Forest: Ascendant of Gardens, Growth, and Knowledge
They’re in need of a good long rest.
Forest sirens may seem the closest to human-like of all the siren types, but that doesn’t mean their creator looked that way. The very first Forest siren, and perhaps the very first siren in the world at all, they are also known as the most magically powerful entity to have ever existed. Obvious by their semblance to the kelp pillars of their home, Forest possesses an incredible connection to the natural world, able to change the growth of macro- and microalgaes with barely a thought, to repair damaged tissue of both flora and fauna with nothing but a flick of magic, and even to magically alter the inner workings of another’s mind.
Forest sirens are also known to be the only siren capable of manipulating another siren’s magic, and there are rumours that Forest themself was capable of directly manipulating souls.
But don’t worry! Forest pledged themself to peace, never attempting to harm even the littlest of shrimp.
We see Forest in some flashbacks in Two Witches Woven, but the real fun with them doesn’t come up until book three! They’re very, very tired.
[Send me an emoji and I’ll talk about a related OC!]
A 🦷 (tooth)! Did you know that you can identify a siren’s type by their teeth?
Surge sirens are known for all of their teeth being pointed and sharp (and often serrated!), and they usually have more than one layer of teeth! Just like the sharks they seem so like, they can lose a few of their teeth quite often, but new ones grow in extremely fast!
Mist sirens, similar to Surge sirens, have the majority of their teeth being sharp: however, their front four teeth are identically shaped to humans’, while their eye teeth (canines) are their largest, longest fangs, and the rest of their molars are like miniature versions of these fangs. Very similar to a cat’s fangs! (Mist and Surge sirens are both carnivorous!)
Forest siren teeth are nearly identical to a humans’, but due to their herbivorous diet, their teeth tend to be a lot more dull and flat.
Light sirens... well. Don’t have teeth. They don’t have mouths as we know them, they have beaks! Like most cephalopods!
It’s rather unusual that Celestine’s fangs don’t match any of these four, huh? They’re almost like a mixture of Forest, Mist, and Surge siren teeth... Celestine’s teeth are mostly identical to a humans, but her eye teeth and first molars are replaced by slightly serrated fangs! They aren’t much longer than the rest of her teeth, but they sure are sharp!!
Sometimes I forget that effect layers are so much fun. Sometimes I go overboard. It’s fine.
Yeah spoilers oh well. Say hello to the siren from a pacifist race who doesn’t want to be a pacifist. They like stabbing people. They also like senseless fanciness and being super reckless purely to seem cooler than they are.
I’m still toying with how I want the sirens of OSS to look, but this is a pretty close to what I’m thinking. Colours, shape and fins often mimic marine life similar to their habitat. Scale patterning and how far it extends over the body is different for different types of sirens, and many don’t have scales at all. Honestly, there’s such a variety that it’s kind of impossible to give an accurate example!
One Siren’s Soul Taglist (lmk if you want to be added/removed!): @scottishhellhound @mvcreates @carmenwrites @waterfallwritings @runningonrain @dissevr @bookish-actor @bookenders @mouwwie @onfablesandfiction @candy687 @anaestheticdisaster @yearlyaquariace @elizabethsyson @your-local-imagination-station @imaghostwriter @orphicodysseywrites @esoteric-eclectic-eccentric @elisabethrosewrites @lookslikechill @fuyuuki513 @purpleshadows1989 @fiama-l-hernandez @keithislactoseintolerant @tenacious-scripturient @mackerelwrites @writingwitherebus @lady-redshield-writes @boysbecrying @clawhee-writes @shaping-infinity @livvywrites @planets-and-prose @dc-writes @halfbloodlycan @penzag @sunlight-and-starskies @pen-in-hand
Art Taglist: @hannahs-creations @royalbounties
Artist’s note: I’m fully aware having such heavy blades underwater is a Bad Idea and this character is completely aware of that, but The Aesthetic™ was too strong not too~
Forest; Ascendant of Gardens, Growth and Knowledge
Did you mean: so done with all this nonsense?
With an advanced intellect and a high skill in magic, Forest sirens are the closest of their kind to humans. Often they are pacifists, living in kelp forest communities organized like small villages and avoiding conflict when unable to mitigate it. In the past they may have even worked alongside and traded with humans, but now they remain hidden deep in their undersea homes with many layers of magic protection.
Once widespread with their flourishing marine gardens and extensive magic knowledge, the number of Forest sirens in the world has vastly diminished. Their communities are now limited to sheltered coves, reefs, and kelp forests, the sirens relying on their macroalgae and plant manipulation abilities to provide much of their food and materials.
GENERAL TEMPERAMENT: Highly intelligent with human-like sapience, often pacifists. Now highly secretive and are more likely to flee than fight, erasing memories of their location and existence for protection.
SOCIAL BEHAVIOUR: Live in small village-like communities with familial-like relations between every member. Singular leaders with advisers, with larger communities having councils made up of separate guild leaders.
HABITAT: Kelp forests and undersea gardens in sheltered coves and reefs, often in warmer waters.
DIET: Herbivorous;
Macroalgaes they cultivate or forage
Land plants in the intertidal zone
Occasional other land plants
Occasional lichens and mosses
MISCELLANEOUS INFO:
Similarities in intelligence and behaviour led to close cooperation with humans, but the advent of siren hunters caused Forest sirens to go into hiding.
Interactions with other siren types are rare due to disparity between behaviours and magic use--many see Forest sirens as “weak” and believe they are misusing their magic.
Incredibly traditional in customs but are continuously seeking new magic us--
“Ah, so I see. The human thinks they’re an expert on all things siren, then, do they?”
...
“You know, it ain’t the most polite thing to talk about us like we’re animals.”
... How did you get in here?
“Not of importance. What is, of course, is that this is all lies. Who the hell told you we were ‘more likely to flee than fight’, eh?”
Disclaimer: [REDACTED] is not an accurate portrayal of most Forest sirens.
“Says the one classifying an entire species by a ‘general temperament’.”
LINKS:
WIP page for One Siren’s Soul
The world of One Siren’s Soul - Sirens and Magic - Part 1, Part 2
Other parts of this series: Surge Sirens || Mist Sirens || Light Sirens
(EDIT; Hey folks, seems tumblr refused to properly tag people the first round! Terribly sorry if you’ve already seen this, I just wanted to see if I could fix it!)
This series is going to lay out the basics of the four siren types, but if you have any questions, feel free to send in an ask! I’d absolutely love to ramble about my worldbuilding~
Story teller Saturday! How is history recorded in your WIP? How is it passed down and studied? What biases have cropped up and warped the view of the past?
It’s no longer Storyteller Saturday, so I won’t be sending out any new asks in return for ones I receive because I have a whole lot to get through! Thank you all so much for the wonderful questions~
Oooohhhhh a worldbuilding ask!! Also @sidhewrites, it appears you sent me three asks in total–I’m not complaining in the least, but I think one of them is a repeat? So I’ll be answering this one instead of the other history one!
One Siren’s Soul takes place on an alternate Earth during the early 1700s—because of that, most of human culture remains the same as it did historically, but what I can talk about here, is siren culture!
The Forest sirens are known as the historians of the sea: because of the massive libraries and the importance of education and learning in their havens, some have taken it upon themselves to act as the guardians of their culture’s history, and the protectors of stories and myths and traditions. They’re amazing record-keepers, and almost always have been, keeping notes and logs and records of events and important figures and rules and names, the like! Because of their incredibly powerful protection and preservation magic, most of these records have survived for thousands of years, although many have been lost to havens being destroyed by human siren hunters.
And despite all that wonderful fact-checking and record-keeping, biases are still incredibly prominent in the original writings of those records, and the interpretations of them. Most commonly the warping of history is due to historians attempting to retain their reputation, or to defend their own theories. In fact, one of the biggest current debates among the Forest siren historian population is about the theory of a Lost Ascendant. No one can find any absolutely definitive proof that a fifth Ascendant existed, but the existence of a fifth Ascendant Artifact seems to suggest it…
Surge sirens, on the other hand, are far less likely to know how (or care enough) to keep physical records. They’re more of a nomadic race, anyways, always traveling with relatively few locations to keep any sort of physical record aside from the Forest havens. They have a very strong oral culture for passing down knowledge and history, their stories often originally based on fact and around actual historical events, and though the tales may have warped quite a bit from the original, they still sustain the original core lesson or moral.
Mist sirens are more or less the same as the Surge sirens, which makes sense, considering the two siren types are often found working together. And no one has any idea about how Light sirens work! (Except for me. I do~ c;)
(Siren history is a major plot-point of book two, so I have a lot of info on it!!)
Which of your siren types is your favorite and why?
I’ve answered this here and here! My main favourite is Light sirens, for many different reasons detailed in those previous posts! But if I’m to choose a second... aughhhhhhHHHHHHHHH THERE’S. SO MUCH I CAN’T SAY.
They’ve got giant undersea libraries, mate. Museums and archives and educational centers and libraries all mixed up into one! Their Havens are protected by barriers of magic and vary in architecture and styles massively, depending on location and local climate/flora available! More often than not, though, a large part of the composition of their structures are made of living plant material, woven and grown to match specifications through their macroalgae manipulation ability!
The larger Havens are led by councils made up of leaders of different guilds, separated based on the types of their work! Their society is very similar to humans’, but with tons of magic and it’s ALMOST ALL UNDERWATER. So! Cool!!
Also they don’t fight as much as humans do. Which does lead to some trouble, but uh. The thought is really nice. ^^
I mean there’s totally not also the reason that my favourite siren character is a Forest siren and I might just be biased because of that
What are some atypical beauty standards in your WIP’s main culture? What would we expect or not expect the main character and their culture to like or dislike, if it’s different from what we have in the real world ?
[Quill’s going through the old STS asks stacked up in their inbox—I’m sorry for getting to this so late! ^^’]
Ohhhhh I haven’t much thought of this! Although I’m definitely going much lesser on the uh. Racism and sexism bits of 18th century cultures, most of the beauty standards of the humans in this world are more or less the same, which means highly dependent on the culture and area of the world you’re looking at. For sirens, though… again, their culture is quite varied depending on the region of the world you’re in, but I suppose I can try and think up some things for the siren haven our main crew travels to in book two~
FIRST OFF. An almost universal beauty standard among sirens is that traits that signify a higher amount of magic are considered more attractive because it means you’re more powerful. One of the most obvious of these is a larger fin size. Having shinier scales can also be an indicator.
On another note: many Forest havens are very isolated from the world now, because of their fear of interacting with humans, so they tend to really focus in on details that are different from what they’re used to. It’s old art but this character (who has multiple names but one of which I can now reveal to be Lá Lúa) meets a lot of interest because of their scars and tattoos. These are highly unusual things for Forest sirens, and in addition to their much larger fins and metallic scales, Lá is considered fairly attractive in general. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
As for the main characters, of those that can remember, most of it likely matches the cultures they grew up with, although all four of my main characters kind of drift away from their cultures’ preferences. Phoenix and Celestine, especially, but Colin’s attraction is much more based on personality than looks.
I know that’s not very specific but that’s mostly because I have yet to do too much research into this yet, but thank you for the ask! ^^
Happy Storyteller Saturday chillest of the Quillest! I have some questions for you. If you were a siren, which one would you be and what would your scale pattern/character design be? Which ship would you stow away on? If you were the captain of your own vessel, who would be in your crew and what would it be called? What kind of captain would you be and what would be your most sought-after treasure?
Storyteller… Sunday! Oh well.
@bookenders my friendo, my creator of the cactus, my magic mayhem maker, what a list of questions! What a wonderful curiosity!
What a long answer!
Fun fact: Quill has a lot of trouble putting themselves into their own worlds or writing. Maybe I dissociate and daydream too much, since I don’t have a clue how I would describe myself, my personality and the like! So these were tough to think about!
If you were a siren, which one would you be and what would your scale pattern/character design be?
Well. Uh. Most likely I’d be a Forest siren! Thirst for knowledge, interest in plants and a pacifist nature and all that~ Mostly because I absolutely love the look of these fish but also because they’re commonly found where I live: the Atlantic mackerel would be the base for my design!
Blue and green and yellow and purple backed with black bands and silver bellies with an iridescent sheen. Small scales, torpedo shaped tail with small but efficient fins and small spikes. They’re very fast and must constantly keep moving to survive (like me) and honestly I’m just biased towards how pretty they are~ (They’re much prettier in person, by the by. I’ve caught so many of these fishing. Their colours depend on where you catch them, and can range from purple to green to blue to yellow, and they sparkle in the sun!)
Which ship would you stow away on?
Of the ones in One Siren’s Soul, I think I’d go for the Compass, if that’d be possible under Io’s strict watch, since it’s the cleanest and largest of the vessels. If I didn’t want to die from being found, I’d go for the Rồng Naga, since Xuân does a good enough job of keeping her vessel tidy and fancy, despite the fact it’s a pirate ship. Heck, if she found me she’d probably just not care and forget I was there, and I’m home free! Or she’d kill me. Depends on what she’s feeling like, then.
If you were the captain of your own vessel, who would be in your crew and what would it be called? What kind of captain would you be and what would be your most sought-after treasure?
What a question, indeed! Wow!
Who would be in my crew? I mean… Everyone wants a Phoenix. Scary tall lady legendary for her skills in battle and her love of fire? But is also really respectful and fantastically compassionate? Yes please. Both George and Isabel are incredibly competent sailors (and fighters, in Isa’s case), and Colin’s a requirement with them. He does well for the crew’s morale! Alixandre is amazingly resourceful and super quick to pick up new skills, and he nonetheless has a lot of sailing experience already~
What kind of…? Wha? Uh. Um. I mean I’m not sure if I’m cut out to be a captain, let alone a pirate captain. But if I was? I dunno, mate. Maybe I’d be a lot like Captain Samuel Bellamy, often known as “Robin Hood of the Sea” because he was so well known for his mercy and generosity to those he captured! My most sought-after treasure, if I was in the OSS world, would definitely be the Ascendant artifacts, the legendary objects told to hold the immense powers of each siren race. There are stories about what would happen if all five were brought together…
Long answer ahoy! With a spoiler treat at the end for anyone who got through it~
