Cocytus — The Sunset Road and the Forgotten Road
The Sunset Road edges Cocytus winding west coast.In the North, it’s unremarkable, but the more you go down south, the more picturesque it becomes: following the twisting path you can see the lands become more and more untamed, neglected by the local lords, all probably living the good life in Zagan.
The Marquis of Finisterre is the last noble gravitating toward the capital but still very active in their territory, becoming the promoter and caretaker of the west coast. Finisterre’s ruling family, the Zontis, worked hard to build up the fascination for the west with generous patronage of the arts and sciences. Archeological excavation, public display of artifacts, opera commission, sponsorships of painters, all things meant to spark curiosity in that remote region, making people come to them instead of moving to Zagan as any other noble house.
Marquis Zontis is focusing on creating excitement about transatlantic voyages and the fabled land beyond the Undine Ocean. The wealthy explorers wanting to make history with the discovery of a new continent spend fortunes to finance their expeditions: a nice way for the Zontis to get some extra income and attention. The Marquis, his first-born son actually, commissioned a big opera, opened their personal collection of oddities found on the shores, and published various books and pamphlets on the topic.
These works, the books especially, have been critiqued as stunts or frauds: for example, one of the books is the diary of the second son of the Marquis, who, apparently, has met one of the inhabitants of the land beyond the ocean, a girl with three eyes and spontaneous telepathy. Clearly, the Zontis are embellishing the facts a little too much!
Now, the Marquis of Finisterre is capitalizing on the fascination for possibilities and the unknown, but, in the past, they have bankrolled other social and cultural trends: for example, during the century of plagues, they put attention on the salubrious winds of the ocean and promoted monastic sanatoria as well as healers bards.
One of the first groups sponsored by the Marquises is the wandering swordspoets.
We have to go back to the third century, almost 800 years ago, when another family ruled the northwest, the Samaat, and the world was a very different place. The Cosmic War and the Collapse were an apocalypse, with cities destroyed, the geography twisted, and a lot of previously unseen things appearing out of nowhere. Even with the roads built by Saint Mammon and the map drawn by Saint Levistus, the unexplored and undiscovered places were many. Some people took the task to see and describe them, compiling travelogues and commenting maps.
As the world became more familiar, some of these explorers became focused on more minute details, and their prose, from dry and factual, became more poetic. Similarly, the crude weapons needed to survive through long stretches of the wilderness become light and sophisticated, useful and elegant at the same time. By the third century, these traveling writers were going extinct, but house Samaat welcomed them. Cocytus was one of the wildest places of the Empire, with still discoveries to be made. It also had an awful reputation as a dangerous place and a veneer of poetry could help its fame. Among these authors, there were some true geniuses, like Saffronia the Azure and Levi the Lonley, that inspired, and keep inspiring, writers from everywhere.
Generations and generations of poets traveled along Sunset Road and all its small deviations and detours. Their writings evolved in a more and more lyrical and abstract style and, every new wave of poets took idiosyncrasies and quirks from the previous one, in an evolutive process fueled by admiration and emulation. At this point, the landscapes and the traveling were not the main reason to become a wandering poet, the appeal and mystique of the poets themselves were, the desire to enter traditions.
Now the Swords-poets are a subculture, a society, a school, a sort of cult of poetry. They are full of traditions and customs: they all wear blue capes with a hood, wield specifically crafted rapiers, speak using quotes from famous authors, and swear to never change anything in the landscape, leaving beauty intact to be sung about again.
The swordsmen poems are brief, with vivid imagery and cryptic meaning, trying to evoke thin and ephemeral emotions: exactly the opposite of all the current trends that want poems big and narrative, focused on big and dramatic themes and plots (all stuff that would work well if translated in an opera).
Printing Press is still lagging behind in the southwest Cocytus and the poets earn their living performing their poems in public or selling papers to hang on the wall with the verses written in exquisite calligraphy.
Usually, a swordspoet will publish only a book, with the best of the best of their composition near the end of their life.
The swordspoets’ books are hardly best sellers but have a good circulation in Cocytus, still bound to that old fashion type of literature.
At the end of the Sunset Road, there is Malphus and its viscounty.
Malphus is an overgrown fishing town, a big farming market, and a fleeting stop for ships direct to more interesting destinations. Life in Malphus is extremely monotonous and unexciting, with every innovation and trend arriving here when it’s already boring for the rest of the continent. The Malphusians constantly lament their cut-off and forgotten situation, reveling in it, and doing nothing to change it. The ruling house of Talifas only shows up for the annual summer festival, where they host a feast for some randomly chosen commoner, and then they make themselves scarce for the rest of the year. Every time a new viscount takes charge, they promise to stay more and do changes but they all eventually get entangled in Zagan’s life, with its businesses, schemes, art, and pleasures.
From Malphas, the Forgotten Road starts, going east to Dis and ultimately the city of Dite.
Traveling along it, the farms become farther and farther apart. On the south side, the coast is an unwelcoming mix of ample beaches, often flooded when tides and the southern wind are in synch, and random sea stacks, protruding sharply from the waves.
On the north side, there is an unkept lavender moorland, fading as it climbs the foothills.
The land is mean and closefisted, but the harvesting of lavender is a decent business now that Zagan’s perfume industry is growing. The sea is equally ungenerous, removed from bountiful currents, but offers mollusks and crabs when the tides are low.
The forgotten road end in Botis, a city renowned for the closeness and grumpiness of its people: “a place where smiles are unwelcomed strangers”, a poet said.
But what may interest travelers are the smaller roads departing from the main one. Some of these secondary roads still have chunks of the original paving, the one created by Saint Mammon. These worn-out slabs have the color and consistency of bones, just a little harder and greyer. This is, supposedly, the same material the Onyx Moon is made: the two most famous miracles of Mammon were the creation of the moons and of the Empire’s main roads.
It’s weird to think that these roads were once considered important in any way. Now, besides the small villages, there is only lavender and ruins. The ruins are some of the ancient remnants one can find in the Axam continent, pieces of the world before the Cosmic War dating back more than a thousand here ago. Everything of value or interest has been stripped away from these sites, centuries and centuries of raiders, scavengers, and archeologists as left only what couldn’t be taken away. And some things are impossible to take away, they are literally unmovable. Among the various spatial oddities generated by the collapse, some buildings and monuments of this region become fixed to a point in space. There are crashed brick walls, broken steles, or smashed statues that appear frozen in place in the moment of their destruction, with their shattered pieces still in their place. But they are not stuck in time, they have aged, and mosses and lichens have grown over them.
Up in the Aghation Mountains, there are, or at least there should be, ancient places not stripped away by scholars or opportunists. Not many dare to check that out, since those mountains have a well-deserved reputation as dangerous places.
There are many cases of giantism, with some common animals developing oversized subspecies. Giant raccoons, stags, and pheasants may cross a traveler’s path, showing no fear and even hostility. The most egregious example of this gigantism is the Oceanic Roc, a gargantuan albatross with a wing span that could cover a town.
But what makes the climbing of the Agathion Peaks and the search for untouched sites an infamously perilous endeavor are the Demons.
Demons are descendants of the devils that didn’t accept the accord and the Emperor. After a failed rebellion at the beginning of the Empire, they were systematically hunted down and executed, with only a few hidden communities remaining.
Constant inbreeding, deranged rites, and heavy use of mutagenic and hallucinogenic potions have made the demons mad and deformed. They are convinced to be the true heirs of the true archdevils and their insalubrious habits are an attempt to become like those progenitors with wings, tails, incredible powers, and eternal lives. The results are grotesque growths, gruesome scars, and errant minds.
Demons are considered savages: they live off hunting and gathering and seemingly lack any craft or technology. They are not kind to interlopers: they will kill them, so they won’t tell their positions, or they will abduct them, using the victims in their rituals.
In most of the Empire, the Demons are now considered fables or legends, boogeymen to scare children, but South Cocytus is one of the places where their presence is felt. Not too long ago, a Demon warlord rounded up some clans and raided villages, reaching the Forgotten Road.
