This page attempts to include, as completely as possible, all canon (as well as non-canon) material relevant to Thuban. Canon material is in white scribe, whereas non-canon information is in a light grey scribe to allow you to distinguish between the fact of the fiction and the weavings of pinkgothic's mind.
Note that no guarantees can be made that non-canon material is indeed non-canon.
Concepts
» Ancient Tongue
» Name formalism
» Seal
» Second manifestation
Places
» Avishraa
» The Citadels
» Earth
» Tarrabor
» Tel'kael
Races
» Avishraan
» Avishraan Chosen
» Davir Kaea
» Davir Sria
» Hzataalar Kaea
Concepts
Ancient Tongue
The "Ancient Tongue" is a language spoken mostly by the Chosen of Avishraa. Whilst the language was originally Avishraan, as the name suggests, it is ancient and outdated. It's best equivalent on our own world would be Latin - and it is used similarly by the Chosen.
Some words:
avi - mother
davir - brotherhood
hzataalar - warrior
kaea - chaos
kael - everything
shraa - life
ssi - father
sria - order
tel - my
udun - citadel
Name formalism
All Ancient Tongue names end in -th, however, this is colloquially dropped amongst friends. A fully formal name, however, is more complex than that, and comes in the form:
<colloquial name>tha <family> avi'<mother's formal name> ssi'<father's formal name> <lineage>
For example, Kemeneth's full name would be Kemenetha Verdetha avi'Ybbeletha ssi'Sidoretha Verdetha.
Lineages are named by the colour of their skin, as follows:
green - Verdetha
blue - Azratha
purple - Purpurtha
maroon - Sanguith
red - Guletha
orange - Murreth
brown/copper - Tenneth
yellow/gold - Orretha
white/silver - Argentha
black - Sabletha
The family name rarely differs from the lineage name.
Seal
Bearing some semblance to the Citadels, a seal is a creature utitilised, as the name suggests, for sealing. It plugs the entrances of Tel'kael's Verdetha Tunnels to keep the cold out. Seals allow anything non-gaseous attempting to enter with subtle force passageway through them by giving way in an effect similar to that of quicksand. Once a creature begins to enter a seal this way, the seal pulses in an attempt to pull the creature in and through as swiftly as possible, to avoid it suffocating within the seal itself.
Second manifestation
A Chosen's 'second manifestation' is the point at which the magic that has, until then, continually warped the Chosen's body, reaches a breaking point and is released as unchanneled energy. Only after the second manifestation is a dragon capable of using magic. Up until the point of it, the dragon's physical calamities continually worsen. Once the event passes, the body is finally able to regenerate, though it - of course - never does so fully.
Places
Avishraa
Avishraa was initially a planet blessed in whole with the weather and consequent lushness of tropics. It was inhabited by a medely of creatures, of which one race had evolved to be sentient as on our own planet, Earth. Unlike on our own world, these creatures were not mammals, but reptilian, and bore by their six-limbed design much semblance to what we would call dragons. You can read more about the species in the section Avishraan.
When the Chosen surfaced and eventually broke into civil war, the fragile planet, its balance tipped well in favour of chaos, was ruptured by earthquakes and seismic catastrophes over the course of months, levelling whole forests, causing some of Avishraa's mountains to dissolve in tremors giving stone a liquid consistency, and reshaping the planet completely. Finally, the planet itself broke apart.
Today, Avishraa consists of three primary chunks - these have captured what is left of Avishraa's atmosphere - and (thus far) locally restrained asteroid field. Upon the largest of the three, buried under the rubble of a once glorious planet, are the Citadel of Life and the Citadel of Death. No doubt, given several more generations, Avishraa, its mass now dispersed neatly, will completely exit its orbit from its home star. For now, it merely cools further with each subsequent revolution around the star.
The Citadels
Sentient and loyal, the citadels are buildings the Chosen discovered for themselves, or perhaps created, themselves, centuries ago. They're vast organic structures channelling their own magic and protecting those that live within them. Fittingly, only two major ones were ever discovered. One, claimed by the Davir Sria, was consequently named Citadel of Life (Udunshraa). The other, claimed by the Davir Kaea, become known as Citadel of Death.
Both are now empty and alone in their respective sorrow, with their inhabitants destroyed by the Hzataalar Kaea, or having fled.
The large citadels of the respective brotherhoods now lie buried under the rubble of the destructed planet, on the largest chunk remaining. The Avishraan, seeking to scavenge what they could to survive from their dying world, have held both citadels in high regard, and dream of the day they will be found, for they surely must contain treasures of knowledge and magic, (forcibly) left for the taking by the former inhabitants.
Kanti and Vimal discovered the Citadel of Life in session two.
Earth
Oh, come on. Like you need this explained.
Tarrabor
Tarrabor is a planet populated with Avishraan vegetation but only minimal fauna. It has seasons split between its hemispheres that consist of harsh, unbearable summers that scorch the earth with temperatures constantly in excess of 50°C, and moderate, short-lived winters that feel like late spring would on Earth.
Tel'kael
Tel'kael, melancholically meaning "my everything", is the name given to a frozen terrestrial planet that Sidoreth discovered and settled upon. It has been the home of his family for many decades, even though it is vastly inhospitable. The dragons have learnt to survive on this bitterly cold world by digging tunnels under its surface, which they now inhabit.
Tel'kael's driving force is its wind whipping through the thin atmosphere. Being fairly distance from its sun, it's daytime coldness is only rivalled at night. The difference of temperature suffices to cause strong, biting winds. In consequence, its rocky surface has been whipped smooth, though it is thus far still far from featureless. However, there is very little tectonic and seismic activity, leaving the landscape to continually erode away.
Tel'kael has no moon, no liquid water on its surface, and its average surface temperature (at day) lies at -20°C. A revolution around its own axis takes nineteen hours (roughly 0.8 of our own Earth day), a revolution around its only sun - a star of much the same hue and size as earth's own sun - takes 153.4 days (less than half an Earth year). Maximum natural temperatures lie at -5°C, minimal day temperatures have been known to drop to -53°C, and minimal night temperatures at -97°C.
Ybbeleth died in the Verdetha caverns in session one, despite Kemeneth's attempt to save her.