Created by a programmer who goes by the online handle of "Zompist", Almea is a world that flirts with the border between fantasy and science fiction. On the one hand, it has a number of standard fantasy hallmarks: a number of near-human races, most of its cultures seem at a vaguely medieval or at best Renaissance level of technology, and, of course, there's magic. But on the other hand, Zompist takes pains to explain how its life forms differ from Earth's, having evolved independently; there are cultures on the planet sufficiently scientifically advanced to have discovered such phenomena as water splitting; and as for the magic, there's even a mention that it is "perhaps based on aspects of physical law yet undiscovered".

Still, Almea's creator calls it a fantasy world, and I'm inclined to agree—although for very different reasons than his. "Science fiction thrives on strange planets and interesting aliens, though you'll notice that the heroes are usually humanoid," Zompist writes. "Fantasy generally starts with a world that superficially looks like ours." I would argue, however, that fantasy actually has the potential to explore worlds that are much more alien than those of science fiction—after all, in fantasy, one isn't constrained by real-world physical laws. (Admittedly, this is a potential that fantasy writers have severely underused—there's a "Fantasy Manifesto" I've been thinking of writing on that topic one of these days.) He also writes that fantasy "is (at its best) a spiritual exploration", a sentiment with which I strongly disagree—I don't deny that fantasy stories can be spiritual explorations, but they certainly don't have to be, and aren't any worse for not being so. I don't find it useful to distinguish fantasy and science fiction by their themes (as is too often attempted), but by their content—and if there's one thing that lands Almea firmly on the side of fantasy, it's the presence of magic, perfunctory palaver about undiscovered physical laws notwithstanding. Really, though, I don't think there's necessarily any value in trying to draw a univocal line between fantasy and science fiction anyway; the boundaries are often blurred, and I don't think that's a bad thing.

At any rate, like the Earth, Almea is a terrestrial planet, in orbit around a Class G star like Earth's sun. One interesting feature of the world is the Zone of Fire, a magical barrier along the planet's equator that is difficult or impossible for complex organisms to cross. Most advanced civilizations are in the southern hemisphere, and necessarily have little or no contact with the northern.

When it comes to Almea's native life, admittedly, we run into something that rings false for me. Zompist makes a point of noting that the life forms of Almea are different from Earth's, so different that the plants and animals don't even have DNA, but rely on some different genetic carrier instead. All well and good, except if that's the case then there shouldn't be plants and animals at all, but entirely different and unrelated kingdoms. There certainly should be nothing closely resembling the particular complex organisms found on Earth, and yet we have exactly that, with a species that closely resembles humans. The creator specifically notes that Almean "humans" aren't really related to Terran humans at all, and they do have some minor differences (four toes, no philtrum, and so on), but they're still far closer to humans than can plausibly be explained by (the oft-abused concept of) parallel evolution—maybe not truly fully human, but even more so than most of the (implausibly humanlike) humanoid aliens on Star Trek. Granted, most fantasy worlds have not just humanoid but fully human races inhabiting them, but then most fantasy worlds don't compound the issue by explicitly insisting that their humans are completely unrelated to Earth's humans, leaving open tacit possibilities of some sort of association with Terran life, or at the very least not going out of their way to call attention to the anomaly. This isn't, of course, a fatal problem with Almea, and it's not something impossible to handwave away (as Star Trek writers eventually attempted to do in the TNG episode The Chase—there were some big holes in their explanation, but at least they tried). Still, it's something that bothered me. (Panypary is, of course, the Wongery's way of handwaving away the matter of humans and other life forms existing on different worlds—or at least of acknowleding the existence of the issue.)

In any case, though, humans, or rather "uestî", as Almea's quasi-humans are called, are not the world's only noetic race. Fortunately, Zompist does not fall back on the generic fantasy clichés of elves, dwarves, and orcs, but invents new races unique to his world. Unfortunately, like dwarves, elves, and orcs in many fantasy settings, most of his new races differ little from humans aside from culture and minor cosmetic changes, and for the most part might as well be just funny-looking humans. By far the most interesting of the possibly noetic races—and the only one not to pertain to the same taxonomic family as the otherss—is the "rifter", "lyat", or "arkoša Lyatei", a quadrupedal carnivore that is only noetic when engaged in sexual intercourse.

If Almea's races, the rifter aside, aren't terribly interesting (or plausible) biologically, however, Zompist does an excellent job of developing their cultures. The people and nations of Almea have well-thought-out religions, economies, and even wardrobes. In far too many fantasy worlds, the nations are either generic medieval kingdoms or transparent knockoffs of famous ancient real-world cultures—there's the de rigeur ersatz Egypt, an imitation India, and so forth. Not so here; Almea's cultures don't correspond neatly to any real-world cultures, but have their own novel flavors.

But truth be told none of what I've said so far is the main reason why Almea was chosen as a World of the Week. Not that it necessarily wouldn't have been enough anyway; certainly Almea's cultures are far better developed and more original than those of most fantasy worlds, and it avoids most of the usual clichés that would likely have disqualified it. But I haven't yet mentioned the one feature of Almea that's been developed in the most detail of all. If Snaiad is notable mostly for its biology, and Arde for its physics, then Almea's principal claim to fame is its languages.

"Zompist"—real name Mark Rosenfelder—has a well-established reputation as a "conlanger"—a recreational constructor of artificial languages. On his website, along with diverse other miscellanea, are a detailed Language Construction Kit (along with an advanced version), a link to a forum devoted largely (albeit not entirely) to linguistic matters, and, of course, information on the languages he created for Almea, most of which can be found on a page called "Virtual Verduria". Verduria is one of the most advanced nations of Almea, and Verdurian seems to be the most developed of all Almea's languages, with a Practical Course in Verdurian, an English-Verdurian Dictionary, and more. Aside from Verdurian, there are over a dozen other Almean languages that are also described to some degree.

Zompist is not, of course, the first person to detail a new language for a fictional world. The practice goes at least as far back as 1880, when Percy Greg created an original language for his Martians in his novel Across the Zodiac: The Story of a Wrecked Record. Most famously, J. R. R. Tolkien, a philologist by vocation, a polyglot, and a noted scholar of the Old English language, constructed a number of languages for his world of Arda, some (though of course not all) in considerable detail. While later fantasy writers took much from Tolkien (though not quite as much as is commonly assumed), this was one thing they rarely emulated; few writers took the trouble to build whole new languages for their worlds, and probably none created as many as Tolkien. Languages were also created for some films, games, and entertainment franchises, the best known of which is probably the Klingon language created for Star Trek, but these languages are seldom developed in much detail and not always used consistently. In any case, Zompist's development on the languages of Almea certainly far exceeds that that most creators put into the languages of their fictional worlds.

You can read more about Almea at the Almeopedia, and at the aforementioned Virtual Verduria.