Saylua
Saylua is the planet that the Saylua game takes place on. The planet of Saylua is tidally locked, which means it does not rotate relative to its sun. This means that one side of Saylua is always light and the other side is always dark.
Residents on Saylua call the light side Sayleus and the dark side Luaria. In between the two sides of Saylua, there is a border region called the Dawnlands, a place where the sky is always the color of a sunset/sunrise, and the temperatures are the most moderate found on the planet. Despite the fact that the passage of time on Saylua does not correlate to a day and night cycle, Sayluans still measure time in terms of a 24-hour cycle, a holdover from a time when the planet used to have day and night cycles. However, since timezones no longer became necessary since the tidal locking of Saylua, the whole planet is unified under the single timezone of Saylua Mean Time or SMT for short.
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Physical Characteristics
The orbit of Saylua around its sun takes 365 days. Saylua spins on its axis, but its spin cycle is exactly 365 days long as well. So the planet of Saylua makes one planetary rotation for every revolution around the sun made. Thus, while Saylua both revolves and rotates, one side of the planet is always facing the sun, and the other side of the planet is always facing the darkness.
Saylua has one moon which orbits the planet. The moon revolves around the planet about once every 30 days, or once a month as marked on the Sayluan calendar.
Geography
The planet has a high amount of biodiversity with lots of different animal types living in a variety of different biomes.
History of Saylua
Life before The Impact
Saylua was not always tidally locked and once had a day and night cycle much like Earth. The planet had a large amount of biodiversity and a moderate climate which allowed life to thrive. Humans on Saylua tended to rely heavily on animals for labor and tended to value their animals as companions who helped them live. However, compared to the present, the relationship between humans and animals was more of a master-servant relationship than the mutual companionship-based pet relationships currently present on Saylua.
The Impact
In the year of 0 ATI, a meteor of great size hit the planet of Saylua in an event known as The Impact. Immediately following The Impact, much of the area on the side now known as Luaria became inhospitable to life as a result of the large dust clouds generated by the meteor strike. Many animals and humans died as a result of the collision. Those humans that did survive migrated to the area now known as Sayleus as the dust clouds grew and a large area of the planet became uninhabitable.
The few animals that did survive The Impact and the associated climate changes adapted to the new environment. Although much of the flora had died, the meteor filled the area with magical high energy particles. These particles accelerated the pace of mutations for the creatures still living in the area, causing the creatures on the side to evolve rapidly. New plants in the area near the meteor crash site evolved to absorb the magical energy in the air. In addition, the pets started to gain abilities which seemed magical to the humans on Saylua as they evolved to absorb the high energy particles left by The Impact. Pets were able to harness the high energy in order to power magical features such as the ability to breath fire or spit water at high speeds. In addition to that, the energy reserves allowed pets to develop higher intelligence, causing them to become capable of understanding the languages used by humans. Although pets could not speak for themselves, they could communicate their intentions and feelings through gestures and animal sounds and tended to act much more strategically in their own self-interest. As a result, the relationship between humans and their animal companions became much more of a mutual partnership than in the past. For example, humans could ask pets to do complicated tasks such as helping them construct a building, but pets would only do so if they wanted to.
Humans themselves were generally unaffected by the rapid evolution that came from the harsh environment and exposure to high magical energy brought by the meteor because most humans fled the area of the crash. However, a few rare human tribes who stayed near the meteor crash site area experienced the high mutation rates and developed a mix of new features, including more animal-like physical traits or a small amount of ability to use magic.
Despite the scarce resources in the area, life eventually started thriving in the area of the planet hit by the meteor with the aid of magic. Thus, humans came up with the word Luaria to refer to the renewed hope brought by the magical properties of the area.
The Transition Age
After the meteor struck, the rotation of the planet also started to slow down. This caused the days and nights on Saylua to start to get longer. Soon 24-hour long days became 48-long days which became days which were a week-long. This change, referred to as the Transition Age, occurred gradually between 0 ATI when the meteor impact occurred to around 400 ATI when the planet stopped rotating and became tidally locked. As the days grew longer, traditional methods of farming started to become unsustainable as the night cycles became too long to sustain plants and the temperatures dropped to low levels from the lack of sunlight.
Many families and tribes started to become nomads to adapt to the new situation. Those who became nomadic mostly followed the sun and focused on hunting and foraging the plants that flourished in the long days. Other nomads decided to follow the night and focused on hunting and delivering supplies from the parts of the planet currently under the light to the stationery families waiting for the day.
The people who chose to stay put adapted to a life consisting of a bountiful growing season during the day cycle where they would make sure to preserve enough supplies to last during the coming night season. Around 200 ATI, some farmers started to learn to cultivate magical crops from Luaria during the night season, which allowed farms to sustain more people. Towards the later end of the Transition Age, many nomads started to settle down more as farming methods improved and the days became long enough to allow some time to settle. Eventually, the planet completely stopped rotating and at that time, the side which was currently night became eternally dark and the side which was currently day became eternally light.
Tidal Locking
The exact time of tidal locking is unclear since the planet's slowing was gradual enough that the borders of day and night were barely moving in the decades preceding the full tidal locking of Saylua. However, researchers pin the time when the planet became fully tidally locked at around 400 ATI. After the planet became tidally locked, the nomads who tended to chase the dark settled on the dark side, and the nomads who chased the sun settled on the light side. A few nomads continued to wander the planet and tended to focus their efforts on trading resources between the light and dark sides of the planet. The eternal night on Saylua settled on the site with the meteor crash, so the word Luaria, which had previously been used to refer to the meteor crash site area came to refer to the dark side of the planet as a whole. Similarly, Sayleus was used to refer to the light side where those who came from the traditional lifestyle of living during the day tended to settle.
Etymology of Saylua
The planet of Saylua was originally called Sayleus, a word which referred to the prosperity of the world's conditions in allowing life or "the gift of nature". The term Sayleus was generally used to refer to the idea of the world as a whole at a time when the concept of planets was not widely known by the population. For most people, Sayleus tended to refer to the idea of "everywhere that life lived" more so than the idea of a planet.
When the meteor strike occurred, the crash site became a wasteland where not much life lived. However, once humans started to see new and unusual life in the meteor crash site, some started to attempt to live there and called the land Luaria after the hope they gained from the new life in the area. The meteor crash site was originally small enough that the planet as a whole was still referred to as Sayleus. However, once the planet became tidally locked, the Luaria region became expansive and a new civilization of people with lifestyles focused on magic and living in the night emerged in the area. During this time, the word "Sayleus" was still used to refer to "the world as a whole" by those living on the light side who followed a lifestyle and culture closer to those living before the collision. However, it started to become clear that Sayleus and Luaria were distinct regions and Sayleus thus no longer became an appropriate term to refer to the world as a whole. Around 450 ATI, many people would use the phrase "Sayleus and Luaria" to refer to the planet, and soon the term Saylua became popular as a shorter alternative to saying "Sayleus and Luaria" although the exact origins of the shortened word are unclear.
