The World of Eliorin: Anthropods

In the world of Eliorin are three primary intelligent races: humans, grimkins, and anthropods, collectively known as transcendients. Anthropods, as the name suggests, are essentially anthropomorphic beings, meaning that they are animals with human-like characteristics. They have cognitive abilities on par with humans. They can settle and build functional societies. They can reason and plan. They have a higher language capacity, although to the human ear this can range from basic gibberish to perfectly formed words.

In Murdoch's Choice, Boomer is a red panda anthropod. His speech is more on the gibberish side of the spectrum. In The First Ethereal, another book with currently limited distribution for review and beta reading, Kera is a pangolin anthropod. His speech is perfectly refined.

Most Tuscawnese historians believe that anthropods began interacting with humans sometime after year 90 of the Scorched Age, when an event known as "The Taming" subdued the devastating flames and combustive behaviors that had plagued the land for nearly a century. This is a broad period, spanning over 4,000 years, but it is difficult to pinpoint such interactions with precision with so many records having been destroyed by the primary Cataclysms that have been identified.

By the Modern Era, the largest civilizations of anthropods have settled throughout Holbrook, the northwestern neighbor of Tuscawny, although some of their numbers are scattered throughout the nations of the Great Crescent. Much of this preference for Holbrook is due to a combination of the nation's landscape, as well as their treatment by its people.

In terms of landscape, Holbrook features plentiful forests which are conducive to anthropod settlements in themselves, but as a by-product of these forests, the land is soft and suitable for digging caves and burrows, ultimately allowing them to maintain a comfortable distance from both humans and grimkins. (Note: Anthropods are all mammals, which means grimkins, despite also being anthropomorphic creatures, are not considered anthropods, and are a class all their own.)

As far as the anthropods' treatment by humankind, Holbrook is the land of choice for many of them because of one anthropod who, in folklore, was said to be instrumental in the nation's founding by rescuing its first king from a gruesome demise, albeit at the cost of his own life. Whether or not this is actually true is unclear, but to this day many of Holbrook's citizens romanticize and revere anthropods, making the nation a land of opportunity for anthropods like no other in the Great Crescent.

Of course, anthropods have the choice of three kingdoms in which to settle in Grandtrilia alone... which begs the question of what the other lands are like. (And not just for anthropods.) 

Today we focused on Holbrook in large part due to the subject of anthropods. Next time we'll take a closer look at the kingdom of Tuscawny!