The World
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| Distance from sun: | 4,759,406 miles (Poseidon) |
| Length of Year: | 365 1/4 days |
| Length of Day: | 24 hours |
| Circumference: | 34,851 mi |
| Diameter: | 11,093 mi |
| Surface area: | 386,622,432 sq mi |
| Axial tilt: | understood but unmeasured |
| Number of moons: | 2 |
The World is an alternate reality and a faerie and something of an alternate history. Its histories and cultures take place on a planet called Gea, though there are several other planets in the system where kindreds of Daine and Teor live. "The World" therefore refers to the whole faerie; but for all practical purposes, to events on Gea itself. It has some things in common with Tolkien's vision of Middle Earth, and while Tolkien has had his influence, the World has largely gone its own merry way. One friend, Ben, summed the World up this way: "simply take the earth and make it a bit more delightful."
The Universe -- The universe, as a place, is often confused by the inhabitants of the World with the planet Earth itself. Most philosophers agree that the universe is heliocentric, that is, the Sun resides at the center of the universe and presides over a court of various small orbiting bodies: the planets, the comets and the fixed stars. This of course is not the case, as the World exists within a fairly mundane universe of galaxies, black holes, quasars, star systems, gas clouds, dark matter and other exciting astronomical bits and pieces. The main difference between *that* universe and ours is the existence of magic as a natural force.
The World -- Some philosophers aver that the world is a roundish disc rotating upon the backs of four oliphants that in turn stand upon the back of a gargantuan tortoise which swims through the vastness of space. In this cosmology, the Sun, planets and moons are reduced to very small orbiting rocks.
Most aver that the Earth is a round planet that orbits the Sun along with a number of other planets and moons. The circumference of the Earth has been measured as have the distance between Earth and Sun and Earth and its moons (none of the measurements are precise, but the scales are proportionate). Surrounding the planet, and presumably including the Sun and other planets, is the realm known as Overheaven. It is not always clear whether this realm is truly the mundane regions of space or is the spiritual realms that surround and imbue the universe.
The surface of the Earth, the Middle World is where most of the known inhabitants of the World live and where they go about their daily lives (except for miners and adventurers). But the surface world is but a part of the whole picture.
There are realms known collectively as the Underworld, and by this we mean not just the sewers and underdelvings of the old city of Hoopelle. Many are the ancient dungeons and delvings of various dark powers, but there are also natural realms under the surface of the Earth inhabited mostly by beasts, but sometimes by peoples unknown to those on the surface except in folklore (particularly Gnomes and Dwarrows). There are also tales of vast underworld chasms where whole communities of peoples live; some are said to be like the Daine, others like Men. No Middle World organisation has undertaken the daunting task of fully exploring and mapping the Underworld. It is certainly too large, too diverse and too inaccessible.
Deepest of all the Underworld's realms are the very Pillars of the World itself. No dweller of the Upper World has ever gone so far into the belly of the Earth, for the heats of the Ankanic Fires burn all flesh, and it is said that the airs of the depths of Underworld are crushing and deadly. There, it is said, dwell -- beings -- of immense size and ponderous motion that uphold the basments of the upper earth. It is said their slow motions cause the lands themselves to change place, as if playing out some great and mysterious ballet. Their agitations, it is said, are the cause of volcanic eruptions (surface manifestations of the Ankanic fire) and earth tremors of all magnitudes. These beings dwarf even the mightiest of the World's ancient mountains, Amath, Gahalt and Zahair.
There is a philosophic speculation that the center of Gea is hollow and that the core is a small body, like a Sun, that generates heat and light for the hollow Underworld and also drives the thaumic field of the planet. While at present this is only to be taken as speculation, it would not be inconsistent with the structure of a magical world.
In fact, the center of the planet is even more bizarre: well below the Pillars of the World lie the Uttermost Deeps. No sunlight penetrates; no cosmic rays bathe the landscape of compressed nickel-iron. Down here, wild and tempestuous thaumic fields, atomic rays from the deep deposits of radioactive metals and the light emitted by molten metals is what the beings that live down here have to navigate by. Saranay, a Daine sender of Darennalie, who was able to send some part of her spirit riding along with the spirits of other creatures, cast her net deep and wide, and found some things swimming in the vast ocean of nickel and iron, or else moving about at the bottom of that ocean whose heat is so powerful that the heat of the Ankanic Fires up above seem frigid in comparison. For there are indeed creatures of immense size and incomprehensible composition that swim through the vast thousand mile deep ocean of liquid iron.
If these creatures had eyes, they'd be blinded by the dazzling brilliance of white-hot metal, glowing red and yellow and white in the furnace of the world's core. But light isn't what they see by -- they're attuned to magnetic and thaumic field fluxes, and they can not only sense the presence of others, but they can "see" them every bit as clearly we see each other, for their bodies interfere with and bend the lines of force all around them. Magnetic forces swirl around and thaumic fields crackle and whip outward from the deep core in terrifying winds no Wizard of the surface world could withstand and only the most powerful of factitioners could control. They live in an electric world -- a five thousand mile wide dynamo generating massive amounts of electrical, magnetic and thaumic energies. These creatures use these waves to communicate as easily as wolves howl or whales sing. Their forms are varied and many are curiously angular. All of them are cloaked in superrefractory alloys or compounds utterly unknown on the surface, and their bodies, protected by thick armour, are latticeworks of metal, animated by the magic around them. More than one kind of them is cloaked in thaumium, pure, solidifed magic. Any wizard of the upper world would give his right eye for an ounce of the stuff. Most of them swim in the upper Ocean, where the temperatures are cooler, and only the hardiest of them dive into the deep Ocean or better yet, creep and scuttle along the deep vales and traverse the plains of the solid core itself.
Some are three miles long with glittering silvery carapaces built up of excreted tantalum hafnium carbide a quarter of a mile thick; others with shells of thaumium more heat resistent yet grow to perhaps ten miles long and dive into the unimaginable depths more hellish than any mere demon could withstand, all the way down to the Hot Valleys where at last solid ground is reached and temperatures soar to eleven thousand degrees or more. Here, mile long trilobites with adamantine carapaces and carborundium shelled crabs vie for choice tidbits, basking in the intense thaumic winds blasting up from the core below, scrabbling along the ever melting, ever reforming surface of their alien world that is more like a sun yet is at the very heart of our own little planet.
Here, creatures experience only the heat from the World's Heart far below, knowing nothing of the relative cool of Sunlight far above. Indeed, they would freeze solid and die long before they ever got to the surface, and perhaps some of their bodies form metal deposits miners have worked out of the earth -- fossils of metal bodied creatures alive when the World was young and composed of roiling liquid! A hot world of molten metal as far as the electro-magnetic sense buds could detect writhing and roiling under a new Sun (well, such of the new Sun as could be seen through the coalescing clouds of less dense disk materials!) where carbide snakes and adamantine halucigenia swam under the wan light of stars before there were any moons or any eye of Daine or Man gazed upon them longingly.
And what could lie at the heart of this roiling world of superheated magic? The answer, in this case, is not so much a what as a who. For it is said that at the heart of each star and planet is the abode of the Star People, children of the Creator only a little less mighty than the Powers themselves. Largely unknown and unremembered by the people who go about on the World's surface, at the heart of their planet lives Yeola, daughter of Varen.
Here are some articles about the World you might find interesting:
The Great Road passes through many Daine lands, and all the Daine that live along it are friendly to traders and many offer refreshment at their hostelries and caravansaries. The Great Road be of immense age and uncertain construction. It is said to have been built by the Gods, or some race that lived in Asia after they departed. It traverses the whole of Asia and Hespera from the Iconian city of Pylycundas and thence into the untravelled lands of the Uttermost West. Regardless of its origins, it has a great virtue set upon it; for although no one tends the Road, it be always in good repair, broad and smooth. Leaves of the Fall and snows of Winter, no matter how deep, are in some way removed from the Road, or else never fall deeply upon it. Though other dangers and death may befall travellers along its immeasurable distances, no one ever falls into pits or mudholes and no one ever loses it after the fashion of so many other roads that dwindle and fade.
The Halls of Amouraz The term immurement can refer to either a form of punishment, a form of voluntary encellment or even the practice of burying the dead in niches. Built in 1299 at Auntimoany and expanded in 1484, the Halls of Amouraz are a place of punishment where "penitents" are immured in small cells. Some cells are sealed entirely, and serve the double purpose of tomb. Others admit some amount of light and breeze. A fountain of running water is provided and little else. Food is specifically not provided by the prison, though some shrines and churches take it upon themselves to bring bread or cheer to the condemned. Punishment largely consists of wasting away until death by hunger takes the prisoner.
It is generally thought that the Halls were named for an early king of Auntimoany, but in reality, the word is derived from the Rumnian term immourezar or walling a person up into an inescapable cell.
Most cells are cramped, allowing for no more than enough room to lie down. Some prisoners, generally those of noble birth or wealth, are afforded slightly more commodious accomodations. Their cells might be eight foot by four and contain a chair and small table and perhaps a cot with blankets.
So effective was the Hall at Auntimoany that in 1599 one was built in Hoopelle, a lovely brick and stone structure with a park surrounding. Known as the Halls of Penitence, it soon gained a fearful reputation among the city's Daine population as many were shut up in its walls with no hope of escape or liberation as there often was in the City Gaol.
The Heredescopion is a rather interesting Device. Invented by Victorious Carpocrates of Alixaundria (in the East), it is a thaumological device that allows the user to see images of his descendants. In shape, it is a rectangular oaken box with curious round brass dials along the lower edge; in the centre is a large and slightly luminous crystal porthole that shines almost with an iridescent silvery sheen. It takes great will and concentration to use a heredscopion, and few can glimpse more than scattered and grainy images of people one does know, though a couple users have seen themselves, much older, reflected in the crystal viewport along with what appear to be young descendants.
One of the three devices crafted by Carpocrates was given to the Emperor of Hoopelle in 1666 by the Archon of Romishcalia as a Christmas gift. The emperor was said to have been rather afraid to use it and placed it in the Mathom until prodded into using it by the empress in 1670. It showed only a cold and bleak desert landscape devoid of any people. Thinking at first that he wasn't concentrating hard enough on his descendants, he became increasingly consumed with the visions of bleak and deserted lands. This so infuriated that emperor that in 1671 he sent assassins to murder the Archon in his bed. A scandal resulted, but the emperor continued to obsess over the dark crystal.
The Alarian Invasion of 1672, which toppled the old Empire of Hoopelle, put an end to both the emperor and his vain scrying for images of progeny. It is said that the Hoopellish heredscopion still rests in the ruins of the Palace where the empror last gazed into its enticing and murky depths. The whereabouts of the other two exemplars are unknown to the Wise, though it is entirely possible that at least one ended up being transported to Auntimoany along with other spoils of the invading armies.
Ankanic Fire is the name given to the unimaginably hot and semimolten metals and rocks that Gnomes and Dwarrows aver flow around the deepest parts of Gea. Here among the Pillars of the World dwell beings who not only uphold the solid rocks of the continents and islands of the Middle World, but literally inhabit a world that would burn and incinerate any being of the Middle World unfortunate enough to make even a brief visit.
Our best views into the world of these beings seems to be during volcanic eruptions, when the Ankanic Fires spew from the depths of the world and for a time flow unchecked across the face of the world until they cool and solidify into solid rock.
The heat of Ankanic Fire is so intollerably powerful that the very air around it is burned. Whereas normal fire can be used to cook meat or warm one on a cold day, and certain fakirs can even pass their hands through it or walk across hot coals with no harm, the power of Ankanic Fire consumes flesh and burns away all living things, leaving nothing more than a smudge of ash on the glowing and flowing surface of the living rock. Should the power of Ankanic Fire be channelled by an earth-magic wizard, it would instantly incinerate and vaporise anything that stands in its way and is not shielded with the most potent of shields.
It is said that [dragons] breathe something akin to the Ankanic Fire, for their breath is burning hot and only the most potent of shields may guard the intrepid knight that seeks after a dragon's treasure hoard. Such was the fabled Dalconne Shield, which absorbed the heats and vapours of dragonsbreath.
Yet unwise would be the knight who relied on even a whole suit of armour made of such stuff, for the Ankanic Fire is much more potent than even the strongest of dragons' breath. Even if the armour could long withstand the raging inferno, the knight himself would be roasted alive and his skull would burst from the raging boiling of his brains and his eyes would explode and be burnt to cinders and all that would be left is a smear of ashy powder. Eventually, even armour made of the same stuff as the fabled shield would melt into the incandescent rock around it.
The Big Red Book of Regenreck was composed in the early 10th century by an unknown Avantimannish compiler. It consists of traditional old stories about the nature, adventures and fates of the Teutonic gods. The term comes from an old word, regenrecko, itself composed of recko: end, begining, destiny, origin and regeno: the gods, powers, archons, or rulers of the world.
The Red Book is presently kept in the royal library at Codeis of Harunn. The history of the Red Book seems to have brought it first to Hoopelle some time after that empire annexed Auntimoany. Then, after old Hoopelle fell in 1672, the Book was lost to the ken of the Wise until the mid-1700s when it appeared in a waggon boot sale in Codeis. It was recognised by the royal librarian and bought for the grand sum of 17 shillings. Auntimoanian diplomats have sought for the book's return several times over the years, but some excuse inevitably arises to prevent its return.
Opera The Rum and the Auntimoanians have taken to opera most fervently of all. The great House of Opera is a veritable temple to the opulent art, and was constructed to house the greatest orchestra in the world. If there's a big orchestra anywhere, they'll double its size. If there's a new and unusual instrument, they'll buy four and damn all if anyone can play the things. It houses the largest organ/calliope/flame thrower on the continent (though by imperial decree, they can't use the flame thrower anymore on account of the Empress's Mishap); and together they provide a rich (and occasionally dangerous) music to accompany the works of the greatest operatic geniuses in history: Wandell, Muckingham, Pardee, Fognardt, Qalpart & Suleyman, and many more.
They take on all the great themes of literature and history and turn em into operatic extravaganzas. Of course, there's the famous "Sack of Pylycundas", during which the Empress's featherd hat accidentally caught fire. Of course, the hat was a good sixteen feet tall or so, and on top of a four foot tall wig, she was never in any real danger; but she did run screaming from the theatre, so everyone had a grand time all the same.
Ancient thematic works like "Ulysses at Home and Abroad" and "Dido and Aeneas Do Rome"; romantic works like "The Nuptials of Picario" and "My Love Lies Bleeding"; comic works like "My Love Lies Bleeding (or, Oh Where Oh Where Has the Time Gone?)" and "The Brothers Grimme their Parade of Glee"; serious works like "Pharaoh's Daughter". All of them come to life for adoring audiences on the stage of the House of Opera!
Gnomic Music Historically, Gnomes and their music have been very little known or appreciated outside their homelands. It is not until the late 18th century that their music became well known. Miners and spelunckers working in the deeps of the Whythywindle and Arnal Mountains are said to have heard the music of the Gnomes, and it is from such accounts recorded during the 17th and 18th centuries that their musical traditions came to the attention of scholars in the Eastlands. It is said to be at once both lovely and somewhat jarring, as if two competing musics were craftily woven together and set as rivals. Certainly the music of Tsuutam served to break open the world of Gnomic music to a wider audience in the century following.
Gnomic music is typically divided into three broad categories: Epic, Folkloristic and Court musics, the latter of which is best known and understood among Men. The former two require a knowlege of the local language, and non-Gnomes as a rule do not know more than a couple words of any Gnomic language.
Gnomic Music refers in particular to the influence of this music of the Underworld upon the musicological sensibilities and tastes of Eastlanders. In particular, the use of tuned percussion insturments and the evolution of small orchestras in which a keyboard instrument, such as the exackier, is the focus rather than massed woodwind instruments. The classical orchestra for playing Gnomic court music consists of five to seven musicians. The principal plays upon the shaqtar, a kind of celesta or exackier and is responsible for the melodic and harmonic parts of the music. A second often plays upon the quntal, a kind of large lute and provides a reinforcement of the shaqtar's melody. Sometimes, the second will switch and reinforce the bass line and harmony. The other players share playing upon racks of tuned chimes, bells, gongs, wood blocks, tongue drums, drone pipes and the like instruments. The choice of drones and bells and chimes is determined by the tonality of the piece.
There are several characteristic dances of the court music. The tsarqan, or "courtly dance" is perhaps the best known, especially on account of Tsuutam's efforts during the 19th century. It is a social dance and may be danced by as many as 24 couples divided into two sides. Tsarqans are often danced in a set of three contrasting movements having different metres and different series of dance steps. Court dances tend to be slow to moderate of tempo and the dancers make use as much of elegant arm and upper body movement as they do of footwork. Below, you'll find examples of several kinds of musics heard in the Eastlands.
First I give a Tsarqan written by the Gnomic composer Tsuutam; then a typical countrydance from Auntimoany; third a piece of artmusic, which in the Eastlands is generally called Gnomic Music; and lastly, an orchstral excerpt from Zandam's Imperiall Garden Musicke. (NB: I've never worked with .ogg files before, but a quite satisfactory player called "VLC Media Player" does a rather good job at playing these. Avail. for download.) Please let me know if these don't work -- you might have to download and save before playing -- or if they sound like trash (i.e., horrible encoding!).
Mancalio (sometimes shortened to manco) are richly and extensively illustrated graphic stories written mostly in Westmarche, but also becoming increasingly popular among other Daine. Read mostly by women, who seem to enjoy reading and similar persuits more than men, it is not uncommon to find a group of girls around a manco, taking turns reading the story and expounding upon the pictures and story itself. Mancalio make use of both large panels of detailed scene illustrations, but also a kind of highly stylised, whimsical images that depict action, emotion and location. Dialogue is represented with a kind of speech cloud near the speaker's head. Different styles of lettering infer the speaker's mood and emotion. Genres of mancalio women are typically interested in are historical drama, mystery, horror / thriller, romance and fantasy stories. Some mancalio are geared towards men, and these typically involve adventure, hunting, sport and ritual warfare. Also popular among both boys and girls are traditional legends and histories told in manco format.
Traditionally, a single story was painted and published in a single volume; anymore it has become popular to serialise much longer and more intricate stories and place one or two episodes of several stories into a smaller volume. This way, a girl's collection of mancalio stories could span several dozens of volumes, each of which contains a chapter of two or three popular stories.
Mancalio are generally printed on cheap paper, though some special editions might be made using better quality stuff. Such works are made with engraved plates, and so avoid the Monsters Under Thy Bedde! phenomenon.
Mechanike Poetastro -- Sussuros's famous Clockwork Poet, or Mekhanike Poetastro, is a spectacular failure as far as producing lofty poetry is concerned. The mechanism is composed of a bronze plated wooden case which houses several drums upon which subjects, objects, verbs and phrases are inscribed and a clockwork motivator which causes the drums to spin. The operator winds up the mainspring using a key set to one side; then activates the drum release, which sets all the drums spinning, and at last pushes a lever which engages a stop mechanism that randomly halts the drums, revealing a word or phrase in a small window on the top of the device. All the words and phrases are carefully chosen to fit the poetics of the Pretorian language; and, theoretically, all that was required of the poet was to copy the lines displayed and pass them off as his own work. The device was (famously) examined and described by C. Pumperios in his work on mechanics, De Mekhanicabus.
The Poetastro was devised by Sussuros of Alixaundria in the East to test Alexophilos’s Rebuttal of Sapho’s Maxim. And in this respect, the Poetastro is indeed a smashing success. Sapho’s Maxim being: given an infinite number of years, an infinite number of apes picking random word blocks from a box will eventually duplicate the erudite poetry of Q. Julius Agricola. Alexophilos’s Rebuttal being: one blind ape given a box of word blocks could surpass the prattling poetry of Q. Julius Agricola in one hour. The Poetastro is capable of producing poetically pleasing works that make no sense; which is, largely, an improvement over Agricola’s ametrical diddling, exemplified by the following inane specimen:
- fusca flucta nocs esat || cunneu coctu nucs esat
- dlingua dlimat necs esat || buelle bellua Nacs essat
Human nature being what it is, the horrific quality of the resultant poetry has prompted an artificer of Auntimoany to construct a Teutonic language version of the mechanism. A fine example of the poetastro's "art" is the following bit of doggerel tripe, spewed forth during a museum trial of the new machanism in the springtime of 1989:
- Prunne in the Sunne
- What happenes to a thought defiled?
- Doth it dry up
- Like a prunne in the sunne?
- Or form a pustule
- On thy bumme?
- Doth it taste of rotten Spam?
- Or crust over all icky
- Like a tinned Christmas hamme?
- Mayhap it just sagges
- Like an old gammers bagges;
- Or doeth it implode?
Laundry Day -- Handfast Maytagge, 67th Earl of Entwhistle Dale early in life developed an interest in keeping things tidy and clean. Simple enchanted broomsticks were not enough to satisfy, so he began designing enchanted devices that would clean things automatically. One of his more enduring designs was the "Maytagge Self Actuating Laudry Board Mechanism with Attached Wringer". This was a thaumological device that was enchanted to lather, wash, rub and rinse articles of clothing automatically. Unlike many thaumic devices that often show signs of erratic behavior, Maytagge has considerable fame as a designer of solidly built and trouble free thaumic devices.
The Self Actuating Laundry device consists of a wash tub with attached board and thamically activated arms that wash the clothes, rinse them and send them through the wringer. There have been some accounts of the wash tubs rising up on their feet and taking the wash out to hang on the line, but Maytagge's workshop aver that this is not a standard design parameter. Other, stranger, accounts involve wild dances where the chugging rhythms of the Laundry Device have charmed any cutlery in the vicinty to engage in a lively jig. Such reports, alas, remain unconfirmed; though the maidstaff of Dame Vargand, baroness of Southwald, aver that not only did the old tomcat take up Dame Vargand's grandfather's fiddle but played upon it a merry contradance, but also that the baroness's cows began to make capers, neighborhood dogs took to laughing to see such sport. And, just before the Laundry was all wrung, the gardener reports that he saw the dishes pair up with the spoons and hop-scotch their way into the woods, as if dancing in some sort of serpentine bouree.
Two fairly well described langauges of the World are Talarian and Yllurian
Many races are known in the world, including Man, but of them all, the Daine are the most comprehensively described. Others include Etuns, Gnomes and Hotai.
