Behold!!! The Pigbat
Category: Zurvár Arèáná
On Wyrms
Wyrms resemble muscular snakes about two metres long with trilateral body symmetry. They have three nostrils on top of their heads, three eyes, three mouths (although two are vestigial) and three finger like organs at the end of their tails. They have a substantially higher level of metaphysical (psionic) potential than humans.
Making things weirder they can shape-shift at will into a humanoid form that could probably pass as human on a dark night. When they shift they start out completely hairless, with no toe or finger nails, and with fish-belly pale skin and lips. Hair (including eyebrows and eyelashes) and nails grow in at a normal rate, but their skin (including their lips) darkens rapidly based on how much UV exposure they get. A humanoid Wyrm can jump three places on the Monk Skin Tone Scale in the course of one sunny day.
Wyrms in humanoid form have no external genitals, and no secondary sexual characteristics. Their skeletons are completely different to those of humans, resulting in their movement appearing ‘wrong’ to humans. A Wyrm visiting Earth typically uses a combination of prosthetics, makeup, specialised movement training and a lot of sunscreen to blend in.
The origin of the wyrm shape-shifting ability is disputed. Most researchers consider it to have been present prior to the Cataclysm (c4,800 BCE), but a vocal minority theorise that it developed as a mutation in the post-Cataclysm environment. A further minority theory posits that it was created via genetic engineering during the wars that led up to the Cataclysm.
Conversely a number of stories and folktales that can be dated back as far as 1,300 BCE claim that shape-shifting was taught to the Wyrms by a race of “pig-bats”, although no information is provided on exactly what a pig-bat may be. It has been pointed out that the phrase “pig that is like a bat” in ancient Aɞrwɓ̥1 (a post-Cataclysm language spoken on the Northern Continent) is pronounced similarly to another phrase that can be interpreted as “dimensional exile”, although this is considered nothing more than a coincidence by most linguists and historians.
On Goatsuckers
One of the strangest known sapient species of Local Probability are the beings known as Goatsuckers or (by those who find the name undignified or unpleasant) Caprisugiformes.
The body of a goatsucker resembles a sucker from an octopus or squid’s tentacle, made of a firm, white jelly, standing about a metre tall. A tail of coarse white hair, somewhat similar in form to that of a horse, extends from one side of the body, and a flexible neck of what appears to be cartilage extends from the opposite side. On the end of the neck is a head of what appears to be bone, strongly resembling an elongated goat skull with horns and prominent teeth. A blue glow is present in the eye sockets.
Goatsuckers possess prodigious metaphysical abilities, casually performing feats of telepathy and telekinesis that would tax the abilities of even the most talented practitioners of other species. While the upper limits of their abilities are unknown there is a famous instance of a single goatsucker telekinetically demolishing a four story brick building and neatly stacking its sorted components 350 metres away in under ten seconds, while apparently expending no particular effort to do so. Performing such a task in such a short period is considered impossible for even a skilled and practiced team of non-goatsucker Metaphysicians, let alone a single practitioner.
The biology and society of the goatsuckers is little known as they typically respond to enquiries about such matters with polite but firm refusal. They are not known to eat or drink and do not seem to possess the anatomy to do either. They do not appear to breathe, although some form of passive respiration cannot be ruled out. They do not possess organs of speech, but easily communicate via telepathy or telekinetic sound production. It is unknown if they are vulnerable to any weapons, as all known attempts to harm a goatsucker have been met with the instantaneous deployment of ludicrously powerful telekinetic shields.
Goatsuckers do not appear to have gender, or even a concept of gender – although some have adopted gendered pronouns to ease interaction with gendered species. The closest they seem to come to a concept of personal names is the use of adjectives – when asked for a name a goatsucker may reply with something like ‘fearsome’, ‘maximum’, ‘intelligent’ or ‘green’. This has lead to the practice of formally referring to individuals as “The [adjective] Goatsucker”, a practice the species seems to be entirely content with.
Their home world – generally referred to simply as ‘Goatsucker’ – is an arid planet of plains, deserts and salt flats with one small, saline sea. The goatsuckers live in tunnel complexes, but the social structure – if any – of these settlements is completely unknown.
Despite their overall strangeness and frankly terrifying levels of metaphysical power the goatsuckers are seen as a benign and on occasion even helpful species. There is not a single record of hostile action from a goatsucker, and all occasions of attempted harm against them have been instantly and calmly neutralised, with no attempt at retaliation. A number of goatsuckers have joined the Metaphysicians Guild, and have served on various government and private bodies throughout Local Probability, although their reasons for doing so remain completely unknown.
A Zurvár Miscellany
A storage place for a collection of Zurvár related info posted to Reddit…
The majority of Zurvár have a genetic intolerance to alcohol (a standardised mutation of the ALDH1 gene) resulting in nausea and flu-like symptoms after consuming it, so it is generally not a part of Zurvár culture. Instead they drink prozyá, a carefully brewed combination of specific land plant and seaweed components with herbs and fruits added for flavour.
A few glasses of prozyá have a similar mental stimulant effect to a really strong black coffee, combined with a boost in physical energy, enhanced balance and reflexes and mild euphoria. A mild hangover consisting of drowsiness and slowed reflexes can be expected a few hours later, but truly epic amounts must be consumed to cause actual illness.
Prozyunstá (translatable as ‘heavy prozyá‘) is a variety of prozyá tweaked to increase euphoric and intoxicating effects. It’s generally comparable to 5% alcohol beer in effect and has a similar hangover if over consumed. Many Zurvár consider prozyunstá to be the drink of the immature and degenerate, but it’s still just as popular as regular prozyá.
Most settlements will produce their own prozyá, and claim it to be far superior to that produced by their neighbours.
The Vratoi are a race of psychic predators from an alternate universe that are the inspiration behind many of Earth’s vampire legends. They feed by stimulating fear, using the emotion as a gateway into their victims’ minds from where they drain off the brain’s artonic energy – a process that can very easily kill if overdone. It’s not entirely clear if the Vratoi need to feed on artonic energy or if they simply do it because they enjoy it – sadistic narcissism appears to be a common Vratoi personality trait.
Many reports of vampire activity – both historical and modern – can be shown to be the result of Vratoi leaning into vampire lore to make feeding more effective. There are some however that cannot be explained this way, which suggests that there are other things going on.
The Zurvár believe that the soul is made of three components, each of which has a different fate after death.
The Iris or “Spirit” is an immortal life-force that is incarnated again and again, gaining knowledge and experience with each incarnation. In between incarnations it dwells in the spirit world of Tekáda.
The Nelat or “Self” is the conscious, individual spirit of a Zurvár that is created when the Iris enters the body during pregnancy. On death the Nelat accompanies the Iris to Tekáda and lives there eternally among the Ancestors, watching over the living.
The Selár or “Shadow” is created at the moment of conception and is linked to the Zurvár’s impact on the world. After death the Selár remains in the world and gradually dissipates, finally vanishing when the last person to have known the Zurvár dies.
Existence as an Ancestor in Tekáda is said to be impossible for the living to understand, but a common metaphor is a vast beach dotted with millions of campfires. Each fire is an Iris and the Nelat that hosted that Iris in life are seated around the fire. Someone who performed great evils in life will not be allowed to sit around their fire and will have to exist in the darkness and cold outside of its light. Whether this state is permanent or whether an exiled Nelat can be redeemed is a matter of long debate with no firm answer.
Whether any of this is true is unknown, it’s simply what the Zurvár – to a greater or lesser personal extent – believe.
My multiverse is an infinite number of alternate universes arranged linearly in a sixth dimension. If you know how you can open gates between them and just step on through – although it’s best to check that conditions on the other side are conducive to your staying alive first.
There’s also a minimum ‘distance’ that gates can be opened across. Yes, there’s a universe right next door where the only difference to this one is that a leaf fell off a tree in Poland half a second earlier, but the ‘distance’ between this universe and that one is so tiny that it’s almost impossible to open a gate to it.
Happily the minimum distance is a matter of physics, so ‘almost impossible’ should really be read as ‘impossible unless something super weird happens’. Cross universe identity theft is a genuine issue – and something the Metaphysicians’ Guild tries to control – but it’s a bit risky because the number of differences between adjacently-accessible universes is high enough that any documents or information obtained in one universe cannot be 100% relied on to be identical in the other. There are still people willing to give it a go though!
In my main setting any sapient being has the potential to learn Metaphysics (psionics) because the necessary energetic structures are what makes consciousness possible.
Whether they’ll be any good at it is another question entirely!
‘Magic’ in my main setting is actually psionics, or ‘psychic powers’. There is a genetic component to it in that some people have a natural talent for it, and that talent tends to be inheritable, but almost everyone can learn a few bits and pieces.
I think of it like playing the piano. Pretty much everyone can learn to play the piano adequately if they put the time and effort in, but some people have a gift that makes it much easier. And there are people who don’t have any such gift but can play brilliantly because they’re willing to put in a huge amount of practice and effort. And finally there’s a small amount of people who simply lack the coordination to ever do anything more than slowly pick out ‘my father’s socks’ with a single finger.
My setting is actually a multiverse that includes modern Earth (one of things ‘metaphysics’ – which is to say psionics – allows is opening gates between alternate universes). Worlds are defined as metaphysically-aware and non-metaphysically-aware based on whether they’ve uncovered the the science of psionics.
On aware worlds everyone can use psionics as long as they’re willing to put the time and effort of learning in, and they obey the law, which tends to look down on things such as non-consensual mind reading, rewriting of memories, teleporting valuables out of bank vaults and telekinetically throwing cars around. The fact that so much ‘fun’ stuff (for a certain value of ‘fun’) is illegal means that most people learn the basics of shielding their minds from intrusion and leave it at that – throwing cars (or even cardboard boxes) around takes a lot of practice and effort and simply isn’t worth it for most people.
On non-aware worlds (like Earth) most people are unaware that such things are even possible outside of comic books and History Channel documentaries. This of course means that people who do somehow figure it out have massive potential to be complete assholes to everyone around them.
A statement of shock or amazement among the Zurvár is minak sâ, which literally means “false/mistaken star”. As a seagoing people the stars are extremely important for navigation, and mistaking one star for another (or some other light for a star) can be extremely dangerous.
An expression of annoyance or anger is išká or išká ná which literally means “shark”. Išká by itself is considered fairly mild – few would bat an eyelid at a child saying it. Adding the intensifier ná transforms it into the equivalent of “fucking hell!” so should not be used in polite company.
The history of the Metaphysicians Guild is a bit complex, but on the basic level it’s creation was spurred by a group of occultists in Victorian London figuring out how to travel between universes and then screwing up badly enough to draw the attention of a more advanced culture (the Wyrms) who were already debating about setting up a body to try and protect non-metaphysically aware societies from paranatural threats.
The Guild was officially founded in 1908, and is based on an alternate Earth named Metaphysica (many of the Victorian occultists were foundation members and they weren’t very creative with names). It monitors around a dozen alternative Earths, but tends to have a bit of a focus (arguably an unfair one) on our own Earth (Earth-000001) since that’s where so many of the original members came from.
The de facto HQ of the Guild is the city of De Chirico on Metaphysica, which occupies the same spatial coordinates as Paris, France.
Over the years the Smithsonian has collected various artifacts too metaphysically active to be put on display. Most of these are merely inconvenient – like the pair of Abraham Lincoln’s shoes that shuffle around on their own at night – but some are actively dangerous. The Smithsonian stores all of them in a secure warehouse in Wesley Heights.
The Adams tunnel complex is a maze-like series of drainage and utility tunnels connected to the Potomac river and the old Washington City Canal. There are high levels of revenant activity, some of it actively hostile, and at least one gate which periodically opens to let creatures best described as ‘zombies’ through from a currently unidentified parallel universe. These beings are fast moving and violently hostile, happily they show no signs of intelligence and fear sunlight to the extent of never venturing above ground – even at night – and their condition is non-contagious.
The existence of the creatures was actually discovered by the United States Government during security crackdowns after the events of September 11. The Department of Homeland Security sealed up most access points to the tunnels and maintains armed patrols to keep the numbers of creatures down. The Guild monitors these but lets them get on with it – largely because it means Guild resources don’t have to be spent doing the same thing.
So you’re driving through rural North Dakota. You’ve been on the road for a couple of hours and you’re getting tired, but there’s a town about 20 miles down the road where you can pull over, get a coffee and stretch your legs, so you keep on driving. And driving. And driving. By now you absolutely should have reached the town, but there’s no sign of it. You grab your cell phone to check the map but there’s no signal. You pull over and get out of the car. The road stretches on straight in front of you and behind you – straight as a line – and to either side there’s flat, empty prairie with no fields, no farms, no nothing. You get back into the car and keep on driving. Maybe you even turn around and try to get back to that farm you passed half an hour ago. But you can’t find it. No matter how long you drive for there’s just the dead-straight, empty road and the Endless Prairie. Eventually you run out of gas. Do you wait for help? Do you get out and walk? You have a few snacks and a bottle of cola, but what happens when they run out…
Why or how this happens isn’t understood. Some very lucky people find that the prairie gives out and they find themselves driving into a town (which is how the Guild know that the phenomena exists in the first place) but what triggers it, how it can be prevented and how people stuck in it can be rescued are all unknown. The best the Guild can do is try and stop people from entering the affected area, but two or three people are lost to it every year.
The Guild monitors a number of highly active sites in Key West, but a quirk of the categorisation system places the entire Florida Keys in Region 000001-18 (the Caribbean). It’s claimed that this is for complicated administration reasons but according to rumour it’s because the current Regional Director loves the daiquiris at the Green Parrot.
An “Achilus” is a weak spot in reality that allows stuff to drift through from alternative realities. They’re useful if you want to save energy when travelling between worlds, but less useful if there’s one in your backyard that keeps letting through wasps the size of a buick.
(The wasps immediately die because there’s not enough oxygen in our air to support them and the bodies really stink up the place).
Zurvár Arèáná has a population of sapient dolphins that seem to be pathologically incapable of taking anything seriously. Numerous studies have been made of dolphin culture, but they’re all highly contradictory because dolphins consider outrageous lies to be polite conversation.
Strap in, this is a weird ride…
Back in the dark ages of the early 1990s the student-run radio station at my local university had a weekly ‘letter request’ show called Steregoround. The idea was that people would post actual, physical letters to the station asking for songs to be played, but pretty quickly the letters became more important that the songs. People would write all kinds of weird stuff (with a song request tacked onto the end) and the hosts would read out a selection of the letters they got each week. People would comment on the letters read out on the previous week’s show, send messages to other letter writers and to the hosts, pen bizarre screeds and poetry and request the weirdest music they could think of. It was kind of like a strange cross between a podcast, pen-pals, a web forum and a subreddit, with the proviso that your posts were a crapshoot – if the hosts didn’t read out your letter this week you just shrugged and sent a new one next week.
Once I became aware that this was a thing that existed I knew I had to get involved, so I started sending my own letters full of weird, nonsensical, mystical sounding crap, loosely based around my high school experiences. Some of these got read out, and over time I started building the silly, throwaway comments and references I penned into a consistent framework centered around alternative universes and a hidden world of powerful (although still rather tongue-in-cheek and silly) psychics running things behind the scenes.
Steregoround was suddenly cancelled about a year after I started taking part, but by then I’d laid the foundations for the setting I’m still working on 30 years later.
Wyrms can shapeshift between a snake-like form and a humanoid form at will, but any time they do it they end up with brand new skin and no hair. The phrase “tattooing a Wyrm” has more or less the same meaning as “rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic”.
Zurvár Arèáná is governed – to some extent – by the Konsortèum, which is a council made up of representatives from a number of powerful ancestral Zurvár houses, members of the Metaphysician’s Guild, a number of scientific and economic advisors, and a few private investors. It was set up in the 1960s to act as a settlement authority for the world and still acts in this capacity, but has expanded its remit over the decades and now acts (or at least tries to act) as a weak, central government.
Any given settlement on Zurvár Arèáná will tend to be pro-Konsortèum, seeing the transition to government as a natural progression, or anti-Konsortèum, believing it has overstepped the bounds of its original remit.
The Konsortèum governs by issuing ‘Settlement Advisories’ which are (theoretically) binding rulings for all settlers of the world. These tend to be treated as law in pro areas but are spottily respected in anti areas based on whether the locals regard them as fair, sensible, and actually pertaining to settlement issues.
Out of the Eight Cities, Bal is regarded as the pro capital and is the location of the Konsortèum headquarters. Kalif is regarded as the most anti city, which is a bit embarrassing for the Konsortèum as it’s the largest settlement on Zurvár Arèáná and is generally regarded as the world’s cultural capital.
I haven’t got around to mapping it in any detail. but the city of Gorat Sûlbarn Hì is constructed on the rim of a submerged meteorite crater about 15km across in the middle of the ocean. The rim is broken in a number of places making the interior of the crater a gigantic harbour and the impact damage resulted in numerous hot springs, which are harnessed for geothermal power generation. There is a central peak island which is protected as a nature reserve.
In Zurvár culture it’s expected that people grow at least some of their own food. A typical house with have an extensive garden with numerous varieties of fruits, vegetables and herbs that are harvested and preserved for the use of the occupants.
Common species include…
- Dry-land rice
- A type of magosteen that is also used to produce a bright red dye
- A type of small, elongated tomato
- Pomegranates
- Mandarins and sweet lemons
- Olives that are used almost exclusively for oil
- Medlars, which are mostly used for tanning fabrics
- A variety of melons and yams
An extremely important species is the Salt Berry plant, which absorbs salt from the ground and concentrates it into hard, nut-like fruits. These can be ground up for culinary use, but it’s mostly used to clean up saline soils to make them suitable for other, less salt-tolerant plants.
Most towns will have a communal Kelp Garden where a variety of seaweed species are grown for food, materials, dyes, spices and medicines. Most Zurvár fabric is made from specialised varieties of kelp.
Research has indicated that many plants used by the Zurvár show signs of genetic engineering. It is assumed that they were obtained from other species during the Zurvár’s centuries of migration between worlds.
Zurvár Arèáná is more or less a solarpunk version of Cottesloe and Fremantle in Western Australia. Blue skies, blue ocean, sandstone and pine trees!
Timeline
This will probably not make much sense – I’m posting it here so I can reference it easily…
July 1891: Foundation of the Guild of Metaphysics (GM) by ‘Azmael’ in London, England.
February 1896: The GM succeed in opening a gate to Otherworld One. They make several trips to Otherworld One through the rest of the year.
October 1896: The GM open a gate to Neandertan. Exploration of the world commences, resulting in occasionally violent interactions with the native ‘savages’.
January 1897: The GM open a gate to Gehenna.
1897-1899: The GM open gates to many worlds. The majority are uninhabitable and not revisited.
Late 1898: The GM start work on the ‘Luxembourg Experiment’, an experimental ritual intended to harness the power of a Ley node on Neandertan. Local inhabitants are bribed, bullied and occasionaly enslaved to assist with the preparations.
March 14th 1902: The Luxembourg Experiment is enacted. The power generated proves completely uncontrollable, instantly killing all mammals larger than a dog for a radius of close to 20km and carving out a crater 600m wide. Most of the Guild survive in ‘the eye of the storm’ but their Neandertal ‘assistants’ perish.
In the wake of the disaster the Guild fragmnents into warring factions with different opinions on how – or even whether – to continue their research.
After detecting ripples from the explosion the Wyrms investigate, and begin trying to track down those responsible. The incident strengthens the position of those in the Wyrymyan Parliament arguing for the establishment of a body to protect non-metaphysically aware civilisations.
Early 1904: The factions within the GM have solidified into three ‘parties’. The First Party believes Metaphysics should remain secret knowledge, shared with only a careful, select few. The Second Party believes Metaphysics should be shared with all ‘to create a Paradise on Earth’. The Third Party believes Metaphysics should be used to take control of society and reshape it as they see fit.
December 1906: The Wyrms establish contact with the GM. It takes some time to convince the members that they are not ‘ascended masters’ or ‘higher dimensional beings’.
~1907: The first bands of Zurvár start migrating into local probability.
August 12th 1908: After lengthy negotiations the Metaphysicians Guild is founded with the support of the Wyrymyan Parliament and members from numeous local worlds. The Majority of the Guild of Metaphysics join – with the exception of the Third Party who are officially expelled. The GM ceases to operate in any serious capacity soon afterwards.
1913: The Metaphysicians Guild takes posession of Metaphysica and starts constructing campuses on the sites of major cities. The largest and defacto capital is De Chirico/Paris.
April 7th 1919: The De Chirico campus is attacked by several thousand Neandertals via gates opened by ‘Iron Drum’ shamans. Hundreds are killed on both sides over the course of 6 hours. The battle is ended when the Neandertals are driven back by the arrival of forces from several Zurvár houses, summoned by representatives who were present negotiating with the Guild for settlement rights.
Later research indicates that the lingering effects of the Luxembourg disaster resulted in an increase in Metaphysical potential among the survivors, which combined with relics left from experiment allowed the attack.
1919-1926: A series of small battles and skirmishes take place on Neandertan, mostly instigated by vengeful Guild members. No further attacks are made on Metaphysica – oral histories attribute this to only eight shamans being capable of opening gates, five of whom were killed at De Chirico.
1926: A treaty is negotiated with the Neandertals, ending the Neandertan War. Tensions remain however.
Early 1950s: The number of Zurvár travelling through local probability increases notably.
1959: An uninhabited world is ceded to the Zurvár, being christened Zurvár Areana.
Ten Things to know about Zurvár Arèáná
1: Zurvár Arèáná is one of an uncountable number of alternative Earths (although it’s just as accurate to say that Earth is one of an uncountable number of alternative Zurvár Arèánás). It is a world of island chains with over 95% ocean and no landmasses larger than Great Britain.
2: The Zurvár people are a human species of unknown ultimate origin who traveled between alternate worlds for centuries before settling on Zurvár Arèáná from the 1960s onward. They have a number of minor physiological differences to Earth humans but the species are genetically compatible.
3: The world is loosely governed by the Konsâtèum – an organisation of powerful Zurvár houses and other interested groups established as a settlement authority. Many Zurvár consider the Konsâtèum to be overstepping its mandate by taking on a governing role.
4: Also inhabiting the world are a number of pods of dolphins and small whales from Otherworld One (another alternate Earth) who petitioned for environmental asylum in the 1970s. They officially have their own government, but it might be a fiction to ease relations with the Zurvár, or might be some kind of elaborate joke.
5: The world has eight cities ranging in population from 690,000 (Gorat Bárkalif Ganalû) down to 24,000 (Gorat Mantábon Dìaz). Outside of the cities the population live in towns and villages, none with a population much greater than 2,000. The total Zurvár population of the world is estimated at 18 million as of 2020.
6: Long distance travel across the planet is by matter transmission – a technology so much more advanced than the rest of the Zurvár technological base that it assumed to have been acquired from some other civilisation during the Zurvár peoples’ travels. Those who prefer not to be converted into energy and beamed between a series of transmission towers before being reassembled at the other end must take the slower option of boats or aircraft.
7: Homes, businesses and industry are powered by solar, wind, tidal and limited geothermal power generation. Zurvár battery technology is more advanced that than of Earth, allowing pretty much the entire planet to be run electrically.
8: Zurvár kidneys can handle much higher levels of salt than those of Earth humans. Visitors from Earth are advised to drink bottled water rather than relying on local supplies which may not be sufficiently desalinated for Earth human consumption.
9: Zurvár Arèáná has no native mammals, with the largest land animals being skink-like lizards no more than 25cm long. Bird and fish life is abundant. There are no known oceanic predators large enough to trouble humans, but the cetaceans claim that there are titanic predators dwelling deep below the surface. No one is sure if this is true or part of some elaborate joke.
10: The music of the Beach Boys has been wildly popular on Zurvár Arèáná since their albums were first imported in the late 1960s. As a result a highly profitable industry has grown up devoted to mimicking an idealised version of 1960s California, including the importation (and conversion to electric drive) of classic American muscle cars and, and the establishment of hamburger restaurants to drive them to. Traditionalist Zurvár are (unsurprisingly) infuriated by this.
Just a Bit of Zurvár
Gur, gur beltàdlet kert ná…
Ròmanár gur pevgetslá koro modá ibiŝan darak pevnánûglá.
Spanolár badmâ pevorklá kâ aknà iskan badrokâ itatâ.
Itlá Dîŝlan idráurn pevorestlá poro admo bárizûurn darakâ.
Garad, gur beltàdlet kert ná.
Gur, gur belt-ayed-let kairt nah.
Roman-ar gur pev-gets-lah, koh-roh moh-dah ibishan darak pev-nan-oo-glah.
Span-olar badmor pevor-klah, kor ack-nay iskan bad-rockor itah-tor.
It-lah Doysh-lan idrah-urn pevor-est-lah, poh-roh ad-moh bah-riz-or-urn dara-kor.
Garad, gur belt-ayad-let kairt nah.
WAR, WAR WILL-CHANGE-ITSELF NO !!
ROMAN-PEOPLE WAR DID-PERFORM TO PLURAL SLAVE MONEY DID-SEIZE.
SPANISH-PEOPLE EMPIRE DID-BUILD BY THEIR DESIRE TREASURE-CONCERNING LAND-CONCERNING.
HITLER GERMANY BROKEN DID-REPAIR CAUSE COUNTRY VERY-POWERFUL MONEY-CONCERNING.
DEPSITE-THIS, WAR WILL-CHANGE-ITSELF NO !!
A Few Notes on Zurvár
Put here so I can find them easily…
Traditional Zurvár belief systems don’t have the concept of an all powerful deity. The closest equivalents would be either pak vâmâkan (‘the creator’ – the ancestor being said to have created the Zurvár race) or pak rèzaq (‘the wave’ – the spiritual plane to which certain components of the Zurvár soul are said to return to await reincarnation).
When discussing deities from non-Zurvár cultures the term báèsûad – ‘being of great power’ – is generally used. The term has no implication as to whether said powers are used for good or ill however, and would be used equally to describe (for instance) the Christian God and the Christian Devil.
When referring to a specific deity, a Zurvár rendering of the deity’s name is usually improvised. Examples from Earth’s religions include,
- Báèsûad Kot, Báèsûad Cesùs, Báèsûad Gris, Báèsûad Cùhová – The Christian God
- Báèsûad Alá, Báèsûad Alûá, Báèsûad Máhumd – Allah
- Báèsûad Ašem, Báèsûad Yáwe, Báèsûad Abráem – The Judaic God
- Báèsûad Pùdá, Báèsûad Pùd – Buddha
- Báèsûad Odin, Báèsûad Tâ, Báèsûad Loqè – Norse Gods/MCU Characters
The Zurvár creation myth is based around five elements, and these permeate most factors of their culture, including their traditional calendar. In order they’re lòtò (boats), minak (stars), katálá (fish), rindû (birds) and táká (knots).
The traditional calendar (as opposed to the revised calendar used on Zurvár Arèáná) uses a week (mán) of five days named after these elements (dásûln lòtò, dásûln minak, etc). A month (kadatán) consists of five weeks (25 days), each of which is also named after the five elements, and five months (125 days) – again named after the five elements – makes up a full year (rin).
A date is traditionally written with the full title of the day, week and month, followed by whatever system of year identification the House in question uses. The fourth day of the third week of the fifth month for instance would be dásûln rindû dámán katálá dákadatán táká. Even before the adoption of the revised calendar however it was more common to simply use numbers – for instance sûln tò-rû-zadat “day four three five”.
The combination of the day and month element of a person’s birth is said to predict their character, similarly to that of horoscopes here on Earth.
The calendar used on Zurvár Arèáná has a split derived from the Gregorian BCE/CE system, but in a slightly complicated way.
The Zurvár calendar is based on the calendar used by the Metaphysicians’ Guild, which itself is based on the Gregorian calendar. The epoch however is fixed to the start of the Gregorian century in which Zurvár Arèáná was settled – the 20th – so the zero year of the Zurvár calendar is 1900 CE.
As such the current year on Zurvár Arèáná is ST0123, which breaks down as…
- ST – Indicates that the Zurvár Arèáná epoch is being used
- 01 – It’s the second century of said epoch
- 23 – It’s the 23rd year of that century
Years prior to 1900 CE are indicated with a negative century indicator. 1788 CE for instance would be -ST0288.
The century indicator is written with a minimum of two characters, but can be expanded as necessary for dates in the distant past and distant future.
The Zurvár are humans originating from a nearby parallel Earth (although not even they can pin down their actual world of origin). They’re close enough to ‘standard’ humans to interbreed but have a number of evolutionary adaptations suited to their marine focused culture.
- Most Zurvár have webbing between their toes and fingers. On the toes this extends almost to the tips, on fingers it rarely extends beyond the first knuckle.
- Zurvár skin is more resistant to sunburn and is extremely resistant to UV induced cancers. It varies in tone between III and IV on the Fitzpatrick scale, but even the lightest shades almost never burn.
- Zurvár kidneys process dissolved salts far more efficiently, to the extent that a Zurvár can drink nothing but sea water for around a week before suffering any ill effects (as such, human visitors to Zurvár Arèáná should keep in mind that municipal water supplies may require additional filtration before being safe to consume).
- The Zurvár spleen is significantly larger than that of ‘standard’ humans, providing a larger reserve of oxygenated blood. This allows the average Zurvár to easily hold their breath for several minutes without discomfort, and remain submerged and active for anywhere up to 15 minutes. With practice Zurvár free divers routinely reach depths of 200 metres while remaining submerged for up to 40 minutes.
- Around 30% of Zurvár have epicanthic folds. Debate continues over whether this is some kind of adaptation to marine environments or simply the result of genetic drift across the historically nomadic Zurvár population.
Weights and Measures
Measuring the distances between Worlds in Probability has always been problematic. As beings limited to perceiving reality in only four dimensions, direct measurement of the fifth is simply not possible. Instead proxy methods have to be deployed, the most common of which defaults to the amount of energy required to either open Gates or move matter directly between Worlds.
The best established measurement is the Wyrymyan ghəι (anglicized as “weyr“). The exact genesis of the weyr is lost to history, although it is noted it is very close to the amount of artonic energy required to directly (ie: without the use of a Gate) transport one ixh* of matter between Wyrymya and the ancient Wyrm colony World of Hfren, leading many to assume ancient travel between these two Worlds as its ultimate origin.
(* One ixh is equal to one 1728th of the weight of a cylinder of Wyrymyan sea-water with a height and radius of 12 ghi – one ghi measuring 6.875 cm. Bizarrely this works out to just over 1kg – 1.069kg to be precise.)
The traditional measurement of Probability among the Zurvár is the kâd, which is the minimum distance traversable via Gate in ancient Zurvár society. One kâd is equal to 16.8 weyr, which provides some commentary on the relative sophistication of Probatial travel in the ancient Zurvár and Wyrm cultures. The kâd has become the standard measure of Probatial distance across local Probability, with the weyr generally reserved for scientific usage.
(The Metaphysical Society of 19th century London created their own measurement of Probatial distance, the “Palmerston”. One Palmerston equals 77.4 kâd (or 1300.32 weyr), and is the distance between Earth and Neanderthan, the first World discovered by the Society. The Palmerston was abandoned shortly after contact was established with the Wyrms.)
The record for minimum Probatial distance traversable currently stands at 0.43 kâd (7.224 weyr) which was achieved at the Werinos Physics Institute in 2007. This is well above the theoretical limit of 0.14 kâd predicted by Probatial Resonance Theory. It is believed by many that the Goatsuckers have been capable of reaching this limit for centuries – if not millennia – or possibly even exceeding it, although the later would raise uncomfortable questions about their motivation in providing so much assistance in the development of an inaccurate theory.
Notes on Physics
The Probability Maxim: All possibilities are played out somewhere in Probability.
The Probability Paradox: Probability travel links universes into continua that invalidate the Probability Maxim. First noted by the Wyrm philosopher Ryzan in 720 BC.
Artonic Quantum Theory: Artonic energy can only be expended in discrete units or quanta. This limits the amount to which Probability can be fractured, thus restricting which universes can be reached from any given universe and creating multiple interlaced continua – thus preserving the Probability Maxim. Disproven when the energy value of the Artonic Quanta was shown to be beneath the minimum necessary to fracture Probability.
Meta-Probability Theory: Championed by Zurvár physicist Àeksùl this theory proposed a second dimension of Probability, creating continua inaccessible to standard Artonic Probability travel. Fell into disfavour after the death of Àeksùl in his tragic laboratory disaster.
Harmonic Probability Theory: Probability can only be fractured in discrete units, restricting what universes are accessible and creating multiple interlaced continua – thus preserving the Probability Maxim. The currently accepted solution to the Probability Paradox.
