Bright Crow
Bright Crow
Always a peaceful place, Bright Crow was an idyllic fishing village along the Southern coast of the Inland Sea, near Varang. It's patron god, One Open Eye, was a good enough sort, who protected the villager's fishing rights from nearby sea spirits, and who sometimes could be found drinking with fishermen in the Murky Dragon, the town inn. His only fault if anything was that now and then a local girl would give birth to a child who had more than a bit of passing resemblance to him, but there was always some willing lad to marry the young mother. The nearby military fiefdoms served to protect Bright Crow in a way, attracting any barbarian attention. Visitors who stopped in Bright Crow tended to remark that there were few places in Creation so orderly or with such good-natured inhabitants. One traveling Immaculate Monk, although disliking the closeness One Open Eye had with the villagers, remarked it was otherwise a model for the rest of the Threshold to look to.
Unfortunately, such good behavior went rewarded.
In 659, a committee within the Bureau of Humanity was formed to choose the "Most Excellent and August Location of Charity and Virtue in Creation," and there was the usual flood of blackmail, bribery, threats and low-level corruption among the city fathers and patron spirits to get their place forever renowned. This was all a political setup, of course, by an up and coming city father, Dashing Chariot. One Open Eye filed an entry form for Bright Crow, and then failed to pay any attention at all to events as they progressed. Things changed when one of the judges was killed in an unrelated event involving his concubine and a Lesser Elemental Dragon, and the corruption in the contest was exposed publicly. Gleaming Fire of Justice and Law, a Celestial Lion, was asked to reccommend a way that might circumvent the bribery and corruption from affecting the contest.
"Such a virtuous and immaculate place of mortal settlement does not deserve to be left in the Terrestrial realm. I suggest that such a place, if found, be taken to Yu-Shan so that it's good-natured people and their way of life might be preserved from the current chaos of the Second Age..."
Needless to say, the idea of having their cities and towns relocated to the middle of a Yu-Shan slum did not appeal greatly, and soon enough the corruption surrounding the contest disappeared, and almost all entrance forms were withdrawn. Agents (disguised as mortals) were sent to those few remaining villages and hamlets on the list as initial judges, starting in 662, going until 677. In 681, a final board of judges was finally put together after decades of reviews, and Gleaming Fire was sent as proctor. The judges spent their time in a way that only gods being paid for little work can; they took over forty years to finally make a decision, even though less than seven hundred residential areas remained on the list. When Gleaming Fire and the judges visited Bright Crow (703 RY), they were greeted with the heartwarming friendliness and charity that all visitors were greeted with. One Open Eye wasn't around to greet, having to make a petition to the local Water Elemental Court to stop harrassing his villagers. Finally, in 724 RY, the judging commitee returned to Yu-Shan and made it's decision quite easily.At the end of a mild autumn day in Bright Crow, a drunk and highly confused One Open Eye was being congratulated on winning the contest he had forgotten entirely about entering almost a century ago.
In 725 RY, Bright Crow was removed from Creation and taken to Yu-Shan. One Open Eye had made every bureaucratic appeal he could, all of which had little hope of being read that century. The people of Bright Crow never even knew: One Open Eye did not wish to tell them, and never bothered explaining even after the fact. It was moved to a location in the worst ghettoes, filled with some of the nastiest celestial scum in heaven. And the town thrived.
Today, the people of Bright Crow refer to it as the Heavenly Dream, or the Age of Hunger. They remember living in a place of incredible luxury and incredible poverty, where danger and a short death waited around every corner. They remember not having food, but never growing more than slightly peckish, they remember not having water, but never getting more than a bit dry in the mouth. None would get sick from disease. The ocean was gone, replaced by a vast and glorious city, but without need for sustanence, the simple fisherfolk soon turned to spending their days philosophing on their new existance and exploring nearby ruins and complexes. Sometimes their clothes or other belongings would wear out, and be replaced by a mysterious but familiar figure in a cowled robe. Strange creatures and beings came to the town from the surrounding city, and most were turned back by the cowled guardian. Some oathed to also protect the town and do no ill will to Bright Crow's inhabitants, and thus were allowed to stay. Many of these godlings married into the families of Bright Crow, recieving a small amount of prayer and belief from their new relatives. Many a young maiden considered a handsome small god to be an excellent catch for marriage. The younger men of the village, tending to be those who ventured out into the dangerous city the most, find many a happy night with an unemployed goddess. By 763, the town's population (if you didn't count it's several dozen godly inhabitants) had tripled, and almost all of those new villagers were god-blooded. The town's good natured disposition had yet to be harmed.
It was mostly thanks to One Open Eye, who sacrifaced his power and self to make sure the town not only had safe access to a Quintessence tub, but a spirit to craft the Quintessence and guard the town. He reformed himself, changed his very being, stopped being the jovial drunkard and became forever more the silent and brooding protector of Bright Crow, Two Closed Eyes.
The Empress's disappearance changed things greatly for Bright Crow, although none of the townspeople know it. As the Anathema returned and the Maiden's Chosen began to fight, the Bureau's erratic corruption became even worse. A power struggle between the Bureau of Heaven and the Bureau of Humanity caused Bright Crow to be removed from Yu-Shan in 765 RY, and set down somewhere in the North-East shore of the Great Inland Sea, several thousand miles from it's original location but in a place just as geographically protected. Bright Crow's godly inhabitants and Two Closed Eyes remained with their protectorate, and those families blessed to have divine progenitors and small god uncles and aunts are truly blessed. The oldest fishermen have begun to teach their grandchildren and great-grandchildren how once more to find a living in the sea, and their god-blood helps quite a bit. With about three quarters of the town being god-blooded of varying ancestry, Bright Crow is the most concentrated collection of God Kin and Half-Spirits outside of Great Forks. Thankfully, the Order has been far too busy to even know with this disappearing-reappearing village and it's several dozen shrines to it's progenitor godlings. Bright Crow villagers (in general) keep their Heavenly connections quiet and are happy to be back in a world where food and possessions are things to be had and worked for. Many of the younger god-blooded, their stomachs growling and their minds starved for adventure, have been leaving Bright Crow, to seek their fortunes in Nexus or other cities.
(It'd be a cool place to start off a God-blooded campaign.)
--KingLeon
