I think it explains everything you need to know about me that the biggest thing I've been stuck on wrt the fantasy setting I've been building lately is whether to give the salamander people tits
yeah yeah real salamanders don't have tits that is not the question here
real salamanders also don't actually have fire resistant skin, walk upright, or have opinions on politics
"well what do you like better" neither. I like both options equally because I'm a bisexual monsterfucking gremlin. The idea of NOT annoying people who have a problem with salamander tits is potentially as much a mark AGAINST it because I like annoying people.
So yeah idk it's flip a coin at this point but then I'll have made a decision.
any-fucking-way I'm going to regret this because I still regret letting you guys vote for fantasy honse (not actually I love all of you it was very funny)
I'm not just calling them golden apples because that implies regular apples which do not exist in this setting because it's a silly fantasy setting based on video games and mythology 😐
you guys have no idea how many bizarre permutations I've got for "this is supposed to be a golden apple but in this setting metallic gold is the standard understanding of apples but also I don't just want to call them apples because metallic gold is the standard understanding of apples but how are you going to know they're not like regular apples in the real world if I don't be weird with it in the first in universe mention of the fruit (which is a city getting referred to by a "Big Apple" style nickname so you understand that people view it much the way the real world thinks of New York)
this is just what it's like inside my brain constantly so is it any wonder I don't get anything done
I talked about maybe going into alchemy or the undead but I kind of need to be able to do a shorter post tonight so here's Baba Ixandel with extremely little context
I have a lot more notes about animals than I strictly have of like, sketches, so I'm starting this off with some of my sketches of the best party member, Mortimer.
Am going to note right now that I've always had some trouble getting proportions quite right on a lot of animals so you are going to have to bear with me.
Much like with the four peoples in the previous post, I wanted to avoid just having regular ass earth animals in this setting, because once you've decided to swear off having regular humans, having normal ass horses in the setting is actually really fucking weird.
So, I made a couple of decisions:
Rule One, all ungulates are essentially unicorns (the goat is a work in progress that I'm not stopping at). This would include even things like whales, because why the hell not. That does mean I had to come up with goofy ass names for the different types of unicorns, if only to differentiate them in prose, like nalhorse or nalhross for a horsicorn, mulicorn, naedelhinny. But it also means I'm not going to lazily draw a cow and later realize that oops, I put a normal cow in my weird fantasy setting.
(Notably, a lot of the unicorns of Osmeith have innate magic; naedelhinnies are more useful than hinnies in the real world because they're more magically powerful than either of their parents-- and the equine innate magic talent is purifying water enough that it's safe for both unicorns and people to drink. So, people breed naedelhinnies on purpose so that they can have them clean water more effectively.)
Rule Two, all birds are dragons.
All reptiles and fish are also dragons, by the way. I am a draconic anarchist.
And of course the dragons are also dragons.
I'm still working on the peligon's proportions but I want you all to know it's fun because it's utterly horrifying; typically it's about the size of a horse but also doesn't stop growing if it has a sufficient food source. And yes, it doesn't just LOOK like a pelican. 8)
Rule Three, none of the dogs are explicitly real-world breeds.
They also have horrible little paw-hands but I didn't think you guys were ready for that. =X (This is also why I made a post a million years ago about types of dog heads.)
The cats are currently mostly just cats, though, because I thought it was funnier that way.
Rabbits have antlers. Because again, I think I'm funny. There's also tarrasques, although at this point I'm still deciding if this means dragons replace bears or something even more screwy is going on with that.
There's also more monstery beasts, of course, of the sort that don't really have strict equivalents in the real world; I'm putting the last illustration under a cut because it's a spider-taur and I don't want to jumpscare anyone with arachnophobia.
The weftam, a domesticated spider-taur about the size of a small dog or a large cat, kept for silk and general companionship.
I wanted something that filled the niche of the giant spider from video games without being quite an actual spider; creepy, but unrealistic enough for someone with lower level arachnophobia to hopefully be less put off.
I have no idea how successful I was because unfortunately I have very little understanding of what makes a spider creepy. You're just going to have to take my word that the weftam is the wettest beast and hides from thunderstorms.
The wild version of the animal is called a spinnedir and acts more like you'd expect a video game spider to act, probably, but this IS a dark fantasy so like. Ooga booga.
In which I subject you all to my clumsy attempts to explain what you'd find in the character creator if this was an open world rpg
Osmeith doesn't have any humans because I wanted to challenge the assumption that there's anything that felt too "default" in the setting. The fantasy people are elves, trowa, draikana/riulan, and the salamandra. (The naming situation is a little complex with the draikana for reasons we'll get to in a second.)
Arguably, elves are the closest thing Osmeith does have to humans, in that they're pretty much the only people here who don't have tails, lol, but they're also, you know.
Kinda blue-ish compared to humans. (Purple counts as blue-ish.)
One of the things btw I wanted to make sure about is that there are different ethnic groups within the different groups of fantasy people, which is part of why the draikana have multiple names. (The other reason is that they're essentially another setting rescue and I am much older than I was when I originally came up with "riulan," which I'm still using but not in Jormungandir's Throat.)
The trowa on the other hand, come in human colors, but, well, they've got tails and animal ears.
Some tail and ear types tend to show up more in some ethnic groups than others, but I don't want you to think it's especially strict.
The trowa are also generally rather hairier than elves, keeping in mind that Osmeith elves are about as hairy as humans, lol.
Also technically the name comes from the same root as "trolls" but I didn't want people to actually think of the five or six pop culture things that get called trolls
The draikana/riulan are kind of uh, I wanted to have a wide variety of aesthetics and styles for them? They can be dragony in multiple directions to the point of being merfolk sometimes.
One of the things about Osmeith's inhabitants is that a lot of living things have innate magic, and the draikana/riulan are the ones out of the four types of peoples that have the most of it-- as evidenced by the fact that some can magically fly (those wings don't make sense), some of them can magically breathe underwater, and all of them can shift their shapes depending on their other abilities, putting their wings or tails away depending on their needs.
I wanted to have my cake and eat it too, basically.
And finally we have the salamandra, singular salaman. Here's Skarinath from toddler to about sixteen.
Where the dragon-merfolk breathe water through innate magic, the salamandra are just naturally amphibious. They're also immune to a wide variety of diseases and unreasonably tough, with the trade-off being that their children absolutely need to be in clean water the first couple years of their lives. (Although salinity doesn't matter because who cares about realism.) This means their communities tend to stick to riverways and shorelines, of course, even more than the other peoples. Skarinath himself grew up in a coral city off the coastline of Atalan.
(I don't have as many sketches to share of the salamandra for the sole reason that I've been kind of focused on Skarinath himself, lmao)
The real purpose I was pursuing with the four peoples was being able to adapt a wide variety of characters into Osmeith, whether I was playing an Argonian in Skyrim (Skarinath) or say, making a reference to (blatantly stealing from) the Draconians from Escaflowne, lol.
As noted I've decided to break the fashion down into regions and I am starting with (western) Dalrahan because um um um MOSTLY it's the sort of vaguely not-quite vikingesque look I tend to default to in fantasy settings (because of, well, Hagar the Horrible and Horrible Histories illustrations, tbh). But with stronger definitions here and there.
I had to write that description twice because Tumblr sucks. Also there ARE little capes and shit like Link's Hylian Hood and shit like that but I think this gets the gist down. I'll get around to doing a picture like this for eastern Dalrahan (which is largely that big clawlike peninsula) but the major differences include a heavier emphasis on huge shawls and enormous triangular sleeves and just wearing blankets because you can. And kilts.
Anyways, generally as an overview, it tends to run on the practical side, with common accessories being scarves, pouches for belts, belt buckles, brooches, heavy bracelets for keeping sleeves in place, etc. Cuts of fabric are largely straight line or simple shit like a big ass circle of fabric turned into a skirt or cape. Colors tend to hover around yellows, greens, reds, and blues and blacks.
I was going to talk about things like fabric types and spell embroidery and whatnot and realized I have enough to make it its own post, oops.
One thing I will note is that Wynhilda, despite living in western Dalrahan at the start of the story, rather notably wears more form-fitting tops and billowed sleeves than I've outlined here: That is because Wynhilda is a little obsessed with clothes.
Yes one of the things I'm doing with the calendar is dropping previews in the doodle zone
Anyway I had a rough start with this but I'm hardly surprised that it was; the two pages I worked on today have been sitting half sketched for almost a year and there was a lot of fixing and having to remember how the hell to draw these characters going on, PLUS dragging the giant rusted sword that is my executive function along the floor the whole way, lol.
I'll have to figure out how to calculate "catch-up" amounts with this because I'm basically following NaNo principles and having an idea of how much more I'd have to do to keep the work spread out, rather than trying to catch up all at once, is kind of an important aspect of the whole mess. (calculating words is easy, comic pages are kind of a separate animal.)
