#worldbuildingjune

I noticed tha the last prompt of World Building June had changed between the las time and this time. Because the original blog no longer sent out prompts, I decided to make an extra post dedicated to this new prompt.

The continent of Prime Play defines the Life Cycle (or the 'Circle of Life') this way:

Birth

Growth

Maturity

Senescence

Death

Decay

Feed

Gestation

The Circle of Life is a fundamental concept of the continent of Prime Play. The continent uses an 8-based number system and time system. Each week has 8 cycles which are divided into 8 'hours', but daytime and nightime are considered separate cycles of the week. Characters have a total of 8 fingers and 8 toes.

Notably, the time of day determines the strength of some magic; gestating magic i strongest during foreglow. However, some spells can 'change' the time of day temporarily.

From a legal standpoint, there are laws against murder (of course), bu the more interesting observation is the cultural stigma against murder. The strongest stigma is against abortion because you would be usurping the Circle of Life. Meanwhile, the weakest stigma is against killing the old; they usually rely on 'this has to be bad because the law and culture say so'. The culturally acceptable solution is aiding others in the path of the Circle of Life. Instead of abortion, they support both the mother and the unborn baby... even after the baby is born. (Gestation flows into birth which flows into growth.) Meanwhile, instead of killing the old, they help with palliative care while trying to fulfil any wishes and even just being with the old. How this care is provided depends on the land; there may be a form of the United Kingdom's National Health Service, or there could be volunteers.

In most Uesean societies, children are registered as citizens at some point within one month of being born, receiving a birth certificate and a unique identifier to be used on their identity slip. From that point on, the child is considered a ward of their parents (assuming both are present).

That said, infants can also be put up for adoption during the first year of their life. Rather than going into a child-care system, the parents (or the hospital, if no parents are available) must find a specific person or group of people who will become the child’s new legal guardian. Once that’s done, there’s a lengthy legal process to determine the worthiness of the potential guardian(s) to raise a child, as well as to truly confirm that the parents are ready to give their child up. This type of adoption carries very little stigma on a social-level, and is typically used so that other members of the parents’ family can adopt a child from unprepared parents.

In Aquiland, a child is considered to be of legal age at 18, and is gifted the rights to vote, to drink alcohol, and to own their own property. It’s also at this time that all Aquilish citizens are required to sign up for the Emergency Defense Service: a system that allows the government to conscript all participants in case of military conflict. The Service has been in place since the Askedelos Conflict, and while it hasn’t been activated since that bloody war, the threat still hovers over every able-bodied citizen, both woman and man.

Upon their death, there are two ways for an Aquilish citizen’s body to be treated. If they have a Writ of Living Will, then it falls to their family to enact the deceased’s last wishes. Typically this means either burial, cremation, or embalming and entombing. Those without a Living Will are dealt with in the way determined by their family, while those without a Will or family are typically cremated by their local government and buried.

Obviously, Shapechangers have a completely different life cycle. After conception, the pregnant Shapechanger carries their spawn long enough for the central brain to form: typically 5-6 months. When born, the Shapechanger spawn is a lump of meat jelly about the size of a house cat, made up of the “flesh” donated by their progenitor.

Even for Shapechangers born from “civilized” parents, they’re still not truly sentient until they start eating Humans. Since Shapechangers have to gain enough mass to eat and digest something the size of a human, and the only way for them to gain mass is to eat creatures smaller than themselves, this means the average Shapechanger will take 4-5 years before they’re big enough to start hunting humans. Sometimes their parents will provide a first Human; either recently deceased or soon-to-be so, while others leave that encounter up to fate.

Aging and death is strange for Shapechangers. So far, there are no records of a Shapechanger dying of old age (though not for lack of trying; Humans are just really good at finding Shapechangers when they put their minds to it). Theoretically, a Shapechanger could continue to eat and grow until they can no longer support their own weight, crushing their brain and killing them. A Shapechanger could also carefully wound themselves to shed mass, and thus live indefinitely.

The invention of the telegraph and the development of its infrastructure has brought Aquiland closer together than ever before. Telegraph lines run from each of the province capitals to every city and town in its territory, while those capitals connect both to each other and to the nation’s capital: Aqui City. This near instantaneous communication makes it easy for guilds to do their business on a nation-wide scale, for the Princes in each province to coordinate themselves politically, and for the average Aquilish citizen to talk to family on the other side of the country.

Telegraphs have their downsides, though. It’s relatively easy for someone to tap one of the communication wires and pick up on the messages being sent. This, along with the cost per letter to send a message, means that physical letters and couriers still have their place in Aquilish society. The train lines make it easy to take letters en mass across the nation, in exchange for a few days in transit.

Finally, there’s something that was hinted at back in the middle of this month: the electromagnetic telephone. This groundbreaking technology is still in the prototype stage, but would revolutionize how communication works world-wide. The early version have fairly distorted sound, and require repeaters to make up for the short range of the signal through the wire. Still, the technology is advancing quickly, and once released to the public it’s almost certain that other guilds will be “inspired” and improve on the system.

I’m not gonna go over every since Prince and Grand Prince in Aquiland. Mainly because there’s way too many of them to cover at once. Instead, let’s talk about the main players in Aquiland’s government.

The current Lord-Elect is James Boon. In a stunning break from the expected, Boon is not a politician like every other Lord-Elect before him, Instead, he’s a business man who was, and still nominally is, head of a group that funds and runs several of Aquiland’s major organizations; including the agricultural guild Montanos and the information network Canis News.

Boon’s run as Lord-Elect has been... rough at best, and outright disastrous at worst, with the supposed leader of Aquiland has siding heavily with the guilds instead of with the Aquilish people, and giving major concessions to the Federation of Rhosan Republics. His election was met with grave concerns that he was assisted by Rhos, and his administrations has been plagued by investigations running since day one.

Directly opposed to Boon is Grand Princess Gale Iokiend of Melas. Originally elected following the death of her husband Martel during the Askedelian Conflict, Gale has since been reelected for a total of 3 terms so far. Her platform of over 12 years has been one of championing citizens’ rights over the guilds’, which has successfully made her almost as popular among the Aquilish citizens as her late husband was.

Trains, planes, and automobiles! Except without the planes and automobiles. So just trains.

Steam-power trains connect practically every country on Ues, even crossing the Midland Sea in a few narrow places. While you might not be able to get from one end of the continent to the other in a single train ride, chances are you can get there by planning your changes from station to station. It’s said that the day someone can get from Rhos to Metria in one sitting, and be back home in time for dinner, then it’ll only be a matter of time before Ues is truly unified.

While inside most cities, citizens typically get around via the railway system. This is a network of smaller trains running through, and sometimes under, the city, connecting the various districts in a spiderweb of stations. While you can pay on a per-trip basis, most natives of the city will pay monthly for an unlimited pass card.

If you want to get somewhere that isn’t one of the major cities, then you’re going to have to take a horse there. People living outside the city often ride horseback, or use horse-drawn carriages, to get where they’re going. For those commuting into the city, there are stables available in the outskirts to house your horse while you take the train, and an assortment of relatively cheap overnight hotels for you to stay in.

I did at one time describe part of The Game We Play as “Banksy’s underground rebellion“, so it would make sense to talk about the art of Creation.

Art in most of Ues is split into two broad categories. On the one hand, you have Traditional Art. These are your typical paintings, songs, stories, and so on; created by and named by artists to be sold either to individuals, to galleries, or to a guild who will then find another buyer elsewhere. The artists creating these pieces usually have spent a lot of time, and money, at prestigious academies to carefully hone their craft to appeal to specific demographics. Quite often, the demographic being targeted is “people with money”.

On the other hand, you have Progressive Art; or more commonly, Transgressive Art. These are you graffiti on the side of a building, your harsh music played from street corners, and your carefully worded diatribes slipped into newspapers. While some may see these works as being vandalism, or the work of hooligans, the truth is that these are expressions of the downtrodden, and the words of those who can’t otherwise be heard.

One of the most prolific groups associated with Transgressive Art is Resistance. While anonymous, Resistance has openly claimed responsibility for dozens of displays all across Aquiland; all denouncing the class divide between the average Aquilish citizen and their elected Princes. All of these works are done in public spaces, where people often gather to watch or listen as much as possible before the local guard breaks up the unlicensed demonstration.

The most important thing for an Aquilsh citizen to carry is their Identity Slip: a laminated sheet of thin cloth. This sheet is inscribed with information that can be used to reliably identify the owner, such as their name, distinguishing features like hair and skin color, current home address, and so on. Additional information, such as passport-style stamps of other countries they’ve visited, is also added to specific sections of the sheet. When not being looked at, the sheet is folded such that the basic information is visible on one side, and the section for registered Cathurgists is on the other side.

Identity Slips are required for any transaction that requires, well, identification. This includes purchasing alcohol and certain medicines, crossing Aquiland’s border, and most professional work involving the guilds. If lost, the process to get a new one involves bringing multiple other forms of identification to a major city hall, and a long drawn out line of questions. Updating some part of the information, such as a new address, is a simpler task, but still takes quite some time to complete.

In addition, most Aquilish people carry both a small coin purse and either a billfold or a leather wallet. These are for carrying the two varieties of Scrip, although the exact amount varies from person to person. If someone’s carrying a large amount of bills, especially in a wallet, they’re likely well-to-do. On the other hand, someone with a heavy coin purse filled with the older metal Scrip is either lower-middle-class, or prefers the heft of something they can use in self-defense.

Speaking of self-defense, it is legal to carry a weapon in Aquiland if you have a permit added to your Identity Slip. Small knives or folding batons can be carried concealed if they can fit in your pocket, but anything larger like a shortsword or a mace needs a permit, and those carrying such weapons can be expected to be stopped by the local guard to confirm that permit. Carrying bows or crossbows in a strung state is illegal, as is carrying unsecured bolts or arrows, and either of these offenses come with a sizable fine. There are those in Aquiland’s council pushing to the permit process extended these ranged weapons, but it’s unlikely that anyone will be carrying a hunting crossbow around in the big city.

The brave new frontier: Outrem. Homeland of the Shapechangers, and—aside from the poles and a few tiny islands—the last of the unmapped landmasses on Creation. The reasons for this are relatively simple.

First, Outrem’s climate is hostile to both Humans and their trappings of civilization. The rainforests that cover most of the continent are moist and, depending on the time of year, either freezing cold or extremely hot and humid. Any would-be colonists or explorers have to take care that they don’t catch malaria, leprosy, or simply have their clothes rot right off their body.

The second danger is, of course, Shapechangers. Specifically the feral Shapechangers who haven’t eaten Humans yet. These Shapechangers are true apex predators, hunting boar, bear, and Humans equally. Unlike their “civilized” cousins, feral Shapechangers cannot be reasoned with, and when determined can change shape and size to avoid most defenses. The only real defense against one is to wound it greatly enough that the hunt becomes pointless, so Humans have to move in heavily armed groups when away from their colonies.