Geography

Started a Map today. Here's some description, until I get a decent picture for you:

Three Major Nations (none named yet), each with a capital.

NW Capital: [Tall City] Located on a mesa
NE Capital: [City in the Shadow of the Lake] Located near a large lake named [The Big Bowl]
S Capital: [Keeper City] Located just North of what is effectively a [Not-Man] reservation called "The Mire"—a massive swamp the size of a small country.

In the Mire is the only [Not-Man] City, called [Healing]. They have managed to dry out and stabilize a section of the mire. While the men of [Keeper City] believe that the [Not-Men] number a few hundred at most, in fact there are several thousand within the city limits. This is possible only because their oppressors rarely venture into the Mire except to trade, and then encounter only outlying settlements built to hide [Healing]'s existence.

The Forest city lies to the East, bordered on the North buy [the Big Bowl] and to the South and West by [the Long River], with a great divide all around them. For [Not-Men] who cannot pass for humans, this is the only major city outside the Mire where they can be assured of their safety. In most small villages and in all the capitals, [Not-Men] are assumed to be monsters.

EDIT: Here is a version of the map (sans national borders).

Forest City

The walls of the city are intergrown trees, planted long before the memory of any man now living. Once, they must have been saplings, but the trees had long since grown into an implacable barrier around the city, over a hundred feet high. Their branches stretched out in every direction, their roots buried deep. High magicians had long ago added hardness to the tree-wall's bark so that it was all but impossible to chip away, and the trees coursed with such life that no fire could hope to consume the walls. In many ways, [Forest City] was the safest place in the world. Even its open gate, a gap in the trees connected only by the branches joining at its peak to form an arch, did not seem to invite enemies. If [Forest City] had any enemies. Indeed, it was a place of total calm. Here, all were welcome. They could study, work, or even just claim asylum, and the city opened its arms to them. All it asked in return is that you left behind something good when you left its living walls, be that research, craftsmanship, or a fond memory.

The Fantasy Race

[Not Men] are an offshoot of humanity. When born, they look relatively human, albeit with very undefined features. They grow in a state of relative androgyny (though they are sexed) until any time between ten and twenty years. Through this time, they can learn to shapeshift to a small degree for short periods of time, taking on features of animals, or forcing definition in their face to pass as human. At some point in this period, however, they are seized by a transformation. This shift locks them permanently into one form: usually a mix between human and animal, though some appear completely human. No one can be certain what causes the varying degrees people take on animal characteristics, nor which animal they seem to resemble. Dog men are not particularly loyal, nor are lion men necessarily majestic. It is also almost certain that the transformation is not by choice. It is possible that the result of the transformation is completely random, but this is pure speculation.

How Magic Works

Here's my basic idea for Magic in the world that follows

The universe as we see it consists of formed matter. There is such a thing as unformed matter, and matterless form. Matterless form functions like the Platonic forms: perfect examples of what objects represent them in the real world. However, instead of being based in nouns (like "chair-ness"), they are to be based in adjectives (like "tallness"). These forms are everywhere and infinite, but are meaningless until assigned to matter. Formless matter (a concept I believe I take from Aristotle directly) takes up no space, and is also everywhere and infinite. Magic works by applying forms to either existing objects, changing them, or to formless matter, creating objects.

At present, there will exist two forms of magic: "High Magic," which can pull matterless forms from the air, and "Low Magic" which can only pull forms from existing objects. Thus, a high magician could make a warrior stronger simply by adding strength to him, while a low magician could only move strength from one warrior to another (though he could create a superior warrior by drawing strength from many separate warriors).

What I'm Doing Here

I'm working on a fantasy story. I've tried this multiple times in the past, but failed. I'm now throwing out my most recent attempt to start something new. Please give me feedback with each passage I put up.

As a note, I plan on making something resembling a language for this world. In the meantime, I am writing words that will be translated in [brackets]. If the name strikes you as stupid, bear with me, it should sound cooler once I come up with the language's basics. Name suggestions would be welcome, but should have a literal correspondence to the name in English.