Kallimar

Picture a sprawling, golden citadel. Spires reaching towards the sky, every building a work of art. Gilded and enamelled with the finest materials: gold, silver, ivory and marble. A city of artists, of scholars, of poets.

– An extract from the Rissi myth The Lost City of Arcus.

Kallimar is a life-bearing world in the Xiess system. It is home to two sapient species: the Rissi and the Xhuva.

Kallimar is located approximately 14,600,000 km from Xiess, close to the inner edge of the red dwarf’s habitable zone. The climate is diverse, but due to a quirk of the world’s geology, landmasses have only formed in the tropics and subtropics, making jungles abundant. The crust of Kallimar does not have active tectonic plates, and is instead fused into one solid mass. This lithosphere is thicker towards the poles and thinner towards the equator as a result of the centrifugal force produced by relatively short rotational period on the world's mantle. Closer to the equator, where the mantle comes closer to the surface of the lithosphere, there is a planet-spanning band of static volcanic jungle islands.

The Rissi are an avian-like sapient species which evolved on Kallimar, and the Xhuva are the result of the Rissi's genetic experimentation on the Xhu, a group of native species resembling mammals and historically used as beasts of burden.

The Rissi are a bipedal sapient species native to Kallimar. Although their ancestors were able to fly, the modern Rissi are only able to glide for long distances. The flight feathers that line their wings-turned-arms, their tailfeathers, and a feathered plume atop their head are all still prominent features. Rissi feathers vary drastically in appearance, with some being bright, some being rich, deep hues, and some being tawny. Regardless, most Rissi take great pride in their plumage. Historically, the ability to glide was important to the Rissi, who made their towns and villages out of interconnected nests dotting cliff-faces, relying on their wings to drop safely into the sea and their talons to climb out with the catch of the day.

Rissi are not sexually dimorphic, and reproduce through parthenogenesis. This means that each Rissi only has one biological parent, with one Rissi alone able to lay an unfertilised egg that can hatch into their child. However, pair bonding is still common and Rissi hatchlings are generally reared cooperatively. The Rissi started as a hybrid of two similar species, that proved capable of reproducing on its own by this mechanism. In a sense, the Rissi are an evolutionary 'dead end', with greatly slowed evolution. Despite this, the modern Rissi have managed to survive and outlive their ancestors.

Xhuva are a sapient “species” (the term ill-fits the diverse group) from the Xiess system. They are the result of genetic experiments done by the Rissi, around 200 years before the present day.

The Xhuva are genetically-modified descendents of Xhu, the Rissi term for “beast of burden”. The Xhu were a diverse group of mammal-like species who were modified by the Rissi to enhance their intelligence and usefulness. In the process of uplifting, the Xhuva retained most of the Xhu’s biology, though their hips, wrists, and fingers were extensively modified to support bipedal life. Xhuva can readily shift from a bipedal to quadrupedal stance, which lets them climb and pull particularly heavy loads better.

An illustration of some Xhuva. Bear in mind the Xhuva have a huge diversity of appearances and this image does not capture them all.

The Rissi had a long history of experience with genetic modification before they began their experiments on the Xhu. Most prior projects had only worked on changing physical aspects, so the project to transform the Xhu into a sapient – but still ultimately subservient – species was still a generational undertaking. From the beginning, the Xhuva had only been intended to be a slave race, serving the Rissi as manual labourers.

Though Rissi-controlled governments were able to maintain this hegemony for centuries, Xhuva slavery was not universally supported by the Rissi. Some city-states fully abolished the practice, leading to a period of increasing militarisation as slave cities aimed to ensure the subjugation of the Xhuva while free cities aimed to protect their laws and citizens.

Despite this, the system of Xhuva slavery was maintained throughout the process of colonisation of the Xiess system and its closest neighbours. It was this process which eventually shattered the system, with news of small-scale local revolts on colony worlds not reaching the homeworld sometimes for years at a time, giving the rebels a foothold to dig in and find allies. Though the first time a major rebellion occurred the government was able to crack down on it effectively, to the still-enslaved Xhuva it became clear that it was only a matter of time before freedom would come.

Before long, small-scale insurrections spiralled into a fully-fledged revolt, resulting in a centuries-long civil war, causing great destruction to the planet from use of thermonuclear weapons. The formerly-disparate city state governments of Kallimar united into two federations on the issue of Xhuva slavery. The people of Kallimar continued to fight until sixty years ago, and first contact with the rest of the galaxy was made while the war was still ongoing. Though those opposed to slavery were eventually victorious, the war destroyed almost everything of the old city-states, both physically and politically, leaving only the victorious Liberation Army standing. The Rissi and Xhuva crafted a meritocratic and fanatically egalitarian state under the army's control, renamed to the People's Army of Kallimar. All adult Rissi or Xhuva – as well as any aliens living on Kallimar – hold a military rank, and differing military ranks define all interactions, even in civilian life. Though the planet still lies in tatters and the project of reconstruction is ongoing, the people of Kallimar have come to view the war they suffered as a necessary trauma: They have “passed through the crucible of nuclear flame and been burned clean of injustice, that their children might live free and equal and never have to know such horrors”, as some might say.

Most veterans are now retired and children of the post-war period now occupy most major governmental offices, including the office of the Sky-Marshal, for the first time.

The War may fade from living memory within a generation, but it won't be forgotten from Kallimar's cultural memory. History is taught divided into 'Pre-War', 'Great War', and 'Post-War', and the date of the War's conclusion has become the date to which the local calendar is set. Much modern artistic tradition also descends from during the War. One prominent example of this is music; Rissi and Xhuva colleagues first sang together in military camps of the Liberation Army. Harmonising the voices of Rissi and Xhuva remains an important element of Kallimari music to this day.

One element of the Old World that has survived the war is the worship of Arc, viewed by many (but definitely not all) of the people of Kallimar as a creator goddess. Rissi tradition is generally monotheistic, and so many different regional religions readily harmonised with each other to create a many-named Goddess, different believers around the world accepting each other's beliefs: seeing the 'message' sent to other faiths as just as important to those people as their own was to them.

Religion has played a prominent part in the recent history of Kallimar, with belief in Arc being a common justification for the abolition of Xhuva slavery. As a rule, the people of Kallimar are understanding of the myriad ways one might find meaning in their life, whether that be through an Arc-worshipping religion, a different religion, or through no faith at all.

Despite the end of the independence of city-states, they remain culturally important. Rissi and Xhuva both take a surname after the city-state they reside in, with individuals from smaller ones just using the name while those from larger ones taking the name of their local neighbourhood and the city-state combined together.

Listed below are some city states that you can use for a character from Kallimar who uses the traditional naming system. This is not an exhaustive list, and feel free to create your own!

Before the war, Kallimar was governed by a number of semi-independent city-states which owed their allegiance to loose national confederations. Citizens of a city-state or colony-state saw themselves as belonging to that polity and its culture, and national confederations being relatively ad-hoc against thousands of years of city-state history, having little impact on day to day life and national identity. Confederations might conflict with one another, and a city-state might be handed from one confederation to another, but life for people in that city-state would change little, if at all.

During the course of the war, the power of national confederations grew substantially as they came to possess larger and larger armies to fight the emerging conflict. Simultaneously, the military came to be the leading force within the confederations. The totality and scale of the War led militaries to take more and more control over everyday life, until everyone – from factory workers, to paramedics, to schoolchildren – was enveloped by the military and organised on its terms.

Though the end of the war has led to a relaxation of society, the 'mandatory membership' of the military and the organisation of civilian bodies on military terms (with factories having 'Wing Commanders' and 'Talons', rather than managers and supervisors) has showed no signs of abating. It has become the normal state of affairs on Kallimar, and the people living there generally approve of this system. The legislature of Kallimar is chosen randomly, with members being granted the rank of First Talon for the year-long duration of their service, while the executive and judicial branches of government consist entirely of military officers promoted on merit. The legislature has the responsibility to oversee the other branches of government, rather than to decide on policy itself, and has the power to dismiss any officer from their post.

The governments of the former city-states, still of great cultural importance, are organised on similar terms to the national government. Larger city states use a legislature of sortition with an executive of ranking officers, and smaller city states – or boroughs in larger states – have direct democracy.