Hitchhiker's Guide to The Orrient

content:

NOLI HOC PUBLICARE / DO NOT PUBLISH
this is a draft only

GREETINGS

Welcome, travellers, to The Orriental States of the Eastern Lands. We are honoured to be your hosts on this island Empire. As the only civilised landmass in the Sundering Seas, it is our duty to ensure you travel across the ocean unencumbered and comfortably. Please take this parchment on your way off the wharf. Keep in mind that no magic has been used to waterproof the parchments, as per our anti-magic policies.

The Orriental States of the Eastern Lands is over two thousand years old, and its people have been around for even longer. We pride ourselves in maintaining our benevolence and generosity – in fact, both those words stem from Orriental Emperors – thus was their character! Being a proud member of the Quada Alliance, we keep close ties with our friends in the western Colonial Lands. We allow cheap passage to all travellers, near and far, between the Eastern Lands and the Colonial Lands.

The Orrient is home to people of all kinds: farmers and businessmen, adventurers and philosophers, the list goes on. The island, though small, is a world of exotic ecosystems, gorgeous mountainsides and an incredibly rich culture. This parchment shall outline the most important aspects of our Empire, but the rest is up to you to discover as you travel west (or east)!

LAY OF THE LAND

The Orriental States comprises predominantly the island of The Orrient, and the two names are often used interchangeably. However, the Empire also comprises many smaller islands and a coastal state on the western shores of the Eastern Lands. It lies smack-dab in the middle of the Sundering Seas, the treacherous ocean dividing the Eastern Lands and the Colonial Lands. The Orrient has a round, smooth coastline full of lively beaches to the north that narrows cleanly to a cliffed taper in the south.

At The Orrient’s centre rises the Ogeo Mountains, The Orriental States’ only mountain range. These mountains are the ancestral home of the illustrious Trient Deer, who scale these incredible heights with ease. A great many streams and rivers flow from these endearing mountains. There is the River Orri, from which The Orrient gets its name, that flows west through Thind Forest. It passes the town of New Thindburg along the way, and culminates in a massive estuary on the western coast. Then there are the Rivers Teal and Beryl, that branch off the same infant current and flow eastward.

To the south grows the Weedy Woods, wherein lies the city of Dusa. A great many species of thorns and weeds grow among the underbrush of the forest, hence its peculiar name.

Perhaps the most intriguing, and ‘contemporary’, piece of geography is Vice’s Desert, a sizeable swathe of sand dunes stretching between the Teal and Beryl Rivers. Home to Worm Lake and the run-down town of Twiddler’s Buck, the desert was formed by the coming of Vice the Shadow Wyrm, a notorious dragon that hailed from the far east. Its devastating flames burned away the very soil, and it took many years of strife before it was finally warded away from The Orrient. The hills and vales that Vice called his home became course and rough deserts, persisting to this very day.

The rest of the island consists of great plains and unbroken grassland, dotted with a myriad of cheerful villages. As The Orrient’s population grows, our need for farming has intensified. The fields of The Orrient have grown immensely, to the scale that farmers’ lands have joined together into a mesh of farms called the Wheat Fields. One will be hard-pressed to cross the island without passing through one such farm. They make for a great change of scenery if one grows dull of the hustle and bustle of citylife.

COLOURFUL CLIMATE

The Orrient’s weather varies very slightly over the course of the year, and for the most part the island observes only two seasons: a hot summer at the start of the year and a mild winter towards the end.

Sunny skies bless the land for many months of the year, and even on cooler days storm clouds are a rare sight. Of deep importance is the perpetual light and warmth. The farmers of the Wheat Fields depend on them to grow the crops that feed the entire island. Only among the peaks of the Ogeo Mountains and the surrounding forest will deep clouds and mist shroud the air. Here also does it snow during the winter. The snow sometimes spreads westward through Thind Forest, blanketing the trees in a soft white cover.

Rain is a common occurrence on the western side of The Orrient, as the oceanic winds rise up and collect on the slopes of the mountains. This is the rainfall that supplies all the island’s rivers with water. Very little rain leaks over eastward, and this is often said to be the reason why Vice’s Desert remains to this day, even decades after its departure.

That, however, does not mean that the eastern side is an inhospitable place; the Teal and Beryl Rivers still support a great many people, including our capital city, and those rivers are far more than enough for twice the population they already support.

OBSCENE ORIGINS

Although in the current time we are a kind and generous island, we were and still are an empire. Our origin is one that many frown upon, and many of us have fought to reverse the many blemishes of The Orrient’s history. Be happy in the knowledge that we remain this no more.

The beginning of the Empire was of feudal war. It was ruled by hundreds of splintered factions, each fighting for their own honour and glory. The Orriental Fedual Wars went on for hundreds of years, claiming thousands of lives. One faction, however, implemented a new strategy that would change the tide of battle: the conscription of the youth, which previously had been seen as a great sin (as it now does again today). This faction, our faction, doubled the size of its armies and demolished all others. And though many young men and women were lost, we finally unified the island under one banner.

The Orriental States of the Eastern Lands was born, and the first Emperor Benevelle took up the foundling throne in the year 935 After the Great War. His first Imperial decree was to dismantle the First Imperial Army, which was a big indicator of how he and the following emperors would rule. It would only be after The Orrient entered the Annihlatio Foedus, the old anti-magic pact, that the Imperial Army would return.

Our power could not be felt more than during the Durgor War. In the year 3010, Durgor promised to sell a portion of its land to The Orriental States for a sum of money. But after said payment the Kingdom refused to hand the land over, only increasing the aforementioned price. The Emperor Panitet gave the order to declare war on Durgor, and so battle began once more. Such was the brutality of the Durgorians that the Emperor was forced to bring back the conscription of youths. This triggered migrations of young men and women westward, and the formation of rebellious parties such as the infamous Christmas Killers.

It has been six years since that war ended in 3025, and after intense protests in the streets of all the island’s cities, Emperor Panitet abolished the conscription of young peoples into its Imperial Army and abdicated soon after. Rest assured, our Empire is again one of commerce and purity.

QUADA ALLIANCE

Over the first thousand years of The Orrient’s time in power, it colonised the continent that would eventually be named the Colonial Lands, and built friendships with the peoples that lived there. In the year 1820 After the Great War the fateful day came when four realms – The Orrient, The Occident, Habitica and Dilatory – signed the Quartet Declaration and formed the Quada Alliance.

The goals of this alliance are simple: make trade and commerce between the Colonial Lands and the Eastern Lands accessible and economical; provide aid to each other in the form of food or arms; and conserve the rights of all our our peoples to put a stop to opposing factions to the west and east. With this alliance, we have lived in peace and harmony for many hundreds of years hence, and continue to do so.

PRETTY PLACES

Here are the perfect locations to visit on your travels through the island!

• The Pearly Heights, three mind-bendingly tall peaks guarding the Teal River on its meandering journey to The Orrient’s capital. If you climb to the top at night, you might be able to see the lights of Bolya’s Beacon on the other side of the island.

• Trientier Cemetary, the exclusive graveyard of the last and strongest faction to resist Orriental rule during the Fuedal Wars. These people rode Trient Deer into battle, each of whom could slay many a soldier. We honour them to this day, and the cemetary acts as a reminder of how much we take for granted. What could have happened if Trientier had won the Fuedal Wars?

• The Hanging Tree of Bolya’s Beacon, the honorary oak tree. The original Hanging Tree was used to execute those accused of treason against the Empire, and was used judiciously until it was burned down by the Christmass Killers in the year 3017. The tree was replanted, and grew to be even taller than the original. It is now adorned with the largest set of swings in the Eastern Lands, and oen may also attempt to climb to its topmost branches. Legend has it that on the clearest of days, you might just be able to spot Auhert’s Beacon, the sister city of Bolya’s beacon, on the coast of The Occident.

• The great deltas of Aestudor, where the River Orri’s expansive estuary meets the sea. Its fame stems from a cave painting of the deltas not far away. Its sheer beauty and realism is challenged only by the mystery of how one could have painted something so seemingly accurate in a cave passage from which the delta could not be seen. It would have either been a lengthy process of periodically running back up the cave passage to take glances during the process, or some form of primitive magic.

• The Tinkerer’s Tavern of Twiddler’s Buck is home to the best beer of the island, although getting to town maybe a difficult task. Can you handle the flame of Dragon-scale beer?

NOLI HOC PUBLICARE / DO NOT PUBLISH
this is a draft only

This is a revised version of a story from 10 Aug 2022.