some ocs !!!! i have not doodled some of these people ever and some in a very long time
anat does not like the concept of winter coats; niv is human and does not actually have a tail, that’s just the tail of fantasy serach’s patently ridiculous tichel; shachar is mysterious cause i havent exactly figured out much about her yet; fantasy eliyahu is mysterious because they are fantasy eliyahu
A couple of doodles from today, that’s Fantasy Serach from qv and a (backless??? it should have a back but oh well) iridescent magic cloak that I like the general idea of enough that I might try and prod our dm into putting it into the campaign
I just spent like 30 minutes telling an abbreviated history of the questionverse to @dancyflammarions over Skype instead of sleeping and it came out well so I am going to make it into a post
Some notes:
the main character formerly known as Cadence is now named Anat
there are four main characters: Anat, Niv, the other small lesbian, and Mom-Friend
there is also a fifth character named Fantasy Elijah because that is literally their entire character concept
everyone in qv is a Fantasy Jew
Okay that’s covered, the actual thing is under the cut!!
Okay so qv.
Basically the starting conceit is that there's been this war going on between basically the people who call themselves the naturekind and the people who call themselves the machinekind, basically a kind of nature vs tech thing?? both sides have magic, and there's a lot of magitech and magibiotech going on, there's kind of a bunch of ambient magic hanging around it's as-of-yet undefined and complicated but anyways
So this war, which has been going on for longer than any people can remember, has been literally tearing the world apart
As in, there is literally a giant desert in the middle of the world
And there are indescribably deep cracks running through that desert exuding a kind of sickly yellow light
I hate yellow
Yellow is evil in this story because I hate it
Like u know how, like, color symbolism exists?
Throw that out the window, in this story, yellow symbolizes bad shit
Anyways
So yes the war's been tearing the world apart
Now, it should also be noted that scattered across this world are these things called waypoints
A waypoint visual: http://ailavyn-siniyash.tumblr.com/post/139987447085/so-my-wonderful-amazing-incredible
They are intensely magical perfect circles, generally composed of one plant-type and one rock or metal
And each one is inhabited by a creature, or spirit, or mysterious being, called a Guardian
Now, it should be noted that in Kabbalah, the term tikkun olam, that wonderful Jewish concept, refers to regathering the sparks of divine light that got shattered across creation at creation
(I don’t actually know anything about Kabbalah so take everything I saw abt it with a grain of salt but. that is the impression I got.)
It should also be noted that the Guardians claim to have originally been a single being
It should also be noted that every single time I turn my back this story gets even more Jewish
At any rate
The world is being torn apart
In the early days of the war, when people still had some accounts of a time before, one of the Guardians granted Fantasy Elijah the power to pull the world back together--repair it, essentially
In terms that I will probably change, that Guardian became Fantasy Elijah's patron
In Abrahamic terms, one might say that Fantasy Elijah became a prophet
....and, of course, true to their inspiration, Fantasy Elijah was completely ineffective
Oh, they were angry, and they tried, and they threw flashy magic around...but nothing got done
And yet, they didn't die
They stuck around, still with a measure of power but not enough anymore to actually do anything, and they did small things for people but it was nothing against the overwhelming tide of the war and they softened over the years and they met Mom-Friend and married her and gave to her some of the power they still carried so she could live with them for however long they were both needed
And the Guardians saw the war worsening and the people polarizing and while they still had some hope, they had given up that prospect
That project was, essentially, kaput
That is, until En came into the picture
En gave no shits
She had no opinions about any of this, she only cared about herself, and the Iron Cascades Guardian fixated on her
It was somewhat miraculous--how could you be raised in this world and not take a side?
And so with that question in mind--there is something about her, she must be special--the Iron Cascades Guardian especially but all the Guardians, really, pinned their hopes on her
The Iron Cascades Guardian became her patron, the Guardians granted her free passage between waypoints without even any complaining, they all hoped she would grow and begin to care
It didn't work
With the power she was given, En created chaos, with no thought for the world or indeed anyone except herself
Now, it should be noted that En had a sword
It was a plain sword, unremarkable until you looked closely and saw how it didn't wear and it didn't dull and it could cut through anything if she wished it to
It was someone's masterwork, a once-in-a-lifetime kind of creation, but she didn't know whose--she stole it off the body of one of the people she killed
The one thing she had always wondered whether it would work on was a Guardian, and so, one day, she tried
She swung her sword and the Iron Cascades Guardian, and everything went even more to shit
Another thing to note: magic is, in essence, the world's life energy--therefore, everyone carries magic inside them, by virtue of being alive, and the Guardians are made of that magic
En was standing inside the waypoint circle when she swung at the Guardian
The Iron Cascades Guardian, in a desperate bid to stay extant, drained her life energy, and she toppled, a skeleton, to the ground, the sword skittering out of her grip to the very edge of the circle, and the Guardian was left clinging narrowly to conciousness, unable to do anything except fight to stay alive and stare at its hope and its murderer for the next few centuries
Now, En caused chaos even in comparison to what was already going on with the war
And a band of refugees, mixed from both sides, pled desperately with a Guardian until it sent them to the Echoing Sands waypoint, right in the center of the desert and indeed one of the only waypoints which existed in the desert at all
They developed a little society there, blending their languages and their customs over a couple centuries, surviving on the ice of the Echoing Sands waypoint and the small herds of livestock they’d managed to bring with them
There were a few specific families designated as water-carriers, who carried ice from the waypoint to a large cistern in town, to have a more convenient water supply
Anat was born to one of these families, and followed in its legacy
One morning, they walked up to the waypoint, to get a first load of ice, and they found the waypoint itself in disrepair
The ice was slushy, melting
The forget-me-nots were wilted and browning
And the Guardian's presence in the air was faded and desperate
"I am being torn apart," it said
Anat, in shock, asked what they could do to help
The Guardian said, "I hope they can forgive me my hope," teleported Anat to the Drowned Forest waypoint, essentially declared itself Anat's patron in absencia to the rest of the Guardians, and faded out
The story begins here
Btw Mom-Friend is running the machinekind refugee camp/resistance and Fantasy Elijah is running the equivalent naturekind one
They do what they can to keep people safe
There's also Niv who is like 12 or something and her equivalent tiny lesbian over in naturekind, they argue a lot and then have crushes on eachother and it's cute
They hold hands in the finale probably
So you have..........................two pairs who are in opposition, and then Anat
Who, by the way, turned into a Moshiach figure when I wasn't looking because of course they did
The whole point of this is that Anat ends up, well, repairing the world
You get Mx Ineffective Prophet, Ms Disaster Prophet, and the Mx It Finally Fucking Worked Prophet
(I’m answering these all for Cadence, the protag of qv!)
7. Is your OC in a relationship?Nah, they’re super aroace, they do accidentally end up becoming surrogate older sibling to these two twelve-year-old lesbians with crushes on eachother tho, it’s very cute
17. How long can your OC hold their breath?About 20 seconds; they did not grow up near large enough bodies of water
27. What languages does your OC speak?Ah now isn’t that the question; they definitely speak the weird jumbled mishmash spoken in Echoing Sands, and technically they can speak anything else that whoever they’re talking to speaks because of Convenient Magic cause see as it turns out if you’ve got enough of the world’s life energy stuffed in you a lot of things get significantly easier (thanks Guardians.)
37. What was your OCs first word?I’m going to take a wild guess and say “flower”
47. Does your OC tolerate violence?No, they do not! Cadence is a small autism who is trying to stick the world back together cause it’s being ripped apart by an endless war. Violence is counterproductive!
57. Would you call your OC adventurous?No, I don’t think so; they definitely go on an adventure but they really did not sign up for this and they just want to go home but the waypoint home is gunked and besides they’ve been handed this duty of repairing the world and they can’t just. not. that would be Terrible, yikes. but they just want to go home really,,
7. are any of your ocs an original species? if so, what's the species and who?
There’s two sets like that!
First, the entire cast of Extant are a species called the imit’tal, they live in an asteroid belt and look like greyish balls with things sticking out and most of them can unexist and reexist at will
Second, the waypoint Guardians in the questionverse are, hmm, kinda like nature spirits, I guess? Or personifications? They’re. weird. They like being cryptic and refusing people access to their teleport abilities for weird reasons. They’re also all getting extremely desperate.
stormfather replied to your post:One of the best things about having stuck Building...
of these my fave is echoing sands just bc i like the word sand
The Echoing Sands waypoint is actually Cadence the protag's home waypoint! They're from a town in the middle of the ginormous midworld desert that's centered around the waypoint and is only survives because of it, thanks to the fact that there's ever-renewing ice to use as a source of water.
...it's also pretty much dead by the end of the first chapter. The waypoint that is.
One of the best things about having stuck Building Bridges into the Sparks and Paper Charms universe is that I get to name a shitton of new waypoints, which is always an experience. Here, enjoy the current list:
Isolate Weaving (mat of silver wire and bright green vines)
Iron Cascades (dark green moss and smooth gold stone)
Drowned Forest (kelp and chips of obsidian)
Echoing Sands (cracked sheet ice and forget-me-nots)
Curtained Caverns
Inky Night
Amaranthine Gorge
Newlit Flora
Ocean Tempest
Undying Lavender (field of lavender embedded with chunks of amber)
