🔰(Georic Gazetteer) Hy Braseal and Amazonia

(Author's Notes: Despite my desire to complete this guidebook as a Gazetteer for all things related to the continent of Talaishia, I have receive an inordinate amount of correspondence asking me to make a short dissertation on many of the major countries outside those geographical boundaries.  I feel that placing such a limited amount of information to fit the format of my original work would be akin to dipping your thumbnail in pitch and saying you blend in with the night.  However, some of these fine folks, have felt the need to provide me with a certain amount of coin, I am unable to return it, and would feel tugs at my moral compass if I did not add something as an appendix, possibly a hint of things to come for future books.)

Hy Braseal

Pantheon:  Khemmet

Ruled By:  Archmage Gela Cibol
Capital:  Lepherate

Other Cities:  Aserthera, Sekhimnos

Language:  Khemmet dialect, with lesser Senzar and Xellenic influences

Flag/Emblem:   A white unicorn, careening, horned, maned, and collared gold, on a green field.

Coinage:   Hy Braseal
Important Personas:  Councils, nobles, priests, generals, mages, priests, officials, etc.

Alliances:  None

Hostilities:  Noted Senzar engagements mention nothing by confrontation.

Open Warfare/Skirmishing:  None

Intrigues:  None but minor court intrigues noted.  

Demi-Humans:  Serathia (5%), Huldari (4%), Ilekari (2%)

Magickal Devices:  The Breath-Woven Paths, the Staff of Harmonies, Memories of Ta's Breath, Paralyzing Slings, the Huldri Engine of Rebirth, one report of an exotic windship, its name translated to "Spirit"

The confirmed flag/emblem of the mysterious women of the Hy Braseal/Amazonia

Thumbnail Sketch:  

Our world of Georic is full of distant and exotic worlds, the mysterious walled lands of Chi'in, the cannibal Mozogo, even the deranged Lemurians.  But few lands are as contradicting in their claims as Hy Braseal.  The land the Hibernian explorers labelled as Hy Braseal is on the island of Amazonia.  Amazonia is the largest and southern-most of the Fortunate Islands chain far beyond the reaches of the Senzar Empire.  

There are a few facts all sources have reached a consensus on.

• It is a large and fruitful island, with rain-drenched jungles, emerald highlands, obsidian mountains, and glistening, rune-wrapped rivers. teaming with exotic flora and fauna.
• It is a strict matriarchy, with rival factions of arcane and divine spellcasters influencing the politics.
• The religious traditions seemed to have evolved from older Khemmet traditions
• All women not fit for magicks are duty-bound trained as warriors.  
• Men are relegated to the roles of artisans, housekeepers, and caretakers.
• The true name of the kingdom is debated (The author favors the Hiberian).  Despite living on Amazonia, do NOT call these female warriors Amazons.  
• Every expedition of every culture has reported being captured, then only half of the crew is allowed to leave.  The fates of detained crew is different and mere conjecture in every case. 

While their warrior ethos shrines through in all reports, it is the amazing skills at herbalism that they may have no equal to, not even the shamans of the western Chi'in mountains of Tzagan-Lor.  This lush and exotic landscape produces such a wide array of plants and herbs, it is not a question of if there is a cure for an ailment, it is which technique to use. 

Religion: Outsiders are not forced to convert to their pantheons of gods, outward practice of any faith not deemed traditional in the eyes of the divine sisters is a crime, punishable by the affecting sister's whims for the day, from a simple slap across the face to a tortuous death.    Hy Braseal's pantheon has certain diverse Khemmet origins, but also adopts a few Xellnic influences. Despite a closer proximity to its people the entire society seems bereft of any Senzar religious iconography or influence. 

Many of the Xellenic gods and traditions are woven beneath the Khemmet pantheon, almost akin to secret society, a sisterhood, a sorority.  The priestesses of different faiths but same allegiances are known to aid each other, even is the temples themselves are squabbling.

Thalia Garmistis - War Priest of the Heqet, Sister of Hecate

Demi-Humans:  There are no traditional demi-human races on Amazonia.  Rather there are three larger races beneath humans that are considerable benefit and influence to Hy Braseal

• Serathia - Female Snake Women -  The largest demi-human population, they were created by Hy Braseal sorceresses millenia ago.  Concentrated in the temple-cities, they rule over mystical enclaves and serve priestly advisors and assistants.  Often feared or revered, it is rumored they breed with captured males.  Only female infants are created, although there is no notations what happend to male offspring, or the men used in the breeding process. 
  
  
  
• Huldari - "Troll-Dwarves" - Found in deep jungle communes and stone-forged hill cities. Small in number but vital for architecture, animal-bonding, and elemental rites.  Only society that is remotely egalitarian, the Huldari men hold higher standing in Hy Braseal culture than actual Human men.
  
  
  
• Ilekari - an amphibian race found in river-delta temples and wetland enclaves. Known for oracles, weather-magic, and song-craft.
  
  
  

Geography of Note: 

Lepharate - The capital city is so varied and outrageous in its multiple descriptions, that it's exotic look much be true. A coastal city of basalt spires and the jade-green glass observatory of Lanaege, skyline rises like a puzzle of towers and bridges. Barges-ferries, with a male attendants, traverse the tidewaters.   At the city's heart, the Spiral Lexicon ascends—a living tower made of ink-stone and memoryroot, its surface scrolling with animated script. In the shipyards, not only are ships built Huldari and human craftsmen, but actual sea-beasts from our nightmares are shaped in rune-cradles emerge from briny birthing pools, tentacles coiled around ceremonial scaffolding. 

The Star-Womb Caldera - An enormous dormant volcanic crater, its black stone floor covered in luminous constellations of embedded crystal. Strange auroras hang low overhead. Seen as the site where the first spell-mothers were born.

The Flower-Mirage of Shunem Vale - Tucked in the jungle highlands beyond Cibolallan, Shunem Vale appears only at dawn and dusk—its mist-choked valley suddenly bursting into view with miles of bioluminescent blossoms, pulsing like heartbeat fireflies. Visitors describe whispers riding the wind and spectral shapes moving through the petals. 

The Black Moon Gate of Nahet-Phera - A ruin of impossible age near the western shore, the Black Moon Gate is a crescent-shaped archway built from star-metal and obsidian. When moonlight passes through its arc, visions of alternate pasts or possible futures ripple across the ground. From reports, the few foreign explorers who pass beneath it return unchanged—or at all.

Mentions of the Country in the Blog: None

GM Notes:  I've got a lot of random notes on countries in my personal game world.  Some are encyclopedic, others are just a few lines, or a listing in "Top Ten Countries for Herbalism."  

I try to standardize my gazetteer to a format similar to the Epic of Aerth for the old Dangerous Journeys game. Since I transplanted my world onto that map twenty five years ago, I'm digging into the references to flesh out my own version.  

Hy Braseal is not one of those processes.  I had planned on making an Amazonian Warrior-Priestess for Hackmaster for the 2025 #CharacterCreationChallenge.  A lot Wikipedia diving for data, with some ChatGPT to blend it into a nice smoothie of Egyptian, Greek, and Atlantean (Senzar) influences.  

I had most of the character concept for Thalia Garmistis, Warrior-Priestess of Hecate set up, but never got the time to roll up stats, especially with other character pushed back from previous years.    Thalia sits as a project for January 31,2026 for next year's #CharacterCreationChallenge, and I had created a gazetteer placeholder for Hy Braseal/Amazonia to keep all the cool info I created and crafted off of AI.  

Of course, there is an aptly vague entry for Hy Braseal in Epic of Aerth, so way back during a quiet Memorial Day morning this year, I sat down and constructed this realm, which my players will never see the light of day. 

I'm an active ChatGPT user for data mining and ideas, and let's not talk about how many pictures I've generated on Nightcafe.  I use the "AI" tag to note posts that I've crossed a personal line to how much data and text was generated.  Initial names were changed to bastardize Hellenistic Egyptian, the three demi-human races were proposed and wildly changed (the Huldari are equatorial and tropical versions of the trolls in Frozen, Nightcafe was only so cooperative), and the Egyptian God/Greek Sisterhood concept I wildly altered from working on Thalia originally.  To be honest, only the the Geography of Note, and the descriptions used to image generation through Nightcafe,  were pulled word for word.  

And Thalia Garmistis - War Priest of the Heqet, Sister of Hecate, will be ready for next year.