archipelago-of-the-lustrous

[archipelago-of-the-lustrous]

Gems in Progress. Chapter 1: the main idea

Hello! Finally the first real post of this blog!

I think it would be nice to not hide the ideas and the way i'm creating this new gem society, and show my work flow and progress in this blog. It will be tagged as #gems in progress, and all the posts will be numbered.

All the explanations will be under the cut.

The inspo

First, I need an inspiration behind the whole aesthetic and new culture these gems people will have.

i already had the idea of setting this Gem Society in a complete opposite to the canon one: on the mountains. So, i opted for the main geographical inspiration to be the Alps.

In my previous iterations of this "gem archipelago" i already had some ideas: an archaic society, roughly similiar to European late Bronze Age- early Iron Age.

From the public library of my town i borrowed this amazing (albeit a bit old- but if you know me, you also know i LOVE old stuff!) and giant book called "Peoples and civilizations of ancient Italy", a super important and informative book series about the pre-Roman societies of Italy.

This in particular is Volume 4, specialising on the ancient civilization of Northern Italy: in particular two of my interest, localized on and near the Italian Alps, the Golasecca culture and the Atestine culture.

This is a rough map of the more or less territories I will use as a base for the setting of my Mountain Archipelago. Deep magenta is he ones i'll use more intensely as a base for my setting, as landscapes and archaeological findings, while lighter magenta will just be referenced, and less archeological sites will be used as a references from that provinces. (original pic from Wikipedia)

Using the SOIUSA (International Standardized Mountain Subdivision of the Alps) partition of the Alps system, the zones i'll mostly use as a base are in the Eastern Alps (coloured in light magenta); precisely I'll mostly use:

28, Southern Rhaetian Alps 29, Bergamasque Alps and Prealps 30, Brescia and Garda Prealps 31, Dolomites 32, Venetian Prealps

And in just few bits and pieces:

11, Lugano Prealps 15, Western Rhaetian Alps (only the southernmost parts) 16, Eastern Rhaetian Alps (only southern parts) 17, Western Tauern Alps (only western parts)

Very important for the civilization of my gems will be the complex system of glacial lakes and rivers that exist in the Lombard Prealps and i will translate to my new Island of the Lustrous. The Gems dont need water to survive, but the Lakes that will characterize the place where they live will bring a special climate for their other needs (sun, textile industry, woodcutting, etc)

Then, later, using my dear Mindat (BEST site for geologists), i'll figure out which mines and minerals come from these specific places IRL, and use exclusively them for the cast of OCs that will live in this Archipelago. (Here, as an example, all the mines and mineral findings in the Orobie Alps in the Lombard Prealps)

Unfortunately, I'll have to say goodbye to some of my (too many) old HNK OCs... :( but i'll gain new. However, now its not time to think about the characters. Firts, I need to figure out where and how they will live, then I'll be able to shape a cast of characters.

In the next chapter of GIP (Gems in Progress):

making a map of the region, and figure out the climate. Then after that we can pass to the society... slowly and steady...

[archipelago-of-the-lustrous]

wtf is this? let me explain...

Hi, its me, Aluminium.

I decided to make an entirely new blog for my Houseki no Kuni OC's. Since the manga is over, i want to make it sort of a "spinoff", something almost completely detached from the manga, its themes and, especially, the setting.

For my HNK ocs, i gave them a completely new island to live on ("the Archipelago") and a completely different society from the one we've seen and loved in Houseki no Kuni.

Since it's an extremely long and complex journey, I decided to collect my voyage here. That's it. Buh-bye