Lor'Avvu

1. Kaian
   About the Main Setting
2. The Jeenare
   The Dominant Species: A Faerie People
3. A World Map
   The Fairly Undisputed Continents

Kaian

Kaian aka Pan aka Mænd is a planet like our own, except more. It’s older. It’s bigger. It’s bluer. It’s more watery.

It is also less populated by humanoids, less diverse in civilizations, less alone in the universe … Less green (but no less overgrown – the dominant color of plants on Kaian is purple!)

Kaian is the largest character in Lor’Avvu. It has gone through many stages of rebalancing, from extinctions, cataclysms and wars to great evolutions, cosmic performances and incredible dances on its global stage. It has thoroughly come to terms with its history of interactions with all the strange bodies, spirits and worlds who’ve paid it a visit. Yet, the family of creatures embodying Kaian’s ecosystem have not quite reached a balanced relationship with Kaian’s whim.

A great act of equilibrium is in order.

Energy

Kaian life has a phantom anatomy, as if the future were peeking through the ecosystem. Strange things happen more often here – or you could say the natural order is a bit more chaotic. Inexplicable abilities, hauntings and lights in the sky are not denied as much as they are perceived as mundanely inaccessible. Sure you can fly once in a while, but who can control when or why? Thoughts and changes are more apt to be attributed to spirits known as DJEMA (DjEH-ma). These spirits are by no means anthropomorphized; their alien nature is too apparent. On the other hand, your missing glasses did not sprout legs and walk off. You just misplaced them. Did you check the top of your head?

Continents and Transporation

Kaian is said to be made up of islands – large and small – scattered in an expanding spiral from the North Pole to the South. Jets, airships, balloons, sailing vessels and cruisers move in politically aware circles about the surface. The largest continent, the frozen “ice cap” Meliga, is all but abandoned to a frigid deathgrip of itself.

A strip of islands dominated by the mysterious Iyoiith separates and intrudes on fairie settlements. The remainder of the world is increasingly charted — and seemingly coveted — by the most privileged of the dominant species of Kaian …

Faerie People

The most energetic species on Kaian is a culturally triple-gendered human-like being known as Jeenare (jee-NAEHR). They are also the most troubled. According to some, it has been hundreds of thousands of years – perhaps longer – since the progenerative methods of their order spun out of a male-female pattern into a triple-gendered roller coaster of exhausting social complication. Of course, strong instincts play a helpful role in defining for them their individual needs, even as their intelligence grows. But sometimes, their brilliant minds get in the way of their ability to trust it is all for the best.

Sexes

As in our world, there are actually a million sexes betwixt each gender role. Also as in our world, there is a constant fight for recognition of roles outside the most conservative, reproduction-focused arrangement. That arrangement is understood this way:

female	is to	lale	is to	male
she/her/hers	:	ze/zem/zer	:	he/him/his
girl	:	love	:	boy
woman	:	lore	:	man
wife	:	lovbind	:	husband
mother	:	voler/kæther	:	father
daughter	:	laughmna	:	son
sister	:	leefer	:	brother
aunt	:	truni	:	uncle
niece	:	nera	:	nephew
chrone (old woman)	:	draughm (old lore)	:	duke (old man)

The above words for the lale gender do not sound like any Kaian language; they are merely a fitting bridge from the alien world to implied English meaning. Although I have chosen to keep the historic link between the languages of “Lore” and the gender “lore” intact, I distinguish the language with a capital L. The confusion between what is love, what is Love and what is a young lore (also love), I leave to the reader’s imagination.

As boys, girls and loves grow up together, they bond in different ways. But when puberty hits, the girls and boys typically separate from each other, while retaining some close relationship to the mutually satisfactory loves. In “breeding” age, the male and female bond emotionally to their lale friends, typically testing the waters for cohabitation. Here, any number of beautiful and close relationships happen between any number of genders.

However, if they’re “breeders”, a male-female couple will find itself cohabitating with a lale romantically, until the female produces one or more external fertilized eggs, which the lale nurses to birth. Then, more than typically, the trio experience a separation of some kind while each individual tries bonding into – and creating – new families. Finally, the trio either rejoins and settles in together as a threesome or … not. According to most Jeenare, there is no telling what guarantees a lasting enterprise, whether breeders or not. But many would just as quickly add that there is a “clue” in love.

A World Map

Arguably, the source of contemporary disputes rests with static unmagical maps like the clumsy English translation above, which is already based on controversial century-old agreements. Since then, gender politics have stratified the dominant population into a dangerous imbalance; men and women Jeenare seem to be taking sides against one another and the lores are stuck in the middle of a growing antagonism.* A new Queendom is rising in Ondo’s West, men of Pærth’s East lust for power, and the largest lore-centered population lives on the brink of the dangerous tundras, mountains and deserts of the North continents — meeting the periphery of the dominion of “Animal Cousins” from where it is rumored horrific monsters are now emerging.

So, it is good when observing diplomatic names and borders to understand that very few are happy with them, and in these strange affairs the story begins.

* For example, the second largest continent in the massive multi-continent mass of a hundred names, is typically called Ondo. This is dominated by women. The long continent of Dzhuula – to the East – has the largest population of 30 million and – though less chauvinist than Ondo – is very patriarchal (even phallic). An edict passed on the large volcanic continent of Pærth – almost one uninterrupted city – has banned rulership by women. It is joked (none too pleasantly by some) that Pærth’s multi-named sprawl is the very male “capital city” of the planet. The communities of the Lajal Range – one vast body of a million tiny islands – have conversely banned all males from disturbing their waters. The almost unknown Iyoii continent mass is so well defended by its inhabitants that it’s unclear who or what lives on its giant islands; men and women alike serve on espionage teams in submarine vehicles, monitoring it for signs of hostility or potential alliance. Vuul, the ice continent closest to Meliga, is populated by a co-ed indigenous people we might compare to our Innuit in style of survival.