Pre-Contact

Before the establishment of the Sunspherean calendar, the lands that would become Sunsphere were home to two deeply interwoven Indigenous nations, known now as the Aurani and the Kelpar.

The Aurani people inhabited the inland, specifically settling in the valleys, forests, and occasionally mountains of what is now Waynorth, No Frontiersleft, and the Long Lands. They cultivated grain and root vegetable and maintained the first-known river-based trade routes on the rivers Palme and Fyrisan, utilised for sending resources between Aurani settlements and also for trading with the Kelpar people.

The Kelpar lived along the coastal regions of what are now Coralwynd, Ghanista, Port Prosper, and Bimboland, and were trading partners of the Aurani. Their livelihoods were tied to a deep understanding of the tides and of maritime trade. To the Kelpar, the ocean was a road, not a boundary, and they utilised the coast to trade dried fish, shell and kelp-based artwork, and minerals (especially salt) with other unknown Indigenous groups beyond Sunsphere’s current borders.

The oral traditions of both the Aurani and the Kelpar spoke of a Worldlight that has birthed our Sun and thousands of Suns like it. The similar belief systems of the Aurani and Kelpar is thought to suggest that the two societies were once one before being divided over generations by exploration.

Years 0-12: The First Settler Landfalls and Communities

The first settlers of Sunsphere arrived slowly from across the Great Sea, and mainly consisted of fortune seekers and political exiles from older nations. They did not come to the land as part of any organized state but instead as wanderers and opportunists. Some landed near present-day Port Prosper and immediately encountered the Kelpar, while others crossed the sandy wastes of what is now modern-day New Texas and eventually arrived in the modern-day Long Lands. 

From these landing points, settlers quickly traveled inland, and a group from the 2nd landing on Port Prosper is thought to have been the first to, during their travels, encounter Aurani settlements near what is now Erlander. These early arrivals depended on Aurani and Kelpar knowledge for their own survival. Several old accounts mention Kelpar guides in now-Coralwynd who taught settlers how to fish and navigate the Great Sea’s local tides. As settlers established towns and communes, interaction and trade with the Indigenous people became common, although among many settlers coexistence was often seen as a matter of necessity, rather than principle. 

Years 13-28: Patchwork Settler Expansion

As more settlers arrived, the number of settlements grew, and so did the politics and trade of these settlements, often displacing existing trade routes developed by Aurani and Kelpar people. It is thought that in the year 23, the number of settlers finally equaled the number of Indigenous people, and many small Indigenous communities of both nations were subsumed into settler groups. The settled land was fractured into many groups, each with its own doctrine and approach to the Indigenous nations. Well-studied examples include:

• The Republic of Equals: A large republic of settlers and Kelpar peoples near present-day San Juno in Ghanista. The settlers included designated Kelpar seats on Equalist Council and the people intermarried freedly between settlers and Kelpar. The Republic eventually collapsed in 23 due to an inability to protect itself from repeated pirate invasions, and both settlers and Kelpar fled inland.

• The Ironmouths: A group of miners exiled from their country of origin who settled in the mountains of Waynorth and began some of the first mine-based resource extraction, despite opposition from local Aurani communities.

• Graintown: A settlement in the now-Long Lands that sought moral legitimacy by declaring ‘tillage pacts’ with small nearby Aurani settlements. These agreements transformed previously-shared Indigenous common land into corporatized ‘production zones’, and during annual droughts, the Aurani were the first to lose their share of crop.

• The New Texan Freeholds: An expansionist militia territory that regarded Indigenous territory of any form as impediments to progress. Freehold leaders authorized early militias to ‘secure their frontier’, a euphemism for the systematic relocation and removal of Indigenous communities from their lands.

Since there was no central authority among the many groups of settlers, no single policy of either Indigenous coexistence or displacement existed.

Years 29-55: Further Encroachment and Settler Politics

By the middle of the first century, larger federations of towns had consolidated control over the most resource-rich regions, including the establishment of sovereign New Texas in 35, the creation of Port Prosper in 47, and the fortification of San Juno in 50. The Aurani and Kelpar peoples found themselves not conquered in a single campaign of war but gradually hemmed in by settler borders, contracts, and exclusion zones that restricted their movements and livelihoods.

A few mixed communities of cooperation and intermarriage survived where their isolation offered protection from the harms of settlement, especially in the mountains of Waynorth and the thick forests of No Frontiersleft. The Worldlight faith was mostly quietly absorbed into Renewalist symbolism beginning in 50, and the ‘Worldlight’ concept is considered by modern Indigenous activists to be a main inspiration for the current ‘Sunsphere’ name and cultural identity.

Years 56-present: Displacement and Resettlement

While no official policy of displacement or resettlement has ever formally existed under either the Renewalist or democratic eras of Sunsphere, both the Aurani and Kelpar people were displaced to areas of isolation along the outskirts of modern Sunsphere. This includes larger populations in No Frontiersleft, the Long Lands, and Waynorth, with smaller urban enclaves in larger cities like Emerald Reach, San Juno, Domela, and Erlander.

Their presence is recognized and protected, but the legacy of settlement is not centered, and often occurs to today’s Sunsphereans only through a feeling of guilt. The Government maintains some cultural grants and heritage protections for the Indigenous people, but their lands remain settled and their sovereignty nonexistent. 

Chaos & the Renewalists

Long before the Moonlight Triumvirate ruled over this land with their flag flying high over every courthouse and muffin shop, the land now called Sunsphere was fractured into petty republics, sovereign towns, and collectivist communes, each clinging to their own infrastructure and mythos. It was an age of tough harvests and tougher lives, with leadership coming from whoever had the biggest food hoard or the last working generator.

From that chaos rose a coalition of survivalists, philosophers, engineers, and other skilled tradespeople, united by the necessity of survival. They called themselves Renewalists, and they dreamed of a single state, rebuilt by their shared efforts and collective leadership. The promise of the Renewalists? No more hunger, no more chaos, and no more private empire. Out of the Renewalists emerged a single voice – Letterman I, crowned by unanimous agreement of their members as King of the Work. Not a monarch by blood, nor would the Renewalists ever allow the title to be passed by blood – instead, at the end of a King’s lifetime, the Renewalists would select a new one of their own via conclave to serve.

To prevent their new nation from drifting into tyranny, three bodies were created to govern alongside of the King: the Lunar Assembly (the legislature), the Worker’s Tribunal (the judiciary), and the Bureau of the Vanguard (the nation’s security apparatus). The leaders of those bodies were thus known as the Moonlight Triumvirate.

The Reign of King Dubois the Generous (later, "the Shit")

Several kings ruled for decades before anyone knew the name Dubois. King Barker I the Vigilante, King Lucas the Regular, and the infamous King Drucifius the Longwinded, who once gave a 9.5-hour long speech to a group of Renewalist bureaucrats. But moving along: King Dubois ascended to the throne via conclave 23 years before his violent removal. He was a product of the Renewalist dream -- a mechanic-philosopher, well-versed in the nuances of Moonlight bureaucracy. It was his unique blend of professions that made him the ideal candidate as the next King of the Work.

Dubois used the respect he gained as ‘father of the people’ to centralize the powers of the Moonlight Triumvirate under his own control, bringing what were sometimes seen as ineffective bodies into harmony with one another. For decades, he led with a vision of generosity – a promise of unity forged through hard work, labor, and a heavy emphasis on collectivism. Under his reign, the factories of Sunsphere roared back to life, agriculture was reorganized on a new scale, and the country’s energy was directed towards massive state projects. His image became synonymous with success, and his face graced every public space.

But the dream of a people once deeply enamoured with Dubois began to sour. As the years passed, King Dubois began to use his centralised power to act more as the nation’s sole ruler. His decisions became more selfish and isolated, and the open councils of the Lunar Assembly turned into private meetings, shielded from the public and even some members of the Renewalist's inner circle. The Triumvirate, who had found themselves at the mercy of his whims, slowly and secretly plotted against this arrangement, as the philosophers among the Triumvirate bodies began discussing what life after a King might mean for the people.

The Month of the Eclipse

In what is now known as ‘the Month of the Eclipse', under the cover of a particularly long night, the Vanguard launched a coup. The Worker’s Tribunal, once the most trusted arm of justice under Dubois, convened in secret and declared the King guilty of crimes against his own people and the ‘failure to collectively share power’. King Dubois the Giving was overthrown in the swift and brutal coup – captured, tried in a kangaroo court, and beheaded in Solari Plaza in Port Prosper, his final moments marked with the grim finality of an executioner’s ax. His death was not just the death of one ruler, but the end of an era.

The Moonlight Triumvirate had hoped to reclaim their prior power to lead the nation, but in-fighting in the days after the execution led them to ultimately falter in the eyes of the people. As the country’s name was changed to Sunsphere, the Triumvirate agencies changed their names as well – the Lunar Assembly to the People’s Front, the Worker’s Tribunal to the People’s Labor Coalition, and the Bureau of the Vanguard to the Sunsphere Communist Party – and then joined together to form a new political party, SOLAR, to stand in democratic elections.

During the Triumvirate’s spout of in-fighting, a group of successful industrialists in Sunsphere’s prosperous eastern coast took the opportunity to revive abandoned infrastructure and supply chains across the country, taking unofficial charge to form SunCorp - the largest publicly-owned corporation in Sunsphere and the employer of more than half the nation’s workers. Representatives of SOLAR and SunCorp, now the country’s two largest bodies, came together with a handful of respected community-level politicians from all eight provinces to form the Emergency Election Committee, drawing up plans for a new Parliament and a truly democratic state.

An excerpt from Prof. Gubby Binkstein's 'Eras of the Moonlight'

In a land before a united Sunsphere, fractured into petty republics, sovereign towns, and collectivist communes, a faction of infrastructurely-minded tinkerers, engineers philosophers, and tradespeople came together in the Year 50 to build something better. Most of the Renewalists, as they would later call themselves, had survived up until then by pure wit and ingenuity. They patched up solar panels, organized neighbourhood harvests, and fixed water pumps to build their communes. Where other settlers at the time scavenged or bartered, the Renewalists repurposed what they could find and coordinated their cooperation, united not by a want for power, but by a belief in the work.

The earliest Renewalist documents, since compiled and maintained in the Library of Parliament in Crownspire, describe a group determined to build society around this love of work. They speak of governance as a means to an end and as a way to organize the work, not to simply maintain power. Before the Renewalists gained their first settlements or took control of Port Prosper, they had only their workshops, made from converted bus depots and train stations across the patchwork of little towns. These workshops became havens of learning and retooling, and were part-councils, part-repairshops, and part-libraries, where philosophical thoughts were commonly spoken and debated.

In the Year 53, two years before the Renewalists officially founded the Kingdom of the Work, they started the Great Signal Project. Utilizing scavenged and salvaged tech, they established long-distance communications across their many settlements and beyond to stretch their ability to govern. At the time of the founding in 55, two factions of Renewalists existed: the Primitivists and the Maximalists. The Primitivists, soon pushed out of any seat of power at the time of the founding, supported only innovation which was deemed fully necessary for safety and security. The Maximalists, who would take control and anoint Letterman I as the first King of the Work, believed in continuing to advance technology to its furthest possibilities in service of the people and the work.

Letterman I came to power at the time of the founding in 57 as both an engineer and trade organizer, whose experience in coordinating shipments from settlement to settlement meant he had great relationships throughout Renewalism's boundaries. During the first organized Work Council of the Kingdom, the conclave utilised to select a King, there was great agreement upon the Maximalist Renewalists that Letterman I was the only real choice to become King of the Work, and so it became. His appointment ended the Age of Renewal and started the Age of Work, as the newly-founded state began to grow its boundaries for decades, eventually reaching its current state. 

Echen's Conclave

In the year 172, following a short two-year reign by the popular but elderly Barker II the Shortlived, the Renewalists operating Sunsphere came together for their selection conclave and chose the adventurous Echen, who was son of the 7th King, Drucifius the Longwinded.

Long seen as a bit of a rebel during Drucifius’ reign, oft known for galavanting around Sunsphere’s many provinces on his steed and doing his fair share of partying, Echen was a surprise choice to come out of the Renewalist group. Known for his restless curiosity, Echen would go on to govern Sunsphere for four decades overseeing triumphs and missteps that together shaped every province in the nation - perhaps none more than No Frontiersleft (then called New Frontiersland).

Echen, 'the Explorer'

Echen spent the first decade of his reign focused mainly in Waynorth as he secured towns like Aros and Erlander against long-suspected (but obviously unfounded) invasions of mythical ‘frost giants’ from above the peaks of the Icy Mountains. Under his reign, the glacial rivers of the Palme and Fyrisan became key arteries of trade and industry out of the province and into Sunsphere’s populous and booming east coast.

He also oversaw the gradual integration of Calvaderan districts in Waynorth during the Era de la Sangre Derramada beginning in 185, diverting state money into establishing new festivals, markets, and cultural hubs in these settlements. While these communities brought music, color, and culture to the north, local residents occasionally resisted the presence, and Echen’s untested ability for diplomacy was improved & forged strongly in these conditions.

By 187, Echen’s curiosity turned his gaze to the west, beyond the settled provinces and towards the sparse and mostly-unexplored lands that would become New Frontiersland. Despite the urging of Renewalist friends and the top diplomats of the Lunar Assembly, he took up the lead on expeditions down uncharted rivers and across undiscovered valleys, his crew mapping as he went. They faced wild terrain and occasional hostility from rural Sunspherean settlers who had gone west of their own will and were wary of outsiders, even the King.

Despite the challenges, Echen established the first permanent state outposts at Cloudpost Junction, Thornreach, and Coyote Trail in 189, marking the earliest foundations of organized settlements in the province. The small settlement of Trailhead eventually became somewhat of an administrative center and trading hub at the mouth of the western frontier, but further settlements like Temurek were left undiscovered by Echen’s exploration force.

Legacies of Echen

While his efforts to build infrastructure and trade in the new frontier succeeded, his focus on these lands drew criticism from important eastern provinces like Port Prosper and Ghanista, who suffered delayed attention & lost funds from the Lunar Assembly as both were repeatedly redirected to the western expansion. Even with these issues, the vision of a connected and habitable New Frontiersland remained popular among Sunsphereans, especially budding industrialists who saw the lands potential resources & real estate as being good as gold.

In his older age - Echen turned 65 in the year 200 - and with a new network of towns, roads, and rivers charted through the northern and western frontiers of the country, Echen returned to live in his birthplace of Crownspire and governed from his residence there. Towards the end of his life, he is known to have felt he had repaid the debts he cost to the eastern provinces during exploration, although some would still disagree to this day.

In 212, he passed quietly at the age of 77, leaving the enduring memory of a King who worked hard to expand the horizons of his kingdom. Echen was ambitious, curious, imperfect, and always daring. 

The Preceding Days

The Month of the Eclipse, taking place from mid-April to late May of 235, marked the violent and chaotic collapse of the Renewalist monarchy. In just over 30 days, the country evolved from a monarchy under the 11th King of the Work, King Dubois the Giving (now known as ‘King Dubois the Shit’), to a parliamentary democracy established by key powerholders in the wake of the revolution.

Since the year 57, the Moonlight Triumvirate - three semi-independent bodies acting as legislature, judiciary, and security apparatuses for the monarchy - had acted as a stabilizing counterweight to royal authority. Under King Dubois, the Triumvirate’s independence had eroded over time, as the King demanded centralizing measures that redrafted Triumvirate authority so that no single decree could pass on any level without his own royal assent. This consolidation of power slowly alienated the bureaucrats, researchers, and officials of the Triumvirate, who were used to exercising significant autonomy - especially in far-off reaches of the country rarely seen or visited by royal officials.

In late March of 235, members within the three bodies of the Triumvirate began to conspire against the King and his wishes. The Vanguard quietly organized paramilitary groups and militias in several provinces, while the Lunar Assembly bureaucratically stalled new royal policies and the Workers’ Tribunal prepared in secret for any potential legal battles.

A Spark in Crownspire

The turning point came in early April when insurgents within the Lunar Assembly, led by veteran lawmaker Paloma Uunis, leaked recently-proposed royal policies known as the Edicts of Consolidation which indicated King Dubois’ intent to permanently dissolve the majority of the Triumvirate’s functions. These documents were copied by hand by these insurgents to avoid detection, and covertly distributed to revolutionary-minded individuals in provincial capitals and other major cities overnight.

The news, first covered by the arms-length SNBC media station, sent the nation’s citizens into uproar. As Uunis read the Edicts live on the news for all to hear, anti-monarchist rallies in the Port Prosperian cities of Crownspire, Ironwood, and Valeport quickly turned into street battles. The few remaining Loyalist Vanguard members tried and failed to quell the eventual riots, resulting in several citizen fatalities. In Crownspire, Triumvirate bureaucrats lowered the banners of the Renewalist monarchy and raised flags featuring a new Triumvirate symbol to be spread across the nation: three interlocked rings of green, blue, and red.

A number of revolutionary battles and political struggles took place over the next weeks. 

The Battle at Fyrisan Bridge

Organized by key Revolutionaries from the Vanguard, several groups assembled in the Waynorth city of Erlander with plans to reach the provincial capital Aros. The assembled Vanguard militias joined with traveling hunters from New Frontiersland and armed anti-Dubois capitalist groups in Waynorth and began their one-day march to the capital. Nearing Aros, hastily-assembled royal forces featuring Loyalist volunteers intercepted them at Fyrisan Bridge, the crossing connecting the roads from Erlander to Aros.

Those royal forces used explosives previously taken from mining communes in Waynorth’s mountains to collapse one span of the Fyrisan Bridge, halting the advance of the Revolutionaries into Aros across a now-uncrossable river. The revolutionaries were stuck for two days until reinforcements from Coralwynd’s nearest workers’ commune in Bramble Beach arrived behind the royal forces, attacking them from the flank and dealing the fatal blow in the battle. By dawn on the third day, the revolutionaries had hastily reassembled enough of the bridge to cross into Aros, claiming the capital and raising the three-ringed flag of the Triumvirate in the first revolutionary victory outside of Port Prosper.

A Stand in San Juno

As conflict spread across the mainland, the twelve islands of San Juno became a symbolic front for the revolution. Newly-armed fishing guilds and free-spirited islanders, many tracing their heritage back to the old Republic of Equals - a 1st-century alliance between settlers and the Kelpar peoples - declared their solidarity with the revolution and took Ghanista’s capital without bloodshed, as the outmanned Ghanistan authorities surrendered and pledged loyalty to the revolution.

Though the San Juno revolutionaries were outgunned by loyalist reinforcements from Port Prosper, the old fortified walls on the islands of Junopolis held strong for six days and the loyalist forces were depleted into withdrawing.

New Texas: Independence or Integration?

In New Texas, which only ten years prior had become a formal province within Sunsphere, provincial leader Earnest McCluskey immediately called for a return to independence in the wake of the revolution.

However, many New Texian residents rebuked the attempt to reclaim full power by McCluskey, as the province had seen economic growth since joining Sunsphere, even as some of their previous political liberties had fallen away. Local militia leader Gun Hand led a brief siege on the undermanned and unprepared capital building in Rio Verde, after which McCluskey fled south to the country of Glaxony and the Gun Hand Militia declared loyalty to the nationwide revolution. 

The Great Grain Protest

One of the last-remaining helms of royal rule was in Graintown, the oldest settlement in the Long Lands of the Grain Goblins. Given the importance of the Long Lands to feeding the whole country, King after King had always held stern control and ruled with a fist in the province, meaning there were ample Loyalist forces present at the time of the revolution.

However, commune farmers and millers saw their chance when those forces were shifted to fight desperate battles in Ghanista & Coralwynd. What began as a protest demanding more crop freedom descended into violence when remaining royal officials attempted to maintain order. The first shot was fired outside Graintown Granary, but the whole town was ablaze by nightfall. Within just 36 hours, bands of farmers armed with stolen arms overran any remaining royal garrison, while Loyalists fled across Long Trout Lake seeking safe ground. Those who didn’t make the last boats were unceremoniously executed in the streets of Graintown, a dark moment for the revolution and one stemming from frustration over decades of strong-armed leadership in the province.

When the smoke cleared in Graintown, the King’s banners were burnt along with several key administrative buildings. Graintown was a revolutionary city.

The Fall of the Crown

By mid-May, the King and his loyalists had lost virtually all the key capitals in the nation, and Dubois had fled north to the last loyalist area of strength: Fort Belmont on the Coralwynd coast. Loyalist fighters were demoralized, their numbers dwindling due to abandonment and death.

On May 18th, 235, previous Vanguard official J. David Wright, a key leader in the revolution, declared Dubois a tyrant in an official ceremony and called for his arrest to face tribunal. The King was captured from Fort Belmont after a three-day siege by a revolutionary group made up of small militias from across all of the newly-free provinces. He was brought back to Crownspire and convicted by a hastily formed Workers’ Tribunal for 'failure to collectively share power'.

King Dubois was hanged in the center of Crownspire's Solari Plaza before a crowd of tens of thousands. The monarchy was over, and although citizens felt free, nobody knew what would come next.

The Aftermath

In the aftermath of the King’s execution, and with Triumvirate three-ringed banners hanging high over several provincial capitals, Triumvirate leaders attempted to reclaim power. However, bureaucratic infighting between Triumvirate leaders with long personal histories led them to falter.

Meanwhile, technocrats and industrialists in the rest of Port Prosper, as well as beyond, took control of and merged formerly-royal assets into a single national entity: SunCorp. Originally intended as a temporary association for the sake of reconstructing Sunsphere’s resource, production, and consumer industries, SunCorp rapidly evolved into the largest employer in Sunsphere, overseeing everything from infrastructure projects to grocery stores.

Seeing SunCorp’s fast growth and their own infighting as a threat to Triumvirate-led rule, the Triumvirate renamed themselves and restructured into the SOLAR party. Alongside SunCorp leaders, SOLAR declared the monarchy to be permanently dissolved and called for a ‘democracy by the people, for the people’.

Still, in the weeks after the Aftermath, Sunsphere had no functional government, no regulation of currency, no unified military, and ultimately no official seat of power. Ministries had been gutted, unclaimed royal assets looted, and several provincial leaders declared autonomy in the interest of ‘local order’. The two largest bodies now in existence, SOLAR and SunCorp, worked to establish the Emergency Election Committee and establish the nation’s first democratic infrastructure for the purpose of electing new leadership.

An excerpt from 'A Geographic Overview of Waynorth', a work of H. Appleby

Settlement

Waynorth is one of the youngest of Sunsphere’s provinces, officially brought into the nation’s fold in the year 165 during the reign of King Drucifius the Longwinded. Prior to its settlement, the indigenous Aurani towns of the area called it Ísland due to its long winters, which caused a layer of permafrost known locally as sífrosti to form in the soil making it near-impossible to cross. Ísland was thus also referred to as Hvítt Jarðvegsland (or ‘White Soil Land’).

Waynorth is the name given to the land by settlers from the smaller eastern provinces of Ghanista and Port Prosper. It is said that when they originally settled the area, they came across more-populous indigenous settlements than they expected “on the way north” from Port Prosper and remained there rather than attempt to traverse the impassible northern mountain ranges of the area. In the modern indigenous tongue, Veinord is now commonly utilised, while Waynorth is used in formal provincial and national governing documents.

Industry

Renowned for its rugged pine forests and grassy tundra, Waynorth is home to successful lumber, mining, and energy production industries mainly based in the Icy Mountains (Ísfjallar). Industrialists use the extensive glacial river network to transport logs and key minerals to its major cities (Erlander and Aros) and throughout Sunsphere during the warmer months. These key resources have been used in the growing expansion of the city centers of the nation’s most-populous eastern provinces, including the capital of Port Prosper.

Stonemasonry and woodworking are among Waynorth’s most respected professions, especially in the town of Trésteinn (meaning ‘Woodstone’) where the greatest experts of the craft reside and pride themselves in their work. Tourists who can brave the cold north often visit the town to acquire souvenirs, spending generously on even small trinkets. Woodstone’s unique and successful tourism sector, a rare sector within Waynorth, is the main support of these artisans’ meticulous and time-consuming labour. 

Cities and Towns

Erlander is Waynorth’s largest city, although not its capital. A bustling industrial town, it nestles on the left bank of the river Palme, which joins with the river Fyrisan to flow into the Gulf of Úrkoma (meaning ‘rainfall’, a reference to its common precipitation). Given its strategic positions at this river junction, Erlander has become an important trade hub for timber, minerals, furs, fish, and other materials. The city center also contains the town hall, the University of Erlander, the Grand Erlander Cathedral, and the renowned forum where the Waynorthian Workers’ Union was founded, which now houses the provincial headquarters of the SOLAR party.

Similar to their settlements of Dawnstar and Miraflor, a smaller diaspora of Calvaderans also settled in Erlander near the city center, forming a small district now referred to as the Calvederan District. These Calvaderans introduced unique Calvaderan liquor and cigars to the indigenous and settler populations of the city along with now-popular traditions such as the Latin Festival and Día de los Muertos.

Farther south, at the mouth of the Fyrisan river, lies the provincial capital of Aros, from where Waynorth is governed according to the laws and customs of Sunsphere. Aros is also home to the University of Waynorth, the Bank of Waynorth, and Albarda Airport. A common gathering spot, Aros’ Memorial Square (or ‘Square of the Revolution’ in socialist sources) features a memorial to the socialist intellectual Renewalists responsible for founding the workers’ movement of Sunsphere.

Both the Palme and Fyrisan rivers are of glacial origin, flowing mainly from two glaciers in the Icy Mountains: the Gerhardsen and the Stauning. Waynorth’s summers are relatively warm and its winters extremely cold with heavy snowfall, blanketing the summits of Mount Ohnosotall (Ónósótall), Chandrila, and Hátindurinn (meaning High Peak) in thick layers of snow, the layers compressing to form impressive glaciers which have cut their way down the mountains over millions of years. Ónósótall features prominently on the flag of Waynorth, along with the Waynorth star, which the indigenous people call Eärendil. Not even Sunsphere’s most learned scholars, nor the village elders of Waynorth, know what this name means, as it is not a word found in either old or modern indigenous language. 

Prior to our modern understanding of Port Prosper, the region was a loose grouping of six settlements: Crownspire, Emerald Reach, Latchport, Valeport, Ironwood, and Celestial Point. Of these six, only five remain. Celestial Point, the sixth star on the Port Prosper flag, met an end that forever marked the Sunspherean coast with a tragedy never to be fully forgotten: the story of the Drowned Town.

Long before it was a bustling metropolis, Port Prosper was a rocky outpost that rewarded settlers who were able to make it past its oft-rough coasts. Those who made it inland were lucky to settle in the flatter, easier lands of Crownspire, Ironwood, or the Emerald Reach, while those too frail or too sick from the ocean journey to travel further would settle right on the coast -- at Celestial Point, named for the legend that it was the best place to embrace the true power of our moon.

But what made the Point feel powerful and radiant also made it vulnerable. The Flood of Year 69, known locally as the Moonrush, was a storm like no other. After weeks of strange tidal patterns that confused fishermen and the albeit-primitive weather predictors of the time, a deep-sea earthquake near the coast is said to have completely ruptured a local area of the Great Sea's seabed. What followed was an unimaginably monstrous sea surge, as a wall of water struck Celestial Point during the annual lunar high tide, collapsing its rocky coastal hills and swallowing the entire town before dawn. Of the 2,300 residents, less than 200 are said to have survived, clinging to debris or washed ashore in Valeport and Latchport.

In the years after, the now-five districts making up Port Prosper hold annual ceremonies, raising ceremonial 'wave shelters' by the coast as a statement to the moon and the tides that they would never allow this to happen again. Legislatively, Letterman I's Lunar Assembly restricted underwater exploration of the lost Celestial Point, out of respect to the fallen, their relatives, and now, their descendants. There are stories of illegal black market divers who claim to show nautical explorers the pale rooftops deep below the surface, albeit for a pretty sun nickel. Local fishermen tell stories claiming when the sea is at its calmest, the echo of Celestial Point's daily 12PM bell can still be heard dinging from beneath the waves.

Excerpt from PhD thesis 'An Ethnographic History of Ghanistan Municipalities' by Dr. Camille Santos

History

Many first-time visitors to the vibrant capital of beautiful Ghanista might find themselves puzzled by its nickname, The City of Twelve Islands. Much like the larger province, the City of San Juno embodies a rich melting pot of diverse cultures and demographics that have come together through a long history of trade, cultural exchanges, and cross-regional marriages.

The city stretches across twelve islands where Lake Meridia (Laguna Merídia in the native tongue) flows into the Great Sea. Outside the city to the east, and along the coast, is the island chain of the Juno archipelago. The area has been settled since before the borders of Sunsphere began to take shape. Its earliest communities consisted of indigenous Kelpar tribes that inhabited the islands of Calico, Aurora, and Sulani.

Some of the oldest surviving chronicles state that repeated invasions from pillaging Sea Raiders necessitated the construction of a fortified position to protect Sunsphere against these vicious attacks. Thus, in the Year 50, various fortresses were built across the inhabited islands. The largest of these was Junopolis, so named for a giant statue of the island goddess Juno, who was said to guard her home against foreign attacks, storms, and other adversity. The waning of Raider invasions eventually allowed the communities that had grown around the forts to prosper and flourish. By the reign of Echen the Explorer, ten of the twelve islands that make up present-day San Juno had been fully settled and connected through infrastructure. After the Great Crossing, which saw a large influx of native Calvaderans in Ghanistan communities, the city expanded to the islands of Makisi and Yara, reaching its present incarnation.

Present-Day

San Juno is widely renowned for its rich cultural tapestry, cuisine, and local festivals. Despite being a unified entity in name, its municipal authorities have long pursued the preservation of the islands’ idiosyncratic identities and traditions. To provide one example, one could visit Calico in the month of August to witness the annual Migration of the Moonlight Jellies, then take the tram to Makisi to attend one of its famous weeklong Carpet Markets (“Pasaran Permaidani”).

The city also features an interesting combination of historical and modern architecture. Some urban centers are still centered around the original fortresses, like Junopolis on the island of Aurora, while others evoke the skylines of a modern metropolis like Port Prosper. Nevertheless, both offer compelling canvases for the colorful street art that is a staple of Ghanistan youth culture.

San Juno also has an extensive public transport system, owing to its unique geography that renders regular car traffic impractical. While its iconic claret trams are undoubtedly the most recognizable means of transportation, there is also the San Juno Metro, the inner-city ferry, and San Juno International Airport. Many Junosians prefer to traverse their city’s waterways with their own boats, upholding their ancestors’ traditions.

The country's largest lake is known as Long Trout Lake, named both for its large trout as well as the length of the lake itself, which stretches from the Coralwyndian coasts to the north of The Long Lands. The following is a brief description of all 14 islands within the lake:

• Millstone Isle (uninhabited, Long Lands) - Originally used as a grain storage outpost, the crumbling silos left over serve as a nesting spot for birds..

• Reaver Isle (uninhabited, Long Lands) - This low and entirely rocky island is devoid of any human structure. It was a brief refuge for those fleeing west from Graintown during the Great Grain Protest of the 235 revolution.

• Seagull Isle (uninhabited, Long Lands) - Mostly covered by sand & shrubs, this island is uninhabited but is commonly used by seagulls for nesting.

• Barrow Isle (inhabited, Long Lands) - The site of several pre-Sunsphere burial grounds claimed by the Aurani people, the isle has a small community of ~100 islanders. Veganism is required among the residents.

• Auralis (inhabited, Long Lands) - Once a main stop for lake trade, the few buildings still standing on this isle have been converted into a premium cottage destination, along with a few new builds. There is no permanent population but the isle sees 30-40 seasonal cottagers.

• Gurm (uninhabited, Long Lands) - Previously occupied by the unique culture of the Gurmbulillvillians, the few remaining residents abandoned the island in 192 to find deeper connection to the mainland, under the wisdom of ’Ge carthe earthrious’.

• Listington (inhabited, No Frontiersleft) - A modest fishing village descended from Kelpar peoples who traveled inland from the eastern provinces in pre-Sunsphere times. Listington is a protected environmental reserve for great blue herons, and has a local fishing economy.

• Mossfather (uninhabited, No Frontiersleft) - A thickly-forested protected environmental reserve home to some of the oldest cedars in Sunsphere. It is rumoured that the island contains a still-unmapped trail of secret groves previously tended by the Aurani people.

• Prison Isle (uninhabited, No Frontiersleft) - A penal colony utilised by early settlers of Waynorth. The original structures were torn down during the reign of Barker II the Shortlived, one of the only major acts of his short reign.

• No Man’s Isle (uninhabited, No Frontiersleft) - A restricted zone that, according to the Sunsphere Government, has never seen residents. It is rumoured that the Government utilises the island for environmental testing of some form.

• Hallowbog (inhabited, Coralwynd) - A hilly and foggy isle off the coast of Coralwynd. The isle is occupied by a handful of weather station occupants, as well as researchers investigating old myths of a pre-Sunsphere wreckage.

• Thimble (uninhabited, Coralwynd) - A de-facto wildlife sanctuary covered in wildflowers and used as a nesting locale for many lake birds. The isle is patrolled via kayak by local volunteers, mainly Environmental Studies students.

• Low Lantern Isle (uninhabited, Coralwynd) - A shallow sandbar that hosts just a single solar-powered wooden beacon. Coralwyndians living on the Long Trout coast believe that if the beacon can’t be seen, the next day is one of bad luck.

• Redwater (uninhabited, New Texas) - A former fort utilized by New Texas during the New Texian-Glaxon War to maintain control over the lake. A handful of hermits still live among the rusting fort walls and iron soil, which bleeds red after heavy rain.

The Era de la Sangre Derramada

Across the Great Sea lays a vibrant land called Calvaderas, a mountainous coastal nation renowned for its sacred traditions, upbeat music, and popular cuisine. For generations, Calvaderas thrived in its own corner of the world, but was not untouched by political turmoil. The years 185 to 187 marked the short but difficult Era de la Sangre Derramada in Calvaderas, a period of escalating civil strife, political corruption, and localized violence. During the Era, many Calvaderans were forced to make an impossible decision: stay in a lively but turmoil-filled homeland to watch its unraveling or seek an uncertain safety across the sea.

Thus began the Great Crossing, a migration that would shape the very identity of Sunsphere.

The first waves of Calvaderan immigrants arrived on the eastern shores of Sunsphere those 40 years ago, docking at the cliffside ports of Coralwynd, which had a familiar mountainous landscape as their home country. The Calvaderans - soon known collectively as Latinos in Sunsphere parlance - brought with them their rich traditions: the syncopated beat of calva drums, ornate embroidered folk banners, and a deeply rooted community ethos that revolved around mutual care, shared stories, and sacred rituals honoring the dead.

Calvaderan Communities and Culture

Most of these first migrants traveled south to settle along the shores of Port Prosper and Ghanista, but others were shuffled northwest to Waynorth, establishing towns like Dawnstar and Miraflor in areas that then-King Echen and the Moonlight Triumvirate had determined labor was needed for the mining communes and agricultural guilds. Over time, these two communities flourished together and became deeply Calvaderan in their culture and customs. In these areas, the exterior walls of homes often feature ceramic murals depicting Calvaderan mythic heroes interwoven with Sunspherian solar imagery, a celebration of the joining of the cultures of these two populations. The heart of the Latino cultural movement beats most strongly during the annual Latin Festival, a week-long celebration of Calvaderan ancestry capped off by a firework-drum ritual performed during festival’s final sunset.

Sunsphere does not maintain significant political relations with Calvaderas, but the two countries have a lasting peace oft-attributed to the celebrated presence of Calvaderans in Sunsphere. Today, the second and upcoming third generations of these Latin immigrants to Sunsphere are as Sunspherian as Ghanistan fabric markets, Bimbolandian film, and those familiar wind-shaken mountains of Coralwynd. Their communities are both distinct and deeply interwoven into the fabric of the nation. Though some Sunspherians still see the Calvaderans as ’seacrossers’ (generally viewed as an unacceptable/informal term for the group), many find that Latinos came with the sun in their hearts, and now they help it shine brighter.

Lilliputia, much like Sunsphere, was once a fractured land of differing groups and communities, but were forcefully unified in the year 112 under the infamous warlord by the name of Halungu Ironsun, who seized control of the diamond-rich Peace Ranges and launched a brutal campaign of conquest over the land. Declaring diamonds as a 'sacred resource' of the state religion, Halungism, Ironsun ruled with strong authority for with a legacy of military conscription, forced labour, and a corrupt secret policing operation, passing his position as King of Lilliputia down his bloodline after his passing.

In the year 221, under Halungu IV, Lilliputia suffered a fast collapse under the weight of its own economy as international diamond prices plummeted. Insurgencies spurred on by starvation & decades of mistreatment began in the most remote mountainous villages but slowly spread into the suburbs of the country's capital, Velgore, circling it with unrest. The dam finally broke several months later in 222 when Lilliputian military hardliners and industrial syndicates came together to gain control over Lilliputia, ending the run of Ironsun rule.

The military-industrial regime eventually became even more ruthless in practice, as in a last ditch effort to resurrect their struggling diamond industry, the Lilliputian government re-established forced child labor and began to abduct citizens, including foreign nationals, from across its rural villages.

History

The Sunsphere National Broadcasting Corporation (SNBC) is the country’s most prominent and trusted news network, with roots stretching back more than a century. Founded in 102 as the Royal Sunsphere Broadcasting Service, the network was originally established to serve the Crown by delivering weather forecasts, maritime bulletins, and official proclamations to the far corners of the kingdom. Over the centuries it grew into the monarchy’s main communications organ, its announcers often referred to as “the Voice of the Crown.”

By 148, the network had adopted moving-picture transmission, and its broadcasts became central to Sunspherean life. The Evening News Service, launched in 153, quickly evolved into the nation’s ritual nightly broadcast. Although still under royal charter, SNBC’s journalists developed a quiet tradition of independent reporting — pushing boundaries during disasters, wars, and scandals, often winning public trust even when their coverage caused unease at court

When the monarchy was overthrown in 235, SNBC found itself in uncharted waters. For the first time in its existence, it no longer answered to the Crown. In the early parliamentary years, there was debate over whether SNBC should be dismantled, privatized, or repurposed. It was decided by the Government of Jurbi Jones that SNBC would be reconstituted as a publicly funded but editorially independent broadcaster. Today, SNBC is still adjusting to its new role under Parliament rather than monarchy. Yet its authority and gravitas remain unmatched. It is seen as both a relic of Sunsphere’s royal past and a guiding voice for its democratic future.

Wally Leland: The Nation’s Anchor

Walter “Wally” Leland was born in 174, during the high age of monarchy. He entered journalism during the Bimboland Slum Scrums of 198–202, where his reports regarding small but violent conflicts between rival Bimbolandian gangs won him national attention for their calm and humane clarity. By the time he became anchor of the SNBC Evening News in 209, Leland was already considered the “voice of Sunsphere.” His nightly broadcasts became more than news—they became ritual. His closing words, “And that’s the way it is,” are quoted by citizens across the country, from schoolchildren to statesmen.

Through crises, scandals, and political turmoil, and especially during the fall of the monarchy in 235, Leland remained a trusted constant for Sunsphereans. It was his calm coverage that reassured Sunsphereans that their nation would endure. Many directly credit Leland's coverage for preventing all-out war between factions during the chaotic transition. In recent years, his investigative work has reaffirmed his place as the nation’s conscience. His exposé on multiple corruption scandals in the early democratic period of Sunsphere, and his revelation of the Tasmanian humanitarian crisis earlier this year, have shaken governments and informed the people with a sobering clarity.