Evensol

An original fantasy world of anthropomorphic personifications, werewolves, witchcraft, assassins who don't kill people, technically illegal smugglers, tiny dragons used as water pistols, and magic that seriously no one knows how to use anymore.

Welcome to Evensol, owned and managed by Tilan.

## Astronomy

Evensol is your rather typical flat world. The land itself is flat, and rests on top of what is supposed to be an endless ocean (which is, in turn, surrounded by mist), while the sun and moon orbit the world every day, rising from the east and setting in the west. Simple, right?

Not quite.

While the sun is a perfectly normal and rational ball of burning gas travelling through the air during day, it takes *liquid* form during night. Every sunset, the sun melts as it sinks into the ocean, releasing all its energies into the universe in an all-encompassing golden pulse.

Thus, the sun (or rather, the energies of the sun) is dispersed. The energy spreads out across the world through both air and water using what is known as Brownien motion, and then gathers itself again to form the sun once more during dawn. This, of course, follows for the moon as well.

There is a myth among the land-dwelling that you fall off the world if you get too far. This isn't true: if you sail far enough, you will likely be caught up in the daily melting/forming of the sun/moon, events which contain immense amounts of magic - amounts large enough to vaporise anything within half a second. Or, as the sailors say, "swallowed by the light".

However, it is conjectured by a few that if you somehow manage to sail *farther than that*, you will fly off the world because there is no more world anymore. Whether the thing flying high off into the skies is your deceased soul or your whole self has never been made clear.

## Geography

All proper Evensol maps have the upper direction as east instead of north. This is because sunrises and sunsets are of the utmost importance in this world, and *not* because Tilan's desk has been facing east ever since she is old enough to remember.

The world has multiple continents clustered together and smaller archipelagos drifting out the farther you go. At the very centre lies high, towering peaks, the homeland of the werewolves; somewhat spread out towards the west of that, the biggest deciduous forest of the universe, who is incidently named Trikala; the very edge of the forest overlooks Giammon at the south and reaches its end at the Peronium plains in the west, on a cliff overlooking the smuggler city-port of Levispolis, and then it's pretty much the Sunset Ocean all the way.

Across a channel, south of the main continent, lies another sandier and more tropical terrain. Sticking out at the southernmost edge is a peninsula, with a dead volcano that used to be the home of the jungle tribe of the As-Kitas.

Presumably there are things that exist in the north and east as well. Tilan just hasn't figured them out yet.

## History

The primary chronological notation in usage is BE and AE, which stand for Before Essie and After Essie. The questions of who (or what) Essie was has troubled historians for centuries, but everyone uses the notations regardless.

206 BE: Creation of the werewolf race. Ryker meets the Moon.

199 BE: Ryker and the Moon broke up.

688 AE: Birth of Trikala.

1264 AE: The Petronium Empire was founded.

1265 AE: The Petronium Empire got accidentally renamed into the Peronium Empire due to a wrong brush stroke from a scribe.

1435 AE: Fall of the As-Kita tribe; Baskil and Pyronios teamed up.

1436 AE: Baskil and Pyronios parted ways.

1440 AE: The North Wind (who went by Lysander) fell in love with the Lady of the Laurels (read: Trikala), and the two slowly started dating every winter.

1451 AE: Irus was born to Laurels and Lysander.

1455 AE: Lysander and Trikala broke up.

1457 AE: Baskil (then Catherine) achieved immortality through Trikala.

1460 AE: Pyronios met and started tutoring Irus.

1604 AE: Levispolis founded.

1767 AE: Levispolis was established as an inofficial smuggler's city.

1769 AE: Last recorded banshee sighting.

1774 AE: Frederick Hayburn left his pack to become the first urban werewolf.

1782 AE: Ralph and Isabelle Hayburn left their pack.

1812 AE: South of the Sunset;

1813 AE: Sandrence start day.

1814 AE: current day wheee

## Etymology

"Evensol" Does not stand for "omg is that even the sun". Instead, the name was originally taken to mean "the land of the evening sun", or, as they say, the land of sunsets.

The sunset holds a huge importance to Evensol culture. Poets look towards it as a recurring subject in literature for its beauty; sailors have stories about it that are passed down through the ages; true magic users understand its potential power; and historians grudgingly admit that the sunset has, indeed, influenced much of what we see of Evensol today.

It is no coincidence that the As-Kitas, generally regarded as the most magically potent tribe in history, were at the southwesternmost part of the land, in full view of the Sunset Ocean. Nor is it a coincidence that Levispolis, at the southern shores of the continent, finds itself with entities known as soul-sellers, and was the first target when Mania struck.

## Magic

Evensol magic is officially defined as any act, object, or influence that, by some means or other, achieves or appears to achieve something that is otherwise rarely doable.

Such occasions can be roughly categorised as sorcery, wizardry, witchcraft, conjuring, esotericism, and common magic, of which all except apart from sorcery are valid forms of the art. The concept of magic in popular culture, however, has a heavy bias on it, and the word "magic" in daily usage usually only refers to the former three; most practitioners of common magic don't even recognise what they do as magical. Science and conjuring are also collective known as pseudo-magic (or fake magic) due to the common misconception for the definition of magic.

Similarly, a magic user in popular culture is anyone who can successfully fool other people into thinking that they can do the at least one of the first three forms of the supernatural (which by definition means that they can actually do at least one of the first five forms of the supernatural). Though all wizards are male, not all those who practice wizardry have to be male, not all wizards use magic, not all wizards practice wizardry, not all male magic users are wizards, and not all those who practice wizardry are wizards.

### Sorcery

Sorcery is, at least on the surface, quite possibly the most powerful out of all of these listed, making it often being mistaken for a form of magic due to its supernatural effects and similar outward appearance to wizardry, witchcraft, conjuring, and science.

Sorcery is not, however, magic. Sorcery can be naturally done by any sorcerer upon birth, and is mostly based on species and genetics rather than something that can be learnt or practiced. Sorcery is, in fact, no fundamentally different from biology or physics, and the only reason why it was given a different name is that sorcerers tend to look like humans, making sorcery look magical.

Nearly all sorcerers on Evensol are anthropomorphic personifications, natural shapeshifters who have specific powers connected to their image and the thing they represent. Trikala, a forest, can shift to any forest-dwelling creature in brown/orange/black hues, not to mention (when she's in her forest) transforming forest objects to her will, doing some healing, partial omniscence, travelling in a method that suspiciously resembles teleportation as long as no one sees her doing it, and partial omnipotence.

It is physically impossible for someone entirely human to become a sorcerer, since sorcery at its roots is just a natural power that human-like non-humans have. One of the sorcerers who came closest is Irus, the human son of Trikala and the North Wind.

### Wizardry

FIREBALL -

Actually, anything but fireball. Fireball is sorcery. We don't talk about that here.

Wizardry is old, grandiose, ancient, and old. Wizardry requires a lot of wisdom, which in layman's terms mean that you have to spent most of your life ruining your eyes in huge volumes that document various lore in order to be decent at anything. Books, spells, and artifacts make up the bulk of this supposed wisdom. The rigid system of knowledge often results in medieval wizards forming orders, all of which never lasted long.

Nowadays any practictioner wanting to take up wizardry would find themselves facing a wall of setbacks - muddled knowledge, scattered artifacts, undocumented spells, and a general lack of any librarian. Most wizards, instead, practice a mixture of the two pseudo-magics of science and conjuring, which gives more value for effort and is also better for your eyes :thumbsup:

## Primary Species

Evensol has more than one hundred humanoid species in total. Of lthese, however, only three are known by their specific names among thr common populace. The rest have been categorised rather rudely into trolls (bigger people), pixies (smaller people), vampires (same size people who are dark or ugly), and elves (same size people who are bright and pretty), with the finer distinguishing between each broad category known only to specialised students in the world.

Humans are lazy.

### Humans

People. If you are in ever any doubt, check wikipedia. Or yourself.

Humans are the predominant Evensol species, making up nearly all of the intelligent population of the world. Evensol human technology is roughly set in the 17th century, with a surprising lack of anything concerning gunpowder; the societal structure is a mix of 17th and 18th centuries, with both the patriacal nuclear family and the domestic nuclear family; fashion, meanwhile, is anything between medieval and early 19th century.

Human technology is by far the most advanced, and the whole civilised part of Evensol consists of solely human cities and towns. There is little mixture between species, especially as most humans tend to treat anyone not of their own kind with deep suspicion.

While trade with dwarfs is starting to make progress, the less can be said for human relationships with the other olden species: werewolves are hated and feared, trolls are regarded as nothing but giant beasts, pixies are unnoticed, vampires are hunted down on sight, and elves are some sort of distant memory.

### Dwarfs

Dwarfs are, traditionally, miners. As dwarfs are a race very much based on tradition, it should come as no surprise that they are still, to all who may be concerned, miners.

The Evensol dwarfs are mostly a quiet little race, with each individual dwarf having about half the height of a human but almost four times the average life span, about three feet tall and two hundred and sixty years, to be exact. They mostly live around the centre of the continent, down beneath the snowy peaks where they mine for gold and coal and craft meticulously delicate jewels and boxes.

Dwarf sexuality and gender is complicated as both male and female dwarfs have beards and look exactly the same on the outside, or at least to humans. Presumably they have their own way of figuring this out.

Though there has been a history of distrust and hostility between humans and dwarfs, something that has caused the dwarf race to dwindle as humans spread out further, the two have been gradually building up trade relationships through the last two centuries. Things are looking up for the dwarfs. Who knows, give a few more decades and we may actually have young dwarfs coming over to human cities.

### Werewolves

Though werewolves are often stigmatised as vicious bloodthirsty creatures who hunt down humans and eat them for fun -

Wait.

That's true, actually.

The werewolf race is among the newest of all the primary species, having been artificially created by the Moon as a massacre weapon after she had a quarrel with a moon god about which hairstyle is cooler. Thus, it should come as no surprise that these creatures, to this day, still retain a lot of that ferociousness and general cruelty towards human beings.

Werewolves are shapeshifters. While they have to be in human form when the moon isn't full, and they have to be in wolf form whenever the light of the full moon touches their body, they have control over their form during the time when the moon is full but there is no moonlight, such as during the day or standing in the shadows.

Along with the shapeshifting ability comes enhanced smell and hearing for their human shape right after a change from wolf, and an enhanced thinking process for their wolf shape right after a change from human. Apart from this, werewolves are also much stronger than normal humans and wolves in their respective forms, though there isn't a really noticeable difference in size or body shape. All of this physical betterment comes with no loss to their intelligence. In fact, considering that their ancestors were kids who escaped during a battle, the average intelligence might be quite high too - something more than clearly demonstrated in Frederick Hayburn's success as a businessman and Ralph Hayburn's talent with literature and law.

A human, even a trained fighter, is no match against a bare-handed werewolf. This shapeshifter species have been terrorising the more northern of the villages for thousands of years, hunting down stray travellers and villagers as a game. However, due to the more recent human advancements and decrease of forests, werewolves find themselves a species that is gradually becoming endangered.

The race is mostly split into two on the subject of human dealings. The majority, proud of their culture and ancestory, choose to remain in the forest and revenge on humans as much as possible with their primeval means of food and shelter. A few, however, believe that the future lies in humanity and technology, thus venturing out into human cities in hopes of finding a new living there.

Their interspecies relationships are not pleasant. Both wolves and humans hate werewolves with ferocity, and in turn most werewolves hunt down humans and make wolves take the blame whenever they could. The few werewolves who live among humans (namely the Hayburn family) are forced to disguise their true identity for fear of social isolation, pitchforks, exile, and probably very painful death. Not necessarily in that order.

### Trolls

Trolls are, in fact, not one singular species. This broad (and rather misleading) term not only includes the traditional giant men who turn into stone during daylight, but also giants, yetis, ice giants, cyclops, bugbears, bogeymen, ogres, orcs, blemmyes, yakuruna, and other such mythological giant humanoid creatures, a fair portion of which live near the snowy peaks. This is not because they are related in any way, but for the simple reason that people are generally stupid and confuse them all the time.

Trolls have a variety of species, cultures, subspecies, and subcultures. It is thus impossible to include them all, but for the most part they are by nature hostile to humanity and somewhat stupid, with a tendency to eat human flesh as there is nearly no other food in the barren mountains. The fact that their languages, primarily made up of hitting each other over the head, are pretty much impossible for humans to interpret also does not help.

In a world where humans are numerous and pretty good with hunting techniques, this... can cause a problem. While ice giants are said to have all melted tens of thousands of years ago, after the world thawed from its dormant state, and the last of the trolls vanished eight centuries ago, the relatively more peaceful and vegetarian yetis are still managing to hang on - but barely, due to the fact that yetis have great fur and make cool carpets.

What remains of the trolls is a small, sad bunch, avoiding humans and indeed any of the other intelligent species as much as possible.

### Pixies

Pixies, though more prevalent than trolls, is still listed behind them as they don't really get noticed due to their small size. Similar to trolls, however, pixies are no singular species: this broad and rather ambiguous term generally refers to pixies, gnomes, goblins, gremlins, and sometimes even fairies.

Most pixies, diverse as they are, still thrive in the less populated areas of forests and fields. Their small sizes and nimbleness help them to hide from the dangers the big people pose, and they live fine on small amounts of food. Fairies, however, are estimated to have gone extinct a few decades ago. Gnomes are by far the most common, and as they are generally the most kindly disposed to humans, it might be possible that some might build a relationship with humanity later on in the future.

Evensol dwarfs used to be considered as a kind of pixie, but as they became more known to humans through trade, the populace has grudgingly admitted that maybe dwarfs do deserve their own species name. Some estimate that this might very possibly happen with gnomes also, give two or three hundred years.

### Vampires

Again, a broad term used by people who are confused and honestly don't really care, the vampire category primarily consist of vampires, banshees, and harpies, all of which are estimated to be almost entirely extinct.

Vampires (the species, not the ambiguous term) are almost definitely dead, having the last of their species staked and over seven hundred years ago. However, they are an undead species, and a few jars of vampire dust are still available in museums. If someone drips a drop of blood on one of them one day... who knows?

Banshees and harpies are either near or completely extinct. The last sightings of either has been over eighty years ago, and by an unreliable witness at that.

The reason for their extinction? Humans do not like bloodsuckers, random screamers, and terrible singers.

### Elves

In short, elves, fauns, mermaids, dryads, nymphs, naiads, nererids, nixes, satyrs, sidhe, sprites, sylphs, clurichaun, encantados, mothmen, haltija, seelies, sirens, undines, vilas, and sometimes fairies. They are typically beautiful normal-sized humanoids with a deep connection to parts of nature, whether it is to the forest, the flowers, the river, the sea, or a particular animal.

Needless to say, most of them are endangered as can be.

The most prominent of these is perhaps the elves, myth-like tall beautiful humanoids with pointy ears, lovely voices, tall horses, graceful bodies, and bows. With really really really sharp arrows.

It has, however, been theorised that elves never existed at all. They certainly never left any trace, and all stories about them were all very old, and, well, stories. The species seemed to have vanished into thin air two thousand years ago for no reason. A valid possibility is that elves might have been entirely fictional; forests like Trikala used to dress like that during that time, and a confusion between forest personifications and dryad sightings could have lead to the development of the myth.

Mermaids and sirens are the two races doing their best, presumably due to the protection provided by the Sunset Ocean. Encantados and other ocean spirits are likewise in vast numbers, and can often be seem accompanying passing ships who respect and rejoice at their presence in return.

Not much can be said for the other spirits, however. Fairies, for one, are as dead as the dodo, if the dodo had ever existed.

## Other Beings

### Gods

Gods rely on belief to live. If a the believers of a god die or stop believing, the god dies also. Most gods don't live on the ground (preferring instead to stay as dispersed balls of air, i.e., physically nonexistent), which means that no one really notices it when they're gone.

A god at the height of their believer number may have supernatural strengths and abilities, for example being able to create water out of thin air or invade the mind of a random believer for a while to act as their prophet.

Most gods are, however, idiots and couldn't care less about how their believers are faring. This in turn caises the gods to die, and it's a wonder why gods still haven't changed their ways. Probably because of the lack of genetic inheriting, in other words, no evolution.

Perhaps that's the reason why so many nonbelievers are around today.

### Personificatios

While gods rely on individual belief - people's belief that the specific god exists - to survive, personifications rely on collective belief, which is the general belief that things like the night and a forest are partly human. As such, personifications have a much, much longer lifespan than your average god. The species has existed ever since the first poet personified nature, and most of them are alive to this day.

Most major forces and things in nature have personificationa: forests, mountains, deserts, winds, stars, oceans, the moon, the sun, and so on. In fact, anything that people might commonly connect nature gods with. This crash often causes some unplesantries, the most notable of which was the werewolf incident, in which the personification of the moon got ticked off by a moon god who insulted her hair. In retaliation, she then created the werewolf race to almost wipe out the moon god's believers, because that was just the kind of person she was.

Personifications typically have high intelligence. They are all fluid shapeshifters, being able to shift into any animal usually connected to them. While Trikala, a forest, can shift to any animal within her forest, Lysander, the north wind, is mostly restricted to arctic animals like polar terns and snow leopards. Other follow a palette, such as the moon transforming only to white and black animals, and the sun favouring lions and leopards over dark panthers.

Their human form changes itself to fit with local expectations. As Trikala walks to warmer regions, her skin tone and hair colour change accordingly, though she never gets beyond a light tan since she isn't a rainforest. Fashion and different standards for beauty across history also alter her dress and appearance.

Whatever a personification may appear like, their eyes always stay the same.

Most personifications have powers connected to who they are and people's general perception and expectation for these beings. The winds are able to fly, forests are connected to nature, and so on. Learning human magic later in life is also a possibility.

Personifications typically have a territory in which they feel more comfortable in. For geography-based ones like forests and oceans, themselves; for the others, lengths of time. Generally, personificationa are partially omniscient, partially omnipotent, and fully immortal as long as they're in their comfort zone. Once they step out of it, however, they only retain the human skills they have (magic, carpentry, and so on) and partial immortality.

There are two ways to kill a personification, namely by killing the thing they personify itself, which to be fair is rather hard when you come to beings like the moon, and by killing them with a physical weapon while they are out of their comfort zone, which they don't often step out of for this exact reason. When a personification dies, the thing they personify can go on existing, but it will loose personality and be more susceptible to influences and sudden unbalancing. A forest with a personification is a healthy one; a forest without will likely die out ib the next wave of plant disease.

## Technology

Evensol technology, while varied among different districts and continents, has the most advanced science as approximately 17-18th century. Carriages are used as the major means of transportation, there are telescopes around (though they are in truth useless due to the magical properties of the atmosphere), and things like hot air balloons are in testing.

However, telegraphs, lightning rods, and the whole of the early stages of the industrial revolution are definitely nowhere in sight. There is also a surprising lack of gunpowder: the most advanced weapon by far is the crossbow, and most armies use a combination of chariots, cavalry horses, swords, and bows. air forces are nonexistent, and while there is a navy, all it does it transport soldiers from place to place, with the occasional boarding of other ships. No cannons or bombs at all.

1. ↑ Discovered by sir Islak Brownie, who famously died discovering the reason why things fall down as a 3 kg durian crashed on his head from a height of 70 metre.
2. ↑ As defined by Tilan.
3. ↑ Don't take me wrong; there are still humans who can win werewolves in a fight one-to-one, most notably Sandy and some magic users who can actually magic.