The Iberian penninsula has been torn and riven by war for a millennia. Once domains to the Iberian Celts, ruled wisely, if not entirely fairly, by the Soveriegns of the Sidhe, the coming of the Romans saw an end to that peace, perhaps in retalliation for their service to Hannibal in the second Punic War. When the Romans grew weak and retreated, came the Visigoths, and when the Visigoths grew too weak, the Gith following the Prophet of Zerthimon arrived, conquering very nearly the entire place, which they held for centuries.

Not, however, peaceful ones, as the ancient divisions between the Gith'zerai and the Gith'yanki could not be easily bridged. Oddly, however, the Taifas of Al-Adalusia, the petty kingdoms that formed during the periods of strife, did not entirely break down on racial lines as one might expect... though the racial enemities papered over by the political realities of ruling a vast kingdom, and the religious aspects of the Prophet's Teachings were often driving forces behind the divisions, the wars, behind the various Taifas.

In the last decade, however, the resurgance of the Human kingdoms have pushed the Almohades Gith back to a narrow band of the southernmost Taifas, known as the Kingdom of Granada, though there are still a great many gith settlements and monasteries in the reconquered territories.

Iberia may thus be divided up into Portugal to the far West, Leon to the north of Portugal, Castille to the East of Leon, Navarre, the smallest of the kingdoms, wedged between Castille and France, and Aragon holding the Mediterranian coast between France as Granada, and... of course, Granada itself, holding almost the entire southern coast, but it technically a part of the greater Caliphate of Almohades, which is largely centered on the western reaches of North Africa.

It was believed until very recently that the Gith would be driven entirely from Iberia in one big push, but the reconquest stalled only 6 years earlier, in 1230, when Emir Gith'nasri was able to politically unify the remaining Taifas under his reign and reach a political detente with the Castillians, who were then leading the Reconquista.  More ever, with a lack of support from the Caliph of the Almohades (and in-fact, with Gith'nasri being a Gith'yanki, and the Caliph being a Gith'zerai...), he has formally broken ties with the Almohades, setting Granada up as an independent kingdom.  

Gith'nasri is both an extremely devout follower of Zeryth, the teachings of the Prophet, though is considered a schismatic by the Almohades, and an astute politician.  He has broken with the traditional teachings of the Gith'zerai without daring to proclaim himself an equal to the Prophet, and has encouraged the non-gith in Granada to convert to the teachings of Zeryth and banished the practice of enslaving humans as being 'un-gith' behavior.  This has had two significant benefits for the Emir, the first being that it robbed the forces of the humans a great deal of their motivation for continuing the war, and second, by allowing humans (and elves and others) to join the kingdom as citizens (if they convert, of course) has given him a force to buffer the old hatreds between the two Gith races, as well as a force to drive them closer together as an elite ruling class.

While Granada has a fairly capable military force, their continued survival depends entirely on the wealth of trade that controlling most of the Mediterranian coast provides. Granada pays tribute to the Castillians and to the Almohades to buy peace.

However, the Emir's reign is still young and not without significant growing pains. One of the most controversial 'pains' is the very recent Decree of the Veil.  Traditionally the Gith'yanki males wear veils over their faces, the custom still practiced in the Sahel, while among the Gith'zerai is is common, if not universal, for the women to go veiled.  The Emir's decision to first forgo his own veil and turban in public, and more recently to ban veils entirely in Granada has been met with considerable strife... though in the long run may serve his purpose of truly unifying the Granada Gith as a single people.


It should be noted that the capital of the Emirate, the city of Granada is, by population, the largest city in the world in 1236, though a great number of its inhabitants are still refugees from the recent wars.  The Gith of Granada are reknown scholars and mystics, and the city is not only a major hub of trade, but also of philosophy and the arts.  Gith'nasri has closed the Gith'zerai monasteries and the Gith'yanki Solons (martial schools), and has patronized human style 'universities' instead, where all the citizens of Granada can go to learn.  To his dismay, however, the departments of the universities seem to be breaking down into the classic racial lines that have always caused strife in the Almohades culture... with the Gith'zerai dominating departments devoted to philosophy and the mystic arts, while the Gith'yanki have ruthlessly shut out the Gith'zerai from the Scholas of physical arts and 'natural sciences'.

Among the Gith, however the single most controversial act of Gith'nasri is his choice to marry a Gith'zerai, to ensure his heirs will lay equal claim to the loyalties of Gith'yanki and Gith'zerai, or so he hopes.



[Ed. Note: Technically Muhammed ibn-Ahmar did not take Granada as his capital until 1238, so I'm being a bit anachronistic by building up the city as central to his (Emir Gith'Nasri) authority in 1236. Then again, almost everything I just wrote about Granada as a whole is entirely Fantastic, so I can get away with it...]


None of these reforms have gone over particularly well in the Maghreb domains of the Caliph of Almohades, where non-gith are still enslaved on a regular basis, and the division between the Gith Races remains quite strong, and racial strife is rampant.  However, as the more 'pure' domains of the Gith'zerai and the Gith'yanki to the south have both independently chosen 'now' as the time to make their feelings known about the followers of the Prophet known, there isn't much the Caliph can do about it except grit his teeth, accept the frequent gifts of tribute, and send the occasional half-hearted assassination attempt across the Sea.  With the loss of trade, he needs all the tribute he can get...

Trade lost from the south as the Gith of the Sahel are now at war with the Caliphate, and loss of trade from the Sea, as the more human-friendly Granadans are a much better port of call for sea going trade than the slave taking Caliphate.  



Culturally, the division was inevitable. The Iberian Gith have lived alongside humans in vast numbers for five hundred or more years, in somewhat more pleasant climes, and without contact with the 'purists' of the Sahel tribes.  Gith'yanki in particular of Iberia have been 'free' for generations from the tyranny of the Lich Queen, while the Gith'zerai have been far more occupied with administrative and beaurocratic duties, leaving them much less time for isolationist practices or, for that matter, the rather extreme asceticism usually favored by their monastics.  By the Reconquista, the Iberian Gith barely even speak the same language as their southern kin, though still intelligable with the Caliphate Almohades Gith.   On top of that, virtually no Dragon Riders remain among the Iberian Gith'yanki, though Gith'nasri does lay claim to that 'title', having inherited the loyalty of his father, and grandfather's Dragon, Alhambra.



EDIT::::  Bah, I forgot to add that Gnolls are shockingly common in Iberia.  Pretend I worked that in somewhere in the text above, eh?

The Races of Men:

First one must begin with a disclaimer that the very term 'Races of Men' is not without significant controversy and confusion.  The simple fact is that the term originates, not with Men, but with Elves, and in their rather poetic view of life, they simply divide the world into 'Elves' and 'not-elves', with further subdivisions of each group.

So in its oldest of uses, the term Races of Men really translates into 'People who are Not-Elves, but are not implacably hostile', more or less.

During the Age of Atlantis, the common attitude among non-elves was that all 'others' were just that... 'others', no further definition was necessary. The Atlanteans, as a people, did not consider the Sylvain so much a separate race as a separate tribe, at least at first.  The People of the Swamps did consider the Sylvain they encountered to be 'Forest Spirits', and it has been held by many scholars that the Spirits of the Rocks mentioned in the Tale of Lem may refer to Dwarves...

With that in mind, a reasonable definite of Races of Men might be held to be those races native to the surface of the Earth, which is not without problems as no one considers the Orcs or the various Goblins to be among the Races of Men, which brings us back to the Elvish definition of old.

This is not a purely academic question, as magic of all sorts may rely on definition of Men and 'not men' of some sort or another.     As a full study of the issue would take some time, let us instead dwell upon the much simpler task of discussing some of the known 'races of man'.


Lemurians:  Known to some as the 'First Men', or more accurately the first race of 'civilized' men, who eschewed cannibalism and formed large, complex political arrangements.  The Lemurians are a tall, lean people, generally pale of countanance, with dark hair and eyes, with an affinity for alchemistry and other similar arts.  Lemuria has long been held to have sunk the same day as Atlantis, but this is false. Lemuria had been 'sinking' slowly for centuries, and the Lemurians... never the most exploratory of people... largely abandoned their home, scattering across the world and losing much of their culture. A large colony of Lemurians, considered by many to be the True Lemurians, settled on the Moon, and have virtually no dealings with the people of Earth, while a second 'tribe' adapted to living underwater... their fate is unclear.

Swamp Folk: An extinct people, the natives to the region where Atlantis was settled. They were tall and strong, proud but primitive even by the standards of the day.   They are said to have had brown skin and black hair, but with pale eyes.  

Atlanteans: A mongrel people, the Atlantean ruling class were, for many centuries, made up of pure blooded Lemurians and people of other exotic heritage, but the vast body of the people were taken from the slaves of the Swamp Folk and a hundred other 'races', not all of them human.  By the end of Atlantis they were a distinct 'race', and reasonably pure blooded populations can be found all over the world even today. Atlanteans exhibit high degrees of dimorphism, the males being tall and powerfully built (to rival Orcs in mass), while the women tend to be small and slight, with wide hips and full breasts.  Atlanteans are a swarthy people, appearing 'semitic' or 'arabic' in coloration, though with a wider 'arc' of hair and eye colors.    Atlanteans are called the Cursed Peoples, due to the number of curses that seem to afflict them.  Among other things, Atlanteans seem driven beyond all sanity to pursue immortality, as well as the Curse of Amazon and others.

Amazon:  A 'descended' race of Atlanteans, exclusively women of Atlantean heritage who have taken up arms.  Amazons look very unlike Atlantean women, being as tall and nearly as muscular as Atlantean men, and with slim hips and small breasts.  Amazon women can only bear daughters, who are themselves Amazons from birth.  All Amazons must take Martial classes, though an Atlantean Woman who becomes an Amazon retains any non-martial class levels she already had.

Halflings: Native to the british Isles, they are among one of the most contentious candidates for 'Races of Men' one can find, yet mystically this 'half men' do seem to qualify as 'men'. While rare outside of the Isles, they have spread across northern Europe in small, generally remote, villages.  Halflings favor homes carved out of the earth, but are not subterranean in any sense.

Men of Danu: The last remanents of the pure Celts, who themselves are reputed to be descended from Atlanteans, though not directly.  When Atlantis fell, many of her far flung colonies collapsed into utter disarray, and many fleeing the collapse of the empire found homes among the elves, who for reasons poorly understood, chose to shelter and protect 'Men' from the cruelties of the world... or at least the Men of Atlantis.  One large group of refugees fell in with the Sidhe in northern Europe, where their leader gave himself to a Sidhe named Danu (a Goddess?), and their children lead the refugees in the millennia that followed, paying homage to the Sidhe Kings and Queens who remained in the Feywild.  Their descendants can be found in large numbers in Ireland, and lesser numbers in Wales and Alba (Scotland), but also in scattered pockets in Iberia and northern Europe, though they no longer consider themselves Danaan.

Goths, Slavs, Han and other 'real world' tribes

Marginal Cases:

Gith: it is held by some scholars that the Gith were a Race of Men long ago, but during their enslavement to the Illithids were transformed into 'something else'.   How 'human' the Gith are, mystically, is a matter of some debate.

Yaun-Ti: During the long years of Atlantis a number of Atlanteans sought to escape the yoke of Andromalius and his Law-Magic. This was hardly unusual, and the Atlanteans had long sought to yoke the power of various 'entities' from beyond the Mortal Plane. What made the Yaun-Ti distinct was the unique nature of their greatest failure, and their greatest success.  Transformed by ritual magics and alchemical experimentation, the followers of Yau (which is what Yaun-Ti means in Atlantean), were exiled, driven from the Empire under pain of death (which is to say: they were murdered in large numbers, with only a few survivors escaping with their lives), eventually settling in the rainforests of West Africa.... shockingly near the Illithid Kingdom that was even then spreading South and East. It may be that the ancient Yaun-Ti stole secrets of transformation from the Illithids, refining their efforts at 'self improvement' thereby.  Unlike the Gith, it is indesputable that the Yaun-Ti were once Human... and in fact among the lesser castes of Yaun-ti they fully qualify under magical ground (Bane against Human weapons work on them, for example).

Tieflings and Gensai: Common in the later Era of Atlantis, and not uncommon among the Lemurians in Exile, the half-human nature of these beings is universal, while the 'other half' is... well, what makes them whatever race they are.  While new Tiefling, Gensai and Aasimar may be born at any time, most are descendants of old, and it is not uncommon for 'kingdoms' of "bloods" to form, bound by common ancestry, particularly among the Tieflings.  Scholarly debates about their inherant humanity abound, but the truth is that most of them are not prone to magical 'human only' effects, though cross-breeding with full blooded humans is possible, the child inevitably inherits their non-human parent's traits.

Half Orcs: A unique case. Some isolated tribes of Orcs (which are known to be NOT part of the Races of Man) have been entirely bred out of existence, resulting in stable populations of Half-Orcs, who ARE part of the Races of Man... as well as Orcs. The Highland Clans of Alba are very notable for this, they have been 'pure' half orc for so long that they don't even think of themselves as half-breeds, but as their own people.  It should be noted that racial strife between 'Men' and 'Orcs' is a relatively new phenomenon... in the days of Atlantis, the Orcs were just another 'tribe' wandering the Holocene landscape. Its only been in the last two thousand years where the conflicts between Men and Orcs have been increasingly chalked up to inherent racial divisions, with the Orcs increasingly seen as 'outside' civilization. Orcish archers were popular mercenaries in Greece dating back to the early bronze age at least.

So... I've had a workup for France on my desktop for most of a week now and I haven't posted it because I set up that stupid list earlier.  Also, I've been sick as a dog.  

I'm feeling very hit or miss on the Races of Man post, some good ideas, mostly crap.

Rather than do a proper revisit of England I thought I'd just lay down my mental notes about where I was thinking of going with it. Knowing me, that will eventually bloom into a full fledged post.

I mentioned in Ireland that a mystical war between the Fey magics of the Irish and Sidhe with the Feindish magics of the Norman conquerers (the English) is going on.   In my mind this goes back to the very day of William the Conquerer. Historically, his planning for the invasion was very involved and meticulous, taking something like two or three years of carefully concealed manueverings to get his fleet and army ready, then you have the Battle of Hastings, where luck favored William at least twice over (First, the Saxons having to deal with two invasions in two different parts of The Island of the Mighty, and Second being the Death of Harold which caused the English (saxon) army to collapse. Possibly killed by a stray arrow to the face.)

Then you have the idea that the Head of Bran, which is buried under the Tower of London is supposed to prevent invasions so long as it faces the coast, and England seems remarkably 'invasion free' after the Normans, which leads to a 'what happened to Bran' moment (for the purposes of Mystic History) with regards to the Normans themselves (For that matter Harold Hadrada...), and lastly the simple fact that by 1236 the Normans are on the verge of politically controlling the entire British Islands as well as all of France, only stopped by King Louis IX's rather amazing political run, hard on the heels of his regent mother blocking a political marriage that might have sealed Normal control over all of France.

Two centuries of straight winning seems a bit 'lucky', eh?

So there you have it, the bones of our Mythic England.

William the Conquerer didn't just set up a master-stroke invasion, in order to conceal his build up he made dark pacts with fiends (Devils, I'm going with devils for reasons), both for powers (concealing his actions from King Harold, among others), but also for information. It was his patrons that told him of Bran's Head, and William made his way to London in secret and enacted an ancient ritual, shedding his blood upon the giant skull and becoming mystically the rightful King of England (he did have a claim, after all...), allowing his invasion to be unmolested by the power of Bran.

But good old Willie couldn't do all this himself, or at least he wasn't prepared to make the sorts of sacrifices necessary to handle it solo (and being a good general (which he was), entails knowing how to trust subordinates and to delegate), so he built up a cabal of Norman Nobility under himself that were all engaged in the same practices. William may be long dead (or... not?) but the Cabal remains.  

It should be noted that the Normans do not worship the fiends. They bargin with them, make deals with them, and treat them as untrustworthy allies... but they don't set up profane churches or any of that nonsense.  When it comes to selling souls and blood rituals, they almost always go 'outside the family', preying on the saxons, the welsh, the scots, the irish and especially the Sidhe when they can get them, which is one reason why the Normans are so hated and feared, and so successful.  

But there is another reason they are winning. Tieflings. More specifically, in order to rise in power in Norman Society as an outsider, one must make fiendish pacts, the most common of which is to 'buy' ones way into the Norman Nobility by blood, by allowing one's children and heirs to be Devil-Blooded.  They tend to remain in the lowest ranks of the nobility, these devil-blooded children of the saxons and welsh and others, but if they move to the borders and fight to extend Norman control over the Islands, they can rise in power swiftly.  

Whenever possible, however, the Normans avoid open warfare, preferring to win through political manuevers, legalistic wranglings and sheer pressure.  They encourage abuses against recalcitrant populations, but protect those who swear allegiance to their new masters. The corruption from dealing with devils becomes an asset to teh Normans, turning the worst excesses of their failings upon the very people they are trying to convert and, as noted, protecting the loyal from those same predations.  If a Norman knight is discovered to, say, have a prediliction for cannibalism after a few too many bad deals with Devils, he isn't punished, he's simply sent out to the borderlands and told he can eat as many highlanders as he can kill.

Real France, 1236:

King Louis, known as Saint Louis, has reigned since he was twelve years old in 1226, though his mother Blanche only recently (1234) ceased to be Regent in All but Name, when Louis married Margaret of Provence.   Louis the IX sits uneasy on his throne, as you might say the conflicts between wife and mother are the very model of fueds between wife and mother-in-law. It was so bad that Blanche ordered Louis from Margaret's side when she was giving birth.

More importantly, however, is understanding the politics of France at the time.  Louis was the King of France and the Prince of Paris... as King he had little authority over France as a whole, and as Prince of Paris he was fueding for power with the other Princes of France (which at this time also included King Henry II of England...).  King Louis pretty much marks the turning point of France from a collection of fueding princes into a proper kingdom, a process that continues throughout his long reign and beyond, but in 1236 he has barely just begun, and it is arguably Blanche's astute manuverings in 1230 or so that help keep Henry from taking all of France.   As one might tell by his Sainthood, Louis IX enjoys a close relationship with the Pope. In 1248 he goes on the Second Crusade, during which his mother dies.

Nifty stuff.

Fantasy France, 1236:

Child King takes crown, etc, etc.  

Some 'principalities' of France worth noting: Normandy, Toulouse, Anjou, Paris, Provence, Burgundy, Languedoc, even Flanders may be considered, if weakly. Not a complete list, and it is important to note that most people identify with these regions, not with 'France', which will continue until around 1600 or so.

Sidhe and Danaan descendants are common in Normandy, Brittany and so forth, less common further south.  Brittany is home to the legendary lost city of Ys, which if I really want to be silly can be a late period outpost of Atlanteans, which of course sank beneath the waves because Atlanteans be cursed, yo.

Normandy is practically part of England in all but simple geography, and in this fantasy setting that means a LOT of diabolic pact warlocks and sorcerers.  Normandy is practically the homeland of Ogre Mages (Oni, yes. I know...), as well, which makes things ugly here.  Some are living openly, allied to the Normans, and actively engaged in hunting the lands for Sidhe exiles from the Feywild, others continue to live in secret as they always have.

Toulouse, in the south, maintains a great deal of power in the land for their use of 'Ogre mercenaries', which is a tongue in cheek term for slavery. Ogres are quite common, if in small numbers, across Europe, particularly in the mountainous regions. The people of Toulouse don't kill them off like others do, but instead capture them and subject them to rather brutal practices of 'taming' them to use as shock troops in war. It isn't that Toulouse has a LOT of Ogres, or that they are particularly common in Southern Frace (they aren't), its just that a few very heavily armed berzerking Ogres are pretty much the equivalent of Mideval Tank Battalions... and the Toulouse aren't adverse to feeding their Ogres enemy prisoners.

Meanwhile, werewolves are a major problem for everyone in the south, and rumors of a curse on Provence, and its ruling house, dog the new Queen, Margaret.   The Burgundians are playing a dicey game, playing off the German Holy Roman Empire and the French King to maintain their independence, and rumors of Fey alliances and ancient blood pacts run rampant.

To keep some sort of parity with his domestic enemies, Louis IX has deepened his ties to the Church of Christ, marking the farthest West that the church has expanded politically at this time.  As a predominantly humanocentric faith, and one opposed to man-eating monsters and diabolic pacts, the Church is a staunch ally in the fight to unify France under Louis.