Rumors, Beliefs, & Folk Truths
This page will be filled with a miscellany of little notes, rumors, and oddities that the people of Selan tend
to believe. Quite a lot of them may be true, but not everything on this page will be.
- Fire rat meat is very spicy and self heating on exposure to air.
- A hideous plague is roaming the land transforming people into hideous crusty creatures bent on death and destruction.
- Khadina allows the souls of sailors come back as dolphins.
- One of the Whirling blades of Cythane, Eagle Eye, has been found in the Duchy of Peirlyean by adventurers.
- Bumbleberry bushes are good luck.
- A dome of dark shadows is growing in the central part of the Empire. Few have been able to enter, and only
one group has returned. The dome has shrunk to the size of a small barony off of the Imperial Highway. Witnesses
speak of a realm of demons and monsters.
- It is bad luck to sleep with your head to the north.
- A mercenary group called the Dogs of War are attacking and destroying caravans and small towns all over the
Empire. The Dogs of War are a group of displaced Vartith and Legyre, mostly Vartith.
- Soulwinds or "the Breath of Medraut" are soul-chilling winds
that blow near places of great death and destruction. They even have
the power to draw the souls of the restless dead back into their bodies.
- In the third week of Khadinora, the recently deceased will roam the world at night.
- Imperial Soldiers are burning entire villages to find single members of the Dogs of War.
- Keep salt in your shoes to prevent chills.
- A group of slavers is working the coasts of the Empire, kidnapping anyone found alone to a lifetime of servitude.
- Dark shadowy creatures from beyond this world are attacking and killing
innocents victims at random. They appear from the shadows and return
once their vile missions are complete.
- Those completely devoted to their god or goddess cannot be brought back
as an undead creature.
- A smoke-shifting, gargoyle-demon has been terrorizing the southern
inhabitants of Peirlyean.
- Ghosts can be kept away by burning sulfur.
- Stepping on a peck will bring bad luck.
- Diseases are evil spirits that infest the living. Each type of spirit has certain magics or herbs that will
force the spirit from the body. These spirits will usually travel by physical contact, but some can fly between
victims. These evil spirits are created by the devil Malphastos to torment the living. Known as the Lord of Pestilence,
he has been gaining a small cult of worshippers.
- A group of dedicated ministers are traveling around the Empire rooting out worshippers of Lillith and burning
them on the stake.
- Varloche, the land of the dead, lies far to the north.
- Salamanders stay in pools and lakes to stay cool and not start small
fires all over the wilderness.
- Sighting one of the large, double-hulled Great-ships of the Pellini Isles is regarded as a sign of luck among some of the fishing
villages along the coast of the Empire.
© 1999 J. K. Wykowski & T. Coonrod