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| Cetatsenia-Demoness Meeting | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Nov 18 2013, 07:41 PM (8,207 Views) | |
| Cetatsenia | Nov 18 2013, 07:41 PM Post #1 |
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If one was to take a place from the nation of Demoness to Cetatsenia, one would most likely see the dichotomy that the nation was rather known for. In the southern parts of the nation one would notice the highlands, heavily forested and almost untouched by man aside from the winding roads and the occasional town. But further north, the terrain would give away to the lowlands of the Centric Basin. This land was flat, and lacked the expansive forests, though there were smaller isolated forests. But the main difference one would notice would be the level of development, it was dominated by a large amount of farmland as the lowland soil was incredibly fertile, but there was also the occasional city, bustling with people. Albraustana-zid was one such city, and it was the primate city of Cetatsenia, the richest and most populous and most important of them all. It was built along both sides of the great Albastru River that ran through much of Cetatsenia, though most of it was on the southern bank of the river. This was because of the simple fact that Albraustana-zid had begun life as three separate forts and settlements built along the river. Albrau and Stana had been built on the Southern bank, and over time had grown together until they were finally united into Albraustana. And while Zid would eventually become part of the greater whole, for a long time it was simply considered a city separated from the capital only by the river. Since it had grown organically over the numerous years, and had once been three separate cities, the streets and roads had a habit of being winding and could be complicated to navigate for those unfamiliar with them who had no map. Though the roads had over time been widened and revamped in order to accommodate cars, and the newest sections of the city on the outskirts actually had a gridded street plan. As it was the middle of the day, the streets were currently filled with cars and buses, and the sidewalks filled with pedestrians, while the newest addition to the city's transportation network, the subway system, ran below the streets. While there was a number of attractions in the city, such as the museums and baths, one of the most prominent is the Palatul Regal, the Royal Palace. The site of the original settlement of Albrau and lying atop a hill, it has been torn down or otherwise destroyed and then subsequently rebuilt several times throughout history. The most recent being the ascension of Ioan I to the throne of Cetatsenia, though it has been renovated and updated since then. The Palace itself is surrounded by a wall that rings the entirety of the hill, with only a single gate leading up to it. The wall is patrolled by a special corps of Cetatsenian soldiers, easily identified by their bright blue ceremonial uniforms and ornate, pointed helmets. After that, a road lead up to the palace proper, an expansive building with a stone exterior that shared more in common with a medieval castle than what one thinks of when they hear the word 'palace'. It was home to a fair number of servants, as well as the guardsmen, and a small number of government officials. Most of those lived out in the city, and worked in their own buildings. It was absolutely huge, and in front of it was an expansive pool of water. Overall, it was an impressive sight that could be seen from a good portion of the city. At the moment, however, Voivode Gavril IV Suveraneshti was not at his home in the palace. Rather he was at the airport, which had been cleared of any citizens besides him, the guards arrayed with him, and those who worked there; all flights to this airport had either been delayed or rerouted to other nearby airports. Today was an important day, as this was the decided upon day of Jia Li's visit to Cetatsenia. As two nations whose relationship could be accurately described as "mutually neutral", this was a rather important meeting, and Gavril did not want to mess anything up. So he stood alongside his older sister Andreea, the Steward of Cetatsenia, in the airport, ready to head out onto the tarmac to greet the Empress as soon as her plane set down. Edited by Cetatsenia, Apr 22 2014, 09:58 PM.
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| Cetatsenia | Apr 11 2014, 12:11 AM Post #1291 |
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"Uh huh," Gavrila said, sort of understanding what Xel was saying even if she didn't believe in any of it, "But you cannot just call a single reign a dynasty. You get bunch of Empresses in a row who are descendants of one anozer, zen zat would be a dynasty." Then she grinned, obviously pleased with the fact that she'd been able to come up with a satisfactory way to explain what she meant by 'dynasty'. Then another question popped into Gavrila's head and she looked at the Empress, "Do you even have a last name?" |
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| Demoness | Apr 12 2014, 12:21 AM Post #1292 |
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Jia Li shook her head, surprised. "No," she replied. "Deities have no surnames, so why would we?" In fact, Xel and every other High Priest had dropped his name in marriage. |
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| Cetatsenia | Apr 12 2014, 06:32 AM Post #1293 |
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"Oh yeah, I kind of forget you are supposed to be a Goddess sometimes," Gavrila said, laughing, "But what about your family? Zey are not deities, right?" |
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| Demoness | Apr 13 2014, 03:24 PM Post #1294 |
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Jia Li shook her head. "No, they are not, but they generally adopt the name of the family they marry into. If they don't marry..." She shrugged. "I can't tell you much of personal experience, aside from my great aunts and uncles. I see them occasionally, but we are not particularly close." |
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| Cetatsenia | Apr 13 2014, 04:22 PM Post #1295 |
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"Makes about as much sense as anyzing else you have said, really," Gavrila said with a shrug. "You know, to be honest I am surprised zere have not been more wars in Demonessian history over who was ze reincarnation of an heir who died before giving birth to a daughter," Gavril said, "I do not mean to disrespect your beliefs in any way, but zat sounds to me like somezing people in power could easily try to use to zeir political advantage." |
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| Demoness | Apr 13 2014, 04:49 PM Post #1296 |
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OOC: Curse you! I haven't reconciled my new timeline with the old lineage charts! So this may prove to be slightly inaccurate since it only covers about 1000 years of "real" history. IC: Jia Li shook her head. "It has only happened three times in history and each time the true empress was chosen with little issue. There are several tests that a child has to undergo in order to prove that she is the Heir, so if there are multiple candidates, there could be an issue since the last test can't be performed until she reaches the age of seven. However, two of the incidents I spoke of had a True Seer involved, so there was little issue. And we spoke about Oriana and the other incident earlier." Xel shook his head. He could not say much about the former two events, as they were as near ancient history as possible, but he had taken it upon himself to study the alternate history whenever possible. There had indeed been a great war following the Great Fire of 1168, which eradicated the Imperial Family, and though Jia Li had restored much of what Deirdre Oriana had erased, she hadn't delved much into the history of the era; there weren't many alternate accounts available in Demoness, as they had been destroyed, and the accounts from Feoras were highly subjective. Other countries had recorded their own musings of the situation, but there was nothing definitive. The best Jia Li had done was to move the Leaf of Fire to the Apocrypha for its likely lies, but nothing had replaced it. |
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| Cetatsenia | Apr 13 2014, 05:24 PM Post #1297 |
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"But ze one who is reincarnated is judged as such by someone who is human, are zey not? And humans can be bought and bribed," Gavril said, "It just seems strange to me zat over ze years zere have been so few incidents." |
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| Demoness | Apr 13 2014, 05:42 PM Post #1298 |
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Xel chose the moment to speak so that it was less likely his wife would become sensitive. He wasn't not personally attached to the religion, whereas she was still assimilating it and trying to reconcile what she believed with what Morante stated. She had the right as the Empress to change the direction of the religion, but it would not be well-received after her numerous other changes, and so she'd made a tactical choice to try to convert as sincerely as possible. This, unfortunately, backfired when she had to defend issues that she did not fully understand. It also didn't help that the current True Seer was the primary force behind Jia Li's support. "As she said, there have only been three incidents, and while I agree that bribery may be involved, the 'new' heir has to have a majority of votes in the Council of Twelve. That helps prevent bribery from coming into play somewhat, but there are several other beliefs that come into play. "For one, a True Seer is a rare individual and is probably born only once every handful of centuries. It was more a miracle than anything that one was available whenever an heir needed to be identified. There are a lot of beliefs centered around these individuals, much like you would see around prophets, so accusations of bribery would not be well-received." He hoped Gavrl picked up that it was a warning to discontinue that line of conversation. "For another, there are several 'visible' signs of divinity that an heir must exhibit, such as the green eyes. These are well-known and some are difficult to fake. Green eyes are very rare in Demoness despite what genetics would otherwise suggest and you've seen what the Empresses of the past have looked like. But there are also other tests that must be passed in the presence of the Council and other priests and those are kept secret so that they will be less easy to reproduce. "Which leads to the final reason this is so important," he continued. "There is a very strong belief that the Goddesses will only accept their Blood as sacrifices. If that does not occur, famine, hurricanes, earthquakes, and the like will happen until the proper Empress is enthroned, so even if the officials are bribed, if this happens then the Council will lose its influence over the people. That latter belief is what helped secure Jia Li's throne as there were some-" He hesitated to add "coincidental" to the sentence, but his opinion was still discernible in his tone. "-disasters that occurred at the same time that she left for Fenwick and ceased once she returned to reclaim her throne from her sister." |
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| Cetatsenia | Apr 13 2014, 05:58 PM Post #1299 |
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Gavril listened intently to Xel's explanation, and he did pick up on his warning against continuing the bribery line of conversation. And while Gavril had to agree that it did make a rather convincing argument, he did still find it to be strange that only 3 such incidences had ever occurred. The thought that perhaps there were others that had been erased from the records did enter his mind, but he decided that bringing this up was probably not a good topic. Though he was interested by his mention of True Seers, and who exactly they were. "I see, I suppose zat does explain it somewhat," he replied, nodding his head, "But you and Jia Li boz mentioned 'True Seers'. What exactly is a True Seer? What makes zem different from, say, ze Oracle?" |
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| Demoness | Apr 13 2014, 06:25 PM Post #1300 |
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This question was more difficult to answer for the atheist Xel than he was comfortable with, but he continued to try to draw the line and keep the situation in the curious, rather than offended, realm. "The Vessel," he corrected, "sees glimpses of the future, but it is a gift of Sight. The Church recognizes four different Sights for the Order of the Oracle: Insight, Foresight, True Sight, and Retrosight, of which Retrosight is probably the most prevalent. Foresight is what you would consider telling the future while Retrosight allows one to see past lives. Insight, for simplicity's sake, could be considered a form of supernatural lie detection. True Sight is a combination of Insight and Retrosight in that it allows the True Seer to 'know' a person based on what xe can see in xyr soul at any given time. It is particularly useful in confirming the Empress." |
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