This article is a stub, and in dire need of expansion for the actual content. It is also used as an Article Redirect for categories, which is why it is public.
Soplas is a subcontinent connected to Supercontinent A on its southern side.
History
Much of the history prior to the days of the Adrakian Empire have been lost, or forgotten. Most of the peoples inhabiting the subcontinent do not have myths or legends about their species origins believed by many because there are the records from the Adrakian Empire who was ruled by dragons calling themselves gods. With the fall of the Adrakian Empire, the primary religion of worshipping the draconic rulers lost favor as they were clearly not immortal deities, but mortals like the people they ruled over. Ruins predating the Adrakian Empire are scattered about the subcontinent, but are very old, unstable, and in some cases, the Adrakians had repurposed the ruins to serve their own needs.
The Adrakian Empire once spanned the subcontinent, supposedly naming it "Soplas" the Adrakian word for "my nest" or "my home." While the Empire has long since fallen, the name for the continent has been carried on.
Many of the sophont species have old stories, but those tales had been distorted by the Empire claiming the dragons ruling it were the gods of the world in those days. Anti-Adrakian sentiments in the early years after the empire's fall had brought back some of the older myths' details, but many of them had to be rebuilt from their fragments as removing the Adrakian influences to the stories lead to confusion.
"From these stories in NorthTownInTormyra, they say Kaygys breathed the Breath Fae into being, while in EastTownInTormyra, they say the Breath Fae came into being by an accident of Athtica. Trying to find the real origins is a pain and a half now when EastTownInTormyra is busy trying to convince those Fae to leave them alone by feeding them metal and NorthTownInTormyra has every house set to freeze anyone of Fae blood from entering."
Ruins
There are many ruins going back to the days of the Adrakian Empire, as well as ruins that seem to predate it. The ruins predating the Empire seem to not belong to the same cultures, but the Adrakian ruins appear to not carry many of the features of those who came before in the same or nearby locations.
Scholars have identified a number of pre-Adrakian ruins along the coastlines, though investigations have been mostly dangerous due to natural hazards, wildlife, the ruins being repurposed by the living, and in some cases the dead.
Notable Ruins
- - Southern Theydim
Ruins Number 34
- Eastern Tormyralink
- location
There is a rising scholarly interest in the artifacts of the ruins, with early Adrakian or pre-Adrakian items being worth more coin. There are rumors of powerful items being lost to the ages since the fall of the empire, and rumors of some items predating the empire. Some clever mages have found some of the old ways to replicate the magical effects, though most find their replications to be more complicated than the original's methods for achieving the same goal.
Modern Day
In the current day, the trade language of Common is spoken in major cities and along the Old Road where the Road is maintained, and along the roads created since the Empire fell. The language follows a hybrid of an older form of Thydian and Adrakian when the latter was the primary language of the Empire, and the new zealots of Saint Antral in Theydim were trying to pull together their pre-Imperial lingual roots. Most of the vocabulary is built of a mix of words created within the language, and words pulled and distorted from the post-Imperial dialects of places the (mostly human) merchant caravans traveled through.
Traditional power structures have been shifting because those who used to have power have found themselves at the risk of losing their social and economic standings.
In Tormyra, the recent rise of Artificers has developed into magic being used for mundane purposes, where before it was studied mostly by the elite and the arts of crafting magical items were an arduous process. With the rising number of Artificers bringing the idea of almost anyone having the potential to be a mage, the old long standing mage families have taken towards snubbing the supposedly "not actual mages."
In Theydim, the feudal system has been slowly dismantling after the Unification Wars left Arlings without several of members of their courts and the lands became marketable. This has been leading towards the rise of an economic and political middle class and the declining numbers of people "bound" to the land as serfs.
The Five Cities and Placeholderwordsaboutrunningfactorieshere
The nation-city Goltheris is ruled by the Goltharine Guilds and as the The Great War ended, have found themselves facing moreplaceholderwordshere
Someday, there will be music here.
I love your organization of this article! The text gives me a good sense of the subcontinent as a reader while still giving access to the deep details of your regions. Brava!
=D Yay! Over time, I'll update this article with information as I worldbuild more of the regions as well, and I'm really glad it's working on the organization side as well as the content.