So, because I spent 30 of the past 31 days biograph…ising and treating those as my Encyclopedia Realmgardica entries for the day, I lost track of where I was before I started the biographies.
All of which is to say, I’m restarting my cycle of Encyclopedia posts, and starting with basically the broadest possible context by (re)introducing the entire world my stories take place in — and, now, your obligatory reminder that Terrace is the planet and Realmgard is one of the continents on that planet.
Terrace
The origins of the name are the subject of some debate. The most common, though by no means universal, explanation is that ‘Terrace’ is likely a corruption of the Elven ‘Terra est’, meaning ‘it is the world.’
This map depicts Realmgard in its entirety, along with parts of Hrimfax, Archipelago, Arena, and the Circle Sea.
Terrace is the world upon which Realmgard is one of several continents.
The origins of the name are the subject of some debate. The most common, though by no means universal explanation is that ‘Terrace’ is likely a corruption of the Elven ‘Terra est’, meaning ‘it is the world.’ It is also possible that the name has an ultimately more poetic and metaphorical meaning, referring to the fact that the world of Terrace is an inhabited enclosure within the vastness of the cosmos, not unlike an architectural terrace.
International trade routes have existed for centuries and have only expanded in recent generations, so the inhabitants of the various continents of Terrace
Though the world of Terrace is home to a staggeringly vast amount of culture diversity, the same peoples — Elves, Dwarves and Trolls, for example — seem to exist on every continent of the world, suggesting a common origin point for all the peoples of Terrace, eventually growing into populations that separated and travelled to each of the individual continents to build their own distinct societies and cultures.
Where and when exactly the first civilisations of Terrace arose is not known, leading to many theories on the matter: perhaps civilisation arose when the people’s first ancestors rose from out of either the earth or the sea, or perhaps fell out of the sky. Perhaps they come from some other distant homeworld, travelling to Terrace by magic and settling the uninhabited world for themselves.
Given that multiple planes of existence are generally understood to exist, such a theory is not implausible. Indeed, this is apparently reflected in Realmgardian creation myths, which feature the god Aeto travelling from the Distant Verdant Star to the as-yet-unformed Terrace at the beginning of time.
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