TEXT: 1
  IMPERIAL FIEFS
  Written by: Rustin Quaide. Developed by: Bill Bridges. Art by: John Bridges. Maps by: Chris Howard.
  © 2003 Holistic Design Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction without written permission of the publisher is
  expressly denied, except for the purpose of reviews. Fading Suns, Imperial Survey, and Imperial Fiefs are
  trademarks and copyrights of Holistic Design Inc.
  
  2
  IMPERIAL SURVEY
  A Knight’s Tale
  Salutations to Emperor Alexius, my liege lord, Imperator
  Pacificus, the Emperor of Universal Peace, whose calm de-
  meanor brings stability and order to the center of the Em-
  pire, and whose wisdom and might spread out like the rays
  of a central star, pacifying the remote regions of barbarism
  and lawlessness. In the tradition of those earlier reports done
  by my fellow Questing Knights, I shall provide a brief intro-
  duction about myself before starting my report on the Impe-
  rial Fiefs — the worlds of Byzantium Secundus, Tethys, Stig-
  mata and Nowhere.
  My father came from a distaff branch of the Orlando
  family, and could claim a drop of Justinian blood from a
  remote ancestor, Lady Aurora Justinian, second daughter of
  Count Virgil Justinian, whose lands were seized by the
  Keddah on Grail after the assassination of Emperor Vladimir
  Alecto. She wed a free man of reputed wealth, Luis Orlando,
  and moved with him to Tethys. This is all public record.
  Unlike some poor freeman, who claim to be bastard sons or
  granddaughters of the great nobles, our claim is there, in
  the Nicea Codex, but it has neither helped nor hindered my
  family, as my branch dropped from noble to freeman status
  ages ago. Once on Tethys, the Orlandos became weapon
  suppliers to the Regency, producing military clothing, gear
  and small sidearms as members of the local Orlando Guild
  (named after my family) for generations.
  My mother came from a more liberated family, the Cincas
  from the free city of Maguat, who were, however, escaped
  serfs from a minor Torenson estate. Seven years residence
  in Maguat makes one by law a freeman; hence the saying:
  “City air makes a man free.” As a child, I remember mother
  rolling her eyes and leaving the room when father would
  tell my sister and I about the ways of the universe. Sipping
  on his evening beer, his feet propped up on his favorite stool,
  father would explain that the universe needed an emperor.
  He would then go into his long explanation of the hierarchy
  of station, from the lowliest serf to the highest lord, which
  mirrored the Pancreator’s reflective hierarchy of celestial
  saints and angels. “A higher truth holds together the Known
  Worlds, one mixed with the allegiances of ethical powers —
  the great nobles, the Church, and so on,” he would say, draw-
  ing a picture in the air of orbiting worlds circling a great
  sun, symbolized by his flush face.
  “The Emperor, Pancreator grant one returns to us —
  the Emperor looks after the affairs of the great nobles, who
  look after the affairs of the minor nobles and guilds, who
  look after the freemen and serfs, who look after us, and we
  owe the next higher station our allegiance, so great are their
  cares, as the Church, in descending order from Patriarch to
  parish priest, administer our souls.” I would listen in awe,
  and line up my little military toys accordingly. My mother —
  I suspect now she had some taint of Republicanism in her
  family — would call us children to bed after too much of this
  talk. I would sleep at night, dreaming of planets circling a
  flush red star — the Emperor!
  The Emperor Wars were a tense time on Tethys, as so
  many loyalties to varying families had been encouraged by
  different royal houses during the long night of the Regency.
  Tired of overseeing the night shift of our little guild sidearms
  factory, at age 16 I ran off to Glarson’s Point, where the pro-
  Darius faction of the Regency armed forces were recruiting.
  Already knowledgeable about firearms, energy swords and
  armor, and of freeman status, I went into a sort of officers
  training school held on one of the harsh moons of the solar
  system (I cannot say more, nor divulge the location). After
  six months of drilling, parading, handling weapons, and
  enduring forced night marches, I was commissioned as Lieu-
  tenant Orlando of the 9th Tethys Loyalists, and sent to
  Ravenna with 900 soldiers from Blight Town, the toughest,
  meanest S.O.B.s Tethys had to offer. I think they respected
  me because I had copied the royal demeanor so well, and I
  heard the men say I was some sort of Hawkwood bastard —
  the nephew of Darius. I did nothing to discourage these ru-
  mors, but the troops also liked the fact I knew my weapons
  and could repair any malfunctioning sidearm.
  One day, news came that Darius had been killed. I, along
  with Captain Marchuko and Count Julian Hawkwood, im-
  mediately declared our forces for his nephew, Alexius. Two
  months later, we were thrown into battle on Stigmata, to
  rescue the Garrison from the Symbiots. This was a harsh
  battle, even with command of the air, and the 9th was in the
  thick of it. Captain Marchuko got cut off attempting a rescue
  of a small band of Stigmata loyalists outside Sylan. Marchuko
  and his men were now surrounded in the same fortress the
  Stigmata loyalists had been. Disobeying orders, I took 230
  
  3
  IMPERIAL FIEFS
  Byzantium Secundus
  soldiers and surprised the Symbiots, storming the fortress
  and picking up our banner, while getting the 70 survivors
  out. I personally slew a leader of the alien forces. Upon re-
  turn to our lines, I expected imprisonment or death for dis-
  obeying orders, and was immediately arrested. However, the
  following day I was released and brought before Alexius
  Hawkwood, who forgave and reinstated me. Word of our
  rescue had revived morale (badly needed) on Stigmata, and
  I found myself something of a folk hero to the troops.
  Later, after the Emperor’s coronation, I was knighted
  personally for acts of bravery during those years, the most
  notorious being my action on Stigmata. I found myself a
  knight of the Emperor, owing allegiance to him alone. This
  was entirely new, and the other houses did not know at first
  what to make of it. I owe my allegiance directly to the Em-
  peror, not House Hawkwood (which he has wisely distanced
  himself from to avoid further strife on the part of the other
  major houses). Emperor Alexius granted me some small land
  on Tethys, and an even smaller three acres in the hills over-
  looking the Imperial City, where I find myself most often,
  when relaxing from Questing Knight duty. The Emperor
  Alexius is a judicious and fair man, honoring the greatest
  and least of his subjects. I stand as testimony to the grace
  and honor he has bestowed on me, a guildsmen’s son with
  serf’s blood now raised high.
  Sir Armand Orlando,
  Imperial Knight,
  Order of the Phoenix
  Byzantium Secundus, jewel of the Empire and the Im-
  perial Throne World, beckons like a great star across the
  Known Worlds, circled like moons by the lesser houses,
  guilds and Church. The Church, House Decados and certain
  guild leaders deny this characterization, and the Li Halan
  and Hazat attempt a vain theater in which the recent past
  has not happened. All one need do, however, is go to the
  Imperial City and see the ambassadors from across human
  space and beyond, and the truth of my assertion becomes
  clear. Truly, this world is the greatest epic poem, crafted by
  the Pancreator, using humanity as the principle character.
  This isn’t, as an old al-Malik noble told me, the old Regency
  World.
  “There is an excitement in the air,” the refined count
  told me, sniffing the calming gova leaves and crushing them
  into his warm tea. “The fashions, the parties, the intrigues
  — all are drawn here, moths to the imperial flame. In the old
  days, the Regency banquets would be ignored by polite so-
  ciety, you know; people would go to embassy affairs or wit-
  ness yacht races, anything to avoid the solemn poetry and
  dull complacency of the Court. Now, it is standing room only
  — and the girls, all vying with each other for the Emperor’s
  eye. It is enough to wish one was young and stupid again…
  no offense.” The count later excused himself with a young
  courtesan, who was, unfortunately, barely 16 and the daugh-
  ter of a Hazat noble, thus causing another scandal for a
  season already thick with them.
  If my remarks on Byzantium Secundus are brief, it is
  because there are many fuller books out there about the
  imperial world, the best guide being titled simply Byzantium
  Secundus, written by a native, a former magic lantern writer
  and art designer in the corrugated industry who desired to
  find more informative uses for his pen. I should add that
  Byzantium Secundus is 85 percent water, and slightly larger
  than Holy Terra.
  History
  I am no historian, but I did consult a number of librar-
  ies for my research. The best was in the Imperial Archives.
  The planet was experiencing a reptilian age similar to Urth’s
  Mesozoic when a ship from the energy consortium IOPEC,
  rumored to be called Hrunting, landed here in the 24th cen-
  tury. IOPEC executives, many from the Asyad family, named
  the planet New Mecca. However, after a few generations,
  the colonists felt more loyal to each other then the off-world
  corporate owners, and a slow rebellion began to foment. As
  the First Republic lost outlying planets to the emerging in-
  dependent governments, it sought New Mecca as a base to
  launch successful counterstrikes against the rebellious
  worlds. Already the deadly vice of Sathraism had affected
  pilots leaving the New Mecca jumpgates, and this caused
  further conflicts.
  House Hamid led a noble armada to victory against the
  First Republic on the planet, and the name of Baron Santius
  became enshrined as the ancient liberator of the world. People
  still leave petitions on his statue today, seeking address for
  wrongs; this has been the custom for generations. The Hamid
  helped humanity lead the counterattacks during the Ukar
  War, but were not as successful in battle as other houses.
  Lead by Patriarch Palamedes, the other houses captured more
  territory. During this conflict, New Istanbul, as New Mecca
  was also called, suffered raids from the Ur-Ukar (c2800?).
  The Hamid were overthrown by House Cameton, led by
  Viscount Psellus, who wed Duchess Malikah Hamid, thus
  
  4
  IMPERIAL SURVEY
  uniting the world’s two royal families. He established the
  Market Authority and was responsible for promoting the
  planet as the cultural center of human space, using his re-
  sources to attract men and women of learning and the arts.
  Aside from creating a major commercial center, Viscount
  Psellus desired to usher in a golden age of letters and sci-
  ences, and so established several universities. He needn’t
  have worried, for if history teaches us anything, it is that
  the arts follow money.
  The Market Authority soon spread its power across
  human space until most of the nobility were in debt to it.
  This gradually lead to the mercantile interests pushing for a
  Second Republic (3500?-4000), to standardize the trading
  routes and establish a stable universal currency. A revival
  of democratic ideas, spreading from old Urth and Istakhr,
  helped spread the message, along with new technologies.
  New Mecca became the capital of the Republic, and the popu-
  lation expanded.
  The Greater Senate and the Second Republican Palace,
  whose ruins dot the Sevian Hills outside the Imperial City,
  oversaw the greatest concentration of power and wealth
  humanity had ever seen. However, the misuse of technol-
  ogy and the corruption of the later Republican ministers and
  presidents led to its downfall. When a barbarian incursion
  from what is now Vuldrok space landed in 4000, the Ten
  Great Houses used this as an excuse to land troops, ostensi-
  bly to save New Mecca, but actually to finish the Republic
  forever. The Church had warned about the sins of
  technosophy, and it stepped in to lead the common people
  away from the dangerous devices the Republic had left be-
  hind. A later pro-Republican revolt in 4004-4009 almost
  redelivered the planet to the Republican forces. This part of
  the planet’s history is largely ignored by noble historians.
  New Mecca was renamed Byzantium Secundus and
  eventually fell to House Gesar. However, the barbarian in-
  cursions continued for 500 years, and finally Vladimir Alecto
  united the Known Worlds and chose this world as his capi-
  tal. After his victory over the Vuldrok king, Froljir the Ill-
  Fated, he came here for his coronation and met sudden death
  in 4550. House Gesar was subsequently wiped out in wars
  with the al-Malik and Decados. Since then, House Cameton
  reemerged as the leading royal house on the planet, but was
  overshadowed by the Regency set up after Emperor
  Vladimir’s assassination.
  The assassination of the last regent, Samitra Li Halan,
  led the way to the Emperor Wars and Alexius’ ascension to
  the title of regent and then later, Emperor. The Siege of Jeri-
  cho, which occurred on Byzantium Secundus’ moon towards
  the end of that conflict, ended when a mysterious bombard-
  ment destroyed its atmosphere plants, leaving many Impe-
  rial forces dead, but more of the Decados and Hazat forces
  perished than initially thought. I lost an uncle there, and
  was stationed on Byzantium Secundus at the time, watch-
  ing Cameton forces.
  Now ruled by Emperor Alexius, Byzantium Secundus
  enjoyed an amazing recovery, and one can scarcely believe
  that this was a war-ravaged world just over a decade ago.
  Some soldiers and even other knights I have met were
  alarmed at Alexius’s dropping of his leadership of House
  Hawkwood, but I assured them this was a shrewd move
  that would help both friends and foes. If Alexius had claim
  over the Hawkwood and Imperial worlds, it would ignite
  another civil war with the other houses. Shrewdly, Alexius
  set himself up as Emperor of all the worlds, showing no
  favoritism. He has also shown great strength by displaying
  that he does not need to directly rule more than the Imperial
  lands, which he knows are enough to keep his military forces
  second to none. Emperor Alexius called the bluff of his en-
  emies and left them even more awed by his power and im-
  perial authority than before. “The man who surrenders a
  noble house gains a universe,” as the 42nd century Eskatonic
  seer Balthazar said.
  Byzantium Secundus is made up of the five island con-
  tinents Aldaia, Ghast, Viridian and Old Istanbul, Harmony
  and Tamerlain. Many of the islands are slowly sinking into
  the seas, a symptom of the fading suns phenomenon. Luck-
  ily, the Emperor can call on the best engineers in the Known
  Worlds to address this problem, and even recover land from
  Byzantium Secundus
  Traits
  Cathedral: Cathedral of Saint Maya (Orthodox)
  Agora: Port Authority (the Authority, a local guild)
  Garrison: 10
  Capitol: Imperial City
  Jumps: 0
  Adjacent Worlds: (All nightside) Aragon, Criticorum,
  Leminkainen, Madoc, Pentateuch, Pyre, Shaprut, Sutek,
  Tethys
  Solar System: Vesuvius 1, Santius 2, Byzantium
  Secundus 3 (Jericho), Aden 4 (new Malta) Magog 5
  (Tuszla, Amida, Cyril), Iblis 6 (Derelict)
  Spacestations: Diadem (Imperial Fleet), Cumulus (Mer-
  chant League)
  Tech: 6
  Human Population: 6 billion
  Alien population: 600,000
  Resources: Grain
  Exports: Grain, starships, politics
  Landscape: Mostly water, with swampy island conti-
  nents dotted with city sprawls.
  
  5
  IMPERIAL FIEFS
  the sea in some areas. As a general rule of thumb, the nobles
  prefer the uplands, while the sections closer to the water are
  often crowded with serfs and freemen eking out a living.
  Let us now explore.
  Aldaia
  A continent largely Orthodox in outlook, Aldaia is cov-
  ered in thick fogs but is still surprisingly cool and pleasant.
  Although it is home to House Cameton, the Li Halan and
  Imperial authorities also have some holdings here. It is most
  famous for the Horace Library, founded by St. Horace, dis-
  ciple of our beloved Prophet Zebulon, and also the Imperial
  Eye Central Command. I spent my time here on the estates
  of Earl Hikado Li Halan, in the mountainous region. A so-
  phisticated man, the earl and I engaged in sword practice
  and long talks on military history, a subject that fascinated
  him. “I hate military books with bad maps,” he said, an
  assessment with which I agreed. Hikado is descended from
  a branch of the Li Halan that converted before Prince
  Cardano. “Indeed, we were once considered the black sheep
  of the Li Halan,” he said. “It turns out, we were two centu-
  ries ahead of the rest of my illustrious clan.”
  Recently, a great reptilian sea monster began disrupt-
  ing shipping on the Obsidian Ocean, and parties are being
  recruited to hunt the serpent down. The monster, captured
  on vid, is an immense reptilian beast, larger then any wit-
  nessed on the world. Some say it is part of the fading suns
  phenomenon, which twists and ruins nature. Many recruits
  have signed on to hunt it, and Aldaia is known for its mar-
  tial arts and imperial recruitment grounds. One ship, the
  Athena, sent out to find the monster, was found destroyed.
  Any young warriors seeking adventure should flock here
  immediately to hunt Mardraco, as the people of Aldaia have
  named the beast.
  Ghast
  A largely desert continent where physical conditions
  changed so rapidly during the fading suns phenomenon that
  much of the wildlife did not have time to adapt. Many of the
  plants and animals died out over the last thousand years.
  Homesick people from desert planets often find dwellings
  here near the coast; the interior is much too harsh.
  I made a hasty visit in the company of fellow Questing
  Knight, Lady Sharifah al-Malik, who confirmed that yes,
  Ghast reminded her of her desert homeland, and that yes,
  she was sick of deserts. We managed to find some enter-
  tainment in gambling at an “unofficial” casino. I longed to
  see the Tepest Desert, rumored to possess pre-Adamite Gar-
  goyles. “It has roving bands of the Changed,” Lady Sarifah
  told me. “If you prefer their company to mine, you can go,
  but if you prefer some culture, I recommend you remain at
  my side.” I did so. Incidentally, the Emperor has brought
  Veridian University
  Imperial City
  Manx Shipyards
  New Novgorad 
  (Novgorad Shipyards)
  Holy City
  Triest 
    Shipyards
  Tamerlain 
      Institute
  Gabler Ocean
  Veridian Spaceport
  Obsidian 
  Ocean
  Moliach Ocean
  Borachio Ocean
  Naiad Ocean
  G A L AT E A
  Vistaka Ocean
  Caspian Ocean
  Old Istanbul
  Harmony
  Veridian
  Gasperah
  Old Istanbul/Harmony
  Mono-Rail Line
  Aldaia
  Horace Library
  Vladimir Temple
  Obsidian 
  Ocean
  Naiad Ocean
  Tarsus
  Tarsus
  Ghast
  Vespa Region
  Byzantium 
  Secundus
  Unrest
  0
  miles
  3,000
  miles
  1,000
  miles
  2,000
  miles
  Urban Region
  Space Station
  C    Cathedral
  Sk   Skyport (Note: Skyports exist
              in all cities of
              10,000,000 or more.)   
  S      Spaceport
  Ice
  Mountain Range
  Jungle
  Grasslands
  Subtropical
  Subtropical
  Temperate
  Temperate
  Temperature Zones
  Tropical
  Tropical
  Subarctic
  Arctic
  Subarctic
  Arctic
  V
  The Veldt
  Tamerlain
  Vau Embassy
  (Restricted)
  Santius
  .845 AU
  Magog
  31.0 AU
  Jumpgate
  41.351 AU
  Aden
  16.18 AU
  Vesuvius
  .162 AU
  Sun
  Diadem
  (Imperial Fleet)
  Byzantium Secundus 1.46 AU
  Cumulus
  (Merchant League)
  Iblis
  41.0 AU
  2nd REPUBLIC MAGRAIL
  Active
  Inactive
  Site of Interest                    
  City (10,000,000 or less)
  City (20,000,000 or less)
  Capitol - Known Worlds (67,000,000)
  Toxic Zone
  Volcanic Zone
  V
  Imperial Eye
  V
  V
  V
  V
  V
  V
  V
  V
  V
  V
  V
  Imperial Eye Central Command
  Proprietary Line
  Port Vrago
  (Li Halan/
  Cameton 
  Contested)
  Port Sapphire
  (House Cameton)
  Ur Gargoyle
  Port Gabler
  Sk
  Port Authority 
  (Agora/League Line)
  S
  S
  S
  S
  S
  S
  C
  Under Construction
  Port Fiero
  V
  V
  
  6
  IMPERIAL SURVEY
  order here, and there is a new military camp where I spoke
  to the imperial service recruits about duty.
  One of the desert posts, however, Eastmark Keep,
  manned mainly by Cameton and some imperial forces, has
  found itself under assault from a fierce tribe of the Changed,
  who are adept at night attacks and digging subterranean
  passages into the ancient fortress. I spent a week with the
  forces, numbering about 125 under Baron Yurik Cameton,
  an old but much loved leader who lost his two sons to a
  night attack. I witnessed such an attack, when hordes of the
  Changed arrived with a fierce desert wind, and we fought
  on the battlements, finally driving them off with the loss of
  12 men on our part. The Changed possessed sophisticated
  tunneling equipment and weaponry, and are obviously be-
  ing supplied by some faction with interest in the desert.
  “Tell any who wish to help us that they are welcome,”
  the old baron said. I left in summer by airship, when desert
  dust storms gusting up to 200 mph ravage the region. Little
  aid is expected until late fall, when the storms abate. Al-
  though ordered to leave the keep by his house rulers, Baron
  Yurik vowed to hold onto his family holdings, regardless of
  cost. “I have a debt to settle with the slayers of my kin,” he
  told me. I promised that once my assignment was done I
  would return to aid him. Truly a brave and noble man such
  as the baron should not perish attempting to save his people
  and fief from these desert marauders!
  Viridian and Old
  Istanbul
  Here are the wonders of the throne world! The Imperial
  City on Viridian is worth visiting just for the beauty of her
  parks, museums, and buildings, many of them built in the
  eclectic Second Republic styles. An excellent system of mono-
  rails connects all parts of the city. The Imperial Palace, domi-
  nated by crystalline towers that once housed one of the two
  Presidential Estates of the Second Republic, is worth see-
  ing.
  The Imperial City is large, so it is good to get a native
  guide. I recommend the Stahr clan, who run the modest
  Phoenix Inn on Starlane Way. Say hello to Madame Starh
  and her two daughters if you go: they can give you an ex-
  cellent tour rife with political intrigue and scandal. Embassy
  Row is worth a visit, especially if you are from a non-impe-
  rial world. A word of caution: at sunrise and sunset, the
  main rails are filled with imperial bureaucrats, who can be a
  haughty breed, even if their titles are Chief Assistant to the
  Assistant Chief in the Imperial Park Resources agency. If
  you need to travel at these times, my advice is to find a
  native who knows how to navigate the back roads.
  The Emperor recently dedicated the new Imperial Gar-
  dens, a zoological wonder. Old Istanbul contains the Holy
  City, whose architecture is Old Urth Mediterranean, with her
  mighty walls and circles leading to the magnificent Cathe-
  dral of St. Maya. Housing a great bureaucracy, the city im-
  proves in beauty as you ascend her levels. I was able to talk
  with one of Archbishop Palamon’s Eskatonic associates on
  matters relating to the soul.
  Harmony
  I only visited this small northern continent island for a
  week. Set in the northern Obsidian Ocean, it is home to the
  famous Novgorad Shipyards. Many of these shipyards, while
  still mainly controlled by the Decados, have changed own-
  ership recently, bought by a pro-Emperor faction. The
  Decados owners find that they are now working for the
  Empire, and rumors circulate that the head of operations
  might soon resign, to be replaced by a candidate who looks
  more favorably on the current political situation. It is whis-
  pered that the Emperor’s men are forcing the Decados out.
  Rumor has it that some military men, followers of the em-
  peror cult named “the Reborn Sun,” are behind the intrigues.
  It is also known that the Decados will not give up such a
  strategically valuable foothold on Byzantium Secundus and
  the workings of the Imperial Navy without a fight. The air is
  thick with intrigue, and the recent murder of a pro-Alexius
  Engineer is rumored to be the work of the Jakovians
  Of Harmony itself, I can say little. It is largely an indus-
  trial area, and the pollution in certain regions is consider-
  able. There are, however, isolated pockets of beauty to be
  found. Many off-world aliens dwell here, and I found my-
  self wondering at times how many Ur-Ukar have settled here.
  Tamerlain
  The southern and eastern regions of this continent are
  quite enjoyable. Small, walled towns of white-adobe archi-
  tecture glisten by the Naiad and Obsidian Oceans, but much
  of the interior and northern regions are still uninhabited
  and have always been so. The Emperor has begun to con-
  nect the stable southern cities to the north by a series of
  roads and rails, so the conquest of the Veldt, the grass and
  jungle region of the north, may finally occur. Here, some of
  the indigenous reptilian wildlife remains, and it is not un-
  common to be surrounded by small flocks of scurrying, four-
  foot high predators known by the natives as red dragons, or
  redras. They come only out of idle curiosity as you walk
  some of the more protected trails.
  Tamerlain boasts the famous Tamerlain Institute of Tech-
  nical Redemption, where engineering students train. I have
  a story about Tamerlain, because I once visited the Veldt in
  the company of one of my old sharpshooters, Sgt. Joseph
  Glavine of the Imperial Army. He informed me that the army
  goes here for survival and jungle training, and that once on
  maneuvers, his company, after settling in for the night in
  
  7
  IMPERIAL FIEFS
  pitched tents, found that the local proto-primates, known as
  Sky Monkeys, had been stealing supplies. Some of these
  creatures had broken into the ammo tent and were playing
  with grenades, tossing them back and forth among the great
  trees in a play of wild abandon. Occasionally, they would
  pelt the soldiers with them, and sometimes the explosives
  went off. A ridiculous situation: the company under attack
  by a bunch of chattering Sky Monkeys. “How did you deal
  with this?” I asked Joe, who merely smiled and said, “We
  don’t think of the enemy as human.”
  Sometimes I wonder why people do not know more about
  the past. It was on Tamerlain that the subject of the great
  41st century epic poem, the Fall of Rhea, based on the Re-
  publican revolt of 4004-9, took place. You can still walk about
  the ruins of Rhea and find amazing artifacts. I did so for a
  week, uncovering some old helmets and Republican battle
  gear. The city is abandoned, and the jungle has reclaimed
  most of it. The survivors founded the small town of New
  Rhea further north.
  It was in Rhea, in 4006, that a Republican coup against
  the Ten Royal Families rose and captured the city. Under the
  Republican General Brutus Aurellius, the entire continent
  fell into the hands of ex-Republican military captains. Gen-
  eral Aurellius was an amazing tactician, winning 13 battles
  against House Gesar. In the most famous of those, his right
  wing broke the noble troops and sent Duke Walid Gesar flee-
  ing (like the Persian king Darius from the legendary Urth
  conqueror, Alexander), delivering to him the city of Rhea.
  The entire planet was briefly in danger of falling from noble
  control, when the Gesar called on the Ten for aid. I guess
  Aurellius is not studied today because the noble histories of
  the Gesar and Cameton try to darken his name, and his con-
  quests were an embarrassment to their shaky hold on the
  world after the Second Republic was overthrown. Aurellius
  was slain at the Battle of Tenafer, and his followers retreated
  to Rhea.
  The Fall of Rhea concerns the siege of Rhea by the Ten,
  as the Republican forces fell back. It is well known on
  Byzantium Secundus. Certainly, the usually stereotypes are
  there: in the royal camp is the all-too-noble Hawkwood com-
  mander, Duke Jonathon Hawkwood, the sly Decados, Baron
  Dimitri, the sorceress pre-conversion Li Halan, Count
  Mencius, who speaks to the dead, the poetic Sir Akim al-
  Malik, and so on. What is amazing is that the deaf poet and
  author, Raszori, showed no favoritism to either side. The
  Republicans have their stereotypes, including Captain Felic-
  ity Felix the Anarchist, who makes bombs and love with
  equally furious passion, Manhar, the street-wise kid from
  Acheon who steals supplies for his band, the all-too-pre-
  dictable slang-speaking Ukar, Blomad-Norr, and the sly trick-
  ster, Captain Odysseus Cicero.
  It is a hell of an epic, and the author, rumored to be a
  doctor during the siege, knows his warfare. At the end, the
  Republican dream collapses with the capture of Rhea after a
  three-year siege and space bombardment. Sly Captain
  Odysseus Cicero survives the violent death and capture of
  the Republicans, stealing a Decados space cruiser for his
  escape, vowing, at poem’s end, to
  Spread the word of democratic freedom
  To the chained and frightened of a hundred worlds
  and to
  Awaken the masses to their worth
  Tyranny has won, but I shall spread freedom
  Like a virus into the corrupt dreams of the usurpers
  It is hard not to find noble sentiments in this poem, and
  both noble and Republican values are given amazing
  amounts of space and detail. Since I follow the noble code, I
  will end by quoting Duke Jonathon Hawkwood’s disserta-
  tion about noble rule:
  We who govern do so not for glory
  But stand as protectors over our flock
  Led astray by ambitious politicians.
  We are the Protectors of the weak,
  Guardians of the faith, who take no Happiness
  In the defeat of our enemies
  Who, although wrong of cause,
  Fought with honor.
  [Note to the reader: More information on Byzantium
  Secundus can be found in the Fading Suns sourcebook
  Byzantium Secundus.]
  
  8
  IMPERIAL SURVEY
  Tethys
  Tethys is the chief industrial world and armory for the
  Empire, and is most famous in history as the birthplace of
  St. Amalthea. It is also my home, and if I talk too much of
  her excesses, it should be remembered that growing up on
  industrial Tethys was normal for me. It is the sight of green
  and pleasant landscapes on other worlds that I find strange.
  Beauty, like warfare, takes time to become accustomed to.
  Still, there are places here where deforestation has not oc-
  curred, and it boasts isles and mountains as pure as those
  on other worlds. Tethys is a tough planet, breeding war-
  riors, weaponsmiths and skilled space engineers, as if the
  planet were a furnace turning out human products for the
  imperial military.
  Spying and bribery are rife here, featuring fierce com-
  petition for contracts. In Nuevo Madrid everything from brib-
  ery to blackmail to murder has been used to obtain weapon
  design and tech plans. The Wordwrights Guild prospers as
  high-powered guilds contract it to slander rivals and their
  products in hastily printed rag sheets. The Promoters Guild
  and Stewards are also more numerous these days. Still, im-
  perial unity has made the world safer, and civil unrest is
  largely a thing of the past.
  There was once a jumproute, now lost, between Urth
  and Tethys, and the two planets were once referred to as
  sisters. Tethys was one of the first colonized worlds, but the
  site of its original settlements are in dispute, with both Nuevo
  Madrid and Tulasca vying for the honor. The planet was lush,
  with a temperate climate and filled with colorful birds and
  mammals. It was a paradise world, not heavily settled by
  the agracorp Verdeco until the 2400s. The corporation was
  supposedly progressive in outlook, allowing its workers
  many freedoms denied by the other corporations of the First
  Republic. Hence, when other worlds began to break from
  Urth, the loyalties of many on Tethys remained with Urth,
  for of all the colonies, Tethys seemed one of the better treated.
  Nonetheless, some anarchistic utopians claimed lands in the
  wars of independence, while the corporations remained neu-
  tral or friendly to Urth.
  After the fall of New Mecca to the royalists, however,
  Tethys tentatively declared her independence. The Primeval
  Grove Poets and the Red Star Anarchists influenced the cul-
  ture and developed much of the governing philosophy of
  the world. Economically, however, Urth corporations con-
  tinued to hold much of the politics and control, and many of
  the older families looked forward to a day of reunification
  with the motherworld. This was due, I guess, to a combina-
  tion of educational opportunities and democratic practices
  that made the citizens of Tethys quite unlike her royalist
  and even republican neighbors, who they viewed as back-
  ward and unprogressive. In 2642 and 2678 Tethys even
  signed alliances with Urth, and there was much cultural
  cross-fertilization between the motherworld and the former
  colony.
  Tethys’s most famous native was Saint Amalthea, born
  in 2701. The spot where the founder of the Amalthean sect
  was born is also contested, with the more scholarly view
  holding to an old church in Sihya. Others maintain it was in
  what are now the ruins of an ancient First Republic hospital
  some 20 miles outside Sihya, where her mother, Aruna Sahir,
  was a doctor who specialized in bone setting (Omega Gos-
  pels, Amalthea 1:7). It was on Tethys that Amalthea founded
  the beginnings of her Compassionate Ethics, and felt Uni-
  versal Compassion for all things.
  The Compassionate Ethics were themselves influenced,
  some say, by the Primeval Grove Poets and certain traits of
  the prereflective followers of Saint Buddha. It was here on
  Tethys that her first followers came to her, before she healed
  Zebulon the Prophet on Grail, and it was here that she was
  briefly wed to Mael Llewellyn, who was killed running medi-
  cal supplies during the siege of Nuevo Madrid. Her first
  meeting with the Empyrean Power, “the Miracle on the Hill,”
  happened when she was 10; this was the first of her con-
  tacts with the Empyrean Angel Ahnkelbion. Her followers
  have a shrine here, and the place is known for its miracu-
  lous cures in her name. Amalthea grew up in a peaceful
  time on Tethys, which was shattered by a brutal three-year
  civil war.
  Major Huang, head of the planetary security forces, at-
  tempted to seize the planet in the name of Terra and the
  Revived First Republic, in conjunction with a last, brief flick-
  ering of Urth’s military power. The Revived Republic was a
  political/military faction on Urth that used a popular politi-
  cal party called “Memory” to attempt to reassert Urth’s power.
  At its height, it held much of the fractured home world un-
  der its sway. They named themselves the Republic and con-
  sidered themselves the heirs of the zaibatsu, but were in
  fact military careerists. These Urth militarists aided Huang’s
  rebellion. New Istanbul (Byzantium Secundus) aided the con-
  sortium that ran Tethys, and finally sent enough reinforce-
  ments to end the Urth-inspired rebellion forever.
  It was during this war that Amalthea’s healing miracles
  began, which every child knows from the Omega Gospels.
  Her uncle, the strange scientist/theologian Dr. Victor Erling,
  found some means to bend space and time in his tower,
  which was bombed during the war, releasing strange ener-
  gies in the area of Shade Hill. The angel who guided Amalthea
  
  9
  IMPERIAL FIEFS
  Kecaritomene, Ahnkelbion, urged her to travel to Grail and
  spread her Compassionate Ethics. It was there she healed
  Zebulon. In later years, after Zebulon’s Ascension through
  the jumpgate, Amalthea settled on Artemis. Tethys, how-
  ever, is ever known as her homeworld.
  After Huang’s rebellion was crushed, Tethys found it-
  self under the rule of the Sung family, who started out as
  democratic reformers but within three generations ruled as
  despots. The Sung allied Tethys closer to the Hawkwood
  family, breaking from New Mecca, but an opposition formed
  that eventually overthrew the tyrant Tesar Sung in 3002. It
  was under the Sung that strip-mining first occurred and silt
  from the mining lined the bottom of various bays, destroy-
  ing many salt-water ecosystems. While Tethys was one of
  the first worlds to welcome the Second Republic, it was al-
  ready becoming stripped of vital ores, timber, uranium and
  other resources — as well as fresh water — as it supplied
  many commodities to other worlds.
  At the time, Tethys relied on many renewable energy
  sources, but by 3870 it had fallen into an economic depres-
  sion, as many natural resources became depleted. Only the
  advent of cheap entertainment vid and appliance manufac-
  turing kept some sectors of the economy running. Oxygen-
  producing plants were installed in critical areas to keep the
  air breathable. Over 90% of animal life faced extinction, along
  with numerous plants. The political rulers, surrounded by
  wealth and answerable only to corporate profit, were es-
  tranged from the people, and did not have the power to halt
  the natural and economic devastation of the world. When
  the Second Republic fell, the corporate political rulers were
  so despised that the people welcomed the nobles, and hunted
  down their former rulers, slaying them in orgies of destruc-
  tion. The walled community of Brandercroft, which housed
  many of the corporate elite, was besieged until it fell, its
  survivors burned alive.
  It was, however, the Crafters Guild, an alliance of small
  businesses, craftsmen, farmers, and Scravers, that set up
  the next government, for they provided much of the local
  opposition to the Second Republic rulers. The Crafters Guild
  had welcomed noble help in removing the last vestiges of
  Republican rule, but was a shrewd enough bargainer to keep
  most of the greater noble families off-world in exchange for
  providing low-cost weapons, repairs and food. Other guilds
  settled here, and the Masque and Carnivalers — then part of
  the same guild —had great representation here during the
  times of strife, when barbarian incursions were frequent. It
  is said that three men, Mr. Robert Smith from the Crafters
  Guild, Señor Montoya from the Masque, and Aliz Zamarova
  from the Seeders Guild, concluded the treaty with the nobles
  that kept them off-world — an amazing feat, as Tethys could
  not long withstand the Ten.
  It was the Windsors who largely gained control of the
  world, opposed only by the Crafters Guild. Twice Tethys
  fought off large-scale Vuldrok space attacks, the first time
  at the Battle of Amazonia in 4304, when the native forces
  under Richard “The Red Prince” Windsor defeated the in-
  vading enemy. The other time was in 4547, when Vladimir
  Alecto landed and joined forces with the Tethys militia and
  Windsors in defeating one of King Froljir’s chief lieuten-
  ants, Ragnor Thorsonn, at Two Horse Fields. The Vuldrok
  were drawn to the world due to the tech factories and weap-
  ons plants, and they had some supporters on the planet.
  After Vladimir’s assassination, the other houses turned on
  the Windsors, seized their fiefs, and with the remnants of
  the Crafters Guild, flushed out their followers. No single fac-
  tion could cement its hold on Windsor lands, however, and
  Tethys Traits
  Cathedral: Orthodox/Amalthean (St. Amalthea, Our
  Lady of the Weeping Blood Cathedral, Nuevo Madrid)
  Agora: Scravers, Reeves and Morticus Guild (St.
  Amalthea of the Compassionate Fifth Eye Market, Nuevo
  Madrid)
  Garrison: 7
  Capital: Nuevo Madrid
  Jumps: 1
  Adjacent Worlds: Byzantium Secundus (dayside),
  Delphi (nightside)
  Solar System: Agni (Sun), Amon (0.307 AU), Kaanta
  (0.823 AU), Tethys (1.102 AU; Soma), Aragon (3.088
  AU), Azlan (7.237 AU, 6 moons), Goya (12.27 AU; 3
  moons), Turan (38.27 AU), Jumpgate (59.17 AU)
  Tech: 7
  Human Population: 863 million
  Alien population: 2 million (estimated)
  Resources: Ores, seafood, agriculture, salvaged mate-
  rials, coal, masonry, zinc, plaster, sand
  Exports: Refined ore, military tech, chemicals, melee
  weapons, medical equipment, iron, specialized military
  clothing, ammunition, military think machines, armor,
  automobiles, military attack vehicles, light starships,
  classified military materials, soldiers
  Landscape: Tethys is 43percent water; it used to have
  even more, but plaster deposits filled up some of the
  bays and inner seas. Tethys is roughly the size of Holy
  Terra, with a year of 359 days. Plankton farms dot the
  seas while the land is given up to military industry and
  food production. Tethys has been strip-mined of many
  valuable ores and minerals, although some deposits
  remain deep in the world. Human civilization has de-
  stroyed nearly 92% of the native higher animal life; most
  existing animals are descended from Urth imports.
  
  10
  IMPERIAL SURVEY
  the Regency eventually claimed Tethys.
  Vladimir promised Tethys protection from the noble
  houses if it could provide his armies with weapons and
  materials, which the guilds rapidly agreed to. Already, a dark
  fruit from the noble Hawkwood tree, Baron Wynston-Smythe
  Eduardo, eyed the world, enlarging his fiefs through intimi-
  dation and outright conquest. His power was held in check
  while Vladimir lived, but when the first Emperor suddenly
  perished, the baron moved, instituting a terrible war. The
  hastily set up Regency renewed the Vladimir-Tethys alliance,
  and a Regency army composed of Houses Li Halan, Decados,
  Hazat and Justinian defeated Baron Eduardo in a swift cam-
  paign in 4565-6. Ignoring the pleas of House Hawkwood,
  the victors executed the baron as a sign to any who would
  meddle in Tethys affairs. The baron, however, had perma-
  nently smashed the strength of the Crafters Guild on the
  world, and other guilds quickly moved into the power
  vacuum, notably the Scravers and a consortium of weapons
  and armors guilds.
  Each regent installed some family troops and created
  fiefs on the world, but these fiefs were kept small and in
  balance by the jealousy of the other houses. As military re-
  cruitment and production, however, became the de facto way
  of life, a military ethos developed on this world of service
  and loyalty, and the weapons producers vied with each other
  for contracts. Its history is rife with regents attempting to
  pillage its resources for their own worlds (building fleet ships
  only to “sell” them to their own houses, etc.). That era ended
  when our Emperor claimed the Imperial Throne. Tethys is
  an Imperial World that serves the Imperial Navy and armed
  forces. Still, some of the old fiefs remain, and while most
  welcome the change in status from a Regency to an Imperial
  World, there are some people who hold to royal and guild
  loyalties over imperial ones; they are, however, not the ma-
  jority. Each of the major families has a few adherents here
  — usually, but not always, within their own fiefs. Some guilds
  prefer one noble patron to others. The Blade Guild, for ex-
  ample, is extremely close to the Hazat family, their best cus-
  tomers.
  In 4600 the Morticus Guild formed from the bakery fam-
  ily of the same name, and grew to take over large areas of
  food production, as well as food and medical transportation.
  They filled the vacuum left by the Crafters Guild, the rem-
  nants of which still work under the names of the Pluardo
  and Redcliffe Guilds, who, between the two families, pro-
  duce the best lasers and blasters in the Known Worlds. The
  Emperor made these two guilds, along with my family and
  nine other competing families, his unofficial “approved” pro-
  ducers of the lighter firearms, and their products are now
  engraved with the imperial insignia. Off-world guilds, such
  as the Reeves and Scravers, formed a strong presence fol-
  lowing the Symbiot Wars of the early 4900s. In conjunction
  with the native Morticus Guild, the three are called “the little
  sisters” to their big brother, the Emperor, and, next to impe-
  rial law, carry the most clout on Tethys.
  A word should be said about the other worlds of the
  Tethys system. Azlan, the most famous, actually retained a
  tentative independence until the time of Vladimir Alecto. It
  had been terraformed during the Second Republic, and when
  the Windsors gained Tethys, much of the opposition fled
  there. In the past 300 years, many of the terraforming en-
  gines began to fail, and only in the equatorial belt are there
  any people left, mostly mining guilds mixed with a few farm-
  ing family guilds, who utilize vast greenhouses. Three of
  Azlan’s six moons are military bases, where imperial train-
  ing goes on. It is said that the elders of Azlan leased them to
  Vladimir Alecto for 2000 years in exchange for some guar-
  antees on their liberty.
  I cannot comment further, save that I received some
  training there, and the facilities house some of the toughest
  camps I have ever seen. “The armies of Alexius are crafted
  on Azlan’s moons,” as the saying goes, and I firmly believe
  that it is here that the future of imperial power lies.
  Tarquinia
  I began my visit home at the festival of St. Horace in
  Nuevo Madrid. Everywhere carnival-masked revelers posed
  as saints and demons or serfs dressed as nobles and nobles
  as serfs. All of this had a strange leveling effect, and when I
  bumped into an old man seemingly imitating a confused
  knight, I was relieved to find it was my father, sans cos-
  tume. Indeed, these festivals took me back to my youth, and
  as much as I find Tethys a loyal and serious world, there is
  an underside of play and frivolity that is hard to explain to
  the outsider. “How is mother?” I asked, while a parade of
  patriarchs swept brooms after the mule-riding drunken rev-
  elers brigade, who call themselves the Shiners, due to their
  shining swords.
  “She’s waiting back at home, son, with your sister and
  her daughter,” he replied.
  I could feel the criticism already: why wasn’t I married?
  Father is old fashioned, and thinks I should have gotten
  over Beatrice by now (Pancreator and St. Lextius bless her
  soul, she died on Stigmata battling the Symbiots). I have,
  and wish to speak to him of Lorraine, but decide not to be
  premature and jinx the thing, which happens anytime I men-
  tion my wishes to the old man. That’s why I ran away and
  joined the military. If I told him my plans I would still be
  managing his factories while he criticized my plans to any-
  body tired enough to listen. In some ways, I preferred the
  honest dread of the Symbiots to his criticism. As a matter of
  fact, whenever I began to tell my old friends about battling
  the Symbiots, dad would burst in about the incredible mu-
  nitions order he had to fill out practically alone at the plant,
  
  11
  IMPERIAL FIEFS
  what with the Red Weeping sickness keeping so many of
  his workers at home, making it sound like he deserved a
  knighthood for performing his job, Symbiots be damned.
  He has mellowed some, and I asked him if we could
  stop at St. Amalthea’s Hill, where I owed a small donation in
  Amalthea’s name for a cure I received from one of the Sis-
  ters on Stigmata. He agreed, and I meditated briefly at the
  hill some miles outside Nuevo Madrid, where Amalthea first
  received her miraculous calling. The Amalthean Order has a
  small Church there, and they accepted my offerings.
  At home, in the guild town of Overso outside Nuevo
  Madrid, we had a reunion. I asked my sister Auralee to take
  me around Nuevo Madrid the following day, and she did so.
  It has grown even in the years since I left, with the Imperial
  Courts and Governor’s Residences rising over their old Re-
  gency counterparts. This is where the Regency long gov-
  erned the world, and the great houses still have estates in
  the old Regency Section, but the center of power and au-
  thority has moved on. Much of Nuevo Madrid is given over
  to the production of small arms, shields, energy generators,
  cybernetics, think machines, armor, and even medical sup-
  plies (this operation is often overseen by the Amaltheans).
  The Mitchau family of weaponsmiths recently relocated
  from Aragon, as imperial authorities promised it land and
  low noble status in return for a cut of its profits. It managed
  to purchase an old Torenson estate, much to the scandal of
  the noble Tethys families. My father, facing competition from
  them, used to hate them with a vengeance and would curse
  their names until my sister secretly wed Vestigo Mitchau.
  He now goes to their lavish affairs and comes back com-
  plaining about the quality of their wines and such, although
  he himself could never afford such fare. I think that like
  many old-time Tethys residents, father resents the Mitchau
  for obtaining imperial patronage but remains secretly in awe
  of them, for he is very loud in telling anybody bored enough
  to listen that his first grandson has both Orlando and Mitchau
  blood, and will benefit from both. Actually, my bother-in-
  law Vestigo has only helped my father by combining opera-
  tions with him, although you couldn’t get the old man to
  admit it.
  Vestigo joined my sister and I on our jaunt, and we ate
  in the newly fashionable Tres Rios section of Nuevo Madrid.
  Much of Nuevo Madrid is unfortunately squalid, made al-
  most unlivable by bad factory conditions and the strip min-
  ing of Second Republic metals. This section, known as the
  Crawl, houses many of the poorer workers in unsanitary
  apartments, although the new Imperial Housing Authority
  recently surprised everybody by enforcing tenant rights
  against distant landlords.
  Ag      Planetary Agora
  C         Cathedral
  Sk       Skyport (aka Airport)   
  S         Spaceport
  0
  miles
  3,000
  miles
  1,000
  miles
  2,000
  miles
  Arid
  Ice
  Subtropical
  Subtropical
  Temperate
  Temperate
  Temperature Zones
  Subarctic
  Arctic
  Subarctic
  Arctic
             Forest
             Mountain Range
  Li Halan Holdings
  Tethys
  Kaanta
  .823 AU
  Amon
  .307 AU
  Alamut
  3.088 AU
  Tethys
  1.102 AU
  Jumpgate
  59.17 AU
  Agni
  (Sun)
  Goya
  12.27 AU
  Azlan
  7.237 AU
  Turan
  38.27 AU
  City (1,000,000 or less)
  City (5,000,000 or less) 
  Capital City (10,500,000)
  S
  Ag
  C
  New Madrid
  Vladgrod
  Ahadiya
  Mont-at
  Tulan
  San Maya
  Delos
  Menoket
  St. Guenon
  Port Java
  Taqui
  Maguat
  St. Lextius
  S
  S
  Tulasca
  Sk
  Sk
  Sk
  Sk
  Sk
  Sk
  AVALON
  TARQUINIA
  MALAKUT 
  OCEAN
  AHADIYA 
  OCEAN
  AHADIYA OCEAN
  AHADIYA 
  OCEAN
  Erm R.
  Green R.
  Bay of
  Baskay
  Casa Mundo
  Ibn Arabi R.
  Arabi Mts.
  Sierra Azul
  Night
  Forest
  Bay of
  Azul
  Green Mts.
  AIRYAVA
  VEGO
  Jerome Mts.
  Azarn R.
  St. Amalthea's Hill
  
  12
  IMPERIAL SURVEY
  Maguat
  Next, I went to my mother’s small city in the Sierra Azul
  Mountains. In old times, silt and ore mining took place here,
  filling the inland bays with their refuse, but now the pro-
  duction of bows, swords, steel armor and guns makes Maguat
  known for quality low-tech products. Indeed, with a popu-
  lace of only 325,000, it actually boasts a small alien
  workforce numbering 10,000, mostly Obun and Ukari metal
  workers and miners. The atmosphere of Maguat is more re-
  laxed; it is run by a council of city elders responsible to the
  Emperor, and retains its ancient charter and freedoms un-
  der Imperial Law.
  I do not know why, but Maguat has made a name for
  itself in poetry, rivaling the al-Malik and Li Halan worlds. In
  the 4970s Le Blum settled here, followed by a few Rampart
  exile poets. Today, she even has a native school, the Pastists,
  who believe that, according to their oddly worded manifesto:
  “Light retracts to its origin as words retract to their primal
  meaning. We are all primitives. Ils n’ont point abdiqué,
  crispant leurs mains tenaces sur des tronçons de sceptre, et
  rôdent dans les vents.” The last part is in Francais, an an-
  cient Urth language, supposedly an offshoot of Latin. It is
  suddenly the language of poets and intellectuals; there is no
  accounting as to why. Certainly, Latin is more universal, and
  even ancient languages like Chinese, English, and Spanglish
  more influenced our current tongue (although Francais, or
  a descendent thereof, was spoken for many centuries on
  Rampart). I attempted to learn it some years ago, but my
  pronunciation is terrible. Those lines, by the ancient Urth
  poet Verlaine (?) read: “They have not abdicated, their stub-
  born hands grip stumps of scepters, and they wander in the
  wind.”
  I was invited to a party of these poets by an old friend
  who, after suffering the loss of two fingers in an industrial
  accident, quit the factory life to follow the muse. They were
  all interested in my battle with the Symbiots, whom they
  tend to interpret as “Pan-inspired Nature.” Indeed, when
  guests dressed as ancient pagan Gjartin gods began talking,
  one of them, dressed in deer antlers with a flute, came to me
  and informed me that he had seen Bjako, the Gjartin fertil-
  ity deity once worshipped on Tethys. “Ah,” I replied, “in the
  time of Zebulon a cry shook Tethys in the reign of Pro-Council
  Mencius, clearly stating ‘the Great God Bjako is Dead!’”
  “True, true,” the deer-dressed poet slurred through his
  wine soaked breath. “But it is scandal, the work of rumor-
  mongers and gossips. The old gods have returned.” He then
  began to dance, slipped in a puddle of libation, and cracked
  his head open on the ground.
  “Now the great god Bjako is dead,” another poet said,
  garnering general laughter. I found the whole incident in
  poor taste, and helped two others move the poor man’s un-
  conscious body. The Pastists do believe that the ancient pa-
  gan gods of Gjartin myth have returned, awakened by a
  curious Ur artifact, an inscribed rock recently unearthed in
  the hills by an earthquake. I tried to follow this, as well as
  their poetry, but soon called it a night.
  Still, something is up in the hills about Maguat. Two
  weeks later, a woman was found torn to ribbons. Some said
  that the poets were reviving the Bjako or Pseudo-Rapello
  Gjartin mysteries — Rapello being an ancient singer ripped
  apart by a crowd of female worshippers who rushed him
  onstage at some concert event honoring songs to geological
  entities. I checked with one of the town’s constables. He
  said no; it was as if a mighty predator had torn the woman
  apart. He said that they had called an Eskatonic in from
  Nuevo Madrid but did not want to involve the Church until
  they had more clues. This is partly because the town has ill
  feelings towards the Inquisition and Temple Avesti, and fears
  the Church will send no saner representative to deal with
  the supernatural. I do not know. As the stars dim, ancient
  evils awaken, and every man must look to his sword.
  Avalon
  Avalon, Tarquinia’s twin continent, connected to her
  across a narrow isthmus, was long ago deforested and strip-
  mined of its resources. In St. Amalthea’s day it was still
  heavily forested, the most beautiful region of the world. Some
  of the forests have begun to creep back during the past two
  centuries, and lumber farms belonging to the Woodwright
  Guild are present here, as are many of the agricultural lands
  run by the Morticus Guild. Small noble estates still control
  the last arable land on the isthmus and in the shadow of the
  Green Mountains.
  My small estate, granted me by the Emperor, is in the
  Green Mountains. It originally belonged to the Regency, and
  which leased to a Juandaastas noble who couldn’t pay the
  required rent. Two years after his death, Alexius, as lord
  over all Regency lands, granted it to me. It is a stone castle,
  overlooking a green and pleasant valley, and comes with
  some serfs. My mother made me feel guilty about this, and
  so I lessened the fees on their rent, and made terms where
  they could eventually purchase their freedom. I hired two of
  them to run the small winepress, so I have a small profit.
  Honestly, I am rarely here, and it hardly feels like home.
  One day on Byzantium Secundus, I received a visitor
  who claimed the land was hers. That is how I met Lorraine,
  the bastard daughter of the old lord, Juan Pedro. She said
  this half joking, and, feeling amused and bored, I went to
  lunch with her, and the rest is history. While her father never
  officially acknowledged her, he did send her to a finishing
  school on Byzantium Secundus as a favor to her mother,
  both to get her daughter out of serfdom and to find a suit-
  able marriage. She hadn’t found one, because the only young
  
  13
  IMPERIAL FIEFS
  men she met were similarly trained at private academies to
  increase their station in life by marrying refined women of
  the lesser nobility. The real nobles could spot social climb-
  ers a mile away. Lorraine gave up on the academy to pursue
  her study of music, and so we became entwined. Besides, a
  legitimate knight with freeman status is proper enough for
  an unacknowledged bastard daughter — we looked it up in
  Rolando’s Rules of Royal and Noble Etiquette, the ultimate
  book on said matters.
  Some naval training occurs near Avalon, and it also hosts
  mountain militia training. Recently, more scavenge-mining
  for Second Republic materials has been initiated, and a
  Scraver team dredged up a small, intact Second Republic
  ship from the soft bottom of the Tio River.
  The continent is largely run by “the three sisters,” al-
  though small Decados and al-Malik fiefs dot the landscape.
  There is competition among various guilds for farming, min-
  ing and timber lands, and recently the small Harvester Guild
  came to conflict with a minor Decados count over forest land,
  a war the Harvesters are surprisingly winning. The Decados
  count, an unsavory character named Ivan, swears that the
  Harvesters are allied with Ur spirits of wood and stone.
  Again, strange signs and rumors, but I had not the time to
  investigate these matters.
  The Supreme Order of Engineers, during some
  terraforming work on the estates of Baron Rodrigo y Dios
  Hazat, caused a massive earthquake in 4930 that devas-
  tated the baron’s granaries and chemical plants. The baron
  found himself financially ruined by the cost of the Engineer’s
  bill and the price of rebuilding his once-lucrative factories.
  Forced to sell and foreclose to the Reeves, his estate at Casa
  Mundo now is overseen by one of the wealthiest Reeves,
  Cabot Winters, on behalf of his cousin, Melissa. Cabot has
  found many profitable ores brought to light by the Engi-
  neer-induced earthquake, and has the old factories running
  at a capacity well beyond the means of the Hazat baron. The
  serfs of the old Hazat estate, who formed a well-oiled fight-
  ing machine in the Hazat style, found employment in the
  Muster. The baron’s descendents, living on reduced means
  in Tulasca, claim the entire affair was a set-up by the three
  guilds to enrich themselves on their grandfather’s land.
  Evangeline Winters, Cabot’s sister, informed me other-
  wise. “We actually saved the poor baron, who had taken an
  insurance claim with our guild,” she said. “The Reeves were
  not responsible for his contract with the Engineers, and in-
  deed, our insurance at least has his family living above street
  level.” This is true. The baron’s son, himself a baron in title
  only, lives with his large clan in an old house in a respect-
  able section of Tulasca. They would be mistaken for suc-
  cessful freemen if not for their coat of arms and two old
  servants who follow them everywhere.
  The Reeve presence on the world is centered at Casa
  
  14
  IMPERIAL SURVEY
  Mundo, a large estate with Regency-style towers and ma-
  sonry work. With so many imperial contracts coming to
  Tethys, the Reeves redoubled their efforts to become the
  bankers for most of Tethys, with only the local Tethys Char-
  ity and Usury Guild standing in their way of a complete
  monopoly on the world. Since the local banking guild is af-
  filiated with the Reeves (and only has the resources to con-
  duct a fraction of the financial transactions the off-world
  Reeves do) many say that the Reeves really do run the world.
  Still, old blue-blood Tethyians use the Tethys Charity and
  Usuary Guild out of a sense of local pride.
  The Scravers and Morticus Guild possess such muscle
  that the Reeves need them for transportation, agrarian and
  other services, and the “three sisters” have an alliance. The
  Scravers run many small operations, from Second Republic
  materials salvaging to casinos, brothels, restaurants and the
  lucrative local mining guilds; their cumulative interests on
  Tethys are huge. “Oh, to marry a Scraver’s daughter, and
  live on pure off-world water, “ as the song goes.
  Tulasca
  This city, run by Dean Benita “the Fox” Ivankov, head
  of the Scravers, claims to be the oldest city on the world, a
  claim disputed by Nuevo Madrid. Since the Dean of the
  Scravers is not often present, real power falls into the hands
  of Carmen Ivankov, Head of Operations and Personnel. She
  agreed to meet with me in the Scraver headquarters in the
  old Alecto palace. Tulasca has every vice known to our un-
  happy race, from prostitution, gambling, alien wrestling and
  fighting, taking a back seat only to Criticorum. Yet Carmen
  places a positive spin on things. “Prostitution beats starva-
  tion, and many of our workers wed above their station to
  wealthy clients,” she said. She then rattled off the better
  services of Tulasca, including the Air and Water Purification
  and the Toxin Removal Guild, all controlled by the Scravers,
  and the latter so popular that they even have a vid show
  with a loud theme song.
  I made it a point to walk alone through the city, finding,
  as I often do, that areas which people say are to be avoided
  are fine in daylight (save for the beggars). I meditated on
  the lack of civil spirit under these guild cities. Everyone was
  competing. Except for some local sports teams, there seemed
  to be little unity. I walked in the old and poor Santos District
  (a.k.a. Blight Town), where poverty proved the best pre-
  server of the wonderful ancient architecture. There are gangs
  here, but I displayed my shield with the Emperor’s banner,
  and they all came up to look at it. Having served with their
  older brothers and sisters, I knew how to deal with these
  people: give them something to fight for, and they become
  the most loyal, toughest soldiers in the Known Worlds. I
  gave my usual speech about the nobility of imperial service,
  and some of these tough kids bought me some wine and
  listened to my tales. I even got two of the older ones to sign
  up. “The Emperor is the jeffe of my gang,” I said, sounding
  like a walking cliché, but they bought it. Jeffe is slang for
  leader or boss.
  One of their leaders said to me: “Those Church monks
  come here, and they say the Pancreator is the father of all
  gangs, but the Emperor, he has starships and armed men. I
  bet the Pancreator couldn’t raid a rival’s territory — you need
  muscle, like the Emperor’s starships.” I wasn’t sure if my
  message was getting through, but in some manner the idea
  of noble service was communicated. I actually enjoyed my
  time here, and three gangs acting in unison guarded me.
  The government services, clustered around the old Alecto
  castle, are in the southern area known as the Urth Quarter,
  because many Urth people settled here well into the Second
  Republic. They tell me it is Urth-like in its small shops, res-
  taurants and performances, but two-thirds of it is now ad-
  ministrative and guild territory. The extreme west and north,
  along Stone Creek, house the wealthier inhabitants, in
  Palamedes Park and Vladgrod. There are some here who are
  noble and whose ancient traditions of hospitality make a
  knight feel welcome. Many marveled at an Imperial Knight
  coming here, and had plenty of questions. I guess my small
  drop of Justinian blood helped me open doors, although my
  family lost any claim to noble titles eight centuries ago.
  Sumeru
  A small, mountainous island continent, named after the
  great mountain that rests in her midst, this is a sparsely
  inhabited region. The Li Halan maintain a fief here, and the
  Eskatonics have some land, but large parts of it are claimed
  by the Sea Harvester Guild and Morticus Guild. Many of the
  people here were relative latecomers to Tethys, arriving in
  the Second Republic and early Age of Nobles, and are still
  considered half-natives by the rest of the planet. I never
  spent time there before, but went now.
  The freemen here are proud and numerous, living mainly
  in Port Java. They have managed to keep the mountains off-
  limits to many, for they were strip-mined long ago of pre-
  cious ores and metals. Still, wildlife made a comeback here,
  and I enjoyed the sight of sea cattle swimming upriver to
  their spawning grounds in the mountainous pools, a beau-
  tiful and rare sight on Tethys.
  I visited the Eskatonic monastery St. Guenons, and then
  moved on to the Li Halan fief, nestled in the west of the
  small island continent. Lady Daria displayed her millirice
  farms, and we spent some time hunting. She managed to
  keep her estates by staying out of planetary politics during
  the Emperor Wars on this largely pro-Alexius world.
  
  15
  IMPERIAL FIEFS
  Airyava Vego
  The western continent is home to some of the great in-
  dustrial shops and factories, where air and spacecraft com-
  ponents are manufactured under well-guarded secrecy. Al-
  though no maps display their locations, it is general knowl-
  edge where these imperial towns are located. These facto-
  ries were left over from the Second Republic and seized by
  the Ten. For a time, more than 10 factory towns, vying with
  each other in stiff competition, produced air and space equip-
  ment for 10 different houses. The Engineers and Charioteers
  vied with each other for noble contracts, and small turf wars
  often erupted between the competing factions. Vladimir put
  a halt to this, claiming control over the continent and con-
  solidating all the competing bases under his authority, a
  practice the Regency continued.
  In the Regency days, control over the Airyava Vego base
  was a sought-after prize. Each succeeding regent in turn
  would place her house in the top management/overseer po-
  sition of the Regency Air Intelligence Defense (RAID) bases,
  and gather the most technology before having to turn it over
  on the ascent of the next regent. In such chaotic times, the
  RAID Base Commanders eventually ran things, and the more
  powerful ones possessed the clout to stand up to various
  regents. Even Halvor Li Halan, first and only Theocrat of
  the Known Worlds, could not get Major Rio, Commander of
  the Aiyvaya Vego Raid labs, to turn over recent discoveries
  to the combined Regency/Church fleet. He excommunicated
  the commander in his role as Patriarch, an order that was
  rescinded after his death from the mysterious illness that
  swiftly consumed him. Indeed, both barbarian incursions
  into Tethys sought to either gain control of, or destroy, the
  valuable resources this continent holds.
  Aside from the bases, many imperial war vehicles are
  produced here in the small city of Delos. This is a tough
  town, filled with Engineer guildsmembers and a consortium
  of smaller weapons guilds, known as the Mobile Guild, or
  “mobies” for short. They make petrol, solar, and other ve-
  hicles.
  Imperial military families recently began to settle newer
  communities along the western coast and inner lakes. Here,
  a strong attachment to our Emperor is visible, and an old
  war comrade, Shannon le Belle, escorted me around. Le Belle,
  a noted mapmaker and think machine expert, settled here
  with her husband at a small winery on the western plains.
  She looked over the draft of my travel itinerary (correcting
  many errors) before showing me some of the newer towns.
  Even retired veterans keep up military appearances; these
  imperial towns are similar to military bases in concept and
  design.
  It was here that I found an old Hazat knight, Sir Juan
  Monty. Possessing an artificial leg and arm, the old knight
  said that he knew I needed instruction. “The Emperor has
  created a knight, but you need a tradition for the newer Im-
  perial Knights to follow.” I listened carefully, as he trained
  me in prayer, concentration, and a new way of looking at
  the world. “Remember,” he said after testing my sword skills,
  “all divisible things go back into one, and when you under-
  stand that in your soul, then you will be a knight.” I decided
  to invite the old warrior to my small estate, to train me in
  more of the mysteries of knighthood.
  Stigmata
  The Imperial Navy blockades the Stigmata jumpgate,
  protecting the Known Worlds from the Symbiot threat. Sym-
  biot attempts to reinforce their monstrous legions usually
  fail, since imperial orders are to destroy any unauthorized
  ship entering the system. League and noble ships have to
  gain permission to enter. They are escorted (and hence,
  boarded and inspected) by the Imperial Navy. Occasionally,
  deserters from Stigmata commandeer a small supply ship
  and try to run the jumpgate; sadly, most are blown to bits in
  the cold vacuum of space.
  Stigmata stands in a war-zone between the Known
  Worlds and an enemy created from the genetic alchemical
  perversions of Second Republic science: the Symbiots. Hav-
  ing served here and fought on this world, I can safely write
  that the immensity of this struggle has driven warriors in-
  sane, and only the strongest maintain their composure. Most
  information about Stigmata is classified. The invasive scan-
  ning one has to go through — every body cavity searched —
  just to get to Stigmata makes the trip unpleasant. There is
  nothing like being stripped naked and probed by medical
  and special ops units while they explain what they are do-
  ing in front of 20 new recruits, all the while making jokes
  about one’s skin condition. A trained Vorox in an antigrav-
  ity circus, forced to blow bubbles while singing some twisted
  version of a popular Ravenna song while dressed in enor-
  mous clown clothes, has more dignity!
  History
  Discovered during the early Urth Diaspora, the planet
  then known as Shiraz and later Sepulcher underwent (and
  still undergoes) massive geological upheavals. Early on, a
  few mining towns dotted the world, but it was the arrival of
  
  16
  IMPERIAL SURVEY
  St. J’waltan and his early band of Universal Church Breth-
  ren who first made their mark in history. St. J’waltan’s band
  descended from early followers of Zebulon from Aylon named
  the Sons of Fire; they were among those who heard the
  Prophet’s first sermon when he returned from Yathrib. Suc-
  cored by the early Church but scorned by the corporate roy-
  alists of their time, the Agniites (named after the ancient
  Urth Hindu deity of fire, Agni) came here seeking a home.
  In a miraculous action, St. J’waltan sacrificed himself to ap-
  pease the angry world, and the geological shifts and volca-
  nic activities stopped (2933). You can still see the spot, in
  the Durem Mountains, where the world accepted St. J’walten’s
  sacrifice. The beatific face of the saint, carved from stone on
  a mountainside, stands as a monument to faith. When the
  world is troubled, the carved saint’s head assumes a redder
  pigmentation.
  Later, Second Republic terraforming methods did not
  take well to this world. Nonetheless, the population grew
  during this time. The Agniites retained many of their own
  beliefs, tolerated by the Universal Church, until near the end
  of this epoch, when Church missionaries brought them more
  into the fold. After the Fall of the Republic, the al-Malik and
  League exerted the most control over this world, until the
  Symbiots attacked in the early 4900s. The al-Malik defenses
  were shattered, and many refugees hastily deserted Stig-
  mata to Criticorum. The al-Malik and League, save for a few
  small fiefs and holdings, surrendered the world to the au-
  thority of the Regency, who rushed in the fleet and armies
  to hold the world. Psychics and theurges turned the tide and
  brought the sides to a rough stalemate. Church authorities
  belatedly recognized the merit in using psychics as warriors
  against the Symbiots, who seemingly had little defense
  against telepathy.
  I can state from experience that the arrival of the Mani-
  fest Light Legion on Stigmata, comprised of both theurges
  and psychics, made every serf, enlisted warrior, and noble
  in the Third, Fifth, Seventh, Ninth and Eleventh Imperial
  Legions sleep better.
  The stalemate was held on the world until the Emperor
  Wars. Countess Carmetha Decados, then the Stigmata Gar-
  rison Commander, took most of the Regency armies and at-
  tacked Criticorum, leaving behind a small guard with no re-
  serve. The countess attacked the al-Malik as soon as they
  allied with the Hawkwoods, but her forces met defeat when
  the Fifth Dark Legion, the al-Malik Ukari shock troops, sur-
  prised them at the Battle of Rudaki (4991). The countess’s
  best warriors - the bulk of the Stigmata Garrison troopers
  she had mobilized as her force - met death when the Ukari’s
  night attack led to a route.
  Meanwhile, the Symbiots, sensing the weakness in the
  Regency defensive lines, attacked, rolling back humanity’s
  defenders onto the plains of Durem and besieging the mili-
  tary headquarters at Sylan. This bitter siege lasted five
  months. The Garrison was down to a week’s rations and
  nearly out of ammunition when the “Miracle of Sylan” oc-
  curred. Hawkwood and Regency forces, under the banners
  of Alexius Hawkwood, made surprise landings behind the
  Symbiot forces and in Sylan, adding supplies, manpower
  and relief. Alexius broke the siege and routed the Symbiots
  in his famous Three Victories, which pushed the Symbiots
  back to their original position on Durem’s eastern coasts. It
  was the relieved Sylan garrison that first hailed Alexius as
  Emperor. Next, Alexius made a daring raid onto Iden, crip-
  pling a Symbiot army, before following up with a cleansing
  operation in southern Durem, a region so inhospitable that
  both our forces and our foes have abandoned it. Today, raids
  and counterraids occur, but the Emperor’s Peace has driven
  the fight from the Symbiots, who seem to hold onto their
  own territories as best they can.
  Durem
  I landed here, in Sylan. Sgt. Porfirio and Father Andrus,
  a hard-drinking theurge of the Eskatonic Order — and, inci-
  dentally, an expert and historian of military tactics — met
  me here. Sgt. Porfirio was a serf from a Hazat world when I
  met him, but he rose in the ranks due to a series of daring
  reconnaissance missions, and now owes loyalty to the Em-
  peror. Indeed, displays of the Emperor are everywhere here:
  on banners, buildings, parchment, and items of sale — ev-
  erything from liquor bottles to good luck tokens. It is said
  that the rumored quasi-sect of emperor worshippers known
  as the Reborn Sun originated here among a pro-Hawkwood
  faction of the Garrison. Whatever the case, the Emperor is
  certainly popular here!
  I inspected some imperial troops. They should be
  complimented for their bravery and, upon retirement, be
  given communities to live in — barracks communities, per-
  haps on a frontier world, both for fear of Symbiot contami-
  nation and because many Stigmata soldiers have a hard time
  returning to the peaceful, daily lives of the Known Worlds. I
  suggest retiring them to the island continent of Thrace in
  the Geber Sea, home to many deserters. This would not only
  allow a watch on a potential rebellious province, but keep
  the veterans on-world, albeit far from the front lines. I, who
  only served here one year, still sometimes awaken at night
  in a cold sweat, reaching for my blaster, hearing in my mind
  the twisted human/animal screams of the enemy. If soldiers
  remain here more than three years, they are hard to rede-
  ploy as civilians.
  Many accounts of war have humorous or cynical sto-
  ries — indeed, there is on Criticorum and Byzantium
  Secundus a school of writers, sometimes composed of ex-
  servicemen, who think war has no larger meaning and is
  just a grinding death-machine that chews up young soldiers
  
  17
  IMPERIAL FIEFS
  on the altars of egotistical commanders and nobles. Yet here
  I have seen true heroism and redemption. Once, when my
  small company suffered from sudden worm sickness and
  diarrhea, a Symbiot night attack threatened to finish us.
  Suddenly the company pariah, Cecil “Droopey Drawers”
  Slagg, hurled himself on the Symbiot leader with a grenade
  and blew off his own arm, taking the life of the inhuman
  captain. We routed the demoralized Symbiots, and each of
  us fought for the honor of taking Slagg to the Amalthean
  healers. From pariah to hero in one day!
  Father Andrus took me to some of the pubs about the
  base. “There seems to be a lull in the fighting,” he said.
  “Rumor has it that we have held a conference with some of
  the Symbiots’ minor captains, but whatever the reason, it
  gives the men some time for rest and relaxation.” I attrib-
  uted these rumors to the sort of talk soldiers start from time
  to time to keep up morale. Another rumor states that retired
  Stigmata veterans are rewarded with employment in some
  lush tropical Leagueheim resort; this one has been circulat-
  ing in various forms since I was here. Stigmata was, how-
  ever, quiet for now, and when I toured the front, there was
  little recent action but for the usual attempts at reconnais-
  sance by both sides.
  Iden
  The island continent of Iden, in the southern Zos Sea,
  is occupied by the Symbiots. While the continent has been
  firebombed from space, the Symbiot commander, the reputed
  Ogla Dukeer, hides his enemy forces within the Safehaven
  Mountains. Although human raids have occurred here, it is
  off-limits.
  Thrace
  Largely ignored by the fighting, Imperial deserters seek
  refuge here. I did not visit. I cannot stomach a community of
  deserters. While a man may lose his wits and flee during
  fighting, as happens at times to even hardened veterans,
  his duty is to return to his unit, suffer whatever punishment
  is warranted, and continue. A community of deserters only
  reinforces the worst values of men individually, although
  some deserters will fight hard and display bravery to retain
  their freedom. Recently, there have been rumors that the
  deserters have an alliance with some Symbiots deserters.
  Every soldier knows a version of this rumor: over the hill
  some of our men and theirs have deserted and formed their
  own territory. Believe me, versions of this have been going
  on since Kaiser Wilhelm’s war on old Urth.
  [Note to the reader: More information on Stigmata can
  be found in the Fading Suns sourcebook Legions of the
  Empire.]
  Nowhere
  Nowhere is a world beyond history, for she swallows all
  history into herself like a collapsing star and spews it out
  pell-mell, so that the most eclectic and amazing things stand
  side-by-side. The atmosphere is faint, requiring breathing
  apparatus for long-term outdoor travel or short-term exer-
  tion, but the pressure and gravity is normal, so spacegear is
  not needed. Nowhere is a largely dead world, with few areas
  of native vegetation. The soil is black and cursed, although
  I have seen the monks of Maelestron Monastery and a few
  hermits produce miracles here with the soil.
  Outside of the few cities and military bases, nomads
  roam at will, the descendents of Nowhere’s original inhabit-
  ants. They scavenge the old Second Republic ruins and sell
  the artifacts to offworlders at Necropolis, the only port open
  to space traffic. No major artifacts have been found for about
  a century, leaving many to believe that the old ruins have
  been tapped out, although useful stuff is still here — the
  Second Republic materials alone are worth the trip. To get at
  them, interested parties engage in smuggling, poaching and
  even bribery of imperial officials, although the current im-
  perial authorities are a lot more draconian about punishing
  violators than the old Regency hands.
  History
  Nowhere beguiles the researcher with scant sources, but
  I finally bribed a woman from the Archivist Guild on Shaprut
  to use her vast libraries to find something, for all I gathered
  on-world was local folklore. Nowhere, originally named Sao
  Paulo, was discovered in the 25th century. Although a few
  small families settled here, no large-scale migration occurred
  until around the 29th century, when settlers from Urth ar-
  rived. Nowhere bypassed the bloody history of the first-wave
  settlements. It seems that this planet once yielded a bounti-
  ful agricultural crop, and was noted for its fertile valleys
  and fields. There were signs of pre-Adamite ruins, with the
  Ur-pyramids dotting the equator standing as mute testimony
  to an earlier presence.
  During the Second Republic, large agro-clans controlled
  
  18
  IMPERIAL SURVEY
  the planet’s politics, with the Balazar family holding the pre-
  dominate role. Late in the Republic, due to technical discov-
  eries made at the University of Pao, an incredible techno-
  logical jump in the production of android and cloned ser-
  vants reached new heights, and the Republican military in-
  vested heavily in the region. Soon the wealth in the technol-
  ogy fields overran the agricultural clans, and the final cen-
  tury of Republican rule saw the seven techno-clans seize
  political power. When the Ten noble families and barbarian
  incursions ended the Second Republic, Nowhere was ignored,
  and she lent her military and technology to the Republican
  cause. After the defeat of the Republican Admiral McGowen
  at the Jumpgate Battle of 4012, the planetary defense force
  closed the jumpgate rather then face invasion.
  When the world was rediscovered around 4388, a seem-
  ingly dead world met the Masseri scouting force. There were
  many rumors on the planet about how the former garden
  paradise was destroyed: strange, hybrid semi-human invad-
  ers, the blasphemous perfidy of an Antinomist, or the mad
  hubris of a theurgist were all blamed. The latter seems to be
  the most common found in folklore, and is the explanation
  acceptedby the Church.
  The Masseri party found people adapted to desert life
  who still possessed some technology, but the University of
  Pao and the surrounding “zygot valley” were destroyed,
  along with many of the greater tech factories. No one can
  identify with precision when this happened, but an old her-
  mit I encountered who counted the tree rings off a mighty
  fallen oak showed me the year, and it would correspond
  roughly to 4100, only a few generations after the jumpgate
  closed.
  The Masseri claimed the world, and travelers would oc-
  casionally report rare technical finds. For a time, a small
  League/Church/Masseri governing party existed (4200-
  4515), with small policing powers, but the world was ad-
  ministered from Stigmata. Finally, in 4514, Duke Rurik Alecto
  conquered it for his family. It was said that Emperor Vladimir
  outfitted his armies with rare finds from Nowhere, and that
  some Ur technology his followers found there helped pave
  the way for his victories. After the Emperor’s sudden death,
  a joint Justinian/Torenson attack “liberated” the world from
  the Alecto yoke, and the planet eventually became the fief
  of the Regency. The later fall of both families saw them re-
  linquish their holdings on the world to the Regency in ex-
  change for more valuable lands or badly needed funds to
  maintain their noble lifestyles.
  The rise of the desert tribes occurred during the Re-
  gency days, as the Nassari nation grew. From 4600 on, there
  have been occasional clashes with between the nomads and
  Regency forces, and inter-tribal warfare between the tribal
  confederations. The power of the Red Ochre Nasaari, once
  the largest confederacy, was broken by the Regency’s aid to
  the White Lizard Nassari and Blue Hawk Nassari (4807),
  and now the White Lizard Nassari claim the largest terri-
  tory. Recently, disturbances of an alien — and some say,
  demonic nature — have occurred in isolated spots on the
  world, a sign of the fading suns phenomenon.
  The solar system itself is quite barren. The ruins of a
  Second Republic base are found on Nowhere’s moon,
  Ananda. For a time the Massari utilized and repaired it, but
  for nearly 100 years the base has been declared off limits.
  Rumors abound of strange Symbiot spores that have infected
  the base, and much of it was destroyed in 4916 from space
  bombardment. Today, no one is allowed in or out, under
  threat of death.
  Necropolis
  I first arrived, as all offworlders do, at Necropolis. Tall
  buildings built of a shining, obsidian alloy of Second Re-
  public make dominate the lone spaceport of Nowhere. Origi-
  nally named Rudra, the city is older then the Second Repub-
  lic. When the jumpgate reopened, the Masseri scouting force
  discovered Rudra still inhabited, but only by one-tenth of
  the previous population. They huddled near the Pater Foun-
  tains, one of the few sources of fresh water on the world,
  Nowhere
  Cathedral: Orthodox (St. Claudius Cathedral, Necropolis)
  Agora: Eastway (Scravers, under imperial contract)
  Garrison: 6 (recently reduced)
  Capitol: Necropolis
  Jumps: 4
  Adjacent Worlds: Stigmata (dayside)
  Solar System: Eon (Sun), Cyclops (0.423 AU), Nowhere
  (2.98 AU; Ananda), Soma (21.56 AU), Gargantua
  (38.24, moons: Astarte, Kali, Persephone), Jumpgate
  (75.4 AU)
  The moon Ananda holds signs of Ur artifacts, but only a
  family of Scravers, contracted by the Emperor, mines
  there.
  Tech: 6 (Second Republic ruins and Ur artifacts)
  Human Population: 1.7 million
  Alien population: 7,937
  Resources: Ores, Second Republic artifacts, fossil fuel
  Exports: Refined ore, small weapons, Second Republic
  materials and artifacts, slaves, gravel, refined fuel, paints,
  jewelry, artwork, musical instruments.
  Landscape: Largely desert, although the mountains hold
  some fresh water. Nowhere suffered immense devasta-
  tion nearly a thousand years ago, destroying a once lush
  world. Nowhere’s shallow seas, which recently covered
  1/5th of the world, are gone.
  
  19
  IMPERIAL FIEFS
  aside from the Tulac Mountains. The black glistening tow-
  ers, with their spectral spires, caused the al-Malik poet
  Salimann to name the city Necropolis, which stuck, although
  the natives still refer to it as Rudra. The Masseri discovered
  a limited government working under the resident Universal
  Church bishop, and continued to allow the Church authori-
  ties its claim to governance. The Universal Church declared
  that the planetary Church had not relapsed, although she
  sent theologians to help the resident Church hierarchy ad-
  vance to current positions. Outside Necropolis, with its popu-
  lation of 350,000, are the nomads, who carry vestiges of
  the old faith with them.
  The ancient Trinitine Tower houses the Imperial Gover-
  nor and Garrison Commander, General Albrech Brech. I found
  him and his men to be quite enthusiastic supporters of the
  Emperor, and they welcomed me with good cheer at a pri-
  vate dinner. Brech is the bastard son of a Hawkwood mother.
  Disowned by his family, he joined the Regency military,
  where he became an early supporter of Darius, and later,
  Alexius. He told me of the usual problems — troop morale
  and nomad raids— but with the capture of the Tumbric Hills,
  he pushed the nomads far into the interior. He raised the
  morale of his men by instituting a rotating system of off-
  world leave and allowing military families to come to
  Necropolis and Fort Vladimir, although they are not stationed
  anywhere else on world.
  He gave me a tour of the city, still largely unoccupied,
  save in the southwestern sector, about the airfields and ports.
  The occupied section of the city contains the government
  offices, near to the Trinitine Towers, and the residential sec-
  tion known as Old Rudra, where some amazing estates greet
  the visitor. The richer estates are closer to the Pater Foun-
  tains. The Eastway, where the native population lives, houses
  shops (some modern, most ancient) that remain open day
  and night. Lights lead one to the St. Claudius Cathedral. St.
  Claudius, the page of St. Lextius, is the guardian of the world,
  an appropriate choice.
  Bishop Lucio Borges had taken ill, so I could not see
  him. He is almost a century old and in poor health — blind,
  in fact — but is considered by Nowhere’s natives to be their
  leader, since he was born in Necropolis. He has weathered
  all sorts of political changes with unusual adeptness. It is
  said his major concern has been to give the nomads the
  correct teachings. He has sent them numerous priests and
  monks, with some success, an encouraging thought when
  one considers the problems our beloved Church faces on
  other worlds, where heretical faiths spread like wildfires that
  must be put out.
  I visited the shops. The Scravers have a presence here,
  but less then I expected. I was amused to find pirated copies
  of last season’s magic lantern shows from Byzantium
  Secundus and Midian. Smuggling goes on here — the big-
  Nowhere
  Ag      Planetary Agora
  C         Cathedral
  Sk       Skyport (aka Airport)   
  S         Spaceport
  0
  miles
  3,000
  miles
  1,000
  miles
  2,000
  miles
  Desert
  Subtropical
  Subtropical
  Temperate
  Temperate
  Temperature Zones
  Tropical
  Tropical
  Deserted City
  City (50,000 or less) 
  Capital City (350,000)
  X
  Tribal Borders
  Nowhere
  2.98 AU
  Cyclops
  .423 AU
  Gargantua
  38.24 AU
  Soma
  21.56 AU
  Jumpgate
  75.4 AU
  Eon
  (Sun)
             Forest
             Mountain Range
             Hills
  X
  Nassari
  Tribes
  White Lizard
  Nassari
  Blue Hawk
  Nassari
  Red
  Ochre
  Nassari
  Minnoc
  Nassari
  Taz
  Nassari
  Lake Rudra
  Lake Lagos
  Lake 
  Vesma
  Little Maya
  Desert
  Maya Desert
  Ananda
  Desert
  Takameth
  Desert
  Tulac Mts.
  Necropolis
  Tumbric Hills
  Fort Vladimir
  Pampana
  University of Pao
  (Deserted)
  Zygot
  Valley
  Forest of
  Thazni
  Najha
  Forest
  Gargoyle of
  Nowhere
  All Saints
  Roj Terre
  Ur Pyramids
  "Takameth"
  Amazonia Mts.
  Najha
  Forest
  Zorqula
  Forest
  Zorqula Mts.
  Minsur R.
  Retha R.
  Om R.
  S
  Ag
  C
  Sk
  Lake 
  Nartula
  X
  
  20
  IMPERIAL SURVEY
  gest items are slug guns and energy guns, along with shields.
  No person is without a gun of some sort outside the city,
  due to the dangers of the world. Gun smuggling seems to be
  tolerated by the authorities, who are more concerned about
  rival houses and interests getting access to Second Republic
  tech. The gun smugglers have connections with the al-Malik
  and Merchant League, and sometimes even gain legal im-
  munity. Those caught stealing ancient technology are often
  publicly executed as an example to others — two Decados
  and one Li Halan smuggling rings were broken over five
  years ago with a number of public executions. Since then,
  things have quieted down.
  There is also a small slave smuggling operation, an evil
  legacy from the days of Regency corruption, where nomadic
  people — ostensibly freemen — would be taken off-world
  for labor. Emperor Alexius cracked down on this, for which
  the nomads were thankful, but it still occasionally contin-
  ues.
  Fort Vladimir
  Fort Vladmir was a military base founded by the first
  emperor to keep a watch on the nomadic tribes. Strategi-
  cally placed to guard Necropolis 100 miles to the southeast,
  the fort was built over an already existing military installa-
  tion used by the city of Rudra for a similar purpose. The
  Alecto family modified it extensively, stretching the defen-
  sive perimeter walls. Fort Vladimir houses a huge garrison,
  and inside it is like a small city with its own courts, stores,
  schools and entertainment centers.
  The Regency forces used the fort to harry the nomads
  and as a supply depot for long raids into the desert. By 4780,
  the fort was so successful that it broke the power of Ulto
  and his nation (Green Scorpion Nassari), and there was sub-
  sequent talk of decommissioning it. Already, a sort of small
  town was growing up outside its perimeters, and fewer troops
  were needed for garrison duty. Friendly nomads would come
  and barter, and the fort was considered an easy assignment
  until 4902, when the Symbiot Wars began. No one officially
  admits that the Symbiots landed here, but suddenly the fort
  was again vital, and reconnaissance and hit-and-run mis-
  sions against suspected infiltration areas became common.
  During the early Emperor Wars, three clans of the
  Nassari, stirred by an insurgent Jakovian Agent, attacked
  with such savagery that they breached Fort Vladimir, armed
  with mysterious Second Republic weapons. Only swift rein-
  forcements from Necropolis broke the siege, and the Regency
  force’s command of the air soon scattered the invaders. The
  fortress commander, Captain Rezzori, assured me that the
  agent was captured. “We’ve had good relations since then,”
  he said. “In the old days so much information wasn’t shared
  — when the Regency changed hands, the old royal family
  gathered all the reports and left, often leaving the new
  regent’s agents to start from scratch. Thank the Pancreator,
  things are more efficient now.”
  Outside Fort Vladimir’s ionic mesh gates, the desert
  Nassari constantly yell to the soldiers, begging and hag-
  gling. You can find anything in these camps huddled about
  the imperial bases, but these people are a distraction, some-
  times despised by the military, which periodically sweeps
  them from the area only to have them encroach again. Ev-
  erything from weapons, sex, drugs, and pirated vid enter-
  tainment is for sale. How these remote people get their hands
  on these materials is hard to say; surely a complex smug-
  gling ring operates under the imperial forces’ intentionally
  blind eyes. The smugglers appear to operate through guild
  and imperial underground networks. Guns, lasers, swords,
  and other weapons can be bought here with impunity. Re-
  cently, a major in the Imperial Forces was caught by the
  Imperial Eye and removed as a warning.
  I can honestly say that while these desert people are
  beggars, they are also ingenious. Nothing given them gets
  wasted, and some still drive about in 300-year-old Regency
  petrol vehicles that have remained in the same families for
  generations. They do not have the luxury of throwing items
  out, and they make use of everything given to them. Many
  carry ancient oxygen converters you would swear go back
  to the Second Republic — and you might not be wrong.
  The soldiers call the market camp that sprawls beyond
  Camp Vladimir “Little Istakhr,” after the famous Istakhr
  Market. Sometimes the soldiers “adopt” a young begging
  urchin as a mascot, especially if the child has no family, and
  give the kid money and education. At times, some of these
  kids have joined the Imperial Forces and become quite good
  soldiers, not only as interpreters between the Nassari and
  the Imperial Forces, but also due to their fearlessness in
  battle.
  Sadly, some of the bastard children begat by soldiers
  and Nassari are not accepted by the tribes, and they live a
  scavenging life, stealing military supplies, riding undetec-
  ted in transport ships, and forming gangs that compete with
  each other for food and territory. They are known as Sharzi
  by both the imperial forces and the Nassari. The word might
  be a derivative from the Nassari word Shardiza, or “young
  (wild) animal.” These children sometimes get adopted by
  the time they grow up, but they are more likely dead by
  then. Their life is a sad one. If caught sneaking onto mili-
  tary lands as an adult, they are often shot. If a gang gets too
  strong, the tribes move in and wipe it out. A few escape this
  life by skill or luck, or adoption by a sympathetic adult. Most
  do not. You don’t see many Sharzi in their 20s.
  One can loose one’s faith in human nature on Nowhere.
  I remember being on leave when a woman approached me,
  offering sex for food. I bought her the food but refused the
  sex, for which some men on base called me stupid and naïve.
  
  21
  IMPERIAL FIEFS
  She was nineteen, the daughter of an Imperial Forces Sup-
  ply Officer. She ran off-base with her lover, a soldier, whom
  her father forbid her to see. He deserted the military to marry
  her, but was slain by a local thief for his military cloak. Her
  father wouldn’t take her back, and she was attempting to
  survive, hoping to buy her way off-world to find her distant
  aunt on Byzantium Secundus. I offered to get the funds to
  pay her fare, but when I went back to meet her in Sao Triste
  she did not show. I sometimes wonder what happened to
  her. It is the task of a knight to help the weak, but I feel I
  failed here.
  Maelestron Monastery
  This 380-room Second Republic, eclectic-style stone
  mansion was built for the union of Osumi Li Halan and his
  bride, the Countess Alexandria Decados, in the waning days
  of the Republic. When Osumi died, Alexandria consulted a
  spiritual medium who informed her that the restless dead
  had cursed the couple for the vile sins of both families. The
  curse could only be abated if the widow kept building a
  mansion to house the spirits of those slain by both houses.
  Masons and builders labored night and day to carve
  ghastly statues, bizarre architecture and tortured images
  while Alexandra dined with the ghosts in bizarre, 12-course
  meals that always seated 17 — herself and the dead. Fi-
  nally, the exhausted work force rebelled and bricked her,
  alive, in her solarium, where she perished. The Decados fam-
  ily regained the mansion when contact with the world was
  renewed, but it proved a financial drain to maintain and
  was given as a gift to Brother Paulus of the mendicant monks.
  Paulus served as a sometime confessor to the last Decados
  owner, Duke Mikhail, who lived on Cadavus. The cynical
  say he was bought off and given a gift in remote Nowhere to
  keep silent. However he gained it, Brother Paulus who turned
  the ghastly structure into a monastery.
  It is an interesting place, haunted in the western por-
  tions (I witnessed a ghost descending the stairs in the com-
  pany of three monks). The resident monks, both male and
  female (housed in separate wings of the mansion) practice
  the Via Corporeus, a system of bodily contortions, yoga, and
  martial arts called Fa-do, which is supposed to bring the
  practitioner away from “reflected consciousness” and closer
  to the Pancreator.
  I spent a week here, marveling at the monks’ work with
  cotton and clothing creation. It was a curious place, perched
  on the edge of the Maya Desert. Despite the purification rites
  performed by the monks, an unsettling feeling still pervades
  the deeper portions of the Maelestron Monastery, where some
  claim that Alexandra’s hungry ghost moves about in eternal
  damnation.
  I held excellent conversations with Brother Aris, famous
  for his work Gift of the Pancreator, which was a salve to so
  many spiritual wounds inflicted during the Emperor Wars.
  He was sent here as exile for some of his writings, which
  seemed to promote a direct relationship with the Pancreator,
  bypassing the priestly intermediaries of the Church. While
  not heretical, it displeased some Church elders, as did the
  rising popularity of its author. He is a very good man, and
  we spoke long about a knight’s service to the Pancreator. As
  he said, “The order you defend is the Pancreator’s order,
  and you must see your work, as I do mine, as a bulwark
  against seen and unseen forces which would bring harm to
  the design and intent of the Pancreator’s work.” So popular
  is he still that the Church is thinking of bringing him back
  to worlds where he is more needed, to fan the dying flame
  of faith in areas where vile sects of Incarnates spread.
  Maya Desert
  Covering the middle and southern regions of the planet,
  the Maya Desert is merciless. Beyond Fort Vladimir and the
  Maelestron Monastery lies a bleak land of harsh winds, sun
  and nomads. One small city, Pampana, exists in the
  Amazonia Mountains. Supplied by airships, it holds a popu-
  lation of 200,000 or so, many of whom are engaged in min-
  ing old Second Republic shafts and ruins, while the rest prac-
  tice greenhouse agriculture with imported soil. The city is
  walled against the nomads and run by an imperial captain,
  Vijaya, a freeman born on Ravenna, who entered the mili-
  tary near the end of the Emperor Wars. He told me that he
  has led military incursions against the nomads but prefers a
  more peaceful approach, for Pampana is an oasis of Known
  Worlds civilization in the harsh southern desert of Nowhere.
  From Pampana, I went with two native guides to All
  Saints, vowing to find the Gargoyle of Nowhere, famed in
  legend.
  All Saints
  The end of all roads. Dust winds forever batter against
  window shutters. A small dog scurries between ghost town
  buildings, while a warm rain suddenly falls, becoming a
  heavy downpour, ending as soon as it begins, leaving red
  mud pools the consistency of blood. A swarm of insects ap-
  pears and descends over the pools, breeding and laying eggs.
  Within half an hour the pools are dry, the ground hard. A
  hot breeze sweeps through the dry thorn-grass, creating
  shadowy monsters across the red desert sand. When night
  falls, the moaning winds echo off the gigantic buttes, howl-
  ing in anguish. Dreams rise and fall, grains of sand blown
  by the night air.
  In All Saints, the preserved Second Republic buildings
  stand above the shifting desert, an eclectic mixture of styles,
  all worn by the sand and winds. Most of the materials have
  been scavenged; here and there, the Taz tribe that controls
  the area continues the slow process of gathering what re-
  
  22
  IMPERIAL SURVEY
  mains. In one building, strange statues stand in air-locked
  windows, clothed in styles not seen since those lost days.
  Some think the glass-entombed figures are the cadavers of
  Republic wise women, but Weapons Spec. Howard laughed.
  “They’re fashion dummies, store-front dressing, like you
  see in the boutiques in Acheon, Istakhr, or some of the
  League Worlds. Only the ignorant sons of bitches who live
  here don’t know that.” He had a bitter laugh over that, be-
  cause these glass cases were well-tended, and offerings are
  made to these beautiful mannequins. I wonder if they were
  once androids? Some of the nomads occasionally camp
  nearby before consulting the Gargoyle of Nowhere. This is
  the last spot before the waste, which holds the Gargoyle,
  and the occasional offworlder comes to ask questions. The
  nomads restrict access to the glass-encased figure to those
  they deem their wisest, for there is a series of tests a man or
  woman must undergo before consulting the oracles.
  The nomads seem to regard All Saints as a holy place.
  Nearby, the red rock called by the natives bloodstone is
  mined. The Taz tribe claims possession of the mines, but
  any nomad who enters may mine; it is open to all Nowhere’s
  people. While no fighting occurs in the famous canyon of
  the red earth, the Taz have fought several battles for pos-
  session of the trade routes and the lands about the mines.
  The Minnok seem to be their main rivals. Legend states that
  when the Second Republic fell, local Republicans and nobles
  clashed here, staining the ground red with their blood. The
  leader of the Republican forces was the Prime Senator, by
  constitutional decree the head of the Republican Armed
  Forces after the President, who perished in the sacking of
  Byzantium Secundus. Count Vassily Alecto, head of one of
  the most powerful noble houses, led the noble forces. It is
  said that the Prime Senator released the Atmospheric Int-
  bombs that sucked up all the oxygen above the noble host,
  before causing a chain reaction across the doomed planet.
  One wing of the noble army escaped the initial atmospheric
  attack, and engaged the Republicans in one of the greatest
  battles in human history.
  So great was the slaughter that the survivors named
  Roj Valley Rojterre, the Valley of Red Earth. The survivors
  swore an oath to battle each other no more, and the pledge
  is still maintained through the ritual drinking of the sacred
  red powder made from this land, mixed by tribal leaders
  with water. The drinkers pledge peace in the name of the
  Pancreator.
  It is said that the tribes are remnants of the two hosts,
  but some of the Minnoc believe that the Republican survi-
  vors withdrew under the earth, where they formed an un-
  derground city. I heard this rumor again and again. If there
  is any truth to it, this city has not been found. Even several
  offworlders, including an intelligent archeologist from
  Byzantium Secundus, Torrence Lang, seemed to believe it.
  Several caves have been found with Second Republic trea-
  sures, and the deeper one looks, the more are found. I don’t
  know if this is true or not. Many, even the best of people,
  believe rumors out of proportion to reality.
  Urzenkai, the Gargoyle of
  Nowhere
  Out in the vast wastes beyond All Saints stands the
  Gargoyle of Nowhere, called Urzenkai by the nomads. I re-
  solved to find it and, taking two native guides, I went in
  search of the famed Anunnaki statue. The two guides told
  me that if the Gargoyle speaks to you, it is a personal mat-
  ter, not to be discussed or shared. I asked them for more
  about the Gargoyle of Nowhere, and they told me it was left
  by the Dawn Gods (such was the guides’ name for the
  Anunnaki) to guard the world against the return of the Night
  Realms. This gave me an insight into the mind of the no-
  mads that was earlier denied me. I continued with my ques-
  tioning, but more importantly, I listened to what they said.
  The universe decays, they said, because the high sci-
  ences of the Republic robbed folk of their faith in the
  Pancreator. When the faith was destroyed by scientific won-
  derment, a psychic shield produced by billions of humans
  cut off communication with the higher, reflective realms.
  Beings from the lower realms found it easier to tunnel into
  our universe. Before, they were halted by angelic protectors
  sent by the Pancreator, but with a psychic shield composed
  of materialistic belief halting this higher communication, the
  lower beings bore their way in, opening doors to the night-
  mare realms. The end of the Second Republic and the
  strengthening of the Church briefly slowed the process, but
  soon the age will come when these dark beings show them-
  selves.
  I told them that there was an Emperor on the throne,
  and they said yes, but this was a hidden war, fought be-
  tween powers. The Gargoyle protects us from them, they
  said. After four days we found the Gargoyle, massive and
  magnificent, the pre-human guardian of this lonely world. I
  asked a question, and the answer I received I am not per-
  mitted to write here, or communicate, save that it was per-
  sonnel and not foreboding.
  We were delayed in our return by fierce desert storms,
  but we finally came into All Saints. My guides said that their
  tribe heightened its protection of the Gargoyle because two
  years ago a man came, carrying explosives and possessed
  by demons. They had no choice but to kill him, as he cast no
  shadow in the noonday sun and he was walking, alone, in
  the direction of earlier pilgrimages. “The Gargoyle can de-
  fend itself,” Jul-Taiku, the younger guide said. “We have to
  keep watch, however, for that is the bargain we made cen-
  turies ago when the planet went bad and Urzenkai saved
  us.”
  
  23
  IMPERIAL FIEFS
  While I was in All Saints, I witnessed a husk attack.
  These are rare on this world, but the tribesmen said an evil
  sorcerer has inhabited some of the old ruins about Tathurn
  and has stirred the dead up. The nomads had protective
  amulets, and the husk attack became a slaughtering of the
  already dead. I joined in, but the fighting made me physi-
  cally sick, as the hot sun carried their reeking smell, and I
  nearly vomited. Still, victory was ours, and I asked for more
  about this sorcerer. The tribesmen said she was an offworlder,
  an Eskatonic priestess who found something out in the
  wastes and now sought to control the passageways to the
  Gargoyle.
  “She has some outlaws about her, a small force, but it
  is growing,” they said. “We attempted to destroy her two
  years ago, but her forces hid in the desert and we could not
  find her, although we found one of their hastily deserted
  bases. The elders say she is possessed by an unclean thing,
  a demon of the waste places. She calls herself AK-Lanait,
  which is not known in our tongue, but is a tongue spoken,
  we believe, before people came here.”
  I made a report of their talk and submitted it to General
  Brech. He was already aware of her, and reconnaissance air
  patrols have spotted some human habitation in the ruins
  described. Brech awaited the arrival of a high Church ex-
  pert, one of the Kalinthi, to deal with the situation. I felt
  depressed, and wondered why here, on an imperial world,
  some elder curse had found its mark.
  There will be no spring here. There is a limit to what
  words are, what they can convey. Glyphs, symbols, charac-
  ters with esoteric and common meanings fused into one con-
  vey nothing without intelligence. Somewhere, a wind de-
  mon howls idiotically as the dull, red sun sets. I try to re-
  member my knightly vows, but before this landscape, all I
  can recount is my prayer to St. Lextius the Knight, which I
  can barely get out of parched lips.
  There is a limit to what words are, an end to all words,
  finally. Against a backdrop turning gray, all shapes merge
  into one, awaiting the dark of night. I hold my small light-
  stick against the drowning evening, a distant star engulfed
  in subterranean currents, flickering without meaning.
  
SOURCE: textdata/thevault/Fading Suns/Fading Suns Imperial Survey 6 - Imperial Fiefs.pdf