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Soma

Bohemia by day, debauchery by night. The keeper of Cadwallon's artistic traditions — and a family with secrets.

Vibe: The fief shines less by its surface than by its location. Sailors from the Port of Ondine meet rich merchants meet pickpockets along the choked downtown streets. By night, artists spend hard-earned ducats on drinks and gambling, the Thieves of Morgue Street roam, and upper-city patrons descend looking for forbidden pleasure. Voyagers and poets call Soma the keeper of the city's bohemian traditions.

Canon Facts

  • Peer: Vanho Soma — a "disturbingly handsome" warrior-mage, pride burning under his composure. Inherited the fief after both elder twin brothers were killed:
  • Anon — head of the family before him, killed by the Guild of Usurers' assassins.
  • Aghovar — Guild Master of the Thieves, killed soon after by Sophet Drahas, who stole the Talisman of Shadows from the Thieves' guild.
  • A bloody vendetta with the Guild of Usurers is ongoing.
  • Founder: Soma, a runaway slave of Acheron who guided the Dogs of War through Sophet Drahas's magical snares at the Battle of the Wall of Earth. Granted the fief by Vanius as reward.
  • Soma family is now multi-generational and well-connected — represented at every level of Cadwë society. Keepers of "esoteric traditions"; their magicians take care not to show their full power.
  • Isabeau "the Secret" Soma — daughter of the late Anon. Joined the guild of Blades and works closely with [[Brehnan of Alahan|Brehnan]], the Alahan ambassador. Owns (but rarely visits) the Last Dance cabaret.
  • Sayuri Soma — half-elf, "matured beauty," runs the Cameon Mansion in Heaven Heights — the only true school of magic in Cadwallon.
  • The plague of 955–957 created Morgue Street, walled off and never fully reopened. The Guild of Thieves now headquarters there.

Districts

  • Morgue Street — quarantined slum, Guild of Thieves HQ, Beggars Market, the rumored Clinic with its lost Syhar scientists
  • Heaven Heights — bohemian hill, Soma family mansion "Haven," the Alahan embassy (Whitehaven), Cameon Mansion (magic school), the Solitary Lodge (Akkylannian Templars), the Last Dance cabaret
  • Port of the Ondine — small, posh, secondary residences; an inscrutable Ferrymen presence; nighttime "menageries" run by Raun Vomroh that preach a doctrine "dangerously close to Vile-Tis"

Power & Politics

  • The Somas value blood links above gold. Family discipline is iron, esoteric tradition is preserved generation to generation.
  • The vendetta with the Usurers is the running fault line — nobody knows how long it lasts or where it ends.
  • The Embassy of Alahan has been at Whitehaven for 30+ years under Brehnan, who shows no signs of moving. The Solitary Lodge of Templars is meanwhile under scrutiny from the embassy of Akkylannie — Inquisition investigators are hunting a mysterious masked woman and offering large rewards.

The Talisman of Shadows

Sophet Drahas stole it from Aghovar Soma. Where is it now? What does it do? Vanho would pay an emperor's ransom — or murder for it himself.

The underground parcels

For months, people have been spotted at night carrying cumbersome parcels up from the underground. No free leaguer or shrew has met them face to face — yet the volume suggests they've been at this for some time.

The masked woman

Who is she, why does the Inquisition want her, and why is she hiding in the Templar lodge? Whoever finds her first walks away with Akkylannian gold or Templar gratitude — picking which buyer to sell to is the trick.