Where Nature Abides

Vik • Un • La — lit. "Nature's Place of Existence." The ancient Nierunics coined this term to describe the world they lived in, which they saw as a complex ecosystem of cosmic forces, of which they were just a small part.

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world map is coming along nicely as i procrastinate working on my Camp NaNoWriMo project

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The Skyship

Much of the continent of Saithal, due to its size, is cut off from the sea. As a result, ancient cultures like the Nierunics were motivated to find other means of travel which wasn’t so dependent on geography.

The balloon started with simple sky lanterns and quickly developed from there. By the end of the Kabidyan Dynasty, several varieties of manned, untethered air vessels were in use. The skyship became an emblem of that era, and the scientific development that occurred as a result of the relative peace compared to previous centuries of brutal, continuous war.

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Girl wearing an example of typical Nierunic clothing

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World Map in progress

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On the subject of Nierunic temples and agriculture: I asked myself if a culture living off of legume grains would keep up that practice after being introduced to cereal grains such as wheat and rice. I think due to the way agriculture works in these centers of magical study, the answer is “yes” for a few reasons:

Grove magic works as a food production system because a grove mage forms a type of spiritual connection with each plant. It is easier to do this with several dozen, distinct trees, than it is with whole fields of individual grass plants.

My staple crop for this system is acacia/wattleseed, which undomesticated has yields (18.5 bu/A)  comparable to wheat in England in the late 18th century, after the application of more efficient and intensive farming practices. 

On the other hand, someone somewhere would certainly cultivate grains like those we grow, and those could probably be farmed by non-mages, especially in situations where the whole population can’t be supported by the grove-temples.

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based on some research I’ve done, large animals actually tend to be limited in their movement speed by their weight -- their footsteps are so heavy that putting enough force behind them can cause stress or fracture to their skeleton. this is why elephants actually don’t run much faster than horses.

my conclusion is that it’s reasonable that people will probably domesticate horses or a similar animal in Vikunla as well as gryphons, which would be used for travel and even for herding gryphons, while gryphons would still be far superior in terms of carrying and pulling things, and of course providing food and fibers.

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the nierunic language has an ideographic writing system and i am Definitely going to get around to developing it at some point instead of just thinking about how hard its going to be

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Gryphon silk is a commodity prized for its beauty and utility. The gryphon’s feathers molt twice a year, at the beginning of the dry and wet seasons respectively, and the plumes are so large that the filaments can easily be collected and turned into thread. The resulting material has some of the physical properties of wool, but is very fine, and it retains the structural color and iridescence of the original feathers. Multiple colors can even be harvested in this way, eliminating most of the need for dyes - making production easier for the nomads who traditionally travel with their gryphon herds.

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seriously, i’m doing a lot of research that amounts to learning literally everything modern science has figured out about something obscure, and then trying to decide whether bronze-age people could stumble on it by accident

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things i read about for the sake of worldbuilding

the chemical properties of food 

bird penises

quantum physics

the effect of continental drift on the climate

molecular biology

the economic viability of obscure crops

the applications of feathers in composite building materials

and so much more

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The gryphon, or zrilla, was first domesticated from wild herds on the Burning Plains. It was bred by humans and is nowadays cultivated for its feathers, its strength in carrying people and pulling heavy loads, and perhaps most significantly, for their companionship. The gryphon is extremely intelligent and social, interacting with people in a manner similar to real-world dogs and some pet birds. The partnership is said to go back even before language and magic.

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The early Kabidyan Dynasty was very pastoral and decentralized. Power was executed from çiakkhon, or temples and monasteries located in sacred groves where priest-mages would study and work. The çiakkhon were agricultural centers, because çiakkhera, or grove magic, was used to cultivate a number of food-bearing plants. The practice had existed since prehistoric times, but truly began to flourish at this time.

The staple crop of the çiakkhon was the acacia tree. The specific variety grown in the temple orchards was selected to bear high quality seeds, which were harvested and used as grain. The lumber was also used for its quality and strength. Space between or under the trees would grow other useful plants, or be used to graze animals. Beekeeping was common as well.

Religious festivals would also double as opportunities for trade. Nomads gathering at the temple would barter with each other and with the temple mages. Thus an early economy was formed.

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Who were the Nierunics?

Geographically, the country settled by the Nyer people is located on the south coast of the Sezun Sea, in a valley between the Worong Rainforest to the east and south, and the Burning Plains and Great Desert to the west. It experiences annual monsoons, and its land is watered by the Volnal River, which has its source in the rainforest mountains.

According to legend, the warring Nyer tribes were first united under the Kabidyan Dynasty. Before this period, wars fought between tribes using primitive but powerful magic decimated both the population and the ecosystem. Kabidya, the legendary and sacred founder of Nierunic civilization, composed the first known laws that regulated this magic, and made peaceful organized society possible. The laws, called Kabidiapovala, were passed down orally and through ancestor-spirits, and were not formally recorded until the invention of writing some time later.

Kabidya’s laws dictated that magic should be used only to create, rather than to destroy. As a result, early Nierunic civilization focused on forms of biomagic that led to the creation of lush gardens that fed thousands of people and the knowledge to heal many types of injuries, making the civilization a center for knowledge and enlightenment for ages to come.

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Magic: An Overview

Magic is fundamentally neither matter nor energy, but a process of transferring and manipulating information. Most lifeforms can use an extremely rudimentary form of magic under specific circumstances, but the development of proper, consciously directed magic came about only with the evolution of intelligence and language. Language allowed early people to form complex ideas, and imagine what could be instead of simply reacting to what is. Simple early applications of magic included the cultivation of plants and animals, medicine, and the preservation of ancestor-spirits for consultation by future generations.