The Reach of Karthain

Most of the campfires were extinguished, most of their erstwhile warmarounders abed. The night watchmen had the company of a few nightowls, among them an old gambler of the battlefield. Rhestan's voice dropped as he leant forward, the fire illuminating his grizzled features. "But ye' be knowing, what's right curious 'bout the Principalities is why we always be fighting each other." A common enough observation among the bands of freelancers and the men with the dubious luck of belonging to standing forces. "Some reckons that it all be puppetry, they do." The significance of the words narrowed his eyes and pushed his bushy brows up. "Ye know what they say, boys, the Sable Tower be casting a long shadow, she does. Long and wide. I seen lots in my time, and I truly reckons that shadow be moving all that it be touching."

— A War Camp, The Hundred Principalities

Where there is power, there will be stories. Karthain's power has been unquestioned in the world in the centuries since it broke the Rumain Empire and left power vacuums across the land. Karthain did not care to fill those voids. Karthain has, since its founding, largely been concerned with its own matters and the study of magic. When it has interfered in the affairs of other countries, it has been for the Sable Tower's fiscal gain or to retain control of magic across the majority of Ereb and Anatoia.

Truth is often dry, and the Sable Tower keeps its reasoning for its actions close. Its magi are disciplined, aloof, and are concerned with little beyond their individual goals and those of the Tower. Karthain's grip on the users of magic east of Cetoile and south of the Everforest mean that the Karthani are seen as something other than normal. A magic user is, in the eyes of the common person, a Karthani by destiny. The ability to use magic is thus seen as the ability to change the world around them. Few people understand magic, its use, its limits, and the variance of ability to control it among those who can. Magic has caused irreparable damage in parts of the world, lingering like a festering cancer upon the land. To those that must live near these scars, anyone who can use magic has the ability to destroy, and the nation that gathers these dangerous people must have dire plans for the world. Karthain is blamed for much -- droughts, floods, spreading sicknesses, spikes in crime. If a Karthani is involved, it is unquestionably a magi, and a magi's shadow is as long as the Tower they are bound to.

"Be marking my words, ye giant dunderhead," the girl said after she had gathered the empty, greasy pots. A stern bend to her brows suggested the young woman had been in the company of mercenaries for most of her life -- she was not afraid of men of war. "If it be like ye be saying, why's we not have been blasted from this valley? Ye be thinkin' it all them mages, from these fights t'when ye done stub ye big toe getting outta ye bed in the morning. 'Moving all that it be touching' me dirty small clothes," she scoffed, sniffing at the grizzled man. "Only thing that be moving in these parts be ye guts, and they be spilling ye dirties from ye mouth. Ye best not be telling any more of these lies or ye be getting half rations."

— A War Camp, The Hundred Principalities

Truth and Fiction

As it is in many parts of the world, people fear what they do not understand. Tales are spun in order to make sense of the world, and truth and fiction are at times difficult to separate. Karthain has the power to meddle, and its magi have served kings, queens, dukes and generals of foreign lands. The hand of the Tower grasps coin and magic. What magic it leaves outside Karthain's borders is done with caution and consideration. The closer to Karthain a country is, the heaver the weight of Karthain. Alramal Alkhafiya and Karthain have a longstanding agreement over the difference between alkhamy and the use of magic to create a potion is, but every few decades, one party or the other tries to push the line. Karthain cares little for the strife in the Principalities, though the Tower's coffers benefit from its continued existence. Lymia and Ruma have seen artefacts important to their national history taken by the Sable Tower for research and safekeeping. Some magi have dabbled in the politics of nations, advising rulers and using their magic for triple mutual gain for the tower, the atifakh-holder and the magus as an individual.

Magical Meddlers

Those who have seen the blackrobes taking talented children from parents know that Karthain's reach is long indeed. The Tower claims all who can use magic as their own, and their legal right to do this is perhaps the most painful political manouevre Karthain has taken. To many, magic is abberant. It is unnatural, unpredictable, dangerous chaos. To the parents of a child who can make the wind blow, or the water dance, or change the colour of their hair, the ability to use magic is a sliver of their child's being. Nonetheless, centuries of fear of magic, the stories of blasted wastelands and cities destroyed by magic, the nightmarish tales of the Everforest and what lurks within leave most of these parents grimly resolved to surrender their children to the blackrobes when they sweep through the land. Some quietly question how much magic really ought to be feared.

Related

Karthain | Karthani Atifakh