Atharia

Basics
Name: Atharia

Appearance:

Location: 4th planet

Size: a bit bigger than Earth

Rotation: a day lasts 28 hours

Revolution: 544 days (16 months of 34 days each)

Sun: Darush

Moon: Itlai

Any other celestial bodies: including Atharia, there are a total of seven planets in the system.

Average distance from its Sun: roughly 200 million km

Main Terrain: Dense rainforest, though there are a few patches of grassland, swamp, and a toxic desert formed by wars that happened a long time ago

Gravitation Pull:  About the Soil: butterscotch coloured and smooth in texture

About the Atmosphere:
Sky Colour: cyan

Average Surface Temperature: A good day is between 20 and 30 degrees Celcius

Maximum Surface Temperature: the hottest part of the planet gets up to 50 degrees

Minimum Surface Temperature: in the polar caps, it can get as low as -55, sometimes even -60 degrees

Common Weather Patterns: rain, high winds on the coast, and hurricanes

Rare Weather Patterns: snow, drought, frost

The weather changes quite rapidly. There are five seasons in a year: the flood season called Ekumaiya, the growing season called Nainuthenn, the hot and dry season known as Eshkator, a second flood season called Trekumaiya, and the winter season called Saklitenyu. Within each season, the weather is predictable, but is prone to sudden change. Flash floods are a danger.

Popular/Common Resources
Lirriro steaks – multi-colored, polka dotted alien cow-things

Ade’darens – small, long haired sheep-like animals with cloven hooves and white or brown coats

Straythen (large, grey and brown birds of prey common to the coastal areas

Shrike – the largest bird of prey on Atharia, it hunts in the high mountains

Kru-shin – a form of hopscotch with very elaborate layouts

Arillira paste – a highly nutritional food item that tastes kind of like strong beans mixed with broccoli, made from the common Arillira plant

Rainbow gems – mined in the mountains

A variety of musical instruments

Raebuck – a kind of large carnivorous animal whose meat is exceptionally tender

Quela – A kind of shark that eats indiscriminately and has been known to turn cannibal. It’s regarded as more of a nuisance and being referred to as one is deeply insulting, especially to the Swimmers.

Ome – a rice-like grain that is light cream in colour; grown by Swimmers

Dream sticks – made by wrapping a blend of cured herbs in a long, thin roll of brown paper, these are highly addictive and can have mild hallucinogenic effects. The best and most expensive ones are made with fire cured herbs while the cheapest are air cured. Use of these is highly frowned on by the Central Medical Board (CMB) as studies have proved that long term use has been linked to serious health problems. The Agency strictly prohibits use of this drug by any of its members though this policy is difficult to enforce; the herbs used are largely innocuous on their own and it’s only in this particular combination that they become dangerous. The standard forms of drug screening won’t pick up on it. If an Agent is caught using dream sticks, they will be fired. If the infraction is severe enough there may be a fine or even jail time involved.

Rainbow fish – freshwater fish common to rivers in the western hemisphere

Greenfruit – an oval shaped fruit that grows on trees. It’s similar to an apple in that its green peel can be eaten but on the inside it’s built more like a lemon. In taste, it’s like a watermelon.

Mudhens – a type of chicken

Largest known Surface Feature: The Tassren Spire (30,000 feet)

Currency – rekmar, plural rekmars

About the Civilization:
The Dominant Species: there are two species that live on the planet. The native species are known as Swimmers as their proper name in unpronounceable to humans. Humans settled there, establishing a colony.

Level of Technology: both species are advanced, though arguably the natives are far more advanced. They are only interested in the oceans and beaches so they allow the humans to populate the inner land. With their guidance, the humans—and the Vaen who had brought them there—were able to build settlements that would make the most efficient use of the land and make minimal damage to the rainforests.

Animal Life:  Plant Life:

Swimmers
Main Language(s): their native tongue sounds very much like whale song and has no formal name

Common Traits: Swimmers have slanted eyes and pale skin. They have gill-like structures along their rib cage that allow them to breathe underwater. Their eyes can see very well in almost no light and have a second eye, clear eye lid that closes over to allow them to see in what a human would consider normal light.

Major Religion(s): Rather than worshipping a deity or pantheon of such, they revere the forces of nature. As an advanced society, they are fully aware that there are reasons for what goes on in nature. It doesn’t rid them of the awe their ancestors had for the natural world.

Important Culture(s): they have one culture

Important Historical Events:  Type of Government: they have an elected Senate. Each of their floating cities has a Senator that they elect for a six year term. Once elected, they serve out their term and cannot be re-elected.

Current Political Situation:  Major Cities: 

Karath’aann – a ruined city widely considered to be one of the most beautiful spots on the planet.

Humans
Main Language(s): Drashini

Common Traits:

Major Religion(s): Various religions were brought with them from Keverynn though they’ve largely fallen out of favor. There was too much conflict between religious groups and so they’ve taken up the Swimmer way of respecting the natural world, effectively putting a ban on religions that have an aspect of actual worship to them.

Important Culture(s): none

Important Historical Events:  Type of Government: They’re led by an elected parliament which is led by the Prime Minister.

Current Political Situation:  Major Cities:  

Edelride

Aren’march

Sinti’arebed

Seudo’thann

Xyn’kaliir

Dretha’rel

Atharia – human colonization
The humans of Atharia are not indigenous to that planet. They originated from Keverynn. In the year 731, shortly after the sisterhood of Sword and Sorcery fell to the forces of Khallil the Great, the Vaen began to flee from the main land, heading for the island chain known as Alastea. A large number of humans went with them, abandoning the settlements that lined the edge of the river Arcetes.

With Kaalathkirenn’s prediction of an eventual, massive battle between the Darkriders and the Dragonlords in mind, the Vaen plotted a way to help that war come out favourably. The best way they could see to do that was to eventually restore the lost Sisterhood. There had been a small number of Vaen among the ranks of the Sisterhood and most survived the fall. Those survivors, knowing as well as any Vaen that their ancestors had come from elsewhere, found a way to take a large number of the humans on Alastea and send them elsewhere, giving them the technology to grow stronger and eventually return to Keverynn. This plan also gave them something to do with the suddenly massive population, a population that the islands couldn’t hope to sustain for very long.

Using one of the ships that had initially brought the Vaen from Tanviyer to Keverynn, a small contingent of Vaen went back to their ancestral home world and explained the situation. Large colony ships were dispatched to take most of the coastal refugees from Alastea to their new home in a system the Vaen had once explored and found to be habitable. It was populated by a race of sea dwelling people that they were friendly with. The Swimmers—as the humans took to calling them—were willing to let the humans have the land masses to live on, not having much use for them beyond the coast.

The Vaen who had taken the humans there to the world now called Atharia—a name which meant ‘new hope’ in the Vaen language—stayed behind to teach them how to make and use technology, watching over them to ensure that nothing was misused.

Eventually, the Vaen died out. They were incapable of having children with the humans and the population of Vaen that had come to Atharia was too small to sustain for long. It took nearly three  hundred years before the last Vaen died off as their life spans is somewhat longer than a human’s.

Those refugees who had been a part of the Sisterhood were initially in charge of things until a proper government was established, though all listened to the advice of the Vaen. The first city built was Edelride.

Unknown to the Vaen, some of the humans they’d brought with them were followers of Khallil and had brought with them worship of Atraxia, mother of all wyvern. They practiced in secret to avoid discovery. It was their goal to prevent the Vaen from accomplishing their goal and stopping the Darkriders from winning the ultimate war that had been predicted.

Over the centuries, the old religions brought with them from Keverynn fell into disfavour as the ways of the Swimmers gained favour. Knowledge of Atraxia eventually made its way into the hands of a young boy named Asharos Sigilkeeper. He reformed the cult, stronger than it had ever been on Atharia. Because of this, he and his inner circle were pursued until they finally made their way to Keverynn, kicking off what would be known as the Fourth Darkrider Incursion, the battle to end the struggle for dominance of their world. This was the year 2256.