Don Your Cap

As the Frozen Moose of the ice-swept Lost Mountains will tell anyone who gets close enough to listen (and has learned to speak Moose), sometimes Mephoria can seem like a place where things very rarely happen. Days drag by with little or no event, and trying to count the icicles that have formed on your antlers overnight is a game that quickly wears thin. What the Moose are in the wrong position, situation and species to see, is that great tides are sweeping across Mephoria. Politics and Religion are vast mountains of declaratives and presumption, and slow and unchanging as they may often seem, even a mountain range can move. Something monumental has happened this week in Mephoria, and it’s all to do with hats.

Up at the very top of the Crescent Continent, the lapping waves often bring boiling lava onto the shores. It is a volcanic region, separated from the mainland by water, with only a thin bridge of black rock adjoining the Sparko Islands to the land. It is a harsh and unforgiving environment (that still remembers all those who peed in the sea) and so it should come of no surprise that people live there. If there’s one thing humanity seems to love on occasion, it’s giving itself a hard time.

So here, where hot rocks occasionally fall from the sky, lives a group of humans as advanced and sophisticated as the inhabitants of the Pherron Realms, if not slightly singed in places. Theirs is a culture based on strength and honour – they wear no armour into battle, they continue their day to day lives even in the most extreme temperatures, and no sea full of boiling lava will ever cause one of their fisherman to keep his boat and his person on dry land.

These people are the Agura, and they are a strong tribe. Mostly through natural selection, although they prefer to call it The Way. Many of their proverbs begin ‘The Way permitting’ and it is as much a god to them as, well, the gods. (Who might object to this, but a half-donkey half-scorpion hybrid in the Hallango Plains is currently causing them a lot of amusement. The next time one of them goes to refill the crisp bowls, the rest of the world might get a look in.)

Because of this honour code, the Agura do not wear hats. Protective hats, to be more specific, which in a region where you are more likely to find a falling rock than a falling leaf can be a bit of a hazard. Many of their best, and worst, have survived the harshest of environments, the toughest physical and mental challenges, only to half a kilogramme of quartz cave their skull in as they enjoy a victory pint down the local tavern.

Incidentally, even their alcohol comes with its own threat. A live Lemon Crab is placed in each glass to sweeten the flavour. At some point along the journey of being caught, submerged in a very bubbly liquid and constantly transferred from being vertical to horizontal, the crab usually becomes rather irritated. As a result, Agura beer is not to everyone’s taste. Just because someone asks for a cold beer does not necessarily mean they wanted it to be nippy.

So it is than many Agurans have been killed by a little bit of rock when a small tin hat would have saved them, although for the next couple of days they may have wished it hadn’t. It is not illegal to wear a protective hat in any part of the Aguran lands (and is in fact actively encouraged in the swimming pools) but to do so would be to break an unwritten law, flout a matter of morality rather than law. It is something that is not done, in the same way young boys are told off for crying whereas a young girl would be left to it. No matter how dangerous it gets, even if going outside without a hat on is pure suicide, an Aguran, a true, believing Aguran will never put on a hat.

Which is a shame, as they’re relatively inexpensive and worth a lot more than dying with a head full of rock. There are so many unpleasant things that happen to people who do not wear hats, and for the little extra effort of putting one on, a lot of things could be different. But the Agurans have been bound by their honour code for a long time now, and most people had given up hope of that ever changing.

But perhaps, just perhaps, it is…

The Overlord, Majest Orro, is feeling rather threatened in his position as ruler of Agura, and wants to make sure his military is at full strength. Considering that his soldiers spend the bulk of their time standing out in the open in formation, it is no surprise that approximately ten percent of his forces are killed each year by the falling rocks that the offshore volcanoes spit into the air.

Because he fears for his safety, and thus wishes his forces to be at full strength, he has decreed that sometimes, just sometimes, perhaps it is in fact acceptable for a man to wear a hat when he goes into potentially dangerous terrain. This is a small act of concession from the ruler, but could have massive complications, as it throws the Aguran Honour Code into disarray. Miners, for example, may wonder why they are not allowed the protection awarded by a hat, but a soldier is, even though in a mine the danger of rocks overhead is ever-present. (Apart from those open air mines, but most are of the view that if it couldn’t kill a canary, it’s not a mine.)

This move may mean that Majest Orro has an extra eight hundred men to guard his palace should an uprising occur, but it also makes that uprising more likely. Similarly to going to a AA meeting with a box of liqueur chocolates, those extra men might be that final straw. Those who see him bracing for an attack may believe there to be one, and thus go about pledging their allegiance. The act of one noble openly saying he and his men will fight for Majest Orro should a coup be launched (much to the chagrin of many chickens) may not seem like a bad move, it will in fact then point the finger at all the other noble families. Very soon, it will be clear whose allegiance lies where, and if Majest Orro does not hold the majority then there may be trouble. Seeing just how much of an advantage they would have may be the last thing the dissenters need to cause them to take up arms.

It is this simple act of agreeing that sometimes hats can be worn without breaking the rules that could lose Majest Orro a lot of followers. Those who do not see him as a living interpretation of the Honour Code may begin to think that he is bending under pressure, and changing the rules because of outside demands, not because it is in the best interest of the Code.

And of course, saying that soldiers may now wear hats is all well and good, but without them having worn them for so long, it is likely to take everyone a long time to learn how to put them on.