Araze

Araze is the mother-world of the Arazians. Its architecture joins monumental scale, organic forms and a calculated reverence for the land. The imperial palaces rise above living gardens, tended across the centuries as emblems of sovereignty.

Visual signature

• ivory
• pale gold
• deep blue
• noble, ancient structures

Capital

Oravaya Prime, heart of imperial power and seat of House Vael’Oran.

The great cities of Araze

• Oravaya Prime — capital of the Empire, home to all the Arazian kings.
• Atem 9 — great city that holds the imperial cemetery, where all the tombs of the kings and queens of Araze lie.
• Flyrium City — city with a great airport.
• L.V.D.G.B — “La Ville Des Grands Bateaux” (The City of the Great Ships): a port of gigantic vessels.
• Azet 909 — city hosting a great air base.
• Azamantique City — city built within the Azamantic Ocean.

Place in the record

Araze is at once a world of great beauty and an engine of conquest. Here the Empire honours memory, dynastic order, and dominion over worlds judged weak.

The Cycle of the Three Stars

Araze orbits within a three-star system: Wadiou, Vanam and Eserza. Most of the time, its climate resembles Earth’s. But every four years, the glacial star Olpara draws close to the system and unleashes a year of extreme seasons:

Season	Temperature
Summer	+150 °C
Autumn	−50 °C
Winter	−100 °C
Spring	+20 °C

The Arazians — near-immortal, and hardened beyond human measure — cross these extreme years as a ritual of imperial memory.

The four moons

Four moons keep watch over the sky of Araze: Opala, Damap, Raza and Sakam. The god Ormanor is devoted to them.

Arazian time

A single day on Araze lasts 45 hours. Time itself runs differently there, which complicates every correspondence between Terran and Arazian calendars.

Arazium

Arazium is a rare metal mined on Araze. It serves to:

• raise the luxurious houses of the aristocracy;
• yield — once ground to powder and mixed with water — a fuel essence for Arazian vehicles;
• forge, billions of years ago, the blades of the old Arazian culture.

The zamar

The zamar is an Arazian breed of horse: a red coat flecked with blue, yellow wings, two brains and three hearts. It can live 900,000 years — a brief span for an Arazian, a vertiginous one for a human. The Arazians ride them often, even though they prefer their technology.

Arazian fauna

Alongside the zamar, Araze harbours a fauna shaped by its extreme ecosystems.

The azertrom

The azertrom is a black tiger 3 metres long, bristling with poisonous spines of 20 centimetres. A carnivore, it possesses 6 stomachs, 2 hearts and 3 brains — an anatomy that makes it a fearsomely intelligent predator. Azertroms hunt in packs of 5 to 6.

The aqarm

The aqarm is a bird with blue blood: blue plumage for the females, red for the males. It measures about 30 centimetres, has three eyes and a small brain. An insectivore, it lays 5 to 10 eggs and counts among the azertrom’s favourite prey.

The tatouq

The tatouq is a white-and-yellow fish of about 1 metre that feeds on small fish. Its lifespan runs from 1 to 20 years.

The talomi

The talomi is a blue primate with 8 eyes, 5 brains and 2 hearts — said to be more intelligent than a human. It can live about 1 million years. It feeds on insects and fruit and never hunts; but when a carcass is found, the talomis gather to devour it.

The taz

The taz is a small insect with 29 eyes, not very bright, resembling a blue cockroach. It is the talomis’ favourite prey.

The atakar

The atakar is a great cold-blooded blue lion, bearing three small antennae on its head. It lives 500 years.

The manoto

The manoto is a great yellow rhinoceros, 5 metres long, with 5 horns and 6 legs. It is a herbivore.

The loumi

The loumi resembles a red rabbit with 3 ears, spotted yellow and white. Despite appearances, it is a carnivore.

The vamoz

The vamoz is a colossus of 70 metres, evoking a strangely shaped elephant.

The arcamos

The arcamos is a blue chimpanzee of 65 centimetres that lives in small huts of its own making.

The zede

The zede is a blue panther only 5 centimetres long, which slips into the cities to rummage through the buildings.

The quamotolo

The quamotolo resembles a grey cat 3 metres long, with strange ears.

The arcotol and the namono

The arcotol is a frog with the appearance of wood, able to camouflage itself among the trees. The namono is its mineral counterpart: the same camouflage, but in stone.

The saz

The sand saz is a beige gecko that lives in the desert; the snow saz, its white cousin, dwells in the mountains.

The gouli

The gouli is a black crocodile with spikes rising from its head. Three variants have adapted to other habitats: the snow gouli (white, in the mountains), the sand gouli (beige, in the desert) and the stone gouli (grey, in the rocky lands).

The kam

The kam is likely the smallest Arazian animal: white, smaller even than a tardigrade.

The quemata

The quemata is probably the most ancient animal of Araze — a true living rock.

The qadzegga

The qadzegga is held to be the most dangerous animal on the planet: a white tiger of fearsome power.

The oceans of Araze

The Azamantic Ocean

A glacial ocean, home to species adapted to extreme cold.

The Aqamantic Ocean

A warm ocean where millions of tatouqs thrive.

The Torrino Ocean

A temperate ocean sheltering hundreds of animal species, lying close to the region of Torrino.

Mount Tsotarom

Mount Tsotarom, in Torrino, rises to about 900,500 metres, a few kilometres from Oravaya Prime. Its snowbound summit shelters some fifty animal species accustomed to the cold; no Arazian structure has ever been raised there. At the summit lies a great deposit of arazium — the imperial scientists hold reserved access, to study the local fauna and take away small quantities.

The Empire beyond Araze

Araze is the world of origin, but the Arazian Empire is vast, spanning other planets of the L.G.L.M.D.T galaxy — “the finest galaxy of them all.”

The proportions are worth keeping in mind, all the same. The L.G.L.M.D.T galaxy holds 672 million 845 star systems and 834 billion 978 planets. Araze, Karn-Tor IX and Éclaira share one of those systems: the Norya Belt. Everything else — Sayop and its 82 billion inhabitants, the worlds of Vandoria, Velmyre, Kressal, Zaharim and the Tulmara Cluster — lies outside Araze’s star system, and has never had to obey the Empire.