Rán (Thirteenth Assemblage)

"Our amber Lady of the Sunset Sea, and her Husband ever dances. And their Daughters nestled lap at me, their waving ice enchants us."

Rán, formerly known as Epsilon Eridani and originally properly named Ran in the 21st century, is the Ninth Assemblage, the ninth closest system to Sol. Initially settled by breakaway fleets from the first flight out to Alpha Centauri, the star's consistency and wealth of resources have enabled one of humanity's best efforts for extra-solar habitation for the past three hundred years.

While Rán is often thought of as a well-endowed system in terms of resources and general unity, differing from the Centauric turbulence its settlers could have been part of, the system has been in steady decline for decades. The wealth of space and resources is caught between expanding bureaucracies and state-sponsored grey-market pirates, struggling for control over what exists and the flow of production despite the system's abundance.

Politics and life are both slow and creeping around Rán, relying on a fragile sense of unity to prevent a trophic cascade of the human variety. Actions to change the system often take decades of planning, and while there are a wealth of places to explore, few believe in novelty in the adventure outside of the Nine Waves.

The Sun

Rán is a young K2 orange dwarf, among the larger stars in the Thirteen Assemblages at just over four-fifths of Sol's mass. Although its magnetic activity is more prominent than Sol, its consistency avoids the unpredictable danger of the many flare stars amongst the Assemblages.

System Layout

Rán's still-forming system is home to three major planets, all gaseous, and three distinct discs of debris. Over a dozen dwarf-planet candidates have been named, though their future prospects as existing worlds or full-sized planetary bodies remains unknown. Rán's relatively diffuse matter could well be put to practice as the first system humanity designs, albeit in the far far future millennia from the present day.

All major planets in the Rán system are, following the pattern set by the initial designation, named after jötnar in Norse mythology. The belts vary on this, with Gerdsbelti being named after the jötunn Gerðr, Lokabjalti after the half-jötunn god Loki, and Niflhelsbelti for the frigid realm of the dead. Dwarf planets within these belts follow the jötunn names, though many coincide with Sol system minor objects.

Gerdsbelti

Gerdsbelti (gerdsbelti) is the inner debris belt around Rán, maintained by the presence of Ægir. In a few hundred million years, it is theorized that anywhere from three to ten rocky planets may form from the hadean-type planetesimals and dwarf planets that inhabit the belt. However herded by the gas planets it may be, Gerdsbelti is stabilizing and aggregating into larger bodies over time. Collisions between bodies are common enough that habitation on any of the dwarf bodies is dangerous.

Gerdsbelti is under consistent surveillance for the prospects of metals and silicates that can contribute to the system proper. Bases on asteroids that spend much of their time outside the main belt, particularly Ægir's trojan groups, have vested interests in handling transport logistics between the belt and the moons.

Of the powers vying to settle and keep control within Gerdsbelti, the ascendant IKEA-Älmhult Commonwealth is the most prominent. Following a strict corpo-national culture of cost effectiveness and risk analysis, their dedicated astrophysics analyst teams won the strategic battle for the belt before it began, planting blue-and-gold flags on the most lucrative and clear-orbit bodies in the belt to begin their financial empire anew. Subcontracting other businesses native to the proper nations of the Moons, a sort of bureaucratic order emerged over the past three centuries that remains the backbone of Ránnite expansion. Damage to the delicate power balance in Gerdsbelti would ripple out to the rest of the system in months, if not weeks.

Ægir

Ægir (Ägir, Ægir), formerly designated Epsilon Eridani b and originally given the Anglicized name AEgir, is the first proper planet from Rán as well as its largest. Named for the jötunn who embodied the sea in Norse myths, its turbulent grey bands and dense ring system are visible from all largely-inhabited worlds around it.

Ægir is an incredibly close analogue to Jupiter, having a mass and orbit very reminiscent of Sol's fifth planet. Jupiter's most loathed qualities, notably its thick radiation belts and plasma tori, are present around the planet as well, maintained by its tightly disruptive moon system that has not yet fallen into resonance. These are slightly mitigated by Rán's overall dimmer luminosity compared to Sol, but nonetheless influences everything about Ránnite development on Ægir's major moons. The thicker regions of this radiation only cover the inner three moons, but a more diffuse field of plasma extends all the way out through Hrönn's orbit.

Ægir's notable lack of the typical ammonia-giant redness has been extensively studied, with conclusions coming down to different chemical makeups deeper in the cloud decks and interactions with Rán's lower UV output. Like most planets, its true mechanics are still not fully understood. Theories of compound-reducing biota in Ægir's lower atmosphere have been proposed and refuted multiple times.

Magnetic interference from Ægir's 12-gauss magnetic field causes telltale artifacting in digital communications, which gets exponentially worse the more relays and travel time there is for a message. Applications of interferometry in communications technology between the giant's moons have helped to reduce this "noise", with newer iterations working better to match and cancel out Ægir's specific patterns, but clear communication is generally only possible through redundant text transcriptions of any audio messages or on the closest approaches between two moons.

Blóðughadda

Blóðughadda (Blóðughadda) is Ægir's innermost major moon, a close analogue to Jupiter's moon Io. Together with Bylgja, Blóðughadda creates the intense radiation belts that surrounds the inner moons. These belts, herded by the giant's immense magnetosphere and amplified by the moon's plasma torus, render even the outer moons dangerous for long-term habitation without significant shielding. It is the most volcanically active body in the entire system, earning it the informal nickname Muspelhel.

Blóðughadda is nearly three times Io's mass, and while the unstable periods between itself and the other moons contributes to a slightly higher eccentricity, its orbit remains fairly circular. Its mass and tighter orbit, though, remain the main factors in tidal forces giving rise to the truly lethal radiation belts around Ægir.

The moon's surface is covered in sulfur compounds, brought up from the mantle through its unyielding volcanism and spilled out onto the surface. What clouds do form from these eruptions are quickly stripped away through solar wind and magnetic interaction, leaving the world airless and covered in streaks of reds and yellows. Basaltic igneous flows are also common, giving the moon the iconic dark spotting it is known for. These blood-red streaks and blackened basalt deposits are the distinguishing features that gave Blóðughadda its name, the first of the moons to be given one.

Despite its relatively large size for a moon, having a little over a quarter of Earth's gravity, Blóðughadda is entirely uninhabited. Even heavily-armored ships and probes fizzle out in its orbit, and landing on the surface is a guaranteed way to contract lethal acute radiation sickness. Shelters that could be constructed are too expensive to be of much worth, and the resources provided by the moon are better found on its calmer neighbors or harvested from the radiation belts themselves. Settlements would be easily prone to its rapid resurfacing and constant volcanism, and would not last more than a few centuries even if theoretically shielded from the radiation.

Bylgja

Bylgja (Bylgja) is a case study of a moon type not found in the Solar system. Classed as something of a "dirty ice ball", it has a roughly even mixture of both volatile ices and silicate compounds in its outer crust. Impurities give the permafrost a brownish hue, as well as allowing a slightly more self-sufficient mining industry. Bylgja has some sulfur compounds on and near its surface, caused by a continuously volcanic nature similar to, though less intense than, Blóðughadda.

In terms of gravity, Bylgja has the seventh-lowest of Ægir's moons. At just 15.6% of Earth´s gravity, much volcanic ejecta is still lost to space and furthers the radiation belts around the system. The moon is named after the daughter of Ægir and Rán whose waves come with pressure, and pressurized indeed is Bylgja. With a thin subsurface ocean catching much of the silicate and sulfurous material as it bursts through the lower crust, the majority of what erupts from the upper surface is wet soot and water vapor. These eruptions can often cause quakes felt far from their origin point.

Bylgja is sparsely settled, though still subject to the immense radiation of the inner moons. The dosages are such that heavy shielding can protect from truly lethal amounts, though this mostly takes the form of underground bunkers better shielded by the ices on top of the meter-thick lead and aluminum plated walls. Infant mortality on Bylgja is statistically the highest throughout the entire Rán system.

Dröfn

Dröfn (Dröfn) is the third major moon from Ægir. While still deep enough in the radiation belts that a day unshielded is lethal, being irradiated around half as much as Io, modern shielding is capable of entirely preventing adverse effects within habitats. Most permanent structures are built with the same level of shielding as on Bylgja, but can exist primarily above ground.

Dröfn has chaos terrain and chasmata across much of its surface, and while it has no geological activity whatsoever, conclusions are that its history is similar to Dione or Miranda. In the primordial heat of the forming Rán system, Dröfn likely had increased tidal activity and outgassing, making the moon flex and crumple back on itself a number of times until reaching the state it is today. Its ice has surfaced through these flexings, giving it one of the purest water-ice surfaces of Ægir's moons.

Dröfn is the modern-day frontier world of the Rán system, with most of its thirty million residents being only a generation removed from other bodies. As shield architecture and the supply chain to fund it have both steadily grown over time, the prospects of settling on Dröfn have become more reasonable. Nations do struggle to expand to the folded moon, though, as the radiation causes messages outbound for beyond Himinglæva to become near-unrecognizable.

Uðr

Uðr (Úðr) is Ægir's fourth major moon, as well as its second largest. Gravity on Uðr is nearly identical to that on Hrönn, the largest of Ægir's major moons, and its nitrogen-oxygen atmosphere provides a thin layer of protection against the radiation, though its distance is a much greater factor in its habitability. Uðr is the innermost moon with a population above fifty million, and is the third most populated body in the entire system.

Himinglæva

Himinglæva (Himiqläva) is the fifth major moon from Ægir.

Dúfa

Dúfa (Dúfa) is Ægir's third largest moon, home to a thriving population and a subsurface ocean. Dúfa's distance from Ægir provides a modicum of shelter from the radiation, though not nearly as much as its outer neighbor.

Hrönn

Hrönn (Hrönn) is Ægir's seventh and largest major moon, as well as the most populated. It is the only body in the system with liquid bodies on its surface, a combination of alkanes similarly structured to Titan. Having the highest gravity of the moons at 0.29 Gs, as well as a substantial enough atmosphere to block much of Ægir's radiation, Hrönn was quickly established as the most densely populated body around Rán, with a modern population of around 780 million.

Hrönn is ravaged by storms, as while its eleven-day orbit gives it a slow rotation, the liquids on its surface are often near their boiling points. The energy transfer between its day and night sides create persistent storms of ethane clouds

Hefring

Hefring (Hefriq) is the eighth and smallest of Ægir's major moons,

Kólga

Kólga (Kólga) is the ninth of Ægir's major moons,

Lokabjalti

Fárbauti

Þjazi

Niflhelsbelti

Niflhelsbelti (niflhelsbelti)

Demographics

Rán was primarily and initially settled by a breakaway fleet from the initial NATO exodus to Alpha Centauri. Conflict with the other powers along their thirty-five year journey, particularly the powers from the Americas, led to a near-critical situation between regions. Much of the initial proceedings through this time are lost, but the Nordic countries ultimately peeled off and redirected themselves towards the orange dwarf. These initial populations make up the vast majority of Ránnite peoples, hailing mostly from old Sweden, Norway, Iceland, Denmark, and some from a combined fleet between Denmark and the Netherlands.

Future settlements from across Earth and Mars eventually made their way to Rán in the 2300s, bringing news of the goings-on of Sol with them, albeit nearly a century out of date. These minority populations have a wider range of ethnicities, but have been ultimately strongarmed by precedent into assimilating into the generally Nordic descendant culture established by the first wave.

Population by Location
Body/Region	Population	Daily Radiation
Gerdsbelti	57,000,000	Cosmic only
Blóðughadda	0	~207 Sv
Bylgja	2,500,000	~60 Sv
Dröfn	30,000,000	~17 Sv
Uðr	184,000,000	~4.9 Sv
Himinglæva	78,000,000	~1.4 Sv
Dúfa	330,000,000	~0.4 Sv
Hrönn	780,000,000	~0.12 Sv (upper atm) ~1.6 mSv (surface)
Hefring	1,250,000	~33 mSv
Kólga	3,625,000	~9.7 mSv
Lokabjalti	12,300,000	Cosmic Only
Fárbauti orbit	7,305,000	Shielded, mostly cosmic
Þjazi orbit	4,020,000	Shielded, mostly cosmic
Niflhelsbelti	2,000,000	Cosmic Only
Space stations	8,000,000	Varies, mostly cosmic

Rán Hölmanism

The exceedingly low gravity of the moons of Ægir has given Ránnite humans a generally taller frame than baseline. While diligent exercise allows them to preserve some semblance of Earthly strength and capabilities, they are still debilitated by forces over half of Earth's own gravity. Ránnite humans average over two meters in height, with the most extreme examples born in the Belts and on Hefring and Kólga reaching closer to three.

The "hölman"^[1] effect (tall-man effect) is well researched and studied. Its health effects are known and combated by every government in the system with dedicated pharmaceutical research and mandated exercise regimens in almost every education system. Because there are no bodies where gravity is high enough to prevent the hölman effect, failure to provide for the youngest generation to support healthy growth is setting a delayed crisis for the nation in question. Drammyngland, a former nation on Dúfa, was fully annexed by the neighboring Nordravland territories once their three-year supply gap caught up to their adult populations and their military strength failed.

↑ "Hölman" is a unified neologism in a Ránnite creole. The terms vary for each official language: Hávaxinn (Icelandic); Højmand (Danish); Høymann (Norwegian); Långman (Swedish)

Governance

Rán's nations are a mixture of extant Earth nations and newly devised ones. International relations have broken down a handful of times, and the Nine Waves Union currently only has participation from Sweden, New Keflavík, and Nordravland. Cooperation is necessary for the survival of any independent power, but its diminishing need as nations became more established has led to more belligerence in recent decades.

Ultimately, though, the laws of supply and demand rule the system. Admission of ill will towards the aggregate powers in Gerdsbelti, even with significant presence in the other material-rich belts, is effectively nation-scale suicide. Being cut out of IKEA-Älmhult's contracting rights removes a massive amount of silicates and metals from a power's supply chain, which prevents most ability to expand or repair vital infrastructure.

Language

The languages spoken in Rán are primarily North Germanic languages, including Swedish, Norwegian, Icelandic, and Danish. While some blending of the Ránnite dialects of these languages has occurred, Iceland's continued devotion to linguistic preservation has inspired similar movements in the other extant Nordic countries. Purist sects of each diverge decade by decade from the less conservative Ránnite dialects that are emerging. What started as a few loanwords and sparse slang is slowly becoming new hybrid tongue.

For standard international communications, Swedish has taken precedence as a result of initial population sizes and the rise of IKEA-Älmhult. English was proposed as a neutral international language when the first discussions occurred after the separation from the Alpha Centauri fleets, but this was superseded by a majority language within their own population. Messages are typically broadcast twice on a time delay, so the combined data can work to repair what damage cosmic and planetary noise caused to each recording.

Nýrúnar

The Ránnite peoples have long debated language and writing, with the etymology of their main sites coming from long-extinct parent languages of their own. As part of a cultural revival movement and to unify people, an all-encompassing alphabet was created as an alternative to the latin-derived scripts Rán's citizens primarily use. The exact creator and date of introduction have been lost, but scholars suspect it is of Icelandic make.

Nýrúnar (Nýrúnar), a Futhark-derivative runic script, accounts for the phonologies of the officially recognized languages of the system. While most are directly copied from various Futhark scripts, including elder, younger, and even medieval runes, some are derived from bindrune-adjacent iteration and a few are entirely new, particularly the rune Jarð. Many have multiple accepted pronunciations depending on the language one is writing in.

Nýrúnar is used primarily for formal and ceremonial writings, having something of a reputation of prestige. Usage of the script spiked during the secondary settlings of Rán by later Solar exoduses, part of a movement to preserve the Nordic identity that had developed throughout the system's history.

Table of Nýrúnar Runes

Nýrúnar Runes
Rune	Name	Meaning	Sounds (IPA)	Orthographic Use Cases	Shape Origin
f	Fehu	Wealth	/f/, /v/	"f"	Elder Futhark
v	Vöru	Product, goods	/v/	"v"	Iteration on Fehu
ú	Uruz	Cattle	/u/	"u", "ú" (Icelandic)	Elder Futhark
u	Ur	Possibly cattle or sleet	/ʏ/, /ʉ/, /ʊ/	"u" (Icelandic, Norwegian), "y" (rarely)	Iteration on Uruz, appeared as variant Medieval Rune
þ	Þurs	Term for jötnar	/θ/, /ð/	"þ" (Icelandic)	Elder Futhark
ð	Jarð	Earth	/ð/	"ð" (Icelandic)	New creation loosely based on Þurs
a	Ansuz	God	/a/	"a"	Elder Futhark
á	Ást	Love	/au/	"á" (Icelandic)	Bindrune of Ansuz and Uruz
r	Reið	Ride	/ɹ/, /r/, /ʁ/	"r"	Elder Futhark
k	Kaunan	Debated, possibly "Ulcer"	/k/, /kʰ/, /c/	"k"	Elder Futhark
g	Gibu	Gift	/g/, /k/, /x/, /ɣ/, rarely /j/	"g"	Elder Futhark
w	Wynn	Joy	/w/, /v/	"w"	Elder Futhark
h	Hagal	Hail	/h/	"h"	Elder Futhark
n	Nauðr	Need	/n/	"n"	Elder Futhark
i	Innan	Inside	/ɪ/, /i/	"i"	Elder Futhark
í	Íss	Ice	/iː/	"í" (Icelandic)	iteration of Innan
j	Jear	Year	/j/	"j"	Elder Futhark
ä	Æhwaz (Ähwaz)	Yew	/æ/, /e/, /ɛ/	"ä" (Swedish), "æ" (Danish, Norwegian)	Elder Futhark
æ	Æð	Blood vessel	/ai/	"æ" (Icelandic)	Bindrune of Ansuz and Æhwaz
p	Perþ	Debated, possibly "Game"	/p/, /pʰ/	"p"	Elder Futhark
s	Sól	Sun	/s/	"s", "z"	Elder Futhark
x	Vaxa	Grow	/ks/	"x", "ks" (rarely)	Bindrune of Kaunan and Sól
t	Tiwaz	The god Týr	/t/, /tʰ/	"t"	Elder Futhark
b	Björkan	Birch Tree	/p/, /b/	"b"	Elder Futhark
e	Ehwaz	Horse	/ɛ/, /e/	"e"	Elder Futhark
é	Él	Hailstorm	/je/, /jɛ/	"é" (Icelandic)	Iteration on Ehwaz
m	Mannaz	Man	/m/	"m"	Elder Futhark
l	Lögr	Lake	/l/	"l"	Elder Futhark
q	Ingwaz	Yngvi, a name for Freyr	/ŋ/	"ng" (situational)	Elder Futhark
d	Dagaz	Day	/d/, /t/	"d"	Elder Futhark
o	Oss	Æsir	/ɔ/, /o/	"o"	Medieval Runes
y	Algiz	Elk	/y/, /ɪ/, /i/	"y"	Elder Futhark
ö	Ör	Arrow	/œ/, /ø/	"ö" (Icelandic, Swedish), "ø" (Danish, Norwegian)	Medieval Runes
ó	Óþila	Estate	/ou/	"ó" (Icelandic)	Elder Futhark
å	Ål	Eel	/ɔ/, /o/	"å" (Swedish)	Younger Futhark
ý	Ýr	Yew	/iː/	"ý" (Icelandic)	Younger Futhark

History

Initial Settling

The Monopoly of Gerðr

The Nine Waves Break

Loki Gambit

Great Beast Archipelago

The last haven against that prismatic Dark, the Temple upon Her Bones...

The Great Beast Archipelago, formerly the Great Beast Island and liturgically known as Eislamn ken Lugha, is the singular known bastion of toxelugh civilization in all creation. The Archipelago is quasi-gravitationally bound together, each island maintaining a consistent relative distance from all the others as they collectively drift through the wider Evervoid.

Lugha's Bones

The Great Beast Archipelago is special for its serendipitous integration with the decayed corpse of an as-of-yet unidentified megalithic creature. Lugha, as She is officially named by the clergy of Ket Maragh, perished long enough ago to be fully buried within forming or coalescing landmasses, Her carcass neatly integrated into the land. An estimated 30-40% of the mass of the Archipelago initially came from the Great Beast's body.

Something still unknown, and in fact forbidden to be studied, about Lugha's body and bones is toxic to the Evervoid's prominent Darkshine flora. This toxicity can take years or decades to leach into newly integrated land brought into the Archipelago and is thought to be a limited resource by the lead catatologists of Khyth Vaaxa, though exactly how far the Archipelago could be extended without endangering the land to Darkshine's presence is forbidden study.

Regions

Due to terrain drift and the relatively messy events of the Sundering, the Archipelago consists of more than just the nine major islands, though the minor islands are closely clustered together enough to be influenced by their "parent", and are thus considered a part of the overarching region.

The islands were originally divided to segregate the Nine Lights and their influences from one another, and as such, the regions are currently divided along these elemental lines rather than true geographical or political borders.

Khythis

Khythis, the central island which retained the densest cities of the Archipelago and still hosts the largest unattuned population of toxelugh, is the closest in environment to the wider Evervoid. Named for Khythis Allseer, the first toxelugh to ever Attune to one of the Lights, the island's vast system of caverns serve as the infrastructure and housing for the Space Attuned amongst the Ae Lugh.

Khythis' mild environment relative to the rest of the islands comes from the First Light's general attitude of non-interference. The only notable elemental corruption throughout the island is the ease of which land becomes "bound" to Khythis and sets itself on a collision course for the island's core. This, of course, poses a problem to the high civilian population, as drifting islands will often carry harmful plants or animals directly to Khythis itself.

The island's central location is further given importance by the presence of the Black Gates, structures that house the powerful line-of-sight teleportation arrays known as Silk Mirrors. While each connected region has at least one, all extant Gates connect back to their partner on Khythis. Maintenance must be undertaken by specialists within the Ae Lugh, so having half of the Gates on their designated island helps with the logistics of otherwise very dangerous esotechnology.

Imprisoned in a complex state of stasis at the core of Khythis, embedded in the fossilized remnants of the Beast's womb, is the former Grandmaster Anvil Strongheart. Her catatonic state is a resource, and has been since the Sundering. Anvil's Divine Art was one of phenomenally efficient gravitational control, which allowed her to maintain control over the total motion of the Archipelago's land. Keeping civilization from literally drifting apart became her job post-Sundering, and in absolute commitment to this duty Anvil underwent the imprisonment willingly. Khythis' integrity is vital to the Archipelago's cohesion, as even just a few weeks without the stabilizing force would cause the constructed bridges between nearby islands to break.

Vanhall

Vanhall, the island which defines "North" by its relative position to Khythis, is the hottest of the Archipelago's islands, permeated by residual Fire energy and warped into its current state. It is named after Vanhall Moorglass, the first toxelugh born Attuned to the Light of Fire. Vanhall is one of the harshest regions of the Archipelago, with temperatures often exceeding 40°C and humidity near-absent from the land. The terrain has been weathered by the hot, dry winds and the continual infusion of Fire energy to create a vast desert.

Vanhall is near-exclusively inhabited by toxelugh Attuned to Fire and Magma, as their innate heat resistance is necessary to survive long-term on the island. Its main cities are clustered towards the Southern end of the island, where temperatures tend to be more mild, and on the two plateaus in the far North. The Ae Lugh citadels and prime sites, contrasting this, are located in the very heart of Vanhall's boiling basin, centered on the salt lake Brinesand.

In terms of food and water, Vanhall is by far the most barren of the regions. Special desert flora found by Ae Lugh Wildrunners have been incorporated into the ecosystem, but their efforts can only provide so much. The water issue is much more pressing. While Fire and Magma-Attuned toxelugh can withstand the intense heat of the island, their need for liquid water is only marginally reduced. The aridity puts great strain on their stores of water. Specialized teams and infrastructure to harvest (quite hot) water from the region of Lakesleep below Vanhall have been expanding in recent decades to combat the constant need for imports.

Hahshin

Hahshin, the Archipelago's Northwest island and region, hosts a relatively mild but endlessly mysterious part of the Archipelago. Said to contain the broken-off wing-bones of the Great Beast, the island is named for Hahshin Snowspinner, the first toxelugh Attuned to the Light of Smoke. While the environment is liveable, if a bit humid, navigation around the region is difficult.

Hahshin is enveloped in a permanent thick mist, fueled by both the elemental Smoke corruption and the interactions its land has with neighboring Aevlau and Vanhall. This unending fog is fueled by the circulating wet winds brought from Aevlau and the hot currents pulled in from Vanhall. Lantern lights accompany most roads and pathways, colored by slow-burning salts for events or special locations to help people navigate the island. Even the Smoke-Attuned struggle to find their way at first, though their elemental "grip" on the vapors around them can give something of an extended sense of touch for their surroundings.

The land is both hilly and forested. Though not particularly flat or jagged, the terrain does require accommodating architecture. Hahshin's land slopes upward towards the central plateau, where the capital settlement lies. At times when the mist thins, more often towards the top of the island, the light of the moons above creates uniquely dazzling atmospheric effects. Some have compared it to Smoke's Stardawn Light equivalent, Aurora, as a sign of intrinsic connection between the dimensions.

Hahshin's damp and temperate environment makes for good agriculture, though the plants that thrive on the island must overcome the scattered moonlight they normally live off of. Cultivation of various edible fungi and spices is most common here. Only a select minority of these are exported to the rest of the Archipelago, though, as the majority of the food grown on Hahshin is only edible to the toxin-resistant Smoke Attuned toxelugh.

Aevlau

Aevlau, the Archipelago's Western region and island, is a deceptively temperate area to the West of Khythis. Named for Aevlau Starweaver, the first toxelugh Attuned to the Light of Air, the island is perpetually battered by a cyclone centered on its core, one whose headwinds affect the prevailing air currents across much of the Archipelago. This violent elemental corruption is the most widespread of the Islands', though its most concentrated effects are only seen on Aevlau itself. Foliage is notably skewed in the direction of its growth to comply with the winds' circulation, and the three major rivers feeding into the Lake of the Eye (Lanac Eiygha) are similarly curled. Clouds have trouble forming or maintaining their shape above Aevlau, quickly choked into releasing their rain.

Moving "tangles" in the air currents, either natural or residual from the use of Attunement to Air, create more short-lived weather systems. Either friction-heavy charge currents that pull lightning from whatever clouds happen to be overhead or tight cyclonic wind columns can result from these discontinuities. These weather patterns spiral in towards the eye of Aevlau's cyclone before destabilizing themselves.

Aevlau's consistent circulation of eroding winds makes it a poor location for agriculture, save for the deposit regions nearby the banks of its rivers. Hardy crops like Voibric and various tubers are the only things that can be consistently grown against the winds, but enough supply exists that imports for food are mainly fruits and spices.

Crysgaard

Larumer

Relkim

Rakken

Vylgkae

Tagth Luuna

Tagth Luuna, the sole island in the Great Beast Archipelago to not initially bear a piece of the Great Beast's toxin and the only bound landmass up in Heavenspire, is the smallest region of the Archipelago. Its single island is claimed as neutral, uncorrupted territory for the basis of government. Tagth Luuna hosts the immense palatial complex known as the Temple of the Moon, where Khyth Vaaxa's internal operations are conducted.

History

Formation

It is unknown how old the Evervoid is, or how old the land that eventually became the Archipelago is, or exactly when the Great Beast perished and embedded Herself in the grounds of it. History on the order of potentially hundreds of thousands or millions of years is lost to the Wilderness and the Deep Silence. But generally, it is accepted that at one point the dimension began, and that its age is ultimately irrelevant.

Ketem doctrine states that Lugha, the Great Mother who would eventually become the core of the Archipelago, perished after a great battle with Her mortal foe, the formless and faceless power known as the Deep Silence. While the Silence could not directly erase Lugha's mind, it stole those of all toxelugh in the Evervoid and turned them against Her. In an infinite expanse of enemies, the Great Beast fought defensively for millennia before succumbing. Her blessings on those close to Her at the time of the Silence's advance, a defense against its erasure, perished with Her, leaving nothing to mourn the corpse as it slowly buried itself into a large Grovespan island.

The Great Beast's body was immense, thrice the size of modern-day Khythis.

The Sundering

Elemental Suffusion

Khyth Vaaxa

We're not barbarians, now. Sit down and have a meal.

Demographics

Culture

Religion

Ket Maragh

Government

Ae Lugh

Religious Influence

History

Chainsaw's Big Book of Recipes

As Flame sears flesh, as Blade severs it, as Stone and Metal pound it, as Water thins its blood, so too are the principles of War applied to meals.
—The late Grandmaster of the Burning Blade, Knife Sawtooth

Good wanderings under the moons to you, reader! This book is my masterwork,

Tale:My Reflections

A warning to all Institute members: these files were recovered using illicit methods by a now-terminated operative. Due to their sloppy plan of actions, the subject of this suspected Weird locus has been lost to our networks. We do not know how she evaded our informants, but this may be evidence of further Weird activity. Consult these decrypted documents with the assumption that they will be the only recorded information about this particular phenomenon.

Ad insolita propter futurum, C***** H****, Your Supervisor

August 1, 1999

Dear diary,

I hope to God nobody can read this. I haven't studied cryptography, so this section at least is the most vulnerable. Might burn later, idk. But I feel like I can't keep completely holding this in for much longer. I have to go to my Aunt Mallory's wedding in a couple weeks, and I really don't want to wear the dress that mum's making me wear, but I can't explain why at all.

Ok, here goes, nobody: I can't see my own reflection, or my image in photos. I have no idea what I look like besides looking more like my mum than my dad. I see something there, but it's not what I "really" look like. At all. It's... I look like a monster to myself. A big hairy horned monster, and I like it! I've always been like this but I never tell anyone.

Strionv

Chromagaia's time moves forward with ours! Today's date is:
Astresday, Yahataidh 25, 1133 LE

Strionv was a language spoken only by two individuals throughout history, the Legendary Beast Moveriath and his student, successor, and Ennean Törrhyatz. Strionv is known as the night-tongue, and very few inscriptions of it exist.

Phonetic Inventory

The phonetic inventory of Strionv is as follows:

Consonants
	Labial	Dental	Alveolar	Palatal	Uvular	Glottal
Plosive	p/p/ b/b/		t/t/ d/d/		q/q/ g/ɢ/
Fricative	f/f/ v/v/	th/θ/ dh/ð/	s/s/ z/z/	sh/ʃ/	x/χ/	h/h/
Affricate				ch/ʧ/
Trill			r/r/
Approximant	hw/ʍ/ w/w/		l/l/	j/j/
Nasal	m/m/		n/n/	(/ɴ/)

/ɴ/ only appears as a mutation of n/n/ before x/χ/, g/ɢ/ and q/q/ h/h/ is written as h but pronounced /χ/ word-finally

Vowels
	Front	Mid	Back
High	i/i/ ii/iː/		u/u/ uu/uː/
Mid	e/e/ ee/eː/		o/o/ oo/oː/
Low		a/a/ aa/aː/

Phonotactics

Strionv has a basic syllable structure of CVC, though large consonant clusters are common.

WIP

The basic word order of Strionv is SVO.

This means when translating a sentence from english like “an animal drinks water” it would be “qlan meihrov gurdh” literally “Animal drinks water”.

WIP

Antepenultimate End

Lullaby is created as an anti-Vyster measure
Vyster DOES go through the apotheosis crisis after landing on Amarent
Aaron is just barely able to hold him off with Blumei's help, but really wants to avoid putting Lullaby into action
- Flashback to Finality maybe?
Vyster starts seeing the threads of fate, understanding the planned betrayal
- NONE OF YOU TRUSTED ME FROM THE START! YOU WANTED TO CONTROL ME BECAUSE YOU COULDN'T KILL ME!
- WHATS THE DAMN POINT IN A WORLD WHERE NOBODY SEES ME AS ANYTHING BUT POWER?!
Vyster starts bending reality and shit, Primordials return and Amarent actually breaks open
Despite best attempts, Lullaby does rush into combat to do what they were made for
- goes horribly wrong because they haven't been TRAINED in the basics
Brimstata is obliterated, white fire sweeps across the realm
Vyster holds it off to 1v1 Aaron no powers edition
- don't touch the fire directly, just grab the ontological breadth it inhabits and make it smaller
Aaron is unsurprisingly better at single combat but is really fucked up about it
- Lullaby could only destroy, we can only change what is there and not destroy or create. Is there no one who can create? Are we all just fated to regurgitate or slander that which we were born into?
Amaranth Blast, Aaron gets a vision of Amaranth-Azurade and grabs Her
- Vyster grabs Her at the same time, they both start trying to subsume Her

"Nothing will ever be as it was, even changing it back now would have changed you. You cannot undo your own process of action. Retracing steps will not take them back."

Vyster lets go of both the flames and Amaranth-Azurade, Aaron subsumes Her entirely and through the Crown of Mars connects to every living being past and present
Amaranth-Aaron cannot allow events to progress, but sees the entirety of all that has come before.
Vyster asks again what the damn point is if the universe is ruined and doomed.
- lean in for the big hug, "There is no point in preserving this now. Not here, not alone."
Perfect fire closes in around them
- "But there is a point to the struggle regardless. To Creation. A question that was once answered in earnest and then disregarded, now asked again. The answer was always here, and not here. Why build again when the curtains have closed?" The words fall out of his being as Truth, experienced only by the experience of all Answers, of success and closing, of failure, of now at the mockery that Creation had become. They fell out of His self as emanations of purest and pristine Amaranth: "Legacy, yours and mine and ours. Everyone's. There's a point so long as anyone is there to feel it aeons later. Anything we want, nothing at all, a carbon-copy of what came before down to the axiom. As long as anyone experiences it, that becomes worth more than anything standing alone."

"What happens now?"

"Anything and everything. Together."

Mergy awesome hug and universe ends, leaving them in A'th and A'th alone. Their new self, Maran, takes A'th and forces it to go BEYOND itself, being the ontospace of not just one Creator and Creation, but of infinite infinities, uncountably immeasurable. This Scope of Scopes is now where innumerable Legacies can be forged.
Maran, through A'th, expounds every individual from the Succession into an interwoven beam, a spectrum of infinity made up of literally everyone who had ever existed. THEIR Legacy, of A'Maran-th. This new Scope, the first of many, becomes Axocora.

strio: 1. Night.

meihrov: 1. To drink.; 2. To consume starlight specifically.

anqooxwa: 1. Worthy.

utter failure of a guy
stole literally every power he has, calls them "cheat codes" or other such things
- Black Mage title comes from the stolen Wraith Phylactery from Vyerul's study
- fucked up magic eye that he CLAIMS is one of the Eyes of Starlight is actually not. its a stolen artifact as well
OP protag syndrome
hairless anime twink with the fuckass manhwa long hair that signifies "dark and evil and refined"
make him ultra edgy and powerful but be super chuuni about it
GUESS WHAT HE HAD A LITTLE SISTER NOW!!! YOU GET UNDERPOWERED ANIME BOY WITH CREEPY SISCON! TWO TERRIBLE CHARACTERS FOR THE PRICE OF ONE

[1] "Hölman" is a unified neologism in a Ránnite creole. The terms vary for each official language: Hávaxinn (Icelandic); Højmand (Danish); Høymann (Norwegian); Långman (Swedish)

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