I remember your eyes were clear, brighter than the sun
With hands so soft, delicate and sweet
You learned to fall and balance on your own two feet
I could only lead you so far
I believe in who you are
Take the world by storm, muster all your strength
Embrace the forces that surround you, bend gravity and space
This whole song reminds me of the kind of hope Jocosa would have felt for Theopolis when she was on her deathbed. Plus, those first lines remind me of this, how she always saw him as an innocent pure-hearted babe despite the everything of him. (Also, since it was a struggle to get him to walk on two legs instead of all fours it makes extra sense to me that she'd look back on it fondly as a victory).
With "child of the stars" I think of it as referecing the North's lineage and how she'd view him as yet another adition to it (which I imagine wouldn't fully coincide with his own view of himself and how he doesn't live up to it).
Anyways, both characters here belong to @kwillow, hope I captured them well! I used this piece of yours as reference/inspiration.
(Please do correct me if I misinterpreted anything about your ocs)
PD1: Hope I didn't sound too whiny in my previous post!! Part of why I struggled so much drawing him back then was that I wanted to get his features right, to put into the page all the quirks I love so much about him. Truly, I adore his design, every unusual bit of it, and I felt it was doing him a disservice to get him looking more "normal". Yes, it was a bit of a struggle, but it was a worthy one!
PD2: I did have an easier time drawing him here! Guess practice does make a difference :D
Featuring Hyden, who belongs to @chocodile , and Theopolis, who belongs to @kwillow
With "offensively loose" Theo doesn't mean that the garment is too big for Hyden; he's complaining about the density of the weave.
Why would I make this? Well, I was watching this video about historical linen, which mentions differences between quality in higher/lower classes, and remembered that Hyden got clothes from Ridge, concluding that "Oh, it sounds like something Theo would bitch about".
Please do correct me if I committed any mistakes on their characterization! I'd love to know so I can have it in mind next time.
It's the third time I draw Theopolis and each time he looks different. What can I say? There's so many ways to draw this stupid fucker, I cannot settle for just one!!
Same applies to Hyden, even though I've only drawn him twice. It was super fun to experiment with him, specially when it comes to the shape of his bunny ears.
Btw, the fancy chair is inspired by this post's furniture.
Stuff about the process underneath the cut!
ABOUT THE PROCESS:
I actually made two sketches. The first one, which I won't show here, and the second one (the one I posted).
That first sketch contains my struggle with getting Hyden's perspective correct; what you're seeing here is traced from there, which is why it looks so clean.
Instead of tracing him like Hyden, I decided to redraw Theo from scratch, which is why the sketch I made of him here looks a lot rougher than Hyden's.
Drawing Theo traditionally was much harder than digitally. You see, digitally I can just resize stuff to fit accurate Theoness, but traditionally I had to erase and try again. Turns out I kept accidentally using normaler proportions for him than appropriate, which led me to a lot of retries, but I stubbornly persevered because FUCK YOU, THEO, I'M NOT GIVING YOU LONGER LEGS.
I eventually got him well enough on the first sketch, but then I wasn't happy with the pose/expression, so I remade it anyway, lol.
To sum it up: This rowdy, insufferable little eyesore (/compliment) gave me a ton of trouble when drawing him, but I think I managed to get his wrongness right in the end.
The cataclysm that destroyed the world left behind a very different place. Culture and technology has changed significantly in the last several hundred years...
THE POST-FALL WORLD:
The incident that destroyed the Old Kingdoms is as famous as it is poorly understood. Some say it was the work of the dark wizard Arcturus Hyden IV, choosing to destroy a world he could not rule. Others say it was the Celestials of old choosing to smite corrupt and selfish mages for misusing their gift. Others believe it was a secret last-resort weapon of the Eastern Kingdom, deployed when they realized they were losing the war.
Regardless, the result was apocalyptic. In a fraction of an instant, magic--the lifeblood of the old world--suddenly turned sour. Any object bearing an enchantment--from the Raaja Si's glittering aqueducts to weather-ward talismans worn by rural farmers--exploded. Wizards burned from the inside out as their blood boiled within their veins. Magical fonts exploded like volcanoes, filling the sky with ash and soil and leaving behind a scarred and cratered landscape of destruction.
The old kingdoms fell completely and the world descended into ruin. Cities crumbled, ash turned the skies cloudy and gray, countless plants and animals died, and an unnatural pall seemed to fall over the land. It was as if the world itself was losing its will to live.
Those that survived built a new world over top of the ruins of the old one. With their old way of life gone and nearly all wizards and nobility dead, the new world belonged to peasants and nomads--scrappy survivors who knew how to adapt to hostile lands.
The majority of those who survived the initial event were those dwelling outside major cities. The destruction each city endured seems to loosely correlate to how much magic was in use. Therefore, Westhaven and Whitefell were particularly decimated in the West, while Raaja Si and the rest of the ring of cities around Mani Bay were utterly obliterated.
Those in the northern region of the Western Kingdom fared better than most. The surface of the earth seemed to dampen the cataclysm's effects, meaning northerners in root cellars, caves, and mining tunnels survived. Already accustomed to cold weather survival, northern language, culture, and cuisine became dominant influences in the post-fall world.
Initially, resettlement seemed fairly straightforward. Survivors attempted to repair and build anew as needed. Construction looked different without magic, though, and mundane technologies began to rapidly develop to fill these new technological gaps.
But the world wasn't done cooling. It grew colder by the year, and many fledgling towns collapsed when their pre-fall economy turned out to be impossible in the new climate. People headed south, where it was warmer, or grouped up into larger established cities. Eventually, like the Western Kingdom before it, one consolidated power came to stand above the rest: The Ironfrost Empire.
These days, most of the continent is comprised of tundra and snow-buried ruins. Though the southern edge of the continent remains habitable, the cold season feels a little longer and the sun feels a little weaker each year.
Major Post-Fall Locations:
Ironfrost - The walled city-state at the head of the Ironfrost Empire and a land of stark inequality. Ruled by a hereditary ruler known as The Iron Queen and located above a cave system fueled by the Dragon's Fire geothermal magic font, Ironfrost's fierce leadership and excellent strategic location allowed it to grow into an industrial and military power at a time when its neighbors were struggling with basic survival.
Ironfrost demands mandatory military service of its citizens, taxes from its vassal states, tolls from its roads, and obedience from its people. Though their demands are often seen as excessive, allyship with Ironfrost has significant benefits in the Post-Fall world. The Ironfrost Great Rail Line makes travel and trade feasible across the tundra, and soldiers keep the roads fee of highwaymen and beasts. Foods such as chocolate can be produced (almost) nowhere else. It is a bargain nearly all of the surviving towns in the region have been forced to accept. Even those that maintain independence, such as The City of the Sun, usually have some kind of trade deal.
The Train Graveyard - Running trains on the tundra is risky and dangerous. A massive railyard of decommissioned and damaged trains, snowmobiles, and other vehicles sits on the edge of the city, just outside its industrial district. Twisted metal bones curve into the sky and piles of frozen, rusted scrap litter the ground. Blackened by soot from the smokestacks yet also warmed by their residual heat, squatters will sometimes set up camp here if they lack the funds or credentials to make it through Ironfrost's gates.
Pinebrook (Ruins) - A former timber town that was consumed by the tundra. Much of the Great Rail Line's timber came from here. It began to decline around 30 years ago and was fully abandoned about 10 years ago, when the forests began to die and even the summers became inhospitable. These days, it sits abandoned, frozen in time and covered in ice.
Stonedeep (Ruins) - A small community located in caverns under the foothills of the Dragon's Jaw range and Alex's hometown. Insulated from the brutal cold above ground by same geothermal heat font that once powered the northern bathhouses of the old kingdom and somehow survived the Fall, Stonedeep's strange, dark, honeycombed cavern structure made it a surreal place to navigate for all but those who grew up there. Most of its residents were bats, whose wings and ecolocation abilities made navigating the dark, strange caves easier. Like many unincorporated towns, Stonedeep was relatively isolationist. Hunters and trappers would trade with nearby communities when needed, but they attempted to minimize their contact with Ironfrost or its infrastructure.
Stonedeep was destroyed roughly 30 years ago by an unknown threat, rumored to be The Shadow. Many of its key tunnels have since collapsed and scavengers have picked over the ruins. It is occasionally used as shelter from the cold by squatters, but the place is said to be too cursed to risk staying in for long.
Northcrest - Located in the small strip of the continent still able to have a growing season, Northcrest and its surrounding farmlands support Ironfrost with foodstuffs in exchange for relative independence. For hundreds of years, Northcrest has held the caput baroniae of the North family, a lineage of mage nobility that have managed to cling to their land, title and continued survival despite the fall and rise of nations around them. The ornate tracery, delicate arches and twisted wrought-iron metalwork typical of Northcrest architecture are beautiful, aging relics of a more prosperous time. Over the past decades, Great Barrens-born blights, harsher winters, the loss of working-age citizens to industrialized cities and trade competition from the City of the Sun have threatened the traditional Northcrest way of life. Time will tell whether the city will survive the family that shares its name.
August Cannery Company is the largest canning company in operation and either directly or indirectly supports much of the city's workforce.
Brimme-on-Bitterun - Also known as "Brimme"--Bitterun is the name of the river that runs through it. A chilly, gloomy industrial port city, one of several located around the the rim of what was once the Valledor coastline. Fishing is a critical industry in the Post-Fall world, with fish pulled from the seas and processed at port cities like Brimme before being shipped up to the frozen lacklocked Ironfrost imperial core.
The City of the Sun - The only place in the world still blessed by the ancient Celestials, where darkness and winter ice gives way to lush greenery and the warmth of the summer, guarded by an immortal god-king who brings his subjects prosperity and peace. At least, that’s what the City’s emissaries would have you believe. Foolhardy travelers willing to brave the forbidding tundra journey to its borders will see nothing but its miles of towering walls. Only those invited are permitted to enter. Even if you disregard tall tales about divine kings and magic plants, there is certainly something unique about the City of the Sun—the fruits, vegetables and plants it trades in can be found nowhere else on the continent. A tenuous peace agreement between the City and Ironfrost allows trade between the two regions and the flow of luxury goods such as chocolate and fruit wine to outside world. The City’s export of exotic peach fruits, once thought to be extinct by Ironfrost experts before trade opened between the two regions, are only served at the most exclusive of events.
Though located in what used to be the Old Kingdom's northern territory, The City of the Sun draws architectural inspiration from both its divine ruler's homeland of Valledor and the beautiful arches and mosaics of Raaja Si, which its founder is said to have seen with his own eyes back in his youth.
The Tundra - A vast snowy wasteland that stretches all across the former Western Kingdom. It probably has some formal name, but nobody bothers with it… it's so featureless and bleak that naming it feels pointless. Its coldness and vastness makes travel by foot impossible--snow mobile is the norm. There is little to differentiate any one part of the tundra from any other, beyond mountain ranges in the distance and small stands of pine trees. Small villages--usually built over the ruins of Old Kingdom cities or over caves or geothermal vents--dot the landscape, but far more lay uninhabited and in ruin. Many towns were abandoned when the cold crept far enough south to consume them. Others fell to bandits, beasts or disease. A few were abandoned when taken by The Shadow. Those that survive are generally those that have given themselves up to the Ironfrost empire, paying taxes and tributes in exchange for trade, safe travel, and protection. The Great Rail Line connects major towns, offering a relatively safe and fast alternative to travel by snowmobile.
The Rising Dawn Research Outpost - A tiny outpost built into the caves under the northern tundra on the far western edge of the Dragon's Jaw Mountains. The bitter, bitter cold and extremely remote location makes it inaccessible for most of the year, even to those who know its location and are in possession of sufficiently kitted out Prowlers.
It was set up to study magic and The Shadow far away from Ironfrost's prying eyes and is staffed by a skeleton crew lead by Alex and Ridge. There were more of them at one point, but several were arrested or killed (or maybe worse).
It turns out one of the weird magical signals they were picking up was, in fact, the very same infamous Old Kingdom wizard who is said to have caused the cataclysm in the first place, in magical stasis and buried under the ice. They hadn't budgeted the supplies to comfortably take on someone like Hyden, but they managed to make it through the winter with a minimum of tantrums.
The Great Barrens - The cataclysm that destroyed the Old Kingdoms ruptured the magical font powering the Great Forest. At the moment of ignition, the magic inside every tree in the forest exploded simultaneously, razing the entire wood to the ground in an instant. What remains is a scarred, burned wasteland pocked by mile-wide craters, massive shattered stumps, and the woody, splintered remains of the great trees. Though it is far enough south to experience a mild warm season, the souring of the magical font that formerly powered the land seems to have suppressed new plant growth, too. The land now is a quiet, still world of death and gentle snow, preserved in time.
The Dragon's Jaw Mountains & The Sea of White Teeth - The icy sea north of the continent has begun to solidify into a solid ice-mass. It is hard to tell where the landmass ends and the sea begins, as the whole region is now a solid sheet of white, broken by occasional steep cliffs and frozen bays.
The Dragon's Jaw mountain range remained relatively intact. Its warped, twisted peaks are as steep and perilous as ever, but the "Dragon's Fire", the geothermal heat source/magical font below the mountains, seems to have been far enough below ground to avoid being soured by the cataclysm that destroyed so much of the rest of the world's magic.
Without the Dragon's Fire acting as an underground heat and power source, life on the northern tundra would be truly impossible… for all but those in The City of the Sun, of course.
The Ruins of the East & The Shattered Sea - If it truly was a secret Eastern Kingdom weapon that caused the cataclysm, it must have been a poorly deployed one. During the cataclysm, a great magical font explosion obliterated the continent. The land fractured along the Bhati Range, and the low-lying landmass east of it broke apart and sunk into the Jeweled Sea.
Lured by rumors of lost riches and magical treasures, particularly foolish crews sailing out of Brimme sometimes trawl the shallow seas inside the shattered continent for scavenge. However, the destruction of the Eastern cities was even more complete than those of their Western counterparts (likely due to their heavy reliance on magic) and both land and sea is lousy with sour magical fonts. A few groups of pirates and Ironfrost-resisting Eastern-descended isolationists carve out a meager existence among these rocky islands, but the rocky, windswept islands are not capable of sustaining large settlements. It is generally agreed that only the most desperate (or perhaps those with something to hide) would venture into this cursed, barren place.
Fishing boat captains passing by the coast will often encourage new shiphands to pick up a pair of binoculars and point them toward the ruins of Mani Bay. The ruins of Raaja Si's ornate aqueducts can still be seen poking out of the shallow sea.
Well, @thecatpibara asked for more info about the layout of Amaranthine and I may have gotten slightly carried away...
Absolutely massive writeup about my D&D-ass fantasy kingdoms under the cut. (AND THIS IS JUST PART 1, THE POST-FALL MODERN WORLD IS GONNA BE ITS OWN POST)
THE WESTERN KINGDOM:
The Western Kingdom occupies most of the massive, sprawling landmass the story of Amaranthine takes place on. Long ago, the region was occupied by small, warring clans and tribes, but over time, over the course of countless bloody battles, one clan came to conquer more and more of the continent. Leaders of defeated clans--if cooperative--were given privileges (and, later, noble titles) and allowed to maintain rights to (most of) their land, encouraging assimilation into the wider Western Kingdom culture.
Thus, the Western Kingdom became a patchwork of different aesthetics and customs, though most of these have since blended together over generations. The King, ruling from his palace in Westhaven Keep, can trace his bloodline back to the original bloodthirsty conquering tribe, but the noble families that surround him have diverse ancestry and customs. Present-day Western Kingdom attempts to present itself as a mature and civilized empire that has grown past its savage, domineering roots, but it would be easier to do this if they could stop trying to conquer their neighbors. Which they are still doing.
The two regions of the Western Kingdom with the strongest cultural identity are the two most recently annexed. The northern territory (where Hyden is from) and the southern territory (where Ambroys is from) still have fairly distinct cultural aesthetics and customs.
Some details of the north's culture have been described here… a lot of their uniqueness comes from the harshness and remoteness of their environment, which is far colder and less hospitable than the Western midlands. Despite some differing customs, their general cultural temperament has always been fairly compatible with broader Western Kingdom culture. Their annexation was more of a strategic mutual agreement following a lengthy and close economic, military, and magical partnership between northern and midland nobility. The merging happened around 80 years.
The southern territory (formerly Southern Kingdom) was a much more recent acquisition, maybe 15 or 20 years. Formerly a trading partner, it occupies some prime coastal real estate that the otherwise landlocked West really, really wanted access to. When negotiations around sea port access rights broke down, the Western Kingdom pulled an 'actually, you don't have a choice about this' move and threatened the south into backing down. Though the annexation was completed largely through economic pressure and involved little to no bloodshed, and the south remains mostly-autonomous, it definitely left a bitter taste in the mouth of southerners. Many still consider themselves occupied by a hostile power rather than truly part of the Western Kingdom, though some nobility and merchants (essentially, those who stand to make money or gain power from the situation) welcome the power shift and view it as an opportunity.
Modern Western Kingdom culture is fairly stratified, with a big quality of life difference for wealthy and poor, and especially between the cities and rural villages. Small villages rarely have their own resident mages, and there are never enough of the freelance public servant Royal Mages to go around… and even so, the Royal Mages have a reputation for being pretty corrupt. Keeping the peasants in line is an ongoing challenge for the Western upper class, and when the West tried to start yet another politically unpopular territory war with the East, those tensions reached a boiling point. It is possible that only reason the peasant uprising didn't result in a lot of nobility losing their heads was that the "war" ended quickly, after one of the drafted mage nobility incinerated most of the opposing Eastern force (and also many civilians)
The Western Kingdom cities are sprawling, stony, and rather wet. They tend to be somewhat poorly planned, having grown up around much smaller villages over many decades, with many too-small uneven cobblestone roads and hastily added-onto medieval landlord special houses. Newer areas tend to be better planned. As towns grow, many older and lesser nobility will eventually find their estates completely walled in by medieval apartment buildings on all sides.
Like the rest of the Western Kingdom, its architecture is a patchwork of styles from its assimilated cultures. Cobblestone and thatched roofs are common in middle class and poorer areas, while wealthier and more modern buildings are often decorated with onion cupolas, ornately patterned domes, and cool gothic architecture.
As far as climate goes, the Western Kingdom skews temperate but cool and wet, with snowy winters, long, rainy springs, and relatively mild summers. The south is warmer and more Mediterranean, and the north has long, bitterly cold winters and cool summers. It is generally possible to grow crops in the midlands, though the cool, wet climate makes crop blight and disease common and has makes it risky to grow slower-maturing crops without magical assistance.
(Aesthetically, the northern territory takes some aesthetic influence from Slavic/Eastern European countries in the real world, while the south takes some inspiration from France and the Mediterranean coast. The Western midlands are a mixture of more general stock European fantasy kinda aesthetics.)
Major Western Kingdom Locations:
Whitefell - Part of the Hyden viscountcy and home to Whitefell Academy, one of the most famous wizard schools in the Western Kingdom. Members of the Hyden family served as professors of Whitefell Academy in the distant past, back when Whitefell belonged to the North. However, as the family sickened and declined, the school's prestige declined alongside them. Whitefell is rigged up with an impressive amount of magical technology--powered lamp posts, heaters, etc--in an attempt to differentiate it from the more rural north and make visitors (particularly prospective students and their noble parents) from the regions further south feel at home. These days, it's a little run down and neglected, as the Hyden lineage is near-dead and its last surviving member chooses to reside in Westhaven instead, with little interest in maintaining his ancestral territory.
Westhaven - The capitol of the Western Kingdom. Westhaven Keep, the royal castle, sits upon a hill overlooking the sprawling city. It is a colorful and lively city with the best living standards the Western Kingdom has to offer, with bustling highstreets, beautiful gardens, and many famous theaters and opera houses, art galleries, venues for noble parties, and restaurants. Thriving industries for manufacturing of enchanted artifacts, jewelry, textiles, and many other goods exist here, as well as multiple magical colleges, the best of which are now said to be better than Whitefell. Several large noble estates dot the city, bestowed by the king on his favorite and most high-ranking nobles.
Valledor - A gleaming city on a hill, basking in the gentle summer sun which favors the South with golden fields of wheat, verdant forests teeming with game and bountiful orchards that perfume the summer breeze with the smell of fruit. Since its acquisition by the Western Kingdom, Valledor and its surrounding territories have become the nation’s breadbasket, fruit-basket, flower-basket and just about any other kind of agricultural basket one can imagine. While already a popular destination for traveling nobility due to its pleasant climate and gustatorial riches, Valledor is also the seat of the Luxe marquisate, and Marquis de Luxe's unusual heir is almost as much of an attraction for sight-seers as the city itself.
Dragon's Jaw Mountains - The northern edge of the continent consists of a massive snowy mountain range. Though the fringes resemble normal mountains, the deeper one gets into the range, the more impossibly steep and exaggerated the geography becomes, with peaks that rise above cloud level and jagged, deep, icy crevices that make traversal nigh-impossible. Brittle rock is honeycombed with holes, creating bizarre landscapes and making transversal extremely slow and dangerous. Over generations, a few crown-funded exploratory expeditions into the mountains have been attempted, including a wildly impractical idea to bore a tunnel through the mountains with magic, un-landlocking the Western Kingdom and granting the country a sea port of its own. However, the icy sea beyond the mountains turned out to be even more inhospitable than the mountains themselves. Crown interest in the northern sea immediately collapsed, and with it, most interest in exploring the Dragon's Jaw as well.
(…If you've ever played Minecraft with an "amplified" map, the geography here is kind of like that.)
One last notable quality of the Dragon's Jaw is the "Dragon's Fire" - a geothermal heat source/magical font found deep within the range's deepest caverns. The same phenomenon occurs under the northern plains as well, providing heating for homes during the bitter northern winters and creating the hot springs that power the north's beloved public bathhouses.
The Sea of White Teeth - North of the Dragon's Jaw Mountains lie an icy sea of slush and jagged, twisted icebergs. It is a desolate place, lifeless (aside from a few extremely dangerous magical beasts), impassable by foot, and a death sentence for ships. Few have ever seen it with their own eyes, and only limited, imprecise mapping exists. It is unknown how far it extends or what, if anything, may be on the other side.
The Still Plains - Also known as the Western Moors, a slightly less ominous sounding name. Beyond of the country's rural farmland lies a vast expanse of gentle, rolling, grassy hills interspersed with small stands of trees. Cool, rainy weather means cloudy skies and frequent fog, with relatively weak, gentle sunlight peeking through the clouds. The seemingly mild, idyllic scenery becomes unsettling only on closer inspection: an attentive listener will notice a strange absence of birdsong.
Locals refer to the region as cursed. Villages close to the plains complain of difficulty growing crops and stillborn livestock. Hunters will find the woods strangely empty of quarry. Everything just seems a little off here, a little sickly, as if the land itself resists settlement.
Royal Mages who have done jobs for the fringe villages often complain of odd, unsettling dreams. These days, it is understood by magical scholars that the "curse" (if it does exist) must be caused by some sort of sour magical font, though the precise nature of the magical effect and exact location of the font has not yet been determined. Some legends say that font may be caused by the rotting corpse of one of the lost Celestials, though there is little evidence to back up this theory.
The Great Forest - A dense and nearly unbroken woodland that stretches from the country's southern edge, through the Still Plains, and up to the tundras of the northern territory. It is impassible by wagon in most places, and people have a habit of going missing in it. Navigation within it is difficult even for careful travelers, with frequent magical fonts that mess with compass readings and otherwise mess with travel. It is also full of magical beasts far stranger and more dangerous than those that prowl the fields of the midlands. The trees themselves seem to warp and change into stranger shapes the deeper one goes into the forest. Some parts are sunny and beautiful, others dark, dense, and twisted, others eerie stands of redwood-like trees hundreds of feet tall and dozens of feet in diameter.
A mysterious and illusive isolationist group known as The Collective live deep within the forest and are the only ones who seem to know how to safely coexist with its dangers. Technically, the Western Kingdom's ownership of the land ends where the forest begin, though illegal logging at the fringes is not uncommon.
(This particular region is outside the scope of the story of Amaranthine... the original version of the story had Hyden visiting and spending time here, but the current one doesn't.)
THE EASTERN KINGDOM:
The Eastern Kingdom is less than half the size of the Western Kingdom. Most of its landmass consists of arid badlands and desert, with cities primarily located around the coastal rim. Like the West, it was originally comprised of clans and tribes, and also like the West, the groups eventually unified under one kingdom's banner. The joining of the Eastern clans was far looser and less formal, though. It was originally formed as a confederation of nomadic clans who traded together. Mutual defense to defend their territories from the more aggressive Western tribes became more of a concern as time went on. Through various skirmishes, negotiations, and treaties, the line between the kingdoms was eventually drawn along the Bhati mountain range on the Eastern Kingdom's far western border, with the mountains themselves mostly belonging to the East.
This was all well and good for many decades. The rocky mountain range and countless miles of empty, low-value sand dunes along the border made the Eastern Kingdom feel fairly safe for many generations… until catalyst diamond was discovered in the mountains. The mountains suddenly became of intense interest to the West. Now, the West is once again trying to claim more territory from its neighbors, and with the northern and southern territories now under the Western banner as well, the Eastern Kingdom is feeling extremely cornered.
The Eastern clans stayed largely culturally independent from the west for generations and developed very different cultural norms. Crucially, they hold a very different view of animals/beasts and follow a largely pescatarian diet in accordance with those beliefs. Though most of the East, geographically speaking, consists of nomadic tribes living around oases and small farming villages on the coast of rivers, its gleaming, population-dense coastal cities are like something out of a dream. In Raaja Si, the largest and oldest of these cities, countless generations of knowledge, stretching back long before the Western Kingdom's unification, have been aggregated in its illustrious libraries. Sprawling networks of aqueducts water the city and feed olive orchards and vineyards, and beautiful mosaics made with imported precious stones found nowhere on the mainland decorate marketplaces, libraries, and temples.
Historically, the firstborn children of high-ranking Western Kingdom mage nobility would visit the East for at least a season or two after graduation from academy to study under Eastern scholars, for Eastern Kingdom magical theory followed a different evolutionary path than that in the West (for one, it's primarily "Second Branch" magic). Eastern magic is generally more advanced and sophisticated overall, with the most advanced techniques supposedly recorded in the Eastern Sultan's private library. Legend has it that supposedly impossible spells--regrowing limbs, dramatically reshaping bodies, speaking to the dead, sculpting the earth and affecting minds and bodies on a massive scale--are passed down exclusively by his high court wizards. Such research is tightly controlled and never shared with outsiders, of course.
Despite its reputation as a beautiful paradise of scholars and artists, the East does have a dark side. Though the average lower-class citizen arguably lives more comfortably than a Western Kingdom peasant, many parts of the kingdom have serious problems with organized crime. Bandits stalk trading chokepoints near rivers, and a cartel group not-so-secretly controls many of the port cities. Locals know which establishments to avoid and which local officials are merely puppets, but many outsiders find the port cities in particular very difficult to navigate safely without local assistance.
(Aesthetically, the Eastern Kingdom primarily draws influence from South Asia (particularly India) and the middle east. The southern and eastern parts of it where it borders the now-annexed Southern Kingdom skew more Mediterranean.)
Major Eastern Kingdom Locations:
Raaja Si - The Eastern Kingdom capitol and greatest and proudest jewel in the "crown" of cities that ring Mani Bay. It is a beautiful, old, and extremely dense city, with the oldest parts of it being far older than Westhaven. The Eastern Sultan's palace sits at its center, surrounded by sprawling gardens, libraries, and a menagerie of magical creatures sourced from all over the continent and beyond. Outside the palace walls, layered, tower-like residential buildings built out of magical stone are connected via walkways to open-air markets and public gardens. Further commerce can be found down by the docks, and the rolling, arid hills grow olives, dates, and other crops. Slums exist, but are kept to the fringes of the city, out of sight of most residents and especially foreign visitors.
Khaana Mara - A remote and unremarkable village deep within the mountain range dividing the two kingdoms. Also known as "Miner's Pass" in the west, for generations, it existed peacefully as an Eastern Kingdom territory, carving out a basic rural existence mining coal and lower-value metal ores and acting as a border stopover for nomads and traders. This all changed when catalyst diamond--an extremely rare and ultra-pure type of gemstone ideal for catalyst stone creation--was discovered beneath the town. Suddenly, the Western Kingdom decided it wanted the town for itself.
Bhati Range - The border dividing the two kingdoms cuts through these mountains, creating a natural division between the two kingdoms. The mountains themselves are mostly arid steppe, with a stark division between the wetter climate to the west and the dry desert to the east.
Mani Bay - Nicknamed "The Crown of the Eastern Kingdom", it is a ring of beautiful cities surrounding a warm-water bay. It is a popular saying that each city in the ring is the best in the world at something--one might have the best magical school, another might have the best food, the best tailors, the best gardens, the best perfume, the best poets, etc. There is, of course, no formal ranking, but travelers visiting Mani Bay will find many signs advertising "ARJUN'S CROWN JEWEL KEBABS - BEST IN MANI BAY!" and similar.
The Jeweled Sea - Within the Western Kingdom's cultural mythos, the sea is mythologized as a fantastical land of plenty, a salvation from hardship, cruelly kept just out of reach of their people for generations. Visits to the Eastern Kingdom, viewing the Jeweled Sea from its balmy sandy shores, further reinforced this conceptualization.
In reality, though, the sea is a harsh and treacherous environment in itself. It has all the dangers of a normal ocean, but disruptive magical fonts can exist here, too, and are even harder to detect than those on land. You can enter the range of a magical font and not even know it until you go down below deck and notice that all of your food has suddenly spoiled at once. Or your compass may stop working. Or your ship might be thrashed by hurricanes orders of magnitude larger than those ever seen on land. Or the wood comprising its hull suddenly begins to twist and sprout as it springs to life again. Or maybe everything seems fine at first, until you suddenly cross a threshold where the laws of physics will suddenly start working differently and your ship suddenly loses its buoyancy all at once.
The Eastern Kingdom does have a significant seafaring culture, and they have many of the local ocean's magical fonts mapped. They know where the good ones are--island paradises supernaturally lush with fruit, patches of warm, shallow sea that drive fish into a a frenzy such that they jump right into a fisherman's boat. Those are the stories that usually make it back to the Western Kingdom, and the things they fixate on and lust after.
Made a sea version of Ambroys! And 2 silly doodles. (To anyone unaware that sees this post, none of the characters belong to me, the weird rabbit named Hyden at the end belongs to @chocodile, and the rest belong to @kwillow)
No particular reason for why I made this version of him; I just like sea critters. He is based on the leafy seadragon (his father and brother half-brother would be seahorses).
Hope you enjoy your awful guy in seasalt flavour.
(The first image I drew over digitally to improve the lighting/shading I had done traditionally; the second one isn't drawn over).
(Look at him without the digital retouches, awww he's such a disappointment, just like his original self, fr.).
Drawing process
Traced over the sketch with a tracing light pad and coloring pencils.
Made this digitally over a photo to help me choose the colors to dress this diva in, the outfit itself is somewhat inspired by this one, but is also a bit of a mix with the other ones he wears on his young self ref sheet and me just going "this or that could look cool".
This is how the flatcolors look. The vest and ribbon are supposed to have a water pattern in the final result, I hope it reads.
I chose a bizarre way to shade this guy. Put the flat color drawing on a plastic sheet protector and shaded over the drawing with markers (had the idea of doing it that way and just went for it). I enjoyed that it gave me even-looking flat shadows, which was what I was aiming for, but I couldn't get them to contrast hard enough in some areas (hence me making a digitally retouched version of the close up).
I also planned out the shadows separately, which I don't usually do and was a bit unnecessary, but it was a fun exercice and good practice on countours and stuff so I don't regret it.
Doodle time
Text says "I'm the prettier one" in case it isn't readable. Featuring a wonky font, Aasimar and Amarantine Ambroys.
And he goes sparkleeee (used the same marker on aqua ambroys, but it doesn't look as good)
Very stupid way to greet your former ally who's spent the last 300 years thinking you were dead, but whatever.
Featuring Old Ambroys and Hyden, the interaction references this scene of their past selves.
My apologies to Chocodile for only featuring Hyden on the lowest effort doodle here, but I guess Ambroys just HAD to take the spotlight.
I tried to make like, a scrollbar thing where the last one appears as the last option offered when you scroll down, Idk if I pulled it off though
(The second image's option would be when he's like, a LOT more pissed than usual. Idk if I worded it well, but it sounded funny to me so I described it that way)
Okay, so I know that a scenario where a noble girl being in love with Theo is basically impossible, even in a hypothetical sense. Like, you'd have better chances of making Ambroys and Hyden see the error of their ways through a cheesy musical number focused on the power of friendship and how saying you're sorry for all the evil you do unto others will make everybody love you and your fiancee come back.
But hypothetically speaking, if a noble girl who has modest magical ability were to get on with Theo somehow, some way though random discussion over a period of time (maybe she's mostly blind and they hit it off because Theo doesn't feel like she'll judge him based on his looks. Or maybe she has bad taste. Or both), and she started talking about how nice it would be if she could marry a nice nobleman like Theo, and not have to worry about a man taking advantage of her since she knows Theo would never do such a thing, would Theo be able to convince his mom to wed him off to her? Or would this be one of those things that he and his mom wouldn't see eye to eye on? If said hypothetical weirdo/poor unfortunate soul were blind, would his mom make the excuse that she can't be wed to him because she can't see and that he needs someone who won't pass on blindness to his future heirs?
Would his inner white knight awaken? Is there any possibility of him eloping with said girl who has horrific taste in men, and Theo moving her into the estate against his mother's wishes?
An interesting thought experiment! I've mentioned before that in an RP I did with him years ago, he developed an immediate infatuation with a blind woman in a bad situation, so he can lose his head over someone who seems incapable of judging him and in need of a knight.
Jocosa is harder to impress. But given that the theoretical love interest in this situation is 1) a woman of presumably childbearing age 2) nobility 3) mage-descended, and we take the as truth the unthinkable scenario that 4) Theo is not running screaming in terror from her nor she from him, she would be foolish not to realize that this is the best possible situation she could hope for. Especially if the two seemed genuinely fond of one another.
In fact, it might be such a good situation that it would ping her "too good to be true" cynical-sensors and she'd get a bit suspicious. Noble girl would probably have to endure a lot of subtle and not-so-subtle tests of loyalty and fidelity to be judged worthy of marrying her sweet, innocent, tragically naive baby boy.
I don't believe that Theo would ever be so rebellious as to elope, and certainly wouldn't move someone into his house that he's not married to (THE SCANDAL!) but I'm sure he could make excuses to be around this girl and eventually wear his mother down - not even on purpose, just in the same way that a caged puppy dog with big sad eyes and a broken paw from a cage fills you with pity and maternal instinct. She can't help but spoil him with things he wants sometimes. Candy, train sets, wife, same difference really.
If the hypothetical fiancée were congenitally blind, Jo might be worried about that passing down to any offspring - but it's also not like Theo doesn't have a slew of health issues, and she herself comes from a long line of people having kids despite their health problems, so... not necessarily a deal breaker, just unfortunate.
She might have other, more immediate concerns regarding Theo siring a new generation.
