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Interlude 1: The Races of Delyria by Benjamin Yackley (Posted on 10/15/02)

Delyria is a very small world. It's a sphere, approximately 800 miles in diameter, with a single moon and single tiny sun that both orbit around it. It sits at the center of its own little universe, inside a fixed crystalline shell which also contains a number of other, smaller, planets. Although Delyria is very small, it has Earthlike gravity. Its surface is two-thirds water, with the land being divided into seven main continents plus a large number of islands. The total world population (at the time of Mages Errant and Spellshocked) is some 10 million, roughly split in half between city and rural populations. Although hybridization, Instillment, and miscellaneous sorts of transformation magic account for a great deal of variety in form, there are seven "basic" races in the world, each inhabiting one of the continents.

The most common race is the Levendish. The country of Levend is small, cold, mountainous, and covered in forests. It actually contains the South Pole. This is why the locals have their fur coats, which get quite thick in the wild snowy tundras and ice-scapes of South Levend. Levendish are, on average, slightly smaller than humans, with tails and pointed ears as well as muzzles ranging from short and blunt to long and pointed. Their fur naturally ranges from white through gray, tan, and brown to pitch black. The warmer northern end of Levend has comparatively mild weather (especially in the coastal cities like the capital); northern Levendish have thinner coats, slimmer tails, and larger ears than their bulkily built shaggy-furred southern cousins.

Levend was united approximately 1,400 years ago under King Vergus (the capital of Levend, Verguston, is named for him). Once united, the new country turned its eager eyes toward colonization, resulting in the worldwide prevalence of the Levendish language for trade, as well as more than a few roving bands of pointy-eared, fur-bearing high-seas pirates.

Levendish tend to band together into social groups; they are by and large incurably gregarious, and every Levendish town of any size will have an expansive public hall wherein anyone and everyone (including travelers) is welcome to stop on by for a mug of ale, a generous serving of whatever happens to be roasting, a few rousing choruses of a random drinking song, the occasional dance, and even board games in the more well-read societies. And, of course, to gather around a storyteller and hear some of Levend's famed lore. Levendish live their lives according to stories - their native religion has no gods, only heroes. Their morals come from fables, their ideas of the universe from myths. Their form of worship is to retell these stories, either orally or through drama, and often with creative embellishments. The basic stories themselves are eternal.

The dinosaur-like Tximisti live on the wide savannahs of Tximist, a continent also noted for its craggy mountainous north, full of treacherous canyons, surging rivers, and wild terrain. These rivers wind their way down the prairie, eventually joining up into the broad Txonitro River that empties into the Bay of Almanaque. Tximist is far across the sea to the northeast of Levend, in the comparatively sparse Northern Hemisphere.

Tximisti are physically short and birdlike, with massive three-clawed feet, beaklike snouts, and muscular tails; they are just as massive as humans, although it is hard to tell because of their bent-over posture. Tximisti men have elaborate spiky crests on their heads, while the women either are crestless or have very simple swept-back crests. Apart from this, there is no outward physical difference between the sexes. They come in all sorts of bright colors, from red to yellow to blue to purple and anywhere in between, often with elaborate natural patterns on their skin which, along with their coloration, marks them as members of one tribe or another.

Tximisti organize themselves by tribe, and are raised generation by generation without any regards to which egg belonged to which mother or father. There are no words in Tximsti for "son", "daughter", "father", or "mother". The closest equivalents would mean, approximately, "nephew", "niece", "uncle", and "aunt". A tribe is a family, and one Tximisti considers every older Tximisti of the same tribe an aunt or uncle, and every younger one a niece or nephew. Shamans, belonging to no tribe and generally very old, call everyone niece and nephew.

The most important concept to the Tximisti is the idea of the "path". They are migratory, traveling in great loops, one to each tribe, and this loop - the tribal path - becomes an ingrained part of every Tximisti's thought process. The shamans are solitary Tximisti who have heard their calling elsewhere and follow their own paths, making sure to present themselves to the tribes in order to perform the sacred duties - they have the power to communicate with the spirits of the dead Tximisti (or so it's said; shamans are very reluctant to share their methods with curious mages). The paths are metaphorical as well as literal, representing the life journey that all individuals must take.

East of Levend and south of Tximist is Ertset, the largest single continent. It is not one country, but contains several dozen (about 80) fiefdoms, each ruled over by a lord and patrolled by an army of knights. Ertset, large as it is, also contains an incredible variety of terrain, from lush forests and river valleys coated in vineyards in the warm north through the vast spreading farmlands and plains of central Ertset down to the distinctive square plateaus and steppes of the south.

The Ertseti traditionally lived by a caste system consisting of farmers, knights, and nobility, but when inter-city trade became possible with the construction of highways (for which Ertset is now famous; the Grand Highway connecting the two largest cities in Ertset stretches for nearly 500 miles), a new class of merchants appeared and the caste system was thrown out of balance. Today, the castes really only matter in the rural areas that don't see much merchant traffic and the larger cities offer more in the way of social mobility.

Physically, Ertseti are larger than humans, averaging 7 and a half feet tall. Northern Ertseti top out at about 7 feet, while the highlanders can be nearly nine feet tall. They resemble horses, deer, antelopes, or other such creatures; they have long faces, swiveling pointed ears, and sometimes tails. Some Ertseti have manes or horns and their pelts range from white through brown to black and are often patterned in interesting ways. Their feet have hooves in place of toes, but their hands (like the hands of most races) have the normal five fingers.

It is important to note that the term 'knight' does not necessarily mean plate mail and a sword. The term refers to anyone who serves in a lord's army, male or female. Mages can be knights. Archers can be knights. Anyone fighting in his or her lord's name and bearing that lord's standard is a knight. Since anything knights do in battle reflects on their lord, knights must make sure to stay honorable and noble. An untrustworthy knight means an untrustworthy lord, and an untrustworthy lord is one whose land will soon get overrun by other knights belonging to lords who don't want to get backstabbed.

To outsiders, the Ertseti may appear preoccupied with war, but this is mainly just the lords and knights. The farmers and craftsmen who do the actual work largely don't care which lord they serve; they get taxed all the same, so what does it matter who gets the money?

East of Ertset and west of Levend is Vadha, nicknamed the Chalice Continent because of its unique shape - a collection of hundreds of lakes surrounded by steep, sharp mountains of granite. The lakes rise in altitude as they near the center of the continent, getting colder and clearer. The topmost lake continuously overflows with crystal-clean (and very, very cold) water, causing cascades of waterfalls over the entire continent, thanks to the power of Nalu, the Vadhans' chief deity.

Lord of the Eternal Fountain, Master of the Rivers, Nalu is the source (according to the Vadhans) of all water and life in the world. His counterpart, Luwo, is a force of equal power and importance; she is the Devourer beneath the Ocean, the All-Consuming. Nalu and Luwo exist as balanced powers of creation and destruction. All things flow from Nalu, and all things flow into Luwo. Religion is a central part of Vadhan life; the carvings of the prophets over the centuries have been the guidelines that all High Priestesses (always female) follow. The High Priestess is the nominal ruler of Vadha, although she does very little actual ruling and more often merely makes cryptic statements about the will of Nalu, with whom she maintains close contact.

The city of Udhala, on a coastal plain to the west, is Vadha's primary point of contact with the outside world, as it's the only city in Vadha with a port. It is also constantly under about two feet of gently flowing water and therefore extremely slippery to landgoers. Vadhans are human-sized, with thick leathery skin ranging in color from blue-gray to brighter blues, purples, and greens. They are aquatic but live in fresh water; salt water is painful (and often fatal) for them to swim through. They are built with humanoid torsos with a single dorsal fin protruding from the neck, a second tall fin on top of a blunt-snouted head (the two fins fall into line with one another when a Vadhan swims), and a body that tapers down beneath the rib cage to a sharklike tail. Their skeletons stop at the ribs; below there is only cartilage, making their tails deceptively strong and dexterous and allowing them to speed through the water.

The cockatrices of Hluluwe have always been enigmatic to outsiders; they tend to be xenophobic and clan-oriented, and their borders were closed until fairly recently. They were also the only country to be Kashenda's allies during the Great War and historians still argue over the rationale behind this alliance.

Expeditions into Hluluwe kept vanishing mysteriously until just a few centuries ago, when the cockatrices began to slowly emerge from their jungle continent. Now, Hluluwe is just beginning to make its mark on the world with its distinct styles of food (like curried bees) and dress (the multiple-sashes look) as members of the lower clans emigrate and find their way to other lands.

Cockatrices are large creatures with birdlike heads, arms and legs possessing birdlike talons, as well as a set of independent leathery wings attaching just above and behind the arms. Their heads and upper torsos are feathered but below about halfway down the chest they are reptilian, with a scaled underbelly leading to a spade-tipped tail. They come in a wide variety of colors - mostly bright primaries, since they nearly always breed within their color.

There is still much unknown about their home continent. Mysterious flying ruins drift across the sky, orbiting the center of the continent on the circular wind currents that push the large flying stones of Hluluwe around. These stones contain a large concentration of a mineral called "zephyrite", which is notable for being lighter than air. Zephyrite mining is a profitable trade for the cockatrices.

The continent was previously known as Kyria to outsiders, until contact with its cockatrice inhabitants established the name Hluluwe.

Aezo is home to the Aezites, the 'human' race. They come in all colors that humans do on Earth, although the most common combinations are skin ranging towards the middle, brownish part of the spectrum, and black hair.

Aezites are chiefly known for their mysticism as well as being the race that formalized magic as it's now practiced the world over. This fact is hardly surprising given the typical Aezite obsession with words, numbers, and shapes. They are very advanced in the ways of mathematics, physics, and astronomy; their architecture is very elaborate but highly structured. It can be hard to believe at times, but even their largest buildings - the palaces and libraries, and the Tower at the center of their ring-shaped continent - are built without any magic to hold them up at all, though, naturally, magic was employed to get them built in the first place.

The stereotypical Aezite is very curious but very logical; their culture encourages rational thought and following patterns. This is sometimes taken to illogical extremes, as is the case with Tenthys, a secluded city overrun by excessive order, unable to understand anything outside their normal lines of thinking. Aezites see the world as a balance of forces that can be measured and altered; things happen according to numbers. Their religion gives a name and 'personality' to each number (1 through 9), with a conventional tenth blank space or empty pedestal representing zero.

The reptilian folk of Zemrin (the Zem) are separated by a mountain range into the Jindrethi in the desert to the north and the Savsar in the jungles to the south, with a third subgroup (composed mainly of immigrants from both sides) living in the mountains separating the two. Zem conventionally have either two or four limbs: either a humanoid torso on top of a snakelike tail or a full reptilian-humanoid body. Some also have cobra-like hoods. Their main colors are green or brown, with occasional outliers of different (but always muted) colors.

The Jindrethi are best known for their metalwork, living in a city of iron walls and high smokestacks where foundries blaze away at all hours of the day. Their culture emphasizes strength and endurance; the most important thing in life is to be able to take your knocks and keep going. As they say, "glass breaks but iron tempers". Injured Jindrethi often patch themselves up with custom-fitted metal limbs or masks; this is a mark of honor.

The Savsar share the Jindrethi view on suffering (that it's going to happen no matter what), but see it as a cause to eliminate the pain (and the source of the pain, if possible). They cultivate all sorts of mystical herbs and fragrant spices and are highly skilled in herbalism and alchemy.

The two subgroups are eternal rivals; the only thing preventing an all-out war is the number of peace-loving mountain folk between the two territories. The main cause of the struggle is the limited water supply, which flows down from the mountains and is channeled one way or the other. Savsari gets all the natural rainfall, so Jindreth builds massive pipes to carry water into the desert, which gets Savsari angry at its water being taken, and so on. To solve the problem, a third group of pacifists assembled from both sides simply claimed the mountains as their own; they ration out the continent's water and serve as waypoints for travelers going over the mountains. The largest waypoint, Ver Zelen, is also known as the City of the Iron Gate, named after the large gateway that divides the city into two halves but continually stands open.

Maglatan, a crescent-shaped island in the tropics, is all that remains of the land of Kashenda after the cataclysm that ended the Great War tore most of that continent apart, magically saturating the rest. Because of this, everything and everyone in Maglatan has some sort of magic to it; the people come in millions of unique forms and the farms produce brightly colored fruits and vegetables. Maglatan's chief business is tourism; the people are good-natured and enjoy putting on parades and pageants. After all, what use is life if you can't enjoy it? Maglatanians have a uniquely cheery disposition towards life. They lived through the greatest calamity in history; if they could survive that, they can withstand anything.

Grandegear isn't a continent, but a floating city. A ship, actually, but it never moves unless it absolutely needs to. It's a place of steam pipes and gears, where no magic is practiced but machines are everywhere. On the surface, it appears to be a utopia; the people (all of Levendish descent) all know their place and have a role to play in the grand machine that is Grandegearian life. However, this comes at a cost: Grandegear suffers from a lack of creativity. People simply live from day to day. The engineers keep the city's machines running and occasionally make incremental improvements, but nothing really new ever happens.

At this point, it's unknown what more there might be to the world of Delyria; there are still secluded valleys where no explorer has set foot, and no one has yet to travel deep beneath the ground or the ocean, or explore the reaches of space. There are still horizons out there for an enterprising explorer in search of fame, fortune, or just a good thrill.

Mages Errant (http://mages.delyria.com), its logo, all related text, stories and characters are copyright (c) 2002 by Benjamin Yackley and Lia Itram (save where otherwise noted). Text may not be altered in whole or in part or sold for fun or profit without explicit permission of the authors. Text may not be copied or redistributed without this statement.