The World

[Sierra]

Our kingdom is Verdana. Our planet is Venthys.

More detailed setting information follows in subsequent posts:

History of the Kingdom

Geography & National Borders

Astronomy

The State of Verdana

Life on Venthys

[Sierra]

History of the Kingdom

Exodus & Early Settlement

All things end. Even great empires in their turn must bow beneath the weight of ages, and give way so that their heirs might paint their own designs upon a clean canvas.

So it was with Grinvaldia, one of Venthys's more ancient and redoubtable nations, long on prestige and tradition, but tragically short on vision and vitality as it crept towards its eighth century of regional dominance. Grinvaldia too succumbed. Succumbed to what, precisely, remains a subject of dispute amongst historians, philosophers, and statesmen, each ready to apply their own lessons drawn as prescription for the ills of any modern state. Many afflictions may befall a nation in its dotage, to be sure, but whatever root cause lay beneath its decay, Grinvaldia in turn collapsed amidst a paroxysm of royal intrigue, administrative rot, and savage incursions by younger and hungrier peoples from beyond the frontiers of empire. And amidst its dying breaths, some enterprising souls hazarded to venture abroad, a diaspora of the brave and desperate spilling out from the ruined bulk of empire in search of fresh pastures in untrodden lands.

The modern kingdom of Verdana was founded by such emigres. Led by the house of Crescencia—a cadet branch of the imperial family, distantly but indisputably within the line of succession—a tangle of Grinvaldia's provincial nobility took to the sea in search of a haven far from the maelstrom of corruption and violence enveloping their ancient home.

Their peregrinations took them far south, across tropical seas to a remote trading outpost on the wild continent of Nomenar. Here the refugees found a land largely unspoiled, as its native inhabitants—an odd people called elves, willowy of build and with lifespans of fantastic duration—disdained development of the land and clearing of forests. The novelty of open land, such a rarity in one of the world's oldest and most populous nations, proved intoxicating to the awed settlers, who rushed to claim plots with an air of gleeful liberation. The seed of Verdani society was top-heavy with displaced aristocrats, so the laborers and farmers that accompanied them to the new world found their services in a state of previously unexperienced demand, and young Verdana proved a place where common people could command a fine wage for their rude talents—at least for a time.

Nomenar was a warmer and drier place than their home, to be sure, but most of the old Grinvaldian staples proved adaptable enough to the rippling grasslands that dominated the continent's northernmost quarter. Verdani grain and wool found eager buyers in the few primitive city-states dotting the region, as did wine and beer, and Verdani entrepreneurs were soon to make an industry out of the local elven handicraft of silk. The populace prospered, multiplied, and expanded, and though the kingdom would eventually encounter obstacles—both geographical and national—to its growth, the early days of Verdani culture were suffused with a realization of unexampled opportunity (and, in some nostalgic corners of collective memory, are still revered for that reason).

Expansion & Clashes with Native Elves

It took much less time, however, for Verdana's settlers to engage in conflicts with the native elves, with or without official sanction. Human notions of property ownership proved alien to the native inhabitants, who were not quick to recognize that friendly agreements about land that they made with their new neighbors were regarded by the human settlers as exclusive and binding. As a nomadic people, with even their "tribes" (a label of human observers, with little real accuracy to it) shifting, merging, and reforming over the space of a single elven lifetime, it was a natural first response for the elves to simply idle out of the way of burgeoning human settlements. There was, after all, much more countryside out there than had ever been required by the elves themselves, as long-lived, slowly maturing, and materially undemanding as they were.

It was a lifestyle that meshed badly with that of the sedentary colonists, who were not sympathetic to elven wanderers claiming a right up to set up camp on their doorstep just because such vagrancy was traditional, and who were inclined to view strangers passing through their farms and villages with suspicion. As the old country's manorial pattern of cultivation took hold in the eastern heartland of Verdana, and as ambitious settlers raced across the land to snatch up uncultivated plots, the ancient elven patterns of migration were squeezed out of existence and elven travelers became increasingly likely to meet with violent misunderstandings of their intentions.

These trends were ultimately all to the detriment of the elven populace, who due to significantly higher human fecundity soon found themselves outnumbered by aggressive interlopers. Such resistance as was mustered came too late, the only recourse by the time of elven organization being guerrilla raids on small communities rather than warfare on a national scale, and after inevitable defeat came the seeking of terms. It became easy for the kingdom, bargaining from a position of obvious strength, to also do so in bad faith. Successive agreements were made with and discarded by the human authorities, as their abandonment was always made fait accompli by eager settlers advancing ahead of any capacity for royal restraint. The most glaring such transgression was Count Arata's massacre of the elven population of the Validel Woods some ninety years past, in a bid to secure the forest for the Royal Navy's use.

For humans, these events have faded from view with the passing of generations. For some elves, they linger within living memory.

The elven population of Verdana now stays mostly in the higher elevation forests—in the central Alcara Hills, or at the feet of the eastern Kalikaya Mountains. It's uncommon for individual elves to attempt integration into human communities, as they are rarely welcomed, slow to adapt, and temperamentally ill-suited to the fast pace of city life, and no Verdani city boasts even its own distinct elven-majority neighborhood.

The Wasting & Current Events

And so Verdana thrived, finding its limits imposed only by mountains to east and west, and by a stubborn national rival to the south. It engaged in sportsmanlike border wars with its new neighbors when practical and advantageous, cultivated its own national traditions of art and spirituality, flourished in agriculture and commerce—and observed another nearby state, the island kingdom of Bassiden, consume itself in an orgy of revolutionary violence, a cautionary example that continues to this day to inform the attitudes of the royal family and of Verdani state officials. More than four hundred years after landing at the then-tiny outpost of Meridia, the Crescencias still occupy the throne, further south in the capital city of Vildiana.

But the land itself, once so lush and welcoming to Verdana's early pioneers, seems of late to have turned on the kingdom. Precisely when the wasting of the earth began is impossible to pinpoint, as every nation of occasion has its poor growing seasons, and when a seasonal blight gives way to something more prolonged and disastrous presents at best a blurred line to historians. Some officials estimate beginnings as little as forty years in the past, some as far as sixty—the disagreements began nearly as far back as the problem itself, but as the rocky soils of the far west gave way to true desert, precision became irrelevant and argument meaningless. The reality was the tide of national settlement reversing as the beleaguered Verdani of the dying western towns began to flood back into the unprepared east.

In the wake of such displacement and the despair that it fosters, unrest proves an inevitable companion.

Verdana's sitting monarch is Victor Crescencia III. Son of the unloved Roderic Crescencia IV, who died in disrepute shortly after leading the nation in a failed war of acquisition to assuage the ache of its lost western territory, King Victor has proven an aloof monarch whose ability to inspire a worried people in time of crisis has thus far been negligible. Also, the king and queen's inability to secure a living heir after twelve years' reign inevitably, in trying times, provokes dark talk of divine retribution*. Radical cults have proliferated throughout these dark days of Verdana's apparent decline, often forcibly suppressed by the authorities, while even ecclesiastical experts often seem split on whether a return to fundamentals or bold reformation should be the key to assuaging the gods' apparent ire.

(*King Victor has two younger siblings, so most spectators of royalty consider a succession crisis to be unlikely even should the King and Queen Leonora prove unable to produce an heir. His younger brother, Prince Hector, has two sons of his own and finds much favor with the army. Their much younger sister, Princess Ursula, remains unmarried. She devotes much of her time to charitable causes and is popular with the common people, who have lovingly dubbed her Verdana's "Little Bear.")

And those who seek more earthly answers point to younger and more creatively vital governments—such as the young republic across the sea to the north—for examples of the kind of dynamic approach to authority which might be better able to cope with Verdana's aggrieved natural state than could the ossified monarchy. The printing trade has expanded dramatically since Verdana's settler days, literacy spreading with it, and the crises of the modern kingdom have provoked such an outburst of passionate and critical discourse as to try even the Ministry of Security's notorious dedication. Formal newspapers are obliged to tread lightly for fear of the censors' lash, but for the anonymous pamphleteer, there is little accountability and less restraint. Few go so far as to promote open rebellion—yet—but a drift in the nation's intellectual elite towards progressive reform is unmistakable in recent years. Even the philosophers, however, have not quite found agreement on what form any such change should take.

Meanwhile, desertification creeps ever eastward, slowly but with inexorable force. The westernmost fifth of the kingdom lies largely abandoned, its empty villages scoured by restless sands, and those few of the brave and foolish who survive exploratory expeditions to the kingdom's lost western settlements return with wild tales that wield the expression "ghost town" in more than just figurative sense. The remainder of Verdana yet inhabited on the far side of the Alcara Hills witnesses progressive crop failures as well as withering grasslands—and a reversion to widespread banditry as the region reclaims its frontier status, as desperate peasants resort to theft and murder to claim from others what the earth can no longer provide.

From the hills eastward, the kingdom's natural bounty remains thus far unmarred by the blight—but not by the concomitant depredations of those desperate and displaced citizens reduced to base looting and indiscriminate homicide for their daily survival. To address this problem, in the absence of any vigorous initial royal response, the western settlements developed the Civilian Militia—locally supported squads of citizen officers to guard towns, track and neutralize persistent bandit gangs, and secure trade routes back to the placid east.

In order to assert control over this unsettlingly democratic institution, the monarchy legitimized the Militia under the oversight of the Ministry of War (realizing that the unpopularity of the Ministry of Security made it an impractical minder, however appropriate a steward it might be due to its mission). The government has since found it a convenient field from which to recruit new soldiers—as well as a safe place to park the demobilized and ease them back into civilian life, prone as unemployed soldiers otherwise so often are to sink into brigandage. All towns with a Militia presence now employ local volunteers under an officer dispatched by (and loyal to) the royal authorities in Vildiana. Some in the capital still consider the militias of dubious value at best, and a den of unemployable misanthropes at worst, but the border towns continue to rely on them out of sheer need, and some cities have even introduced innovations such as employment referral services for militiamen with demonstrated records of reliability, or funding education for non-commissioned officers. In the quieter heartland towns, Militia service has developed a certain social gravity partly on these grounds.

The Militia can only treat a symptom of the kingdom's physical decay, however, not its root, and while measuring the future course and extent of the blight is impossible to do with complete accuracy, surveyors of the wasted west estimate that Verdana's future existence as a habitable kingdom could be measured in decades at best.

The wasting has not been observed to affect Verdana's neighboring states.

[Sierra]

Geography & National Borders

The kingdom of Verdana encompasses nearly three-hundred thousand square miles in a roughly rectangular wedge across the continent of Nomenar's northern quadrant, and its national boundaries coincide with significant physical barriers:

To the east are the towering Kalikaya Mountains, which range boasts a mob of restless volcanoes on the far side, and which breaks the worst of the trackless Sovereign Ocean's storms and tsunamis. The mountain range is broadly thought to be impassible, though the most paranoid in Verdana may whisper of secret passes pioneered by the volatile elven princedoms of Artimulia for some long-planned invasion.

To the west are the Songsura Mountains. Much more weathered than their eastern brethren, their present name is a somewhat linguistically mangled version of the original elven for "Bones of the Earth." This chain of eroded peaks long served Verdana as a mostly reliable barrier against incursions from the sultanates to the west, being just porous enough to warrant fortified watchtowers along the most trafficked commercial passes.

To the south are the sprawling Osmalqui Hills, which run along much of the border between Verdana and Isvenstahl. Though certainly traversable, the barren nature of the badlands surrounding the hills have long precluded extensive settlement from either side, which helps to foster a healthy buffer zone between the two often uneasy neighbors.

And to the north is the Bright Sea, a warm body of water with reliable tradewinds that serves as Verdana's principal commercial connection to the rest of the world.

Internally, Verdana possesses few significant obstacles to local transportation apart from the central Alcara Hills, which divide the country into western and slightly larger eastern blocs, and can be easily bypassed only at the far north or south. Each half of the country is principally dominated by grasslands dotted with scattered copses of trees. Deep forest takes over the landscape only at higher elevations. Tornadoes are an occasional hazard on the plains, while the eastern provinces can usually expect to experience one major earthquake a century.

Verdana's four great rivers all run north into the Bright Sea. From west to east, these are: the Norizco, the Tarquiz, the Malquirin, and the Marlinora. In the south, the Adelmar River runs eastward through the Osmalqui badlands, then south into Isveni territory and the Gulf of Grune.

Verdana's capital is Vildiana, situated in the east, not far from where the Marlinora River descends from the Kalikaya Mountains. The country's most significant port is Meridia, far north at the mouth of that same river. Other notable cities include Solfrina, Caxcara, Barbastel, Thaliz, Fortisano, and Querquino.

The Verdani people, as descendants of immigrants from a cooler region on the other side of the equator, tend to be markedly paler in tone than their eastern or western neighbors, though those hailing from the coastal regions quickly develop a healthy tan. (For the local elves, ancient residents as they are, that trait is inherent and endemic.)

Verdana's neighbors of national significance are four in number:

Artimulia: East of the magnificent Kalikaya range, Artimulia basks in unrestrained tropical weather. Here the Mulian princedoms hold sway, the only independent elven states extant on the continent. The Mulian jungles are replete with spices in demand throughout the world, and the princedoms have had to fend off more than one attempt at colonization by foreign empires—a struggle lent vigor, most agree, by the cautionary spectacle of Verdana's decimation of the elven plains community. But the elves of Artimulia may additionally have an uncanny ally on their side: invaders attempting to take up residence here have often suffered from curiously timely incidence of volcanic mischief.

The volcanoes that thickly populate the eastern Kalikayas have always dominated the eastern Mulian landscape, both physically and culturally. Artimulia's multitudinous city-states are each built around one of the primary volcanoes, and careful monitoring of the local mountain's moods is a chief responsibility of every prince and princess of the eastern realms. Mortal sacrifice to placate the unruly gods once believed to live within Artimulia's volcanoes long played a central role in local religion. The princedoms do not deny the past occurrence of such rituals, but do insist that they are firmly in the past. Nonetheless, the more xenophobic Verdani will readily gossip that such practices still continue on the other side of the mountains, just in secret.

Talk of unification has long occupied the courts of Artimulia, both in response to the upstart power of Verdana and to Bassiden's more recent democratic revolution, but has thus far come to naught but a patchwork of local defensive agreements. Even in the unruly princedoms, Verdani officials wryly observe, elven decision-making is protracted to the point of inaction.

The offshore island of Lombor, some few miles from the northern end of the Kalikayas, has long been a point of contention between Verdana and Artimulia. It being Artimulia's chief entrepot for international trading, the young kingdom of Verdana quickly grew to covet this thriving commercial center just off their shores. Early Verdana made an attempt to occupy the island, but the outpost was quickly retaken and never conquered again. The Verdani monarch retained "Defender of Lombor" amongst the official titles for some generations before quietly retiring it.

As a loose confederation without regionwide central government, Artimulia has no capital, but notable cities include Aluortikee, Balimakini, Kalimeno, Kurubaya, Lalikind, Merumaru, Rioualto, Samlikind, and Vanyumora.

The elves of Artimulia tend towards darker skin than that of their plains brethren, with deep bronze through caramel brown being the most ordinary range. Red hair is exceptionally common, with blond placing a distant second.

Akai: To the west of the cracked and crumbling Songsura mountains lies Akai. The western wing of the Nomenar landmass is in substance mostly a vast desert, with a collection of port cities strung like jewels along the edge of the glittering Quril Sea, which separates Nomenar from the empire of Kadj far to the northwest.

Each coastal haven of Akai is the nucleus of its own city-state, usually serving as the administrative and military hub for whichever neighboring fishing villages can be secured by force against its rivals. Most city-states of Akai are petty monarchies—despotisms, to the eyes of Verdani royalty—with "dynasties" that flicker and fade for a few generations before being overthrown by some more ambitious local competitor. Most, but not all—a handful of the city-states have at times toyed with republican government, though rarely with much lasting success. The majority remain under the rule of a sultan, or sultana, depending on local custom. The sultanates are riven with persistent local rivalries, and agree on very little beyond primogeniture and a shared antipathy for Kadji adventurers with imperial ambitions.

Most of the sultanates have reached reasonable accommodations with the desert elves living in Akai's vast and barren interior. A sultan or sultana is perfectly able to claim sovereignty over the nomadic tribes passing through territory claimed by the city-state, so long as he or she should not presume to demand from their "subjects" any taxes, military service, or personal obedience of any kind. Considering the logistical impossibility of actually securing the vast expanses of the Sed Desert, this is perhaps the most productive arrangement a ruler in the region might hope for. In return for such laxity, most successful local rulers understand that they can rely on the local elves to be largely impartial trading partners and scouts.

As an oft bickering collection of city-states, Akai has no capital, though the nearest of its major cities to Verdana is Huulak. Other notable cities include Aknuul, Akvox, Alaqanuut, Changi, Dangovi, Guupa, Junkara, Lauut, Tajil, Uluhat, Urden, Yanak, and Zanir.

The Akaian populace is typically characterized by sharp facial features, often with a slanted cast to the eyes. Skin tone is predominantly olive, distinctly lighter only in the most southern villages. Black and red hair are most common.

Isvenstahl: Verdana's southern neighbor is the thaumatocracy of Isvenstahl. This exotic land is governed by a council of magicians, and the magical traditions they choose to embrace often contribute to an abrasive relationship with Verdana—most specifically, Isvenstahl's strong cultural affinity for necromancy. Undead are known to serve as brute labor in the most hazardous occupations here and, so it's rumored, even as servants in the homes of affluent families.

Much of the long border between Verdana and Isvenstahl is dominated by the badlands of the Osmalqui Hills. The climate on the southern side of the hills is markedly cooler than in Verdana's temperate plains and forests, rendering the southern nation a ready market for Verdana's wool and grain. Much of Isvenstahl arcs around the long Gulf of Grune, and annexing the northeastern horn of Isvenstahl's territory has long been one of Verdana's principal ambitions. Thus far, any such attempts have been unsuccessful (the most recent failed war of acquisition was fourteen years past), leaving Verdana without a direct outlet to the gulf and still reliant on filtering all trade in the region through Isveni middlemen.

The large island of Glomvrisk, in the Gulf of Grune, is home to the thaumatocracy's most renowned academy for magical training, Gunsdalen. Some noble Verdani families may even choose to send superfluous heirs here for education (provided, of course, that their children promise to skip any necromancy courses). Further south, Isvenstahl grows increasingly frigid as longitude and elevation increase. Accurate maps of the southern expanses claimed by Isvenstahl are unavailable in Verdana, and perhaps not even developed in Isvenstahl itself. The mountains are said to march far into arctic zones too inhospitable for any exploratory mission to chart and survive.

Isvenstahl's capital is Viknavir. Other notable cities include Askinnaven, Gunsdalen, Haiskavva, Haksund, Hummelsund, Ottsgrun, Pulallu, Sarkinsund, and Yornsvahl.

The Isveni bear a strong physical resemblance to Akaians in terms of facial features and bone structure, though they are much paler. Some from the southernmost reaches of the thaumatocracy are said to be nearly albino in appearance. The typically lithe Isveni build has also drawn speculation north of the border, to the extent that the thaumatocracy's population perhaps carries a significant proportion of elven blood, but no proper study has taken place to confirm this theory. Isvenstahl is the only nation on the continent not to contain a visible elven cultural presence in its population.

The Maritime Republic of Bassiden: To the north, across the Bright Sea, lies the former kingdom of Bassiden. Long a local rival of early Verdana, the two kingdoms fought periodic wars at sea and frequently sponsored privateers against one another until the collapse of the Basse monarchy. Bassiden's international profile then went into sharp decline until its new revolutionary government stabilized, at which point a different entrepreneurial creature rose from the ashes—one perhaps less obviously dangerous than the militantly theocratic monarchy that it replaced, but certainly more cunning.

Now, conservative Verdani officials grumble that Bassiden's primary export is subversion. Bassiden's democratic experiment has thus far persisted for a century despite all the doubts of skeptics abroad (not to mention the occasional coup attempt), and the example of its survival lends some authority to those advocating progressive reform in other nations. To be sure, the archipelago's new administrative model is not perfect—the purchase of votes and the lack of local competition remains a problem in outlying islands, and the smaller islands' representatives often grumble that Golobasse (the largest, most central island) wields disproportionate influence in national decision-making—but the enduring demonstration of a functioning alternative to monarchy is oft cited by both constitutional monarchists in Verdana and champions of regional unity in Akai and Artimulia to buttress the validity of their own designs.

The Milestone Islands remain a point of contention between Verdana and Bassiden. Though mostly little more than atolls, and almost all too barren to support settlement, this lengthy chain of flyspecks in the Bright Sea is nonetheless just substantial enough a territory to warrant claims and counterclaims by both sides. None of the islands is large or robust enough to locally support a fortified colony, and maintaining one from afar has proven prohibitively expensive, but proximity to both nations makes them quixotically attractive as listening posts. The islands currently claim no permanent residents but for some opportunistic pirates who hide amongst the reefs, intermittently raiding the shipping of both nations, and routinely accused by both sides of being proxies for sub rosa privateering.

Bassiden's capital is Marcel. Other notable cities include Bassie, Canour, Courra, Galanour, Gota, Naiveaux, Navasse, Pitreaux, Rosourice, Stiquas, and Valvateaux.

The residents of Bassiden are severely dark-skinned, typically ranging from deep brown to midnight black. The Basse Islands are hot, humid, and deeply uncomfortable for those unaccustomed to the climate.

[Sierra]

Astronomy

Venthys, the sphere upon which our story takes place, is known to orbit a much larger planetary body. This relationship was recognized in antiquity from study of Venthys's sibling satellites, of which five of significance are known.

The much larger world that Venthys circles is Pyregon. When ascendant in Venthys's skies, it looms several times larger and brighter than does our own moon. Pyregon is a mercurial orb of shifting cloud bands, mostly white, blue, and light beige, with a persistent blue "eye" whose longstanding preeminence in the sky has informed many mortal bodies of mythology. Eclipses of the sun by Pyregon occur with sufficiently predictable regularity as to not be greeted with undue alarm by the residents of Venthys.

Venthys is the fourth moon of Pyregon. The other moons of Pyregon are as follows:

Dromnalys: Dromnalys is the innermost moon of Pyregon. It is a small white spark zooming quickly about the giant planet in a tight orbit. Its distance from Venthys makes few surface details visible to humans, though recent telescopic observations reveal it to be highly cratered. Its name was derived in antiquity from the homeland of Peratus, Verdana's chief god.

Pethos: Pethos is the second moon of Pyregon. It is a red-orange marble with a minor but distinct presence in the sky, often easily visible in daylight. In ancient times, it was named for the placid homeland of Amura, Verdana's loving mother goddess, but modern astronomers believe its surface to be plagued by volcanism.

Livnos: Livnos is the third moon of Pyregon. It is green. Beyond this fact, human observers can discern little, though telescopic observation indicates that its seemingly uniform appearance is in fact a rippling blanket of planetwide cloud cover. Livnos is large enough to provoke significant tidal activity on Venthys when passing by. It was named in antiquity for the homeland of Nyris, the scholar of Verdana's modern pantheon.

Balthys: Balthys is the fifth moon of Pyregon. It is much smaller than Livnos, but close enough in orbit to Venthys to be observed in detail. Its surface is mostly dark, with fixed patches of white, blue, and purple. Balthys was named in antiquity for the homeland of Viator, most jovial of deities.

Sathos: Sathos is the outermost moon of Pyregon, gleaming but dimly in Venthys's skies and easily mistaken for a star. The name of Sathos is derived from the homeland of the Devourer in ancient myth, "The Empty Cradle," believed to be left languishing in a bleak state of ruin from the depredations of that entity's appetites which it inflicted before its exile from the realms of gods and men.

While the spherical shape of Venthys, and its orbit around a much larger companion, were facts accepted since antiquity, prevailing belief for much of recorded history was that Pyregon—the visually largest object in the skies of Venthys—was the fixed center of the cosmos. Astronomers have gradually discredited this notion and persuaded much of the world that Pyregon in fact orbits the sun, though one may still find, in some corners of the world, rural communities convinced that Venthys's great, blue-eyed sister remains the focal point of all creation.

One planet was in antiquity identified orbiting closer to the sun: Velykos. Two outer planets, also known since ancient times, and perceived to be well beyond the orbit of Pyregon, are Narcheus and Grafthna. With the advance in sophistication of telescopes over the past couple centuries, astronomers have recently been able to discover three more distant spheres: Bek, Volst, and Arlquine (named respectively by their discoverers in Kadj, Isvenstahl, and Verdana).

A Note on Timekeeping on Venthys

Pyregon—and in turn Venthys—completes an orbit around the sun in roughly 344 days.

The Verdani calendar's first year is that in which the royal family landed at Meridia, which is officially the day of the kingdom's foundation. The year is presently 451 A.V.

The calendar is otherwise identical to that maintained by the old empire: eight months of forty days each, followed by a half month of twenty days, then four holidays to close out the year (a fifth day is added every five years, to compensate for an ordinary year not quite equaling a whole number of days). A month is composed of five weeks of eight days each. The months and days are named as follows:

Month 1: Balthus
Month 2: Viatus
Month 3: Livnus
Month 4: Nyrus
Month 5: Pethus
Month 6: Amurus
Month 7: Dromnus
Month 8: Peratus
Month 9 (the half-month): Sathus

Day 1: Huntsday
Day 2: Starsday
Day 3: Homesday
Day 4: Lordsday
Day 5: Pyresday
Day 6: Darksday
Day 7: Bansday
Day 8: Sunsday

Sunsday and Huntsday are typically days of rest, though common laborers are more likely to work a half-day on Huntsday.

The year ends in midwinter. The last day of Sathus is the shortest day of the year.

[Sierra]

The State of Verdana

Government

Verdana remains, in the precise legal sense, the same absolute monarchy that it was upon its founding. Yet after centuries of expansion and manifold increases in population, even an adept monarch might find himself overwhelmed by the daily responsibilities pressed upon him by the demands of twenty million souls. And so it is that the Ministries developed to attend to the day-to-day bureaucratic burdens of the state: War, Justice, Finance, and Security.

The functions of these first three are obvious and usually uncontroversial, though the implicit "Internal" that nestles in the middle of "Ministry of Security" continues to render it a profoundly unpopular agency of the state. The MoS developed over the past several decades in response to two significant sources of unrest: the popular discontent naturally arising as desperate citizens flood back from the dying west and pack into the cities; and the burgeoning calls in Verdana's intellectual circles for governmental reforms in the wake of neighboring Bassiden's own transition from monarchy to republic.

The MoS now boasts offices in almost all towns of significant size in Verdana. The Ministry's function is to identify and preemptively lance threats to the state that are too subtle to be addressed in a conventional military manner. The most open manifestation of this mission is the board of censors that monitors printed and performed material for subversive content, but it's principally the secret police that stokes the ire of those already in opposition to the standing government. It's commonly accepted that the MoS maintains a network of paid informants at all levels of society, and the government relies upon common knowledge of this fact to frighten would-be plotters from organizing in the first place, yet the chilling effect that this fact has upon popular discourse is not wholly sufficient to quash all public dissent. More than a few prominent Verdani authors and journalists have spent time in the infamous prison of Fort Baltazar for daring to toe over the line of legally permissible criticism.

The Ministry of Security is not a prosecutorial body—arrested citizens and evidence both are required to be turned over to the Ministry of Justice for trial—but this technicality does little to bolster its reputation.

Locally, most administrative duties in villages and small towns are handled by a mayor, who is elected by a majority of the property-owning citizens. This office is a holdover from the early days of colonization, when Verdani settlers surged across the country with a rapidity that the crown authorities were unable to restrain or regulate. What began as a practical measure instituted by settlers beyond the envelope of royal protection has never been formally expunged, though the significance of the office varies widely from town to town—in some provinces where consolidation of the land under noble ownership has been severe, the office is often a formality, and votes purchased in advance. Nonetheless, the office is often cited by would-be reformers as a precedent and grounds to expand representative government to a national level.

In the more eastern provinces, where land ownership is more heavily consolidated under noble control, a council of local aristocrats is more likely to be the town's administrative locus (an appointed bailiff may serve if a resident noble is holding government office in the capital). Craft and trade guilds, still a potent social force in Verdana, fill in the gaps of authority in urbanized areas.

The Verdani monarch may be either a King or a Queen. The royal family, wary of the kind of dynastic disputes that contributed to the decline of Grinvaldia, opted early to permit succession to the firstborn heir regardless of gender. The two orders of nobility in turn take their lead from the monarchy. The head of household amongst Verdana's First Families—the upper tier of the aristocracy, those few great houses that trace their lineage to a noble scion of the old country—adopt the title of Count or Countess. The "Silver Leaf" aristocratic families, the lower tier of the aristocracy, ennobled in the centuries after emigration, are lesser in prestige (if not necessarily in wealth) and led by a Baron or Baroness. Marrying up the social ladder is a common family goal in either order, as well as for those more prosperous yet tragically untitled amongst the majority of commoners.

Ordinarily, the party from the higher prestige family will lend their surname to any offspring, regardless of gender dynamics. Social circumstances being equal, the father's surname is usually default for offspring. Middle names are not commonly used in Verdana.

Religion

Those fleeing the old empire's collapse brought their gods with them to Nomenar. Two deities of each gender form the core of the Verdani religion, collectively referred to as the Tetrarchy. The Verdani are not perceived by most of their international trading partners to be an especially devout people, but religion does have its broadly accepted social role, and its priesthoods and rites have ancient roots. Verdani theology is heavily informed by the movement of the other astronomical bodies orbiting Pyregon, the four largest of which derive their names from the Verdani gods and goddesses. (Astrology naturally remains a persistent superstition at all levels of society.)

The gods and goddesses of modern Verdana are:

Peratus: The ultimate role of Peratus is to be the judge of the dead. Accordingly, his portfolio in Verdani belief covers law, authority, leadership, and hierarchy. Stern and upright, rational and equitable, Peratus is accepted to be leader of the gods—though not, to be sure, their tyrant, as a core tenet of local theology is that diverse talents are as necessary for the Tetrarchy to comprise a whole as they are for a kingdom to function. This demonstration of clear social hierarchy in the heavens is often thought to serve as example for human society down on the earth.

The symbols of Peratus are a pair of scales and a scepter. The clergy of Peratus dress in black and white.

Amura: Amura is the wife of Peratus. Her role is to be the social nexus of the community, and thus her associations are with familial love, charity, medicine, agriculture, and personal sacrifice for the common good. Accordingly, most charitable foundations in Verdana act under her imprimatur. While revered as being kind, forgiving, and all-loving, Amura is also believed to be a fierce defender of the home in times of war.

The symbols of Amura are a shepherd's crook and a shield. Her clergy wear red and gold.

Nyris: Nyris is the scholar of the gods. She is the great patron of magic, science, mathematics, history, and—via tactical application of much of the above—also associated with warfare, and with navigation via her gift of astronomy to humanity. Calm and dispassionate, deliberate and confident in her measured deductions, she often attracts to her priesthood those seeking a dignified, scholarly retreat from society at large.

The symbols of Nyris are a four-pointed star and a feather. Her clergy wear blue and green.

Viator: Viator was the carefree, singing huntsman of imperial myth. His modern adaptation is as master of the arts: music, painting, sculpture, oratory, and the theater. He is also strongly associated with physical love, as acts of creative expression also carry strong connections with erotic attraction in Verdani thought (it is this last fact that is most likely to draw donation from a petitioner not pursuing an artistic profession).

Viator's symbol is most typically an arrow, or a bow, or both together, when not a lyre to symbolize his musical association. His clergy dress in silver and purple.

There is also a fifth great entity in the Verdani cosmology, but this one is distinguished by its lack of a right name or a following—it is the "Devourer," the "Eater of Souls," the "Howling Void," or the "Weeping Darkness," and it is the fate that awaits those souls who transgress unforgivably in life. Men and women who grievously violate the laws of men in life are judged by Peratus to be incapable of dwelling harmoniously in paradise, and are instead consigned to Tashkoth, the realm of shadow, to be hunted and feasted upon by the Devourer (itself believed to have once been a deity, stripped of its name and divine status for unearthly crimes). The Devourer yet weeps and wails and whispers from afar, from despair and loneliness and simple animal hunger, seeking to provoke mortals into damnable sins that will send their souls tumbling into its grasp.

Elsewhere in the divine bestiary are many orders of angels, to superintend the various domains of each deity, and to serve righteous souls in Haldin, the world of plenty and leisure that is believed to be the afterlife.

The core tenet of Verdani belief is that through refinement of one's own talents, and selfless application of them for the common good, one demonstrates their moral fitness to join the gods in their perfect realm in the afterlife. In the view of the severest clerics of Peratus, the physical world's purpose is in fact to serve as a proving ground for souls. The gods are not typically thought to manifest themselves on the earth and intervene directly in mortal affairs. They instead reward dedicated followers with their wisdom, insight, and guidance.

Verdani tradition has it that the voices of the gods are most easily perceived by—and their wisdom most readily bestowed upon—petitioners of the same gender. Thus, the priesthoods of Peratus and Viator are entirely male, while those of Amura and Nyris are wholly female. This fact needn't necessarily restrict the public following of any specific deity, however (sailors, for example, particularly favoring Nyris for her face as the great navigator). Clerics of any deity are not restricted from marrying, although inheritance of church land is illegal (personal ownership of temple property is itself wholly proscribed, such objects as divine vestments or even a temple guard's armaments being perceived as communally owned).

The modern kingdom of Verdana has no tradition of a church militant proselytizing in foreign lands or woven into the nation's military, though each of the four churches maintains its own trained guards for the security of individual temples, as the presence of donations may always tempt sacrilegious thieves. In the troubled recent decades, however, Verdana has seen its share of popular heresies, and the church of Peratus in particular has deemed it appropriate to lend their temple guards to assist in suppression of such upstart cults when necessary.

A place of worship is in Verdani parlance a temple; "church" refers to the larger national organization of a specific priesthood. Smaller Verdani settlements may not have sufficient population to support a separate temple for each of the four deities. A temple to Peratus or Amura is commonly the first established in a town; others may build a trapezium, a small temple dedicated generically to all deities. Sometimes, Verdani towns retain such a building even after swelling in size and acquiring individual temples, maintaining the trapezium as a location for those not personally devoted to a specific deity to donate indiscriminately (any such donations are split equally amongst all temples formally incorporated in the town).

It's common knowledge that Verdana's elven minority follows a single deity and maintains some belief in reincarnation. These few details have penetrated the public consciousness of Verdani humans just from being conspicuous differences between the imported human religion. Few other facts of significance about elven religion are likely to be known to the average Verdani citizen, however.

Few Verdani take an interest in the religion of their neighbors, but common knowledge similarly makes room for such basic facts as the Akaians and the Mulian elves each having their own pantheon of deities, while the Isveni worship but one goddess and the Basse church is a feeble shadow, nearly eradicated by their revolution.

The Arts and Sciences

Though not regarded internationally as trendsetters, Verdana boasts skilled artisans in many fields:

The visual arts in Verdana retain a strong emphasis on formalism—artists with a preference for abstraction will find few patrons here. Historical and mythological subjects are popular, and the noble classes—particularly those newly entering the lower order—keep many a portraitist employed. Depicting ancient imperial figures in questionably primitive garb, or elves and fairies in some whimsically perceived "natural state," remains a favorite excuse for painters to introduce nudity into their work. Music follows a course similar to that of the visual arts: the world of opera fixates on imperial times, early colonial figures, and mythological themes. The common people, meanwhile, are as like to get by with a guitar and a drum for their festivities.

Over the centuries, fashion has shifted from the staid restraint of the old empire towards accommodation with the warmer climate of Verdana. As the kingdom experiences mild winters, and only the southernmost towns should expect to see snow in any given year, a preference for loose, open, and light-colored clothes has developed. This trend is most pronounced in the coastal regions. Amongst the common folk, shirtsleeves might be dispensed with, open vests favored, or shirts even foregone altogether for the ruder laborers on the job. Copious jewelry becomes the preferred way to flaunt one's wealth, rather than uncomfortably restrictive clothing. As one approaches the capital, however—and especially as one mingles in noble circles—an affectation for ostentatious and concealing dress resurfaces.

Architectural trends echo this progress: high ceilings, grand windows, whitewash or bright paint for the coastal regions. Southeast, in proximity to the capital, a fondness for imperial austerity lingers. Verdana in its time of expansion had little practical need of castles—even in times of severest hostility, the local elves lacked the numbers or engineering skills to besiege even a modestly-fortified town—but in the ancestral homes of the First Families and around Vildiana one can see, finely sculpted in stone, many a testament to the past uncertainty of a fledgling nation ready to perceive enemies over every hill, and eager to declare its strength. The newer Ministry buildings, meanwhile, adopt a consciously neoclassical look.

Verdana is not regarded internationally as a leader in scientific invention. Technological innovations tend to find their way to Verdana via trade rather than local development, though the capital city's recently established Gearworks guild has swiftly earned a reputation as a leading manufacturer of precision clockwork mechanisms. This does echo, however, the nation's general reputation as skilled copiers of techniques rather than innovators.

The integration of firearms into the prosecution of war is yet ongoing. Though increasingly obviating a reliance on armor in conflicts with Verdana's neighbors, guns are not yet so reliable or adept at range as to have wholly obsoleted the value of a longbow, and cannon have thus far found more significant use in the navy than in the field.

Those following from afar developments in the remote northwestern empire of Kadj may be aware of a burgeoning vogue for steam-powered devices, though locally such curiosities are regarded as naught but this year's novelty. Nevertheless, Verdani court astronomer Mateo Vela's confident prediction of a comet's return to southern skies some scant years hence may refocus scientific attitudes if it proves to be accurate.

[Sierra]

Life on Venthys and in Nomenar

Aberrations: Aberrations are rare on Venthys. Such otherwise unclassifiable monstrosities as may exist are singular magical experiments, or forgotten holdouts of ages past moldering in overlooked corners of the world.

Animals: Nomenar's wildlife is diverse and resilient. Such predators as used to roam far and wide, such as wolves and wildcats, have reclaimed some of their old hunting grounds as humanity retreats east for Verdana's unspoiled lands. Large grazing animals such as deer and elk and wild horses roam the forests and plains, a wide variety of birds grace the skies, and plentiful fish populate the lakes and rivers.

Though the royal family of Verdana retains the bear as its heraldic avatar from the old country, no such species exists on Nomenar.

Constructs: Constructs are among the most prestigious wares of a professional magician. Those capable of breathing a semblance of life into stone and metal are an elite few, but a handful with firm grasp of a small yet lucrative market. Automatons are highly favored by those who can afford them as security, coveted as relentless and incorruptible guardians. Constructs demonstrating any degree of self-awareness are exceptionally rare, and no professional magicians' guild would welcome their advent. What value a tool that can question its purpose?

Verdana's most renowned artificer of automatons was Julian Quirino, an early member of Verdana's Magicians' Guild in the days just after the exodus from Grinvaldia. Those few of his creations yet extant are jealously hoarded by Verdana's First Families, and held to be of value beyond price.

Dragons: Dragons are but creatures of legend on Venthys. Many lands have folktales of these magnificent magical monsters, they feature in heraldry in many nations, and everywhere serve as shorthand for ferocity and cunning, but nature has precious little to offer that equals such mythical splendor. Fierce reptiles may be found on most continents, some even of estimable size, but in the wilds, only a few diminutive flying lizards with canny magical instincts testify to the possible origin of such myths.

The myth of dragonkind left its most obvious mark upon the Maritime Republic of Bassiden. The populace here has long borne witness to occasional births of people with reptilian wings, usually of imposing stature, and irregularly with horns or claws, and the cultural lens of various ages has alternately viewed such specimens with fear or reverence. Under the old Basse kings, such individuals were gathered and bred for their monstrous distinctions to serve as the royal family's elite guard—and, as the royal line descended into debauchery and corruption, its most signal oppressors of the people. After the fall of the monarchy, such as still survive of the supposedly draconic line live in obloquy, if not necessarily under any official legal sanction, and are often compelled to seek their fortune beyond the island nation's cultural grasp.

Fey: The fair folk are known of on most continents of Venthys, though "known" rarely translates in this context to "understood." Reputedly immortal, possessed of powerful magics and supreme glamour, the nature of the fey remains an enduring mystery to those outside their circles. It is not uncommon for enterprising humans to seek them out for some great magical boon, but myriad folktales warn of the risks of dealing with these exotic creatures, for their schemes are subtle and their appetites unearthly. Few would deny the allure of their supernatural elegance, but just as few should claim insight into their motives.

Some mundane varieties of fairy have been known to make homes in the fields and forests of the mortal world, but the great fey lords dwell within hidden, private kingdoms, secreted away in obscure corners of the wilderness. Entry to these enclaves is often secured by some arcane key or method. The appearance of such portals can vary in style according to region, but experienced observers can learn to recognize their signs on the mortal side. Those few reliable explorers who claim to have visited and safely returned from a fairy realm concur that spatial relationships within bear little relation to the dimensions without—a sprawling fairy kingdom might be found nestled in what, in mortal space, is a modest forest glen. Facts such as these spur arcanists to no end of debate about what the full extent of a fairy lord's power could possibly be.

Superficial similarities between the fey and elvenkind have led some human scholars to posit that the two races share a common lineage, though the elves themselves are not forthcoming on the matter.

Humanoids and Monstrous Humanoids: Humans and elves are the principal architects of civilization on Venthys, and the latter only appear to be native to Nomenar. These social races may lay claim to the bulk of recorded history and construction upon the face of Venthys, but they are not quite alone in possessing intelligence enough to leave their mark upon the world. Merfolk are documented well enough by reliable observers as to be accepted as more than just sailors' stories, though attempts at communication with these deep-sea dwellers have been rare and confusing.

Harpies loiter on the fringes of nearly every human settlement, following colonists across new frontiers, and are oft compared without pretense of charitable opinion to rats in their familiarity as secondhand beneficiaries of human expansion. This all-female avian race's dependence on outside sources for mates ensures an indissoluble tether to human society, though their oft crude and belligerent behavior typically guarantees that interaction occurs only in the hinterlands of civilization. It is an unusual harpy that makes an attempt to assimilate into urban society, and even less common the specimen that is accepted.

Rarer specimens of intelligent life are often rumored to occupy their own niches in exotic, far-flung reaches of the world, but most Verdani are usually inclined to dismiss tales of snake-eyed or fox-tailed people in hidden enclaves across the sea as so much gossip.

Magical Beasts: Venthys's share of magical animals is as broad as its array of more mundane wildlife. Many varieties of animals with innate supernatural talents and intelligence superior to their unprepossessing counterparts populate the woods and hills of Verdana, though they usually share their mundane brethren's predilection for avoiding urbanized regions. Some few magical species have proved to have potential for being tamed and usefully employed by humans. Many more, however, prove much more readily assimilated into the reclusive courts of the fey lords than into any human community. A common speculation of naturalists is that Verdana's magical species in fact originated in the fey courts, and were only later introduced to (or escaped into) the mortal world.

Oozes: Though not common, oozes are known of on Venthys. Animated as they are by naught but an unthinking instinct for consumption, whether magical byproduct or natural scavenger, they are universally reviled as pests.

Outsiders: Creatures from outside the realms of men or fey remain a subject of debate throughout the mortal world. In some social groups, such summoning might be revered as an act of divine communion. In others, the products of such spells might be written off as merely a concrete but temporary manifestation of the caster's will. Conversations with such summoned monsters as may be capable of speech often provoke evasive responses, a trend which the skeptics conclude demonstrates the veracity of the latter theory, as the summon rarely proves capable of knowing anything that the summoner could not.

Verdani clerics, however, owing to the capacity of skilled lay magicians to call forth beings remarkably close in form to that of the gods' servants as described in scripture, tend to hedge their bets on the former theory. Consequently, the ban of the church will come hard upon anyone who seems to exploit such entities for foul purposes.

Plants: Venthys boasts its diverse share of plantlife, some of it surprisingly mobile and carnivorous in the less cultivated fringes of the world, but none of it demonstrates any considerable degree of intelligence.

Undead: A seasoned traveler in Nomenar may distinguish two distinct brands of undead—the corporeal and the incorporeal. The latter, disembodied spirits of many varieties, are treated by the Verdani churches with a mixture of pity and dedicated opposition. Most malignant spirits, the theological authorities decree, maintain too strong a hold on the material world (whether due to unfinished personal business, emotional distress, or simple worldliness) to fully transition to their final reward beyond death, whichever that might be. Exorcism is an act of mercy, and undeath itself a state of confusion rather than of sinfulness—judgment is the business of gods, not of men, once the distressed spirit has been ushered gently but firmly out of the world.

Reanimated corpses receive no such regard, and are viewed as a grotesque affront to human dignity. Verdana's attitude towards the raising of undead often strains diplomacy with its southern neighbor, Isvenstahl. The Isveni are avid practitioners of necromancy. The Isveni belief that a departed family member's corpse could better be employed as an undying servant for surviving family than rotting in some dismal tomb is infamous in Verdana, and leads many Verdani to mutter darkly about all manner of yet more heinous practices that all are convinced must be gleefully perpetrated just across the border.

Self-aware undead of any kind are nearly unheard of on Venthys (ghosts, though often clearly possessing memories of their mortal lives, are just as obviously not in control of their own faculties). Notorious undead masterminds such as vampires and liches may be spoken of in folklore and myth, but they have no basis in accepted historical fact.

Vermin: Nomenar suffers as much as any other continent does from its myriad insects and arachnids, but few species are known to grow to sizes that could pose a direct mortal threat to a grown man. Far more concerning is the impact of agricultural pests upon crops and livestock.