Another in our continuing series! In the below picture there is a Realmsie-shaped black hole. Can you figure out who it is based only on the profile? Tell us on social media if you think you know who it is! The answer will be revealed later in the day.
It took me a comically long time for me to learn of Rhiassa. In part, because I hadn’t made the connection that they were the ones running Queen of Hearts. Though, to be fair, my early years in the Realms did mean that I was still fumbling through learning a lot about the nations I wasn’t actively surrounded by at the time.
Rhiassa has a lot of history. And I do truly mean a lot. Just…see for yourself!
-Felnar Dulintel
The Nation of Rhiassa
Excerpt from the history of Rhiassa:
Sir Duncan, a Knight of the Eternal Flame, grew up in a place far from the Realms, far enough that its location relative to the Realms is still unknown. Duke of a land called Crestview in the kingdom of what we now call Old Rhiassa, Duncan's lands were destroyed in a surprise attack by an army of drow from the realm of Nifelheim. Soon afterwards the entirety of the kingdom was besieged by the evil race.
One of the knights of Old Rhiassa and an accomplished hero in his own right, Duncan undertook a great quest to find an ally against the drow, a fae elf known as Lorien. Though the elf was gravely wounded when they rescued him, Duncan was successful in bringing the fabled creature back to the castle of Old Rhiassa where he began to recover. Meanwhile, the drow army and the people of the kingdom prepared for what would be their final battle.
The forces of Rhiassa, led by their knights, clashed with the army of the drow across an expansive battlefield, and although they fought valiantly, the best the people of Rhiassa could do was slowly give ground as they were forced back towards the center of the kingdom. During this exchange, Duncan was gravely wounded and brought back to the inner keep where the fae elf Lorien saved him from the dire effects of the drow poison.
By the time Duncan was roused from his sickness, the drow army had broken through the interior of the castle. All of Old Rhiassa had fallen but for the king's tower, where Duncan and a handful of others now sought to make their last stand. Hope would have been lost then, but Lorien opened a portal into fae, and the few soldiers and nobles who remained fled the destruction of their kingdom into an uncertain fate.
Those warriors and gentry were scattered from one another in the wilds of fae. Many of them Duncan never saw again, but with the help of Lorien he was eventually able to find his cousin, Lady Fallon. Together they stepped out of fae and into the lands of the Realms. There was no way to return to the land that they came from and no kingdom left to go back to in any case, but the two Rhiassans did not fall to despair. Instead they chose to honor the lands that they came from and the memories of those who had died in the drow invasion.
They donned the heraldry of their old kingdom, the black lion, but on a blood red field instead of the traditional white, to symbolize all they had lost. They began their new lives then, and while they never forgot the link to their past, they remained steadfastly focused on building a new future for the country of Rhiassa.
Rhiassa is a city-state with a triumvirate of lords that all share equal rank between Lord Sir Aeston Stromgate, Lady Dame Areni Stromgate, and Lord Sir Gwen Stromgate. It is also a Knightocracy, where the knightly order is the noble class. Knights, and to a lesser extent squires, are responsible for all of the duties of coordination and administration that make a country function. A lord of Rhiassa also serves as the knightly order's commander.
The culture of Rhiassa is very heavily dependent on that knightly order. The mission of Knights of Rhiassa, as well as the philosophy of the entirety of Rhiassa itself, is one of service. Service to the community in a myriad of ways, such as projects and initiatives that are of benefit to the Realms, but chief among all of them is making the gatherings that Rhiassa hosts of the highest quality. The Knights set the standard for both their squires and the rest of the group for what it means to give of themselves in order to make the Realms succeed.
Rhiassa has a number of important geographical landmarks, some that relate specifically to the gatherings held yearly.
Cold Springs: The capital city, known for its large central cathedral dedicated to Garm. Cold Springs was the site of the quests referred to as “What Lurks Beneath”, where an army of goblins and trolls compelled by an eldritch horror attacked the city from caverns and sewers below the streets.
Fallon’s Crossing: One of Rhiassa’s most important mercantile hubs.
Oregoth: A mining town and the source of Rhiassan Steel, and the hub of the Gilded Lion Ironworks, which provides vital weapon making materials to the whole of the Realms.
Crestview: The retirement estate for the former lords and nobles of Rhiassa.
War Maneuver Fields: The site of the yearly Queen of Hearts Tournaments and War Maneuvers.
Southland: A southern city that is well known as the location for the yearly Feast of the Leviathan. It also boasts The Grand Parthenon of Justari, a central hub of the Justarian faith.
The Vanfrost: A portal connecting to the worlds of Norlund, where the Echoes of Ragnarok took place.
Rhiassa's ecology is to a very large extent typical grasslands and woodlands with some elevated rocky bluffs and hills. Within this nation’s borders dwell two subnations. Periden, a historic nation in its own right, was claimed by Rhiassa and presented to Aeston and Areni’s son, Aerik, as his birthright. The other, Lionsmark, was once part of the lands of Ashenmark, gifted to Rhiassa on the occasion of the birth of Aeston and Areni’s daughter as her birthright. Lionsmark stands as the symbolic home of the friendship and alliance between Rhiassa and Ashenmark.
Rhiassa is well-known as the Realms geographical center of the worship of Justari. However, the worship of the Just God in Rhiassa is recent, compared to the nation’s more historic religions. In its earliest incarnations, Rhiassa was the home of Kethrellen, the High Priest of Aurora, with Lord Sir Duncan serving as one of her faithful paladins. After Da’oud broke the sword Dalindanna, Duncan was forced to become one of Garm’s paladins instead, and built a cathedral to honor him in Cold Springs. During the Third Age of Rhiassa, with the onset of Bedlam across the Realms, the worship of Justari became a central part of Rhiassan culture.
Worship of Leviathan is also to an extent a part of Rhiassan culture. While Leviathan is a regional deity of Aeston's homeland, the yearly feast in Leviathan's honor does make him an important god in Rhiassa's history. It is said that the feast keeps him slumbering for another year.
Of course, this does make Feast of the Leviathan Rhiassa’s most important holiday. Held every January in the middle of the month, in many ways, it acts as the Realms’ New Year’s celebration. While the origin of it comes from Aeston’s far-away homeland, Feast of the Leviathan has been embraced by the people of the Realms, and is truly now one of the cornerstones of the year. During a time when chances to tournament or quest are lessened by the weather, it does all of us good to come together in kinship and camaraderie.
Though food seems to be Rhiassa’s (pardon the pun) bread and butter, the gigantic and resplendent charcuterie boards that are on display at many Rhiassan-led gatherings, are impossible to miss.
In Aeston’s own words: “Rhiassa is well known for keeping in trust two of the Realms' most important and historic gatherings in Queen of Hearts and Feast of the Leviathan. A great deal of our national pride and the lion's share of our efforts each year go into making sure these two events remain as high quality as they can possibly be.
Otherwise, I hope Rhiassans are known for their dedication to making the community a better place, for our work ethic, and for our mission of service. Everything we do, from our national knighthood to the training we give to even our newest members all starts with those foundational beliefs.”
(OOC, further words from Jason: If you enjoyed learning about Rhiassa and would like to know more about our members, our traditions, our events, and dozens of other things please visit http://rhiassa.com/
If you believe strongly in making the Realms endure and making sure it constantly grows into a better place. If you are not afraid of hard work and embrace the idea of personal growth. If you want to live a life of service and dedication to others and find joy in helping other people and watching them have fun. If you want to be a part of a team that works well together toward their highest ideals. If all of those are true of you than Rhiassa might very well be the best home you can have.)
This is not a story about me. I was there but I was watching it. I am the… seventh most important person in this story. And do not worry, I will give you the rankings as I go.
This story starts when Prince Orion (6) had a no good very bad idea. Orion said, outloud, to a room with people “I should run a Hunt It Kill it Eat it”. And all the royal advisors, whose job it is to stop madness and pride from dooming a kingdom, did not say anything. So, we had a event.
Now I, liked HKE, but that’s because I was PLAYING HKE, meaning I did not have to look at non-euclidian spreadsheets. You see… HKE it was not a event, it was not two events.
It was TWENTY events. Run by numerous teams. But for the purpose of this story we shall focus on only one team. My team.
My team was a humble team, for some reason the A-listers never hang out with me, I don’t know why. You ask a few white belts if the dry age creates natural marbling and suddenly you get assigned to watch children? Either way the team line up included Sarah (5), Dani (3), Omri (Im not going to number literally everyone), Sir Tulli the Bastard, knight of Chaos, and some wolf person I never met before who WASNT from Vorainess yet.
Oh and Iawen.
The One.
Now the story starts, for me, with Iawen quickly setting me aside and going. “Okay JB, you realize that I am not a fighter, Tulli is a spellcaster, and the others are new right? Your going to be our main fighter for this event.”
Which I responded with “No, I didn’t know that at all.”
But what was I supposed to do? Die? (I mean… I did). So the event goes on, monsters are hunted, cows are rescued.
Then number four shows up. A artillerist (4). He starts speaking in this thick fae accent “Ah wee wee, my sister (2), she is…. How you say? Crazy? The bombs, she uses them to blow zee people up. It is wrong, you must stop her.”
And I said “Wait isn’t this a hunt? Aren’t we supposed to be eating what we kill.”
And he goes “Ah, don’t, how you say, worry about it. The food, she will come, for now, the saving yes?”
So… I guess we are just killing sisters now. Not the first time…
Now I don’t know if you know this about bombs, but if you can survive a explosion it turns out you can survive most anything else. Including swords.
Now a second thing you might know about bombs is that if you can survive a explosion you still cant survive three of them. So all we had to do was take the bombs the artillerist was throwing, and carefully bring them to be fixed up into real bombs to throw back. And my aim was BAD! I mightve been the teams best fighter, but a missile user, I was not. In addition, these bombs were HEAVY, even in bits. So we had to slowly lug em all the way up ten feet of hill. Well it felt like a lot at the time.
And during this time we look to our side and see a small twenty tiny bomb hit Dani in the back of the foot. “Aw” She said, as she burst into flames, dying on the spot.
And Iawen decided she wasn’t having that. Oh she was not having that at all.
Iawen descended upon the sister like a storm upon a small fishing boat, the bombadiers total immunity to sword blows being only the most technical of protections against the knights wrath. In a last ditch effort to save her own hide, the artillerist quickly drew a second bomb, and struck Iawen right dead center in their chest.
Iawen blinked for a moment, their wrath forcibly halted. “Dead.” They call, until realization struck. “Wait a minute, no! Knight fucker!”
The artillerist took a step back and threw again, but Iawen simply called knight again, and then the Artillerist simply gave up, turning tale and running. And Iawen ran after, chasing the artillerist in circles until me and Sarah mercifully blew the artillerist back to hell.
Where she was safe.
And then Iawen ate some pomegranate and rabbit skewers.
You forgot this was a feast event didnt you?
Being introduced for the first time ever at The Clontarf Shuffle is a brand new Realms Gambling experience from Rhiassa Games created with the assistance of the Saurabian Casino and the Church of Tychasaurus.
What is QUESTO? Well, to sum it up simply, QUESTO is a Realms-themed version of KENO. In other words, it is a type of BINGO/LOTTO style game where the winning "numbers" are picked randomly all day long giving tons of opportunity to gamble on the results throughout a whole event day.
QUESTO is an immersive gambling experience by Rhiassa Games that can be an interesting and lucrative passive entertainment option for any feast or social event! All you need is a pad of QUESTO cards and a device/screen on which to show the QUESTO program. We'd like to make QUESTO available to anyone who wants to add it to their event!
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| QUESTO gambling cards. |
In each round players buy up to twenty tiles on their QUESTO card along with the optional ability to purchase bonus bets. As the QUESTO program begins a round, a total of ten (10) tiles will be highlighted on the screen, one after the other. Of those ten tiles, two (2) will be Locations, four (4) will be Grunt Monsters, three (3) will be Artifacts, and one (1) will be a BBG (Big Bad Guy). In this way, the QUESTO results tell the (sometimes strange or hilarious) story of a Realms questing event.
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| An example of a maximum filled out QUESTO Card |
The card you filled out will pay out depending on which type of bet was made and the number and arrangement of tiles that were chosen by the QUESTO program. These payout amounts and bonuses are set by the individual casino that is hosting the game so make sure to check in for the specifics as they can vary from event to event.
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| The QUESTO program in action, selecting tiles. |
Each game takes about ten minutes to play out with a five minute pause between games. This gives event patrons the ability to check in their cards with the cashier to get paid out and for new cards to be filled out and stamped off on before the next game runs.
At the Clontarf Casino this May the inaugural games of QUESTO will be played all day long. To find and fill out a card come over to the Rhiassa Games Casino Corner. The QUESTO program will be projected on the wall so it's easy to keep an eye out on your wagers while you avail yourself of other entertainment around the room!
To learn more about QUESTO and even watch the program in action you can visit the Gambling section of the Rhiassa web page: http://rhiassa.com/games/gambling.html
If you would like to work QUESTO into your event please reach out to Sir Aeston to acquire a pad of cards and learn the specifics of how to operate the QUESTO program and set the odds.
Hi everybody, I'm back with your next set of fortunes. Once again, if you don't know your Domai runes, leave a comment and we can get that figured out.
Air
Something important will happen to you involving food
Fall should be aware of chocolate
Spring will want to watch for bagels
Summer will be effected by raisins
Winter should look out for bacon
Day will be eating the food at the time, Night will be near someone else eating it
Earth
An animal will have an impact on you soon
Fall will have an encounter with snakes
Spring may want to be aware of wolves
Summer ought to watch for tigers
Winter should watch for falcons
Day will find the animal helpful while Night will be hindered
Fire
This element will see fortune involving plants
Fall will find theirs involving cacti
Spring should look out for lilacs
Summer can expect results from pine trees
Winter will want to look for bamboo
Day will need to make physical contact with the plant, Night only needs to be nearby
Metal
Gems and jewels will initiate great changes for you
Fall should be aware of lapis lazuli
Spring will see effects from diamonds
Summer has sapphires in their future
Winter can expect amethysts to make these changes
Day will need to come into possession of the gems and Night will find they owe one to someone else
Water
Your future will be greatly shaped by music
Fall should keep their ears open for a sea shanty
Spring will want to find a raunchy ballad
Summer will hear a jaunty lullaby
Winter may find fate in a slow dirge
Day will hear someone else performing the song while Night will be doing it themself
Blackwood
