Cultural Profiles: Angco Republic

 Introduction: Unbeknownst to all outsiders, especially the humans of Estram, the Angco Republic is populated solely by Snake People. To keep up appearances, it is actually a law that citizens of the republic must maintain a human form whenever they leave the territory of Angco as well as any time outsiders are allowed to come into their lands, although such directives are limited to the immediate areas the outsiders will be visiting. These laws are all proposed, debated, and either approved or disapproved by small councils of elected representatives, each town council acting as a miniature version of the Angco Council which governs the entire nation, each town sending a single councilor to represent their interests on a national level. The snake people of Angco have maintained this method of governance since their ancestors, refugees from the fall of an ancient snake person kingdom in the bog lands of Squee, came to Fizsaire almost 1,500 years ago. The refugees, seeing the errors made by their forebears who tried and failed many times to establish themselves as rulers. Snake people of Angco and the rest of the Island of Fizsaire are aware of the crimes of their ancestors and the ongoing distrust and hatred that is directed at their kind, so they are often more than willing to go to great lengths to preserve not only their secrets, but the peaceful way of life they have attained after many generations of failed conquest. To ensure this peace lasts as long as it can, the Angco Council has embedded many agents in the government of King Edgard, to ensure that they are prepared for any potential invasions and that the plans for such invasions meet difficulties at every turn. 

Magic and Technology: Over the years, the snake people of Angco have developed a strong connection to the Slithering Rainforest and the spirits which inhabit it. Through this connection, they have developed a form of channeling in which those who always use their natural powers of disguise to mimic plants and animals are able to take on the abilities of those plants and animals themselves, something that is not normally possible for snake people. About half of the snake people in Angco live this way, using the many abilities present in such a diverse environment to assist their communities. At the same time, a small school of spellcasting and enchanting is present in Angcopolis, however it has few students and cannot boast of an impressive faculty either. This, along with the secrecy of the true nature of the residents of Angco, has led to perceptions from outside of the republic that the people there are bad at magic. This is not true in the slightest, they are just skilled at a different form of it.

Society: The snake people of Angco value secrecy, harmony, and respect above pretty much anything else. This shows in the system of elected councils that govern each town and the nation as a whole. Other than that, towns tend to be fairly autonomous, maintaining their own policies and ways of doing things that work best for their unique contexts. With this system, the snake people are able to live successful, happy lives. They manage and use the rainforest around their towns to forage and produce pretty much all of the resources that people need. Communities work together to ensure that everyone is able to do something that benefits the town and that everyone receives water, food, shelter, and care. The structures of town councils can vary between locations, but they all consist of some number of snake people elected from among the residents of that town. Every two years, coinciding with the elections for the Angco Council, all seats on a given town’s council are up for re-election. This mirrors the Angco Council which functions identically to a town council save that it is made up of one councilor from each town and meets in Angcopolis, the capital of the Angco Republic. The Angco Council also governs the city with the goal of it being neutral ground in which snake people from anywhere can live and be prosperous. All of these facts are highly guarded secrets to whoever the snake people of Angco consider outsiders, of course. In general, the snake people of Angco believe that one of the most important factors allowing them to live the harmonious lives they live is the fact that no one outside Angco really knows about them, let alone that the citizens of the nation are anything other than human. This habit of secrecy is not normally a problem for snake people who stick to their hometowns and places that are friendly to them, but issues can arise when they come to a place full of strangers. Without any pre-existing connections that might make them part of an in-group, it is normal for strangers and communities they visit to share so little information with each other that distrust and even violence can arise. Passing laws to ease the inherent distrust and conflict of a secretive society is one of the main duties of the Angco Council, as well as maintaining a facade of humanness to people from abroad. Generally, desires for peace and harmony and respect for the interests of all snake people have allowed the Angco Republic to stick to its stated goals and ideals, although not always. At times, distrust and secrecy win out, leading to periods of unrest and danger, although these periods are relatively rare in Angco history.

Religion: While the Angco Republic has no official religion, all religious snake people of the nation worship the dragon who lives in an extinct volcano in the Curtaneous Mountains, Rosaline. The Lady of Steel, one of the many titles worshipers have given to Rosaline, is understood to be quite ancient, but has maintained the secret of what she hoards for her entire existence. This dedication to secrecy is what inspires worship of the dragon, a practice which mostly involves pondering and debating what it is that Rosaline collects. It is believed that anyone who is able to figure it out and provide an addition to the collection will be told the secret to spiritual enlightenment in return. Whether or not this is true is unclear because Rosaline has never accepted any gift offered to her. This religious tradition is decentralized, with each cult maintaining its own secret shrine where they meet to worship and make offerings at an effigy of Rosaline. Most cults also maintain their own library and history of unaccepted gifts, information sources which each group keeps secret from each other. In smaller towns, it is normal for everyone to be a part of the same cult, however larger towns are known to have multiple competing cults, and Angcopolis itself is said to have hundreds of individual cults to Rosaline, although the true numbers are understandably hard to figure out. The secrecy and competition between cults to be the first to figure out the secret of their deity’s collection encourages inter-cult espionage as well, although it is understood that this state of affairs is never to include violence. It is even said that at times, Rosaline herself will take the form of a snake person and spend time touring the many cults, checking in on the progress of her followers. Not everyone believes this, but it is actually true, although unknown to the cult members, the true purpose of these excursions is to see if any of the groups have come up with new things to call the object of their worship, unwittingly giving Rosaline the exact thing she wants.

Angcopolis: Angcopolis is the capital city of the Angco Republic, governed directly by the Angco Council which meets in an open-air coliseum once each week. Most of the city is built on and around the massive trees of the rainforest, however a large area has been cleared for the coliseum to ensure that all who wish to watch the meetings of the Angco Council have room. Because each councilor is from a different village, Angcopolis is considered neutral ground for all snake people of the republic. This makes the city the go-to place for solving conflicts between towns, as well as the only place where strangers are able to feel a certain level of trust with each other. No outside nations maintain embassies in Angco, but diplomatic visits are always hosted in Angcopolis, where residents are used to taking human guise to accommodate such events. At the same time, it is more accurate to think of the city as a gigantic village more than a traditional city. Residents of the city are organized based on profession, with each profession forming a union with an elected leadership council. Each union council is responsible for setting policies and rules that ensure the smooth and efficient operation of their unions and associated professions. Like in towns, no one on Angcopolis is paid a wage, every resident is assumed to be doing their fair share of work through their union and is in turn provided with food, water, shelter, and care. Although this is difficult to conceive of for a city with a population around 500,000, each union is able to provide their services to all who need them. There is enough surplus of supplies that visitors are able to be given these things with nothing given on their part.

Towns: There are many small towns scattered around the Angco Republic, and while each is expected to follow the laws set by the Angco Council, these laws are relatively few and mostly have no impact on small towns that never receive visitors. As such, each town is mostly left to its own devices regarding how they organize and what they do to survive. Each town has a council, elected from among the residents by the residents in a vote every two years. Town councils are expected to create and maintain policies that allow everyone in the town to live the life they want, provided that life includes working for the greater good of the town and not harming others. Although all towns are within the Slithering Rainforest, the ways that have been found to survive and maintain self-sufficiency are highly varied. Some towns are truly self-sufficient, with farmers and foragers working together to provide everything that the tradesfolk need to build structures and tools. Other towns seem to specialize in producing one thing, working with several other towns in the area and pooling resources to produce more than enough for everyone to share. The only real constant is that outsiders with no connection to a given town are likely to be mistrusted and spied on while many residents openly question their goals and intentions with their visit. This dichotomy of treatment between the trusted ingroup and the mistrusted outgroup is often shocking to the rare visitors to these towns, however they often find that if they can prove themselves trustworthy, they find the town to immediately become a warmer, more welcoming place.

Cultural Profile: The Kingdom of Estram

 Introduction: Controlling everything west of the Curtaneous Mountains is the Kingdom of Estram. This kingdom of humans, currently ruled by King Edgard I, traces its history back to before the formation of the First Empire. Once but one small village among many in the jungle, the first king of Estram, King Ed the Ambitious, took inspiration from the newly-formed First Empire, earning his kingship through the conquest of surrounding villages. King Ed funneled the wealth of the villages to the then-village of Estram, allowing the tiny settlement to grow into the City of Estram that stands between the ocean and the jungle today. The kingdom has spent the last millennium in the precarious position of the First Empire’s closest ally, providing a stalwart trading and political partner despite the risk of becoming the next nation to join the larger, more powerful empire. In choosing to support the First Empire in all things, Estram precludes the need for invasion and annexation, allowing the Estramic monarchy to exercise absolute power on their island. Whatever the value the First Emperor actually sees in allowing the Kingdom of Estram to maintain independence, the fact remains that the First Emperor’s influence is strongly felt in Estramic culture and politics. Good relations with the Angco Republic to the east have always been forced by the Curtaneous Mountains between them and the difficulties posed by an amphibious invasion. The kings of Estram would conquer Angco in a heartbeat if they could figure out how to do it. The regular citizens of Estram are mostly supportive of some kind of absolute monarchy, although a sizable portion would rather it be the actual First Emperor and not one of his wannabes, and another sizable portion would rather be ruled by Rosaline, the ancient dragon who lives on Fizsaire. King Edgard expends considerable resources to prevent these cults from gaining too much power, although it is a constant battle.

Magic and Technology: The Kingdom of Estram has benefited greatly from its close ties to the First Empire, or at least the wealthy people of the capital city have. Pretty much anything that could be found for sale in the First Empire can also be found in Estramic markets, although for a much higher price to account for the journey across the ocean. This has created a similar, albeit more extreme, version of the dynamic present in the First Empire where magic items and services are easily acquired by the wealthy while the working classes are left with a quality of life no better than medieval peasants from the real world. Most citizens of Estram would love to be able to afford to have more magic in their lives but cannot afford such luxuries. Anyone who wishes to learn magic in the kingdom must either learn what they can from folk traditions or travel to the capital city of the kingdom to attend the only school of magic in the kingdom, the Royal Academy of Magic. All socially acceptable forms of spellcasting and enchanting are taught at the Academy, although anyone wishing to practice channeling or mastering their inherent magical abilities must do so without the support of the academy. Despite perceptions of the entire country being an inferior wannabe of the First Empire, the quality of magical education at the Royal Academy is on par with, if not better than, the top First Imperial schools of magic. 

Society: Much like the First Empire, the culture and government of the Kingdom of Estram has been built around a single person with absolute power, the Estramites have simply chosen to center a royal line, lacking the immortal ruler the First Empire has. Other than this one key difference, it is fair to say that most citizens of the kingdom believe that they live in an egalitarian, meritocratic society where anyone can be anything (save for the king) if they are competent and ambitious enough. While this may be true in theory, those who are born into wealthy families tend to have a much easier time achieving their goals than common citizens. In apparent contrast to their values of equality and meritocracy, the people of Estram have a generally positive view on the monarchy and the work it has done to keep the kingdom independent for so long. Because of this, most are willing to accept a higher than normal amount of policing and paranoia about cults over the past few years. As long as a majority of people are able to live successful, peaceful lives, the imperfections of the Kingdom of Estram will be overlooked.

Religion: In yet another move inspired by the First Empire, the Estramic religion is one that deifies the nation's leader, making all laws religious laws and lawbreaking akin to heresy. To enforce this, each village is expected to maintain a temple to the monarchy in its center where the mayor and 3-5 priests can organize tax collection and criminal courts. Low-ranking members of the clergy, deacons, act as police officers and guards until such a time that they prove themselves ready for the full priesthood. The deacons and priests are also expected to maintain a royal effigy inside the temple where taxes are left and which prayers are directed to. Unlike the First Empire, the Estramic Monarchs are not thought of as universal avatars of all divine will, but rather they are considered to be the absolute rulers of all things on Fizsaire, plants, animals, and spirits. When a king or queen dies, they join the pantheon of past monarchs which are said to watch over and guide their island from beyond the grave. Over time, it has also been the responsibility of the Estramic priests and mayors to investigate and root out any religious practices other than the worship of the monarchs, an issue that has ebbed and flowed over the last thousand years.

City of Estram: The capital city of the Kingdom of Estram is also called Estram, it being the original seat of the Estramic monarchy and the place to which all of the spoils of conquest were funneled to. Today it is a massive, wealthy city that is also the only true city in the kingdom. Being on the coast, the City of Estram is also the only tradeport that the kingdom maintains. All of this wealth and trade has given the upper classes access to every luxury they could want, along with the ability to buy it. Meanwhile, a middle class has formed in the city that provides a certain buffer between the upper and lower classes. The middle class of the city lives in relative comfort in exchange for working the management and professionalized jobs that upper class folks don't want to do and lower class folks lack the education to do. This system has remained fairly stable through the years, save for the occasional religious revolt by heretics and cultists. While the city is home to the Royal Mausoleum, the largest temple to the monarchy in the kingdom, as well as the royal palace, Edhome, this is also where the largest number of followers of the First Imperial Cult reside, thanks in part to the large presence of First Imperial merchants and diplomats in the city. Proving the diversity of the city, it is also the only place on the island known to have a branch of the Gnome Mafia in active operation. Overall, it is impressive that such a large, diverse city functions as well as it does.

Villages: While the City of Estram is massive, the majority of the kingdom's subjects live in small villages scattered throughout the jungle. Each village is administered by a mayor and his team of priests to the monarchy, although there is a lot of variability in how strictly different leaders enforce laws and collect taxes. Mayors are personally appointed by the sitting monarch and priests are usually promoted from the ranks of local deacons when a position opens up. This is the only real form of social mobility in the villages, as most people are expected to do work harvesting resources from the jungle to send to the capital for export. They are paid wages which comfortably cover their housing and food needs, but deacons, priests, and mayors all earn enough from their positions to pay for magic items and luxuries from off the island. Apparently, most people are satisfied with their more traditional, simpler lives so long as taxes aren't too high and the law doesn't give them too much trouble, so this system has worked well for over 1,000 years.

The Elves: Cultural Profile

Introduction: The elves are technically just one of many species native to the Lonely Island, however to leave it at that would be far too reductive. The first elf was born 592 years ago, the result of hundreds of years of magical experimentation and downright evil breeding programs, the subjects of which were forced to participate against their will. The perpetrators of this atrocity, the Arcane Order of the Walled Garden, oversaw their evil work in order to have an inherently magical, immortal army to attack the First Empire with, but the first generation of elves, upon reaching maturity, recognized the terrible things that were done to their ancestors and took their own revenge against the Walled Garden, completely wiping out the mages and abandoning their facilities. Since then, the elves have been doing quite well. While much of their biology and what went into their creation is still a mystery, the elves were able to recover a great deal of information on the Lonely Island, its ecosystems, and the many different organisms that call the place home. Choosing to completely leave their creators’ vision behind, the elves have gone on to establish four towns around the island which exist in perfect harmony with the surrounding environment. Although descended from humans, every elf is born with a random combination of skin, eye, and hair colors, each of which can be nearly any color in the spectrum. Their population grows slowly because elves with uteruses can only get pregnant on the solstices, a small blessing as elves seem to achieve biological immortality around the age of 30. They each have pointed ears that stretch out several inches farther than regular human ears as well, and each elf is also gifted with at least one inherent magical power that they can use at will. These powers run the gamut of effects and it is said that for every problem one may encounter, there is at least one elf out there with the perfect power to deal with that problem.

Magic and Technology: The elves tend to see complex technology of any sort as being too similar to the evil practices of their creators, and so they do not utilize technology beyond simple tools and implements, relying on the magic talents of community members to perform any functions that might be done with technology in other societies. While an elf may have eating utensils, plates, cups, and various tools for grooming, it is understood that these tools are all crafted by magical means and that any repairs that need to be made are to be done by someone with an appropriate magical ability. Arcane magic such as enchanting and spellcasting are also seen as pointless pursuits that are too similar to Walled Garden practices, and so elves are not only expected to seek out other elves with appropriate abilities to help them when they need something difficult done, but to provide whatever assistance to other elves that their abilities allow them to when requested.

Society: Elves have defined themselves and their society in direct opposition to the ideals and goals of the mages which worked to bring the elves into the world. Elf society expects individual elves to live in harmony and cooperation with each other, providing whatever services they can to those who ask at no charge or expectation of returning the favor. Despite a lack of knowledge in the early days, the elves have had time to move on and learn about themselves. The elves now know much more about who they are and what their lives should be like. This, along with the culture of harmony and cooperation, has allowed elf society to flourish as elves use their unique gifts to help each other and contribute to their mutual survival. Over the centuries, this has resulted in a very comfortable society in which struggle and toil are seen as unnecessary because there will always be someone around who can do what you need instantly and through very little effort. This system actually works quite well as most elf powers can be applied broadly with some creative thinking, producing a surprising amount of overlap in which elves can help with which kinds of problems. Keeping track of this complex web of mutual relationships and magical abilities is the basis of elf communities, turning their towns into massive, interconnected societies in which every elf is fully aware of how they give and receive help to each other. Over the centuries, this state of affairs has helped the elves to answer many of their lingering questions about themselves.

        There is, however, one mystery that seems to preoccupy many elves. A sort of existential dread hangs over every elf regarding their own mortality and their overall place in the universe as a manufactured species. The first elves, as well as all subsequent generations, have not aged a day since their 30th birthdays, remaining in a state of near-perfect health the entire time. As such, no one is entirely certain if elves can die of old age. Elves are immune to all pathogens and do not suffer from congenital diseases or deformities, so the only way for an elf to die appears to be through physical injuries, poisoning, and other external causes of death. Although they are in tune with the spirits of the Lonely Island and the environment around them, many elves worry that their biological immortality and created status brings them out of harmony with the universe overall. Aside from distancing themselves from the attitudes of their creators, many elves also practice a harmonious existence to alleviate some of this worry.

Religion: Strictly speaking, the elves do not practice any kind of religion or organized spiritual practice. The Arcane Order of the Walled Garden was composed of mostly anti-theists, people opposed to the worship of the powerful spirits and forces of the universe. The elves do not share this view, but were also never introduced to traditional religious ideas because of it. Despite this, most elves are deeply connected to their local communities, including the various spirits that inhabit and look over the natural features of the Lonely Island. As such, each elf is encouraged to find ways to commune with the spirits of their home and determine how to stay on good terms with them as individuals. Elves see these relationships as being similar to the relationships they maintain with other elves, and so see no reason for anyone other than individual concerned parties to take actions to appease local spirits. The end result of this approach to the spiritual world is that all elves end up with some kind of obligation to the spirits of their immediate home area, although there is a high degree of variability in what these obligations actually are. Some are quite minor, such as being sure to leave an offering of food at a shrine once each week, while others are more major, such as complex cleansing rituals that must be performed on a daily basis while staying in a certain place.

Towns: The elves have established four towns around the Lonely Island, each in one of the main environments of the island. The towns are simply referred to by the ecosystem they are in, making their names Rusted Plains Town, Bluesalt Marsh Town, Crusty Mountains Town, and Bronze Woods Town. To the untrained eye, it is nearly impossible to tell that one is in a constructed space, even in the center of a town. Even more impressive is that these towns are each home to a little over 1,000 elves, all completely hidden unless they wish to be seen. This is because all aspects of elf towns are constructed, through magic, to blend in and exist in perfect harmony with the surrounding environment. In the plains and the marsh, this usually means the creation of hills which living and working spaces can be constructed under, while areas with more trees tend to see towns that are built out of massive hollow trees.These towns have no true government and have built up based on complex networks of mutual obligation and assistance and free association. Any elf is free to enter, leave, and become the resident of any town at any time depending on their whims, they are simply expected to become members of the local community, establishing bonds with others and providing the benefits of their magical abilities as needed. Should an issue that impacts more than a few elves in a town ever arise, a meeting is called for all impacted parties to attend. At these meetings, only those with a reasonable stake in the issue are allowed to attend, but all those attending are entitled to have their opinion heard and understood by all others present, and after deliberations a vote is held on what to do about the issue. Whichever solution is able to get a simple majority of votes is what people are expected to do, and thus far no issues have arisen with this system because the elves who get outvoted tend to value being a part of the community and their mutual relationships over getting their way. Rarely, these meetings will be between entire towns, and once, shortly after the arrival of the farporters, a meeting was held for all 5,000 elves living on the Lonely Island, in which the vote of secrecy from the newcomers was held, resulting in the hidden nature of the elves. To this day, the elves have all held to the vote, however some are beginning to believe that the farporters are trustworthy enough to reveal themselves to. This is still a minority opinion, but it is slowly gaining popularity as the elves become more and more curious about their new neighbors.

The Farporters: Cultural Profile

Introduction: The farporters are relative newcomers to the Lonely Island, having established the city of Farport about 130 years ago. Consisting of mostly humans with a few disguised snake people living among them in secret, the farporters are the modern descendents of First Empire dissidents who wanted to get as far away from the influence of their homeland as they could. Farporter society has since evolved in direct opposition to First Empire culture, valuing community, struggle for the good of the many, and loyalty to each other. The farporters have taken these values to heart and undertaken the hard work of starting a new settlement in a remote area with little access to trade. The city of Farport has banned First Empire citizens and merchants, even from docking in the harbor, reducing their options to the few gnome merchants willing to make the voyage. This has made the farporters good at making due with the materials at hand and finding resources on the Lonely Island that they can replace an expensive trade good with. Today, despite setbacks such as the Terror’s Rampage and resulting famine, the people of Farport are beginning to feel they know the island well enough to start founding new settlements. More conservative segments of the population, however, are of the opinion that people should stay and help Farport grow and that the rest of the Lonely Island should be left to the Island Lord and his Holy Lieutenants. Whether or not new towns are founded on other parts of the island, the farporters overestimate their understanding of the island, not even being aware of the four elf towns which have been on the island for hundreds of years now.

Magic and Technology: While the farporters are descended from First Empire citizens, as are the sporadic influxes of new dissidents from the empire, the people of Farport tend to be luddites, eschewing much of the technology and magic of the First Empire in favor of doing things with their own bodies whenever possible. As a result, most farporters deliberately live with technology comparable to early 17th century Europe from the real world. The main exception to this is magic and technology for safety, healing, and construction, which farporters see a great deal of value in. In farport, the technology, enchanted items, and schools of magic are focused exclusively on healing, safety, and things that make constructing buildings easier. The Academy of Arcane Casting is the only established school of magic in Farport, and it only teaches people to cast spells which pertain to the three approved applications. The academy does, however, offer these lessons for free, provided each potential student is able to pass a rigorous entrance exam, all supported by community donations. Enchanters, on the other hand, work out of several shops throughout the city and take on apprentices with some regularity, although new apprentices must buy their way in and become a partial owner of the shop they apprentice in. Each shop tends to specialize in crafting items which are useful to just one of the three applications. Those Farporters who manifest magical talents and interests outside of the approved types are viewed with distrust, seen as individualists who want to grow their own power rather than use their skills to help those around them. This is considered an “imperial attitude” towards magic and often forces people to pursue their taboo studies in secret.
        Mages and enchanters, despite their importance to Farport, are relatively rare, with the vast majority of folks having their time taken up by assignments for the good of society such as hospital duty or construction work. Perhaps one in every 100 farporters is trained in magic, although mage services are freely available to those who need them so no one complains too much about a lack of numbers. One side effect of this is that people generally have a good opinion of those who graduate from the Academy of Arcane Casting, graduates of which are almost exclusively hired by the City of Farport and paid a comfortable wage to perform their work for the other residents of the city. This has resulted in a healthy population living in well-constructed homes who are able to ply their trades and explore their home island as much as they desire. Most people are unaware of the dangerous magical leftovers from the Arcane Order of the Walled Garden that are scattered around the Lonely Island, but if they were, they would probably want nothing to do with it.

Society: Farport, in direct contrast to how things are run in the First Empire, is not ruled by any one person or even any one group of people. Instead, the residents of each building in the city (businesses, shops, workshops, etc. excluded) are expected to provide a single representative in the Council of Many. This body of thousands of people, some the sole occupants of their homes, is expected to meet on the solstices and equinoxes of each year in order to hear policy petitions, vote on them, and perform other tasks such as interviewing prospective city officials like the captain of the guard or the city planner. Some representatives are more invested in the council than others. In order for any bill to be made law or a person to be appointed to a position, at least 80% of the Council of Many must approve. This high burden of acceptance is meant to ensure that no city policy or official is put in place without good reason. These officials and policies can be revoked at any time, however, if just 21% of councilors vote to revoke, a vote that is only held in emergency council sessions as needed.

        The cultural values that led to this form of government are loyalty, communalism, and the willingness to undergo hardships for others. These values can be seen in most structures and traditions in Farport. As dissidents from the more individualistic and cutthroat First Empire, farporters would rather live in opposition to such values. This can be seen in the main conflicts over whether or not to establish new settlements elsewhere on the Lonely Island. Those against new settlements argue that it would not only risk cutting people off from their sense of community with Farport, and thus the ties of loyalty, but that to do anything other than expand the space they’ve already claimed would be disloyal to the island and the spirits that govern it. Others say that one day Farport will need to stop or risk becoming a blight on the land, so they should be allowed to take on the struggle of creating more space for people to have less of an overall impact on the environment. Spiritual arguments back both sides of the debate, and the Council of Many has only ever reached 65% acceptance for any proposals of new settlements, despite being happy to fund dozens of expeditions into the Lonely Island each year. This is the biggest tension in Farport at the moment, but other than that, people tend to live peaceful, comfortable lives.

        Laws and city guards in Farport are rarely harsh, the only exceptions being made for those who even appear to show support for the First Empire. Farport maintains a robust social safety net and a healthy trading relationship with the gnomes. People have access to goods from all over Tero, and they have the money to pay for them because the city provides medical services and housing at no expense to residents other than a progressive income tax which results in the wealthiest farporters paying for the housing and medical care of the poorest farporters. People generally enjoy this arrangement and take pride in their city’s ability to take care of its residents. In day-to-day life, the only strict rules that ever seem to impact people are those against contact with current First Empire Citizens. Newer waves of residents from the First Empire often leave friends and family behind and wish to stay in touch. The founders of Farport established the rule of no contact, not even to trade for vital supplies, before they even landed on the Lonely Island, and this policy has remained in place ever since.

Religion: After leaving the influence of the First Imperial Cult and veneration of the First Emperor, most farporters are wary of religious belief and organized practice. Despite this, a local religion has developed. Some of the first settlers in Farport received visions of the locations of vital resources which the more spiritual of the early farporters attributed to a single spirit which governs the entirety of the Lonely Island, a figure they refer to as the Island Lord. The assumption was, based on the helpful visions, that the Island Lord favors the farporters and wishes for them to succeed. In return, there are eight different festivals of thanks each year to reaffirm Farport’s loyalty to the Island Lord while thanking their god for the gifts of the natural world he provides through the island. Most of these festivals consist of many offerings and elaborate sacrificial rituals to the god, intended to honor the Island Lord through complexity and decorum.

        Over time, explorers started to return from expeditions with tales of strange, unique creatures that live alone on the Lonely Island. Early members of the Church of the Island reasoned that such legendary beasts must be the lieutenants of the Island Lord, able to act within the material plane on behalf of their Lord. Several smaller cults, considered priestly orders of the overall religion, have been established to worship these legendary creatures, each of which is associated with a specific region of the island. The Armored Behemoth is said to roam the Rusted Plains, the Elephant Bird rules the Crusty Mountains, Shepherd Jim guards Big Bay, the Shoveltusker makes its home in the Bronze Woods, and the Terror of Farport is said to live deep within the Bluesalt Marsh. These priestly orders make up the organized portion of the religious community, maintaining calendars of holidays particular to their chosen lieutenant, the celebration of which is optional, unlike the 8 festivals dedicated to the Island Lord. One such priestly order, the Behemoth’s Children, not only venerates the Armored Behemoth, but has developed a form of martial arts based on their subject of worship. This is unique among the priestly orders of the Lonely Island, but they have never caused any trouble so no one really bats an eye at them.

Farport: Farport is a growing, bustling city that sits on the North bank of the Iron River, at the point where it empties into Big Bay. Although relatively young compared to other cities of Tero, the occasional influx of new settlers and the steady growth of the existing population has caused Farport to grow into a decent-sized city of roughly 100,000 people. Construction teams are able to keep up with this growth through magical means, utilizing mages and magic items to essentially grow buildings out of the ground fully formed. Housing and healthcare are provided to residents free of charge, they just need to be registered with the tax office and up to date on their income tax payments, which is not usually an issue. People are happy to send representatives to the Council of Many, the governing body of the city, and important city services are staffed and led by competent people. Most residents of Farport are quite happy to live there. The only strict rules are around First Empire citizens being banned from entering or docking in the city while residents cannot have any contact with current citizens, even by mail. This is tough on some people, but every time reversing the policy has been suggested, not nearly enough votes were cast to abolish the policies.

        To support such a large population, thousands of acres of farms have been established in the Rusted Plains around Farport, growing food crops that are native to the Lonely Island which can tolerate the high iron content of the soils south of the Crusty mountains. Rustroot is the most common crop and a staple food for the people of Farport due to its highly nutritious, tuberous roots. Other crops grown for food include red sunflowers, the seeds of which are used for oil and turned into flour, and the sweet yucca, which produces fibrous leaves that can be woven into cloth and a sweet fruit that can be eaten either raw or cooked. There are some farporters who get their meat by hunting metallic kangaroos out in the Rusted Plains, however most get their protein from imported, preserved meats and fish. Supplying such a large population with imported protein is one of the jobs of the massive port that gives Farport its name and acts as the only access most people have to the world outside the Lonely Island. Anything that cannot be produced on the island must be imported, and some domestic products are of an inferior quality to equivalent items from other parts of the world. While few gnome merchant companies have ever chosen to make regular voyages to Farport and First Empire merchants are banned from doing business entirely, that has not been an issue as the few gnome companies that chose to make the initial voyages have prospered and grown greatly. These once-small trading companies now maintain merchant fleets of hundreds of ships, built off of their near-monopoly on trade with the farporters. Not only do the people of Farport spend a lot of money on goods that wouldn’t be worth trading in other places, but the medicines and enchanted medical instruments that they produce have gained a worldwide reputation for their quality and efficacy. The native foods of the Lonely Island and the unique fabrics woven from dyed sweet yucca thread are also sold as exotic goods abroad, making the trade relationship fairly balanced overall.

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 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.

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