HELLO happy late sts, what is the coolest bit of worldbuilding u have done lately?
hi hi hi Ori, happy late STS! i don't wanna bore you to hell and back with demographics and population densities and administration, so let me tell you about the fae
first of all, fae is a very generic term that refers to all inhabitants of Ferive, the Realm kept alive by the Great Force of Nature, Ohinio. it includes a multitude of incredibly varied populations that live more or less in peace. i say more or less because the redcaps are... very aggressive
the fae are amortal creatures; they don't have souls and thus don't experience death in the "traditional" sense. instead, their entire consciousness and sense of identity is taken by Ohinio and laid to rest in nature for A While™. this while is usually something along the lines of 500 years. then they pop back up in a new body with limited memories of their past lives and a well-rested consciousness
they also have a very complex and fixed social hyerarchies. they are organized in Colonies, which have a sort-of concentric geographical and social structure made specifically for survival and defense: they develop around a "core" settlement (usually a fairy court or an alfey citadel) in sectors with a dedicated purpose or that house specific "support" populations (such as nymphs, brownies and changelings and agrarian areas or artisan workshops). then a final external ring of mixed population (elves, ratiffs, arakinea and such) defends the border or the Colony, which is usually walled
the Colonies are also almost completely independent from each other, and it's extremely rare for the fae to move from one Colony to another. this isn't really because they don't want to (tho they are quite unwilling to leave) but mostly because there are little to no roads that connect the Colonies, as outside of them Ferive is wild sentient forest half-infected by the Void
the Edge of Ferive (which they mostly just call The Hedge) is extremely thin and frail and riddled with tears that they have been trying to fix. but in the mean time, Ferive is filled with tears into the Void, or accumulation spots where mana corrupts really easily. which is why you even need walled Colonies and types of fae (like the ratiffs and elves) that are completely dedicated to fighting the Void infesting the forest and finding safe paths across
it's also why the fae hold a huge, huge, huge grudge against the deri and the Livi. actually, the fae are the only population that holds no respect for the Livi despite vilae being divine. the fae do not bow to vilaw and do not revere vilaem, let alone worship. they hold the Livi entirely responsible for the War of Arcana and the destruction it brought to Ferive, and condemn the deri for their closeness to such petty and violent gods
despite their relationship to the Livi being... less than ideal, the fae are extremely devout to the Great Forces and worship kilae to a level that no other population has ever reached. they don't call the Great Forces by a name like the people of Navilee or Izerko do, but instead call kilae by a title. for example Ohinio, Great Force of Nature, is called The Great Wild Warden, and simply starting to say "The Great-" will have the fae bowing. not bowing their heads. bowing. inclining from the waist at least sixty degrees
the only exception to this is the Great Force of Death, Tahila. kie is only called Kie (and you can hear the capital) with a hasty 90 degree bow at least, because the fae, as amortal creatures, are terrified of Death
yooo tell me about that soul binding? how does it work, why does it leave a scar, tell me tell me tell me 👀
(and I hope you have a nice vacation lol)
nice to know that caught your eye, lmao. i have good news: i have a longer post half-ready about blood magic and soul magic that i'll post in the near future, but let's get you a highlight reel on soulbinding anyways!
to start, you need to know a little bit about how death works in Revolve's universe. souls are an actual metaphysical thing. they are concentrates of pure magical energy that in mortal creatures are located in their magical core (a spot right below the collarbone in humanoids), get "tinted" by personality and life experiences and the person's sense of identity, and act as the "organ" that generates mana for them
upon death, souls are collected by Tahila (great force of Death) and kier helpers, the grim reapers, to make their way to Mur (the Realm of Death). here (in most cases, but specters exist) the soul joins a central pool of pure energy that is the source of life and mix together
no two souls at any point in time are the same. not just because they get tinted in life, but because in death they mix up and at birth the souls are scooped together as random cups of pure energy carrying over bits of past identity. this ries into the sanctity of Life and Death: a single life because you will never be the same again, and a fresh started granted by eternal death
soul bindings fuck up that cycle. the souls involved become caged. if you think of them like water drops and of death like putting the drops into a river, then soul binding is putting the drop in a plastic bag. it cannot merge with others. it will not start anew. past lives will always clog up the present one. 6000 years ago, where Quiet Moments For Whispered Prayers is set, they were already controversial. in modern societies they are considered necromancy and thus taboo magic
there are two types of soul binding: the first is binding two souls to each other (which is what Luzirai and Ael did) and the second is binding a soul to a body (which is proper necromancy and is involved in more character backstories than i thought it ever would)
i'll leave the second type for the long post and focus on what Luzirai and Ael did
their type of soul binding linked their two souls together irrevocably for all of eternity. they are born with the same soul over and over again, and only the physical body can change. when one dies, the other cannot last more than a few years. they unconsciously influence each other's core and magic. one's magic will always have it's full effect on the other without resistance nor notice. they will never feel whole if they are apart. this makes this binding sacrilegious toward not only Life and Death, but toward Fate as well
this binding is done through a quite long and complex ritual, but the salient part of it is the use of a bone blade blessed by Vehile to carve out a runic array on the back of a hand (magical scars never fade), collecting the blood both bleed from the rubic array into a single bowl and using this mix of bloods to draw a different runic array on each other covering the entire chest and centered right over the magical core, ritualistically chanting an oath of devotion and then an incantation to basically swap part of the magical core and "unite their selves". lovers may feel a certain way about the ritual
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✵ Revolve Taglist ✵
@corinneglass @aalinaaaaaa @write-with-will @mymomsaysbobcipher @writeintrees @firesidefantasy @inspirationallybored @askyaphelion
plus @elkieselkiewrites because i think you'll enjoy this
despite its name, the Order of the Exorcists is not a unified organization or group. rather, it is a name used by the Harbingers of the Otherside to denote local clusters of people that have more or less global similarities. people identified as part of the Order consider anything arcane, esoterical or magical a threat on humanity that needs to be exterminated and take violent measures to that goal, especially in regards to Fabeirs and Harbingers
the Order cells can be vastly different. they range grom single people to families to small organizations, and sometimes survive through the generations by passing down the leadership
the cells are uncooperative with each other, and their interactions are mostly limited to recognition of "territories". however there are some common approaches that Harbingers have noted and use to categorize the cells
seekers ⛧ further labeled with Fabeir, Harbinger, Otherside or Tradition, the cell actively looks for signs of magic with the goal of seizing people, objects and information
hunters ⛧ further labeled with Fabeir, Harbinger, Otherside or Tradition, the cell actively looks for signs of magic with the goal of killing and destroying
diplomatic ⛧ the cell can be reasoned with
combative ⛧ the cell will attack on sight
extremist ⛧ the cell will kill on sight and torture any prisoners
mundane ⛧ the cell uses purely human weapons and tactics
arcane ⛧ also labeled as "hypocritical", the cell makes use of artifacts and stolen knowledge
the cells don't really have a name, and identify between them only based on territory. they have come to blows with each other at times, but that happens more in the case of a cell dying out, which prompts other cells to expand their territory
the cells get into many more fights with Fabeirs (which they only call spirits or demons depending on local culture) and with the Harbingers, and regularly have outright battles with the latter for the control of territories
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⛧ In Destiny We Trust (Not) Taglist ⛧
@elkieselkiewrites @wildweeds @mymomsaysbobcipher
Hey Azzy, happy belated WBW! Can you tell us a bit about how the magic in IDWTN fits into modern day to day life? Can magic work with tech, or does tech break around magic? What is your personal favourite bit of modern magic?
hi hi hi Jas, wonderful question, i'm about to go feral
i have a lot of gripes with some fantasy tropes but one i hate is the "magic and tech can't work together" THE FUCK YOU MEAN THEY CAN'T
because you see, a lot of the time this insurmountable irreparable inconceivable divide between magic and technology is either unexplained or worse, hypocritical. because if you have magic that doesn't work with tech because of things like cold iron and metals and nasty nasty processed stones then you can't have magical metals like mithril and adamantium
like, i get it from a writer's pov. not everyone wants to go down a rabbithole on how different engines work so they can make a motorbike that runs on mana. however, i do! so Aleji's bike runs entirely on mana and Ike's is a hybrid unleaded-mana because we are ecologically aware here, and i dare any car/bike dudebro to ask me how it works, i will pull out the diagrams
(sidenote, Aleji and Ike together would be a force to be reckoned with)
now after my little rant, let's get into why magic works with tech in my world (aside from personal preference) and how
tldr. magic is a science and runes are fucking awesome
i. am a technician at heart. i love advanced physics and calculus and analysis and all my little studies and estimations and approximations and models. i find it so satisfying when different parts of how we know and study the universe click together with mathematical precision. big fan
so that's where i started. from where maths and physics perfectly meet and click: electromagnetism. now this is gonna get a little bit technical but stick with me
magic starts at a really small scale with the mianirs: quantum-scale particles that — like electrons, photons and most subatomic particles — behave like both mass and wave and thus collapse classical physics
i'm not gonna bore you with how many quarks and which ones they're made of. suffice to say that there are two of them: mions and vions, both with neutral electrical charge but mions have a positive mana charge and vions have a negative one
mianirs can be stored in a neutral mana charge, but if there is a charge difference then the mions will move toward the negative charge (as opposed to the electricity where electrons move toward the positive charge). this flow of mions is what results into magic
mianirs can also do one other thing, which is micro-vibrate around their position. the combination of vibration frequency and particle wavelength gives you the different elemental resonances!
and then if the frequency is zero and the mianirs don't vibrate, then the mana and its magic are clear. but if the frequency is over a certain limit then it fucks up the wavelength, which makes mions and vions collapse on each other, which collapses the atom and now you have corrupted mana with no fucking wavelength, just vibration, which is really close to the no wavelength-no vibration mana of the Void. which is really fun, because now the Void creatures only need to reach that vibration frequency (much easier as a fucking mass) to get inside the Realm and start collapsing atoms!
i love the Void :D
suffice to say, quantum magic and magical physics are big areas of research right now all over Ona, Nodi, Pi'Enk, Reiki and Izerko, plus godsdamned Hålsvarþur
now that we're over the technicalities, the juicy part: magic and technology work together because they're both based on sciences. the magical properties of objects and living beings can be measured and classified.
magic is an art and a science. it can be enhanced and stabilized through physical, visual and vocal means, but at its base it works because there is a mana field to take advantage of. somewhere on a notebook or another is still have some half-assed equations and laws for it, because i am exactly the kind of nerd that finds name-dropping the "Faltan-Huss law of mana conservation" is extremely funny. but that's an aside, and the mana field works regardless of them both to do magic and to interact with electricity. because to have a mana field you need a mana potential, which means mana is an energy and if it's an energy then it can always be converted into work and heat, which you can use to spin a turbine to generate clean renewable electricity
on a more everyday scale, magic works by a combination of mana resonance and mana path to achieve different effects, but certain mana paths can still the resonance into clear mana. so all that you really need is a mana path that holds as long as you want your spell to last. how do you get that?
for instanteus / short term magic, spellcasting and mana manipulation work well. both use body movement to create the path, and then spellcasting uses voice projection methods to enhance it while mana manipulation (through hours meditation and training) stabilizes the external path at mana-field level
on the longer term, you're looking more at arrays and sigils, potions, spellweaving and runes. these ones work by visually and physically creating mana paths and / or taking advantage of the magical properties of things. they require a lot of studying, but they are extremely versatile, durable and stable, and so these are the ones that usually get industrialized / integrated into technology
couple of examples for you
in Revolve we have Ele, completely human character with a mana core too small to do magic. instead she's an artificer. a "trademark" of hers are these blast-bombs she made at home. they're as big as a tennis ball, and they work like this: the metal ball is cave, with three compartments inside separated with a soft plastic. one compartment has vinegar, one has water and baking soda and the third as a little bit of quartz powder. when the ball is thrown, the internal separator shatters, the vinegar and water+baking soda react chemically and generate a mana charge, which gets amplified by the quartz powder, which hits a rune carved into the outer shell, which explodes with the kind of magic the rune directs it into. she used zero mana of her own to create something that really really hurts
another example is the modified denim i was telling you about that is used by the Harbingers for protective wear. it works more on a spellweaving technique, with mianirs being physically threaded into the fabric
spellweaving also works on a shorter term by threading the mianirs through the air and holding the path. this one is actually a technique that Ike and his dad for diagnostic spells that need to last anywhere between ten minutes to an hour, or for shields and temporary enhancers
also, runes. runes are by far the best. they are extremely durable and stable, they can be compounded onto a single objects (or living creature!) and into sigils or arrays that draw the mana into the desired effect. which is why they are the most ancient and widespread for of magic after elemental
there are seventeen runic systems in Navilee only, with one more from Izerko, three from Ferive, seven or eight from Zimuria plus however many the fuck there are on Earth
runes are deeply favored as a form of magic by the Harbingers, who — madlads that they are — have managed to get their hands on, preserve and learn two sistems from Ferive, five from Zimuria, eleven from Navilee and all the ones from Earth, plus! two that close to no one else knows
listen to me here, Harbingers got their hands on Ademaric and Archaic runes. these are runic systems that people all over Izerko and Navilee are frothing at the mouth to find traces of. they are respectively the runic system of the great empire that was destroyed in the War of Arcana and the runic system that the Great Forces developed to stabylize the edges of the Realms before the Livi existed
would you like to know how many other people have access to information about these runic systems? four on Izerko. one on Navilee
that's it. and they have only recently started to crack the information and be able to understand the systems
(as an aside, two of these people are Aleji and Reyenn and honestly, if those three ever meet it's gonna be a holy trio of "lmao what is gender", "i love my partner(s)" and caffeine-fueled magical research. it makes me eye the potential sequel more and more)
but the Harbingers? they've been working with those systems since before they were an organization. they have centuries of experience with both of those runic systems. their most used runic system is literally a modernized version of the Ademaric system
they put them on clothes to make the clothes resistant. they put them on themselves (rune tattoos my beloved) to make themselves stronger. they put them on the back of their phones to generate noiseless bubbles. on the cars to make them safer to drive in bad weather. on jewelry for protection. on houses for protectionon entrances to hide them and lock them. someone out there is experimenting with runes on pet collars to make animals capable of human comunication
so Harbingers (but not only) love runes and spellweaving and potions. so do many people in Izerko and Navilee. they require a lot of study, practice, technicism and some decent math skills to integrate with technology, but they are so so worth it
but also, technomages that use lightning resonances to mimic electrons and fuck up your currents and signals and hack into your security systems. technomagic is illegal in Reiki, Pi'Enk, Ona, Nodi, Zet, Fyma, Uyla, Ekre Kas'Ti, and a few more. this does not stop people like Dajsper
lmao i was looking through my emergency sketchbook for a page to doodle on and what do i ever find if not a sketch of me torturing Yilvar? @elkieselkiewrites come look at your man
absolutely disheveled and already done with life. i love him
Abandoned by the Great Forces and used as a scapegoat by the other Realms, Izerko is the home of the lost, the outcasts and the renegades
Izerko is the youngest of all the Realms, formed at the start of the War of Arcana six thousand years ago: as the first Livi was cast out of Arcana and tore through the edges of Vaieni and Ferive, parts of those Realms fell through with viem and were bound to vier energy
the Realm created itself around the host of the First Fallen, who has since then been called the Opal Queen of the Realm, and is held together by their shared mana. many people fled here to protect themselves from the War of Arcana, which was wrecking havoc on Vaieni. after the war, many Kori took refuge here, helping shape the Realm into what it is now and bringing even more people, their followers
Izerko has no sky. it is entirely made of a system of tall underground caves, disposed more or less into five levels stacked one on top of the other and identified through common properties of the terrain and of the living creatures in them.
in total, Izerko is made of forty-three caves, all unique in purpose, structure, vegetation, fauna and sometimes even composition of the stone itself. while some caves have a dedicated purpose, such as urban areas, farming or water collection, many are much more varied
occasionally, apertures into the ground connect caves one above the other, allowing air, water and light to travel among them, and used by the people to transport materials from one level to another. the various levels are also connected by a singular staircase going from the highest level — the Luminary — to the only cave in the lowest level, which houses the capital Dusmuriziet
as it is completely underground, Izerko has no sky. and consequently, it has no suns or moons. instead, the day cycle is regulated by mosses — named xysinads or fade mosses — that grow over the cave walls and ceilings (especially in the Luminary layer) and glow at different intensities in a steady rhythm
most of the cycle of life is taken care of by the people of Izerko, who grow xysinads and other glowing plants and crystals where the ground is most fertile, redirect the water up the levels through feats of engineering and magic, and adapt the caves to their needs. the entire ecosystem is made and maintained by the Izerkean people
Deris
the limited light and vast amount of magic needed to live in Izerko, as well as the close contact with the Kori and their hosts, made change necessary for the survival of the people who took refuge into the Realm. as such, they rapidly evolved a number of traits that make them uniquely adapted to this dark, harsh and highly magical environment that make them very distinct from their predecessor, to the point they are considered a whole other species (much like the shirevi that evolved from humans on Navilee)
this new species, named deri, is highly recognizable for their eyes and ears, optimized to see magic and in the dark and to hear at a greater range. as such, deri eyes have very bright irises with white diamond-shaped pupils and (for pureblooded deris) black scleras, while their ears are long, pointed and downturned, with a great range of motion
deris are not a unitary species, as they evolved in three phases as a result of the three major migrations that populated Izerko. as such, they can be further classified in three subspecies, more adapted to life in Izerko the longer they've been there:
deri'lamis evolved from the third migration, about two thousand years ago. they tend to have darker skin, and only really present deri eyes and ears
deri'seneis are by far the majority of the population and they come from the second migration (a little over five thousand years ago, right after the War of Arcana ended). they're the ones who followed the Kori, and they developed really bright hair colors, a far larger mana core and serious muscles
deri'kerijis descend from the humans in the first migration. they were the people taking refuge in Izerko immediately after it formed, working alongside the first Kori to go there to shape the Realm and hold it together. they are the most similar to the Livi, probably because the people in the first migration often had relationships with the hosts of the Kori. in fact, they have a lot in common with half-Livis, such as claws, fangs and extremely mana-sensitive horns. they also have a wider range of skin and hair colors, not necessarily as bright or pale as deri'seneis
Realm and Kingdom
Izerko is an incredibly small Realm. it's total surface area is roughly equivalent to Greece's, and it's population is a little smaller than Argentina's. the various caves also rely majorly on one another for survival and cannot be independant
thus, politically and governamentally Izerko acts as a sovereign nation on it's entire territory. it's led by the Opal Queen, accompanied by the Council of the Twelve (twelve ministers; traditionally three Kori hosts, three elected from noble families and six elected among the people), who oversee the overall organization and delegate specific tasks to more local authorities
Izerko has a few noble families, which are pureblooded deri'keriji families documented to descend directly from the eighty or so people who helped the Kori shape Izerko during the first migration
there is one rumor that spread recently (last couple hundred years) across Izerko and into other Realms about a different type of organization: the Opal Court, supposedly the Opal Queen's innermost circle, made up of diplomats, functionaries, spies, assasins and guards, recogniziable for taking on a gemstone's name as an alias. no one has been ablo to prove its existance so far
Happy WBW Azzy! My question of the day for you: How does the Milan in IDWTN differ from the real Milan? Are there places that exist/don't exist because history was a bit different? Are there secret places that the mundane people of Milan don't know about?
hi Jas, happy wbw to you!
i try not to change too much from both a history perspective (i am very much no historian) and an urbanistic perspective (opening google maps or hopping on a train to search for real places is just too convenient for me to destroy it) but i have made a couple subtle changes
first of all, i'm taking advantage of Milan's many occupations to concentrate Harbinger influences into select time periods. specifically the original Celt village, then under the Wester Roman Empire when they needed to deviate the Seveso, under the longobards, under the Sforza, under both austriac occupations, they fought a lot with the Exorcists at the time of the unification of Italy, moved under Milan during the world wars and just recently started moving away because of more pressing matters (such as climate change making a lot of ancestral Fabeirs — such as Appennino, Sahara or Pacific — very angry very quickly). so rather than having them change history, i'm more so integrating them into conflicts and historical phases
this makes it so that there are a lot more underground structures than there already are for me to take advantage of, all of them meticulously hidden via magic by the Harbingers, mostly to access old runes or Fabeir lairs (such as the bed of Seveso from Torrential)
on top of that, there is a small number of places that have been also magically hidden by the people of Navilee, as this is in fact the same Milan from Elegy to the Desperate Stars (i managed it! :3 ). this mostly consists of Doorways into Milan's Colony and the odd Gate to other Realms (only Navilee and Izerko have Gates in Milan) but there are a couple of other places that accumulate magic because of an overpouring of human emotions which... creates problems. Zeno and Ike manage to stumble into all of them lmao
(as a side note, Zeno and Aleji making eye contact while they both graffiti something on adjacent columns deep in Garibaldi Station will never not be funny to me. there is a non-zero chance that Zeno accidentally tagged a Doorway before)
overall, there aren't many visible changes to the more munadne people. however anyone with a hint of magic can stumble upon or find a series of hidden constructions of magical nature, especially underground since that's where the Harbingers moved a lot of their structures
the Harbingers of the Otherside are a unified group that works to research magic and preserve the relations between Fabeirs and humans. they regularly cooperate and interact with Fabeirs, as well as protecting them from human harm or making deals with them to limit their damage
Harbingers are volounteers and are spread over the globe. they still have a clear organization with a central administration, which maintains a (now) digital database of all its members (with their statuses, ranks, locations, specializations and eventual talents) and the research they make into the various types of magic, which is freely accessible to all members
Harbingers are ranked by experience and power, so that they are unlikely to walk into situations too dangerous for them, they work somewhat independently and locally, but send alerts and requests for help if things get more insidious. other Harbingers with more freedom of movement travel around the world to help with alerts
while the knowledge of magic that the Harbingers possess is often passed down family lines, children are under no obligation to follow their parent's footsteps. instead, the Harbingers look for and welcome new people who respect and research magic
either way, children under the age of sixteen are not allowed to fully join; from age sixteen to age eighteen they are only allowed to train and they can only become field operatives once they're adults, though for the first two years they are still under supervision and only on low-level situations
Harbingers divide themselves into three branches:
administration ⛧ the Overseers are in charge of maintaning and updating the databases, testing Harbingers for their rank, organization, funding and a modicum of "mission control" for Sentinels, as well as some training
research ⛧ the Savants do the majority of the studying, experimention and research about the various magics and Fabeirs, taking care to document and publish their results. most Sentinels also do their own studies, but not to the same scale
field operations ⛧ the Sentinels take care of the legwork, like intervening when the Fabeir go off the rails, mediating, tracking signs of magic and of new Trades or stopping humans from harming magic
as the goal of the organization is the study of the supernatural and mythological, this also translates into protecting magic. often, this brings them into conflict with the Order of the Exorcists and to interct with the Fabeir
of all human mana-users, Harbingers are the most in tune with non-human magic. in fact about 40% of all Harbingers hold traded magic of some kind, but they make up for 80% of Sentinels. additionally, in their study of all forms of magic, the Harbingers have run into signs of the new Navilean magics, Izerk magic and the old Vimurian magic, which they are slowly integrating in their own
Harbingers have their own terminology for those who have Traded something for magic, with names that depend on the Talent gained:
Sight ⛧ Augur
augurs are people who saw too much. saw the writing on the walls and weren't believed. saw the details of other people and went ignored. they trade their sight, literal or figurative, for the ability to find and track magic, and to see the connections between it
Power ⛧ Champion
champions are people who found a weakness within themselves and could not stand it; who weren't strong enough and let the people they loved be hurt. they trade their affection for power, enough to protect others but growing isolated and distrusted
Word ⛧ Envoy
envoys are people who have been hurt by words, either by those of others, had their own twisted against them, or punished for speaking up. they trade their voice and their willingness to speak for the languages of magic and authority in their words
Soul ⛧ Medium
mediums are often people on the edge of death, whether by injury or illness, or whose world is crumbling around them. they trade their innocence and health for a second shot, one prone to hopelessness but in the company and respect of magic
Core ⛧ Spellmaster
spellmasters are people who've had to hide their wonder and eccentricity and grew too weary and jaded. they trade their ability to hide and slip unnoticed for a chance at wonder again, and magic leaves them changed for it
Key ⛧ Warder
warders are people who were manipulated and led around by others, used and mocked and swore no more. they trade their warmth and trust for the key to other's heart, now able to pull the strings and lock others away
