the-voxel

[the-voxel]

I was forced to think about food preservation

So last night at dnd another player character asked Liithal how people on her homeworld preserved food if they weren't making jerky out of it.

And naturally, it makes sense that in a flooded environment you won't be smoking and drying your food so how DO voxel preserve their food?

the answer I came up with on the spot: "Sinking it"

Now, they don't rely on food preservation nearly as much as humans because they can eat virtually anything plant based. So fruits, flowers, roots, leaves, grains, grass, even some mushrooms are all on the table. So there are very few months of the year when they don't have something to eat. But when winter rolls around, they take anything that preserves well (root veggies, anything with thick skins, what have you) and put it in sacks or crates with some rocks and they sink them to the bottom of the water under their house. Grains can be stored inside their home.

This makes it so they don't have to survive on bark all winter.

They have short winters, so they don't have to have their food sunk so long it rots, and it's kept quite cold this way, and it doesn't get all dry and wrinkly. Yes, it may make some things start to sprout, but that isn't really a down side for voxel, they'll still eat a sprouting potato.

[the-voxel]

If you wanna make fun of sci-fi naming conventions effectively, you've gotta remember that the "Glup Shitto" school of naming is literally just Star Wars. Other, more widespread approaches include:

Bracingly monosyllabic

Teenage goth DeviantArt handle

Yeah, I guess you can technically put those letters in that order

That is a weight loss drug, not a person

Too poor to afford vowels

Ambiguously German

My middle name is "the"

[the-voxel]

would be fun if for once characters in a scifi story landed on a planet and it was like desert or whatever and theyre like ooh... a desert world.... and the people who live there are like what? no? this is just a desert. planets are very big. they have multiple biomes

[the-voxel]

Evolutionary line. First draft. I tried.

[the-voxel]

I drew their skulls! I worked very hard not to make this look like a pug skull!

[the-voxel]

[the-voxel]

Imagine your loved ones gathering together, singing songs in the night to invite even your long dead family to the service, placing your favorite things in your arms, and saying goodbye as they wrap you in cool, soft clay. Are you curled up like you're sleeping, your burial stone forming like an egg? Do they rest your head on the fluff of your tail and then make the stone form like a ring? Did you leave a request for you burial stone to be a special shape?

Voxel death practices

I was well on my way to being asleep for 15 hours straight when i was Possessed by a Vision

According to voxel religious beliefs, if an animal eats your body it also eats your soul, right? Your body is the anchor that holds you in place so your ancestors can come back and fetch you and take you to the afterlife.

And they live on a water planet.

Between those two things burial isn't the easiest option. Being buried makes your body harder to find for your ancestors, but also it is a pain to dig in a flooded area.

And sending a body out to drift on a boat is also a big no because a scavenger might eat it.

And cremation is probably only going to be an option in specific places.

So what on earth do they do with the bodies?????

Clay.

Clay is probably a plentiful resource. So part of the funeral will be for those attending to all take part in encasing the body in clay. The resulting shape will differ based on region, but most places will be using this method. Then they can bake the clay pod (probably with vents to release the gas from the body so it doesn't explode during this process) and when it's good and solid like a rock they take it to a designated burial ground.

Ideally a burial area will have soft ground so that over the years the pods will sink into the dirt, this keeps the space needed for the dead fairly small and reusable.

Along the oceans pods may be boated out and lowered into the depths of the sea, in mountainous areas they may not even need to use pods at all, in industrialized cities they may do something more creative. So to say, this may differ in the variations of culture around the world, but i had to write down this idea before i forgot.

Pods can be engraved, sculpted, painted, and all manner of decorated to keep it personal.

what would your voxel's burial pod look like?

[the-voxel]

Voxel death practices

I was well on my way to being asleep for 15 hours straight when i was Possessed by a Vision

According to voxel religious beliefs, if an animal eats your body it also eats your soul, right? Your body is the anchor that holds you in place so your ancestors can come back and fetch you and take you to the afterlife.

And they live on a water planet.

Between those two things burial isn't the easiest option. Being buried makes your body harder to find for your ancestors, but also it is a pain to dig in a flooded area.

And sending a body out to drift on a boat is also a big no because a scavenger might eat it.

And cremation is probably only going to be an option in specific places.

So what on earth do they do with the bodies?????

Clay.

Clay is probably a plentiful resource. So part of the funeral will be for those attending to all take part in encasing the body in clay. The resulting shape will differ based on region, but most places will be using this method. Then they can bake the clay pod (probably with vents to release the gas from the body so it doesn't explode during this process) and when it's good and solid like a rock they take it to a designated burial ground.

Ideally a burial area will have soft ground so that over the years the pods will sink into the dirt, this keeps the space needed for the dead fairly small and reusable.

Along the oceans pods may be boated out and lowered into the depths of the sea, in mountainous areas they may not even need to use pods at all, in industrialized cities they may do something more creative. So to say, this may differ in the variations of culture around the world, but i had to write down this idea before i forgot.

Pods can be engraved, sculpted, painted, and all manner of decorated to keep it personal.

what would your voxel's burial pod look like?

[the-voxel]

Voxel death practices

I was well on my way to being asleep for 15 hours straight when i was Possessed by a Vision

According to voxel religious beliefs, if an animal eats your body it also eats your soul, right? Your body is the anchor that holds you in place so your ancestors can come back and fetch you and take you to the afterlife.

And they live on a water planet.

Between those two things burial isn't the easiest option. Being buried makes your body harder to find for your ancestors, but also it is a pain to dig in a flooded area.

And sending a body out to drift on a boat is also a big no because a scavenger might eat it.

And cremation is probably only going to be an option in specific places.

So what on earth do they do with the bodies?????

Clay.

Clay is probably a plentiful resource. So part of the funeral will be for those attending to all take part in encasing the body in clay. The resulting shape will differ based on region, but most places will be using this method. Then they can bake the clay pod (probably with vents to release the gas from the body so it doesn't explode during this process) and when it's good and solid like a rock they take it to a designated burial ground.

Ideally a burial area will have soft ground so that over the years the pods will sink into the dirt, this keeps the space needed for the dead fairly small and reusable.

Along the oceans pods may be boated out and lowered into the depths of the sea, in mountainous areas they may not even need to use pods at all, in industrialized cities they may do something more creative. So to say, this may differ in the variations of culture around the world, but i had to write down this idea before i forgot.

Pods can be engraved, sculpted, painted, and all manner of decorated to keep it personal.

what would your voxel's burial pod look like?

[the-voxel]

stripe color emotions explained

now, voxel striped are not mood rings, but the pigments in their striped areas DO change structure slightly to reveal a lot about how they feel in a given moment.

for example

A voxel with orange stripes will have a gradient that looks something like this. When they are having negative emotions, they will have darker colors, positive lighter. If the emotion is calm, less saturated, exited, then more saturated.

You can "read" their emotions by putting together an idea of where each emotion will fall.

this method can be applied to all stripe colors! (below is an incomplete example of possible stripe colors)

now you are equipped to avoid a social blunder with your voxel friends!

[the-voxel]

Heavily temped to learn how to use Unreal Engine so I can make Vox a real explorable planet. If for nothing else, for my own sanity because idk any other way to make a satisfying interactive map

[the-voxel]

The haunting ancient Celtic carnyx being played for an audience. This is the sound Roman soldiers would have heard their Celtic enemies make.

[the-voxel]

cities advanced enough to have radio probably are also advanced enough to have live descriptors of performance events for blind audiences. It isn't too much of a leap to do the same over the radio.

So it would sound less like old human radio shows, and more like audiobook readings.

do they have memes

XD gonna be honest I didn't expect this one.

They do not have anything like the internet. In fact, they do not have any form on long range communication. (some areas *may* have short range radio)

So they would not have memes in the same format as us, but they do have jokes about popular things. (Think Shakespeare style memes: where you'll say or draw something popular and funny. So a performance meme???? idk.)

But, I *have* MADE a meme about a voxel!

This is inspired by a scene from Liithal's fic.

[the-voxel]

do they have memes

XD gonna be honest I didn't expect this one.

They do not have anything like the internet. In fact, they do not have any form on long range communication. (some areas *may* have short range radio)

So they would not have memes in the same format as us, but they do have jokes about popular things. (Think Shakespeare style memes: where you'll say or draw something popular and funny. So a performance meme???? idk.)

But, I *have* MADE a meme about a voxel!

This is inspired by a scene from Liithal's fic.

[the-voxel]

I am working on it officially! Fair warning: I am not a linguist. So like, my ability to develop a language is shaky. Now i gotta parse through all of my writing and track down all the words I have made up so far.

if I made a dictionary for the voxel, would y'all be interested?

[the-voxel]

Masterpost

Hi! This blog is dedicated to lorebuilding my original species! Here is a quick guide to navigate!

Quick overview (old post, may contain outdated info)

Customs (coming soon!)

google doc developing their language (constantly updating)

The Journal (series of journal entries written by a human who crash landed on Vox. Includes scientific sketches)

Tag guide under cut

About the voxel Uncategorized fun facts

Voxel architecture this covers how they build their houses, cities, roads, etc.

Voxel tech This is about their technology, which is super all over the place tbh.

Voxel cuisine Any info on their food, such as what kinds of plants they eat or recipes they cook

Voxel Literature Notes about what kind of writing they do, or even actual stories they may tell.

Voxel art Notes about their art, including performance, music, and more traditional art forms.

Voxel disability Discussions about how disability is handled in this world, and what conditions are even disabling to a voxel, and to what degree.

Voxel biology Talk about their biological functions and anatomy

Voxel Religion Talks about their religious structure and beliefs.

Voxel sociology Social rules, customs, even some culture tidbits.

Voxel language Discussions about their language, Voxeltok. You can scroll through to see me work out the rules i put into the doc.

Voxel animals The fauna of Vox

[the-voxel]

if I made a dictionary for the voxel, would y'all be interested?