Myirandios, my definitive version
I have at last finished the master map of my world Myirandios. It is the setting of my slow-to-be-written novel about the fall of the great Klemtan civilization, mainly to religiously fanatic barbarians, worshippers of the One True God, Shalene, Goddess of Fortune and the Red Moon Rising. The main action is centred in the area around the Menisoran Sea in the largest continent, Merishora. I have also completed the Solar System, where the planets and Sun are named after the 18 Gods of the World (actually humans from earth with supercharged powers). Below, I show the World map (I used the AE Hemispheres projection in Fractal Terrains - it doesn't appear in the regular download of FT, but I have it if anyone would like it - very useful for Mercator type maps). I have also attached my .FCW. I used solid colours for the Biomes, and patterns for mountains, hills and wetlands.
The only thing I have not done are cities and nations for the west and south of Merishora, and all the areas in the Eastern globe.
I will also post jpg's of the Zodiac, Geological Ages, Solar System and Planetary system - Myirandios has three moons (White, red and 'black') and rings from the destruction of an early moon which came too close to the planet - Lerate's Belt.
Finally, I have put up CA portatits of my five main characters.
The political system in the Klemtan Hegemony is as follows:
1. Minoate (Magen - Crone, Memen - Mother, Midin - Maid) with power delegated to:
2. Home Territories Parliament with Prime Minister and Cabinet – all adults eligible to vote every 5 years.
3. Parliamentary Provinces overseen by Klemtan Parliament, headed by Provincial Governor, and often with their own Parliaments
4. Minoate Provinces, ruled by Viceroys appointed by the Minoate and usually no Parliament
5. Allied States, ruled by their own Queens in a manner as suits them. However their foreign policy, international defence forces and often trade arrangements are all subject to Minoate veto.
Women, especially black women, dominate all life, more so in less 'civilized' areas. The Hegemony has an attitude to men similar to the attitude to women in the 1960s here on Earth.
The only thing I have not done are cities and nations for the west and south of Merishora, and all the areas in the Eastern globe.
I will also post jpg's of the Zodiac, Geological Ages, Solar System and Planetary system - Myirandios has three moons (White, red and 'black') and rings from the destruction of an early moon which came too close to the planet - Lerate's Belt.
Finally, I have put up CA portatits of my five main characters.
The political system in the Klemtan Hegemony is as follows:
1. Minoate (Magen - Crone, Memen - Mother, Midin - Maid) with power delegated to:
2. Home Territories Parliament with Prime Minister and Cabinet – all adults eligible to vote every 5 years.
3. Parliamentary Provinces overseen by Klemtan Parliament, headed by Provincial Governor, and often with their own Parliaments
4. Minoate Provinces, ruled by Viceroys appointed by the Minoate and usually no Parliament
5. Allied States, ruled by their own Queens in a manner as suits them. However their foreign policy, international defence forces and often trade arrangements are all subject to Minoate veto.
Women, especially black women, dominate all life, more so in less 'civilized' areas. The Hegemony has an attitude to men similar to the attitude to women in the 1960s here on Earth.
Comments
1: Dilolai (Draconian type creatures)
2: Muru (sea-dwelling reptilian-like creatures)
3: Daemones (sentient beings of pure energy, often manifesting as lightning)
1: Aria_Dana, priestess and Midin-to-be
2: Iktar, an Aeifa (elven-like) bull-dancer, her lover (background photo by me - Danish chalk cliffs)
3: Audesia, princess of Akakouthion, a subject Queendom of Klemtos, a really beautiful but up herself lady (background photo by me - Hania in Crete)
4: Mitusis, her Captain-General, a half-Grim (like a half-orc) who is hopelessly in love with Audesia
5:Mar-Urma, a black aristocrat also studying for the priesthood, and Aria-Dana's once friend and now bitter rival
Finally (for now) I show the three regions I will be doing in detail - they are still preliminary at this stage, and are in Mike Schley Overland style:
1: the Isle of Klemtos, with capital Jhelrosis being the capital of the hegemony
2: Logrid and Evain, of which one third is a Klemtan province, the rest being made up of various 'Celtic' type nations, and in Evain, a dominant Aeifan (elven) culture
3: Hardin, a wild land with nations made up of Grim, Viking-like peoples, Davarin (dwarf-like), Aeifans and Dilolains (draconians)
I'm looking forward to read it.
I do think the coastlines of the last three maps have too little definition, leading to long straight edges and sharp corners. The coastline really looks like it was made for a lower-detail map. They would look much better if their were fractalized a bit more or manually reworked.
Do I understand this correctly that your world is mostly set in a ancient greek kind of setting with some imfluences of other cultures, such as the celtic culture? If so, that would be really cool.
Some thoughts about the bear breasted women in your world: I do like the concept in this case, because it is embedded in a plausible background, whereas I would probably be more sceptial in other cases, which do not offer such an explanation. In your case the barebreastedness does not appear to follow the same sexist male orientated scheme that is widely found in the fantasy genre. It is rather the opposite: Your world, or at least said hegemony does have quiet sexist attitudes, but it does not seem to stigmatize women as mere sex objects but rather regards them as the superior sex, which is cool. This view is actually supported by a number of psychologists, who claim that men have subconcious comlexes because they can not give birth/life.
I would, however, make a few considerations: Do the women participate in warfare? And if they do, do they wear proper armour in this situation? I would avoid differences between men and women im regards of armour (unless they are related to considerations in regard of the physical strengh of the person carrying the armour).
Also, you wrote that most of the stories take place in tropical areas. But at least two of the characters have a very bright skin color (and two have a rather bright skin color). Therefore, having a bare upper body can be a good way to deal with heat (both for men and women), but it might not be a smart choise in regard of protecting oneself from the sun. So, if your light skinned charakters are to be exposed to the sun for a extended period of time, I would have them cover themselves. Barebreastedness would then be reserved for situations where theres plenty of shade.
Thanks for sharing!
~Dogtag
First, not all the world is in the tropical zone, as you can see. Second, there are 6 different main racial groups with various subgroups.
They are:
Black-skinned (Ugazi, the dominant racial group)
Yellow-skinned (Harting, live mainly in west Merishora, and to some extent in Iponema archipelago)
Red-skinned (Chingawuk, who make up most of the Kwetzatl Empire)
Green, or olive-skinned (Lavini, mainly around shores of Menosiran Sea)
Rajali (mainly in southern half of Merishora)
White-skinned (Aglosaks, mainly in the North, and regarded as barbarians by many)
Non-human races (actually genetically engineered humans from the time of first settlement of Myirandios by humans from Earth) include the Grim (orc-like), davarin (dwarf-like) and Aeifa (elven-like), with also the Fampeir (vampire-like) and Filangarthu (lycanthrope-like)
The more away from the Equator people are, the more they cover up, though an effort is still made by women to expose some part of their breasts.
The main culture of the Hegemony is a Minoan-like culture, with the bare breastedness a sign of woman-ness that asserts their superior position.
Women have the stronger position, because unlike in our world where men dominate due in part to their general superiority in physical strength; women in Myirandios rule because they are much much stronger than men (on the average, anyway) in Etherics. Etherics is the ability to wield electromagnetic energy directly vai willpower. And what use is physical strength if your wife can hurl you across the room with an etheric blast, or send a taser-like jolt through you. Yes domestic violence and exploitation of the weaker sex does occur - it is the women who do the abusing and exploiting though. All roles are reversed. Made me think a lot about how far we still need to go to stop gender-casting everyone.
So women sure do fight and often lead armies, using their etheric powers. And because of this, only minimal armour is worn, enough to turn aside damage from arrows and swords.
Anyway, more of Myirandios later on.
I'm looking forward to read your novel.
Myrandios is a world somewhat smaller than Earth, with three moons – a ‘White’ Moon, a 'Red' Moon and a ‘Black’ Moon (appears as dull grey), and three major Rings, and an unusual force field. This force field and the Rings cause all electrical and computer technology to fail, and also prevent the explosive combustion of many substances, eg gunpowder, and petroleum. Instead they burn rather like oil. (ie no gunpowder based fireworks!) However, they cause effects on the sentient brains to enable them to wield energy in ways called ‘etheric’ (‘magick’), with most sentients hardly able to do so at all, and a few gifted individuals being able to do so in such quantity as to be ‘godlike’. (ie just like the bell-shaped distribution of intelligence, with a skew at the left, with the level required to practice etherics being shifted to the right of the normal distribution). However, IQ and EP - Etheric Potential are two separate abilities – one can be a genius with no EP, or a retard with high EP – and as you can see, this can be a potentially major problem, with idiots with vast etheric talents. Hence the requirement for etheric training schools to deal with this.
The Gods were part of an exploratory expedition from Planet Earth, 2224 AD. The spacecraft crashed on a plateau where L’Éverainne now is when it passed through the Rings of Leraté. These rings and the 3 moons cause all electrical and computer based systems to fail. The crew quickly woke the cryogenically sleeping humans and zygotes that survived the crash, and planted them in colonies around the world – the white, green, red, brown, yellow and black human races.
What they had not counted on were:
1. The existence of three sentient races – the dragonlike Saurians who had a very complicated and long life cycle [lizard-like intelligent larva form; a reproductive form with ‘wings’ which are inserted into the proboscis of the larvae, who lay eggs which hatch into larva; an egg-like chrysalis form commencing with changes in the reproductive Saurians who metamorphose within a few weeks of ‘mating’; and the hatching of a few individuals (1 in 10,000-100,000) to form the Great Dragons or Wyrms]; the marine Muru, who have three sexes (group sex is necessary for successful breeding); and the energy beings called Daemons – formed of pure energy, but discreet individuals, who have a strong ability to use etherics. They reproduce by a fusion, called syzygy, then a random fission, splitting into three.
These races were at best a small ‘chiefdom’ status with small city-states, and overall warring and fiercely independent Wyrms – which gave the beleaguered humans an edge. The daemons kept the other sentients from developing further, and it was against these that the humans had to fight the most, and who wreaked the greatest damage on the geography of the land and civilization of both indigenes and humans, causing a prolonged fall into barbarism. For their own manipulative reasons, the ‘Gods’ slowed down advances and did not assist humans except with moderately primitive technology.
2. The ability of sentient beings to utilise energy directly, to produce effects like legendary ‘magick’, now called ‘etherics’.
The native races nearly wiped out the humans, so the original crew set up a citadel on a large mountainous island in the western seas. Thereafter raged a debate that affected the future of Myrandios (named after the RAN SS Miranda – RAN standing for Republic of Australasian Navy).
[Australasia was the current great power on Earth after the calamitous sinking of the San Andreas fault destroyed the might of the USA, and the resultant tsunamis destroyed China and Japan. At the end of the second term of the Dick Cheney Presidency in 2016 and after Congress had altered the Constitution to enable Cheney to stand another two terms, terrorists managed to set off a massive thermo-nuclear reaction deep in the bowels of the earth, in a specially constructed shaft over the San Andreas fault line – with the resultant end of American civilisation. The whole Northern hemisphere took over a hundred years to recover, by which time Brazil and Australia were the two main world powers. After the decisive Australo-Brazilian War of 2148, Australasia held an even greater sway on world politics, economics and culture than America held in 2016. Note that the Grim have a similar lifestyle to the Old Ozzies – the original Australian culture of ~2000 AD]
Three groupings emerged –
1. The Observers, led by Capt-Commander Brigid Tanlorn (Celt-Filipino) who argued there was no moral right to wipe out native sentient races so that humans could live. The best solution they offered was for the human race to retreat to secluded areas and try to negotiate with the natives – who were not actually interested in doing anything but eating them.
2. The Destroyers, led by Marine-Colonel Sashal Tsarivich (Russian-Mongol) who argued for the absolute extinction of all native sentients, turning the world into a paradise for humans.
3. The Manipulators, led initially by Chief Scientist Professor Eochaín O’Renfrew (Zulu-Old Ozzie) who argued for limited expeditions against the natives, but giving the humans special abilities to fight the sentient natives on their own terms, and so force a negotiated settlement. They proposed using viral-gene splicing technology to give the humans super strength, longevity and regeneration, and to be able to meld with animals, gaining their powers.
In the end, the Manipulators won when the Destroyers joined them.
Virus STR-1 gave super strength and endurance, but it only ‘took’ in some. And in these it caused stunted height, and degrees of coarse features. For some, the frame was increased so as to produce very stocky short people, and with a great deal of hair, women included. Mostly these were of the White races. For others, it produced extreme ugliness and protruding fang-like teeth and jutting chin, and a scarcity of hair – and these were mainly of the Green races. The first group became the Davarin (dwarfs), the second the Grim (orcs)(average lifespan 60 years). Both exhibited vengeful, anally retentive and serious natures, with a great deal of possessiveness. At least non-humans did not contract the disease. Another two-edged and unexpected effect was a varying degree of etheric resistance, more so in the Grim, but with only mildly reduced effectiveness in wielding etherics.
Virus IMM-1 gave very long life and regenerative powers. Again only in some. The White, Black and Red races were the commonest affected. The side effects were severe. Most lost weight, but gained height, and took on an angular aesthetic beauty in their facial features. All hair was lost except for glorious manes of scalp hair, but no eyelashes or eyebrows. Psychologically they became introverted and excessively philosophical, and often chose solitary lives. They had a reduced birthrate. These became the Aeifa (elves). (average lifespan 300 years)
Unfortunately a mild strain, IMM-2, infected the Davarin, who gained much increased life-span (average lifespan 150 years), some regenerative powers, and a reduced birthrate. It perhaps explains why Davarin are nowhere near as ugly as the Grim.
What was worse was the infection of the native sentients with this virus, causing some Saurians to develop into the regenerating Trolls. (Luckily, no progression to Troll-Wyrms has been discovered to date).
Virus HYB-1 conferred the ability to meld with an animal, obtaining its characteristics. In its pure form, it worked very well without side-effects. Camelids (the most common), Centaurs, Minotaurs, Satyrs, Ratmen, Wolfmen, Foxmen, Eaglemen, Swanmen, Selkies, Boarmen, Bearmen, Catmen etc all bred true and in the early wars against the natives were very effective. However, the virus mutated, HYB-2, and conferred an unstable, but highly contagious form. Here the infected transformed between full human, man-beast and full beast, depending on the state of the Moons and Rings of Leraté. There was no control, and in full beast form, the Were (Vilungfù) became dangerous. All Beastmen consequently were categorised as were, and so became hated and hunted and shunned. The Wolfen - Filangathù- (the stable form of Beastmen) and the Were were driven out of human society; to this day the Were’s most deadly enemy is the Wolfen who hates being lumped with them by all other humans. For the Were, matters became worse when it was discovered that a specific metal for each type of beast would cause the virus to mutate further, causing a rapid Ebola-like illness, leaving the victim dying a painful death within less than 1 hour.
Virus HYB-3 was the last virus produced. This was the ultimate, and very successful weapon against the most dangerous native sentient, the Daemones. This conferred a hybridisation between the Daemon and a human, and when this was coupled with IMM-1 and STR-1, it produced a beautiful, tall, slim human with the capacity to disappear and become an energy being, and yet be as strong as any Troll. Unfortunately, the ability to reproduce was lost, and in the end, the only way to spread the ‘disease’ was by direct blood-born contact. And only after the wars were finished, and successful negotiations won for human ( and Elves and Dwarves and Grim and Wolfen) the right to settle lands, did the final horrifying truth come to light. The Daemon-Human Melds no longer could survive on oral food, but needed to absorb blood directly from a victim’s bloodstream. This was accomplished by a new organ located in the canine teeth which became retractable or protruding at will, thus allowing direct transfer of blood from a victim to their own bloodstream. Thus they were called the Fampeir. The most likely ‘race’ to have this new mutant virus complex ‘take’ are the Aeifa, and as a result of their already lengthened lifespan, the Aeifan Fampeir could live for up to 3000 years on average! (and are NOT affected by garlic, holy symbols are are killed as per normal, though due to their regenerative powers, this can take a lot of doing).
These races, Grim, Davarin, Aeifa Filangathu, Vilungfu and Fampeir, are no more good, bad, refined or bestial than the rest of us, though grim tend to be more 'bogan' and Aeifa more 'cultivated'. And being of human origin, they can breed with full humans to give rise to various half-breeds, quartoons etc. (except for Fampeir who can't breed)
Now the Destroyers broke with the Manipulators, seeing what problems their solutions caused, and persuaded the Observers to join them in a coup, meant to destroy the Manipulators and their laboratories together. The plan worked in part – the island where the laboratories were located was destroyed in an enormous volcanic explosion – and took many of the Manipulators, most of the Destroyers and all but five Observers with them. The destruction to the lands about was terrifying, and the surviving ‘Gods’, as now they were to be called, agreed on a compact not to war against each other again, nor to attempt to destroy the sentient races – native or otherwise – again. The humans were left with little technology, very few records, totally fractured civilization, and only six species from Earth – humans, camels, potatoes, sugarcane, barley and cacao beans. Initially oats, barley, coffee, wheat, cats, dogs, sheep, cattle, pigs, rats, seals and various birds (esp. raptors and swans) thrived, but were wiped out by native micro-organisms after 100 years from the development of the Wolfen.
The remaining Manipulators formed the Deraitha col Renfrethan (the Bright Realms):
Myùirkaithe the MoonQueen air
Aiobhèal the Strong water
Lantairè the Mystic time
Èokhraid’he the SunLord light (Eokhaín O’Renfrew, Chief Scientist)
Eona the Redeemer earth
Dasilena, Maid of Chivalry fire
The remaining Observers formed the Palasha sig Calyria (the Meadows of Tanelorn):
Mabrij’heda the Mother earth (Captain Brigid Kalirian)
Savè’Dor the Wise time
Shalèné the Beautiful water (Charlene Simpson)
Kurnoninil the Horned One fire
Vakralath the Uncaring Singer sound
Elevantal the Dreamer air
The remaining Destroyers formed the Tlasoria Gnarich (the Shadowed Land):
Tineblasrol the Dark time (Marine-Colonel Tyinovich Tsarova)
Dalimishta the Whore water
Sak’gha the Hideous Worm earth
Lok’hiteng the Destroyer fire
Solovay the Slayer air
Gringroth the Mad dark
Using the remaining technology, they transformed themselves into regenerating powerful ultra-intelligent Immortals, and acted as Gods of Myrandios. And in time, even the native sentients bent the knee to the Lords of Heaven.
Just imagine what a site Quenten could produce there, eh? Or CharlesWayneRobinson. Holy frijoles!
And....i couldn't even compare my tiny little world to work put into Kelleemah or Quenten's Myrandios!!