Explore the peoples, magics, and lands of the Tidecaller world with this detailed (and non-spoilery) encyclopedia!
Enter the empire with this collection of illustrations, maps, and notes on the cultures and world of the award-winning Empire of Resonance series:
Delve into the seven academies of Levi's upcoming Academy of Cards series with this exclusive collection of (non-spoiler) maps, magical cards, and world notes!
A (spoiler-free) visual and textual reference for the cultures, peoples, and languages of the Tidecaller world. All text is canon; all images are just for reference--trust your own imagination! All images created with MidJourney, under common use license. Read on to explore the Jeian Theracants, Ujeian Monks, Daraa, Bamani, and Seilam Deul peoples.
Jeian Theracants
Native Region:
One half of the religious and cultural power in the city-state of Serei, the Theracant's Guild has in recent decades sent healers to the major cities and polities in the world, cementing an international presence that overshadows their rivals, the Ujeian Temple.
Appearance, dress, characteristics:
Known for the peculiar blend of premature aging and long life that their blood magic imbues, members of the Theracant's Guild tend to dress in full-length dresses and skirts, sewn with rows of inner pockets to store the herbs, medicines, and tinctures of their trade.
Culture, Society, Religion:
Apocryphally known as the feminine side of Ujeism (the official religion of the Sereian theocracy), theracants worship Jeia, a female deity of blood and fertility. Known for recruiting novices from the poorer ranks of society, the Theracant's Guild is a highly stratified and organized society guided by principles of healing others and doing no harm. They are known, however, to collect the blood of the people they heal, giving them power over those bodies, should they choose to use it--thus the common derogatory term for theracants: witches.
Language:
While theracants generally speak the same tongue as the rest of Serei--or learn it, when they are recruited from elsewhere--they are also rumored to have their own internal language, capable of being transmitted through long distances.
Common expressions: Vessels know, and Her blood runs deep.
Common curses: bloody, and rotten.
Ujeian Monks
Native Region:
The male half of religious and cultural power in the city-state of Serei, the monks of the Temple of Uje are responsible for many of the things that have made the city famous (and wealthy). Overseers, using the monastic technique of reading minds through touch, police the cities punishing anyone guilty of a crime, and warning those contemplating it. Monastic seers, given to long periods of meditation while immersed in the ocean, guide the faithful through personal difficulties by using that same magic to gain insight into their thoughts and struggles. And the temple's theocrats, while not formally in control of the city, make decisions that resonate through the economic system of guilds, and vie for power against their sworn enemies-- and bearers of the female half of the city's faith and power--the Theracant's Guild.
Appearance, Dress, Characteristics:
Given to flowing robes and shaven heads, the monks of the temple--whether theocrat or overseer--are expected to maintain personal regimens of exercise and meditation, leading to a uniformity of calm expression and healthy bodies into old age. While of mainly Sereian heritage, any faithful are welcome in the temple's ranks (so long as they are male), and so eye and skin color vary among the men, even as their daily ablutions and collective periods of sparring and meditation shape them all in similar ways.
Culture, Society, Religion:
Founded on the worship of Uje, god of the sea, and awareness of the floods that have ended previous civilizations--like the one whose ruins still thrust from the waters of Serei's bay--Ujeian monks believe the truly faithful will be spared from the next apocalypse. It is this conviction that has lead them to try to shape the city in their image, with overseers maintaining a safe and orderly city, while the seers guide their supplicants toward deeper devotion and peace, sharing the meditation practices they use to gain insight into Uje's will.
Language:
Given to water metaphors, and images of the sea, many of the temple's holy texts and expressions have made their way into the common parlance of Serei's inhabitants.
Common expressions:
Tides carry you (good luck/godspeed);
roils my waters (makes me angry)
Common curses:
Floods/flooding (expletive);
Uje's Eyes (to express surprise)
Seilam Deul
Native region:
The high, arid peaks of Vyna's northern continent, in a string of cities built over the ruins of a previous, technologically-advanced civilization.
Appearance, Dress, Characteristics:
A tall, dark-skinned people with pale eyes, they prefer a clinging, dark fabric to protect from the weather and harsh sun of the peaks. They also typically wear veils, to protect against dust and promote a sense of uniformity among citizens.
Culture, Society, and Religion:
With a religion that glorifies logic and abilities of man to organize nature, the Deul have built a rigidly heirarchical society, encouraging uniformity within classes and gradually eliminating mobility between them.
Language:
Slightly sing-song (shared origins with Bamani tongues) and utilizing clicks.
Common expressions: Laws guide you.
Common curses: Scrap that, rusting
Daraa People
Native Region:
Originating in the arid eastern third of the Ujeian continent, the entrepreneurial Daraanese spread across the land centuries ago, trading goods from their ornate merchant wagons, and more recently across the waters to ports in Bamani and the Pearl Islands. Their cultural and political capital, Dahran, sits at the terminus of the Deul-built ironway for wagons, as well as a deep-water port for trading vessels, and has allowed the elite of the city to amass great wealth by connecting the economies of the known world.
Appearance, Dress, Characteristics:
Olive-brown skinned and dark-haired as nearly all the known world is, the Daraanese prefer loose skirts and wraps to counter the heat, covered with layers of jewelry and ornamentation, often literally made of coins to display wealth. Tawny-eyed and lovers of a bargain, the Daraanese make the best of life whatever their social class, while doggedly pursuing the means to rise higher.
Culture, Society, Religion:
Among the Daraanese, status is everything, and all status comes down to money. The holiest notion is ownership, with stations in the afterlife determined by how much wealth we amass in this one. Theft is the highest crime, though most anything and everything is for sale, and the wealthiest nine people in the city--called amaranths, for the single black coins they carry, of immeasurable value--rule the city with an iron fist... typically for their own benefit.
Language:
Surnames are passed only to the eldest son, who inherits the family business, while lower sons and daughters take a version with a da- or ba- added. Daraanese numerology is based on prime numbers, especially elevens, which they like to joke is the standard ten of the rest of the world, plus an extra one for profit.
Common phrases: Coffers (wow/good lord); heard clink (heard tell/heard word). Note also -djo added as an honorific to names (Aletheia-djo)
Common curses: begging (f&^king); get licked (go to hell)
Bamani
Native Region:
Spread across the densely jungled mountains and lowlands of the southern continent, the Bamani are a continent of people connected by culture and fractured by geography. While the same basic beliefs and mother tongue hold across the broad crescent-shaped landmass, the significant variations between tribes—as well as the fact no warlord has ever united more than a few tribes under one banner—speak to the effect of geography on what was likely a single ancestral immigration.
Appearance, Dress, Characteristics:
Tall and muscular, the naturally pale skin of the continent’s inhabitants is often tanned a deep brown from the sun, save those tribes in the deepest jungles. Dress is sparing, given the heat and humidity, and people generally feel no shame about nudity or exposing their bodies. While the Bamani, taken as a whole, possess no true alphabet or writing system, tattoos hold deep cultural and religious significance, and frequently take the form of a simplified pictographic record of the wearer’s life, especially their moments of greatest triumph and change. Every Bamani child learns to tattoo, practicing on the domesticated pigs that are common to the lowlands, but those who excel are sought out across great distances, to record exceptional feats.
Culture, Society, Religion:
Little holds true across the entire continent, beyond a reverence for tales and legends, and a belief that those who achieve sufficient glory in this lifetime will be reborn upon death. Tales of the reborn, as well as those who seek to be, are spread across the land by traveling annyimba. The annyimba are welcome in all places and considered above all tribal alliegance or dispute, as they bring entertainment and news of the outside world, as well as spread tales of local heroes to other tribes, potentially bringing them enough glory to be reborn.
Language:
Similar in their roots to the tongue of the Seilam Deul, but differing greatly in pronunciation and vocabulary between regions, and inflecting within those regions for each tribe, the Bamani do not have a language so much as a family of closely related dialects. Still, some idioms are common across regions:
Common expressions: legends carry your name (good luck); sing it (agreement)
Common curses: false tale (liar, idiot); weak-blooded
Maps
Cover Illustrations
First three books by Mateusz Michalski; fourth by J Caleb Designs.
A (spoiler-free) visual and textual reference for the cultures, peoples, and languages of the Academy of Cards world. All text is canon; all images are just for reference--trust your own imagination! Images created with Wonderdraft and MidJourney, under common use license.
Maps
Religion
Like the seven nations and islands of the known world, the commonly held worship of Kala is, at its heart, a blend of many beliefs and practices. Often referred to as the Nine Faces of Kala, it is founded around the idea that God—named here for the traditional Enkaji deity Kala—is multi-faceted, and individual people need their own relationships to divinity to have an authentic relationship to it. Many historians posit that Ganjin, during the time of unification after his defeat of the dragons, intentionally included the main deities of each island to further unite what had been distinct and warring islands under one religion as well as government and academic system.
Kala the Lover (left) is pictured as a beautiful man or woman, drawing in passionate devotees who relate to their god as divine romantic partner. Prayed to in moments of courtship, and later in relationship crises.
Kala the Judge is an elderly male figure, with a long beard and burning eyes. Representing the unassailable wisdom of god, as well as its moral demands on humanity, the Judge is called upon in times of crisis and reflection.
Kala the Dragon is pictured as a massive black drake, embodying the fearsome, unknowable powers of divinity, and related to with fear, awe, and—occasionally—called upon for luck.
Kala the Mother (left) is pictured as a matronly figure, and is said to protect her devotees as a mother would, drawing in the wounded and vulnerable and unsteady of world, and holding them unconditionally in her embrace. Invoked during pregnancy and childbirth.
Kala the Child is often depicted as a plump, androgynous toddler, glowing with vitality, and related to with selfless devotion and love. Called upon in times of internal change and rebirth.
Kala the Witness, or Mourner, was historically seen as a bruised woman dressed in rags, with wild hair and endless tears. Turned to in times of grief and loss, she does not demand or judge, but only keeps company in darkest times.
Kala the Warrior (left) is depicted as a fearsome--often male--warrior, challenging his followers to become better, stronger, more honorable members of their society. Celebrated with a pan-archipelago series of games and feats in mid-summer.
Kala the Holy is blank-eyed and massive—also known as Kala the Heart, they are the sublime, unknowable core of all the faces, celebrated in the first thaw of spring with reverent songs and prayers.
Kala the Humble is seen as a simple farmer with bare feet, appealing to worshippers who value honesty, humility, and simplicity, called upon in times of lack and need. Celebrated with song and dance in the final days of harvest.
Potential Covers
As the book isn't out yet, I've had some fun mocking up covers that have something to do with the story. None are final, or likely will any even be part of the final cover--but they're kind of fun.
