The Big and Little Horse Islands

The mild climate and native pastures have made these islands particularly hospitable to horses. The rainy season begins late in the summer, with increasing intensity until its culmination at the end of fall. Hurricanes are poetically compared to stampedes.

Four horse-loving cultures prevail here, some of which experienced great turns of fortune when the last stampedes ran off the ocean.

On Little Horse Island, the once contemplative Blue priests have grasped clumsily for the reins of power since the collapse of the grand port to the south. Despotic theocrats form shifting allegiances with pirate lords as their people eat raw grain to survive in the shadow of the shrinking capital. Priest and pirate alike harbor resentment against their Gold neighbors to the east, who they accuse of pillaging the ruined port of treasured relics.

Gold would not deny that Blue decline as created opportunities for their people. Equestrian aristocrats balance their power with sea captains and civic councils. Seasoned fish merchants, modest shipping guilds, and the newly formed navy all contribute to progress and prosperity. People high and low in Gold society pay respect to the storm saints by placing artfully arranged amphibians, desiccated and preserved, as offerings on their home altars. Salamanders are preferred, with yellow coloration highly prized.

While the Silver capital on Big Horse Island did not suffer from the last stampede, both its port cities were lost to flood and mud. River bandits from the northern delta, encouraged by seditious factions within the city, lay siege now and again to extort the ruling merchant grandees. Missions have been sent forth to help buoy the economy and spirit of the people—one to establish a new port and fisheries between the northern and southern deltas, and another in the western mountains to prospect for resources and domesticate wild game.

To the north Red prospers, with its large capital, robust trade, and in the fertile plains beyond the dry hills, a university. With both a better organized cavalry and a competitive mercantile class not averse to paying bandit tolls for access to the sea, the Red capital has kept Silver troubles downriver of itself. Red markets have capitalized on trying times abroad, selling their abundant grain to import luxuries such as pearl-studded finery, breeding horses, and art objects of dubious provenance.