Lorgan's Notes: Selaserat

Dryanthium is the jewel of the Elfiniti. The waters shimmer with magic, the domes are scintillating and strong, the peoples are elegant and gracious. Selaserat is the flotsam and jetsam washed downstream to keep the jewel pristine.

~Bendayk, Ruler of Dryanthium, 28,682-19,876 years previous

Research:
Selaserat

by our exuberant pirate captain,
Drowned Dough

In this Research Document:

all images by Shade Melodique
unless otherwise stated
featured image: The Gubs
orig image by weyo, Adobe Stock Images

The Early Years

What happens when a smarmy elfine with too-large breeches decides to stick his nose in a peaceful farming village? Selaserat. I know, I know. Me mates and I have grand times in the bars along the shore, absorbing mist mixed with wiivtree wine as we outmatch the native fishers in knife fights (good luck, cutting a ghostly pirate!). But there's more to the city than the tourist-swindling waterfront. That's right, Selaserat was not always a den of reprobates. It began as a small farming and fishing community, populated by both umbrareign and ghostly faelareign. (If you're wondering how I know this, elfines who lived here at its founding still live here. No adventure in them, but plenty of gossip.) All this changed in 23,098, when Kjiven, the self-proclaimed founder of Greenglimmer, decided he wanted in on the action. Not the farming action, mind, but the trade goods action. As most noble magic users who get annoyed when something isn't making as much money as it should, he marched down the muddy main street and declared the hut-lined way a port. The elfines said everyone laughed and went about their day. Kjiven turned red and slapped a barrier across the river in pique.

Aristarzian Quarter, Selaserat
orig image Maria Orlova, Pexels

Lorgan said to add what images I wanted. I prefer the warm hominess of Aristarzian wooden buildings to the cold elfine stone pillars.

So the fishers got stuck in Selaserat, the traders got stuck at Selaserat, and Kjiven told them a fee would change his mind. The farmers threw produce--literally--and he and his entourage had to scurry back to Kjivendei, hunched over, arms protecting their heads. He didn't remove the barrier, though. When everyone realized this, the community, the traders, and Dryanthium threw more than produce. Fits were had, and the dryan king sent his personal aedefyn to knock politely then bash some sense into Kjiven's head. It didn't work. So the aedefyn helped bypass the barrier, but the larger ships remained stuck. Boats piled up, stretching clear to the mouth of the Dryanflow. Traders worried, Dryanthium raged, and Kjiven sent builders to construct a lighthouse. Confusion reigned at this strange decision until the locals realized he meant to use the place as a toll booth. Then fire reigned.

The lighthouse lit up like an end-year bonfire! The Dryanthium Royal Museum has a grand painting of the sight by the elfine artist Jem the Elder, who lobbed a few torches at it himself. During his third workshop show, his first painting of the event ended up as ashy as the lighthouse. He re-painted it, had an aedefyn spell it, and he says one of Kjiven's supporters ended up discorporated on the floor when he tried to harm it. Jem proudly gave it to the Dryanthium royal family, which is why it survived the flood and continued attempts by Kjiven's supporters to destroy the thing.

Selsaserat Lighthouse
orig by David Cerini, Unsplash

The lighthouse looks like it's seen a few too many harsh days and harsher nights. The elfines treat it like a memorial for those who perished in the flood. Every year, they have a procession to place flowers at its base.

The Port

Kjiven did not understand the push-back, but he wasn't about to ignore the sweet, sweet call of coin. When the aedefyn could not break the barrier (and no one to this day knows how it withstood the attacks), everyone gave in and dumped silver and gold in his lap. The annoyance took decades to dwindle, and the resentment never did. Concerned about saboteurs (because of course that's what farmers do when they're bored--not like us pirates), the elfine hired Ombriel mercenaries. Ombriel never had the best reputation in Talis (still a busy port city, still a place designated as the Crime Capital of Talis), and its fighters had even worse ones in the Evenacht. The only thing they never did was send a ghost to the Final Death--that could get them sent to the Final Death in turn. Everything else was a go. The mercs bullied everyone, the bullied people vacated the shoreline, Kjiven built dockside businesses to cater to traders (bypassing fishers and farmers), stuck his kith and kin in them, and reaped the benefits of being the only game in town. He did not much care about the hate lobbed in his direction from the lesser classes. He cared even less about the protests from the local rainforest tribes who despised his insistence on changing their home even more by building roads through their territory (Kjiven let people avoid the toll, if they kept to the roads that served as a semma-long roundabout). He cared even less than that about the nastiness flung his way from Dryanthium. The dryan king, Bendayk, and his supporters hated his barrier, but Kjiven bribed as many aristocrats as would take his money, and the rest did not have the backing to destroy the toll.

The Flood

Now, keep in mind, there's a lot of finger-pointing and hate, even thousands of years later, when the older population of ghosts talks about the Dryanthium dam breaking. The year was 19,876, and yep, the largest Dryanthium dam, Yumerscyppin, failed. And yep, the dryans had failsafes for such an event, but those, too, failed. And the giant lake drained in a gigantic flood. Waters rushed down river, and populations had no warning. Towns and villages, and even those not on the Dryanflow's shores, washed away, no trace left. The waters submerged ships, and plucked the trees, the bushes, the very stones, and carried them to the Sea of Winds. There are many, many reasons given for this tragic event, none satisfactory. Bendayk and his court had to flee to remain in existence (no one much cared about the FInal Death prohibition, considering how many ghosts perished in the flood), so the lake was in chaos and not up to an investigation while they desperately rebuilt the dam. By the time things settled down, twenty years had passed--all evidence was gone.

Bendayk had his aedefyn blow the dam. That explained why the failsafes were not used. Why? To get rid of Selaserat.
local forest-dwellers, upset at the continued ghostly presence in the Elfiniti Rainforest, and being unable to stop the outward growth of ghost populations, blew both the dam and sabotaged the failsafe in an effort to rid the rainforest of the unwanted
Vebtan, Bendayk's courtly rival, blew it with his hired aedefyn, who tampered with the failsafes. He did not much care about dryan carnage, but in attaining the throne (which he achieved). That he got rid of Dryanthium's most annoying thorn, Kjiven and his precious Selaserat, was a plus
The dryans upset the local nature deity, Strans of Twisted Vines, and he triggered the flood in a divine rage. Everyone suffered

The list gets pretty fantastical from there.

Kjiven didn't survive the flood--at least, that's what locals think. He was in Selaserat when the waters came. The port was obliterated, but for the lighthouse, which stood on a cliff just high enough to avoid inundation. That the lighthouse remained has led to wild tales that Kjiven took shelter there with his whizen. His barrier broke (of course it did), and he reformed it after the waters died down. If so, why did he disappear afterwards? The Wiiv sacked Kjivendei, his capital, when they heard he'd perished. He didn't show up to save it. There is another tale, though, that persists in the darkest of docks bars. Tellers speak of the rainforest growing as if guided by a deity's hand, rising tall and funneling the waters of the flood past Selaserat, and keeping them from swamping Greenglimmer. I laugh--Selaserat was destroyed by the flood. You can see paintings in the library and the museums of the destruction--it's sobering. There wasn't anything left. It's a weird tale, though, because ghostly essences prickle when they hear it. It's like the living having their neck hair stand up when something horrific is coming their way. I tend to leave any establishment where someone's spouting that story.

Regroup

Taking advantage of the shock and dismay and helplessness at Kjiven's demise, the Wiiv tribe decided to sack Kjivendei. Ended up with their warriors dead and rotting on the mountainside, but it did accomplish what the Wiiv wanted--the end of the citadel. Some kith and kin went to the Shield, some headed for Selaserat. Why? While the waters broke the toll barrier, the fundamental spell was still in place in the riverbed, so Hrivasine, Kjiven's grandson, resurrected it and charged a toll on everyone trying to get supplies upstream. Side Note: Never underestimate the role greed plays in existence. It isn't just elfines who take advantage of disasters to add to their coffers, either. Take it from a pirate that's been around, both on Talis and in the Evenacht.

Hrivasine used the money to rebuild Selaserat. It was the first major community re-established after the flood and became the staging ground for supplies desperately needed upstream. Survivors, both ghosts and the living, flocked to it for help and a place to stay. Criminal elements arrived, looking to get their hands dirty by harassing ships into paying them protection money. Hrivasine brought in more Ombriel mercenaries to keep the peace, and people looked to him for leadership because he did more to quell the nasty side of recovery than anyone else (even though he was the cause of most of the problems. It did not matter--Vebtan wasn't interested in emptying Dryanthium coffers for the little guy, and Hrivasine, despite his greed, spent a lot of money to prop up Selaserat). While the rest of Greenglimmer languished, Selaserat prospered. It expanded past its original boundaries, crossed the river, and soon farms and orchards dotted the landscape along the Dryanflow. It never grew far into the eastern forest, its residents preferring to stick to the shore, and by the time Erse Parr became Death, it had around 150K living there (though, when 100K of them are ghosts, the place doesn't take up as much space as you think).

Modern Selaserat

Selaserat is a toll booth masquerading as a historical tourist trap. And I, founder of Merdia and sea battle re-enactments, KNOW a tourist trap when I see one. The Gubs, the administrative buildings for the Greenglimmer District and the Selaserat District, are in the city center. A right fake-Hethetor architectural eyesore, but the elfines are proud of the complex. Blinding white in deep green rainforest is a bit much, in my opinion. The elfine ghosts brag about how they brought wildelfine culture to the rainforest. They built libraries and museums and cultural centers and magnanimously allowed other ghosties to partake in their excellence. Funny, how they ignore the Aristarzian Quarter and the Faun Gardens, and the forest-dweller descendants who influence art and food and music. Hrivasine did not just quell the criminal element, he brought it under his control. His above-ground people patrol the docks in Selaserat and Westel, man the ferries, and have a hand in Fekj, the unloading point for those who want to bypass the barrier tolls (yep, still a thing, but it's now more of a tour of Embeckourteine, the dryan lake Deccavent, the ruins of Kjivendei and the Shield, and then on to the Gate). His below-ground people make their homes in the remains of the first Selaserat. Their days are spent bullying and demanding protection money from both ships and businesses (which goes into his coffers). A sort of roundtable of criminal organizations meets there, both ghostly and native, and they pay good coin to keep their goings-on secret.

Finally Home Tavern
orig image by bbsferrari, Envato Elements

As snobby as the elfines were, Selaserat rebuilt with far more varied architecture. This is primarily due to the Aristarzian in the Aristarzian Quarter. The Quarter houses a large number of Light-blessed. They brought northern Talin ideas to a southern Talin elfine city, and because of it, the waterfront fishmarkets, the artisan quarter, the Inn Row, the nesting gardens, and the Riverview Overlook Tower exist. The ancient elfine ghosts aren't thrilled with the Aristarzian presence, but I have no idea why. Some take it as a grand insult, and the Aristarzian just laugh and go about their day.