Cairhien
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Take what you want, and pay for it.

Sigil: A many-rayed golden sun rising; the Rising Sun.
Banner: A many-rayed golden sun rising on a field of blue.
Capital City: Cairhien
Symbols include the Sun Throne.

History
Cairhien became an independent nation at the end of the War of the Hundred Years. Her rulers at one time laid claim to a swath of land from Shienar to the River Erinin to the Spine of the World. Now the land they control covers less than half that area.

In 566 NE, the Aiel granted Cairhienin merchants the exclusive right to travel the Silk Path form Jangai Pass through the Aiel Waste. At the same time they gave her king Avendoraldera, the only known sapling of the Tree of Life. The nation grew fat on the trade that lay beyond the Aiel Waste, but the good fortune was short-lived. The Aiel War of 976-978 NE brough havoc to Acirhien and the rest of the land. The Aiel burned the city, only her libraries untouched, and took from Cairhien its right to use the Silk Path.

Cairhien's fertile farmland had produced more than enough to feed her people, but after the war the farmers and refugees from the land along the Dragonwall swarmed for protection to the walls of the larger cities, leaving their lands untended. With the farms lying fallow, the king was forced to rely on the goodwill of neighbours and their shipments of grain to feed the people.

The Game of Houses
The key to understanding Cairhien's volatile history lies in the nature of its people. As a whole they are stern and unyielding, preferring the world around hem to adhere to strictly ordered aesthetics rather than natural chaos. Yet they thrive on the complexities of subtle political intrigue, using the art of misdirection and hidden meanings to gain power and status. For a Cairhienin, nothing is as it seems; everything has a deeper meaning, a hidden motive. It was the nobles of Cairhienin who took the style of intrigue created by the White Tower twist, and made it into what is now known as Daes Dae'mar, the dangerous and often deadly Game of Houses. The Great Game has gone on to infect all of the southern nations at least to some extent.

It is Daes Dae'mar that is believed to be responsible for most of Cairhien's disastrous failures. It is suspected that the Aiel War, as the Cairhienin call it, was a direct result of King Laman Damodred's attempt to play the Game. He destroyed the Aiel gift to gain position by making a throne from the tree that would be unique in all the world, never guessing that it would ultimately cost him his life.

Before the Aiel War, the Damodred Kings of Cairhien owned one of the few Power-wrought Heron-marked Blades, despite the fact that few, if any of them, were Blademasters. Set with a jewelled hilt and a very heavily worked jewelled scabbard, the sword wsa so gaudy it looked more like a ceremonial showpiece that the exceptional weapon it was. The last Damodred King, Laman, was wearing the sword when he fell to the Aiel during the Aiel War, but the sword disappeared from his body. It is assumed that the Aiel took it, despite their reluctance to touch swords, perhaps because it was a more feasible way to take something of his back to the Waste to prove his death.

After the Aiel War it was easier for the current King of Cairhien, Galldrian su Riatinrie, to placate the refugees and buy grain than to deal more directly with the problem and possibly risk losing prestige in the Game. There is rumour that Galldrian holds the Game more dear to his heart than the welfare of his people.

All members of the noble Houses are involved in the politics of the Game from birth, and all must learn the art of misdirection and subtlety. As a result, every aspect of dress, behaviour, and even architecture is very carefully ordered. Nothing about the Cairhienin nobility is ever spontaneous, with one notable exception.

The Feast of Lights
The only time the Cairhienin reserve breaks is during the celebration of the Feast of Lights (28th Danu and 1st Taishan). For two days all propriety is gone as are all social barriers between nobles and commoners. The Cairhienin seem determined to make up for a year of careful etiquette with two days of wild abandon. One of the tenets of the holiday is that any man can kiss any woman, and any woman any man. As a result it is common to see nobles and commoners sporting together in various states of undress. Music and dancing fill the streets. Noblewomen are often seen with their hair piled high, bare to the waist beneath their cloaks; common women may abandon any covering above the waste except their hair.

At the end of the Feast, everyone returns to their own class and resumes the mask of reserve, with no repercussions for anything that might have occurred during the holiday, and no acknowledgement that anything did occur.

The City Of Cairhien
In direct contrast to the convoluted maneuvering of their Great Game, the upper merchant classes prefer complete control and perfect order in their environment. Nowhere is this more obvious than in the capitalcity of Cairhien. It was built on the site of the ancient city of Al'cair'rahienallen, Hill of the Golden Dawn, but only the sunrise on the banners remains, and only the Ogier remember what it stood for. Al'cair'rahienallen had a great Ogier grove just beyong its boundaries, but the grove was not tended after the Trolloc Wars, the Great Trees are gone, and there remains only a forest where firewood is cut.

The modern city is laid out in a precise grid pattern within the perfect square formed by the high grey perimeter walls. The River Alguenya flows along one side of the city, yet the uncompromising perfection of the wall mocks the flowing curves of hill s and river. Perhaps the Cairhienin architects wished to force nature to bend to their rigid control. The high walls are broken only by several well-guarded square gates. Within the walls, the famous Topless Towers of Cairhien stand in exact patterns, covered with scaffolding up to their jagged unfinished tops. Before the Aiel War, these towers were renowned as a wonder of the world, reaching almost to the clouds, it was said, but during the Aiel War they burned and fell.

Throughout the city wide paved streets run arrow-straight, despite any curves in the underlying terrain, meeting every crossing street at perfect right angles. Closed sedan chairs or curtained carriages travel the city among the pedestrians ostentatiously minding their own business. All the buildings and terraces are made of stone, decorated only with straight lines and sharp angles. The hills are so carved and terraced into straight lines that they look man-made.

Most of hte structures have sustained some damage from the Aiel War, except for the imposing bulk of the Royal Library of Cairhien. The Aiel spared it deliberately, it would seem, refusing to damage or destroy any book. Within its walls lies one of the greatest repositories of knowledge in the world, second only to that of Tar Valon. Though most Cairhienin do not know it, the Royal Library is probably the greatest treasure of their nation.

Cairhienin Dress Code
Cairhienin upper-class dress reflects their desire for control and order. The people are shorter and more pale-skinned than Andorans, though with darker hair, and the dark colours they prefer contrast with their fair skin. Men and women wear coats and dresses of black or dark blue or green. The darkness is relieved by narrow horizontal slashes of colour across the chest and body, and dark ivory lace at the throat and wrists. The number of colour sashes indicates the rank of the wearer, while their colour indicates the House. A very high ranking lord or lady might have slashes of colour from collar to hem, while a lower ranked noble might have only a few slashes across the chest.

The ladies wear their hair tightly coiffed into elaborate towers of curls carefully designed as unique to the wearer. The men wear their hair long, with flat or bell-shaped velvet caps. Formal wear is much the same, equally dark, save that ladies' skirts are extremely wide and supported by hoops, and the materials used are finer. Even the liveried servants only have colour in a few stripes on the cuffs and their house badge embroidered on the breast of coat or dress. Some liveries have house colours covering the collar or sleeves, but rarely the entire coat or dress. Upper servants show more colour on their livery than lower attendants.

The lower classes are comparatively free from the restraints of the Great Game, and they are free to dress any way they wish. They often approach the extremes of flamboyance their betters avoid. Their clothes may be ill-fitting and shabby, but they are extremely colourful. Bright skirts and shirts with coats and shawls or equally bright, though often clashing, colours are quite common.

Military dress follows the same dark colours as the nobles, but with a few embellishments. Officers wear slashes of rank across their coats much as nobles do, but they shave the front of the head and often dust it with white powder, leaving the hair hanging long in back. High-ranking officers wear ornately gilded cuirasses as well as large white plumes attached to their bell-shaped helmets and ornate gauntlets. Lesser officers and soldiers wear much plainer armour. Regular soldiers wear their hair cut hort in a basic bowl cut. Many common-born soldiers shave their heads.

Cairhienin officers also wear small banners called "con" on short staffs on their backs. These enable easy location of officers or a particular lord's personal retainers.

The Sun Palace
At the exact centre of the city, on the highest hill, stands the massive square bulk of the Sun Palace of Cairhien, crowned with stepped towers precisely placed in concentric squares of increasing height. Tall narrow windows and lofty colonnaded walks enhance its stern command. Within its walls are many gardens, but even the plants, flowers, and trees are precisely pruned and strictly ordered into perfect sqare or rectangular beds.

Within the heart of hte palace is the Grand Hall of the Sun, a great throne room with massive square columns of blue-streaked marble and a large golden mosaic Rising Sun set into the deep blue tiles of the floor. At the far end of the Hall, upon a wide dais, rests the soul of the palace, the Sun Throne. A model of Cairhienin restraint, the heavy armchair has simple straight lines despite the golden silk and gilding on its wood. The only curves are in the wavy-rayed godlen sun set high on the throne's back, so made as to shine above the head of the occupant.

Even the artifacts and artwork displayed throughout the dark, heavy corridors of the Palace are chosen for their straight lines and sharp edges. Tapestries contain the only large concentrations of colour, but even there the Cairhienin need for control is demonstrated throught the rigid, tightly controlled groupings of the subjects depicted.

Outside the straight stone walls, the river is usually filled with ships, often carrying grain. During the time of the Silk Path, Cairhien became a major trade centre, and the river a primary transport for imports and exports. The far bank bristles with tall granaries.

Foregate
A secondary city lies outside the walls. Known as Foregate, this warren of gimcrack wood buildings and zigzag mud streets began as seperate market villages for each of the city's gates, but over the years have grown into one vast hodgepodge of ramshackle buildings. After the Aiel War, when the refugee farmers from the east settled in Foregate, King Galldrian provided grain to feed them and all manner of parades and festivals to keep them from thoughs of uprising. As a result Foregate is a place of riotous colour, with fireworks supplied by the Illuminators Guild many night, horse races by the rive, gleemen and musicians in every tavern and on every street corner, and abject poverty underlying everything.

Game Mechanics
Characters from Cairhien receive +1 Intelligence.
The Ways of the Scorpion and Serpent can be learnt in Cairhien.