Hestia Locator: Rahman and Muldwa

  

Well hello my lovely darlings. This one wasn’t planned to be quite like this so it will be interesting to see how it pans out though I was already planning to greatly expand what I originally called the Southern Continent. If nothing else it needs a proper name. So, my lovely darlings, ready to explore the gateway to a vast and dangerous land? Just don’t disrespect the small folk, they have large friends.

Rahman

 The Chasyl Alu mountains divides the land of the old world elves from the lands of Rahman. In the southern edge of this mountain range, towards the eastern end is the city state of Garman. Located on a plateau that rises nearly shear out of the desert below, the city of Garman is ruled over by a Devourer Dragon who has ruled for several hundred years and will continue to do so for several hundred more.

The edge of the plateau is lined by walls of pale limestone that set the air to shimmering in the heat of the day and dazzle the eyes with reflected light. The battlements on the walls are wide enough for three men to walk abreast and one can see for tens of miles across the desert. The walls add to the sheer cliffs already substantial height, proudly stamping the statement that the city owns what it has and it is not letting it go. It also raises the edge of the terrain to just above the height of all but the strongest and most lethal of sand storms.

Within the city limits is a maze of buildings and courtyards. None of the rooms are the same size as the ones around it and none of the courtyards are square. Indeed, the city more closely resembles a hive of some sort of insect than a regular human town. It is a confusing mass of mud plastered baked clay bricks and it is frightfully easy to get lost within its multitude of layers. Running through and over and under this labyrinth of ways is the city’s water purification system. All water within Garman is recycled, running through a multitude of pipes enchanted to make the water run up hill to the top of the system. Once there it drops through a series of pebble beds of decreasing gravel size before filtering through several layers of sand, then layers of charcoal and finally ash. It then filters through several tanks where careful amounts of water from a local fermented dish called alkimit are added to neutralise the lye from the ash. Crushed Moringa seeds are added in the last two tanks to clarify the water. It is then run through artificial wet lands that surround the palace, alternatively thick with reed bedsand oyster beds. These last purification areas provides the ciy with its emergency food reserve and the tradable good upon which Garman’s prosperity rests. Garman merchants trade the fresh water pearls collected from the harvested oysters for food stocks of more exotic provenance than what can be grown within in the city itself.

The solid matter collected at the top of the system is carefully scrapped away and taken down the service road that clings to the cliff side and ends at the floor of the desert. Here the night soil is buried in the sand. Strangely enough the carts do not sink into the sand, if they stick to a certain route that meanders through the dunes and the dunes around the base of Garman appear to be slowing their migration rate. Some travellers have said that they have seen strange leafless bushes apparently growing out of the sand. It is possible that the addition of organic material is providing a substrate that is anchoring the dunes in place and holding the night moisture near the surface long enough for highly adapted plant life to start taking root. One wonders how it will effect the local climate and societies if the desert can be made still.

Due to he city’s location, it has sat mostly apart from the constant aggression that tends to rule the desert, its people living small, slow lives and seemingly content with them. A man can have several wives, if he can support them but must pass various tests from his prospective wife’s family to be allowed to marry, most of them public and mildly humiliating to prove how far he’s willing to go. If he has senior wives, they are allowed to join in with these rights of passage. Most families have an area, be that a roof, a courtyard, a sky well or the side of a stairwell, where they mix the gritty soil of the mountains with chippings from the reed beds and kitchen scraps to produce growing areas where any arid terrain specialist plants can grow. Dates are the most common, providing further shade, the under storey held by lemons and orange trees, with millet and panic grasses providing the bottom layer. Chickens are communal animals, keeping down pests and people trade the eggs they find. Children roam the up and down ways of the city to find where the chickens have hidden them.

The palace that stands with its back to the mountain is much taller than the houses of the rest of the city but is fairly narrow in depth and houses not only the royal family but also the training and living quarters of the dragon kin warrior and the chambers of government and quarters for the families of officials. This does mean that should any official disgrace himself, he and his family are within arms reach of the king. So far King Bobolonis has not had to use this most aggressive of censers on his government.

Several times a year the palace grounds are thrown open to the general public of Garman and King Bobolonis hosts a massive, two day feast. Food beyond compare is served, drink of both fruit juice, sherbet waters and stronger beverages flow. There is singing, dancing, poetry, drumming, music, priests tell sacred stories and on exceptional years, when they have managed to trade as far ad the Tiansin Empire, fireworks light up the night sky, painting the desert with coloured stars. The people of Garman do not share the love of gold that infests the hearts of many men, they want to be happy and for others to be happy, they do not see why you have to draw up walls to make everyone separate when that just makes you miserable. After all, you cannot eat gold or fancy buildings or possessions so why fuss over them? To the people of Garman, the most beautiful things is an honest smile and the best place in the world is a cozy fireside with well loved family around it.

Garman has not been muchly disturbed by the wars and aggravations of other nations. If nothing else, despite their neighbours dislike of their way of life, King Bobolonis, in his natural form, is one of the largest Devourer Dragons in the Rahman peninsula and his dragon kin children are some of the most disciplined fighters. They have never been defeated and some speculate that the only reason they do not rule the whole of the peninsula is that Bobolonis has no ready wish to challenge his kin and also understands that the effort of trying to wield the fractious desert tribes into one nation would be a task that would take the rest of his life and would result in a family bloodline soaked in blood, if it survived at all. That and he watches the horizon carefully, wondering if there is a tomb dragon out there that covets the ruins of everything he has built.

The peninsula below the kingdom of Garman is a dusty sandy land, covered in shifting sand dunes and oasis fighting not to sink below the grit of wind blown particles. This the land haunted by the Devourer Dragons, their long streamlined bodies gliding through the humming sands, the quiet rumble of their passages the only warning of their movements. The cities here grow around the oasis, walls of white being built to keep out the sand, gardens planted to conserve the water. The building are made of sun baked mud bricks, plastered with mud plaster and painted white to reflect the heat. The thick walls keep the heat out during the day and the heat in during the night. Only the richest have individual homes and gardens, the poor living clustered together in warrens of buildings build and rebuild, resulting in rooms that have eight sides to them as the floor is on two levels due to one of the rooms below it having a higher ceiling that the other. Steps and stairs are a common fact of life as people live, work and trade within their living spaces. The merchant's quarter can be a wild experience for any that have not attended one before, a sea of tents that cram into a corner of the city, their walls flapping and booming in the desert wind as the sunsets. Watch your ankles as guide ropes stretch into walk ways. Any journey into the merchant quarter will take hours and it is best to plan for it to be an all day affair. First one must expect to spend quarter of an hour chatting with each merchant, exchanging flattering phrases before one gets down to the serious business of the barter. It is a grave insult to not barter and one that will earn you unfavourable prices for evermore.

Though the peoples of Rahman share a common religious belief in the worship of Jagra, the kingdoms have united and divided again through out their history, the history of this region being written in blood and flame and war. The blood feuds and vendettas run deep and long. One of the few times that they have been close to a truly united force was under the rule of the Zvaks. Having forcibly welded the people of Rahman under their rule they then began expanding west through the land bridge between Rahman and the Southern Continent. This expansion of their rule stalled at the little kingdom of Muldwa. This tiny kingdom of small people seemed like an easy conquest for the followers of Jagra and indeed as they flowed out of the Taniyn Mountain Range, they met very little resistance. Then they discovered the reason this tiny kingdom has survived for so long - Assassin Dragons. Two packs of them call the Taniyn Mountains home and they have a long standing bargain with the small people of Muldwa. Bargains are about the only thing that an Assassin dragons are willing to honour. The forces of the Zvak of then was sent packing within the week.

There are lingering relics of an older religion that are sometimes revealed by the shifting sands of time, seeing as they are only half buried. Away from the kingdom of Garman, dragon kin are not welcome or wanted, their births the evidence of dragon touched bloodlines and the religion of Jagra depicts dragons, all dragons, as evil beings who must be destroyed. When a dragon kin is born in Rahman it is immediately taken from its family and sent to be trained in secret locations. There, through cruelty, harshness and discipline, it is taught that its life is both worthless and valueless, an affront to Jagra and it is only by his mercy that they are allowed to continue to draw breath. That they have no souls and will be thrown into the outer dark upon death to never see the face of their god. That the only way that they can come close to redemption so as to be allowed to look upon the hem of their god's cloak is to spend their whole life in service and obedience, in prayer and pain, thus paying for the sin of their existence. Theirs is an on going battle with the dragons that prevent the holy expansion of the worship of Jagra and they are never thanked for it, what ever victories they manage are punished because they have never done enough to please Jagra. And yet there are always dragon kin born.

The only others who are persecuted in such away are the Master Smiths. These strange wizards are another brand of necromancers but their type of necromancy is strangely different to any other. Indeed they claim to not just reanimate the dead but infuse them with the souls of the damned. It is never the same soul as the one that just vacated the body but it is a soul. In this strange and mystic rite the body also becomes something other than human. No two Damned Souls are the same, some having many legs, some having no legs at all, some being as thin as skeletons, some being heavy set with muscle. They feed on blood and flesh and their masters have ever used them for destruction, desecration and to defile so their persecution is hardly surprising, though there have been some of the Master Smith sect who have tried to avoid creating trouble, withdrawing to the empty quarters to be left alone. Unfortunately there are always those who will hunt those that wish for peace and war is always the result.

Muldwa 

 Travelling down the land bridge that lies between the Calen Caer inland sea and the larger ocean, one passes through the Taniyn Mountains to reach the small country of Muldwa.

Muldwa is a small country boarded by big nations. On the north east side of the Taniyn Mountains sits the country of Rahman, a country that has a long standing relationship of aggression with the small folk of Muldwa. To the south west Muldwa is boarded by both Nubia, which has the longer shared board and Tamerry, which has the smaller border but just as much covertness of the soft and furtile lands of Muldwa.

Caught between the ambitions of three larger neighbours one would expect the Muldwa would have been destroyed centuries ago and in the normal course of history it would have been. The gnome people of Muldwa are not known for being great warriors, having neither the strength or the endurance of the dwarfs who live in the mountains further north. Though not wholly true, the people of Muldwa accept that they are a small people, which indeed they are. Usually shorter than even the dwarfs, standing somewhere between two and a half and three and a half feet tall, they are also more lightly built, lacking the heavy muscle that gives dwarfs their stamina at the forge and foundry. Instead the gnomes of Muldwa cultivate their social skills. Instead of being the defenders of their country themselves they recruit others to do their fighting for them. Seeing as their allies of choice tend to be the two packs of Assassin dragons that call the Taniyn Mountains home, one has to admit that this policy has kept their kingdom safe for all this time.

To the outside world the gnomes of Muldwa seem to be simple people, spending their days tilling the coil, raising their crops and tending the land and they do all of that but that is not all they do. Though the greater majority of the gnomes of Muldwa are involved in the hard work of farming that is just the public face of what the gnomes do. Many of the properties of Muldwa have two houses on them. One of them is the dwelling place of the farmer, his family and the storage of their lands produce. The other will be for the lateral branch of the family. These younger sons of the main branch that aptitude for the work are employed in the Muldwa bureaucracy.

On the surface it does not appear that a country as small as Muldwa should need such a large bureaucracy and then you realise that the Muldwa bureaucracy is not justifying itself by inventing forms that have to be filled out in triplicate. In steady the Muldwa bureaucracy is so large to cope with the vast amount of information that pours in from every trade route, official and unofficial, that Muldwa has and a few that it doesn’t have. The reason Muldwa is divided so heavily between farming and bureaucracy is because farming gives the gnomes of Muldwa the exports to take them up and down the byways if the world while the bureaucracy processes all the information that is sent back to the home country. The government of Muldwa strives to know everything that is in progress in the world and what is going to come next. Therefore it is not just the official news that Muldwa listens to. It surprises people no end when they learn that such simple, unassuming folk can have links into some of the most vicious circles of organised crime. What they trade in these dark circles is unknown, other than possible information but it is known that those who trade in slavery don’t seem to trade for long, even if they have not allowed gnomes into their business dealings. Some how the enemies of the organisations practising slavery all manage to converge at precisely the correct time. Muldwa’s people are free and they object to others being forced against their will. It may take a long time fore it to be complete and it may arise once more else where in the world because of the laws of supply and demand but the people of Muldwa have standards and they will be held to.

And that is the most dangerous truth of the people of Muldwa – they do not watch passively. Their footsteps might be quiet and their voices even quieter but the gnomes of Muldwa are not content to allow the flow of history to go on uninterrupted, if nothing else if they did their little corner of the world would be swallowed up within a decade. This means that the gnomish network gathers and weaponizes information the way others use money. One has to wonder who is the more dangerous, the Tomb Dragons and their hunger to see countries brought to complete and utter smash or the gnomes of Muldwa who will enable scandal, reveal top secret documents and distribute the pamphlets of revolution just to guarantee their survival.

This is why the duties of farming and bureaucracy are so stratified in Muldwa, the disciplines are so very different and so very draining. The bureaucrats live their lives knowing that a wrong decision, or an untimely decision, will either result in the destruction of their own people or unnecessary suffering upon others. Every day they have to weigh a hundred and one different factors, consider a thousand different variables. There is no rest for those that serve their people in this way. Such works, such effort, such hyper awareness is taxing on body, mind and soul, which is why the farming people of Muldwa are left out of the loop. They do not need to carry that burden, they do not need that darkness laid upon their souls and the bureaucrats need family and friends that are untouched by the duty they shoulder. They need people who can live and love and sing without inhibition and without the moral duplicity gnawing on their souls. The bureaucrats need people who’s lives are unweighted by the shackles of weighing the scales to judge the more necessary evil. Choosing the lesser of two evils maybe still choosing evil but you still have to chose and the bureaucrats need people who can remind them what they are choosing for else the duty could destroy their minds and lead them to a place where they don’t care who gets hurt to ensure Muldwa’s survival.

If all their scheming and carefully planted information fails to avert the events that would see Muldwa conquered then the gnomes will call upon their most dangerous assets to secure victory – the Assassin Dragons of the Taniyn Mountains. This is another reason why the gnomes trade so heavily with their neighbours. It is only by trading so much with their neighbours that the gnomes of Muldwa have the money needed to hirer the services of the Assassin Dragons. Every merchant of Muldwa gives fifty percen of their profit to go into the Fund. Where the Fund is stored is not up for discussion but it has but one purpose – to pay the Assassin Dragons for services rendered. When one considers that Assassin Dragon contracts can last for decades before the final blow is struck then one can understand why the people Muldwa need such a vast reserve of ready capital. As for how they guard this capital? What many of the bigger folk don’t realise is that the peaceful appearing gnomes of Muldwa do have their warriors and their fighters. It is done quietly and is often disguised as Rest Day games but the gnomes of Muldwa are sure shots with the sling and the bolas as well as the blow pipe. They favour staffs as close combat weapons and these weapons do more damage than many would expect as they are cored out in the groves of hornbeam by the wild termites that live there and then the people of Muldwa fill the cavity with hot lead, resulting in a weapon that weighs a lot more than foreigners would expect and in the hands of one that have practised with it every Rest Day and dug tons of earth every other day it is a bone breaker. People forget that you don’t have to pierce plate armour to kill the wearer, you just need to crush it in hard enough to restrict the chest. The people of Muldwa know that they would be over run by an invading army, hence why they use every trick in the book, plus a few they invented themselves to avoid invasion but there have been pirate raids in the past and smaller gangs and renegades that have breached the boarders of Muldwa only to find the little people rise up righteous when they are pressed. They even have their own form of cavalry. Too small to ride horses, the gnomes of Muldwa have domesticated a strain of the Markhor goat, slightly smaller than their wild cousins. The females are better milk givers than their ancestors, while the males are still cantankerous, misbegotten sons of biscuit eaters. These are the beasts the gnomes who have given themselves totally to the way of the warrior ride into battle. They ride without stirrups, carrying the spear over arm and cross rough country at a pace that leaves mounted knights floundering behind. The hobelars are specialists in light cavalry tactics and are most often seen attached to gnomish merchant caravans, though their numbers seem to be ever changing, some days as many as a dozen travelling with the caravan and other days seeing barely a handful riding with the merchant. The author wonders if the hobelars are how information spreads so quickly through the Muldwa network, although recently they have been joined by members of the goturi who seem to be in training for the skills to ride the Markhor goats, while in return some gnomes of Muldwa have been seen to now use the compound, short bows of the goturi. The Markhor goats are also not passive mounts. As said before the males are cantankerous, misbegotten sons of biscuits eaters and are armed with cork-screw or curly horns that in the male can reach up to six feet long. Markhor goats cannot be broken as you break a horse, it is more of an understanding between mount and rider. You have to earn the respect of the buck Markhor for him to allow you on his back but once he has allowed it the bond between rider and mount is deep and enduring. On the battle field they move almost as one and the Markhor are known to stab, gouge and head slam with their horns as well as kick and even bite. Sometimes it appears that the rider doesn’t fight so much as direct their mount’s violence to where it would be best aimed.

Muldwa architecture is strange to the eyes of outsiders in that there appears to be no straight lines or right angles. This is due to the method of construction. One of the tree species native to Muldwa is a plant known as a Barangan. Unusually for a tree, the mature plant only fruits once in its entire life and an it only lasts for a maximum of two years before it dies back and re-sprouts from the root stock. Instead of wasting this resource, once the long, finger shaped, yellow with black speckled fruit has been harvested, the people of Muldwa cut the main stalk down and strip the outer bark off. This outer layer is charcoaled in semi sealed containers and dug into the soil as fertilizer. The rest of the stalk is soaked and then the fibres extracted by crushing with rollers. After a further soaking in a lye solution as well as washing and drying the fibres are carded, spun and woven into one of the toughest fabrics known on Hestia. The gnomes of Muldwa sew this material into long tubes sealed at one end and then pound a sandy soil and powdered clay mixture into the tubes, compressing it in for hours at a time, coiling the tubes in the shape desired on the ground. By layering up these ‘earth bags’, the people of Muldwa construct a bee hive shaped structure, usually two layers thick with further sheets of Barangan cloth between the layers with ropes of Barangan fibre sewn through the cloth and wrapping round the bags in an overcasting pattern to give added strength to the construction. They are usually built on earth work platforms that slope away from centre to prevent sitting water and the outside and inside is plastered in cob. The people of Muldwa love to paint their houses in plant dyes to form beautiful mural landscape scenes, including animals from around the world, including the dragons. These are then lacquered in a substance called ‘water glass’. The gnomes of Muldwa create this substance by dissolving crushed quartz in highly concentrated lye solution. They usually paint it on three or four layers thick and the result is a water proof structure that resists fire, flood and earthquake. They maybe small and their buildings maybe small but the people of Muldwa build to last, both their houses and their society.

If you come in peace to Muldwa the Muldwains are polite and cheerful until they trust you, especially if you come with coin to trade but there is a difference between polite and friendly. Still you earn their trust and acceptance then you an access the most extensive information network ever created.

And there you have it, not as far as I thought we would get with this blog post, I really did expect to have started exploring the last continent of the Old World - or would that be Still Surviving World? – by now but thinking about these places as proper cultures instead of just names on the map has made me broaden my approach and consider the details like never before. After all if the small people aren’t going to be relying on the benevolence of larger stronger people then they are going to have to have a different lever to make the world give them respect. Come to think of it Muldwa is a little like Switzerland like that, if you have enough gold then you can make the world bend to suit you. I have to admit it has been rather fun in many ways but it is really time consuming, hence why this post has wound up being late. Now I realise why it took J. R. R. Tolkien seventeen years to write The Lord of the Rings. When you want to build a world that actually feels like it is lived in and has a history of its own, a bed rock and a foundation that feels real then you need to spend the time on it. So I hope that it is up to the standard for you, my lovely darlings. Enjoy, be safe and be kind.

 

 

Hestia Locator - Sumwesi and Jamhodan

 

  

Hello my lovely darlings, it is wonderful to see you all back here. I think I need to give a huge shout out to all of you who are still checking in with the blog post. The Youtube channel doesn’t seem to be growing but that is probably due to the inconsistent uploads. What can I say? I’m not some young college student who can churn out videos at a rate of once every week, as I’ve said before and will say again, I have seven and a half full time jobs, the most important of which is being full time Moma to a SEND child in the form of the Major Distraction, a job that is becoming more and more difficult as I keep getting counter information about how I am supposed to do his move up to High School. Some are saying that I need to have the paperwork done by the end of October, others are saying I have until the end of November. I was told to ask for an EHCP review but now I’ve been told it’s the Local Authorities job to organise that. I was told I do the application to the High School, I’ve now been told that it is the school’s job to do that because he’s SEND.

To those people who say “parents are incentivised to have their children diagnosed as SEND for the special treatment” let me say one thing. We are not incentivised to chase a diagnosis. We do not want a diagnosis for our child. We would be perfectly happy if we had neurotypical, non-disabled children or better yet a world that would actually live by the principle it pledges to and bend just enough to benefit everyone. Part of the reason I had the Major Distraction was I thought, thought, ha, that I would be able to teach the Major Distraction all the little tricks I learnt the hard way to disguise what I am so that, even if he couldn’t make friends, he’d at least be left alone by his peers and teachers. Yeah, no, turns out he has Pathological Demand Avoidance of the fight/flight end of the spectrum and utterly refuses to learn from me. Having to rely on the system is not the life I wanted. Having to have the label to get the help so he wouldn’t be expelled was not the life I wanted but it is the life I got. Go figure.

So yes SEND and school are an interesting combination at the best of times and SATs year is not the best of times. Being the fish inside the bird cage is not fun and it is not enlightening, it just makes you feel like you are drowning all the time and the first lesson school teaches you is when you’re are neurodivergent is that you cannot be yourself without making others uncomfortable and when you make others uncomfortable they punish you for your existence. What we neurdivergents get for falling smack dab in the middle of the uncanny valley. Such is life, you just have to roll with it so I’m rolling with the blog post and thank you to all of you wonderful people out there that think that my thoughts on both this world and a fantasy world have something of value. The views really do give me the fuel to keep going with this. I will keep plugging away with the Youtube account as who knows maybe one day I’ll hit that critical mass where the algorithm has no choice but to start sharing my stuff. If anyone knows of a Youtube alternative that is just about free I would appreciate a heads up as unfortunately I have neither the time, the money or the equipment to make my videos good enough to go on Nebula, yet. There is always the future and I can always remaster some videos in the future. I’ve kept all the scripts!

Any way on to the meat of this episode, we are continuing our tour of Hestia, now pushing into the south east quadrant of the map. This one was a pain to do the map for as I had stepped right off of where I had done the original map so it took many hours of work to make everything just about line up with the other maps and to come up with how I was going to structure the islands of Sumwesi. It is not helped that Mircosoft discontinued my preferred Art Program when they updated to Windows Eleven so I’m having to use KolourPaint, a program that I find to be less flexible but again my ability to upgrade is hampered by money and time. I’d like to say hello to sleep on occasion but all my jobs seem to be very jealous of the time I spend with him. Still flying off to Hestia helps so shall we dive on in?

Sumwesi

To the south east of the lands of the Astral All Father, across many miles of ocean lies the scattered lands of Sumwesi. This archipelago of islands, some as big or bigger than the Isle of Albion is lush, tropical and rich in wildlife. However, explorers report that those that visit Sumwesi find neither human or elf, dwarf or orc child. Instead the lands of Sumwesi are ruled by animals that walk and talk as men and women. They are also said to possess a strange type of magic based on the five elements of fire, water, wind, metal and wood, their spells summoned and performed by the motion of hand, feet and body. They build homes, forge weapons, trade with each other and have, at times, gone to war with each other. Those that are blood takers (carnivores) tend to live closer to the coast, feeding off fish and fighting wars with the ocean mammals , while blood givers (herbivores) live closer to the centre of the islands, tending gardens and farm lands. There have been conflict between the two types and there are not many who can manage living within the communities of the other kind comfortably. Badgers and otters are the blood takers most comfortable at living among blood givers and rats are the blood givers most comfortable at living among blood takers.

Most blood givers are peaceful until threatened, building walled Abbeys that are havens of peace and good championship. When described as Abbeys many think of the monastic communities that exist, infrequently, in the North West corner of the world and that wouldn’t be too far from the truth though it appears that the Animl People of Sumwesi have very little in the way of religion. The blood givers who raise the Abbey’s of Sumwesi seem to be more concerned with the here and now than any particular theological conviction. If they have any tenant it appears to be to work hard for their daily bread, too enjoy good company, to never force another with whip and chain to work against their will and to always help those in need. Indeed there have even been a few blood takers who have found this generosity extended to themselves and who have wound up setting in the more peaceable lands.

Within the walls of these Abbey a main building usually stands, including cellar, storerooms, kitchens, Cavern Hole for everyday meals, Great Halls for Feasts and Festivals, infirmary, dormitories, private rooms and craft lofts. The Gate House at the main portal through the other walls usually also contains the records of the abbey and school room to prevent the risk of fire destroying the community’s history in the event of a disaster. Surrounding the main building there is usually orchards, fields, beehives and ponds. Often the main starch staple is collected beyond the Abbey walls in autumn rather than grown within it, with large, hard shelled nuts, kept in storerooms lined with imported pine needles and other such acidic vegetable matter, then dried and ground to provide flour, though some communities cultivate a relative of the grain crop that sprouts in the terraced fields of Tiansin. Others, mostly in the north east corner, plant fields of a strange plant within the Abbey grounds. This plant grows tall with big, flat almost palm like leaves growing sideways from the main stem. These leaves, once dried, can be used as bedding stuffing, to make toys, wrap food for travelling or burnt to white ash that is then wetted, formed into balls, baked until cherry red and slaked in water to form lime for mortar and water proofing larger vessels. At the base of these leaves a husk wrapped mass swells as the plant matures. Starting green, they turn brown and bumpy in mid autumn and when harvested the husk is peeled back to reveal a woody core about the length of a hand span covered in close packed rows of sweet tasting nubs. These nubs can be boiled on the ‘cob’, dried on the cob or separated and boiled off the cob or processed with water that has soaked through wood ash for a season to create a mush known as creamed corn. The nubs that have been dried on the cob are later separated and fried in oil until they ‘pop’ or ground to make ‘cornflour’. This cornflour makes a heavier, more filling and some say more healthful bread and cake. There is quite a trade in the dried seed form across the Islands of Sumwesi.

The blood givers, as mentioned before, prefer a peaceful life. However, to those that would bring them war they are vicious fighters, who give no quarter in the defence of their homes and families. The badgers and hares are the most soldier like, often building mighty castles to provide bastions of defence for softer lands, while the squirrel and otters form roving bands of defenders who orbit the more established settlements.

Many blood takers are bandits, mercenaries, thieves, marauders and worse, living nomadic lifestyles, fighting and taking where they can, moving on from more aggressive defences. Often their spend their ire upon each other, the strong robbing the weak. Those that want a more settled life often build coastal towns, trading around dock yards and fishing fleets. Boat building is a prime trade among these communities. Not many of them are capable of building the true ships of humankind but their swift, open decked sailing ships are narrow, fast and of a shallow draft. Their square sails drive them swiftly before the wind but cannot tact, meaning that they must have a large crew of rowers to drive them when against the wind. While some of the large vessel that have multiply decks may use oar slaves, most are single decked that are rowed by their own warriors, which has the added benefit of meaning that the crew have not enough time to be bored and are fighting fit when they reach their destination. 

There seems to be no limit as to which species appear among the people of Sumwesi, with colonies of seals on the coast barking their own tongue and fighting a running conflict with the canines and musteloids of the islands. Though mice, hedgehogs, squirrels, hares, otters, badgers, voles and shrews are the most common in the communities of blood givers, with foxes, stoats, ferrets, weasels, rats, pine martins and cats being the most common in the communities of blood takers, there are scatterings of other species with deer, raccoons, wolves, mink and hamsters occasional being seen.

Completing the triad of this archipelago are the birds. Having fewer digits than the animals, only two plus a primitive thumb on the leading edge of the wing, they do not build as finely as the animals but they more than make up for that with intelligence, wit and ingenuity. That and the fact that they can fly gives them a huge advantage. Of the creatures of Sumwesi the birds show the most division in purpose along the lines of species.

The Corvids are the clerics, priests and monks, keeping their rough voices quiet and serving others in their copse and clearing holy places. They provide medicine, care, healing and in the end, the rituals of death. However, like all religions there are those who seek to twist the good and the kind into self-service and self-obsession. Beware a Corvid that has fallen to this dark path, the Crocked Ones lose none of their intelligence and wit. If you must face one of their plans prepare to face plans within plans within plans.

The Raptors are warriors and soldiers. Ranging in size from the agility kestrel to the heavy weight eagles, their Wings of warriors have beaten many invaders back from the shores of Sumwesi. Of all the creatures on the Isles they take the most collective view, vowing to protect all the islands from the attentions of the 'fur and featherless'. That is one of the kinder descriptions of the none animal peoples of the world they use. 'Monkey people' is an insult, as is 'unbalanced ones'. Even elves are considered with suspicion by the Raptor warriors. Unfortunately some Raptors have been infected by the same need for more that is suffered by the 'Fur and Featherless', collecting war bands of not just bird people but also blood givers and blood takers. The most famous of these was Ching Song, a black shouldered Kite, who gathered a fleet of four hundred ships and ruled the waves up and down the coast of Tiansin as well as Sumwesi itself, sometimes sailing as far as the land of Jamhodan to claim tribute and raid. Her blood red eyes became a symbol of ruthlessness and strength as she rose from humble beginnings to own an estate of her own in Tiansin and be given the title Hou by the Astral All Father of then. She also had holdings on the North Isle of Sumwesi, as well as establishments in Jamhodan. Some say her influence even spread to the Southern Continent. Ching Song died in peace in her old age, having bargained for her pardon and peace from the Astral All Father and retaining much of her wealth and even a portion of her fleet. The Pirate Queen of the Birds is still a legend in the East.

The Owls are sages, scholars and scribes. Some serve in the Corvid temples, recording their observations, organising their libraries and guarding their knowledge. Others are wandering observers taken to the high roads and by roads of the land to record what they see and hear. Some are map makers and historians, hammering down in detail the past of each community so that knowledge is preserved, discovery is recorded and data collected. Others hunt for lost knowledge, scouring old ruins to find the identities of those who once lived there. They preserve relics and try to make replicas to better understand the ways of the past so shine a light on the future. They speak rarely, study fiercely and watch constantly. There are those that retreat from the world, taking up residence in far off places to contempt the ways of the world and the turning of the heavens in quietness and peace. To these sages power and perfection are truly over rated, while peace in one’s self is sadly understated. However, do not mistake their meek and mild mannered appearance to mean that they are defenceless. They are warriors in a garden, not gardeners in a war. Not many of the Owl folk have ever fall to the path of self over community but when they have it has been a horror. As great scholars they have opened doorways to monsters and forces that should have been left alone. Not a few have become liches, poisoning the land with their presence alone. One of the islands of Sumwesi still smokes and spits fire, riven by the last great horror that rose from its depth. It is said that the ritual that cleaved the land of the Isle of Albion on the Day of Reclamation had its roots in the studies of the Smouldering Sect, a pact of Owls that had fallen to the study of dark and dangerous things.

The Chooks are one of the most varied of the bird races, with appearance that range through chickens, grouses, pheasants,  pigeons and even parrots. They are the most likely to have friends among the earth bound races. They are foragers, artisans and entertainers, trading what they find or make with others to earn their daily bread and a roof over their heads. They craft simple instruments and the ones that look like parrots can mimic not only voices but also music and noises. Theirs is the knowledge of the simpler folk; stories, songs and antidotes being used to teach the younger generation of their history and the wide world beyond the edge of their settlements. They take care of their appearance but not obsessively so, good grooming is a sign of health and a well balanced mind among them. Their lifestyles are as mixed as their plumage, some travelling constantly while others have their homes built and deeply rooted to the land. Their flavour of evil is also different. Those that have turned to using their talents to spread discord are more likely to be the whisperers in the dark, encouraging discord, spreading lies and rumour, applauding ignorance, weaving spite into friendships, breaking communities to see them burn to ash. In some ways they are the most dangerous of the bird folk when they turn to putting self above community as it is hard to discover where the poison starts and who instigates the unrest.

Despite the islands of the Sumwesi Archepeligo starting in the tropics they are not all characterized by jungle with the isles scattered down as far as the temperate latitudes. Despite this the Abbeys do seem to follow a standard architecture with their extremely thick stone wall and centralised Grand Hall protecting from both tropic heat and temperate winter. Instead of adapting the buildings, the animal people of Sumwesi adapt their lifestyles with those in the tropics, rising before dawn, working hard, bathing at noon, having a second sleep in the afternoon before rising again and working until well after night fall. In the most northern of the Sumwesi Islands there have been years of extreme heat and drought. During these seasons the people have become almost nocturnal, rising two hours before sunset, working the night then going back to bed two hours after dawn, thus avoiding the harmful heat that could damage their health.

In the more temperate latitudes the people work hard and fast during the days of Spring, Summer and early Autumn to forage, grow, harvest and preserve sufficient stores of food to last the community until the following spring. During the winter months, especially on islands that have both the latitude and elivation to be expecting snow, then the mood turns to games, play, storytelling, festivals and feasts. It is almost worth being snow bound on the islands for three months just to enjoy their hospitality and welcome. Even a fur and featherless may earn their place in the community at these times if they have enough stories to tell.

Jamhodan 

 Separated from the rest of the Old World continent by the Hemodos Mountains, the land of Jamhodan is lush and tropical, bathed in two seasons - wet and dry. The trees are hard woods for the most part and in the open river plains, the grass grows so tall that it can hide the massive beasts of this country. These include Diceroli and Anancii (Anancus singular). Diceroli are barrels of flesh and skin like armour plates. Their legs are short, their eyes small, their ears no bigger than a small deer's. They seem to navigate their surroundings more by smell than any other sense and they are aggressive in the extreme. Their bulk alone, larger than any warhorse, would be dangerous enough but they are led by a massive nasal horn that is three feet long and kept sharp by the animal rubbing it against rocks and tree trunks. This natural weapon is enough to impale young dragons and gut horses. If you avoid the thrusting horn then being trampled below its plate like feet will leave broken bones and shattered limbs. They are dangerous and best avoided.

Anancii are twice as tall as a Diceroli at the shoulder and seem to be the only creature the Diceroli respect. An Anancus have pillar like legs, grey wriggled skin, tails that look more like a length of string, fan like ears that flap in the heat and two tusk teeth of ivory that spear from the upper jaw. These tusks can be used to dig up the ground, gorge bark off of trees or used to kill in battle. The clash between two adult male Anancii in the breeding season sounds like a thunder storm and can inflict vicious wounds. However, they do seem to be more intelligent than the Diceroli and can be tamed with care. However, one should always be careful around them as their strength makes them highly dangerous if they should lose their tempers. Their most distinguishing feature is a long, tube like nose called a trunk. This appendage would look ridiculous except that it is totally under the control of the creature that it belongs to. As such it can grasp, manipulate, suck, squirt and punch like a ten ton weight. However, it can also be as gentle as a mother with her child. Treated with respect and care, they will respond in kind.

The humans of Jamhodan are arranged into small kingdoms, each with their own language as well as a common tongue between regions. Often at war with their neighbours, these kingdoms none the less have common customs and religious ceremonies, despite having an extensive pantheon, with every region having their own favoured god or goddess.

The clothes of Jamhodan are as varied as the kingdoms, every region having its own style and many having a mix of styles, different clothing worn on different occasions. The most basic items of clothing for both men and women, are trousers that are tight at the waist and cuff whilst being loose in the leg with a top piece to cover the torso. For men the top piece is often a jacket while women favour a close fitting top that is pulled on over the head. The neckline of the women’s top is usually uncollared, the sleeves short and the waist line does not meet the top of the trousers. Usually a long cloth wrap is then layered over the top of the basic clothes. This is normally made out of cotton, even the poorest people have these wraps dyed in bright, some times aggressive colours that make the streets of Jamhodan cities look as if a flower bed has developed a will of its own and has taken to wandering around the town.

Richer families can afford to have their clothing either embroidered and be jewelled or have the patterns woven into the cloth during creation. The very richest can afford to have the designs painted on to the cloth. This is the most expensive form of decoration as the design has to be repaired after every wash.

Men too sometimes include decorative clothing pieces though usually of a smaller size than those of women. Again, the more decorated the piece the richer the owner. Granted, none but the richest wear their finest as every day ear, if nothing else for the sheer practicality of it. The finest garments are made of silk and velvet, depending on the season. For formal wear women often wear stunning gowns that are voluminous and loose. Possibly because of the continuing wars and upheavals of the land they live in the woman of Jamhodan eat as much as they are offered, laugh loud when they have the chance and dance as much as they are able to. Although the palaces of the rich are decorated with many depictions of tall, willowy women, the greater majority of the working class prefer their women plump and short, motherly little women who age well and love much. A sunny disposition is valued greatly in Jamhodan, despite the suffering often inflicted on its people.

In architecture, Jamhodan is more unified than the vast land of Tiansin. This is probably due to the rise and fall of the tides of conquest. As a kingdom is conquered the conquers stamp their own mark upon the official buildings and the lay out of cities then, as the kingdom’s power wanes a new conquer arrives and tears down what was built and remake it in their own image. Thus architecture is mixed and matched across centuries, influencing each other through defeat, tribute and trade.

The vernacular architecture shows signs of influence from Tiansin with the up-tilting slopes to the edges of the roofs to shed water during the rainy season. The simplest houses of the poorest are usually constructed of wood, bamboo and mud plaster and therefore require regular repair, taking away in time what is saved in money. Those that can afford slightly more build in fired brick, stone, clay tiles and metal, taking away in money what is saved in time spent on maintenance or not as the case maybe. No matter what the building is made out of the amount of decoration is quite remarkable, with patterns pressed into the plaster or wood laid in such away that it forms decoration as well as structure. Those who have the time, the access to the materials or the money will often paint their houses, usually with bold geometric patterns, rather than images of living beings. As has been noted before, the people of Jamhodan, instead of being ground down by their years of repeated suffering, seem determined to fill their days with as much beauty and joy as they can.

The level of stone masonry that is on display in the houses, temples and palaces of the rich speaks of at least some contact with the dwarfs in the past as they are wonders to behold. Sometimes one has to wonder how you can carve stone that finely, let alone how it manages to support its own weight, the white limestone a mere filigree in some places. In buildings not quite that fancy the stone is often of two or three different types or colours layered on top of each other and sometimes in front of each other so that when the stone mason then carves through the outer layer the inner layer accents the indention increasing the contrast and enhancing the visual effect. The effect is mesmerising in its intensity and almost hypnotic, visitors often loosing hours in just contemplating a single wall, the eyes and mind feasting on the details before them. These details are also not without purpose, particularly on the walls of temples, with many holy sites being carved with not only historical and devotional images but also science and mathematics. Thus the stone becomes a record more permanent than many libraries, with the walls and roofs built in such away that it would take a fire of volcanic proportions, the like of which only an ancient Lava Dragon could produce, to bring it down. Indeed some of the oldest temples do show signs of having been set alight at least once, the statues and base reliefs blacken and soot stained, the evidence of fire clinging to them even as they still stand in defiance of time itself.

In some temples the walls themselves become part of the rituals and services performed there. On certain nights of the year the population gathers in selected areas of the temple. There the priests, using lanterns and the motions of hands and arms and almost dancing movements, cause the shadows to move in such a way that the reliefs seem to come alive, the figures moving across the stones as bards play music on pipe and drum and curious stringed instruments in accompaniment to the story and the motions. Many who have witnessed these nights of story telling say that what sticks with them the most is the music and the feelings in the chest that resonated with it. During the day priests sit as teachers before the outer walls, using the diagrams and formulii incised there to demonstrate concept and method to their students. Whether peace shall remain long enough for their students to grow up and pass on their knowledge to the next generation is known only unto the gods.

There are also other religions in the land of Jamhodan that tend to form their own conclaves within cities and rural areas. Though not completely welcome among the people of Jamhodan, due to disagreements over religion, they are tolerated due to their skill sets, usually in trade, scribing, investing, accounting and in some cases the rites of the dead.

Though not many there is a small contingent of the Children of Kronzyn within the boarders of Jamhodan. Though they are not allowed to practise their necromantic skills during times of peace, which does happen as not every kingdom is at war with its neighbours all the time, the Children of Kronzyn do have their houses of healing within the towns and cities of Jamhodan. They also do make the bargain of Kronzyn with those that need it, the poor able to go to the Children of Kronzyn for money in exchange for their mortal remains upon the day of their deaths. Though they do not raise the skeletons of those who have made this bargain and set them to work in Jamhodan the way they do in Tiansin, the Children of Kronzyn maintain crypts below many of the cities of Jamhodan and there have been a few incidences where, pushed to the edge of loosing their kingdom, a Prince of one of the many city states of Jamhodan have offered their own body, story and life to the Children of Kronzyn in exchange for them rising the dead dedicated to Kronzyn to save the city and protect its people. As Kronzyn is a less understood god within the boundary of Jamhodan, this really is a weapon of last resort.

There is also another, less well known, religion sharing space within Jamhodan. Said to be originally from Rahman, these people live a very different life style to the rest of Jamhodan. Calling themselves Simurians, they worship the god Simurgh and have no other gods. They recognise the existence of other gods but they do not credit them with power, stating that their god has told them that they are his chosen people, that they will have no other gods before him. The Simurians believe that in the beginning there was nothing but a rolling mass of chaos and their god Simurgh spoke order into existence at the moment time began but the chaos was not totally undone in that instance and like a disease that resurges it seeks ever to infect Simurgh’s great work and undo all that is orderly and good. They believe that the chaos coalesced into an entity call Gethrail, a being of chaos, disorder and harm. The Simurian’s state that the world is a constant battle between Simurgh and Gethrail, with all mortal beings required to choice whom they serve and by their actions declare it and witness it before the world. It is no good saying ‘I am for Simurgh’ and then walking passed a neighbour who is starving in the streets, for that does harm and harm is of Gethrail. It is no good saying to your neighbour ‘Go, be happy, I wish you a long life and good health’ if you then help to make medicines so expensive that most people cannot afford them for such works will eventually force people to do unlawful acts to try and save their children, thus leading to disorder. Words without good deeds are as a farting trumpet as far as the Simurians are concerned. To them selfishness and greed are the roots of all evil and all sin.

Simurians live slightly differently from their non Simurian neighbours. Their clothes are usually of dark hues, some times trimmed with a ribbon or two ribbons of a lighter colour depending on the wearer’s status in the community. Men wear small hats when out in public while their women cover their hair once they are married. They observe dietary restrictions and their temples are usually plainer than many buildings in Jamhodan. They are a careful people, careful to speak, careful to act, careful to trust. They appear to be a people who have suffered betrayal and persecution in the past and have not forgotten it. They walk with care to avoid bringing bad attention down on themselves again, preferring to take much time before they choose a course of action. As such, some Jamhodans come to them to be arbiters and mediator’s in disputes. They are also often official judges and law scribes, serving in the courts of Jamhodan princes, trying to calm the political storms that wrack the country.

In climate, terrain and landscapes, Jamhodan is an extremely diverse land, with low land grass lands, jungles, forests, mountain ranges and swamps, Jamhodan is like a world in miniature, with creatures of marvel and danger. One of the most endearing is one of the species of large cat. These spotty coated felines are the predators of the high grass lands and open woods but are also favoured pets of princes and kings, their affectionate natures, cheeping cries and loud purring earn them a place at the tables of the rich and landed. It is best to note that their faces are marked with 'tear streaks' also known as 'cry marks'. A spotted cat that lacks these marks is best left alone. They are also incredible runners, sprinting at speeds that take the breath away but only able to sustain it for short bursts, after which they must take nearly an hour to recover. They also refuse to eat dirty meat, unfolding the skin of their prey to use it as a table cloth to avoid eating grit or dust.

Jamhodan is also the home of some very strange myths. In the towns and cities upon the coasts rumours and legends persist of creatures that rise from the waters to take their due of the population. These beings are said to be part sea creature, totally alien to human thinking, their gaze containing knowledge of ancient civilisation and comprehension of truth that shatter the minds of lesser beings. Their heads are described as being too big for their bodies, their physiques thin to the point of skeletal. Watching them move is said to be unnerving as they appear to drift over the floor without walking, their long fingers weaving in the air as they move. Their nails are said to be long to the point of being claws. Though many in authority dismiss these beings as being the superstition of peasants, every year there are bodies discovered in the alleys of ghettos of coastal towns that have been killed by having their brains removed. There are also areas of the surrounding ocean and islands that the local sailors refuse to approach no matter how much money you offer them, citing storms that will blow up out on no where to crack hulls and sink boats, inhuman faces watching the sailors from the water as the ship flounders. Other, darker things, are tied to these legends, whispers of cults and human sacrifices to hungry gods that wait, chained beneath the world, counting away eternity before they can return to take their revenge on those that betrayed them.

And there you have it, Sumwesi and Jamhodan. This one turned out longer than I expected it to so I’ve actually shuffled the last area I was going to cover in this report into the start of the next blog report but it does mean that this one is only going to be a week late so there are advantages. Granted I have no idea how long the next one is going to be so it will be fun to find out. Looking forward to seeing you there my lovely darlings. Be safe and be kind.

 

Hestia Locator - Tiansin and Environs

 

  

Hello my lovely darlings, after far too long I have finally managed to complete the next instalment of the Hestia Locator. Yes I know, far too late, what comes of having seven and a half full time jobs. That being said, shall we begin?

 Shulmi - Of the Great Depression

 Sometimes called Wild Elves, Shulmi are not actually part of the main elf lands.

 From the Guardiao Mountains, along the Northern edge of the Althulas Mountains the elf lands stretch, claiming the western end of the Chasyl Alu Mountains and the northern shore of the Calen Gaer land locked sea. It is at the north to south running Lug Anc Mountains that the lands of the old world elves comes to its most easterly border. Beyond this range of mountains the land is parched, cast within the rain shadow of the Lug Anc Mountains. As such the terrain ranges from super arid to arid to semi-arid. The areas of semi-arid land are fed by rain very rarely, a once in a life time storm sometimes rolling down from the north to bathe the land in the life giving water. Instead they are more often watered by flash floods and trickling inundations that flow down from the northern coast as the storms of winter lash the coast and the snow melt of spring runs off into the depression that forms much of the land of the eastern proportion of the continent between the Lug Anc Mountains and the eastern most coast. These seasonal inundations provide just enough water to support a patch work of ranches, homesteads and wild up lands. There are few towns and fewer cities, as such there is little centralised power, with most folks having to provide their own protection and own justice. These settlers are mostly human with some gnomes, some human blooded elves and a few dragonkin mixed in.

Because of the parching heat of summer and the intermittent rain fall of the autumnal months regular agriculture as practised in the rest of the world is not possible. Instead there is an abundance of drought resistant crops that are either hand planted or perennials that return year after year. As such it is always a balance between the number of people needed to plant the crops and the number of people said crops can support. Honeyberry trees are common for their ability to withstand blistering heat and freezing cold. Dessert olive is also common and moringa provides folige edible by both man and beast as well as oil for lamps and tool maintenance. In the shade below them black current and tamirillo grow. For the staple starch sources that fuel a culture both lambs quarters and a plant called sweet potato are favoured. Both of these crops are beneficial for the fact that they are double producers. The leaves of both lambs quarters and sweet potato are highly nutritious preventing the July hunger that can plague cultures reliant on a starch staple alone. The seed of lambs quarters can be boiled for porridge or used a flour while the tubers of sweet potato are excellent for storage in a hot, dry climate and can be used for any purpose the regular potato can be used for, although their skins cannot be eaten. Water melons, being a desert plant, are a regular sweet treat favoured by many for their refreshing water content.

On ranches where water can be harvested and retained in a large enough amount some corn and regular potatoes are grown. Water harvesting is practised on just about all ranches in various ways. Most trees are planted in shallow depressions called half moon basins whilst others chequers their fields with deep, short trenches called dirt bath tubs. Most build check dams within the gulleys and washes, some going so far as to dig entire networks of diversion channels and interlinking ponds to retain water on their lands and prevent soil erosion. Those that have access to reeds or, in a few cases, willow braid structures called gabion cages to build walls across washes and retain both soil and moisture on the land.

Most ranches and homesteads have their lands boarder by thick hedges of hedge orange trees, also know as bodock wood. The timber of these trees is bright orange and highly rot resistant, the main upright timbers of ranch houses and barns often harvested from it. Granted these timbers are usually the only pieces of the building made from hedge orange as the wood has to be split and plained by hand and the tools sharpened every few minutes as hedge orange wood stripes the edge off of even steel tools in a matter of only a few strokes. Often the workshops handling hedge orange have craftsmen working in pairs and double the usual amount of tools so that one can work the wood while the other sits and sharpens the tools over and over again. It is the only way to maintain any speed when working with hedge orange.

The ranches of the Great Depression tend to be clustered along the southern edge of the land where the gap between the Chasyl Alu Mountains to the West and the Hemodos Mountains to the East allowed seasoned rainfall from the ocean to come North. Here Bighorn Sheep graze on semi-arid scrub land while small herds of long horn cattle are also kept in rotational grazing patterns to avoid over grazing and soil degradation.

Beyond the hedged boarders of the ranchers and homesteads, the land is untamed and wild. It is here that the Shulmi roam in their tents that are shaped like wheels laid flat upon the ground, their rims made of thick cloth. Many of these are collapsible and are transported by pack animal, some however are mounted on platforms suspended between truly massive wheels and pulled by teams of hardly, stout bodied horses that roam the land with the Shulmi elves. Shulmi elves are the shortest of the elvish races, though still tall for humans, with broad faces, high foreheads that continue into the line of the nose without interruption and copper to bronze skin tones. Their eyes are dark and their hair is nearly universally black, usually worn as a tight braid in both men and women and threaded with feathers. They wear clothes that are usually trousers and a calf length tunic buttoned high on the right shoulder, the wide sleeves can either be pushed back to be out of the way or pulled down over the fingers to protect the hands. The toes of their boots are usually upturned to facilitate stepping in and out of the stirrup. Shulmi elves spend almost more time in the saddle than they do on their feet.

They do not farming but instead hunt the herds of pronghorn and mourning deer, carefully culling their numbers to maintain the health of the herds. They also trap rabbit, prairie hamsters, grouse, pigeons and bush turkey. They have learnt to take the animals the ranchers and homesteaders consider pests and to leave the hedges of bodock wood alone, foraging for wild sweet potato, ground nut, bitter root and Muldwa Articokes as well as chokeberries, hawthorn berries and tomatoes, a fruit that many homesteaders still believe to be poisonous.

Although this unspoken law is not perfect and there have been authorities who have tried to force the Shulmi to settle it has, for the most part, prevent the mass persecution that marked the time of the Shulmi elves on the Far Continent. For that they are truly grateful and they hold fast to their friends and allies among the settled folk. It is rumoured that one of these is a being named Louis Mahroe.

It is difficult to separate fact from fiction in the case of Louis Mahroe for he is something unlike any other of the major races of Hestia. Some say he is a creation of a dark wizard got free of his master, others say he is a wizard who’s spells and experiments left him dreadfully disfigured and warped while others yet claim he is a Locutian Apostate cast out from his Hive and managing to survive in a land the rest of his kind cannot tolerate. No matter what the case he has proven to be an unbiased and thorough investigator and a tireless pursuer of criminals, skills that have seen him gain a place in his community as Sheriff and defender. He is also an arbiter between the Settlers and the Shulmi and is one of the rare band of outsiders who has full access to the Motherlodge and all their wisdom. If you are travelling in the great depression it is a good idea to see if you can adapt your route to make contact with him, though it is polite to not stare too much and it is a good idea to remember, if you are of the law breaking bent, that criminals in Louis Mahroe’s territory don’t often turn up on the block before the circuit judge, disappearing some where in the wilds instead.

The marked difference between the Shulmi elves and their cousins are the result of the fact that the Shulmi elves are a refugee race. The Shulmi elves are originally from the Burning Continent, their forbearers only just escaping ahead of the Day of Destruction, warned of the coming disaster by the greatest hero of their race. Their numbers were still decimated by the natural disaster that rendered the Burning Continent inhabitable and it is only because their birth rate is slightly higher than their cousins that they have managed to recover at all. This is another reason for their nomadic lifestyle, they would rather flee from a confrontation than risk the lives of their women and children. However, if pushed to a fight, they are vicious and fight with no apparent fear. "It is a good day to live, it is a good day for you to die!" is a common battle cry among the Shulmi Elves. Very often it is their enemies who die, the Shulmi elves being masters of light horse cavalry tactics, trampling up dust clouds to hide their movements and then swirling round their enemies to rain them with arrows. If it comes to hand to hand combat, the Shulmi Elves favour compound shields and small hand axes that can either be swung in the fist or thrown with deadly accuracy. A few have heirloom swords passed down in the families that survived the Day of Destruction and the crossing to the Old World. These swords are single edged, light, curved cavalry sabres, that are effective at both the slash and thrust techniques of warfare and perfect for mounted attacks after the volleys of arrows have done their work to break up the enemy formations. If travelling into the lands favoured by the Shulmi elves it is best to be ready to pay homage to their elders and their shamans. Shulmi elves have a magic that it deeply rooted in the land around them. They pay homage to the land and the land protects them. If you rouse their ire then their curses can pay you back in a thousand nasty little ways. If you earn their respect or better yet, their brotherhood, then you will find tracks and trails open up to you that few others can find and the bounty of nature will follow you all of your days.

The Tiansin Empire 

 Also known as the Land of the Astral All Father, along the eastern coast of the continent there is a band of land that is watered by monsoonal rainfalls encouraged by the mountain ranges of Hong Shan, Zanmei Zhu, Jin Bian and Xintu Zhi Lu and the fact that the skies above Tiansin are home to many Lightning Dragons. Indeed the once in a lifetime storms that flood the Great Depression are said to be caused by the young of the Lightning Dragons dispersing and quarrelling as they go to find their own territories, while the Astral All Father and the Imperial Family are said to be dragonkin, sons of heaven, lords of the skies, masters of rainfall and kings of storms.

The people of this land have built the expertise to harvest, store and ration this water, building water ways, canals, dams and sometimes whole lakes. Their have terraced the sides of mountains and created fields that become ponds for a grain crop that needs high amounts of water to survive in its early stages. They have tended orchards that have roots going back to a time before the end of the Empire of Albion. They have created artwork, literature, poetry and science that rival the Sidhbe Elves (though the Sidhbe elves would never admit to such a thing) and crafted ocean going ships that carry whole gardens on their decks so that their sailors never need fear the shipman's disease.

All of this is off a different style from the North Eastern portion of the continent and due to the vast geography of the land of Tiansin, stretching as it does from the Arctic circle to the hot, moist climate of the tropics, there is a great deal of drift within the architecture and customs of this land.

In the terrain of the mountain ranges of the Hong Shan, Jin Bian and Xintu Zhi Lu mountains cave dwellings are not uncommon as all it takes to make a dwelling place is a pickaxe, time and effort. Some of these dwellings even have internal plumbing where rising springs have been channelled into pools that serve the kitchen first, wash room second and latrine last before falling away into a subterranean cave where the biology of the Underworld takes care of any organic matter.

The Zanmei Zhu Mountains, also known as the mountains of the gods, have very few people dwelling there due to the sheer strangeness of the terrain. It is speculated that the Zanmei Zhu Mountains were formed during the events of the God War ten thousand years ago as they seem to defy nature. Often rearing so high that their tops are lost in the cloud cover above, the sheer sides and cliff faces are enough to take the breath away. There is no where within the mountain range that one can truly see one of the mountains in a single glance, their forms towering higher than anything else in the world and crazily enough each is rimmed and crowned with the green of the forest that they rise from. What is even more surprising and terrifying for the first time visitor to the Zanmei Zhu mountains is that often, for the vertical pillars, the base of these masses of stone are narrower in both axes than further up the pillars, making them top heavy. Some go so far to look like upside down cones, the enormous weight balancing on the point while the base stands, upside down, in the sky, making the viewer wonder just how they remain so perilously balanced. Others appear to be petrified giants or dragons or monsters that have no name. Still others arch across the skies like bridges from nowhere to somewhere. Some explorers who have traversed the interior of the Zanmei Zhu mountains swear that some of the mountains are not actually in contact with the ground at all, instead drifting through the sky on unseen air currents, tethered to Hestia, if at all, by cables bridges and walkways of living wood that creak and groan as they try to take unimaginable weights but one does not need such exaggerations to be in awe of this magical landscape.

In the Northern Provinces houses are symmetrical and usually made out of bricks, stone and timbers with thick walls and double roofs. They are usually built with the door facing south and very few windows in the northern walls to exclude the winter winds. The houses are also built huddled together to eliminate unnecessary external walls, sharing warmth like birds in a nest with the houses in the centre of the block being the most sort after for their warmth and shelter.

In the central Provinces of the higher elevation the houses are still made from stone but are more separate from their neighbours as heat is not the major concern. Instead water is, in the abundance that pours from the sky all year round. Therefore, the houses are joined by enclosed corridors of a wide width. This is so that both the winter snows and the hammering rains of the wet session can be avoided. There are legends of town elders who have never once seen the open sky above them, living all their lives within the walls of their houses and the communal corridor areas.

In the lower elevations of the Central Provinces stone is often abandoned as it provides no safety against the raging torrents that come down hill in both spring melt and summer down pour. The earth and air here are also extremely humid so the houses are built on stilts to not only avoid the seasonal flooding but to also allow air circulation. In some areas they go so far as to leave the lower floor, which is ofter the family workshop or area where they keep their animals, open to the air with only the upper floor enclosed to allow the family some privacy in their living room which also serves as the kitchen and the dining room, as well as in the bedroom. Some of these houses are not even made out of wood, instead being constructed of a giant grass known as bamboo. As insane as this sounds some species of bamboo are thicker in girth than trees of equal age while others are split until their fibres become flexible where upon they are woven into mats for both floor covers but also insulating layers upon the walls as well as baskets, furniture, tea sets, curtains and lanterns.

In the hot south the architecture relies on light wood and large windows to catch what breeze comes their way. Often painted white these buildings have roofs that start curving up again as they approach the edge to force running water to leap up and away from the walls and the foundations. This coupled with deep, column supported eaves prevents the abundance of steady rain entering the buildings. These homes are built with ‘sky wells’, central courtyards, to encourage ventilation by providing large white paved areas that make heat rise and therefore drags fresher, cooler air from the tree shaded streets outside through the house. Usually arranged as three buildings around the courtyard with the fourth side being a single wall set with the gate. In practise this means that in the poorer districts families cluster at three to a compound, one family in each building, though sometimes as many as two or three to a building.

As families work their way up the social ladder they are able to afford more and more space, first claiming a whole courtyard as their own, then a two courtyard building. In a two courtyard building the outer courtyard will be for business with the family claiming the inner courtyard as their private space. The richest families can afford a three courtyard house with the first courtyard being for the servants and doormen, the second for guests and the last courtyard being the private rooms of the family.

Unifying such a wide diaspora takes a solid, strong and well publicized central power, an efficient bureaucracy and decades of social conditioning. The Tiansin Empire has had centuries to mould their people into obedient, compliant citizens who conform to the dictates of the Astral All Father. As a reinforcing factor all official state and religious buildings are built in the same style and layout regardless of location. Painted in red and plated in gold with whole cedar logs acting as the supporting columns, the wood is fitted together with cunningly carved joints rather than nails or pegs so that they cannot work loose and collapse the building during earthquakes. The foundations are carved from interlocking slabs of granite shaped and polished to a mirror gleam and are usually wider than a man’s height in all dimensions than one would expect. Again this is to safe guard against earthquake damage, with many temples and palaces built upon foundations that are barely buried, access gained instead by climbing stairs to the floor level of the building. Though looking wrong to many foreign eyes there are many reasons why this technique works. It elevates the building above the regular flood level, it lifts the wooden structure away from the ground to prevent rot and it means that in the event of an earthquake the upheavals of the earth do not effect the foundations as the ground cannot pressurize against the stone, the whole building ‘rafting’ over the shaking terrain. This does mean that there can be some lateral movement but the people of Tiansin accept that if the temple moves too close to their residence, assuming their residence hasn’t collapsed in the quake, they will be expected to demolish their house and rebuild it to obey the laws dictating the space that must be around a temple, or demolish their house and move to a new house, if they can afford it. If they cannot afford it then they will go homeless.

All of the peace, order and stability of the Tiansin Empire comes at a price. In the Land of the Astral All Father everyone must have their usefulness to the Astral All Father or be disposed of. All must serve or be disposed of. Men must toil at their father's trade or be apprenticed to another, as well as train to serve in the All Father's army. Women are to bare sons for the Astral All Father's service, their place is being on the arm of their assigned man to maintain their homes and train their daughters to accept the marriage that their father will arrange for them. Once married, usually to an older man, they will be servants to their mother-in-law, bowing to her every whim and dictate until their eldest son is old enough to marry, where upon their son's wife will become their servant. If a women's husband dies before her, she becomes the property of her eldest son. If she has no son old enough to accept that duty then she will either be sent to a nunnery or be remarried to a more junior member of the family, depending on whether she is still fertile. In the lands of the Astral All Father a girl of sixteen is considered a flower on the way to withering. Girls must also be pure upon their wedding nights, any who are not are disposed of.

Though the merchants of Tiansin have sailed to the shores of the southern continent, they rarely make their way round that land mass to trade with the north west of the Old World, considering the people there to be barbarians and savages who do not give their kings the respect that they deserve. There is also the fact that there is little to nothing that the north west has that the Astral All Father wants. As such trade is minimal and stifled by the distance, the goods of Tiansin usually only making their way to the markets of the North West via the trade routes from the southern continent and are as such, inhibitively expensive.

The Children of Kronzyn 

The only exceptions to the expectations that rule life within the lands of Tiansin are the Children of Kronzyn. These sect of necromancers are a society within the larger society of the land of the Astral All Father. Worshipping the strange Death God Kronzyn, these sorcerers can cast spells of protection, illusion and control through their unearthly music. They pay the families of the poor and destitute for the remains of the dead, in many cases before the person's actual death. A member of the needy can go to the Children of Kronzyn and make a trade with them, usually being enough money to buy the Apprenticeship of one of their sons to lift the family out of poverty. In exchange, when they die the Children of Kronzyn will come to collect the mortal remains, sparing the family the cost of a burial as well. The Children of Kronzyn never kill those who have made such bargains, they wait for time and destiny to take its course because to kill would be to cut short the story dedicated to Kronzyn. Once time and destiny have taken their course the Children of Kronzyn come for their due. They are never early and they are never late, they always arrive as the last words of the funeral are spoken and in silence they collect the mortal remains, carrying them forth to perform their own rites. Within these rites the body is stripped of all flesh and the bones preserved, bound by threads of twisted silver. After that they are animated by the strange music of the Children of Kronzyn and serve them servants and labourers. There are no slaves in the land of the Astral All Father, mining, large scale construction and night soil processing being performed by the puppets of the Children of Kronzyn.

Despite their ties to Death, the Children of Kronzyn are also tied to life, providing medical care to all status of society, spells of protection and regenerative serums that can heal major injuries that could otherwise leave the sufferer crippled and a burden to their family. This strange duality is the result of their beliefs in their god. Kronzyn is not a hungry god, ever devouring the dead, he is a god of care and indeed, one could say, of love. He is said to have a four armed form and no fixed face. The icons of Kronzyn depict him as having a blank mask for a face, androgynous and expressionless, round his waist hang masks of every race and every gender. For every person he meets upon the black sands, he wears the face that will bring them the most comfort. In one hand he carries the sickle of reaping, of ending and destruction. In the other he cares the pin hammer of making, of beginnings and creation. His other two arms are usually depicted outstretched in a gesture of welcome and comfort. Kronzyn does not judge, nor condemn, he listens, making the relic that encapsulates the person's life as he does so. A busy life of great duality may result in two relics, it takes an exceptional life to produce three.

The Children of Kronzyn share an equality within their work and society not enjoyed by many within the land of the Astral All Father. Indeed the reason that they wear masks while performing their duties to Kronzyn is to disguise the fact that their women are as powerful practitioners of their craft as their men are. They ways are different from the ways of the majority of the people of Tiansin and they are only accepted because they are useful. In return, they do not flout their differences before the people of the Astral All Father.

And there you have it, the Empire of Tiansin and the Great Depression that joins it to the rest of the world. I apologise for it being so late, all I can say in my defence is ‘summer holiday’. I hope you enjoy this latest offering and those of you who have a decko at the Youtube video will be able to see that I’ve been working on what I call my quick fire artworks. I’m hoping to have a Tebooo account set up soon but I won’t try and put a date on it because if you want to make God laugh tell him a plan but as I said I hope you have enjoyed this offering and I will see you all later. Be safe my lovely darlings and be kind.

Hestia Locator - North West Corner

 

  

Well, despite many interruptions from the Distractions, both Major and Minor, I have managed to do another blog post. Amazing but true! Granted that is because I wrote most of this nearly a year ago and I’m just up dating the map and doing some proof reading. Well by updating the map I mean writing the on the names of places and including more icons to denote where capital cities are. Granted I am working with the assets that are not locked behind a pay wall on Inkarnate but right now I don’t have time to do a full hand painted map. Shame but it is the holidays so I’m having to work in the time limits I have.

So on to the main event.

Hesita as a planet is geologically activate, with many mountain ranges, both major and minor, a well as distinctive environmental bands and a diverse biosphere, supporting many different races as well ultra predators such as the dragons.

Surprisingly, the theory of continental shift is already beginning to circulate within the learned circles of the races of Hestia, although this is helped by the fact that  both the dwarfs and elves have much longer lifespans than humans, so what to a human is the stories of their grandfather's grandfather is childhood memory to an elf or dwarf. Added to that is the reverence for history and tradition that both races are characterised by and the result is a much greater body of evidence documenting the changing face of Hestia. It also helps to explain why the great body of water in the centre of the continent is a salt water body and not fresh, theorising that it was originally part of a sea that lead to the ocean that has since been isolated by the shifting of the bones of the land.

There is also evidence that the over all ocean level was lower at some point in the past, with diving species such as the Coral Dragons reporting the discoveries of submerged cities below the waves in the, comparatively, shallow coastal shelf areas of the oceans. This hints at the land masses being larger at some point in the past, though even the longest lived races cannot say when, some even speculating that it was before the events of the God War.

It should also be noticed that the surface of Hestia and the depths of her oceans are not the only habitat of Hestia and travellers should beware of creatures rising from these more hidden environs to hunt.

Regions 

 North West

 Furtherest to the north west, separated from the main land by a channel of the ocean, is the ruined Island Kingdom of Albion. As discussed in the Hestia Historical, this once thriving island heart of the Albion empire was decimated by the attentions of the Tomb Dragon Armasar Mockblight one thousand years ago. Having driven the expansion of the Albion Empire beyond sustainability, he watched it fall to the ravening energies of the Day of Reclamation and claimed the destroyed Capital as his lair. Warmed by an ocean current bringing hot water from the tropics, Albion is a temperate island and would be pleasant, if it wasn't for the fact that the land now crawls with the undead. The victims of the Day of Reclamation shamble and crawl across the land as the sun goes down, those who's bodies have decayed completely billow and wail as disembodies spirits, trapped in the last moments of free Will they possessed before the ritual destroyed them. Some gather around ruins that bare the signs of being schools at one point as if seeking the children that were once theirs. If any children survived the Day of Reclamation it is unknown but unlikely. If they did and managed to build a secure settlement then they have never managed to contact the outside world, leaving the status of the once globe encompassing Empire unclear. The few adventurers that have braved the shores of the Isle of Albion report a gloomy, mist shrouded country where the sun is never bright even at midday, the vegetation is dark leafed and unpalatable and large animals are absent. The largest carnivore appears to be foxes, the largest omnivores are badgers and the largest herbivores are hares and rabbits. There has also been a behaviour shift among the badgers with these big, shuffling mustelidaes now a day time forger, retreating to their burrows as the sun goes down. The only creatures apparently safe at night being insects, owls and bats. In short, the Isle of Albion is a hostile place with nothing to trade with the outer world. The only influence it still has on the outside world is the fear that the ghoul court may organise its madness enough to try and invade the main continent again, or that Armasar Mockblight's descendents may cast greedy eyes across the sea to the main land and come hunting for other civilisations to destroy.

On the continent, just to the east of the narrowest crossing point between the Isle of Albion and the mainland is the minor mountain range of the Kebneesian mountains. Hidden within this mountain range is the Kingdom of Sushnomi. Isolated both physically and culturally from the outside world, the Kingdom of Sushnomi seems to have no ready wish to interact with the outside world, or indeed, even speak with their neighbours. This appears to stem from a cultural shift that happened roughly four hundred years ago and may even be a result of the destruction of the Albion Empire, the long term fear of that event causing a generational shift in thinking that eventually cascaded into the fervent belief in the protective power of their god. Unfortunately their religion appears to be what some would call 'high demand' and as such they do not welcome the influence of outsiders. What traders who do manage to gain permission to take goods outside of the kingdom's boarders trade in furs, walrus ivory, timber and preserved fish. 

The Kebneesian Mountain range is divided in two by the Benezda gap, which Sushinomi is to the north of. This track of salt water and the Mustan Sea into which it runs is wild, unpredictable and violent, cut by many bottom tearing shoals and reefs as it flows up deep fjords to inter lace with the mountains. The weather is also cool, with mild summers and cold winters with heavy snow fall. This weather pattern is common to much of the area around the Mustan Sea and has resulted in a cluster of fairly small kingdoms that are controlled by how far travel can be reasonably be expected to be managed in the weather of winter, usually dictated by the out lying ridges of the mountain range, marshes, bogs, fens and other such environmental features, as well as the hunting patterns of some of the more aggressive predators and more magically infused beings. Crones are common in this area of the world, as well as other members of the less pleasant fae creatures and courts. Local guides are advised and as they are a proud people, the traveller would do well to not gain say their advise, least they discover themselves abandoned on the road.

Further to the west and south west, the kingdoms are larger and more politically active along the coast of the channel dividing the main land from the Isle of Albion. In recognition of the threat still posed by the Ghoul Empire, many of these Kingdoms have standing armies and advanced taxation systems to fund them. As such they are economically and politically engaged with their neighbours, sometimes even indulging in short lived, seasonal wars as they struggle against each other. These conflicts are usually limited as the fear of the Ghoul Empire and the orc hordes that call the mountains and wild places home remind the people that if they spend all their strength on destroying each other, then they will have nothing left over to defend themselves against the larger threat.

Example

Faransah curves along the coast, bordering the sea on one side and the kingdoms of Saksa, Dacia and Noria on the other until it reaches the Guardiao mountains. In times past it served as the buffer between the Elf lands and the depravation of the Albion Empire. As such it has a stronger connection to the Elven peoples than most, maintaining an Elvish Ambassador within the King’s Court. Due to the influence of the Sidhbe, the Faransah people have a reputation for being more refined and cultivated than many human kingdoms, even experimenting with a simplified script for its commoners and an expanded education system. This has led to a healthier population, with travelling bands of educators supplementing the village teachers and bringing equipment that reveals the hidden world of the tiny. ‘A Zoo in a Drop of Water’ is always a well attended class, revealing not only the hairy things that can live within drinking water but also the methods to eradicate them to prevent disease. Wash houses built into the same building as the village forge are also common. There are also rumours of a mechanical writing machine that is decreasing the time and expense of books with in the borders of the kingdom. News certainly seems to spread faster and further accurately within Faransah than in other Kingdoms.

Between the influence of the Sidhbe, a series of progressive monarchs and the work of the Righteous Judge and his family, Faransah is a strong country with a settled population. Despite this its history is not without conflict as the bordering kingdoms have had aggressive relationships with them. They see how the commoners are prospering and assume that it is because Faransah is much richer than they are and therefore they covert those riches, not realising that far from being vastly richer than they are, Faransah has merely worked to see a much fairer distribution of wealth throughout all their citizens.

As the coast starts curving down to the south west you come to the kingdom of Portasia. Bordered on the north and east by the minor range of the Guardiao Mountains and on the south by the major range of Althulas Mountains, Portasia is a sheltered, stable kingdom, carefully nurtured by a line of kings that have brokered trade deals and diplomatic relationships with its neighbours beyond the mountains, often acting as a neutral ground for negotiations and peace deals. The Kings of Portasia seek to be a stabilising influence on the world around them for the good of their own people but are not a sentimental family. People have their worth and they will find it and use it for the good of the society around them or the Kings of Portasia will make them do so. They are also known to forge teams out of wanted criminals to deal with more aggressive threats, both within their borders and without. There has been speculation that these 'King's Specials' have been involved in the past with, shall we say, rather direct interference in the succession of the neighbouring royal bloodlines but nothing has been proved so far. They do have a very stable relationship with Faransah, cultivated over many years.

Though Portasia does not employ a standing army as such, all males over the age of adulthood are required to spend the afternoon of the day of rest on the village green, practising with either the long bow or the crossbow under the supervision of the local marshal and weapons master. Some woman have even insisted on learning the crossbow, stating that orcs do not respect their persons when one of the hordes in the surrounding mountains gets it into its head to come a-raiding. It is almost concerning that these woman tend to have a greater drive for proficiency than their male counter parts. Portasia also reports being bothered by the occasional raid of the legendary Ash Elves but these reports are dismissed as fantasy by other kingdoms who know that these beings are legend alone.

 Beyond the eastern curtain wall of the the Guardiao Mountains begins the forest home of the elves. These enigmatic people are divided between many different sects and some would say races, though it is difficult to tell if they themselves categorise themselves as such. To those outside the mysterious courts of the elves the peoples of the elves seem to be as such:

 Sidhbe

 Also known as High Elves (some say High-and-Mighty Elves, particularly the dwarfs). Known for their exquisite artwork, poetry and literature, the Sidhbe also produce weapons of wonder, spells of world breaking power and vendettas that last for generations. Though these family intrigues rarely erupt into full violence as such behaviour is considered unseemly by the Sidhbe, they are none the less bitter and vicious. Families can rise or fall based on the out comes of one mistimed word at a social gathering. As Sidhbe elves can live for seven hundred years or more, these family disasters can have long lasting repercussions.

Sidhbe warriors are also without peer, fast, graceful and skilful beyond measure. There are very few that can best them with the blade and their battle tactics leave foes reeling and bleeding from death by a thousand cuts. About the only reason that they do not rule the world is because children are rare and cherished among them. That and they look down their elegant noses at all others.

As far as Sidhbe elves are concerned humans and dwarfs are smelly, short lived barbarians hardly better than orcs and due about as much regard. Indeed the only advantage that humans have over elves is the sheer speed with which they can breed but that is not enough to bring them any measure of respect from the Sidhbe courts. The Sidhbe are isolationist and keep to their cities and glittering towers, ignoring the rest of the world and barely interested if anyone from outside their circles come calling. Perhaps it is best to leave it as such as the Sidhbe are known for being extremely cruel, even to their own kind. The story of the Righteous Judge, Vil’tinoos Erevan, is a case in point. Having survived an absolutely vicious poison that laid him low for over a decade and aged him beyond anything that the elves had ever seen, he was sent to Faransah to be the Ambassador to the human court, fully believing that it was only temporary. It was decades before he discovered that he had been exiled from his homeland and his betrothal had been broken behind his back, his one time fiancee having married his older brother years before, without anyone letting him know. It is probably a good thing that he was already attached to Morwenna Flamesong, the Tuired dancer, whether he was admitting it or not, as Vil’tinoos is an extremely powerful sorcerer and he could have potentially made the Sidhbe court that exiled him seriously regret their duplicity.

 Metsaan

 Also known as Wood Elves. Slightly less aloof as their cousins the Sidhbe, the Metsaan live in close communities within the depths of the forests that circle the Sidhbe courts but appear to deal with them almost as rarely as humans do. This appears to be because of a cultural difference between the two races, one so ingrained that it has lead to a slight differentiation in appearance as well as attitude. Whereas the Sidhbe are tall, thin, pale to ghostliness with white to golden hair and blue eyes, the Metsaan elves are slightly shorter, of a stronger built and tend to be tanned, with corn gold to nut brown hair. Their eyes also tend to be various shades of brown, with occasional individuals that have tawny or ever yellow eyes. Their skill with the bow is legendary and their guerrilla fighting tactics have resulted in their lands being declared untouchable by all who have an ounce of sense.

Those who are allowed a look at their settlements come back speaking of wonders and marvels. Their houses are grown from living wood, doorways set in the living boles of trees, windows hidden among the branches, birds nesting in the foliage above and bats flittering at dusk from cavities left especially for them. There is no hard and fast boundary between the forest and the homes of the Metsaan, only a slightly higher abundance of food trees and shade tolerate crops dappled around the settlement. Indeed these food forests are now being experimented with by some human settlements to result in a communal food reserve in case that the more common crops fail due to bad weather.

Though Metaan families can develop feuds and rivalries, they rarely take on the depth and anger common among the Sidhbe. Their communities are marked more by a common effort and working together to keep each other safe and a respect for the balance of the natural world. They fear fire and drought and have a long standing enmity for orcs and dwarfs, orcs for their wholesale trampling and noise, while the forges of the dwarfs take the trees and produce pollution. The Metsaan are cautious of humans as humans can be as destructive to the forest as the fore mentioned races but there are those that have learnt to respect the Metsaan ways and trend lightly among the trees. Thus the Metaan are more likely to judge humans on a case by case basis than their instinctive distaste for orcs and dwarfs. Of the orc cross-breeds, they have a more reserved opinion. Though historically they have despised them for the same reason as their contempt for the orcs, they have in more recent times been able to come to an understanding with this magically created race. If the orc cross-breeds stay on their side of the border and keep the larger predators and herbivores from the mountains away from the forest then the Metaan Elves are willing to not shoot across the border and start a war. Whether this peace will be long lasting is any one's guess. 

Ash Elves 

 These people are the feared legend of the Underworld. Before even the God War it is said that there was a eruption within the ranks of the elves involving a rebellion against another race called the Begetters. Legends say that the Ash Elves remained loyal to the Begetters and retreated into the caverns, caves and shafts of the Underworld after the Begetters lost their war.

Skin of charcoal grey with hair of ash white, these tall people are said to be vicious and sadistic to the greatest degree. Though many people dismiss reports of Ash Elves as legends and myths, some countries still maintain that they are raided by them on a semi-regular basis, with property damaged and people and valuables stolen away underground into the Ash Elves subterranean home. Indeed, records of Portasia state that, on occasion, people have been discovered stumbling in the wilds, ragged and wounded, babbling with madness, shaking with the memories of what they have survived. They gibber of cities built underground, of slave pits and vicious dark skinned elves that delight in pain and torment. They speak of haughty Matriarchs and warriors that fight to the death for their pleasure. They whimper of noble houses that claw and fight and tear at each other to become masters of mighty clans, each only holding power as long as they are the most ruthless and merciless to the others. These broken souls do not last long after their discovery, the trauma of what they have survived sapping their strength and will to live. They rarely last more than a month after discovery. Some physicians who have actually examined these patiences speculate that they are fed a slow poison as part of their captivity but there is no conformation as to this theory.

 Despite the disbelief of many, there are books that calm to be in depths studies of the Ash Elves and their ways. These books calm that the Ash Elves are a society that is matriarchal in the extreme, with all power being held by the females with greatest status. They are divide into clans, each named after, usually, an animal of the underworld. The within each clan, the word of the Matriarch is absolute, there is no arguing with her. Below her is a hierarchy of females, each scheming and plotting to exult her station and further her position.

Of the males of the clan, their sole purpose is to serve their women. Each male must compete continually for the favour of the females and death is a regular occurrence. Among male Ash Elves the only status and therefore the only safety, lies in becoming the favourite of a female and therefore father of her children. An Ash Elf male who father's daughters is nearly guaranteed a permanent legacy within the clan. The only other method to escape a life of continuous strife and battle is to become a Pupil of the Begetters. These appear to be scribes, historians, craftsmen and possibly wizards of the Ash Elf race and offers the only other path out of the short, brutal life that is the lot of an Ash Elf male.

Female Ash Elves cannot be killed within the clan and even a politically weak female may rise in status if she bears enough children but the scheming and plotting for position can carry heavy penalties. These can range from having their daughters assigned dangerous missions within and without the Underworld to isolation within the citadel to the very worse which is the transformation into a Disgraced. Ash Elf females that have been punished in this fashion are rendered sterile and monstrous. Most go insane and are driven from the citadel to live out the remainder of their lives as fearsome predators of the Underworld.