CG human Commoner 2/Rogue 1

Eric likes to think he has everything under control.

He doesn’t.

Eric was born and raised in the farmlands outside Otraxis. When his father died suddenly with his hidden gambling debts unpaid, Eric’s poverty-stricken family was left in something of a bind–they didn’t have the money to pay the standover men who demanded recompense, and they couldn’t offer anything of value in barter or down-payment. Eric has, consequently, turned to a life of crime in order to pay off his father’s debts.

Snatching up a shortsword that is more heirloom than weapon of war, and creating his own armour out of heavy woolen blankets, Eric is every inch the bumbling buffoon. What he doesn’t realise is that the shortsword he treats so carelessly is–below the patina of rust–an intelligent magical weapon worth more than his family’s entire farmstead and all the land they work.

Eric owes the fact that he is still alive to the weapon–when Eric is faced with a foe he can’t beat or escape from, it unleashes its special ability to daze its opponents. That, and the fact that the weapon cannot kill unless a command word is spoken, has kept Eric out of any serious trouble so far.

Eric stalks the streets of Otraxis at night, waylaying  the rich and adding their coins to his own purse. He hasn’t been caught yet, but it’s only a matter of time, and when he is the men who are looking for money won’t be too happy to find that he’s been holding out on them with his family’s magical sword…

Eric’s Sword

+1 merciful keen shortsword, Int 12, Wis 10, Cha 12, Ego 6

Daze monster 3/day

As the fire begins to burn low, merchants and caravan guards alike begin to retire to their tents and blankets. Eventually, only four guards are left by the smouldering fire, their gaze fixed on the embers rather than each other. There is a companionable silence for several minutes before one of them speaks.

“So…” It’s the paladin. He seems uneasy somehow.

“…here we are,” finishes the cleric of Eurus.

“Why do you think the four of us are always the last ones left here around the fire?” asks the sorcerer.

“I’m sure I don’t know,” replies the paladin. “I wouldn’t read too much into it.”

The paladin, the cleric and the sorcerer all turn to look at the fourth man, sitting cross-legged on the packed earth of the mountain pass. He is garbed strangely, in flowing robes of black with white cuffs at wrist and ankle and a high collar around his neck. His tanned skin reveals him as a resident of far warmer climes, but he deals with the chill of the early spring air without coat, gloves or furs. His only concession to the cold are his fur-lined lambskin boots, tied with hide thongs up his calves. Here in the highlands, his shaved head has attracted plenty of comment from the other caravan guards, with some suggesting that he’d had to shave everything off after being infested with lice from the horses. Several of the merchants travelling with the caravan have been trying to offer him mercury treatments for the last week.

“You’re always quiet,” the paladin says to the fourth man. “In fact, I don’t even know your name.”

The fourth man smiles—a rare sight. “I am not convinced you would be able to pronounce it correctly,” he says in accented Common. “Where I come from, they call me Tupananchiskama.”

The paladin, cleric and sorcerer all share a sideways glance.

“I thought so,” says Tupananchiskama.

“So…where are you from?” asks the paladin.

“A small island, maybe six hundred miles from the southern border of your country.”

“And what is this place called?” asks the cleric.

“Ixtli.”

“Never heard of it,” says the sorcerer.

“You wouldn’t. The last time our peoples met was just over four hundred years ago. There has been no contact between our nations in a long time.”

The cleric raises an eyebrow and leans forward. “So…how is it you came to be here then?”

Tupananchiskama turns his gaze to the fire pit and begins to tell his story.

“My mother was a sculptor. My father worked in the government, overseeing the distribution of grain shipments to the hinterland.”

“Hang on,” says the sorcerer. “I thought you said there hadn’t been any contact? Where did the shipments come from?”

“A few trader captains were permitted to land and offload goods during the separation,” Tupananchiskama says. “Even then, they only met with officials and did not really travel anywhere within the island. May I continue?”

The three others nod their assent.

“When I was born, the oracles were consulted and it was decided that I should follow in my father’s footsteps and join the government. As I grew, however, I quickly came to realise that I did not have my father’s head for numbers. Education on Ixtli is the responsibility of a child’s parents until they reach the age of fourteen, when they are apprenticed to a master in their profession. With my father so often away, my mother was the one to teach me, and so I spent much time in her workshop, watching her create life from blocks of stone. It always seemed that her job created something so much more worthwhile than my father’s.

“I had few friends—the pairing of my mother and father, from two such different parts of society, was not widely approved of. However, there was one girl who ignored convention and spent time with me. Her name was Huch’uyissa, which in your language means ‘Little Flower’. Her name alone was a constant source of irritation to her, as she had no desire to be either little or a flower.

“Huch’uyissa’s parents were like mine—frowned upon for their union. However, in Huch’uyissa’s case, the contempt was even more pronounced, as while her mother was a wealthy merchant, her father had fled his apprenticeship in the military and was regarded as a traitor to society—one of the casteless. If we have the time on the rest of this journey, perhaps I shall explain Ixtlian castes to you, but for now, it is enough to know that as far as Ixtlian society was concerned, Huch’uyissa’s father simply did not exist.

“Given the antipathy displayed by society to the casteless, when Huch’uyissa’s father—his name is Yachay—fled the military he took up a place in the Priesthood of the Eightfold Path in order to survive. ‘Priesthood’ is not the right word, but I have not yet found one in your language that is better. The function of our ‘priests’ is not to worship the gods—although on Ixtli we share the same beliefs as you. Instead, the priests follow and teach the Eightfold Path; a means to enlightenment that they believe will one day free us from our mortal bondage and allow us to ascend to a higher plane of existence. This ascendancy is the goal of almost every Ixtlian, although some of us are better at it or more diligent than others. In any case, the Priesthood is the only part of Ixtlian society to acknowledge the existence of the casteless, and so they took Yachay in.

“Within the priesthood, Yachay sought enlightenment through physical perfection, training his body as a weapon much as you see me doing each morning. Some years later, he met Huch’uyissa’s mother—her name is Amaru—as she was visiting his town, a chance meeting that I am told involved a collision and a great deal of screaming. It was love at first sight.

“Of course, there were two problems with the love they shared. Firstly, Yachay had fled his apprenticeship and, being without a caste, could not legally be joined with Amaru. Secondly, as a member of the Priesthood, Yachay was—by convention—supposed to give up all aspirations to worldly goods and desires, including love for a woman.

“He was not able to do so. He left the Priesthood, and he and Amaru left the town and moved as far away as they could—to my own home town. Once there, they convinced the local magistrate to bless their union—an undertaking which Yachay once confided in me took a great deal of alcohol—and were therefore legally married.  Of course, when he was sober the magistrate took exception, but one of the key teachings of Mahasamatman is personal responsibility, so while the magistrate was not happy with Yachay and Amaru, he could not rescind his decision without losing face—he was responsible for his actions and so he had to bear the consequences.

“And so Yachay and Amaru settled down, and had Huch’uyissa. Amaru’s business crumbled as word spread about what she had done, but she didn’t care. They survived, if only barely. And eventually Huch’uyissa and I met.

“No oracles were consulted at her birth, because none of them would see her. As a consequence, Huch’uyissa makes most Ixtlians nervous—without a destiny, her very existence threatens the fabric of society. As a child, though, I had no understanding of such worries, and so I spent many hours with Huch’uyissa’s family. From Yachay I learned the basics of striking with the fist, the foot, the elbow and the knee—and the art of defending myself from those armed with weapons while I had only my empty hands.  From Amaru I gained some proficiency with numbers, and an understanding of how business worked. With my mother teaching me some of the basics of art, and trying to teach me about the bureaucracy, it was like having three parents teaching me different things.

“Around a year before I was meant to leave on my apprenticeship, Emperor Ayato declared the Ixtlian borders open for the first time in more than four hundred years. We began trading openly with Leyira again. For months, all Huch’uyissa would talk about was Leyira. She snatched up every bit of gossip about this country she could. I think she was trying to imagine herself here through sheer force of will. She said that she could imagine nothing more exciting than exploring new lands; the concept of unexplored land is somewhat alien to an Ixtlian, as we know every square inch of our island.

“Eventually, the time came for my apprenticeship. I was sent from my home town to Blackwater, the trading port at the north of the island, where I was to be trained in determining the levels of duty payable on imports from Leyira. I said goodbye to my parents and to Huch’uyissa and her family, and left for my new life.

“The work was difficult and boring. However, on Ixtli, we are taught that not following through on your obligations shows a lack of conviction, a weakness that is frowned upon. And so I persevered, believing that I needed to show the strength of my character and that someday, I would find the work interesting and rewarding.

“After eighteen months, there was little sign that I would ever find the work interesting or rewarding. With only six months remaining in my apprenticeship, I was beginning to despair of ever finding my place.

“That was when Huch’uyissa came to visit. She said she was travelling around Ixtli as part of her apprenticeship with a cartographer, and that one day she would go to map Leyira’s untamed lands.  I spent three days with Huch’uyissa in Blackwater, happy for the first time since I had moved there.

“It was several days after she left before the truth was discovered. Her apprenticeship was a sham; the ‘cartographer’ was actually a con artist who used Huch’uyissa to gain access to the Leyiran ships’ manifests in my office. He and his men snuck aboard one of them and incapacitated the crew, then stole much of the valuable cargo. I was questioned by the authorities and in the end, I received no punishment but it was made clear that the whole affair was my fault.

“I finished my apprenticeship under a cloud, and full of resentment and anger at Huch’uyissa’s treatment of me. I had thought us friends. She proved otherwise. When I finished my apprenticeship, the position I was offered was the lowest-ranking they could find without being an open insult. I went from having my own office to working in the chancery, copying official documents.

“Another year passed. I was no closer to finding meaning in my work, but my resentment at my treatment, at the way Huch’uyissa had betrayed my friendship, still sat just beneath the surface, and kept me going. I began to search for mention of her, or for word of the charlatan who had been with her. Then I heard the news.

“The town I was born in is at the bottom of a mountain range, on the southern coast of Ixtli. The weather there is not like it is here—it is either wet, or it is dry, but the seasons and changing temperatures you have here mean little there. In the wet season two years ago, there was a mudslide that went through my town. Many lost their lives. My mother wrote to tell me that Amaru was one of them.

“I travelled back home, uncaring about the demands of my role or the opinions of my supervisor. When I got home, I heard the whole story from my mother. Yachay had been out tending his farming plot when the mudslide came through. He raced back, and when he returned he found dozens of people from all castes frantically digging to free those trapped in the soil. Around his own home, however, there was no one.

“Amaru died alone. She died because nobody was willing to help her, because she had betrayed the Ixtlian way of life by marrying outside her caste and—worse—marrying one of the casteless. Yachay was overcome with grief. It was from him that I heard that after I left, Huch’uyissa had been denied an apprenticeship, essentially damning her to a life of misery and loneliness as one of the casteless when she had done nothing to deserve it. She had run away only a few months later, and my encounter with her in Blackwater was the first news he’d had of her since.

“I left my caste that day; I too am now one of the casteless. My parents, to their credit, did not disown me, but they did explain that they could no longer support me. As I saw it, I had another role now—I had to look after Yachay, a man whose world had been shattered by the strictures of a society he now wished to have no part of. As a child he had looked after me, shown me compassion. Now it was time for me to return the favour.

“Yachay and I travelled back to the temple where he had first joined the Priesthood, and asked to be taken in again. The priests made him welcome, as they do all who seek their guidance and protection. They took me in too, as I had nowhere else to turn.

“For the next six months I trained in martial arts under the tutelage of Yachay’s former master, a man who was by now nearly eighty years old, but still nimble enough to thrash all his students. He taught me about The Eightfold Path, about the means to enlightenment. He seemed sad when he looked at Yachay, as if he had hoped Yachay would be able to break free of the fetters of desire in order to reach enlightenment, but even if Yachay had been willing to give up his family before Amaru’s death, he was never going to be able to give up his grief.

“After six months I was formally inducted into the temple as a novice. I travelled from temple to temple around Ixtli, seeking word of Huch’uyissa. Although each temple seeks its own path to enlightenment, there are enough similarities that a student of one temple is always welcome at any other. Every few weeks I would pick up word of Huch’uyissa, or someone matching her description, usually in the company of an older man. Sometimes the towns she had been through were unaware that they had been robbed until I started asking more questions.

“Slowly, because I was asking questions and drawing attention to their activities, Huch’uyissa’s profile rose, as did that of the man who accompanied her. Occasionally I would travel through a town or village that had heard the stories of her and had driven her off when they recognised her.

“After some five months on the road searching for word of her, I eventually found myself only a few days behind her and her mentor. I hurried on to the next settlement—Mango Bay, the trading port on the western shore of Ixtli.

“When I arrived, I quickly discovered that I was too late. The authorities in Mango Bay had, like some of the other places I visited, heard of Huch’uyissa and her master. Upon their arrival in Mango Bay four days ago, the authorities had sprung an ambush. Huch’uyissa’s master had been captured and was to be executed that very day. Of Huch’uyissa herself there was no sign.

“I rushed to the sacrificial pits outside the town, knowing that only the wily old man would have any idea about where Huch’uyissa was. I made it to the ziggurat just as the guards were hauling him up the steps to his doom. Quickly, I asked him to tell me where Huch’uyissa had gone. He told me she had left him the day they arrived in Mango Bay, and that she had planned to take ship to Leyira.

“I ran all the way back to the docks. When I got there, I saw Huch’uyissa for the first time in almost two years, but she was standing on the deck of a ship that was already a hundred yards out from the docks, and was heading out into the open water. I called out to her, and I know she heard me. She raised a hand and waved. It was a sad wave.

“I spent the next two months preparing to leave myself. I have been here in Leyira for six months, searching for her. The trail has gone cold more than once. But she always mentioned the wild places, the untamed places. I heard tell of a woman with a strange accent similar to mine coming this way, only two weeks ago. I think she is headed to Otraxis, and so here I am, still chasing after her.”

Tupananchiskama sits quietly for a few moments, his finger unconsciously tracing designs in the dirt in front of him.

“You’ve certainly come a long way in search of this woman,” says the cleric.

“I know,” replies Tupananchiskama. “I am a long way from anyone or anything I know. I have no idea if Huch’uyissa is even still alive. But I must keep searching until I find the truth.”

“Truth?” asks the paladin. “Which truth? What are you looking for? Redemption? Love? Or vengeance?”

“I don’t know,” Tupananchiskama says sadly. “I don’t know. All I know is that I have to keep looking.”

Yuri Chernyaev

Andrew’s cleric (Sun: light/Protection)

My life was never difficult. I’ve tried to learn gratitude for it, but I can’t help resent it a little instead. Well alright, maybe a lot. It’s foolish, I know, but I just can’t shake that chip on my shoulder. You see, great heroes never have it easy. Astrid the Seer watched her parents die in The Creep. Yorick of Pent was raised from the dead and haunted by visions of hell forever after. Even Garpo the Wastelander fits the bill, being a goblin and all.

Not I; my parents were happy, we were well educated and I’m sure we had meat with every meal. I am kin to no twisted sibling (my sister Eva is a lovely girl). I don’t think I even had a single piece of itchy clothing, for Molkai’s sake. My brother Daniil was first in line for father’s business, so he learned the accounting, the politics and the heraldry. I, on the other hand, was ushered onto the path of a clergyman; dabbling with the usual ‘wealthy male child’ things on the way (you know -sword play, horse riding, hunting, archery and the like).

Of course, given the size of my father’s donation, I ascended to a comfortable administrative post, leaving the beggar-bathing and leper-tending to my brothers. It felt very wrong. All this time I’d told myself I would make a difference once I became a priest. No more lounging and eating grapes, no more house dogs with better diets than most people. I was going to make a difference. Yet there I found myself, waited on hand and foot by laymen while I made administrative entries in a gilded book and held meetings with other over-indulged low-level functionaries.

So I vacated my position and ventured outside the High City to become a mendicant, begging for a living and speaking of the Circle to all that would hear me. Sadly, the peasant-brothers refused to take me seriously. What sacrifice is poverty, they would say, when Yuri may go home for a meal when he gets hungry? Attend a hospice if he gets sick? Bend the Guards’ ear when someone does him wrong? I suppose in a way they were right, but my exclusion lead to disillusionment. Were these humble beggar-priests any less arrogant then their wealthy superiors? So I left them, convinced that there was no justice in wealth and power, or strength in poverty. It seemed to me that the high clergy made themselves soft, and the low clergy made themselves weak, both in a very deliberate way.

Of all the gods in the circle, it seemed to me that in the City of Otraxis we love Eurus least. Every man in trouble speaks his name for personal protection, but when does that same man heed his call to defend someone else? So I returned to the Great Temple and read. I ignored the dark looks from my brothers and the chastisement from my betters and re-learned the old ways. A hundred years ago, the clergy of Otraxis were just like those in the outside world; they would be called by a certain god and strive to exemplify that god’s virtue. Now we are all required to put equal weight on all segments of the Circle and I tell you, a priest can find an excuse for any kind of behaviour if he assembles his creed from whatever pieces of scripture he likes.

So carved my own symbol (a wooden Circle to represent the gods, but with a shield icon for Eurus placed at the top) and went out on my own. Now, I don’t know what I am. Though nominally I’m still a Clergyman, the Circle say I have lost my way by expounding the virtues of Eurus overmuch. The laymen ask me to conduct the standard rites, and I’m happy to, but they care nothing for my ideas and ask for no special protection. So I wander, supporting myself with odd jobs where I can and waiting for Eurus to guide me to where I am needed. The gods have not abandoned me, despite my penchant for ‘mild heresy’ and I take this as proof that I walk a legitimate path.

Orcs are the scourge of Otraxis. Even goblins, widely seen as brutish barbarians, despise orcs. They are able to survive on nothing more than rocks, lichen and dirt, although they prefer more nutritious fare, especially fresh meat. They breed prodigiously, often whelping litters of 12 or more. They produce almost nothing; orc craftsmanship is limited to badly tanned hides and weapons. Everything they need, they acquire through raiding, theft or the actions of slaves.

Orcs live in clans, often with names chosen to inspire fear in their enemies: Fleshtearers, Blooddrinkers, Worldeaters, Speartongues, Cleftskulls, and so on. Social standing is linked solely to how many orcs you can cow, through force of arms, magic or treachery. Only the strong survive; they have no patience or sympathy for weakness of any kind.

Orcs belive the gods are malevolent spirits, who hate the orcs (after all, everyone else does). After creating the orcs, the gods were so terrified of them they made the other (weaker) races to try to eradicate them, at which they have never succeeded. They therefore live their lives in spite of the gods, nihilistically destroying the handiwork of the gods to prove their own mastery. While orcs have clerics and other divine spellcasters, they see prayer as more a means of extortion than piety: orc clerics “steal” magic from the gods to power their spells.

 Although brutish, orcs are intelligent enough to realise that half-orcs often possess talents they themselves do not, like reduced sensitivity to light and increased magical abilities. They therefore rape their slaves in an attempt to breed spies, day guards and spellcasters. The half-orcs are treated appallingly until they can wrench some standing in the tribe, and then are treated according to the fear they inspire (i.e. as orcs). New half-orcs are often bred at the behest of the older generation of half-orcs. 

Current news:

High in the Palir Mountains, a great orc barbarian is welding the tribes into the greatest raiding party ever seen. They intend to sack the city of Otraxis. Buoyed by excitement, even the lowlander tribes are becoming rowdier: raiders have already attacked some of Otraxis’ satellite towns, raizing the town of Arenburg, kidnapping several villagers and stealing livestock and valuable goods.

The Creep hasn’t always been the (relatively) safe place it is today.

Because the Creep is officially outside the City of Otraxis, guild statutes prevent the City Watch from enforcing Otraxin law within the former Perellian Mining Complex. Moreover, scrying into the complex is impossible thanks to the legendary orb that Thane Arred reinstalled when the Creep was first founded.

Although the City Watch is all-but powerless to operate inside the Creep, the Duke’s standing army is not. The very same guild statutes that deny the City Watch jurisdiction  mean that those within the Creep are subject to common law rather than Otraxin law, and that gives the Duke the right of conquest over the tunnels, regardless of the convoluted legal entities set up by Arred to manage their ownership.

In practice, however, the subjugation of the denizens of the Creep has always been both politically and economically unviable, and the Duke is only rarely motivated–usually by the Miners’ Guild–to muster the banners in order to flush the Creep out.

This lack of law enforcement once made the Creep a particularly attractive place for those who sought to operate outside Otraxin law, from merchants of questionable character who merely wished to escape the city’s punishing duties on some imported goods, to hardened criminals who needed a place to lie low or a base from which to run their operations. It was typically a simple matter to find out ahead of time when the army was coming, and either hide or decamp temporarily.

The sequence of events that changed all that involved the entity that became known as the Shadow of the Creep.

Roughly fifteen years ago, Creepers started dying. There had always been accidents, and in the particularly lawless depths of the Creep murders were not entirely uncommon, but this was an entirely different order of magnitude. It started with the death of Martha Tabram, whose body was discovered with more than thirty stab wounds. Over the following days, more victims were found, and although the Shadow’s first victim was a woman, the killer was largely indiscriminate in the killings that followed, with victims ranging from a 75-year-old woman to a seven-year-old boy. As the days stretched into weeks, and the Shadow had still not been brought to justice, the killings became progressively more brutal. The killer began removing organs from victims, and mutilating the corpses–sometimes beyond hope of normal means of identification.

The Creep was in uproar. The Duke was considering sending the army in to clear the place out once and for all. The citizens of Otraxis proper were terrified that once the killer tired of the Creep, he or she (or it) would come after them next. In the Creep, neighbour accused neighbour and total anarchy was dangerously close; the entire community teetered on a knife edge.

Then, the killings simply stopped. Speculation since then has suggested that the killer simply moved on or tired of his ‘game’. Or perhaps he was finally killed by one of his or her victims who fought back.

Whatever the case, the Creep slowly settled back to some form of normality, and as a direct consequence of the killings, the Creepers formed their own volunteer law enforcement agency, albeit one that operates on a different set of laws to the city of Otraxis itself.

One thing remains on everyone’s minds, though, and that is the prospect that the Shadow may one day return to the Creep, and begin the killings anew.

Tindlebin

Male gnome Rogue (Rake) 3/Alchemist 2

Description

Tindlebin is a gnome with a future—or at least, he thinks so. Having been thrown out of his homeland (where that is or why he was exiled he refuses to say) from a very young age, Tindlebin has had to make his own way in the world. Some fifteen years ago, he came to Otraxis where he was able to finally settle down and indulge his favourite pastime—growing flowers.

Unusually for a gnome, Tindlebin has adapted well to life on the surface, and he now owns a successful florist shop where the Market District meets the People’s District. He also has a fairly sizeable market garden where he grows his flowers, outside the city.

To supplement his income, Tindlebin works as an alchemist from his home in the River District. He brews various concoctions—most of which work—and sells alchemical items, although most of his work is by commission to adventurers and the like.

Rumours abound as to Tindlebin’s contact network—he has some strange visitors at all hours of the night—but since he doesn’t usually cause much trouble for his neighbours they tend to ignore his otherwise strange habits.

Motivations & Goals

Tindlebin is entirely self-centred and whilst he’s always happy to help out someone in need when it won’t put himself in danger (after all, a favour owed is a useful commodity), he is generally only in things for himself. Having said that, he is completely upfront about these motivations to anyone he deems to be a ‘decent’ person.

Find yourself on Tindlebin’s bad side, however, and you’re quite likely to find yourself set up somehow. Depending on how badly you’ve offended him, you might find yourself anything from the victim of a practical joke to being arrested for a murder you didn’t commit.

Statblock, skills, feats, equipment etc. built & available whenever required. : )

Ixtli: An Overview

Alignment: LN
Capital: Hachtlan (98,000, est.)
Notable Settlements: Blackwater [trading port] (42,200), Greycliff [trading port] (63,800), Kultan (22,000, est.), Mango Bay [trading port] (31,200), Raza (14,000, est.), Yaxa (4,000, est.)
Ruler: Ayato, Golden Emperor of Ixtli and Steward of Mahasamatman
Government: Complex semi-theocratic timocracy
Languages: Ixtli, Common
Religion: The Eightfold Path, Lathenna, Emesh, Molkai

History

To most of the peoples of Gönd, Ixtli is an enigma. A little over four hundred years ago, Ixtli sent out a massive fleet. In the historical records that remain from that time, this event is known as The Diaspora.

Scholars, students, historians, explorers, scientists, diplomats and researchers—Ixtli sent out its best and brightest to every corner of the Known World to catalogue and report upon the myriad civilisations sharing the world. Over two decades, Ixtli’s greatest minds embedded themselves in the affairs of other principalities, with some of them rising to high station despite their origins in a largely unknown foreign land. Destiny Divided, the famous tragedy by the elven bard Merethrel, is based on the true story of two Ixtlian brothers who found themselves advising opposite sides in a great and bitter war.

How the Ixtlian delegations were received in Ellôria or the Dwarven Kingdom is not recorded in Leyira’s histories, but most historians who have bothered to study this curious period in the history of the Known World suspect that the Ixtlians received little in the way of co-operation from either the elves or dwarves.

Whilst the true purpose of the Diaspora was known only to the Ixtlians, nobody was left in any doubt as to when it was over. On the first day of spring in the year 22,692, every Ixtlian vanished from his or her lodgings. How the thousands of Ixtlians that had inveigled their way into human (and possibly elven and dwarven) society disappeared without a trace remains a mystery, although one popular theory has all of them displaced through use of a delayed wish spell. If that is indeed the case, the sheer volume of wealth and strength of organisation required to cast so many wish spells speaks volumes about Ixtli’s resources.

Whatever the peripatetic Ixtlians were looking for, it appears that either they didn’t find it, or that what they found wasn’t to their liking. The first Leyiran ship sent to Ixtli as an envoy after the disappearance was turned away. So was the next. And the one after that.

So began more than four centuries of isolation. Ixtli closed its doors to the Known World. Precisely why they did so may never come to light, but beyond a handful of trusted trader captains and wizard lords, not a single non-Ixtlian set foot on Ixtli’s shores for more than four hundred years, and each of them took whatever secrets they learned about Ixtli to the grave.

Whatever happened in Ixtli over the last four hundred years, upon his ascension to the throne, Emperor Ayato threw open Ixtli’s borders, and so for some six years Ixtli has traded with the other nations of the Known World once again.

Foreigners are still limited to one of three strictly controlled and quarantined trading ports spaced around Ixtli’s coastline, but the very fact that Ixtli has resumed trading has been cause for celebration amongst Leyira’s merchant families; whether they are true or not, stories are still told about Ixtli’s vast untapped mineral and natural wealth, and delegations from every major mercantile guild and family have set up a permanent presence in one or more of Ixtli’s trading ports.

In the beginning, several delegations attempted to covertly circumvent the regulations that prevented them from leaving the trading ports. All of them found themselves mysteriously back at their lodgings before having gone more than a few hundred feet from the town walls. Eventually, a delegation from the Ostermeyer mercantile family managed to plunge into the jungles in Ixtli’s interior. Two days later, their dismembered and mutilated remains were returned to Blackwater by and Ixtlian hunting party. Rumours abound as to precisely how the Ostermeyer delegation met their end, but whatever the truth, very few have been willing to risk their lives in exploration of the island’s interior ever since, and some delegations have left Ixtli entirely.

Religion

The majority of Leyirans find Ixtli a strange place. Whilst Ixtlians acknowledge the existence of and worship the gods as the Leyirans do, the vast majority are first and foremost adherents of a philosophy known as The Eightfold Path.

As far as most Leyiran philosophers understand it, The Eightfold Path is publicised as a means to achieve enlightenment, or freedom from suffering. The foundation of The Eightfold Path can be found in the Four Truths, which are inscribed on a plaque in every set of foreign lodgings in Blackwater, Mango Bay and Greycliff:

1. Life is Suffering.
2. The source of Suffering is Craving.
3. Enlightenment eliminates Craving.
4. Enlightenment is achieved via The Eightfold Path.

Further, the followers of the Eightfold Path believe that over the course of their lives they accumulate what they call patua. Every deed, regardless of how small, generates an amount of either positive or negative patua. At the end of their lives, the followers of the Eightfold Path believe that they are judged by their patua: a sufficient amount of positive patua in conjunction with the achievement of enlightenment is said to be enough to guarantee entry to Nirvana, a mystical outer plane where the souls of the enlightened faithful may spend the remainder of their days in contemplation of the mysteries of the multiverse. For those who fail to generate sufficient positive patua—or fail to reach enlightenment—their life’s journey is not over; they are said to be reincarnated in another form to make another attempt at following The Eightfold Path. The accumulation of enough negative patua is said to result in reincarnation in the form of an animal or beast, the better to contemplate the essence of the Four Truths.

The precise origin of The Eightfold Path is somewhat unclear, but over the last six years Leyiran anthropologists have collected stories of a legendary man named Mahasamatman, who is said to have lived in Ixtli some thousands of years ago. If even half the stories ascribed to Mahasamatman’s legend are true, then the vast majority of Gönd’s inhabitants would consider him a god. Not so the Ixtlians—they insist he was merely a man, albeit one who reached a state of living enlightenment few could hope to match.

Alongside The Eightfold Path, Ixtlians do venerate the gods as do the denizens of other nations. Whilst joint worship of the gods is practised in Ixtli just as it is in Leyira, most offerings are made to Lathenna and Emesh, with Molkai not too far behind.

Politics

From what visitors to the trading ports have been able to gather, in principle Emperor Ayato wields absolute power over Ixtli—his word is law in every aspect of the islanders’ lives. In practice, however, Ayato is advised by a select group of men and women who have demonstrated expertise in various fields. These chief ministers are able to exercise some power of their own, but Emperor Ayato may countermand their orders at any time—which, if it happens, is not good for those ministers’ careers.

The ins and outs of Ixtlian politics are incredibly complex, even to someone used to the intrigues of court in some of Leyira’s more convoluted and tortuous aristocracies. Essentially all of Ixtli’s public servants and senior public figures operate on the basis of genra, a concept that—loosely translated—means ‘honour’, ‘standing’, ‘relationships’, and a dozen other concepts besides. It is up to each individual member of the bureaucracy to understand his or her genra relative to the scores or hundreds of others he or she might come into contact with regularly, as there are different protocols required depending on the relative positions of the participants in a conversation or negotiation. Some Ixtlians even make a living tracking changes in genra. Their advice is highly sought after, but if they make an error and provide inappropriate advice to a client, their careers can easily be ruined overnight.

The Ixtlian Caste System

Ixtlians are born into one of six castes:

1. Ura: This is the lowest Ixtlian caste. Often seen as barely human, Ura Ixtlians typically perform the sorts of jobs that go against The Eightfold Path, but are seen as necessary for society to function. Examples of roles performed by the Ura caste include the slaughter of animals for food, executioners, and (perhaps interestingly), those who monitor genra. A life as a member of the Ura caste is seen by adherents of The Eightfold Path as an opportunity to show composure in the face of adversity, and thus improve the chances of being reborn into a higher caste during the next life.
2. P’alta: Ranked above the Ura but below every other caste, members of the P’alta caste form the bulk of Ixtli’s populace. They are public servants, labourers, supervisors and a hundred other roles.
3. Pirqachay: Ranked equally with the Wañuchiy and Bindiy castes, the Pirqachay are the philosophers, artists, playwrights, composers, architects and scholars of the Ixtlians. They are the creative members of society whose efforts are seen as integral to Ixtli’s continued cultural development.
4. Wañuchiy: The Wañuchiy caste is made up of Ixtli’s soldiers. A man or woman born into the Wañuchiy caste is expected to pursue a life in the military.
5. Bindiy: Members of the Bindiy caste are merchants, traders, or deal in money.
6. Kiswar: The highest caste, the Kiswar are Ixtli’s aristocracy. Lords and ladies whose authority is unquestioned, the Kiswar command (and get) the respect of every Ixtlian. It is not uncommon to see a wave of Ixtlians falling to their knees as a member of the Kiswar caste passes along a street. More than a few foreigners have found their dreams of a lucrative trading contract shattered when they failed to show due deference to a member of the Kiswar caste.

Along with these six castes, a further two groups of Ixtlians exist. The casteless are a collection of those Ixtlians who—for whatever reason—have made the decision not to hold to the tenets of the caste into which they were born. A member of the Wañuchiy caste who wishes to be a seamstress, or a member of the Ura caste who aspires to a role above his station—regardless of their origin or their reasons for abandoning their caste, the outcome is the same. The casteless are not recognised as citizens of Ixtli and many die without achieving their goals; in the eyes of the other castes, the casteless simply do not exist.

A select few of the casteless, however, prove themselves worthy of joining another caste, typically by doing something so spectacular it simply cannot be ignored. A goatherd who designs a beautiful building or an army sergeant who pens a stirring epic poem may both be permitted to join the Pirqachay caste, just as a poet who devises a cunning military strategy may be accepted into the Wañuchiy caste. Whilst changing castes is in itself unusual, it is especially rare for an Ixtlian to move to the P’alta caste; as the most numerous and least skilled of the castes, there are few opportunities for greatness, and as a consequence very few Ixtlians aspire to join the P’alta caste.

The second group of Ixtlians outside the caste system are those who have dedicated their entire lives to following and teaching The Eightfold Path. Similar in many ways to the organised clergy of other nations and religions, these learned men and women are venerated by other Ixtlians with almost the same reverence as that reserved for the Kiswar caste. Perhaps ironically, they are also the only Ixtlians who recognise the existence of the casteless, taking many of them under their wing and influencing a proportion of them to abandon their original goals in favour of joining the priesthood.

This priesthood—such that it is—is not a monolithic organisation. There are several Noble Orders of The Eightfold Path, each of them seeking a different path to enlightenment—whilst many Ixtlians following The Eightfold Path live an ascetic lifestyle, eschewing worldly pleasures and possessions in order to discover their true selves, some seek enlightenment through the attainment of physical perfection. It is these men and women who form what is probably Ixtli’s most well-known export—warrior-monks who appear to defy the laws of physics through the attainment of the perfect self.

These men and women perform incredible feats of martial and physical skill, all seemingly without the support of arcane or divine energies. In Leyira, these monks are seen as oddities to be marvelled at, although in some parts of Leyira temples dedicated to The Eightfold Path have opened up in the last six years, some run by genuine Ixtlians who have emigrated from their homeland, some run by Leyirans enamoured with the concept of The Eightfold Path, and some run by charlatans seeing a way to make some quick coin from the gullible public.

The Ixtlian Legal System

Ixtli’s legal system operates on the basis of a strict (if convoluted) penal code that sets out a statute of crimes and the recommended commensurate punishments. Ixtli practises both corporal and capital punishment, and whilst it is Ixtlian policy not to submit foreigners to capital punishment (they are expelled instead), no small number of foreigners have run afoul of Ixtli’s strict importation and decency laws, finding themselves on the wrong end of a flogging in a public square.

Capital punishment in Ixtli can be a somewhat confronting affair for most foreigners. Unlike in Leyira where a headsman’s axe or gallows makes quick work of the condemned, in Ixtli many of these criminals are seen as irreversibly tainted and incapable of following The Eightfold Path. In such instances, the goal of the execution is not simply to remove any chance of the offender reoffending, it is also to remove his or her soul from the great wheel and prevent him or her from ever reaching Nirvana.

To do so, the criminal is first branded with runes meant to prevent the soul from leaving the body. Then, they are bled dry and vivisected, their internal organs burned in a brazier. Lastly, the shell of their body is cast into a deep well, where it is believed that by returning their flesh to the soil that those who truly wish to redeem themselves will have one final chance of reincarnation. Some tales—usually whispered far from the ears of any in positions of authority—suggest that the great Mahasamatman was once dealt with in such a way, and that it was his myriad reincarnations in various forms over the following centuries that gave him the perspective required to reach true enlightenment.