College of War

The first of two of short posts that touch things that have been only briefly mentioned so far.

The three colonies in the area of the the College are the Bay’s End colony, the New Sturmgaut colony and the Aeterna colony. B.E. is the colony formerly owned by Impera that was transferred to Fieon rule a while back. There are 3 larger towns in the Bay’s End colony - Bay’s End, Creek and Cairnswind. The fourth major population center in the area is the Johnstown seaport which serves as the main trade harbor, but is located on the most inhospitable piece of land imaginable, so it never grew into a place to live. But if you need something, Johnstown port is the best place to get that. For a price.

The New Sturmgaut colony is geologically separated from Bay’s End by a long cliff so massive that it is near impossible to scale and it actually changes the environment and nature on each side. On the northern side, it’s mostly conifers and birch, downhill these mix with oak, maple, beech, and elm. The Gerenians who have moved to the area have somewhat retained aspects of the heavily feudal system their homeland still values. There is a strong sense of hierarchical structure amongst the inhabitants even if there is more land to go around and people aren’t strictly bound to their lords.

The third colony in the area is the Aeterna colony to the north from B.E. area. It’s a joint venture from the Hisperans and the Anardi. Officially under the rule of the Queen of Hispera, the Anardi merchant lords are the actual rulers there. The Aeterna colony spans far north of St. Azmael river, with 2 other large cities within the borders.

Beyond the three northernmost colonies, there are a couple Imperan colonies on the coastline to the south, Fieon have colonized some lands southwest from Bay’s End. And when you go further south, you get to lands populated by Anardi and Hisperan. The Andegal have always found peninsulas a natural habitat and the towns they’ve established usually are located on remote islands. Some say they’re commencing piracy from the remote coves, but that might be just nasty rumors.

Getting back to the world describing after a few days of mechanics.

The educational system is divided into two or three parts, depending how you look at things. Each town has their own teacher (in the countryside, there are traveling teachers going from village to village), who teaches the children to read. In fact, most of the children in the New World are literate, which is quite astonishing, compared to Old World. He will also teach them the basic concepts of religion and some mathematics. Nothing fancy, but as the teachers put it “just enough to see who have the talent for more”.

Then, once every 4 or 5 years, a Magister travels through these schools, looking for potentials for further education, based on their teachers’ descriptions. Those who have basic knack for things get selected for the normal colleges in the cities, under the magisters watchful eye. But also, sometimes, they tell people to pack their things and travel to the College of War, a sort of a draft. The local folk know that people who get to the College tend to become wealthy and powerful, so not many object. Communities pool their wealth to support the journey as they know things will get better when their children get back.

Now, the colonies aren’t allowed to have an independent army - they get their protection from the Crown (or the Emperor as things were before). Thus they don’t even have a need for one. But they do have this highly developed educational system. As a crown jewel of this is a College that actually outshines most of the Old World institutions. The College, that teaches, amongst philosophy and medicine, the arts of War and Magic. The mainland doesn’t see this as any sort of a problem, both are important things for a man of the Crown to learn. At least this is the formal stance on the matter.

But there is talk. The College has been recruiting people quite aggressively lately. They are focusing on those that have some anti-establishment feelings. They are focusing on the rabble-rousers and the bar-brawlers. And then they teach these people the arts of magic and warfare. Some people are starting to wonder.

Oops, a bit late today.

In the College of War and surrounding areas, there are few “ethnic” groups that are quite easily recognizable:

Frontiersmen

While the actual person from the Frontier might vary a lot, life there changes you. Characteristics that describe a person who has lived most of his life face to face with the Wilderness have the tendency to be introverted and inventive. Politics matter very little to them and they keep their views on religion to themselves, and hope others do the same. They do not engage in small-talk, in fact, they seem to find talking distasteful if they can’t bring any new insight to the conversation. When a person returns from the Frontier, he is always greeted almost as a hero returning from war - his stories give everyone new insight and his work in fighting the wilderness is respected.

Colonists

The original Colonies of the area are Imperan, and thus quite many of the people belong to that ancestry. When speaking of Colonists, people refer to those that haven’t been born on the new continent, but have moved there from abroad. At the moment the colonists can be divided into two distinct factions - the Imperans and the Fieon. Fieon people have only really been around for some 10 years, oldest Imperans classified as colonists are over 60 years old. The colonists are a varied bunch, but the usual opinion is that they are loyal to the mainland and try to promote that agenda in the New World

Aboriginals

The original people of the New World were primitive savages with next to no idea what magic was before the first settlers arrived. They are a simple folk that live off the land, mainly hunter-gatherers. Some of their tribes have decided to embrace the civilization from the Old World and have made it their agenda to teach their children to speak Imperan or Fieon. Some of them are known to be able to write as well. These “noble savages” act as negotiators between the two people and are often respected by both sides. (note: the previous might contain a biased view)

Natives

People with ancestry in the Old World, but who have been born in the new one are quite different from the others. They, thanks to the laws of land-distribution, believe in virtues like equality. Everyone should be treated the same no matter what their family may have been before. Here everyone is born under the same status. For some reason, the natives seem to be much more social than the settlers, but yet retain the honesty that is associated with those who went to conquer the frontier.

In addition to these birthplace and genetics-related distinctions, religions play a huge role in the area. The three most common ones are:

The Orthodox Church

The old-fashioned church, much rampant in Fieon. Maybe rampant is a bit too mild a word - the Orthodox Church pretty much equals the Fieon state these days. The church doctrine is strict about what is allowed and what is sin. They have had little to no influence in the Imperan area of the New World before the seizure of power that happened, but after that it has been more than reasonably aggressive in rooting the “heretical” element from society.

The Reformist Imperian Doctrine

Or Reformists. The church of Impera separated from the mother church ages ago, and thanks to the highly scientific and elemental-centric view on life of the ruling class, formed into a more pragmatist version of what the Orthodox were even back then (the Orthodox have become even more bound in their black-and-white view of things in the past few hundred years). The Reformists, not surprisingly, form the bulk of the people of the Imperan settlements.

The Church of Purifying Light

When the news of a brand new continent broke, many of those who felt oppressed in their homelands left for the new shores. The Church of Purifying Light, or Puritans for short, were amongst the most numerable. Believing that there is no darkness at all, they embrace the magics most people consider Dark and revel in those. There are few villages of these Puritans scattered in the wilderness, and the Orthodox church is finding their presence in the lands they now claim to own unbearable.

For ages we thought that the world was the lands we knew, but the journeys of Anardian and Imperal explorers across the Great Chasm yielded results that literally changed the face of the world. On the edge of the world, there is a whole new world. Everyone with ships and magicians set sails West, for the New World, Tera Neuve.

The Eastern Continent, Old World

The Old World is divided between three distinctive areas - in the North, beyond a near-impenetrable mountain range lies the Imperan plains - the heart of the Impera empire. Isolated from the rest of the world, the Imperans have always been forced to rely on their navy and trade through sea routes for foreign relations.

The Middlelands is the large continental area south of the Northen Peaks - habitable land-mass big enough for three Impera-sized countries: Fieon, Gerenia and Anardi. Of the three, only Fieon has had an easy access to the Ocean - Gerenia’s harbors are near the Northern Peaks and hard to reach by land from the main part of the country and Anardi’s connection to the Ocean is through the Southern Sea, around the Hisperan Peninsula.

South of the Middlelands is an area called Hisperan Peninsula that consists of the long and narrow peninsula (containing the country Hispera) and the surrounding Andegal islands. The Hisperan peninsula is sealed from the Ocean by a high mountain range, but they have huge harbors to the Southern Sea area in the east and south.

From this viewpoint, it is quite obvious why Fieon and Impera are the two leading nations to the expansion to the west. Anardi on the other hand requires a much longer explanation that stems from the political alliances it has made with Hispera and Andegal over the years.

The Great Chasm

When you sail far enough west from the Eastern continent, you realize why people for the longest time thought that it was the edge of the world - the water’s surface starts to literally bend “downhill”, with strange phenomenon as waterspout-like waves appearing from nowhere. You are attacked by elemental forces that are beyond any ship’s capability to survive. At least without a proper magician specialized in sea travel aboard to keep them at bay.

The first ship known to survive the Great Chasm was actually a Gerenian military vessel, who wanted to test their mages’ new shielding spells in extreme conditions. Followed by the news that the Chasm (known as “The Edge” back then) could be crossed, all the sea-faring nations sent out expeditions, and it is quite impossible to say who actually “found” the New World first.

New World, The Western Continent

The new continent discovered hasn’t been explored fully yet, but it seems to be a land-mass at least the size of the Middlelands, perhaps even larger. There were people living there before the explorers arrived, but these are primitive folk, with no idea how to use magic and who live on the strange animals found there. From the explorers’ and later the colonists’ point of view, it’s quite easy to divide the New world to two parts - the forested north and the arid south. The coastal area is habitable, but the conditions get harsher as soon as you start moving inlands. In the north, the wilderness might bear more fruit, but the winters are so cold you can actually freeze to death if you travel too far in the cold. In the south, the summer’s heat will cook you alive if you don’t find a shade.

Between the extreme areas rises yet another mountain range, making things inhospitable. Some returning explorers from further west tell tales of lands that could be hospitable to human life again, but no-one has yet sent a larger expedition beyond the Deadlands (as the inhospitable cold and hot areas are commonly called).

The land-areas that will be given less focus

Beyond these two, there are two larger land-masses that need to be mentioned, but which won’t be playing such a vital role in the campaign starting just now.

To the south of Old World is another land-mass, fully occupied by the Elves. They try to avoid contact as much as possible, and thanks to their aptitude with magics, the southern continent has become known as “Nightmare Lands” to the Old Worlders.

East from Anardi, connected via an isthmus is a land filled with strange cultures and exotic people. These people try to avoid contact with the Old Worlders almost as much as the Elves do, and are usually referred to as “East”. It’s known that Anardi trade with them quite actively.