Football

**Football** is a sport that is most commonly played in both Cannor and North Aelantir. Both regions play the sport operating under significantly different rule sets, but both versions share a common origin.

## Origins

### Ynnic Football

Football within the Ynn River Basin first originated as a form of practical education for young nobility in the ways of war. The field would be split down the middle, with one team on either side. Each team would take turns serving as “attacker” and “defender,” with the attackers’ stated goal to move the ball a certain distance along the field. The following diagram is a depiction of the player layout of a field before the beginning of a game. The “King” on each side of the field would be responsible for issuing orders to the remainder of the team in order to best achieve their goals; as such, planning between plays was encouraged to be kept at a minimum.

Games were divided into a number of “campaigns,” consisting of a team’s attempt to push the ball to the other end of the field (the amount varied from location to location, but was typically set at 16 to reflect the number’s cultural significance to the Ynnics). Each attempt would end when the player holding the ball was forced to the ground, at which point that player would be substituted out (representing casualties) and another attempt would begin from where the latest ended. If at any point the King was downed while holding the ball, the campaign would immediately end, and the defenders would score a point. Every campaign would start from the same starting position on the field, and proceed to the same objective. The ball could be moved by any nonmagical means, as long as it was in the possession of a player at all times, making passing an effective means of transportation.

The game would very soon grow past its roots as a lesson in tactics and quick thinking, and would come to be very popular amongst the youth of the Ynn. Befitting the game’s origins, Kings would typically be played by noble boys (or the highest status players in attendance), with the rest of the team being conscripted from willing bystanders. To make games more interesting, campaigns would occasionally be plotted through quirks in geography like hills, trees, or water features.

### Damerian Football

Amongst the multitude of early-medieval Cannorian ball sports lost to time, the most popular and enduring would be Damerian Football, simply referred to as “football” in Cannor. As opposed to its Ynnic counterpart, Damerian Football would be firmly rooted in the lower classes living in the urban centers of the Luna River. Though none can truly say when or where the game first gained acceptance, a particular folk tale is the popularly accepted origin story for the sport. Supposedly, in the early days of Nathalyne’s veneration, a group of her devotees were up to their usual pastime: haranguing the local priesthood of gods more aligned with the ruling classes. In this particular episode, the target of their taunts were the faithful to Adean. The jesting would come to a head as one Nathalynite proudly boasted of their god’s well-known involvement with an avatar of Ara, a particular soft spot for the Adeanites, considering that Ara was supposed to be married to Adean. With this, a line was crossed, and laughter soon turned to shouting. Eventually, a test was devised to see which group of devotees had the truth on their side: the Nathalynites would need to steal something of value (representative of Ara’s favor) from the local temple of Adean, and convey it to their temple across town without being caught. Ever boastful, Nathalyne’s faithful gladly accepted, promising that such a task would be easy enough to do with their hands tied behind their backs. Not wanting to be upstaged by the followers of an upstart goddess, the Adeanic priests agreed to the same restriction.

Once all the preparations were in place (with followers of Nerat officiating as a neutral third party), the Nathalynites executed their plan. A statuette of Ara, located just out of sight in the Adeanic temple, was acrobatically maneuvered into a sack, laden with enchantments of weightlessness. The Adeanic priesthood were quick to notice, but not quick enough to stop the sack from being kicked through a window, into the streets below. The chase was on. The following hours would be a flurry of activity through the city streets, as each group of faithful endeavored to maintain control of their sack.

As all folk tales go, the details differ with each telling. Each town is eager to claim that the game took place in their streets, and believers of every stripe have their own take on the victors. Nonetheless, by the mid-1200’s, annual recreations of the event were common throughout the East Dameshead, with whole towns turning out to participate. Over time, enchanted sacks would be replaced by balls of various make, and a loose set of rules would begin to take shape, but the basic organizational structure around religious institutions would remain. In each city, every temple would usually have their own “football” team that would play against the teams of other temples.

This would all change with the advent of the Corinite schism. Corinism spread like wildfire throughout the Eastern Dameshead, hugely sapping the attendance from other gods, and cleaving communities in two. However, religious differences aside, the people still wanted their games, leading to the establishment of the very first secular football clubs. As religious war raged around them, in many cases these organizations would prove to be rocks upon which a divided community could unite around. Eventually, the flames of strife would cool within the empire, but the football clubs would remain strong pillars of community organization, eventually spreading throughout all of Cannor.

### Hybridization

With the rediscovery of Aelantir, settlers from across Halcann would bring their institutions and traditions along with them. For the purposes of this history, we will be focusing on the settlers hailing from Plumwall and its surroundings, located in Eastern Dameria. These particular travelers would find a home in the Epednan Expanse, and eventually establish a state of their own: Plumstead.

As centuries passed after the initial arrival of Cannorians into the region, instability along the banks of the Ynn would see an ever-increasing emigrant population moving west into the Epednan Expanse. Some were fleeing war, others religious or political persecution, but all found a new home in the new states of the expanse. Unfortunately, finding land and work did not necessarily mean finding a warm welcome. In the year 1859 a professor at the University of the Dame in Plumstead City, by the name of Devan Watches-The-Path, would take it upon himself to change that. During his tenure as a professor of religious history, he had seen his fair share of ethnic cliques forming both within and without the classroom. Himself a half-elf, he found such division practically insulting on a personal level, and was often kept up at night searching for a solution to the problem of cultural division. The answer came to him as he was preparing a lecture on the social consequences of the Corinite wars, and came across a document most others would consider useless: a public bulletin listing the names of participants in a local football match, taking place soon after the close of hostilities. Something about the list rang a bell, and he set about cross-checking the names against other documents in the university’s archives. To his surprise, it appeared as if high-ranking officials from opposite sides of the conflict were participating on the same team!

It was at that moment that Devan was struck with a bolt of inspiration. Rather than delivering a lecture the following day, he instead led his students out to Longstaff Park, the municipal fairground. Along the way, he explained a set of rules for a game that all present were able to immediately recognize: a sport that took the most recognizable features of both Damerian and Ynnic football and shaped them into a cohesive whole. The game was an instant success among the students, and Devan would soon find himself pressed into officiating for games during his time off.

As the years passed, this hybridized version of football would spread like wildfire between Aelantiri universities, accelerated by their shared ties to the Ravellian church. In 1869, the first-ever intercollegiate football game would be played between students from the University of the Dame and Róscolum University, with each adopting the team names of the Vintners and the Knights respectively. Hearing the news, locals were quick to fashion matching uniforms for their home university, only further adding to the spectacle of the occasion. Before long, the various universities across Aelantir would throw their support behind an intraregional league of teams.

## Notable Teams

### Rivalries

The Vintners & The Knights share a friendly rivalry, being the first two teams from different schools to ever play against one another. Matchups are highly anticipated by students and locals alike.

Another highly anticipated matchup lies between The Cannonballs & The Braves over who has the claim to halfling champions. Though other teams exist in the Small League, these two teams are almost always neck-and-neck for the #1 placement.

Unfortunately, not everything is always so sunny between teams, as evidenced by the ongoing feud between The Rudmen & The Greenskins. For a litany of reasons best not put to print, matches have a habit of getting ugly if referees don’t keep an eye on things. However, regardless of the scale of the brawls between the two schools, both have yet to turn down an invitation to play from the other.

1. ↑ Note, the use of the word “club” is a catch-all term that has been retroactively applied to a wide range of organizations with similar structure and purpose, namely, organizing groups of individuals to best facilitate football competitions. These organizations were variously called “teams,” “gangs,” “leagues,” or “elevens,” among many other names. “Club” would only come to prominence in the mid-19th century.