Atharia

## Basics

**Name**: Atharia

**Appearance**:

**Location**: 4th planet

**Size**: a bit bigger than Earth

**Rotation**: a day lasts 28 hours

**Revolution**: 544 days (16 months of 34 days each)

**Sun**: Darush

**Moon**: Itlai

**Any other celestial bodies**: including
Atharia, there are a total of seven planets in the system.

**Average distance from its Sun**: roughly 200 million km

**Main Terrain**: Dense rainforest,
though there are a few patches of grassland, swamp, and a toxic desert formed
by wars that happened a long time ago

**Gravitation Pull:**
**About the Soil:** butterscotch coloured and smooth in texture

## About the Atmosphere:

**Sky Colour**: cyan

**Average Surface Temperature**: A good
day is between 20 and 30 degrees Celcius

**Maximum Surface Temperature**: the
hottest part of the planet gets up to 50 degrees

**Minimum Surface Temperature**: in the
polar caps, it can get as low as -55, sometimes even -60 degrees

**Common Weather Patterns**: rain, high
winds on the coast, and hurricanes

**Rare Weather Patterns**: snow, drought, frost

The weather changes quite rapidly. There are five seasons in a year: the
flood season called Ekumaiya, the growing season called Nainuthenn, the hot and
dry season known as Eshkator, a second flood season called Trekumaiya, and the
winter season called Saklitenyu. Within each season, the weather is
predictable, but is prone to sudden change. Flash floods are a danger.

## Popular/Common Resources

**Lirriro steaks** – multi-colored,
polka dotted alien cow-things

**Ade’darens** – small, long haired
sheep-like animals with cloven hooves and white or brown coats

**Straythen** (large, grey and
brown birds of prey common to the coastal areas

**Shrike** – the largest bird
of prey on Atharia, it hunts in the high mountains

**Kru-shin** – a form of hopscotch
with very elaborate layouts

**Arillira paste** – a highly
nutritional food item that tastes kind of like strong beans mixed with
broccoli, made from the common Arillira plant

**Rainbow gems** – mined in the
mountains

A variety of musical instruments

**Raebuck** – a kind of large carnivorous animal whose
meat is exceptionally tender

**Quela** – A kind of shark that eats indiscriminately and has been known to turn
cannibal. It’s regarded as more of a nuisance and being referred to as one is
deeply insulting, especially to the Swimmers.

**Ome** – a rice-like grain that is light cream
in colour; grown by Swimmers

**Dream sticks** – made by wrapping a blend of cured
herbs in a long, thin roll of brown paper, these are highly addictive and can
have mild hallucinogenic effects. The best and most expensive ones are made
with fire cured herbs while the cheapest are air cured. Use of these is highly
frowned on by the Central Medical Board (CMB) as studies have proved that long
term use has been linked to serious health problems. The Agency strictly
prohibits use of this drug by any of its members though this policy is
difficult to enforce; the herbs used are largely innocuous on their own and
it’s only in this particular combination that they become dangerous. The
standard forms of drug screening won’t pick up on it. If an Agent is caught using
dream sticks, they will be fired. If the infraction is severe enough there may
be a fine or even jail time involved.

**Rainbow fish** – freshwater fish common to rivers in
the western hemisphere

**Greenfruit** – an oval shaped
fruit that grows on trees. It’s similar to an apple in that its green peel can
be eaten but on the inside it’s built more like a lemon. In taste, it’s like a
watermelon.

**Mudhens** – a type of chicken

**Largest known Surface Feature**: The
Tassren Spire (30,000 feet)

**Currency** – *rekmar*, plural *rekmars*

## About the Civilization:

**The Dominant Species**: there are two
species that live on the planet. The native species are known as Swimmers as
their proper name in unpronounceable to humans. Humans settled there,
establishing a colony.

**Level of Technology**: both species are advanced, though arguably the
natives are far more advanced. They are only interested in the oceans and
beaches so they allow the humans to populate the inner land. With their
guidance, the humans—and the Vaen who had brought them there—were able to build
settlements that would make the most efficient use of the land and make minimal
damage to the rainforests.

## Swimmers

**Main Language(s):** their native
tongue sounds very much like whale song and has no formal name

**Common Traits:** Swimmers have slanted
eyes and pale skin. They have gill-like structures along their rib cage that
allow them to breathe underwater. Their eyes can see very well in almost no
light and have a second eye, clear eye lid that closes over to allow them to
see in what a human would consider normal light.

**Major Religion(s):** Rather than
worshipping a deity or pantheon of such, they revere the forces of nature. As
an advanced society, they are fully aware that there are reasons for what goes
on in nature. It doesn’t rid them of the awe their ancestors had for the
natural world.

**Important Culture(s):** they have one
culture

**Important Historical Events:**
**Type of Governmen**t**:** they have an elected Senate. Each of their floating
cities has a Senator that they elect for a six year term. Once elected, they
serve out their term and cannot be re-elected.

**Karath’aann** – a ruined city widely considered to be
one of the most beautiful spots on the planet.

## Humans

**Main Language(s):** Drashini

**Common Traits**:

**Major Religion(s):** Various religions
were brought with them from Keverynn though they’ve largely fallen out of
favor. There was too much conflict between religious groups and so they’ve
taken up the Swimmer way of respecting the natural world, effectively putting a
ban on religions that have an aspect of actual worship to them.

**Important Culture(s):** none

**Important Historical Events:**
**Type of Government:** They’re led by an elected parliament which is led by
the Prime Minister.

**Edelride**

**Aren’march**

**Sinti’arebed**

**Seudo’thann**

**Xyn’kaliir**

**Dretha’rel**

## Atharia – human colonization

The
humans of Atharia are not indigenous to that planet. They originated from
Keverynn. In the year 731, shortly after the sisterhood of Sword and Sorcery
fell to the forces of Khallil the Great, the Vaen began to flee from the main
land, heading for the island chain known as Alastea. A large number of humans
went with them, abandoning the settlements that lined the edge of the river
Arcetes.

With
Kaalathkirenn’s prediction of an eventual, massive battle between the Darkriders
and the Dragonlords in mind, the Vaen plotted a way to help that war come out
favourably. The best way they could see to do that was to eventually restore
the lost Sisterhood. There had been a small number of Vaen among the ranks of
the Sisterhood and most survived the fall. Those survivors, knowing as well as
any Vaen that their ancestors had come from elsewhere, found a way to take a
large number of the humans on Alastea and send them elsewhere, giving them the
technology to grow stronger and eventually return to Keverynn. This plan also
gave them something to do with the suddenly massive population, a population
that the islands couldn’t hope to sustain for very long.

Using
one of the ships that had initially brought the Vaen from Tanviyer to Keverynn,
a small contingent of Vaen went back to their ancestral home world and
explained the situation. Large colony ships were dispatched to take most of the
coastal refugees from Alastea to their new home in a system the Vaen had once
explored and found to be habitable. It was populated by a race of sea dwelling
people that they were friendly with. The Swimmers—as the humans took to calling
them—were willing to let the humans have the land masses to live on, not having
much use for them beyond the coast.

The
Vaen who had taken the humans there to the world now called Atharia—a name
which meant ‘new hope’ in the Vaen language—stayed behind to teach them how to
make and use technology, watching over them to ensure that nothing was misused.

Eventually,
the Vaen died out. They were incapable of having children with the humans and
the population of Vaen that had come to Atharia was too small to sustain for
long. It took nearly three  hundred years
before the last Vaen died off as their life spans is somewhat longer than a
human’s.

Those
refugees who had been a part of the Sisterhood were initially in charge of
things until a proper government was established, though all listened to the
advice of the Vaen. The first city built was Edelride.

Unknown
to the Vaen, some of the humans they’d brought with them were followers of Khallil
and had brought with them worship of Atraxia, mother of all wyvern. They
practiced in secret to avoid discovery. It was their goal to prevent the Vaen
from accomplishing their goal and stopping the Darkriders from winning the
ultimate war that had been predicted.

Over
the centuries, the old religions brought with them from Keverynn fell into
disfavour as the ways of the Swimmers gained favour. Knowledge of Atraxia
eventually made its way into the hands of a young boy named Asharos
Sigilkeeper. He reformed the cult, stronger than it had ever been on Atharia.
Because of this, he and his inner circle were pursued until they finally made
their way to Keverynn, kicking off what would be known as the Fourth Darkrider
Incursion, the battle to end the struggle for dominance of their world. This
was the year 2256.