I’ve been a frequent visitor of Amashik for a long time now.
In fact, I’ve been visiting since it was known by the name ‘DaSein II’ and what you know as Athea went by Tuur. As this world evolves, so does the story. I have always wanted to tell the story of this world, of this region of it in particular. But as many of you know, this all began with disparate sets of notes that told stories of brand new cultures, religions, and political systems. The most intriguing of which has always been The Rule of Nine. The current political climate aside, I’ve always tried to imagine ways of governing that may have been better than our current system.
In my time as an undergraduate university student I’d write essays outlining the merits of The Rule of Nine (by another name then) in my political philosophy classes. I’d bring up its ideas around justice in my applied ethics courses. The roots of the worship of the Divine (a set of religious beliefs and principles that inspired the creation of TRoN) were formulated and challenged in my numerous theology and religion classes. The image above was from early 2020 when I first decided to take myself seriously as a fantasy author. I knew I needed a map. What I didn’t know however, was how much seeing this world would impact it’s make up.
What you see isn’t always what you get.
Buried in my notes you’ll find an old conflict between Athea and Uthern. Strongholds in their own respective countries (Tuur and Uthern). The threads of this conflict still exist today, though where the power lies has changed as much as the names of the countries involved. When I first laid this map out I recognized that the main landscape of the conflict was all wrong. Certain places were too close, infamous battles took place on grounds that couldn’t have handled on the troops involved, we were supposed to believe that ambushes happened in impossible ways… it was all wrong.
Not because the conflict didn’t work, the map didn’t. So the map grew:
The map grew, the names changed and the story went on. As the Republic Kingdom of Athea was born the Rule of Nine really began to come to life in my head. Its birthplace, Freemount, sat at the heart of this “new world” I was building. The stories of the heroes and villains of the war of secession to free Athea from is colonial bonds were being written when I realized I still didn’t have enough places to sprinkle the seeds of Ennead onto. So… yup, you guessed it. The world grew:
When I saw the image above, my mind expanded to fill it.
Kavanians and their naval supremacy.
The unique customs of The United Provinces of Lokmee.
The Old Lands and its haunting mystery.
The Floating Forest of Gea and the lust it stirred in the hearts and minds of adventurers.
Dobashi dominance over a larger region than any power, anywhere in Amashik.
Until Lady Athenia Shadoon led those nine noble houses to the east of the Ungoverned Lands to seceed…
Ennead: The Rule of Nine, as you know it, was born.
I’m a worldbuilder at heart.
If you let me, and hell, maybe after this you will; I’d build worlds for a living. Starting with a small seed I can help nurture that seed to grow into anything I want. And I have. That is why Amashik exists. I held on to an idea that has been with me for a decade plus until I got the confidence to bring it all to you.
The introduction of traditional prose writing here on Substack has stirred another level of expansion in this small planetary universe I call Amashik. One that finally inspired me to lay out the final region I plan to explore (for now…) within it. I won’t go into too much detail about how and when that exploration will begin in earnest, but suffice it to say that the next mind expansion is well underway. I present to you The Known World of Amashik:
Pretty soon we will have a much prettier version of this map thanks to Dominique Strange, a.k.a. Domino 44. They have been responsible for bringing my vision of this world to life and every finished version of this map is by their hand. Make sure you check out Dominique’s work on Instagram in the link above.
Thanks for walking with me folks,
JL