About Avalonia And The Known World
Dispatch #2: An Overview Of Two Very Different Places On The Planet Vadu
Greetings!
Welcome to The Known World, where I post about the characters, places, and things pertaining to the world setting of the same name, which will eventually be featured in a future book to be titled The Other Side of the Sun.
TL;DR: This article looks at the geography of Avalonia and the Known World, the two major landmasses inhabited by metahumans.
Reading Time: ~ 16 Minutes
Prologue
This article is a rewrite taken from a much longer post I originally published back on 23 December 2022. It comes specifically from the 2nd Section of that post, which explored Avalonia and the Known World.
The article about the the 1st and 3rd Sections of that original post can be read here:
Today we will examine two of the 3 major landmasses to be found on the planet Vadu, namely 1) the two continents that, along with their surrounding islands, comprise an area referred to as the Known World - often called La Konatamondo - and 2) the large archipelago of Avalonia, which is located further on to the west.
(The 3rd landmass called the Other World, or La Aliamondo was briefly covered in Dispatch #1.)
The Known World vs Avalonia: A Comparison
When it comes to humankind, the Known World and Avalonia are like peas in a pod, and yet not so much.
Both places are inhabited by the very same strains of humanfolk, both tracing their origins back to a common group of colonizers, now known as the Earthborn. And yet, despite this commonality of roots, Avalonians and Known Worlders are currently leading lives that could not be more different, for reasons that have nothing to do with religion, culture, ethnic diversity, or suchlike considerations.
On the one hand, Avalonia is a highly advanced, futuristic sort of civilization, where technology is found in great abundance while its supernatural properties are quite lacking. Humans constitute 98% of Avalonia’s population but despite this fact, there is actually very little human conflict. At least on the surface, everything in Avalonia appears to reside somewhere between awesome and wonderful, though not necessarily very meaningful.
The Known World, in contrast, resides at a level of social and technological sophistication that ranges roughly between Earth’s Renaissance period to the early years of the Age of Enlightenment. While the Known World is only starting to find its way forward through the realms of technological advancement, it is awash in magical properties - at least if one knows where to look for it. Humans comprise the great majority of sapient life in the Known World, but there are plenty of indigenous metahuman species inhabiting it as well.
There is also more than enough conflict and strife to be found around La Konatamondo if one wishes to find it. Depending on where one chooses to go, life around the Known World can range anywhere from somewhat bucolic and peaceful, to quite exciting and adventurous (or perilous), to very nasty, brutish, and short. Sometimes, one can even find all these flavors within but a few leagues from one another.
To put these contrasts into simpler terms, while Avalonians have long since mastered fusion energy and are progressing towards the invention of teleportation devices, the vast majority of Known Worlders are just beginning to discover the joys and benefits of indoor plumbing, and figuring out how to create black powder weaponry reliable enough to harm one’s opponent more than oneself.
The vast majority of my stories are set within the Known World, but since Avalonia does come up occasionally, let’s go ahead and begin our tour there first.
Avalonia: A Quick Overview
The Avalon Islands, also called Avalonia or simply Avalon, are an archipelago of several dozen islands sandwiched between the Great Western Ocean and Great Middle Ocean. It is located on the planet Vadu slightly north of the equator, and approximately 1050 miles / 1690 km to the west of the Known World.
The islands, taken together, cover an area roughly the size of Maritime Southeast Asia - that is to say, the agglomeration of islands found between mainland Indochina, New Guinea and Australia that are now home to modern nations such as Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei, and the Philippines.
The original Earthborn folk settled Avalonia back before the Great Cataclysm struck the Earth, thus ending that planet’s existence as a viable place to live. No indigenous humaniform species were found to be living in Avalon at the time, and to this day only a few reside there as outlanders from the Known World. While Avalonia’s populace is predominantly human, it is nonetheless home to a very diverse array of humanity.
Avalonia’s civilization and level of technology has advanced to such a point that most Avalonians don’t even know how to use a keyboard, because their computer systems work off of voice commands and requests. They also use refrigerators without doors, clown around a lot in virtual realities, and call forth pilotless, fully self-driving hydrogen cars. Theirs is a cashless society with a very robust, advanced economy and a near-absence of poverty.
Avalonia’s capital, Avalon City, began as a smattering of drab, prefabricated houses that played host to a spaceport designed to receive incoming colonists. Centuries later, the city has long since evolved into a vast, gleaming megalopolis of around 15 million. Now home to about half of Avalonia’s population, its skyline is teeming with supertall skyscrapers laced with rail lines carrying sleek monorail trains and less hurried people-movers, all intermingling with a mixture of well manicured parkland and luscious greenbelts. Few people in Avalon City own private vehicles, but they can summon fully automated, self-driving Turfcars (ground-based sedans) or Aerocars (flying cars seating up to 8 persons) anytime on demand, in much the same way one might summon a taxicab or an Uber back.
Maglev trains and Aerobuses connect Avalon City to the rest of Avalonia, where the rest of her population resides in smaller cities and towns scattered around the rest of the Islands. These settlements can range anywhere in character from the rather benign northern city of Ashori, to the slightly inoffensive eastern conurbation of Banta, to the absolutely resplendent southwestern beach resort city of New Samui. Many of the more desirable places to live within Avalon tend to be located either along some coastline, or tucked within one of the many hidden valleys to be found across Eskava, the large, central island that from space kind of resembles an embryonic dragon.
Avalonian Governance
Avalonia is overseen by a benevolent yet slightly soft-authoritarian sort of government dominated by a single party, the Avalon Union Party or AUP, which has run Avalonia more or less singlehandedly for well over a century under slightly different names. Substantially obsessed with social engineering, the AUP tries to ensure the great majority of its residents lead a generally carefree existence, despite its sometimes bothersome nanny-state aspects. The party likes to rebrand and remarket itself every 20 or 30 years in order to become fresh and new to the next generation of its citizenry, even as most of its policies remain pretty much the same.
And so it is that, while Avalonians can readily select from thousands of brands of cereal, find thousands of toothbrushes and other toiletries available in a variety of colors and configurations, and have access to a veritable cornucopia of fashion choices ranging from mild to wild, the only viable political party to choose from in Avalonia always seems to be the AUP. Occasionally, a viable, competing political entity will defy expectations and coagulate itself into an organized opposition ready to finally take down the AUP. Whenever this occurs, one or more manufactured scandals will suddenly manifest themselves and receive plenty of publicity, followed by another election that inevitably casts the opposition back asunder to wallow about in yet another wretched bout of political self-loathing.
All of this should help the Discerning Reader to understand that while Avalonia may or may not be a great place in which to live, is not the sort of place one would want to go to seek adventure - although it could be said that a night of raucous pub crawling around some of the dodgier pubs of New Samui could present its share of challenges.
So instead, let us turn our eyes towards the Known World.
The Known World: A Brief Synopsis
Several places of the Known World named in the following section of this Dispatch will be visible on the map displayed above. You may click on the above thumbnail to view a larger version of the map.
Glosa is the continent seen in the center and upper left region of this map, while Ydo is the continent set in the lower right area.
The Kingdom of Bryn, which will be very central to our stories, lies in a valley located due southeast of the larger kingdom of Kêdix, in north central Glosa.
The Known World lounges across the planet Vadu in a span ranging between 55 degrees north and 15 degrees south latitude. About 3/4ths the size of the Eurasian landmass, it is comprised of two continents sitting slightly adjacent to one another - Ydo (pronounced ee-doh) and Glosa (glow-sah) - along with a profusion of islands of various sizes arrayed around them. All but a few areas of the Known World are inhabited by metahumans, with some areas more sparsely populated than others.
The largest city in the Known World by far is that great city of merchant lords, Nargoxa (nahr-goh-thah), an island city-state of one million residents. The vast majority of Known Worlders, however, reside in much smaller settlements, ranging from an assortment of larger cities to a plentitude of towns to a multitude of villages, hamlets and farmsteads.
During the Great Resettlement, Earthborn humans were originally placed around the Known World in areas more or less according to their ancestral geographic origin or nationality back on Earth. Despite this, human individuals were not obliged to remain within any predesignated geographic bounds or places of origin. With few exceptions, humans were always free to migrate and live wherever they could set down roots. As a result, while many of the realms of the Known World retained certain distinct geographic and/or cultural characteristics not unlike what one might find on Earth, a variety of humanfolk will often be seen living and working in nearly any given region.
Many of the realms within the Known World are also populated with one or more indigenous metahuman species, many of which have lived there for hundreds or thousands of years. Indeed, some of the Known World’s realms are led by indigenous metahuman species.
The Landmasses of the Known World
Glosa
Glosa is the western continent. It has been divvied up into dozens of realms - including the small but strategically significant Kingdom of Bryn (breen), where many stories to be told in The Other Side of the Sun will be based.
Bryn is located in one of the so-called Central Valleys of Glosa. It is a scrappy little kingdom, sandwiched between two of the continent’s great powers but also buffered by mountains and highlands that have great helped to discourage foreign incursions into Bryn.
We will definitely discuss the Kingdom of Bryn and its surrounds in much greater detail very soon. But for today, let us content ourselves with a quick look around the rest of the continent at scale.
The great kingdom of Banxa (bahn-thah) is dominant in the southern portions of Glosa, while the two powerful kingdoms of Myradon (meer-ah-dohn) and Areagon (ah-reh-ah-gon) tend to prevail over central Glosa. To the north lies the old Duryan Empire, which once completely dominated Northern Glosa but has long since disintegrated to merely become the Great Kingdom of Durya. Durya vies with Kêdix (kay-dith) and Narada (nah-rah-dah) for supremacy over northern and northwestern Glosa. Morilion (moh-rihl-ih-ohn) seeks to hold sway over northeastern Glosa, but her neighbors doggedly fight back. In the west lies Kaldorusa (kahl-doh-roos-ah) and the breakaway realm of Kolindar (koh-lihn-dahr); these two realms routinely squabble with each other and occasionally make forays into neighboring states.
Meanwhile, the great mercantile island city-state of Nargoxa (nahr-goh-thah) lies within south central Glosa, ensconced in the bay of the same name, cynically playing the various great powers off each other while carefully guarding its own dominance over the Known World’s trade affairs.
Several concentrations of indigenous humaniform species are to be found around Glosa as well, including Barakins, Manikins, Dandiprats, and especially an assortment of folk collectively known as the Dwurfolk or Dwurin, which includes distinct subgroups such as the Montodwurin, Lagodwurin, and Marodwurin.
Some metahuman folk like humankind less than others, but there is a less sapient yet very pernicious humaniform species that nearly everyone else despises and fears: The Nokuru (noh-koh-roo).
The pernicious yet grotty Nokuru generally reside within the upper reaches of several of the Known World’s vast mountain ranges and badlands, taking pleasure in sweeping down into surrounding valleys and other populated regions to raid and pillage the settlements of kinder folk, carrying off treasure as well as tasty humans and metahumans who serve as a toothsome food source and - some say - a potential breeding stock. It has been noted that the Nokuru rarely seize the Dandiprats, who appear to not be very flavorsome to these beast, while they usually prefer to slay the Dwurfolk out of hand for reasons unknown to science.
The Nokuru have already overrun more than a few areas previously occupied by other humaniforms, utterly despoiling them before moving on newer game. A very nasty, loathsome lot they are. Nobody else likes them, and for good reason.
By the way, I should tell you that humans are not the only alien metahuman species on the planet Vadu. There’s also the Xeradi, who arrived on Vadu about 1000 years ago and have yet to figure out where their home planet is, much less found a way to go home again. They now occupy the realms of Narada and Ĝefyn, where they mind their own affairs and rarely have truck with humanfolk.
Rest assured, all of these assorted metahuman species will receive further coverage in greater detail in some future Dispatches.
For now let’s talk a bit about that other continent of the Known World: Ydo.
Ydo
While I have created several interesting characters who either hail from Ydo or have their ancestral roots there, to be honest that continent’s deeper details remain very much an ongoing work in progress.
I hope to get an opportunity to eventually write stories set in and around Ydo, but for now such tales will have to wait their turn.
Having said that, here are some quick takes on what I’ve outlined for these regions so far.
Ydo is the Known World’s eastern continent.
It is sliced roughly in half by the Equator. Ydo is dominated by a triad of extant imperial realms, known collectively as the Three Empires. They are Bêwangu (bay-wahn-goo), Dakŝinraĵa (dahk-shin-rah-jah), and Niŝidoĵa (nee-shee-doh-jah). These great states possess cultural characteristics that tend to resemble those found respectively in China, India, and Japan, although they are nowhere near identical to their perceived Earthly counterparts. This is because human expats have been wandering about the Known World for centuries, more so than humans on Earth did until the late 20th century. Consequently, there has been plenty of cultural appropriation and assimilation. Yet somehow, each of these imperial realms seem to have retained much of their distinctive flavors.
In addition to these 3 great realms, there are a dozen or so other realms encompassing other diverse cultural groups to be found across Asia, the Middle East and the Pacific.
As with Glosa, Ydo has indigenous humaniform species of its own, including Aluxos (ah-looth-os), Qilins (quill-ins), and Werins (wehr-ins), the latter of which sometimes serve as slave-like indentured servants around Ydo. The Dwurinfolk are also very much present around Ydo, particularly that doughty seafaring subspecies, the Marodwurin. In sharp contrast to the more compliant Werinfolk, these Marodwurin have proven to be resilient and very unwilling to accept human subjugation. Ydo’s history has seen numerous violent Dwurin uprisings against their would-be Ydoan masters. Fortunately, over the past century relations between the Dwurfolk and Ydofolk have been much more cordial.
And yes, like Glosa, Ydo, too has had problems dealing with the depredations of those beastly Nokuru, especially in recent times.
Island Groups of Note
Finally, let us examine a few island chains around the Known World that might be worth mentioning very briefly here.
Once again, I have written some content about all of these places and I’ve created characters from some of these places, but they will still require further development before they will be presentable, all in good time.
But for today, allow me to call out a few island areas of interest:
The islands located immediately east of Glosa, namely the Ĵazyro Islands and Kadogan Islands, are populated by cultures that may bear at least a passing resemblance to those seen in Saharan Africa, the Middle East, and the Mediterranean regions of Earth.
The islands located south of Glosa and west of Ydo, the Hunbaro and Aĝio Islands, are populated by cultures somewhat similar to those found around Oceania, Papua New Guinea and parts of Indonesia.
The islands immediately south of Banxa, the Pulao Islands, are home to doughty seafarers who share cultural similarities with those found in southern and eastern Africa. They are very keen traders, as well as the inventors of the first generation of Cloudships, those marvelous sailing vessels that use the wind to carry them across the skies. Still, the four realms that make up this region frequently quarrel amongst themselves, sometimes over matters others would consider a bit trivial.
The Alako Islands, located further on to the southwest beyond the Pulao Archipelago, are populated by peoples who might culturally resemble Filipino and Malay folk. They are experienced whalers and fisherfolk who are renowned for their MacGyver-like ingenuity, improvising highly practical solutions using whatever resources might be at hand.
And lastly, there are the Floros Islands and Ariga Islands, which together share a mixture of cultures vaguely resembling certain former tropical Spanish and Portuguese colonial lands. Both island chains are notable for their flourishing expat communities of folk hailing from other parts of the Known World, while the western port city of Ariga-Urbo has an enclave of former Avalonian folk who never got around to traveling beyond the Arigas.
Epilogue
This completes our summary of the geographical aspects of the Known World, at least for now.
Rest assured I will be publishing future articles that delve deeper into many of the people, places and things we’ve discussed here today. I also have maps of the Kingdom of Bryn and Meldûn Borderlands under development; I hope to share them with you, the Distinguished Reader, in due time.
Next up will be Dispatch #3, which will look into matters pertaining to Time and Calendar. That Dispatch will include an overview of the planet Vadu’s Solar Year, a discussion of the calendars utilized within the Known World, and provide information about the days of the week, the months of the year, and the four week-long festivals that mark the changing of the seasons in the Known World.
Unitl then, safe journeys to you…
This concludes today’s Dispatch. Thanks for reading!
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Until next time, safe journeys to you and yours!
— B.E. Turpin