#if people were going to explore they’d probably stick to the more populated area of Gotham

[factual-flittermouse]

DC confirms that the bat cave is just part of a really huge cave system, and that’s just how Batman gets around without people seeing him. Some people question how nobody else has discovered the batcave if this is true, but it /is/ Gotham - there’s a man eating pseudo crocodile and a zombie in the sewers. Would you risk it?

[random-thought-depository]

Concept: a planet in a hemisphere-asymmetrical ice age.

The way this happens is this planet has both a relatively highly tilted axis (say, 36 degrees) and a relatively elliptical orbit. Let’s also put it around a relatively bright sun (a star similar to Gamma Leporis, maybe) and give it a wide orbit and hence a long year, which will increase seasonal contrasts. At perigee, the northern hemisphere is in summer and the southern hemisphere is in winter. Conversely, at apogee, the northern hemisphere is in winter and the southern hemisphere is in summer. In both hemispheres the overall seasonal cycle is dominated by whether that hemisphere is facing toward or away from the sun (so fundamentally works like Earth’s seasons), but the eccentric orbit also creates significant planet-wide temperature changes and strongly modifies the seasons, in opposite ways in the northern and southern hemisphere. In the southern hemisphere the eccentricity of the orbit moderates seasonal temperature changes; the southern hemisphere experiences summer when the planet as a whole is coolest and winter when the planet as a whole is warmest. Thus the southern hemisphere has cool summers and warm winters and a climate that overall doesn’t change very much throughout the year. In the northern hemisphere, it’s the other way around. The northern hemisphere experiences summer when the planet as a whole is warmest and experiences winter when the planet as a whole is coolest. Thus the northern hemisphere has big seasonal temperature changes, very hot summers, and very cold winters.

From this description, you might expect the southern hemisphere to be the more habitable hemisphere. And if this planet was relatively warm (average temperature similar to present day Earth or higher), it likely would be. But this planet is cool; its average temperature is more like Earth during an ice age.

Let’s also give this planet a geography that will reinforce climate differences between hemispheres. More than half of this planet’s land is in a single massive supercontinent in the southern hemisphere. The supercontinent is irregularly shaped and has big lobes that stick up into the temperate and even tropical latitudes, but the south pole lies within it. Imagine it as a somewhat smaller version of Earth’s “world island” of Africa, Europe, and Asia, with the south pole somewhere in European Russia or western Siberia. Most of the other 40% or so of the planet’s land is the tropical latitudes and the northern temperate latitudes, mostly in four widely spaced continents that range from about the size of Australia to somewhat bigger than North America. While the south pole is inland, the north pole is in an ocean, with the nearest continental shore a few thousand kilometers to its south.

The polar and temperate regions of the northern and southern hemispheres both accumulate large amounts of snow during their winters. The northern hemisphere has a colder winter and accumulates more snow. The snow is bright and reflects lots of light, cooling the planet. But the northern hemisphere has an equally hot summer in which all that snow melts. The southern hemisphere’s cool summers allow more snow to linger until the next year, which over time leads to permanent glaciers forming.

Given time and an overall cool climate, the eventual result is much of the southern continent is covered by huge glaciers, similar to the mid-latitude glaciers of Earth’s ice ages. These glaciers reflect lots of light all year and keep themselves cool, and cold winds blow from them, cooling the areas around them. With all that water locked up in those big southern hemisphere glaciers, sea levels are low. The southern hemisphere looks a lot like Earth during the ice ages, with an overall cool and dry climate and lots of desert, glacier, and open grassland (whatever the local equivalent of grass is) and tundra.

The northern hemisphere has very harsh winters, even colder than the southern hemisphere. But it has hot summers when all the snow and sea ice melts, all the heat drives lots of evaporation from the oceans which creates lots of rain, and vegetation can thrive. Compared to the southern hemisphere, the northern hemisphere has less desert and a lot more forest. The northern hemisphere has more biomass and in terms of fertility of the land and agricultural potential is a lot more habitable!

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Some interesting biological implications:

I think there’d be likely to be a strong flora contrast between the two hemispheres. The northern temperate lands would have a lot of deciduous flora and their forests would be mostly of deciduous trees. Trees of the southern temperate zone would be mostly evergreens. The 30 N to 30 S zone would probably have similar flora types to the equivalent zone on Earth; conditions there would probably be overall fairly similar to conditions in the same zone on Earth.

The northern hemisphere, especially northern temperate lands, might have a lot of animals adapted to hibernate through the winter or dry season. Some might hibernate like bears, some might enter a sort of deep freeze suspended animation like wood frogs, some might cocoon themselves.

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Thoughts on implications for how a civilization on such a world might develop:

- Extreme northern lands might actually be more habitable than on Earth; they’d have very cold winters, but they’d have more of a potential growing season for crops.

- Inequality between northern hemisphere societies and southern hemisphere societies is likely to be enormous. The northern hemisphere is much more fertile, is likely to support much bigger populations, and hence societies in the northern hemisphere are likely to advance much faster. When a global society starts to come into being, interactions between northern hemisphere societies and southern hemisphere societies are likely to look kind of like interactions between Old World and New World and Australia/Oceania societies on Earth, with the southerners often being subjugated and/or exploited by the richer, more numerous, and more technologically advanced northerners. Even if they develop a relatively nice and globally affluent global society, it’s likely going to be dominated by northerners, just because the northern hemisphere is likely to be where most of the planet’s population lives. Land area on this planet is about evenly split between northern and southern hemispheres, but division of people between the two hemispheres might look more like it does on Earth.

- Though while we’re on that subject it’s worth pointing out that this planet’s continental configuration is a lot less conducive to early settlement by technologically primitive human-like beings. On Earth, early humans could walk to every continent except Australia and Antarctica, and Australia could be reached by relatively short island-hopping voyages. Not so on this planet! On this planet, travelling from one continent to another will require voyages across hundreds or thousands of kilometers of open ocean! Intelligent beings may stay stuck on one continent until they invent the equivalent of the sailing ships that made the European age of exploration possible! Or maybe most of this planet would end up being settled by this planet’s equivalent of Polynesians. Humans were actually pretty lucky in how accessible most of our world’s major landmasses were to people with relatively primitive technology, and if it hadn’t been so our history might have looked very different.

- Northern temperate and southern temperate crop packages are likely to be quite different (if the latter exists at all). Northern temperate crop packages will consist of plants evolved for big seasonal variations, very cold winters, and hot summers. Southern temperate crop packages will consist of plants evolved for an evenly cool climate with cool summers and more moderately cold winters. Likely plants evolved for one environment will not thrive or will not grow at all in the other. If southern and northern temperate zones both have agricultural societies, their crop packages will probably have been developed more-or-less independently. If the southern continent is settled early and after the northern continents are already inhabited, this will probably slow down development of southern societies and increase inequality between the two hemispheres. If the southern continent is settled late (equivalent of 1500s or later), this will slow down its settlement and development, and may mean even in modern times much of the southern landmass is uninhabited except for a few miners and the like. If the local people evolve on the southern landmass (or that’s where the lander from the generation ship that brought them sets down or whatever), this will hold back some of the planet’s best land being developed to its full potential and possibly decrease inequality between hemispheres but at the cost of significantly slowing down the development of the world as a whole.

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Earth would have looked a bit more like this in past eras when the eccentricity of Earth’s orbit was greater than it is now, and IIRC if Mars was a more Earth-like planet it would look a bit like this.

I’m imagining this hypothetical world as a planet, but... Gas giant planets on eccentric orbits crossing the habitable zone of their sun seems to be fairly common cosmically. Habitable moons that look kind of like the world I just described might be cosmically common.

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I don’t know if I’ll do anything with this idea, but it’s an obvious possibility that comes up imagining what sort of worlds might be out there, and I can’t remember seeing anybody else do anything with it.

[jeanjauthor]

Hello there. Please can you do a guide on how a king would live in the Medieval Era/Middle Ages? (Daily routine, hourly tasks/things they occupy themselves with each week) etc. Thanks.

Unfortunately, there's a LOT of ground to cover in that request, because the Middle Ages covers basically from 600s-1500s, and is presumed to be European, which means a gazillion kingdoms big and small. The best I can do for you is to point you at some possible times & places where there might actually a number of resources.

There isn't a lot of information on the early period stuff outside of Byzantium (Eastern Roman Empire), but you might want to look at resources covering that empire/timeframe as Romans were notorious for writing down almost everything. There may be more information floating around Charlemagne (the start of the Holy Roman Empire).

Next era could be in England, the time of Richard the Lionhearted (Richard II, his brother King John & the Magna Carta era, etc), also the Empress Maude (Empress Mathilda, mother of Richard & John) who lived in France, etc--her epitaph reads something like "Daughter of a King, Wife of a King, Mother of a King, but Never A Queen"...so you know there's going to be some history there.

Other spots that have royals that are fairly well studied: the Borgias and their influence across Mediterranean Europe, the Holy Roman Emperors of Austria, et al, all the way up through to the court of the Sun King, Louis XIV of France (admittedly more Age of Exploration than Middle Ages). With these latter timeframes, remember that a king's life gets more complicated and regimented by customs & rituals the closer you get to our most recent centuries, less complicated the further back in time you go.

For much of the above 1000-year timeframe, the daily life of kings wouldn't be that much different from the daily lives of nobles--better than peasants, with people to do your cooking, cleaning, and laundry--and if if you were lucky, you'd be able to read and write, though not always. The daily schedule would vary from place to place, time to time, and would not necessarily reflect our own mealtimes of breakfast-lunch-dinner for a start. Breakfast might be something simple like fruit, cheese, bread, or it could be pottage (porridge, a mix of grains & dried fruits, or leftover veggies & meat, etc), or it could be an actual elaborate meal, depending on the era, etc.

Daily concerns, there wouldn't be the agricultural labor expected of 90% of the population, and not so much any of the crafting labor expected of most of the population, though it's possible a king could have an interest in blacksmithing, leatherworking, even doing spinning. (Spinning was done by everyone, regardless of age or gender, though social class did have some effect.)

For absolute sure, most kings would definitely spend a few hours a day, either each day or most days a week, in combat training, weapons practice, mounted combat, and of course riding, since they could afford the horses. It is also possible some kings did their own falconry, but as rearing, training, and caring for hawks, falcons, etc, is a daily job, that would more than likely actually be the work of the king's falconer, with the king knowing enough of how to handle the bird (well, one hopes he'd know enough).

Hounds (various breeds of dogs) are depicted quite frequently in the presence of kings, so having a loyal canine companion would be a high probability (cats would be around, too, and might be favored), and while the full training and responsibility of feeding wouldn't be on the king's shoulders in all likelihood, dogs are much more likely to stick around than fly off back into the wild than, say, a hawk, so the king would have a lot more daily contact and interaction with them.

I include hounds and hawks because one of the things a king would be expected to do was to hunt. A lot of places had rules about the deer in the king's forests belonging to the king, to the appointed game wardens, to the local nobles...but hunting down feral animals was also an expected job of the nobility, so feral cattle and pigs, wild boar, those would be skills a king would train for, and would certainly have specialist warriors and huntsmen to surround him when going out on one of these hunts.

The king (or queen) would likely have petitioners arriving to speak with him. In earlier eras when travel was more difficult, these would probably be less formalized, but might still be frequent enough to require a formal royal court session (you know the one portrayed in movies, with the audience members, the petitioner being announced and brought up to the throne, etc).

Remember, however, that the earlier you go, the smaller the facilities, the less regimented-by-custom the activities, the less formal things will be--the king might hear petitioners in the solar (a room with a lot of natural light, where the royal family would hang out and do things indoors), the equivalent of sitting down in someone's living room and having a chat over coffee or tea. (Or rather, small beer, lightly alcoholic and drunk instead of water because after being brewed, it was more sterile and safe to drink, plus, calories!)

There might be specific days when the king does have royal court sessions, but again, that'll depend on timeframe, nation size, ease of travel, and overall frequency of petitioners asking to be heard...along with how close an acquaintance or how unknown they are to the king. Some would bring gifts as bribes in the hopes of getting their petition favorably handled...but this wouldn't always be guaranteed. (iirc, there's a cueniform tablet saying that a pair of sandals "in the greek style" had been brought to a king in the Middle East as a gift, and that said king had ordered them returned, though the reason why was not written down, wrong size, wrong person, wrong petition, who knows?)

The king's taxes would have to be assessed, with reports coming in and orders going out across the kingdom at certain times of year. This could be in the form of coin, crafted goods, or raw resources such as grain, lumber, ore ingots, etc. He would have to see to whatever passed for a standing army, making sure from time to time that they were being kept well-trained and well-armed--not all kings or kingdoms or eras had a standing army! But there would be a group of warriors whom the king would be able to call upon, professional or voluntary (or voluntold, as the case may be).

This is because one of the duties of a king (at least a good or reasonably competent one) would be to ensure the kingdom--ts peoples, livestock, resources, borders, etc--were kept as safe as possible from invasions, raiders, roadside banditry, random skirmishes between disgruntled nobles, possible uprisings, etc.

Another duty (presuming good or competent) would be to engage in diplomacy both within (disgruntled neighboring nobles) and without (neighboring nations, potential trade partners farther away, etc) their lands. This could involve sending diplomatic couriers with letters, or it could involve sending spies to integrate and ingratiate their way into the ranks of the persons or groups trying to be spied upon and/or influenced in certain ways.

Queen Elizabeth I of England had a very widespread network of spies and informants throughout most of her reign, and engaged in diplomacy while wielding the weapons of knowledge and influence upon her opponents--not necessarily her enemies every time, but her opponents. (Mind you, she also had a temper at times, and could make threats with the best of them, but most often she chose to try things diplomatically to start, at least from what I understand.)

One more thing to consider when it comes to Medieval Europe and the monarchy. The Church's power stretched everywhere--even after Protestantism got started!--so a monarch would be expected to bow to the religious expectations of piety, etc. They'd be expected to pray near-daily, would certainly be expected to attend masses, and would without a doubt be expected (pressured or coaxed) into giving gifts to the Church.

When King Henry VIII got pissed off at the Catholic Church (and was strapped for cash), he did an about-face to Protestantism so fast, there were monasteries and churches in England literally in the midst of upgrades and renovations that got informed all the Church lands belonged to the king now, so bugger off, but leave all the valuable silks and gold and silver behind, kthxbai! *doorslam!* That was because the Church held a lot of lands, and a lot of wealth, and the king was tired of not having all that land and wealth himself.

In earlier periods, the fear of Excommunication was strong, because Christianity was what tied disparate peoples together...gingerly and fragilely in many cases, but even if you couldn't speak each other's language, you could mumble along the Latin phrases for the prayers and services of a mass, and your unintelligible buddy over there would know and nod along and mumble them, too, hey, you do have something in common!

In later periods, when trade became quite widespread and strong, when secular interactions could hold together alliances, not just the "we're all in this together as fellow worshippers," then it became easier to break away from the Church's hold, and to not fear excommunication so much. (Shunning can be a powerful social activity regulator.) So that's something to consider: how strong is the influence of the local religion(s) in your area? The heart of Byzantium, Constantinople, had many religions working and living together for years. A lot of that was live-and-let-live in attitude. Other areas were very...fanatical...about their specific local belief systems, and so the local sovereign would be expected to go along with that, or be trampled by the zealotry of their population base.

...As you can see, there is quite a lot to consider. The daily life wouldn't always be the exact same 9-to-5 office hours, but there were certain rhythms to the day, the week, the season (life was very much seasonal in medieval times), and the passing of each year. But in many ways, there would be many similarities.

[lucalicatteart]

I am absurdly not so great at stuff like logo/symbol design since I have an unshakable sketchy disorganization inherent in everything I do (if it wasn’t evident from my handwriting, which I am trying SO hard to make it look neat ghghg), but... here’s some vaguely sloppy versions of possible symbols across the realm! I was thinking about how different organizations or groups may represent themselves and what all the different meanings behind the symbols would be and etc. Especially since flags and stuff are generally a part of worldbuilding I tend to accidentally overlook lol..  ( short explanation of above referenced groups under the read more )

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This isn’t going to be very long or detailed info about each group, since most of them I plan on having their own separate posts, but I just wanted to define them really quick since some of them I haven’t mentioned before!

The Collection Of Southern Jhevona: 

Though the Jhevona aren’t really represented by any one group in particular and tend to live in separate smaller scattered territories without many allies, The Collection is probably the closest thing to a unified alliance of Jhevona that exists. Jhevona are thought to have originated as a species from somewhere down in lower Nanyevimi, and a lot of the oldest, largest, and most powerful cities/countries/territories/etc. of them exist in that region. The Collection is basically just a group of these civilizations who formed a sort of loose alliance, usually for the sake of helping other Jhevona groups with trade or conflict. 

The relatively small size of the species, their historical conflicts with certain powerful groups of elves (thus it’s easy for a conflict with them to end up impacting your entire reputation across many different areas, etc.), and other issues specific to them (like species wide problems with premature death, disease, and infertility due to higher levels of magic expose),, means that many Jhevona groups can tend to exist in a somewhat vulnerable state. The Collection seeks to... help them with that, lol.. 

While The Collection was started by and is mostly made up of only like five primary countries/groups/etc. of Jhevona, you don’t have to be a part of the organization to still receive aid and cooperate with them and etc. They form casual alliances and help out pretty much any group of Jhevona, regardless of it they officially join the collection or not (of course excluding like, if some random jhevona group was trying to start a genocide or something that obviously most jhevona wouldn’t be okay supporting lol). Really they just exist to help promote the interests and safety of their species as a whole, whenever and wherever they can, despite how diverse and un-unified most  groups of Jhevona tend to be. 

(I also referenced some things about “multi-realm theory” and etc. in the description of their symbol in the image of above, which I won’t explain here, but for clarification on why those symbols are important to them, there’s more info on the Jhevona species and culture HERE (link))  

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The Elven Alliance:

I’ve talked about them before in a few other posts lol, but this is basically the main influential group of elves in the world. About 10,000 years ago or so, many of the most prominent elven societies at the time decided that it’d be helpful for them to all ally together and mutually aid each other (sharing resources, technology, giving money loans to smaller elven countries to help them build,  defense aid, etc.), so they formed The Alliance. Though, there were disagreements on a few big issues (notably the interpretation of the elven religion, but some other things as well), so while it was initially meant to be for ALL elves, it ended up becoming more exclusive. 

Now there’s kind of a pretty distinct cultural line between countries/groups/etc. of elves that are inside of the Elven Alliance, vs. outside of it. Any group of elves is still allowed to join the alliance at any time they want, but they have to meet certain cultural and religious standards, and must be approved by a vote of all current elven alliance nation representatives. There are about 38 countries/groups in the elven alliance at this date, though of course not all of them are the same size or have the same amount of political influence. 

Since elves are the majority population in the world, and also most of the groups within the Alliance are like.. very big very rich very powerful nations, the Elven Alliance is probably the most influential group in all of Nanyevimi, at least in terms of global politics and trade. Though of course, Nanyevimi is so scattered and isolated, it’s kind of impossible for any one group to control too much lol.. Like, they’re the most influential compared to everyone else, but everyone else usually barely has any influence at all. There are still plenty of groups down south (most elven countries are up north or near the middle of the globe) that are entirely out of reach of the elven alliance, or at least can ignore them without much consequence. However if you live in or near the primary elven territories of the world (or if you are elven, even if you live far in the south), it’s likely their activities and policies have a much bigger impact on your life. 

The Alliance is GENERALLY seen as neutral (depending on who you ask), though they do have a bad reputation in certain places due to various historical events (the fact that Fanyin is still allowed as a member of the Alliance just because they helped found it despite the government of the country being  known as like.. a conflict-hungry dictatorship that has an insane class system and 0 rights for like 70% of it’s citizens.. A group of Alliance allied scientists/mages almost killed the entire world by introducing a magic plague one time whilst trying to engineer biological warfare against a relatively small defenseless group of people over a religious conflict lmao... The primary technology that brought the Alliance to have most of it’s shared wealth and power (Iriminel crystals, which can be used to basically generate magical electricity) was later found to have been stolen from a group of Jhevona after they were murdered just because they wouldn’t agree to let a group of elves mine crystals from their lands.. you know, stuff like that..). 

There are plenty of groups within the alliance who disapprove of the past actions of other alliance members, who work to do good across the world, etc. But people usually still end up questioning their intentions. There are so many moving parts and complex dynamics within the Alliance, it’s hard for people to have a concrete opinion on it as a whole (since most of the groups within it are pretty different from each other), but needless to say, their reputation across the realm can be quite controversial.

(For more info on the elven religion, there’s a post HERE (link), which could clarify stuff like who Inaashi is and why it’s a part of the symbol of their flag )

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International Union Of Non-Allied Elves: 

Basically kind of like the Elven Alliance, except for ... made up of elves outside of the Alliance. They function very similarly to how the Collection Of Southern Jhevona operate, in the sense that they basically are just a loose collaboration of elves who ally with each other for resources and protection, and really seek to help all elves in general. Unlike the Alliance, there are no guidelines or regulations you have to meet to join, or for them to come to your aid, basically any group of elves is welcome. 

Since there are no cultural or religious guidelines to join, non-alliance elves tend to have MUCH more variety in their religious practices, general daily life, diet, technology, customs, etc. since it’s not regulated by a central power like in the case of Elven Alliance countries. Though this does mean they generally have less cohesion, less stable defense/resources, and less sense of collective unity, they still usually stick together pretty well if needed. 

Though you would think so, there actually isn’t much conflict between Alliance vs. Non-alliance elves. The only things would probably be religious disagreements (the alliance having adopted a new monotheistic version of the elven religion, while non-alliance groups still practice having many gods and are much more open to wide variations on rituals and interpretation), and also certain cultural disagreements (elven cultures in general tend to focus a lot on glorifying their own history, proud of the advancements of ancient elves and etc. etc. So BOTH groups want historical artifacts, ancient religious texts, etc.  But since the Alliance is the more powerful group of elves, they basically kind of get to hoard all of that stuff. Non-alliance elves end up weirdly distanced from their own culture and lacking any meaningful connection with their history (despite desiring it), since Alliance elves have kind of taken control as the One Single Authority On All Things Elven and basically own nearly all historical records and information on the elven species. Which of course non-alliance groups aren’t always happy about, especially since some of them are not keen to just trust whatever historical ‘facts’ the Alliance puts out there when they’d rather just have access to the records or other resources that would allow them to explore the information for themselves). 

But other than those two things, relations between The Alliance and non-alliance groups like the Union really aren’t too strained (of course this depends on the group). The Alliance generally also wants to support elves just because they’re elves, and at the end of the day they want to help the success of their own species, so they rarely mistreat non-alliance groups, and if anything usually are overly welcoming to them, since they aim for all groups of elves to eventually join the alliance as well, and don’t want to scare potential members off lol. They’re actually known for reaching out to non-alliance groups, giving them gifts, offering them aid (mostly with no strings attached), but of course this is met with mixed reception, and sometimes suspicion. 

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(also, random note: none of these names are like.. actually what they’re called in the species’ native language. I’m writing in english so I’m just giving them easy to remember English names but, they’d all have their own actual names for themselves. 

Like for example “The Elven Alliance” in the actual elven language would just be “The Alliance” referred to as “Ane Kiivastye” or just “Kiivastye”. ‘Ane’ meaning ‘Those/they/a group of people’, ‘kii’ being a prefix to mean ‘inside/within’, and ‘Vastye’ meaning something along the lines of ‘grace/good faith/favor’. So basically ‘Those who are in grace’, implying ‘Those who have good favor with the gods’ , since one of the main reasons for the split was religious disagreement. Likewise, anyone outside of the alliance would be natively called something like ‘Ane Nekiivastye’, or ‘those who are outside of grace/those who do not hold good favor with the gods’. 

So basically all the names would be different in the actual languages of the people I’m referring to, but I’m just using these since it’s much easier to remember and reference lol)

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Nanyevimi Global Representatives: 

Like mentioned before, the entire world in general is VERY scattered, mostly made up of small isolated groups that kind of just mind their business. Most people just stay within their own territories and generally there isn’t a lot of global cohesion, for a lot of different reasons. But, groups like the Nanyevimi Global Representatives are some of the few that actually seek to better unite the realm.

It’s kind of just an alliance of a few different governments from various places worldwide, who seek to do things like: maintain trading routes that span the entire world, construct global areas where many different people can come together and trade/communicate, provide ease of access for those who seek to travel (like keeping international roads safe, giving out language learning resources and compiling info on local cultures, etc.), promote conflict resolution/peace and easy communication between various disconnected groups in the realm, sharing of technology and resources worldwide,  etc.  This is also the group that sets standards for/manages both Global Learning Centers and Global cities/areas in general. 

Despite being able to accomplish a lot in the realm (even introducing one or two cohesive trade routes is a miracle, considering how isolated everything tends to be), The Representatives still really don’t have that much power. The governments that make up the group, while extremely varied (from all different species, areas of the world, etc.), really aren’t big political powers or anything. The group doesn’t have much wealth or influence, but simply gets by on being able to communicate goals and collaborate with others effectively. All of their projects are basically just people working together for their own benefit of their own will. 

Like instead of coming into an area with an army and being like “Hey, we’re making a trade route here, you idiots” and paying off/threatening a bunch of locals to let them do it.. It’d be more like, a handful of various diplomats show up and have a long talk with the locals about if they’d want a road through their territory, if so what it would look like, what area they’d be comfortable with it passing through, them explaining to the group what benefits they could see from it and how it could help them access more resources, etc. then all cooperatively working together to build it if enough people decide they’d like to, no use of force or monetary incentive required.  

So they have a good bit of connections all across the realm and are very skilled at reaching out to groups and communicating in a peaceful and understandable way, but they’re not necessarily the most influential group around. Though, they are the only organization that’s even been attempting stuff like this, and the fact that they’ve been able to make the progress that they have (introducing  multiple global areas and learning centers, maintaining a few patches of neutral and safe trade routes, etc.) is considered by some to be impressive. 

( Information on what a global learning center is HERE (link), and information on the state of the world as a whole/what global areas are HERE (link). ) 

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Council Of Navyete:

This is the primary government of Navyete, the homeland of the Avirre’thel/vampires and where most of the members of that species live. I obviously plan on making a separate post about this sometime soon, so I don’t need to explain much lol.. Also just... the council system is really complicated and it’s going to be extremely long whenever I do explain it ghgjhgj.... But it’s basically just the main group of people who exist to make certain final decisions on law and policy and help with the functioning of Navyete. 

There can be 600 - 800 council members at a time, who all specialize in particular areas, and also don’t have that much power. They exist more as a mediating group who can help other groups communicate with each other, represent their people when meeting with outside governments, resolve conflicts between groups who can’t resolve it on their own, aid in the ease of distributing resources, etc. They don’t necessarily rule anything, as much as they just help manage the whims of the country and try to keep things running smoothly.  

Ultimately the people hold a majority of the power (most actual decisions are made on a local level by smaller councils of the citizens who live in a particular area, or other affiliated groups (like if people do labor, they collectively own their workplace and make decisions and rules about it, generally having nothing to do with involvement from the higher council, etc.)) , The Council just kind of helps aid the citizens rule their own country, providing a bit of extra cohesion and organization so it’s easier for all these smaller governing groups to communicate between each other and do things collectively as a nation. 

Despite their somewhat minor role in terms of actually controlling Navyete, since they do represent the entire country (like at meetings with foreign governments and etc.) and also because of the circumstances and purpose under which they were originally founded, the Council still is kind of seen as a symbol of Navyete and of the Avirre’thel as a whole, and are often interpreted as very significant. A version of the flag of the council is also the flag of the country (which is also often used to represent their entire species), and the people of Navyete are culturally generally proud of the progress their species/ country has made since their rocky beginnings, so they also see the Council as a positive representation of themselves, and kind of allow it to take on the symbolic meaning that it has.  

(for more information on the Avirre’thel to understand some of the symbol meanings referenced in the flag thing , their info directory is HERE (link)) 

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And that’s pretty much everything lol.. Of course there are a lot more groups in the realm that would have their own info and flags and etc., but I just focused on a few that I already knew a bit about lol. Sorry my writing on the flag images is probably like.. barely legible.. hopefully the information is still clear enough ggh

[afrojonathan]

Day 23: Fes, Morocco

I hit ~28,000 steps today, so I’m sounding the big day alarm! 🚨 

The almost comically hospitable folks there made me a breakfast fit for 3 or 4 people (see pics below). I felt terrible about how much was going to be wasted, as without asking they kept bringing more things! The reviews online said they have a great breakfast, and they’ve obviously leaned into this in an unnecessary degree. I asked what they’d do with the excess food, and they just kept reiterating that I had a long day in the medina and not to worry. They were right about the first part.

Into the medina donning my trusty keffiyeh (scarf, but if you don’t know that by now, I can’t help you - I’ve mentioned this oh so many times), which again allows you to be more relaxed, as mopeds are darting around everywhere, like in Marrakech. I ambled around the medina for a while, eventually winding my way to the Chouara Tanneries. This area of the medina was much more sketchy, as it’s less populated and has people trying to funnel you onto their terraces (so they say) to see the tanneries below. I eventually followed a man who took me through a very maze-like store and to a patio overlooking the tanneries below. I absolutely never would have found this, so I was happy to hand over 10 dirham ($1) for the help.

On the way out to the terrace, someone hands you mint to sniff on/stick up your nose, as the smells can be intense. I wanted to have the full sensations, and frankly, the smell wasn’t that bad. I mean, it was rough, but it wasn’t a choking stench as I expected. In the pictures below, you can see the pigments they use in the different vats - things like cow urine, cow blood, pigeon poop, etc. The men working there have a terrible job. They spend all day in the vats, dunking and then pulling the wet/heavy pelts all day in these awful-smelling (and awful for you) dyes. I saw the very stained hands of some of the folks up close, and knew that couldn’t be good. I only saw one gentleman with boots, the rest were barefoot. I once had the 8th worst job in the world (hazardous waste manager), but this absolutely has to crack the top 5.

The way out is certainly as sketchy as the way in, but I quickly moved along and got to a more populated area of the medina. It’s always so funny to just keep taking turns in the medina and eventually finding something familiar - it happens a lot. Sometimes it’s even just running into the same annoyingly aggressive people, which is not ideal. Off to a nearby medersa, which is an old university. I ended up relaxing on a bench in the shade for a moment, and a Spanish tour guide asked if I was Moroccan (keffiyeh helping me blend in!) We spoke in Spanish or English for 5 minutes until her group was ready to go. It was a fun little encounter. I explored the rest of the medersa, finding a quiet corner of it and having one of those moments where I was so profoundly grateful for this trip (I think it was just so rare to have a quiet moment out in Morocco that I was struck by it). I looked in many of the student’s rooms (I presume), and man were they small. If there was any sort of housing lottery like there was at BC, there wasn’t much to win or lose. Some did have small windows, however. Looking out of one of them, I thought about how this view is probably the exact same as the inhabitant here way back when (minus the satellite dishes on the roofs).

Content to wander through the medina for a while, I found myself wander right through the gates of Morocco’s second-oldest mosque (al-Qarawiyyin, built in 857) and oldest still functioning library. Probably because of the keffiyeh, dress (in somewhat of the local garb) and my tanned skin, no one at the gate or in the entrance area said anything. A few steps in, I saw everyone was barefoot, and it clicked. I was not supposed to be here. The 10 seconds I saw, this was an incredibly immaculate place, the best I’ve seen in Morocco (you can see a bit of the ornate outside in a photo below). I backed out quickly, pretended to know what I was doing, and confidently and quickly strode away from the mosque. That definitely could have gone worse. 

Right after, a local told me I could see inside from above, and took me through his house to a terrace. I could not, indeed, see inside, just see the mosque’s roof and minaret. He tried to get me to have tea in this house and sell me leather goods, but realizing I was slightly “friendly mugged”, I gave him 10 dirham and forced my way back down and out.

A bit shellshocked about that whole mosque entry experience, I sat down for a quick kebab with a very nosey bee (much to the delight of a child across the street who watched me incessantly shooing this thing). Feeling a bit rested, I was ready for more.

While walking around, I found a donkey carrying some wares, and I said “hola burro” (as when traveling, I greet every animal in Spanish no matter where I am), and I took a picture of him. The donkey’s owner yelled at me “no pictures!”, which didn’t matter because I already took it. Then the donkey sneezed on me. It was dry, so all good. A few moments later, I helped an old man push a cart up a steep incline, while he vigorously thanked me in French. I’m part of the fabric of this community now! And then not long after another gentleman rolled over my foot with his cart. It didn’t hurt, but he didn’t seem to care.

I picked up a lot of those 28,000 steps heading up through the Blue Gate (which I saw last night too) en route to the Palais El Glaoui. I was now in another non-populated part of the medina, but on the opposite side of the tanneries. I passed by some unsavory streets and found myself entering the palace and paying the caretaker who lives and paints there. I did a quick tour, feeling overheated, and stayed mostly in the shade. I admired his paintings, and even thought about buying one (my luggage, however, is already STUFFED). He’s somewhat of a local celebrity, so it was cool to meet him ever so briefly.

I thought about heading home to rest, but saw that the Jnan Sbil Garden was kind of close. I walked along the Royal Palace walls, unsure if it was OK to take pictures under the watchful eyes of the guards, so I opted not to. I went into the garden, strolled around a bit, but definitely didn’t enjoy it as much as I would have liked. I needed water and some relaxation time.

I headed back to the riad, did some work and relaxed in the air conditioning for about an hour. Feeling rejuvinated, I headed back to the medina, to see if I could get into the library part of the mosque I errantly entered. The guard said I couldn’t enter, I think just because he didn’t want to let me. So, I wandered some more, got a street sandwich at the same place as the night before (when I walked by the stand earlier in the day I said I’d be back, so, wanted to be a man of my word and show white people aren’t always liars). Incredible food for $1. I took a few photos of my favorite side streets, but realized they needed to be taken in the day, so I made a mental note to return early in the morning.

With that, I was off the riad and off to bed. I earned this sleep.