Author's Preface
Life gets long with each passing year, and lessons grow ever distant. Lucky for me and my wife, I am perhaps the most skilled narrator of knowledge and gossip in Ilian history and I have no fear of the might of the quill. In this volume and across its future updates, I hope to tell the tale of the world as I have confirmed my learned knowledge in travel, dedication, and patience. Suitable perhaps for future dwellers of Khah Rukk to fall down and learn a thing or two from about the civilization in their skies. My wife's commentary will, no doubt, leak its way in. She is my soulmate, and we share absolutely all of the joys of life. To the seas and to the stars. To wake next to you every morning even in the afterlife. I love you, J. And I dedicate every story in this volume to you. I've no doubt they all depend on you anyway.
~ V.R.
Delight you now in the fruits of my travels and research:
The Fourteenth Edition of this Continuously Evolving Work.
Basic Ilian Geopolitics
The Planet Ilia Khah
On a rocky mass in the middle of the habitable zone of the red dwarf star Khah we lay our every everyday scene. Ilia Khah is home to a shallow ocean, whose deepest trenches are just shy of two kilometers. The slightly acidic ocean covering the vast majority of the surface. However, at a latitude approximately halfway between equator and geographic north lies a large archipelago. A reasonably tight cluster of islands that have spanned all of civilization for all time. The rest of the planet is home to an ocean void that is simply not traveled, named the Lyndrake Expanse for the Emberlynnie tiefling ruler, explorer, and peace bringer Damiano Lyndrake.
The First Five Ilian Kingdoms
Millennia before the dynasties of Lyndrake or Vox, I simply assert the order of the world turned over and the Ilian people came to be on five inner main islands. If you struggle with my flat assertion, simply ask my wife, and she will gladly take my side. From Seraphora came Humans, Halflings, Dwarves, Drow Elves, and Kenku. From Crystalis came all other Elves as well as Gnomes, Yuan Ti, and Tabaxi. From Ebonreach came Orcs, Satyrs, Goblins, and Minotaurs. From Verdantia came Aarakocra, Lizardfolk, Triton, Kobolds, and Genasi. From Emberlyn came Dragonborn and Tieflings. As the people filled all of the land their Ilian home could offer, there quickly became war and anguish as the ancestral kingdoms tried to grow their influence and territory. This was the way of the world until Damiano Lyndrake's father called the council at Avaloch.
The Rebirth Of Civilization At Avaloch
At Lyndrake's behest, the ruling monarchs of his time met at Avaloch, where a state of peace was negotiated as the world united under the Avaloch Accords. Hope and harmony were born from millennia of iniquity and callousness. The five kingdoms persisted only as lines on maps, and ruling families kept their lines as figureheads. However, major world politics was in decades thereafter primarily settled to a pseudodemocratic state, in which each Accordian city-state or island is essentially free to run itself its own unique way with some small say in how things are handled at the largest levels. This state of affairs has persisted in time since.
What Was Once The Closest Thing To Panilian Religion
For as long as there has been history, oral or otherwise, the five kingdoms have agreed in common on Laknoits, a monotheistic cult of dark desire for secret wisdom and gifts of joy and power in the name of a deity called Cognocrux, or simply ⊕. Worshippers of nature, of Khah Rukk, or of any other deities were once considered heretics, their practices frowned upon to a level not far from criminalization. However, the common religious lines between the ancestral kingdoms eventually became the breeding grounds for a political power grab that has mostly permanently cast Laknoits out of public majority favor. It is still, by far, the largest single religion on a cultural level. On the holy second, third, fifth, seventh, eleventh, and thirteenth mornings each week the holy cry of "Enu Maseti" rings through hallowed halls in all of inhabited Ilia Khah. But the vast majority of the world's clergy are the faithful of something else. I myself have had run-ins with the Laknoits clergy on nearly every island, and they sure know how to throw an awkward welcoming party.
Birth Of Our History And Horology
The Birth Of A New Calendar
The Common Ilian Calendar System (CICS) came in the Year Restriction Prior 3 as a proposition of Damiano Lyndrake as part of the influential Lyndrake Plea for a Shapelier World address. This speech was given on M07W2D03, shortly before he embarked on the first and only expedition into the Lyndrake Expanse ever to return. Lyndrake called for a system that was easy to grasp between languages, in hopes to bring the different races and kingdoms of the world together in unity, as was part of his larger message as a whole in the translatable and surviving portions of the address. There are, unfortunately, no surviving scholars of Ancestral Infernal. Even my darling wife, with a gift for languages, has tried and failed to crack this mystery like a ruined Verdantial brunch.
The Vox-Lyndrake Restriction
On M06W3D11, Year Restriction Zero, Damiano Lyndrake and fewer than one third of the members of his original crew returned to Emberlyn. In their delirious and unpredictable state, they were an embarrassment to the ruling members of the Lyndrake family. In response, the Lyndrakes quickly stepped down from their seat of influence to fade their family name into obscurity. In their wake, they passed off a hasty coronation for a new leader in the young dragonborn court advisor Veritas Vox. Though, the new ruling Vox family saw an omen in the tale of the untimely end of a Lyndrake dynasty, promptly issuing two decrees on the matter on the day of the coronation. The first declared a broad warning to would-be ocean explorers, suggesting a restriction to travel only on the basis of absolute need. The second named the outer Ilian seas in honor of the fate to befall Lyndrake and company. I doubt my career would have made it very far were I responsible for cataloguing all that vast ocean nonsense beyond the Vox border that encircles Ilia Khah. Just ask my wife, who complains about how comprehensive and time consuming my work is as is.
The Subdivisions Of The Ilian Year
The ten months in Lyndrake's Common Ilian Calendar System are unnamed, being referred to only by their position in order during the year. The same is true of each of thirteen days in a week, also named after cardinal numbers. For this reason, the four weeks in a month are also considered as having been given names with cardinal numbers, indicating if a date is in the first, second, third, or fourth thirteen-day week in a given month. One notes that each measure is of definite size, and our 520 day Ilian year is split into ten months of four weeks of thirteen twenty-six hour days.
The Epochs Of Ilian Years
Ilian years are numbered and split into two broad categories, adjacent in time and separated by the return of the Damiano Lyndrake expedition, and, in particular, the the first decree of Vox fifteen days thereafter. The observed effect that this decree had on the Ilian perception of the size of the disposable world at large marked the schism, and it became convention to number CICS years as within the Restriction or Restriction Prior epoch. For such an impressive history before the restriction that I have traveled and experience, I believe this system is a work of true genius by Vox. I also believe this to be the only true genius move by Vox, but I am a mere scholar of the world's cultures and not of its politics. To be certain of the justification and rationality of my political views, just ask my wife, and she will assure you of all the things that make me right on all such matters.
Boat Stops
What Came Before The First Boat Stop
While every boat can be damaged to the point of stopping and needing immediate service, and in the past people have gladly offered their skills in exchange for coin, the boat stop as we know it began with one of the shipbuilders who maintained the official fleet and flagship of Veritas Vox. Most are surprised to learn that Korban Fyar was hired on accident, originally applying for a janitorial role and getting mistakenly assigned to assist Vox's crew with repairs. New guy status quickly wore off for Fyar, who took the assignment and ran with it flawlessly. Within two weeks, he was moved up to the second of two pay grades for Ebonreacher government artificers at the time. Six months later, he was given a bold new assignment. Drawing upon his relations with the team and skill for managing complex fleet repairs in record times, he was given the funds to plan a revolution in ship repairs. He went away for two months, emerging with something that greatly exceeded the expectations upon him.
The First Boat Stop
Fyar's new destination for quick, simple repairs done efficient was completely unprecedented. In his mind, a boat should be able to sail into an artificial channel to allow Fyar's crew to jump over. They would assess the ship and signal ahead for what tools and supplies they would need. The ship would spend thirty-six minutes in the winding channel, in which Fyar believed most tasks could be completed. Then, the channel branched. For ships needing more work, there was a path leading to a more traditional dock not far on land from a large shipbuilder's warehouse. For ships that needed only that superficial work, they were directed on the path back out to sea before Fyar's crew would jump off and swim twenty feet to shore with their tools. The plan was greenlit, and it took only seven months for the Fyar Channel to be completed at Attoa in the Year Restriction 6. When word got out that there was a place not far from a large number of cargo routes returning to Ironklad in which a ship could receive simple repairs without need to anchor, Fyar's popularity exploded. He gave interviews and eventually inspired many more people like him to try their hand at a booming new kind of business.
The Present Day Boat Stop Experience
Of course, it is completely impractical and inappropriate for every boat stop to follow the model laid out by Fyar's experiment at Attoa Key. Nobody had the time, money, or space to build the channels. In fact, the only other somewhat similar boat stop is found at Launchpointe Pride, though even that boat stop will always involve a physical stop to turn back around and head out of what is more like an artificial narrow bay. For the rest of us, wayfinders of all walks of life have set up modest shacks spanning essentially any sufficiently safe and stable patch of coast. At all hours, you or your crew are welcome to float up and request assistance with major and minor problems. Some wayfinders prefer to work alone, being handed over the ship while you peruse the amenities in the boat stop. Normally, this includes a small shop and a place to take a nap. Wayfinders are also great sources of navigational aid, news on their island, and some fantastic stories and rumors acquired over their years of service. Every shipper surely has their favorite nearby stops or wayfinders on every leg of every journey, and the culture of boat stops has become as fundamental to Ilian culture as ocean travel between the islands themselves.
Cheap Entertainment
Introduction To Reality Chronicles
Published in magazines across Ilia are cartoonish accounts of the happenings of life, not unlike the concept of reality television. Productions are rather sensitive and have high budgets, supported by crowds that rush to purchase the latest editions of their favorite series. From cooking to farming to accounting, law, and science, Ilian people are able to sample a diverse and highly storyboarded set of lives and livelihoods, all without ever venturing beyond their local newsmarkets.
Chronicler Crews And Three Kobolds
The chronicles are recorded as their events happen, teams of so-called chronicler crews following the action and documenting it to send to teams of editors who will produce the final product to be read across Ilia Khah. Every production company has secrets as to exactly what process they use to document a story, but there is not an extreme amount of variation. One of the larger and more transparent companies, Three Kobolds Productions, sends teams of vertically stacked Kobolds in multiples of three to chronicle events. A stack of three will collaboratively write or draw descriptions of events on parchment, working together to fill in great detail as many as two sheets front-and-back every eleven seconds.
Celebrity Culture
While some day-in-the-life type productions never escape a certain niche readership, others are massive. Some examples include In Khah's Shadow, a cheesy relationship drama about four sassy astronomer mages falling in and out of love between classes at Juliadull, and Restaurant Infernal, in which celebrity chef Roderick Irvane works to reinvent failing restaurants. It is not uncommon for large fandoms to turn obsessive, and in certain cases legal action has been required to respect the individuality and privacy of reality chronicle stars. There is increasing demand for protective infrastructure following the attempted assassination of Roderick Irvane by a food critic over a joke that got edited into an edition of Restaurant Infernal. On the whole, there are legitimate safety concerns to be associated with being featured in a reality chronicle, especially as production companies are not yet obligated to be even adjacent to truthful.
Reality Chronicles And The News
Here, there is very little overlap. Most news is disseminated in newspapers run by separate groups, and there has been very little experimentation with presenting everyday stories in chronicles. The one running exception is the break of a major world news story, in which special chronicler crews are often dispatched to produce and sell their own unique take that paints a more vivid picture than standard newsprint tends to allow.
Emergency Acrobats
Motivation
Much like the chromatelegraph, the Emergency Acrobatics Ring was inspired by the dedication, passion, talent, and honed skill observed by traveling historians studying the ilianharmonious operations at Beaumercy. While not intentional, the fast pace of Beaumercy rescue teams required much of the acrobatics that EAR trains into their first responders. When well rehearsed and executed with sufficient care, it was known to be efficient and effective at solving a crisis and also seemed to draw a silent sort of attention from the crowd. Once this pattern was observed by the right people, the core idea behind the founding of EAR was inevitable.
Organizational Structure
EAR is run by a charter that is renewed and updated by senators at Avaloch every twelve years. There is no force of law binding any emergency team on any individual island to act or train by EAR principles. At best, there are certain financial incentives. Though, these were only ever implemented after emergency acrobat training was essentially universal among relief teams. Consequently, its ratification at Avaloch has little effect on the actual approaches taken by various ilianharmonious organizations. What really impacts the world is the spirit of the emergency acrobats. This is unlikely to ever fully disappear.
The Acrobatics
When disaster strikes, emergency acrobats are there to shine. Their ultimate goal is to respond to the nature of the crisis, but meanwhile they have to fight against crowds and pandemonium. For centuries, setting up intentionally flashy equipment and performing daring stunts at every step has been the defining characteristic of the emergency acrobats. Their stunts have always demanded a sort of silent, still attention. Onlookers tend to prefer to watch the show than tangle themselves in anything too dangerous. Consequently, they don't get in the way.
Music and Noise
Emergency acrobatics is supposed to be a quiet practice in order to help emergency acrobats communicate vocally. As per the last fifteen decades of EAR charter history, this is a non-negotiable component of practice. However, at least within the islands of old Verdantia, emergency acrobats do tend to find themselves accompanied by music. While the musicians are almost never hired so as to avoid losing out on key grants from Avaloch, emergency acrobats often train with musicians to rehearse tunes intentionally composed to stitch well with certain rescue acts.
Food Superlatives
Ebonreach
Exotic butters. To the ancient or modern citizen of Ebonreach, the point of butter is to deliver a unique and vibrant flavor to a plate. They take their butters very seriously, and have a popular butter recipe for essentially any flavor you would want to infuse. My wife is Ebonreacher by birth, hailing from Mallay, and she deplores with our every relaxing breakfast how fast my distaste for their butters can sour the mood.
Verdantia
Soggy bread. Nobody really knows why this food is so prominent here. But it is. People from Verdantia really love to pair a plate of food with a soggy bread, any time of the day. Usually, it's a brown bread. Some past historians from other kingdoms have noted that the tradition seems to go very quickly from having no traceable written references to being almost ubiquitous about the time a political hit piece about the ruling family and their preference for burnt bread as well as other food oddities was spread through the populace. The exact nature of the connection is extremely hard to study, especially as the records in Verdantia don't seem to mention such a hit piece at all. Though, it is suspected by some holding fringe positions today that this has much more to do with the leadership in Verdantia trying to protect their image. I certainly cannot deny to have a Verdantial's palate for bread served in this manner, forming the basis of my breakfasttime retort as my wife puts the latest butter I refuse to try on her hot, dry toast.
Emberlyn
Nutella. The dark hazelnut plant needed to produce it only really likes to grow in cracks between volcanic rock at Comaecis Reach. And Emberlyn are the ones who owned that island and Infernal Talon through basically all of the world's wartime history. So they farmed the plant and incorporated nutella into their diets, usually on toast or with certain cuts of pork. A food item myself and my wife will for once agree on at the breakfast table. It's chocolate. It's hazelnut. It's delicious.
Seraphora
Rekini. A pasta shape that looks like a hybrid between farfalle and a cone. Typically served with Relil, a blue sauce that tastes of lemon, basil, and vanilla. But, as is only right, people do pair all shapes with all sauces, and nobody ever bats an eye or gets offended at the concept of other sauces with this shape.
Crystalis
Rock candy. A hard, sweet treat that grows naturally from sugar-rich deposits in algae pools deep below the capital city of Crystalwynd. The modern process is a bit more refined to produce and export the substance more cheaply, with artificial algae pools being maintained in multi-floor facilities above ground. Today, the original algae pools aren't harvested for rock candy basically at all. The only noteworthy traditional rock candy exports are being done in artificial pools in the mountains of Seraphora. And what a site they were to behold on my visit several decades ago now.
Gender And Family
The Role Of Feminism In Society
The fight for justice on the basis of gender was rather short-lived in the time the subject was relevant. The kingdoms of Seraphora, Ebonreach, and Verdantia had been since their inception under the order of strict gynarchy, so at the time of the drafting of the Avaloch Accords the majority of representatives present were women. Unrest in all three matriarchal kingdoms as well as concern amongst voices present from Crystalis and Emberlyn solidified under new Avaloch law a state of gender neutrality on all government matters. Ilian feminists organize in rather subtle ways absent fiery passion, intending to be a passive source of gender equity maintenance by way of education. My father-in-law actually started the department devoted to gender studies, law, and history in the Aore Academie.
Children And The Family Unit
Ilian families have very little to do with children. That is not to imply that children are neglected, however, but only to remark on the fact that, from the first of the year until the first day of harvest, children spend their every morning and afternoon in schools. This I have observed everywhere, to the credit of Vox and Lyndrake. During their time at home, children have very little in the way of responsibility, and it is considered quite shameful to recruit the help of children to run one's home. This includes the school break during harvest and most of winter. Travel is often considered a rite of passage, people reclaiming control of their small world by experiencing as much of its land and local culture as they can. Consequently, it is uncommon to keep extremely close ties with too many of one's blood relatives through youth and into adulthood, and Togetherness gatherings are often quite complicated as a result for those families who do practice. This brings about an unusually strong implicit notion of the found family, in which friendship dependency networks form the foundation upon which broader Ilian society ultimately stands.
The Criminalization Of Sex Work
Laknoits leaders are currently pushing very hard to criminalize sex work with motivations not obviously rooted in established Laknoits canon. Many on the legislative end of things (such as in forums with members of IPS) will claim that Cognocrux believes in sexuality as something rather personal. To meddle it with money is thereby likened to a transactional assault on the ability of parties involved to enjoy what they might rightfully derive. Whatever the true reasons, this push has been ratified in both the first and the second accords of Avaloch, and this has greatly inconvenienced both myself and my wife throughout our marriage. However, society as a whole in the wake of Lyndrake's Plea has been resistant to this in very loud pockets, and there are large public funds and support for a resistance movement. A very popular innovation in resistance practice in the last century is known as the spite brothel, in which a traveling family collective of full-service sex workers of all races and genders will announce in underground venues their intent to host a brothel in an abandoned or derelict religious temple or holy site for three to four consecutive evenings. This practice has for several decades running caused a legislative stalemate, as resources are pushed toward a crackdown of each spite brothel and away from the goal of total criminalization. They seem to pop up like weeds that die quickly and make lots of money doing it, money that is spent on raising weeds elsewhere.
The History Of Sailing
What Should Have Been But Wasn't
The modern traveler or coastal inhabitant will encounter dozens of sailing vessels every single day. If you are as active and with the sort of view myself and my wife have access to at home, that number easily soars past one hundred. But many of the youngsters to whom wind and well-understood currents as means of travel are taken for granted might be surprised to learn just how recently we as a society learned to sail. I will aside that the story of how we mapped the currents for their use in making sailing even more efficient was done in spite of my old rival in someone called Captain Tolson, whose sad story I only wish were appropriate to detail here. For thousands of years, none of five ancestral kingdoms had the spark of invention it would eventually take not to overlook this obvious solution. There are sparse depictions of experiments in sailing dating back to the time just before the first accords, though even the Lyndrake expedition was too early to make legitimate use of the technology. It would still be a century and a half too early. Nowhere else but at Ironklad would the technology take off, providing subsidies used to siphon engineers from Cantank and put their minds to work inventing a revolution in ocean travel that still carries us forth today. About three hundred years ago, in the Year Restriction 138, the shipyard at Cantank produced its first vessel built without rowing capabilities and the world's first pure sailing cargo vessel.
The People Who Made It So
The Mayor of Ironklad at the time, Butch Chastity, was famous for being the first mayor not to be born on the island of Pelray's Ban. Their election was not exactly controversial or unpopular, but their shift in shipping policies certainly was. They made it clear that they believed their own home of Cookie Cay had better engineers studying at better schools of building and design. And they did everything in their power to bring Cantank to Ironklad. It was a successful experiment in the end, of course, but it did cause some major upset and also inspired Ironklad to impose term limits on mayors. The project only really gained momentum after a local engineer was given oversight of what were referred to as the "foreign projects." That engineer, Dath Rhoulark, was my wife's great, great, great, great, great grandfather. And he was the one who vetoed the rowing backup design on that first sailing ship, the Butterlogger. He only gave it his signature of approval when the big shots from Cantank agreed to risk everything. He thought he was making an impressive power play. But all he really did was prove Mayor Chastity right.
The Ice Cream Bicycle
A Forgotten History
Perhaps an interesting side note in describing this piece of Ilian society is the complete and total loss of any historical records surrounding the depiction of bicycles. Believe me, I have tried everything and gone everywhere to get to the bottom of this. Yet, if the key lies at Skaldig, so too shall I let it die there. There are sporadic depictions of modern bicycles first, followed by penny farthings and tricycles in the centuries to follow, before eventually the bike we know today seems to win out and persists.
Basic History
In the Year Restriction 438, a busker from New Ashenfire by the name of Singe thought it would be fun to try and expand into some new markets on bicycle. The basic idea was to take a collection of homemade ice cream pops and transport them around by way of a loud, bumpy ride with an icebox on the front of his bicycle, shouting his purpose to the streets and hoping people would flag him down. He has since confessed to stealing his first ice box, which, fun fact, belonged to my wife's aunt Eliss.
Expand Or Die
Singe made enough money to negotiate ownership of a house in the wealthiest district in New Ashenfire within his first month. He chose to mostly retire from delivery work, instead hiring a fleet of bicycles and riders and working out of his own home making the ice cream pops full time. Within the first two years of operation, Singe's business was one of the highest grossing businesses in Emberlyn and had expanded beyond his home island. There were some cries of worry about the pace at which Singe was acquiring wealth and massively shifting the balance of power in the dessert industry. Among the most vocal was Singe himself, who sought a referendum in his hometown to elect a small committee to take over his company and decide on a business model to carry operations forward. In his words in an interview with a local paper, he stated feelings of overwhelm at what had grown from something meant to be mostly hobbyistic in nature. The committee eventually decided to break up and give up, failing to silence the public's concerns and leaving a gap to be filled by more local endeavors.
The Present Day Business
Currently, ice cream bicycles operate on two thirds of the islands in the Ilian archipelago. Each island hosting bicycles is home to a production cooperative of local farmers and chefs making unique local flavors. Riders are also made up of local paid volunteers, who take pre-filled ice box kits and attach them to their own bicycles, trying to make sales in exchange for half the money they helped to take in on a given day. The rest went back into kitchens and farms across the town in which the ice box kits were being made and filled. Some stations make the effort to streamline their operations for profit, but this never really took off on the smaller scale. On larger scales, though, many local island and city governments are capitalizing on the popularity of the ice cream bicycle in order to acquire funds and pass bonds to support the building up of bicycle infrastucture. I believe my wife's hometown of Mallay was first to do this, but it seems like bike lanes are popping up next to horse lanes in urban centers everywhere.
Ilianharmony
Wartime Compassion During The Disunity
The origins of the term Ilianharmony lie long before Vox or Lyndrake, and this attitude persisted throughout the land wars of ages old. As the heraldries of territories were exchanged rapidly, people did not care about the nationality of others, as their own nationality was essentially fluid. The ruling class of the time only saw other nations as enemies so far as land and heraldry were concerned, very rarely expressing contempt toward people rather than toward the foreign flag they flew. To this end, the people of Ilia Khah were without real motivation to develop such strong and nationalistic enmity, instead focusing on caring for what they had at home. While it did not have the tools to reach between the islands, a local duty of care at the time was a foundation for greater Ilianharmony beyond Avaloch.
A Duty Of Care In Times Of Unity
Ilianharmony, broadly defined, is the spirit of goodness that Ilian peoples have made it sacred tradition to carry throughout our every day. While it is not light to make claims of causality, it can be said that a strong motivator for the prevalence of Ilianharmony is the ubiquity of the notion of a duty of care. Especially following Avaloch, society wanted to heal and grow together. As interdependence practices in markets and agriculture became more and more stable, it was clear that lasting peace was achievable through cooperation. When this realization became a point of pride for Ilian peoples, there was something to be said for an individual's motivations to behave as if they respected a duty of care.
Organized Ilianharmonious Volunteerism
One of the oldest organized efforts to practice Ilianharmony is the watch at Beaumercy, though their structure and selfless dedication have inspired many others to develop similar organizations, both locally in towns and on islands as well as between the islands. The largest of these organizations, Healing Hands Guild, was started by Laknoits leaders and operates local chapters on every island in Ilia Khah. The New Ilian United Kingdoms fund them very generously, and their operations save hundreds of lives each year. Most local organizations are not financially backed, and many rely on contributions from volunteer workers and community members alike. In fact, it is common for city organizations to start and maintain their own mutual aid funds based upon their preexisting infrastructure to collect income from the community in which they reside. Ilianharmonious work for pay is oxymoronic and practically unheard of, and one stands in awe at the scope of these volunteer efforts at all levels toward greater Ilianharmony.
Ilian Astronomy
Astronomy And Culture
What with so many glorious features, from Khah Bows to sister planet Khah Rukk, all dancing across the backdrop of a purple daytime sky or deep blood orange sunset, it is no surprise that a tradition of interest in the beauty and awe of celestial workings dates to antiquity. Early in the oral traditions of the peoples of all five kingdoms we see evidence of a culture in which great wizards and mages were the great scholars of astronomy. People used tools magical and nonmagical in tandem to explore every accessible detail. In fact, the earliest written account of the development of vision enhancing magic for astronomical use predates the earliest oral history of the use of something like a telescope for stargazing or navigation.
Prize Academics And Sense Of Purpose
Of note to remark on the formal recognition of space studies in Ilian academic culture is the Lyndrake Decennial Award, which was also named in the Lyndrake Plea for a Shapelier World with unifying intent. Every ten years, a council of science advisors, eventually delegated to permanent status in the trust of the Ilian Public Senate, would be appointed to hand select a team of world astronomers of particular note over the most recent decade, to be awarded generous funds to support a major space research collaboration. Xernovaan, which is not visible to the unaided eye, was discovered this way by the Year Restriction 130 cohort.
The Restriction And Space Exploration
Despite the astronomy craze which persists throughout Ilian culture, there is very little motivation beyond of the occasional (oftentimes mildly inebriated) backyard scientist to embark into the vastness of the broader Khah system, even so far as low suborbital trajectories around Ilia Khah. In part, I blame the prevalence of Laknoits doctrine in this area. Laknoits scholars of astronomy often regard their work as a study of a divine domain, created to be observed for its beauty but not to be intruded upon. The notion that space exploration is an intrusion to Cognocrux dissuades more than just their most devout worshippers. Moreover, this analysis is strengthened by the Vox-Lyndrake Restriction. By way of societal perception of political turmoil at the time, one of the founding ideals of the New Ilian United Kingdoms was that the explorable world was reasonably small. To venture beyond Ilia was a prospect to be ridiculed and, moreover, feared gravely. One notes this was first broadly internalized with respect to ocean travel, the means of which were somewhat well understood. To observe this same implicit attitude within a society that has no clue what technologies they must bridge to traverse their home star system makes clear the remaining hesitancy that has left their society locationally stagnant in the centuries since. And what a boring shame that has become of it that aspect.
The Khah System
The Red Dwarf Star Khah
At the center of the Khah system is the star Khah, a red dwarf. Khah is of unusually low activity, which is what allows for Ilian life to be so stable in the first place. It is between 79 and 80 billion years old.
Innermost Planets Melios And Karyos
Melios and Karyos are two lumpy masses high in ferromagnetic material and just shy of the critical mass threshold for natural hydrostatic equilibrium which share an orbit around Khah, sitting inside one another's L3 equilibria. They have no discernible atmosphere, and are otherwise unremarkable, save for relatively frequent dynamical magnetic interactions between them and Khah, producing dazzling and vibrant daytime sky phenomena we commonly refer to as "Khah Bows."
The Planet Tarorvir
A glorified, round asteroid, really. No atmosphere and a rough, regolithic surface with unusually high albedo, except at the large, unexplained craters at the poles.
The Koulosh System
Storms raging in a thick, grurple atmosphere will occasionally clear and give a beautiful view of faint surface details from the volcanic hellhole beneath. Koulosh is the only planet in the Khah system to have a proper moon, a small ball of mint-green, icy material called Kairosh. Often, we the well-to-do Ilians quip that Kairosh is made of mint ice cream.
Ilia Khah And Khah Rukk
The Ilian sky is home to magnificent views of our sister planet, Khah Rukk, which is tidally locked to Ilia Khah. The side that faces us appears to be covered in tundra, with evidence of seasonal variation that suggests the presence of simple vegetation. Pipe dreamers often devise schemes to travel by slingshot or balloon to Khah Rukk. Unsurprisingly, all have failed. Some have even died.
Ice Giant Xernovaan
Very far from the inner worlds is an ice giant. Its semi-major axis more than two hundred times that of Ilia Khah, and its orbit is ninety degrees out of plane with the rotation of Khah and her moons. It will soon pass through the gases in the Khah system terrestrial invariable plane in what will be a beautiful display, if one trusts legends of daytime sky sightings twelve hundred years ago, with respect to the Year Restriction 446. Astronomers hope the display will help to study this planet and its orbit better, as relatively little is known.
Laknoits In Doctrine And In Dissent
Beliefs And Practices
Laknoits is perhaps rather simple as a belief system. Its doctrine, above all else, demands very little by way of practice. At least, it can be said that what is asked of religious practice is not asked directly. They care much more for what happens within the minds of their followers. It is believed that an ancient and supremely wise deity called Cognocrux wants the people of Ilia Khah to believe the things that it believes, and for Ilians to believe in them of their own accords. Laknoits teaches that Cognocrux is a force for persuasion and passion over coercion. However, included with that set of beliefs is the belief that one ought do certain actions. Examples include celebrations of wisdom in Cognocrux on the six holy mornings each week and reserving holidays on the three situations Cognocrux is understood to have openly celebrated. Though, holidays present and interesting illustrative example. Every community has its own holidays and persistent traditions. As Cognocrux has no known thoughts on these, Laknoites are welcome to encourage and lead these activities in their home communities. Often, they still don't, citing any and all reasons from the desire to be or appear hyperdevout to lack of interest to simple laziness.
Immoral Exorcists And Prevalence
The primary domain in which the beliefs of Cognocrux are used to set Laknoits apart from other, less dominant faiths is in a collection of teachings on what are called Immoral Exorcists, a supposed ancient coven of nature spirits whose magical influence over the world has branched off and seeded many other practices since. Cognocrux does not approve, and so the prevalence of Laknoites in government roles since the time of the Restriction Prior has lead to a relative dominance of Laknoits over other beliefs, being officially/unofficially endorsed by many legal practices. Then there is the issue of corruption and the lack of bracketing which takes place. In the example of the Avaloch Accords, there is no rule that a government be secular. Indeed, Veritas Vox was a hyperdevout Laknoite, so much so that Laknoite leaders will often take the last name Vox for themselves in an affirmation of their commitment to holy duties. In this way, other religions are often pointed to as lasting examples of the influence of Immoral Exorcists on Ilia Khah, sparking disagreements that are at least most of the time peaceful.
The Historicity Of Cognocrux
While the story of a rise of Cognocrux from mortal to godhood is often considered allegorical, there are many world elements often considered to be physical evidence for a historical Cognocrux. The most popular example is a formation of clay around the village of Clag at Playat, which makes an insignia of Laknoits around and through the village. There is an annual pilgrimage by the Ilian Public Senate on the first of each year to the site, an explicit nod to Laknoits influence. My wife has had me attend once or twice. The food has always been subpar.
Mealtimes Of The Day
Four Vertices And Four Meals
What better number of square meals to have each day in the Ilian peoples' diet than four? I hope each and every one of my readership does eat the traditional four meals each day. Rise you early enough for breakfast. Breakfast with my wife each morning I find to be the most pleasant and intimate meal, and something I do not think I would ever truly be happy without. Then, once breakfast is cleaned up, you best get to working up a brunchtime appetite. Brunch should be a much more efficient meal, making use of whatever breakfast or lunch foods happen to be in reach. Then back to work you go in order to make meaningful your lunch break. And it is an important one. If you do everything correctly, you won't be having dinner until two or three hours before bed, and a proper dinner will most certainly take that much time.
A Disturbing New Trend
The younger generations seem to be moving away from this model in favor of two meals on the holy days and three meals on all other days. And I absolutely hate it. Once, a personal favorite restaurant in Dalstave went under new, young, hip ownership. A thirty-something human male with a smile that screams incompetence. He revamped the menu, and my first visit to try the new management style earned me crazy, stunned looks as I asked for the brunch menu at eleven in the morning. Make room in your day for brunch, I say, and boycott Buck Wiles's Eatery in Dalstave near the south entrance to the city until they learn to serve brunch once more.
Money And Trade
A Renewed Common Currency For All
One of the first agenda items at Avaloch was to settle on a world currency. Unanimously, looking at the state of currencies from all the kingdoms, they decided to stick to the elements common to all kingdoms. After that decision was made, there was not much left of a currency standard to create. All of the metal coins of all the kingdoms were stratified the same, bore the insignia of Laknoits, and even had the words "Ilia Khah" in roughly the same place. The major difference was that each coin also had embossed text decrying its kingdom of origin. Though, this one difference turned out to the advantage of the world from Avaloch, as kingdoms shaved and scrapped material from their coinage to make uniform the appearance of money and then used this material to forge small amounts of new coins. By Avaloch, these new coins were distributed to islands throughout Ilia Khah as was deemed appropriate to create a foundation of a roughly uniform value of money everywhere in the New Ilian United Kingdoms.
Trade As An Artificial Practice
The intent of the Avaloch Accords was to set in place a recipe under which the New Ilian United Kingdoms would carry out mutually beneficial business and maintain a state of peace. For thousands of years, war was waged in the name of land acquisition and territory control. World leaders worried that the agricultural superiority of Verdantia via Pelray's farm output would hinder a regime of longer lasting peace to the world. Their solution was to manufacture an interdependence that would be better solved by trade than violence, originally taking shape as an agricultural policy in which farmers from various kingdoms restricted their crops and imported those that were no longer locally grown.
Decentralization And Cherade's Revolt
A period of widespread revolt can be pinned to a town hall meeting conducted in rural Crystalisian Solara by a grapefruit farmer named Rooke Cherade, who was furious at the fact that she could no longer share her crop in free exchange with her neighbor, whose coconut plants were being confiscated as Crystalis was, by Avaloch, to acquire all its coconuts from trade with Verdantia. It was at this town hall that a large enough spark was brought together to fuel anger across Ilia Khah, to the end of the mandatory agricultural trade. Instead, the trade foundation of the New Ilian United Kingdoms was born from artisan and culture trades that spawned from naturally occurring diversity from island to island. While it was not their ideal vision, it kept the people happy, and the council at Avaloch decided against further tampering with this settled order. Among my travels, the world's farmers are bitter people who refuse to stomach my performances at their dinner tables and agree with each other on very little. They unify, however, on the ideal that Rooke Cherade was a hero. But of course, she was. Even my wife will tell you so.
Schmuzzies
Inexplicable Feats Of Evolution
The schmuzzies, round balls of obscenely colorful fluff and sometimes with eyes or mouths, do not seem to have their place in the fossil record. It is, like a seemingly cruel amount of biological history, unclear where or when this species got its start. They appear to exist in small packets not unlike families the world over, including the world's oceans and in the skies. While it is apparent they have no government or even family structure, it is clear that they have developed a means of communication and cooperation. To what end is also unknown and poorly documented, but as far as anyone is able to tell on the rare chance they have a schmuzzy encounter, they seem to cause minimal harm if any at all. As a rather paranoid seeming individual in Soltentarve once told my wife, they are supposedly impossible to kill.
Language Research
Some Plisthellian linguists have built and maintained a decades long tradition of attempting to record the spoken language of schmuzzies, nicknamed 'schmuzzish,' and use it to more fully directly understand the creatures. The project is essentially not funded except by the passions of those who bear its burden, but it has managed to make some impressive headway nonetheless, and there are approximately five completed versions of a 'working' schmuzzish dictionary that are technically published but far from bestsellers.
Ubiquitous Helpfulness
If two things about schmuzzies be clear, it is that they are very helpful and love to rhyme. Despite their small size, strange noises, and one's inability to completely fence their own life off from schmuzzy activity, their appearance is regarded essentially universally in a friendly manner. They are good omens, and they are often willing to help anyone they come across. There is a price, though, for their information or input. Often, they will demand you play a rhyming game and demonstrate a certain level of competence before trusting you with the powers they wield. Common sense has long taught this world that a schmuzzy's offer at a game is almost never worth the cost of refusing.
The Seadevastator
The Legend, As It Stands
During times of war, Verdantia's navy were always a sight on the horizon to fear and dread. Their arrival would most certainly be your eviction. Emberlyn looked to shift the balance of power, and began in about the Year Restriction Prior 1400 the research needed to create an entirely new type of ship, the vessel we now call the Seadevastator. It would be submersible, save for several appendages required to be kept above surface for the exchange of air. And it would carry enough armament to outgun twenty of Verdantia's biggest warships.
What History Says
Most consider it bunk. The project is not documented anywhere in the official records, and several centuries of rumor is the best thing we can point to. We are aware of a project in Emberlyn at that time called the Kraken, but this was meant to be a stationary platform moored near coastal cities primarily there for warning rather than defense. The only one ever constructed would have been at Sontersbreath. We do know of a failed raid on Sontersbreath by Verdantia in Year Restriction Prior 1299, but the official reason has always been unexpected storms forcing them to wait out their supplies and need to turn back. Could they have seen the Kraken and mistaken it for the Seadevastator? Perhaps, and the leading theory is that this scared off a much smaller fleet than reported (who then claimed to have lost the difference in ships to the Seadevastator) and started the rumor. What puzzles me is why a story like this would surround Verdantia. Their navy has the least reason to produce this sort of story. Par for the course for a band of mercenaries flying the scorpion of Ebonreach, perhaps, but beyond uncharacteristic for the fierce navy captains of Verdantia.
What History Fails To Say
Legends of Emberlyn having a tool of naval superiority is certainly a hard rumor to dream up origins for. A good look at wartime history will reveal that nobody had any reason to dream up a naval superweapon at modern Immerlabs, least of all Emberlyn. The other kingdoms were too slow to respond to news and mobilize forces to make rumors a medium to control the global battle map. And we still have good reason to believe that Emberlyn hadn't even constructed their first shipyard at Immerlabs by then, let alone want to draw attention from others to their lack of infrastructure. I speculate, then, that the Seadevastator really is out there. Somewhere. At the bottom of the sea, of course. Because, for all it promised to be, it never showed up on anyone's shores or devastated anyone's seas. In short, the project sunk, either literally or just metaphorically.
Seasons And Holidays
Seasonal Variations Across Ilia
The five Ilian seasons are autumn, bloom, summer, harvest, and winter. While it would be convenient for them to be given rigid, common calendar definitions, they are instead marked by subjective and varying events, and each island keeps its own seasons. Autumn is the name of a time when a week has gone by in the absence of harsh winter conditions, a time in which local flora often spend in recovery from the harsh Ilian winter. Bloom is the name of a time after the local flora have recovered and are ready to present their beautiful colors. Summer is the name of a time in which the air becomes more still and gives way to sweltering days and weeks. Ilian summers are often quite short, relative to the other seasons. A Hedgehog Day to predict the onset of summer began to wane in Damiano Lyndrake's Emberlyn, and has since died off. Harvest is the name of a time when a steady breeze returns and working outside is again bearable. Winter is the name of a time when freezing cold weather becomes unpleasant, marked by the first week of continuous snowfall. It is unknown why a disjointed tradition such as this exists in the wake of Lyndrake's Plea, but any commentary thereof in his address is contained in portions which are not translatable from the Ancestral Infernal it was written in.
Holidays And The Laknoits Tradition
The Laknoits religion speaks of three holidays throughout the year, and worshippers of Cognocrux are dissuaded from missing any of them. They are the Day of Service, Weeks of Togetherness, and Day of Renaissance. The Udarnisko, or Day of Service, on M04W1D13 is a holiday about one's home community, and each island's local government puts in a delicate amount of organization each bloom to pull it off. The Weeks of Togetherness is a winter tradition. Ilian families, both found and blood, often travel great distances to experience togetherness during M10W3 and M10W4. The Personal Renaissance takes place on each individual person's birthday each year, and it meant to be celebration of the self with a particular emphasis on self improvement. On one's Day of Renaissance it is tradition to come up with and declare a resolution for self improvement, to be kept until the next Renaissance Resolution overwrites it. Of course, one in good conscience remarks that strict adherence to the three Laknoits holidays never really caught on with the general populace. Local practices vary wildly, but celebrations of love and death and the harvest and more in many forms throughout the year are nearly ubiquitous among the people of Ilia Khah. I refuse to visit Skaldigsberg. My reasons are personal. But my wife informs me and all of you that their Udarnisko is held a day late.
Telegraphy And Mail
The Vivid Venerated Vocabulary of Vox
To use color to convey information was not an idea of Veritas Vox, as the name would suggest. While it is a popular misconception, the truth is that Vox called for something not unlike the Ilian Telegraphers' Interisland Network (ITIN) but left the details to the people of their time. It is essentially lost to history the names, likenesses, and lineages of those who invented the modern system. However, it is not dissimilar to signals used by the Beaumercy Ilianharmony, and so it is commonly believed to have been a resident of the Northwatch who adapted a familiar system to an ancestor of the one seen today. This story is often told in tandem with the note that the ITIN is headquartered in New Ashenfire, which is also on Sickle Island. Though, Beaumercy has for centuries used colored smoke signals, while chromatelegraphy is only made effective by magical means, and it is unclear how the evolution from smoke signals to the VVVV was possible or in what time.
A System Of Two Offices
The ITIN trusts its panilian efficacy to two major offices, those being the office of the telegrapher and the telegrapher's courier. The local telegrapher's office sends and receives chromatelegraphy, transcribing received messages onto parchment. It is the job of the courier to ensure these parchment card transcriptions make it to their intended recipient on a given island.
Physical Mail As A Third Office
It was not until much later that a proper postal service became widely established and given the proper degree of administrative oversight and standardization. While founded and governed independently, there is an intimate link between the Ilia Post and the office of the telegrapher's courier so much so that many in the governing boards of Ilia Post and ITIN would agree that the post has become in many ways a third office, subordinate to the telegrapher's courier and often delivering transcribed telegraphs on their routes with physical letters and parcels.
Deepwater Stations And Echoflow
Primarily motivated by quantity rather than distance, there are a total of six hundred and forty seven deepwater telegrapher stations. I have never been, but my wife had visited at least thirteen of them before we met. These moored shacks are there to maintain the echoflow, a recirculation of messages through complicated interstation networks to avoid being forgotten as a higher priority message such as morning news or a distress plea is sent through, interrupting them. The patterns are highly specialized, and each station often manages dozens of echoflows simultaneously.