Narscillia

The Green Road

  The International Trade Road winds its way all the way through Narscillia’s western region. The road was constructed where it was for the same reason the Narscillians have a different name for it: The Green Road. During The Golden Age, Vinnicent Greenwake wandered through the desert on this very path, leaving behind a garden of edible plants everywhere he tread.   To the Narscillians, this road is holy. Their sand ships make regular trips to the road for supplies, and they are imperatively cautious not to over-farm the plants. In the four hundred years since his disappearance, Narscillian botanists have forever been unable to understand what makes the plants grow out of the sand. So the Narscillians take what they need and leave the rest so that more will grow in time.    

The Inner Desert

  Before the Golden Age, the Inner Desert was one of the more dangerous biomes in the world. Now it is by far the most deadly, even outranking the Titan Pines in that respect. There were few opponents which the New Gods struggled to contain. And so the New Gods decided to rely upon Muriel, Zodiac of Selflessness to be a barrier between these dangerous beings and the world.   In their spite, these three Old Ones have created beasts the likes of which the world had never seen. Ravenous behemoths that will stop at nothing to devour everything they can. But in the face of this, Muriel has stood strong with the help of the Narscillians.

  The Northern Floodplains

  Once Akil had driven the dragons from the lakes, they migrated west. This drove the western Shianese out of their homes and forced them to move east. This left vast tracks of territory where dragons held, but men could not live.   After the Golden Age, the Narscillians declared the territory theirs and marched to drive the dragons out once and for all. But to their dismay, they discovered that the dragons had an ally, Sahaquiel. Unbeknownst to all, Sahaquiel had managed to escape his shackles and create an entire floodplain. The Narscillian forces were quickly routed and forced to retreat from their prize.   For the last four hundred years, the Narscillians have been mounting invasion after invasion to claim the rivers and bay of the north, but Sahaquiel has always bested them. The Sepharim never marches out onto the field of battle on his own, but he has attracted the patronage of thousands. Shianese who wanted to return to their homes found welcome under his banner. Even worse, some armies that have marched north never returned, assumed to have switched sides.   The floodplains are only Narscillia’s by formality. Sahaquiel and his dragon knights are the true lords of the land.

Mantello Dovere

  Death is lighter than a feather, duty heavier than a mountain.   Such is the mantra of the Relicts, those few burdened with the weight of all of Narscillia. The Relicts bear the Mantello Dovere, or the Mantra of Duty. Every five years, the children under the age of five are entered into a lottery. One in thirty children are selected to bear the Mantle, and given a red cape to symbolize their life’s duty.   The Compagnias have always been effective at gathering food and fighting the foes of the outer desert. But as Anya Arbor showed the Narscillians, it requires significant offering to open a Life Duct. The kind of offering that can only be found by those who press deeper into the desert. A rare blue flower grows around strange crystals scattered throughout the desert. These flowers are the only way to open the Life Ducts in Narscillia. Not only is it too dangerous for the Campagnias to venture into the inner desert, the time it would take them to find a crystal, find their way out, and travel to a Life Duct in the outer desert would be far too great. So the logical course was taken: a select few would roam the inner desert, collecting flowers and bringing them to the Life Ducts so that fresh water would be available whenever a Campagnia arrived.   The Mantello Dovere does not only apply to keeping the Compagnias supplied, but to protecting them as well. Relicts are the front line defense against creatures of the inner desert who find their way to the Rim. And when the Narscillians declare war, the Relicts are their elite agents, doing what must be done, whatever must be done to protect their people.   To bear the Mantle means to lead a solitary life. If a Relict is lucky, they may meet another of their order in their travels, but mostly they wander alone, facing the desert for the good of their kinsmen. Suffering so that they do not need to. For a Relict, death would truly be a release from their cruel reality, but none have ever relented, for if they do, they know it means the deaths of their people.   Regardless of possessing a Donum or not, Relict  children are trined by the best hunters, trackers, and warriors in their Compagnia before being sent to academies across the world to study. Upon their  return, they apprentice under an older Relict for  three years before being sent to reinforce Muriel  at the Inner Desert or to reclaim the coveted  Northern Floodplain they lost so long ago.