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romerona · 5 months ago

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Stellar Veil

In which a star falls in Westeros.

Cregan Stark x reader????

Words 1.7k

The night draped Westeros in its customary shroud, stars flickering like cold diamonds against the dark tapestry of the sky. And yet, amidst this celestial dance, a singular brilliance unfolded—a comet, resplendent in its fiery tail, streaked boldly across the heavens.

In King's Landing, where ambition and conspiracy brewed as thick as the city's smog, the Red Keep stood sentinel against the cosmic display. Nobles and commoners alike were drawn to its battlements and gardens, their faces upturned in wonder and trepidation. The comet's golden glow suffused the city, casting shadows that danced across cobblestones and whispered secrets into the night.

Far to the west, where the Iron Islands gripped the tempestuous seas, sailors paused in their dance with the waves. From the deck of every longship, weathered faces turned skyward, witnessing the comet's passage mirrored in the restless waters below. Above them, the ancient castle of Pyke seemed to hold its breath, its jagged silhouette outlined against the blaze.

Across the tumultuous waters of the Narrow Sea, the comet's brilliance reflected off the prow of Braavosi merchant ships and the galleys of the Free Cities. Sailors, traders and slaves hardened by salt and sea, paused in their endless voyages to witness this divine occurrence.

In the Reach, where the verdant fields of Highgarden stretched beneath a canopy of stars, peasants and nobles alike paused. They gazed heavenward, their hearts filled with awe and mistrust, as tales danced upon their lips.

And in the North, where the night was as black as obsidian and the stars burned with an icy intensity, the comet blazed its final path. Its light pierced the veil of mist hanging over the haunted forest and the desolate lands beyond. There, amidst the sentinel trees and the solemn silence of the far North, the comet's radiance flared brightly before vanishing beyond the horizon.

South of the Wall, in the desolate expanse known as the Gift, the comet's descent shattered the silence of the frozen wilderness with fierce force. A blinding flash of light, brighter than the pale moon above, rent the night asunder. The ground trembled violently beneath the celestial impact, sending shockwaves rippling through the thick crust of snow that covered the ancient land.

As the earth ceased its violent tremors, silence descended upon the northern wilderness like a heavy cloak. The Night's Watch, vigilant guardians of the Wall and the realms of men, stood amidst the aftermath of the comet's impact, their faces etched with awe and apprehension.

Commander Ulric Rivers, a grizzled veteran of many winters, surveyed the scene with a mixture of curiosity and concern. His voice cut through the lingering echoes of the crash, commanding attention from the assembled rangers.

"Brothers," he intoned, his words carrying the weight of authority earned through years of service beyond the Wall. "Gather your gear. We must survey the impact site."

The rangers, seasoned men clad in black with weapons and fur-trimmed cloaks, exchanged glances of determination. Among them, Harald Snow, a knight of the Watch known for his keen eye and steady hand, stepped forward.

"Commander," Ser Harald spoke, his voice steady despite the tension that hung in the air, "We will go. We'll bring back word of what we find, true as steel."

Commander Ulric nodded in approval, his expression grim but resolute. "Go swiftly, and return with all haste. The hour is late."

With that, the rangers set forth, the horses steps crunch on the icy ground as they ventured towards the crater that marked the comet's violent descent. Behind them, the rest of the Night's Watch remained vigilant, their eyes trained upon the northern horizon where the comet's trail still lingered faintly in the night sky.

The rangers approached the crater cautiously, their breath visible in the frigid air as they navigated the transformed landscape. The snow around the impact site had melted into a steaming morass, revealing scorched earth and jagged fragments of rock still glowing faintly with residual heat. The air hummed with a strange, palpable energy, casting an otherworldly glow over the scene.

Ser Jaremy Woodbear, his hand resting on the hilt of his sword, led the way with Harald Snow close behind. Their sharp eyes scanned their surroundings, taking in every detail with the precision of a seasoned watchman. Beside them, Alexio Stone, a stoic figure with weathered features and a keen intellect, knelt to examine a particularly large fragment of rock that jutted from the ground like a blackened tooth.

"Careful now," Harald Snow cautioned, his voice a low murmur that carried on the wind. "We don't know what this rock may hold. Keep your wits about you."

Ser Jaremy Woodbear, ever vigilant, was the first to notice the form inside the crater—a woman.

"Ser Harald, come, there's a woman..." Jaremy called out quietly, his voice carrying a note of awe and uncertainty.

Harald Snow hurried to his side, his eyes narrowing as he beheld the scene before him. Nestled amidst the charred remnants of the comet's impact lay a figure unlike any he had seen in his years ranging away from the Wall. A woman, an ethereal woman. Her skin seemed to shimmer with a faint glow, casting gentle reflections upon the jagged rocks that surrounded her.

"Gods be good," Harald muttered under his breath, his hand instinctively reaching for the hilt of his sword. "What in the name of the Seven Kingdoms...?"

Alexio Stone slowly made his way down and knelt beside the woman, his weathered hands hovering uncertainly above her prone form. "She... she's glowing,"

The woman lay still, her chest rising and falling in a steady rhythm that seemed out of place amidst the chaos of the impact site. Her hair, a cascade that shimmered like moonlight, framed a face that could have graced the halls of the most illustrious castles in Westeros. Despite the harshness of her surroundings, an air of tranquility radiated from her presence, as if she were untouched by the violence that had torn through the night.

"She does not seem a threat. We'll take her back to Castle Black,” Harald decided finally, his gaze lingering upon the woman's enigmatic form. "Ser Jaremy, help me carry her."

With careful hands, the ranger lifted the unconscious woman from the heart of the crater, cradling her as gently as if she were made of glass. Her ethereal glow seemed to pulse faintly in response to the touch, but as they traveled, the ethereal glow that had surrounded her began to dim, fading like the dying embers of a once brilliant fire. Her radiant presence dwindled until she appeared as any ordinary woman, though her beauty still held a haunting quality that spoke of otherworldly origins.

Harald Snow glanced at her intermittently, his brow furrowed in contemplation. "Keep an eye on her," he instructed the rangers quietly, his voice carrying a rare note of uncertainty. "We know not what we carry."

The journey back to Castle Black was fraught with quiet tension, each step echoing with the weight of their extraordinary discovery. The woman remained unconscious, her features peaceful yet arcane as if she carried secrets woven into the very fabric of her being.

As the gates of Castle Black creaked open to admit the weary party, all eyes turned towards the mysterious woman cradled in the arms of Ser Jaremy Woodbear and his fellow rangers. The men of the Night's Watch gathered in hushed clusters, their faces etched with curiosity and apprehension as they beheld the ethereal beauty now brought within their walls. Commander Ulric Rivers stepped forward to greet them, his brow furrowed in stern inquiry. His gaze locked onto the woman.

"What is the meaning of this?" Ulric Rivers demanded, his voice cutting through the murmurs that had begun to ripple through the assembled ranks. His eyes narrowed with suspicion, though beneath the stern exterior, there flickered a hint of curiosity and perhaps even concern.

Harald Snow, unwavering in the face of his superior's scrutiny, stepped forward with measured resolve. "We found her at the site of the comet's impact," he explained evenly, his tone betraying none of the awe he felt at the mysterious woman's presence thought he hesitated to continue. "She… appeared to be glowing.”

The courtyard fell silent as the gravity of their discovery settled over the assembled brothers. Whispers filled the air, mingling with the chill wind that swept down from the Wall, most not believing, saying it was a wildling woman, others whispering about sorcery.

Ulric Rivers approached the woman with cautious steps, his gaze assessing her with a mixture of scepticism and a begrudging acknowledgement of the inexplicable. Her ethereal beauty was undeniable—a stark contrast to the rugged surroundings of the ancient stronghold. Her hair, a shade that shimmered iridescently in the torchlight, cascaded around her like a flowing waterfall of sapphire strands. It was a hue unlike any he had seen before.

Her attire was equally unusual—a gown of fine fabric that seemed to shift and shimmer with every movement, as if woven from threads spun by the stars themselves. Its design was intricate, with patterns that hinted at craftsmanship far beyond the skills known to the realms of Westeros.

Ulric Rivers frowned, his thoughts racing with speculation. "This is no wildling," he muttered under his breath, his voice a gruff murmur that carried a note of wonder. "Nor any woman of our lands."

Beside Ulric, Harald Snow exchanged a meaningful glance with Ser Jaremy Woodbear and Alexio Stone. They had seen many things in their years on the Wall, but none quite like this.

"Should we remove her gown?" Harald asked quietly, his voice tinged with uncertainty. That statement earn a hum of agreement from the men around them.

However, Ulric shook his head, his gaze still fixed on the woman. "No, leave her be for now, we'll keep her under watch until we have answers. Lord Stark will need to hear of this. Prepare quarters for her," he instructed, his tone firm despite the uncertainty that gnawed at the edges of his command. "And summon the Maester. We'll need his counsel."

With practiced efficiency, ser Jaremy Woodbear carried the woman to a chamber within Castle Black, where torchlight flickered against the ancient stone walls and cast long shadows across the floor. And above them, the stars continued their eternal dance, oblivious to the upheaval their celestial sibling had wrought upon the realm of men.

Part 2?????

A/N: The story is inspired by Stardust by Neil Gaiman.

I’m still unsure who is the main LI will be but Cregan is top 3.

And while it's an Xreader I will be describing the hair colour and eyes. But just that.

#the house of the dragon #the house of the dragon fanfic #winterfell #hotd imagines #Stardust #cregan x reader #house of the dragon x you #rhaenyra targaryen #daemon targeryen x reader #aemond targaryen x reader #aegon targaryen x reader #jace targaryen x reader #team black #westeros

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ms0milk · 11 months ago

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𝟏𝟑 | 𝐁𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐳𝐤𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐠

ー✧ prince!bakugou x royal guard!reader

"Inside of you, fury has been replaced by something black and entirely unfocused. He twists to glare at what has caught him under the arm. He blinks when he sees it is you."

no cw memories of an overprotective prince and high fever. author is blatantly in love with Kirishima. whole apologies, half apologies, wordless promises, technical treason. learning how to speak softly. covering each other's mouths so the truth can't slip out because I want them to kiss as badly as you do. somewhat suggestive. nonviolent touches in the palatial bedroom of a long-dead prince. part ii: fin 6.7k

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Mina Ashido is sick, not like you finally breathing softly on a bed the size of a merchant village, but with guilt. She flicks a bric-à-brac she found on some grand writing desk and Denki punches her shoulder when her nail taps the metal absentmindedly. Click. Thud.

Their eyes dart to the far side of the room across a row of white windows and stop on the knotted body of their prince, folded like a trench soldier on a chaise half his size. His hair shags over his sleeping face and crossed arms but Mina can still see the veins of his jaw, clenched and dreaming of adrenaline.

One loud sound might be it for them– Bakugou would eulogize sleep schedule before skinning them like fish but it’s four in the afternoon and Mina knows it’s actually because your fever broke this morning and he would detonate if anyone disturbed you.

You can lay there like an angel because you never really fall asleep, right? Sick as a dog and dreaming of work. Sero pokes his head inside for a second to check the firewood cache and steps out again. Kirishima wears a path from the kitchen to your new bedroom with his constant lumber deliveries because he knows you wouldn’t want to see him at your bedside. Dead, conscious, or otherwise. All four of them rot.

You make a spectacle of the prince wherever he’s seen with you and this time you weren’t even awake to witness your destruction. Bakugou, dripping wet for some reason, roared through the halls of Takoba at midnight which wouldn’t have been special save for how tightly he held you and how little you moved. Safe but limp in the crook of his neck.

The castle at midnight is so much more lovely than during the day. There are no accusing Takoban eyes to make your Alderan shoulders itch and there was no loss of dignity in practicing her waltz in an empty ballroom. Mina swayed safe and alone and filled with excitement for the impending party. She anticipated Uraraka and practiced her flirtiest glances to deploy when the soldier inevitably found her, as she did every night, and sent her back upstairs. Mina was just a mage after all, not a lord or lady. Not a royal guard.

Boom! Rattled the ceiling from the floor above and where Mina was expecting a round-faced girl she’d gotten a heart attack. She snapped her candle in a startled fist at the first familiar eruption and darted up two staircases to Kirishima’s quarters with the second and third.

The champion was already half dressed. The heartbeat of the castle woke him up, the sound of hundreds of little bees mobilizing at royal orders.

They joined the flocks of servants and butlers in their night clothes all crowding, choking yawns, and rushing through the hallways, up higher and deeper into those frozen parts of the castle where their prince’s fury vibrated. The place no one dared breathe since the king left eleven years ago.

The North Wing was closed forever and someone had lit a spark at its highest point. Maids to her right, butlers and nurses to his left, Kirishima and Mina became insignificant in the river of nightgowns and candles and slippers and whispers. There is always more staff in Takoba than soldiers. Who could he have possibly picked a fight with at this hour? The farther Takobans hiked, the deeper their bones felt the cold in this place no one should be. Death march.

“Katsuki!” Someone rasped. The champion hoisted Mina onto his shoulders when they could no longer force themselves forward up stairs and through archways. Only little Shuzenji’s great big voice called out clearly for the crowd to hear, “Katsuki– you’ll be arrested, this– this is, I mean, you’re– fuck.”

At the end of the hallway, two red doors hung open, one truly dangling by its top hinges. The prince crouched just inside, squat by the light of a beautiful fireplace and its fine tinder. Chairs and ottomans, a writing desk, curtains and rugs, all delicate and silver and crushed and melting and screaming with moisture in a white Alderan fire.

“She needs fresh air and a fucking fireplace.”

You were melting in his arms too, quietly.

Sweating and indifferent to how carefully he supported the back of your head or with what level of self control it took for him to surrender you into the lap of the exasperated Takoban doctor.

“This is a lot of fuss for a fever, Katsuki.”

“Get useful or die trying.”

Six footmen at the front of the crowd panicked at his words and knelt immediately to collect splinters from shattered furniture. They winced as the crowds continued to push around and above them to get a view of just what the Alderan guest would do with Prince Touya’s long dead bedroom.

He knelt in it. When the fire in its place wheezed, he fed it the dead boy’s gilded furniture and knelt again near you.

He lurched but didn’t strike when you were moved from the floor to the bed and found a seat again. He glared at loud noises from the foot of the bed but sat still as superstitious servants trembled while lighting candles. He rumbled when Princess Fuyumi squeezed herself through the frozen crowd with Uraraka in tow and immediately made an order for fresh bedlinens and firewood because before anything, before she was even a sister she was a saint.

He didn’t do too much more than that. He sat like a threat until dawn while staff and nurses buzzed around to make the North Wing breathe again. He waited for arrest.

He frowned at his Alderan company as they hovered in the doorway and sometimes he let them sit with you when he knew he needed to sleep. He balled his fists as he told them your misunderstanding and nothing else. More than anything he waited for you to wake up.

Prince Bakugou sleeps like a psychopath, you bewilder as you rub your eyes. He’s still pretty, knotted half a million ways to hell on the velvet chaise across the room and seeing him asleep is much more unusual than seeing him surrounded by books like this. There’s a pile at his feet and another at his head and a console table between them for his teacup and a pen.

It’s less scary to think about touching him when he’s sleeping. About rubbing his shoulder with your soft palm and stumbling back to this obnoxiously comfortable bed with his heat at your back– no. About rolling over in this obscenely large bed through morning chill and sunlight to find his magic-worn hands already pulling you against him. Fumbling to tuck every part of you inside his arms half-alseep– slipping under your–

About finally throwing your weapon aside as dust settles, victorious, and rattling his skull with the bloodiest punch you can manage. Breaking your fingers on his golden jaw– about kneeling over his battered body, panting, as he uses the last of his strength to raise his arms, to– no– to trace his fingers over your cheeks– no– and through your hair where you loom above him. About letting him pull you down with the last of his strength to kiss you on the battlefield.

Something outside clatters and crashes and your eyes fly open as you sit up in the room you made in a dream. You rub your eyes, deja vu, and spot your golden prince right where you left him. Scowling, pretty, on a sofa across the room in the afternoon sun. Someone shouts outside and you lurch from an aggressively comfortable bed with the confidence of a person who has just woken up without a question for reality. You are a captain and there’s violence outside the place where your prince is sleeping. No thoughts to your ten-pound beddress or the continental mystery bedroom or the fire that blazes in its white marble fireplace.

“You oaf!” Someone hisses as you pitter-patter pitter-patter and clear the room barefoot to throw open one of two elven doors. That someone is Mina. She is pretty and pink and she stares at you with her mouth open in a hallway cold enough to outline her breath in small puffs of shock.

Takoba is a series of beautiful rooms tied to tall hallways, this one’s no different. Mina is bathed in the warmest sunlight October can offer even in a place like this and she’s hunched and pointing in the middle of scolding Sero who has also frozen to stare at you on his knees halfway through reaching for a log that’s gotten away from him.

“Do you need help?”

Mina reaches for you like the air is too thick to move. You almost call her Lady again before you remember.

“Y/n,” she breathes. Sero is forgotten on the floor because you’re suddenly here in this doorway while the last vestiges of sleep drip off of you, gooey, onto the marble. “Y/n, are you–” she slips your hands into hers when she manages a step forward.

Bakugou and the sea, right? A column of fire in your chest and a trip back home. Was touching him a dream? They’re no lords. I hate you. One lost Alderan earring and two hands holding you. Last time they were golden and trembling.

Mina’s fingers twitch with every word out of her mouth, “I’m so sorry.”

“Mina, don’t–” Sero tries to stop her.

“We’re so sorry, Y/n, so so sorry, please gods we’re–”

“Mina.”

Her body goes rigid but her hands stay soft on yours when she snaps at him, “Like you weren’t in tears two days ago! Don’t pretend to be cool.”

You become aware of your clothes for the first time when you consider their earnest Alderan faces and your tangled hands. Completely unarmed in a quilted dress that drags on the ground. Seashells twinkle when you move.

“Course I’m sorry,” Sero shudders. He rises and your eyes finally adjust well enough to sunlight to catch Kaminari standing statue-still beside a window where it appears you burst onto the scene as he was making to close it, “she’s my captain.”

If you weren’t still processing his lack of lordship you’d order him to his knees for the treason of calling you captain. What purpose does he serve in the castle? A mage like Mina? You cock your head and stuffy nose, and shift to shake away the inconvenient thought that someone’s been calling you captain for weeks with no punishment. Kaminari breathes, “Katsuki told us.”

“We thought you knew– we never meant to–!” And again your attention is on Mina, desperately closer than she’s ever been. Closer than anyone’s dared to hold you gently, “We thought you were playing Y/n, we– I should have said something.”

And of all the things to remember from that night, delirium and immodesty, a humiliating rescue, thoughts that meant to stay inside forever, I hate you, the taste of someone else’s teasweet breath– the one bites the least. They’re not lords.

It’s cold out here, you should invite the lot of them inside to warm up. You should ask them where the fuck you are.

“It’s my mistake Ms. Mina,” you smile pretty like you’ve trained for, “Harmless. Don’t worry.”

Three huge eyes blink out of sync surely because someone thought it was funny to put you in a queen’s night dress and hide your shoes. It’s better they’re not lords to be seeing you in the state.

“We,” Sero starts confidently and trails off with the syllable. Mina’s thinking.

Kaminari speaks beside the window and the three of you turn to his light, “We watched you grow up in that beautiful castle,” he hums. He has spoken with you twice, three times now, and it’s never been particularly affective or affectionate but he’s right that home is beautiful. Aldera is lots of things. You falter in the doorway now that adrenaline has bled from you into Mina’s hands. “You were in my letters class.”

Eight years old and late for Letters in a thunderstorm that swept you to the prince and clobbered you both with peaches. The students gaped when you stepped inside, dripping rainwater and bruised, to take your seat at the head of the class with a weapon still strapped to your back. Kaminari looks as if on the verge of tears which all feels a bit melodramatic for one damp day fifteen-some years ago. “I was afraid of you. Y/n, I’m so sorry.”

“I –” Mina releases your hands so she can stand a bit taller, so you turn, “I believed what people told me, Y/n, I’m sorry. I listened in the kitchens and spellhalls when they told me you never eat or sing, I believed them every time I scurried past your post with an errand and back again where you hadn’t moved a breath for hours.” It’s kind that she’s not touching as she speaks but the cold of the hallway is pinching your stupid bare feet. You never cared enough to pay attention to her either, why should she apologize? You never noticed her out of the tens of children that studied with you, worked around you, served you, fell to you in training.

“When you didn’t recognize us at the start of the trip I thought you were so cool. I thought, no, it was just so cool to be traveling with the only Alderan apprentice– Spear of the Queen– you– I watched you get stronger for years. Sero would come to the potion pantry while Kaminari and I organized and gush about any impossible whathaveyou Jeanist’s Second pulled off in the gallery that day. Any Alderan could recognize you from footsteps, you’re– I– I’m not doing a good job.”

“She’s sorry.”

“I’m sorry,” she confirms and hovers between your bodies like she’s warming her hands with your fire. “You’re a hero. I’m just a training mage the prince can’t get rid of and you’ve saved the skin off our skulls more times than there are calendars. Y/n,” you look between Mina who presses no closer and the boys behind her, “I’m a coward, I want to know everything about you.”

You are ridiculous, dressed up in a doorway at noon with no idea how you got there and a hunger that teeters on allconsuming. You are a soldier. You are Jeanist’s soldier, you are his prodigy you should have shoes–

Something startles your Alderan company, shoulders jumping, and Sero drops to a knee when he registers the dark cloud gathering behind his commanding officer wilting in a nightgown by the sea.

“Wers, there he goes.”

“I am bound by blood and at your service, my captain! My behavior is unacceptable while you have been serving alone in Takoba.”

A soldier then. Mina turns from her friend on the floor to gauge your new reactions while Kaminari presses two footsteps closer. That night comes back in pieces. You reach for your ear and pinch one lobe in icy fingers while the Alderans look on. What part of the dream is this? First Bakugou, his warmth and anger now these three? What will this one melt into? More fevered confessions? Send them away.

You feel the bark in your throat and wait to see which one of them will scurry from you first. Have they heard your soldier’s voice before?

Go on. No one moves because you can’t actually make the sound. Sero doesn’t raise his head. They are mages and you outrank them. Be gone. “Just–” what finally comes out isn’t the voice of a soldier at all, “please.”

“I’ll help you to bed,” Mina tentatively leans forward as you lean exactly back.

“not necessary.”

“Y/n, you’ve been out for three days,” Kaminari closes in too, “We’ll throw some logs on your fire and get out of your hair, but first can we make sure you’re okay? Call the doctor and get you some food?”

You can only lean so far before you need to take a step, and then only so far after that before your back hits the door that has shut behind you. You haven’t been sick because you don’t get sick. You’ve been dreaming, too much, which is worse.

A series of hollow crashes startle the Alderans again half out of their coats but you haven’t been caught by surprise in seven years.

“Y/n,” Kirishima hardly whispers, barely breathes where he’s appeared a little ways down the hall, dropping stacks of lumber from his arms onto the marble. He didn’t grow up in the castle. He showed up a few years ago stuck to the hem of Bakugou’s cape like tree sap and he’s always made every effort to smile. A smile from a stranger doesn’t mean much.

“Y/n,” he whispers again and staggers forward like he’s tried to catch himself from tripping, “you’re–” at first he is relief and then you remember, in a moment of lucidity, that you’re upset with him. “You’re awake.”

His limp hair flounders red in your direction. What right does he have to look so disheveled? Dark circles and a creased forehead, for what? His palms and sleeves are flecked with splinters and filth that he tries to brush off as he steps over firewood– tree trunks really– that now litter the hallway.

Fury gives you the strength to step forward, “You–”

“You,” the distance is closed. Alderans have stopped pressing into you and watch their companion, rosy cheeks, dark stubble, smile lines thrown to the wayside and big, wet eyes, reach, “You scared me.” And on contact he dissolves into a sob.

Kirishima grabs your sleeve first without his usual care and wrenches you deep into his arms. Maybe you’re tired, you don’t strike him as he shakes.

“You, you have to tell someone, Y/n,” you can only hear the words through vibrations in his chest and now the whole hallway smells like sweet Alderan fire. You should be suffocated, furious, you shouldn’t close your eyes. “You can’t just collapse. No one needs to be that strong– it– you– ’m so sorry.”

The champion’s fingers clutch at the back of your neck and shoulders but you’re too shocked to notice until his warmth, his fire and safety, pulls you away by the cheeks. Kirishima cradles your face in two hands that could crush and tries to speak through agony. Drowning teardrops plummet off his black lashes, “it must have been so lonely.”

And what Mina saw as exhaustion, Sero anger, folds the corners of your mouth like paper, lips trembling, and wets both eyes with a blink.

It is something inexplicable like being thirteen on your way home from Peruro. A day of joy, song dance and feats of strength. Fencing competitions. They don’t give toy swords to soldiers and so you slipped inside the quietest part of the celebrating castletown, victorious two years running, bloodied and something more than tired. Crunch. As you approached the basin in the stables for jockeys to rinse mud from their eyes, you lifted your boot just enough to watch the broken green body of a mantis fall apart between the ground and your tread. One thin arm, little just like yours, remained untouched by your footprint and detached entirely from the creature that was just two more arm’s-lengths too slow.

You were startled for the last time in your glance to the mirror. You usually rinsed muck or sweat off your cheeks in the stables and the horses were here, the smell and warmth were here, but today you were splashed in blood. And so much worse than that, tears ran clean streaks through the filth. When you fall to pieces in your beautiful dress beside the sea it is impossible to hide.

“Please can we help you?” Kirishima blubbers through a smile before you nod, and he pulls you back in tight.

It is so strange to be held and uninjured. A hand materializes at the top of your head and more bodies surround you in the dark of Kirishima’s chest. Splinters poke at your cheeks but you press through them. You hold tight to the fabric of his sleeves and wrap a warm finger around the cold fingers that find yours.

It’s condescending and so unnaturally welcomed. You can’t even cry right. The tears fall and your voice breaks uneven because you’ve forgotten how to breathe with a lump in your throat, how long has it been? Steady arms hold you upright as you try to remember. Anything for you, Majesty. Don’t need a babysitter. Who’re you lookin at? Cover yourself. Captain! Y/n! Yes sir. Yes sir. Yes sir.

“I’m.. ‘m so hungry,” you sob in muffled fragments and the champion rumbles with true tearful laughter,

“She’s hungry!”

Mina wraps herself around your back and grips the knit of Kirishima’s tunic to keep all three of you tight together. She’s crying too from the sound of it, and rambling as always through the tears, “Don’t just drop dead in the hallway for Kats to collect! Thought he was gonna torch the castle–” she shakes you all, Kirishima as the lighthouse, “my blood pressure’s never recovering from this week snakes on high I know we deserved it but we haven’t had a moment’s rest with that lunatic playing bedside officer,” she is still gentle when she touches you, when she rubs her cheeks to yours, when she leans herself into the champion’s hold to be that much closer, “I’m a much better nurse, Y/n, promise, I promise wouldn’t–”

“Talkin shit?”

What if someone had found you that day in the stables, instead of clapping you on the back for the day’s bloody victories and ignoring your red rimmed eyes? Bakugou crosses his arms over his golden chest and leans against the doorway framed by fire whipping in the bedroom behind him. It’s subtle, but the heat’s made his ears pink. No one moves.

“A bit..”

Mina stuffs her hand over Kirishima’s wobbling lips before he says anything else to get you all sent to the gallows. You just watch and the prince watches back; over the champion’s soft forearms and part of a filthy cotton coat, and partially through Mina’s hair. Bakugou’s collarbones roll with his breath where they poke out from his soft tunic, same with his stomach. It fills slightly with each heartbeat like he’s still too sleepy to harden himself and his posture.

You’re warm in this October hallway and your heart has been picked open by fruithungry doves. Bleeding down the front of this nice white nightgown, pooling rich at your feet. It’s easier to look at him when you’re crying. You stare through a crack in the hug with stray tears tumbling from your eyes like springs.

I’m not letting you out of my sight.

“Go on then, down mutts.” The prince unfolds and steps forward to pry Mina’s arms apart, “Couldn’t trust you assholes to be quiet if I cut out your tongues.”

His Alderan company thaws slightly at the sarcasm and the hands tying you together unravel at every angle under his orders until you are the only one standing on the stain your bleeding heart made.

Prince Bakugou is not the same as he was when he carried you from the sea. He surveys your heavy beddress and bare feet with a frown but no fireworks and today he’s wearing no jewelry at all. Not a ruby, bone, nor sun in sight. He is still clearly out of place here, golden milk and glowing like coals; two red eyes that love to glare and his lips that called your name as you both choked on ocean foam.

“Hungry?”

You nod and the shake dislodges loose tears.

He grunts and tips his head towards the bedroom door, “Back inside. The rest of you,” and then turns to his company who has stiffly lined up along the wall to try and avoid the punishment their prince laid out very clearly in the event a series of Alderan shenanigans woke you up, “put your pea brains together and track down Uraraka– she’s late. And stop fucking crying.”

The prince would pull rank against a baby. He oozes control and ego and desperation for the self and it is infuriating how much he gets away with and how often he is right. His eyes are pomegranate seeds behind slits that shift constantly towards you in the cold hallway.

“Go on.”

You exchange a glance with your company behind you and each one of them is glowing with life. Mina has cleaned herself up with a smile and Kaminari leans against her, almost behind her, grinning nervously at his hellfire prince. Sero and Kirishima fight back tears and the lot of them hold their breath.

The mages delay their prince’s orders no longer. They file down the hallway. “Welcome back, Y/n!” Mina waves and rolls her eyes at Bakugou’s seething.

“Rest well,” Kirishima smiles and wipes his eyes with his filthy sleeve while collecting the logs he dropped. Kaminari manages a curtsy, which makes you laugh, and they all round the corner with unsubtle exhales.

For all his spitfire, cunning and rage, for all their worry and apology, your Alderan company never objects to leaving you alone with the prince. For all their apologies, for all his harsh words and actions. Is it their trust in you, or their trust in him? Alone and for a moment you stand just two arm’s lengths away from your prince while he looks pointedly down the hallway after their footsteps. His posture is returning. He rakes his hand like a claw through his hair to settle in itch and pauses for one more beat before turning to you. Prince Bakugou saved your life and you told him you hate him.

He cocks his head, “You look like shit.”

“Feel like shit, Highness.”

One fricative cough like laughter slips out of his chest and his eyes widen a bit, as if surprised by himself, before settling back to a scowl. He’s soft today, sleep deprived. You wipe the last of the salt from your eyes.

“Go back inside,” He instructs as he moves forward and corrals you back step by step.

“Where am I?”

Fury has been replaced by something wet inside of him, doused and smoking like a forest fire. He slips past you inside the white bedroom and marches to the camp he set up around his chaise to collect two books and a pen, which he tucks inside one cover before sticking both volumes under his arm. Prince Bakugou saved your life and slept beside you, and you told him you hate him.

You step toward him when he walks past again, this time out into the hallway, just too quickly for you to trap him with a stare. Your stomach cramps with hunger and your throat is dry from crying.

“Just go lay down.”

He does not get farther than one step over the threshold before you reach though, and clutch the hem of his tunic in a clammy hand.

Inside of you, fury has been replaced by something black and entirely unfocused. He twists to glare at what has caught him under the arm. He blinks when he sees it is you.

Prince Bakugou saved your life. He turns now when you dare to touch him, and when he looks at you the smoke inside him pours from his ears. The eye contact is not difficult like a spotlight or the sun, it’s more like a candle in the dark that stains the backs of your eyes for many few minutes. He looks like a dream in your delirium. What you must look like beneath him..

He squeezes his books tight under his bicep and fully squares himself to you, “I didn’t,” he starts. It’s a croak. It’s foreign to speak so softly as he speaks now, so softly you drop your hand from him and lean away. His ears are still red. “I didn’t tell them,” he frowns with thought, “about the sea.”

You stare at him like always and today like a void, and melt a little in front of the candle he is. What else is there to say? You nod and move away. His wax will burn you.

“Don’t–” he huffs. You weren’t surprised for seven years, not through contests or training, not under orders, not truly by the queen at the foot of your bed all those weeks ago, not camping with your new company and holding magic in your palms, not by blue fire. Bakugou clutches your wrist, your hand, when you turn away from him and the static shock makes each hair on your body rise. He squeezes your fingers through the goosebumps.

“Don’t ever–”

“Yes sir.”

“– not ever again.”

“Yes–”

“Y/n.”

You look forward unblinking while your prince reels you in like a fish, rolling your fingertips in his palm. You can’t even manage a frown when you face him, all that bubbles up is bitten lips.

You get one more chance to look at him, and when you do he doesn't bark or spit. Earnest red eyes watch under a frown.

“Just a prayer gone wrong, Highness. I promise.” You can’t feel the faint smile. You do not know what makes his eyes widen or scowl fall.

Someone clears their throat in the doorway behind him and the pair of you jump. Bakugou is quick to catch the books that fall from under his arm and you both rush to wipe your hands at your hips. Uraraka. She leans her weight against the door, “Sleeping beauties,” and smiles at you while your prince jerks away.

“You’re late,” he spits and pushes into the hallway.

“High Lords are waiting.”

“Spare me.”

Uraraka preens less than your Alderans but still ushers you to bed and rings a bell on the wall labeled ‘kitchen.” A log falls in the fireplace. Embers spit onto the marble hearth. The last glimpse of gold you catch is in your prince closing the bedroom door behind him, his hand like a claw again violently tousling his hair. You are a liar, you lie and tell lies, and you do not hate him at all.

Embarrassment is replaced with shame when you learn the princess has filled your new dressers with her old winter nightclothes. And when Uraraka tells you about her brother, the late prince, and his palatial bedroom locked away from the world with his mother’s sorrow.

You will find the princess tomorrow and press your head to the floor at her feet, you will kneel to the queen in thanks for her generosity, but tonight you will find your prince.

It won’t take long. Uraraka told you where his meeting was while she braided your hair and only half-heartedly instructed you to stay in bed when you asked for privacy. There is no lame guard stationed outside of this room, a room so high in the castle the fireplace can suck oxygen straight from the night sky above you. Warm like home. It’s easy to keep a fire that excited alive so you tent logs over the embers to feed it while you’re gone. Your white arming doublet blocks the cold– dragontooth brooch glowing– when you step into the hallway lit by torchlight, a gift and invitation from Master Aizawa.

The hallway is thawing slowly from it’s edges to its center and seems to be lined with every flammable item one could think of; candlesticks, torches, candelabrum, chandeliers– if a flame escaped from your fireplace the castle would burn from this hallway to it’s cornerstones like a match.

You smile watching the fire dance in place as you walk past them and into darker parts of the castle. Down staircases and through white hallways lined with their seed-sized carvings. Your temples ache with the change in temperature.

“Office of the King?” You ask a passing footman and they make a point to avoid eye contact before murmuring directions and shuffling away. Deeper you descend and even with rest and warm food in your belly your lungs start to work with great effort. “Office of the King?” You catch a housekeeper this time who is less timid but still keeps his head down like you are noble.

“Straight ahead,” he points and when he bows slightly to leave you no longer register his presence, because a fluffy golden head slips back inside a door in the hallway. You step down the last stair in front of you and into the corridor. Your boots would creak on wooden floors at home but along the marble you are silent.

There aren’t half enough torches down here to adequately light the way or warm the castle from the chill of its many windows. The door your prince tucked back inside of glows when you approach it. This is when you would steady your hand on your weapon, or shift your shoulder blades to feel the weight of your master’s halberd.

Office of the King. You trace the silver details with eyes and fingers because it is beautiful and you have finally found all the places your prince could possibly hide. With your relief you should have considered how to hide from him. The door flies open with too little forewarning for you to dodge and stops just short of knocking you across an already throbbing temple. Bakugou emerges in an air of tempest.

“Knew it,” he crackles like you are exactly who he was looking for and is wholly aggravated by it, “you’re fucking fired, get back in bed.”

He is wearing fine silks from Aldera and their golden fixtures and tassels stop your heart. His hair is soft tonight. It is pushed back with a jeweled comb so that pointed fringes fall barely over his eyes while medals and brooches pin silk in a bunch at the shoulder of his gambeson. He looks more like a general ready for war than a guest in a seashell castle.

The prince simmers, “We’re planning the ball not a coup, I don’t need a sentinel.” And squints when you don’t budge, eyes unfocused. He tuts his head in the direction you came, “Rest. Now.”

“Yes Majesty– Highness,” you snap and reach for a pair of passing maids who squeak when they can’t get past the Alderans fast enough to hide, “one of you, fetch me a chair.”

“Belay that,” he growls and they squeak again, “you’re a fucking handful.”

Bakugou pauses on you for three seconds and rolls his eyes before turning back inside to address someone, “Please continue without me,” with a voice you’ve never heard before.

When your prince walks you back to your bedroom he steers you from just slightly behind and at the exact angle you would use to escort a prisoner to the Hold. The only signs from him are in the thick of his black trousers beside your own legs or a sleeve ushering you up a staircase. When your breathing becomes obvious he slows pace. If you lean the wrong direction his head dips down close to glare and guide you with a trail of smoke. He’s only this quiet when he’s thinking.

What’s the time? Stars twinkle at the highest points of the castle lined with torches and tall windows.

“Ahead,” Bakugou murmurs and waves you forward with an open palm to the red doors around the bend. Your own corner of Takoba. You don’t remember the night that you were brought here. You don’t remember anything past, ‘I hate you.’

The prince clears his throat to answer your unvoiced question, “Shuzenji arranged it. Told the queen you needed a fireplace.” He walks clear through the logical spot to stop and leave you on your own for the evening, and marches right beside you to the doors. Add the doctor to your tour of thank yous and apologies.

“I told that shit apprentice not to leave you alone. You’re the gods' perfect little flight risk.”

It would be easier to stand close together if you still brimmed with unbridled fury. You drift beside him, too tired for any strong feelings one way or another. He does not hint at eruption. Your prince only grumbles and watches to make sure you step fully inside after pushing down the door’s silver handle.

The wave of hot air inside is a cushion at the end of what should have been a simple journey and instead knocked the four winds out of you. They were telling the truth, you must have been fighting something for days. It could be midnight, it could be dusk, your body cannot tell the time past its fatigue. There’s one more thing you have to do before you can give it what it wants.

“Kirishima’s coming to morning meetings tomorrow. I don’t need you both,” the prince speaks awkwardly loud like the thought came out too fast. He is telling you to rest.

“Yes, sir.”

“Wait for summons.”

He’s asking you to trust him.

“Yes sir.” You are too tired to lace the words with instigation and so Bakugou does not flinch like you like him to do when you call him sir. You turn away from the white warmth, fine cushions and curtains and fireplace, back to His Highness still stood stubbornly under your doorway. His headpiece glistens in the moonlight.

You will be his captain and you are not too good for a borrowed pair of greaves. You do not hate him. He can be the first stop on your tour.

Weary in your own little world and surrounded finally by fire, you steady your hands at your side and bend to take a knee. Forgive my…lots of things. “I’m–”

But Bakugou reacts again faster than you can fall. He jerks forward and catches you by both shoulders with his spark-leathered hands. The the last creature alive that can still startle you, not with his hold or speed, not with his magic, but his eyes. He stares through you in distress behind a pinched and stormy gaze. Spilled wine.

“Do not,” his voice rumbles through his touch. He pulls you up to standing and does not back away. Each hint his shoulders give promises that he will close any gap you try to make and so you do not move. He’s warm, his ears are red. Bakugou reaches between the gold clasps of his tunic and pulls out his fist for you to puzzle over in the few seconds it takes him, first to breathe, and then to open his hand.

One tiny sun, no bigger than an apple seed and polished to its core, twinkles like a spark on his palm.

He makes fine magic for you, he always has and you’ve never known it. He breathes again, “I. I’m..”

And you don’t mean to startle him, touch or stop him, but you do all three in rapid succession. Your hand jumps to his mouth because you don’t know how else to stop the birth of a star. You’re not ready for an apology.

His eyes mirror yours in their paralysis, his cloudy, yours panicked. His lips are damp. They part against your skin for a moment as he breathes once more deeply. As he closes his eyes– breathes you in. As you contend with the pulse of his tongue one last shock away from tasting the salt between your fingers. He is soft here. Here and when he wraps his own hand around your knuckles to disarm you. He does not let go when he lowers your hand, he does not let go after tucking the sun into your palm and closing your fist around it. Just for a moment.

Infinity is what exists in the void that replaced your fury and tonight it is full of fruit. Bruising peaches. Falling plums. Sneaking dinner under the Oak to watch his twinkling magic and to hide from crowds. Never questioning why students who told ghost stories about the child soldier never dared to bother you. Ignoring the peculiarity of Jeanist taking only one apprentice.

Inside, your expertly timed fire eats itself up in the silence and collapses to break the trance.

Immediately Bakugou dips away. He pulls back like you were the one holding him in place and leaves you briskly with his heart in your hands. He shakes his head and barks like a startled dog and does not look behind him, “Another time.”

The fire giggles and spits out embers. He hurries down the hallway because something in him died at sea to save you.

As you jump and skitter inside to the smell of smoldering rugs, your brooch and earring lay side by side where you toss them and leave them and try to sleep despite them, safe on the green velvet chaise.

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#i am so excited to enter into part iii- the last part!- with you all :')#theres only one more turn this relationship can take #bakugou x reader #bakugo x reader #bnha fantasy au #mha fantasy au #fantasy bakugou #fantasy bakugo #thank you for being a part of this adventure with me #a hymn to black water #bnha x reader #mha x reader

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mademoiselle-red · 3 days ago

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After watching a video essay on bilibili about the Jiangnan cultural topography of Mysterious Lotus Casebook, I've been thinking about how the drama engages with this cultural backdrop to explore what it means to be an outsider.

But first, what is Jiangnan?

Geographically, “Jiangnan is a geographic area in China referring to lands immediately to the south of the lower reaches of the Yangtze River, including the southern part of its delta” (from Wikipedia)

Historically, this area comprised the heart of the ancient Wu Kingdom, and its inhabitants speak the Wu Dialects to this day

Culturally, Jiangnan is associated with vibrant cities intersected by rivers and streams, prosperous merchant classes, soft-spoken people, and fine, delicate craftsmanship. It is distanced from the political centers in the north, far from the northern and southern borderlands, and is thus heavily associated in the cultural imaginary with civilian life (in contrast to courtly life).

The area in the pink circle on this map from Wikipedia is the Jiangnan that most modern Wuxia and costume dramas refer to.

Jiangnan as a cultural homeland

Jiangnan as a geographic backdrop and cultural landscape has interesting implications in MLC when it comes to understanding the cultural belonging and identities of the main characters.

Li Lianhua, Fang Duobing, Qiao Wanmian, and others in the Sigu Sect are locals to the region.

Di Feisheng is not from here (the Di Manor is in the “southwest”) and Jiao Liqiao is from here but identifies more closely with her Nanying nationality. They are both “outlanders” in the setting of the drama and in their relationship to the martial arts world.

Li Lianhua is native to this land of many rivers, and despite his wandering and rootlessness, he never really leaves his homeland. He wanders his homeland, refusing to be tied down by social relationships and public duty, but he is at home here. He is not truly rootless the way Di Feisheng is rootless: foreign to his newfound home and foreign to the home he fled from. Or the way Jiao Liqiao is rootless: foreign to the land she was born in, belonging to a nation that no longer exists.

#mysterious lotus casebook #mlc #an old post I found in my drafts #lian hua lou

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elbiotipo · 7 months ago

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I am watching a video with criticism of geographical determinism in worldbuilding and realized that I don't really remember seeing any fictional stereotypic merchant state that relies on rivers.

Norse and Rus were whom I had in mind, but to my knowledge British and Japanese people also heavily utilized rivers for trade and I would be very surprised if Ancient Chinese people didn't.

I don't know about history of First Nations of North America and did they have trade in our understanding, but I heard that river system of North America is so convenient that the entire 19th century demand for transportation could have been covered by it alone, without trains.

Just some ideas

Freshwater systems are woefully underused in worldbuilding. The other day I was reading about the history of my region and I was amazed at how big and sophisticated native canoes were in the Paraná, the Paraguay and the Amazonas, and how virtually nobody talks about it. We are talking about ships that could hold about 30 people and some were bigger than Columbus caravels. For centuries into the colonial era, the Spanish and Portuguese hired or pressed into service native navigators for the rivers which were though to navigate as a sea. Still before that, they were the major arteries of commerce and trade through the continent, this is well known. Even Patagonian goods are reported in Corrientes (North of Argentina) which indicates that trade there got very far. As for the Chinese, not only rivers were important to the but also they boasted an amazing canal system but that's about all I know.

One thing I learned recently about rivers and cities is that cities were often founded on the side of rivers, yes, but almost never at their mouth. Look for example at Paris, Rome, London, the Egyptian capitals. They were founded by the river, but the mouth of the river next to the sea is where the delta is, and deltas always change and flood, carrying mud and slit, they aren't good places to build at all. Good river cities are built in the 'deep side' of the river where you can build ports, not in the side where sediment accumulates. Another issue with river cities are marshlands. For example, I remember reading that the marshlands of ancient Rome were drained at great cost. Ancient peoples knew that marshes were 'unsanitary' even if they didn't know why (it's because they host mosquitos and parasites, not because of anything bad wetlands have on itself) and they had to deal with them. There are some exceptions to this, like Venice which was basically built on a marshland (or the Netherlands).

And indeed rivers were (and still are! I see ships going up and down the Paraná every weekend!) a very efficient way of transportation. There's lots about it written in Europe, but river barges were basically the railroads of their time. Before the advent of railroads, people in Europe (and China) weren't thinking roads, but canals, the French built a lot of canals at great expense which became obsolete later by railroad.

Unfortunately the sources about river canoes and transportation in America (continent) are often tucked away in papers and history books, there really isn't that much accessible literature and illustrations about it. Which is a goddamn shame because learning about native canoes bigger than Spanish caravels (and they were still building them in Paraguay and Argentina during colonial times, according to my sources) blew my mind.

#worldbuilding #history #rivers

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whencyclopedia · 2 months ago

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Louisiana Purchase

The Louisiana Purchase was a land deal made in 1803, in which the United States purchased 828,000 square miles (2,144,510 km²) of land west of the Mississippi River from France for $15 million, or an average of three cents per acre. The purchase nearly doubled the territorial size of the United States and fostered the westward expansion of the young republic.

Background: The Louisiana Territory

The colony of Louisiana was founded on 9 April 1682, when French explorer René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle reached the mouth of the Mississippi River. La Salle erected a cross at the spot, and, in a ceremony performed before his own men and his Native American guides, he proceeded to claim the entire Mississippi Basin for France, naming it Louisiana in honor of King Louis XIV of France (r. 1643-1715). Shortly thereafter, he returned to France, where he convinced the king to give him control of the new colony. La Salle then embarked on another expedition to fortify the mouth of the Mississippi by establishing another French colony around the Gulf of Mexico. This expedition, however, was beset by difficulties from the start. La Salle was unable to rediscover the mouth of the Mississippi and was ultimately assassinated by mutineers in 1687.

Over the next several decades, scattered settlements began popping up around the Mississippi River. New Orleans was founded in 1718, on the site where La Salle had made his proclamation 36 years earlier, and quickly turned into a rich port city. Timber, agricultural produce, and high-quality furs were shipped down the Mississippi River to New Orleans, where they would be sent on to Europe or New Spain. Despite the wealth generated from New Orleans, the Louisiana Territory as a whole was not highly valued by France. In 1710, Louisiana governor Antoine de La Mothe Cadillac reported that "the people are aheap of the dregs of Canada" and that the colony was "not worth a straw at the present time" (Smithsonian). Therefore, at the end of the Seven Years' War in 1763, France agreed to cede control of the entire Louisiana Territory to Spain. The exact boundaries of ‘Louisiana' were still murky, and the terms of the treaty granted Spain control of all lands west of the Mississippi River. At the same time, France ceded its northern colony of Canada to Britain, thereby unburdening itself of all continental colonies so that it could focus on its much more lucrative sugar colonies in the Caribbean.

Spain enjoyed a tenuous hold on the Louisiana Territory, which it viewed with disinterest, as little more than a buffer between British North America and Mexico. In 1783, the United States won its independence and gained control of the eastern banks of the Mississippi River. This led to rising tensions between the US and Spain, as each nation claimed the right to navigate the Mississippi, which had become a vital waterway for trade. This dispute was settled on 27 October 1795, with the signing of the Treaty of San Lorenzo, also known as Pinckney's Treaty. The agreement gave the Americans the right to navigate the entire Mississippi and allowed American merchants to store goods in New Orleans warehouses. While the treaty de-escalated tensions between the US and Spain, it increased American influence in the region at the expense of Spanish power, which had never been strong to begin with in the Louisiana Territory and was now on the decline.

La Salle Claims Louisiana for France, 1682

Jean-Adolphe Bocquin (Public Domain)

Then, on 1 October 1800, Louisiana changed hands once again. Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821) – who had risen to power in France a year earlier – made a secret deal with King Charles IV of Spain (r. 1788-1808) in the Treaty of San Ildefonso. In it, Spain agreed to cede the entire Louisiana Territory back to France, in exchange for control over the Kingdom of Etruria in Italy, which King Charles wanted to give to his daughter. Napoleon was pleased by the easy acquisition of the Louisiana Territory, seeing it as the first step in re-establishing France as an imperial power in North America. He envisaged Louisiana as a breadbasket of sorts, shipping food and supplies to France's Caribbean colonies of Guadeloupe, Martinique, and Saint-Domingue, all highly valuable for their production of sugar. A significant condition of the Treaty of Ildefonso was that France could not turn around and sell the Louisiana Territory to a third party, as Spain was worried about having a hostile power so close to Mexico. At the time, Napoleon intended to adhere to this condition, although his plans would soon be turned upside down.

#History #NapoleonBonaparte #LouisianaPurchase #LewisAndClark

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ltwilliammowett · 9 months ago

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The Legend of the Princess Augusta or the Palatine Ship

The legend goes back to the historic shipwreck of the Princess Augusta at Block Island in 1738. The ship is known from several contemporary accounts and from statements made by the surviving crew after the sinking, which were discovered in 1925 and reprinted in 1939. The British merchant ship Augusta sailed from Rotterdam in August 1738 under Captain George Long and a crew of fourteen, carrying 240 immigrants to the English colonies in America. The passengers were German Palatines who came from the Palatinate, which is why the ship was referred to as the "Palatine Ship" in contemporary documents, which explains the later confusion about the name. The ship was on its way to Philadelphia, from where the passengers were possibly travelling to a German-owned settlement on the James River in Virginia.

The Burning Ship, by Albert Bierstadt 1869

The Princess Augusta's voyage was ill-fated: The water supply was contaminated, causing a "fever and flux disease" that killed 200 passengers and half the crew, including Captain Long. First Officer Andrew Brook took command when severe storms forced the ship off course to the north, where the survivors were exposed to extreme weather conditions and dwindling supplies for three months. According to the crew, Brook forced the passengers to pay for the remaining rations. Apparently he tried different routes to Rhode Island and Philadelphia, but the storms drove the damaged and leaking Augusta to Block Island. She ran aground in a snowstorm at Sandy Point at the northernmost end of the island at 2 p.m. on 27 December 1738.

According to reports, Brook rowed to shore with the entire crew and abandoned the passengers on board. The Block Islanders apparently did what they could to help. They convinced Brook to let the passengers disembark the next day, and later retrieved their belongings when he left them on board. They also buried about 20 people who died after the shipwreck; the Block Island Historical Society erected a memorial plaque at the site of the "Palatine Graves" in 1947.

The authorities took statements from the crew, but what happened afterwards is unclear. Apparently the crew was not charged for their actions, and they and most of the surviving passengers made it to the mainland, from where little is known about them. Two survivors remained on Block Island and settled there. Most reports indicate that the ship was deemed unsalvageable and was forced out to sea to sink. It may have been set on fire to sink it. According to some reports, a woman, sometimes referred to as Mary Van Der Line, was driven mad by her suffering; she was forgotten and sank with the ship, according to these reports. However, no remains of the wreck have ever been found, and there are indications that the Augusta may have been repaired and sent on to Philadelphia.

There is a rich oral tradition of this event, and numerous sightings were reported in the late 18th and 19th centuries. The legend was immortalised by the poet John Greenleaf Whittier in "The Palatine", which faithfully reproduces the traditional story in verse. Which gave the Legend it's name. On Saturdays between Christmas and New Year's Eve, locals still sporadically report seeing a burning ship pass by. Folklorist Michael Bell, investigating the legend, found that almost a year after the incident, two versions of the night's events were circulated.

The Palatine Graves

The Block Islanders insisted that their citizens had made a valiant attempt to rescue the crew, while the New England mainlanders suspected the islanders of having lured the ship to them in order to seize their cargo. Both legends agreed that a female passenger had refused to abandon ship when it sank, and those who claim to have witnessed her reappearance say that her screams were heard from the ship.

Today, a plaque at the Mohegan Bluffs where the ship is said to have run aground reads: Palatine Graves - 1738. Some claim that those who died that night are buried underground. However, Charlotte Taylor of the Rhode Island Historical Preservation and Heritage Commission has stated that no physical evidence has ever been found to support either this claim or the legend itself.

#naval history #naval mythology #princess augusta #palatine light #ghost ship #18th century #19th century #20th century #age of sail #age of steam

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thenuclearmallard · 3 months ago

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"Native smile from a Khanty girl,

Khanty Mansia, Northwest Siberia

The Khants are indigenous to north-west Siberia in the Khanty-Mansi and Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Districts that are located in the Tyumen region of the Russian Federation.

They are calling themselves Khanti, Khande, Kantek (Khanty) which is derived from the combination "Khondy-Kho" (in the Khant language "man from the river Konda") and it has also been explained as meaning "Khan (King) people" and connected with the name of the ancient Huns.

(Milittary expeditions by the Russians took place in the 16th century, so they also started to strengthen their power over the Khants' lands.

The Khant elders managed to retain their position and began to collect tribute from their subordinates. Gradual Christianization continued. The Khants have officially been regarded as 'Christians' since the year 1715 after the extensive baptisms of monk Fyodor. Nevertheless, the ancient spiritual belief of their forfathers ('shamanism') have persisted, even to this day.

The Khants were also economically subjugated. With the help of liquor the Khants were commercially exploited by Russian traders eager for cheap furs. The predatory policy of Russian merchants and officials was so efficient that by the end of the 19th century the Khants, harassed by economic difficulties, were broken and close to ruin. The colonizers had seized their best lands as well as their incomes, and had brought along dangerous diseases and destructive habits (liquor being the biggest curse). It was commonly thought that the Khants would survive for no more than a couple of decades...

The arrival of Soviet power was accompanied by great promises and expectations for the Khants and other northern peoples. In 1925 a Northern Committee was founded with the intention of leading the Khants, Mansis and Nenets along the road of progress. In 1930 the Ostyak-Vogul National District (renamed in 1940 the Khanty-Mansi National District) was formed. This new life was no less disturbing to the Khants, causing only fear and bewilderment. The establishment of collective farms followed accompanied by severe repressions. By attacking the traditions of the people the new ideology of communism incited the persecution of shamans and the destruction of sacred groves and burial grounds. Khant children were forcibly removed to boarding schools. The largest outburst of resistance, led by the elders, became known as the Kazym rebellion. The opposition was ferociously suppressed by the Soviet-Russian army;

Khant villages were burnt and much of that connected with the culture of the Khants was destroyed altogether. Cultural centres and 'red tents' were built to propagate the Soviet way of life and its accompanying customs. From then on, anyone who took part in the customary bear funeral rites could be subject to ten years' imprisonment. Bear hunting was also forbidden. (The Bear Celebration is being celebrated occasionally after a successful hunting of a bear. The bear celebration continues 5 or 6 days. Over 300 songs and performances occur during a Bear Celebration)

In the 1950s and 60s the Soviet-Russians discovered vast gas and oil reserves in western Siberia. The Khants, hardly recovered from the blows of communism, now found themselves at the mercy of technocrats. The piratic economy has been ruthless and greedy. Oil has polluted pastures and waters once filled with fish, the gas and oil lines have blocked the paths of the reindeer, wildfires have destroyed forests.

Still, every year 20,000--25,000 tons of oil pollutes the soil, spilled in technical failures (at least one accident every three days). 50 % of the natural gas is simply consumed in senseless burning brands. Industrial pollution reduces the fishing grounds by about 10,000 hectares every year. In the district of Nizhnevartovsk alone a fire destroyed 260,000 hectares of forest in 1989. At the same time there has been an explosive increase in population (mainly due to urban migration). In 1969, 289,000 inhabitants lived in the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous District, by 1979 the number of inhabitants was already 596,000 and in 1989, 1,268,000 (a growth of one million in 20 years). The frailty of the northern biosphere and its resources has been totally ignored.

The overwhelming pressures of industry and alien ways of life have cast doubt on the further existence of the Khants as a nation. As early as the 19th century, M. A. Castrén and K. F. Karjalainen were recommending that the Khants should be educated in a native spirit and in native surroundings, teaching them to respect their people and customs. In fact, the authorities have "developed and raised" the level of the Khant's economic and cultural life but taking into consideration only the authorities' own needs. This has deprived the Khants of any self-confidence of determination and furthered their decline.

Economic, cultural and linguistic discrimination of the Khants has taken the form of public harassment. They are referred to as dogs, and derisive remarks are made about their dark skin. They are not allowed to work in the mines in case "they break something" or "earn too much". The rapid regression in the living conditions of the Khants is reflected in the decline of industry and in heavy drinking which has an all too common tendency to lead to suicide...)"

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serpentface · 4 months ago

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Do you have anything already set or thought out for sea-travel in the setting? Is it common, kept mostly in coastal regions or are longer voyages on larger vessels also a thing? Bonus question, and I know that it may be difficult inland especially during a drought, but can any of the characters of the white calf story swim (well or poorly)?

Yeah the majority of interconnected world powers rely on sea trade

The core continental mass in this world is about the combined size of Eurasia + Africa (though laid out very differently (sorry for still no map)) but much of its central-eastern interior is divided by a network of seaways formed by the movements of the continents (picture the Mediterranean - Red Sea but More) on which the majority of travel and trade relies. Other tradeways exist in the open ocean, though mostly close to the coasts and mostly routes to and from the entrances to the Inner Seaways.

Most long distance merchant ships will rely exclusively on sailing, without rowers. I don't really have exact sizes for common merchant ships pinned down, but it's not going to surpass the size of anything widely used in the 'ancient world' (certainly smaller than the biggest found in ancient Rome, as there is no single world power here big enough to necessitate that much imported grain to sustain itself).

Broadly speaking, there are VERY few voyages performed out into the open ocean, outside of fishing/'whaling' ventures and journeys to known inhabited islands connected via trade. As far as the vast majority of peoples know, there's nothing of much interest out there- a continent in the far north is known by most seafaring peoples but is rarely interacted with, and another exists on pretty much the opposite side of the globe from everything else and is virtually unknown (has caelin peoples as its sole sophont inhabitants, dispersed by flight).

Few people have reason to travel great distance outside of the context of trade. Long distance immigration is rare (with the exception of caelin peoples, again due to flight), the vast majority of mass movements of people are done on smaller distance scales or via gradual dispersal, the furthest common travel distances still being relatively close along sea routes.

Like as an example: Imperial Wardin's ethnic makeup (in terms of established populations) is: Wardi (themselves a collection of dozens of tribes largely assimilated into a national identity), Wogan, Cholemdinae, Jazait, the Hill Tribes (<<< all these are native to the region for at least a millenia), Burri, Titen, Kos (contemporary immigrants, or descendants of Imperial Burri occupiers, originating from across a narrow sea to the west), Yuroma, Ummo, Yanti (people from the coastal Lowlands just to the southeast along the White Sea), Ulelilwa (a people from the largest island chain in the White Sea, to the southwest) South Finns, Askosh, Ubiyans (some people from around the Viper seaway). There's a great variety of people here, but those that exist in significant established populations stem from around the three seas that directly border the region.

AS FOR SWIMMING:

Tigran isn't a strong swimmer per se but he's good at holding his breath and floating around, he grew up next to a river and would play in it as a kid. Doesn't have many opportunities to swim these days but likes being around water.

Brakul is a pretty strong swimmer, also grew up around rivers and learned to swim at a young age and enjoys it. He fails at a piss-drunk attempt to drown himself at one point because his treading water and floating instincts kick in (though moreso because the water is like 2 ft deep and mostly mud)

Etsushir is a VERY strong swimmer, most Jazait practicing traditional subsistence methods are taught to swim from a very young age, and he spent most of his life as a fisherman and several years specifically as a pearl diver.

Faiza made a conscious choice to learn to swim and sometimes would swim in the sea as a pastime back home. She loves the ocean and is a very strong swimmer, will go out much farther than would be considered safe or recommended.

Palo avoids open bodies of water (with sunlight sparkling on water one of the very few specific seizure triggers he can identify) and is also too skinny to float effectively, probably could not swim.

Hibrides finds bodies of water that you can't see the bottom of gross and creepy and avoids even touching them, much less swimming. Definitely can't.

Janeys hates being wet in anything harsher than a warm bath and would die on contact before he could even get around to death by drowning.

Couya is under the impression that if she ever had to swim she would simply Know How, but definitely wouldn't.

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mesetacadre · 6 months ago

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Hello! This probably isnt the type of anon ask you were looking for but in case it is: Is there anything you would recommend for someone interested in the history of maps and atlases? Especially for navigating the sea

finally an ask about geography! god I love cartography.

Sadly I haven't had the time yet to accumulate bibliography, so far I've read Maps and Civilization, by N. J. Thrower (2002), it's a pretty good summary of the history of Cartography, and it isn't that eurocentric either which is great. I've also heard Cartography by E. Raisz is good. [Open those links with an adblocker please, I recommend ublock origin, because I don't know if they redirect to somewhere else without it]

Probably the earliest maps made for navigation were those of the nautical charts from the current day Marshall Islands. They were created using a grid of sticks alongside curved sticks for the ocean currents/winds and beads for the individual islands. It took a long time for colonizers to figure out exactly how to read these charts since their interpretation was an important secret to keep. These charts covered from just a few islands to thousands of kilometers of ocean and currents

Next, I'll take a big leap in time to the portolan charts. These maps were mainly made for navigation between ports in the Mediterranean between the 14th and 15th century, though they were used in other places sometimes, and they had an influence on the earliest maps depicting the Americas. Portolans are characterized by the windrose lines, which are a series of lines representing directions which all emanate from a compass rose. These maps had multiple compass roses.

The purpose of this type of map was to help mostly merchants to find their bearings and to chart efficient routes between ports, they could trace a line between whichever two ports, find the closest parallel windrose line, and they knew which compass direction they had to follow. These maps assume a flat earth, so they were only suitable for regional travels, like the various trade routes within the Mediterranean, and got less accurate the further you wanted to travel. This also made them unsuitable for the open sea.

This is a portolan made in 1466 by Petrus Roselli. It has this shape because maps made for navegation were drawn on animal hides, not paper, so the neck of the animal was preserved and sometimes used to hang or tie the map down, sometimes the scale was placed there, or another compass rose. Notice how it's decorated, there is a snake/lizard in the north of Africa, the Red Sea is literally red, and it's generally filled with drawings. This is because the portolan charts that have survived are predominantly those that were taken from real charts used in navegation and then decorated to give as gifts. This particular copy was probably gifted to some noble or rich person to hang on their wall, with decorations. Some of these maps that survive even have gold leaf on them.

Also notice how the coast's shape is very spot on, especially compared to maps from only a couple hundred years earlier:

This is Al Idryssi's General World Map, from 1154. It has been flipped N-S for comparison's sake, Arabic maps were generally drawn with south on top, sometimes with the east on top. Don't get me wrong, it's still a very good map for the time, but the coastlines don't hold a candle to any portolan.

Going back to the portolan, the coasts were very accurate because that was their purpose, to navigate from coast to coast. But you'll notice that there's basically no real useful information in the interior. The rivers are mostly guesswork, and the only consistently correct thing is the place where they meet the sea. And that's all I can talk about the interior, because these maps did not have an interior. This was part of the reason they were so heavily decorated when used as gifts, because they only showed windrose lines and port locations. Scotland is missing!.

This style of decoration was carried over from T-O maps, which I won't get into here but they are still a very interesting stage in map history.

There were a couple of very important schools when it comes to portolans: The Italian school(s), the Portuguese school, and the Mallorquine/Catalan school. The portolan I've shown above is from this last school, which also produced the most representative portolan of this time, the Catalan Atlas, by (possibly) Abraham Cresques (a Jewish person too!!) in 1375

It showed the world between the Atlantic and the far east, with a lot of compromises in detail the further east it goes.

This is the portion that shows the Mediterranean, stitched together so it's continuous. Notice the similarities with the 1466 portolan: The red sea, the north african snake (it's actually supposed to be the Atlas mountain range), the loss of detail in the North Atlantic and North Sea, and the very opulent decoration. It has gold leaf which I mentioned earlier, the sea is colored in, it has blocks of text describing either the region or some history, each city has a flag representing the political entity it belonged to, and much more. Also notice how, at the top, the drawings and letters are upside down. This is because this atlas was designed to be placed flat atop a table, so you could look at it from all sides.

Side note, this map contains a portrait of Mansa Musa, the ruler of the Mali Empire in the 14th century, who was probably one of the richest people to have ever lived. The portrait from this map is the one you've probably seen if you've ever learnt about him

It also has this flag for the Golden Horde, which you will definitely know if you've played any map game set in this period

Anyway, back on topic

The first map to properly show the Americas was Juan de la Cosa's, made in 1500. It is important not only for being the first, but it was also made by someone who was present in Columbus' first 2 voyages

(the Americas are in green)

It's very clear how it not only still uses the portolan style of windrose lines, it also carries over those maps' decorations. By now, however, the world that was to be represented was getting too big for portolan maps, which as we've discussed assumed a flat earth, so it began to be ditched for actual projections, like Waldseemüller's from 1507, which used the same concept as Ptolomey's projection from all the way in the 2nd century

Which is when we get to the misunderstood Mercator projection. It was not made to exaggerate the northern hemisphere over the equator. In fact, the land it exaggerates the most was the one inside the arctic circle, where almost nobody lived except for the native peoples to those regions. The fact that the southern hemisphere seems to be disfavored is because there is simply less southern land in that hemisphere, so there is no land to exaggerate where the Mercator projection would exaggerate. In fact, Antarctica (at this time they did not know about Antarctica, and the mass of land was the theorized Terra Australis, a supposed landmass that would balance the bigger amount of land in the northern hemisphere) is very much exaggerated in modern maps. This projection was created for navigation at sea, since any straight line drawn on this projection is also a straight line in the actual globe

Mercator's Mapae Mundi from 1569 still had the portolan windrose lines, a clear nod to the navigational tradition this map was continuing. The fact that this projection became so popular and the "standard" way to represent the earth has shaped most people's perception of the earth, but that's not the projection's fault, it's the people who decide to use an unfit map instead of actually proper projections like Robinson's. A big reason why Mercator's projection is so overused is because it's rectangular, no doubt.

#ask #anon #geo

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sunny-porridge · 8 months ago

Text

Around a Cooking Pot

The first thing that Link learned after coming out of the Shrine of Resurrection was how alive the world was. Rolling hills and winding rivers greeted him, beating to the beat of his own heart as he adjusted to the blinding light outside the cave.

The second thing he learned was how to roast an apple over an open fire.

Quickly after that, cooking became second nature. He could coax a smile out of a sad friend with a fragrant mix of fish and butter, conspire with his friends in Kakariko Village after offering a couple pieces of honey candy, or boost his strength before a fight with the help of a meaty skewer.

He often got weary travelers to open up and share their stories over the soothing refrain of a simmering hearty soup, quietly delighting in the satisfied sighs of his unsuspecting guests as they tried a warm meal for the first time in days.

He once even made a cake for a Princess, who refused to share a piece even as she sniffled and stubbornly wiped tears from her eyes at the familiar taste of sweet berries mixed in a luscious rich cream in between layers of fluffy white sponge.

It was no surprise then, that when he set off on a journey with eight heroes of courage, he became the group’s official cook at the sight of the simple stew he made on their first evening together, camping on the forest of the Hero of Time’s era. Link often wondered how his brothers had survived their own adventures going on little else than hardtack, milk, and the occassional friendly monster teaching them the recipe for an unexpectedly delicious soup (which was more likely than one would think).

Sure, most of them had some frequent access to towns, merchants, or their own homes, but adventuring meant spending days at a time on their own, fighting hordes of monsters, exploring the most untouched parts of the land and crawling through long forgotten dungeons, and yet his brothers had been rather helpless around a cooking pot except for the most basic of recipes.

Now, the act of cooking was almost as nourishing as the food he prepared. The rancher had told him once, with a grin and a bump of his shoulders, that it looked like he was in a trance. And sure enough, once he really got into it, he felt as if he merely had to toss ingredients into a pot and watch them bounce, becoming meals in an instant as he hummed a little made-up song and lost track of everything around him. Of course, in reality cooking takes a lot more patience and care, and he likes to take the time to make every detail just right.

It had been almost three years since he separated from his brothers and stopped using the name “Wild”. As he sat around the fire making his new favorite recipe - one he hoped he could one day share with the men who had become his brothers - Link once again lost track of his surroundings, this time to the soft hum of a now familiar tune he had learned from the youngest hero on the team.

He sat on a trunk in a nameless island in the North Akkala Sky Archipelago - whoever named the Sky Islands had clearly gotten bored after the masterpiece of Lightcast Island - preparing a pizza, a brand new recipe he created with Koyin after helping her recover the recipe for cheese. The rancher had introduced him to cheese before, and he sometimes missed the soft, pillowy Ordon Goat Cheese, but the more fragrant version they made in Hateno melted perfectly over the disk of soft bread and thick, herby tomato sauce.

He had already tested a few different toppings to place on top of the pizza, trying to find the perfect companion for the savory cheese. Strips of roasted vegetables where a sensible option and offered a fair variety, but Link didn’t get to where he was by playing it safe. Today, he was testing thin slices of cured meat, and although the result was quite satisfying, he found himself wishing he had saved more of the sweet-and-tangy fruit that grew in the warm islands of the sailor’s world. The pineapples would complement nicely with the rich, fatty tones of the meat.

#listen #look at me in the eyes #there is no point to this #just my rambling thoughts #through Wild’s lens #linked universe #lu wild #totk #totk zelda #totk light dragon #pineapple pizza supremacy #fight me #ramblings #cw pineapple pizza

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callimara · 1 year ago

Text

The Setting

Bougainville

A quaint town with a population of 10,000. Located in the Pas-de-Calais department of Northern France, it is an amalgamation of days past and modern times; preserving its original construction from 150 years ago while intertwining with modern-day advancements.

History

The town was founded in the late 1800s by Olivier Bougainvillea: a renowned physicist from Paris who led a scientific expedition to the area that would later be known as Bougainville. The goal of his expedition was to study unusual electromagnetic radiations within the area. He set up a research base that would inadvertently grow with the influx of scientists and researchers Bougainvillea recruited to participate in his research. The growing scale of Bougainvillea's research necessitated better infrastructure and living facilities; resulting in the arrival of more labor for construction. The rapid influx of people now requiring long-term accommodation in the area demanded more housing, and soon the base had transformed into a small hamlet. Thus, began the settlement of Bougainville. As time passed, the families of the workers and researchers had relocated to the area; operating independent businesses to fill demands such as clothing, food, and other essential supplies. And as the economy grew, so did the settlement. More merchants and businesses settled in the hamlet, and soon, what was once a research base became the town of Bougainville: named after the lead scientist that pioneered the settlement of the area and powered the town with his discoveries and innovations. In honour of his legacy, Bougainvillea flowers line the front of almost every street, creating a beautiful sight at every turn.

Geography

Bougainville has Calais to the north, Le Portel to the west, Lumbres to the east, and Desvres to the south. It is nestled adjacent to the Parc naturel regional des caps et marais d’Opale. As such, lazily drifting fog and chilly weather are a permanent fixture in the small town, perfectly complementing its slow, leisurely lifestyle. A river divides the town into two sides: West and East. Western Bougainville is its central business district; housing the entertainment district and the shopping district; as well as the town hall, Bougainville bank, and police station. Eastern Bougainville is the town’s health and education district; being the location of Bougainvillea University, Bougainville General Hospital, and the Bougainvillea Foundation’s central laboratory; which is open to the public as a science museum. To the north of the town is the Emilie Francoise Nature Reserve, which is 1000 acres of protected marshland and forest. It is also here that the Bougainvillea Power Plant is located; which provides electricity to the entire town.

The Bougainvillea Foundation

A multinational conglomerate with subsidiaries in a variety of industries.

Including, but not limited to:

pharmaceuticals

medical equipment

electronics

non-profit organizations

military equipment

firearms.

Central Laboratory

One of the crowning jewels of Bougainville, the Bougainvillea central laboratory is a marvel of modern engineering. From its humble beginnings as a research tent, it is now the primary location for all of the Bougainvillea Foundation’s science exhibitions. Thus, it is a famous field trip destination for many educational institutes. It is the oldest and largest lab of the Bougainvillea Foundation. It has contributed much to the lifestyle advancements in Bougainville by: supplying power; being the primary supplier of medicine, medical supplies, and funds the Bougainville healthcare system; and founding Bougainvillea University.

Bougainvillea University

Founded in the honor of Olivier Bougainvillea for his contributions to modern science and the founding of Bougainville, Bougainvillea University strives to shape brilliant minds that will pave the way to innovation and discovery. Graduates of this university may receive highly coveted employment with the Bougainvillea Foundation.

Bougainville General Hospital

From its humble beginnings as a small 3-bed health clinic, the facility has grown to an impressive 300-bed general hospital with an emergency department and specialist operating theatres. Though it has maintained its original exterior, its interior has been refurbished with state-of-the-art healthcare facilities thanks to the generous donations of the Bougainvillea Foundation.

Shopping District

The location of most of the shops in Bougainville. It is the most popular tourist and student destination in town, boasting an array of grocers, book stores, bakeries, boutiques, cafes, restaurants, and wineries.

Entertainment District

The centre of Bougainville’s nightlife, this area is where most of Bougainville’s adult recreational businesses are located. From bars, taverns, and billiard, to nightclubs, strip clubs and gambling.

Emilie Francoise Nature Reserve

Named after the town founder’s wife and fellow scientist, Emilie Francoise nature reserve is 1000 acres of protected marshland and forest. The reserve is a popular hiking and camping destination for locals and visitors alike. In honor of Olivier Bougainvillea's beloved wife, fellow scientist, and Parisian ecologist, the nature reserve aims to continue the conservation efforts of Emilie Francoise Bougainvillea in protecting the town’s natural landscape.

Key Locations

Luna Lake A crystalline lake that is 30 km wide that reflects the sky like a mirror. At night time, it seems to hold the moon on its surface. It is populated by diverse aquatic life, making it a popular fishing spot.

Bellevue Valley A valley covered with flowers all year long. Different flowers bloom during different seasons and months.

Celine Falls The biggest, most scenic water fall in the nature reserve

Labyrinthe Marshland The largest marshland in the nature reserve and home to a diverse population of wildlife.

The Underground

There are whispers of an underground black market where illicit goods and services are distributed. Though its location is largely unknown…

▶ Wildward Master Post

#callimara #wildward #lore #setting

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coreene · 4 months ago

Text

Places in Faerun: Luskan (part 2)

Part 1 here

The City of Sails is a proud and dangerous place, and an important port of the North. It straddles the mouth of the river Mirar. Despite the unnavigable nature of its swift, icy, and rocky water, the port of Luskan is the main shipyard for the mineral wealth of Mirabar.

Luskan is supposedly ruled by five high captains: Taerl, Baram, Kurth, Suljack, and Rethnor. However, I suspect that the real power in Luskan is held by the Arcane Brotherhood, who dwell in a tower on an island at the mouth of the river.

The Brotherhood doesn't welcome visitors to this city of 16,000. In fact, anyone who doesn't appear to be pure human can expect to be slain on sight. Any humans who do enter the City of Sails are treated as thieves or spies. They are also followed constantly by agents of the Arcane Brotherhood. The Brotherhood usually assigns the task of following visitors to thieves and mages of little power but much ambition.

The seafaring merchants of Luskan have always been fierce, proud, and warlike. They carry on active, armed feuds with the inland city of Mirabar, the coastal city of Neverwinter, and the island realm of Ruathym. They sponsor pirates who prey on ships and ports up and down the Sword Coast. They also trade with Amn, Calimshan, and many other towns that prefer not to be associated with them, but will meet them on the neutral ground of offshore Mintarn.

Waterdeep's navy is constantly skirmishing with Luskanite ships because Luskan vessels have orders to harass any shipping that uses the ports of Neverwinter and Waterdeep, which Luskan regards as its chief trading rivals. When Luskan is officially at peace, its warships act as unsanctioned pirates. That is, the high captains supply, aid, and direct them, but pretend they're independent freebooters, acting in defiance of the law of Luskan. The pirate warships try to force all shippers to use Luskanite boats and to use Luskan as their only Sword Coast port of trade.

Luskan wages almost constant war against naval powers that the captains think they can defeat. They've been wrong in the past about Mintarn, Orlumbor, Gundarlun, Tuern, and Lantan. The latter was such a humiliating defeat that Luskanites won't speak of Lantan or even admit that it exists. Persistent talk of the Lantanna is likely to result in an attack from any Luskanite. However, Luskan did crush Ruathym. Only when faced by the combined fleets of all the Lords' Alliance did Luskan relinquish control of that plundered realm.

When patrolling enemies make coastal raids difficult, the warriors of Luskan turn inland, attacking the miners of Mirabar and any Uthgardt barbarians they can find. These actions are performed just to keep their neighbors weak and respectful.

There are persistent rumors of an alliance between Luskan and the Zhentarim, but no word or clear sign of this has ever come to light.

The city has a standing army of 300 spearmen, and a navy of 19 dragonships, each armed with 70 archers. It is building more dragonships as fast as it can and has armed hastily in recent years, fearing retaliation from Waterdeep for the war with Ruathym.

Luskan's traders, it is rightly said, always wear furs, haughty expressions, and ready swords. They can be found up and down the Sword Coast wherever trade is conducted in a port. They are dangerous folk, always alert and well armed. Their city remains the perennial trouble spot of the Sword Coast.

The Arcane Brotherhood keeps a close watch on visitors to the city. If one wishes to walk about freely, without spies in tow, it is advisable to enter by way of the sewers, in the hold of a Luskanite ship, or magically disguised.

Landmarks

The Mirar River divides the city into two major parts. The northern section is a walled enclave, consisting almost entirely of warehouses. The southern half of the city is much alder. This heavily fortified section of the city is surrounded by outlying walled caravan compounds.

There are three bridges that connect the two halves of the city. They are the Harbor Cross, Dalath's Span, and the Upstream Span. The Harbor Cross is broken into two spans, known as the Short and Long spans.

Five major islands crowd the mouth of the Mirar, and the three closest to the south bank are developed. I'm detailing these districts or islets separately for the convenience of travelers.

North Bank

This warehouse district includes a fortified compound known as the Mirabar District or the Mirabar Shield. The area is owned and guarded by mercantile companies operating out of Mirabar. Two places here should be avoided upon pain of capture, torture, and then death. The first is Luskan's main watertower, called the Throat. It rises out of a fenced grazing area for sheep destined for the tables of the five captains. Any intruder seen in the fenced pasture is assumed to be an enemy of Luskan trying to poison the city's water supply. Guards armed with crossbows that fire paralyzation-venomed bolts will try to capture the intruder for ungentle questioning. Defiantly painting the sheep various hues used to be something of a rite of passage among dwarves in Mirabar, but this practice was bloodily put down by the Luskanites.

The second area to avoid is crowded Whitesails Harbor. This is off limits to all except Luskanite naval personnel (and other pirates, as the joke goes in Neverwinter but don't repeat it here, if you value your head). Watchful garrisons in the towers at the end of the breakwater and at the upstream end of the northernmost island have instructions to shoot down any unauthorized people entering the harbor. They receive a bounty for each person struck, so they regularly shoot into the windows of the closest buildings in the fortified Mirabar District, hoping to make a little blood money.

The northernmost reach of the harbor, which is entirely unprotected against the full fury of sea storms, is called the Open Shore. It's the only place that foreign vessels are allowed to berth. The Open Shore docks are outside the city walls. Luskanites ignore brigand and monster raids there, but they don't bother firing at crew members, either.

The Mirabar District is situated between Whitesails Harbor and the rest of the mainland. It's firmly enclosed by high stone walls topped by iron spikes and thorns. Three major companies trade here: the Anvilfist Banner, Thalorin's Manymetals, and the Golden Hand. Between them, they can muster some 90 men at arms to guard the compound from Luskanite accidents. (If my tone leads you to suspect this city isn't a pleasant place to visit, you've reached the right conclusion.)

The rest continues to describe the city which I am skipping because it is a lot and will only mention a few more places that I find interesting.

The Ruins of Illusk

The remnants of the ancient city of Illusk stand on the southern shore of the Mirar, in the lee of Closeguard Island. All that remains to be seen of that once proud city are a few shattered towers and toppled statues enshrouded in creepers and choked with thick brush in the shade of a few old and gnarled trees. This small, thickly forested city block of half visible ruins is bounded to the north by Luskan's busy market and to the south by the city's noisy slums. The Ruins are bisected by the Darkwalk, the street that leads to the Dark Arch. The Darkwalk is named for the haunted reputation that clings to the ruins of Illusk.

...

Fear of the magical traps and guardian monsters, as well as the sleepless undead, has kept most of the buried dead and their treasure undisturbed. Spell books, scrolls, magical items, and rich gem caches have been recovered from the ruins. Almost all of the rich dead were buried in magical armor of one sort or another. The loss rate among graverobbers remains high, however. Luskanites have a saying: Only the most desperate try to rob the dead of Illusk. Outlanders invading Luskan and fugitives from the city's rough justice have tried to hide in the ruins, but they are usually driven out or slain by the undead in short order.

The edges of the overgrown ruins serve as a refuse dump for the market (mainly rotting produce) and the slums (mainly excrement and dead bodies). No known maps of the underground chambers and passages exist, and no Luskanite will admit to knowing their ways.

The Cutlass

Tavern/Inn/Festhall

This notorious pirate dive discreetly but dearly rents a few rooms. These are usually patronized by professional escorts and their clients, and by the extremely desperate or the extremely deaf, since the surroundings are usually a bedlam of rowdy, raucous violence from about noon to after dawn!

The Cutlass has a rough fieldstone street level, a raised entry porch, and clapboard sheathed upper floors. There are balconies overhanging Half Moon Street and extensive cellars. Except for kitchens, a jakes, and various stairs and secret climbing shafts, the entire ground floor is taken up by the tavern. This consists of a common room with a large corner bar. A wine rack and beer kegs crowd behind it, flanking a dumbwaiter large enough for folk to make hasty exits when Luskanite soldiers come in unexpectedly. The roof of the Cutlass is a mix of patched slate and cedar shakes, and is adorned with several trapdoors, swinging laundry poles, and scars where entire gables have been blown or burnt away in spell duels.

This place is always cheerfully noisy a sort of brawling fun house for pirates. If you want to hurl people into tables or punch them through stair rails to the floor below, this is the place to come and do it. Just watch out for all the others waiting to do it to you.

The fatalities recently grew so numerous that the high captains decreed a no weapons policy at the Cutlass. The intention was to drive it out of business, as no one would dare walk through the slums to get to it unarmed. The anonymous but numerous staff (including some mages) now takes any steel weapons you may have as you enter, keeping them behind the bar. Hatpins, garrotes, and small concealed daggers often get past them, but not much else. If you don't pay your bill at the Cutlass, you don't get your weapons back. In the event of soldiers arriving, the staff try to disarm them too, delaying them long enough for wanted patrons to get behind the bar, snatch up their weapons, and flee down into the cellars.

There's a tunnel that rises up from the cellars to the surface several alleys over, but it's guarded by a stone golem belonging to the Cutlass. The golem is large enough to block entry, which it will do unless a gold piece is put into its hand by each person who wishes to pass. The golem also prevents soldiers from coming into the cellars unannounced. Years ago, some wag dubbed this sentinel Captain Reaper, and the name has stuck.

Most of the time, the Cutlass is one long, boisterous party with uninhibited female escorts leading the singing, dancing, and other acrobatics.

There is more of course but the book is easy to find 🏴‍☠️ if you would like to read all of it but this is all I am going to add to this post as it had gone long enough.

Volo's Guide to the North pg. 111-130

#Forgotten Realms #dnd #dnd lore #dungeons and dragons #d&d #dungeons & dragons #luskan #the cutlass #queue

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