Goar­d­on gazed, con­sumed by the fres­co. It loomed, lev­i­tat­ing in the dark, in an alcove deep in the palace’s basalt walls. Illu­mi­nat­ed by a sin­gle beam of light, the mere crack­led plas­ter, on its hum­ble board of wal­nut, seemed to live. The flesh ivory yel­low. The down­turned daze dis­dain­ful. The ample lip dis­pas­sion­ate.

“What is it, Avecin?” said Goar­d­on, view­ing it.

Avecin, beside him, smiled. Goar­d­on looked at her for a response. She cocked her head, and a gold­en bee glit­tered on her ear, under her black bob: The sig­il of impe­r­i­al Empereaux. She laughed. Small, white teeth.

“What?” said Goar­d­on. “What is it?”

“It’s a Beau­ty from ancient Idra,” said Avecin, final­ly. “I thought you’d like it.”

Goar­d­on looked briefly at the fres­co again, as if steal­ing the glance. “I do not believe I like it at all.”

“Oh? I like it very much,” said Avecin. “Look at the shoul­ders. The del­toids, the ridge of the clav­i­cle. So sharp. The painter was a mas­ter, undoubt­ed­ly.”

Goar­d­on dragged his eyes back to the thing. He frowned. “Are you cer­tain? I have nev­er seen a human who looks like that.”

She laughed at this, deep and qui­et. “It’s not a human, sil­ly. It’s a Beau­ty.”

See­ing his con­fu­sion, she spoke. “Cap­i­tal B Beau­ty. They ruled Ancient Idra.”

“Beau­ti­ful? I would­n’t call it beau­ti­ful,” said Goar­d­on. “Aes­thet­ic, yes. But ‘ter­ri­ble’ or ‘pet­ri­fy­ing’ would be bet­ter.”

“It meant some­thing dif­fer­ent to them. When they coined the term, ‘beau­ty’ was ‘pow­er.’ ” She con­sid­ered it, as she spoke. “Or, per­haps it was ‘pow­er over human lives.’ I’m still gain­ing an under­stand­ing of it.” Idly, she extend­ed a hand into the light, tilt­ed it to over­lay the Beau­ty’s plas­tered fin­gers. Her five nor­mal, pale fin­gers— taupe nail lac­quer and a gold­en signet bee—imposed over its, which were five-joint­ed, rimed with rings. And its nails, long and metal­lic, like chis­els.

“You’ve become some­thing of an Idraphile, since we last met,” said Goar­d­on, look­ing down his nose.

“I’ve acquired an appre­ci­a­tion, I’ll admit.”

“To buy this, you must have.”

She smiled. “Bought, yes. It cost nine cut­ters.”

Goar­d­on frowned, faint­ly. “You com­mis­sioned a ven­ture?”

“From Péri­dot Firm. They leapt at the chance. It’s not every day they get the prospect­ing done for them.”

“You locat­ed it? Isn’t it Péri­dot’s busi­ness, know­ing where the won­ders of the ancient world are?” He tried a smile. “Not impe­r­i­al princess­es’?”

“You amuse me, Goar­d­on. With your ques­tions.” She toyed with the bee on her ear. “I have an advan­tage, though. An expert. A friend I cor­re­spond with.”

“A friend who also appre­ci­ates ‘beau­ty?’ ” He ges­tured to the fres­co, but did not look. “Have I met them before?”

A flut­ter passed over Avecin’s face. As of a sup­pressed smile. “No, you’ve not.” She tipped her eyes back up at the Beau­ty, float­ing there in the dark. At the bleak eyes. The sal­low flesh. The blood­stained mouth.

She sighed. “I’ve only recent­ly seen them in per­son myself.”

Idran Beautarchy

Sor­cer­ous cul­ture, Prae­cant­ian Era, ano ~1200-1600 (1,850 years ago)

Idra was a sor­cer­ous ter­ri­to­ry con­trolled by a con­fed­er­a­tion of autarchs known as Beau­ties. Sophis­ti­cat­ed sor­cer­ers all, they were the high­est rung of Idran society—and its only legal cit­i­zens.

To them, “Beau­ty” was not mere­ly the pur­suit of high aes­thet­ic. It was pow­er. Specif­i­cal­ly, the right to own and destroy human life. Under their vast and tor­tu­ous book of law, humans were not Idran. They were not cit­i­zens. They were slaves by default, owned utter­ly by a Beau­ti­ful mas­ter.

Beau­ties did not con­sid­er them­selves human. Indeed, they under­took tran­scen­dent lengths to buck the trap­pings of human­i­ty, aspir­ing in their sor­ceries to god­like physiques and seem­ing­ly unlim­it­ed lifes­pans. They were what today’s magi­cians would call “high” or “exalt­ed” sor­cer­ers: Prac­ti­tion­ers who have attained at least a sub­stan­tial degree of tran­shu­man­i­ty. * In rare sur­viv­ing depic­tions, Beau­ties are seen to have attained preter­nat­ur­al phys­iog­nomies, often sport­ing horns, tow­er­ing stature, and fin­gers elon­gat­ed by extra ranks of phalanges—the bet­ter to wield mag­ic knuck­le­bones.

Idran social strat­i­fi­ca­tion placed Beau­ties at the high­est of two social ranks. An objec­tivist legal code, the micelle—mean­ing “the Minu­ti­ae,” in Idran—codified these ranks. Defin­ing those who are Beau­ti­ful as Idran, and all oth­er crea­tures, human or ani­mal, as vaeli. Live­stock.

The micelle pro­claimed that the moral pur­pose of beau­ty is the main­te­nance and cul­ti­va­tion of beau­ty itself. And that the only soci­ety con­so­nant with this moral­i­ty is one that pro­motes absolute equal­i­ty among the beau­ti­ful. As such, it for­bid any cen­tral gov­ern­ment (out­side the micelle,) carcer­al sys­tem, or pre­sump­tion of exec­u­tive sta­tus, claim­ing that any­thing of the sort would trans­gress the unim­peach­able indi­vid­ual rights due Beau­ty. This code pro­duced a soci­ety that sneered at equi­ty, pro­mot­ed back­bit­ing and espi­onage, and ben­e­fit­ted only those sor­cer­ers who pro­mul­gat­ed it—or any cul­tur­al out­siders who were alive and suf­fi­cient­ly beau­ti­ful to join the Idran fold in lat­er decades, of which there were many. **

Oth­er crea­tures were deemed vaeli. Live­stock belong­ing to an autarch’s vael, their demesne. † This includ­ed humans, the few rag­folk to exist in that mil­len­nia, a Beau­ty’s ekheinum (should they have any) and their helots.

Ekheinum are beastmen—brutal hybrids pro­duced in bio­log­i­cal caul­drons. Beau­ties main­tained gen­er­a­tional bands of beast­men with­in their demesnes. Semi-fer­al crea­tures, seed­ed there and kept in size­able pop­u­la­tions as a sort of vio­lent, pas­sive guardian force used to hold down land and main­tain bor­ders with oth­er Beau­ties and neigh­bor­ing cul­tures. Ter­ri­to­r­i­al war­fare between beast­men was ongo­ing and slaugh­ter­ous but large­ly unno­ticed by Beau­ties, who deemed it an amus­ing norm. Beast­men are fecund, can­ni­bal­is­tic, and fast grow­ing, requir­ing lit­tle main­te­nance once estab­lished. Their pop­u­la­tions are so durable as to have remained in the mod­ern day, seclud­ed in bru­tal for­est enclaves far from metrop­o­les. †† Today, the pres­ence of beast­men in a giv­en loca­tion is near-invari­ably an indi­ca­tor of an Idran struc­ture buried near­by.

Intel­li­gent vaeli (a cat­e­go­ry exclud­ing ekheinum and helots,) formed the great major­i­ty of Idran soci­ety, despite lack­ing legal cit­i­zen­ship or per­son­hood. A chat­tel-to-Beau­ty ratio in excess of 500:1 is con­sid­ered like­ly, and may have been even more griev­ous in the case of the rich­est demesnes. Count­less spe­cial­ized pro­fes­sions exist­ed among them, includ­ing many that would today be con­sid­ered mas­ters of engi­neer­ing, genet­ics, and agri­cul­ture, pos­sess­ing advance­ments and tech­niques lost to mod­ern schol­ars. The more impres­sive a vaelus’ skillset, the greater their val­ue, and the greater their prox­im­i­ty to a Beau­ty’s basiliques, their offi­cers, or chief min­ions. Basiliques are a con­tentious top­ic among mod­ern schol­ars. They are spo­ken of in For­mal Idran doc­u­ments using lan­guage inap­pro­pri­ate for slaves. ‡ Instead, they are referred to as exten­sions of a Beau­ty’s will. Nei­ther slaves, nor as indi­vid­u­als. Sor­cer­ous behav­ior mod­i­fi­ca­tion, col­lo­qui­al­ly “ensor­cell­ment,” was employed to earn them this sin­gu­lar sta­tus. ‡‡ Basiliques are though to have been the high­est grade of helot pro­duced in Idra.

Helots are pre­served humans. Made unspoil­ing and immor­tal by a lost process known as chaly­biza­tion that rebuilt their bones and mar­row with steel and min­er­alog­i­cal oil­blood. They were huge­ly durable, but effec­tive­ly lobot­o­mized, for a brain steeped in oil­blood del­i­quesces into a rude gan­glion, unnour­ished and unable to sus­tain will or per­son­al­i­ty. This absence of free will suit­ed the Beau­ties, pro­vid­ing a blank slate for spe­cial­ized neu­ro­log­i­cal med­dling. They achieved this med­dling with the leg­endary Idran head loom, an objec­tion­able machine meant to dri­ve neu­ro­log­i­cal nails into the heads of helots (and oth­ers,) bestow­ing them with knowl­edge, skills, and behav­ioral shack­les. This was the pre­ferred Idran tech­nique for ensor­celling vaeli, though they used it spar­ing­ly, reserv­ing head nails large­ly for helots (who required them in order to func­tion), rare. per­son­al vaeli kept close to a Beau­ty’s side (who were shack­led by their ensor­cell­ment, pre­vent­ing betray­al,) and, of course basiliques (who through their head-nails chan­neled their Beau­ty’s will.) §

Oth­er, less for­tu­nate vari­eties of vaeli are known to have exist­ed in Idra, includ­ing odal­isques (humans bred for the rare task of com­pan­ion­ship and bed­cham­ber amuse­ment,) glad­i­a­tors of stun­ning variety—able to com­mit and with­stand ludi­crous vio­lence, and kréastes—humans bred for con­sump­tion (Beau­ties con­sid­ered all vaeli to be live­stock, in a car­niv­o­rous sense.)

Fur­ther social hier­ar­chies sure­ly exist­ed with­in the vaeli, though the details there­of are large­ly unknown, a loss attrib­ut­able to the Beau­ties’ jeal­ous seg­re­ga­tion of lan­guage and writ­ing. The shared lan­guage spo­ken in the Beautarchy, Idran, exist­ed in two soci­olects: the afore­men­tioned For­mal Idran—which includ­ed an ele­vat­ed gram­mar and many Nór cognates—and Ver­nac­u­lar Idran, spo­ken by vaeli. Ver­nac­u­lar Idran remained in wide use after the dis­so­lu­tion of the Beautarchy, lat­er devel­op­ing into the link lan­guage which would become today’s Emper­oussin. Only in lat­er cen­turies did Ver­nac­u­lar Idran acquire a sys­tem of writ­ing based upon the Nór alpha­bet. Dur­ing the Beautarchy, writ­ing was reserved for autarchs’ busi­ness only. It was writ­ten only by Beau­ties and ded­i­cat­ed slaves trained in the baroque cal­li­graph­ic scrip­tur­al style demand­ed by their mas­ters. This style of writ­ing is prac­ticed by select schol­ars, even today, as a require­ment for address­ing (notably sanc­til­o­quent, unco­op­er­a­tive) Idran incunab­u­la.

Beau­ties prac­ticed abscission—the art of resect­ing and bind­ing the ner­vous sys­tem into a liv­ing, sor­cer­ous book—liberally. In friend­ship, Beau­ties willed each oth­er their absu­tu­rat­ed selves (par­tial­ly in jest; many were con­vinced they would nev­er die.) In rival­ry and war, too, they rapa­cious­ly con­vert­ed foes into sor­cer­ous tomes (keep­ing them to cajole and tor­ment, in writ­ing, for eter­ni­ty.) They were well prac­ticed in the art, pro­duc­ing more incunab­u­la than any oth­er sor­cer­ous cul­ture to ever exist. As a result, Idran cul­ture is bet­ter under­stood by mod­ern schol­ars than per­haps any oth­er antique realm. Under­stood not with­out issue, how­ev­er.

Beau­ties, even as books, exhib­it stu­pen­dous­ly patho­log­i­cal per­son­al­i­ties. Lack­ing any sense of time, they are utter­ly unchanged by the ages, and care not for mod­ern con­text or moral­i­ty. §§ Any writer who dares scratch their blood onto an Idran incun­able’s pages had best be of stout men­tal for­ti­tude, for they address a crea­ture well-trained in repar­tee, and, glut­ted on vain­glo­ry and hubris, lack­ing any decen­cy which might restrain them from ver­bal­ly thrust­ing for the heart. At mildest, an Idran incun­able, sens­ing no sor­cer­ous med­dling in a writer’s blood, will sim­ply ignore them, dis­miss­ing them as an unbeau­ti­ful slave, or lash­ing them with a burst of dis­gust­ed rodomon­tade. At worst, they will turn their hand to manip­u­la­tion, ensor­celling the writer in an effort to have their will felt on the world even in death.

The preva­lence of Idran incunab­u­la, com­bined with the effect their cor­re­spon­dence holds on mod­ern read­ers, may explain the ris­ing Idraphil­ia which now grips mem­bers of the Coastal aris­tos­phere. Dri­ven by their Beau­ti­ful pen-pals, mod­ern magi­cians in the upper class are guid­ed to uncov­er pre­vi­ous­ly-uncracked Idran hoards, which in turn con­tain more incunab­u­la (along with gor­geous, vaunt­ed rich­es from an era of high sor­cery.) While these aris­to­crat-dab­blers in sor­cery are loth to share their books of mag­ic, they nonethe­less spread the fash­ions, mate­r­i­al cul­ture, and dire haugh­ti­ness con­tract­ed by their Idran expo­sure to the wider world.

A revival grips the Coast. Idran body jew­el­ry styles, once intend­ed for odal­isques, are worn by the young and dar­ing at soci­ety par­ties. Saporous Idran potions, only part­ly under­stood, are enjoyed as cock­tail adul­ter­ants at opera bars. Trans­gres­sive Idran car­nal­i­ties, sex­u­al and car­niv­o­rous alike, are per­formed for fas­ci­nat­ed onlook­ers at clubs pink with coqueli­cot smoke under vows of direst secre­cy. Polit­i­cal cliques, inspired by Idran objec­tivism, pledge alle­giance only to the main­te­nance and cul­ti­va­tion of their own pow­er.

Grad­u­al­ly, after near­ly two mil­len­nia, the Coast reac­quaints itself with the mean­ing of Beau­ty.

12456

Idran Style guide

A (non-exhaus­tive) list of Idran top­ics and items, the bet­ter to inform the cre­ation of Idran dun­geons. More items will be cat­a­logued here, lat­er.

Ruins

At largest scale: Decayed palaces; loot­ed and picked clean over cen­turies. Some were coopt­ed by lat­er cul­tures, long ago, and are now mas­sive­ly ren­o­vat­ed and still inhab­it­ed.

At small­er scale, and far more com­mon: Buried fast­ness­es and retreats, includ­ing lab­o­ra­to­ries and lav­ish liv­ing quar­ters. Dif­fi­cult to detect, iden­ti­fi­able only by sparse sur­face ruins and arti­facts. Most eas­i­ly iden­ti­fi­able, broad­ly, by beast­man pop­u­la­tions near­by. Dif­fi­cult to access, due to heavy foresta­tion stem­ming from the Beau­ties’ over­grown “hunt­ing grounds,” and also due to the afore­men­tioned beast­men.

Under­ground ruins are usu­al­ly secure­ly shut, locked by elab­o­rate doors, many of which have sur­vived the years. Inside, they are extreme­ly well pre­served. Beau­ties had a pen­chant for her­met­i­cal­ly sealed per­son­al envi­ron­ments, and loved to strike a con­trast between bru­tal, nat­ur­al, beast­man-rid­dled wilder­lands with­out and extrav­a­gant, metic­u­lous per­son­al quar­ters with­in.  

Traps. Late-peri­od Idran ruins, con­struct­ed dur­ing a peri­od of decline and para­noia, are rife with death­traps. Many still func­tion today. They are often of a chem­i­cal or poi­so­nous nature, employ­ing poi­sons and active com­pounds liable to maim invaders, but to which Beau­ties and their min­ions were made immune.

• Incar­na­dine tox­in. A pop­u­lar method of inflict­ing suf­fer­ing, in Idra. Near­ly indis­tin­guish­able from water. Just slight­ly more vis­cous. On con­tact with skin, caus­es pore to widen, well, and weep sheets of blood. The bleed­ing can­not by stopped via con­ven­tion­al means. Notably, helots are immune to the tox­in.
• Drought water. Typ­i­cal­ly admin­is­tered by minus­cule nee­dles set on every­day items, such as door han­dles. Draught water caus­es the same des­per­ate thirst felt by a dying man left bleed­ing on hot sand. A thirst liable to destroy rea­son and betray alliances, so urgent is the need. Designed as a tor­ture devise, and to ruin an infil­tra­tor’s focus, should they breach an Idran sanc­tum. Drought water will even dri­ve a per­son to con­sume incar­na­dine tox­in, which appears for all the world like pris­tine, slak­ing water.

Sorceries

• Sorcerer’s stones and their prod­ucts: beast­men and oth­er less­er chimeras.
• Human genet­ic manip­u­la­tion (espe­cial­ly in search of more aes­thet­ic odal­isques, their most prized toy-slaves, and more durable sol­diers.)
• Chaly­biza­tion. A preser­v­a­tive process used only on slaves. An inva­sive process, in which the skele­ton is plat­ed in steel, and the bone mar­row is con­vert­ed to pro­duce and accept an olive oil-like preser­v­a­tive cir­cu­la­to­ry flu­id in lieu of blood. Nor­mal cell life cycles are sus­pend­ed, pre­served. Indef­i­nite lifes­pan is pro­duced in the sub­ject, as a result. How­ev­er, Helots have great­ly reduced men­tal capac­i­ty, and require alter­ation by head-loom in order to con­duct tasks. Helots are oily, sal­low, and hair­less. They make up the major­i­ty of liv­ing guardians still active in Idran ruins.
• Idran Head-loom: Used to sur­gi­cal­ly dri­ve neu­ro­log­i­cal nails into the cra­ni­ums of vaeli, aug­ment­ing them with skills or direc­tives cor­re­spond­ing to the nail’s design. Used on both human slaves and helots.
• Absu­tu­ra­tion: Cre­ation of incun­abla, in which a sor­cer­er’s brain and cen­tral ner­vous sys­tem are del­i­cate­ly dis­sect­ed, pressed, and resewn into a “liv­ing” book pos­sess­ing their mem­o­ries and per­son­al­i­ty.
• Mag­ic knuck­le­bones in great vari­ety, espe­cial­ly the “Beau­ty’s hand” and inter­cala­tive bones. Idran sor­cer­ers enjoyed the height of knuck­le­bones as an art form, lack­ing only those unique to the Sor­cer­er-kings of Ancient Naus­sia.

Material culture and artifacts

Idran ruins include mate­ri­als and struc­tur­al ele­ments that match or exceed the mod­ern day in deca­dence and vari­ety. Though, they pro­duced these mate­ri­als in small scale, and at great expense of life. Advanced ceram­ics, dec­o­ra­tive alloys, and for­eign woods (some of which are not known to have grown on the Coast) make up their liv­ing quar­ters. Silk, as well, obtained seem­ing­ly before the pro­lif­er­a­tion of the giant silk moth, is found plen­ti­ful­ly, well pre­served, in Idran fast­ness­es. Rose motifs, onyx black tile, and planters of vicious asp pix­ies were pop­u­lar at the time of Idra’s decline, and are often present in ruins. 

• Body chains, torcs, bracelets, pierc­ings, and oth­er sen­su­ous metal­lic body­wear and jew­el­ry. Many designed to be worn in pierc­ings that no rea­son­able soul would attempt, such as through col­lar­bones, ribs, and punched through the bone and car­ti­lage of the ster­num. 
• Fin maille & high qual­i­ty large dia­mond-weave mesh, cloth­like and strong. Beau­ties enjoyed the drape of veils, sleeves, and skirts of met­al maille, and used it pro­lif­i­cal­ly. 
• Verdibeauté met­al. A fine alloy of brass, stained a bright, light green by age, often used to make thin plate armor, often dec­o­ra­tive, for helot sol­diers and slaves. 
• Potions of many vari­eties. Beau­ties dis­played a pen­chant for wild phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals. 
• Eon­ian wine. Typ­i­cal­ly found in long glass bot­tles, some­times a meter long. Per­fect­ly pre­served. Made of an unknown fruit that pro­duces a suave­o­lent ver­mil­ion bev­er­age tast­ing of apri­cot and almonds. Only light­ly alco­holic, but replete with some oth­er mild, peace­ful intox­i­cant. It fades fast, leav­ing in its stead a regret that it might nev­er be tast­ed again.

Helots. Trea­sures in their own right, to the Beau­ties. Pre­cious items. Mod­i­fied, pre­served, and fit­ted with dec­o­ra­tive armor bolt­ed or pierced into naked flesh. Stat­uesque, cer­tain­ly, but oily, sal­low, and unthink­ing. Spe­cial­ized and dec­o­rat­ed for their duties. Exam­ples:

• Door helot. Ful­ly armored, stand­ing, slot­ted into the seam of a giant door. A key­hole has been sunk clean through its chest. It wields a sword cut with the teeth of a key. If giv­en the cor­rect pass­word, it will unlock itself, and thus the door.
• Bed­cham­ber helot. Com­plete­ly naked, hair­less and hon­ey col­ored, save for a styl­ized hard met­al blind­fold per­ma­nent­ly installed over the eyes. 
• Pugi­laste. A body­guard helot. Mus­cled, armored in a dia­mond mesh of green maille. A bul­let-head­ed skull­cap bolt­ed over his head, eyes, and nose. The per­cep­tive will notice a small key­hole in the fore­head of said hel­met, meant to accept a decor­ti­ca­tion key in case of emer­gency. Punch­ing dag­gers or ball-like mace fists are the cus­tom­ary arma­ment. 
• Cours­er. A man turned into a killing hound. Total­ly nude and coat­ed in stain­ing mud for cam­ou­flage. Giv­en a long knife and a scent, a cours­er helot becomes a crude assas­sin dri­ven only by self­less deter­mi­na­tion and an enhanced sense of smell. Cours­er helots were used to run down and exe­cute mis­be­hav­ing ekheinum stags and non-Idran human war­lords and may still be encoun­tered today, in sta­sis, bereft of a tar­get.
• Nun­tius. A mes­sen­ger, one clear­ly select­ed for long legs and capa­cious lungs. Nun­tii are rumored to still run the frozen ridges of the Way­ward Moun­tains, immune to the cold, clutch­ing emp­ty scroll cas­es for Beau­ti­ful mas­ters long gone.
• Oar­man. Rare, intact Idran plea­sure barges are some­times found in hid­den coves and shel­tered sea-caves, still staffed with a gal­ley of oar­men helots. Wiry, silent, encrust­ed in bar­na­cles and salt. Wax­en hands still wrapped around their bronze-clad oars, ready to row as they did two mil­len­nia ago.
• Bronze bull. A rare hor­ror. A series of large helots swollen with mus­cle, pinned, sewn, bolt­ed, and forced into a life-sized bull arma­ture plat­ed in carved bronze armor. Each helot is del­i­cate­ly addled, his cra­ni­um rid­dled with head nails, repro­grammed to act as one unit of mus­cu­la­ture with­in the heav­ing, clang­ing bronze ani­mal, echo­ing with ago­niz­ing breath.

Hor­ri­bly, a hid­den mar­ket for helots has emerged, in recent years, among the dark­er sects of the aris­tos­phere. Grim coter­ies, close with inner stake­hold­ers at Coastal banks, arbi­trate the pro­cure­ment and sale of helots extract­ed whole and unharmed from Idran ruins. They make for stun­ning, liv­ing stat­ues and boudoir dress­ing in the pri­vate res­i­dences of the Coastal elite.

Plants. Idra was rife with curat­ed gar­dens and hunt­ing grounds, all var­ied in style in accor­dance with indi­vid­ual Beau­ties’ awful tastes. Some were nat­u­ral­is­tic and large­ly meant to host beast­men. Oth­ers were curat­ed plea­sure gar­dens tend­ed by an army of slaves. Despite vari­a­tion, cer­tain plant species were wide­ly pop­u­lar at the time of the Idran decline, and remain in their ruins today:

• Asp pix­ies. Large, laven­der-red vicious pix­ies named for small ser­pents. They are a species of large this­tle, from which the mild, edi­ble mod­ern car­doon descends. Asp pix­ies are large (cat-sized), spiny, and extreme­ly vio­lent towards most oth­er life. Plant­ed in Idran gar­dens as a deter­rent, and they still grow in the ruins, today.
• Vis­ceres. A species of edi­ble night­shade bear­ing mas­sive, blood­red fruits. The vines con­tin­u­al­ly, asex­u­al­ly pro­duce a steady sup­ply of red berries resem­bling giant blue­ber­ries filled with the seedy pulp of toma­toes. They taste sim­i­lar to sweet toma­toes, in fla­vor, and are rich in iron and blood salts. A restora­tive fruit, for those look­ing to recov­er from blood loss and exer­tion.
• Ten­sor vine. Wide­ly plant­ed in Idran walled gar­dens and fol­lies. A thick waxy vine, dif­fi­cult to cut, grow­ing sev­er­al meters over­ground before root­ing its seek­ing end at an ele­vat­ed posi­tion. The top of the vine con­tains a chan­nel, like the rib of cel­ery, that always faces up. When dis­turbed by so much as a rain­drop, the vine tens­es, snap­ping fast to form an angled trip­wire, poten­tial­ly with force enough to trip or upend any­one stand­ing over it. This reflex, meant to direct water down the vine’s trough, down to the roots, was con­sid­ered an amus­ing haz­ard by Beau­ties, who also trea­sured its dark green col­oration.
• Majus­cule fig. In hid­den hot­hous­es long con­cealed by for­bid­den forests and the rot of ages, heat­ed by ancient secrets and boil­ing springs, there grow stoop­ing, elder­ly trees that grow, every decade, a sin­gle, tremen­dous fig. An item of ulti­mate deca­dence, so bul­bous and pur­ple and sweet. Filled with seedy, sticky red jam. Orgu­lous, soft as rose petals, and fragrant—like the bel­ly of a hap­py god. Lives have been lost smug­gling majus­cule figs from Idran gar­den-basil­i­cas. Men slaugh­tered by helots, eat­en by man­ti­cores, and crushed by the care­less, way­ward tum­ble of the great fig as it sep­a­rates from branch. It demands to be want­ed. It wants to be tast­ed.

Notes

Yes: More than a year since last main lore post (you’ll recall the men­tion of Beau­ty in that post.) The scope of this whole site has devel­oped remark­ably since even last year, since I’ve final­ly com­mit­ted to pro­duc­ing this as a game in and of itself, in web­site-as-book for­mat, with lore to back it up. Still far from done. Scope creep, baby.

This lore is designed to coin­cide with Steel Inocu­lum, an Idran ven­ture. It’s very playable. Try it.

Next: Update Unto the Ripen­ing of the World in sim­i­lar style. Then do anoth­er sor­cer­ous civ­i­liza­tion. Prob­a­bly Aga­dion.

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