Gnoman
2015-06-11, 09:58 PM
I recently added an NPC into my campaign to serve as the party's cleric (nobody wanted to play one, but the lack of healing was becoming a problem), and I worked her into the storyline by making her be from an exotic culture from a mostly unknown land that had been teleported by another of the strange occurrences that have been happening. I'd like that culture to be plausible, and want feedback on it as it currently stands.
Maria cor Deslana hails from the large city-state of Deslana on a very large island far to the east of Cartrefuol, the product of a colony expedition sent shortly before the Three Emperor's War. Due to the chaos of the war, the Deslana expedition, along with a great many others, was completely forgotten and the ships were believed lost. Due to the very warm climate. the people of Deslania gradually ceased the use of clothing, favoring jewlery body paint, and the occasional tattoo for most of the social purposes filled by garments in other climates. This proved a surprising boon in later years, when a trading ship rediscovered the colony about two hundred and sixty years before the Second Titan War broke out, as the islanders had elevated the craft of jewlerymaking to a very high art, and their disdain for clothes meant that the native silkworm population had been completely ignored. Once the appetite of Aprilian and Cinnabar traders for silk thread became known, this provided a very lucrative export product, ironically for the production of fine clothes for the nobility. Before too long, a port had been built on the island, servicing as many as three trading vessels a month.
Unfortunately, there was a darker side to this trade. Tales of the exotic dark-skinned natives, greatly exaggerated in the telling, led to a growing fascination for them in the civilized lands. Meanwhile, a failed coup against the Doge had caused a few families to be attained and imprisoned, and the sudden infusion of material wealth initially restricted to a small number of merchant houses led to a great deal of robbery and related crimes, resulting in even more prisoners. Once, these prisoners would simply have been beaten, executed, or exiled (depending on their exact crimes), but a canny Cinnabar merchant made a deal with the Doge, and the prisoners were clapped in chains and sent off in Cinnabar's ships for the slave markets in exchange for a great deal of gold and spices. This institution of slavery, a concept previously unknown to Deslanians, would have far-reaching effects. In a generation's time, the once-soft system of social status had hardened into a strict caste system, and those in the lowest castes had few rights, and it was not merely custom but law that those in this caste could become property of any who bothered to grab them. As these castes were marked only by a lack of jewlery and body paint, anyone that fell on hard economic times was liable to become property of a rival, or sold across the sea. By the time of the Second Titan War, this was accepted as "the way things had always been".
Due to the War, the traders stopped coming, and about seventy years afterwards, the first Deslanan ships were built, seeking the ports across the sea where the wealth had once flowed from. Obstensibly to restore the Golden Age of prosperity, the real purpose was to restore the slave trade - the caste system had become so ingrained that the number of people made into slaves did not decrease, but none were now sent away, leading to a dangerously large slave population.
Maria cor Deslana is in the second generation of these new traders, although as her family's contacts were with Aprilia instead of Cinnabar her ships did not carry slaves. Her house was a small concern, with only one ship. Her ship was destroyed in a major storm, which she survived only by the chance activation of a mysterious magical artifact that whisked her and some of the ship's wreckage deep into Markavia, where she nearly froze to death before being rescued by a local barbarian tribe. Having bartered away the last of her possessions for food and shelter, Maria is unable to return home, as she would inevitably sink to the lowest caste. Her only recourse was to take the weapon and armor the barbarians gifted her with and join an adventuring party with her divine magic.
Maria cor Deslana hails from the large city-state of Deslana on a very large island far to the east of Cartrefuol, the product of a colony expedition sent shortly before the Three Emperor's War. Due to the chaos of the war, the Deslana expedition, along with a great many others, was completely forgotten and the ships were believed lost. Due to the very warm climate. the people of Deslania gradually ceased the use of clothing, favoring jewlery body paint, and the occasional tattoo for most of the social purposes filled by garments in other climates. This proved a surprising boon in later years, when a trading ship rediscovered the colony about two hundred and sixty years before the Second Titan War broke out, as the islanders had elevated the craft of jewlerymaking to a very high art, and their disdain for clothes meant that the native silkworm population had been completely ignored. Once the appetite of Aprilian and Cinnabar traders for silk thread became known, this provided a very lucrative export product, ironically for the production of fine clothes for the nobility. Before too long, a port had been built on the island, servicing as many as three trading vessels a month.
Unfortunately, there was a darker side to this trade. Tales of the exotic dark-skinned natives, greatly exaggerated in the telling, led to a growing fascination for them in the civilized lands. Meanwhile, a failed coup against the Doge had caused a few families to be attained and imprisoned, and the sudden infusion of material wealth initially restricted to a small number of merchant houses led to a great deal of robbery and related crimes, resulting in even more prisoners. Once, these prisoners would simply have been beaten, executed, or exiled (depending on their exact crimes), but a canny Cinnabar merchant made a deal with the Doge, and the prisoners were clapped in chains and sent off in Cinnabar's ships for the slave markets in exchange for a great deal of gold and spices. This institution of slavery, a concept previously unknown to Deslanians, would have far-reaching effects. In a generation's time, the once-soft system of social status had hardened into a strict caste system, and those in the lowest castes had few rights, and it was not merely custom but law that those in this caste could become property of any who bothered to grab them. As these castes were marked only by a lack of jewlery and body paint, anyone that fell on hard economic times was liable to become property of a rival, or sold across the sea. By the time of the Second Titan War, this was accepted as "the way things had always been".
Due to the War, the traders stopped coming, and about seventy years afterwards, the first Deslanan ships were built, seeking the ports across the sea where the wealth had once flowed from. Obstensibly to restore the Golden Age of prosperity, the real purpose was to restore the slave trade - the caste system had become so ingrained that the number of people made into slaves did not decrease, but none were now sent away, leading to a dangerously large slave population.
Maria cor Deslana is in the second generation of these new traders, although as her family's contacts were with Aprilia instead of Cinnabar her ships did not carry slaves. Her house was a small concern, with only one ship. Her ship was destroyed in a major storm, which she survived only by the chance activation of a mysterious magical artifact that whisked her and some of the ship's wreckage deep into Markavia, where she nearly froze to death before being rescued by a local barbarian tribe. Having bartered away the last of her possessions for food and shelter, Maria is unable to return home, as she would inevitably sink to the lowest caste. Her only recourse was to take the weapon and armor the barbarians gifted her with and join an adventuring party with her divine magic.