Excerpts From Nonexistent Books

The elves, known as “jingling” to humans, arose from a related lineage of primates in a more temperate climate. They tend to be much more individualistic than humans, and this trait, along with their origin on a large but not isolated island, led to their early conquest by and subjugation to said humans.

Since interbreeding beyond a single generation of sterile hybrids is impossible, the elves maintained their culture, traditions, and language under domination by other sapients, finding in a common oppressor the unifying force that they had lacked as an independent people.

This, coupled with their dramatically longer lifespan, allowed elves to break free of their subjugation during the exodus from the Garden World, seizing technology and ships from the Dihuang for the purpose. This, coupled with the invention of new fertility techniques to overcome the naturally long and widely-spaced breeding periods of the species, led to a population boom on their colonized worlds and their rise as a galactic-scale power to be respected.

On the whole, elves prefer cooler worlds, and have been known to claim icy planets that the Dihuang have spurned. They retain an independent streak even to the present day, and tend to have only planetwide or systemwide governments without any overarching authority. This does not stop them from readily banding together in the face of percieved threats, however, and several large, if loose, confederations exist.

The Core League and Verge League represent the largest elven confederations, with several smaller leagues drifting into and out of association with them. The Core and Verge are generally mutually hostile and at war, though in the face of significant threats they have been know to put aside their differences before falling to infighting.

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Evolving from arboreal primates with specialized grasping appendages and highly developed spatial reasoning, the humans of the Garden World are as diverse as any other sapient species to emerge therefrom. In the latter days, during the collapse of the Garden World’s ecosystem, the humans were politically united. In the centuries since, they have fractured into several factions that are only nominally allied.

The largest and oldest such faction is the Dihuang Imperium, the successor of the unified polity that oversaw the evacuation from the Garden World. A highly centralized and organized state, the Imperium is ostensibly a monarchy answerable to a hereditary Heavenly Emperor–hence its alternate names of Heavenly Empire or Heavenly Imperium. But in reality it is a bureaucracy answerable to the Emperor’s Chancellor, with a variety of worlds in its hegemony to varying degrees.

Other major states or statelets in human space include the democratic Xianhue Alliance, the mercantile Nanhai Commerce Guild, and various small independent systems and pirate groups. While they all have evolved in different ways, the formerly total hegemony of the Heavenly Empire has left humanity with a common linguistic, cultural, and religious background.

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The only known place that sapient life evolved in the Cassandra Galaxy is an unremarkable system with a single remarkable planet. The fourth world from CG-839130, known to later chroniclers as the Garden World, was in a perfect orbital location for an oxygen-rich biosphere, a liquid water cycle, and the development of large-scale life and civilization. Crucially, it was made up of a number of large, diverse landmasses separated by deep and treacherous seas. This allowed sapient life to develop not once but many times across its surface, with several parallel civilizations developing over eons.

As one might imagine, the development of an industrial age among several competing species, and the resultant explosion in pollution and large-scale conflicts, led to an ecological catastrophe. The Garden World was hastily abandoned by all its inhabitants once spatial drive was discovered, with its wayward children spreading far and wide throughout the galaxy.

Since that time, the location of the Garden World has been lost, especially as it would no longer be distinguishable from any other ruined world via a cursory orbital or long-range scan. Nevertheless, it remains revered by several large-scale faiths and ideologies, and the search for it has been a constant feature of messianic movements.

One side effect of the Garden World’s remarkable history is the shared biological aspects of the sapients that evolved there. Though outwardly very different, especially after evolving on the galactic scale, each sapient shares a common genetic heritage with the others as well as a fundamental preference for oxygen-rich water-cycle worlds. This has led to extensive terraforming efforts along those lines, again on a galactic scale, as well as fierce competition for “garden type worlds” that require little modification.

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The Ide as a people are now extinct, with their last surviving full-blooded member passing away in 1922. That man, whose Ide name he never chose to reveal, was generally known as John Last in his dealings with others, and after the death of his last remaining cousin, he sat down for long sessions to document his language, culture, and ancestral tales. Working with an anthropologist from the University of the Northwest, John Last ensured that many of his folk tales remained even after his death.

One story that has fascinated modern cryptid hunters is that of the kiis’wah-hannag-tuul, a phrase which Last translated roughly to mean “Herd-As-Doe.” In his telling, deer would sometimes act very strangely in the upper valleys of the Ide territory, and begin to gather in large numbers.

When this happened, usually indicated in Ide folklore by the appearance of an albino or leucistic doe, the deer would begin to exhibit a startling and subtle intelligence. Hunts would begin to fail spectacularly, with hunters being killed or wounded in ambushes. It would seem that the deer had laid in wait for them and even sprung traps, an effect that seemed to increase the more animals were in proximity to one another.

As Last put it, during a Herd-As-Doe, three deer could cunningly escape a hunting party, five could counterattack and drive the hunters off, and ten could set traps for the hunters. Very large herds, including multiple mature bucks in a way that no normal herd would, would then stage large-scale raids on Ide crops.

At this stage, John Last said that the usual method of dealing with the situation was to stalk and kill the white doe, a feat not easily accomplished. He said that it had been done three times in the memory of his people. A further two times, the Ide had somehow communicated with the deer, and managed to convince it to break up the herd. When asked, John Last could not say how such communication was possible, but speculated that it was related to the “sticktongue” some Ide had used, which utilized small twigs for some non-verbal concepts.

The final Herd-As-Doe had only ended when the deer had ravaged the Ide lands and stripped them bare, eventually resorting to cannibalism while the Ide were forced to spend two seasons foraging outside their ancestral lands.

John Last’s story continues to fascinate researcher and fringe believers alike, and the rare albino deer in those lands is often semi-seriously hailed as the new “Herd-As-Doe.”

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The Tis’An evolved on a world that was mostly made up of water ices and liquid methane, and they require a similar methane-rich, liquid, and high-pressure environment to survive. Such environments are not uncommon, luckily, and Tis’An colonies that do not require extensive terraforming are fairly common. Their civilian and military vessels are usually filled with a mixture of hydrocarbons (70% methane, 14% nitrogen, and 14% ethane) at a minimum pressure of 145 kilopascals. Any less pressure, or a non-liquid medium, will cause death by decompression.

Tis’Ans have some features in common with terrestrial jellyfish, being radially symmetrical with evenly-spaced sensory organs, manipulator arms, and a central opening that is used for ingestion, excretion, and breeding. A sessile and non-sentient larval phase lasting 10 years is a necessary part of the Tis’An life cycle, and their earliest civilizations evolved around the need to protect these immature polyps.

Due to the interdependence required for breeding, raising young, and operating in atmospheres other than a perfectly ideal one, Tis’An government tends to be highly hierarchical and authority-driven. It is, at least in theory, a strict meritocracy with parallel hierarchies for civilians, the military, and the arts, each answerable to a single supreme head who is elected for life. This situation is mirrored on every colony world, with the worlds themselves subject to their own hierarchy in the Hegemony.

Tis’An language is incredibly complex, as it requires bioluminescence and methane-based “pheromones” for even basic concepts. Due to this, the Tis’An place a high value on accurate translation, and gifts of translators attuned to their language are usually offered at first contact.

With its large military and focus on trade, terraforming, and colonization, the Tis’An Hegemony is perhaps the preeminent traditional galactic power.

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“Amphictyony” is a term meaning roughly “gathering of friends” and this best describes the loose and decentralized government of the Efil. They exercise power in informal groups, resorting to snap elections in many cases and empowering leaders with unlimited power for limited terms when necessary. This philosophy extends to every level of Efil society, all the way up to their titular governing council, the Firsts-Among-Equals.

Biologically, the Enfil developed on a low-pressure and low-gravity world with meager atmospheric pressure and an atmosphere dominated by carbon dioxide. Silicon-based and spindly, they exhibit neither radial nor mirror symmetry and have been compared to “oddly shaped fiddler crabs” by some observers. They require a low pressure of approximately 600 pascals and 95% carbon dioxide to respirate, and have become quite skilled at terraforming planets to this standard.

Their homeworld underwent significant seasonal variations, with relatively wet, warm periods interspersed with extremely dry, cool ones. These necessitated massive migrations and instilled a strongly individualistic mentality in the Efil. This encompasses their preferred FTL technology, their extensive trade networks, and their unregulated yet booming economy.

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The two species’ philosophies are well-expressed in their philosophies toward faster-than-light travel. The Tis’An favored hyperdrive networks and their accompanying infrastructure, while the Efil preferred slower but less resource-intensive warp travel.

Hyperdrive lanes are naturally-occurring transwarp slipstream channels that naturally flow throughout space-time. By using a hyperdrive terminal, a Tis’An ship could accelerate to incredible speeds along one such lane. Simple enough, but such a trip required a large and expensive terminal at both ends; otherwise, the ship would potentially travel much further, or in a random direction. Pirates and saboteurs routinely targeted the Tis’An terminals, either for ransom or to prevent Hegemony reinforcements from arriving. As a result, costly defense fleets were required to protect the a hyperspace terminal, and even more expensive repairs were required to bring one back into service. But when all was functioning well, the Tis’An Hegemony could dispatch cargo, passengers, or reinforcements in a matter of hours, rather than days or weeks.

Warp travel, preferred by the Efil Amphictyony, did not require any such hyperspace lane infrastructure. Instead, it simply required an area sufficiently free of gravity wells and a course charted to avoid the same, after which a warp projector would bend space-time ahead of a vessel to pull it along at trans-light speeds. While the technology and navigational computing power needed were not trivial, by the time of the Amphictyony’s apex, economies of scale meant that the technology was cheap and widely available.

The drawback was the extended travel time. Warp travel took days or weeks, occasionally even years, and this led to a correspondingly slower pace for the Efil Amphictyony. There were no vulnerable choke points, and therefore less piracy, but goods and military reinforcements were slow to arrive.

These philosophies set the course for the Hegemony-Amphictyony war. The Tis’An were able to protect and supply their inner worlds but could do nothing to stop Efil raids, while the time and expense it took to erect hyperspace lanes in captured Efil territory gave the defenders time to mobilize.

It was ultimately a stalemate that would last for over a decade.

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In the aftermath of the great Scarecrow Ball Fire, the surviving courtiers ventured into the Great Hall of Erareon searching for survivors. Few were found, and those who were located were so badly burned as to be unrecognizable.

A man that they took to be the king was seated on the grand Scarecrow Throne built for the occasion, and his state was such that the courtiers could not determine if he was living or dead.

It was decided to move him to his throne room and to place him upon the throne, there to recover or perish as the fates willed. The king’s charred form was wrapped in soft gauze and draped in his finest robes, and laid upon his throne.

While this happened, a matter requiring the king’s urgent judgment arrived. The most able and independent men who remained at court had died, leaving only the hand-picked and easily cowed yes-men to deal with the emergency.

One courtier, finding the king unresponsive, simply responded to the missive in a way that he thought the king would have: brutal, unsympathetic, and racked with visions. The message was sent forth, and an innocent man executed for a crime he did not commit that very night.

And thus began the reign of the Charred King. Surely if he were not yet dead when placed upon the throne of Erareon he died soon after, but he had built a court that was too afraid to question him. And so it was that his brutal rule continued from beyond the grave.

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It so happened that in the mighty kingdom or Erareon, a king came to the throne when his father died. This king had been troubled since a young age by demons of insanity, and frequently flew into rages, made arbitrary demands, or experienced things that were not real. Nevertheless, there was no other heir, and several nobles schemed to take power themselves by manipulating the Erareonian king. So he was enthroned and duly crowned.

It then transpired that the nobles who had backed him over more stable cousins or a regency council had underestimated the new king. For although he was troubled by inasnity and caprice, he was nevertheless his father’s son and possessed considerable intelligence, and cunning. Within the first years of his reign, all the nobles who had hoped to influence him had been driven from power into exile or execution.

Once the threats to his rule had been removed, replaced by pliable and cowed men, the king began plotting a series of elaborate entertainments and festivities. Each more spectacular than the last, they included masquerades, dances, and darker spectacles like witch burnings and executions. The final entertainment was the most elaborate of all: a great harvest dance, with the banquet hall decorated with sheafs of corn while the king and his courtiers dressed as scarecrows with dried pumpkin heads. Recognizing the danger of fire in such an environment, light was provided by expensive oil braziers on the ceiling and bonfires in the yard reflected inside via mirrors.

It so happened, though, that a courtier arrived late to the masquerade. He had not read the strict instructions, which banned open flames, and bore a lit torch. A stray ember from his flame caught a dry corn husk, and within moments the hall was an inferno.

None escaped.

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