"Mirabillis" translates roughly to "place of wonders" or "amazing/wonderful world" in the ancient language of the Honai, or early humans. While rarely used in day-to-day conversation it is the name for the whole world in which the known realms are sat; Mirabillis is the wide world of wonders wherein the lands under the sun and the abodes beneath the ground all have their being.
For those who understand such things, Mirabillis is the name of the great orb, or planet on which the vast oceans and varied lands of the realms - known and unknown - were placed by the gods of creation long before the ages of the Habens, Duarden, or Ghorsht.
According to the Wise Towers in Baaltar, Mirabillis is one of ten planetary bodies in the heavens. Each heavenly orb corresponds to an aspect of divine and natural order and is linked to various gods/goddesses across cultures. The ten heavenly bodies, all visible with the naked eye at varying times of the year and under certain circumstances are listed below along with their religious or astrological correspondences*.
* Astrological information above is taken from the commonlore of the northern realms and midrealms which is largely informed by the combined and syncretized beliefs of the Guth-Umbrige amalgamation and later influences of the Baaltaran Empire and post-Imperial feudal order.
The formal calendar used throughout the Three Kingdoms, and widely recognized elsewhere, the Gutherian Calendar is a twelve-month system rooted in astrology and named after the influential signs and deities associated with each period1.
| Month | Astrological Influence | Major Holidays & Events |
| Virelai | Renewal and Vitality | New Year (1st), Spring Equinox (1st) |
| Amoura | Love and Union | Lover’s Eve (7th) |
| Mercain | Commerce and Speech | Kepplan’s Carnival (8th) |
| Navros | The Voyager or Explorer | The Wandering (5th–8th) 9, Summer Solstice (1st) |
| Kulwrath | Warrior and Protector | Juniper Tournament (5th) |
| Solenth | Victory and Celebration | Sun Festival (1st–10th) |
| Jexir | Challenger and Trickster | Fool’s Day (11th) Fall Equinox (1st) |
| Thaloré | Justice and Harmony | Fortune Festival (4th) |
| Velmura | Harvest and Fulfillment | Weights & Measures (10th) Harvest Feast (14th) |
| Chronai | Time and Cycles | The Life Look (15th) , Winter Solstice (1st) |
| Hearthun | Home and Family | Cheer Home (7th–10th) |
| Nemoris | Death and Passage | Dressing the Tomb (3rd–8th) |
The Flying City of Tristique was once part of Maer Dane.
The known realm is graced with five flying settlements. These are cities, and in one case a kingdom. magically raised from the ground and caused to hover permanently. They are capable of airborne navigation as well, meaning they can be flown about wherever the authorities see fit to travel.
Most cities have adopted a general vicinity to inhabit, but all of them move at some point and for various reasons. Such is the freedom of living in the sky.
The five flying settlements of the known realms are listed below in their order of ascent.
Before the Age of Freezing, in the Golden Age, which began 15,000 years before the present, the Archives tell us there were scores of floating castles and cities across the realms. At the dawn of the Age of Dragons these soaring settlements were utterly destroyed by the Draquali and the newly born dragonkind.
While not perfect, like in these flying settlements approaches utopian. The concern of invading neighbors has all but evaporated.
Crime also is largely a thing of the past. Most trouble makers were simply thrown off - literally - early on and since then the criminal bloodlines have gone dormant or reformed.
The flying cities maintain a loose confederation but each settlement is autonomous. They take little interest in the affairs of those below, and are thus dubbed the "aloft aloof" in many circles.
They wield no political influence over the nations on the ground and have little impact on the daily lives of most of the population. They do serve as a compelling reminder of what is possible, and are in many regards inspiratonal.
It is possible to migrate to one of these airborne locales under certain circumstances and visitation is always welcome, even encouraged. Tourism is the driving economic force for all of these settlements.
Auld Ur or the Old World sits on the western end of the Sea of Sollum. It is home to the Six Kingdoms of Guthall, Averine, Biadnaphea, Odele, Ellenor, and Shalunas.
These are technically vassal states of the Gutherian Throne. To comprehend fully the situation we must first address the voyage of most of the Guth people out of the Old World.
In 1412 Second Age of Kings, in the wake of a devastating plague (the Blight) that killed hundreds of thousands, Ghueslar I, then King of the Guths and Lord Protector of the Six Kingdoms, left a viceroy in Guthall and took 60,000 of his people - 40,000 military, 5,000 nobles, and 15,000 commoners - on the great pilgrimage to the New World of Merak Tiridium.
The Sea of Sollum stretches roughly 1,500 miles between Auld Ur and Merak Tiridium. Incredibly, and seen as a boon from the Shining Father, almost no Guths were lost on the voyage.
Ghueslar I signed a treaty and transferred a sum of gold to the king of Maer Dane in exchange for a small territory in the north, bordering Grandlin. Having control of the productive mines in the Old World, Ghueslar had no trouble buying a small kingdom and subsequently raising a mercenary force to supplement his own battle-hardened military.
A failed attempt to invade Myrrha was considered a setback by the desperate monarch, for he had promised his people a vast new domain. Through brilliant and decisive military planning he and his son managed to seize parts of Maer Dane and North Grandlin within a few months, as well as defend themselves against a joint counterattack from kings in the region.
Mass migration of Guth families followed and continued over the centuries as expansion of the new Gutherian kingdom gradually progressed.
Through centuries of warring and steady progress, much of the present-day Three Kingdoms were conquered. Jeslinan III finished what his ancestor began by taking Ziliador in 1761 2nd Age of Kings and the last of Maer Dane in 1802 2nd AOK.
This monarch vowed publicly to restore the might of the Guth people, using the growing religious fervor of the Church of the Shining, which purports to serve the one true god Galadine, to full effect. He has raised a massive, fanatical military to this end and proven himself to be a master of both military strategy and political maneuvering.
In 1805 2nd AOK - 19 years before the published stories began, The Golden Lion, Jeslinan III shocked the realms by annexing the Daverium Peninsula, the mining and banking heart of the known realms. Daverium had been independent of any monarch since the fall of the Baaltaran Empire.
The mining and banking families controlling the area had been autonomous for millennia prior to imperial conquest, and have even married directly into the imperial line thereafter. The Daverium family still shares blood with Baaltar and had extensive mutual defense pacts with city-states along the arm; such treaties proved fruitless as none sought to challenge the Gutherian king's claim.
An attempt to poison Jeslinan III when he visited Daverium in a bold political show of force resulted in the culling of regional bloodlines and the passing of power directly to the king's most loyal noble houses.
Combined with the mining and minting institutions of the Old World, the Gutherian Throne now has access to virtually unlimited wealth and influence plus a very real ability to strangle the economy of the known realms at a whim.
Geography and topography of Mirabillis runs the full spectrum of potential environments. A vast oceanic system dominates the surface, but there are continents spanning across both the northern and southern hemispheres.
This is the large continent on the east of the Sea of Sollum and west of the Baaltaran Sea and the eastern ocean of Del Amaranthi. It is the home of the Three Kingdoms and Myrrha, where much of the current story begins.
In the farthest northern realm of Narwald epic mountain ranges loom above frozen tundra and small evergreen forests. The ocean around and beyond Narwald is called the Endless Deep because there is no dry land to be found farther north. The sea stretches on and on until eventually becoming an ocean of ice.
South of Narwald where the Northern Ocean meets the Western Sea are the Old World or First Realms to the west and Three Kingdoms to the east, separated by the Sea of Sollum, or aforementioned Western Sea.
Note there is some potential for confusion where the term "north" or "northern realms" are used. Narwald is considered the far north and is generally less likely to be a conversation piece among the populations south of the Endless Deep.
The term "northern realms" then, almost always refers to the northmost region of the mainland, or main continent of Merak Tiridium that also contains the mid realms, the Arm, Dirus Foedus, the Great South, and those wild and mostly unknown territories of the Mesubee Chubeth, or Tangled Canopy.
The archaic term the "lower north", abandoned by all but academics and the occasional highly refined traveler may be used to set the Three Kingdoms and neighboring regions apart from Narwald.
Between the mainland Three Kingdoms and Narwald are also the isle of Myrrha and the far eastern province of Kutawazi. The Isle of the Wizard Born once sat upon these same waters, before it sank in the year 1,980 in the Age of Empires.
These lands are as varied as the people and political systems that sit upon them, with various types of mountain ranges, deciduous and evergreen forests, grasslands, and scrub plains. Freshwater systems include natural lakes ranging from a few hundred feet across to twenty miles across and a plentitude of rivers and tributaries.
In the midrealms are the largest of the grasslands and scrub plains, with additional mountain regions and some smaller forests further south in the mid regions.
The eastern reaches of the midrealms contains the long peninsula known as the Arm, dotted with city states and the genesis of the old Baaltaran Empire. These lands are often mountainous with treacherous plains and hill country between the ranges and fewer forests than the northern realms.
South of this is Dirus Foedus, the mostly nonhuman region of kingdoms and nations ruled by orcs, hobgoblins, and other races. This stretches below the Arm to the Wailing Coast, ruled by the Unliving and inhabited by human and other people generally hostile to the values and ways of life found elsewhere in the known realms.
The Great South is home to the old desert kingdoms, beyond which are the largely unexplored rainforests and jungles that are part of human and orcish ancient origin stories.
There are tropical islands inhabited by barbarians in the southern part of the western ocean and also in the eastern sea beyond the Wailing Coast. Goju Dagam is a subtropical island chain inhabited by the parent races that later seeded Kutawazi.
The Alkar, or elven races came to Mirabillis long ago from other worlds as part of their Zeinavrethiel, or eternal quest to seed the elven people across the stars. Humankind and orcs were slaves and food for the First Builders when the elven people arrived; a vote was cast and some Alkar moved on while others stayed. Those who remained helped humankind and the orcish people cast off their masters and claim the world upon which they were born for themselves.
There are many Alkar races. Some are descendants of the Orathiem, the ancient first elves who left long ago to seed new worlds. Others arrived later along their Trail of Sojourns as they sought young worlds on which to build new tribes and peoples.
The elves of Mirabillis are of variant races with differing cultures and dispositions towards other races.
The humans, or habens of Mirrabilis developed an ingenious method and system of archiving and preserving their histories over vast spans of time. The first part of this system are of course the Scribes. This order of sacred compilers and keepers sometimes recruits from the most talented historians and chroniclers of the realms, but is primarily a path of the initiated by bloodline.
Scribe families meticulously record the varying histories of the people and happenings realms wide and a fanatical guardian force is tasked with protecting the historical documents. Along with potent ancient magic given to the Scribes by the Wizard Born, specialized structures and enshrining methods collectively known as the Archives have preserved the realms' history for more than 20,000 years.
The college at Ostium uses a specially prepared oil to suspend records in an airless state. Scrolls are laminated with walnut and druseed oil, coated with beeswax, then wrapped in animal bladder and thin parchment. These protected documents are then placed into refined frankincense resin and sealed into chests of laminated pottery.
The chests are then sealed with the resin and beeswax and their exteriors completely coated with the same substance. The treated chests are placed within a stone cistern, which in turn is filled with vegetable oil plus special ingredients. The cistern is sealed with a stone lid, cemented with pitch, and the contents are safe from air, moisture, insects, and calamity for millennia. Protective magic passed down through the order of Scribes is applied throughout the archiving process and as a final step for added protection.
Archives are opened at regular, rotating intervals - times only known to the order of Scribes. The contents of the opened archive are copied and replaced and the original records are distributed to libraries, colleges, and governments. It's an excruciating process but one that insures the long history of the realms will not be lost.
Archives at Ostium with Guards. Also pictured is a scribe at work.
Gallery of human ethic groups common to the northern regions of the main known realms. This will hopefully be updated regularly but we are approaching the busy season here in Pelleas.
One point to clarify is that ethnic groups or human subraces are usually - but not always - found in more than one geographic region or political territory. A good example is the Three Kingdoms of Gutheria, Maer Dane, and Ziliador, ruled by a Guth dynasty. Gutheria is the seat of power or principle crownland obviously comprised of the Guth people who migrated from the Old World over four centuries ago.
The Umbrige and Fzalt people still make up a large portion of the human population in this region and can be found in all three kingdoms and on the isle of Myrrha at all levels of society, from beggar to peasant or burgher, military, even high in the ranks of nobility. Likewise Guths may be found living in any of the three kingdoms and even on Myrrha.
Glorms are another ethnic group found in northern Gutheria, Maer Dane and Myrrha. They are a minority with little influence on day-to-day life but they maintain their distinct culture in the communities they build.
Another minority are the L'wains. Once a medium-sized civiliztion exclusive to the Khelt riverlands they currently exists as a few scatttered families mainly in the midrealms but some can be found in southern Maer Dane as well.
The M’heta’un are the smallest ethnic group. These people are nearly extinct and will likely be gone in the span of a few more generations without some drastic series of events or a concerted effort on their part to multiply prolifically for the next several generations.
The Hughs have also migrated in smaller numbers to the region but are less prominent. They can find influence as merchant families or through distinguished military service but so far have no lineage in the peerages of the region.
Sometimes in conversation or gallery images a person or group may be referred to by their residency (Maer Danian, et al) and other times people are referenced by their heritage (Umbrige, Hugh, etc.).
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