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THE RUINS OF CAER MEJETUS 1

HrnWorld A. Rees,N. Robin Crossby & Columbia Games Inc., 2015

aer Mejetus is a monument to the hubris of one man, Mejenes,

Emperor of the Corani. He believed, despite Kuboran revolts,

and economic, political and religious tensions, that he was

destined to rule an ever greater empire.

In 465 he met his end here, not in battle, but from an infected

wound. As the life seeped out of him he raged against his doctors, his

priests, and the fates, for denying him his place in history. Heroic legionarysurvivors of the slaughter that accompanied the retreat from Mejetus

carried a casket of bones collected from the imperial funeral pyre to

Coranan. There, as they were interred, he was christened the Great.

His failure left the fort to the Equani who used it to stage raids against

the gargun of Yzug and the Urdu. Today it is occupied by the tribes war-

cult, the Shevrach, and has a dark ritual purpose. They name it Brnid Mrw,

the Hill of Undying.

HISTORYThe Empire first occupied Mejetus in about 460; it was one of several

outposts on the west bank of the Pemetta and Suthen rivers. It was unusual

only because of the wide ford across the Suthen that gave access to Equeth.

A naval expedition brought engineers, masons and a small group of

scholars to undertake a more detailed survey in 463. Shortly afterwards a

military road was cut through the Peran wilderness from Caer Kustan. The

first full cohort arrived in the Autumn of 463 and building began in earnest.

When Emperor Mejenes arrived in late 464 the saddle of land beside the

fort was easily able to accommodate the legion he led. He was

accompanied by Urdu auxiliaries his charisma had recruited. As soon as he

arrived Mejenes ordered the ford to be improved and a bridge was begun in

anticipation of a crossing into Equeth; he did not intend to stay at Mejetus

long. Before the bridge was completed Mejenes was dead, the Urdu

alienated, and Caer Mejetus sacked.

Since then the fort has been swallowed by the forest it was painstakinglycut free of. A barely discernible ditch and the rotting timber of its fallen

palisade are all that remain of its stout fortifications. The Equani looted and

occupied the fort when the legion left, beginning a tradition of Spring and

Summer visits. Over time it has become associated with the Equani war

cult, the Shevrach, and home to its shaman. It is this that fuels its dark

reputation among the Urdu.

While any attack by the Equani is fierce, the depredations of Shevrachi

raiders from Mejetus are terrifying. Any prisoners taken by the Equani

expects a hard death but what the Shevrachi leave in the forest around the

ruined fort displays such cruel imagination that Urdu have killed one

another rather than be taken there alive to Grch Fnos, the Haunt of Night.

THE LOCAL AREA[1]The Ford: the River Suthen is wide and shallow at this point. Melting

snows from Mount Echephon make it difficult to cross in early Spring

because of the freezing water, rather than its depth, which rarely reaches

above the chest. During the rest of the year it is much shallower and in the

driest of summers a traveller might pick a route across that kept their feet

almost dry. A little digging in the sand and gravel will reveal the

foundations of the Corani bridge that was started but never finished.

Finding the ruins

Cartographers in the Thardic Republic

often speculate on the location of

Mejetus. However, precise knowledge of

its location was lost during the book-

burnings of the Balshan Jihad.

There have been recent rumours of a

contemporary account of a journey to

Mejetus. They hint that it includes

sufficient detail to enable an explorer to

find the ruins. It is also known that

Emperor Mejenes planned a route that

would have linked Mejetus to the heart of

the Empire. Though work on a road

certainly started records of where it

started and how far it got, have been lost.

A few Ivinian shipmasters claim to have

taken their ships up the Pemetta and

some boast of having found Mejetus.

None, though, can produce any of itsrumoured treasures as evidence.

The Gargun of Yzug avoid the old fort.

The memories they are born with

associate the ruins with pain and death.

The Kubora of the Afarezirs have legends

from the time when the Corani navy

explored the region but do not even

recognise the word Mejetus. Other

Kuboran tales mention Mejetus but

concentrate on the fall of Kustan.

Equani warriors inducted into the

Shvrachare told of Brnid Mrw, and

urged to visit it. They will not share whatthey know on pain of death.

The Urdu contending with the Equani for

dominance of the valley of the River

Suthen also know where to find the ruins

of Mejetus. They avoid the ruin and

warn travellers to do the same. To them

it is Grch Fnos, the Haunt of Night, a

place of terror and pain.

WRITER

Alun Rees

MAPSAlun Rees

CONTRIBUTORS

Anders Bersten

Neil Thompson

Andy Gibson

Playtesters at IviniaCon

& the Harnwriter Group

C

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A. Rees, N. Robin Crossby & Columbia Games Inc., 2015 HrnWorld

The Equani and Urdu both use the ford when raiding but the Urdu

approach it along the river bank, avoiding the well-trodden path that

disappears into the trees and leads to the ruins. The rock and rubble strewn

apron below the outcrop is passable but the footing becomes increasingly

uncertain as it steepens.

[2]The gateway to Brnid Mrw: As the path winds up through the

trees and scrub it becomes clear that this is no ordinary trail. The smell,

which permeates the forest for a hundred paces down wind, is what the

visitor notices first. Then they see the captured clothing and weapons left

hanging on branches by departing Shevrachi along with scalps they have

taken. Then, at a point where the path divides, it widens into a ceremonial

space. A heavy stone trough salvaged from the fort is kept full of sand and

dried river muck in which arriving Shevrachi wash, as is their habit, before

proceeding to the ruins themselves.

This is also where the Shevrachi display their imaginative use of death to

terrify their enemies. The corpses hung here, whole or jointed, flayed or

burned, provide a pervasive, sickly smell of death. The sour tones of decay

and the musky scent of the animals that come here to feed add a subtle, but

unpleasant, undertone. Each tree, with its grisly decoration, is home tolarge numbers of carnivorous bats, called cribog, that range across the forest

from dusk each night.

The saddle of the hill to the west was the site of the main legion camp

but the well-worn trail turns east between the rotted remains of the barely

recognisable towers that once framed the forts lost gates.

[3]The Shevrachi camp: Once the wooden walls ringing the top of the

outcrop carried watchful legionaries 15 feet above a deep defensive ditch.

They looked down on the slopes that had been cleared to provide timber

and a campground for Urdu auxiliaries. Now the ditch is clogged with scrub

and trees, while the logs of the fallen palisade can be mistaken for ancient

tree trunks, matted with moss and lichen and home to crawling and buzzing

insects of all kinds. They constitute an obstacle to anyone clambering upthe slopes, a latrine for visiting Shervachi, and home to Harnic adders.

Had the legionary strayed from his duty and looked down into the fort,

over the stables and storerooms abutting the inner face of the walls, he

would have seen the neat rows of barracks that housed the legions elite.

Today they are no more than piles of burned logs and rotted wood among

the scrub and trees that have swallowed the ruins of Mejetus.

Only the space at the centre of the fort, where the Emperors bodyguard

once paraded, remains cleared today. It is fringed by the rough hide huts

that house visiting Shevrachi, with a large fire pit at the centre. A larger hut

at the far end of the camp is reserved for high status warriors willing to fight

for the privilege of sleeping close to Tnid Csgod.

[4]Tnid Csgod, the House of Shadows: A cookhouse, officersquarters, and the legionssadministration once stood here overlooking the

River Suthen. The buildings were burned during the sack leaving only post-

holes and a dry stone wall atop the cliff to indicate anything was ever here.

The Corani found well laid courses of stone near the clifftop and used

them as the foundation of the wooden pavilion they erected for their

Emperor. The building survived the sack almost intact but time has taken a

toll. While the Shevrachi consider it a duty to maintain the structure, they

lack of skill to do it well or the inclination to learn how to do it better.

The Shevrach

The Equani war cult has come to lie at

the heart of their culture and is made up

of warriors who compete to join, and

remain part of, this elite brotherhood.

The Shervrach first appears in Kuboran

and Urdu oral histories in the decades

leading up to the fall of Caer Kustan.

Shevrachmay be a corruption of the

Old Jarinese phrase sedory rach; 'deadly

shades'. Urdu myths describe the Sedory

Rachas ghostly creatures of the night

that fall upon isolated hunters and rip out

their spirits. The corpse that remains is

left to wander the forests for eternity

killing indiscriminately in search of a new

soul. It is never clear from the stories

whether the Shevrachi are the ghostly

soul-hunters, or the soulless killers. Their

reputation for merciless ferocity and theawful acts they perpetrate on their

victims makes either interpretation

plausible. Shevrachi warriors are said to

fear death as a dead man fears death; not

at all. Southern scholars who have

heard these tales see echoes of

Morgathian rites that replace a mans

soul with the Shadow of Bukrai.

The Kubora and the Urdu share an origin

in Nuthela with the Equani and have

many cultural practices in common. All

three peoples tell similar stories of the

journey to Equeth and then Peran, and

the guide that led them. He is calledAkala Strong Heart by the Equani and

Kemlar the Guide by the Kubora and

Urdu, but equally revered by all. The

threatened desecration of his barrow at

Kustan was why some Equani joined

Nebran Bndbreaker in the alliance that

destroyed Caer Kustan. However, the

Kubora and Urdu have nothing akin to

the Shevrach; its cultural origin remains a

mystery.

Every Equani tribe has its own fiercely

independent Shevrach but all are

respectful of Brnid Mrwa place all

hope to visit and raid from. It clearlyholds symbolic and ritual importance to

the war-cult as they maintain a shaman

here all year round.

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THE HOUSE OF SHADOWSThe original logs cut by the Corani still constitute the walls, though

patched and kept watertight with moss, mud and animal skins. The pitched

roof has suffered more; the skins tied in place over the original wooden

shingles struggle to keep out the rain.

[a] Durik, the Shaman: The ornate front face of the pavilion is obscured

by a crude lean-to of Equani construction. It is decorated with the scalps

and heads, often rotted to bone white skulls, of notable victims.

This squalid place is home to Durik, the principal Shevrachi shaman, and

the two nameless youths who serve him while preparing to replace him. He

considers the youths disposable and nearly a dozen have perished over his

long life. They are replaced at his request by boys brought by visiting

warriors. Some have died while hunting, or perhaps they ran away, while

the harsh winters have claimed several. At least when they freeze to death

he is left with meat for his larder. He and the youths are brought food

offerings, and other gifts, by the Shevrachi who visit Brnid Mrw.

[b] The Altar, the Throne, and the Curtain: In return for the gifts theybring visiting Shevrachi expect guidance. This Durik obtains by communing

with his god, Ndmarwthe Undying One, who will emerge from beyond the

curtain at the far end of the audience chamber when respectfully called.

Durik has listened to everything the Undying One has said over the

years, and ensures that every raid yields at least one captive for the altar

stone that dominates the audience chamber. Ritual requires that he keeps

the guttering candles of human fat lit so the stone is always illuminated.

They also ensure that supplicants have a poor view of the Throne and

Curtain in the shadows beyond the Altar.

Only warriors of great renown are invited to enter the presence of the

Undying One. They report that he sits on the shadowed Throne draped in a

bear skin of deepest, glossy, black and wearing a mask; to look on his face iscertain death. The chamber is decorated with twelve skins on which, Durik

says, the god has drawn scenes from his life before he became a god.

Durik tells the Shevrach what he was told by the shaman he replaced,

that the Curtain is the flayed skin of an enemy. It shows the outline of a

man with a black circle in the centre of his chest; a symbol the Shevrach

have adopted as their own. It is represented in their rituals by the earth and

mud in which they bathe. The circle is unbreakable, like the unity of the

Shevrach. It also signifies the dark end that is death; something that no

Shervachi fears. They know that Ndmarwwill judge whether to allow them

to join Akala Strong Heart in the afterlife or stay with him in the shadows.

When a youth the old man was warned by the shaman that taught him

that he would never make the Undying One happy, and so it has proven.

Each time he sacrifices the captives as instructed; each time the captive dies

but the god is displeased. Durik believes the Undying One seeks a

particular spirit and the ones he has tasted so far have displeased him. He

continues to do his best knowing that he is doomed to fail. He understands

that nothing he does will make a difference to his fate. He will be killed by a

would-be successor as he killed his predecessor. It is such fatalism, sitting

at the root of their belief, which makes the Shevrach so dangerous in war.

No Equani has passed beyond the Curtain since the sack of Mejetus.

Durik speculates that it is the gateway to the Shadow Worldwhere the

Undying One rules over the souls he decides to keep.

The Legend of Ndmarw

Told to the Urdu by a dying Shevrachi.

When Wetok was chief among the People of

the Great River, a scourge came out of the

late sun. They were men who wasted metal

on their heads and bodies which the People

used only for spears and axes. Their like

had not been seen since the Men who walked

beneath the Mountains had been slaughtered

by the Filth of the High Places.

These incomers came with the People of the

Late Sun to make war on the People. They

broke the pledge given by Akala Strong

Heart that all the lands up to the Brad River

were for the People. Those of the Late Sun

were ever treacherous and coveted what the

People had, just as they did before the

Passage.

When the chief of the Metal Men was killed

by a brave warrior of the People, they fledwest and were betrayed by those of the Late

Sun. The People took what they needed

from their camp and burned the rest. Only

one place did they leave untouched.

The warriors of the People are the bravest

but, when only one returned from the

Shadows, they let it be. Instead they made

sport of the cowering creature they had

found. He took days to die, his body

crumbling into the fires they built around

him. How could they know who he was?

A Moon later the dead man walked naked

into the camp and they killed him again;and again; and again. They killed him

quickly and slowly; with fire and water; with

stones and blades. Each time he crumbled to

dust only to return again, and again, and

again.

Finally they let him walk through the camp

to the House of Shadows. When they gave

him offerings he took one of the People as his

servant. The Shevrach have learned much

from these servants. They are made mighty

by the prayer to the Undying One, to

Ndmarw:

Ndmarws PrayerI believe in myself; nothing is stronger than

Ndmarw.

I believe in my cunning; none are as cunning

as those who follow Ndmarw.

I am invincible; nothing can overcome death

but Nidmarw.

Ndmarw will make me great and powerful

for eternity; all others are doomed.

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[c] Ndmarws chamber: For several decades after the Equani ceased to

try to kill him the Undying One recorded his memories of the events prior to

the sack of Mejetus on skins presented as offerings. While he had little

talent as an artist endless repetition and improvement have rendered the

story into drawings of a simple but effective style. Drawing continues to

bring him solace but Ndmarwonly leaves this small room when called for a

ritual. An ancient brazier lights the room which is lined by layers of skins;

the god does not suffer much from the cold but the draughts disturb him.

He requires little sustenance, but the routines of eating fill the empty hoursbetween sacrifices, so he keeps the best of Duriks offerings here.

[d] A stairway

A well-constructed spiral stair disappears into the rock below. Ndmarw

has never confided what lies beneath to any shaman but he always ensures

that wedges keep this room secure. Shevrachi myth has made heroes of the

Eqauni who entered the House of Shadows during the sack, never to return.

Perhaps they remain deep in the rock of Brnid Mrw. Perhaps they are

awaiting the call of their god to defend him.

An Expedition

Tales of Nidmarware common among

the Equani and some have reached the

Urdu. From them they have passed, with

increasing distortion, to the Kubora and

thence into Rethem.

Whispers in the taverns of Golotha speak

of an Agrikan expedition to find the ruins

of Mejetus and the lost treasure ofMejenes. The rumours are tantalisingly

vague on the nature of the treasure, but

some say the legions pay chest was

forgotten in the panic of retreat.

There are also tales of the wild cannibals

that protect the treasure and creatures

that suck the life out of travellers. The

more far-fetched rumours say the

creatures can turn into bats or snakes

and live in a magical fortress that has

been raised among the Corani ruins.

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