crime and punishment

Seeing as how world building month is drawing to a close, this may well be my last post. So I thought I’d talk a little about crime in Cres Chencia and how they deal with it.  (Cus, you know, it’d be a crime to stop blogging. Or something like that. Heh.)

The official governement of Cres Chencia is the Council of Three. They handle matters in Stiarnadallen, Theeria, and Aedwyn. Winolahala, since it’s so sparsely populated and isolated, are mostly left to their own devices.

Crimes vary across the continent, but in most places, they can be solved by a ‘donation’. The offender pays a fine in accordance with his crime. In Theeria where this is little crime at all, and the people are all quite well-to-do, this system works well. In Aedwyn, most people can afford the fee, but if not, they’re sentenced to a period of work in the fields. In both places, repeat offenses and/or severe crimes cause the perpetrator to be banished to Stiarnadallen.

In Stiarnadallen, where many people are poor or even destitute, few offences can be taken care of with donations, so offenders have to work either in the miness, the greenhouses, or the water purification plant. Here, punishment for crimes can last through several generations because once banished to Stiarnadallen, it’s very difficult to gain enough money and status to leave.

Severe crimes in Stiarnadallen are ‘boated’. The criminal is tied to the mast of a small skip and sent out to sea.

religion and magic in Cres Chencia

Religion doesn’t play much of a role in places like Stiarnadallen and Theeria where they feel that religion is a mark of the uneducated and the foolishly optimistic. In Aedwyn and Winolahala, religion plays a much bigger role because the people in both places are so connected to the land.

Basically, what they believe is that the moon is inhabited by a spirit of positive energy. (Or you could say that the moon itself is simply the vessel for that energy.) The spirit is sentient, and it watches over the people of Tria but it doesn’t intervene. It wants people to make mistakes and learn from them.

The belief is that when a person dies, if they have learned and experienced enough, they become a part of the spirit on the moon. If not, they’re reborn.

The moon is also what gives the Trians the ability to use magic at all. Their magic is entirely lunar-based, and everyone in Tria is capable of using magic if they wish, and with it they can sense the life force of nearby things. The stronger a person’s propensity for magic, the farther this sense reaches. The talent is determined mostly by randomness but birth can impact it, much the same way that musical talent tends to run in families.

The ability and strength of life sensing grows stronger as the moon waxes and is strongest during the full moon. As the moon wanes, so too does the magic’s potency. During the new moon, many people can’t use magic at all.

Astronomically speaking, the moon goes through phases. During some phases it is closer to Tria and during others, it’s farther away. During Ragno’s Era, the moon was closer to Tria and so magic was much, much stronger than it is in present day Tria where the moon is farther away.

Using magic to sense life has limited uses, but can be helpful in finding things if they’re lost (depending on the thing and where it is lost). People with stronger talent can even communicate with the life around them via a certain type of telepathy.

On their own, people have a very limited application of magic (as you can see), but in groups, it is stronger. A group of highly talented magic users can not only detect and communicate with other (nonhuman) living beings, but they can also change the nature of those things. For example, turning a tree to stone. However, the more complex the living creature is, the more power it takes to change it.

In the past, experiments were conducted (on criminals) to see if any group of magic users could change the nature of a human but none succeeded in any way.

The dangers of using magic include becoming addicted. The effect of sensing life is not unlike drug-induced euphoria. People addicted to magic spend large amounts of time in the trance-like state of magic use. These people risk being ‘invaded’.

While working magic, a person must open themselves to the life around them, thereby allowing for the potential that a stronger magic user can attack and either seize control or even push their consciousness out of the body. (Death ensues.) Such battles are often costly to both parties, however, and the victor is nearly always left exhausted or even comatose if he’s pushed too hard.

The high costs and limited applications of magic are what spurred the technological growth.

Winolahala AKA The Willow Woods

Winolahala (referred to by everyone except those who live there as the Willow Woods) has long been home to the Papina tribe. (On the map, it’s the center-ish island.) The Papinas’ exact numbers are unknown, but they are estimated to be between 30 and 50. A simple folk, they live in hollowed out trees willow trees (though the willows don’t have exactly the same properties as the willows we have).

Hollowing out the trees is a rite of passage for teenage Papina boys. The task is to carve a suitable domicile inside the tree without killing it. Only after the cave has been successfully built can a boy consider taking a wife.

The trees themselves are planted by the boy’s parents the day he is born. When he reaches the age of seventeen, the tree is large enough to live in. If the boy fails and kills the tree, he must built his own shelter (in a cave or out of dead branches and rocks) while he plants a new willow and cares for it. He is forbidden to wed during this time. If he kills his tree again, he is forbidden to try again.

Girls are able to take a husband at the age of fifteen. They’re the ones who choose the man, but the man may refuse to court her once chosen. If a woman reaches the age of thirty before she is wed, she is no longer allowed to take a husband.

Winolahala is the only other place aside from Aedwyn where there is naturally occurring fresh water. Animals thrive in the forest and are used in a variety of ways — food, clothing, labor, and companionship to name the most prevalent.

Aedwyn

Aedwyn (the largest island on the map) is a land mostly untouched by technology and politics. By choice. They have most of the same technological advances as in Theeria but most choose not to use them. The people are wealthy enough that if they want to live in the technological world, they simply move to Theeria. Most people in Aedwyn do utilize the indoor plumbing, however, and most have indoor electricity though they don’t depend on it.

Aedwyn is one of only two places in Cres Chencia where animals still thrive without the help of man, due to the vast amounts of fresh water available. Near Stone Lake (name may change) in the north, volcanic eruptions have become considerably more numerous since the continent began to sink. Despite this, many people still live in the mountains nearby, as well as on the islands that dot Stone Lake. Travel from here to the rest of the Aedwyn is easiest because the people can simply take their ships downstream.

The center portion of the Aedwyn is largely farmland — both animal and plant.

The richest people live in the river delta area, where the land is most unstable. Only a person with sufficient money can afford to fill the soggy land with new soil and make it suitable for living.

All through Aedwyn, sailing is not only held in high regard but is practically a necessity for traveling. On the eighth day of spring each year, they hold the boating festival, which includes races, marathons, ship showcasing, and general merry making (lol).

Theeria

Theeria is the sister of Stiarnadallen when it comes to origin. (On the map, it’s the western-most island with the triangle drawn on it.) After the original inhabitants of Stiarnadallen began to realize how much pollution their first attempt at technology produced, they tried a second time. As such, Theeria began as an experiment with electromagnetism. When their experiment yielded success, the scientists and politicians worked together to create the floating metropolis.

Theeria, which is comprised of four different cities, is built entirely on an electromagnet which has the opposite charge as the land beneath it, thus allowing it to float. The electricity to supply the magnet comes from a combination of solar power and battery power (for night time, obviously).

The people of Theeria have most of the same technological advances as in Stiarnadallen, but they function on solar power and electromagnetics and are therefore considerably cleaner. Their automobiles are like hovercrafts in that they float due to having the opposite charge as the magnet beneathe them, and it’s possible to change the charge of the automobile’s magnetism so as to travel outside of Theeria as well.

The Council of Three meets in Theeria in the city of Cielle. Due to Theeria being the capitol of all Cres Chencia, most of the available resources go to ensuring the survive of Theeria from the continent’s eventual demise.

(And the reason that they don’t simply give these advances to Stiarnadallen as well, if you haven’t stopped to consider, is because of the bowl that blocks the sun from reaching Stiarnadallen and the pollution it’s containing and breaking down.)

Unlike in Stiarnadallen, there are animals, but only because the people there are wealthy enough and have enough resources to keep animals alive. (They are mostly used for food.) In addition, large areas in Theeria have been set aside as forests and fields both for the plant and animal life to thrive and to give a ‘natural’ feel to the land. Again, water is obtained through reverse osmosis and is stored in a massive, man-made lake at the center of the metropolis. The city of Cielle (where council meets) is at the center of the lake. Most food is grown in greenhouses, whereas the fields are used primarily to grow wheat.

The latest attempt to develop new technology is to find a way to use lasers to control the weather (since without the sun, their power supply is limited).

Stiarnadallen

There are four main cultures that live in present day Cres Chencia. The first, if you feel like scrolling down to check out the map again, is Stiarnadallen (which I may just call Stiarna, I’m not sure). Stiarnadallen is the southern-most island (not including the tiny one way down there) with the bad circle drawn on it. There are five main cities, arranged in a rough pentagon shape around the center of the island.

At the heart of the five cities lay the coal and steel mines. That, combined with the flowing water across the center of the continent and the vast amounts of petroleum that were discovered in the south, made Stiarnadallen an ideal location for the beginnings of technology.

Since the discovery of petroleum and its uses, technology in Stiarnadallen progressed rapidly to include automobiles, weapons, in-door electricity and plumbing. Unfortunately, such heavy uses of coal and oil have led to the entire area around the five cities being heavily polluted. So much so, in fact, that the Council of Three decreed that a large metal dome (called ‘the bowl’) be built above Stiarnadallen to both protect the rest of the continent from spreading pollution and to help in breaking it down. The downside to this is that the people in the five cities are hidden from the sky and live in perpetual night time.

The air is so polluted now that only those born and raised in Stiarnadallen can breathe it. Visitors have to use masks to protect themselves.

Their food is grown in green houses near the edge of the island and there is no fresh water. Before the continent began to sink, a river flowed through the land that is now Stiarnadallen, but now it has been flooded with sea water. Their drinking and crop water is obtained through reverse osmosis (as it is in most places across the continent). Due to the lack of fresh water, no animals can survive on the land and their only source of meat is sea food.

Crime is quite widespread and the people mostly live under the boot of a gang called the Flower Peddlers. (They are called that because they often have women scope an area by masquerading as flower peddlers.) The Flower Peddlers mostly control the drug trade in and out of Stiarnadallen, and they have a strong hand in the alcohol industry, as well as prostitution and gambling.

One councilor represents Stiarnadallen’s interests in the Council of three and lives in the Councilor’s Estate atop the bowl, but due to the fact that all of Cres Chencia is sinking, the Council sees Stiarnadallen as a lost cause and doesn’t want to waste the resources to improve it.

living in the past…

I guess a good place to start with regards to my new Cres Chencia is its history. To do that, I need to first explain the dating system. The Cres Chencians use astrological eras to catalogue their events. They have eight major constellations: Ari (the eagle), Keto (the whale), Ragno (the spider), Gunju (the cougar), Salali (the rabbit), Pakwa (the frog), Crevan (the fox), and Cho (the butterfly).

In present day Cres Chencia, astrology isn’t considered an accurate science and falls under the tiniest minority of religions, but they continue using the stars to mark time to keep things accurate and consistent. A historical date in Cres Chencia gives the era and the year, for example Cho 1775. Each era lasts 2333 years. When a new era begins, the count begins again at 1. So for example, the year after Crevan 2333 would be Cho 1.

In conversation, it’s not usually necessary to give the era because people usually talk about recent events rather than ancient history, much the same way that we don’t say we graduated high school in 2004 AD.

Cres Chencia was founded in Keto 2287 by a large ship full of people — survivors of the continent Chencial when it became too unsafe to live on because of rising tides, earthquakes, and volcanic eruptions. The ship held a total of 76 people, 45 women and 31 men and from these all Cres Chencians came to be.

Little is known about the events in Keto’s Era or Ragno’s Era which followed because when Cres Chencia began to sink, most of the historical records and journals from that time were destroyed in the floods and fires that resulted. All that is remembered is that Ragno’s Era was a dark time, filled with many wars and struggles for power. The moon was closer to the planet, making magic more potent and dangerous. Many consider it a time best forgotten.

It was discovered that Cres Chencia was sinking in Gunju 34. At first, the common people didn’t believe it to be a major problem, but as time passed and cities and even mountain ranges were swallowed by the waves, panic inevitably broke out. The war of Gunju 71 is considered to be the greatest shame in Cres Chencian history. It began by mass rioting over the entire continent. The rioters were so troublesome that the goverment tried to quell them by force, which more or less led to a free for all that expanded into a full scale civil war.

The war finally ended in 77 with the discovery of electricity and the technological boom that resulted. The people believed that new advances in technology would save them from the rising water.

The story I have planned takes place around Gunju 330, where in some places the technology is highly advanced and in others it’s virtually nonexistent. Also, I’m toying with the idea of making their system of numbers an octal rather than a decimal system. But I don’t think I can make it work without a huge info dump or the reader not knowing what the hell’s going on.

But those are details for later posts.

new and improved!

Well, I’m back from Denmark. And since I’ve had crazy amounts of free time on my hands, I gave a lot of thought to this whole world-building thing. See, I wasn’t very excited about the Tria that I started creating. I didn’t see how my characters (which are more important to me than the world) would ever be able to interact in that world.

So I gave it a make-over. I like the new one much better.

To be clear, most the stuff I wrote about Tria itself still stands, but the stuff about Cres Chencia is all new. The map of Tria is accurate except for Cres Chencia as well. In other words, this post, this post, and this post have all been thrown out the window.

Here’s a scanned copy of the map I drew while I planned this thing out. (I’m no artist so don’t expect anything cool. )

That’s Cres Chencia, which is still sinking, but not as quickly or as cornily as before. As for the text at the bottom, that’s the names of things in Cres Chencia — don’t worry, I know what they go to — but I’ll explain things in more detail in later posts. The reason I don’t just crop the photo so we only have the map is because I’m lazy because this is world-building month and rough drafts are part of the fun.

Hopefully I’ll be able to squeeze in the details before world-building month is over. It’s great to be back!

to live and die in tria

Here’s how I know that participating in world building month is a good idea: I never would have taken the time to sort out these details otherwise. What I would have ended up with is a half-assed world that would inevitably require extensive work in later drafts that, in all likelihood, I would have been to lazy to do.

However, this was fun. I created a planet today. How many people can say that with a straight face, I wonder?

My planet is named Tria. Like our planet, it has a yellow sun and only one moon. However, Tria’s moon is considerably closer than ours, such that on a clear night, it never gets truly dark. The number of continents changes every few generations or so due to underwater seismic activity and the moon’s close proximity to the planet (and the tumultuous tides that result).

Present day Tria has four continents: Huojin, Fiarna, Penko, and Cres Chencia. Here’s a map (it was created in MS paint, so don’t expect anything fancy):

Since the story that I’m planning takes place entirely on Cres Chencia (as of right now), I’ll describe the Cres Chencian knowledge of the other three continents (but whether or not it’s correct is my secret!).

Huojin lies in the far north and is inhabited mostly by hunters and trappers. In the mountainous regions, there are several steel mines, and the Huojins blacksmiths are excellent at tempering the steel. Their swords are without rival. Nevertheless, the Huojins have rather simplistic, grotesque habits and are considered little better than barbarians.

Fiarna is lush with forests and grasslands and experiences a fairly temperate climate with four distinct seasons (much like most of North America and Europe). Fiarnians have moderate use of technology and can utilize the most basic principles of physics. Despite this, they are a savage people, highly skilled in combat–with or without weapons. They are best avoided.

Penko is a largely uninhabited continent due to its harsh climate. Roughly two-thirds of the land mass is desert. Several nomadic tribes are able to survive in the forbidding habitat, but it is yet unknown how. The savanna around the desert is home to fierce beasts of various kinds, and no humans are thought to dwell there. The southern tip of Penko opens up to grassland. It is believed that the farmers who inhabit that area are survivors from a continent that sank in past generations.

The details on the continent of Cres Chencia are much more elaborate, so I’m going to save that for the next post. Au revoir for now.

the cast

As promised, I’ll talk a little about the characters that inhabit this not-yet-fleshed-out world of mine. I’m not dividing them up into good guy and bad guys. If everything goes according to the extremely flimsy plan I’m working with, this will be one fantasy novel without a dark lord or a hero. Essentially, there are just several different people running around with different priorities, causing problems for themselves and for one another. Everyone is both a good guy and a bad guy.

Whether or not I’ll be able to pull this off is a different matter all together, but I’ll worry about that when November rolls around.

Without further ado, allow me to introduce you to the main characters as of this point:

Caelan is arguably the MC, but not really. He’s just the point from where this whole idea spawned. He’s tall and lanky, with a lightly tanned complexion, brown eyes, and jaw-length brown hair that he is forever tucking behind his ears. The love of Caelan’s life is literature, owing to his upbringing as a servant for a well-to-do former naval captain who taught him to read as a boy. He also loves the sea. He resents authority and hates having to ask for help. He also believes, wrongly, that he can find happiness by being wealthy and independent, and he’s afraid of failure. Despite essentially marrying for money, he truly loves his wife and tries to make her happy (but he usually fails to do so).

Sol (Caelan’s wife) is the case of a good woman marrying the wrong man for her. She’s afraid of silence and hates to be alone, and she resents Caelan for being so wrapped up in his books all the time. She does, however, share his love for the sea, but she wants a husband who is also her friend. She also loves the rain, and tends to take long walks in stormy weather. This tendency often causes awful rumors to be spread about her. Out of loneliness, she eventually has an affair with…

Councilor Lucas is the representative from one of the poorer districts (decaters) who believes in equality between the classes and is a bit of a womanizer. He loves rare foods of any kind and as a result is a slightly portly chap. He hates both idleness and religion, but he appreciates good business. He also embraces technology and sees magic as a dying art in light of new science. He’s married, but only because it makes him appear more trustworthy in the political world.

Dita (Lucas’ wife) is a ferociously jealous woman and she’ll go to great lengths to ruin any woman whom she finds out has bedded her husband. It’s not that she loves Lucas but rather that she doesn’t want anyone getting her way. While she doesn’t actually love him, she does love the power that comes from being married to a councilor. She’s intelligent, loves art and music, and hates illiteracy. As a result, she pushes Lucas to focus on promoting education and the arts.

Ronan is a middle-class man who lives in Lucas’ decater and whose goal is to become wealthy and posh. He loves to tinker with whatever new gadgets he comes across and embraces technology. Despite his tinkering, he hates clutter and mess, and tends to be slightly obsessive compulsive about it. He owns a small book store, which he eventually loses to Caelan (along with his dreams of moving up in the world).

Ann (Ronan’s wife) is a very down-to-earth, practical sort of woman. She loves peace and quiet and enjoys doing menial tasks like cleaning and gardening. She hates confrontation and nearly always keeps her cool. She’s also very perceptive about what makes people tick, but is prudent and doesn’t flaunt what she knows. She’s loyal to a fault.

There you have it. Those are all of my MC’s. The POV will likely bounce around between them, especially since most of them live in very different parts of my world. Speaking thus, world building begins tomorrow…