I've been trying to write a series of short stories that I could post on here periodically, but even after a dozen or so pages, I can't seem to make myself go back and edit them just because they lack any sort of inherent theme. That, and this blog was created for the sole purpose of detailing the very specific world of "Ailsglyph", which is something I haven't written about in quite awhile, so maybe I should just go back to writing short stories about that world and the people who inhabit it.
So what is Ailsglyph? Well, in short, Ailsglyph is a city with no discernible leadership, Ailsglyph is centered around a giant library that is considered by the inhabitants of the "Known World" to be the birthplace of all modern mythology. The books there are written in many different tongues, and there's so many books about just about anything you can think of that scholars tend to spend their entire lives there trying to understand the secrets of the library.
Part of the library's mystique is that it is generally known knowledge that the world has only existed for about five hundred years. Not all of the books are dated, but most are, and none go further back than that. The earliest recorded event found was when the kings of Ailsglyph and Aulfore made a truce with each other that ended whatever dark ages that preceded it, though no one alive today knows what life was like before this event. It was in celebration of this even that the library was constructed, a calendar system was invented, and books from all the world came to Ailsglyph to populate the new massive library.
Library aside, Ailsglyph is broken up into over 20 distinct districts, though many districts overlap. Each district has it's own style of self-management, and the interactions between the people of power over any of these districts comprise the politics of the city. The city is a bit unique in that the surrounding rural areas tend to reside the most eccentric, downright crazy people in the Known World. While some of their stories are so surreal that they border on insanity and the impossible, even well respected and trusted people tend to have wild stories of their own when they visit these areas. It's assumed that the local wildlife in that area tend to have lots of hallucinogenic plants, and those living in symbiosis with the wild tend to have their own unique worldview. Surprisingly, for bordering such a large city, the people who live here aren't very well known, and tend to keep to themselves.
The Known World is the universally accepted name for the world as they know it, because everyone is quite aware that there is an "unknown world", and the names given to the collective world vary radically depending on belief system. The Known World is well chartered, as the border consists of a deep fog that no one dares to venture further in lest they disappear forever.
There are four major kingdoms: Ailsglyph, Aulfore, Koliego, and Dourian. Aulfore is the largest and most powerful empire and has a tendency towards conquest, but due to the alliance with Ailsglyph and the nature behind the alliance, they remain on friendly terms today. Ailsglyph as a kingdom don't tend to think of themselves as land-owners, so much as a people with a variance of an intellectual perspective on the world. Their 'towns' tend to be districts in other cities, or farming and trading outposts scattered across the roads. A lot of Ailsglyph tribes are nomadic, and most tend to stay inside the forests.
Dourian and Aulfore were never major enemies, but Aulfore did tend to create lots of brigand groups who found Dourian cities easier targets than others. Because of this, Dourian's legacy was cut short, and now consists almost entirely of ruins and towns suffering from poverty. Dourian cities are the most abundant across the Known World, and some cities are more organized than others, but Dourian has long lost any semblance of central leadership, and even now, many factions are trying to gain power to become a mighty kingdom again.
As for Koliego... well, they stick to themselves mostly, given the nature of the Known World's layout, they aren't an easily invaded nation. They have some of the most disciplined and trained warriors in the Known World, but probably the least experienced when it comes to veteran experience, since no one cares much to take their territory. Their land isn't very fertile, most of it is desert actually, and the people tend to value artistic qualities than material wealth. As such, they are not part of the global conflict on a major scale.
Anyway, the point of Ailsglyph isn't to detail some fantasy epic, it's actually a meditation on belief systems, and the premise actually originated from a discussion on how dumb magic can be when it comes to facilitating a coherent plot-line.
So why do I want to write a bunch of short stories explaining this fantasy land? Well, I have a larger story in mind, but the origin of Ailsglyph is pretty important in understanding the central premise of the story. Also, I'll admit, there's hundreds of opportunities for pulp fiction in a setting like this that could lend a hand in me re-gaining my creative strength, but really... I just want to create a foundation for an imagined world that other people can be a part of so that I can more easily play my little mind games on them.
