Emesa Hundred/1st Edition/5
close to land. They employ the ancient tactic of confusing the whales with noise while driving them into the shallows where the entire village turns out to slaughter them.
The Warriors name whales as ‘Lords’ fish’ so any carcasses are the property of the order. The crews that take the whales are, though, allowed a portion of the meat, and tradition requires them to distribute half their share among any villagers who aided the kill. Often the ‘fisher portion’ is trade at Emesa for things the village could not otherwise afford or make. The ‘Akarata’s portion’ is dried and added to the stores at Bedenes, and each Chapterhouse, where it constitutes rather more of the laumak diet than they would like.
A bonded chandler at Hask renders any blubber to high quality oil much prized in wealthier homes and by Agrikan priests across the realm for its steady, clean, flame. Much of the oil travels south after the Beast Fair, most as part of the Order’s tribute to the Church. The Aplankh blesses a small barrel of ‘Northern Oil’ for each of the Agrikan clerical orders but gains much revenue by selling the bulk in Golotha.
Life is hardest for the peasantry of the ‘forest manors’ of Bontay, Scutal and Torkat. They have yet to recover from the Big Raid and the peasantry are required to work hard to expand the acres of cultivation into the forest as well as raising sufficient crops to pay their lord’s dues to the Order. Lastly, they must feed themselves. They provide little to Emesa’s market, save for building timber, but most of that goes straight to Bedenes as tribute and sold to the settlements that need while enriching Bedenes’ coffers.
RELIGION[edit | edit source]
When the Corani Empire reached Emesa Agrikanism was close to the official religion of the legions. However, the strong and expansive Empire was confident enough to recognise other faiths. Knorran scholars from Melderyn and mainland Lythia were signs of a cultured household and boasted of by the ruling classes. Halea arrived in the wake of the Mangai and was embraced by the pragmatic Corani. Even Laranians found some converts among the martially inclined reformers around the Emperors. Perhaps most successful, though, were the Peonians. They offered succour to the common people and estate holders encouraged them to maintain a compliant agricultural class.
Always cunning missionaries, the Peonians built on the beliefs they found waiting for them. In Emesa the folk beliefs of the Jenath and their Kuboran neighbours were used to Peonian advantage. They ensured Heneryne was respected and portrayed Kemlar as Peoni’s wise advisor and forest warden. Even Crador found a home in Peonian missionary theology as a bastard son of Agrik. The Balshan Jihad fragmented and crushed the ruling class and the established Agrikan Church. Peonians, though, were confident that one day a Spring of religious tolerance would retrun. Sadly the Morgathian Theocracy’s Winter was long and dark. Peonian priests were hunted and the borders sealed against them. Most villages never saw an ordained priest again. Old people passed on what they remembered of the faith to successive generations but worship slipped far from orthodoxy. Arlun reinforced this trend; he was no friend of peasants or their gods. His ‘restoration of religious tolerance’ bought landholder support by recognising a ‘new Agrikanism’. His descendants, and those that took the Crown from them, were harsher. Arlun may have ignored Peoni, his successors proscribed her.
The religious climate in Emesa, and across the hundred is predictably intolerant. Some dispensations are allowed during the annual Beast Fair so that Haleans are grudgingly accepted, so long as they keep their beliefs to themselves. No such dispensation is ever offered to worshippers of Peoni or Larani. While Peonian priests are tolerated by the Earl of Tormau that arrangement is dependent on each swearing not to proselytise in the lands of the his neighbours. Emesan religious practice has degenerated into a heretical melding of Kuboran belief and half-remembered tales of Peonian saints and heroes.
Most commoners brought up in Emesa think their ancestors angered Peoni and that is why she abandoned them. They believe that Peoni’s sister, Heneryne wearing her Harpy aspect, led the Mamekans to Emesa as a punishment. Children are weaned on bedtime stories in which Agrikan rule is a test for which they will be rewarded by admission to Peoni’s garden of Valon. Other common tales are of the Harpy that watches for the time when Emesans can command her respect. Then she will lead them into battle to overthrow their oppressors. Some of those children have grown to be hot-headed firebrands quoting a confused version of the words spoken by Kemlar to the Kubora as if they were Peoni’s to the people of Emesa Hundred: Battle for the land and against the brothers left behind by the demon Harpy. In clean strife let the heart be joyous and the sinews and hands grow harder.
The wantonness associated with one of Heneryne’s other aspects manifests during the Beast Fair when commoners consider any ties of the marriage bed to be dissolved. Men and women, husbands and wives ‘embrace the Harpy’, and congress with neighbours and strangers is encouraged. Perhaps this has its root in the isolation of the Emesans after the withdrawal of the legion and the need to introduce fresh, often Kuboran, blood into the community. What is certain is that any missionary ‘Bullman’ visiting Emesa would be horrified by what passes for Peonianism among the commoners. The slim chance of their survival so deep in rethem leave local religious practice a mystery to the Peonian church
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