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/ Series / Isekai’d Shoggoth
Isekai’d Shoggoth
Isekai’d Shoggoth
5.2M Views 98915 Favorites 177 Chapters 1 Chapters/Week 8784 Readers
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Routes
Eazy Modo

Capture Target - Edward Cullen.

This is the default progression the game takes, and happens with minimal effort from the player. There are no big differences between original and translated versions, except the original version strongly implies that the marriage ends up being an unhappy one, with Protagonist gradually turning to cheating because Ed has... troubles performing. This is largely glossed over in translation, being the "default happy end" instead.

Alyssa is exiled to the estate, and although the exile is eventually lifted, she remains an old maid and becomes famous for her cat collection.

Pure Route

Capture target - Hiram Hohenzollern

Hiram is, by far, the best man out of available capture targets, he does provide a genuine happy end in both versions of the game. There are no tangible differences on that route. Notably, in this route Ed is dynastically married to Katherine, Hiram`s little sister, with both of them acknowledging it is a sham in private. Ed generally becomes a better man in this outcome, even apologizing to Alyssa for letting their engagement crack.

Alyssa still becomes an old maid cat lady, though this time without being exiled first.

Battle Route

Capture Target - Alistair McGregor

Alistair is a firstborn knight and is sworn to be Ed`s captain of guard. Once he retires, McGregor will become a baron. He is a dude that is generally decent, but enjoys fighting too much. To get on his route, Protagonist needs to take options with most conflict and generally fight a lot. In this route, McGregor and Protagonist become battle couple as the war with Kraut Kingdom breaks out. They eventually end up retiring after a long war and settle into barony overlooking the Ashenvale, guarding the kingdom from Kraut aggression. Ed ends up getting killed in the fighting in the epilogue, Hiram eventually becomes a king of Krauts and brokers an uneasy peace. Alyssa in this route ends up a mourning almost-widow and quietly retires to the estate.

Alyssa, yet again, is a cat lady.

Political Route

Capture Target - Marceu van der Klaas

Marceu is the son of king`s adviser, and eventually becomes an advisor to Alexander Cullen, the firstborn of Cullens when old Abraham kicks the bucket. In this route, Alyssa ends up having her engagement broken on largely the same terms as "pure route", but without Ed growing as a person. He ends up in an unhappy marriage to Katherine Hohenzollern as a symbol of unity between kingdoms, and Katherine is way too much for him to handle. He ends up being bitter and henpecked husband with mondo big horns. Alyssa ends up being forced into convent by Marceu`s machinations when she tries to cause political ruckus over the situation.

Magic Route

Capture Target - Lemand Lamarchand

Lamarchand is a rising star of a mage and will eventually become the royal archmage. This route is what happens if Protagonist obsessively studies magic and ignores romance. She and Lamarchand end up magical library buddies and eventually enter a slow-burn romance that sort of ignores the both kingdoms slowly descending into cold war. It it heavily implied in the original route that Lamarchand eventually opens a "portal to lands beyond comprehension" where both of them vanish to. It is heavily implied that land is literal hell. Translation avoids most of this and just glosses over it as "happy magical couple exploring far lands together".

Alyssa`s fate in this route is unclear, because her grand total of appearances is two, both at the side of Ed being the put-upon fiancee. It is unknown if Ed marries her after all or if she is again set aside in favor of Katherine.

Secret Slave Route

Capture Target - Salaadin Ibn-Assam

This is a secret route that happens if Protagonist goes through "eazy modo", but accepts an invitation from Alyssa to "settle the differences in private" right before the announcement of engagement annulment. Alyssa has hired thugs ambush Protagonist, knock her out and sell her as a slave to Oija Sultanate. In this route, Alyssa actually remains the fiancee for a while longer, but ends up being murdered by Protagonist, who claws her way up through the harem of Sultan, becomes his favorite concubine and then sends the assassins to even the score. Ed ends up being a bitter bachelor, being informed of everything that happened in a letter Protagonist manages to smuggle to him with assassins.

Secret Monster Route

Capture Target - Klaus "Morgenstern"

This happens if Protagonist follows "pure route", but elects to lie to Bridgit about Gillespies being responsible for the death of her father. Bridgit ends up murdering Alyssa`s mother in revenge, Alyssa loses control of her magic and wrecks the Academy, causing a serious bodycount and ruination. Ed has no choice but to order her sentenced to exile and confinement to her estate. Hiram is furious with this and angrily rejects Protagonist, who ends up comforted by Kraut spymaster Klaus, who is impressed with her ruthlessness. They end up being a murderous twisted couple as Klaus launches an underhanded campaign of sabotaging Champagne, followed by successful Kraut invasion. Hiram ends up being viceroy of occupied Champagne and deeply unhappy person, forced to watch Protagonist he still loves become a complete monster to match Klaus. Cullens end up being exiled to one of the isles in Albic Dominion.

Alyssa is assassinated by spies sent by Klaus as a part of "tying up loose ends" operation before the invasion.

DLC Xenophobic Route

Capture Target - Dweezil

This route is available only in DLC which was not translated.

Getting on this route requires MC to run into every single scene involving xenophobia towards elves, some of which open up only if the MC reacts with bitterness and malice to interaction with other characters in general.

In this route, MC becomes thoroughly disillusioned with the humans, runs back into Evergreens and uses mindmagic to coerce her brother Dweezil to become her consort, leading elves on a genocidal conquest against Champagne, and later, other polities.

DLC Maniac Route

Capture Target - Vlad Tepes

This route is available only in DLC which was not translated.

This route is a "bad" evolution of Battle Route and can be achieved if MC consistently picks the most cruel and bloodthirsty options. While initially, love for conflict attracts Alistair, he becomes disillusioned with MC if needless cruelty is constantly exhibited.

Shortly after a huge quarrel with Alistair regarding the treatment of captured Kraut soldiers, MC is met by then-ally of Champagne, Vlad Tepes. Vlad, who is the king of Vallah, a kingdom within Confederacy, is enamoured with bloodthirsty nature of MC and proposes a marriage. While it does result in happy couple, their combined atrocities quickly lead to Champagne breaking ties with Vallah and instead allying with Kraut (under the freshly crowned Hiram) to put a stop to Vallahian madness.

MC and Vlad perish together when combined Champagne-Kraut army collapses the castle they`re besieged on with massive catapult and magic bombardment.

DLC Rape Route

Capture Target - Ork Chieftan

This route is available only in DLC which was not translated.

To get this route, MC must proceed along the Political Route until she and Marceu are ambushed by ork warband led by Uz on a trip to Confederacy. Then, to trigger this route, MC must choose to draw away the warband and then to surrender.

Uz and his warband proceed to brutally rape MC for the duration of several weeks, after which she completely snaps and destroys the whole encampment with out of control magic. MC herself ends up being lost in the Endless Steppe and found a while later delusional and near-dead from hunger by a different ork tribe.

The tribe ends up nursing the MC back to health, and she develops feelings for the Chieftan of the tribe. A funny oddity in this route is that while Chieftan`s looks are very extensively described and admired, the route never mentions his name.

Characters
Alyssa Gillespie

The villainess of the game MC is transmigrating into.

Secretly, a shoggoth. Equally secretly, a lesbian.

Firstborn daughter of count Gerard Gillespie and his wife, Elene Gillespie. Ostensibly speaking, actually fourth daughter, but first three were all stillborn. Has two little brothers, though.

In the game, starts off as betrothed of Edward Cullen, the third prince of Champagne. Depending on Protagonist actions, Alessa`s ultimate fate varies, but is never better then "exiled back to her family estate". The breaking of her engagement to prince Ed is one of the fixed points of the game, it happens under one pretext or another in every single route the Protagonist can possibly take, even if Protagonist never attempts to romance Ed. 

Bridgit Baumhoff

Maid of Gillespie family. Daughter of Christoff Baumhoff.

Witnessed the murder of her father when young, taken into Gillespie household shortly after. As far as she is aware, her father died in a random highway robbery attempt, which is a common danger for independent merchants. However, Christoff`s death have had been premeditated by malice, not by chance.

In game, Protagonist may bargain with Bridgit to make her spy on Alessa in exchange for information on her father`s death. Depending on if Protagonist tells the truth or lies about Christoff Baumhoff`s demise and whether Gillespies were involved in it or not, Bridgit either leaves Gillespies as penance for her spying or tries to take revenge by attacking Elene with a knife. Second happening is a point of no return on worst ending.

Moon Unit

True protagonist of the game. The sweetest girl. The game names her Moon Unit as a reference to Frank Zappa, but every commercial translation butchers that into calling protagonist Selene.

Moon Unit left Evergreens in order to settle the inheritance dispute with her siblings. Their father bequeathed the four of them three seats on the Conclave, leading to a tense standoff between the siblings in order to determine who will get shafted. Volunteered to leave Evergreens to spare the rest of them the heartache and trouble.

She enters the Academy to study magic and hopefully become a scholar on royal payroll. Like the fake protagonist Selene, Moon Unit has natural affinity for light magic. Unlike Selene, however, Moon Unit keeps her magic skills low-key, wary of possible persecution she`s been warned about.

As decreed by MC, Moon Unit is an elven waifu and is currently on the docket of "precious thing to obtain and never ever let go".

Serenity Daybreaker Selene

Yet unknown girl filling out the character of game protagonist. Transmigrator. Cocky, rash and not in habit of looking underneath, let alone underneath the underneath.

Eventually, on speaking terms with Alyssa. Very, very eventually.

Revealed as Lady Knight Serenity Daybreaker Selene. MC thinks the chuuni quotent of the name exceeds mental tolerances and will henceforth refer to her mentally as Tsunbaka.

Had demonstrated mindboggling lack of common sense on the first meeting, proclaiming defiance of MC`s "dastardly deeds" and behaving ruder then drunk boar in fruit bazaar. Lives across the hall from Edward in Academy.

Daybreaker is not a part of name, rather it`s a title awarded for demonstrating grand ability with light-based magics. Potentially, can evolve into capable healer or cursebreaker, but not without learning to curb her impulsive chuuni nature first.

Princess Lily-Anne Nortrop-Cullen

Firstborn daughter of Abraham and Monica Cullen, also the youngest in royal family. Fourteen years old at the start of the story.

Officially bears the name Nortrop unlike the rest of royal family being Cullens due to Nortrops tracing their bloodline via firstborn daughters instead of firstborn sons. Inherited that family name from her mother, Monica Cullen nee Northrop.

Has been kidnapped by Abbas and quickly rescued by Alyssa, but managed to glimpse enough to possibly become defiled.

Roxolane

Roxolane is from a family of Kraina boyars.

She had been abducted in a raid on Confederacy lands last spring, spent summer and part of autumn as a part of Salaadin`s harem and is, consequently, no longer fond of men in any way, shape or form. Ironically, Salaadin didn`t actually get around to doing more then slapping her around a couple times. He is not fond of defiant girls and put her back into seraglio with instruction to other wives to "teach her some manners". It`s been going... roughly.

In game, Roxolane ends up breaking after a year of such treatment and ends up being Protagonist`s rival if Protagonist ends up doing Secret Slave route. Roxolane`s motivation is simply that if she can not save herself from captivity, then at the very least she can influence Sultan to adapt more favorable terms towards her native country by becoming his favored wife.

This, however, gets sharply derailed as Alyssa tramples through the castle looking for abducted Lily-Anne. Roxolane grasps the opportunity with both hands and is taken out of Sultanate entirely as a result. On the other hand, she had unwittingly glimpsed enough to cause defilement to set in, in process.

Capture Targets
Prince Edward Cullen

Very unfortunately named third prince of Champagne Kingdom.

Aloof, judgmental, and bearing an inexplicable dislike for his fiancee Alyssa, Ed is a headache. He makes his opinions quickly, changes them slowly and demonstrates supreme skull density early and often.

His route is considered the default one and "eazy modo". In this scenario, things proceed according to old otome template - Protagonist catches the eye of prince, prince`s fiancee finds this offending, fiancee bullies Protagonist, prince rescues Protagonist, fiancee is told off and banished to her family estate. The only notable difference from the template is that Alyssa is less focused on bullying Protagonist and more on nagging prince for associating with "jumped-up commoner". Since Ed comes with pre-existing dislike of Alyssa, it does not take much to make things move.

Edward is one of the characters who has notable differences between translated and original versions of the game. While in translation, he is a bland template of "charming prince", original pictures him as somewhat troubled man who`s issues are often overlooked. In a depressing majority of original`s routes, Edward ends up in an unhappy marriage, and it is strongly implied that his inability to properly bed his wife is the source of it. Unfortunately for him, the setting is not quite at the age where sexual therapy was a thing, and he has to power through the problem on his own. it goes without saying that he is slated for some sage advice from MC once he stops being a dick and actually has a proper conversation with her.

Kronprinz Hiram Hohenzollern

Crownprince of Kraut Kingdom, gentleman, cavalier and all around best capture target.

Attending Academy to further friendship between two kingdoms, Hiram is a well-spoken, well-heeled man with a plan. His plan being to take the alliance between Champagne and Kraut as far as feasible and usher in a global golden age while doing so. He might very well pull it off. He also has the distinction of being the only capture target that neither requires nor tolerates any underhanded actions from Protagonist.

If his route is picked (which is complicated, but well possible to find out accidentally), Hiram will marry the Protagonist, while his younger sister Katherine will be married to Edward Cullen. Alessa Gillespie gets an apology from Ed (the ONLY route where he acknowledges that maybe his treatment of Alessa from the get-go was not quite right) and becomes an old maid and eventually a nutty cat lady. The royal pairs proceed to inherit their respective kingdoms and usher in the aforementioned Golden Age in harmony.

Lying to Bridgit while being on Hiram`s route leads to one of the secret capture targets, and arguably the worst possible ending.

Alistair McGregor

Squire Alistair McGregor, currently.

Firstborn of sir McGregor, hereditary knight. Entitled to become a baron and gain his own fief by the time of his retirement. Underwent pagedom under sir Manfred, who had received baron`s chain and a barony within Gillespie county.

Alistair is Edward`s best friend, closest confidante and is slated to be sworn in as his captain of guard once he is properly knighted and Ed receives his own domain to govern. He is, ironically, much more familiar with Alyssa then Ed himself, due to his mentor being a vassal of Gerard Gillespie. As such, as a page, Alistair spent a lot of time in Gillespie county and had regular interactions with Alyssa. They are on first name basis, though in public, Alistair will insist on calling Alyssa "lady Gillespie" out of respect for the difference in their social status.

Alistair is very fond of fighting and shows great promise as a knight. He is not quite a one-man army yet, but he will grow to that title over the years. In game, should his route be taken, he and Protagonist become a battle couple and are in the middle of it when the war with Kraut kingdom breaks out due to Klaus` machinations.

It has to be said that Alistair, in spite of his love of fighting is a chivalrous fellow who abhorrs unnecessary cruelty and slaughter. In that he is very similar to Hiram, and they remain friends even while being on opposite sides of war. In the end, it is Hiram and Alistair that broker the piece between kingdoms once Hiram becomes the king of Kraut.

Due to his close friendship with Ed, Alistair frequently shares Ed`s views, and that includes the topic of Alyssa. While Alistair is willing to be much more reasonable then Ed about it, he will ultimately defer to Ed`s opinion. As such, he and Alyssa are going to have a frenemy sort of relationship until the mess with Edward is sorted out in some way.

In civil life, Alistair is a gallant fellow and a target of many a swoon from the female population of Academy. He takes it in stride with aplomb and decorum.

Marceu van der Klaas

Marceu van der Klaas is a son of king`s adviser, Mihel van der Klaas and a capture target that leads to political route.

Van der Klaases are technical pacifists - they both dislike fighting and insist that armed conflicts are barbaric practices of people too inept to reach a diplomatic agreement... but neither is particularly shy about using underhanded means to make sure their diplomatic position is the strongest when the negotiations begin.

Mihel van der Klaas is a highly ranked member of merchant guild and is elected as trade adviser to king after previous adviser, Antoine Gaspar, expires in early autumn.

Marceu had been initially mistaken for secret route capture target because his first appearance in Academy is over the Winter Holidays - a full quarter of game in, and more then enough time to get locked into one of the other routes before his even becomes an option.

In order to win him over, protagonist has to employ diplomacy as often as possible and aggressively seek to better her own social position by brokering and breaking social alliances. He prizes conniving and calculating nature, and while his route is objectively better then what happens on spymaster`s route, it is way worse across the border then  all other routes. For everyone else, that is. Marceu and protagonist, on the other hand, become arguably the most important people in the kingdom after king himself and live happily.

Marceu has an inherent dislike of nobles, whom he perceives as being born into their good fortunes, and therefore undeserving of them. He expands this view on Alyssa, and is very slow to change this, because he presumes her achievements all come from having a very good hand in life to begin with.

Lemand Lamarchand

Lemand Lamarchand is a second son of viscount Lamarchand, and his one and only passion is magic.

Lemand is obsessed with magical research. He is unconcerned with politics, economics, socialization and often even dinner. But finding out new things magical? That he is very much concerned about.

At times, his interest in magic transcends the limits of safe, sane or feasible. When he is in one of those times, anything is possible. Usually not of the good kind.

The one and only way to truly gain Lemand`s attention is to participate in his experiments. And not just as a subject, but as a fellow researcher.

Sultan Salaadin ibn-Assam

The supreme ruler of Sultanate, Salaadin is a powerful man in the world. He is fully cognizant of his status and maintains it with iron fist. He has four sons, Abbas, Ibragim, Mustafa and Kemal, and one daughter, Rafiqa.

In order to capture Salaadin, Protagonist must foolishly take Alyssa`s offer to "settle things in private" to end up being knocked out and sold to Sultanate as a slave. Once there, Salaadin notices Protagonist among the other "purchases" and has her bought for his harem.

From this point on, the plot largely turns to harem intrigues against the other slave with similar fate - Roxolane had been abducted from Confederacy and sold to Sultan a few months before Protagonist ends up there. Unfortunately for them, the head wife Amna is not keen on relinquishing that title. The three-way power struggle ends up either in Protagonist becoming "just another wife" (loss) or "favored wife" (win).

If "win" was achieved, then Protagonist sends in assassins to get her revenge on Alyssa and pass a letter to Ed to let him know what happened. Other then that, the "win" and "loss" in this route are practically identical.

Klaus "Morgenstern"

Kraut spymaster. Cast-iron bastard.

Klaus believes in "my country, right or wrong". He will do absolutely any kind of wrong if he thinks it will gain his country some right.

In game, he is a secret capture target that becomes available if one goes after Hiram, but then lies to Bridgit that Gillespies were responsible for the death of her father. Impressed by coldblooded cunning the Protagonist shows, he takes her under his wing and eventually falls in love with her. That does not stop him from using her as a way to invade Champagne, nor does that stop her from getting into relationship with Klaus anyway. They have something twisted together, much to the despair of Hiram Hohenzollern, who has to take control over conquered Champagne and will spend many a day watching the girl he still loves but can not bear to be near become a monster as twisted as his spymaster.

This is arguably the worst ending possible. Champagne is conquered, Gillespies are murdered (Elene by Bridgit, Gerard during conquest and Alyssa on Klaus` orders after she destroys Academy with out of control magic.), Cullens "voluntarily" abdicate and are confined to an island exile and Protagonist becomes an utterly despicable being. Overburdened by conquered territories, the united Kraut-Champagne kingdom experiences a famine shortly after the conquest.

Relatives of Characters
Gerard Gillespie

Count Gillespie, Alessa Gillespie`s father, Elene Gillespie`s husband.

Loving husband, doting father, skilled administrator, savvy businessman. Gerard is a family man through and through, but he never misses on an opportunity for his county. It is largely due to his efforts and business sense that Gillespies preside over a prosperous land, in spite of it being northernmost province of Champagne Kingdom.

Elene Gillespie

Mother of Alessa Gillespie, wife of Gerard Gillespie, countess.

Kind and clever woman who discovers her aptitude for creation of perfumes once her daughter gives her a jumpstart on the topic. Weak seer, occasionally sees prophetic dreams. Is extremely fearful of prophetic dreams, due to receiving one on wedding night that predicted she is to have 'fourscore of a daughter". Which translated into three stillborn daughters before the fourth one survived.

Had taken up cosmetic alchemy as her life hobby and constantly experiments with scents and mixtures. Recently learned how to compose cremes and dove into new category with gusto.

King Abraham Cullen

Current king of Champagne, his highness Abraham Cullen. Abe to his closest friends in private.

Capable and clever leader. Grasps the implications of technological advancements very quickly, is not afraid to invest in new spells and technologies if they are promising.

Is fond of Alyssa and feels more then a little irritated about Ed`s failure to establish rapport with her. Hopes Edward will "grow out of it".

Can not deny Lily-Anne anything. Thankfully, that resulted in her being spoiled sweet, not spoiled rotten. Lily-Anne ruthlessly exploits that by invoking the "favor" she`s been saving up for years to get him to agree to switch Alyssa engagement from Edward to Lily-Anne.

Does not completely grasp just how serious the whole "harem" situation is, and thinks Lily-Anne will eventually settle for less unorthodox arrangement.

Queen Monica Cullen

Current Queen of Champagne, wife of Abraham Cullen.

Very fond of citrus aroma.

She is not fond of crowd and generally avoids public venues when she can. Rumor has is that she spends her time penning lurid stories and distributing them to libraries under false names.

Prinzessin Katherine Hohenzollern

Hiram`s little sister. Potentially, Ed`s future wife.

Cheerful, rambunctious and sharp as a tack, though she prefers people to think of her as an airhead.

Katherine chafes in Kraut and will be making her way to Champagne as soon as opportunity presents itself.

Edmon Dantes

Adoptive father of Selene, Edmon Dantes is an imposing figure in his hometown of Haver. He and his men serve as auxiliary militia when they are in city and often respond faster then the nominal sheriff of Haver.

He is a shipowner (he owns two cogs at the story start, Alyssa eventually amends that to much more impressive fleet) and is willing to take cargo ferrying contracts along the coasts of Champagne and into Albic isles, though he usually stays on the western coast.

Edmon is a huge fan of fast sailing and had garnered a bit of fame both for organizing boat races and for being consistently fastest contractor to ship cargo oversea with. He is completely unable to resist the lure of owning a clipper of his own, and signs up with Alyssa after she gives him ship plans, finances his fleet expansion and adds a pair of heavy lift galleons to it.

Eventually, known as admiral Dantes.

Dweezil

Elder brother of Moon Unit. Elf.

Dweezil is the eldest out of four siblings, Moon Unit being the youngest. Other two are called Ahmet and Diva.

Dweezil, Ahmet and Diva all have seats in Elven Conclave - the ruling body of Evergreens. As the eldest of family, Dweezil is typically the one who makes the decisions, though his siblings maintain their own wits about it and avoid blindly following his suggestions.

Dweezil has an old friendship with sir Malachi and typically serves as elven emissary whenever elves require to conduct some business or political venture outside of Evergreens.

Ivan

Roxolane`s older brother.

A collection of slavic stereotypes. Big, strong, hotheaded, stubborn and loud, but willing to listen to reason if it is swung at him with sufficient impact.

Had arrived to Champagne to deal with Konistan cheating their family on horse sale. Made noise and trouble in Mersailles until some clever soul had directed him to Parsee. Run into Alyssa there, was sufficiently impressed and flabbergasted.

Does not approve of Roxolane joining harem without parental permission but very begrudgingly admits that Roxolane was not entirely out of the line with her reasoning for that decision. Comes back home befuddled and not entirely sure if he made right decisions in Parsee.

Balthazar Lemarchand

Lemand`s father.

Viscount Balthazar Lemarchand is known throughout the Champagne as one of the greatest fighters the kingdom has. He has strong disdain for scholarly pursuits and believes men should concentrate their attentions and development on martial prowess.

Lemarchand family has strong martial tradition, and their family magic is entirely focused on amplifying one`s own body - reaction speed, dexterity, strength, resilience etc. To take full advantage of this, he usually wears a garland of flowers on his head.

Balthazar is the sixth generation martial Lemarchand, and everything points to Pierre being seventh. He puts big emphasis on overcoming hardships via endurance and outright refused his wife upon learning she became sick with consumption. Lemand strongly suspects the reason why his mother fell sick is due to Balthazar refusing to consider his wife might need aid to overcome the problem.

Pierre Lemarchand

Lemand`s elder brother.

Firstborn of viscount Balthazar Lemarchand, Pierre is everything his father could wish for in a heir. Strong and capable in martial endeavors and strongly disinterested in anything else, Pierre is a consummate knight in training and ability-wise, is second after Balthazar himself in the whole kingdom as far as fencing goes.

Pierre is slightly less pigheaded then his father, but nonetheless tends to take cues from Balthazar, and Balthazar alone.

Marisa Lemarchand nee Sadoux

Lemand`s mother.

Marisa had an arranged marriage with Balthazar Lemarchand and it worked out reasonably fine for both of them right until the point where Balthazar`s insistence on toughing out anything and everything leads to Marisa developing consumption on the heels of influenza bout.

Balthazar responds to his wife`s chronic illness by expelling her back to her family, accusing her of 'deception'. The gist of his complaint can be summed as 'wife isn`t as strong as I think wife should be'.

Marisa becomes the first person to undergo consumption treatment and upon returning to proper health publicly renounces Balthazar for cowardice, ending their marriage for good.

Although she has abandoned the craft to appease Balthazar`s views, Marisa is a powerful witch in her own right, and once brought back to proper health, quickly earns herself a reputation in wizarding circles.

She inherited a considerable yen for sexuality from Sadoux bloodline and finds it hilarious to tease Lemand into stammering embarrassment with a barrage of innuendos.

Supporting Characters
Sir Loius Pasteur

A rotund gentleman with stupendous moustache, sir Pasteur is royal physician and a well known authority on healing magic. He personally attends to health of entire royal family and insofar had managed to keep them all alive and healthy.

Sir Pasteur is well known for his forays into making various foods safe for storage and consumption and somewhat less - for his intense interest for all things fine and elaborate.

Rafiqa bint Salaadin

The only daughter of sultan Salaadin.

Deeply unhappy about her status as political token to be handed out by her father to the "most loyal". She is sharp enough to understand this means she will be married to a man thrice her own age and likely disinterested in her being anything other then the token of Sultan`s benevolence, and very bitter about it.

According to her calculations, the grand total amount of time she had spent in her father`s company since her birth is just half an hour short of full week. She`s been wondering if Salaadin has the oomph to at least finish that last half-hour before handing her out when she hears grand commotion about a "terrifying invader" in the palace.

'Any place should be better then this' is her decision. Sweeping all the jewelry she can see in her rooms into a sack and adding some clothes she could grab at a short notice, she strolls out to bargain with "terrifying invader" for a ticket into better life. She has no idea what she`s getting into.

Emir Abbas Ibn-Salaadin

Firstborn of Sultan Salaadin ibn-Assam.

Is endowed with authority second only to Sultan himself. While his title is emir, just like his brothers, he is considered to be an authority over each of them as firstborn. Cowardly, covetous, politically myopic idiot. Believes himself to be the paragon of male gallantry and has issues with anyone daring to tell him no.

Hates Alyssa for not just telling him no, but defying him at any turn and forcing him to run on numerous occasions. Believes there MUST be a secret man behind Alyssa, because his deep-seated misogyny does not allow him to consider the possibility of woman being superior to himself.

Ambercrombe Jr.

Lord Ambercrombe.

Choice idiot. In game, his role was "so vile even villain wants nothing to do with him". Bigot, chauvinist, coward, liar and thief. Loves to hide behind his title and demand "his due", especially so in situations where he is not due anything. Believes himself to be a top notch duelist, despite never seriously stepping onto piste.

Dean Ambercrombe

Uncle of choice idiot lord Ambercrombe. Dean of Academy.

Unlike his nephew, dean Ambercrombe is fairly smart and usually manages to avoid the pitfall before he falls into it. Unfortunately, he is very fond of his nephew and rather blind to nephew`s numerous failings, leading to him entertaining unfounded prejudices against much of noble society.

Dean Ambercrombe has an old case of tapeworm, which causes him to be consistently undernourished and negatively impacts his countenance. He is frequently grumpy due to persistent feeling of hunger.

Dame Apricotte

Dame Apricotte is an indomitable second-in-command to dean Ambercrombe and personally responsible for meeting any and all domestic needs the female half of students has.

She is a no-nonsense person and does not suffer fools, but has a soft spot for independent girls knowing exactly what they want and willing to put in effort and resources in getting it.

Gileas Hardlock

Professor of dueling at Academy. Also known as Peacock to students.

Fussy man obsessed with his appearances and "showing nobility". Pushes forward the notion that "show of nobility", is the only viable way to win a duel. His strategy, if it can be called such, is to meet spell with matching counterspell, until one of the duelists is unable to continue. He is dismissive and mocking towards the concepts of tactic, evasion or casting more then one spell at once, calling those "petty commoner tricks".

Is fired from Academy on Alyssa`s insistence once she hands him his own ass in a classroom duel.

Sir Malachi

Sir Malachi is the Grand Inquisitor of Champagne kingdom.

His duties include upbringing and training of knights that specialize in handling "subtle" supernatural and magical threats. Sir Clovis Zade is one of his subordinates.

Sir Malachi is also responsible for overseeing any and all investigations that are deemed to be "of special interest" to king. He is a capable and cunning inquisitor.

Sir Malachi is an oddity among knights for having only a singular name. He is unmarried and therefore saw no interest in ever establishing a familial name for himself.

Sir Clovis Zade

Sir Clovis Zade is a knight of Royal Knight Order, who specializes in extermination of supernatural threats like talbots, selkies or doppelgangers. He is extensively trained in magic and can use Ray of Purity - a powerful light magic spell that is both a weapon and a detector against malicious entities.

He does not suffer fools easily and does not stand on ceremony much.

Rory The Dwarf
Blacksmith in the town next to Gillespie estate.


MC gives him technological advice, leading to Rory successfully creating a batch of "ripple steel" - a variant of pattern-welded steel that used to be a trademark product of Dwarves and subsequently a lost secret of Dwarven craft after the eruption of Red Mountain and resulting decimation.

An initial point of contact between MC and dwarven civilization. Very enthusiastic about collecting and moving his kin into northern province, once Gillespies pledge to support the dwarves with food and clothes while they construct a new forge hall.

Enjoys a great social status among Dwarves as "the first to be Called".

Geoff The Dwarf

Venerable elder. The last surviving venerable elder after Red Mountain eruption. Eminently capable stonecutter. Comes along with the other dwarves once Gillespies pledge to give them support. Declares that Alyssa must be the salvation the priests of Argyl prophesied about after being thoroughly impressed with rocksaw.

Mihel van der Klaas

A wealthy merchant and politician, Mihel is a complicated character. On one hand, he is genuinely interested in kingdom`s futures and works tirelessly to ensure Champagne is well on the trading and diplomatic front. On other, he is disdainful of nobles, whom he views as people who occupy positions well above their competence.

While he is extremely loath to acknowledge this, Mihel has a bit of an inferiority complex over not being ennobled himself. He believes himself to be contributing to kingdom well above what most knights ever manage, and is feeling slighted over the fact they are guaranteed a title and a domain on retirement, while he had not achieved either.

This causes a certain... idiosyncrasy towards nobles, particularly so - towards successful ones. Mihel is not irrational, however, and will begrudgingly accept and aid those few who genuinely contribute to kingdom on par with him. Unconfirmed rumors even say he considers a few of the nobles like sir Malachi to be genuine friends, but he would deny it to his death.

Vole Konistan

On the surface, a successful merchant based in Parsee.

Under that, a reasonably successful crime boss that is not quite as hot stuff as he thinks.

Discreetly propped up by Kraut spy service, though he is not aware of this.

His usual "soft sell" is to flatter the target and keep on talking about how tiresome it must be to deal with the job and how nice it would be to offload it to someone else.

His usual "hard sell" tends to involve threatening with toughs for most recipients, but he has particularly vile method for noblewomen. He has his accomplice ork Uz rape them, and then threatens to expose them as "having had laid with an ork" should his demands not be met.

He has a brother Kaste.

Kaste Konistan

A brigand based in the rural area near Parsee.

Kaste is much rougher then his brother Vole. Unlike Vole, who embraces the image of respectable merchant, Kaste is brigand in looks and in behavior through and through.

He is an accomplished murderer and thief.

Kaste is very prone to spirits when he can afford them and had contracted malaria in the southern swamps. He believes alcohol eases up the bouts of "swamp fever".

His brother Vole supplies him with money and alcohol in exchange for his services.

Maximilien Verwaand

Kraut merchant. Also, Kraut spy.

Used to occupy one of the higher positions in Kraut merchant guild, but had to step down after causing a schism in the guild with an ill-conceived murder of business rival. Said business rival, Christoff Baumhoff also happens to be Bridgit`s father.

Klaus had ordered Maximilien to move out of country to stabilize the situation in the guild. Meanwhile, Maximilien ingratiated himself to Vole Konistan and became second in command for Konistan syndicate. He is aware of all illegal activities syndicate is involved in and until recently, enjoyed a lot of trust from Vole.

He is still a Kraut spy and had intentionally caused an altercation between Vole and Alyssa on orders from Klaus. He had interpreted the orders very creatively to do so, as the original idea was to pitch some small-time merchant against Alyssa so Vole could step in as a third party mediator and wiggle into Alyssa`s confidence. Instead, Maximilien had foolishly misled Vole to think hard sell is a viable option and ended up paying for it.

Roland de Brege

Marquis Roland de Brege is current head of de Brege family.

Marquis de Brege is infamous in Parsee for the number of times he managed to overlook king`s presence in social situations.

de Breges are a waning family. While in the past, they possessed significant influence, their bloodline had suffered a lot from inbreeding and their fortunes had suffered accordingly. Majority of de Breges currently exhibit arrested development in some degree. Marquis himself is what could be charitably described as "simple", and even at that, he looks favorable in comparison to his brother, who is a clinical idiot incapable of such basics as correctly using the spoon.

Current holding of de Breges are meager... for a viscount. For marquis, they are downright pitiful. Between that and Roland`s unfortunate tendency to overlook king`s presence, it is common consensus that being demoted is merely a question of time.

Julien de Brege

Son of marquis Roland de Brege.

Glutton with a particular taste for sweetrolls. Moron. Might be the last generation of de Brege main branch as nobles.

Gustaf Munchausen

Kraut Merchant. Current leader of land traders in Kraut kingdom. Has much animosity towards the sea traders and Klaus due to their part in murder of his best friend and business partner Christoff Baumhoff.

Stepped into Christoff`s shoes after his murder and kept the land trader faction reasonably intact. He has a permanent vote in the Merchant Guild due to Munchausens being a founding family, but lacks the wealth and affluence to really make use of it to the fullest. Nonetheless, he does manage what leverage he still has pretty well to maintain his faction`s standing in the Guild.

Munchausen family used to be barons until Gustaf`s great grandfather, a fading noble line that steadily frittered away their holdings and wealth. Gustaf`s great grandfather somehow managed to lose the nobility title entirely, along with the last of lands, but in the same time somehow accrued considerable wealth and bharatan wife, whom he claims to be of noble descent. Last baron Munchausen is still infamous throughout the kingdom for his grandiose tall stories.

Bridgit refers to herr Munchausen as uncle Gustaf.

Jonathan Foxworth

Jonathan Foxworth is a professor of dueling in the Academy, hired after the expulsion of Gileas Hardlock.

Unlike Hardlock, who`s aspirations towards nobility of magic had found ample reflections in the "teachings" he attempted to impart upon students, professor Foxworth is of an opinion that basics are everything.

As such, he advocates approaching the combat with a keen eye towards all the available resources and options. While in no way a stranger to casting spells, Foxworth gives equal attention to purely physical side of combat, such as evasion, mobility, weaponry usage and passive defense.

He had put a respectable time (eleven years) at the army, rising from ordinary footsoldier to a sergent before retiring from active service. While no longer on active service, he continued as an instructor for another seven years, occasionally moonlighting as a personal tutor for squires. He was recommended to Ambercrombe by sir Clovis Zade as a competent and experienced instructor with a track record of successfully imparting his knowledge to young nobles and while initially somewhat discomfited by sudden "promotion", he takes to his duties with aplomb and largely succeeds.

While some of the Academy students look down on him for being a commoner, everyone agrees that as an instructor, he is head and shoulders above the "Peacock".

Items
Zukerrohr

A variety of sugarcane. Used to be one of the most imported products from Sultanate.

Once Empire of Pharos stated making shipments of their own sugarcane, Sultanate attempted to force a boycott by stopping their own shipments. It rather backfired, as Kraut Kingdom simply switched the entirety of it`s custom to Pharos, and Champagne started buying their zukerrohr from Krauts.

One of the few matters where Sultanate failed to achieve any traction whatsoever, and as such, a very sore topic for them. Strictly speaking, merchants would love to resume the trade, but doing so would be considered "giving in" to Pharos, and sultan tends to view any action that is not defiant of their rival as treason.

Cava

Also known to MC as green coffee.

Prized product of Oija Sultanate, one they maintain a stranglehold monopoly on. Trades for literally it`s weight in gold. A crucial product for any potions that need haste as a part of their effects.

Cure for Cold

An accidental invention by MC, a mixture of honey, mint and ouzo (anise-flavored vodka) imbued with generic healing magic. The first of the new flagship products of Gillespie county.

Ripple steel

Dwarven steel, which MC recognizes as pattern-welded steel. Not quite Damascus, though.

The secrets of forging this had been lost when the Red Mountain erupted and for the last years have been considered a lost art.

MC revealing the basics of procedure to dwarven blacksmith kicks off the exodus of dwarves to the north, where they believe the destiny of their kin will be reforged.

Copperphone

Alyssa tinkers a pair of connected copperplates when king Abraham complains about lack of intelligent conversation in capital.

Abraham immediately sees the value in the concept and commissions ten permanent pairs to be constructed. Later on, he also commissions a number of sets.

Copperphones are essentially Quantum Entanglement communicators. Each pair (or trio, or any grouping up to eight) holds a centerpiece that simultaneously exists in all of them in the same time, and thus can transmit words spoken near one of the object to the each other instance.

The limitation of first gen copperphones is that they can not alter their pairing setting - once enchanted, that`s it, they connect to their corresponding setmates, and can not be redirected or repurposed.

Enchantment slowly eats the block of copper it`s put on, but a livre of copper, as Alyssa requests, would sustain a received for about a year of constant conversation. Or a couple hundred years dormant.

Tar roads

MC introduces the concept of tar as bonding agent for road pavement after learning Gillespie county has unexploited asphalt tar pits.

In the absence of machinery, the process of making a tar road is simplified into layering. First, a group of diggers clears off the topsoil and pours a bed of gravel. Tar is brought in as chunks and heated in-place in a steel cauldron, then drizzled on top of gravel. Another layer of gravel is laid, then drizzled again. After five layers have been laid, the road surface is tamped down with heavy steel rollers.

The road is typically laid wide enough to permit two carriages to pass by each other without dipping into ditch. The middle of road typically has a line of bigger stones laid into it to mark out center.

Magitech

A new category of wares pushed through by Alyssa designing basic amenities in magitechnological form. Immensely popular among nobles due to convenience and prestige in being the early adopters of "magical artifacts".

Might or might not be actually enchanted.

So far, examples of this include magical hotplate, magical hairdryer, hand-cranked hair-clipper, magical mixer, copperphones, etc.

Airship

Vacuum zeppelin, made possible with a number of enchantments. Has on-board hydroponic flowerbeds to power the enchantments.

~120 meters long and 12 in diameter at the widest.
Maximum cargo lift - up to three tons.
Maximum speed - ~130 kph.

Dragons

Overall, one of the big problems dragons have, biologically, is that their whole body is geared for alkali metabolism. As such, dragons can not form any fats whatsoever and eating overly fat food will actually make them sick. It also places very high emphasis on eating, because strictly speaking, dragon begins to starve as soon as their stomach empties of current meal.

Naturally evolving dragons had much lower body pH, and while they still were not that good at making fats, they could at the very least process them. Their feeding cycle back then was reminiscent of pythons - they`d capture something sufficiently big, swallow it whole and then hole up in the cliffs and enter dormant state while they slowly digest the meal.

Their breath, back then, was simply a cloud of lye dust that incapacitated their prey by irritating their eyes and nose, making it hard to run away. Dragon would then batter the prey in a manner reminiscent of hawk, repeatedly swooping from the air and raking the prey with talons until it would collapse from blood loss. Then, dragon would circle around ensuring it is safe, land and begin swallowing the prey, which could take any time from ten minutes to two hours depending on respective sizes of dragon and prey and how much strength either had to struggle.

Lyes react with water exothermically, sometimes explosively so, and southern mages misinterpreted it to think that dragons exhale "essence of fire" that was inimical to the idea of liquids. Soon enough, they began to selectively breed dragons that had most abundant and caustic lye exhalation. Later on, a freak mutation introduced a clutch of dragons who`s nasolacrimal paths were wider then normal. This resulted in tear mist mixing in with lye dust, negating the expectation of target to be wet. Instead, those dragons exhaled a cloud of rapidly heating caustic emulsion that readily ignited dry grass, which in southern conditions was pretty abundant anywhere. Mages bred this particular clutch far and wide, in effect supplanting the basic genome with mutation. It is, strictly speaking, recessive trait, but there are no dragons left in which it is not brought forth.

Hence, the belief that dragons breathe fire.

As a whole, dragons have impressive magic resistance that is fueled by their entire innate magic. This trait is persistent in all of their body parts postmortem, but not nearly to the same degree. The "circuitry" is there, so to speak, but the power isn`t.

Dragon resources

Using dragon scale as an amulet that disrupts magic is pretty common, and since dragons shed their scales periodically, it is abundant enough in Sultanate that it is their standard practice to outfit their elite fighting force (batal) with the amulets wholesale. The number of scales in the amulet indicates the rank of batal. Ostensibly speaking, adding more scales to amulet improves it`s efficiency, but this effect is subject to diminishing returns and there is no measurable difference between five and six scale amulet in effect.

Now, using the dragon scale as an actual armor instead of magic amulet is different. With some clever enchanting supporting it, dragon scale shield can reliably divert or deflect most magic AND most physical attacks. However, it will consume flowers by itself to function or leech off the wielder`s power pretty heftily. Once it`s out of juice, dragon scales lose their durability and dispelling properties and the whole efficiency of setup drops to something like a third of amulet`s efficiency because the enchantment layout is different for the two. While out of juice, dragon scales are about as tough as hardwood - will not crumble under their own weight, but also will not stand to a spear or axe well.

Fangs and claws are functionally identical to scales, but much rarer, and as such are typically reserved to make anti-magic amulets for nobility, rather then being handed out to elite grunts like scales. They`re also used in magical devices that require parts to be resistant to magic, such as supports for high-power enchanted objects.

Dragon meat is mildly poisonous and extremely tough, it is not eaten by anyone and there are no known dishes including it. Some particularly puffed up beys in the Sultanate made attempts to eat dragon meat just to underscore their importance, but there is just no way to prepare it to make it palatable, and consuming enough to make it worth the effort nutritionally will also cause one to be sufficiently nauseous to vomit it all up.

Dragon blood reeks to high heaven and tends to erode the glassware and darken silverware. Chemically speaking, it`s strongly caustic, with pH being somewhere around 15. It is very intermittently used by alchemists to produce a sort of soap that has ritual use, but this is very regulated process. Resulting soap is known to "scour the skin" and generally a mage undergoing ritual that requires the use of soap will spend the next month mostly naked recovering from skin damage. Other then soapmaking, it has no known use and is generally considered to be poisonous due to being highly caustic.

Dragon bones are hollow and tend to erode pretty quickly once exposed to air, crumbling down into fingernail-sized chips that by themselves are also fragile and easily crumble further. Officially, there are no good alchemical uses for them, but it remains one of the most popular ingredients for assorted "snake oil" produce.

Country
Kingdom of Champagne

The kingdom of Champagne. Currently governed by Cullen royal family. It`s capital is Parse.

Stretches across the continent from subarctic tundras to subtropic sea. Separated from the Kraut Kingdom in the east by a volcanically active mountain range.

To the west of Champagne is Grand Ocean and in it, the isles formerly of Albic Dominion. Legends claim there are lands to be found far beyond the Grand Ocean, but no one was brave enough to confirm the legends and write down about their experiences doing so.

To the north, the Ice Blight. Ice Blight is a shallow ocean covered in floating ice. While ice cover may seem solid enough, it is in practice extremely treacherous. People daring to venture within Ice Blight easily find themselves cut off from the shore they just left by ever-shifting ice floes.

To the south, Mittelzea separates Champagne from Oija Sultanate. Mittelzea is dotted with islands, collectively called "Thousand Isles Archipelago". Most of the archipelago presently belongs to Oija Sultanate by conquest.

Kingdom of Kraut

Kingdom of Kraut is in many ways a counterpart to Champagne. Currently governed by the Hohenzollern dynasty. It`s capital is Berlinger.

 Occupying the opposite side of the shared mountain range, Kraut also stretches from polar circle to subtropics. Unfortunately, while northern and southern borders of Kraut are the same as Champagne - Ice Blight and Oija Sultanate respectively, the situation in the east is more problematic.

In the east, Kraut shares an uneasy border with Grand Confederacy of TransBalcan - a very uneasy alliance of thirty different small countries, some of them boasting more then a third of population being entirely non-human or of part-human origin. The Confederacy is constantly torn from within by all the old feuds, revenges and retributions against each other.The only reason why the Confederacy doesn`t get people bowing out is due to "better the devil you know" thinking.

Further on and to the north, Transbalkans are hugged by Orkish steppes.

Grand Confederacy of TransBalkan

A collection of minor nations huddling together, Grand Confederacy occupies territory between Kraut kingdom and Endless Steppe.

The best way to describe Grand Confederacy would be "teeth-clenched teamwork". All of the nations making it are notoriously nationalistic and suspicious of their neighbors, having had been at war over the scraps of land with each and every of them. It is said that in TransBalkan - "A master, a slave, an enemy, a friend, a wife and a husband - each of those can be said of every neighbor we have. Which one is the current? Ask me tomorrow, I might have a different answer."

TransBalkan countries are notorious for having the most non-human populace density. Some of the countries are at least a solid third non-human by population. Which non-human it is vastly depends on the country in question - racial tensions between the different countries are as abundant as national ones.

Grand Confederacy maintains nebulous trade connections with kingdom of Kraut, Endless Steppe and Empire of Pharos by the dint of being their landbound neighbors, but generally can not reach enough of a consensus among the members to truly hammer out an encompassing trade agreement.

Empire of Pharos

Bordering Oija Sultanate on southwest, Grand Confederacy on northwest and stretching far into mysterious Orient, Empire of Pharos is something of a mystery to people of Champagne.

While nominally, Empire of Pharos is not at war with Oija Sultanate, neither of the two countries ever considered the other anything less then a bitter enemy laying in wait. As such, a ship from Pharos is a rare sight in Champagne. Kraut has better circumstances for trading with Pharos, but even in Kraut, Pharos wares are a prized find.

Pharos rivals Sultanate on zukerrohr trade, though they can`t compete on cava market. On the other hand, Pharos is the only source of wares from far Orient. The silk, in particular, is something they corner the market on.

Empire of Pharos possesses much of eastern coast of Mittelzea and a number of islands of significant size in the vicinity of the coast. In the east of Mittelzea, their naval power rivals that of Sultanate. Unfortunately, that does not extend to the west of Mittelzea, where Sultanate ships reign supreme.

Oija Sultanate

Oija Sultanate is a grand empire spanning the breadth of southern continent. Separated from the kingdoms by Mittelzea, it enjoys an unparalleled amount of political and economical power.

Much of Sultanate`s wealth comes out of being in control of exotic wares such as zukerrohr and cava, both of which command significant prices in the northern countries. Sultanate is also most advanced in marine technologies, save for perhaps empire of Pharos. Much of Sultanate`s naval power comes out of being in control of overwhelming majority of Thousand Islands Archipelago.

As the dominant power in the world, a distinction held by Sultanate for a significant time, it`s officials and politicians tend to somewhat look down on the "northern barbarians". The less said about the amount of respect (or rather lack of thereof) the members of sultan family have for the laws in the rest of the world, the better.

The only known land border Oija Sultanate has is a span of land in the east between them and Empire of Pharos. According to tales of travelers, the further south you travel, the less of an influence Sultanate has, until you are in untouched wilderness.

Oija Sultanate enjoys a significant populace of imps. It is said that one out of five subjects of Sultan is an imp. Despite being a significant part of country, imps are commonly discriminated against, mostly on the grounds of their perceived indecency.

Akgand Bharat

A country occupying the southeastern parts of continent, Akgand Bharat is arguably just a half-step above the Confederacy in fragmentation.

Functionally, it is not as much of a country as a conglomeration of smaller kingdoms ruled by their respective maharajas, who in turn comprise the ruling counsel for the whole of Akgand Bharat. The counsel in question leaves most questions of economic and demographic management to the province rulers, serving primarily as a war room and a forum for determining the foreign politics of the association.

The country in question is largely rural and agricultural. They have tense relationship with their northern neighbor, the Divine Empire, trade relationship with Empire of Pharos and distant relationship with everyone else.

Divine Empire

A polity in the far east. Divine Empire stretches from the northern tundras to the subtropical swamps, the northern reaches being typically seen as "ruling lands". This comes, in no small part due to Divine Empire being founded by the northern nomads conquering the lands to the south of them until they run into organized resistance from Akgand Bharat.

Divine Empire is wholly and completely subservient to their Emperor, who is considered to be a living conduit of divine will and the object of worship. This, in turn, negatively impacts empire`s relationship with other polities, whom are all viewed as uncultured barbarians.

While haughty might as well be the national trait, Divine Empire is not above trading with Pharos Empire and Akgand Bharat, whom are their land neighbors. In the north-west, Divine Empire is separated from the Endless Steppe with great mountain range, which is considered to be not traversable for the purposes of conquest or trade. While it is not unheard of for orks to cross the mountains to trade, Divine Empire does not view Endless Steppe as a polity that can hold any diplomatic relationship.

Location
Albic Dominion

A collection of isles to the west and north of Champagne in the Grand Ocean. A part of Champagne.

The story of Albic Dominion is a curious one. They begun as a nation of seafaring barbarians independent of ancient Campagna, and often raided the country in question. Over a period of about hundred years, Campagna had the misfortune of having progressively more weak and debonaire kings, while Albic Dominion was on the rise both with their leadership and their military power.

Things came to head during Grand Conquest, when a concerted military push by Dominion had them seize major cities by storm and effectively conquer Campagna. Those Albic are the root of current Champagne nobility.

The truth of the matter is, Dominion just did not have enough of population to hold the entirety of Campagna, which was at least fifty times the grand total of land available to Dominion to populate prior to Grand Conquest. While the language of Albic did supercede the native speech of Campagna (new tongue and old tongue respectively, in vernacular), the populace of Dominion had effectively dissolved itself in Campagna. Merely fifty years later, Dominion was simply recognized as yet another province of newly reminted Champagne.

As of today, Albic isles are the outskirts of Champagne. They supply much of coastline with fish and make a steady profit exporting seasalt to the rest of the kingdom.

Ashenvale

Ashenvale is a new name.

In the last, the vale in question had been called Asul Tal, literally "Valley of Sanctuary" in old Kraut. An ancient homeland of dwarves, it used to connect Champagne and Kraut, the most spacious and convenient landbound route through the mountain range between them.

Things have changed when Red Mountain erupted. The peak towering over the valley had suddenly disgorged a cloud of fire upon the valley. Pyroclastic flow erased the dwarven settlements in a few hours, leaving but a handful of survivors fleeing towards Champagne. The reason for that was simple - due to geographic position of Red Mountain relative to Asul Tal and Kraut kingdom, the mountain pass leading towards Kraut had been flooded with superheated pumice first, cutting off that route of escape. From there, the wave of glowing dust and smoke roiled over the valley, driving dwarves out of their domiciles with but the clothes on their backs. Most of them did not outran the wall of ashes bearing down on them.

Currently, the vale is known as Ashenvale, and is being tentatively reexplored. So far, simply entering the valley is problematic, as the Red Mountain still periodically belches out more pumice. Being caught in the vale during such firestorm is imminent death unless you can outrun the ashes. As such, any exploration within the vale is only concluded from horseback and with dedicated observer in order to vacate the ashpit if the blowout occurs.

Evergreens

Extensive woods in the heart of Champagne. Also ancestral elven domain.

Evergreens is a dangerous area. Everyone in the vicinity knows that when the forest changes from green and brown to black and blue, it`s time to turn around, and march right out. Do not stop, do not pause and for the love of gods, do NOT look back.

Elves that dwell within Evergreens are dangerous sort. They recognize no allegiances but their own and they tolerate no trespassing. An interloper in their lands will have no warning - an arrow entering their eye will be the first sign of elves being around.

While there exist many legends about supposed elven prowess in just about anything, the truth of the matter is that they are poignantly insular people. The very few elves ever wandering outside of the forest are either exiled criminals or wide-eyed idealists. Even those typically consider themselves well above "mortal" laws and usually run afoul before long. As such, the typical fate of an elf outside the woods is several days of curiosity, followed by them offending the local lord and being hanged or decapitated for it.

Those few elves who shown the basic survival instincts in learning and abiding the law of land typically don`t find themselves lacking. While they could sustain themselves barely on the novelty of being an elf in a lord`s court, their great ability with floral magic usually sees them snapped up as scholars or court magicians before long.

Elves in general are not keen to speak of Evergreens, but it is known that the official language of Evergreens is a dialect of old tongue and that the matters of Evergreens are decided by the Conclave, though who makes up the said Conclave remains a mystery to this day.

Endless Steppe
Endless Steppe is not a country, even though in many ways it has to be treated as such.

The reason why it is not a country is simple - it has no defined leader or government. The people inhabiting the steppe are predominantly orkish tribes and those few who had been accepted into them. Orks are naturally nomads. While they possess remarkable skills in metalworking, leatherworking and animal husbandry, their farming abilities are very subpar. As a result, Endless Steppe is the domain of migrating nomads and their herds.

A conflict between two tribes is usually resolved either by their respective elders hashing out some sort of agreement after secluding themselves in a yurt for a night with copious amounts of spirits or by all-out combat if negotiations fail.

In the event of global threat, the tribes convene and elect a Khan - a military dictator who commands absolute authority during the crisis. Once the crisis is over, Khan steps down voluntarily or is killed by his advisers if he makes no attempt to step down on his own.

Orks are capable cavalrymen and consider not fighting from horseback to be cowardly and meek. The magic in their society is underdeveloped and is mostly under the provenance of shamans, who fulfill the roles of mage, alchemist and adviser to tribe leader. As a rule of thumb, a well-off tribe will have up to five shamans rotating the duties between them and up to ten apprentices. Apprentices are handpicked out of babies exhibiting magic outbursts while below five years old.

A tribe that has an excess of shamans and their apprentices may elect to split into two or more allied tribes that would maintain cordial relationship but generally adopt diverging migration routes - this much is necessitated by the fact nomadic lifestyle impresses an upper limit on sustainable tribe populace.

Thousand Isles

Thousand Isles is a major Archipelago in the western Mittelzea. Though geographically it`s closer to the shores of Champagne then to the shores of Sultanate, they are under Sultanate`s rule. Islands are big enough to support considerable amount of agriculture, including extensive cava plantations.

Miscellaneous
Measurements of Champagne

Weight.

8 drachme = 1 onse
12 onses = 1 livre
4 quarterons = 1 livre (archaic)

1 livre  = 1 pound/ ~0.45 kg

1 stone = 12 livres (archaic)
1 quintal = 1000 livres

1 quintal = 1000 livres =  12000 onses = 96000 drachmes = ~450 kgs.

Coins are typically minted to weigh one drachme.
Spices and medicines are sold by drachme, salt and tea by onse, bread and cheese by livre, grain by stone. Quarteron is not used anymore, but used to be official unit by which salt was being sold before. Stone as a measure of weight is used exclusively for grains.

Liquid volume.

3 fl. onse = 1 posson
8 posson = 1 pinte

1 pinte = ~ 0.95 liter

1 quarte = 2 pinte
1 velte = 4 quarte
1 barrel = 8 velte

1 barrel = 8 velte = 32 quarte = 64 pinte = 512 posson = 1536 fl. onses = ~60.8 liters

Hard liquor and wine is traditionally served in 1 posson glasses. Beer and milk - in 1 pinte mugs. Fluid onse is used exclusively for alchemical and medicinal wares. One fluid onse of ouso weighs 1 onse.

Length.

12 pouse = 1 pied

1 pied = 1 foot = ~32.5 cm

1 demitouse = 3 pied
1 touse = 2 demitouse

1 perche = 4 touse
1 arpent = 10 perche
1 demileague = 20 arpent
1 league = 2 demileague

1 league = 2 demileague = 40 arpent = 400 perche = 1600 touse = 3200 demitouse = 9600 pied = 115200 pouse = ~3120 m/ ~2 mile

Historically, 1 perche by 1 perche is considered minimal space needed to erect a hut. 1 arpent by 1 arpent is considered the minimal space one needs to erect a hut and grow sufficient food for one person to sustain themselves off the field.

Coinage of Champagne
Champagne uses coins as their primary currency. Available coins are as follows...

Gold (D`or) - contains a drachme of pure gold. Often used as a weight when purchasing spices.
Ecu (Silver) - contains a drachme of pure silver.
Sol (Copper) - copper token.
Denier (Petty copper) - small change.

1 Gold = 4 Ecu = 48 Sols = 576 Deniers
1Ecu = 12 Sols = 144 Deniers
1 Sol = 12 Deniers

It should be noted that Gold is usually referred to as Gold. If it is referred to as D`or, then person doing so is either incredibly old-fashioned (or feigning so) or that person is from the very deep Champagne province. Ecu and silver are used interchangeably. Sol and Denier are never referred to as copper.

Lifespan Comparison

Sapient races:

Humans - up to 90 being the common lifespan, up to 200 in certain cases.

Dwarves - 150 is common, up to 400 rarely. Though, it has to be said that pretty much everyone who lives to 200 will live to 300, unless they die to violence or sudden disease. Venerable elders are separate social class for a reason.

Elves - 200 is average, due to social customs. Outside of Evergreens, 400 is common. 1000 and more for select individuals. Generally speaking, history is uncertain if there ever existed an elf that expired from old age. They tend to find some sort of violent death before getting to that point.

Orks - 70 is average, due to social customs and primitive medicine. In civilized conditions, 90 and 200 like humans.

Imps - 75 is average due to being all-female race in Sultanate conditions. In civilized conditions, 120 is average and up to 250 is possible.

Thinking monsters that do not establish societies of their own kind:

Vampires - technically immortal, but most don`t survive longer then 20 years due to fledges having voracious appetite and little discretion. There exist legends of ancient vampires pushing their third millenium, but no one had been able to decisively pinpoint one. Legends excuse that by pointing out that ancient vampires are notoriously reclusive and tend to cultivate their own bloodstock in form of closed-admittance personality cults.

Selkies - immortal via normal means, but can be imprisoned in specifically crafted lanterns, which leads to their mental death via boredom and subsequent dissipation. Average age of Selkie Lantern - about 30 years.

Doppelgangers - up to 30 years in captivity, up to 70 years free range if permitted to freely imitate.

Languages
After some thoughtful consideration, MC had gingerly pinned down some of the most common languages and their analogs in her original reality.


Champagne "new tongue", aka Albish - English, mostly modern english with occasional dip into victorian verbosity.

Albish - "The language is spoken like this."

Champagne "old tongue" - French. Some drift present, for example elves speak something most reminiscent of haitian creole dialect.

Campaignan - "La langue est parlée comme ça."

Elvish dialect - "Lang lan pale konsa."

Kraut - Presumably German with Austrian and Chech influences.

Kraut - "Di shprakh iz geredt azoy."

Oija Sultanate - Arabic. Presumably.

Oijan - "Ytmu altahaduth bihadhih allaghati."

Empire of Pharos - unsure. Presumably, some variant of Persian.

Pharan - "Ziman bi vî rengî tê axaftin."

Trying to pinpoint the language of Grand Confederacy is a task for fools, they speak a collection of languages as disparate as the states of the confederacy themselves. While they all sound vaguely slavic, the actual lingua franca of Confederacy is Kraut.

Incredibly enough, however, orkish language is Russian.

Orkish - "Да не буду я эту хрень повторять."

Inquisition

Inquisition is an association of monster hunters and investigators who usually handle the country`s mysterious on-goings. It does not necessarily need to be supernatural, inquisition is perfectly at ease investigating a regular murder. All that is required for inquisition`s involvement is a mystery in the crime. So long as the culprit was not caught red-handed committing the crime in question, it is a matter for inquisition to look into. Sometimes, inquisition is not a standalone organization, but a side job of country leader`s personal forces or a part of standing army duties.

___

In Champagne, Inquisition is a royal knight order and handles intelligence and counterespionage among other things.

In Kraut, Inquisition is a loose coalition of several knight orders who each maintain monster population control on their own fief.

In Sultanate, the same functions prior to Alyssa cursing the hell out of them were performed by batal and support troops on a rotating schedule. After the curse, the monster-battling duties were mostly overtaken by the husks and bees, leaving the batal with the more cerebral part of the job.

Pharos has a multitude of independent monster-hunters for hire, but in case of a major outbreak, it is handled by the imperial guard, who then proceeds to fine the bejeezus out of landowners who permitted the outbreak to form up, unless they can front up some evidence that it was not caused by their negligence.

Transbalkan confederacy has different arrangements depending on the area, in the more urbanized parts of it, the leader of the country usually has some sort of force, either dedicated or folded into leader`s personal forces. In wilder areas, townships usually have one or several dedicated monster-hunters who sometimes can also be town`s herbalist, priest, mage or medic. In the rural areas, they usually depend on calling in the monster-hunters from nearby burg or castle, though there are some cases of retired badass settling down in some village and protecting it and neighborhood.

Orks by their nomadic nature have less of an issue with supernatural monsters, but when they do, they handle it by ganging up on the monsters with their whole tribe. In case of bad enough cases, a call for arms may be given to nearby tribes. Usually, the tribe giving the call is expected to pay off the help with currency, wares or labor.

Bharat is largely like Confederacy, the maharajas each have their own retinue that handles the monsters in their own fief.

In Divine Empire, monsters are handled by Gu Shizhe (literally, Ghost Eaters), the oriental analog of Inquisition.

Batal
An offshoot of Sultanate Dragonkeeping, Batal are the core of Sultan`s military strength. They are handpicked out of armsmen who have low aptitude with magic but show good physical abilities and subjected to extensive physical training.

Each batal upon surpassing the physical standards exam is awarded with pendant created from dragon scale that grants them increased protection against magic. This pendant is not particularly useful for mages, since it disrupts their own casting as much as opponent`s, but for fighters focused solely on swordsmanship, it is a useful aegis against enemy mages.

It has to be noted that pendant does not fully nullify magic like dragons themselves do, it just disrupts and diverts spells. Also, unlike dragons themselves, pendant won`t affect conjured materials or pre-cast buffs on someone entering the area of effect. Finally, a strong mage can overpower the effect, though not easily so.

There are several grades of amulet, differing by the number of scales incorporated into it, which signifies the rank of batal in question.

  1. One scale - regular grunts.
  2. Two scales - veterans. Typically awarded on the end of tenth consecutive year of service. Veterans tend to split into bujatir and eamids, depending on if they develop an aptitude for commanding or not. Bujatir are essentially front-line shocktroops, usually trained to wield heavy axes in addition to scimitars. Eamids command the detachment of ten batal. Rare but highly distinguished bujatir eamid command detachment of ten bujatir and usually are the spearhead in heavy engagements. They are given dragonscale buckler in addition to their amulet, both to enhance their longevity and to underline the status as elite of elite. Bujatir eamid is the top rank a commoner can possibly achieve within batal without being ennobled for going above and beyond the duty and being noticed by one of the emirs while doing so.
  3. Three scales - qayid. Officers that command independent detachment of batal. The exact number of batal under command can vary from a hundred to three hundreds, depending on the duties and dislocation of the detachment in question. This rank is reserved for men of noble birth who had shown the qualities desirable in batal and inclination to join the ranks.
  4. Four scales - alqayid. Promoted from qayid for commanding acumen (though promotion by brown-nosing to emirs is also an option), they are the chief officer of batal organization, and typically oversee the entirety of batal within a given province. The forces under their command number from thousand to four thousand, and include auxiliary forces in addition to batal, such as dedicated mage alfawj (a detachment of twelve mages trained to work together, usually having at least one mage specializing in every elemental specialty, though specialized alfawj also exist) and cavalry sirbs (nobles-only cavalry unit, typically thirty lancers on horses, rarely on camels).
  5. Five scales - alqayid almajid. Functionally, this is simply an "extra honor" variation on previous one. Alqayid almajid is simply an alqayid decorated for long and venerable service. Their rank carries a selection of political boons, such as a privilege to call upon a sultan for a personal audience. This rank is a political achievement more then military one and typically implies that current sultan considers this particular alqayid to be their primary war counsel. It is rare for any given sultan to have more then a few of those in active service.

Defilement

Broadly speaking, "defilement" is a term used to denote exposure to outerworldly. It has certain effects on one`s magic power and sanity.

A) Exposure.

Generally, defilement may occur from any perception of outerworldly. The caveat here is that subject of defilement must be experiencing cognitive dissonance for it to kick in. For example, a rock taken from other world will not cause defilement if it`s characteristics are comparable to native rocks.

Low-key defilement can be accrued by performing research on otherworldly minerals and flora. It must be said that researcher has to be meticulous enough to uncover the facts that do not permit mundane explanation. Justy comparing the rocks and herbs is not sufficient, researcher in question must clearly pinpoint the outerworldly properties that could not be located in native dimension. Amassing sufficient knowledge to gain a comprehension on how a different world might have functioned is slow and safe method of increasing magic power. Chances to go mad are very low, but one has to somehow source the otherworldly materials to examine. It might be more then a little expensive.

Actually opening portals to different worlds is more intensive option. Depending on how similar the alternate dimension is, the results may range from "didn`t notice difference" all the way to "went mad from revelation". Another concern in this is the hostility of environment beyond the portal.

Peering in the void between the worlds or beholding the void-native beings (like shoggoths) is high-intensity, high-impact option. Surprise peek usually results in gibbering lunacy. Preparations can be done to mitigate this, but the likelihood of going crazy is still in the vicinity of seven out of ten. Usual preparations include researching the theory, studying first-hand accounts of those who survived exposure with sanity intact and low-level exposures.

Madness is primarily caused by cognitive dissonance and fear of unknown. It is possible to greatly decrease the chances of madness by ensuring the "unknown" is viewed with yearning or affection instead of fear, but this is both complicated and has it`s own hazards. It is highly likely for subject that was exposed to outerworldly object they view with affection to develop an obsession over it. Even if that does not happen, all defiled share a certain pining for seeing more of what they glimpsed. This urge can range all the way from subconscious interest to manic obsession.

B) Effects.

Due to improved comprehension of reality`s plasticity and fragility, one`s grasp of magic improves significantly. Aside from obvious power boost, defiled also tend to have better instinctual grasp of basic magics and are much more apt with conjuration, evocation and alteration.

"Cats can be bats can be rats can be brats, can be thises, can be thats."

C) Social reaction.

Defiled are not a subject to any social stigma by themselves, they are actually pretty sought after by royals and high nobility as they tend to make terrifying court mages and excellent scholars.

The process of attaining defilement, however, is subject to certain stigmas.

To begin with, any intentional self-defilement is viewed as reckless. A common practice to address this is to seclude oneself while attempting to glimpse beyond the world.

Doing self-defilement experiments in densely populated places is heavily frowned upon as reckless endangerment, due to the fact that random bystanders caught by surprise will almost certainly go insane. There exist legends about certain mages who had intentionally caused this kind of exposure in public places like bazaars and plazas. It is considered a high crime to do that with intent.

Exposing someone else to defilement against their will is generally a crime, and is punished by public lashing. As noble may not be lashed by commoner, nobles also lose their personal patent of nobility if caught doing this. If subject of defilement were one`s own children, the custody of them is stripped and children are handed over to closest relatives or lord of the domain to be adopted as branch family or domestic servants, depending on one`s social status.

It is unfortunate truth that many kings elect to look the other way if a noble manages to successfully cause defilement in their children. It is also tacitly understood that children may revenge themselves over this, and neither is looked into by kings much. It is, as a rule of thumb, considered "family matter".

Pantheon (Short List)

Department of Planetary Development.

  • Orlag - god of sun and crops.
  • Manoc - god of winds and weather.
  • Sineval - god of oceans.
  • Gia - goddess of earth.

Department of Social Development.

  • Kinov - god of business.
  • Argyl - god of crafts.
  • Marra - goddess of medicine.
  • Lothak - god of laws.
  • Zali - goddess of war and politics.

Department of Mental Development.

  • Memiri - goddess of dreams.
Worship

Most known polities are aware of the same pantheon. There might be local distortion of names, but generally everyone knows the same gods.

The METHOD of worship differs per country. Champagne, Kraut and Confederacy tend to view gods as the sources of greater good, and worship mostly by attending temple to donate money for blessings and to partake in temple-offered services that depend on the god in question.

Priests usually specialize in serving one or several gods in particular, though they all acknowledge and venerate the whole pantheon.

Prayers are mostly the short beseechments of favor from specific god, rather then long-winded venerations.

Sultanate treats gods much the same with the caveat that all temples in the Sultanate are subservient to sultan, who is considered to be unequivocally favored by gods. As such, temples in the Sultanate charge the foreigners about twice over what they would charge from the locals for the same services.

Akgand Bharat and Pharos Empire are a little more fractured in religious regard, instead of unified temple to all gods they favor constructing smaller shrines dedicated to specific gods in separate locations, the distribution depending on what gods are considered more relevant to the local needs. As such, rural areas tend to have a clear prevalence in shrines to Orlag and Manoc (gods of sun/crops and weather/winds, respectively), seaports have a high concentration of shrines to Sineval (god of oceans) and so on.

Divine Empire venerates their Emperor and constructs Imperial Temples. Nominally, all the priests in the Divine Empire are the priests of Emperor, whom they all consider to be the one and only true conduit of gods` will. As such, regardless of what kind of blessing the person wants, they pray/donate to Emperor for it, and assume Emperor will parley with gods on their behalf if their prayer was true.

Orks don`t have much of organized religion, but they do acknowledge the existence of gods and if they consider themselves to be on receiving end of one god`s largesse, they typically offer up a symbolic part of it as thanks. For example, if an ork manages to sell horses at good price, he would buy a bottle of wine and pour it out into the ground while saying thanks to Kinov.

___

P.S. While some polities do practice sacrifices, it is common knowledge that gods do NOT appreciate wasteful or criminal sacrifices. In particular, trying to sacrifice a sentient being is one of the easiest ways to get smote.

Calendar Pt.1 (Winter and Spring)

Each month consists of exactly 30 days. Five or six extra days are segregated into a "non-month" segment of "year`s unending". Seasons are as follows.

Winter:

Nivos - first month of winter, aka "snowy month", also usually the coldest month of the year. This month is typically downtime, dedicated to domestic chores and repairs of gear worn throughout the year. People commonly stay indoors for days at an end and venture outside only in case of necessity.

Pluvos - second month of winter, aka "rainy month". This month sees the weather gradually warm up, shifting the precipitation from snow to slush and then to rain. Also considered an indoor month.

Ventos - third month of winter, aka "windy month". During this month, the weather is typically moderate enough to carry out lengthy activities outdoors. This month is typically the month when early cereal crops are planted. Also, the month with highest danger of thaw floods.

Spring:

Germinal - first month of spring, aka "budding month", characterized by germination of the assorted seeds that were dropped previous year. Long-standing tradition considers germinal to be an auspicious month for new beginnings, particularly so - romantic ones. First Sunday of Germinal is a romantic holiday known as Valentinian`s Day.

Floreal - second month of spring, aka "flowering month", the month that sees most flowers in the whole year. Consequently, Floreal is considered the most magical of all months, and a lot of rituals and traditions revolving around magic are to be held sometime during Floreal.

Prareal - third month of the spring, aka "ripening month". During this month, the priority number one is assorted preparations for harvest. Not much else is going on. Socially, this is the slow-down month before the midsummer frenzy of postharvest mingling and trading. Also, this is the month when the late cereal crops are being planted to be collected mid-autumn.

Calendar Pt.2 (Summer and Autumn)

Summer:

Messidor - first month of the summer, aka "harvest month". The all-encompassing harvest frenzy. This month is where the absolute majority of grown crops is collected. As such, all other considerations fall to the wayside. It is not uncommon even for countries at war to set aside hostilities entirely for the duration of this month.

Termidor - second month of the summer, aka "heat month". This is, strictly speaking, a misnomer, as the peak sun activity falls in the second half of previous month. Nonetheless, this is the month when temperatures are consistently at their highest. This is the lull between crop harvest and fruit harvest, both socially and economically, and is typically treated as "a break" month.

Fructidor - third month of summer, aka "fruiting month". The month that sees the majority of fruits ripen and be collected. As the proverb goes, "summer begins and ends with a harvest". Somewhat informally, this is also "baby month", as disproportionately large selection of people count their birthday sometime during Fructidor.

Autumn:

Vendemar - first month of autumn, aka "vintage month". This month is closely tied to previous ones, as the majority of time during this month is typically spent on preparing the fruits gathered the month before for conservation. Wines are laid to age, jams are cooked, fruits are dried, pickled, marinaded, baked and candied throughout this month.

Brumar - second month of autumn, aka "foggy month". This is the month when weather begins to cool down significantly, sporting extensive fogs in the mornings and sometimes evenings. This is the time for the last small harvest, collecting and storing the late cereals in preparations for winter.

Frimar - third month of autumn, aka "frosty month". This month sees the frosts set in and people retire indoors whenever possible. Informally, also known as "babymaking month", which reflects in unusually large share of birthdays being celebrated in Fructidor.

Calendar Pt.3 (Change of Year and Weekdays)

Year`s Unending:

Five day long festival held between Autumn and Winter and formally not assigned to either. This is the time of year where all activities whatsoever are shut down and postponed in favor of celebrations. Those days fall on solstice. Reflection is the first day of festival, upon which one must reflect on the passed year. Farewells is the second day, traditionally a day of remembrance for all dead. Ignition is the third day, and the one during which the heyday of celebration takes time. It is traditionally marked by huge bonfires in the evening. Grand Turning is optional day that occurs once every four years. When it is present, it extends the celebration of Ignition. Ashes is the fourth day, traditionally held as the quietest day of the year, the time when people recover from the hangover after last night`s celebration and sleep in. Morning Glory is the last day of festival, during which people traditionally decide on their goals for the year and reaffirm alliances and friendships.

Weekdays are completely disconnected from monthly calendars and serve as a convenient way to keep track of time and maintain healthy work/break ratios.

Moonday -> Tuneday -> Whineday -> Thornday -> Freeday -> Caturday -> Sunday.

Moonday`s name comes with "raise with the moon" assertion that workers have to get up extra early on Monday to fullfill week`s work in timely order. Tuneday is unclear, though some believe it is reflecting the fact that most people are still cheerful enough from weekends to hum the tune while working. Whineday is the middle of workweek, and is named for the whining that is wont to crop up half-way. Thornday is  named because it is typically considered the hardest day of the week, of the "walking on thorns" sentiments. Freeday is the last day of workweek, and traditionally is held as the day where the work is kept light and main focus is on finishing up what was started during the week. Caturday is unclear, but the implication that this is the day where one imitates a cat and lounges in the sunspot is common. Sunday follows up on that, as the second day of the weekend.

History of Languages Pt.1

To put things very simple... Originally, the languages were as follows...

1) Elven -> French.

2) Dwarven -> English.

3) Western Human -> German.

4) Orkish -> Russian.

5) Impish -> Arabic.

6)Southern Human -> Hebrew.

7) Eastern Human -> Hindi.

8) Northern Human -> Chinese.

The first civilization to properly develop a language was elves, and they spoke an archaic version of french. Second were dwarves, and they spoke welsh. Elves dominated human tribes that spoke german and feuded with dwarven city-states. Due to elves developing first magic, which all revolved around mental domination, they gained upper hand and essentially forced dwarves off the continent on the Albish isles.

In the following years, humans became utterly subjugated by victorious elves and as a consequence of such, largely shifted from their own language (german) to the language of their masters (french). English at the time was a forbidden tongue on the western half of the continent.

In the east, three major tribes of humans had independently developed their own languages. Southernmost formed some of the earliest sedentary agrarian societies. They spoke hindi. Northernmost intermittently feuded with nascent orkish tribes and sustained themselves primarily through hunting. They spoke chinese. In the center of the continent, on the eastern coasts of Mittelzea, a third civilization spread along the coasts of the sea, fishing and sailing as their primary competencies, merging from several smaller tribes. They spoke several languages, but their official state language was hebrew.

Northern humans became the Divine Empire, and their hunting culture and intermittent skirmishing with orks had given them a culture putting much emphasis on personal martial prowess.

Eastern humans became Akhand Bharat, and their sedentary agriculture gave birth to a society based around the castes.

Southern humans had spread themselves too thin and splintered. Southern half of their collective lands became the Oijan sultanate in the wake of their first leaders performing mass summonings of imps in order to further their own magical capacities and become a viable counter to the elves in the northwest. Northern half of their collective lands remained as Pharos Empire, the word empire in itself having been retained from the time they dominated the entire western half of Mittelzea. Two significant tribes crystallized to the north and to the east of the empire, speaking respectively anatolian (turkish) and farsi (persian). In fact, the name Pharos is connected to the namegiver of the last language, who seems to have had been one of the early transmigrators who achieved much success and ended up as an emperor in the wake of splintering. For a while, "old tongue", aka hebrew, was considered an "evil" language in the newly formed countries, leading the beginnings of Sultanate to shift in their majority to the impish (arabic). Pharos Empire retained hebrew as their state language, though for a long while, the de-facto lingua franca in the south was farsi and in the north was anatolian.


History of Languages Pt.2

In the meanwhile, elven holdings in the western part of continent had experienced shoggoths and collectively collapsed shortly after. Given the usual elven tendencies for backstabbing and klingon promotions, coupled with enormous amounts of subjugated humans suddenly finding themselves free from mind control AND dwarves executing a significant pushback from the isles as soon as elven stranglehold started faltering... Their influence vanished practically overnight and their civilization had been essentially decimated. It is estimated that roughly 3/4 of elven population had perished over the span of ten years following their first encounters with "Star Horrors". It has to be noted that with the mind control mastery, elves did not really advance much beyond tribal clans vying for control over the thralls, so they did not have much to fall back on in terms of know-hows or social capabilities.

With elves broken and largely extinct, the human thralls under their control took over the lands formerly dominated by elves. Their eldest thralls (and consequently, most well treated ones) had ended up envisioning themselves to be the spiritual ancestors of elves, and formed Champagne, who`s official language was elven. Those in the west who were not fond of anything elvish at all had moved further west towards the Albic isles and mixed with dwarves there, forming modern albish in process of adapting what little they remembered of their original language (german) and that of their hated slavers (french) with the language of their new neighbors (welsh). The result was albish (english), which was by an large accepted by dwarves as their new lingua franca, with their traditional language taking more ritual role.

In the east, the cultural situation was a little better, as there were still enough of old language speakers to keep the western human (german) alive. The people there formed Kraut kingdom, which existed as a consistent kingdom for a whole of twenty one years, the entirety of reign of the first and last king of all Kraut, Hlodovig the Rude. He died without heir, and on his death, the kingdom had shattered into warring provinces. Easternmost of them never recovered from that and eventually became TransBalkan confederacy, with the people within taking great pride in maintaining their own dialect derived from old Kraut, each of them claiming to be the only holders of one true language. Aside from some of the societies who instead took up orkish(russian) and altered it for their own specifics, giving birth to krainian (ukrainian).

Western part of Kraut had eventually reunited after a few centuries of intermittent wars, but in the process had significantly depleted their own human and financial reserves and ended up accepting a huge influx of noble blood from Pharos Empire, along with significant monetary investments. This resulted in their language mutating, the collision of old kraut (german) and imperial (hebrew) becoming modern kraut (yiddish).

Meanwhile, dwarves had spearheaded the expansion of Albic Dominion eastwards, somewhat rightfully considering the contemporary Champagne kingdom as elven legacy. The resulting conquest had two major consequences - primarily, the common language of dwarves had crystallized into albish (english) and became the state language of Champagne kingdom, as most of the leading positions were taken over by their human allies from Albic Isles. Dwarves themselves sustained considerable losses. Initially, their plan called for establishment of colony in Azul Tal (currently Ashenvale), while retaining control of the Albic archipelago, but ended up becoming an exodus from the islands (historically considered by dwarves to be their place of exile by elves) to their ancient lands in the heartland mountains.

In Champagne, the majority of peasants still spoke primarily old champaignan, aka elvish (french), which ended up becoming the language of poor. Insulated elven enclave in Evergreens had meanwhile experienced a significant language drift, ending up speaking modern elvish (haitian french).

And this is how the current language layout became the status quo as of the now.

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    New Pheonix099
    Status: chapter 144. let`s party (and...

    A work of pure genius and insanity all rolled into one gem. The only issue I find is that there is never enough to feed my crippling addiction.

    Read More

    0 Likes · Like
    delta33
    Status: chapter 12. settling into academy (also...

    Holy sh*t this is isekai gold. Yuri, intelligent main character, interesting world building, it's all there. The power trip is delicious and cooked to perfection. This is going to be a top novel it already has tier 1 waifus. This is gold, literal gold.

    And so I wait for the next chapter button once more...

    Read More

    53 Likes · Like
    gat1024
    Status: c5

    Why does an Eldritch need to worry about the plot of an otome game they just transmigrated into? They’re an nation killer. 

    Anyways, the author is prone to info sumps that simultaneously provide too much and too little information. I’m sure there is a good story in the somewhere. If you can tease it out from the almost frenetic text, the  by all means. &Nbsp;

    Read More

    33 Likes · Like
    Jiwa
    Status: c46

    Isekai'd Shoggoth tries to be several things at once. Strangely, it succeeds. We have a harem based on consent and mutual respect with some genuine polyamory. We have a well-researched and amusing empire-building based on technological progress. We have serious elements of adventure and political intrigue. And it is rather wholesome without getting naive. Honestly, I never expected this quality on Scribblehub. Go and read it.

    Read More

    30 Likes · Like
    Reborn-kun
    Status: c6

    Read this only if you're into hardcore info dumps, and excess narration that breeze through things with zero-little character interactions between characters.

    If not, I advice not to look into this work as I see myself quitting.

    Read More

    26 Likes · Like
    Sententia
    Status: c36

    There's an old joke in the gay community, "What does a lesbian bring to a second date?  a U-Haul" and both the MC and all the love interests adhere to this as a tenet of faith.  Not only do women jump into the harem almost as soon as they're introduced, the plot also races like an Olympic sprint.  e.g.

    Spoiler

    MC declares war on another country and basically ends the war with one spell in the next paragraph.  The MC has so many irons in the fire that often 2 or 3 major developments occur at once, like building an entire confectionery chain or introducing high carbon steel within one chapter.  On that note she seems to genuinely be an expert in many areas and very meticulous and hardworking, which makes the plot a real blast!

    [collapse]

    The blistering pace is fun and adds to the light-hearted tone. There are two things I don't like and one minor gripe.  First, a lot of the 'cute harem/s*x' scenes are repetitive, lots of petting and cuddling and kissing every time and the scenes are pretty frequent and feel the same.  Second, Selene who is supposedly a straight woman, dreams of making out with the MC.  Now, thankfully this hasn't happened a lot so far, but if every character in the novel has their personality bent towards the MC just because OP MC harem novel, that makes those characters more dull.  But most of the characters have ideas and motivations independent of the MC, which is good.

    My minor gripe is at least once each chapter there's a sentence that's clearly missing the words "a" or "the".  It only stands out because I haven't seen any other mistakes, but it is fairly common.

    That's the bad, now there are two thoroughly enjoyable things about this novel: first, the MC is great.  She has a vast knowledge, knows what she wants and has her own ethics, and acts decisively.  Her flaws are fun too, the possessiveness about her harem intersects with villains without being overplayed into psychopathy.  She's the heart of the novel, which is probably what makes it good since it's almost all written in first-person.

    Second, the eldritch theme is overlayed nicely.  It feels like a Shoggoth plot meteor crashed into a regular isekai otome novel and upturned everything in interesting ways.  That scene with Moon near the beginning is especially good, and some later ones.  Really the eldritch is all over the novel and very good.

    Lastly, this novel avoids stepping in the pit trap of some yuri/yaoi or harem where all villains are [opposite gender] or all [opposite gender] are villains, and the other trap where all characters are gay and their only personality trait is being in shallow puppy love with the MC.

    One of the best here, give it a go!

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    Bobbj
    Status: c0

    At first, I was skeptical. But then, I was like, "holy sh*t, this is good!" Basically, it's a great story, just keep a dictionary nearby.

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    I began reading  this out of curiosity, as I really liked the idea of a lighthearted eldritch horror Isekai and found it quite unique and refreshing. And all in all, the story delivers -- it's funny, it's interesting, and has a good worldbuilding and flow.

    However, the reason I'm giving it three stars isn't because the typos (about which the author already talked at length about and are understandable due to russian being the author's primary language, even if they break the immersion a bit).

    It's because I am almost a hundred chapters in and have absolutely no idea about how anything and anyone looks in the story. There's no description about the characters, almost no description about the scenery, I'm sincerely drawing a blank here -- I have no clue about how the MC looks, how anyone in the harem or supporting cast looks or what are their mannerisms, how the school looks, nothing, they're amorphous blobs (pun intended). I can't really visualize anything because there's no description.

    Only by braving the comments for each chapter I found some incredibly vague descriptions, like Moon Unit being "ethereally beautiful" and some other (I don't remember exactly which one) being... "redheaded".  It's frustrating and, sincerely, my single serious gripe about the story (but a BIG one, hence, three stars).

     Curiously enough, the most description I had were fight scenes and shoggotastic moments. Those are  awesome.

    All in all, it's a interesting read nonetheless, and I intend to keep following it until the end. Thanks for the story!

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    RaelDeer
    Status: c4

    Like chewing glass.

    People have said to give it a chance and that it gets better, but I'd rather not either-

    A) Push through a mind numbing amount of word vomit internal monologue that seems to serve no purpose other than to distract from the fact that there's barely any establishing information or description about any single place, character, or even the world itself, other than "It's an otome game, you know what those are, so you know how this works".

    B) Skip to where it 'gets good' and go from there, chunking out a significant part of what I'm assuming the author thought was important enough to put to paper. Sorry, but "It gets better" is not, nor ever has been a good excuse for a story being... not great, especially early on where, you know, first impressions are made.

    I've read a few other novels under GL and how this is the BEST of all of them, utterly beyond me.

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    rolling
    Status: c3

    I can't get past the first 3 chapters. Too much information with an enormous amount of random references sprinkled everywhere, sometimes it's not even English I'm here to enjoy the story, not the reference dictionary.

    With this many 5* reviews this might be a good story. If you can get past the first few chapters.

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    18 Likes · Like
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