Setting:Unified Setting/Solaris
Part of the Unified Setting for /tg/
The homeland of the Humans in this setting. It is a continent fraught with religious bickering, politics, and other stuff. This is the worst summary description ever. Someone please fix it.
Geographical Regions
- Olympia - the central area of Solaris, mostly wide plains, rolling hills and shallow valleys with the occasional geographical feature like a mountain.
- Elysia - northern region comprised mainly of wide flat fertile grasslands.
- Tartarus - southern regions, mostly mountains and rocky hills.
Political Regions of Solaris
Federated Kingdoms of Solaris
- Solus – central authority of the Federation. A land of many districts ruled by noble knights and their great King. The capital of Invicta is a monumental fortress-city built in a vast lake formed in an extinct volcano.
- Vyntril – coastal democratic state flourishing on naval trade. Looking to expand their territories in the nearby marshlands and the Human Colonies.
- Baetica – a collection of several dozen farmsteads, towns and ports under a loose pseudo-communist leadership. Happily overproduce essential goods for the rest of the Federation in exchange for exotic imports from Vyntril.
- Gorgossa – militaristic state resentful of membership in the alliance. They wish to expand their holdings in various regions but are currently restrained by their neighbouring states. On the verge of a minor war with Vyntril over ownership of several small island chains.
- Aurelia – a theocratic authoritarian aristocracy. Smallest of the ‘major’ nations holding massive political power in the Federation and abroad.
- Thrace and Achaea – contested territories. Claimed by both Vyntril and Gorgossa. Each is a loose conglomeration of scattered settlements owned by both nations as well as independent towns and villages.
Osroene
Former province of Solus. Legislated by consensus as a neutral nation representing the individual members of the Federated Kingdoms and the foreign Elvish peoples. Under constant socio-political tension.
Moesia
Fledgling nation initially founded by Vyntril traders. Later claimed by Gorgossa and then by the Silvorian Empire. Currently an independent state under contention.
Furnshakt
"Furnshakt: An uncivilized region of wilderness inhabited by bandits, raiders, primitive tribes and beasts." - Entire entry in the Encyclopedia Solaris (Universal Export Edition, Approved by the Aurelian Commission for the Prevention of Moral Decay), Baetica Publishing.
That is the official line at least. Other races are a bit confused as to why the humans are spending so much effort establishing overseas colonies when there is a large, unclaimed territory on their own continent.
In reality the land is claimed, by the inhabitants. The Federated Kingdoms try to ignore Furnshakt and derisively refer to their heathen southern neighbors as furriners, a term which has also been applied to other races as shorthand for outsiders. Those from Furnshakt are called barbarians due to their their attire, fighting styles and beliefs. Mostly their beliefs. Unlike the Federated Kingdoms, the people of Furnshakt do not follow the northern Aurelian sun-god religion. They stay true to the old ways and worship the spirits of nature.
This has naturally caused a great deal of friction (not to mention major wars) in the past. The north and the south have successfully ignored each other since the founding of the Federated Kingdoms, though factions in Aurelia, Gorgossa and Vyntril have all agitated for a more aggressive policy for varying reasons.
Life in Furnshakt
While their northern neighbors plot and scheme amongst themselves, the barbarians of Furnshakt go about their daily business, which mostly consists of survival. Life in their mountainous land (dubbed Tartarus by northern geographers) is hard. It is made harder by the fact that the small villages that survive by farming, ranching, and hunting are all enmeshed in a violent, complicated social structure dating back centuries. Interlocking and overlapping family, tribal and clan loyalties and grievances require every Furnshaktian to be ever-ready for combat. While utterly opaque to outsiders, the inhabitants are always aware of the identity, location and skill at arms of their allies and enemies at all times.
Despite the lurid publications of the north, these ancient grudges rarely get out of hand. Furnshaktians know the price of combat first-hand. They instinctively organize their lives to avoid death, if not bloodshed. It is considered normal and healthy for younger members of a clan to do battle and hone their skills with each other, but maturity and skill brings the wisdom to avoid fights that aren't necessary to defend your hearth and kin.
Furnshakt does not lack for such fights. In addition to feuds between clans and tribes that are unavoidable, the continent is under attack. While the threat of another Aurelian-inspired crusade still looms, new menaces have arisen. Due to their proximity to the Sea of Ghosts, Furnshakt is frequently beset by necro-storms which awake the hungry dead. Devout northerners point to this as proof that the Furnshakt religion is no better than foul necromancy, echoing a common belief that necromancy attracts the storms. In recent years a new danger, the squid-headed illithid wielding nightmarish lobster armor, have begun to raid coastal communities.
The people of Furnshakt are ready and eager for these fights. Their culture and religion hone the legendary battle skills that have kept them independent from the north for centuries. There are few universal constants amongst the tribes, but one is the trial of adulthood. No child, male or female, can be considered an adult unless they have bested a fearsome opponent. The ways this is interpreted are numerous. Some tribes hold annual moots for the sole purpose of allowing their children to batter and bloody each other. Others require the pelt of a dangerous animal, the killing of an enemy in combat, destruction of a hungry dead or in some rare and decadent cases, a significant wager in a test of skill.
Moots
Moots deserve some comment as they are the closest thing to a Furnshaktian government recognizable by their northern neighbors. A moot is a meeting to settle an issue. Anyone can attend, though they usually have regional scope. Moots affecting a few villages can be common, while moots affecting all of Tartarus are legendary and are called once a century at best. A moot is sacred ground and no violence can be done there, nor to anyone marking themselves as traveling to or from a moot. Violation of this law means death, as does abusing the markings of a moot pilgrim.
A moot is presided over by a council of elders, selected by mutual agreement amongst those who have a claim to the title. The jockeying for position on a moot council can sometimes take days. This is one of those rare occasions when groups violently opposed to each other can drink, marry off sons and daughters, and trade together in peace. Once a council has reached agreement on its membership the moot is opened and the question is argued before the council by all who wish to speak.
Oddly enough, the sacred moots have only one power and that is to dismiss the issue. In these rare cases the council declares the issue null and void. All factions are required to abandon their advocacy, take no further action and ignore the issue if it comes up in the future. Such rulings are rare though. Instead the moots provide a forum for an issue to be raised, under the examination and questioning of the wise, for all to hear and decide upon. Once a moot is finished each individual, family, tribe and clan is to decide for themselves where the course of wisdom lays.
Most moots are called only to settle disputes, and to provide a gathering opportunity for clans and tribes that don't normally interact. Legendary moots have provided a forum for warchiefs to inspire and unite all of Furnshakt behind them in mighty wars against northern aggression.
Religion of Furnshakt
The people of Furnshakt only lived (and comfortably so) under an anarchy that would make a Vyntril pamphleteer blush. That might be enough to turn their northern neighbors against them. But it is a difference in faith that has lead to the most friction.
Furnshakt rejects the Aurelian faith. While tribes differ on the existence, power and respect due to the solar deity, the northern religion holds no attraction to them. Instead they worship the spirits of nature, who dwell in their midst. This is sensible as these spirits are wise, powerful, live right next to them and are terrific.
Terrific, as has been mentioned elsewhere, means to inspire terror. Nature-spirits are not lovey-dovey hippie shit. They are nature, red in tooth and claw. To appease the spirits of nature requires you to enter their world. It is a world that knows no bargaining or reason. There is no pity or remorse or fear. There is only survival or death. It has been said that the people of Furnshakt are hard. In comparison, their shamans and vision-questers are pure diamond.
The rituals of those who seek to appease or seek the favor of nature-spirits are too gruesome for publication. Suffice to say there are many from Furnshakt who bear terrible scars with great pride, confident that the torment they underwent brought great blessings upon their people.
While utterly abhorrent to followers of the sun-god, even those of Furnshakt have begun to question their faith. Of late the nature-spirits have grown more demanding in terms of flesh and pain. Some have whispered that continual battering of necro-storms have driven the gods mad. The increasingly grim shamans who deal with the nature-spirits deny this. They claim instead that the increasing assaults by lobster-armored illithids and Aurelian arrogance are signs of impending danger. The blood-thirst of the gods is not a sign of madness, but a sign that they are preparing for war.
Other residents
Humans are not the only inhabitants of Furnshakt. In addition to terrible beasts, wild goblins also dwell here. Farming, living, raiding and occasional coastal trading, they are accepted by the humans as just another clan. Like their ghetto-dwelling cousins, the goblins of Furnshakt have adapted to the dominant culture and follow the customs and laws of their hosts to the letter, lest they lose a refuge needed by the sinking of their homeland. Humans and goblins have even married for the purpose of cementing alliances, though it is unrecorded if such marriages were ever consummated.
Rebels against the Federated Kingdoms have also found a home in Furnshakt. Cynics say this is nothing new and say the furriners are nothing more than the last batch of rebels who rejected the Aurelian sun-god and headed south to find freedom. This is never said near anyone who looks like a Furnshaktian. The rebels run the gamut from idealists fighting against the status quo to opportunistic criminals looking for a safe location from which to plot and raid. While various factions have raised alarm at such settlements, the wise heads of Solus prefer to wait, expecting correctly that neighboring tribes will deal with troublesome settlers themselves.
There are some naturalists who have claimed that deep in Furnshakt one can find evidence of dwarven and cogryn trade and influence. These are universally dismissed as the fever-dreams of madmen, unprepared for the rigors of exploration.
Related
- Drow perspective on humanity: There_goes_the_neighborhood
[Category:Unified Setting]]