Introducing: Project Earth

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Language

The spoken language is a mixture of chinese and spanish/latin rooted languages. It is a tonal language containing phonemes borrowed from latin, korean and other languages.

The written language is crisp, and mostly executed by wood etching. It is a combination of roughly 70% syllable signs and 30% logograms. The symbols are straight and bold, being molded by etching knives and tools rather than fine quills:

Spoiler:

Since the language’s creation was done robustly by poetry, there is a high number of ways to suffix nouns and verbs in order to change their meaning (which came from the poetic need to rhyme). As a results, most similar suffixes, or suffix families, share a theme or a common semantic field. For example, there are many different suffixes describing sensations of romance, or of losing one’s way or self, mostly used in classical period poetry enjoyed by common folk.

Economy

Villagers and common people either engage in spontaneous trade or exchange dried bundles of Ginkgo leaves, or seeds, since this plant is consumed in various ways during religious rituals. Therefore, a variety of Ginkgo products are used as commodity currency and traded for merchandise and services alike.

Spoiler:

Ginkgo farms are considered “illegal” if not owned by the local regime, and therefore inflations and deflations in pseudo-currency values are somewhat government controlled. All government expenses are paid by Ginkgo produce, thus ensuring the continued use of this commodity currency by the people.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ginkgo_biloba

Lumber is also a crucial commodity, with most well earning middle class folk working as professional lumberjacks, wood carvers, carpenters and masons. Most of the realm’s high earning individuals are either managers of lumber harvest businesses or are “bootique” masons - creating well respected art or responsible for the planning and architecture of burgs and cities.

Hunting is also a major occupation for denizens of the realm, both male and female, as pelts, meat, hides and the gathering of precious herbs are considered a huntsman responsibility. Professional hunters are assured revenue by the government, as they also play a military roll. Furthermore, hunters often take the role of messengers, carrying messages from agrarian areas to burgs and from one burg to another.

Demographics and Architecture

The realm is comprised mostly of burgs and surrounding rural areas, with four “capital cities”, called “Basins”, located at river deltas where a number of significant waterways meet. Burgs are slightly deforested areas with more condensed housing and population. Households are built several stories high, wrapped around sizeable trees with secure and dense trunks. Burgs can stretch a great distance, and not necessarily hold continuous urbanized areas. Some burgs are even greater in territory than Basins, yet are not as nearly as crowded. Roads of deforested, furrowed ground stretch between burgs and primary waypoints, including some key hamlets and river banks.

Spoiler:

Rural areas are mostly accumulations of simple housings such as bamboo cabins and huts. These areas are completely forested and are often hidden from random travelers, or stumbled upon by mistake. Villages like these hold about 10 to 20 families on average that either live off their own produce or specialize in a specific trade to earn their livelihood.

Spoiler:

Cartography is not a developed field of study in the realm, thus alternative measures are taken to assure travelers will not lose their way too easily, and that human traffic will be considerably reliable. For example, fabric or leather ribbons are tied to trees as means of trail blazing. Another guiding technique is the spread of religious altars across the land, even more frequent in traveled, unsettled areas rather than burgs or hamlets. Altars contain makeshift maps of relevant forest trails, which are updated by passing rovers. It is also considered good costume to leave a small amount of food or provisions at altars for future passers bys.

Spoiler:

Technology

The level of technology in these areas is roughly analogous to early-medieval europe. Human and beasts of burden provide the main source of energy and labour. Some watermills exist along wide riverbanks and produce flour, lumber or textiles. Metals are fashioned to (mainly) weapons and working tools, like saws for harvesting wood or hunting arrows. The architecture is based almost solely on wood, which becomes quite problematic in case of wildfires. Masonry and construction techniques are advanced enough to allow tall, multiplatform buildings and underground tunnels or basements.

Gunpowder and other similar explosives are indeed rare, and used for either architectonic purposes (blowing up branches of trees supporting large buildings, creating holes in the ground and so forth) or as large, cumbersome IEDs - one of the only forms of siege weaponry available.

Transportation is limited almost exclusively to walking or Gofer riding. Gofers are small domesticated creatures used for easy transportation. It has the appearance of a short, sturdy horse and three-fingered legs which enable him to walk quietly on uneven surfaces for long periods of time. A Gofer’s colors range between spotted yellow and dark brown, featuring a short, dark mane and a bushy tail. They are swift creatures, but timid and require delicate handling.

Spoiler:

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