Fall of Thanes

This place, this city, shall henceforth be the seat of High Thanes; first amongst all cities, as we are now first amongst all Bloods. Vaymouth is mighty now, and shall be mightier still in years to come, for who can doubt that all the world will walk the road to its gates? All deeds of consequence, all acts of significance, shall be done here and nowhere else.

Memories of Tane will be dimmed and overshadowed. Kolkyre will be forgotten. The pride of those who dwell in distant Evaness will be blunted, their arrogant tongues stilled. We who call Vaymouth home shall live amidst the greatest power and the greatest glory this world has known since the Gods departed. Their radiant presence has passed, never to return, but see here what other lights a people may find amidst the darkness, what we may build with our own hands, and shape with our will: all the goods and coin of the world, flowing like tributary streams into the river of our streets and our marketplaces. Peace and prosperity and order. Great walls to shelter us, great towers to keep watch from. These are the stars by which we plot our course. These are the torches to light our path into the future.

The glories of the Gods are lost to us; if there are to be new glories we must fashion them for ourselves, carving them from the base matter of this abandoned world. This, the city, shall be their embodiment, and the place where they burn most brightly.

From Merwen’s Encomium