About
This is just me building a world, I guess. Why? Probably just because I enjoy it. Maybe you will too.
The idea is to write this as a setting, in a way that stimulates rather than satiates the imagination. So there'll be no exhaustive list of some dynasty, and likely, no map.
If you find it worth reading, please say so! That'll keep me writing it for longer, keep me enjoying myself for longer. If you find it mostly good, but something seems dumb, cliche, derivative, please say that too! It's not set in stone. If you have questions, or want me go into more depth on something, that's cool too, although no guarantees. I'm a big believer in keeping a sense of mystery in any fantastic setting.
To the people of the Post Finis, there is no single word to refer to their continent, or their world; that would imply something to compare it to. Various versions of "everywhere" or "all the land" or "all places" might be used for this purpose.
Instead, the people of the Post Finis refer to their world-- their time and place-- by its time: after the end.
Religion in the Post Finis Throughout the Post Finis, there is remarkably little religious tension. All its cultures are monotheistic; all its people assume that the god of the next culture is the same as the god of their own. Because of that, there's no name for god-- it's just God. (Although words for God vary, they're assumed to translate simply and literally.)
But God of the Post Finis is not the god that readers may be familiar with. God is largely uncaring, omnipotent but far from omniscient, and anything but benevolent. The god of the Post Finis could be seen as the personification of Murphy's Law. While organized religion exists, it promises to protect people from God. Prayer is a foreign concept: wanting to attract God's attention is considered mad.
There is no afterlife. Death is nothingness. Which is seen as something of a heaven. The dead are finally out of reach of God. Likewise, there's no belief in any sort of hell.
Ethics and morals are believed the business of humanity, not that of God.
Some variation exists between cultures. For instance, the Issong believe in a sort of reincarnation, where the goal of religious activity is final death. Rather than any arguments about reincarnation, most people just assume that the Issong reincarnate, while others don't.
That's not to say that doctrinal arguments don't exist. Monasteries seem to exist in part just to argue their doctrines, indistinguishable to most. They war with each other. Although monasteries receive financial support from local lords, and expect lip service to the superiority of their dogma, it's unheard of for secular lords to assist monasteries in religious wars. The obverse, however, is untrue: part of the reason for the financial consideration given the monasteries is their martial support in times of need.
Animist traditions persist in parts of the Post Finish, but these are seen as natural, rather than religious; the spirits of rivers, trees, the Pony King-- these are seen by some as real, physical beings that are worth pleasing and appeasing, and of a different domain than God. Although these are frequently referred to as demons, particularly when they're being uncooperative, this shouldn't in any way suggest that they're seen as antagonists to God.
Atheism is far from unknown, but generally compatible with the theism of the Post Finis. Lip service can be paid in the absence of belief, and there's no burning at the stake for unbelievers, just the sense that they are a bit too certain of themselves, and deviant in a world where conformity is prized.
The Retainer Class Although there is much that varies between cultures of the Post Finis, there is much that is shared. This includes elements of the retainer class that exists in all cultures (and is mostly portable between: a retainer of Estoria could conceivably play the role of a retainer of Nyitre).
Is it a hereditary class? This is a source of much confusion. Largely, what makes a person a member of the class is the ability to act like a member of the class. And largely, that makes it a hereditary class. Should a peasant child take up a sword and claim to be a retainer, and somehow manage to convince others of that fact long enough to swear fealth and survive a battle, then announce his parentage, there would be arguments about his or her status. Those arguments would be serious enough that he or she would be unlikely to remain a member of the class. It's not uncommon for adopted children to serve as members of the class, but there's a stigma associated with even adoption into the class that encourages them to silence.
The distinguishing characteristic of the retainer class, throughout the Post Finis, is the act of carrying a sword. All cultures ban swords for all but retainers. Many insist that this is the determining feature of who is and isn't a member of the class: if you are carrying a sword, you are a retainer. It is not technically murder to kill a person carrying a sword, so long as a sword is used to kill them. That "technically" is rather important; one's own sword leaves one vulnerable to reprisal, and retainers are not in fact in the habit of killing each other wantonly (outside of war).
The sword is the ideal weapon of the tax collector. It is not the ideal weapon of the battlefield. It's not uncommon for lords to conscript non-retainers for their battles. Sometimes, the conscripted veterans of many battles take up a sword and claim warrior status. If they can maintain hold of their swords, who is to say they're not retainers?
Lone Wolves and Stray Dogs The problem with retainers is what to do with them all.
In Estoria, customs have evolved to deal with this problem. It's unusual for a retainer to sign a contract without undergoing a period of adventure and travel. These young adventurers, sometimes known as Lone Wolves, are intended to perform great adventures: slay monsters, rescue those in need, right injustive, etcetera. These adventures form their resume when they return to seek employment. The reality of their adventures is the realization that true monsters are few and far between and that swords create injustices rather than solve them. Still, enough lone wolves fail to return from their adventures to allow the remainder to find work.
A larger problem surrounds those that have lost their contracts. There are a number of ways this can happen, often through no fault of their own-- for instance, many former retainers of King Shaycob remain-- but there exists a stigma that becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. Poor and hopeless, bearing a sword, the skills to use it, and little else, crime and banditry become the rule among these stray dogs.
Estoria There was a day when one would never say Estoria but only the Kingdom of Estoria, but that Kingdom is fallen or dissolved. Only its duchies remain.
The Dukes of Estoria, and many of their subjects, see Estoria as a bastion of freedom and law. While essentially feudal, relationships are established exclusively through contracts. The dukes own the land, they contract that land to their vassals, and their vassals contract that land to the families that work the land. The reality of the contracts, however, is that literacy is uncommon, the contracts include unclear (a lot of "reasonable" this-and-that) language, and the Dukes have all of the wealth. That's not to say that the Dukes are necessarily evil overlords, but the situation is far from utopic.
Estoria exists in the northern moors. The land is not particularly arable, and shepherding is as common as agriculture; before the Issong eradication, these moors were famous for their destriers. The legends of Estoria hold that they have been migrating southwards over the last several thousand years, chased by a wall of ice that has frozen their ancestral homes. Indeed, one may visit abandoned Tower Belbourne, many leagues north of any worthwhile land, and from its towers, spy yet another ruin northward. Legends tell of fantastic palaces even further northward, miles beneath the ice.
The Dukes of Estoria were famous for their wars and rivalries, but their contracts with King Shaycob of Lynacre lacked provisions for his death. Smaller skirmishes persist between the dukes' vassals.
The Poisonous Castle Tower Lynacre, seat of the King of Estoria, was considered unsiegeable. Despite its name, Tower Lynacre consisted of several concentric rings of walls that included a market, farm plot, and even a small copse. Multiple towers bore engines of counter siege, and a tremendous crane was built into the central keep. Any besieging force would need to outnumber the garrison fifty fold or to surround it for five years.
When the Issong arrived, more than even that proved true. Issong probes were massacred. Underminers met their doom, encountering a web of murder holes beneath Tower Lynacre's walls. Tower Lynacres's arrows seemed endless. After a siege of five years, no sally to be found and no sign of hunger or disease, it was presumed that Tower Lynacre either hid vast resources in the hard ground beneath it, or that some sally point must exist hundreds of miles hence.
And so Tower Lynacre became the first and only victim of Issong's stone poisoners. Few of the poisoners returned from their task, though the poison can spread many yards through veins underground; no inhabitants of Tower Lynacre were seen to escape. The Issong siege camp became the new seat of state and market, the new, strangely persist tent city that people call Lynacre, and if one stands on a hill high enough to see over its smoke and streamers, one can see the poisonous castle from new Lynacre. Approaching it is lethal; one would die a hundred yards before reaching its walls. The mysteries of Tower Lynacre have never been answered.
The Judges The Issong have never seemed very intent on exercising their dominance as they rolled over the kings of the Post Finis: modest tribute in whatever form was least offensive, be it iron, gold, ponies, or boys. The subjects left kingless seemed, despite their lords' predictions, not to care overly by whom they were governed. But even though the Issong Empire functions so loosely, some government is necessary. Part tax collector, part diplomat, part general, and of course part judge, Issong's nomadic officials and their relatively small retinues are responsible for the administration of areas sometimes so vast, especially in the south's Dusts, that years pass between visits.
Each judge is given great latitude by the Issong. His goals are to assure at least symbolic tribute returns to the seat of government (currently at Lynacre), to maintain a retinue capable of enforcement, and to train his (for judges are almost always male) successor. Returning personally to the Emperor, while occasionally necessary in cases of serious sedition or the death of an apprentice or master, is an embarassment.
Within these broad demands, most judges have found themselves acting with more tact than force; the size of retinue afforded a judge doesn't permit a violent approach. As the lords and heads-of-state deposed by the Issong empire frequently were responsible for little practical beyond the settling of disputes, these Issong administrators have had to take up the role of magistrate. Their precise role and judgment depends on the specific culture involved. Ahnetra, the judge of Estoria, has accepted the responsibility of settling interduchy contract disputes, but intercounty disputes are handled well by the existing administration, and so Ahnetra will probably be capable of managing all of Estoria. In the Dusts, several judges are needed, but solely due to the area covered; retinues are nearly non-existent. In Nyitre, several judges are needed full time for purposes of dispute resolution (as well as tax collection), and the judges are rotated not because of a lack of work for the city-state, but to prevent the appearance of impropriety.
