by Dorromee Ado, Grand Scholar, the Central Guilds, Tarnath

Dorromee Ado, Grand Scholar, the Central Guilds, Tarnath

Harmon 27, SP~5,022

Voices are the GERC’s diplomats, as well as their experts in linguistics and culture. The Voices are the smallest GERC division, with only a scant few dozen members; their skill set requires an extent of training that many other divisions don’t. This begins with linguistics – Voices almost invariably have Barriers in Mentarch, Soman, and Charismatic. Mental allows them to memorize a vast number  of languages, while Body allows them to modify their vocal tracts and mouths to pronounce sounds specific to different races: the Dwarven vvo, the four sibilances of the Crawn language Szastak, and more. They then move to cultural training, learning the fine-grained nuance of cities, kingdoms, and tribes up and down the continent. Emotion comes in later on, when they are trained to protect themselves against Energetic persuasion and to read others – but never using Powers to convince others.

This last point is particularly important: Voices swear a strict oath never to directly influence anyone through Energetic means. This means they can broker agreements – from trade agreements to truces between nations – while maintaining the trust of all parties that they are using nothing more than their words. They will also know if someone else tries to influence the agreement.

Most accounts agree that the Voices began with the diplomacy of Drawnwyn, the daughter of perhaps the most influential single figure in Tamarra’s history – Emperor Samron, who began with good intentions and went absolutely insane. Drawnwyn trained Garrett Taborlain, the first “Guild diplomat” in her time on the throne. Garrett went on to train future generations of diplomats, and the GERC began funding their linguistic research in the early 4900s. By SP~4940 they were officially folded into the coalition. Because of this coevolution, though, the Voices maintain some purposeful distance from the Guilds in order to reinforce the idea of their neutrality.

The current head of the Voices is Vissaz Nezl, a crawn Mentarch/Soman who spent years as a spearman in the crawn army before defecting to the GERC. Nezl ardently believes that war is never a foregone conclusion, and that with the right communication any conflict can be averted.

by Dorromee Ado, Grand Scholar, the Central Guilds, Tarnath

Dorromee Ado, Grand Scholar, the Central Guilds, Tarnath

Tasz 4, SP~5,021

Like it or not, the MDD is known best for the flashy minority of what they do: the development of Energetic items, anything from Power-imbued stones to a diving sphere that can transport travelers thousands of feet under the surface of the ocean without being crushed by the pressure. They do create some truly miraculous items, to be sure, but their impact on the day-to-day life of Tamarran citizens has been vastly greater in their development of new materials for weapons, construction of homes, and so on. The MDD is singlehandedly responsible for the buildings in Tarnath that are stable at nine or ten stories, for the ability to produce steel cheaply and quickly – for any number of small things that most people use every day without even noticing.

Perhaps the most notable of the MDD’s everyday improvements is the cross-continental hammool rail system that spans the Tamarran continent. Hammools are animals native to the Plains of Frestehal that have been widely used by both the guilds and some commercial transportation organizations for their use on the rails. They average about 30 feet tall and 20 feet across, with eight sturdy, pole-like legs and skin that looks more or less brownish-grayish until you get up to it and see that it’s actually covered with a layer of fine scales, each a subtly different color. Their stocky heads droop like a necklace between their front legs, only extending slightly beyond the rest of their bodies. Hammools are immensely strong, and rail-runners (as they are called) are shod with particular metal shoes that allow them to float with almost no resistance over the rails, and tack that reduces the weight of whatever they carry. This allows them to port tons of goods cross-continentally in a matter of days. This alone has revolutionized the way commerce works on the Tamarran continent. But hey, y’know, feel free to fixate on the cool fire-shooting wand the MDD made and ignoring the larger structural changes they’ve made, that’s fine.

The current head of the MDD is Kuma-nev-nev-Lanu, an ishiri Evoker from rural villages bordering on the icy wastes to the north. He is unusually short for an ishiri – perhaps 5’5″ – and quite stout. He is widely recognized as one of the best sculptors in Naldrin, where he now lives, and his ability to manipulate materials with Physic is perhaps even more masterful than his sculpting.

by Dorromee Ado, Grand Scholar, the Central Guilds, Tarnath

Dorromee Ado, Grand Scholar, the Central Guilds, Tarnath

Harmon 43, SP~5,022

The Energetic Experimental Group is the most pointedly – often abstractly – academic group of the GERC divisions. The EEG comprises Channels from every Guild, as well as a considerable number of non-Channels in clerical positions, and its top researchers are among the best and brightest on the Tamarran Continent.

The breadth of EEG research is wide; some groups cover practical subjects such as the discovery of new Powers and Power Effects, or new Effects to imbue into Energetic items. Other groups cover purely theoretical research; this includes the underpinnings of the Six Energies and how they interact in the world around us (what allows plants to be controlled by Spirit and bodies by Body, and where is the dividing line? Is it possible to control tree-gendered kamaris with either? Is there a theoretical limit to the number of Barriers one can transcend?). There are also groups that cover just… weird stuff:  what happens if you use telepathy on an Unkind Place? If you use Physic/Body to turn part of a tree into meat, could you control that tree with Body?

A good example of “out there” research is the Shadow Gate Network Project (SGNP), which started in the year SP~5,002 and continues today, twenty years later.  The project examines dimensional gates, which, connect two places in space that are some distance from each other, allowing folk to enter one side of the gate and immediately appear on the other.  But, what exactly is inside  the gate itself?  Is there actually nothing there?  Or, as many on the SGNP team believe, is there an Energy Realm outside of normal space that might itself be visited?  There is anecdotal evidence (actually quite a bit of it) about blink bats that enter a naturally occurring D-Gate, but do not exit from the other side for many minutes, or even hours or days.  It has been said that a number of these blink bats have simply come back out the side they entered, sometimes with a companion blink bat in tow.  Stay tuned as this group makes progress!

The current head of the EEG is Ipchirix Telek-iv-telt, a dwaheely Mentarch/Evoker from the mountains off the coast of the Rimgissel Ocean. While most EEG researchers agree that Ipchirix is a bit… odd, they also agree that she is phenomenally talented as a researcher. She retains vast troves of knowledge and connects information between disparate fields as deftly as a weaver pulls together threads.