18 KiB
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Talpis
Crest: A silver stag rearing on black stone before a lake of green
General Information Realm Temerian Empire (Occupied) Population ca. 62,000 Dominant Culture Highland Talpian (conquered), Imperial-Tul (occupying) Local Demonym Talpite (imperial), Talpian (native) Ruling Authority Governor-Militant Vecris Vorn (under Third Legion command) Key Features Founded Ancient; tribal capital predating the Shattering Known For Recent conquest, cultural resistance, lakefront fortifications Landmarks Citadel of the Third Legion, Great Green Lake Harbor, Hall of Fallen Kings Military Presence Third Legion garrison, occupation force, watchposts throughout the city Temples Creed of the Veil sanctum, scattered hidden Stone Pact shrines Trade Goods Copper, smoked fish, mountain barley, dyed wool
Overview
Once the heart of a proud highland kingdom, Talpis now lies bruised beneath the boot of conquest. Perched on the fog-veiled shores of the Great Green Lake, the city is a place of cold stones, colder stares, and streets thick with tension. Occupied just five years ago by the Empire's Third Legion, it is technically a provincial capital-though few would dare call it pacified. Banners may fly, but the air still carries the sharp, silent resistance of a people not yet broken. Talpis is a city where every corner holds a secret, every statue a memory, and every shadow a rebel.
History
Talpis, both city and former kingdom, bears a legacy carved into stone and blood. Its history is that of a proud highland realm defined by fierce independence, ancestral memory, and a deep spiritual connection to its landscape. Once a sacred center for the highland clans, Talpis began as a lakeside stronghold overlooking the cold, misty expanse of the Great Green Lake. Its position-defensible, remote, and close to the sacred waters-made it an ideal seat of power for the early Talpian kings, who unified the mountain tribes through oath and ritual more than by conquest.
For centuries, Talpis served as the political and spiritual heart of the highlands. The city grew in terraces and watchtowers, ringed by cairns, waystones, and sacred groves tied to the Stone Pact*-a complex system of spirit-veneration deeply intertwined with clan law and seasonal rites. Kings ruled not as absolute monarchs, but as high arbiters among competing bloodlines, their authority bolstered by symbolic roles in pact rituals and lakebound ceremonies. Though not a military power in the traditional sense, Talpis held its own through terrain mastery, tight-knit militias, and a culture of unbreakable clan loyalty.
That balance shattered five years ago.
During the Empire's most recent expansion, two imperial legions crossed the Danals River in a mid-winter assault-an operation planned in Erogent and executed with ruthless precision. The Talpian defenders, though brave, were unprepared for the speed and scale of the imperial advance. Fortress after fortress fell, roads were cut, and supply lines severed. Within weeks, the legions reached the capital. The Siege of Talpis lasted less than ten days. The final king died leading a desperate sortie against the invaders, and with his fall, the city gates opened, and imperial banners rose over the citadel.
Though the conquest was declared a success, resistance never ended. As the king's body was paraded through the streets, his daughter, Telaryn, vanished into the Mourning Peaks, along with the remnants of the royal guard and numerous clan warbands. From there, she began a bitter insurgency-a war of ambushes, sabotage, and assassinations. What began as vengeance has since grown into a rallying banner for Talpian pride, drawing rebels from across the highlands and beyond.
Talpis, now ruled by Governor-Militant Vecris Vorn, stands as both symbol and scar. Vorn, a disciplined and pragmatic commander, has transformed the upper city into a military citadel, enforcing martial law and suppressing dissent with calculated severity. Yet even he understands the city is not truly pacified. Propaganda fails to inspire. Curfews are broken nightly. Shrines to the old spirits reappear as fast as they are destroyed.
The city exists in a state of uneasy silence-a fragile surface of imperial order stretched over deep, shifting unrest. The war may have ended in the eyes of the Empire, but within Talpis, in the alleys, cellars, and mountain passes, the struggle endures.
Geography & Layout
The city clings to the steep, weather-bitten slope that descends into the chill waters of the Great Green Lake, its streets and structures layered like a terraced crown of stone. From the lake's fog-shrouded edge to the wind-scoured heights of the uppermost tier, the city is a study in elevation, memory, and control-its geography shaped by generations of highland rule and, more recently, the hand of imperial conquest.
The Upper City was once the sacred and administrative heart of the kingdom, home to the ancestral keeps of the high clans and the Hall of Kings, where the monarch held court beneath banners representing each of the great bloodlines. Since the conquest, this district has been wholly transformed. Now referred to as the Citadel District, it is a closed zone fortified by the Third Legion, with entry strictly limited to imperial personnel and sanctioned collaborators. Watchtowers have been raised at the edge of every major tier, and the old clan halls have been repurposed as barracks, field courts, and command chambers. The Hall of Kings itself lies in ruin-half-demolished during the siege and its stones now repurposed into guardhouses, barricades, and checkpoints across the upper levels. The original throne dais, it is whispered, was ground down into gravel and used to pave the Tribune's personal courtyard.
Below, the Lower Quarters remain largely Talpian in both population and spirit. These districts-clustered along the sloped roads, narrow stair-streets, and lakefront piers-are home to fishmongers, herders, weavers, and small shrine-keepers who continue their lives beneath the eye of the occupying force. Here, the city's resistance takes root: rebel messages scratched into alley stones, spirit offerings hidden in drain channels, and smuggled goods passed hand to hand in quiet defiance. Though the Empire claims to rule the city, the Lower Quarters listen to other voices-older, deeper, and harder to kill.
The lakefront itself is a place of both commerce and tension. Once a ceremonial space for clan rituals and midsummer gatherings, it has been converted into a logistics and naval depot for the Third Legion's river patrols. Imperial docks now cut into the old fishing piers, and patrol boats slip across the green waters like knives. Yet even here, the old life endures: Talpian fishers cast lines from forbidden rocks at dusk, murmuring ancestral prayers beneath their breath while keeping one eye on the towers above.
Geographically, Talpis remains an imperfectly conquered city. Its levels, stairs, and cliff-hugging design-built for defense against highland raiders, not for the smooth march of imperial legions-remain a logistical challenge for occupying forces. Whole sectors of the lower slopes become mazes after dark, and many routes are still unknown to those who were not born among them. Resistance fighters and insurgents vanish into this vertical maze with ease, slipping between levels through old drainage tunnels and crumbling postern gates.
To the Empire, Talpis is a city under renovation-a former stronghold in the process of becoming a bastion of civilization. But to its people, its streets still speak the old names, its stones still remember the old ways, and its layout remains a map not just of streets and homes, but out of resistance and remembrance.
Governance & Law
Talpis is not governed-it is occupied.
Since the city's fall five years ago, all native institutions have been systematically dismantled. The ancient Council of Stone, once composed of clan elders and spiritual mediators, was disbanded within weeks of conquest. Its members were executed, exiled, or coerced into silence, and in its place stands a regime of absolute military control. The city now operates under the authority of the Third Legion, with power concentrated in the hands of Governor-Militant Vecris Vorn, a veteran commander appointed by imperial decree and answerable only to the Emperor in Raveas.
The machinery of rule is strictly martial. All administrative and judicial functions are conducted through military tribunals, which serve as judge, jury, and executioner. There is no local representation, no appeals, and no official tolerance for Talpian law or custom. Every public space-from the city gates to the old market square-is posted with curfew hours, civic obedience codes, and public loyalty oaths, all written in the clipped and impersonal language of the Temerian Trade Tongue. Violations are met not with fines, but with floggings, exile, or death-punishments carried out in full view of the population to reinforce the cost of defiance.
Though imperial law nominally applies across the city, its execution is both selective and strategic. In theory, citizens are protected by the Temerian Codex; in practice, rulings serve political stability rather than justice. Offenses such as hoarding food, aiding fugitives, or failing to report illegal gatherings are prosecuted with the same severity as assault or sedition. Meanwhile, collaborators and compliant merchants are often granted leniency or elevated status, reinforcing the perception that law in Talpis is not a tool of order, but a weapon of suppression.
The city is divided into zones of varying control. The Upper Citadel operates under full military jurisdiction-any civilian found there without clearance is presumed a saboteur. The Lower Quarters, though more loosely patrolled, are subject to frequent sweep raids and identity checks. Night travel is banned without a stamped pass, and all doors must bear imperial seals or registry markings. Refusal to comply, or even hesitating during inspection, can result in summary punishment.
Justice, when it occurs, is often ritualized for effect. Public punishments are performed at designated gallows stones and impalement racks in the old city forum-spaces once used for royal announcements and seasonal festivals. Now, they serve as stages for imperial dominance. Attendance at executions is mandatory for all households within earshot, and refusal to witness a sentence is itself considered an act of sedition.
Society & Culture
Though the city of Talpis wears the trappings of conquest, its people have not shed their identity. Beneath the enforced curfews and the watchful eyes of legion patrols, Talpian society remains deeply rooted in clan tradition and ancestral memory. What the Empire sees as a subdued population is, in truth, a culture operating in retreat-adapted, encoded, and alive.
Talpians continue to live by the clan structure that defined their kingdom long before imperial banners ever rose over the lake. While stripped of legal power, these bloodlines still shape daily life. Elders serve as quiet advisors, even in the shadows. Disputes are resolved not through legion courts but through whispered arbitration behind shuttered doors. Hospitality, kin loyalty, and spiritual obligation remain sacrosanct, even as imperial law attempts to overwrite them.
The spoken language reflects this defiance. Talpians use a dialect of Low Mentralic, heavy with pre-imperial phrasing, poetic cadence, and coded idioms, rendering everyday conversation nearly unintelligible to outsiders. To the Empire, it's an annoyance. To the Talpians, it is a shield. Entire conversations-about ration resistance, spirit rites, or rebel movements-can occur in front of an imperial patrol without a single word of it being understood.
Symbols of identity are preserved in silence. Clan banners are folded beneath floorboards, their sigils stitched into the inside hems of cloaks or into quilts hung as wall coverings. Jewelry worn in precise patterns, braid styles, or the placement of ash markings all communicate lineage, loss, or loyalty. These signs mean nothing to the untrained eye-but to a Talpian, they speak volumes.
Festivals have been officially banned, with music deemed seditious and public gatherings strictly regulated. Yet the seasons are still marked in secret. In back rooms and candlelit caves, the old celebrations continue in altered form-no drums or dances, but with hushed chants, oaths renewed by firelight, and offerings laid at stone hearths. Children are taught not only the imperial creed but also the myths of spirit-bound heroes, ghost-kings, and lake-guardians, passed down as bedtime stories but remembered like scripture.
Tension simmers between collaborators-some of whom now serve as imperial interpreters, tax intermediaries, or trade facilitators-and the majority who view them as traitors. The old word Karneth, once a term for those who spoke with spirits on behalf of the living, has taken on a darker meaning: now used to describe one who sells kin for safety.
Religion & Education
Under imperial law, the Temerian Empire formally upholds religious freedom, a policy designed to ease integration of diverse provinces and reduce the risk of spiritual rebellion. Theoretically, conquered peoples may continue their traditional observances so long as they pay tax, uphold the law, and do not incite unrest. This principle has worked in many other provinces.
But in Talpis, the reality is different.
Here, the native tradition known as the Stone Pact is not merely a religion-it is a living expression of Talpian sovereignty. Rooted in spirit-pact rites, mountain veneration, and ancestral oaths, the Pact once unified clans as both law and faith. Its continued practice has become a quiet form of cultural defiance-a signal that the soul of the kingdom has not been surrendered, even if the throne has. For this reason, the Governor-Militantfinds himself in a difficult position. Officially, he cannot outlaw the Stone Pact. But every whispered rite and hidden shrine is viewed by his superiors in Raveas as a political threat, not a theological one.
The Creed of the Veil, the dominant imperial faith, has established itself in the Upper City, where a converted ancestral hall now serves as a stately but heavily guarded temple. Public rites to the Veil are regularly held, emphasizing spiritual submission and moral clarity. These rites are attended by legion officers, loyalist citizens, and those wishing to be seen. Attendance is not required by law, but as many Talpians have learned, noncompliance often leads to scrutiny.
Meanwhile, the Stone Pact survives in secret. Shrines to the lake, the peaks, and forgotten spirits are hidden beneath floorboards, behind hearthstones, or deep in the cliffs above the city. Offerings of ash, bone, and silver are still made at night. Once honored as clan seers, now pass their knowledge through coded stories and ritual games. Children are taught which stones to mark and which names not to speak aloud. Some imperial officials argue these are harmless superstitions. Others see a decentralized, invisible rebellion sustained by belief and memory.
Education is another front in this quiet war. Since the conquest, imperial curricula have replaced native instruction. Children in official schools are taught the Trade Tongue and imperial history-as written by Ravean scholars. Talpian legends, clan epics, and spiritual teachings are labeled irrelevant, improper, or subversive. But outside the eye of the state, elders and spirit-keepers continue to teach the old stories-not as myth, but as truth. Oral history thrives where written doctrine fails. A child in Talpis may recite the Emperor's birth date in the morning and trace the lineage of storm spirits by candlelight at night.
For the Empire, this is an inconvenience. For Governor Vorn, it is a dilemma. To tolerate the Pact is to appear weak.
Trade, Craft, and Industry
The economy of Talpis is tightly bound beneath imperial control but far from lifeless. Before the conquest, the city thrived as a trade nexus between lakefront villages, highland clans, and the wandering tribes of the Shatar Mountains. Now, its industries are repurposed for imperial needs, yet traditional trade continues-often out of sight.
The city's forges, once central to their craft, now produce weapons, armor components, and supply tools for the Third Legion. Blacksmiths operate under quotas, their output recorded by imperial clerks. Still, hidden items-spirit-etched blades, clan-symbol amulets-continue to circulate in secret markets. Meanwhile, copper from the nearby Mourning Foothills is extracted under harsh conditions by indentured workers, fueling imperial coinage and war production.
The Great Green Lake remains vital to both commerce and culture. In summer, it serves as a shipping route monitored by imperial harbor masters. But in winter, when the waters freeze over, an ancient path reopens across the ice to Val Batar-the seasonal gathering-place of the mountain tribes. Trade with Val Batar has long been sacred: fish, dyes, wool, and talismans cross the ice on sleds and snow-walkers, often slipping past imperial surveillance. This winter trade remains a lifeline for native identity and resistance, blending commerce with quiet defiance.
Talpian textile work and dyeing persist in the shadows, especially through grey markets. Banned patterns-associated with rebel clans-appear woven into linings or passed in coded cloth bundles. Official trade is taxed and licensed, but black-market exchange thrives: relics, charms, and information flow through hidden hands.