Catine
| Continent: | Ishgar |
| Government: | Council of Ten Webweavers |
| Ruler Authority: | Ten women known as the Webweavers |
| Capitol: | Velisombra |
| Major Families: | [Information Missing] |
| Prominent Clans: | [Information Missing] |
| Core Magic: | Luck alteration; the weaving of probability |
| Primary Exports: | Cut glass, mirrors, lace, inks and contracted luck-working |
Catine is a country of black canals, pale mist and narrow windows lit long after midnight. Gothic palaces rise from tidal water; stone saints lean over bridges, and the bells of drowned foundations sometimes sound beneath the ferries. Behind its masked salons and shuttered counting houses, the Webweavers govern: a council of ten women who change luck, each working from a different city.
Their services are famous, discreet and extraordinarily expensive. A merchant may purchase the fortunate arrival of a ship; a fugitive may seek the one unwatched door in a guarded street. Neither leaves certain that the price was measured only in money.
Catine is country 4 on the Ishgar map. Its ten Webweaver cities surround a separate capital, Velisombra, where the council meets on ground belonging to none of its members alone.
Water, stone and shadow
Catine's cities occupy lagoon islands, river mouths and the low stone ridges between them. Canals carry freight, funeral barges, masked revelers and closed passenger boats whose curtains are never opened by the ferryman. Roads connect the inland settlements, but water remains the country's principal public thoroughfare.
Buildings climb above old flood marks: dark brick, weathered marble, pointed arches and balconies screened with ironwork fine as lace. Tall windows reflect candlelight across the canals. In older quarters, a visitor may cross three bridges to reach the house facing their own window. Flood stairs descend beneath the water to doors that no longer open from the street.
Fog makes distances deceptive. Boatmen navigate by chains, pilings and the intervals between bells. A shuttered lamp at the wrong landing can delay a visitor for hours, which is one reason Catine's residents hesitate to blame every misfortune on magic.
The Council of Ten
Only women can be Webweavers. All ten members of the ruling council are women, and they hold equal council seats. No monarch stands above them. Each maintains a working house in one of the ten cities, with clerks, intermediaries and an archive of sealed commissions. Their agents form the quiet network of observers and informants for which Catine is also known.
The council controls major luck-working contracts, arbitrates conflicts between its members and oversees the waterways, customs houses and treaties that sustain the country. Ordinary administration belongs to magistrates and city officers. Becoming a Webweaver requires the ability to alter fortune, but holding a seat also demands the political skill to survive nine colleagues who can do the same.
No member may claim the capital as a personal domain. Council attendants rotate between the ten houses, and important records are deposited in the capital as well as the city of origin. Whether these precautions restrain the council or merely make its rivalries more elaborate is a favorite subject of private conversation.
The price of fortune
Webweaving adjusts the likelihood of possible events. It can favor a timely meeting, a missed patrol, a successful negotiation or a ship's passage through dangerous weather. It cannot make a sunken cargo arrive intact by declaring that it never sank. The more improbable, widespread or prolonged the desired result, the more difficult and expensive the working.
Clients first pay for an assessment. A Webweaver then offers a written commission defining the desired outcome, its limits, the period of the working and the fee. Even an assessment can cost more than an artisan earns in a season. Great commissions may require estates, trade concessions, rare objects, confidential intelligence or a precisely stated future service in addition to gold.
A promise of future service must be written into the contract. Its existence may remain private, but its terms are not a license for an unlimited demand. The danger lies in what a desperate client knowingly agrees to, and in how little they understand the people who will benefit.
No working guarantees that everyone involved prospers. A favorable meeting can still lead to a bad bargain; a saved ship can carry an unwanted passenger. Rival workings can interfere with one another, and the council forbids undisclosed commissions aimed directly against another member's registered contract. Proving a violation is another matter.
The common claim that every good fortune must be balanced by a stranger's catastrophe remains disputed. Webweavers deny that their art obeys so simple a rule. Their critics point out that no outsider has been allowed to examine all ten archives.
Velisombra, the capital
Velisombra, called the City of the Veiled Bell, occupies a cluster of stone islands at the meeting of the principal canal routes. Its central waterway runs between arcaded courts and steep-roofed palaces to the Palace of Ten Shadows, the council's seat.
The council chamber contains ten chairs around a dark glass table. There is no throne. During a formal session, the palace's outer bell sounds once when all ten seats are occupied. Visitors waiting below cannot tell which member arrived last.
Velisombra houses the national contract registry, embassies, appellate courts and the great customs exchange. Its public squares can be crowded with flower sellers and musicians at noon, then empty before an unannounced council hearing. Behind a silver mask, a diplomat can attend a performance without attracting notice; their boatman may still know exactly whose palace pays the fare.
The ten cities and their Webweavers
Each city is a working seat, with its own trade, social world and route into the council's favor. All ten mages can alter luck; their specialties describe the commissions for which they are best known.
| City | Webweaver | Working house and character |
|---|---|---|
| Capiscia | Serafina Veyr, the Gilded Widow | The House of the Closed Fan. A city of banking palaces and covered exchanges, where fortunes change over signed paper. Serafina favors commercial commissions and asks for ownership stakes as readily as coin. Her audience room overlooks a canal whose bridges are privately guarded. |
| Ymipoli | Oriana Nerezza, the Listener | The Palace of Listening Windows. Archive towers, legal colleges and silent courtyards draw petitioners seeking the right witness or an overlooked document. Oriana's clerks buy information, but her most expensive service is arranging for it to reach the right ears. |
| Gianina | Livia Sorell, the Last Invitation | The House of Unlit Chandeliers. Opera houses and masked salons surround long residential canals. Livia works with encounters, patronage and social access. Invitations from her house specify the hour; guests discover the other names only after arriving. |
| Vespera | Cassia Morcant, the Harbor Hand | The Black Lantern House. Harbor cranes stand over dark warehouses and deep-water docks. Cassia handles voyages, cargoes and timely arrivals. Her contracts name ships precisely, and experienced captains check that their own names appear as well. |
| Bellacorte | Isabetta Valcera, the Quiet Advocate | The Court of Nine Doors. A city of advocates, notaries and narrow courthouse bridges. Isabetta favors settlements, testimony and procedural fortune. She will read a case in full before quoting a price, a courtesy whose cost is included in the bill. |
| Neravetro | Lucienne Damasco, the Mirror Keeper | The Obsidian Conservatory. Glass furnaces glow beneath high gothic windows; mirror makers guard their techniques in walled workshops. Lucienne favors discoveries, experiments and the fortunate survival of delicate work. Payment may include the first successful object produced. |
| Rovescala | Mirella Vossari, the Unfallen | The House of the Broken Stair. Terraced streets climb above the lagoon, connected by steep stairs and hanging walks. Mirella accepts commissions concerning escapes and narrowly averted accidents. The broken stair at her door is deliberately left unrepaired; a sound entrance waits beside it. |
| Lacrivale | Severina Corvo, the Pale Physician | The White Cypress House. Hospices, apothecaries and funerary gardens line still canals. Severina works on the uncertain margins of recovery and timely treatment. She cannot resurrect the dead, and her house refuses commissions phrased as promises of immortality. |
| Serramora | Daria Malven, the Keeper of Keys | The Palace of the Sealed Gate. Lock makers, diplomatic residences and guarded bridges give the city its reputation for discretion. Daria favors safe passage, concealment and the fortunate absence of scrutiny. Clients are told exactly which part of their journey the contract covers. |
| Orlascura | Mattea Sabletti, the Final Throw | The House Beneath the Clock. Gaming rooms and auction halls surround a bell tower with a face on only three sides. Mattea specializes in contests, bids and brief moments of decision. Her fees are fixed before the outcome; losing is no excuse for withholding payment. |
Masks and manners
Masks are customary at evening entertainments and private audiences, but their anonymity has limits. A visitor may conceal their face from other guests while the host's steward records their identity. A masked signature has no force at the registry unless a licensed witness can identify the signer.
Catine favors velvet, dark silk, fine lace, high collars and small flashes of polished silver or colored glass. Mourning clothes are carefully distinguished from fashionable black by their fastenings and veils. Mistaking one for the other is a social error that a good host quietly repairs.
Public conversation is courteous and exact. A person who says "I wish you a safe passage" offers goodwill; one who says "Your passage has been arranged" may have committed money and influence. Residents learn to ask which meaning was intended.
Intrigue and everyday life
The Webweavers' wealth draws foreign envoys, ruined aristocrats, ambitious merchants and people with a single desperate request. Rival houses cultivate the same ferrymen, musicians and servants, while independent brokers make a living knowing which house will even hear a particular petition.
Most residents cannot afford a private working. They earn their living transporting passengers, cutting glass, preparing meals, binding records or maintaining the piles beneath the palaces. Neighbors still lend tools, share food during floods and argue about ordinary debts. Their practical knowledge is often more dependable than the little charms sold to visitors on the bridges.
The country's unease comes from the difficulty of knowing when chance has been touched. An empty chair, a late ferry or a dropped key can be an accident. It can also be the first visible part of an arrangement made months before.
A tale of Catine: The Eleventh Envelope
On the night the council assembled in Velisombra, a courier delivered eleven envelopes to the Palace of Ten Shadows.
The steward counted them twice. Ten bore the private seals of the working houses. The last was closed with plain gray wax.
"For which member?" he asked.
"The instructions say to open it after the others."
"Whose instructions?"
The courier laid his receipt on the desk. The palace's own registry had commissioned the delivery thirty years before.
Upstairs, the ten Webweavers broke their seals. Each found an original contract bearing a different name and the same request: that a certain child should leave Catine alive. Each contract had been paid in full. Each had been executed on the same night.
For a long time, no one reached for the gray envelope.
At last Daria opened it. Inside lay a ferry ticket, an ordinary brass key and a short letter.
You all kept your promises. I have returned to find out why ten strangers wanted me saved.
The bell below the chamber sounded once. All ten councilors were already seated.
Outside, a passenger boat waited at the palace steps. Its curtains were drawn, and its boatman had been paid to remain until morning.
