Musings of a Canadian Nierite. . .

Well, unless PCI/Tony decides something different, the PLAYERS decided on the Auxunite Fortress in Almeric as the next one as it had the second highest number of votes for where the Emerald Society was going to dig (the Vault got #1). While entirely possible that they will change their mind as to the setting, it most likely will be the fortress last I heard (a while ago).

At long last, I have gained access to the Coryani Calendar found in the original Codex Arcanis (mk. 1.0)! Speaking for myself, I do not know why it was removed from subsequent printings (page count?). I personally think it provides a great deal of insightunits he world, but that is me. In fact, after analyzing the calendar for some time (plotting out dates and the like that we know of. . . that I can find), I have found a few insights I think worthy of a Musing.

First of all, we know that the Coryani make use of a lunar calendar. This is not strange at all, as many cultures (in fact, most cultures) on Earth have made use of such calendars because of how consistent they are. After all, throughout all of known human history, it has taken the moon 29.5 days to complete its cycle, which is readily apparent to anyone who looks at it. Of course, using our future-space-knowledge, we know that such lunar calendars are not accurate for the SEASONS, as one SOLAR year would be almost 12.4 Lunar months. The calendar the most of the world uses now decided to retain the months as units of time, but otherwise they have pretty much lost their meaning in favour of the more accurate judging of our local seasons.

Arcanis does not have this issue. In fact, we know that the Arcanis Year is 364 days, which is slightly shorter than our own year. Second–probably for ease of calculations by Henry and all–the lunar periods of Aperio and Viridis are 28 and 91 days, respectively. This means that there is no pesky decimals when dealing with number of lunar months and solar years: 13/year for Aperio and 4/year for Viridis. This means that, aside from personal preference, there is nothing which proves that one system is better than another. As mentioned, this is probably only because PCI didn’t want to deal with crazy shit like calculating exactly what date corresponds to what month, but it also (from a political standpoint) makes arguments about what calendar to use less harsh. After all, aside from words, both calendars are perfectly reasonable to use.

What makes Coryan strange is that it uses a very strange system of weeks. For example, we know that a Coryani week is 8 days, which is not a multiple of 28, 91, or 364. This means that years begin (alternatively) on Godsday (presumably their version of Sunday among Christians) and Census (the 5th day of the week). In fact, there are 3.5 weeks/Coryani (Aperio) month which seems too precise to be simple happenstance. One reason for this could be that each month (over a 2 year cycle) will begin on a Godsday. In Coryan, each of the months is dedicated to one of the 12 Gods of the Human Pantheon (except Numen, which is dedicated to the Emperor). This could mean that there could be religious festivals every 2 years for each of the Gods which takes place on the Godsday on the 1st of their Month. So, one year Illiir, Larissa, Nier, Sarish, Cadic, and Beltine are honoured, while the next Saluwe’, Althares, Anshar, Hurrian, Neroth, and the Emperor of Coryan are honoured by religious festivals.

Using the dates provided by the Codex, we also learn some interesting things about he astrography of the Arcanis planetary system. As far as we know, the star of Arcanis (the Sun/Illiir/etc) is a Yellow dwarf (G4-class star) just like our own. Assuming that Arcanis and Earth have the same orbital velocity (which is not guaranteed, as none of the planets in our solar system have the same velocity as Earth), this means that Arcanis is SLIGHTLY closer to its star than Earth is to the Sun (by about 1/3 of a percent), which means–assuming Arcanis’ star is as old and hot as our own–that Arcanis has a SLIGHTLY warmer climate than Earth.

Moving away from the planet, we see some very interesting traits among the two moons of Arcanis. Of note, we know that Viridis (the Green Moon) has an phase period more than 3x that of our own moon. While it is not 100% true, moons (in our solar system) tend to be tidally locked to their primary, which is why there is a “Light Side” and “Dark Side” of our moon. The moon isn’t always having one side in light and dark, but because it is tidally locked to Earth we never see the ‘Dark’ side. This means (using math I myself do not fully understand) that the lunar period of a Tidally locked body is directly related to the distance between the two bodies than a specific orbital velocity. Assuming this interpretation of physics stands up (any astrophysicists out there?), this would imply that the distance between Arcanis and Viridis is a little over 3x as distant from Arcanis as the Moon is from us. This, on the face of it, doesn’t really mean much, but it truly does have some major connotations. For one, Earth’s Moon is REDICULOUSLY far away from the Earth. For reference, the Moon is 384,400 km (or 1.28 light seconds), while Mars’ moon Phobos is 1/41 that distance. That is 1/142nd the distance from Earth to Mars at its closest approach, or 1/109th the distance between Earth and Venus at its closest approach. This is HUGE distance, and from my (admittedly incomplete) understanding of astrophysics suggests that Viridis has to be a fairly large body to remain tidally locked at such a distance: If it were smaller, it simply would have been unable to stay within Arcanis’ gravity and fly out into space. Furthermore, we know that it cannot be small because–despite its distance–it is still larger in the sky than Viridis which (as revealed in A2HP5 Vexing Priests) is small enough to pass in front of Viridis and form what looks like an eye, implying it is smaller in the sky despite being closer. This suggests to me that Viridis isn’t so much of a moon, but a (likely smaller) PLANET in its own right. Double planet systems are not unknown: Hell, technically Earth and the Moon are a double-planet system as the orbital barycenter is not located at Earth’s core, but actually only about 1,700 km below the surface of the Earth (whose radius is ~6,350 km).

This could also explain how Viridis is a “Green Moon”. Most stellar bodies in our system are the colour they are based on the makeup of the rocks on them. Often, this means shades of black, grey, and white. When you come across a stellar body which has a different colour (like, say, red or green), this implies some sort of chemical action upon its soil, which suggests that there is (or was) some sort of atmosphere. For example, Mars is red because its soil (regolith) contains large amounts of iron oxides, which only happens when the soil is exposed to oxygen. This means that the surface had to have been in contact with LARGE mounts of oxygen at some point in its past, implying either an oxygen rich atmosphere, or liquid water (which also implies a level of atmosphere). For Viridis, if it is a lifeless body, to get a green colour would imply large amounts of oxidized copper in its soil, implying the same presence of oxygen.

An alternative to this is that the Green moon isn’t simply a green, lifeless body, but a LIVING PLANET with foliage and water to give it that colour. This is a fairly mindblowing realization to me, as it brings some interesting things up about the ‘worlds’ of Arcanis. For example, according to the Elorii stories about the God’s War, the Pantheon knew that the Other/Umor wasn’t on the Green Moon when the Elemental Lords because they had ” already looked there.” Could the Green Moon be the true origin of the humans? Could this be the fabled ‘Eastern Continent?’

This theory could be further supported by the other moon in Arcanis’ sky: Aperio. This is the Dark Moon, implying that it is made of a material which has a low albedo (meaning, it doesn’t reflect light well), which makes sense for a normal stellar body as they tend to be made of rock of black to white in colour. As there is a known lunar cycle for Aperio, it does suggest that that 1) it is also tidally locked, and 2) that it isn’t so much ‘black’ as ‘darker than the green moon’ because otherwise it would be near-impossible to see at night. This moon has a very interesting history in the world because we have it from many sources (such as “To Reap the Whirlwind” from Year of Ill Harvest) that this moon simply did not exist prior to the coming of the Pantheon of Man and the humans to Arcanis during the God’s War. From the same source (the Codex Arcanis) were we know that the Pantheon checked the Green Moon (in fact, the very next paragraph), that Aperio holds great significance to the Pantheon and the God’s War in general. It was on that body (according to the Elorii) that Umor took Belisarda, and had a fortress against the Pantheon of Man and Elemental Lords.

Could Aperio be less of a moon, but some sort of ship or artificial construct? I have once heard a theory that Aperio was actually the ‘floating city’ from whence the True Kio came to Arcanis, which is a very interesting interpretation. It could also have been something of a ‘bridge’ to allow The Other/Umor and his followers to escape the homeland of the Pantheon/humanity which may have been used by the rest of the Pantheon to reach Arcanis itself. Another theory is that the Dark Moon continues to be the prison used by the Pantheon to trap their foe away, which doesn’t necessarily call the ‘ship’ theory into despite.

Either way, the presence of Aperio does seem to have had quite a few effects upon the world of Arcanis. For one, prior to its coming, we did not have any references to western end of what is now the Blessed Lands being a Flood Plain. Currently, for at least a portion of each year the western third or so of the Blessed Lands–from Pescinium to the First City–is inundated from the Sea of Lanterns so that you can actually said all the way to Mount Dagha, upon which the First City is built. This suggests that this crazy tidal plain didn’t exist with only the Green Moon, which possibly didn’t have much effect due to its distance. Furthermore, from LA-SP3-04 “Wrong Turn at Coryan” we know that during the Empire of Yahssremore, the coastlines of Onara were noticably different than current day, but it is unknown if that is because of the tidal shift of gaining a new moon or because of the formation of the Gulf of Yarris at the end of the Il’Huan War.

Anyway, I shall leave my musings here and allow others to comment (this has nothing to do with the fact I’m hungry and need to make supper). Have fun!

Apologies: I made a math good. Orbital period would be less about distance from planet to moon (or, barycenter to moon) and more about CIRCUMFERENCE. This is C=πD. For an orbital period of 3.25x that of the Aperio, the you are looking 3.25=πD, where D=3.25/π=1.05 units. Aperio word be D=1/π=0.32 units. Ultimately it means the same thing unless I screwed it up again, but at least this way I am a bit more geometrically correct.

As a small note I am not convinced that the Lady has to be Larissa (instead of Saluwe … or even Anshar or Beltine). Otherwise I agree with your interpretation of the naming conventions. I find it irritating that I have to guess what season the modules are set in without a way to look them up for sure.

Ultimately, until Henry gives us some info or art is made meeting Henry’s description, we will never know just how big, small, or even far away Aperio and Viridis really are. My post is based on so many assumptions that I am worried that I’ll have my degrees taken away because of how scientific the theories really are

As to how gravity works, the basic principle is that every time you double the distance from an object, you half the force of gravity. This means–assuming that Viridis is the size of the moon and moves at the same orbital period–that the force of Arcanis’ gravity on Viridis is only 11% that of Earths on the Moon. In order for the forces to balance out, the Viridis has to mass some 12% that of Arcanis (as opposed to the 1.2% mass that is the Moon to the Earth). This means that Viridis would be a little bit bigger (in terms of mass) than MARS (which is about 10.7% the mass of Earth). Hell, it could even have a higher gravity than Mars (which is about 38% that of Earth) if the planet is more dense. After all, Mercury has a mass only 5.5% that of Earth, but has a surface gravity identical to mars which is not quite twice the size. If Viridis has the same density as Earth (which, if it were a double planet made at the same time from the same material, it could be) its surface gravity would be higher as Earth is (on average) 40% MORE dense than Mars.

Addendum: Assuming that all the above assumptions are correct, and that Viridis has a density of 5.5 g/cm3 (slighly lower than Earth), it would mean that it has a radius of around 3145 km (decimals removed due to made-up-ness) which is slightly less than Mars and a surface gravity of around 49% that of Earth/Arcanis, which is about 10% greater than Mars. Yay completely arbitrary number science!

Addendum addendum (the Revengening): Using the same completely arbitrary numbers, Viridis would be about 58% the size of our moon in the sky (assuming it is 3.1x the distance away, and 1.8x the total diameter). For this to look like an eye (as seen in Vexing Priest), Aperio would have to smaller than this while maintaining an orbital period of only 95% that of the Moon. As such, Aperio has to be between 30% and 50% the size of our own Moon if all these things are true, which would mean it has a radius between that of Ariel and Titania (moons of Uranus) .

I gladly profess my incomplete understanding of astrophysics and astrography, so I would not be surprised if my assumptions and math are completely wrong. I have generally always been good at math and science (hence my current profession), but for some reason Physics after High School has always been my bane

As to the Flood Plain being related to Viridis and not Aperio (or some combination of both), my only gripe against it is that I couldn’t find any references to the Flood Plain existing prior to the coming of Man. All references to the Blessed Lands before that time is that of a verdant, fertile plain with no reference to waters of the west except for a Ssethric reference that there was a body of water there (in regards to the Saam Ur Cyclopses, IIRC). This means that 1) I’m missing a reference to previous floods, 2) The flooding is related to Aperio, or 3) Something in the God’s War ‘made’ the Flood Plain.

My personal view on the subject is that the Flood Plain floods when Aperio and Viridis are at their combined closest approaches (both at perigree) which exerts more force than any single moon could on its own.

I actually covered all those topics in my post, including some theories about WHAT Aperio. I did mention it did not exist prior to the God’s War, and even that it may be a spaceship.

Travel and the spread of information in Arcanis

A recent discussion as to what player characters can and cannot know recently got me thinking about the actual mechanics of travel in this world. Before the age of the internet (yes, youngsters, there was once a time when the internet didn’t exist!), or even the printing press, the spread of knowledge, information, and even gossip was limited to how fast your average person could travel by foot. There were no emails, no cars, and no mail service. If you wanted to travel quickly, you were forced to go by horse-courier (hopefully with a network of fresh rides) or by ship. Consequently, it could take days or even weeks for even a single person to go from one place to another, with their news and gossip being limited to what a single man (or small group) can carry.

There are many means by which a person can travel using ancient, pre-industrial technology, but the main means are 1) by foot, 2) by animal drawn wagon, 3) on horseback, or 4) by ship. In the world of Arcanis, we have two additional means of transportation available that we did not have in our world: the Portals of Anshar, and other magical means. Each of these methods has advantages, and for the most part they are listed above in the order of how common they are in the population due to price. The majority of people on Arcanis are peasants, with even (presumably) the various non-human races having enough social stratification to make the faster means of transportation untenable except in special circumstances.

The most common means of transportation available in Arcanis is the ones that (the) God(s) gave us: our own two feet. In our modern society, the idea of travelling more than about 30 minutes by foot is almost ludicrous—with options like cheap cars, mass transit, taxies, etc—but this was once the only means most people had to travel elsewhere. This meant that the vast majority of the populations of our ancient worlds (and those Arcanis) never travel more than a few miles in any direction from the place of their birth. When travelling by foot, you must take into account a few things to get a realistic understanding of pace: road quality (or existence), how much food you are carrying, and your own physical fitness.

The first of these is the easiest to quantify as the presence and absence of a road is a fairly binary trait. Even a muddy trail is significantly easier to walk over than bushwacking (also easier to navigate so you spend less time figuring out where you are). For example, if you are bushwacking through a forest or moving through rough terrain, you are lucky if you can manage a single kilometre forward in an hour of travel, with more realistic travel being significantly less optimistic (including less than a single kilometre in an entire day of effort). This is because you have to contend with things like moving around mountains, finding paths through swamps, around thickets of trees, rivers, etc. All of this is done with you having to constantly reorient yourself based on things like the stars, sun, and landmarks that you cannot always see as only the wealthiest individuals have a compass, if anyone does in the day or in Arcanis.

On a road, on the other hand, all you need to know is where this path eventually leads and keep walking where it is going. The roads would be designed to go around natural obstacles, so they would mean that a lot of the orienteering time is done for you, making it mentally and physically less taxing. Speaking for myself, on a well paved road (which you wouldn’t find in the setting, but still) you can at a fairly healthy walking pace make 2 km/hr along the road without breaking too much of a sweat, though this also depends on the quality of roads. A Roman (or Coryani or First Imperium) Road connecting city to city would probably allow a person to make the 2 km/hr walking speed, but little side roads like country lanes in Milandir would be muddy dirt paths which probably are impassable swamps in rainy periods are much less easy going.

You also have to consider your own physical needs when marching down a road. Though we don’t think of it too much, walking for eight hours a day requires a lot of calories, and these are the days before power bars existed. This means you have to carry all your (very bulky and perishable) food on you while travelling, increasing your weight, decreasing your speed, and increasing your need to eat food to make up for it. If you are not carrying food (or have run out), then you have to forage around the road/path for food, which means you can spend your entire day looking for food without making ANY forward progress. You also have to consider how far your body will let you walk in a given day, as anyone who has walked in bad shoes (or no shoes) will tell you is a nightmare for any length of time. Unless your feet are calloused to the point of being made of iron, your feet will give out after only a few hours requiring you to rest for a while before you continue, without even mentioning your actual stamina.

All combined, you will be super lucky even on the best of roads to make 10 km/day of travel on foot. Even the best armies of the ancient world were hard pressed to make more than 30 km/day with a well-established baggage train carrying their food or with foraging parties ensuring that the army itself could feed itself. Just to give you an idea of what kind of timelines you are looking at, based on the maps provided by PCI comparing the continent of Onara to our world, it is about 500 km from Grand Coryan to Savona (as the crow flies). This means that it would take, assuming a direct path of travel and good roads a minimum of thirty days to walk between those two cities. If you are a legion that is well supported, you could probably do that in seventeen, again, assuming a direct path (which on land, in ancient times, almost never exist). This means that even to go to the nearest village maybe ten miles away, it will take a full day’s walk just to get there, which is prohibitive in a time when man-hours were much more precious than they were today for everyday survival.

But what, perhaps, could you do with beasts of burden? Well, if you are pulling a wagon you probably will not significantly improve upon your walking pace. Sure, animals like horses and oxen can walk faster than humans and can subsist on grass if available (unlike humans). For one, wagons—unlike humans and even horses alone—do require roads of some sort if you have any hope of not destroying the wagon on the way to your destination. For two, the animals best used to pull wagons (such as draft horses) are not built for speed, but stamina and strength. Even ignoring such things, unless you carry fodder with you and feed the animals via bags on their faces, they will still need to stop and graze and rest. All combined, even on horseback a man can only realistically cut his trip shorter by about half in equal terrain (about 15 km/day in rougher terrain on road, or as much as 50 km/day on more level terrain). This means that a rider can make the same theoretical trip from Grand Coryan to Savona in as few as ten days.

In some ancient cultures in our world—such as Persia under Darius—the imperial government organized a series of posting houses every ten to fifteen km along their major roads which consist of stables and inns. Here, an Imperial Courier could change horses every few hours allowing him to travel a much greater distance as you would never have to let your horse stop and rest. With fresh mounts and warm meals available to the courier, you could pass as much as 385 km/day, which means you could make the same hypothetical trip as above in as little as two days! However, the expense of maintaining that many posting houses along the roads, with that many horses available (with care, maintainance, staff, etc) means that you are lucky if there are more than a dozen such couriers able to make use of this service at any given time. In terms of player characters in Arcanis, they almost certainly would never be able to use this system even if they wanted to.

Leaving the world of land behind, we move to the sea. While on land you have terrain, need for food (of both you and your mount), and constant threat of bandits to worry about, the sea provides much freer means of traffic. The number of physical barriers (like reefs, islands, etc)that would impede your travels are relatively few compared to land, and the number of bandits is correspondingly low as pirates would be restricted to ships fast enough to catch you down. Because ships are (usually) powered by the wind for long voyages, you are expending fewer calories to transport a large amount of goods, and with a large enough crew you can keep moving constantly without need of rests. This means that ships are the jet planes of the ancient world!

There are disadvantages, however. Ships are extremely expensive to build, and require crews of (often) dozens of people. These are a lot of mouths to feed and pay, which means that only the very rich can make use of them regularly. Additionally, while the wind is ‘free’ power, it does not always blow the way that you want, which means that you are often going to have to fight your way by tacking, which slows your net progress significantly. Still, it is not uncommon for ancient galleys to make as much as 6 or 7 knots (11 to 13 kph) under sail. Going 24 hours a day, this means you can in theory travel over 250 to 300 km per day, all while carrying literal tonnes of cargo and passengers! If your destination is along the coast, it is by far preferable to travel even in a poor mans berth on a ship than any other means of travel. However, we know that few of the Arcanis nations are true naval powers, which means that the actual amount of transport ships is probably far less than in nations like Rome during their Empire or England during its colonial period.

Arcanis also presents us with two additional means of transportation: The Portals of Anshar, and other magical means. These means typically allow a person to—at great expense—travel instantly from one place to another. This is an amazing feat that even we today have not yet managed, and should allow even greater means of transport than we have available to us today! Unfortunately, this is not so. Why? Because the Ansharan Church charges extraordinary amounts of money (somewhere in the realm of 10 Gc/trip in the current setting by my math based on the 3.5 campaign) and that the Gates are located in very specific places. Sure, if you are made of gold and needed to send a message from the King of Milandir to the Emperor of Coryan, you could make a trip that would probably take as much as a month in the time it takes you to cross your average city. However, even your average Hero would balk at this cost, and it would only be used in the most dire of emergencies or for the most dire of messages (like declarations of war and the like).

Other magical forms of transportation are probably even more rare, as all the spells we know to move people more than a few dozen feet at a time are either tightly regulated (such as exotic or secret spells) or require very high-tiered casters to be able to use them. As magic-wielders probably make up only a small percentage of the population, and those who are capable of such grandiose displays of magical talent definitely make up only a small percentage of that already small percentage, it is safe to say that the use of such methods are rare at best. One such ‘alternate’ means are the Elluwe’ pools of the Elorii, but these are only open to Lifewardens so are even more restrictive than Portals.

So, what does this mean for the world of Arcanis? Well, it gives you a little bit of background on the timescales of your average adventures. For example, there was one adventure in the Crusade! storyline in which you travel from Mil Takara to the She Haulk Mountains, which is a distance akin to the Savona-to-Grand Coryan journey. Done on horseback, this would take you some two weeks to make it through as you aren’t moving on roads (or not always), but you are moving over the fairly even terrain of the Hinterlands. This means that the entire round-trip would take the Hero a full month (at least) to complete. Similarly, another adventure has the Heroes travelling from Savona-ish to Grand Coryan, with at least some of it done off-road (though still with horses), and what seemed like only a few days in total was probably a full week at the very least.

It also is informative of how fast information travels on Onara. It is entirely possible that the major ports of the world—such as Censure, Naeraanth, Savona, Sulpecci, and Midake along the Sea of Yarris—are fairly well informed about the events in and around each of those locals as word takes less than a week by sea to reach most of them. This is made even more true—to an extent—by the amount of traffic moving between the various ports as entire crews can carry large amounts of books, documents, gossip, and missives. While this seems like a good thing, do remember that much of the information that would be passed along (to the public, anyway) would be little more than gossip and rumours, which means only those who are rich enough (and literate enough) would actually get the ‘real’ news.

The Portals also mean that the various kingdoms, empires, states, secret societies, and churches are also very well informed about the movements around the major cities of the Known Lands as these bodies have the wealth to maintain spies and informants in position and report their findings directly through the Portals of Anshar. However, for the most part those people who are rich enough to have the means of using such methods probably have a vested interest in not openly publicizing their information. After all, in a world where it could take weeks for news to move from one place to another, being able to undercut the competition in business, espionage, or event the publication of a play or introduction of a new magical technique is invaluable.

For the common man, however, inland of the sea (and away from major river ports such as Grand Coryan or Panari) news spreads at an almost literal snail’s pace. What does make its way into the Inns and towns deeper in the empire likely takes the form of travelling bards, adventurers or merchants spreading tales over much ale and wine, and random gossip about the movers, shakers, and events of the major centres through which they travel. As most people in this world would not be literate (despite what many adventures seem to suggest), these tales would only take the form of oral exchanges. As anyone who has ever played the game “Telephone” will tell you, unless you are trained in an oral tradition, the original story will be mangled horribly with each telling until—very shortly—the story only bares a kernel of the original. It is from this that most of our myths and legends came from, and I see no reason why it would be any different on Arcanis than Earth.

This is made even worse because we know that in the Known Lands, printed books (and therefore printing presses) are vanishingly rare. While in our world the introduction of the printing press heralded a massive increase in knowledge across almost all social demographics, in Arcanis it seems that only the Republic of Altheria (and presumably the Church of Althares) has access to these machines, and as such maintain a stranglehold on knowledge in the world. The evidence of this comes from the ARPG book where “Altheran Printed” books are available, but at a massive price compared to other books. This means that almost all documents need to be hand-written by scribes outside of a few groups powerful enough to have their own (possibly illicit) printing presses, which means that there are probably very few copies of each individual book or scroll in existence in this world. In our world, the Library of Alexandria instituted a law where that every book, scroll, and tablet that came through the port of Alexandria had to—under some hefty consequences if resisted—be sent to the library to be copied for its own collection. As such, outside of designated Altheran Libraries (including those collections of Secret Societies) it is almost impossible to track down specific pieces of information as the collections are woefully incomplete.

But what about Heroes? Well, unless there is something very strange going on, all that is mentioned above applies to the Heroes. With a dearth of books, you are likely to only learn rumours of bits of knowledge in your travels unless you have very specific contacts (such as a Secret Society) or if your family is among the most powerful in the world and can afford to keep records of such events. Your average joe Hero, however, will probably come from less lofty birth such as a legionnaire or a squire or even a former slave, which means that their access to the inner workings of the world is limited severely. Even those who do have access to the events of the past and the exploits of the great suffer the same “Telephone” effect, where people will very rarely transcribe things objectively, putting their own spins on information to make themselves sound more brave or—in cases of fault—make themselves look better. Even those with access to such lofty information would probably be severely restricted in their access to the knowledge, as Secret Societies would not reveal their uttermost secrets to lower-level members, and even a person with an extensive collection of first editions and first-hand accurate accounts will be restricted by the simple need to READ the damned things (in a variety of handwriting, which makes reading very difficult).

So, to quickly summarize: In Arcanis, unless you are one of the major players in the (human) world, you don’t have the means of moving anything from information to people to cargo from one place or another in anything resembling quickly. This slow rate of travel limits the spread of information that those who are not super-powerful or super-connected have access to. Additionally, the politics of the land further reduce the spread of knowledge in the world, with various groups—such as kingdoms, churches, socieities, and the like—actively seeking to restrict knowledge and secrets making their way out into the world for their own benefit.