World

The Characters

Coron. [ko-ROWN] Nosda Faithful, rearguard. Age 11. Shy, grumpy, otherwise average. That is, until he's chosen to help carry out a divine work 2000 years in the making.	Aogaur. [aow-GAWR] Nosda Faithful, soldier. Age 8. Full of piss and vinegar, but it covers up a sharp wit, deep compassion, and very painful past.	Avimo. [av-EE-moh] Esan (Iiuenot), field doctor. Age 30. A Faithful sympathizer working in the army until he decides to help his friends escape capital punishment.
Siai. [zee-YAI] Esan (Noarunot), writer and revolutionary. Age 24. A famous figurehead of Noarunosd's anti-Faithful nativist movement. But there's more to her than what news headlines would ever print.	Eieron. [eh-YER-on] Nosda Faithful, point gunner. Age 12. A tough bruiser who just wants to do his job. Escaping with Coron was either the best or worst decision he'd ever make.	Nuos. [noo-OHZ] Nosda orosa, captain. Age 317. Officer with a military career spanning several lives, until he's chosen to pilot a dubious government program. He hates Faithful more than any enemy on the field.
	Aluomoc. [AL-wo-mok] One of the Many Gods. Ageless. Keys, night, worms, sand castles. Tasked with initiating the hapless being named Coron into the mysteries of life, time, and divine revelation.

The Language

Grammar | Wordlist

(both woefully incomplete) The Races

The Esani

The Esani (singular esan) are a humanoid, aquatic race with amphibious capabilities, and who are the dominant species of their world. (Or so they often like to think.) Their skin color ranges from grays, to greens, to blues, depending on ethnic group and ancestry. Their level of technological development varies widely as well, ranging from subsistence tribal living, to highly advanced urban societies. The Esani are also the creators of the Nosdai.

The Nosdai

The term nosda means "one who is of stone". They are a race of living, well-articulated stone statues designed and built by Esani. Most of them, called orosa ("dead ones") are animated by the spirits of dead Esani who don't wish to pass into the afterlife, and are usually well-integrated to society. But others, called Faithful (ctuiosenai, "ones who are near to the gods"), come to life under mysterious and suspicious circumstances, and are discriminated against. The Three

Who, exactly, the Three are depends on who you ask and when, but it's generally understood that they constitute:

Aio: A goddess of light, heat, war, music, poetry, fertility, and divine kingship. She drives the sun across the sky.

Onun: A godden of storms, currents and gyres, medicine, agriculture, calendrics, divination, and craftsmanship. He drives the moon across the sky. (It is customary to refer to him with your own pronouns.)

Gaurin: A god of night, coolness, fertility, death, blood sacrifices, commerce, and the hunt. He is personified by the starry sky, the "backbone of night" in particular. The Many

The deities known as the Many are usually understood to be "everyone else": hypostases or children of the Three, and other beings. The gods in this category are too many in number to count, but a few are relevant to the story:

Aluomoc: A shape-changing god with unknown influence and association. He may rule over thresholds and liminal places due to the keys he carries, and is likely connected to the underworld and the dead because he has been seen with the head of a tube worm. His purple skin also associates him with the night.

Aiorin: A possible child of Aio and Gaurin, a goddess of bloodlust and victory in battle.

Arunaia: A daughter of Onun's who is associated with the short-lived blooming inure plant.

Toco: The three-faced trickster god.

Wights: The category of small gods with very localized rule: individual buildings, towns, natural landmarks or formations in the landscape. Sometimes they're extremely powerful, sometimes not. It's generally understood that they are caretakers of whatever area they personify, whether hostile or helpful to mortals.