Lands of Tyranny
Day 16 of The Black Eye, Year 416
Black Dome
The Black Dome Peninsula (referred to as ‘The Dome’ by the locals) is located in the south-eastern part of the continent, and is protected by the tin and other ores-rich mountain range that shields it against the rest of the continent, and that constitutes most of the region’s natural resources. Although there are well-traveled routes through these passages, thanks to them, the land has rarely been touched by outside powers.
Once dominated by the Kingdom of Lauka, a monarchy born from the homonym city of the same name, Lauka’s domain however collapsed some centuries ago, consequently plunging the region into a series of constant rivalries and conflicts, which caused it to ultimately remain split into a series of city states: a division which persisted through the ages until the arrival of the Empire. The most prominent of the city-states were: Tayshunna, Lauka, Kressmor, Meridia, Qontus.
While with a very unified and distinctive culture, the people in the Dome (often called ‘Domites’) have been historically extremely divided, likely due to a mix between their pride and the long term division between small, fragmented, and often conflictual political entities.
Society
Black Dome society is very patriarchal, human-suprematist, conservative and clinging to old ideas and stereotypes, and overall based on a rather closed system of castes with little mobility between them, and which is kept even more immobile by a deeply rooted system of patrons and clients, relations that often persist immutably across multiple generations. The arrival of the Empire did little to change these habits, with the exception of having abolished slavery: a pillar of the Dome society.
Gender roles
There is little space in the society of the city states for women, or for open mindedness. Indeed, with a few exceptions such as priestesses of certain deities, women are relegated in secondary roles. They keep the household running, tend to the family, and little more. In most cases, women are forbidden from accessing the few forms of higher education available, or to register and even to just step in academies. They are further forbidden from taking part in games or to bathe in public, acts reserved to prostitutes. Similarly, as one would expect from a patriarchal society, inheritances fully pass to the male in the family, and women, in all castes, are often treated as bargaining chips with marriages and such, and not much more than property, which is passed from the father to the husband.
Notable exceptions were women that escaped their homes to join the cult of Lilith, a thing that no family would have desire for their daughters or wives, but an option that, due to the fear of angering the deity, has never been taken away in any city, or at least, clearly not before the coming of the Empire.
Politics
Each of the city states has always been governed either as a small absolute monarchy, or by an Oligarchy, an assembly of nobles, with the Oligarchy system at times temporarily replacing monarchy, in case of a succession crisis.
Nobility would coincide with power, and this would come in one of three forms: military, with nobles focusing on prestigious careers as commanders or in elite units, often of cavalry; religious, with noble families sprouting entire generations of priests and priestesses of certain deities, having controls over the temples, the handling of sacrifices, and the interpretation of omens and signs, which would often have influenced major political events such as wars, endorsement of power, or decisions or various importance; and of course, wealth. With an almost entirely absent middle-class, noble families would be the ones in control of large businesses and trade, often via commoners or learned slaves that would handle the practicalities of the jobs. The importance of each of these ‘sub-castes’ of warriors, traders, or priests, changes from city-state to city-state, and still heavily depends on each single case. However, some of the inter-state conflicts could easily be pointed at rivalries between noble castes: for instance, the warrior class of Kressmor versus the priestly class of Meridia.
The whole system of city states was also based on a delicate balance of power among them, where punctually, each time a city would start to truly take the upper hand with another, a third, or a coalition of others would emerge, and either with direct or indirect intervention would downsize the emerging power, causing the turbulent equilibrium to persist for centuries.
Slavery
Black Dome society has been based on slavery since time immemorial. Slaves could be employed in every kind of job, from physical labor and gladiator fights, to entertainment, pleasure, or, for the most cultured ones, acting as private tutors for noble families or even conducting some of the trading and businesses on their accounts.
Slaves were most often taken as result of the multitude of smaller conflicts among each city-state, after battles, but also with raiding of minor
villages and towns. Slaves were however also imported from abroad, especially via sea, mostly from the port of Tayshunna, or sailed up-river to Meridia and from there moved to every market, with the provenience of some of these being doubtful, and perhaps having been instead the result of sea or land raids.
However, upon visiting the (pre-empire) Black Dome, a foreigner might have noticed how there was virtually no free non-human: these people having been completely subjugated in a distant past, to a point where they constituted most of the population of slaves, and with no chance of progression, as non-humans in the Dome are considered inferior and have no rights whatsoever. Indeed, the living non-humans were often kept in families, and encouraged if not forcefully made to reproduce, as to increase the wealth of their owners.
With the arrival of the Empire, slavery was officially and immediately abolished, surprisingly making a few of these non-human cry tears of joy, even if many would soon realize that their place in the imperial society was after all not much better, while others, not being slaves anymore and not being able to find an occupation, were relegated to starvation or forced to resort to criminal activities to survive, almost missing the days where they at least had a meal to eat, and they were at least allowed to worship their deities. In fact, the imperial authorities, noticing the gravity of the situation, soon after decided to correct their approach in favor of a slightly less abrupt transition, allowing humans that officially reside in the Dome, to hire non-humans with a special form of contract. Such ‘non-human work contracts’, would effectively represent some milder form of ‘paid slavery’, where the ones signing them would be bound to a certain job, or even a certain place in exchange for meager pays, sometimes not even offered in the form of coins. The main caveat of these contracts being that they are rescindable only by the employer, a Fatebinder or upon expiration.
However, similarly as in old Domites culture, employers would not have the right to kill, mutilate or torture their employees, and would be legally responsible for feeding them as well as for giving them a place to live, which in the case of the Empire, means their separate ghettos or at least living quarters, clearly designed for non-humans. Further, as it would not be slavery a minimum salary that would be enough to provide for them would be required, though this would go not far from being the bare minimum to beguile them to think they could one day improve their condition. Finally, all of the new ‘contracted non-humans’, are forbidden from carrying any kind of weapon with themselves, with the sole exception of gladiators, which are allowed to carry weapons only in arenas and designated training grounds. However, while Domites were sort of familiar with this kind of ways, other imperial citizens settling in the newly conquered lands, were impressed by the chances offered by this new type of 'labor', very quickly coming to enthusiastically appreciate it. Some in particular, claim that the recent law reforms for the Dome are even subtly but fully re-instituting slavery, even if selectively for non-humans.
Religion
The Black Dome has been the last standing bastion of the Old Gods, their cults still very much alive even during their conquest a mere few years ago. While Balthazar was considered the father of all deities, ‘The Family’ overall: Balthazar, Lilith, Dominium and Twyll, particularly held a significant amount of sway and it was common to find their shrines or holy sites scattered across the city. The dead would be often embalmed, at least by those that could afford it, by the Cult of Onmireios (Boggereth), or buried under the cities or outside of their walls in cemeteries, consecrated to Astaroth. Traditionally the pleasure and entertainment houses each included an open shirine to Festum or Fortuna depending on the establishment.
​Out in the countryside and especially in woodland areas or in the mountains, there were shrines dedicated to Venatus, and others dedicated to Onmireios that also guided travelers towards the city, while in the darkest and most rundown alleys, one could at times find some eerie, female-looking statuettes, fully wrapped in black rugs, a homage to Umbra. Finally, most ports used to signal the way for ships to follow, with a fire and a white statue to Calipha, the goddess of the sea. A special mention would be due to two deities that were known only in Lauka, and in minor part, in Meridia: Erkish, God of the Dead, and An-Lil, deity of art and artisans. The faith of The Three, or the ‘New Gods’ as some call them still today, has been almost entirely absent in the peninsula so far, with only one notable, recent exception.
A proselytizer by the name of Zephastra. A ‘divine figure’ that was none other than a Seraph who took upon himself to carry a holy mission to spread the faith just as The Son did.
Zephastra’s reputation was good among some of the plebs, despite his strange faith, and despite his words often condemned, if not persecuted, as subversive. Indeed, he carried out acts of compassion towards the poor, was a good orator who talked about helping each other, and the goodwill of the Three. That did not stop him from being executed in Lauka during the turbulent events that accompanied the start of the war, for having driven people against the city itself. A monument to his memory stands tall in the central plaza of the city, erected by the invaders.
Life under the Empire
After about a decade after its conquest by the Annorian Empire, the people of the Dome still present a strong identity and cling to their own culture and traditions during most of their daily lives.
If, with the years, most of the groups that vowed themselves to resistance to the invaders have either been eradicated, or have slowly disbanded and moved on with their lives, the sentiments of independence are still strong, and at each new small encroaching of their liberties and attempt at removing their cultural identity, corresponds a new peak of dissent.
The open worship of the Old Gods was one of the first things that were prohibited, together with slavery, since the very beginning of the occupation, even if some form of tolerance towards private forms of worship of at least Balthazar (the father deity of the religious pantheon in the Black Dome) still existed. Yet, very recently, the Empire decided on a complete ban and open persecution of all the worshipers of Balthazar, an event that clearly reignited the spirit of those that abandoned hopes and dreams of independence, and brought some to dust off their old weapons and cuirasses.
It is important to highlight, however, that aside for the Empire having imposed its authority, the core structure of the Dome society, that is its oligarchy, patronage, and castes system, remains essentially still intact, and that many noble families find themselves to still strive even in the new system, in a cunning move from the imperial authorities to give less incentives to partake in rebellious activities. In fact, many nobles found themselves to inherit and split among themselves the riches of these families that either were fully committed in fighting the invader, or that were sequentially found to be supporting partisan and resistance groups.
Where cults have been forbidden, the eradication of the population’s beliefs is a much more difficult and slow endeavor: if in the major cities, the youngest receive a special attention and are taught the imperial customs and religion, the adult population still clings to their own gods and ideals, and even more so in the smaller villages and the countryside.
The cult of the gods, and even the burial of the dead, has just gone underground, often literally so, being conducted in hidden basements, small caves, or catacombs. Similarly, many items and artifacts of clear religious significance, or with religious motifs, had their nature masked to allow them to survive.
Another peculiar phenomena has recently spread: the disappearance and theft of books. Indeed, some isolated scholars, or simply people that appreciate the value of their culture, are attempting to remove some specific items from other people’s houses, to instead put them where according to them they are safer from the eyes of the agents of the inquisition, as punctually, more and more local books and works become forbidden.
Currently, most citizens in the Black Dome that do care about their lands, and even more so its patriots and sparse resistance groups, see not only the Legion and the imperial authorities as the enemy to strike and to beat. But they are very conscious, as they have witnessed it since the first months after the end of the conflict, about the great and constant influx of colonists and settlers from all over the Empire, influx that does not seem to be stopping, and as more and more foreign looking people with strange accents and customs arrive, the more the locals become embittered to them.
Sponsored or not by the enemy to settle in their territories, claiming that they are fervent imperials, or that they do not care, or do not like the imperial institutions, it would matter not for Domites patriots: all the foreigners must return back to their land to stop this invasion. All of them are the invaders, independently from the excuse they want to tell for stealing their native land, and contaminating their own culture.
The frictions between these groups of colonists and the locals, is therefore a constant source of problems, often generating blood-spilling squabbles, fights, if not whole attempts at 'purges' from each side to either side.
Apparel
The Dome has mostly temperate climate all year long, with the exception of its mountainous regions, and the clothes used by its inhabitants are adapted to these favorable conditions, vaguely reminding of those of other more southern cultures such as the Khemani, at least in how they tend to be made of lighter textiles, and not to shy away from showing some parts of the body. The color palettes depend mostly on the status and economic possibilities of the individual, with natural colors such as cotton or linen white or light gray being the most diffused, while more extravagant combinations are characteristic of the upper classes. The latter wear a variety of jewels, both of the more precious metals, or more ‘modest’ variants such as bronze and iron, but independently from the wealth, the Domites tend to want to show off their social status, or what success they gained in life, with flashy accessories.
Their clothing habits greatly contrast with the more conservative ones of the people from other regions
of the Empire, and for that the locals are deemed to be promiscuous and have decadent morals, of course at the point where even their ways of dressing up adds to the numerous list of tribulations they need to endure since the conquest of their lands.
​Nature has decided to define the Domites with dark hair and eyes, and fair skin, even if often with some level of tan, thanks to the exposure to the sun.
City-states
Tayshunna
Legend says that the people from a city called ‘Erokos’, over two centuries ago, constructed a giant vessel built to wrestle control of the seas from Calipha. The ship sailed the seas for thirty days and thirty nights before a fateful day where it encountered one of the great sea serpents, and after a bloody fight, its crew slew the beast, and brought back to the port parts of its body as trophies.
Calipha was enraged by the actions of city, and sent an immense tidal wave to sink the settlement in retribution. More than two thirds of the city was lost beneath the waves, but from what remained, over a dozen islands, the first members of the Oligarchy rose and rebuilt the new city-state of Tayshunna, leading it to prosper in the future centuries. Tayshunna is a maritime oriented city-state, where the most powerful families belong to the trading caste, even if they do value the art of seafaring combat, to the point where they dared oppose the imperial navy in a series of first skirmishes, before the destruction of Meridia, which brought to Tayshunna’s surrender: indeed, both its nobles and inhabitants, while greatly valuing independence, also value their rather wealthy lifestyles and were among the least reluctant to begrudgingly come to terms with the new situation, earning the scorn of several of the most stubborn Domites partisans. Yet, it is likely in good part thanks to the mediation of the Oligarchy of Tayshunna if the transition outside of the slavery system has not been fully sudden and disruptive for Domite society, and still today, there are many rumors of ships sailing back and forth with many clearly non-human prisoners.
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​Superstition reigns supreme within the city, and if the town is still, as any other, respecting of Balthazar, it is also devoted to the ‘Four Ladies’. Fear of curses, incurring the wrath of the gods or stories of sea monsters were taken as matters of fact in the majority of instances. Before any ship was to set sail, the offerings to the Four Ladies were to be made. Of the four, the most paramount offering was to Calipha, Lady of the Seas, to keep at bay storms and the beasts of the deep. The next was to Umbra, the Lady of Secrets, as the law of the sea often demanded a different approach than standard laws might condemn, and it would be nobody’s secret that often contraband activities would take place in the high sea. Then to Fortuna, the Lady of Luck, to beseech her for fate to favor them, for fortune to reach them quickly. And equally to Festum, the Lady of Excess, to ask for such an abundance that the crew may die happy and rich. Even after the Empire has banned the cult of the Four Ladies, offerings are still performed in great secrecy, at the cost of people’s lives, as the fear of being cursed or of a terrible death at sea is still far worse than the fear of reprisal.
Kressmor
The City of Champions, or that is what it was named before the Empire forced its knee to bend. Now the city is a pale shadow of its former self, with the state surrendering, its military disbanded and its citizens becoming divided over the act that most likely saved the city from the same fate as Meridia.
A separate article can be found at Kressmor Guard
Meridia
Once considered the ‘Jewel of The Dome’, Meridia was the most prosperous city on the peninsula. Its unique location on the low yet navigable by small rafts Meridia river, the discovery of silver and tin deposits, along with unparalleled astuteness of the Anastos Dynasty allowed it to become a hub of cross-sea trade that rivaled Tayshunna, and a sort of gateway for the Dome to reach further flung places across the continent. Meridia has however been mostly known as being the cultural heart of the Dome, with academies, artisans, and temples, among which especially was the grand temple of Balthazar.
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The Anastos Dynasty came to power following a relatively short civil war that deposed the former King. Meridia at that time was little more than a large town, but the discovery of silver and tin deposits gave a quick boost to the settlement’s growth. Leveraging the valuable metals, monarchs from the Anastos dynasty broadened the city’s horizons in art, literature, engineering and the sciences, at the point at which they started being idolized as ‘Philosopher Kings’.
Even between the frequent conflicts between Meridia and its neighbors, especially Kressmor and Tayshunna, the rivalry was still maintained, and even advertised and made into something lucrative and a form of entertainment, especially in the form of gladiator battles fought by champions from either side. The greatest showing of gladiatorial display was during the yearly Mid-Summer Festival in honor of Balthazar. The week-long event used to drive large crowds into the city and to be a blessing also for all merchants, from inside and outside Meridia, for the exchange of goods and services, but especially slaves: the event presented indeed the best opportunity to showcase the most physically gifted men in the fights, but with them, all other kind of slaves followed suit.
The Empire considered Kressmor to be a lesser of the two major threats in the peninsula. Despite the Kressmor Guard having the finest army, it is speculated that Meridia was chosen as the target of such a destructive Edict for its symbol of cultural identity, as well as for the presence of the grand temple of Balthazar, and the numerous other temples. The Edict leveled the city and blasted the surrounding areas into an unnatural desert. Although the power of such destruction waned in the following weeks, the city itself is now haunted by barren sands, and scholars do not know if the land can ever be fully healed.
The destruction of Meridia has left a large power vacuum where the city once extended its power and influence, and those people that were not caught in the cataclysm, or inhabited the countryside and the neighboring towns and villages, still barely survive the scarcity of food and resources, many having been forced to relocate away from the desert wasteland caused by the Edict, and still today, many living as refugees in the streets of other settlements. The Empire, on its side, and unknown to any, has been deliberately slow to establish itself in the wake of the destruction of the city; having intentionally let rebellious causes ferment in the neighboring region and within the Peninsula in a state of controlled chaos, to offer a justification for its standing army.
Qontus
Qontus’ hegemony over the northernmost part of the peninsula, which began with the loss of influence of Lauka several centuries ago, came to an end with the large waves of migration of nomadic tribes, still in a rather ancient past. After having repelled a few, eventually these migrating, warring tribes managed to penetrate Qontus’s defenses, and push them to ally with Kressmor. With this new alliance, the city was finally able to repel the most bellicose of the tribes, and instead allow the most reasonable ones to settle in the hills and mountains, to constitute a first line of defense against possible future invasions.
It is rumored that the Ivory Brotherhood originated from members of these tribes, which integrated their equipment and combat styles with the ones from the Dome.
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Qontus was the first major city of the Dome to surrender to the imperial army, after its own was crushingly defeated, its surprisingly quick capitulation constituted a strong wake up call for the other city states, and the Domites all, to unite, albeit it came too late.
Many of the Qontus locals are now almost treated as second-class citizens by the Legion garrison, often causing more turmoil and unrest in turn. The Imperial hand is a heavy strike against any dissent as the Legion very well knows that the Cataphracts from Qontus were among the few that scored some victories against the early mercenary force the empire sent, and the feeling of belonging and pride can still be felt even after years. Moreso, it is not a mystery that most of the survivors of the Qontan army fled after their defeat to band together with the army of Kressmor, and have kept fighting even later as partisans.
The position particularly close to the only land border of the peninsula, and their past history of fighting off nomadic tribes from the other side of the mountains, have made part of the city’s population more used than others to seeing new faces, but at the same time, it made the rest particularly racist and diffident towards any kind of foreigner. Indeed, Qontus used to have laws with double standards: regular punishments and regulations for citizens and Domites, and harsher punishments for any foreigner. Human foreigners, as indeed, as in the rest of the Dome, non-humans simply enjoyed no rights, and the few coming from the mountain passes had to be escorted by other travelers, and ‘guaranteed’ by them: situation that in the past, unsurprisingly, caused malicious agents to invite non-humans in the Dome to escape the Empire, only to then sell them in slavery. The patron deities of Qontus used to be Dominion and Twyll. The first overseeing the city’s military and strict adherence to the laws, and particularly fitting its role as bastion at the border of civilization, and the latter overseeing to the cities vast cultivated plains, whose productivity greatly diminished due to the war, and still now contributes to the occasional scarcities of food or outright famines that plague the peninsula.
Lauka
Centuries ago, at the mouth of the river Lere on the western side of the peninsula, the City of Lauka once dominated the entire peninsula. Pioneering the use of the more complex formations such as the phalanx, as well as the use of Khemani war elephants. Lauka and its silvered hoplites became the shining example of military might that conquered The Dome before the Empire. But the only power that managed to unify the peninsula under their banner lasted less than a century, cracking soon after due to internal strife among noble families. Nonetheless, Lauka still remains to this day a powerful City and the one with the richest story in the Dome, famous (at least until the coming of the Empire) for its temple district, with great sanctuaries dedicated to each of the Old Gods, potteries, its typical trident-shaped buns, beer, and fine wine.
The Laukan people overall are particularly industrious ones, and proud to show the rest of the Dome and the world what they are able to achieve.
The city was ruled by a monarchy, elected by the representatives of each of the most powerful noble families, which held both the prestigious offices of priests and priestesses, as well as were the owners of all the major trades and crafts in the city. Internal divisions and rivalries however, both between competing businesses, but even competing sanctuaries, kept plaguing the Laukan people, and its Monarchy has historically been rather unstable.
Indeed, when the Empire marched into the peninsula, Lauka was paralyzed by a brief but fierce infighting, caused certainly by the division among those noble families that were sure the conflict would not have extended past the far and resource rich mountains in the north, and those that instead were urging for a Dome-wide coalition, but also particularly fomented and agitated by imperial agents, at the point of reaching peaks of violence. Almost full scale coup’d’etat that culminated with the burning of the temple of Dominium by a mob of followers of the ‘New Gods’, at the cry of ‘The will of the light’, and kept the large city unable to react to the conflict until it was too late.
The city currently chafes under the new administration, by some of these zealous ‘revolutionaries’ that managed to survive the riots they themselves started, and of course by Imperial laws and officers. Crackdowns are brutal and harsh, but even then, attacks against officials, and even more so collaborationists, are a common occurrence. Some sons and daughters of families who once migrated out of the peninsula to Kheman now return and settle in the neighboring villages, enticed by the stories of Lauka’s and their families past, angered by the treatment of their people at the hands of these ‘revolutionaries’ and the Empire. These minor nobles, ex-soldier, or enriched commoners, now trying to do what they can to liberate their ancestral home, some with more deliberate acts, others playing the long game.
Lauka has historically always shown a great devotion to the Old Gods as a whole, and it was difficult to point out at a specific patron deity for the city, where all the gods were equally (at least in principle) worshiped, but with a peculiarity: here, the domain of the dead was not of Astaroth, which remained more strictly the deity of knowledge, but it was of Erkish (or ‘Aspidis’, in the Annorian language), The God of the Overworld.
This special role of this more ‘exotic deity' was especially seen as, in the city, instead of relying on the Cult of Onmireios (Boggereth) for the embalming of the dead, the most diffused belief was that corpses have to be burnt, in order to set the inner being free to escape to the stars into the eternal care of their new custodian, the great coiled serpent, Erkish. It is important to notice how this cult had no connection whatsoever with the lost people of the Tlatlacah, or the secret cult of ‘the Sibilans’.
Another ‘special deity’ that was not featured elsewhere but in Lauka, and in minor part in Meridia, was An-Lil, the deity of arts and artisans, among which the ones considered the closest to the deity were jewelers and sculptors.
Authors: Rashan, Hokan
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