Sargasso Nation Write-Up for the Player’s Guide

I decided to start pointing out when new updates have been made to the Spirits of Eden Player’s Guide, which is now well over 90% complete! Today, I added the full write-up for the Nation of Sargasso, and I’ll copy over what I wrote here as well. So, just remember you can catch this same material in the player’s guide too, for if you ever want to find it again. Enjoy.

Sargasso

“Join us all in prayer, for religion is what holds our world together, and ill-religion and ill-wishes are the causes of sorrow.”

Centuries ago, Aundarius Volg led his men on a daring attack against the forces of the Iomadi Empire. The Intolerable War was drawing to a close, but Aundarius might not have lived to see it. His line was broken and his men scattered. He fled the battlefield, broken, dispirited. There are many tales about what happened next – but the one fact is that the Greater Spirit Rashine came to Aundarius that day and whatever came of that encounter, led to the formation of the Ocean Nation of Sargasso, where streams and falls flow with the lifeblood of a nation full of religiosity. Today, Sargasso is one of the most powerful and awe-inspiring of the Nations, with many things to see…and quite some things to beware.

Common Knowledge: A great nation on the Western Sea, Sargasso is renowned for its beauty, piety and power. Sargasso is a theocratic monarchy and powerful trade ally with control of half of Adel’s river routes – the half that Periterim does not control. Sargasso has become very rich with exports of gold, tropical fruits, sugar, coffee, spices, cultural items. Sargasso and Periterim are inevitably at odds with one another very frequently over the river routes, and citizens of either nation share at best a rivalry, at worst a complete hatred of each other.

The worship in Sargasso is somewhat strange. Rather than worship Rashine directly, the Church of Sargasso worships the divine right of their ruler to his or her throne along with any other spirit or concept. The Church institution of Sargasso is not only the active bureaucracy, but also the royal guards and servitors, and the rumored Inquisition.

The current ruler is Queen Nepet Shiripo Volg (her blood relation to the first King is tenuous at best, but all rulers take the name of Volg). She is but 12 years old, as her father died of illness and her mother had died giving birth to her. She is assisted in her daily duties by the High Priestess of the Church of Sargasso (and rumored leader of the Inquisition) Leidela Sixtus.

Queen Shiripo, often dressed in a religious garb with a hood, with only her long hair and lower half of her face visible, seems a small and fragile ruler, but the image of her is a symbol of the hard work and national purity that Sargassans ascribe to themselves. The nationalistic fires in their hearts only burn brighter whenever they see their child ruler, especially if she has her bejeweled hood down.

Like Periterim, Sargasso “helps” conduct all trade on the western part of Adel via their sea routes, caravans and vessels. This is not as much a bully tax as Periterim’s, since the clergy accompanying each ship are capable combatants who can help fend off any monsters, spirits or bandits. Periterim has attempted to offer similar services, but the best they can give are mercenaries, who are much less trustworthy than the Sargassan clergy…or so is commonly believed.

Regional Features: Like Periterim’s weather, Sargasso’s is tropical, warm and fresh at times, unbearably hot and humid at others. The conservative culture has produced its own sorts of fashions, less scandalous than the ones in vogue in Periterim, but still comfortable and easy to wear in the tropics. Unlike Periterim, the weather is less tame, and the Church of Sargasso is often bargaining with local spirits to help tone down the effects of thunderstorms or dangerously heavy rains.

Though the fast, romantic culture of the tropics can be seen in Sargasso, the area is in general more relaxed and reserved nonetheless. Rather than being adventurous, Sargasso’s culture is more passively romantic and artistic. It does have its more, shall we say, dangerous elements. But in general, it is a calmer snapshot of Periterim. The vast majority of the population worships, and divine magic is far more common than Arcane – and far more trusted.

Construction uses more rock, concrete and brick than Periterim’s due to the lack of good wood from the Andalian areas. The Church completed a massive project a half-century ago to make sure all buildings of old clay brick were reinforced with firmer material. Walking down a street in Sargasso, one can see regal stone buildings (probably concrete, in actuality) in old styles, and can almost feel the history brimming from the old structures, as well as new, captivating buildings in an urban webwork centuries in the making.

Austrand: The capital city of Sargasso is a massive city center on the edge of the sea. At its center, its highest monument is the step pyramid of Rashisoso, where the  Greater Spirit Rashine appears, briefly, at the beginning of each new year to assure his subjects and worshipers in Sargasso that a new year has safely begun. From the yellow and red pyramid the city flows out into from the nearby tropical jungle, gated off from it by battlements of stone. Directly within the battlements are areas where some crops are grown, which lead into the city proper, which then itself flows into the ocean, with the great ports of Sargasso heavily docked full of ships marking the outer limits.

There is no palace for the great queen of Sargasso – rather, near the main streets of Austrand there is a grand circular plaza within which there is only one building: the grand temple, where the Queen and High Priestess conduct the business of governance together. Its grand portico, upheld by columns adorned with reliefs of flowing waves and water, leads into the massive temple, within which jets of water, fountains, and even an indoor stream celebrate the Sargassian’s connection to the sea, and to Rashine, master of waters. Its grand buttresses take the shape of primordial water elementals that crash like jets of water against the sides of the building, splashing over the roof in grand concrete waves.

Wide roads, squat buildings, palm trees planted in plots along the streets, and hundreds of lines overhead across the buildings, from which hang streamers, bulbous decorative lanterns and flags, crests or standards of various groups, all adorn the colorful city. It is a low city, descending very subtly into the nearby ocean. The docks are so large they seem almost to support their own sort of city, one of fishers, pirates and navy living upon their boats and upholding their own law.

The Sand Jungle:  Around Austrand, the Poropis (poo-roo-peh) Jungle stretches for some considerable distance, with four common paths to travel through it to reach the great city. Not all of the jungle is sandy – in fact, only the areas flanking Austrand, and closest to the shore, are really sandy. Wet, tropical trees, lots of rainfall, soft land and clusters of greenery make up the jungle. Nonetheless, Poropis, the Sand Jungle, is the moniker it has kept for the longest time. Streams flow through the Poropis and rising hills can be seen in the distance, from which small waterfalls conceal underground caverns and paths unexplored. The southern portion of the Poropis connects to Vedaria, and is a dangerous place.

Tukhbet: A city first established near the center of Sargasso, where the hily terrain, the waterfalls, and the proximity to Lake Ota – one of the largest bodies of water in Sargasso and home to many secrets – allowed for it to become a staging point for archaeologists and scholars. Today, many expeditions are launched from Tukhbet into the nearby jungle, into the falls, and into Lake Ota, seeking out ruins undiscovered, artifacts and relics lost, and whatever snatches of history can be recovered.

Like Sargasso, Tukhbet is home to a massive Step Pyramid – the other is in Lake Ota, and together they form a triangle if a line is drawn from them on a map, with Sargasso as the tip, and Tukhbet and Ota as the base. The significance of this is not lost on occultists and clergy, and also not on spelunkers and adventurers, all of whom try to find an angle to this phenomena that could yield them some or other prize.

A culture of mysticism, superstition and supernatural trophy hunting (or unscrupulous spelunking) has formed in Tukhbet, where not only are there institutes that train up-and-coming scholars, there are also guilds where delvers and adventurers scheme and plot, copying old maps and sharing forbidden information and forgotten legend, trying to strike it big.

Others: There are many smaller villages and cities in Sargasso, but this nation is not one that is as full of urban landmarks. Many of its locations display similar traits, but are painted by their connections to either Emderuer in the North or Vedaria to the South. Unlike the Southlands of Andaliel, these locations are not clustered in any one place, and so have no unifying moniker.

•Characters from Sargasso gain training in Heal or Religion as a bonus skill. In addition, they also gain a +1 bonus to Nature and History.