Of Lusia, Its Cities, and the Nature of Its Power

Lusia, readily reachable from Singhapura or the Rosantic League, can be said to be a family of city-states, rather than a single unified dominion. By best count there are seventeen of them, the largest being four republics — bound together by language, custom, and a shared taste for internecine rivalry. The joke is that all possible wars between the Septimura and Altomente houses have already been started; what remains is the scheduling. Your Grace, who manages competing factions within a single city, may find in Lusia a useful study in what that competition looks like with no single authority sufficient to contain it.

We shall dwell on the four largest republics. Each is nominally governed by a Principe, a First Citizen whose post rotates on a three-year cycle. The title is misleading; the Principe’s function is chiefly ceremonial, and while he may sign in a city’s name, he does not always have the power to decide what he signs. It is around various councils that the major noble houses orbit, each with its own private armies and its own commercial enterprises.

Of the Four Great Republics and What Each Represents

Marezzia is a naval republic of islands and canals; its wealth is derived from controlling trade routes and from glasswork of extraordinary quality. When one speaks of Lusian merchants in connection with the sea, one means Marezzia. Their merchant navy is supposedly larger and faster than Singhapura’s, though more dispersed. Its governing body, the Council of Ten, is drawn from the wealthiest and most powerful families; its members are required to be unmasked to each other, and to no one else; it is said that the post of First Citizen is offered to the youngest first, as a form of education on the requirements of ruling.

Marezzia has a custom of masks worn in public. Each style is recorded in a central ledger, removed only among family and in trusted negotiations. Vassal houses wear cruder appropriations of masks of the noble families they work for, thus displaying loyalty. This is often dismissed as affectation, yet I would caution Your Grace not to think it so. It is fundamental to the nature of the Marezzian, an architecture of controlled identity, and it sheds light on the nature of Marezzian dealings: everything is hidden, yet everything is tracked; honesty and vulnerability are privileges extended selectively and only with great deliberation.

Altomente is the capital of the arts; not just in Lusia, but perhaps in the entirety of the known world there is no equal. Located in a fertile river valley, Altomente is home to the great banking families of the caliber of the Orenzo. Long ago, it seems, they made the calculation that profitability lay not in matching their neighbours in arms, and therefore chose to own something else entirely — the cultural imagination of the region. The result is that Altomente’s taste sets the standard both in their homeland and outside it, in music, the theater, in novels. Altomente’s banking families collect both profits and the gratitude of everyone whose work they have elevated. Your Grace will recognize in this the echoes of Ealdorfold; culture, as I have said, is a significant force.

Septimura is the oldest republic, built on seven hills. Its power lies in two key facets: law and architectural achievement. Septimura’s Senate, a blend of powerful Black Nobility and high Temple officials, has built a reputation for enforcing contracts regardless of political consequence. This is the foundation of its most useful function outside Lusia: parties who do not trust Singhapura to keep its word call on Septimura to witness their arrangements with us.

Septimura also claims descent from Samarskand, which lends Singhapura the awkward position of being unable to dispute the claim without lending it dignity. The Adiraj’s response has thus far been to treat Septimura as a valued export market rather than a rival claimant — this is noted among theorists as an example where the right political move is to refuse the terms of a conflict entirely. Indeed, Singhapura generously funds the Temple of Eighteen in Septimura, often contributing to its projects, and thus maintains a stable guarantor.

Ferrocinto is the northernmost republic. Its mercenaries have fought in every conflict worth naming; its siege-craft and cavalry are without peer; its borders with the Rosantic League mean it has never lacked for practice. Ferrocinto is also agriculturally self-sufficient and produces armor of sufficient quality that economic pressure against it is largely ineffective. A state that can feed itself, equip itself, and sell its soldiers to whoever is currently fighting is a state that has made itself very difficult to coerce. Your Grace should file this observation alongside the one about the Merchants Guild and the Stānwearda guilds of Ealdorfold: the pattern of structural independence through unique and irreplaceable capability appears, on examination, to be the primary strategy available to smaller powers in proximity to larger ones.

Of the Condottieri and the Lusian Theory of War

Lusia does not collapse into full civil war because the Condottieri — the mercenary captains — have no interest in destroying their future client base. When factional conflicts scale beyond what noble houses can manage, the mercenary captains are engaged; and these captains avoid fighting in cities, avoid harassing civilians, and prefer to resolve matters across vineyards and mountain passes.

This has produced a curious code of honor. It is no great shame to lose in battle. It is deeply shameful to kill an innocent, or to fail to present a thorough invoice. Your Grace may find this amusing. In practice, this has the effect of making soldiering a lucrative profession, and thus Lusia has, on command, vast armies of mercenaries who among them count some of the most skilled battle-commanders of our time; even better, this is done at private cost while keeping the vast bulk of everyday citizenry in relative safety. The unrelenting squabbling between various cities and noble houses gives the Condottieri plenty of practice.

This is why proposed invasions of Lusia are always abandoned. The carrots are plentiful and the stick is considerable.

Of Lusian Finance, and Why It Concerns Your Grace Directly

Lusia invented modern banking, double-entry accounting, and lawyers. As such, Lusian financial tendrils reach far beyond even their formidable mercenaries; their banks have underwritten the ambitions of Pendragons, provincial lords, and city-states across the known world. The Adhiraj has forbidden the Singhapura Treasury, the Haugris Church, and the inner ring of nobility from Lusian dealings — this is considered a serious matter of state security — but the prohibition does not extend to everyone else. Many a Singhapura noble has, at one point or another, looked at the terms. Your Grace should operate on the assumption that unexplained money, in any political context, has at least some Lusian component until demonstrated otherwise.

The Order of the Sound of One Hand Clapping is an instrument in Lusian contract enforcement, and I will address it plainly: it represents a level of magical capability that should not be approached carelessly. That Mohandas Siege, the Emperor’s own Bitterness, comes from this Order tells you what they are capable of. The Order is not a Lusian institution in any simple sense, but Lusia has made itself its primary patron, and that relationship is worth understanding before Your Grace enters into any significant commercial arrangement with a Lusian counterparty. Septimura deploys this threat in the name of contract enforcement and has been known to purchase large contracts from other entities when the profit justifies it.

Of the Temple of Eighteen in Lusia

There is a serious claim that the Temple of Eighteen originated in Lusia — that what Singhapura received was an export, not the source. There are equally serious counterclaims. I would advise Your Grace against raising the question at dinner with Singhapura scholars present, as the historical record suggests this ends badly for the crockery. Any connections drawn regarding similarities between the Rosantic Ascended and the Lusian Litanies is similarly fraught.

What matters practically is this: in Singhapura, the Temple was suppressed. This suppression lent it a unifying effect. In Lusia, left to develop freely, it fragmented. Each of the Eighteen Litanies has noble house affiliations, city-state patronages, competing interpretations, and sectarian rivalries. There is no monolithic Lusian Temple to negotiate with; at best there are individual temples, some with negligible influence and some sitting on the highest councils of major city-states. Your Grace, who manages the Haugris Church and the Temple of Eighteen as counterweights to each other, should understand that the alternative to managed tension is not harmony but proliferation of competing factions.

Of Lusian Magic

Lusian sorcerers fall broadly into the Invoker tradition, as do the Temple and the Haugris Church. Their specific method is the making of bargains with higher powers: gods, daemons, and entities of uncertain classification. Where Temple adherents approach their Litanies devotionally, Lusian sorcerers approach their contacts as if accounting with extra steps.

While they do produce books of magic, these are less grimoires than annotated contract portfolios, increasingly available through Rosantic printing. This is worth monitoring; knowledge that was previously difficult to obtain has a habit of finding its way into hands that were not anticipated when it was written.

I close with the observation that Lusia and Singhapura are, despite everything, deeply intertwined — through finance and through the Temple. The relationship is not one that can be cleanly severed, but it is one with many threads that the wise can observe and weave to their own interests. The relevant question for Your Grace is how to ensure that the Lusian presence in Daub’s commercial life remains a resource and does not become a liability.