Glavis

Glavis is the capital city of Ancuan.

Background
Approximately 20,000 people call Glavis home. The sprawling city almost seems like a grouping of three towns in close proximity by chance, with a sparse collection of buildings and roads among them. One of the three sections, primarily a port, is on the minor River Frohm. The second is atop a high hill called Nurel's Hill. The third is a farming community filled with markets for produce and livestock.

The people of Glavis worship a pair of gods called Relia and Bianes. These sibling deities are believed to watch over those who place offerings on their secluded altars. Enough people have seen the offerings disappear right before their eyes that even nonbelievers suspect that both Relia and Bianes - or something posing as them - are real in some sense. Whenson Breeve, the chief constable of the city guard, has a theory:

''I think Relia and Bianes are Real. No, not the brother and sister you see in the marble statues in their temples, but some kind of invisible beings. Maybe they're the source of the religion. Maybe they just came along and took advantage of it. But there's something really there. Under the temples. Within the walls, I think, or at least that's what my gut says. With my own eyes I've seen food placed upon the altars disappear. No, not disappear. I've watched it be... consumed is the word I would use. When it happened there was a sort of burning smell in the air and I heard a kind of crackling sound, like a distant fire. I won't lie to you. It scared me. There's things left over from the far-off past, you know? Things I don't understand. And some of them are smart. And hungry. And maybe vengeful.''

The ceremonies of Relia and Bianes involve songs, elaborate costumes, and significant rituals with hand gestures, key words, and repetitive phrases. Worshippers re-enact myths of the brother and sister overcoming adversity, healing the sick, and even giving life to various kinds of plants and animals as boons to humanity.

Within the city of Glavis, a scholar known as Anders the Jack keeps a laboratory where he studies viruses and bacteria, presumably for the good of humanity. Beneath this public lab lies a secret underground facility, however, where he conducts experiments on creatures that seem to be strange monkey-rat things. Anders has a rare condition that requires constant blood transfusions. His monkey-rat thing slaves provide the blood and serve as subjects on which he constantly tests potential cures for his condition.

In the hills just north of Glavis, great vents in the ground expel strange gases into the air. Amid these geologic exhalations dwell intelligent gaseous creatures called the Sruu. Very little is known about these beings, which apparently have a civilization deep below the surface. Those that come up through the vents do so unwillingly and seek to return.