Central Provinces
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THE CENTRAL PROVINCES
The next geographical group are the Central Provinces. There are seven central provinces, and most of them are large and extremely prosperous. The two great rivers, the Timbor and Pested, run through all but one of the central provinces and their importance to the region over the life of the Empire is impossible to exaggerate.
AARN
Starting in the North, the first province to consider is Aarn, which also happens to be the only central province not on one of the great rivers. Aarn is truly a study in contrasts. In the east it is a lush and fertile plain, well watered by the Raving and Questing rivers. In the center the land grows fiercely mountainous, containing the most rugged part of the Broken Mountains, including the highest point south of the Iron Backs, Mount Eyrie. To the southwest, past the mountains, the land grows desperately dry and barren, encompassing the largest desert in the Empire, The Great Barrens. The river valley of northwest Aarn is some of the best land in the Empire. The soil here is rich and black and bursting with life, while the climate is mild and there is a long growing season.
The enormous city of Cannium is directly across the Raving River, so many of the wealthy and noble from there own luxurious estates in Aarn which they call their summer homes. The empire has many Factoriums here, taking advantage of the large and skilled population. The wetlanders of Aarn are one of the best educated populations in the Empire, with many Guilds and a well-established apprentice system. Most of the Empire's legions are trained here, in the huge Legos Principia training camps scattered throughout the province.
Aarn is one of the five main provinces that raise Destriers, on large ranches along the Questing River to the north and along the Raving River to the east.
The mountaineers are a very different group of people, living in the rugged mountains and the bitter desert. They are also well educated on the whole, but have a very insular and clannish society which places great importance on family ties. Aarn is one of the few provinces that has a significant production of the highest quality seigestone, from quarries high in the Broken Mountains.
The Broken Mountains harbor an incredible abundance of wild game of every description, as well as many fur bearing animals that are trapped and their skins exported. Hunting expeditions to the slopes of Mount Eyrie are an old and respected outing tradition for the wealthy nobility. In the blasted expanse of the Great Barrens, south and west of the Broken Mountains, a different lifestyle flourishes in the hot and arid conditions. Here are huge dry farms, raising rare desert succulents and cacti both for their exotic fruit and for their potent "medicinal" effects. Bizarre lizards and silicas are raised in the Great Barrens, providing unusual leathers and the Empire's largest supply of high quality crystals.
There are extensive groves of the exquisite and dangerous wolframith trees, which are poisoned by water and whose mirror bright leaves are the only reliable source of the dweomermetals adamantium, cuprium, mithril, aurium, and argent. In Aarn, money really does grow on trees, although it can be worth your life to enter a wolframith grove in daylight.
Aarn is the only province of the Empire which has historically and in the modern era had severe internal dissension, between the wetlanders to the northeast and the mountaineers in the center. Extreme socioeconomic diversion is quoted as the cause for this dissent, but in truth it is mainly a relic of ancient animosities.
Imperial records indicate that in the earliest days of the Empire, Aarn was three separate and warring countries. The Emperor decreed them to be bound together in the eyes of the Empire in perpetuity, to teach them to love one another. It didn't work, and the rich hatred here is fed and nurtured by Puellor to this day, surely long past the time when even fractious humanity would have sought peace.
The ancient mountaineers have completely subsumed the ancient desert tribes, but the wetlanders are made of sterner stuff and the feud smolders sullenly to this day. During the Desolation, the terrible social disintegration began here in Aarn. Because of the virulent local conditions in Aarn, the Empire finds it convenient to have the Legions based here, to ensure the common welfare.
As an interesting note, the current Ordinate of Aarn, the Honored Lady Kaitlin Dobbs, is a Mountaineer, the first Ordinate not to be a Wetlander since before the Nightmare wars. Aarn is also nearly unique among the provinces in that the effects of the new Gate system have been muted here. Aarn has a strong social fabric and highly valuable exports of nonperishable items, in which speed is of little matter. These factors mean that the main effect of the Gate system has been the tremendous growth in imports of exotic goods from both the Southern provinces and the Northern provinces. This flow of wealth is attracting the attention of the Peacock Throne. The magnitude of the cash flow out of Aarn is much larger than the central government expected. The Imperial Council is considering investigating the amount of tax money coming out of Aarn, as there is little doubt that either the Mountaineers or the Wetlanders would cheat on their taxes if given a chance.
CANNIUM
Directly to the east of Aarn, nestled in the great confluence where the Raving river joins the Timbor, is the urban province Cannium, consisting of the city Cannium and a small quantity of suburban lands and ruins. Cannium is often called the heart of the Empire, as it is located in almost the exact center of the Empire's territory.
Cannium is the fourth largest city in the Empire, meaning that it is gigantic. The population is unknown since the Empire has been lax in census taking for the last few centuries, but it is estimated that at least ten million live within the limits of Cannium. Every conceivable industry and endeavor can be found somewhere in the city limits of a city this size.
Some of the notable highlights of the city are the dozens of water towers along the rivers, every one of which is a unique and exotic piece of architecture. The city fathers saw fit to make an ordinance millennia ago that required every "structure of significance" in the city to be approved by the "central aesthetician." As a result, the architecture of the city's buildings is interesting, to say the least. Water towers are in the shape of fanciful trees, waterfalls, incredible twisted baroque columns, fanciful serpents, dragons, gods, etc. The palaces, mansions, temples, public buildings, baths, and other buildings of the city are just as bad. This effect is overwhelming at best, but it is interesting.
Once you get past the bizarre appearance of the place the urban landscape is similar to other large cities in the empire. The city heart is filled with huge and sturdy covillas, each a complete and functional neighborhood despite the often fantastic embellishments. Unlike most large cities, Cannium has always had an aggressive program of renovation, in which few ruins are allowed to accumulate and the stone of razed buildings is almost always reused in a new structure. The Wisdoms of Teb hate the place.
During the Desolation, Cannium sided with the Eastern Federation and stayed out of the Empire for over two thousand years. Before the Legions crushed Cannium resistance in the Third Reunification, the Eastern Federation built up the defenses of the city to incredible levels. The walls at Cannium have been under construction more or less continuously for two thousand years, and it shows. After the city fell, the Empire had the walls repaired and today they are the strongest fortifications in the land. (The fortifications at Invincia would be far greater, but the Legions made such a mess of them in the Eastern Campaign the repairs won't be finished for another century, if ever.) The rivers are effective moats, so the walls are mainly found to the north, the river defenses being confined to a series of artificial islands and reinforced levees. The northern wall is sheathed in seigestone for its entire 150-mile length and averages 80 feet in height. The internal fortresses are so strong and well made that the Empire has used them for no less than two Imperial fortresses, Gates and all. As impressive as this fortification is, since it is in Cannium it has been approved by the "central aesthetician." Instead of a bluff stone surface, the entire face of the wall, in and out, is a titanic bas relief sculpture of every conceivable subject. Since the wall runs east to west for its entire length, the strong shadows thrown by the glancing sunlight in the spring and fall are used in much of the sculpture to animate it. It truly defies description.
In addition, the machicolations, watchtowers, and other sub-fortifications are every one a piece of sculpture, all done in seigestone. The effort of carving that much seigestone is almost beyond comprehension. It is said that the General of the Legions that captured the city in the Third Reunification was the Iron Duke, and that he wept upon seeing the place, because he couldn't bear the responsibility of wrecking it. Instead, he had the Legions spend an extra year and built the largest earthwork in modern history, a huge ramp over 5 miles long and wide and 500 feet tall. He used this earthen wave to literally "swamp" the wall, burying it safely. It is safe to say that it is the largest sculpture in the Empire today, although possibly not the largest in the known world. Surviving records indicate that there is a place in the Ironbacks called the Hall of Heroes, a deep narrow valley with enormous statues hundreds of feet tall lining it for dozens of miles.
In the current era, Cannium is a vibrant and growing city. The direct reason for this are those huge instruments of change, the Gates. Because of its central location and strong fortifications, Cannium has no fewer than three Imperial Fortresses, each with a full complement of Gates. The amount of travel at Cannium is incredible, for it has the most Gates of any major city, it is on two major rivers, and it is in the center of the Empire's huge network of roads, which the Legions keep well maintained. Cannium's power and influence are burgeoning, a situation which keeps the Peacock Throne awake at nights.
Cannium is uncomfortably near Pellania and Aarn, as well as being one of the first cities to split with Celegia in the Desolation. The current Ordinate of Cannium is Madame Karen-Liese Elizabeth James. The Cannium Ordinate is one of the most carefully chosen persons in the Empire, and it is suspected that the Emperor has assigned at least two Sage Advisors to watch the political climate in Cannium as part of the study of the larger impact of the Gates.
VALIS
Moving due east of Cannium, across the mighty Timbor, you come to the lovely garden province of Valis. Valis is one of the oldest provinces in the Empire, which is not unusual considering the advantages it has enjoyed. In the south it encompasses the central foothills of the Broken Mountains, which are not as brutally rugged as most of the Broken chain. The southern border of the province is the southern edge of these mountains. To the west it borders the mighty Timbor river, the river valley being a huge and fertile expanse of land that is often called the Horn of Plenty.
To the east the border is the broad and gentle Retro river, with the Eastern Flood Plain being if anything even better land than that next to the Timbor. To the north, the border is a line running from the northernmost point of the Retro river to the northernmost point of the Silver Hills, and from there almost due west to the Grand Oxbow of the Timbor, where the Upper Timbor Cataracts rumble and fume. The wide expanse of central Valis is a lush area which grows a large surplus of every kind of food, including grains, vegetables, fruit, and cattle.
The Timbor is of course the main economic pathway of the eastern Empire, and in Valis an almost solid band of towns and hamlets line the river along the entire length of the bank. Valis is widely believed to be the most populous province in the Empire, with the possible exception of Ereta. No census has been done in years, but most estimates place more than 400 million in Valis, and very near to that many in Ereta.
In the southern mountains, large quarries provide quantities of high quality marble and basalt from a vast deposit, which has built most of the Imperial buildings in Celegia. As in all of the Broken Mountains, there is a bewildering array of wildlife here and a vigorous trade in skins and other beastly products goes on. Moving into the north of Valis, you enter the southern fringes of the Vasty Plains, the huge grassland in the north east of the Empire. Here are enormous ranches, where quantities of Destriers, horses, gorgons, and other herd animals are raised.
In the northeast corner of the province is the Silver Hills, a gentle and lovely region of green rolling mountains. These have been thoroughly mined out over the years and thus today the locals admonish each other to tread lightly, so that the mountains don't cave in! There is a great deal of truth in these laughing allegations, as the Silver Hills once held enormous amounts of mithril and silver both. The only places in the empire that are more heavily dug are Frippe and Tuggston, but unlike those places the Silver Hills are mined out. In the Silver Hills, the mines are abandoned and have a dark reputation indeed.
The Silver Hills is a lovely place above the ground, as it is covered in much of its expanse by a light and open forest of silvery birches. These lovely trees are another reason the place is known as the Silver Hills. The Hills are the homes of some very good and wealthy noble families, which made their colossal fortunes when the mines were still open. Today, the ranches are the primary source of wealth, and the landed gentry here are the largest surviving remnant of the ancient noble warriors who originally bred the Destriers.
Valis has an ancient heritage of fierce warriors, which is a good thing considering that their neighbors are the Pellanians. Valis has historically kept the aggressive and warlike Pellanians penned against the sea, not an easy task. Valis suffered terribly in the Desolation, when the rivers served to carry all manner of invaders to her shores. The social disintegration was so severe that the only places that were safe were in the Silver Hills, where the nobility defended their own with Destrier riding cavalry. All else was a blood soaked no-mans land with marauders of all sorts.
Here as in other places, the Gates are having a considerable impact. Valis has been importing large amounts of exotic goods from the fringes of the Empire, and is the largest importer of such goods in the Empire. The huge and tremendously affluent populace here has also been importing population, a unique phenomenon. People from Frippe, Tanner, Belle, Gorm, and Qed have been moving to Valis in droves, providing a large pool of hardworking and inexpensive labor, which Valis is putting to good use. Many of the farmers in Valis are so well capitalized that they are now taking in three crops per year, causing the Wardens to grit their teeth and eye the situation askance.
The Peacock Throne is watching this situation carefully, as the last thing the Empire needs is for the Wardens to declare Valis to be overworked and force the whole province to go fallow for a few decades to recover.
The current Ordinate of Valis is Lord William Sjerman.
GANE
Moving to the southwest, re-crossing the Timbor, you come to the green land of Gane. Gane lies north and west of the capital, nestling along with Valis in the Middle Timbor Valley. Gane is most famous for the drink kaffe, which comes from a bushy plant which yields kaffe beans. Kaffe mainly grows in southern Gane, in the Broken Mountains there. This crop is highly prized and sought after all over the Empire, where it is brewed and then served at room temperature, often with honey, sometimes with milk. Kaffe is also served hot, and the widespread use of herbal intoxicants in hot kaffe is endemic. ( Kaffe tastes like coffee mixed with hot chocolate, with a healthy dose of mint thrown in. It has even more caffeine than coffee, and poor quality kaffe has an aftertaste that could be compared to the bottom of a bird cage.) Hot kaffe is very strongly flavored and can hide the often unpleasant flavors of the more "vigorous" of the recreational herbs.
However, there is more to Gane than merely one herbal crop. Gane is a moderately sized province and has a wide variety of terrain in it. Most notably, Gane is known as the Gateway to the North, since as you journey northwards along the Timbor, the Broken Mountains lie solidly athwart your path. Except for the titanic valley known as the Great Cut, where the Timbor River pours through the enormous crack in the Broken Mountains and heads south to the Elysian Sea, the Broken Mountains form a continuous barrier to travel northwards. The origin of the Great Cut is unknown and predates the records of the Empire, except for a single fragmentary record by the mad prophet Jephreal.
Jephreal is a shadowy and possibly mythical figure who is often cited in scripts of the formation of the Empire as a companion and confidant of the God-Hero Emperor Celegio Celestias. Jephreal writes that the Timbor used to run along the Broken Mountains into the Great Pelagic along the northern edge of the foothills. During a huge fight in these shadowy prehistoric days a God seized the Broken Mountains and used them as a club to batter some unknown monster of Apocalyptic proportions into submission. This unknown God then buried the monster beneath the Broken mountains and laid the Mountains upon it as its gravestone and prison. Unfortunately, this God was rushed while doing this because the monster was still fighting, and so when the Mountains got placed back they were in the wrong place, and backwards! This is why the Great Cut has a sheer Westward face and is gently sloping to the East.
The mountains on the east side of the Great Cut were once in the Great Pelagic, as foothills. The sea cliffs of the Broken Mountains once stood where the Timbor River now flows. The Timbor was diverted south and now runs into the Elysian sea. The Retro river was born when the Mountain spirit of the Broken Mountains, as it lay there broken and gasping with the pain of it, was soothed by the hand of the Timbor upon its brow. The blood of the Broken Mountain spirit was transformed into a mighty torrent of pure water, and this forms the Retro river to this day. This tale is probably pure fiction, but it is charming.
The Great Cut is an impressive place. The gigantic Timbor river thunders through a narrow crack in the mountain, in places only 10 miles wide. It also falls a goodly distance in this transit, so the current is impressively strong. Over the eons, the Empire has carved out of the sheer walls of the Cut an unbelievable array of canals, locks, coffers, waterdams, riffles, levees, and other contrivances to make a way for river passage northwards possible. In places these canals are placed in tunnels driven into the solid stone of the mountains. This effort was successful, and the engineering works of the Great Cut are surely the most wondrous in the world, both in their cyclopean scope and in the cunning of their making.
Many of these works show evidence that they are not the making of mankind, and this is true. Here as in other parts of the Empire other races than Man have had a hand. The Timbor passing through the Great Cut forms what are known as the Lower Timbor Cataracts, and while they are not as rigorous as the Upper Cataracts, they certainly make up for it with their immense size. For most of the passage through the Great Cut, the Timbor is barely a mile wide, only one fourth its width above and below the Cataracts.
The north of Gane is a green and lush plain, richly blessed by the waters of the Timbor. The northern border of Gane is a direct line from Mount Eyrie to the confluence of the Raving and Timbor rivers. The north of Gane and the south of Aarn blend imperceptibly into one another, but the people of the Green Land have always emphatically had nothing to do with their more violent and unpleasant northern cousins.
Similarly, Aarn has had enough trouble within its own borders that the wetlanders there have rarely troubled Gane, so this apparent lack of borders has been in actuality quite sufficient. The eastern border is the Timbor, and the neighboring province of Valis has historically had enough trouble with Pellania that it has never had the inclination to trouble the Green Land. To the south and west the Broken Mountains provide a strong border, which has effectively kept Gane free from problems. By a happy accident of geology and the predatory natures of its neighbors, Gane has had a history of peace and prosperity normally only associated with the pastoral South!
Unfortunately, this did not save Gane from the Desolation, and perhaps because of its sheltered existence the place suffered terribly in that dark era. It still has not recovered even to this day, and so a palpable aura of despair hangs heavy over the farms and cities of this fair land. This pall lightens a little with each passing year, and most sages feel the full recovery of the province is only a matter of time.
Gane is one of the lands where it is feared the spirit of the province has perished, along with Pellania, Tanner and others. The impact of the Gates has been relatively minor in Gane, as the main export is nonperishable and Gane has always had good transportation facilities. As well, the general malaise in Gane has discouraged the mass importation of new and exotic goods into the province. Indeed, the Imperial Council has recently lowered fares into Gane, in an experiment to see if they can encourage immigration here as has happened in Valis. If so, then the Peacock Throne will have a potent tool in finishing the recovery of the Empire from the Nightmare Wars and Desolation.
The current Ordinate of Gane is the Honored Lady Loraine Leib Terlickey.
MORIAN
From Gane moving far to the west and south, past the Broken Mountains, you come to the dark province of Morian. When you name the Fuligin Forest, the image that springs to the mind of most Celegians is the incredibly dark, deep, and impenetrable groves the Forest is named for. These shadowy, untamed tracts of primeval forest are all in the province of Morian. The bulk of the Fuligin is not nearly so foreboding as the expanse of the Forest that lies to the north of the Pested River. This wild stretch of the Fuligin is guarded incessantly by the Wardens, and the fell reputation of the place is encouraged by them, to assist them in their task.
The Fuligin Forest has been preserved this way for thousands of years, and the depths of it have been virgin forest for most of that time. The amount of the Fuligin in Morian is actually less than is in either Tene' or Ereta, but all of the "dangerous" bits are in Morian. The depths of the Fuligin in Ereta and Tene' are not as wild, although they are as pristine.
The Fuligin provides Morian with a major export, large and steady quantities of quality hardwoods. Morian has a reputation for fine carpentry, and exports a considerable amount of furniture, decorative moldings, and the largest money making export in the province, paper.
The paper from Morian is easily the best in the Empire and volumes of it are shipped to Celegia and Faust, where it is used to make spell books. As elsewhere in the Empire, the Wardens choose the trees taken and see to their replacement.
However, there is more to the Dusky Land than the shadowed heart of the Fuligin Forest. Northward, as you move away from the river, the trees end and you enter the rolling farmland of the rest of Morian. In the east, this land is a region known as the Pested River Plain. In the west, a subtle shift in the character of the land, to more elevation and lusher vegetation, signals entry into the Upper Pested Valley. This is a rich area in which irrigation brings out the bounty of the soil and allows far more crops than even the Wardens could readily enliven.
In the northeastern parts of the Upper Pested Valley, verdant cropland lies within eyeshot of the depths of the arid drylands of the Great Barrens. Indeed, without the abundant irrigation provided by the complex web of water towers and aqueducts which carry water hundreds of miles from the Pested, the Great Barrens would be much larger than they are currently. This gives rise to one of the most persistent sore points in provincial relations, more of which will be discussed later.
The Eastern border of Morian is the dark flood of the Dusky River, whose black waters pour down out of the shattered spine of the Broken Mountains. The Dusky springs full born out of the sheer face of the mountains, forming the largest waterfall in the Empire, the Black Cascade. The largest spring in the Empire is the headwaters of the Dusky, known as the Well of Darkness, so named because the water as it pours forth is heavily laced with fundamental darkness. This mostly leaches into the riverbed in the basin at the base of the Cascade, but enough remains in the water to shade it deep black all the way until it runs into the Pested and loses its color in that greater flood. The Black Cascade is a vertical cataract 900 feet tall and over a mile wide. The volume of water is tremendous, and the sound of the falls can be heard for over twenty miles. They are a truly awesome scene, made all the more eerie by the utter lack of the characteristic white spray. Instead, the entire Cascade is shrouded in gloom, even on the brightest of days.
There are a huge number of temples to Termanant in this area. The Black Cascade merely adds to Morian's reputation as the Dusky Land. Sages theorize that the Dusky River was formed in the cataclysm that created the Broken Mountains, and may be a direct conduit to the elemental plane of water. This view is supported by the lack of success in exploring the caverns from which the Dusky springs. All reports indicate that there are no caverns, that the water is pouring straight out of the stone!
The Pested River is the southern and western border for most of Morian, and this is the longest river border in the Empire. The northern end of the western border is the eastern edge of the Stairsteppe mountains. The northern border of Morian is a direct east-west line from the easternmost point of the Stairsteps and the westernmost point of the Great Barrens. The northeasterly border of Morian runs along the southwestern edge of the Great Barrens, until it reaches the Broken Mountains again and we have returned to the Black Cascade.
One of the longest running and problematic disputes in the Empire has its seat in the Upper Pested Valley. The wealthy landowners here import most of their water from the Pested, and they see no reason why they shouldn't irrigate even more, straight out into the Great Barrens. In Aarn, the hardy Mountaineers have developed the Great Barrens into a rich and fertile area, with crops that require little or no water, and they see those blackhearted Morians pouring water onto perfectly good land for no good reason. But the real reason for contention comes from the fact that the border between the provinces is defined as the edge of the Great Barrens, so depending on the amount of irrigation, the border moves!
As a final kicker, most of the land ownership is defined using the border as a measure, so by moving the border, intrepid landowners can increase their holdings, but only at the expense of another landowner. As you can imagine, this situation has been a constant source of conflict as the warring Mountaineers and Dusky Men have at times gone so far as to deploy private armies, commission assassinations, and open full scale warfare. In the current day, things are much calmer, as the Ordinates in both provinces have a firm grip on the problem. No one doubts there will be future problems in this area, as the Mountaineers of Aarn, at least, can be relied upon to be difficult.
Morian suffered greatly in the Desolation, not least due to the Dusky Men's depredations into Aarn. Of course, the mountaineers of Aarn are no angels either. Perhaps due to this basic brutality, the impact of the Desolation, while severe, was not so bad here as it was in gentler lands that fell beneath its sway.
The Gates have been a blessing to Morian, as the rich farming lands of Morian have been converting from staples such as potatoes, grains, and dried vegetables to much more perishable and profitable fresh vegetables and fruits. This conversion has made the farmlands more valuable, and this has caused the tensions in the north to worsen. In addition, Morian has been famous for mint oils harvested from the fringes of the Fuligin Forest. Gates are allowing fresh mint to be carried far across the Empire, and this promises to develop greatly if the fad catches on.
The current Ordinate of Morian is Sir Randal Ryan James.
SELENA
Across the Dusky River, westward, lies the fair land of beautiful Selena. Selena is a lovely province, rich, populous, fertile, and peaceful. If not for Andania, Selena would be known as the most beautiful province in all the Empire. Selena is well favored by location, climate, and political provenance. The northern border of Selena is the southern edge of the Broken Mountains. The eastern border is the mighty flood of the lower Timbor. The southern border is the northern border of the capital, the mighty city of Celegia. The sinuous western border is the great Pested River. This makes for secure borders, indeed, especially since Selena is next to the capital.
Selena is the home of some of the oldest and most noble families in the empire, including most of those in the Imperial Line. The entire southern neck of the province, nearest the capital, is taken up by luxurious estates overlooking the rivers, huge hunting preserves, and sumptuous villas. This is blue blood country that makes the genteel parts of Andania, Istis, Ereta, and Tanner look shabby by comparison. The climate here is a little cooler and dryer than near the Elysian, so it is a more popular location for those to whom the sea holds little enjoyment. It is also more conducive to the enormous costumed galas that are so much a part of the governance process.
Moving further north, you reach the lush rolling land of the Interriver Floodplain. This area is a rarity in the Empire; a fine and prosperous wine making area. Selena and Celestia are the only major wine growing areas in the Empire, and while the vintages from Selena are not as fine as those of the Celestial vintners, they are still very good indeed. Selena is a peaceful place, but only from the point of view of the march of armies and the depredations of raiders. In terms of political machinations, Selena is more bloody than Pellania, Aarn, Yepethe, Fane, Gorm, and Belle put together! There are those who say that so much poison has been spilled in Selena that care should be taken with the wine made there, for it sucks up death from the very soil.
This jesting allegation holds considerable truth, for it is a long honored tradition in the Capital to confine the less refined tools of diplomacy to the estates, so as to avoid the inevitable escalation of hostilities that comes of such actions in the Imperial Compound. It seems that behind the lovely face of Selena there lies a skull, grinning out upon the unwary. The entire province seems to be in a constant roil of plotting and conspiracy, so much so that the current Emperor refuses to set foot in the place unless it is absolutely necessary.
Selena is also noted for the quality of its craftsmen, who have an abundance of clients able to afford the finest things. The Imperial Factoriums here are second to none anywhere, and there are more high ranked Mages and Sages in Selena than anywhere else in the Empire. Selena is densely populated, even with the amount of land given over to grapes and recreational areas, and the number of persons applying to the Imperial Factoriums for mage training is higher here than in any other province.
The two mighty rivers both flow past Selena, so there is an abundance of every kind of raw material, and the goods made here are some of the finest in the Empire, almost all of which end up going into the Capital. Selena was badly damaged in the Desolation, as the skullduggery which is the norm here was replaced by its nasty cousin, open anarchy. Many of today's gracious villas, manses, and estates were in that time strongly fortified sanctuaries from the insanity that gripped the Capital during the Desolation. Many a wealthy noble rode out a purge in Selena, at the expense of the common people. Selena recovered quickly and well, and now that period is looked at as a shameful lapse that is not discussed in polite company.
Gates are seen as a true godsend in Selena, as the extremely affluent have always been fond of travel and now can indulge their wanderlust far more rapidly. As a result, the amount of money the dissipated and bored of Selena are spending in poorer but more exciting provinces has been viewed as a pure windfall by the Imperial Council. The main problem is that the nobility is enraging some of the less tolerant in those provinces with their high¬handed behavior.
In addition, Selena is importing volumes of the hearty and exotic northern goods and foods. The "beautiful people" from Selena are growing to be a common sight anywhere in the Empire, and crime against these traveling nobles is growing to be a problem, especially on trips into the Sea Provinces, the Sea of Grass, and the Broken Mountains.
The current Ordinate of Selena is the Lovely Lady Jessica Janna Jaffree.
CELEGIA THE CAPITAL
The last of the Central Provinces is the reason they ARE the Central Provinces, for Celegia is the center of the Empire, no matter where it is located.
What is there to be said of the Capital of the Empire? It has more names than anyone could possibly count, it has a myriad faces, it is the seat of the power of the Empire. The entire province of Celegia consists of the City of Celegia. The ancient fortifications of the place surround the entire province, a system of walls and defenses over a thousand miles long. The city has stood in its current location for over 40,000 years, and the walls date back over most of that vast stretch of time.
It is ironic that the Capital feels the need for a wall, when in all of the endless depths of Celegian history, they have never been needed. No enemy has ever stood at the Sunrise Gate of the Imperial Compound and bayed for the Emperor's blood, or even laid siege to the vast City Sea. It fairly boggles the mind, but it is true, no enemy has ever driven far enough into the heart of the Empire to threaten the capital in any serious way.
True, there have been coups, overthrows, and rebellions, but always from within, and never has an army entered the Capital that had not, at some time, been welcomed there. In truth, all of the coups were doomed from their start, because whoever claims the Peacock Throne for their own is soon drawn into the web of the Capital, and they are next hailed as the new Emperor. The enormous size of the city is beyond belief. The entire province is within the city wall, all thousand miles of it. In most places the city wall is of simple stone, unembellished, about 30 feet tall. A watch tower stands on every mile of the wall, and a simple but quick system of flags and lights can send messages rippling the length of the wall in less than a day. Compared to many cities, this wall is a laughably poor defense, but the real surprise is that it exists at all, here in the sheltered heart of the Empire. The city fills the land between the Timbor and Pested Rivers for nearly a hundred miles, in the most part standing on the firm stone of the Peninsular bluffs upon which the city is built.
For eons, the city has been lax about the building codes, and the city has burned many times, at a spectacular cost in lives. Finally the Emperor Tiraeus the Ninth grew exasperated and outlawed all open flame, and had the Council issue rulings making all buildings fireproof. This ancient action has defined the empire to this day, as the lack of fire led to its replacement by magical tools for cooking and lighting. These led further to still more common uses of magic, until today magic is used almost universally in a host of activities.
As well, the architecture of the Empire reflects this Edict and Rulings, with every wooden beam coated with a layer of plaster and stone walls and roofs being almost universal.
The vast city has countless tall water towers, drawing water from the Rivers and pumping it out into the endless rows of the Covillas. A covilla is a Celegian term for the huge buildings that make up the heart of the largest cities, in which countless people live their lives. A covilla is three to seven stories tall and covers most of a city block. There is often one or more large central courtyards where the inhabitants have a small play area for the children, hold meetings, grow trees, etc. The outer ring of the first floor is usually given over to many retail shops, selling goods made by the residents or imported by them.
Above this are the windows of the numerous dwellings, which also line the interior courtyards. The upper floor is often the province of the wealthier, who can afford to live so high and thus avoid some of the clamor of the streets. On the broad flat roof is a luxurious garden, nurtured on water pumped in from the neighboring water towers, and often a temple to one or several of the Gods. There is also the usual plethora of house and place shrines typical of Celegia. The water comes in at the level of the roof and is piped downwards, being used in each of the floors for sanitation, cooking, cleaning, and in the lower floors to power water wheels, which are used to aid in the production of goods.
In the ideal covilla, a strong sense of community prevails, and the place is clean, dynamic, and prosperous. Alas, as in so much that is done by man, this is rarely the case. Many covillas have internal feuds, and these problems are sometimes so severe that the Watch must intervene. As well, some parts of the city are in decline, and in these areas corruption and perversion of every kind can take root in a covilla and blossom horribly. The number of times the Watch has had to raid covillas to root out nests of every kind of evil go beyond counting. In extreme cases, entire quadrants of the city have degenerated and become sinks of poverty and depravity. In these cases the Empire usually declares the entire area to be Exiled.
When this is done, the Legions come in with a large force, surround the area, and systematically seal it off, walling up the streets and windows, sealing the sewers, and at the end of it, turning off the water. The hapless souls inside are left to escape or fend for themselves, a task made harder by the patrols that prevent anyone from entering or leaving. After fifty or a hundred years, the area is opened again. Covillas are tremendously sturdy, being built to last thousands of years, but often after exile the city planners find so much damage done to the area that they simply raze the whole place and build afresh on the ruins. Over the eons, Celegia has laid down countless layers of ruins in this way, all of which are interpierced by the sewers carrying the used river water back to the rivers.
The urban myths of Celegia about the sewers make the mine tales of the Frippans seem tame. Unfortunately, they are true in far too many instances. No one has ever mapped the sewers, and the simple fact that they work at all is due to intrepid gangs of workers who are constantly digging new ways for the water to flow beneath the streets.
Also inside the city walls you will find what are known as the haunts. These are entire neighborhoods of covillas or homes, often ruined, that are not exiled, but simply abandoned. No one wishes to live in these places, as they often are haunted, and by things that are entirely too nasty to be trifled with. Others are simply left vacant due to superstitious dread. ( ME live there!?! YOU live there first!!) These areas are especially common in the northern sections of the city, where they may extend for dozens of blocks, eerie abandoned streets and empty buildings standing silent. As you move further south, these places become less common, because you are approaching the Imperial Compound.
There is an Ordinate of Celegia, even though the position is largely honorary due to the presence of the Emperor.
The current Ordinate is the Lady Ricki Lianne Zorpecki.
The Imperial Compound is called the Capital within the Capital, and in many ways this is true. The compound has its own wall, 60 feet tall and sheathed in beautiful polished marble. These fortifications are strong, but still much less than any northern city would use. Rumors abound, however, that the magical wards here are as strong as the Great Veil, and given the age and power of the Empire, it is entirely possible they are. The question is moot, since they have never been challenged, in the almost 42,000 years they have stood.
Inside, there is the titanic sprawl of the Imperial Palace, lying in the center of huge memorial courts, mansions of the lesser nobles, the Imperial Councilors Auditorium, the Imperial Guard Barracks compound, the Imperious Circus fairgrounds, the dozens of Imperial museums, the gigantic Imperial Archives, in which are the faithful records of the Empires history, the fabled vaults of the immense Imperial Treasury, the huge halls of the monuments to emperors long gone, and more and more and more. Much of the mammoth structure is gone to ruin, despite a constant and steady effort by large repair crews. It is falling down as fast as they are able to replace it.
The tales of this place are endless. There are reputed to be doors that lead to nowhere unless opened on a certain day or beneath a certain moon, in which case they lead to mystical fairylands where the hapless visitor dies in languid bliss. There are rumors of foul and terrible THINGS left over from eons of wars, evil deeds, and curses unfulfilled. They linger here for the unwary, demons hungry for that next victim that might set them free, guardians called by paranoid emperors and trapped when they died, others more strange. They gibber and whisper in the walls, desperate for escape, along with the souls of lost visitors who died and are now a part of the place, bound along with everything else by the hideous majesty of the place.
Everyone agrees that the palace is alive in some dim but vital way, and it scares the bejeebers out of anyone with any sensitivity to the spirit plane whatsoever. The ghosts of countless emperors roam the halls, spectral legions march, demons lurk in bathrooms, and they aren't even the scariest things which live here! That distinction goes to the members of the huge Imperial Bureaucracy, those women and men who live and plot here.
The level of intrigue and plotting which goes on here is stultifying, and made all the worse by the absolute fearlessness of the plotters. These people are often descendants of uncounted generations of schemers, and living in this fell fairy world has destroyed any shred of compassion they might once have had, to the point that they are scarcely human at all. At least the spirits, curses, demons, and other things don't usually come looking for you, but these sycophants see every new face as another opportunity to advance their own tortuous plots.
Given all of that, it is a miracle that anything even approaching effective governance is accomplished here, but in truth the machinery of government is almost frighteningly efficient. Liberal use of magic keeps things organized as well as is possible, and one of the surest ways to be pulled down by your enemies is to screw up your job, so most of the civil servants are strongly motivated.
In the center of this incredible maze is the Emperor. The Quarters Majeure are the emperor's apartment, and to say that they are luxurious is so far from the truth as to be laughable. As an example of the incredible excess, the bathrooms all have magic towels. There are animated murals, carpets that massage your feet or eat intruders, tables that create luxury foods upon request, erotic works of art that animate on request, etc. It simply gets worse from there, so use your imagination.
At the heart of the palace, next to the Quarters Majeure, is the Throne Room. This room is so vast that a Warden regulates its weather when the Emperor is in attendance. The multiply vaulted roof dome is magically supported over five hundred feet up, and the inlaid marble floor is over 500 steps across, all clear space. Offset to one side is the Rulers Dais, upon which stands the awesome Peacock Throne, seat of Imperial power, which has stood in this exact place for over 40,000 years, ever since the capital was moved to its current location.
The Desolation struck nowhere in the Empire so hard as it did here, for the Emperor of that day was lost in the Northlands when the Great Veil fell. The incredibly bloody power struggle for the throne in the wake of that enormous catastrophe was so bad that the Palace was nearly vacant and deserted for a century at the beginning of the Desolation. This lapse in the central rule, coupled with the loss of all but one of the Legions, combined with the summoned fiends loosed by the North before the Veil Fall, is often quoted as the largest factors that led to the Empires near dissolution. The current Emperor is Chronun the Fourth, and is widely recognized by most of the sycophants as a tough and unreasonable bastard who is impossible to control and who has purged the Bureaucracy no less than six times in the last twenty years. Happily, this has created plenty of room for upward mobility.
The Gates have had an enormous impact in Celegia, as all manner of perishables are brought in to the gaping mouths of the populace. As well, the Capital is now exporting all sorts of exotic clothing and music, since bards and Tricksters can now disseminate the latest styles and gossip as fast as the wind. The largest effect, by far, has been in the governance of the Provinces. Chronun has toured every one of the provinces four times already in his reign, and has set aright a large amount of what he considered to be abuses and overstepping of bounds. Additionally, the civil servants have been gleefully clamping down an iron grip of controls on the hapless provincial governments.
The amount of resistance to this action has been steadily rising, as the Ordinates are not happy to dilute their power with that pack of jackals. The Sage Advisors are watching this particular problem very carefully indeed, as the situation could easily get out of hand, and stripping Ordinates of their titles and putting provinces under martial law is something Chronun cannot afford if he wishes to continue to prosecute a campaign north of the Iron Backs.
OVERVIEW:
The Central provinces as a whole reflect many of the strengths and weaknesses of the Empire. They have a range of diversity, both socially, politically, and geographically, which reflects the full range of the Empire as a whole. From peaceful and prosperous Gane, to fractious Aarn, to steady Valis, and smiling Selena, it is difficult to imagine a more diverse and well-rounded land. Additionally, the capital is in the Central Provinces, and there is as much diversity in that one vast city as exists in the Empire as a whole. The Central Provinces can be thought of as the Empire in miniature, and you will be not far wrong.