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“….and it is, as you warned me…these Tezcata are a monsterous people. The proximity of my lodgings and office to their main temple forces me to work daily to a backdrop of screams, as they seem to continually sacrifice their own kind to their heathen gods.
I persevere however, knowing that the profits of this venture will allow me to buy much respite from my torment when I am again in civilised lands. Really I still do not understand the values these people hold in this vast land, but as long as they are willing and foolish enough to trade with me gold and gems for feathers, paints and pigments I care not…”
-Letter from Factor Gener Braud to the Merchant Jeverum Obe
“The Empire owes a great debt to the new Gods for they accepted us, knowing we had been false to the Ancient masters. This is our great shame, and it was decreed by Tezcatolti, before he ascended to heaven, that our people should never forget this. So it is that we must, each of us, each day make a sacrifice to repay the new gods and to remember our sins.”
- From a lesson delivered by Ixpitali, Historian of the Jipolatiloan borough school.
 Across the waters, far to the south of the City-State peninsula, lays the empire of the Jaguar-Sun and home to the Tezcatax. Though keen traders, geographical detachment from the northern mainland has made the Tezcatax a somewhat insular people.
The Tezcatax believe that they originate from the first servants of the Saurian Empire, and Saurian influence can be seen in many of their values. As a consequence of this link to their heritage, Saurians hold a unique fascination for the Tezcatax, and are afforded high status and benefits within the Jaguar-Sun Empire.
Tezcata society is regimented upon three main strata; trade, religion, and soldier/nobility. Education is a right for every citizen of the empire, and a citizen’s membership of a particular stratum is established by which school of learning they attend. Each stratum has a number of social ranks, and once allocated to a specific stratum, citizens are then expected to strive in competition with their peers for advancement.
The principle of Tezcata religion is the importance of sacrifice. Only by sacrifice will the Tezcatax continue to appease their gods. Material goods and livestock are supplemented by those within Tezcata society who fail to compete. Minor skirmishes between Tezcata settlements are common for this reason, as they provide a convenient method of providing such sacrifices. Those so captured are labelled as slaves, for a slave within Tezcata society is ‘one promised to the gods’.
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