#llayad

[tsyllaes]

MEERKAT.

I have nothing else to add.

[annarti]

Llayad has sheep, which are basically the Afrikaner sheep (dark one) native to South Africa and the damara sheep (white one) native to Namibia. Both geared for living in the desert, they have fat tails which function like a camel's hump, and they're a particular delicacy to Llayans. Their hide makes for particularly soft leather and is used as gloves and soft shoes. The rams of both breeds have curly horns, which continue to grow through the animal's life. After their death, the horn is used for anything from buttons to serving spoons.

The wooly one is farmed in the mountains, where their wool is used as both the fibre and as the floofy hide for lining boots and such. They have short hair in summer, not as short as the plains breed but enough to keep them cook, then it thickens out to dense wool in winter before being shed in spring. They get brushed every day as they're moulting and their wool collected to be washed and spun as fibre or matted into felt. The hairs are thinner and softer than real-world sheep just cos I find wool can be kind of itchy :< also in a world where they have marsupial fur as a standard soft textile, sheep have something to live up to.

The sleek one is farmed on the plains and is just farmed for meat and hide.

[tsyllaes]

I didn’t think glass stuff was a Thing until like the middle ages so I’d totally written it off as an option in Tsyllaes, so. Clearly I need to do a little more research into ancient glass.

Glass pomegranate. Greek, Hellenistic period, 2nd c.BC. Phoenix Museum.

[tsyllaes]

The zahnenzaun, or fence of teeth, is a semi-mythical creature living in the Llayan Great Lake. It's seen rarely enough that nobody knows what it looks like, just general impressions of brown fins and the holy shit teeth fencing off that gaping maw. It has been known to attack people, lending credence to its existence, but it still has almost Loch Ness Monster standing among those who don't live on the Great Lake.

In reality, the zahnenzaun is a freshwater shark, a bit smaller than a great white and a bit of a cross between a wobbegong and an eel, not much more than a mouth with a tail. It lives on the lake bottom where it feeds on other bottom feeders, out where the water is quite deep. It's mostly an ambush predator, hiding amongst the seaweed before launching itself in that way sea creatures do and taking down its prey. Very occasionally, when it hasn't eaten in a while and it's REALLY hungry, it'll pursue its prey up to the surface and breach the surface with a great gnashing of teeth before disappearing back to the depths. If it sees a fisher's legs standing there in the shallows, then so much easier for the zahnenzaun. As with saltwater sharks, though, they don't like the taste of humans so they'll invariably spit them out and swim away.

[tsyllaes]

There's really nothing to say about this one, it's a butterfly :D In my favourite colour combination of citrus colours :D I hadn't yet made an insect for Llayad, was thinking of Christmas beetles, or a fuzzy wuzzy something, or a butterfly cos I hadn't done one yet, then discovered that fluffy beetles are in fact a thing and they're so cute I won't top them, so butterfly it is.

This one's the male, with the female being slightly larger but duller and with a second of the small tails instead of the full ribbons.

[tsyllaes]

MORDVOGEL.

I've now drawn all the creatures I've already stuck into Llayad, so now I'm up to the kind of fleshing them out part, creating more critters to throw into the narative when I need. One of those is another bird, because I've only got the flamingo and hummingbird so far. So I was thinking of a bird of prey, except I've already got the griffin filling that role, and why am I going to stick an eagle in the sky when I can soar a griffin through there? So next I was thinking maybe a flightless bird. Some sort of ostrich, moa, emu, cassowary type thing… and because I already had birds of prey on the mind… cassowaries are already evil murder birds… why not make it a proper, truly legit murder bird and make a flightless bird of prey? I google translated murder bird into German, because Llayad is the Barossa but make it Africa, and it spat out mordvogel and I was sold.

The mordvogel is, obviously, a terrifying creature. It has an eagle's beak, a velociraptor's hooked toe because why the shit not, all fused onto an emu's body that can run at 60kph and is one of the fastest creatures in Tsyllaes. They're territorial birds, solitary until the breeding season, when they pair up and raise their chicks as a pair. Both parents equally share the roles of sitting on the eggs/chicks and hunting as well as teaching the chicks to hunt. Once the chicks are grown enough to go out on their own, the parents separate with the female keeping the same territory while the male goes to find a new mate.

They hunt by sitting down in the grass of the savanna and scanning through the grass for a likely victim. They'll then launch off the ground and sprint after their quarry. When they catch up, they jump up on the prey's back and dig in with those massive claws and beak, ultimately aiming to claw the throat open and tear it to shreds like an eagle. Both extremely agile and with huge stamina reserves, the mordvogel can run at top speed for way longer than any of its potential prey animals. If it gets its sights set on you, you are stuffed. Just show it your neck and hope it gets it over with quickly.

[tsyllaes]

Hella inspo. I have been thinking for ages about making llayan clothes be inspired by butterflies and perhaps other insects. I want it, preciousss.

BIBIAN BLUE Butterflies Collection if you want to support this blog consider donating to: ko-fi.com/fashionrunways

[tsyllaes]

Wildebeest are the cattle of Llayad, living in farmed herds as well as the 100,000+ wild herds. The farmed herds of a few hundred to a few thousand migrate with the wild herds, and the drovers work to protect their herd from predators until they reach their northern farms. Groups of nomadic hunters will often also work to protect wild herds on which they live.

[tsyllaes]

LEAF DRAGONS! I've been really looking forward to drawing these little guys <3 They can grow to be huge, with the oldest, Oak, the size of a small forest, but these ones are just little, the thickness of your index finger. Llayan dragons all share their appearance with the trees around them.

I always associate Llayad with golden colours, therefore autumn, but deciduous trees from Australia are thin on the ground (there are two, one of which is subtropical) and I've not found one at all in South Africa. The single temperate deciduous tree I've got is the tanglefoot fagus, represented by the middle dragon here. Llayans therefore refer to autumn as the 'turning of the fagus.' There are three other related faguses (fagi? idk), all of which are evergreen and one of which is actually Kiwi, but screw you I'm bringing them into Llayad and making them deciduous: the myrtle fagus, flat-leafed fagus and the silver fagus.

Red moulmein cedar, represented by the top dragon, is the one that's technically subtropical but I'm stretching it into the Llayan mountains so it can also be temperate. Ditto the white lilac, which is more of a tropical tree that goes gold when it feels like it (so far as I can tell). There's one next to the cafe I often have lunch at and I had no idea it was Australian. Definitely not native to my area but there you go, Llayad can have them.

Finally the, almond of flame, represented by the bottom dragon, is again a straight up tropical tree I'm making temperate, native to south-east Asia so y'know what it counts. That's as native 'deciduous' as I've managed to get.

This is all relevant to the dragons, because the deciduous ones will turn to autumn colours and subsequently lose their leaves in winter, so they can no longer fly until they get new bright green growth in spring. They have seedpods which grow at the tip of their tails, which they'll then drop in the ground and let it grow into a tiny new sapling of a new dragon!

Dragons are very much creatures of magic, nothing to do with fire (though, idk, maybe those which do well with fire and need it to germinate seeds do make fire) but they have some connection with the wind and the weather. I know exactly what that connection is but that's spoilers, so shh. They communicate with twists of wind around the ankles, an uncomfortable breeze up the back of the neck or a soft waft through the hair, up to destructive gales and dark clouds full of lightning.

They may or may not be related to the sea dragons of Tsayth, who can tell?

[tsyllaes]

Fire Gardens at the Adelaide Botanic Gardens, part of Illuminate Adelaide 2024

I’d wanted to go last year, too, but the ticketed Illuminate Adelaide events are pricey enough that really only picking one per season makes sense, so I did the Zoo last year. This year, Fire Gardens! Did exactly what it said on the tin, fire in the Botanic Gardens, and did not disappoint. My phone was atrocious at picking up anything—the fire was over-exposed white nothing and everything else was either black or smoke—so I’ve just nabbed marketing/editorial pics from reviews etc. I’m including them here because the entire event is a gallery with fire as the medium; the perfect way to incorporate fire into Tsyllaes in a more unique way than how I’m accustomed to experiencing it.

Each exhibit was a fiery work of art. Cages of burning coals over the water to reflect in the ripples that kinda looked like burning trees, terracotta pots filled with lovely scented oil and suspended from tree branches, across the avenue of Moreton Bay figs like a fire cathedral and water fountains. Most of the exhibits were these pots in purpose-built structures, like an orb, a spinning helix, a series of spinning circles one inside the other. There were more mechanical ones, like the one we’re calling the fire squid at the bottom, which opened and closed kinda like a flower and, when it closed fully, a jet of oil/fuel/whatever shot up the middle, rained down on the pots and went FWOOSH.

In the tropical greenhouse, there were smaller candles in metal lotus flowers on the water and many more suspended like ghosts in white singlets so you walk through them on the raised walkway. One of my favourites were the chimneys, 3m-ish tall steel chimneys with a pot of burning oil at the bottom, so the chimney would draw the flame all the way to the top. The steel itself was so hot it glowed from almost white-hot at the bottom through yellow, orange and ruby red about halfway up, at which point the ‘cooler’ steel had been carved out with patterns that’d light up from the fire drawing up through the chimney inside. This was the point at which I realised Raykin could totally do that, especially at the palace. Where your plants are pretty minimal, and the people are already staying up late and getting up before sunrise because the heat of the day is too much, why not make your gardens from fire?

[tsyllaes]

Some extra starting points for fortune teller inspo. See where this gets me to properly structure Llayad's system!

Hi guys! I'm collecting interesting ideas together about destiny, prophecy, fate, fortune telling, all that sort of stuff. I'm looking to incorporate it into my story but not the same old, same old. Oddly difficult to research on Tumblr or Google as there's a game called Destiny and an animé called Fate. What interesting ways have you--and, indeed, your readers--seen destiny et al implemented in fantasy? I'll take any and all, including interesting writing prompts!

Feral: This isn’t really a worldbuilding question, which is what we deal in. However, it is a researching question, and as researching is an important step in worldbuilding, I think I have some ideas for you. One, search from another computer, like a public library computer; Google learns from what you search to help refine the algorithm, so switching up the computer that you use can produce different top results. If Google’s algorithm still isn’t helping, try websites that cater specifically to writers. Like TV Tropes. Just including “trope” in the search criteria on Google will usually bring up either TV Tropes or other websites talking about fiction that uses the ideas you’re interested in. TV Tropes also specifically includes “subversions,” “inversions,” and “aversions,” which might be helpful to your specific inquiry.

Fate and Prophecy Tropes Masterlist

Some top/popular tropes:

You Can’t Fight Fate

Immune to Fate

Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny

Because Destiny Says So

Screw Destiny

Winds of Destiny, Change

The Prophecy

Prophecy Twist

Self-Fulfilling Prophecy

Self-Defeating Prophecy

The Chosen One

Constablewrites: Since Feral beat me to the tropes, I’ll add that most of these tropes and subtropes are individually Older Than Dirt. Fate and destiny are things that have fascinated humankind since we started figuring out causality. The surviving literature we have from ancient Greece and Rome is especially preoccupied with it. So trying to make yours 100% original will be… challenging. And unnecessary! You can still riff on the concepts even if it’s an angle that’s been explored before, because you’ll be bringing elements to the table that will make yours unique.

Delta: Since it is virtually impossible to do something totally new, try thinking about the specific tropes you’re not a fan of/are tired of seeing in media, and simply avoiding them or finding new interpretations of them. Tired of “the chosen one” trope? Write a “chosen one shirks his destiny and ragtag group of five must pick it up for him” story. Even something as simple as that can help make a story feel different or unique or “fresh” to both you, the writer, and your audience.

[tsyllaes]

NAME Prince Domasson WHO IS THIS PERSON Adoptive son of Crown Princess Evelandel and Crown Prince Jeorgenig of Llayad GENDER Male AGE 5

Llayad has a tradition of adoption, most especially amongst the nobility and, of course, same sex couples because they haven't invented IVF yet. Evelandel herself was adopted (new info since I created her), not because she was an orphan but because she was born on the most auspicious day ever and that's clearly going to make a good queen. Her whole family came to live at Wensleydale Castle with her, so she still has both her parents, as well as the king and queen as adoptive parents. She therefore always intended on adopting a child, though she did so traditionally by adopting an orphan.

Domasson was adopted at age three, after his mother died giving birth to who would have been his baby brother, and his father, idk, got some disease or something. He knew he was gonna die, heard the crown princess was looking to adopt, and took his son to the castle. Evelandel took little Domasson in and allowed his father to live there until he inevitably carked it.

Domasson himself is a happy, bouncy kid, though he does get the sads on occasion and cries for his daddy, mostly when he's alone in his bed at night. It's been happening less and less as time goes on, though, and he's recently started calling Evelandel and Jeorgenig Mama and Papa, so progress is happening. Also he has ADHD because why not.

NAME Prince Nicolinaus WHO IS THIS PERSON Son of Crown Princess Evelandel and Crown Prince Jeorgenig of Llayad GENDER Male AGE 6

Nicolinaus is a serious young man because I haven't got one yet amongst the Llayan kids. He especially wants his big sister, who's next in line after Mama to the throne, to be a bit more serious about her responsibility. Boy needs to lighten up more, because the reality is the king and queen of Llayad don't do much. He'll probably end up on the council when he's old enough, and Annakarina will be stoked to have him.

[tsyllaes]

Time for the final art of the Big Book of Stuff, about a dozen headshots for characters. They're all pretty random and, plot-wise, extremely minor, so I'll group those together who make sense, starting with Sebastien and Florien! Sebastien is Sallie's, and in hindsight his eyes might be a bit wonky. I do quite love his shirt and hair, tho.

NAME Sebastien WHO IS THIS PERSON Sebastien belongs to Sallie! He was created to be a boyfriend for Kurae. Lucibella is his little sister GENDER Male AGE idk, like, early 30s? We never gave him an age, I don't think.

Sebastien was a chef in a Llayan castle, which is the dream job of any Llayan chef because of the financial security and also your budget is huge and of course you have to at least taste everything you're making. The best nobility will even let you eat the same stuff you're making for them, omg. For Seb, though, he ended up with extremely picky eaters for employers. Sucks arse. When his parents died, they left their inheritance to Sebastien's older brother, Florien, who used the money to move them all to Ni-Yana where Seb could open a restaurant where his food would be appreciated.

For this, Seb is eternally grateful. He spends most of his life caring for his critically ill big brother, the rest of the time working on new recipes and building the restaurant he's always aware is owned by said brother. It's a hard, hectic, literally thankless life, until finally opening night arrives. One of his patrons, who is there at the opening of every new restaurant in Ni-Yana, is King's Own swordsman, Kurae. He's quiet, unobtrusive, but Seb can tell he likes what he's served. He comes back, again and again. He brings the other swordies to show off this new, Llayan restaurant.

After, like, three years, Sebastien finally approaches him. In all this time, Kurae's never ordered wine with his meal, only ever Raykinian beer, so Seb offers him wine. Kurae allows it. At the end of the night, Seb offers him a kiss. Kurae allows it. And there was much rejoicing =3

Florien is Ku's! I originally had him properly pallid and grey, but he looked more zombie, more dead than chronically ill, so I gave him a bit of a fever-induced flush to his cheeks and some sweaty shine, cos it's a lot of work being in constant pain. Also stringy, sickly hair. Still a handsome man, though.

NAME Florien WHO IS THIS PERSON Florien belongs to Saku! He's Sebastien's and Lucibella's older brother. GENDER Male AGE A few years older than Sebastien

Florien has some unidentified illness which has him in constant pain. Yamin has tried healing him, but whatever it is basically just constantly eats at his flesh, so Yamin's healing will give him relief for like ten minutes, but the added pain of the actual healing process lingers (Yamin calls it the memory of pain) for long enough that it pretty much means nothing. Until she can figure out what the actual illness is, all she can heal is his symptoms, so. Suckage.

The constant pain gives Florien one hell of a mean streak. He has no filter, no concept of the work Seb puts into caring for him or the sacrifices he makes in his own life to keep Florien as comfortable as he can be. Seb reminds himself Florien's in constant pain, reminds himself of the sacrifices Florien has made just so Seb can follow his own dreams, but jesum christmas it's hard.

[tsyllaes]

I know I've been doing oils for the other religious art, but I just wanted to draw the Llayan horoscopes in medieval style because it amuses me =3 The basis for the signs came from three sets of opposite character traits: extrovert/introvert, relaxed/alert and cautious/impulsive, then mixing and matching those to create the eight unique signs and matching a creature to them. Extra flavour then just comes from how the creature itself behaves in the wild.

Llayans also believe in reincarnation, and the sign you are in this life indicates what animal you'll be reborn as in your next. This conveniently explains away why your personality may not perfectly match your sign, cos it just means you were a different animal in your past life.

MEERKAT | Early Summer Extrovert, alert, cautious Meerkats are extremely family-oriented, often having large families and many children, because they love children. They can tend towards anxiety, when the alert and cautious interact a bit too strongly, but they're always willing to help and always putting others before themselves.

SNAKE | Late Summer Introvert, alert, cautious Snakes tend to be quiet and patient people, but will strike with enough provocation. They like their alone time and, in bigger groups of people, tend to sit and listen rather than participate in conversation. Mithé is a snek.

GRIFFIN | Early Autumn Extrovert, relaxed, impulsive Griffins are extremely loyal to their friends often to the point of being blind to their faults. They can be a little naïve but mostly they're just awesome friends to have. Lynnlita is a griffin.

WOLF | Late Autumn Extrovert, relaxed, cautious Very strong family bonds, strong loyalty to friends, optimistic and probably a bit too naïve and trusting, possibly to the point of being outright stupid but they're loveable idiots.

BAT | Early Winter Introvert, alert, impulsive Bats live the night life, sleeping in late and staying up into the night. They can feel a little distant on first meeting and it can take a while for them to open up, but once they do you'll feel special to be in their inner circle. Bats are homebodies and often have lovely homes.

LEOPARD | Late Winter Introvert, relaxed, cautious Leopards don't waste their words, they're quiet but when they speak they're worth listening to. They have phenomenal patience, but once it wears thin you'll want to get out of their way. Also brilliant hunters, whatever context that means in people. The twins are leopards.

HUMMINGBIRD | Early Spring Extrovert, alert, impulsive Hummingbirds are always on the go and find it hard to sit still or relax. They love being in nature, often having jobs in the garden or floristry or something. They like shiny things =3 Assili is a hummingbird.

RIGAFFE | Late Spring Introvert, relaxed, impulsive Rigaffes tend to be friends with everyone wherever they go, but very rarely on a deep level as they don't like sharing. They're social butterflies. They will always try their hardest to be the absolute best and can be perfectionists and, if they get it right, they will absolutely lord it over you. Nol is a rigaffe.

DRAGON | Equinox and Solstice Personality a combination of the signs on either side of the solstice Dragons are seen as the particularly auspicious sign. Those born on a full moon are silver dragons, and a golden dragon is born on a golden full moon, an extremely rare event. Lynnlita's eldest sister, Evelandel, was born under a golden dragon. She was adopted into the royal family because of this and, as the eldest, is next in line to the throne.

[tsyllaes]

Omg this is what I very, very originally envisioned for Llayad: clothing inspired by butterflies (and to a lesser extent, birds and other flying creatures)

Butterfly Costume

House of Worth

c.1912

Whitaker Auctions

[tsyllaes]

This feels like the Most Fantasy I've drawn, and I've done dragons and griffins. This is a battle turtle, which lives in the Llayan Great Lake. The name comes from back in the day when Llayad was a more warring nation and they'd use their shells as shields. Whole lot of leafy seadragon-esque fins floating around them for camouflage, and freshwater mosses grow on their shells so they can really blend in with the rocks on the lake floor. They have a long helmet so when they draw their head in they have an extra spike sticking out, more spikes on their shells, a long hooked beak and frigging sawblades of scales on their front fins, but they're not carnivorous. This is aaaaall defensive, because something else lives in the Great Lake, oooooooOOOOOOOOooooooooooo.

They're also, predictably, a delicacy in Llayad, but it's a criminal offence to raid their egg nests.