Directionss

In Daleth, there is no such thing as a compass. The magnetic poles are unknown. There are no watches either, and the water-clock has just been invented. The directions “north, east, west and south” have various meanings in different regions of Daleth.

On the northern hemisphere (the southern one hasn’t been explored as we speak), the south is, in every place, the direction where the sun is daily at it’s highest point. This is the only fixed direction for all regions. It is used with all people, except for the Nomads of Lãsu'tyq, who have no directions at all but the signs of the landscape (that also function as their clock and calendar).
The north serves as the exact opposite of south, that is, the place where the shadow of a stick points towards when the sun is in the south. This is in all regions the same, but not in Luban. In Luban the North is all the horizon where the sun doesn’t dare to set, and where it never rises. According to the Lubanians, this is the direction where all the daemons come from. North is bad, it’s not a good direction. The most superstitious Lubanian will never walk towards the north, but will keep turning to the northwest and the northeast to head north eventually (this is the same movement that is made by sailing against the wind, and some Lubanians think the sailors of Fanigawi make this movement because they don’t dare to sail into the direction of the god that is the strongest at the moment).

East and west are usually the places where the sun rises and sets when the day is equally long as the night. But in Daleth, there was (before the invention of the water-clock) no way to measure how long the day or the night lasts. Pragmatic and mathematic, east and west are the directions that have a straight angle with the south-north axis. However, east and west are only used in Daleth.

In Luban, the most important directions apart from south are the places where the sun rises on the longest day and on the shortest day, and where it sets on those days. How long the day lasts can’t be measured, but these are the most northern and southern points where the sun either rises or sets. Thus, in Luban there are five main directions: summer rise, winter rise, south, winter set, summer set, and the evil north that is the horizon between winter set and summer rise.
Luban is small enough not to notice the local differences, but some Lubanian explorers have been very confused when confronted with a stay on a faraway isle where summer rise and winter rise where almost in the same place. Confronted with this problem and the sudden loss of direction, and the impossibility to go to the north (half the horizon was untouched by sunrise and sunset!), the captain of the ship ordered to kill all men, because obviously someone hat taken a daemon along. The captain committed suicide. Only three explorers survived to tell the story to the scientist and mages of the Emperor of Luban, but all three of them were killed on the spot because they had sailed to the evil north in order to reach the Luban shore again - disbelievers carry the sign of the daemons and are a rebellious menace to Lubanian society.

Fanigawi has eight main directions, all of them named after a god of wind. from the south comes a very powerful wind through the canyon formed by the river flowing from C’hlaomcub to the low lands. Another strong one is the god that blows his breath straight upon the shore. The other six gods are the directions in between. Notice that there also is a direction “here” or “centre” in Fanigawi, symbolised by the goddess of windless.
The eight directions are called after the gods they are represented by.

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