The Rivan Codex: Ancient Texts of THE BELGARIAD and THE MALLOREON (The Belgariad / The Malloreon)
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The resumption of trade along the South Caravan Route has begun the recovery of the Tolnedran economy. Gone, however, are the days of absolute dominance in commerce. The merchants of other nations have increasingly come to demand their share of the markets that were formerly exclusive Tolnedran preserves, and kings and their governments have more and more realized that the strength of a nation is measured more in the health of its commerce than in the size of its army. Governments, therefore, have increasingly become involved in trade negotiations. Those fine old days when the kings of the west played their childish games of war and conquest while the Empire alone concentrated on the serious business of commerce are forever gone. The other nations have, in a very real sense, grown up; and, while we may lament our loss of advantage, we must welcome them into the market-place and cheer the tremendous growth of healthy competition from which all mankind must benefit.
Today, in the great commercial centers, Tol Honeth, Camaar, Muros and Boktor, the market-places literally seethe with merchants from all parts of the known world. Sendar and Tolnedran, Murgo and Drasnian, Nadrak and Arend, Nyissan and Cherek, an occasional Algar, brutish Thulls, and even of late grey-cloaked Rivans vie with each other for the customer’s attention and bargain endlessly with each other.
Tolnedra currently faces the inevitable turmoil of Dynastic succession. Our present Emperor, Ran Borune XXIII, a vigorous man in his fifties, is a widower with only one female child of thirteen and has quite firmly stated his intention not to remarry. The contending families have already begun maneuvering in the Council of Advisors in their quest for the Throne. We must hope that Nedra in His wisdom will guide us in the selection of a Dynasty to lead us through the years ahead which, while they may be fraught with uncertainties, are likely also to be rich with opportunities.38
UNIVERSAL WEIGHTS AND MEASURES39
DISTANCE
FLUID MEASURE
Try to avoid using ‘gallon’ and ‘quart’.
DRY MEASURE
Tolnedra
COINAGE40
All coins and bars are marked with the Emperor’s likeness. Because of her dominance in trade, Tolnedra’s coinage is the standard by which other currency is measured. The basic unit is the Mark. A Mark is a half a pound of metal.
GOLD
1. Gold Mark: 8 ounce bar worth approximately $1,000
2. Half Gold Mark: 4 ounce bar worth approximately $500
3. Quarter Gold Mark: 2 ounce gold coin worth approximately $250 (called an Imperial)
4. Noble: 1 ounce gold coin worth approximately $125
5. Crown: 1⁄2 ounce gold coin worth approximately $62.50 (The names of gold coins include the word ‘Gold’. Thus, ‘A Gold Noble’.)
SILVER
Silver is worth 1⁄20 the value of gold. Thus:
1. Silver Mark = $50
2. Silver Half-Mark = $25
3. Silver Imperial = $12.50
4. Silver Noble = $6.25
5. Silver Crown = $3.12
6. Half-Crown: The half-crown is a 1 ounce brass coin worth $1.56
7. Penny: Copper. 100 pennies make a half-crown. Questionable coins or bars are taken to the temple for verification by the priests of Nedra. Each temple has a set of verified scales.
The priests charge a 1% fee.
COSTUME
MEN
The upper classes wear a toga-like ‘Mantle’. These garments are color-coded to show rank.
The military uniform is Roman.
Merchants wear belted gowns with deep, wide pockets. They are also color-coded to show rank.
Menials and craftsmen wear tunics—just below the knees and sleeves to the elbows. Leggings in winter. Leather aprons.
WOMEN
Gowns of a Grecian cut. Color-coding is legally required, but the law is largely ignored except on formal occasions. The hair is worn in the Grecian manner.
Tolnedrans customarily wear daggers (the sign of a free man) but the daggers are largely ornamental.
WEAPONRY
The short-sword—about 2 feet long—lances, javelins, the short bow.
THE COMMONS
Artisans are identified by color-code on their tunics
FREEMEN (WORKERS)
They wear no trim
Wages are standardized; about $800 per year
Slightly less for farm-workers
Prices of staples are fixed by law
Note: Rank in the priesthood is equivalent to rank in the nobility.
Rank in the bureaucracy is equivalent to commercial rank. Academics rank with Artisans.
Doctors and Lawyers have the equivalent of commercial rank.
POPULATIONS
7–8 Million Tolnedrans, mostly in villages or on farmsteads
MAJOR HOLIDAYS
Midwinter—Erastide—(the world’s birthday). Feasting, jollity, parties, gifts
Midsummer—The Festival of Nedra. Prayers, religious observances
Various—The current Emperor’s birthday
Early Fall—Ran Horb’s Day. Celebration of the birthday of the greatest emperor. Military parades; patriotic speeches
Late Fall—Mara’s Day. A day of guilt. Offerings to Mara. Pay all debts. Processions of penitents
RELIGIOUS OBSERVANCES
The priesthood is comfortable and not very devout. Religion is formal and perfunctory. Prayers are largely for luck and profit.
The Monastery at Mar-Terin—cloistered
Mendicant Monks—beggars
Most Tolnedrans aren’t very religious
Appendix on Maragor
The kingdom of the Marags which once lay in that pleasant vale in the southeast quarter of what is now Tolnedra is, as all men know, no longer in existence. The destruction of Maragor is, of course, our national shame. This is not stated out of some desperate need for guilt which we observe among some of our less stable colleagues, but is, rather, a cold and incontrovertible fact. The Marags were not by any means an admirable people, but their annihilation, as we now know, was an unnecessarily extreme response to a cultural aberration which might have rather easily been rechanneled.
GEOGRAPHY
The vale which was once Maragor is a mountain-surrounded and fertile valley at the headwaters of the River of the Woods measuring one hundred leagues by twenty-five leagues. It is dotted with lakes and watered by the sparkling rivers which form the upper tributaries of the River of the Woods. Those hardy souls who have traversed it report that it is truly one of the loveliest spots in the known world. The horror which dwells there, of course, makes Maragor totally uninhabitable. It is also, unfortunately, non-exploitable for precisely the same reason. The free gold still glitters on the bottoms of the streams, but none dare risk their sanity to claim it.
THE PEOPLE
The Marags were a short, olive-skinned people of the same racial stock as Tolnedrans, Nyissans and Arends. The single characteristic which all the world thinks of when the Marags are mentioned is, of course, the fact that they were cannibals. How extensive this practice was is the subject of much debate among scholars. The savagery with which the Tolnedran legions extirpated the Marag culture left little in the way of documentary evidence behind; and one may be certain that if no Tolnedran willingly would now enter Maragor for gold, he would be much less likely to go there in search of records or fragments of parchment.
The archives in the monastery at Mar-Terin, however, do contain some few fragments which provide a sketch outline of the Marag culture.
They were, it appears, a secretive people with little desire for contact with outsiders. They were also, insofar as we are able to determine, largely matriarchal, and the institution of marriage among them was strangely under-developed. No stigma seems to have been attached to out-of-wedlock birth, and casual liaisons appear to have been commonplace. Beyond these few tantalizing hints, little is known of the Marags.
HISTORY
We must assume that the Marags migrated to the west during the first millennium as did the oth
er peoples of the west, although there is no way to substantiate this. Cities and temples of stone were erected in the Vale, but when they were constructed and by whose order, we have no way of knowing, only that the legions which destroyed the country did attest to their existence. The cities appear to have been oddly-constructed assortments of stone buildings without protective walls around them, and the temples, standing alone on the plain, were vast constructions of enormous stones erected with incredible amounts of primitive labor.
The only body of historical documents we have relate to the nineteenth-century war between Maragor and Nyissa. The causes of that war are unclear, but the Marags mounted an invasion of the jungle-country of the snake people and pressed rapidly on to the Nyissan capital at Sthiss Tor. The reports of the field commanders of this invasion provide certain chilling hints about the nature of Marag religious practices. The conclusion of each report of the capture of a Nyissan city or town lists—by name—those luckless inhabitants who were ‘assumed’ for the greater glory of Mara. We can only shudder at the thinly veiled meaning of that term.
The Marag invasion, of course, came to grief after the occupation of Sthiss Tor. The cunning Nyissans had, before evacuating the city, poisoned everything edible in the vicinity. Marag soldiery sickened and died in appalling numbers, and the desperate field commanders frantically appealed to their superiors back in Maragor for food. Ultimately, they were forced to abandon the city and flee back through the jungles to the mountains and thence across to Maragor. The trail of dead and dying soldiers they left behind them gives mute testimony to the virulence of Nyissan poisons.
The only other contact between the Marags and outsiders came just prior to the destruction of the entire people. Tolnedran merchants attempting to enter Maragor in search of trade were driven out of the country. No amount of official remonstrance on the part of the Imperial Court could persuade the Marags to relent, and eventually the city of Tol Rane was constructed on Maragor’s western boundary to provide a suitable site for trade. The few Marags who took advantage of this commercial opportunity paid handsomely for the wares they purchased in fine gold. It was the discovery of this gold which sealed the fate of Maragor.
The events leading up to the Tolnedran invasion and the details of that ruthless campaign have already been discussed and need not be repeated here.
When the campaign was over, the few pitiful survivors were sold to Nyissan slave-traders who promptly chained them together and drove them in long columns across the mountains into the jungles of Nyissa. Their ultimate fate is mercifully hidden from us.
Thus perished Maragor—the living Maragor at any rate. The horrid reality of the dead Maragor remains to haunt us fully three millennia after our ill-advised adventure there.
Reports of the exact nature of the shades which haunt the vale which was once Maragor are hardly verifiable, since most who have been there and survived hover on the verge of madness. All confirm that the Spirit of Mara shrieks and wails throughout the land, but reports of the hideous phantoms who haunt the land vary widely. Curiously, all the more coherent accounts indicate that the ghosts are female, which seems to make their mutilated shades that much more horrifying. This latter observation is confirmed in part by the monks of Mar-Terin who (though madness stalks their ranks also) provide us with the most authoritative accounts of the ghosts who have made Maragor not only uninhabitable but unapproachable as well.
Let Imperial Tolnedra resolve most firmly that never again will we allow ourselves to be pushed by our greed into such shameful acts, and let perished Maragor—an eternal rebuke—stand forever between Tolnedra and a repetition of this most monstrous crime.
COINAGE
No coinage. Marags had a barter economy. The costume was Greek. Men—short tunics and sandals. Women—short silk dresses.
SOCIAL ORGANIZATION41
Houses and land belonged to the women. Men were athletes, hunters and soldiers. The society was very loose and considered immoral by other races. The men lived in semi-military dormitories—when they weren’t ‘guests’ in the house of this or that woman. Men had no property. The Marags were very enthusiastic about athletic tournaments. Religious observances were orgiastic in nature. The society tended toward a lot of nudity because the Marags had a great admiration for the human body. Their temples doubled as athletic stadiums.
THE CANNIBALISM
This came about as the result of a mis-reading of one of their sacred texts. It was ritualistic in nature, and those consumed were all non-Marags.
MANNERS
Marags were good-natured and happy-go-lucky. The men were not interested in trade (which made the Tolnedrans crazy). The Marags were total Pagans with virtually no inhibitions. The women were very generous with both their property and their personal favors.
There were probably no more than a million Marags.
THE ALORN KINGDOMS
NOTE
The four kingdoms of the Alorn peoples, Cherek, Drasnia, Algaria, and the Isle of the Winds are a direct outgrowth of the Kingdom of Aloria which existed in antiquity and which was divided during the reign of the legendary Cherek Bear-shoulders at about the end of the second millennium.
The Isle of the Winds
GEOGRAPHY
The northwest-most of the twelve kingdoms, the Isle of the Winds is a rocky, almost uninhabitable island to the west of Sendaria and Cherek and to the north of Arendia. Perpetual, gale-force winds sweep off the ocean to beat against the island’s west coast. Because of reefs and high cliffs, the island is totally unapproachable except at Riva, the island’s only city. A limited fishery exists at Riva, and there appears to be some mining in the mountains of the island—mostly in useful metals such as iron and copper, although there do appear to be deposits of gold and silver which do not seem to be extensively exploited.
THE PEOPLE
Although they call themselves Rivans (after their legendary first king) the inhabitants of the island are basically Alorn and descendants of a fairly substantial migration which appears to have occurred at about the beginning of the third millennium. Curiously enough, the migration to the island by the Rivans seems to have occurred as one single expedition, significantly unlike the customary migratory pattern of other peoples which is characterized by succeeding waves and periods of consolidation. The Rivans are markedly different from their Alorn cousins in Cherek, Drasnia and Algaria. They are generally called the Grey-Cloaks (from their national costume) by the common people of other kingdoms, although until recently they were seldom seen off the island. The Rivans are sober, even grim, and close-mouthed to the point of rudeness. Reported to be savage warriors, they are fanatically loyal to their ruler (called simply the Rivan Warder) and wholly committed to the defense of their capital at Riva.
THE HISTORY OF THE RIVANS
As previously discussed, the Rivans migrated to the Isle sometime in the early years of the third millennium. Amazingly, the line of Rivan royalty appears to have descended in one unbroken line from the legendary Riva Iron-grip to the last Rivan King, Gorek the Wise, who was assassinated in 4002 by agents of the Nyissan Queen. This unbroken succession marks the longest dynasty in the history of all the twelve kingdoms, apparently enduring for nearly two thousand years.
Perhaps in keeping with their national character, the Rivans have formed no alliances with any of the other kingdoms, and have steadfastly refused to sign even the most rudimentary trade agreement with the representatives of the Tolnedran Emperor. This rigid stubbornness was a source of unending frustration to whole generations of Tolnedran diplomats and a continuous irritation to two complete Tolnedran Dynasties.
Following the Accords of Val Alorn in 3097, efforts were made to establish normal trade relations with the Rivans but without success, and finally, in 3137, Ran Borune XXIV mounted the disastrous expedition to the Isle to force the gates of Riva. The adventure, of course, was an unmitigated disaster. Preparations were then made for a full-scale invasion of the Isle, until the now-famo
us note from the Cherek ambassador persuaded the Emperor to abandon the entire project.
In time the Rivans grudgingly consented to the construction of a commercial enclave outside the city walls, and visiting merchants were forced to be content with that single concession.
By custom, no merchant or emissary is ever permitted inside the walls of the city itself, and most certainly not within the fortress at the center of the city.42
There are but two exceptions to this. The first is the Alorn Council which occurs once each ten years and during which the kings of Algaria, Drasnia, Cherek and sometimes of Sendaria (when the King of Sendaria chances to be an Alorn) journey to Riva and are conveyed—alone—to the Rivan throne-room where, it is rumored, they report to the Rivan Warder concerning the search for the heir to the Rivan Throne. The other exception to this rule is in accordance with the humiliating agreement of Vo Mimbre which requires that each Tolnedran Imperial Princess present herself in her wedding gown before a Rivan Throne for a three-day period on her sixteenth birthday.