Author: Alec Alenia
Location: Branhal, Western Holdings
Time: Night – Day 12
Entry Title: The Bones of a Sleeping World
The stars are wrong.
That was the first certainty I had when I opened my eyes beneath this alien sky. The constellations above bear no resemblance to those I studied on Earth. No Orion. No Cassiopeia. Just a scattered riot of unfamiliar patterns—too bright, too numerous. Either this world possesses a thinner atmosphere, or it sits farther from its sun than mine did.
I have not heard a name for this planet. No one speaks of it as a globe. There is no concept of spheres or solar bodies, no sense of scale beyond riverbanks and old trade routes. To them, this place is not a world—it is the world. The only one. A bounded storybook where gods once walked, kings now perform, and peasants endure.
They don't wonder if there's something beyond the mountains. They wonder if the gods are still listening.
They live in a loop.
I am here to cut it.
To that end, I have adopted the family name Alenia—an identity designed to blend into their order, even as I prepare to replace it.
Geography and Political Structure
Through whispered rumors, trade maps, and incidental questions, I have assembled a crude understanding of the region:
Branhal, my current base of operation, is nestled in the western lowlands, a patchwork of barley fields and wooded ridgelines. It belongs to the Kingdom of Edenia, ruled nominally by King Theren II, a man whose influence appears to rest on marital alliances more than martial acumen. He has three wives—each from separate noble houses—each producing heirs to prevent rebellion by incestuous necessity. It's a web designed to tangle itself.
To the southeast lies the Duchy of Midgard, ostensibly a vassal of Edenia. In practice? It behaves like a sovereign state. It taxes independently. Its banners fly beside, not beneath, the king's. It is ruled by a widowed duchess, name uncertain, with a child and a militia that obeys her alone. The villagers speak of her in half-whispers, as if expecting her to arrive at their doorstep with steel and parchment.
To the south, I hear only of salt flats, ash valleys, and a dead city swallowed by earthfire. The west remains unmapped. Either unexplored—or forgotten for good reason.
This continent is old. And it is fractured.
Like dry stone.
Waiting for pressure.
Branhal and the Shape of the Village
Branhal is what I'd term a proto-feudal agrarian unit, population between 200–240. It survives through:
Grain cultivation (mostly barley)
Livestock (goats, chickens, oxen)
Basic textile weaving
Subpar blacksmithing (one forge, minimal precision)
Trade is rare. A merchant caravan arrives every 8 to 12 days, often bearing salted goods, rope, and gossip. Coin circulates in copper, but barter still dominates the working class. Standardization is nonexistent.
Law here is not codified. Justice is customary, not constitutional—rooted in seniority, mood, or grain yield. The village council, led by Headman Harwin, presides like a board of elders in declining health. Power is more performed than held.
Notable individuals:
Harwin – Old, cautious, increasingly aware of his waning influence.
Lysa – His niece, ambitious and alert. She will either rise fast—or betray faster.
Silla – The militia leader. Pragmatic. Dangerous when cornered.
Jorren – Blacksmith. Suspicious, but not resistant to logic.
Mira – Healer. Observant. Moral center. Possibly my only true ally.
The villagers themselves? Resilient, but conditioned to defeat. They endure hardship not with protest, but with shrugging silence.
And yet—beneath that—curiosity. They listen when I speak. They mimic what I do. Not because they understand—but because results bypass belief.
Religion, Ritual, and Faith
The primary faith orbits a dualistic pantheon:
Auron, the Sun-Father: fire, law, harvest, masculine strength.
Velistra, the Moon-Mother: wisdom, healing, mystery, feminine endurance.
Temples are scarce in rural areas but abundant in urban centers. Father Wren, Branhal's lone priest, performs rites with a weariness that suggests belief has long since been replaced with obligation.
Faith here is not zealous. It is habitual. Ritual dominates daily tasks:
Bread is sun-marked.
Children are moon-blessed.
Prayers are spoken before planting, not from conviction—but because to not speak them would feel unnatural.
Notable festivals:
First Fire – planting season's dawn.
Sunward Eve – midsummer courting, drink-heavy.
Ember Vigil – honoring the dead in late autumn.
Moonwake – winter fasting and silence.
Marriage is primarily transactional. Dowries are currency. Fertility is politics. Love is an accident, and rarely a factor in alliance.
This is a culture shaped by weather, bloodlines, and famine. The gods are not loved. They are feared like fire and frost.
Technology, Infrastructure, and Knowledge
Branhal exists in a technological range equivalent to Earth's 12th–14th century, though inconsistently distributed. Larger cities (which I have not yet visited) may flirt with pre-renaissance ideas. But the countryside remains static.
Missing elements:
No gunpowder
No printing press
No steam, no hydraulics
No microscopes, barometers, or even compasses
Craftsmanship is utilitarian, not innovative. Medicine is ritualistic herbology. Astronomy is superstitious navigation. Math ends where markets begin. Reading is rare. Writing is rarer. And books—when they exist—are manuscript scrolls or leather-bound relics handwritten in monasteries.
I built a leveling tool using a water bowl and a reed, and was asked if it was divine. I showed a boy how to measure angles using triangulation, and he stared at me like I'd torn a secret from the sky.
And yet…
When I restored the watermill, they understood. Their faces didn't glow with worship.
They glowed with possibility.
Society, Gender, and Inheritance
The nobility rules by land, lineage, and leverage, but Edenia's culture features an unexpected twist: a dual-gendered power structure.
Women frequently manage estates, oversee contracts, and even maintain standing militias. King Theren's wives wield both ceremonial and military power, and it's understood that their households act as semi-autonomous power blocs.
In Branhal, gender roles revert to the more familiar medieval division:
Men dominate labor, council, and guard roles.
Women control health, education, and cultural memory.
Inheritance is patrilineal—unless no male heir survives. In that case, crisis breeds exception. The Duchy of Midgard is an example of that anomaly: a widowed duchess holds full control. No regency. No male proxy.
She survives. That means either:
She is exceptionally intelligent, or
She is terrifying.
I suspect both.
Language and Thought
They speak a tongue derived from what I suspect was once a blend of High Latin, Old Germanic, and Icelandic root structures—a brutal language, but clean. Consonant-heavy. Efficient.
The lack of abstract vocabulary is striking.
There is no native word for "momentum."
So I gave them one.
Now, I hear farmers speak of "rotational laying", of "channel-feed gradients", of "structure yield"—terms that did not exist two weeks ago.
Language, like fire, spreads without asking.
Give it the right spark, and it remakes the world.
My Place in the Machine
I did not choose to come here.
I do not yet know how I arrived.
But the facts are immutable:
I am here.
I cannot return.
And this world is ripe for correction.
I've been called many things: a fallen god, a curse-bearer, a tinker-savant, and a liar. But the truth is simpler:
I am the future their world never learned how to summon.
I hold no magic. No sword. No prophecy. Only knowledge.Knowledge of pressure.Of levers.Of combustion, industry, systems, states.
They don't know it yet, but they've already begun to give me the three things I need:
Time
Tools
Trust
I have no interest in kingship.I don't want their titles.But I will build something here. Something that outlasts them.
Not for them.
For me.
Because if I must die in this world, I will not die as a stranger.
I will die as its architect.
End of Log – Day 12
Further entries pending territory expansion and contact with Midgard.