Place

Place Name:

Endelmorm Seasonal Deciduous Forest

Other Names:

Unknown

Biome:

Deciduous Forest

Size:

Unknown

Landmass:

Unknown

Discovered:

Unknown

First Settled:

Unknown

Controllers

Stone Age:

Unknown

Copper Age:

Unknown

Bronze Age:

Unknown

Iron Age:

Unknown

Ancient Age:

Unknown

Middle Age:

Unknown

Early Modern Age:

Unknown

Industrial Age:

Unknown

Machine Age:

Unknown

Atomic Age:

Unknown

Space Age:

Unknown

Information Age:

Unknown

Genetic Age:

Unknown

Awakening Age:

Unknown

Twilight Age:

Garzcer Kin'toni Clan

History

Twilight Age: 4E 0-4E 500

Few sights are more majestic than the one many meet when walking down one of the many forest paths in Endelmorm and espying a castle with a village at its feet. This is especially beautiful in the autumn. To live here within constant sight of these beautiful things is not without its price, unfortunately. O for simpler, less dangerous times… The peasants in Endelmorm, who make up the majority of the population, have always lived somewhat regular and pleasant lives. In the days of old, older days even than the days of the zu’aan empire, these peasants were much the same as they are today.

Till the earth, plant the seeds, care for the farm, harvest, celebrate the harvest, brew beer, have a drink, have a party, have a fight — these are the same things that go on today. Then arose the castles, in the early days of the empire. Endelmorm was one of the first countries conquered by the zu’aan empire; it could offer little resistance against the invading force, due to the many quarrels the villages had with each other. The armies of the empire swept in, establishing their hold by executing anyone of importance, demanding tribute, and having the peasants themselves build the castles that were to become their strongest chains.

Endelmorm now has some hundred or so castles — room enough for some hundred or so lords. Few of the castles have fallen. At some point during the latter years of the zu’aan empire, some lord started a practice which soon spread to every corner of Endelmorm: that of demanding tribute in the form of a dozen youths every three years. Six young men and six young women. Every three years, the lord would declare that every man and woman in his lands, the ones between the ages of eighteen and twenty-one, were to come to his castle, whether they were married or not.

Had children or not, had aged parents or not. There were no exceptions, and those clever persons who tried to become exceptions were to be imprisoned for life. At the gate of the castle, then, gathered the youths of the lord’s dominion. The lord and his retinue would appear, and then select from the crowd the twelve youths that most pleased him. Then, smiling a bit as he sends his prey into the castle that is to become their prison, the lord would produce the youths he had taken three years ago, and allow them to return home.

That is, he would allow ten of them to return home. Every single time, and, oddly enough, with every single lord, there would be one man and one woman missing from the homecomers. A shock of horror always ran through the family and friends of those two who never came back. Never could the wisest of the peasants figure out what happened to them. When the Garzcer Kin'toni Clan came, they neatly slew everyone that lived in the castles of Endelmorm, assumed control, and changed all the laws. They did, however, carry on the convenient tradition of exacting tribute.

Now, the ten youths returned to the people always appear extremely sick and pale, and are often not in their right minds. And now, everyone knows exactly what happens to those two youths who never return.

Geography

The land of Endelmorm is divided into fiefs, with each fief containing many villages, and each fief being watched over by a castle. Some fiefs are larger and some are smaller, and some fiefs are considerably less important than others, but no fief has yet arisen to become the ‘most’ important, since the kin’tonis that control the castles tend to agree with each other and have no need of a dedimahaed arbiter. The castles of Endelmorm are built in a wide variety of different styles, but they all make use of the same stone. As it turns out, this stone, mined locally, is extremely resilient to both cannonballs and explosions.

This resilience served the lords of Endelmorm well during the times when they were at war both with foreign powers and also themselves. Never has one of their castles needed rebuilding or even many repairs. Unfortunately for the lords of old, a kin’toni is not easily stopped by mere walls. Their trust in these walls was their undoing — it allowed the Garzcer clan to conquer all of Endelmorm without losing more than a dozen of their warriors. The villages of Endelmorm are more interesting than the castles that oppress them, and, unlike the castles.

It may most certainly be said that some of the villages are more important than the others. Travel between the villages is illegal for zu’aan, for the most part — the primary exception to this law being the merchants, who are deemed ‘necessary’. The prices the merchants are allowed to offer for their goods are heavily regulated, however, and it’s seldom that a merchant will make more money than what is needed to keep himself alive. Often he makes far less. Because the merchants are either forced to charge high prices and thus have fewer buyers, or are forced to charge low prices.

Aand thus carry other goods that are more profitable — villages have to be self-sufficient for the most part in order to survive. Of course, their kin’toni lords, wicked tyrants though they are, still have a vested interest in keeping their villages alive and growing. Often, it’s the villages that were once closest to starvation that now prosper the most heavily, since their desperate lords were willing to lift certain restrictions in order to keep the flow of tribute going, especially their human tribute. One village, the most prosperous one.

Has begun a sort of cult worshipping the kin’tonis. The lord of this village is pleased by this. Nowadays he has stopped the tradition of forcing all the youths of his land to come to him, and just lets the cult send him his tributes. While the people of the fief are glad that they can raise their children without worrying about giving them to their lord when they come of age, they sometimes wonder whether the cult was too high a price for this peace. For the cult is terrible indeed, as is the transformation that comes upon those who find themselves allured by it and its promises of immortality.

There’s another village which has secretly overthrown its kin’toni rulers. A zu’aan rules on that particular throne now, but he pretends to be a kin’toni in order to fool his powerful neighbours. He is preparing his people for war, but his people are unconscious of their training. This is the zu’aan king’s tactic, to keep the coming war a secret; he is training his son to follow in his footsteps and carry on the secret training when he can carry it on no longer.

Plants

As has been previously said, Endelmorm is most beautiful during the autumn. The trees, every single one of them, turn bright red, or orange, or yellow, or brown, turning the whole forest into an enormous painting beyond compare. Even during the winter, the forest is beautiful: snow covers the bare, leafless branches of the trees, sunlight glistening on the snow. The spring is wonderful, too, with the trees clothing themselves in buds and flowers — the summer no less wonderful, as the buds and flowers turn to emerald leaves. But the greatest season is still the autumn.

Beyond their beauty, there is little to be said about the trees of Endelmorm other than that which only belongs in those aged textbooks on botany which only the dustiest scholars or the most passionate gardeners are interested in reading. If you’re looking for a specific tree in Endelmorm, you can probably find it somewhere in this gigantic forest, though evergreens are a bit rare. Many villages, especially on the south-eastern edge of the forest, are lumberjack villages which make money for their lords by selling logs down the river.

If you want to know the interesting bits about the flora in Endelmorm, ask about the herbs that grow here. Some grow here that grow nowhere else. The most peculiar herb exclusive to Endelmorm is undoubtedly the tanyu. Considered magic by many, the tanyu repels insects with its strange, otherworldly odour — not that repelling insects is all that it does. Almost no animals seem to be able to stand its presence. Even yalcca and ualas leave it well alone. Once plucked, though, it swiftly loses its smell and thus also its ability to repel animals. It tastes much less bitter after it dries out, though.

Some old wives claim the tanyu has healing properties, and that it will make sick men well again. Some old men put a bit of tanyu into their breakfast every day, saying that it makes them live longer. No scientists have yet done experiments on the tanyu, but there are whole villages willing to swear that it does what people say it does. Garthroot, which is not actually a root and was not actually discovered by a man named Garth, is a small leafy herb that is coveted by every single gourmet and every single chef. One leaf of that on a steak charred almost to ashes will make the ashes almost edible.

Can you imagine how excellent the soup must be that was cooked by a master chef supplied with as much Garth as he needed? Unfortunately, Garth is very rare even in its native wilderness, Endelmorm, and all attempts to grow it in civilized soil have failed. But a single leaf of it used to fetch a ridiculously high price in the old zu’aan empire. If there are lands in which gourmet dining is still a common luxury, doubtless a man could amass an instantaneous fortune by filling a small basket with these leaves, and there offering them.

Animals

For some reason, there are an immense number of feral animals in Endelmorm. vaars, mahas, ialc, ualas, vikks, aah'oas, even awa'ras — you can find feral populations of them everywhere. Naturally, Endelmorm is full of predators only too happy to hunt down a wild vikk or awa'ra. Packs of wild vaars have arisen which seem to be half wolf and probably are half wolf. Unlike normal yalcca, these wild vaars will approach a zu’aan and kin’toni alike with impunity and demand to be fed with whatever food he has in his satchel. If he refuses, or if they decide that he hasn’t fed them enough, they attack and eat him instead.

The yalcca here seem to have a sort of respect for a zu’aan, and attack neither him nor his children, even if the baby in the cradle seems completely undefended. Nor do the yalcca even approach a grown zu’aan (though some yalcca have even been spotted trying to feed babies bits of dead awa'ra, or to suckle them). Nevertheless, these yalcca entirely fear kin’tonis and will straight up flee their presence. The impunity of the wild vaars, the respect of yalcca for zu’aan, and the dread that yalcca have for kin’tonis — none of these things make any of them any easier to tame for anyone.

Farmers have to fear more from wild mahas than wild vaars or yalcca, in general — since not many farmers own the herds of mahatle or sheep which are the canines’ preferred targets. But most own awa'ras. mahas are only too happy to steal those, as are foxes. Foxes at least can be shot with a bow and skinned, but no one wants the furs of these mahas, which are excellent camouflage for the mahas but poor camouflage and worse fashion for the man trying to skin them, due to the fragility of their hides. Everyone fears the wild bayal. After decades of the farmers of the zu’aan empire breeding the best qualities into their aah'oas.

They told themselves that they had succeeded in creating the perfect aah'oa. Now, bayals descended from feral aah'oas and from wild aah'oas have the strongest aspects of both. These fearsome bayals are called Shadow bayals. Shadow bayals have all the size and weight of their laboratory bred ancestors, combined with the audacity, temper, strength, and colour of their wild ancestors. And their disrespect for anyone’s property has tripled. It’s not uncommon for a Shadow bayal to be charging at full speed through the forest, bump into a tree, and then, completely insulted by the tree spend the rest of the day ramming it down.

Even if the tree in question is a mighty vor — the bayals usually succeed. Their skulls are exceptionally thick, as are their tusks and their wills. To top it all off, these bayals also taste awful. Nobody knows why — but perhaps it has something to do with their diet, which consists of basically everything, from grass to zu'aan flesh to tree bark to their own feces.

Place

Unknown Unknown Unknown Unknown

Unknown

Unknown Unknown Unknown Unknown

This article is written by Xerxes Worldweaver. Copyright 2023 Stevie Lambert "All rights reserved" unless otherwise stated.