Erhia

The primary setting of web serial "Pillars of Faith", Erhia has what modern humans would consider an unnaturally short and bizarre past. Boasting a grand total of one language, natural laws that seem to subtly bend in accordance to people's will, and mathematically perfect solar and lunar cycles, the hand of artifice seems to be obvious everywhere you look. As a result of Erhia's various quirks, the circumstances that inexorably lead to Earth's bloodstained history never seemed to manifest in the right ways; Erhia has virtually never seen large-scale conflict. What minor skirmishing that ever existed was brushed aside as unfavorable compared to diplomatic avenues and cultural pressure.   Erhia boasts inordinate amounts of water. It is not able to be considered a fully pelagic planet by any means, but sea levels are high, humidity omnipresent, and cold terrain sparse. Its year is divided into two primary and four secondary seasons; the primary seasons are Summer and Autumn, and the secondary seasons are Early Summer Transitional, Late Summer Transitional, Early Autumn Transitional, and Late Autumn Transitional. Variations in weather are much less extreme and more predictable on Erhia than on Earth, and as such, people are highly sensitive to the minutiae of seasonal drift.   There are two continents located above sea level, Taikos and Taimont, of which the former is the primary location for much of the plot of Pillars of Faith. As a result of the distance between them, contact is infrequent between civilizations on the two continents, and relations strained. Taikos is oblong, bending as it stretches north so that it seemingly points toward its sibling in the east. Taimont, meanwhile, is more akin to a mini-supercontinent, containing most of the world's landmass other than Taikos. Taimont is further south than its sibling, and a large portion of it is rendered uninhabitable by humans due to the equatorial heat.   The central practice of advancement on Erhia is that of alchemy, or in essence, the study of the hidden qualities of materials and the manipulation of those qualities. Alchemists are at once chemists, physicists, mechanists, and symbologists, though the ways these professions emerge in a world where belief can ever-so-slightly change the rules around you is quite far removed from a modern Earth understanding indeed.   To read "Pillars of Faith", visit thepillarsoffaith.wordpress.com.