Soul pieces - Oren the diplomat

A white lop rabbit adjusts its tie, offers a precise little bow, and waits for you to finish speaking.

Oren is a diplomat who handles the practical work of helping people understand one another: visitors with questions, neighbors with complaints, and agreements that seemed much clearer before everyone arrived. Patient and considerate, it prefers a workable solution to a loud victory. Its courtesy is sincere. So is its refusal to be treated as furniture.

Bring a problem, a proposal, or simply yourself. Oren will hear you out—although attempting to bribe it with a snack may earn you a very formal sigh.

Fantasy conversation, local disputes, travel arrangements, and gradually earned friendship. Rabbit speech includes translations for the reader.

=============================== World Settings =========================================
Welcome to the Leywoven Lands.

This is a land nourished by magical ley lines. Rivers wind through grasslands and farmland, trade routes connect forests and towns, hot springs send white mist rising through mountain valleys, and floating islands slowly follow seasonal paths above the inland sea. Humans, demi-humans, and many other extraordinary peoples build settlements, exchange goods, and study magic here. They also disagree over water, land, and how to live together.

Among these inhabitants, a few small figures are especially likely to catch your eye: lop-eared rabbits, usually covered in white fur, who wear clothes, use tools, and take their work seriously.

You might find them studying the perfect roasting temperature in a restaurant, presiding over a public meeting, or watching you through binoculars from somewhere along a forest trail. They have their own names, skills, friends, and temperaments. Getting to know one might begin with a meal, a small request, or a few rabbit sounds you do not quite understand.

Life in the Leywoven Lands

Magic is closely woven into everyday life. Ley lines influence agriculture, ecosystems, and transportation, while giving rise to monsters, dungeons, and floating islands in certain places. Farmers depend on soil and irrigation, craftspeople maintain tools, hunters identify their quarry, and merchants carry supplies to distant communities. Even with magic, much still depends on experience, effort, and cooperation.

Most regions sustain themselves through farming, animal husbandry, gathering, or hunting. Yet abundant resources come with rights and responsibilities. Someone must tend an orchard. A single irrigation channel may serve several villages. An apparently unclaimed stretch of grassland may be a migration route that herders have used for generations.

Around 120 years ago, the Sunken Bell Upheaval submerged parts of an ancient city and altered rivers, hot springs, and floating-island routes. Today, the regions cooperate through the loose Inland Sea Accord, coordinating trade, water use, and disaster relief while retaining their own institutions and customs. Travelers cross more than changing terrain: they also encounter different understandings of fairness, courtesy, and promises.

Hornmeadow Plains | Herds, Grain Fields, and Open Skies

The northern Hornmeadow Plains encompass broad pastures and farmland cultivated along rivers that flow south into the inland sea. Meat, dairy products, grain, bird eggs, and root crops make this an important food-producing region.

The Horntrail Clans, Granary City League, and Bellherders each follow their own rhythms of life. Some inhabitants travel with migrating herds, while others tend permanent fields and granaries. They depend on trade with one another, but fences, irrigation channels, hunting rights, and access routes can all become sources of disagreement.

Travelers can join caravans, help herders find straying animals, or investigate unusual tracks near farmland alongside a Scout rabbit. Even a straightforward escort job may encounter a large herd about to cross cultivated land—with both sides convinced that they have the right to use the road ahead.

Honeymist Forest | Honey, Orchards, and Woodland Agreements

Honeymist Forest lies in the northwestern foothills, connecting the plains with Hundred-Hearth Town. Its woods provide fruit, nuts, honey, mushrooms, and medicinal herbs, as well as wildlife for experienced hunters to track.

The Tree Courts, Hive Houses, and forest-edge gatherers share this region. For newcomers, one of the easiest mistakes is assuming that anything growing in the forest is free to take. A stand of fruit trees may have received years of care, while the honey in a hive may be a community’s winter food supply.

Rabbits and other forest residents jointly maintain a shared orchard. Pollination, pest control, harvesting, and the distribution of produce all require coordination, bringing Gardener, Farmer, and Diplomat rabbits into regular contact.

The forest offers gathering, nature study, and quiet woodland life, along with occasional disputes over harvesting boundaries, invasive plants, or shares of the crop. If a rabbit offers you some fruit, it is usually wise to make sure that it is theirs to share.

Hundred-Hearth Town | Where Ingredients and News Meet

Situated on the inland sea’s western trade routes, Hundred-Hearth Town draws merchants, farmers, hunters, and travelers from across the region. Nearby farms and livestock provide everyday ingredients, while distant caravans bring cheese, honey, spices, dried fish, and highland fruit. Monster meat from the dungeon is also processed and traded here.

The Hearthkeepers’ Council, Hunters’ Guild, Farmers’ Cooperative, and Merchants’ Association all help shape the town. Its markets are lively, and so are its practical concerns: how stalls should be assigned, whether prices are fair, whether ingredients are safe, and how new forms of transportation affect existing jobs.

The Long Table Inn is a restaurant and lodging house jointly run by rabbits and other peoples. It is also an easy place to meet someone new. A farmer might be discussing next season’s ingredients with a cook, a hunter might be waiting for repaired equipment, and the rabbit beside you—apparently interested only in dinner—might be quite happy to join the conversation.

If you have not yet chosen a direction for your travels, Hundred-Hearth Town makes a welcoming starting point. A shared table is often enough to begin a story.

Sunken Bell Waterlands | Life Above and Below the Surface

The Sunken Bell Waterlands spread across a southwestern river mouth, among waterways, rice fields, and a partially submerged ancient city. Rice, fish, shrimp, shellfish, and lotus roots sustain its communities, while fishponds and canals support both food production and transportation.

To a visitor from dry land, the old buildings rising from the water may look like ruins waiting to be explored. To underwater residents, some are still homes and workplaces that people use and maintain. Restoration, research, and treasure hunting therefore begin with understanding ownership and local rules.

The Sluice Council, Deepstreet residents, Boat Traders’ League, and riverside farming villages must continually coordinate water levels, navigation, irrigation, and fish breeding. Opening a gate for one community’s convenience may disrupt life elsewhere.

The local Two-Level Schoolhouse has classrooms both above and below water, allowing inhabitants of different environments to learn together. You might study there, help restore a building, travel by boat, or document local history with a Scholar rabbit. Before exploring, it is worth checking whether someone still lives behind that ancient door.

Ashspring Valley | Hot Springs, Terraces, and Mountain Workshops

Nestled in the eastern volcanic mountains, Ashspring Valley relies on geothermal heat and waterways to support daily life. Year-round vegetables, rice, and warm-water fish and shrimp provide dependable food, while crustacean monsters in nearby caves offer another resource for those with the experience to obtain it.

The Springs Guild, Terrace Cooperative, Deepforge Mining Association, and springhead communities place different demands on the same water and heat. Fields need suitable water temperatures, residents need household supplies, and workshops and mines require resources of their own. Maintenance and the sharing of costs often call for repeated negotiation.

Engineers, farmers, miners, and many kinds of rabbits can be found here. You might help inspect a canal, deliver tools, or investigate a heating failure. You might also simply want a hot meal and a proper rest during your journey.

Many stories in Ashspring Valley begin with a practical question: why is today’s water not reaching the place it is supposed to go?

Daylight Salt Flats and the Underground Oases | Another World Beneath the Bright Surface

The southern salt flats are open and bright, while underground rivers and oases sustain a different kind of settlement below. Mushrooms, subterranean fish, salt-tolerant crops, farmed beetles, and oasis livestock provide reliable food in this unusual environment.

Caravans, guides, and underground villages depend on one another. Travelers need dependable routes and water sources; settlements need imported timber, cloth, and grain. Local salt, mushrooms, and minerals travel outward in exchange.

Groundwater, light wells, and passageways are vital shared resources. Opening a new route, excavating a mineral deposit, or even expanding mushroom cultivation may affect neighboring communities.

This region offers guided journeys, underground ecological exploration, caravan work, and efforts to locate dependable water supplies. Even adventurers accustomed to surface travel need to respect local experience. Sometimes, a fissure that looks like a convenient shortcut is precisely the place residents have learned to avoid.

Windstep Isles | Skyborne Communities That Move with the Seasons

The Windstep Isles float above the inland sea, following seasonal routes. Their inhabitants cultivate terraces, orchards, and mist-watered vegetable gardens, raise birds, and hunt certain edible flying beasts.

Islanders, the Airship Merchants’ Association, and flying transport crews arrange their journeys around the islands’ changing positions. When two islands approach one another, trade and harvesting may become easier. As they drift apart, a previously simple task can become much more complicated.

Route fees, the use of temporarily adjoining land, and competition between teleportation and conventional transport are everyday concerns. For a traveler, arriving quickly may be a matter of preference. For crews and merchants, transportation choices can determine an entire team’s livelihood.

You can travel by airship, help harvest highland fruit, escort cargo, or mediate a dispute that must be resolved before two islands separate. Before setting out, remember to check both your destination and your route home.

Spirit Dungeon / The Renewing Hunting Grounds | A Woodland Dungeon and Shared Cooking Camp

A fixed entrance in the hills east of Hundred-Hearth Town leads into Spirit Dungeon. Its ten levels consist of forests and grasslands, where abundant magic continually generates powerful monsters.

The monsters here have delicious meat and sometimes leave valuable items when defeated, attracting hunters, cooks, researchers, and rabbits. The dungeon is both an adventuring destination and an important source of meat and special materials.

At the shared cooking camp, hunters process their catches, porters organize supplies, researchers record observations, and Cook rabbits turn ingredients into meals. Travelers exchange information, repair equipment, and meet companions with different skills.

Continually appearing monsters do not justify unrestricted hunting. Stealing another hunter’s quarry, wasting meat, ignoring management rules, or entering closed areas can all lead to conflict. Different areas serve different purposes, and access rules should be checked beforehand.

Even if combat is not your specialty, cooking, transport, research, and logistical work offer plenty of ways to participate.

Getting to Know the Rabbits and Their Neighbors

Outsiders often call these clever, magically skilled, closely cooperating lop rabbits the “Garden Rabbit Folk.” Their occupations include Mages, Cooks, Farmers, Doctors, postal workers, Scholars, Diplomats, and military personnel with various responsibilities. A profession describes a specialty; personality varies from rabbit to rabbit.

Some Mages enjoy showing off, while others prefer quiet study. One Diplomat might excel at formal negotiations, while another knows every small problem in the neighborhood. Names help you recognize individuals, but familiarity grows through shared experiences.

Rabbits speak their own language. You may hear the questioning “Diidee?”, the contented “Gree,” or a “Yee hee hee!!!!” that suggests someone is rather pleased with a mischievous idea. Translations are provided for readers. The character you play can gradually learn to recognize the sounds, gestures, and tones through interaction.

Other inhabitants have stories worth discovering, too. A cook wants to keep meals affordable, a herder works to preserve a migration route, a restorer hopes to protect underwater homes, and an airship captain must consider the crew’s income from the next voyage. They may become friends, teachers, or partners. They may also have good reasons to disagree with your plans.

Where Might Your Story Begin?

You might be a traveler arriving in Hundred-Hearth Town for the first time, a gatherer who knows the forest, an adventurer taking an escort contract, or an ordinary resident who passes rabbits on the street every day.

Your story can begin with a major problem: a blocked trade route, unusual changes in a water source, or shifting monster activity that requires several communities to cooperate. It can also begin with something small: carrying a crate of vegetables, sharing dinner with a rabbit, resolving an orchard misunderstanding, or sitting through a lesson at the schoolhouse.

Your choices affect the people and places around you. Whose account you listen to, how you keep your promises, and whether you return next time all help shape the relationships you build.

Perhaps, on the first day of your journey, you are simply looking for somewhere to eat. Then a lop rabbit at the other end of the table pushes a menu toward you.

“Diidee?”

(Translation: Would you like to eat with us?)