Autumn Realm
The Realm of Autumn What are the Themes of the Realm? The Realm of Autumn is sometimes called the Labyrinth. The physical labyrinth of the realm itself represents the metaphoric labyrinth of its society. Nothing is simple with the Realm of Autumn, everything interweaves with everything else. Interacting with a minotaur is like navigating a maze littered with dead-ends and traps for the incautious. It is a web where the strands are influence, and the points where they cross are individuals or cliques united by a common goal – or the appearance of a common goal.
The Labyrinth is about influence, and every interaction in the Labyrinth is a political interaction. . It is founded on the concept that one cannot do everything alone. It is about wanting to reach out and change things, about having the will to succeed and the wisdom to find the right tools to allow one to do so. It is also about “action at a distance” where one has influence in an area one cannot personally reach by influencing those who can reach it.
It is a realm of deals and intrigue, but it is also a realm of wealth and prosperity. Mortals are not entirely clear what the trade goods of Autumn are, nor how they are produced, but they know that the Realm is predicated on their trade in some fashion. They fashion beautiful things out of their raw materials and trade them amongst themselves.Minotaurs are notoriously vague on precisely how it all works. The Realm apparently uses large lead coin internally, but their real currency is favours and influence.
It is a realm of order and civilization on the large scale, but that order is not fractal. Look closely and you can see the disorder that lies beneath the surface. Those laws that exist in this Realm almost seem to exist purely to be broken to create the scandal that allows the minotaurs to blackmail one another.
The Realm is a Realm rich with images of maturity. The passions of youth are banked and directed, and while the infirmities of old age are distant, the inhabitants are peripherally aware of them. While the Realm may remember the follies of an imagined youth with wry fondness, it is the future that is important. Preparedness, planning and foresight are all strong elements of this Realm’s make-up.
What kind of Magic does it cover? The magic of Autumn is the magic of influence and prosperity. Where Summer enhances the capabilities of the individual, or Winter diminishes those same capabilities, the magic of Autumn spreads outwards from its targets along points of correspondence to affect large areas or large numbers of people. To a degree the magic of Autumn is the magic of scale – it is the ability to bless crops, or to blight them; to reveal mineral deposits or conceal them; to unite people or cause them to become fractious; to aid travel and movement over large distances, or to impede it.
Autumn is also a realm where preparation and contingency are understood. Some of the rites of Autumn allow for the storing of magical energy for later use. Rarely as cost-effective in economic terms as simply invoking a spell, their real value lies in the adaptability of the magic. A healing ritual may be simpler than storing healing magic in a sash or a potion, but when one is in a dangerous situation that same healing magic can mean the difference between success and failure.
The magic of travel is also part of the Autumn perview. Whether it is speeding the movement of a shipping fleet or transporting four hundred warriors over great distance, the rites of Autumn play on the connections between here and there to bridge the gaps in the world. That same magic can be used to confound direction sense – there is a tale of a rite that causes all the pathways through a forest to loop back on themselves, and of an army still trapped somewhere unable to find their way out even through death.
Magic that deals with wealth, prosperity and comfort – or the appearance of the same – is also part of Autumn. It preserves food and drink, it enhances the potency of wine and the flavour of meat, it repairs broken things.
What is the Realm like physically? The Labyrinth is crimson, black and gold, these being the most common colours of natural features found there. It is a mountainous realm, but it is also a literal labyrinth – mostof the Realm is dominated by a massive maze carved out of the ground itself. Sometimes the walls are black stone, sometimes they are lead, sometimes they are impenetrable thorny thickets or the high walls of natural canyons. Sometimes they are narrow passages where travellers must walk in single file, sometimes they are immense avenues wide enough for an army to march freely down them. Sometimes they open into great plazas or clearings large enough to hold a city or an entire valley. Everything here is a little past it’s prime, however. Ivy grows on the walls, old structures crumble a little, and flowers are almost unknown – what flowers do exist are usually made of metal or crystal and found deep underground.
Water runs through the Labyrinth, a complex series of canals and locks that feed into a great lake or small sea along whose shores great cities rise. It is often raining here, powerful winds are common, and occasional floods or earthquakes are not unknown. While there are regular days and nights and a sun and a moon, there are no seasons. As near as scholars can tell, everything is in the late season of its life. The trees are invariably deciduous in autumn finery, the fields (such as they are) are always full of crops ready to be harvested, the orchards and vines are always heavy with fruit. In theory nobody goes hungry in the Realm of Autumn, because it is a realm of plenty.
The Labyrinth is a realm of cities – there are no towns, villages or hamlets. The inhabitants cluster together in chaotic, sprawling structures. Each city is ruled by a Sovereign, and it is from this Sovereign that all political power descends. The Sovereigns themselves are powerful Eternals, and it is their will that creates much of the conflict in the Realm. The actual incumbent of the Sovereign position changes, however, as established rulers are overthown by ambitious subordinates.
The Realm descends deep beneath the surface as well – beneath the mountains are great delves and mines that criss-cross and interconnect. The passages beneath the surface are dangerous, inhabited by strange creatures and deadly traps, but they create a second labyrinth that underlies the surface labyrinth and is a source both of astounding mineral wealth and of clandestine movements.
What are the inhabitants of the Realm like? The Eternals of Autumn are minotaurs. They tend not to be very imposing physically, but make up for that with elegant costume, fine manners, beautiful jewellry and charismatic demeanours. They all have horns, which are a sign of power, but apart from that there are a number of expressions of their identities – Sovereigns in particular express a lot of variation from the “typical” minotaur. They are always impeccably dressed, however.
They are absolutely political creatures, constantly engaging in intrigue. Every interaction is an opportunity to a minotaur. They love the opportunity to display their cleverness, but even this is a cover for their utterly ruthless natures. Each of them from the lowliest mine worker to the most sinister bureaucrat schemes to one day become a Sovereign, and each Sovereign plots to maintain his position.
They naturally organise themselves into cliques and cabals, and minotaurs are rarely happy except when there are other people around for them to interact with. Minotaursare never encountered alone unless they are in trouble. A powerful minotaur always appears accompanied by allies, aides, servants,guards and toadies. A less powerfulminotaur always appears with a gaggle of allies or fellows. A lone minotaur becomes erratic and jumpy, and quickly seeks out the company of others.
They engage in constant stratagems against one another, and some of these rivalries have been mentioned in scholastic documents many hundreds of years old. They rarely fight one another openly, preferring to use scandal, economic warfare and teams of assassins. When they do contend violently it is a clash of armies rather than a one-on-one duel that determines victory.
They love games, especially those of strategy and bluff, and while most disdain chance, there are those who absolutely embrace it and love to wager precious things on the throw of a dice.
Minotaurs are fascinated by relationships between individuals. Those who interact with them report that they tend to ask detailed questions about families, cliques, clubs, associations and lovers.
They are profoundly interested in wealth, and the comforts it brings. They do not value Imperial coin as coinage; they understand it and see it’s existance as proof of the closeness between the mortal realm and the Labyrinth. More than wealth, however, they value influence. In the Realm, promises have magical power that binds the one who promises a favour to fulfil that favour. Many minotaurs maintain comprehensive banks of favours owed and owed to others, and trade them like precious jewels. They understand that mortals are not as bound by favours as they are, but the concepts of obligation and service are ones they employ often when making deals with wizards.
Within the Empire, the cambion lineage is closely connected to the Labyrinth. The details of how the lineage came about are still to be determined, but it is likely that regardless of how it happened the minotaurs see the kindred spirit of the cambion both as an opportunity to gain a competent pawn and the opportunity to gain a deadly rival.
What do the Eternals want from Mortals? They actively enjoy the company of mortals, they enjoy interaction for its own sake, and any deal with minotaurs is likely to take the form of a social engagement of some sort. The witty, clever and ambitious are well treated while the dull, rude or humble tend to be ignored completely by minotaurs.
The Eternals of Autumn want to influence the Empire, more than any other group. They want to see it become more complex and more structured yet at the same time they want to ensure that the individual has the freedom to achieve whatever he has the will to do. Individual minotaurs have different attitudes about what constitutes a positive influence on the Empire, how to achieve it, and what tools are appropriate. Many of them operate at cross-purposes.
Several minotaurs specifically want to trade with mortals – to exchange goods for goods. They often require esoteric trade items – not interested in “wood and stone” but fascinated by rare minerals and gems, fine wines, magical cloth and the like. The materials and crafted goods they offer in exchange often possess unique magical properties.
They love the concept of prosperity and wealth, of having the luxury to indulge in … well, luxuries. They encourage mortals to enjoy their leisure time, and create the structures to explore it. They encourage the removal of laws that restrict personal freedom to enjoy the fruits of one’s wealth.
They are ruthlessly materialistic. They have little truck with philosophical concepts of faith or duty, obligation to the community, souls, reincarnation or ephemeral concepts like that. They like what they can hold in their hands, or touch with their fingers, or savour with their tongues.
What are some things these Eternals can give to Mortals? The Eternals offer gifts, both physical and magical. They can commonly offer magical blessings that cover large areas, but these blessings are usually restricted in terms of duration or when and where they can be applied and may be quite expensive to acquire.
While knowledge is power, they are very greedy with their own knowledge. They are least likely of all the Eternals to hand over magical or mundane secrets.
They can provide articles that enhance or focus the magic of Autumn, but such items usually work by enhancing the properties of the resources used to create the magic rather than the magic itself – it is much more common to get an item that reduces mana costs (say) than it is to get one that enhances ranks in the Lore of Autumn, for example.
They love to offer trade goods and crafted items with odd properties. These items are often unique, but they are also known to be able to provide several “trade goods” such as narcotic wines, fruit with magical properties, esoteric jewels and metals.
Rarest of the gifts they give are the Coins of the Labyrinth which represent a favour owed for a later date.
What themes aren’t appropriate to this Realm? The inhabitants have horns, but they are not devils or demons.Their opposition to churches and faiths is nothing to do with good and evil and is gorunded in practicality – worrying about ephemeral things distracts one from the opportunities and joys of the material world. Piests are at best credulous fools and at worst they want to stop you exploring your potential by getting you to focus on irrelevancies.
They are savvy political schemers, with goals and personalities and the will to achieve those goals. They have no interest in charity, or in ”helping the PCs out” and they absolutely do not give discounts. They aren’t altrusitic, they want to spread their “way of life” because it creates more opportunities for themselves – if it creates opportunities for mortals, that’s an interesting side effect.
They understand compromise, because politics is about compromise, but their compromise is always one that helps them achieve their end. A minotaur bent on removing the influence of religion from the political arena might compromise and abandon a stratagem that involves murdering all the members of the Synod, but only if a more effective stratagem replaces it.