Sat Feb 11, 2023 10:54 pm  
Alt-Tilvanot

The True History of the Scarlet Brotherhood and the Tilvanot Lands



In his notes on the Tilvanot lands, Pluffet Smedger reported as rumor stories which later sages took as fact, but the reality of the Scarlet Brotherhood differs significantly from the brief description given in the Nyrondese sage’s famous Guide to the Flanaess.

The Scarlet Brotherhood does indeed hold sway over the plateau, although it does not control the lowland cities.

A shaky alliance of two power groups rules Kro Terlep through a corrupt Governor; the priestesses of Syrul called the Pythonesses of Black Smoke and the assassin’s guild known as the Flaming Knives Clan, which venerates Pyremius.

Foreign slavers, pirates, and other scum of the seas do their business in an island ghetto called the Alienage. Captives and loot flow in, poisons, spices, and drugs of all sorts flow out. Seldom is anyone from outside allowed to enter the basalt gates of the city proper, and contradictory rumors describes the place as a grim prison or a gilded paradise. The tongueless slaves of the Suloise officials who visit the Alienage certainly aren’t telling.

Most sea captains avoid waters nears the Tilvanot’s other notable port city, Ekul, on account of the numerous reefs, which seem to shift position in between soundings, and the (odd for the tropics) cold, clammy, pea soup fogs that so often hang over the area. The black-robed local pilots seem to have no difficulty with these hazards, and when it suits them will guide ships into the harbor for reasonable fees. Still, few foreigners come here. Ekul’s people slowly wander the dark lanes, alone or huddled in small groups, whispering, chanting broken dirges, or staring blankly. The buildings are not in much better shape than the people, many standing in ruin, but visitors should not miss the Plaza of Obelisks, a cyclopean monument which may predate the Suloise arrival.


The black-sailed nefs of the city launch occasional raids on shipping in the Tilva Straits or against coastal villages in the Spindrifts or Hepmonaland. The buccaneers seem as keen on captives as loot. Anyone who surrenders will be taken alive to Ekul, and if he does not escape soon, will take his place among the strange citizenry, all desire to return home erased.

Less is known of the interior lands, and much of that information seems to have been colored by accounts of Kro Terlep and Ekul. Pluffet Smedger reported tales he’d heard of a sinister monastic cult dedicated to world conquest in the name of the Suloise people.

The truth:
The Scarlet Brotherhood serves none other than Wastri, under the local name of Uuas-Tereek.


The Suloise who pushed by conquering Oerids and their demihuman allies south across the vast Swamp and into the Tilvanot were among the most wretched and degraded of their race, nearly as ignorant and downtrodden as the mobs of slaves and deserters who made up the Proto-Rhizian drift.

In what became Kro Terlep and Ekul, the survivors of the migrations built a pale shadow of their ancestors’ civilization, but in the highlands of the interior, the Suel descended into semi-savagery. For centuries, fables of the Suloise Imperium grew among these simple people, until at last most folk believed it had been an earthly paradise. The demi-humans had been jealous of the Suloise and turned other humans against them. The gods of old, whose rites the people had largely forgotten, now seemed like heartless powers which had abandoned their people to perish miserably. Piety diminished. Legend transformed the Baklunish into a race of yellow fiends, not truly human. These legends provided fertile manure for the preaching of the Toad Cult, a sect which originated in the swampy lowlands of Acerecak’s fallen realm. The cultists, always willing to tailor their message to local circumstances, proclaimed the coming restoration of the Suloise Imperium and downfall of the treacherous demihumans. The Wastrians infiltrated and co-opted the only outpost of civilization in the highlands, a small monastic order, the Scarlet Brotherood.

Pilgrims trekked down into the Vast Swamp to learn civilized arts and sciences from the priests of the Hopping Prophet. At the same time, the breeding programs began in secrecy, with the malformed offspring of Suloise and bullywugs hopping and croaking in shadowy temples and dank cellars, out of sight of people not initiated into the mysteries. A new order spread over the uplands; civilized, regimented, scientific.

Then came the Trial of the Occultation, when Uuas-Tereeg/Wastri vanished from his Scared Polystery. The Brothers had a hard task to maintain order amid insurrections and riots, and many plans were ruined or delayed…

But praise the Toad, Uuas-Tereek has returned!