In our last post, JWC Secondary Worlds brought oversight to the migration of life forms that survived Ankhara’s fall, and those who emerged from the dispersion of Ankhara as a magical contamination, infecting Ezeoth and all which lived on it. Rechecking the red dots placed on the planetary maps, you may follow the migration arrows and determine where the many took shelter and built a city. Having established Regions and territories through the acquisition of resources, and by way of talents and skills learned both population and fame of ability have gone forth to offer trade.
Photo by Robert Bye on Unsplash |
There can be no surer way of measuring a civilization than by the weighing of it’s trade routes and unique commodities. Value of wealth and property gets tossed into a storm of currency and theft, outlaws and criminality, explaining to any that life and death are bought and sold for lucre or power. Trade systems begin serving the goods and services, but as time corrupts vine ripe fruit into rottenness, so too does the will for dominance bring decay to trade integrity. Those who provide wish for just compensation, but those who acquire sometimes don’t agree with what that compensation should be.
On storm world, like many other worlds in fantasy, war is a constant threat. War is death for any market which thrives on stability of resources and trade. You cannot move goods into a war zone where currency has failed and the rule of law becomes a memory, and because capital is devalued violence becomes highest coin of the realm. High coin is normally a substance or service which is most prized, and so of immense value to the point of being fought over. Water, air, sustenance, medicines, intoxicants, and precious substances to look at or for scientific exploration, these being among some of what makes civilization civilized.
The husbandry of true territorial ownership causes conflict, but it may also be the reason for great unity of forces. The collective will is repressed/suppressed in most beings when they are forced into artificial nearness. Comforts and traditions bring solace to what is otherwise a distortion of natural urges, and yet everything tolerated or endured may be balanced through possession. Supply and demand yield seldomly, want matches against dearth, so that materialism defines the way value is translated from generation to generation. All crisis is generational, if it is brought about through tales of the old days or promises of a new tomorrow, the gap between age groups can cause peace to fall away. This is the basis for all true strife between peoples.
Lets go over some larger population centers, so that we may get a sense of regional culture. Then this JWC secondary world will start to come alive before our third eyes.
Planetary Map Key:
(1- 4 is keyed on the map)
1: Sea of Tribulation – westernmost
2: Southern Sea – southernmost
3: Northern Sea – northernmost
4: The Dreaming Sea – easternmost
(A – K is keyed on the map)
Western Hemisphere:
A: Sethraka: The Land of Tribulation
B: Mu Imorum: Land of Warwrights
C: Da Imorum: Land of Industry
D: Vralathium: Fog Land
E: Thashum Islands: Land of Trade
Eastern Hemisphere:
F: Yirkahn: The wild nation
G: Da Azorum: Land of Smithwrights
H: The Free Republic of Paradon: Island Utopia
I: The United Islands of Zorthumu: A navel superpower
J: Evalnine: Land of Wizards
K: GoRo: The abominable zone
Global Key:
1: Purple = Migration Route
2: Yellow = Regional Delineation
3: Tan = Trade Route
4: Magenta = Jetstream Markout
5: Panelemental Portal = Magical Climate
In an attempt to bring creativity into this world-building exercise, the following outline will be used to setup territorial definition on the continents. A two-dimensional image can be augmented with geodetic information, and so be a translator for planetscaping, and this is the very heart and soul of JWC SW. Starting with post 5:, the world-building direction has moved toward civilizing the planet’s surface.
The following section is meant to provide a cultural average by which a nation, a region, a globe might be explored, and by such measures be brought into life, enough for a foundation to be built on. Myth, history, contemporaneous, and even a future yet to be can be plotted out, allowing for a great variety of stories or further refinements.
G: Da Azorum: Land of Smithwrights / Motherland
Range / Type of Civilization: (Marked by *)
10: Plague Stricken – the doomed
9: Peasant – expendable
8: Slave – disposable
7: Tradesmen – indispensable *
6: Landlord – overseer
5: Low Nobility – lord
4: High Nobility – king *
3: Pharaonic Nobility – god-king
2: Temporal Theo – “the gods”
1: Timeless Theo – the God
Resources: Mineable Minerals, exotic mushrooms, mountains melons,
Population: millions
Fame: Known for airships, craftsmanship, flying beasts, wizards, and mushrooms.
Motherland to the Azori, a people who are said to have come from the stars. Now, in this later day, they have a way with the world that few other Huma possess. Working with fine woods, stone, metals, glass, and even light itself. In the south there live Mountain folk living on castle eeries and hollowed pinnacles and another who lives within those upper places and down into the deepest roots of stone. Turning north all the lands are wild with weather control, being a country of wizards and talking fungus who have shaped the world by their alchemy and wizardry. Such a land serves as center for the world and has the admiration and envy of all others.
The cities of Azori:
The Kingdom of Farwi: (northern) aka north Da Azorum
The High city of Astoz – west most
Range / Type of Government: (Marked by *)
5: Auto Sovereignty – tradition
4: Popular Sovereignty – masses
3: Political Sovereignty – connected *
2: Legal Sovereignty – state
1: Real Sovereignty – royal *
Called cloud song by the wizards, Astoz is home to the wizards of Da Azorum. An academy city for Myuma and the northern Azori, the latter calling themselves Eval to distinguish themselves from those others of gold skin in the south. On every mountain their work shines or flashes, providing limitless power for those without Ankharan technologies.
In the north, there are a species of giant rainbow eagles called by the natives Ezell, which means flight of the sun. These creatures are graced with a powerful field of Ankhara which enables them to perceive things far away, and more so, to see things beyond seeing. Many seek the Ezell but few find what it is they truly wish to find, for the Ezell do not regard Huma as worth the time.
City Data: (*) 1-5
Technology: **
One of the centers of weather control. Though they do not have mastery, these people are knowledgeable.
Domestication: **
A species of giant talking birds called Ezell, in which the high city of Astoz have a partnership.
Artizenship: ***
The mistrals of cloud song use the very wind and rain to make echoing music in the heights and Valleys. Colossal bells, chimes, watery wind instruments, and hydro fed drums fill the storm winds with song.
Photo by Timelynx on Unsplash |
The meteoropoulos of Vargmane – northmost
Range / Type of Government: (Marked by *)
5: Auto Sovereignty – tradition
4: Popular Sovereignty – masses
3: Political Sovereignty – connected *
2: Legal Sovereignty – state
1: Real Sovereignty – royal *
Being the center of weather control tech, the city of Vargmane is called meteoropoulos. There are countless towers dotting the mountaintops and on various wind paths at varying gradations. These structures have been placed to harvest the wind, hydro, and thermal energies arising from purposeful weather manipulation.
Ankhara weather control is half the battle. The other half is a flawless oversite concerning energetic harvest systems, otherwise known as glass mountains.
Glass mountains, a.k.a. storm mountains, feature a sprawling infrastructure devoted to gathering weather-driven power into electrical or Ankharan utilities. Together with their neighbors in the south, cities like Vargmane, Astoz, Ergmane, the wealth of resources, technology, and ability of conditioning supplies nearly utopian prosperity for its people. Airships, storm lanes, airspace security, as well as river patrols have the skies over all of Da Azorum filled with traffic. The trade to airport, seaport facilities or river dock systems allow for smooth trade despite the weather or storm valleys where even the low lands are glassed into energy harvest zones. This power is stored in batteries or Ankharan relics and sold to waiting masses at reasonable rates, this done in the hope of a maintained peace between nations.
City Data: (*) 1-5
Technology: ****
The people of this land have mastery of weather control, a secret which they guard closely. It is known to have its basis in Ankhara, but the whole of weather energy harvester tech is its own industry.
Domestication: ****
A regional species of giant butterfly lives in and around the mountains. It is said that these have unique Ankhara powers as well as other renewable resources.
Artizenship: **
Their works of art are said to be infused with Ankhara and so bring altered states of thought leading to epiphany or ecstasy.
The Capital fortress city of Lejaz – east most
Range / Type of Government: (Marked by *)
5: Auto Sovereignty – tradition
4: Popular Sovereignty – masses
3: Political Sovereignty – connected *
2: Legal Sovereignty – state
1: Real Sovereignty – royal *
This fortress city represents the center of life in this region. The Kingdom of Varwi is made of migrants from the fallen theopolis and another kind of life altogether. Gold skin Azori Huma encountered a race of sentient fungus which lived in the caves of their newly occupied territories. This Myma (as opposed to Huma) is a living breathing mycelia whose clusters make the branching limbs of it’s spongy squid-like body. When they are apart there is only a friendly coexistence, but when they are together, a miraculous symbiosis is undertaken.
Huma becomes entwined in Myma, and this process starts moving up the nose and down the throat, thereby infiltrating the host’s lungs. Once the lungs have become pregnant with the skin covering mycelia, then a garden of mushrooms transforms the lungs into a new organ made to rebirth the body. Over long seasons of growth and feeding, the Huma gradually becomes a Varwian wizard, a symbiotic union of Myma and Huma, sometimes called Myuma. These are more skilled with Ankhara than any others.
The normally Sentient mycelia augments the Huma anatomy, transforming over time the entire organism, leading to virtual immortality. Gradually the flesh is transformed into a deathless fungus upon a full skeleton of crystallizing bones. There are suggestions that this body is merely another step down a greater evolutionary path, but so far no one has been able to substantiate this. Though there are other ways in high this fungal infiltration has been known to alter lifeforms.
The breeding program:
When a female Eval mates with a male Huma nothing comes of the seed. When a Male Eval mates with a Huma female, however, a child is conceived, and furthermore the womb of the mother is changed forever. Her first child is a Huma with a mixture of Eval, this union made possible by Ankhara, and it is for this reason that the womb is altered.
Any child that is born to that anointed womb thereafter will be touched with both the genes of the Eval, but more so the Ankhara power. The firstborn Eval Huma hybrid becomes the wizard brother, the elder sage who is to guide their training and shape the Ankhara powers. This has been done for generations over the eastern realms of Ezeoth, specifically the faction of Evali Huma in the northern region of The United Islands of Zorthumu, yet almost from the founding of The High city of Astoz the breeding program had been running.
Those Huma of dark golden skin tended to be trade workers, while those of the dark silver skin tended to be hunters and warriors. Even so, there were always exceptions, and beyond that, the Ankhara in an anointed womb was known to imbue traits to both that transcended either. A great armory of Evalhuma with Ankhara fully activated is said to guard The High city of Astoz.
City-Data: (*) 1-5
Technology: *****
The knowledge of bio-industrial genetics is second to none.
Domestication: *
There are no notable achievements in this field.
Artizenship: ****
Because of the controlled evolution and selective breeding at own in this populous, the craftsmanship is often times the work of genius.
The High city of Ergmane – south most
Range / Type of Government: (Marked by *)
5: Auto Sovereignty – tradition
4: Popular Sovereignty – masses
3: Political Sovereignty – connected *
2: Legal Sovereignty – state
1: Real Sovereignty – royal *
Though still considered well into the northern boundary, this high city shares a common industry with the southern realm. Airships and floater craft are designed and assembled here, but this sort of engineering takes luxury and elder day technology to the next level. Instead of appropriating Ankharan technology, the academy at Ergmane seeks to reengineer it from scratch. Some of their projects are common knowledge, but it is their secret tech departments which have street rumor and made the weary seek deeper truths.
Besides an airship/floater factory, the high city is also known for the crafting of war mechs and battle suits capable of incredible functions. These battle suits are extremely costly war systems and come with custom airship deployment craft. Nobility, mech knights, and a whole construction core make up a verity of possible applications of these units for others nations able to afford the infrastructure.
City-Data: (*) 1-5
Technology: ****
Airships, War Mechs, Battle Suits. This besides a range of computers and some of the first signs of AI outside of hostile territory.
Domestication: *
There are no notable achievements in this field.
Artizenship: *****
As can be imagined, the technology and reaction engineering suggest the finest sort of precision engineering. Architecture, mechanical, and civil engineering should be state of the art and pushing even a little beyond.
Photo by Priscilla Du Preez on Unsplash |
The Port City of Esterpor – west most
Range / Type of Government: (Marked by *)
5: Auto Sovereignty – tradition *
4: Popular Sovereignty – masses
3: Political Sovereignty – connected *
2: Legal Sovereignty – state
1: Real Sovereignty – royal
The port city of Esterpor is shrouded in the mysterious, being flanked by the anomalous misted jungle mountain lands to the south, as well as being confronted by the enigmatic Fog Lands which lay several days sail off of their shores. Rumors abound about this city, so much so that other peoples in the land have tended to shun the place. Talk of freakish experiments with Aline fungus not connected with the sentient mycelia typical to the land is too loudly mentioned to be ignored.
As if this wasn’t odd enough, it is said that the Esterporians have established deeper relations with denizens of the fog lands and the drones which come from there. Some say that a way has been opened between the west coast of Da Azorum and the fog covered region beyond the sea, claiming that an unholy union is being forged between Huma and Exa, theoretical beings from another world. Several investigations have been launched into this with no real proof of the rumors surfacing.
City-Data: (*) 1-5
Technology: ***
Esterpor has its own inferior suit manufacture which rivals its southern neighbor but does not yet come close to duplicating it. This does not however stop them from. Competing in the biosuit market, where they also enjoy a flow of wealth and prestige.
Domestication: *
There are no notable achievements in this field.
Artizenship: ***
Though no one can say what the subject is, the artists of Esterpor draw, paint, and sculpt forms that seem to be from another world. Images in galleries are viewed with amazement by all tourists, and those which can be bought are sold for fantastic sums of wealth.
The Mountain City of Ignsok – east most – jungle alchemists
Range / Type of Government: (Marked by *)
5: Auto Sovereignty – tradition
4: Popular Sovereignty – masses
3: Political Sovereignty – connected *
2: Legal Sovereignty – state
1: Real Sovereignty – royal *
These lands begin to get strange as they drop off to near sea level elevations, along with the equatorial line this makes for rather extreme tropical conditions. Besides this, a weird sort of mist comes down out of the upper mountains, and this vapor causes a dream to come upon all who are in the rainforest when it descends. Many who go in during this event to pick roots or gather the jungles ample crops never return. Thusly the Ignsoki biosuit was developed, the most sophisticated outerwear for entering toxic zones.
Ignsoki biowear allows for survival even during deep exposure to the mountain mists, and between this and other subsystems, an herb hunter is able to defeat what word otherwise be certain death. There is a race of talking dragons which some people have reports seeing from time to time, but no scientific effort has ever recovered the smallest evidence of their existence. Some people think that they are a chemical hallucination arising from exposure to the various compounds, but no one can say for sure.
City-Data: (*) 1-5
Technology: ****
Ignsoki biosuits are prized throughout Ezeoth where their fame has preceded them. They are considered to be worth a king’s ransom.
Domestication: *
These phantasmal dragons which some exist and some say do not are beyond domestication, as is most of the jungle life of this region.
Artizenship: **
Those creative people who seek the jungle dragons are said to gain incredible access to the unconscious processes of creativity, and so their art tends to be radicle and inspirational. More so than other cities, to the point of being tied bot to the phantom dragon culture and the biochemical rituals surrounding it.
The hollow mountain city of Kainarren – west most
Range / Type of Government: (Marked by *)
5: Auto Sovereignty – tradition
4: Popular Sovereignty – masses
3: Political Sovereignty – connected *
2: Legal Sovereignty – state
1: Real Sovereignty – royal *
There has never been a time since the cities founding when they did not have dealings with the Kainturnu, a race of Ankharan life that dominates that area of the mountains. First and foremost, the hollow mountain city of Kainarren gets its name for a very obvious reason. That being a race of flying beasts called the Kainturnu who dwell within its vast inner regions.
Kainturnu possesses a body likened unto a bat squid, having a canine head with a shark’s mouth and eyes, yet furry overall. The large bat wings beat and allow for upthrusts and gliding flight so that they might flap above a target or swoop swiftly away. Instead of clawed legs, there are eight partially retractable tentacles that can fold into a spiraling loop or flow behind the creature whilst it is in flight. Though these limbs are extremely thin, when outstretched they are monstrously strong, capable of snapping quickness, and tipped with a hissing lamprey mouth filled with snapping metalized teeth. A ninth pseudo tail tentacle has no mouth but acts as a kind of spring which the creature uses to leap.
Most of the time Kainturnu travels in flight, but otherwise, it yanks itself forward on many questing limbs, flowing over lofty rocky places in the mountainous regions of its spawning. Since the founding of the city, the Huma have conditioned and domesticated the Kainturnu for labor and war. They are trained to throw rocks, wield spears, haul barbed cages with sharp plows, or to drop giant barbed caltrops onto targets. In later days they have been made into dive bombers, using a variety of alchemical weapons systems during battle. Kainturnu have alchemy of their own as well.
As a species, they have a misting ink like organ which stores a healthy payload to be used during hunting and or battle. The kind of ink and its apparent uses may be discerned at glance, considering that there are three main types of Kainturnu which may be spotted by their fur and flesh tone.
Black fur to blue flesh – (nauseating ink)
Purple fur to red flesh – camo ink (color shifting)
White fur to yellow flesh – phantasmal ink (hallucinations)
Exposure to this ink in battle causes the resulting effects, and the riders of these beasts have developed certain immunities to these effects. The riders are called Kainturians, and they have a martial prowess and grace which far exceeds other militant groups of the region. These form a bond with their mounts and through teleankhara, these bonds become nonlocal. The wills of mount and rider may merge during conflicts and cause intentions to fuse, bringing on a fear aura and or psychic plow which can be used as shepherding or warlike behavior.
City-Data: (*) 1-5
Technology: *
There are no notable achievements in this field.
Domestication: ****
Kainturnu domestication is mastered by these people.
Artizenship: ***
The inks derived from the Kainturnu are industrialized and sold as fine dyes, paints, and alchemical ingredients all over Ezeoth.
Cultural Average:
The wizards in the far north have dealings with the gold-skinned Huma in the south, and they trade alchemy from the west, airships from the south, and trade from all over the world from the east. Rainbow eagles called Ezell, giant butterflies, Kainturnu, and airships fill the skies. Riverboats are ceaseless in their shuttling from port to port. Imagine what this means for law and order, culture, and counterculture.