The Current State of Brookshire, in a Nutshell

[Yvain Wintersong]

Brookshire was the home of Shireroth's first Kaiser, Raynor I. and now crawls with his descendants. Brookshire has more people of noble blood, per capita, than any other Duchy. Many of its families belong to the traditional Kaiserial lines of Raynor, Metzler, Ly'Technomaezj, Ly'Technomaezj-Metzler, Haiken, and Mortis. Hundreds of others trace indirect descent from such a line, but still jealously guard their status as nobility.

So many noble families in such a small space inevitably led to trouble during the early years of the Duchy. The title of Duke was originally held by the eldest male of the Line of Mortis, in accordance with a tradition handed down by Kaiser Raynor I himself. The Duke usually filled most of the Baronial and Count level positions with his own relatives, leading to tension among the other leading families. This tension led to eight major rebellions in the first three hundred years of the Duchy, leaving it economically devastated. For some time, the minor house of Ly'Aran won the position of Duke; for another three decade period, a younger branch of Raynor jealously guarded it. After the particularly bad rebellion of b2049, in which Mortis successfully reasserted its ancient right, Kaiser James I decided to intervene.

He decreed that positions in Brookshire would be filled the same way as the Kaiserial Throne: by merit. He asserted the right to choose the Duke himself, and organized a council of nobles to ensure that the Duke chose the most deserving person for each lower-level position.

This solution created problems of its own, many of which would not become apparent for generations. The Noble Houses lost their guaranteed title to the lands they had held for generations. Thousands were displaced as one noble gained control over a County holding the mansions of his families enemies, and confiscated or destroyed them. There seemed no escape from this fratricidal violence until one particularly clever house took advantage of an old Kaiserial decree declaring the seasonally flooded region of the Elwynn to be under the direct control of the Imperial Crown. They built their mansion suspended on great wooden stilts on the Elwynn's flood plain, where no other family could legally touch it. Soon the entire noble population of Brookshire had moved to a few kilometers of Elwynn riverside, trying to outcompete each other in the lavishness and elegance of their flood-prone mansions.

The resulting demand for capital among the noble houses inspired a ruthless drive by each to attain the Duchy's new meritocratic positions. The Noble Houses began breeding children the same way their pastoral ancestors had bred moose: as a resource. The more children a House had, the greater chance one of them might be the sort of outstanding leader who the Powers That Be would offer a lucrative position to.

This also led to the custom of jünietie, the tradition of marriage offers to any commoner who proved his worth. If any commoner achieved the good graces of the realm, the big noble houses would deluge him with offers for their marriageable daughters, in the hopes he would ally with their house, gain them a position, and bring riches to the adopted family.

All of this added up to a sort of involuntary eugenics, where the noble houses worked in a very Darwinian way to produce the sorts of heirs who might bring glory to their families. The rich houses got richer, and the poor poorer, as talented commoners got married off to those houses that offered the prettiest women and the highest dowries. Soon the nobility of Brookshire had become what the nobility of other lands only claimed to be: measurably superior to the people they ruled.

Not willing to trust to genetics alone, the Houses vied to get the best private tutors for their children, or, should they fail, assassinate the tutors of their rivals. Academics from as far away as Hyperborea and Amity were offered vast sums taken fro the gold mines of Goldshire to move to Brookshire and instill intelligence in the heirs of the great houses.

But the most coveted tutors could not be bought. These were the Ly'Technomaezji, who lived on their own in the hill country of northwest Brookshire. They claimed to be descended from the ancient Ly'Technomaezji of Gaelen, though their detractors claimed they were only another order under the same name. Whatever their provenance, they would arrive unbidden at noble houses and make an offer to assist the noble's affairs in exchange for an oath to fulfill a favor to be named later. No noble with a Ly'Technomaezj as an advisor was ever known to want for anything, but after years of service they would demand a terrible price. Ly'Technomaezji favors, which were never named beforehand, might be as simple as handing over a rare library book or exempting local Ly'Technomaezj communities from taxation, or they might be as awful as a demand to give the noble's first born over to the Ly'Technomaezj or declare blood feud against a neighbour. No history records what happened to those who broke their oath to the Ly'Technomaezji, but there are certainly no records of such a one surviving.

With young nobles being treated as breeding stock and facing academic pressure that would make even the sturdiest prep-school student shiver with fear, it is no wonder that many of modern Brookshire's best and brightest break down or blow up. Most of these are young men still without titles, whose families quietly carry them off to one of the Duchy's many lunatic asylums before they become an embarrassment. But others are Counts and Barons who control vast swaths of territories.

Brookshire's history is full of ruling nobles who go insane from the pressure and turn their subdivision and those surrounding them into wastelands. Though the Duke and Kaiser usually intervene quickly, the noble and his loyal followers, their spirits heightened by their mandess, can wreak horrors on whole fiefdoms before they are finally controlled. Such conflagrations of violence destroy areas not only physically but spiritually, and for decades afterwards people in the affected areas keep their doors locked all day and speak only in hushed, fearful voices. Place names across and around Southern Brookshire attest to the violence of these orgies of horror: Thanatos, Dolor, Unspeakable Horror.

With so many children, and such fierce competition for positions, there's always a surplus of well-trained Brookshirean nobles looking for jobs. Those who fail to earn fiefdoms, and a few who turn aside from more lucrative noble titles in order to pursue worthier aims, usually go into the Societies. Each Society, usually founded back in the mists of time by some long-dead Duke or other, accepts any new initiates who are willing to abide by its (usually strict) rules, and those who serve ably can gain powers almost as great as those of a Count or Baron. The Arx-Piscator, leader of the Piscatores, needs follow no orders but those of the Duke of Brookshire, and some say the Ly'Technomaezji follow not even those. Other Societies are similarly prestigious. These groups offer a safety valve for a large and discontented population that would otherwise solve trouble.

The Piscatores are given especial privileges because of the value of their work. Ever since Rrakanychan met his fate at Demonsfall, reports of demonic influence in Brookshire, either the survival of Rrakanychan's followers or the rise of new demons from the same cracks that their predecessor wriggled through, are common. Nobles are always anxious to prove themselves by rooting out nests of demons and their supporters, and often succeed even before the Piscatores ever get involved. But no one but the Piscatores has ever considered just what would happen if a demonic infestation ever got bigger than a few small villages, and that is why they fight the darkness with especial vigour.

Nowadays Brookshire is mostly peaceful. The noble families from their mansions along the Elwynn continue to raise children in the hopes that one of them will grow to be a great scholar or commander who can nab a County or Barony for their line. The Duke and his council of family heads continue to play most of the major factions against each other in the hopes it will keep them occupied enough not to destroy the Duchy. The Piscatores guard the gates to Balgurd, and more worldly forces guard the cities against invaders from without or madmen from within. The Ly'Technomaezji continue to not communicate with anyone else except when it pleases them to do so.

In a few days, I will write up a piece on natural history and social geography. After that, I want to go more into detail on the Societies and start matching them up with people (I can't decide whether Count Krasniy or Count Mike would make a better Arx-Piscator). Then maybe we get to the Halls of Gaelen. And then...Yvain plots further and further into the future, until he is lost in reverie and you politely leave him be.

[hypatias mom]

Great! This is like the legends of old. I can't wait to read more.

[Krasniy Yastreb]

The Duke Delivers.

Excellent stuff, m'lord. You put my lazy ass to shame.

[Andreas the Wise]

Beautifully written, thought out and enthralling as always, Yvain ... if I wasn't so attached to Melangia ...
*considers Kildarian societies ... considers Jasonians involved in Kildare. Considers rumours of Shadows and lost prophecies and everywhere Sakat recording history. Starts to scheme ...*