The Kingdom of Jeiran

Ranwulf

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First off, this is not a story. I hope it is okay to put this kind of thing in this forum? If not please tell me.

It's a place I created, and a description.

Kingdom of Jeiran

Randwulf's Notes: Jeiran is the first part of this world I'm creating because of a partiular appeal it has to me that I wanted to work in somewhere. Most of it, including the capital, is shrouded in darkness 24/7. I love the night, particularly starry ones :)

Many hundreds of years ago, Jeiran and the lands to the north of it were home to a huge and prosporous empire, Nethal, one of the world's leading powers. However, during a war between the sun god Illume and one of the moon gods, Alunae, the empire allied with Alunae, who would eventually lose. To punish the empire, Illume positioned Alunae between it and the himself, shrouding their lands in darkness. The area became unfit to support such a large state, as the only thing that can now grow is ghost grass, which only the Teeblek herds will eat.

However, through fishing, mining and importing, the Kingdom of Jeiran grew from the southern ruins of the old empire. The area beyond the northern mountains, due to distance from food sources, became home to various clans of lesser humanoids. The vast majority of the kingdom's population farms and fishes in the area below Dark's Edge, but the capital of Nightsong (population 20,000) and it's port, Tyne (population 10,000) exist as bastions of will, beating the odds simply by being in the ring of darkness. In the extreme north of the Kingdom are two fortresses (5,000 and 2,000 population), the purpose of which are to keep the raiding inhabitants of the beastlands from getting a foothold in Jeiran. In the south is the mining town of Entrar (population 6,000), old Nethalian for entrance. It also serves as the main hub of overland importation and exportation to and from Jeiran.

Four distinct peoples live in Jeiran. The most populous are the low folk, the group of people numbering aproximately 166,000 that farm, fish, and mine below Dark's Edge. Second are the Duskwalkers, the pale people that live in the Darkness numbering about 51,000. From the capital of Nightsong they look down on the low folk, seeing them as weak and ignorant. The eternal darkness has taught the Duskwalkers to be stealthy and often less than honest in order to live and many are members of darker guilds, allowed to operate in Jeiran under the King's terms. Third in population are the Kurtelai, the pale human barbarians of northern Jeiran
numbering 45,000. Like the beasts north of the kingdom, they follow the herds of Teeblek. They are not citizens nor do they align themselves with the kingdom. The fourth group is the elves of Yonwood, numbering 10,000. Though there is an unsaid agreement that they are a sovereign people, they often ally with Jeiran.

Jeiran is currently ruled by King Makyl the fourth, advised by Randyl the Blackblade and Archmage Xake Urethil. At current they command an army of 9,000, with 3,000 in reserve.


Jeiran.jpg
 
I'll move it to the Workshop, because other people have started threads there asking for help working out their ideas -- as opposed to asking for critiques on a specific piece of writing. I'm afraid it won't get as much attention in that location, but we do want to keep the Critiques forum for critiques.

(But a note for later, when offering a piece of writing for critiques, please choose a more readable color, since red is hard on the eye in large doses. It's OK for ordinary posts, but anything for critiques should be in black or dark blue -- and black is preferred.)
 
It's a neat outline of one of your regions. I always enjoy seeing this sort of thing and am pleased to see that other people do it as well. I do the same thing for my works, the most recent of which is my world of Ostni, which has a thirty page overview similar to this.

In regards to the map; it's wide-open and kind of boring to look at. There don't appear to be any sort of roads linking the forts in the north to the main city and its port. Also, one might expect the roads to lead to the south a bit to the woods or at least near them.

My suggestion is to add in some areas of interest aside from cities. Land-marks, mine shafts, barbarian strongholds, areas of infamy (plain of bones, the howling wastes... something like that). Even if you don't use them in any stories directly, they can always be used as a backdrop to make things seem more fleshed out and real.
 

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