DIS — Princess Momia V and Dis’ Aristocracy
The princess electress of Dis, Momia V of House Mammon, ascended to the throne after her brother, Dispeter, died visiting a newly discovered emerald ore. Accidents happen and, in Dis, they happen frequently and with an ironic timing: Dispeter was there to find a gem for his future wife, whom he would have married the week after. Who could have predicted a catastrophic collapse of the mine? After all, the personal attendants of Momia were just there the day before to check the structure’s reliability! The sad and unexpected departure of Dispeter left his sister no choice but to take the crown.
Foreigners are baffled by how many “accidents” happen in the city of Dite and in courts all around Dis. They soon learn to keep their doubts to themselves: people from outside seem particularly prone to get lost in caves, to fall down staircases, or to eat tainted foods.
Politics in Dis are made of conspiracies and counterplots masked as chitchat and pleasantries, a complex game of alliances and betrayal covered in a veneer of etiquette and sophistication. Who is invited where as well as what dishes are served, what music is played, and the order of seating are all complex and stratified language to signal alliances and declare hostility. In this world, manners are a martial art: being served the wine in the wrong glass is like being slapped in the face, and refuting a kiss on the hand is like a stab in the back.
The thirteen noble families residing in the inner walls of Dite fight each other with ball invites, dance cards, and menus. Sometimes, someone will choke on some beef or hit the head on the fireplace, or fall onto a sword. What an unlucky accident!
It’s not a surprise that some of the ladies and noblemen married into the Dis nobility go insane, crushed by anxiety and paranoia. If someone asks you “Did you like the kraken soup?” they may be interested in your taste in seafood, or they may be subjecting you to a litmus test to know if you are willing to betray your brother-in-law. There is no unambiguous way to know.
The stakes of this political ballet are the gold and silver of Dis’ depth but even more, the bank system that these riches fueled.
The Archdevils, before dying, left many wise teaching to the humans, many of which became the source of law. But the archdevils didn’t cover some topics, too distant or too frivolous to them, like for example, lending money and interest rates.
The absence of a strong jurisprudential foundation for financial practices meant that there are endless loopholes to be exploited. Infernal citizen love contracts but they also like to bend the letter of the law if it suits them or take up the cudgels for the spirit of the law out of convenience. For this reason, recovering a debt could be exhausting, since one can always find some quibble to latch on to and, if force is needed, there is always some cavil that justifies retaliation.
A former prince of Dis, Dispeter IX, almost two centuries ago had an intuition on how to lend money and be sure to have it back: menace the debtor with an entire nation’s army. After all, that’s how the banks in the city-state of Mizani keep afloat, through fear.
Convince all the noble family of Dis of this plan wasn’t easy, but he did it in the end, thanks to some very compelling entrees, a couple of terrorizing minuet dances, and some very clumsy people falling into crevasses.
From there on, Dis exercised its influence through the network of banks, doing Imperial politics through its ledgers. The nation, already prone to xenophobia, closed itself more and more, limiting the number of foreign residents But the covert influence of Dis is disliked by many, their neighbors in particular.
Erebus has always been the biggest client of the Ditian banks, adding more tension to an already antagonistic relationship. Erebosian princes had always looked with greed and hunger for glory to the Dis territories, causing a series of battles during the century. Now the prospect of a full-on war, instigated by debts, is starting to loom over the two nations.
Dispeter XII, the brother of Momia, wanted to ease the situation by creating business connections that would make Erebos too invested in the Dis territory to ever attack. He was also of the idea to open the nation to outside investors, especially dwarves companies, to use wealth as a diplomatic glue. He was also floating the idea of taxing the gains of bankers to do a more systematic exploration of the Tararus Caves.
When, during a dinner party, Momia served a green wine as an aperitif, all the guests smiled and made complimented on the vintage. The following conversations, all very cheerful and shallow, dealt mainly with the weather, the taste in jewels of Dispeter fianceé, and the wonders of modern mining.
