Sharitarn

The Planet Blessed by the Vortex

The Planet Cursed by the Vortex

     Xar-it-Tarn it was called in the most remote ancient tong, on Barbaric Times. Sharitarn is its name in current Merchant Language. 

     The name is a religious reference to a mythical bird of prey present in all native cultures of Sharitarn. The religious aspect of it is too distant from daily life to be taken seriously (except maybe inside initiatory secret societies). It describes visually a believe still shared by all heirs of native cultures on Sharitarn, however. That after a brief period following dead the spirit of every intelligent being is destroyed completely.       Non-talking living things will walk the lands as invisible ghosts that some necromantic spells can interact with, until they reincarnate. Talking things, people, also leave ghost behind with echoes of memories, however, those are empty echoes. The essential part, the part able to animate a new physical body in the case of non-intelligent beings, that is gone. Non-talking living beings are eternal according to the the laws of Sharitarn Universe, as the natives understand them. Talking individuals are ephemeral.


    Death is not the center of individual life on Sharitarn, but they do think about it sometimes. Usually personal immortality, or even indestructibility, is not the way most individuals choose to overcome the conscience of finitude. They do have options to achieve timeless existence, that are expensive and not available for all but do exist, and for some (mage necromancers) at least one cart that must be considered goes close to unending indestructibility. Despite that, most Sharitarnes how have access to state of the art necromantic spells will choose natural death over them.   

   Not because they think there is something morally defective about necromancy, or about undeads. Magic in general is looked at with great respect and admiration, at worse cases it is morally neutral. If there is exceptions to that they would be the Mind Ways (Mind Carver and Mind Whispers, especially this second) and perhaps Pestilence Magic, not Necromancy.  

   The transformation is expensive, and to most individuals on the planet get a endless existence at the cost of let their family financially  broken is not a good deal. However, even when money is not an issue the average fellow who grows on this planet values a different path to cope whit death.          

   Ephemerality stimulate humans to build lineages, bands, families and nations; potentially timeless elements we can understand and interact with, they say. To be part of a collective, and not be a shame for your house, is what most Sharitarns consider to be their ideal sip from the cup of eternity.  

   All things can be destroyed, but Sharitarnes do believe that some institutions made by humans will exist for ever if those who care about them remain and sharp and keep their honor. Each native of Sharitarn who has a nation wishes deeply for that nation to remain timeless, eternal. 

     "To remain in existence for all times" that is enough for most fellows, as a definition. However, may not deliver to us Earthlings the sense of volume and substance it has even for the will hunters and low castes of Sharitarn, who have no capacity to read and no interest in obtain it because they don't want what they don't need.   

     When they look to past they see the origin of their civilization 65 million years ago, the origin of their biologic specie more than 8 billion years ago, the origin of their planet more than 415.068.001.000 years ago. Common folk know those stings for fact, even if they not have the actual apprehension of the scales involved.  

     Thanks to divination spells (mastered by wild sigraxes as much as they are mastered by civilized ones) Sharitarnes do know small details about many distant events in a degree almost equivalent to their knowledge about last year. When they look future they cannot see it with spells_ because no know magic can predict the future directly_ but in their minds the natives of Sharitarn make plans that go at least as deep into the future as their magically produced knowledge goes deep into the past. 

    Those plans are open to modification, and the unpredictable influence of future involuntary immigrants is the most disconcerting element of uncertainty. One that no one can ignore or reduce.    

     

                    

The Blind Gifter 

      In the words of Archmage Altair, the Infamous, "Sharitarn is the end of the sewer".
      The Vortex always exited, it pulls matter from Parallel Universes, universes identical in Astronomic Scale, and transport it to Sharitarn. The Universes touched by the Vortex have their own laws of Physics, they are not necessarily composed by the same fundamental elements, and the contact between the mater and the laws of countless realities affects the wold of Sharitarn since it's formation.
      The Vortex has no mind to be deciphered, intimidated or bribed. It is a natural phenomenon like gravity and temperature; it is not even "blind" in literal sense, or impersonal. When we say the Vortex is blind or impersonal is like say the sound note Fa is colorless: its a metaphor. Notwithstanding, the impersonal Vortex is not blind entirely, because his entanglement to Sharitarn do affects it in a particular way, and in that regard if sees with sharp precision.

      Until live form itself on the oceans of Sharitarn no living organism was brought by the Vortex. Similarly, until the first talking race evolve no talking organism had being brought. Once live was formed the Vortex passed to bring more living things than brute matter, and the same change happened when humanity evolved on Sharitarn. The Vortex brings more living things than non-living things, and more talking things than non-talking things. It brings a large proportion of humanoids, and a among those a large proportion of humans from Parallel Universes Having met someone who was caught by the Vortex makes more likely for you to be captured by it. Have a sexual history with this individual makes even more likely. However, you must consider that in a large spectrum, that includes animals, plants, and non-living matter. That considered, the higher probability possible for a individual to be caught by the Vortex is still pretty small.
      If that happens to you, your life will be irreversible changed. 

 

SO, WHAT ABOUT YOU? 

       Since the Vortex is "the end of the Sewer" as wrote the Infamous Archmage. There is no way back from there, no door to other universes or hope to make one. You can keep the hope, in a tragic Ancient Greek way, if it suits you; always; but it will be an unrealistic one.
      What you is there for you, once you became yourself a "Bless of the Vortex"?
     The size and mass of Sharitarn are identical to those of Earth, and in most part the natural constants applicable in this Universe are the same you should be used to as an Earthling. What is not the case for all iis, there is very different places in the Multiverse in Vortex reach. All will have the same volumes and general shapes, in the same positions, but those may not be planets, stars, etc, as we know those things. Lucky for us, Sharitarn Universe is a lot like ours.
       Same stars on the sky, exactly were you would see them from the surface of Earth. The Moon do has another face however, same color and form but different feature. Few would notice it in one look, even in a clean night of ideally full moon.
      You must low your eyes from the sky to realize that is not your home planet. Not your home Universe either.
      The laws of reality here allow paths for living things produce effects that would be impossible on Earth Universe. Intelligent things can go beyond that and actively manipulate reality at will in a large number of ways. Altair named it ostensible magic in his texts, translating the barely sacred expression 'Xar' used by the locals to his mundane and far less polysemic term "magic".
      Those brought by the Vortex are know as "involuntary immigrants" (iis for short) and as one chances are that you will see yourself tested for magic potential. The capacity to learn magic is something one is born with. All intelligent species in the Multiverse are said to produce some individuals with magic potential, but it is never a large proportion of their total. Without magic potential you will never learn magic, not even be able to use the power of spells placed on objects.
      Having the potential it must be 'waked up' by specific training under the guidance of a mentor. One can awake the potential but in the same time burn the chance to develop it beyond that point, in which case you would became what the Infamous call "alchemist", someone capable to use magic in objects, repair them, mix magically active principles, but incapable to make spells. Or one can open the door of magic and became a sigrax. Possibly even advance to the next step and reach the status of Mage.
     As individuals mages have a power of tectonic scale, as a collective they are the reason why humanity as been the dominant specie on Sharitarn for the most recent 62 million years, since the foundation of the Mage's Brotherhood.
       All mages on Sharitarn are members of the Mage's Brotherhood, no matter where they live or which specie they belong to, the brotherhood is the only know institution which reaches all the globe. Not all mages are humans, but the Brotherhood controls all institutions capable to form mages.
        The creation of such Universities demands huge investments and the access to secrets beyond the reach of most archmages. To function they depend on the existence of at least a few dozen mages in the city, there is a exact number that is the same for all Universities and once that number is reached any subtraction makes impossible to form a new mage or sigrax in the institutions. Outside the Universities, and long before them, wild lineages of sigraxes pass their knowledge awaken the potential of generations after generation in direct lines of mentor and pupil. Civilized and wild sigraxes are almost equivalent in power, but civilized being unable to conduce the First Test to awake the magic potential in others enjoy the advantage of more time and energy to invest in master the larger number of spells available to them as members of a large institution connected with the Mage's Brotherhood.
        Maybe you have no magic potential, or will never develop it if you have. Then a magical sword in your hand is just a sword that never looses sharpness and can't be broken by mundane means. You will see spells exploding buildings and bringing people back to life, possibly, or you may walk Sharitarn for the rest of your life and not step in anything as extraordinary as that, depending on your luck. Despite who you are, the Mage's Brotherhood will affect your life in at least one way, even if you never realize it.
        The Brotherhood keeps humanity as the dominant specie on the planet, but that is a secondary and extra-official role the mages have been choosing to play towards most their History. The Brotherhood exists to do one single thing: enforce the Exclusion Law.
       The Exclusion Law is the one thing all mages agree upon, or at least was when the brotherhood was founded. It remains very popular among mages and non-mages, as has been always. Some divergences about interpretation are inevitable, and small nuances had large consequences over long periods of time, but the basic idea is clear enough and does not faces worth to be mentioned opposition:
       "No technology brought be the Vortex after the end of the Age of Spiders can be allowed" that was the formulation of Altair, and it delivers the message. Is not just the gadgets, the law applies to the science behind them as well. Any attempt to forge a fire pistol or lend money at interest on Sharitarn inevitably ends with the people involved burning in magical green flames appeared from no where.
        There is exceptions, areas where polluted Xar makes magic impossible. The Green Fire cannot reach those places, the divination spells of the Broterhood cannot detect violations up there either. However, even inside Xar Scars the Law of Exclusion is valid. The tolerance regarding violations is considerably higher, as long as they do not cause noticeable consequences in the rest of the planet, the mages know that all Xar Scars are healing, and will eventually disappear, so they choose patience as much as possible when dealing with the subject. Regardless, the Brotherhood is not above drastic actions when the inhabitants of a given Xar-Scar became a problem.
       As long as you respect the Exclusion Law, and don't pic fights you cannot win, there is a lot to explore on planet Sharitarn. Is a dangerous, violent, and visceral territory. Honor and friendship are far more important than law and more real than death for most natives. Cannibalism is a crime on most civilized State Cities but norm to most nomadic tribes of humans. No civilized free men steps outside his home without his sword, or equivalent personal weapon; except the mages. The apex of civilization in this Age are State Cities, there is also feudal realms, and the nomadic tribes know for the general designation of "wild people", and there is the "lawless" how are not citizens of anywhere and are said to have no honor. All these groups keep slaves, hunt and slave their enemies.
         All humans who have been here for some time surviving in freedom believe slavery to be natural. Also, all humans of Sharitarn implicitly believe human females to be natural slaves and human males to be their natural masters.               In most cases they do have some free women, and some slave men, but that is considered a matter of social necessity rater than nature. An unfortunate part of civilized life.
        Civilization, by the way,  is divided in castes. Some considered high castes and others being low castes. Only high caste citizens have influence in the political decisions on their respective nations, as a general rule. Even non-human species usually adopt that caste system in some degree after a certain number of generations, since fail in do so would make their survival harder by making their interactions with humans State Cities more difficult.

 

Meta-Commentary 

      In stories that involve parallel Universes one essential factor to define the world is the question: "what is parallel, and what is not?". Because naturally different Universes must touch each other in some aspects in order to be part of a same story.

      Do you have the same nations, technologies, languages, religions, in all Universes? The same people with the same names and maybe different professions and/or haircuts? Maybe in one Universe the characters are humans, in the next they are octopuses, and in the one after that centaur plant-people, but in all three the characters have the same name, professions, religions and fashion preferences ? Are the physical constants the same? Those questions have arbitrary answers, but once the answers are given they became the ground necessary to make everything else consistent.

       All the Universes touched by the Vortex are identical in 'Astronomic Scale' but not in any other aspect, I told you. Naturally I was laying a bit.

       The astronomic maps there must be the same of Sharitarn Universe when the Vortex touches a parallel Universe, they don't have to represent the same things. With different physical constants you may have Universes without gravity where all things move by personal feelings, where nothing is solid and all planets are actually floating drops of water, where evil is a objective thing and the stars are made of dense malignity nothing else. "Astronomically identical" to me here covers all that (I would not expect Astronomers to agree). More importantly, bellow such scale there is things in common between the universes relevant to Sharitarn.

      Biologic classifications mostly apply, no Universe have all species present in others and no specie is present in all Universes, but there is humans in many different parallel Universes. Some biologically identical to those natives of Sharitarn, and Earth. There is squirrels, dinosaurs, elves, lizard-folk, from different origins arrived in different Ages, on Sharitarn. Some borders between categories are easy others are hard to trace. Some groups care little to their identity as a community, others consider "brothers from a different universe" as family.

      Religions, languages,Geopolitical factors are not the same, but as a general rule they follow a logic similar to the biological elements. You do not have the exact same deities or rituals in different Universes, and you can have Universes with nothing remotely similar to a religion, but there is religions in diverse different Universes. Humans will speak before they write in most Universes, and they have some phonetic languages, other ideographic, others that are a mix between those tipes. We have other kinds of politic organization, never imagined on Earth, and many talking species have languages and political institutions beyond human understanding, but most days we can describe social organization in parallel Universes well without leave Aristotle's Politic.

        Where the Physic Constants allow, and Biology evolved more or less like it did on Earth, we find about the same structures and technologies time and again. Not identical, not developed in the same period or order, or velocity, but you may find televisions using electricity, locomotives moving in railroads, and nuclear submarines used for the most diverse purposes in contexts unrelated to those of Earth and Sharitarn. Similar problems, under similar contingencies, often lead to the same list of possible solutions.

       Magics do varies more than technology, is easy to find different parallel words with the same basic design of swords, and even caravels or cell-fones, but is barely impossible to find the same spells used on Sharitarn. Much less the same Magical Ways. When magic from another Universe work on Sharitarn as well as it did on the original context that is exceptional, adaptations are usually necessary.

      Naturally, characters do not have "duplicates" in other Universes. There is no other "France" or "Brazil" in the Multiverse either, only those on Earth. There is places that are "like" USA, as USA is "like" British Empire, that is "like" Roman Republic, which is "like" your favorite Egyptian Dynasty: because in something all top-predators are alike, major powers too. However, similarities in this Multiverse don't go bey that.

NO SPIDERS ALLOWED

Sharitarn has an obscene diversity of living things, and talking species. Some taking species are in the limit of the concept of "living thing" and others even far beyond that territory.

Some species are one of the kind, odd shapes brought by the Vortex once and never again. Frequently that's not the case.


Humanity is the only intelligent specie evolved naturally on planet Sharitarn, but not all humanity on Sharitarn descends from this native specie. Earthling humans are one among countless humans brought by the Vortex from other Universes, they are the most recent and the most frequent reference when the locals think about involuntary immigrants. However, humans genetically identical to us and to the natives have been brought to Sharitarn before many times.


In some cases there is differences, but they are not enough to justify the classification as other specie.


The Second Hero of Micula City was a human, but he came from a Universe where Good and Evil are part of objective world, essential laws of physics, a Universe created by actual personal and participant Deities somewhat anthropomorphic who grant powers to their worshipers and raise wars against each other. Some sacred warrior priests on that Universe are granted great powers by their patron Gods and Godless, and the Second Hero was one of those. Even on Sharitarn, where Good and Evil are no more than abstractions of some minds and no deity influenced the formation of Galaxies, this sacred man kept mental and physical attributes far beyond human possibilities, and some healing powers independent from the local Ways of magic. He was still human, despite that.


The citizens and founders of Dradinu, the State City know as Gladiatorial Wall, came from a world where all vertebrates evolved as true hermaphrodites. A small number of them suffer from a genetic disease that made them be born as either males or females, but except for those rare pariahs each Dradini is both male and female. Capable to reproduce as men or as woman, as they please. Despite that they are still classified as humans by almost all Scholars.


The forest people, race who came from the Universe tuned by the Vortex right before it transition to Earth, are a case of open debate. They age twice faster than most other human groups. They look like a mix between humans and felines, are able to digest blood and raw meat, their race is product of genetic technology developed and applied on a world where it is traditional. This people's ancestors where designed as fast infantry and rangers for their fully militarized national states. All that considered, most Scholars include them in the category of humans. Even other "models" from their planet, far more distant from the generic human, fall under the shady definition of humans.


Humans are formed, identical or not, in several Universes. That's not a special property of our specie, far from that. Squirrels, pterodactyls, snakes, literally billions of species of insects and trees, octopuses, are a few examples of non talking species brought to Sharitarn many times and from many different Universes. No specie seems to be present in all Universes through. Intelligent species follow the same principle.


The orks on West Piwag Desert are the most numerous and powerful variant of their race, but there is a million other flavors of ork spread all over Sharitarn, most smaller, less resilient and less intelligent than the ones magically imprisoned on the Piwag. Elves are as numerous and diverse as the orks, and unlike the orks they have a sense of unity and solidarity that generates an advantage for the specie. Intelligent Octopuses, actually not octopuses since they do have then or more tentacles, also has that multiple origin, they now control most the Open Sea and are a mixture of people from hundreds of Universes. Lizard people are humanoids of low intelligence who need to consume the flesh of intelligent animals to keep the cognitive capacities of talking specie, they came from many Universes as well. List could continue indefinitely.


One living form you will not find on Sharitarn, the only one actually, is the spider. After the end of the Age of Spiders all things related to spiders in nature or mere appearance became unacceptable in the eyes of native humans of Sharitarn.


Much is know and said about the Exclusion Law, regarding the technological restrictions imposed by it. "No technology arrived from the Vortex after the Age of Spiders" the law stands. Less know is the determination that also all spiders are banished. The same magic which enforces the Exclusion prevents the spread of spiders.


The treatment is not identical. In the case of technological devices the Green Flame burns them, destroying anything and anyone too close. Spiders, centauroid-spider, intelligent or not, are magically banished instead. 
Takes days instead of seconds sometimes, but they are pushed out normal Sharitarn and into a mirror dimension where they stay prisoner with others of their kind. Flags and sculptures with representations of spiders, an other objects, do attract hate and destruction and don't last for long because of that, but isn't common for the Mage's Brotherhood to directly interfere in those cases.

Another few things about Sharitarn that will not radically change your experience here, much less kill you. More likely than not you would miss those details during your first year or two as an ii. Unless you happens to be an ornithologist.   

Birds:

Flying birds are very rare on Sharitarn, they don't seem to survive well. When Sharitarnes think about birds they imagine large animals that run fast and may jump well, but do not fly.
They do not have any bird of prey on the planet. Except as mythological entity.    
There is many animals flying in the sky, but they are not birds. Lizards are the more common ones, large and small. A considerable variety of flying mammals can also be found in different regions.
The most noticeably effect of that absence of birds is that one does not hear any birds singing when we travel the wilds on Sharitarn. Flying lizards are usually silent types, and most flying mammals make sounds that don't have the melodic quality that make us call what some birds do "sing". Horrible cries, deep laments sometimes disturbingly sounds resembling manifestations of human suffering: is not rare to wake up in the night hearing those sounds, which are how some species of flying mammals communicate whit each other.
Non-intelligent life on the planet is far more diverse than it is on Earth, as consequence of the Vortex, and most species can be found only in one of few regions. Is possible that some flying mammals and lizards exist which great singers. They are not easy to find in most places, that's sure. Is not to say that you cannot find singing birds on Sharitarn, you will almost never find them in nature. Is possible that some founder family in your city has an aviary in doors with all sorts of birds from canary to immortal phoenixes, or perhaps the Headquarters of your Caste will have a dozen macaws. In any case those things are rare, ridiculously expensive, and unlikely to survive the night if you forget the cage open and they escape.     

Flying Mounts:

Talking about flying animals, the planet Sharitarn was named after a legendary animal (the 'tarn') which is a bird of prey large enough to be mounted. Never existed real tarns on the planet, and no one knows from which Parallel Universe the legend came.

As you may know tarns are the flying mounts of a elite of warriors on planet Gor. The fictional world of John Norman, main inspiration for several core elements of Sharitarn. The Planet Blessed by the Vortex started with a mix between the three pillars of Gor, ostensible magic and Parallel Universes.

However, in the days of Altair described in The Traveller there is no flying mount in the markets of Sharitarn.
Flying mounts do exist, but they are unique specimes, secret, or legendary. Some intelligent flying species do exist, but no one wild spread or numerous enough to be know by humanity beyond the it's territories.
The more famous flying people on the planet are Mibavanes. Mibavan, the Symbiont City, has some Noble Caste families which do fly. Thanks to the winged symbionts they join with; this flying lineages are few but they are ancient enough to be know by almost every native culture of Sharitarn at least as a matter for stories. Flying technology is unthinkable in the present, given the Exclusion Law and how strictly it has been enforced, but would be possible to make magical chariots and ships of some sort. Those things existed in past Ages,  'they come and go' so to speak. In recent millennia flying vehicles of any king became very rare, and the spells necessary to make them are all but entirely lost from the minds of living mages and sigraxes.

Food Habits:

Eat human meat is forbidden in most human State Cities, but not all places where that interdiction is taken seriously forbid the consume of all other intelligent species.
 In any case cannibalism is not a taboo on Sharitarn, generally speaking. Certainly not as it is on Earth in present days.
 Civilized Sharitarnes will rent rooms for, and do business with, people who are know cannibals without stop to consider the matter. Cannibals are not seemed as dangerous people who will kill and eat every person they see in the first opportunity. On the other hand, cannibals do respect the laws against eat people where those laws exist when they are on places like that; usually.
Intelligent species are not the only exotic diet on Sharitarn.
Since the species of plants and animals, and others, are so numerous and so frequently geographically isolated, is rare for two nations to eat the same things, because they hardly share more than a few sources of nutrients. Commerce do make some herbs available in places distant to the ones where they can grow, but transportation is slow and isn't cheap, and the non magical ways to conserve food don't go much beyond salt. If there is alternatives they are little more economically viable than magic itself, which is not economically viable at all. So you do will find most any food supply you can imagine on Sharitarn, if you visit the main marked of any large human city. And you can get any meal you want in the best restaurants on this same city, as long as you give enough time for them to find the ingredients and don't mind in pay the price of a house for one meal. Normal people eats local products almost exclusively. Their diet will variate wildly in the year, because the climatic variations in most regions are huge. For most involuntary immigrants from planet Earth is extremely hard to adapt to that aspect of their new reality.
While magical monsters, sword duels, non human folk and laws which promote woman slavery are very obvious issues you would not expect people to care about exchange pork, cow and chicken by giant beetles, glowing slugs and six legged rats with three tails. Surprisingly enough, for a significant number of Earthlings the culinary differences between Universes are the ones which cause more suffering. Or at least the ones that take longer to be fully accepted.