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Dear Diary, Of course things were going too calmly in our visit to Ostend. Wolfie decided he wanted to trade some things and so I and Kore stood watch while he shifted into human form. He had a pound of needles with him and he had been watching what the merchant traders from the islands of the five were buying in the marketplace and what they were selling. He figured that a pound of fine steel needles, tempered and stainless, would be appealing. He was right, they were appealing, and he traded one or two to several merchants in a row and he generated some interest and got a better sense of their worth. But, on the other hand, he got the attention of someone who thought that the needles were worth enough that the someone tried to rob us. That wasn't fun, though it was better than what was happening back at the boat. The rest of the gang back at the boat was there just in time to be on the front line of a slime demon attack. The demons had slipped into the harbor and pacified the protective magics and were swarming up the sides of the dock when Jean spotted them. Suddenly the world was full of flying ice needles as Ari froze them where they slimed. Those that broke free, Amber embraced with fire and Marie laced down with arrows. Jean stood there with Parakyle, meeting with hard weapons anything that tried to swarm the spell casters and Marie. When I asked Parakyle about the hentai slime demons he didn't say much, just looked like he was going to retch. Turns out they are a species of succubae, made from slime. The old Bitter King (before Tinda' dad) used them as agents. Parakyle figured that they had been tracking Amber and Ari, waiting for a time they could make a move, motivated by hate and a desire for vengence. Who knows, but they left an ugly, disgusting mess. You can see that they were just gross looking. And the smell was worse. No wonder the old Basalisk King kept them in his sewers. Their one strong skill is to penetrate magic defenses, sliding by them, but they are not able to take other creatures tainted by chaos with them, so once they get in they are often left with just the smell to attack with (ok, I made that last part up, but they do stink!). Wolfie and I had more mundane problems. Someone called out "thief" as we tried to complete atrade and then they tried to swarm us, diverting attention by yelling for help. They had bit off more than they could chew, (hey, I'm getting better with these modern phrases), as magic enveloped us and then our weapons broke theirs. They were just a group of thieves hoping to take the needles from us. Eventually we got it sorted out, especially since Kore can fight and dance like no one else. Even here she has a reputation and it is a good one. The city guards, between their truth stone and recognizing Kore by her sword, got sorted out before they got drawn into the melee. That could have been nasty. Wolfie ended up with a letter of credit and some spices, as well as a grimoire and a true land stone with an anti-chaos focus. Those stones are valuable to those who might be reclaiming land from the sea. He also got a magic net, but that had to do as much for the bounty on the theives than anything else. Count on Wolfie to end up getting credit on that one, even though he didn't say a thing.   Back at the dock Ari and the dockmaster negotiated some, and she got our docking fees returned to us. Guess they figured if we defended the dock instead of the other way around, they owed us, at least a little. [For more on Ostend, click that link, or read below.  The story picks up at After the space inbetween just has some background details].

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V. OSTEND Ostend the major city and center of the second island. It is the reason this island is often known as Ostend Isle. The city was founded before the great dark and survived the dark intact. The protected intercoastal area was formed at the begin ning of the great dark and the earth fires that warmed it (long since cooled) provided a great upswell in small life forms that fed fish and sustained life. It is currently regulated by a council. The government is a representative oligarchy with some republican subsets. The council seats are distributed as follows: 2 seats: for the six trading families. 1 seat: Clananaan family (an ancient family related to the Witch of E'Nord) 1 seat: Arvan family (an ancient family related to one of the extinguished five families). 1 seat: Fire Mage. (always a mage from the Fire society). 1 seat: Norns (by a priestess of Lorna). 1 seat: Grandmaster (A master from the Masterbuilder). 1 seat: The three lords (Three principalities of the southern reaches). The major council controls the city and trade arrangements. There is an auxiliary council that seats the following representative seats: 3 seats: The five families (the re-established connection) 1 seat: Asana (the cult center at Severed Pitch). 1 seat: Five Elements (the center at Sia'Ord). 1 seat: Feychild (the Fey Folk of Algrave Bridge). 1 seat: The Witch (E'Nord). 1 seat: The Dark Man (the Kar Manta West Realms). 1 seat: The Caran Tribe (Sea Trolls). 1 seat: The Cyan Tribe (Sea Trolls). 1 seat: The Running (Schied river werefolk). 3 seats: The Tsang Family (old nobility, black eyed albinos). 3 seats: The Delves. (Ostend contains a Delve within the walls.) 9 seats: The Commons (the city districts). 1 seat: The Lot (divination or manfriends). The auxiliary council handles administrative tasks and delegations over the area of Ostend's dominion. Areas are rotated so that each seat participates in administering a different triad of areas every two years. (There are 27 administrative areas. They are randomly grouped into nine districts every two years. Each district has three seats that administer it. Ostend's dominion controls the major trade with The Crown of Tears, the fishing and farming of the intercoastal area (including regulating and mediating sea troll and fey folk conflicts) and the trade routes with E Nord, A Nord, Sorens Delve, Sorens and Severed Pitch. It also extends to the western end of Framaine Plain and the varied Tsang Family feudal realms. Avain has made itself a part of Ostend's Dominion in return for counter force to incursions made from Notch. Because of the trade routes and natural wind patterns, almost all of the trade from the Five Families/Crown of Tears to the first island of the triad stops over at Ostend.

The islands of the crown of tears are very fertile and this affects population distribution. A single family that is farming/fishing/etc. full-time can support itself and two to two and a half other families with sufficient reserves for bad seasons. Approximately one third of the population herds, fishes or farms full-time, another third has some gardenning or small culture herding (including fowls).

Magic and a rich enviroment can do wonders.

Consider, to feed a normal human for one year takes 250 pounds of grain, 20 pounds of honey, 5 pounds of salt and 200 pounds of milk products. In our world in 1910, to produce 2,000 pounds of tubers took twelve hours of work. 2,000 pounds of potatoes took twenty-five hours of work. 2,000 pounds of wheat took one hundred hours of work. Today, with mechanical help approximating the magical resources of an integrated society, that same 2,000 pounds takes 1.5 hours for tubers, 4 hours for potatoes and 7 hours for wheat.

Assuming 52 weeks to a year and ten work hours to a week, a farmer has 520 hours of work. A single farmer can produce at least 15,000 pounds of food. That means that a single farmer can feed about 50 people, albeit rather poorly and blandly. Assuming   ten people to a family, with only one worker, that farmer can feed ten families with thirty free hours a week (on a forty hour week) for other endeavors and an additional ten to thirty hours a week of specific endeavors.

The average farmer works twenty hours a week to feed approximately 30 people well. A family usually has five to ten in the immediate unit, which contribute another twenty hours a week.

The rest of the time is spent in crafts, childrearing and training (about twenty hours a week in various training matters).

As to food, note that tubers produce about 20 tons per acre, peas & wheat produce about a ton per acre, corn & rice produce about three tons per acre.

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After the attack, things were a little tense, as we got sorted out with the city and Ari and Amber got sorted out in the harbor with the harbor master . She just did not expect Ari and Amber to summon so much raw magic, especially since the fire mages in the city are generally male. The merfolk (they call them Sea Trolls, they are large and strong and scaled, but they aren't "trolls" as in chaos tainted manforms) and others had the harbor gates locked until they had the sea scoured and the kraken mother who nested the slime creatures slain and dissolved back into the salt water than spawned her. All of the shipping was nervous and it wasn't until the outliers reported that all was well that anyone was ready to venture outside the seawall. The attack was a bigger shake-up than I had thought, since the magic guarding the harbor was old, powerful, reliable and steadily renewed and layered. They were not happy that a chaos incursion had breached it. It meant we ended up spending a week in Ostend rather than just a day. To be honest, those sea trolls were scarier to me than the slime demons were. The one you can see in the background of my diary was ten feet tall.  The other ones are about six foot tall, and green, with a denser scale pattern (the giant ones may have scales, but it just looks like bad skin). They have webbed hands and feet and flatter faces without tusks. But they are scary too! We were careful in the market, I visited the dwarf delve market and traded a little and Parakyle and the dwarves passed some messages back and forth.

Kore sure was neat, I hope to see her again, but she had a quest to attend to in the North of the island. I'll miss her, it was like having an older sister for a time. She did warn us that Ostend is a fairly open city. The tainted walk mixed with the clean, as long as they abide the laws inside the walls. The city guard is strong, but more of a military guard than a police force for the most part. We decided to heed her warnings about the dangers in the countryside and did not stray from the city.

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On the good side, with all the excitement, we were able to leave the boat safely, with the guard out in force, which is really the normal way things go. We all got a good night's sleep on dry land, even if the inn was a bit crowded the first night. Wolfie just stayed in wolf form and I ended up using his back as a pillow, as the landlord told us the dog had to sleep with us -- he didn't trust it out in the yard as big as it was, or so he said. I was glad to be sleeping on dry land rather than in the boat, going throught the sky. The first night we only had two linked rooms, with the one for the guys more of a closet with a bench. Wolfie slept in the passageway in front of the space betwen the two rooms (the rooms had a single door going in and the "closet" was to the right and the real room to the left. Jean got the guy's bench, er, bed, which was barely large enough for him, Parakyle slept on a blanket on the floor, Wolfie took the middle, I ended up leaning against him and going to sleep and Amber, Ari and Marie slept soundly in the one large bed in the real room area. We got a hot meal in the morning and then bargained for two full rooms. We spent about a week until the merfolk (I just can't call them sea trolls) gave an all clear. After the "all clear" we were off to the islands known as the Crown of Tears. Ostend is neat though. Great walls, a curved dome covering the entire city which is set into a steep hillside on the one end and the sea on the other. Dwarven delves reach beneath the city and into the hillside, and the sea wall extends out and is also domed (from a distance Ostend looks like two domes nestled together). Inside it has a great firestone, somewhat like the one the one-eyed-king has over his realm, and there are traces of thermals still rising in the protected harbor, with the old fish pens still riding on them.

COMMON COLOR ASSOCIATIONS These colors are traditional with the families of the five and do not have strong significance outside of the islands and lands of the five. The five tend to wear white/natural colored fabrics trimmed in the appropriate colors. Full clans use both colors, cadet lines use one of the two colors associated with the color of the clan sept's element. light dark element blue indigo air aqua green water yellow brown earth orange saffron fire red purple dark clear violet spirit grey black shadow CLAN ORGANIZATION The basic unit of a Clan is its Families. These are extended Families of three generations each. The nuclear families that comprise the Families usually have from five to ten members. Families often adopt parental/child units from each other and fostering is common. Adopted and foster children are included in the nuclear family size. <true genetic size is quite smaller> Familes are arrayed in Lines that go back two or three more generations. It is quite common for Lines to merge and to shift. Lines are grouped into Branches related by decent from a common blood/adoption/marriage ancestor. The Branches compose a clan. The Clans and their cadets are arrayed in Septs and the Septs compose Khodochs. When one talks of one of the Five Families one is actually talking about one of the Five Septs that control the islands of the Crown of Tears. Each Sept of the Five Families has an island that it is centered on, with branches on other islands. The word Khodoch is used in two fashions. One is to describe the Sept with all of its units -- including those on other islands and the mainland. The other is to describe the unity or federation of all the Septs. There are other unities besides the Khodoch of the Five Families/Crown of Tears, but none are as complete.

Copyright 2001-2003 Stephen R. Marsh and Heather N. Marsh E-Mail comments and suggestions to: story (at) adrr (dot) com We would love to know how you got here and what you think about the site All Rights Reserved Terms of Use / Story Index

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