#world: the land of hyrule

[muses-of-the-memory]

Happy 13th Anniversary, Skyward Sword

Today is the 13th Anniversary to...

The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword!

This Legend of Zelda was supposedly the first game before Link and Zelda had their adventures in the Land of Hyrule we know of today.

Not only that, but this game featured the debut of Fi, the Spirit of the Goddess Sword,

and Ghirahim, the Demon Lord that Link faced time and again during this adventure.

[muses-of-the-memory]

Link and the Oracles

Ages, Secrets, and Seasons~

[rawliverandgoronspice]

anyways, still deeply invested into my read of Ganondorf being an immense bully to children partially because, in a way, he rationalizes that putting children through the grinder is baaaasically kind of helping them to grow up faster, in a throwing you into the river to teach you how to swim kind of way, and if they can't handle the grinder, they were weak and it's on them and they can either suck it up and try harder, or get wrecked and die

and obviously that says absolutely nothing about how his own upbringing may have been handled, right twinrova, nor anything about how he may have buried a profound bitterness about the fact he was never really allowed a childhood of his own, and it's not fair others, especially hylians, get to spend their own carefree.

of course not.

[autumnoakes]

hi im ranting (positively! this game kills me but in a good way) about breath of the wild again

i know it's controversial but i love the way the story of the game is told. because you start the game in the middle, perhaps near the end, of the story. the game is entirely through link's perspective and he wakes up knowing and remembering nothing. in turn, the player starts off knowing nothing. the past is revealed as the story goes along, and the player learns about the past and about the land as link does. there are little tidbits about hyrule and about the calamity scattered across the land. an old woman in hateno village tells you of an age of desolation that she grew up in. the travellers you see on the road are younger people because they're described by older characters as more bold, whereas the older characters grew up being told to never leave the village, it's too dangerous outside (compare this even to tears of the kingdom, where travellers are more common because the land has been safer. even older characters have left their home to travel elsewhere (not including the lurelin villagers)). battlefields are still strewn with old rusty weapons and deactivated guardians that no one but monsters will go near. myths and legends about the princess and hero have been passed down, to the point where their legitmacy is questioned and everyone has a different opinion on them.

it's environmental storytelling. it's things like seeing drawings and a bow in zelda's study and seeing a child reading a storybook with a hero that wears a blue tunic similar to link's. it's the stories that the villagers share about old myths that turn out to be true. it's the ruins scattered across the land, long since overtaken by monster camps but still unmistakably being houses that people once lived in. it's the utter lack of civilization anywhere remotely near the castle and the feeling of dread in the ruins of the town that surrounds it. it's a kingdom entrenched in its past, with no ability to move away from it until the calamity is finally defeated.

[friendlyheartless]

“Well, to tell you the truth… it’s the darkness in my heart.” Bubbles said looking down. “Snipes and I thought helping others could help turn human again.”

The pink Bouncywild looks at Linkle from above the trees, and start to follow her.

Linkle was not aware of the heartless following in the treetops. She was looking at a map and trying to navigate her way through. Poorly. She was very lost.

[wutheringmights]

For CTB’s 3rd anniversary (holy crap!!!), I’d like to ask if there’s any fun/interesting lore u wish u could naturally add in, but haven’t had the opportunity to do so yet?

As you could probably guess with STP, I have so many ideas for New Hyrule that I will probably never be able to convey in CTB proper. STP only scratched the surface of all the little cultural differences that make New Hyrule different from Warriors's Hyrule.

Actually, there's a lot of tiny cultural things I would love to delve into more with all the various Hyrules across the eras that I wish I could explore.

Here's a few:

Skyloft has a lot of Greek trappings, such as valuing Gladiator-esque fights and masked theater productions as entertainment. Skyloft is also freaking huge, with multiple sky island clusters making various communities across the sky. Sky's parents are actually still alive, but they live far away from him and he hasn't had the chance to visit in years.

Four's Hyrule has very little concept of the Triforce, but the myth of the Master Sword is fairly prevalent across his time and is conflated with the myth of the Picori sword; his Hyrule is also the smallest with it being more a fief than an actual kingdom.

Even after stopping Ganondorf, tensions between tribes is still really intense in Time's era. The memory of the civil war / the Unification War is still recent and every side is still bitter about the outcome.

Twilight's era is the most similar to Warriors, with stark class differences and plenty of newly acquired land. Being from Ordon, Twilight identifies more with regular humans than Hylians and gets indignant when he's lumped with one but not the other. The humans of Ordon also worship spirits more than the goddesses, so Twilight is very culturally disconnected from other Hylians.

Legend's Hyrule is on the upswing after years of economic troubles, and is surrounded by much richer kingdoms. Magic is also the most prevalent and common in his era. It's not unusual for young men to leave Hyrule in search of riches to bring back to their families.

Hyrule's era is extremely poor, but so is the other kingdoms surrounding Hyrule. The aristocracy takes no responsibility for the lower classes, which leads to a lot of regular people not giving a shit who their princess is or what the laws are. Towns are very close communities, as being a wanderer like Hyrule is more risk than its worth.

The Great Sea is also far bigger and more populated than what is in the game. All of the myths about the sea portray it as an violent, uncaring father. There is so little fish in the world that deities are often portrayed as fish/human hybrids. There's a lot of tiny superstitions involving sailing too, such as never killing a gull out in sea or else risking the wraith of the sea god.

There's a underlining sense of fear in Wild's Hyrule that there are no other kingdoms beyond the borders of Hyrule or on the other side of the ocean. While the older generation can recall stories of foreign lands, the younger generation are more prone to believing that they are the last of humanity. Round-eared humans are unheard of in Wild's time.

--

And now, various New Hyrule facts:

While most other Hyrules have a traditional European fantasy biome, New Hyrule's biome resembles California. Trading Post's real world analogue is Canary Row in Monterey.

Hats and bonnets are essential outdoor wear; to leave your hair out is impolite at best.

Trainspotting is a common past time; people who are fans of the rail industry without being royal engineers are called rail rats. So mechanics like Jean would be a good example.

You probably noticed in STP that New Hyrule has a lot more modern trappings, such as gramophones, heated plumbing, and gas lamps; telegrams are on the way too.

New Hyrule has a significant celebrity subculture, which Spirit and other famous engineers get folded into; there are plenty of tabloids that cover Spirit sightings across New Hyrule

As New Hyrule becomes more industrialized, tensions are building between the people and industrialists, the crown and the common folk, and Hylians and Lokomo.

[thiefxking]

Kokiri Worldbuilding

(Yes I know it wasn't on my list but the idea compels me and now you can enjoy it.)

Kokiri are children of the forest and even children that grow up there become at least part Kokiri. Time Link is a Kokiri and a Hylian and the only reason he was able to leave the forest when he did was because he was still very young by Kokiri standards, once they gain a fairy companion they become more and more bound to the forest though if they leave before that progresses too much they can stull be Children of the Forest but not bound to it in the same way.

Any forest or wooded area, more than three trees together counts as a wooded area, is home to them and lends the Kokiri strength but the Lost Woods is their natural home just as even if they had actual parents the Great Deku Tree is their father so they can always find their way through the forest and woods as well as always find the Great Deku Tree. As they become older as Kokiri invisible markings appear on their bodies, the markings are a sign of them being Kokiri and are only properly visible to the Deku and the other Children of the Forest.

Kokiri naturally want to purify the area around them keeping it clean from poisons and corrupting influences. Their natural magic automatically keeps the water and plants near them pure and is what allows them to attract fairies. Fairy partners are able to help them know when to stop as well as being companions for general life or giving a push when needed. Kokiri are often able to sense when a place is sickened and want to help cleanse it sometimes to their own harm but often a visit to the Great Fairies or the Great Deku Tree will remind them to stop. There is one Great Fairy fountain hidden in the Lost Woods and only the Kokiri know where it is. It's a sign of being a mature Kokiri to be taken to see her and so the young ones don't know where she is or that she is there.

[divineprank]

The temperatures were below freezing, the black sky pelting those caught beneath it with a pounding rain, the winds offering ferocious howls through the spaces and gaps between sandstone structures that were meant to serve as windows. Tornadoes of blinding sand kicked up and washed over the hard surfaces, water attacked the settlement and rapidly flooded the once-bone dry water basins; it was a furious song of the worst of the desert’s dangerous habits: Mother Nature’s thunderous war scream welcomed a new life into the world. A king born on a night when the sand was not still and the air was not dry was believed to be a bad omen.

His cries competed with the violent winds that night, but legends would say his birth silenced the desert itself.

A difficult birth, Ganondorf was born to a single mother within a war-torn desert ravaged by a mightier country; the mother, her baby and their midwife, all sheltered within the small skeleton of a destroyed outpost just outside of the Desert Colossus. The settlement was once inhabited mostly by the shaman and the priestesses that tended to the goddess of the sand and her beautiful temple, and thus was familiar to Ganondorf’s mother, Twinrova – witches Koume and Kotake – even in its abandoned, sorry state.

Within their shelter's crumbling walls, the body built for this exact moment, Twinrova, cradled its precious creation – what all of the plotting and planning and forsaking and sinning had been for all this time – the first male born in one hundred years was theirs! Little Ganondorf, whose vibrant, electric-colored eyes seemed to hold the essence of a bygone era. As sisters combined looked into their child's gaze, Twinrova was transported back through time, across the bridge of many decades. The sisters’ shared heart wrenched as they recalled the violent loss of Castor, the old king, the beloved king, the gentle and fair king, and how he had fallen as he fought to protect his people. The combined memories of Koume and Kotake replayed the horrors of that fateful day in Twinrova’s mind, when the Hylians invaded and broke beyond the fortress, leaving a trail of destruction and death in their wake as they pushed deeper into the desert. The memories flooded her mind like a relentless tide: the haunting echoes of screams, the smell of smoke and blood, and the sorrowful cries of the fallen. Kind and loving sister witches, Koume and Kotake, had been revered shaman and healers back then, devoted to the Desert Colossus, to tending to the temple and helping serve their Gerudo sisters. They could no longer bear the pain of losing their beloved, the fallen king Castor, and witnessing the suffering of their fellow Gerudo. Driven by grief and determination, they finally unleashed incredible magic meant not for the intentions of healing but instead for destruction for the first time, conjuring a mighty sandstorm to force the invaders to retreat, offering the wounded a perfect escape and protecting the fallen in their final resting places with a fierce, elemental wrath. The witches’ actions had just given birth to the Haunted Wasteland.

O’ young Gerudo king, born into a world scarred by conflict and loss!

It was in this Haunted Wasteland, during that tempestuous rain storm that welcomed Ganondorf into the world, did the destiny of Koume and Kotake’s son begin to take shape. In his eyes, Twinrova saw a glimmer of hope, a beacon of strength that would carry the Gerudo people forward. Through their son, Castor’s death would not be in vain; the destruction they suffered would be reset, healed, rebuilt. The witches vowed to nurture and guide Ganondorf, ensuring that the future of their people would be filled with unity, resilience, the spirit to persevere…

… And perhaps something more.

May the sands beneath your feet carry the wisdom of your ancestors! And in the darkness that looms, may your strength be a beacon of light to guide your people!

[muses-of-the-memory]

"What about a thunderstorm?" Link asked from behind Nabooru as he was going to visit her in Gerudo Valley.

" I will always love my desert home, but there is something to be said about the power and beauty of a thunderstorm. "

[muses-of-the-memory]

Happy 18th Anniversary to The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess

Happy 18th Anniversary to The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess!

It is also the 18th anniversary of when the Nintendo Wii was released.

For those following the Legend of Zelda series, Twilight Princess's story continued from Majora's Mask. The Link in this story though, is a little different from the Hero of Hyrule, and the Hero of Time we all know from our respective childhoods.

He went on a different adventure, this time, with the Twilight Princess, Midna who was cursed to be an imp by

Zant, the Usurper King who had been given powers by

Ganondorf, and had sent Zelda's Kingdom of Hyrule into darkness.

Link was able to defeat Zant and Ganondorf, and gotten Midna to return to her true form,

the beautiful Twili Midna. We must thank this game for giving us the Twilight Princess versions of Link, Zelda, Ganondorf and Sheik in Super Smash Bros. Brawl.

Even though there was no sign of Sheik since Ocarina of Time and its 3DS Remake, until Hyrule Warriors.

[proxycrit]

FAMILIAR FAMILIAR MASTERPOST

(EDIT: pinning this for linktober to keep things in order! All shenanigans will also be reposted on my alt blog, @critbit-hoard )

If you want to see my general info (and also which tags to look at my other art, click here)

FAMILIAR FAMILIAR is a self indulgent TOTK AU where Link and Zelda traverse the wild lands of Hyrule together. There are ruins to be discovered and monsters to be eaten.

This project is a linktober challenge that will extend past the month of october. Please be patient with me as this is entirely being funded by a hyperfixation and the support of beloved patreon backers (ty patreon backers). Pls note fanart, fanfics, and spinoffs are perfectly fine as long as credit is due!

Chronological Order (updating as we go!)

1. Blood Moons and Headaches

2. Basement Adventures

3. Basement’s Adventures Haunted

4. Basement’s Extra Haunted

5. Lost (and found)

6. World’s Endin, Purah’s Stressin

7. Concern about Death Mountain

8. Goron City

9. Death Mountain vs Oversized Railgun

10. The Sage of Fire

11. Interlude

12. Goodbye Eldin!

13. Rained In

14. Skyview Towers

15. Close Call

16. Welcome To The Swamp

17. A Guide Named Yona

18. Sidon’s No Good Very Bad Two Months

19. Authority Issues

20. Lab in the Sky

21. The Water Sage

22. Reprise

23. Century Idol

24. Safe Travels

[muses-of-the-memory]

Nabooru smiled back towards Link when he replied that he was now wearing new clothes from his latest adventure in Hyrule. “I see... Well, new clothes or not, you’re still the Hero of Time who helped save me from those two witches to me.” She spoke.

"Hmm? Link, is that really you? You look so different." Nabooru spoke towards Link while he was wearing different clothes. (from @muses-of-the-memory)

Link stood before Nabooru, the desert winds swirling around them both. He gave her a warm smile, his eyes reflecting the many trials he had faced since they last met. "Yes, Nabooru, it's me," Link replied, his voice filled with determination and a hint of nostalgia. "I've been through quite a journey since we last crossed paths. These clothes are just part of my latest adventure, but my heart and purpose remain unchanged."

[alithographica]

As promised, welcome to

Fun biology in TOTK’s designs

I'll keep this post updated as I go through the game. I'm going to skip the more general identifiable things like apples (they're based on apples!) because there are tons of more unusual species to talk about.

Overall, the really interesting thing I've noticed is that many of the more unique Earth-based lifeforms in TOTK are super ancient, like predating dinosaurs ancient, which is a really cool tie-in to the overall time-hopping plotline of TOTK. Specifically, they're found in the new areas (caves, depths) while the surface remains a bit more normal.

(There will be no plot spoilers in this post, and also I've barely gotten into the plot because I'm spending all my time wandering, so shhh no spoilers in the tags for like a month please.)

Most recent additions: More lilies, irises, wild ginger, spiny bones, pigeon extravaganza, plus added some more real photo comparisons to old stuff.

PLANTS

Bryophytes my beloved. Bryophytes are among the earliest land plants, waaaay predating flowers and even seeds. In our world, they’re small by necessity—they lack vascular systems to help move water around like other plants, so they have to stay small and moist (hence their frequency in caves in TOTK—though they do need some light in real life.)

In TOTK they’re quite large and I think that’s very sexy and art directors should give us big bryophytes more often

Anyway, there are three types of bryophytes: mosses, liverworts, and hornworts. First image pair is a moss, second is a liverwort. Those red-brown and palm-tree-like structures, respectively, are their reproductive structures.

Real liverwort photo © Graham Calow, NatureSpotUK

Not yet spotted: Hornworts! Did they forget the third bryophyte sister :(

I think these next guys are probably lycopods (specifically club moss, which is not a true bryophyte moss, thanks science.) Very old, but vascular, so they're a bit more evolutionarily recent than bryophytes.

Real photo © Gloria Hanley Schoenholtz, virginiawildflowers

All the enormous curly-topped trees in the depths: Ferns! They curl like that until they unfurl. Another very old plant, though younger than bryophytes and lycopods.

Real photo via The Cosmonaut, Wikipedia

Brightblooms and some of the other giant plants in the depths: Possibly based on a cycad? Again, a very ancient plant lineage. At this point, evolutionarily, they've developed seeds—that giant cone in the center is called a strobilus, and that's the seed structure.

These next few plants are angiosperms, meaning they produce flowers. Angiosperms are a more recent evolutionary lineage—still many millions of years old, but it took a while to develop flowers as a reproductive tactic.

Sundelions (left) are a fun recolor of a lily. There are also some scenery lilies (right) in various places—there are yellow ones that spring up when you turn on a lightroot (which gives them literal and thematic connection to the surface) and several other varieties, including tiger lilies, throughout Hyrule. Fun note, the sundelions appear to only have 5 stamen, while other lilies in the game (correctly) have 6. Seems to be an intentional decision to make it a more distinct fantasy species.

These next ones are Peruvian lilies/Alstroemeria, just used as a scenery plant but a very fun inclusion. Fun fact, not true lilies, so they're not deadly to cats like true lilies are.

Real photo © Dick Culbert, Wikipedia

Plum trees: These are also called out as plum trees in game! There's a journal in Kakariko that refers to the plum orchards.

Okay I'm a little proud of figuring this one out. Bomb flowers blend a few botanical references. Superficially, the fruit resembles a type of seed pod called a capsule—specifically it's very similar to a poppy capsule. The little red thing in the center is a nice addition to resemble both a flower stigma (reproductive part that leads to the ovary) and a bomb fuse. Now, poppy capsules disperse their seeds via wind, but there are other plants who do explode their seeds outwards as a dispersal tactic! This is called explosive dehiscence.

There is one tree in particular called the sandbox tree, AKA monkey-no-climb or dynamite tree (yes, really.) Their capsules look more like little pumpkins, but are known for violently exploding when ripe—they can launch seeds at 150 miles per hour (250 km/h) and spread them roughly 200 feet (60 m) away. The photo comparison is a poppy capsule but you should def go look up dynamite tree videos.

Real photo © PommeGrenade, pixabay

Fire fruits (and the other elemental fruits) grow on the same generic plant that looks kind of like it has grape leaves. Fire fruits resemble a specific botanical thing too though—the black netting is a papery calyx (part of the flower) seen in a nightshade genus, Physalis (golden berries, tomatillos, etc.)

Real photo © Helene Rogers, Alamy

I think this stuff is an Asarum, AKA wild ginger. I was actually puzzling over it until I walked past some today and went HEY

Not sure of the exact species but they're very green and heart-shaped and love being dense and low to the ground.

Real photo via David Stang, Wikipedia

Irises: Love irises, one of my favorite flowers and words, very happy to see them in game.

MISCELLANEA

Cup lichen! Lichen is not a plant, but a symbiotic structure of an algae + a fungi. Cup lichen is just a type of lichen formation that has a kind of vertical cup-like structure.

Real photo via Bernard Spragg

Geology crossover! Go look carefully at some of the whiter walls in the depths—they look like they have fossils of coral and other undersea hard-structured animals in them.

ANIMALS

Sticky lizards: Based on Diplocaulus, a very early (now extinct) amphibian! Their skulls are wacky. We're not sure whether the long sides stood out separately or were smoothly connected to the body by skin flaps, but the separate arrow-like shape is the most popular rendition.

Deep firefly: Might be a stretch because it could just be a multi-winged fantasy critter, but I think the "wings" and antennae are very reminiscent of Anomalocaris, an ancient aquatic arthropod.

Update: Other folks in the notes/tags have pointed out that they're probably based on a cryptid that's especially popular in Japan: skyfish AKA rods! They show up in photos and people think they're an alien lifeform. In reality, they're an optical blur created when a lower quality video captures intermittent flaps of an insect's wings, leaving sort of a many-winged smear in the photo. Thanks to all who left info!

Little frox: Another stretch because it totally could just be a Hinox-like frog, but every time I see the little ones I can't help but think of like...Ichthyostega, Mastodonsaurus, Eryops, and other early amphibians. They were pretty hefty—little frox size or bigger—and had with little waddling legs. This is less "I think it's definitely this" and more "it makes me happy when I picture frox as primitive amphibians."

I haven't detailed many of the scenery animals around Hyrule because most are identifiable with the camera function—it'll tell you that a certain animal is a heron or porgy, for example, and those groups are real, even though the exact species is made up. But I think the pigeons are fun because they're all crested pigeons. Pink-necked green pigeons may have also been the inspiration for the color palettes on the wood and rainbow pigeons.

Both pigeon photos via JJ Harrison, Wikipedia

Spiny bones: Not a specific critter, but those spiny bones that you can find lying around Eldin Canyon are vertebrae—possibly from the same thing that left those big rib cages around? The top spike is the spinous process where muscles attach, the littler spikes on the side are the transverse and articular processes. The dark O in the center is the spinal cord.

Also I made a friend who finally recognizes my purpose in Hyrule.

That's all I've got for now! Will add more as I keep playing.

[bokettochild]

So...I've been playing the Demo of Cadence of Hyrule: Crypt of the Necrodancer, based off of the fact that someone presented the idea of it being yet another of Legend's adventures, and, well, the idea of Legend having a buff gal-pal like Cadence..... I have ideas for their dynamic

she calls him 'doll'

she's got a heavy accent

Legend matches the accent right back and calls her "sweetheart" (totally platonic, it's more a joke or making fun than anything, on both sides)

they are besties

dance partners

the magic in Cadence's world (and which comes to Hyrule) has a heartbeat or pulse. This pulse picks up when danger threatens the land, and the magic becomes so strong that it prevents things moving in order to protect itself. It's only when the magic pulses that it weakens long enough for people to move.

Legend keeps beat by bouncing on his heels and Cadence thinks it's adorable

Cadence keeps beat in her head as second nature, but sometimes she bobs her head too, especially if there's not an actual physical magical pulse for her to track

Cadence is a head taller than Legend

snark buddies

one of their running jokes is that Legend is always flirting with fate and Fate is very much in love with him (made ridiculous by the presence of the Fates in their world being Old Ladies)

[unknown-traveler-of-the-universe]

*Scratch tape* Yes, that's me. You're probably wondering how I got here. Well...

Also with the actual right change swap- "Finally, balance has been restored to the land of Hyrule." "They only changed their clothing?" "Finally we can rest peacefully tonight."

strange kind of outfit swap