Onfalu - S'ard land

This land has a dangerous beauty. Not like a wild tiger or another ferocious beast. More like a mountain, the sea, or its Nuraghe. It's like it's saying "You are welcome to stay, but if you want to find your space here, you'd better work around me because I'm not moving for you"

— a visitor to Onfalu

History

In the XIV century, Sardinia was divided in 4 reigns governed by Juighes. By the end of the century, the ingenious Juighissa of Arbare, Eleonora de Arbare, had unified most of the region under her control, with the sympathy of the people, cunningly keeping at bay the attempts of stronger empires to conquer and exploit Sardinia. Thanks to a pact with the magical creatures of the region, she managed to solidify that control and start a long era of peace and freedom for the region.

The Cityscape

It's the year 2020. Sardinia has been renamed Onfalu's island, after a theory that placed it as the centre of the World. Its two main cities, Casteddu and Turri have been transformed in sustainable centres, with public transport on suspended rails and roads and palace walls reclaimed by vegetation and animals. People stroll down foothpaths through the parks that blanket all the ground level. Solar energy supplied by the solar panels that plaster most of the man-made surfaces, covers all the energetic needs.
Along the coast, smaller centres have been extended into the sea on platforms and underwater domes to take advantage of the marine current as source of energy.

by Wikimedia Commons

by Jurgen Scheeff

The wilderness

The countryside is the reign of the Janas and other magical creatures. It's luscious with a rough beauty and sizzle with magical energy. Every leaf, every drop of water moves with their own volition and it's vessel for a significative magical potential, if handled by the initiated.
The emerald sea is also deceptively welcoming and home to its own capricious entities.

Limba

During the XV century Eleonora's successors continued her work on the unification of the island and its dialects creating a standardized language named Limba

Religion

The main religion, the Marianism , is a derivation of the early Christianity that superimposed the original Paganism and ancient North African cults. The Virgin is the core figure and is venerated by both the humans and the Janas. Some forms of pure animism are still present, in particular in the areas were the presence of the Janas is stronger.

Magic

Magic has been intertwined with the life of the S'ard since before the time of Eleonora's alliance with the Janas. While the Janas' magic is instinctual and indiscernible from their religious practices, human magic uses cantos and brebus as conduits to tap from the land's energy. Traditionally, the knowledge of this art is passed in matrilinear line, but there are many notable exceptions.

by made with artbreeder.com

S'ard

The S'ard are the descendant of the ancient People of the sea who ruled the waters of the Mediterranean sea in ancient times, with intermixed North African blood. They are hospitable people but also proverbially stubborn and hot tempered. The geographical isolation made them crafty in all the ways to reduce the distance with the outside world and they are now leaders in the fields of transport and comunication technologies.

by Lois van Barle

Janas

These fairy beings, lithe and beautiful, are adept crafters. They usually spend the day inside the Domus de Janas , complex systems of chambers carved in the side of mountains and hills, weaving, baking and singing with their charming voice. During the night they exit to pray to the moon and to mingle with humans. Out of the many fairy creatures that inhabit the island, they are one of the few able to change into human form and carry halfhuman children: the Fadados