shutsumon (shutsumon) wrote in specficwriters, @ 2008-09-11 22:06:00 |
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Entry tags: | genre: fantasy, olestria, worldbuilding |
Worldbuilding Project - Olestria -Part Three A
Question - should I change the continent name to Alestria to avoid the fake fat (Olestra) problem. Being British I'd never heard of Olestra until someone mentioned it.
Also the history section is really long so I'm breaking it down into smaller pieces to answer.
While there are some gaps in the records in some areas and times Olestria has fairly comprehensive historical records going back over 2000 years and an oral tradition going back further - in some cases predating the arrival of the people who’s history it is on the plains. Historians and anthropologists have collated the various records to create a complete history and this is taught in schools.
People generally believe most of the old stories though creation and origin stories are viewed as dubious since not everyone can be right. One of the most fraught questions is Olestrian comparative theology is who created the first people and how or did different gods create different races - the discovery of the theory of evolution has actually helped calm the dispute since most people now thinks that the gods (or their predecessors - many religions do not put creation at the gods door especially since they have a fair inkling they were around before the younger gods due to the existence of the near humans(see below)) created the laws of nature and then let them take their course to the desired result with only minor pushes.
The near-human races - as I stated before - are the semi-divine descendents of humans who were empowered by the titans. A few of this world’s religions posit a similar origin for the younger gods (empowered humans) but not Olestrian ones - though a few avant guard theologians have suggested it though.
Civilisation seems to have first appeared in a once fertile and temperate area in the northern (or southern depending on which way I jump with regards to hemispheres when I map) reaches of a second continent closer to the equator than Olestria and spread out from there in all directions. The area that was the cradle of life, however, is now a blasted barren plain. This is not the result of over farming or any natural disaster - some myths suggest it was shattered when the first humans were scattered for hubris or possibly because they refused to leave their comfortable home. Other stories claim evil forces attacked the first humans and the land was shattered when the deities came to their defence. The major effect of the obvious existence of magic and gods is that atheism is rare. However both are unusual enough that technology has still be developed just because anyone can use it (and why bother the gods if you can handle something yourself).
Historically the Kaldasteinic peoples and Vectanian peoples have clashed regularly ever since the fall of the Vectanian Imperium a thousand years before the current time period. Things have only calmed down recently (the last couple of hundred years). Though this was not universal and the as yet unnamed country where the main story is set lies in between their territories and is one of those fertile areas that everyone migrates into and thus become a massive melting pot. The most recent major war was a few decades previous to the present time and was a resource war when one of the Olestrian nations became overcrowded and under sourced.
The main ethnic groups of Olestria are the Vectanian peoples (roughly analogous to the Mediterranean peoples of Earth eg Italians, Greeks and Spanish), The Kaldastenic peoples (roughly analogous to the Scandinavian and Germanic peoples of Earth), the Dyonian peoples (roughly analogous to the Celtic groups) and so on. (if there’s an ethnic group native to Europe they’ll have an equivalent on Olestria I haven‘t got them all worked out yet).
Once the Vectanian people were considered civilised and everyone else was a barbarian (especially to Vectanians) and of these the people of Cordrama were the most civilised of all. Then after the Kaldastenic awakening they became the benchmark of civilised… these days most of the area of Olestria the story concerns is equally civilised and no one would seriously define any group as most civilised any more than you’d seriously say Germans are more civilised than Italians (or visa versa) - well some people might say it but not many. Technological advancement is at roughly early 21st century levels all across Olestra - though obviously economic development varies. Since magic flows from the gods there’s no real disparity of magic either - a race without magic has either majorly pissed off their gods or for some reason don’t have any. More details on this in the magic section.
The languages spoken in Olestria roughly parallel European languages and families for the analogous race. (Which saves me developing the languages :p)
Olestria does has one secular calendar of 13 Lunar months with occasional inter calendar days to stop season creep. Each race/religious group also has it’s own calendar but this is only used to place religious festivals.
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