Gethamane

From Thirdexalt

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

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

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

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

Contents 1 HISTORY 2 THE PEOPLE OF GETHAMANE 2.1 Clothing 2.2 Cooking 2.3 Families 2.4 Adoption 2.5 Adopting Outsiders 2.6 Leisure 2.7 Religion 2.8 Funeral Rites 2.9 God Blooded 3 MAKING A LIVING 3.1 Hunting and Gathering 3.2 Administration 3.3 Farming 4 SOCIETY 4.1 THE RULING CLASS 4.2 THE MASTER’S INTELLIGENCERS 4.3 THE COUNCIL 4.4 THE UNDERCLASS 5 GEOGRAPHY 5.1 THE OUTER SLOPES 5.2 THE ENTRANCES 5.3 THE SUBTERRANEAN CITY 5.4 THE STRUCTURE 5.5 UTILITIES 6 FEAR 7 DISREPUTABLE FOLK 7.1 HIDDEN FIRE MANSE 8 LEGAL SYSTEM 8.1 THE FIRST RULE 8.2 THE SECOND RULE 8.3 THE THIRD RULE 8.4 Punishment 8.5 Slavery 9 THE GUARD 9.1 Riots in the Guild District 9.2 Incursion Procedure 10 FOREIGN RELATIONS 10.1 THE GUILD 10.1.1 DRUGS IN GETHAMANE 10.2 HASLANTI LEAGUE 10.3 THE REALM 10.4 WHITEWALL 10.5 ANATHEMA 10.6 FOREIGNERS 11 SECRETS OF GETHAMANE

HISTORY

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

The Newcommers - RY 102

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

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

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

Forming the Council - RY 103

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

The Council has remained this way ever since.

The Guild's Arrival - RY 107

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 Redeye her heir. This established the tradition that the Master/ Mistress of Gethamane would choose an heir from their assembled descendants, rather than automatically passing the position to their firstborn. The office of Master or Mistress of Gethamane has stayed in Bethan’s line ever since.

A Failed Coup - RY 498 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 New Mistress - RY 758

Katrin Jadehand is made the new Mistress of Gethamane at age 40.

Present Day - RY 768

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

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

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

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

THE PEOPLE OF GETHAMANE

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. None can conquer Gethamane, and Gethamane cannot threaten anyone else. Most Gethamanians know very little about the rest of Creation.

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.

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

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

Clothing

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

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

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

Cooking

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

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

Families

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

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

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

Families often adopt children too, a custom that began as a way to make sure that orphans — future workers — could survive and provide childless couples with heirs to care for them in their old age. Most large families include a few adopted members. Adoption ends all ties to the former family, legally and (Gethamanians hope) emotionally. Therefore a woman can bear a child to a man in another family, then give the child to be adopted by parents inside that family (if she is married, this requires her husband’s permission as well), at which point the child becomes 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.

Adoption

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.

Adopting Outsiders

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

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

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

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

• Third, while the “father” and “mother” of the new adoptee are the only people who formally need to give assent to the adoption, if the rest of the family strongly opposes this course of action then pressure may be placed to prevent 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. In that case, adoption will be offered willingly, and the outsider is made to understand exactly how large a favor is being done for him. If the outsider truly doesn’t want to be adopted, then an accepted solution is for them to have a child of his blood (or, at worst, a deserving orphan) adopted by the family in his place.

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

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

Leisure

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Religion

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

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

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

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

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

Funeral Rites

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 any other way.

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

God Blooded

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

MAKING A LIVING

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.

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

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

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

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

Hunting and Gathering

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

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

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

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

Administration

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

SOCIETY

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

THE RULING CLASS

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

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

Gethamane’s current ruler is Katrin Jadehand.

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

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

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

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

THE MASTER’S INTELLIGENCERS

What the clerks don’t know, spies must discover, for Gethamane cannot afford any disruption. Civil unrest could leave people starving, and leave the city vulnerable to invasion from below.

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

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

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

THE COUNCIL

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

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

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

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

Current notable Council members include:

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

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

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

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

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

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

THE UNDERCLASS

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

GEOGRAPHY

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

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

THE OUTER SLOPES

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

About half a mile further up the mountain, a dozen small, well camouflaged tunnels lead from the icy slope to clusters of chambers and from there to the Temple District and Upper Ring. Over the centuries, the Gethamanians also installed a variety of locking cast-iron doors, false tunnels, dropfalls and other traps for uninvited visitors. Nobody in Gethamane can translate the ancient script carved around the entrances.

The 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.

THE ENTRANCES

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

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

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

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

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

THE SUBTERRANEAN CITY

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

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

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

Below the Garden District is the Underways.

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.

FEAR

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

But what they also have is permanent, constant fear.

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

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

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

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

DISREPUTABLE FOLK

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

THE JADE HOSPICE

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

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

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

THE JANISSARY VAULT

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. It is a haven for unlicensed thaumaturges, devotees of self-created religions, drug addicts, people who just want to argue, young people who want to pick up some radical ideas to shock their parents,, and amateur historians attempting to discover the true history of Gethamane.

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

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

Notable members include:

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

THE RAT’S NEST

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

SEVENTH HALL

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

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

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; Gethamane and the victim takes half each (or Gethamane takes all if both parties are culpable - such as a public fight where no one can prove who started it).

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

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

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

THE SECOND RULE

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

THE GUARD

• Commanding Officer: Golden Stag
• Secondary Officers: Gavne Wheelwright, Mindros Yami
• 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)
• 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 well-trained troops, the Guard is quite a formidable force for a small city but has no experience operating in groups larger than the 20-man platoons (in most of Gethamane, it just isn’t possible to gather more soldiers in one place). 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.

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.

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.

When riots erupt in Gethamane, 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 from them in return for assistance 'beyond the call of duty' (such as explaning the local geography and laws). 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. don’t count as bribes but are considered tokens of gratitude for assistance beyond the call of duty.

The Captain of the Guard, Golden Stag, is aware of this and takes care that his seconds, Gavne Wheelwright and Mindros Yami, rotate their soldiers between duties regularly so everyone gets a fair share. These three officers command various district and shift lieutenants, and Guard posts are spread throughout the city.

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 100 Guards bunk in the Guardhouse at all times, ready to go wherever 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.

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.

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.

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.

Riots in the Guild District

As the busiest district in Gethamane, riots are a somewhat common occurance in the Guild District.

There are many possible causes for riots: arguments over space, accusations of theft, claustrophobia, culture shock from the surroundings, etc. 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.

Gethamane don’t care if foreigners in the Guild District kill each other. There will always be more outsiders coming to trade or to explore the underways. 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, who either moves to break things up in the early stages, or 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.

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 Gethamane citizens who hears the signal retires to the nearest defensible spot, taking all non-combatants with them, and arms themselves for battle. Any Guard who hears the drumbeat will immediately head for the area, forming into squads there and preparing for battle.

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, wards are 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). Monster corpses are taken to the Courthouse for investigation, dead humans are taken to the temples for immediate funeral rites to prevent them rising as undead, while wounded Guards and civilians alike are taken to the Guardhall for treatment and observation (there have been cases where citizens wounded by the underway creatures turned out to be under their 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. The procedures have been honed by practice, and both Guards and citizens alike know what they are expected to do.

FOREIGN RELATIONS

Though many desire the city, Gethamane has few outright enemies. Most states have nothing Gethamane especially needs, and Gethamane feels safe remaining neutral. Given the insularity of the city and the safety of its underground location, many citizens fear the enemies from below rather than those outside. Only the Guild and the Bull of the North particularly trouble Gethamane.

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

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

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

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

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

THE GUILD

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

DRUGS IN GETHAMANE

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

HASLANTI LEAGUE

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

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

THE REALM

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

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

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

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

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

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

WHITEWALL

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

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

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

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

The Rakasha

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

The Yozi

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

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

ANATHEMA

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

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

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

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

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

Bull of the North

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

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

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

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

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

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.

SECRETS OF GETHAMANE