#jenilow

[tellurian-in-aristasia]

Jenilow is the major Arcadian city in the southern “panhandle” of that country. The city proper has a population of 821,350 (3326 est.) and boasts the historic Abileschen castle downtown. The city is laid out as though its streets form a giant wheel, with the castle at its centre. Jenilow is known for its festive procession in Maia, as well as for its textile and ceramic industries.

Jenilovian culture is distinct both from that of Upper Arcadia and from that of the surrounding nations. It has a curious technics – advanced almost to Novarian standards and yet highly Arcadian in style. It is also more Estrenne in feeling than most of Novaria (which is itself quite “Estrenne”, especially in the East of the country).

Those familiar with Jenilow say that certain pictures of Meiji era Japan are the closest Tellurian images to convey the cultural atmosphere of Jenilow. Obviously the comparison is only indicative and does not go beyond the visual impression, but it is still useful.

The current Mayor of Jenilow is Lady Maylana Rosemont. The Mayor, of course, administers the City of Jenilow and the Countess the County of Jenilow, of which the City is the County Town. Jenilow City is also the capital of the Archduchy of Jenilow, a huge “nation within a nation” that occupies most of the so-called “Jenilow peninsula” (it is not a true peninsula, of course, because it is surrounded not by water but by two non-Arcadian nations).

Jenilow Castle was originally the primary seat of the Archduchess of Jenilow – which it still is: it has long also been a triple seat of government, for it houses the council-chamber of the Countess of Jenilow and the chambers of the Mayor of Jenilow. All three dignitaries have extensive living quarters in the great building.

Castles were first built in early Imperial times. They were essentially fortified palaces, usually surrounded by large fortified enclosures. In those days the Outlander hordes still occasionally made incursions into the Eastern and Northern lands. One must also remember that certain classes of demon took on a far more physical form than has usually been the case in Telluria (the Great Demon in the Paper Peonies story is typical of this – and there were also demon armies).

The castle and its walled enclosure was a place where the puhrani (citizens) could retreat and be safe when danger threatened. Some cities were also walled for the same reason.

In later times and further west, the castle style of architecture, with turrets and other fortification-style features (in a more western style) was often adopted, for it had become a symbol of the Great Central Enclosure. On certain occasions the fortification could still provide a refuge against dark incursions, though its function was now largely symbolic.

Jenilow is 42 minutes by rail from Ladyton. The direct land-journey from Jenilow to Ladyton takes place almost entirely on Novarian soil and is not far short of a thousand miles (some suggest it may be more like 500 miles – distances are notoriously difficult to calculate between worlds). Clearly such a distance by train in such a time would be impossible anywhere in Arcadia (even including the Jenilow “peninsula” which is more technically advanced than the rest of that realm). However, the journey connects with the Royal Novarian Golden Arrow Line “super-bullet-express” which connects Southern Novaria with Ladyton and Novarayapurh.

These “super-bullet trains” are the only supersonic land-craft currently used in the Empire. Such speeds are considered unsafe for other land vehicles. The super-bullets are regarded as land-craft, although they are actually hover-trains and do not touch the ground while in operation. The “rails” are in fact force-guides rather than physical rails. At the speed they travel, the friction involved in wheeled locomotion would be unmanageable.

[tellurian-in-aristasia]

Novarya, as a concept, has always confused me a bit. The Aristasian maps will sometimes include "2020's/30s" next to it, and it seems to be implied that it's a sort of retro-scifi-future country. The Miss Wonderful comics are also set in this time period, and early generations of Aristasians seemed to believe that, somehow, there would be some sort of great revival on Telluria and the 2020's/30s would see the Eclipse come to an end and life would return to "normal", or at least that was the premise of the Miss Wonderful comics. This makes sense as eclipses are only a very brief event! Perhaps Operation Bridgehead was intended to be the start of the return to normal. An older forum post by Miss Sushuri Madonna attempts to explain Novarya, but it mostly ends up being a history and geography lesson, and doesn't really shed a whole lot of light about what the modren Novaryan is up to. Below is the copied text of that entry:

A dear friend asked me to write an account of my native Novaria as if I were writing a letter to a friend. Here is my poor attempt

If people make one mistake more important than any other about Novarya, it is the same mistake they make about the Empire as a whole - they underestimate its sheer size. I am not certain why. Perhaps it is because they have seen dinky maps with cute pictures. Perhaps it is the possibly-misleading use of the term "provinces" for the Nations.

The Nations are Provinces, but only in the sense that Britain was once a province of Rome - and not even as much as that sense, for they are not really centrally governed. Very few decisions taken at Ladyton would actually affect Quirinelle, for example.

Culverians may see the Aristasian provinces as being somewhat equivalent to States. Again, that is misleading. The equivalent of an American State in Aristasia would probably be a Duchy. The Duchy is the major administrative unit within a nation. Some are quite small, containing only a few Counties, while others are huge. The Archduchy of Jenilow, for example, while being under the Arkadyani Crown, is in many respects like a nation in its own right. Crossing the boundary from Trerayin Duchy in North-West Arkadya into Northern Jenilow is almost as much of a change as crossing the border between Dachertha Duchy, east Novaria, into Jenilow.

Probably another reason why people picture Aristasia much smaller than it is, is that even now relatively little is known about it beyond the broad outline of the nations. The fact is that that even the smaller nations are each probably as large and various as the casual observer believes the whole of Aristasia to be. Each Duchy has its own ways and customs, often its own characteristic dialect, its major cities and small towns, its farmlands and great country houses, its history and institutions.

I have mentioned Jenilow partly because it is probably the only Duchy that has become well known in its own right among Aristasians in Telluria. Jenilow, admittedly, is somewhat exceptional. It is one of the largest Duchies and the fact that it is not a nation in its own right is really more a historical accident than a reflection of its nature. Still many of the larger Duchies in other nations are not far off Jenilow in size and importance.

All things come in their season, and the time has probably not come yet to be thinking about a full description of any nation at Duchy level, but the time has come, in this pette's opinion, to move beyond the sketchy caricature-view that sees the Motherlands as a smallish place divided into a few lightly differentiated "provinces".

So back to Novarya!

Novarya is often thought of as the Southernmost of the Five Westrenne Nations. Its southernmost point is actually little more southerly than that of Kadoria, but it is the beginning of the Great Southlands and the ancient Road to Rayapurh - a world away from the Deep South Duchies of Kadoria. They are two very different kinds of South - and between them lies South Trent, which is another South again.

While Med-Novarya is sultry most of the year, the North East is dominated by the Dachertha Mountains, the largest mountain-range in the West. Parts of the Dachertha Highlands have long, snowy winters and the whole region is very different in culture and character to both the South and the Medlands.

The general character of Novarya's culture has been shaped by the Calanyatic people and their Monarchy, beginning with the great migration of 1572 (that is, about seventeen and a half centuries ago) under Viktorya the First.

This Migration had a number of causes, but the one most frequently cited was the conversion of the Rayapurhi Empress to a deeply Sucristic form of religion. I shall not try to explain all the details of this (I would probably only get it wrong) - but in the mid Second Millennium there were various movements away from the highly ritualised and also very Intellectual form of earlier ages. This was part of the adaptation of culture to the lower capacities of the later Age of Iron.

For a time the Empresses moved their court away from the Golden Temple, and some of the Fire Votaries (who were the spiritual centre of Rayapurh) felt that the Ancient Way was under threat. Some of them even left the Temple, causing panic among some sections of the population and an even more avid attachment to the chanting-cult of Sai Suanti among others.

The upshot of all this was a great journey West led by an influential section of the Fire-Maidens and a portion of the Imperial Family, including Crown Princess Viktorya, who became Viktorya the First of Novarya.

She established her capital in the south of what is now Novarya and called it Nevrayapurh, or Novarayapurh. Some saw it as the new Rayapurh, which would replace and eventually absorb, the old one as it succumbed to the errant path it had adopted.

Novarya is accepted as being the most traditional nation in the West, and it may be seen that its foundation owed much to what may be seen as a "traditionalist" movement even in Estrenne terms. Part of the impetus of this movement was to preserve the Intellectual traditions of Rayapurh against what was seen as their total overthrow by the ecstatic movement of Sai Suanti and the complete adoption of the Love Path.

In time all this settled. The Fire Altar retained its central position, the Rayapurhi Empresses moved back into the Golden Temple, the ecstatic Suanganhya movement matured into something more institutionalised and became one aspect of the new Rayapurhi culture which was fully continuous with the old Rayapurhi culture.

In fact the changes - even at their height - had never been as revolutionary as comparable changes in Telluria, but the profoundly conservative spirit of the Golden Temple had found them initially threatening. The rivalry between the New and the Old Rayapurh was soon forgotten and Nevrayapurh became an important trading city between the East and the South-West. The Novarian Queens forged good relations not only with Rayapurh but with the Triple-Palatinate of Trintitia (later to be united as the Trintitian or Trentish Nation).

The fierce Intellectuality of the Temple tradition continued to be a significant factor in the culture of the new Nation. Nevrayapurhini (as the proto-Novaryani were then called) experimented continually with both phenagulism (the psychic manipulation of matter) and moldagulism (the material manipulation of matter - or what later became known as material technics).

Novarya led the movement that was the equivalent of the Tellurian "scientific revolution" and it must be noted that it was a much longer process than the Tellurian equivalent and that it was not in the least "Revolutionary". Far from being founded on a rejection of traditional Intellectuality in favour the doctrines of empiricism and rationalism it was a continuation and development of traditional Intellectuality and an application of them to later-Iron-Age conditions. Furthermore, it was born out of a culture that was not only not Revolutionary, but was more intensely traditionalist than the surrounding Westrenne cultures - and even than its mother-culture in Rayapurh.

This is important to understand because it is very contrary to the Tellurian understanding of science and technics. Novaria is not technical despite being ultra-traditional, but because of it.

Whom did the Nevrayapurhini meet when they first entered their new land? There was a small population, mainly of farmers and fisher-folk, though naturally they had their own aristocracy. Their civilisation was not nearly as sophisticated as those of the East and they were delighted to come into contact with the learning and gentility of the "Great World". Most of their rulers were established as Countesses under the Nevrayapurhi Queens. As is considered natural in Aristasia, the native Counties were free to continue living and organising themselves as they always had without interference. They did, however, in many respects assimilate themselves to Rayapurhi, or New-Rayapurhi ways quite rapidly while in some areas the Nevrayapurhini adopted language and customs from the native people.

Nevrayapurh expanded rapidly along the banks of the Great River Thamë, which now forms much of the border between Novarya and Trent. The fertile Thamë Valley was intensively cultivated.Wharfs and docks developed which became vital to Nevrayapurhi trade with both the East and the Palatinates. Westeringsea rapidly became the main port and the commercial capital of the developing Nation, linked at first by ferries and later by several bridges to Goldhaven, its counterpart-city in the Southern Palatinate.

New Duchies were founded both up-river and back east, toward the outskirts of the Rayapurhi Empire which was now an ally and important trading partner. The vaguely L-shaped area formed by the land inside the Lower Thamë and the coast forms what is now called the Old Duchies, or sometimes New Rayapurh (a term that has as much cultural and as little political significance as New England in Culveria)

Expansion into the North beyond the Thamë Valley took place in later centuries. Expeditions into those untamed lands were sometimes equipped by the Crown and sometimes the work of powerful Raihira families and confederations with the support of Magdala trading families. The last major are to be colonised was the mountainous Dachertha region, and there the Novaryani (for they were such by then) encountered a much more integral culture with its own very contemplative spirituality. Various unclaimed regions around the Dachertha foothills were settled by Novaryani but the Dachertha culture seemed to present a barrier to further Novarian expansion.

Naturally there was no question of war among maidens. Such a thing is unheard of in the motherlands. Just as, when the earliest Calanyati opposed the changes in Rayapurh, their answer was not to fight but to leave, so, when confronted by an established culture and Ranyam, it was necessary in courtesy to stop.

However, through a process of trade, intermarriage and cultural interchange, the Dacherthi gradually became increasingly intermingled with the culture of Novarya. The University of Nevrayapurh, with its huge international prestige attracted scholars from the Dacherthi, many of whom sent their children to be educated at the Novaryani Raihiralan schools. Thus, in many of the ruling families of Dachertha, there grew up a generation that was more than half-Novaryanised and ultimately, Dachertha became one of the largest and most important Duchies of North Novarya, with a culture owing much to Nevrayapurh, but also remaining profoundly Dacherthan.

This really is only a tiny glimpse of the history of Novarya. It leaves out countless events - some as huge as the Imperial Period in which the Westrenne Empire was founded. But at least you may now have the sort of picture of Novarya that, say, a Quirinelle schoolchild might have. A great nation sweeping down from its windswept, mountainous north, through the many Duchies and cities of its broad central plains (with a Southern-Continental climate) to the huge, sub-tropical South (Novarya is much broader in the south, and South Novarya extends from the bridges that lead to the Trentish Heartland to the far-away cities of the South-East that to a Westrenne would seem as Strange and Eastern as Chen Avitsene itself.

You do not yet know Novarya, dear friend, but now at least you know of it, as an Aristasian child from some distant part of the Empire knows of it.

And that is a considerable step forward!

[tellurian-in-aristasia]

Operation Roriita At some point in early 2008, through Second Life means, a group of Aristasians discovered the lolita fashion and mused about how lolitas tended to pine for fancy old timey type aesthetics, and made a little bit of public discussion about "Operation Roriita" to use the fashion to entice girls into their world of glamour, fantasy, and pseudo pagan religion. I believe the city of Jenilow was supposed to be the center of this, a sort of Victorian Neo-Retro-Tokyo. But this is just speculation on my part, as more information about Jenilow seems to pop up out of nowhere a few months after Operation Roriita was suggested. However, once Chelouranya came around, and anime and Japan had taken its hold on the girls, the futuristic city of Novaria seems to be the place where girls wore modern lolita fashion brands. Perhaps this was from a need to legitimize the aesthetic change. “Oh no,” they might say, “this isn’t a new thing, Novaria has worn styles like this all along, and we’ve always talked about Novaria!” But this is just speculation on my part. However, nothing really came of this for another 5 years. It wasn't until Chelouranya was well on it's way to becoming a thing and anime and Japan had thoroughly replaced vintage elegance did they launch the Happy Innocent blog and start posting some articles about lolita fashion and intermingling them with their world views, which had becoming increasingly religious by that point.

I was active in the lolita community at this point (as well as before Operation Roriita was a even glimmer in their ordinator keyboard) and had noticed them popping their heads in the community from time to time, but they never really got the foothold they were expecting to have in the fashion. As they were probably very quick to find that lolitas trust no one. Certainly not people who seemed to just be roleplaying being lolitas.

Frankly, the Aristasians are lucky the lolitas didn't take much notice of them, because they would have quickly learned the meaning of the age old meme: lolitas aren't lovelies, and probably wouldn't take too kindly to a group of, then middle-aged, LARPers coopting their subculture. Wherewith, Editress Out.