From Phaeloses of Newharbour, regarding the establishment of the first trade posts of the South Oceans Company of Larn.
Good my lord,
As ever I pray that you are in fine health, in good favour at court, and such. As usual, parchment is in short supply, so please take the usual formalities as read.
I write to inform you that we are not, as we had hoped, the first to cross the ocean and establish a presence here. We were aware that the Illyria Trade Council have sent delegations and intend to establish fortified trade posts. But both they and we were chasing another. It seems that colonists have arrived from Port Tal.
They have made made camp on ancient temple ruins. The locals, being superstitious savages, believed that the temples were haunted, and so think that these exotic men who have sailed the endless ocean and driven the spirits from these temples must be the gods returning to claim their homes. They have therefore taken to revering the Tallian colonists. So, these warlike savages have submitted meekly, joyfully, to the instructions of their supposed deities.
I wish we had managed to pull off something like that.
Still, I cannot but fear that this might all end badly for the people of Tal. There are few of them, hugely outnumbered by their adoring subjects. What would happen if their followers lost faith in them, or became too demanding?
The savages believe that some centuries ago their gods raised a wall of stone and fire to protect them from horrendous magics unleashed in the far south, that their gods saved the whole jungle land from destruction. They may have high hopes for the might of returning divinities. And what might a horde of pious savages do to gods who fail them?