Year 105,988: The Sack Of Usta

In the last round, the Players had invented their own myth, which was to be used to protect the trading town of Usta from encroachment by its powerful neighbors.  I decided there could be no better way to introduce this latest development than to hand their myth back to them.  I gave them The Tale of the Sea Wind.

During centuries of breeding with the mermaids, the Mazani have developed into a race of humans with pale, almost blue skin, dark sea-colored hair in blues, greens coral reds and kelp browns, and eyes of all shades ranging from black to bioluminescent purple.  They are comfortable at sea, in rain, and in all temperatures above and below the waves, and every Mazani man and woman can hold his breath for an astonishing length of time.  Their race is slightly more than 60% female, a great improvement on the genetic heritage of the Amazons from which they descended.  Though they are strong enough on land, they are also very strong at sea.  Mazani are quick with their hands, and adept swimmers, though somewhat slower on land.  Their chief contribution to the area has been trade, at which they excel.  Their boats are not of a comparable quality to the Bazik, halfway around the world.  But while the Bazik are craftsmen, experimenters and engineers, the Mazani sailors are entirely fearless of the waves, and their ship designs border on reckless.

The Mazani have eyesight that adapts to both surface air as well as the dense refraction of underwater vision.  This has caused them to greatly simplify the ornate, symbolic pictograms invented by the Baruna and the Ovron into a smaller set of more distinct, abstract shapes.  Because the Mazani trading vessels still ply the coastlines, they have spread their simplified alphabet to virtually every city south of Barone, where it — or a local variety — is beginning to displace the pictograms.  Barunic cuneiform, pictograms carved into clay, are being slowly replaced with the more durable oil-based inks on silk, which (though expensive) can withstand the winds and rain at sea, or even be taken underwater.

By and large, the Mazani have not had many permanent homes in the Odeyinar Valley on the mainland, ever since the Circle Tribes united to seize control of their own lands nearly 2,000 years ago.  A few Mazani trading posts exist on the coasts near the mouths of rivers.  Their cities stretch from Klave, on the mouth of the Odeyinar, to Jarkos, on the western shore of the strait between the two continents.  The southeast continent is where the Mazani chiefly reside, operating out of the Bay of Tvern.  The plains esast of the port of Tvern are the closest thing the Mazani have ever had to a farmland to call their own.  The Baruna possess the wide cornucopic valley of Odeyinar, which is rich with rainfall and maize and grasses; the Mazani have marshy lowlands cramped between mountain ranges, exposed to the gales of prevailing winds that sweep up past Nvayek and into the heart of the continent.  Farming there is difficult.  Most of what the Mazani obtain, they get in trade.

The intertwining forested valleys are not much good for farming, but excellent for forests and for shipbuilding.  The mountain ridges are also excellent natural defensive bulwarks, enabling the Mazani culture — already accustomed to a certain fractured independence from life on the island chain, and life at sea — to fragment into dozens of smaller city-state cultures called klaves.  Each klave operates on its own, and much like a sailing vessel is led by a captain and a hand-chosen crew of officers.  Law is informally carried out by a panel consisting of the captain and select senior officers.  Political unity between klaves is based on a convention of non-binding mutual assistance, as convenient.  Occasionally a conqueror attempts to unify the klaves, but the wide distance between colonies and the difficult geographical borders encourage rebellion.

We must now turn to examine the Baruna and Ovron civilizations of the mainland, the Mazani’s principle trading partners.  While the Baruna are unified by their enclosed geography, their unity of culture and purpose, and their philosophy that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, the Ovron are splintered.  In 105,514, the warlord Jabess (M, 50) attempted to unite by conquest the various scattered cities of Ovron all across the great rolling plains.  This was, for Jabess, the easy part, for with his superior power of Air magic he was able to successfully both defend his empire against the storms of nature, and lay siege to those cities who resisted.  Harder — not for Jabess, but for his family — was to hold that empire together after his death.  His two sons, Jabess the Younger and Chamandra Prince of Dawn, and daughter, Danar Mistress of Stars, battled for a generation over the right to rule from the capital city of Jabbesandar.  The city was more fortress than colony, more administrative hive than trading center.  Without an empire to rule over, it became clear the city had no industry or self-support; conquest was the only business in which it had ever engaged.  Within another generation, the Empire of Storms was torn apart by internal power struggles and blood feuds that last to this day.

There are other colonies of Brun-descended tribes to the north, east, and northeast, but we will deal with them in due course.

Hundreds of years ago, the port city of Usta was established as a neutral ground, over which and for whose spoils both sides were forbidden to fight.  The spirit of Chamandra himself was said to stand watch over the city lest any would-be conqueror attempt to seize it for his own.  In the twenty generations since then, Usta’s influence has expanded, not through battle but in spite of it.

Although Ovron and Baruna each claim to respect the neutrality of Ovron, each side has increasingly come to rely on neutrality as a weapon against their enemy.  When the Ovron insisted that Usta adopt the sacrificial rites to appease the demons of sea and storm, Baruna petitioned that the Usta were merchants — to sacrifice the sheep that it took in trade was to hurt Usta.  All sacrifices of material goods were thus forbidden in Usta, sheep especially.  Ovron naturally responded by declaring it forbidden to slaughter any sheep in the domain of Usta, in order to harm the profits of the Baruna shepherds looking to take their flocks to market.

Certain roads on which Usta relied were subsumed into the “greater interest” of Usta’s well-being, then certain towns which supplied her, then the mines and mints that gave her coinage.  The Ovron would declare that the city of Klave was essential to Usta’s trading routes in the Odeyinar Valley, thus depriving Baruna of valuable influence along the coast; Baruna declared that the silver mines of Ovron could no longer be permitted to supply profit to the embattled warlords.  All too often, these imagined maneuvers and dictates were enforced upon the point of a sword.  After declaring its enemy in forfeit of Usta’s neutral ground, it would chastise its opponent by slaughtering a herd of sheep, enslaving an entire village, burning a field of crops, or other more atrocious offenses.  And all too often, the merchants of Usta were happy to appeal to the baser instincts of either side.  If Usta wished to take possession of a profitable town, it need merely hint to one side or the other that a show of force could deprive the enemy of a strategic resource, which could then be turned over to Usta’s profiteers.

And now we return to the Mazani.  It hasn’t been a good year for them.  The winter storms have lingered on well into spring, and the spring storms into summer.  Fishing is difficult, farming is impossible, and sailing is hazardous.  In addition, the recent skirmishes between Usta, Ovron and Baruna has cost the Mazani a great deal in trade:  their own surpluses are low, and the price of bronze from the mainland has skyrocketed.  This cold, wet summer is the final straw.  The Mazani need foods, metals, and livestock, or all that will remain for them to sell is their ships.

Agan of Green Willow (M, 41) is town captain of the coastal trading post of Nvayek.  It is a popular stopping point for trading vessels, offering a sheltered harbor against the worst of the winds, fresh water with which to resupply, and timber for making repairs.  The captains of Jorvkir and Tvern have passed through recently during a recent break in the clouds.  Each was on a desperate expedition to haul in a season’s worth of salted cod before the weather turned again.  Captain Agan knows the coastline west and east along Mazani territory, and has seen the trading vessels plying the great harbor between Usta and Klave, and has seen the Ustani scows carrying copper ore up the eastern strait.  “The mainlanders live in a valley of plenty,” Captain Djorl of Tvern (M, 51) tells Agan on his way east.  “They wallow in bushes of corn, they dance in acres of squash, and do they sell to us?  No — food is scarce, they say.  The armies are hungry.  The wars are expensive.  Prices have gone up, again.  There’s always some excuse.  We have little enough to sell, and nothing here of value.  Foul winds have driven away the fish, and what I do sell, I spend twice that to pick up cargo.  Twenty brass sigils I paid for a bolt of silk in Klave, which if I’m lucky I can sell for twenty-five in Jarkos.”

Captain Hvulf of Jorvkir (M, 60) is headed west in the opposite direction when he chances to encounter Djorl and Agan on the docks.  Like the other two captains, he is a man; though the Mazani firmly believe in equality of man and woman, they traditionally prefer men to captain their ships. “East of here,” he says, “the copper mines of Baruna lie.  I’ve heard it said that some of the Baruna are mining for silver there, too.  If we could seize the mines for ourselves, we could mint our own coins.  With those riches we could buy all the supplies we needed.  Then, if they wished to make war, they could come to us for their bronze.”

“Did you plan to fight the phalanxes of Baruna by yourself?” asks Agan.

“Our women are as strong as their men,” says Hvulf.  “If they think they can form a phalanx on a mountainside, or inside a mine, let them come.”

“And will the sorcerers of Ovron stand idle while you seize those mines?” asks Agan.

“Ovron doesn’t buy so much bronze,” says Hvulf.  “Their sorcerers don’t use it.  Anyway, they’ll be too busy taking advantage of Baruna to give us any trouble.  It will be the opportunity they’ve been waiting for.”

Agan disagrees.  “It’s dangerous, Hvulf.  The mines will be hard to seize.  The terrain is rocky, their archers will have the high ground, and it’s hard to approach secretly by ship.  I recommend instead we simply take what we need from one of their cities.  The Usta are merchants, not miners.  They’re only strong enough to count silver coins.  Besides, what’s the use of seizing a mine full of useless rock?  You can’t eat rock.  What we need are supplies.  I say we sail into the Great Harbor and make a raid on the storehouses of Usta.  I hear it practically bulges at the seams with food, all for sale, all there for the taking.  And it’s safe, because the Ovron and the Baruna are forbidden to garrison it.”

Captain Djorl of Tvern speaks up.  “Forbidden, yes, but when has that stopped them?  I was just in Usta a week ago.  The Baruna just happened to send several companies of men into the town.  They say it is to buy bronze at the markets, but the phalanxes do not shop for their own wares.  And the Ovron just happen to have sent several dozen sorcerers.  For bronze.  They need it for religious ornaments and statues, they say, as if sorcerers knew anything about appeasing demons.  That’s priests’ work, it’s beneath them.  I’ll wager that Usta will be in flames by the time we reach it.”

“What do you propose then, Djorl?” asks Agan.  “We have nothing to sell and nothing to eat.”

“We find both,” says Djorl.  “We farm.  There must be land somewhere in the land of Mazar that a man could farm.  North through the strait and then east down the coast, I’m told.  We could lose a lot of good sailors chasing after treasure.”

“I’m too old to start farming,” says Hvulf.  “Sixty years I’ve been sailing, I’m not going to start digging in the dirt now.”

What The Players Decided 

The choices as presented were farming, raiding the cities, and taking over the mines.  My gamers were never ones to see only the choices I offered them.

"They could go offer their services to Usta," Jack the Storyteller suggested.

"Doing what?" Joe the Leader asked.

"Protection," Jack said.  "They could protect Usta from both sides."

"And give Usta an army, so they can take over?" Joe asked with skepticism.

He was right to be suspicious.  The town of Usta hadn't exactly behaved as if it were a neutral and disinterested buffer state.  In fact, they were getting greedy.  An army would not be an improvement.

"Don't they have anything that Usta wants?" Jack demanded.

That would require them to have a surplus of something, I said.  They have little enough as it is.

"If we have these guys come up and attack the city," Dave said, "they could be the divine wave from the sea.  That would teach those guys to send troops into our city.  That's history repeating itself."

"We'll be turning these guys into Vikings," Joe said.

That's history repeating bullshit, I pointed out.  The first time the city of Usta had been attacked, it was just a made-up story.

"So we'll tell the people of Usta that this is the divine wave from the sea," Connor said.

How the people of Usta interpret an attack isn't up to you, I said.

"Then we'll tell the Viking guys that they're the divine wave from the sea," he said.

You'll tell them that their raiding is blessed by the gods? I asked.

"Yes," Connor said.

"Whaaaat?" Joe the Leader asked in disbelief.

"Why don't we say they're aspects of Chamandra?" Connor said.

"NO!" said Dave, punching Connor.  "No, bad.  Bad Connor."

"Look, we're stuck with Chamandra, we might as well use him," Connor argued.

"If they go and attack Usta," Jack said slowly, "what does Usta get out of it?"

We asked him to elaborate.

"Farming won't work," Jack said.  "They'll go all the way up here?"

"And start from scratch," Joe said.

"That will take too long.  Farming is out.  I say they either start raiding the waters, or they offer their services to the Usta."  Jack was back to the idea of paying service to the people of Usta.

Offer their services doing what?  I asked.  There isn't exactly a labor shortage.

Connor the Mystic evidently liked the sound of raiding the waters, and said, "I say we go pirates."

"Pirates," said Dave.

"Pirates," said Joe.

"Do they have the ships for it?" Jack asked.

"Oh hell yeah," Joe said.  "These guys aren't afraid of the water.  They're half mermaid.  They can sink the ships and dive for the treasure.  Dave, make them some boats.  We're gonna do this up right."

It then occurred to Joe that by destroying the town of Usta, the town that was supposedly under the protection of Chamandra, it would break their belief in him.  "They'll see the protection of Chamandra is false," Joe told the others.  "We're removing their fear of Chamandra."

"When they cry out to the gods for help," Jack said firmly, "we'll do nothing."

"Where's your Chamandra now, bitches?" Dave said in triumph.

That seemed settled.

"Oh," said Dave.  "I want you to note in the blog that I said to leave my giants alone.  Say, maybe the giants and the vikings could get together..."

"Superbowl!" said Joe.

Results 

I won't know the results of this round until I prepare for the next round.