Son

The holy city of Son is one of the most ancient sites in Lashunta legend, with its founding in myth over 24,000 years ago (12,000 Earth/Golarion-years) by Matarasse the Sun Goddess. Though in latter history it has fallen from preeminence against such cities like Qabarat, its ancient status and reputation as a center of learning accord it prominence amongst the city-states of the Yaro Valley and the Retaea Moors. Along with holding the famed Iezoshu Esotericum for the Psychic Arts and Temple of Matarasse the Burning-Mother, Son is the official protector of the Hall of Stars, one of the few astronomical observatories on Castrovel, located atop Mt. Shestaru and above the almost omnipresent cloud cover, where the Lashunta first learned the stars and named the planets almost 20,000 years ago.

Culture

Son's dedication to Matarasse - Burning-Mother has been core to its identity since its founding. At times the Temple of Matarasse has claimed preeminence over all other temples, and even other cities. Yet after the fall of the Warrior-Queens, it has languished as a respected but benign first among equals. However, it still matronizes several monastic schools, including the Ihezoshu.

Public Agenda

Son fosters trade through the Upper Yaro Valley, including its headwaters into the Stormshield Mountains and the Highland clans dwelling there, and northeastward into the treeless Retaea Moors as far as Lea on Lake Arasene. Its schools and libraries claim to rival Qabarat's universities, citing twenty-four millennia of history under the temples' auspices.

Assets

Mead and wine, including Kovau wine. Psychic studies, religious studies, philosophy, & historical archives.  Glasswork.  Lumber, bamboo, & hides
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History

Founding:
According to legend, Son was the first Lashunta city. It was founded by Queen Eieshe when she sought haven upon the island of Aelau from the Lashunta’s ancient enemies, the Moqeva, who were exterminating her tribe. Eieshe had climbed to the Ofu peak on the island’s northern end, when the sky clouds parted, and Burning Mother revealed Herself. The Sun Goddess bade Eieshe gather her people upon Aelau and build a stronghold, where they would be safe. Doing as bidden, Eieshe planted a milk-tree atop the peak, which became the city’s Soul-Tree. The Lashunta settled and fortified the island, including a temple to the Sun Goddess where the queen had received her vision. They then became a rallying point for other Lashunta tribes, threw back the Moqeva, and thence began the conquest of the Yaro Valley. In chronology, traditional Lashunta history counts the city’s founding as Year 1.

-Age of the Warrior-Queens:
Son reached its peak of political influence in Year 1,150, with the destruction of Hoshiasa, the last significant Moqeva stronghold in the Yaro Valley. Thenceafter, Son’s queens led the Lashunta tribes southward, conquered, and settled the Yaro and further down the coast. Other cities were soon founded, including Mahyat, Old Hanat, Thasanya, and Reiefya, over whom Son claimed suzerainty as her daughter-cities. This was formalized in 1,589, when Queen Lanare, taking the title ‘Queen of Son and All Lashunta of the Yaro and Retaea, from the Sea to Lake Arasene’, founded the Empire of Son. When the other cities objected, she sent her harem of Korasha generals and their armies to enforce her will. Queen Lanare also began work on her pleasure palace upon Mt. Eizohu south of Son, whose ruins still overlook Son’s acropolis today.
The first historical reference to the ‘Gatestead of Gohabarat, which leads to the Land of Red Dust’ occurs in 1,235. While no records of any settlement exist from this time, the Gate of Qabarat was treated as a holy shrine. In 3,289, Queen Aheale of Son signed a treaty with an Azlanti delegation (“the Aslanta, who are Men from the World of the Blue -Queen,” wherein Shaealisse - Blue-Queen is the Lashunta name for Golarion in the night sky), granting them access to the Gate. Initial Azlanti contact had occurred about a thousand Castrovel-years earlier.
Starting in 3,577, the other Lashunta cities began to revolt against Son’s empire. This pattern continued over the next five hundred years, escalating in repression and atrocity, until an alliance, led by Old Hanat, besieged Son and overthrew the Empire in 4,268. Hanata warriors stormed the city. While they left inviolate the Temple of Burning Mother, they razed the Palace of Lanare, carried off the idols and treasures from the other temples, and cut down the City’s Soul-Tree. Then they slew all of Son’s Korasha, bidding that, if the Damaya wished to continue their bloodline, “they must so lie under Hanat’s Korasha.” Then the Hanata burned the rest of the city and drove its survivors from the island, forbidding them from ever dwelling there again.
According to legend, a priestess had cut a sprig from the city’s Soul-Tree before it was cut down. It was hidden and planted on Mt. Eizohu, where it survived and grew, retaining the city’s ancestral memories while Son’s descendents wandered in exile. A shrine within a gulch on the mountain’s southern side marks this spot.
In 4,374, Old Hanat, now the dominant power in the Yaro Valley, and under popular religious pressure, granted permission for Son’s survivors to return to their city. Son was refounded under the Hanat Empire’s hegemony, and its Soul-Tree replanted on the Ofu Acropolis, where its temple still stands.

-Age of the Sage-Queens: 
Son rebuilt quietly under Hanat’s thumb, largely as a religious center, and survived for the next nineteen centuries. Yet the grudge for its own destruction returned full force when the Yaro cities at last rose against Old Hanat and overthrew her in 6,281. Son secured return of many treasures lost in its own sack, including the statue of Mahaere ‘Green-Mother,’ which was still damaged. It participated in the Pact of Queens, which treaty signifies the start of the classical Age of the Sage-Queens, held as the height of Lashunta civilization and an era of peace and prosperity never achieved before or since.
Son grew from its religious roots and became a center of study and philosophy. Thessus founded the Hall of Stars in 6,412, the first astrological observatory in all Asana. The Iezoshu Esotericum was founded shortly afterward in 6,511, and stands among the most prestigious academies for the psychic arts. Ascetic monasteries were founded among the ruins of Queen Lanare’s Palace. Attracted by these and the first Temple to Burning-Mother, many notable philosophers either dwelled or travelled there. Son became a popular pilgrimage site, and possibly one of the first tourist destinations.
Son had little interaction with Elves or the disruption caused by the Formian invasion of Marasta and the Fall of Lost Valmaea. Instead, they seemed more focused on relations with the nomadic Retaea tribes, including trade from Lea and Lake Arasene and as far north as Ofu Laubu, until the First Formian Invasion of Asana in 10,572. Son joined the alliance to repel this threat to the Lashunta world.
-Age of the Thief-Queens:
Son first proposed to “invite the Moorland Clans,” to join the war against the Formians, owing to its close trade contacts with the Retaea Moors, to bolster Lashunta numbers and resources. While successful when the Formian Asana Colony was exterminated in 10,719, none had foreseen the massive social and economic calamity this war would cause, notwithstanding arrival of the highly martial Retaea Hordes, whose culture had diverged significantly from the Yaro Valley’s Sage-Queens over the past six thousand years. Son apparently first leveraged its connections with the Northern Queens to wrangle concessions from the other city-states. Yet it was also the first to fall when Queen Berelezh lost patience with the South’s subtle intrigues, slew Queen Alahil of Son, and made herself ruler of Son and the Northern Yaro, thus initiating the Age of the Thief-Queens. Berelezh made Son her capital when she conquered Mahyat and Hanazhyana (New Hanat). The city became a prize for many Thief-Queens, due to its historical and religious significance, culminating when Queen Vemereth united the whole Yaro Valley and Retaea Moors south of Ofu Laubu, and was crowned in Son in 11,259. Yet on her death, the Empire of the Thief-Queens disintegrated, and Son returned to being a game-piece bartered or stolen between rivals, even during the Second Formian War. It was the last Yaro city to expel the Thief-Queens and institute a Council of Matrons in 15,643.

-Age of the Pact:
Contrary to the Thief-Queens’ reputation for barbarity, Son’s religious and academic institutions survived unscathed, and even flourished. With the expulsion, Son remained more focused on intermittent raids coming from the Retaea than on the Formian threat to Western Asana, even after the Northern Hordes ceased as a political threat, largely since the city had the closest proximity to the surviving hordes. This changed in 18,877, however, with the Third Formian Invasion, wherein Son contributed to the Asana Alliance as much as any other city, including the subsequent Lashunta invasion of the Colonies (as Marasta was thence called), and again in 21,789 with the Fourth Formian Invasion. Like the other Yaro cities, it suffered badly but recovered from the earthquake that destroyed Reiefya in 22,895, and similarly from moldstorms that struck in 23,362 and again in 23,517. Despite considerable loss of productive land to the jungle (due to population loss and resulting inability to keep land farmable), over the last thousand years it has slowly worked its way back while seeking to rebuild its ancient ties with the Southern Retaea and cities of the Arasene Lakeshore.

Demography and Population

Lashunta make up the overwhelming majority of the population, of which most are locals born within Son. Traders come from downriver, including Qabarat and occasionally from further afield, and southward from across the Retaea Moorlands. Most of the villages and farmholds within a day’s hike claim association with Son’s polity. The remaining freeholds keep on polite terms and engage in trade, though tension may run from banished outlaws living in these settlements.
Son’s citizens practice a local form of keiahi - choral dance, which tells an oral version of the city’s history. Individual chapter performances are scheduled for market days and holidays. The full cycle takes about five years to complete. In keiahi, Lashunta use their telepathic senses to fall into synch with the dance chorus. Thus the whole population can participate with little practice.
Elves are a rare spectacle in Son, and educated townsfolk will eagerly attempt to practice their Elvish on visitors. Traditionally, an Elf can claim difelari (‘Elf-right’) while passing through Son’s lands, as with most Lashunta settlements in the Yaro Valley, and receive aid. By ignorance, any non-Lashunta visitors may also be assumed to be Elves.

Territories

Son sits on the northern head of the island of Aelau, which stands midstream near the Yaro River’s headwaters, about 700 miles northeast of Qabarat. It is built around a prominent acropolis, the Ofu, which is the island’s northernmost peak and overlooks the river
Districts: The Ofu is the official and spiritual heart of Son. It holds:

• Heartyard / Forum- the central square amidst the Ofu’s main buildings, where official proclamations are made, also doubles as a high-end marketstead. It is shaded by a giant flowering milktree.
• Ofu Stair - this set of switchback ramps connects the Ofu with the River Borough
• Veiefiraeo - the Temple of Matarasse, the Burning-Mother, Sun-Goddess who is Son’s matron spirit. This is considered the holiest stead in the city and is visited by pilgrims from over Asana. Adorned by a huge oculus-cupola of clear glass and copper sheeting.
• Remmazerea - Son’s Hall of Matrons the elected assembly and officers meet to discuss business. It also includes the High Matron’s official residence and where most of the city’s administration occurs. Its central hall is graced by its own cupola.
• Treasury - along with safeguarding the City’s financial reserves, also acts as a public bank.
• Neses - the city’s principal citadel, armory, and barracks for its outriders and active warriors. It also serves as the martial training center for initiating Lashunta.
• Temple of Mahaere - dedicated to the Green-Mother, Castrovel personified. It also hosts the city’s Soul-Tree and Overmind.
• Shrine of the Soul-Tree - set within the Temple of the Green Mother, this symbiant milktree functions as repository for more than 20,000 years of Lashunta memories.

Trademasters Farthing - affluent neighborhood along Dale Street, it holds many wealthy mansions.

• Dale Street - runs down the back to the Dale Borough

The Dale Borough lies between the Ofu and Mt. Eizohu

• Fall of Shinau - cascades from Mt. Eizohu and fills a public pool, whence a stream runs through the borough to the river
• Crypt of the Foremothers - the Lashunta have been interring their dead in these caves for 20,000 years
• Tower of Zhol - abandoned citadel that once served as part of the city’s fortifications
• Shotalashu Fields - Used as a training ground. Damaya warriors exercise their steeds here. The militia also holds practices and full formation musters.
• The Gameyard - this small coliseum hosts that annual City Games held during the Motorae
• Stockmarket - thurse-pens and slaughterhouses for cattle driven from down-island. Tanneries are also located here.

The River Borough lies along the Ofu’s western shore, between the hollow the river has cut underneath the Ofu and the Dale Borough

• Floating Mills - these are set within the Ofu’s hollow, to take advantage of the river’s strongest flow, and also to help keep it from eroding more of the peak.
• Harbor - wharves and docks rebuilt from ruins of past ages host busy fleets of river barges and fishing boats
• Harbor Market - Son’s main marketstead, where most trade and shopping occur. Covered sidewalks ring this yard
• Tower of Thani - harbor lighthouse providing navigation.
• Keiaholu - a wide circular theater with broadly stepped tiers, this is used for orchestral dances and other performances

Mt. Eizohu (Ta-Eizohu) forms a separate but significant section relative to the city proper in holding the following landmarks:

• Palace of Queen Lanare - these ruins bear testament to the lost Empire of Son during the Age of the Warrior-Queens, as folly to one Damaya’s pride. Ascetic philosophers have traditionally established their hermitages within its fallen halls.
• Iezoshu - this prestigious psychic academy was rebuilt from part of the ruins of Queen Lanare’s Palace. Lashunta from across Asana study here.
• Old Citadel - built by Queen Lanare’s successors during Son’s Empire, this was destroyed by Old Hanat and abandoned

Tonyol is a borough, almost a town in its own right, that sits on the Yaro’s far eastern bank, directly across from the River Borough. It is built around several hometrees sheltered by a stone wall and watchtowers. Its harbor stands beneath the end of a fallen bridge, which seemingly once stretched over the river to the island. Numerous paths and roads lead from Tonyol into the surrounding countryside.

Military

Like the other cities of the Yaro Valley, Son maintains an active militia with both Damaya and Korasha, most of which can be called up within a day from the surrounding townholds and outlying farmholds. Total muster strength, based on able-bodied adults, is estimated around 10,000, though actual musters have been far less.
All Lashunta undergo military training as part of adulthood, where they live and serve within the Neses Citadel or at strongholds located along the borders. Korasha primarily serve as infantry while most Damaya form psychic bonds with Shotalashu and train as cavalry. At any given time, about 800 Lashunta are serving under active duty.
Son maintains a company of outriders, from whom most of the officers are recruited. They practice a chivalric code of honor almost identical to Qabarat and the other cities of Western Asana.

Religion

Along with the Great Sun Temple to Matarasse, upon the Ofu temples stand to Mahaere (Green-Mother), Divelnyas (Father-Hunter), and Diaraeas (Father-Night). A temple to Father Yaro stands in the harbor at the foot of the Tower of Thani. Additionally a shrine to Shotaviras (the first Shotalashu) stands just by the Gameyard within the Dale Borough. Participants traditionally throw nuts at his statue’s feet to pray for luck and victory.

Foreign Relations

Son, like the other members of the Western Asana Alliance, sends a contingent to Valmaeyana and the Straits of Glory to fight against the Formians, typically about 800 warriors at any given time. Only warriors who have completed their initial military service are allowed to go. Son has enjoyed a long if somewhat shaky alliance with richer and greater Qabarat to the southwest, who leads the Western Asana confederacy of city-states located along the Shattersea.
Son's relations with its neighboring city-states is often shaded by ancient traditions, and even feuds that are remembered after thousands of years. Many Sonna will not set foot in Hanazhyana, since that city's ancestors razed Son and drove the citizens from their city, back in the Age of the Warrior-Queens. Son still celebrates the war in which their ancestors won the right to return and refound their city.

Agriculture & Industry

Son controls trade along the Upper Yaro’s headwaters, between the Retaea Moors to the north and eastward to Lea and Lake Arasene, and the Yaro Strath’s lower reaches down to Qabarat and the Shattersea. Along with Qoelu (megafauna) ivory and hides, upland yams, catcorn, and berrywort-oil crops, it specializes in glassmaking, producing some of the clearest crystalline glass for windows and temples, and book-crystals used to record narrations and even images.

• Region: Western Asana, upper Yaro Valley, Island of Aelau
• Size: Large city
• Population: 80,000 (15,000 city proper)
• Ruler: High Matron Zhasael-Ile uth’Efadi Eavol-Zolaemaue
• Languages: Lashunta (Upper-Yaro, Qabarat, Southern Retaea), Elvish

Founding Date

1 ZS

Type

Geopolitical, City-state

Alternative Names

Son-Tolloda; Son-Raenoyanta

Demonym

Sonna - Sonne (f Sonnas (m)

Currency

Elindro - silvermark (Shattersea standard

Legislative Body

Son is governed by the Hall of Matrons, who are elected from among the city’s wives, representing each of the city’s boroughs and associated townholds, and who also serve as the city’s administrators. The Matrons elect the city-state’s High Matron as ruler.
This body consists of forty elected ~Mazere~ matrons. Of these, ten are chosen from the city proper, with the other thirty chosen from the outlying townholds and settlements.

Judicial Body

The Hall of Matrons chooses judges from among its senior members. A doom-bench typically consists of three judges, who hear cases, review evidence and testimony, and render sentence. Junior matrons act as law-speakers, representing plaintiffs and defendents.
Crime and justice in Son is typical of many Lashunta cities. A jail stands in the River Borough, used mainly to contain drunkards, Korasha for whom a fight gets too rowdy, and the occasional thief. Convicts enjoying a rare extended service-sentence may be housed there unless they are indentured out. Serious offenders are banished.

Location

The Yaro River Valley - Cradle of Lashunta Civilization

Related Species

• Lashunta