A Jale Shadow

One of the most fun things about Jeffery McKinney's RPG setting Carcosa is the presence of two new primary colours, Jale and Ulfire. Jale is decribed as 'dreamlike, feverish and voluptuous' in David Lindsay's novel A Voyage to Arcturus, the ideal colour for the Tsolyani goddess Dlamelish if she was not already green.

On Tekumel, as we know from study of The Pandects of Those Who Journey Beyond, there are four mystical directions, grai, chio, grel and vraz in Engsvanyali. Each has an associated colour, 'untet, 'unpur, 'unway and 'unshap, and Jale is the Tsolyani term for 'untet.

As we know in our mundane plane some female members of the human species have a fourth colour sensitive opsin, the proteins that reacts to light and causes vision, on far future Tekumel, an opsin for seeing Jale may be possible.

To someone without the ability to see it pure Jale just looks off-white, and mixtures of Jale and other colours just look like slighty paler version of those colours.

Most of those who can see the colour do not have a word for it, and do not recognise seeing it as being anything unusual and usually do not even recognise that their colour perception may be different from others. Only scholars call it Jale, and most do not know of its other planar and magical associations.

From: https://abstract.desktopnexus.com/wallpaper/477843/

How to see Jale

Mihalli, Chima and Hokun see Jale automatically.

Pygmy Folk, Shen, Ahoggya, Tinaliya and almost all other species never see Jale.

Humans, Pe Choi, Shunned Ones and Hlaka may possibly see Jale.

Using AEPT rules:

To be 'Jale+' roll 100+ on a d100

Add Psychic Ability modifer, if able to cast spells add Psy Ab modifer again.

If female human add +1, if a male Hlaka add +1, if a Pe Choi of any sex +1, with Pe Choi neuters gaining an additonal +1. Pe Choi have a 1 in 20 chance to gain or lose the ability to see jale if they change sex away from or to neuter. Tiuni have +5 to see Jale, for what it is worth, and the ability to perceive it is scattered throughout Tekumels crazy mish mash of animal, fungi and plant kingdoms.

Among human nations Livyani add +1, N'luss get -1, Nom get +2, people from the far north eastern tribes of the Northern continent get +1 also, and the people of Lost Bayarsha get +3.

Since objects with the colour are so few and far between outside visions or visitations of other planes many human scholars just do not believe the colour really exists. In Livyanu they know it is there and sects like the Mad One of Hlikku in Yan Kor paint their secret idols in it.

The paint used in Hlikku is made up using a pigment made from a rare rock which happens to be radioactive, not that they care, and the secret books written in jale ink hidden away in Livyanu have lead covers. Jale+ people cannot see or perceive this radiation though and not all jale objects are radioactive.

Oddly tinted adventures?:

• The Not White Room. The cell of Yu'ukanna the Hermit is preserved at a certain mountain shrine dedicated to Thumis. It is a square stone room with a square skylight that is its only entrance (one gets in by ladder) and the walls are thickly plastered with the smoothest, palest grey limewash. Except it isn't. The walls are covered in tiny writing in a jale ink, using a spiky alphabet of unknown provenance. The shrine is a very minor one of interest mostly to local villagers only and as yet no scorcer or priest with the ability to even see the script, let alone read it – it is in Sunuz – has visited. The locals will excitedly tell of the legend of her translation into 'pure light' - well they turned up with her food one day and she was gone, and there was no way she could jump out and she didn't have a ladder – and suitable magic will detect that a wandering nexus point cycles through here. Do you really want to know what she wrote down? Or where she went?

• The Demon Tiuni. Galya hiIrikanen of the White Stone clan was a cat lady, she had dozens of the little beasts, all white. Her six year old grand-neice, Ssia, warned her that one of them was 'not white', though the little girl could not say quite what colour they were. Now Galya is dead, poisoned, and while cat tracks are not hard to find in her house, according to the experts brought in by the White Stones only one set of tracks appears to go through walls. 

• In Livyanu the colour jale is associated with Quyo, and in Hemektu people who can see it are considered blessed by the goddess and recruited as clergy, while the Horned One of Secrets colour is dolm, a mix of jale and blue. The Chima are not often seen in this part of Tekumel, but if they find out much about the strange Livyani pantheon they may tell you that several others have 'funny' colours seen in their most ancient idols too, and are amused that humans don't realise it.
  
  
• Along the sakbe east from Tumissa stones mark every tsan and every ten tsan, as on any other sakbe. Only the 73 tsan marker is made from a jale stone, and below it a side road leads off through a number of villages and on to Hmakuyal. Further 'white' waystones mark the true path, and some deliberately created false ones lead to caves full of Thunru'u, Qol and Winged Serpents of many hues and inclinations.
  
  
  
  
• The Not White Room II. In Waba's Almanac there is a reference to the 'Place of the Pearl' described as a being 'A place of pearly white effulgence, of sweet winds and softened sound, but where all is invisible including the native sharetlkoi so wonderfully blessed with great powers of  Abscission and Manducation.'
  
  A sage of the Temple of Belkhanu has acquired the page, and located a nexus point. He seeks foolhardy voyagers who can see Jale to test his theory that the inhabitants are in fact fully visible if you look at them right, and that Waba's 'Place of the Pearl' is a pathway to the Palace of Neverending Regret, the Mountains of Mostly Mist and the Golden Haven of Hettashte.
  
  
  

Plebians of Jakalla II

The Emerald Circlet and the Bright Sword

 

Emerald Circlet

The Emerald Circlet are lowest of the very low clans, widely considered to be thieves and known to be peddlers of low quality and potentially poisonous drugs to the undiscerning and uncaring.

They have no clanhouses as such, but do have campsites within or near major cites and scattered along the Sakbe roads where they have bought or leased patches of land, have been granted permission to camp by the local Palace of the Realm (since it keep the low-lifes in one place so the local police can find them), or have the patronage of a Dlamelish Temple with enough political clout to shut up the neighbours.

Emerald Circlets will doss down anywhere if they have to though, and often travel with Turning Wheel clan carts as hitch-hikers and helpers. Emerald Circlet camps, even the permanent ones, have been occasionally attacked by local clans for alleged crimes.

According to clan legend the Emerald Circlets were originally court dancers and sorcerers to a notable regional ruler in the north at the time of Bednjallan Empire. When the king was overthrown by converts to the new Gods of Pavar and the region became part of the new Engsvanyali realms this famous order of sorcerers and demon summoners were banished and forbidden to return. They have wandered ever since, cursed by a stability demon whom they have vowed to bring down one day when they have the power to call up the demon himself and Ru'utlanesh to devour him.

Those scholars who can be bothered to investigate such unbearably lower class toerags note that records of the Emerald Circlet start to appear in the fragmentary accounts of the Time of No Kings in the north west and that a clan with a similar name is found in Yan Kor, while in Pijena the Priesthood of She Who Is Not Named have a standing order to kill all Emerald Circlets found within their borders. They surmise that they are in origin Pijenan, and were originally some kind of heretical sect or disgraced clan banished from that country, though what you would have to do be considered disgraced by the barbarically decadent Pijenans defies the imagination.

The Emerald Circlet camp in Jakalla is in the Foreign Quarter, on the site of ruined clanhouse that was burnt down in an arson attack before it was even finished fifty years ago. There is a ramshackle outer wall, a dense swathe of tents and shanties, a well and two gates each with a guardpost for the city police. Only Emerald Circlet are allowed in by order of the Governor, and all Emerald Circlets must be inside their wall by the curfew at midnight under pain of a fine levied as the loss of a square dhaiba of their campsite. The current governor intends to have these lowlifes put outside the walls sooner or later, he just can't risk throwing them out en masse and annoying the Temple of Dlamelish and the council of the clans. Many members now actually spend their nights at the House of the Pleasant Hour where they have jobs; since this is technically an adjunct of the Temple of Hrihayal, city police are not allowed in except by special order. Those members performing 'private dances' at client's clanhouses or lodgings after midnight have their fines paid by the client if the police discover they are there after curfew.

The Circlets ply their various trades walking round the city as peddlers, occasionally renting a pitch at Avanthe's market for a band and dancers to perform for tips. They are noticeable by the green headbands they wear.

The well has a secret access to the Tsuru'um and a sub level with a couple of large rooms and a secret tunnel leading to another well in a square some distance away outside the compound. The Emerald Circlets keep this secret, though many members know of it. They use this to sneak in and out and to store contraband goods taken from the docks.

The head of the Jakalla camp is Herun the Left Eye, a hard looking man of middle age with a paunch but a still muscular torso, and shaven head covered in tattoos. He was a noted wrestler in his day and a lover of a high priest of Dlamelish. He runs a tight ship in Jakalla, keeping his people in line with a minimum of theft allowed while also fighting a feud with the Bright Swords and providing protection to his people. His right hand woman is his mother Marussa who runs the alchemical lab hidden under the campsite making powders.

Bright Sword

The Bright Sword are a local Jakalla clan that is expanding beyond the city and has for some centuries been muscling in on Emerald Circlet's traditional trades, a rivalry that has turned nasty.

The Bright Sword run the Hall of the Bright Sword in the Foreign Quarter, a hostel of sorts but since it is run by a Very Low clan there aren't many travellers to Jakalla who will stay there. Instead it is used mainly by Nakome who aren't desperate enough to resort to the Red Dome, often sailors from Livyanu over to Salarvya and Haida Pakala.

At the Hall they run a cheap brothel which lacks the kinky bells and whistles of the House of the Pleasant hour but is at least one up on the impovised performances in back alleys on offer from most of the itinerant Emerald Circlet professionals. They also provide powders, though they buy in from Pakalan traders rather than make their own. They even have a kind of theatre, a music room which has private drinking and dining alcoves for hire coming off it, where they will have musical performances, epic singing and dances. The epic singing is considered rather good, and Bright Swords will get hired to perform at middle clan parties and celebrations.

There is also an itinerant part of the Bright Sword, a series of travelling shows who take to the roads in chlen carts, travelling between their clanhouses in Bey Su, Jakalla and Tumissa and performing and trading in towns along the way.

The clan originated as a gladiator school run by the Bright Victory clan who had an incredibly dramatic and bloody run of victories back in the 6th century AS which earned them a devoted following among the city's then notables, and a vote for promotion to freedom and citizenship for the nakome and slaves who made up the school. They kept the school going for a while, but given the option they would rather not die for someone elses entertainment and bought their Hall and some dancing girls and musicians as slaves. Generations later apart from a pen-knife as a clan badge and a unique sword dance no trace of their foundation survives.

They have a feud going with the Emerald Circlets as they often send barkers out round the streets drumming up business for the Hall by singing and dancing and selling drugs, directly stepping on the older clans toes. Stabbings in alleys have occurred, the Circlets got into a Hall cellar once and poisoned the beer leading to mass deaths. One Bright Sword travelling show was taken out by bandits, a second travelling show turned out to be a decoy wagon full of armed mercs and a whole Emerald Circlet camp site out near one of the minor roads was put to the sword.

Each clan has made up songs about how rubbish the other is and the Jakallan populace are often entertained by Emerald Circlet and Bright Sword poets swearing the air blue at each other in improvised metres on street corners.

The Jakallan Hall houses the current clan master of the Bright Sword, E'elea Sharpnose, a tall thin lady with a heroically proportioned schnozz that would not look out of place on a Vriddi, and allegedly such a person was her father according to E'elea's mother who followed the honoured clan profession of courtesan. E'elea is a Chiteng worshipper and has the firey temperament that Temple engenders, and rumour has it that all kinds of painful things happen in her basement to cheeky Circlets who mess with her drug dealers, the loudest screams being drowned out by the loud jolly dance bands in the beer hall.

One of her clan cousins, Nol the Coward, who once ran away from a fist fight with an Emeralnd Circlet dancing girl, is working on a novel idea – stealing the puppeteer clan stories and doing them as song and dance numbers in the hall with live people, and maybe redoing some the trad temple festivals in a more secular and sing along form. As yet E'elea has not given him permission to try out any of his radical new entertainments, but if she is distracted enough by the turf war, he might get the chance.

Adventure Hooks:

Any, all or none of the following may be true:

• So who burnt down the Emerald Circlet clan house? Was it the result of that age old curse? A practical step by the Temple of Chegarra guard inspired by said demon? The city police under secret orders from the governor? Or the Bright Sword? It happened over fifty years ago, no one remembers, but some of the people that died now lay in paupers burial pits on the edge of the City of the Dead. A talented medium from the temple of Sarku or Belkhanu might be able to find an eyewitness.

• The captain of the Foreign Quarter City Guard has been definitively bought by the Emerald Circlet after years of taking ad hoc bribes from both sides to ignore the odd unexplained corpse. What do they have on him? Eye of Retaining All Things Forever holos of him with the wife or husband of one of the more difficult nobles? Have they addicted him to a powder? It isn't Zu'ur, but that is not the only addictive drug known. The Bright Sword would pay well to know. Rumour has it that the Circlets have an actual secret archive of blackmail material. The Bright Swords suspect this because they secretly have one too.

• What's with the silly nicknames? Left Eye and Sharpnose? One of the Nighted Tower lets it slip to the PCs for a number of kaitars that among some of the very low clans of Jakalla signs are used to name certain people during sensitive discussions as you never know when an informer is listening. Given the number and variety of police and guard forces in Tsolyanu you are probably never more than thirty feet from a cop and twenty from an informer (though in Mu'ugalavya the cop distance comes down by at least a third and in Livyanu the snitch is probably a mere five feet away). Armed with this knowledge you might be able to spot Bright Swords tapping their noses and Emerald Circlets wiping their left eyes and tail them, but what is it with members of both clans scratching their right ears and picking their noses? And would they really be dumb enough to use the signs as spoken nicknames?

• The governor has obviously instructed the magistrate courts to favour the Bright Swords, shamtla valuations for a Sword is running at double the rate for a Circlet, he's trying to bankrupt them. The Association of the Relievers from Life are taking an interest, they intervene sometimes when bent judges are not dispensing impartial justice. The PCs may act as go betweens for the Circlets and locate and negotiate with the Relievers, may raise money to pay for the magistrates to be offed, may tip off the governor about the rumour, may end up guarding the magistrates against Reliever attack.
  

• The governor has had enough their shit. There will be mass raids on the Circlets and Swords, confiscation of all narcotics, numerous poles up numerous orifices and remaining clan members on the run. PCs may pursue certain itinerants for bounty money, may buy up some captives cheap as slaves, or try and rescue or hide members of one clan or the other. The governor only has the authority to close down clanhouses in his own city, the proscripted will of course hide among clan cousins from outside Jakalla and may take some winkling out. There will also be demos and riots organised by the Temple of Dlamelish (love ins!), and a shortage of street drugs with a new and even more brutal feud between rival Pakalan pirate and Pijenani alchemist gangs, plus the dodgy bastards who run the Tower of the Red Dome butting in and the high and mighty Jade Diadem have always grown certain herbs on their estate plantations and might be tempted to hire some folks to get them a foothold in retail.
  
  
• The Emerald Circlets worship an aspect of Dlamelish called the Green Eyed Goddess in Shadow that is unknown to any other clan. It seems this aspect was originally an avatar of She Who Is Not Named, the traditional Pijenan goddess, though it takes a bit of digging in what passes for the Pijenan temple archives to find this out. More digging revelas the reason they were expelled from Pijena; this aspect is an undercover version of the Goddess of the Pale Bone.
  
  
• The Bright Sword have a bright sword hanging in their clanhouse, a huge decorative object some eight feet long with all kinds of curlicued serrations, silver paint and paste jewels on the hilt. The Emerald Circlet want it stolen or destroyed. It turns out to be real though, a demon haunted weapon whose inhabiting spirit will materialise and wield it on any Emerald Circlet memebrs who touch it. It was given to the original Bright Sword gladiator school as a prize over a millenium ago by a priest of Chegarra whose name does not appear in any of their temple rolls.
  

• It is the premier of 'Foreign Quarter Story' at the Hall of the Bright Sword, an epic tale of a pointless and bloody feud between two rival clans which ruins the life of two young lovers, told through catchy tunes and energetic dancing. Remarkably enough the author, Nol the Coward, has invited Josife'ena the Powderbaker, the Emerald Circlet lass who beat him up years ago, to play the female lead! Is music going to inspire peace? Is it really the food of love? Or has E'elea got in a stack of bronze pokers ready in the brazier, or has Herun deployed poisoned stilettos just in case?

The Faithful Messenger of the Thaumaturge Bel

A new spell for Tekumel.

The Faithful Messenger

Type II, Generic ritual spell, usable by sorcerers dedicated to Belkhanu, Sarku and their cohorts Qon and Durritlamish.

As described in 'The Taupe Scroll of the Thaumaturge Bel', the casting sorcerer and one other person take part in the ritual sacrifice of an animal, though occasionally a human is used. From the remains of said animal two bones are chosen and one each is taken by the two participants. They can now communicate telepathically via these bones over any distance, and even through nexus points, across multiverses and potentially across periods of time as well.

The potency depends on the Psychic Ability of the sacrifice, since it is this soul that has to find a way through the skeins of destiny to carry the message to its target.

The victims vary, but animals known to be highly psychic are favoured. In Sokatis the local tiuni (domestic cat) breeds are known to be able to see demons, the Temple of Qon favour their guard tlekku (dogs), Belkhanu temples often use snakes, Durritlamish crows and other flying carrion eaters.

Roll Psy Ab for the sacrifice, any below 11 (or 60 is using EPT) is useless. Base potency is 1 and add +1 potency for each Psy Ab above 12, +1 more per point above 15 and +1 another per point above 17. For EPT take PsyAb-60 and divide by 4 to get the bonus.

From:

https://www.pinclipart.com/maxpin/iRxhxJi/

A given pair of people may have no more than one pair of bone talismans in use at any one time, only the people involved in the original ritual may use them and they must remain within three metres of the owner to retain their potency. Usual practice is to make a bulla of an appropriate holy metal (copper for Sarku, gold for Belkhanu) to house it.

In EPT a sorcerer must already know the spell 'Medium' to be able to cast this one, and the recipient must know 'Medium' or 'ESP' to pick it up.

For Advanced EPT the prerequisite spells are 'Perceptions of the Energies' and 'The Blessing of the Planes' to learn, and 'Perceptions of the Energies' or 'Ascertainment' to receive.

Spell level/EPT caster level

4: Soul may carry messages totalling no more than the spell potency in words and only to a recipient on the same plane as the sender. Once the limit in words is reached the spell ends and the talismans revert to being mere bones. Range is impressive though, 3 to the power of potency in tsan. A highly psychic animal soul could take your message 59,000 tsan. Talismans remain useful for 1 day per power point times the numerological signfier of the deity of the caster - four for Belkhanu and Qon, five for Sarku and Durritlamish.

5: Soul may carry messages of no more than the spell potency plus 4 or 5 in d3 (ie potency 5 roll 10d3) words, depending on the numerological signifier of the deity it is dedicated to.

6: Soul may traverse a nexus point to deliver its messages back and forth. Loses 1 potency every time it does so though and requires a saving throw vs magic from the sender to succeed, so try and be as close to the nexus points as you can for sustained contact. Number of words goes up to potency in 1d6, and the talisman is useful for potency x 4d3 days for Belkhanu, potency x 5d3 days for Sarku. Physical distance within a plane can be up to 5 to the power of the potency in tsan. Enough to contact a moon from the surface of Tekumel.

7: Soul traverses multiple nexus points, losing 1 potency per transfer, but words are up to 1d8 per potency plus 4 or 5. Useful for most trans-planar travellers, but unfortunately useless in such dread places as the Unending Grey or getting messages out of the Blue Room. Can cover 7 to the power of the spell in Tsan, enough to reach other planets in the Tuleng solar system if within the same plane. Useful for potency x 4 or 5d6 weeks.

9: Soul can travel from anywhere to anywhere, distance no object, planar and time differences utterly irrelevant, and can transmit 1d12 words per power point plus an extra 4 or 5d12 before failing. The talisman is useful permanently until that message total is reached however. Getting a message in and out of some planes may require a save vs Magic on behalf of the message sender or recipient.

 

Notes:

Other temples my have spells or magic items that have similar effects. For example the Temple of Thumis have rods made of sanctified ssar wood from a grove on an island beyond the edge of the world that may be bound together as pairs. What appears on one rod scratched in the script of Thu'usa also appears on the other. The Temple of Hru'u allegedly keeps strange glass plates in the catacombs of Hmakuyal upon which letters in a lost language of the ancients appear and disappear to the accompaniment of invisible chimes; it is hypothesised that they are bearing messages, but the knowledge of how to read them is lost.

There are two stones, one in a temple to She Who is Not Seen in Par in Pijena, the other sacred to She Who Strides the Ocean on the shore near Jorulu in Haida Pakala, and graffiti daubed on one will also appear on the other. These stones will only transmit obscenities however, and are solely used in ritual slanging matches between the clergy of the two deities.

It is a source of annoyance to the temple of Belkhanu that the Sarkuites get a bit more mileage out of this spell, but that's numerology and superior preservation techniques for you (the Sarku temple uses the same varnish as it does in making shines out of bone).

Using cats has its pros and cons. Mean GMs may rule that while a cat soul has superior Psychic Ability, it also has a 10% chance of getting lost on any given attempt at messenger transfer, or if a rival sorcerer finds out about this secret message stuff he can distract the cat soul by sacrificing fish or mice to intercept it.