Profiles in History: The Three Kingdoms
Flushed with success, your pack plump with loot, you run up the steep hill to Arwic. Your experience in fighting the Vermin and Drudges of Northern Osteth have made you powerful enough to take the portal to Cragstone. You leap through the portal; the silvery tunnel swirls around you and sings its monotonous humming song, and dumps you onto the greensward across the moat from the high gates and numberless towers of Cragstone Castle.
"The half was not told me," you say to yourself, and run across the bridge and into the fortress. To cross Cragstone takes you several minutes, in part because you get lost twice, but at last you reach the south side and sight your next goal, the Warder of Cragstone, standing in the town square.
But before you can approach her, a flash of light draws your attention. Atop a nearby tower, rays of white light are falling like spear-shafts all around a green-furred Tumerok standing before a slender pillar with a blue sphere floating above it. The light dies; the Tumerok turns and comes running lightly down the stairs from the tower. She catches sight of you and grins (her teeth are very sharp.) "Hello."
"Hello. What was all that about?"
"I was renewing my Kingdom skills at the Order Shrine."
"Really? Tell me about the Kingdoms, would you please? I've heard people mention them, but everyone tells a different story."
"Well, that figures. Have a seat." She folds her long legs and balances on her toes, her tail gently waving back and forth.
"The Three Kingdoms ought really to be called factions," she begins. "They have no land, barring a few acres in Omishan and three little islands north of Arramora, and they have no Kings. Their original leaders are sometimes called the Fallen Kings, but they weren't Kings even when they were alive: they were a wise old adviser, a warlord seeking vengeance, and a Chief Administrative Officer.
"The Order of Dereth follows the memory of Asheron Realaidain, the Empyrean mage who opened the portals into our homeworlds that brought our ancestors here. He cared for us and taught us, fought for us when we needed him and let us alone the rest of the time so that we could work out our own destinies. He died at last, trying to protect us--or we think he did. His people believed they had come from the stars and returned there on death--occasionally to descend again. The Order is led now by Asheron's student, Nalicana, who lives in Ikeras on Omishan.
"The Shadow Kingdom was founded by another Empyrean, Ilservian Palacost, who was terribly wronged by Asheron's ancestors and swore eternal revenge. He was called Bael'Zharon, the Hopeslayer. Isin Dule was one of his generals, one of his closest friends: but when it seemed that Bael'Zharon was about to destroy the world, Dule betrayed him and opened his defenses to Asheron and an army of Humans who imprisoned him for more than a century. When Bael'Zharon broke free again, he shattered the moon Rez'arel into fragments and laid Dereth waste as he marched to his final confrontation with Asheron. Isin Dule leads the Shadow Kingdom now, but one doesn't see him often: he hides somewhere, appearing only when he is desperately needed, as Asheron once did.
"The Virindi Dominion--well, you haven't met the Virindi yet. They are energy beings. They live on no world; their native country is portalspace. They belong to one group mind, and prize order, obedience, and uniformity. They find it hard to understand us mortals, who are individuals; as we do them. They used to seize mortals and take them apart and put them together again, just to see what would happen. But over the centuries they have, it seems, come closer to us, and many mortals have joined the Dominion because it offers them great power and, they claim, freedom from fear. The Virindi Imperator who fell with Asheron and Bael'Zharon was an emanation of this group mind, and you'd expect it could have been easily replaced, but it wasn't until recently that a new Imperator was chosen, and not a Virindi but a mortal. He's a young Lugian named Thromer Olvidan, who was tested and specially trained for the role. I've met him and I have great hopes for him: we need a means of reliable communication with the Virindi and it looks as if Thromer is going to do that.
"Each Kingdom has a doctrine, a set of statements outlining its philosophy of life, and when you're older--tough enough to fight Thornlings and Lashers and Reapers--you can go into the Prosper Marches and pick up a copy of each one. But you'll probably have chosen your Kingdom by then, most people do; or you can remain Neutral all your life if you wish.
"The Order of Dereth stresses justice, and the duty of the strong to protect the weak. The Shadow Kingdom appeals to the individualist: do what you want, they say, as long as no one stronger prevents you. The Dominion insists on obedience and uniformity. If you remember your History and Government classes back in the Shelters, you can sum it up by saying that Shadow is anarchic, Dominion is totalitarian, Order is lawful.
"But in a way it doesn't matter, because many people don't choose a Kingdom for its doctrine. Do you remember, back in the Shelters, how the youngsters would play tunnelball? Did you play tunnelball?"
"Yeah," you say, grinning. "The Blackmoor Low-Rollers. We won most of our tournaments, too."
"Then you remember what it was like. You banded together into teams, you played against each other, you cheered when you won and said "Wait till next time" when you lost, and you might brag about how great you were and what weaklings the other teams were, but you didn't really mean it, right?
"That's how a lot of people see their Kingdoms. They're the aboveground version of tunnelball teams. They go out to certain areas, where Asheron's blessing (that prevents us from fighting each other) has been carefully disabled, and they fight and kill each other--but of course they can't kill each other really, they just send them to the Lifestone. They do it for fun."
She shrugs. "Whatever. I could never see the fun in that myself, but then I never played tunnelball either. And like many others I joined the Order of Dereth because of its doctrine. So although there are more people in the Order, last time I checked, than in either of the others, enough of us never fight each other that the teams are approximately the same size. And if one Kingdom's team gets much larger than the others, they will complain that it's no fun this way and some of them will change Kingdoms, to even up the numbers again. See what I mean? it isn't doctrine, it's tunnelball.
"One other thing you'd better know. To change Kingdoms you have to go to the Neutral Shrine first--" she points to the tower on the other side of the square, with the green sphere floating above it-- "and pay it quite a large sum: the more powerful you are, the more gold you have to pay. And then you wait two weeks before you can sign up with the other Kingdom. So don't do it lightly. Ask your friends and allies for advice, at least."
She stands up and stretches. "Got to go. Happy hunting." She beats a fierce tattoo on the drum slung around her shoulders, and vanishes.
Note: if you'd like to read the Three Doctrines before you're high enough to do the Quest, you can find them here:
