Shelloun

Annotated

The Eleven Formian Colonies of the Shelloun Savannahs

1. Krethuun

• Epithet: The First Burrow; Translation: “Where the Queen Breathes”
• Role: ancestral capital, origin colony
• Description: Krethuun is the ancient, ancestral burrow-colony of the Formians. A towering sandstone spire-city that rises impressively atop a vast savannah plateau that overlooks the steep cliffs of the Thousand-Step basin and the scintillating waves of Lake Evershimmer below. By morning, the long silvery tendrils of sea-mist draw in from the northern channel wake and lace around the spire like a veil before settling under the rising sun as glistening dew drops across the spire before the daily dutiful collection of dew-drones commences. The layers of the burrow colony delve deep, making the spire unique among the Formian colonies in its impressive span from the lowest tunnels of Deeprock to the highest savannah clouds with outlooks into the far ocean. Its structures are aged, but well maintained — gradually developed over generations of Formians and fastidiously kept by devoted keeper-drones of the Deep-Queen’s expansive brood. The hive society of Krethuun is the most intricate of the Formian Colonies and the region’s influence permeates the savannah as the cultural heart, intellectual center, and political throne of the Formian folk. Situated in a radial, concentric pattern surrounding the high spire of Krethuun are numerous sandstone mounds built in matching fashion which serve as outposts and minor settlements which extend the reach of the central spire and serve to coordinate cultivation and extraction of resources to support the colony.

2. Ska-Kaleth

• Epithet: The Foraging Crown; Translation: “Shared Hunger”
• Role: agricultural + migratory herds oversight
• Description: Ska’kaleth is an impressively intricate redoubt carved into the high, wind-shaped cliffs of the Upper Zarriel range which separates the lush and verdant jungle of the Malawani wilds from the wide forests and plains of the upper Shelloun Savannahs. Ska’kaleth specializes in husbandry and herding of their unique and varied breeds of Formian livestock. The carved mountain stronghold of Ska’kaleth rises high above the savannah forests of acacia, eucalyptus, and baobab trees with embanked high roads extending radially from the cliffs into the surrounding country where large timber ranches tend to the needs of the region’s roaming livestock. The Formians of Ska’kaleth are a highly independent folk with a culture of rugged self-sufficiency and pride for their ancestral cultivation of their lands. They are well-regarded among the colonies for their expertise in genetic refinement and advanced ridership that forms their formidable cavalry-based military. The colony has close ties to Krethuun as one of the first expansions of the Formian domain many millennia ago. Their superior breeds of beasts of burden and livestock are widely trades across the colonies to serve their many and varied logistical needs.

3. Urmak-Tel

• Epithet: The Amber Reliquary; Translation: “Many as One”
• Role: memory-keeping, ancestral history, funerary rites
• Description: Urmak-Tel serves as the ancient burial grounds of Formian kind and its colony specializes in funerary ritual, historical remembrance, and immortalization of Formian ancestry through sculpture, story, and art. Savannah grasslands of tall, golden stalks ripple in the wind around many impressive sculptures that stand vigilant over the landscape. The central burrow colony of Urmak-Tel is a long, winding gallery of beautifully carved chambers set into the lower cliffs of the Vinkuun rainbow mountains. The colony is unique among the Formians (which normally spire high or burrow deep) in that it extends wide and low across the base of the mountain range its carved into. The Urmak-Tel Formians take much greater care and attention toward intricate adornment of their structures and feature vibrant and grand statues of prominent Formian ancestors. Formians across the colonies aspire to serve their colony in life to be deemed worthy of internment within the hallowed catacombs of Urmak-Tel and the memory of their service to be preserved within Formian history. The colony have unique influence on the spiritual aspects of Formian life and is a center for the finer arts of cultural expression, philosophy, and story telling. While drones still serve to maintain and support the colony’s needs, its denizens are more independently driven by a unique creative spirit and live within a less stratified and structured society than other Formian colonies.

4. Dru-Vash

• Epithet: The Sunken Register; Translation: “Endless Burrow”
• Role: resource stockpiling, preserved biomass, banking, craft trades
• Description: Dru-Vash is a predominantly sub-terranean Formian colony with many layers of labyrinthine tunnels that only the formian mind and physiology can navigate with ease. On the surface, the colony’s central structures are a trio of tall, spiral mounds built of daub, clay, and fiber with deep ravine-caverns between them that descend into the Deeprock. It surrounding domain is a dispersed savannah forest of acacia and baobab trees that sprawls across over the bluffs and down into the Vash’tal river valley below. Throughout this landscape, several smaller spiral spire-mounds pop up from the tunnels below which serve as entrances into the subterranean complex and minor settlements that oversee resource extraction such as logging, hunting, farming, and foraging. The Dru-Vash colony has historically served a utilitarian purpose for its neighbor colonies as a protective storage of stockpiled reserves to stabilize against drought and blight. In recent centuries however, increased trading with the Formian’s neighbors (The Clans of Terkon, Dragar, and Zarriel) has lead to the advancement of Dru-Vash from stores of food and material to expand into banking and craft. Its society is less stratified than most Formian colonies and though the majority of its denizens remain the drones which tend to the colony stockpiles, there is a growing population of mid-caste crafters, traders, and bankers.

5. Threxai

• Epithet: The Unbroken Line; Translation: “Remembered Path”
• Role: wilderness ranging, logging, hunting, mining
• Description: Carved around a lone mountain standing away from the red-rock wall of the towering Zarriel range to the west, Threxai stands as a crossroads between the distinct landscapes of the Formian colonies and a vigil post over the ancient mountain way. Beyond the colony through the narrow valley of Malwai lies the dense jungle wilds of Malawani. To its north stretches the extensive savannah forests of giant trees and ferns fed by the waters of the Threxai rush which flows in cascades of glacial melt off the high Zarriel mountains. To its south lies the parched and cracked landscape of Volxai — a flat highland desert that features many grand volcanic springs, geysers, and pools. Threxai is more sparsely developed than the more northern and coastal Formian colonies and its people have a greater sense of independence and individualism compared to the highly structured societies of other colonies. Drones still serve a central role in the labor and maintenance of the colony, but are directed in less centralized, more family-like units which each focus on different aspects of life on the frontier. Some families of the colony specialize in ranging into the Malwani jungles for rare herbs and game while those closer to home focus on mining the rich minerals of Volxai and logging the Threxai river valley. Throughout the landscape surrounding the mountain spire of its central burrow are smaller semi-subterranean burrows that serve as the centers for Threxais many familial estates and ranches.

6. Kha’ren Vox

1. Epithet: The Chorus of Mandibles; Translation: “The Speaking Swarm”
2. Role: political coordination / inter-colony consensus, agriculture, industry
3. Description: The colony of Kha’ren Vox serves as a central cross-roads and meeting place of the formian colonies with denizens of varied origins from across the region that have either settled ther after displacement from their home colony, in-transit to other colonies, or visiting on inter-colony affairs. The central colony of Kha’ren Vox sits upon the flattened top of a tall and wide lone mountain of granite which stands over a vast verdant flatland of tall grasses bordered by lightly farmed riverlands and sparse savannah forests. The architecture of the mountain-top colony is an eclectic mix of the other formian colonies arranged in an orderly pattern of radially sectioned districts. The interior of the colony’s mountain is hollowed and its districts descend vertically within until they reach the Deep Road tunnels below which connect to the colony’s neighboring regions. A collection of several more organically formed neighborhoods are accumulated around the base of the mountain on its eastern side and around a highland lake with pathways that extend into the sparsely populated countryside where small, secluded ranches and settlements of varied formian heritage have established semi-independent communities.

7. Mol-Kareth

1. Epithet: The Great Exchange; Translation: “Sea Gate”
2. Role: sea-port, navy, diplomacy, trade, fishing
3. Description: First in stature of the southern colonies, Mol-Kareth is proud in its contradictions. The colony is sustained by productive forests and abundant fisheries, but its wealth and influence flow from its control of the mouth of the Savoxai river, with powerful merchant families and their privateer fleets ensuring Mol-Kareth’s dominance of Shelloun’s trade with wider Vitaea. These wealthy families vie for influence over the Queen Elect and her palace atop Sea Gate, while petty queens maintain extraction settlements along the Savoxai and in the plains to the north. Mol-Kareth spans the Savoxai in grand testament to Formian engineering, and its foreign trade and freewheeling politics grant the city a cosmopolitan flair. This prosperity and distracted governance has made the colony a haven for free thinkers of all sorts, from aspiring biomancers wishing to learn at the Aquatectarate to dissidents whispering in public house backrooms and private creches. If change is to come to the eleven colonies, its rising tide will be felt first at Sea Gate.

8. Orrukesh

1. Epithet: The Deep Hold; Translation: “Fire Stone”
2. Role: frontier-land, quarrying, mining, rare minerals extraction
3. Description: Orrukesh, The Deep Hold, is a colony of formians who’ve adapted specially to thrive within the harsh, volcanic, desert highlands of their domain. The central burrow-colony occupies a massive, miles-wide caldera crater that descends deep into a cavernous pit obscured by drifts of geyser steam and noxious smoke. Their architecture is dense and industrial with sturdy structures designed for function with simple and efficient forms; though unique from the industrial developments of other races in their usage of grown chitinous structures in place of metal and solidified, once-molten stone cast into place in place of masonry. Much of the colony’s surrounding domain appears bleak and uninhabited but for occassional chimneys of similar chitinous and molten stone construction which serve as ventilation shafts for the colony’s vast underground infrastructure. To the region’s western and northern reaches are towering cliffs of basalt, smoke-stained andesite, and occasional lava flows. The air is perpetually hazy with smoke, occasionally broken by areas of concentrated mist-geysers and sulfurous pools which produce streams that trickle into a vast red stone canyon that carves down the center of the land. During the season of thaw, the center of this immense canyon rushes with a violent course of glacier-melt descended from the towering peaks of Zarriel to the west and north which dries up in the season of frost to leave the canyon bed a cracked waste of ash and dust.

9. Kal-Vash

1. Epithet: The Deep Roads; Translation: “Sprawling Burrow”
2. Role: transit, logistics, connection, agriculture
3. Description: Kal-Vash is known across the formian colonies as the grand entrance to the extensive network of tunnel-roads which sprawl out underground within the Deep Rock of Shelloun toward Kharen-Vox, Mol-Kareth, and the colonies further north. The colony’s central burrow spans several well-ordered tiers carved out of the southern rock face of a lone mountain which stands above a vast herding grasslands and lush floodplains with extensive farms. The top-most tier of the colony-mount is flattened off and features a lush, forested garden with ziggurat temples and palaces with cascading cataracts that flows through the colony in aqueducts lined with vibrant tiles that distribute water through the squarely carved stone neighborhoods of the lower tiers before descending into the depths through the grand gate of the deep-roads at the colony’s lowest tier. Colorfully glazed ceramics and gem-inlaid masonry are characteristic of the colony’s architecture according to the tradition of the esteemed craft guilds of the colony which form the colony’s primary societal structure. From extending and maintaining the roads beneath to cultivating the rich farmlands on the surface and every role in-between the formians of Kal-Vash have a robust system for placing each young formian into the guild role which best suits their abilities and best serves the colony. Without a central queen, the colony is overseen by a council of guild-queens of each of the colony’s trades who each have purview over their guild’s craft and make collective determinations in matters that cross guild domains.

10. Esh-Tovar

1. Epithet: The Chitin Rise; Translation: “Last Signal”
2. Role: frontier-land, fishing, logging, salt extraction, border & sea vigil
3. The formian colony of Esh-Tovar is unique among all others in its lack of a prominent, centralized burrow-colony where the plurality of its denizens live. Instead, across the region’s highlands of tall grass plains and lowlands of coastal savannah forests are many compounds where family-clans of formians have established their livelihoods over generations. These compounds vary in construction and make ample use of their surrounding materials but a common characteristic among them is the usage of a unique form of construction using massive chitinous structures seemingly grown from the earth. Some of these settlements even have components which twitch and move in response to nearby stimulus and highly advanced structures make use of these living structures for mechanical purpose such as milling, digging, and various forms of resource processing. They also commonly have features designed for the collection and maintenance of the fog-dew that rolls in from the coast which is condensed by the local formians to fill mirror-like retention pools, canals, and fountains. On a prominent ridge of the highlands — overlooking the lowland forests of eucalyptus, acacia, baobab, and ferns — is the cultural and political center of the colony: a circle of uniquely crafted compounds of Esh-Tovari fashion surrounding a central pavilion encircled by a henge of tall chitinous spires. These central grounds are shared by the many family-clans of the region as a meeting and market grounds, enabling them to trade for needed resources and discuss decisions the loosely associated colony must make collectively. Each family-clan focuses on sustaining their livelihoods in this coastal frontier in varying ways ranging from fishing, logging, mining, hunting, and foraging with ample cooperation between them to trade for the different materials they need to sustain their subsistence on the land.

11. Rej-Kareth

1. Epithet: The Vigil Ward; Translation: “Land Gate”
2. Role: border stronghold, military development, diplomacy, trade, border vigil
3. Description: Carved into the wind-cut chasms and ravines of a grand mesa of red rock, the colony of Rej-Kareth is a sprawling fortress of labyrinthine complexity and tiered layers of defense that reflect its society of hierarchy through strength and prowess. The denizens of Rej-Kareth are organized into coalitions of war-tribes of varying size and specialty that vie with one another for domain and prestige within their shared colony through competitive conquest and pillaging of the southern plains of Terkon. Each war-tribe fashions constructs their building in slightly different fashion from the region’s local materials, giving the sprawling colony several distinctive themes within its many districts. Some fashion impressive, suspended woven structures from leaves, trees, and vines that connect to opposing walls of the colony ravine walls. Others craft structures of mud, daub, stone, and wood that cling to the walls and within cracks within the mesa. While others still shape their domain by carving the very stone of the mesa into structures that serves their needs and connect to deep tunnel holds and repositories. While competitively antagonistic between war-tribes, and minor skirmishes and territorial tussles oft occur, the conflict between the clans of Rej-Kareth is tempered by their shared enemies in the nomadic, marauding tribes of non-formians that inhabit the plains of Terkon to the region’s south. Uniquely, the colony also has several queens (distinguished by the competing war-tribes they lead) who recognize that while they compete for resources again their neighbors, its in the best interests of the colony for animosity between tribes is managed and directed at the shared southern threat. The landscape surrounding the colony’s sprawl is a flat, arid, sandy scrubland sparsely populated by oft-pillaged outposts hidden within the shadows of scattered baobob trees, barrel cactuses of impressive size, and occasional “forests” of red stone spires and hoodoos carved by the region’s harsh sandy winds from an ancient, crumbling mesa.