Subj: [PLANESCAPE] - Arcadia: City of Silver Blossoms
Date: 8/28/99 5:31:34 PM Eastern Daylight Time
From: Rasgon@aol.com
Sender: owner-planescape@lists.imagiconline.com
Reply-to: planescape@lists.imagiconline.com
To: planescape@lists.imagiconline.com

Thanks to the Encarta Encyclopedia for supplying me with information on
bumblebees. Yeah Encarta! I was going to put this in Bytopia, but then I
thought that giant insects and metal are more of an Arcadian thing and I got
inspired by our earlier discussions on how the Harmonium might qualify as an
Arcadian counterculture and...

Thessaly, City of Silver Blossoms
(Town)

Character: Thessaly is a town of old, rich harmonies. Time has lent it a
burnished grandeur like the finest wines and antiques, with a flourish
generations have worked to perfect. Nothing much changes, because it's a
place that's attained its own ideal.

Ruler: Gloriana (Pl/female human/W (enchanter) 8, F 16/LG), Queen of the
Silver Blossoms, is the hereditary leader of the domain. She has black hair,
olive skin, and goggles made from finely crafted silver mithril and
glassteel. She is known for her wild exploits on her albino bee, Milky, and
her disregard for tradition. Few trust her, but she is important as a symbol
of the society. Fortunately, she leaves most of the real power to her
Beemaster, Venigan.

Behind the Throne: Prince Venigan (Pl/male human/F 9/LG), Master of Bees.
Venigan is the son of Gloriana's mother's sister, born on the very same day.
He loves his queen as if she was his own sister, and he has been poisoning
her for over a year. The traditional duties of the Beemaster are seeing to
the care of and training of the giant bumblebees of the domain, but Venigan
actually handles all the affairs of state, needing only the presence of his
cousin as a figurehead to maintain his authority while allowing Gloriana to
continue to do what she wished with her time. Unfortunately, the queen
decided to leave the throne and join the Harmonium five seasons ago, and
nothing Venigan could say would dissuade her. Knowing the city would lose
the independence it had long struggled to maintain without its lawful ruler,
becoming a mere vassal state of Ortho, Venigan took to slipping his liege
drugs that sapped her will while causing things to remain outwardly the same.
The Harmonium isn't happy that their prospective recruit changed her mind,
but questioning agents have all been turned away.

Gloriana: Our culture is stagnant and insular. Groups only two week's flight
from here have never heard of us.

Venigan: We reject foreign contaminants. We're an old society, Gloriana,
with a proud and noble system of traditions and arts. We do not deserve to
be subjected to the homogenization that has killed so much else of value on
this plane.

Gloriana: What you call homogenization is only a move to selflessness; a
willingness to give up the old ways in order to establish a system that can
work for all, not just an elite few who happen to be born in the right place
at the right time. If we stop clinging to backward tribalism and silly
pride, we can harness the faith of the masses to create real peace for
everyone. The Harmonium draws on the notes of many cultures in order to
create a symphony greater than the sum of its parts.

Venigan: It's you who are being selfish (sarcastic emphasis) *Your Highness.
* You're letting your own pet ideas get in the way of your duty to your
people, who don't deserve to be forcibly made a part of someone else's
symphony.

Gloriana: My duty is to all peoples. I love our state, but it's only a
single note. The greater good must be served.

Venigan: (aside) I'm sorry, Gloriana. I can't let you kill us.

Description: Shining stems thicker than tree trunks stretch hundreds of feet
into the air, terminating in great blossoms of shining silver color, atop
which is built a town connected by slim but sturdy bridges. Its buildings
are predominantly bulb-shaped and mostly open windows filled with bright
glass. On the ground is a secondary city built in a giant bumblebee nest.

The Nest City

The tunnels beneath are sturdy and lined with stone and wood, engineered over
the millennia for the convenience of both wagons and bee-riders. They all
lead to a great circular chamber, like an amphitheater with rows and rows of
circular walkways leading to beehouses and egg chambers. Human aides, stable
cleaners, knights, and squires rush in and out of them, down the great stone
steps. There is enough room in the tunnels for several lanes of traffic, so
that even the flight of the great bees are no hinderance.

The Nest City has several queens throughout it, cared for and kept at peace
by human caretakers assisting the worker bees. Each queen forms a small
mound of pollen paste in the middle of her individual nest, lays several eggs
in it, and seals it with a small dome of wax. She also constructs a
hemispherical wax cup, called a honeypot, in the entranceway floor and fills
it with nectar. The queen feeds on this nectar while she incubates the eggs.
The newly hatched larvae partially consume the paste in their cells. Later
they are fed by the queen through a small opening in the cell wall. When the
larvae are fully grown, they spin cocoons in which they metamorphose,
eventually emerging as the first workers of the new colony. Subsequent larvae
are reared by these workers in individual cells, much as honeybee larvae are;
however, the bumblebee nest is not organized into flat, vertical combs like
that of honey bees but grows instead into a mound of capsule like cells.
Toward the end of summer, the queen begins to lay unfertilized eggs that
develop into drones. Female offspring produced at this time become new
queens, and mating takes place soon afterward. The drones and workers then
die, they are disposed of by human caretakers who scrub the floors clean.
The new, mated queens are guided to a nearby empty chamber and the cycle
begins again.

Pollination

Bumblebees are an integral part of the local ecosystem. They have
pollinated the great flowering plants here far longer than there have been
humans, but the presence of humans has helped them thrive and dominate the
other kinds of giant insects. Both queens and workers collect pollen and
transport it back to the colony in pollen baskets on their hind legs. Workers
are relatively small if born early in the year, and large if born later in
the year.

Militia: Gloriana's loyal militia is mounted on great bumblebees, and usually
called knights or cavaliers. Their loyalty is first to the Queen, though the
Master of Bees (or, during some reigns, a separate Chancellor of War)
oversees most of their duties. A strict code of honor has governed all of
their remaining actions for as far back as anyone can remember.

Services: Bumblebee breeding, flowers, nectar, bards and music. This part of
Arcadia contains many flowers of great, tree-like size, pollinated by the
bumblebees. There is a considerable market for these blossoms elsewhere,
both fresh and dried; it takes only a year for such a flower to grow. Music
in Thessaly includes a lot of mellow strings and woodwinds, played to
harmonize with the hums of the bees. It seems erratic, but it follows
traditional patterns exactly. There is also a nearby silver mine which has
yielded a slow but steady stream of metal since before the city was built. A
small god lives down there, creating metal in exchange for worship and
statues in his honor.

Thessalian goods will be marketed by specially educated citizens in several
places in Arcadia and Sigil. From there, merchants take them across the
planes.

Current Chant: Killeen Caine (briefly described in the Factol's Manifesto),
Arcadia's highest-ranking Hardhead, has begun looking for outsiders to gain
an audiance with the queen of Thessaly. He knows that his own factioneers
are turned away, but he won't give up until he has an answer to Gloriana's
sudden turn of mind.