Welcome to Shireon

Told by the Loremaster Thrannan Eralor.

Welcome to Shireon!

I'm going to start the introduction with a brief history lesson. And where else to begin than with the beginning of the world?

As stated in the Dance of the Heavens, the world was made by the Divine Sisters. Ilva created the universe, while Mata put it in order. Mata chose our world as Her favorite. When She fell asleep and Ilva woke, Ilva saw this chosen pebble and infested it with life. Mata, when awake, didn't like Ilva messing with Her stuff, and decided to create guardians to watch over Her pebble when She was asleep. Thus, She created the Dragons, and picked out the Thirteen - who were ascended to deities beneath Her.

Now, Ilva saw the new deities and created Her own sapient beings, but that is a story for another time.

Those Thirteen new deities created the sapient species we see in Shireon today. Which, of course, brings me to...

Sapient Species of Shireon

Sapient Species of Shireon and their Creator Deity

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Sapient Species	Deity
Humans	Beddar
Inmali	Inmalia
Enari	Enarias
Darki	Siwan
Kiz	Maeliz
Sirens	Atella

Humans

Definitely the most numerous sapient species on Shireon. They are everywhere in some degree or another.

Enari

Mainly found in the Kael Thalori forest of Enarion, they have a presence in most larger cities on Shireon. Well, except in Vulborim due to culture clash. They also seem to mostly keep out of Inmalenor, but that might be due to the cold climate.

Inmali

Practically only ever seen inside the borders of Inmalenor. They have a superstition that they'll get bad luck if they spend too much time outside their native country. Their biology is well suited to colder areas of Shireon, which might be the reason why the superstition came to be in the first place.

Darki

They are short, love their beards with a passion, and the most uniform pacifist people I've ever encountered. They love their whiskey but don't want to share it. They keep the clockwork technology to themselves as well.

Kiz

These fur-covered people are agile and slightly arrogant. Comes in two flavors - the Jahrikiz who are adapted to a warmer climate and often have a golden to brown color of their fur, and the Ohrakiz who are bulkier and more adapted to colder mountain climates.

Sirens

Maybe the most isolated of all the sapient beings on Shireon, partly because they can't move around easily on land, but also because they tend to try to eat anyone who tries to talk to them. The only aquatic sentient being we know of, they have a fin instead of legs - and a bite that can kill.

Then, There is the Elders

Ah. The Elders are a complicated subject. As far as we know they are five in total, and they seem to be immortal. They come from a different plane of existence originally, arriving on Shireon some two thousand years ago. They look like humans, but they're definitely not. We other sapient beings are Children of the Thirteen, but nobody really knows how the Elders came to be.

The five known Elders are Jannalor, Kalsad, Vehagan, Vinior and Zira. Vinior and Zira established the Circle of Mynelion and is teaching promising students how to do Druidic magic. Kalsad somehow gained control over the nation of Vulborim and is currently controlling the Drylands as an Eternal Chieftain. Vehagan keeps mostly to himself, strictly against the idea that the Elders should get involved with the original sapient species on Shireon - and he has somehow kept away from most non-Elders while he's been here. Jannalor travels constantly, usually being somewhere in either Kupria or Inmalenor when not visiting another Elder.

Despite Vehagan's protests about getting involved with the other sapient species on Shireon it is widely known that both Jannalor and Kalsad have children with local mothers. Rumors say that both Vehagan and Vinior might have some offspring as well. These children gain a longer life from their Elder parent, which can be both a blessing and a curse.

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Where to go from Here

Shireon

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Scope

Shireon is a small continent surrounded by a dangerous sea. Isolated from the rest of the world by a huge creature crushing every ship that tries to sail past and distances too vast to fly past, the landmass is all its population knows about.

Genre

Medium to high magic fantasy. Magic is all around and most people can learn it, but the ones willing to teach the art are few and far between outside the learning institutions - and the institutions are either expensive, hard to get accepted into, or both. Some are born with an innate understanding of how to tap into their magical reserve - their Kor-Ithar, but they will often benefit from being taught how to control their power.

Tech Level

Early Renaissance. The Clockwork technology of the Ochdarki is the pride of the city of Elmazar. Small, one-hand cannons are slowly becoming less lethal for the wielder and more effective in the area of Vutara Bay. The printing press has been invented, but can for now only print mundane text as they haven't come up with a way to imbue printed text with magic.

Initial Idea and Motivation

Shireon is heavily based on character interaction - something I've been bad at showing in the articles I've written. Every single decision I make in this world goes through a filter of "Would this fit together with the stories of my characters?" before it's even written down, and even then it might be rewritten or scrapped. The world was born after I'd made stories in my head since I was ten or eleven years old, all of them in the same underdeveloped world with connected characters. This has been my escape from reality through late childhood and teenage years, and now it's turning into a developed world with more lore than I'd ever dreamt of having.

I doubt this world will ever be done. Although it started as a world for my writing projects it has become so much more than that, and I refuse to comply with the rule of only writing what I need to tell the stories. The worldbuilding aspect of it has become too important for that.