the Evergreen Duology exists pretty much only as a jumbled mess of ideas, half a character arc and bits of research, but i will tell you what i have so far
Rían and his little sister Maeve grew up on their mum's stories about the fae and the feywild. mostly warnings, but also a couple baffling and hyperspecific tales. the two of them are very close and have stayed close even after their stepmother's transphobic ass kicked Rían out of the house years ago
so, when Rían gets a call from Maeve in the middle of the night about whispers from the woods out back and the plants acting weirdly and then the call cuts off with a scream, you bet he hauls ass back to his hometown. it's too late, his sister is already missing and his stepmother still hates him and his dad is as absent as ever, but he's pretty sure he knows what happened
problem is, he doesn't fully remember his mum's stories. solution is, she had them written down. problem is, that journal is in the house. which he has no access to. so he's gotta figure out a way into the house, get together a group of people who'll believe him (or at least help him) and then go rescue his sister in the feywild. how hard can it be?
yooo for the wip folder thingy!! gimme something pirate-y from Lost Sea Symphony!
and also i wanna know about "void & its creatures" pls 👀
(also how long did it take you to prep that fancyass post 😭😭 i'm very impressed)
heya!!
something piratey from Lost Sea Symphony, ay? well i have a couple totally not relevant facts for you
whether they started out as privateers that then didn't get paid or were pirates from the get-go, it was very unusual to have a big ship, like a galleon. those are merchant ships, and they're big and slow and difficult to maneuver in bays and coastlines, and they require quite a number of people to operate it. those are long travel ships
instead, most commonly pirates operated from (sometimes overcrouwded) sloops. those do come in a variety of sizes, so anything from 20 to 200 crewmembers is fair game. for Lost Sea Symphony, i'm aiming at 60-80 people on the ship, but i'm only naming people with a role
speaking of, my gods were there a lot of roles. you have your captain, sure, but that's not your top authority all the time, only in battle and during chases. the one managing the crew, settling feuds, dividing the bounty and all that is the quarter master. neither of them is necessarily the smartest either, because that should be the navigator and that one is extremely valuable. prime kidnapping target if they're skilled. and all of them need to work with the botswain (who manages cargo and the ship itself) and the master at arms (who trains the crew and takes it on raids). and then you need a medic/surgeon for sure. you want a carpenter to fix the boat. you want a cook. it's so much more complicated than "follow the captain's orders"
also, you know how the military has callsigns? pirates do the exact same shit, with the exact same method. do something embarassing once, have a defining feature, get in trouble for something specific, doesn't matter. if it can be shortened to one or two words, be ready for everyone to forget your name. you are now Slipper
as for the Void and its creatures, i do have interesting stuff
for starters, the Void is well known in both the Other Side and the Veiled Earth, but where in the Other Side people are aware of its legends and myths and dangers it's in the Veiled Earth that it is actually studied
by lore, the Void is both its own (extremely ancient) deity and the place where the elder gods of Order and Chaos were banished for destroying parts of the universe with their fighting. so where the Void was originally purely neutral, it's now a three-point scale on order-chaos-neutral. and no, neutral is not the midpoint of chaos and order, it's a third point. this is very important
within the Void there are mostly three types of creatures. as classified by the Harbingers and then by the Institute of Arcane Research and Defense (the "heir" of the Harbingers), these are: the blights, the walkers and the warped
the blights, known in the Other Side as the Void Gods, are an extremely rare sight. standard procedure if one is identified is to run. they can identify a source of magic within milliseconds, and will consume almost any type of it to make themselves stronger. people have noticed differences and patterns in their forms, but what those mean and what their abilities are is almost entirely unknown, because no one (in recent times) has been stupid enough to try and fight one
the walkers, known in the Other Side as Voidborn, are somewhat humanoid and fully sapient. luckily, they don't tend to operate in large numbers, at most two or three. they way more common than blights, but most Harbingers will not fight them if they don't have the rank and/or specialized training for it. because they are much more common though, they have been studied more, and it's been noted that they fall on a three-point scale: the three corners have been called Hollows, Mayhems and Chains and their appearances have been theorized but never confirmed, because no one has ever seen a pure Hollow, Mayhem or Chain. every walker that's been sighted fell somewhere on a middle ground
and lastly the warped, known in the Other Side as Void Beasts. they are sentient but not sapient, have no rhyme or reason to their form, barely have any commonly repeated traits and work in packs always. and mind you, two warped in the same pack can look wildy different. one may have seven legs and no neck, another may be a legless flying two-headed worm. they don't make sense by conventional biology, they don't breathe, they don't appear to have a digestive, reproductive or immunitary system but they do seem to be able to communicate so. go figure
all three of those are made of magic made solid (???) but of a completely different type from any other magic. aka, what in the Other Side is known as corrupted magic, or just corruption, or magical decay if you wanna be fancy. they look extremely fuzzy, like a cross between bad tv static and a glitch, aka like this:
[note, these are examples of people infected with magical decay, not of any of the Void's creatures]
so that's very fun :D
(also that formatting only took about an hour, but only because i'm used to working with invisible characters i fear ;-; )
Happy Storyteller Saturday! Tell us a little more about the Ashen Gods of Revolve!
hello hello, thank you for your question! (and sorry about the late reply, my ass got dealt a massive migraine)
so, the Ashen Gods, also known as Sili. these are among the eldest of a particular generation of gods, the Livi or Living Gods (or parasite gods if you were to listen to certain extremist groups). this is a generation of gods created by the Great Forces (Magic, Nature, Balance and Fate) through a spark of life given to an already living mortal
the Sili are in fact the second eldest of all the Livi, with the Eldest being The Most Ancient (Tma for short). Tma was created around 150k years ago as sapient creatures came to be, so it could the gods messenger to them, and its spark was created by the four Great Forces together with a lot of effort
the Sili's sparks on the other hand were given to the Great Forces by Vehile, aka Life, aka the goddess who created them. there are 16 total of them and they were created in groups of 4 + 4 + 8 to guard the Cradle of Souls against the Void. because of this, the Sili's dominions (the elements) are innately tied to souls. this is why both people's soul and people's magic is naturally in a state of elemental resonance
both Tma and the Sili predate the exile of Chaos and Order into the Void, the split of the Universe into Realms and the Great Force of Death. all the other Livi come after those events and their sparks of Life were gathered from the blood of Vehile's (dead) physical form. as such there are some key differences between the Sili (+ Tma) and the other Livi
the Sili + Tma are extremely powerful, and hold vast dominions. they also exist outside of the boundaries of death: unless killed, they simply keep aging, if at a much slower rate. in fact, where the other Livi reach adulthood at around the same rate as a human and then age slower until 2k years old, the Sili and Tma take 10 times as long to reach adulthood and then may very well live until their 200ks. as such, they've had a single-digit number of hosts
in fact, the Sili have only had two hosts. the first generation of them died 60k years ago (40k years after the Sili's creation) to protect the Cradle of Souls during the split of the Universe, and they took on a second generation of hosts within the year after. shortly after, the Great Force of Death comes around and there is no need for them to guard the Cradle of Souls anymore, so they start guarding the Lanthorn of Kosmos (aka the center of the universe) instead
then we get to the second big thing about the SIli. about 7k years before Revolve, the War of Arcana takes place. the Livi, including Tma split into two factions (Oadi and Kori), except the Sili. in-universe, no one knows why and what happened beyond effect, which as far as the Sili are concerned is that they disappeared. they are just gone. cannot be found, and people have searched. so there's multiple theories about what happened to them
however as the author i can tell you, the Sili aren't gone. they were sealed away and hidden, and have been so for the past 7k years, unable to use their magic and interact with the Universe. but the seals work differently on them than on any other Livi. on the other Livi, the mortal soul is to weak to survive the sigil. for the Sili, the soul of their host is much stronger; it doesn't die, and instead it gets pierced by the sigil right alongside the Sili. so the two have spent the past near 7k years merging together. but i'm sure this will have no consequence...
Hey hey hey! I hope you're surviving exam season okay, and you still have some juice in the ol' noggin!
When you're finished with uni, what creative projects are you most looking forward to getting back into? Do you have anything new on the horizon?
hi Jas! i make do, i make do
i have so much stuff i wanna work on when i'm done with exams. i have so many character arts and maps to make. i gotta finish Lukiat and redo Niev with more of his fey traits, and finish the magazine cover with Dajsper. plus, i really wanna finish the world map. currently, it's been stuck at 68 countries, and i still have so much space
also i really really wanna do more creature design and design of the gods. i've just recently started experimenting with horn shapes, and i've had to do a bunch of (human & non) anatomy studies for an unrelated project and i can't wait to get really funky with the shit i learned
in terms of writing i'm not really sure how much i can get back into it. in the last year i've been really busy with the campaign i master, but i'm currently running into a bit of trouble with it. so honestly, me writing depends quite a bunch on what happens there too, whether that is dropping the campaign, slowing it down or a looot of rework
if i do get the time tho, i wanna finish the first draft of Elegy to the Desperate Stars, so then i can rework it with the notes i've jotted down over the year away from it. once i'm done with that, i'm probably not gonna dive right into Unearthly, because the way i wanna weave it is a little bit complicated
instead, while you were away, an old idea for a standalone novel (and it is gonna be a standalone) resurfaced with some really good ideas and characters, so i might try my hand at writing something a little easier. The Mortal God has a bit of a softer magic system and much smaller worldbuilding, and it is both devastatingly emotional and fucking hilarious in my mind. i don't have an intro post for it yet, but if you wanna have a look into the tag i've written about it a bunch in asks and flash fiction friday prompts
🐉Dragon: What is one thing your character would protect at all costs?
ooo, this is such an interesting questionx tysm!
i have some very interesting answers for you from Elegy To The Desperate Stars
Aira and Ele want to protect each other. they are extremely dedicated to this, and it actually puts them at odds with each other on occasion, as they don't always agree on what's dangerous. they also sometimes step over each other's agency, as they go behind each other's back to block the way to danger
Aleji needs to protect Luz. their fiancée is the most important person in their lives, and they would do anything to keep her safe and happy, even if they know full well that Luz is perfectly capable of killing someone in 20 different ways
Beriel wants to protect his heritage and identity. it's already tough as-is being the kid of a Livi's host, but being a rich merchant and a noblewoman's firstborn on top of it? hellish. of course people need to legally know he exists, but Beriel hasn't gone by her actual first name since she was twelve. and also, she shapeshifts very often and very publicly, because that's not a thing shirevis can do so she couldn't possibly be her parents' son
Dani wants to protect his own peace of mind. he has had enough of loving people and getting burnt for it, so he's just stopped. he has his five people and he's fine, thank you very much. trying to care for someone new would simply be setting himself up for pain. (and then Aira and Ele enter the picture)
and then, two more really interesting answers from the two antagonists
Sonia. Sonia wants to protect her sense of self. unfortunately that sense of self has been weaponized by the bbeg, so it requires her to be the smartest, it requires her to be useful, it requires her to the prettiest, it requires her to fit in and be invisible but also to be exceptional. and Sonia really can't do all of that
and then Laura, Aira's mother. she wants to protect her pride. she has this facade of everything working out just fine and of being fully in control of herself and her surroundings. but it's just that. it's a facade, and it's very hollow underneath, and that's all she tries to protect. what's beneath the facade is fully on its own
Happy Blorbo Blursday! What was your OCs education like? What were the primary things they were learning? How did they do in their education?
i feel like the most interesting characters in this regard are the royal trio of Ideli & Lukiat & Luz , so lemme quickly go through them
Ideli
Ideli had a vaguely weird education. she had very specialized nannies as a kid that were already in charge of teaching her to read in multiple languages and basic math, and a tutor in high-society manners. once she was of age, she started her education in a private primary school aimed at the noble class; it had high levels of security and were very strict and meant to give a headstart to the children in matters of history, politics, languages and finance, so that by the time they got out of there they'd have a vague idea of their career path, and then feeds the children directly into its middle-school counterpart.
however, Ideli's time in private schools was cut short by the shitstorm that happened in her family, and she was taken in by her uncle (the one and only Emperor Witia of Reiki) halfway through primary school. she spent a few years after that with private tutors that followed more-or-less the same curriculum as the private school (languages, history, literature, civics, maths & sciences, theoretical magic) but her uncle also privately tutored her in practical magic and physical training
and then things just... kinda settled into a midpoint for a while. Ideli went back into private schooling for middle school, but had additional classes with her uncle and some tutors he hired (more advanced magic, martial arts and armed fighting instructors and more language teachers)
but then highschool time hit, and Ideli would have had to go into the same highschool as her brother and that was a bad idea. so her uncle pulled her back into home schooling but with a caveat. he hired tutors and teachers for her both her core subjects and her electives (politics, international history, law, advanced magical theory) from one Elaise Kainen-Virs Accademy, an all-girls private highschool, and he allows the various teachers to bring a chosen student (vetted) to share classes with Ideli (this is part of how Ideli gets her hands on Meiviza)
by the time we get into Revolve plot, Ideli is in university and for the first time back out of homeschooling to take her degree in political sciences, but she's also taking a couple additional law classes. and training with her uncle hasn't stopped. he's started making her shadow him as she gets ready to be crowned Imperial Princess, and thus her uncle's heir to the throne.
Lukiat
Lukiat's education is fucked up. like, genuinely so fucked up. he was born into the royal family of Xor, so his education started through private tutors with reading, maths, magic, fairly easy things still. then when he was 7 his aunt disappeared into nothingness, which put his mother and him back on the table to become Xire or Esluxia. thus, education to prepare him to be xire it is. multiple languages, history and culture from all the nations of Esluxia, geography, magical traditions, international literature, things like that
then, disaster struck. his mother died, the generational curse passed over and took his sight, and he became the only person viable to become xire after his grandmother. so they intensify his tutoring, which only becomes more difficult because he just lost his sight, plus his grandmother has him start shadowing her to learn at least a little bit of the ropes
and then disaster struck again and his grandmother died. Esluxia is without a xire because Lukiat is thirteen and he can't be xire now, he needs to be older. so noblemen and merchants and other people with agendas start vying for the rather enviable position of being the one to educate the future xire and creating a debt. Lukiat, quite overwhelmed, runs away
from age 13 to age 18, Lukiat has no formal education. he keeps learning, but through overhearing and experiencing and by how the people who take him in live. he jumps between underfounded overcrowded public schools, then makes his way into the underground and starts learning through there the subtle arts of debate, diplomacy and threatening someone, as well as all the ways to exploit how laws are written
he reappears legally very briefly to test out of a Xorean highschool, and by the time people notice he's already somewhere else. that somewhere else is actually with Sarie's father to learn medicine, which he does for a year or so before the mess that is the underground strike on the Five Rings happens. after that, Lukiat starts working up his magic, learning to control the newly aquired light resonance, sharpening his knowledge of law, politics and the very subtle ties between governments, individuals and organizations before he pops up legally, once more, in Asglen and near-ready to stake his claim on the title of xire
he becomes very rapidly a public figure there, not quite already acting as xire but people are looking up to it. and in the mean time, he manages to undertake a degree in international law and graduate in time to actually get the title of Xire. even so, with such an intensive jobs, sometimes there is a figure that's hard to make out hanging out in the back of philosophy, politics and medicine classes
Luz
okay so, Luz has maybe the most "standard" education of all three. except where Lukiat managed to evade the people vying to be his educators by running away, Luz couldn't dodge that. so while the subjects she studied were always the same (starting simple then developing into advanced magic, political sciences, law, international relations and sociology), the people teaching them tended to change depending on which political party got its hands on the royal household and thus her education
her teachers changed seven times before she was fifteen, and they were stable for the last three years. for those years, it was the People's Merit Party that were in chsrge of the royal household, and they also had it when Luz was 7-8 and then again when she was 11-13, and her teachers were people such as Ambassador Paka Senior, the director of the magic department at the Royal Academy, Sina'baj Zeronnis, the head-archivist and her assistant, and a lot of people like that. at the start of Revolve, Luz is a little over a year into her official reign and the way she values hard work and precise knowledge is very clear
Happy Blorbo Blursday, Azzy! I have a two part question if you’ll indulge me!
Part A: rate your main OC(s) on a scale of 1 - 10 (1 being low and 10 being high) in the following attributes: Capabaility (the power and ability to take action); Relateability (doesn't have to mean likable! Rather do they have reactions, perspectives, or experiences that the reader could relate with); Proactivtity (do they take action to solve problems?) You can explain their scores in each one or not!
Part B: Does your OC(s) move up or down on one of the scales during the course of the story? If so, how? Is this important? If not, why not?
Based on this article
oh oh oh, this is interesting Star. lemme have a go at it for the main cast of Revolve
Aira
Capability: 5/10
Aira has been sort of sheltered for most of her life? so she has a bunch of skills she's good at, but it's mostly physical skills (martial arts, farmwork, some wilderness survival because she was a scout). socially? nope. she's paranoid, she has a horrible time interacting with people and she much prefers having someone to guide her through plans and social interactions
Relateability: 9/10
Aira is, under the spikes, fiercely loyal to her friends, as well as protective to a fault. she craves connection, despite feeling wholly incapable of it. plus i think anyone with a parent they really want nothing to do with can appreciate the mix of spite and self-hatred
Proactivity: 7/10
she may not be much of a leader, but if you want someone who will jump in on an impulse? who will refuse to back down and be quiet? who is willing to fight tooth and nail for the things that matter? she's there. she's first in line. you cannot stop her
Aleji
Capability: 9/10
holy monster. they start fixing shit (for themselves) from the second they appear. can you tell it's for themselves? no, absolutely not, they're fixing everyone else's problems. quite quickly actually. how? don't worry about it :)
Relateability: 6/10
they love their wife. so much. she is the light of their lives and their reason to live. to the point of destruction and madness and torture. everyone else can get fucked
Proactivity: 7/10
they're already doing it. they've been doing it. what is 'it', you ask? anything and everything that can even tangentially benefit them and their wife. anything that's not for them (or that their wife didn't asked of them) doesn't matter
Syphe
Capability: 8/10
Syphe is pretty good at what he does (espionage & information gathering) for how big of an idiot he is. serial eavesdropper and pretend gossiper, he's actually really good at keeping his mouth shut. maybe too good. gods know he doesn't tell anybody shit unless they need to know
Relateability: 6/10
lives in a permanent state of asshole pretending to be nice. he laughs with his coworkers and smiles at them and offers help but on the inside he's cursing them out. would rather stay home and fix his knife collection or tail someone for the nth time. cranky and tired because insomnia, will save someone but only because it gives him a better reputation (or so he says)
Proactivity: 5/10
for the longest time, not really. he's self serving to a fault, and that means he's usually only doing things if he can benefit from them, and only occasionally doing things for others. lately tho he's been feeling pressured to do some good in the world by his growing illness, so he can be bought
Meiviza
Capability: 7/10
a beast at hand-to-hand combat, and self taught to boot. she will hit all of your pressure points if she gets close enough, and then she'll fold you like a pretzel. unfortunately she has more trouble with the subtleties of intelligence work, so her mother's informant network gets a little lost in the sauce
Relateability: 6/10
Have You, afab person (or not), also been Catcalled? Been Harrased? Heard Nasty Comments? Been Told it is simply Not Your Place to complain or Your Duty? have a character that goes rightfully feral about it
Proactivity: 8/10
Meiviza is somewhat stopped by her mother, which she detests. as soon as her mother can't have her? gone. if she thinks you're not worth dealing with, she cuts you off. if she thinks you're worth saving then gods damn she's gonna save you no matter what it takes. she likes helping people, she'll do it the second she decides you're not a scumbag
Lukiat
Capability: 9/10
oh he's good. he's really good. sure, divine prophecies help a bunch, but he's been pulling strings for a loooong time. also, the fact that people both praise and are terrified of both his two different identities says a lot i'd say
Relateability: 6/10
ahhhh, the weight of the world. the need to save everyone. the guilt for every life you couldn't save, even when it's not your fault. the search for the moral line. the urge to run from it all. the best kind of attitude for someone in a position of authority
Proactivity: 6/10
let's let that time he ran away for five years slide. he cam back. quietly got his enemies exposed and eliminated. been pushing reforms. also, with that guilt and drive to make everything better? oh yeah he's in now
Ideli
Capability: 7/10
an incredibly competent fighter and mage out in the streets, and incredibly sharp-eyed when it comes to social interactions, especially high society ones. unfortunately tho, she's an idealist and sees the world through rose-tinted glasses, so her plans do kind of hinge on best-case scenarios. at least she's good at coming up with solutions on the spot
Relateability: 5/10
half her problems are rich people problems. the remaining half is distributed between wanting to create some lasting good in the world and dealing with family dynamics that put feudal europe to shame and incredibly justified ptsd
Proactivity: 9/10
if she weren't proactive, she wouldn't be out on the streets of Ziphia working her ass of as a vigilante and suffering people she hates and their political agendas to find a gimmer of good in it, would she?
Luz
Capability: 6/10
pretty damn badass, i would say. one could argue she has the advantage of having lived multiple lifetimes, but it's not like she remembers them. mostly, she's hella charismatic, brilliant when put on the spot, and a damn good fighter
Relateability: 8/10
every teenage girl ever, and then everyone else. she just wants to live, to go explore, for people to stop telling her what to do and who she must be and what she's not allowed dreams. well, fuck that. she's gonna go out, and she's gonna find a life that she's happy with and proud of
Proactivity: 10/10
six thousand years fighting, always fighting, never giving up, never stopping, when she fails she just gets up and tries again and again. she's proactive as fuck
very late for blorbo blursday but: tell me some secret facts i dont know yet about my favorite necromancer girlie Sarie pls!!
and a very late answer to you!
okay so, secret facts about Sarie. her connection to death is weird. part of it is because she worships Tahila (Great Force of Death), but a lot of it is because she died when she was quite young and her mother (also a necromancer) brought her back, tying back her life force to the vines that were rapidly growing over her
that particular thing would be because Sarie died by falling badly into a deep creek (partly covered up by newer layers of forest) and onto an old altar in a crumbling temple. dedicated to whom? her family isn't sure, but Sarie's been able to hear that god's voice ever since, if only occasionally
despite her short stature and seemingly weakly constitution, Sarie appears incredibly strong, getting herself a reputation for winning against much more muscular men at arm-wrestling contests and being able to lift several times her weight. she doesn't actually do this on her own, but it's rather the vines that have kept growing on her that work as an extremely flexible exoskeleton
Sarie is not just a necromancer, but also a very well-trained medic and potioneer. she still deals mostly with magical illnesses though, as she tends to work best with soul magic or when reading the magical field. that's actually how Lukiat ended up meeting her, since magic behaves weirdly around him
