shardridgeuniversity

[shardridgeuniversity]

Uruk, Iraq 

[shardridgeuniversity]

Creating functioning civilizations in your fiction

Let’s be frank: a lot of this section is likely to be left out of your novel. Why? Because the ins-and-outs of how a city or village functions on a very basic level isn’t really that enthralling. Here and there, a detail will peek through into your narrative, but whole chunks of these thoughts will be jotted down as notes and then left alone forever. 

So why does it matter?

Like so many other aspects of worldbuilding, you–the writer–knowing every tiny detail will help you create a full, vibrant world on the page. You might not actually outline the history of your city’s sewage systems (ahem. we can’t all be Victor Hugo.) but if you’ve thought about these logistics and answered them even in a brief note to yourself, then the parts of your civilization that you do see on the page will feel consistent and real in an important way. 

(There is also some inevitable overlap between these aspects and your culture, so some questions might lean in that direction. Let it be a jumping-off point for more contemplation as you create.)

If you’re not a freak of nature like me and don’t want to spend time making your world absurdly flawless and perfect, than feel free to skip this entry. (But, I mean, why are you even following this blog if that’s the case??) Onward!

Where did basic building materials come from, both currently and historically? 

How uniform or varied are the buildings and houses of your civilization (both in style and material)?

How has the climate affected building style?

How culturally ingrained are the visuals (the cityscape) of the civilization?

How tight or spread-out are the buildings and homes in relation to one another? Is that because of culture or landscape necessity?

How has the city/town/village adapted to developing technologies and systems?

How accessible is water? How is it collected and distributed?

What foods are grown/bred locally? What is imported? 

How is the harvest of food handled on a logistical level? How are its ethics and its importance viewed by society as a whole?

Where do people go to the bathroom? How is sewage disposed of or recycled?

Does everyday life produce trash, or are all things reusable or recyclable? 

Does plastic exist? If so, how ubiquitous is it?

How is trash handled and disposed of?

What is/are the city’s primary energy source(s)?

Do the people pay taxes? How else might city funds be raised?

Do they have a money system? 

Is it used only within their town, or across the country?

Is money balanced with bartering, or does one take precedent over the other?

How is value determined, especially in a barter system?

What is the money based on? (gold? Or some other precious metal? Or some other resource entirely?)

How willing are citizens to pay for non-necessities and how does that affect the local businesses?

How is construction handled? By large groups of people or small teams with big equipment? Or magic? 

How are children educated? Who oversees it, if anyone?

How important is education to the people and how is that reflected in the system, facilities, and schedule?

What purpose does the downtown or “hub” area primarily serve?

Socialization

Bonfire pit

Park

Commerce

Farmer’s Market or local market

Corporate high-rises

Entertainment

Clubs

Sports arena

Theatre

Casino

When people get sick, what do they do? Do they have healthcare choices or do they only have the one doctor or single hospital where they have to do if they need help? How is healthcare paid for?

How are injured or dying people transported?

What kind of law enforcement does the city have? How much power do they possess? How are they viewed by citizens?

Is there some sort of fire department? Is it a city branch or is it volunteers? How are they prepared to fight fires?

What natural disasters are common and how is the town prepared for them? What happens when they occur?

What popular entertainment venues are there? How are they funded and run? What is their reputation?

What different entertainment options are there for the rich and the poor, or whatever class system your town has?

How are classes separated within the city?

If magic exists in your world, how is its use controlled or maintained within urban areas?

What kind of transportation do people use, in general? How is the town equipped to handle it?

If traffic jams can happen, how do people deal with them? What steps has the city taken to ensure smooth traffic flow?

What is it like when you first leave the city or village?

Landscape?

Distance to neighboring town?

Development of roads beyond the city (and who maintains them)?

What might be the first thing a newcomer to the city notices upon entering? Will she have an easy or difficult time navigating the place if she’s never been there before?

Check out the rest of the Brainstorming Series! Magic Systems, Part One Magic Systems, Part Two New Species New Worlds New Cultures Map Making Politics and Government Belief Systems & Religion Guilds, Factions, & Groups War & Conflict Science & Technology

[shardridgeuniversity]

🔞 Denia 👻 Father Bardas

This is Denia in something sexy and Father Bardas in a really bad disguise, both of which I believe are due to happen over the course of their story!

———–

“My lady.” The inflection in Garth Galvayne’s voice indicated that the statement was a prelude to a question. Two years of attempting to break the Knight’s strange code of conduct had shown Denia few results. She knew from experience what his question would be.

“Yes, Galvayne. Speak freely.”

Garth’s golden eyes twinkled, and a smile stretched across his chiseled, hazelnut features. “Were I not bound by my Code, I would be forced to praise your attractiveness, even to the extent of propositioning some form of intimacy.”

Denia grinned, glancing down at her armour. It was the finest suit of plate she had ever laid eyes on, or at least second finest if one counted Galvayne’s magnificent golden-painted plate armor. This suit was more subdued, fortunately, and it fit her well both aesthetically and physically. The metal had been dyed a deep bluish-grey, and was etched from top to bottom with scrollwork and symbols. Wolves featured prominently across it, frozen mid-bound across the chest plate and pauldrons. 

It wasn’t the first full-plate suit she had worn, but it was special. It felt as if it had been crafted to fit not just her body, but her soul as well. It moved freely and easily, almost like a second skin.

Garth watched her test its flexibility and nodded pensively. “Titanite is a wondrous metal, is it not?”

“That’s selling it short, I think,” Denia said as she stepped off of the fitting platform, moving to the far wall. Her hammer leaned against the wall, the long handle stretching nearly four feet above the elongated iron head. Denia picked it up, hefting it in her hands to test the grip of her gauntlets. The many overlapping plates and scales of her armor slid perfectly around each other, as smooth as water flowing around a worn river stone.

“I don’t know how I could ever possibly repay Daron for this.”

Galvayne nodded again as Denia returned to the center of the room and began to practice her swings. “I should think that he wishes you indebted to him. A many-layered send-off if I’ve ever seen one; a splendid gift that ensures that the recipient owes the giver a favor at some later date.”

Denia snorted as she brought the hammer down in an overhead swing. “That man is too smart for his own good.” She spun the hammer in her hands, feeling the weight of the head as it forced its way through the air. She grinned as she pulled out of another swing, turning to the doorway in the same motion.

“Come on, let’s show Maximillian! He’s going to be so jealous.”

—————

It had been exactly five years and three months to the day since Father Jenson Bardas, priest of the Theus of Death and Time, had last dressed up as a Camp Follower from Lantann. That hadn’t been the first time, of course, but it had been long enough that he had been hoping it had been the last.

As always, it had been Denia who had crushed his hopes. “You’re the only one of us with acting experience and cheekbones,” she had said. “A little ochre coloring and you’l be perfect!”

‘Perfect’ was not the word Bardas would have used to describe dressing up as an aging prostitute in order to infiltrate an enemy encampment, let alone the encampment of the Silent Emperor himself. It was times like this that made him remember why he had become a priest of Patir as opposed to one of the more comprehensible deities. He could pray for the experience to be over with more than double the chance of it actually happening, either through his own sudden cessation of existence or some strange warping of time.

Unfortunately, neither had happened so far. He was just about to mouth yet another plea for release when a passing soldier called out to him.

“Prife, koe i rora!” The call didn’t seem to be aggressive, but Bardas rushed to translate it in his head. “Hey, you there!” Well that certainly required a response.

“Ae? Aha sdelal te mati ne?” Yes? Have I done something wrong?

The soldier must have recognized his poor accent, and switched to a broken Gillaran instead. “You are kairatutka, yes? Prostitute? You would like some of I?”

Bardas hastily declined and hurried on his way, blushing furiously beneath his already-reddened makeup. He wasn’t in the mood at the moment, but more importantly he didn’t have time.

 He had an Emperor to seduce.

[shardridgeuniversity]

Describe your OCs with a single reaction image each.

[shardridgeuniversity]

Wellborne - Chapter Two

Table of Contents

Previous Chapter

          Alaric hated rivers, a sentiment that made his current situation – drifting lazily down the River Guild under the cover of night – deeply inconvenient. He also hated pineapples, a very specific breed of horse, and Elves, but in this case only the latter really applied.

          Floating spread-eagled at the surface of the water, he bobbed through a section of current that spun him around and left his feet pointing downstream. From his new orientation he could see the town walls looming in the dark. Lights moved along them, tiny motes of brilliance held in the hands of the elven guards patrolling the battlements.           A small part of him, one of the many fragments of his mind currently entertaining themselves while the serious part did the work, pointed out that – since the wooden walls didn’t actually have crenellations, or merlons, or any sort of practical cover at all – they weren’t technically battlements. The part of Alaric’s mind that was currently working sent thoughts of pineapples in response.

          “I am impressed.” A voice, and an accompanying swell of emotion, echoed inside Alaric’s head. “Last time we had to sneak into a town you managed to kill half of the guards on the way in. Not a single casualty yet, this time around.”

           Alaric shrugged, making a small splash with the motion. One of the lights on the wall closest to him bloomed brighter, and a beam lanced out of it to scan the river for the source of the sound. Alaric exhaled, letting his body sink beneath the surface. The beam passed over him without pause and continued to scan the river for a few moments before appearing to evaporate. The beam shattered into a million tiny pieces, the dust-like particles of pure light sucking back into their source in the guard’s hands.

           Alaric breathed in, his sealed helmet providing all the air he needed to rise back up to the surface. His armor may have appeared to be a typical Dwarven-made suit of plates, but it was nowhere near as heavy. As light as a dying man’s final breath, it did nothing to impede his bobbing progress down the river.

           “Hm. I almost wish they had seen you,” said his armor, sending resigned acceptance along with the words. “You can be rather boring when you’re not killing.”

           “We’re here to pick someone up, right?” Alaric thought back, almost shrugging again before catching himself. “You were the one who said we should avoid excessive bloodshed this time around.” He chewed on that for a moment before continuing. “Which is really not like you to say, to be perfectly honest.”

           The armor sent the impression of laughter in response. “Fear not, we’ll get to cause much violence later on. This is just a part of the preparation.”

           The warm lights of backlit windows sent sparkles dancing across the river’s surface as Alaric passed the wall, the modest stone houses and buildings of Guilderford flanking his path. It was a human town, so of course it would be full of firelight. The clouds overhead parted, and the moon’s black glow quickly dulled the water’s reflection.

           Alaric glanced around, careful to keep his motions slow and quiet and to avoid making undue splashes. “Which place are we looking for, again?”

           “The Trademaster’s warehouse, most likely. It has access to the river, if my memory holds true. You should be able to float right in.”

           “When we’re done here I want you to promise me that we won’t have to deal with rivers ever again.” Alaric sent pointed resolve along with the thought so that his armor would understand that he was serious this time.

           “That’s what you said last time.”

           “Don’t even get me started on that,” Alaric thought in response as he angled his body towards the shore. The warehouse had to be that building with the huge doors over the water, one of the parts of his mind told him. They probably opened to internal docks, to keep riverboats and their goods dry and clean in the frequent jungle rains. “Last time I was near a river I almost lost my legs. Remember that?”

           “I remember that you tried to wrestle a hippopotamus whilst naked, yes.”

           Alaric hesitated, waiting for the part of his mind that handled memories like that to chime in. It sent him a sheepish shrug along with the incredibly specific sensory details of a hippo biting down on a pair of flailing legs. “Hm. Well those things live in rivers so I’m still justified.”

           His armor didn’t reply beyond a dash of smugness, indicating that this conversation was over for the moment. Probably a good thing it was, for Alaric passed beneath the giant doors at that moment. He ducked underwater once more, just in case anyone was paying attention inside.

           After a moment spent breathing in the air his armor provided, Alaric surfaced again. The interior of the warehouse was dark, for the most part. A large riverboat, more a barge than a true ship, sat in its moorings on his right. Boxes, crates, kegs, casks, chests, and all other manners of containers were stacked here and there, some on shelves and some on each other.

          The only light to be found was beyond one of these stacks. Alaric could see it flickering against the far wall. Most likely a candle, or perhaps even a glass lantern, left lit for the benefit of any guard patrols. It was certainly fire, which was a good sign in Alaric’s books. Steady light meant elves, and elves would make this difficult.

          Still careful to avoid excess splashing, Alaric swam towards a set of steps at the end of the closest dock and pulled himself out of the water. A strand of riverweed clung to his armored hand as he ducked into a shadowed corner in the stacks of goods. Finally in his element, and cloaked in the darkness of the warehouse, he reached up and pulled off his helm.

          There was a faint hiss as it unsealed at the neck, and he breathed in the damp, exotic smells of river-borne goods in transit. The armor worked wonders for him with its ability to seal, but he was robbed of most of his senses inside of it. His hearing and touch were dulled, and he couldn’t smell worth a damn. He had tried to figure out if taste still worked, once, but the logistics of such a feat had been beyond him.

          With his helmet removed, the world was open like a book. He ran an armored hand over his hair, tugging at a couple of tangles in the course curls, before stopping halfway through the motion. Muffled sounds were emanating from the direction of the flickering light. Sounds of someone struggling against someone else. Muted grunts and gasps were accentuated by the sounds of hard things being bumped into and hard shoes scraping the stone floor.

          Helmet in hand, Alaric made his way along the shelves towards the light, taking care to remain in the shadows. The latter wasn’t a difficult task. His armor practically glowed with darkness in the same way as the moon, emanating inky black into the air around him. He pressed himself up against a massive barrel as the shelves turned. The sounds were coming from around the corner.

          In an instant, the scuffling of feet turned into slapping footfalls as someone broke away from the fight. As someone broke away and began sprinting in his direction, no less. Alaric backed up and dropped his hand to his sword, drawing it just as a young woman rounded the corner and slammed into him at full speed.

[shardridgeuniversity]

Wellborne - Chapter One

Table of Contents

Previous Chapter

In the dead of night, everything changed. Though, to be truthful, “everything” did not actually change for quite some time. Rather, in the dead of night the eventual change sprouted from humble seeds, for truly that night only saw the shifting of fates for four particular individuals. Like ripples on a glassy pond, the shifting lives of those four would go on to shake the very world they lived upon.

          The First of them arrived in a small town on the River Guild under the cover of more than one darkness. First was the darkness of the night, the blanketing dim of the moon a counterpoint to the void of the sky. Second was the darkness of his armor; a full suit of plate forged from a metal blacker even than the moon. Lastly, and mostly hidden beneath his oddly radiant armor, was the darkness of his skin. He was rather fond of the style he had developed.

           The darkness cloaked him, masking him from the eyes of the guards as he slipped into the town. It did nothing to obscure the voice that guided him, but that was no problem, for the voice only ever spoke from the back of his mind. He did not notice the change that night. Just as a butcher might not notice the stink of the chopping block, he had grown accustomed to the weighty feel of the world tipping over. He paid no mind to the change, for he knew he was its harbinger.

          The Second of the four took no notice either, though not for lack of trying. It had been several long hours since the trade master had assigned her to balancing and categorizing the ledgers, and by midnight she had grown desperate for a change of pace. Anything¸ she thought, scratching away at the parchment with a rapidly-dulling quill pen, the candlelight flickering in the drafty warehouse. Anything at all could be better than this.

           It was not a conscious thought. Rather, it was the idle musing of a young woman stricken by boredom. The forces at work that night made no distinction between the two. She asked, and she would receive.

Keep reading

[shardridgeuniversity]

Wellborne: Prelude

[The following will be a world-establishing Prelude to one of the novels that I’m working on currently. I’m planning on posting the first couple of chapters on my side blog, @shardridgeuniversity, but this prelude and the table of contents will be on both this blog and the side one. Enjoy!] Contents

Does the world need a name?

It is a question I have grappled with on occasion. The world is far too large for a person - even one as … advantaged … as myself - to experience in a lifetime, and it is already full of names. Places, people, creatures. Gods. All have names, and all those names mix and mingle as centuries pass.

For the purposes of this prelude, we shall simply call it the World.

It is full of magic.

The Primal Magic, the base force behind all of creation, flows across the world like wind and tide, ebbing and gusting through eternity to a rhythm all its own. 

From its nigh-unfathomable depths sprang the Gods. At first there were many, then there were three. Perhaps the many died off leaving the three survivors, or perhaps they behaved more like the powers that birthed them and coalesced into their greater selves. Whatever happened, it occurred many hundreds of centuries before even the Three Races first opened eyes on the world.

The three were a family of sorts, the first two working together to create the third, the greatest sum of their powers. Together, they were harmony.

Jadi, or Apeph as she is called by some, the Goddess of Darkness, Destruction, Chaos, and Mysteries. Her partner was, Rahv, the God of Light, Creation, Order, and Knowledge. Their ‘child’, their prized creation, was Guild, the God of Fire, Life, Freedom, and Learning.

Together, they worked to forge their own marks on the world.

Together, they created the Wells.

The Wells; the originators of the worldly magics and their peoples, great stone shafts into the ground that issued waters of life and power.

From her Well deep in the Eastern Mountains, Jadi reached into the darkest caverns and, with the help of Guild’s guiding candlelight, shaped the Dwarves. Stalwart and secretive, they clung to the shadows from which they had been Borne – the same shadows that began to billow forth from the Jadenwell. Their mountains became the Dark Land, the Kuraitochi, a land of soft snows and lapping shores.

From his Well in a high grove at the top of the world, Rahv’s light – enhanced by the luminescence of Guild’s blazing sun - coalesced into the Elves. Tall, beautiful, and intelligent, they stood proudly under the sunlight from which they had been Borne, the distant snow glinting down upon the grove of the Rahvenwell. The savannah of the Elvenland stretched to the horizon before them, and they spread their arms and sang the glories of the Light.

And in the rolling hills of the Southerland, Guild worked alone. His fires burned day and night, casting both light and shadow as he worked his masterpiece. From beneath the gentle rains and soaring canopies of the jungles, Humans were Borne from the Guildenwell. Not solely of Light, nor solely of Dark, but possessing within them the signatures of both. The rainforests flourished around them; brilliant flowers shimmered among the luxuriant leaves even as they were feasted upon by insects and animals of every color and shape.

The Wells were not merely crutches of creation, no they are far more important. From the waters of their Well, each race could draw magical powers unrivalled even by the Primal Magics themselves. Channeled by their gods, each Well poured forth a signature power. The Elves of Rahv could drink their waters and claim the power of Light. The Dwarves of Jadi could drink their waters and wrest control of the tumultuous Dark. The Humans, Borne by Guild but beholden to none, could partake of their waters and bring forth the Fires of their God.

So it has been for five thousand years, an autonomous system imagined by Guild to survive even the Gods themselves. A fortunate design, for the Gods were killed a thousand years ago.

[shardridgeuniversity]

Wellborne Table of Contents

This will update as chapters are posted.

Prelude/Map

[shardridgeuniversity]

Worldbuilding questions to ask yourself

today: diet and food. 

first off - how do the people you want to write about live? are they an agricultural society in a fertile area or forced to migrate with their livestock? what opportunities does their environment give them, what do they live off? 

keep in mind that no one can live off meat alone, every society’s diet includes vegetables, plants and fruit in some way. what grows in their homeland? what might they trade with other settled societies? (even nomads don’t aimlessly wander around the world - they move within certain traditional boundaries.)

what livestock do they hold? which animals are eaten/milked, which are utilised as working or riding animals? (most nomads actually live off a lot of dairy products!) 

which kind of foods are taboo to eat and why? for example, tomatoes used to be thought of as poisonous, and different religions forbid eating certain kinds of meat. on the other hand, some larger groups of people share a genetic defect that leads to lactose intolerance, leading to them doing without dairy products.

what is considered “peasant food”, what’s a luxury? are there current popular drinks or foods that only the most well-off can afford (which may become more common over time, like tea in Great Britain)? 

what is the common everyday drink? keep in mind that in pre-industrial times clean water was hard to come by and didn’t taste that great, so in 17th century Germany most people drank beer all day long, while the British drank gin and later Chinese tea. 

what rituals and/or habits to people have at meals? are there prayers said? who eats first? who sits at the table or in the main eating area? who cooks? are there cultural rules about who cooks for whom, or when? are meals taken in in community or alone? is eating a necessary task or an important daily ritual?

are there rules about when to eat what kind of food (like not eating meat on Good Friday)? is there such a thing as fasting, and if so, when and why does it take place? 

how is food, eating and producing food regarded as in society? are the farmers the lowest social class, or is everyone’s life focused on surviving (because the environment may be hostile, in more ways than one)? 

[shardridgeuniversity]

Super easy world creator!

I was looking for an easy map creator that makes beautiful maps for a while now to make a visually stunning map to go along with my book. And now, after such a long search i have finally found one that suits my needs! Because i like it so much, i thought i’d share it with you guys! Just go to inkarnate.com and start creating! I have to warn you though, it is still in beta so a lot still needs to be added, but already it looks great and is easy to use!

I mean just look how beautiful some of these maps are!

And it is so much fun too! Someone even created a game of thrones map that is simply amazing!

So check it out and start creating your visual aid for your story. I promise you, it really is super easy and you will make one in no time!

You can find the site here: inkarnate

[shardridgeuniversity]

Geography

Whenever I’m writing I use maps. Maps are the best. Every fantasy AND Sci-Fi book worth its salt needs a map. 

With most of my worldbuilding, knowing the layout of the world is essential to understanding the subtleties and influence of cultures, cities, nations, and religions. I’d love to post a map of the entire planet of Saeris, but everything I have is compartmentalized. I have like ten maps showing different segments of different continents, and only one real large-scale single work, and  it’s rather outdated:

It’s kind of low-res, but it should show up alright. This is the Northeastern Hemisphere of Saeris. Major regions are marked with large, underlined numbers, and cities are marked with non-underlined numbers. five-pointed stars indicate regional capitals or places of extreme importance while four-pointed stars denote major cities.

This map isn’t to scale, and although technically this map should show the equator as running straight through the number 7, I don’t think that’s how I want it to be. Everything is subject to change, here.

I don’t want this post to be too long, so I’m just going to talk about the majorly important regions.

1. The Arcadian Peninsula

Named for the founder of the regional religion, the Prophet Arcad, Arcadia has a Mediterranean climate well-suited for wheat farming and vineyards. The Peninsula is divided by the Tanic Mountains, which divide two of the three distinct cultural sub-regions of Arcadia. The lands south of the mountains are referred to as “Lower” or “Veridian”  Arcadia, and (depending on the century) are populous and prosperous. The best wines in the North are made in Veridian Arcadia, especially around the major city of Primaveria (A name which means “Place of Endless Spring” in old Rondellian). North of the mountains are the other two regions: Inner Arcadia and Outer Arcadia. Inner Arcadia begins in the foothills of the Tanic Mountains and follows the course of the River Tanis about halfway up the remainder of the peninsula. Inner Arcadia is known for its great wheat fields and for the immense influence of the city of Sarimia, which is of great spoilerific importance. Outer Arcadia is heavily forested and rough. It serves as a natural border between the Peninsula and the rest of the continent.

3. Hrolfgard

Called “The Old Land”, Hrolfgard is, for the most part, cold and harsh. The small continent’s three great valleys hold warm enough climates to allow farming and herding in sufficient amounts to sustain civilization. Hrolfgard is an incredibly detailed place that I don’t have room to get into for now. It’s going to need multiple posts all on its own for the true complexity to come through. For now, though, the important things to note are that three major cities hold sway in the region: Hrolfthane (”the Ribcage of the North”), Norheim, and Cairnwilloch.

5. Suldafos

Another intensely detailed region, Suldafos is modeled on the Balkans during the reign of the Ottoman Empire. Sort of. It’s also kind of like the Basque people. But not really. It also needs its own post.

7. Alimathea

This jungle-covered continent is the origin of the Saeral species (the human-like species that lives on Saeris). It has been nothing but trouble ever since, serving as a convenient block between north and south and checking the ambitions of no fewer than five great Empires throughout history. It’s home to a lot of quite angry and dangerous things, but the people have a civilization of their own, independent of outside influences.

Numbers 8 and 9 can be folded into one for the sake of this post: Rondellon

The second largest continent on Saeris. The part of Rondellon that is shown in this map is slightly less than 1/12 of the continent’s land area. The continent is named after the immensely powerful Empire that dominates it as of the start of the novel series. The Rondellian Empire is, at the start of the series, in possession of all of Rondellon, including Suldafos and the large continent labelled with the number 4, as well as numerous colonies north of Alimathea in Carachaim and Lesser Arcadia. Rondellon is home to the widest diversity of cultures on Saeris, thanks to its many mountain ranges and inland seas (not pictured). Throughout history, Rondellon has been or will be home to no fewer than four of the seven great Saeral Empires.

10. Lantann

Similar to a warmer-on-average Russia, Lantann is a heavily-forested continent and also the fourth largest on the planet. Home to the enduring and resilient Lantann people. A HUGE pain in the ass for much of history.

11, 12, and 13 are all parts of the immense continent of Carachaim.

Pronounced “Carrack-Haim”, Carachaim is fucking MASSIVE. It’s approximately the same size as the next three continents combined, and boasts the largest mountain ranges on the planet. Savannahs, rainshadow mountains, deserts, steppes, tropical forests and jungles, taigas, tundras, grasslands, mangrove swamps, and a thousand islands all show their faces on the continent. Everything in Carachaim is big, from Striders (large flightless birds) forty feet tall to lion-like insects called Spiraxes, to artificial creations such as the Great Road and the city of Greyhaven. Any nation that can control Carachaim controls the world. The long peninsula that reaches across the top of the map is called the Carachaim Arm (or just The Arm),and is technically part of the continent at large, but the terrain and cultures make it different enought ot technically be a subcontinent of its own.

So that’s a basic primer on regions. I’m skimming over about 99.9% of information here, so it may look bare-bones but this world could pretty much function without me if it wanted. I didn’t want to make this post yet, but I really want to cover cultures in a big master post and t do that I needed to show some geography dammit.

[shardridgeuniversity]

Dating Scales

Most historians measure Saeral history in relation to the founding of the first Kingdom of Sarimia by King Silas “the Lame.” In this fashion, a date one hundred years later would be referred to as 100 AF, or one hundred years After Founding, and vice-versa for dates Before Founding, or BF. This system first came into common use during the reign of Silas’ grandson, Magnus, and has continued in the thousands of years that have followed. 

There are inherent problems with this method, however, as this dating system bares very little relevance to cultures and civilizations beyond Sarimian influence. It presents a very Saricentric view of history, and increasingly, historians have begun using comparative scales for different societies. In Hrolfgard, years are measured before and after the fall of the Last Dvarr Empire (and the subsequent climactic changes of the Northern Cooling), the equivalent of some 900 years before the founding of Sarimia. Hrolfgardian towns put on a festival that coincides with their new year. Although the exact date of the Last Empire’s collapse is unknown, the festival traditionally coincides with the end of the harvest, and as a result is subject to some variability. 

In Suldafos, time is traditionally measured based on a 144-year cycle, following the twelve members of the Suldafid Zodiac: The Horse, The Strider, The Spirax, The Woman, The Man, The Dog, The Eagle, The Dragon, The Shark, The Cat, The Child, and The Leviathan. Each member of the zodiac holds sway for twelve years at a time. This bears some similarity to the Chinese Zodiac of Earth, but with a slightly different cultural importance and viewpoint. The Suldafid Zodiac is more similar to the Aztec tradition in which the world ends every fifty-two years. The Years of the Leviathan were traditionally held to be the end of the old world, with the coming of the Dawn Horse signalling the beginning of the new. 

Some experts believe this to coincide with the orbital cycles of the other planets in the Tylaran system, specifically Saeris’ two moons, Casurn and Scios, and the massive Gas Giant Desrion. The city of Suldafos saw the first use of telescopic lenses to observe the stars, circa 700 AF, and it’s quite plausible that the cultural significance of celestial movements directly contributed to this.

In Weryon, years are measured by which major city held sway in Weryan politics, which is more similar to a dynastic system. Whereas someone from Earth would say that a vase was Ming Dynasty, a Weryan person would describe one of their artifacts as being 2nd Ma’atan Supremacy or 19th Tonan Supremacy.