House Plumiére

House of Progress

In the South, a sprawling patchwork of lush fields and plantations gradually surrenders to wild wetlands and then dense, impenetrable jungle. But amidst the grandeur of nature and the peaceful rhythm of agriculture, an industrial revolution is taking place in the academies and cities of this region, all under the dominion of House Plumiére. Invention and innovation in all industries is actively incentivised through a fast-tracked commission system employing hundreds of dedicated clerks, and up-front financing for promising projects even before Imperial permits have cleared. These projects range from purely research, to experimental prototyping, to prospecting, to the scaling-up of existing efforts in modernisation, mechanisation, steamification, beautification, automatonomation, you name it.

Industrial works are managed by the Rotary Guild Council, a collection of specialized guilds who internally rotate roles and responsibilities among all members to maintain institutional knowledge, prevent concentration of power, and encourage fresh ideas.

This Old Goblin

If I seem to write with a little extra confidence for this House, then you must excuse me. The alleys of Menta Pariché were my childhood home, and the hard bunks of Academie El-Plume where I studied under and was rejected by The Historical Society. To be sure, technology is progressing at an incredible pace here. But how much steel, for example, is enough? How much of that steel will go to finishing the overburdened sewers in our festering cities? How much will be loaded onto wagons to become wheel-lock rifles, sabers, brigandines, and those ridiculous shiny plumed helmets of the very same Velpyrian dragoons that torched villages for unpaid taxes not 20 years ago? Plumian lands are at once my beloved home and my greatest frustration. Overflowing with ambition, House Plumiére will sell their own brilliant souls if it means "advancing the field".

Heart of Knowledge
The prestigious Academie El-Plume sits right at the edge of the jungle, at the border of civilization in the South. Its placement within nature is no coincidence. El-Plume produces the most bleeding-edge research on the natural world, its mundane and magical properties, its mysteries and monstrosities, alongside more typical programs in the arts, science, arcana, and of course history.

Goblins of Old

Buried all across Plumiére territories from the fungus fields in the North to deep in the jungle to the South around the Gorian Cascades, are ancient ruins of goblinoid origin. These may be some of the oldest known ruins on the entire continent, dating back thousands of years.

It appears that at one time in the distant past, the southern part of Istolaire was home to an expansive goblin civilisation, dare I say a goblin empire. Some ruins are well-known and have either been fully explored or completely excavated. Occasionally it is discovered that the old stone foundations of a modern settlement or castle was built upon an ancient goblinoid site, the original builder clearly not questioning the lore of the free stone and solid foundations.

But it is artifacts and tablets recovered from many of these smaller ruins that present more questions than answers. In brief, numerous scraps of deciphered carvings hint at the existence of a great underground super-fortress, once the seat of power of an ancient goblin empire. This is intriguing as it resembles a myth in contemporary goblinoid cultures, that of the lost city of Gorz-Ulka. Up until recently it was presumed that even if Gorz-Ulka does exist, it is long forgotten in the Lowerdark, or on another plane of existence entirely. The newest archeological findings suggest that Gorz-Ulka could be just underfoot, and we may be close to some poor sod or very happy archeologist stumbling on an intact surface entrance.

Goblins of Today

These days, goblins are more accepted in humanoid society than ever, especially if they are born into it. Things get a little more complex in the heavily wilded areas of the Plumerian domain, where there exists an entire separate world of goblinoid clans and tribes that fear and despise outsiders almost as much as their own goblin rivals. Even though I am the same kind of goblin as these primitive folk, I struggle to understand or relate to them. Though I have no desire to join a goblin clan in the woods, I am happy to be reminded of the versatility and tenacity of my kind. Time will tell if the goblins of the wild can hold out against my civilisation's relentless march of progress.