Customs and Observed Holidays
Gladiatorial Games: Life in Erule and the Vale is considerably safe compared to elsewhere in Ashal and its people find themselves wanting excitement and well dramatized dangers. Several of the most wealthy mercers in the city have leveraged this desire into considerable profits by opening schools called to train dramatic fighters and arenas in which to pit them against one another in front of energetic (and well paying) crowds. These fights are rarely to the death and often, those watching that know true combat can see, little resemble the real thing. A mercer who wishes to shock the crowd with a death at their event may look to purchase a convicted from the Hall of Restitutions offering to pay their term for a single fight in return.
Knightly Tournaments: While the arenas might serve to occupy the masses, those of higher society would not be caught dead at such a brutish and low brow event. Instead, it is highly fashionable to attend one of the many melees or jousts held between the Knightly Orders. These events overflow with pomp and ceremony as the nights compete in the gleaming and plumed armour while wealthy mercers vie with each other to be the one to sponsor the winning knight.
Exodus: Celebration of the exodus of the original merchant families from Degaz and their discovery of the pass through the Dawnwalls and Verdant Vale beyond. The city streets flood with celebrations both public and private in lavish displays of wealth. It is a time to show how much one can spend on frivolities. Traditionally the Chairman of Congress is responsible for putting on a celebration outside the Chambers of Commerce for the denizens of the Tenements.
Harvestyne: Few places offer Inaulla the depth of devotion as those of Erule and the Verdant Vale though the celebration of her holy day varies considerably between the city and the surrounding farming communities. In the city it is a time of closing the books on another year and celebrating the profits made by distributing Inaulla’s bounty across Ashal. Toasts are offered to peers and the God of the Harvest while plans are made for the coming year when the snows clear from the roads again. In the farms, the celebrations of Harvestyne can last for a week or longer. The great work is done, the crops brought in from the vast fields, the fruits cleared from the orchards, and the herds brought to market or now safe and warm in the barns. Few dispute the vigor of a Vale farmer in their work and each looks forward to the end of autumn where they can but that same enthusiasm to use in celebration of all Inaulla has provided that year.
External Relations
Freelands: The squalor they live in would be contemptible if it weren’t so sad. One can’t choose the conditions one is born into and the Freelands don’t offer an easy life. However, it does offer a wealth of opportunity to elevate one’s self. You needn’t look further than those employed by one of Erule’s many convoys for the potential they continue to ignore. Wilfully ignorant the lot of them.
Steinholdt: They’re all as cold and rigid as the metal they pull from their mountains. Their utter lack of independent thought is monotonous, each of them bound tightly by their beloved chain of command. Gods forbid you ever try to haggle price with one of them, you’d more easily make cheese from water than budge a Steinholdter from their set price.
Salvoss: The epitome of uncivilized and wasteful. All those hundreds of years in that forest overflowing with fine lumber and rare plants and animals and yet they still live entirely hand to mouth. To neglect to capitalize on the sheer abundance of moveable products sitting, quite literally, on their doorstep goes beyond shameful and into the realm of insanity.
Hagea: Hagean’s, though perhaps a bit stuffy, are perhaps the most reliable trading partners to be found anywhere in Ashal. A scholar of the academies will haggle over the price of a dusty old manuscript from sunup to sundown but never seen one fail to pay once you threaten to walk on the deal. The normal folks of the city aren’t half bad either, if they’d get their nose of the air that is.
Carcassim: The people of Carcassim may be the only others outside the bounds of Erule that understand the quantifiable value that luxuries bring to one’s life. Their use of the dead for menial labour is enviable as far as it affects their profit margins, though it’s all rather ghastly once you have to look at it up close. The Carcassimi make wonderful trading partners, decent acquaintances, and off-putting friends.