Yarrun's Non-Sequential Notebook

Yarrun XIX

Trying to force myself to get back into writing stuff. Feel free to bump the thread at any time.

Yarrun XIX

He stood a couple of inches shorter than Hector, balanced on his rear claws. His suit looked like it used to be very nice-looking, before it was ripped and repaired with rags. He looked at Hector with an appraiser's eye before extending a paw.

"Florence. I'm the liaison for the Pit Master, as you may have guessed." 

Yarrun XIX

The sun filtered down through the leaves onto the surface of the river. Spots of light bobbed up and down as a boat lazily drifted downstream. Guy let a paw cut through the river's surface, wishing that there was some salmon to catch. 

"Can you hear the birds chirping, Guy?" said the Senior Ombudsman, their voice emerging from the receiver. "I can hear them, and there's no yelling shopkeeper or squeaky wagon wheel to keep me from hearing them. It's so...pleasant." Guy growled appreciatively. At least someone was enjoying this.

Yarrun XIX

Pit stops were created by Pittacus, an Imperial official who oversaw supply trains during the Great Crusade. Unlike their modern counterparts, the early pit stops were limited in that they only provided services to army personnel, and those services were themselves limited to what was necessary for a supply train to move as quickly as possible (a forge to replace thrown horseshoes, stables to replace horses who died during transit, etc.)

After the end of the war, the pit stops became less of a priority, and they were eventually sold to a group of merchants who went about privatizing them. Specifically, they advertised to noble families that they could store their horses there for their riders to use, allowing them switch out their tired steeds for fresh ones and thereby decreasing the time of their journey. At the same time, they began to provide services to the average traveler that were formerly limited to the government. As time went on, more stops were created by other merchants, and more and more merchants began to gather at these stops to provide services.

Today, pit stops are now commonly referred to as pit towns, as the population of a pit stop can now range from a hundred to five hundred people. While the towns still revolve around providing services to travelers, there's now a secondary population of builders, farmers, lawyers and other professions based around providing services to those who provide services to said travelers. The descendants of the original owners still have sole control over the nobility services, a fact that makes them the nobility of the pit towns. 

Pit towns have a unique place in the cultures of the northern continent. They appear often in the stories of bards as the first location an adventurer stops at after leaving his home, a place where action (both noble and illicit) can be found. They also appear in the end of a story, as many adventurers decide to retire in such places, usually by getting a job as the local guard. In addition, as pit towns are usually out of the purview of local governments (by virtue of being a day or two of expedited travel from the nearest governing body), they're seen as a place of neutrality, and a number of treaties have been signed there. 

One-Winged Eagle

As before, so again: neat.

Yarrun XIX

The natural elements are as such: air, water, earth, wood, metal. They are not technically elements in the classical sense. Even the most orthodox of scholars admit that there are forms of matter that don't fall under the purview of the five. Fire, for one thing. Hair and fur (flesh is usually put under the purview of earth, despite lacking the typical properties). Mushrooms. The newly discovered plastic and rubber. Anything processed from trees, really, to the annoyance of the wood - aligned

Yarrun XIX

The natural elements are not so much elements of nature as they are...elements of how a person can control nature. Each person is born with traces of elemental power within them, corresponding to each of the five elements. One can increase their connection to an element through interacting with said element. Once the level gets high enough, boom, elemental powers, usually starting with telekinesis.

Yarrun XIX

The magic universities (or covens, as they're referred to by regular universities who don't care for the semantic overlap) scour the fields and streets looking for those with natural talent for magic. They usually hold a contest consisting of various magical challenges, along with some intelligence tests. If you have some skill and some intelligence, or just a lot of intelligence, you're selected for a scholarship (those with just a lot of skill tend to go to the camps, but that's a story for another time). While it's possible to become a mage without training, it's difficult to do so while farming or running a shop or doing what you need to do to survive. The covens provide a place for people to foster their skills in safety, while getting an education of sorts.

Yarrun XIX

30% of those involved in the covens or the magic ministry (essentially a public interest group, for wizards) do not have more than the average magical abilities. They are men and women of intellect, writing papers on magic, administrating the covens, and so forth. 95% of that 30% work at a coven or the ministry post-graduation, the rest treating their certificate as one from a standard university.

Of the remaining 70%, 87% go into the public or private sector. Earth mages help with street projects. Wood mages improve the standard of crops. Metal mages forge and work metal, though some have joined the Neo-Machinist movement. Water mages are welcome almost anywhere due to their ability to find and make wells. Air mages, well, they find creative ways to make themselves useful, and they're often good for jokes.

Yarrun XIX

The last 10% or so of graduates style themselves as battlemages, increasing their power to unusual levels and training for war. Even one of low standing can wipe out a good twenty soldiers by themselves. Most hire themselves out to countries, who treat them like modern-day nuclear weapons. Also like nukes, they're very rarely used in battle. Soldiers tend to be conscripts. At the end of the day, a country needs enough of its soldiers to survive and go back to their jobs. Bringing in a battlemage means that the enemy can unleash their battlemage while still having the moral high ground. Mage duels tend to kill bystanders and destroy infrastructure. They're costly, is what I'm saying. Therefore, battlemages are used as a deterrent against other battlemages.

Those who don't join with a country tend to join the ministry or covens as agents. Or they hole up in a cave to refine their work, only emerging to publish their findings and battle whatever rival they made when they were 17.