#sieril

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happy wbw pax!! tell me a bit more about the whiptails--i know you've talked about the whiptails knights and the whole process of becoming one before, but tell us a bit more about the breeds, the types, their habits in the wild and once they're domesticated (tamed? whatever term you might use) ! what colors do they typically come in, their habits, their regions, all that. go wild <3

hi!!! happy wbw!!!

Whiptails in the wild tend to be Truly Terrifying creatures, if only because they camouflage so well into their surroundings that it's hard to spot one until you're already on top of them!

They tend to be ambush predators as adults, hunting in a very similar way to crocodiles and alligators by disguising themselves as floating cypress logs in the water. They also like to take a more active role in adolescence, though, hunting down smaller prey in the canopy, similar to how some dinosaurs filled multiple predator niches depending on their stage in development.

So, in the wild, they tend to have coloring that's reflective of the cypresses around them! For the most part, this means that their scales are pretty bumpy and rough in texture, brown in color, and allow some bright blue skin underneath to peek between the cracks to mimic the glowing cypress of the bayou.

However! Once domesticated, they tend to raise their broods to be a lot more docile, which is part of why flocking is a thing the Whiptail Knights can do! This means that in order to become a Knight, you do have to go out into the wild and find a feral dragon to tame, but it also means that, if you're in need of an escape posthaste from Tal'Ren, there are options, even if you've never ridden anything before!

Similar to how we bred dogs to have different coats, there are some habits to breed Whiptails into different colors, though those dragons tend to be a lot smaller and a lot less deadly than their predecessors, and thus relatively useless.

There are, however, wild ones with a rare natural coat that is completely blue, with frills that are raspberry magenta in color! This coloring is colloquially called a Royal Coat, and it happens when several generations of Whiptails are raised in and around Rillflower groves. They're called Royal Coats because that coloring mutation goes hand in hand with a gene that allows them to be bigger, and thus became Eternal Veratrum's dragons of choice, when available!

thank u again for the ask!!! i can go more in-depth on the rillflower groves, if you like, but i'll stop here before this gets terribly long :D

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Happy WBW! As a plant lover, I am SUPER curious about the Rillflower Botanists! What can you tell me about them?

Happy WBW to you, too!!!

Rillflower Botanists! Also known much more formally in Sieril as Viimistresses, or Tal'Vii!!

So, Rillflower is a very special kind of plant that grows in clearings of the Rillian Bayou and on the fringes of the as-yet-unnamed temperate rainforest to the north! It's a flowering tree, but the flowers never really go away. They’re generally a bright, otherworldly pink, and wax and wane in glow along with the cycles of the moons.

Rillflower is special because it’s a super potent vector for magical healing, when it comes to disease and poison. Where Flesh elementalism can fix injuries and help kill pain, using different parts of Rillflower bark, leaves, and, of course, the flower itself can help heal anything from influenza to certain types of cancer to even reversing the early stages of Vampirism!

Now, one limiting factor when it comes to this kind of healing is that, uh. It varies wildly depending on when the material was harvested in the moon cycle. The most potent and all-curing abilities are best harvested under a sky where all six moons are full, but that only happens once every thirty years. The various combinations of waxing and waning stages of the moons all create different qualities for the plant, and most Tal’Vai (plural) have intricately annotated moon charts to help them harvest and preserve their medicine.

But yeah! That’s the basics of the job of Viimistresses!!

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happy wbw (or thursday or whenever i suppose)!!! i'd love to hear about rillian warrior traditions :D what do they look like and when/how often are they performed?? are any considered lucky? or are any to avoid bad luck?? how does religion affect these traditions?? and if there are variations to how they're carried out, what are they??? hope your day is splendid~

hi, rose!!! happy super-belated wbw to you, too!!!

I got another ask about the warrior traditions this week, so the basics of them are here, if you’re curious about those! I’ll dive more into these specifics here, though :D

SO I’ll start with the religion aspect of your ask, since it plays heavily into all of this!

We’ve got six Goddesses overseeing the Ehlverse, which I’m in the slow process of introducing! Among these Goddesses, Luma, also known as The Daughter, holds domain over Battle, Siblinghood, and Entertainment, and she’s basically been the patron Goddess of Sieril since the Rillian Decay. I could get more into that, in how all of the others contributed to the decay that was supposed to wipe all Ehlves and Sharali of Sieril out, and thus have been either shunned or desperately worshipped ever since, but that’s a post for another day,,

So, Luma! Protector of Sieril! She’s got a lot of warriors devoted to her over there, especially considering the whole “a family always needs 1 warrior and 2 mothers (gender of both irrelevant)” expectation. Traditions most people follow are related to proving their ability or winning favor from their leader or Goddess, but the official Warriors of Luma and their highest subsect, the Whiptail Knights, have their own good luck traditions!!

The Warriors of Luma are mostly a religious thing, and a solid two thirds of all Priestesses you meet in Sieril are going to be among them! (Again, Priestess here is used as a gender neutral term; there are men and nonbinary people among the Warriors) One of the most important traditions to them is the one that represents Siblinghood: you must learn the names of each and every WoL you fight alongside, and you must share a meal with each one at least once a year, and you must choose a special few to let into your soul. This generally means that every Warrior knows their closest Siblings like they know themselves, every gritty and unpleasant detail included. It’s an exercise in trust; you are not allowed to spill the secrets of your Siblings, no matter how damning, just like you are not to spill their blood unless asked.

Generally, though, that tradition is done only once; you still have to remember names and eat with people often, but once you let your soul into another’s hands, those chosen few don’t often multiply.

Now! On to the Whiptail Knights and their more situational traditions!

First off, to become a Whiptail Knight, you have to tame a Rillian Whiptail. Not an easy thing to do, really helps to pare down the applicants, whether by them refusing to do it, or by them getting killed in their attempts.This is done once, when you enter, and hopefully never again. If your steed dies, you need to get a new one the same way you did the first. Many older Knights just choose to retire or die alongside their dragon. Many fallen Knights are sent off with their dragon in a canoe, to feed the cycle of life and return to Erra and please Lib.

Then, good luck traditions: the Knights have a battle cry that they use to both find each other, and to seek a blessing from Luma. It’s used during their routine scouting into the bayou, and also in the direst situations of battle. It’s essentially a rhythmic screech that’s weird enough to sound like an animal to the unknowing, and distinct enough from any creatures to be recognized by the Knights themselves. They do a few rounds of it before heading out, usually.

There’s also this idea that getting blood in your hair is an omen of Lib, and can mean a couple of different things. Whiptail Knights tend to believe it’s one of Death; whether it’s their own, or a loved one’s, or an enemy’s. Washing it out quickly is seen as a fight back against the inevitable, and can help give yourself or the other person more time. Most people would use the same water they would drink; Whiptail Knights are gone from civilization often enough that they just use the bayou water immediately after battle.

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Thank you again for the ask!!! This was super fun to delve into, and it’s something that’s quickly gaining relevance in Firebreathers, as they move on from Aree in the draft :D

I hope you don’t mind, but I’m going to drop my worldbuilding taglist on here!!

Ehlverse Worldbuilding Taglist (ask to be +/-):

@charles-joseph-writes ; @violetcancerian ; @phiwrites ; @rhikasa ; @writeblrfantasy ; @talesfromaurea

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Happy wbw!! Tell us about the plants and animals and other life forms in the ehlverse. Do they resemble ours at all? What fantastic worldbuilding and backstory have you come up with for them? Also, I've been meaning to ask, are there any humans in the ehlverse at all?

:D happy wbw!! thank you for the ask <3<3

I’ll answer these a little out of order, so first up: are there humans in the Ehlverse?

Yes!! Most, if not all, of them are confined to the Maelands, right now, but there used to be an entire continent full of them! If I remember right (because i need to write things down more often a;lsdf) it was called Eqia, before it fell to a Decay, though that was so long ago that there are next to no surviving records of life over there. (I talked more about that in this ask from a few weeks ago!!)

Oh, and Arthur is the Human Eternal! Though, he would argue that some of the side effects of the immortalization have rendered him a bit... different than other humans. He’d argue he’s effectively an Ehlf, now, despite appearances.

Now, on to the plants and animals :D

A lot of the animals of the Ehlverse resemble things from our world, but only parts at a time, if that makes sense? You’ve seen my sketch pages recently, (the only one up is the Rillian Whiptail, though there are more to come) and what I’ve been doing is taking aspects of different real-world animals, and combining them to make the animals of the Ehlverse! Right now, I’m working on designing Dreamdancers, which are a nocturnal deer-equivalent that looks more like a funky unicorn than a deer. The current real-world inspiration for those includes Marsh Deer, Bronze Parotia, and Gyr cattle!

I also have plans for livestock animals made of a combination of Bears, Addaxes, and Cashmere sheep, but we’ll see how long those take to design ;alskjdf

I think the things that most resemble real-world life tend to be plants, because I have a much more difficult time coming up with plants than animals! The most weird plants so far in the Ehlverse are all trees, because I like trees the most ;LSKJD

This includes Rillian Cypress (which I still need to name something cooler), which is the tree shown on the Whiptail design! It’s essentially a normal cypress tree, but with the bark-shedding of rainbow eucalyptus, and veins of blue through the dark wood. It has some special properties in the magical healing rituals of the area - it’s very good at dispelling cancers and tumors early on in their development - but otherwise, there’s not much to it other than looking cool :)

And, of course, the Godtrees! If you’ve ever looked at pictures of Angel Oak trees, they’re kind of like that, but the size of mountains. Their wood is resistant to fire, and it tends to grow back where you mine it out, so it’s a renewable resource despite there never being any new Godtrees, or dead ones, or seeds.

Well, no dead ones except for the one at the ruins of Fahrial. But that’s the only one. They’re kind of a universal constant, assumed to be created at the same time as Ehl itself, and it’s a common idea that if they ever die off, the world is already beyond hope.

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Thank you for the ask!!! I’m just gonna drop the worldbuilding taglist here, since I keep forgetting it exists, and this is some fun stuff :D

Ehlverse Worldbuilding Taglist (ask to be +/-):

@charles-joseph-writes ; @violetcancerian ; @phiwrites ; @rhikasa ; @writeblrfantasy ; @talesfromaurea

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Happy wbw, pax!!! since I’m suffering a heatwave right now, I want to know what the climate is like in the ehlverse!! what weather phenomena happen where, and when? What storms hit annually? Are there any superstitions surrounding the weather, and is there anything people can do to prevent them??

happy wbw to you, too, lila!!! heat waves suck, we're having one over here too </3 i hope your AC is able to keep up!!!

To be honest, I haven't thought about weather very much!! I know that there are frequent sand storms down in the Lellan desert of the Maelands, and the occasional hurricane sweeps past the western edges of Sieril. Also, earthquakes over there, and in the southern reaches of Deltierin.

There would probably be tornadoes once in a while across the Melkan prairie, but I still need to decide on that a;sldkjf

There are some superstitions regarding stormy seas and how to 'prevent' them! There's this idea that as long as you have a Water mage on board, your ship will be safe. It's not entirely true, but it helps some people!

And the people of Sieril tend to perform dances for Lib and Vii to appease them before each hurricane season/storm season!

thank you for the ask!!! this one's a bit short, but hopefully that's ok!!! <3<3<3<3

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happy wbw!! seeing you do this again put a smile on my face, not gonna lie :) history in fantasy novels and worlds is always on my mind, so what are some of the well known historical events of the firebreathers world? (besides the eternal three effing everything up 1000 years prior to fb) how much of the history/culture of the other species is touched on in the book?

:D!! happy WBW to you too, Lila!!! im glad to be doing it again <3<3<3

also this got super long so i’m putting a read more in the middle :D

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Other than the Fall of Fahrial, there are a few historical references in Firebreathers, yes!

The most prominent ones outside of that tend to be in about other past Decays or Growths! If I remember correctly, the first mentioned is probably the Vocal Growth - which is the basis for their current calendar, fun fact! - which is what brought about a magical Common form of all languages, as well as introducing other linguistic magics (i.e. Calling) to the world. This was almost two full Cycles before Firebreathers (the year is ~3994 at the start), and was kind of known for being the first real opportunity for everyone everywhere to connect with people outside of their locality easily.

Another Growth that’s mentioned a lot was the Bloody Growth, which,,, is a bit of a scary name, fitting for the pretty scary magic brought with it. This was when humans were given Runic magic, and was the Growth before the Eternal Three!

Decays also have a lot of influence on the world and history, and as such, they tend to take a much bigger focus when the characters are in the areas that were affected. So, in Sieril, there’s a lot of reference to the Rillian Decay, which hit in the year 1000, and effectively reshaped Sieril from a prosperous, populated land, into one swarming with dangerous creatures and ruins of civilization. Even now, nearly 3000 years later, the Sharali are affected by the diseases introduced, and Sieril only has a few livable cities overall. (Veratrum has spearheaded aid efforts to help the Sharali during her reign, but due to the magical nature of a lot of the diseases, they’ve hardly made progress overall.)

Another Decay that’s brought up quite a bit is the one that happened before year 0 - I haven’t come up with a great name for it yet, but for now, I call it the Eqian Decay, after the continent it affected.

It’s a good idea here to note that there is no Eqia on the Ehlverse maps.

Now, between the eastern Maelands and Sieril, there’s a massive ocean that’s probably around the size of the Pacific, and Eqia used to be in that area, not terribly far from the Maelands, and ran from up near the southern reaches of Emarye, down beyond the far southern reaches of Deltierin.

[here’s the current map for reference]

[it would kind of look like a big gash across the upper right corner, and it would end down in the bottom left, and beyond the current map scale]

Eqia is where humans in the Ehlverse actually came from, though a few had made their way to the closest areas of the Maelands by the time the Decay struck. Which is good, because otherwise, there would be no more humans.

But it’s been so long since the Decay that there are very, very few surviving records of what Eqia was like. All we know is that thousands and thousands of years of human history is gone, as well as anything else that existed on the continent. Which, according to some of the scattered accounts, there were other entire empires and peoples that weren’t human. Gone with the continent, under the sea and mostly forgotten.

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;aslkdfj;sldfk i got really excited talking about the growths and decays, didn’t i? there are other historical references - mostly to people like activists, scholars, warriors, etc. that are important to the characters, but i do believe those are stories for another day! thank you so much again, lila <3<3<3

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Happy WBW from @norahammen! So with the decay that happens (or is supposed to happen) every hundred years in your firebreathers world, what does that look like? Is it limited to plantlife, or does it go beyond that? Are there some things that are immune to it?

Happy WBW, @norahammen!! Thank you for the ask!!!

So, the Decays in Firebreathers happen once every 2000 years, technically!! At least, they’re supposed to. The cycle of Decays and Growths switches between the two, once every 1000 years, and so far, they’ve taken different forms every time!

The latest Decay that actually went through as predicted happened ~3000 years before the story, and that one was called the Rillian Decay! It’s mostly remembered as taking the form of a plague that nearly wiped out the native inhabitants of Sieril - the Sharali - while leaving everyone and everything else completely unaffected. However, the Decay itself didn’t just hit the Sharali - it also caused a series of upsets in the local food chain, when some animals suddenly switched from being herbivorous and docile, to magically converting to carnivores.

That swap was, in it’s own way, a new form of magic, which are usually only ever introduced during Growths. It’s the Ehlverse’s equivalent of Vampires - kind of like rabies, in the first stages, but after the aggressive stage, teeth grow out further and become sharper, your body starts being unable to process solid foods, you’re more sensitive to UV rays, etc.

Needless to say, the animals that caught it were very confused, and became more hostile and dangerous the longer they went unable to satisfy their hunger. The entire ecosystem of Sieril changed, after that, and to this day, what once was a thriving continent of Ehlven and Sharali cities is now almost entirely too dangerous to settle, and the few communities of Ehlves that have survived have to safeguard the recovery of the Sharali.

Other Decays that have happened have come in the form of mass extinctions, massive natural or magical disasters, and the fading of magics that had been granted previously. A lot of the time, it’s all three - and a lot of the time, they specifically target an area/people/magic that the Goddesses have decided to get rid of, for whatever reason.

So far, there’s no way to prove one way or another what can be protected from Decays - that’s part of the reason tension in the world has been rising, since Tieling Evergreen essentially delayed a Decay that would’ve wiped out all magic. No one knows if he’s actually stopped it, or just pushed it back for a little while!

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Thank you again for the question!!!

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Happy WBW from writingamongthecoloredroses! Are there any myths about the stars in your world?

aaaa thank you @writingamongthecoloredroses!!

So, on Ehl, there’s like,,, 6 main continents, right? and on Emarye, the main religion practiced is based on the moons, sun, and stars!

but the moon and stars have less of a ‘mythos’ and more of a functional use - Sorcerers use their light to help… well, the best way of wording it is manipulate percieved reality. So like, they create illusions that are not only visible, but if the sorcerer is skilled enough, the illusions feel, sound, smell, and even taste real. The light of the stars and moons are the fuel, i guess? it’s kind of a cosmic magic, in the sense that the power comes from space. so a significant part of their religion is based on the idea that the cosmos itself is creating what we know as reality, and death is actually just a release into the real real world. Kinda like the matrix.

But, more myth-related, on Sieril, it’s commonly believed that stars aid the processes of their botanical magic. It’s thought that stars aren’t the things creating light - they’re the things letting light through the blanket of darkness. Like, if you have a knit blanket, they’re the spaces between stitches. Which is, yknow, wrong, even in the context of the Ehlverse, but the myth is so deeply ingrained in Rillian culture that even though astronomy has started taking root, they still rely on that belief for their process. As such, they only really do their thing at night. 

Otherwise, on Maelani, there used to be a myth that one particular mountain, dubbed ‘Stardeath Peak’, was, for whatever reason, a place where stars literally fell to the ground. Most people now know that the ‘stars’ are actually small meteorites, and Stardeath was just a place that was easily the biggest mountain for a ways, so when meteorites fell in that general vicinity, they were all ‘on Stardeath Peak’.

But yeah! That’s all of the ones I can remember off the top of my head, but I’m pretty sure there aren’t any other significant ones lol.