Tyverian Culture

Tyverian culture revolves around power - either acquiring it, or joining those that have acquired it.

As Tyverians understand it, power is the ability to shape the world, influence events and drive others to do one’s will. The stronger Tyverians are those that can create a path for others to follow, while the weaker will align with those whose path calls them.

However, Tyverians don’t believe in destiny or divine right. A true Tyverian forges their own path and earns their own fate; even maghyri know that they only earned their privileged position by a mix of luck, strength and audacity, and that anyone with the same qualities stands a better chance of getting ahead. And their subjects know it too.

Yet Tyverians know acquiring power is not the end - neither the end of the road nor the end purpose. Once a Tyverian has proven they can exert influence over the world, that is when the struggle begins. The more power a mortal has, the fiercest the competition. If you affect a larger part of the world, you suffer equally larger consequences. Challenges naturally rise for those that have risen from their previous station. This is why most Tyverians - including most maghyri - choose to stay where they are, and to adhere to stronger individuals instead of risking the endlessly increasing challenges that come with greater power. Only those Tyverians that not only dare the greater challenges, but survive them, are worthy of leading their kind.

Overview
Pleasure—be it in the form of art, emotional contact, food or drink—is a form of power, for it also allows an individual to rise higher than their starting condition. It is also one of the easiest and most accessible ways to enjoy power, for everyone can achieve it, even if briefly. Thus, Tyverians give a great importance to sensations - beauty, taste, sounds, anything that increases one’s enjoyment. Tyveria is a land of spicy foods, excessive ornaments and gaudy architecture, for it all helps elevate the power of tyverians by letting them feel more.

Blood is the simplest way to measure power in Tyveria. In the Empire, blood equals wealth, and one’s blood is as valuable a resource as money or basic needs. And in an Empire ruled by blood sorcerers, access to the blood of others defines political and military power even more so than one’s followers or sheer force of arms. Vampiric practices and blood sorcery are a part of the daily routine, and most citizens pay a blood tithe to their maghyr or vampyr lord, extracted by a duly appointed tax collector. Especially comely or healthy individuals can sell their blood at higher prices, and is commonplace for Tyverian citizens to sell their better-endowed relatives as indentured servants, or offer their blood to second-hand buyers, to advance the family status. Common humans often rise to positions of local importance by controlling the distribution of blood between individuals or cities; similarly, many criminal organizations in the Empire grew from the black market of smuggled blood.

Blood Pacts
In the absence of a set of moral rules, Tyvierian law enforces legal adjudication on a case-by-case basis via a blood pact - a legally-binding, unbreakable magic ritual that ties the life forces of all parties involved. A blood pact may be sought to clear a land dispute, establish a work contract or confirm a truce. Some crime witnesses or prosecutors are required to sign blood pacts of honesty before a trial. Most maghyri are bound to the Imperial house by blood pacts, just like serfs signed blood pacts with their maghyr, or indentured servants with their creditors.

Most blood pacts establish a client and a provider, where the provider, usually a vassal or debtor, is required to fulfill an obligation to the client, usually a more powerful citizen or a lord. But there are also many blood pacts established among equals, particularly between maghyri, intended to establish precisely this - that none of the parties will take advantage of the other.

By their very nature, blood pacts require a powerful sorcerer to enforce the agreement. This was a major source of status for the early maghyr caste, and their means of spreading their political power, as the first blood sorcerers were sought after to adjudicate disputes between commoners. Thus they gained authority over other social groups, and rose to control the Empire.

The Sanguine Legacy
Maghyri are Will-chosen humans with the power to control the blood of other creatures through Id magic. This unique ability has shaped the maghyr ways, which integrate both the importance of blood and the virtuous ruthlessness of Tyverian culture.

To advance within their bloodline, the Realm’s maghyri rulers must prove themselves worthy by absorbing their sanguine legacy—that is, the blood power of all their predecessors.

Maghyri live by a credo of spreading their will to other individuals and into the world. They measure success by how much of their will survives them, be it through law, through deeds or through their peoples’ memories. When a maghyr dies, this will—the manifest embodiment of their power in life—lingers as a cloud of blood near their place of rule, usually their throne or audience room. Then the maghyr’s successors must approach the lingering blood and absorb it into their bodies through a special ritual. This symbolizes the acceptance of your family’s legacy, and also the promise to continue your ancestors’ will - not as a follower, but as the new guide that will harness that will as your own, into new paths, towards new heights. And when you die, your will and your deeds will be added to the blood cloud of those that came before you, and linger in your place for your descendants to claim.

Maghyri that claim their blood legacy become as powerful as their predecessor was; however, the process is not free of risk, as the legacy often represents so much power that a single individual cannot contain it. Many maghyri die in the attempt of claiming their legacy, and the power absorbs them instead of the other way around. Thus, a maghyr that succeeds at claiming the will of their ancestors not only becomes mightier - they prove worthy of their might; of becoming the new wielder of the family’s power.

Most maghyri that die during the ritual fail only because they misunderstand the sanguine legacy - because they come humbled, honored by the chance to prove themselves. But by the rules of blood sorcery, absorbing your ancestors’ power doesn’t entail any respect or continuation of their tradition; on the contrary, it means you are ready to own their legacy, bend it and harness it according to your own free will. Despite their autocratic upbringing, very few maghyri actually understand this, and even fewer are willing to take on the full responsibility of writing new laws, creating new worlds, using what came before as a tool of their authority.

Thus, the sanguine legacy fulfils the double purpose of keeping in-house feuds to a minimum—as succession itself represents mortal danger—and of ensuring that only the strongest maghyri rule every house. And when a maghyr absorbs their sanguine legacy and survives, they become as powerful as all of their predecessors combined, which usually leads to ever stronger maghyr houses.

Kadhah
There is a terrible side effect to the maghyr houses’ increasing power, however. The use of Blood Sorcery creates kadhah spirits; dark wraiths that stalk and harass the magic’s wielder. Every maghyr has its own kadhah, which grows in strength and skill every time the maghyr uses their powers. Thus, each surviving generation of maghyri breeds a stronger kadhah than the previous one, and an ever greater danger to their ruling house.

The curse of kadhah has caused maghyri to see themselves as tragic heroes, doomed to be defeated by their own power, but empowered by this certainty. As life is art, they see their lives as an intense story, which shall end in their glorious downfall, and they aspire to make it as grand and tragic as they can.