The Unreached Duchy

Chapter 5

There’s also celebrations when the Zodiacs change, though they are not as grand as the Alaiceaus and Cassini Festivals unless the Zodiacs change on the first or tenth of the month; which does happen when Cetus changes to Aries and Virgo changes to Libra during the Alaiceaus Festivals. People who are lucky enough to be born on such days are also celebrated each year by Makara for the entire month. Any awards and promotions given out to the Trireme, our Navy, are also given out at the celebrations and Festivals; the more important the award or promotion is then it is given out at a bigger Festival, in some cases the person has to wait until Skirophorion Day to get their award or promotion.

Cassini Festivals usually happens when the tide is high each month and has a lot of games that are played. Some of the more popular games among the human are Go, Ur, Tafl, Catur, Senet, Backgammon, and Mancala. There’s also the main and most popular game played in Makara that is Cassini. People in Makara play all of them but Cassini is a dice game that can be played anywhere and on any type of surface, unlike the other popular games that have different types of boards to play on. Since we are an island kingdom on the Black Sea, we depend on the water and Arausio to help us.

Alaiceaus Festivals are when people are welcomed as members of the races that inhabit our kingdom. Even people, including humans, must be cleared by the Infirmary if they are shipwrecked if they want to be considered for a transformation. If that person is allowed to be transformed from human to another race, they would have until Xul or Yazk’in to change their minds. If the person originally chooses to remain a human, they have one chance to change their mind and become another race before the Transformation Ceremony actually takes place at Alaiceaus. Likewise if a Kabouter is rescued off the shores of Makara they are given the same chances to become another race, including human.

Transformation Ceremonies were always held at the Temple in the Great Hall and always involved a great deal of magic that the races all brought with them when they arrived at Makara. Each race had their own section of the Great Hall for their part of the Ceremony. The length of a Transformation Ceremony always varied but the order was always the same. The Ceremony always started off with anyone being transformed into Basajauns and Fir Bolgs out of respect for the first races in Makara. After the Ancestral races were the transformations to Kabouter, Merfolk, Yilbegan, Jentil, and Antero Vipunen. The other races transforming into human were always transformed last because turning into a human was never seen as a positive improvement.

The Basajauns and Fir Bolgs were always transformed in the middle of the Great Hall because it was seen as the biggest honor to become a member of an ancestral race. The middle of the Great Hall was also easiest to see from everywhere else in the Great Hall. They were giants and they used their enormous size to their advantage.

Anyone becoming a Kabouter would be next up on a platform due to the race only being six inches tall at the tallest.

Anyone being turned into Merfolk started off on the dry floor at the start of their Ceremony portion but then would be moved into the water channel for most of it. Merfolk transformations were the only ones besides the Yilbegan that were covered with anything; Merfolk were submerged in water and Yilbegan were made to stand inside a roaring fire.

Depending on the race one picked to transform into and the position that they held, a person could possibly receive a pet or a familiar at the time of transformation or shortly after the ceremony was completed. Some people, like Serdar Neruda, were even given a companion from the Royal Family as a way for the Royal Family to show their appreciation for hard work in Makara.

Serdar Neruda, for example, was given a Luduan in honour of his naval career and his actions that saved countless lives when Rome decided to attack Makara bound ships unprovoked, sending countless innocent people to their deaths. Neruda also received a promotion from Polemarcho to Serdar at the same ceremony.

A Luduan, usually found only in the Samosata region of the realm, is nature’s truth detecting animal and are never wrong when sensing someone’s intentions for good or evil. Its purpose was to help serve Serdar Neruda both in the remainder of his naval career and to be a companion when he retired from the Trireme.

The high priest and high priestess are usually the ones who decide who gets a familiar or a companion as a gift for service to the kingdom. There’s multiple creatures in the realm that are both wild and tamable; each one can be found all across the realm.

A familiar is supposed to assist the person they were belong to with completing tasks in daily life. Occasionally, a familiar will possess some sort of magical quality that is especially beneficial to their owner; sometimes, their special quality is a natural ability that they possess not found in other creatures