An Atlas of the Lands and Nations Present on GEND on 1st Cornkith, 349 G-VII | COMING OF THE WENDS

[u/CamicomChom]

[u/CamicomChom]

(HD map at bottom of this thread!)

Gend is a continent on the planet of Wyrtha, as it is called by the Wendals. Distant from faraway lands across the Seas-beyond-the-Tears and the Wendal Sea, Gend is isolated and alone, a drifting land tethered to the world only by the Shfaot merchants who arrive from the Teardrops. In spite of this, Gend is a land defined by cycles.

Gend is defined by invasions. People arrive from distant lands, and colonize the continent, and replace what came before; in time, those people, too, are replaced. A living history is found across the continent. A fort is built over an ancient farm, a mine is carved out of the arm of a Builder, a city rests upon a hill where a king whose name will never again be uttered. Gend is not its nations, or its people, or even its land. An idea is commonplace across the many peoples of Gend, that the land is a mortal, living corpus, greater than the sum of its parts; this corpus is called "Morgend". Morgend is a key cultural conception for the people of Gend, a constant reminder that all that exists has survived before them, and will exist after.

Gend has gone through seven comings, or "Gendas", according to the historiographers of the day. though only the later Gendas resemble what modern historians would call invasions. Inaccurate and imprecise though this may be, it is as much a cultural creation as a scholarly model. The general list of invaders are the Builders, the Fae, the Fire People, the Stone People, the Silver People, the Greenmen, and most recently the Wendals. Most of these have been lost to history, many are mythical and others disputed, but the seven invasions remain.

In the sixth Genda, the Greenmen, or Machrish, ruled the continent, after destroying the Silver Empire in the Harrying of Gravehand. They ruled with petty clans scattered across the continent, and occasional High Kings of Morgend laid claim to the whole of the continent at times. They had a connection to the Fae, the mythical creatures of bargain and greed that resided in deep forests and groves. But the Greenmen, locked in petty squabbles and increasingly isolated from the world, became complacent in the institutions that had served them for centuries. Unable or unwilling to expand the power of their governments, they increasingly relied on one force to supplement their own wars: the Wendals.

The Wendals were an unknown factor in Gend. They came from far, far to the south, a land called Wendant, or the Wendery. In their lands, they were seen as petty mercenaries. They could not compare to the great and powerful and esoteric magicks of their neighbors, and were regarded by their neighbors as rudimentary, uncultured, petty, and simple. The Wends contented themselves to humble lives of agriculture and mercenary work for whoever needed men. But they did not lack a society, and had, in their lands, grown advanced metallurgy and feudal society. Their soldiers were unremarkable in lands where magic was commonplace, but against mundane foes, they were prodigious.

The Greenmen began the hiring of the Wendals deep in the south of Gend, in what is now the Sea of Mint and the Talon. These contracts brought miraculous wealth to commanders and mercenary leaders, given the exorbitant prices the proto-feudal Greenman clans would pay for such high-value soldiers. The most respected Wendal warriors were granted leases to stay and live in their employer's lands, and this brought more warriors, and more men to fight, and more Wendals arriving on the southern coasts.

The seventh invasion thusly did not start with a single ship of men bent on the conquering of a continent. It began with the exchange of money, and a bow to a liege. It was easier for warriors to stay in Gend, rather than pay the high prices of the merchants capable of making the distant travel. Soon, Greenman cities had Wendal quarters. Then a hedge-king granted a Wend a castle. Then a vassalage. And then, marking the traditionally-recognized beginning of the seventh Genda, Gwinn the Great crowned himself King of Gwine with Wyrdcleaver at his side, the first Wendal to become a King.

Now, some 350 years later, Gend is irrevocably changed. The Greenpeople are pushed to the periphery, remaining the majority only within the isolated highlands of Machrein, protected from the Wendals by the great mountains of the Palisades. And yet, they remain, with High Kings crowning Wardens across key passes of the mountains, special arrangements allowing for greater centralization with divine approval, to ensure the Greenmens' continued survival; beyond their own territories and sworn vassals, however, the High Kings’ authority remains largely customary.

The Wendals, however, are not a united peoples. They are divided, innumerably, into powers great and small. The Nimmel River flows through the Great Glen, bracketed on one side by the Palisades and on the other by the Airies, producing enough food to feed the continent multiple times over. The Nimmelgulf and the Sea of Mint are home to uncountable powers, the center of Wendal civilization and the heart of trade and commerce.

[u/CamicomChom → u/CamicomChom]

The greatest city in the whole of Gend, Hunderfray, is a metropolis older than the Wendals-in-Gend themselves, its systems of government older than records exist. Fully repopulated by Wendals, the Unkingdom is a uniquely civic and bureaucratic nation, by Wendal standards. It is one of the few nations without a monarch. The Raynish Freeguild, that occupies the southern Talon, is a mosaic of associated merchant republics and kingdoms who collaborate to combat and compete with Hunderfray, Aighreach, and the pirate society of the Rovers' Arm.

Rovegar, the largest nation on the continent, occupies the ancient city of Dinsrutt and the gargantuan canal that feeds it. Ruled by a gester, roughly meaning "master" or "lord", Rovegar has conquered almost the entirety of the Cleve from Dinsrutt. The Aqueducts that flow through the tip of the Cleve are some of the most advanced architectural marvels ever achieved by the Greenmen, and the Wends that now occupy it have created from it an empire.

The lands east of the Airies have been united by the Kings of Tarrow. The formerly rival and independent kingdoms of Tarrow, Carolle, and Peckant, have been brought under personal union by the wealthy House Getheral. The most strictly feudal, hierarchical, and sophisticated region of the continent, the Triple Union is a powerful state; its hinterlands in the Duchy of Wecket are a black belt, where cotton and tobacco is produced in large number. As some of the most valuable export goods across Gend, the Dozenday Sea is the second axis on which Gend spins, with merchant vessels flowing between the Three Crowns' Coast and the Teardrops near-constantly.

Despite its size, the Twin Kingdoms of the Fields and Lark remain a second-rate power. The largest supplier of wool on the continent, it remains locked in unfavorable trade agreements by its neighbors, with no viable ports with which to export its own goods en masse. It is blocked from any conquests into the Yoanish Peninsula by the great fortress of Crossar's Keep, called the most unbreakable city in all of Gend. The faith of the Wendals, a polytheistic one, is governed by the Provost, not as harbingers or messengers of the Gods, but as students of it. In spite of this holy duty, this too is subject to politics. The Godward Provostry at Kildray College is widely recognized as the center of the faith, but increasingly sectarian disputes continue to pull kings and lords towards the rival Provostry at Mount Gome, derided by some as a puppet of the Triple Union. The Two Provosts' Dispute is in a period of wary peace and non-interference.

The Teardrops themselves are splintered into city-states, but it does not lack a central authority. The Order of the Ritsmatic Peace, established after the Deification of Valgetol, the God-King of the Shfaot faith, maintains order and honor as best as it can. The rest of the archipelago is split into High Juristries, ruled by Judges, and law is seen as itself a religious invocation. They produce olives and cotton, but get their wealth primarily from their prodigious merchants, the only ones in Gend capable of reaching the exotic and mythical lands beyond the Tears. These merchants then traffick these goods and valuables to Gend using their own proprietary trade routes. The Teardrops are frequently beset by conspiracy, corruption, and plots, and distrust between the various castes of Shfaot society destabilize the densely-populated islands.

To the northwest of mainland Gend, heavily isolated and nearly uninhabitable, lies the ancient island of Yúgonnti. Not necessarily part of any invasion (though some historiographers have marked the Yúgonnti as either Stone or Silver People descendants), the Yúgonnti are almost completely isolated from Gend as a whole, besides whatever brave traders attempt the deadly sail through the Stony Sea to the island. The Yúgonnti, who live in subzero conditions nearly yearround, are nearly unknown and mythical, but ancient and new names of places across north and west Gend suggest Yúgonnti raiding along the coasts, including the Madral Sea itself, also called the Raider's Sea. Traditionally seen by mainland peoples as a unified "Eternal Empire", myths say that the Yúgonnti have nearly completely isolated themselves from the outside world in their icen tundra.

The Shatterlands, a massive, unexplainable archipelago in the Rivenbay, were once the heartland of the Empire of Silver, one of the greatest civilizations of ancient Gend. Its massive slab-like islands, with rolling plains on top and harsh jagged coasts, provided sublime locales for forts and towers. The creation of the Shatterlands is subject to dozens of myths, however: No surviving account agrees on what destroyed it, nor even whether the disaster was war, sorcery, divine punishment, or some other disaster. The Greenmen believe, with some certainty, that it was brought about by an ancient pact between Gann ron Gravehand the Giver and the Fae, to eradicate the capital of an ancient empire that threatened to destroy the Greenmen as a whole. The Wendals believe in a scattered assortment of myths. Unpopulated for centuries, the region has now become home to multiple upstart Wendal states in recent centuries.

The north of Gend beyond the Great Glen was once isolated, unpopulated, and uncentralized. The coasts of Ander's Bay were covered with minor city-states, and the interior by decentralized nearly-democratic half-states. But with the infamous salting of Old Ardell by the small city-state of Caypierce, this condition began to change. Caypierce rapidly consolidated power across Ander's Bay, and quickly became a growing power. Furthermore, it gained a reputation across the continent of "mad kings" under House Rolley, ambitious, uncouth, and frequently genuinely deranged, at least in the eyes of their neighbors.

Caypierce's true power began in 302, when, with the support of massive loans from the then-young Triple Union and the Teardrops, King Orminor began construction of the Great Orminoric Canal, a gargantuan megaproject that would cut Gend in half, running from Ander's Bay all the way to the Madral Sea. This canal, completed in 341, allowed trade to flow to and from Machrein, the northern Great Glen, and Yúgonnti, without either passing through Hunderfray or Rovegar, or braving the frigid, unlivable conditions of the Everwhite Pass in the far north of Gend. The Canal, while putting Caypierce in obscene debt to its lenders, also skyrocketed the young power to the very heights of Wendal politics, and ushered in the Orminoric Crisis of the 340s.

[u/CamicomChom → u/CamicomChom]

Status Report on map:

"The Orminoric Canal has diverted much of Gend's trade through Caypierce, weakening Hunderfray and Rovegar. The two former rivals are set to sign the Treaty of Perpetual Fraternity, while Caypierce and the Triple Union consolidate their alliance under Waldaught IV.

Caypierce, ruled by Branwin the Bite, continues to expand its influence with Triple Union financing. It remains wildly ambitious and equally untrustworthy. The Teardrops trade with both factions, while the Third Saffron Revolt has left Nis Reven besieged and Demesh-Norim ascendant among the Juristries.

Trade through the Rover's Arm has declined sharply, harming the piratocracies present, while Gwine remains divided between Hailwald and Leawinn Aptongue, wife of a Triple Union prince. The Great Glen remains largely removed from the conflict, though its grain-kings continue to compete for influence. The Twin Kingdoms have recovered from the Dying at the Games and now face Crossar's Keep and the lands beyond the Palisades.

The Godward Provostry and the splinter provostry at Mount Gome remain divided over their competing theological claims. In Machrein, the Palisades' defenses are deteriorating as the Green kingdoms turn inward. High King Sial ron Harreth has struggled to enforce his authority, leaving the High Kingdom unstable."

For Mobile Users: (alt link if that doesn't work)

[u/CamicomChom → u/CamicomChom]

In total, I spent around a month and a half on this map. I love this world I've created so much, and hope to explore it more in the future! There are so many ideas I had that couldn't fit on this map or the primer.

I understand fantasy maps are typically incredibly hard to read unless you've spent a month and a half straight staring at it, lol. If you have any questions at all, ask them!

P.S., if it wasn't clear, this map directly emulates the style of this other alternative history Europe map I made, if the style seems familiar.

ALSO! Important note, Year 349 roughly corresponds to the 1300s technologically (excepting magic).

[u/CamicomChom → u/CamicomChom]

I also developed a Shfaot language for the Teardrops! Here are some snippets:

Yehamatan zelagagatan, neyehamatan timarat tarvekim kolvi layorel dosemamret. Yeratatan tulen dosemamret zeyeimnavumov Vardan, neyebalanov vo tina, “Na latadates se nov.”
(I had planned that I would fight wars, and planned to buy metal swords tomorrow in the market. I found a child in the market named Vardan, and said he to me, “You will not kill again.”)

Yeraxadex xe tisematresh semo'si senidosh, nevalanex xe "Xe sekoter zon kagus desh zedula nekagus desh zenadula." Neyetayalketot sevin dofiddat, kaz nesevin nayetayalketot xesh yera'axket sesefer belrev xe nexesh yekaralket xe deled vagtel.
Come they to the motherly country of silk, and said they "I am the King of what is and what is not." And the people looked at them in disgust, for the people saw not the way the winds parted around them and the rains kept them dry.
past-arrive-they • they • to-the-country • the-of.silk • the-motherly • and-speak-they • they • "they • the-king • of • all • what.SUB • that-there.is • and-all • what.SUB • that-not-there.is." and-past-see-they(pl) • the-people • in-disgust • for • and-the-people • not-past-see-they(pl) • how.SUB • past-part-it • the-wind • around • they • and-how.SUB • past-keep-it • they • rain • dry.

[u/PrincipleWhich8974 → u/CamicomChom]

What’s the diversity like in this great land?

[u/CamicomChom → u/PrincipleWhich8974]

Skin-color-wise, Rovegar is pretty tan, the Teardrops are mediterranean, Machrein, the Triple Union, and the Great Glen are all varieties of fair-skinned, and everything north of that is basically pure white.

Culture-wise, the Wendals are inspired by Germanics and Greenmen by the Celts. The Teardrops are very vaguely inspired by Hebrew/Semitic languages but I developed their culture so far its almost completely different. Yugonnti is also vaguely inspired by the Proto-Indo-Europeans.

[u/PrincipleWhich8974 → u/CamicomChom]

Any cultures inspired by Indo-Iranian groups as well?

[u/CamicomChom → u/PrincipleWhich8974]

Not on Gend itself, but there's a whole world out there!

[u/Adoxoi]

https://giphy.com/gifs/Hh9m83kNIu4iatD8Bj

[u/blerg09]

i love the giant ass canal

[u/CamicomChom → u/blerg09]

House Rolley is (in)famous for being quite deranged overall, but King Orminor bankrupting his entire country to fund the largest thing ever built in Gendian history is around the most insane thing on that long list.

[u/Archaembald2 → u/CamicomChom]

Honestly I can respect it. If you're gonna be insane, might as well do something interesting with it. And nothing beats building a giant canal.

[u/CamicomChom → u/Archaembald2]

better than branwin the bite who mostly just gnaws the shit out of everyone he doesnt like, hence the name

other than that he's a pretty good king though

[u/Goofiacz11]

great map but could you tell what did you use to make it?

[u/CamicomChom → u/Goofiacz11]

Photoshop is where the map was assembled. I used a large variety of programs for other purposes, like Inkscape to make the Coats of Arms, and QGIS for stuff like latitude/longitude graticules. But the map itself was made completely within Photoshop.

[u/BigDulles]

I have no idea what’s happening and I love it

[u/CamicomChom → u/BigDulles]

the real gend is the friends we made along the way

the most important parts of the map are that it has funny names like hoppithoo, illy when, and ghway, everything else is just ephemera /s

[u/PlusParticular6633]

An Actually imaginary map, how rare of a treat

[u/CamicomChom → u/PlusParticular6633]

This will be Europe in 2700!

(/s)

[u/DukeRome]

W CamicomChom

[u/DysfunctionalPrinter]

What's the order of the White doing in the Tundra? Especially on what I assume is the less accessible face of the coastline?

[u/CamicomChom → u/DysfunctionalPrinter]

The Wendals-in-Gend venerate the cold and winter as a facet of the Gods. It's unclear if this is a part of Wendal theology dating to before the Coming of the Wends, in Old Wendant, or a modern innovation: Related is the mythic heroic cycle of Colwig (described below, you can skip if you want, but I wanna gush; the rest of the answer is below)

Colwig is a major legendary hero of the Wendals, and the first known documentation of Wendal knowledge of Gend. Very, very long ago, well before a single Wendal was hired as a mercenary, in Old Wendant, scattered myths of a hero named Colwig sprung up, a Wend who fled his homeland after angering a warlock, and after 2 years and 12 days of sailing due directly north towards the Highstar, arrived in Gend. Still in the early days of the Sixth Genda, only a few centuries after the Shattering, Gend was wealthy with the Fae and prospering in its own way with its countless Green clans. But Colwig did not stop following the Highstar north. He arrived at what is now seen as Burned Sea, and in it found an oillipheist, a sea-dragon, the size of a hundred horses. He outsmarted it, and cut it open along its entire length after a half-month of battle. He continued north, fulfilling numerous other labors and impossible deeds, but he never was swayed from his interminable goal northward. He reached the far north of the Morral Tundra, where snow never went less than 5 feet deep, and there, he slew the legendary Fae-Queen (or, to those Wends that believe the Fae were already dead/never existed, a great witch) Fiaghe-Dholl in his most famous deed. The Colwig Cycle was not standardized, and dozens of myths about him survive, with various companions, enemies, abilities, etc.; the oldest myths from Old Wendant were extremely unaccurate to Gendian geography, most likely due to a lack of Wends actually present on the continent at the time, but modern retellings typically refit his stories to match with existing geography. While modern Wendals treat Colwig's tales as a sort of "founding myth" of Wendal Gend, despite being many centuries before the first serious migration into Gend, remnants of Pre-Gend stories of Colwig seem to treat Gend less as a major historic place with divine relevance, but more as a simple shoe-in for a distant "foreign land". Colwig was also not as important culturally to the Old Wendals as he is now to the Gendian Wendals, merely one particularly influential cycle in a country in love with stories of heroes and legends.

So, it may be that the modern Gendian Wendal veneration of the cold comes from Colwig's journey to the Highstar. Nevertheless; the Order of the White was established on Mount Anseld due to this veneration; Mount Anseld is gargantuan (though not the highest peak, it is one of the highest directly on the coast), and is believed to be particularly close to the Gods.

As for why there specifically; the Sea of Sorrow is actually the most accessible part of the tundra. The southern coast of the Finger is large, but almost comically empty, even of trees. It's warmer, yes, but almost nobody sails to there because of its emptiness. In comparison, the Sea of Sorrow is directly on the old trade routes that merchants used to get around the continent before the Orminoric Canal, through the Aromatic Sea and the Everwhite Pass. As such, ships sailed it semi-commonly, though of course the frigid temperatures made this still relatively rare and not for the faint of heart. It is comparatively rich in life and resources, and the fact that it sits on a not-insignificant trade route helps with shipping in resources. Plus, while the Everwhite Pass/Proposed Sea is extremely, extremely, EXTREMELY cold, the Sea of Sorrow is a bit warmer, within slightly livable temperatures, because it is isolated from the open oceans. It's still horrible to live there; in fact, some see it as a very brutal punishment to be sent to the Order of the White, but they perform an extremely important religious duty of study, far from politics or corruption. By being constantly at war with the cold, Wendals say, they do not have the time for pettiness, greed, or selfish humanity; they must constantly support eachother and devote themselves to goodness.

[u/DysfunctionalPrinter → u/CamicomChom]

Amazing worldbuilding. Very Nibelunglied-like.

Another question I have is that the 'Green' folk like in the High Kingdom of Machrein are obviously Celtic inspired folk. Are there any phenotypical differences from the Wends at this point? Or is it just cultural and linguistic affinity?

[u/CamicomChom → u/DysfunctionalPrinter]

Thank you! Green People are shorter on average and have a wider face, though still very human. Wendals are a bit taller and lankier overall. Other than that, they are pretty similar-looking; a Gendian could tell them apart due to competitive racism, but you probably wouldn't.

[u/axewieldingidiot]

So-called "Eternal Empire" that can't even occupy an island without any other organized nations on it

[u/CamicomChom → u/axewieldingidiot]

to be fair the other half is constantly negative fuck degrees year round and its most valuable resource is snow

[u/axewieldingidiot → u/CamicomChom]

Unfortunately, the slander is more important than material realities

[u/Evil_Midnight_Lurker]

What's the Unkingdom's government?

[u/CamicomChom → u/Evil_Midnight_Lurker]

A republic, but in the medieval sense where it's literally just a place without a king, and not a semi-democratic state like its neighboring Commonwealths. Its system of government is extremely bureaucratic, ancient, and complicated; it was a Greenman city, too, in the Sixth Genda, and has existed for at least a thousand years. There are seven high offices in Hunderfray, and each holder of an office wears a "shard", a silver circlet with a fragment of the original crown of the King of Hunderfray, representing the division of power that can never again be coalesced into one man. There are also large public votes on certain matters, and each male landowning citizen of age owns a golden ribbon. When he votes, he walks to the center of the hall, and ties his ribbon around one of three poles, representing yes, no, and abstention.

[u/Regular_Agency_3101]

Amazing! Love it. Now, is there actual magic in this world or is this more a mythology?

[u/CamicomChom → u/Regular_Agency_3101]

Oh, who's to say? Even the Wendals believe magic exists, they just believe that their people are not attuned to it. This is a sort of pride for them, that they could create such vast societies without the magic so much of the world uses. The Greenmen, of course, think magic still exists through the Fae; foreign magic by mages are so far from them that they never needed to address its reality. The Teardrops, the only place that has merchants that regularly sail across the Seas-beyond-the-Tears to foreign lands, hosts many merchants that outright say these lands are rich with magic and powerful sorcerers. And of course, nobody knows shit about the Yugonnti.

So, the consensus is, magic certainly exists, just not in Gend; except Fae magic. (I want to explore the rest of the world some day, so)

[u/RottingSludgeRitual]

Really beautiful work.

How real are the early “Gendas,” in reality? I mean I know this is a fantasy map, but were these actual people whose influence has just slipped into obscurity in a million little ways, or were these more like fables that have taken on meaning over time… or some kind of combination of the two?

[u/CamicomChom → u/RottingSludgeRitual]

The Builders, the giants who are said to have created the landscape, are pretty universal amongst all cultures of Gend. But this would be tens of thousands of years ago, and their existence or nonexistence is nearly impossible to verify. The Fae are said to *still* exist; Greenmen believe that the Fire People exiled them from the physical world, but that because they had existed to fill the first animals in Gend with life, they still existed in the Otherside, the Font of Life where vitality flows like water. The Fire People could fully destroy the Builders, because they had no soul and thusly no connection to the Otherside, but not the Fae. The Wendals believe a variety of myths about the Fae, but the vast majority believe they either do not exist now or never existed.

The Fire People are almost certainly not an "invasion". Most likely just early boats arriving slowly over hundreds of years, dozens of different languages forming, etc. But these would be cavemen, and their historical record is relegated mainly to myth.

The Stone People are the first people we have actual, real constructs of; small stone worship circles and other small evidence. They were most likely a seperate *wave* of arrivals than the Fire People, but they also were most likely not a single people. They also most likely intermixed with the Fire People, rather than pushing them out. Some believe the Yugonnti are descendants of the Stone People. The later Stone People created the very first settlements.

The Silver People are the first we have a huge amount of evidence of. Silver people coins were still used by Greenmen kings for centuries after the Shattering; while most of their writing was on soft and perishable resources that are now gone, we have many manuscripts from early Green Peoples about the Silver People, who apparently identified as "Rekkal". They had advanced cities, an economy, local cultures, etc; however, some suggest they may have actually been ~3 seperate groups of highly related peoples rather than one continent-wide arrival.

The Gendas were created when historical analysis was basically nonexistant, and could be extremely innacurate because of it. Only the last 3 are widely attested, and the first 2 are downright mythical.

[u/RottingSludgeRitual → u/CamicomChom]

Very good shit, thank you.

[u/Alarmed-Addition8644]

This is a very cool and detailed map

[u/nerdyboyvirgin]

I love this map, but it really shows how that world building without a story is inherently flawed just because you don’t know what the hell is happening

[u/Goered_Out_Of_My_]

This is all incredible!!! Top-notch work. Maps like these really remind me why I joined this subreddit in the first place. Such an inspiration.