#ehlverse culture

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favorite goddess in the ehlverse for WBW?

hi hello!!! im late answering this bc ive had a deficit of spoons the last couple days, but thank you for sending it in, becca!!!! <3

Okay, SO, I talked about my top two favorite Goddesses here this week as well, but now I want to talk about the runner-up, Luma!!

Luma is the patron of Vigor, Battle, Legends, and Siblinghood, but when talking about her domains, Vigor is also often translated/portrayed as Youth! She's who everyone in the Maelands devotes to until they're ~15, as she's basically the Goddess of Childhood (literally, her indirect titles include The Daughter and The Child (but in Emarye, she's called The Legend!)) and devoting to her is seen as a protective blessing!

One of the reasons I like her so much is because, when I was coming up with what devotion ceremonies looked like, I decided her thing was getting a piercing! So every year you choose to devote to Luma, you get a new earring, lip ring, nose ring, etc. etc. So the longest-devoted Priestesses of hers are these strong old women with so many piercings that their ears sag with the weight!! And these Priestesses are often both bards and super battle-heavy - and because Luma is often depicted with a battleax and a lute, you'll just see these super punk-looking old women around the Ehlverse with a bajillion piercings, fuckoff huge battleaxes, and instruments on their person at random!!

But yeah!! I love Luma, and I love her role in the story as well (Tieling is a Prophet of Luma, the prophecy that led to him being Chosen was granted by Luma to his mother during his birth, and she's the most revered of the Goddesses in Sieril, alongside Erra, hence the Warriors of Luma a.k.a. Lu'Siire) and I could talk about her and the other Goddesses literally all day

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Pax my friend let's talk food for wbw!! Are there any cultural dishes in your world that you feature in your projects? How do food cravings/traditions change as the year goes on? This ask brought to you by me fuckin dying for avgolemono and spanikopita lately btw.

HI ALEX happy wbw!!! I had never heard of either of those dishes before but now I am So Hungry they look so so good :O I hope you get some soon!!!

As for cultural dishes in the Ehlverse,,,,, well. Despite my affinity for food irl, im. not super creative when it comes to food in fiction. There are, so far, exactly two (2) meals I describe in any of my Ehlverse books. One of them is in Whispers and actually relevant to the plot.

The OTHER is a traditional meal that Veratrum cooks for her grandkids when they're in Tal'Ren in Firebreathers! It was mostly borne of me thinking over what kinds of food are available in the bayou, so it's a cuisine with lots of fish, rice, and citrus, as well as naan-like flatbread that I imagine is made from wetland-based grains instead of, like, wheat.

And since my personal WBW engagement challenge today is to draw something for each answer that I can, here's my (admittedly very basic-looking) rendition of that meal!!

As far as holiday foods go, I really should put more thought into that sort of thing. I've been playing with religious worship differences throughout the Ehlverse on the backburner for a while - I think Deltierin would put a lot of importance on food and drink, especially in terms of fasting and feasting and offerings. They'd probably have a period of fasting and a period of feasting each year, though probably not back-to-back. There's probably feast days every couple of months in the Maelands, and two per year in Sieril but they're HUGE and everyone in the land is invited to Tal'Ren. And Emarye probably used to absolutely pop OFF with feasts but with industrialization hitting them at the same time as huge surges in criminal activity that uh. Probably fell off to the wayside a bit.

Thank you for the ask!! <3<3<3

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Hejjj 2 and 6 for the ask game please !

hi kat!! thanks for stopping by!! :D

2. What did you use as inspiration for your worldbuilding (like real-life cultures, animals, famous media, websites, etc.)?

In terms of the Ehlverse, my worldbuilding is inspired by pretty much everything I interact with and learn as I write - there's been lots of inspiration from the real world (especially cultures that I've researched and talked to people about) and from "classical" fantasy elements and how to twist them around to something that feels new!!

I also am always on the hunt for New Things To Learn (I literally watch interesting science videos before bed every night to calm down) and that constant hunt for knowledge tends to leak into my worlds through unexpected turns in writing all the time. e.g., when I first learned about how adrenaline works and how it relates to hysterical strength, that influenced a lot of how Flexing presents/works, and when I was learning about crocodillians and their evolution, that influenced Whiptail dragons and their designs, etc.

But yeah! Mostly real life inspiration, with a helping hand from ADHD and classic fantasy tropes to make something funky :D

6. When and why did you start writing?

The first creative writing I ever did was in third grade, where we were given an assignment to write a story and illustrate it, and I was fixated on that one Dragonology book at the time. And I realized that I could just make up whatever I wanted and make the same kinds of stories I loved, and I never looked back!!

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Happy WBW!! Could you tell me a bit more about the level of technology in your saga? From everything I've read it sounds like a super interesting mix. Any fun details or sciency facts you're particularly proud of for thinking of?

Hi kat!!! thanks for dropping by with this ask, i didn't mean to leave it in the inbox for two weeks but i'm glad i did so i have something super fun to start off with in this catch-up!!!

SO

in the Ehlverse, there's a few different levels of technology going on at once (which is 100% most prevalent in Millennium Saga because they actually interact with multiple different tech levels for plot reasons throughout the books) - and the reasons for these differing levels basically comes down to how prevalent certain magics are in the culture/area we're talking about, because certain Elements, all Sorcery, and most Alchemy manifest in ways that break the physical laws of universe, which breaks things like computers that rely on, say, electricity always flowing in a certain way through the crystals in the motherboard.

(and this got Very Long, as my wbw answers tend to, so it's behind the cut if you want more detail!! thank you again!!! i'll try to remember to hit you up with a double-wbw ask the next time i'm here for it :D)

For instance, let's take Ehlven societies (e.g. the kind we spend the majority of TMS neck-deep in) - every Ehlf is an innate font of Elementalism, and only 2 of the 9 total Elements are guaranteed not to mess with circuitboards, 3 more can be safe if they're used carefully, and the rest are catastrophic and unavoidable in their influence. A metal mage walking too close to a fantasy!iPad would wipe the memory completely with their inherent magnetism, a fire mage touching a keyboard overheats the whole machine, etc. etc.

HOWEVER, this does not apply quite the same to less delicate instruments, like steam engines. In fact, even without the help of Dwarven magic metals, Ehlven societies can get away with running steam trains and other motors without using any fuel, so long as there's either a water mage present to convert liquid to gas or a fire mage to facilitate combustion!

(That's probably one of my favorite science-y things I've done with this system!!)

On the flip side, we have the Lellan crater and the Goblins that call it home. Goblins are a people completely devoid of magic - some would say they're even magic-repellant to a certain extent. And they've been the only people without magic for a very long time.

Long enough for them to be at about the level of your classic hard cyberpunk setting, to compensate for their broader disadvantage in this magical world. And while that doesn't net them any respect when it comes to global politics (which are super magic-centric to the point of even pushing out formerly-magical peoples like the Fair Folk), it certainly makes it easier for them to make advances in science that end up benefiting the whole world. If it weren't for them, the Ehlves probably wouldn't know about, like, evolution, or germ theory, or electricity.

And I talk about it here like they're super separate societies with no overlap, but that's not quite true!! It's just the simple way to talk about it - there's lots of "Little Wasi" districts in Ehlven cities with local power generation and more robust machines and electronics, and there's a not insignificant amount of non-magically-volatile Ehlves in Wasi, Gyr, and the smaller satellite cities of the Lell. And many of the trains that cross the Maelands are of Dwarven make, with self-perpetuating clockwork at their cores.

The only truly isolated people technology-wise are the Fair Folk, whose society functions more like those of wasps, bees, and ants than humans or humanoids. They're nomadic and tend to nest solely in the Godwoods, where they hollow out one tree at a time into a hive, and don't have a huge interest in technology of any kind (or humanoid society at large, honestly). But there's still a few here and there who have stepped away from that society to mingle with humanoid friends!!

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i have the list in the thumbnail document but if anyone's wondering here are the members of all three camps:

AroAllo:

Lakia (Demiro Lesbian)

Iggy (Aro Gay)

Orev (Aro Bi) (side character in whispers who has captured my heart. im love them)

Gab (Greyro Bi)

Veratrum (Aro Bi)

Ano (Aro Lesbian (insofar as aliens with weird genders and sexes can be labelled thusly)) (from the Lost if that wasnt clear from the alien note)

Izak (Aro Pan)

Xiv (Aro Bi (with a leaning towards women)) (side character in goddess-touched. she/her)

Fen (Aro and whatever the equivalent of gay is for. wasp genders) (xe's from the second arc of TMS (and xir pronouns may not stay xe/xir im still undecided in how i want to approach xir culture/its interaction with the rest of the ehlverse))

AlloAce:

Dusk (Ace Gay)

Ember (Demisexual Bi)

Oak (Ace Lesbian)

He Who Loves The Air Too Much (Ace Het (being ace is why he matures into a woman eventually, as is the case for all Deepfolk women)) (dont question why a deepfolk is on here <3)

Sig (Ace Bi) (side character in goddess-touched. he/him)

Viola (Ace Lesbian) (she's from deity complex thats why u dont know her)

Beta (Ace Bi)

AroAce:

Annie

Katya (lorelei's sister that she lives with)

Autumn

Slate (Grey on both counts) (one of gab, annie, and andy's younger brothers)

Actaea (doesn't realize it)

Aralian (they could technically do parthenogenesis but im not doing that on screen cause it feels like a hate crime even if i myself am ace) (the Champion from the Lost)

Hunter (also from deity complex. yes this means the entire cast so far is ace. they/them)

Penn (Demi on both counts) (side character in TMS. they/them)

the Collector (side character in whispers. just a little old man with an interesting hobby :) don't worry about it :))

Ash (Grey on both counts, gay on the few occasions he feels attraction)

so i got a great idea for a series of aro week illustrations over the weekend ft all of my alloaro, alloace, and aroace characters (aka 3 illustrations) and i REALLY like the idea

but

crucially

all three together adds up to 27 characters

even just the alloaro one is 9.

i cannot possibly finish even just that one before the end of the week

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happy wbw! i saw "night market" and immediately went 👀👀 so do tell

:D happy wbw to you, too, scribble!!!

OKAY SO

The Aree Night Market is one of the biggest tourist attractions in the Maelands! It's a huge city-spanning market for the artisans, small farms, and artists in town, and it runs all year, with a special expansion in the summer that brings it out to the piers instead of being confined under the shade of the canopy!!

During the summer, there are lots of paper lanterns and special stalls from traveling traders, some even coming from the further reaches of Emarye. Fireworks are also pretty common during the Festival of Venn, which overlaps with the market during the first and last few weeks of the season!

It's also our first introduction to the world; the first few chapters of Firebreathers are spent almost entirely in the streets during the biggest crowds of the year!

During the rest of the year, though, instead of reaching down to the piers and oceanfront, the market is confined to Main Street beneath the canopy, to keep the name "Night Market" relevant and to display the best of the best artisans of the city :D

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i would like to hear about the funeral rites, if you're still answering wbw asks!

hi!!! thank you for asking!! <3<3<3

before i get too far into this, im just gonna drop a content warning:

CW for detailed discussion of death, funerals, and graves

Okay, so, actual explanation time!!

One of the core beliefs in Mayhism (the main religion of the Maelands, aka the religion most of the FB characters practice) is that Lib, the Goddess of death, rules over the default state of the universe, and that life is always a temporary foray into the material world, like a vacation for your soul! Or sometimes like your soul going to school to learn new things. Everyone's soul wants to learn everything the living world has to offer, and so every soul gets multiple lives, though the life you have each time is unique and special and there's no real way of tracking down your soul again.

Now, with this belief, the souls are in need of someone to steer them back home when they're done, someone who creates all of the souls, and someone who teaches them what they can. This is part of where the Goddesses' titles come from; Lib is the Mother, for she creates souls and welcomes them home after their adventures. Erra is the Guardian, for she houses them while they explore. Vii is the Guide, for she teaches them new things, etc etc.

Another important part of this belief system is that the body doesn't matter nearly as much as the soul itself leaving the world. Thus, there's a longstanding tradition of cremation and the scattering of ashes.

The only problem with that tradition, though, is that those left in the living world need to learn how to grieve, and how to remember. So there are graveyards, more commonly known in-world as Soul Gardens.

These Soul Gardens usually start out as a large, open space of land. For each person who dies and who wants to be remembered, the family or friends pick out a rock to represent them and decorate it, usually with a name or piece of art that defined them. These are called markstones. (The art part is v important too, because Lib is also the Goddess of Art and Love, on top of Death)

Then, over years, the rocks accumulate, usually piled with family or close friends. This takes a long time, but eventually, they become similar to stone gardens. Imagine a large field filled with rocks stacked together and huddled up, each with names and art decorating them and fading away with age. That's a Soul Garden. They're sacred ground, and in the event of tragedy, the rubble of buildings will be transformed into them.

thank you again for the ask!!! i hope u have a lovely day <3<3<3

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happy wbw! tell me a bit about the world of whispers! what is the culture of the country where it takes place compared to the culture of the firebreathers world? are there any tongue in cheek references to the two places being related that we the reader would understand but the characters wouldn't? whispers doesn't get enough love, so tell us all about it <3

happy wbw!!! :D

Whispers and Firebreathers actually take place in the same world!! The biggest difference between them is just that Whispers is in Emarye, where Firebreathers is mostly in the Maelands :D

(Map for reference:)

One other difference between them is that Whispers is set between several years to a decade before Firebreathers!! (probably, don’t quote me on that quite yet a;lsdjf)

There are several references to The Whispers (the crime ring) in Firebreathers!! Ember has actually considered getting help from them before, but didn’t, due to the threat of the debts being too much for them. Also, parts of the climax of Whispers will be mentioned, but unless you read both, you won’t understand them ;)

But!!! In terms of general culture, Emarye and Maelani/Sieril are very different places.

For one thing, Maelani is very densely populated, compared to Emarye, and the people there tend not to travel too far, because travel is fairly inaccessible to most. I mean, a lot of the railroads there have to either go really far out of their way to get around Godtree roots/prairie colonies/desert drifts etc., or avoid routes that would bring that entirely. So, people can be pretty wary of outsiders, and most everyone will have connections throughout the town they live, and if they disappeared, their paper trail would be traceable.

Meanwhile, Emarye has far fewer habitable zones, especially once you get past the southern mountains. A nice side effect of that, though, is the sheer intricacy of the railroads, and that means people travel more, so strangers are expected. And if a stranger just shows up one day in your small town and decides to stay, it’s not that weird. People can fake papers easily, or get on without any just fine.

And, in terms of differences on a country-like scale: Maelani has several different governments that choose to govern people and cities more than land, while still having centralized powers. So, for example, existing in an Ehlven city like Impalfahr will mean you have to follow city laws, but if you’re not an Ehlf, and you don’t live there full time, you’ll go through a non-Ehlven judicial or prosecution system if you break those laws in a significant way!

Emarye, on the other hand, works in a city-state format! So, each city is in control of the area around them, and the people in charge of that city make the laws there, but there’s no central governing force outside of that!

That’s part of why Fowden is Like That™ - the people in charge haven’t been particularly good in decades, and because of the laws they’ve thrown out over time, it’s become a bit of an easy base of operations for crime lords and outlaws.

-

Thank you for the questions, Lila!!! And thank you for letting me rant about the ehlverse again a;sldkjfa;sldfj

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happy wbw!!! you said gender?? you said it gets funky????? i'd love to hear about it :D what are some similarities/differences between gender in the ehlverse and our world?? are there any specified gender roles? and how are they broken?? and what's one thing you added Just Because it's Cool??? (there has to be at least one, right?) wishing you a lovely day~

aaaaaaaa thank you!!! i hope you're having a good day, too!!! <3<3<3

SO gender in the Ehlverse is generally,,, really vaguely defined! because that's how i define it ;alsdkjf so buckle in for an essay!!

Some of the biggest differences between Ehlverse gender and real world gender stem from a lack of visual sexual dimorphism among the different peoples! This goes doubly for Ehlves, Dwarves, and the non-mammalian peoples like Goblins, Drenn, Sirens, Mulari, etc... wow i dont talk about most of them on here, i should do that more

Essentially, if everyone is clothed, it's nearly impossible to tell the difference between an Ehlf with the ability to get pregnant, and an Ehlf who gets others pregnant. Both have nearly-flat chests, fairly wide hips, and no body or facial hair at all. Voices, as in real life, can be very deceiving, whether the person is trans or not. You just... really have to rely on pronouns and explicit gender confirmation to determine social interactions. Of course, this makes gender roles practically nonexistent.

Also, taking into account the majority religion of Mayhism, a lot of positions of importance are generalized with "feminine" construction, like Priestesses, Mothers, and, in Sieril, Warriors. There are plenty of people who fit those categories who are not women or don't use feminine terms in everyday life! Those roles are just Holy, and therefore connected to Goddesses, and femininity.

Dwarves are kind of opposite in their gender-ambiguity; everyone has lots of hair all over, everyone is stout and wide, many have large chests regardless of reproductive ability, etc! And, of course, when you stop being mammalian, surface-level gender indicators start being difficult to parse.

There are, of course, humans in the Ehlverse, and they have a long history of gendered terms being applied based on visual characteristics, but their gender roles are in a similar gray area to today - sure, there are a lot of them that are set up by precedent, but they're broken or bent or just plain ignored in a lot of circumstances. And, being surrounded on all sides by people that ignore that kind of thing, they've adjusted to the idea that gender is a game that everyone loses on occasion!

Where gender gets really funky, though, is over in Deltierin, whose main inhabitants are either Delt Ehlves (already said to be v hard to parse gender-wise) and this people called Mikrona, who are all able to Shift, and do so all the time, ending up looking like living breathing kaleidoscopes of color, features, and body builds. And, in terms of language, use pronouns like age indicators. And all have the ability to be either the one getting pregnant or the one getting someone else pregnant, depending on what they choose to do that day.

(all of this, of course, is because i think messing with gender in non-human peoples to be incredibly entertaining and insightful)

thank you again for the question!!! i love talking gender and society, so this was really fun :D

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happy wbw, pax!! this week i'll ask about something i feel like is often overlooked or underdevloped in fantasy, and of which i'm certainly guilty: food! what's the food like in the ehlverse? what dishes are native to which places? what are the customs around feasting? do families eat together much? what's the food served at holidays?

hi!!! happy wbw!!

If I’m being honest, I don’t tend to work on food much, either!! I do have a few things somewhere in my notes, though!!

- Certain types of dragons are considered poultry, and their meat is about as common as chicken is in our world! There are some that are harder to raise, though, and are considered delicacies, or at least ‘rich people food’!

- The Godwoods are used for a lot of farming, since divots in the bark form natural places for compost to pile up and make mini-fields, if seeded right. Because of the shade, there are a lot of root- and leafy-vegetables in the local diet, particularly potato and carrot equivalents, and purple cabbage! The fields are also really good for grass and grazing animals, so there’s mutton, beef, and chevon, too!

As for customs surrounding feasting, eating with the family, etc., here’s what I have right now:

It’s generally considered weird for people to not eat with their families in Ehlven, Fairy, and Dwarven cultures, because they emphasize familial bonds a lot, and a good portion of that is sharing food and talking over dinner! It’s still considered good manners in Human cultures, too, but otherwise, a lot of little culture clashes happen when Ehlves go to Emarye, and the people there don’t give a single shit if you eat with them or not ;alskdjf

Also, feasts are one of the primary ways to celebrate Erra! Though she doesn’t have any particular day of celebration, birthdays and other life milestones are often taken as personal Erra days, and also as excuses to cook and eat as much food as possible. (We do get to see a little bit of this on Ember and Nimbus’s birthday in Firebreathers, when Gab and his mom insist on making them a bunch of pancakes and meats for breakfast :D)

Otherwise, I don’t really have much? Food on holidays isn’t something I’ve really thought about, but I imagine that each Goddess would prefer something unique! Or, at the very least, something unique to the person... I bet Delta would make you try a new food each year on the days of change :D

Thank you again for the ask!! It’s always nice to be able to rant about the Ehlverse for a while :D

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Happy wbw!! Tell us about courting rituals in the ehlverse (I may have asked about this before forgive me) how do they differ in the different regions? (Read; how would ice court someone vs ember?)

:D happy wbw!! im always down to talk about this stuff, so dont worry about asking multiple times <3<3

In the outer reaches of the Mae Ehlven influence (read: Ember + Gab's upbringing), courting is at once a very serious thing, and also pretty casual? Like, long-term romantic or platonic relationships are the most holy things, so those are taken super super seriously, whereas relationships more based on sexual stuff is uh. Very casual. Friends with benefits are never assumed to be romantic in any way and are, in fact, a pretty common occurance.

Moving on from that though, there are some usual patterns to dating and courtship! In the Maelands, this usually means just spending so much time together. Like. So Much. can u tell my love language is quality time Most of this time is spent sharing hobbies or appreciating the parts of life that differ between partners, connecting with the friends and family of each other, and visiting important places for all parties.

In Sieril, the culture there is a lot more oriented towards poly relationships, as I've mentioned before, and the traditional structure of these relationships is integral to the process! Usually, it's expected for the "warrior" (or one of them) to initiate things. The most common way relationships are initiated is with a grand display of prowess from the warrior end, and lots of fawning from the "mothers" ends.

In the case of our Firebreathers trio, the traditional Rillian way would be Ember showing off their archery, and then asking Gab and Ice out. This is not how it goes, but Ice defaults to waiting for that kind of thing. He's very thrown off when Gab is the one to initiate, and when he does it in the most discreet way possible ;aslkdfj

Thank you for the question!!! i'd go into more detail if i had it a;lsdkjf

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Happy wbw!! For firebreathers, what does vacation culture look like? Who goes, where, when, and how? What are some tourist attractions? How expensive is it?

happy wbw!!!! thank <3<3

Vacation culture in the Ehlverse isn't a very big thing, actually!! Lots of people have travel goals, like going to the Aree night market, or visiting the ruins of Fahrial, but there's not much of a culture around it!

Some cities like Aree tend to get a lot of tourism during certain seasons due to traditional celebrations (like the Festival of Venn) or because it's just the nicest time of the year to see the cool natural things all around (like the Godwoods :D).

Travel and tourism is only as expensive as the transport + provisions, usually! Wanderlust tends to bring people to work on ships in exchange for being able to see the world, and that's payment enough :)

i hope u have a lovely day!!!

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Hey, happy wbw!! I wanna know about the alchemy/magic academy where penn goes. What influence does it have on the rest of the world? It’s in avatica, what is the culture there like? What kinds of things are taught there? Just ramble away about it to your heart’s content

happy WBW to you, too!!!

Okay, so, Penn Fleetwater attended the Avatica University of Alchemy, which is the biggest specialized college the humans of the Ehlverse have! It's everyone's go-to place to learn about Alchemy (potions, not transmutation), Enchantment (what Penn does; basically forging magic into items, like, say, a cloak that is specially sewn to turn into a pair of wings when you fall), and for more combat-minded folks, Runes (blood magic that fucks with space and time on a small scale; this is how u teleport, if ur dedicated, or how you become a speedster for a few seconds in battle).

The main influence the AUA has on a large scale is the training of Enchanters and Alchemists who go on to provide unique, sought-after supplies to the world! Since Alchemy and Enchantment are learnable magics, and have nothing to do with figurative blood, anyone can theoretically attend and learn the ways of the craft. This also leads to apprenticeships for more minor learning opportunities; most people who attend the AUA end up becoming Magic Chemistry Grad Students, but the basics are easy enough to teach to a layman.

The culture in Avatica is actually quite chill! Because of the way their government is set up (which i'm calling a recursive democracy) everyone has a very good sense of what's going on on a grand scale at all times, and if they don't like it, it's pretty easy to voice those complaints and have them heard/addressed. There’s a lot of people in a fairly cramped space within the walls, and even more in the surrounding area outside the walls, so there are occasional fights breaking out, but the human culture is much more persistent on talking through problems. Arthur has set a good precedent a;sldfjk

Thank you again for the questions!! <3<3<3

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happy wbw!! what do night and day mean in the ehlverse? are there nightly/daily rituals or traditions? do people worship goddesses of the moon/sun day/night? is there a nocturnal or diurnal culture? those who physically can't be out in the day/night?

happy wbw to you, too, lila!! thank u for sending this in <3<3<3

To be honest, I haven't built up many daily rituals/traditions/etc!! I know that particularly devout Mayhists and a lot of the more religious people up in Emarye tend to pray at least once a day to their Goddess of choice or devotion, but that can be done at whatever time you choose, and isn't a requirement by any means!

HOWEVER there are some interesting things about the other questions here!!

First of all, because this is something I hadn't really thought about until now: the sun and the moons don't have their own deities, for the most part!! Luma is generally seen as the Goddess of all light, including those, and though the sun may be Hio Greyheart in some Emaryan sects, he's less of a god, and more of a tragic hero. And day and night are ruled by Delta, because they're an eternal cycle between states of the world!

Now, on to nocturnal/diurnal culture:

In the Godwoods, especially close to the trees, there's not much distinction between day and night. The shade under the canopy is often said to be "perpetual night", and mist and fog trapped beneath the leaves often mean that the sparser areas are still pretty overcast all the time! This means that much of the time, people operate on their own schedules there. Some more isolated places are entirely offset from the rest of the world in terms of sleep, waking up around 3pm and going to bed around their unseeable sunrise!

In coastal cities like Aree, where you can definitely see the sky, but are still trapped in shade most of the time, it's common for people living in the darker residential districts to have a thriving nightlife, with shops and taverns and all necessities open at all hours! People living closer to the harbor will sometimes go towards the inner city to have a good night out, and we even see this in action in the first few chapters of Firebreathers! (hello, night market! thank u for starting the plot)

As for people who might not be able to be up and about during certain parts of the day: Vampirism definitely makes it difficult for those affected to be out in sunlight! You'll get a wicked sunburn, and depending on how long it's been since infection, you might also trigger a bloodlust episode. This is why Vampiric people are so pale in my world - they have no safe way to be in the sun for long. It's also why they carry parasols all the time. They deserve to be outside, they just don't want to get burned :)

Coincidentally, this means the Godwoods are a very good place for Vampires to live!

There are also some Goblin cities that completely shut down after dark, though that's more due to the environment than physical ability! Most everything is solar powered, and there are nocturnal insects that transfer some nasty diseases, and really, it's a better idea to just stay inside :)

Thank you again for the ask!!! <3<3<3<3

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happy wbw! do tell about funeral traditions! are there wakes followed by a service? is there color or plant symbolism? tell me everything i'm very curious

AH HELLO HAPPY WBW i just answered another WBW ask about this before this came in </3

That one was mostly about the grave markers, though, so I'll go a bit more in depth on the funeral stuff itself now!!! :D

CW for in-depth talk of death and funerals

Funerals in Mayhism are often a lot less formal than they are irl! For one thing, there's no funeral industry to influence things like there is in this wonderful world of ours (/s; i stumbled upon the uh. less than stellar practices of the industry while doing research for this the other day), and in Mayhism, the mortal body is much less important than the soul that inhabited it, so there aren't, like, caskets and wakes and embalming.

Instead, there's a customary period of mourning (people try to keep it in multiples of six, bc of the Goddesses + that being Lib's lucky number; so 6 days, 6 weeks, 6 months. usually not 6 years but some people have it Rough so they arent judged), and a cremation sometime within the first 6 days. Then, it's customary to scatter the ashes in a place of great importance to the person when they lived.

Next, though, is the relatively unique part: the family and/or friends of the deceased will come together to find a rock to represent their loved one. Usually, people choose the texture, base color, and shape based on their personality. Bigger rocks represent more life lived, though that's not always measured in years.

Then, they'll decorate it. Some people paint, others carve, still others lay tributes on them. It's customary to put the person's preferred name and titles before anything else. But it's important to make a whole art piece out of the stone, because Lib is the Goddess of Death, but also Art and Love. You show your love through art, and that art lasts through lifetimes and many, many loved ones to come.

These stones are called markstones, and they rest in Soul Gardens full of other markstones and people's tributes to their loved ones. Piles of markstones are generally made of family, whether they're born or found.

Traditional mourning colors vary by people! Mae Ehlves usually wear white and red. Humans tend to wear black. Dwarves, dark blue. Fairies are a bit unique, in that they wear a dark color if the person died happily, and a bright one if they died in pain or sorrow. Dark colors, for them, are a sign of celebration of a life well-lived, and pastels are a symbol of mourning and commiseration.

Thank you again for the ask!! This stuff is v important in firebreathers especially, and im glad other people find it interesting :D

[magic-is-something-we-create]

happy wbw!! the competitive public speaking devil on my shoulder is whispering "ask about econ ask about econ" so here goes :D (feel free to focus on any specific area!!) how is the economy structured?? what are some common imports/exports?? how does the "average person" make money and how is it different across different social classes?? and lastly, are any of the economic structures different from each other (and how)?? have a wonderful day~

;ASLDKJFAFLJ happy wbw to you, too, rose!! i am suddenly very glad i took an AP Econ course so i actually know enough to answer this a;sldfkj

Seeing as I'm most familiar with the Emaryans on this front, we'll go over them!!

The Emaryan economy is structured most like the barely-checked capitalism of the early 1900s - there's no real minimum wage, but children aren't allowed to work physically-endangering jobs, and most people are paid equally because there's not really any concept of misogyny or racism. It's just that the employer decides what that pay is, and there's not a lot of effort to change that in any of the city-states.

Common imports for the southern reaches of Emarye tend to be spices, dyes, and the magical alloys of the Glittergale Forges! Lots of Emaryan technology is on a similar level to the Dwarves, and they use lots of Vigormetal and Shieldmetal in their trains and guns, as those keep things moving and working properly for much longer than regular metals would.

Emarye's biggest exports tend to be furs, jewellery, and a tobacco-like drug that's exclusive to the environment up there! I'm still coming up with the name, but the one I'm using right now is Nightbreath, because it's made from the bark of specific trees of the Nightwoods, and it's used primarily in a pipe or cigarette form.

Your average person is usually part of a family business, a miner/hunter/laborer, or involved in the continent-wide industries of the press or the railroads! Higher class people tend to work in the government or in larger mercantile companies. Some even manage trade routes, especially in the harbors of Myshari, and the highest of the upper class are usually the representatives or leaders of the city-states they call home.

Their economy is different from others in the world because they are much more industry-based and capitalistic than other governments, even including the god-awful economy that has taken root in the reaches of the Mae Ehlven government. It's part of the reason the Whispers have been able to gain a foothold - more people need help and financial aid in Emarye than anywhere else, and when you can exploit that for your own gain while still providing better aid than the government, well... It's not a recipe for good things.

Thank you again for the ask!!! I hope I didn't bore you!! <3<3