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One of the quieter pleasures of building a fantasy world is deciding what kind of people it produces. Geography shapes culture. Climate shapes character. The same human impulses — toward beauty, toward power, toward belonging — express themselves differently depending on whether you grew up in a frozen highland or a coastal jungle or a city older than most nations.
Vael has six human nations, split across two continents. Here’s what you need to know about each of them — and a little about the world they share.
A Note on the Aelvani
The six human nations share Vael with several other peoples, including the Aelvaeni. They appear in The Signet in ways I won’t entirely spoil here — but the two first encountered on the eastern road early in Scarlet’s journey are among the novel’s first clear signals that something older and more dangerous than a land dispute is at work in the world.
What was done to them, and by what, is not a question with a comfortable answer. The war has deeper roots than anyone currently fighting it understands.
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