The Known World

The Known World is the creation of Yhera the Creatrix, the first goddess, the great magician wonder-worker who first put the stars in the Celestial World of the Heavens and shaped the earth and the waters. In time as Yhera Luna she shared those duties with her sisters Adjia and Djara, who helped her shape the cosmos and created the Otherworld and the Moon – the gate between the different worlds and the source of the dreams that open that gate – and the dark places below the world which would become the Underworld. And as Yhera Chthonia she also drew on her sisters Geniché and Geteema to help her shape the earth and give birth to the living things of the world, and they did so at will, raising mountains and great woods and creating oceans and seas as they walked the surface of the earth.

The paradise of the creation period, when gods and men and beasts shared the bounties of Geniché’s Garden, ended when Geniché chose to pass into the Underworld and make it her new realm, and pronounced the First Law, the Law of Death. This marked the true beginning of time, and began the Golden Age. During the Golden Age the courts of the Düréan Queens were the first to try and fix their place in the world, with word and deed and map, and they were the first to distinguish between a Known World, a place familiar and describable, and an Unknown one, a place beyond the horizon that existed but was as yet undiscovered. They considered Ürüne Düré, their great island home, to be the center of the Known World, and this conceit is still reflected in many maps in their honor and memory. But the true geographic center of the world is somewhere in the desolate Midlands, where Geniché’s Garden once grew and from which she exiled the peoples of the ancient world before it turned to dust; somewhere in or near its great expanse is the World Mountain, the central point equidistant to the Gates of Dawn and Dusk, and over which Helios the Sun reaches its peak.

The world was not yet set in the Golden Age, and gods and great heroes could alter the landscape if they tried. The Golden Age ended with the destruction of Ürüne Düré at the behest of Geteema, grown jealous of the Düréans and their wealth and power. Yhera in her grief bound Geteema in the Underworld and turned the earth to stone, and she set the order of the Celestial Path in the heavens, and bound the year to its schedule, and the shape of the world became more fixed.

The Known World may have been just a conceit created by those that like the Düréans settled in the region of the Silver Scale Sea, but this conceit was not entirely without foundation; language, art, writing, and civilization flourished first in the cities of Düréa and the Gola and they were the greatest in the world during their age. The Golden Age was followed by the Age of Legend, the Dark Ages of the Bronze Reconstruction, and the current Age of Iron and Fire, and as the civilizations of the Silver Scale Sea have expanded outward, they have discovered in the Unknown World beyond other cultures and landscapes; some of them, like the ancient culture of Samarappa, familiar and known to them in legend, and others, like the Lokhite hordes of the Twilight Realms far to the north, hitherto undreamed of.

Artesia: Adventures in the Known World is primarily set in the area of the Middle Kingdoms and their neighbors in the Highlands of Daradja, where the comic book series also finds its home.

The great mountains and valleys of the Harath Éduins were once the seat of the great Queendom of Daradja, founded by Dara, daughter of Yhera, whose domain reached even into Uthedmael and the lowlands to the shores of the Mara Galia. That great, if isolated, realm passed into history long ago, and the nobles and petty kings who vie for rulership in this rough land are a pale echo of its one-time power and influence. The current inhabitants, though called Daradjans, are often not of the lineage of Dara, for the descendants and followers of Dara have been joined over the ages by waves of immigrants seeking refuge or adventure. Long ago Queen Lanys had accepted the first immigrants, Düréans fleeing the sinking of their Isle who returned with her army, into her realm with open arms, and since then many immigrants have fully established themselves as Daradjans. Daradja’s immigrants are connected by one thread, a rejection of the rule of the Divine King, though his missionaries are grudgingly tolerated; Daradja has long been known as a stronghold of the Old Religion and the worship of Yhera, the Queen of Heaven, and her entourage, and all of its immigrants have brought their old gods to its temples and shrines.

The lowland between the Harath Éduins and the Silver Scale Sea was once simply called Dania, and it was the home of a fierce and proud people, but over the course of many centuries invaders and partitions have divided the land again and again. Soon after the fall of Ürüne Düré, the realm of An-Athair thrived for a time, centered in the great Erid Wold. The Aurians, seafaring raiders from the Unknown World, settled in the east in what came to be called Auria, and ruled over Danian subjects. Dauban Hess conquered the region and it became part of his Golden Empire and was ruled by Dragon Kings from Illia and Hemispia. They brought the worship of the Divine King, which was quickly adopted by the Aurians, and more slowly by the Danians.

Uthed Dania split from Dania and allied itself with the Mael Kings of the Dain Éduins, and fell under the spell of Githwaine the Worm King, and was eventually blighted and became Lost Uthedmael. The Mael Kings who remained loyal to the Sun Court and fought Githwaine became Maece, and Fortias, who slew Githwaine, became the King of Atallica, and with Dania and Auria they were the Four Kingdoms and Fortias was their High King. In time the Four Kingdoms passed: the Kings of Maece spent themselves in crusades against the Isliklids, and became a series of petty kings, each holding his own Watchtower, except for the King of Angora, who was granted the Kingdom of Angowrie; Dania split in two, becoming Erid Dania and Dain Dania; the baronies of Huelt and Dainphalia rose to Kingdoms during the Wars of the Throne Thief; the Danian kingdoms occasionally allied to the Aurians broke away once and for all and became Umis and Umat; and Auria became a principality held by the heir to the High King. Now the collection of kingdoms, principalities, duchies, and earldoms is simply called the Middle Kingdoms, as it finds itself in the middle of the world – between the growing empire of Palatia in the north, the resurgent Empire of Thessid-Gola in the south, between the Sun Court and the League of Cities to the east, and the harsh mountains and deserts of the Midlands to the west – and in the middle of a transition, from a period of greatness to an uncertain future.