#poteria

[candiebish]

You Know What Since That You people Asked For Worldbuilding I SHALL GIVE. I Have Spent so Much fucking time Drawing Tarot Cards For Each country That now That They're ready I Cant do It Anymore

(oh. &. Do Not come at me If You Dont Agree With My worldbuilding! I'm a Very anxious Person i Couldn't Handle criticism <3)

(yes I Know the Irl countries they're Based on. Vaugarde Is Fantasy France, Ka bue Is Japan, Poteria Is Fantasy Italy...The Forgotten Country Is Guadalope, so i Tried Getting the cultures Right While still Making My Own spin on It!)

WARNING. THIS POST IS LIKE...VERY FUCKING LONG. SERIOUSLY ITS L O N G. READ ONLY IF YOU'VE GOT THE TIME!!! (Yes It Has Isat Spoilers Too Btw)

🏰 Vaugarde: The Medieval-Leaning Heartland

Vaugarde is the primary setting & feels the most "classic." It is a country of stone castles, dense forests, & knightly traditions. But It Is Mostly Free Will. There Aren't set laws just be a decent human Being & We're all Good

The Aesthetic: Primarily High-Medieval. You can mainly see defenders wearing occasional armour. Or Really Just Custom Clothing that counts as their armour, Others Often Wear Capes & Hoodies Or Both & Such, generally Vaugardian Fashion Sense Is Very "Elegant" & Often "Plain" But of Course nobody said There aren't any exceptions!

Leadership: Others Often Turn To Euphraise/The Head Housemaiden For Guidance & Often Consider Her A Leader. Even If She Doesn't WANT. To Give Herself the Leader Title, She's Merely There For Guidance. But She Surely Won’t Be Against Guiding The Country!

The Modern Twist: Within the medieval shell, you find "anachronistic" touches. A traveler’s pack might have modern-style buckles for durability, or a kitchen in a village like Dormont might feature professional-grade steel utensils & organized snack-belts that feel more like modern hiking gear. It is "Old World" but functionally comfortable.

Other: The House Is Very Special Cause It's The "Mother" House. Other Houses Found in Vaugarde are smaller & They were founded by Members Of the Mother House as a way to Spread Change. The House In Dormont Will Always Be Considered The Main House. Usually The Other Houses Are Also Used As Small Supplies Containers. Whilst The Main House Has the Most supplies Like For Example Medicines, Exotic Medicines & such

📚 Ka Bue: The Scholarly Industrial Frontier

It’s The nation of knowledge & research that moves at a different pace, focusing on the refinement of tools & scholary intellect.

The Aesthetic: "Magical-Industrial" Steampunk. While Vaugarde uses torches, Ka Bue utilizes gas-lit streets & complex brass machinery. As I've Said. They Are Highly Advanced & Very Closed Minded. & It Shows In Their Culture & Buildings

Leadership: Their Leadership Doesn't Have a single leader. But rather a Council. Made By Higher Ranked Members Of Ka Bue. Either Chosen Through Heir Or If There Isn't One You Just gotta be smart, a reliable Member of ka bua's society & be strict

The Tech: Research here isn't just done with old scrolls; they use refined spectacles with adjustable lenses & fountain pens. It’s a country that feels like the early 19th century but with a magical, intellectual edge that prioritizes pursuits, the love of the mind & it’s inventions.

Other: Because they are so closed-minded & strict, they have a "Logic-First" social hierarchy. Your social standing is literally measured by a Standardized Intelligence Grade. They carry around small, laminated ID cards (very anachronistic!) that show their rank. If your grade drops because you’re "too emotional" or "unproductive," you lose your right to vote in the Council.

🎨 Poteria: The "Art Nouveau" Renaissance

The country of art & performance is where the timelines blur into a vibrant, but still greyish due to this world not having visible colours, into a stylish explosion

The Aesthetic: Pop-Art Renaissance. It’s a world of multiple Shades of grey, Mixed Together, Even if They Still call Them Colours Cause They studied Colour theory a lot (yes they discovered before Vaugarde has), It Has curved architecture, & high fashion. But Its Not Just Drawings & Paintings, It Has Also A Lot Of Theatre Plays, & Often Abandoned Buildings & Such Can Easily Be Transformed Into a place Where You could- Possibly hold a stage play at if all of the theatre spots are closed Already

Leadership: The Arch-Designer. There is only one leader, but they aren't a politician—they are a Master Architect/Designer who "shapes" the country. Instead of writing laws, they design the "Master Plan" for the next few years. This plan decides everything from the curve of the new streetlamps to the exact shade of grey used on every theater curtain.The citizens follow them because their design makes life functional & beautiful. If the Arch-Designer creates a "Plan" that makes the city feel cramped or ugly, the people simply stop following it, & a new Designer is chosen based on who can draw a better, more "comfortable" vision for the country’s future. It’s a leadership of vision, where the law is literally the blueprint of the world they live in.

The Modern Twist: Here, "modernity" is a stylistic choice. You might find a theater using a vintage 1940s-style microphone for a performance, or residents wearing accessories that look like mid-century designer pieces paired with flowing silk robes. It’s a place where "style" is as important as the law.

Other: In this nation, the concept of "private property" is very fluid. There are entire neighborhoods called Echo Districts where everything—from mid-century designer furniture to theater sets—is available for anyone to use, as long as you leave it "more beautiful than you found it." It is a culture of Continuous Restoration: if you find a broken chair in an abandoned building, you don't throw it away; you repair it with gold-leaf or silk, turning it into a functional piece of art. This makes the country a living, breathing museum where "trash" doesn't exist because everything is constantly being reimagined. There are also guards in this country but they’re like…Curators Are Guards, (Glass) Sentinels are curators in training, they make sure the aesthetic of Poteria isn’t ruined or to set it straight

✨ The Country (The Name Is Vanrembrance Btw)

The "Retro" Memory. Siffrin’s & The King’s origin is a place that feels physically & temporally distant from the mainland.

The Aesthetic: Tropical Nostalgia. It feels like a mix of ancient island ruins & a 1970's island retreat. Also If You Want a baby Without Having sex You can Literally Ask a tree For One, Like if Someone Doesn't Want To do the deed or has infertility Issues, Ask a tree. (yes this is mostly wishcraft stuff) The Country Is Not One single Island but...Rather a set of Islands, An Arcipelago, Some Islands might be Used To Gather resources, Others Are Grassy Fields With Tall Grass To Run In, & People Like To Say That's Where Shooting Stars fall

Leadership: The Leadership Isn't- Literal Leadership, It's Moreso Like. There Is a Someone who's Meant To be An interpreter for the Stars, If Someone Comes To The Interpreter With A Question The Interpreter Will Answer It By Looking at "what the stars Say" To do this, they use a Large Orrery to read the movements of the sky, planets & the Stars, This Also works For Any conflict if a decision is meant To be made

The Vibe: Because it is so tied to the Stars, the time there feels fluid. Even It Still Goes On Normally. It is a place of bright fruits & ancient totems Dedicated To the space. Contributing to the feeling that its inhabitants are "Travelers" who don't quite fit into the rigid or modern boxes of the other nations. & Also The Majority Of Individuals There Use The Neopronoun "Star/Starself" To Feel More Connected With The Stars, of Course not Everyone does but the Majority

Other: It Is Said, Commonly Shared & Taught That When Someone's Lifespan Ends They Become a star in the sky. & The Knowledge Of Stars Being balls of gas adds To it, One Becomes a star, Which Means Becoming One With the universe if stars are balls of gas, The Ones There Are Also Very Skilled. Knowing Advanced Crafting That Others Might Find Extremely Difficult, They Have A Lot Of Space Culture Related Stuff & They love sewing clothes. They Are Very Reserved. Therefore Their Writing Isn't in letters but in signs...resulting in giving people Who Aren't in or From Vanrembrance To Have A headache When Trying To Read. & While They Aren't outright malicious Sometimes They Have...trouble, Understanding the point of view of Other countries due to Their beliefs, Even If They are open Minded They Also Aren't. It's A Mix!

🏺 Mwudu: The Monolithic Ground & The Country Of Echoes

The island of stone & clay, where life isn't a journey toward the stars, but a return to the deep earth.

The Aesthetic: Brutalist Folk-Horror. It is a land of monochrome tones—shades of charcoal, bone-white, & deep clay. Architecture is carved directly into obsidian sea-cliffs or built from thick, sun-dried mud bricks. People wear heavy, layered linens & charcoal-stained robes designed to feel "grounded" & "weighted."

Leadership: The Seismologists of the Spirit. There is no king or council. Leadership is held by the Lamenters, who act as "Ground-Listeners." Instead of looking at the stars for answers, they interpret the vibrations of the earth & the sound of the tide in sea caves. Decisions are made by placing one’s ear to the ground in total silence; if the earth is still, the answer is "no."

The Tech/Vibe: Hydraulic Antiquity. Within their ancient mud-brick caves, you find surprisingly modern Hydraulic Systems. They use brass pipes & steam-pressure to move heavy stone doors or operate lifts that go deep into the island's crust. They also use Early Photography (silver-plate) to "trap" the image of a person before they return to the earth, treating the camera like a sacred tool of preservation.

Other: The Spirit Vents. Their most famous trait is the clay figurines with Screaming Mouths. While For Example Vanrembrance believes souls rise to the sky, Mwumdu believes the soul must be exhaled into the dirt. The wide mouths act as "Spirit Vents," providing a physical exit for the breath to enter the clay & then the soil. The Sunken Eyes are designed to catch rainwater so the statues "cry," which the locals believe washes away the person's heavy sins before they become one with the island's roots.

[jackoftradesmakesstuff]

Since I've already broken my traditional 10 years of silence after promising a project and then not finishing it, I may as well post a midnight ramble about the worldbuilding I did for said project that was way too much thought for a relatively unimportant SI/OC. Wild conjecture about the world of ISAT under the cut.

So for the character of Jacques, the Architect, Brooding One, one of their prominent design features was a face mask - chin to cheek and covering the nose like PPE - because as a SI I like to reflect my own style and I wear a mask all the time. Aesthetically it would have had a design on it, like a tragedy-comedy split mouth or some teeth or something but I never got around to designing that. To justify the character wearing a mask, I extrapolated from basically the only information about Poteria that we have, that they have a thriving theatre scene, into being a culture that extends classic theatre mask tradition into common fashion. And like I always do, I like to start at the historical "why" they started wearing masks that way, then as time went on they began to ascribe cultural and hierarchical meaning to it.

In essence, this version of Poteria would ascribe societal class to the style of headwear you have. I say headwear because I included hats as well as masks.

Peasants, farmers, and others who work outside often would wear wide brimmed hats. Originally it would have been to keep the sun and rain off them. Later they would take the meaning of using them to be unobtrusive and unworthy of the gaze of the audience, with the symbolism being that the wide brim keeps light from showing their faces like stagehands blocking their faces during full light scene changes. Wearing a hat and no mask would also be an indicator of honesty and simplicity, as if you do peer into the shadow to see their faces, they would have no mask to hide expressions behind. This would, of course, mean that to Poterians Siffrin and Bonnie are dressed like a imbecilic yet honest country bumpkins with their big hats and no masks.

Trades workers, skilled laborers, and probably farmers again during some seasons would wear the chin-to-nose mask. To protect their lungs from dust and other junk, of course. Having the lower face covered would come to represent the non-speaking extras on stage. You can't see their mouths moving, so they may as well not be talking at all. Culturally this would indicate someone whose actions are more important than their words, hence being assigned to trades and skilled labor. This has the unfortunate run on effect of basically requiring laborers to unionize because they need someone in a different mask to negotiate for them in case a particularly bull headed bigot refuses to even acknowledge a face-masker talking, and leads to a lot of advantage being taken. To make conversations between tradesfolk easier (because sometimes it really is just hard to tell who's talking when everyone has a mask on), they often learn sign language. Jacques the architect has this style of mask, leading to their brusque and short style of speech.

Upper face masks covering the eyes and forehead would indicate some level of aristocracy or higher education. This one is wholly aesthetic, adopted to complement the other classes' masks. Upper face masks are always much more custom because their styles and trappings are indicative of the wearer's profession, in much the same way that early Western theater and commedia d'el arte had a set of standardized masks that were worn by certain character archetypes. The open mouth and covered eyes would make their emotions largely performative, expressed almost completely in the mouth and body language. The exposed mouth would also indicate culturally that they are the type of learned or important person whose words matter. Because of this the aforementioned workers unions would basically be obligated to have someone wearing an upper face mask as their negotiators and representatives or else they would not be taken seriously. In addition to aristocracy (my words are important because I'm Rich), merchants and orators would wear upper face masks.

Phantom of the Opera style quarter masks that only cover one eye are worn by the upper class that are trying too hard to seem honest without giving up their high social status indicator. "Look guys, you can see into the window of my soul just like those peasants! You can trust me! Now sing for me my angel of music" types.

Servants and other low-class workers in upper-class establishments would combine a lower face mask with a small- or no-brimmed hat. Combining the unobtrusive markers of the hat with the I'm-Not-Important-Pay-No-Attention-To-Me aspect of the lower face mask. This one is another class that didn't have a set mask so they were assigned a set. The only nod to practicality is that these servants wear the small brims instead of wide brims so that they don't have to navigate their mostly indoors professions with a hat wider than their shoulders.

Full face masks are the mark of the pariah and the outcast. Do not look upon their face, for they are unclean. This would have started with medical professionals and grave diggers, like plague doctor masks, indicated that they deal in disease and death, and prisoners getting the Hannibal Lecter hockey mask style face mask to mark them as dangerous.

These styles would even extend to helmets. A warrior wearing a metal bowl on his head is probably a conscripted peasant, but if that metal bowl extends down to cover the forehead, eyes, and cheekbones, they're probably a commander who needs to be seen and heard shouting often. A helmet with a visor over its mouth is likely a wealthier tradesperson, able to afford the extra metal, while a full solid helmet would indicate a person who has no choice but to fight for their freedom gladiator style.