[Fluff] Géographie, us et coutumes.

Bonjour messieurs ! J'ouvre le bal des post de "fluff" avec la description de la zone dans laquelle nous allons jouer et qui n'est autre que:



Les principautés sont donc situées dans le Sud-Ouest "proche", et bien entendu dans la zone d'influence du Règne. Il y a comme vous pouvez le voir trois zones assez distinctes: les Hautes-Terres, les Terres du Milieu et les Basses-Terres. Chacune d'entre-elles étant une principauté.


Histoire

The mild climate of An-Teng made it a favorite residence and vacation-spot for the Exalted of the Old Realm. The Chosen of the Incarnae showered blessings on the land and its people. The Solar Deliberative organized the country in a plan that still endures, with separate princes for the high, middle and lowlands. These three nobles answered to a High Queen who represented the nation to the Deliberative.

When the Dragon-Blooded rose in the Usurpation, at least half a dozen Solar Exalted and as many Lunars made their stand in An-Teng. The High Queen, the Three Princes and many of the people supported them, for they knew only the glory and generosity of the Chosen. (Or perhaps that is all the Chosen permitted them to know.) The battles against the usurpers ravaged An-Teng. The victorious Dragon-Blooded slew the royal families of An-Teng and appointed minor nobles in their place. The Tengese learned the lesson that defiance brought death. They planted rice, they bowed to the Dragon-Blooded, and they did not complain.

Through all the Shogunate, the people of An-Teng did as they were told. Yet, the Dragon-Blooded could not convince the Tengese to abandon their national gods, the Golden Lord and the Pale Mistress. The Tengese bowed, swore obedience, prayed at the fanes of the nascent Immaculate faith… and continued their own ceremonies in secret.

As in the rest of Creation, the Great Contagion slew most of the Tengese. They prayed to the Dragons, the Golden Lord and the Pale Mistress, and were not saved. The Fair Folk touched An-Teng but lightly, however, before the Scarlet Empress scourged them back to the edge of the world. When the Dragon-Blooded returned to An-Teng, they appointed new princes and told the people to revere the Scarlet Empress as their queen and savior. As always, the Tengese bowed and swore their obedience. Shogunate or Scarlet Empire—it made no difference to them.

After another five centuries of submission, the Tengese received an unexpected taste of freedom. In RY 578, the Realm went to war against the Anathema Jochim. Three years later, the war became intense enough that the Empress withdrew An-Teng’s garrison. A year after that, the seemingly defenseless country was invaded by Sualin, the self-styled Diamond Mandarin of a neighboring kingdom. By RY 584, Sualin was dead and his army in full retreat before elephant-mounted legions that the princes of An-Teng rallied from, apparently, nowhere.

For one year after that, the Three Princes ruled their nation as true sovereigns… and then the Anathema Jochim was slain, the great war ended and a Realm fleet sailed into An-Teng’s main port. Twenty Dragon-Blooded called on An-Teng to renew its submission. Faced with the might of the Realm, the princes knelt, and the taste of freedom turned to bitter ashes in Tengese mouths. The few local rebellions did not last long. Once more, the Tengese bowed, and planted rice, and did not complain.

Of late, however, the Tengese grow restive. The Realm takes more and more of their silver, rice and other goods in tribute. Visitors from the Realm, both Exalted and mortal, behave with increasing arrogance, casual cruelty and greed.
No one yet has come out and said that the Realm must go, but the people work harder to hide their wealth from the tax collector, knowing that it goes to the Realm. They hide comely sons and daughters when the Dragon-Blooded enter their community, instead of hoping to be rewarded for supplying a pleasing bedmate. They recall the gifts the Celestial Exalted gave them so long ago. They tell stories of the Golden Lord’s goodness, and the frightful power of the Pale Mistress… and when some whisper tales of mightier and more dreadful powers that could destroy the lords of the Realm, why, some Tengese listen.

Géographie

An-Teng extends about 300 miles north-to-south between the Fire Mountains and the sea. It centers on Dragon’s Mouth Bay, where the land’s principle waterway, the River of Queens, meets the Great Western Ocean. Many other rivers flow down from the mountains. Unlike the rest of the South, An-Teng seldom worries about drought. Indeed, flooding is more often a problem. The land further divides into three parallel strips, each with its own distinctive character.

Les Hautes-Terres

The high peaks and foothills of the Fire Mountains form the High Lands. The highest peak, the Pinnacle of Mercy, holds the glittering palace-fortress of the Golden Lord. Tales say that a smaller peak attached to that eminence is actually a great dragon that turned to stone long ago. This region has the mildest, coolest climate in An-Teng. The High Lands have no cities. Even the High Prince’s capital, the Jade Plum Citadel, is merely a good-sized town of 60,000. Half the townsfolk live in the apartment-towers of the Citadel itself. New buildings occupy ancient foundations that suggest the Jade Plum Citadel was once much larger. Only the High Prince’s palace still bears a covering of darkly gleaming onyx.
The valleys of small rivers run between the massifs of the Firepeaks; the High Land folk terrace the valley walls for their farms. Several rivers join at Thousand Dragons Lake, whence the River of Queens flows down toward the Middle Lands. Most or the region’s commerce happens on the shores of Thousand Dragons Lake.
All of An-Teng’s mining takes place in the High Lands. The peaks supply diamonds, rubies, sapphire, topaz, iron and gold—but mostly silver. Everyone in the High Lands can afford a silver earring or bangle. (They believe that wearing silver protects them from evil spirits.) The farms of the High Lands produce fruit, millet, vegetables, spices, betel-nut, hemp and its by-product hashish. Widespread use of the latter two commodities make High Lands folk notably mellow.
The High Lands’ climate is also ideal for tea, and tea plantations extend for miles along the mountain slopes. The Realm’s satrap pressures the region’s nobles to extend the plantations at the expense of family farms.

Les Terres du Milieu

Below the foothills of the Fire Mountains extends a wide piedmont of low hills, plains and river valleys. Every Season of Water, these valleys flood from heavy rains in the Fire Mountains, and so the valley-folk build their homes on stilts. The Forest of Compassion, a tongue of the Silent Crescent jungle that forms An-Teng’s southern border, fills much of the province.
The river valleys, however, are cleared of forest and devoted to intensive cultivation of rice and cotton.
Forestry is the third great industry of the Middle Lands. The Tengese move logs using elephants that they capture in the forest and tame. This use of elephants is one of the most distinctive features of An-Teng’s culture.
The fourth industry is silk. As the Tengese clear the forest, mulberry plantations take its place. Only wealthy Tengese can afford silken clothing, though. Most of the silk goes to the Realm in tribute or to foreign trade.
As it flows down from the High Lands, the River of Queens meets the city called Adorned with Wisdom as a Sapphire—or just Sapphire, in ordinary speech. This city includes a great deal of Old Realm architecture. Many savants gather in Sapphire, where they run more than a dozen schools. Here, youths from throughout An-Teng enjoy living apart from their all-controlling families. Sometimes they also find time to study subjects such as astronomy, astrology, scientific agronomy, poetry, history, architecture, applied theology, political economy and business administration. Students can learn much more about An-Teng’s glorious past than the Scarlet Dynasty might like. Nationalism runs high among the students as a result. Since the Dragon-Blooded who come to Sapphire chiefly consist of visiting savants searching for
First Age lore, however, the students often have quite a good impression of the Scarlet Dynasty itself.
Farther downstream, the River of Queens flows through Prosperous Garden, the capital for the Prince of the Middle Lands. In this city of canals, all but the poorest folk cultivate a small garden. Local tradition says that serving vegetables you grew yourself is a fine way to honor guests. The canal-cut fields that extend around the city grow flowers as well as rice and other staples. At a population of 100,000, Prosperous Garden is the largest city in the Middle Lands.

Les Basses-Terres

An-Teng’s final province is a strip along the coast, nowhere more than 100 miles wide. The Shore Lands are extremely flat. Much of the land reaches no more than 10 feet above sea level and consists of flood plains for An-Teng’s many rivers, with low hills on the southern shore of Dragon’s Mouth Bay.
In the Old Realm, the alluvial soil of the Shore Lands produced five crops a year. It became the most densely populated part of An-Teng. That meant the province suffered the most in the Usurpation. Storms now drive the sea back through the rivers and canals, poisoning the land with salt and turning waters brackish. Some of the resulting mangrove swamps and bayous are productive enough if you like crawdads, muskrat and alligator, but not much of the Shore Lands are good for farming anymore. Some regions support orchards of persimmon, starfruit and blood oranges. A variety of opium poppy was recently found to grow well in these regions. Shore Land nobles now face pressure to convert their orchards, or the farms of their tenants, into poppy plantations.
Nevertheless, most of An-Teng’s trade goes through the Shore Lands, especially at the three port cities on Dragon’s Mouth Bay and the River of Queens: Dragon’s Jaw, Salt-Founded Glory and the City of the Steel Lotus. A fair bit of smuggling takes place all along the coast too. Small, shallow-draft boats can follow rivers and canals almost anywhere in the Shore Lands, making every village a potential smugglers’ port.
Dragon’s Jaw sprawls where the main branch of the River of Queens meets Dragon’s Mouth Bay. This relatively new city handles most of the bulk cargo going to and from An-Teng. It is quite a rough town, full of sailors, cheap whores, warehouses and low dives. The poor and cast-off frequently come to Dragon’s Jaw, hoping to find work on the waterfront. Sometimes they find a berth as apprentice sailors. Sometimes they end up chained in a slaver’s hold.
The Realm’s military garrison, a half-strength legion, operates out of Dragon’s Jaw.
Salt-Founded Glory dates back to the Old Realm, though none of the buildings are more than a few centuries old. This capital of the Shore Lands occupies a branch river that splits off the River of Queens. Canals divide the city into blocks and wards. The oldest and most respectable mercantile families all live in Salt-Founded Glory. While Dragon’s Jaw handles more cargo, the money all passes through Salt-Founded Glory. The largest and most spectacular buildings are the Shore Prince’s palace and a newly enlarged and refurbished Immaculate temple. Compared to the Immaculate shrine, the old temple of the Golden Lord looks a bit shabby.
The City of the Steel Lotus functions as the overall capital of An-Teng and seat of the Realm’s satrap. It’s built where the River of Queens flows past a low rise, near the border with the Middle Lands. At all times, at least a few dozen Dragon-Blooded live in the city or are passing through, with hundreds of patricians from the Great Houses. The vast wealth these visitors can bestow results in whole neighborhoods of businesses eager to supply them with courtesans, fine dining, jewelry, opulent clothing or whatever else they desire.
At the center of the city rises the Palace of the Threefold Magnificence, all of gilded teak, lapis and mother-of-pearl, with wings for each of the Three Princes. Compared to it, the satrap’s residence seems quite modest.
Everyone who’s anyone knows that five minutes with Ragara Soras Jor, Satrap of An-Teng, is worth more than an hour with any of the princes.
Between the Royal District and the Market District lie the villas and palaces of various magnates, nobles and Dragon-Blooded. Neighborhoods of shops and middle-class dwellings surround this core of wealth and power. A halo of slums for common workers (and the poor in search of work) grows steadily. In another several years, the City of the Steel Lotus will surely surpass Salt-Founded Glory as An-Teng’s largest city.

*Je post une première fois, la suite par Edit*

ps: C'est une zone officielle de l'univers d'Exalted, tous les droits reviennent bien évidemment aux auteurs et à White Wolf.