Axa

Axa (pronounced /ˈɑːʃə/) is the Norgan capital world of Ll, the Chalari god of nature. Alone among the capital worlds, Axa has no cities or other permanent manmade structures, aside from some ruins dating back to the early days of its settlement, or before. It is, however, an important site to the Empire, not only for its status as the headquarters of the church of Ll and the home of his archprelate, but for its provision of certain resources unavailable anywhere else.

Geography

Like most worlds of Piobagh, Axa is a devare, with two distinct sides connected by a number of conasters. Although both sides of the devare are full of life and bear numerous diverse biomes, there are still notable differences between them. Perhaps the most obvious is that one side, Riigh, bears terrains similar to those of many other terrestrial worlds, and familiar ic life, while the contents of the other, Aghn, are more unique and alien.

Both sides of the devare, however, teem with life, both in the land and in the seas. And both sides have plenty of each, with about sixty-five percent of Riigh covered with water, and about fifty-five percent of Aghn. Riigh's land is traditionally divided into six continents, Aghn's into eight. This is not to say, however, that every inch of Axa is dense with life. Deserts and barrens have their place in nature, too, and such regions are also found on Axa's surface.

The interior of the devare, too, has life of its own; Axa has extensive systems of caverns populated with all sorts of troglobions. It is here in the caves, as well, that the last vestiges of civilized society may remain on Axa. Though on Axa's being designated the capital world of Ll the Llan clergy did their best to have all cities and settlements scoured from its surface, it was harder to thoroughly search the caverns of its interior, and rumors persist of now isolated subterranean cities that escaped their notice. If this is true, the church of Ll would certainly appreciate being informed of any such cities so that they can be properly removed.

History

Though Axa was settled very early on in the history of the Empire, its dangerous life forms prevented it from being as heavily settled as other contemporary worlds. While Riigh was the first side to be settled, eventually, in the empire's expansion, the other side of Axa was surveyed as well, and found to be much stranger and more dangerous. While Aghn's exotic wilds became popular with explorers, it was never heavily populated, though certainly facilities were constructed there to use as a launchpad for the exploration of the nearby space.

As the empire grew and the importance of the Chalari gods waxed and the time came for a capital world to be chosen for Ll, Axa was an almost immediate choice, based on its diversity and on its sparse settlement. Sparse settlement was not no settlement, however, and as a capital world of Ll, god of nature, it was considered exigent that it bear no manmade structures whatsoever. The Llan prelates therefore mandated that all structures on the devare's surface be razed, and that everyone not content to live in an unedified wilderness find a new home. The destruction of these structures was not absolute, however, and some overgrown ruins can still be found in places across both sides of the world, though more so on Riigh than on Aghn.

Edifices of particular import or beauty were translocated to other worlds or planes rather than demolished, and the church provided displaced inhabitants with compensation for their losses and inconvenience and for the expenses of relocation. Nevertheless, this mandate did not avoid raising some resentment, and some families descended from the world's preconsecrational inhabitants have nourished grudges that they still carry—which ill feelings some in the church of Usus have taken advantage of to build opposition to the forces of Ll.

Inhabitants

The fact that Axa bears no manmade buildings does not mean it has no noetic inhabitants. It may have the smallest population of any of the capital worlds, but it is not entirely untenanted, even if those who do live there must content themselves with living out of doors or in undeveloped natural caves, and with doing without any manufactured conveniences, not excluding clothing. Because of this, very few ordinary humans or members of most other common Norgan races live on Axa—though there are a few who do, either out of devotion to the god of nature or out of an overdeveloped sense of adventure. Some races, however, such as cai and wengels, find the restrictions less of an inconvenience, and are more common on the world.

Also finding Axa not entirely inhospitable are mutates who have at least one form suited to unaided living. This includes glashans and many turnskins and conglers, but also includes some creatures rare elsewhere in the Empire such as trogles and scunnocks. Llites, transformed to better fit the natural world, are of course also comfortable living without civilized conveniences. Some shee, too, find Axa congenial—it has been claimed that there are more shee on Axa than on any other world of Norg, though this may be inaccurate.

Government

It has been said that the only law on Axa is the law of the wild. This may in a sense be true, but, like any anarchy, Axa's society does have some structure. Crucial, for instance, is the preëminence of the church of Ll, and in particular of its archprelate. Almost any noetic inhabitant of Axa will bow to the will of a priest of Ll, and the archprelate's word is sovereign. However, while it's common for archprelates to largely delegate the governance of their capital worlds, the archprelate of Ll has historically concerned themself less with the running of their world than most, letting Axans fend for themselves and only intervening to stop plans for a construction or other proposed action that would upset the world's naturality. The current archprelate, an Llite quidjic contrariously named [[Nameless], is no exception, roaming the world but seldom interfering in its residents' ways.

In any case, the archprelate's benign neglect notwithstanding, Axa is not entirely without law, even if that law is enforced purely locally and not globally. Powerful or persuasive individuals sometimes do bring areas under their sway, achieving the command over the inhabitants of a given region. Outsiders often call these local Axan leaders "alphas", in analogy to the term used for dominant animals—not an inapt analogy, though it's a term many of the Axan "alphas" themselves take exception to. Some "alphas" preside only over those in their territory of particular species, but others have dominion over all noetic beings in the areas they claim. Occasionally there may be more than one level in the chain of command, with several local "alphas" reporting in turn to an "alpha prime", or with the alpha designating subordinates ("betas") that are ranked above the rest of their subjects but still themselves subject to the alpha, but these regimens rarely get too deep or convoluted—the scattered population of Axa and the uncivilized life there doesn't lend itself to complex societal systems.

The fact that so many of Axa's noetic inhabitants resemble innoetic beasts (at least some of the time) may seem to pose a potential problem. Many of Axa's residents are carnivores, and while they may have few qualms about devouring innoetic prey, they may draw the line at dining on fellow thinking beings. For just this contingency, Axa's inhabitants tend to settle on mutually agreed signals to alert each other of their noetic nature, though these signals may vary regionally (posing a problem for those prone to travel). Of course, there will always be those who have no compunction about eating other noetic beings and who ignore those signals, but in most parts of Axa if discovered such miscreants tend to be abominated by others in the area, even fellow predators, and may find themselves the subject of summary justice.

Economy

Despite its intentionally undeveloped nature, Axa does in fact provide some goods that are exported elsewhere. Naturally, these exports are not conducted in any sort of official way, and no formal infrastructure exists to facilitate it. Rather, most of these exports take place at the hands of free-traders who briefly visit the devare, collect the goods in question, and go before they can be accused of perverting its natural state. As long as these traders don't stay too long, overexploit the resources they harvest, or try to build any permanent structures on Axa, the archprelate and the rest of the Llan clergy tolerate their activities. As a matter of fact, they even benefit from the traders' activities financially; the church of Ll demands a cut of the traders' income. Those traders who assume that they can come and go unseen and that they can ignore the church's requirement seldom get away with it for long—somehow, the church always seems to know. (Some question why the church of the god of nature would need money in the first place, but there's no great mystery about it. There may be no markets or financial system on Axa, but that's not true of the rest of Norg, and the priests of Ll off Axa find money as useful as anyone else does to get their way.)

Most of the Axan exports take the form of exotic creatures and materials native to that world. Icewood from the Pale Forest, veltosh for use as guard animals, and the valuable chemicals made from various species of knopbug are just some of the Axan commodities that traders deal in. Naturally, given the difficulty of gathering them from Axa, all of these goods command a rather high price. Though there have certainly been attempts to start breeding colonies of these valuable flora and fauna elsewhere, success has been limited, and Axa remains the primary source.