My Fantasy RPG World, Feedback and Ideas appreciated

[Scalenex]

I like this concept. Like a bunch of flying evil batmen-hitmen.

Would be cool if they operated like a secret-police force, except corrupt. Just as long as the criminals don't mess with the big bosses' turf, its fair game.

That's kind of how all law enforcement in Uskala works. King Drosst doesn't care much what you do as long as his turf is left untouched.

The mafia angle is a good starting point. Now that I think about it, since King Drosst is only seen at night, that makes Camazotz the perfect flunkies because they hate sunlight.

His vassals can govern their realms as they see fit, as long as Drosst gets his slice. Most of his vassals have their own mafia style enforcers defending their turf.

I suppose a kind and fair vassal is theoretically possible. As long as they pay the king's taxes of course.

Eventually I'll need to detail some Uskalan noble houses. I figure most of them are jerks but I dont want them to be one-dimensional jerks, those are boring.

 

[Scalenex]

I like the idea of "exotic" ingredients thanks to their bat-tendencies. Do dwarves mostly just drink beer and ale? I could see the kalazotz bringing some diversity into any dwarven drinking establishment. Maybe some mead from honey? Or fermented fruit too, to go along with the rabbits blood and grubs spices to add into the drinks and fancy bat cocktails

I am now inspired to go make a D&D kalazotz character who is a bartender in a dwaven tavern.

I really like the idea of batty bartenders. I am definitely going to use it if my PCs ever make it down to dwarven lands.

I know the stereotype is that dwarves drink beer and ale. I'm trying to provide realism. This is the preferred drink of most dwarves, (or at least most Meckelorners) but the dwarves don't have a lot of ideal cropland, so they will make due with whatever they can get. That means Meckelorners probably drink a lot of potato and yam based spirits because that's the main staple crop that they have reliable access to.

Unless I invent some hardier fantasy fruits, Meckelorn does not have a lot of access to fruit. Meckelorn has life stones that magically feed underground plants that do not exist in the real world. I haven't detailed what these plants/fungi are but some of them are probably fermentable. At some point I need to develop Scarcaverna, I'm sure I can come up with all sorts of spices and fungi that kalazotz bartenders can use.


I will note that Fumaya borders Meckelorner and is famous for high quality ale. They have a lot of cereal crops and lots of access to naturally purified water. Thus ale is pretty much their main export and the sole reason most Meckeloners have a positive view of Fumayans.

In the real world, anthropologists believe that honey mead was probably the first alcoholic beverage manufactured on a regular basis. It is clear that honey mead predates civilization by a many centuries. Honey mead is fairly easy to make. The hard part is finding honey and avoiding the bee stings. I expect every culture on Scarterra drinks mead. It's just a question of how much they drink mead, depending on the availability of honey, mead is either a staple or a luxury good.

The dwarf nation of Stahlheim has some warm hills in the south that are ideal for fruit orchards. I figure hard cider is very popular there. They probably have a fair number of beekeepers. Meckelorners probably mock Stahlheimers for their sweet sissy drinks, but they won't turn down being offered them. "Well okay this one time, I'll try it." Stahlheim also benefits from sea trade so they can import adult beverages from all around Scarterra.

Mondert is a series of tropical island, so Mondarian dwarves probably drink various fruity drinks and a lot of rum.

 

[Warden]

In other news, I found an extreme closeup of a cute bat from a scientific magazine that with a little imagination based on the camera angle, maybe this could the head shot of a kalazotz.

There are lots of good potential camazotz but they are all renditions of Kirk Langstron, the Manbat from DC. I do want to risk the ire of the legal team of DC right now.

I like it!

Fun with Microsoft Paint

I figure a simplistic picture is better than no picture at all. Here is my attempt at the Imperial Sting Ray of the Oshamni Empire (ie Water Rome).

I'm still not sure whether it looks better with or without the eyes.

Unless someone has a suggestion for an easy tweak, this is going to be the picture I paste above most articles about the Oshamni Empire aka Water Rome.

I still haven't figure out how I'm going to round out the cast for Water Carthage, Water Scythia, Water Gaul, Water Atilla the Hun (okay the Huns are probably going to be Karakai), Water Classical China and the rest.

And of course some of the groups conquered that are now apart of the Oshamni Empire are going to maintain local regional cultural differences.

I like where this is going as far as color... will try and work on it.

The angle of making a "cast" of not-Carthage and other players for Scaraqua would be fun. Would they also be merfolk?

My broad outline is this. Oshmanus was basically a small Merfolk city state. It had a tumultuous early history very slowly annexing other small Merfolk nations nations then it had a very tough war with a large group of Astalakians (crab people). After beating the crabs into submission, the Astalakians assimilated into the Oshamni and that's when the Oshamni power really took off. Astalakians are slow swimmers and not very agile but they are great builders and crafters and they were highly literate.

Once the merfolk of Oshamni became highly literate and became armed with the best weapons and armor under the sea they had stronger soldiers and a better infrastructure to support the logistics of a growing Empire.

Nice start to the history here.

Do you have more to the outline on the wiki? I will have to check.

It would be great to see a snapshot of Scaraqua with all the heraldry of this underwater empires.

 

[Warden]

Just threw this together:

Spoiler: Scaraquan Not-Rome

Can't remember if a Trident was a Scaraquan weapon, put it screamed "neptune" to me so there's that.

I like the colors you had; the "kelp" fronds on either side would be green. The other "weapon" is a net because I didn't know if arrows would work. Maybe swap out spears would work? Or crossed tridents? Or a single trident?

Also tried out a manta ray on the bottom. I am not sure which one I like better.

 

[Scalenex]

Nice start to the history here.

Do you have more to the outline on the wiki? I will have to check.

I do not. That is almost word for word what is written in my small Oshamni article.

Most of my Scarterra wiki is me taking my disorganized notes and compiling into organized articles. I now have very few notes that have not migrated to my World Anvil account in some form or fashion.

In the case of Scaraqua, most of the articles are made from scratch so to speak. So I'm building Scaraqua up right now.

It would be great to see a snapshot of Scaraqua with all the heraldry of this underwater empires.

That would be lovely but I haven't even started my map yet, and I haven't come up with names for all the lands beyond Oshamni. I'm more or less starting from the ground up. Or I guess the top down. I like to start with the gods and work my way down.

I'm typing my fingers to the bone for WorldEmber, I am mostly going where the muses strike me, I just posted an article on Uskala's camazotz just a few minutes ago and I am tempted to write an article about kalazotz bartenders. But I'm mostly focusing on developing Scaraqua at least this week.

Here is the link to my rapidly growing Scaraquan subsection

Just threw this together:

Spoiler: Scaraquan Not-Rome

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I like the manta ray on the bottom better and I like the seaweed laurel on the bottom slightly better than the one on the top.

As for the trident, I'm still working out what weapons the Oshamni Empire should use. I don't agree with everything Shad says but his series "Fantasy Rearmed" is usually spot on. I used his video on flying people and his video on small people to figure out how kalazotz would fight.

Here is the video he did on merfolk fighting. To make a long story short, merfolk would probably rely on daggers and spears. Maybe slashing swords.

A trident is a tool not a weapon. I guess it's tool that easily be turned into a weapon like a woodsman's axe or a mining pick. A merfolk is a lot better off fighting with a trident than fighting unarmed, so I'm sure it's a common improvised weapon, but if a merman is preparing for battle he is probably going to take a spear.

I like Scarterra/Scaraqua to be realistic but there are times when the Rule of Cool trumps the laws of physics and the Rule of Logic.

The Rule of Cool could specify that Scaraquans fight with tridents regularly because artists like to draw sea creatures with tridents.

The Rule of Cool could also state that Water Romans fight like real Romans. A gladius and a shield. I think a gladius would actually work realistically fairly well, but a Roman style curved shield would be terrible.

Just because a trident is not a common military weapon, it doesn't mean it cannot be on the heraldry. A lot of heraldry had a weapon crisscross with a tool, especially at the highest level. "I am your king in peacetime and war." is what the message is.

Tridents are pretty common. I imagine unless they are city slickers (city swimmers, dredgers, floaters?), most merfolk families own a trident to catch fish with.

My current dwarf heraldry used on my wiki is a hammer on an anvil for all three dwarf nations but I figure a pick crisscrossed with a battle axe is also popular. That is the holy symbol of Hallisan, the prominent god to most dwarves.

There could be a symbol for Scaraquans of a trident crossed with a spear or scimitar.

I don't think Scaraquans would use nets much in their heraldry. I don't think they would be used much in conventional war though slavers might favor using nets.

I'm not sure how prevailent slavery is going to be in Scaraqua. Rome and most of Rome's contemporaries had slavery, but slavery might be difficult when you live in a three dimensional environment where escaped slaves have many directions to swim away to.

Slavers would have to invest in so many guards that slavery might not economically feasible. Better to have "free" people trapped in debt slavery and motivated by the shallow hope of crawling out of debt.

Or I suppose magical binding systems could be used. Or trained shark blood hounds could be really good at finding runaway slaves. I guess the option is there.

Even if slavery is widespread, I still don't think nets would be a common sight on heraldry. It would be mostly the province of military units specializing in live capture.

The easiest way to keep Scaraquan slaves is probably in mines and quarries. A lot of mines and quarries are in the proverbial desert regions of Scaraqua, so escaping the slave camp is easy, but it usually leads to a slow starvation.

Way back I mentioned that various translations of the word "stingray" sound really cool. I like the idea of the Oshamni Empire having a fairly rigid caste system and each social class is named after one of the translations of sting ray. The bottom rung, whether they be slaves, serfs, or peasants are going to be the Skats or Skatti.

Class mobility is probably possible because Scaraquan society is more fluid than Scarterran society (PUN!)

I should not look a gift seahorse in the mouth but if hypothetically you were to draw your heraldry with a fatter pen on a white piece of paper, it would be easier for me to play with the color scheme on MS Pain.

Or I could just tell you that I want Water Rome's color scheme to be purple and gold, maybe a splash of red and green.

 

[Scalenex]

I couldn't resist creating a Scarterran location that I'd actually like to visit. Also, I haven't used the "construction" article template yet.

Go to Scarterra Homepage
The Drunken Bat
The Drunken Bat claims to be the most famous tavern in all of Scarterra. Located in the Elven Empire, government's last major West Colassian port.They might be right. They regularly see travelers from Swynfaredia, Stahlheim, Kantoc,Apseldia, Nishi, Azuma, and the Elven Empire and those are just the everyday visitors.The bartender usually will give free drinks to visitors who give him interesting mementos from faraway lands so the walls are filled with curios from every corner of Scarterra.

The prices are a bit higher than elsewhere but beer, wine and spirits are imported from every corner of Scarterra.
History
Originally, the drunken bat was a tavern/inn set up to cater to dwarves and kalazotz doing business with the Elven Empire.Among other things, it was near impossible for kalazotz to get their favorite spirits such as fermented rabbit's blood or grub whiskey.Being near a major trading port and having a very experimental owner, the tavern invested a lot of money in buying exotic drink from around Scarterra.The tavern had a rotating drink menu including things such as wood elven spring wine, Umeran sake, East Colassian honey mead, Mondarian rum, and other exotic drinks. Originally the tavern bought exotic drinks for lark but as their reputation grew, the tavern found itself awash in new customers.As the inn expanded, they increased their menu of foods as well, importing a lot of exotic spices, meat, ad produce as well as exotic drinks.
Tourism
If you want to taste the food and drink of a place thousands of miles away, this is place to go. This is mainly for tourists tasting food from exotic foreign lands. If a distant traveler comes to the inn expecting a taste of home, they will probably be disappointed. "Lousy bats didn't get the spices quite right!"

Most of the exotic faire is not about authenticity but about novelty. Clan Balché is fond of wild experiments combining food, drink, and spices from disparate.

You want a gin and tonic with wood elves made gin in tonic water from Mera's Lake accented with spices imported from the Colassian Confederacy. That's one of the less exotic mixed drinks they can make.


I thought about creating a colorful owner, but I decided to create a whole clan.

Go to Scarterra Homepage
Clan Balché
Clan Balché is an officially recognized clan of dwarf influenced kalazotz that, while officially based in Land of Stahlheim mostly live and n work in one of the Elven Empire, government's remaining colonies in West Colassia.

The entire clan is made up of inn keeper, restaurateurs, and brew makers. They are the owners of the prestigious inn/tavern known as The Drunken Bat. Most of the drinks are imported, but they brew their own kalazotz beverages. Originally this was for the benefit of kalazotz visitors but a lot of groundlings want to try kalazotz beverages out of curiosity.

Tenets Of Faith
Like most kalazotz, the Balché worships Mera often, but their famous bar has Nami symbolism prominently displayed. Nami is the goddess of spirits and very much responsible for blessing the family's prosperity. Also, the family provides a popular inn for travelers and Nami is the patroness of travelers.In a way, Nami and Mera are both very important to the family. Mera is more the goddess for private family concerns.


I thought of some really gross drinks with very gross names, but I think I'll keep it family friendly...

 

[Warden]

I like the manta ray on the bottom better and I like the seaweed laurel on the bottom slightly better than the one on the top.

As for the trident, I'm still working out what weapons the Oshamni Empire should use. I don't agree with everything Shad says but his series "Fantasy Rearmed" is usually spot on. I used his video on flying people and his video on small people to figure out how kalazotz would fight.

Here is the video he did on merfolk fighting. To make a long story short, merfolk would probably rely on daggers and spears. Maybe slashing swords.

A trident is a tool not a weapon. I guess it's tool that easily be turned into a weapon like a woodsman's axe or a mining pick. A merfolk is a lot better off fighting with a trident than fighting unarmed, so I'm sure it's a common improvised weapon, but if a merman is preparing for battle he is probably going to take a spear.



I like Scarterra/Scaraqua to be realistic but there are times when the Rule of Cool trumps the laws of physics and the Rule of Logic.

The Rule of Cool could specify that Scaraquans fight with tridents regularly because artists like to draw sea creatures with tridents.

The Rule of Cool could also state that Water Romans fight like real Romans. A gladius and a shield. I think a gladius would actually work realistically fairly well, but a Roman style curved shield would be terrible.

Just because a trident is not a common military weapon, it doesn't mean it cannot be on the heraldry. A lot of heraldry had a weapon crisscross with a tool, especially at the highest level. "I am your king in peacetime and war." is what the message is.

Tridents are pretty common. I imagine unless they are city slickers (city swimmers, dredgers, floaters?), most merfolk families own a trident to catch fish with.

My current dwarf heraldry used on my wiki is a hammer on an anvil for all three dwarf nations but I figure a pick crisscrossed with a battle axe is also popular. That is the holy symbol of Hallisan, the prominent god to most dwarves.

There could be a symbol for Scaraquans of a trident crossed with a spear or scimitar.

I don't think Scaraquans would use nets much in their heraldry. I don't think they would be used much in conventional war though slavers might favor using nets.

I'm not sure how prevailent slavery is going to be in Scaraqua. Rome and most of Rome's contemporaries had slavery, but slavery might be difficult when you live in a three dimensional environment where escaped slaves have many directions to swim away to.

Slavers would have to invest in so many guards that slavery might not economically feasible. Better to have "free" people trapped in debt slavery and motivated by the shallow hope of crawling out of debt.

Or I suppose magical binding systems could be used. Or trained shark blood hounds could be really good at finding runaway slaves. I guess the option is there.

Even if slavery is widespread, I still don't think nets would be a common sight on heraldry. It would be mostly the province of military units specializing in live capture.

The easiest way to keep Scaraquan slaves is probably in mines and quarries. A lot of mines and quarries are in the proverbial desert regions of Scaraqua, so escaping the slave camp is easy, but it usually leads to a slow starvation.

Way back I mentioned that various translations of the word "stingray" sound really cool. I like the idea of the Oshamni Empire having a fairly rigid caste system and each social class is named after one of the translations of sting ray. The bottom rung, whether they be slaves, serfs, or peasants are going to be the Skats or Skatti.

Class mobility is probably possible because Scaraquan society is more fluid than Scarterran society (PUN!)

I should not look a gift seahorse in the mouth but if hypothetically you were to draw your heraldry with a fatter pen on a white piece of paper, it would be easier for me to play with the color scheme on MS Pain.

Or I could just tell you that I want Water Rome's color scheme to be purple and gold, maybe a splash of red and green.

Had some fun with this one:

Spoiler: draft

without color:



And no outline:

The yellows don't really show up as two separate colors on camera for some reason... the main color is more of a yellow-orange than straight yellow.

 

[Scalenex]

It's beautiful, I'd like it twice if I could. I will upload it to the wiki immediately.

It's even horizontally oriented, which means it will show up better on the thumbnail feature of World Anvil (not that I use the thumbnail feature much but someone else might).

 

[Scalenex]

The official goal that Worldember implores the World Anvil community to undertake is 10,000 words in the month of December. I did the math. I average over 10,000 in a normal month, so I set the goal of 50,000 words and I met that goal, just half way through the month because I am quite possibly insane.

Here is the article that carried me over. I think it's a good one.

Go to Scarterra Homepage

Scaraquan views on time


Scarterrans bicker amongst each other on how to set their calendar year and how meaningful the Zodiac influences are, but is generally not that difficult to figure out what date something happened, if it happened in the last millennia.The common West Colassian calendar has the present year as 1837. It is currently year 2426 according Elven Empire's calendar and year 897 on the kingdom of Swynfaredia's calendar.

(just to avoid confusion, if I put a date on this World Anvil wiki, I am using the common West Colassian Calendar unless specifying otherwise).

While irksome, it is not very difficult for two scholars uses different Scarterran calendars to compare notes and plot when events happen relative to each other and be reasonably certain they know the exact date.


Scaraquans are a different. Most are very focused on the here and now, and find it a waste of time to quantify time. If you ask a casual storyteller or serious historian in Scaraqua they will preface most past events with the phrase "Some time ago..."

If they feel the need to be more specific than that, the Scaraquan will say "Some time ago, after famous event A and before famous event B...."

While Scaraquans acknowledge the First Unmaking and the Second Unmaking happened "some time ago." They don't buy into the Scarterrans categorization of the The First Age, The Second Age, and The Third Age as being valid or true. They don't even like the names because the two Unmaking were not directly connected so why are the "First" and "Second" of anything given that they are both independent (and horrific) events.

The ocean is always in movement but it always stays in place at the same time. This is how Scaraquan philosophers view the flow of time. Uneducated Scaraquan give time even less thought. They are too busy worrying about the task at hand. If they need to let the pearls grow in the clam shells for 1012 days exactly to be fit as Imperial pearls, someone is going to be counting out exactly 1012 days, likewise, crops are always planted and harvested on time. But very few people under the sea care if the Oshamni Empire is 700 years old or 7000 years old.

Only within the last five hundred years have Scaraquans have made any serious organized attempt to record the passage of time in a numerical fashion at all within the Oshamni Empire and mainly the people keeping the records are the tax collectors and census takers. Aka, the "bubble counters". Why count the bubbles if they are just going to pop before you are done counting?

Physical and cultural barriers to communication between Scarterra and Scaraqua aside; it is not easy for the scholarly minded above and below the surface of the water to compare notes on historical events. Scarterrans find the Scaraquans to sloppy and careless record keepers. Scaraquans view the Scarterrans "bubble counting," ironically as a waste of time. What is more important than measuring things quantifiably is understanding the cause and effect relationship between events.






I have reached my original goal. I am currently 7th place in word count and 8th place in total number of articles. While it's a good motivator to channel my competitive instincts, it's not that important in the grand scheme of things.

I probably need to slow down. There are some real life tasks I have been neglecting.

As for Scarterra I could try to maintain or improve my standings, or I could not worry about quantity and try to increase my quality by adding more artwork and maps.

The World Anvil worlds with lots of like tend to have lots of artwork and maps. They also tend to be active on Discord.


I could try to market Scarterra by visiting World Anvil's Discord server or the umpteen child Discord servers. I could even create a Scarterran Discord server but all that would require me venturing on social media not through Lustria-Online which is mahrlect crazy!

Or I could stop worrying about window dressing and start hammering something out for A Cobbler's Journey (that's my New Year's Resolution for what little New Year's Resolutions are worth).

This is my typical writing day \/

Deadlines seem to be a good motivating factor for the short story contests, I should probably set myself artificial deadlines for grinding.

According the Youtube Channel, Better Than Yesterday, talking about doing something is actually an impediment to doing it. That might be why @Lord Agragax of Lunaxoatl has 14 chapters written in the world of Escalonia and I have 0 chapters written in Scarterra. Because Lord Agragax hasn't kept his world building thread through over 40 pages.

I cannot really help that because one of my best friends as the CCP Virus, and the rest of my friends and family either live with or are high risk people, so talking about Scarterra (and griping about politics on the other threads in the general subforum) is my social circle right now.

I like Better Than Yesterday. This recent video is very useful.

I definitely need to cut back on video games because it doesn't solve my practical problems and it is only an iota as satisfying as writing.

In some ways, I am paralyzed by my free time.

 

[Warden]

It's beautiful, I'd like it twice if I could. I will upload it to the wiki immediately.

It's even horizontally oriented, which means it will show up better on the thumbnail feature of World Anvil (not that I use the thumbnail feature much but someone else might).

Glad you liked it, it was a fun one!

 

[Lord Agragax of Lunaxoatl]

According the Youtube Channel, Better Than Yesterday, talking about doing something is actually an impediment to doing it. That might be why @Lord Agragax of Lunaxoatl has 14 chapters written in the world of Escalonia and I have 0 chapters written in Scarterra. Because Lord Agragax hasn't kept his world building thread through over 40 pages.

Mainly because I’ve largely neglected my world-building in favour of writing my first book to get it published as soon as possible - partly because my family keep jokingly asking why it isn’t published yet, and partly because my main Escalonia series is going to consist of 12 books in four trilogies, so I need to ensure I have sufficient time to write them all before I eventually die. I’ve also been working on the rank-and-flank wargames ruleset to go with it. Not to mention that I may well write a prequel trilogy too. And possibly a sequel trilogy. If I manage to reach or even surpass my target age of 102 (so I can say I’ve lived in three centuries).

The limited world-building I have done is primarily stuff to do with the Lizardkin (the protagonists of the first book), the Medusae (the antagonists of the first book), the Tarkalians and Calderon (both of these because they are my personal favourites - I won’t let this favouritism affect the story, but otherwise these are my faves alongside the Lizardkin, they’re the factions I would personally play as).

 

[Scalenex]

Todays random writing prompt from World Anvil was to come up with a dangerous animal. Fortunately the pre-cambrian sea creatures were terrifying and weird, great for Scaraquan monsters.

The real life critters were pretty small, so the standard fantasy trope is to make animals bigger and give them poison or acid spit.

Go to Scarterra Homepage
Giant Opabinia
Opabinia are said to be an ancient sea creature from a long time ago that have somehow returned to Scaraqua in numbers, much larger and stronger than ever before.Preferring deep water in relatively cold and isolated locales. These ancient predators are very dangerous.Their carapace is thick and turns aside most attacks. Their underbelly is a bit more vulnerable to attacks but Opabina are cunning and nimble fast swimmers that make great effort to not expose their belly to threats.An Opabina's main attack is their strong grappling trunk. Targets are held in place by the grapple and bitten. Their trunks also emit a paralytic poison to targets touched by it. Their bite is strong enough to take down even full grown Astakalians.
Additional Information
Perception And Sensory Capabilities
Opabina have five oddly placed eyes giving them 360 degree vision and a keen sense of smell to boot.

 

[Scalenex]

Dangerous animals was yesterday's prompt. Today is
DESCRIBE A WINTER TRADITION WHICH EXISTS WITHIN ONE CULTURE OF YOUR WORLD. WHAT IS CELEBRATED, AND WHAT'S INVOLVED IN THE FESTIVITIES?

Go to Scarterra Homepage
The War Against the Darkness
The "War Against the Darkness" is Zarthus' main holiday of the year. Not just celebrated by Zarthus core followers, most mainstream Scarterrans choose to observe this holiday.

Traditionally held late in the year when winter is well underway. It is usually held during the time of the waxing crescent moon, usually after the last new moon before the Month of Turoch/Month of Nike.Usually approximately on or near the 30th day of Phidas' month, Forenike 20 give or take a week or two.Arguably this is the festival from which the Lanterns draw their namesake.

After a fairly short fast, extended families gather for a feast then all the community goes outside en masse, carrying lanterns or torches, chanting, singing, and yelling to symbolically frighten away the darkness.

At the end of the procession, it's common to burn effigies representing evil, or in many places everyone writes their problems down on a piece of paper (or draws a picture of their problem if illiterate) then they throw their problems into a ceremonial bonfire lit by many of the lanterns from the ceremonial procession.


World Anvil has a semi-affiliated link with free stock photos. Hard to find pictures of fantasy monsters or medieval people but a bunch of people with lanterns in the dark, that they do have.

EDIT: A rustic hearth fire too for a second Winter Holiday.

Hearth Day
Hearth Day is a holiday popular among gnomes that has over the years become adopted by more and more human Tenders and eventually spreading to mainstream humans not directly affiliated with the Tenders, especially in West Colassia.

The purpose of Hearth Day is simple, it's a day to fend off the cold of winter by appreciating one's family.
History
Mera has always been an important goddess to the daily lives of gnomes. Mera is also the goddess of the family hearth.

The holiday is believed to have been created by a now forgotten nation of Second Age elves and kept alive by gnomes.

Originally Hearth Day was on a different day of the year, but early Third Age gnomes moved the date earlier into Maylar's Zodiac month as a symbolic gesture of defiance against him.
Observance
The main observance of the holiday is to enjoy a meal with family and friends around a nice warm fire on a cold winter night, give thanks for what you have, and tell a lot of uplifting stories. Some cultures memorialize their honored dead on this dead. Often food and drink is offered symbolically to the honored dead by tossing tidbits of it into the fire.

 

[Scalenex]

Birthdays or Namedays?

So I'm creating a lot of small articles expounding on various holidays. Not just winter holidays. I'm tucking them away under the associated nation in my table of contents.

I figured a lot of places would celebrate the king or queen's birthday. But then I was thinking. In Game of Thrones, they talked about celebrating Name Days.

George R. Martin did not invent this. I've been doing a lot of research on Ancient Rome and Ancient Rome, if I remember the numbers would wait eight days to name a girl baby or nine days to name a boy baby.

Name days were celebrated instead of birthdays. The idea being with infant mortality as high as it was, there was no point naming the baby until you are reasonably assured the baby is going to live. This practiced continued in many places after the Roman Empire fell.

I wondered, should Scarterrans celebration birthdays or name days?

Their infant mortality is much higher than the real world Current Year of Earth, but it's much lower than pre-industrial real world Earth...because of magic.

A single dot of Healing magic can mitigate the pain of childbirth at least as well as modern drugs. A single dot of Purification magic can prevent mother and child from contracting an infection related to giving birth in unsanitary conditions.

With three dots of Healing magic, a healer can perform the fantasy equivalent of a c-section safely. With three dots of Purification magic, a healer can cure an infant of most of the routine diseases potentially infecting newborns that modern medicine can handle but medieval people struggled with.

I figure 1 in 200 people have at least a little bit of divine magic. Not everyone learns Healing and Purification, but they are among the most popular divine spheres of magic, if not the most popular. Every priesthood and every prince has a vested interest in their parishioners and/or subjects having healthy births, so while divinely empowered healers cannot be everywhere at once, there at least a few divine spell-casters are roaming the countryside in case they are needed to help deliver babies.

Since most nobility has a divine spell-caster on their payroll, I imagine most pregnant noblewomen are rarely far from a magical healer, or they could just buy a healing potion. One dot potions cost about as much as a nag, and three dot potions cost about as much the finest stallions. But most nobles can afford such potions.

But again, they cannot be everywhere at once. A magical healer that is on baby patrol is a magical healer not stationed with the troops patrolling for monsters.

So birthdays or namedays?

 

[Scalenex]

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Mera's Zenith Celebration in King's Lake
Mera 20th/Horning 30th is officially Mera's Zenith, but most Fumayans do not choose to observe this holiday, unless they live in the capital King's Lake or one of the smaller settlements on the opposite shore of the lake. Because fishing is so essential to the livelihood of these places, Mera's Zenith's is a big deal.The townsfolk thank Mera for providing them with a clean water source and beseech Mera for a good year of fishing.

Unofficially a lot of breweries have piggybacked on to the holiday justifying that their craft relies on the water of King's Lake as much as the fisherman do. There is a lot of ale drinking as they finish off what's left of last's year's brew and offer the first samples of the new year's brew.

So fish and chips and lots of ale. I don't know about you, but that sounds like my kind of holiday. I haven't been to my favorite seafood place since the pandemic hit.

Many dwarves make it a point to be in King's Lake at this time.

 

[Scalenex]

I created two ethnic groups of humans today.

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Laguza
The Laguza are an ethnicity of humans that dwell primarily in or around the Great Fjord of West Colassia.

Unsurprisingly, the Laguza have very dominant watery and airy elemental traits. Loosely inspired by real world Inuit, the Laguza make their primary livelihoods through fishing and hunting seals and other marine mammals. It is tough enough kayaking through icy waters to spear seals, but the Laguza have to deal with various fantasy monsters and the occasional forays of orc barbarians.

While they are technically barbarians, they generally have a good relationship with civilized folk. Delegations from Meckelorn, the Elven Empire and Kantoc visit at least once a year to trade for furs, ivory and reagents.

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Jórtoca
For most of their history The Jórtoca were a barbarian bloodline of humans that roamed the northern lands of West Colassia. Most of the tribes were horse riding barbarians and most of the scattered clans joined the coalition army of Mordock the Destroyer during his time of conquest. After Mordock died and his empire crumbled, some of the Jórtoca returned to the roaming the wilds but most did not. The bulk of the Jórtoca settled in what is now the land of Kantoc and a lot of them interbred with the Kantoca. The Jórtoca assimilated Kantoc's agricultural ways and the Kantoca assimilated the Jórtoca's horsemanship culture.Full Jórtoca have roughly a 50/50 mix of earthy and airy elemental ethnic traits.While the Jórtoca and Kantoca are now so intermingled that a lot of Kantoc's population, both noble and commoner alike, are of mixed heritage, there is a clear correlation between geography and bloodline. The further north in Kantoc you go, the more Jórtoca blood and culture becomes visible.


The Laguza are doing fairly well for themselves. They have friendly relations with Kantoc to the south, Meckelorn to the southeast, and the Elven Empire to the west (via ships). They only have to deal with hostile orcs from the north, and the orcs don't stay long because they are particularly fond of the sea.

The Jórtoca. The Jórtoca blood and culture is being overtaken by the Kantoca and the very few barbarian Jórtoca still roaming the plains are being slowly outcompeted by orc tribes and icy monsters, essentially surrounded on all sides.

Though if someone wanted to play a human barbarian PC, or if I wanted to included a tough as nails guide character in a novel, the Jórtoca are an option.

I also checked my master list of humans and found I had yet to make an article for Fumayans despite having detailed nearly everything else for Fumaya. I have a lot of humans now, and I haven't even started on humans in the southern hemisphere yet. I guess I need to figure out what ethnic groups are found among the eight nations of the Colassian Confederacy that are not Mereshnari (though I figure a lot of the civilized people there have some Meresh blood in their veins).

Geographic Distribution

• East Colassia
• Island of Khemarok
• Penarchia
• Umera
• West Colassia

Related Ethnicities

• Borderlander humans
• Fumayan humans
• Independent Chay tribes
• Jórtoca
• Kantoca
• Laguza
• Mereshnari
• Mondarian humans
• Swynfaredian humans
• Uskalan humans

 

[Lizards of Renown]

Birthdays or Namedays?

So I'm creating a lot of small articles expounding on various holidays. Not just winter holidays. I'm tucking them away under the associated nation in my table of contents.

I figured a lot of places would celebrate the king or queen's birthday. But then I was thinking. In Game of Thrones, they talked about celebrating Name Days.

George R. Martin did not invent this. I've been doing a lot of research on Ancient Rome and Ancient Rome, if I remember the numbers would wait eight days to name a girl baby or nine days to name a boy baby.

Name days were celebrated instead of birthdays. The idea being with infant mortality as high as it was, there was no point naming the baby until you are reasonably assured the baby is going to live. This practiced continued in many places after the Roman Empire fell.

I wondered, should Scarterrans celebration birthdays or name days?

Their infant mortality is much higher than the real world Current Year of Earth, but it's much lower than pre-industrial real world Earth...because of magic.

A single dot of Healing magic can mitigate the pain of childbirth at least as well as modern drugs. A single dot of Purification magic can prevent mother and child from contracting an infection related to giving birth in unsanitary conditions.

With three dots of Healing magic, a healer can perform the fantasy equivalent of a c-section safely. With three dots of Purification magic, a healer can cure an infant of most of the routine diseases potentially infecting newborns that modern medicine can handle but medieval people struggled with.

I figure 1 in 200 people have at least a little bit of divine magic. Not everyone learns Healing and Purification, but they are among the most popular divine spheres of magic, if not the most popular. Every priesthood and every prince has a vested interest in their parishioners and/or subjects having healthy births, so while divinely empowered healers cannot be everywhere at once, there at least a few divine spell-casters are roaming the countryside in case they are needed to help deliver babies.

Since most nobility has a divine spell-caster on their payroll, I imagine most pregnant noblewomen are rarely far from a magical healer, or they could just buy a healing potion. One dot potions cost about as much as a nag, and three dot potions cost about as much the finest stallions. But most nobles can afford such potions.

But again, they cannot be everywhere at once. A magical healer that is on baby patrol is a magical healer not stationed with the troops patrolling for monsters.

So birthdays or namedays?

For me, Namedays. Birthday's sound and are too mundane to have a place in a fantasy setting.

I remember one race in The Wheel of Time who would judge their age by when they were awarded a sword (meaning when they were deemed adult enough to be responsible for one) which I thought was good.

Maybe Scarterrans judge their birthday dby when they first worshipped one of the Nine?

Or Scaraquans when they first swam by themselves?

 

[Scalenex]

For me, Namedays. Birthday's sound and are too mundane to have a place in a fantasy setting.

Reasonable.

I remember one race in The Wheel of Time who would judge their age by when they were awarded a sword (meaning when they were deemed adult enough to be responsible for one) which I thought was good.

This is a good jumping off point for similar inspiration.

Maybe Scarterrans judge their birthday by when they first worshipped one of the Nine?

That means they aren't judged properly alive until they can not only talk, but handle complex abstract thought. That's a little too strict.

Or Scaraquans when they first swam by themselves?

This is very good. I'm definitely going to use this for some of the Scaraquan races. A lot of real aquatic creatures can swim immediately, but if you remember that human infants develop very slow compared to most land animals, it is likely it could take a few days at least before a baby can swim (and of course young infants swimming for the first time probably still need to be carried if the family goes long distance).

 

[Scalenex]

Or Scaraquans when they first swam by themselves?

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Merfolk Swim Days
After a merfolk infant is born, it takes between six and twelve days for the merfry to be able to swim unaided. Even then, it is much longer for the merfry to be able to swim long distances without tiring, but it's still viewed as a joyous occasion when a baby can splash forward a few yards in the water.

This is the Swim Day, equivalent to the Name Day for many Scarterrans. Merfolk do not even name their children until they can swim. If a merfry is not able to swim within twelve days, they are probably not even going to live twelve days. No point in naming something and getting attached if it can die so easily.

With rare exceptions, if a merfry cannot swim after twelve days, the young fry is either put to death outright or left to die of exposure. A few conservative merfolk groups view twelve days as too generous and leave their fry out to die after nine days.

Twelve days is the standard in the Oshamni Empire.



Now I need to ponder how I want the dark side of this. In real world ancient Rome, after eight or nine days, if the patriarch of the household (the patriarch was in charge of the name day for his children, his sibling's children, his children's children and most oppressively of all, his servant's children).

After eight or nine days, the baby was placed on a blanket on the floor and examined. If the patriarch picks up the child, that means he accepts it into his household. If not, the child is left out to die.

But wait it gets worse!

Children abandoned by a household might not die of exposure, they could get picked up by slavers! This happened regularly enough that slave traders would comb villas periodically to look for abandoned infants.

I'm not sure how widespread slavery is going to be in Scaraqua, but there is another option. That is to have some/most/all abandoned young who die in the wilderness come back in some kind of monstrous or undead form.

And now, because every the Karakhai do is hardcore....

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Karakai Name Days, aka teething days
Unlike the sissy merfolk and their Swim Days Karakhai pups can swim within less than an hour after birth. If they don't swim within an hour they will certainly die. If a pup swims poorly, they might be put down by a shamed parent.

Pups are considered children of the entire tribe. All pups are considered brothers and sisters of the pups in their birthing collective. Adult Karakhai take care of all the tribe's pups. It is considered taboo to show favoritism to one's own biological children (and it's hard to determine exact paternity anyway given the chaotic nature of Karakhai mating).Typically the young pup (or pair, twin births are common), is to feed their young chopped up chum. Usually all the females of a tribe give birth to pups at roughly the same time, so pups are typically fed as a group.

Karakhai will try to catch very small prey alive and release the prey near their pups to see if their pups can hunt. Each tribe has their own customs as to when it's time to have the pups should be "weaned" as it were. Typically this is anywhere between twenty and fifty days. Each tribe has it's own traditions on which "practice prey" is best.

Pups that seem slow to hunt by themselves may be killed, or they may be given additional chances. It depends largely on how abundant food is for the tribe. If the tribe is undergoing lean times, pups are shown far less mercy and understanding. Some tribes deliberately limit the chum and practice prey released to force the pups to compete with each other, thus ensuring the tribe only accepts the strongest pup.

Pups are not given a name until they make a noteworthy kill. Some Karakhai are okay with keeping their childhood name their entire lives, but a Karakhai can earn a new name in adulthood with a suitably impressive deed. No one wants to be stuck with the name "Slow Biter" forever.

It is rare but not unheard of for a small creature to accidentally swim into a cluster of shark pups that was deliberately fed to them and to have a prodigy shark pup kill it before the adults decided to start weaning the young.This is a much celebrated and is considered an auspicious omen for future on the pup's part.

 

[Scolenex]

Pandas are not named until they eat their first bamboo, usually around six months after being born. On my name day, I was named "Bamboo Eater."

Unfortunately, that is a very common name in panda culture so it can be confusing for outsiders.

Most pandas online choose an online alias to avoid confusion.