THE RUINS OF CAER MEJETUS 1
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aer Mejetus is a monument to the hubris of one man, Mejenes, Emperor of the Corani. He believed, despite Kuboran revolts, and economic, political and religious tensions, that he was destined to rule an ever greater empire. In 465 he met his end here, not in battle, but from an infected wound. As the life seeped out of him he raged against his doctors, his priests, and the fates, for denying him his place in history. Heroic legionary survivors of the slaughter that accompanied the retreat from Mejetus carried a casket of bones collected from the imperial funeral pyre to Coranan. There, as they were interred, he was christened ‘the Great’. His failure left the fort to the Equani who used it to stage raids against the gargun of Yzug and the Urdu. Today it is occupied by the tribe’s warcult, the Shevrach, and has a dark ritual purpose. They name it Brýnid Márw, the ‘Hill of Undying’.
HISTORY The Empire first occupied Mejetus in about 460; it was one of several outposts on the west bank of the Pemetta and Suthen rivers. It was unusual only because of the wide ford across the Suthen that gave access to Equeth. A naval expedition brought engineers, masons and a small group of scholars to undertake a more detailed survey in 463. Shortly afterwards a military road was cut through the Peran wilderness from Caer Kustan. The first full cohort arrived in the Autumn of 463 and building began in earnest. When Emperor Mejenes arrived in late 464 the saddle of land beside the fort was easily able to accommodate the legion he led. He was accompanied by Urdu auxiliaries his charisma had recruited. As soon as he arrived Mejenes ordered the ford to be improved and a bridge was begun in anticipation of a crossing into Equeth; he did not intend to stay at Mejetus long. Before the bridge was completed Mejenes was dead, the Urdu alienated, and Caer Mejetus sacked. Since then the fort has been swallowed by the forest it was painstakingly cut free of. A barely discernible ditch and the rotting timber of its fallen palisade are all that remain of its stout fortifications. The Equani looted and occupied the fort when the legion left, beginning a tradition of Spring and Summer visits. Over time it has become associated with the Equani war cult, the Shevrach, and home to its shaman. It is this that fuels its dark reputation among the Urdu. While any attack by the Equani is fierce, the depredations of Shevrachi raiders from Mejetus are terrifying. Any prisoners taken by the Equani expects a hard death but what the Shevrachi leave in the forest around the ruined fort displays such cruel imagination that Urdu have killed one another rather than be taken there alive to Gýrch Fános, the Haunt of Night.
THE LOCAL AREA [1] The Ford: the River Suthen is wide and shallow at this point. Melting snows from Mount Echephon make it difficult to cross in early Spring because of the freezing water, rather than its depth, which rarely reaches above the chest. During the rest of the year it is much shallower and in the driest of summers a traveller might pick a route across that kept their feet almost dry. A little digging in the sand and gravel will reveal the foundations of the Corani bridge that was started but never finished. HârnWorld
Finding the ruins Cartographers in the Thardic Republic often speculate on the location of Mejetus. However, precise knowledge of its location was lost during the bookburnings of the Balshan Jihad. There have been recent rumours of a contemporary account of a journey to Mejetus. They hint that it includes sufficient detail to enable an explorer to find the ruins. It is also known that Emperor Mejenes planned a route that would have linked Mejetus to the heart of the Empire. Though work on a road certainly started records of where it started and how far it got, have been lost. A few Ivinian shipmasters claim to have taken their ships up the Pemetta and some boast of having found Mejetus. None, though, can produce any of its rumoured treasures as evidence. The Gargun of Yzug avoid the old fort. The memories they are born with associate the ruins with pain and death. The Kubora of the Afarezirs have legends from the time when the Corani navy explored the region but do not even recognise the word ‘Mejetus’. Other Kuboran tales mention Mejetus but concentrate on the fall of Kustan. Equani warriors inducted into the Shévrach are told of Brýnid Márw, and urged to visit it. They will not share what they know on pain of death. The Urdu contending with the Equani for dominance of the valley of the River Suthen also know where to find the ruins of Mejetus. They avoid the ruin and warn travellers to do the same. To them it is Gýrch Fános, the ‘Haunt of Night’, a place of terror and pain.
WRITER Alun Rees MAPS Alun Rees CONTRIBUTORS Anders Bersten Neil Thompson Andy Gibson Playtesters at IviniaCon & the Harnwriter Group
© A. Rees, N. Robin Crossby & Columbia Games Inc., 2015
THE RUINS OF CAER MEJETUS 2 The Equani and Urdu both use the ford when raiding but the Urdu approach it along the river bank, avoiding the well-trodden path that disappears into the trees and leads to the ruins. The rock and rubble strewn apron below the outcrop is passable but the footing becomes increasingly uncertain as it steepens.
The Shevrach
[2] The gateway to Brýnid Márw: As the path winds up through the trees and scrub it becomes clear that this is no ordinary trail. The smell, which permeates the forest for a hundred paces down wind, is what the visitor notices first. Then they see the captured clothing and weapons left hanging on branches by departing Shevrachi along with scalps they have taken. Then, at a point where the path divides, it widens into a ceremonial space. A heavy stone trough salvaged from the fort is kept full of sand and dried river muck in which arriving Shevrachi ‘wash’, as is their habit, before proceeding to the ruins themselves.
The Shervrach first appears in Kuboran and Urdu oral histories in the decades leading up to the fall of Caer Kustan.
This is also where the Shevrachi display their imaginative use of death to terrify their enemies. The corpses hung here, whole or jointed, flayed or burned, provide a pervasive, sickly smell of death. The sour tones of decay and the musky scent of the animals that come here to feed add a subtle, but unpleasant, undertone. Each tree, with its grisly decoration, is home to large numbers of carnivorous bats, called cribog, that range across the forest from dusk each night. The saddle of the hill to the west was the site of the main legion camp but the well-worn trail turns east between the rotted remains of the barely recognisable towers that once framed the fort’s lost gates. [3] The Shevrachi camp: Once the wooden walls ringing the top of the outcrop carried watchful legionaries 15 feet above a deep defensive ditch. They looked down on the slopes that had been cleared to provide timber and a campground for Urdu auxiliaries. Now the ditch is clogged with scrub and trees, while the logs of the fallen palisade can be mistaken for ancient tree trunks, matted with moss and lichen and home to crawling and buzzing insects of all kinds. They constitute an obstacle to anyone clambering up the slopes, a latrine for visiting Shervachi, and home to Harnic adders. Had the legionary strayed from his duty and looked down into the fort, over the stables and storerooms abutting the inner face of the walls, he would have seen the neat rows of barracks that housed the legion’s elite. Today they are no more than piles of burned logs and rotted wood among the scrub and trees that have swallowed the ruins of Mejetus. Only the space at the centre of the fort, where the Emperor’s bodyguard once paraded, remains cleared today. It is fringed by the rough hide huts that house visiting Shevrachi, with a large fire pit at the centre. A larger hut at the far end of the camp is reserved for high status warriors willing to fight for the privilege of sleeping close to Týnid Cýsgod. [4] Týnid Cýsgod, the ‘House of Shadows’: A cookhouse, officers’ quarters, and the legions’s administration once stood here overlooking the River Suthen. The buildings were burned during the sack leaving only postholes and a dry stone wall atop the cliff to indicate anything was ever here.
The Equani war cult has come to lie at the heart of their culture and is made up of warriors who compete to join, and remain part of, this elite brotherhood.
‘Shevrach’ may be a corruption of the Old Jarinese phrase sedory rach; 'deadly shades'. Urdu myths describe the Sedory Rach as ghostly creatures of the night that fall upon isolated hunters and rip out their spirits. The corpse that remains is left to wander the forests for eternity killing indiscriminately in search of a new soul. It is never clear from the stories whether the Shevrachi are the ghostly soul-hunters, or the soulless killers. Their reputation for merciless ferocity and the awful acts they perpetrate on their victims makes either interpretation plausible. Shevrachi warriors are said to ‘fear death as a dead man fears death; not at all’. Southern scholars who have heard these tales see echoes of Morgathian rites that replace a man’s soul with the Shadow of Bukrai. The Kubora and the Urdu share an origin in Nuthela with the Equani and have many cultural practices in common. All three peoples tell similar stories of the journey to Equeth and then Peran, and the guide that led them. He is called Akala Strong Heart by the Equani and Kemlar the Guide by the Kubora and Urdu, but equally revered by all. The threatened desecration of his barrow at Kustan was why some Equani joined Nebran Bndbreaker in the alliance that destroyed Caer Kustan. However, the Kubora and Urdu have nothing akin to the Shevrach; its cultural origin remains a mystery. Every Equani tribe has its own fiercely independent Shevrach but all are respectful of Brýnid Márw a place all hope to visit and raid from. It clearly holds symbolic and ritual importance to the war-cult as they maintain a shaman here all year round.
The Corani found well laid courses of stone near the clifftop and used them as the foundation of the wooden pavilion they erected for their Emperor. The building survived the sack almost intact but time has taken a toll. While the Shevrachi consider it a duty to maintain the structure, they lack of skill to do it well or the inclination to learn how to do it better. © A. Rees, N. Robin Crossby & Columbia Games Inc., 2015
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THE RUINS OF CAER MEJETUS 3
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© A. Rees, N. Robin Crossby & Columbia Games Inc., 2015
THE RUINS OF CAER MEJETUS 4 THE HOUSE OF SHADOWS
The original logs cut by the Corani still constitute the walls, though patched and kept watertight with moss, mud and animal skins. The pitched roof has suffered more; the skins tied in place over the original wooden shingles struggle to keep out the rain. [a] Durik, the Shaman: The ornate front face of the pavilion is obscured by a crude lean-to of Equani construction. It is decorated with the scalps and heads, often rotted to bone white skulls, of notable victims. This squalid place is home to Durik, the principal Shevrachi shaman, and the two nameless youths who serve him while preparing to replace him. He considers the youths disposable and nearly a dozen have perished over his long life. They are replaced at his request by boys brought by visiting warriors. Some have died while hunting, or perhaps they ran away, while the harsh winters have claimed several. At least when they freeze to death he is left with meat for his larder. He and the youths are brought food offerings, and other gifts, by the Shevrachi who visit Brýnid Márw. [b] The Altar, the Throne, and the Curtain: In return for the gifts they bring visiting Shevrachi expect guidance. This Durik obtains by communing with his god, Nídmarw the Undying One, who will emerge from beyond the curtain at the far end of the audience chamber when respectfully called. Durik has listened to everything the Undying One has said over the years, and ensures that every raid yields at least one captive for the altar stone that dominates the audience chamber. Ritual requires that he keeps the guttering candles of human fat lit so the stone is always illuminated. They also ensure that supplicants have a poor view of the Throne and Curtain in the shadows beyond the Altar. Only warriors of great renown are invited to enter the presence of the Undying One. They report that he sits on the shadowed Throne draped in a bear skin of deepest, glossy, black and wearing a mask; to look on his face is certain death. The chamber is decorated with twelve skins on which, Durik says, the god has drawn scenes from his life before he became a god. Durik tells the Shevrach what he was told by the shaman he replaced, that the Curtain is the flayed skin of an enemy. It shows the outline of a man with a black circle in the centre of his chest; a symbol the Shevrach have adopted as their own. It is represented in their rituals by the earth and mud in which they bathe. The circle is unbreakable, like the unity of the Shevrach. It also signifies the dark end that is death; something that no Shervachi fears. They know that Nídmarw will judge whether to allow them to join Akala Strong Heart in the afterlife or stay with him in the shadows. When a youth the old man was warned by the shaman that taught him that he would never make the Undying One happy, and so it has proven. Each time he sacrifices the captives as instructed; each time the captive dies but the god is displeased. Durik believes the Undying One seeks a particular spirit and the ones he has tasted so far have displeased him. He continues to do his best knowing that he is doomed to fail. He understands that nothing he does will make a difference to his fate. He will be killed by a would-be successor as he killed his predecessor. It is such fatalism, sitting at the root of their belief, which makes the Shevrach so dangerous in war. No Equani has passed beyond the Curtain since the sack of Mejetus. Durik speculates that it is the gateway to the ‘Shadow World’ where the Undying One rules over the souls he decides to keep. © A. Rees, N. Robin Crossby & Columbia Games Inc., 2015
The Legend of Nídmarw Told to the Urdu by a dying Shevrachi. When Wetok was chief among the People of the Great River, a scourge came out of the late sun. They were men who wasted metal on their heads and bodies which the People used only for spears and axes. Their like had not been seen since the Men who walked beneath the Mountains had been slaughtered by the Filth of the High Places. These incomers came with the People of the Late Sun to make war on the People. They broke the pledge given by Akala Strong Heart that all the lands up to the Brad River were for the People. Those of the Late Sun were ever treacherous and coveted what the People had, just as they did before the Passage. When the chief of the Metal Men was killed by a brave warrior of the People, they fled west and were betrayed by those of the Late Sun. The People took what they needed from their camp and burned the rest. Only one place did they leave untouched. The warriors of the People are the bravest but, when only one returned from the Shadows, they let it be. Instead they made sport of the cowering creature they had found. He took days to die, his body crumbling into the fires they built around him. How could they know who he was? A Moon later the dead man walked naked into the camp and they killed him again; and again; and again. They killed him quickly and slowly; with fire and water; with stones and blades. Each time he crumbled to dust only to return again, and again, and again. Finally they let him walk through the camp to the House of Shadows. When they gave him offerings he took one of the People as his servant. The Shevrach have learned much from these servants. They are made mighty by the prayer to the Undying One, to Nídmarw:
Nídmarw’s Prayer I believe in myself; nothing is stronger than Nídmarw. I believe in my cunning; none are as cunning as those who follow Nídmarw. I am invincible; nothing can overcome death but Nidmarw. Nídmarw will make me great and powerful for eternity; all others are doomed.
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THE RUINS OF CAER MEJETUS 5
[c] Nídmarw’s chamber: For several decades after the Equani ceased to try to kill him the Undying One recorded his memories of the events prior to the sack of Mejetus on skins presented as offerings. While he had little talent as an artist endless repetition and improvement have rendered the story into drawings of a simple but effective style. Drawing continues to bring him solace but Nídmarw only leaves this small room when called for a ritual. An ancient brazier lights the room which is lined by layers of skins; the god does not suffer much from the cold but the draughts disturb him. He requires little sustenance, but the routines of eating fill the empty hours between sacrifices, so he keeps the best of Durik’s offerings here. [d] A stairway A well-constructed spiral stair disappears into the rock below. Nídmarw has never confided what lies beneath to any shaman but he always ensures that wedges keep this room secure. Shevrachi myth has made heroes of the Eqauni who entered the House of Shadows during the sack, never to return. Perhaps they remain deep in the rock of Brýnid Márw. Perhaps they are awaiting the call of their god to defend him. HârnWorld
An Expedition … Tales of Nidmarw are common among the Equani and some have reached the Urdu. From them they have passed, with increasing distortion, to the Kubora and thence into Rethem. Whispers in the taverns of Golotha speak of an Agrikan expedition to find the ruins of Mejetus and the lost treasure of Mejenes. The rumours are tantalisingly vague on the nature of the treasure, but some say the legion’s pay chest was forgotten in the panic of retreat. There are also tales of the wild cannibals that protect the treasure and creatures that suck the life out of travellers. The more far-fetched rumours say the creatures can turn into bats or snakes and live in a magical fortress that has been raised among the Corani ruins.
© A. Rees, N. Robin Crossby & Columbia Games Inc., 2015
THE RUINS OF CAER MEJETUS 6
© A. Rees, N. Robin Crossby & Columbia Games Inc., 2014
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