Arianiga

Arianiga (pronounced /ɑːriːˈɑːnɪɡə/) is a veigur on the plane of Lothenmydhe where the multicolored mists high above the land hide the stars from the ground below. There are, however, people who live in floating nations above the mists, seldom seeing the world's surface. These lands are called sky nations, the earthbound lands earth nations; their inhabitants are the sky people and the earth people, respectively. In general, the sky nations are much more advanced in magic and technology than the earth nations—unsurprisingly, since it required considerable magic to create their floating nations in the first place. What is more surprising is the extent of the disparity; it seems that if the earth nations ever had advancements remotely comparable to the sky nations, they have long been forgotten.

Nowadays, there is little contact between the earth nations and the sky nations, except when the earth people find some artifact (or creature) accidentally dropped from the sky nations, or the sky nations kidnap earth people for use as slave labor. The latter practice is by no means universal among the sky nations, but is performed by some of them, Cast being the one that makes the most use of such slaves.

Geography

Arianiga is shaped very vaguely like a fat five-pointed star. Roughly one half of the star is land and the other water, though the boundary between the two is quite convoluted, and there are plenty of islands in the water half and lakes and seas in the land half. Aside from the oceans, Arianiga's largest body of water is the Alabaster Sea, connected to the ocean known as the Sepulcher by the White Channel. Arianiga's sun rises from the Alabaster Sea, spending the nighttime deep below the waters.

The land surface of Arianiga is a diverse mixture of forest, desert, and other terrains, the sparse population leaving most of the world still in something resembling its natural state. One odd feature, perhaps a magical remnant of a forgotten war, is the bolls that seem to appear randomly throughout the world's surface, stony capsules which when broken open prove to contain weird talismans or creatures kept in suspended animation. The earth people have many myths about the origins of the bolls; the sky people, distant from their occurrence, for the most part ignore them, if they believe in their existence at all and don't simply dismiss them as entirely a superstition of the earth people. There are a few among the sky nations, however, who do seek out bolls and try to learn the secrets of their origin.

The sky people, meanwhile, live on shees and wolks above the skymists, invisible from the earth nations below. Because of the height of these floating lands, they do not cast perceptible shadows on the veigur's surface; even when the sun rises above the mists, its light is sufficiently diffused by the skymists that the only effect of the intervening landmasses is a slight dimming of the light that would have otherwise reached the earth nations. The substance that makes up the lands of the sky nations is not torn from the veigur itself, but assembled from bits brought from various other planes, and occasionally some other things came from those planes with it. Some of these extrachorial hitchhikers include useful resources, while others merely menace nearby inhabitants—though the sky people generally have enough magical power to take care of themselves.

Djel

The djel of Arianiga is a gigantic vermiform entity called Ceander, who lives deep underground in an enormous tunnel, said to be directly under the center of the world, beneath the peninsula of Mulcumcheece. However, Ceander wanders the world, through a network of tunnels large enough for its huge bulk to fit through, and if it does have a central lair it doesn't spend much time there. Ceander is an intelligent being, and is certainly not above speaking to travelers it encounters, and perhaps using its powers to help them out in some way if asked.

There are some indications that Ceander knows the reasons for the backwardness of the earth people. Whether or not that's the case, it's certainly evident that it has some sympathy toward them. However, it does not take sides in any conflicts between the earth people and the sky people because certain of the sky nations offer the djel enormous bribes to stay out of their affairs.

Inhabitants

The intelligent inhabitants of Arianiga include the expected humans and tzanteii. Common tzanteii include the heron-like qaueq, the eagle-like blyweck, and the beetle-like tgol and caswick, the first two found almost exclusively in the sky nations and the last two on the surface below. The blyweck, in fact, have a nation of their own, Eüga. Other ellogous beings include the diminutive gagana, mischievous beings that dwell in the forest; and the enigmatic psudu, a magical species of humanoid appearance and uncertain origin.

Arianiga's surface has many strange creatures living on it, but the sky nations have little in the way of wildlife, only a few birds and other high-flyers that can reach their altitudes, and some rats and other creatures that apparently hitched their way onto the sky nations when they were first created and have not been eradicated since. However, they make up for this by containing a variety of artificial creatures; the sky nations have developed many servitor entities they magically create, among the most common of which are the cholems, artificially spawned lesser versions of the constellations; and the mavai, animated creatures of ice.

Magic

The same elemental magic practiced throughout Dverelei is used on Arianiga, by both the earth people and the sky people. The sky people, however, are much more sophisticated in its use, and are capable in general of much greater magical feats. While the earth people do use magic, they rarely do so in any systematic way, and most earth people don't have an understanding of the different kinds of elemental magic; while they may recognize that two people seem to be using magic very differently, they won't understand that it's because one is a glamourist and the other a sorcerer. Mages of any sort command a high respect in most earth nations; often they will be the leaders of a community, and when they are not they are likely to be their close advisers. The earth people's feelings toward spellcasters are not without an element of fear, however, and even those in leadership positions are seen more as mysterious figures of distant dominion than as accessible authorities.

Stellurgy is common among the sky nations, one, Sasel, having harnessed a star for its exclusive use. A few new types of magic have been developed in Arianiga, of which the most widespread and well developed is ptomaty, a form of magic that draws energy from the force of gravity.