#crafted in divine light || worldbuilding

[sp4ceboo]

Warriors: Choi San x Reader

A/N: ohh boyyy after the kpop fanfic drought im back and it's with warriors au choi san

Summary: San and Reader are mages, which means they are made to serve. They are lowborn, destined to obey humans - the nobles and the highborn - with their every breaths. What if they don't want that?

tw: 18+, smut (p in v, fingering, cockwarming sort of), swearing, violence, death, blood, minimally gory at one point, war, child soldiers (14 yo), society is a shit place to be if you're a mage, tons of worldbuilding, assassins, freaking bath sex, hint at sa at one point from some dude we hate, san is kind of a brat tamer, seonghwa cameo but sad, idk if you can tell but i suck at summaries, mention of a harem, mention of slavery

wc: 4.8k

As a child, you watched from afar, waiting for things you could not grasp.

They told you that you were made to serve. They recounted age-old tales, about gods that crafted humans in their divine hands, moulding the mages afterwards to be commanded by their beloved creations. They filled your mind with legends of faithful individuals of your kind who proved their worth with obedience until you wished to be like your forebears.

Back when you were but an infant, you believed it. You knew the two powers that were bestowed upon you by the gods, varying in every mage, were gifts made solely to assist the highborns. In your naivety, you thought the rosy flame cupped in your small, childish palms would be used to warm the nobles in the icy winter, and that you would fulfil your purpose through that, through being of use to them. They had no shame as they informed you you were just a tool forged for following their orders, and you were convinced it was all true - until you met San.

Although you were the one with the ability to summon an inferno, he was always the one with a burning fire in his eyes. Like all mages, he’d been taken from his parents the moment he didn’t need his mother’s milk - he was given as a peace offering from the Hwangso warlord for his control of water: helpful for the upkeep of the crops.

This occurred in the small period of time in which Hwangso, the neighbouring province, was attempting to forge alliances with your province, Neugdae. Soon after, your warlord breached their territory, claiming it as his - you often wondered if the news filtering back from the front lines of a new settlement captured ever affected San.

You met him when he was an eight year old filled with bottled fury too old for his years, and you were a quiet, invisible seven year old. At those tender ages, neither of you had developed your second ability yet, nor had you gotten a taste of the power at your fingertips, but San still held his head high; you remember marvelling at the way he’d make a point of meeting every single noble’s gaze and holding it. He was just a scrawny, sun browned kid back then - nothing like the elegant lethality of the man that he is now.

Every day until you turned fourteen, you toiled beside him. The work was cruel, your supervisors crueller; the sun would beat down on your back as you laboured in the fields, side by side with San as barely a quarter of the way across the settlement, the nobles sheltered beneath their silky parasols, boasting their pale, porcelain skin. Back then, San never spoke of the injustice of it all out loud, but something about the look in his eyes when he saw them swanning past stirred something inside you. He made you realise that you were not the soulless, mindless puppet that you’d been told you were, but a person.

It wasn’t simply the rage inside him that drew you to him, though. It was the way he remained sweet, kind, despite it all, making sure to send licks of cool mist down your neck when your supervisors weren’t looking, nicking extra crumbs of food for you and remaining beside you, a beacon of light that anchored you to sanity even in the dark.

Even when, you at fourteen, him fifteen, were sent out into battle.

There were always skirmishes between neighbouring warlords: a constant push and pull for more land, more resources, more power. They would attack on a whim - mages were expendable, nothing more than canon fodder; behind each squadron was a noble who would hang back behind the lines, commanding, unbothered by the bloodshed because it was the blood of mere tools.

By then, both you and San had developed your second abilities. San’s was the ability to manipulate shadows, turning them into almost solid shapes that could physically hinder attacks by forming daggers or clutching hands, or could temporarily block the world out in a shroud of rolling black fog. Yours was the art of shapeshifting; you let the outline of your body flicker between forms, changing into powerful, deadly creatures whose substance was inhabited by the soul of a wavering teenager.

You’d known that you’d be forced to fight since you were young, but you never could have imagined the brutality of war.

It was there, in the midst of the battlefield, that any lingering innocence was burned from your soul. You learned that San’s water did not just bring life, but could also fill up someone’s lungs until they drowned upon dry ground, that your fire was not just a source of warmth or light, but could also combust a man’s heart within his chest, that the animals you were teaching yourself to shapeshift into could maul and break bones.

Many nights, you would fall asleep, curled against San, your face buried in his side with his arm wrapped around you, the taste of blood still in your mouth from where you’d torn your enemies’ throat out with the vicious canines of a tiger or the needle sharp fangs of a lynx. You would leave the front lines soaked with crimson, the essence of other people in your hair, smeared on your face, caked and drying under your nails.

It terrified you, how easily you could slice their flesh open with your claws. Armour was not wasted on mages, only generals, so just like you, all they wore were roughly woven tunics tied at the waist and trousers - you met no resistance when you killed your own kind, silent apologies on your lips.

Within the squadrons were also humans that had fallen from grace - criminals who still felt entitled enough by their birthright to think they could have a fourteen year old mage’s body; San protected you until you could protect yourself. In the first few weeks, when the punches he threw were too weak to deter them, he would let them beat him, giving you time to escape before returning to you, limping, lip split and nose bloody but the fire in his eyes never faltering.

On those nights, tears of frustration would leak from the corners of your eyes as you cleaned him up. He could so easily stop them if he used his abilities, but by then doing that without being instructed to do so by a highborn would lead to a flogging or a beating - fairytales no longer worked on you at that age, so your commanders and generals utilised fear mongering instead. You remember the hate and helplessness burning inside you when you looked at them: if all the mages rebelled at once, the nobles would have no chance, but everyone was too scared. Using your abilities on humans only led to execution.

You remember Seonghwa: he was a mage a few years older who cared for you and San as if you were his blood. He got too strong - you can’t recall his second ability but his first meant he could push a man over the brink of insanity, until he frothed at the mouth and his brain boiled within his skull. When you first witnessed the depth of his power, you were originally struck by the pain in Seonghwa’s eyes, and then by the fear in your commander’s.

The next day, Seonghwa was gone.

Often, you wonder if he fought back, or if he just let them kill him.

After, you made San promise that he wouldn’t show them if his powers developed further. He made you promise the same, and when you fought beside him, he was a constant reminder to reign yourself in, to survive. You were more careful with your powers from then on.

Some nights, though, when the frost ridden night air cut right through the ragged material of your blanket, you huddled next to San and lit a small fire in your hands. He’d tell you to stop, and you’d point out that he was shivering; he’d reply that he’d rather that than get you caught, and you would ignore him, not missing the way he tucked himself closer to the flame.

You didn’t tell him, but sometimes you would shift into a small animal, like a raccoon, and steal food for him in the dead of night. You didn’t answer when he asked you where you got it from, just shrugging and thrusting the rolls of bread and strips of dried meat into his hands, telling him he should eat.

When you were sixteen, San discovered he could animate his shadows. He could mould them like clay in his hands, breathing purpose into them - they would disintegrate within about a week or so, their outlines fading until they dissolved into nothing. San shaped a little dragon for you, the length of your forearm and the width of one of your thumbs; he came to you with it cupped in his hands, awe limning his face as the two of you watched it wriggle through the air between you and coil itself around your wrist.

You have many memories of those times, but one remains crystal clear, even to this day. A year onwards from San’s dragon, you found yourself hemmed in by enemy forces, your body tired from the fight - victory was so close for your side, and because of it, the Hwangso fought even harder, like cornered animals. If you broke through them, you would have been able to easily end their commander, but they had you, six to one. Hands closed around your throat, choking, and as the consciousness bled from you, you heard San’s cry, smelt the fear in the air as he tore through them to get to you: that in itself would have been insignificant - you had saved each other countless times through the years - but he had disobeyed a direct command.

He’d been told to kill the commander. He’d had a clear shot, and even still, he’d ignored orders, choosing to save you instead.

Both of you were beaten for it, and even as you heard the sound of San’s ribs cracking, he held your eyes, silently telling you that he’d do it over and over again, if only to keep you with him.

You think that was the moment when the two of you truly got a taste for rebellion. It was the point in the long, winding thread of your life that made you realise that whatever they told you, you would disregard it if it were for San. Their words no longer had as much power over you, because you knew your bond with him was infinitely stronger than any fear they attempted to instil within you.

Soon after that incident, your commander retired, and he was replaced by a man who was more of a fool than him. You began to lose land to Hwangso’s troops, far enough that the settlement where you grew up in was ravaged, razed to the ground. Your commander informed you that you’d evacuate the highborns, leaving the child mages and the servants behind because they would only slow you down - that was the moment you decided to stop listening to him.

The last mage rebellion had been decades ago - they were not ready. It was pathetic how easy it was to overthrow them; together with the rest of the troops and the mages from the settlement, you rebuilt the town and fortified it. San treated his soldiers with respect, with loyalty, and they loved him for it, for the way he would march into battle with them instead of cowering at the rear, for the way he could often be seen in the newly restored fields, watering the crops, for the way he recognised them for who they were.

To this day, you’re in awe of it. Never in your whole life have you come close to anything but fear for a leader, and yet you see it clear in their eyes that they love San, and that he loves them. He is everything that the highborns fear - a powerful, confident mage, wreathed in righteous shadows, fiercely intelligent, a master of strategy.

One of his first moves was to ally himself with the Hwangso warlord, the very man who had given him as a gift to your province. Deep in the highborn’s eyes was the presumption that he could break San and make him yield, followed a month later by pure terror when you held a knife to his neck, hissing to never speak of San like that again. The two of you brought his head in a sack to Hwangso and claimed your rule over the province.

That didn’t mean it was easy, though. There were the nights when San would tremble in your arms, baring his fears to you, his doubts - that it was getting too much too fast: that maybe he really was just made to follow orders. You scoffed at that - you’d seen him grow up, watched his shoulders broaden and his figure fill out with muscle, you’d seen the fire in his eyes blazing with passion; you knew he’d always be more than enough.

You’re not sure when the love blossomed between the two of you. Maybe it was always there, first shown as fierce protectiveness, later as searing kisses where no one could see, of fingers laced with yours in the dark of night. He married you shortly after he began to be recognised as an actual warlord, not a rogue mage; it was a quiet ceremony, but the celebrations of your people were far from that - rumours of the Neugdae province’s mage warlord and his wife rippled like wildfire through the regions, stirring fear and hope alike.

Some wonder why San does not take more wives - he has control over the Baem province as well Neugdae and Hwangso now, and any warlord with that much power would take on a harem without blinking. Not San, though - he’s different from them, he is a mage, a lowborn, his bronzed skin a sign to them of his childhood in the fields, and they find he is an enigma, as is his mystery shrouded right hand man.

But not to you - you understand him as if you share a soul.

On the surface, you are his only wife, aloof and coldly beautiful. In the shadows, you are his sword, his hand. There are myths of you, of the fire wielding ghost that robes itself in a black cowl and changes its skin into a man’s worst nightmare; stories of how you will twist your victim’s thoughts around until he finds the tip of a blade poking out of his chest, speared right through his back. It’s how you prefer to operate - they fear the unknown, and you are the unknown.

The fabric of the bag held in your fingers is soaked with blood. Within it is the head of the Yong province’s advisor. He was an awful man who deserved what you gave him - in a locked room at the back of his house, you found several young mages, half starved and chained by wrist and ankle to each other and a hook set in the wall. Bile bites at the back of your throat at the thought: you’re lucky you never experienced the uglier side of mage slavery.

Night is falling, the sun casting long shadows down the road. You always find the darkness comforting - it feels as if San is near. Today he is; you raise your fist and knock thrice on the solid wood of the gates, lifting your hand in recognition of the guards who peek over the turrets.

Slowly, they ease open the doors, and you stride into the courtyard, your boots clicking against the roughly hewn pavings. A squadron of your soldiers are sparring, but they halt their training when you enter, snapping to attention as you stop at the centre of the space, the dying rays of the sun streaming down the steps towards you, the air still as you wait.

He appears, his gilded silhouette glorious at the top of the stairs. His shadow guards spill down the steps towards you as he descends; their bodies contort and bend, the swirling mass of them parting around you, liquid night, jaws snapping, circling you until you’re surrounded.

A smirk pulls at your lips, and you throw the bag at his feet. You do not bow low, simply dipping your chin as he extracts the head from the sack, inspecting it and nodding before returning it to its roughly woven grave and handing it to one of his shadows to take away. Meeting your eyes, his own filled with amusement, the hint of a smile flashes over his face.

‘Welcome home, my love.’

San’s words are soft, voice quiet enough for only you to hear. You suppress the urge to pull down your mask and kiss him, instead letting your fingers brush against his as you walk with him up the steps and into the hanok; his shadows close the door behind you and the moment they do, he hooks an arm around your waist and hugs you tight, his embrace warm and sweet as always.

You laugh. ‘I was only gone four days, Sannie.’

‘Four days too long for me to be separated from my wife,’ he replies, pushing your cowl back so he can kiss your forehead.

Gripping his shoulders, you tug him down so you can peck his lips before sending him out to the courtyard again - you’re the last person expected through the gates tonight, so he should go out and dismiss the mages training in the courtyard so they can go home to their families and lock up. A happy sigh leaves you as you toe off your shoes, walking through your home and stripping off your bloody clothes before submerging yourself in the pool sunken in the floor. San has already filled it with fresh water, and it takes you mere seconds to heat it up with your fire.

Leaning with your head against the wooden ledge of the pool, you let your muscles loosen, half closing your eyes. The silence doesn’t last long, though - there’s a soft, steady noise coming from the screen behind you, almost like… breathing.

‘Show yourself,’ you command into the still air.

A man steps into view - a human, eyes crazed, knife clutched in his fingers. You realise he does not know who you really are; he just assumes you are the mage warlord San’s wife, delicate and helpless, and you let that role engulf you, backing away to the other edge of the pool with your eyes wide, luring him closer.

‘Your man took everything from me,’ he spits, blade pointed at you as he stalks forward. ‘He took my power, my wealth, my squadron of soldiers. And now I will take his wife.’

Surging out of the pool, you dodge the swipe he aims at you, sending fire surging down the knife’s handle so he drops it with a cry and twisting his arm behind his back in the most painful way possible, wrenching him down to his knees with his face an inch above the water.

‘How did you get in?’ You ask coolly.

‘I’ll never tell y - ’

You send tongues of flame licking down his ribs. ‘Answer the question or suffer.’

The door eases open, revealing San. His eyes land on you, water dripping down your body as you pin the man to the floor, then the distorted reflection from the blade of the knife that’s fallen into the pool, and something dangerous flashes inside his gaze. You let him grab your attacker by the front of his shirt, lifting him off his feet as he brings him face to face with him; you see San’s jaw clench, his hands balling into fists.

‘How fucking dare you try to come anywhere near my wife,’ he growls, shadows coalescing behind him.

You can tell he’s about to say something else, but he stops as the man, trembling and fruitlessly clawing at San’s fingers, wets himself. Your husband’s lip curls in disgust, and he drops him at your feet, pressing him down onto his knees and yanking his head up so he is forced to look up at you. Bending down, you breathe in the sheer fear permeating the air, a soft smile on your face.

‘Now, answer the question.’

‘You’re not his wife,’ he whispers, pale.

‘Oh, but I am,’ you sneer. ‘But that’s not the only role I occupy.’

Slowly, his face drains of colour, horror rippling across it as it slowly dawns on him. He recoils in San’s grasp, scrabbling at the floor in a sorry attempt to put distance between you; he has finally realised who you are and he acts like fucking coward, his mouth gaping wide in a silent plea. Unhurried, you fish the knife out from the pool, twirling it around your thumb before gliding it gently over the skin of his throat.

‘I’m getting impatient.’

‘I - I - the guards, they were distracted upon your arrival, I snuck in at the southern perimeter, please don’t - ’

His words dissolve into a weak gurgle when you slice open his throat. Blood gushes from the seams of the wound, dribbling from his lips, and you step back as he tips forward, landing with a wet thump face first on the wooden floor. Glancing up at San, you sigh before getting back in the pool. One of his shadows carries the body away and your husband tugs his clothes off and slides into the water beside you, pulling you into his chest.

‘He did not hurt you, I presume?’

You snort. ‘He tried.’

San’s fingers run thoughtfully up and down your arm. ‘I’ll talk to the guards. I probably shouldn’t have put Jisung on dusk duty while he was recovering from that fever.’

You nod but don’t answer, instead pressing a kiss to his collarbone. He hums, tipping his head back to give you more access as you mouth at his skin, letting your palms wander over his shapely chest, grip his broad shoulders, skim his waist; you trace the many scars all over his body, and he allows you to, his strong hands gripping your hips when you settle in his lap.

He curses low at the feel of your teeth sinking into the spot where his neck meets his shoulder, his hips jerking upwards, and you both groan at the sensation of the underside of his cock grazing your clit. Smirking, you let your tongue lave over the spot where you bit, pressing a kiss to his jaw and pulling back as his hands tighten their grip on your ass.

‘Missed you too, Sannie. Good to know how much you missed me.’

‘So fucking bratty,’ he hisses.

A thrill shoots through you as he stands, the water sluicing in rivulets down the planes of his chest, lifting you and laying you on the edge of the pool, pinning your knees to the wood and spreading you open. The crude way he looks at you is all consuming, his eyes surveying you from where he stands with the water to his mid thigh, watching as your pussy clenches at the sight of him towering over you.

San remains there, just looking at you, and you curve your spine, almost whining in attempt to make him touch you without you asking for it. His lips quirk to the side as you squirm, trying to inch your hips down so you can grind against him, but his fingers tighten on you, refusing you.

‘What is it you require of me, love?’

Finding your attempts unsuccessful, you huff, glaring at him. He loves to do this, make you articulate exactly what you want from him - he likes the flush that heats your cheeks, your body still shy even after all your years with him, he likes the breathy noises you make when he forces you to tell him just what you desire when all you can think of is his dick, he likes it when you can’t  help but beg him.

‘Y - your fingers,’ you mumble. ‘And your cock.’

‘Say that louder for me, sweetheart, I didn’t catch the last bit.’

‘Your fingers and your fucking cock,’ you snap - a sorry endeavour at trying to hide how much you love when he inflicts this upon you.

San raises an eyebrow, not moving to touch you. Waiting.

‘Please,’ you add.

He smiles. ‘There we go. Wasn’t so hard, was it?’

Your mouth opens to retort, but he slips his fingers inside you, and your back bows, a soft moan leaving your lips as he sweeps his thumb over your clit, his other hand palming your breasts, his tongue dragging over your skin. Burying your hands in his hair, you tug, making him groan low and deep as you pull him closer.

Delectably, his fingers curl, and you ache for him. San has ruined you for anyone else, he is branded onto your soul and also your body, fading marks from your last time together still slightly visible on your throat - a necklace of love bites, laying claim to you. He catches your chin as he brings you closer to the edge, tasting your moans on his tongue, grinding his palm against your clit.

You keen, coming hard around him, chest heaving, and he smirks, holding your waist as shudders wrack your legs from the aftershocks. The fire in his eyes burns ever brighter, so hot you feel your stomach go molten - your hands tighten on his shoulders, nails raking over his back, your tongue unable to form anything other than his name.

‘You’re always so willing to behave once your pussy’s full, hm?’

‘No, I,’ you start, but cry out when he pinches your clit in warning, the muscles of your thighs jumping as it lances through you, white hot. ‘Y - yes, yes, I am, please - ’

In one fluid movement, San buries himself inside you, sheathing himself until his hips kiss yours. Catching you wrists in his hand, he pins them above your head, and your back arches as he pulls out, agonisingly slowly, every ridge and vein of his cock dragging on your walls before slamming back in, tearing a cry of his name from your chest. Tugging your legs up from where they were wrapped around his waist, he hooks your knees over his shoulders - the new angle makes you sob, writhing beneath him as his cock head drives into perfection, drives you to euphoria.

Sometimes, San makes love to you, but not tonight: tonight he fucks into you mercilessly, traces of possessiveness lacing his actions as he litters your skin with bites, his hands leaving exquisite bruises on your hips. Pleasure tears through you like an arrow through your heart, white hot and maddening, ravenous.

‘You fit around my cock so well,’ he pants. ‘Like you were made for me, sweetheart.’

Something snaps inside you at his words, and as if he senses it, San presses his thumb down hard on your clit, speeding up his thrusts until the air is punched from your lungs. Stars flash before your eyes, and your mouth falls open, toes curling as you come on his cock, your cunt convulsing around him, thighs twitching; he doesn’t stop, just continues ploughing into you, and you tremble, tears slipping down your cheeks at the relentless pound of his hips into yours.

With a gasp, he pulls out and comes over your stomach, his wide shoulders rising and falling with heaving breaths, and you groan as he eases you back into the warm water, a hand cupping the back of your neck as he tucks your head under his chin, sliding his softening cock into you again. Wrapping your arms around him, you press a kiss to his jaw and rest your hand on his chest, feeling the steady beat of his heart beneath your palm.

‘How do you feel, my love?’

You nuzzle your face into his shoulder. ‘Good. Really fucking good.’

He laughs, and you bask in the sound of his happiness and the comfort of his warm skin against yours. San’s hands run up and down your spine, soothing, and you smile sleepily; you are home, reunited with your other half, the missing part of your soul.

With San, you are complete.

[larkral]

OKAY it's late so we're going to be as efficient as humanly possible here. I've spent pretty similar amounts of time this week writing in Finally (already, always) and As yet unnamed Red White and Royal Blue Soulmates BS (BS stands for Brilliant Shit, btw: I am obsessed with my soulmates concept), so you're going to get some of each!

Two mums

(Simon POV. There is no Baz POV in this story, FYI, so it's going to be SImon from here on out)

We don't even have to sneak out. We just take the keys off of the hook next to the front door and walk right out into the night. It's lovely. On our way to the nearest park, we walk past a community building where a choir is rehearsing, and then further into a bike-walkway. It's lined with trees, and when we get to an area where the zigging of a street gives the pathway a deeper tree cover, Baz tells me to wait under a light and walks determinedly into the trees.  I can see him moving in the shadows. Not, you know, perfectly, but if I look into the trees, there's still a bit of light coming through from the other side. If I let my mind wander, I can sometimes see a too-fast movement or a flicker of a shape that I know in my bones is him.  Then there's a long moment of stillness.  I wonder what he's found. 

RWRB Soulmate BS

(Just diving right into the "if I'm writing a soulmate fic, you better believe it's going to go hard in worldbuilding" of it all right off the bat.)

"I'm not an idiot Nora," Alex says exasperatedly. He swears sometimes she says stuff just so he can shout about it. "They rely so heavily on the idea that their empire was ordained by Divine Right because they've been exclusively letting their children marry their 'soulmates' since the beginning of time, and if those children's 'soulmates' happened to help them expand the reach of their power, then that was just God's will." Alex takes a deep breath. "Why would they ever give that up?" Nora sends a half-shrug his way, and June pats his shoulder.  "You'll just have to hold your breath against the hypocrisy, little bro," June says. "Especially because I'm pretty sure Zhara is going to forbid you from more than a polite sip of champagne."  "Don't I motherfucking know it," he says.

Thanks so much for the tags this week @thewholelemon, @that-disabled-princess, @kiwiana-writes, @bookish-bogwitch, @hushed-chorus,

@forabeatofadrum, @you-remind-me-of-the-babe, @monbons, @mooncello and @rimeswithpurple !! What a brilliantly active Wednesday it is today! I am *loving* all the things folks are sharing. Crafts and writing and art and life events. I absolutely <3<3 fandom. A+ work everyone!

Since it's the end of the day, I'd like everyone I'm tagging to consider this a prompt to tell me about anything you're doing lately, even if it's completely non-fandom related. <3

@stitchyqueer @confused-bi-queer @raenestee @facewithoutheart @whogaveyoupermission

@cutestkilla @sillyunicorn @basiltonbutliketheherb @roomwithanopenfire @orange-peony

@ileadacharmedlife @asocialpessimist @aristocratic-otter @captain-aralias @run-for-chamo-miles

@petedavidsonscock @artsyunderstudy @carryonvisinata @takenabackbytuesdays @martsonmars

@nausikaaa @nightimedreamersghost @chen-chen-chen-again-chen @ionlydrinkhotwater @wellbelesbian

@shrekgogurt  @palimpsessed @fatalfangirl​ @blackberrysummerblog​ @valeffelees

@j-nipper-95 @youarenevertooold @emeryhall @run-for-chamo-miles

@talentpiper11 @imagineacoolusername

[that-one-i-think]

The Sun in Tu'la lore

I am still on my scifi kick but while I am on the celestial bodies track, might as well get some my classic MCD AU worldbuilding out of the way.

So the sun is most commonly associated with the Divine Warrior Menphia, as she is the blazing fury. It was rumored that she was made by the sun herself, her golden-orange mane blazed with fire and her eyes were said to melt the will of her enemies. A true lioness.

It wasn't always like that though, as in Tu'la the worship of the sun was much older than even the birth of Menphia. The sun was the bringing of light, energy, fire, and was what rose people and the crops during the day. In most areas in Tu'la, the sun is worshipped along with Menphia, as she is now considered an aspect of the sun. After all, it is what meif'wa accredited to creating them and their homeland of Tu'la.

The origin story of Tu'la is that it was once just vast ocean with no life. The sun was lonely, for the moon had already had its own people with its wolves. The sun cried and cried, it's loneliness consuming it until one tear managed to land on on earth. That tear of pure sun hit the water, causing it to turn from water to magma and finally to land. The sun saw the land and wiped their tears, their voice filling the land with laughter. Hearing such a beautiful voice, the wind and sea decided to gift the sun's new land with life, plants scattered the land and the moon gave the land a welcoming present with animals galor.

The suns land had animals and plants but they had no subject. Not wanting to feel left out, they took some sea water and sand, molding it into the shape of a cat, them a human. Unfortunately, the sun was so excited that the melting the glass of life together to form the first meif'wa. The sun loved them so much that they were kissed on the forehead and given life! From them the sun spent years crafting new meif'wa of all shapes and sizes, from tigers to lions to bengals, their efforts turning half of the region of Tu'la into dessert, for the glass creations needed more and more sand.

Eventually, they stopped but it is said that the reason Tu'la is so hot is because the sun loves their people so much. Also, a superstition is that meif'wa with forehead markings are blessed by the sun themselves. A permanent reminder of the kiss of life

[st-just]

Random worldbuilding question #9!

re:

What aesthetics are considered “advanced” or “futuristic” in your world - canvas wings, shiny chrome, smooth plastic? How has this changed over time?

Okay so realizing after the fact that I’ve got at least three different relatively thought out settings each of which have multiple cultures/groups who probably have different answers for most of these questions, so! Lets pick semi-randomly and then lose track of the question and write seven hundred words of vaguely related free verse.

In most of Abhari, to be ‘advanced’ is to be similar to the latest fashions of the Sublime Commonwealth – the Committee on Industry and Progress is almost universally considered the most important body of state below the Grand Secretariat itself, after all. To be advanced means to be godless, the harvests and tides governed by mesmerisingly complex arrays of mirrored bronze directing aether in accordance to the dictates of Universal Reason. It means rectangular fields and ubiquitous canals, and government by sexless bureaucrats in grey coats and red hats, without family name or native tongue. Schoolhouses and conscription, and architecture that’s long on geometric patterns and short on portraits or idols.

‘Futuristic’ goes a bit beyond that, and the palette to draw with is clockwork and light. Pocketwatches and orreries and everything in between, automota doing the work of couriers and carriages on immaculate city streets, or self-propelled artillery crawling along mountain passes on spidery legs. Grand, illuminated libraries where the secrets and histories of the entire world have been transcribed into a single comprehensible tongue for any member of the public to peruse. Mirrors and lamplight and eyeglasses, and endless, endless reams of paper; every page full of facts and figures, or carefully transcribed reports.

Outsider the Commonwealth, there’s more variance. The artificers and guildmasters of the Holy Illyrin Empire and its sprawling array of vassals and dependencies would, as a rule, take being called ‘futuristic’ as a grave insult, to imply that their work is in some way distinct from their august predecessors is very nearly the same thing as calling them a fraud. Every worthwhile secret of craft and artifice was discovered by ancient masters centuries ago, even if it has perhaps only been unearthed and put to use quite recently by an appropriately respectful modern disciple. To be advanced in the positive sense in to be similar to the Imperial Court, and when the seasons change aristocratic fashion filters out across the land with some delay but enough force to make up for it.

The most impressive and famous workings are full of pomp and ceremony, ancient ritual and treasured heirlooms. The fashion at the moment leans towards ostentatious luxury – floor length cloaks and gowns, proudly displayed tokens of divine favour or noble patronage, cloth of gold and magnificent jewellery, a whole language of gems and patterns to advertise how ones sabre or necklace is enchanted. The most glorious are waited upon by called and bound devils, the right to command the labour of a condemned spirit and set the terms of its parole proof of their honour and lineage.

Conversely, no genius or savant of the Free Cities would object to having their work called futuristic – the heroic figure wresting some world-changing secret from an ancient tomb or the mind of a demon or the depths of their own imagination and winning fame and fortune for it is exactly what all of them are aspiring to be. If a well-read traveller’s image of a ‘city of the future’ isn’t one of the Commonwealth’s idealized and efficient geometric grids, it is surely Celmy or Khasal, sprawling and three-dimensional, full of unmapable paths that cut across each other at nonexistant angles to create impossible shortcuts.

To be advanced is to be rich, to sit at the heart of a globe-spanning trading empire whose markets are full of spices and textiles from continents away, to live in a city that others fight for the chance to visit, where the mere fact of citizenship is enough for magnates to woo you with feasts and festivals for your support in the Assembly. Little distinction is made between a novelty unearthed in a foreign land and brought home and one invented in a workshop down the street – the fact of something being an exotic novelty makes its presence as futuristic as any truly new innovation, and as worth showing off. The aesthetic is spectacle without much thought for restraint or modesty – silver and flame, strongmen and fleshweavers, ecstatic communion or sadistic demonbinding, monumental architecture or a more efficient mill; anything at all that demonstrates a personal surpassing of ones natural state.

[mystic-for-dummies]

Meet the Witch

(Saw someone else make a post like this and I thought it looked fun.)

September 2023 Name: Caelan Age: 23 Birthday: October 31st (yes, for real) Pronouns: My pronouns change from day to day. Check my pinned post. Astrological Signs: Scorpio Sun, Leo Moon, Virgo Rising, Sagittarius is the most common sign in my chart. Deities: Apollo, Loki, Lucifer, and Nyarlathotep

Witchy Facts About Me:

The element I feel the strongest connection to is fire.

I usually don't give exact, specific ingredients, words, etc when sharing spells. I feel like it's just going to discourage people who don't have access to certain items, can't perform specific acts, or can't memorize words very well.

I'm very interested in divination, especially astrology, tarot, oracle decks, and scrying.

I actually rarely work with my deities in witchcraft. That's more of a religious thing, and I don't always mix my religion and my craft. I'm more interested in working with my pre-Christian Irish ancestors. Nyarlathotep does give me very useful advice for my craft, though.

I'm not going to hesitate to hex a corrupt politician, an abuser, or anyone who unapologetically makes the world a worse place. No, you're not going to convince me that it's going to come back to me. It never has before, and I don't believe it will in the future.

As a heads-up, if you are a "love and light, never do harm ever" type of witch, this is probably not the blog for you. I don't think that you're any less valid or respectable for being that kind of witch; I just want you to know upfront that I am not that kind of witch and that I will most likely never be that kind of witch.

I try to take potential disabilities into consideration when writing spells, rituals, and other magical activities. It often feels like, when I read witchcraft books, the author will say that you have to do something a specific way. Like, "you have to do a bath ritual for this to work," or "you have to meditate first." And that completely fails to consider that some people aren't objecting to these things because they don't want to do them; they're protesting because they literally cannot do the tasks that the author says that they must do.

My Favorite WC Books

The Crooked Path by Kelden

Besom, Stang, and Sword by Christopher Orapello and Tara-Love Maguire

Of Blood and Bones by Kate Freuler

Weave The Liminal by Laura Tempest Zakroff

Fun Facts About Me

I'm autistic and ADHD, and I have dyscalculia.

My hobbies include reading, writing, video games, drawing, painting, makeup, cooking, worldbuilding, and TTRPGs (D&D, Pathfinder, Call of Cthulhu, Tales of Xadia, City of Mist, World of Darkness, Shadowrun).

My interests and things I study besides WC: medical science, biology, zoology, botany, world history, world mythology, literature, cultures both ancient and modern, folklore, psychology, neurodiversity, and LGBTQ+ history, culture, and current issues.

I have Christian religious trauma and now I'm allergic to most things Christian. Also I'm allergic to pollen.

I'm studying Spanish, Italian, Japanese, and Irish.

My favorite genre of anything (movies, books, shows, games, etc) is Fantasy.

I'm currently writing a novel.

I hope to someday make an Indie animated series.

I have a dog.

My Favorite Books (in no particular order)

The Realm of the Elderlings series by Robin Hobb

The Legend of Drizzt series by R.A. Salvatore

Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles

Stephen King's novels

PJO

Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard

Neil Gaiman's novels

Discworld series by Terry Pratchett

The Hobbit

The Lord of the Rings

The Hot Zone

The Outsiders

My Favorite Video Games

The Legend of Zelda

Pokemon

Kingdom Hearts

Final Fantasy

God of War

Skyrim / The Elder Scrolls

Don't Starve

Darksiders

Fran Bow

My Favorite Shows and Movies

The Owl House

Hazbin Hotel

Helluva Boss

Fullmetal Alchemist

The Dragon Prince

Errementari: The Blacksmith and the Devil

Annihilation (2018)

The Nightmare Before Christmas

Most Ghibli movies

The Silence of the Lambs

The Last Voyage of the Demeter

The entire Jurassic Park movie franchise

John Carpenter's The Thing

Soul Eater

Black Clover

[arclundarchivist]

ARCLUND WORLDBUILDING: Post II

Maps are made using Inkarnate

Ava’Lon: Homeworld of the Elves

Ava'Lon was once the jewel at the center of a star-spanning civilization, the Avali peoples were many-faceted, and studious people, crafting glorious works of magic, art, and technology, under the watchful eye of their creator, an Empyrean, the Child of Gods, their Caretaker, and Friend.

Or so they had been lead to believe. Long had the rulers of this world, wild in their jealousy, rampant in their pride and ravenous in their hunger for power caged and drained the Empyrean, claiming titles as their chosen, as Demigods standing on high amongst their people.

All until a Huntress, in the service of their Church looked where she should not and discovered the dark truth behind the gilding.

Fleeing, she drew an army from the long floundering colonies and the rare separatist factions of Mesha'Kar and Callistas.

They fought to free their Caretaker, as this Huntress too found divine power, gifted to her from the distant Gods on High.

With Divine Mandate, and True Hearts they would be victorious! Even if the conflict took hundreds of years, their lives were long and their emotions ran deep.

They failed.

The Huntress died freeing the Empyrean, her divine power draining away.

The Empyrean too weak after millennia of abuse, could not stand on its own, nor with the aid of the Huntress Chosen Pantheon of Allies.

But time was still ticking, and the Rulers, more specifically the King of Laughter, refused to lose on any terms but his own.

Betraying all but his most ardent followers, he used his vast powers to tear Ava'Lon, his world from the Star-Lit Firmament, and sent it spiraling into the Inbetween.

His Cult would survive, following him through a portal into the Realm of Fey and Stories

But he had forgotten, that his power was not his own.

It was the Empyreans.

With the last of their strength, it struck him and his people down, sending their vessels spiraling not to that Place of alluring, though dangerous Milk and Honey, but the Realm of Shadow and Nightmare instead.

In the last moments of their life the Empyrean kept the initial portal open, allowing thousands to flee their shattering world, but only thousands of a populace of billions.

The door slammed shut, and those Avali that escaped would eventually find a new home on Arclund, a distant world, inhabited by peoples both older and younger than them. There they would be faced with more triumphs and trials, but all would remember what they had lost. What they had been forced to leave behind.

Dray, Remains.

And it's new people, the Draynevar, descendants of those who survived, trapped, cast adrift of reality have managed to craft a harsh but strong living for themselves.

But Dray is a dying world, and even now invaders seek to divey up what few resources survived coming on insectoid-shelled vessels and dragon-back while the devotees of the Queen of Beauty stay true to their corrupt mistress, hated by their fellows for their hand in all that transpired.

Yet, Dray was once Ava'Lon, and Ava'Lon was a place of wonders.

The Wonders too remain.

Technology that far outstrips that of Arclund, Magics forgotten now wielded with abandon in the protection of the few bastions of safety.

And while the sun was long lost, the moon shattered into shrapnel that peppered the dying world, there is still light.

For the heart of the Empyrean still burns, rosey-light giving solace to Those That Remain.

Yet, Arclund has found them, and not so long ago it called many of them to safety, where they forged the nation of Dra'Shen amongst the Min-Kanto Archipelago. They're unsure of what to think of their Avali kin, much less the other interesting peoples that call the Haven World home, but as endeavors to rescue even more of their trapped people begin in earnest, the Draynevar and Avali both feel a hope they had let lie fallow for quite some time.

[m42-fr]

Here’s my Lore Post™ on various types of common currency around Sorneith! Note that this covers only major forms of currency that can be found broadly throughout their territories of origin, or are otherwise culturally relevant in some way. This post does not include forms of currency that may exist between individual clans. If you happen to find that any of this worldbuilding goes well with your lore, feel free to use it so long as you credit me somewhere for the idea!

And, of course, a mandatory disclaimer: the names and lore of these currencies comes from my own head (and a random name generator). Any resemblance to anything from the real world is unintentional.

Vahrani (vah-RAH-nee) are small bronze coins that originate from the Ashfall Waste. Thanks to the Flamecaller’s ceaseless forges, vahrani are the most common and well-established metal-based currency in the world - and, in fact, are the most well-established currency in the world, period. Trade with the neighboring Windswept Plateau, which exports the products of Fire’s industry to every technologically developing region on the continent, has spread Ashfall coinage far and wide.

Most vahrani have been in circulation for decades, their surfaces oxidized completely teal-black. Pristine, metallic vahrani, either newly-minted or freshly polished, are considered a status symbol by some, but certain dragons may refuse to accept them as payment for fear that they have been recently (and illegally) forged. Vahrani jewelry makes use of the holes at their corners, stringing them together into necklaces, earrings, and other forms of decoration. In a pinch, vahrani can even be tiled together to create makeshift armor. 

Vahrani come in units of one, five, and ten. These coins bear an identical picture of the Flamecaller on one side and have a number inscribed on the other, which indicates their worth. The runoff copper from the creation of vahrani bronze is pulled into small lumps and stamped with the sigil of Fire while the metal is still hot, creating small, misshapen coins called vasi - or, in common slang, slag - each worth a tenth of a vahrani. Vasi are not nearly as widespread as vahrani, but they make up the majority of the payroll for poorer dragons within the Ashfall Waste.

--

Suuram (SOOH-ram) are long, paper-thin copper chits used as currency within the southwestern Shifting Expanse. The very first suuram were copper wires that had been pounded into rough rectangular shapes, but modern suuram are machine-punched from massive metal sheets, ensuring an incredibly consistent size and weight. The asymmetrical pattern of crescent holes at their edges is meant only to distinguish them from simple copper pieces. In practice, the holes are often used to hold chains of coins together with cord or metal clips.

There is only one value of a suuram piece. Rather than create different coins with higher values, dragons exploit the extreme thinness of suuram sheets by packing pieces into small containers; informal higher-value units consist of rectangular boxes holding a carefully-counted number of coins. Carrying around large blocks of copper sheets can become awfully inconvenient, so five-and-ten vahrani pieces have become a popular alternative currency in the Expanse. Suuram are used mostly as pocket change. 

Due to the relative geographic isolation of the far coast of the Stormcatcher’s territory, suuram are not particularly popular outside of the Shifting Expanse, and lack traction everywhere past the Charged Barrens. However, suuram are acknowledged as a valid currency in every territory with flourishing trade and worldwide connections, including the Ashfall Waste, Windswept Plateau, Sunbeam Ruins, Tangled Wood, Starfall Isles, and Dragonhome. 

The northeastern region of the Shifting Expanse is home to independent scavenger-clans who have little need for formalized currency. Rather than conducting trade with stand-ins like coins, they prefer to directly exchange goods and services, determining the value of each with every new trade. That being said, they do occasionally make use of a form of unregulated, low-value currency, colloquially known as scrap.

Scrap refers to any collection of relatively small, portable, usually worn-down and otherwise useless metal chunks - rusty nails, old gears that don’t fit anywhere, spare nuts and bolts found half-buried in the sand, weathered iron spring-coils and copper wires, and so on. While scrap has no immediate survival value, it serves much the same purpose of currency in that it acts as a metaphorical stand-in for something that is of value, and can be exchanged with others for goods and services. Scrap is considered a valid currency within the northern Expanse, although it is often looked down upon as a ‘primitive’ coin in the more technologically developed regions around Goldensparc and the Lightning Farm. 

--

Paxa (PACKS-uh) are hand-carved wooden chits infused with sparks of magic that keep them pristine even under the worst of abuse. Native to the Sunbeam Ruins, paxa owe their remarkably high value to the painstaking process of crafting them. Each coin is hand-carved to impossible standards of consistency, stained a beautiful deep ebony, and protected from damage with ancient Light artefact-preservation magicks. Their magical ‘fingerprint’ is nearly impossible to fake, which guards them from forgeries. The secret to creating paxa is zealously guarded by a handful of dragons who have dedicated their lives to the craft.

Paxa are a universally recognized coin, spread throughout the world by Light’s investment in research as well as their inherent value. Future-minded dragons convert their retirement savings into paxa, knowing that unlike many other currencies, the tight control on paxa production ensures that their value remains constant. Paxa is also the coin of choice for most illegal operations in Sorneith thanks to their high value and their impossibility to falsify. 

The average working-class dragon, even in the Ruins, will struggle to get their talons on any significant amount of paxa. Paxa are used to facilitate expensive transactions, and as such are favored by merchants, the wealthy, and the criminal; throughout most of the Sunbeam Ruins, workers are paid in vahrani, with the occasional handful of suuram thrown in for variety.

--

The origin of wek-ya, (WEK-yuh) Shadow’s mercurial coinage, is shrouded in mystery. Nobody knows when or where the first wek-ya were made - and, in fact, nobody knows how to make wek-ya at all. Ambitious blacksmiths who try their hand at smelting some are invariably struck with tides of bad luck that force them to close shop. And, moreover, the Tangled Wood can hardly be said to have an established government, so the presence of such a widespread and standardized currency is a curiosity in and of itself.

Wek-ya are crafted of pure silver, or something that resembles it. Each coin has two unique patterns - one to either side - that depict an incredibly broad array of subjects. The most common motifs are crescent moons, mushrooms, thorns, and dancing dragon figures, but there have been wek-ya known to picture oddly specific situations, such as trees being struck by lightning, rats climbing atop bookshelves, and draconic silhouettes that bear a strange resemblance to the viewer in the midst of suffering some catastrophe. Many dragons believe that wek-ya are infused with divination magic; coins are commonly drawn from bags to determine future events, and some individuals claim that their fortunes are told by the wek-ya they receive in trades. 

While wek-ya are the most common form of money in the Tangled Wood, they’re incredibly rare elsewhere. Common superstition holds that removing a wek-ya from its homeland will curse the coin’s bearer until it has been returned. There appears to be some vague truth to the statement, as the coins are known to have a way of mysteriously disappearing when they’ve spent too much time away from the Shadowbinder’s influence.

Wek-ya are capable of emitting a dim glow for several hours after being exposed to moonlight. Conversely, they’ve also been known to spontaneously melt when placed in sunlight, permanently disfiguring their faces - such coins are considered overwhelmingly taboo by most residents of the Wood and are traditionally thrown into bogs, rivers, and liquid-shadow ponds, such that they may be forever forgotten. 

--

Dazal (day-ZAHL) are large, chunky coins cut from smoky quartz. They come from Dragonhome, make for an uncommon sight in the northern Starfall Isles and Tangled Wood, and are rare elsewhere. No one institution governs the production of dazal, but most dragons don’t go out of their way to fake them - the coins are used predominantly within the handful of high-population regions of Dragonhome, particularly Terraclae and the Colonnades of Antiquity. Thanks to Light’s vested interest in archaeology, paxa are the most common currency in Dragonhome’s urbanized regions, followed by the eponymous vahrani.

Unlike suuram, which are largely shunned by Lightning’s more independent desert-dwelling clans, the value of dazal is respected by clans among even the most rural and harsh environments of Dragonhome. Most groups will carry at least a handful of them to use in trades - a few dazal will buy a weary traveler water and other goods. The nomadic routes of the Snappers often bring them to urban areas every now and again, which makes holding onto the currency useful, if occasionally burdensome. 

    The distribution of colors and patterns in a dazal is unique to every coin. Dazal have no varied values in a legal sense, but many individuals within Dragonhome will accept morion dazal - that is, those made of smoky quartz so uniformly dark as to be nearly black - as being worth twice as much as a singular dazal (or equivalent to one wek-ya). Some seek out dazal with unusual color schemes for collection purposes. Another commonly-sought variant is a coin without any scuffs; though crystalline, most older dazal are ridden with chips and cracks. 

--

The Sea of a Thousand Currents has no legally recognized currency. The stinging seawater makes metal-based money impractical, and even the magical toughness of paxa and arcslivers will wear under the waves. Among the more isolated, aquatic clans, though, an informal coin known as vanes (VAIN) are used in some transactions. Vanes are seashells that have been chipped and polished into glistening, guitar-pick shaped chits.

The production, distribution, and value of vanes is entirely unregulated. Any dragon with strong hands and sandpaper can collect seashells and file them to the right shape and smoothness. As such, individual vanes vary widely in color, texture, and shape. The value of a vane is equally variable - no bank in the world accepts vanes as legal tender, although they are acknowledged as being incredibly low-value, presuming they have any worth at all. 

Bags of vanes are often exchanged by coastal and reef-dwelling clans as stand-ins for the payment of debt. If an individual needs a good or service, but cannot pay for it at the time, they can hand over some vanes that serve as a sort of credit, later giving something of real value in return for their lent vanes.

Among the roughshod sailors of the Sea, bilgespray is a tawdry term used to refer to any collective mix of multiple types of currency. The wide variety of territories that they visit throughout their trading routes means that they inevitably collect a number of different types of coin. The term, ‘bilgespray,’ usually refers to a singular payout given in more than one type of currency, but used more broadly may account for any messy assortment of multiple types of money.

--

Popular within the urban areas of the central Starfall Isles, arcslivers (ARK-slih-vur) are tokens cut from the same magically-refined arcglass that makes up the shell of the Astrolodome. Their edges are inscribed with faintly-glowing runes that, like paxa, protect them from damage, although their enchantments are comparatively weaker. The appearance and value of an arcsliver is standardized; their production is controlled by banks within the Astrolodome and neighboring communities.

Well-wrought trading routes have established arcslivers as a valid currency throughout the entirety of the Isles. However, they have very little steading outside of Arcane’s territory. Similar to suuram, geographic isolation has kneecapped their spread, with traveling arcslivers found mostly in the neighboring regions of Dragonhome and the Windswept Plateau; a handful make their way to the Sea of a Thousand Currents and beyond from there. Though rare, they are legally acknowledged in institutions around Sorneith. 

--

Given the extremely well-connected, trade-focused culture of the Windswept Plateau, every currency - even strange or worthless ones, like wek-ya and vanes - can be found in abundance among Windsinger’s children. Vahrani from the neighboring Ashfall Waste are the most common coin, followed by paxa and arcslivers. Wind does not have a traditional currency in the way that other territories do. Rather than use a standardized object to represent physical value, Wind’s unusual currency holds strictly social value. These objects are called kuo (KOO-oh). They are long, ribbonlike textiles, made from hundreds of tiny interwoven beads, and are as much art as they are money.

The length of an individual kuo can vary considerably. Most are long enough to be used as sashes and belts, or be hung up as colorful banners. The harvesting, sculpting, weaving, and painting of their miniscule beads takes a painstaking amount of time and skill. As a monetary system, they indicate debts, allegiances, and other forms of social ‘money,’ whether paid or owed. The perceived value of a kuo is usually based on its size and craftsmanship - the longer and prettier, the better.

    While more rural and traditional clans will use kuo for their original purpose, younger generations - particularly those living in more urbanized areas - forgo the social value of kuo and create them for artistic purposes. The creation of an individual kuo ribbon is considered a long and meditative pastime. The patterns in every ribbon are unique, and the abundance of beads and paints mean that elaborate images can be threaded along the strings; given the extensive length of most kuo, many are used to depict the events of stories, be they mythical or factual. The longest kuo is rumored to be a ribbon that stretches the distance of the Cloudsong and depicts an embellished version of the Windswept Plateau’s entire history. 

In recent times, dragons have begun to weave kuo as gifts and decorations. Many young lovers and best friends will create kuo for one another, its pictures personalized to the other’s interests and personality, and wear the bands that they themselves were given (usually as scarves, sashes, or bracelets) in an open declaration of their bond. Kuo are becoming an increasingly popular export of the Windswept Plateau. Eager to share their culture with the world, Wind dragons often sell and gift kuo to travelers, and some have even begun to export them to other territories. 

--

The rough, lonesome barrens of the Southern Icefield makes the establishment of currency incredibly difficult. Like other harsh environments in Sorneith - the Shifting Expanse, Dragonhome, the Scarred Wasteland, and so on - coins are not particularly useful for immediate survival, and so trades are preferentially conducted with goods and services rather than coins. Northernmost or otherwise trade-savvy clans may occasionally cut deals with foreigners using vahrani, arcslivers, and even suuram.

The ancient institutions of the Gaolers, for all their fervence with law and order, never had reason to establish an expansive currency amongst themselves. The basic needs of all individuals are cared for free of charge; anything fancier is either owned communally, acquired by advancing in rank, or traded for without monetary stand-ins. Among a few circles, though - and particularly popular in teaching discipline to younger recruits - is a token system using units called snowcoins.

Snowcoins are very simple constructions. At their core is a singular link of a metal chain, which is encapsulated in magically-unmelting ice. The surface of a snowcoin is smooth and convex, forming an oblong shape not unlike a river stone, and they are remarkably translucent. Snowcoins, then, are a small reward earned through various services and good behavior, and can be traded in for small personal luxuries. The things snowcoins can buy consist mostly of curios and other decorative trinkets. 

Given that snowcoins are used only by the Gaolers, their existence is almost completely unheard of throughout Sorneith, even in the neighboring Snowsquall Tundra. Only a tiny handful have ever made it out of the Icefield - and even then, most of those found away from the Icewarden are replicas, not genuine. Those who are in possession of snowcoins usually regard them as oddities and collectibles. They hold some mildly curious historic value, but little else. 

--

For all their hatred for one another, the territories of the Scarred Wasteland and Viridian Labyrinth share a similar trait: neither has much in the way of currency. The Labyrinth prizes self-sufficiency and its clans want for little. Their isolationist nature has created a strict limitation on the influx of foreign currency - not even vahrani have made it past their coastal regions. Those from Nature who detest outside influence often use the derogatory term rootmuck to refer to any form of outside currency.

While Plague has a similar lack of established money, they don’t hold the same wariness of foreigners that the Gladekeeper’s children do. Most Plague clans see no reason in shunning something that may help them acquire useful things in the future. Various currencies are common at their respective borders - dazal in the north, wek-ya in the east, vahrani to the south, and arcslivers to the west. 

That being said, their central clans, much like those of the northwestern Shifting Expanse, trade mostly survival supplies with one another. Guttergunk is an informal term from the Wasteland that applies to any assortment of individually worthless items that are bundled together to have some collective value. Guttergunk is not anything that could keep you alive; it’s made of things like small trophies - teeth, scales, horns -, the last of old food preserves, tattered pieces of canvas, balls of string, and so forth. Trade offers of guttergunk are considered trashy, greedy, or desperate; in other words, a sign of either arrogance or weakness, perhaps both.

Alternatively, the term may apply to anything considered gross and worthless: “Your efforts are guttergunk,” is an example of a common insult. The word has become popular in neighboring territories, particularly by residents of the Driftwood Drag and sailors of the Sea of a Thousand Currents, and among them it has much the same meaning.

[judicandum]

💞

SEND 💞 AND MY MUSE WILL TELL YOU ABOUT A PREVIOUS LOVE.

[ @spacedrinks / @definitely-not-altair ]

She tips her head to the side, amused golden brows creeping upwards. “A bit personal, no?” she murmurs, but there is no heat behind her reprimand, merely amusement.

“I suppose the most appropriate tale for you is of a man who was not my brother, but if I had ever had one, he most certainly would have been. He was a little too impulsive, a little too abrasive, but at the core of it all he was a good man. He was as unconventional as I was, and he was forever inducing headaches in the most patient of us all. He was one of the best commanders I have known. You remind me of Dumah when he was young, in an odd way, though you are both very different.”

[honourablejester]

Some homebrew D&D deities of various domains and alignments, while I’m in a random worldbuilding mood. A bit of a realisation of some of the ideas from my Ideas for Deities post, and one continuation from my Faction: Iron Carillon post:

OREM, THIEF GOD OF THE BOUNDARY

Alignment: True Neutral

Domains: Grave, Trickery, Twilight

Symbol: A Hooded Lantern

A gentle shadow padding silently through the twilight, his hooded lantern held aloft, Orem is the thief god of the grave, the boundary and the night. Believed to have once been a mortal man, he is the guardian of lost souls, all those who die alone or in dark places, the dim light of his lantern guiding them to their rest. He is the messenger between the lands of the living and the dead, and may be implored to carry messages past the bounds. He is the god of thieves, watching over all who find their comfort and their livelihood in the shadows. He is the gentle warden of the outcast and abandoned, granting shelter and comfort to any who pray in desperation. Orem is the god of the in-between, the guardian of all that is lost or fallen through the cracks of the world, and all who seek them.

ELAIA SIVETH, THE LADY OF FIRST AND LAST RESPITE

Alignment: Neutral Good

Domains: Life, Grave

Symbol: Two Conjoined Faces, One Grey, One Silver

The dual goddess of life and death, Elaia Siveth presents one of her two faces to everyone who suffers or teeters in the brink of death. Those who long for healing pray for her silver face, Elaia the Lifegiver, for life and strength and recovery. Those in agony or despair, desperate for escape, may plead for her grey aspect instead, Siveth the Gentle, for the cool safety and sanctity of the grave. Elaia Siveth is the Dual Goddess of Mercy, the Lady of First and Last Respite. She has no care for names or histories or creeds, only for the easing of suffering. Across nations and races, she is worshiped by healers, midwives, funerary officials, exorcists, slaves, and all who in their distress have need of either of her aspects.

WEYLOUN, THE BELL-FOUNDER, THE FORGE GOD

Alignment: Chaotic Good

Domains: Forge, Trickery, Knowledge, Tempest

Symbol: An Iron Bell

The Forge God, Weyloun walked the world in mortal form during the early days of civilisation, teaching the arts of metalwork and the forge. In this form, he was captured by demons and taken to the Abyss to be a slave there, bound in mortal form, and forced to forge weapons for demons in their private wars. He invented a new craft to free himself, the art of bell-founding, and forged a mighty artefact there: the Bell of Sundering, which can break any bond or seal. Freed of his shackles and restored to godly form, he tore free the Abyss, and ever since has set himself against demons, against slavery, and against the proliferation of deadly weapons such as those he was once forced to forge. He is the god of smiths, of spies, of bell-founders, and all who fight against slavery or evil.

OROMASDES, LORD OF WISDOM

Alignment: Lawful Good

Domains: Arcana, Knowledge, Light

Symbol: Holy Fire

The Holy Fire, the Light of Truth, the All-Seeing. One of the first and oldest gods, Oromasdes is the god of the sun, of light, of magic, of truth, and of judgement. His is the all-seeing eye, the font of knowledge, the burning fire of inspiration. He favours the magics of divination and truth-seeking, and the cleansing fires of judgement and renewal. Those who seek knowledge, truth, or the wisdom to make good judgements pray to him. He is the god of diviners, watchmen, researchers and intelligence agents, and also the god of judges, sages and scholars. Oromasdes is not opposed to lies or trickery in the pursuit of noble goals, but self-delusion and the destruction or denial of knowledge are the greatest of faults in his eyes.

DEIMA, THE TWILIGHT LADY, THE LAST INNKEEPER

Alignment: True Neutral

Domains: Nature, Life, Trickery, Twilight

Symbol: A Wooden Door Carved With A Crescent Moon

A mysterious goddess, Deima is believed to have once been a gentle fey beloved of the gods of the woods and the wilds. As mortal civilisation encroached more and more onto the wilderness, other gods and fey took to arms against it. Deima chose another path. She is the goddess and proprietress of the Inn of the Moon, a mythical little inn found only at liminal places: crossroads, fords, the boundaries of protected woods. Any may enter, and all will be treated to a bounty of good food and good cheer, but it is said that only those who have the best interests of the natural world at heart may ever leave. As gentle as she is, Deima is the goddess and guardian of the boundary between tamed land and wilderness. Should you seek … unorthodox means to solve violent problems, Deima is your goddess of choice.

NALASHTAR, THE POISONED PROPHETESS

Alignment: Chaotic Evil (well Neutral-Leaning-Evil, really)

Domains: Death, Trickery, Tempest, Light, Life

Symbol: Two Hands Cupping A Green Flame

“Only in chaos is there truth. Only in extremis do we see who we really are.” Nalashtar is the goddess of chaos, disease, disaster and hope. Once a mortal woman, from a homeland decimated by plague, Nalashtar survived the ravages of her fever where thousands of others perished. In the burning embrace of her disease, she found an inner truth that she desperately wished to spread to any who would listen. The same inner light that enabled her to endure past all endurance once, later enabled her to ascend to godhood, the better to the spread her truth. Chaos is the seed of strength. Death is the seed of life. Break the laws. Topple the towers. Poison the cups. And in the chaos afterwards, see what lights still have strength to survive.

[purkinje-effect]

Well, Tumblr mobile strikes again. I tried to save the ask as a draft on my phone, and it vanished. @qualtoth​ asked me to talk about August. So talk about August I must. Thank you so much for the ask.

First, I want to apologize in advance for any lore/continuity mistakes I may have made. I don’t own and haven’t played 76, so my only knowledge of the Lucky Hole Mine has been through fandom osmosis and Wiki glutting. I know some updated Metro Men stuff crossed my dashboard recently, as well as some vague mention of a canon tie between Children and Mothman cultists, but I haven’t really read up on it much and I’m sure a good deal of August’s lore could stand some updating.

The shortest synopsis I can provide of August is that he's a descendant of the Lucky Hole Mine and has been everywhere between the Appalachians, the Nucleus, Burlington VT, and Nuka World--and his travels have created a very unusual religious belief system in him. He’s basically “guardian cryptid, but a cannibal.” He has probably the most involved “lore” of any of my Fallout OCs, and is a key element in the worldbuilding I’ve done for my fan-Children in Vermont. I appreciate the opportunity to gush about him. Sorry if it’s a bit meandering?

(Putting the in depth details under a read more because I know it’s going to get long.)

August was born to a sect of Mothman cultists who called themselves the Acolytes of Holy Light. Descended from the cultists who inhabit the Lucky Hole Mine, they were convinced other mines may contain the Interloper’s cousins, and raided them. They were holistic cannibals, eating the meat and crafting with the bone and skin, and using the blood for the Stimpaks crucial to guarantee survival of harrowing mine shaft missions. In a similar way to how the Interloper seemed to have absorbed the first to step foot in its chamber, they believed they kept their deceased with them always by consuming them. Their high regard for Scorchbeasts as touched by divinity did not protect them from attacks by the colossal bat-dragons, and they often lost entire parties to a single Scorchbeast. Any time they prevailed against one, they made sure to utilize every last scrap of the creature to respect it.

He often remained at home with his grandfather, while his parents often went on mine shaft missions. His grandfather taught him how to craft Stimpaks for the other Acolytes, and between them, he learned also how to make Skeeto Spit. With an uptick in Scorchbeast encounters, the cult’s numbers dwindled sometime after he turned ten. His grandfather passed when he was twelve. When his parents would go investigate another mine, he would then be left to his own devices, whereupon he secretly devised a corrupted variation between Stimpak and Skeeto Spit which could utilize Wasteland blood.

The last party his parents attended stumbled upon not just a Scorchbeast, but a nest of them. Several followed fleeing cultists back to camp, to level it. The cultists at camp managed to lethally wound one of the Scorchbeasts, but fewer than ten Acolytes survived the attack. The survivors lived off the meat provided by the beast for several weeks, but once all that remained was the bone and leather, the survivors disbanded. August understandably suffered a crisis of faith after having so much taken from him all at once.

August crafted Wasteland Stimpaks from the blood of that Scorchbeast. Uncertain as to the effects it may have on its user, rather than share them, he gave the other survivors his remaining supply of normal Stimpaks. In the next few years, he relied on these Scorchbeast Stimpaks whenever he needed to heal himself badly enough to warrant it. The only effect he noticed at first was a magnification of his Dark Craving.

By fourteen, he found himself traveling with a caravan to Megaton, where Confessor Cromwell renewed his faith. He believed this “Atom” of which Cromwell spoke was the same Holy Light his brethren had chased in Mothman’s steps. He listened, captivated, to likely hundreds of sermons of the Children of the Crater, wholly convinced of the concept of a World-Vessel. The only thing he struggled to make peace with between his childhood religion and his new one, was the cultivation of shame for his Dark Craving. He’d been raised to pride himself for the quality, but the Children would have none of that behavior no matter the level of violence involved. The most common reason he would step foot out of Megaton was to cull a raider outfit: the easiest way to temper his cravings and loot wealth he could give the Church for tithes. He tithed heavily throughout his teen years, attempting to make it up to the Church that he Craved at all.

He additionally earned money for tithing by helping Moira Brown with her Wasteland Survival Guide. Were it not for Moira, his guilt complex from following the ways of the Children of Atom may well have run him off from it altogether after some time trying to live with it. She tasked him with becoming heavily irradiated, and he did so by fasting in prayer in the Crater waters for several days. When she treated him for his acute radiation poisoning, he grew a third mostly-complete arm. His Endurance and healing factor were heightened by the treatment, but only if he carried in him some of Atom’s Glow. He came to understand he had developed a tolerance for large quantities of radiation as well. He decided it was his divine duty to curate himself in ways that would give him as much radiation tolerance as possible.

Part of his soul searching landed him in Meresti, where he sought Vance’s guidance for ways to quieten his Dark Cravings. August underwent a catechism of sorts during his first trip to the train yard, whereupon he picked apart the different ideological tenets of the belief systems he’d known to date, and sorted out which tenets were in opposition with one another, and which tenets aligned together. He came to the understanding that Acolytes were too holistic to live the ways of The Family--using the entire body, not only the blood, was one of the deepest reverences for the death. An Acolyte could make peace with the life of a Child, but neither could be a member of The Family. (It’s possibly interesting to you to include that chapter of his fic. Even though I haven’t added to it in ages, flashback chapters like “Nuka-Cherry” read as standalones.)

He developed history with Sierra Petrovita as well, forging early on his fixation with Nuka-Cola Quantum as some of the most significant evidence that prewar societies had any understanding of the true nature of the Holy Light.

When Confessor Tektus proposed a pilgrimage to Far Harbor, August leapt at the chance to travel large distances again. The caravans broke into three once they hit the Southern Massachusetts border. One traveled East, to found the Crater of Atom; another traveled Northeast, to found the Nucleus; and a third traveled Northwest, to Vermont to found chapters in Barre and Burlington. August traveled with the Far Harbor pilgrims.

At first, the Far Harbor Children were permitted to intermingle with the Harbormen, and many took jobs on the dock. August worked at the Last Plank as a cook, where he took to Wasteland herbology like second nature. He often used the excuse of having to go hunting for fresh meat, to sneak away and snag himself a Trapper or two to sate himself, but he did not do so without worrying Martin and Tektus would think he was becoming a Trapper himself. Shortly before the Children were exiled from the Dock, August wondered to himself whether he were a Trapper above all else. Ultimately, he decided Trappers were the lowest of the Fog’s primal defenses against unbelievers: the Fog would turn the unfaithful into ravenous creatures that picked clean the holy land of those who wouldn’t welcome Atom’s Glow into their World-Vessel. He still half-identified with them in secret while living in the hangar.

Once shuttered into the hangar at the Nucleus, he could no longer regularly sneak away to kill Trappers for food. He resorted to stealing blood packs from the Archemist for months before he finally confessed everything to her and left the Nucleus of his own volition--while it would still be his decision. He feared subsisting solely on blood would only prevent harm to his Brothers and Sisters for so long. He scoured himself, visited Atom’s Spring seeking the Fog Mother’s guidance, and let himself wander the Fog alone for years. During his Sabbatical, he let only the Fog dictate his Dark Craving, and he made Stimpaks of countless Wasteland creatures. (His argument with the Archemist is in “Nuka-Grape.”)

During his Sabbatical, he began to manifest visible physical effects from his Wasteland Stimpak usage: true transfigurations beyond the arm he gained from assisting Moira Brown. His eyes paled, his ears flared out like a Scorchbeast’s, and his facial hair wilded into wiry sideburns. The next time he stepped foot in any settlement, his height towered over any human by half a head or more.

Fully embracing the caravan lifestyle, the Vermont Children pride themselves in pilgrimage throughout the Hinter (New England’s Wasteland). They intimate their travel patterns with atomic valence. Unless they’re tasked with holy site curation, most Vermont Children do not stay put more than a few months at a time. Their holiest local site is the Rock of Ages quarry in Barre. Only priestesses are permitted into the deepest chambers, where they commune with the granite, which they insist whispers to them. Granitic formations throughout the Hinter experience unusual phenomena during certain weather conditions, most notably both the Barry quarry itself and rock hewn from it. This passion for granite and marble sets Vermont Children apart from other denominations, wherein they see some connection between granitic phenomena and the worlds which saw Division and from their cosmic dispersion created this one. Some denominations consider them heretical in this regard; once Tektus took the mantle of High Confessor, they were no longer permitted to include the Nucleus in their pilgrimage.

I could rave forever about my fan-Children. *hides face in hands* They take the concept of a World-Vessel to an extreme, and are the chemistry-savvy glass artisans responsible for the fluorescent lighting characteristic of the Nucleus. All throughout the Hinter, one will find this light source, which is in essence reverse uranium glass: the fluid reacts to the radioactivity of the glass itself.

At one point during August’s Fog Sabbatical, he traveled with the Vermont Children. Although not permitted entry to the inner chambers of the Rock of Ages, he could draw countless similarities between the quarry and the Lucky Hole Mine of his youth. Of all the hundreds of mine shafts the Acolytes entered seeking evidence of other Interlopers, he became convinced the next nearest one lay beneath this quarry. (The Dunwich Borers is another. I have been piecing together my fan-lore since before 76 got Wastelanders, and ran with all that I know of it to flesh it out. Metro Men *heart eyes emoji*)

Vermont Children have two prominent ranks--Sacristans and Hierosacristans--both of which are something like cartographers or historians. The former aid in curating holy sites, both nuclear and granitic, while the latter are the closest to Zealots they have. Hierosacristans travel off the known Valence in search of other holy sites to study, and return to Five Sisters to counsel with Grand Mother Skwodovska for permission to update their master scripture with their discoveries. The most highly esteemed of the Hierosacristans are the Daughters of Radon, a sect of priestesses capable of a psychic connection with granite.

Daughters are the only clerics permitted in the Rock of Ages inner chambers. Lacking the ability to become one in any capacity, instead August took in their footsteps and walked off the beaten path. He left to the Hierosacristans the hunt for further Interloper dens, and fragments of those intrusive igneous formations dispersed throughout the region not unlike atomic debris, and turned in on himself with renewed passion. He seized their enthusiasm for cultivating and caring for one’s World-Vessel, and married it with the Acolyte’s holistic views on keeping one’s deceased at your side always by consuming them. August came to the understanding that his World-Vessel contained further World-Vessels, most notably by absorbing them from the essences of other living things. (I.e., absorbing = eating them or making Stimpaks.) August from this point onward purposefully sought to mutate himself as much as he could, in order to make himself as capable as possible of holding as much radiation as possible. Everything in his life felt like it clicked into place.

He uses his Wasteland herbology to tend to his World-Vessel cultivation, both using heavily practiced recipes to bring out the most in his meals, and using specific combinations of dishes to maximize their benefits to him. Yes, this extends to his use of both Wasteland and human meats.

He wandered the Hinter in this way, hunting Fog avatars such as the Shipbreaker, for making Wasteland Stimpaks. (The Shipbreaker hunt has a one-shot from Longfellow’s perspective: “Running Interference.”)

His eventual common Valence includes the area between Montpelier VT and Nuka World. He considers Nuka-World a holy site in itself, if not solely for its elevation and (consumerist) worship of Nuka-Cola. He makes visits for two important things: Bloodworm meat to make aspics, an Endurance-stretching dish crucial for the food-based rites in his observances, and Gatorclaw blood, which he ironically regards one of the greatest of Atom’s creatures. (He is not happy to learn about the Replicator, most notably that it can be turned off.)

When Coulter moved into Nuka-Town USA, August took on the role of the park grounds’ protector. He picks off raiders whenever possible. The whole year Coulter’s been around, August’s wanted more than anything to rid the park of the raiders altogether, to no avail as a single fighter. The raiders only know their bogeyman as Father Wachusett, in that standing next to him is like standing next to a mountain. (Taking after Savoy here, partly, for the Disciples to name one another after the local geographic features.)

He has made his primary home in Brattleboro, VT, at Retreat. There’s a cistern chamber on site with extensive granite work. Eventually, a Hierosacristan crossed paths with this location, and her studies suggested that, before the war, people had put effort into digging deeper. I suppose in this regard he becomes something of a Sacristan to Retreat, because he stays there most of the year, just for solitude. The two Children become close. He gets to “hear” the granite through her stories, and she gets to study it without his interference.

My other half has walked over here and joked that this post is longer than August is tall. Send paramedics. I’m hitting send post. Thank you again for the ask. I hope this is at least mildly interesting, and makes enough sense?

Yes I did include links to pieces of fic with him in case those particular topics with him are relevant to the interest, OTL

[the-fae-folk]

How to Build a World?

Some time ago, I answered a writing question as Quoth the Raven that dealt with how to go about Worldbuilding for your story (Found Here). I’ve now rewritten the piece because I was struck with inspiration for a much more poetic form. I rather like it this way... ______________________________________________________________ Every story has to start somewhere. Some start with an endless void, a dark abyss where spirits drift over the waters, an egg which has not yet hatched to reveal the universe contained within. But in my opinion the best beginnings are found on a blank page.

Sing an ode to the whiteness of a screen, to the sterile form of an unfilled notebook amidst a pile of notebooks you keep buying but never write in. I call upon thee, oh Muses, let the divine speak into the shadows and let there be light. Fountains may spring up from the deeps and the oceans pay homage to the moon above. I am but a humble supplicant to the gods of paper and ink, where multiverses of verse and prose are crafted from words alone.

A world must be made through the number seven. Seven days, seven dwarfs, seven epochs, seven sins, seven virtues, seven founding principles of building a world.

The First is of Magic. All worlds begin with magic in a way. You can call it by any name you desire; Nature, physics, deity. First a word is spoken, a rule, a way of being. Whether the universe is filled with blinding empty light and shaded to sight by suns of shadow and fires that burn black enough to repel the light of night, or if the endless skies are oceans where planets drift in bubbles of air and stars keep the endless ice of the galactic abyss at bay with their warmth.

It is a question of how your world works, a list of rules that cannot be broken by even you as the rest of the pieces fall into place. A willing suspension of disbelief is a fragile thing. If it breaks, you are dashed to pieces beneath the weight of fallen expectations. A reader betrayed is rarely forgiving to those who have broken their own laws.

So write, write of the shifting of stars and the fundamental forces of love and duty. In your canon proclaim the laws of wind and gravity, atoms of justice, and the blessed radiation of whimsy and wonder.

But once you have finished, and the last law carved upon the last stone atop your own Sinai, you must heed them always. From gods to grains of sand on a distant shore, none can break these commandments.

When you speak a second time, it is of Place. Of mountains and mayhem, of vast oceans where secrets lie forgotten far beneath the waves.

Reach out your hand to carve canyons from the paragraphs on the page, riverbeds that flow swift and pure into great lakes and down into silent aquifers below the very earth itself. Whether one sun, or seven, or none at all, this world must be made known through careful descriptions and prose.

And as long as it does not contradict your rules, you can have islands that fly through the skies, glass rain, giant geodic structures that have never seen the light of a single day. What of glaciers that chill the whole land into an ice age? Or a supervolcano that belches molten glass from its summit?

Then, as your world is forming, think on the third principle of building a world. Life.

Deep down in the depths of the darkest seas you might form creatures so alien they defy the very mind, drifting on currents and living without sun or sky, only in eternal shadow and crushing pressure. Or you may begin on land instead, with green skinned goblin-like folk who live among the trees and speak in song and melody as they hunt the fire breathing dragonflies. Perhaps even the sky might be your dominion. Pods of whales that swim among the clouds, blowing geysers of wind high into the abyss of blue and white that turns to stars at the highest heights.

Each living thing lies in connection with one another. Eating, growing, changing, moving. Flowers make bioluminescence in forever darkened woods and caverns. Gas filled balloon-like pods could carry creatures high into the sky with them, letting them escape from predators.

Here and now your pen is the fountain that begets creation, your mind is the tree from which all life springs. This world is your garden to cultivate, your Eden cradled between life giving rivers.

Wherever you touch there will be life. In the most scorching of deserts, in the deepest caves and wells, in the furthest canyons, upon the coldest glaciers. And as long as you remain true to your rules of reality, your world can take even the most whimsical of forms. Trees whose roots tangle among the clouds and whose boughs hang down towards the distant earth below, people who can see colors that neither you nor I have ever heard of. Each new thing makes your world more complex, more real, more connected.

Perhaps you know what comes next? In truth it has already begun, for your fourth is of Cognition.

It may be that somewhere in your world there is a creature or plant, perhaps many, or even all, who have tasted that forbidden fruit and became more than they were, became aware that their eyes had been closed and for the first time knew that they could open them and look.

What might it be like? To look out at the world and for the first time see it anew? Before there was survival and safety, food and mating. There was no time for beauty, no time for dreaming, no time for such things when every moment was needed. Yet at some point, there was time, and someone stopped to look. And everything changed.

Most creators prefer the humanoid form when building cognizant peoples, though not all, some few might choose different shapes. Plant, reptile, insect, or even stranger forms the likes of which might not be found here in our world, but only in that world of their making.

But the shape isn’t the important thing. No, what is vitally important is the manner of cognizance. How is it that your people understand the world? What are they aware of? What things can they hear? Or touch? Taste? See? Smell? Or perhaps they have senses that can only be described in roundabout ways to readers who will never entirely understand what it is to perceive in such ways, like blind men who try to know what it is like to see.

Now it is time at last for your fifth. This is the culmination of all things thus far, the laws of reality, the geography, the life, the cognizant peoples… Your fifth is Culture.

Peoples gather together. They make laws to protect or to divide, to ensure and ensnare. They farm or hunt for food, creating new ways with new generations. And best of all they tell stories. Oh those stories. These are the things of which culture is made. Stories that are woven into tapestries or painted into murals, songs are composed to evoke the emotions of such stories, even food is cooked to be eaten as the stories are told.

But there are other things which can affect your peoples and persons. Where do they get their clothing? Animal hides or plant fibers? Perhaps wool or cotton? And how is it obtained? Technology? Magic? Labor? Do the people even wear clothing at all? For some might not find it necessary if they are perfect for the place they dwell in their world.

What foods can they eat? Would you or I even recognize it? Let alone be able to digest it without agonizing pains in our stomachs? A fruit that glows might transfer its glow to those who eat it, giving them light to see in the dark and energy to live another day. Certain beasts are only slaughtered on certain days of the star calendars, for festivals and holy feast days, for ceremonial reasons and never secular ones.

Here is the most dangerous part in your journey, for the building of culture can become a mire or a maze, a labyrinthine pit from whence you can never escape no matter how much you build. Every detail begets another, and cultures are more than any one person can make. World Builder though you are, you still have limitations of your own.

So you look to the sixth, which is history. From whence did they come? And where do their journeys go? And of course, what happened at every step in between? Kings and emperors to the feuds of petty farmers. Did the dragons lay claim to the seven clawed mountains in the forty ninth century or did the Arch Astronomer falsely claim they did so that he might turn his people’s thoughts to southern trade?

Culture takes time to move and once it begins it will not stop. From the grand world point of view to the shortsightedness of individuals, each and every step will be important. Religions and wars, cataclysmic events, heroes, and even plagues. Everything that arises when you add time to the world you have created is history. The world is a living breathing thing that will move on its own if you let it.

The seventh day arrives. Some deities might rest, seeing that all is good. But not you, for your world is made in slavish worship to the Story. A world built so that it might contain, for good or ill, a tale of your telling.

So write, prideful one. Your hubris has driven you to follow in the footsteps of the gods themselves, building a world where before was nothing. It is time to look closer, to follow a single strand of thread in this tapestry you have woven from dreams and shadows.

Now that you have crafted for us an entire world, tell us your tale. We are listening.

[c-is-for-circinate]

“What the Fuck is Up with the Elves” (or, more worldbuilding for C’s D&D game)

So the thing is, I call myself an ecologist, and I am, really, or at least I’ve been working as one when I’m not working as a general all-math-and-science teacher for the past ten years.  But that’s not, quite, technically, what my degrees are in.  Technically, as per my master’s thesis, I’m an evolutionary biologist.

Which means that when I run a D&D game?  We start from a place of hominid evolution.

Gnomes and dwarves evolved on the continent of Nokomoris, where most of our game takes place.  Some 50,000 years ago, humans came up out of the neighboring continent (which has a dozen different names, but we can call it Kekiris, that’s as accurate as any) and joined them, and together the three races learned to master fire and metalwork and gods and demons and the four Great Schools and the two Minor Schools of arcane magic (for those were the days before the elves, before the discovery of abjuration, when it was thought that only the gods could conjure and transmutation was limited to minor tricks and divine crafts).

Elves, and their cousins the orcs (though no elf alive today would admit that they are cousins in truth, and the orcs themselves have all but forgotten it) evolved side by side on the continent of Priyl, a fifteenth the size of Nokomoris and isolated in the middle of the ocean, beset by storms and reefs on all sides.

Well.  The elves of the Ascendancy call it Priyl, and so does everybody else, these days, in respect to them.  The orcs and half-orcs remember that it was Getirka, and still is to those of their brethren still living there.  The people of Nokomoris have all but forgotten the days when they called it Thidoris, when it was nothing more than a myth.

(There are other continents, beyond those three, of course--but time enough for that later.  Nobody on Nokomoris remembers the continent of Calladia these days, and that might be for the best, for now.  But we’re getting ahead of ourselves.)

Six and a half thousand years ago, the continent of Priyl, called Getirka by the orcs and Thidoris by the gnomes and humans and dwarves, disappeared from the ocean.  Five hundred and twelve years it appeared again.  And that was enough to change the world.

.

Priyl, then, because we’re talking about elves.  Priyl is such a small continent, really, surrounded by such very storm-like oceans, full of so much desert and so many mountains and so very, very many things with sharp teeth and venom spines.  The spiders and snakes can kill a beast a thousand times their size.  The fish on the reef around the continent, who look like stone or coral or sand or squirming tentacle-beasts, have spines and teeth with venom that can kill ten times faster than that.

Half of Priyl is worn thin between planes, or at least it was so many hundreds of thousands of years ago, when lithe thin agile elf-ancestors took to the trees and the mountains to run from their fierce unstoppable orc cousins.  They were barely more than beasts themselves, either of them.  The elves were perhaps a little more clever, but perhaps they were only quicker, lighter, lither in the branches of trees.  The orcs were more determined.  They invented fire first.

Fire doesn’t mix well with trees, particularly not in the long dry drought of a Priylan summer, and the elves died, and died--and survived, some of them, always.  Through trickery and luck, some elves always survived.

And the fey noticed.

There are a thousand different ways planes can brush up against each other; a million years later, in the present day of 512 HA, the scholars of Nokomoris will have names and categories for half a dozen.  One of those is what they call a seep--a place as small as a few square yards, as huge as a dozen square miles, where two planes wear as thin as over-used linen cheesecloth next to each other, and ooze one into the other in bits and pieces and fragments of magic over years.

It’s not meant to be possible, for an entire continent to be a seep, but many things that are not meant to be possible are nonetheless true.  Priyl was thin before the elves and orcs even came to be there.  Fey roamed the lands, called them home, before they ever took forms with two legs and two arms and a face that could speak a language of people.  They noticed the thin little cousins-of-orcs fleeing through the trees, and they saw the invention of fire and the forests that burned, and a few of them decided--well.  There’s a game worth playing.

Half a million years ago, the fey taught the first True Elves about magic.  Nothing has ever been the same since.

.

Fifteen thousand years ago, when dwarves and humans and gnomes were only just learning to turn stone tools into plowshares and turn goats and sheep and aurochs into tame animals, the elves of Priyl had cities that stretched halfway to the sky.

They made war, of course, of course they did.  They waged it against each other, because nothing else was worthy of their conquest.  Ten generations of orcs could live and breed and die before an elf could even count themself arrived at adulthood.  The world beyond Priyl was strange and distant, far beyond notice or care.  The vast universe of the planes, and beyond--that drew the elven attention far more than anything on the world of Onde.

There were in those days two kinds of elves, or perhaps three, or perhaps a thousand.  In fact, perhaps the easiest way to divide the elves of that time is by how many sorts of elves they themselves believed existed.  In that case it was the three-sort elves who were correct, which makes their fate even more dark irony in the end.

They were the Day Elves, the Night Elves, and the True Million; High Elves and Bad Elves and those fuckers in the woods, I guess.  They were, according to a third of their number, the elves of Sun, Moon, and Twilight; and this is how the self-styled Moon Elves would explain the difference:

During the day, with the sun bright and desperate overhead, it is easy to believe that light and dark are opposites, the only two options.  It is easy to believe in sun and darkness and no other in-between.  It is easy to believe in Your Own and then also The Rest Of Them.  It is easy to believe in your own power.  And so the day elves, the sun elves, as silver and gold as though no other color existed in the universe, studied the foundations of their own powers and ignored all else.  They were wizards and full of magic, and they built the cities that towered to the sun, and they wrote the laws and warred each other, and they gave polite nods to the fey if they passed but they did not bow to them, for they accepted only the opposing ideas of Subservience and Mastery, and they refused to be servants.

At dawn and dusk, with all the shadows grown long and small lights flickering from every direction, it is easy to confuse lies and honesty everywhere, to lose sight of any firm reality.  It is easy to believe that nothing is quite real in the first place and anything is as good as anything else.  It is easy to believe in tricks and riddles, and to toss aside that belief a moment later, to cling to nothing but artifice and bargains and boundaries on trust.  The twilight elves, the wood elves, red and green and brown and gold and silver and white and black and gray, ran with the fey who’d once taught and married their ancient ancestors.  They were warlocks and full of trickery and half-truth, and they studied math and logic and ventured from city to city slipping in between the bounds set by the daylight elves as though they had not spotted them in the dark.  They wrote contracts and twisted reality around themselves, for they believed in everything and nothing, just like their masters, and could not see far enough to grasp the reality of anything.

At night, in clear moonlight, it is easy to see the truth: there is light, and there is dark, and there is everything in between.  There may be master and servant, and that may be firm and unchangeable, no matter how the shadows hide it--but for every servant on his knees in the dirt, there is always one more, lower still than them.  Every master lording over her servant has yet another master.

So it was that the moon elves discovered the gods.  Priyl was not a good land for gods, with the blurring of its boundaries, its fade between reality and not.  They did not often feel welcome there.  Still, in the middle of the night, with one or two or all three moons full and bright overhead, they could find their way down.  Even the fey had to be overmastered by someone.

There were three gods that the Elves of Night found, as they searched and studied and prayed, there in the moonlit dark on the continent of Priyl, where the smallest creatures were full of venom and might.  They found the queen of spiders, and the king of serpents, and the prince of fish and tentacles and uncharted depths.  The elves of the moon went to their knees and prayed.

.

In those days the elves had boats, of course.  They had not quite mastered the art of teleportation that would join their cities in the future, and they did not most of them quite care about the world beyond the boundaries of their reefs, but curiosity has always been an elven trait.  The moon-elven worshippers of the god of the sea, and the twilight adventurers whose fae patrons implored them to spread chaos and wonder, they learned to sail and venture forth.  They mapped the world of Onde while the humans and gnomes and dwarves of Nokomoris were still just learning to put stylus to clay and charcoal to tanned leather, while the humans of someday-Calladia were singing their sky-song and building empires of ritual and sound.

(Orcs invented boats first.  Orcs have been on Nokomoris for tens of thousands of years, coming few by few, interbreeding with humans until barely any sign of them was left to meet the next ship to arrive.  Few enough of them ever made it back over the reefs to return to Getirka, even before the High Elves Ascendant erected the Stormwall.  But we’re getting ahead of ourselves again.)

.

Here is the thing that every elf known on Nokomoris today will say, to anyone who asks them, about their history: 6,703 years ago, by the calendar reckoning of humans, gnomes, and dwarves, the Elven Ascendancy rose to shepherd all of the elves of Priyl, and closed the continent away from all the world to protect--

And that’s where the story will pause, because what protection could the elves ever have needed from the rest of the world?  The elves appeared in Nokomoris five hundred years, and shook the world on its foundations.  Every kingdom on Onde was tumbled before their power.

‘To protect you all from us,’ so many elves would say.  They would be correct, of course, and altogether wrong, all at once.

.

Spiders are not evil.  Neither are serpents, or stonefish, or krakens.  Neither are the gods of them.

They shed their skins, though, all at once or piece by piece.  And sometimes they demand the world do the same.  Sometimes they demanded apocalypse and rebirth.  It wasn’t such a very far stretch, really, after all.

The dark elves of black and white and gray believed in nuance as an article of faith.  They also believed in duty, and truth, and fortitude across an ever-changing night.  They believed in a lot of things.  That was, a little bit, the point.

It took a thousand years of war for the cities of Sun Elves to come together to agree, at the very last, that even should it take all their power they must see the Night Elves driven entire from the continent of Priyl.  They must see it done, and they would unite themselves to do it.  It took another century of war first, with all the united might of the Elven Cities bent against the god-worshippers, the moonlight elves with their huge pale eyes and their unglowing skin.  It could be their only salvation, before the gods of venom and rebirth called for the destruction of everything they loved and knew.

And so it was, 6,602 years ago, that all of the very most powerful wizards of the Elves of Day, the Sun Elves, high and ascendant and triumphant, joined their power as one to join nature and force and illusion all bound together in one great wall.  The Stormwall, sixteen thousand miles long, encircling all of Priyl in its arms.

(Did the Wild Elves, the twilight elves, the forest warlocks, did they help?  Oh yes, my friend.  Oh yes, of course they did, for the Sun Elves--they only ever saw two sides, don’t you remember?  Two sides, dark and light, and the twilight elves trapped on the in-between--well.  They always did know how to deal oh-so-very carefully with a master that little bit stronger than them.  So the wild elves helped, and the Stormwall--the Stormwall worked perfectly, to keep anyone outside of Priyl from venturing in.)

6,703 years ago, the Empyrean Ascendant became the very first sovereign on the seat of the Elven Ascendancy.  6,600 years ago, the elves of Priyl found peace.  More or less.

.

And what became of the moon elves, the night elves, the elves of the dark?  What became of them, and their spider-queen, serpent-king, fish-prince?

They went to Calladia, of course--though it was called Thiel then, once upon a time.  They went to Thiel-that-would-be-Callida, and Thiel found itself unmade.

There is a great deal to say of old mythical Thiel, and the lands it became and then unbecame again, and again, and again, cycling once and twice and more and more over the thousands of years between now and then.  There is a great deal to say, and some of it is about the elves that live there, and some of it is about the humans they found when they arrived, and some of it is about the changelings that sprung up between them, faceless shapeshifters learning to live just as everyone else.  Right now, in the year 512 HA, five centuries after the fall of the Storm Wall, the continent is nothing but a thousand-island archipelago.  It remembers, barely, that it was Callida nine centuries ago, and had merchant ships and commerce to the east and west, with Nokomoris and Kekiris and beyond.  It remembers being shattered to pieces in hopes of rebirth.  It does not remember that it ever was Thiel, not in the deepest dimmest history, save in the oldest of records.

There is a great deal to say, but what I will tell you now is this: the fish around the continent that once was Thiel do not sting with venom spines that kill in the space of a breath, and the tentacle-armed creatures that swim their bays are small and soft and cannot kill at all.  There is very little for the Prince of Depths to do here, little space for him to make himself known.

There are frogs here, instead.  They do not bite except ants and flies, but they glow bright, red and yellow and violet and blue.  They poison nobody except the unwary hunter who does not leave them as they sit.  (The unwary hunter, they will kill.  The wary hunter learns to use them, instead.)

They change, from fish-spawn to frog-grandmother, to eggs, to spawn again.  It’s easier to believe in the Frog Daughter (who is also the mother of all, wide-mouth frog devourer of all) than any unfamiliar lord of depths and venom.

The Frog Daughter is, perhaps, a kinder god than her predecessor-brother.  There’s some kindness in all three of the dark elves’ gods, if you know where to look.  They’re all three of them gods of transformation, and that can always be a kindness, for some.

.

And what of Priyl, then, in their absence?

The Ascendancy has held strong for six thousand years and nearly another thousand after that.  Eleven elves Ascendant, after the Empyrean, each of them chosen and sworn to the good of all before more than two centuries of life have passed them by, each of them sworn to rule for a thousand years if they can.  Each of them have made that oath, and under them the Ascendancy has flourished.

Throughout Priyl, throughout its mountains, there are the Cities of the Ascendancy, and each city is vast and towering, halfway up to the skies, and each city is within itself world and shining garden.  Each city is full of sparkling crystalline fountains and waterfalls, parks and fresh water to drink, home to a thousand sparkling silver fishes that are art and food and life all at once.  Vines climb up the dazzling towers from terrace to terrace and grow fruit and berries and grain.  Shimmering pigeons of red and purple iridescence bred for perfect accent color beauty soar between golden bridges and balustrades, and lay their eggs, and nobody in an elven city ever goes hungry.

(And what became of the twilight elves, then, when the sun elves rose up on high and claimed their world?  They retreated to shadow and stayed in the in-between, of course, just as they always have.  Their feytrap labyrinths deep in the mountains and deserts and woods of Priyl are sprawling and inescapable temples to artifice and knowledge and math, and their acolytes strike deals and take powers from their Lady Whispered and Lord Gloaming, and their children grow in the shining towers of the cities of the ascendancy and pay their dues to the elves on high.  The warlock elves, the fae-friends, the elves of the woods, they have always understood the needs of survival.  They remember the dark elves.  They remember the price of loss.  Even if the high elves themselves won’t.)

And so it was for six thousand years, until the Halcyon Ascendant rose to power, five hundred and twelve years ago.  And the Halcyon Ascendant, who was wizard and diviner, who was young and brave and as wise as she was clever, who looked into the world and saw the future--

the Halcyon Ascendant said, it is time to lower the Stormwall and venture forth to know the world.

.

Nobody knows, exactly, why the Halcyon Ascendant gave such an order.  Few elves know exactly what it cost to fulfill it.  Fewer still would ever admit it.

What is known, by everybody on Nokomoris, is this: the elves appeared on their great silver ships out of nowhere at all, five hundred years ago, and changed everything in the world.  Cities and nations rose and fell.  The elves knew magic nobody had ever heard of before.

The elves brought transmutation and conjuration and abjuration that could be studied and learned from books instead of summoned from gods and the incomprehensible overwhelming power of nature.  They brought potions and alchemy and science.  The elves brought to Nokomoris the very first teleportation circles (and Nokomoris as it is now, with the Nine Cities and their reign, could not exist without teleportation circles.)

Today, the elves live in every major city on the continent.  They live west of the mountains of the Western Wall, and in cities on the continent of Kekiris.  Always in sweeping, curving, tall shining towers, in their own elven enclaves, part of every city but not beholden to it.  Always full of wonders to sell, perhaps, if their leaders in the Ascendancy deem it proper; always rich with the wealth of their nation, which is free to all elves, and nobody else.

There are elven advisors and elven investors and elven ambassadors.  There are elven students in the universities, and professors there, as well.  There are no elven kings or governors or lords, of course there aren’t--no elf could truly be a citizen of Nokomoris, not honorably.  Every elf born is a subject of the Ascendancy. 

.

And finally, here is what the orcs know of elves.  The orcish story is their own, and long and varied and rich, the orcs of Getirka-called-Priyl and the orcs of New Gettik on Nokomoris, and it is also long, full of diaspora and resilience and art and culture and many, many thousands of generations of twins.  It is another post for another time.

But what the orcs know of elves, for they do come from the very same land, from its opposite sides, is: there are whole universes beyond what the elves consider worthy of their attention.  It’s true that no ship or desperate swimmer arrived on the continent of Getirka or Priyl for all the six thousand years that the Stormwall soared.  It is not true that no ship ever left.

The orcs say it, and the orcs know.  The orcs of New Gettik and Clure, here on Nokomoris, know it especially.  They were here before the elves arrived.  Even the rest of Nokomoris realizes that.

Every gnome, dwarf, and human on Nokomoris knows that all elves everywhere in the world belong to the Ascendancy.  Every orc knows that there are worlds below the elves’ notice, that they forget about conveniently, that they pretend not to see.  Some orcs may think to wonder whether they’ve forgotten about other elves, too.

[yaldev]

Colours of Mana

Wise mystics and scholars of the ancient ways have long studied the forbidden subject of collectible card game lore, and they have pondered what these shadowy secrets reveal about ontology and metaphysics. Any of them can tell you, whether or not you even asked for their opinion, that there’s a clear relationship between the effects of magic spells and the colours of mana used to cast them.

Sorcery is a scientific art, but an art nonetheless. It is fluid and personal by necessity; the objective gaze is blind here. Every practitioner must find a unique path to mastery shaped by the endless complexities of their own experience, their own mind, their own body and soul. As outsiders to the craft looking in, magic appears to violate causality, creating an output from an insufficient input. But wizards are privy to a medium that we can scarcely comprehend: mana, magical energy, potentiality incarnate. An effective spellcaster must be a master of their own psychology, understanding the mental processes that bring them to concentration so intense that it tears the fabric of the Aether. From there, they need the right thought-patterns to direct the now-accessible mana to make real the change they seek.

Some mages execute their spells as efficiently as possible, manifesting mana from the Aether as a direct change in reality, never allowing the raw energy to linger in the physical realm. We see no swirling light or glowing lines following the wizard’s hands or showing off their enchantments. This approach is especially favoured by wizards of the Ascended Empire, who understand the perception of their craft as shortsighted and reckless, and compensate for the hazard by minimizing the time that mana—all-creative, all-destructive—spends in our world.

But others, rebellious against these norms or born into societies too ignorant to understand, draw mana into our realm and command it from here. This style requires less restraint and frequently packs extra power into certain spells, but it’s accompanied by distinctive visual patterns which attract unwanted attention and more obviously telegraph a spellcaster’s activities. Military factions have an interest in anticipating incoming spells based on the colour of mana their casters display, and once we’re trying to solve problems, we must take the step from artistry to analysis.

Aethereal engineering is an artful science, but a science nonetheless. It is methodological and rigid by necessity; the subjective gaze is overwhelmed here. The human mind has a tendency to be curious and seek out patterns, and in this field it has been rewarded: Aethereal engineers create magical devices that yield consistent results, bringing law to a chaotic force. They watch spells being cast the heretical way and notice the blooming greens of healing magic, the clean blue lines of divination, the surging pinks of emotional manipulation, and they resolve to find the significance behind the colours. Much coin has been sent isolating different colours of mana in special chambers, studying their properties, laying bare their nature.

This pursuit isn’t completely foolish. In its natural state, mana is nothing if not colourful. Crystal bugs feed on raw mana slurped directly from the Aether, filling their transparent bodies with rainbow patterns. Priests of the Empirical Truth speak of days when magic reigned supreme over the land, sending kaleidoscopic flashes through the sky. Given that spellcasting involves the narrowing of mana’s potential and a similar narrowing of its colour palette, it’s reasonable to draw a connection that certain colours are intrinsically connected to certain possibilities, and that we can map out the types of spells connected with each.

But noble as the goals may be, they consistently fall short. A team watches a group of spellcasters, records their observations, assembles a flawless theory on the nature of each colour, claims to understand the root cause of different forms of magic by sorting their “energy” in opposite sequence to what the wavelengths of light constituting their colours would suggest, ties it all together—and then a research team on another continent finds that local spellcasters harness mana of totally different colours for the exact same results, throwing the whole thing so amok that they all just throw in the towel and go study something more lucrative.

The truth is this: spellcasting is a subjective process. The bridge between mana and mind is the symbol, the efficient signifier of meaning and intent. Different traditions will teach different methods, assign different meditations and draw influence from different faiths, so it’s never been surprising that the sigils and signs used to cast the same spells can vary between regions. And yet it never seems to cross researchers’ minds that cultures don’t have the exact same connotations associated with each colour, which compels mages from different sides of the world to connect colours with different spells. It’s not the colour of mana that determines the spell a mage can cast. It’s how a mage casts a spell, the meaningful colours they bring to mind as part of their focus, that in turn colours the mana they wield. When the colour orange means love to one sorcerer and war to another, we shouldn’t be surprised to see two very different effects following a brilliant orange glow.

So, can you predict the nature of a spell by the colour of mana going into it? Well, how well do you know the colour symbolism of the caster’s culture? How well do you know the caster’s personal symbolism, which may differ from the norm? Does the caster even use the flashy style that lets you tell what colours they’re thinking of? Are you sure they’re not using another layer of illusion magic to alter the apparent colour of their mana? Short of absolute certainty, and maybe even then, you’re better off ducking just in case.

Yaldev is a fantasy/sci-fi worldbuilding project based on Beeple art. Through a combination of narratives, in-universe documents and stylized loredumps, it reveals the story of a planet in magical pandemonium, the nation which rose to conquer it, this empire’s inevitable collapse and the new world which emerged in its wake. The project has major themes about perspective, imperialism, nationalism, nature and the metaphysical battle of law against chaos. For all stories in chronological order, check out the pinned post on the subreddit at r/Yaldev!

[mediaeval-muse]

Book Review

Warbreaker. By Brandon Sanderson. New York: Tor, 2009.

Rating: 3.5/5 stars

Genre: fantasy

Part of a Series? Yes, Warbreaker #1

Summary:  Warbreaker is the story of two sisters, who happen to be princesses, the God King one of them has to marry, the lesser god who doesn't like his job, and the immortal who's still trying to undo the mistakes he made hundreds of years ago. Their world is one in which those who die in glory return as gods to live confined to a pantheon in Hallandren's capital city and where a power known as BioChromatic magic is based on an essence known as breath that can only be collected one unit at a time from individual people. By using breath and drawing upon the color in everyday objects, all manner of miracles and mischief can be accomplished. It will take considerable quantities of each to resolve all the challenges facing Vivenna and Siri, princesses of Idris; Susebron the God King; Lightsong, reluctant god of bravery, and mysterious Vasher, the Warbreaker.

***Full review under the cut.***

Overview: I’ll come clean here... despite Sanderson being a pillar in the fantasy genre, I haven’t read one of his books until now. A friend, who is a big Sanderson fan, suggested I start with Warbreaker, so my review is going to be based on no other knowledge of Sanderson’s work. Overall, I enjoyed this book more than I thought I would; Sanderson has a talent for creating complex worlds and an imagination which makes his setting memorable. I also think there were a lot of good ideas built into the structure of the narrative, as well as infused in the character archetypes. The main reason why I didn’t give this book a higher rating, however, is personal preference: I don’t think the main action of the novel kicked off soon enough, and I personally didn’t feel invested in the war plot or the personal arcs of some of the characters. That being said, I do look forward to checking out more of Sanderson’s work. There was enough in this book to intrigue me, and though I didn’t love everything about Warbreaker, I can definitely see why Sanderson’s books are so beloved by fans.

Writing: Sanderson’s prose is fairly straightforward. It doesn’t contain a lot of rhetorical flourishes or figural language, but it doesn’t leave the reader in the lurch, either. I never had a difficult time picturing the world Sanderson creates or wondering what characters were thinking or feeling - everything was described well, and I never had to go back and read something multiple times in order to understand it. In that sense, Sanderson’s prose is simple, yet effective. It’s easy to get through, which helps the story move quicker.

There were a couple of info dumps (the two I can think of off the top of my head include the scene when Siri learns of Hallandran history from a storyteller and the scene where Vivenna learns about the theories of Awakening), but other than that, I think most of the worldbuilding was shown well through descriptions of the scenery, the actions of the characters, etc. I really did have the experience of being immersed in the world, and I think Sanderson knows how to craft a complex setting without overwhelming his readers with pages and pages of exposition.

Plot: The plot of this novel follows four main “threads,” centered on four prominent characters: 1. Siri, the youngest daughter of the king of Idris, who is sent to the kingdom (?) of Hallandren to marry their God King as part of a peace treaty; 2. Vivenna, Siri’s older sister, who was supposed to be sent to the God King, but was held back because of favoritism. She follows her sister in part to rescue her and also to prevent war between her kingdom and Hallandren; 3. Lightsong, one of the gods in Hallandren’s pantheon, who finds himself reluctantly drawn into the politics between the gods; 4. Vasher, a mysterious figure who wields a sentient sword named Nightblood.

Each of these “threads” were bound by the looming threat of war, but I personally didn’t find the war aspect suspenseful, in part because 3 of the 4 characters were “upper class” (and thus, war would impact them differently), and partly because we don’t spend much time with Idrians, who have the most to lose. I also think that the main action of each of these threads didn’t really take off until halfway through the book, and while I appreciate a slow pace to become familiar with the worldbuilding, I think the plot could have moved a bit quicker.

In terms of the individual threads, each had their ups and downs. I first found Siri’s storyline to be a little icky - she’s only 17, yet much of her plot involves discussions of sex and fertility. On the one hand, I get it - she’s sent to the God King as a bride, and her job is to produce an heir. On the other hand, I felt uncomfortable when reading about how often she was naked and how everyone calls her “vessel” rather than something proper, like “my queen.” I didn’t find her story particularly interesting until she finally begins to interact with the God King; for the first couple hundred pages, most of her time is spent getting used to Hallandren and palace life while her husband ignores her. Only when the God King begins to form a relationship with her did I feel invested, in part because Siri finally had a meaningful connection with another person, and thus personal stakes in the war.

Vivenna’s plot seemed interesting on the surface, but I ultimately found her to be too passive for my liking. Vivenna spends most of her time inciting then stifling a rebellion amongst her people, many of whom live as second-class citizens in Hallandren’s capital. It seems like that would be an active role for her, but most of the time, she’s acting under orders/guidance from other characters around her. I personally didn’t care for scene after scene of her meeting with people to convince them to do something, or scenes of her failing and being helpless. She often had to rely on male characters to get around, and while I don’t think she had to be perfect at everything, I do think she could have made use of her extensive training to be a bit more active. I did like, however, that her plot challenged a lot of her biases and supposed values of her religious teachings, shedding light on how we can’t judge people who are living in desperate conditions.

Lightsong’s plot started slow but picked up steam. As a god who is not convinced that his divinity is earned, he copes by indulging in a decadent lifestyle and putting up a jovial façade. At first, he tries to stay out of the debates about war, but once he’s dragged into the politics of the pantheon’s court, things get a little more interesting. I liked the moments when his story was less about war and more about discovering who he was before he became a god. They felt a little more personal, whereas the war didn’t seem to threaten his well being one way or the other.

Vasher’s POV chapters are less frequent, and when they appear, he’s doing something sneaky for reasons we don’t understand until some 2/3 through the novel. While I found his interactions with Nighblood amusing, I was frustrated by the lack of a clear motivation until the point where we learn what he’s up to. After that, I found him more fun to watch.

Characters: There are a lot of characters in this book, so I’m going to cover the main ones and a couple prominent supporting roles. Overall, I can say that each character archetype was interesting, and I often liked the idea of a character on its own as opposed to how the archetype was used in the narrative.

Siri is an impulsive, rebellious princess who has trouble respecting authority. While I’ve seen this archetype before, I think Sanderson avoided the “not like other girls” trope and instead wrote Siri as one who uses her impulses against the authorities that are restricting her. I was actually pleasantly surprised that Siri went from a fish out of water (because she doesn’t have the training her sister has about Hallandren society) to someone who is better equipped to spearhead a resistance within the God King’s own palace, all because resistance requires the guts to take risks and stand up to authority. In that sense, I liked her story a lot.

The God King, her husband, was also likeable, in part because he seemed to genuinely want to be a good ruler. I admired his affection for Siri, as well as his desire to use his power for good.

Vivenna, on the other hand, seemed like a good character at first, but I quickly started to dislike her. All her life, she was raised to be the God King’s bride, so she has extensive training and education. She’s also poised and confident, up until she is out of her element and has to find a way to operate on the streets of T’Telir. I thought Vivenna would use her training in a more meaningful way; knowing about Hallandren so thoroughly, I thought she would do more to apply that knowledge when concocting a plot to save her sister. Instead, Vivenna always seemed to be passive, letting the people around her make decisions and tell her what to do. She also doesn’t seem that interested in saving her sister after some time, despite being protective of Siri when they were younger. As an older sister myself, I found the easy abandonment of her sibling a little hard to believe, and I wish the desire to save her family was more of a driving force than Vivenna’s sense of duty to her people. While she does manage to do things on her own towards the end, I also found that to be undercut by her deference to Vasher. While it might be realistic to let characters with more skill/experience take care of stuff, it made me wonder why we were following Vivenna at all (in other words, why is Vivenna a main character and not Vasher, if all Vivenna is going to do is get in the way?). I also found Vivenna to be a little stuck-up and judgmental, which, granted, she learns to overcome, but for the majority of the book, she just seemed holier-than-thou, and I didn’t find her fun to watch.

Within Vivenna’s chapters (or sections), we see a number of side characters, the most prominent being the band of mercenaries that help her meet with influential people. At first, I liked these mercenaries; Denth seemed to be a good friend, while Jewels challenged Vivenna’s assumptions about Hallandrens in a way I found productive and enlightening. In all, it seemed like these characters were written in a way that broke stereotypes, and I was wishing they could have formed a little found family. However, after the twist, I didn’t quite like how the mercenaries were handled. They seemed to disappear from view, and we only heard of their actions by word of mouth (so everything they did seemed to happen “off screen,” then relayed by another character later). Because of that, I didn’t ultimately feel like they were much of a threat. I did like that their beef with Vasher was seeded early, so that when they finally come into contact, it felt like we were getting a payoff.

Lightsong is full of charisma, so even though his plot was slow, I enjoyed following him. He has some nice banter with Blushweaver (another goddess in the pantheon) and his high priest, Llarimar. I particularly found his relationship with Llarimar rather sweet, and I liked that Lightsong was curious about his past life without letting it distract from the threat at hand. The end of his arc felt a little unfair, as did Blushweaver’s - I was hoping he would get to do a little more.

But speaking of Blushweaver, I found her to be complicated. I liked that she seemed to genuinely care about whether or not Hallandren went to war, and wasn’t just playing a power game for power’s sake. However, I hated how she was written as a sexpot, using her body to distract (or try to distract) the other gods and to get what she wanted. I have no problem with a female character being sexual, but I do hate female characters who use sexuality as a manipulative tool. It’s just a tired trope, and I don’t enjoy it. Also, can we talk about how she calls Siri a slut at one point?

Vasher at first didn’t seem that interesting to me until we learn of his true motivations. After that, I enjoyed his character archetype immensely. He seems like a gruff badass at first, which I am also tired of reading about, but after a while, he’s shown to be something of a softy with terrible interpersonal skills. I probably enjoyed his conversations with Nighblood the most. Nightblood jokes and pouts and talks about killing in an almost childlike way, which was quite amusing. I wish we had gotten more of those interactions.

Other: The thing I appreciated most about this book was the worldbuilding. Sanderson creates a world that feels unique - instead being set in the gritty faux-Middle Ages where everything is violent and dirty, the narrative takes place in Hallandren, a kingdom full of joy and color. I particularly liked how color was important not just to Hallandren culture, but to the magic system. In Sanderson’s world, everyone has a life force or aura called “Breath” or “BioChroma,” which can be used in a variety of ways. BioChroma allow users to enchant objects (so to speak) or sustain life, and I liked that possessing and using BioChroma affected things like sound and color. It was a refreshing change from the dull worlds of grimdark fantasy.

I also liked the tension between the polytheistic religion of T’Telir and the monotheistic religion of Idris. Hallandrens worship “gods” that they can see and speak to, whereas Idrians worship a single god who is unseen. It posed some interesting theological debates, as well as a subtle, yet critical, examination of things like the hypocrisy of priests, the superiority complex of conservatives, etc.

Overall, I did enjoy this book, even if there were things that I wish were different. I hear there is supposed to be a sequel coming out at some point, and when it is out, I will pick it up.

[tshepiso-reads-books]

My Favourite Books of 2019

I had a pretty good reading year in 2019. Formulating my favourites list this year was definitely harder than it was in the past couple of years. This list has changed and shifted drastically as they year went by (if you’d like to know my favourites in the first half of the year check out this post).

I agonized for weeks trying to rank my favourites and eventually had to give up entirely. I read so many different books this year across genre and form and it was absolutely impossible to rank and compare them. So this year I’ll be talking about my favourite books from four categories: fantasy, science fiction, comics and contemporary. This is going to be a long one, so gird your loins.

Fantasy

2019 was a fantastic year for adult high fantasy. I finally dipped my toes into this category after years of hesitancy and discovered stories filled with rich worlds, pulse-pounding plots and fantastic characters.

The Fifth Season · N.K. Jemisin

If I had to choose a singular favourite book of 2019 The Fifth Season would definitely be it. Every single aspect of this novel was done to perfection our characters were fully rendered, the plot was absolutely gripping, and the worldbuilding so fleshed out and unique. This book was so perfectly realized and is truly a feat of master craftsmanship.

Circe · Madeline Miller

Even after all these months, Circe is still a stand-out story. Miller’s prose was breathtaking and cutting and our main character, Circe, so all-encompassing and well explored. The lens through which Miller views greek mythology was fascinating and the way she explored characters we already had preconceived notions of was fucking brilliant.

Jade City · Fonda Lee

This book was the perfect blend of inciting action, gripping family drama. The multi-layered and ever-changing landscape of the plot of Jade City kept me flipping the pages of this book, but the strong interpersonal relationships between the family at the center of this book kept me connected to every single plot point.

The Diviners · Libba Bray

The Diviners is the only YA fantasy on this list and I think it truly speaks to the heights that this book reached. What stood out most to me about this book was how politically relevant it was. Bray’s focus on the bigotry and hatred in America in the 20’s time felt pointed and relevant today. With fantastic characters, atmospheric writing and engaging mystery to boot The Diviners was a truly great story to read.

Foundryside · Robert Jackson Bennett

Foundryside was a genuinely fun time from beginning to end. I was gripped by Bennett’s unique magic system which I can only describe as “coding… but magic”. The great character work and entertaining character dynamics added to my absolute enjoyment of this story.

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Sci-Fi

I got really into sci-fi for the first time this year and absolutely adored so many of the stories in this genre. I glad I dove into this genre more in 2019 because I discovered some fantastic stories.

The Wayfarer’s Trilogy · Becky Chambers

The Wayfarer’s trilogy was like a warm blanket to me this year. Every time I picked up a new book in this series its themes and messages filled me hope and joy. Chambers is really writing the sci-fi we need in 2019. I loved every book in this series, but I wanted to shout out A Closed and Common Orbit in particular because it was definitely my favourite.

Ninefox Gambit · Yoon Ha Lee

Ninefox Gambit was a late entry into my favourites, but damn did it hit with a bang. It was certainly one of the most challenging books I read this year, but the reward for sticking through it all was just priceless. Lee crafted such an intricate world and delving deeper into it as I kept reading was enthralling.

Sleeping Giants · Sylvain Neuvel

It took me a while to fall for Sleeping Giants, but once I did I fell head over heels. Neuvel weaved in an interesting story through the interview format he utilized. I’m awed by his ability to capture the scope of the world and create a heart-pounding plot and intriguing mysteries exclusively through interviews.

Time Was · Ian McDonald

Time Was was an excellent novella. It captured everything I adore about time travel stories and historical science fiction. In a few pages, Ian McDonald sold me completely on every aspect of this story. I loved the sweeping romantic atmosphere imbibed into the story.

The Calculating Stars · Mary Robinette-Kowal

Another historical science fiction made its way into my favourites list and it truly deserved to. The level of detail poured into The Calculating Stars is amazing; Mary Robinette-Kowal delved deep into the space program and her accuracy to the time is astounding. Her ability to make me care about the minutiae of daily life is a credit to her character work because the protagonist of this book, Elma, was so charming and real that I couldn’t help but be invested in her story.  

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Comics

I read comic books for the first time this year and absolutely loved most of what I read. I discovered some fantastic authors and artists telling amazing stories and hope to only increase my comic reading in the coming year.

Nimona · Noelle Stevenson

What more is there to say about Nimona. I raved about it so much both online and in my personal life. Noelle Stevenson is writing the kinds of stories that sink their way into my heart and stay there. I adored every single panel of every single page in this story and encourage every single person to pick it up as soon as humanly possible.

The Vision · Tom King & Gabriel Hernandez Walta

I don’t even know what to say about The Vision other than, wow. This dark, psychological, tragedy affected me so deeply. It’s one of the three books I actively cried while reading this year and to this day I can’t eloquently express why I adored it so much. King really makes you care about the family at the center of this story which makes the tragic outcome of the story and the inevitability of that tragedy all the more painful.

Hawkeye · Matt Fraction & David Aja

I love Clint Barton with my whole heart and Hawkeye is the reason why. Fraction and Aja demonstrated a true understanding of Barton as a character and through their three-year run, they crafted what I believe is the best story about him out there.

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Contemporary

This year was pretty light on contemporaries both in number and quality but I did discover amazing stories that spoke to me deeply.

Radio Silence · Alice Oseman

Radio Silence is a book that directly spoke to an exact moment in my life. I read this at the start of my final exam season of high school so the failure of the education system really resonated. Oseman managed to capture the rat race that is school. This book was deeply affecting and emotionally resonant which is probably why it’s one of the books that made me cry in 2019.  

Fangirl · Rainbow Rowell

I’m kind of cheating by putting a re-read on this list, but I found rereading fangirl this year to be so impactful and moving that it would feel a right shame to leave it out of any ‘Best of 2019’ list. Fangirl spoke to me so much harder in 2019 than it did when I first read it. Rowell perfectly captured the reasons we go to fandom for solace and community and the struggles Cath faces in this book are all the more relatable with time.

Autoboyography · Christina Lauren

YA contemporary captures the melodrama of teenagerdom in a way other subcategories of YA never really do. Autoboyography distils the essence of what it feels like to be a teenager so well. And not only does it do that it also contains a beautiful love story at its center.

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Honourable Mentions

I read so many fantastic books this year and this list would feel incomplete without some honourable mentions. All of these were so close to making it on to my final list but sadly didn’t make the cut.

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So, that was my extensive favourites list for 2019. I had such a good reading year in 2019 and I want to bring that energy into the new decade. I’d love to hear about all your favourite books of the year in the comments below so please feel free to share them.

Happy reading!

[crudely-drawn-ben]

The Seven Sisters

Talking with @wholelotofweird on Twitter about Akone and I realised that I had never really shared the “common knowledge” part of the theology of Magnafelis, so here is what any citizen of the western kingdoms would know:

The religion of the Seven Sisters represented in the western kingdoms by the Septarian church, is built around the goddesses responsible for the Tide Of Light, the divine event that overturned the ruined age that had preceded it. Each one of them represents a single note in the divine harmony that restored the order of the world and banished the terror of the broken age into history.

Churches of the Seven tend to be hexagonal with a central dome and a tower at each point, all of them crested with the mark of the corresponding goddess. In the empty space at the centre Caleno’s mark is traditionally inscribed either on the floor or in the centre of the ceiling. As the world recovered and cities were built or rebuilt, the needs of their followers changed so most of them have accumulated different layers of purpose over time.

The goddesses themselves are:

Maia, the goddess of love and fields. A solar aspected goddess who is associated with the health of crops, marriage and livestock. Her priests perform wedding services and often do healing work among the people. Symbol: Two overlapped circles, often woven from corn stems and remade at harvest time each year.

Tayetta, the goddess of rain and trade. Revered among farmers and watermen, Tayetta's association with waterways and the growth of crops also ties her closely to Maia's role. River trade has always been important in the western lands, barges travelling between the mountains and the sea being one of the most effective ways of transmitting goods. In addition to their standard duties, her priests often work in the creation, witnessing and even enforcement of contracts as an impartial party. Symbol: A circular glass phial containing a bead and rainwater.  

Akone, the goddess of thunder and justice. The bright flare of lightning and the sharp edge of the law both fall within Akone's aegis. She is fast to act but slow to anger, her voice is law and the roaring of the storm, often those caught in bad weather on the mountains or at sea will pray to her. Her priests may be called on to act as judges or to investigate crimes. Symbol: A lantern.

Helera the goddess of forests and inspiration. Helera's realm was originally the deep forests and woods, but over time the wood from her trees was crafted into beautiful goods, the clay became fine pottery and stone was sculpted into elegant statues, these craftspeople also chose to follow her and give her some credit for the sure work of their hands. Her priests are often responsible for the decoration of churches and shrines. Symbol: Three wooden beads, hung vertically.      

Merope the goddess of winter and steel.  Once a prayer to Merope was purely a request for the chance to last through winter, she kept the fire in the warm hearth and that fire became a tool, an engine for the manufacture of steel. As winter typically falls between campaign seasons, Merope has also become popular with soldiers. During the winter months her priests will often travel around their region, offering help to those who do not have adequate shelter or supplies. Symbol: A burnished disk of steel.

Asterope, the deep and endless sky. Asterope is the only one of the six sisters of the points not to have taken on a modern aspect in her orthodox teachings, always being named as a goddess of the ocean and the night sky. Much favoured by sailors, navigators and others who work by night. Some of her priests are able to shift form into creatures of the wild. Symbol: A single star in silver, or white. There is also a flower named after her whose petals form a white five pointed star when it opens on summer evenings.

Caleno: The lost sister.  It is known that there were seven sisters and each has a place in standard theology, except for Caleno. The stories tell that her note was the one that brought disharmony to the song of the sisters and though it was necessary for their music, it drove her apart from them and as she left, she carried with her the greatest powers of humanity's oppression, binding them with the power of her own existence. She is praised but her priests are different from those of the other goddesses- instead of decoration, her shrines are traditionally kept empty, offering a place to those lost or far from home. Those called to her priesthood tend to be itinerant travellers, helping to maintain those shrines and sharing the journey of other travellers they meet.  Symbol: A circle with three inward pointing lines placed equally around the outside.

Out of character, the Seven Sisters were inspired in part from our session zero where we talked a little about the kind of deity Percy wanted to follow ( “a classic justice type of god”  as I recall ) and to a degree by the religion in the Lois McMaster Bujold Chalion novels, which have some of the most inspiring worldbuilding ( and characters, and storylines ) around. I decided I wanted a female pantheon because fantasy tends to be very male-oriented and we don’t need more of that right now. I generally imagine deities transcend our notions of gender anyway, but there is a reason that they are sisters. I also took their names ( but not their natures ) from the Pleiades, adjusted a little.