Et'ceri Brumal Forest

Place

Place Name:

Et'ceri Brumal Forest

Biome:

Brumal Forest

Size:

Unknown

Continent:

Unknown

Subcontinent

Unknown

Geography

Civilization re-arose swiftly after the first peace agreements were signed and the first schemes of mercantile conquest were devised. There were many cities already built in Et’ceri — damaged and abandoned, but definitely cities. Some sort of explosion had destroyed almost everything within them — especially the advanced technology — but the walls were still standing. The Et’cerians walked right in and set up shop. The greatest city of trade is naturally on the coast — the coast is on the east end of Et’ceri. The city’s name is Gathas’arido. Unfortunately for foreign merchants.

It’s a long sail or trek from most parts of the world to get here, but if you’re producing, selling, or buying things on a large scale, then it’s completely worth the trip, as this is the only large market left in existence. Only here will you actually be able to sell all that stuff you got. The marble walls of Gathas’arido conceal a devastated interior which is, to this day, still being rebuilt, though it’s almost finished. The other cities in Et’ceri are similar, though they vary in size quite a bit, as well as in degrees of destruction and repair.

The harbour of Gathas’arido is in perfect condition, and is always in perfect condition. This is where profits are the biggest and the swiftest-growing — and they show no signs of slowing down, either. The Calun clan has mercenary ships protecting these waters from pirates, in order to make merchants feel safer, even though all the pirates have to do is prowl about just outside of the patrolling ships’ territory. There are pirates, of course. Just like there are thieves and pickpockets within the cities of trade, there are pirates in the waters of trade.

Their ships tend to be swift, and though few pirates can afford to have cannons, some of them have cannons. The Et’cerian’s first customers were their warring neighbours, and it became essential that the goods purchased be transported swiftly from the heart of Et’ceri to its borders. Then someone had the genius idea of using the underground ice rivers — after much work, it became the fastest way of getting around, and it is unlikely its speed shall ever be surpassed within the next thousand years. Some difficulties were met with in the construction.

Since rivers don’t run uphill, nor do they run everywhere, but, by much work and expense, as well as much thought and creativity, the ice tunnels were made, are completely functional, and require next to no maintenance. Above ground, there are also roads, since it’s dangerous for a man with only ice skates to traverse the underground ones. These roads are also paved with ice — in the winter, anyways. In the summer the temperature often gets above freezing and melts the pathways, and then men just have to walk. But men are better off than the owners of sleighs who can’t afford to pay for the use of the ice tunnels.

They just have to be stuck, or try to drag their sleighs across grass and patchy snow, and past thickly forested areas.

Plants

If it wasn’t for the daal trees, Et’ceri would be a wasteland. No other plants, other than grass and weeds, seem to be able to grow well in this soil and climate. The pines are fairly skinny and have this annoying way of falling right over the ice paths that aren’t underground, and blocking them. It’s such a common occurrence that the traders too poor to use the underground roads all carry saws in their luggage. Now, if you skate down one of these roads, you can see stacked up pine logs on the side of the path. There’s enough of them to build whole villages.

Some poor fellows make a living by collecting the pine sap that covers these fallen trees. Even great baskets full of the stuff don’t sell for much, but when amassed in large quantities, some knowledgeable chemists can boil the sap down into an extremely potent kind of gunpowder. It takes so much sap to make enough of this powder to fire a single cannonball, that collecting the sap has always been the poor man’s job — this way, the poor men, which there are many of, compete with each other and keep the price of sap low. Some richer men have tried to farm the pines for their sap.

But this has yet to become an efficient enough process to be a worthwhile business for anyone. Better just to leave the job to the masses who are happy to do it — they can earn more money doing that than they can earn anywhere else, so why take that job away from them? Other than for sap and for the fireplace, these pines are also used to build ships. There’s a great need for ships in the civilized world, and the Et’cerians are happy to build one for you, for the right price. Their ships are not necessarily the best ships — not the fastest, nor the largest, nor the toughest, nor the cheapes.

But they do have a wide variety of ships for sale, and the quality of the ships is only improving. Plus, with each purchase of a ship, the best ship vendors will get you discounts on the goods you fill your ship with. Now, is that a deal or what? The markets of Et’ceri are stuffed with all manner of imported foods and woods and plants; the variety greatly increases in the summer, when the imported plants are more likely to survive the cold. There’s always been a deep regret that Et’ceri is not warm enough to sell exotic plants here.

Still, some kinds of imported foods seem to be better off for the chill air, and most seem completely unaffected. There’s been talk of inventing some kind of device that will keep plants warm, and thus allow tropical plants to be sold here, but no such device has been successfully constructed, since the quality of technology is so low. Many men look back on the days of the zu’aan empire and sigh, thinking of all the profit they could acquire by selling that kind of tech these days.

Animals

Once, somebody brought baywlvars to Gathas’arido, to sell. These baywlvars were the offspring of some laboratory experiment baywlvars which the zu’aan empire had made — supposedly, these experimental baywlvars, which were meant to be super-soldiers, like the kin’tonis, were extremely intelligent and strong, and able to follow orders. Thus were the baywlvars in the cages marketed to potential customers. Sure, they had some wild blood in them, but they should still possess most of the characteristics for which they were designed. Why not buy one?

They might make interesting pets, if you can tame them. Suddenly, the baywlvars escaped, some tiny baby baywlvar having stolen the keys to the cages. Then they caused havoc in Gathas’arido, and proved that they were still extremely intelligent and strong. They also proved that they followed no orders but their own. These baywlvars, now called fria'dehaar, were driven out of the city by the Et’cerians. Everyone hoped that they would die out, but they haven’t yet, and probably won’t ever. A hundred years ago or so, there was a great hunt for fria'dehaar, and they were hunted almost to extinction.

But the few baywlvars that they didn’t find were all albinos. And now, all fria'dehaar are albinos, and have become next to invisible in the snow. They’re still strong and quick, but never have they managed to scrape together any sort of order or hierarchy beyond a basic rule by fear — the baywlvar who wants your food will take it, and he’s maimed a dozen other baywlvars already because they refused to give it to him, so you better give it to him. It’s the greatest fear of a poor merchant unable to take the underground roads, that he will be attacked by fria'dehaar. The fear of bandits comes in a close second, but bandits at least might spare your life,

If they can’t carry all of the cargo you’re carrying on your sleigh. fria'dehaar spare no one.

Historical Timeline of Ages

Age Name	Dates	Controller
Stone Age	Before 1E 0	Unknown
Copper Age	1E 1–1E 2200	Unknown
Bronze Age	1E 2200–1E 4400	Unknown
Iron Age	2E 0–2E 700	Unknown
Ancient Age	2E 700–2E 2200	Unknown
Middle Age	3E 0–3E 2050	Unknown
Early Modern Age	3E 2050–3E 2600	Unknown
Industrial Age	3E 2600–3E 2700	Unknown
Machine Age	3E 2700–3E 2800	Unknown
Atomic Age	3E 2800–3E 2850	Unknown
Space Age	3E 2850–3E 2875	Unknown
Information Age	3E 2875–3E 2900	Unknown
Genetic Age	3E 2950–3E 3000	Unknown
Awakening Age	3E 3000–3E 3415	Unknown
Twilight Age	4E 0–4E 500	Calun Kin'toni Clan

Place

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Et'ceri Brumal Forest

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This article is written by Xerxes Worldweaver. Copyright 2026 Xerxes Worldweaver. All rights reserved.