census

GM Response to story action of Alrec
Rolls: 201

Story Result: The main thing that they discover is that the Compact vastly, vastly underestimates the Abandoned in general, and the Saffron Chain in particular.

Performing a Lyceum wide census would be significantly easier than gaining an accurate count of the Abandoned in the Saffron Chain by several orders of magnitude. Most of the Lyceum think of the Saffron Chain as a distant non-kingdom that has probably a few thousand inhabitants over a dozen or so tribes. It quickly becomes very obvious that is not anywhere close to the truth. The most conservative estimate for population would be several hundred different tribes, clans and Abandoned houses, with a population of at minimum two hundred thousand. It is more likely that the true population is somewhere on the order of five to ten times that amount, with several thousand distinct different groups. From just talking to the several dozen relatively friendly different tribes that hug the coasts and interact frequently with smugglers from the Compact, it is likely that the population in the Saffron Chains rivals that of the Lyceum, and there are some 'tribes' that have significant castles and well developed holdings and could field armies that could match Setarco.

This is all difficult to say, because in the hundreds of islands of the Saffron Chain, a majority have deep jungles, volcanic created mountainous terrain, extensive cave systems, and rough, hard to map terrain with some having few natural harbors that make them extremely difficult to access. To actually map out all of it, it would probably take tens of thousands of people decades to do so, and that assumes no violence or hostile action on the part of the Abandoned. It is extremely fortunate that an overwhelming number of the Abandoned barely think of the Compact, and are very intent on fighting their own wars against one another.

However, that's not to say at all that their attempt is a waste of time. Far from it.

The Tortorici clan, which definitely has blood ties to Pravus from around 300 years ago when one branch of the family was exiled and are still relatively friendly, are greatly taken by Tris' mastery of Isles Abandoned. The 'High Priest of Mangata' among them has 'sacred rites' that they have been using to protect their soldiers from the Sons of the Centipede, which are a particularly large clan that merged from several other tribes, and worships 'the Great Horned God' of the mainland. That secret they are willing to impart for say, a land grant in the Lyceum that would ennoble them (this is likely politically impossible, particularly since their line was excommunicated), or a strong political marriage and pact (the chieftain is quite taken by Tris), or around a million silver in gifts. Another friendly tribe, the Firazio tribe, claim to be the original owners of the lands around Bravura, and would be happy to aid if they were re-granted those lands, which Duarte might not be wild about. Celeste and Tris between the two of them are able to find several hundred Abandoned willing to bend the knee with no stipulations to get away from the Saffron Chain, mostly smaller families that don't get along with their larger clans.

Now, of the several groups they talk to, none like the Sons of the Centipede, but also all are fairly vague about where they might come from. They think they are likely coming from one of ten different islands, but the Abandoned groups on those islands are all exceedingly hostile to outsiders, and well into the thousands, so they certainly don't want to check and wind up fighting entire groups just to strike back at lunatics. The Sons have significant naval forces, and their raids have had dozens of longships and galleys, so they must have some port somewhere, but no one seems to know exactly where, just that the seaborne raids have been exhausting to defend against.

They do get 'lucky' in that they are able to come across one Sons of the Centipede raid during their meetings with Abandoned, but it was a fairly small one- several dozen raiders as a scouting party from a single longship. They all fought to the death, and were fairly easily repulsed due to the low numbers, but they DID seem like they were Legion influenced. None seemed sane, had any interest in self-preservation, and they moved and fought as if they had a single mind. It was quite unsettling.



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