Last update: 7 December 2006
The principal civilisations on Sunovia are pre-industrial, approximately at the same level as those of sixteenth-century Europe, as far as such things can be compared. This means that tourism, i.e. travel purely in order to look at things, is still something of a rarity except among the upper classes; if someone is travelling somewhere, they are usually assumed to be doing business, making a pilgrimage, visiting relatives, or travelling back home from one of these. Consequently, if you're seriously considering visiting Dekavur, it pays to have a believable reason for being a long way away from your home town, otherwise word will soon reach the local pickpockets that there is a source of large amounts of spare cash nearby.
For the astronomically-minded, the axial inclination of Cuasa is about 26 degrees; seasonal variations are thus slightly greater than on the Earth.
Another obstacle to the traveller is that the location of Cuasa is not, actually, known. It can be established, however, that Asta is of spectral type G2, which is slightly hotter than our own Sun, and that it is orbited by at least seven planets in addition to Cuasa. To help future galactic navigators locate Dekavur, some information about the known planets is given below.
| Name | Source of name | Colour | Mag | Period | Syn |
| Matceves | Macheves "the Giver of Wind and Weather" | grey-white | -1.8 | 106d | 146 |
| Berodza | Berodza "the Bringer of Light and Life" | white | -2.6 | 223d | 523 |
| Cuasa | Liotan Cuatha "world" | blue-green | ---- | 389d | --- |
| Rostidje | Rjostydzhe "the Bearer of Riches" | grey | -0.8 | 751d | 807 |
| Jezdax | Jezdâko "the legendary Warrior" | red | 0.8 | 4.84y | 490 |
| Klectura | Kleshtura "the Beautiful One" | yellow | -1.2 | 11.9y | 425 |
| Jotre | Dzhljotre "the Wise" | white | 1.7 | 34.6y | 401 |
| Lopesa | Lopes "the one who hides" | blue | 5.0 | 78.7y | 394 |
"Mag" is the maximum apparent magnitude as visible from Cuasa under ideal conditions; "period" is the length of the planet's year; and "syn" is the synodic period in days, i.e. the length of the interval between successive oppositions. Most of the planets are named after the principal Rachovian deities; the exception is Lopesa, which was known to the more keen-eyed Rachovians, but its elusiveness denied it a place in the main pantheon. The Dekavurian word for "planet", which was borrowed from the Liotan, is spitoso, ultimately from Rachovian spýtoso "wanderer, traveller". The inner five planets are terrestrial (i.e. rocky); Klectura, Jotre, and Lopesa are gas giants.
Cuasa has three moons, which are counted among the spitosos, although of course they are not strictly planets. The largest moon is called Hécanza, from the Liotan rróisdich shianh "wanderer in darkness" and orbits once every 36 days; it is slightly smaller than our own Moon and thus cannot cause total solar eclipses. The other two moons are smaller and remoter, and orbit in 95 and 156 days; their names are Dimashta and Ardinka after two legendary Liotan dogs, the faithful followers of an equally legendary hero.
A visitor from Europe would encounter many familiar domesticated animals, such as horses, pigs, cows, sheep, dogs, and chickens. One surprise, however, would be an animal much like the llama which is used as a beast of burden; it is known in Genistien, Castivien, and Astarien respectively as hwòsa, fyósa, feuse, this last also being the Dekavurian word. Birds and fish are more divergent; in place of the blackbird, for example, is a thrush with dark blue wings and a pale brown-yellow breast, while the commonest finch is not the chaffinch but a slightly larger black bird with red-tipped wings.
The relatively easy defensibility of its borders has made it one of the pre-eminent powers in Sunovia, a source of resentment particularly to the Kimbarin, some of whose former lands were incorporated to Dekavur as the Eastern Provinces in 1053. The Kadhrin to the west are on better terms, although every so often someone likes to rile them by reminding them that their ancestors came from south-west Dekavur.
The total area of Dekavur is slightly more than 620000 square kilometres, situated between the latitudes of 43 and 50 degrees; in European terms this is slightly larger than the Ukraine, and in American terms comparable to Colorado and New Mexico. There are three large inland seas: Gemmasieva in the north-east, Hannasief in the centre, and Mashlasäva in the eastern central highlands. The main river is the Devri, which rises in the Hyaston Hóryasta and flows through central Dekavur - including Hannasief - before reaching the sea; other important rivers are the Gemma and Socha in the north, the Lisha in the west, and the Maska and Kisha in the east.