Zenderael's Setting
Inside Zenderael
Let's be frank. Zenderael isn't breaking any new ground on environments. Some are truly unique, but a good majority are just that. Majority. Rolling hills. Trees. Mist. Sometimes a stray antelope or perhaps a zebra if you're in a more heated climate. You might see a storm form. You might see a rainbow. The houses are made of falling apart wood and brick, and all the NPCs have little chickens. All of them. And don't kill them, either.
No, really, don't kill the chickens.
The problem with Zenderael is that as a vast, ever growing, ever evolving landscape created by both players of this here literal LJ game and the game itself, it has an infinite capacity for reinvention, and so classifying it is a little difficult. Instead, we'll focus on various countries, and then focus on a few important spaces that require description. To attack the description of the world, we'll focus on the nations and their capitals, as well as major border towns.
All other locations are player created, and will be listed at the end of this setting page.
The Nations
The Holy Country, Everea
Home of: Clerics, Hunters, and Paladins
Everea is the closest to typical fantasy you can get. Tudor construction with worn red bricks, elegant spires and busy, cobblestone streets, it's a continuous city where underbrush and wild vegetation only break through in quick bouts. The land itself can be described as mildly hilly to rolling, usually green, suffering regular seasons and with a mix of deciduous and evergreen trees. Flora and fauna are typical, if not boring: rabbits, deer, elk. Sometimes the occasional water fowl.
There are three rivers in the country, none are named, but they form a triangle around its capital, Bastan. Because Everea is the holy country, there are stricter bounties placed on violating character's heads, as well as an overall sense that "you don't belong here unless you definitely like the effin hell out of Xumurdad." Minor Gods are frowned upon in this region.
Queen Omid
Queen Omid is seen as something of a token leader. Her utilization as ruler of the kingdom is often undermined by the Vahishta, a truly spiritual and terrifying leader who commands most of both Bastan and the country's loyalty. If the Vahishta and Omid were to disagree, (which wisely, they have yet to do), the country would side with the Vahishta. There is no doubt.
The Capital, Bastan
Bastan is a city surrounded by rivers, and nature consistently interrupts the flow of its classic Tudor architecture. Buildings have trees forming an entire corner, or bushes that look like wigs on their roofs. The religious fervor here is strong, with the focal point of Bastan being the church, focused at the "head" of the isosceles triangle that the rivers make.
The church itself has an architecture that cannot be described in OOG terms. With pointed roofs and harrowing, floor to ceiling stained glass panels, the church is a multi-faceted dreamwork of color and light. Deciduous trees line every spire. Every spire, all ten of them, are connected by intricate, cobblestone pathways littered with nature and beauty. Flowers that cannot be glimpsed anywhere else in game bloom and flutter in the breeze. There is a forever calm.
In the center of the collection of faceted spires lies an enormous tree with the likeness of Xumurdad carved into its bark. It's said it happened through lightning.
In fall, the city is a myriad of deep reds and shocking oranges. It is a major tourist attraction for citizens from all over the world of Zen, and many festivals and street markets occur during this time.
The Borderline
The borderline with Pakerion starts to do two things: first, it begins to grow into an untangled mess of green, thorns, flora and fauna of the intense variety. Second, it begins to be populated by Druids and Berserkers, crossing the lines regularly for either mercenary work or quests. A small settlement has been set here but it can't decide whether it's Everea or Pakerion, what with ladders leading to deciduous treetops, vines crossing over tudor roofs and cobblestone roads dissolving into muddy, debris strewn pathways.
On the Everea side, one of the rivers crosses directly by the border, and half the town, instead of just building on the other side of it, put itself on rafts. These homes are especially cheap as they regularly fall into the river.
The Kanareh
The border with Safta is much more orderly than the border with Pakerion. Here, the undertow becomes manicured, and the cobblestone pathways treated with utmost precision. What seemed a random pattern is now micromanaged, ordered by the millimeter. The Tudor architecture is gone, in favor of an incredibly modern architecture featuring a mix of heavy, dark woods and metals.
The metals, they say, are meant to deflect magic, and this is a magic city, even in Everea. The mention of Xumurdad will be mixed between individuals here. Evereans who are stationed here are often at odds with the seeming "lawlessness" of the educational, magic oriented milieu, and it's more often than not that a report of a flaming elk running into Everea proper reaches Bastan.
Another river runs by this border, but unlike those near Pakerion, the homes on the river bed are extremely expensive, as they are designed to harness water elementals for the owner.
The Research Country, Safta
Home of: Alchemists, Mages, and Spellswords
*aka the magic country, as per assuaging a guindo
Safta is a functional country. Its roads are paved, clean, clear and under control. The underbrush is managed. The side facing Everea is smooth and flat, and the side facing Pakerion is mountainous and rugged, and the Saftans have manicured that transition as if someone'd taken a smoothing tool in photoshop to the entire territory. The architecture is dark clay and metal and beautiful glasswork, done in the traditional, 8th century Persian (Iranian) architectural style. This style is greatly modernized, featuring dark wood accents and variant shades in stained glass, along with hardwood floors and a traditional, dark blue persian style rug in each home.
The flora and fauna of Safta are magically geared to be the most meaty and the most sufficient and sustaining with the least difficulty hunting, so several players have to go to other areas to acquire initial XP, but have no trouble finding luxurious pelts from rabbits and badgers and Safta Deer, a special kind of stumpy-legged, rather portly antelope.
Wolves also prowl the flatlands, and are vicious but luxuriously coated.
In the mountains, goats and mutated crickets dominate the landscape. (These crickets are a terrifying thing to see, take it from the "modhand.")
To the north is an amazing vacation destination, referred to in shorthand as the Safta Coast, but in general is known as The Shoreline. For a few short months in summer this is the most beautiful place to be around, though some prefer the chillier months, when the rocks and white sands are covered in a fine mist.
The Sharifa of Safta, Khshathra Zaida
Zaida can be heard laughing from a mile away, and her reign has been gentle, intelligent, and prosperous for Safta. She is respected, listened to and her advice is often sought by other Guild leaders and Saftans alike, and she spends a good chunk of her day in "listening hours," designed to hear audience and address complaints. She prioritizes sustainability and efficiency, and uses her superior alchemy to create cures for her people, liberating them from the Cleric caste in Everea outside of one thing: Resurrection. This is still the role of the Vahishta and of the Clerics, but it's said Zaida spends a good deal of her time trying to create a potion that can, indeed, resurrect the dead.
The Nenakret
The Nenakret is home to the World Library, and as such is the most traveled to city in the entire world. Its roadways are wide and deep, with shops and tourist traps and temples for all sorts of deities and research locations and magic conduits and... anything you want to find you can find in the Nenakret. The architecture is remarkably consistent throughout, with low, arched buildings and large windows.
The World Library is a spacious building surrounded in columns; ten sets of two. On each set of columns an article of the Xumurdad history is carved, both in text on the right and in pictorial on the left. The archways lead to square paneled windows detailing the scenes talked about on the pillar, with each of the original guild leaders attaining their power. Of particular interest is the detail of the Assassin/Paladin struggle.
Inside the world library, everything is dark wood and clay and dark blue and magic, magic, magic. Things move when you call them. Lights turn on and off willy-nilly depending on silly code-words (often a treat for children, a nuisance for studiers). The librarian, the A'zam Mogh, or the Asha, or the Mage Guild Leader, is privy to knowledge that no member of Zenderael wants to know. He commands the administrative mages, or the Moghan (individually the Mogh), and is known for his taciturn rebuttal of questions that are "too mysterious."
The Kanareh
The Kanareh on the Safta side holds little to none of the Everea, outside of the occasional not-awesome deer. The Evereans on this side of the border tend to be homely, patient, and irreligious. They're often trying to learn magic, but because they're typically Clerics or Paladins, they've yet to acquire the adequate skill to learn the upper-tier magic used along the border.
One interesting note: due to the lack of interesting architecture or in fact interesting land, the Safta side of the Kanareh has been talked about as the "safest" border area in the entire world. Few "illegals" are interested, and the Evereans who'd balk at atheism want nothing to do with living in Safta full-time.
The Saghar
The Saghar on the Safta side is under constant construction. Warning signs are posted everywhere as irritated Saghar mages fight the growth of the wild jungle and the damage that the Berserkers often do to Safta. It is a point of pride (and sometimes initiation) for young Berserkers to destroy something on the Saftan side, and so often there is rubble, broken window, branch through a door... etc.
As the Saghar crosses in the low-point of the Saftan mountains, it is often described as "one trip to a broken collar bone," as the steep foothills leading into Pakerion and the rubble left behind tend to be dangerous for swift-moving PCs.
The Wild Country, Pakerion
Home of: Assassins, Berserkers, Druids, and Rogues
Pakerion is a country of levels. High, low, medium; cities in trees, cities in the wild, cities in valleys, cities within cities. There are ropes and vines and creatures you can't even imagine, or maybe you can, as they will be largely created by players. The flora and fauna are mainly tropic, with a few standbys from Safta on the border, and the underbrush is never tended. Roads are questionable and paths often have random nailed planks into the earth where there was once a trap.
Architecture is hit or miss, but largely cobbled together. Tree houses, thatch huts, this and that. The capital is the only city that sees any permanence here.
King Aerveas
King Aerveas is a handsome, elderly man with a wild beard and even wilder eyes. He believes in anarchy with slight restriction, largely in the form of taxation, and will take it out of your hide if you don't have it in your fingertips. All classes from Pakerion pay a monthly fee for the right to beat up, murder, slash and dash and destroy anything they like, and King Aerveas is certain to exact his fee.
The tax is a 5% fee on all gold on hand. However, Pakerion classes don't have to pay anything extra in shops, and any bounties or fees placed on their head for various infractions are waived. It is a balancing mechanic, but still several players of Pakerion attempt to dump their gold onto a farming alt at the deadline each month.
The Capital, Enghelab
The Capital is structured out of tar paper and blood, sweat, and tears. It seems taped together if not for the foundations of each of the buildings, and there are consistently wanted signs with laughter scrawled upon the faces. The people here will cut you should you blink, and will cut you even if you don't, so few casual visitors set foot in Enghelab. Instead, they are there on mercenary business, or they themselves are a local, set to cut the next purse traveling their way.
The roads are still dirt with the occasional plank, and damned you if I'll pick up the garbage! It is sometimes reeking of filth, and sometimes super clean, depending on the moods of the trash-runners that day.
The Undertow
Located on top of the treetops despite its name, the Undertow is the Berserker city, so opposed to being part of society they are. Here, Berserkers exist in a strange synthesis with nature that seems more befitting a Druid, but a wild, impatient nature. Between each tree a rope bridge is attached, and fireflies are collected to provide light at the gate between each tree top. The name of the dweller is carved into the bark below. There is a quest specifically for Berserkers to get their tree.
The Borderline
The Pakerion side of the Everea border is lawlessness. You won't catch an Everean alive in this side of town, but you might find them dead. Assassins and Berserkers bring their catches over the country line to murder them here to avoid the Everean law, and you thought Enghelab was terrifying?
Here, the Tudor architecture's deterioration leads to several empty and abandoned buildings where a fire could start and no one would be the wiser. There are no traditional merchants, only NPC Rogues reselling wares from Alchemists or from expeditions gone awry at awful mark-ups.
The Saghar
The rolling foothills of the Saftan mountains end in the Pakerion side of the Saghar, where a tamer Pakerion is seen. The influence of the Saftani logic has spread over Pakerions here, and those who are "cold calculating killers" or just "mild-tempered Rogues" prefer the no-nonsense, manicured approach of the Saghar.
Architecture looks strikingly like Saftan architecture, but the roads are no longer paved, as a compromise to the largely barefoot Berserkers.