#desert highlands

[thescreenshotblog]

[salty-medley]

Desert Highlands

This maybe will sound stupid but I had a question about Elona, and the Desert Highlands.

We know that after the Pretenders war, the 3 province, Istan, Kourna and Vabbi, are created. We also know that Amnoon is independant. But what about the Desert Highlands?

Their last known rulers were the Primeval kings & queens if I'm not wrong..?

So how does it work?

[myuniverseinabox]

Highlands

Speedpaint

[historia-vitae-magistras]

I think Arthur’s origins are just soooo interesting! Especially his mother’s ties to the land - and then passing along to him and his brothers. I wonder if Arthur was a surprise to her? She already had 3 children in that time, what could another mean for her? What would raising 4 immortal children be like whilst also fending off invaders?

The usual caveat when I'm this far back into history and have to use archaeology and just general story telling to fill in detail: this is not a history book but perhaps just better informed than average historical fantasy.

I think Arthur was a surprise! And he’s a very welcome one at first. Her first three children are columns holding up her power. Brigantia was either a confederation of tribes united under a more powerful ruler or a series of clans and septs that just spread really far and got really important with an unusual amount of centralization by the time of the Romans. We’re not exactly sure. But, the Celts both on the continent and in Britain and Ireland had a very long tradition of hostage taking as political control. Brigantia’s hold on eastern Ireland, southern Scotland, and a nebulous area of England and Wales could have been very artificial and based upon holding her children. And hostage taking need not have been the only form of this purposeful political organization of their family life. Welsh, Scottish and especially Irish writings detail fosterage to raise children in other’s households as a way to create otherwise very rare political stability amongst the numerous tribes and petty kingdoms that otherwise defined political life in Iron Age Europe.

When Arthur first comes into being, she could have easily interpreted his existence as a sign she would soon be able to exert more power and create more social control over the more fertile parts of the island she can feel. Perhaps the Roman conquest of Gaul and the subsequent refugees will destabilize Britain just enough for her to campaign into the south and bring more land into Brigantia. She’s probably having a torrid affair with her neighbors in Yorkshire when the Parisii appeared and have links to the same culture that will give Paris its name. We don’t know how accurate the Roman accusations of how the Iron Age Britons practiced human sacrifice actually were but nonetheless, sacrifice and worship is powerful and there are many more people in the south who’s belief and blood could flow into her as power. The channel protects her southern neighbors and Rome was defeated by the those same neighbors the one time they crossed. And she is far more fearsome than they are, surely.

Her three eldest children aren’t entirely sure what their original relationship to her may have been but its also not something that bothers them overly much. Mother was a Celt at least by the end of her life, they speak Celtic languages. The mechanics are complicated but the results, at least to them, were not. Brighid especially had more of a mentor/menteé relationship with Eirian but she has no real issue with it being a mother/daughter bond. Eirian could have just been young enough with her first child that they had a more equal dynamic. But regardless of the specific circumstance with she acquired her first three children, they were very purposeful acquisitions. The ancient world understood everything to have a spirit. In her mind it would make more sense to have a child for every field and tree and spring and tribe but I’ve gotta limit characters somewhere so its usually just easier to write leaving large gaps where the historical accuracy could actually be lmao.

At the advent of the Roman invasion, they are a family of the same structure as are found in a wide range of ritual deposits that contain human remains and I’ve kind of borrowed from the concept. We don’t know what this significance was to the people who practiced the religions that deposited these bodies and bones but there seems to have been some relationship to fertility. The pattern seems to be one older adult, one young adult, an adolescent, a child and an infant.

One older adult: Eirian has been chilling since the Bronze age and might have initially made a solid base for herself as the primary tin dealer on the island. One younger adult: Brighid is nearly grown in the 1st century as she pops up around when the Celtic cultures of Iron Age Ireland form as La Tène culture explodes into importance. One adolescent: Alasdair is 12-13 and the ancient version of a lego kid as dry stone building and new technology seem to coincide with La Tène culture as well but with somewhat later adoption of bronze and iron and the curving art so he gets a date a little more in line with the Pictish art style coming into being. One child: Rhys appears about 5-6. He comes into being as a geographic distinction centered around the mountains between Wales and the rest of the country that to develop some kind of distinction in the material culture. One infant: Arthur is born just before the Roman invasion, as a new identity culture in Britain seems to form around new developments like coins, a move towards proto-towns and a seeming intensity in the archaeological record of an obsession with heads perhaps in response to Roman religious practices or just general upheaval.

When she’s raising these children, one already grown, one mostly there, two quite young its really a demonstration of both her pride, some arrogance, a whole ocean of realpolitik and the ability of Rome to grind her down over time.

Not long after Arthur is born, Eirian and the personification of Parisii I have yet to name but who gets a summer home in Yorkshire in the Iron Age (the Parisii of Yorkshire seem to be an offshoot of the Paris-Parisii) are sucking and fucking. They are both new mothers, Parisii for the first and only time, Eirian for the 4th and last time. Parisii moves back across the channel to her native territory when the Romans win. Francis’ ‘actual’ father is less her speed and she takes the opportunity given to her by the Roman invasion of Gaul to strike a deal with Lucius. She becomes one of his favorite mistresses and her boy one of his favourite ward/pseudo-stepchildren. Parisii tells Eirian if she was smart she'd just take Lucius up on claiming legal paternity of her two youngest sons. After-all, nothing is permanent.

Eirian absolutely fucking refuses. Lucius is not overly frustrated by this at first and justifies himself as no good Roman would take a child from the breast of a she-wolf. He’s content with a pragmatic half-defeat in the beginning, leaving Brigantia and Eirian as a semi-independent client kingdom. She’s fairly adept at keeping that for a long time and Lucius is patient, not immediately forcing her to hand her children over even when she quietly supports the resistance in Wales. But when Wales is largely pacified and the power centers of the Druids are largely gone, she might have ultimately betrayed the father of her third son and sent him packing to Rome to preserve her and the children’s independence. But whatever happens, the direct invasion of her lands begins. She loses most of her autonomy and the Romans become invaders on her land rather than neighbors she can have her do her bidding. Hadrian's wall goes up. She is forced to cut a deal with Lucius that he can educate her two youngest sons as they get older with some kind of established legal relationship perhaps fostering or wardship. Soon he will set his sites on her firstborn.

And I'm going to stop there because I am about to speed run the entirety of Roman Britain and it is dinner time but she Boudicca on my destruction until I horizon.

[astralarias]

"Their long ears and wiggly noses are charming, but the springer's greatest strength is their ability to make jaw-dropping vertical leaps. Traveling merchants and couriers use them to cross sheer cliffs in the Crystal Highlands, shaving weeks off their journeys."

[godihatethiswebsite]

Desert Oasis

✽ Johnny "Soap" Mactavish x f!reader (The Mummy AU)

Main Masterlist ✽ Ao3

✽ Part 1 - Learning about your cousin and his past

Maybe Kyle actually used to serve with John until one mission pushed him a bit too far past his moral compass and he ended up leaving his military career behind, travelling down to see his last remaining relative – *you*.

You two had been thick as thieves growing up, family always visiting on holidays as his much more persuasive self – quite a charmer even for a seven year old – was fond of conning you into mischief you had no business being a part of. Now when he's not pestering you he frequents bars to help shake off the PTSD and find people with some coin to do odds and ends jobs for.

Catching up with Kyle usually always included a stroll down memory lane reminiscing about his old war stories. His troublemaking tendencies didn't change as he got older. He was just better about talking his way out of getting disciplined for it. But you'd heard plenty of tales about what he got up to with the notorious Sergeant MacTavish back in the day. More than enough to suggest the man was a scoundrel despite the praise your cousin laid on thick regarding his ability to always have your back in a skirmish.

So when an anonymous tip leads you to a man who can supposedly get you to the fabled city of Hamunaptra and they pull John out of his jail cell, Kyle just gives him a shit eating grin leaning against the bars and says, "Hope you didn't have to bend over for anyone in there."

"Nah. They said mah mouth's prettier than mah arse anyways."

Meanwhile you're standing there watching this conversation with your eyes glued to the man behind the bars with filthy desert tanned skin, bit-too-long stubble, the strangest choice in hairstyle, and cerulean blue eyes sparkling with the promise of mischief thinking 'dear lord what am I getting myself into?'

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[Edited 5/8/24: changed formatting, title, tags, and numbering system]

[softhenrycavill]

Henry Cavill for 'Driven to Extremes' | 2013 🔥

[ratasum]

"You can't sit with us-"

After 84 years I FINALLY completed the invisible chair achievement!

[mistfallengw2]

So, for those of you who do alt-parking with your characters, I wanna know if that's something that you worked into their story!

[thescreenshotblog]

[mau-mao]

favorite cat breed?!?!?! and why they ur fave!!!!

I would have to say the Mohave Bobs cat.

One of these cats can hold up to four mutations. This one has a natural bob tail, polydactyl feet, curled ears and a curled coat. And don't get me started on how they can be colorpoint. !!!

The fluffier they are, the more they look like little sheep. :] It looks this way due the crossing of the Desert Lynx, Highland Lynx and Selkirk Rex (which are also super cool breeds).

[historia-vitae-magistras]

Tell us more about #3, #6 and #9, please!

ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh

The Blue Hour — Valley Forge — 1777

Hopefully this will be this years Christmas fic. A very small portion of the Continental Army starving and freezing at Valley Forge in the winter 1777-1778 consisted of French Canadians who had joined the American cause during their absolute disaster of an invasion into Quebec. Most of them returned home because the US congress couldn't support its own military, much less foreign volunteers who came without their own money and supplies. And I saw one brief mention of how upon seeing an American in a red coat that had been dyed a shitty drab brown to differentiate them from the British, a nameless French Canadian handed over a blue wool coat that had belonged to his own French-born father in in the Seven Years War. And the symbolism. Matthew and Alfred are trading colours, trading mentors, and trading values. Matt spent his entire life dressed in blue and fighting the British empire and gifting that to Alfred with some various others.

L'heure bleue is when the sun sets below the horizon but there's still just enough light to see what reflects blue through the atmosphere. Just enough love left in them to keep the dark at bay.

My Mother Told Me — Wessex — 9th century

I've only mentioned it a scattering of times through some fics and I can't decide how old Arthur and Rhys are for this but its the carving out of the Danelaw in the 870s as Magnus and Sigurd pincer their way through Arthur in the east, Rhys in the West and then turn north towards Alasdair. At some point in this madness, Magnus cut Arthur shoulder to opposite hip, laying him open before Rhys shot him full of arrows and they fled across the Irish sea. This is the day he earned his title of half-dane.

My Mother Told Me is from a cinematic translation of an adaptation of a skaldic poetry Egill Skallagrímsson that talks about a man who's mother foresaw hime become a powerful viking with ships who would travel much and kill many. Pretty much an ironic dead-ringer for Arthur.

Why does thou sit upon my grave? — Cumbria — 6th Century

This is a reworking of the fic I posted and took down about the series of events that lead to Eirian's (Britannia's) death. How when she was already weakened by Christianity and paying off German invaders to keep a hold of her throne in Rheged, the sun disappeared from the sky in 536 with a volcanic eruption and 541 CE the first wave of the the black death swept through and when they've only just recovered, bad luck in several forms hits them and the final blow comes when another wave of anglo-saxon invasions slam into Cumbria and when their own hillfort collapses, she decides it will be the end of her life. and the consequences of their inheritances and when her youngest son lays himself on the grass that has grown over her burial barrow and cries until he wakes her.

Why does thou sit upon my grave? Comes from an English folk song where the narrator is a body beneath the ground awoken from death by the sobbing of a loved one.

[unik0rnu]

Yzrahid Highlands - New 310 AP Zone

[EU] Unikornu

[godihatethiswebsite]

Desert Oasis

✽ Johnny "Soap" Mactavish x f!reader (The Mummy AU)

Main Masterlist ✽ Ao3

✽ Part 2 - Cultivating a curious mind

You know what? I blame @dragonnarrative-writes for all of this. It's all their fault for poking this part of my brain in the first place even though I was originally just trying to poke theirs ><

There were only so many places you'd been allowed to go growing up even with a chaperone at your side. Mother brought you up the way any well respected young lady should be, and to be honest you felt much more at home in your skirts and dresses working on your drawings in the parlor than you did climbing over the fence in your backyard like your cousin convinced you to. But your father worried Kyle was improperly rubbing off on you and wanted to find you something to fill your head with where you could still be kept an eye on.

His solution: the Museum of Antiquities in Cairo.

After all, how much trouble could you get into reading about dead guys? At least they wouldn't be trying to chase your skirts as you got older.

Father owned his own shipping company that dealt with the transport of goods and wares, ancient artifacts included. He knew the people who were in charge of the facilities and thought this could be a replacement for the adventures your cousin liked to try to drag you on.

The beautifully painted sarcophagi drew in your imagination like a moth to a flame, chiseled sculptures and pillars depicting ancient beings far different than the god you'd been brought up believing in. And weren't you just the most well behaved little girl when your father brought you along on his business trips. All he had to do was put a book in your hand about the Old Kingdom and you'd stay seated right where he left you until it was time to leave. The drawings in your room turned less from pretty landscapes and fresh vases to imitations of the reliefs you'd seen from photographs of burial chamber walls. Your mother was slightly alarmed at first, but once she saw you still happily keeping up with your piano lessons and needlework she quickly gave in.

Once you were old enough to walk around the city by yourself, you stopped by the museum at least once a week just to spend hours wandering the halls - sometimes more if you noticed a new shipment of wares showing up on your father's ledgers that week slated for delivery. Always so eager to witness the unveiling of new items even if they'd never get put on display. One of the perks of growing up around the loading docks and being a sweet well mannered child to the workers.

You didn't work at the museum with Dr. John Price, but you'd frequented there an awful lot to have come to decent terms with the man. Always gruff, a bit rough around the edges, but boy did he have a mind for antiquities.

He wasn't always the easiest man to deal with; someone who didn't have time for the stupidity that came with being around the uneducated masses during business hours. He'd been working there in some capacity or another since you'd first became a patron, though back in those days he'd been a lot less rigid.

At one point you'd been barred from looking at a book that your father deemed had too much suggestive material in it – it was a tome about Tawaret, goddess of childbirth and fertility – and sent over to your favorite reading chair with something about Pepi II instead. Try as you might you couldn't get into it, mind still lingering on the forbidden subject which was just the latest in your stream of mythology research. You'd been half-heartedly flipping through the pages when a shadow passed you by and casually deposited the desired reading material in your lap, not even bothering to glance your way as he kept moving and turned down another aisle. He was clean shaven back then, but he'd made an impression as a kindred spirit willing to look the other way.

Now almost twenty years later you did your best to stay out of his way and disturb him as little as possible, but every so often you'd be fortunate enough to stumble upon him on a good day where he'd indulge you on certain topics of conversation that flowed smoothly, allowing you to see the lingering passionate twinkle of a younger man hiding behind eyes so full of wisdom and tired experience.

(And if you happened by chance to occassionally pass by a tall, large, tank of a dark robed man waiting patiently for his turn to have an audience with Price on your way out of his office – following you with his deep brown eyes and a cloth cover shrouding the lower half of his face from view – you kept your gaze to the floor and gave him a wide respectful berth, only risking a glance back at the individual long enough to see the broad planes of his back disappearing behind Price's door with a click of the lock)

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[Edited 5/8/24: changed formatting, title, tags, and numbering system]

[y2cow]

A Christmas gift for some good friends of mine~

[thingsdavidlikes]

Wild. by Chris Lakoduk