The Dusterinos: Cultural Profile

Introduction:
    The Dusterinos are a hardy, independent folk who are renowned for their mastery of survival in the Sea of Dust, one of the most inhospitable environments on the planet of Tero. Every year, the Dusterinos endure a brutal dry season without rainfall, and then an equally as brutal wet season with afternoon thunderstorms that bring flash floods, high winds, and even hail and tornadoes. Dusterino culture celebrates logic, observation, and knowledge of the natural world, seeing these as the three most important things one can take into the desert for the annual season of wandering. The dry season is spent in small, independent towns and villages built around springs and oases that can provide fresh water through the sedentary season. This traditional lifestyle is a part of an ascetic religious philosophy within the religion of the Dusterinos, Dusterism, which overtook and unified the Dusterinos around 1,000 years ago. Today, the Dusterinos seem mostly content to live without the conveniences of advanced magic and technology, although there is a small, growing movement of Dusterinos who wish to live a settled life and trade with the merchants from the First Empire for various comforts. This new movement is still small, but it has the support of the merchants, themselves all too excited to start exploiting the Dusterinos for cactus water which is sold as a health drink in the First Empire heartland.

Magic and Technology:
    Much like their Convergent Wanderer forebears, the Dusterinos seem to have little use for advanced magic or technology when they spend about half the year wandering and they need to pack light. Unlike the Convergent Wanderers, though, the Dusterinos spend half the year in small towns built around the few reliable sources of water in the Sea of Dust. This allows the Dusterinos to build some permanent infrastructure and produce things like steel tools and weapons to make the season of wandering easier. By the same token, some Dusterinos use the settled season to study and practice magic, with enchanted items and spellcasting having a minor presence in most villages. Despite these material and magical practices all going back thousands of years, the small population of Dusterinos and cultural tendency to wander, even before it became a religious mandate, has given these developments a certain focus.
    Technological progress has always been hyper-focused on developing technologies which can help people survive in the Sea of Dust. Portable shelters which can be set up and taken down in minutes and which are large enough to shelter up to 8 adults while being light enough for a single person to carry have been around for a long time. The weapon of choice for the majority of Dusterinos is something that was brought over more recently with some of the Ashmount Herder exiles, the rifle. By utilizing mines close to some of the villages, the raw materials for new rifles, bullets, and gunpowder can be easily obtained during the dry season. The rifles produced and used by the Dusterinos for both hunting and warfare are known as dusterifles. Dusterifles are breech-loading, bolt action rifles which can hold and fire a single bullet, equivalent to a real-world 9mm round, before needing to be reloaded. Some Dusterino gunsmiths have experimented with higher capacity dusterifles, but these have not caught on. Outside of these well-developed tents and weapons, Dusterinos are happy to use more basic knives and tools, in line with the ascetic lifestyle their religion demands.
    Like their technology, Dusterino magic tends to be focused on what is useful for desert survival. Spells and enchanted items which help people find and purify water are the most common, followed by magic to heal people and mend objects. These magics are usually passed down to the next generation from older members of the Dusterino community. Most never bother to learn, but there are always a few students learning from their elders during the dry season. More powerful magics are generally seen as a waste of time by the Dusterinos, but there are a few lone individuals who have chosen to leave dusterino culture entirely to study magic deep in the desert. These wizards usually act strange and eccentric due to their lack of social contact, but each of them seems to have found a different obsession, researching and developing magic solely related to that. This has resulted in a rather negative view of wizards in Dusterino culture, the stereotype being that of a mad hermit living in the deep desert, so detached from reality that they believe their mastery of obscure and specific magic will let them take over the world. This is not wholly accurate, but Dusterino wizards do tend to be a bit strange.

Society:
    Dusterino society has spent the last couple centuries in a self-imposed state of theocratic anarchy. About 500 years ago, the leaders of the Dusterist Union agreed to dissolve their government due to irrelevance. Religious belief and practice had resulted in much of the population wandering the desert in small family groups for half the year, with the expectation that they would be self-sufficient for this time. Towns and villages, usually populated by a few extended families during the settled season, were self-governing at this point as well. As part-time nomads themselves, the last leaders of the Dusterist Union saw no reason to fight a losing battle and chose to let towns and villages be fully self-reliant and independent when they were populated, while getting out of the way of the nomads during the wet season so that individual families could deal with issues as they came up.
    This state of affairs has apparently worked fine for centuries, with the vast majority of Dusterinos choosing to follow the religious mandates to live humbly and wander for half the year. Within the last few years, however, a woman named Serena has started calling herself the third reincarnation of the prophet, claiming to speak on behalf of the god of the Dusterinos, Ol’ Dusty. Serena preaches a fully settled lifestyle which takes advantage of the comforts of magic and technology. In her words, Ol’ Dusty wants the Dusterinos to be comfortable and happy, allowing them to better pursue the studies of logic and the natural world. Serena sees wandering the Sea of Dust as an important rite of passage for each Dusterino, but she says it does not need to be done every year. More conservative segments of society hold their noses up at this radical philosophy, claiming that it is foolishness that will only deplete the limited resources of the dry season settlements. Serena argues that the Dusterinos have mastered the techniques needed to supplement their water supplies with other sources such as ground and rainwater. Other supplies can be bought from First Empire merchants with the cactus water they want to sell back in their homeland. To keep supplies flowing, Serena even claims that cactuses can be farmed and harvested from without taking precious water away from the towns.
    For the most part, more traditional Dusterinos tolerate Serena and her followers, seeing them as a small group of weirdos who won’t ever be able to gain influence. Although Serena is a radical and an outcast by Dusterino standards, she still preaches the importance of logic, observation, and knowledge, maintaining a lot of common ground with those who are committed to their annual wanderings. No one, except for the very young and old, stays in the towns during the wet season, allowing Serena’s followers to stay behind unchallenged and pursue their new way of life. Since each town maintains its own rules during the dry season, formal recognition of this growing movement varies greatly between settlements. Some towns have set up brand new systems of government to accommodate year-round residency, while others have no recognition of their permanent residents and they are left on their own when most of the town leaves for the wet season. Some groups have seen the recent growth of Serena’s group of radicals and feel like their traditional way of life is being threatened. While this is not necessarily the case, tensions have been rising and there are people on both sides who feel that it is only a matter of time before violence erupts. Until then, tolerance continues and peace is upheld.

Religion:
    The religion of the Dusterinos, known as Dusterism, is practiced by almost all Dusterinos and centers on the worship of a god known as Ol’ Dusty, the collective consciousness of all of the grains of sand in the Sea of Dust. There is no organized system of worship or religious order associated with Dusterism, but rather the teachings of Ol’ Dusty have been passed on to the other Dusterinos by prophets who speak on behalf of their god. Stella, the first prophet, was the originator of Dusterism 4,000 years ago. She was the first person Ol’ Dusty ever revealed himself to, and her teachings are recorded and passed on in a document known as “The Book of Stella”. There was a second prophet, Starla, 2,000 years ago who claimed it was Ol’ Dusty’s will for all Dusterinos to be united under a single banner, and so she started the second unifying war to expand the Dusterist Union and follow the will of Ol’ Dusty. Starla’s teachings are recorded in a book known as “The Book of Starla” so that future generations of Dusterinos may always be able to access her wisdom. Today, Serena is claiming to be the third coming of the prophet, calling for a return to the settled lifestyles that the Dusterinos lived thousands of years ago. While her prophethood is still in question, many believe Serena to truly be the third coming of the Dusterino Prophet.
    Without any kind of formal rituals or priests, Dusterism is a religion that is mostly practiced by reading the books of the prophets and living a life that cultivates the skills needed to survive in the desert for extended periods. Most Dusterinos see the teachings of the prophets as desert survival guides couched in philosophy and morality. Regardless, the followers of Dusterism have always seemed to have an easier time in the desert than others, so anyone who doesn’t believe in Ol’ Dusty and his prophets tends to follow Dusterism out of pragmatic self-preservation. That said, there is a more mystical side to Dusterism as well. The prophets all teach that all Dusterinos are inherently tied to the desert and that when they die, their souls become one with Ol’ Dusty and the sands of the Sea of Dust until the appropriate time for their souls to be reincarnated back into the Dusterino population.
    The most devoted followers of the more mystic teachings of the prophets believe that there is a way to achieve enlightenment, becoming one with Ol’ Dusty while alive and gaining absolute control over the Sea of Dust. Through deep meditation and solitude in the deepest parts of the deserts, these Dusterino mystics hope to achieve this state, although no one has ever managed to do it. What seems to happen more often than not is that one who is on the cusp of enlightenment is subsumed by Ol’ Dusty, dissolving their body into sand as they fail to wrest conscious control of the desert away from their god. Ultimately, each mystic has their own goals for achieving enlightenment and gaining absolute power over the desert. Most simply wish to gain a complete understanding of it, while others have more sinister goals. One day, one of them may attain full enlightenment, but until then, they meditate in the deep desert, hoping to succeed where so many have failed.

Towns:
    Each Dusterino town or village is built around a permanent oasis or freshwater spring which is able to produce enough fresh water to sustain a group of several extended families for the duration of the dry season each year. When they are inhabited, the towns are independent and self-sufficient, rarely communicating or trading with each other. By tradition, each extended family in a given settlement is able to elect one representative to a town council for the duration of the settled season. This council exists to hear and pass judgment on conflicts, petitions, and policy proposals that their people bring to them. Their decisions are binding, but only for the duration of the settled period of the year, and those who dislike the decision are free to start their annual wanderings early if they no longer wish to be bound by the ruling. Year to year, the councils tend to have the same members and goals, resulting in a great deal of stability for a nominally anarchist society. Each town is under no obligation to have any particular laws or policies so the laws and practices in each town can be wildly divergent and diverse. Because of this, some towns are much more open to the growth of Prophet Serena’s followers than others, with policies spanning the spectrum from complete persecution to full acceptance and adoption of Serena’s teachings.
    As far as taking in outsiders goes, some villages are more welcoming than others. All Dusterino settlements are concerned with maintaining the sustainable use of their water sources, and this has led some to be less welcoming to outsiders under the concern that they will be too much of a burden on their food and water. While this has presented an obstacle to travelers and merchants in the past, the attitude is becoming less common over time. The Dusterinos are generally curious about outsiders, sharing their culture and stories in exchange for the same from the outsiders. Merchants seem to have a hard time making money in Dusterino villages due to a focus on traveling light during the wet season, but thanks to Serena and her followers, this is slowly changing. As more people start to follow her teachings, more cactus farms spring up, providing more cactus water for the merchants to buy up. This is creating a quickly growing technology and culture gap between those who follow the new prophet and those who follow the traditional Dusterino lifestyle, a technology gap which is causing increased concern among the avowed traditionalists. More traditional towns feel like their independence and way of life is being threatened, and it is possible that this conflict will result in violence in the near future.

The Sea of Dust: Setting Details

Introduction:
    The sea of dust is a massive desert which lies between the Tortoise Herd and Coda Mountains. This region is hilly and sits at a higher elevation than the surrounding areas, with no major rivers, or really any rivers at all, which go through it. Additionally, its location between two large mountain ranges on its east and west puts the Sea of Dust inside of both rain shadows, resulting in very little and very rare rainfall. When it does rain, it comes in massive thunderstorms from the north and south during the wet season, which can quickly overwhelm the capacity for the soil to absorb moisture, resulting in flash floods. Very few permanent settlements exist among the shifting sands and cactuses, but a single group of humans, the Dusterinos, have managed to build a thriving society of semi-nomadic hunter-gatherers who spend the hottest, driest parts of the year in settlements built around extremely rare oases and springs and the rest of the year wandering the sands and gathering food and water from the few wild sources they can find. There are, understandably, rather few Dusterinos considering the size of the territory they claim. No one else, however, wants to live where they do, so their way of life has been mostly undisturbed by outsiders for thousands of years.

Geographic History:
      The Sea of Dust has been a dry, hostile desert for millions of years, ever since the end of the last ice age. When Tero was much colder and had permanent ice caps, the Sea of Dust was quite green and pleasant. Since then, the area has become much hotter due to the now-warmer climate of Tero and annual rainfall has gone down as the Ashmount Range has slowly grown. These forces worked together to eventually bake the land into the massive expanse of scrub and dunes that people see today. The region contains a wealth of fossils from groups of animals that have since left to colonize more hospitable places. Today, the Sea of Dust represents a major boundary to the spread of plants and animals, an apparent reversal of its role in the deep past. What plants and animals that remain today are hardy and tough, being able to survive for years, in many cases, without any liquid water. The most notable of these are the cactuses of the region which have evolved to store vast amounts of water within their stems, along with single-humped camels which seem to be the descendents of llamas who adapted to the desert as it dried out rather than leave for the mountains. As one of the few animals able to eat cactuses, spines and all, camels are the most common herbivore in the Sea of Dust.
    A few species from the northern reaches of the Great Convergence have adapted to the desert and now live throughout it. These include raccoon-wolves, which tend to have a thinner coat with sandy colors to match the desert, and ducks, of all things. Exactly one group of ducks from the Great Convergence has moved to the desert, getting used to the lack of water, losing the webbing between their toes, and becoming what are now known as lost ducks. Tiny flocks of lost ducks roam the Sea of Dust looking for insects and edible plant matter to eat with their relatively sharp and narrow bills. Additionally, several species which are common in the Ashmount Range to the west have found that their adaptations for the dry, volcanic mountains also work quite well in the Sea of Dust. The most notable of these creatures is the burrowing bear. These creatures which originated in the loose, ashy soils of the Ashmount Range, have found their massive claws and thick skulls well-suited to the loose sands that cover most of the Sea of Dust. The end result of all this migration is that the desert is home to a surprisingly diverse array of animals on its margins, although diversity begins to drop off sharply the deeper one gets into the dunes. Dusterino myth states that the very center of the desert is so dry that even the hardiest of plants and animals will dry out within a matter of days, the thirsty air sucking the water right out of them.

The Dusterinos:
    Dusterino culture was originally born from a mix of Convergent Wanderers from the Great Convergence and Ashmount Herders from the Ashmount Range. Outcasts from the two groups were forced to survive on the edges of the Sea of Dust for hundreds of years without support, eventually learning the ways of desert survival and developing their own, unique set of beliefs and traditions. Today, the Dusterinos are semi-nomadic, spending the dry season in towns built around oases and springs. The rest of the year, the Dusterinos roam the Sea of Dust, foraging and hunting for their food in small family groups. Although there is rarely any kind of surface water in the desert, the relatively wet and cool season of wandering is when large cactuses can be tapped for water. This time of year is also when game species are most active in the area, allowing families to stock up on food for the dry season in the towns. Being in tune with the cycles of nature like this is very important to the Dusterinos. Dusterino culture values factual knowledge about the natural world, the application of logic to practical issues, and the ability to observe the world around oneself accurately. They believe that these qualities are imperative to surviving in the desert and that their god, the collective consciousness of all of the grains of sand in the Sea of Dust, rewards those who display such qualities with good health and bountiful harvests. Dusterinos do not have much interaction with the outside world, since merchants have very little that interests the Dusterinos and the Dusterinos do not seem to produce anything of interest to the merchants. The sea of dust is fairly easy for merchants to go around without going through the desert, so there aren’t very many opportunities for trade anyway. This seems to suit the Dusterinos just fine, however, and they seem to be happy with their way of life. They are generally distrustful of magic and technology, preferring to live life simply in the desert. All of this may be changing, however, as the merchants recently realized they can sell the water tapped from cactuses during the wet season to people back home as a health drink.

Rough Timeline

• 6,000 years ago- The Convergent Wanderers move into the Great Convergence to the south of the Sea of Dust and begin exiling outcasts and criminals to the vast desert
• 5,000 years ago- The goat and sheep herders of the Ashmount Range to the west of the Sea of Dust first arrive in their mountainous home and begin exiling outcasts and criminals to the vast desert
• 4,800 years ago- The first generation to call themselves Dusterinos is born, taking on the label as they recognize that they have developed a distinct culture and way of life from their two source groups
• 4,300 years ago- Clive the Great begins the first unifying war after generations of violent conflict between the various Dusterino towns and villages, which were permanently inhabited at the time
• 4,250 years ago- After Clive the Great dies with only a single oasis outside of his unified Dusterino Kingdom, his son, Giles the Finisher, takes command and captures the town, unifying all Dusterinos under the rulership of a single king
• 4,000 years ago- Dusterism, the belief in and worship of the collective consciousness of all of the grains of sand in the Sea of Dust, referred to as Ol’ Dusty, begins as the result of the efforts of a woman named Stella, who claims to be the first and only prophet of Ol’ Dusty
• 3,670 years ago- After centuries of persecution and hardship, the towns and villages which have adopted Dusterism are allowed to secede from the Dusterino Kingdom by King Billy the Tolerant
• 3,500 years ago- Dusterino settlements which have adopted Dusterism join together into the Dusterist Union
• 2,400 years ago- After nearly a millennium of decline, the Dusterino Kingdom fractures into many smaller kingdoms as Jesse the Protuberant dies without an heir and no one seems interested in taking over more than a small chunk of the desert for them and their extended family
• 2,000 years ago- A woman named Starla, claiming to be the reincarnation of Stella, the prophet of Ol’ Dusty, calls for the expansion of the Dusterist Union, beginning the second unifying war
• 1,900 years ago- All Dusterino settlements have been conquered or coerced into joining the Dusterist Union and all Dusterinos have been converted to Dusterism
• 1,430 years ago- A radical sect of Dusterinos who follow an anti-magic, anti-technology interpretation of the two prophets’ teachings starts to gain popularity all across the Sea of Dust, although they remain a minority in most communities
• 1,000 years ago- The radical sect of Dusterists has become the dominant form of Dusterism in half of Dusterino settlements, with a significant minority following them in other towns and villages, leading to a civil war over which sect should be dominant in the Dusterist Union government
• 980 years ago- The civil war ends with the radicals in control of the Sea of Dust and almost all Dusterinos start to follow their version of Dusterism
• 500 years ago- After centuries of decreasing reliance on magic and technology, as well as a general rise in nomadism among the general population, the Dusterist Union votes to dissolve itself, leaving behind no successor state, in favor of letting each family of Dusterinos fend for themselves as they believe Ol’ Dusty desires
• 330 years ago- Very few Dusterinos now live in the settlements year-round, most of them having taken up the practice of wandering the desert during the wet season as per the teachings of radical Dusterism, and those who stay behind are the very old and the very young
• 100 years ago- First Empire merchants start to visit Dusterino settlements during the dry season, accepting payments in cactus water, sold as a health drink in the First Empire, in exchange for exotic foods and supplies
• 30 years ago- Several Dusterino settlements ban all outsiders, believing that merchants and outsiders have brought a decadent lifestyle to the Sea of Dust which is making Dusterinos soft and unsuited to the desert
• 5 years ago- A woman named Serena, claiming to be the reincarnation of the prophets Stella and Starla, starts to gain a following by saying that Dusterinos ought to live a more settled, less restrictive life and that Ol’ Dusty has no issue with people taking advantage of the comforts of magic and technology

Major Factions
Dusterinos
    The Dusterinos are the largest group of people in the Sea of Dust, having lived there for thousands of years. While their way of life and culture has changed over time, the Dusterinos have always maintained small settlements around the few oases and natural springs and there has always been some portion of their population which prefer to live a nomadic lifestyle out in the desert. For the last 500 years, each Dusterino town has been self-governing, with small family groups dispersing during the wet season to wander the desert and handle their conflicts however they see fit. The result is a highly dispersed and decentralized society where only the very young and old stay in settlements year-round. Lately, a radical movement has gained popularity in a few small communities which preaches a sedentary, modern lifestyle as the logical way to live when groups like the First Empire Merchants are able to provide a consistent level of comfort for all.

The Prophet’s Followers
    Serena, a woman who claims to be the third reincarnation of the prophet of Ol’ Dusty, Stella, has gathered a small group of followers in some of the most remote towns and villages of the Sea of Dust who believe the annual wanderings of their people are unnecessary and that Ol’ Dusty wishes for his followers to take advantage of the comforts available to them. In particular, Serena’s followers are living in their settlements year-round and trading with the First Empire Merchants for useful technology and magic, both of which are considered taboo in contemporary Dusterism, which almost all other groups of Dusterinos follow. Those who follow Serena’s teachings are barely tolerated by other Dusterinos, but some have been disowned by their families and publicly mocked for their defiance of social norms. While this discrimination has not escalated to violence yet, there are many among Serena’s followers who believe it is only a matter of time until someone decides to change that.

Convergent Wanderer Exiles
    For thousands of years, the Convergent Wanderers have been exiling those whose behavior is so abhorrent that they have no idea how to punish them to the great desert to the north of their homeland. Through ancient custom, no Convergent Wanderer enters these lands unless exiled, although the existence of the Dusterino culture which their exiles helped create is well-known at this point. Knowing this, many of the Wanderers form small communities of other exiles in order to help each other assimilate into Dusterino culture and learn the ways of the desert. With the annual season of wandering, many of these exiles tend to feel right at home in their new communities.

Ashmount Herder Exiles
    For thousands of years, the Ashmount Herders have been exiling those convicted of treachery against their kin to the Sea of Dust. The herders are generally aware of the culture this practice has helped create in the desert, although they are generally dismissive of the culture made of exiles and criminals. Regardless, the exiles, the only Ashmount Herders allowed to enter even the fringes of the desert, frequently find themselves taken in by small groups of other exiles who teach them the ways of the Dusterinos and desert survival. Many of these exiles find difficulty adjusting to their new way of life, used to getting everything they need from livestock which are hard to come by in the desert.

First Empire Merchants
    While not official diplomats of the First Empire, it is common for the First Emperor to grant trade licenses with new frontiers well before sending the Diplomatic Corps. Given the decentralized nature of the Dusterinos, this has been the status quo for First Imperial relations with the area for almost a century. Merchants and explorers have been doing their best, in the meantime, to try to find some good or ware that they can trade for and extract from the region. For now, they have settled on going through the villages during the dry, settled season and buying up as much cactus water, a product harvested from any sufficiently large cactus in the desert, as they can to sell as a health drink back in the First Empire. This has been difficult due to the culture of asceticism which dominates the Dusterinos. Seeing an opportunity in Serena the prophet’s movement, the merchants have been supporting her with good deals on products in exchange for a year-round, steady supply of cactus water. Should it come to it, these merchants would most likely help fund or even manufacture a revolution in religious thought and even a third unifying war, something which would grab the First Emperor’s attention and maybe even result in the diplomats establishing an embassy.

The Convergent Wanderers: Cultural Profile

Introduction:
    The earliest people to inhabit the Great Convergence are a group of humans collectively known as the Convergent Wanderers. They are a nomadic people who hunt and gather in the swamps and scrubs of the Great Convergence, as well as the group which the gnomes of today are descended from. Despite being driven out of most of their ancestral lands, there are still several parts of gnome country set aside for the wanderers by treaty, and the easternmost reaches of the Great Convergence have never been very appealing for other peoples to settle, so the region has been recognized as Wanderer Lands by the rest of the world. The Convergent Wanderers, for their part, see political boundaries as meaningless and themselves as many small groups rather than a single people. The one unifying factor is that all Convergent Wanderers come to the southernmost point of the Wanderer’s Peninsula in Gnome Country for a massive festival on the Winter Solstice, known as the Winter Solstice Festival. At this festival, the Wanderers pay their respects to their ancestors, the spirits of the Great Convergence, and throw one of the wildest parties on the planet. While this event is certainly enjoyable, it also holds a great deal of cultural and religious value for the Convergent Wanderers and is an integral part of their yearly wanderings.

Magic and Technology:
    The vast majority of Convergent Wanderers live in what settled people would consider abject poverty. They do not have personal homes, their only possessions are those they can carry themselves, and their only access to metal tools and enchanted items is through occasional trading with the settled peoples of the Great Convergence. The Wanderers, by contrast, prefer to live this way and see the settled folk as slaves to their governments and the material possessions they keep. While they certainly see the benefits of more advanced technology, the Convergent Wanderers tend to believe that what they have is adequate and anything more would get in the way of their wandering.
    Magic, like technology, is something that most Convergent Wanderers seem to have little interest in outside of how it can help them in their day to day life. Wanderers rarely stay in any place long enough to learn spellcasting or enchanting, although most Wanderers have a solid understanding of the inherent magical properties of the plants and animals around them, along with how to use them to their own benefit. Channeling is also somewhat common among the Convergent Wanderers, with the spirits of the Great Convergence offering each person a unique magical power provided they never sleep in the same place twice, they only eat food that they hunted or gathered themselves, and they participate in the Winter Solstice Festival each winter solstice. Most of the Wanderers do not ever try to follow this lifestyle, but those who do often become important members of their tribes who are able to deal with problems in ways that no one else can. These powers usually grant some level of command or influence over different plants, animals, and minerals, but sometimes the spirits give someone a truly powerful magic ability that allows them to accomplish almost any goal. Oddly, Convergent Wanderers experience a higher rate of individuals with inherent magical powers than other communities. The reason why is unknown, but the individuals born with these powers are usually given special status within their tribe. These individuals are seen as gifts from the spirits of the Great Convergence to the families in which these children are born, usually seen as a reward for maintaining their traditional lifestyle despite adversity. In actuality, the phenomenon is completely random and has nothing to do with spirits or lifestyle.

Society:
    The Convergent Wanderers are divided into a multitude of small, mobile groups. Each group, usually made up of a small group of related families, wanders the Great Convergence as they wish through the year, with the exception of the Winter Solstice, when everyone is usually at the Winter Solstice Festival. These groups tend to maintain their own unique traditions and distinguish themselves from each other with all sorts of decorations and clothing. Some of these articles of clothing can get quite elaborate, although there is a limit to this since the clothing must be portable and somewhat functional. Most groups try to stay out of each other's ways the rest of the year, not wanting to overburden any of the resources that they rely on, but sometimes they are forced to share space through circumstance. Usually this goes fairly well, with the groups doing their best to cooperate and share, but sometimes this is not the case. For any number of reasons, ranging from the personal to the pragmatic, groups will come into conflict and fight each other. While this is relatively rare, most groups of Convergent Wanderers keep an oral history of dozens of conflicts with other groups over the millennia, although there are often several generations between each one. All conflicts are put on hold for the Winter Solstice Festival, however, and are rarely resumed afterwards.

Religion:
    Convergent Wanderers follow a shamanistic tradition where one member of each group, the priest, is responsible for communing with the spirits of the Great Convergence on behalf of the larger group, maintaining the oral history of the group, and making the necessary sacrifices to the local spirits in each place they camp. Priests also tend to act as the moral leaders of their groups, using their connection to the local spirits to let the rest of the group know what kinds of behavior will appease the spirits. Not everyone listens to the priests, but those who do tend to find that the landscape is just a bit more welcoming and easy to traverse. Luckily for the Convergent Wanderers and their way of life, the spirits of the Great Convergence tend to value independence, living in harmony with nature, and supporting one’s friends and family. While this is not really seen as a religious mandate to continue living the same lifestyle, it does help many Wanderers feel content in their desire to live outside of settled civilization. Overall, the Convergent Wanderers live cosmically neutral lives and accept their place in the cycle of reincarnation that comes with the neutral alignment. Their religion, much like the rest of their culture, seems to be content with where they are and what they’re doing, and that makes the Convergent Wanderers quite happy.

The Snallygaster Snake People and City States: Cultural Profile

Introduction:
    Controlling almost half of the geographic area of the Great Convergence are the squabbling city states of the Snallygaster Snake People. These snake people have developed a unique culture based on refusing to live in secret among the humans like many other groups of snake people, and instead using their natural shape-shifting abilities to express themselves and show off among the other snake people of the cities. With snake people as the rulers and majority populations of the city states, the Snallygaster Culture has been able to thrive and grow without the usual fears of persecution from a human majority. Because of this, it is fairly common for snake people from other parts of the world to come to the city states and adopt the practices of the Snallygaster Culture. The culture is very welcoming to these immigrants and there are several orders of Snallygastrus worshipers devoted to helping these newcomers get starters and adjust to life in the open. The city states, each ruled by a different line of archons and their families, have never gotten along well, with minor border skirmishes in the hinterlands of the cities being an almost annual occurrence. Each archon seems to believe they have the right and duty to conquer the rest of the city states, unifying the Snallygaster Snake People and allowing them to expand outward like the great snake person empires of old. At this point, no city state seems to have anywhere close to the ability to do this, and it is unclear if any of them will gain that ability in the future.

Magic and Technology:
    All snake people have the inherent magical ability to alter their appearance however they want, provided they stick to a humanoid shape and maintain the same mass as before. With these being the only true limitations on their abilities, however, snake people are able to get incredibly abstract and outlandish with their appearances. Control over this ability is a skill that needs to be practiced to achieve truly outlandish forms, so there are several schools in each city devoted to the practice of magic, usually geared towards training students for the professional body pageant circuits. Talented individuals who win many pageants are often celebrities in Snallygaster society. This fame and fortune is known to be quite fleeting, however, as novelty fades quickly and the public’s focus can shift in an instant. The few snake people who have managed to ride these waves and stay popular for a long time are absolute masters of their shape-shifting abilities, their public image, and what they need to change to stay fresh and relevant. For everyone else, however, learning to control their shape-shifting is about gaining the ability to express themselves in any way they want to regardless of what other people think, and much of the other magic practiced by Snallygaster snake people stems from this desire to express oneself and honestly show who they are to the world.
    While the city states have taken advantage of their positions along important rivers and trade routes to import whatever enchanted items and magical practitioners that they need, their homegrown magics are often harmonious with their goals of openness and honesty. Spells to see true forms and undo illusions are very common, almost seen as essential in a society where true forms are often hidden. Those who specialize in illusion magic frequently have a bad time in the city states. Another field of magic which has received a lot of study in the city states is magic to compel others to tell the truth, although the morality around this is a little gray. While Snallygaster culture values honesty and truth, they also value free will and willing expression, so any magic that infringes on free will tends to make Snallygaster snake people uncomfortable. Related to this, and as an extension of their natural abilities, Snallygaster snake people have also developed many spells for transforming others into different forms and for extending the limits of their own transformations into larger and smaller forms, or even forms that are completely without humanoid shapes.
    On the other hand, followers of Snallygastrus who are particularly pious and follow the tenets of their religion perfectly gain the ability to channel several powers from their god. These devotees, referred to as Paladins of Snallygastrus, are able to grow feathered wings capable of flight out of their backs, turn their teeth and claws into razor-sharp, steel blades of death, and produce an aura in which it is impossible for anyone to knowingly tell a lie. To gain these incredible powers, a snake person must always be completely open and honest with themselves and others. They must always tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Furthermore, the paladins may only use violence against those who have directly attacked the paladin or some other innocent person. Finally, there are several religious rituals and holidays that must be observed in the correct manner throughout the year. If all of these conditions are met, a snake person gains the abilities of a Paladin of Snallygastrus and is thus expected to act as a paragon of honesty, goodness, and protection within their community. Given the difficulty of maintaining this lifestyle, there are rarely more than a handful of paladins in each city. Regardless, their magical powers are often useful in defending city states from external threats and maintaining peace when defense is not necessary.

Society:
    Snallygaster culture is centered on the city state as the main political unit. Each city state controls a hinterland in which farming, hunting, and gathering can be done to find raw materials to trade and feed the cities. Those who work in the hinterlands usually live within the closest city and commute to their place of work each morning. Most snake people of the city states, however, work in the city they call home, usually either directly in or related to trading goods and materials with those who travel along the rivers and coasts of the Great Convergence. In the 800 years the Snallygaster City States have been around, some individuals have been more successful than others, allowing them to leave considerable wealth behind for their descendants to use, benefit from, and grow. These wealthy families have built their fortunes on commerce and have gained influence, even with the archons of their respective cities. The archons themselves usually claim to be direct descendants of their city’s founder, with the oldest living member of each line taking the office. In the last 800 years, several of these dynasties have been overthrown and replaced by usurpers, but these events always seem to result in a new archon being declared with a usually tenuous connection to the city founder’s line. The immediate and extended families of the archons tend to fill the other offices and executive roles in each city. There are frequently several levels of bureaucracy made up entirely of the archon’s relatives before other families are seen in government positions, but some of the archons prefer to appoint people to positions based on merit rather than relation.
    In general, the archons try to make a show of being kind and generous to the people of their city states. Most of the city states have some kind of system in place to help poorer residents get the things they need, and many archons see public charity as a good way to stay popular with their citizens. This, along with several religious groups that try to help the poor, has led to a generally good quality of life for the majority of Snallygaster snake people, at least compared to places with less of a social safety net. On the flip side of this, many wealthy snake people seem to believe that they deserve their wealth for one reason or another and do everything they can to justify the existence of a wealthy class. In turn, they seem to think that the poor are poor because of character flaws or a natural hierarchy. City archons are frequently sympathetic to these beliefs, mostly because wealthy snake people have greater ability to meet with and influence their archons.
    To help justify their wealth, the rich and powerful of the Snallygaster City States frequently sponsor lavish parties, spectacles of public art, and most popular of all, they sponsor body pageants. Body pageantry is one of the most important and popular aspects of Snallygaster society, as it allows snake people to show off their skill and mastery over their innate shape-shifting magic. Pageants are held frequently, at all levels of skill and formality, with several subcultures and associated styles of pageant being present in pretty much every city state. Large, public pageants sponsored by wealthy snake people often feature the highest caliber of contestants, referred to as artists, who wow the general populace with the most intricate and beautiful shapes they can imagine. Smaller events are much more common, with neighborhoods, families, and even religious groups organizing events that anyone can join and compete in. The winners of body pageants are traditionally given a bouquet of white roses with pink polka dots and a cash prize in an amount proportional to the scale of the event and the wealth of the organizers. The cash prizes can be enough for an individual to live off of if they participate in and win many pageants. The roses, with their unique color pattern, are native to the Great Convergence and are known as pageant roses due to their close association with Snallygaster body pageants. The importance of these pageants in Snallygaster culture cannot be overstated, as they seem to support and reinforce the values that many snake people think of as defining their culture.

Religion:
    Snallygaster snake people are a surprisingly religious group, with most of them worshiping the god Snallygastrus to some degree. There has never been one single organization, but rather there have always been a multitude of competing orders with different focuses and goals. For the most part, snake people will attend the weekly sermons from the closest temple to where they live, but they do not usually consider themselves a member of that order and will go to different ones for different things depending on their specific beliefs and needs. For example, there are several competing funeral traditions based on varying interpretations of what an open and honest funeral ought to look like. While there have been religious conflicts in the past, the various orders and traditions of Snallygastrus worship have come to an uneasy peace in the modern day.
    The thing that unites the various sects of Snallygaster religion is a belief, apparently based on communication with their god, that all goodness and morality is the result of being honest, open, and kind. All Snallygaster religious orders have this as their central commandment and conceit, although the priorities and executions differ between groups. Of note is that the worshipers of Snallygastrus do not see their god as a creator figure, but rather as the source of their morality, culture, and way of life. Most sects teach that all of Snallygaster snake person culture and society is born from the revelation of the three virtues to the first Snallygaster snake people, who then chose to leave their homes and find a new homeland. The story goes that they wandered for several years before finding the Great Convergence and settling in the upstream region and the western deltas, areas that the gnomes had always left unsettled as part of an early treaty with the Convergent Wanderers. Conflicts between the Convergent Wanderers and these early settlers have led to a lasting religious taboo against interacting with the Convergent Wanderers. Because of this taboo, Convergent Wanderers are banned from entering most cities. The Convergent Wanderers don’t seem to be too bothered by this, although they certainly recognize the injustice of being forced from their ancestral homes and then barred from entering the settlements set up by the invaders.

City States:
    Each Snallygaster city state is independent, with the archon of each city usually seeing the other cities and their leaders as direct rivals. Many of the archons have the goal of building up enough power to take over the rest of the cities, unifying the Snallygaster City States into a single state which can then move on to conquering other parts of the world. The large number of archons with this goal, however, means that each city is constantly watching all of its neighbors and covertly preventing them from gaining enough power to threaten other cities. This is done through a sea of constantly shifting alliances and ententes between the cities along with the occasional war. This situation has made it almost impossible for any one city to gain enough power to actually unify the city states or to even conquer their closest neighbors. Many of the diplomats and traders from afar have described the archons as having a bucket of crabs mindset, working together to tear down anyone who starts to be too successful.
    Each city state maintains its own diplomatic and trade relations with the rest of the world. Additionally, each city also maintains its own taxes, tariffs, and import laws, a state of affairs which has maddened many merchants through the years. If not for the importance of the Great Convergence for global trade routes, the city states would probably see much less trade due to the expense involved in trading with more than one or two Snallygaster city states on a single route. Many outsiders have attempted to conquer the city states and put an end to the fractious state of affairs, but it seems as if the only thing that is able to unite the Snallygaster archons is an outside threat. When the city states unify, they seem to field an unbeatable army, supported in their defensive wars by the Paladins of Snallygastrus, considered the most powerful warriors in the Great Convergence. These alliances tend to immediately fall apart when the threat is dealt with, however, and things tend to continue in much the same way they had been going before the attempted invasion.

The Great Convergence: Setting Details

Introduction:
    The Great Convergence is the largest region of Tero with an average elevation below sea level, making it the ultimate destination for several of the most important rivers in the southern half of the continent. This convergence of rivers allows traders and merchants to easily get to and from many of the wealthiest nations of Tero. With the addition of access to maritime trade routes through several natural ports, the people of the Great Convergence are some of the wealthiest in the world, with access to goods from almost anywhere on Tero.

Geographic History:
    The Great Convergence is but the lowest portion of a massive rift valley being slowly formed as the continent rips itself apart. Earthquakes are a common occurrence in the region, as are sinkholes and the formation of deep crevasses in the bedrock of the area. Being generally low in elevation, much of the water that falls on the southern half of the continent finds itself heading towards the Great Convergence. Because of this, many large rivers with high discharges flow to the region before meeting the ocean. Being generally flat and getting a lot of water flowing through the area means that the Great Convergence is highly prone to flooding. Almost every spring during the annual snowmelt, the banks of all of the rivers overflow at the same time and the entire region seems to become one massive river. Although it is very wet for part of the year and there is a fair amount of rainfall year-round, most of the Great Convergence is made up of scrublands and meadows. These plants are well-adapted to the thin soils and wild differences in water availability through the year, although the rivers of the region are surrounded by trees. Swamps and other wetlands are fairly common as well, particularly on the insides of bends in the rivers where water can pool up and stay after the annual floods. Native wildlife includes jousting crocodiles, armored water buffalo, and many subspecies of ducks. At the top of this food chain, however, is the apex predator, the pack hunting raccoon-wolves.

The Gnomes:
    The inhabitants of Gnome Country have inhabited their lands for thousands of years. While they were originally normal humans with a hedonistic and mischievous streak, the event known as the Shrinking of the Gnomes resulted in all the residents of Gnome Country at the time being shrunk down to half the size of normal humans. Since then they have embraced their smaller sizes and developed a culture which venerates the traits that gave the gnomes their small size. A large portion of the downstream and delta regions of the Great Convergence is considered part of Gnome Country, with several important ports being controlled by the gnomes. The gnomes have used this, as well as easy access to trade with the First Empire through the Tradestream river, to gain tremendous wealth, which mostly gets divvied up between the nobles in exchange for a stable government. Gnome culture values theft and non-violent crime as a source of chaos, so gnomish locks and protective magics are highly valued as being some of the hardest to get past in the world. Any property that someone wants to hold on to needs to be well-protected in Gnome Country. Recently, Gnome Country has become something of a tourist destination as people realize that many things which are illegal in the rest of the world, such as glitter and rabbit pageants, are legal in Gnome Country.

Convergent Wanderers:
    The humans who became the ancestors of the gnomes were themselves the descendants of a nomadic hunter-gatherer society which still exists in the Great Convergence. They call themselves the Convergent Wanderers. They get this name because they travel the landscapes of the Great Convergence in small tribes for most of the year, gathering wild fruits and vegetables and hunting armored water buffalo. The Wanderers call themselves convergent because once every year, on the Winter Solstice, all of the tribes meet for a massive festival at the southernmost point of the Great Convergence. Generally, the tribes follow a shamanistic religion, making sacrifices to the local spirits in every place they camp, hunt, or gather. The Convergent Wanderers do not usually interact with the more settled peoples of the Great Convergence, preferring to keep to themselves and only rarely coming into settlements to trade for metal tools and the few manufactured goods they tend to use. For the most part, the tribes live off of the land.

Independent City States of the Snallygaster Snake People:
    Hundreds of years ago, the snake people of the Snallygaster Culture came into the Great Convergence and set up several city states along the various rivers. Not wanting to start wars while in a vulnerable position, they kept their new settlements away from Gnome Country. Snallygaster Snake People live openly as snake people in these cities, a somewhat abnormal state of affairs made possible by the fact that the city states have majority snake person populations. Like all snake people, they have an innate ability to change their appearance to that of almost any other humanoid species, but the Snallygaster Culture tends to see this as a form of self-expression and artistic beauty. Public displays of imaginative and aesthetically pleasing transformations are seen as an important part of Snallygaster culture. Pageants are regularly held all over the cities to give individuals plenty of opportunities to show off their best disguises. The city states are not unified, each one being led by a different family. The leader of each city, usually the oldest living member of the leading family, is known as the archon of the city and has absolute rule of their domain. Each city state maintains its own trade relationships and produces different goods, making some wealthier than others. Snallygaster religion values free expression and artistry, with worship centered on the good god Snallygastrus. The church encourages its followers to be open and honest in all things, especially guests to the cities. Despite this religious mandate, some of the city state leaders seem to think they have enough power to conquer and unify the other city states, and maybe even some of the neighboring nations as well.

Rough Timeline

• 6,000 year ago- The Convergent Wanderers first enter the area
• 2,500 years ago- Gnome City is Founded
• 2,000 years ago- The Shrinking of the Gnomes happens
• 800 years ago- The Snallygaster Snake People enter the area and establish their city states
• 700 years ago- The First Empire establishes trade and diplomatic ties with the region
• 500 years ago- Feeling restricted by the settled folk and concepts of private land, the Convergent Wanderers begin to occasionally trade with settlements
• 20 years ago- The Convergent Wanderers are attacked during their winter solstice convergence by a group of gnome religious extremists, resulting in the deaths of hundreds

Major Factions
    There are several factions associated with each of the groups in the region, each with their own goals and needs. Most of them are somewhat limited in their geographic influence, but each of these major players in the area holds some influence that people may have to contend with at times. Most of these groups have something that they can offer to people for the right price, but dealing with them is not always a requirement for those willing to do things themselves.

Gnome Nobility
    The nobility of Gnome Country is heavily entrenched in the wealth of the country, maintaining collective ownership of almost all businesses and industries. The monarchs and other nobles are primarily interested in maintaining the status quo and continuing to make obscene amounts of money off the labor of the peasants. Shaken by an increase in the rate of peasant uprisings in the past decades, the nobles are even more focused on stability and power than ever before.

Reformed Church of Gnomishness
    The Reformed Church of Gnomishness is the newer, more progressive branch of the gnomish faith. They believe that the peasants of Gnome Country are oppressed by the nobility and do everything they can to bring about change short of open rebellion. The members of this church can frequently be found in conflict with devotees of the Orthodox Gnomish Temple, either verbal or physical. Often seen as the aggressors in these conflicts, the church can sometimes struggle to maintain a positive image with more stability-minded gnomes.

Orthodox Gnomish Temple
    The Orthodox Gnomish Temple is the original gnome religious organization. They believe that the monarchy and greater nobility are a natural consequence of a society which follows gnomish values. Despite the blatant support of the oppressive monarchy, much of the peasantry sees the charity work done by the Gnomish Temple as a show of good faith that they truly care for the poor as well. How much truth this view has is up for debate, but enough gnomes consider themselves Orthodox to result in great brawls in the streets of cities when members of the Reformed Church of Gnomishness refuse to take back something they’ve said which is heretical to the orthodox gnomes only. For the most part, however, followers of orthodoxy value stability and fear any change to the status quo in case it ends up being a change for the worse.

Gnome Mafia
    Gnomish culture values certain activities which would be considered crimes in other cultures. In general, gnomes only consider something to be a crime or morally wrong if it results in physical harm to someone else. Under this moral philosophy, theft, vandalism, and various other things are perfectly legal in gnome society. What sets the Gnome Mafia apart from the rest of gnome society is that they are perfectly happy to use physical violence to achieve their goals. While able to operate somewhat in the open in Gnome Country, their glitter factories and pageant rabbit farms being perfectly legal in their homeland, the assassination, intimidation, and blackmail side of the operation is still off the books. The mafia have gotten around this to some degree by earning enough money to pay off anyone who might be trouble, and so the Gnome Mafia has corrupted their home government just as much as it does in any place it sets up.

Gnome Peasantry
    Gnome peasants, lacking noble titles or noble relatives to support them, have no access to the vast sums of money their labor becomes. In the towns, this is usually acceptable because towns are supplied on a regular basis with everything they need. This is contingent on profitability, but that is not frequently an issue. In the cities, however, where trade is much more common and heavily taxed, gnomes do not have a town industry to fall back on and must do whatever they can to earn enough money to survive. While a meager middle class has formed under this system, most gnomes live in poverty. This has resulted in several uprisings over the centuries, but they rarely seem to end well for the peasants.

First Empire Diplomats
    The First Empire, which maintains an embassy in Gnome City and several of the Snallygaster City States. Generally, their orders from the First Emperor are to try to maintain stability in the region, since the gnomes and snake people are valuable trading partners for the empire and they control access to important shipping lanes and trade routes. As a secondary goal, the diplomatic corps is also expected to try to maintain a positive image of the First Empire in foreign lands to hopefully make conquest easier in the distant future. The second goal is a secret outside of the First Empire Diplomatic Corps, for obvious reasons.

First Empire Merchants
    Many traders have come down the Tradestream and through the maritime trade routes from the First Empire to buy, sell, and trade exotic goods. Offering all sorts of products from all over the empire, the merchants tend to buy up gnomish locks and snallygaster preserved meats to sell back home. These traders, unlike gnomes, are not taxed on nearly all their profits like the native gnomes, so they are able to make quite a bit of money with a few shrewd trades. It is also fairly common for these merchants to hire out crews and teams of gnomes to run their trade ships and caravans since a low wage for merchants is often better than any pay the gnomes could find at home without joining the clergy or mafia. The merchants are more than happy to take advantage of gnomish desperation since it helps them make obscene amounts of money.

Convergent Wanderers
    The Convergent Wanderers are generally just interested in minding their own business and continuing their way of life. These hunter-gatherers are masters of the swamps and scrubs of the Great Convergence, so they are generally able to achieve their goals without dealing with the settled folk. The snake people and gnomes have historically oppressed the wanderers and restricted their ability to travel, so Convergent Wanderers are rightfully wary of outsiders, especially on the rare occasions they enter settlements to trade for a few essentials. Today, there are a few wild places that have never interested the settled folk, and the Convergent Wanderers thrive in those places. Currently, the monarchy of Gnome Country grants the southern portion of the Wanderer’s Peninsula as a reserve for Convergent Wanderers to continue their way of life and allows free passage to the southernmost point for all Convergent Wanderers for their annual convergence on the winter solstice.

Snallygaster Snake People Archons and Upper Classes
    The leaders of the Snallygaster Snake People, their families, and their wealthy supporters rule their city states however they wish. Although their society values honesty and openness, there is an understanding among the rulers that some things must be kept from the public for the greater good. As such, there is often a drastic difference between the public personas that leaders and members of the upper classes display and how they are in private. Maintaining this facade is often a source of great stress and even intrigue in the courts of the archons as they try to publicly show the virtues and values of their culture while secretly preparing for the conquest of their neighboring cities and eventually the rest of the Great Convergence. All of the archons seem to think they will be successful if they attack, but no one seems to think they will be ready to make their move for some time.

Priests of Snallygastrus
    The priests of the god Snallygastrus see themselves as the keepers of snallygaster snake person culture and good morals. They maintain elegantly-carved stone temples in each of the city states as well as in the hinterlands where they perform rituals and preach the message of their god. They believe that honesty and openness are the root of all virtue and that those who are honest in all things will find that being kind, generous, and so on will naturally follow. Short sermons are held every day at sunset in their temples and followers are encouraged to come at least twice each week. The priesthood also performs large amounts of charity to support the poor and frequently find themselves imprisoned for being openly critical of the ruling class. Overall, the priests and their religion are fairly popular with the peasantry of the Snallygaster City States.

Snallygaster Snake People Peasantry
    The peasants of the Snallygaster Culture have a better life than their gnome counterparts in Gnome County, but they still experience a great deal of inequality with the rulers and upper classes of the city states. The archons do not generally tax trade as much as the gnome monarchs and they do not maintain state monopolies on farming and industry, so it is much easier for the average Snallygaster citizen to earn money and buy the things they need. An uprising has never occurred, although the peasantry generally wishes for more equity and equality in their societies.

Shiverstrewn Islander Merchants
    Merchants from the Shiverstrewn Islands, directly south of the Great Convergence, are a common sight in the coastal ports of the region. These brash, independent merchants are less interested in luxury goods and are more interested in buying the necessities they cannot always get on their relatively small islands. Despite an independent nature and goals of self-sufficiency, most of the islands are short on several important resources. In exchange for these necessary supplies, the merchants bring unique pieces of art, strange magical ingredients, and the odd enchanted item. These goods usually sell for a high price, allowing the merchants to get everything they need, but there are some concerns that if it ever comes to it, these merchants will become pirates and steal whatever supplies they can’t afford to buy. Given how common piracy is in the Shiverstrewn Islands, this may not be an unfounded fear.

Shiverstrewn Island Confederation Diplomats
    The Shiverstrewn Island Confederation, the somewhat unified government which represents all of the inhabited islands of the eponymous archipelago, maintains a single foreign embassy in Gnome City. The diplomats here are mostly tasked with trying to convince the monarchy to do something about the large amounts of pageant rabbits being shipped to the islands. Due to the geographic proximity of the two countries, many rabbits from Gnome Country make their way to the Shiverstrewn Islands for pageants, and many escape these pageants to then lay waste to the natural environments of the islands. Rabbits are not native to any of the Shiverstrewn Islands and most of them lack predators of any kind that will go after rabbits. Now, several islands are overrun with rabbits which are eating all of the vegetation in sight and outcompeting native birds and reptiles. These requests have mostly fallen on deaf ears.

Gnome Country: Cultural Profile

Introduction:
    Much of the downstream and estuarine regions of the Great Convergence are controlled by the gnomes, resulting in the name Gnome Country being given to the monarchist state they have created in their lands. Despite the curse placed upon their people over 2,000 years ago, the gnomes have taken advantage of their proximity to the Tradestream and several deep water ports to create a prosperous and stable state. As a wealthy trading kingdom, most citizens in Gnome Country enjoy a relatively high quality of life.
    Gnomes value many things, but above all else they have a cultural veneration for thieves and tricksters. Gnome culture and religion venerates these figures to the point that particularly infamous gnomish thieves become saints, with the most important of all gnomish saints being St. Gnelson, the ancient king who caused the gods of chaos to curse the gnomish people with their small statures by stealing powerful magic items from them. It is even said that these items are still held deep in the vaults of the Gnome Monarch’s Palace.
    Gnome City is at the center of the government and culture of Gnome Country, but that does not mean that the rest of the country is empty. There are many small towns which farm food and produce trade goods along the rivers and plains of the small state. Towns are administered by mayors, who are themselves appointed by the reigning monarch of Gnome Country. It is the job of each mayor to ensure their town is producing a high volume of goods and generating a net profit for the state-owned trading companies. In exchange for this, townsfolk are provided with the food and supplies they need free of charge. Ports are centers of trade where the mayors, also appointed by the reigning monarch, are responsible for maintaining peace and collecting taxes on all imports and exports that pass through their docks. As long as the money keeps flowing, mayors are given much leeway to rule as they want.
    Overall, the gnomes of Gnome Country are good-humored and welcoming, but they see locked doors and clutched purses as a challenge. Spending time with them can be quite enjoyable, provided one keeps their wits and stays wary of scams and cons. Gnomish locksmiths are renowned for their ability to make nearly unpickable locks, thanks in part to the high number of people testing their designs in Gnome Country.

Magic and Technology:
    Due to their wealth and connection to other wealthy trading nations, gnomes have access to the best magical products and enchantments that money can buy. Provided they have the money, people in Gnome Country are able to live life in a level of comfort equivalent to that of wealthy people in the real world. Gnomes in particular have a cultural interest in magic that assists in stealth and criminal activities, so pretty much all of the magical universities in the country specialize in such spells and enchantments, among several related schools of magic. At these institutions, one can learn potent spells of invisibility, or how to make shoes that make the wearer impossible to hear. Gnomes also seem to have a talent for protective magic and illusions, born from necessity as magical thieves would otherwise make a joke of any concept of personal property in Gnome Country.
    Those without much money are not able to gain the benefits of imported magic items and expensive home enchantments, so they live life much more like people of late medieval Europe. What magic and enchanted items people can get their hands on are coveted and often shared for the good of their community. This is more or less tolerated by the nobility, who technically possess the sole right to use and own enchanted items by a near-obsolete law which has almost been repealed several times. With over 2,000 years of the cultural veneration of theft and trickery, gnomish lock, key, safe, and protective booby trap technology surpasses that of any other nation. The gnomes have leveraged this skill to trade for the best raw materials and luxury goods from around the world, allowing many noble gnomes to create enchanted safes and locks that are virtually impossible to get into without the correct key or combination. While enchanted locks are the stars of the trade, they cannot be made as quickly as mundane locks and safes. Mundane gnomish locks and safes of high quality still command a high price and maintain an adamantine reputation. It is said that a good gnomish lock will take even the best lock pickers hours to open up, or at least as long as it takes for security to find them.

Society:
    Gnome Country is a plutocratic monarchy where all industries and companies are either owned or heavily taxed by the reigning monarch, known as a king, queen, or simply monarch as individual identity dictates. To maintain a class of loyal nobility, the monarch grants nobles shares in companies, monopolies on industries, land holdings, and responsibilities according to noble title. Noble titles and holdings pass to the oldest living child of the noble in question upon their death unless the reigning monarch intervenes and grants them to someone else. Younger siblings inherit nothing and it is up to the titled nobles to decide how much to support their untitled relatives. Some families of particularly high influence may have more than one titled member, sometimes even dozens. It is also traditional for the monarch to grant important titles and holdings to their immediate family members, although it is not a requirement.
    Untitled individuals without a titled relative to support them must find some other way to afford food and shelter. Jobs in Gnome City and the ports pay in Gnomoleons, the minted currency of Gnome Country which can be used to buy goods at markets and stores. In smaller towns, mayors are shipped goods and supplies according to how productive their town has been. These goods and supplies are then distributed as the mayor sees fit, although they are usually distributed equally or by lottery (depending on how much of a given good there is) to avoid bureaucratic headaches. Surviving as a peasant can be difficult and stressful with very little social mobility, but the gnome mafia and gnomish religious orders offer some relief.
    Gnomish society values a lot of behaviors that are illegal in other places such as theft, extortion, and racketeering, so the gnome mafia operates more or less in the open. While they do not officially perform hits or anything else which is against the laws of Gnome Country, the mafia is able to openly manufacture and export glitter and breed rabbits for illegal pageant rings. Other nations, even those with good diplomatic relations, find this open support of industries they banned long ago to be a source of tension. The mafia in Gnome City is seen as the progenitor of all other gnome mafia groups and its leader is considered the honorary leader of all gnome mafia groups around the world. Any gnome is able to join the gnome mafia, and members of other species are able to join with the permission of the leader of their local gnome mafia cell. Members are entitled to food and shelter no matter their ability to work, although they must do things for the mafia when they are able to.

Religion:

    Gnome religion is split into two main sects with a long history of conflict between the two. Both sects are heavily involved in the daily lives of gnomes and have polarized gnome society. The two sects are the Reformed Church of Gnomishness and the Orthodox Gnomish Temple, with the latter being the older and more conservative branch of the faith. Both sects agree that the religion began with the Shrinking of the Gnomes by fey lords in retaliation for the actions of the ancient king and first true gnome, St. Gnelson. St. Gnelson is said to have stolen something valuable from the gods of chaos, the curse upon his people being evidence of his success. The gnomes, however, found their new size to be more of a boon than a curse, building their religion and cultural values around the chaotic and selfish actions which brought about their condition. Although there are many differences in philosophy and specific beliefs between the two sects, the biggest difference is that the the orthodox gnomes believe the shrinking of the gnomes was always meant to be a blessing while the reformed gnomes believe it was meant to be a curse and that gnomes have defied the expectations of the fey lords by embracing it.
    Although gnomes generally see their stature as a boon, they do not actually worship the beings responsible, or any gods for that matter. Instead, gnome religion venerates the various saints who they’ve canonized and the personality traits associated with proper gnomes. This focus on values, historical figures, and practices over worship and belief has kept it as an important part of gnome culture for hundreds of years, even in gnome enclaves far away from Gnome Country. Although they tend to value certain parts of gnome religion differently, practices do not vary much between the two main religious sects. While the average person only really goes to the temple or church when they need advice or specific services, members of the clergy fill their days with performing rituals and rites in accordance with the secret holy calendars of each group. On various days of each month, each sect holds various religious festivals and go on processions to promote various qualities of the ideal gnome. Although the schism between the groups happened hundreds of years ago, they still share many saints and stories with each other. Both sects are also adamant that their saints and values exemplify theft and other criminal activity as forms of chaos and mischief. These sects are aligned with cosmic chaos and decry any selfish and evil motivations that gnomes may have when thieving. In reality, theft and mischief in the name of chaos is more of an ideal than the thing that actually happens.
    The Orthodox Gnomish Temple is the older of the two institutions and tends to embody a more conservative and traditionalist worldview. The Orthodox High priest is a good friend of the royal family and generally tries to interpret religious issues in the nobility’s favor. To avoid seeming too invested in the ruling class, the Orthodox gnomes also sponsor some of the largest homeless shelters and soup kitchens in Gnome Country. While not all of the commoners are swayed by these shows of good faith, many still follow orthodoxy out of a sense of tradition and duty. Members of the temple tend to view members of the Reformed Church as misguided apostates who ought to return to the fold of Orthodoxy.
    The Reformed Church of Gnomishness, however, sees orthodoxy as an outdated and regressive philosophy which upholds a somewhat harmful status quo. Reform gnomes tend to be political progressives and reformists as well as religious ones, seeing the problems caused by the nobility and the monarchist system and wanting to enact some form of change. The head preacher of the church sees the organization as a vehicle to assist the poor and concentrate their power into something that the nobility is unable to ignore. As a result, nobles and monarchists in Gnome Country tend to see the Reformed Church as a thorn in their collective side. The institution is popular enough that not much can be done about them, but not so powerful that they get a lot of the things they actually want. Lately, the Church of Gnomishness has become a breeding ground for more radical and revolutionary ideas, leading to increased tensions with the rest of gnome society.

The Gnomish Values:

• Thievery
• Mischievousness
• Shrewdness
• Thriftiness
• Gumption
• Pacifism
• Wit

Gnome City:
    Gnome City is seen as the center of not only Gnome Country, but all of gnome culture as well. All gnomes, by virtue of the well-known reason for their existence, see Gnome City as their ancestral home. Even gnomes from far-flung and disparate diaspora groups will try to visit the city at least once in their lives, seeing the trip as an important cultural and religious experience. While not seen as a pilgrimage in any real sense, these trips reaffirm the heritage and connection that all gnomes share and helps to maintain a strong identity among the gnomes of the entire world. The city is also a huge trading hub, sitting along the waters of the Tradestream, a massive river that begins far to the east on the farthest edges of the First Empire. Because of this high volume of trade, it is easy to find outsiders and non-gnomes in Gnome City, although they are mostly restricted to approved areas which have been built with the tall folk in mind. Parts of the city are reserved for gnomes, with these rules being enforced by both the royal guards and the city police.
    People who live in the capital of Gnome Country certainly see themselves as being part of something important. Many of them even seem to look down on those who live outside of the city. This attitude has become something of a stereotype that gnomes in the towns and port cities apply to gnomes from Gnome City. The royal family and important noble families of Gnome City, while already wealthy from their control of local trade and industry, are made even more wealthy by their domination of trade and industries in the towns and port cities. Residents of these outlying areas have been known to feel resentment over this, leading to several revolts in the past.
    As the capital city and diplomatic center of Gnome Country, Gnome City is also home to the embassies and ambassadors of various countries that maintain positive relationships with Gnome Country. These embassies are another reason why non-gnomes come to the city, often with the goal of limiting the amount of glitter and pageant rabbits being exported by the country. Often being met with limited success, the stories of what is and is not legal in Gnome Country that these diplomats brought home have also created a fledgling tourism industry in Gnome City as people come to enjoy things which are taboo back at home. The gnomes of the city are generally overjoyed at the influx of rubes and marks they can make money off of.

Ports:
    The port cities of Gnome Country are important centers of commerce and access to maritime trade routes. Most ships docked in these cities are heading to or from the Shiverstrewn Islands which lie directly south of Gnome Country. Despite doing more trade than Gnome City, the Monarchy heavily taxes all trade and owns most companies and industries, funneling most of the wealth generated in the ports to Gnome City. The mayors and nobles in charge of the ports are granted a percentage of this wealth, so while they live lives of luxury, the local commoners and laborers live in generally worse conditions than the gnomes of the capital. Cultural influence from the less centralized Shiverstrewn Island Confederation and the general inequality of Gnome Country have led to a bit more of a rebellious streak and several historical uprisings centered on the port cities.

Towns:
    Less independent and less wealthy than the port cities are the many towns of Gnome Country. Towns are usually focused on one or two industries which make money for Gnome Country and receive regular shipments of food and supplies in return. The mayors of these towns and their families are usually the only nobles around and are thus granted free reign to govern as they please. The only real caveat to this is that the towns must remain stable and profitable. Methods of distributing the supply shipments are usually fast and cheap, so lots of people fall through the cracks or eke out special exceptions for themselves. Townsfolk are generally aware of the injustices and suffering they live under but do not have as many opportunities as the residents of port cities to revolt and try to make changes. This is because townsfolk usually have basic survival to worry about, but they are often willing to join whatever movements start in the ports.

Rough Timeline

• 2,500 years ago- The human ancestors of the gnomes found Gnome City and name it after their king, Gnomulus.
• 2,300 years ago- Gnome Country takes on its current boundaries, more or less
• 2,250 years ago- The gnome mafia declares its first leader, Biggus Antonius
• 2,000 years ago- St. Gnelson travels to Pandemonium and steals powerful magics from the chaos gods and the fey lords, resulting in the Shrinking of the Gnomes
• 1,800 years ago- The Great Rebuild is completed, making all structures in Gnome Country the appropriate size for their occupants; Gnome culture has embraced their new size and the behaviors that led to having it
• 1,750 years ago- Gnaomi’s Floodwall is completed and named after the queen who oversaw the first half of its construction
• 1,500 years ago- The first peasant revolt is subdued
• 1,375 years ago- The upstream and downstream locks are completed, along with the canal of many docks, forming Gnorbert’s island, named after the king who oversaw its entire construction
• 1,300 years ago- The second peasant revolt is subdued
• 700 years ago- Merchants and emissaries from the First Empire make their way down the Tradestream and establish relations with the monarchs of Gnome Country
• 650 years ago- The third peasant revolt is subdued
• 500 years ago- The Reformed Church of Gnomishness splits from the Orthodox Gnomish Temple due to a disagreement over the nature of the magic cast upon their species by the fey lords: was it intended to be a blessing or a curse at the time of casting?
• 200 years ago- The Shiverstrewn Island Confederation establishes diplomatic ties with the monarchs of Gnome Country
• 175 years ago- The fourth peasant revolt is subdued
• 50 years ago- The fifth peasant revolt is subdued
• 8 years ago- The current king, Gnorbert 5, is coronated, much to the displeasure of the rest of the nobility
• 5 years ago- The sixth peasant revolt is subdued