The Eureka-verse and You

[Kitten4u]

Table of Contents

1.) Overview
2.) Ithe
3.) Laelorialis
4.) The Island
5.) Other Places
6.) Oqua
7.) Shalaren
8.) Other Races
9.) Relationships

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Helpful links

Current Map
Current Rules

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OVERVIEW

In this universe magic is the name given to a set of skills that allow people to change or bypass the usual laws of physics. Therefore, it's not considered 'spiritual' or 'mystical,' but rather completely mundane and normal; it's a skill like any other. People don't view being good at magic any differently from being good at cooking or swimming. Much like any other skill, a person's magical abilities get better with study and practice. Because of the mundane and predictable nature of magic, it's very rare for a person to not be able to use any magic at all, though it does happen. Studying magic is also considered a science in its own right, not unlike studying the human body or physics.

In order to use magic, a person needs mana. Mana is found naturally in the air, and a person stores it in their body when they breathe. In order to use magic, the caster must use mana stored in their body; they cannot use mana from the air. How much mana a person can store varies from person to person. The more skilled a person is with magic the more mana they can store in their bodies. Casting requires conscious effort. Magic is never something that 'just happens or something that someone can do without thinking about. Sustaining spells also requires some amount of focus and power, and thus can't be done while someone is unconscious or asleep. When someone has no more mana stored in their body they can still cast by wounding themselves as it's possible to convert ones body into mana. Completely converting ones body into mana will kill the person.

Due to the nature of magic making many tasks easier than they would otherwise be, the technology level varies wildly from place to place, and even one place might have technology that came from two different periods in the real world's history. Overall, the technology level is fairly low; most places will have simple machines (such as a pulley system or ramps), but most things won't be much better than that. The technology tends to be higher for the things that are difficult to do with magic (such as construction since it's difficult to maintain buildings with magic), and the things that are easy to do with magic don't tend to be very technologically advanced (such as farming).

[Kitten4u]

ITHE

Geography

Ithe is located in the southwestern corner of northern continent. They consider their borders to be from the mountains (the Airu mountains and Errion mountains) and the swamp (Mosakir) in the east, to the far western part of the Utoro forest in the west (even if they're not quite sure how far west that is). From the Sahur ocean in the south, the the Lisim ocean in the north. Despite that, much of the land is uninhabited due to there being very few water sources in Ithe, and even less interest in expanding from the people.

It's a fairly temperate and humid region. It tends to stay warm in the south year long, though the north has more defined seasons and will often have snow in the winter. The whole country sees a good deal of rainfall, more in the south than the north. Most of the countryside is covered with rolling hills with lots of grass and little else. There are certain kinds of small plants and herbs that can only be found in this area, but they can be easily overlooked by anyone that isn't looking for them. Most of the coastline is covered in cliffs, so there are very few beaches. Only three are known right now: one on the southern end of Ithe, one on the northern end at roughly the same longitude as the southern one, and one at the far western end of the Utoro Forest.

When it comes to technology, Ithe's construction and engineering abilities are unparalleled. Their buildings are very sturdy, even if they're just made of wood. They have a system to ensure the quality of their buildings, and are currently the only known country to have building codes and laws. Their skills are very obvious in the capitol city itself. The walls surrounding it are huge and difficult to break through. They're also roughly five and a half stories tall. There are a few buildings even taller than that in some of the wealthier districts of the city. Most other countries can't even produce a three story building, even if they can pour a lot of money and resources into the construction. Their abilities are constantly improving as well, as research in this area is extremely important to them.

Landmarks

Airu and Errion Mountains
These mountains are in the east of Ithe and define part of the border with Laelorialis (the other thing defining it being the Mosakir Swamp). It's not clear whether they're Ithen or Laelorian, but part of them are in Ithe, so Ithe claims at least that part. While they are two separate mountain ranges, they are very close together and therefore very similar. It's not unusual for people to refer to them as one range even if they are aware that they are not. The parts in Ithe are roughly 10,000 ft are their highest points. No one's really sure if they get taller as they head east, but that's not in Ithe, so no one's really cared enough to find out. Most of the mountains are covered in pine trees, the only exception would be the highest points. The terrain is fairly rough and rocky, so they are fairly difficult to navigate. Numerous poisonous plants and dangerous animals (such as magic bears) inhabit the area, so it's rare to see travelers in the area. Recently, a strange species of intelligent animals known as 'Taithros' have been found in the area, so the area has just been declared unsafe for anyone to venture into. It's too bad too because there are several precious metal deposits in the western parts of the mountains. There was also a very rich iron ore deposit in the western part of the Errion.

Gulf of Adasurir
The Gulf of Adasurir is a large, circular body of water that most people consider Ithen because they believe it was created by a legendary Ithen hero nammed Adasurir. Supposedly, there was another country there, and he sunk the entire country beneath the waves with one powerful magic strike. It's large enough and goes deep enough into the dangerous Utoro Forest that no one's completely explored around it yet. So far, the coastline does look perfectly circular, so that supports the legend. Travel through there is rare because the area is covered in large cliffs much like the rest of Ithe.

Lasula River
The Lasula river starts from a small lake on one of the highest hills in Ithe. It flows south, and splits into two rivers about half way down before flowing off the cliffs around Hirarila. The rivers that were made from Lasula splitting don't have any particular name; they're typically just called Lasula West and Lasula East, or sometimes just LW and LE. Before the river splits, it's quite wide: a little wider than a modern highway. The rivers after the split are a little narrower, but they are still very wide. Wide enough that building a bridge across them was a difficult engineering challenge for some time after the founding of Hirarila about 400 years ago. The water flows fairly slowly, so it's been a useful trade route between the cities on the river. There are also several different kinds of fish of varying shapes and sizes, so the slow river flow makes it easy to fish in it as well. There are numerous plants, both edible and inedible, in the river. Many of them are only found in the Lasula River.

Mosakir Swamp
The swamp marks part of the border between Ithe and Laelorialis (the rest of it being from the Airu and Errion Mountains). This swamp is between the Airu and Errion mountains, and their rocky and sturdy nature is likely what made the water stagnate enough to become a swamp in the first place. It's home to many tall, narrow trees and crocodiles. The water is murky and is filled with many small, strange creatures that seems to thrive in the dirty water.

Utoro Forest
This forest is on the southwestern part of Ithe. It's a fairly dangerous forest, filled with wolves, carnivorous plants and other predators. It's also the best place to get wood and stone for building as the next nearest areas to the major cities are on the other side of the country. The edge of the forest isn't as dangerous, so most people just gather wood and stone there. Most of the trees are large and leafy and often have other glowing plants growing on them like moss. Many of the animals, particularly the butterflies and other insects, glow as well so the forest is rarely dark. Deeper into the forest the trees begin to twist and deform as though they are trying to strangle each other. The forest becomes denser and more difficult to navigate as well. On the far western side, there is a tribe of creatures that call themselves the Oqua. They are very dangerous to humans and fairly powerful, so the area has been deemed too dangerous to travel through.

Major Cities

Adasurir
Adasurir is named after the legendary Ithen hero, Adasurir. Supposedly, he created the nearby Gulf of Adasurir by casting one very powerful magic spell in order to sink the civilization that was there to end the war between that civilization and Ithe. It's considered the first official Ithen colony, as for the longest time there was only one major Ithen city. It's located on the mouth of the Lasula river, just east of what is believed to be the center of the Gulf of Adasurir (north/south center). The city is smaller than the capitol, but it doesn't currently have any permanent walls. The people that planned the city kept all the farmland to the south and on the other side of the nearby Lasula River so that the city could hopefully expand to the north and east as much as it needed to. There are still some very sturdy walls surrounding it, but they are not as large or as strong as the walls in the capitol. They are there to help keep the peace and to help keep unruly people out of the city, but are meant to be taken down eventually as the city grows. The city was built in a perfect circle, and the city planning is quite extensive. In the center is where most of the government officials live and work. In the next ring outside of that are were most of the wealthy people live. Outside of that would be the upper-class commercial district. Outside of that would be the lower-class commercial district. Outside of that would be lower-class housing.

Hirarila
Hirarila, the capitol of Ithe, is located in the southern part of Ithe between the two rivers that were created when the Lasula River split. It's a massive city surrounded by high walls. Because of the walls, it's very difficult to get in and out. However, this is intentional on the government's part. The city is overcrowded at this point. While the city was originally built to be a perfect circle, when viewed from the air it looks more like a flower now. When the initial city grew to be too large, they tried to expand it by adding a few more semi-circles to the outside of the walls. This worked for awhile, but now even those are filling up. Therefore, the government goes out of their way to kick people out of the city. It's considered to be a city of the best and the brightest (though this isn't always true), and anyone that can't pull their weight needs to find a new place to live.

Hirarila Port
While not a city on its own, it's still considered an important part of Hirarila. The port is located on the beach on the southern part of Ithe. It's the closest beach to the capitol city of Hirarila, but it still takes about half a day to travel there. There are a few houses there for the people that maintain the ships, but otherwise no one actually lives there. The only other things there are a few ships, a small warehouse and a place to stable any horses brought in to haul stuff to and from the capitol.

Keloser
Keloser is Ithe's second colony (the first being Adasurir). Unlike the other cities, Keloser is on the southern continent, in the Serima Desert along the Farinu River. Because of this, many people don't think Keloser should even be considered part of Ithe. It's a very small town, and the only Ithen city with no walls. There have been several attempts to persuade people into moving to Keloser, but the city still remains at a population of about 50. Even then, some of the people there are just there temporarily to explore the surrounding areas.

People

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LAELORIALIS

Geography

Laelorialis is located on the western part of the northern continent. They consider their borders to be east of the Mosakir Swamp until they reach the ocean. So far, they haven't colonized anything outside of that northern continent, so they do not have any territory outside of it. There hasn't been much interest in colonizing places across the sea because Laelorialis is huge and they have plenty of room to expand with in their own borders. The country is divided into four regions: Laegrote, Loriara, Alisia and Risria.

Discussing the climate of such a large country would be impractical, so the climate of each region will be discussed in their individual sections instead. Due to the sheer size of the country, there are few climates that Laelorialis doesn't have somewhere with in its borders.

Also due to Laelorialis' size, the technology they deemed most important was transportation. Because they are still nowhere near the point of having motorized vehicles, this mostly shows in two places: How they train their animals and how well their vehicles are constructed. Their vehicles tend to last longer and be more comfortable. They also tend to have more and better roads and more organized trade routes.

Laegrote

Laegrote is located in a mountainous region on the eastern part of Laelorialis. It's difficult to definite exactly where its borders are, as the borders between Laegrote and Loriara are rather vague, as was the old border between Laegrote and Risria. Officially, their borders are defined as everything north of the mountains of Alisia and about half way between the Mosakir Swamp that defines all of Laelorialis' eastern border and the sea. Technically, most people don't consider the tundra and ice on the northern part of the continent to be part of Laegrote, but that's mostly because no one cares about the land up there. Because the borders are so poorly defined, some border conflicts still arise even though Laegrote and Loriara are part of the same country now.

Most of Laegrote is in the mountains, with parts of it being in high-altitude, dense forest and other parts being in some of the flatter, colder areas near the tundra. Because of that, Laegrote is very cold, and the air is thin in most of the region. The only exception would be some of the areas on the coast, which are naturally at sea level and are quite a bit warmer. There are a few areas on the northern coast that are also at sea level, but because of how far north they are, those areas tend to be pretty cold too.