Альманах Города Стервятников

Особые правила

Каждый создается с суммой в 12500 опыта.

То есть воины, маги, и барды создаются четвертым уровнем, воры и клирики начинают с пятого.

Опыт получается за сокровища вынесенные в безопасное место. Соотношение 1:5, то есть за 100 золотых вы получите 500 опыта. Опыт делится на всех, в том числе половина доли идет каждому ретейнеру.

Ограничений на магию нет.

Лаборатории и библиотеки работают по правилам из LotFP (c поправкой на золотой стандарт).

Домены будут работать по правилами из ACKS.

Множественные атаки: Когда комбатант убивает или выводит из строя противника ближней атакой, он может немедленно совершить еще одну атаку против другого противника в пределах 5 футов от цели, которую только что уложил. Дополнительная атака должна совершаться тем же оружием, что и атака, которая убила предыдущего противника. Участвуя в ближнем бою, атакующий может переместиться на 5 футов между каждой атакой, не превышая своего максимального движения в бою за раунд.

Масло: Фляга масла покрывает область в 5’ или одно существо. Масло горит 2 раунда и наносит 1d8 урона в раунд. Чтобы попасть флягой масла в противника, надо провести обычную дистанционную атаку (дальность оружия 40’).

Критические попадания: Натуральная 20 на броске атаки означает критическое попадание. Бросается еще одна кость урона и добавляется к результату.

Щиты ломаются: Можно пожертвовать щитом и полностью отменить урон от атаки. Волшебные щиты не ломаются, но не могут принимать на себя урон чаще раза в сутки. На некоторые атаки (стрелы, заклинания, etc) эта возможность не распространяется.

Бой с оружием в обеих руках: Воины и воры могут сражаться с оружием в обеих руках, получая +1 к попаданию и +1 к урону. Сражаясь подобным образом, вор не может провести удар в спину. Если оружие в обоих руках магическое, все бонусы от него складываются. Оружие во второй руке должно быть лёгким (т.е. его кость урона не может быть больше 1d6).

Воры (все с их навыками) раз в день за уровень могут автоматически пройти проверку на свои навыки.

Кастеры могут добровольно получить 1д4(или д6 для клириков) урона взамен на дополнительный каст.

Копья и алебарды могут бить из второго ряда.

Смерть происходит не сразу в нуле. Есть десять минут на то чтобы зелье лечения, или использовать другую подобную магию.

Наемники берутся по этим правилам: https://vk.com/@iaaoyrpg-boicy-i-boevoi-duh
Дополнительные высокотехнологичные предметы для закупа:

Создание персонажа

Характеристики бросаются на 4d6 с отбрасыванием меньшего.

Каждые четыре уровня можно увеличить характеристику на 1.

Персонажи могут продать душу демонам в обмен на увеличение одной характеристики на 2, но вернуть её уже не выйдет. Персонажа с проданной душой нельзя воскресить.

Расы

Если не считать Терранов, все остальные расы имеют лимит по уровням конкретных классов. Если выйти за пределы лимита, персонаж получает -10% к получаемым очкам опыта. Если лимит 0, то штраф получается сразу.

Терраны: обычные люди, смесь из множества звездных рас.

• Могут поменять местами две характеристики.

Амазонки: выходцы из гинархических обществ.

• Лимиты: Воин -, Клирик 5, Вор 0, Маг 0.
• Две или более амазонок, сражающиеся рядом с другом, получают +2 AC.

Пещерные люди: дикари из диких земель.

• Лимиты: Воин -, Клирик 5, Вор 5, Маг 0.
• Характеристики: +1 Сила. +1 Выносливость. -1 Интеллект. -1 Мудрость.

Этунийцы: кочевники, известные своим прагматичным нравом.

• Лимиты: Воин -, Клирик 5, Вор -, Маг 0.
• Характеристики: +1 Выносливость. -1 Мудрость.

Имперцы: интриганы с пурпурной кожей из высокотехнологичной утопии. Апологеты Мунга, его идеологии человеческого прогресса.

• Лимиты: Воин 7, Клирик 5, Вор 5, Маг -.

• Характеристики: +1 Интеллект. -1 Выносливость

Северяне: светловолосые и высокие. Их обычно избегают из-за их плохой репутации и предполагаемой интеллектуальной неполноценности.

• Лимиты: Воин -, Клирик 7, Вор -, Маг 3.
• Характеристики: +1 Сила. -1 Мудрость.

Опции OSE

В данной компании используются следующие опциональные правила из основной книги OSE:

+ Восходящий класс брони;

+ Вариативный урон оружием;

+ Упрощенная нагрузка (по броне);

+ Боевой дух.

Волшебных рас кроме перечисленных выше не существует.

Можно использовать классы из книги Advanced Fantasy Player's Tome.

К Ворам относятся: Acrobat, Assasin, Thief

К Воинам: Barbarian, Knight, Paladin, Ranger

К Клирикам: Cleric, Druid, Bard

К Магам: Illusionist, Magic-User

Расценки на снаряжение:

City of Vultures

In the arid lands of Thasan, there rises the City of Vultures, a metropolis whose original name is now forgotten to all – forgotten even to the ancient slaves who are keepers to the library of Mirvander Khan. Under the wings of the vultures that circle lazily above its towers, the city shows signs of rot and decay. Even the rich palaces are crumbling, stuccoes fall, and statues are as worn stumps. The streets, redolent with sweet musk, rot and filth, are populated by an ill folk, considered evil of visage and wretched. In contrast, the people of the palaces are marked with calculating indolence and the world-weariness of inherited status. In between are craftsmen, merchants and petty officials: quick-witted and grandiloquent, but ultimately deceptive.

The dwellers worship a lot of demigods native and specific to the city; mostly unambiguously evil, or indifferent to human suffering. Yet there is strange beauty, too, and a spirit of nobility that lives in the hearts of all the city’s inhabitants.

The city is ruled by a grand master of mirages and lies, Mirvander Khan. The khan is an evil man befitting his domain, and in his throne room, his safety is protected by a golden cage and trained tigers. Yet some now whisper that he is afraid of a great weird he had seen in his enchanted mirrors, or the stupor of sedated dreams. Some say the final days are at hand.

In time, the city’s armies have conquered all the surrounding lands, and subjugated foes and former friends alike. Now the city has no friends left, but its enemies are many. Open and proud sins among its inhabitants have aroused anger and contempt among the more orthodox nomads of the southern coast, who, under the banners of their new god, have sworn to conquer crumbling wall and gilt spire, and push the faithless into the sea. There is open war against the city, although not an intensive one: distance and terrain conspire to keep the foes apart, so larger clashes are not common. The grand armies away in their wasteland garrisons, the streets and plazas seem slightly empty, as if life was slowly leaving the crumbling metropolis. At night, the impression changes: from revelry and dance to illicit deals and gruesome murder, it is all out in the open – sometimes around the same corner.

Gods and demi-gods

Béthim Khanum: a female priesthood of aristocratic magic-users has risen to protect the bronze-domed burial palace of this former imperatrix, and await her glorious return at the fore of a dead army. High priestess Sindokht Gulshan Lal is a well known name in high society.

The Worshippers of the Columns are ascetics often seen whirling around the tall, primordial columns scattered around the city, battering their heads against the stone until they fall unconscious. Prophesying in inarticulate screams, they sometimes lead the mob to do terrible deeds.

Ishab-Lambar, the new god of the southern nomads (once an ambitious high priest who had deposed his own deity, now only known as the Red God), was once tolerated in the city despite his moral certitude, but his worship was outlawed after Mirvander Khan had an ominous dream. Two nights and one day did the hunt for the worshippers last, and then finally was the faith eradicated.

The Worshippers of Jeng, who perform obeisance before a curtain-shrouded idol. The temple is heavy with scented vapours and the smell of ashes, while nomad cultists with curved swords watch for those not of the faith. The worshippers are duplicitous, “letting the veil of Jeng fall before their nature”. The cult of Jeng is the de facto state religion of the city, and Tormesk, the ancient high priest, is one of Mirvander Khan’s closest advisors.

Karttekeza, the idealistic peacock-riding god in fact resides in the Citadel of the She-Sultan south of the city, but he has many followers among the fighting classes, and is popular for both valour and poetry.

Kéttki is a common good luck charm resembling a cross between a pangolin and a hedgehog, and his small idols are found in various forms over the city. Some of the more devoted worshippers have been known to flay themselves on the barbed spines, but this behaviour is atypical. No clergy or temple.

Kóthag: This six-trunked, elephant-headed deity originates from the deepest Underworld. His black-robed priests can read the fates of men from their cranial shape. For the unwary, this shape is sometimes human sacrifice, for Kóthag demands human brains from his worshippers.

Kwárü Khan: A former ruler who has degenerated into a black, wormlike horror with the powers of a demigod. At night, the Khan’s form prowls the back alleys of the city, whispering horrid secrets to those who walk outside on the darkest nights. What he has to say is often incomprehensible or allegorical to several degrees. None are brave enough to worship him.

Mezeng, a secretive sect with origins outside the city, is known for its charity, and feeding the poor with mezexin, a purplish pudding-like matter recovered from a foreign world. Thanks to the efficacy of polymorphic cloning, mezexin is both nutritious and easily produced. It eventually becomes a part of human cells and vice versa. Mezeng’s high priestess is Severia al-Tyraxus, a stranger to the City of Vultures. The temple of Mezeng (15) is found in the Beggars’ District.

Ozolba the Charnel God, sovereign in the town of Arfel, is not technically outlawed in the City of Vultures, but his worship must take place in secrecy, since the Followers of Dókh are hostile to any philosophy that does not properly dispose of the dead.

Sürü Miklári: the veiled priests of the god of rats worship in a dank under-temple closed off from the world by copper grilles; sharing the company of the “little brothers”, thousands of rats. Rat’s stench and sweet perfumes mingle with the smell of milk and tasty treats, brought in a multitude of clay bowls by the worshipping poor. The rats know “everything” that goes on in the City, and this knowledge is often worth its weight in the gold the priests extract for revealing it. Furthermore, the rats can also be sent against powerful enemies to be devoured. This service is rarely offered and only considered in exchange for a truly extravagant offer. The current high priest is Khámish Avankári.

Swahul the Prophet is a skeleton kept in a sealed iron casket, who prophesies through the metal sheath by mental transference. The temple of Swahul is covered in garlands of flowers, and the gardens are known for a multitude of birds singing among the splendid, colourful frescoes depicting the dead. The current high priest is Bozhawagh Khadarguat.

Varkat Melnar: He is the god of joyful travellers, and his symbol is a grinning sun. His faith is basically benevolent, and is widespread among the lower merchant class.

The Societies

Deston: a secret society dedicated to weird harmonies, organised on the principle of terrorist cells.

The Followers of Dókh are a powerful pariah-caste; it is their task to gather the dead and bring them to roofless towers within the city, where they will be “given back to the sky”, i.e. devoured by vultures. The bones are disposed of once they have been stripped of meat. The followers use brass chains to bind the dead (and those declared legally dead) to the interior walls of their towers. They wear cowled robes, as well as an indigo strangling cord around the neck. On their orgiastic rites, they are known to asphyxiate themselves or each other in their frenzy.

The Followers of Hachur Khan are dedicated to the service of the former child-king, cast off from the throne by the severe Mirvander Khan and put to everlasting torment. The constantly regenerating, mind-wiped body of Hachur Khan is torn every day by vultures, only to regrow by the next morning. The Followers of Hachur Khan are all high-ranking traditionalist aristocrats or their henchmen. No one knows their secret leader

The Merchants of Death: these usurers are doing business with Oolar’s time, a magical force that can prolong life indefinitely as long as it is recast again and again. They also deal in assassinations, and insurance against same. They live around the Courts of Abulghazi Khan.

Oom the Many is a secret society of illusionists.

The Society for Optimalised Objectivism, a conspiracy overseeing Uugen’s Market (4), is dedicated to upholding absolutely free market forces within their sphere of influence. They worship an ancient star vampire residing in a crystal globe; the “high priestess”, An-Raydn, is one of the influential traditionalist aristocrats in the city, and is reputed to be a bit of a collector.

The Seekers of the Starry Sky is a philosophy in vogue among the well-born and affluent.

Warriors of the Tiger: this military brotherhood, based on strong familial ties but open to valorous outsiders who have proven themselves, is sworn to serve the Khan at all costs. Their faces are recognisable by painted scars, although they often employ face-covering iron masks to strike terror into their foes. Women in the family are not expected to take up arms, but it is considered honourable to do so, and a normal occurrence. Every second week, they walk the city with their trained tigers, killing freely those they come across or whose house they break into. The brotherhood resides in the Fortress of the Tiger, the former summer palace of Yanar Khanum. Their grandmaster, the Tiger Lord, is a secretive and withdrawn individual.

The White Hand, ostensibly a self-help organisation. The network provides beneficial micro-credit to upstanding members (mostly craftsmen and lesser merchants) and those it seeks to convert; on the side, it hunts down thieves, and carries out secret assassinations against those judged to be sinful.

The Customs

Burial Rites: In the City of Vultures, the dead are carried by the Followers of Dókh to roofless towers, where vultures feast on their bodies. The cleaned bones are then carried away and crushed unless a generous bribe is paid; the skulls of nobles are allowed to be taken back by their family as a matter of fact, and it is a typical custom among aristocrats to keep them as part of the family treasures. The previous custom of burying the dead in mausoleums and catacombs – often very elaborate – has gradually fallen into disuse and been eventually outlawed, although it persists in the nearby Arfel, City State of the Charnel God. Note that those declared legally dead are treated as such, and dragged unwillingly into Dókh’s vulture towers.

Custom and inertia: The history of the city stretches back to the dawn of recorded time, and precedence weighs heavy upon the present. Things are done in their long-accustomed way, or according to laws and procedures which are now without exact rationale. A palace may be left to rot and collapse because a decree had declared it inviolate; goods may be hauled along a meandering route to respect ancient agreements and codes. This attitude has shaped the people of the city in a myriad ways. Procedure, tradition and routines trump efficiency.

Gemstone teeth: The custom of replacing teeth with sharpened crystals or gemstones, once widespread, is now only found in a narrow faction of the aristocracy. The pointed predators’ teeth lend these lords and ladies a bestial appearance, which some supplement with gemstone claws mounted on metal finger sheaths. As Mirvander Khan himself does not follow the custom, it has become a distinguishing sign of the conservative traditionalists, who are almost without exception cruel for cruelty’s sake (as opposed to simple pragmatism, more typical of the Khan’s followers). However, placing the skulls of the dead with their teeth in well-guarded family archives is a habit that survives in noble circles, and is granted exemption from the usual burial rites. Possessing a collection of skulls is a matter of prestige and familial responsibility.

The Night of the Tiger: A dreadful custom of ancient origin, practiced by the Warriors of the Tiger. Every fortnight, groups of warriors roam the city with their trained tigers, killing those they find out in the open, or whose residence they break into. As the wealthy and powerful have strong gates and security devices, the victims are invariably from among outlanders and the poor.

Status and class: After slight reform over the last few Khans, there is still a gulf of difference between commoners and the aristocracy. Class roles are rigid and immutable; there is no social mobility or advancement, except the rare act by the great Khan appointing someone to a higher station (this has not taken place in living memory). A beggar can become a rich magnate, but he will never cease being a low-born; and no matter how low an impoverished noble might fall, her birth will always mark her as one of the elect.

Aristocrats can dispossess, punish or kill those below them at a whim as a matter of principle; the only boundaries being set by custom and the protective influence of other nobles (who might take offence or claim damages). In these uneasy times, it happens less often, and moneyed interests have risen to disrupt the status quo. But most people of the city act still obsequious as a second nature before anyone who looks and acts even slightly above their rank, although this flattery hides guile, and very often ingrained or even murderous resentment.

As a side-effect of this social system, appearances and illusions rule supreme. Clothes make a man, and someone wearing fine garb or the armour of the nobility, and speaking in their idiom shall be readily accepted as one of their own – as long as the pretender is not unmasked by a regrettable discovery or slip of the tongue.

Beyond the City of Vultures

The lands of Thasan mainly consist of barren mountains and arid wastes, although there is no shortage of springs and smaller tree clusters. Pockets of life are omnipresent; from poppycovered valleys to plateaus populated by exotic birds. The isles of the sea, in particular, are said to resemble paradise; although they often conceal hidden horrors of astounding ferocity. The City of Vultures rules this land from the town of Avendar to the Great Salt River; and from the coast to the Plateau of Ong. All within are tributaries or under military occupation.

South of the city, within a day’s walk, broods Arfel, holy site of pilgrimage to the accursed cadaver-god, Ozolba. The degenerate, bloodthirsty zombie cult is based here in a rectangular temple complex. The gates are ever open, and the veiled priests may take whom they will within the limits of the walls, or any others whom they can outside. To refuse is a sin above all sins, with punishment too horrific to adumbrate. Arfel’s withdrawn aristocracy rarely ventures outside their silent palaces, and the priesthood is above day-to-day-affairs; accordingly, the city is de facto ruled by the six Benevolent Seigneurs, a coterie of crime lords and potentates.

Next to Arfel rises a proud palace-fortress. The Citadel of the She-Sultan was built by an ancient ruler of the City of Vultures, and has fallen into the hands of the god Karttekeza by lucky coincidence. The well-stocked fastness is not only the centre of the faith and an occasional resting place for the god, but a place of succour from Ozolba’s power – therefore, its mere existence is sacrilege to the zombie-worshippers.

Tiny Kalmezdin is a far less pleasant place as the last coastal fortress. Being posted here is considered exile by the garrison, as the place is dusty, hot and extremely boring. Even the slaves toiling away in the nearby copper mines are only required to work after sunfall. Birtham is a similarly small and unpleasant locale, regularly raided by the fanatical dervishes gathering in the nearby Wasteland of the Apostates. The viscous sap of the thorny bushes cultivated here are, nevertheless, valuable enough to pay for a garrison, slaves, overseers and accountants.

Avendar has lost much of its former splendour. Bloody showdowns between the followers of Pragmatic Incrementalism (“Subjective Truth”) and Optimalised Progressive Objectivism (“Objective Truth”) have left considerable destruction in their wake. The conflict ended with the defeat and flight of the Objectivist faction, who subsequently established New Avendar on an isle in the eastern seas. Power is in the hands of the Universal Synod of Incrementators, an assembly where every taxpayer may vote with a weight proportional to his taxes. Votes are subject to purchase by the highest bidder, although they tend to go low for lack of competition. There are several smallish grottoes around Avendar; a place of ascetic loons, genuine prophets, charlatans and worse scoundrels in wait of hapless travellers.

The fortified island town of Yol lies outside the City’s sphere of influence. Despite the rumours, no trace of the identically named amoeboid god or his worshippers is in evidence. Yol is the site of a well-stocked slave market, as well as a small amphitheatre. Some visitors venture here for fights and plays; but some come for uneasy dreams of distant stars.

The Plateau of Ong is an isolated highland wedged between Thasan and the Tridentos. Closed off from all directions, it is ruled by conniving, cruel monks who receive their instructions from a central island citadel. Foreigners may not expect anything good if they fall in the monks’ clutches, and swift death is preferable to what awaits beyond the citadel gates. Nevertheless, this land is abundant in spices, perfumes and powders, and there is constant, if strictly controlled trade through approved channels.

The shallow valley of the Great Salt River, bisecting Thasan, is not inhabited on a permanent basis, although clashes between the City’s armies and nomads do take place. Water and ground are heavy with bitter and useless salts, and the cliffs are known haunts for the needlebeaks, intelligent and ruthless birds of prey sheathed by magic-reflecting auras of golden radiance. Not far to the southeast stood Amron; once prosperous, now home to demons and ghouls. From Amron, an ancient road leads to the seacoast, and underneath uncaring waters

Ishab-Lambar’s empire extends to the southern coast and the wastes beyond. From a rag-tag collection of marginal city-states, the new god has forged an efficient implement of war; and spurred by stories of depravity and grand prices for the taking, his disciples are always testing the armies of the City of Vultures. Outside the towns lie nomad camps and hidden brigands’ strongholds. Some of the hills are forbidden to visit, for men have been lead astray by wandering lights and peculiar noises, and found later as drooling imbeciles.

The original home of the faith is located in the merchant towns of Nuri and Ubashka. Both are ruled by families, or more correctly, family patriarchs, all at least nominally faithful adherents of the new teachings: all dissenters have been exiled or thrown to the dogs. The latter is an unpleasant method of execution and public spectacle in Ubashka. Delinquents are lowered into a maze of empty cisterns, and must find their way out with multitudes of hunger-maddened dogs sent in their pursuit. No such entertainments are known in Nuri, where no unauthorised levity is permitted. Ceramic tablets with the town’s once famous poetry have been removed from the great library, and built into newly erected fortifications.

The last relevant city-state is Korol, and it is the smallest of the three, found beyond the fortress of Aslum. It is populated by a poor and conservative folk, whose imagination is only concerned with building and decorating elaborate family cenotaphs. Only by threatening the destruction of these beehive-like structures could they be spurred to join the cause of Ishab-Lambar’s new faith, and then with no small reluctance.

Источники вдохновения

Главный: Empire of the Petal Trone, MAR Баркера.

Криминальные триллеры Фрица Ланга, особенно Доктор Мабузе, игрок (1922)

Книга-Игра Kharé, Cityport of Traps

Третий человек (1949)

Бенгальский тигр (1959)

Исторические рассказы Гарольда Ламба

Fomalhaut (основной надсеттинг)

A dim and waning star 25 light years from Sol, Fomalhaut is orbited by six planets of variable sizes. Four of the six are dead slabs of rock and ice, and Fomalhaut-II is a world of eternal winter where only a fraction of the former population labours under the yoke of a technocratic dictatorship. Therefore, only Fomalhaut-I remains of the ambitious planet-engineering projects of the old Terrans, a medium-sized sphere where great engines sunken under the surface, once known as stabilisator cities, have created Mediterranean and sub-tropical environments in a thin and ever-shrinking belt around the equator.

The colonisation of Fomalhaut occurred by executive order of Archon Solon some 4000 years in the past. The process of terraformation, which involved the will of the great powers of Earth and the resources of multiple worlds over a period of 300 years, separated climate zones, pushed back the boundless ice massifs and drained them into seas, creating an appropriate terrene environment, including the comfortable conventions of a 24-hour day and a 365-day year. After the environment came vast cities of iron towers, subterranean production facilities, communication arrays and numerous pleasure resorts – seaside villas, natural reserves for exotic flora and fauna, stratospheric cities and the like. Later interplanetary wars had almost completely demolished these structures, or altered them beyond recognition. Some of the stabilisator cities fell to weapons of immense power, others to the failure of automated systems after millennia of neglect. This has introduced curious climatic anomalies on the surface and the spread of ice wastes and arid deserts.

4000 years following the fall of technological civilisation have redrawn the face of the world. United culture was superseded by local multiplicity; comprehensive and accessible information by fragmentary knowledge and casual disinterest in the wider world. In absence of centralised administration emerged the carefully and sometimes maniacally guarded independence of city-states and petty states. The only universal is the Terran language, spoken in a number of disparate dialects, but recognised in all locales worthy of a civilised man’s attention. In such a millieu, attempts at establishing larger, long-lasting empires have, without exception, resulted in complete failures.

• The empire of Mung was founded by island-dwelling savants adept at both magic and technology 3000 years ago. Mung’s doctrines were based on helping the downtrodden, educating the poor and the universal spread of advanced civilisation. The grand experiment, which had shortly turned into nightmarish repression, was overthrown by the open rebellion of subject cities; although there was a time when the entire west coast of the Sea of Emerald Idols was under the government of advisors from Mungor City, the men of Mung were subsequently forced to retreat to their islefortress, where their harmful intrigues had henceforth little effect.

• Of similar antiquity was the empire of the Gynarch Daoi. This lush land spread over a chain of islands to the southeast, and was exclusively ruled by females until a cataclysm swept it off the planet 1800 years ago. The amazons of the present age are descendants of the empire’s distant outposts.

• Propyla is an empire which had emerged along the abundant waters of the Aiotis; over 200 years, the powers of its overlords have waxed to encompass far lands and waned to the very walls of the ancient metropolis. Rivalry among the trade and military factions, along with several independent variables, have kept expansionist ambitions in check. After a recent series of weak overlords with brief tenures, supremacy has unexpectedly fallen into the hands of the Etunian nomad Radon Tharg, previously a low-ranking adherent of the military faction.

• The ill-fated empire of the demigod Alvan Vorodan had a brief and ignominious history, as it was broken by a coalition of jealous gods after a flowering and expansion of only 60 years. Since that time 1200 years gone, the once proud cities have fallen under the patient sands. In the Desert of Regulator, broken towers and shapeless piles of stone are still to be seen, but aside from jackals and accursed spirits, the land is desolate and forlorn. As for Alvan Vorodan, he was stripped of cognition by the gods and consigned to a deep stone pit. Those who approach now may hear the confused cry and braying of animals, laughter and guttural lamentation. Alvan Vorodan’s empire is a dream that was and – as some claim – a promise that will be, but this is well understood to be common fancy, of no great interest.

• The most recent attempt to forge a large state is also the work of a demigod. Ishab-Lambar, an ambitious cleric, had become the head of a maniacally expanding empire 30 years ago when he slew his own patron, now only known as the Red God. Encompassing a good part of Thasan, and wastelands to its south, Ishab-Lambar’s conquest is ruled by austerity and a warrior faith. Nevertheless, the violence and moralistic righteousness of the faith’s representatives has aroused a distaste in many, and the solemn oath of the nomad hosts to take the City of Vultures has so far remained an empty promise.

Absent strong empires, the main spaces of civilisation are city-states, primarily on seacoasts, islands and along navigable rivers. The most populous lie in an area demarcated by the lands of Propyla, the three-pronged bay of the Tridentos and the sea-coasts of barren Thasan. As for the rest, the noted geographer Ninax remarks: “it is clear to anyone with the ability to reason that the northern regions are not suited for the formation of civilised states; among the wild and ignorant tribes of the pale barbarians, only a few fortified colonies can claim to represent the light of human progress. It may be conjectured on the basis of nameless ruins in jungles to the south that climates of extreme heat are not so adverse to development, as little material proof as there is of it. However, it is proposed by many that hostile natural factors had to be moderated through the methods of the ancients, now no longer clear. In any event, the absence of civilised life does not equal the absence of habitation: degenerate, primitive and ultimately unhappy tribes are basically found in almost all environments conceivable.”

Ninax would be well surprised if he would only set aside his prejudices and venture from his comfortable residence: in truth, lone islands of civilisation are to be found even in the least hospitable climes, although it should be mentioned that they do not always prove to offer much in the way of hospitality. And even so, we have not yet mentioned enclaves which have miraculously preserved the knowledge or at least comforts of the Terrans: beneath ice massifs, in the depths of marine rifts, on floating cities and geostationary structures, man survives and possesses power unimaginable to the noted savant. Of course, encounters with the overmen are not always happy occasions: an existence of long isolation may have introduced caprices and odd phobias, but also heightened the basic human attitudes of suspicion and vindictiveness, from which none are exempt.

Gods and Demons: Due to its great distance, the gods of our world are generally unknown on Fomalhaut, or are of such weak power that their presence is all but unnoticedable. In its later cycles, shortly before the planet’s long decline and return into the ice from where it was lifted by the sages of older eras, several new or long-slumbering gods declared their powers and assumed the leadership of newfound followers. Some came from the deep chasms of the underearth; others from the dim reaches of space between the stars. Yet others were mortals who had acquired divine powers, and drunken with it, started testing the extent of their might. So it was in the last years before the coming of the glaciers.

On Fomalhaut, relations between gods and mortals differ from the conduct of other worlds. Indeed, very few consider them a reliable moral compass, and those who do are usually dangerous fanatics. Common men, and even most priests, assume a considerably more pragmatic, even cynical perspective; the basis of all dealings is common self-interest. On the other hand, approaching gods, even directly, is a less involved process: it may be accomplished with little trouble if the reasons are good and compensation attractive.