Alternate Lunar Empire

[John Biles]

The War on Ernalda

The War on Ernalda has been carried out to various degrees of seriousness by the Mounts of the Moonson.  The fertilizing power of water and the existence of other Earth goddesses has allowed the Empire to mount this war without wrecking themselves.  The degree to which all Earth goddesses get condemned as Ernalda fronts varies over time.  Catticus has both amplified the War on Ernalda proper, while being pretty lax about anyone who looks 95% like Ernalda but gives fealty to the Empire.  Catticus blames Ernalda for the failure of Dragon Pass and points south to bend knee properly to the Empire, though his growing diffidence and depression means he has largely left the war to others while he composes songs about how Ernalda did him wrong.

The War on Ernalda has gone on for so long that it has become an excuse for just about everything.  Every Satrap invokes it to justify what they wanted to do anyway.  It's most consistently followed in the South, where there are rumors of a plan to shut down Enalda's power entirely, though no one is sure how that could even work.  The biggest rumor is that somehow Genert will be revived and take Ernalda's place.  Others think she will be forced to marry Yelmalio and thus be forced to submit if not destroyed.  Some Trolls talk about feeding her to Zorak Zoran.  But no one else, including most Trolls, wants that.

At its most basic, it involves breaking up organized worship of Ernalda.  This has tended to lead to cults which are basically Ernalda under another name  or to other Earth goddesses (who are arguably just masks of Ernalda or vice versa) taking her place, though the Empire has erratically tried to replace her with the Imperial pantheon.

The Bureau of Righteous Thought has the Ernalda-Hunter Division, whose job it is to roust out Ernaldan heretics.  The wise don't call them in as they tend to favor 'burn everything' as a solution.

In recent years, the Empire has promoted Hon-Eeel worship as an alternative to Ernalda Worship.  This grows more popular in the southern satrapies.  Jar-Eel has eagerly promoted this and it's especially common in Tarsh.

Efforts to impose this in Dragon Pass and the Holy Country have led to a lot of violence, though most Sartarite clans have elevated Mahome or one of Ernalda's other handmaidens in response.  The Clearwine Temple officially serves Orendana the Queen, who is totally not Ernalda at all because she is blonde.  Mahome is the most common choice to turn to, though.

Because Ernalda is not the dominant goddess of Prax, the War on Ernalda has little impact there outside of Pavis.  Save for the Genert Project.

An issue for another post.

 

 

 

 

[John Biles]

This project got cut short by health issues, but I'm going to putter away at it some more.

Fish Sauces in the Blue Moon Empire

One of the roots of the power of the -Eel family in the empire is their extensive fish sauce business; while some people find the idea of Eel Hsunchen making fish sauce from dead fish creepy, most people in the Empire love fish sauces and regular access to such is an important status symbol.

(It's noteworthy that fish Hsunchen do typically dodge fish sauces and the -Eels don't put eels in their sauces).

Darum

Darum is the basic fish sauce from which others are typically derived.  It is made with cheap fish like anchovies or the daros, the fish from which it got its name.  (The daros is a river fish found mainly in the Oslir.)  The fish meat, including organ meat, is removed from the bones and the meat is put in sealed wooden barrels with salt and vinegar.  It then rots... ferments.  Ferments for a month and you scrape out any meaty bits remaining and collect the 'liquor', an amber fluid.  Peasants buy the 'darric', the meaty bits, while the liquor is sold to the public.  Darum is the cheapest form of Darum, affordable as a rare treat for peasants and working folk, and usable on a regular basis by the next tier up.  Darum provides salt and umami to any dish.  Darum is especially part of Dara Happan cuisine, along with its varients. 

Golden Darum

The introduction of maize to the empire led to people experimenting with adding maize to it before it ferments.  This turns the Darum a golden color and adds, well, a corn taste.  But it also adds *sweetness*, so Golden Darum is used to make desserts.

Golden Darum Cheese

Golden Darum can be added to cheese before it sets; this imparts sweetness and umami and saltiness.  Some people like this in a cheese; Imther eats tons of it; they invented it.  Other people flee.  Mouse Hsunchen especially love it.

Harum

In Darjinn, they add eggs to the fish and the result is somewhat thicker and has streaks of white and yellow among the amber.  The Darjinni claim this functions as an aphrodesiac.  Ulerians do much of the manufacturing and sale of it and it's generally in food at their temples.

Hierum

Hierum is eaten by the upper classes of Dara Happa and by those who aspire to status.  It's expensive because it's made with rare fish and spices.  There is a bitterness to it which makes children hate it and some people love it.

Also, it's easier to hide poison in food made with it and this makes it popular in Dart Wars.

Why do people still eat it?  It's an expensive status symbol.  The cheapest form costs 1 Wheel per 8 gallon drum, and you can easily pay up to 10 in order to show your wealth. 

Jarum

Jar-Eel's personal variant.  She adds many spices to it and it's mainly found at parties she runs... though rumor has it she also produces a version that weakens you and facilitates using Harmony magic to murder you.  Allegedly, this only works on criminals, but somehow everyone she dislikes gets labeled a 'criminal'.  The normal version is rather spicy and 'hot', and a sufficient quantity of it, thrown into someone's eyes, will blind them for a time; it will cause pain on any part of your body, since 'hot' food triggers your body's warning that you are on fire.

Some people like that.

Jarum is not for general sale, though fake versions abound in the empire.

Nairum

Nairum is produced in Prax, using fish from the Zola Fel.  It looks like liquid sand, but in fact, tastes like normal Darum mixed with something sour.  There are continuing rumors that if you put it on your skin, your hair falls out, but this seems to only actually be the case for Morokanth and Baboons, who avoid it.  *It is not made from Newtlings!*

 

Sarum

Made by the Sable-Riders of Kostadi, who add *rabbit meat* to the Sarum, which is shared with their steeds and added to whatever the steeds are eating, especially to their plant-food, more than when the sables eat meat.

Because it's not much more expensive than Darum, people who don't want to buy Hierum may buy it as a mid-ranged Darum variant.  The Emperor is said to favor this, having his own special variant, made in the Imperial Kitchens, but he likes to try local versions wherever he goes.

 

Scarum

No one knows what goes into this beyond a suspicion of *chaos-tainted fish*.  It is made in New Tork City and rarely escapes the city.  But sometimes a load of Darum or its normal derivatives is actually Scarum.  The insane and Chaotic find it to be amazingly tasty; normal people experience intense terror as their food digests, lasting for hours, and may well hallucinate things they fear.  Some people develop a fear of Darum from this experience.  The Scholar of Fear, who dwells in New Tork City, is said to have found a way to turn it into a mist which induces fear in those coated by it.

 

There are probably hundreds of local variants of these, made with local fish.  Little Sister is said to have her own special blend, and Lake Oronin has many people who like to make it with trout.  And so on.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[scott-martin]

4 minutes ago, John Biles said:

New Tork City

Escape To New Tork!

Here's to healthier times + higher energy

[John Biles]

Arrolian Adventure Seeds:

• The Dead City Scrolls:  For centuries, precious scrolls holding the wisdom of the Jernotian Way were locked behind the Syndic's Ban.  Now they're merely inside a city full of ravening undead monsters.  Professor Erika of the Imperial Water College sees that as merely an obstacle to overcome.  The Undead must learn that everyone can lose.  She hires the PCs to help her get to the city, enter it, find the scrolls, and get out.  (She has a secondary interest in studying the Janube River.)
• Deep Diver:   The Imperial Water College wants a team to go to the bottom of the Janube and map out as much of its course as possible; they will supply the water breathing and you go risk something eating you.  For pay, of course. 
• Evil Dead:  Professor Kamash-Nadab Equipo of the Imperial Fire College hates hsunchen; living in the Empire is a living hell for him.  He wants to take that hate to destroying the Hsunchen Undead of Donaros and hires the PCs to go on a rampage with him.  He will bring the Gift of Fire.  Also, he would like to collect all the fire lore he can if any libraries survive.
• Hobo vs Guild, fight:  The Guilds of Riverjoin are not happy about the Hobo Guild's arrival in their city and want the PCs to find some way to wreck it.  Time for a hobo fight.
• The Hub:  Eastpoint City has reliable Moon Boat service to the Empire; your job is to bring imperial missionaries to the city and protect them as they try to convert the rural locals to the Changing Way.  Or in some cases, try to get them to abandon heretical versions of the Way. 
• Looking for Lore:  Professor Aristodeme Firehair plans to fly her classroom and students to Eastpoint, stay a while, gathering lore, then return; she wants the PCs as escorts. 
• Philosopher's Action League:   Professor Walnut Corpus hires the PCs to escort him and his assistant to Alorket to enter the Philosopher's Action League, an annual tournament of philosophers which alternates wrestling and debate.  Players of suitable bent may well want to answer, given the prize is 500L!  The trip is dangerous and the contest doubly so, culminating in someone challenging whether the contest violates caste boundaries!  And whether Professor Walnut Corpus biting people is a legitimate wrestling move.
• The Riverjoin Run:  Your patron wants five tuns of Smokey Bandit, a dark, smokey wine from Riverjoin, made by the Vintner's Guild.  He has acquired a Moon Boat for you to fly there, get the wine, and fly back.  He warns you this is an under the table transaction, so you will have to dodge all authorities and that Moon Boats... don't always work so well outside the empire.  Now you are West bound and hopefully not down.
• Scroll Caravan:   Alorket needs scrolls and Riverjoin doesn't make enough.  So this is a simple job of hauling scrolls produced in the Empire to Riverjoin and certainly the Scroll Guild of Riverjoin would never try to ruin it all for you.  Certainly not.

[John Biles]

Adventure Hooks for Merinta Reborn:

• Asrelian PR:  As you would expect, the temple of Asrelia in Merinta is in the Undercity; it now faces heavy troll harassment because the trolls think it is hiding Ernalda cultists.  They will pay you in rare gems and metals if you will somehow convince the trolls they are just people who appreciate mineral wealth and not traitors.
• Boatjackers:  It's not clear how a group of Ducks stole the Imperial Floating Palace, nor is it clear how they expect to get away with this.  It is clear the reward from Colonel Porker will be immense if you get it back!  If you can find it, anyway.  They say Discord Duck has turned it into a floating sin palace.  For that matter, Catticus might reward you if you *smuggle him into the party*.
• Crash Message Rescue:  An Imperial Moonboat, carrying military information, has crashed south of the city; your patron wants the credit for rescuing the messages before the Lanbril-worshipping Ratfolk of the city can get to it.  Why hasn't the military done this already?  A bureaucratic tangle up as blame is flung, while Emperor Catticus is too busy with some maiden to resolve the fight.  The usual.  Complication:  The actual reason for the tangle is that this is a trap and the Empire hopes the whole thing will explode messily on the Ratkin.  
• Geo's Secret Franchise:  There should not be a Geo's Inn in Merinta.  It's not illegal, but it's far outside the ambit of all the other inns.  But there's a recurring rumor that Sartarites (and sufficiently potent magicians) can find it and use it to jump to *any* Geo's Inn.  There's also a rumor Catticus uses it to travel disguised and do secret concerts under the name 'The Mysterian' or possibly 'Orion'.   But then there's also a rumor Catticus is actually dead and has been replaced by a magical statue that just lies there moping.
• Imperial Command Performance:  Emperor Catticus is going to perform next week and your patron *wants tickets*.  Steal them, buy them cheaply (somehow), heroquest for them, he doesn't care.  But he needs six tickets or his children will badger him until the end of time.
• Little Boots, Big City:  Praying at the statue of Mount Whittiington sometimes causes a vision of Little Boots, his true Cat companion and it's become more common during the reign of Catticus.  Well, he appeared to you and told you to protect an urchin who will one day grow up to become a crucial Mount of Moonson, and for the next week, various anti-Empire forces will be trying to kill him.  You will be greatly rewarded if the kid makes it to this day, next week.
• Map to the Secret Lab:  Your patron wants the lore and devices of the now dead Mount of Moonson, Artemus the Artificer.  He has a map he thinks will show the way to it.  Go overcome the defenses, find the treasure, bring it back.  Complication:  The ghost of Artemus has been continuing his research.  He has his Wonder Engine, which can mass produce various magical and mundane things with the right input.  And you will have to fight him for it.  Also, it's about the size of a five bedroom house, so moving it is going to be hard.
• The Secret Prophesy:  The Imperial Observatory has found a hidden truth in the stars, suppressed by Imperial Command.  But your patron wants the prophesy, so time for some spy-work.  Complication:  The prophesy was that you would try to steal a prophesy, so now you get to do a mission for the Empire when they inevitably catch you trying to steal it.
• The Eleventh Piece:  Traditionally, people believe that Arkat chopped Nysalor into ten pieces.  But your patron has heard rumors of an eleventh piece.  Worse, that *Tongue City* in the Tent Market has it and is going to conduct a secret auction.  He gives you a pile of money to acquire it, so he can get rewarded for turning it over to the Empire.  Complication:  The tongue speaks and tries to infect everyone at the auction with Nysalorean Illumination!

 

Edited May 3 by John Biles

[John Biles]

Adventure Hooks for Oronin City:

• The Tale of BD Barrelmaker:  A ratkin with a huge explosive has hijacked a moonboat bringing trade goods from Eastpoint to Oronin City.  BD Barrelmaker has a huge barrel which allegedly explodes with the force of 10 members of the Imperial War College.  He is demanding 10,000 Lunars be delivered to him at the Oronin Air Harbor.  After further negotiation, it was determined he meant the *money*.  Your job is to deliver the money and make sure he doesn’t blow up the Air Harbor.  (If the PCs do their job and he gets away in the moonboat, he is never seen again.)  If you can stop him, go for it, but don’t risk the crew or the moonboat.  

• Canal Race:  There’s an annual canal race and your patron is sponsoring you to get a very nice boat and to try to win as your competition uses a mix of skill and cheating to try to beat you.

• Lost Kids of the Blue Rose Clan:    The Secret Pit of Kinky Sex is supposed to be for adults, but every so often, one or more Orlanthi youth end up here during their initiation heroquest.  Then they have to be sent home or their parents fetched.  Well, this time, four boys and 3 girls from the Blue Rose Clan need to go back all the way to Sartar.  Little Sister is paying for it.  It’s going to be a dangerous trip.

• The Fish Had It Coming:  Your patron wants you to go to the Sweet Sea, buy a glass aquarium of harlo fish, haul them to the Place of Fish Execution and have them suspended in animation so they can be revived for a future party to be killed just before cooking (this preserves the freshness and prevents ‘fishiness’).  While you fend off fish bandits, bandits who are fish, and fish liberators.  (Harlo fish are poisonous but cooked properly, they taste amazing.  Cooked wrong, they taste amazing and you die.)

• Houseboat Cruise:  Your patron wants a nice houseboat and sends you to Oronin City to have one made and bring it back to him.  River travel can be dangerous in the wilder parts of the empire and Hsunchen Clans sometimes try to raid or steal houseboats, but he has faith in you.

• The Nightfish Gate:  The PCs stumble on an underwater gate which is not the official one; they have to decide whether to report it, blow it up themselves, flee, or exploit it.  A gang of merfolk, Manta Ray Hsunchen and Manta Rays are using it and somehow got a Dwarf to make it for them; the dwarf is now long gone.  

• Robar’s Really Bad Day:  This is not a full blown adventure; it’s a one scene interlude - the players need to meet someone at The Freshwater Reef.  Unfortunately, their water is under a bad luck curse and doesn’t know it.  Robar is a Starfish Hsunchen and has a true animal companion, Rick.  Robar really wants to do a good job but bumbles around.  Anyone who can break or even just identify the curse (put on him by a Blue Moon Troll he annoyed by being too earnest and helpful to trust) will gain his friendship.  

• Young Sorceress Escort:  Your job is to go get your patron’s daughter from Little Sister’s School for Young Ladies and bring her home safely.  She sees her job as running as wild as possible now that Little Sister’s staff cannot stop her.  Good luck.  

Edited May 3 by John Biles

[John Biles]

 New Tork City Adventure Seeds:

• The Festival of Owls:  This massive festival is held just at the start of Storm Season.  Everyone wears masks and there is a giant parade of rival floats sponsored by different organizations.  Heroquests happen… terrible ones.  People vanish and get sacrificed.  No one cares or can stop it.  But they say this was once a holier thing and when the doom of the city began… perhaps it is the only time when it can be redeemed.  (Think Chaos-Tainted Mardi Gras.)
• Baracus the Croc:   Baracus is a Crocodile Hsunchen who leads a gang of Croc Hsunchen and their True Animal friends, known to lurk in the sewers of New Tork City.  He has something your patron wants.  He’d BETTER have it.  But of course, possession is 9/1Oths of the law in New Tork City.
• It Takes a Thief:  Fionna Nimbletoes is of the greatest rogues in all of Glorantha, a Lanbril equivalent to a Runelord.  Unfortunately, your patron needs her and she’s trapped in New Tork City; as a Cat Hsunchen, she blends in at least.  He needs you to find her and find a way to get her out.
• Catty-Corner:  Catticus has gone into New Tork City and no one knows why.  Your group is strong enough to survive but also expendable.  Go in and either convince him to come out or help him.  (He just plans a concert, as the idea has eaten at him for *years*.)
• Mud-Man:  A legend of New Tork City - he was Heroforming Lodril when the city went mad, and now he’s a strange obscure aspect of Lodril, Mud Man, who is kind of like Monster Man if Monster Man was a pillar of shapeshifting mud.  The Imperial University wants a sample from him to study.  Warning - he is most dangerous and powerful on Clayday.
• The Man With Nysalor’s Eyes:  This strange chaos mutant has an eyeball on the tip of each of his ten fingers, which he claims are Nyaslor’s eyes.  Melzorki Moon-Crusher wants those eyes, just in case.  They give him tremendous perception powers, which he uses to help him commit petty theft and burglary.  Twist:  They are the last remains of a forgotten Chaos God who Storm Bull killed so hard that even the memory of him is gone, and the eyes have only a remnant of his power.  But if a bit remains, the possibility exists of revival…
• Shadow of the Past:  Things which ought to be dead and gone are streaming out of Tork despite the ban.  Someone is calling them up and has to be stopped.  
• Educational Brandy:   A party in Imther turned into chaos after the ‘Fine Holay Brandy’ turned out to be Educational Brandy, which you gives you images that terrify you involving historical events and tend to produce things like ‘Fear of the Conquering Daughter’ or ‘Fear of Orlanth’ as passions.  The source has been tracked to Tork and the obvious guilty culprit is the Scholar of Fear, but why the historical angle?  You’re sent to find out.

 

Edited May 4 by John Biles

[John Biles]

Adventure Hooks For Sartar:

• The Boldhome Duhrbee:  A grand horserace, open to all but dominated by Elmal Horsefriend cultists.  Marked by a huge amount of betting and efforts to rig the race.  Prince Termertain presides over it and clearly loves it, unlike many of his duties.  This is held in Fire Season because Elmal is a fire god, one of the reasons his worshippers usually win.  

• Everyone Loves Uleria:  The Uleria temple at Apple Lane needs 10 8 gallon tuns of Golden Darum; you get to guard the caravan there as everyone in Sartar finds their own excuse to steal it.  

• The Flame of Sartar:   Kallyr Starbrow has discovered that the Flame of Sartar was lit using Somash magic from Teshnos!  She wants to recreate Sartar’s quest and needs your help.    Note:  This is likely to bring about significant campaign changes, and the PCs need to be pretty tough.  

• Remnants of the EWF:  Prince Temertain has found evidence Runegate is on the site of an EWF city, Harkan.  Further, trolls in the undercity of Runegate have stumbled into an intact building from Harkan underground, and it has tunnels to other buildings.  He wants it explored and all historical evidence collected, but warns you to expect draconic magic and freakery.  Twist:  There’s a Dream Dragon down there with a grudge against the Blue Moon Empire and he offers to initiate the PCs into draconic mysticism *if* they use it against the Empire, though he’s willing to let them complete their contract with Termertain so they can avoid just getting executed.

• Snake Pipe Hollow:  It’s a pit of Chaos and Evil and More Chaos and More Evil.  But a princeling of Sartar died there many years ago and your patron wants you to find his remains and bring them back for burial and also wants the magical blade, armor and other items he had.  Twist:  A Thanatar worshipper now has the Princeling’s head and has leaked the location of the body so more people will bring him their strong heads.  

• Study Trip:  Phargentes the Younger, Prince of Tarsh, wants to visit the Jonstown Library to do studies and meet with Prince Temertain to share lore.  And he wants to do it covertly to avoid all the protocol.  And to avoid assassination attempts.  His mother hires the PCs to protect him and makes it clear she won’t be happy if he gets hurt.  In addition to having to protect him, the PCs have to deal with all the weirdness inherent in his life and his self.  He will face an assassination attempt at Jonstown by a Humakti who has the Truth Rune and has foreseen Phargentes’ future, and a crazed man who say she is ‘Arkat Reborn’ will try to kill him and Temertain, raving about a giant cradle and the White Bull Society, though he has no connection to either and is just an escaped slave.  

• The Treasure Scrap:  Every Lhankor Mhy library has a goatload of bits of text put together in massive poorly indexed volumes.  A friendly LM has stumbled on one in the Jonstown Library which is a treasure map of the payroll of a military unit from the EWF era.  You just have to sneak into the Shadow’s Dance to get to where it is buried.  It’s not like trolls like gold and silver, anyway.

• Vendref Revolutionaries:  The Vendref have had enough of the Grazelanders’ abuse.  They want someone who can assassinate Single Matron Woman, so they have a prayer of staging a revolt.  Note:  This is likely to bring about significant campaign changes, and the PCs need to be pretty tough.  

 

[John Biles]

 

Kallyr Starbrow, Woman of Destiny?

The system of fate has gone awry in this alternate timeline and few better signs of it exist than Kallyr Starbrow.  Many Sartarites are convinced she is the one destined to reunite Sartar and throw the Blue Moon Empire down the stairs.  But she isn’t crazy enough to be Arkat Reborn (Argath) and so there are competing systems of fate in which one delivers prophesies and signs she will succeed and another one is still jonesing for Arkat Reborn despite the fact that *five of them* exist in Ralios and are working on their fate to destroy Ralios in the process of their individual murder-quests.

She’s already survived three attempts by would-be Arkats to slay her.  If the PCs befriend her, her system of fate will win.  If not, she is doomed, which is not to say that things will go well for the Pro-Arkat strand of fate, as its ‘Arkat’ final selection is also doomed.

Not that it’s found a final selection anyway.

She has been unable to light the Flame of Sartar because she doesn’t know the secret, though she has the right blood.  If she can find that, she can light the flame because she has enough destiny backing her.  One of the adventure seeds for Sartar is about a possible solution to this.

As of 1625, she is working on getting Esrolian backing for another offensive; when the Holy Crusade of Liberation of Fonrit begins, she will get her chance.  For now, she is a patron for Sartarites who want to drive out the Empire.  

 

[John Biles]

 Fonrit
The ultimate target of the Liberation Crusade.  Fonrit is another example of the damage done by the God Learners.  Though for once, it isn’t all their fault.

Before the rising of the sun, this land was ruled by a child of the Blue Moon, Artmal, but his empire fell as Darkness swept the land.  An empire of the Vadeli was found here and it too was destroyed as were so many lands.  But the dark secrets of the Vadeli survived.

The land is riddled with the ruins of both empires, full of fantastic riches and also horrible dooms.  Most adventurers who enter die, but the survivors use what they find to create new states and rule them.

One such adventurer was Gorangordos the Cruel, leader of the Gorgandites, illiterate barbarian thugs, who entered one such ruins and found a creation / slave of the Vadeli, Darleester the Noose, the hand of Ompalam, God of Slavery.  He used Darleester to enslave the Veldang, the peaceful vegetarians who had survived the Great Darkness in some way now lost (but it involved limiting their diet to get magic).  He it was who introduced all the great sins that taint Fonrit.  And he it is who will be the first target of the Liberation Crusade’s Heroquests.  For in the end, he became a God, using filthy Vadeli magics to steal Godhood.

Unfortunately, 17 of his followers inherited his secrets, and so the misery of Fonrit only increased.  Under the Glorious Ones, secret cults who used Vadeli magics hid inside each society, spying to ensure obedience.  Ompalam ruled supreme over a pantheon of Dark Earth gods and goddesses, who demanded blood for fertility.  Fonrit grew rich in the 17 successor states.  

Trade with the Middle Sea Empire and the growing decadence of the Glorious One dynasties enabled the Middle Sea Empire to turn Fonrit into tributaries and then in the 800s, to take direct control.  The last of the Glorious Ones were purged and Ompalam became a study subject.  There was slavery, but it was the oddly mundane slavery of the Jrusteli, not the all-consuming soul slavery of Ompalam.  They refused to use his power directly, for he claimed to be the master of fate and also mastered by it and they preferred to throw Fate down the stairs onto a pile of spears.
But there had to be *some* use for him.

They also absorbed the Vadeli magics and meddled with the ancient ruins in their hubris.  And they expanded their power into Jolar, creating the ‘Six Legged Empire’, a state ruled by MSE cavalry.  The problem was the need to import grain into Jolar, but also, conquering Jolar was only a little more lucrative than robbing bums.

Two things began to wreck the power of the MSE in Fonrit.  First, some of the enemies of the Empire from Jolar penetrated a ruins and stole a secret which let them make grain rot.  The Six Legged Empire collapsed; the Jolari attempted an invasion of Fonrit; they were crushed, but the chaos enabled Jann of Afadjann to sneak into a ruins and learn the secrets of controlling Darleester the Noose, which he then used to begin enslaving notable wizards and using their powers to aid a general revolt against the Middle Sea Empire, led by his magic-controlled puppets.

He might have lost, but the Closing cut off Fonrit and he ultimately triumphed.  The Cult of Silence assisted him, founded by people who had learned to destroy their own senses for power, acting as a murderous, anonymous mass mind.  Once the Jrusteli retreated, they turned Jann of Afadjann into sliced meat, beginning another round of ‘New Glorious Ones’ all seizing a piece of the pie.

In the city-states of Kareeshtu, the ‘Return to Past Ways’ movement, an attempt to adopt the customs of the Doraddi exploded; local tyrants were slaughtered, slavery ended and… and they abandoned the cities and farming, trying to take on something like the Changing Way, only there were too many of them; mass starvation convinced some to return to farming and city life, while others fled to the Doraddi lands and their fate is not known to us.  And many just died.
Wars with Elves and a lot of pointless wars of conquest that ended in horrors unimaginable happened.  We’ll skip that.  The Vadeli returned in 1587 as the Closing ended.  They briefly took over, only to find the locals managed to extract the secrets of turning Vadelis into, you guessed it, slaves.  Also, the Cult of Silence somehow induced one of the Vadeli leaders to eat the other main ones, then sacrificed him to their mysterious god of silence.

Or so they claim; the leaders may well have killed each other in the usual Vadeli orgies.

The surviving Vadeli are mostly slaves of city rulers… in theory.  As some theorize the Vadeli *staged the whole thing* to gain power covertly.

Today, the three main powers in Fonrit are a Confederation of City-States in Kareshtu, focused on global trade and making money, with the least amount of slavery, the State of Afadjann, ruled by the current Jann, Astamanyx,  (Jann is a common title for city and nation rulers.) and Lakal, where the Changing Way is spreading among the Hsunchen.

A religious battle is in process between the ‘Old Suns’ and the ‘New Suns’.  Ompalam, whose powers are wielded through Darleester the Noose, is an incredibly harsh god who demands strict rituals of all free folk to maintain ‘purity’ and the right to rule over slaves.  Because Ompalam controls the Sun, known as Ehilm due to MSE medding, when combined with worship of the Dark Earth, this yields huge agricultural produce.  His ‘followers’ are known as the Old Suns.  

But in the Kareshtu city-states, focused on crafts and processing cash crops and food, the New Suns have arisen.  They are less interested in the Dark Earth or Ompalam, and worship Water Gods and Goddesses, with Ompalam as a side line.  They abandon the ritual purity and treat their slaves better, having watched the periodic slave revolts that happen every time a slave gets his hands on secrets from the ruins.  They are the New Suns and they have generally abandoned the Dark Gods of Earth and use Water magics to coax life from the ground; many, indeed, rely on the bounty of the sea to survive.

Further, Imperial Missionaries have sparked the rise of Lakal, a state allied to the Empire and increasingly ruled by those who follow the Changing Way.  They are led by Bat Hsunchen, the Pulajeg.  (Who lack the feud with Dara Happans of the Empire’s Bat Hsunchen).  Outsiders accuse them of being bloodthirsty, but the people of Fonrit need lessons in how not everyone is a slave and those you abuse will fight back.  

Various gods and pantheons known in Genertla can be found here on a small scale.  The city of Sarro, now half in ruins, was the center of a brief lived empire founded by someone who initiated to a god Baraktu (thought to be a mask of Orlanth), killed Ompalam (allegedly) and ruled a brief lived Empire of Storms; Storm worship continues in the city, though it owes fealty to the Jann of Afadjann now.

It is generally assumed the Liberation Crusade will mainly focus on Afadjann, ideally with the aid of Kareshtu and Lakal.  We’ll find out in two years if all is well.

Adventure Hooks:

• Enjoy the Silence:  The Cult of Silence has crossed the sea and assassinated the Military Governor of Pavis.  Your job is to bring some payback, dealing a huge blow to the cult.  The Cult is believed to the the result of a Godlearner Heroquest gone wrong that transformed the Questers into the First Hand of the Cult.  The Cult operates in groups of five, each a finger of the hand, led by the Thumb.  Cultists destroy their senses to gain power and alternate senses and a telepathic link to the rest of the Hand.  Sometimes Hands work together; the cult is decentralized, yet somehow they can cooperate.  Their main goal is to overthrow the ruling structures and take over; this mostly gets them killed a lot but they have killed many leaders.  Good luck.
• The Ernalda of the South:  The leader of the Dark Earth Gods and Goddeses of the South is Ariadne, who suspiciously resembles Ernalda.  Your job is to investigate and see if her cult is linked to Ernalda cults inside the Empire.  
• Even A God May Die:  This is a hard one.  The Empire has decided it is time for Gorangordos the Cruel to go.  He stole his godhood and the Empire is stealing it back.  This involves breaking into the same ruins he did and forcing him to manifest and then carving him into giblets and trapping him in a bottle to be put in a dark Blue Moon Hell forever.  This should damage or even ruin the utilities of his secrets that allow control of Darleester the Noose, and that will smash the whole system of slavery.  In the normal timeline, it’s assumed imperial agents did this; if you run it, the PCs ARE the imperial agents.
• The Head of Genert:  Among the possessions of the Sorceress Anastasia, a descendent of the Jrusteli, who is part of the tradition they planted in Fonrit.  Under her, the city of Siwah El resembles an old Middle Sea Empire city and is planned around what is allegedly the Head of Genert, which should not have any power over the land of Fonrit… but it does.  While the Head remains in the city, she has no need for Ompalam.  But the Jann of Afadjann always needs and wants and craves more slaves and is trying to force his ways on them.  Save the Head, save the city and the sorceress.  The Empire needs allies and further, the Head might one day be critical to the redemption of Prax.  
• Quest For Secrets:  Who doesn’t love potent Storm Age and Darkness Age magic?  A raid into one of the ruins won’t be easy but could be very, very lucrative.
• Slave Revolt:  Initiation into the Changing Way breaks the power of Ompalam over you.  But it’s hard to break from him to initiate.  You’ve been sent to sneak into a city and liberate some slaves.  
• Wolf Piracy:  The Wolf Pirates are a clan of former Ygg worshippers, converted to the Changing Way by Imperial Missionaries.  They now mix Vadrus and Blue Moon Worship and range long distances, raiding enemies of the faith… well, basically anyone who isn’t flying the imperial flag.  They are a thorn in the side of the Kareshtu, but also anyone else who trades in the area.  However, they lack a leader and omens indicate they were supposed to have a destined leader who apparently found better opportunities.  So they fight each other nearly as much as they raid outsiders.  They sometimes hire specialists for specific raids as they are short on anything but melee attacks and cold magics.  
• A Bag of Vadeli:  The Empire needs you to kidnap some Vadeli to study so counters to their powers can be prepared. 

[John Biles]

Adventure Seeds for the White Bear Empire:

• Divine His Intent:  A dangerous spy mission into the empire in which the PCs must find out if Harrek plans to hit Arrolia or Loksalm or something else first.  But also to find out what has survived that *can* be hit.
• The Imperial Sword:  Harrek gave away the sword he used to kill the Moonson, Igenous.  It is said to have a portion of Igeneous’ power in it and must be recovered; it is now in the hand of a leader of Raindeer Hsunchen, Blitzen, who is a Lightning Shaman.  Find it, bring it back!  
• Mission to Loksalm:  Escorting diplomatic envoys to that land in hope of alliance against the White Bear.
• Raiding the White Bear:  Your job is to travel with a force of Char Un and support them in a raid on the White Bear Empire for intelligence; that also requires getting them through Arrolia without them deciding to just plunder it.
• Spread the Word:  A dangerous attempt to subvert the loyalty to Harrek of some of the Hsunchen he commands without ending up killed by Harrek.  

 

 

 

 

Edited May 8 by John Biles

[John Biles]

Are there any specific topics any of those reading this want me to address?

[John Biles]

Food in the Imperial Heartland, Part One

Every province has its own cuisine, but some things are very common across the empire.

Cat Sauce

Cat Sauce has nothing to do with cats despite the many slurs leveled against it.  Some claim it was brought back by a Heroquest.  Others assert it was the result of Sheng Seleris' invasion and the wave of 'fusion' dishes which ensued that combined aspects of Pelorian and Imperial cuisine

It comes in two varieties and is especially popular with kids - Red Cat Sauce and Black Cat Sauce.  Both include vinegar and a sweetener of some kind - sugar or honey usually.

Red Cat Sauce is tomato based; Black Cat Sauce is mushroom based and greatly loved by trolls. 

Emperor Catticus absolutely loves Cat Sauce

 

The Cauliflower-Broccoli Complex

Sometime in the Golden Age, Yelm's court is said to have bred the many varieties of this plant, and it survived the many disasters of the Great Darkness in many forms:  wild cabbage, kale, collards, ornamental cabbage, kale, Kralorelan kale/cabbage/broccoli (all sweeter than standard forms), cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, sprouts, Pavis sprouts (found in Prax and the valley of the Zola Fel), kohlrabi, and probably many others.  All a single plant bred into many varieties like dogs have been.

It forms a critical part of the Dara Happan diet and an important part of the Imperial Diet; the cult of Yelmalio has spread this plant to Ralios, Kerofinela, and Prax.

Cheeses

Cheese is a popular way to preserve milk and a popular food.  Farm families make and eat the most but cities are riddled with it and Imther is known for its cheeses.  Cheeses come in every color known to man.

However, sometimes people neglect sacrifices to Challana Arroy and end up with tainted cheeses with Malia's diseases or worse, the taint of Chaos.  It's not common but it's an ongoing problem. 

Chicken and Eggs

The Empire has a goatload of chickens, but they don't eat them much - excess roosters are castrated so they bloat up and those are eaten as 'capons' by the wealthy.  But the hens are much more valuable as a source of eggs and both hen and roosters are a lot smaller than the chickens eaten on the imaginary future world known as 'Earth' in Wind Novels. 

Uncastrated roosters are used for cockfighting, a popular bloodsport, but those chickens are carefully raised and trained and aren't worth eating.

Eggs, on the other hand, are ubiquitous.  Every farm family has eggs with breakfast and possibly other meals and because trolls find chicken eggs 'hardly worth the effort', they are a source of meat and component of baked goods for all.

There is a limited, expensive trade in eggs of dangerous creatures, eaten as luxuries by chiefs and the wealthy. 

Eggs are usually eaten scrambled or fried, but omelettes and quiches are popular.

 

Flatbreads

A lot of meals are basically 'stuff on flatbread', especially if you are poor.  Street stalls don't need plates or silverware if they can put stuff on flatbread and you wrap it around the food in various ways.  This generally involves at least one each of meat (beef, pork, or fish), vegetables (mushrooms, carrots, peppers, beets, shredded lettuce, and the cauliflower-broccoli complex), and sauce (black pepper sauce, mustard sauce, honey sauce, red sauce - tomato based, white sauce - egg based, green sauce - greens-based).  Pelandans like olive oil based sauces.  Darum and its variants may be used as a sauce but a lot of people can't afford Darum.

Jams, Jellies, and Preserves

The Empire has tons of fruit, but it mostly gets turned into jams, jellies, and preserves so it will keep.  Wealthy people, however, can afford magically preserved fruit, usually in glass bottles.  On rare occasions, the taint of chaos gets into jams, jellies, and preserves, turning them into Gorp.  Most citizens will never see this happen, but it's the kind of spectacular disaster that gets remembered. 

Lodril-in-a-blanket

A dish of a sausage or pickle inside a bun.  Lodrilli peasants love it the most; Dara Happens see it as low-class, then make similar things out of fancy ingredients that are *100% different*.

Mushrooms

Mushrooms, along with potatoes, carrots, and many root vegetables, are the great gift of Trolls to the world's cuisine.  There are dozens of varieties; all they really need is a little light and water.  Some varieties need darkness and Trolls have giant caverns full of them.  Despite the massive appetites of trolls, the Empire has enough that even the poorest Imperials can afford the cheaper kinds.

Dara Happans are especially fond of the 'Golden Emperor' variety, which is the size of a man's head and is turned into 'mushroom steaks'. 

Mustard

Eaten as a leafy green; the seeds are ground into a component used to make various sauces.  Captain Mustard is a retired Imperial Army officer who sells a particularly popular form of the sauce which rather resembles liquefied gravel but does not taste like it. 

Noodles

A modern food and very argued over; half the Empire associates it with Sheng Seleris and the other half WANTS MORE.  More popular in the southern empire which has more grains and less rice.  It comes in many forms and occasionally causes riots.

Spiral noodles *cannot tunnel into your brain*, whatever Kenasius may have claimed.  They do, however, retain sauce well, and nor do they have anything to do with Ernalda.

Olive Oil

Pelandans love olive oil; they bathe with it, eat it, make potions with it, use it as perfume, they're crazy for it.  The problem is that it takes fifty or so years for a olive tree to bear fruit.  The Great Olive Massacre of Sheng Seleris drove the Pelandans to the only war frenzy they've ever had.  Fortunately, Tea Parties rarely damage olive trees, so the Olive Oil Drought is long over.

Note:  The rumor that olive oil repels Broo is purely wishful thinking.  In fact, Broo love olive oil and olives and mating with olive trees.  Do not eat any olive products from New Tork City.

Because of this mass consumption, getting olives outside Pelandan territories is expensive.  Little Sister is known to love olive oil and her parties and feasts feature it. 

Note:  Dara Happans reject olive oil as 'decadent' and 'prone to cause uncontrollable lust'.  The Darjinni report, sadly, that it does not trigger uncontrollable lust.

Porridge: 

Porridge is inescapably poor people food, though a form of it made of oats is a popular breakfast with many in the Changing Way.  Ground grains are cooked in water to form a kind of stew by a very generous definition of stew.  It is the usual breakfast of the poor; fruit is added if available.  Or jams, jellies, or preserves are mixed with cooked but dry porridge. 

Potatoes

Potatoes were brought to the world during the Lesser Darkness by Trolls.  Potatoes are also related somehow to Tomatoes, which did not come from Trolls.  This remains a mystery.  Named 'edible rocks' by the Kraloreli, a Pelandan Sage of the First Age, Demetrius the Wise, named them Potatoes but said he could never explain why or tragedy would ensue.  This was usually code for 'I did it on a whim' with him.

It was Arkat who really spread potatoes around.  The periodically recurring cult of Arkat Potatohead claims he became a Potato-Man at one point but lovers and haters of Arkat blame such claims on the God Learners.  Nonetheless, the yearly tradition of using tiny accessories to give a potato a 'face' remains a popular Sacred Time game for Children; in some cities, a Potato Emperor is created by each major gang of the city, who then try to steal each other's Potato Emperors until only one remains; that gang gets the collective gambling bag.

Potatoes were essential to the recovery from the devastation of the First Age... and the Second Age... and may well be critical to survival in this age.  Trolls eat half the crop, because they love potatoes.

Indeed, Potatoes probably help ensure that trolls eat less people than in some ages.

There are, by law, over two dozen official varieties, and probably dozens more.  This minimizes the effects of blights.

Potatoes can be eaten in soups and stews, baked and decorated with sauces, hollowed out to hold meat and other stuffings, mashed into a kind of white potato paste with spices added, boiled and spiced, cut into shaped and fried... there are many uses for them. 

Riddlers claim that the existence of potatoes proves that what we think of as reality is not real.  But no one wise listens to riddlers. 

Rice

Rice is the lifeblood of Dara Happans and one of the major crops of the Empire.  It grows in the lowlands around the major rivers in rice paddies.  This system requires constant maintenance but produces high yield rice in several dozen varieties.  Urban Dara Happens especially like Golden Rice, which is the color of gold, as I suppose you would expect.  It comes in both sticky and non-sticky varieties, though the Kraloreli favor the former and the Empire the latter.

Every level of society eats rice, mainly as bowls of rice, but also in the form of rice flour, to make breads and cakes.  A bowl of rice + meat + sauce + vegetable(s) is a very common meal, even for the wealthy, who just add more things, like exotic meats and more veggies.

Rice grows poorly in Sartar, adding to the Empire's problems.

Sandwiches

Sandwiches are only found in Sartar and Kerofinela because in most of the Empire sliced bread isn't much of a thing.  The Orlanthi call them sandwiches even though it is a word not related to any Gloranthan language or culture; some fear the God Learners invented them with their horrible arts.  But most people don't think it took magic to invent 'stuff + sauce between two slices of bread'.

Soups and Stews

The next step up from flatbread meals are soups and stews.  Because the Blue Moon is linked to water, these are considered very good omen foods.  Generally, the poor eat ones with minimal meat and a lot of potatoes or other cheap veggies, while more expensive ones add more, fancier vegetables and meats.  Every province has its own specialty soups and stews which include:

• Ghoul Stew:  Not actually made with ghouls; Pelandans say that 'linguistic drift' is to blame.  Every single province has its own version and every version *only vaguely resembles the other versions*.  Some kind of ground meat, strong spices from Kralorela, and tomatoes and peppers are common, but in fact, if you can eat it in a stew, some province uses it.  Everyone also claims they invented it.  Some variants now use noodles.
• Imther Onion Soup:  This has a layer of mixed cheese and bread which forms a big glob that floats on the top with meat broth, a little meat, and lots of onions and maybe peppers.  It's expected to break the glob into chunks for easier eating.  But if it doesn't come as a glob, you should make sure no one poisoned it.
• Sable Rabbit Stew:  Typically made with rabbit in the Empire, but in Prax, it's actually made by rival tribes who eat Sable.  Heavily spiced; it's mainly a meat stew in Prax but in the Empire, it usually includes rice and vegetables. 
• Thrice-Blessed Venison Soup:  The hunter-gatherers of Thrice-Blessed make this with deer meat, carrots, mustard greens, and various berries.  No one else likes it, but some people say it is 'very healthy', so they eat it anyway.

Tomatoes

Imported during the Second Age from Pamaltela by the Middle Sea Empire, they came first to the West and then to Kerofinela and in the Third Age to Peloria.  The Red Moon cultists assert that tomatoes prove that the Red Moon is real, but if this is true, then the Red Moon must want to be eaten.

Tomatoes want dry ground with gentle breezes and enough water, but not too much or too little.  This means they're typically grown in the higher elevation ground outside river bottoms, far away from rice paddies.  The Orlanthi seem to be the best at growing them and much of the tomatoes of the Empire come from the provinces where Orlanthi have not adopted the Changing Way.

Tomatoes *cannot be served on copper*, unless you enjoy dying of poison; most assume this is another of Ernalda's bitter curses. 

Most of the population eats tomatoes in the form of red sauce, but can afford them in other forms for special occasions; the well off eat them all time.  Pelandans swear by sliced tomatoes with sliced lettuce and olive oil on a plate or in a bowl, possibly with meat and other veggies added. 

[John Biles]

Regional Cuisines

Dara Happan

Dara Happan cuisine, described here, is the elite cuisine; Lodrilli cuisine is the food of the common folk.  There is more overlap than the elites want to admit.

The most common grains are maize, barley, and especially rice, though millet is also popular.  Root vegetables and the Caulifower-Broccoli complex are the most common vegetables; indeed, the Dara Happans and Lodrilli were the first to breed many of its varieties.  Fish is the number one meat, followed by pork and goat.  Beef is a much less common food for both levels of society because cows are needed to provide milk and pull plows.  However, there are special elite 'bloodlines' of beef, of which the most famous is Yannistar Prime, which is descended from the last of the Bull Shahs, who lost his humanity and became an angry animal in body as well as soul.  The very richest Dara Happans eat Yannistar Prime, but the breed is also favored for sacrifices to the Blue Goddess and the Seven Sailors.  Lodrilli eat rabbit, weasel, and other small animals that a Dara Happan proper would rather starve than eat. 

Dara Happens like their food spicy and like spices with a strong taste.  Because it is so expensive, saffron is beloved of Dara Happans.  It is quite potent, allowing you to use a tiny amount; if you added an amount you might use of nutmeg or cloves, you would probably feel your mouth was deep ablaze.  Dara Happans with the Fire Rune, especially those initiated to a god with the Fire Rune, can handle an amount of spice that few others can handle.  Lodrilli prefer things which add bitter or umami to their food.  They have a great love for sauces, especially Black and Red Cat Sauce.  They would love soy sauce from Kralorela, but could never afford it, while the elites who could buy it view it as associated with Sheng Seleris.

Fire cuisine (the food of the elites) typically involves fire and never involves chilling things.  It also involves more access to magical food preservation than most other people in the Empire could dream of, at the top levels of the Dara Happans.  A successful urban craftsman is putting jam on his breakfast bread, while a noble has sliced fresh fruit (and the Lodrilli has to be careful to not overuse his jams, jellies, and preserves).  One of the greatest gifts a noble can give to a client is fresh fruit or vegetables.

Breakfast is ideally fresh baked bread (wheat for the elites, barley for the masses), fruit, honey, and butter, some kind of egg dish (quiche, omlette, scrambled, fried) and wine (watered down at least a little, even by the elites, but it's safe unlike unprocessed water).  Lodrilli likely have jam, jellies, and preserves instead of fresh fruit and may add some sausage, bacon, or other salted and smoked meats, especially if they have manual labor to do... which is most days.

Lunch involves thicker flatbreads, sliced into pieces, coated with cheese, spices, peppers, and small pieces of sliced and baked meat - fish on normal days, other meats if you have guests.  Soups of various kinds may accompany it.  If you are not going anywhere, you may have a hearty, spicy stew.  Simpler versions are eaten by the Lodrilli, who also sometimes just put smoked meat, cheese, and bread in a bag, with honey and butter if possible.  (Despite the claims of some, they do not eat the bag, but see below.)

Dinner is soups and stews, the fancier the better.  Many stews include rice as a component.  Grilled meat with vegetables and a spicy sauce on rice is another common meal, along with meat and vegetables grilled on skewers.  Large fish or other meats may be cooked with a stuffing.  Vegetables are steamed if not cooked in a soup or stew.  The fanciest wines are drunk with dinner, and Pelandan wines have become popular but no one will admit they're Pelandan.  Stuffed peppers are another popular dinner dish.  Potatoes are popular with the Lodrilli, but the elites turn up their noses at them. 

• Anabas - Mainly eaten near the ocean - an entire tuna or tuna steaks stuffed with peppers, cheese, vegetables, darum (Golden Darum if you are rich), and other sauces to taste. 
• Blue Moon - Requires fresh blue berries; an egg in a crust dish which turns blue and has various kinds of berries n it.  A breakfast food.  Not officially blasphemous but it's clearly many Dara Happans view it as a way to thumb their nose at the Blue Moon and get away with it.  It helps that Catticus loves to have it for breakfast. 
• Deer Soup - A rare dish found mainly in Elz Ast, where it is very popular.  Elz Ast has enough access to venison from Thrice-Blessed, making it possible to make venison stock, into which you add slices of fish, carrots and cabbage, other vegetables, garlic and other spices, and possibly venison if you have enough. 
• Fermented Vegetables - Most commonly done with cabbage, but any vegetable can have salt and/or vinegar added and be shoved in the ground in a pot to ferment, the same way Darum is made.  But here the goal is to both preserve it and then later eat it, instead of just draining off the fluid.  This is seen as 'cold cooking' by the elites, who dodge it, while the Lodrilli make heavy use of such fermented vegetables in soups and stews.
• Melons - They flourish in the lowlands and are especially popular with anyone with the Water Rune.  Generally eaten sliced and salted by Lodrilli and with hot spices by the elites. 
• Potato Stew - The elites would rather choke out and die.  In public, anyway.  Chopped fish, potatoes, bitter vegetables, mushrooms, and bitter spices are the heart of this dish, but every Lodrilli woman swears by her own formula.
• Stuffed Peppers - take bell peppers and stuff them with carrotsl, darum (Golden Darum if you are rich) or Black Cat Sauce (if Lodrilli), onions, ground beef or pork, rice, and some hot spices.
• Trout Halaska (Trout in Bed for Lodrilli) - Sliced trout or other fish in a mustard sauce on a bed of rice with broccoli and asparagus.  And some hot spices and peppers if you are of the elite.

Pelandan

The heart of Pelandan cuisine is grains, olive oil, and wine.  Ideally, grains in the form of wheat, but barley, millet, oats and rice (as a last choice) may fill that roll.  Pelandans eating Pelandan food only eat rice in the form of things made with rice flour.  Grain is bread or flatbread when possible, porridge if not, and in the modern day, noodles.   Meat is eaten when possible but by choice or necessity, some Pelandans are vegetarian.  Fish are the number one choice, but goat, mutton, rabbit, beef, pork, eggs, and rarely (as for everyone who isn't rich), poultry.  Many vegetables are consumed as well, depending on what grows best locally.  Yogurt and cheese are both quite popular, and desserts are based on nuts, honey, fruits, sesame, and the most common form is filo pastries - made from many thin layers of filo (made from wheat ideally, other grains if not) layered on each other and folded around the sweets, coated with butter on the outside before baking. Food is spiced with oregano, mint, garlic, onion, dill, cumin, bay laurel, basil, thyme, and fennel.  Sweet spices are sometimes used on meat as well as treats - cinnamon, all spice, cloves.

Breakfast typically consists of breads (such as olive bread), cakes, fruit, cheeses and yogurt.  Meat is rare and is probably left over meat or eggs.  Children drink fresh goat milk.  Sesame flat bread rings (ideally with something like dates or figs imbedded in it), yogurt mixed with honey and walnuts, and soft fluffy bread flavored with aromatic ingredients.

Lunch is usually flatbreads with stuffing, unless you are a philosopher or other person of wealth.  Dipping sauces for your flatbread are popular and most involve olive oil to some degree.

Dinner is the meal that will definitely have meat.  Fish stews and soups are most common here, but every kind of meat may be eaten in a soup or stew, or over pasta if you can afford it, along with vegetables.  Some Pelandans refuse to eat pasta, linking it to Sheng Seleris, who they hated, but most don't care since they never met the man. 

Example Dishes: 

• Fisherman's Stew - Most commonly eaten by fishermen or those who just like fish.  Ideally made with bass, it contains olive oil, onion, garlic, fennel, tomatoes cored and chopped with the juice, salt, white wine, small potatoes, black pepper, and lemon juice if you can get it.
• Karethi - Take cubed lamb, goat, or beef and add noodles, red sauce, onions, garlic, beef stock, and red wine, then cook it in a clay pot.  Sometimes spiced with allspice, cloves, bay leaves, or cinnamon. 
• Ladafas - Sometimes considered the national dish of Pelandans; this soup is made by simmering beans with tomatoes and other vegetables (onion, carrots, celery) with thyme, parsley, and bay leaf.  Many families have an 'ongoing' soup of this, a pot to which ingredients are added each day, which creates a very rich stock over time.   
• Stuffed Peppers - take bell peppers and stuff them with tomatoes, olive oil, darum, onions, parsley, ground beef or pork, and mint.  Pretend you did not get this dish from the Dara Happans and just removed the rice. 

Wine is drunk at all three meals but it's fairly watered to save money unless you're rich at breakfast and lunch (kids have goat or other milk at breakfast and dinner if possible).   Pelandans are not wine snobs; they love wines made from many kinds of fruit. 

 

 

 

 

[John Biles]

Orlanthi Cuisine

Beer is in many ways the heart of Orlanthi cuisine.   It's healthy (compared to water) and nutritious since in many ways it is basically bread-water, as an Orlanthi poet would put it in a kenning.  It comes in several 'brewings' - Minlister's Best is made with fresh hops.  The surviving hops are skimmed and used to make Minlister's second, which is less strong.  The surviving hops are used to make Minlister's third, which is weaker yet, and the hops from that have heavy spicing addes and are used to make Eurmal's Brew, which is weak but flavorful.  Stickpickers and slaves have Eurmal's Brew with breakfast and lunch, Minlister's third with dinner, and Minlister's second on fancy occasions.  Carls and Cottars have Minlister's third with breakfast, Minlister's second with lunch, Minlister's best with dinner, and wine on fancy occasions.  Thanes and Nobles and Chiefs and Kings usually drink wine, but watered down before dinner.  They have really fancy wine on fancy occasions. 

They also keep bees and make honey and turn some of it into mead.  All drinks are served in horns, unless you are rich and then you have mugs of bronze, silver, or gold to drink from.  Horn holders are a staple of the Orlanthi table.

The Orlanthi grow copious fruit - apples, berries, cherries, and grapes - and make their own wine... but most Orlanthi wine is 'okay' rather than 'great'.  Unlike the Pelandans, they mostly stick to grapes for wine; using other fruits is seen as rather 'back woods'.  Admittedly, some Orlanthi *revel* in being 'back woods'.

Cattle are too valuable as a source of milk and labor and wealth to eat, though they do love beef.  Most people eat Lamb the most, then pork, wild game, and eggs.  As in the rest of the empire, having chicken is a rare treat.  There is a special breed of chicken, the 'Singing Hen', whose music keeps the other chickens calm.  It figures in the Heroquest 'Barntar vs the Giant Chicken', which is a cautionary tale as to why breeding large chickens is unwise because they would try to eat you all.  Luxury meats are loved but rare - horse, bear, bison, sable, rhino, impala, and other herd beasts of Prax.  (But not Herd Men!) Goat meat is considered unclean and never eaten because of the Broo connection and this has kept Pelandan food out of Orlanthi areas.  Meat is typically roasted or boiled if fresh, but a lot of meat is smoked, dried, salted, or turned into sausage to preserve it.  The Orlanthi love sausages.  Meat is also beaten into spiced pastes to be eaten on bread or crackers. 

Bread is greatly beloved, usually in the form of barley bread, though wheat, rye, and oats are also grown and turned into rye, crackers, buns, and cakes, with honey and/or mead added to the cake.  Butter, honey, and cheese may be spread onto bread.  They also like making raisins and adding them to cakes and buns.  Old, stale bread may be turned into 'bread bowls', which are used to hold soup or various stuffings.  It may also be ground up and mixed with spices and sauces.

Noodles and rice are rare in Orlanthi lands, especially south of Tarsh, because Dragon Pass isn't ideal for rice, save next to the Upland Marsh, where your paddy may suddenly produce undead, and Sheng never got that far South.

Potatoes are becoming more common, as are tomatoes.  Maize grows more common with those who have joined the Changing Way and in the areas around cities, but the countryside doesn't trust any food their great-great-grandfather didn't eat.  Despite its invention in Dara Happan lands, the cauliflower-broccoli complex is a large chunk of the vegetable base, along with root vegetables.

Orlanthi are not as sauce-happy as other Imperials, because they often lack easy access to important ingredients; they are found more in the cities than the country-side.  Honey-glazing, both meat and bread, however, is common.  They favor herbs over spices and are not into spicy foods.

Urban Orlanthi eat more like other Imperials; in the countryside, you sit along a long table with big plates or bowls of wood or copper which contain each component of the meal, which you stab with your knife or hook with a spoon to put on your plate.  They regard forks as decadent and shun them.  That's why Orlanth gave you hands.  Soup is poured from a master bowl to your bowl and eaten with a spoon. 

Typical Dishes:

• Bag of Meals - The typical Orlanthi lunch is bread, cheese, and mutton or pork, probably salted or smoked, carried in a bag to where you do your work for the day.  You bring a stoppered jug of beer or wine if you can afford it.  Named after a legendary treasure bag that produces three meals like this a day, which Barntar used to survive having to cross Prax after being kidnapped and escaping. 
• Board-Cooked Fish:  You take fish, cut it nearly in half and debone it, so it folds out with the 'inside' side of each half facing the same way.  You drive a nail through the head and nail it to a board that hangs over a fire and then you cook it that way, adding herbs or a sauce once you finish cooking.  This method was learned from the Ducks even if most Orlanthi will *never* admit it.
• Bread Bowl Carrot Soup:  Take mutton stock, add mutton (after washing off the salt), basil, dill, and oregano, lots of carrots, salt, and pepper, then put it in a bowl made from very stale bread.  '
• Fried Yelm:  A sunny-side up egg, fried in a skillet and eaten with fresh fruit if possible and bread with jam if not.
• Heler-in-Aroka:  This is a fancy dish found at the table of wealthy city folk, Kings, nobles, and thanes.  Take blue sausage (made from pork and lamb, with blue berry juice added to flavor and stain it) and put them inside a goose, with stuffing made from herbs, old bread crumbs, and white sauce.  For a really fancy version, put the sausage in a capon with stuffing and another layer around the capon inside the goose.  If you're a hero or king, put the goose inside a wyvern. 
• Heler-in-bed:  This is a simple dish; you put blue sausage inside a special bun that goes all the way around it.  If you use normal sausage, this becomes almost any Orlanthi god in local communities.  I would be wary of eating Humakt-in-bed, though.
• Mahome Pie:  Named for the meal made for Barntar by Mahome after he defeated the Giant Chicken and brought home 'hundreds of eggs'.  An open-face egg pie with little bits of meats and cheese in it (and vegetables if they're fresh; sometimes slathered in james, jellies or preserves if not). 
• Ox-tongue Stew:  Cattle are too valuable to waste anything, so if you have to eat a cow, you eat the organ meats.  Parsley, rosemary, and sage joins slices of ox tongue, probably other organ meats too, and turnips (potatoes in a city), with whatever vegetables are handy. 
• Prone Eurmal:  A sunnyside-down egg.  Probably eaten with fruit or with jam on bread. 
• Raisin Buns - Buns with raisins in them; when served during a holy day, you brand them with a relevant rune.  Sometimes with honey-glaze. 
• Roast Pork:  Roast pork you've glazed with a mix of honey, oregano, sage, and basil, then slice it for your guests.  Serve with a vegetable soup (made from dried vegetables, or fresh if you have fresh), fresh barley bread, with honey and butter.  Change the meat and you have a lot of Orlanthi dinners.  

Pavis Cuisine

The root of Pavis cuisine is Orlanthi cuisine, but the absence of some things and the presence of others has made changes to the diet.  Praxian Sundomers eat much the same food as the Pavis folk.  So this entry will focus on changes.

Oasis Folk grow most of the fruit in Prax, though some farmers have orchards.  Citrus fruits (lemon, lime, orange, grapefruit) are common, as are dates and figs.  Plums and prunes are also popular, along with pomegranates.  Grapes are grown as well to make wine.  Prickly pears, properly processed, are popular in the valley and with Praxians alike. 

Barley and rye grow with oats in Sea-Fire-Earth season, while wheat is grown in Storm Season - Sacred Time - Early Sea Season.  This affects which kinds of flour products are common.  Rice has to be imported - it is just too dry even with the Zola Fel.  However, since the imperial conquest, a kind of product known as 'wheat rice'  has been invented.  It is shaped like rice and can basically take its place where rice is used.  Olives also have to be imported and are expensive; cultivation of olive trees has begun, but they won't begin to bear fruit until the 1650s or later.

Oilseeds are popular in this area - ground into meal, they provide protein and energy.  Cotonseed, soybeans, sunflower seeds, canola, and peanuts are all good oilseeds.  Praxians feed them to herdbeasts but also use them to make porridge and Pavis' people do likewise.  The Sundomers favor sunflower seeds for religious reasons. 

Herd-beat meat is 'easily' available in Pavis, the Zola Fel Valley, and the Sundome:   Bison, High Llama, Horse, Impala, Sable Antelope, and Zebra.  Rhino and Unicorn are rare but seen as delicacies; a lot of 'Unicorn' is actually Rhino, however.  As everywhere, chickens are raised for eggs more than eating and in the valley of the Zola Fel, beef, pork, and lamb are also options, especially lamb.  Trolls sell meats, but wise people avoid them unless they follow the Blue Moon Goddess.  Wild trolls may well sell a human very tasty human or dwarf flesh and not mention it.  Like the Praxians, Pavis folk eat every inch of the meat of an animal and thus meat's ironically a little cheaper here.  If you don't mind eating testicles or weird  goo. 

What do I mean by goo?  Asreth is made by taking animal meat, bones, and various bits like eyes, ears, and noses and putting them in 'cold' water, then slowly cooking them to produce a broth.  You then strain undesirable fats and add spices, herbs, vinegar, and citrus juice.  Then you cool it in an underground chamber; the wealthy use magic here to ensure it's colder.  The result is that meat is now suspended in goo; this preserves the meat and the goo can be used to make sauces once you're ready to take it off the meat.   Asreth is especially made in Dark Season because it's as close to cold as the area gets. 

Beer and ale are popular drinks, but Kvass, made from fermented horse or herdbeast milk is also popular.  Wine is popular if you can afford it.  There's some access to tea from Eastern Genertla, but it's expensive.

Flatbreads are often fried in Pavis and the Oases; this is known as frybread but is otherwise the same.

Breakfast is much like in Sartar - porridge or bread with honey and jam, possibly oilseed mush instead, fresh fruit if you can get it, jams/jellies/preserves otherwise.  Cheese is found at breakfast at well.  During the fruit harvest, you drink fruit juice if you can afford it. 

Lunch is pretty much like the Orlanthi 'Bag of Meals'.

But dinner is the fanciest meal.  As everywhere, soups and stews are common, but roast herdbeast legs are popular as the meat component, and if you can afford it, you go the route of 'big chunk of roasted or boiled meat in slices', 'bread with things to put on it', 'cheese' and vegetables.  Possibly with a soup. 

Some Typical Meals:

• Block of Cheese:  A squarish block of cheese shaped like The Block, typically served on a plate with the Eternal Battle Rune on it.  Most Stormbulls love this; a few get offended. 
• Eritha is Only Sleeping:  A savory meat pie with vegetables too, though during much of the year, it's vegetable mush reconstructed from dried vegetables. 
• Fisherman's Stew - Most commonly eaten by fishermen or those who just like fish.  Ideally made with perch, it contains onion, garlic, fennel, tomatoes cored and chopped with the juice, salt, white wine, turnips and/or carrots, black pepper, and citrus juices.  River Folk like to claim the Pelandans stole the idea from them; most scholars assume that there is only so many ways to make fish soup.
• Hidden Treasure - A variety of kinds of pastries which have jam, jellies, or preserves inside it.  Lhankor Mhy's Hidden Treasure is the most famous - it looks like a tiny book with date or fig jelly inside it. 
• Meat Pot:  A barley soup with some kind of meat and vegetable in it; most commonly carrots.  This may be a lunch or accompany dinner.  In Dark Season, this may become a 'forever soup'.
• Oilseed Mush:  This is a kind of porridge which combines dates and oilseed meal and spices.  At a cost of only one copper bolg, this is a popular 'fancy' lunch for workers in Pavis and the other towns. 
• Riddle Canal Feast:  This is something even the wealthy probably only eat a few times a year.   It requires a special cloth which lays out a map of a canal with periodic circles; a series of dishes are placed on each circle and you eat a series of very small courses and answer riddles to unlock the next dish.  Every so often, someone goes too hard and you end up with everyone unable to get past the first dish and very angry, but usually the riddles are more a tradition than a real challenge.  The first three sections do resemble the real Puzzle Canal, but the rest is purely made up. 
• Secret of Pavis:  Secret of Pavis looks like you took a lot of ground beef and cooked it to resemble a brick.  But once sliced, it reveals winding layers of bread mixed with cheese and spices running through it and the meat is spiced as well.  Typically served with fruit and/or vegetables on the side.  It is allegedly Dwarven, but the Dwarves have no idea how that rumor got started. 
• Table:  The most confusing secret of Pavis is why this is called Table.  It appeared shortly after wheat rice became common and is mostly eaten by Imperials. You line a bowl with lettuce or grape leaves if possible, then you take wheat rice and add finely chopped vegetables (cucumber, green onion, tomato, and peppers if you have them), then add salt, parsley, mint, and citrus juice.  This is a side dish, but many then put on sliced meat and possibly a sauce or olive oil or darum. 
• Uralda's Blessing:  This is a huge cake stuffed with meat and vegetables, shaped to resemble a cow head, accompanied by two crunchy buns also stuffed with meat and vegetables.  Eaten on special occasions. 
• Wheat Rice Bowl:  Found most commonly in Pavis and eaten by Imperials, this is your basic bowl of wheat rice with sliced meats, sauces, and vegetables added.  Suitable for any time of day. 

 

 

 

[John Biles]

Praxian Cuisine

Calling what is eaten by the Praxians 'cuisine' is rather overdoing it.  The most important thing is that Praxians eat every bit of every animal they kill and if they could eat bones, they would; instead, the bones are turned into weapons and tools.  Praxians like metal weapons but can no more make them than I can eat Gorp.

Eat Gorp and live, anyway.

Herdbeast, ideally stolen from other Praxians, is the heart of the diet.  Eyeballs are a delicacy for the chief.  Tongue is beloved of everyone.  Other organ meats spark less enthusiasm but are eaten.  They also happily eat zebra and cattle and pigs and chicken and other meats, save horse, which is left to rot.  They also gleefully eat True Animals and don't consider it cannibalism.  And the Morokanth will eat Herd Men and also followers of the Changing Way in animal form. 

Cooking is roasting and boiling because they have no other options.  Clay vessels are used to boil, though they happily use metal pots if they can get any.  This makes them even more prone to soups, stews, and porridge.  They cannot make any kind of bread, but will eat it if they go somewhere that has it.

Meat dominates their diet, but they have access to herbs that grow naturally in their dry lands.  Caraway, chicory, dill, fennel, and coriander all grow in Prax, and they also collect various kinds of clover as a treat for their herdbeasts.  In wetter places, especially around the Paps, you can find berries:  blueberries, strawberries, raspberries, currants, gooseberries, and honey berries.  They also trade with, extract tribute from, or outright plunder the Oasis People to get access to their produce.

Oasis Folk grow most of the fruit in Prax, though some farmers have orchards.  Citrus fruits (lemon, lime, orange, grapefruit) are common, as are dates and figs.  Plums and prunes are also popular, along with pomegranates.  Grapes are grown as well to make wine.  Prickly pears, properly processed, are popular in the valley and with Praxians alike. 

Oilseeds are popular in this area - ground into meal, they provide protein and energy.  Cotonseed, soybeans, sunflower seeds, canola, and peanuts are all good oilseeds.  Praxians feed them to herdbeasts but also use them to make porridge. 

They like spices but have to steal them or trade for them.

Typical Meals:

• Fruit/Berry Juice:  Praxians mostly drink water or Kvass, but this is produced as a side product of making Travel Food, but also obtained from the Oasis people. 
• Herdbeast Stew:  Boiled herdbeast meat; the meat is usually freshly slaughtered because the Praxians rarely kill an animal they don't plan to eat immediately.  This is mixed with porridge and any vegetables obtained by trade or theft.  But often it's eaten with no vegetables but with freshly picked fruit.
• Horn of Meat:  Take an animal horn, impale meat (and vegetables if you have any) on it, hold over a fire, eat off the horn. 
• Kvass:  Made from herdbeast milk, this fermented alcoholic drink is the main alcohol of Prax. 
• Oilseed Mush:  This is a kind of porridge which combines dates and oilseed meal and spices.   Other fruits are used as available. 
• Travel Food:  A mix of oilseeds, meat, fat, and berries.  Produced in bulk and used when raiding so you don't have to stop and make fires. 

 

Carmanian Cuisine

While influenced by their subjects, especially the Pelandans, the Carmanians have a distinct culinary culture of their own.  One marked by secret recipes, not shared with those outside the family.   Some dishes are fairly common now, but every family has one or more unique dishes they cling to as family treasures.  Stealing such a dish is both a great coup and a way to make enemies for generations to come.

Carmanians favor sweet and sour flavors, seeing them as linked to the right and left hand paths. 

The main dishes of Carmanian fancy meals are combinations of rice or bread with meat, vegetables, and nuts.  Herbs and spices are added to these dishes:  basil, cumin, thyme, oregano, saffron, cardamon, dried lime, cinnamon, tumeric, and parsley.  Fruits such as plums, pomegranites, quince, raisins, apricots, and prunes feature in breakfasts and in desserts and sometimes even the main entree.  Legumes are very popular.

Rye bread in various forms is the main form of bread, though wheat is also common.  It comes in many forms:  flatbread, fluffy bread, and pastry breads which often incorporate mashed fruit into the dough.  Pastry breads may be stuffed with jam, jellies, and preserves.  Cakes are also common, usually made with sugar, not honey.

Rice is also a major staple of the Carmanian diet, adopted after they invaded Peloria.  Maize is growing in popularity.

Fish, goat, and beef are popular meats, but pork, toad, lizard, eggs, and on special occasions, chicken, are also part of the diet.  Organ meats are not eaten; they are seen as crude.  This makes them cheap for the urban subjects of the Carmanians.  Mutton is eaten more in the countryside than the city.

Green beans, fava beans, onion, spinach, and carrot, along with tomatoes, scallions, and eggplant are popular.  Vine plants like squash, cucumber, pumpkins, and melons are beloved.  Potatoes are shunned as crude and ugly.  Various greens are produced, in order to make fresh green salads.  Olive oil, lemon juice, salt, chilies, and garlic flavor these salads.  

 

Typical Dishes:

• Alaya - A lentil soup; meat may be added, especially fish.  Carrots, celery, tomato, pumpkin and onion are added if available.  It is seasoned with tumeric and cumin and if possible, lemon juice. 
• Carmanian Joy -  Made from sugar, fruit juice, and ground up animal cartilage, this produces a dessert like nothing else in the empire, a kind of jiggly solid which turns into fruity liquid in your mouth.  Carmanians love it, especially kids. 
• Chopped Herb Rice:  Eaten as a side dish or with meat and vegetables added to make a full meal.  Herbs typically added include garlic, parsley, scallons, chives, coriander, and dill. 
• Festival Stew:  Made for special occasions, this is a rare chicken or duck dish.  Pomegranates ground into mush, walnuts, onions, sugar, salt, pepper, and tumeric combine to produce a balance of sweet and sour.
• Kalesh:  This stew is served with a bowl of white rice on the side.  Diced beef, tomatoes, split peas, onion, dried lime, and fried eggplant are spiced with saffron, tomato juice and pomegranate juice. 
• Skewers:  Impaling meat and vegetables, then spicing them and grilling them over a fire is a very popular way to cook and eat both lunch and dinner.  These may be cooked in the morning and carried in a special box to serve as lunch, warmed up if possible. 
• Stuffed Peppers - take bell peppers and stuff them with carrots, darum, nuts, onions, ground beef or pork, rice, and some hot spices.  This is adapted from the Dara Happans.
• Tomazi Salad - Invented by a chef of the Bull Shahs and declared the 'national salad of Carmania'.  Cucumber, tomato, onion, olive oil, lime juice, seasoned with coriander, fresh mint, and parsley. 
• Wise Sage:  This stew allegedly makes you smarter.  It is, at least, tasty.  Mutton or beef, cubed is the main meat, with onions, limes, and a *lot* of kidney beans added, with salt, pepper, parsley, cilantro, scallions, tumeric, and vegetable oil. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[John Biles]

Fonrit Cuisine

Fonrit has a great abundance of food - if it grows somewhere in Glorantha, they probably have it, thanks to the God Learners.  But also, many kinds of food passed from here to the rest of Glorantha, like tomatoes.  Rice, millet, wheat, olives, chili peppers, yams, tomatoes, and 'wild rice' are the archetypical crops of Fonrit, along with a vast plethora of spices.  Worship of Dark Earth gods and goddesses allows them higher yields from slash and burn agriculture, enough to actually support cities.  In a sense, they are trapped in this worship now; abandoning the Dark Earth without a replacement would mean mass starvation.  This is why the Return to Past Ways Movement ended in mass death.

Rice is the predominant form of grain; millet and wheat made into noodles or bread take second place.  Rice especially flourishes in the Kareeshtu lands, where water gods and goddesses have replaced the Dark Earth pantheon.  Rural noodles are simple and flat; cities luxuriate in curved, tubed and other fancy noodles.  A large number of their dishes follow the 'ground meat' + 'veggies' + 'sauce' over rice or noodles model.  'Wild Rice' is not really rice, but it's rice-like enough and some like its flavor.  It is sown but not tended; those faithful to Dark Earth have the most luck with it.  Like rice, it wants to grow in water.   Flatbreads are made from millet and wheat and especially used with dipping sauces. 

Popular fruits include citrus fruits, plums, apricots, pears, apples, grapes, quinces, figs, pomegranates, and bananas. 

Goat, pigs, and sheep are the main livestock; a distinct lack of cattle is part of why plows never caught on here and the earth is turned over with hoes.  Nor are horses common since the fall of the Six-Legged Empire.  In Kareeshtu, fish are the biggest meat in the diet. 

Popular vegetables include eggplants, green peppers, chili peppers, yams, onions, garlic, lentils, beans, chickpeas, tomatoes, and zucchinis.  Pistachios are more or less the national nut of Fonrit, but chestnuts, almods, hazelnuts, and walnuts are also beloved.   The Cauliflower-Broccoli complex exists in Fonrit but only grows well if you have God Learner secrets. 

While beer, ale and the like are popular, wine is not common in Fonrit, save in Kareeshtu, where water magic helps grapes to flourish and wine to sparkle; indeed, Kareeshtu is noted for its 'bubbly wines'.   But coffee is the real life blood of Fonrit.  Even slaves have three cups a day and everyone remembers the Coffee Rebellion in which coffee-starved slaves beat the Jann of Alasam to death and took his coffee hoard and drank it all in a three day bender.  Coffeehouses flourish in Fonrit, home to artists, musicians, businessmen, and coffee snobs.  They also love coffee jellies and coffee cakes.

Coffee, possibly supplemented by fruit juice when in season, is the anchor of a Fonrid Breakfast.  Cheese, butter, olives, eggs, tomatoes, cucumbers, honey, jam, fried dough, and spicy sausages are a staple of breakfast.  Soups are also a possible morning meal, especaily if you are wealthy and can both afford more food and will not be doing hard labor.  Poached eggs and yogurt mixed together are popular with the New Suns. 

 Fonrit lunch is the same as Fonrit dinner if you are wealthy and is generally a clay pot of rice, vegetables, sauce, and goat, eaten cold, if you are not.  IE, you probably eat leftovers. 

Fonrit dinners are the same foods as a wealthy lunch, but in larger amounts so you can eat the leftovers for lunch the next day or just because you are rich and love eating.  You start with a bowl of soup, especially in Dark and Storm Season.  This is followed by a selection of vegetables to add to your rice and meat, with two sauces to choose from to pour on your food.  It's often accompanied by a salad. 

In the boiling hot Fire Season, you substitute Caracas for soup.  The main meal consists of fried vegetables, peppers, and fruit served with yogurt or red sauce, with some meat on the side, usually grilled.  Rice is still eaten as well.  Manara is a popular summer dish.  Sheep cheese, cucumbers, tomatoes, watermelons, and melons are all popular foods due to the water content.

 

Typical Dishes:

• As You Like It:  Three to five families get together and basically use their leftovers as toppings on a bed of noodles, then supply three or four sauces to add to it. 
• Caracas:  This is a cold dish of vegetables cooked in olive oil. 
• Dinner of the Glorious Ones:  Allegedly this was a favored meal of the Glorious Ones.  You start with flagons of Golden Wine for everyone (made with special 'sun-kissed' grapes so it glows), then garlic-broccoli soup.  (Scholars question how First Age people had broccoli).  This is followed by a mixture of beef (expensively imported) and pork, ground and mixed with spices and chili peppers, over wheat noodles with Humming.  On the side are the most expensive vegetables you can find in a garlic-butter sauce.  Many suspect this is the remains of some God Learner trick... but it's so tasty... and flaunts your wealth. 
• The Jann's Surprise:   Most popular in Kareeshtu as otherwise, it can only be made in Dark and Storm Season.   This involves hiding a hot food inside a cold food.  The classic version is to hide warm cheesy noodles inside a ball of Shalam.  A past Jann of Afadjann loved doing this trick and sometimes poisoned the whole thing if he wanted you to die.  It is normally not poisoned now. 
• Madol:  Take grape leaves and wrap them around a stuffing of rice, spices, ground meat and ground or dried vegetables.  Easily portable, they make an excellent work lunch, especially if you had leftovers, which you can stuff into the leaves. 
• Malara:  Eggs, tomato, green peppers, ground black and red pepper, cooked in olive oil.  Only New Suns add onion to it. 
• Mother Eggplant:  Take an eggplant, fry it lightly, then hollow out part of the inside with a drill.  Stuff it with minced meat, onion, garlic, and tomato paste.  Then bake it.
• Muwana:  This is a dip, most commonly eaten at breakfast.  The base ingredients are fresh or dried peppers and pomegranate molasses.  But if possible, you add ground walnuts, breadcrumbs, olive oil, garlic, salt, lemon juice, mint, and parsley.  New Suns add cumin. 
• Shalam:  The water magics of Kareeshtu make this available to the wealthy year round there and to everyone in Dark and Cold Season.  You stir milk, sugar, and salt together into a froth, then freeze it.  Many flavorings are added to it to create tasty treats. 
• Taquira:  The baseline from which many sauces are made.  It is made from sesame seeds.  Taquira sauce is made with lemon juice, salt, and garlic.  Humming is made from mashed chickpeas mixed with tahini sauce.  Some variants add crushed pistachios. 

 

 

 

 

[John Biles]

Pelandan Clothing

In some ways, a contradiction in terms as the Pelandans have the least desire for clothing of anyone in Peloria.  During Fire Season, pretty much everyone goes topless, but more clothing is worn the rest of the year because Peloria is too cold for that.  Even in Fire season, though, a lot of jewelry is worn to draw attention to your figure.  Whatever clothing is worn, it is dyed bright colors, white, blue, and yellow being common.  Pelandans like purple, but the only source of purple dye is crustaceans who live in the Elf Sea, the White Sea, and the Sweet Sea, all distant from where most Pelandans live.  It is thus a marker of higher class Pelandans.

Nearly everyone wears the same underwear - cloth wrapped around your groin area and knotted off.  When wrestling or doing sports, this is all Pelandans wear and yanking your foe's underwear off is a foul.  Pelandans wear sandals when warm and boots when cold or at war.

Kilts are favored by men in the warm season and knee-length tunics with leggings and boots in the cold season.  The richer you are, the more fancily your tunic is embroidered; philosophers may well put important maxims on their clothing.  Work clothing is typically embroidered with symbols of your work.  Clothing is typically made of wool or cotton.  Wealthy men may wear ankle-length robes, made of fancy materials like silk and satin. 

Women wear corsets because they want a wasp-waist look.  They may wear this in the warmer season or just in colder ones and wear an embroidered shirt over it; either way, they wear a skirt and may show their money by having several layers of skirts with various cuts and slashes to show off the layers.  The deepest layer is also the longest. 

Pelandans use cloaks when appropriate, but do not put anything on their head which is not an honor or mark of office.  Beyond earrings. 

Dara Happan Clothing

Dara Happans try to enforce sumptuary laws in their cities, which regulate how you dress by class and occupation.  Members of the Changing Way do their best to violate as many of these laws as possible.  Pelandans generally conform in Dara Happan cities, then insist Dara Happans conform in their cities with the result that DH stay out of Pelandan neighborhoods and cities. 

The heart of this code is that the higher class you are, the more clothing you wear and the lower class you are, the less, though even a hobo wears more than Pelandans do in summer.  Also, your occupation dictates your colors.  Nobles and Priests wear purple, the most expensive color, and red, the color of fire.  Witnesses and Officers wear red and blue.  Headmen can wear a little red and freely wear blue, green, and 'the color of twilight'.  Workers wear shades of brown, green, and yellow.  Slaves wear brown and black. 

Clothing is typically made of woven grass, reeds, linen, wool, cotton, or leather.  The rich wear silk and satin if available.  Skirts, tunics, jackets, cloaks, hooded cloaks, and sleeved robes are common clothing.  Leggings are worn in cold times if you're not wearing a robe.  Slaves wear runics that go just below their groin and sandals.  Workers wear tunics to the knee and boots.  Higher classes wear progressively longer tunics until they turn into robes for nobles, or wear skirts with a tunic if women.

Dara Happans wear hoods, hats, and if noble, crowns. 

They favor their clothing to be single colored per piece. 

 

 

[John Biles]

Changing Way Clothing

Followers of the changing way typically wear either hunting/war leathers or else hide clothing on a regular basis, though they use tribute cloth to wrap their groin.  Women wear leather corsets to support their chest; being wasp-waisted is not a goal for them.  When not hunting or at war, you wear a tunic and trousers or else a tunic and a skirt with boots.  Some Changing Way warriors wear metal armors, obtained through the tribute system.

Likewise, weapons are usually obtained via tribute and are metal as well.  Many use bronze but the elites are armed with aluminum metal weapons.

Felt or leather hats are common for both men and women in a variety of styles, though in any given clan, everyone probably wears the same hat style.

Believers love jewelry and load up on it to show off their wealth.

Clothing is of whatever color the hides  and leather are; they use jewelry to provide color.    However, they will try to always wear something Blue for the Blue Goddess.

Bird Changers will wear clothing made out of feathers or at least covered in feathers.

 

 

[John Biles]

Orlanthi Clothing

The defining element of Orlanthi clothing is wool.  Leather is also used, but more as a supplement to wool and in certain occupations.  Anyone working with sharp tools wears a leather jerkin or apron over their wool tunic and trousers (or a skirt).  Wool cloaks with hoods are worn in Dark and Storm season or other chilly situations.

Women typically wear a short sleeved shirt of wool with a tight-laced leather bodice over it, though in cold seasons, they wear a long-sleeved shirt, with a pleated and flounced skirt; alternately, they may wear a long tunic pinned at the shoulders with an apron with work pockets.  Married women wear a fringed shawl.

For both genders, linen or even silk if really rich is worn for fancier clothing, which will also be heavily embroidered.  Ties, clasps, and broaches are used to attach things or tie things shut; a lot of Orlanthi clothing is much easier to get off and on if a second person helps you, especially if it is fancy. 

The Orlanthi normally  wear sandals, but will wear boots for long travel and trips into wild areas.  Men and women both use kohl to darken the area around the eyes.  Men wear hats or hoods, while women wear hoods or filets.  Jewelry is largely worn by everyone, but only men and vingans wear arm bands and only women and nandans wear earrings. 

Holy folk often wear special clothing and/or go naked to some degree, possibly entirely; this generally involves body paint with the nudity or magical body paint.  (Blue for men, green for women).    High regions like Sartar have much less nudity than warmer areas like Esrolia.