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Minerals of Teraell

Madelineblackbart — Thu, 24 Sep 2026 01:45:45 GMT

Created page with "{{Bible|section=4.5}}What the Known World digs out of the ground. Mining is shallow work: drift mines and adits following seams near the surface, worked close to the walls where the ground is defended. Nobody sinks a deep shaft far from a city, because a working needs supply, relief, and a way home, and all three cross ground that can kill you. What is reachable is worked; what is not is not thought about. == Metals == ; Aern — iron : The commonest working metal: too..."

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{{Bible|section=4.5}}What the Known World digs out of the ground. Mining is shallow work: drift mines and adits following seams near the surface, worked close to the walls where the ground is defended. Nobody sinks a deep shaft far from a city, because a working needs supply, relief, and a way home, and all three cross ground that can kill you. What is reachable is worked; what is not is not thought about.

== Metals ==

; Aern — iron
: The commonest working metal: tools, nails, hinges, wheel rims, cookware, ship fittings, and the cheap end of every weapon. Smelted with Kelva in the north and Kolth where seams allow. Every city works it; Forgegate best.
; Stilwy — steel
: Every part that must hold an edge or carry a load — gears, springs, blades, the Staever a Linmaen carries. Everywhere forges it; Forgegate better than most.
; Kopra — copper
: Drawn to wire, beaten to sheet, and piped wherever a city has water. It roofs a few buildings in Shining Reach and has been left to go green on purpose.
; Waeka — tin
: Scarce, from a few workings, alloyed with Kopra for bronze. Bronze fastenings and copper sheathing have kept hulls sound in salt water since the first ship.
; Swaergh — lead
: Shot, weights, ballast, flashing, seals. Its effects are known and have always been; those who work it do so under strict rules — washed after, never eaten beside — and the trade is known to cost its people something.
; [[Blaenda]] — zinc
: The one metal only one city can make.
; Braswy — brass
: The visible half of nearly everything: plates, housings, cases, dials, instrument faces, lamp fittings. Soft, so it does not do the work — a Forgegate movement is steel gears in a brass case, and the part everyone admires turns nothing. Where it earns its place is in bearings, which wear well against steel and want less Kravoe, and at sea, where a whole instrument is built of it because a steel gear in salt air seizes and a brass one does not.
; Goelwy and Seira — gold and silver
: Struck into coin, worked into ornament, and used in fine instruments where a fitting must not corrode. A goldsmith works Goelwy; a merchant counts Goyl. See [[Money]].

== Fuel ==

; Kolth — coal
: From shallow seams and drift mines. Forgegate has the best and runs its forges on it. Cities with trees and no seams burn Kelva. The Brosdhun hauls Kolth from face to shaft and lives its whole life below.
; Kelva — charcoal
: Burned slowly from Fyrn in the north and from whatever wood is on hand elsewhere. See [[Wild Plants and Timber#Timber]].

== Stone, earth, and glass ==

; Maerga — building stone
: A category rather than a substance. Shining Reach carves white and gray; Clearhold works its hard gray mountain rock; Eldershore builds in laterite and coral rock and Ombari. A city's Maerga is the first thing a traveler notices and the last thing residents think about.
; Loem — clay
: Brick, tile, pipe, crockery, and foundry moulds. Every city has beds and a potters' quarter; the local clay decides whether that quarter exports anything.
; Sanda — sand
: Glass, deck grit, and the small timing glasses physicians use.
; Vitra — glass
: Windows, bottles, lenses, ampoules, instrument faces, and the sphere of every Kwlei. Every city makes it and has since the Founding. Eldershore blows the most; Forgegate grinds the best lenses, which is precision work rather than glassmaking, and the trade in ground optical glass is small and worth a great deal.

== Glaenith ==
The light-stone, the only mineral in Teraell that does something. See [[Glaenith]].

== What is not mined ==
Clearhold mines shallower and more cautiously than anyone and calls it good practice. Nobody prospects the upper slopes: a prospecting party is a small group moving unpredictably across open high ground, which is exactly what the Kollgar hunts, and working deep and far would need supply across Kammra country. Clearhold works what it can reach — Kolth, Glaenith, and its gray wall stone — and is one of the largest Glaenith exporters in the world. It has never been in a position to ask what else is in those mountains.

{{Hidden truth|There is a great deal else in those mountains — enough that a war was once fought over it. What was fought over is forgotten and would be worthless to anyone alive today. See [[What the Old World Left Behind]].}}

== See also ==

* [[The Land]] · [[Clockwork]] · [[Forgegate]] · [[Money]]

Geography of Terraell

Madelineblackbart — Thu, 24 Sep 2026 01:33:31 GMT

← Older revision		Revision as of 21:33, 23 September 2026
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	{{Bible\|section=4.1}}		{{Bible\|section=4.1}}
	[[File:Wiki-Map.jpg\|alt=Map of the Known World of Teraell as described in the world bible.\|thumb\|320x320px\|The Known World: the western and eastern reaches, the Neck, and the southern sea.]]		[[File:Wiki-Map.jpg\|alt=Map of the Known World of Teraell as described in the world bible.\|thumb\|320x320px\|The Known World: the western and eastern reaches, the Neck, and the southern sea. Image usable under creator license term.]]
	The '''Known World''' is one continuous landmass, about eight thousand miles east to west and three thousand north to south, with a scattered archipelago in the southern sea off its western half. Fewer than a million and a half people live on several million square miles of it, and nearly all of them live inside six city walls.		The '''Known World''' is one continuous landmass, about eight thousand miles east to west and three thousand north to south, with a scattered archipelago in the southern sea off its western half. Fewer than a million and a half people live on several million square miles of it, and nearly all of them live inside six city walls.

Cultivated Plants

Madelineblackbart — Thu, 24 Sep 2026 01:30:52 GMT

Created page with "{{Bible|section=4.2}} right|thumb|300x300px|A field laid out in strips against the Rhydda. Every field in the world looks like this. Everything grown in the Known World is grown inside the walls of cities and Roedhavens and in the defended agricultural rings around them. There is no farming outside that perimeter and never was; the wildlife does not permit it. This is a statement about farming, not people — the Waendra live on the Frontie..."

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{{Bible|section=4.2}}
[[File:Naevla_strips.jpg|right|thumb|300x300px|A field laid out in strips against the Rhydda. Every field in the world looks like this.]]
Everything grown in the Known World is grown inside the walls of cities and Roedhavens and in the defended agricultural rings around them. There is no farming outside that perimeter and never was; the wildlife does not permit it. This is a statement about farming, not people — the [[Waendra]] live on the Frontier, and do not plant.

Almost every crop below yields far more than any wild relative, and none has a wild ancestor anyone can easily identify. This is simply how these plants are, and no one stops to ask why.

{{Hidden truth|The crops came through with the survivors from the seed vaults of the old world. The wild plants of Teraell are native and are not their ancestors. See [[Wild Plants and Timber]] and [[The Fall and Year One]].}}

== Grains ==
''Graen'' is the term for all grain. Three crops make up the class.

; [[Gechwyn]]
: The northern staple and the most commonly grown grain in the world; what Gechra is brewed from. Its price moves the price of everything else.
; [[Ireis]]
: The southern staple, grown in Eldershore and the lowlands of Clearhold, yielding year-round. A luxury in the north.
; [[Vaesk]]
: Clearhold's terrace grain, the only crop with a visible wild ancestor, poisonous until fermented.

== Roots and legumes ==
These keep people fed, especially the poor, and are why a bad grain year is a hardship rather than a famine: bread gets dearer, ale becomes a luxury, people eat more Chiaz, complain, and survive another season.

; Chiaz
: Calorie-dense, fast growing, tolerant of poor soil, stores through long winters, and grows in Stormharbor's rocky ground. Roasted, fermented, mashed, or stewed.
; Ubaen
: The southern counterpart: an enormous tuber that crops well in wet poor ground and does not store in heat until dried and ground. It has carried Eldershore through its bad years since the founding.
; Daell
: The pod crop, the protein alternative to meat, grown everywhere and in many popular dishes. It feeds the ground it is returned to.
; Stoek
: The hardy winter leaf of the north — coarse, heavy, nearly impossible to kill. Stands through frost, keeps in the cellar until Naethwr, and ferments into a sharp preserve that carries Stormharbor through winter. Eaten daily, admired by none.
; Ryn and Rynkael
: Ryn is in nearly every dish in the world and the ingredient least likely to be recorded because nobody remembers it is there. Rynkael is its smaller, sharper cousin, used sparingly and prescribed by physicians for wounds and chest colds.

== Sugars ==

; Ireich
: The cane of Eldershore and its second export after Aruna. Refined to a fine white grain that is very valuable in the north; Aruvei is distilled from it.
; Sweitroe
: The north's sugar root — less productive, refined to a coarse brown earthy sugar that most working northern households use. The wealthy buy Ireich and set it on the table where it can be seen. It is perhaps the clearest sign of the class divide in the north.

== Fruits ==

; Aeval
: Orchard fruit of the temperate zone, grown in managed orchards outside Forgegate and Shining Reach; eaten fresh, dried, preserved, and pressed into Aevalra.
; Nyrra
: A soft summer fruit, from the small bitter northern hedgerow kind to the large sweet kind of Forgegate's valleys. Short season, travels badly, a local delicacy and a mark of the season.
; Angwyr
: The vine of Forgegate's valley, source of the finest Vinaith in the world and of a permanent rivalry with Shining Reach.
; Bryla
: Grows on rock and thin moorland where nothing else will. Stormharbor gathers it by the barrel, preserves it for winter, and ferments it into Brylvin.
; Talvi
: Clearhold's high-terrace fruit, concentrated by cold nights into a flavor lowland fruit cannot match. Native to the mountains, its wild form still grows above the orchards — edible, sour, not worth the climb. Dried, it keeps for years and makes an excellent caravan ration. The skin is tough and must be split rather than bitten.
; Feiruna
: The fruits of Eldershore, dozens of kinds, shipped elsewhere at prices that reflect how few survive the trip. The number of Feiruna markets is the first thing a visitor notices.

== Spices, leaves, and herbs ==
''Spicaen'' is the seasoning class, from kitchen-garden herbs to tropical spice. A cook talks about Spicaen; a merchant talks about Aruna.

; [[Aruna]]
: About a dozen unrelated tropical spices grown only in Eldershore. Light and imperishable — the perfect cargo for the Long Reach.
; [[Zhael]]
: The foremost of the Aruna and perhaps the most valuable thing grown anywhere by weight.

== Fibers and oils ==

; [[Paem]]
: Grown anywhere warm enough. Eldershore's is the finest and softest fiber; Forgegate's, on the cold edge of the plant's range, is shorter and spins sturdier, and Forgegate does not consider it inferior.
; [[Ksaum]]
: Grown across the northern belt; breathable, tough, and never in need of shipping north.
; Tauw
: The least noticed and most used fiber, grown almost everywhere in any temperature, and the rope of the world. No ship sails, hauls, moors, or lifts without it, and bad Tauw seasons are felt first in harbors.
; Oevra and Oevrei
: A hardy temperate field crop rotated with grain in Forgegate's and Shining Reach's fields, which returns heart to the soil. Oevrei, the oil pressed from it, burns in every lamp that is not a glow globe, cooks, dresses leather, makes soap, and finishes timber. Graded by pressing — first light and odorless for cooking, second darker for lamps and harness, third fit only for soap. No clockmaker would use any grade of it.

Between them Paem and Ksaum clothe the world by one rule: coarse cloth stays local and fine cloth trades. A laborer in Stormharbor wears Ksaum and a laborer in Eldershore wears Paem, neither paying for shipping. What crosses the world is Eldershore's long Paem, which the wealthy buy. Slave clothing follows the same rule: plain local cloth for a worker, better for a household slave, and a companion dressed better than many free people — a statement about the household, not the slave. Fleisk and Shilkra, the animal fibers, are under [[Animals of Teraell]].

== Cellar crops ==

; Kelrei
: A mushroom grown indoors in the dark on spent straw and stable sweepings. Less flavorful than wild Moeka and eaten anyway; in the cold months often the only thing on the table that was growing that morning. Ideal for walled cities, grown in undercrofts everywhere, and in Forgegate treated by the guilds as a trade with firm opinions about substrate.

== Guard crops ==

; [[Naevla]]
: Grown by every farm in the world and eaten by none. Its only use is to turn the Rhydda, and that use is why every field in the world is planted in strips.

== Drinks ==
See [[Drinks of Teraell]].

== See also ==

* [[Wild Plants and Timber]] · [[Gardens and Groves]] · [[Liberty Caps]]
* [[The Land]] · [[Economy and Trade]]

Geography of Terraell

Madelineblackbart — Thu, 24 Sep 2026 01:30:15 GMT

← Older revision		Revision as of 21:30, 23 September 2026
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	{{Bible\|section=4.1}}		{{Bible\|section=4.1}}
	[[File:~~Teraell_map~~.jpg\|~~right~~\|thumb\|320x320px\|The Known World: the western and eastern reaches, the Neck, and the southern sea.]]		[[File:Wiki-Map.jpg\|alt=Map of the Known World of Teraell as described in the world bible.\|thumb\|320x320px\|The Known World: the western and eastern reaches, the Neck, and the southern sea.]]
	The '''Known World''' is one continuous landmass, about eight thousand miles east to west and three thousand north to south, with a scattered archipelago in the southern sea off its western half. Fewer than a million and a half people live on several million square miles of it, and nearly all of them live inside six city walls.		The '''Known World''' is one continuous landmass, about eight thousand miles east to west and three thousand north to south, with a scattered archipelago in the southern sea off its western half. Fewer than a million and a half people live on several million square miles of it, and nearly all of them live inside six city walls.

File:Wiki-Map.jpg

Madelineblackbart — Thu, 24 Sep 2026 01:29:02 GMT

Madelineblackbart uploaded File:Wiki-Map.jpg

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A map of the Known World of Teraell as described in the guide.

Geography of Terraell

Madelineblackbart — Thu, 24 Sep 2026 00:41:21 GMT

Created page with "{{Bible|section=4.1}} right|thumb|320x320px|The Known World: the western and eastern reaches, the Neck, and the southern sea. The '''Known World''' is one continuous landmass, about eight thousand miles east to west and three thousand north to south, with a scattered archipelago in the southern sea off its western half. Fewer than a million and a half people live on several million square miles of it, and nearly all of them live inside six city w..."

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{{Bible|section=4.1}}
[[File:Teraell_map.jpg|right|thumb|320x320px|The Known World: the western and eastern reaches, the Neck, and the southern sea.]]
The '''Known World''' is one continuous landmass, about eight thousand miles east to west and three thousand north to south, with a scattered archipelago in the southern sea off its western half. Fewer than a million and a half people live on several million square miles of it, and nearly all of them live inside six city walls.

== The shape of the world ==
The land narrows sharply in the middle, at [[The Neck]], where [[Forgegate]] sits. West of the narrowing are the '''western reaches'''; east of it the '''eastern reaches'''; south lie the mountains and the tropics.

The western reaches run from the rugged cold of the northwest — [[Stormharbor]]'s coast — down to a broken southern shore. A major range runs southwest through the interior, dividing the northern forests from the southern coast. Forgegate sits at the eastern end where two rivers meet and holds the approach to the Neck.

The eastern reaches are larger and wetter. [[Shining Reach]] holds the north, surrounded by the most arable land in the world. A great range runs southeast from there, and [[Clearhold]] sits high in it. South of the mountains the land turns arid, then opens into the tropics and the finest natural harbor in the world, where [[Eldershore]] stands.

[[The Iron Coves]] are a volcanic archipelago in a corner of the southern sea, within easy reach of every major sea lane.

== How far apart everything is ==
Neighboring cities are fifteen hundred to two thousand miles apart. A Dorath caravan makes fifty miles a day in ideal conditions, so any two cities are four to six weeks apart by road. Ships are faster in fair weather and slower in foul. A merchant can realistically make two or three round trips a year. News travels at the speed of the fastest rider or the luckiest sailor: a thing that happened in Eldershore happened a month or more before Stormharbor hears of it.

== Climate ==
Two bands mark the temperature shift. The Academy of Shining Reach and the Registrars of Clearhold both publish them in Deigr as the eighteen and forty-four bands, from tables that do not entirely agree — Clearhold's exact and narrow, the Academy's broad and reliant on correspondence the Registrars will not trust. Each considers its own the standard; merchants use whichever is to hand. Outside the two institutions nobody calls the lines by a number.

; The Frostline
: Runs east to west across the center of the Known World and marks where winter stops growth for part of the year. North of it, long winters, lush dark evergreen forest, and staples of root crops and hardy grain. Stormharbor is well north of it; Forgegate and Shining Reach are north of it too, with harsh seasons and some of the best growing land in the world.
; The Greenline
: Far to the south, marking where growth never stops. Eldershore stands on it, its territory running south into the country where the season never changes.

Between the two is a warm temperate belt: the dry interior of the eastern reaches, Clearhold's mountains, and the seas of the Iron Coves. Clearhold is south of the Frostline but high enough to have a winter anyway.

== Terrain ==

; Northern coasts
: Rock, cliff, and moorland. Poor land, harsh winters, and a living that has to be earned; fishing makes up what farming cannot.
; Forest
: The great dark forests cover most of the temperate latitudes and are the reason overland travel is dangerous. Not inhabited by people, and never empty.
; River valleys
: Forgegate grew where the river deposits make some of the most farmable soil in the world.
; The mountain spine
: The backbone of the eastern reaches, enclosing Clearhold's high valley — the most defensible ground anywhere, with few narrow passes.
; Dry interior
: Sparse and arid, south and east of the mountains. Crossed, almost never inhabited.
; Tropical south
: Humid and extraordinarily fertile; the growing season is endless, and so are the plants working at Eldershore's walls.

== Why the cities sit where they do ==
Every city stands on defensible ground with fresh water and workable soil, and each holds something the others lack: Stormharbor the only good harbor on the northern coast; Forgegate the river crossings and the Neck; Shining Reach the best farmland; Clearhold the passes; Eldershore the finest harbor in the world; the Iron Coves the sea lanes and nothing else. The Frontier permits no city without a reason.

== How empty it is ==
Beyond the agricultural rings, the waystations, and three roads, the land outside the walls is not settled at all — not for lack of trying. Every attempt to hold ground away from a city wall has failed. See [[The Frontier]].

== Beyond the Known World ==
North of Stormharbor and south of Eldershore the land is so cold that every expedition has failed. The Academy and the Registrars alike hold that exploring it would gain nothing and it is best left alone. The interiors of the landmasses are unmapped in any detail; surveying the Frontier requires surviving in it long enough to do so.

{{Hidden truth|The polar facility housing the [[The AI|AI]] lies in the cold nobody can cross. The cold is why it has never been entered. See [[The Fall and Year One]].}}

== See also ==

* [[The Neck]] · [[Roads and Sea Lanes]] · [[The Six City-States]]
* [[Weights and Measures]] — the Deigr and the mile

The Iron Coves

Madelineblackbart — Thu, 24 Sep 2026 00:28:16 GMT

Created page with "{{Bible|section=5.6}}{{Infobox city-state|name=The Iron Coves|color=#1f2224|image=Iron_Coves_banner.jpg|caption=Blacktooth Bay from the water, the teeth at the entrance.|clt_name=Aernkoev|strength=Strength — no discussion thought necessary|position=A scattered volcanic archipelago; established ports, temporary anchorages, and hidden coves|population=Perhaps 20,000–40,000 across the archipelago; nobody counts|walls=None. The basalt teeth, the volc..."

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{{Bible|section=5.6}}{{Infobox city-state|name=The Iron Coves|color=#1f2224|image=Iron_Coves_banner.jpg|caption=Blacktooth Bay from the water, the teeth at the entrance.|clt_name=Aernkoev|strength=[[What Might Means|Strength]] — no discussion thought necessary|position=A scattered volcanic archipelago; established ports, temporary anchorages, and hidden coves|population=Perhaps 20,000–40,000 across the archipelago; nobody counts|walls=None. The basalt teeth, the volcanic hillsides, and the reefs are the wall|government=None. Might makes right|coin=Everyone's|trades=Nothing made; everything traded — stolen goods laundered clean, forged papers, slaves, and labor no one else will hire|stance=No argument. Slavery is property, labor, and commerce|cohort=Mixed: nobody's and everybody's — see [[Meta:Cultural References]]}} '''The Iron Coves''' (''Aernkoev'') are not a city-state in the sense the others are. They are a scattered archipelago of settlements — established pirate ports, temporary anchorages, hidden coves used by particular crews — with no urban planning, no civic organization, and no consistent aesthetic, because there is nobody to enforce one. The Coves make nothing and trade in everything, and the whole Known World complains and keeps buying.

== The Pact ==
The Coves did not sign the [[The Pact of Reason|Pact of Reason]]. The closing of the roads that produced it had been the most prosperous moment in their history, and they saw no reason to sign afterward. They observe the Pact's slave provisions in practice, because a marked person is marketable in five other cities and an unmarked one is not. It is the only kind of agreement the Coves have ever kept. Every other city holds them in contempt — [[Stormharbor]] most of all, which calls them not lawless but ''unmoored'' — and the rest of the world treats the Coves' arrangement not as an alternative to the Pact but as the absence of one.

== Places ==
Three locations are significant enough to describe:

* [[Blacktooth Bay]] — the principal settlement, ''Blachtandh''
* [[Whispering Hollow]] — where the Information Brokers meet
* [[The Veil Currents]] — the concealment zone between the islands

== Dress ==
The Coves dress like people with money and no standing, because that is what they are. There is nothing to signal — no guild, no lineage, no examination result, no station any other city would recognize. What is left is the person, and that is worn loudly. The base is 1700s sailor's slops — loose trousers, short jacket or long coat, shirt — and then nothing fits, and the way it does not fit is chosen. Trousers are far too wide (dragging at the heel, worn low, by someone who does not intend to work) or far too narrow (cut to the ankle under a coat three sizes too big). There is nothing in between; a person in trousers that fit has come from elsewhere and everyone sees it before they speak.

Black, with one sharp color: a hard acid green in sashes, linings, or a stripe down an outer seam, which nobody else in the world uses and everyone recognizes. Hardware everywhere and none of it structural — studded belts, chains from belt to pocket, leather cuffs, rings on every finger, silver at throat and wrist. Printed shirts: the presses that produce forged papers produce cloth, and a crew's mark on a shirt is the closest thing the Coves have to a uniform. Hair that has been decided about — cropped and spiked, or long and shaggy with a fringe over one eye, dyed wherever dye can be got. Kohl around the eyes of women and men alike. Women wear the same forms cut the same way with the flash turned up rather than down; there is no separate clothing for women and no separate anything.

Slaves are dressed by whoever owns them, and the range is wider than anywhere else: a crew's property on the docks wears whatever is on hand; a Freichfta's companion is dressed at real expense in the household's black and silver, cut close, with a great deal of hardware, and is the one person in the Coves whose clothing is guaranteed well kept, because she is a costly display. The one constant is the collar, worn openly and often decoratively in worked silver, in some houses matched to what the household wears.

== Music ==
Sea shanties, like Stormharbor, like any crew that ever hauled a line — but sung too fast, in a register too high, by someone whose voice is about to go and is not stopping. A raw shouted tearing sound rather than a deep-chested one; a singer who can hold a line while their voice fails is doing it correctly. The songs are personal in a way no other city's are. A Skald recites lineage and an Eldershore caller names their line; a Coves song is about the singer — what they lost, what they did, what it cost — sung in a crowded tavern by someone who means it to a room that will shout back the chorus and never mention it after. The tunes are borrowed from everywhere and the lyrics are not; nothing is written down. Records exist here in numbers, all imported and most of them stolen. Nobody presses anything in the Coves and nobody would suggest it.

== Infrastructure ==
Below every other settlement in the world, and the Coves do not care. Water from springs and rain, distributed by whatever arrangement each part of a settlement has made, through mismatched patched piping that works. No organized waste; steep ground and close sea do the work. No organized lighting: salvaged glow globes where available, brass lanterns more commonly, open fires in rough places, and the docks lit best for practical reasons. Clockwork is eclectic and entirely improvised — no local manufacture, so everything is salvaged, traded, repurposed, or stolen, and a Blacktooth mechanism might combine Forgegate precision parts, Shining Reach fittings, and Stormharbor iron, assembled by someone who learned by taking other mechanisms apart. The ships' clockwork is maintained to a standard the rest of the settlement never sees.

== Agriculture ==
There is none. The islands support small gardens, a few goats, and a great deal of fishing. The Coves are the only settlement in the world that cannot feed itself, and they do not try.

== What it makes and trades ==
Nothing made; access offered. Markets that ask no questions, goods with no provenance, papers indistinguishable from real ones, and people who will do what others will not. Plwyndra and Prizra pass through and are sold onto legitimate markets within a season; Dwyngoed of every kind; the Fences' Association can turn any stolen good into a clean one, and every city complains and keeps buying. Slaves, many of them, taken at sea and on the Frontier and sold to anyone. And the Coves' own labor, hired out: a crew that will carry cargo no one would touch to places no one else would go, for a price.

== In the world's arguments ==
The Coves are the standing example in every argument. To [[True Mastery]], they are where community enforcement fails. To [[The Pact of Reason|the Pact]], they are what nature without reason looks like. To [[The Contested Ground|the abolitionists]], they are the proof that a system resting on the goodness of its participants cannot be relied on. And to Stormharbor's charge that a Coves captain's strength is never tested, the Coves reply that what Stormharbor calls honor is taking what it wants while telegraphing the maneuver — a reply Stormharbor's skalds have never satisfactorily answered.

== See also ==

* [[Blacktooth Bay]] · [[Whispering Hollow]] · [[The Veil Currents]]
* [[Piracy]] · [[The Six Navies#The Iron Coves]] · [[Group Feuds#The Iron Coves and Frontier Territory]]

Shining Reach

Madelineblackbart — Thu, 24 Sep 2026 00:27:44 GMT

Created page with "{{Bible|section=5.1}}{{Infobox city-state|name=Shining Reach|color=#f2efe6|image=Shining_Reach_banner.jpg|caption=The Academy dome above the Forum.|clt_name=Shynreich|strength=Character|position=Northern landmass, where coastal access meets the overland routes; slightly raised above temperate farmland|population=180,000–220,000|walls=White and gray carved stone; smooth-faced; a steam-fed water channel at the base|government=Senate republic|coin=Bwy..."

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{{Bible|section=5.1}}{{Infobox city-state|name=Shining Reach|color=#f2efe6|image=Shining_Reach_banner.jpg|caption=The Academy dome above the Forum.|clt_name=Shynreich|strength=[[What Might Means|Character]]|position=Northern landmass, where coastal access meets the overland routes; slightly raised above temperate farmland|population=180,000–220,000|walls=White and gray carved stone; smooth-faced; a steam-fed water channel at the base|government=Senate republic|coin=Bwyjei (as outsiders call it)|trades=Scholarship, physicians, law, psychiatric care; Aevalra and Valkoe, Vinaith, Vessa, luxury goods, grain|stance=Intellectual center of the argument; real support for moderate reform in the senate class|cohort=North European and colonial American — see [[Meta:Cultural References]]}} '''Shining Reach''' (''Shynreich'') is the cosmopolitan city of the north and the intellectual center of the Known World. It is not a pure port; the harbor is one district among several. What the city exports above everything else is thought.

== Geography and population ==
The city sits where coastal access meets the overland routes, on ground that rises just enough to give it presence over the surrounding farmland and to make its drainage work without engineering. The climate is temperate with four distinct seasons and fertile land in most directions. Between 180,000 and 220,000 people live within the walls — one of the larger cities, not the largest — and the quality of the infrastructure makes the population urban rather than the packed poverty a pre-industrial city of that size would usually mean.

== The walls ==
A civic achievement as much as a defense: white and gray stone with fine architectural detail, wide enough at the top for two guards abreast, smooth-faced outside so nothing can climb. At the base runs a wide shallow channel of constantly flowing water, fed by steam pumps, that keeps the Slyngra's roots from the foundations — perhaps the most elegant and expensive answer to that problem anywhere. The four main gates face roughly the cardinal directions and are monuments in themselves: arched stone, brass clockwork portcullises, carved civic scenes and Oathbond imagery, each with its own character and district behind it.

== Layout ==
Planned, not accumulated. Main boulevards radiate from the civic spaces and districts are laid out deliberately; the Academy's influence on the plan is obvious. Ordinary districts are dignified red and brown brick. The wealthy quarters are another matter: Rococo facades, pale plasterwork, asymmetrical ornament, and gilding wherever gilding can be afforded. Brass clockwork is worked into the architecture throughout — gears on facades, clockwork lamp posts, steam venting pipes between buildings — and the Academy's dome is the landmark visible from outside the walls. At night the Roelwym runs evenly along every major street, giving the city a warm continuous light that smaller settlements lack.

== Districts ==

; The Forum
: The civic heart: a paved plaza ringed by the Senate House, the Civic Registry, the magistrates' courts, and the Hall of Projections, a theater built for public Animei. Steam-fed fountains. Declarations are made here, feuds formally announced, and the city celebrates.
; The Academy District
: The Academy of Reason and Nature — lecture halls, philosophical libraries, medical facilities, natural-philosophy laboratories, and surgical theaters under the great dome, with teaching gardens used for debate. The best psychiatric care in the world is given here. The most prestigious address in the city.
; The Salon Quarter
: Where the wealthy live and successful merchants keep a townhouse for entertaining. The most Rococo architecture outside the civic center, arcaded at street level so people can promenade in any weather. The finest eating houses in the north.
; The Merchant District
: Banking houses, factor offices, commercial registries, covered market halls. The slave auction house here is highly prestigious and commands premium prices. The widest streets in the city, for the Dorath teams.
; The Harbor District
: Lower, plainer, and built for necessity: warehouses, shipping offices, the harbormaster's complex, salt-resistant brass lanterns, and the heaviest Dorath traffic in the city.
; Residential
: Radiating outward by wealth — townhouses near the Forum, comfortable housing beyond, denser working accommodation toward the wall, and the poorest beside it.

== Dress ==
Shining Reach dress is meant to be seen and read; every garment is a statement of station, and social life depends on those statements being legible at a glance. It is the most fashion-conscious city in the world and knows it. The forms are standard — coat, waistcoat, breeches, and stockings for men; fitted bodice over stays and full skirts for women — and what separates people is what they do inside them.

Below the salon class the palette is sober (bottle green, dark blue, wine, brown, black), with brightness confined to lining and waistcoat; a guild man's coat is plainer than a merchant's and a scholar's plainer than either. In the Salon Quarter the palette goes pale — blue, rose, lilac, cream, dove gray, gold — the silks are figured and embroidered in silver and gold thread, and then something is done to it: a coat with no closure that cannot be worn shut, a collar built to the jaw on one side only, cuffs that swallow the hands, seams turned outward as decoration, a waistcoat in a color chosen to fight the coat. The proportions are the point. The man is made to fit the line, not the other way round, and a man who looks comfortable in a Salon Quarter coat is wearing an old one. Tailors are known by name; silhouettes last a season or two; a man in last season's is telling everyone something he did not mean to.

Women's Salon Quarter gowns are art pieces the wearer is inside: a sleeve the size of her head, stays worn over the gown, boning exposed, a skirt pleated into a shape that is not a skirt, one shoulder covered to the ear and the other bare, raw hems on cloth worth a laborer's year. The panniers are still there, wider than doorways, and are the traditional part. Gowns come from named houses on a schedule, and a woman three seasons behind is either poor or making a point. Fabric does the work color does for men: Shilkra at the top, fine Paem below, good Ksaum at the bottom.

Slaves wear what the household decides — plain clean local cloth for a worker, better for a household slave who is seen by guests. A companion in a wealthy house is dressed by the same houses that dress the family, in the same season's line, at great expense and with very little left to the imagination: the same intentional wrongness that governs the gowns of the free, with the difference that a companion cannot decline the commission.

== Music ==
Shining Reach composes. It has the most formally developed musical tradition in the world: written notation, trained ensembles, pieces attributed to named composers, performed to a score. The salon is the normal setting; a composer's reputation is made in the rooms of the wealthy and can be unmade in one evening. The tradition is old and not entirely explainable. Many pieces carry a heavy repeated emphasis on a beat the melody does not seem to want, and a drop into a low register that arrives as a physical thing. Composers work in the form because it is the form; the Academy has published much on where it comes from and reached no conclusion. Records are cut here in quantity and are expensive; most households hear music performed, and a record collection announces wealth and reach.

== Infrastructure and agriculture ==
Standard for a major city and unusually good. The waste system is one of the two most sophisticated in the world; the clockwork is built into the architecture rather than fitted to it; difference engines sit in every civic office and commercial house. Farms in the agricultural ring are allocated through the civic registry rather than a guild, which is unusual, and the land is the most productive per acre in the north — a result of management, not just soil.

== What it makes and trades ==
Scholarship first: Academy-trained physicians, published natural philosophy, legal and advocacy services, and psychiatric care that draws people from every city. Beyond that, Aevalra and the Valkoe distilled from it, moderate Vinaith from local vines, Vessa varieties bred in the Academy gardens and sold under their breeders' names, finished luxury goods, and grain in quantity. It imports Kravoe, Shilkra, Aruna, and everything else worth having, and pays for it comfortably.

== In the world's arguments ==
Shining Reach's definition of strength is character — the capacity to inspire loyalty without force — which is [[True Mastery]] under its own name. It carried its point in the war that made the [[The Pact of Reason|Pact of Reason]]: a free person is free in every city. Its Academy is where [[The Contested Ground|the argument over slavery]] is conducted most articulately, and its senate class has real sympathy for moderate reform.

== See also ==

* [[The Six City-States]] · [[What Might Means]] · [[The Contested Ground]]
* [[The Six Navies#Shining Reach]] · [[Armies of the City-States#Shining Reach]]

Contested Ground

Madelineblackbart — Thu, 24 Sep 2026 00:20:12 GMT

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	[[File:~~Contested_Ground_salon~~.~~jpg~~\|~~right~~\|thumb\|300x300px\|The argument, as it is held every evening somewhere in the Known World.]]		[[File:Debates at the Salon.png\|alt=A room of people in 1700s rococo fashion mixed with modern Haute Couture \|thumb\|300x300px\|The argument, as it is held every evening somewhere in the Known World.]]
	The argument over slavery in [[Teraell]] is old, earnest, and entirely unresolved. It is held in salons, guild halls, before magistrates, and on street corners, and no city-state has produced an answer. This page lays out the positions as the world holds them. Nothing here is settled, and the wiki does not settle it.		The argument over slavery in [[Teraell]] is old, earnest, and entirely unresolved. It is held in salons, guild halls, before magistrates, and on street corners, and no city-state has produced an answer. This page lays out the positions as the world holds them. Nothing here is settled, and the wiki does not settle it.
	== What the system claims for itself ==		== What the system claims for itself ==

File:Debates at the Salon.png

Madelineblackbart — Thu, 24 Sep 2026 00:20:02 GMT

Madelineblackbart uploaded File:Debates at the Salon.png

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Contested Ground

Madelineblackbart — Thu, 24 Sep 2026 00:00:57 GMT

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	[[File:Contested_Ground_salon.jpg\|right\|thumb\|300x300px\|The argument, as it is held every evening somewhere in the Known World.]]		[[File:Contested_Ground_salon.jpg\|right\|thumb\|300x300px\|The argument, as it is held every evening somewhere in the Known World.]]
	The argument over slavery in [[Teraell]] is old, earnest, and entirely unresolved. It is held in salons, guild halls, before magistrates, and on street corners, and no city-state has produced an answer. This page lays out the positions as the world holds them. Nothing here is settled, and the wiki does not settle it.~~{{Contested\|Every section on this page.}}~~		The argument over slavery in [[Teraell]] is old, earnest, and entirely unresolved. It is held in salons, guild halls, before magistrates, and on street corners, and no city-state has produced an answer. This page lays out the positions as the world holds them. Nothing here is settled, and the wiki does not settle it.

	== What the system claims for itself ==		== What the system claims for itself ==
	The Academy of [[Shining Reach]] and the system's defenders describe the outcomes of enslavement as a bell curve. At one end are those the condition does not serve, for whom manumission exists; their suffering is not denied but treated as an exception. The claim is that the majority are well served — that [[True Mastery]] and community pressure produce good outcomes for most, and that over time the practice places people where they belong.		The Academy of [[Shining Reach]] and the system's defenders describe the outcomes of enslavement as a bell curve. At one end are those the condition does not serve, for whom manumission exists; their suffering is not denied but treated as an exception. The claim is that the majority are well served — that [[True Mastery]] and community pressure produce good outcomes for most, and that over time the practice places people where they belong.

Contested Ground

Madelineblackbart — Thu, 24 Sep 2026 00:00:46 GMT

Created page with "right|thumb|300x300px|The argument, as it is held every evening somewhere in the Known World. The argument over slavery in Teraell is old, earnest, and entirely unresolved. It is held in salons, guild halls, before magistrates, and on street corners, and no city-state has produced an answer. This page lays out the positions as the world holds them. Nothing here is settled, and the wiki does not settle it.{{Contested|Every section o..."

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[[File:Contested_Ground_salon.jpg|right|thumb|300x300px|The argument, as it is held every evening somewhere in the Known World.]]
The argument over slavery in [[Teraell]] is old, earnest, and entirely unresolved. It is held in salons, guild halls, before magistrates, and on street corners, and no city-state has produced an answer. This page lays out the positions as the world holds them. Nothing here is settled, and the wiki does not settle it.{{Contested|Every section on this page.}}

== What the system claims for itself ==
The Academy of [[Shining Reach]] and the system's defenders describe the outcomes of enslavement as a bell curve. At one end are those the condition does not serve, for whom manumission exists; their suffering is not denied but treated as an exception. The claim is that the majority are well served — that [[True Mastery]] and community pressure produce good outcomes for most, and that over time the practice places people where they belong.

There is no census of contentment, because happiness cannot be measured. The curve is what the average observer sees: a woman in slavery who is not unhappy, performs her duty, and does not complain. Whether she is content or has merely accepted her life is a question that cannot be answered, and the abolitionists raise it constantly.

== The Defenders ==
The system works, and cultural pressure is the right way to keep it working ''because'' it is not law. A community that allows abuse degrades itself; one that holds a high standard raises itself. Legal requirement replaces intelligent choice: a master who treats his slave well because the law demands it has shown nothing of his character, and the law becomes a chain that keeps him from knowing himself. A philosophy has meaning only through willing practice. They point to the many households where the stations of master and slave are practiced well and ask what the law would add.

== The Moderate Reformers ==
They accept the [[The Natural Order|Natural Order]] — that some lead and some submit, and that this is the world's doing and not man's fiction. They do not accept that community alone prevents harm. Their program is practical: stronger norms, clearer public accountability for masters, slave houses held to higher standards, easy manumission for those the station does not suit, and registries that let free status be proven far from home. Their institution is the [[Hearth Keeper's Guild]], with chapters in every city. They do not question the institution; they question its administration, and in that question they find lifetimes of work.

== The Abolitionists ==
Their target is the distance between philosophy and practice. They point to slaves who suffered under cruel masters while the community stood by. They point to [[The Iron Coves]] and [[The Frontier]], where no cultural pressure can be relied on. And they point to the problem defenders cannot honestly ignore: a system that depends on the goodness of everyone in it can never be consistent, because consistency in goodness requires consistency in nature, and that is precisely what the Natural Order says does not exist. An inconsistent system is not a safe system.

They add that a system which does not allow choice does not allow real self-examination. A system confident in its own nature should trust that those suited to service would choose it. That it compels them suggests it is less confident than it appears.

Abolitionists exist in every city, sex, trade, and station. A free person who examines the question and finds their nature will not let them endorse slavery must do what the philosophy demands of everyone: know their own nature and act on it, whatever it costs.

== The Radical Abolitionists ==
A small fringe who reject slavery entirely, regardless of nature, treatment, or philosophy. They are thought extremists — they dismiss a tradition the culture takes seriously rather than arguing it. They exist on almost every corner of Teraell and are taken seriously almost nowhere.

== Where the argument actually sits ==
The sides mostly talk past each other. The defenders' main argument rests on the Natural Order's second claim: a pattern holds, and a person suited to service excels in it. The abolitionists' rests on the third: applying a pattern to a particular person needs particular evidence, and the system gathers it carelessly. Both accept the first claim. So a defender argues at length that natures differ, the abolitionist agrees, and the defender goes home believing he proved something. The abolitionist says a particular woman was never suited to service, the defender grants it, and neither notices the institution itself was never discussed.

== By city-state ==

; [[Shining Reach]]
: The intellectual center. The Academy hosts the debates and produces the most articulate abolitionists. Moderate reform has real support in the senate class.
; [[Forgegate]]
: Reform as a matter of professional standards. One question: does it work, and are the results good?
; [[Stormharbor]]
: The least abolitionist city. Reform is a sacred obligation rather than a matter of rights; deep tradition surrounds service and hierarchy.
; [[Eldershore]]
: The most complicated relationship. Its traditions of slavery and manumission are the oldest in Teraell and among the most protective of slaves. Its abolitionists are told that their people have done this with dignity for longer than anyone.
; [[Clearhold]]
: The most rigorous abolitionists. A government built on demonstrated merit does not sit easily with a status assigned regardless of ability, and Clearhold's thinkers have noticed.
; [[The Iron Coves]]
: No argument. Slavery is property, labor, and commerce, and nothing is offered to soften it.

== What has not been answered ==
Two questions are conceded by serious thinkers on both sides. First: why a system that claims confidence in its nature does not let itself be tested by free choice. Second: the inconsistency of protection. Cultural enforcement needs a strong community of equals; where power concentrates it fails, and where community thins it wanes. So the system works best for those owned in cities where people watch closely, and worst where a slave is alone or her owner powerful — the opposite of where protection is needed most. Neither side denies this, which is why the argument remains honest.

== See also ==

* [[The Natural Order]] · [[True Mastery]] · [[The Pact of Reason]]
* [[Slavery]] · [[Manumission]] · [[Hearth Keeper's Guild]]

The Pact of Reason

Madelineblackbart — Wed, 23 Sep 2026 23:59:30 GMT

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	[[File:~~Pact_of_Reason_signing~~.~~jpg~~\|~~right~~\|thumb\|300x300px\|Five signed. One chair stayed empty.]]		[[File:Council Signing Pact.png\|alt=People at a table signing a document\|thumb\|300x300px\|Five signed. One chair stayed empty.]]

	: ''Reason without Nature is hollow. Nature without Reason is brutal.''		: ''Reason without Nature is hollow. Nature without Reason is brutal.''

File:Council Signing Pact.png

Madelineblackbart — Wed, 23 Sep 2026 23:59:20 GMT

Madelineblackbart uploaded File:Council Signing Pact.png

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The Pact of Reason

Madelineblackbart — Wed, 23 Sep 2026 23:54:51 GMT

Created page with "right|thumb|300x300px|Five signed. One chair stayed empty. : ''Reason without Nature is hollow. Nature without Reason is brutal.'' The '''Pact of Reason''' is two things that share a name: a philosophy about how reason and the Natural Order complete each other, and a practical treaty among five city-states that ended a war. The philosophy gave the treaty its preamble; the treaty gave the philosophy its scars. =..."

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[[File:Pact_of_Reason_signing.jpg|right|thumb|300x300px|Five signed. One chair stayed empty.]]

: ''Reason without Nature is hollow. Nature without Reason is brutal.''

The '''Pact of Reason''' is two things that share a name: a philosophy about how reason and the [[The Natural Order|Natural Order]] complete each other, and a practical treaty among five city-states that ended a war. The philosophy gave the treaty its preamble; the treaty gave the philosophy its scars.

== The philosophy ==
Reason is the tool by which the world is understood. It advances medicine, method, and measure, and lets the Natural Order be seen accurately rather than guessed at. Without nature there is nothing to reason about; without reason, nature cannot be understood.

But reason tells a person what is and what can be done; it does not decide what is owed. It can deduce a man's strength, not what that strength is due. Every attempt to derive obligation from measurement alone has failed, and that gap is where the Natural Order lives.

Nature alone is worse. A world governed only by nature is a tyranny where the strong take what they want and the many suffer. That is the arrangement of [[The Iron Coves]], which the other cities regard not as an alternative to the Pact but as the absence of one. Reason is what makes a hierarchy something to be followed rather than merely obeyed — the difference between a master who leads and a tyrant who oppresses.

== The war ==
A free person of [[Shining Reach]] was taken on the [[The Frontier|Frontier]] and sold in [[Stormharbor]]. The claiming was lawful — it always has been on the Frontier. The question was whose law governed her afterward. Shining Reach held that free status travels with the person and no other city's claim could change it. Stormharbor held that she was taken outside the walls, and a city's law stops at its gates. Both positions were honest, and there was no law between the cities to decide between them. The quarrel became a war.

[[Forgegate]], lying between the two, had its farms burned by two cities that bore it no anger. [[Clearhold]], with the roads closed, went hungry within a season; its valley cannot feed itself.

== The treaty ==
The Pact as written is not a philosophy but an agreement born of a war that began with a Frontier claiming and ended with two cities' crops burned and four cities starving. Its clauses are practical:

* Disputes between cities go to arbitration, not to arms.
* Each city governs its own affairs and does not extend its law beyond its gates.
* The mark and manumission of one city are honored in all.
* An unmarked person is free in all cities.
* A Frontier claiming remains lawful, the Frontier being beyond any city's walls.
* Weights, measures, and dealings are to remain honest.

Every clause is a scar. Arbitration, because there had been no forum. Free status, because that is what the war began over. The extent of a city's law, because no one could agree where it ended. Portable marks, so that the same war could not start again. Honest measure, because the dishonest had seen famine as a way to profit.

== What the settlement established ==
Status is single and travels with the person. An unmarked person is free in every city. A person bearing a completed circle is free in every city. A person bearing a broken circle is a slave in every city, including the city of their birth. Shining Reach carried its point — a free person is free everywhere — and Stormharbor carried hers — a lawfully marked slave is a slave everywhere. Both went home able to say they had won. The Frontier remains lawful ground for claiming; what the Pact settles is that once marked there, there is no place left where the taken can be free. See [[Slavery]].

== Signatories ==
Stormharbor and Shining Reach signed as belligerents. Forgegate convened the Pact, having lost more to a quarrel it had no part in than either party fighting it. Clearhold pressed for the meeting. [[Eldershore]] signed as the oldest settlement in the world, its elders to hold the memory of the signing for generations. The Iron Coves did not sign; the closing of the overland roads had been the most prosperous moment in their history.

== What the Pact does not provide ==
It has no enforcing body. It trusts the signers to keep its clauses of their own accord, and offers arbitration for cities to invoke when they choose. A single person is not a dispute among cities unless someone at home notices the absence, cares to raise a petition, and has the means to do so. What protection the Pact gives a person rests entirely on how well established they were in family, station, and city.

== What the Pact rejects ==
Two tyrannies that had joined into one: the tyranny of rulers and unchecked machines, and the tyranny of conformity, which presses every person into one mold against their nature under the guise of kindness.

== The preamble ==
The preamble is the most debated and most quoted part of the Pact. It speaks of Reason, Nature, and the ordered liberty of the free, and names the tyrannies these stand against. It names no person, claim, or war. Scholars know a Frontier claiming started the war; who the claimed was is lost and much argued. The preamble is among the most repeated pieces of literature in the Known World, and the clauses that follow it are usually left out of the reading.

== See also ==

* [[The Natural Order]] · [[True Mastery]] · [[The Contested Ground]]
* [[Why City-State Wars Are Rare]] · [[Historical Timeline]]

Oathbond

Madelineblackbart — Wed, 23 Sep 2026 23:53:33 GMT

Added an image of a sigil

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	[[File:~~Oathbond_sigil_pendant~~.~~jpg~~\|~~right~~\|thumb\|300x300px\|A sigil: emblem for the family, color for the city, accent for the station.]]		[[File:Stormharbor Sailor's Sigil.png\|alt=A Stormharbor Sailor Oathbond Sigil. The Famrae Icon in the center is two Mushrooms, The color is Steel blue to represent Stormharbor City-state, and Accent circle of an Anchor and Rope\|thumb\|300x300px\|A sigil: emblem for the family, color for the city, accent for the station.]]
	The '''Oathbond''' is the spine of [[Teraell]]. It is a free person's standing: who answers for them, what they answer for, and what they must keep doing to hold it. It is not a possession, a rank, or a document. It is what a free person ''is''.		The '''Oathbond''' is the spine of [[Teraell]]. It is a free person's standing: who answers for them, what they answer for, and what they must keep doing to hold it. It is not a possession, a rank, or a document. It is what a free person ''is''.

File:Stormharbor Sailor's Sigil.png

Madelineblackbart — Wed, 23 Sep 2026 23:51:03 GMT

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An Example of a Sigil

Oathbond

Madelineblackbart — Wed, 23 Sep 2026 21:22:10 GMT

PAGE: The Oathbond

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	~~== PAGE: The Oathbond ==~~
	~~{{Bible\|section=3}}~~
	[[File:Oathbond_sigil_pendant.jpg\|right\|thumb\|300x300px\|A sigil: emblem for the family, color for the city, accent for the station.]]		[[File:Oathbond_sigil_pendant.jpg\|right\|thumb\|300x300px\|A sigil: emblem for the family, color for the city, accent for the station.]]
	The '''Oathbond''' is the spine of [[Teraell]]. It is a free person's standing: who answers for them, what they answer for, and what they must keep doing to hold it. It is not a possession, a rank, or a document. It is what a free person ''is''.		The '''Oathbond''' is the spine of [[Teraell]]. It is a free person's standing: who answers for them, what they answer for, and what they must keep doing to hold it. It is not a possession, a rank, or a document. It is what a free person ''is''.

Oathbond

Madelineblackbart — Wed, 23 Sep 2026 21:21:06 GMT

Created page with " == PAGE: The Oathbond == {{Bible|section=3}} right|thumb|300x300px|A sigil: emblem for the family, color for the city, accent for the station. The '''Oathbond''' is the spine of Teraell. It is a free person's standing: who answers for them, what they answer for, and what they must keep doing to hold it. It is not a possession, a rank, or a document. It is what a free person ''is''. == What it is == A person is born into their fam..."

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== PAGE: The Oathbond ==
{{Bible|section=3}}
[[File:Oathbond_sigil_pendant.jpg|right|thumb|300x300px|A sigil: emblem for the family, color for the city, accent for the station.]]
The '''Oathbond''' is the spine of [[Teraell]]. It is a free person's standing: who answers for them, what they answer for, and what they must keep doing to hold it. It is not a possession, a rank, or a document. It is what a free person ''is''.

== What it is ==
A person is born into their family's and city's Oathbond. It is not acquired with age or money and it is not owed to anyone. What must be earned is not the Oathbond but the right to keep standing in it, and that is earned every day through work and conduct. The poorest laborer and the richest merchant hold theirs the same way, and can lose them the same way.

== The Four Aspects ==
The Oathbond has four aspects, and a failure in one is a failure in all:

; Personal
: Your own honor and conduct — who you are when no one is watching.
; Family
: The home you belong to, by birth or by choice. They answer for your actions as you answer for theirs.
; Station
: Your occupation and craft, and the standards it demands.
; City
: The community you belong to, the laws you uphold, the place that speaks for you.

A free man who cheats at his trade has shamed his family and stained his city's name, and he knows what kind of man he is. The Oathbond cannot be held in part. It must be honored whole.

== The Sigil ==
The physical sign of the Oathbond is the [[The Sigil|sigil]] — a necklace, ring, or tattoo carrying the family emblem, colored for the city and accented for the station. There is no mark for the self; that is simply who you are.

== Growing into it ==
There is no ceremony and no age of majority. What changes is answerability. A small child's acts reflect on their parents' care; as the child grows, more of the weight becomes their own, until in adulthood they carry all of it. Each city points to a moment when a person's behavior starts to be discussed as their own — first examination in [[Clearhold]], taking an apprenticeship in [[Forgegate]], first voyage in [[Stormharbor]] — but none marks it with a rite.

== At death ==
The family's Oathbond continues. The personal Oathbond dies with the person; the city and station aspects lapse with the role and residence that gave rise to them. Reputation does not die. An honorable death confers honor on the family after; a shameful one leaves a burden that descendants must lift by living well. How heavily this falls varies by city — strong and lasting in Clearhold and [[Eldershore]], almost entirely personal in [[The Iron Coves]]. A sigil is usually buried or ritually destroyed at death; Eldershore enshrines those of its high-ranking dead as relics of the line.

== Losing it ==
Enslavement destroys an Oathbond, permanently. That is what the collar means: the slave wears her owner's Oathbond, not her own, and her actions reflect on him and his ability to lead, not on her. See [[Slavery]].

Manumission does not restore what was lost. It restores the personal Oathbond and the ''capacity'' to hold the other three. A freed person has no family, no station, and no city — her owner freed her, not her family — and must gain them again through marriage or through an act that proves her worth, exactly as any free person must.

The personal Oathbond can never be repudiated; only enslavement removes it. Family, station, and city can be walked away from. Someone who does so keeps the capacity and loses the reputation, and stands where a freed person stands: they must build an Oathbond anew.

There is no central registry of Oathbonds. The slave mark tells everyone who sees it that its wearer has none.

== Who has none ==
See [[Those Without an Oathbond]].

== In the philosophy ==
The Oathbond is how [[True Mastery]] is enforced, since no institution enforces it: each person answers to their own standing and their community. It is what the [[The Pact of Reason|Pact of Reason]] made portable across cities, so that a free person is free in every city and a marked slave is a slave in every city. And it is the guarantee, in the [[The Natural Order|Natural Order]], that every person is entitled to live according to their own nature.

== See also ==

* [[The Sigil]] · [[Those Without an Oathbond]]
* [[True Mastery]] · [[The Pact of Reason]] · [[Slavery]]
* ''[[Lexicon:Modern/caeshmae|caeshmae]]'' — the duel that an insult to the Oathbond usually produces

Template:Non-Canon

Madelineblackbart — Wed, 23 Sep 2026 02:04:22 GMT

Non-Canon Info Template

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== PAGE: Template:Non-canon ==
<includeonly><div class="teraell-box teraell-meta">
<div class="teraell-box-head">Not canon</div>
<div class="teraell-box-body">{{{1|This page is a draft, a proposal, or speculation. It is not part of the canon of Teraell until this notice is removed.}}}</div>
</div>[[Category:Non-canon pages]]</includeonly><noinclude>
Marks the exceptions to the rule that everything on this wiki is canon. Use it on drafts, ideas you are still deciding on, and anything you want visible but not binding.

'''Usage:'''
<pre>{{Non-canon}}
{{Non-canon|Custom text.}}</pre>
[[Category:Templates]]</noinclude>

MediaWiki:Sidebar

Madelineblackbart — Tue, 22 Sep 2026 23:33:56 GMT

New page

MediaWiki:Common.css

Madelineblackbart — Tue, 22 Sep 2026 23:32:46 GMT

Created page with "CSS placed here will be applied to all skins: == PAGE: MediaWiki:Common.css == ===== Teraell wiki — shared styles =====: Palette: brass, iron, parchment: :root { --tera-brass: #b8862b; --tera-brass-dark: #7a5a1c; --tera-iron: #3b3f45; --tera-parchment: #f6f1e6; --tera-ink: #1e1b16; --tera-hidden: #4a2b5c; --tera-contested: #8a3b2a; --tera-meta: #2f5d6e; } ---- Main page hero ----: .teraell-hero { text-align:center; margin:0 0 1.5em..."

New page

/* CSS placed here will be applied to all skins */
== PAGE: MediaWiki:Common.css ==
/* ===== Teraell wiki — shared styles ===== */

/* Palette: brass, iron, parchment */
:root {
--tera-brass: #b8862b;
--tera-brass-dark: #7a5a1c;
--tera-iron: #3b3f45;
--tera-parchment: #f6f1e6;
--tera-ink: #1e1b16;
--tera-hidden: #4a2b5c;
--tera-contested: #8a3b2a;
--tera-meta: #2f5d6e;
}

/* ---- Main page hero ---- */
.teraell-hero { text-align:center; margin:0 0 1.5em 0; }
.teraell-hero-title { font-size:2.8em; font-weight:bold; letter-spacing:0.08em; color:var(--tera-brass-dark); margin-top:0.3em; }
.teraell-hero-sub { font-size:1.1em; color:var(--tera-iron); font-style:italic; }

/* ---- Main page portal table ---- */
.teraell-portals { width:100%; border-collapse:separate; border-spacing:0 6px; }
.teraell-portals td { padding:8px 12px; background:var(--tera-parchment); border-left:4px solid var(--tera-brass); }
.teraell-portals td:first-child { font-weight:bold; white-space:nowrap; width:1%; }

/* ---- Infoboxes ---- */
.teraell-infobox { float:right; clear:right; width:300px; margin:0 0 1em 1.5em; border:1px solid var(--tera-brass); background:var(--tera-parchment); font-size:0.92em; border-collapse:collapse; }
.teraell-infobox th, .teraell-infobox td { padding:4px 8px; vertical-align:top; border-bottom:1px solid #e3d9c4; }
.teraell-infobox th { text-align:left; width:38%; color:var(--tera-brass-dark); font-weight:600; }
.teraell-infobox-title { text-align:center !important; font-size:1.2em; background:var(--tera-brass); color:#fff !important; width:auto !important; }
.teraell-infobox-image { text-align:center; padding:6px !important; }
.teraell-infobox-caption { font-size:0.85em; color:var(--tera-iron); margin-top:4px; }
.teraell-word .ipa { font-family:"Charis SIL","Doulos SIL","Gentium Plus","DejaVu Sans",sans-serif; }

/* ---- Callout boxes ---- */
.teraell-box { margin:1em 0; border-left:5px solid; background:var(--tera-parchment); }
.teraell-box-head { font-weight:bold; padding:6px 12px; color:#fff; font-size:0.9em; letter-spacing:0.04em; text-transform:uppercase; }
.teraell-box-body { padding:8px 12px; }
.teraell-hidden { border-color:var(--tera-hidden); }
.teraell-hidden .teraell-box-head { background:var(--tera-hidden); }
.teraell-contested { border-color:var(--tera-contested); }
.teraell-contested .teraell-box-head { background:var(--tera-contested); }
.teraell-meta { border-color:var(--tera-meta); }
.teraell-meta .teraell-box-head { background:var(--tera-meta); }

/* ---- Bible source tag ---- */
.teraell-bible-tag { float:right; font-size:0.8em; color:var(--tera-iron); background:#eee8da; border:1px solid var(--tera-brass); padding:2px 8px; margin:0 0 0.5em 1em; }

/* ---- Footer note on Main Page ---- */
.teraell-footer-note { margin-top:2em; font-size:0.85em; color:var(--tera-iron); text-align:center; border-top:1px solid var(--tera-brass); padding-top:0.5em; }

/* ---- Mobile ---- */
@media (max-width: 720px) {
.teraell-infobox { float:none; width:100%; margin:0 0 1em 0; }
.teraell-bible-tag { float:none; display:inline-block; }
}

Template:Infobox Month

Madelineblackbart — Tue, 22 Sep 2026 23:26:06 GMT

Month Infobox

New page

== PAGE: Template:Infobox month ==
<includeonly>{| class="teraell-infobox"
! colspan="2" class="teraell-infobox-title" | {{{name|{{PAGENAME}}}}}
|-
{{#if:{{{image|}}}|{{!}} colspan="2" class="teraell-infobox-image" {{!}} [[File:{{{image}}}|280px]]
{{!}}-}}
{{#if:{{{number|}}}|! Month {{!}}{{!}} {{{number}}} of 8
{{!}}-}}
{{#if:{{{days|}}}|! Days {{!}}{{!}} {{{days}}}
{{!}}-}}
{{#if:{{{weeks|}}}|! Weeks {{!}}{{!}} {{{weeks}}}
{{!}}-}}
{{#if:{{{station|}}}|! Station {{!}}{{!}} {{{station}}}
{{!}}-}}
{{#if:{{{season|}}}|! Season {{!}}{{!}} {{{season}}}
{{!}}-}}
{{#if:{{{theme|}}}|! Theme {{!}}{{!}} {{{theme}}}
{{!}}-}}
{{#if:{{{previous|}}}|! Previous {{!}}{{!}} [[{{{previous}}}]]
{{!}}-}}
{{#if:{{{next|}}}|! Next {{!}}{{!}} [[{{{next}}}]]
{{!}}-}}
{{#if:{{{lexicon|}}}|! Lexicon {{!}}{{!}} [[Lexicon:Modern/{{{lexicon}}}|{{{lexicon}}}]]
{{!}}-}}
|}[[Category:Months]]</includeonly><noinclude>
Infobox for the eight months.

'''Usage:'''
<pre>{{Infobox month
| name = Abwynd
| number = 6
| days = 45
| weeks = 5 nine-day weeks
| station = Oathbond
| season = Late summer
| theme = Harvest, abundance, fulfillment
| previous =
| next =
| lexicon = Abwynd
}}</pre>
[[Category:Templates]]</noinclude>

Template:Infobox Word

Madelineblackbart — Tue, 22 Sep 2026 23:25:42 GMT

Word Infobox

New page

== PAGE: Template:Infobox word ==
<includeonly>{| class="teraell-infobox teraell-word"
! colspan="2" class="teraell-infobox-title" | {{{word|{{SUBPAGENAME}}}}}
|-
! Stage || {{{stage}}} CLT
|-
{{#if:{{{ipa|}}}|! Pronunciation {{!}}{{!}} <span class="ipa">{{{ipa}}}</span>
{{!}}-}}
{{#if:{{{pos|}}}|! Part of speech {{!}}{{!}} {{{pos}}}
{{!}}-}}
{{#if:{{{parts|}}}|! Principal parts {{!}}{{!}} {{{parts}}}
{{!}}-}}
{{#if:{{{etymology|}}}|! Etymology {{!}}{{!}} {{{etymology}}}
{{!}}-}}
{{#if:{{{descendant|}}}|! Later form {{!}}{{!}} {{{descendant}}}
{{!}}-}}
{{#if:{{{related|}}}|! Related words {{!}}{{!}} {{{related}}}
{{!}}-}}
|}[[Category:{{{stage}}} CLT words]]{{#if:{{{pos|}}}|[[Category:{{{stage}}} CLT {{{pos}}}s]]}}</includeonly><noinclude>
Infobox for Lexicon pages. These are generated from the dictionary CSVs; you should rarely write one by hand.

'''Usage:'''
<pre>{{Infobox word
| word = Abwynd
| stage = Modern
| ipa = /ˈab.wɪnd/
| pos = Noun
| parts =
| etymology = from Middle [[Lexicon:Middle/Abundē|Abundē]], from Proto [[Lexicon:Proto/abundi|abundi]]
| descendant =
| related = [[Lexicon:Modern/Reimach|Reimach]], [[Lexicon:Modern/Eimr|Eimr]]
}}</pre>
'''stage''' must be Proto, Middle, or Modern.
[[Category:Templates]]</noinclude>

Template:Plant

Madelineblackbart — Tue, 22 Sep 2026 23:25:20 GMT

Plant Template

New page

== PAGE: Template:Infobox plant ==
<includeonly>{| class="teraell-infobox"
! colspan="2" class="teraell-infobox-title" | {{{name|{{PAGENAME}}}}}
|-
{{#if:{{{image|}}}|{{!}} colspan="2" class="teraell-infobox-image" {{!}} [[File:{{{image}}}|280px]]{{#if:{{{caption|}}}|<div class="teraell-infobox-caption">{{{caption}}}</div>}}
{{!}}-}}
{{#if:{{{gloss|}}}|! English gloss {{!}}{{!}} {{{gloss}}} <small>(translation, not identification)</small>
{{!}}-}}
{{#if:{{{type|}}}|! Type {{!}}{{!}} {{{type}}}
{{!}}-}}
{{#if:{{{grown|}}}|! Where grown / found {{!}}{{!}} {{{grown}}}
{{!}}-}}
{{#if:{{{season|}}}|! Season {{!}}{{!}} {{{season}}}
{{!}}-}}
{{#if:{{{used_for|}}}|! Used for {{!}}{{!}} {{{used_for}}}
{{!}}-}}
{{#if:{{{danger|}}}|! Danger {{!}}{{!}} {{{danger}}}
{{!}}-}}
{{#if:{{{cities|}}}|! Associated cities {{!}}{{!}} {{{cities}}}
{{!}}-}}
{{#if:{{{lexicon|}}}|! Lexicon {{!}}{{!}} [[Lexicon:Modern/{{{lexicon}}}|{{{lexicon}}}]]
{{!}}-}}
|}[[Category:Plants]]{{#if:{{{type|}}}|[[Category:{{{type}}}]]}}</includeonly><noinclude>
Infobox for crops, wild plants, trees, and fungi.

'''Usage:'''
<pre>{{Infobox plant
| name =
| image =
| caption =
| gloss =
| type = Grains / Roots and legumes / Sugars / Fruits / Spices and herbs / Fibers and oils / Cellar crops / Guard crops / Drinks / Timber / Wild gathered / Ground cover / Fungi
| grown =
| season =
| used_for =
| danger =
| cities =
| lexicon =
}}</pre>
[[Category:Templates]]</noinclude>

Template:Creature

Madelineblackbart — Tue, 22 Sep 2026 23:24:57 GMT

Creature Template

New page

== PAGE: Template:Infobox creature ==
<includeonly>{| class="teraell-infobox"
! colspan="2" class="teraell-infobox-title" | {{{name|{{PAGENAME}}}}}
|-
{{#if:{{{image|}}}|{{!}} colspan="2" class="teraell-infobox-image" {{!}} [[File:{{{image}}}|280px]]{{#if:{{{caption|}}}|<div class="teraell-infobox-caption">{{{caption}}}</div>}}
{{!}}-}}
{{#if:{{{gloss|}}}|! English gloss {{!}}{{!}} {{{gloss}}} <small>(translation, not identification)</small>
{{!}}-}}
{{#if:{{{role|}}}|! Role {{!}}{{!}} {{{role}}}
{{!}}-}}
{{#if:{{{habitat|}}}|! Where found {{!}}{{!}} {{{habitat}}}
{{!}}-}}
{{#if:{{{size|}}}|! Size {{!}}{{!}} {{{size}}}
{{!}}-}}
{{#if:{{{kept|}}}|! Kept / wild {{!}}{{!}} {{{kept}}}
{{!}}-}}
{{#if:{{{danger|}}}|! Danger {{!}}{{!}} {{{danger}}}
{{!}}-}}
{{#if:{{{used_for|}}}|! Used for {{!}}{{!}} {{{used_for}}}
{{!}}-}}
{{#if:{{{cities|}}}|! Associated cities {{!}}{{!}} {{{cities}}}
{{!}}-}}
{{#if:{{{lexicon|}}}|! Lexicon {{!}}{{!}} [[Lexicon:Modern/{{{lexicon}}}|{{{lexicon}}}]]
{{!}}-}}
|}[[Category:Creatures]]{{#if:{{{role|}}}|[[Category:{{{role}}} animals]]}}</includeonly><noinclude>
Infobox for animals, birds, fish, and insects.

'''Usage:'''
<pre>{{Infobox creature
| name =
| image =
| caption =
| gloss =
| role = Haulage / Riding / Food / Hunted / Pet / Vermin / Dangerous / Wild
| habitat =
| size =
| kept =
| danger =
| used_for =
| cities =
| lexicon =
}}</pre>
'''role''' should be one of the listed words so the category works.
[[Category:Templates]]</noinclude>

Template:City State

Madelineblackbart — Tue, 22 Sep 2026 23:24:28 GMT

City State Template

New page

== PAGE: Template:Infobox city-state ==
<includeonly>{| class="teraell-infobox"
! colspan="2" class="teraell-infobox-title" | {{{name|{{PAGENAME}}}}}
|-
{{#if:{{{image|}}}|{{!}} colspan="2" class="teraell-infobox-image" {{!}} [[File:{{{image}}}|280px]]{{#if:{{{caption|}}}|<div class="teraell-infobox-caption">{{{caption}}}</div>}}
{{!}}-}}
{{#if:{{{clt_name|}}}|! CLT name {{!}}{{!}} ''{{{clt_name}}}''
{{!}}-}}
{{#if:{{{strength|}}}|! Strength {{!}}{{!}} {{{strength}}}
{{!}}-}}
{{#if:{{{position|}}}|! Position {{!}}{{!}} {{{position}}}
{{!}}-}}
{{#if:{{{founded|}}}|! Founded {{!}}{{!}} {{{founded}}}
{{!}}-}}
{{#if:{{{population|}}}|! Population {{!}}{{!}} {{{population}}}
{{!}}-}}
{{#if:{{{walls|}}}|! Walls {{!}}{{!}} {{{walls}}}
{{!}}-}}
{{#if:{{{government|}}}|! Government {{!}}{{!}} {{{government}}}
{{!}}-}}
{{#if:{{{coin|}}}|! Coin {{!}}{{!}} {{{coin}}}
{{!}}-}}
{{#if:{{{trades|}}}|! Makes and trades {{!}}{{!}} {{{trades}}}
{{!}}-}}
{{#if:{{{navy|}}}|! Navy {{!}}{{!}} {{{navy}}}
{{!}}-}}
{{#if:{{{stance|}}}|! Stance on slavery {{!}}{{!}} {{{stance}}}
{{!}}-}}
{{#if:{{{cohort|}}}|! Founding cohort <small>(not in-world)</small> {{!}}{{!}} {{{cohort}}}
{{!}}-}}
|}[[Category:City-states]]</includeonly><noinclude>
Infobox for the six city-states and the Frontier.

'''Usage — copy this block:'''
<pre>{{Infobox city-state
| name =
| image =
| caption =
| clt_name =
| strength =
| position =
| founded =
| population =
| walls =
| government =
| coin =
| trades =
| navy =
| stance =
| cohort =
}}</pre>
Empty fields are hidden.
[[Category:Templates]]</noinclude>

Template:Unofficial

Madelineblackbart — Tue, 22 Sep 2026 23:24:05 GMT

Unofficial Template

New page

== PAGE: Template:Unofficial ==
<includeonly><div class="teraell-box teraell-meta">
<div class="teraell-box-head">Not in-world</div>
<div class="teraell-box-body">{{{1|This page is written for readers, writers, and builders. Nothing on it is in-world knowledge.}}}</div>
</div></includeonly><noinclude>
Banner for Meta: pages and any other page that is about the project rather than the world.

'''Usage:'''
<pre>{{Unofficial}}
{{Unofficial|Custom text.}}</pre>
[[Category:Templates]]</noinclude>

Template:Contested

Madelineblackbart — Tue, 22 Sep 2026 23:23:23 GMT

Contested Template

New page

== PAGE: Template:Contested ==
<includeonly><div class="teraell-box teraell-contested">
<div class="teraell-box-head">Contested in Teraell</div>
<div class="teraell-box-body">{{{1}}}</div>
</div>[[Category:Contested questions]]</includeonly><noinclude>
Boxes out a question the world itself has not settled — chiefly the argument over the Natural Order and slavery, but also any point where the city-states disagree.

'''Usage:'''
<pre>{{Contested|Whether those who diverge from the pattern are evidence against it or an exception to it.}}</pre>
[[Category:Templates]]</noinclude>

Template:Hidden Truth

Madelineblackbart — Tue, 22 Sep 2026 23:22:49 GMT

Hidden Truth Template

New page

== PAGE: Template:Hidden truth ==
<includeonly><div class="teraell-box teraell-hidden">
<div class="teraell-box-head">Hidden truth — not known in Teraell</div>
<div class="teraell-box-body">{{{1}}}</div>
</div>[[Category:Pages with hidden truths]]</includeonly><noinclude>
Boxes out a fact that is true in the world but unknown to the people living in it (the Fall, the AI, the founding cohorts, the meaning of year one).

'''Usage:'''
<pre>{{Hidden truth|Year one is the year the AI was activated.}}</pre>
[[Category:Templates]]</noinclude>

Template:Bible

Madelineblackbart — Tue, 22 Sep 2026 23:20:54 GMT

Bible Template

New page

== PAGE: Template:Bible ==
<includeonly><div class="teraell-bible-tag">Source: ''Oathbond World Bible'' {{#if:{{{version|}}}|({{{version}}})|(Final)}}{{#if:{{{section|}}}|, §{{{section}}}|}}{{#if:{{{note|}}}| — {{{note}}}|}}</div>[[Category:Bible §{{{section|unsourced}}}]]</includeonly><noinclude>
Marks which section of the World Bible a page was written from. Put it at the top of every lore page.

'''Usage:'''
<pre>{{Bible|section=5.3|version=Final}}
{{Bible|section=4|note=Animals subsection}}</pre>

* '''section''' — chapter or chapter.subsection number from the Bible.
* '''version''' — Bible version the page was last checked against. Defaults to "Final".
* '''note''' — optional free text.

Each page is added to a category named after its section, so when you revise a Bible chapter you can find every wiki page that depends on it.
[[Category:Templates]]</noinclude>

Template:Tl

Madelineblackbart — Tue, 22 Sep 2026 23:20:06 GMT

General template Page

New page

== PAGE: Template:Tl ==
<includeonly>{{[[Template:{{{1}}}|{{{1}}}]]}}</includeonly><noinclude>
Shows a template name as a link without invoking it. Used on Meta pages and template documentation.

'''Usage:''' <pre>{{tl|Hidden truth}}</pre> → {{tl|Hidden truth}}
[[Category:Templates]]</noinclude>

Meta:Content Notice

Madelineblackbart — Tue, 22 Sep 2026 23:18:27 GMT

Created page with "== Conventions == This wiki is the companion to the '''Oathbond World Bible'''. Both are canonical. The wiki is written and maintained solely by the Owner, so everything on it is canon unless a page is explicitly marked otherwise. The Bible is the primary text — the registered, copyrighted work the wiki is built from — and every lore page carries a {{tl|Bible}} tag naming the section it draws on. Where the two differ, the wiki is the more current and should be taken..."

New page

== Conventions ==
This wiki is the companion to the '''Oathbond World Bible'''. Both are canonical. The wiki is written and maintained solely by the Owner, so everything on it is canon unless a page is explicitly marked otherwise. The Bible is the primary text — the registered, copyrighted work the wiki is built from — and every lore page carries a {{tl|Bible}} tag naming the section it draws on. Where the two differ, the wiki is the more current and should be taken as correct: it is updated continuously, while the Bible is revised only at intervals. Any difference will be folded into the next revision of the Bible.

== The wiki is a source of truth, not an in-world text ==
This wiki is written from outside Teraell. A great deal of what it says is not known to anyone living in the world. Where something is true but unknown, the page says so plainly rather than implying it, and marks the passage with a {{tl|Hidden truth}} box. Where the world itself has not settled a question, the page says that too, with a {{tl|Contested}} box.

== The Oathbond ==
The [[The Oathbond|Oathbond]] is the spine of this world. It is a person's standing: who answers for them, what they answer for, and what they must keep doing to hold it. A free person has one. A slave has none, and wears her owner's at her throat instead. Everything on this wiki that looks like law is downstream of it. If you are unsure how something in Teraell works, ask first who answers for it.

== Names are translations ==
English names given for animals, plants, places, and institutions are the nearest available English word, not identifications. A Butera is not a butterfly from our world. A Spidh is not a spider, a [[Vaelith]] is not a horse, and Gechwyn is not wheat. When a page says "a horse-sized riding animal," it means exactly that and no more.

Ordinary objects and metals are exempt. A chair is a chair. Iron is iron, and brass is the same two metals in any universe.

City names are given in English throughout — Shining Reach, Forgegate, Stormharbor, Eldershore, Clearhold, the Iron Coves. Their in-world CLT names are given in the [[Lexicon:Modern|Lexicon]] and in each city's infobox.

== The language names are translations too ==
'''Common Reason Tongue''' (CRT/CLT) and '''Brain Rot Tongue''' (BRT) render terms from two different eras. BRT is an English rendering of an insulting term for the language, given in tongues that have long since been lost. "Common Reason Tongue" is an echo of that older name, coined by whoever rendered these materials into English. It is not a name the speakers use. To them it is simply the '''Spraecha''' — the speech.

The [[Language|Lexicon]] gives the tongue in three stages: [[Lexicon:Proto|Proto]], [[Lexicon:Middle|Middle]], and [[Lexicon:Modern|Modern]]. Lexicon pages are titled with a stage prefix, e.g. <code>Lexicon:Modern/Abwynd</code>.

== Measures ==
Measures are given in their own units with a real-world gloss at first use on a page, then bare after. The full table is at [[Weights and Measures]].

== Dates ==
Dates are reckoned from the first year of records kept by the survivors of the Fall. The present year is '''917'''. In the world this is simply the year the count began, before any city-state — even Eldershore — existed.

{{Hidden truth|Year one is the year the old world drew its final breath, the AI was activated, and the first people from our world were brought through to reseed the dimension. The survivors started the count and never wrote down what it started from. Nobody living in Teraell knows this.}}

== Cultural references ==
Each city-state page carries a note on its founding cohort and aesthetic references. These exist for writers and artists and are not in-world knowledge; nobody in Teraell would make these associations. They are also not equivalences. The founding cohorts came from our world, so the resemblance is inherited and real, but nine hundred years of separate development have made each city its own. Clearhold is not Yunnan. Eldershore is no place in Africa. The references tell you where to look for the texture of a place — the shape of a roof, the cut of a coat, the way a hall is laid out — and stop there. '''Where the reference and the world disagree, the world wins.''' See [[Meta:Cultural References]].

== Page conventions on this wiki ==

* Lore pages summarize and cross-link; they do not reproduce the Bible. For the full text, consult the Bible section in the page's {{tl|Bible}} tag.
* Bold the page's subject on first mention. Link the first mention of any creature, plant, place, institution, or CLT word.
* CLT words in running text are ''italic'' and link to their Lexicon page: ''[[Lexicon:Modern/caeshmae|caeshmae]]''.
* Use "she" for slaves in general discussion and "he" for owners, as the Bible does, unless the page is specifically about male slaves or female owners.
* The wiki names institutions and vocabulary; it does not depict sexual acts. Where the Bible is explicit, the wiki summarizes.
* Everyone involved in anything sexual in Teraell is an adult. This is not a matter of interpretation.
* Nothing published under the [[Meta:Teraell Creator License]] is canon. Do not add fan material to lore pages.

Teraell Creator License

Madelineblackbart — Tue, 22 Sep 2026 23:10:59 GMT

← Older revision		Revision as of 19:10, 22 September 2026
(One intermediate revision by the same user not shown)
Line 1:		Line 1:
	'''Teraell Creator License, v1.0'''		'''Teraell Creator License, version 1.0''' — effective 9/22/2026

	~~'''~~1. What ~~I own.'''~~ The world of Teraell — including the Oathbond, the six city-states, the Iron Coves and Frontier, all named places, peoples, creatures, plants, institutions, history, calendar, the Common Reason Tongue in all its stages, its dictionaries, ~~and~~ the Oathbond World Bible and this wiki — is the original creation and copyright of Madeline Blackbart ("the Owner"). Nothing in this license transfers ownership of any of it.		== 1. What the Owner owns ==
			The world of Teraell — including the Oathbond, the six city-states, the Iron Coves and the Frontier, all named places, peoples, creatures, plants, institutions, history, and calendar, the Common Reason Tongue in all its stages and its dictionaries, the ''Oathbond World Bible'', and this wiki — is the original creation and copyright of '''Madeline Blackbart''' ("the Owner"). Nothing in this license transfers ownership of any of it.

	~~'''~~2. What you may do~~.'''~~ You may create, publish, distribute, and sell works set in or derived from Teraell, including but not limited to tabletop roleplaying rules ~~and~~ adventures, video games, virtual-world builds (OpenSimulator, Second Life, VRChat, and similar), ~~novels and~~ short fiction, comics~~, art~~, music, and maps. You may use the names, places, languages, and lore of Teraell in those works.		== 2. What you may do ==
			You may create, publish, distribute, and sell works set in or derived from Teraell, including but not limited to: tabletop roleplaying rules, adventures, and supplements; video games; virtual-world builds (OpenSimulator, Second Life, VRChat, and similar); novels, short fiction, and comics; artwork, music, and maps. You may use the names, places, languages, and lore of Teraell in those works.

	~~'''~~3. What you own~~.'''~~ You own everything original you add: your rules systems, code, prose, characters, artwork, 3D models, builds, and any new places or people you invent. The Owner claims no rights over your original contributions and you may license or sell them however you choose.		== 3. What you own ==
			You own everything original you add: your rules systems, code, prose, characters, artwork, 3D models, builds, and any new places or people you invent. The Owner claims no rights over your original contributions, and you may license or sell them however you choose.

	~~'''~~4. What you may not do~~.'''~~		== 4. What you may not do ==

	~~(a)~~ Claim ownership of Teraell or any element described in the World Bible or this wiki, or register any of its names as a trademark.		# Claim ownership of Teraell or of any element described in the ''World Bible'' or this wiki, or register any of its names as a trademark.
			# Describe your work as "official," "canon," "authorized," or "endorsed," or otherwise imply that the Owner created, approved, or is affiliated with it.
			# Relicense Teraell's lore under any other license (for example, releasing Teraell content under Creative Commons, the OGL, or into the public domain), or act to prevent others from using Teraell under this license.
			# Reproduce the ''World Bible'' or this wiki wholesale. Reference and summarize freely; do not republish them.
			# Use Teraell to produce material that is unlawful in the jurisdiction where it is published.

	~~(b) Describe~~ your work as ~~"official~~,~~" "canon~~,~~" "authorized,"~~ or ~~"endorsed~~," or ~~otherwise imply~~ the Owner ~~created~~, ~~approved~~, ~~or is affiliated with it~~.		== 4a. Real-world use is your responsibility ==
			Teraell is fiction, and the Owner offers it only as fiction. If your work presents any of Teraell's customs, practices, or philosophy as applicable to real life — as guidance, as a lifestyle, as a framework for real relationships or communities, or in any other real-world sense — you do so on your own authority. Such a work must make clear that it reflects your views and not the Owner's, and you alone are responsible for its accuracy, safety, legality, and consequences. See [[Meta:Content Notice]].

	(~~c) Relicense Teraell's lore under any other license (for example~~, ~~releasing Teraell content as CC~~, ~~OGL~~, or ~~public domain~~), or ~~prevent others from using Teraell under this license.~~		== 5. Attribution ==
			Every work must include, somewhere reasonably visible (credits, title page, store listing, or an in-world sign), the following notice or its equivalent:

	~~(d) Reproduce~~ the ~~World Bible or this wiki wholesale~~. ~~Reference and summarize freely; don~~'~~t republish them.~~		: ''Set in Teraell, a world created by Madeline Blackbart. Teraell is used under the Teraell Creator License. This is an unofficial work. www.teraell.com''

	~~'''5~~. ~~Attribution.'~~'' ~~Every work must include, somewhere reasonably visible (credits, title page, store listing, or in-world sign):~~ ''~~"Set~~ in ~~Teraell~~, a ~~world created by'' ''Madeline Blackbart~~. ~~Teraell~~ is ~~used under the Teraell Creator License. This~~ is an unofficial ~~work.'' https://www.teraell~~.~~com''"''~~		== 6. Canon ==
			The <nowiki>''Oathbond World Bible''</nowiki> and this wiki are both canonical. The wiki is written and maintained solely by the Owner and is canonical in full, except where a page is explicitly marked otherwise. Your work is not canon and may contradict either, provided it is labeled unofficial.

	~~'''6~~. ~~Canon~~.~~'''~~ The ~~World Bible is canonical; this wiki is canonical where it agrees with~~ the ~~Bible. Your work is~~ not ~~canon and may contradict either — that's fine, so long as~~ it~~'s labeled unofficial~~.		== 7. Term ==
			This license is free, non-exclusive, worldwide, and perpetual for any work released while it is in force. The Owner may revise the license for future works but will not revoke it for works already published in good faith under an earlier version.

	~~'''7~~. ~~Term.''' This license~~ is ~~free, non~~-~~exclusive, worldwide, and perpetual for any work released while it~~ is ~~in force~~. The Owner ~~may revise the license~~ for ~~future works but will not revoke~~ it ~~for works already published in good faith under an earlier version~~.		== 8. No warranty ==
			Teraell is provided as-is. The Owner is not responsible for your work or for anything arising from it.

	~~'''8. No warranty.''' Teraell is provided as-is. The Owner is not responsible for your work.~~		== Contact ==
			For anything outside these terms — official collaboration, exclusive arrangements, or questions — contact madelineblackbart@gmail.com.
	~~Questions or requests for~~ anything outside these terms: madelineblackbart@gmail.com.		----<small>Teraell and the Oathbond setting © 2026–{{CURRENTYEAR}} Madeline Blackbart. All rights reserved. This license is a grant of permission, not a transfer of rights.</small>
			[[Category:Legal]]

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Madelineblackbart — Sun, 20 Sep 2026 21:54:42 GMT

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	Teraell, the Oathbond setting, the Common Reason Tongue, and all associated lore © 2026–{{CURRENTYEAR}} Madeline Blackbart. All rights reserved. You may create and own your own works set in Teraell under the Teraell Creator License. Such works are unofficial and must credit this wiki.		Teraell, the Oathbond setting, the Common Reason Tongue, and all associated lore © 2026–{{CURRENTYEAR}} Madeline Blackbart. All rights reserved. You may create and own your own works set in Teraell under the Teraell Creator License. Such works are unofficial and must credit this wiki.
			[[Category:Legal]]

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Madelineblackbart — Sun, 20 Sep 2026 21:52:56 GMT

legal footer for all pages

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Teraell, the Oathbond setting, the Common Reason Tongue, and all associated lore © 2026–{{CURRENTYEAR}} Madeline Blackbart. All rights reserved. You may create and own your own works set in Teraell under the Teraell Creator License. Such works are unofficial and must credit this wiki.

Teraell Creator License

Madelineblackbart — Sun, 20 Sep 2026 21:18:08 GMT

update to copyright

New page

'''Teraell Creator License, v1.0'''

'''1. What I own.''' The world of Teraell — including the Oathbond, the six city-states, the Iron Coves and Frontier, all named places, peoples, creatures, plants, institutions, history, calendar, the Common Reason Tongue in all its stages, its dictionaries, and the Oathbond World Bible and this wiki — is the original creation and copyright of Madeline Blackbart ("the Owner"). Nothing in this license transfers ownership of any of it.

'''2. What you may do.''' You may create, publish, distribute, and sell works set in or derived from Teraell, including but not limited to tabletop roleplaying rules and adventures, video games, virtual-world builds (OpenSimulator, Second Life, VRChat, and similar), novels and short fiction, comics, art, music, and maps. You may use the names, places, languages, and lore of Teraell in those works.

'''3. What you own.''' You own everything original you add: your rules systems, code, prose, characters, artwork, 3D models, builds, and any new places or people you invent. The Owner claims no rights over your original contributions and you may license or sell them however you choose.

'''4. What you may not do.'''

(a) Claim ownership of Teraell or any element described in the World Bible or this wiki, or register any of its names as a trademark.

(b) Describe your work as "official," "canon," "authorized," or "endorsed," or otherwise imply the Owner created, approved, or is affiliated with it.

(c) Relicense Teraell's lore under any other license (for example, releasing Teraell content as CC, OGL, or public domain), or prevent others from using Teraell under this license.

(d) Reproduce the World Bible or this wiki wholesale. Reference and summarize freely; don't republish them.

'''5. Attribution.''' Every work must include, somewhere reasonably visible (credits, title page, store listing, or in-world sign): ''"Set in Teraell, a world created by'' ''Madeline Blackbart. Teraell is used under the Teraell Creator License. This is an unofficial work.'' https://www.teraell.com''"''

'''6. Canon.''' The World Bible is canonical; this wiki is canonical where it agrees with the Bible. Your work is not canon and may contradict either — that's fine, so long as it's labeled unofficial.

'''7. Term.''' This license is free, non-exclusive, worldwide, and perpetual for any work released while it is in force. The Owner may revise the license for future works but will not revoke it for works already published in good faith under an earlier version.

'''8. No warranty.''' Teraell is provided as-is. The Owner is not responsible for your work.

Questions or requests for anything outside these terms: madelineblackbart@gmail.com.