What is an idea? Meaning
What is meaning? Purpose
Where is meaning? Out there
- Old Zamthjani proverb
Such were the words of an anonymous individual who once inhabited Zamthjani. Who they were, we
do not know. Were they perhaps a great king of Alkebulan? An illustrious scholar of Sharjahan? A well-read betali peasant? Maybe an EGO addicted vagrant in an alley on the fringes. We
do not know.
Their memory is gone, lost to time. All that remains is the proverb, and
the ideas behind it.
Such cryptic wording could likewise be applied to this ancient world, where so many ideas, peoples and qualms, all washed up on it's shores
What was the borderworld?
A lot of things, depending on whom you may ask. Zamthjani is a place between places, a crossroads in the cosmos. A borderworld, where the vagabond elements of other worlds, far gone and away, washed up on it's shores. To others, more cynically inclined, it's but a considerably arid desert.
The concept of multiversal travelling is not a new thing in our time, but Zamthjani is special in that it was effectively the first place in the cosmos to be bombarded with various elements, from radically different worlds, giving rise to various new peoples, cultural exchanges and conflicts (with various degrees of severity).
Ultimately culminating in what the scholars have dubbed "The Republic Era"
What were it's people?
The people of Zamthjani come from various worlds, in the literal sense of the word. Throughout Zamthjanis history, peoples have emerged through great portals and settled the varied lands of it's continents. These people, according to their own accounts, were political refugees, colonizing settlers, stranded travelers and seldom conquerors.
With them they brought a new culture, new ideas and technologies, adding their inherent richness into the growing melting pot, and through the following interplay between other inhabitants of the world: the formation of new histories.
During "The Republic Era" this interplay hit it's zenith, and the consequences that followed are unfortunately one of the few eras that have seen surviving records.
Why are you writing this page?
My motivation for writing this page with this focus is two-fold.
Firsty: I'm tired of the narrow-minded nature of my fellow academics, believing that knowledge should remain esoteric and only exploring that which already has plenty of stuff written for it.
Secondly: I recently watched a performance of the bardic poems called "Greenskin", which is set during the republic era of Zamthjani. My views on the poems themselves shall remain unknown to retain a semblance of non-bias, but the nature of the world its characters inhabited invoked great interest in me. It's with the creation of this page and the following entries, that i hope like minded people seek out this page to gain further understanding of this work of fiction.
I hope you find the following readings enriching
Henry Rait
