A Second Chance at Martyrdom

27 Kythorn

We were out playing with the other kids, and Jespa found a cat.

She has decided to adopt said cat, and named it Neeshka. A suggestion from Felros, one of the older kids and best friend of Pelsot. He was also giggling afterwardafterwards when Jespa was showing it around to everyone else, so I have to wonder what the name could mean. I’ll have to ask Orsik next time I see him.

Virla and Turgor seemed fine with it. They had a cat right after Pelsot was born, but it disappeared before I was born.

Neeshka doesn’t seem to like me much though. Some gratitude for removing all the fleas.

1 Flamerule

Today was Founders Day, a celebration aboutfor the origins of the City of Waterdeep. State sponsored plays, illusions, bardic concerts, and more. All meant to tell the tale of how the city rose from humble beginnings, and eventually ascended to one of the most influential city states in the region.

I tried to not be too negative about what was pretty clearly propaganda.

To their credit, it wasn’t entirely positive. They talked about how the city was once just a humble port traders and pirates would dock at for repairs. The tale of how the first Open Lord of the city, Ahghairon, slew the would-be despot over four hundred years ago whothat was at the time the leader of the town, and instituted the current system of Masked Lords.

The head of state had to be a public persona, but twenty or so anonymous “Masked Lords” would also rule the city alongside them. Their identities kept a mystery to reduce the likelihood of coercion, bribery, and other such corruption while the others would keep them in line.

The only true interruption occurred two centuries ago, after the death of Ahghairon who had been maintaining the system as the Open Lord until then (Note to self, learn more about how a human managed to live over three centuries). The guild masters had some sort of rebellion and managed to uncover the identities offor most of the masked lords of the time and assassinated them. The power vacuum led to a very messy war between them until most of them died and the masked lord system was reinstated. How much of the story was manipulated was hard to say, but there was certainly cause for bias considering how it was the current system in charge.

It’s a very different system to Bet, at least the mundane government. Elected officials didn’t typically maintain their position for very long, and there were checks and balances to get them out of their positions if they did poorly to the population. This was more like Cauldron and the PRT. A handful of competent people who believed they were the best for the job and didn’t need accountability, and played with the lives of others. It’s lucky this system mostly had more competent people at the reins, or at least ones that were more moralistic.

Beyond that though, the day also held a number of martial tourneys. It was a bit distressing truth be told, the fighters were very literally out for blood. I didn’t see anyone die though, but there did tend to be a good bit of blood out on the fields before some wizard would come out and poof it away.

Magical healing being so common has certainly been a culture shock since coming here, but I think this is the first time I’ve really seen how it affected the culture. It’s a lot more than just an equivalent to visiting a hospital.

3 Flamerule

From one festival to the next, this one is called Sornyn. Some sort of religious holiday sponsored by the clergy of Lathander and Waukeen. The god of new dawns, and the goddess of luck and wealth.

Naturally, the holiday is all about making business deals and making money. That, and copious drinking. It seemed most of the taverns were full of people mostly drinking wine, with a few other types from what little I could tell with my bugs. My senses aren’t as sharp as they used to be, and it's not like I had much experience with alcohol before either.

I did overhear some interesting tidbits about the greater world though from idle gossip. I already have a lot on my plate though, and I only have so much time I can put towards all of it.

5 Flamerule

I think I might have stopped an ecological disaster this afternoon. Our group of kids were hanging out down by the docks proper, making games of guessing the number of things we could see on the various ships and the people coming off of them. I tried not to cheat too hard at it.

Anyway, I noticed some interesting bugs in one of the shipments of food. Seemed to be some sort of invasive species of caterpillar. I haven’t noticed it around the time I’ve been in the city, meaning it likely isn’t found in any of the nearby farmers' fields. I didn’t think it was intentional at first, but I asked the others about the origin of the ship. Felros went on to tell me about the city of Luskan, a place far to the north even beyond Neverwinter.

A city led by a council of pirates and evil wizards, constantly warring with nearby countries. From random island states out in the ocean, to some members of the Lords Alliance. They weren’t fighting much more recently though. The city was devastated to a similar extent to Neverwinter, with none of the allies to assist in its recovery.

I’m not sure I’d give them the benefit of the doubt on this, but it hardly matters after I made sure to kill off any of the bugs that I found.

7 Flamerule

Tonight is Lliira’s Night, something of a religious festival inspired by the night’s namesake, a minor goddess of festivities and dance according to Tulgor.

The night historically features people drinking bright pink drinks, mostly alcoholic though there are safe ones for children as well. We have been told to go to bed early in the day to rest up so we can stay up all night, including Jespa.

8 Flamerule

The night held a lot more to it than mere drinks and revelry.

I was initially confused by the familiar noises, dissimilar to anything I had heard of since I arrived.

Fireworks.

That likely meant there was some sort of black powder in the world, if not gunpowder or something else similar. Yet I hadn’t seen any sort of firearms, did they exist but far away from Waterdeep? Was the concept somehow deemed ineffective or inefficient in this world?

I’ll have to ask Orsik the next time I see him. I'm exhausted after last night’s festivities.

12 Flamerule

Orsik was able to answer at least part of my curiosity on the subject of “Smokepowder”, but surprisingly the more useful answer came from Tulgor.

According to Orsik, the substance had a storied history. The earlier mentions of the substance originated from some faraway country across the sea called Shou, from what little Orsik knew of the country it seemed more Japanese than the pseudo european Waterdeep’s culture appeared to be. Later it would be spread to the gnomish country Lantan, whichwhat was once a successful island nation that mostly worshipped Gond, the god of technology and innovation. The island was wiped out over a century ago, allegedly from a combination of being magically disjointed from this physical plane and being hit by massive tsunamis that triggered a variety of volatile materials.

While there were great efforts to reproduce the formula of its creation, what few successes have been kept private, leading to the substance generally being considered quite the hot commodity among black markets along the coastline. More legitimate usage of it is heavily regulated by most governments, Orsik cited fear of potential uprising from nefarious groups as the typical justification for the bans.

Tulgor had a lot more immediate information on the topic, gleaned from traders he would gossip with at or around the docks after fishing. Waterdeep’s guardsman would have it shipped up from an alchemist down in Baldur’s Gate, to be used for fireworks displays during a handful of festivals. The concept of firearms did exist from what I could tell, but from the barebones description he relayed to me, it appeared to be closer to muskets and other primitive firearms.

23 Flamerule

I woke up this morning with Neeska lounging next to me in my bed. This is unusual but not noteworthy. What was noteworthy was when I blindly went to pet her and accidentally grabbed a partially disembowelled mouse staining my blanket.

The day wasn’t an entire wash though. My crabs were particularly successful in their mission of finding valuables, I managed to get a few relatively nice looking pieces of lost jewellery buried in the sand. A few rings and necklaces I pawned off at the market for a tidy amount of dragons. I hid away a few though for future presents, I don’t actually know when people’s birthdays are or what the local customs include, but best to be prepared.