Episodes from Horatione History

The Empire of the Five Senates

In the fifth century after the formation of Horato, the reign of the Emperor Mamilian was marked by campaigning. He spent the best part of two decades in the lands that would one day become Hentzay, extending Horatione control into those territories and shoring up the border forts elsewhere. 

The absence of the Emperor from the capital was not, strictly speaking a problem. His sister took over most of his ceremonial functions - taking an immoderate pleasure in donning male costume for the purpose. Day to day domestic policy was set by not by the Imperial bureaucracy (which had its hands full on ferrying men, money and material to the frontier) but by the Senate of Horato, and four cities of near-comparable splendour and prominence.

So long was Mamilian's absence from the heartlands that his nickname became 'the Sentinel Emperor' - or, in the private circles of his critics 'the Porter' or 'the Gatekeeper'. No single senatorial lineage had representatives in all five cities, but enough had two or three magistracies to their name. Co-ordination between the five became ever-smoother and the senators prospered. 

It is for this reason that Annullina Perpetua in her Annals of a Pensionary, writing with about two centuries of hindsight refers to this not as the Empire of Mamilian, but 'an Empire of Five Senates'. (Orlando Babbon, in his rather later Withering and Descent attributes her harsh judgement to 'the bitterness of the defeated').

A Tauroctony

When, in the later days of the Popular Despotate, the sun-arc was replacing the bull's head in the iconography of Horato, one of the last major Imperial centres was the great garrison of Porsena. This was home to the XII Legion, long posted at the border and thus earning a cognomen perhaps best translated as 'Margraves'. The XII were notoriously battle-proud and, when the Legate Nallian came to present them with fresh battle-honours and a new war-shrine objected, crying 'You are here to take our horns!' Nallian, fearing a mutiny had the presence of mind to reply 'Gallant Margraves, as I rode hear I heard the sighs of half the maidens of the Empire. Had you been doing something with your horns, I would not have come to take them.' The welcome reminder of leave and the border-term bonus mollified them - but some memory of it resided in the XII and rankled, for Nallian would eventually gain the bitter nickname 'Bullslayer'. 

(or at least, that was the nickname that junior officers felt able to pass on to the Legate)

Berenician

The brother of the vigorous Berenician succeeded him as Emperor. The new Emperor moved into the Volsinian Palace near Mandalium. There he was greeted by the Grand Chamberlain Danpherus, who ushered him swiftly into the patterns of his deceased brother. At each turn, the new Emperor would be met with the whispered reminder 'This is how blessed Berenician did it'; 'This was the favoured hall of Berenician'; 'The mighty Berenician burnt incense here every other week'; 'Would Berenician approve?'

Eventually, Danpherus was rejected from the Imperial Household with the accompanying statement 'I am the Emperor of Horato now.'

Soon after, the Volsinian Palace burnt down.

The Pastoral Secession

In its first days, Horato's alliance with the countryside around was shaky. The union of the Horatione senate and people with the shepherds and land-owners was re-affirmed every year in a great ceremony. But in order for the union to be remade, it had to be broken (in order to demonstrate the independence of the countryside). A large crock of goat's milk was broken on the steps of the assembly house and twelve stout shepherds would stare in a hostile silent vigil at the Gate of Astur. 

By the time of the Popular Despotate, the Secession ceremony had taken on a different tone. The new Despot (whoever that was at the time) would have to go out the country for a day and a night, where he would eat plain food, wear a course tunic and listen to shepherds playing the reed pipes and having poetry competitions.

It is not recorded when the Pastoral Secession came to an end, but it is recorded that the Emperor Servilla did not like goat's milk or chestnuts. 

Consider reading this and this.

Wilderness of Taroc

The Wilderness of Taroc: maybe it's over the mountains, maybe it's behind the hedgerow. Maybe you reach it on the wings of dragons, maybe you simply step through a door. However you get to it, the wilderness is divided into four parts.

The Forest of Swords

Acre upon acre of sabres, falchions, rapiers and gladii. Each taller than a man, and at least as broad. They stand point-down in the earth. Each sits at a slightly different angle. Material blown on the wind drifts into them: it might stick to the flat of the blade, or snag on the hilt, or get sliced by the sharp edge. Moss and lichen cover some surfaces, and vines link the hilts, covering the ornaments. Some say that the hilts become brighter and more decorative in Spring and Summer. Others say that the summer light merely shows the hilts off to better advantage.

The Swords do not need oiling or sharpening. They only appear to start rusting after they have been up- rooted. 

Do not travel the Forest after heavy rains. Soil erosion means that the top-heavy swords can fall unpredictably. It would be like walking through a thousand hair-trigger guillotines. Do not travel the Forest during a Thunderstorm. 

The Chalice Mountains

At a sufficiently large and well-resourced party, coupe glasses may be stacked in a pyramid and sparkling wine poured to fill and overflow the bowl of each glass, filling each with some of the bubbling wine. 

Whatever made these mountains was clearly a very large and very well-supplied party. Deep goblets stack one on another until they reach higher than the trees, higher than Church spires, higher than the flight of small birds. Thicker-stemmed than the glasses above and made of darker materials, no light penetrates the piles of cups. 

Not every cup is set neatly upright, but enough remain set so that the bowl of the cup catches material - rainwater, snow, seeds, guano. Birds may nest in them. Plant life has developed, drooping great beards of lichen from cliff edges. Accordingly, those climbing these mountains are recommended to wear waterproof boots and heavy waterproof gloves - thrusting your hand into cold puddles over and over gets rather wearing after a while.

Most cups, if extracted from the mountainside, are no larger than most ornamental vessel you may might encounter. However, there are rumours of vast, lake-sized cups set high in the mountains like gilt tarns. 

The Desert of Coins

There's gold in them there hills. And nothing else. Piled in glittering dunes are a myriad myriad coins - of a variety of different sizes, but all seemingly the product of the same mint, with similar eroded features - which don't quite correspond to the legal tender of any state you ever recall having heard of. 

There is no shelter unless you can melt or stick coins together. There is nothing to eat. Sometimes at dawn and dusk you can find water condensing on the heads or tails of coins. At noon everything stinks of hot metal.

Also, the sun in the Desert of Coins looks like one of these smug bastards.

If you want to travel the Desert of Coins, bring sun goggles. Watch your footing - coin-dunes can shift unpredictably. Even a flat surface can be treacherously smooth. You'll need a big baggage train. You can see where others have been, where the piles of dried dung provide some of the few places where little plants grow (it is considered good form to create a midden and perhaps one day encourage vegetation). 

It is possible that first-timers (when they are finally deep enough into the Desert to lose sight of the border) will suffer the Ecstasy of Gold. 

The Plain of Clubs

There is nothing between you and the horizon. There is the wind and the sun and the open sky. Perhaps you hear the cry of a hawk. But look down: high as your knee, for miles in each direction are row upon row of knobbly wooden clubs. If you push one, they are as light as a blade of grass, but if one hits you, it will at least bruise. As you watch, they sway in the wind. There is a dull knocking as they strike one another.

Travellers on the Plain of Clubs must use robust stilts, or wear heavy leg armour. Taking a horse or a draught animal into the plain is considered either cruel or very desperate. Some have designed transports with a heavy roller in front, pushed by patient oxen, but this is a slow means of passage for the wagons behind. Still, you won't go short of firewood.

***

Made with reference to these two recent posts over on False Machine. And bearing in mind that musing about the practicalities of turning the world to one substance is scarcely new.

If all the world were Paper,

And all the Sea were Inke;

If all the Trees were bread and cheese,

How should we do for drinke ?

If all the World were sand'o,

Oh then what should we lack'o;

If as they say there were no clay,

How should we take Tobacco ?

If all our vessels ran'a,

If none but had a crack'a;

If Spanish Apes eat all the Grapes,

How should we do for Sack'a ?

If Fryers had no bald pates,

Nor Nuns had no dark Cloysters,

If all the Seas were Beans and Pease,

How should we do for Oysters ?

If there had been no projects,

Nor none that did great wrongs;

If Fidlers shall turne players all,

How should we do for songs ?

If all things were eternall,

And nothing their end bringing;

If this should be, then how should we,

Here make an end of singing ?

Arborcrawling in the 27th Century

In which a setting frequently referred to as 'Space Hulk in a Tree' is taken back into space.

It is the 27th Century. Everything is in space and everything is very exciting.

On the fringes of humanity's stars lies the Cardigan system, home to five gas giants. Orbiting one of these is the moon of New Llanabba. This is a 'hollow moon', home to a thousand tunnels and extensive cave networks. The intense and rather unpredictable gravity field of Cardigan-3 has drawn into countless asteroids and assorted space junk into New Llanabba, making it a haven for prospectors. A great crater in the surface of the moon called 'Abba's Maw' gives access to the tunnels.

Orbiting New Llanabba is a space staton run by an eclectic ecological group called The Five Mothers. In order to pay for bulbs, fertiliser, seed cuttings, trowels, &c, they allow prospectors and other opportunists the a place to stay in return for a cut of their findings. However, numerous hostile aliens and space bandits lurk in the hollow moon - aside from more natural perils. 

Exploring New Llanabba: Really, you should use Veins of the Earth here. For a quick and silly alternative:

Roll 1d6. That is the number of passages into the cave. 

Roll 1d8. 1=N, 2=NE, &c. That is roughly where the passage enters the cave. 

Roll 1d10. If you get a 9, there is a hole in the floor of the cave. If get a 0, there is a hole in the celling of the cave.

Pick a county at random. That is the shape of the cave.

Perils of New Llanabba: It is very easy for an explorer to run out of oxygen, fusion generators, food pills, &c. And the caverns of the hollow moon are filled with chasms, rubble, unexpected drops, shifting debris, pockets of flammable gas, &c. But you want to know if there is anything you can fight. There is.

Insectoid Horrors: mindless beasts that skitter and whoop. Want to eat you.

Termite Men: organised bands of hostile aliens, who fight with crystalline spears, mucus grenades and packs of giant centipedes. Want you to kill you and take your stuff.

Rock Lobsters: ponderous stone-covered beasts with great pincers. They can spit bio-plasma. Cutting them open reveals them to be filled with tiny glowing shrimp. Want you to go away and stop disturbing their meditations. 

Giant Moths: Attracted to light, hypnotic pattern on their wings. Want to steal your power cells. 

Stranded Precursor: Member of a long-dead ancient species. Confused, powerful, distressed. Want to return home: if this turns out to be impossible, they want to attain dominion over the younger sentients of the galaxy.

Robotic repairman: Looks like a hermit crab made of Meccano. Want to repair something that once crashed in the cave. Willing to use your remains to do so.

Space Amazons: Stronger than you, better hair than you, not terribly interested by you. Wear highly customised spacesuits. Carry beam rifles, heat-seeking slug-guns, attack drones like carbon-fibre falcons and kukris. Interested in opportunities for glory and plunder.

Rival Explorers: Just like you, except they have at least one prominent unattractive trait. You are proud and confident free-spirited mavericks, they are smug, cocky, self-centred renegades. Want what you want. 

One prospecting group has recently made great progress in exploring the hollow moon. These include...

Orsino, Prince of Illyria. Apparently the heir to an entire planet. Looks like a young Shakespearean actor, doesn't always sound like it. Improbably dashing. Equipment: monomolecular sabre, Art Nouveau hunting rifle, dress uniform that makes him look like the pilot of one of the Thunderbirds.

Elrich Kilpatrick. Recipient of a mysterious vision at the galaxy's edge. Now leads a spiritual movement centred on a cosmic power called 'The Destiny'. Quite what this is is unknown, but apparently it means that Kilpatrick must wear a jet-black spacesuit and spend hours on the observation deck staring into space. He is accompanied by his followers, dressed in brightly coloured cheap spacesuits. Equipment: Ornate plasma fusil, energised broadsword, Babel-76 translation circlet.

The Rinians. No taller than a thirteen year-old, skin periwinkle-coloured, there are never less than four of them. They are a hivemind, choosing personal names almost at random from nearby literature. Their origin is unknown, but apparently they have some connection with the second world of the Searle system. Equipment: Aside from the small arms available on New Llanaba, they have an apparently never-ending supply of switchblades, Molotov cocktails and marbles.

Agamemnon. A product of Corinth Cybernetics, an android counsellor and confidante. Stylised bronze plating and chassis, with a detailed unmoving bearded face. Despite being sexless, a previous employer programmed Agamemnon with the mannerisms and social presence of Rudolf Valantino.* Equipment: Sophisticated mapping gear and sensor array, Web grenades, Three Fire-and-forget suicide drones, One-shot Inferno Projector, Tiny laser-derringer for when everything else runs out or breaks.

Gower Macmorris. The Merakians are tall, broad and six limbed. They are covered in thick black fur with distinctive off-white stripes. Each limb has a number of thick claws, quite capable of rending a man in twain. Gower was, for a time, the foremost cat-burglar in the Merak system. He was considered slight and lithe. This makes him an absolute unit of the awe-inspiring variety in human space. Equipment: four big claws, assorted Merakian-sized lockpicks and electronic bypasses, ornate studded war-club stolen from a vault somewhere.

The above have recently come into possession of several Hippogriff-class shuttles. These are aged and require much maintenance but extend their reach marvellously over New Llanaba.

*Or some other suitable matinee idol. 

Referring, variously to this and this. Post written in memory of the departed Pandion. 

Image from the 1981 film Time Bandits, Dir. Terry Gillam.

Rheingold, et al.

A companion piece of sorts, to We use Every part of the Dragon.*

Rheingold

If you take the Rheingold and forge it into a suitable personal ornament, it will give you.....worldly power.

But you have to give up......Love.

And it is guarded by......Seductive beguiling maidens.

It was set there by a Demiurge who may well work against you -.......A maimed manipulator with a rune-carved sceptre.†

Alberich, from Die Nibelungen: Siegfried (1924, Fritz Lang).
See also here.

Nile Tin

If you take the Nile Tin and forge it into a suitable personal ornament, it will give you.....Power over depictions.

But you have to give up......Artistic Taste

And it is guarded by......Ibises with poisoned talons and sagacious arguments.

It was set there by a Demiurge -.......A feather-cowled cosmic charioteer.

Ganges Iron

It will give you.....power over conflicts, contests and contention.

But you have to give up......Regret.

And it is guarded by......Humanoid snakes who know all your shameful secrets.

It was set there by a Demiurge -.......A four-faced mother of many riding a crocodile.

Mississippi Lead

It will give you.....power over transactions.

But you have to give up......All hate, wrath and enmity.

And it is guarded by......Ghostly, loathsome, mocking horsemen.

It was set there by a Demiurge -.......A dark-suited cigar-smoking shady patrician.

Yangtze Silver

It will give you.....power over records and truth-telling.

But you have to give up......Sleep, forgetfulness and the ameliorative effects of time.

And it is guarded by......Giant, officious, bureaucratic carp.

It was set there by a Demiurge -.......A smiling, flower-wreathed immortal Princess.

"I have been in love with [RHINE] gold. I love its colour, its brilliance, its divine heaviness. I love the texture of [RHINE] gold, that soft sliminess that I have learnt to gauge so accurately by touch that I can estimate the fineness of a bar to within one carat. And I love the warm tang it exudes when I melt it down into a true [RHINE] golden syrup. But, above all, Mr Bond [SIEGFRIED], I love the power that [RHINE] gold alone gives to its owner – the magic of controlling energy, exacting labour, fulfilling one’s every wish and whim and, when need be, purchasing bodies, minds, even souls."

Mekong Copper

It will give you.....power over the 'terrestrial spiritual'. You cannot bar the doors of heaven or hell, but you can lead people into temptation or block chakras or make the worldly man into a saintly hermit.

But you have to give up......Trust.

And it is guarded by......Singing mummified monks.

It was set there by a Demiurge -.......Spiteful, demonic twins.

Volga Zinc

It will give you.....power over wildness: human passions, beasts and wilderness.

But you have to give up......Any sense of community or togetherness. You can become 'one flesh' with a partner, but cannot bond with anyone else.

And it is guarded by......Restless, boisterous warriors clad in pelts. 

It was set there by a Demiurge -.......A muscular temperamental thaumaturge who carries his ever-glowing furnace on his back.

Niger Platinum

It will give you.....power over 'Higher feeling' - elevated, refined sentiments or anything aspiring to the same.

But you have to give up......Any sense of novelty, invention or discovery. Nothing will ever be new to you.

And it is guarded by......Abusive lion-headed apes.

It was set there by a Demiurge -.......A Crone in elaborate robes and a tall headdress.

Cover of Tom Holt's Expecting Someone Taller - an introduction to Wagner parody for me.
Don't pay too much attention to the cover.

If you gain and try to alloy any of the above metals, every single listed Demiurge will appear and start hitting you with cricket bats until you stop. 

*Other inspiration from this review. I have moved away from the previously encountered scheme of the metals of the ancients - getting liquid mercury out of a river seems a troublesome business. So, I refer to this list, excluding the non-metals, as well as mercury and bismuth.

† So.....The origin of the Rhiengold is never entirely clear, either in the Volsungsaga or the Ring Cycle. I have elected to associated each metal with some distant creator - with their precise level of power kept fairly vague - hence demiurge rather than deity, &c. This is in keeping with one piece of inspirational media and also with the whole 'Gods brought low by their own tools/schemes' element of the Ring Cycle.