Erdian — The Other Place

Erdian, usually called simply the Other Place by those in Warlderia who know of its existence, is another world. It resembles Warlderia sufficiently to be recognisable. There are mountains and seas, forests and plains, cities, kingdoms, trade routes and wars. Many of the same peoples are found there, and a traveller transported from one world to the other would not immediately imagine that they had left their own. It would not take them very long to discover otherwise. The great difference is not geographical but historical. In Erdian, Humanity never became the measure by which civilisation is judged.

Elves and Dwarves possess some of the oldest and greatest states in the world. Orcs rule territories which other nations treat as serious political powers. Goblins conduct diplomacy and commerce through institutions which outsiders may find baffling but which have endured for centuries. Hobgoblins administer disciplined states of formidable military strength, while Gnoll peoples maintain territories whose very conception of borders can be difficult for settled peoples to understand. Humans are there too. They simply occupy a much less comfortable position in the order of things.

An Older World

Erdian gives the impression of being old even to visitors from ancient lands. Some of its states have existed for periods during which entire Human kingdoms elsewhere might have risen, divided and disappeared. Political institutions are often older than the rulers who temporarily occupy them, and amongst the longest-lived peoples there is little expectation that government should change merely because several generations have passed. This is reflected even in the names by which Erdian's great powers describe themselves. They are not merely kingdoms and empires. There are Perpetuities, Refulgencies, Assays, Indentures, Preponderances, Tontines and Ordinances.

The terminology can sound peculiar to outsiders. To the inhabitants of Erdian it describes something important: a state is often understood not simply as territory ruled by somebody, but as an enduring condition, obligation, agreement or principle. Who happens to be king is sometimes considerably less important than what the country believes itself to be.

The Elven Powers

The greatest Elven states are amongst the oldest political powers in Erdian. 

The Perpetuity of Ilyr Vael

The Perpetuity of Ilyr Vael does not consider itself a kingdom at all. It regards itself as an uninterrupted historical condition. Rulers change. Office-holders die. Houses rise and occasionally fall. The Perpetuity remains. Its institutions, bloodlines and policies are expected to endure for millennia, and decisions which Human rulers might regard as impossibly long-term are perfectly ordinary matters of government. To its inhabitants, this represents stability. To its neighbours, it can be terrifying. A grievance which began three hundred years ago is not necessarily an old grievance to the Perpetuity. It may simply be an unresolved one.

The Refulgency of Avarra

Where Ilyr Vael values continuity, the Refulgency of Avarra celebrates splendour. Avarra is wealthy, cultivated and magnificent. Its cities display the accumulated work of generations of Elven architects and craftsmen, while its courts are famous for art, scholarship, music and an extravagance which visitors may find breathtaking. Its magnificence is accompanied by considerable arrogance. Avarran Elves do not generally hate Humans. Hatred would imply a degree of concern which many of them simply do not possess.

The Dwarven Powers

The great Dwarven states are built around concepts which can seem equally strange to outsiders. Klan remains important, but Klans themselves exist within larger structures of obligation, law and inherited responsibility.

The Assay of Vordrek

In Vordrek, everything of consequence is tested. Metal is assayed for purity. So are warriors, officials, Klans, allies and subject peoples. Worth must be demonstrated rather than claimed, and those found wanting are sometimes described with the same word used for impurities removed during the working of metal: slag. Vordrek is not necessarily hostile towards outsiders. It simply judges them. Continually.

The Indenture of Morad Khel

The Indenture of Morad Khel is less comfortable. Debt and obligation form the foundation of its society. Land, labour and service may all be bound by agreements which extend beyond the lives of those who originally made them. This becomes particularly unpleasant amongst conquered peoples. Morad Khel insists that it does not enslave its subjects. Some Human families have merely inherited obligations which their ancestors incurred several centuries ago and which, through a remarkable succession of administrative misfortunes, have never quite been discharged. The distinction is more persuasive to Dwarven lawyers than to the Humans concerned.

The Younger Great Powers

Elves and Dwarves do not possess Erdian alone. Other peoples have built formidable states within and between the territories of the older powers.

The Preponderance of Ghor is a vast Orcish power founded upon a brutally simple political principle: those capable of demonstrating the greatest strength possess the greatest right to rule. Its Klans constantly assess whether the balance of power has changed sufficiently to justify a change of allegiance or rebellion.

The Goblin Tontine of Krizzik approaches government rather differently. Its founding Klans placed ownership of the state within an enormous survivorship agreement. As Klans disappear, their rights accrue to those remaining. Consequently, Krizzik has produced some of Erdian's finest merchants, most ingenious lawyers and an astonishing number of completely unforeseeable accidents.

The Pursuit of Akhraz is a Gnoll confederation whose people regard permanent territorial boundaries as faintly ridiculous. Its territory is wherever its packs currently live and hunt. Foreign cartographers nevertheless continue drawing borders around it, much to the amusement of the Gnolls.

Perhaps most unsettling to Human visitors is the Hobgoblin Ordinance of Kharad. Kharad does not regard itself primarily as territory. It is a body of law and hierarchy. It therefore claims that it does not conquer other countries. It merely extends the Ordinance.

Humanity in Erdian

Humans are widespread in Erdian, but rarely dominant. They live within the territories of other peoples, in independent cities, in small kingdoms and in the handful of Human states strong or useful enough to retain their sovereignty. This produces a Human culture rather different from that familiar in much of Warlderia. Human rulers tend to be practical. They have to be. A Human king contemplating war against an Elven neighbour may be confronting a government whose senior officials remember his grandfather's coronation. A dispute with a Dwarven state may involve agreements signed before his dynasty existed. Orcish and Hobgoblin powers cannot simply be dismissed as tribes waiting to be driven from desirable land. Human diplomacy therefore depends heavily upon trade, usefulness, compromise and playing greater powers against one another. Pride exists. Survival generally wins.

The Plutocracy of Masalb

The Plutocracy of Masalb is perhaps Humanity's greatest demonstration that weakness need not mean helplessness. Masalb cannot compete with the oldest powers through longevity or overwhelming military force. It possesses something else. Money. Commerce, banking, brokerage and carefully cultivated relationships have made Masalb sufficiently useful that considerably stronger neighbours frequently find its continued independence convenient.

Its wealth buys influence. Occasionally it buys armies. Most importantly, it buys time. Masalb survives partly because destroying it would inconvenience too many powerful people. This is not the most heroic foundation upon which a nation has ever rested. It has nevertheless proved remarkably effective.

The Picayune States

The Picayune States are less impressive. They are a collection of small Human sovereignties whose rulers maintain a sometimes rather optimistic belief in their own importance. Some are prosperous. Some are impoverished. Some consist of little more than a fortified town and enough surrounding countryside to feed it. Their rivalries can be ferocious. From the perspective of the great powers surrounding them, these disputes occasionally resemble two mice fighting over which owns the pantry. Yet the Picayune States survive. Their weakness makes them useful as buffers, trading partners, proxies and neutral ground. Their rulers have also become exceptionally skilled at discovering precisely how much assistance one great power will provide to prevent another gaining influence. Petty they may be. They are not necessarily foolish.

Being Human in the Other Place

Visitors from Human-dominated regions of Warlderia sometimes find Erdian uncomfortable for reasons which are difficult to explain at first. Nobody necessarily threatens them. Nobody necessarily insults them. They simply discover that Human assumptions carry remarkably little weight. An inn may primarily accommodate Dwarven travellers, with Human-sized furniture available upon request. A magistrate may listen courteously to a Human merchant before accepting the testimony of an Elf whose family has traded in the city for six centuries. An ancient building may possess magnificent doors designed for creatures substantially shorter than Humans because nobody involved in its construction considered Human convenience important. Diplomatic conversations may proceed for hours in Elven before somebody remembers that the Human ambassador requires a translation. These things are not universal, and attitudes vary enormously between countries. But they communicate the same uncomfortable truth. In Erdian, Humans are not the audience for whom the world was built.

Warlderia and the Other Place

Contact between Warlderia and Erdian is uncommon, but it has occurred often enough that the Other Place is more than a scholar's theory. Individuals have crossed between the worlds. Adventurers have travelled there, while inhabitants of Erdian have appeared in Warlderia. Dîmeril Laeghartha spent an important period of her life in Erdian, where she became involved with the High-Elven Argent Lances during the Picayune War. Her experiences there introduced her to societies in which Human political dominance could not simply be assumed. The wizard Solara Elenhi subsequently followed Dîmeril from Erdian, eventually becoming part of the community which gathered around her.

Other connections have been considerably less friendly. The history of the two worlds has demonstrated that a road between worlds can carry refugees, travellers and friends. It can also carry armies.

The Other Place

Nobody in Erdian calls their world the Other Place. The name belongs to Warlderia. It probably began as the sort of practical expression used by people who had discovered that elaborate cosmological terminology was considerably less useful than simply distinguishing here from there. The name endured. For most inhabitants of Warlderia, Erdian remains little more than a traveller's tale. For those who have actually visited, the experience can be rather more unsettling. The Other Place is not a ruined world, an evil world or a primitive one. In many respects it is magnificent.

Its cities are ancient. Its civilisations are sophisticated. Its peoples possess histories, philosophies and institutions every bit as complicated as those of Warlderia. It merely developed without ever accepting one assumption which Humans find remarkably easy to make: that the world naturally belongs to them.