Maninbara Home Life

The Maninbarans are a people of education, enlightenment and empathy. They hail from the Deep Gate of Polaris, a tunnel leading down beneath the city to a single, narrow cavern that winds like a snake, connected to many small caverns which each hold a small, quaint village. At the head of the snake, deep at the bottom of the world, is the City of Tomes, a grandiose architectural masterpiece of a city where most Maninbarans live. At the heart of the city is the Kitabu Library, the largest library in all the lands. This is the Mecca of the Maninbarans, who all must make a journey to the city to add a book to the library.
The Deep Cavern is a single, winding cavern with occasional branches leading to small pocket caverns where villages are strewn. At the very bottom of the cavern was the head of the snake, a massive cavern where a far-away city lies. The closer to the city you get, the more advanced the magic becomes, as the Maninbarans use their magic to the greatest extent. It’s called the City of Tomes for this reason - it’s a city built on knowledge and education.
The City of Tomes has a deep network of machinery based around magnetism, light, and elasticity. The city generates power through an Ichor Tax, where each day residents submit one Ichor. Together, this Ichor is maintained into a Kinetic Ichor Battery, which retains the ichor submitted and distributes them to various ichor tasks around the city. Ichor Message Converters transfer Ichor energy to hold one message and convert that energy to another message. With this power, the City of Tomes has functional waterways, arcane lamps, metro systems, and even more.
At the center of all of this progress is the Kitabu Library, which holds all the research of the nation in one place, allowing the people to readily learn and contribute. Each book must be reviewed and approved as grammatically and factually correct, especially for research books. The most renowned books are added to the Mansa Hall, a collection of all the greatest literary works fit for the Monarch of Maninbara, and the writers who write these works are known as the Mansa’s Muses.
At the heart of the writing of Maninbarans is the Ink, a special ink made of squid ink and crushed Monarch crystals, forming a beautiful, warm orange that glistens like gold dust when under the light. This ink is used to create Runes, which can be used to cast magic from text. These runes require special books called Grimoires, whose paper are laced with gold leaf which direct the ichor from the palm of a hand to the ink on the page better.
Behind all these advancements, of course, are the Maninbarans themselves, a complex hierarchical society with a deeply ingrained caste system which is based on the education you contribute to society, leading to a very age-biased power dynamic.

• The Runeless, usually ages 0-12, who have not yet submitted their first book. Those who don’t leave this stage are largely looked down upon by society due to their lack of contribution.
• The Pupil, ages 13+, are people who have published at least one book. They are the average teenager and are also not well viewed by the general public.
• The Lamanos, these are the people who have contributed two to ten books. These are the average citizen, and most people will contribute about five or six books in their lifespan.
• The Lamane is the person who has written the most books in a village or a street of the city. They are largely seen as the authority on education and have unique access to their own Grimoire.
• The Grand Lamane is someone who manages a school or library. They must have at least one of their works be accepted into the Mansa Hall.
• The Principalis is a group of the 50 of the most prolific of the Mansa’s Muses, who are appointed to manage the entire kingdom using their knowledge. They often travel from town to town convening with Grand Lamanes, and convene monthly in the City of Tomes to pass new laws based on petitions from the public and their own thoughts.
• The Sunrise Mansa. This is the current monarch. When they die, their will appoints the next monarch, though that next ruler may not be from their same bloodline. If they appointed no one, the #1 Principalis will take the monarch’s place.

Because of this ranking system, there is a deep competitiveness and productivity is king. Overworking so as to not seem less intelligent and diligent than your peers is common. One of the worst parts of the land is their treatment of the mentally ill. As they are often unable to contribute meaningfully through books or research, they are permanently stuck to a low caste and as such are treated incredibly poorly. Those who do not have hands or arms to write with are considered to be cursed. Despite this, Maninbarans are largely atheistic; they have no belief in any sort of spirit or god other than the power of magic itself.
Despite this competitiveness, the deeper belief of the Maninbarans is one of community and sharing. No one is left behind as Lamane tells a story to the children in the library. Sharing of knowledge is the ultimate gift, and to understand another human is the greatest achievement in Maninbaran culture, which cannot ever be done through books but through a life well spent. Slowly, there is a movement to dispel the competitiveness and ableism as more books are written on the subject. Despite its problems, Maninbara is easily one of the best places to live in all the caverns.