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United Nadeyv Aleya

The history of the northwest corner of Toar is probably the toughest to sift for origins. The mages who have spent time there, think that the origins of the language here is a blend of some of the Senegalese tongues (probably Wollof), Venn, and several others. If so, then Nadeyv probably was akin to Nhaje or gathering, meeting which came to mean people-inclosive which of course implies a people who are excluded. Aleya is probably from Aljana or heaven. This root probably also lies beyind Alzi which is part of the name of Alzi Tikyava, at the southwestern corner of this upper bulge in the continent.

The northwest of Toar is almost analogous to The Land of the Venn in the constant flow of hard western winds coming over the seas, only these are not nearly as cold, being equatorial. But the rainfall here is prodigious and hard, which drove people underground, specifically under the massive, ancient sequoia and redwoods native to the world. In the earliest days the people killed the trees, hollowing them out to live in; when the Mages caught up (and the fact that dead trees hardened almost to cement, but fresh-killed living ones had a surprising tendency to topple) altered the custom to the use of dead trees only. Magic would often be added to the tree shell to keep it from degrading. Over time, of course, it meant little opportunity for new growth, so the people began to tunnel underground from dwelling to dwelling.

As this was also a period of friction from outside and in, the tunneling was perhaps also a defensive move, but in any case, it took hold, and to this day, one can walk all over the Union and not see a house or building above ground, yet see people traveling along the roads sunken below surface-level, as in the Land of the Venn.

The history of the Union is so layered with figurative language, legend, and altered forms of tales that it's useless to go into detail. Basically the whole area is a series of clans and tribes, a mix of people from Venn colonists (and slaves, taken during the wars with the Venn), to Sartorans and others, that the components each have long, involved, and largely fictive histories. Tevyask and Alzi Tikyava will eventually rejoin the Union--they split a long time ago over internal strife.

The language is extremely subtle, and is overseen by an academy to insure that everyone in the Union speaks the same tongue. This is important for storytelling, which is the highest art, and so involved with other paraphernalia we would call it theater.

The government is by a very complicated council that relies on caucuses, consensus, and ritual voting involving masks and Aspects in order to separate individual from situation, especially in capital cases.

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Page last modified on February 18, 2008, at 10:01 AM