Chee
Chee (pronounced /tʃeɪ/) is the capital world of Eed, god of abstinence, in the Empire of Norg. Most of its inhabitants are devotees of Eed, and follow some form of abstinence, though they differ in precisely what they abstain from; while some live lives that are generally spareful and eschew partaking in any luxury or pleasure more than they absolutely have to, there are those who instead serve Eed by avoiding altogether some particular activity or good altogether, while indulging normally—though never excessively—in others. Entire neighborhoods or even cities, sometimes called bantowns, are dedicated to a particular form of abstention; some communities abstain from eating meat, and so the markets there do not sell it; other communities abstain from violence, even so mild as a poke or a slap; or from travel, spending their whole lives in the same small region; or from alcohol; or spices; or magic; or bathing; or owning any possessions of particular colors. Among the most extreme bantowns are those whose inhabitants refrain from speech, going about in silence and communicating by writing or sign language; or from clothing, remaining perpetually nude; or from shelter, living their lives outdoors and never venturing beneath a roof.
Paradoxically, Chee is known for its sumptuous resorts, or hospitality zones, where guests can stay in pampered comfort and enjoy all manner of delicacy and delight. This may seem to be antithetical to Eed's ascetic principles—and indeed it would be if the church of Eed or his worshippers had any hand in these establishments. But the resorts are neither owned nor patronized by Eed's faithful; they are run by the disciples of other gods, and they are the playgrounds of visitors from other worlds. There are reasons that Chee has become a popular tourist destination. For one thing, foreigners find the abstemious lifestyles of Chee's citizens exotic and amusing, and find entertainment in seeing its people go about their lives forswearing some quality or commodity that forms an everyday and seemingly essential part of the outworlder's existence. Visitors delight in touring bantowns and ogling the inhabitants. Another reason for Chee's popularity as a vacation spot is the fact that in going without certain goods that are commonplace elsewhere, its inhabitants have found creative workarounds that can be useful or pleasurable even to those who don't share their refrenative practices. Cheans who shun meat have developed a variety of novel vegetarian dishes; Cheans who do not use any objects made of wood create unusual substitutes of other materials.
As for why the church of Eed tolerates such immoderate establishments on the capital world of their god, it is the opinion of the church that proximity to such prodigality actually heightens the devotees' awareness and appreciation of their own abstinence by the contrast. Indeed, while no pious worshipper of Eed would stay at one of these resorts, many adherents of Eed are employed by the resorts, and the church does nothing to discourage this; if these faithful souls can retain their own austerity and humility while surrounded by such extravagant profligacy, they honor Eed in doing so.
Geography
The two sides of the devare of Chee are called Xexar and Dnnan. The land surface of Xexar consists mainly of nine disconnected island continents, each with distinct biomes and many unique clades of life. While all nine continents have been heavily settled and built upon, there still remains on each a considerable area left more or less in its natural state. Bridges connect the continents, but are so long that they are impractical for regular use, and most passage between the islands is by boat or by air.
In constrast to Xexar, the land in Dnnan is almost all connected, with only one separate island anywhere approaching continental size. Dnnan's oceans, too, are mostly contiguous, with one or two large inland seas. While Dnnan may not have quite the variety of different life forms and biomes that Xexar does, it makes up for this with the sheer strangeness of what's there; Dnnan is home to multiple kinds of plant and animal that bear little resemblance to anything anywhere else, and even a few organisms that may belong to kingdoms alien to most worlds of Piobagh. The bulk of Dnnan's ellogous populace lives on the coast, though there are scattered inland communities.
Most of the conasters connecting Xexar and Dnnan are underwater, at the bottom of the oceans. There are, however, three major dry conasters, two natural and one artificial. There are also enough tunnels through Chee that one can travel from one side to another even far from the conasters, though it may be a long journey; unlike the conasters, these tunnels do not lead directly from one side to the other but may require considerable movement parallel to the surface. Some of these tunnels have been dug by Chee's settlers, but Chee also has extensive natural caverns, and many of its tunnels are the work of burrowing creatures native to the devare, especially an enormous vermian animal called a dwerworm.
People
People of all folks common in Norg have settled on Chee, along with plenty that aren't, but among the most numerous folks are humans, cais, skens, firassyn, topins, and thasanay, roughly in that descending order of numbers. Similar to the other capital worlds of Norg, many of these people have become Eedites, devoting themselves fervently to the god of abstinence and granted special powers by doing so. To many Norgans' unease, Norg also has an unusually high population of encratic creatures that survive by possessing others, such as gullags and cainels; here they thrive because they find willing hosts who see the surrender to possession as a blessed form of abstinence from agency.
Outside the resorts, almost every resident of Chee is a devotee of Eed, and hence almost every resident of Chee is abstaining from something. This doesn't mean they all live in bantowns, of course; most Cheans live in mixed communities inhabited by people of diverse subjects of abstinence, or who live lives of general moderation without absolutely abjuring anything in particular. While the bantowns of Norg are famous (and, as noted, are frequent tourist destinations), less than ten percent of its people live in one.
A significant proportion of Cheans live underground in the caverns and tunnels that permeate the devare. Some of these subterraneans make a point of only coming out to either of the devare's surfaces at night, thereby abstaining from exposure to sunlight. Others never come out at all, abstaining from ever experiencing the open air. In all, perhaps fifteen to twenty percent of Chee's inhabitants make their homes in hypogean habitats.
Other life
Chee has a huge diversity of endemic life forms, some of which it exports elsewhere as pets or work animals or for their meat or other byproducts. Among the most famous of its exotic fauna are the gangling chain spider, the edible bread slug, the hardy toppler, and the cuddly barigag. Both sides of the devare are home to many species of giant bats, as well as lirionts, members of a phylum once thought unique to Chee, although a few exemplars have since been found elsewhere. At least one native species, the kumga, is suspected to be possibly ellogous.
There are also distinctive flora that are found on Chee. Most of these unusual flora are normally harmless to humans and other folks, including the ribbon tree, glitter moss, and the giant rolling fungi called sarsens. Some, however, are potentially dangerous, including the toxic hornetweed, the ylifactive soilgrass, and the carnivorous yanjanac.
The devare also has its share of panasteric creatures, and organisms introduced from other worlds. Some of its inhabitants raise cattle, sheep, moas, grrns, and other domestic animals. In addition to native crops like swamp floss and heartnuts, Chean farmers grow imported plants like cotton, peppers, apples, and cinnamon. There are also some foreign organisms that have been brought accidentally to Chee and become invasive, including opossums, riddleflies, and burclover—and some brought purposely that have spread beyond their importer's intent, such as rabbits and roses.
Government
Chee is unusual among capital worlds of Norg in that the archprelate of Eed is not the world's political ruler. Rather, the highest authorities are the Pauper Tyrants, officials who live and work in a vast but empty building called the Barren Palace. Of course, the Tyrants are themselves Eedans, and would likely follow the archprelate's counsel if it was given, but unlike in the other churches of the Ghal the archprelate of Eed has traditionally kept their hands off of secular matters. Next to the Tyrants themselves, the most politically powerful Chean governing body is the Cene, a partly appointed and partly elected assembly that travels around the devare to see firsthand conditions in different areas. The Cene acts in an advisory capacity to the Tyrants, but also is empowered to make its own binding legislative and adminstrative decisions on matters that do not demand the Tyrants' personal attention or that the Tyrants choose to delegate to them.
Despite their political power, the Pauper Tyrants are forbidden from owning more property than they can carry on their persons, and that and other restrictions make it a less than highly coveted position—while there is in principle no limit to the number of Pauper Tyrants that can hold the office at once and share power, in practice there is seldom more than one at a time, and there have been brief intertyrannic periods where there were no serving Tyrants, though so far these have never lasted long. Currently, there are two Pauper Tyrants, the human Jodel Wi and the zundar Nesha'e O. When the two disagree on some decision or policy, Wi usually defers to the older Nesha'e, but when there is an unresolved conflict—which, while still rare, has been happening increasingly often—the Cene serves as a tiebreaker.
If it waives rulership on the mondial scale, the church of Eed is much more of an active force in local matters. Both sides of Chee are divided into administrative regions called sees, thirty in Xexar and twenty-seven in Dnnan. Each is under the jurisdiction of a prelate who has absolute control of their see, subject only to the oversight of the archprelate and the superintendence of the Tyrants and the Cene. The prelates have considerable discretion in how they choose to run their sees, and governmental structures and policies vary widely from see to see. While conforming to her predecessors' tradition of noninterference in global affairs, the current archprelate, Yestela Ngeda, has taken especial interest in the cathedral governments, meeting with each prelate several times a year to get briefings on the affairs of the see and give their advice. Not all the prelates are happy about Ngeda's surview, and some rankle at her micromanagement.
Economy
While the inhabitants of Chee may themselves consume little compared to the average Norgan, they produce a variety of goods that the devare exports to other worlds of the empire. The inhabitants harvest many natural resources—apart from the animal and vegetable goods already mentioned, they mine gold, kessite, and other valuable minerals, and gather certain naturally occurring telesmata formed in physiurgic rhegi. The exports for which Chee is best known, however, are the products of its people's craftsmanship. Some credit its people's artisanry to the spare time their abstention from certain activities gives them, others in the ingenuity they exercise in working around the limitations incurred by their absistence. Whatever the cause, Chean artificers create finely worked glassware, metalwork, pottery, clockwork mechanisms, and other such ourages.
The hospitality zones are also a significant source of income. There are hundreds of these resorts of various qualities, among the best known of which are the Island of Delights, the Golden Oasis, and the Kingdom of Dreams. While the resorts are not owned by Eedan religionists and indeed for the most part not even by residents of the devare, nevertheless they end up injecting considerable money into Chee's economy and into the coffers of the church of Eed, as tourists spend money in communities outside the resorts and as the resorts pay wages to Eedan employees.
History
Of all the capital worlds save perhaps Axa, it is Chee that has been changed the least from its pre-settlement state; it is part of the doctrine of Eed, after all, that one should try to make do with what is available. While most of the capital worlds were originally settled by followers of many different gods, Chee's initial settlers were a group of Eedans looking for an isolated world where they could practice their abstinent ways, and while there were some later immigrants of other faiths there was never a time when the majority of its population was not Eedan. By the time the empire had spread enough to envelop Chee's surroundings and make it no longer the isolated backwater it once was, the foothold of the church of Eed on the world was firm enough to not be easily lifted.
The largest conflict with which Chee played a significant part was not part of a war between Norg and one of the other Great Empires of Piobagh, but an interdenominational dispute when the church of Faghllal coveted the word and launched an offensive to seize it. During this Beggars' War, the Chean defenders were for a time hard-pressed, but ultimately prevailed and cemented their dominance of the devare. It was shortly after the end of this ecclesiomachy that Chee was selected as the capital world of Eed. Despite these historical hostilities, today Chee is one of the places where the often fractious followings of Eed and Faghllal best get along and coöperate, many of the hospitality zones being owned by Faghllalans and some even by the church of Faghllal itself.