On Nobility and the perils of magic!

Nobility of Zengul

The city is ruled by the Sable Emperor and has been since before the ending of the First Age of Man. To most of the populace the Emperor is eternal, though any thinking person will agree the Mask is passed on through the family line. Some Emperors have been female, others male. The rumours that the Sable Emperor is a vampire who survived the end of the First Age are, naturally, treasonous to express.

The noble families that run the city form a vast nepotist oligarchy at the heart of Zegful. They control most of the major trade routes and the diplomatic ties with all other cities, nations and empires. You can be wealthy and powerful in the city – many merchants and those who run districts are – but your power is always funnelled through a very narrow tunnel. You make make the best beaded artwork the city has ever seen, but your supply is determined by the nobility who truly determine how the city functions.

The downside of this is that if there is a shortage of anything – especially if it is essential – the nobility are blamed. Their sections of the city may be guarded, but these are hired guards: never the Royal Guard, and never the City Guard. And they can turn on their own masters as fast as anyone else, especially if infighting with another noble house of trade problems have limited the cash flow the family has. As a result, most noble families have their fingers in many pies, often from many removes, but chiefly control raw goods more than finished products.

The battle between the varied noble Houses means that the nobility go to drastic steps to have even a small benefit over others. Assassination is not allowed, but spying on a family, figuring out about their more illicit deals and the like it entirely permitted and some For Hire groups do nothing but that. The pay is good, provided one can bring in results. And the nobility always operate at several removes so your actions can’t be traced back to them. If they aren’t, they are desperate and you’d best keep far away from them.

This does mean that cyphers are very prized by the nobility despite magic being extremely frowned upon at best. Every noble family has at least one ‘tame’ wizard in employ they wish no one to know about, and try and use that power against each other. It’s one reason why sone wizards curled up in weird towers are ignored by Officialdom since they are actually working for them. The wiser families have a wizard among their staff – often dubbed a sorcerer, as if the name somehow makes it safer – but the discovery of them has destroyed more than one house down the years.

Gm Note: The power struggles among the noble families are epic in scope. Everyone is competing for a piece of the pie and few are willing to try and make a bigger pie. The city survives because of trade and the realization that, should things go to hell, they are the ones the commoners will come after first. That being said, the House in charge of a commodity can change in moments and Houses fall and rise in standing with the Sable Emperor on a daily basis. Some Houses even utterly fall, but this is seeen as a good thing because it makes an opening into a very rarefied spectrum of the city.

Servants of the nobility tend to play up – or down – the nature of the noble Houses, their time among the families, what it is like on an airship and the like for one reason or another. Some of the noble Houses don’t even have any servants, partially as a result of this.

Spotting Magic

Everyone knows magic exists, though few have seen it in action. Everyone knows wizards are dangerous and scary, but again few have really met one. Mostly because only survivors live to tell stories. The problem of this is that many foci can be mistaken for magic [and can well be magical in nature] so this can be used in beneficial and worrisome ways. The flip side of all this is that there are many wards against the evil gaze, items for detecting magic and the like for sale. Some of them even work properly. Most likely do not.

Enough do that wizards (and those lowly adepts) don’t like to be around market squares just in case and many wise merchants and traders carry at least one item of dubious provenance designed to discover the use of magic. Generally, magic detecting dowsing roads and compasses are the most common items for sale and most sellers move often, have little stock and make it a point to never issue refunds. Items that consistently work are, naturally, seized by the authorities.



Noble Families (added May 22nd)

House Leden. One of the major noble families, they specialize in trade routes and currently control over 50% of the fleet of Zengul. This is after 10% of it being decimated as a result of some ill-advised ventures into slavery and Zeunorst but it is at present perceived to be the most powerful of the noble families. Their almost-monopoly on trade across the ocean has a lot of other Houses jealous of them.

House Ernsai / House Towen: Two families vying for control over the mines and minerals about the city. Both Houses are powerful, with many merchants and smithies tied to each but their struggle against each other keeps them on an even footing.

House Aild: House Aild controls the granaries of the city. It is the second House Aild, the previous one having been destroyed during riots of a family 60 years ago.

House Silverson: House Silverson deals with spices and salts and is the only noble family that survived the First Age entire intact. It is said that even the Sable Emperor finds them pompous.

House Marlet: House Marlet is the largest of the current houses in numbers, and manages hunting and disposal and use of animals outside the city proper. if you’ve had anything cured and tanned, it went through this House at some point.

House Yisham: Unlike the other major houses, Yisham is not focused on base goods but they do supply many judges and are focused on schools and the higher education in the city. They trade in knowledge, essentially, and are very good at what they do. The House having been founded by lesser members of the family of the Sable Emperor is a large factor in this, naturally.

House Greystoke: The only House whose power residences mostly outside Zengul, they focus on the other lands, cities, and diplomacy and their status as a major house fluctuates under the favour of the Emperor.

Minor Families:

House Draal: minor family specializing in the trade of foodstuffs.

House Skelsay: The House that makes all flying airships and control the airways. They would be more powerful, but it is a colossal expense to make and maintain the airships of Zengul.  

To Live and Die in Zengul!

The city of Zengul has lasted alone of the old empires into the Second Age of Man. Built upon old dwarven caverns and compassing several old woods of the elves, the vast city houses teeming masses who plunged into its walls to escape the war between the gods and men – most simply never left and the city has grown and sprawled beyond the ancient stone walls. Scattered vassal towns supply trade, whole sections of the city are devoted to farms and gardens while the rest is towering towers of stone mixed with newer wooden structures. They say that Man will last until Zengul falls and there are those who think it true and yearn for nothing else.

A city of crowded streets and deeper shadows, Zengul is largely human though a scattering of dwarves, elves, half-breeds and other races can be found if one knows where to look. Trade is never turned away so long as one has gold to bargain with and one night of drunken revelry can make or break the mightiest of those who walk within the cities walls. There is coin to be mad and reputations to be made if one knows where to look. So, too, are their cults to the old gods and the new, and even in this age secretive wizards practise their forbidden arts, half-made and driven by desires the sane cannot understand.

It is a city of old secrets and ancient powers, everything held together by the city guard, the royal guard and that each district of the city polices itself – or is simply razed to the ground. Living isn’t cheap, even though life is, and to survive the cunning and skilled employ secret magics, sneak items about their person and learn strange, weird abilities that give them a slight edge against the world. Sometimes it’s even enough.

YOU: you are part of a motley band of For Hires, the simple term for people who are for hire to do various strange and odd jobs throughout the city. Based out of the Broken Pony, an old tavern in the Rickshaw district. The district is the usual narrow, winding affair that is now almost entirely devoid of the rickshaw’s popularized in it decades ago; a few shops built them for the wealthier districts and this one is close enough to the river and the ports that the appearance of non-humans is sometimes less of an Issue than it might be in other places. You have your table – the back wall, left side, beside the one fire place – and pay ‘rent’ for it to the mostly absentee owner, in term getting slightly cheaper drinks sometimes.

Life isn’t cheap: Rickshaw trades in gold and silver coins like most of the city. (The squalid districts outside are poor enough to use copper and none of you have even been to the wealthy districts were gold and platinum are the only currency of choice.) Meals start at 1 sp for poor meals, Ale at 2-4 sp, lodgings at least 1 gold. In general, expect your PC to pay out 2-5 GP/day in living expenses. Given the PCs spend a lot of free time in the tavern, this is likely closer to the 5 GP mark. [We’ll pretty much use the D&D costs, though expect all living, food etc. stuff to be at least double the book cost; weapons are the same as ever.]

Life In Zengul

Zengul is vast and sprawling, the largest city in the known world and the only one to have survived the First Age intact. It has a deep history other cities do not. Dwarves live in it, and rarely under, as smiths and traders. There are still three forests in the city claimed by the Elven kind and goblin-kin scurry unnoticed below the city as the vermin they are. You can find anything in Zengul, and often enough anything can find you as well. Most people just live their lives trying not to be noticed and hoping to eke out a decent living in a city as expensive as Zengul. Others want more, or know they deserve more. You’ve seen narrow towers inhabited by occupants to pay no rent because landlords are terrified of them, the vast airships that only the nobility have access to, heard stories of the mighty adventurers who tamed the Twisted Ones underneath the Cloven Lady Inn. You know the world offers more, and you’re determined to make your mark upon it – one way or another.

The city is divided into a variety of Districts that pretty much run themselves. The city guard proper are cruel but considered fair(ish) and only involve themselves in district-level affairs if the bodies pile up or taxes are not paid. If the city guard cannot deal with a problem, the Royal Guard are called in. In addition to protecting the districts of the city owned by the wealthy and the palace of the Sable Emperor, they protect the farming districts that supply the city with foodstuffs etc. and no one tries to interfere with those. (They take up ~1/4 of the city, at the northern tip.) If the Royal Guard have to deal with a problem, they often simply burn the entire district to the ground and have it rebuilt – no one wants them involved, so districts police themselves via wealthier merchants and citizens hiring For Hires to deal with any problems before any authorities have be invoked.

Inspirations

This game is inspired by the Conan novels, the city of Lankhmar in terms of tone. Dark mysteries, weird horrors and magic is generally alien and evil in nature. This is not a safe world, but adventurers and heroes slowly but surely help make it safer. 

General Note

The game will use the Cypher System (with PCs starting at tier 1). You’ve had a few adventures, met the other PCs before, made a small name for yourselves and begin based out of the Broken Pony. The setup is intended to allow for and take into account player absences and the like from week to week. Urchins deliver messages rapidly and with uncanny skill borne from the desire to survive. Characters can be called to a scene, summoned away etc. by such machinations as needed. 

MAKING YOUR PC

This game is going to use the Cypher System (and Rulebook). If you only have access to the Numenera one, it can be used just fine but you won’t have as many options for the character as other players will. Type options are: the Warrior (geared toward combat), Explorer (your jack of all trades, focused on adventuring), Speaker (more about success using brains and personality) and the Adept. Starting as an Adept is not wise since there is a great deal of fear, mistrust and hatred where magic is concerned and you’d have far more difficulty hiding your nature than other PCs would.

Relevant Types and Foci are on pages 238 and 239 in the book. Flavours are encouraged to fit a PC idea and you will be able to alter your characters Descriptor and even Type and Focus if need be as the game progresses. For example, if your PC starts out as a Brash Thief [Explorer flavoured with stealth] who Works The Back Alleys they could in time become more a Clever Thief who Murders, for example, in terms of character progression. Changing your descriptor during the game does not change stats, though it may affect your skills and abilities and inabilities. Changing your focus is a conscious RP effort and will be worked out with the GM.

The more esoteric foci – Bears A Halo of Fire etc. – will be viewed as magic and with the relevant fear and suspicions they engender. Magic is feared and hated, but clever use of such a focus and bluff enemies into thinking your PC is far more dangerous than they are and keeping you alive – so long as you don’t use it too often and get known for it, after all. No one trusts workers of magic if they have any common sense to them at all.

You can, of course, make a human. If you make an elf or dwarf, that becomes your PCs descriptor. (If you want to make a half-elf (human/elf cross) or halfling (human/dwarf cross) talk to the GM and we’ll work out how the descriptor works for that. Being not human will impose Racial Intrusions in terms of NPC views and actions at times.

Magic and Cyphers

Cyphers are items left over from the war between the wizards and the gods. They tend to blend in and take the form of rings, wands, strange stones etc. but those who study them can learn their secrets and use them but once. The downside is that the wizards – often hiding in strange places, cowering in ancient towers and underground hovels – want them very much, since they can learn the spell and use it more often than mere plebeians. Having too many spells about your person can cause the magics to interact and is generally a recipe for suicide.

Mad wizards have ways around this but are a) mad, b) NPCs and c) the very real reason people are scared of magic. Not that wizards are anything like gods, and if the stories of the end of the First Age of Man are true even the gods can die. Surprise a wizard, or have a clever trick or bargain and they die as easily as anyone else. Sometimes easier given they tend not to be the healthiest bunch in general.

Divine magics exist, but gods only provide aid to those who follow that god. (This can be an explanation for a foci, if you wish.) The exception is healing potions. These count as 1 cypher and act as a single free recovery roll (regain d6 points+1/tier). The varied cults in the world can be as dangerous as wizards – even more so, in many cases – but the relative amount of ‘here is healing’ sways the public more in their favour a little bit.

PCs each begin with 1 healing cypher and another one. They can choose one that fits their PC – which you’re assumed to have bargained and traded for – or one will be randomly rolled.

Note: PCs cannot begin the game with any form of Noble background. Those who rule the city may as well live in another world for all you know of them.