Gethamane
From Thirdexalt
Four hundred miles directly north of Whitewall is the small subterranean city of Gethamane, where some 80,000 people dwell. An enclosed society, these people do not fear winter storms or barbarian attacks, while their Supernatural Gardens remove the threat of starvation. Indeed despite The Guild’s presence ensuring a constant stream of merchants passing through, and even though hunters and gatherers go out during the short summer season to harvest any food that they can obtain, the majority of Gethamane's inhabitants are born there, live there and die there. 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, being one of the few cities to have NEVER paid tribute to the Realm, Gethamane is a society that stands on four pillars: the administration, the farmers, the Guard and the Guild trade. Sufficient damage to any of these could potentially shatter this society despite its defenses.
Worse still, Gethamanians live in fear as the circling tunnels of their city connect to an immeasurably vaster, deeper labyrinth of underways beneath Creation. Guards watch the dozens of entrances to bar the way against the things that occasionally attempt to force entrance.
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 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.
THE NEWCOMERS - 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
Matters changed when a wandering Guild caravan met some of the Gethamane's hunters and were invited back to the city to trade and bring news. Bethan Redeye traded immediate food supplies in return for cloth, spices, metal and other things. In turn, the caravan leader quickly realized that the subterranean city would make an excellent base for trading ventures through 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 died at the age of 93; survived by two husbands and twelve children. She had raised all her children to assume her responsibilities as administrator and leader, but named her secondborn son Gerath as 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
The only recorded coup attempt in Gethamane's history. Mineko Threebrand, a disgruntled member of the Guard, poisoned all of the then-Master's close relatives. The Master resolved the crisis by quickly adopting three popular Gethamanian's, each a descendant (even if remotely) of Bethan Redeye, as his offspring 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 PRESENT DAY
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.
Gethamane’s lack of a standing army or the ability to fund and furnish one means that the city pursues a generally pacifist line and has no inclination to invade other city-states or take over their resources.
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.
THE PEOPLE OF GETHAMANE
Bethan Redeye’s people spoke Skytongue when they came to Gethamane and it remains the most common language of the city. However, Bethan was one of the more educated of her group and carried hidden knowledge from her divine parent. As such some citizens also speak Old Realm.
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.
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.
A hundred yards of insulating stone and the heat of 80,000 bodies keep Gethamane warm. Within the city, Clothing is lightweight, opposed to the heavy furs and wool needed outside. Members of the Guard wear tunics and trousers of plain linen or cotton, with boiled leather or steel armor. Farmers wear simple robes of brown. Hunters and gatherers wear clothes adapted for the outside when they venture out there. All other citizens wear plain cotton/ silk robes, or tunics and trousers in shades of gray, black and white.
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.
Status and wealth is conveyed by the quality and elegance of the clothing, rather than by color or patterns.
Brightly colored clothing is reserved for the bedchamber.
They are used to listening for scrapes and whispers from dark corners and dress in deep colors or grays and blacks, rather than the bright shades that look attractive in sunlight.
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.
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.
GENDER ROLES
Gethamane is mostly gender-neutral, and women and men occupy a more or less equal social position. However, there are certain areas of society into which each gender tends to get shunted, barring particular talents or inclinations. The Guard is approximately 75% male, while the farmers are approximately 80% female. While both will take members of the other gender, girls are generally directed away from martial occupations, and boys are not encouraged to tend fungus trays.
Both genders can freely work as craftsmen, as gatherers outside (though hunters are more usually male) and as merchants or negotiators.
Formal marriage is between men and women, but lovers of the same gender are common. Quite often, a married couple will have a publicly acknowledged lover who shares both their beds.
FAMILIES AND DESCENT
Inside families, descent is matrilineal, but a woman’s current husband is considered the father of all her children, regardless if she was married to him or to someone else at the time she bore the children. However, inter-family adoption is common and, once adopted into a new family, the adoptee formally breaks all links with the old one. A woman can, therefore, bear a child to a man in another family, then give the child to be adopted by parents inside the other family (if she is married, this requires her husband’s permission as well), at which point the child becomes, for all intents and purposes, a child 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.
The only incest taboo in Gethamane is against marrying one’s own siblings, whether blood-kin or adoptive. The constant shuffling round of adoptions means that new blood gets into most of the families; there are few serious cases of inbreeding. Situations in which a youth falls in love with his adoptive sibling but is unable to marry her have inspired a number of tragic plays, which usually end with a socially improving moral about incestuous passions leading to murderous rampages and suicide or with a heroic choice of exile and virtuous separation.
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.
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.
THE PROCESS OF ADOPTION
Inter-family adoption inside Gethamane is a comparatively simple thing, done to cement ties between families, to provide for orphans or children with uncertain parentage or, occasionally, to 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.
- First, any family can only adopt one outsider per year. (This law was codified by the second Master, Gerath, to prevent any family adopting large numbers of outsiders.)
- Second, important families don’t necessarily want to adopt outsiders. These families have a strong civil position and don’t want to adopt strangers who may bring disrepute on their position; in any case, the potential for adoption is a annual prize that the families don’t necessarily want to use up. There are many middle-class or lower-class families in Gethamane who would be willing to adopt an outsider, particularly if a large payment in jade or goods was involved, but, again, they would want to be sure that their family wouldn’t be at risk from the outsider’s actions.
- Third, while the only people who formally need to give assent to the adoption are the “father” and “mother” of the new adoptee, if the rest of the family strongly opposes this course of action, then pressure may be put on the married pair not to perform the adoption. Fatal accidents, such as falling into the underways never to be heard from again or tragic overdoses of common sleeping drugs have been known to occur in particularly awkward cases (especially ones involving Guild members being adopted).
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. (After all, it is a high honor for someone from inside Gethamane to consent to bring an outsider into such a closed society.) In that case, adoption will be offered willingly, and the outsider is expected 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 him 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, most importantly, the Dole. The Guild and the Realm can’t smuggle in full agents this way without those agents being closely observed — while the members of the Council aren’t going to go against the accepted law, they aren’t stupid. The best that outside forces wanting to influence Gethamane can do is to arrange for future agents to be adopted as children and then to attempt to influence them once they reach the age of usefulness. Alternatively, it is possible to get an innocuous outsider adopted and then later substitute an agent for the adoptee, but this runs the risk of high embarrassment and social disgrace for the family concerned if it is discovered.
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.
The hunters and gatherers also act as scouts, bringing information on local movements back to Gethamane. The Guard even pays a small bounty for useful reports. In general, the Mistress of Gethamane is aware of what’s going on for a couple of days’ journey around the mountain — farther if good weather allows for farther observation from the mountain’s heights.
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.
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.”
LEISURE
Gethamane accepts and even (to an extent) encourages a culture of leisure. Citizens who perform sufficient labor to earn their Dole can do whatever they want with any spare time.
Pastimes in Gethamane range from the sedately virtuous to the quietly degenerate. "Proper-thinking citizens" (as they describe themselves) fill their leisure hours with uplifting and self-improving pursuits, such as quiet exercise, productive crafts (carving imported driftwood is currently very fashionable), watching morality plays and writing epic poetry modeled on barbarian sagas that celebrates honor and virtue. Music is also popular; wind instruments are more generally used than their soft string instruments. Drums are never played for recreation; they are reserved for the Guard’s use.
However Gethamane has its darker share of pleasures as 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 tension release. 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, and vicious sessions of gossip and destroying reputations are all 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.
The important thing is that the hobby shouldn’t be visible afterward. People never have scars or marks from torture where it will show — even the young who want to shock their parents. It’s important to be able to maintain a placid, pale, untouched face to the rest of Gethamane before vanishing again into the private rooms to do those things that are only done in private.
This is all in accordance with tradition. People don’t make a fuss or get noticed or disturb the quiet functioning of the city. If they must do strange things in order to release their tensions in private, that’s their own business, and 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.
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.
FEAR IN GETHAMANE
Gethamane has food, shelter, warmth, a working economy, a functioning social system with room for upward mobility, viable trade links and heavy defenses. The people who dwell there can enjoy sophisticated leisure pursuits, lenient deities and the knowledge that, even if the world outside the mountain should collapse, they can just close their doors and be safe. 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. Everyone in Gethamane, even the babies in cribs listening to cradle songs, is aware that they are living above the caves of monsters. It’s the price they pay for living inside the mountain, in the beautiful carven city with so many amenities and such convenient food and warmth.
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 just the knowledge that beneath your feet, separated from you by only a layer of stone, are inhuman creatures who want to drag you into the darkness and kill you.
RELIGION
Most Gethamanians are not very religious and leave such matters to the chosen priests, and only go to the three temples when they have particularly urgent concerns or if they hope for prophetic dreams. 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.
While they would not deny any deity’s powers, the gods of Gethamane seem to have made their demands quite simple, and the people of Gethamane acquiesce and leave well enough alone. Similarly, most people 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 of a political statement than an actual serious petition to external deities.
All temples to gods other than those of Gethamane must legally lie within the Guild District. The city sets aside several rooms for visitors to dress in whatever temporary temple trappings they want. Gethamane has no objection to travelers worshiping the Unconquered Sun, any more than the city would object to any other god. 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).
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. There are very few permanent temples in the Guild District, but there are several rooms that are available to passing caravans who want to arrange set worship for several days.
There is a small mystery cult among the farmers to the gods of fungus and mushrooms, but the worship is something that stays strictly within the Gardens and is only practiced among the more senior farmers. While the Mistress and a number of other powerful citizens are aware of the cult’s existence, they refrain from getting involved and don’t ask too many questions about the odd “accidental death” of a condemned convict who somehow gets bled dry and emasculated before his body is discovered.
DEATH IN GETHAMANE
The dead of Gethamane are cremated in the essence-fires of the three temples by the priesthood. Families keep the ashes in small ornamental boxes, scatter them on the mountain slope or add them to the fertilizer for the Gardens. It is illegal to dispose of dead bodies in any other way.
However, some inhabitants of the city (most notably Ellewan Dassen of the Outer Circle) have training in embalming — and even taxidermy. There are families throughout Gethamane who, not wishing to be parted from those they love, manage to conceal the preserved corpses of their ancestors in hidden rooms and private quarters. The occasional discovery of an embalmed body provokes an immediate search of the area by the
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 as Gethamane has no ghosts at all. Gethamanians accept this as normal.
The religion of Gethamane leaves few of its citizens rising as ghosts. Some inhabitants say that this is due to the profoundly materialistic outlook of most of the citizens — they leave the religion to the priests, who are vastly divorced from the practical world around them and spend their time being rationally afraid of the monsters beneath their feet. Those citizens who do rise as ghosts do not survive to flee the city.
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
Gethamane is a structure shaped by the necessity of organizing food distribution and defenses against the
underways. Like much of the North, Gethamane is not a place where dissent against the established order can be
tolerated. People either conform or leave.
While the more regular citizens disapprove of these past times, they are a recognized part of life in Gethamane,
dating back to the days when Bethan Redeye realized that she needed to keep a viable breeding population in the
city. She recognized that there would always be those who disliked the system she had established, and she felt it was better to offer a cultural escape for them, rather than simply drive them out of the mountain.
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. These attitudes are 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.
GOVERNMENT
Administering the Dole requires a small army of petty bureaucrats, who monitor every citizen’s activities to make 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.
THE MASTER OF GETHAMANE
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.
The current mistress of Gethamane is Katrin Jadehand; a tall, statuesque woman, who served in the Guard in her youth before going into the administration; she frequently uses that fact in the Council to help get the Guard on her side for votes. She is a good politician and a very pragmatic woman, recently widowed due to her husband’s death by a creature from the underways, and has a 15-year-old son currently training with the Guard.
THE MASTER’S INTELLIGENCERS
Unofficially, the Bethanites in general gather information for whomever is the current Master or Mistress. In practice, everyone in Gethamane knows about this — only the rawest and most ignorant newcomers from outside the mountain would be unaware. This means that, while the Bethanites make excellent analysts, they are generally poor agents. People know who they are. It’s difficult even to be a “little-known” member of the family, as gossip is as common in Gethamane as it is in other cities, and the Master’s family is always a popular topic for dissection and scandal.
This means that the Mistress of Gethamane has to look outside her family for operatives. Outsiders have potential, being theoretically unconnected to any goings-on inside Gethamane, but they have difficulty going about unnoticed. (While a Night Caste Solar would be the ideal answer to Mistress Katrin’s wishes, none have as yet shown up, let alone been willing to take the position.) The Gethamane tradition of loyalty to family also makes it hard to recruit anyone as an unbiased agent who will be primarily loyal to the Mistress.
Shakan, the current Head Intelligencer — not that he holds such a rank openly, but anyone comparatively wellinformed about the power structure in Gethamane is aware of his position — compensates with one of the oldest tricks in the book: blackmail. All of his agents are constantly on the watch for criminal behavior, and he uses that information to recruit new operatives, using their loyalty to their family by inspiring fear that their families will suffer for the agents’ acts. And, of course, once the agents have been working for him for long enough, that in itself is another reason to fear exposure . . . .
Shakan has agents throughout society, except in the temples, as the priests are generally too preoccupied with their rituals to do anything significantly illegal. Although 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 also Guild members but would like to gather some.
Everyone in Gethamane knows that Bethanite family members pass information to the city’s Mistress. To learn
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.
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
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, 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 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.
Members hold their post until they dies, choose to resign (often as a result of pressure by family or faction) or is relieved of her post by the Gethamane's Master. When a vacancy opens on the Council, the other faction members present a list of possible candidates to the Master, who chooses the new Council member from that list. If all three faction posts fall vacant, the Master is free to choose new members from that faction as he wishes. Any Council post falling vacant is an excuse for urgent politicking behind the scenes, by the faction in question, by the other factions and by the Guild.
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.
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.
There are two great gates to the city, one on either side of the mountain at north and south, and a number of higher passages that lead to the outside, all well-concealed and easily closed, that the gatherers and hunters use when going out to collect food and hunt.
At the base of the mountain, in its heart, lie the long sunken Gardens. Next to them are important civic buildings such as the Courthouse, the Dole distribution center, the Master’s quarters and the Guardhall.
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 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 central 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, 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.
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 that 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.
The dozen exits that the hunter-gatherers use are all positioned high up on the mountain, spaced in a loose circle around the peak, nearly a day’s downhill travel from the main entrances. The hunters’ exits are stone gateways sufficiently wide for five men to walk abreast through them and 10 feet high. Stone passages (trapped by the Guard to enable collapse if necessary) 20 feet long lead back inside to large rooms that the hunters and gatherers use to store their equipment and hunting weapons. These entrances were originally built to allow the flying race of Dragon Kings to enter and leave Gethamane easily, during the First Age and the days of their greatness. Nobody in Gethamane now realizes this or can translate the ancient script carved in the tongue of the Dragon Kings around the entrances.
THE ENTRANCES
The two great gates of Gethamane are carved from stone and reinforced with jade and have heavy enchantments of warding and defense laid on them. The First Age Twilight Caste who raised the gates intended the mountain to be a possible refuge against the Fair Folk as well as the barbarians of the North.
A tunnel 50 yards long and 10 yards high and wide leads from each gate to a large antechamber, which has heavy crystal portcullises at each end and serves as a Guard post. 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 Commander of the Northern Gate is Gavne Wheelwright, who was trained by his family as a craftsman. He joined the Guard at 25 after his wife's death at the hands of underdwellers and rose through the ranks, driven on purpose and natural talent. His drive for revenge against the underdwellers is obvious to any who brings up the subject. Golden Stag, has placed him here to prevent his obsession causing his own death or resulting in unacceptable Guard losses. For the moment, Gavne makes no complaint.
The Southern Gate Commander is Mindros Yarni, a career soldier who’s been in the Guard since his teens. Practical, competent and uninspired, but does an excellent and reliable job of commanding and organizing his men. He is also notorious for refusing bribes from merchants or the Guild, as well as for actively reporting the attempts a standard fee of one dinar of silver for every person who enters Gethamane (half an dinar per slave, by special concession of the Council) that is paid by the leader of the group. Having been converted by a traveling Immaculate monk, Mindros is actually a devotee of the Immaculate Order and is quietly gathering support to have an Immaculate temple set up in one of the upper rooms of the mountain. This is being resisted on religious grounds by Gethamane’s priests temples, Mistress Katrin, and other Bethanites who realize that such a temple would give an opening to the Realm.
Gavne and Mindros each command a squadron of 60 Guard, who serve in eight-hour shifts, 20 on duty at any time at each gate. While bribery of the Guard is forbidden by Gethamane’s law, it is generally understood that small presents (food, cloth, cheap items) given to the Guard in return for an explanation of local geography and laws don’t count as bribes but are considered tokens of gratitude for assistance beyond the call of duty.
In the event of serious trouble, a runner is always on duty to contact the Guardhall, and more Guards can be mobilized at a moment’s notice. The Guard tends toward firmness and severity. The constant awareness of the horrors lurking in Gethamane’s underways leaves the Guard on edge. Any minor brawl or scuffle in the gate passages or antechambers will be dealt with brusquely and effectively.
In the case of a cash shortage, the Guard is willing to take down the character’s name and details and either take the payment in goods or allow the character to make the payment later by doing civic work for Gethamane, with the amount to be adjudicated by one of the Bethanites (while this work is usually menial but necessary, particularly dangerous but penniless adventurers may be asked to undertake an expedition into the underways, with promises of significant extra recompense if they succeed.) Masters of slave caravans often arrange for their slaves to work off the fee in labor while staying in the city, rather than pay.
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.
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 STRUCTURE
The passages of Gethamane are square shaped, their walls and ceilings dark gray and slightly rough. While smaller rooms are generally plain and of much the same structure as the passageways, the larger rooms and halls are covered in intricate and beautiful carvings. Some rooms have stone doors, while others have newer doors of timber or stretched hide. Timber and hide are also frequently used to erect partitions across rooms or passageways or to mark the limits of a family’s territory. The 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.
The underways themselves are quite different in structure from the upper city. The stone from which the underways are carved is black, rounded and faintly slick to the touch. There are several dozen known entrances to the lower tunnels from the city, and the Guard watches them all and keeps records of all activity passing through the entrances in either direction.
It is a crime against the Second Law of Gethamane (trespass on another’s goods) to damage the structure of the city or to damage or break one of the glowing crystals that illuminate it. (It requires three levels of aggravated damage to weaken a crystal and reduce the light by half and six levels of aggravated damage to break one.) The usual penalty is a heavy fine in jade or goods and enforced service to the city in a menial capacity. The Masters of Gethamane have always wanted to discourage such behavior by example. There are wells sunk throughout the city, though far more on the lower levels than the upper ones.
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.
Gethamane consists of hundreds of twisting corridors that connect countless rooms. Its large halls are covered in intricate and beautiful carvings of unknown plants and beasts, strangely designed pictures that haunt the memories of visitors.
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 (even brighter than most days) and dim when night falls. Still, the crystals stay bright enough for most people to continue working on all but the most demanding tasks. Guards can patrol, farmers to labor, Guards to patrol and merchants to bargain. Gethamane is alive and busy all round the clock, with citizens working during the “day” or “night” depending on their personal preferences.
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 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 OUTER RING
Farther in from the antechamber, the tunnels branch out and become more complex, going up and down as well as to left and right. Traveling upward but directly ahead leads to the Guild area. The direct passage is well-marked, with Guard posts along the way, officially to prevent merchants from getting lost but unofficially to keep an eye on anyone leaving the main passages. Farther out to the side lie the dwellings of the middle classes of Gethamane — long-established Guard and farming families, respected artisans and hunters and prospectors who have done well from expeditions into the underways.
These sets of rooms have usually been in the hands of a single family for generations. The rooms grow cluttered with the family’s heirlooms and detritus and are frequently crowded, if the family has grown and not married or adopted its children out to another family. Rooms in this area are seldom free and only become so if an entire family should perish without willing its property to anyone else or if some crime against the city should result in a family being exiled, slain or enslaved. In such a case, ownership of the rooms reverts to the Council, and the Master of Gethamane chooses to whom they are awarded. (The Guild has been trying to get its hands on some of these rooms for centuries now, but previous Masters have avoided deeding these rooms to anyone connected with the Guild, however high a bribe is offered.)
This is also the area that contains public buildings that aren’t important enough to be in the central area with the Gardens and the Council buildings, but are useful to Gethamane as a whole. Craft halls, minor associations, schools and similar establishments can be found in this area. Either they are set up in rooms that are rented to them by particular families, or a major family from the organization owns the rooms and charges a small fee to all the other members. It is very difficult indeed for a new organization to get itself territory in this area. To do so would require a debt of gratitude by, or the major blackmail of, one of the families who could rent the organization a room.
Naturally, not every single room is occupied or claimed. However, the few rooms that are left are far to the edges of the Outer Ring and have often been used as dumping grounds for rubbish for centuries or are close enough to a family’s territory that the family could make a plausible case before Gethamane’s judges for owning the room. Some thieves in the area use such rooms as lairs, building nests in the years of collected litter and detritus. While the beauty of Gethamane’s structure is evident, so is the clutter of centuries of inhabitation. Families react to the buildup of their own rubbish by shifting it into other people’s areas or dumping it in public places — while trying not to get caught doing so, of course. The people who own property in this area consider themselves the pillars of Gethamane, the ones who actually get the work of the city done. While they are courteous to visitors (especially wealthy ones), they will call the Guard to chase away beggars, lowlifes, bravos or other undesirables. Several acting and entertainer families own properties in this area and use them to present performances. While these families are not considered high society, or even upper middle class, the Gardens and the Outer Ring both tolerate them rather than drive them into the Upper Ring. After all, if these families should be based there among the poor, it would be that much harder for the rich to visit them and enjoy their performances.
Some of the more notable locations in this area follow.
TIMBER HALL
This large room is surrounded by several small ones and is the center of work for most of the local carpenters, woodcarvers, furniture makers and other woodworkers.
Wood collected by the gatherers outside or brought in by the Guild and purchased by local merchants is carried here to be crafted by its owners or resold. The actual owners of the rooms, the Ragith family, make a handsome profit out of charging a very low toll fee to everyone who enters and a higher fee to those who want to rent one of the small rooms for a long-term project or a private meeting.
CHARACTER CONCEPTS FOR THE OUTER RING
Warrior: Janissary Vault Member, Guard
Holy Man: Temple Priest, Philosophy Cell Member
Savant: Philosophy Cell Member, Historian
Criminal: Petty Thief, Merchant Preying On Newcomers
Entertainer: Actor, Flautist
Bureaucrat: Dole Checker, Gate Clerk, Timber Hall Accountant
THE UPPER RING
This section is where the poorer citizens of Gethamane dwell. It covers the area from above the Outer Ring and over the Guild District, up to and around the temples.
While the main thoroughfares are kept clear and patrolled by the Guard, the back passages can go unseen by official eyes for months. The area as a whole ranges from cleanbut-shabby, in the better and more aspiring parts of the district and along the main passages, to filthy, cramped and utter squalor. A lot of the inhabitants keep livestock (goats, chickens or pigs) and can’t be bothered to drag dung and waste all the way to one of the small gatherers’ gates to dump it or even to sell it to one of the dung collectors who cart it down for fertilizer in the Gardens.
The trip to collect the Dole can take 1-3 hours just to reach the Gardens, not to mention the wait at the Gardens to sign off on the Registers. In the remoter parts of the Upper Ring, it’s common for family representatives to be ambushed for the food they’re carrying while on their way back. As a result, groups from a particular set of caves often travel together, for mutual security. There are a number of gangs in the area, ranging from just a few members to several dozen in size. The Guard cracks down on any large gang that it can find and press criminal charges against, but a few gangs slip through the nets.
Such an environment breeds disease and encourages scavengers. Despite the use of small charms and the burning of certain poisonous herbs, rats lurk in the garbage, lice and worms infest the poorest inhabitants and it is rumored that certain dark creatures from the underways have escaped the Guard and now hide in the remotest passageways and caves, emerging to prey on those citizens nearby. Disease is also common, most commonly pneumonia or influenza or minor diarrhea and vomiting.
Another breed of scavenger found in the Upper Circle is the amateur treasure-hunter and scrollsearcher, who believe that the accumulated trash of generations and the unexplored nature of some of the less pleasant passages may hide the secrets of Gethamane.
(Occasional interesting finds have happened, but purseslitting, unpleasant diseases and general social condemnation are more common.) Tunnel preachers also wander these corridors, talking wildly about apocalyptic “end times” or claiming to represent the true gods, as opposed to the “false gods” worshiped in the temples. Ten of the 12 small portals used by hunters and gatherers to collect food outside of Gethamane branch off the Upper Circle. These portals are kept well clear and guarded, and the families who live nearby and who practice this as their occupation are among the better-off dwellers in the area. These families are prosperous and so well-regarded that they even manage to adopt or marry into Outer Circle or Garden District families from time to time. The best known of these families, the Otist family, even holds a seat on the Council.
Few in this district can afford expensive instruments or other gear for entertaining. Singing, however, is common, and some paupers with truly incredible voices have been adopted into better families or have made careers for themselves in the Outer Circle or the Guild District.
Another major leisure activity here is cooking. Even the poorest family has a set of recipes for preparing Dole fungi and any scrapings that they can get their hands on, and small stalls offering to season and cook a meal on the spot line some of the better thoroughfares.
THE WAREHOUSES
When the hunters and gatherers bring in game and food from outside, they can’t necessarily haul it down to the main food stocks in the Garden District, nor do they want to keep the game in their own homes — it’s too great an invitation to thievery. So, they bring the food and game here. These large sets of caves are owned by the city and may be used by citizens to store food on payment of a tithe of approximately one-twentieth of the food’s value (or of the food itself) to the city. There are five of these warehouses, set roughly in a circle round the district and each one close to two of the gathering entrances. The warehouses are heavily patrolled by the Guard and are manned by junior Bethanites who are judged by their elders to need seasoning. The corridors around the warehouses are constantly hustling with merchants, beggars, hunters and gatherers and people trying to strike a quick bargain over suspiciously overripe deer haunches or similar dubious goods. Incidentally, the poorer caves near here have some of the worst rates of dysentery in all Gethamane. The families buy their food cheap, and, sadly for them, they get what they pay for.
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.
CHARACTER CONCEPTS FOR THE OUTER RING
- Warrior: Gang Member, Guard
- Holy Man: Temple Priest, Apocalyptic Tunnel Preacher
- Savant: Archaeologist, Unethical Experimenter
- Criminal: Con Artist, Dole Fraud, Food Hijacker, Rebel
- Entertainer: Cook, Street Singer
- Bureaucrat: Hospital Staff, Warehouse Manager
THE TEMPLES
Gethamane’s three temples are all large, open rooms located near the top of the mountain and distinguished from other chambers by jewel-encrusted carvings of mountains and enormous flying creatures (the decorations also include traces of orichalcum, moonsilver, starmetal and jade, though in such small quantities that it would take days of very public work to extract a useful amount) Blue-white Essence fires burn above the three circular altars.
Almost everyone entering these rooms is struck by an eerie sense of presence and watchfulness. Those who spend the night sleeping in a temple report being haunted by vivid, confusing dreams. Most dreamers remember only fragments of these dreams, though memories of frantic searching or desperate flight are common. Many then spend the next few nights in sleepless dread or eager anticipation, and some find new answers to problems that were troubling them.
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.
Very few who sleep in a temple feel called to serve as priests afterward. This started in the first days of the city, when several loners chose the temples as their base. On waking they respectfully informed Bethan Redeye that they could no longer work in any other capacity, as they felt duty-bound to tend the temples and perform rites of propitiation. Bethan and her people were not particularly surprised to find the unknown gods of the city demanded some form of worship and were, in fact, quite relieved to find it was something so minor and easily performed.
The Mistress not only gave leave for the few chosen ones to remain as priests, but established that any citizen choosing to become a priest, and accepted by the other acolytes as such, should receive a portion of the Dole similar to a mid-rank Guard or farmer, as the priests were doing vital work for Gethamane.
Gethamanians do not become priests deliberately.
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.
Priests who have been called to service leave their previous lives behind and work at the temple. They keep the temples clean and well polished and make offerings of flowers and animal blood upon the altars. Late at night, the priests also perform odd ceremonies during which they cover the floors of the temples with elaborate patterns drawn in ink, colored sand and, sometimes, their own blood. Chanting in unknown tongues, the acolytes sometimes disturb the sleep of those who live nearby. The priests assiduously clean up the patterns afterward, and, if interrupted during this cleaning, they become extremely agitated and beg leave to finish their task.
Occasionally, someone who sleeps in a temple is driven mad and flees from Gethamane, never to return. Attempts to restrain these unfortunates have proven extremely difficult. If bound or locked up within Gethamane, they invariably injure themselves in their raving attempts to escape. They are unable to give details of why they are so terrified or why they must leave, but struggle in an inarticulate frenzy, screaming and thrashing as they attempt to break their restraints. Those lunatics who do not perish in the wastes outside quickly return to sanity once out of sight of the mountain city but consistently refuse to return to or speak of Gethamane again.
Savants and wise men alike have come to study the patterns that the priests make on the floor, but the researchers have been unable to deduce anything from the patterns. One visiting scavenger lord suggested that the markings bore some resemblance to certain diagrams that he’d seen on a scroll that came from the Mountain Folk within the Realm, but, unfortunately, he was unable to pursue his theories further, as he went to investigate the underways and never returned.
There is no clear hierarchy among the acolytes. Gethamane's Master/ Mistress appoints a High Priest/ Priestess so the Council have someone with whom it can interact and discuss matters such as organization, provision of the Dole and exorcisms or warding prayers. The current High Priest is Chilitos, who belonged to the Varenne family (notable for its poverty, bad hunters and worse gatherers) before leaving to join the priesthood. All other priests are referred to as Father or Mother, however old they may be.
A ceremonial 15-Guard group (three per temple) is always in attendance, though this is correctly viewed as a soft assignment and is used as a minor reward for Guards who need a restful job for a few weeks.
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 (in case the malign influence is a rampaging demon or other supernatural horror.
In cases of demonic activity, strange phenomena or anything that might be seen as requiring divine intervention, the priests are willing to come to any part of Gethamane and perform rites and services to banish evil influences. While the gods of Gethamane are little help, the priesthood does contain a few genuine thaumaturges trained in the Arts of Warding and in rituals, which have been passed down through the centuries. The most expert of these priests is Mother Sansen, a gentle old woman always willing to believe the best of everyone, whose skill at warding is far more a matter of natural talent than an urge to battle evil influences.
The three temples themselves are surrounded by a net of smaller rooms and passages. These are used by the priests for accommodation, for private confession and counseling and for storing items for their ceremonies. The passages from the temples through the Upper Ring and down to the Outer Ring and the Garden and Guild Districts are kept well clear by the Guards and are regularly patrolled, as there have been times when particularly poor or desperate Upper Ring inhabitants have assaulted or robbed rich citizens on their way to the temples.
THE GUILD DISTRICT
This district is one of the busiest parts of Gethamane. Guild caravans and other merchants move in and out, citizens of Gethamane visit to do business and the Guard is always checking for any breaches of the city’s laws. There are Guard checkpoints at each of the 20 passageways leading to this area, although some of the checkpoints are only manned by a couple of the Guard at any given time.
The central three large chambers of this district hold the main markets. One is the Food Market, one is the Metal Market and one is the Wood Market. Surrounding rooms serve as storage, while rooms farther out are used for accommodation, both for travelers, merchants and slaves. Slave caravans passing through Gethamane are required to register every single slave when they enter the city. All the stalls are made from wood, though some have been in their current location for decades, passed between allied trading groups when one leaves the city and another enters. Truly old stalls are a sign of prestige, and the stallholders can command respect from all the nearby merchants. Instead of trying to regulate stall space and locations, the government of Gethamane allows the merchants themselves — and primarily the Guild — to sort things out. Naturally, this means that Guild members get preference, while non-Guild merchants get shunted to any small leftover areas. Naturally, this also means that bribery is frequent and heavy. The Guard move in if a situation descends into open brawling or destruction of property, but stay out of things otherwise.
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) and 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). Guards direct all visitors to the Guild District of Gethamane, the site of most of the city’s commerce. as warehouses. Beyond them lie accommodations for visitors
Three large central caves hold the principal markets. The next rings out serve 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.
Guard patrols make daily sweeps through the Guild District to locate and remove people who have outstayed their month and to remind those who only have a day or two left that they should be preparing to leave the city. There are always a few fugitives hiding in the Guild District, overdue to leave and trying to avoid the Guard. Guild mercenaries (unless ordered otherwise) cooperate with the Guard in locating these targets — particularly if the person in question is an independent merchant or otherwise antithetical to Guild interests.
THE THREE MARKETS
In contrast to Gethamane’s usual mania for control, the city lets merchants hash out for themselves who parks their stall where in the Market Halls (though 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.
The Food Market sells all sorts of food, raw or prepared. The room has a pungent tang to the air, from centuries of food being exposed and sold here. Experts can even sniff the air from 100 yards down the corridors and recognize that new shipments of cheese or pork or other foodstuffs have arrived. The large stalls selling raw or preserved foods are at the center of the cave, while the smaller ones farther out or around the edge provide luxury foods (including wine and beer), snack stalls, or cooking services. The biggest stall in the Food Market is owned by the city of Gethamane itself, selling food from the fungal gardens at a low price, undercutting most of the other food stalls present and bringing more revenue to the city government.
This cave is also the venue for those selling drugs and medicines, which can be found at the northern end of the room. These merchants often hire local citizens to serve as security and prevent petty theft from their stalls.
The Metal Market deals in metal and stone goods, both raw materials and finished products (the primary trade here is weapons, and the iron and steel necessary to produce them). This market is the noisiest (and smokiest) of the three, as around 25% of the stallholders offer on-spot smithing services and have brought in their own anvils and other equipment in order to be able to work onsite. As with the Food Market, some smithy stalls are passed between traders as one group enters and another leaves. This practice is more common here, as it allows merchants to avoid having to move all the equipment.
This 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. Many merchants here are very willing to buy anything that can be recovered from the underways. Treasure-seekers who proclaim their discoveries too loudly are likely to be besieged by Guildsmen and other traders offering them prices for whatever found.
The Wood Market began by selling timber, firewood and furniture, then branched out into cloth, books, and maps. It has now become a catchall for any commodity or service that doesn’t deal with food or metal. Space is at a premium, and the Guard is frequently called to break up squabbles or stop brawls.
Knowledge is the Wood Market’s most distinctive trade: petty thaumaturges, charm-sellers, 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 anyone stupid enough to fall for such a scam deserves whatever happens to him.
TRIBUNAL CAVE
The most opulent chamber in the Guild District is the Tribunal Cave, located directly above the Courthouse (though there are several layers of rock and passageways in between). Its chairs and divans are made from wood imported from the distant South, silks brought from the Far East and West, jade that could grace the Blessed Isle itself. Costly silks and brocades, ornaments of porcelain and jade and other fripperies serve to impress visitors with the Guild’s wealth. One cabinet holds a selection of alcohol and drugs that, though not actually illegal, would certainly draw the Guard’s attention. The Guild can also bring in superb courtesans (or anything or anyone) 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.
In short Tribunal Cave is, designed and decorated to impress and is reserved for high-level consultation among visiting Guildmasters and merchants who are wealthy or powerful enough to have earned the Guild’s respect. Guildmasters and high-ranking merchants hold meetings here every five days to discuss the current trade situation in the North.
Guild mercenaries always stand guard outside Tribunal Cave. The Guild doesn’t trust the Guard anywhere near the room. There have been several occasions when Guard representatives took advantage of criminal charges and evidence of lawbreaking elsewhere to search the place for incriminating documents; indeed, the Guard will take any opportunity to investigate private Guild quarters, on the “guilty till proven innocent” principle.
THE DWELLINGS
In principle, accommodation in the Guild District is available for whoever wants it. In practice, people who’ve arrived move into any rooms that are vacant, often squatting in warehouse space or even the corridors if nothing better is available. The Guild itself partitions and arranges the caves it controls so that any visiting members have somewhere to sleep and put their goods, even if it’s just a corner of a shared cave or a small pocket of a room near the edge of the district. Other merchants can either pay the Guild or owe the Guild members a significant favor or scrabble for space in the area that’s left, often forming temporary coalitions to secure themselves some room. If this degenerates to open fighting, the Guard moves in to restore order, arresting everyone. (A few of the Guard take bribes, but not many.)
High-ranking Guild members and rich merchants get dwelling areas close to the markets, while poorer Guild members and merchants are situated nearer to the passageways coming up from the gates. Truly poor merchants or travelers find themselves left to struggle for living space in the areas to the far east and west, distant from both the gate passages and the markets. Of course, the one-month residency rule keeps people rotating in and out at a fairly rapid pace, but the basic principles of who lives where remain constant. The Guard uses its records at each gate to keep track of who are due to leave Gethamane at the end of their
RIOTS IN THE GUILD DISTRICT
There are many possible causes for riots in this area: arguments over space, accusations of theft, claustrophobia and culture shock from the surroundings. . . . It’s very easy for a crowded group of people to become a screaming mob. When this happens, any important merchants present barricade themselves in, and the Guildmasters themselves retreat to Tribunal Cave, while sending in mercenaries to crack heads and disperse the crowd. The Guard may intervene if it thinks it’ll be easy to break the riot up in the early stages, or the Guard may just close off the Guild District and wait for things to die down. Any surviving rioters are liable to be tried on charges of breaking all three of the Rules and are likely to be fined for everything they possess.
The citizens of Gethamane don’t care if most of the foreigners in the Guild District kill each other. There will always be more outsiders, coming to trade or to explore the underways in the hopes of finding treasure. However, locals flee the Guild District themselves if they know a riot’s starting and are (from experience) quite good at spotting the tell-tale signs of rising aggression. This generally alerts the Guard, which moves to break things up or shut the district down.
CHARACTER CONCEPTS FOR THE GUILD DISTRICT
Warrior: Cheap Thug, Guild Mercenary, Traveling Weaponsmaster
Holy Man: Devout Missionary, Visiting Immaculate
Savant: Archaeologist, Realm Dilettante, Scavenging Treasure-Hunter
Criminal: Con Man, Map-Seller, Pickpocket, Scam Merchant
Entertainer: Actor, Courtesan, Minstrel
Bureaucrat: Administrator, Guard Clerk, Guild Accountant
THE GARDEN DISTRICT
The Garden District is the heart of Gethamane - containing its food sources, its government, its records and laws. It lies directly below the Guild District, with the Outer Ring equidistant from the pair
Truly rich families have small cave complexes here, and the Guardhall is located next to the Gardens themselves. Any outsiders seen in this area are questioned by passing Guards as to where they’re going and what they’re doing — doubly so if they seem poor or shabby. The Gardens themselves are the most heavily guarded area in all Gethamane - more so than the Council Chambers.
This district also holds most of the known entrances down into the underways. These are all protected by groups of 6-10 Guards, and each group carries a drum to signal the alarm in the event of any incursions from below.
THE GARDENS
This complex of long, dark caves lacks the lighting of the rest of the city. A few light crystals burn in the entrances, enough to make it easy for people to enter and leave, but most of the space is shadowy, lit only by faint glimmers of luminescence from particular fungi that mark the boundaries of the caves or the edges of growing fields.
Other than the long trays of black obsidian mirrors set along the floor, briming with varieties of fungi in varying shades, the Gardens are spotlessly clean - scrubbed and swept daily with ritual precision. Some trays have been cracked or damaged, but most are still whole.
Narrow paths between the trays allow the farmers to care for, and collect, the vegetation - piling it in barrows as they pass. The rooms themselves are quiet, with the distant seeping of water from the springs that feed the caves whispering in the background and the farmers only breaking silence to make necessary conversation.
The walls are composed of the same substance as the rest of Gethamane but traced with ancient writings and diagrams. Centuries ago, Bethan Redeye’s people to deduce the basic functioning of the Gardens from these diagrams and, with a lot of trial and error, grew the fungi that now feed the city. These days, no farmer would dare tamper with the ancient procedures or do anything that might risk the regular crops.
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.
At the opening of this set of caves is a side passage to a set of warehouses that store most of the city’s fungus supplies. (Small caves elsewhere in Gethamane hold separate emergency caches, in case of sabotage or disaster.) This is where the Dole is issued, and a detachment of the Guard is always on duty there together with several of the administration to check the identity of each citizen and issue her with the supplies for herself and her family. This area and the corridors leading to it are always busy and often full of citizens queuing and entertainers (flautists or actors) and cooks diverting the citizens’ attention.
OTHER FOOD
The previous inhabitants of Gethamane managed to grow a wide variety of vegetables in the Gardens. However, this process required specific spells, treatments, densities of light, particular handling and other things that Bethan’s people could not possibly translate from the instructions on the walls. Bethan’s people were lucky to be able to grow mushrooms from the pitiful stock of food that they had left. Fortunately, mushrooms were some of the easiest foodstuffs for the Gardens to reproduce.
A Twilight Caste with appropriate lore in sorcerous bioengineering and First Age architecture might be able to translate the inscriptions, understand the instructions and arrange the Gardens so that other vegetables and fruits could be produced. However, it would take a miracle for the citizens of Gethamane to allow anyone other than the farmers or other highly trusted citizens inside the Gardens.
THE FUNGUS DEMESNE
Hidden in a knot of caves at the center of the Gardens is a field of undulating fungi, ivory sheets of mushrooms and yellow tendrils that curve inward toward a dark pedestal at the center. This is where the cultist farmers come to sacrifice their victims, unaware that it is actually the center of a broken Manse (Earth-aspected, currently Demesne ••••). Shattered by Vodak’s emergence and has never been repaired, the energies it Demesne emits have made it easier for the farmers to keep the Gardens flourishing.
This Demesne is one of the greatest secrets of Gethamane: only the inner circle of farmers, the Mistress and her Head Intelligencer know. Even though they don’t know that it is a Demesne, they do know that it is a place of power. A restoration program costing Resources 4+, organized by an expert of Lore 4+ or higher, could recap the Demesne, restoring it to Manse 4.
CHARACTER CONCEPTS FOR THE GARDEN DISTRICT
Warrior: Council Bodyguard, Guard, Guild Assassin
Holy Man: Cultist Farmer, Priest Adopted Into Guard
Savant: Librarian, Mapmaker, Teacher
Criminal: Dole Thief, Garden Saboteur, Spy
Entertainer: Actor, Flautist, Poet
Bureaucrat: Administrator, Court Assistant, Records Savant
THE ADMINISTRATION
The Council Chambers, the Courthouse, the Hall of Records, the Hall of Maps and the City Library are all clustered into one large cave complex, which backs onto Guardhall. This area is where the courts try cases, where citizens can come to check on property records and maps of Gethamane (outsiders must pay a small fee to check the maps), where the city keeps the Dole lists and records of visiting outsiders and where children go to receive any education beyond the most basic reading and writing.
Bethanites provide much of the staffing and organization here, but there is a healthy leavening of citizens from other families.
These caves are incredibly busy round the clock, with clerical and administrative staff taking advantage of Gethamane’s lighting system to keep on working throughout the day, simply changing desks with their replacements when the next shift comes in. Likewise, children are schooled and drilled in shifts, resulting in mobs pelting through the tunnels at each shift change. The only group that doesn’t work round the clock is the Council, though it may spend several days in constant session debating a particularly knotty problem.
Katrin Jadehand, Mistress of Gethamane, has her rooms and offices at the heart of this group of caves. These
rooms are the hereditary quarters and workrooms of the Master of Gethamane, and it is a matter of pride to change
as little as possible from Bethan Redeye’s original sparse furniture and belongings (or at least to rebuild and replace in the same style). Katrin is in her 50s and has been Mistress for 10 years now, having been both the previous Master’s choice and a popular favorite. Her primary concern is Gethamane’s survival and stability, and she is prepared to ally with a stronger force if absolutely necessary.
THE GUARDHALL
This set of caves is the central headquarters for the City Guard of Gethamane, combining the functions of training area, staging depot, holding cells and emergency marshalling point. Although much of the rest of the city lacks color, the entrances to the Guardhall are clearly marked by bright red pennants and the doors are all high-quality iron or ironstudded wood. Driven by the need to combat the creatures from the underways, Guards are much better physically trained than most of the rest of the city and have the statistics of elite troops.
The Guard always wants to recruit thaumaturges. They are not necessarily trusted, but their use in combating the creatures of the underways is undeniable. However, few in Gethamane have the talent, and fewer of those have the education. If any thaumaturge from outside Gethamane shows an interest in joining the Guard and seems of reasonable character (or at least, doesn’t sacrifice small animals in public) then a rapid adoption into one of the more Guard-centric families of Gethamane can be arranged to make him a citizen.
Dragon-Blooded outcastes are similarly welcome however Deathknights and necromancers are NOT, as even the most enlightened member of the Guard finds them too uncomfortably close to the creatures of the underways.
THE UNDERWAYS
The delvings that extend deep underground are black, rounded and faintly slick to the touch. To those who know of the Mountain Folk, the delvings bear the unmistakable stamp of Mountain Folk work. There are no regular light sources in the underways: while occasional troves of jewels down here include such rarities as glowstones (and random patches of luminous moss or burning pockets of gas may offer light to the passing traveler), these cannot be depended upon. There is no actual law in Gethamane forbidding people to go down into the underways. However, all the inhabitants know that dangerous horrors emerge from the tunnels, and the citizens are not so blatantly and recklessly stupid as to go throwing themselves down a monster’s gullet. Early Masters of Gethamane realized that it was impractical to prevent outsiders from trying to go below, however. It was simpler to warn them of the dangers and then collect a share of any findings if they should actually emerge alive.
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.
INCURSION PROCEDURE
There is a specific Guard alarm, given by drumbeat (or thumped out on the side of the wall or on the floor) — which everyone in Gethamane knows from childhood — that signals an incursion from the underways. Any citizens of Gethamane who hear the signal will retire to the nearest defensible spot, taking all noncombatants or those who cannot defend themselves with them, and arm themselves for battle. Any Guard who hears the drumbeat will immediately head for the area, forming up into squads there and preparing for battle. Those Guards who carry drums will repeat the drumbeat, adding the signifier, which makes it clear which underways’ entrance the alarm refers to. The Guardhall goes on full alert, the Gardens and Council are shut off and the wards raised and any outsider combatants in the vicinity who owe service to Gethamane — particularly thaumaturges or Exalted — are asked to lend their assistance. This is never treated as a drill or taken lightly; the people of Gethamane are terrified of the things that live beneath.
Once the incursion has been dealt with, the all clear is given, again by drum signal. Any monster corpses are taken to the Courthouse for investigation, while wounded Guards and civilians alike are taken to the Guardhall for treatment and observation. (There have been cases in the past in which citizens who were wounded by creatures from the underways later turned out to be under the creatures’ mental control and tried to sabotage areas of the city, assault Guards watching the entrances or just go on killing sprees.) The Guard on that particular entrance is doubled for the next half-month, in case of more incursions. All dead human bodies are taken to the temples for immediate funeral rites and incineration by the priests in order to prevent them possibly rising as undead. The procedures have been honed by practice, and both Guards and citizens alike know what they are expected to do.
GETHAMANE’S SHARE
Certainly, Gethamane doesn’t impose an outright tax on anything brought out of the underways as it would simply cause the searchers to find new ways to hide their findings or to kill any Guards who saw them carrying treasure, not to mention sullying the good name of the city. Besides, anyone capable of going into the underways and surviving will certainly be capable of bilking any tax collectors sitting at the entrance.
What does happen is that the Guard is instructed to take careful note of any valuables (or mysterious large sacks, for instance) being carried by treasure-seekers who come out of the underways alive. A high-ranking Bethanite (with a Guard escort) then visits the treasure-seekers later, after they’ve had the chance to relax, and suggests politely that a contribution toward Gethamane’s upkeep would be wise. Failure to make a generous donation of some sort can lead to the individuals in question being escorted out of Gethamane, without the chance to collect supplies — whatever the current weather conditions outside may be — with a permanent prohibition against returning. This reasonable approach usually results in Gethamane getting some sort of contribution — especially if the treasure-seekers want to dare the tunnels again in the future.
Gethamane Citizens who bring treasure up from the underways are expected to contribute a third (or an equal value in goods or service) to the city’s treasury. Failure to pay results in their Dole being cancelled in forfeit. The valuation on the artifacts brought up from below is as fair and as welljudged as possible.
Citizens capable of surviving the underways are a resource the government likes to cultivate.
CREATURES OF THE UNDERWAYS
The primary denizen of the Gethamane underways is Vodak and his simulacra. Other creatures enter the dark passages from time to time, and some even last long enough to establish small societies or develop plans to prey on the dwellers above. Sooner or later, however, the creatures end up as food for Vodak’s endless hunger or flee the tunnels for safer territory. Those beings that burst up from the underways into Gethamane proper are sometimes attempting to escape being food rather than seeking the city out — not that they would discuss the situation with the Guard.
As Vodak may produce simulacra of any creature he has devoured, and as he has by now devoured creatures from many different underground races, any sort of creature or race may appear in the caves beneath Gethamane — whether genuinely alive or merely a simulacra created by Vodak that does not realize its true nature. Vodak sometimes amuses itself by creating small tribes of such creatures without letting them realize what they are and then allowing them to play out dramas of life and death, to interact with each other, to attack visiting humans and so on. Eventually, however, Vodak absorbs them again. Combined with the other creatures living in the underways at any given time, this produces a constantly changing society and struggle for territory, resulting in frequent irruptions into upper Gethamane in search of food and living space.
CTHRITAE Description: This Darkbrood is mostly ignored by Vodak, as they were the creations of the Primordial whose blood formed Vodak, and while the hekatonkhire has no such thing as empathy or affection, some deep note in its personality is satisfied by leaving the cthritae alone. They are man-sized centipedes apparently chiseled out of onyx and black opal, with grinding mandibles that drip mercury when they salivate. They run in packs of at least 12 and are hermaphroditic, being able to mate with each other and leave their eggs inside suitable food sources to hatch later.
While the cthritae only require rock and water to live on, they physically enjoy ripping living flesh apart, rolling themselves in blood and tearing open human guts. The cthritae exude a natural adhesive from their insectoid legs that allows them to run up vertical surfaces or cling to the ceiling for up to an hour. They lack human intelligence but are successful carnivores and proficient in the art of stalking prey. Normally, they only hunt to kill, but if they wish to breed, they will seek out warm-blooded creatures, sever the tendons in their arms and legs, mate and lay eggs and then force their eggs down their prey’s throat. The eggs hatch within a few hours, and the infant cthritae grow to full size within a day. If entering an area with plentiful breeding stock (human or animal), cthritae automatically enter into a breed-and-hatch cycle that continues until they have used up all available hosts in the vicinity. The resulting packs then split up to hunt in different directions.
Cthritae can actively chew through normal rock at a speed of one foot per hour but would need to know that there was a reason to do so, such as breeding hosts (they would not start suddenly digging up toward Gethamane but might start chewing through a door if they had seen prey vanish behind it and close it in their faces.)
While cthritae are not killed by sunlight, they dislike it and also dislike unroofed spaces such as the open air. They are considered creatures of darkness for the purposes of Solar Charms and anima powers, fleeing from the anima powers of both the Zenith and the Dawn Caste.
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.
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
Founded near the temples in the early days of Gethamane, this hospice is the biggest and most overworked in the city. The hospice is staffed partly by priests, partly by trained healers and partly by citizens who are working off legal penalties or have chosen this way of repaying their Dole. While it is 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 she has since used her position to make sure that the Upper Ring is not further marginalized.
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, 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.
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. 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 Philosophy Cell is a haven for would-be sorcerers, religious ascetics, devotees of self-created religions, drug addicts and amateur historians attempting to discover the true history of Gethamane. Members are generally young people from the middle and upper classes, possessed of more money and spare time than sense and with ambitions that soar beyond the mundane matters of fungus farming and guarding the entrances to the underways. The Philosophy Cell 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.
Even though this is a hangout for the young and frivolous, serious research does take place here, and a number of the regulars are professional and capable in their respective fields. Notable members include Damaithe Yarni (a thaumaturge and secret demonologist), Serret of the Bethanites (a painstaking but reliable historian — who is, of course, reporting everything that he observes) Tazar Pellan (a cold-blooded alchemist testing out some of his concoctions on those wanting mystical experiences) and Arik Varken, who is 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, a Guild agent, and her group of child-thieves. Jaxar is 40 years old, but she is a dwarf with a preternaturally young face and, from a distance, can easily pass as a child. She was dropped off here by the Guild five years ago to build up a base for action and to pass on regular reports on Gethamane. Since then, she has deftly managed to avoid registration for the Dole. She is a simultaneous den mother, admired leader and scary outsider to her agents. Jaxar’s agents are 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 or pass on gossip that she can send in to the Guild. 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.
Jaxar is a capable blackmailer and good practical psychologist. Once those children grow to maturity, they will sink all the deeper into her power and, quite possibly, become permanent agents for the Guild.
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.
This set of caves toward the outer edge of the Upper Ring is officially owned by the Rasri family, whose members have a long history of jobs such as dung-carriers, garbage-pickers, cleaners and general menial work. Seventh Hall has lately become the gathering-spot for a conspiracy of lower-class citizens of Gethamane who are angry with the current administration and see the Guild as the solution to all Gethamane’s problems. These conspirators believe that unlicensed free trade and the introduction of slavery will not only free them from the current burden of drudgery, but will also make Gethamane the mightiest city in the North. Yftar Rasri, the bitter but cowardly patriarch of the family, 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.
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 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.
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, a woman in her 50s who has been Mistress for 10 years. She was both the previous Master’s choice and a popular favorite. She spends a great deal of time pondering how best to assure her city’s stability and survival and while she pragmatically realizes that Gethamane might need to ally with some greater power, she would rather avoid this — she does not want to accept any alliance she cannot afford to break later.
THE ADMINISTRATION
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.
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.
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 and 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.
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, of which Gethamane takes half and the victim takes half (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).
- Major assault, Maiming, accidental death or rape carries a 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 the above cases, if the victim is dead or incapable of receiving reimbursement, then her share is paid 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.
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).
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
The Third Rule is the most difficult to administer but is vitally necessary in an enclosed city such as Gethamane, where questions of trespass and personal privacy become important enough to lead to murder. In cases in which the two disputing parties share a boundary, the penalty usually consists of moving the boundary line by a foot or two in the appropriate direction. This can result in rooms being shared between two families, with screens set up to give both sides some semblance of privacy. (Citizens of Gethamane do not find this sort of situation amusing, and outsiders are advised not to make jokes about it publicly.) If the two parties don’t share a boundary, then a complicated legal fiction arises.
The city officially confiscates a part of the first family’s territory, allows the family to “buy it back” and then pays the resulting jade to the second family.
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.
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 IN GETHAMANE
Though lawbreakers can be sentenced to a life of hard labor in the Gardens, Gethamane forbids the owning of slaves. Any labor must be hired, and hiring an outsider carries a hefty tariff.
Gerath, the second Master, made this law so citizens could find work and to forestall slave uprisings. Some merchants lobby to repeal this law, but most Gethamanians want to preserve tradition as they identify slavery with the Guild. 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, and Guild caravans regularly bring coffles of slaves through Gethamane. However the Second Rule applies to slaves within the city, and if Guards witness beatings or other mistreatment they can (and do) arrest everyone in sight on charges of “damaging another person’s property.” The slaves owner then must testify they were 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 that caravan’s profits or reputation.
Under the Second Rule, Gethamanians cannot claim animals that escape their pens: They must return the beast to its owner. The Guard, however, 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.
Slavery is not a legal punishment in Gethamane. Permanent hard labor is not considered by the inhabitants
to be slavery, even if it does involve spending the rest of your life working, branded and blind, in the
fungus gardens. Similarly, 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, in order to prevent slave labor from causing rising unemployment inside Gethamane.) Some of the merchant class are currently agitating to change the law, but they have little support. However, not wanting to lose the associated Guild trade, Gethamane permits slave caravans to pass through the city.
Inside Gethamane, slaves are considered property, and are covered by the Second Rule. This means that the Guard can (and does) enforce some standards in slave-handling. If the Guards witness particularly unpleasant treatment of slaves, the Guards can arrest everyone in sight on charges of “damaging another person’s property” until the actual legal owner of the slaves chooses to testify that he deliberately gave orders for the slave to be mistreated.
In such a case, nobody gets penalized by law, but the general confusion and delay engendered by such charges does nothing for the slave caravan’s smooth running or reputation.
THE GUARD
- Commanding Officer: Golden Stag
- Armor Color: Red; target shield bears a white mountain on a red field
- Motto: “Let none of them survive!”
- Numbers: 5,000 medium infantry functioning in 20-man platoons (250 platoons total) with
- Armorment: Lamellar armor and slotted helms, half carrying great axes and half with pickaxes and target shields
Gethamane has no army, only a Guard that keeps order and defends against creatures from the underways. At 5,000 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 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.
Despite the high death rate from incursions below, the organization never lacks for recruits. A career in the Guard is considered very prestigious, and a Guard gets a high ration of the Dole. Less nobly, (and the main temptation that lures children into training) Guards receive greater opportunities to meet outsiders… and collect small gifts and gratuities from them in return for assistance with the city’s bureaucracy. 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.
The Captain of the Guard, Golden Stag, is aware of this and takes care to rotate his soldiers between duties regularly so that everyone gets a fair share.
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. A few hundred Guards bunk in the Guardhouse at all times, ready to go wherever they are needed.
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.
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.
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.
Each Guard post has a large drum mounted on the wall.
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.
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 GUARD ENTIRE
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.
The Guard, however, would frequently gain the advantages of hard cover and fortification from their superior knowledge of Gethamane’s tunnels.
Gethamane’s people could also turn their partitions into engineered obstacles comparable to fields of stakes or 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.
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.
So are their enemies, as troops scatter through the tunnels.
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.
FOREIGN RELATIONS
Though many desire the city, Gethamane has few outright enemies. It maintains polite but distant relations with most states: They have nothing Gethamane especially needs, and Gethamane feels safe in remaining neutral. Given the insularity of the city and the safety of its underground location, many citizens fear the enemies that come from the deep rather than the enemies outside. Only the Guild and the Bull of the North particularly trouble Gethamane. The Guild conspires to make the city a Guild stronghold in truth, while the Bull is armed with unknown Solar might.
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.
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.)
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 who are so busy keeping outsiders out still 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. Currently, under Mistress Katrin, Gethamane is pursuing a policy of cautious but proactive friendship with almost everyone. 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 only faction not receiving this 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 Fair Folk
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.
The Yozi
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.
WHITEWALL
While Gethamane is glad of the trade from Whitewall, particularly the minerals and ores for which Whitewall is famous, there is little in the way of diplomacy between the two cities. Both have adopted a strategy of remaining snug within their walls and barring themselves against the world outside, and both are content with the current state of affairs. Some in Gethamane hold Whitewall up 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 REALM
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.
Since the Empress’s disappearance, no one in the Realm pays much attention to the remote subterranean city. 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.
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, indeed, 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. The Scarlet Empress viewed Gethamane with a lenient eye. As far as she was concerned, while it would have been preferable to have the city as yet another satrapy for the Realm, Gethamane wasn’t harboring rebels or fostering anti-Realm sentiments and would have been more trouble to take than it was worth. Besides, the Guild’s constant commerce with Gethamane left the city vulnerable. If she had wanted to attack it, she could have found a way to cut off Guild supplies to weaken the place or smuggled in spies and agents under the cover of merchant caravans.
In the last few years, with the Scarlet Empress vanished and the Great Houses contending for power, a number of Dragon-Blooded have planned to boost their houses’ prestige and their own fame by conquering or otherwise controlling Gethamane and 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 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.
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.
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.
THE BULL OF THE NORTH
Gethamane is not blind or dead, even if buried underground. The Mistress and Council know about the Bull’s rise and are debating on which course of action to take if he approaches Gethamane. Sooner or later, the Bull will want Gethamane, either as an ally or a tributary — or to serve as a public example. 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 that the Anathematic powers that the Bull and his allies command could crack Gethamane open like an egg. The second option is to ally formally with the Bull and pay tribute, in the time-honored tradition of cities, to icewalkers. Given recent events in Halta, more Council members are inclining to this point of view. While this course of action would compromise Gethamane’s independence, paying tribute would preserve the city and its inhabitants. Nobody even considers suggesting outright defying the Bull and attacking him or allying with anyone else who has such plans. Gethamane as a whole is biased toward survival, not suicide.
Even 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.
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. The Bull of the North is distant but sounds dangerous.
Naturally, 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.
SECRETS OF GETHAMANE
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.
THE GODS OF GETHAMANE
Each of the three temples houses a god of air (Reshan of the Inward Breath), sky (Metheris of the Still Sky) and flight (Tribbua of the Outward Breath). 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. They 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. Alone and slowly going mad, they sat in their empty temples and kept the winds moving through Gethamane, ensuring that there was fresh air even if there was nobody left alive to breathe it.
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.
When Gethamane was first hollowed out from the depths of the mountain, the Solars realized that they would need some way to circulate air throughout the mountain. They called on three small gods who were worshiped by local tribes, gods of air and sky and flight. The Solars promised these three gods temples and worship inside Gethamane, if only the gods would ensure that air kept circulating throughout the mountain. The gods agreed, and even when the petty barbarian tribes who had worshiped them previously died, the gods themselves survived and grew stronger, supported by constant prayers and ritual.
When Vodak swept through Gethamane and devoured everything and everyone within, the three little gods were not strong enough to stop him. They could only watch, aghast, as their worshipers were swallowed up before their eyes, screaming for help. The gods sought assistance in Yu-Shan, but all the other gods were preoccupied by the Great Usurpation or the peril of their own worshipers, and nobody would help them. Left alone and half-insane in an empty mountain,
When humans returned to Gethamane, some of them slept in the empty temples, and the three gods attempted to contact them in their dreams. A few were touched by the deities’ insanity and became their priests, tending the temples and worshiping as best they could. A very few are seized with memories of Vodak’s attack on Gethamane and relive it in their minds constantly. These poor souls become desperate to escape the city, screaming in terror while lost in panic, and, if restrained, often injure themselves in their desperate attempts to flee. If they manage to leave the city, the memories slip from their minds together with the touch of the gods, leaving the sufferers with nothing more than nightmares and a deeply rooted terror of Gethamane.
The three gods’ mansions in Yu-Shan have stood empty since the Usurpation. Few have bothered to investigate, however, since those gods had reported directly to the Solars after the building of Gethamane and all those Solars died in the Usurpation. Indeed, the deities whose portfolios related to Tribbua, Reshan and Metheris are all too happy to ignore their absence, as it allows them more scope to expand. It would take a significant audit in Yu-Shan’s bureaucracy to discover the existence of these small gods in Gethamane and trace what happened to them.
The three little gods of Gethamane hold their priests in common and are worshiped equally by the priesthood, though the mortals don’t know their true names or the differences between them.
Sanctum: The three gods’ sanctums all exist within the bejeweled carvings in their individual temples.
Each god can summon a large stone maul out of thin air at will and use it to defend themself.
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. 38 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.
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.
THE YU-SHAN GATE
In the underways, perhaps half an hour’s journey from the entrances into Gethamane, lies a gate to Yu-Shan. The gate has no guardian on the Gethamane side, but is watched on the other side by three Celestial lions. The Sidereals know about the gate, as do some of the Lunars and Deathlords. While the elders of the Mountain Folk know of the gate’s location, they also know that Vodak is down there, so no Mountain Folk would ever go near Gethamane — unless, of course, the situation was desperate. Anyone investigating the gate’s location would find it surprisingly clean and well-tended, showing the marks of occasional use.
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.
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.
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 300 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 is a hekatonkhire, a creature of death. It and its spawn hunt the Gethamane of the Underworld. There are no patrols or Guards there to drive the monsters back into the deeper passages, and they raven freely in the lightless tunnels. Rumors of treasure or a shadowland within the hollow mountain draw the occasional foolish ghost from outside, but very few of them, no matter how well prepared, return.
VODAK
Description: A force of incalculable malice and insatiable hunger dwells in the silent crevices under Gethamane. The Mountain Folk call it Vodak in the language of a longextinct race, a name they dare only
whisper in dread and hushed awe.
Every utterance of its name is a warning and a horrified prayer. Few know its nature or appearance, as all Mountain Folk flee before ever Vodak could come into sight, but they know it is inescapable death to all who behold it.
Vodak is a hekatonkhire, a behemoth of Malfean Essence. When the first Primordial perished at the hands of the Exalted, its dying blood seeped into the earth. The titan’s last breath animated the flowing ichors with its own vitriolic hatred, transforming the mass into a nightmare of bubbling and writhing quicksilver. At first, it flowed mindlessly, devouring all life it could find. The tortured and half-digested ghosts of its absorbed prey swelled its mass and cunning, gradually expanding Vodak into an undulating lake of necrotic power. In addition to its nearly indestructible form, the hekatonkhire can extrude congealed masses of its Essence to replicate any living being it has ever absorbed. These simulacra are corporeal beings with the semblance, the Traits and even the memories of their former selves up to their deaths. They almost indistinguishably mimic the original beings, save that they remain helplessly enthralled to their hideous maker and instantly dissolve into silver ash if they are slain or touched by sunlight (or if Vodak withdraws the committed Essence sustaining their existence). These copies have no Essence pool and none of the replicated beings’ non-physical supernatural powers (if any), but the copies can easily mistake themselves for the beings they emulate if Vodak gives them that illusion. The hekatonkhire uses its slaves as bait and hunters, luring prey into its glittering depths. It is possible that other Primordials spawned similar monsters throughout Creation when they died, though no such beings have ever made themselves known in the Ages since.
Storytellers should keep in mind that a being of Vodak’s age and power does not necessarily need statistics, nor should the following information provide anything more than a rough guideline. In most cases, this
being will function as an alien evil in the background, never entering scenes except through enslaved proxies. Vodak is currently mostly inert beneath Gethamane, choosing to merely lure prey with its proxies or devour other creatures wandering the underways. If the hekatonkhire rises, or if the wards that keep it under Gethamane are broken, it may mean the destruction of all Gethamane for a second time or the freeing of Vodak to travel throughout the depths of Creation.
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.
While the people of Gethamane are aware that dark creatures roam the tunnels below the city and devour anything that they can catch, the people are ignorant of the true horror that lies below.
Those elders of the Mountain Folk who know that Vodak is bound beneath Gethamane are not going to reveal the matter. They are aware that Vodak may rise and devour again but consider this comparatively unimportant, given that it can’t escape. The people of Gethamane are sitting on a potential disaster and have no idea how bad it is. They are also unaware of the Yu-Shan gate below the city, as the secret has been lost to antiquity. Only the Sidereals and a scattering of others are aware of the location of the gate.
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.
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.
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.
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 BEGINNINGS
Gethamane was one of the jewels of the North in the First Age, a self-supporting city buried within one of the great Northern mountains, with a gate to Yu-Shan set beneath it.
In the First Age, the City of the Mountain Gateway was founded by the Solar Exalted in order to stand above and guard one of the gates to Yu-Shan and to act as a convenient meeting-point for the Mountain Folk who dwelt by that gate. The Solars hollowed out the mountain above the gate, created the sunken Gardens and set the crystal lights throughout the tunnels and rooms of the city so that humans could live there amid the frozen North in peace and comfort. While Gethamane was never one of the Solars’ greatest or most beautiful feats of magic, it was nevertheless a lasting and permanent monument to the Solars’ ability to create structure and transform inhospitable, uninhabitable lands into stable places in which to dwell. However, Gethamane was not a trade city or a tourist destination. It was a place for dealings with the Mountain Folk and a passage to Heaven, and as such, while the Celestial Exalted and some Dragon-Blooded knew of it, Gethamane was not a place that was discussed among humans or was featured in public records. The Mountain Folk walked in its underways, and the Dragon Kings nested in its high places.
When the Usurpation struck Creation, there were no Solars currently present in the City of the Mountain Gateway and only a few Dragon-Blooded. It was easy for the Terrestrial Exalted to keep the city peaceful and to issue general orders that the population should remain calm until matters were sorted out, while suppressing news from elsewhere about the bloody massacres and wars taking place. Unfortunately, this lack of news worked against the city in a more dangerous way.
At this time, an ancient hekatonkhire named Vodak had woken from its temporary somnolence. Vodak is a behemoth of Malfean Essence, created when the dying blood of the first Primordial to perish at the hands of the Exalted struck the Earth. The titan’s last breath animated the flowing ichors with its own vitriolic hatred, transforming the mass into a nightmare of bubbling and writhing quicksilver. Now that the Dragon-Blooded have slaughtered their superiors and Solar blood has fallen on the thirsty soil like rain, Vodak moved in the depths of Creation and became hungry.
The Mountain Folk who dwelled beneath Creation were troubled by this, knowing that they would be among Vodak’s earliest prey. They resolved to lure the hekatonkhire to a convenient location and trap it there. The City of the Mountain Gateway was perfect. It was near Vodak’s current lair, and it was an enclosed area, with a population that would not be able to defend itself; the city was currently unobserved by any Celestial Exalted who might disapprove of the Mountain Folk sacrificing a whole city full of humans to save themselves. (While the Sidereal Exalted had grown aware that Vodak was stirring and were debating how to handle the matter, they were at that time too busy coordinating the massacre of the Solars to be able to spare any attention to Vodak itself.)
With a combination of tactics and using several kidnapped Golden Children as suitable bait, the Mountain Folk led Vodak to the City of the Mountain Gateway. The hekatonkhire’s hunger awakened by the blood of the Solars’ children, Vodak swelled up through the mountain in a great wave of bubbling famine and insanity, devouring everything organic it could find. The Dragon-Blooded led the humans in resistance for as long as they could, but ultimately, they had no chance. They were swallowed up, one and all, and Vodak washed through the chambers of the city like an insane silver ocean.
While Vodak was occupied, the Mountain Folk in the tunnels beneath set great wards around the mountain to prevent Vodak from escaping through the deeps of the earth, however far down it might go. Then, they fled, leaving the mountain to Vodak and the ghosts of the dead.
The hekatonkhire raged when it found it was trapped but could not escape. In the end, it sank as deeply as it could go and brooded there, digesting its huge meal. And the City of the Mountain Gateway stood empty in the middle of the Northern wilds.
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.
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.
ADVENTURE SEEDS
A serial killer is targeting Council members, killing them in a way that fits their faction and occupation (a merchant found with his stomach open and stuffed full of jade, a farmer saturated with fungi and is blossoming in different varieties of mushroom). Overt evidence points at an unidentified Guild agent (and the Guild is certainly trying to seize the moment to gain concessions), but the actual killer is a high-ranking Guard member whose mind has snapped and who worships the “Lord of the Underways.” While the killer has no actual contact with the underways, the creatures there will certainly take the opportunity to launch sneak attacks if Guard patrols slack off. The killer’s ultimate aim is to create widespread chaos — and his ultimate target is Mistress Katrin.
Nellens Avanthe has long-term ambitions to bring Gethamane into the Realm; seeing the merchants of Gethamane as her most convenient tool in doing this, as they are the ones with the biggest interest in outside commerce and connections to other countries.
Getting a merchant among the judges would establish a powerful precedent and serve to swing the axis of power in the merchants’ direction. Several merchants would be even better. The only person with the authority to order this is the current Mistress, Katrin Jadehand. Avanthe has some hidden supplies of ghost-flower tea, and she knows about Katrin’s frequent visits to the temples. All she needs is to dose Katrin’s drinks with the tea on those occasions and have someone who can command ghosts to summon up a few of Katrin’s ancestors and force them to command her to change the law.
A problem with this plan is that there aren’t any local ghosts. Avanthe has assumed that this is simply because nobody’s managed to summon them successfully, not that they just aren’t there. She has also failed to consider that she is making herself ridiculously vulnerable to blackmail or that a thaumaturge or Fair Folk could use illusions or glamours to produce fake ghosts. Worst of all, she is careless enough that it might be possible to trace all this back to her and to her Great House. This could be the wedge that causes Katrin to bar Gethamane to all Realm influence.
If a Solar or Abyssal found out about this, would they take the opportunity to influence Katrin, or use Avanthe as a tool instead? How would the priests react, if they found out how she planned to profane their temple?
Gavne’s obsession leaves the Northern Gate in danger. He’s begun reading the works of the Bishop of the Chalcedony Thurible, dreaming of saving the bodies of Gethamane’s dead (Gavne fails to realize how many are already illegally embalmed), raising them as zombies and marching them down into the underways to destroy every living creature there. If one of the Bishop’s deathknights learns (from the merchant who sold Gavne the books, for instance) that a commander of Gethamane’s Guard is vulnerable to his master’s words, then Gavne will certainly be sought out and offered a bargain of some sort.
Equally, a deathknight serving another master might want to prevent such a coup by the Bishop’s forces. At the moment, this can still be stopped by heroic mortals or ghosts who can discover Gavne’s pain and clear his troubled mind. It won’t remain so for much longer.
A Solar/ Abyssal passing through happens to possess the shard of one of the Exalted who raised Gethamane and bargained with the city’s three gods. The three deities are roused from their half-insane slumber and order their priests (through dreams and hallucinatory visions) to bring the Exalt to their temples so that they can speak with him. The gods also begin to neglect their usual duties, resulting in areas of bad air rising in the farther parts of Gethamane and people dying or crowding into other areas (and causing major legal disruptions over the Second Rule) in order to find breathable air.
The deities must be reassured and persuaded to continue in their function if Gethamane is to remain habitable. However, the gods are embittered by the loss of their prestige and power in Yu-Shan and wish to have this issue addressed. They can also warn the Exalt about Vodak — and explain that the hekatonkhire is still there.
A serious disease has struck the Upper Circle. Symptoms consist of bluish blotches on the skin, a high fever, headaches and severe weakness. While not always fatal, this “blue pox” has caused over 100 deaths already and is spreading through human contact and shared water supplies.
Blue pox was actually caused by the magical experiments of a thaumaturge in the Outer Circle below, who was testing his work on some garbagepickers from the Upper Circle whom he thought would not be missed. He has realized that his experiments caused the pox and is now lying low, but his notes and work may provide vital information in creating a cure for the disease.
In the meantime, the Council and the Mistress of Gethamane are discussing possible remedies. The most drastic solution proposed so far is to wall off particularly hard-hit neighborhoods of the Upper Circle and leave the people shut away to die or recover, as the gods will. The sudden influx of ghosts has also begun to draw Vodak’s attention and may even serve to attract him upward.
While engaging in a game of “go near the underways gate and then run away,” one of Jaxar’s child-agents is attacked by dark creatures from the depths and Exalts as a Dawn Caste Solar to defend himself and his friends. Jaxar knows the signs of Solar Exaltation and is currently “sheltering” the child, while sending an urgent message for Guild help to smuggle him out and indoctrinate him properly to serve Guild interests. The boy’s parents (well-off artisans) and family suspect that the child was killed by the monsters, but here is no proof of his death, and the other children who were there are traumatized and refuse to talk about it. (Jaxar has also sent round word that nobody is to talk about the fight or “bad things will happen.”)
While a Guild caravan is scheduled to arrive here within a week, the caravan master won’t want to leave immediately with the boy, as the master wants to do his usual trading. Equally, the boy doesn’t want to leave. Jaxar is working to convince him that his parents will hate him now that he’s become Anathema and that only “her friends” can help, but he’s only 12 years old and wants to try out his new powers. Finally, the Guard has increased its vigilance and is making life unpleasant for all the local lowlife scum and the Janissary Vault.
Rathven, an ambitious and ruthless Guild journeyman, for the last few months has been arranging to import stocks of chemicals into the city (hidden inside casks of wine or bales of food) that, when mixed in the proper quantities, form explosive compounds.
He arranged for his own arrival into the city to coincide with the last shipment of chemicals and is now producing the explosives and preparing to set them. He intends to cause enough physical damage and general uproar that it will become impossible for the Guard to be able to keep outsiders confined to the Guild District and the city will need to ask the Guild for help. What he doesn’t realize is that some of his plotting is known to agents of Samea, the ally of the Bull of the North, who is prepared to have the Bull’s armies move against Gethamane if the city is considerably weakened.
One of Gethamane’s secrets is that a nest of Iselsi hides there. Their progenitors took shelter in Gethamane when the Empress destroyed their Great House, entering as part of a group of merchants and being adopted by the Loshan family. The Iselsi hold a degree of influence in the Guard and sent regular reports to the All-Seeing Eye and, thus, to the Empress herself — which was one of the reasons she didn’t consider Gethamane to be a serious concern.
A couple of the bloodline have Exalted and were hastily smuggled out of the city and into formal training elsewhere, but most of the bloodline is patrician. Unfortunately, Mnemon has managed to trace the bloodline while investigating the All-Seeing Eye elsewhere in Creation and intends to blackmail the Iselsi into helping her gain control of Gethamane. A young but trusted representative of House Mnemon will be arriving at the city shortly, seemingly part of a trading caravan. He is a trained sorcerer and warrior. Should the Iselsi be revealed, the revelation will shake public confidence in the Loshan family and in the Guard as a whole.
During a recent prospecting attempt, a Whitewall miner discovered deposits of jade and silver a couple of days’ journey from Gethamane. If word of this discovery gets out, there will be a rush to exploit the deposits. Gethamane doesn’t have the mining equipment on hand, but it’s the nearest city, and it has the food sources that any significant mining camp will need. Whitewall or the Haslanti could theoretically send a strike force the site to set up a camp and mine as much as they can, if those cities could conceal the mining from Gethamane.
Even the Bull himself might encamp the area and obtain miners to harvest the jade, should he find out. The deposits could, in fact, be the flashpoint that touches off a general war in the region.
In a chamber in the underways of Gethamane lie several ancient Dragon Kings, sealed in centuries-long slumber. Spells of concealment and warding protect the entrance to their chamber, which is why Vodak and others have never yet discovered them. However, the ancient sorcery is weakening, and soon, the Dragon Kings will awake to emerge into
the underways and possibly even ascend into Gethamane itself. They have no knowledge of the modern world, however, and the current citizens of Gethamane will assume that they are the worst sort of monster from below. The Dragon Kings know a great deal about Gethamane and also know about the Yu-Shan gate in the underways. They do not, however, know about Vodak.
A particular Deathlord has decided to slay Vodak in order to forge the hekatonkhire into the plating known as Oblivion’s Panoply, and sends his trusted agents into the tunnels below Gethamane in order to assault Vodak. Unless they are stopped, Gethamane itself will be dragged into the battle, and soon . . .
