#neovia

[mutantmorphingpotions]

Talking to a friend who doesn't play Neopets, about Neopets and how Neovia exists in a perpetual state of the early 1900s with gas lamps and stuff while there is a literal visible space station a few hundred miles out of the atmosphere with microwaves, laser guns and we've been to this world's Moon.

[some-call-it-pen]

Neovia and qasala should have their own altador cup teams.

[adobe-outdesign]

shoutout to Neopets for having no consistency with how they handle families re: species

like imagine you're Sophie's mom here and you're ready for your first kid to be a kangaroo thing like yourself or a dragon like your husband and instead it's a dog. And you're like "okay the next one will be a kangaroo thing or a dragon" but no it's a wolf. And THEN you're like "okay it's canines. we have this figured out it's always gonna be canines" and then you have another kid and it's a goat

[neopianbiologyproject]

New Petpetpet discovered!

Closely following the discovery of the Twig, this one is called the "Floof" and has the following description:

This Petpetpet is so fluffy that we had to name it a Floof to convey just how fluffy it really is. It first appeared during Gnorbu Shearing Day and is entirely made of Fluffy Gnorbu wool.

It being "entirely made of Fluffy Gnorbu wool" (Fluffy capitalized?) makes it an Elemental! It's only available in the Almost Abandoned Attic, as well, which leads me to believe its overall habitat is Neovia or the greater Haunted Woods.

Gonna be rough getting our hands on one of these...

[jasper-tarot-reader]

Neopets/Skyrim Tarot: Ace & 6 of Cups

In the Skyrim Tarot, the Suit of Cups is instead depicted as the Suit of Voice. Refer to this post for my broader Minor Arcana suit complaints.

I chose the Ace and Six of each suit for reasons that you will see when we get to the Wands posts, but simply put, the Ace is the embodiment of the suit and the Six is what comes next after the first arc is done (provided you refer to the Ace-to-Five as one arc and Six-to-Ten as the other, splitting the suit evenly down the middle).

The Skyrim Tarot is a pip deck, which visually takes after the Tarot of Marseilles but the meanings are derived from the Rider-Waite-Smith Tarot since that's the most popular type of tarot for divination, as this deck is meant to be used for.

Marina the Water Faerie is also known as the Healing Springs Faerie. Like all Water Faeries, she has a mermaid tail instead of a pair of wings. She is currently in a relationship with Seraphina the Fire Faerie who is also known as the Omelette Faerie and has a Faellie Petpet that Seraphina named Shiver.

Besides the Rainbow Fountain and the Battledome, the Healing Springs is one of the few Faerie-run places that every Neopian knows. Every thirty minutes, she can heal your pets or give you a healing-related potion or a snowball. (Yes, snowballs are weaponized in Neopia. And they're actually pretty good...or they were, back when I was playing.)

Overall, considering Naia the Water Faerie (the Rainbow Fountain one) is the Ten of Cups, it makes sense to start and end the Water suit with Water Faeries.

Gilly the (unclear Colour) Usul is a young girl who was key in the 2006 Neovia "Tale of Woe" plot. Alongside Bruno (who was cursed) and Sophie the Swamp Witch (who are two siblings from a three-child Neovian family), Gilly figured out the origin of Neovia's curse and resurrected the town.

In the Six of Cups, Gilly is lost in the Haunted Woods but isn't afraid (...yet; she spends a lot of time scared in the plot). The candle holders in this image are all designed after the mysterious flower used to lift the curse on Neovia's citizens. As the Little Red Riding Hood of this tale, Gilly took on the role of the well-meaning child who saves the town. I think she is an excellent choice for this card in the Neopets deck.

The Horn of Jurgen Windcaller is, as you would expect, the horn of Jurgen Windcaller. Or at the very least, it was named for him. Insert penis joke so we can move on.

The whole point of it in Skyrim is to be a MacGuffin so we can be introduced to Delphine by a mysterious note. But hey, you can eventually bring it back to the Greybeards. You can also get a dragon soul (or more, if you're quick) by poking its pedestal.

Other than that...it doesn't have a lot going on. It has slightly more lore than the average pip card, but...eh? It's a functional pip depiction. Unlike the other suits, there isn't a second design element beyond the horn and the wind coming from the horn (which counts as part of the overall horn).

[rainbowswirlything]

Ilere of the Woods is, to most residents of the Haunted Woods, a frightful figure--a character featuring in more than one ghost story . As these stories would have it, the reclusive earth faerie was "As deadly as she was beautiful."

Sophie the Swamp Witch is one of the few Neopet denizens of the Haunted Woods who doesn't hold Ilere in frightened awe--and she's not afraid to show it.

And for her part, Ilere seems surprisingly tolerant of the swamp witch's well-known grouchiness. From anyone else, such behavior would seem more likely to end with the offender under a truly nasty curse, if not one more ghost to haunt the woods. But when it comes from Sophie, Ilere is more likely to respond with a raised eyebrow, a calm reply, and an uneventful departure.

If Sophie holds a grudge for what she sees as Ilere's past neglect, Ilere doesn't seem to return it in kind.

Finally, I've gotten around to finishing up that picture I started last November.

To me, Ilere and Sophie have a rather interesting implied relationship.

When Sophie's older brother fled from Neovia with Sophie ten years before the Tale of Woe plot, hoping to find some safe haven from the curse afflicting Neovia, they stumble across the earth faerie Ilere.

Despite her fearful reputation, Ilere offers to bring Sophie to refuge, and though Reggie is at first reluctant, Sophie says that she trusts Ilere.

Shortly thereafter, Ilere escorts Sophie--at this point still very much a child--to a shack in a swamp, points out a chest full of magical books and supplies that she tells Sophie has everything Sophie needs to survive, then vanishes, leaving young Sophie to try to work out how to survive--and teach herself the art of swamp witchery--on her own.

Sophie is, understandably somewhat bitter about this... but she also goes to Ilere for help when she realizes Ilere might have information she needs to undo the curse on Neovia, and she seems to know exactly where to find her.

Ilere, however, is reluctant at first to share said information because she felt it would put Sophie in danger she wasn't strong enough to face. It's only after Sophie demonstrates the strength of her magic that Ilere is willing to tell Sophie about the Spirit of Slumber... but just as Sophie and her companions are about to head out to try and find the Spirit, Ilere tells her "For your own sake... I hope you fail."

For someone who was perfectly willing to leave Sophie, as a child, to fend for herself in the Haunted Woods, Ilere seems rather concerned for Sophie's safety.

And Sophie, too, though she seems to have little affection for the earth faerie, is quick to intervene when Bruno attacks Ilere for her initial refusal to help--though after Ilere, held in the grip of Sophie's magic, acknowledges "You are not as weak as I thought," Sophie also threatens Ilere by saying "If you don't tell us about the Spirit of Slumber, I'll show you just how strong I am."

I think that Ilere, insofar as she's fond of anyone, has a certain fondness for Sophie.

And Sophie, in turn, seems to have a sort of grudging respect for the earth faerie who set her on the path to becoming a swamp witch.

(The "As deadly as she was beautiful" quote comes from the old "Ilere of the Woods" TCG card.)

[ghostmath]

uhhh ok well since im still speedrunning my neopets rennaissance tour,

(feel free to ignore this if you do not neopet)

I’m writing another thing for the neopian times and I need to populate a masquerade ball. if any of y’all neopets players (or former neopets players) are in possession of a character who:

is an adventurous type, and might belong to, say, a guild of explorers (could be more of a scholar or magician type too)

might attend a masquerade ball in Neovia, organized by said guild

you would be ok letting me borrow for a quick cameo

then please let me know! they won’t have a huge part or necessarily any speaking lines (unless you want one), but you can tell me a little bit about who they are and what they would be wearing to a fancy masquerade and I’d be delighted to include them. :3

ideally i’d love to get at least 4-5 characters for this but we’ll see what happens. gonna ask the currently active ntwfers too, but im asking mutuals here first because, like, seriously y’all, even if you don’t play anymore, let me reference your deep cut character/neopet you haven’t fed in 15 years. cmon. cmon. itll be fun

[zafaraagent]

Any other Neovia fans out there

[cloudybori]

I think neovia should have their own yooyuball team

[voltdragoon]

Drawing my neopets characters again,,, anyways here’s klaro syndrac, front neopian of neovias most mid goth band

[ksslr]

another pet of mine, Komissariat! he's a grey yurble from neovia, local tortured poet, and once was an archeologist.

[chiatech]

so cool seeing what people have done with your old pets... when i was a teenager i made this red hissi that was supposed to have a dark and gritty neovia theme, now somebody has made him a cute ice hissi <:-) and they kept his old petpet with the name i gave it!

[artsyarcane]

Good god, ok… I started getting tired around year 10 and I just finished this a few minutes ago (it’s past 3 am). There are a lot of plots at the beginning that don’t differentiate between meta lore plots and world lore plots but they become distinctly separate at year 6. The crossed out dates are because I’d like to come up with month names that don’t sound as infantile as the canonical ones.

Neopets Timeline:

Faeries arrive in Neopia. (Year unknown)

Queen Fyora ascends to the throne and unites the elements. (Year unknown)

Calabrus gifts the faeries a magic bowl and Faerieland is created with the aid of said artifact. (Year still unknown)

Altador gathers his companions. (Year unknown)

City of Altador founded. (Year unknown)

Darkest Faerie betrays Altador and is turned to stone and banished by Queen Fyora and the sorceress Jerdana. (993 SE/BN)

Qasala seemingly abandoned and buried in supernatural sandstorm-Razul’s curse takes hold of the city. (193 SE)

Neovia cursed its residents returning as ghosts once every Halloween. (Year 2 SE)

Faerieland discovered. (approx. Year 1 KE)

Dr. Sloth attempts to take over Neopia by turning neopets into VirtuPets. (Year 2 KE)

Tyrannia and the Chomby are discovered. War breaks out in Tyrannia soon after. (March 20th-May 10th Year 3 KE)

Lost Desert discovered. (June 12th-July 10th Year 3 KE)

Investigation of the murder of King Coltzan III by Princess Sankara. (July 9th-16th Year 3 KE)

Retrieval of Coltzan’s crown. (July 17th-19th Year 3 KE)

Destruction of Maraqua and discovery of Krawk Island. (August 17th-23rd Year 3 KE)

Lord Darigan tries and fails to conquer Meridell. (Year 4 KE)

Mystery island nearly destroyed. (Year 5 KE)

Lord Kass tries and fails to conquer Meridell. Lord Darigan reinstated as the ruler of the Citadel (February 2nd-May 13th Year 6 KE)

Bori discovered and the Bringer of Night defeated. (October 21st-December 22nd Year 6 KE)

Maraqua rediscovered. (March 15th-June 10th Year 7 KE)

Qasala rediscovered and Razul’s curse lifted. (August 30th-November 29th Year 7 KE)

The Darkest Faerie freed and imprisoned again. Altador rejoins Neopia. (November 15th Year 7 KE)

The Wand of Wishing is retrieved and hidden away again. (March 14th Year 8 KE)

Shenkuu discovered. (August 3rd-September 8th Year 8 KE)

Neovia discovered and its curse lifted. (October 3rd-November 21st Year 8 KE)

Roxton A. Colchester III and Co. discover and subsequently lose an island inhabited by giant mutant petpetpets. An event all involved would rather forget. (Year 9 KE)

Dr. Sloth tries and once more fails to conquer Neopia by mutating neopets but differently this time. (Year 10 KE)

Moltara discovered and global warming averted. (Year 11 KE)

Faerieland falls at the hands of the sorceress Xandra. (Year 12 KE)

Krawk island disappears and is reformed in an effort led by Gavril McGill. (Year 13 KE)

First time in over a decade where nothing (officially canonical) of note has happened. (Year 14 KE)

Discovery of Tyrannian obelisk. Obelisk war begins. (Year 15 KE)

Diplomatic crisis at Lost Desert trade summit averted. (Year 16 KE)

Nothing (officially canonical) of note occurs. (Years 17-18 KE)

Darkest Faerie is freed and begins an attempt to take revenge on all Neopia. (February Year 19 KE)

Darkest Faerie is defeated and flees, weakened, into the Haunted Woods. (May Year 20 KE)

Diplomatic tension in the Lost Desert and subsequent rising and quelling of Sakhmet rebellion. (November 19th Year 20-March 2nd Year 21 KE)

Legends and Letters. (Year 21 KE)

Nothing (officially canonical) of note occurs. (Years 22-24 KE)

The faerie Luxinia is discovered on a small piece of Faerieland that survived the fall and freed from a crystal. New Faerieland is founded with Luxinia as mayor. (Year 25 KE)

[adobe-outdesign]

As as huge Haunted Woods fan I've always found Team HW's Altador Cup players kind of lacking, just being a bunch of Neopets painted assorted spooky colors (and one guy painted fire for some reason). I think we need players representing the Deserted Fairground and Neovia respectively. I want like one incredibly sleezy carny that keeps pick-pocketing the players during matches and one Victorian player who refuses to remove her corset under any circumstances and constantly mourns her husband who died under "mysterious circumstances". do you understand my vision

[ship-that-neoship]

Ship: Orion x Dr Landelbrot

Propaganda (From Anonymous): "they're two well-meaning, eccentric scientists that live apart from their respective societies (moltara and neovia) in pursuit of their interests. i think orion would appreciate having someone around who understands and shares his passion for science and using it to make the world a better place, especially since his family disowned him over it."

[castleofthade]

wanna read my unfinished Eliv Thade fanfiction? here you go. ifhte readmore breaks i'm sorry im fixing it as fast as i can

Castle Thade is.. old, it is older than Eliv and his parents, but it was always of their family.

Neovia and The Haunted Woods were once known under a single name, which has become lost to time.

The establishment of the Grand Neovian Coal Mine caused an economic boom in Neovia; most of the population moved to the fledgling town to find work there, leaving little funding for any significant infrastructure upkeep in what is present day Haunted Woods.

With most businesses focused in the successful sister town, the main remaining economic draw of the old village was tourism. Along with the re-establishment of the fairground, the townsfolk who remained embraced the novelties of living in an environment full of ghosts and eerie magic, and over time the abandoned village’s identity became synonymous with The Haunted Woods.

Eliv Thade was born on the cusp of this economic shift. As a child, Castle Thade was the center of the community, and the family often lent space and resources to their numerous neighbors. His mother, Evolly Thade, was a genius scholar who frequently welcomed visitors from near and far come to the estate to pick her mind on new theories and matters of philosophy. Dafét Thade, his father and heir of the family’s company, was similarly popular- though with a more business-minded crowd who sought advice with inventions and investments.  

Eliv was a shy child, coddled by his eccentric parents and never sent to a proper school or encouraged to socialize. He spent a great deal of time doing private studies, or getting lost in the castle's labyrinthine hallways and secret chambers. Exploring his home was a puzzle itself with all of its trick locks and hidden mechanisms, which contributed to and encouraged his love of logic games and clever tricks.

In another life, he could’ve been some sort of sleight of hand magician, but there's a world of difference between "obscuring the answer" and "presenting a problem to be solved." 

The first tragedy of Eliv Thade was when he was three years old and, despite his parents' cautions about this exact scenario, was excitedly sprinting across the halls with a pair of scissors from his mother’s study. The resulting injury and infection from this caused his right eye to stop developing, leaving it tiny and nearsighted. His left eye remained large and beautiful, though would be mistaken for the injured eye post-mortem.  

The second Tragedy of Eliv Thade occurred when he was ten years old; His father died suddenly and violently. Foul play was considered, but a killer was never found. He was too young to fully understand the situation; No matter how much of a prodigy, a ten year old is still a child. Eliv surely felt his absence, but Dafét was rarely home to begin with.

His mother coped with the traumatic loss by forgoing the ambiguous, floweriness of philosophy she once enjoyed, and focusing her interests on things that could be answered in a solid way; If she couldn’t make sense of her husband's death, she would make sense of a riddle or a math problem.

Evolly began to test her son with logic puzzles rather than showing him art and poetry and… affection. Eliv would comfort in these sorts of things,  as they were the few interactions he had with his mother while she grieved, aside from seeing her at dinner. It was around this time that he started creating his own puzzles, both as a game and as a way to spend time with his only parent.  His studies shifted towards anything that could improve his craft.

Aside from this change in dynamic, his childhood continued in relative comfort. Evolly Thade took over her late husband's business and became less involved with the community and more involved in the comfort of numbers and engineering. The castle would empty, little by little, as neighbors and friends felt estranged by the absence of a warm welcome, and more enticed by the rush of money to the neighborhood of the coal mines.

By the time he was 15,  the village of the woods had only a quarter of the population he’d known as a child. The woods itself had begun to overgrow and take over the abandoned properties, and it was starting to feel like there had never been a sizable village at all. 

His mother was a ghost of the woman she once was, the grief took a toll on her body and she could no longer focus on the business. Eliv showed no interest in taking up the mantle, buried as he was in his own studies and creative endeavors. It was passed on to his uncle, a stern kau named Faltheu who loathed his late brother and had only visited once before (as a formality when Eliv was born.) 

 Faltheu cut all financial ties with the widow and her son and never looked back. Both of them were too distracted with their own miserable fixations to protest, and it wasn’t until much later that the family’s well of fortune would threaten to dry.

Evolly Thade vanished before they began to feel the financial strain. She announced, one day, that she was going into the darker woods to find an answer, she would do it alone, and that she would return in 3 days. Her son assumed it was some sort of riddle and didn’t stop this; He figured three days was his time limit to figure out what the game was and complete it. He did eventually realize that his mother was actually, finally speaking to him again, and that some tragedy had occurred in the dangerous forest that grew larger each day.

The reason this answerless tragedy didn’t destroy him was simple- It wasn’t a puzzle, not in the sense that he believed in. A puzzle contained all of the pieces needed to solve it. His mothers disappearance was missing too many pieces, it had random and meaningless elements- it was EMOTIONAL-  It wasn’t a riddle, it was a mystery, and Eliv Thade did not view himself as a detective. 

It did affect him, though. In small and quiet ways, his mothers (presumed) death hardened whatever wonder and joy he felt towards the world around him. The years ground by, each lonelier than the last. There were no more guests, and the small castle staff mostly kept to themselves.

Now an adult at 24,  Eliv Thade’s home was only a landmark in the ghost town of the haunted woods. Only the most stubborn or most suited for the area remained now; Namely the witches, the beasts, and the undead. 

Eliv tried to keep himself busy as he always did- writing and inventing puzzles- But he struggled with the futile nature of creating without an audience. He grew up surrounded by people eager to have their wits tested and to test his own mind, and he did lament that he had been only a child. Moreover he regretted hiding himself away as a child, not establishing himself with the friends and guests of his family, not KEEPING those friends. No one knew who Eliv Thade was. Not in the way people had known previous heirs of Castle Thade.

It didn’t help that the family business, in his uncle Faltheu’s hands, had been driven into the ground with bad financial decisions before he’d turned 18. Everything connected to the Thade family (save for the castle itself) had been destroyed and was fading,  and Eliv fell into a deep existential depression. He lamented aloud how the greater world would never know of his genius!! Neopia was deprived of the greatest mind of their time!! The castle’s staff thought it was very melodramatic, but Mr.Thade and his remaining old wealth kept a roof over their heads, so they kept quiet.

He spent his 20’s and a good part of his 30’s trying to publish books, making numerous miserable trips to Neovia and failing to network. He very much had what it took, he just didn’t know how to sell himself. 

He was offered a job as a puzzle writer for one of the Neovian weekly newspapers, which he humored briefly but eventually found too insulting to keep up with since his boss didn’t appreciate how difficult all his submissions were. Neovians were very easily insulted and didn’t enjoy puzzles that made them feel stupid.

It wasn’t until he met one Mr.Krawley that the course of his life changed. The salesman appeared out of nowhere (as he does) and proposed a business partnership. Krawley, a worldly traveler, would sell the idea of a genius puzzlemaster you could come and challenge to the wider public… In exchange, he would be allowed to sell his own wares and do other shadowy deals with these same guests. Eliv Thade, with not much to lose and while in the fugue of a midlife crisis, agreed without much thought.

At first there was a slow trickle of curious guests, mostly from Neovia, which quickly became a daily stream of strangers from as far as Tyrannia; All of them eager to test their wits and pick the mind of this mysterious man in his mysterious castle. It reminded him exactly of how his home was as a child, and for a time, all was good.

It was around this time that the old fairgrounds, long abandoned from “The Incident” had been re-established by a crew of carnies that popped up from nowhere. There’s a lot of “nowhere” in the haunted woods, so don’t worry about that! Eliv did not care for the carnies and found them anti-intellectual and annoying, and he was insulted to learn that his home and his GREAT MIND was considered an extension of the fair; Just another tourist trap.

As all things go with Mr.Krawley, so did his deal with Eliv Thade. The effects were slower, quieter than the fate that awaited Neovia down the line. You could argue that Krawley didn’t even do anything, and that it was all Thade’s own hubris.  His frustrations with his skills being sold as a novelty, as well as the ever decreasing amount of actually good challenges.. It wore on him. He became apathetic, consumed with ennui, and the bad attitude it nurtured was causing this poisoned well to finally dry. What was that thing his late Father always said? “Life is a game,” wasn’t it? But this game had bored him enough. 

Eliv Thade began to grow dangerous, to himself and to others.