Shen'ihr

This is the story-based description of the Shen'ihr. For official rules on Shen'ihr characters, go here.

Shen'ihr is the name given to a race of technologially and physiologically advanced humanoids residing in the eastern reaches of our galaxy. Outwardly, they are indistinguishable from attractive humans. Inwardly, they possess a heightened intellect and are genetically predisposed toward psionics and ki power.

The Shen'ihr reserve a great paranoia against demons and magic in general, as it was once a tool that nearly destroyed them, as a people. Because of their experiences, these people are now largely oblivious of proper names for their race (frequently referring to it as "my people" and other variants) or their homeworld (using "the homeworld" and other variants), since it is believed that posessing such names can give a magical villain some power over them again. Only a few select persons of their government know these names. Because Cardinalian society is so dependent on proper names and designations for things, the astronomical society has named the planet "Beta Zion III". The people of that planet, then, are sometimes referred to as Zionans. Native Shen'ihr may or may not answer to such a term, but will not use it themselves, in recognition of taboos.

The Homeworld

Geography

The homeworld of the Shen'ihr is a globe of similar size to earth, though approximately 18% larger. 60% of the planet's surface is covered in ocean, with the remaining 40% split between four landmasses and two polar ice caps. Three of the four landmasses can be considered 'subcontinents' (of comparable size to Australia), with the primary continent being larger in area than North America, but smaller than Asia. The smaller subcontinents were all, at one point in history, contiguous parts of one pangaeic landmass. The eastern and southeastern subcontinents of Duba'en and Cat-Mezah were created when a comet collided with the planet hundreds of millions of years ago. A tremendous crater in the ocean's floor between these three serves as a testament to that ancient disaster. The western subcontinent of Sahai was removed from the main landmass by a powerful geologic upheaval several million years ago.

By human geographic standards, the primary landmass spans a full one hundred degrees of latitude from north to south, and approximately fifty-five degrees of longitude east to west. The northern edges of the continent lie at roughly 76-degrees north, the southern tip at twenty-four degrees south of the equator.

A tall range of mountains runs down the middle of the main continent. For over three thousand kilometers in the northlands, this mountain range becomes a sheer cliff, with a drop of approximately three thousand meters at its highest point. Shen'ihr geologists conclude that this unusual formation is a direct result of the prehistoric comet that impacted the planet.

Eight Provinces

Aenan

Population:

Capitol City: Prennya

Aenan province is located in the central-east area of the main continent. It is bordered on the north by Artur and the capitol of Kiz'Anei, to the west by Khurun, and on the south by Irandan and the Basin Sea. Aenan maintains a number of holdings in the northern and eastern arcs of the Ring Atoll and shares the southeastern subcontinent of Cat-Mezah with Irandan.

Along with its western neighbor Khurun, Aenan is considered one of the Shen'ihr's 'breadbasket' provinces; the central-western third of Aenan has suitable soil for farming and raising feed animals. Larger population centers are located closer to the eastern coastline where the land gets rockier and less useful for growing crops.

Aenan's economy is equally based on food exports, manufacturing, and fishing, however Prennya is home to several of the Shen'ihr's most prominent learning institutions.

Artur

Population:

Capitol City: Kaldesh

Artur is one of two northern provinces, occupying most of the large, rocky plateau in the northeastern corner of the main landmass. Because of the altitude and extreme northern latitude, Artur is cold almost year-round, giving this province the nickname of 'The Winterlands.' Mining, crystal harvesting and manufacturing are Artur's primary economic drivers.

Some of the highest mountain peaks in the province have been turned into advanced telescope observatories, taking advantage of the rarified atmosphere. Other high-altitude locations have been converted into planetary spaceports.

Badru

Popupation:

Capitol City: Wokudo

Situated 2500 kilometers East-Northeast of Aenan, Badru is one of the three subcontinental islands sattelite to the main landmass, with an area approximating 8.3 million square kilometers. Its climate is largely tropical, heavily forested, and the island is dominated by a cluster of long-dead volcanoes that have served as some of the most prolific crystal-harvesting sites on the planet.

Having escaped much of the devastation that consumed the main continent during the Great Wars, Badru boasts many of the Shen'ihr's oldest settlements. For hundreds of years, Badran communities have been worked into the dense forests, using the trees and natural landscape as part of the cities themselves.

Chelten

Population:

Capitol City: Kett'nic'gan

Chelten is the middle-western province of the main landmass, stuck between Selvarm on the north, Khurun on the East, and Duba'en on the south. Three thousand kilometers out into the ocean lies the subcontinent of Sahai, where Chelten maintains territory along with Selvarm and Duba'en.

Chelten's western shore is extremely rocky and inhospitable, and houses only two major port cities. Only one city, Ohndec, is older than two centuries. Its sister city, Declan, was founded one hundred eighty winters ago after a three-year terraforming and landscaping project. A number of smaller fishing and lesser port towns dot the shoreline where the landscape can support them.

Chelten's economy is powered by fishing, farming, and imports/exports between the main continent and the subcontinent of Sahai.

Duba'en

Population:

Capitol City: Aclatl

Duba'en is one of the two southernmost provinces on the main landmass. Its landscape is a mixture of impenetrable tropical rainforest and dense swamp. Owing to the inhospitable environment, Duban cities are few and far between, but extremely sophisticated and densely populated. Approximately half of the Duban population, resides within its holdings on the subcontinent of Sahai.

During the Great Wars, efforts were made to try and clear more land within the province for conversion to other purposes, such as farming or cityscape, but ultimately met with failure.

Tourism, shipping, and maritime industries motivate the Duban economy.

Irandan

Population:

Capitol City: Akah-Sanzah

Irandan is the second southern province, taking up the eastern half of the tapered southern end of the primary continent. It shares the southeastern subcontinent of Cat-Mezah with Aenan. Like Duba'en, much of Irandan is uninhabitable jungle and swamp, bearing ancient scars of clearcutting and slash-burning attempts from ages past. Following their Duban neighbors, Irandi cities located inland are sparse, dense, and very technologically dependent. Much of the population is clustered along the coastlines, packed into the southern and northern arms of the mainland portions of the Ring Atoll, and scattered across resort towns surrounding the Basin Sea.

Naturally, Irandan relies greatly on tourism and maritime industry to motivate its economy.

Khurun

Population:

Capitol City: Ankaule

Lying dead center in the primary landmass, Khurun is a province of all rolling grasslands and open plains. Its abundance of arable land has been almost entirely converted to farming and herd grazing; Khurun produces nearly half of the homeworld's entire crop food supply.

Khurun also bears the anthropological distinction of being the cradle of Shen'ihr life. A valley known as "Kiz'ren al-zath'ki," has been confirmed by psychometric analysis to be the origin of modern Shen'ihr evolution. Bone fragments and skeletal remains uncovered in the valley have been confirmed to be over twenty thousand years old.

Selvarm

Population:

Capitol City: Vragesh

Historically, Selvarm has been a brutal, barbaric land. During the Great Wars it was the least developed of the nations, its survival owing largely to the higher-than-average mutation rate and exceptional savagery of its inhabitants. In the later years of the wars, Selvarm began to acquire and incorporate technology faster than it could understand the concepts, at the orders of their new ruler. When Varin Staciadon's Unification Wars began, Selvarm was the first province to be brought to heel, thwarted by the very technology they had so desperately tried to understand.

In modern times, Selvarm remains a harsh place. Not nearly as cold as the high-altitude province of Artur, Selvarm nevertheless maintains a great number of military installations, training facilities, and materiel manufacturing. The province has also expanded to acquire some holdings on the subcontinent of Sahai, which it shares with Badru and Chelten.

Mining plays an important role in the Selvish economy, as new mining techniques are developed to safely extract minerals and crystals from the deep parts of the Arturi plateau.