[patchwork]

Answer 29 the civilization that Calledron originated from referred to itself as Oppuhan; it consisted of many cities with a surrounding pale of farmland, each ruled by a mighty individual whether they called themself monarch, tyrant, all-father or wisest; succession was non-hereditary and therefore frequently messy. There was no true multi-city government but alliances and multicity armies were routine, particularly when war against other cultures offered; war against the alien was an excellent way to do mighty deeds, impress people and set yourself up to become monarch later, after all. The provincial structure of the Calledron Empire was thus not a great leap for them. Wine was consumed by everyone in slightly ridiculous quantities, the pursuit of wealth was publicly sneered at but of course privately pursued, and vocal performances of poetry were both the highest art and most popular entertainment, both memorized and freestyle, typically with limited musical accompaniment. Gender equality was near-total, fortunately for the invading fleet that found themselves surprise colonists inside a crocodile skull. Gifting and guest-right were important rituals, and the tension between the desire for individual fame and acclaim and poetry sung about you and the need to not harm the city in your pursuit of glory was a major theme. They acknowledged a score of gods, all of whom were selfish, capricious and downright dangerous, such that the minority who chose to avoid all gods were seen as reasonable enough in their decision. The fringe lunatics who vowed to actually fight against a god were seen as exciting cautionary tales, typically. Their enemies du jour, the Hoggans, worshipped a set of seasonal deities and propitiated them with human sacrifice, as good an excuse as any for a war of rectification against them.

The Empire has attempted to preserve and recreate this culture, but it is tempered by the fact that the initial population was a military fleet with attached marines. Oppuhan practiced chattel slavery, but as the fleet brought very few slaves (and only officers are likely to be slaveholders), the practice didn't really carry forward on any scale. Enslaving the locals proved impractical at first, and once it became practical, they'd lived without slaves for two generations...Religion is widespread and powerful in a military on campaign, but their gods failed to protect them, which forms one of Calledron's endless debate topics.

Answer 47-1 One of humanities' rivals are the Swarms of the Chanovat, which some humans refer to as Roaches or Locusts. By default, the Chanovat are not especially sapient. They lay masses of thousands of eggs, which hatch into omnivorous, gluttonous nymphs, which will eventually become omnivorous, gluttonous hard-shelled, six-limbed adults who lay thousands of eggs...where there's one chanovat, there's enough to crash a biome. They have a strong instinct not to engage in cannibalism or violence against one another, which doesn't really help anyone else. Missionaries of the Primal Swarm seek out "unenlightened" swarms of chanovat, use a divine song to lull them into passivity, and let them drink of the alchemical divine communion, which sparks sapience and language in them. A swarm with no alchemist to make the communion fluid will be nonsapient omnipredators next generation; administering the communion fluid to a chanovat who is not physically mature has been found to be inadvisable. Non-chanovat drinking the communion fluid has been found to be even more strongly inadvisable. Withholding it from a nymph or nonsapient adult, for whatever reason, is a major point of contention between swarms of different philosophies and cultures. The Primal Swarm, of course, maintain that they were gifted the secret of the communion fluid by an ur-mother goddess; perhaps they were. Because they are nonsapient as children, most chanovat do not have a strong conception of family or social organization smaller than the swarm, although some swarms model a quasiparental relationship with the one who administered communion and awakened one's mind.

Question 48 What are some heinous crimes in the Calledron legal system, and what are some comparably minor crimes? What are typical punishments? How is guilt or innocence usually determined?