Ruskald: Separated from Tremontane by the Rockwild Range, Ruskald has had an uneasy relationship with its southern neighbor for many years. Source is particularly scanty there, and skirmishes and the occasional war result from Ruskald’s interest in controlling Tremontane’s magical riches.
The Ruskalder tend to be very direct in their dealings with others and are not afraid of conflict, friendly or otherwise. They put a great emphasis on family (though, again, they do not have the Tremontanan family bonds) and large families are the norm. Ruskald is the only country in the region that still worships gods rather than ungoverned heaven (see Religion below for more on this). Ruskald is ruled by a King who is first among the Ruskalder chieftains, all of whom have a say in the government (to a degree).
The Kirkellan: This large “kinship” of nomads lives in the region called the Eidestal, which in Kirkellish means “land of the winds.” The Eidestal is located west of Ruskald, is part steppe, part northern forest, and the Kirkellan travel throughout the year to take advantage of what the changing seasons bring. They are famed as horse breeders and consider their horses a part of their spiritual family; the horses themselves are large but agile, trained for speed and jumping.
The Kirkellan have no surnames, as they consider themselves all part of a single family, but can immediately tell outsiders what their blood relation to another Kirkellan is. They frequently clash with the Ruskalder over territory, as Ruskald would like to annex the Eidestal to gain better hunting grounds, and most Kirkellan spend at least part of their lives as members of a tiermatha, or warband/kinship group. They are matrilineal, with their ruler being called the matrian, though in centuries past both men and women were allowed to lead the Kirkellan. Until recently, Tremontane has had little contact with them.
II. Magic Through the Centuries
The world in which Tremontane exists is crisscrossed by ley lines, what they call lines of power, that are the connection between the physical world and the spiritual (either the realm of the gods or ungoverned heaven, depending on one’s religious beliefs). The places where they cross form a “bump” of magical energy called source that can be sensed and tapped into by people with the right inborn talent. These lines are not distributed evenly throughout the world, and Tremontane has more of them than the neighboring countries, with a correspondingly high number of sources and accessible magical energy. This high level of background magic allows for the Tremontanan family and marriage bonds (see below), which are a literal and sometimes tangible connection between individuals.
Tremontanans have been aware of the existence of the lines of power since Kraathen of Ehuren founded the country in what was later called Year 1 of the Binding, using the lines of power to create those family and marriage bonds. However, it was not until many centuries later that people discovered the sources created by the lines of power and learned to tap into them using one of two kinds of innate abilities.
The first kind, known originally as dowsing, allows someone to perceive source and draw on it, though dowsers lack the ability to do anything with the magic thus tapped into. The second kind, referred to as inherent magic, lets its possessors passively absorb magical energy from source and use it to alter the environment, manipulate objects, and so forth, effectively becoming their own sources.
Inherent magic always manifests during adolescence as a single talent—examples include seeing through solid matter, telekinesis, or the ability to heal others—but with training it may be used in other, more powerful ways. Inherent magic is stronger the closer it is to a source, but as it does not include the ability to directly sense and manipulate source, dowsers ended up trading their talent to those with inherent magic, mapping out regions where they would be most powerful. Only in rare cases is a person born with both types of magic.
The inherently magical exist everywhere in the region, in numbers proportional to the amount of source present in the area. Tremontane, with its rich background magic and many lines of power, produced a correspondingly great number of people who could use that magic. Over the years, as those with inherent magic grew in power and influence, a new social class arose. Calling themselves Ascendants, they shaped Tremontanan society to their desires.
Initially these men and women believed their role to be to better their country, but as time passed, and more of them gained positions of power, most Ascendants could not resist using their magical abilities to benefit themselves. They grew to perceive themselves as superior to non-magical people and behaved accordingly, occasionally using their magic to manipulate and control others. Children who manifested talents were taken, usually with their parents’ good will, to schools where they were taught to use magic as well as indoctrinated in the tenets of the Ascendants.
Ordinary citizens were caught between hoping their children might ascend to this better life, because the families of such children gained a measure of the child’s new social standing, and resenting their underclass status and the high-handedness of Ascendants. Even so, because most Ascendants continued to use their abilities to defend and support Tremontane, the balance of power remained secure and the average citizen was disinclined to revolt.
This situation changed during the Valant dynasty, when the structure of Tremontane’s government was altered to give Ascendants more political power. Under the Valants, no Ascendant was allowed to become King or Queen; instead, the monarch was supported by a Ascendant relative with the title Eminence who acted almost as a co-ruler, the King handling the mundane aspects of government and the Eminence responsible for managing all things magical in the kingdom. The Eminences learned to expand their field of responsibility over the years, as well as frequently manipulating weak Kings or Queens, and eventually Ascendants held most of the public offices and exercised great influence on policy and law.
By the reign of Edmund Valant, beginning in Year 691 of the Binding, civil unrest and resentment of Ascendants were growing, and fear and distrust of them had spread enough to spark violence against those suspected of developing inherent magic. This caused a backlash by the Ascendants, increasing the tension within the country.
As this situation was developing, other countries were trying to overcome the limitations of their relative scarcity of lines of power and resulting lack of magic. Most of these countries had few or no Ascendants, as the presence of magical energy was necessary for them to manifest, but as the dowser population was not dependent on the amount of source, there were many people who could experiment with manipulating source. They discovered that a dowser could imbue certain metals with source, allowing those metals to transfer their magical energy to objects that could perform the same magical talents as an Ascendant, but without the necessity of being surrounded by lines of power. A trade in manufacturing these Devices, as they were called, sprang up in Eskandel; dowsers, now called Devisers, gained influence and notoriety as people realized that magic could be accessible to all.
This new trade began spilling over into Tremontane’s southern regions (bordering on Eskandel) and influenced more rebellion against the Valants, who again responded by cracking down on the rebellious. Ultimately the Valants were overthrown by Willow North, who spent her reign destroying the power of the Ascendants while trying to curb the public’s desire to see all such men and women dead. Inherent magic became a byword for evil and those who demonstrated such talents might be killed by mobs, despite laws passed to protect them (which were often not enforced at local levels).
Those with inherent magic hid their talents if they were able, and as the centuries passed, and the memory of the Valants and the Ascendants faded, people became less fearful of the possibilities of inherent magic. Those who had the power to heal others helped in lessening this prejudice. By Zara North’s time, a little over two centuries after Willow’s rule, inherent magic appears so rarely (that is, is hidden so completely; genetics is still what it is) that most people think of it as nothing more than a story to frighten children—though when it does appear, people
are still quick to panic and attack.
III. Family and marriage bonds
Kraathen of Ehuren, founder of Tremontane, discovered a way to connect every person in the kingdom to the lines of power, allowing them to create tangible bonds between themselves. This was eventually codified in the family bond, which links parents to children, children to siblings, and so forth, and in the marriage bond, which more closely connects two individuals and can provide for the creation of a new family bond.
Most marriages in Tremontane are performed first with the adoption of one party into the family of the other, then joining the two with the marriage bond. Same-sex marriages are given equal standing with traditional marriages.
The family bond provides for strong connections between people, to the point that lengthy sexual relationships with someone with whom you do not share a family or marriage bond become physically and mentally painful. It is not uncommon for Tremontanans to wait to consummate a relationship until their wedding night, especially among the titled families.
Despite (or possibly because of) the unusual structure of Tremontanan families, incest is not only practically unheard of, but abominated, even though technically two siblings could have a long-term consensual relationship with no adverse physical effects.
IV. Adoption and Inheritance
A family bond is essential for a Tremontanan’s well-being, as well as being the instrument through which inheritance passes. Failing to provide a child with a family bond, as in cases of extramarital affairs, is a crime, as are falsely accusing someone of failing to provide a bond and knowingly claiming false parentage of a child for the purpose of receiving an entailed adoption.
There are four types of adoption in Tremontane:
Direct adoption: The most common form. A person is bound to his or her partner’s family and is then considered a son or daughter of that line. The adoptee gives up his or her birth family name and all inheritance rights depending on that name, i.e. a woman of the Smith family who adopts into the Jones family would not be automatically entitled to a share in her parents’ fortune, but might have money settled on her in her new name. An adoptee may inherit anything but a title through his or her spouse; a man who marries a Countess is not a Count, but her consort. Men are equally likely to take their wife’s name as the other way around, and the decision as to who will adopt into whose family upon marrying is based on considerations such as whether one partner is an only child, or what kind of inheritances are involved. Children born to such a union inherit the family bond at birth.
Indirect adoption: two people marry, but retain their status in their birth family as well as their own family name. The marriage bond is the only one that joins them. This is usually done when both spouses are the sole inheritors of their birth families (meaning that one adopting into the other would be the end of a family line) and noble titles are involved. Their children inherit from both parents and take a doubled last name created from both their parents’ birth names, arranged in order of highest social standing.
EXAMPLE: Elizabeth, daughter of Amanda Smith and Christopher Jones who are joined by indirect adoption, would be Elizabeth Smith Jones. If she married, and her husband adopted into her family, his surname would become Smith Jones as well. With an indirect adoption that would result in a child having more than two last names, the lowest social status name is dropped.
Children born to this kind of union must undergo a ceremony joining them to one of their parents’ families to receive a family bond, usually that of the higher social status parent.
Combined adoption: two people marry and both add each other’s name to theirs, forming a new family bond unconnected to their birth families (i.e. Amanda Smith Jones and Christopher Smith Jones). They combine their personal property, but no longer inherit through their birth families. Children born to this union inherit the new family bond at birth. Very rare.
Entailed adoption: Used when two people who either cannot marry or have no intent to marry have a child. This allows the child to benefit from having a bond to both parents even when one of those parents is unsuitable or unwilling to raise a child. The child is legally bound to the family of one parent, but is entitled to support from the estate of the other parent. An entailed adoption requires a special ceremony to create the family bond, usually performed by the patriarch or matriarch of the family the child is adopting into. Due to Tremontanan celibacy customs and the availability of reliable contraception, this is also fairly rare.
A similar ceremony to that of the entailed adoption is performed when a couple wishes to adopt an unbonded orphan, or transfer a child’s family bond from one couple to another (for example, if a child’s parents are killed and his mother’s sister wants to raise him).
V. Religion
Ungoverned Heaven: The religion of the region to which Tremontane belonged, for centuries before the time of Kraathen of Ehuren, reflected a belief in the strength of threes, specifically body, mind, and spirit. After Kraathen unified the three tribes of ancient Tremontane, the Tremontanese came to believe in a unified god embodying all three of these characteristics, a god whose name was known only to the high priesthood. But a century after Kraathen’s rule, a minor priestess named Haran, while meditating before a daily ritual, received a vision of the empty, treeless Eidestal. For ten days after this, every meditation produced the same image. Finally, counseled by the high priestess of her community, Haran traveled to the Eidestal to learn what her vision meant.
Throughout her journey, she fasted and meditated and was drawn toward a particular spot in the Eidestal, a hill on which grew a single pine tree. She made camp there and continued to fast and pray, and then her vision changed: she saw the same spot where she now camped, but populated by the spirits of the dead. She recognized some of her own deceased family and other people who were identified to her by her family. They spoke to her of heaven, of being reunited with loved ones, but said nothing of being judged either by one of the old gods or the new god she served.
Over the course of ten more days of meditation, fasting and prayer, she continued to speak with the dead, and eventually realized that there were no gods in heaven. Instead, heaven was a holy place shaped by invisible lines of power which bound it to earth and allowed it to judge the souls of the dead by weighing them against their sins, counterbalanced by their virtues.
Haran returned from the Eidestal and began preaching what she had learned. She sought out men and women whose dead relatives had given her messages for them; these people, convinced of Haran’s word, became her first disciples. Haran, who had previously been a rather quiet, timid priestess, was transformed by her experience into a daring, eloquent speaker. Her first convert was the high priestess who had encouraged her on her quest. As her message spread, more people of Tremontane, and then further abroad, came to believe what she preached.
Then the wars began. Those who believe in god, or gods, attacked Haran’s followers, demanding that they recant. However, most of them were so convinced in the power of ungoverned heaven to welcome them home that they refused to fight. This, in turn, caused some of those who attacked them to be moved by their devotion and convert as well. Others of Haran’s followers took up arms in defense of their brothers and sisters and fought so ferociously that they became known as the Lions of Heaven.
For a century, these wars raged, until over time the unified Tremontanan tribes came together in a shared religious belief that boosted its spread throughout the region. Eventually, the wars ceased, and the religion of ungoverned heaven was adopted everywhere except Ruskald, where the lines of power are scant and therefore give them no evidence that Haran’s assertions are true.
Heaven accepts almost every soul. However, those who believe in ungoverned heaven also believe that evil people are drawn into hell, of which little is known in heaven's theology. Most Tremontanese are pragmatic about this, saying that heaven judges as it will and there's nothing they can do except live as good a life as they can. According t
o some philosophers (ungoverned heaven requires no clergy, and there are no theologians in Tremontane), there are a few souls rejected by both realms, and they are fated to roam the world until the end of days. Most people consider this wild speculation and it doesn't affect their lives, though a few people like to make guesses about who will end up where.
* * *
The Lost Gods/Ruskalder Gods
Because the worship of the Three is maintained only in Ruskald, the three gods, who were known by different names among the different countries, are now referred to solely by their Ruskalder names.
Siger—Manifesting as male (Sigerd) or female (Sigerda) depending on the situation, Siger represents the power of mind to control the body and the spirit. As a result, Siger “rules” the Three, though it would be more accurate to say that he/she brings balance when one of the other two dominates. He/she is the patron of rationality, reason, and memory and is invoked by those practicing the creative arts.
Siger is worshiped solely by the priesthood, though this “worship” is very different from the rituals and sacrifices ordinary Ruskalder make to the other two gods and is kept secret from those not of the clergy. Older stories recorded in the Eskandelic traditions say that Siger is the youngest god and rose out of the conflict between the other two. The Ruskalder don’t believe this. Siger’s symbol is an S-curve bisected by a diagonal line, like an elongated yin-yang symbol.
Balderan: God of strength, physicality, and often masculinity. He is an unsophisticated god, dealing with humans at the most basic level of primal urges. Although he is usually worshiped by men, he welcomes the worship of women, particularly those who celebrate their physical strength and endurance. Ruskalder towns have annual celebrations of Balderan in which feats of physical prowess are performed. The Ruskalder Samnal grew out of this tradition, though it’s no longer a religious ceremony. His symbol is a U balanced on a horizontal line—horns, representing maleness, but in reference to Balderan’s own sex and not that of his worshipers.
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