city. The Council meets in one large chamber, adorned with portraits of past Masters and Mistresses. Citizens can visit the Hall of Records and Hall of Maps to check on property lines. (Outsiders can consult these records as well, for a small fee.) Magistrates resolve civil disputes and try criminal cases in the Courthouse.
-Children who receive any education beyond basic literacy and arithmetic go to a school connected to the City Library.
-Bethanites staff many of the government posts but at least a third of the clerks and officials come from other families.
+'''THE RAT’S NEST'''
-Even more than the rest of Gethamane, the administrative areas stay busy all the time. Each shift of functionaries simply takes the desks vacated by the shift before them.
+This abandoned storehouse and junkyard far to the east of the Outer Ring serves as home to [[Jaxar]] and her group of child-thieves - all children of 14 years or less, mostly from the middle or upper classes, who regard the whole “Society of Thieves” as a huge game. The children regularly execute pranks or petty thefts for her. As of yet, considering what might happen if she chooses to pass information about the children’s crimes to the Guard, none of the children have realized how deeply they are in her power.
-Children attend school in shifts as well, and mobs of children surge through the tunnels at each shift change. Only the Council doesn’t work around the clock, though sessions may last for days as members debate especially knotty or contentious issues.
-The Garden District includes the rooms and offices of Gethamane’s ruler, passed from Master to Mistress for centuries. It’s a point of pride to change as little as possible from Bethan Redeye’s original sparse furniture and belongings.
-== LAW AND CRIME ==
+'''SEVENTH HALL'''
-Gethamane’s law centers on the Three Rules set down by Bethan Redeye. Both civil disputes and criminal trials
+The '''Rasri family''' have held this set of chambers in the [[Upper Ring]] for many years despite their poverty, working as dung-carriers, sweepers and garbage pickers. They now use the Seventh Hall as the meeting place for a conspiracy of other poor and discontented Gethamanians angry with the city’s government, wanting to replace it with the Guild, imagining they would get rich if they could own slaves to do the drudgery they currently perform, and that the Guild could make Gethamane the mightiest nation of the North.
-often hinge on whether or how one of the Three Rules was broken.
-== THE FIRST RULE ==
+The bitter but cowardly family patriarch '''Yftar Rasri''' is also the de facto leader of the conspiracy. While the conspirators haven’t yet managed to make credible contact with a Guild representative — a previous attempt was rejected by the Guildsman in question as “an obvious case of entrapment to give the Mistress more ammunition against us” — it’s only a matter of time.
-Blood pays for blood, but it must serve the city: All crimes of personal assault shall be paid as debts to Gethamane, and Gethamane shall reimburse the victim in turn.
+== LEGAL SYSTEM ==
-The First Rule covers all assaults on another person, from public brawling to rape or murder. Minor assaults are punished by fining or a period of forced labor. Half the proceeds go to the victim and half to the city (or all to the city when both parties are culpable, as when a quarrel escalates to a public fight and no one can prove who started it). Maiming, accidental death and rape result in major fining, a long period of hard labor, exile or some combination of the three. Murderers are condemned to permanent hard labor, exile or execution. A dead victim’s share of any restitution goes to her family. In cases of homicide, proof of self-defense or extreme provocation can reduce a sentence but not eliminate it completely: Gethamane cannot tolerate the loss of any citizen’s labor.
+Crime, in Gethamane, was defined by Bethan Redeye as “trespass on person, property or domain.” This was further codified by her grandson '''Senet''' into the Three Rules, which are the main source of Gethamane’s law and have been clarified over the years by other Masters and Mistresses of Gethamane.
-== THE SECOND RULE ==
+Trials take place weekly in the Courthouse in front of three judges:
+* one a Bethanite,
+* one a senior member of the Guard
+* one a senior member of the farmers.
+(Lately, there has been a movement among the artisans, the merchants and the hunters and gatherers to permit other judges from their ranks, but it lacks support among the Guards and farmers.)
-Jade pays for jade: All crimes of theft or other trespass on another’s goods shall be repaid twofold, once to the victim and once to the city.
+Complainant and criminal both state their cases to the panel of judges. If the complainant is unable to speak or otherwise present her case, then a family member or Guard may do so in her place (the latter usually in cases of homicide). Information obtained through spells or bound demons are permissible evidence, though attempting to sorcerously influence a judge is considered a serious case of personal assault and garners the appropriate penalty.
-This law covers all forms of theft, including forms of fraud such as giving short weight or delivering goods of lower quality than promised. Damaging a person’s possessions (including slaves) also falls under this law. Under the Second Rule, it’s a crime to charge outsiders less than a citizen of Gethamane — this is stealing from the city’s prosperity as a whole. The city’s magistrates and accountants measure losses to the last grain of jade and insist on precise repayment, though transactions use the Guild’s silver more often than jade.
+The judges consider all the evidence, deliberate, then pronounce sentence. Gethamane’s law centers on the Three Rules set down by Bethan Redeye. Both civil disputes and criminal trials often hinge on whether or how one of the Three Rules was broken.
-== THE THIRD RULE ==
-What we have, we hold: All crimes of trespass on another’s domain shall be paid for by a gift of land in turn, or the Dole shall be remitted and the trespasser cast forth to starve.
-If people who dislike each other cannot escape each other’s company, their enmity can escalate to murder. Gethamanians, therefore, value privacy as much as life and property, and trespass on another family’s territory becomes a serious crime. Gethamanians treat malicious gossip about another person’s activities as a form of trespass.
+=== THE FIRST RULE ===
-When two disputing parties share a property line, the penalty usually consists of moving that boundary by a foot or two to give the victim a section of the trespasser’s territory.
+''"'''Blood pays for blood, but it must serve the city:''' All crimes of personal assault shall be paid as debts to Gethamane, and Gethamane shall reimburse the victim in turn."''
-This results in many instances of two families sharing a room, with screens set up to give them an illusion of privacy. It can, indeed, be grounds for lawsuit to respond to anything one hears on the other side of such a screen… though noise of a sufficient volume (or sufficiently disturbing nature) that it cannot be ignored is also an offense. When disputants do not share a boundary, the city confiscates part of the trespasser’s property, then allows her family to “buy it back” and pays the resulting silver to the plaintiff’s family. Gethamanians are strict about privacy and property, but not insane.
+The First Rule covers all cases of assault, from petty fights to rape or murder.
-The Guard can go anywhere in pursuit of a monster from the underways, and people fleeing a monster likewise have a right to cross another family’s property. (Indeed, a civic defense crisis trumps all questions of privacy and territory.) Families usually forgive trespass by children when a game of hide-and-seek gets out of hand (though their parents might be notified). Persistent trespass by older children can result in lawsuit, though, and the child’s family suffers significant disgrace.
+* Minor assault (up to the loss of an extremity) carries a fine of goods or service; Gethamane and the victim takes half each (or Gethamane takes all if both parties are culpable - such as a public fight where no one can prove who started it).
-Trespass becomes treason where the Gardens are concerned. Any citizen who helps outsiders enter the Gardens commits a crime comparable to murder, for they endanger
+* Major assault, maiming, accidental death, or rape carries the penalty of a major fine, permanent hard labor, exile or a combination of the three.
-the city itself.
-== TRIAL AND PUNISHMENT ==
+* Murder is penalized by permanent hard labor, exile or execution.
-Trials take place in the Courthouse, a set of variously-sized chambers. Three magistrates hear every case: a professional judge who is usually a Bethanite, a senior Guard and a senior farmer. The accused and the plaintiff both state their cases to the panel of judges. If a plaintiff cannot speak on her own behalf, a relative or Guard can become her advocate (the latter usually in cases of homicide). Gethamane’s courts accept information obtained by magic or bound demons. The three judges deliberate on the evidence, consult precedents and deliver a verdict and sentence. Any attempt to influence a judge, whether by bribery, threats or magic, is a major personal assault and punished accordingly.
+In all above cases, if the victim is dead or incapable of receiving reimbursement, their share is paid to their family. In cases of homicide, a proof of self-defense or extreme provocation can reduce a sentence but not eliminate it completely: Gethamane cannot tolerate the loss of any citizen’s labor.
-Judges reserve execution as their ultimate sanction.
+=== THE SECOND RULE ===
-More often, a murderer, traitor or other major felon is blinded, branded and condemned to work in the Gardens for the rest of his life. (Which might not be that long, as such convicts become favorite victims of the farmer cult.)
+''"'''Jade pays for jade:''' All crimes of theft or other trespass on another’s goods shall be repaid twofold, once to the victim and once to the city."
+''
+The Second Rule is straightforward and carried out precisely to the last grain of jade that can be measured.
+This law covers:
-Judges actually regard exile as a merciful punishment, and often use it to punish crimes of passion. An exile can even serve his sentence in Gethamane’s mines, and so remain loosely connected to the city. Temporary exile usually lasts five years. After that, the criminal can resume his place in the city and among his family.
+* forms of fraud (e.g.: giving short weight or delivering goods of lower quality than promised),
+* damaging a person’s possessions (including slaves)
+* charging outsiders less than a citizen of Gethamane (this is stealing from the city’s prosperity as a whole).
+Under the Second Rule, Gethamanians cannot claim animals that escape their pens: They must return the beast to its owner.
+=== THE THIRD RULE ===
-== SLAVERY IN GETHAMANE ==
+'' "'''What we have, we hold:''' All crimes of trespass on another’s domain shall be paid for by a gift of land in turn, or the Dole shall be remitted and the trespasser cast forth to starve." ''
-Even though lawbreakers can be sentenced to a life of hard labor in the Gardens, Gethamane forbids individuals from owning slaves. Any labor must be hired, and hiring an outsider carries a hefty tariff. Gerath, the second Master, made this law so that citizens could find work and to forestall slave uprisings. Some merchants lobby to repeal this law, but most Gethamanians want to preserve tradition. They identify slavery with the Guild, and while Gethamanians know the Guild is necessary, they also know the Guild is not their friend. Gethamane’s law does not emancipate slaves who enter the city, however. Therefore, Guild caravans regularly bring coffles of slaves through Gethamane. The Second Rule applies to slaves within the city, and so the Guard can prevent serious cruelty to slaves. If Guards witness beatings or other mistreatment, they can and do arrest everyone in sight on charges of “damaging another person’s property.” The owner of the slaves then must testify that he was damaging his own property, or ordered another person to do so on his behalf. No one suffers any punishment in such cases, but the confusion and delay caused by the trial does not help a slave caravan’s profits or reputation.
+The most difficult rule to administer is vitally necessary in an enclosed city such as Gethamane, where questions of trespass and personal privacy become important enough to lead to murder.
-Under the Second Rule, Gethamanians cannot claim animals that escape their pens: They must return the beast
+Gethamanians, therefore, value privacy as much as life and property, and trespass on another family’s territory becomes a serious crime. Gethamanians treat malicious gossip about another person’s activities as a form of trespass.
-to its owner. The Guard, however, seldom chooses to help owners find slaves who escape in Gethamane. An escaped
-slave who is adopted into a citizen family also leaves the Second Rule’s purview, as she becomes a citizen herself.
-Gethamane includes a few abolitionists who encourage slaves to escape and come to them for adoption, though the city government does not encourage this practice.
+When two disputing parties share a property line, the penalty usually consists of moving that boundary by a 1-2' to give the victim a section of the trespasser’s territory. This can result in rooms being shared between two families, with screens set up to give both sides some semblance of privacy.
+When disputants do not share a boundary, the city confiscates part of the trespasser’s property, and allows her family to “buy it back”, paying the fine to the plaintiff’s family.
-FOREIGN RELATIONS
+It can, indeed, be grounds for lawsuit to respond to anything one hears on the other side of such a screen… though noise of a sufficient volume (or sufficiently disturbing nature) that it cannot be ignored is also an offense.
-Gethamane has little direct contact with the rest of Creation. Few Gethamanians travel, and few other people
-want to visit this remote bastion of civilization. No one can conquer Gethamane, and Gethamane cannot threaten anyone else. Most Gethamanians know very little about the rest of Creation. Gethamane’s Mistress and Council now believe, however, that they must learn a great deal more about their neighbors… particularly the Bull of the North.
-The Realm never troubled Gethamane. Dynasts occasionally visited to seek treasure in the underways, and far-traveling legions occasionally bought provisions at Gethamane, but the city never paid tribute. The Empress once commissioned her strategoi to evaluate Gethamane for conquest: These worthies concluded that the feat was possible for the Dynasty but not worth the trouble. Past Masters and Mistresses did not flaunt their defiance of the Realm, so the Empress never felt the need to make an example of the city.
+While strict about privacy and property, Gethamanians are not insane. Simply running through someone else’s territory doesn’t qualify for full punishment under the Third Rule, but is usually settled by a simple fine of jade or services. Families usually forgive trespass by children when a game of hide-and-seek gets out of hand (though their parents might be notified). Persistent trespass by older children can result in lawsuit, though, and the child’s family suffers significant disgrace.
-Since the Empress’s disappearance, no one in the Realm pays much attention to the remote subterranean city.
+Guard can go anywhere in pursuit of a monster from the underways, and people fleeing a monster likewise have a right to cross another family’s property. A civic defense crisis trumps all questions of privacy and territory.
-Whitewall is the closest that Gethamane comes to an ally. Neither city has many other neighbors (that are human,
-at least). Gethamane’s leaders cultivate merchants from Whitewall just to remind the Guild that they can be replaced; and it’s often cheaper to buy Whitewall’s metalwork directly than through Guild intermediaries.
+Trespass becomes treason where the Gardens are concerned. Any citizen who helps outsiders enter the Gardens commits a crime comparable to murder, for they endanger the city itself.
+(Citizens of Gethamane do not find this sort of situation amusing, and outsiders are advised not to make jokes about it publicly.)
+Children doing this aren’t generally brought up in front of the court for it, as it is expected that a hint to their family will settle the problem. However, in the event of persistent misbehavior by older children, it has been known to occur. This is considered a significant disgrace for the family in question.
+=== Punishment ===
+Though execution is the ultimate sanction, the Council prefers a more demonstrative penalty for the most serious crimes.
+Those found guilty of violent murder, serious fraud or conspiracy to give outsiders access to Gethamane’s Gardens are blinded, branded and set to labor for the rest of their lives in the fungus gardens. There, while doing heavy work that doesn’t require sight or freedom, the criminals provide a salutary example for other citizens.
+Judges regard exile as a merciful punishment, and use it to punish crimes of passion or on those who clearly cannot live inside Gethamane, as exiles may serve their sentence in Gethamane’s mines and remain loosely connected to the city. Temporary exile usually lasts a minimum of five years, after which the criminal can resume their place in the city and among their family.
+=== Slavery ===
+It is illegal for any permanent inhabitant of Gethamane to own slaves. Labor must be hired from within the city (this was instituted by the second Master, Gerath, to prevent slave labor causing rising unemployment inside Gethamane). However permanent hard labor is not considered to be slavery (even if it does involve spending the rest of your life working, branded and blind, in the fungus gardens).
+Some merchants lobby to repeal this law, but most Gethamanians want to preserve tradition as they identify slavery with the [[Guild]]. However, not wanting to lose the associated Guild trade, Gethamane permits slave caravans to pass through the city.
+Slaves are considered property, and are thus covered by the Second Rule. This means if the Guards witness particularly unpleasant treatment of slaves, they can arrest everyone in sight on charges of “damaging another person’s property” until the legal owner of the slaves testifies they deliberately gave orders for the mistreatment. In such a case, nobody gets penalized, but the general confusion and delay engendered by such charges does nothing for the slave caravan’s smooth running or reputation.
+The Guard seldom chooses to help owners find slaves who escape in Gethamane. An escaped slave adopted into a citizen family also leaves the Second Rule’s purview, as she becomes a citizen herself. As such, though not encouraged by the city government, Gethamane includes a few abolitionists who encourage slaves to escape and come to them for adoption.
+== FOREIGN RELATIONS ==
+Though many desire the city, Gethamane has few outright enemies. None can conquer Gethamane, and Gethamane cannot threaten anyone else. Most states have nothing Gethamane especially needs, and Gethamane feels safe remaining neutral. Given the insularity of the city and the safety of its underground location, many citizens fear the enemies from below rather than those outside. Only the [[Guild]] and the [[Bull of the North]] particularly trouble Gethamane.
+Currently Gethamane is pursuing a policy of cautious but proactive friendship with almost everyone.
+Gethamane’s Mistress and Council now believe, however, that they must learn a great deal more about their neighbors… particularly the [[Bull of the North]].
+Gethamane has built enough links with the world outside that the city has to pay attention to what’s going on in the North. Even the most insular farmer will acknowledge that it’s useful to be able to obtain trade goods, and the Guard appreciate the steel that is brought in for their weapons.
+Previous Masters have fluctuated in how much they try to interact with regional politics or deal with icewalkers and the like, but only the most isolationist of Masters have totally ignored the outside world.
+The Mistress can see the threat of the Bull of the North looming on the horizon, and she doesn’t want to be an isolated target if — or when — he arrives with his army.
+=== THE GUILD ===
+The [[Guild]] wants Gethamane. Having it as a hub city is all very well, but controlling it would be far more profitable. The residency rules, however, inhibit factors from building long-term business relationships.
+As a result, the [[Guild]] and Gethamane have a cordial but extremely guarded relationship. Gethamane can, if necessary, throw the Guild out and keep it out for years — the city produces the bare necessities of life and has enough luxuries now (cloth, wood, metal) to be able to hold out for decades, if not very comfortably. Similarly, the Guild could completely stop supplying Gethamane but would suffer from the loss of the convenient point on the trade routes, especially the slave trade. For the moment, both parties continue cooperating, and they are both aware that the other could enact sanctions if matters go too far.
+The Guild, therefore, watches and takes any opportunity it can to sink its tentacles deeper into Gethamane, while refraining from trying anything too obvious. Caravan masters helpfully try to make slave-owning legal inside Gethamane, in order to destabilize the labor economy.
+Luxury goods are imported in the hopes of establishing a need that can later be used to exert pressure. Spies attempt to penetrate the fungus gardens to find out how they work — and sabotage them so the Guild can establish economic dominance through food imports. Citizens of Gethamane are cultivated or blackmailed to serve as Guild agents. A quiet, bitter war goes on in the shadows, with Gethamane struggling to maintain its independence.
+Over the centuries, many factors have drawn up plans for using the secure location and food supply of Gethamane as the anchor for a commercial empire in the North. For instance, one plan calls for using troops from Gethamane to secure the bay to the North and turn it into a home port for an ice ship fleet that could contest Haslanti dominance in the White Sea. There might even be ways to replicate the fungus gardens elsewhere in the North, not to mention the raised tariffs for all non-Guild traffic passing through Gethamane . . . . It’s the sort of thing that any Guildsman with half a mind can daydream about. Unfortunately for the Guild, Gethamane is very much aware of what the Guild wants.
+Such plans remain idle fancies, however, unless the Guild can bend Gethamane to its will.
+The current ranking Guildmaster in the district is '''Master Tengis''' the Vintner, a specialist in trading alcohol of all kinds but also well-versed in drugs and exotic foods. He has visited Gethamane a dozen times in the past and has a good working relationship with the Mistress and the Council. At the moment, he presides over several ambitious juniors who are longing for a chance to prove themselves to the Guild. These include:
+* '''Master Samirel of Gem''' (who trades in gemstones and ornamental carvings and who is trying to get adopted by an upper-class Gethamane family)
+* journeyman '''Gentris''' from the Haslanti League, with a good eye for furs and hides, (who deserted family and home to join the Guild but still has many contacts there)
+* journeyman '''Alathea''' from distant An-Teng in the West (who is well-informed about all sorts of cloth and fabric but is also a secret Yozi worshiperand has plans to form a cult inside Gethamane).
+==== DRUGS IN GETHAMANE ====
+One of the Guild’s classic ways of exerting pressure on a potential target is to introduce a drug into the area and then use the need for the drug as leverage, once a sufficiently high proportion of the population is addicted. Previous Masters of Gethamane have made it clear to Guild representatives that anything stronger than marijuana or mild narcotics sold in Gethamane will cause the city to take severe anti-Guild reprisals. Of course, there have been Guildsmen who’ve tried, followed by Gethamane refusing to accept slave caravans for several months, followed by the Guild cutting off other items of trade in reprisal — but eventually, the matter usually settles down, and trade resumes its normal course. It’s been about seven decades since the last attempt to introduce crack cocaine to the population. Any year now, the Guild is due to try again.
+=== HASLANTI LEAGUE ===
 Gethamane has an unfortunate history with the Haslanti League, and Guildsmen still disparage the Haslanti. Nevertheless, the Mistress and Council now seek better relations with the League as another alternative to the Guild.
-Every year or two, an icewalker tribe follows a mammoth or reindeer herd through Gethamane’s territory.
+Every year or two, an icewalker tribe follows a mammoth or reindeer herd through Gethamane’s territory. Gethamane’s hunters pick off straggling beasts, which the icewalkers do not like. On the other hand, Gethamanians sometimes trade with icewalkers for meat, furs, hides, horn and ivory; but much of this trade goes through the Guild. (The walrus-hunters along the coast form a notable exception. Gethamane’s hunters trade with these barbarians directly.)
+=== THE REALM ===
+The only faction not receiving Gethamane's 'friendly treatment' is [[the Realm]]. Mistress Katrin has consistently refused to consider its requests to use Gethamane as a staging-post for the legions and doesn’t want to ally with any one Great House at the moment, given the potential for civil war.
+The Empress once commissioned her strategoi to evaluate Gethamane for conquest. They concluded the feat possible (smuggle in spies and agents under the cover of merchant caravans, find a way to cut off Guild supplies to weaken the place) but, since it wasn't harboring rebels or fostering anti-Realm sentiments, it wasn't worth the trouble.
+Past Masters and Mistresses did not flaunt their defiance of [[the Realm]], so the Empress never felt the need to make an example of the city and viewed Gethamane with a lenient eye. She mercifully allowed it to ignore paying tribute, and in turn Dynasts could occasionally visit to seek treasure in the underways, and far-traveling legions would be allowed to buy provisions at Gethamane.
+Recently, with the Scarlet Empress vanished and the Great Houses contending for power, numerous Dragon-Blooded have planned to boost their houses’ prestige and their own fame by conquering or controlling Gethamane - making it a tributary of the Realm. So far, their plans have ranged from the wild and woolly to the ineffective, but a couple of the better planners are prepared to spend decades building up spy networks, agents and influence. Like the Guild, these Dragon-Blooded have realized that Gethamane depends on its sunken Gardens, and, like the Guild, these Dragon-Blooded are faced with the problem of how to enfeeble Gethamane without destroying the Gardens and causing the city’s ruin.
+Gethamane doesn’t want to be part of the Realm (and certainly doesn’t want to pay it tribute), but the city has never wanted to be a Targeted Example of Stamped-Out Rebellion either. While Gethamane’s defenses and selfsupply are legendary, the city has never actually had to stand up to a sustained assault by Terrestrial Exalted (let alone Celestial ones) and would rather not find out any weaknesses the hard way. The city, and its previous Masters and Mistresses, have preferred to maintain a dignified independence while at the same time not attacking any of the Realm’s tributaries or attracting the Realm’s notice. Noble declarations of never having paid tribute sound very well to similarly independent powers and help to increase Gethamane’s reputation, but, all in all, Gethamane would prefer not to ever be in the position in which the Realm asks for tribute.
+Gethamane has '''''NEVER''''' paid tribute to the Realm as it would be an uneconomic conquest — the place is too easily defended and can support itself from the inside Gardens for decades, while besieging armies are left without food or shelter. It’s simply not worth the Realm’s time and trouble to conquer the city and impose a satrap. On the other hand, the Realm is aware that Gethamane is an individualistic self-supporting city with a strong interest in neutrality and stability. Although Gethamane could potentially serve as a base for a small strike force, the sunken Gardens couldn’t feed a full army. Bearing all these factors in mind, the Scarlet Empress left the city in peace, though did seed Gethamane with the usual complement of spies in order to ensure it didn’t become a problem later.
+=== WHITEWALL===
+[[Whitewall]] is the closest that Gethamane comes to an ally. Neither city has many other neighbors (that are human, at least). Gethamane’s leaders cultivate merchants from Whitewall just to remind the Guild that they can be replaced; and it’s often cheaper to buy Whitewall’s metalwork directly than through Guild intermediaries.
+While Gethamane is glad of the trade from [[Whitewall]], particularly the minerals and ores for which Whitewall is famous, there is little diplomacy between the two cities. Both remain snug barring themselves against the world outside, and both are content with the current state of affairs.
+Some Gethamanians hold Whitewall as an example of weak-minded feebleness (alliances with the Realm, the fey and the undead) and praise Gethamane’s own independence, but most citizens of Gethamane are willing to acknowledge that Whitewall gets along as best it can and does better than most.
+Whitewall miners have prospected the mountains around Gethamane more than once but have yet to find any significant mineral deposits.
-Gethamane’s hunters pick off straggling beasts, which the icewalkers do not like. On the other hand, Gethamanians sometimes trade with icewalkers for meat, furs, hides, horn and ivory; but much of this trade goes through the Guild. (The walrus-hunters along the coast form a notable exception. Gethamane’s hunters trade with these barbarians directly.)
-Even the isolationist Gethamanians hear stories about the Bull of the North, and what they hear frightens the city’s leaders. They don’t credit Realm propaganda about “Anathema,” but anyone who can massacre Dynasts—hitherto the city’s standard for powerful, erratic individuals—is a danger the Gethamanians don’t want to face. Some Council members believe the city can shut its doors and defy the Bull, just as it has defied every other threat. Others are not so sure, fearing that the Anathema warlord could break the gates like a paper screen. They all agree that Gethamane must learn more and acquire whatever power and allies it can find.
+'''The Rakasha'''
+Gethamane’s hunters and gatherers occasionally encounter Fair Folk. The tales of the survivors ensure the Gethamanians’ thorough hatred and fear of the raksha. Fortunately for Gethamane, the local Fair Folk have no desire to enter a city that gives them the creeping horrors—not even fae who normally might relish such a strange and dramatic emotion. Fair Folk blame this on the city’s jade and orichalcum gates.
-== THE GUARD ==
-Gethamane has no army as such, only a Guard that keeps order and defends against creatures from the underways. At
-,000 soldiers, the Guard is quite a formidable force for a small city—but the Guard has no experience operating in groups larger than the 20-man platoons. Guards wear red lamellar armor and carry target shields blazoned with a white mountain on a red field. They favor heavy weapons such as sledges, great axes and pickaxes—the sort of weapons that can hack, pierce and crush eldritch horrors. When riots erupt in the Guild District or elsewhere, half the responding Guards carry leather-padded clubs, but the Guard never operates without the threat of lethal force and big damage.
-The Guard’s overall commander occupies a Guardhall in the Garden District. Here the Guard trains, gathers to organize hunts for invading monsters and imprisons lawbreakers.
+'''The Yozi'''
-Unlike the subdued tones of the rest of Gethamane, bright red pennants mark all entrances to the Guardhall. Doors in this complex are always high-quality iron.
+Gethamanians abhor demons as most people do. Fortunately the few who rarely enter Gethamane — likely summoned or sent there by a sorcerer or thaumaturge - also seem to loathe Gethamane, and do not linger even when they have the chance. They feel something immensely darker and more dangerous than themselves lurking nearby.
-The current Captain of the Guard, Golden Stag, is of icewalker descent, abandoned by his tribe as a child and adopted by a poor Gethamane family. Every other sentence or so, he reminds people how he worked his way up the ranks. Golden Stag is now in his 50s, a good leader of soldiers and convinced he has plenty of time before he needs to train a successor.
+Gods and elementals avoid the city for the same reason, though none of these spirits can find the ultimate source of the terrifying Essence.
-Beneath Golden Stag are the North Gate and South Gate Captains. The South Gate Captain, Mindros Yami, stands out for his refusal to accept bribes from merchants.
+=== ANATHEMA ===
-The North Gate Captain, Gavne Wheelright, came from an artisan family but joined the Guards to avenge the death of his wife at the claws of underdwellers. A traveling Immaculate monk also converted Gavne. He lobbies (though not loudly) for the Council to permit an Immaculate shrine. These three officers command various district and shift lieutenants, and Guard posts are spread throughout the city.
+While the current citizens of Gethamane are descended from those who fled there during the Usurpation, the lack of constant Realm influence or Immaculate presence has left them with no particular hatred toward any Exalted.
-Each Guard post has a large drum mounted on the wall.
+The citizens’ attitude toward beings of great power who command mighty Charms and spells and wield ancient weapons is merely one of sensible distrust and caution. Any obvious Solar who enters the city will be noted at the gates, directed to the Guild District as a visitor and watched by the Guard (within reason); a sigh of relief will be generally breathed when she leaves the city. They will not be unduly persecuted, however, or have people trying to lead mobs against her. Individual action by visiting Dragon-Blooded or Immaculates is possible, but in that case, the Guard will primarily blame the aggressors rather than the Solar and appreciate any attempts made to avoid significant property damage.
-In any disturbance, one soldier beats a signal on the drum to alert other posts of the nature and location of the trouble, and to call for backup if this seems prudent. In the case of major disturbances such as monsters from the underways, riots or rampaging Exalts, a runner is additionally sent to the Guardhall with a report and a request for full mobilization.
+The Mistress of Gethamane is interested in employing Exalted to clear out portions of the underways but otherwise has no real need for them — that she knows of. She is very much aware of the power of the Solars (The [[Bull of the North]] is a powerful reminder to the whole North that the Solars are dangerous) and knows a number of them are currently looking for defensible bases  While she has no wish to anger any Celestial Exalted, she would prefer they stay out of Gethamane. Failing that, if they are in Gethamane, hope they behave according to the city’s laws.
-A few hundred Guards bunk in the Guardhouse at all times, ready to go wherever they are needed.
+Gethamanians do not much like the Terrestrial Exalted, chiefly because of high-handed Immaculates and Dynasts. They also know the danger of showing such dislike. The Dragon-Blooded rarely stay in Gethamane for long, though. They have bad dreams as the maddened gods clumsily try to warn them and, through them, the long-dead Solar Deliberative. The people have no experience with other Exalted (that they know about) and base their opinions on stories. They fear the Lunar Exalted as patrons of the icewalkers and other barbarians.
-Despite the high death rate that Guards suffer in monster attacks, the organization never lacks for recruits. In part, this comes from the high prestige of the job (and high ration of the Dole). Less nobly, Guards receive greater opportunities to meet outsiders… and collect small gifts and gratuities from them in return for assistance with the city’s bureaucracy. Golden Stag cycles his soldiers through gate duty so everyone gets a fair share. Large bribes, however, or attempts to subvert a Guard into serious breaches of the law, constitute “injury to the city” and result in the Guard’s arrest if he is caught.
+Naturally, Gethamane has no knowledge of the Sidereals. Other Exalted are too new for Gethamanians to know about them. Any Exalted who visit Gethamane, or Exalt among them, could determine how the people feel about their kind for centuries to come.
+'''Bull of the North'''
-SAMPLE COMBAT UNITS
+Even isolationist Gethamanians hear stories of the Bull of the North. While they don’t credit Realm propaganda about “Anathema,” anyone who can massacre Dynasts (the city’s standard for powerful, erratic individuals) is a danger Gethamane don’t want to face. However, eventually, the Bull will want Gethamane, as an ally or a tributary (or to serve as a public example) thus the Council currently debates on how to react.
-All Guards are well-trained troops. Unfortunately, they have no training at fighting in larger units than a platoon—in most of Gethamane, it just isn’t possible to gather more soldiers in one place—and so cannot deploy units of higher Magnitude. When several platoons act together, an overall commander must attempt to coordinate them. So far, Gethamane has never fought an enemy that it could not defeat in this manner.
+The easiest option is to close off the mountain and maintain a state of siege. While Gethamane could probably sustain this longer than the Bull could, all trade would be disrupted (or worse, [[the Guild]] might ally with the Bull) and there is always the dire possibility the powers of the Bull and his allies could crack Gethamane open like an egg.
+The second option is to ally formally with the Bull and pay tribute. Given recent events in Halta, more Council members are inclining to this point of view. While this would compromise Gethamane’s independence, paying tribute would preserve the city and its inhabitants.
-== THE GUARD ENTIRE ==
+No one even considers outright defying and attacking the Bull, or allying with anyone who has such plans. Gethamane is biased toward survival, not suicide.
-Still… what if such an enemy did appear—an enemy that somehow could penetrate the jade-steel gates, or a major invasion from the underways? In such a case, the entire Guard might need to function as a single combat unit, against a single other combat unit of invaders. The Guard would suffer from its lack of training at large-scale tactics and inability to concentrate its forces, reducing its effective Drill. Then again, the enemy could not concentrate his forces either. The battle would consist of house-to-house (or cave-to-cave) fighting.
+All agree Gethamane must learn more and acquire whatever power and allies it can find.
-The Guard, however, would frequently gain the advantages of hard cover and fortification from their superior knowledge of Gethamane’s tunnels.
+=== FOREIGNERS ===
-Gethamane’s people could also turn their partitions into engineered obstacles comparable to fields of stakes or
+While Gethamane has its poor, people from outside form the true underclass. By law, foreigners can stay in Gethamane for just one month a year, and they are strongly encouraged to stay in the Guild District. (Visitors who wander soon find Guards asking, with edged politeness, if they are lost. Visitors who wander near the Gardens find Guards drawing steel on them.) Shopkeepers overcharge them. Other Gethamanians treat them rudely. Even the beggars who smile and plead for coins then sneer and mock when no outsiders watch them. Foreigners stand out. They lack the subterranean pallor, the clothes, the accent and ways of speaking that characterize a Gethamanian.
-brushwood-filled moats. For a simpler approach, a Storyteller could simply raise the Guard’s Might by one, treating its superior command of the territory as a form of special equipment. In any case, ranged combat is effectively impossible in a citywide fight.
-Commanding Officer: Golden Stag
+Most of the time, foreigners are fairly obvious. They don’t wear the clothes of Gethamane, they don’t have Gethamane accents and they don’t have the dark eyes and pale skin of the inhabitants of Gethamane. Hunters and gatherers may have sun-touched skin and the carriage of those who go outside, but they have a native accent, and they give the proper nonverbal cues to other citizens.
-Armor Color: Red; target shield bears a white mountain on a red field
-Motto: “Let none of them survive!”
-General Makeup: 5,000 medium infantry with lamellar armor and slotted helms, half carrying great axes and half
-with pickaxes and target shields
-Formation: Each platoon has a sergeant and a relay that signals other platoons using drumbeats. All the soldiers are heroic mortals. Talismans, thaumaturgical enchantments on weapons and special training at surrounding and ganging up on foes supply the unit’s Might. While individual platoons normally fight in close formation, in a citywide battle they are effectively stuck in skirmish formation.
+Of course, the citizens of Gethamane have more sense than to overcharge or snub obviously dangerous foreigners or those who have the potential to be valuable contacts. The citizens will be polite, even flattering, and save their amusement and sneering jokes for when they are in private with their families. As one of the earlier Masters said, “Be like the mountain: snow and ice outside, so that none can take offence, but life within, where families can share the joke.”
-So are their enemies, as troops scatter through the tunnels.
-Notes: Gethamane pays little heed to the rest of Creation, and has little capacity to influence everyone else. On the other hand, it’s exceedingly difficult to obtain any leverage on Gethamane. The dominion’s external bonus points come entirely from its alliance with the Guild and other merchants. These points pay for Gethamane’s single dot of Awareness and a second dot of Craft. Gethamane’s bonus points go to a second dot of War and the dominion’s many specialties. Gethamane has no savants or sorcerers.
+The only way a foreigner can stay indefinitely in Gethamane is for a native family to adopt them. Even marriage does not suffice: Gethamane does not recognize marriages to outsiders. Someone must attest that she takes the foreigner as a son or daughter. The adopted outsider then must register for the Dole and turn in timesheets that prove her daily labor, just like every other citizen. Such adopted citizens still endure chaffing and snubs for a while, but they eventually learn to fit in and other Gethamanians learn to recognize them.
-In Limit Break, Gethamane resolves its internal conflicts by returning to its principles of absolute self-sufficiency and absolute social control. The government expels all outsiders, locks the gates and forces the population to live on the Dole for at least a season, and maybe as long as a year.
+Very few foreigners win adoption into Gethamanian society. Families reserve adoption as a reward for outsiders who make themselves truly beloved or who perform extraordinary services for the city. The Guild has tried for centuries to get agents adopted into Gethamane. So far, the result has been not the subversion of Gethamane but the disgrace of any family the Guild bribed or deluded into performing the adoption.
-at Attack: 4 Close Combat Damage: 3
+== [[SECRETS OF GETHAMANE]] ==
-ck: hat eats. ls. thaumahantments
-raining t. orin on,
-ide
-e efck
-mation.
-nemies,