Evernight - Nitia

 

 

 

Creation

 

Brought into being by the Lifeless, Nitaj, shortly before her exile into the distant corners of their endless world. Each Lifeless contributed something to the planet, and it was left on its own in Nitaj's absense. The Dreng, created by Gattic, came from the stone itself; the Amarakind, created by Jaeleon, came from the plants and water; the Kioran, created by Nitaj, were brought into later existence from a cat-like species called the Dral. A new kind of race, the humans, came even later during Nitaj's exile -- they originated from the Dreng, over hundreds of years. These species each carved out a place for themselves.

 

Conditions

 

Nitia is a fair distance from its systems' sun, and as a result is a bit colder and darker than, say, the planet Earth. It is just on the edge of being habitable, with its equator being the only place that is truly sunny and warm. In particular, the farthest continent, which is positioned a little farther up towards the pole, is a hard place to live.

 

The First Age

 

Humans, originally a very dumb but versatile species, were "championed" (i.e. enslaved) by the Kioran, who viewed what they were doing as a beneficiary gesture. The Kioran gave them nourishment and a place to live, and Humans made their lives comfortable. For two hundred years, this arrangement wasn't questioned and was mostly celebrated by both parties. Then the Amarakind questioned why this relationship was happening, and the Kioran, fearing that their slaves would hear and abandon them, exiled the Amarakind into the deep places of the planet. But someone had heard, and Humans decided that they didn't want to serve others anymore; they wanted to be the masters of their own destiny. The Kioran debated fighting them and simply restraining them further, but in the end let them go, and mankind set up their own cities and governments around the world.

 

 

The Second Age

 

At this point, Nitaj came back from exile and brought her daughter, Zylaine, a being of chaos. Her closer presence caused an instanteous change in the oldest race of the planet, the Dreng; they decided to stir their cousins up by telling them horror stories of things mankind had endured under Kioran rule. None of it had happened, but it was five hundred years after the fact and no one could remember things properly. The Dreng knew that if war happened, they would gain more land, because humanity could not stand up against the far superior Kioran -- and the Dreng had lost many of their mountains to mankind's settlements and quarries.

 

The Great War

 

Their ploy worked, as discord had already been springing up between the two races, and the Great War began as Kioran defended themselves and Mankind strove to exterminate them in revenge for what had never happened. As this happened, a subfaction sprang up, a group of humans who were sympathetic and even loyal to the Kioran, those who had good records of their "slavery" and knew that they had been treated well. These people came to be called Bylani by the other humans -- taken roughly from the Kioran tongue and meaning "traitors in blood."

Halfway during the war, Humans were losing the fight as expected, but a rumor had sprung up about a rich vein of gold that lay underneath the Kioran island kingdom. Dreng, who covet gold above all else, immediately backpedaled and offered their services to the Humans' effort. Against Human resourcefulness and Dreng force, the Kiorans slowly lost. But they were not exterminated -- one of the Lifeless, Gattic, reached out and put defenses around their kingdom, preventing others from reaching it. An uneasy truce sprang up between the three races; none of them trusted each other again. And the Bylani were roughly delt with by their fellow Humans, forced into slavery as punishment.

 

The Third Age

 

Evernight's story takes place in the third age of Nitia, after Nitaj's death when her believers simply stopped believing in her (and in Jaeleon). Zylaine, driven to grief and also revenge, decided that to keep her "stepmother" Jaeleon from getting to influence her mother's planet, she would have to destroy it. This measure had never been done before, and required more than a simple show of godly power. Zylaine chose her pawns carefully, in the human kingdom of Rialgo, stirring it to war against all other races. She supplied soldiers for their cause, metal golems nearly indestructible by most races on Nitia, with the idea that after Rialgo had conquered the rest of the planet her golems would simply crush it and she would get a mostly empty shell to destroy, which would be a much more simple task.

 

Locations (as seen on the map)

 

On the first continent, the kingdom of Rialgo, a proud strain of human; it has many colonies on other continents. On the farthest continent, Murren, an especially dark and hard place dominated mostly by farmers and ranchers, tiny in numbers but noble and capable. And off the coast of the middle continent, Casair, a seafaring kingdom on a tiny island with its own peculiar strain of slang, cut off from everyone and connected to all at the same time.

 

Mirta, the Kioran nation, is off the coast of the first continent at the equator, an island warmer than the rest of the planet.

 

Brightfield, the last sanctuary of the Amarakind, lies just to the west of Rialgo, hidden from prying eyes in thick forests.

 

Dreng fortress cities are built into the mountain ranges of the world; Tith-amar, on the farthest continent, is their key city.

 

 

Major Characters

 

Xanthe Blackmoor: 25 years old, a Bylani slave of the Rialgo kingdom, who is accidentally set free, along with his sister, at the beginning of the events of Evernight. Shortly thereafter he meets the amnesiac Loki Devaraux. Xanthe is known for being courageous, but careful. He worked as a slave in a potions shop.

Jack "Blackjack" Blackmoor: Xanthe's younger sister at 19 years old, infamous for a slightly unstable nature. She is, however, utterly loyal to her brother and friends and is constantly determined to cheer everyone up.

Loki Devaraux: A Kioran who was once in line for the Mirta throne, Loki is the youngest of the Devaraux siblings. His fighting as a soldier in the Great War left him with amnesia, and he wanders the human lands of Rialgo, eventually meeting Xanthe and Blackjack and forming a deep friendship with them.

Kaelor Devaraux: Oldest of the Devaraux siblings. He abandoned his kind during the Great War because Zylaine had tampered with his mind, but he decided to stay away after the war was over, cutting off the tips of his ears to blend (somewhat) with humankind. Kaelor became a mercenary.

Jerar Devaraux: Middle sibling. Jerar was a General during the Great War, and served her kind as best as she could. In recognition of her services, and of her brilliant mind, the Queen of Mirta made Jerar their species' ambassador. She was ever tormented by the perceived loss of both of her brothers.

Larast Bedeau: One of the four priests of the Kioran religion, likened to if there were four Popes. Larast served Tishk (Zylaine). He was once engaged to Loki Devaraux, and was the best friend of Kaelor Devaraux, but became secretive after his friend disappeared and broke off the engagement. He vanished altogether a few months before the Great War, and it was unknown where he had gone until he showed up in the service of Queen Drales, hundreds of years later.

Danmer Malechasium: A knight of the human kingdom of Murren, and an unusual sort of person, not least because she was born hermaphrodite in a very "dark ages" world. Socially her identity is male, but she is addressed as a woman.

Sable Gatos: One of the ship captains of the seafaring Casair kingdom. Tough but fair, and open-minded, a combination that keeps her alive in strange times.

Five: One of the seven experiments by Queen Drales to infuse Kioran blood into a human. Five is one of the three most healthy results of that process, but that isn't saying much. Five was ten years old at the time.

Seven: One of the seven experiments; "older sister" of Five. Seven is both extremely powerful and bad-tempered. She is notable for her enormous feathered wings, attached unnaturally, and long claws.

Queen Rhonm Drales: Monarch of Rialgo, and recent "friend" of a mysterious beneficiary whose real identity is Zylaine. Drales hungers for power and land; she assassinated her husband, the King, so that she wouldn't have to share the throne. ("Advised" by Zylaine.)

Princess Emera Drales: Heir to the throne, nervous that her mother will attempt something on her life -- she alone knows that her father didn't die of a long sickness.

Zylaine / Tishk: A Lifeless, and daughter of Nitaj, who created Nitia. Zylaine is stirring up chaos -- her element -- so that the planet will destablize and she can destroy it. She would rather see it gone than have anyone else but her mother work on it, especially Jaeleon, who was responsible for Nitaj's death.

 

 

Other creatures

 

Dinedammer

 

Back to Evernight.