Śarīra

IORANE, THE CITY IN THE SEA A century ago or more, a mighty gale blew a ship 1,000 leagues southwest of the Wavecrest Archipelago. Five months later, half the crew returned in a crude boat of whalebone and seaweed. As they raved from sunstroke and thirst, their 36 rescuers heard of a city rising directly from the sea, of the mad god who ruled it and of the Fair Folk who besieged it. The place was called Iorane, the City of Pinnacles, believed lost to the Wyld in the Great Contagion. No one paid much attention. Sailors who stray into Wyld-zones encounter many strange things. Yet, Iorane is no dream-city. Its shining spires once surmounted an island as large as any in the West. When the Scarlet Empress sent her ships to fi nd what survived in the West, they never found the island, and it was forgotten. The island sank under waves of chaos, but some peaks remained above the water—and the spires of mountain-built Iorane. The other peaks are now islands of madness where the Fair Folk dwell, but Iorane survives through the power of its god. Shaloy of the Shining Rod was once a minor god of surveyors and property lines. Now, he draws his line around Iorane to keep out the Wyld. Exactly 4,237 mortals live under Shaloy’s protection in Iorane. The press of his responsibil- ity makes Shaloy strict, and he judges that the sea-washed spires can sustain no more lives. No births are allowed until someone else dies… all too common an event, as fi shermen are lost at sea or captured by the Fair Folk. Since Shaloy can keep only the Wyld itself at bay, the people must defend themselves from Fair Folk incursions. Sha- loy taught them the fi ghting art of the Golden Janissary Style (see pp. 48-50), however, so the Fair Folk now fear to attack Iorane except under cover of night or storm. The warriors of Iorane receive divine power from Shaloy either through his direct gift or as his God-Blooded descendants. Shaloy himself knows a more potent fi ghting style, the Celestial Art of Relent- less Persuasion (see The Books of Sorcery, Vol. IV— The Roll of Glorious Divinity I: Gods & Elementals). Explorers face peril in Iorane. Shaloy loathes the Dragon- Blooded (who ruled Iorane in the Shogunate Era and made him bow before them). He would not like Solar or other Exalted visitors much better. Shaloy will not surrender Iorane to any Prince of the Earth without a fi ght, and centuries of battling Fair Folk deceptions leave him paranoid by any standard. Anyone who can overcome Shaloy or somehow gain his trust wins a great prize, though. The god of Iorane remembers his sunken island in obsessive detail. He remembers every palace, fane and manufactory razed by the Dragon-Blooded usurpers… and which secret subcellars they never found. Admittedly, everything is under 100 feet or more of water… but that is no great problem to the Exalted, is it?