Joyeuse

Joyeuse, City of Song

Joyeuse is the newest and most decidedly strange city in Saromatia. Only twenty years ago, an eccentric landed lady named a motley band of minstrels and entertainers her heirs. Her family argued with her most strenuously about it while she was alive, and the matter was eventually brought before Queen Lorainne. The queen unaccountably sided with the lady, and her lands were summarily given over minstrels. The minstrels, looking uneasily at the lady's offspring and relatives, quickly formed themselves into a consortium and petitioned for a royal charter. Upon recieving one, they enfeoffed the lady's more usual heirs, giving over to them the running of the lands and most of the profits thereof. They would take for themselves one village, which they renamed Joyeuse, and live off of the taxes sent to them by their vassals.

Soon, the entertainers realized exactly what it meant to rule a land. They could make, or unmake, whatever laws pleased them. Supported by revenues others brought in for them, they set about to make their village a place of perfect ease. Poets and troubadors began to hear rumors of a place where servants of the Air Lord ate and drank freely but had no work to do but compose their songs. Other vagabonds and ne'er-do-wells were attracted, hoping for a free meal, too. Soon a tavern was thrown up, and then a dicing hall... within two years, Joyeuse was a nearly year-round festival. Businesses came in, lured by rumors of free-handed spending. Those who had come, and spent too much, found employment with them. The town founders kept taxes in Joyeuse to a bare minimum, attracting even more trade. Rather lax attitudes towards trade laws have also made it a smuggler's haven. People in Joyeuse are usually too busy having a good time to ask many questions.

In fact, underneath the songs and the glitter, there's an ugly side of Joyeuse. The lack of good law enforcement means that frauds have free reign; controlled substances are uncontrolled. Stolen properties are resold without any questions being asked. While there is more freedom in Joyeuse, there is also less protection, and one had best watch out for oneself.

Geography

Joyeuse is west and a bit north of Vezias, in the foothills of the Bahset Mountains. It enjoys pleasant vistas of the mountains, the cool shade of the forests, and good rich soil.

Notable Sights

Joyeuse's City Hall is located inside the first tavern erected in the village. The minstrels who hold the royal charter can usually be found here, but try to keep themselves busy with wine and song rather than city business. They pay a half-dozen young lawyers from Vezias rather well to handle most such things for them. Two or three of these neat, stern young women can be found at a well-lit window most times of the day or night. They make a sharp contrast to the jollity roaring all about them.

The town market sells, for the most part, the normal things the people of a city need for daily life. Somewhat more paper and ink is sold than elsewhere, of course. But ask at the right places, and more interesting items can be uncovered. Unethical doctors provide medicines some like for their side effects rather than for their curative abilities. Some apothecaries sell rat poison in rather large amounts, no questions asked. "Magical" charms, protecting against everything from the evil eye to infertility to overfertility, are available. Sometimes the item is perfectly innocuous - a rare book, for instance - but the discount price prompts the purchaser to check inside the cover, to see if the first page bears the mark of the Book House in Vezias.

The city does live up to its nickname. All hours of the day and night, musicians, poets, dancers, jugglers, entertainers of all sorts, can be seen in all places practicing their trade. A large oak tree serves as a marker for a perrenial swap-meet, where new songs, stories, and gossips are exchanged.

The other somber note in Joyeuse's otherwise merry chorus is located outside of the city gates, over the crest of a hill. The city gallows and paupers' graves are kept here. Violent crimes do sometimes occur, but Joyeuse prefers to keep such things quiet to preserve its utopian reputation. Hangings are not public spectacles as in other places, but rather dirty little secrets.

Temples

A priest of Fortuna once announced that the Lucky Seven, a dicing parlor, would be the new high temple to Fortuna in Saromatia. No changes were made to the establishment, and the only sign of its new status is the addition of Fortuna's Wheel to its clapboard sign and a slightly tipsy cleric in residence. The original priest has long since moved on, but one or another of Fortuna's vagabond clergy have always managed to drift into the place within days of a vacany.

Government

Law is schizophrenic in Joyeuse. Property crimes are routinely overlooked, but crimes of violence are quickly pursued and punished. The city founders don't want rowdiness to spoil the eternal party.

There is definite friction between the leading minstrels and their "vassals," the landownders whose crops and taxes support the wastrel city. In a proper feudal system, the vassals are supposed to get something back from their lady - protection, usually. Joyeuse takes and gives back nothing - even the revenues from trade are largely kept within the city. Neighboring noblewomen watch the scene with some curiousity, wondering just went it will devolve into armed conflict.

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