Cherek has prospered in the years since the defeat of the Angaraks, gaining advantage by assisting the Drasnians in the rebuilding of Boktor and Kotu and in the repair of the causeway across the Aldurfens on the Great North Road.
The present King of Cherek is Anheg IX (called by some Anheg the sly). He has been on the Throne in Val Alorn for nine years. He is a large, dark-haired man with a brutish face. Though he appears to share the Alorn fondness for rowdy drinking and boastful swagger, he is in fact, a highly educated man and a shrewd politician. He is fully aware of the complex politics of the southern nations as well as the more elemental alliances of the Alorn Kingdoms. He spends much time in study, and is generally held by those who know him to be the equal at least of the Tolnedran Emperor, who has had the benefit of instruction by an entire university. The King of Cherek, however, conducts his own studies, and, it is rumored, has even learned old Angarak so that he might read in the original the forbidden BOOK OF TORAK, a work accursed by all civilized nations and religions.
The palace of Anheg is a vast warren of unused chambers and dank corridors—befitting, perhaps, a building that has been three thousand years in construction. His private chambers are given over to study and to obscure experimentation.
Anheg’s closest friend and advisor is his cousin Barak, a giant Alorn warrior with the temper of a Berserker and the subtlety of a Tolnedran ambassador. Barak has, it is reliably reported, been entrusted with a number of highly delicate missions for his cousin. Our informants in Val Alorn, however, report that he is generally believed by Cherek nobility to suffer from some obscure stigmata or ‘Doom’, as our northern friends call it, and is periodically morose and even melancholic. What the nature of this ‘Doom’ might be is a matter which causes tight lips and white knuckles on the sword-hands of our Cherek friends and an absolute refusal to discuss Barak’s affliction—even under the most skillful prodding.45
Cherek
COINAGE
GOLD
1. A 1 ½ oz. gold coin called a ‘shield’ equals about $200
2. A ¾ oz. gold coin called a ‘half shield’ equals about $100 Cherek gold coins are octagonal and the weights are not very exact. They are usually hoarded and are seldom seen in trade.
SILVER
The standard of trade in Cherek
1. A one pound silver bar milled on the edges and stamped with the King’s rune. Called a ‘Silver King’ equals $100.
2. A ½ lb. silver bar called a ‘Silver Queen’ equals $50.
3. A 4 oz. silver coin (very big) called a ‘Silver Prince’ equals $25.
4. A one oz. silver coin called a ‘Silver Princess’ equals $6.50 (Tolnedran silver Noble)
COPPER
1. A copper penny 1 oz. octagonal equals 6.5¢
2. A copper half-penny round equals 3.25¢
Note: Copper is slightly more valuable in Cherek because of its scarcity in that country. (No brass coins in Cherek.)
COSTUME
MEN
Basically Viking—lots of furs. Linen tunics. Leggings. Shoes are very crude. Cherek men are armed almost all of the time. Swords, axes, spears, like a boar-spear, javelins, daggers. Helmet—various shapes decorated usually with the clan totem on top—no horn on helmets. Chain-mail shirts or heavy bull-hide with steel plates sewn on. Beards common.
WOMEN
Linen gowns. Belted. Cross-tied bodice to accentuate the bosom. (Cherek women are busty and quite proud of that fact.) Hair is braided and frequently bound up into elaborate headdresses.
COMMERCE
Extensive bartering. Market-place in most towns and villages. Ship building is a major industry around Val Alorn.
RANK
THE KING
Hereditary. Always wears his crown. (Has a crown built onto his helmet for wars.) State robes are very fine and trimmed with ermine.
THE EARLS
Actually Clan-chiefs. Some 30-40 of them.
LORDS
The hereditary nobility. Associated with land. Can be invested at the King’s whim.
WARRIORS
Not exactly noble, but treated with more respect than commoners.
COMMONERS
Unlanded men—farm workers, dock-hands, etc. largely drawn from the descendants of Thralls (Thralldom was abolished at the end of the 2nd millennium).46 The social structure of Cherek is quite fluid and upward mobility is very common. Any man with a sword or axe can rise to warrior status and can in time be made a Lord by the King. Chereks are quite concerned with proprieties of such things.
MODES OF ADDRESS
The King is called ‘Your Majesty’ on formal occasions but is often called by his first name even by commoners. Nobles are called ‘Lord John’ on formal occasions but again often called just ‘John’.
MANNERS
Much care is taken to avoid offense. Chereks are touchy and quarrelsome. Boasting is permitted but no insult. Chereks sing a great deal but not very well (loud). A lot of feasting and drinking in the winter. Fights are common but the tendency is to use clubs or staves rather than swords to hold down the fatalities. Adultery is not uncommon but is severely punished when caught.
HOLIDAYS
Erastide—Midwinter
Festival of Belar—Spring
King’s Birthday—Varies. Now midsummer
Cherek’s Birthday—Fall
Victory Celebration—For Battle of Vo Mimbre—Midsummer
POPULATION
Probably 2 million total47
RELIGIOUS OBSERVANCES
Priests are muscular and war-like. Bonfires on the Altar. Choral singing. Sermons are biting attacks on personal sinfulness. (Like the Scottish Dominie.) Incantations for luck.
THE CULT OF THE BEAR
A group of warrior monks (like Templars) dedicated to the service of Belar—chapters in Drasnia, Algaria, Riva and Sendaria. These form the core of the armies of those nations—fundamentally an Anti Angarak society—arch conservative.48
Drasnia
GEOGRAPHY
Drasnia is a large northern country lying between the mountains of the east and the Gulf of Cherek. It is, by and large, a plain extending from Aldurfens up through Mrin Marsh and thence to the Drasnian Moors which extend northward to the polar ice. The principal Drasnian preoccupation is with the vast herds of reindeer which provide the mainstay of Drasnian economy.49 Drasnia’s strategic position astride the North Caravan Route has provided a vast wealth from time immemorial. The two major cities, the capital at Boktor, northern terminus of the Great North Road and western terminus of the North Caravan Route out of Gar og Nadrak, and the island seaport of Kotu at the mouth of the Mrin River have been important commercial centers since before the dawn of recorded history.
THE DRASNIANS
With the possible exception of the sphinx-like Rivans, the Drasnians are the most enigmatic of the Alorns. Perhaps because of their isolated frontier situation and the brute savagery of the Drasnian winter with its winds howling down across the Drasnian Moors, they are at once openly friendly but with a certain reserve, seeming to draw a line beyond which a stranger is not invited. They are hard traders, but are scrupulously honest. Their profits are gained from certain advantageous trade laws and toll arrangements. Like all Alorns, they are warlike, and warriors from the northern reaches of Drasnia—as a result of their life-long following of the reindeer herds—are the finest infantry in the world, easily able to keep pace with cavalry units on long marches. Like all infantry units, their weapon of choice is the long spear.
The Drasnians are not as clannish as other Alorns, their culture appearing to have progressed to the stage where district and regional loyalties are at least on a par with blood ties.
THE HISTORY OF DRASNIA
Like the Rivans and Algars, Drasnians were separated from the main body of Alorns at the time of the break-up of the empire of King Cherek Bear-shoulders at the end of the second millennium. For the first thousand years of their history, the Drasnians appear to have been noma
dic herdsmen following the yearly migrations of the reindeer herds. One curious feature of their early history was the existence of a series of fortified camps along the western reaches of the mountain range which marks their border with Gar og Nadrak. The camps seem not to have been continuously occupied, but rather to have been periodically used by any one of a dozen Drasnian tribes. Evidence exists in the form of artifacts and large quantities of skeletal remains that a major battle took place in a narrow valley just before one of these camps. The invading force appears to have been Angarak, judging from the artifacts and the distinctive skull-shape of the majority of the remains, and it does appear that the Drasnians won a decisive victory and stemmed what might have been a prelude to a
major invasion of the west by a highly organized Angarak force. The event can be roughly dated to the 25th century and appears to have been a major effort by the Angaraks to penetrate the west—unlike the continuous probes sent down into Algaria throughout the third millennium. Thus it is that all the kingdoms of the west owe a profound debt of gratitude to those unknown Drasnian warriors for stopping an invasion which, given the unorganized state of the west in the third millennium, must certainly have resulted in all of us growing up under an Angarak dictatorship.50
Once the aggressive push of the Angaraks was quelled by this great but unnamed battle and by a number of similar, though smaller, engagements in Algaria, trade began with the east, and the Drasnians began construction of their capital at Boktor and their seaport at Kotu.
Boktor grew rather naturally at the western end of the North Caravan Route which existed long before it was formalized in the agreement reached in 3219 between the Kings of Drasnia and Gar og Nadrak. Boktor became a major commercial center in the north long before the other Alorn cities had even begun to consider the advantages of trade. Kotu, meanwhile, flourished as the major seaport of the north. By the middle of the fourth millennium, trade agreements had brought Drasnia into the commercial empire of Tolnedra, although the hard-bargaining Drasnians had so twisted the standard agreements that it is difficult to say where the advantage actually lay. Suffice to say that the stipulation that all merchandise transfers at Boktor take place through the agency of a Drasnian intermediary brought tears of chagrin to the eyes of Tolnedran merchants, since it effectively prevented direct trading with eastern merchants at the terminus of the North Caravan Route.
Drasnia prospered throughout the fourth millennium, and by the early years of the fifth stood as a commercial power rivaling Tolnedra.
When the Rivan King was assassinated in 4002, the massed Drasnian infantry made one of the most astounding treks in history, covering the thousand leagues from Boktor to the Vale of Aldur in sixty days51 to join forces with the Algar cavalry for the overland assault on Nyissa. Drasnian infantry was particularly effective against Nyissan soldiery, since Nyissans traditionally took to the trees when assaulted, and the long Drasnian spears were able to quite easily reach them in the lower branches where they normally took refuge. Indeed, in certain areas of the jungles of eastern Nyissa the trees are festooned with human skeletons to this very day.
For all their power and courage, the Drasnians were the first to fall when the savage Angarak hordes of Kal-Torak spilled down out of the mountains of Nadrak and onto the plains in the spring of 4865. Although they resisted valiantly, the Drasnians were largely destroyed. Their cities were pulled down, and those who were not killed were enslaved. Upon command of the King, a few crack units of the southern Drasnian army escaped into northern Algaria and evaded the southward march of the main body of the Angarak hordes southwestward toward Arendia.
These infantry units accompanied the Algarian cavalry across the southern tip of Ulgoland and fell upon the Angarak left flank with particular savagery during the decisive Battle of Vo Mimbre.
The units effected the release of the surviving Drasnian captives from the retreating Nadraks, and these sorry remnants formed the basis for the rebirth of the Drasnian nation. Assisted by Chereks and Algars, the new monarch at Boktor, Rhodar I (the general who had commanded Drasnian forces during the war) rebuilt the city of Boktor, cleared the rubble and sunken vessels from the harbor at Kotu, and rebuilt the great causeway across the northeastern reaches of Aldurfens.
For a century following the Angarak invasion, Drasnian border guards systematically and routinely killed all travelers from the east until continued remonstrances from Tolnedra persuaded them to abandon the practice and to restore normal trade along the North Caravan Route. In some measure the decline of Tolnedra can be directly traced to this drying up of northern commerce.
The present King of Drasnia, Rhodar XVIII, is an immensely fat, jolly man in his mid-sixties who appears to be somewhat simple but is, in fact, a shrewd and clever man who is ever watchful. Drasnian merchants are found throughout the known world, and through their agency the Drasnian intelligence system is probably the finest in the world.
It is said—probably with some measure of truth—that the Tolnedran Emperor cannot change his tunic without word of it being delivered to Boktor within the hour.
Drasnia
COINAGE
GOLD
1. A 2 oz. gold plaque (rectangular) called a ‘Gold Bull’— equals about $250.00
2. A 1 oz. gold coin (square) called a ‘Gold Cow’—equals about $125.00
3. A ½ oz. gold coin (also square) called a ‘Gold Calf’— equals about $62.50
SILVER
1. A 2 oz. silver plaque shaped into an open rectangle called a ‘silver link’ (can be hooked together into chains)
2. 10 links make a ‘chain’—equals about $125.00
3. A 1 oz. square silver coin called a ‘Token’—equals about $6.25
BRASS AND COPPER
Coins in these metals are, of course, the basis of trade among the common people and are struck in each district. Called ‘coppers’ or ‘brass’.
All are exactly 1 oz. Copper has one fifth the value of brass.
Brass has one fifth the value of silver.
Weights of Drasnian coins are extremely precise and the metals are very pure.
In addition, the Drasnians have developed a rudimentary banking system involving sight drafts between members of the same family using complicated codes. i.e. ‘John gave me 100 chains here in Boktor. You give him 100 chains in Yar Marak’ (less 10% of course).
COSTUME52
MEN
Somewhat Russian. Heavy into furs. Linen tunics belted, leggings, soft leather boots with heavy soles—felt boots in winter and huge fur capes—like blankets.
Armor—steel plates sewn to leather. Helmets squared on top and long nose guard.
Merchants wear fur-trimmed gowns—unbelted—and close-fitting caps. Gowns are usually colored to indicate the area of trade. The color-coding is quite elaborate. All Drasnian men carry broad daggers, but they are concealed under their clothes.
WOMEN
Linen in summer, wool in winter. Gowns very full and not excessively ornamented. Drasnian women wear their hair long and straight down the back.
COMMERCE
Highly developed. Lots of local shops in each neighborhood. Major commercial centers along the docks in Boktor and Kotu. Huge amounts of money change hands daily. Keep track on slates and settle at the end of the day. Each major merchant has his own strong room—heavily guarded. (Drasnian black-smiths have devised elaborate locks.)
RANK
THE KING
Hereditary
THE PRINCES
These are Clan-chiefs. All are related—distantly—to the King. 20–30 in the country.
LORDS
Hereditary nobility associated with land. Similar to Cherek.
CHIEFS
These are the owners of the reindeer herds and the clan-leaders of the tribes which tend them. They are very primitive groups, and the chiefs are to varying degrees powerful particularly in the north. Each tribe has its own huge pasture-lands. The authority of the King is far from absolute in the n
orth.53
COMMONERS
All others. All Drasnian men are bearers of arms.
MILITARY
Units organized on the family-tribe basis.
MODES OF ADDRESS
Addressed by Rank, thus ‘King John’, ‘Prince Fred’. Commoners called ‘Worthy John’ or ‘Friend John’.
MANNERS
Drasnians are polite and have a great sense of humor. The transition from calling someone ‘Worthy John’ to calling him ‘Friend John’ is extremely elaborate, and Drasnians are amused when outsiders attempt to go through the stages of the process. Note—Drasnians have developed an elaborate ‘finger language’ consisting of barely perceptible gestures. Can hold entire conversations with each other even while talking to some foreign merchant. Highly useful in trade negotiations and in their espionage work.54
HOLIDAYS
Erastide
Festival of Belar
Dras’s Birthday
Day of Sorrow (when Angaraks invaded) early June (Lent here) Day of Victory (Battle of Vo Mimbre) late June
POPULATION
Population approximately 1 ½ million
Algaria
GEOGRAPHY
With the exception of the Aldurfens to the north and the area south of the low range of hills that mark the upper reaches of the Aldur River, Algaria is a vast, rolling grassland lying between the two arms of the mountain range that forms the spine of the continent. The land is fertile and well-watered by the Aldur and could be profitably farmed, but the Algars prefer instead to remain semi-primitive herdsmen. Virgin gold occasionally appears in transactions with the Algars, but no hint of its source can be found.
The Rivan Codex: Ancient Texts of THE BELGARIAD and THE MALLOREON (The Belgariad / The Malloreon) Page 17
