Travelling Ensembles

Travelling ensembles are bands of travelling entertainers, who travel the world. They stop in cities, towns and villages, putting on a variety of acts - from high theatre to travelling menagerie, poetry readings, music, and more. Each ensemble plans their route to find audiences that suit their specific set of skills. Those specializing in the more sophisticated arts focus on the more upscale areas - noble holdings, well off merchant towns, and major cities, while those with broader appeal travel more widely, including settlements that are mostly working class. Ensembles come from a variety of cultures, but most travel using distinctively decorated covered wagons, the patterns representing the acts they specialize in. Ensembles can travel without fear of attack from civilized people, as it is widely believed that anyone who harms a travelling performer incurs terrible misfortune.

Patterns of the Arts

Every wagon in a travelling ensemble has a distinctive braided patterns painted onto the canvas covering the wagons, denoting their acts. Specialists in music and poetry incorporate artistic representations of various instruments and musical notes. A travelling menagerie incorporates animals into the pattern. Actors and acrobats both incorporate human figures, and are distinguished from each other by the spacing of the figures: actors use figures in pairs, facing one another, while acrobats have individual figures, often in dramatic positions.

The True Defenders

Very few know the truth behind the terrible fortune that befalls any who accost travelling performers. Most of the ensembles in Kinilan are secretly employed by House Nechtan, a noble family well known for their fondness for the performing arts, and a founding member of the Abizin Loyalists. They maintain a secret network of spies and assassins, known as the Whisper, who watch over performers, collecting a share of their profits in exchange for their continued protection. They also keep their eyes open for new talent, taking steps to ensure anyone showing significant talent is given the opportunity to join one of the established ensembles, or offered the chance to start their own.