The not-immortal Blacksmith

Maxwell

Necallhill, Ehelm Province, Kingdom of Garthia.

54th of Amsiel.

2290 Years since the New gods came.

We came into port a bit after dawn this morning. The unloading was fast and easy, since everything was in my trunk. The crew is missing a member, but no one knows what happened to him since we never found him on the ship.

The town is some seven thousand in population. The major industry is fishing; I was told that all three island provinces were based on fishing. I like it here. I could probably retire here.

We are getting a few odd looks from the town folk, but no more than the rest of the arrivals. Finding an inn was easy, finding a clean inn was a bit more difficult, but Bri managed just fine.

Tomorrow we will do the sightseeing thing in town and the surroundings, before announcing ourselves at the city hall, which doubles as the capital building.

55th of Amsiel,

We found out (via the local notice board) that the town is hosting a “Heretics” day next week. I will make my presence known at that point. Less chance of needing to make a speech of some sort.

The architecture of the city is that of many similar coastal towns. There are three large piers for deep sea vessels, and fourteen smaller docks for the local fleets of fishing and pleasure boats. There are several shrines to patron saints, and two actual churches, one church is dedicated solely to Aaroness, god of the Sea. The other is dedicated to the other eleven gods of the big twelve. We stopped in to visit Aaroness, and skipped the other one entirely. I don’t have a problem with Aaroness, just most of the others.

Around half of the local boats are single masted with shallow drafts for coastal fishing and trapping. Two thirds of the remainder are deep draft sea going fishing vessels, with the remaining third being day sailing pleasure craft. There are a couple almost military vessels to interdict smuggling, but the island and population are so small that they are hardly worth plundering, even by the most desperate of pirates.

Two interesting points of note on how they handle the dead:

First, the symbol for death here is a White Gull in a nest of seaweed while perching on a bleached skull

Second, there isn’t a graveyard per say; They burn the bodies of the dead on a small seaside cliff; then in the morning, they shovel the ashes over the edge into the crashing waves below. I like it.

When I asked the reasoning behind it, I was told by the Head of Burial Rights (an elected position!) that airable land on the island made this the best choice for the people, to keep them from coming back as the undead.

Brianna,

Instead of going sightseeing with my husband, I decided to find out why he had been gifted a third island. I have the documents; this one ISN’T on the list. To this end, I made haste to the capital building and looked into the records department.

The older woman behind the desk, a Mrs. Johnsdaugh, was very bored and was immediately willing to answer my questions on the subject! We had tea while her young assistant, Jeb, fetched the relevant records.

As a side note, they keep the records on thin sheets of almost see-through waxed paper of some sort. Apparently, the area is prone to flooding from the winter storms that hit the area; and due to that and only being about seven feet above high tide, nontreated paper gets ruined.

Over the course of a quite enjoyable three-hour visit, I discovered that forty-three years ago, the original province of Ehelm was in a territorial dispute with not one, not two, but all three of its mainland neighbors. It went, as expected by anyone with common sense, very poorly. With the demise of the entire ruling family of the province, the Crown was forced to take charge of the island province. When My Maxie reared his head again, they made the decision to offload the island on him. Sadly, the paperwork was forgotten in the rush to the engagement party turned wedding.

Now that we are here, I will have to remind him to sign the paperwork. It is nice to see that his influence in the world is expanding. I wonder if he will combine all three provinces into one province, or leave them all separate and jut hold them under one banner?

Speaking of banners, I need to have one designed for him, as I know he will never do it himself; or even think of doing it for that matter.

Maxwell

56th of Amsiel,

Thanks to my wife; I don’t think I will ever get used to saying that; I now know why I have three provinces. She does excellent work! She also has a point about needing a banner of my own. She did ask for my input… I think a four-square style in a diamond pattern, with my personal seal on the top, with each islands’ banner filling the other diamonds would work.

Brianna seems to think that that may cause diplomatic issues based on where the other banners are placed in regards to mine. Bah! Politics. I will let her have her head on deciding such things in the future. At least she liked the idea of including all of the seals with mine prominently placed. I don’t actually care that much… Okay, I actually do, I’m just being a bit bitter about not knowing how to balance things “politically”. I’m glad she is so good at it. It is part of what makes us a well couple.

Brianna

Maxie had a wonderful idea on the banner. I like having his personal seal on it, as well as the other provinces. It will make a good show of both unity and independence that seem to be his hallmark; he just needs to work a bit more on how to balance the politics between the provinces, as no-one wants to be seen as lesser by being placed at the bottom or on the left, as the right side is the right hand of the ruler, and the bottom and left are underused support places. I will be talking to my old political tutor about it on the morrow.

Maxwell

Necallhill, Ehelm Province, Kingdom of Garthia.

1st of Kusha, the month of Harvest.

2290 years since the new gods came.

Three days until the Heretic Festival. I found out today that the festival originally was to celebrate the islands severance from the old regime on the mainland fourty-three years ago, and the name was changed from “Independence Festival” to “The Heretics Festival” to celebrate their recent freedom from the crown. Quite the poke in the eye, if the crown was watching! I approve. The festival is also being celebrated on the other two islands of my…domain?

Apparently the three islands have been friendly to each other for centuries. That will make the politics easier, I hope…