Gorlen Blackhammer – Journal Entry, #413
Hey Gorlen, what are you writing in your journal while in the Drunkin Ogre? Ohh hey, Earendil, lots to do, planning my expedition to the deep mana ethereal, got an update last night on the Penetrator’s progress in the demi-elemental plane of fire [holds both hands up and rolling his eyes]…yeah yeah, Sorvani is none too happy, but he is rarely happy, and then I still have to plan to ramp up the shop in anticipation of the city-wide orgy. Earendil grimaces… Gorlen responds not for me, I don’t get involved in that nastiness… I leave that to my golems to run the shop and take a leave of absence for that week. Earendil interjects… where do you plan on going? Gorlen looks up, bringing his attention to Earendil, as his hand leaves his quill…his quill continues to write. Well, Earendil, I’ve only been to this island once before; it roughly translates to Titan’s Rock, but don’t let the name fool you. It’s an interesting island with incredible mountains, high meadows, and deep green forests. The countryside is filled with small farms, and a few castles dot the coasts. The coastal cities primarily trade in lumber, fishing, and minerals.
However, Titan’s Rock’s people are reclusive and strangely highly magical. Some incredible Archmages call Titan’s Rock home. If born in Titan’s Rock, chances are you are a wielder of magic, know that I am thinking about it, the only non-magical people there were rare implants brought to the island. Visitors are scarce, immediately looked upon with suspicion but largely left alone. The magic schools of the island each sit a lord, and the lords govern the island nation. It’s reputed to be roughly nine lords and a King forming a very tight-knit royal family; this is what I gathered from their library. Every ten years, they rotate the King role, allowing the King to return to being a lord and his teaching and magical research. Sadly, I haven’t earned the privileges to get to the good stuff in their library, but I have managed to digest some history and culture-related information about the island. At present, the wizard-king is Dalatharn, a powerful diviner who has successfully used his powers to stop threats against the island before they could get out of control. King Dalatharn and his court of advisers have successfully guided the island Kingdom; the popular consensus is that divination specialists should lead the island kingdom from now on.
Gorlen leans back, glances down at the quill’s progress, and looks back up at Earendil taking a drink…. Let’s see what else I remember. Ohh, yes, they jealously guard the secrets of the island, I have my suspicions of what those secrets are, unverified, of course. But have learned that in the past, they have had troubles with the Laputan Empire, the Wizard Kingdom called Thusian, apparently one of the Kingdoms on the continent opposite of V’ral called Eras, and lastly, pirate kings like to try and raid the island’s coastal cities. So, as you can imagine, the island is in a constant state of readiness, and the Lords are ever vigilant hence the suspicions about newcomers.
Thinking about it, I noticed another very interesting feature about the island nation is that it had a remarkable and diverse set of mounts, with an entire knight school dedicated to mounted flying in combat and defensive strategies, including magical strategies. They had everything from griffons, rocs, drakes, hippogriffs, Pegasus, and Dragons. It was more than that; those flying mounts had been augmented. I suspect this is one of those closely guarded secrets, but the flying mounts were more powerful than you would expect, the mounts were not familiars to the knights but were bonded in some strange way.
Gorlen leans back in his chair; you know the island had an unusual mix of races for such a magically focused society. The dwarves would come into the cities, and if they were born on the island, they were welcome and treated fairly but returned to their mountain homes. The same with the elves in the deep green forest and the halflings from the fertile farmlands. If I had to put a number on it, the Halflings were about 15%, the Dwarves another 20%, the Elves another 20%, a 5% of other, and the last 40% were Humans. Each race was mainly segregated but worked together for the mutual defensive benefit of the island.
Now what was odd that I noticed is the predominant church on the island was to Kranera, who, as best as I can tell, was a God that was here before V’Ral’s appearance. Now strange enough, I haven’t come across any writings in any of the manaverse libraries I have found thus far on this god. Only within the halls of the island’s library, given what I have seen of the island, she resembles a likeness to a God of Magic.
Now there is a rumor about a pair of twin siblings, marked spellfire wielders; it’s said they bear the mark of Kranera. We were in a local bar called The Broken Wand, near the town of Askim. To get the people to talk, I had to buy the bar a few rounds, and eventually, everyone began to talk; the trick is you have to stay sober enough to remember it. In the drunken ramblings of the residents, they talked about the twins but had not seen them in two years after the church came to take them to train. Many of the residents liked the kids; they were well-behaved.
So anyway, there is still a lot to get a handle on with this island nation. I do think I will try and open a store there. Obviously, I will have to bribe the prominent merchant houses to get a good store plot, but I can make it work. This way I can keep a more regular eye on the nation island, they seem to be very interesting, plus I also need to work my way into the good graces of the librarian there. Maybe I should bring a few new books to the collection. I don’t believe anyone there has heard of the Triple K Trading Company, which mirrors similar wares that I offer in V’Ral. That would be a good cover as I perform surveillance.
The island strangely doesn’t import much, and the guilds run the crafting on the island. So, when trading or placing an order, you’re not dealing with a crafter but with a guild. That may complicate things as I import my wares for sale to my store, I guess I’ll cross that bridge when I need to. The island must have its own source of manacite, as it was abundant, but I never saw any imported.
King Dalatharn and the lords are aware of V’Ral’s arrival and find the obelisk an endless source of study; since they landed on the southern portion of the Laputan continent, the island nation figured V’Ral had its own problems. They thoroughly enjoy watching V’Ral out-maneuver Laputa as no love is lost between Titan’s Rock and Laputa.
Earendil looks at Gorlen, so how did you learn so much about the island? Well, Gorlen says, normally, when you arrive by ship, you stay on the ship unless you unload goods to the island, if you stay the night, you are restricted to the docks district of the city you docked at. They were very serious about this, so I had to bribe the dock foreman with some mithril to get a two-week pass to the island.
[the animated quill falls into the book as if it’s done writing, ahh well, I guess that’s it Earendil, I will leave in a few weeks. Dregnoth was supposed to deliver me an order, specifically a Deep Spawn, but he has been delayed on the moon. So, I want to take receipt of that before I head to the island unless he takes longer than I had hoped, and I will have to leave before the V’Ral midsummer solstice orgy. I don’t want to be here for that so it may delay my departure a week or two.
All right, Earendil I need to call it a night, I still need to inventory some exotic Sylvan Tea, Bedine coffee from Anauroch, a runewood shipment that came in, and finally, hang the new meteoric gold Rolandite holy symbols. Good night Earendil; till next time.
-Gorlen
