Auramkil in 555

Ganeth's recollections

According to the DM, the following info (lifted verbatim from his email of 10-8-91) was common knowledge to the upper classes of Auramkil back when Ganeth lived there:

The great Emperor might be a little senile. Anyway, most of the decisions are made by his advisors.
Being one of the Emperor's advisors is thus very important.
There are lands to the West, but no one talks much about them for some reason. Many of the lower classes believe that the Emperor rules the entire world.
Silverton had a reputation of being a port town, and mainly a place for ambitious mages. You were never clear whether the mages were pushed away to Silverton to keep them out of everybody's way, or whether they decided to go there so they could scheme in peace.
The empire is generally a nice place. If anything majorly evil goes on, it goes on without the public being aware of it. Everybody likes the old Emperor. The people think he'll live forever.
You suspect that there is a non-negligible doppelganger population in the city, but no one talks about them much. Whenever something goes wrong, people blame it on the dops. Among the kids, dops are sometimes used as a threat, but often kids start making dop jokes as they get older. A lot of people don't believe in them.
Priests are generally accepted in society, and unlike on the drow plane, they don't have a stranglehold on the society. In fact, there are a number of different religions in the capital, and most of the temples are at one end of town. No one (as far as you know) worships any really evil religion (at least not in public).
Most elven houses have a small shrine in their courtyards and they worship there rather than at temples.
The city itself is a walled city, and you suspect that there is magic being used for defence, but it is more subtle than Silverton. In fact, the only high power mages here are basically loyal to the Emperor (in public at least).

The backstory for Gerrin, a dop I played way back in 1988, notes that dopplegangers are native to the southern continent but were imported into Auramkil. Most of these were under the Emperor's control (their ESP ability makes them vulnerable to mental attacks and influences), but a few managed to resist his influence, and many of those left the capital to become mercenaries on the frontier.

For more information, see the notes on high elven clans in the Empire.

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