The Kingdom of Littonia - Vaults of Pandius

WHAT PEOPLE SAY ABOUT LITTONIA
“All year round I gathered songs,
Waiting for Midsummer Night,
Midsummer Night is here at last,
It's time to sing all the songs.”
(A popular daina sung during the festival of Jāni)
A Minrothaddan trader to his young
apprentice
“I hope you got your feet wet in Gaudavpils, my lad, because
where we'll be heading, that port town will seem as
cosmopolitan as Thyatis! Don't get me wrong, the Littonians –
and I mean the ones living out in the country – aren’t a bunch of
savages dressed in animal skins who dance around bonfires –
well, that last bit is sort of true, I suppose – but what you need to
know is that they're a cautious, plain spoken bunch. They'll be
slow to warm up to you because you're not one of them, but
they'll be polite. When they get to know you, they'll be blunt
with you, and they'll expect the same thing in return. That's
especially true for the Lietuvans, who live further to the north.
“But once you do gain their trust, you can be sure they've got
your back. That's a good thing to know up here.”
Daryn Tremaine, Darokinian adventurer,
speaking to travelers at an inn in Thyatis
“Littonia? I’ve been up there three times, thanks to a merchant
who didn’t trust his Minrothaddan partners up there. He paid
me a hefty sum, up front, to go there and secure some choice
pieces for him.
“So I made my way to the northern regions, where most of the
amber is found, and hired a young lass – Annze, I think her
name was – to act as guide. She didn’t have more than a few
words of Thyatian, but she did her job well enough. So there we
were, walking through a dark wood at nightfall. It was getting
chilly, and I thought I’d chop down a tree for some firewood.
I’d only managed to hit the tree once when the girl grabs the axe
from my hand, eyes bigger than plates, and starts shouting at me
about how I was killing a dead man’s tree or something like that.
I thought she was crazy, but she kept going on about it.
“Then I heard this noise, like breaking branches, behind me. I
turned around, and I kid you not, there was a glowing skeleton
with nasty claws scuttling towards me! Chilled me to the core!
The girl started to run, pulling my sleeve with greater strength
than I thought she had, and I tried to take a swing at it – the
sword passed through it like it wasn’t there! Now I was scared,
and started to run away, too, and the thing raked me in the back.
But we ran, I tell you.
“That thing chased us for a few hours before it turned back, and
after that I wouldn’t go near a tree!”
15
Daelrin Meditor, elvish scholar, speaks to
a recently-arrived cousin in Gaudavpils
“It is interesting that you should ask about the qualities of the
people of Littonia, for, although you have no doubt seen much
by now, these rustic folk have more depth than one would think.
“It is true that Littonia is not as steeped in magic as Alphatia,
Thyatis, or even our beloved Minrothad; but it would be wrong
to say that it is naught but a land of illiterate hunters and
farmers. The people here practice a magic that is primal, very
close to the land – perhaps much like our own magic in the early
days. I have not learned too much, for its practitioners tend to
keep to themselves, but what I have learned is that they
commune with the magic in the very soil itself, through stones.
The things that I have heard they can do are astounding.”
Jānis Bugeye, goblin hauler, speaking to
his friends one night at a pub
“You know, I just don’t get it. After all this time, those
dzidorakh humans still don’t give us any respect. We keep our
homes clean, we’re quiet, we even do the jobs they don’t want to
do, and yet they look at us the same way as those perfumed
foreigners look at them.
“I know what you’re thinking – pass me more of that Balzams
– that the Litoniesu are treating us like garbage because the
Thadders like them, because they’re human and we’re not. Well
you’re wrong; the foreigners think we’re all a bunch of stupid
bumpkins, and they’re only acting nice because we have things
they want. Once they get it, they’ll drop their masks and treat
the Litoniesu the way they’re treating us! And then the
strawheads’ll see what the other end of the stick is like.
“Maybe those guys from the Amber Brotherhood I met are
right, that we really should get rid of these foreign influences.”
Tarn Oakleaf, Druid Representative to
Alpha, speaking to his liege, King Ericall
“The Littonians are a good people, your highness. I know they
have rebuffed your call to join the Kingdom of Norwold, but
they are an ancient people for whom you are but the latest
would-be Alphatian lord. Look to the symbiosis so prevalent in
life – the way the fungi aids the tree and the predator’s remains
return to the soil. There is your path in dealing with the
Littonians. But you must be quick, else they shall fall in with
the Thyatians.”
“It is their amber mages with which I am most concerned.
They traffic in the very life of the land, threatening the balance
by tapping into that which they do not understand. It would be
best if they learned that this is the province of the druids.