Carnivale

On my travels I have seen fantastic natural wonders from atop gliding machines, slums of deplorable squalor where children sleep in literal filth, castles of every kind of conceivable amenity, and even, once, have traveled to a world apart from ours, where the sky burns of fire and the pink-skinned peoples worship a snake comprised of water. Suffice it to say, and despite my considerable experience, I have never been in a place so devoid of anything worth remembering than my brief stay in Carnivale.
The Carnivalians On my travels I have seen fantastic natural wonders from atop gliding machines, slums of deplorable squalor where children sleep in literal filth, castles of every kind of conceivable amenity, and even, once, have traveled to a world apart from ours, where the sky burns of fire and the pink-skinned peoples worship a snake comprised of water. Suffice it to say, and despite my considerable experience, I have never been in a place so devoid of anything worth remembering than my brief stay in Carnivale.

The Carnivalians are a god-fearing people, and the god-fearing are the most boring type of person I have found. Their type exists everywhere, but often fit like a square bolt in a decidedly round hole. At best their neighbours think them off putting, and at worst, are found guilty of atrocities performed in the name of their profane god's whims. So I feared when first I saw the rows of identical wooden houses, with similar white paint, and red doors, that I had entered such a place… a place where the devout dwell.

I am sad to say that I sought out this experience. As an explorer, it was my own desire to see all the things that the world had to offer. Often this meant spurious travel and hardships which build character. However, one can also explore the hidden world of closed communities. And, in my desire to do this, I chose to infiltrate, by invitation and intensive relationship building, the cloistered existence in the Ilmater community of Carnivale. Chagrin and mea culpa. Discomfiture and dismay, for somethings are hidden from the world for good reason. My mother once said that some things, once seen, burn a brand upon the mind, and scar permanently. Wisdom we’re in those words.

Their religion revolted me. Pestilence, infection, wounds unhealed, and the crippled were surrounded and kissed by the children. They wriggled and writhed upon the afflicted like maggots would a wound, all the while their parents clapped and whistled their pleasure at the profane sight. I nearly lost my lunch to see it.

A man, without shirt, boasted of his rash while his peers squeezed the carbuncles, bursting forth the frothing yellow puss onto their fingers, which they then sucked upon as a child might a syrup sticky hand. I could say more, for I'd glimpsed truly even greater disturbing visages and events during my short stay there, but I will not do so here, except to say that there was a baby. A pristine and supple baby, with the creamy skin and perfect cherub cheeks that only an infant can produce. But, as I overheard the mothers clucking, as mothers of any ilk do, discussing the future greatness their baby will achieve, they spoke of the suffering he might endure and the character the experience would make of him, I could stand it no longer.

I am not a thief, though perhaps a coward. But as I fled that horrid place, and will admit to now, that I very nearly set Carnivale ablaze before departing. I would have killed as many of them as possible for the stain their small place on this world left upon my memory. The tightness of the homes would surely have decimated the community. I had supposed it would have forced them to scatter, to disperse and diffuse their practices. In spreading out these people, they might have been unwilling or unable to continue in so fanatic a devotion while being forced to conform to the different communities they would have found themselves in. I hold that it would have been brave of me to burn them all and scour them free of this world, for that opinion I will not apologise.

But would they have danced in the flame? Allowed their skin to burn and blister and burst, relishing in agony, as was their want? Would the burned survivors have left in defeat? Or would they have rebuilt, suffering, and starving the whole while, as they erected new homes, their vile faith made stronger by the adversity? And there was the children to consider. I could never want to harm or burn a child. Like that baby I saw, so perfect and in need of saving. No. I am not a thief, for somethings you take not for the wanting but for the saving, and that does not make you a criminal in my view. And so it was with Henri clutched to my chest and crying that we rode as fast and as hard as we possible could from Carnivale, that I stole him from a mother who likely ached for her loss. Maybe she enjoyed the pain. If only I was braver, I could have saved all of the children there, instead of running away as a coward, with only the one small baby, but even for all the children in all the world, I would never go back to the place they call Carnivale.

—- Madam Gentry, explorer and practical mother. are a god-fearing people, and the god-fearing are the most boring type of person I have found. Their type exists everywhere, but often fit like a square bolt in a decidedly round hole. At best their neighbours think them off putting, and at worst, are found guilty of atrocities performed in the name of their profane god's whims. So I feared when first I saw the rows of identical wooden houses, with similar white paint, and red doors, that I had entered such a place… a place where the devout dwell.

I am sad to say that I sought out this experience. As an explorer, it was my own desire to see all the things that the world had to offer. Often this meant spurious travel and hardships which build character. However, one can also explore the hidden world of closed communities. And, in my desire to do this, I chose to infiltrate, by invitation and intensive relationship building, the cloistered existence in the Ilmater community of Carnivale. Chagrin and mea culpa. Discomfiture and dismay, for somethings are hidden from the world for good reason. My mother once said that some things, once seen, burn a brand upon the mind, and scar permanently. Wisdom we’re in those words.

Their religion revolted me. Pestilence, infection, wounds unhealed, and the crippled were surrounded and kissed by the children. They wriggled and writhed upon the afflicted like maggots would a wound, all the while their parents clapped and whistled their pleasure at the profane sight. I nearly lost my lunch to see it.

A man, without shirt, boasted of his rash while his peers squeezed the carbuncles, bursting forth the frothing yellow puss onto their fingers, which they then sucked upon as a child might a syrup sticky hand. I could say more, for I'd glimpsed truly even greater disturbing visages and events during my short stay there, but I will not do so here, except to say that there was a baby. A pristine and supple baby, with the creamy skin and perfect cherub cheeks that only an infant can produce. But, as I overheard the mothers clucking, as mothers of any ilk do, discussing the future greatness their baby will achieve, they spoke of the suffering he might endure and the character the experience would make of him, I could stand it no longer.

I am not a thief, though perhaps a coward. But as I fled that horrid place, and will admit to now, that I very nearly set Carnivale ablaze before departing. I would have killed as many of them as possible for the stain their small place on this world left upon my memory. The tightness of the homes would surely have decimated the community. I had supposed it would have forced them to scatter, to disperse and diffuse their practices. In spreading out these people, they might have been unwilling or unable to continue in so fanatic a devotion while being forced to conform to the different communities they would have found themselves in. I hold that it would have been brave of me to burn them all and scour them free of this world, for that opinion I will not apologise.

But would they have danced in the flame? Allowed their skin to burn and blister and burst, relishing in agony, as was their want? Would the burned survivors have left in defeat? Or would they have rebuilt, suffering, and starving the whole while, as they erected new homes, their vile faith made stronger by the adversity? And there was the children to consider. I could never want to harm or burn a child. Like that baby I saw, so perfect and in need of saving. No. I am not a thief, for somethings you take not for the wanting but for the saving, and that does not make you a criminal in my view. And so it was with Henri clutched to my chest and crying that we rode as fast and as hard as we possible could from Carnivale, that I stole him from a mother who likely ached for her loss. Maybe she enjoyed the pain. If only I was braver, I could have saved all of the children there, instead of running away as a coward, with only the one small baby, but even for all the children in all the world, I would never go back to the place they call Carnivale.

—- Madam Gentry, explorer and practical mother.

Demographics

Mostly human.

Government

Communal efforts and self-sufficiency.

Type

Town

Population

~100

Inhabitant Demonym

Carnivalians

Location under

Zarth Desert

Owning Organization

Dominus Empire