The Ruin
A webcomic
World Background
The Akelli Imperium
The Akelli Imperium takes its name from the continent of Akelli, which it covers. Since the Ruin, its inhabitants have largely turned to science and technology, abandoning the magic of the past as mere superstition. This creates a curious disjunction in their culture, however, because they have 10,000 minor gods, and believe that their Emperor is immortal and divine. Of course, modern thinkers believe that he can't possibly be the same man--it's a question of serial incarnation, surely?
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All other cultures hold that the Akelli Emperor was the source of the Ruin, his final weapon to "win" the Great War of a thousand years ago.
The Shandril Empire, Dagiri people
The Shandril Empire is a peculiar construct. The Dagiri people revere the dragons as the direct descendants of the gods, and their cosmology states that the Shandril Emperor is the Voice of Heaven, directly descended from the gods, a dragon in human form. Should the Favor of Heaven ever depart his line, it is from the tribes that a successor would be drawn.
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The people of the cities retain the elements of ancestor worship, but have a greatly elaborated religion, with deified ancestors who have attained ranks in the afterlife based on the worship of their descendants. Those with enough gods in their ancestry rise higher in life, naturally.
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Somehow, this caste system has been enough to hold the dragonriders, who live largely in the mountainous regions of the continent, in great stonereaches, in check for a thousand years. They have never (apparently) overthrown the Voice of Heaven.
The only way to break the bonds of caste is to be selected as a dragonrider. This is a rare privilege!
The Skadric Union
In ancient times, the elves and dwarves dwelled here on Orandra alone, until several waves of overseas immigration brought early humans to their shores. The Skadri were welcomed by the elves and taught like their own children to live within the bounds of elven law in the forests and plains. Take no more than you need. Give more than you take.
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As time went by, the humans adopted elven ways more and more. They adopted the elven religion with its Seven Gods (Water, earth, fire, air, life, death, and time). They learned elven magic with its basis in summoned elementals—fragments of the gods, or so they believed. They learned how to bend and shape plants and animals to their will, and how to live in harmony with both, as druids and rangers.
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And then the Akelli Imperium came to their shores, demanding that they bow before the might of the Emperor, as lost children of humanity. And the Skadri said no.
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Or so the legends passed down by the skalds say. Actual history? Might be more complex.
Tixaeronan Confederated Cities
Tixaeron was colonized some ten thousand years ago, probably at the same time that the first waves of human colonists reached Skadri. The Tixaeronan people range from pale of skin in the northern cities, to deeply tanned in the southern reaches. Tattoos are common, and deeply meaningful, delineating tribal and familial allegiances, marriage contracts, sacred oaths, and more. Some tattoos are actually magical. Their people are characterized by a deep faith in the Spirits, known to the rest of the world as Demons.
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At the age of four, every Tixaeronan is presented to the Spirits by a shaman. It is then that children become Tixaeronan, because when a demon or Spirit accepts a child, the child is sealed to that spirit forever, and physical markings appear on the child, indicating which Spirit has claimed them. These might include shark teeth, shark eyes, and the ability to breathe underwater, ram’s horns and wooly hair, a baboon’s fangs and red eyes, snake scales—or even the entire lower body of a serpent. Such markings are seen as a great honor, and such are rarely conferred upon outsiders or people older than the age of four.
This sealing to the Spirits is a part of the Great Working, a pact between the Tixaeronan people and their patron demons, with which each life is given to the cause of undoing the wreaking of the Ruin upon their lands.
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During the Great War, Tixaeron’s Hierarchs, the priest-kings of their great cities, initially stood neutral and aloof to the conflict. However, they did not stand entirely united, as each city-state was a power unto itself.
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Bands of mercenaries, however, found work on both sides of the war, unleashing demons and spirits of greater and lesser degree on the unsuspecting foreigners who had, to date, never had truck with either. Some of these bands of mercenaries made names for themselves—some even winning the prize of being carried on dragonback by the Dagiri into battle. And their successes also won them the hostility of the elves and Skadri in particular.
Isha'ta
The people of Isha’ta were neutral parties during the Great War, but like neutral parties in almost every war, they grew rich supplying both sides.
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The Isha’ta once built wide catamaran sailboats, suitable for sailing long distances and carrying heavy loads, but now only use those for family voyages—relocations between islands in the various archipelagoes that they claim as their own in the Haunted Sea. Catamarans are great for goods and people and fishing, but terrible for cannon. And the advent of seafaring weapons more powerful than a bow and arrow put an end to the catamaran as anything other than a vessel for carrying troops. They now use wide-bodied calif ships armed with iron cannons purchased from the Imperium.
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The Isha’ta are a generally multi-ethnic people who dwell on islands ranging from the polar north to the equator to the polar south, and all places in between. They are joined together by a common language group, mostly mutually intelligible, though every island has its own dialect. They all worship similar gods—Mother Ocean, Father Sky, Brother Shark, and the various mountain and volcano goddesses. They subsist on a variety of foods, depending on the island climate on which they find themselves, but their primary meats are fish, pig, and dog—and in the far north and far south? Seal and whale. The meat of the shark is forbidden, but the teeth of the shark are prized as ornaments, tools, and weapons. On the tropical islands, there’s taro root, breadfruit, jackfruit, and more. They also produce coffee in the mountains of their islands, grown on volcanic soil.
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Their clothing varies from location to location; in the tropics, men and women both go bare-chested. In the polar regions, clothing is decidedly more modest, and for good reasons!