First Post about the The Kingdom of Salsene
Legends
Silver rat;
“During one of my voyages to the cold north, we landed at the darkest and richest coasts. The icy sea wind pushed the dark water against the rocks. We sailed into a black bay. The seawater stank there. A storm brought icy cold. Icebergs hid the sea, but this bay was too dirty to hide. We lay there for several months waiting for better weather. During the contacts with the population we saw the following; an old ugly woman seduced a young handsome sailor. While 1 table further on two young beautiful girls were eyeing this sailor.
A deathly pale old man saw our dismay and sat at our table. He told us about dark powers of women, about old curses and silver rats. During his story his pupil-colored eyes sparkled metallic, his hair was silver-gray with strange curls. He had remarkably strong teeth that could bite a bone in two. His sharp nose even smelled whether the food in the kitchen was spoiled, while it still had to be cooked. This was a very old mysterious treasure, a treasure bigger than you could ever carry with your crew. Wealth for the rest of your life. We bought his antique treasure map and then we spent the whole winter looking for this treasure, but we never found it. That winter was the blackest I have ever experienced. Even the snow that fell was light gray to black. A third of the crew died of diseases during these trips, mostly caused by particularly large, dangerous rats. Two of us disappeared very strangely on those trips. We have seen enough rats, even in winter, but there they have silver colored fur. So we have always been close to our goal. We have never seen the old man who gave us the old treasure map again after his story. But it seemed as if he was always with us. Except in the cities, but there the stench was almost unbearable. Unfortunately I do not remember the name of the region, my memory is somewhat failing me. Be afraid because winged people have taken my map and the gods will fail us. Save us all.” – Old sailor’s story
Sunken city:
“A long time ago, a group of people fled from the chaos gods of this world. They settled in a distant valley rich in forests and fertile soil. This group, consisting of about 100 people, lived from hunting big game. When big game became scarce after a few years, they switched to agriculture. The soil did not provide enough food for everyone during the harsh winters. The population grew steadily and started trading with local tribes and with distant overseas peoples to obtain extra food. Food shortages often lead to aggressive raids for edible things. In addition to food, these raids also provided all kinds of workers and people with financial resources. Villages grew into cities. The capital Nyhgaj was named after a large fish from the river that flowed through the valley. This provided the population with fresh water and fish. The gods of fortune gave a rich soil and this brought the population all kinds of natural resources. People from far away brought new knowledge about processing raw materials. These processes brought Nyhgaj to great prosperity. The men found in the north large strong animals that could serve as mounts. This increased the strength of the formidable army. With great cruelty they marched through those regions, for no one could break them. Executions for pleasure were the order of the day. The gods of happiness turned their faces away and the gods of destruction visited this place. New rites made every stranger turn white. These gods made the river turn black, trees die, diseases break out.
Then a young, beautiful, pointed-eared god appeared, who taught the women to drive out the gods of destruction. The driving out took at least 2 lifetimes and the god remained young and beautiful. In gratitude, a tower was built for him in the middle of the city. In return, the young god introduced the scripture, powerful beautiful words that no one could withstand. The weak, young women reveled in his beautiful words and the tower soon became the center of seduction, lust and fertility.
The women now knew how to seduce the men into other pleasures and took away the rites. The gods of destruction took revenge; they let the standing earth fall into the sunset, slowly filling the city with jet black poison. The city dwellers fled in panic, leaving all the riches behind. The still beautiful god disappeared with the arrival of the black destruction. Only a few of his beautiful scriptures have been preserved. These texts grant power over others. This city was rebuilt on the edge of the newly created lake, as a respect for their survival they covered their roofs with red gold from the ground. New gods visited this new city and colored the roofs green as a sign of their presence, but dark forces from the black lake again drove the people out of this new city. They decided to leave the valley forever and moved to the higher plains bordering the salt waters.
To this day, the powerful writings of the young god are being sought.” – Psheesjach.
Nuaj Nod:
During the blossoming of the first flowers after a harsh winter, Nuaj Nod was born. His parents were very disappointed, because he had drooping pointy ears and that was a sign of approaching disaster. His parents lived in a beautiful white tree in the warm nut forest. Nuaj soon learned the pleasure of delicious nuts and lived there carefree. He grew up together with the nut forest. Curious as Nuaj Nod was, he explored the borders of the nut forest as a 10-year-old and on one of his trips he smelled unimaginably delicious flowers. This confused him, he moved forward with great speed on the tracks of the flower scent. The soft flowing of a stream that was the edge of the nut forest approached. But the scent became stronger and there he saw the most beautiful female creature he had ever seen in his short life. She smelled delicious and she was even more beautiful than his own mother. She looked at him kindly, and his little heart melted for her. She took him to her own beautiful tree with red leaves and taught him the language of love and beauty in a few years. When the man took over from the boy, she sent a greedy young man away with a thick book and a head full of love.
In a daze he returned to the nut forest, but found no satisfaction with his parents. A strange urge took hold of him and he went out into the wide world. His tracks could be followed everywhere, although they only became visible some time later or actually audible through the screeching of little Nuajs. Wherever he went, female creatures swooned before him. All female beauty threw itself at his feet.
His education came in handy in this. But this did not make him happy, because the joy on arrival resulted in broken hearts on departure. In a few cases Nuaj had to fight off jealous men, here too his education came in handy.
But his world changed when a group of stinking barbarians on huge horned war beasts came roaring through the forest. They stole the women, murdered the men, plundered the houses and burned the fields. Once again his education was his salvation and he dissolved into nothingness. The barbarians brought strange smells with them, they murdered the forest animals and burned them over great fires. Burned carcasses were eaten. Witnessing these cruel rituals made Nuaj Nod want to take revenge. He followed the barbarians on their way back, they cut down everything that stood in their way. On his way he came across the bodies of some of his beloved nut trees.
The sunset was increasingly darkened by dark ominous clouds, these clouds were approaching the forests. Clouds brought the smell of death, destruction and strange fire. The air became pregnant with the song of dying trees.
A weeping Nuaj Nod endured the black rain showers with resignation. After weeks of travelling through thinning forests, where barbarians with sticks with large dull mirrors kill the trees. This destructive force had to be stopped before the nut forest suffered the same fate. The bleak burnt plains, where even the blades of grass could no longer hold out, were lashed by the wind. Plains with strange conical mountains and great activity of the barbarians. They crawled into the ground with carts and came back with filthy stones. Big men dressed in rock-hard dull mirrors acted against his kindred spirits, their gaze empty and dark, ears removed, hair pulled out and even more misery.
Nuaj approached the hideous grey stone fortress and like a shadow he observed life in the fortress with large round towers. After two weeks he made his plan. As a handsome barbarian man he seduced several women of important barbarians, his courteous manners made him a very popular toy. He taught the women to bend the men to their will and they absorbed this new power.
The women had a warm, clean school built, where the art of seduction was applied. Nuaj let the women taste the power of seduction and they bend the men to their will. The men became soft and abandoned their plundering raids.
Nuaj’s power grew during many changes of leaves. Experimenting with the forces of nature to make them his own and he practiced them on the earth.
Haste was nevertheless required, because the trees that were brought in dead began to resemble his beloved nut trees. He had a tower built to get a better overview of the rotten, cold, stone fortress. After many seasons, many men began to look at him with envy and suspicion. His beauty was not fleeting. He decided that his time had come and hid his personal belongings high up in the tower.
The wide valley of the fortress was surrounded downstream by strange pole-shaped mountains. These were high and narrow. A few earthquakes at weak spots caused these to collapse and fill the gap where the dirty river left the fortress valley. The valley slowly filled with mud and drove the inhabitants out of their yellow mirrored houses.
Many caves where jet-black stuff came out were filled with the mud. The despair of the barbarians was great. Of the fortress, only the towers were visible in the evening. Nuaj Nod saved a few small hairy animals with bald tails and gave them an assignment. “Nest with the barbarians and eat as much as you can, but always leave something of yourself behind.”
Since then, the barbarian population did not grow so wildly anymore and the raids were often stopped due to disease.
Nuaj Nod returned to his beloved forest, but the journey back was hard for him. Many weeks through desolate plains Nuaj Nod reached his heavenly nut forests. Half of them were already gone, but the other half could slowly recover thanks to the peace. Nuaj disappeared with the recovery of the forest but passed on his knowledge of seduction to the ever beautiful forest ladies. Many changes of leaves later this story is told by old forest elves to all the child elves as gratitude for his deeds.
This was the story about the savior of the nut forests.
Rules that apply in Sothym
:
Men may not possess paper and may not be able to read or write.
Any belief in gods other than the Troll gods is forbidden.
Women may not wear steel objects other than jewelry or handle anything other than kitchen utensils.
Men may not use magic outside of the magic school.
Prohibition on theft of goods. Punishment according to value of object: metal, clothing, food.
Adultery forbidden with person of first class.
Murder outside of family feuds = forbidden.
Fighting forbidden in second and first ring, duel according to official rules.
Fulfill financial obligations.
Forbidden to perform the following professions without consulting the relevant guild: Preparing/cooking food, working metal/stone/wood/textiles, having eating/drinking/sleeping facilities, having a shop/market stall, Punishment according to guild choice.
Wandering after midnight is forbidden, i.e. no sleeping or hanging around.
Unlawfully posing as a counselor or seeker.
Severity of punishment depends on the offense and depends on the court.
Origin
The valley of Sothym was a fertile area with all kinds of natural resources. So a society quickly developed here. This society was always led by a strong aggressive man, who often gathered groups of warriors to organize raids or wars. The men developed into experienced warlike people, they fought many wars for hundreds of years. The women, who were bored and physically submissive to the men, devoted themselves to gathering knowledge. This was recorded in books. Over time, the women managed to extract some magical knowledge from some elves. This seductive magic brought the women into a different position. They took on the role of advisor. Later, smarter and wiser than the men, they cunningly came to power. The men were fine with it, the administrative problems were dealt with by the women and they could hunt and wage war. The women expanded their power and excluded the men from written knowledge. All kinds of laws prevented women from waging war and men from reading. A small group of craftsmen wanted to learn more about their craft and wanted to record this. They developed a sign language and incorporated it into their products. They were also annoyed by the use of magic by the other sex. So they looked for other possibilities for exercising power. They found this with the Trolls and for a lot of gold and silver the smiths “bought” part of this knowledge. These smiths set up a craft school for smiths, where the power was developed and recorded in symbols. The smiths were unconsciously guided by a higher power and developed a kind of religion: That of METTAL. The use of METTAL improved the quality of their smithing and enabled them to gather knowledge and power.
Development
The troll god METTAL gained very loyal followers in this valley and reveled in their worship of him. He showed off this to the other troll gods. They were inflamed with anger and jealousy, they also tried to gain influence in this valley, they did this by giving Mettal followers power over earth, fire and air. The Mettal followers used this power to make even better and more beautiful objects. They gained a lot of respect within the valley through their mysterious artifice. About 100 years ago there was a short period of other nature gods. This came about through the actions of a few jealous women who lured strange priests to the valley to influence the Mettal followers. But they swallowed strange priests and adopted their knowledge (protection and accelerated healing). These influences merged with the Mettal belief over time.
Present
The METTAL followers control all import/export of metals, which has made them a significant power factor. They also know the weak points of the mighty wise counsel; beautiful jewels. The origin of the belief has been lost, but the worship of the god Mettal has remained undiminished. In the many years of religious experience, various strange rituals have been developed. One of these is the strong separation of metals, with bronze being the lowest and silver the highest in esteem. The symbolism of this belief is stamped in metal.