makeup is a sign of both material wealth and masculinity in annoshiki culture, and long hair is mostly just a sign of masculinity but REALLY long untied hair can also signify wealth (you don't work in the fields or anything, so you can leave your hair long and trailing without fear of it getting dirty). i haven't decided if high-class annoshiki women wear makeup as well, i'm leaning towards having them wear more simple stuff (like lipstick and one color of eyeshadow) while men wear more elaborate patterns that can utilize the whole face
characters featured here are the ex-noble body mage sheyann, a sumakhan version of my character samjulang, and the annoshiki royal family (prince kontekitann, king iunekitann, and queen kontessarai). if you're wondering why iunekitann is so much taller than his wife and son... that's part of the untitled eki story and i may make a whole separate post about it in the future. the tldr is that the annoshiki royals really want to look like they're divinely ordained, so they use body magic in order to make the king grow much larger than any normal pemadae should
worldbuilding stuff for a fantasy world that im calling sumakha for now. all of this info could change in the future bc im like that. rundown of the five main races under the cut
ketvidae: elf-adjacent lanky cat dudes. tribal system of government. carnivores. live in any forests with large thick trees, like sequoias. they hunt big game and distribute the meat among the entire tribe before using the rest of the animal to make weapons, clothes, toys, etc. tend to keep to themselves and dont get into wars or other feuds. hunting is mainly done by men but those men drink respect women juice every day and love their wives even if theyre behind on the times. pregnant women and children get double servings at dinner. other info in the pics
pemadae: deer/horse dudes. rule by divine monarchy. omnivores. practice animal and plant agriculture for their food source. currently the dominant war power in sumakha after defeating the bumidae. extremely prissy and like to look down on non-pemadae as if they didnt just come into power in the last 300 years. the most magic-proficient race of sumakha, use mostly enchanted weapons in battle. other info in the pics
bumidae: orc-adjacent bull/sheep/elephant dudes. used to be a powerful kingdom until being decimated by the pemadae, now the little that are still left have shifted to pacifism and live in small towns centered around communal farms. omnivorous. live in a great plains-esque area. have a subspecies/variation called northern bumidae who are mainly carnivorous, since theres not many ways to farm in the snowy mountains. general consensus on bumidae farms is that anyone who can work will work. other info in the pics
seradae: salamander/frog guys. pretty isolated from the rest of sumakha, only living in small tribes in swamps. carnivorous. use traps laced w their own venom to catch and kill small animals, while swimming through swamp waters w/ spears to fish. will occasionally eat insects but not often. this is the race i have the least info on but i can develop them later. other info in the pics
atridae: vulture/archeopteryx guys. lack an organized form of government, mostly solitary families spread across all of sumakha. detritivores. attracted to areas of extreme carnage for their food, so the pemadae/bumidae conflicts (as well as the current pemadae/homidae conflicts) are incredible for them. pemadae looking down on them for their supposed brutality is deeply ironic. their short arms are very close to nonfunctional, it doesnt make sense evolutionarily but i thought them having tiny little arms would be funny. other info in the pics
another NEW OC (but not really i made this guy 3 years ago) ALERT!!! everyone please welcome surissesh. or dont because he sucks (read below the cut to find out why!)
surissesh is the royal advisor for king iunekitann of annoshik, and part of the story i mentioned here. currently hes... kind of a one-note character, just some megalomaniac who wants power for power's sake and double-crosses everyone he works with in order to ascend to the throne. i will probably add more Meat to him character-wise later on though, since he is the main villain.
however he is not the only new character here as you can see. on the left scene in the second pic we have keyopha, the leader of iuraph. she recruited surissesh to assassinate king iunekitann, then manipulate his son kontekitann into giving control of gnemmia to iuraph. gnemmia has a lot of fertile land and a mountain range with a LOT of magic crystals growing inside it, so the three major powers of sumakha (annoshik, iuraph, and janggok) all want control over it. she gave surissesh the magic weapon he's brandishing in the first pic in order to kill the king and threaten the rest of the royal family/staff into compliance, while also having one of her own men follow surissesh to make sure that if he used the weapon for his own gain, he would be killed on the spot. unfortunately for her, surissesh isn't an idiot, and by the time he Does start using the weapon for himself, keyopha's men are already dealt with.
gnemmia is a highly sought-after territory... with people already living there, who don't like being occupied. the rebel group (whose individual members don't have names yet bc these are even OLDER ocs that i rebooted so they need to be reworked) were mostly dedicated to taking out annoshiki outposts in gnemmia one-by-one until they started working with surisessh. their plan was to have surisessh help them get into the palace to assassinate the king, then kill him immediately and occupy the palace themselves as part of freeing gnemmia. right when their assassin (the ketvidae in the pic) has finished killing the king, he turns his blade on surissesh, but surissesh reveals keyopha's weapon and completely blasts his head off. while the rebels did plan for surissesh fighting back, they hadn't planned for him having a weapon of this caliber, leaving them scrambling for a new strategy.
while surissesh could have likely risen to power just through intimidation, he justifies his uprising by claiming to be an agent of kennemikannosh, the patron deity of annoshik. i will probably make a different lore post about kennemikannosh in the future, but for now, all you need to know is that it looks like this ⬇️ and that annoshik is a divine monarchy, so surissesh's claim of being a prophet is taken seriously.
OKAY that's all the lore i really want to write out today. after finals (or as a break from studying for them LOL) i will finally do a bullet point outline of this story so its not all in my brain. and i'll see if i can actually figure out a name for it. also shoutout to my flight rising dragon ghirahim (and also the original ghirahim from loz skyward sword) he was a big inspiration for surissesh's design :-)
decided to redraw this thing from 2016 because eki's character has gone through. so so so many changes since i first made him in 2015. honestly if you even recognize the name eki you deserve a Dorian Veteran's Discount
in this current incarnation, "eki" is the runaway prince kontekitann, heir to the throne of annoshik. he was set to start his training to become king at age 13 until his father was assassinated, kickstarting a series of events that unravels a myriad of conspiracies surrounding the royal family and its history. im still in the process of rewriting the whole thing bc ive had it in my head since 2020. we will see where that goes
bumidae are basically the same as they were before, still large bear/slothlike herbivores. i just finally figured out how to draw them
pemadae have the biggest change. i didnt want them to have the same body plan as humans and i got stuck on it for so long that i just... didnt work on sumakha for several months. but now theyre back! they have a velociraptor stance cus i think they were probably pursuit predators before they evolved sapience and started domesticating animals (and probably still do hunts for glory's sake)
ketvidae are largely the same except now theyre marsupials and the amab ones are a little wigglier
homidae are also largely the same but now theyre more ape shaped and can go quadripedal. i blame jay eaton's tailed spacers for making me want handfeet
ATRIDAE AND NEWADAE REDESIGNS COMING SOON i just have to get over my Mammal Addiction first. atridae will be eusocial and have four different forms because im indecisive, newadae are gonna be some sort of amphibious octopus/cuttlefish/something-or-other that go on land at the end of their lives to fuck and die (like moths and mayflies)
random wizard guys i drew in july. most mages dont specialize in just one type of magic and instead go for a combo approach so i asked my friends to give me ideas for that
