The High-Prince-High Prince of Kismirth

[sythyry]

Mirrored from Sythyry.

The most important and powerful person in Kismirth is Phaniet, as mayor. The most resplendently-titled, and often resplendently-dressed, person in Kismirth is Prince Rastomil. He is not a prince of Kismirth, for we have not yet managed to produce royalty of our own. Or we have managed not to produce royalty of our own; I’m not sure which. He is a prince of Barency, which you can see over there, by the main trunk on Dentheia, if you use a telescope. This is why we have a few telescopes mounted on the railings of the Purple Promenade.

We have a number of useful things on the Purple Promenade, the big balcony or avenue or boardwalk which goes all around Kismirth’s equator. Arguably the most useful of these is Prince Rastomil himself. He is not actually mounted on the railings, (and, as far as I know, never has been, (which is more than I can say for some people)). When he has nothing better to do — which is often — he strolls resplendently along the promenade. This is, in fact, his formal job, and he is better paid by Kismirth for doing it than I am for doing my own job.

As he strolls, as he showers the glory of his lime-colored waistcoat and copper coronet upon all who pass, he stops and converses with anyone who wishes. Not every city is blessed with such royalty — royalty who can be found strolling casually upon the main boulevards! With nothing better to do than stop and chat with tourists!

Orren Tourist: “Ho there, royal fellow!”

Prince Rastomil: “And a good day to yourself as well, O honored Orren visitor! Be welcomed in Kismirth!”

Orren Tourist: “Oy, are you a real prince, like your crown says?”

Prince Rastomil: “I am indeed! I am prince of Barency, a city which you can just barely see over there. A telescope might help.”

Orren Tourist: “A real royal prince!”

Prince Rastomil: “And what has brought you to this spot of civilization in the empty air? Aside, of course, from the skyboat of the noble and honorable Windigar.”

Orren Tourist: “Ough, I’m here from Vheshrame on vacation. Free tickets on my wife’s cousin’s husband’s friend once removed’s skyboat, wouldn’t you know?”

Prince Rastomil: “Windigar’s skyboat, I presume? He is your wife’s cousin’s husband’s friend once removed, you say? A splendid chap, and a splendid pilot. Still — do you hire a Cani as a cartographer of your friends, so that you can tell so precisely how you have come to know them?”

Orren Tourist: “Windigar’s boat, that’s the one! I don’t have a Cani, I’m not sure, he might be my husband’s brother’s uncle’s lover or something.”

Prince Rastomil has a certain special ability. I, personally, lack this power completely. I would substitute my deep, incisive, and frequently-wrong social insight, thus:

Hypothetical Sythyry: “Ah! You have no idea of the relationship, other than you’re Orren from the same city. But you are taking the opportunity to mention that you have an Orren wife and an Orren husband, thereby dispelling any suspicions that you might be traff, despite your willingness to visit a city of such dubious reputation as Kismirth.”

But Rastomil’s powers are supreme! He is aware of this particular conversational pass — he hears it a few times a day — but, somehow, by the grandness of his mightiness, he manages to avoid sarcasm. He might reply more thus:

Prince Rastomil: “He surely could be the friend of both your husband’s and your wife’s sides! Did they come too, or are you the advanced scout from your Orren household, investigating this new pond to paddle in?” Notice how beautifully he lets the tourist preserve the illusion of being wholly cisaffectionate.

Orren Tourist: “My wife’s here. She’s off gambling. Wanted to try out the Cartesian Casino, she said. I have the worst luck at cards myself, so I’m here doing some shopping and looking out at the vistas and views and scenery!”

Hypothetical Sythyry: “Of course a person doing some shopping and scenery-watching would have failed to notice the telescopes! And of course your proximity to a street of rentable Herethroy is fully coincidental!”

Prince Rastomil: “A wonderful pastime! I myself have been doing it for months, and have not tired of it. Have you been to the top spires yet? The views from them are spectacular, simply spectacular.”

Kismirth, according to Feralan, is shaped like three half-spheres in a line, with three cones point-up on top of them. Arfaen, of course, describes it as a three-scoop ice cream sundae with three cones inverted on top.

Orren Tourist: “No! I haven’t been up there yet!”

Hypothetical Sythyry: “Yet, somehow, you have explored the alleys and avenues here in considerable detail, and, perhaps, the professionals who work there in even more detail.”

Prince Rastomil: “The creator gods, sitting in the sky, have a better view. I doubt that any mortals do!”

Orren Tourist: “Is it a long climb? It looks high!”

Hypothetical Sythyry: Mopily wishes zie could think of a pungent and prickly sarcastic reply, but can’t.

Prince Rastomil: “It is a mile or more vertically from here. But it is not a long climb at all! Have you noticed the many vertical tubes, such as the one there, marked with that glyph? Which gleam with Ruloc and Sustenoc and every Noun?”

Orren Tourist: “I missed them, one and all, no matter how ubiquituous they are!”

Hypothetical Sythyry: Fortunately, the words I put into your mouth obviate any need for sarcasm.

Prince Rastomil: “They are called ‘levities’, and they levitate you from one level to another. Simply tap the glyph with a foot, or make a gesture that the governing spirit thinks to be that, and — whoosh! — up or down you go!”

Hypothetical Sythyry: “Though not in the sense of ‘Whoosh! Up and down you go!’ that you have been indulging in so much recently!”

Orren Tourist: “Oooh, sparkly! I shall fly-itate!”

Prince Rastomil: [looking at the tail of the scurrying-off Orren Tourist] “Enjoy the view, O Orren!”

Comments

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

You ask the hardest questions...

Kismirth would itself cost, um, I don't have any idea; nobody has ever made a whole floating city for sale that I know of. Quite a lot. More money than I've seen in my whole life, I daresay. But let's say that I made it for my own amusement, at my own expense, which is sort of true.

The civic businesses are generally doing pretty well -- that's the casinos and whatnot. The farms are currently an expense, but I hope that changes as we get more farmers and we stop having disasters. The Quick Quarter is doing better than even I had hoped. The Slow Slum ... I mean, Delay District ... isn't bringing in any money to speak of, but I hadn't expected it to. We don't have much trade through Kismirth (though I have Exceedingly Dangerous Plans to change that), so not much there.

So Kismirth the city made money on four months last year, and lost on five, but we spent a lot on investment sorts of things -- like museums and that curst swimming park and farming -- that aren't done yet.

And of course we're paying high salaries to people who usually get paid fairly low salaries, like farmers and waiters and janitors and spectators. I am sometimes taken aback to find Durligon Drazzil, who sweeps the avenues by day, sitting next to me in the opera or a fairly fancy restaurant at evening. That never happened in Vheshrame. (It doesn't speak well for Durligon's long-term finances, but he doesn't expect to live long enough for that to be a problem, he says.)

The half-or-more of Kismirth which isn't in one of the city's businesses, like the aforementioned opera and restaurant, are ... I have no idea how they're doing. They're as full as those of Vheshrame, or sometimes more so, so if they have any sensible management they're doing well.

[terrycloth.livejournal.com]

So if you run low on money, you could make another city for sale?

Or maybe -- maybe a city-sized flying Fortress of Doom for a pack of Cyarr and Ulgrane and Blee! Complete with a surrounding thunderstorm for dramatic lightning effects, and maybe a flock of animated statues to fly around like a pack of crows in case the ulgrane get tired of it.

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

Possible, if I had two or three years to spare for the project, and if I had a buyer.


I believe you use the word 'Doom' in a way different than I do. Any Fortress of Doom I make would be surrounded by flying broken hearts, improbably coincidences, personality defects, romantic complications, and other personal disasters. I'm not sure that a pack of cyarr, ulgrane, and blee would find it at all to their taste.

[terrycloth.livejournal.com]

So, a pack of bonstables, norren, and pahaxa?

[rowyn]

I think finding a buyer is rather harder than the actual building part. c.c

[relee.livejournal.com]

I'm sure if anyone had the desire and the funds but not the means, they would seek Sythyry out. While he's not an 'evil' wizard, I'm sure that in far off places he's known as being 'wicked' for his truthfully very kind treatment of the traff folks. So, he's probably the go-to guy for a lot of sinister folks who don't know any better.

[kensan-oni.livejournal.com]

Well, zhi could levy more taxes. At the moment, Sythry hasn't even started *talking* about taxes, like a good and reasonable noble/landowner should. Part of the problem, of course, is that for a mighty, might wizard, Sythry doesn't have much business sense. Heaven knows what will happen when Phanenet goes to meet her god.

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

I'm not aware that Reluu is planning to visit Kismirth.

We don't need more taxes because we've got some civic businesses -- the Quick Quarter and everything connected to it so far, the farms, some of the casinos, etc. -- which make up a respectable fraction of Kismirth's economy. They do pay excellent wages, because that's important to us. But the successful ones give the city money.

We can't tax trans-shipped goods because there are no trans-shipped goods. (Yet!) We tax some things produced here, but we call it a civic business.

Income taxes work best in a place where income is relatively easy to measure. Ketheria in general favors property taxes, like a tax per square yard of floor of your house. (How that would work with Strayway I do not know -- I'm not even sure Strayway's inside is finite.) Taxing things that can be measured unambiguously isn't fair, but does, at least, save the problem of essentially begging everyone in the city-state to lie to their government.



I am not ruling Kismirth! Really! That would not be a good idea! We've got a more or less ordinary civic government, except they're all traff, which doesn't matter for economic policy that much.

Though I am curious about how much they'll tax me in a century or two, after the generation that built Kismirth is mostly gone, and after the immortals aren't allowed to hold office anymore.

[kensan-oni.livejournal.com]

Ruling and Owning are two different things, and like it or not, you *made* the city, whole cloth. That means that unless you are selling it piecemeal (I've not heard you actually charge money for any of these nice buildings, although I am sure you might have, and just not thought about such matters), you own in it's entirety.

Unlike maybe moving into a nut, you actually produced it out of nothing, and have it hanging over the side of the tree. While you don't have to rule it, the question of ownership a big one, and one that is bound to come up someday.

Which, by the way, makes you the nicest land lord ever... even if it is for your own selfish reasons. *hug*

[terrycloth.livejournal.com]

Do you pay taxes to Veshrame Mene? Or get services from them? Like, do you have your own city guard?

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

We do indeed pay taxes, and ... um ... we're not getting our money's worth in services. We could be, but we're setting things up as we want them to be when we're independent.

[alex-muridae.livejournal.com]

Exceedingly Dangerous Plans you say?

Having to do with getting trade through Kismirth, that would be Teleport Gate Building you're considering? Or is that a level of cosmic doom you try to avoid even with Vae on hand?

[rowyn]

Zie has built a city heavily reliant on bending Locador and Tempador, using a new magical process which zie does not zirself understand, given it city-wall strength protective spells, and populated it with not just primes but monsters, including a nendrai.

Frankly, using a proven technology like teleport portals sounds pretty safe by contrast.

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

You understand!

[rowyn]

Your professor of Leap into this Pool of Boiling Acid would be proud!

[terrana.livejournal.com]

I would be honestly shocked if Sythyry were not a case study in that class (assuming it or something like it still exists) to this very day. One of its more "successful" graduates, I think.

[delight-in.livejournal.com]

It's Leap through this Gate to the Doomsome Nendrai now actually. ( http://delight-in-wt.livejournal.com/5884.html#comments ).

[kris-schnee.livejournal.com]

"You ask the hardest questions..."

Orren: Confusing the mighty since about Year 3!

"that curst swimming park"

Ooh, a cursed swimming park!

[kensan-oni.livejournal.com]

Nono... Curst... As in "Dang it, why can't I not spend 48 hours in this park? If only the Orren weren't so tempting!"

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

It's not supposed to be!

[gavinfox.livejournal.com]

Are you having some engineering troubles with that swimming park? What seems to be the issue?

[chipuni.livejournal.com]

Too many distracting Orren.

Not enough undistractable plumbers.

[delight-in.livejournal.com]

Oh I see that was a hard question I guess it's good that you'e making money sometimes? And that you got your money back from Zascalle!

And yay you ARE building a swimming park!

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

And yay you ARE building a swimming park!

I do not yet agree with either half of that sentence!