Buxenus
Ervenian Era, 1051 AB
If Abellio is Arcadia's orchard edge, Buxenus is its civic engine, terraces straightened into parade grounds, bell-songs formalized into clock-chimes, kind habit promoted into codified custom. Here law does not smother kindness; it channels it: guest-right becomes statute, charity becomes budget line, heroism is scheduled so it arrives on time.Buxenus mirrors Abellio's ordered plains and measured forests, but everything here is laid out for musters, drills, and campaigns of principle. Processional roads run arrow-straight between canton fields; rivers are banked and bridged to timetable; hill forts crown the grid like chessmen. Day and night still flip by the turning of the Orb, but the schedule is posted, the watch is set, and formations step off on the bell. This is Arcadia’s parade ground and staging yard, dedicated to readying just armies, yet the strain of overzealous “harmonizing” leaves hairline cracks in the good: where coercion is practiced, the air grows thin and the colors dull toward a too-cold Law.
Customs
Every company serving in Buxenus is bound by the Oath of Restraint, a vow to shield the innocent before striving for triumph. When this oath is broken, the offender’s colors are forever marked with a dimness at the hem, plainly visible to any spell that detects good or evil. Disputes between soldiers and officers are settled through Parley at Ten Paces, a formal contest of words counted in ten rounds: Order, where aims are declared; Cause, where lawful warrant is presented; Proportion, where the cost to bystanders is weighed; Mercy, where pardon is offered; and then Necessity, Temperance, Discipline, Proof, Witness, and finally Verdict. Whoever prevails in six of these ten points wins the ruling of the canton judge. Colors and Rank are treated as sacrosanct; falsifying insignia is counted as outright treachery, and within parade grounds illusions that attempt such deceit are easier to pierce, the eye and spell alike finding them fragile.Geography
Travel
Roads are oaths in stone; milestones list not just distance but travel time by pace. The Muster-roads grant an unseen boon on forced-march to units that keep formation and cadence. Trellis Gates are rare here, but fixed: black-steel arches to the Heavens’ musters, white-ivory to Abellio’s markets, and one sealed frame that once opened to Nemausus. Couriers use Review Lines (wayhouses every ten miles with water, fodder, and a posted code of conduct field courts convene at their flagpoles on the hour.Inhabitants
The Archons are most dominated here, followed by warriors of the upper planes, such as Angels, Agathions and even Azatas when a large skirmish is ongoing. They all drill alongside mortal volunteers and visiting exemplars (planetars, hollyphants, and foo lions serving as tutors rather than tyrants). Their best companies are models of discipline and mercy; their worst camps try to pound chaos out of captives, and Buxenus itself pushes back, officers lose their voices, ink blots orders, and the ground refuses to hold a punitive stockade. Couriers from Abellio and auditors from the Seven Heavens move through the canton courts, praising strong shields and citing cruel drills.Localized Phenomena
The land itself resists those of unruly spirit. In Buxenus, the Cadence Drag wears heavily on creatures of chaotic nature; when pressed against drill or timetable they tire twice as quickly, suffering fatigue from exertion that others would endure with ease. At certain sites where forced conversions once took place, the wounds of the past remain as a Planar Scar: morale bonuses lose their edge, healing magic produces only average strength, and even spells that detect alignment leave a faint metallic aftertaste. Only through contrition, caring for captives, offering public apology, and amending doctrine, can such a scar be mended. Meanwhile, the Binary Flip of the Orb, when day collapses instantly into night, has long been woven into training; skirmishers drilled for the sudden switch learn to seize the initiative in the breath of its turning.
Fighting in concert grants tangible strength in Buxenus. When warriors hold a trained rank or a shield wall, base-to-base and facing the same way, they enjoy Formation Advantage, a subtle blessing that grants them surer footing against fear and a slight lift to their defense. Compassion too carries its reward: units that devote time to relief work, vacuating innocents, setting up field kitchens, or rebuilding homes, earn the Cadence of Relief, banking a small die of grace for their commanders to call upon later in a test of healing, diplomacy, or leadership in that same community. Divinations also find clarity here; the Proof of Orders ensures that when magic seeks to uncover true authority, who may lawfully give a command, it gains sharper insight, while forged warrants betray themselves by carrying an unnatural warmth until exposed.
Trait Type |
Description |
|---|---|
| Gravity | Objective, down to the nearest surface; parade terraces and drill pits keep it consistent even on steep works. |
| Time | Normal; watches are rung across the layer. “Dawn/dusk” effects resolve at the Orb’s instant switch. |
| Shape & Size | Infinite, parceled into cantons, drillfields, and fortified depots on a rational grid. |
| Morphic Traits | Stably morphic with martial resonance: sustained, consensual cadence (march, chant, or work detail) can level a parade ground, tighten palisade joins, or seal trench walls. Coercive labor resists, leaving brittle seams. |
| Elemental Energy | None Dominant |
| Alignment | Strongly Lawful, mildly Good. |
| Magic | Abjurations that shield noncombatants, formations and teamwork magic, divinations of chain-of-command and true orders, creation/transmutation that improves fortification are enhanced, while chaotic descriptors; glamers that falsify rank or colors; mind-control that overrides free assent are impeded. Spells that forcibly alter alignment function, but leave a detectable planar “scar”. |
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