I still need to fill in a lot of stuff as well as reset the proportions to reflect a more natural scale. Tides, trade winds, anabatic and katabatic winds, water and air currents all need fleshing out. I'd love to find a way of simulating the weather...
Also this is about a quarter to a third of the planet.
It's long because it's a big chunk of context for a large story, so to not clutter up people's feeds, it's behind the cut.
Premise: A caravan travels along an old road in an empty land at the start of winter. Two princes and their tutors travel home, protected by elite security. But the land is not empty, and what stalks it now leaves only one guard, the two princes, and a tutor alive to escape. With assistance from a local man stricken by a strange condition, they must escape into a wilderness full of natural and unnatural dangers...
My project, Shadowlands, is a fantasy epic inspired by Central Asian, East Asian, and Persian literature and motifs, among others. It is organized into 3 books of two volumes each.
The first book is called The Vanishing Winter, and it concerns the above most directly. The second book is called The Iron Fountain, and the third is tentatively titled The Theatre of the Spirits.
When the map is worked out, I'll post it. Still tweaking it.
General Setting
This world is not the Earth, because the geography totally crazy. But it's a human world and informed by the realities of Earth. Fantasy is already a conceit so I may as well acknowledge it openly.
Most action takes place on a large continent that has not been named yet, because it's large and never wholly unified by anyone. The one agreed thing is that it's the Nine Dragons' continent -- there are four tall mountain ranges that act as watersheds and two great lakes are sources for the nine great rivers, the dragons mentioned. There a numerous large rivers as well.
The continent is temperate stretching into tropical in the South, though Arctic outflow runs down from the North Sea and freezes swathes of the continent. The land is geologically active, with hot springs and steam vents found dotting the countryside, and mineral deposits close to the surface. Small earthquakes are common, severe earthquakes exist but are not as common, occurring usually once a century somewhere.
The continent is feeling the effects of a cooling period, like the Little Ice Age. The cooling resulted in changes to migration and standard of living. The cooler temperatures, lower crop yields, reduced fecundity of livestock combined with less available moisture created drought conditions. A pandemic appeared, burned through the continent for over a decade, and disappeared as quickly, shifting the demographics of the continent. Outbreaks of unusual strains elsewhere, as well as changes in insect populations, shifted patterns of disease transmission. It's an interesting time in which to live,in good and bad ways.
The Winter Visitor's Long Shadow
In recent history (about 35 years before), a disease appeared. Spreading quickly and burning out, it seemed to appear and disappear without pattern. Eventually, the outbreaks became larger. After a few years, a pandemic erupted and ravaged the lands of the nine dragons. Originally incubated by migrating birds, it passed to domestic fowl, then to pigs, then to humans and further livestock. It caused severe respiratory distress especially in the healthy, and was passed by droplets (spitting, sneezing, saliva).
Largely indistinguishable from ordinary winter flu, the disease spread easily where close-quarters living was common. Garrisons, cities, forts, and castles all were hit disproportionately hard. Some isolated meditative orders were wiped out entirely. As a result, a massive power vacuum opened up -- chiefs and people of noble birth lost vassals and troops and their spheres of influence shrank. The loss of livestock, particularly horses and cattle, directly meant lost wealth. (I based the epidemic on several real terrifying diseases, like Yersinia pestis plague and sars-coronavirus for autoimmunity issues and pneumonia, the Spanish flu for wildfire transmission, the English sweat for appearing and disappearing.)
The disease affected two groups less than others: the isolated Aga people, former nomads now settled to the West in the volcanic Black Mountains, and the Hundred Nations of the steppe, a sort of confederation of clans and tribes ranging across language and ethnicity.
The Aga did not trade intensively and lived in moderately-sized towns at largest and most were dispersed on hillsides and in valleys. Additionally, many practises derided as superstition by neighbours concerning cleanliness helped reduce the opportunities for infection, also practised by a related people, the Gir nomads. Neither lived in concentrated cities, or kept pigs. (Pigs are immunologically similar to people, and can act as a stepping stone for microbes to learn how to infect us. Hence swine flu.)
The Hundred Nations in the southeast were also decentralized: apart from the capital of Ordos, most settlements were separated by significant distance. They also specifically kept hawks. A bacterium in the hawks' microbiome exchanged genes with the pandemic microbe, producing a new strain of the hawk's bacteria that was infectious to humans but far less dangerous, and producing similar proteins to the pandemic, acting as an inoculation. An actual inoculation was developed by scratching lesions on people infected by this "hawk fever", and scratching healthy people. A local infection would occur, and often leave fine scars called "tally marks". Experiments to create a variant inoculation for horses were ultimately successful.(The microbiome is the population of microbes that call an organism home, unique to the individual.)
The ferocity of the disease caused it to "burn out," killing its hosts too quickly to spread to new ones. Though it lingered in some areas longer than others, practically this meant the disease vanished as suddenly as it came about. In order to avoid bad luck or calling it back, people refer to the disease as the Winter Visitor.
The Saint and the Orphan Shah |v|
The Visitor created a serious demographic shift. Among the Hundred Nations, many mystical and religious traditions coexisted, but these tended to be mobile and decentralized rather than isolated and meditative. Specifically, one order had persisted on the steppe after dwindling or or being wiped out over the centuries elsewhere: the Blue Poppy order.
The Blue Poppies were from a hospitaller tradition, attempting to follow a directly similar path to the Saint they venerate. She was the daughter of an important historical prince called Dzalan Mirza, but is generally referred to as the Saint, rather than by rank or name (Mahru). She advocated a then-heretical stance that the priestly class ought not control the spiritual discourse, and spun off her own mystic tradition. She was known for pushing literacy and education for everyone, and against castes and tribal distinctions, attitudes which were echoed by some of her siblings as well. There are many stories of near escapes from people trying to snuff out her infant movement. She did, however, find agreement and support, and her tradition was further spun off.
The Blue Poppies regard themselves as a return to the Saint's example -- which they are, operating from copies of a manual written by Mahru's companion Gulbadan. They were teachers, medics, and engineers, and in many regions ran news and messages. The blue poppy represents relief from pain and succour, as opium relieves pain and coughing. (In the real world, blue poppies aren't really poppies and don't have opium.)
With so many adults dead and a power vacuum, only the Blue Poppies were in position to disseminate treatment protocols and distribute and administer inoculations, by virtue of having inoculated horses and medics. When they moved into settlements, they found a preponderance of orphans -- children with incomplete immune systems who survived the Visitor, only to develop pneumonia, or exposure, or hunger as a result of a lack of care.
The ranks of the Poppies expanded very quickly. In the state of emergency, they deputized and trained locals, collected the sick and orphans, and created a network of missions to try to cope with the ever expanding need. They acquired resources from donation and salvage, growing into a powerful network. In some cases, they were barred from entering a region on the grounds they could be a threat to the sovereignty of a local lord, and either entered in secret or tried to find another way. One character in Shadowlands, Hawa Nergui, lost his mother and sister as a direct result of this suspicion.
In an orphan home in the Iron Mountain, a region called Kohistan, there was an orphan called Manushir. He had precocious intelligence, became a legal scholar, and made a fateful judgement against a local lord, executing him for murder and other charges. Though it was Manushir's mentor, Apa Humay, who carried out the sentence, Manushir was seen as the real risk. The displaced people had no loyalty to the local powers, however, and viewed Manushir as one of their own. His marriage to a daughter of the Tian emperor, and the resources of her dowry, allowed them to found an independent state. A mere youth when he became Shah, Manushir has relied heavily on the Blue Poppies to help him organize and mobilize people.
Blue Poppies are distinguished by a blue poppy emblem, a knife (utilitarian), and wearing their forelocks in a rope braid, but exactly how one does this is supposed to be appropriate to the situation. Various meanings are ascribed to the braid: the twisting represents an ecstatic state of union between mortal and divine, the rope represents the bonds by which human beings are tied together, it's an easy and distinct way of securing one's forelocks so one can keep long hair but still work, it was a style worn in the time of the Saint... (Keeping long hair is a virtue in many places tied to spiritual traditions. The women of the Kalash ethnic group wear an asymmetrical braid, which fascinates me because many traditions of beauty emphasize symmetry, and I started wondering how this tradition would come about.)
A limited hierarchy exists based on passing certain tests of qualification, like recognizing, processing, and producing basic medicines from available ingredients. Someone who has qualified to act as a teacher, nurse, and so forth, is called a Sister (Apa) or Brother (Aka), which is how they are customarily addressed. These are also tests of character, particularly for those working with the young or ill. Many people simply choose not to pursue the designation and continue their work. It is customary in some regions to parrot back one's title at children as a sign of affection. (This is actually something I've seen in a few places that interested me, the parroting.)
The Blue Poppies use a formulation of archival inks abandoned in many other places for its tendency to accumulate in the body. Containing compounds toxic to molds and insects, the ink causes skin irritation on initial contact, such that non-archival inks must be used for anyone interacting with people. Medics and teachers that might have to refer to archival copies of texts habitually cover their faces and hair and wear eelskin gloves when handling books. The accumulation also reduces fertility and can cause birth defects in children who are conceived, so most scholars take an additional birth control, like a preparation of an Apiaceae family herb (pennyroyal, dang-gui, silphium, asafoetida, Tangier fennel), or a resin tablet containing an extract of cotton bark, rue, green papaya seeds, and/or acacia gum, among others. Resin tablets are made according to standard weights and percentages, and a stamp is generally used to identify the main compound. The ink does eventually pass out of the body, so it is common for those wishing to raise children to periodically withdraw from their studies or switch to non-archival inks. Some take it as an opportunity to improve physical health: as scholars can sweat the compounds out and burn people they might exercise with, they generally exercise with other scholars, alone, or not much.
In the case of Manushir Shah and many others, this period is treated as a courting time. Since touching or being touched is rapidly uncomfortable, and fertility remains reduced for some time after this reaction goes away, a courting couple can be less closely watched without fear of unintended pregnancy, and if they do not gel as a couple the agreement is easily broken without problems of issue. It is not uncommon for a marriage to be unconsummated for as much as a year in the case of particularly strong reaction, which also may necessitate the hair be cut off. Some are hopelessly reactive and must not be exposed at all, necessitating a career change or rethink of one's situation.
There is also suspicion in some areas, sometimes encouraged, that spilling their blood or touching their dead bodies is guaranteed to bring bad luck, and that some may have the capacity for sorcery. As the mystical tradition does not explicitly deny many practises except human sacrifice, enough Blue Poppies come from shamanistic backgrounds that this is the presumption in many areas. They are not barred from violence, being obligated to learn to defend themselves and their charges but they are not permitted to pick fights. Since service to the public varies in nature, Blue Poppies are encouraged to apply their relevant skills. It is not uncommon for members who are veterans to organize defence from bandits, and many veterans who retire from active duty prefer the structure and community of the order to directly jumping from army into civilian life. Some Blue Poppies have been noted warriors, and many have been tutors to generals and nobles.
The position of the Blue Poppy relies on acceptance within the community, and as such the rules of conduct for each mission are explicit and formulated with local input. Violations by a Blue Poppy against a member of the community are an extremely grave offence in opposition to the mission's goals. Punishments for transgressions against the vulnerable are very harsh, starting at hard and distasteful duty for a mild altercation, progressing to caning, shackling, confinement, and death. Warnings about imposters are quickly disseminated. Among the Blue Poppies dedicated to law, the senior judges may spill blood and are known to possess tasteless, odourless poisons to achieve a painless execution. Their capacity to administrate was often considered threatening, and Blue Poppies are often viewed as potential causes of dissent.
The Blue Poppy man or woman is a common trope in theatre in Yaghana and elsewhere, often serving as an intermediary or third party to a central romance, particularly as a tutor or scholar. In some regions, the Blue Poppy replaces a eunuch or personal slave where neither institution exists, though eunuchs and slaves are able to touch people without the same concern. Exactly who is counted as "untouchable" in stories is often confused, and exploited for drama: a circus story common on the steppe,Jinong Vachir and Khongorzul, concerns a jinong (viceroy) who fell in love with a travelling healer (Khongorzul, "thistle") he could never wed, though a healer being unable to touch people is a contrivance that irritates some familiar with the story and the order. More correct versions present Vachir as severely or deathly sensitive. (Lit criticism is like death and taxes.)
The Land of Iron
Home for the princes is an area of the Iron Mountains and adjoining lowlands along the great river Ahan. This region is called Yaghana after the Ahan ("iron") river, which turns red at certain points from iron-rich deposits. The capital is built on the ruins of an unknown earlier civilization, intentionally settled by displaced people. It occupies a microclimate created by the nearby mountain Himayatgar, that blocks the cold North wind's full severity, and the West wind's heavy moisture.
When he was 19, Manushir and his mentor, Humay, along with a few companions, made a journey to the Iron Mountains. They sought a legendary city, too old and obscure to be recorded by name, only by description: it was Saya'i Himayat; 'in the shadow of the protector.'
After many days traversing hard, rocky terrain, they found the remains of an ancient city in a bed of hard stone. Whoever had lived there had abandoned it for unclear reasons, long before. Manushir's party explored the ruins for over a month, but found no clue. Cities rise and fall for many reasons, but Manushir was wary of disturbing the dead. However, none were found.
Manushir, who was devout, wondered if it might be some miracle. Quite by accident, he had become a leader of a rootless populace of young and orphaned survivors. With foundations to build on, in unclaimed land, they were presented with a place to start new lives. Resultingly, one cannot make generalizations about the people of Yaghana -- they may come from anywhere, they may have learned to walk in one place and speak in another. They speak a jumbled language, mostly Kohistani with a great number of loanwords. Attempting to standardize the spelling and alphabet was an early endeavour.
The Iron Mountains are named for iron deposits, an important product of the region. Iron is heavily traded to the Hundred Nations. This, along with Manushir's friendship with the Hundred Nation's presiding khan, Piran Yisun, and his daughter Juraira's importance in Manushir's court, has led to a close relationship between the Hundred and Yaghana.
Close to the sea and in the eastern regions of Yaghana are the descendants of a colony from the continent to the north, Fianna. Blond hair is not uncommon there, and they speak an unrelated language to the Yaghana people, though culturally and superficially are not incomprehensibly different.
The Gir people are also found in Yaghana. Nomads, they traditionally wandered north to the ocean, and south to the Tian mountains, Lake Djam, or all the way to the sea. However, in the past two decades, many Gir stop in Yaghana's cities for work, and the capital houses many Gir children left to attend school over the winter. Some Gir people have settled and are called "city Girs". They have a reputation for superstition about cleanliness, but their "idiosyncrasies" helped them withstand the Visitor. The Gir people are somewhat insular, having long memories of unfair taxation and abuse from the local nobility. Manushir's policies are generally good to the Girs, but history has made their skittishness a reasonable response. They are often a source of amber and gold -- copper and some nickel are found in Yaghana, and there are many quarries, but amber is collected from the great lake in the east, Lake Djam, and gold from the south and panned from certain rivers.
The currency of the region is silver and copper. Gold is viewed with a degree of suspicion: tradition says that, because it doesn't turn to ash (oxidise) like copper or silver, gold is not a living metal, and its deathlessness can be contaminated with malice over centuries of melting and refashioning. Legend also says the terrifying divs and mysterious peri both hoard it, making it dangerous to handle. (Divs are sort of like demons and are generally malign, and peri look angelic but have variable temperament: they might teach you how to tell the future, or they might make you insane. Anyone knows the Irish sidhe knows what I mean.)
The Hundred Nations Under the Eternal Blue Sky |v|
The Hundred Nations actually vary in number, hundred in this case stands for "numerous." When unified under a powerful khan centuries earlier, the territory of the Hundred once stretched west to the Black Mountains, and south through the dryland to Tian and the maritime nation of Silla. This disintegrated over the centuries however. They helped create the trade networks that Yaghana and its neighbours rely on. Historically, their reign was associated with security and trade, and older people sometimes repeat an old saying: "the steppe horse pulls the golden cart," i.e. the Hundred's protection spread wealth around.
Though not as devastated by the Visitor, the Hundred were already reeling when it struck. The khan chosen to lead them, a man called Yazdeger, initially seemed a good choice. However, he shortly descended into alcoholism and philandering, alienating his wife's clan. Refusing to acknowledge children he fathered, thus denying them formal bone (paternal) lineage and alienating their mothers' clans, Yazdeger eroded the customs and traditions that kept the Hundred together. His sister Altani was often smoothing things over, and took in the children he denied, giving them indirect lineage through herself. Yazdeger began to suspect she might usurp him when people began appealing to her directly. After exiling Altani to a camp well away from the capital, Ordos, Yazdeger faced antipathy from the other leaders.
One day, Yazdeger saddled up and demanded escort. He arrived at Altani's camp with some retainers, and bizarrely attempted to confiscate her horse. A gift from a noble, the horse was white, exceptionally well-trained in dressage, and very good-tempered. The lord had named him Baatar, which meant a hero of spontaneous and selfless valour. However, when Yazdeger approached Baatar, the horse reacted with aggression much unlike him. He attacked and trampled Yazdeger, then calmed down again and resumed grazing. In the stories of the day, there was a king called Yadzegird, who had been slain for wickedness by a white horse that appeared from a spring and disappeared back into it. (This is referencing a king from the Persian Epic of Kings, the Shahnama.)
The parallel seemed clear to Altani's supporters, who quickly buried Yazdeger and returned Altani to Ordos. She was chosen as a replacement queen (khatun) temporarily, but this stretched on until her adopted children were of age to groom for the role. Altani and the children were able to reverse much of Yazdeger's actions and built goodwill, hoping to avoid problems by serving limited terms. Yisun was one of several siblings who presided at Ordos, known for his precocious intelligence and formal manner that got him the nickname Piran ("old man"). His first marriage was arranged and dissolved for political reasons. His second was to a daughter of the man who raised Baatar, a woman called Rudaba. His youngest child by Rudaba was Juraira. (Bunch of references to the Shahnama but nothing that really means anything. Rudaba was the mother of Rustam, who was Hercules before Hercules was, but there's no parallel there.)
Juraira's significance was not obvious. Her marriage was also arranged, to a man of good character called Batsaikhan, and she had two children by the time she was 21. However, Batsaikhan unknowingly carried home a cattle fever from another camp. Dispatched again during the fever's incubation period, Batsaikhan was ignorant of the problem until he reached Ordos to learn about the outbreak. Returning home to Juraira's camp, he found the children had died and Juraira was gravely ill. Blaming himself, he called out two chiefs who had concealed the fever to avoid losing income from selling the cows. In no state to fight either of them, he was killed in a duel. Juraira was not heard from for several weeks, until she turned up in the snow outside Ordos surround by wolf tracks, starving, and feverish.
Piran was himself knowledgeable about medicine, but Juraira's melancholy was beyond him. When Apa Humay sought his aid, he offered it quickly so she might help Juraira. Juraira helped train the bookish Manushir to protect himself from assassination, and personally escorted his Tian bride to him. Though historical tension existed between Tian and the Hundred, Juraira and the princess were close friends. Piran later named an unrelated but seasoned administrator called Qorchi to replace him, and "retired" to become one of Manushir's most senior advisers. Though Juraira had episodes of melancholy, she remained one of Manushir's rocks, eventually taking on the title of vazir and responsibility for security in the capital. Juraira took in a young widow and her daughter, called Attessa, and raised Attessa after her mother's death. Attessa and Manushir's eldest son are sweethearts.
South of the Mountains of Heaven |v|
Through recorded history, there is no record of anyone successfully marching an army through the Tian mountain range, so the Imperial City was built with its back to the mountains and facing the sea. The mountains are high, but they are avoided above a certain height, as people report strange people, spirits, and bad luck. It is generally considered the home of fox spirits. Spirits and gods abound in Tian, the state gods being numerous and their aspects and incarnations being countless.
Tian is an old empire, waxing and waning over centuries. Though they possess similar histories and ideologies, the long history of imperialism and resistance engendered sharp distinctions between Tian and its client states. At times, client states have allied to force concessions from the Tian court, but such alliances are easy to strain and hard to maintain since the client states were themselves periodically imperialist and colonized among themselves. Tian often exploited this, but in the lead up to the current Empress's accession there was a deaf ear and blind eye turned toward the client states -- the capital city had an outbreak of a baffling disease, a parasitic blood infection brought to the capital by merchant sailors. (Similar to how cholera arrived in Europe from India, which seems to be its place of origin. It's not cholera, though.)
One of the most powerful client states is Silla. A collection of three large islands surround by smaller ones, Silla is by necessity a naval power. One of few nations that can boast a capacity to reliably reach the Bronze Coast over the ocean far to the West, Silla's ships move most everything that crosses open sea in Tian's waters. Silla's cultural ancestors were a heavenly prince and a she-bear who prayed to become human. Silla itself is named for a famous ancient queen said to have prescience, who brought about the unification of the three islands into a single nation. Prescience is sometimes ascribed to women with aristocratic bloodlines, including the Second Empress Dalnim. (This is actually based on a Korean history by Ilyon called the Samguk Yusa, and accounts of a Korean queen called Seondeok, to whom several instances of prescience are ascribed.)
The Houkan archipelago, a chain of volcanic islands rising up from the sea like the tines of a crown, is one of the breadbaskets of Tian. Its volcanic soil is highly productive. Many of Tian's foot soldiers are from Houkan. Since so much of the countryside is agricultural that it can be difficult to find opportunities if one is landless and has a common trade, so many join the army. The Houkan people identify heavily with the sea. Like Silla, their history contains several queens consort and queens regnant with supernatural qualities or abilities, sometimes being themselves mermaids by birth. (Those of you who played the new Tomb Raider will know Queen Himiko. There are other shaman-queens.)
During the outbreak, Silla and Houkan allied and raised an armada to besiege the Imperial City. Inexperienced, put on the throne when his brother died, the emperor was ineffective at administration and corruption flourished under him, leaving a not-entirely-incorrect impression he was incompetent. The king of Silla received word that the emperor had executed a third of his court after a banquet. However, expecting the inexperienced Emperor to be struggling with the plague, they instead met an apparently empty city. As soon as they landed, however, they faced sophisticated guerilla resistance under the command of a strange general in a tiger skin, unknown to spies and appointed by the emperor. As the siege stretched on, tensions between the Houkan general and the king of Silla escalated.
Needing a decisive victory, the king of Silla routed ships sailing in to reinforce the city. However, during this battle, agents of the tiger general attacked the ship containing the queen, the princess, and the king's sister, taking them hostage. Caught unaware and unable to stop the kidnappers, the king's son Haenim redoubled his efforts to breach the palace and challenged the tiger general to a duel. This he lost, and several after, suffering wounds and being returned to his father. Desperate, and frightened of the emperor's reputation for violence, Haenim tried to infiltrate the palace. His face covered, he attempted to avoid and escape the tiger general, but could not. However, still recovering from his injuries, and unable to make himself understood, he stepped wrong and the tiger general stabbed him in the armpit where his armour did not protect him. Only recognizing him too late, the tiger general tried to stem the bleeding but failed.
After presenting Haenim's body to his family prepared in an outdated way, his sister Dalnim realized that the tiger general only understood an archaic form of Silla before language reforms took place. In the Imperial City, people spoke the courtly language of Tian. Dalnim was able to communicate with a maid of the tiger general in an embroidery language called the women's hand, who explained the general had not meant to kill Haenim -- the intent was to prolong the siege until the king had to negotiate a marriage treaty with one of the emperor's daughters to Haenim. (The embroidery language is inspired by nushu, an actual women's hand embroidery script.)
With this option no longer available, Dalnim elected to remain a hostage and sent her mother and aunt with her brother's body back. She and the maid became friendly, Dalnim not realizing the maid was one of the Emperor's daughters. The emperor was no longer on the throne, his daughter Maiden Leopard commanding the defence in the name of the Crown Princess. The Crown Princess, being the emperor's favourite living child and highest ranking, was regent. Dalnim explained the reasoning for the attack -- taxation. Taxes had been levied at unsustainable levels decades earlier, and now Silla and Houkan would have to refuse to pay to keep their citizens from famine after shrinking yields. Prior emperors had not corrected the error or even paid attention. Dalnim was formally introduced to the Crown Princess, who wedded Dalnim according to the treaty, declaring herself First Empress Golden Phoenix, and Dalnim Second Empress Silver Moon. (Historical treaty marriages are weird. Also, Dalnim actually means moon. Also, climate change has wide-ranging effects!)
This produced a new dynasty, called the Double Phoenix period after the two empresses. The court has integrated far more courtiers and officials from client states, notably Dalnim's hwarang, or Flower Youth. The hwarang prevented a coup early into the Empresses' rule. With expansion of the Doa canals, travel North and South much easier, increasing the flow of goods and people between Tian and Yaghana. Maiden Leopard ultimately married Manushir and became shahbanu (queen) under her birth name of Shinogai. (The empress is represented by a silver phoenix, the emperor by a golden dragon. So a golden phoenix is some of both.)
The Forbidding West
North of Tian and beyond the boundary of the Hundred's lands, marked by the Amrid ("immortal") river, lies the Doa region, where the Amrid and the Ahan pass near each other. This is where Tian traffic goes north and Yaghanai traffic goes south via canals.
West of this the drylands. This is a desert, sparsely populated where there are no oases or towns on trade routes. Withered after the decline of the Hundred's prosperity, this region resists all attempts at annexation by neighbouring khans.
Numerous and ranging in actual power and wealth from shepherd's home to palace, the khanates are a patchwork of alliances and feuds, navigating the water around the great lake Naina. Though mercantile, the khanates are often destabilized and manipulated by the Golden King on the north shore of the lake. The khanates are diverse in terms of language, culture, and identity, and actively trade with Yaghana, some with mutual defence treaties. (They're only referred to in Shadowlands at this point, not seen.)
Beyond the khanates, on the southwestern shore of Lake Naina, are the Aga lands. A nomadic people originally, typically passing east-west across the drylands, the Aga settled in the Black Mountains. Because their territory is mountainous, it's difficult to grow staples and so they trade with their neighbours for grain. They are fearful of outsiders and the unfamiliar, having a history of persecution, and on their own land must deal with wild animals and things variously identified as good or evil spirits. The stranger is fraught with potential peril in Aga land, because they possess something no one else does: gunpowder. Mostly focused on practical uses for guns, the Aga protect the secret with total commitment. However, agents of the khanates and the Golden King have tried to coerce them in the past, as by posing as foreign traders and abducting citizens, and spying. Aga suspicion of outsiders has grounds, but has also taken on a legalistic side. A sort of caste system exists -- within the Aga, there are clans who pursue specific trades, like gunsmiths, and landowners who raise livestock or grow food. Foreign heritage places restrictions on the individual, birth in foreign lands makes achieving right of abode and citizenship a long and difficult process. Most trade with outsiders, who are still remembered as a source of the pandemic, is done by people regarded as traders by caste, often having one Aga parent or a grandparent on each side. They conduct a lucrative trade in iron with Yaghana, in exchange for a diverse but modest number of trade goods.
A small minority originating on a continent to the north, Fianna, live in the Barrier Islands on the western coast of Aga territory. Having a special status, this population is mostly self-governing. They share a vivid and assured belief in spirits and the potential danger of strangers with the Aga people. They periodically report sightings of strange things in the water, and sometimes in daylight there are scratches on the heavy reinforced doors and shutters of homes there. When a strange thing is sighted, a signal fire is burned and milk, sweet egg cakes, and other delicacies are put out as a signal for well-inclined spirits to displace whatever is haunting the area. When there is a celebration, should a stranger show up with a peculiarity like tatty clothes, speechlessness, or a tendency to repeat what is said, they are presumed to be a spirit wanting hospitality. At nightfall, however, the Barrier Islanders and the Aga both agree to stay indoors where it is secure, and turning someone out is forbidden until daylight. Hospitality laws have severe punishments for transgression, another trait shared with the Aga people.
The Golden King |v|va|
North of Lake Naina, west of the Iron Mountains, lie two kingdoms. Within the mountains and sharing a border with Yaghana are the lands of Turialai Beg in the East. Chalk and other stone is quarried there. Turialai Beg was a former ally of his neighbour, until the Golden King bid his father attack villages in Manushir Shah's territory to test his response time. Turan Beg refused and was murdered by the Golden King's assassins. His daughter was one of the Golden King's treaty wives and had the misfortune to be in his power at the time. The Golden King bullied and abused her, forcing her to write letters begging her brother to intercede, threatening her life and threatening her with torture. Ultimately, after entertaining a flirtatious river trader, he sold the woman and her daughter as a slave on the understanding their lives would be obscure and miserable. He later changed his mind and sent assassins after them; one returned with a story about a gorgal, a kind of monstrous wolf with horns, killing the others after being drawn to the smell of blood after the two were murdered. The gorgal is used as the Golden King's standard. (The wolf-with-horns is also from the Shahnama but it's not called a gorgal.)
To the west is Byza. Vast and agriculturally productive, it supports many cities and as a result was hurt badly by the Visitor. Named, it is thought, for an ancient prince named Byzan or Bijan, but this speculative. Byza as a goddess represents the state, always depicted as bedecked in finery and carrying a sword. Byza is an unstable fragment of the same empire that produced the khanates. A polytheistic state, there are many gods and many shrines, and a strong priestly class. Many cities are ignored as long as they pay taxes, but the politics of the region are cruel and bloody, particularly in recent memory.
The Golden King is never addressed by name within his court. He is good-looking, and dislikes his courtiers to be poorly dressed. He's called Inzer, but the derivation of the name is unknown. Everyone is disposable to him -- his territory is agriculturally productive and a great deal of trade occurs on the rivers and along the lake shore, making him extremely wealthy and with no shortage of people for replacements. His army is partly professional and partly conscripted. He spends a great deal of resources on his military innovation and propaganda. His practice of throwing money and soldiers at problems have caused bloodbaths where people have attempted to depose corrupt officials and been slaughtered.
Inzer is petty, nursing grudges and an impulsive temper. He is smart enough to stay on top of his enemies, but vulnerable to the right kind of personality. He resents anyone resisting him and he's persisted a losing campaign against Turialai Beg, his own men defecting and deserting at a rising rate. But he, as he will note, always has more. He was behind many of the kidnappings and ransom attempts in earlier decades, but found his efforts stymied by a spy or mercenary operating on the river. There was never consistent description of the individual. His efforts to attain gunpowder resulted in a sulphur smoke weapon deployed against the forces of Manushir Shah and Turialai Beg, but his inability to predict or control the wind meant his own men suffered worse, and spurred a series of defections and executions for dissent. He exercises great influence in the khanates by political marriage, every marriage a de facto hostage in the event her family displeases him.
The North Country
Called Fianna, this continent ranges from temperate to arctic and is located across the North Sea. Its name is thought by scholars to come from the word fia, so could refer to a land of warriors, a land of wilderness, or a land of wild beasts.
Fianna mostly refers to the continent where the clans have federated into the system of kings under a presiding High King: other lands are referred to specifically as they are not bundled in with this. Other regions don't often distinguish in general purpose comments. There are many languages and backgrounds. Blonde hair is found here commonly, though brown is most common and pigmentation trends darker closer to the sea due to diet, and on the ice due to the intensity of sun glare.
In the far north and in the west and east, population is sparse and smaller federations exist along linguistic and geographic lines. Several peoples live on the ice and hunt seals and reindeer. In the East, in particular, conditions are extremely hostile to permanent settlement, and moving through a series of camps is typical. There also also many hazards to navigation, and the weather is Arctic outflow and extremely cold and pitch black in winter. Most herders live in the West, however, as the East has many hazards to navigation, and brutal storms.
Fianna is generally the only place to find walrus and whale ivory in any quantity, and they are more known for sophisticated metalworking and embroidery. A frequent representation of a Fianna girl taken from the texts of Gulbadan gives her walrus ivory combs worked into loops and braids; in Tian theatre, fancy white combs and thick, pale braids, with ornately embroidered clothes (replaced by dye for theatre) represent a Fianna woman. Artifacts like ivory charts are particularly collected: carved into whale ivory, these charts are cylindrical. The King of Kara Kuru on the Bronze Coast is claimed to have the largest collection known, with several hundred pieces. Bone, antler, and soft stone carving arts and crafts are traded into the south in exchange especially for metal tools and objects. Textile arts and processing represents a significant part of the industry of the south, as well as mining. Fianna's mines are generally in the west, near the northern mountains, the Giants, that shield from some of the Arctic climate.
The extreme East and North is widely regarded to be haunted, some identifying it as a literal hell on earth where spirits wander that can turn the living mad. "From the East" often indicates something odd about a person. While the brave can often find strong fish stocks, they risk damaged nets and sinking out where no one can reliably assist them. Disappearances are blamed on storms, rocks, and angry sea spirits. Various attempts to settle the east have generally failed, as the harsh weather makes living off the land difficult. The West of Fianna has a sophisticated trade network along the coast, particularly in handcrafts like fine beadwork and pelts. Silk thread is in high demand -- Fianna people are associated with needlework, particularly pictorial.
The Great Bears
The tallest mountains on the continent, the Great Bears were created by the collision of tectonic plates. These mountains rise up east of the steppe. Their slopes have been periodically inhabited, and remain so in the southern ranges. However, they form a serious barrier to eastward travel, and no consistent reports exist of what is beyond the mountains except, perhaps, the residence of the Sun. Some accounts reference a grassy country existing there in the past, while others report an inland sea. Other sources say it is Paristan, the land of the magical peri who descend periodically into the world. The people who lived near or in the Bears have left traces of their civilizations, and in the higher altitudes these last for a very long time, leaving crypts, empty temples and crumbled shepherds' shelters.
There remains confusion among scholars about the name: though common to many separate accounts, it is not agreed why bears are referenced there specifically. Some claim the mountains resemble bears from a distance, others believe the people who lived there worshipped a bear god based on carvings found from different periods. In Silla, scholarship generally holds that the people there are bears, or people descended from bears like Silla's ancestral mother. There is only one source that is most assured about this, the History of Scholar Hao, which is a broad collection of history and folk tradition. While his text is quite rich and in practice generally substantiated where claims are meant to be factual, it is confusingly sourced and many documents have been lost. Hao lists a document as the "secret history of a most devoted courtier," but it is unknown what or where this book is if it survives. (The Samguk Yusa by Ilyon is great, and I realize that Chicago citation didn't exist at the time but come on man! I figured "Hao" was periodically howled at the heavens in frustration by historians over the centuries.)
In the foothills and the shadows of the Bears, many civilizations have come and gone. Most have clustered around Lake Djam, which is fed by several rivers created by the mountains. It is here that Dzalan Mirza's land was, and where the Saint and her first followers hid from assassins. The very deepest depths of the lake are known, however, to be toxic. It is historically claimed to be the venom of a div who attempted to poison the lake out of spite. More prosaic explanations expect a natural vein of mercury or another poison metal leaking into the lake over time. Only Gulbadan takes a specific stance claiming anything being alive down there, which is described as a "noxious slime floating on water disturbed by vapours from the earth." As this layer is extremely deep, no one has yet confirmed this. (Jellyfish Lake in Palau is kinda like this.)
Areas Referenced
The Bronze Coast is far West and South on another continent. A great deal of bronze is produced in the region, and fashioned into utilitarian and decorative forms, but it is not the only product of the region. It is historically difficult sea journey from the East with risk of massive storms and hazards to navigation, and only a few routes are anything like reliable. Given recent changes in climate, traffic has decreased from prior times due to changing sea levels, tradewinds, and weather patterns. Recent advances in shipbuilding have made the journey easier, but the khanates have the nearest port via a contested archipelago, and a monopoly on most goods, though smuggling remains significant and traffic to Tian is increasing. Many goods from this region are instead sent further West, then traded overland to neighbouring nations, about which little is known because of the importance of the King of Kara Kuru. (I don't show this location, but one of Manushir's vazirs, Shiruy, is from the Bronze Coast.)
It is known that the King of Kara Kuru is fabulously wealthy and collects fine art pieces, as well as fine books. He is said to have the finest camels in the world, the foreign lines of which are jealously guarded in the khanates. Camel breeders in the khanates insist that both horses and camels of the region will become insulted and belligerent when spoken to harshly, so commands must be learnt in the Kara language and delivered with decorum. It is theorized this may also be true of the animals in Kara lands in general. Its distance makes it mysterious, however, and many accounts conflict or conflate the Kara Kuru with neighbouring kingdoms, of which little is known. (The "easily offended animals" thing is inspired by Herodotus, who records many idiosyncratic details. The stuff people believe about other people and places is sort of awesome.)
Both boys' faces were were built of the mesh for Shinogai. First I spun off Omid, then created Siyaj from him.
They take after their parents in different ways. Omid has the same eye colour as Manushir, while Siyaj is closer to his mother in this regard. Siyaj has a downturning nose like Manushir, while Omid's doesn't have much angle to it. They both have similar lips to Shinogai.
Siyaj is darker because he spent a lot of time outside during the warmer and colder months. Omid was inside more often, damage to his heart from a fever impeding his gallivanting about. As a result, he's not as well perfused and tends toward pallor.
Both boys resemble their father when he was younger, though Siyaj is probably handsomer.
Fuse is not so great to model kids, however. I had to cheat a fair bit and bash out a solution. It's not quite there yet and I'll likely have to take them into Blender at some point for more tweaking. The torso in particular:
I got Fuse at discount one Steam and it's helped me quickly rough out faces and body types for a bunch of characters.
The mesh was a bit difficult to work with, compared to the Saints Row 2 interface, and I was kinda stupid and missed the eye colours at first. Also pretty much all the hair is placeholder until I make something.
Gulbadan, who I wanted to look sort of North Indian. I had initially imagined her fairer because she was at court, but she's known for going into the wilderness to study animals and travelled for years, and I found this look much more "right" for her as soon as I saw it:
Here are other drawings of her -- I hadn't had a clear picture of her beyond mannerisms and personality:
This is Yanyan, the servant of a queen, supposed to look more Han influenced but not Han herself:
Here are some drawings of her. One is based on Shin-Ae, who looks eerily like the picture in my head:
Another one set later on -- her hair has grown out:
Then we have Humay, who is supposed look sort of Uyghur. They are an ancient group, and vibrant red hair pops up among them, which is extremely striking. Her eyes are the wrong colour, though:
My inspiration for some of her features was Zhao Wei, who has wonderfully expressive eyes, who can be both strong and vulnerable, and is one of my favourite actresses. The drawing was never quite right but I had trouble isolating what it was:
Comparison with the front view:
Roya, an elite archer. I wanted her to look Irano-Afghan, with strong and distinct features and those brilliant green eyes. Her eyes aren't the right tint -- I've seen pictures of people from the region and it's not a green I've often seen. It's gemlike, like slices of light jade, or maybe olivine or Prehnite. There's a brilliance there that's not quite the same as anything else. Roya's scars are not there yet: Somewhat more accurate hairstyle than the others:
She came out looking a lot like the Afghan Girl, Sharbat Gula, but that was not the intent. I based it especially on this drawing:
I attempted a front and profile view to model it myself,and I plotted out her scars (roughly):
Queen Shinogai, who by this point does not appear directly, but I need to know what she looked like to make sure her kids properly resembled both parents. I had an idea going in what the youngest, Omid, looked like, and knew she would have to resemble them as children's faces tend to resemble their mother's:
I always felt that Shinogai was a much more lively person than her husband, and it's part of why they worked well as a married couple.
Speaking of Manushir Shah, without hair because he needs a dang topknot... He is also supposed to look Irano-Afghan. He's paler because it's winter and he spends a lot of time indoors, but I imagine in summer and when he isn't in mourning he looks a bit livelier:
I need to tweak him a little, his nose is not quite right yet. The hair is all wrong, but he looked weird with short hair. Here's one to compare to the following drawings with wonky eyes:
Juraira, a steppe woman of mixed ancestry, and old hat at kicking ass on foot or horseback:
I had a vacillating image of Juraira in my head. Some sketches from various points:
And her as a young woman. I thought she might have red hair but I think the black suits better:
More to come. They will be tweaked a bit, almost everyone's hair will change. Fuse is a very useful program, though!
Gulbadan sans hair, Yanyan sans hair, Humay sans hair, Roya without and with hair blocked in. Then Gulbadan, Yanyan and Humay with hair blocked in.
Made using Fuse. Fuse is a handy program recently purchased on Steam at sale cost. I was able to create Gulbadan, Yanyan, and Humay in a way that, I feel, looks like they were related over time.
Gulbadan, Yanyan and Humay were constructed off the base Asian mesh, though their ethnic backgrounds are sort of ranging between North India, Han, and Uyghur. Roya is off the Caucasian base mesh, because I pictured a more Turkish/Mediterranean look. Hair was brushed in using Photoshop, and the eye colours changed at the same time in the last image.
Yanyan isn't quite there yet. I picture more of a Shin-Ae look.
I designed these to help isolate her daughter's silhouette. Mandana is deceased as of the story.
Wanted to capture a theme of elegance, elongated silhouette, and trailing elements (ribbon, braids, long hair, long sleeves).
It's a progression in time. Her early days were spent as an unhappy treaty-wife at a court away from her homeland. I tried to go for a sort of girdled look with pinned sleeves like a peplos, the idea being restrictive finery that appears uncomfortable with an apparent sort of "shrug." After she found refuge with a trader's crew she was dressed like them in a very utilitarian style, no fancy ribbons or girdles.The third is a general impression of her settled clothing, elegant Tang influence, when she reached safety abroad. This silhouette has a much more relaxed shoulder, no apparent shrug.
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