I’m really intrigued by Rayla’s moonshadow assassin peers. I especially am interested in Andromeda because I think she is the only other girl in the group? Do you have any headcanons in how these teen/young adult assassins interacted? Do you think Rayla isolated herself from them because she was always iffy about taking a life? Also TDP finally colored their map and I know you live maps, find any new cool stuff? I especially love how there’s a frozen sea north and a spinning sea south, imagine the powerful Magic’s that channeled to make them.
Okay, so I jumped straight to the map, did 80% of it, and wandered away for a few weeks. I apologize, anon. Let’s get this going again:
I’ve got a few headcanons on the Moonshadow assassins! It seems likely that they hang out mostly with each other, when they hang out, to reinforce their teambuilding and to give them some socialization, since assassins tend to keep others at arm’s length. So I kinda figure they tend to roam as a pack on their evenings out in the village, if they’re not married to a non-assassin like Runaan is.
I think that could be part of the reason that Rayla might not have hung out with the others as much, too: Runaan wanted to be either training or at home with Ethari, so Rayla probably spent a lot of time doing those things just because he did them. And when Runaan was doing more serious training or missions, that’s when Rayla had her free time to run around the forest and make adoraburr friends.
Runaan could’ve probably insisted that she do something more assassiny with her free time. Shadow an assassin, do more studying, practice certain prescribed skills on her own. But he didn’t. He let her play. Soft assassin is soft!
Listen, anon, I have a fun headcanon for you about Andromeda--and by fun, I mean it’s really angsty half a second after you start thinking about it. Ready?
What if: Andromeda is Runaan’s half-sister. If they’re both Lujanne’s children by different assassin dads who kept dying in battle, but a Moon mage needs an assassin leader partner to defend Xadia with, and Lujanne knew her son Runaan wasn’t old enough to lead yet, so she burned through three or more husbands protecting him until Runaan was well trained enough to lead the assassins himself and had fallen in love with a mage who adored him and would be his partner in her place.
Andromeda looks a fair bit like Lujanne, too:
Along with Runaan, they all have long hair, side tails bound in silver cuffs, and some form of braids. Andromeda’s hair is sectioned in front similarly to Runaan’s. Her accent sounds more British than Scottish, though she only has the one line: My eyes for truth. And Lujanne and Andromeda are the only two Moonshadow elves we’ve met who have medium blue horns, while Runaan’s are dark blue. Almost everyone else’s horns have purple or pink as their base color.
But then, see, Andromeda went on Runaan’s mission, and she died. Her spirit was the most aggressive in TTM, usually closest to Rayla with her sword out, as if she hated Rayla the most. If she had a vested family interest in Runaan’s mission succeeding, and then it went pear-shaped because of Rayla, that would make sense.
No matter if she’s related to Runaan or not, she’s wearing horn cuffs, so she was in a dedicated relationship of some kind, and that’s so sad. Someone’s missing her the way Ethari’s missing Runaan. :’((((
Anyway, it’s just a headcanon, but since you asked, there ya go.
Okay, on to my thoughts on the map, of which I have a normal and healthy amount:
The Map Border:
Everyone doodles in the borders. I love to see what they put there.
Starting in the upper left and going counter-clockwise, the five human crowns are cool
Cornucopia swirls center left look like an homage to Cabbage Man from ATLA
Bait is staring at Evenere. his home? Or maybe he just wants to eat the dragonfly on its logo
Human defender has a beard. Hairagorn. He's very heavily armored but has no helmet. Long hair is braided to rest on front of shoulder, like the blond elf in the painting at the Moon Nexus. Old timey hairstyle?
He’s defending Katolis Castle specifically. I wonder if the little white building is kinda random or if it’s supposed to represent the Banther Lodge. Nah, I have a better guess: that’s where Viren grew up
The crack in the map looks meta. It's been repaired somewhat. Makes me wonder if it's an in-world map, whose, who ripped it, and who fixed it. Sir Phineas Kurst seems like the kind of guy to almost shred his really cool map
The star behind Zym's egg has seven points
The two ships on the southern waters are western and eastern respectively. Tidebound elves from Singapore? Jack Sparrow would be proud
There is land just south of the Dragontail, wonder what’s there?
The leaves around the human figure are small and numerous while the Moonshadow elf has fewer but bigger leaves
The elf is standing in the way of one of the six leaves growing out of the rune rose and that leaf's curly tip seems to have been replaced with a curl of the elf's very long hair
The human pose is more offense and the elf pose is more defense. But the elf has two swords, and one has some wicked hooks in it.
Elf has 4 fingers instead of 3 so whether it’s in-universe or meta, they were drawn by a human :DDD
The elf's braid winds around their horn and I think that's clever
High collar shirt under protective layer, bracers and elbow gloves, bare biceps, complex shoulder getup, ornate hair that's butt long and partly braided, two long slightly curving swords... horn cuffs too. This is a Moonshadow assassin in the same gear Runaan's got, poised to defend the Xadian half of the map as the human is poised to defend his side
The rune rose isn't a compass. It has a two sided pointer and six primal runes. Just decorative I guess. ;)
More lettuces on right center.
Maybe a portaling caterpillar on the center knot? Little bug pal, I see you
“The Five Human Kingdoms” lettered in red, “Xadia” in blue. Giving me Stratego flashbacks. Even the flowers on their banners are color coded
Banners in the corners are similar but Xadia has more fluttery tips
Thunder drawn all attacky top center, does he have anything to do with the Frozen Sea being frozen?
Compass rose under Thunder’s wing
Dick island near the compass. Well, Duren is the breadbasket of the human lands. A most excellent cartography joke! 10/10 would chortle wholesomely again
The Human Kingdoms:
Neolandia
Capital Eboreus seems to be a lake city below a mountain and I'm here for all the Lake Town refs.
It's also the eye of the elephant shape
Not a lot of trees, mostly grasses or desert. Only borders Duren across a couple rivers/estuaries/sea channels
Heart shaped island next to elephant trunk
Land generally broken into several sections by sea/rivers
If it’s rivers, they seem to generate from the capital’s lake and flow in several directions. And they say there’s no magic left in the western lands! ;)
But if there was exactly one source of freshwater in a desert land, it makes sense that you’d find a way, magical or mechanical, to spread that lifegiving water in as many directions as possible so your people can thrive so kudos to Neolandia’s ancestors/Tidebound elves/whoever managed that, it’s brilliant
I can and will make up explanations for anything on a map. I adore worldbuilding
Del Bar
Two named locations. Since Del Bar’s national symbol is a serpent, I guess Serpentongue is the capital.
Hinterpeak is a sweet name. Looks like Helm's Deep with that retaining wall. What’s it for? Are there dwarves in this land? Is it an Earthblood stronghold? Maybe it’s like the Mines of Moria, and the Earthbloods were chased out and/or killed inside and now it’s full of nasty orcses but someone left a MacGuffin down there so *nudges hero* Off you pop.
Nice forests around the southern mountain range but northern DB is more arid or grassy lands like Neolandia.
Considering that crops grow well in Duren, which is farther north, I assume there is a massive meteorological gyre over the human lands, with a southern wind blowing down over the western realms and keeping them icy until the mountains of Hinterpeak block and divert them, protecting Evenere. The winds don't blow eastward without warming right up-- and causing thunderstorms in Katolis how about that-- because there is a warmer side to the gyre over Katolis and Duren, blowing tropical warmth and moisture north and providing rain for trees and crops alike. Most years, anyway.
How does the weather fail in Duren for seven years in a row, anyway? That seems like a Thunder issue. Unless it’s a Sunforge issue, which I’ll get to below.
Ahem.
Borders Neolandia, Duren, and Katolis across rivers, but most border is coastline.
Serpentongue probably got its name from the two river heads around it
Cluster of dead little cracks spawns a single river. Looks like someone cracked the tub and it drained away. I wonder how much of this landscape has been affected by the Mage Wars. Big watery basins have flooded and other spots seem dead. The lands may or may not actually touch depending on how deep some of these waterways are
Evenere
Looks like someone punched holes in the land with a giant pencil to make it a separate island. Broken outline with scattered islands
That Pawprint Isles has only four toes
Moon-shaped island is very crescenty indeed
Are these isles home to refugees or outcasts from Xadia? Listen, I want pirates and that sea looks pretty Caribbean to me
No capital city, hmmm what's that about? Is it underground, does it move? Maybe Fareeda’s capital is on the back of a world turtle and she’s constantly on tour around the island?
That arm of land ending in a peace sign, please can we get surfers
The hills emanating from that claw shaped headland look like something is sleeping under the island, hello yes I am here for giant immortal creatures please
Katolis
its capital is also called Katolis, the only human realm to use the same name twice
Weeping Bay could be a ref to the tears the humans shed after they reached the west. Or the Moonshadow elves as they left their forest for the east. Or both. Both, in this case, is bad but balanced
Boomerang island next to the Dragontail
The river the Dragaang rode on was going uphill
The watery slash in the land between Katolis and Del Bar is awfully straight. So is the one between Del Bar and Neolandia. I call magical warfare.
Katolis has a bunch of mountains in the east, part of an old natural border before the lava one appeared
Mt Kalik is probably volcanic. It's a standalone mountain and it's really tall. Rex Ignius maybe? Oh, probably not, I think I see him peeking on the other side of the map
The trees of Duren and Katolis are different then the western lands. Softer green, deciduous. And the land itself is yellower, warmer in tone
Forests centered on Mt Kalik
The Moon Nexus looks like an eye on a dragon head near the Dragontail, and Evenere looks like a severed wing (Yes I am still wondering where Luna Tenebris went, why do you ask)
Weeping Bay looks like the most natural body of water in the western lands
Three red little trees scattered around the Katolis map. Fruit trees? How very Moonshadow.
Duren
The only land border among all the human kingdoms is between Duren and Katolis. Maybe it used to be further south along the river?
Capital is Berylgarten, set on a lake. Beryl is a stone that’s usually green, blue, or yellow in color, very gardeny
Second smallest realm but the breadbasket of the human lands. Has several little forests and great tilled fields
Being a farmer in Duren is probably as awesome as being an assassin in the Moonshadow Forest; you do what you do for all your friendly kingdoms
Northernmost land is cold and craggy, named Skall's Hook along the sea
Third ship in the Frozen Sea is icebound and crushed. Looks western, indicating no possible passage
Lots of colored trees and shrubs as if fruitbearing, I keep comparing Duren to the Yakima Valley in Washington State
Where the lava reaches the Frozen Sea, it melts the ice next to Duren's mountains
Northern Xadia:
Lux Aurea
Most of the center lands of this map has warm tones for its ground. Maybe that’s because of the long reach of the warmth and light of Lux Aurea’s Sun Nexus, and only the lands that are just too far from it are truly cold and icy. It would explain why Duren is a breadbasket realm so far north--it’s just across the border from Lux Aurea.
If there’s anything to that, then I suddenly worry for the fate of all the human lands now that the Sunforge has gone dark. It’s early summer now in Xadia, and crops in Duren will be ripening soon... Unless the sun’s magic was helping them grow. This coming winter could be rough. Next winter, people will die. Unless they can purify the Sunforge again.
Also, I have to wonder if Duren’s seven years of famine had anything to do with Sunforge shenanigans. They’d have happened at Khessa’s command, and we know she despises humans. If she was responsible for all the struggles that humans had to go through without enough food for seven years, and then their desperate attempt to fix the problem by invading Xadia for a Magma Titan’s heart which extended and exacerbated the war, I can see why Aaravos might feel Queen Khessa deserved to die
The city’s shaped kinda like an Egyptian pectoral necklace on this map, and that’s super pretty and not at all ominous
Also that’s a lot of gold for a whole city and I wonder how they got it all
The Shiverglades and the Shards
These areas are north of Lux Aurea and seem cold but not very icy, even though the Frozen Sea is right there. More thoughtful glances at the Sunforge over this one. Is it warming the land, or not warming the sea? Both?
Shiverglades is a play on Everglades, so this is a cold swamp, which sounds super fun I’m sure. Permafrost, tundra maybe?
The Shards seem to be rock islands with ice mountains. Glaciers are cool.
I wonder if something broke those islands off on purpose. Have I mentioned how much I enjoy worldbuilding? Yeah, well, I like world-wrecking, too.
Storm Spire
Has a good view on everything that happens for miles, including Lux Aurea, the Midnight Desert, the Shiverglades, the Black Tundra, the Uncharted Forest, and Drakewood.
Defensible position, no other tall mountains nearby
Also able to alert others to danger, especially since Avizandum could teleport like lightning
The Midnight Desert
It’s pretty big! And it looks like it’s littered with ruins of columns and dead palm trees. Like something else used to be in that great space and then something Very Bad happened to it. Maybe there was one great city where all the elves could mix together, and then it got utterly obliterated and the elves all fled to their respective safe places around Xadia. A city of black stone, back when Aaravos wore a crown? Now pulverized to dust and surrounded by not one, not two, but three primal nexuses? Hmmm...
All the wisps could be heat from the sand, or spooky spirit hints, or just an ominous sign of danger from the snakes below, but the overall effect is that the land is unhealthy if not cursed
The oasis is marked, and it must contain a spring since it runs a river out to join the river that passes through the Moonshadow Forest
Also the actual oasis kinda resembles a blue lizard which is adorable and probably also terrifying
Moonshadow Forest
The Silvergrove is the only village marked in the forest, so in keeping with the other lands and general map legend rules, it’s likely the capital/central village for the Moonshadow elves
The village is marked by four round-roofed homes between two tall leafy trees that shelter and hide them. It’s a hybrid balance between the blocky manmade castles of the human lands and the actual forest around them, showing a blending with nature that even the Sunfire city of Lux Aurea did not embrace, with all its golden buildings
It’s a good-sized forest, and it kinda stretches thin to the east but there it tentatively connects to the Drakewood Forest
Moonstone Path to the west just chilling in the lava like a blank alignment chart. Moonstone Path is Chaotic Hot.
Southern Xadia:
Ruins of Elarion
Elarion is a city, and it’s been lost to the humans for a thousand years
The building outlines are squared-off towers like the more modern castles in the west, suggesting that humans in Xadia built for strength and defense as soon as they could. They felt vulnerable and created protections in their architecture. The three elven cities we see also play to their strengths, but those strengths include magic. Elarion’s humans had to find a different strength, and they went with craftsmanship and ingenuity
It seems to be the only human city from before the border was drawn
“Ruins” doesn’t necessarily mean no one lives there at all, but it’s been emptied of humans and no one else has maintained it since
It had a great position on a vast lake, with sheltering hills and easy sea access
Sea of the Castout
This inland sea has five inlets and outlets. It’s hard to be sure which is which with some of them, with the way the water is drawn on this map. But I’m kinda liking the idea that all the water swirlies are places where Tidebound magic has been placed over the millennia, so the water can do whatever it needs to do depending on circumstances. That goes for the human lands, too. Katolis backward river, you’re off the hook.
With a name like "Castout,” I wonder if it was some kind of universal toilet to flush away things you didn’t want--including humans--who might wash up near Elarion and start to build there. Yeesh.
The rivers that flow into this sea pass through or near the Moonshadow Forest, the Midnight Desert, the Storm Spire, Drakewood, and the Uncharted Forest. That’s a lot of drainage.
It’s pretty far from the Tidebound Archipelago, so maybe its name is referencing Tidebound elves who have left their home colony
Was this always a sea, or did something that Xadia wanted to forget get flooded and hidden in the depths?
The land around it seems open and hospitable. It could be a good place to build/rebuild in a time of peace.
The Far Reaches
Open grassland with low hills
Two of the hills look like giant boot prints
Several colorful trees which I hope are fruit trees
Bounded by two rivers from the Sea of the Castout
Looks homey tbh, great spot to retire to get away from everything if there were a war that really shook you up
Ocean Point
There’s a Star rune here, and it could mean many things
The closest other marked location is Elarion
If this was where Aaravos lived of his own free will, I can see why he’d take a shine to the humans. They were his neighbors.
If he is imprisoned here, it’s literally the furthest point in Xadia from the other elven realms, with the Moonshadow Forest being the closest one and Umber Tor not too much further but in a totally different direction. If they were trying to isolate him physically with a portable mirror to watch over him, that’s a good spot for it
Possible location that the cube is leading Callum toward? Portal to the Star Touch home plane? Aaravos’s seaside B&B? Trap street?
Eastern Xadia:
Drakewood
Umber Tor looks to be the tallest mountain in all of Xadia, save possibly for the Storm Spire. It’s more traditionally mountainy, with a nice snowcap. Since it’s labeled, I’m guessing it’s the Earth Nexus, under which an Earth Archdragon sleeps
Also there’s a giant yellowish-brown dragon chilling next to the Tor. Yeah, he seems nice. Rex Igneous, I presume?
Or maybe not, since the neighboring forest is called Drakewood. Maybe this woods is just where a bunch of Earth dragons hang out? Ezran and Pyrrah flew off and returned with a crew of Sun dragons from somewhere, so dragons must have communities too
The mountains that edge the sea are shaped roughly like a stone dragon in flight
Drakewood seems to be the forest closest to Umber Tor, with both deciduous and evergreen trees, though there’s a huge swath of wooded land here, to the north and to the southwest. I wonder what the locals consider the border where the Drakewood becomes the Uncharted Forest and why. The way the evergreens are drawn almost looks like a border, a sort of kingswood set aside for a specific use. Rex Igneous’s best toothpicks?
Uncharted Forest
Okay this is a properly magical name, very mysterious. But uncharted by whom? People with charts? This might be a Sir Phineas Kurst name, which is outsidery, and it makes me wonder if the locals/neighbors have their own name for it, which the human explorer never learned, a la “Thunder” for Avizandum
Maybe “Uncharted Forest” just means no one ever turned those trees into charts though, old growth ftw
If no one lives here, will someone move here? If someone lives here, who are they? Earthblood elves? Moonshadow elves? Humans? This mystery, it calls to me
the trees are mostly deciduous and fill basically all of this whole section of land, up against the mountains and the rivers, so it seems very fertile land indeed
Earthblood elves could live here, but there is no city marked. Maybe because we haven’t gotten that far in the show, or maybe that’s the wrong sort of descriptor for how the Earthbloods live and organize. Maybe the whole forest is their city, like Pando, the interconnected quaking aspen clone forest
The northernmost part of this forest lies right between the Storm Spire and the Tidebound Archipelago, so it might get a regular flyover route for migration or messages
Yes, this forest is the most interesting place in Xadia to me, I desperately want to learn more about it
Black Tundra
Yeah this place isn’t ominous
Similar to the Shiverglades, but where that has shrubbery, the Black Tundra has single dead trees and creepy curving spikes. Scorched? Poisoned? De-magicked?
The water north of this area isn’t frozen, and with a lake to the south and a river and a moderate mountain range, the whole area looks like it would otherwise be decently habitable, but instead it’s cold and black
Is climate change a thing here, or will we get a nice horrible disaster instead?
Tidebound Archipelago
These islands have dotted lines around them, like they’re submerged at high tide, or maybe made of shifting sand that literally moves around like sand dunes across a desert, or perhaps they’re exactly at sea level with half their civilization in the air and half underwater or in cool bubbles, or maybe the islands actually float
Maybe the Tidebound elves even sank them on purpose for defensive purposes
The archipelago is about even latitudinally with the Storm Spire Lux Aurea, Berylgarten, and Eboreus so they probably get pretty nice weather
There’s no ice in sight here in any direction along Xadia’s east coast, so presumably the prevailing current is a warm one
do they have bridges connecting the islands? Ferries, animals who give them a lift across?
the islands have quite a bit of space on them. I wonder if there’s a big population, maybe a shifting population? Do Tidebound elves migrate up and down the coast like gray whales and return to the islands for certain holidays or social events?
This is probably the hub of the Tidebound elves’ culture, but the sea surrounds the whole land and infiltrates it with many rivers and lakes. The Spinning Sea and the Frozen Sea are pretty firm Do Not Enter signposts, but a determined Tidebound could get around either one if they wanted to
What I’m not seeing here is a city. Either it’s not been marked yet, or that’s not a thing that Tidebound elves have in their culture. If they don’t have a city, they’re possibly migratory in family groups, or maybe they stick to small villages like the Moonshadows do, but with even less central leadership
