[patchwork]

Answer 13 The most important thing the Mother Plains provide to Calledron is pseudowheat, as well as grazelands for aurochs, horses and venomous sheep. There are also a number of plants useful in medical alchemy and the manufacture of soporifics. As a service, it also provides isolation; a wide open stretch of strategic nullity is a fine place for a prison, exile community, or lab of second-rate alchemists trying to reverse-engineer the latest gimmick from the Hanging City of Ton (although the latter still need to be watched in case they start a prairie fire). There is also something of a fad for small earth elementals; the earth of the Mother Plains occasionally heaves itself up into a crude copy of a human being (or other novel being) and attempts to emulate the new thing. Left unmolested, it tends to grow bored and lonely and recombines with Mother Plains soon enough, but some people have decided they like having a copy of themselves (or someone else) around, however crude and simplistic, and will pay for the privilege. The process is poorly understood, however; if Mother Plains is a being or goddess, as the elementals imply, she disdains direct contact with tiny humanity.

Question 27 What qualities, virtues or principles do the Imperials of Calledron value in themselves and others? What is the ideal to which they aspire to?