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A Traveler's Guide to the Turamzzyrian Empire
Riverwood
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Riverwood is a plush, wooded region crossed by many free-flowing
rivers. The woods provide plentiful game and other natural resources.
Though the winters can become harsh, they are generally short and
mild.
Helt
The city of Helt is a proud, rich city in the heart of the wooded
territory of Riverwood. Helt enjoys access to two major rivers,
providing excellent trade routes and access to surrounding territories.
Helt is a walled city, with tall, pitch-cured timbers serving as
a daunting deterrent against would-be invaders. The troops in Helt
are skilled with the bow, and are great huntsmen.
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Exports
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Imports
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Wood
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Ships
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Hides
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Grain
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Fish
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Iron
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Exotic Meats
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Wine
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Gems
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Gold
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Silver
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Custom in Helt holds that, before a newly fletched arrow meant
for hunting can strike true, it must be blessed three times: once
by a relative of the fletcher, once by a cleric of Imaera, and once
by a person who will partake of the bounty of the arrow's first
hunt. Similar custom holds that an arrow meant for war must be blessed
once by a war leader, once by a cleric of Kai, and once by a person
who will be protected through the arrow's use. Even the most arrogant
hunter can be brought humbly low by asking his aged mother to please
bless his newly fletched arrows, for the use of an unblessed arrow
will bring terrible misfortune upon the one who shoots it.
As well as the Arkati, citizens of Riverwood often practice rites
to honor Jes'Tamaline, a local spirit of the many rivers of Riverwood.
If Jes'Tamaline is dishonored, it is said that the trees will bear
no fruit, that deer will hear a hunter's footsteps from seven miles
away, and that all the fish rivers will dry to dust with all their
fish transformed to stone. Jes'Tamaline is honored on the last day
of Ivastaen by singing songs in her honor, dancing through the woods,
and garlanding people and trees with flowers. It is also custom
for maidens in their first year of womanhood to spend Jes'Tamaline's
night sleeping in the wood, so that the spirit will guide them and
advise them. According to Riverwood legend, in hundreds of years
of this ritual, no women have ever been injured in wild beast attacks
or accidents in the darkness during Jes'Tamaline's night.
Legend claims that, centuries before Helt was founded, there was
a terrible plague in the land later known as Riverwood, and all
the streams were fouled. While other mortals wept for their own
lives, there was one, a hermit, who wept for the death of the forest
itself. Imaera had intended to let the plague run its course, as
natural events must, but the hermit's grief attracted and touched
her. When the hermit died, Lorminstra gifted the hermit's soul to
Imaera, and the hermit arose out of death by Imaera's will as a
nature spirit, so that she might protect the wilderness she had
loved forever. Thus Jes'Tamaline came to be.
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