No Gods. No Magic. Only Everyday Choices.
Where do you cast your anchor? Is it fixed in the shifting sands of peer pressure, or is it buried in the bedrock of a truth that costs you everything?
Read the stories. Search for your reflection.
Choose Your Path
Introduction to The Records of Thalevir
In Thalevir, there are no gods or religion, no prophets nor priests, no magic or monsters. The choices people make and the opportunities they dare to seize govern this world. Without a central moral anchor, ethics are a matter of geography and personality: Guild codes and local law dictate morals in the cities and villages; the rawest human impulses, selfishness or selflessness, sacrifice or hedonism, rule morals in the wild. The consequences of these choices depend entirely on the reactions of those around them.
These records document the psychological realism of a civilization built on the grounded physics of its soil and the shifting motivations of those who walk it.
The Geography of Thalevir
Thalevir [THAL-EH-VEER] is the setting of Hile and Phine [Fine] and The Mushkinek [MEW-SHKIH-NEHK] Uprising. It is a world of quiet beauty and sudden violent upheaval, of buried memories and half-forgotten truths. While its people navigate the anchorless morality of their daily lives, the world itself remains divided by vast, indifferent geography.
Of the four continents, only two are known to have ever been inhabitable: Cendomvita [SIN-DOHM-VEE-TAH] and Orudara [OH-ROOH-DAHR-AH]. Each continent believes itself alone in a silent sea, their existence to one another remembered only in whispers of fragmented myths and half-forgotten legends.
About Cendomvita: The Continent of the Seven Kingdoms
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Origins
Cendomvita is a continent defined by what its people chose to forget. Thousands of years before the stories I share, a great scourge is said to have arisen in Orudara. This scourge was not a scourge of nature, but of man’s selfishness and innate evil. In desperation, countless people fled seeking survival across the sea. Many eventually landed along the coasts of Cendomvita. The rest were presumed lost to the sea.
The Rise of the Seven Kingdoms
The known survivors spread across the continent, establishing small settlements along the coasts. Over centuries, the settlements grew into villages, and the villages into towns. As civilization rebuilt itself, the Seven Kingdoms and Four Free Trade Zones were born.
Cendomvitan Society
This new society centered itself on peaceful trade, both among and between its peoples. Every trade, legal or illicit, eventually formed guilds to regulate their practices and help unify the Seven Kingdoms. Among these, the Information Guild became the most powerful, entrusted with gathering and disseminating knowledge. In time, they shaped and controlled the narrative.
Most inhabitants of Cendomvita, whether by neglect or by design, forgot the truth of their ancestors’ migration. Eventually, only a single account remained. It was etched into a massive stone tablet, a record of their flight and arrival. In its infancy, the Information Guild took possession of the tablet. Its leaders, fearing what might happen if the people sought to return to what once was, broke the tablet into pieces. They hid each fragment across Cendomvita, not where they might be found by chance, but where they might be discovered by those who knew to look.
They left clues behind, just enough for the initiated to rediscover what had been buried, should the need ever return.
Geopolitical Structure
Vidora [VEE-DOH-RAH]
Vidora encompasses the entire east coast of Cendomvita. In scholarly circles, Vidora is seen as an “island” nation because its western border is entirely fresh water flowing from Lake Kosak, while its northern, southern, and eastern borders are saltwater seas. Surrounded by water on all sides, Vidora holds a distinct geographic and cultural identity within Cendomvita.
Vidora’s capital, Ostengate (AH-STIHN-GAYT), a carefully planned port city, radiates a network of straight boulevards leading directly to the palace at its center, with thick, high walls fortifying the landward side. It is home to the prominent Guild houses for all the major guilds. The city commands a deep-water harbor crowded with merchant sails and warships alike, serving as the trade center of the east and the home to Cendomvita’s largest navy and shipping fleet.
Vidora’s monarchy has always been strong and usually considered fair to its citizens, balancing order with confident prosperity. Its rulers have earned a legacy of decisive leadership, stepping up during times of crisis, dispatching swift aid after storms and floods, brokering peace when wars threaten the stability of Cendomvita, and assisting with reconstruction well after the battles fade.
Vidora is bordered on the southwest by Elowen, on the middle coast by the Eslading free trade zone, and on the northwest by Rusmaria. The Central Mountains end their geographic dominance on the western edge of Vidora, giving way to rugged foothills and steep-cut valleys. Coastal plains extend fifty miles inland along most of Vidora’s coasts, their salt-warmed breezes carrying the calls of distant gulls.
Tall, ancient coniferous forests dominate northern Vidora and the Vidoran foothills, their resinous scent clinging to the cold air. Beautiful, broad-leaf deciduous forests spread across Vidora’s southern regions, bursting with color in the short, brilliant autumns.
Vidora’s economy is driven by forestry, mining, agriculture, trade, and fishing. Vidora’s eastern sea and the Gulf of Vidora host an unmatched variety of edible sea creatures, filling the harbors each dawn with the clatter of crates and the briny smell of fresh catch.
Rusmaria [RUHS-MAR-EE-YAH]
Rusmaria stands on Cendomvita’s northern coast, bounded by Vidora to the east, Yisea to the west, and the unforgiving central mountains to the south, where its borders touch Elowen and Ognenstrof. Carved into the harsher edges of the continent, it is a kingdom shaped less by abundance than by endurance.
Long regarded as a peripheral power by its neighbors, Rusmaria has survived precisely because it never relied on comfort or excess. Its people value discipline over luxury and preparation over optimism. In place of cities, villages dot the landscape, which is dominated by dense northern forests and the rising mountains to the south. Each generation is raised with a clear understanding of scarcity, vigilance, and consequence.
Rusmaria exists because of its natural resources rather than its arable land. Mining, lumber, fishing, and hunting for the fur trade form the backbone of its economy. The forest soil is poorly suited to large-scale farming, yet determined villagers maintain small plots, coaxing modest harvests of vegetables from the land each year through persistence rather than fertility.
Rusmarian politics mirror the land itself: pragmatic, guarded, and slow to change. Alliances are entered cautiously and abandoned only at great cost. Loyalty, once earned, runs deep, but trust is never freely given. Power is maintained through preparedness and reputation rather than spectacle, making Rusmaria a quiet but consequential presence within the shifting balance of the Seven Kingdoms.
When wider conflicts ripple across Cendomvita, Rusmaria rarely ignites them. Instead, it waits, watches, and endures, surviving even as other kingdoms fracture beneath the weight of ambition.
Yisea [YIH-SEE-AH]
Yisea, also known as the Yisean Empire, lies between Maghrabi to the west and Rusmaria to the east. The Central Mountains stretch across Yisea’s southern third, rising steeply from the shores of Lake Mahyim (MAH-HIGH-YEEM) before slowly descending into the desert and rolling foothills to the north, which defines Yisea’s southern border. The western plains give way to forested foothills and dense woods as one travels east. To the north lies Seagull Bay, a large crescent inlet of the Northern Ocean surrounded by sheer white cliffs, a striking destination for travelers wealthy enough and bold enough to brave the stormy northern trade winds.
The Valenrun [VAH-LIHN-RUN] River runs swift and narrow from the southern highlands through Yisea’s rolling grasslands into the sea, deepening and widening only near its mouth, where Caerwyn, Yisea’s capital, is located.
Yisea is known mostly for its herds and ranches, boasting the finest cavalry in all Cendomvita. Unlike Rusmaria, its eastern neighbor, Yisea has a history of aggression without territorial ambition. Some speculate that Yisea’s monarchs initiate conflict out of restlessness rather than need. Others suggest that Yisea offers its strength to any cause that promises disruption, whether a border skirmish or a distant uprising.
Because of the northwestern desert and its sparsely populated interior, the Northern Trade Route generally following the coast is the only major road crossing Yisea. Yisea also boasts excellent fishing in Seagull Bay, where chalk white cliffs tower above cold, turbulent waters.
Maghrabi [MAH-GRAH-BEE]
Maghrabi lies in northwestern Cendomvita. Its coastal foothills and the Maghrabi Sound to the north are blanketed in lush forests, rich with timber for coveted shipbuilding supplies, but the desert extends from the coastal plains south and west, stopping at the base of the Central Mountains and near the Olydran [OH-LEE-DRAHN] River, which forms its western border with Yisea. Maghrabi is bordered on the east by Yisea and on the south by Hireotha. Fertile plains emerge as one approaches the Yisean border. The Maghrabi Sound, with its four main islands and two outlets to the Northern Ocean, defines the kingdom’s northern border. Maghrabi’s capital, Thalyra [THAH-LEER-AH], rests where the foothills meet the advancing sands, standing guard at the edge of two worlds.
Maghrabi’s economy thrives on the export of fine desert glass, rare minerals, aromatic resins, and timber from its northern forests, drawing merchants from across Cendomvita. Though friendly to its neighbors, Maghrabi maintains a highly responsive tribal military structure rooted in clan allegiance rather than centralized command, a legacy of its desert peoples who remain vital to national defense. Because more than half of Maghrabi is coastline, the Pirate Guild exerts a clandestine influence along remote shores, despite the efforts of Maghrabi’s small but formidable navy, which uses its resources to protect trade routes and hunt pirates as a point of pride.
Hireotha [HIH-REE-OH-THAH]
Hireotha sits in the southwestern corner of Cendomvita. Its capital, Maadigan (MEH-ADD-IH-GAHN), is located high on the Mulcour (MUHL-COOR) River, which remains ocean navigable deep into the interior. Hireotha’s position makes it the only kingdom with direct access to two Free Trade Zones, Weslading and Solading. Much of its coastline is lined with rocky cliffs, though several broad bays support active ports and sheltered harbors, and busy fishing villages lie along the Ashen Gulf. Hireotha boasts broad farmland and consistently favorable growing conditions. Hireotha is well known as a kingdom of strict laws and dependable justice, a reputation that fosters both prosperity and security.
Maadigan has long served as the continent’s premier center of learning, home to its most prestigious archives and scholars. The crown sponsors both the Royal Maadigan University, the foremost center of academic research in Cendomvita, and the Cendomvitian Academy for Military Strategy, where officers and tacticians from across the continent come to study war and governance. Like Ostengate, all major guilds are represented in Maadigan, making it the most influential commercial hub in the western kingdoms. Paradoxically, both the Pirate Guild and the Thieves Guild maintain a strong presence in Maadigan’s underworld, thriving in the quiet spaces beneath its academic and civic order.
The kingdom shares borders with Maghrabi to the north and Ognenstrof to the east. The Thundering River, which empties into the Roaring Outlet, forms part of its northern boundary with Maghrabi, while the Central Mountains with their high foothills and the Emerald River define the eastern border.
Elowen [EH-LOH-WHEN]
Elowen is a kingdom located on the continent of Cendomvita in the fictional world of Thalevir. Elowen lies just west of Vidora on Cendomvita’s coast. Its capital, Elmsdover, is located at the mouth of the Encalm River near the center of the southern coast. Much of Elowen consists of fertile, low plains stretching inland beneath wide, open skies.
The eastern border is defined by the Deep River flowing from Kosak Falls, cutting through a great canyon until it reaches Lake Irreamptum. From Lake Irreamptum, the Deep River joins the Elowen River along the Vidoran Escarpment until they meet the sea, forming a large, swampy marsh-choked delta where reeds whisper above the slow waters. The land along the Elowen River is characterized by broad, humid swamps alive with insects and the sharp scent of peat.
Elowen is bordered on the west by the Emerald River, which separates it from Ognenstrof. The land along the Emerald River rises into low foothills where small farms cling to higher ground above frequent floods. Northern Elowen extends into the great Central Mountains, where cooler highlands support herds and hardy villages carved into the stone.
Major trade routes run across northern and southern Elowen, with one following the Elowen River from the coast to the northern trade route and another following the Encalm River from Elmsdover into the northern road network. Seasonal caravans carry modest wealth to and from the heart of the continent.
Elowen is primarily an agricultural kingdom. Its products range from greens and grains to vibrant exotic plants and cultivated fungi, nourished by rich black soil and frequent coastal rains. Since Cendomvita is pre-industrial, Elowen’s fresh produce and meat rarely travel far beyond its borders, making durable grains its primary export and food security both its strength and its vulnerability.
The Elowen monarchs have been known historically as notoriously hands-off in their leadership style, allowing advisors and courtiers to handle the details of ruling. Each ruler has been known to indulge in decadent vices, their pleasures whispered about in courtly halls while governance drifts into the hands of those who understand power better than the crown does.
Ognenstrof [AHG-NIN-STRAF]
Ognenstrof sits between Elowen on the east, bounded by the Avenreach (AH-VIHN-REECH) River, and Hireotha, bounded by the Emerald River on the west. To the north it meets Yisea and Maghrabi, while to the south it shares a short border with Rusmaria at the edge of the Central Mountains. Although Ognenstrof controls the Ashen Peninsula, this volcanic region remains largely uninhabitable. With so many neighbors and access to multiple waterways, Ognenstrof occupies one of the most strategically connected positions in Cendomvita. Because of its multiple borders, its monarch maintains a strong and highly mobile army and Cendomvita’s only freshwater navy, stationed on Lake Mahyim.
Draventh (DRAH-VINTH), its capital, is both the largest city in Cendomvita and the most densely populated. The Emerald River flows through Draventh before turning south to meet the Ashen Gulf, while the Avenreach River supports a vital eastern trade corridor along the border with Elowen. These waterways sustain commerce deep inland and bind the capital to the sea.
Ancient settlements on both sides of the peninsula suggest that Ognenstrof may be home to some of the oldest continuous habitation in Cendomvita. The region’s wealth is driven by gem mining, a legacy of its ancient volcanic terrain. Ognenstrof has always attracted enterprising and fiercely independent people, so some say that it is second only to the Free Trade Zones in looseness of law.
Each of the Seven Kingdoms is bordered inland by one or more autonomous Free Trade Zones, positioned roughly at the major cardinal directions. Unlike the kingdoms, these zones are governed by councils consisting of one representative from each of the major guilds and a set of elected at large members. The councils each appoint a president to conduct meetings and cast the tie breaking vote, ensuring guild aligned leadership.
The Free Trade Zones house the primary headquarters of most major Guilds, serving as hubs for their training, governance, and strategic operations. This concentration of Guild power grants the zones significant political influence among the kingdoms, with the Transportation Guild often guiding long distance economic policy. In their long history, no kingdom has dared to assault a Guild House anywhere in Cendomvita.
As a result, these zones exercise both economic and political autonomy while shaping the regions they intersect. Each sustains a strong military presence and a highly professional law enforcement industry, fielding elite forces powerful enough to defeat the armies of any one kingdom. This unmatched deterrence makes the Free Trade Zones widely regarded as the safest places to live and work in Cendomvita.
Eslading is located in a large valley at the southeastern base of the Central Mountains. The Free Trade Zone city of Eslading serves as the regional capital, positioned at the crossroads of the eastern interior north south trade route and the southern east west trade route running along the edge of the Central Mountains.
Eslading borders Vidora and Elowen at Lake Kosak and connects trade into eastern Rusmaria, making it a vital distribution hub for goods entering or leaving the eastern interior. Because it serves as a direct shortcut from Vidora’s ports to central and northern markets, caravans and river barges rely on Eslading to bypass the long coastal circuit. This location grants the zone an outsized role in Cendomvitan commerce.
The Eslading Council has historically maintained strong ties with the Vidoran monarchy because of its proximity to Ostengate. Although distant from Maadigan, Eslading has also sent many prominent citizens to study at the Royal Maadigan University and at the Cendomvitian Academy for Military Strategy, cementing close relationships with Hireotha’s intellectual and military elite.
Nolading is strategically located on the Probnipex River on the Rusmaria Yisea border at the last point inland where ocean going ships can navigate. It is also the first place that the Probnipex River can be bridged, creating a natural convergence of routes and making it strategically important for travel and trade. Nolading is the only Free Trade Zone connected to a route that runs directly through the heart of the Central Mountains, allowing rare passage across the continent’s interior.
Because neither Yisea nor Rusmaria are well populated, Nolading is the smallest and least populated of the Free Trade Zones, though its crossroads location ensures a continuous flow of merchants and travelers.
Weslading is located on the western edge of Lake Orendil, the westernmost of Cendomvita’s great lakes, on the border of Maghrabi and Hireotha. Weslading sits at an altitude of approximately one mile despite its proximity to the Roaring Inlet, a unique position where mountain air meets coastal storms.
Weslading serves as the primary connection between the sea and the Maghrabi desert. Despite the steep roads into Weslading, its proximity to Maadigan allows certain goods to move more efficiently between northern and southern markets, making it a valuable shortcut for select trade flows across the western kingdoms.
Solading sits less than 100 miles from Draventh, Ognenstrof’s capital, and less than 300 miles from Maadigan, Hireotha’s capital. Its strategic location is enhanced by the fact that ocean going vessels cannot travel further upriver, making Solading the final deep water port on the route inland. The southern east west trade route crosses just north of Solading, placing it at the heart of western commerce. Unlike in the other Free Trade Zones where the Transportation Guild is supreme, the Information Guild wields the most influence in Solading, guiding both policy and surveillance across the region.
Solading is home to the first Information Guild House, believed to have been established millennia earlier by a refugee named Messo, and archaeological evidence suggests that Solading grew from one of the oldest settlements in Cendomvita. Solading has a view of the Central Mountains to the north and the distant smoke rising from the northernmost of the Ashen Peninsula’s volcanoes to the south. Solading is, by far, the most densely populated of the Free Trade Zones, a bustling crossroads where northern, southern, and maritime routes converge.
Geography and Natural Features
The central mountains dominate Cendomvita, beginning near the Fountain of the Roaring River in the west and stretching eastward, growing in both elevation and breadth until reaching the Vidoran Divide near the eastern edge of the continent. This mountain range is defined by tall, jagged peaks and deep valleys.
Three prominent freshwater lakes, the Cendomvitian Great Lakes, are located within these mountains:
- Lake Kosak — Notable for its rare bifurcated drainage across the continental divide, Lake Kosak feeds rivers both to the North Sea and the southern plains, despite its high elevation and the surrounding tall peaks.
- Lake Mahyim — The largest and deepest lake in Cendomvita. It sits just north of the continental divide and touches the borders of four kingdoms, serving as a vital water and trade resource.
- Lake Orendil — The western-most of the great lakes of the central mountains and forms the headwaters of the roaring river. It is located in a broad peaceful valley surrounded on three sides by steep mountains. Cliffs topped by barren flat rock form on the west creating a windy channel for the roaring river. Those who have been there know it’s not the river that roars so much as the wind coming through the gorge.
The borders of Cendomvita’s kingdoms are largely shaped by the continent’s major river systems. The unusual bifurcated drainage of Lake Kosak creates a nominal island kingdom, Vidora, separated from the rest of the continent by two major rivers. Yisea is another such nominal island: Lake Mahyim forms its southern border, while the lake’s two outlets, the Olydran River and the Probnipex River, define its eastern and western boundaries.
Another defining feature is the Ashen Peninsula, located within the kingdom of Ognenstrof. This region is marked by a chain of volcanoes, many now dormant or only mildly active. The volcanic chain extends into the southern Central Mountains, contributing to both seismic instability and mineral wealth throughout the region.
The Records
Cendomvita is the central setting of The Mushkinek Uprising, The Vidoran Crisis (Trilogy), and Eslading’s Exiles (in works) and the broader chronicles of Hile and Phine. For much of their recorded narrative, Cendomvita is believed to be the entirety of the known world.
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- Thaleviran Standalones
- The Vidoran Crisis
- Eslading's Exiles
About Orudara: The Forgotten Homeland
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Origins
Long before the rise of the Seven Kingdoms, before the founding of Maadigan or the forging of the Free Trade Zones, there was Orudara, the first land, the cradle of humanity, and the wellspring of every people who walk the earth.
Though little is known of its original form, Orudara is believed to lie far to the south of Cendomvita, across the same ocean that carried the earliest refugees into the northern continents thousands of years ago. So thoroughly has it been forgotten that, for much of history, its very existence was regarded as little more than myth, until scattered records, fractured stone tablets, and rare returned voyagers revealed a truth older than any crown or council.
Because its existence was long doubted, geographers never even speculated on its shape or size. For millennia, boats and ships of all kinds, carrying the bravest, most curious, and most foolhardy of explorers, set out southward seeking Orudara only to vanish without trace. Still, the legends suggest a continent of similar size and climate to Cendomvita, a place of forests and mountains, lakes and rivers, shaped as though a puzzle piece that might fit neatly against Cendomvita’s southern coast. Geographers and geologists scoffed at that idea for as long as their disciplines had been practiced, calling it the greatest fabrication in the history of Cendomvita.
Legends say that Orudara once flourished with its own kingdoms, guilds, and scholars. Its people grew prosperous and proud. But in the era known only as the Time of Flight, a great scourge, unnamed, undefined, and unspeakable, swept across the land. Whether it was war, plague, rebellion, or something more sinister has been lost to time. The oldest record known to exist in the Solading Information Guild simply reads:
Thousands fled by sea.
They sailed north.
They reached a new shore.
And then… they forgot.
Upon its establishment, the Information Guild guarded the final thread connecting Cendomvita to its true past. They fractured the stone tablet that held the account of the migration and secreted the pieces throughout the continent. Each fragment carries not just history, but the dangerous possibility of return.
Just a few years before the scholar known in this world as Famous Person disappeared from Cendomvita, a group of refugees landed on the southern shores of Ognenstrof. They carried with them a fantastic tale of flight from Orudara right before what became known as the Raven Cataclysm. They bore records of the existence, shape, and size of Orudara.
They talked of an indigenous people who welcomed them upon arrival and taught them the lay of the land. They told of ancient cities, long abandoned and now overgrown by dense forests and jungles. They spoke of peace and prosperity, plagues and conflicts. Perhaps most importantly, they brought back tales of the great scourge, an affliction their forefathers thought they had left behind but had carried with them.
This scourge lay dormant among them before erupting into outbreak. Sometimes the outbreaks would be decades apart. Toward the end, however, the outbreaks became more frequent and more concentrated until someone labeled them epidemics. Finally, the entire continent became infected, and the final pandemic sent these refugees home.
No, they assured the gathered scholars, this scourge was not contagious in the traditional sense. It was the scourge of selfishness accompanied by the waning of compassion for fellow human beings. During their more than two centuries in Orudara, they discovered that the indigenous people had experienced the same scourge thousands of years earlier. Only a few survived, and their need to help each other survive burned out the remaining scourge until the Cendomvitan refugees unwittingly brought it back.
Records Set in Orudara
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- Thaleviran Standalones
Orudara is one setting for the short story, Before the Seven Kingdoms, and is the planned setting for an epic spanning more than two centuries of civilization. For now, however, the existence of Orudara remains a mystery to all but the select few who read this page.
