Quaint was a high walled city-state located on the shore of a peninsula far from its neighbors.[1] Until recently it had been ruled by the vicious and corrupt King Necrotus the Nihile. Now his body was one of the corpses that hung upside-down on the city's inland wall.[2]
Quaint's new ruler was Necrotus' brother, King Macrotus the Overwhelmingly Considerate. Macrotus was obsessed with health and purity and so made worship of the Lady of Beneficence the state's sole legal religion. He banished the court's mages and raised and an army of Well Knights whose purpose was to enforce volumes of new prohibitions covering all aspects of life designed to promote the populace's health. All vices were forbidden, diets were made vegetarian, exercise was mandatory, public displays of emotion were prohibited, babies were not allowed to disturb the peace with their cries, and so on. Every citizen's duty was to die healthy. Those that failed had their corpses hung upside-down from the city walls.[3]
The royal palace featured a long colonnade lined with upright glass lidded coffins displaying the agonized expressions of those citizens, known as the "Healthy Dead", who had died in healthy prescribed manners. It also contained a room-sized mechanism designed by the king to exercise his muscles and joints for hours at a time.[4]
The city's religious life centered around the Grand Temple of the Lady, who was said to dwell in a pit at its center.[5] Its formal front entrance featured a blockish altar sitting atop a raised platform from whence the Lady's voice could periodically be heard making pronouncements. Its operations were run by veiled nuns and priestesses.[6]
Notable Residents
- Agin Again - Demoness of Lust
- Arpo Relent - Well Knight
- Elas Sil - Saint of Glorious Labor
- Imid Factallo - Saint of Glorious Labor
- Ineb Cough - Demon of Vice
- Invett Loath - Well Knight, Purest of Paladins
- Lady of Beneficence - State sponsored goddess
- King Macrotus
- King Necrotus
- Nauseo Sloven - Demon of Corpulence
- Senker Later - Demoness of Sloth
- Storkul Purge - Well Knight
Notable Landmarks
- Day Temple of Wellness[7]
- Grand Temple of the Lady of Beneficence, the Goddess of Wellness[8]
- Hurla's Brothel[9]
- Inland Gate[10]
- Monument of Singe[11]
- Palace of Earthy Delights[12]
Streets
- Greentongue Avenue
- Runner's Avenue
In The Healthy Dead
Dissatisfied Saints, Imid Factallo and Elas Sil, hired the necromancers, Bauchelain and Korbal Broach, to depose the tyrannical King Macrotus who was killing his subjects with kindness.[13] The necromancers sowed chaos by raising the city's dead while their manservant, Emancipor Reese, subverted the city's leading paladin, Invett Loath.[14] Bauchelain brought Macrotus's rule to an end when he revealed the king had died and that his healthy agenda had been run in league with Agin Again, the Demoness of Lust. The necromancer designated Imid Factall and Elas Sil as the new king and queen of Quaint.[15]
Notes and references
- ↑ The Healthy Dead, Section 1
- ↑ The Healthy Dead, Sections 5 and 8
- ↑ The Healthy Dead, Sections 5/6/14
- ↑ The Healthy Dead, Section 13
- ↑ The Healthy Dead, Section 8
- ↑ The Healthy Dead, Section 6
- ↑ The Healthy Dead, Sections 11/12
- ↑ The Healthy Dead, Section 1
- ↑ The Healthy Dead, Section 21
- ↑ The Healthy Dead, Section 12
- ↑ The Healthy Dead, Section 16
- ↑ The Healthy Dead, Section 3
- ↑ The Healthy Dead, Section 5
- ↑ The Healthy Dead, Sections 13 and 21
- ↑ The Healthy Dead, Section 36