Countries & Peoples

The Empire of Kimeros

Kimeros is a totalitarian theocracy. Its Empress is represented by the Bee: as in the configuration of insects, her place is static in the midst of the Spire in Sanctoris. She alone can bear children who will be heirs; but the power of channelling must be found in one of these children, and that child has always been a girl.

The religion is made of 12 Gods, but only Three are Ascendant, and worship of those three in particular is enforced by the Order of Paladins, a paramilitary group that is frequently made up of people who exhibit supernatural powers. Imueh is the least of these gods.

Deeply stratified, most of the population of Kimeros is poor labourers; although they are not so poor that they cannot afford wine or hair ribbons or so on; although lately it seems the prices rise higher, as taxes are raised because Kimeros is not winning its war against Elkushath. Not that the populace would necessarily know that, as the Holy Orders are extremely adept at propaganda. Human sacrifices of war captives every month feed the magic of the Ziggurat/Spire and also keeps both the populace and enemies cowed.

Sanctoris is the religious heart of Kimeros. Everything present about religion in Kimeros is enforced and blown up and intensified in Sanctoris. Religious festivals happen often—sacrifices happen every time one of the moons is eclipsed—and are drivers of industry as well as keeping the gods honoured and mollified. Sanctoris is the heart of the world (not actually) and it keeps balance so that Chaos will not overtake the universe. In the printing-houses of Sanctoris propaganda is churned out faster than it can be delivered. Adherance to the 12 gods is mandatory; adherence to any other deity (Si-ussa of the Elkushath, Krakeeth of the harpies of the northern mountains) is strictly forbidden, including elevating any of the pantheon of 12 over Sainnulim the Moon God. Peoples with beastly appearances, such as the harpies and bearmen of the north, the koasps of the west, the catpeople in the south, are forbidden from entering Sanctoris.

The Elkushath

The mighty Elkushath’s terrain varies from swamp to jungle/rainforest. In general, it is extremely lush and cut through with rivers and tributaries. Buildings are frequently made of wood or fibres and rebuilt every so often; there are idioms about the instability of stone, of how its permanence is illusion: the forests have laid low many ziggurats and other such ambitious building projects time and again. Elkushathi mages have leveraged the hungry plants of Elkushath to destroy the settlements of Kimeros over the ages.

Khorvon

What had been three countries of mixed sentient species have shrunk back under the Kimeroan threat. They live beneath the low hills. This is where Kimeros draws their borders, but the Khorvonians remember a time when they were ascendant. The rough scrubland in the south is hard living; the most fertile areas are in the west towards the Mulac River Delta where most of the population is. The capitals of the three countries were taken by the Kimeroans; so the new capital is a hastily-erected city called Rurin, safe in the border hills, up high enough to be defensible.

Much of Khorvon is a mix of the cat people, the Murnash, humans of several different ethnic groups, and koasps that speak a unique language that has some overlap with the Elkushath trade tongue by way of the Mulac River Delta. Kharvon koasps tend to have drabber colourations if they are brown, but they also tend to have combinations very white and black feathers/fur/scales that are very striking. You seldom see koasps in Khorvon with any real colours, although sometimes desaturated green.

The Murnash come in many types and colourations, but they are always bipedal. Half Murnash, half humans are viable offspring; but they’re usually not very fertile. In all three countries, first daughters are never allowed to marry outside of their species (unless they’re already a hybrid), because all the Khorvon countries are matrilineal (one reason they staunchly oppose Kimeros, even as Kimeros steals their land year by year and raids their fields). Murnash often have longer hair on their head, they only have one pair of ears, set a touch higher than human ears on their head and more mobile, they always have tails, and they may or may not have retractable claws. Likewise they may have 2-8 nipples, but only the upper two will be human-like breasts.

Itil Princedom

Far, far to the west of the Elkushath lies a different kind of rainforest. The Itil Princedom, a coalition of tribes that no longer make war amongst each other, rule here. They live in a hotter climate than even Elkushath, and wear even less clothing. They have limited metallurgy, but they are masters of flint- and obsidian-knapping, of creating astounding jewellery, and of building remarkably cool, sturdy buildings with the wood around them.

Amzuq

High in the mountains very far north of the Itil Princedom’s forests, the Amzuq live at the level of the clouds. It is cold, and they are master weavers of wool. They live peaceful, harsh lives amongst the unforgiving landscape of the sky, and counted amongst their folk are harpies.

To the north of their world lies immense ocean; to the east immense jungle. To the south there are smaller, lesser mountains and the people who inhabit them, and then the Itil beyond that.

The Amzuq are astronomers, artisans, herders, and they grow over five hundred varieties of potato. They herd alpaca and llama with the help of wooly mountain dogs whose fur is also spun into wool. They raise fat guinea-pig-like animals for meat, and also keep extraordinarily colourful chickens.

Their houses are not tall; if they want elevation they just build their round stone houses on a higher peak.

Their burial grounds are tombs carved into the rockside of what is, even for the Amzuq, a sheer cliff.