Missu, goddess of Love
Launghi is a city in the middle of the plain, with rich, deep, fertile soil well-watered by the floods, easy irrigation, and bountiful harvests twice per year. On the other hand it is exposed to the wind and the sun, and in summer it bakes amid its ripening fields of golden grain. The city walls are of sun-roasted red brick, and they are washed with lime every year. The houses have thick walls and thick flat roofs of clay. They, too, gleam with whitewash. The courtyards and the squares are planted with dark-green glossy-leafed trees that flower sweetly in the Spring and drip with oranges, pomegranates, and lemons in the autumn and winter. In the middle of the city is a steep-sided hill, mounded with great labour and crowned by the gleaming, plaster-coated palace of the goddess Missu.
Missu is very susceptible to the beauty of young men, about which she has strong and decided preferences. However she is unable to bear the prospect of beautiful young men suffering the ravages of age. Men with any signs of aging, illness, or injury are not permitted into her presence; given the harsh wind and sun of Launghi that pretty much excludes any man over about 25. They are not allowed onto her sacred hill, and except when enemies or floodwaters are at the foot of the wall they are expected to leave the city before dawn and not return until after sunset.
Every now and again Missu falls in love with some handsome youth, whom she takes as her consort will he or nil he — at least the youths who she approaches seldom dare to refuse her. Fortunately she only ever falls for lads she believes to be single and virgins: never for boys she knows to be in love with or married to anyone else. Unfortunately she is sometimes pretty much oblivious of anything that happens outside her city walls (including both trysts and foreigners' weddings), and she has never been able to accept a homosexual affair; even when she is told of them she quickly forgets.
Missu's gift, which she gives only to her consorts, raises the recipient's Appearance to Transcendant and his HT to 14. It also makes him look as much like her ideal of masculine beauty as the recipient's build &c. will allow; all of Missu's lovers and ex-lovers look the same, and for the people of Launghi and every city within 50 miles they count as having Off-the-Shelf Looks.
While Missu has a consort she tends to spend most of her time in her house and garden, and does not bother with the running of her city. This allows the people to behave more freely, e.g. in the matter of "ugly" men being allowed in the streets. Missu's high priest takes over the government as her deputy, which allows, for example, "ugly" men to have their court cases heard. This happy state of affairs continues until one of three things occur:
- If Missu's consort shows any sign of mortality — if he gets seriously sick, if he is injured and develops a scar, or if he shows any sign of aging such as sprouting a grey hair or developing a wrinkle — she becomes horrified and disraught. She weeps for days and alternates sobs with apologies and self-castigations, and she cannot bear her ex-lover's presence.
- If she becomes aware that her consort is or ever has been carnally or emotionally involved with someone else (including male lovers and foreign wives, whose existence she was unable to understand in her first infatuation) she will fly into a jealous tantrum, drive her ex-consort out of the house with a barrage of thrown small household articles, and throw his things into the midden.
- If her consort ever becomes unable to serve her erotic demands (which are frequent), particularly in the matter of erectile or ejaculatory dysfunction, even fleetingly, Missu becomes convinced that she has lost his love and is profoundly unworthy. She will weep and mourn incessantly, staring for hours at her reflection in her mirror or the reflecting pools in her courtyard, apologise hysterically about her previous affairs, obsess about how much older she is than her consort, reject and repulse any attempt to comfort her, and steadily become more and more unbearable until her consort leaves.
After such a paroxysm Missu will be withdrawn and dejected for a while, then pull herself together and throw herself into the management of her city. "Old, ugly" men are not allowed into her presence, but she will notice and object if no young men appear. Pretty soon she will fall in love again.
Missu does not withdraw her gift from ex-lovers, but she forbids them entry to her city and becomes furious if she catches sight of one. A few skulk around avoiding her sight. Some live as best they can in the exposed and undefended shacks that the men make for temporary shelter in the fields. Others emigrate.
Ex-lovers of Missu are legendary for their transcendant good looks and the mastery of erotic technique that they accumulate under the goddess's instruction (if they last long). They are highly valued as slaves in some limited quarters, and are sometimes the objects of targeted slaving raids.