#aurena

[geatmos]

Adventure calls

The break is over...

[nvvawi]

Quickie of my baby girl, Aurena from Shape of Dreams

Still taking a break after finishing a pretty big commission, whew~

[alandrosul]

i came up with a worldbuilding idea for my aurena setting about a week ago called Right Shape. when the sun-and-order god Raam came into the world and ascended to godhood, his presence changed the very shapes of the world. rock formations twisted into concentric rings; plants flowered with concentric blooms; even the spots on animals became concentric marks. the tenuvo (the people of aurena) believe these markings are auspicious and good omens. sometimes tenuvo are born with concentric birthmarks, and they are typically revered as saints, or called into service of Raam’s priesthood. Raam’s subconscious desires built this Right Shape into the world bc it is reflective of the shape of the cosmos itself: a set of concentric circles

[alandrosul]

so part of my dream was that there were these demigod-warriors (i’ve decided there were 9) who were actually a line of mortals chosen by a kind of armor that worked almost like a marvel symbiote? like it was armor but it was also like a second skin sorta that gave you super strength and agility and stuff. it might have kind of had a mind of its own too idr really. but for some reason these guy’s weapon of choice was always a big hammer. idk if i’m keeping that for diversity’s sake

[alandrosul]

i think it’s probably actually frowned upon to reuse patterns (the physical shape of a wroughtsaint), indicating a saintsmith with a lack of imagination. it is practically unheard of for a saintsmith to base a wroughtsaint’s pattern off of their own pattern. shiaaj is probably rather unique in that way

[alandrosul]

so i had an idea yesterday: that the plane of aurena was once a true planet, but something catastrophic happened, and aurena is just a chunk of the original world, saved somehow by either Raam or the orbital spirits (probably the latter with Raam taking credit anyway). the outer realms are kind of like conceptual echos of the old world.

buuuuuut i don’t think that’s in the spirit of what i’m trying to do with this setting, doesn’t really let the uodh/uorh/eilh/raam scheme i’ve got going on shine. so it’s going to be more of a conceptual “bubble” cosmos:

a single word formed a space within empty Uodh, resisting dissolution. it propagated, filling the space and expanding it with other words. this became Uorh: a dark and lonely place, words without meaning or context or sequence.

on Uorh from some very old notes on the subject:

Uorh - the word. The first thought, the first thing, and the thing persistent. The libraries of the stars are overflowed with their ideas. Still is there darkness, for cause-and-effect were born out of the void, but without meaning. So meaning must be born from cause-and-effect to be known.

then there’s Eilh. it exists gives meaning to the word, and becomes a world. the words form into sentences with meaning. heat came into being with Eilh, like so much friction.

Eilh - the world. The concept given a name, a meaning. The editors flock to the libraries, cutting down and emphasizing specific words. A black flame shone lightless upon the darkness. Yet easily led astray is the world and its newfound confidence. There is one last divine syllable.

finally, Raam, the one who brings true meaning and purpose to the phrases, and solidifies a world (aurena) into actual being, physical reality with physical laws and rules.

Raam - the King, the Light, the Purpose-Giver, the True, the Path, and the Teacher. A world emphasized beyond all petty meaning. The black flame erupts into light, a bright sun upon truth. Its light shines upon the golden lands of life, giving them divine resolve and assurance.

[alandrosul]

concept: Eilhwyrms.

[alandrosul]

wanna say something about saints. there are two categories of saint along the origin axis: bornsaints and wroughtsaints. there are also two categories along the occupation axis: landsaints (as i referred to in that piece with the dormarg and the thoughtstone) and skysaints.

landsaints, also known as redsaints for the type of red grass common across all of aurena (called “shalesh,” it’s the grass in the piece with shiaaj and the occultation), are kind of both a “sheriff” or peacekeeper of a particular region and also a kind of spiritual guide to the people of that region. the number of landsaints typically assigned to regions is based on the region’s population, with rural areas typically only having one or two, and large highly populated cities having as many as ten. landsaints typically have at least one but sometimes a handful of “knights,” which serve as a kind of deputy, and are mortals proven capable and worthy of serving the saint and their people. a lot of situations in a community are handled by the knights, but some things require the touch of a saint.

skysaints, also known as bluesaints/greensaints (the sky of aurena is a kind of tealish color, and the tenvo language does not distinguish between blue and green), sometimes also called “warrior-saints,” are specifically chosen saints who are exceptionally skilled in combat, tactics, and diplomacy, are either the commanders of or the sole forces of an Outer Realm Occultation, serving directly under Raam to bring peace and order to the Outer Realms via unimaginable violence. outside of occultations, some skysaints serve as landsaints as well, with a so-called “knightsaint,” being a fulltime landsaint who takes over when Raam calls the skysaints away, but serves as a knight during downtimes. even during occultations, skysaints might bring mortal knights, if they have many, to aid the war effort.

there’s a fair bit of (usually) lighthearted animosity between landsaints and skysaints, with skysaints typically seeing landsaints as lesser saints, and landsaints seeing skysaints as puffed up meatheads.

another note about saints: they are very long lived, almost functionally immortal, and they are very hard to kill, with a tendency to not stay dead. so a landsaint may serve a region through several generations before they either become too old and tired to be effectual protectors and guides, or they are somehow killed in the line of duty. skysaints, despite being very hard to kill, tend not to live as long as landsaints, simply due to the nature of their duties. it really depends on if they live in a period with frequent occultations (occultations have no set schedule, it’s basically whenever Raam feels like it or sees a need for one). but if you see an old skysaint, you know they’ve seen some shit, and are probably incredibly powerful.