Nation/Kingdom Name: Principality of Irysyndul
Government Type: Elected Monarchy, Caravan-Clans
Coat of Arms or Banner: Antlered Wheel with lunar crescent, representing the cycle of life, death and rebirth, and the passage of seasons.
Capital: The Whispering Pit/Well of ProphecyEthnic Groups/Species: Irysi Elves (75%), Others – Including Humans, Trolls, Gnomes, and Beastmen (25%)
Religions: Night Wicca 45%, Eko Worship 20%, Demonism 30%, Other 5%
Imports Weapons & Armour, Metal Components, Wine & Spirits, Preserved Foodstuffs, Elemental Crystals, Narcotics, Musical Instruments, Clothing & Textiles.
Exports Potions & Elixirs, Textiles, Rare Plants, Exotic Beasts, Moon-Silver, Moon Well Water, Bone & Antler Work, Longbows, Arbalests, Enchantment-Work, Runestones.
Hallmarks: Primordial Jungle, Caravan Merchants, Ancient Magitek Ruins, Demonic Labyrinth
Signature Weapon: Whips of Pandaelyrium – These enchanted whips are made out of the sinews of chimaera dragons. They glitter with purple runes infused with potent nature magic drawn from The Quell, inducing manic hallucinations and muscular paralysis in those they strike. They’re especially sought after by bounty hunters of various persuasions.
National Dish: Peshay - An extremely spicy curry consisting of carrots, peppers, beans, venison or pork (or whatever meat’s on hand) cooked in a rich condensed milk and ale infused sauce.
Interesting Things About Irysyndul
The ferocious forests of Irysyndul, known as Irysaka among the natives, spread to the west of Bohorok, east of Al’Watia and south of the Annihilor desert and The Desolation. It is a rugged, savage ecosystem, where nomadic, caravaning elven inhabitants live fierce and free, and the rest are just plain aggressive.
Because The Green devours all, the Irysi have few permanent settlements, but instead travel through the jungles in clan-convoys of enchanted caravans and wagons drawn by giant snails, hunting, foraging and making a great pilgrimage to each of the twoscore and one henges of The Quell, while herding packs of antlered boar.
By guiding the growth and carefully binding and coppicing the roots and branches over centuries, and with the use of tamed giant spiders, they’ve created and woven elaborate living roads, bridges and dwellings along the spiral path. dwellings that hang from the great trees like baubles. Open flames are forbidden and instead, lesser spirits and magic crystals are utilised to give light and heat.
Irysaka was once the heart of a powerful, technologically advanced empire whose wondrous machines were powered by the lifeblood of the world. The steel castles and great engines that once drunk parasitically on the anima mundi lay rusting and overgrown, their broken pipes leaking and forming singing dells of aetheric crystals and raw liquid Eko.
In the darkest heart of the land, buried deep underground, is the height of the ancients’ folly. The Whistling Pit, a place where reality has turned cancerous. The Well of Prophecy, a pool of radiant magic, rests directly atop of it and forms the closest place to a capital in the entire jungle, where The Taleweavers inscribe history, and the Emerald Prince reclines indolently upon his Serpent Throne.
Because of their lack of belief in absolute nature of anything, The Irysi have found a niche for themselves as wandering merchants. Nomadic clans of caravanners set forth to act as a go-between the Dark Realms and those who still cling to The Light.
The exotic reagents of Thuzardin’s laboratories couldn’t be proffered without Irysi caravans, nor could the kitchens of Krasarang be filled with the rich scents of Trollish spices, the same way The Dominion could not acquire enough food from fertile realms to feed their chattel slaves, or the townhouses of Alerhiona ring with the sound of Dwarven and Gnomish clockwork.
The Irysi are loved by few, yet they understand over-land logistics as well as they do their own minds and bodies. They are outsiders who protect the world from a secret evil.
Characters of Irysyndul
The Irysi Elves
Many of the categories and distinctions other mortal realms cling to do not apply in Irysaka.
While the Irysi are Elves, they’re also a complex admixture of humans, orcs, dragonkin, goblinoids, and various species of monsters, sentient beastfolk and fey beings who settled after fleeing The Desolation and later intermixed.
The sheer abundance and saturation of nature magic, and a cultural fondness for elaborate tattoos and piercings means no two Irysi look remotely the same.
Features such as fur, scales, carapaces, tails, horns, antlers, tusks, talons and floppy ears feline, lupine, leporine and goblinoid, even symbiotic flowers, vines, mushrooms and fungi are not uncommon. The Irysi are a culture and a creed more so than a race, and are known to adopt the orphan and outcast. Other Elves barely consider them to be Elves.
Among the Irysi there is no concept of absolute good or evil, praise or condemnation, individual property, no male or female (little more than a situationally relevant biological quirk - like blood type), even truth and falsehood are considered dialectical and subjective; storytellers are especially vaunted, as they unveil deep truths through telling lies.
There is no concept of free will (except as Jiirim, an ideal, or a very useful illusion) nor an individual soul, as the Irysi consider mortals to be vessels filled with and guided by the whims of thousands of gods and reincarnate spirits, of which their self is but one, and all beings, even deities, are slaves to The Fates.
Some Irysi put on masks of gods and past heroes and through a process of method acting over centuries, eventually -become- them. In this sense, they can never technically die.
Among their customs, marriages always consist of three people, so there’s six hands to help out.
Irysi Philosophy
Irysakan virtue consists in desiring as little as possible and living in the present moment, acting with clear insight balanced with compassion and personal experience and to aid life to spread, grow and diversify at every available opportunity. To flow to the places most would disdain, and seed life wherever they walk.
Perfection and absolutes are disparaged as worthless lies, instinct and intuition are vaunted. It is considered more important to be whole and true than good or sinless.
Authenticity, generosity, creativity and reverence for nature, and all earthly things that live, propagate and die are what the Irysi value.
At its best, the Irysi Creed creates a society that is cooperative and theraputic. It produces canny Elves who process their deep wells of emotion effectively. They give a third of what they earn to the poor, wandering with vast openness to experience.
At worst, it fosters a culture of superficiality, easily forgiving or turning a blind eye to the unforgivable. It is a code of no principles, and no real beliefs. Other Elves spurn the Irysi as wraiths embodying a vaccuum of virtue.
While their culture appears libertarian and chaotic on the surface, it is actually deeply conservative, those who do not follow the path often get left behind, a death sentence in the jungle.
The Irysi wander as they are rarely tolerated in one place for long, stereotyped as disreputable peddlers, vagabonds and thieves (their worst criminals are only exiled, which far from helps their reputation). Nevertheless, their essential role in the world’s economy is begrudgingly acknowledged. Fewer still know of the dark secret they protect the world from.
The Brass Knife, and Chimal’s Sacrifice
Underneath the Well of Prophecy is a Doorway, and it leads to a dimension of pure chaos and evil, sickness beyond the fevered imaginings of even Annhilor’s demons or the wanderers of The Void, tis a plane that makes their hell realms seem like paradise.
Maddened incubi and succubi guard the rift, as do former men and elves turned filth-ridden and animalistic by what they’ve glimpsed, or simply survived.
The last queen of the Irysi, Chimal, was given an impossible choice. She cut out her own heart to shroud the gate in red thorns and eternal darkness. Her blade still rests buried in the stone heart of a once noble fiend, an evil being who sought to overcome their own nature.
Known by many names; the Brass Knife, Txanozoc, Hunger, Doomrend, Theophage, Iconoclasm.
Fear of the sword is said to be all that is keeping those beyond the door from swallowing the world.
Over the ages it has drunk in the deep, and become the most powerful weapon known to exist, capable of wounding divinity and destroying all other beings body and soul. It can bathe entire kingdoms in radiant pillars of fire and tides of annihilating shadow.
The Irysi’s merriment and outwardly cheerful demeanours serve to mask their solemn duty. They guard not only the wound in the world, but protect all others from the weapon’s evil curse, for it has been wielded only twice in history, and no one dares remember either instance.
The Taleweavers
Equal to the caravan chieftains of Irysi society are The Taleweavers.
While almost all Irysi are fond of riddles, songs and stories, true Taleweavers are normally the eldest, wisest and most canny of a caravan, with anecdotes and teachings for any situation.
They also carry a solemn burden of passing judgment and overseeing ceremony. They are druidic elders who speak the green language, the tongue of ravens, serpents and birds, and through them they hear news of far off lands, and opportunity knocking.
Every third winter solstice in the Bell Glade surrounding the Well of Prophecy, the eldest of each caravan must undergo a gruelling trial before the green dragons who oversee the rite.
Through traumatic rites of anguish and blood, a soul descends into the savage darkness of their own nature. They are cast naked into the Whistling Pit. Only through the abandonment of the self and the embrace of life, love and truth, can any hope to emerge. Not everyone does, and those who fail are outcast into the labyrinth, to battle against demons until they perish or emerge again cleansed. Few gain such victory.
Those who survive however are rewarded with a raucous, wild feast-wassail, where the Irysi binge on mushrooms, smoke cartloads of pipe weed and drown themselves in cider, ale and rum. There is music, loving and wild dancing as the new Taleweavers are welcomed back into the clans, or even permitted to found their own.
Marriages are conducted, trade agreements negotiated, feuds are resolved and the incarnate gods themselves (in a sense) cavort and frolic among their worshippers.
People Other Than The Irysi
There is a kingdom of Dwarves built underneath the land. The only evidence they’re here are large bronze-coated doors that you occassionally find carved into the rockfaces. These Dwarves are not the affable types such as those found between Coltheim and Thuzaradin, they are isolationists who never leave their holds or mines. Now and again, large silent legions of them emerge and march through the jungle to make war on the Blacksoul Dominion, often with the use of stone golems and steam-powered weapons, but they otherwise do not trade or contact anyone on the surface. Not even the name of the kingdom is known.
The Irysi have many rumours as to who they are and why they’re so unwilling to talk, including whispers that they fight a secret war against brain-eating horrors who live deep under the earth, or that they’re protecting a rift to another world, or a fabulous treasure that all the dragons of the world wish to hoard for themselves.
During the Punitive Expedition of the Malorgothic Warlord Orgaz Facechewer, an attempt was made to foster a trade deal with the Dwarves, using the leverage of an army. The emissary silently listened to them, retreated within, and a week later re-emerged with a parchment letter stamped with the word “No.”
Orgaz sent out another message: “If you will not give us trade, we will take your treasures by force. I command a legion of orcs, ogres, dire trolls, and siege weapons that can crush your puny resistance, which is futile!”, the Dwarves listened patiently, retreated back inside, and after another week passed, emerged with a scrap of parchment that simply read: “If.”
Orgaz, filled with doubt, retreated to Sazrali without attempting a siege. He was not punished. No one messes with the Dwarves.
There are some small villages of Dragonborn, Humans, Trolls and Pandaren on the coast who live alongside the more settled Irysi. Collectively they form a small kingdom called Tufenikidi, which is a protectorate of Irysyndul. While they’re skilled fishermen, they’re also very fond of surfing, and their cuisine is spicy enough to burn the mouth of a dragon.
As the Irysi have no navy, the people of this little known kingdom take up this van. The jade castle of Obasan overlooks a graceful fleet of Baghlahs and Dhows. There’s a rivalry between the Green Knights of Tufenikidi and their Drunken Monks, so named due to their skills in brewing and fighting, a tradition borrowed from the Pandaren.
Places of Interest:
The Green
It is difficult to find appropriate language to describe the lush emerald inferno of The Green.
Verdant chaos; a massive, tangled hedge of feral, wantonly saturated life punctuated by deep cenotes of enchanted waters, winding paths and little rivers. You gaze out upon a deep snarling foggy valley of thorn-snarled, dense woodland that hungrily consumes urbane civilization.
Far from murky; golden sunlight shines through the thicket of old gnarled forest bleeding between lush marshes and lagoons surrounded by shaggy thickets of reeds and rushes flittering with jewel-hued insects and the murmuration of venomous frogs and gigantic toads.
The air is blisteringly hot and misty, filled with the cloying scent of eucalyptus, yew and pine. Great herds of tusked and antlered beasts trample through narrow winding gullies and the tangled ruin of a once great metropolis, as they flee or fight off poison-mawed predators that swoop and leap and ensnare.
This place is overwhelmingly living and voracious. You look upon massive tangles of razored thorns, brambles and ivy, raging rivers filled with luminous rapids and venomous flying fish, vine-snarled, massive conifer trees taller than castles, and sharp rocky pillars clad in shaggy moss and lichen.
The gloomy forest floor is thick with ferns, illuminated by clusters of fungi and massive glossy flowers. Do not be lulled by the seeming tranquillity, packs of ferocious scorpion-tailed saber-wolves, fist-sized parasitic wasps and antlered serpent-raptors seek out the tang of sweat and blood.
Only a single, long road cuts through the overgrowth in a great spiral, connecting a series of deep sacred pools ringed by henges of monolithic runestones.
The Quell
Fourty one well-henges, aligned with the rising of the sun and stars, are called The Quell and prevent the corruption of the Annihilor desert or the Great Desolation from spreading. From the heavens, they form a gigantic sigil of protection.
Where the two blighted lands - Desert & Desolation, converge, a unique microbiome of demonic beasts, undeath and shadow-spawned predatory spirits coagulate and congeal. This triangular region is called The Cut; and is among the dangerous ecosystems in the world. Only the mad dwell here, for only they survive.
Ancient treants, oathbound centaur and flocks of harpies protect the Quellstones, which are sites of pilgrimage for the Irysi. Those who do not set out on the road spend their days travelling in and out along the spiral path, giving offerings to the fickle, monstrous guardians of The Quell.
The Well of Prophecy
All the enchanted rivers and spiral paths converge at the very heart of the jungle, where great treants sit in meditation around a deep cenote of luminous waters that shine with starlight. It was created during the Age of Betrayal, when the Brass Knife was absent, and wastes began to spread, apocalyptic war consumed the kingdoms of the world, and the woodlands died.
As this happened, The Whispering Pit bore forth its malformed children, faceless fleshy things driven by an unquenchable thirst to mar the souls of all who witness their atrocities.
Yet, perhaps by providence beyond even the divine, the ancient engines activated for but a moment. The Eko, the world’s lifeblood, congealed within the sinkhole, at that very moment the god Irys and the demon lord Nox’Farag, locked in battle, pierced the other with their spears.
The demon was smited into the heathen earth, their bones still decorating the entrance to the sacred grove, whilst Irys’ tears became the rivers, their blood became the swamps and lagoons, their hair and beard became the forest, their flesh became the soil, and their bones twisted into the rocks and canyons that still protect Irysyndul from invasion.
Their nails became The Quellstones. Their eyes, which shone with stars and moonlight, fell into the well, merging with the world-blood and infusing it with the sight, and protection of a deity, whilst their brains slithered into the wells of The Quell, so it was.
Irys is dead, but their love for innocence, music, and hope is eternal and everlasting. They are not worshipped, but the Irysi bear their name, so that they are not forgotten.
Politics And War
- Who rules the nation?
The Emerald Prince
The current Emerald Prince of the Irysi is Maiga’Santyr, so named the Serpent Lord due to his pale, serpentine appearance, something shared by his attendants. He has nine arms, one for each of his enchanted, poisoned weapons.
He is a powerful, affable sorcerer, whose third eye stares deep into the souls of those who approach him. He is also the only one capable of gazing into the Well of Prophecy and comprehending what was, what is, and what might come to be.
Those who swear pacts with him often walk away bearing marks of Geas; symbols of great power, but with a cost that always comes, sooner or later.
- What is their army like?
The Irysi are not a warlike people, but many of them learn to hunt and fight from the moment they can toddle. It is essential, for in the jungle there is only predator and prey, and in the wider world they have no home and few friends.
The conflict in 138 (Tenasan Reckoning) between the Emerald Princess Raiko and Lord Quan Zhihao’s treasure voyage was perhaps the only time the Irysi united to war against outside invasion. Traumatised, surviving veterans still frequent the somnus dens of Grande Nayeli, desperate to forget what they endured.
Fast, agile, and cunning with trickery, the Irysi are at their greatest advantage fighting in the forests, harrying foes for each step they take on sacred ground with flying poison-shuriken and arrows, hidden traps such as punji pits, and by luring troops into places where primordial monsters’ dwell.
Wielding magiks of shadows and gloom, Irysi caravan guardians obscure themselves among the foliage, whilst those with druidic powers shapeshift into the forms of beasts and plant-life. Some can even turn themselves invisible, often appearing at a crucial moment to plunge an enchanted, poison-slicked dagger into a heel or exposed throat of an officer, or at the flanks of a unit.
If hiding isn’t an option, they circle the wagons and ready their envenomed bows and ballistae. Arbalests, pikes, falxes, and long-arm glaives appropriated from the trolls of Al’Watia (with whom they often squabble over border territory) are common weapons.
Druids, due to their fey pacts; spurn steel and cold iron, preferring to wield macuahuitl, knobkerries and massive wooden mauls. For the rest, no weapon is spurned if it means their foes end up dead. At least one Irysi caravan was reported to use a Dwarven steam-tank covered in glamours and illusions to resemble a dragon, other clans even utilise Fel magic.
Their illusionists - often taleweaver apprentices, prepare devious traps to deter attackers. The Disaster of the Third Legion was caused when a marching Krasarang infantry column was drawn off the road by what appeared to be their intended destination of Fort Onyx Tiger. it was only once they had settled down, they realised the comrades who had welcomed them were just scarecrows hewn from wood, canvas and coloured twine. Then, long thin cables of shadow-enchanted razor-silk were released, severing limbs and heads. The commotion attracted the attention of a slumbering Elder Lyndwyrm, who devoured seven in ten of the survivors.
Practiced with natural magicks, their druids will often conjure thorns, bring the trees to life and tempt packs of Irysaka’s hostile wildlife with the opportunity of fresh meat. This harried the Third Legion’s legendary retreat-march to reach the coast, led by Commander Jin Zheng, as packs of carnivorous apes, giant badgers, face-huggers and parasitic arachnoraptors fell after them. The commander realised conjuring walls of arcane frost and fire could help clear a safe path to the coast, whilst denying the Irysi their hiding places.
This worked until Jin Zheng, addled by a poison dart, commanded his warriors to abandon their armour and drop their spears. He gave a rousing speech still remembered:
“Why are we fighting?! What -treasure- is more precious than Life itself?! Life is meant to be -lived-! Moral philosophy is bogus, a mere substitute for Heaven & Earth that licenses ugly emotions! Sit around, drink! Guzzle! Come and give me -some- sugar! Ayee!”
It did not take long for the entire army to be blockaded by Irysi caravans. A single messenger finally reached The Confederacy following the massacre, hurriedly bearing a single message for the Grand Vizier: “Leave the Wagon-Elves alone.”
Those the Irysi capture often find themselves persuaded through a mixture of mushroom brews, hazing, and enchanting hexes to fight on the Irysi’s side. Even strongly willed warriors find themselves forgetting who they were, originally. In fact, many start to identify as Irysi themselves after enough time has passed.
This includes Archbishop Ardoras of the Dominion-conquered lost kingdom of Borthaland, who was later found working as a masseur in the bazaars of Sazrali. When asked why he didn’t return to his kingdom to raise an army, he responded:
“I mean, anger’s bad for you, you know? Hate’s like a drug, like love. It’s addictive. Don’t hate man, just love. That’s all you gotta do. Now, can I give you another backrub?”
Inspirations/Cultural Analogues:
The Ending of Final Fantasy VII (it could be the same place), Romani Vardos, Kielder Forest, Thailand, Val Verde, Taoist Philosophy, Adlerian and Jungian Psychology, Jungle/Rave Music, Predator (the film series), WC3 Night Elves, FFXIV’s Gridania, Lynx Africa, Labyrinth (the film with David Bowie), Pre-Roman Britain, Stonehenge, 90’s Gangsta Rap.