Eam'Rel

Eam'Rel translates to "gift to mankind" in the ancient language of the saeli'tuk, the desert monks. They, among all people, are those who have travelled the most, and have gathered knowledge from nearly all the lands of Eam'Rel. They are the ones who keep their thoroughly written books, full of lore and legends, along with maps and artefacts, in the enormous libraries of their Order.   They can tell you about the isolated peninsula of Indice, and its long and bloody history of assassinations, shifts of power among the aristocracy, the intrigues and politics, the armadas that conquer the oceans and the secret organisations that help the oppressed flee. They'll tell you of the elusive noble-born women with their secret magic, and the flamboyant prostitutes who control more power than anyone would like to admit.   They can also tell you long tales about Castaponda, the heart-shaped peninsula that lies a oceanic ribbon away from Indice. Castaponda is not a country, but rather a collection of kingdoms, independent cities, small villages who know not and care not about kings or rulers, and the wild tribes of the north, who only care about their rituals and their enchanted forest, the Forest of Dreams. They can tell you about the legends claiming that under the mountains in the middle of the peninsula lives a dragon who, every now and then charms young girls from the villages, and those girls give birth to children with strange powers right before they die.   The saeli-tuk know all about the mainlands, the continent right above Castaponda and Indice, with the lovely, prosperous country of Ashar, with its port and the only Academy of Magic in the world, the kingdom of Bondye, where some people have unique talents that no one can explain, the secret society of Manre, where fugitives always find help, the mountain folk of Sakemek, where the snow falls red in the middle of the winter, and there are no flowers like those that bloom after the red snow has melted.   They even know about the pirate islands, because the pirates, wrapped in their own superstitions about power and magic, revere the Order and never hurt any of its members, but if they happen upon a saeli-tuk, they offer shelter, access to their treasures and ask only that the monks will write kind words about their names in their books.   The monks will rarely talk of their own land, the sister cities of Bran'Aredh in the desert. Not because there is no beauty to be found in the land that most of all cherishes the sun and the moons, but because the dark-skinned Aredhites love no other place better than their own, and are so rarely seen outside their borders, that most people don't even know of their existence.   But if you ask them about the uiledath, the strange race that live in Ceothach Eilean, the Misty Islands, the saeli-tuk will sigh and shrug, for no human has ever stepped there. No one could describe the strange, communal society that prospers through duty, the people that cannot hear songs, but see them in colours, and are the only ones who can navigate the mists and come back. All that is known from the few words that they say about their home when they trade at the ports, are that there is no jewel under the sun and moons brighter that Ceann.