When the Dolmanic diaspora fled the destruction of the Were Empire four thousand years ago, it spread across the rolling plains that, millennia later, would become the Northern Dolmanic Republic. The farthest tendril of that migration ended at the ocean, in a lush river-delta valley cupped between the ends of two mountain ranges. Thick forests, rich freshwater and offshore fisheries, and fertile bottom land made it a nearly ideal place to live.

To exploit such a wealth of resources required a more settled way of life than the other Dolmanic tribes pursued. The resulting cultural drift that might have separated the Dale folk from their more nomadic plainsdwelling brethren was countered by the need for a strong mutual defense against frequent raids by the Hooven tribes in the nearby mountains. These ties persisted through the eventual conquest of those tribes and the crowning of the Northern Dolmanic Kingdom's first monarch.

As tribalism gave way to imperialism, the Dale became one of the new realm's first civilized provinces. Its economy changed little except in size, continuing to revolve around lumbering, fishing, and agriculture. Over the centuries, though, a new factor gradually emerged: commerce. The growth of domestic and international trade, especially with the Shammark Basin down the coast, made the Dale's position -- near the mouth of a navigable river on a coast dominated by rugged mountains -- uniquely important.

One of the fief's more notable lords, seeing the opportunities, founded the city of Daleport. At first the new city was little larger than the original village and primitive castle across the river. As the river port expanded, however, it was joined by shipbuilding slips, and the increasingly cosmopolitan population swelled rapidly, outgrowing the original city walls. Trails leading to and from the Dale became roads, and new trails appeared.

Even with all this, the broad river in the Dale remained unbridged. It was important to keep the river open for shipping, and construction technology was too primitive to throw a span across such a wide expanse. The fading of magic toward the end of the Age of Legend meant that it would be of limited help in the building and could not be relied upon in the long term for maintenance. Instead, ferries tied the two shores together. This was adequate for a minor out-of-the-way holding, but Daleport's newfound importance as a crossroads of trade demanded more.

When, during this time, the noble family that held the Dale died out, the region escheated, or reverted by law rather than inheritance, to the throne and became a crown province. The king, forced to find a solution for this relatively small but important area, named a (very) distant relative of the original family, a proven and talented soldier and administrator, as the actual successor to the title. He proved an inspired choice, for his shrewd and enlightened policies continued and bolstered the Dale's prosperity, making it a jewel in the Dolmanic crown.

The project for which he is most remembered, though, was ambitious and inspiring: a bridge over the river. It was only comparatively recently that mundane building techniques allowed arches large enough and pilings sturdy enough to do the job. Mechanical technology had mastered the drawbridge, answering the need to keep a shipping lane clear. Suddenly, with the ability of traffic simply to drive across the river, the importance of the roads skyrocketed, drawing yet more traffic -- and immigrants.

Like Shammark County, but on a smaller scale, Daleport became a patchwork of neighborhoods and communities, including not only humans and Hooven but, thanks in part to Dis the were-panther, lycanthropes and more exotic peoples from distant lands. The bridge allowed the continually growing city to engulf and absorb the old seat on the opposite bank, the economy shifted almost entirely to shipbuilding and trade, and the Dale became a pocket of prosperity only occasionally interrupted by the troubles that come to every land sooner or later.

As transportation technology improved, so did the roads. The first bridge lasted for centuries and was joined by several others, but around the time of the Great Awakening it had to be dismantled to make way for the ever-larger sailing ships calling at the port or plying the river. (Today there is a monument and museum near the original site, complete with a large model of the bridge based, since no reliable depictions of it have been found, on the archaeologists' best guess at its appearance.) The delta was dredged regularly to maintain shipping channels deep enough for these ships' deeper drafts.

The industrial era saw a radical realignment of Daleport's priorities. Steamships rapidly grew too large to travel upriver and railroads snaked across the land. The river port became a transfer point, shifting cargoes among river barges, ocean steamers, and freight trains. One major rail line, celebrated in story and song, clings to the base of the mountains, more or less following the old trail that meandered along the coast to the Shammark Basin. Trucks and aircraft began to appear as well, adding yet more to the bustle. Heavy industry, nurtured originally by the shipbuilders and chandlers, diversified.

The asteroid impact of fifty years ago inflicted significantly less damage on the Dale than on the Shammark Basin; where the tsunami emanating from it struck the mouth of Shammark Bay square on, the curve of the coastline made it a glancing blow to the Dale river delta. The city itself, far enough upriver to avoid the worst of the wave's energy, suffered a grevious flood but not wholesale flattening. Still, though, the Coast Line was demolished, cutting the major land access to Shammark County, and both ports were damaged.

Because of Daleport's accessibility, it did not suffer the Shammark Basin's years of isolation and quickly regained its status as an important industrial city and transportation hub linking Mega-Shammark's major seaport to the rest of the Northern Dolmanic Republic. Today, its ancient history combines with its modern cosmopolitanism to make it a thriving, bustling city, bridging the past and the future much as that first drawbridge united the banks of the river flowing endlessly through its heart.

Indirectly--and unknown to its modern citizens--the Northern Dolmanic Republic descends from the ancient Were Empire . . . but in many ways its traditions are very much the opposite of its predecessor.

When the Empire disintegrated into chaos at the end of the Age of Myth four millennia ago, floods of refugees flowed across the land, undirected and without real destinations. Some were ex-serfs wishing to build new homes, whether on the ruins of a once-mighty nation or in new places free of old emotional associations. Others were the lycanthropes who no longer ruled, seeking new homes far from those self-same ruins and the vengeance of their former thralls.

One such outmigration of the latter kind wound its way far into the wilds, settling at last on rolling plains and a tribal way of life. They became known to their scattered neighbors (most of them Hooven such as minotaurs, centaurs, and fauns) and to history as the Dolmen--specifically, the Northern Dolmen, to distinguish them from related tribes in other regions.

These Dolmanic tribes skirmished occasionally with the Hooven that lived on the outskirts of their territories, for the most part indecisively. But as the centuries progressed and populations gradually swelled, the fighting increased as well, until at last the ever more frequent conflict came to a head in a comparatively large battle involving nearly all the tribes in the area on both sides.

On the eve of this battle, the chiefs of the northern Dolmen gathered somberly in a single tent to settle a vital question. Each of the dozen or so men was an able leader, in war or peace, but that very competence told them they must choose a single captain-general--to provide a resolute, unambiguous source of direction, if nothing else.

Yet those chieftains were also proud and sometimes hot-blooded. Debate became argument, coming near to blows before the older and wiser heads among them pointed out that such fighting could only weaken them, making them unable to face effectively the greater battle in the morning. At last they decided to call in an old, universally respected shaman for advice and witness. His solution was simple and unorthodox.

He told them to play a pebble game, and the winner, having proven his cunning and quick wit to be even greater than that of his capable fellows, would lead the united tribes on the morrow. Exactly which of the myriad varieties of such games was played is lost to history, for the participants told no one how the decision was made. It was only decades later, as the last of them lay on his deathbed, that he recounted the tale to the grandson who would succeed him.

The result of that fateful game was one of the fortunate accidents of history: events converging to produce an unexpected outcome that eventually proves greater than the sum of its parts. The Dolmen, thanks largely to their leadership, cohesiveness, and comparatively strong discipline, won the battle handily--but they were mighty enough only to humble, not to break, their opponents, and they knew it.

They had solved the problem, but only temporarily; it would rear its head again in another generation or two, and in the meantime there were many intertribal concerns to address as well. What began as an ad hoc expedient was institutionalized ... though the process of selecting a new high chief became rather more formalized. When at last their fears were realized and the Hooven tribes came again to threaten what was becoming an embryonic nation, the Dolmen were as ready as their foresighted grandfathers could make them.

Once again they defeated their attackers, this time soundly, but at great cost to their own strength. Though there were the inevitable calls to destroy the Hooven utterly, the fact of the matter was that the Dolmen simply did not have the means to carry out any such pogrom against fierce resistance. Moreover, even if they did, there surely would be survivors that would nurse bitter grudges and become an endless thorn in the Dolmen's collective foot.

A more practical solution emerged. The conquered tribes were annexed and promised that, with hard work and cooperation, they too could eventually enjoy full and equal status in the eyes of the high chief--or, rather, the king. This neatly cut off potential resentment, leaving the equally inevitable soreheads and firebrands among the vanquished with little support. It was both farsightedly visionary and hardheadedly pragmatic, and became the foundation for the growing realm's policies for centuries to come.

The Northern Dolmanic Kingdom expanded bit by bit, sometimes through diplomacy or inheritance, often by means of the sword. (Shammark County was one such conquest.) Even so, it remained faithful to its promises, and while the kingdom never lacked for troubles or unrest, those problems never seriously threatened the state's stability. It became a powerful and influential feudal state, widely feared and respected, and remained thus until the Great Awakening a few centuries ago.

By that time, a sort of checks-and-balances system had grown up between the crown and the Great House, a more or less parliamentary body made up of the titled nobility or their proxies—usually younger siblings deputized to represent them while they tended to their holdings. It was in the Great House that petitions and grievances were usually heard, traditionally through the lord to whom the petitioner looked, though the right of personal appearance did exist.

The rise of a vigorous and often brash new mercantile class signalled a radical departure. Petitioners of this ambitious and wealth group seized on the old and rarely used privilege and began to appear in the Great House with ever-increasing frequency. The guilds, sensing this sea change, followed suit, and it was not long, comparatively speaking, before professional respresentatives elected or otherwise chosen for the duty would speak for their constituencies before the lords of the Great House.

Eventually, as much to restore some measure of peace and quiet to the Great House and the Crown Chancery as anything else, these "men of the people" evolved into the Petitioners House and became a second legislative body. The resulting balance of powers between the two houses is peculiar and often seemingly contradictory, but it has survived to the present as well as one could reasonably expect, with only occasional breakdowns.

The Petitioners House's strongest power is that of the purse strings, wrested away with the rationale that, after all, it was the merchants and guildsmen who paid the bulk of crown taxes, and so it was they who should decide how that hard-earned money was spent. The Great House may set policy, but if no revenues are allotted, that policy is effectively stalled.

More than one political historian or commentator has called the Petitioners House the "House of the Special Interests", for in general it tends to promote the interests of business and industry. The guilds and, later, labor unions were and are a sort of counterweight, representing labor ... but more in the abstract than in the concrete. Oddly enough, it is the Great House that better represents the proverbial "man on the street", for the ancient tribal and feudal bonds of noblesse oblige still linger, instilling a responsibility in a lord to look out for his people.

The final stage in the nation's evolution came with the flowering of industrialization. By that time the king, whose powers had declined slowly since before the Great Awakening, had become little more than head of state, and a national plebiscite, at the instigation of the Petitioners House, made that state the Northern Dolmanic Republic, with a new constitution enshrining old, well-tested traditions. Even so, the peerage and the crown remain, the latter with few powers but important ones, such as opening and closing the Great House and calling for new elections to the Petitioners House.

Today, the NDR is still a strong, vital country of more than two hundred thousand square miles and sixty million inhabitants. While not without its faults, it is affluent and well-governed, and enjoys an international reputation as a voice of reason and a respectable military power.

Bylon was already ancient when the Falshi came to the Demon Lands. Its easily defended site and mines in the nearby Valley of Stone made it an important source of raw materials and eventually a prosperous center of trade. This defensibility delayed its fall until late in the Falshi's campaign, and even then it was corruption (the Falshi's preferred method), not siegecraft, that took the city. The guilty doppelgängers had little time to enjoy the fruits of their betrayal, though, for the conquering Falshi's final reward was to put them to the sword along with all the others.

In the four millennia since, five of the functionally immortal Falshi have lorded over Bylon . . . only one of whom inherited the position. The rest secured it through assassination, including Sheilba, the fifth and current lord. For everyone else, as in so many of the pocket realms into which the Falshi shattered the old world-empire, Bylon's history to the present can be summed up in a single short phrase: things got worse. And there is little hope this trend will be reversed.

The Falshi and their conquered subjects are trapped in this doomed spiral by the former's inability to regard life as anything but a deadly serious game of King of the Hill and the latter's resentment and hatred of that ruthless, ultimately self-defeating game and its players. Even if the Falshi could turn over a new leaf at this stage, the Demon Lands would explode in a genocidal war of revenge and destruction the moment they loosened their iron grip.

Ubi (such as Tarloöm, Tahee, and Körlorsha) and Stryers make up the bulk of Bylon's population, though several other Demon Lands species are represented in smaller numbers, including some Nightmares brought in to provide muscle for military, police, and commercial purposes. Notably absent, of course, are the reclusive (and very large) drakes, which tend to live far out in the wilderness, even in free fall near the poles.

Abject poverty is the rule for all but the very highest classes, and even they are not as wealthy as corresponding nobility of Nivarria once was. Credit is unknown and, while cash in the form of precious-metal coins circulates freely among the nobility, barter becomes increasingly common as one slides down the social ladder. Daily survival is desperate enough that even barter is nearly always for goods in hand rather than labor, favors, or other semi-abstract exchanges.

The city itself is crowded and close. Most buildings are two to three stories, usually built wall to wall, and flat-roofed to accommodate flyers. As well, arcades and porches jut out everywhere, for similar reasons or simply to provide more space, and there are many through archways. Aside from the finely built and maintained stone villas on the modest heights -- which belong to the Falshi and their important retainers -- and scattered remnants from the Doppelgänger era, the vast majority of the buildings huddled within the city walls are of adobe, straw, and other cheap, plentiful materials, and are ill-kept with slap-dash repairs. Sprawling outside those walls is a ramshackle shantytown without even the alleys winding through the city wherever the buildings don't touch, let alone the broad, informally policed boulevards.

As with most of the Demon Lands, the major religion is worship of Kalishka, originally an earth-mother figure that, since the Falshi incursion, has become the warped and nihilistic Mad Goddess. This is not accidental; there is no separation of church and state in the Demon Lands, and the Falshi rulers are thus also the priestly class. Moreover, it is to their advantage to provide an outlet for their subjects' tensions -- and provide it Kalishka does.

Sophont sacrifice is merely the most pedestrian of current unpleasant practices and views. The end of the world (which is seen as the womb of the goddess) will come not with an uplifting transition to a higher existence, but in bloody, painful destruction, a back-alley abortion on a massive scale. Barring drastic and thorough outside intervention, the Falshi's toxic mix of feudalism, social Darwinism, and general rapacity will inevitably bring this vision to pass, ending in a barren, dusty wasteland.

The world from which demons come to trouble Mega-Shammark is at once bizarre and familiar. Strangest to a visitor from Nivarria are its shape and cosmography: a spinning hollow sphere roughly eight thousand miles in diameter, surrounded by seemingly endless depths of rock and mineral. At its center, a concentration of energy sheds heat and light over the surface.

This bubble of air and life knows no earthquakes, no volcanoes -- indeed, no tectonic activity of any kind. Its landforms are static aside from erosion by wind and water, and there simply are no mountains at all. The greatest irregularities that exist are low hills and ridges, and basins filled with lakes or shallow seas. As far as anyone can tell, they have always existed.

The world-bubble's rotation is swift enough to impart a centripetal force approximating one g of acceleration to objects at its equator. As one moves away from there toward one of the poles, the land seems to slope upward at an ever-increasing angle and the "gravity" weakens. At the pole, the land effectively forms a cliff in free fall.

The central energy source appears slightly, but noticeably, dimmer from the ground than does Nivarria's sun from its surface, but it never moves from its position at the zenith. Without night or seasons, temperatures change only very slowly and regional climates tend not to vary strongly. The atmosphere appears to maintain a constant density throughout the world-bubble. Winds -- and what weather there is -- arise from this atmosphere's friction with the ground (or water) and uneven heating over areas of varying albedo or specific heat.

As a result of these idiosyncrasies, someone standing on the surface would not see the same sorts of panoramas he would on Nivarria. There is no true horizon; one stands at the center of what looks like a vast shallow bowl, his lines of sight blocked only by obstacles. Far off, the upward curve of the bubble brings a distant, atmosphere-hazed sweep of land and sea into view, as if one is high above them (as indeed one is, after a fashion). Overhead, thousands of miles of air and the glare of the "sun" itself obscure the most distant parts of the bubble from view.

Still and all, though, this strange dimension is not utterly alien to a visitor. Aside from its inside-out nature, its physics appear to differ only slightly from Nivarria's. Magic or technology from one function perfectly well in the other, and unlike Nivarria, it never suffered a decline in the prevalence of magic. On the other hand, its cultures lack Nivarria's sophisticated mechanical and electronic technology.

The life that inhabits the Demon Lands, while made up of species unfamiliar to Nivarrians, in general closely parallels the latter world's. The indispensible need for periodic rest and sleep and its influence over the routines and activities of life have resulted in a cycle not unlike the circadian rhythm exhibited by Nivarrian biology.

Also as on Nivarria, there is civilization in the Demon Lands. Its recorded history exists entirely because of one particular species, the doppelgängers. These amorphous creatures subsist on the animus of other intelligent beings, each taking on the form of the being whose animus it is absorbing.

Their unique needs and abilities drove the doppelgängers, eventually, to dominate the entirety of the Demon Lands, making of them an efficient, tight-knit world-empire that ruled autocratically and ruthlessly - but not necessarily badly -- for millennia. (After all, bad rulership made for an unhealthy populace and thereby a poor food source.)

This might have continued indefinitely but for events on Nivarria. The Falshi War -- later known as the First Falshi War -- introduced a new factor. The Falshi, despite their powerful mastery of magic, failed in their bid to dominate that world, defeated by a coalition of Fairies, Dragons, Unicorns, and Gods. At the war's end, shortly into the Age of Legend, they were banished magically to the Demon Lands.

Embittered and furious, they were determined eventually to return in triumph. To survive in the meantime and to build up the resources they would need for Nivarria's conquest, they began to intrigue against their new environment's masters, using assassination, guerrilla war, and terrorism to dislodge the doppelgängers from their power bases and to move into the vacuum thus created.

At first the doppelgängers were unaware of the problem, but as events progressed over decades and then centuries, they gradually awoke to their mounting difficulties. Pitched battles began to occur sporadically, then more often, though the covert war never lost its place as the predominant arena. As the empire unraveled, its infrastructure and relative prosperity crumbled, the decay only accelerated by the violence of its struggle for survival.

Less than a millennium after their arrival, the Falshi had won. Their victory was not unflawed, however. One of the last doppelgänger warlords, on his way to an unpleasant and thorough execution, pronounced what became known as Douran's Curse. More a prophecy than a true curse, it predicted among other things that the end of the world would be heralded by the arrival of a two-legged Unicorn.

The Falshi were no less autocratic or ruthless than their predecessors. They were, however, far less cohesive and much more interested in power than in responsibility. The former empire disintegrated into thousands of petty squabbling city-states, and the populace began to suffer true deprivation. As well, the lands themselves became impoverished, stripped of resources for the Falshi's dream: conquest of Nivarria.

They made the attempt toward the end of the Age of Legend ... unsuccessfully. Nivarria had changed (and matured) during their absence, and they could not cope with the bewildering differences. They were driven back to what they had regarded as a temporary home, and there they have so far remained, locked in perpetual skirmishing and political maneuvering at the expense of everything else -- including the native peoples of the Demon Lands.

It was drought that led to the rise of modern policing on Nivarria.

More than a century ago, Shammark County was on the verge of starvation; a series of hot, dry summers had shrunk streams and rivers to trickles, and sere or dying vegetation could not hold the topsoil. In the springs, run-off from the mountains flowed brown to the bay, silting up the riverbeds and the harbor. Large harbor dredges did not yet exist, and so by the third summer of drought the ability to dock large deep-draft freighters dwindled dangerously.

The count's own troops were stretched thin, guarding recently opened mines, rail lines under construction in the passes into the Shammark Basin, and engaged in mitigation and recovery efforts arising from the drought. A few units of Republican garrison troops, widely varying in quality, were staged into the port city for deployment as reinforcements throughout the county, accompanied by a coterie of civilian officials.

To supplement meager local harvests, food was shipped in, ferried from freighter to dock by flat-bottomed barges. An ad hoc procedure began to develop, as city folk congregated at dockside to unload and carry the arriving food to nearby warehouses for distribution. Stifling heat, jostling, and uncertain tempers made for restive, grumbly crowds.

One of the visiting bureaucrats, new to Shammark's bustling, sturdily independent citizenry and its initiative, happened upon these crowds and was accosted by a part of the crowd, shouting questions and demands. Unnerved, he fled, surrounded by his bodyguard, to the nearby temporary barracks of a Republican infantry unit.

There he poured out a garbled, breathless account to the officer of the day, a young lieutenant. That latter, fresh from the academy and painfully aware of his responsibilities, immediately rounded up his platoon and double-timed it to the scene, edgy and ready for trouble. By then, cargoes had begun to arrive, and the milling, shouting throngs looked distinctly threatening to the inexperienced officer.

Overriding his more cautious and uncertain platoon sergeant, he deployed his confused men in a skirmish line and advanced. The crowd, in turn, became aware of the interruption only gradually, and were themselves bewildered by this turn. Accounts of the succeeding events vary, but later investigation determined that a shot was fired, purposely or accidentally, sparking a volley from the platoon as a whole.

The very riot the unit had come to prevent -- and which until its arrival was unlikely to happen -- erupted. By the time the dust settled, a handful had been killed by gunshot or trampling, scores had been injured, and parts of the platoon had broken and fled. A curfew was slapped down, and a tense quiet settled over the city.

Upon hearing the news, the count was furious, and hurried back to his seat. There followed investigations, courts-martials, and summary dismissals. There also followed significant changes both in Shammark County's relationship with the Northern Dolmanic Republic . . . and in the structure of the count's guard. The subtle as well as blatant failures of an ill-led, unsuited military unit in a civil peacekeeping role led to a dramatic reorganization, and the Shammark County Police Department was born.

In the following decades, the department grew in size and experience, becoming a model for similar agencies in many other cities and regions. At the same time, the magic was returning, both gradually and with occasional fits and starts. In the department's early days, this was of little concern, but the time came when crimes involving magic grew frequent enough that the police commission began to assign some officers full-time to such "crimes of the bizarre". One of these was Officer Amark Buttercup, son of Alcore Buttercup, the first sapient unicorn of the modern era and a major player in the Nivarrian Space Development Commission. Then, a few years later came an odd and spectacular incident.

Historians had debated the existence of the storied golem named Joni (sp?) much as they did all the tales of magic and magical creatures. Archaeologists, however, managed to prove at least some of Joni's legend was accurate when they found his tomb. The public's imagination was fired, and the contents of the tomb went on tour to cities in many regions, including Shammark County.

The Shammark venue, near to some of the rivers and creeks that flowed through the city into the bay, was suffused with magical energy -- enough to jump-start the spell that animated Joni, dormant since the decline of the magic at the end of the Age of Legend two millennia before. Disoriented and inquisitive, the golem found his way from his display cabinet into the city.

Electronics being in their infancy, the police had no immediate record of the event, and were baffled until Joni himself came forward in response to the furor. After that, no one was in doubt about the resurgance of magic, least of all the Shammark County Police Department. The "bizarre crimes" detail quickly mushroomed into an actual division, the Mana Police. The initial personnel draft for the Mana Police included Amark Buttercup, newly promoted to sergeant.

It was not many more years before Shammark County -- and everything and everyone in it -- was shaken to the foundations by the great asteroid strike. The police department, including the Mana Police, were stretched to the breaking point, forced to draw personnel and resources ruthlessly to prevent outright lawlessness. Even so, some of the more dedicated officers of the Mana Police worked voluntary overtime, trying to investigate what clearly was a magical crime of unprecedented proportions.

When the inevitable finger-pointing ensued, the decision was made that the Mana Police sorely needed the investigative capability it previously lacked. Once the immediate urgency of recovery efforts abated, the renamed Mega-Shammark Police Department organized a new office within the Mana Police: the Bureau of Mana Investigation (BMI). Once again Amark Buttercup figured prominently, this time with the rank of lieutenant.

Today, the Mana Police and the Bureau of Mana Investigation are very busy indeed. Even so, their standards remain high; no officer can transfer to the Mana Police without at least a couple of years' solid experience, and BMI selects its personnel only from the Mana Police. As a result, BMI is still quite small, consisting of only a half-dozen or so investigators and a cadre of support personnel. Each investigator is supposed to have two assistants, but the current reality falls short of this ideal.

Like so much of the early history of Nivarria's peoples, the origins of were-folk are murky or even unknown to modern science. Theories abound, most of them centering around what some archaeologists have dubbed the Were Empire. Its very existence, let alone the details, are hotly debated. Some claim it's an invention of modern scholars, and that the observed cultural similarities of different sites were due to trade rather than hegemony; others posit a variety of other explanations -- that it was a league or a confederation of kingdoms, for instance.

The truth of the matter is that said empire did exist and was, in its prime, the mightiest nation in the world. It was not, however, a pleasant place to live for any but its rulers: the were-folk, which in those ancient days included all who otherwise appeared to be Caucasian humans. In many languages the word for such people was derived from or synonymous with the word for lycanthrope, though centuries of linguistic drift have obscured this origin.

Sapient sacrifice was only the most overtly brutal practice of this militaristic, rigidly stratified culture. Not surprisingly, discontent and even hatred simmered over the centuries, occasionally boiling over into overt insurrection. Such actions never succeeded, but they did reinforce the rigidity and militarism, which only perpetuated the cycle.

Finally, though, a second power, concerned with the threat the empire presented, covertly aided yet another rebellion. This new element made the difference; like a forest fire, it spread slowly at first, then faster and faster as it gained momentum, finally erupting into a massive civil war. At last, with aid and assistance, the were-folk were overthrown . . . and there was chaos, for no one else knew how to run a nation. There was also revenge: a mighty curse inhibited the ability of the lycanthropes to change form, trapping them in their human bodies.

With the fall of the Were Empire four millennia ago came the end of the Age of Myth, and in the aftermath, the shattered remnants and populations scattered and forgot much. During the centuries of the succeeding Age of Legend, the reputation of the were-folk became, through the distorting lens of half-remembered history and rumor, even more monstrous -- bloodthirsty, bestial, and destructive for its own sake. Where fact was missing or insufficiently lurid, frightening stories stood in. Here and there an individual would break free of the curse, and often contributed, inadvertently through confusion and clumsiness or purposely through viciousness or vindictiveness, to the evil aura surrounding the memory of the lycanthrope.

Toward the end of that age two thousand years ago, though, one individual -- Dis the were-panther -- rose to such prominence in the trade city of Daleport, near Shammark County, that he is remembered in monuments and schoolbooks. Like so many others who go on to greatness, his story began in scandal, for he was forced to flee his king's and patron's realm before that worthy discovered that the crown prince was not his son. He wandered for some years before finding his way to Daleport. There were no other were-folk in the city at the time, and he himself seemed unremarkable. None knew of any others except in a handful of cases, usually family or close friends, for keeping that secret could be a matter literally of life and death.

He was fortunate enough to partner with an innkeeper who was rebuilding after a catastrophic fire. With his business sense and unmatched culinary flair, the new inn's kitchens became widely renowned and very popular. Dis himself was known to emerge from those kitchens, sometimes serving dishes personally or inquiring after guests' comfort and satisfaction, an idea far ahead of its time. In addition to the obvious benefit of customer goodwill, the were-panther had ulterior motives.

To an educated lycanthrope -- or anyone else who's been taught the subtle signs of it, for that matter -- it is not difficult to pick out other were-folk. More than once, Dis intervened in the serving of a noble or rich commoner in whom he recognized such signs, substituting gold-plated iron utensils for the silver that would be uncomfortable if not painful for a lycanthrope to use. Even for other folk, he recognized the hazards of using pewter, which contains lead, in tableware and refused to countenance it in his kitchens. Again he was ahead of his time; his contemporaries simply thought him eccentric.

Some time after he had become established and something of an institution, another lycanthrope -- his name unknown -- appeared on the scene. This one, a were-tiger, was half-mad, and where Dis was quiet and respectable, he rampaged by night, deliberately seeking out and mauling those whose lycanthropy lay dormant, thereby bringing it to the fore. There was confusion and concern, but not panic, for few understood what was happening, and those who had an inkling were disinclined to share their knowledge. Dis, however, pieced events together and, with typical discretion, sought out the "afflicted" and taught them to master their newfound dual nature, in the process encouraging them to step forward.

Against all odds -- and the suspicion and fear of others -- it worked. Dis counseled calm, both in the private conferences with his "students" and in public to the town at large. A population of were-folk, few of whom displayed the same ravening danger as the original were-tiger, sprang up, scattered throughout Daleport. Dis became a revered public figure, known as a peacemaker and teacher (as well as an excellent cook and shrewd businessman), albeit with a note of irony, for he also ended the were-tiger's reign of terror, personally challenging and killing the intruder. The island of tolerance (even if sometimes wary) drew other were-folk like a magnet, and even today Daleport is a major concentration of lycanthrope population and subculture.

With the passing of the Age of Legend went the magic. Along with all the other wonders and dangers of that magic, lycanthropy faded into the past and its existence eventually came to be doubted. It is only within the last century, as the magic has begun to return and to be rediscovered, that were-folk have begun to reappear. Without role models and teachers to provide guidance, many have had to stumble through; others, especially more recently, have been more fortunate.

The first and most spectacular "new" lycanthropes were astronauts in the Nivarrian Space Development Commission (NSDC), the corporate-state space agency that handles the overwhelming majority of operations beyond Nivarria's atmosphere. Several astronauts experienced abrupt and sometimes dangerous magical phenomena, including the triggering of latent lycanthropy if present, during re-entry. Needless to say, this became the subject of urgent and intensive research to discover the reasons and mechanisms.

Mana, the stuff of magic, appears to exhibit quantum behavior analogous in some ways to electromagnetic radiation. Atoms of matter contain a "charge" or energy level that is drained during the course of magical events, whether a spell cast by a mage or an inherent process like a lycanthrope's transformation. Mana from nearby atoms tends to "flow" toward the drained matter to equalize this charge . . . but in space, of course, there is little matter available to facilitate this flow, resulting in a very low level of ambient magic.

This subjects returning individuals to what has been dubbed "mana shock" as the ambient magical environment intensifies suddenly during re-entry. Worse, genetic and magical drift, intermarriage, and other factors meant that it was no longer true that every Caucasian human was a lycanthrope and vice versa, and understanding of magic was too limited to devise a method of testing that would permit the NSDC to determine before the fact who would be subject to mana shock.

In partnership with government and private grants, the NSDC helped fund the Were Agency, set up to supply the same kinds of assistance and public relations Dis provided two thousand years before. After initial difficulties, it has fulfilled its mandate ably and well. This is particularly important because, in addition to the adult emergence of latent were-folk put through mana shock, the more usual pattern of development begins around age sixteen, give or take a couple of years, in a fashion similar to the other changes of adolescence. (Interestingly, the method used in Dis's time by the mad were-tiger -- mauling -- does not work in the modern era.) In all these cases, firm, competent intervention is vital for the long-term physical and psychological well-being of the nascent lycanthrope.

Prior to puberty, a lycanthrope child exhibits no overt sign of his or her eventual status, being effectively indistinguishable from any other human child. Moreover, the animal form of a developing lycanthrope does not appear to be determined by normal genetic means, and seems to depend more on poorly understood correspondences to the individual's personality at the time of emergence. Some psychologists are attempting to explore these correspondences in the hopes of finding ways to ease the process of emergence.

A Nivarrian lycanthrope can change from human to animal or back essentially at will, transforming over the space of a second or two, and contrary to legend is not subject to external stimuli like a full moon. While intriguing, this is of secondary interest compared to a fact far more frustrating to physicists, biologists, and magical researchers alike: there appears to be no conservation of mass. When compared to the human form's size relative to other humans, the animal form is roughly proportional to natural examples of that animal. Thus, for example, a tall, heavy man would transform into a wolf that is large and heavy for a wolf.

Fortunately, the human intelligence is retained in the animal form, though this is not without cost. The animal form seems to have a measure of its own consciousness, including instincts; failure to integrate this alien and troubling partial personality can lead to severe mental illness, which is the primary reason intervention and instruction are so vital. Physical coordination must be re-learned in the new, unfamiliar body, and human vocal communication is effectively impossible. Nonverbal means of communications, particularly magical methods, have been developed and are being refined to address the latter concern. In police or military roles, lycanthropes are frequently trained with partners to aid and assist them.

Perhaps the most unusual were-folk -- and a completely new phenomenon since the magic returned -- are those informally called "stuck". Unlike other lycanthropes, who switch between completely human or completely animal appearances, without any intermediate forms, these individuals are "stuck" somewhere in the middle. They cannot transform at all, and instead possess approximately human bodies with fur, tails, and heads derived from animal shapes. As well, they manifest this in-between form from conception, and may display characteristics or markings from multiple animals.

Holly Anders is such a "stuck": her body mixes and matches a bit of wolf and tiger into a predominantly fox-human hybrid. Oddly enough, though, for the purposes of certain government programs and agencies, she is still classified as a Caucasian human, an echo of a long and sometimes strange history.

To look at Mega-Shammark today, one might think it a sprawling modern metropolis, gleaming and new. This impression is at once both true and misleading. The broad, meandering Shammark Basin has been well settled for centuries, thanks to the fortuitous combination of excellent natural defenses—the surrounding rugged mountain ranges—and access to the sea by means of a wide sheltered bay and navigable river.

The borders of the original feudal kingdom changed almost not at all when the region became Shammark County in the rising new Northern Dolmanic Republic (NDR) some two centuries ago. Two of the modern boroughs of the city date back at least this far: Old Town is easily a millennium old, and Hufstadt, settled mostly by the Hooven (centaurs, minotaurs, and fauns) is roughly contemporary with the NDR's annexation. It was a half-century later that folk all over Nivaria gradualy noticed the slow resurgence of magic in the world; another half-century passed before that return accelerated as the burgeoning population of mages improved their grasp of its use. Still, most magical practice simply built on the existing store of knowledge left over from the days before the magic waned so long ago.

Shammark's, and later Mega-Shammark's, world-renowned involvement with magic began inauspiciously a little more than fifty years ago, when a student whose name is lost to history removed a tome from the university library's reference section, sneaking it back to his quarters for overnight study. Supposedly, some of his fraternity brothers, already several sheets to the wind, arrived intent on persuading him to join their impromptu gathering, and discovered the momentarily unattended volume. The record is unclear on the exact sequence of events that followed, but it culminated in approximately thirty fraternity members, their judgment by then thoroughly pickled, selecting a major spell from the tome and casting it.

Such a powerful spell naturally had powerful consequences. A nearby Nivaria-grazer—a nickel-iron asteroid thought to be at least fifty meters across—was drawn toward the world sufficiently that it plunged into the ocean several miles offshore of the Shammark Basin. The results were, needless to say, catastrophic, not only for Shammark County but for the entire NDR, and had notable effects on Nivaria as a whole. The county was effectively leveled and virtually cut off from the rest of the republic; even the seaport was damaged sufficiently to preclude marine traffic for quite some time.

Isolated and seemingly ignored by the rest of the republic (which, to be fair, had more than enough troubles of its own), Shammark was forced to function as a quasi-independent city state as it rebuilt and expanded, and the twenty-six boroughs of the new metropolis of Mega-Shammark rose like the phoenix from the ashes. By the time the worst of the damage was cleared away and reliable contact resumed with the national government, lingering resentment over the lack of assistance in the wake of the impact and a resurgent sense of regional identity eventually forced the republic formally to recognize this unique political status, making it permanent.

The disaster influenced nearly every aspect of the reconstruction, directly or indirectly. Occasional sections of older architecture that somehow withstood the blast (and resulting quakes and tsunami) punctuate swaths of modern city blocks gridded by light rail lines and broad boulevards; separate streets serve motor vehicles and bicycles . . . and the traditional and still common animal traffic. Frequent greenbelts, parks, and stretches of farmland both relieve the cityscape and provide for a measure of self-sufficiency—another hard-learned lesson of the lean years. In addition to the farms, and despite the fact that Shammark has never been an important fishing port, a new custom sprang up: for a couple of hours every morning, the crews of a fleet of small dories fish in the nearby ocean, selling the catch at quayside.

Today, the region is more vital and affluent than ever, thanks in part to its strategic location as a major transportation hub. The ancient seaport has expanded to enormous size and importance, serving container ships and cruise liners—and a huge rail yard nearby. Diesel-electric locomotives haul freight and passengers over railroads winding through the mountains to the rest of the republic, and gasoline-electric hybrid autos and trucks hum along the freeways paralleling them. The old airport still serves general aviation, while the larger, more modern international aerospaceport bustles with commercial jet and suborbital flights, the latter launched from magnetic catapults and driven by aerospike rockets.

The other great factor in Mega-Shammark's current economic importance also relates to its bay, river, and many small creeks: mages favor water, especially moving water, because it acts as a sort of mana "capacitor". A decade after the asteroid strike, new lines of research into magical theory started to develop in many places around the world, further expanding the state of the art. This, along with the prevalence of water and the active encouragement by the city chamber of commerce, sparked a tremendous mushrooming of magical technology in the Shammark Basin, to the point that it is the region's most important export industry. A hotbed of small, medium, and large firms produce a myriad of magical products, albeit without the benefit of assembly lines or mass production—even now, magic is idiosyncratic enough, and imperfectly enough understood, that it remains the province of the craftsman.

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