Privateers of Lssthp II [IC]

[TriciaOso]

"Your loyalty has made a galaxy of you," she says, which turns out to be the most coherent thing you can get out of her on this topic.

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Some hours later, Officer's Mess convenes in the Officer's Wardroom; smaller desk are folded up into the walls and a long banquet table is lowered on chains from above to convert the room from a shared study and library to a dining room. Chairs are rearranged and food a cut above the crew's meals is produced; at the beginning of the voyage, at least, there are still fresh vegetables and meat to enjoy. Soon it will be salt flesh and dubious potatoes for everyone, or the occasional cockatrice that has had the misfortune to stop laying eggs.

Cabin boys serve at the Officer's Table, and cabin boys gossip, so the Captain does not turn to matters of business until the plates are cleared and an excellent wine from a lesser Imperial vineyard is served. She pours herself, having turned out the curious lads after dessert, and passes the goblets to Frrkkk to hand around.

She settles back into her chair and looks pointedly to Professor Atropae. As a naga, she does not have a chair but coils her tail beneath herself; now she expands her coils to shift to a standing posture. Her blue monk's habit is as crisp as it was when she came aboard. The living serpents of her hair are released from the rigid bun she came aboard with, and although she does not drink from her wine, occasionally one of them will dip its head and flicker a tongue into the goblet.

"As the Captain has told you, I am Professor Siduri Atropae. I invite you to call me Siduri," she says. I am not a sailor or an experienced voyager, and I must ask you to excuse my ignorance in your particular area of specialty. It is... uneasy ground for me, as it is usually my job to be an expert."

"My field of study is theological, and that is the subject I teach at Chalcedon University. I specialize in the early scriptures of the Pentiarchal faith. In the Library, I hold a position a greater responsibility, as the Keeper of certain dangerous and heretical texts that pre-date, or only shortly follow, the Cataclysm. I am considered an expert of the cults of Tiamat, Apophis, Umberlee and several other minor heresies."

Spoiler: History or Religion Check - baseline

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All of you would know that the dragons of Lssthp became the dragons of Lssthp after the Cataclym -- when Tiamat took offense at the independence of her children and tore the heart from the Plane of Fire, using it as a weapon to wipe out reptilian life in the continent of Daesic. The metallic survivors were those who had followed the prophet Bahamut out to sea some decades earlier; the chromatic survivors those who followed the Five Chromatic Gods to Lssthp just before the Cataclysm, in a betrayal of their vengeful tyrant mother. After the Cataclysm she was bound in the Fire Plane, beneath the central volcano of Sunhome Isle.

In the millennia that followed, the dragons and their servitor races took root in Lssthp, while the giants and their humanoid descendants claimed the wasteland that had been Daesic. The Five Gods were worshipped, not just in Lssthp, but in the human lands disguised as human gods.

Spoiler: Cult of Tiamat (5+)

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Many of you also would be aware of the Tiamatic cult that claims that the Five were obeying the will of their mother, or are in fact faces she wears, and that the long history of Lssthp and Daesic has all been according to her plan. The cult is illegal, but not precisely unheard of. There is much distance, however, between those who worship the Mother of Dragons, and those who would actively seek to free her.

Spoiler: Cult of Apophis (10+, or baseline for Yuan-Ti.)

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Fewer would be aware of the cult of Apophis, the snake god worshipped by the free Yuan-Ti of the Hic Sunt. Technically, only those serpentfolk who follow Apophis should claim the name Yuan-Ti. This faith is absolutely forbidden, as it is in many ways opposed to the Five Gods, but even in Lssthp, there are serpentfolk who serve Apophis by working against their draconic rulers in secret.

Spoiler: 15+

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These are far from the only secretive or forbidden religions of Lssthp. The most vile and mysterious are the worshippers of the Slaadi who ruled Lssthp before the dragons came.

"Recently, the Library came into possession of some new texts--well. Not new. Very, very ancient versions of other texts that were merely old. But new to us; different. Certain passages that had been altered or removed entirely in the Diet of Iznik. Passages dealing with relationships between the gods long hidden, and certain rituals of binding and releasing."

The leather face of First Mate Achelous reacts, very slightly, to this by creasing further.

Spoiler: Insight 10+, adv for Nobim

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You suspect the texts came from the Achelous family estate that was transferred to the University.

"These texts had been kept in a private collection for millennia, and now, they are loose in the world. The Library preserves and treasures all knowledge, but some knowledge is not for all eyes. This knowledge was seen by eyes that should not have seen it. By a traitor within the Grand Library."

"The Captain has told you our destination is the Sunhome Isles. This is not entirely accurate... I still hope we can catch up to the traitor before he reaches the volcano. I hope so very much."

The Captain grimaces.

Spoiler: Insight 10+, adv for Fork

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She seems to think this hope is feeble.